$25- 92 pages Order now

Market Yourself as a Speaker Resource and Study Guide is a rich source of practical hands-on information for speakers, authors, entrepreneurs, business professionals, experts and coaches who are interested in growing their business and income through speaking.

Written and compiled by Susan Levin, Speaker Marketing Strategist and owner and founder of Speaker Services   since 1992.  Speaker Services is a Full-Service Coaching, Marketing & Training Company.  Susan has assisted thousands of professionals to catapult their businesses to six and seven figure incomes.

Susan believes that Speaking is a Business and like any business it needs to be nourished and marketed.

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Through Susan’s marketing guidance I learned new tools that can translate into immediate dollars. 

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Overview of the 92 page Resource and Study Guide:

- Position, Present and Package your Message
- Prospect, Market and Land Speaking Gigs
- Profit from your Expertise – Create Multiple Streams of income
- Craft a Presentation Package that Attracts Meeting Planners
- Gain New Clients with the Power of  Social Media

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Partial List of the Content:

Why Will You Speak?,  Speak Right from the Heart, Managing Your Speaker Business, Top Mistakes Speaker Make, Presentation Worksheet, Success Secrets of the Motivational Superstars, Items for Your Presentation Kit, Speaker Buttons for your Website & Content, Negotiating Fees, Fee Schedule, Presentation Agreement & Invoice, Pre-program Questionnaires, Creating & Marketing Speaker Products, Turn your Keynote into a Book, Media Speak & Tips, 30 Brilliant Social Media Marketing, Finding Speaking Opportunities

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$25  Order now

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Susan provides a toolbox of services and experts for the business person or author who wants to develop a revenue stream from speaking engagements. I used both her training and directory and more than doubled my speaking revenue in less than 90 days.

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Visit Speaker Services online store for other books, CD’s & MP3′s online store 

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Learn more about our Professional Promotional Materials http://bit.ly/zGDFm7

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Web Directory: Speaker Services:
http://speakerservices.com
We bring speakers/authors together with audiences

Get Listed in the Directory:
http://speakerservices.com/adv_pkt.html

Speaker Marketing Consultations
http://www.speakerservices.com/marketing.html

Speakers’ Community –a membership club
http://www.speakerscommunity.com
60 days complimentary

Workshops/Teleclasses
http://www.speakerservices.com/services/la.html

Susan Levin, publisher/owner
Los Angeles, CA

susan@speakerservices.com
310-822-4922 PST

Speaker Services offering for workshops in Los Angeles

Click on the links to read more and to register.

Saturday, October 16, 1-5pm

Should You Self-Publish or Go Mainstream in a Changing Publishing World? Jean-Noel Bassior, $125

Explore the pros and cons of the many ways to get published.
Publishing is changing as we speak… 

You can write an e-book today and post it for free on the Web tonight. Publicity? Just make a video on your webcam, dispatch it to YouTube, and use social networks, blogs and website promotion to let readers in cyberspace know that your book has arrived. 

So is mainstream publishing still an option for writers? Sure, if you’ve got a mainstream idea. If you’re writing about a popular topic and you envision your book in Barnes & Noble, then you may want to query literary agents and/or editors and learn how to play the publishing game. http://tinyurl.com/3694ojt

Saturday, October 23, 10am-5pm

The Presence in Presentation…Inspired Improvisation for Speakers and Seekers. Jack Barnard, $155

There are two parts to the speaking universe, what we will call: a) The Ticket & b) The Game. The Ticket is anything and everything that it takes to get you the speaker in front of your eager audience. Which includes:
• Speech Structure
• Command-Branding
• Media Training
• Promotional Material
• Marketing Strategy
These are the things I teach…and the bottom line of the Ticket is that it’s all a matter of time — taking as much time as necessary to get your ducks all in a row. http://tinyurl.com/2bfb6nq

Saturday,  October 30, 11am-6pm

Web Video & Marketing Workshop, Barbara Niven, $99

In this interactive workshop we will show you how to create and market dynamic videos for your website, social media, video tips, video blogs, You Tube, info products, video email and more.

Video is one of the top forms of viral marketing on the web, and viral marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing. There’s no reason why your business can’t capitalize on this.

Video gives instant credibility and a personal connection to your audience and target market. It brands you as the authority and celebrity expert in your niche.  Barbara and Susan will  share their many years of acting and marketing secrets and coach you to look and sound great even if you never have done this before.

Even if you don’t know what to say, Barbara will help you get your message and sound bites clear, which will also media train you for radio & TV interviews.  http://tinyurl.com/yd22zay

Saturday, November 6, 10am-2pm

Market Yourself as a Speaker Workshop, Susan Levin, $125

Are you a seasoned expert with years of advice and experience to pass along? Whether you are an executive, educator or salesperson you could be missing out on an important source of your income: THE SPEAKING CIRCUIT.
The information, techniques and tools that you’ll receive from attending Market Yourself as a Speaker are essential to building your speaking business.
http://tinyurl.com/25572zn

Saturday, November 13, 10am-5pm

Storytelling…Every Great Speaker is a Great Storyteller. Period! Jack Barnard, $155

We live in a storytelling culture. Our movies are two-hour stories, our sitcoms twenty-two minute stories, our songs three-minute stories, our commercials one-minute and thirty-second stories. We the people are so used to absorbing through stories that when we don’t get them, the medicine doesn’t go down as sweetly.

All the great teachers — Jesus included — were great storytellers. Storytelling is an art. As a speaker you can tell us the point you are trying to make and we may understand it, but we get meaning through stories.
http://tinyurl.com/2aeh4zt

Saturday, December 4, 10am-5pm. Small Talk…The Elevator Speech, Networking, Media Interviews… the language your audience already speaks. Jack Barnard, $155

Some of what will be covered:
• The secret of the short presentation
• How to create dynamite sound-bites
• The power of brevity
• The default approach to absolutely every media — and audience — question
• How to block questions you don’t want to answer and bridge over to what you do want to share
• The Tricky Trio — the critical three questions that you need a dozen answers for

Small Talk focuses on getting juicy and succinct about your approach, so on one hand it’s a media training and on the other it’s an exciting journey into the heart of your message. http://tinyurl.com/33ebee3

Post by Penny Sansevieri, Author Marketing Experts, Inc

1. Don’t overwhelm your audience with too much stuff. When I first started speaking several years ago, I would show up with 60 pages of notes. One of the people in the audience said to me, “You’re not planning on covering all of that, are you?” Indeed. As time progressed I realized that my audience would get more with less. While I encourage you to fill your presentation with great information, save the overstuffing for your Thanksgiving turkey and keep your presentation flowing with enough information to sustain, but not so much as to overwhelm. How much is too much? Well, you might have to experiment with this a bit before you get it just right. Try practicing your presentation at home in front of some people who can give you objective feedback, this will really help you polish your program before you go out to the “real” audience. Keep in mind that when you rehearse, your presentation is bound to be shorter; things like questions and audience interaction will also lengthen your speaking time.

2. Look ‘em in the eye: You should always try to make eye contact with your audience; in fact, I recommend that you make and keep eye contact for at least five seconds with select individuals. This will help to engage the listener. Don’t look over their heads at the back wall or your product table, keep your eyes focused on the people who came to hear you speak.

3. Move around, don’t hide behind the podium: It’s easy to seek shelter behind a speaker podium, especially when you’re nervous, but the podium is a subconscious “block” between you and your audience. Try to move as far away from it as you can.

4. Gestures and facial expressions are good: Vary your gestures and facial expressions. An animated speaker is far more engaging than one who has perfected the Poker-face look. This is especially true if you want to keep your presentation light or if you’re presenting humorous material. Also, *smile* – it’s amazing how a warm and welcoming smile can really engage your audience.

5. Attire: when in doubt, get dressed up. If you’re not sure of the attire, I always recommend dressing up. If need be you can always remove your jacket and/or tie, but it’s hard to recover when you show up in your casual clothes and find everyone else is in a suit.

6. Leave the monotone voice at home: Vary your voice, don’t keep to one speed. Vary the speed and rhythm, it’s almost like riding a roller coaster. One minute you’re fast, then slow, then climbing. Keep it varied and you’ll keep your audience’s attention. As for using “um” and “eh” well, you know that’s a no-no, no sense in taking up space here to remind you that you should avoid those place fillers at all costs. If you need some practice getting those out of your vernacular, try attending a Toastmasters group in your local area.

7. Using PowerPoint? Go easy on the text: if you use too much text on your PowerPoint you’ll find that people are reading the text on the slides instead of listening to you. A good balance is a few words to highlight your key points, just enough to get their attention – but not so much that they’re forced to read what’s on the screen. Figure about 10 slides for every 20 minutes of presentation time. Your font size should be 30 point or larger.

8. Handouts are a must: Make sure you give them something to take home with them. What I also do is create a handout and then offer to email my audience the PowerPoint presentation they just viewed. I get them to sign up for it, which gives me their email addresses to not only send them the presentation, but a thank-you note along with an invitation to join our newsletter!

9. Record yourself: As scary as this sounds, this is one of the best ways to better yourself as a speaker. Record your presentation and wait a day to listen to it, this will give you enough “space” from the program to clear your mind and listen to the audio objectively. Note what you liked and didn’t like and don’t worry if you feel like you flubbed the whole thing. Remember that your audience isn’t grading you, they are there for information, and as long as you lived up to your promise you can keep correcting and enhancing your speaking talent with each program.

10. Now let’s talk about BOR (back of the room product). Your BOR can make a huge difference in the money you make on your speaking. Most new speakers don’t make money on speaking, or very little, but the BOR is where you can strike gold. Here are some tips to maximize it. First off, your flexibility for BOR will depend on whether you’re presenting in a speaker-type setup or at a bookstore, but either way, have product to sell regardless of who supplies it. If you can be flexible with what you offer, try packaging several items together, offer a one-time discount for the packaged product and this is a little trick I borrowed from a friend of mine: put together several packages, high end, low end and something in the middle. Attendees of your event will generally pick the middle of the road pricing, which is probably more than you’d sell a single book for. Also, get folks to sign up for your mailing list. Regardless of what you can and can’t sell, make sure you can add people to your list so you can market to them again, and again, and again!

The following post is from Reno Lovison

Last week, an author who I solicited to consider having me produce a book video trailer said to me, “I am the author, not the publisher, you are barking up the wrong tree.” He went on to explain that he expected his publisher to be responsible for promotion of his book. I have had both a traditionally published  and a self-published book and I have learned that he is right, you don’t need to promote your book – - if you are Sarah Palin with your own cult following or Chelsea Handler with three books on this week’s New York Times Best Seller list and a nightly hit television show to help you publicize to a mass audience every day. I pointed out to my prospect that regardless of celebrity I have seen no publishers selling books on Jon Stewart, Colbert Report, David Letterman or Oprah. The reality is that the task of hawking your title falls squarely on the shoulders of the author.

Have you written a book proposal lately? One of the primary questions publishers want answered is whether you have a ready market. They want to know from you, the author, who the market is for your book, what following you have in that market and ideas of how to tap that market. Uninitiated authors often assume that the publisher will have the answers or find the answers to these questions. The reality is you, the author, are integral to the marketing of your book. If you are a self-published author, you just got a new job–marketing director of “You Incorporated”. Congratulations!

There are any number of ways to market your book and any number of experts to help you. Alex Mandossian and others offer virtual book tours.  Brian Jud can show you how to effectively reach mass retailers; Steve Harrison is an expert in special markets and there are countless public relations firms like Annie Jennings ready to help make you famous. Some other people I have worked with include self-promotion expert Carolyn Howard-Johnson, publicist James V. O’Connor and speaker promoter Susan Levin.  It’s a confusing maze of potential opportunities and I am here to add to the mix.

One thing is for sure, whether you have a publisher or you are self-published, you absolutely must have a website dedicated to your book. This is your portal to which all inquires get funneled. I am amazed to see how many books do not have a website. You cannot simply rely on people finding your book at Amazon and then being so intrigued by your title and postage stamp sized cover that they immediately order a copy. If this is your marketing plan you will wallow in oblivion. You must have a place where people can learn more about you and your book. Your site at the very least should have a decent sized image of your book’s cover, perhaps some biographical information, an excerpt showing a few pages, the table of contents, a few testimonials and a link to someplace to buy the book. Look at www.businesscardtobusiness.com for an example.

If you have a website that somewhat fits the above description, the next step is video. “Hey, I am selling a printed book! Why video?” I am glad you were thinking that. Here’s the answer, because people on the web are in a hurry and we live in a video culture. Many people today want things explained to them verbally and preferably with pictures. Hmmm, smells like video. That’s right. High speed Internet means watching video on the web is easier than ever.

Book buyers have literally a million books to choose from. How will they choose your book? Short book video trailers are much like movie trailers. They are typically less than a minute and are produced to peak the interest of potential readers. You can see some examples at www.authorsbroadcast.com . It takes time to read through a lot of information on your website but you can help the decision making process along by offering your visitors a short book video trailer that quickly says what your book is about and uses pictures to get them emotionally involved. Remember the old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words. Well it’s really true here.  Still skeptical? Consider that mass book seller Amazon now allows and encourages authors to upload videos related to their books. Why? Because it helps sell books. What else can you do with your book video trailer besides put it on your website and upload it to Amazon? Ever hear of YouTube? Of course you have. Well, YouTube is now purported to be the fastest growing and second largest search engine. That means that there is a large number of people actively looking for video content by searching YouTube. You would not think of omitting Google from your marketing plan. Neglecting to submit video content to YouTube is nearly as bad. In addition there are a number of other video websites and book websites that want your book related videos.

So, you don’t need to promote your book. But you wrote a book because you had ideas you wanted to share, don’t stop there, be sure that you get your book into the willing hands of readers who can benefit from your words. Don’t neglect this essential step in the process. You have a lot of work to do in order to get your book publicized but hopefully I have given you a few places to look for help and a few ideas of what to do. It’s up to you.

- – -
Reno Lovison is the Executive Producer of book video trailers at AuthorsBroadCast.com and the author of Turn Your Business Card Into Business.

MP3 Video Marketing, Online Strategies is available http://www.speakerservices.com/products/detail/171

Post by Sigrid Macdonald

If you’re a professional speaker, you may wonder what the point is of polishing your writing skills.  Maybe you use index cards when you’re speaking, or have an outline of bullet points in front of you.  Perhaps you deliver your entire brilliant speech right off the top of your head. Why waste precious time improving your writing when speaking is your goal?

First, many speakers deliver presentations on Excel or PowerPoint.  Your thoughts are immortalized in print for your audiences to see.

Second, in order to book speeches, you’ll be writing e-mails, blogging, writing an e-zine or maintaining a website.  Maybe you’re active on Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn or Self Growth.  It’s embarrassing to have typos or grammar errors in any electronic medium, and it won’t help your sales if readers, companies or agents think that you’re sloppy or illiterate.

Third, perhaps you have a product.  You may have written a book or produced audio clips of yourself speaking.  You don’t want to send out a formal letter talking about your “CD’s!” CDs is the correct term.

I’m a book coach, an author, and an editor; out of the 50 full-length manuscripts that I’ve edited, I’ve noticed a common thread.  Most people make the same mistakes.  They write run-on sentences, not knowing when to use semicolons, colons, periods and dashes. (They also don’t know the difference between an em dash and an en dash ˜ do you?) They stumble over word usage, becoming confused about when to use loath and loathe, further and farther, or less and fewer. Almost everyone misuses apostrophes and puzzles over the plural or the possessive. By and large, my otherwise excellent, bright and ambitious clients rely far too heavily on the imperfect spell-check and have difficulty organizing information.

My latest book, Be Your Own Editor, addresses all of these issues in an informal style.  It has three pop quizzes so that you can test your knowledge along the way.  It’s fun and it’s dense with information.  Most importantly, it will prevent you from making the most egregious mistakes that are so easy to do.

Be Your Own Editor is available at Lulu.com as a 6 x 9 paperback for $17.99 or as an e-book for $8.99.  Read more about it: [http://beyourowneditor.blogspot.com/]. Leave me a comment and I’ll respond back.  I love to hear from people.  Or send me a friend request on Facebook [http://www.facebook.com/sigridmac] and read my regular writing tips there.

Here’s to writing the right way.

Post by Larry Brooks

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. A blog alone, no matter how popular, isn’t enough to score you a book contract. It’s not quite that simple.

In other words, it doesn’t quite work the way it does on television.

“Did you hear that Random House gave me a million dollars for a book based on my blog?” chirps the hipster starlet as she emerges from a crowded Starbucks, caramel macchiato in hand. “And we’re working on the movie rights. Hey, let’s go for a ride in my Jag.”

But you already knew that real life is more complicated than a sit-com. So let’s talk about the critical role a blog does play in securing a book deal.

Here’s how it went down for me.

A book deal is made up of several moving parts

First, any successful book proposal needs a credible, straight-line, value-promising connection to a hungry target audience.

In other words, exactly the same kind of well-defined niche expertise that makes most blogs work.

Remember our sit-com blogger with the book deal? She got there because she’s oh-so-witty and wise. Think Carrie Bradshaw.

That’s not the real world. Unless your book is about collecting Manolo Blahniks, real-life book deals are about having something valuable to offer a reader, not how fabulous you are.

And because of that, you don’t need huge numbers to make it happen. What you do need is cachet within the niche you’ve defined.

Before my own deal, I’d assumed I would need a subscriber base big enough to fill the Rose Bowl. Why else would a publisher be interested?

And sure, a massive Feedburner number helps.

But in my case, my subscriber base today would fill the conference room at your average Marriott. Not that I’m complaining — after only six months it’s growing just fine, thanks.

But it does illuminate the point: Raw numbers aren’t as important as making a solid connection with a well-defined audience around a valuable niche topic.

My own blog-to-book deal

Before my site launched I was just a crusty old copywriter and a mid-list novelist who had almost, but not quite, hit it big. Not John Grisham big, more like Kyle Mills or Lisa Jackson kind of big.

There are lots of us in that category. Fiction has more near-misses than an American Idol audition.

Lucky for me, though, hardly any of those writers are blogging about it.

While teaching writing on the workshop circuit, I developed a proprietary story development model called The Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling.

My blog is about that well-defined niche, within the larger topic of writing. And without that angle, no matter how popular a blog I might build, there would be no book deal.

One quickly notices that my book deal isn’t about my brand as a fiction writer, which frankly has seen better days. It’s not even about my journey as a writing instructor.

It’s about my story development model. My niche expertise.

Neither my blog nor my forthcoming book are about me. Never have been. They’re about you, the writer with a dream.

In other words, people don’t come to my site (and they won’t read my book) because of my novels. They come because of their novels.

A platform is essential

Today, you need an “author platform” to successfully pitch a book to a publisher.

What’s an author platform? It’s how you’ll be doing the promotion for your book. Nine times out of ten, it means your blog.

No blog, no deal, unless you’ve got another great way to get the word out about your book. (For example, you’re a celebrity or a popular speaker.)

That wasn’t the case as little as two or three years ago.

These days, you don’t just pitch a detailed idea for a book. You also pitch the audience that’s going to buy that book. Not only does your platform provide a built-in group of buyers, it also shows the publisher that your ideas resonate with the audience you’ve defined.

The formula for a successful blog-to-book deal

Solid author platform plus unique value proposition equals marketable book. The formula is really that simple.

If both are in place, you don’t need to be a famous blogger with big numbers to score a book contract.

You just need to write a killer proposal, with a well-defined niche topic focusing on your audience, fortified by a successful author platform in the form of a growing blog.

This formula might not get a book publisher to throw sit-com dollars at you. But it gives you a much better chance than even the most fabulous designer wardrobe.

About the Author: Larry Brooks is the creator of Storyfix.com, an instructional resource for novelists and screenwriters. His book, The Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling, will be published by Writers Digest Books in early 2011.

Another great post from Penny Sansevieri

After years of working with authors on Internet tours, talking about blogging, podcasting, social networking, and all other assorted online promotional tools, the basic questions still remain: How the heck do I promote myself on the Internet? Broken down in simple steps, this article is designed to give you a good starting point to kick your Internet promotion into high gear. It’s not difficult but you have to start somewhere. Let’s start with your web site.

Web site: Why would someone visit it? Why would anyone care? Before you start marketing yourself online, ask these basic questions. You can get anyone to a web site once, but getting them back a second, or third time is where authors often lose momentum. Studies have shown that less than 14% of web site visitors will buy the first time they visit. It’s only on the second or third visit that they decide to make a purchase. Anyone can drive traffic to your site, it’s getting them back that counts.

The point of your tour: getting incoming links

Here’s the thing: anyone can get incoming links, the point is, you want GOOD and quality incoming links from sites that can actually send you traffic and readers that will buy your book. We get numerous calls from authors who have bought into inexpensive programs that do nothing more than drive unqualified, “tire kicking” traffic to their web site. This kind of traffic is not going to do you any good; in fact, if you’re not careful, getting a bunch of errant links from sites that Google doesn’t feel are right for your topic or market can get you downgraded online instead of a better ranking. So how do you beat this?

First, you’ll want to download the Google toolbar. This toolbar comes with a Page Ranking piece (in some cases you may have to download this separately). This Page Rank is important because it’s an indicator of how important Google thinks a particular site is. Ideally sites you target will have a Page Rank of 4 or above. We like to target sites that have a ranking between 4-6. Then look at the nature of the sites you’re pitching. Are they related to your topic? Do the sites have lots of great content? Would they consider reviewing your book, maybe interviewing you or excerpting your book? Regardless of what they’re willing to do, the idea is to use these sites to help spread the message about your book and give them great content. All sites are looking for great content and if you can offer it to them, it’s a win-win. Here’s what not to do: don’t just link swap with your friends. I know writers who belong to writer’s groups and just swap links with other writers. This isn’t good for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the site you might be linking to (or getting a link from) has nothing to do with your topic.

Slow and steady wins the race: The idea of ‘touring’ or promoting yourself online is about building traffic, links, and authority status within search engines. I tend to reference Google a lot since most of us default search there. People ask me how long they should promote themselves online, I tell them for as long as they need to. As long as there are sites you can pitch yourself to you can continue promoting. Our web site, Author Marketing Experts, has never been promoting in an aggressive fashion. Yes, we use new promotional techniques and cutting-edge Web 2.0 trends but it’s never been about a fast push; it’s always been about slow and steady growth. Because of this we have great ranking, linking, and placement on Google. I’ve never paid for a single ad-word placement or fancy traffic program that leverages links only.

Using blogs, podcasts, and article syndication: the Internet is full of tools to use. Blogs are a great way to promote to but consider this: why not comment on blogs in your market that are getting a lot of traffic? You may not be able to get a review but you can always comment and, you’ll get a link back to your site in the process.

Podcasting is another great tool, there are a ton of podcasts out there that you can promote yourself to. Check out iTunes and Podcast Alley to find some that might suit your topic and market.

Article syndication: another powerful but often overlooked market. Write a piece between 500 and 2,000 words and send it out into cyberspace via sites like Isnare, Ezine Articles and Article City and watch the links start building to your site.

If the idea of social networking, social bookmarking, video and the like are overwhelming then I recommend that you start simple: begin by pitching yourself online and see what you can grow from there. Most of the time the main reason an author abandons any thought of an online campaign is because they are overwhelmed by their choices. Start small and build from there, this is how we did it and how we grew our market. You can too. Then, when you’ve gotten your ‘sea legs’ when it comes to Internet promotion, you can branch out into other areas.

Good luck, here’s to your Red Hot success!

Published At: Isnare Free Articles Directory http://www.isnare.com

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a book marketing and media relations expert whose company has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Visit AME.

The Directory of Book Trade People on Twitter

Book Authors on Twitter: http://www.highspotinc.com/blog/2009/02/a-directory-of-authors-on-twitter — A list maintained by Jennifer Tribe

The following post is from Penny C. Sansevieri, Ceo of Author Marketing Experts, Inc, Training Authors into Success Stories http://www.amarketingexpert.com

As we roll into 2009, I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at some trends for the New Year and ways you can turn these trends into profits for you. Increasingly, we find that with attention spans shrinking, trends seem to come and go a lot quicker. That’s why it’s imperative to know your market and know what the trends are that will have a long-term affect on your sales as opposed to those that are fairly short-lived. Some will be expected trends but I think you’ll find a few surprises in here as well.

1) Green: anything and everything or related to conservation. The same is true for organics and organic products and books related to these topics. Also, keep in mind that it’s not cheap to be green so the more you can teach people how to be green and save money, the more popular your book or product will be.

2) Entrepreneurs: more and more people are leaving their corporate jobs (whether willingly or through a layoff) and finding a safe haven in the entrepreneurial market. Anything related to office, home office, start-ups, inspiration for business owners, whatever it is, it’ll be in high demand. We’re seeing a huge uptick of folks starting businesses and in fact, it’s predicted to be a very fast growing market in 2009.

3) Social networking and anything related to Web 2.0: whatever you’re doing, make sure you’re doing it online. There’s a huge surge in this market and we predict an even bigger one to come. If you’re not online in a way that supports your book and gets to your consumer then you should make that your #1 priority for the New Year.

4) Outsourcing: this is a big one. As more companies lay off, outsourcing options will expand. I’ve read reports saying that companies will start outsourcing everything from HR to accounting. This is great news if you offer a service, if you do and your book ties into this position use your book as your business card. Now is the time to expand on the benefits and cost savings of going the outsourcing route.

5) Business coaching: could it be that the explosion of entrepreneurs will require more business coaches? Possibly. But trends suggest that any business related coaches will be in high demand. Coaching, while having become a bit of a cliché term, is still a popular field, no matter how you define it.

6) DIY: the do it yourself culture will be out in full force in the New Year. If your book or product dials into that in any way, make sure to maximize this benefit in your marketing materials. (see #8 too)

7) Pets and anything related to pet ownership: it’s been a trend for years and it only keeps getting bigger. Anything pet-related and any other sort of tie in will be huge and only grow even more as the year wears on. Four out of ten US households have a pet (most of them a dog), so offering up products and services to that market is a sure win. Also, there are particular markets that tend to be recession proof. Pet services is one of them.

Home: consumers are staying home more than they ever were. If your book is on decorating, home-care, DIY renovation, real estate, and anything in between. Get out there and market it aggressively to decorating sites, home owner-related sites, the DIY market (you’ll find a lot of these folks on Facebook) and real estate sites that are directed at consumers.

9) As time wears on the idea of browsing online is going to shift and consumers will want to get to their data, product, or service fast. What does this mean for you? Well for one thing it will force those of us who are marketing online to be pinpoint accurate in our messaging. There’s little or no time for fluff and, as I mentioned earlier, surfing for the sake of surfing is no longer part of the consumer mind-set.

10) If ads are your thing, then consider this, Advertisements are going to become so desperate that you’ll start hearing a term called Shockvertising, this form of advertisement using shocking words or images to get the viewers attention. We saw this in the UK with the ad for Dexter. I’ll save you the description, it wasn’t pleasant but certainly shocking. You can only imagine I’m sure.

If all of this has left you wondering how you can be a trendspotter in your market here are a few ways you might be able to capture early trends within your marketspace:

1) Listen: listen to what your readers/consumers are asking for. If you start seeing the same request over and over again this might indicate an emerging trend.

2) Read: read publications in your market, go to conferences (these don’t always have to be in-person events, they can also be online) and get to know who your competition is in this space. Read publications, other books. The best sales person is one who is constantly learning.

3) Go online: find out what people are buzzing about on blogs, web sites, even Twitter. You’ll get a lot of real-time data to work with when you know where your audience resides and where they’re talking about what you’re selling!

As we all try to make our marketing dollars count for even more, trends and marketing to these groups is becoming even more important. Taking risks often means wasted marketing dollars. The more certain you can approach marketing, the better served your campaign will be and the quicker it will get off the ground.

Email: Penny@amarketingexpert.com

Interview with Paulette Ensign

1) Why would someone want to turn their book into a booklet?

This gives readers a bite-sized palatable introduction to a new topic in their life rather than first delving into a 200-page book as their first experience with new information. The booklet can be an overview of the most important concepts in the book, taking something from each chapter. Once the reader digests those basic ideas, they will be eager and ready for more, which becomes the full-length book. It also gives the reader a choice of which publication is their starting point, rather than a yes/no about whether to buy the book or not. This all gives the author greater sales opportunities.

2) I already wrote a book or I’m thinking of writing a book. How can a booklet help me?

Instead of creating only one booklet from a book, an author may decide to divide the book into as many booklets as there are chapters. Having a series of booklets provides much more revenue than a single book is likely to do. It also lets the reader buy segments of the book that would be most appealing. For the author who has yet to write the book and intends to, doing a series of booklets can be a painless way to write an entire book, and have something to sell before the entire book is completed.

3) How would you use a booklet to market your book?

It’s typical for a booklet author to specifically invite the reader to seek out the book, by adding on the last page “For more in-depth information on this topic, you’ll want to add our book… to your library today.” This is only one of many ways the booklet markets the book. The booklet can also be an inexpensive value-added item that is physically bundled with the book to enhance and increase the value of the purchase.

4) Are there particular types of books that work better for this?

Non-fiction books are often the easiest starting point for tips booklets. However, it is completely possible to create a tips booklet for a fiction book, focusing on some theme in the story or travel to the location in which the story is set or any number of other elements within a fiction book.

5) Is there a formula for writing an effective tip?

Create a tip by writing one sentence starting with a positive verb, telling the reader what to do. Follow that with one or two sentences explaining “why” or “how.”

6) What is a good way to choose a topic for a booklet?

The best topic is the one you are most enthused about and, ideally, is also the focal point of your business or cause.

7) Won’t a booklet keep people from buying my book(s) and services?

The booklet actually encourages more sales of your products and/or services by establishing your credibility and introducing you as a valued resource for more relevant information and/or service.

Can I write one booklet or do I have to write a whole series for this to work well?

Your personality and your business requirements will best dictate whether one booklet is all you need and want to do, or if it makes better sense to develop an entire series. Either way can and has been effective.

9) How does a booklet actually market and promote a business I have?

A booklet defines you as a trusted adviser, expert, and resource. Each time a copy of your booklet lands in anyone’s hands, you are educating them on your expertise and informing them of where  they can get more from you that will benefit their life.

10) Can this booklet be leveraged in some ways, maybe even into other products?

Entire information product lines, both hard copy and digital online, can be developed from a single 3,000-5,000 word tips booklet document. It is highly effective as a business owner to create your booklet in other formats that appeal to different learning styles, life circumstances, convenience, price considerations, and “wow” factor.  It is fairly common for people to want multiple formats of the same information so, at any point, they can choose to read or listen, store on their computer or read at the beach, or share with others in some way. Some formats have no development cost at all. Others can be nominal. The return on your investment can be huge. This is especially true when you become aware of the many opportunities to sell your products in very, very large quantities to corporations for them to use to promote their own product, service, or cause.

(c) 2009, Paulette Ensign

Paulette Ensign is Founder and Chief Visionary of San Diego-based Tips Products International. She has personally sold well over a million copies of her tips booklet in several languages and formats without spending a penny on advertising. She will teach you how to surpass her results. You’re next, no matter where you are on your publishing journey.  Learn more about Paulette’s services.

Post by Judy Cullins

You want your business to be noticed by hundreds and more of unique visitors at your web site every day. You already know that online article directories, ezine publishers, webmasters, and blogs want free content in all kinds of categories. They want and need health, marketing, financial, and spiritual information. To check out where your article fits into the hundreds of categories, go to www.ezinearticles.com.

Article marketing and the audience you serve to make a difference in their lives is a promotion marriage made in heaven. But, you will have a much better chance of attracting your target audience, creating ongoing relationships, and accomplishing top product sales if you write an article that solves a problem for your audience.

Let’s assume your audience is business people like yourself who needs a problem solved–to stop procrastinating, write a book, market a book, create wealth, market a business, create wealth, or develop a loving relationship.

How To Article Writing Formats That Bring your Audience Flocking to your Site.

1. Write a How To Article

Information hungry business people want this one! First, open with a hook–something that will entice your reader to keep reading. That may be a shocking fact, a ponder question.

Then, establish rapport by including the background of the problem and where your audience is now with the challenge.

Follow with solutions and benefits in the article body to make a difference in their lives. You can number these for clarity.

Don’t worry about your article giving away the store. Readers will judge you by your easy to read, organized, concise style and content, and will be come to your web site to see what else you offer.

To get started, make a list of topics you know or that relate to your business. Take one at a time and write a short piece on it. You can write a short article around 400 words to start.

For solutions to the problem, give information and resources that will assist your audience. That includes web sites with the URLs, book titles, or particular experts you know can help get to the solution.

Sample Article Titles from Clients:

“How to Procrastinate to Your Heart’s Desires;” ” How to Create Employees Who Can Hardly Wait to Get to Work Each Day;” and “Promote your Coaching and Speaking Business Through Free Articles.”

2. Write Tips

This kind of how to article takes the shortest time to write and is also the easiest format. Even if you think you can’t write, you can write a tip.

Create a title first. “Five Ways to Strop Procrastination.” After the opening hook, include an introduction with your thesis–the point you want to prove, or the problem you are about to solve. Usually one or two sentences are enough. At the end, include a one or two sentence conclusion in which you add one more punchy way to stimulate your reader to act. Remember to include your power-packed signature file below each article or tip.

To write a tip, after the title….

1. Start with a command such as ” Do this.”

2. Follow that by the consequence of not following the tip. Or, show a benefit of following the tip.

3. Show examples or resources to solve a problem and put the tip into action.

Write an article with 3, 5, 7 or 10 tips in it. It’s best to give a complete tip as listed above rather than just a list. Don’t bore people with a long list.

Tips can be 100-300 words. Keep some on your web site, combine them into a book to sell with correct headers and headlines.

The Biggest Mistake even Experts Make

Starting one tip out with a command verb and using a noun phrase for the next one. This inconsistency makes the article difficult to read and understand quickly.

Expand your influence with how to articles. You’ll attract new tailored visitors, clients and profits.

Book and Internet Marketing Coach, Judy Cullins, can help you build credibility and clients, sell a lot of books, and make maximum profits. Author of 11 books including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast and The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Targeted Web Traffic” Get her free eBook”20 High Octane Book Writing and Marketing Tips” and two free monthly ezines at http://www.bookcoaching.com

The following post is from Joan Stewart the Publicity Hound. Internet marketers are hawking thousands of products that promise to help you promote yourself and get rich quick—AFTER you pay, in some cases, several thousand dollars for the how-to information.

I just discovered one of those how-to products that’s perfect for Publicity Hounds, but at a paltry $10.  It just might be the best money you’ve ever spent.

It’s a 13-page report called “Easy 7-Step Fash Cash Strategy, written by Lynn Terry, who I met at a members-only convention hosted by Stompernet, the Internet marketing membership site, earlier this year. (Sorry, but membership in Stompernet is currently closed.)

Lynn’s report teaches you how to market a special report that you’ve written for a niche audience, even if you don’t have a website, shopping cart, or email addresses of people who have given you permission to market to them.  Most Publicity Hounds I know would love to create info-products for their niche, but they abhor the thought of creating a website, processing the payments or delivering the product.

Lynn suggests that you write a content-rich report that walks people through the steps of how to solve a problem, similar to the 52 special reports I sell on publicity-related topics.

You can give away the report as background information for journalists, or for your favorite clients and customers.  But Lynn suggests you sell it to the public like she’s doing so you have an additional revenue stream.

The only 2 things you need

You only need two things: a PayPal account and an email address. I recommend the report for:

—Anyone who has written a book and is looking for a fast, inexpensive product to create so they can upsell their readers to something else.

—Anyone who has written a book and wants a low-price product that catches the attention of people in a particular target audience who also might be interested in the book.

—Publicity Hounds who want to promote their expertise and demonstrate their ability to solve problems.  If people love the report, they might be inclined to hire you at your hourly consulting rate.

—Speakers who are trying to get paid gigs in a particular industry.  Rather than cold-calling meeting planners, you can market the report to a niche, and then include in the report information about topics on which you speak. I’d even go so far as to suggest that within the report, you mention that readers who would like to hear you speak at a live event should contact meeting planners at their trade associations and hire you for their next event, assuming you’re a good fit.

—Anyone in PR who wants more clients. That includes book publicists, PR agency people and sole-proprietor publicists. Write a report on how to a solve a particular publicity problem. Many people don’t want to do their own publicity. They’d rather hire someone like you.

—Small-business owners who can explain within the report a problem and solution that relates to a product or service they sell.  The report can generate leads that turn into paying customers.

In some cases, you can create the report and start selling it in well under a week.  And if you have questions, go over to Lynne’s discussion forum where she’ll be happy to help you.

From drug store manager to Internet marketer

Michael Brown of Howard, Ohio, one of Lynn’s customers, quit his day job managing drug stores earlier this year and started his own Internet marketing business selling information products after he read Lynn’s Fast Cash Strategy report.  He followed her step-by-step instructions, created a special report, and marketed it exactly as she explained.

Initially, he sold 300 copies of the $10 report. He then expanded the report into a $47 ebook and sold 1,200 copies. Total income from both products: $59,400. Since then, he has created dozens more reports and other information products and sells them from his website, TheProfitHQ.com.

While reading the report, my “ah-ha” moment came when Lynn explained how to quietly sell your report at a few specific websites, and then generate feedback and testimonials which you can then use during the product launch.

Michael says his “ah-ha” moment came when he read on Page 13 the exact wording you should use, including the subject line, when you’re emailing someone to introduce yourself and suggest they join you in a joint venture to market the report.

“That was a good starting point for me,” Michael said.  “It’s one thing to create a product but something altogether to try to round up people to help you promote it.”

Today, his business has grown to include managing two membership sites.

Get Lynn’s report.  Read it, choose a topic, write your own report, and then get started marketing it to people who are searching right now for helpful solutions to aggravating problems. Who knows? You just might be able to quit your day job.

Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a News Release.”

Why write an eBook?

By Judy Cullins

 You want ongoing, lifelong multiple streams of income. You want to raise your credibility and trust ratings with clients or customers. You want to get your message out so the world can be a better place and you are seen as the savvy expert through your book. You can repurpose your book’s content for big sales and profits through your other offerings.

Yet, You want to spend only a little time on it. (Would you be willing to spend 4 hours a week?) You want to get it out fast (Would 4-8 weeks be OK?) You want to market online at a low-cost investment. And, for some of you, you are ready to be innovative and even take a small risk to get your eBook read by millions, rather than hundreds!

Remember your book’s virtual benefits. No travel, no print book fufillment and distribution, no techie knowledge, no agent, no publisher to slow you down, no big staff and you do it in the comfort of your home office in your best time. And, you can delegate the administrative work to an assistant.

Where are you now?

You have the idea for your eBook; you have a lot of ideas! Take a moment and decide which one you are most passionate about now and will be for the next year. Focus on one great idea, then add others after you finish and market the first book you know will attract your target audience.

Maybe you have your eBook well on its way, but aren’t finished. You need advice on the next step–how to get it done, what’s needed to publish (not much!), and how to distribute it.

Every part of your book can be a sales tool. When you know and apply the essential “Hot-Selling Points” before you write chapter one, you’ll sell more books than you ever dreamed of! Because, when you know your preferred audience, your book’s benefits, its thesis and more, you write a focused, compelling, easy to read book that your readers will love.

Seven Ways to Write Your eBook that Sells Well

1. Write for your niche audience.

You may think everyone will want to read your book, but this assumption will lead you to the general content book graveyard. Specific topics sell better than general and general topic books have a lot more big name competition. When you know your specific audience and write for them you’ll be able to write fast and give your audience solutions they need. What problems does your book solve for them? Where can your find your book buying audience? Hint: your best audience is probably someone like you.

Create an audience buyer profile and keep your audience’s picture in front of you as you write. Ask yourself, is my topic narrow enough? Give your book an angle and include the audience and benefit in the title and sub title if possible

2. Write a book title derived from your target audience.

Survey your audience and ask them what’s the most important challenge they want answers to. You have eight seconds in your title to hook your potential buyer. Check out best sellers at http://www.amazon.com. Notice their subtitles that put forward the book’s promise. You spend less effort and improve on what’s already out there when you creatively imitate the top selling books.Your book title and cover should compel your audience to buy.

3. Write a thirty-second “tell and sell.”

When you answer the question “What’s your book about?” don’t go on and on; use sound bites to grab your reader’s attention such as, “This book’s skills will do more for you than instant cappuccino.” Or, “This book on passion is the senior’s Artist’s Way.

You only have a few seconds to impress your potential buyer. Include your title, a few benefits, and the audience. For example, “Write, Publish and Market your eBook Fast to Pull Online Sales- shows professionals how to shortcut each step of writing, publishing, and promoting a book your audience wants.

Compare your book to a successful one such as “How to Write an eBook Fast!” is the Chapter Blueprint companion to Dan Poynter’s “Self-Publishing Manual.”

4. Write your sales letter before you write your book.

Your book’s sales information can go on the back cover and also on your web site. This important sales tool gives the benefits your potential buyers want. Include compelling ad copy, benefits, testimonials, and a small blurb about you, the author. If your potential buyer likes it, they will buy on the spot.

5. Write your eBook’s introduction.

Hook your readers with a background story of where they are with their particular challenge, your books solutions an benefits why you wrote the book, and its purpose. In a few paragraphs include more specific benefits, and how you will present it (format). Keep it under a page. Your introduction will help you write your sales letter.

6. Create a table of contents for your book.

Each chapter should have a title, preferably a catchy one. If your reader can’t understand the chapter title, then annotate it. Add some benefits or a sub title (chapter’s promise).. Added to the first chapter called “Why Write an eBook! was this partial list of benefits: Create ongoing lifelong multiple streams of income, credibility as the expert, products that sell easily online.

More profits comes your way when you give your readers what they want emotionally and need.

7. Reach out to opinion molders.

After an initial contact of asking for feedback, resend them the same chapter and the table of contents of your book. Ask for a testimonial then. These influential contacts’ testimonials will help promote your eBook online and offline, and bring that audience back to where you offer your services, teleseminars and other repurposed content.

Design every part of your eBook to be a sales tool and a beacon that brings out your best: writing–compelling, understandable, organized, and enjoyable. Knowing the “Essential Hot Selling Points before you write your book will bring you thousands, even hundreds of thousands of customer contacts.

Book and Internet Marketing Coach Judy Cullins helps  businesses get all the clients and sell all the books they want.  Author of 11 business books including How to Write your  Book Fast and Advanced Article Marketing 3-Book Special. Judy offers free articles and eBook “Book Writing and Marketing Tips” with monthly ezine subscription at  http://www.bookcoaching.com

This is truly a wonderful publishing guide that explains and shows you the ins and outs of the publishing industry.  I found it at http://promoteyourproduct.wordpress.com

Most writers claim that ‘writing’ is the painless part of being a writer– the real challenge begins when you attempt to publish your masterpiece. The book industry can be a really hard one to crack, especially if you’re a newbie. No need to panic though – if you’re reading this, all your publishing problems are nearly over!

This article has been designed as a one-stop publishing guide for all types of writers. It is crammed full of useful and current information, which taps into the world of literature by exploring a variety of different channels of publication. This guide explores; Publishing thorough an Agency, Mainstream Publication, Self Publishing, Local Publishing Companies and eBook Publication. It furthers to explore life after your book has been published.

So whether your interests lie in large international exposure for you book, or self publishing, simply read on for a detailed tour of the publishing industry.

Option 1) Publishing through an Agency

The Process

The first step to saving time whilst publishing is making sure that you avoid writing something that will never be read! My advice to anyone who aspires to publish something is to find a literary agent . This is a great time saver as, when you have an agent, you will never again waste time writing something that may be defined as ‘unmarketable’. To further explain – the literary network is very closely knit i.e. in order to have your book published; you would need to go through specific channels. A strict system has been designed to maintain a sense of order in the realm of literature. Now, an agent can help you weave your way through the system – especially if you are a first timer.

An agent is an individual who is able to help you through much of the information filtering process. A recommendation from an agent almost guarantees that your manuscript will be read by a publishing house.

Essentially, the role of an agent is to read and approve your manuscript or any ideas that you may have i.e. queries and proposals. The agent will then decide whether your venture could be successful. If so, the agent will further to draw up a contract with you. Contracts of this nature usually express the agent’s promise to use his/her best efforts to get your manuscript into a publishing house – the exchange is usually about 15% of the entire deal. Your new agent will then work extremely hard to sell your idea.

Agent Hunting

There are usually 2 types of agents – those who work with fiction and those who work with non-fiction. The easiest way to find your match is by paging through a publishing guide/directory, which lists the functions of a variety of agents in great detail i.e. ‘Guide to Literary Agents’ or Agent Query. It is important to take note of any previous books that have been published by the agent/s that you are interested in – usually an agent will take interest in a particular theme, and stick to working with ideas along its lines.

Contacting an Agent

Once you have compiled a list of potential agents, feel free to start contacting them. The best way to do this is via a query letter. In essence, a query letter a short introduction of yourself and your idea – it should feed the agent enough information to arouse interest, but not too much to bore him/her. This is a suggested letter structure:

• The Teaser

Your introduction is usually the aspect of the letter sells you – so make it an attention grabber. Ideally, you would want to describe the compelling fit between the person that you are and your idea for a book.

• Develop Your Idea

Use your next few sentences to explore your idea, explaining what it is that you want to write about. Feel free to add in a snip-bit of your writing that best exemplifies your idea.

• Self Description

Your third paragraph should be based on you. Try to reiterate the connection between you as a person and your idea. You should also feel free to show-off your academic or intellectual achievements.

• Wrapping Up

Be sure to personalize your concluding sentence- making the agent feel unique and valuable to you in your selection process. Conclude by sharing your contact details and preferred method of communication.

Remember, this letter is merely an ‘appetizer’ so keep it short and simple.

Proposal Preparation

After sending your initial query letter to an agent, he/she would normally follow up by requesting a proposal. Essentially, your proposal is a document that accurately outlines an idea for a book. Here’s idea of what your proposal should contain:

• The Overview

The first 2 pages of your proposal should contain a broad summary of the book.
Non-fiction: Explain your intentions in terms of contents and topics. Fiction: Provide a general outline of your plot.

• Target Market

Your next 3 pages should contain a description of your prospective target market. You should define this in terms of; age, socio-economic, and educational characteristics of you potential audience.

• Market Threat and Competition

This section allows you to define what type of threats your book may face in terms of competitors and other books that cover a similar topic. Be careful to do all your homework here, because this section is really important to an agent as it dictates your books marketability.

• Authorship

Use this section to write up a brief description about yourself and your co-authors, if any. Take this opportunity to brag as much as possible, as this section will help your agent convince a publishing house to pay you for your idea.

• Summary of Chapters

This should be the largest part of your proposal – it contains an outline of what you intend to cover in each chapter of your book.
Non-fiction: Provide a minimum amount of information i.e. outlines. Fiction: Provide definite samples of your writing.

• Delivery

This section is relatively small – it simply contains the number of words you think your finished book will contain and the approximate time you will take to write it.

Contracts

Happy Day! So your proposal finally earns you a thumbs up…now what? It’s time to get into some paper work. The best part about this section is that you are not bearing the work load anymore. Your new agent will now send you a contract.

These contracts are usually short documents that you can probably work though on your own, so no need for an attorney. You just need be careful about two things – firstly, that your agent is not looking to exclusively represent you for over 12 months, and secondly that you are not going to billed for the cost of office overhead if your book does not do well on the market.

Click here to have a look at a sample contract.

Once the contract has been signed, your agent will send you a copy of your original proposal with a few editorial suggestions. As soon as you finalize your proposal’s contents, your agent will start pitching your idea to the ‘big boys’ i.e. publishing companies. Once you get the go-ahead as well as the funding, feel free to start writing…Microsoft Word will be your new home!

Option 2) Mainstream Publication

The Process

This option is slightly similar to the first; however the two do have a few minor differences. The primary difference is that the ‘middle man’ or agent is no longer involved i.e. the first step that you need to take in the field of mainstream publication, is directly locating a publisher. Once again, you can feel free to look through a publishing directory or make use of a search engine. This way, you can choose a publisher, that best suits you i.e try Mainstream Publishing if your interest lies in non-fiction.

As soon as you have made contact with a publishing house and managed to spark a bit of interest, you might be requested to ‘pitch’ your book to the company in person.

The Pitch & Self Marketing

Now if consider yourself to be a great public speaker, this could be your moment to shine – if not, just remember that you will only be speaking to a few suits!

The pitch is almost a verbal explanation of everything you would express in a proposal – if you happen to be unfamiliar with the guidelines for a proposal, simply follow the outline mentioned in option 1.

If you choose to publish via mainstream publication, it is important to note that you must be able to market yourself. Even if you do get lucky and a publishing house chooses to publish your book, you will still have to do a major part of the marketing – keep that in mind when it comes to your budget as it will help to have some additional money to use for publicity.

Risks/Benefits

The obvious benefit of publishing via a mainstream company is the possible exposure that you and your book could attain. On a large scale, the scope of various mainstream publication houses extends from local to international.

The greatest risk involved in using this method of publication, is the risk of rejection. You may even be rejected before publication as well as after. It is not often that a well-known publishing company would risk a dollar on an unknown author – so prepare yourself for possible rejection after your pitch. Even if your book does get accepted for publication, rejection is still a factor in terms of your book’s marketability and it is highly unlikely that your publisher will pick up the bill should your book not be successful.

Option 3) Self Publishing – (POD) Print/Publish on Demand

The Process

This option refers to printing a book at the time of purchase. It is an innovative method of publishing books that saves money, time and supplies. The printing industry is ecstatic about this method of publication as it means that books no longer need to be warehoused until purchased.

This method of publication allows you to handle the design work of your book or opt for a service/package that offers cover design, formatting and editing. Various companies offer these services, i.e. iuniverse, intoprint, booksurge and trafford. These companies will assist you in the areas that you may need help – from the time that your book has been ordered to the delivery. The POD will actually help you list your book on Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com and other major bookstores by hooking you up with an ISBN.

Here’s how the process works:

• Submit the final draft of your book to a company that offers POD. Make sure your draft is formatted in the way that you want it to look in its final publication.
• You will be requested to wait until your file has been added to the data system of that company.
• The printing company receives an order for your book according to its ISBN.
• An operator at the printing company accesses your file in their system. Ensuring all editing and formatting is correct; the book is released to the printer and binder system. Your book is printed in less than 5 minutes.
• Your book is then packaged and addressed to the customer. It is then sent directly to the customer.
  This entire process takes approximately 10 working days – thus your book can hit the market as soon as possible.

Budget

While this type of publishing has become increasingly popular in the industry, it is important to note that it requires you fork out a bit of your own money – each book will cost you approximately $5.

Risks/Benefits

This option has various benefits. Firstly, most of the companies involved will accept any type of work, no matter who you are – so rejection is not something that you will have to worry about. Secondly, if you are involved with the design and formatting personally, your book automatically will gain a unique edge. Finally, the POD handles distribution and order fulfilment. This means that when you book has been ordered; the POD will print a copy of your book, ship it and pay you a royalty of approximately 30% of the purchase price – leaving you with less grey hair!

With regards to the risks involved, it is important to note that the owner of the ISBN also owns the book’s copyright, so be careful with that and make sure that you purchase your book’s ISBN under your name, not the vanity publisher. You can also click here for a few warnings about POD contracts.

Option 4) Local Publishing Companies

The Process

Local commercial printing companies use the same technology as PODs. Feel free to browse through a publishing directory or just your local directory for a list of companies that offer publishing services. Your next step is to contact the publishing house that you have chosen.

Budget

While prices may vary, expect to pay 3 cents per black and white page i.e. a 200-page book could cost you approximately $6.50.

Print Style Options

Your first choice in terms of printing style is between color printing and black & white printing. This will dictate the cost that you will need to budget for. Most companies offer digital printing, so you can choose the amount of copies that you want printed at the time of publication. In terms of cover design, you are only limited by your own creativity – once again you are free to take charge of your own design. Binding on the other hand, will be handled by the company and is included in the original price per page.

Risks/Benefits

When you publish through a local company, you must take note that the printer will print precisely what you send – this is without any revision or editing. It is crucial that your book is proofread before submission. Also with this option, you will still have to promote your book, fill and ship all orders.

Option 5) eBook Publication

What is an eBook?

An eBook is an electronic copy of your book that may be purchased, downloaded and read immediately online. It can serve a variety of purposes i.e. advertising, the gathering of potential customer’s information and the generation of interest. Not only does this option provide the media for a sample publication of you incomplete book, but it also allows for full publication of your book once it is complete – thus you can sell the electronic version of your book, as if it were a hard copy.

The Process

This option may be deemed the most convenient and economical way to publish a book. Here is a basic outline of the process:

• The Final Draft

To prepare you book for eBook publication, you have to format it exactly the way that you want your readers to see it. This will be easy if you are using a word processor such as Microsoft Word.

• The Format

Unless you know exactly what you want in terms of formatting, I suggest that you stick to a standardised type of book formatting – the outline of a manuscript format is included later on in this article.

• Proofreading

Sorry to say, editing will be your worst nightmare – just when you think that it’s over, go back and proofread again and again. Also try and get others to read your final draft too. Don’t skimp on the quality of your writing simply because you are publishing electronically.



• Copyrighting

Copyrighting your book is your next move. Don’t stress out too much about the ISBN, as you are actually the publisher now, so you will be in charge of the distribution and price setting.

• Designing the Cover

If you happen to have an arty side, this is your chance to bring it out! Feel free to extend your creativity but remember to keep your design, appropriate with regards to your book’s contents. You can also make use of external services should you need help i.e. graphic designers do freelance their services for this type of thing.

• Publication

Now it really gets interesting…There are various programs available that generate self-executable eBooks. It is however important to note that most people are cautious when it comes to downloading new programs. I therefore recommend that you publish your eBook in plain old .pdf format. Adobe Acrobat Reader is a well established brand which is both safe and also free for anyone to download. Visit Adobe Online and register for their online PDF Creator to publish an ebook or feel free to do a Google search for a few more eBook publishing programs.

• Your Account

Set up a business account with an ecommerce site like PayPal. You will then have to add your book’s ISBN to your ‘product list’. PayPal will then generate an html code that you can copy and paste where ever you would like to promote your eBook. You will in turn be notified via email, when someone purchases your book. Your last move is to reply to that email by attaching the .pdf of your book and sending the mail directly to your customer…and voila! Your first eBook is sold.

Risks/Benefits

There are various benefits related to this new wave of publication. Firstly, it requires you to spend little to no money out of your own pocket. Thus, there is very little financial risk involved. Secondly, your book can be published from the comfort of your own home…a few clicks here and there is all that it takes. Finally, from a marketing perspective, an eBook opens up various avenues for advertising – it allows you to add links within your book, directing the reader anywhere that you would like i.e. this gives you a chance to expand your business network. Once again, you must remember that you are in charge of your book’s marketing.

Irrespective of the method of publication that you choose, you will need to master manuscript writing…Here’s a handy guide on how to correctly format your manuscript.
Try to make use of this type of formatting prior to submitting it to an agent or publisher. At first glance you may think that these standards may not be aesthetically pleasing, but don’t stress, your publisher should send your original manuscript to a ‘formatter’ that standardizes the format during publication.
Basic Formatting Rules
•Use 1 inch margins around all your text – repeat this on each page.
•Double spacing should be used throughout your manuscript. This type of spacing enhances your manuscripts readability and makes it easier to edit.
•If you want to italicize something, don’t do it now. Only highlight this before the final version is published – anything that you want in italics should be underlined in your manuscript.
•All numbers should be spelt out i.e. type out four instead of 4.
•Most symbols should also be spelt out i.e. don’t use the ‘%’ sign, instead type out ‘percent’.

Life After Publication

So now you are well on your way to publishing success you may wonder what life is like after you publish a book?
Well whether you’ve completed your first or your twentieth title– the mental stamina required to squeeze out the finishing touches of your book as well as the proofreading and designing of your cover, should have earned you a well deserved break…I suggest that you now time to enjoy a little back patting and focus on YOU for a while – take a well deserved break and simply RELAX!

Most hard-workers actually find the state of relaxation rather difficult to achieve after writing a book. The buzz of the outside world is always a contributing factor to the build up of anxiety, even when one is not stressed out about anything at all. If you’re having trouble relaxing after your creative outpouring, here are a few quick tips that may help you out…

• BREATHING

This is a 2-Step method of breathing – Start by filling the bottom of your lungs first and then adding air to the top as you breathe only through your nose. Exhale gradually and feel the tension flowing out.

• TENSE-RELAX MUSCLES

Decide which muscle you want to relax and then tighten that muscle. Feel the tension on the tightened muscle. Now let the muscle become loose and limp. Feel the relaxation flow into the muscle. You can do a series of these, on different muscles.



• LIMP RAG DOLL

Do the 2-Step method of breathing two times. With your mind imagine that all the bones in your body have melted. Feel your mind and body become limp and relaxed.

• MIND QUIETING

To begin you need to focus on your breathing. When you inhale, slowly say ‘I am’ and when you exhale say, ‘calm’. When your mind feels calm you may focus only on your breathing, with no thoughts at all.

So now that you have learnt a few relaxation exercises you should be well on your way to a few days of mental and physical bliss…Even though your book is now on its way to mass production, you need not let your relaxation period be short lived – don’t become overridden with anxiety about publicity, marketing and even worse, sales!

For a stress free way to boost sales and keep abreast of your new book’s performance you should consider subscribing to a promotions and sales tracking company.
With modern publishing methods, like self-publishing and eBook publication in mind, it is easy to understand why sales tracking has become a common pastime for most writers. Because most publishing options force you to take charge of your book’s marketing, it may be a good idea for you to make use of an online service to help you track the sales of your book and handle do a bit of book promotion on your behalf.

Taking this into consideration, let’s take look at the sales ranking and promotions company, RankTracer. This company will do some online promotion and track your book at the same time – giving you on-the-hour sales rank information, graphs, reports and actual sales estimates.

If you are not quiet ’sold’ on the importance of tracking sales, let’s take a look at what its benefits are with regards to your books marketing. You may want to pay careful attention here…

If used correctly, the sales rank information received from RankTracer may benefit you book in many ways. The following information is specifically related to tracking the sales of books sold on Amazon:

• Competitive Analysis

The Sales Rank is released for every product on Amazon, which means you aren’t limited to tracking your own book. Track the sales of a variety of products within a niche to compare and contrast their performance.

• Review/Press Impact Indicator

The Amazon Sales Rank is updated hourly, so the effects of any new reviews or publicity can be tracked pretty much in real time. Consider the following quotes that were taken out of a review on Slashdot.org for a recently released computer title:

“It [the book] provides a generous amount of information about Drupal, and discusses the material at an even pace that should not overwhelm even the most inexperienced programmer.”

“The book does an excellent job of covering all the important topics that would be of interest to beginning and intermediate Drupal programmers.”

“The author clearly has a genuine passion for Drupal, and frequently encourages readers to contribute to the Drupal community and its growing body of knowledge. ‘Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6′ is a comprehensive, approachable, and valuable guide to making the most of Drupal – easily recommendable.”

Now have a look at the following sales rank graph that depicts the titles’ sales for the period of the review’s release (can you spot exactly when the review was posted?):



In this case, the sales rank graph is a great indicator that something has happened and can alert you to good (or bad) press almost immediately. Having an email alert service for precisely this reason is also a good idea.

• Advertising feedback & research

What happens if you want to work out how best to spend your advertising dollars? Again, use the Amazon Sales Rank as an indicator. For example, if you take out a newspaper ad and your sales rank hasn’t changed, you know that particular channel is not effective. Alternatively, you might spend money on online advertising on one site with yet again no effect, but from another your sales go haywire. Within the hour you know which option is better and which you should use in future.

With an external company tracking your sales and offering you a bit of extra help with book promotion, you are left with more time on your hands to use as you please – feel free to explore book-signings, tours, public talks and even blog about your new book!

So now you know! I trust that you found my walk through the publishing industry informative. Hopefully it has answered a few of your publishing queries and has helped you find the perfect publishing fit for you. Good luck and happy publishing!

August 27, 2008
Categories: How-to & Education . Tags: writer, books, publishing, publish, how-to, eBook, self publishing, guide . Author: elodie7 . Comments: No Comments

Handy Relaxation Tips For Writers or Anyone who Needs to Relax

Whether you’ve completed your first or your twentieth title- the mental stamina required to squeeze out the finishing touches of your book, has earned you a well deserved break.

It’s now time to enjoy a little back patting and focus on YOU for a while – take a well deserved break and simply RELAX!

Most hard-workers actually find the state of relaxation rather difficult to achieve. The buzz of the outside world is always a contributing factor to the build up of anxiety, even when one is not stressed out about anything at all. If you’re having trouble relaxing after your creative outpouring, here are a few quick tips that may help you out…

• BREATHING

This is a 2-Step method of breathing – Start by filling the bottom of your lungs first and then adding air to the top as you breathe only through your nose. Exhale gradually and feel the tension flowing out.

• TENSE-RELAX MUSCLES

Decide which muscle you want to relax and then tighten that muscle. Feel the tension on the tightened muscle. Now let the muscle become loose and limp. Feel the relaxation flow into the muscle. You can do a series of these, on different muscles.



• LIMP RAG DOLL

Do the 2-Step method of breathing two times. With your mind imagine that all the bones in your body have melted. Feel your mind and body become limp and relaxed.

• MIND QUIETING

To begin you need to focus on your breathing. When you inhale, slowly say ‘I am’ and when you exhale say, ‘calm’. When your mind feels calm you may focus only on your breathing, with no thoughts at all.

So now that you have learnt a few relaxation exercises you should be well on your way to a few days of mental and physical bliss.

Even though your book is now on its way to mass production, you need not let your relaxation period be short lived – don’t become overridden with anxiety about publicity, social acceptance and even worse, sales!

Check out RankTracer, www.ranktracer.com, for a stress free way to keep abreast of your new book’s performance.

Four Tips on Tip Sheets
by Fern Reiss, CEO, PublishingGame.com

Getting newspaper and magazine coverage for your book can be challenging. The book review section has disappeared from many publications; the lifestyle section is very competitive. But a simple tip sheet from your book can get you into almost any publication in America. Here are four tips on writing tip sheets:

Find the most interesting tidbits from the book. For non-fiction books, a tip sheet is really a no-brainer. Just compile a list of the most interesting tidbits from your book. Add a catchy lead at the top and an ‘About the Book’ section at the bottom, and send it to the publications of your choice. Non-fiction books lend themselves to multiple tip sheets, and since tip sheets are the bread and butter of both newspapers and magazines, your tip sheet, if well-written and interesting, is guaranteed to be picked up by a variety of publications.

For my book, The Infertility Diet: Get Pregnant and Prevent Miscarriage, for example, my tip sheets include “Top Ten Tips to Fertility,” “Combating Male Infertility,” “Six Foods to Get You Pregnant,” and “Five Dietary Ways to Prevent Miscarriage.”

For my Publishing Game books, the tips sheets include “Eight Steps to a Bestseller,” “Five Ways to Catapult Your Book into Magazines,” and “Six Paths to a Literary Agent.” If your book is on buying a condo, try “Five Ways to Get That First Mortgage;” if it’s on getting into top college, go with “Six Routes to the Ivies.” With a non-fiction book, you should be able to craft at least a dozen tip sheets without thinking twice.

Craft the tip sheet around the niche items. Crafting tip sheets for a novel can be more challenging, but is still well worth doing. Just as with any marketing for a novel, look for the niche items. For example, if your novel prominently features a golden retriever, do your tip sheet on golden retrievers; if your novel is set in a coffeeshop, try a humorous tip sheet advising on different coffee for different situations. (Novelists might want to try this technique as a way of getting their novel discussed on radio and television shows, by the way; niche items can be a powerful propeller for novels.)

For poetry books, try a meta tip sheet. Poetry is the hardest sell, but even with poetry you can come up with a tip sheet if you’re creative. If you’ve written a poetry book for toddlers, why not do a tip sheet suggesting ways parents can introduce young children to poetry? Or why not do a tip sheet describing how people can use poetry in party games, or as an icebreaker at meetings? It can be difficult to envision a newspaper or magazine piece on the poetry itself, so think meta-poetry.

Keep your tone consistent. Remember to use the same tone in the tip sheet as the book itself. If your book is humorous, for example, be sure the tip sheets have a humorous cast; if your book is flowery, be sure the same is true of the tip sheet. In general, the more interesting and creative a tip sheet you do, the more publications you can count on picking up the tip sheet.

So get busy and start writing. And if you’re still not sure how a tip sheet should look, take another look at this article. It’s a classic tip sheet—and will soon be in publications across America.

Fern Reiss is the author of The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days (book marketing), The Publishing Game: Find an Agent in 30 Days (finding a literary agent), The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 Days (self-publishing). For more information on Publishing Game books, workshops, and consulting, and on getting your book and business featured in the national media, sign up for the complimentary PublishingGame/Expertizing email newsletter at http://www.PublishingGame.com/signup.htm.

On September 25, I will be interviewing Fern on Expertizing: Get More Media Attention for your Business in a Teleclass. Check the teleclass page for more information and the mp3 will be available following the teleclass. Click here for products page.

Complied by John Kremer www.bookmarket.com

The following are some of the most comprehensive directories of ezines and other email newsletters. These directories are designed to help ezine editors and publishers to promote their ezines (if you publish an ezine, you should list yourself in any ezine directory that allows open submissions). They also help advertisers and potential partners to locate related ezines. And, of course, these directories also help readers to locate ezines they want to read and subscribe to.

In reviewing many of these directories (and many others), I found many out-of-date listings with many former ezine directories completely nonexistent. So, please note that many of the ezine listings might also be out of date. If you find a directory that is really maintained and up-to-date, please let me know. Thanks. Email: JohnKremer@BookMarket.com.

Best Ezines: http://www.bestezines.com — Features 2,350 ezines on business, Internet business, finance & real estate, computers & technology, health & fitness, self-help, home & family, social sciences, and many other categories.

Ezine Hub: http://www.ezinehub.com/?source=zinebook — Lots of topics, but many junk listings.

Ezine Marketing: http://ezine-marketing.com/cgi-bin/ezsearch/search.cgi — Features a search function for 500 ezines, where you can search by subject or keyword phrase. Includes contact email.

Ezine Search: http://www.ezinesearch.com — Features thousands of ezines in many, many categories. Their listings seem to be syndicated to a variety of other websites.

Ezine-Universe.com: http://www.ezine-universe.com — Now known as New List: http://www.new-list.com. Features over 9,000 ezines. Provides name of ezine, website URL, and the name of the owner. Categories covered: business, Internet business, finance & real estate, writing/publishing/ speaking, arts & entertainment, reference & education, food & drink, health & fitness, self-help, computers & technology, home & family, social sciences (relationships, dating, politics, religion, media); recreation & sports, and travel & leisure.

The Flying Inkpot’s Zine Scene: http://www.inkpot.com/zines — A directory of online journals, magazines, and zines, but apparently not updated since 1998.

Jogena’s Ezine Directory: http://www.jogena.com/ezine/ezinedata.htm — Directory of ezines sorted by business, work at home, Internet marketing, writing and publishing, computers and technology, home and family, money and finance, personal development and spirituality, travel, health, and humor. Also includes an ebook directory (but the free ebooks always require buying something or giving your name and email address) and article directory.

List City: http://www.list-city.com — Features a short list of ezines in a variety of subjects.

The Lists of Lists: http://www.thelistoflists.com (also known as List Channel: http://www.listchannel.com/dir). Features almost 2,000 ezines in a variety of topics.

Published.com: http://www.published.com/category/Zines.aspx — Features over 1,500 ezines covering biography, poetry, non-fiction, children’s, travel, fiction, music, and how-to instructional. Listings are submitted by anyone so listings are very uneven in quality.

Zinester: http://www.zinester.com — A limited ezine directory.

Online article directories

Promoting Your Books:
The Top 10 Things You Can Do to Promote Your Books

post from John Kremer www.bookmarket.com

1. 90% of marketing efforts are wasted. This is not a bad thing. Learn how to use this insight to set better priorities.

2. Book marketing is all about creating relationships. The only reason to hire a publicist is to hire them for their relationships. Ask, “Who do you know?” It’s all about creating friends.

3. You can’t do everything. Prioritize what you do best.

4. Packaging is important. As an author, this offends me, but the reality is that if a book isn’t packaged well, it won’t sell. An instant judgment on your book is based on the packaging. Packaging not only includes the cover, but also the title, the contents, and the interior design.

5. Build a brand with your books. For example, consider the Dummies brand or Chicken Soup of the Soul.

6. We are in the business of creating and selling rights. Licensing rights can make the difference between a profitable publishing operation and a losing operation.

7. Remember that small presses can create bestsellers. In fact, they’ve created more than 400 bestsellers in the past 20 years.

8. New standards are coming for submitting info to booksellers. You need ONYX compliant data. Get familiar with it. This information allows retailers to pull up information immediately about your book.

9. What was your strength can become your weakness. For example, New York publishers depend on chains and have almost lost touch with the independents.

10. Make no little plans, because they have no power to move the hearts of men and women. So many books are published that don’t come to their potential because the publisher didn’t have the confidence. Let your vision shine through. Don’t let the media sell you short.

This Essay was in the LA Times on June 15, 2008 written by Seth Greenland.

Today’s authors must sell their work — and themselves. The publisher’s promotional budget wouldn’t cover bus fare to the book party for “Shining City.” What to do? Try a hot tub, high-priced escorts and a pimp.

Not long ago, I found myself seated with a pimp and three high-priced escorts, the kind favored by the former governor of the great state of New York. I was in a lawn chair while the four of them were in a hot tub — what is the word? — gamboling in the steamy water and . . .

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once upon a time, an author published a book and left the selling to the experts in the marketing department. This was the case as recently as last week. But that quaint notion has suddenly gone the way of Duran Duran. Now, because of recent developments in the world of publishing, writer and merchant are fusing into one. Willy Loman and Arthur Miller have commingled. Call it — forgive me — Birth of a Salesman.

Publishers still occasionally provide promotional support for an author to whom they have paid a whopping advance. Other authors, however, the ones without giant deals, are placed on an ice floe and set adrift. Yes, you say. Of course. ‘Twas ever so. But if once comfort might have been derived from such platitudes, this was before the Internet and the anticipated Death of Print.

And yet, the ironic thing about the Death of Print is that no one seems to have told the publishing industry. Even as review column inches shrink and fewer writers appear on radio and television, books continue to tumble out like bunnies during birthing season.

It is a faint and slightly maundering sound, muffled, no, smothered by the cacophony of the culture. But to borrow a phrase from the indefatigable Mrs. Loman: Attention must be paid.

How?

Why, the author video. In the last few months, I have become an expert on this subject, as any author now must be. My new novel, “Shining City,” will be published in July, and the promotional budget would not cover bus fare to the book party. To attract readers, I find myself looking to do something . . . sizzling. All of which brings us back to that hot tub, with those three high-priced escorts and that pimp.

Yes, yes, I know — this seems utterly gratuitous: blatant, even prurient. David McCullough would never sit next to a hot tub in which John Adams is frolicking with Dolley Madison and Betsy Ross. But McCullough and I are very different writers, and given my material, pimps and hookers are not so far off the mark. “Shining City” is about a regular guy from Van Nuys, a middle-class dad, who inherits his brother’s dry cleaning business and learns it is a front for a high-priced call-girl ring. He needs money, so he does some on-the-fly moral calculations and, presto, he’s a pimp. Whatever you may think of the character’s principles — feel free to judge him with your book group — it’s great material for an author video.

These days, of course, author videos come in a variety of flavors — as many as there are writers, it seems. The most basic features the author — who has, say, written six novels and never had to do anything this degrading — seated in her book-lined office casually addressing the camera. “Hi,” she says, “I’ve written a new novel. Here is what it is about and I would like you to buy it.” In its subtlety and sophistication, it’s like a television ad for detergent circa 1962.

In other videos, the author remains invisible. Instead, we see computer-generated words combined with a series of graphics meant to give a feel for the book. The aesthetic is that of a neighborhood 14-year-old with iMovie on his laptop — but it’s better than the dramatization, in which a scene or scenes from the book are acted out, making us forget about the writer altogether and wonder about the movie, not a good thing when the idea is to pique someone’s interest in a book.

Then, there is the high-end soft-sell that portrays the author, torn from the comfort of his office, thrust into the world and moving through locations that evoke the book. In one recent example, John Banville can be seen in Benjamin Black mufti, wandering the streets of Dublin talking about the hero of his new thriller. For novelist Jay Cantor, the setting is a Cambridge, Mass., cheese shop. I don’t know what this has to do with anything he’s written, but it did get my attention — hmm, what is Jay Cantor doing near that brie wheel? — and this, after all, is the idea.

For my video, I hooked up with my friend Jason Kachel, who is the Sergei Eisenstein of the Los Angeles bar mitzvah circuit. If you haven’t attended one of these events lately, you might be surprised to learn they often include what has become known as a montage. This is a short film featuring the celebrant; at its most expressive, it can evoke the work of Fellini shot through with the sensibility of Mel Brooks (memo to Cannes: This should be a sidebar — “Un Certain Bar Mitzvah”). Jason is peerless in this form. What is the connection? He is used to working with people bereft of thespian talent. People, in other words, like me.

I HIRED HIM immediately and we set about writing a script. Although we had no intention of dramatizing the book, we needed human scenery, so I logged on to Backstage.com, created an account, and did an e-mail blast to the appropriate cohort (Author Seeks Actresses for Book Video), and we had our extras. As for the pimp, I called another friend, the novelist Mark Haskell Smith, and quickly explained the proposition: Was he willing to take a day off from writing to spend an afternoon with several beautiful women in a hot tub? He did not take long to commit. Locations were procured, craft services arranged.

We began our shoot at 6:45 a.m. and concluded 15 hours later. Editing took a few days, a score was composed by Stu Thomas, and Bob’s your uncle — the “Shining City” video is now online.

Will this help sales? Who knows? It’s a chaotic new world and if a novelist can’t have a little fun shilling for his own book then what, finally, is the point? But this is literature, and froufrou aside, it remains serious business. Accordingly, I try to carry myself with dignity and restraint.

Which is how I wound up on the Internet in my underwear. *

Seth Greenland’s second novel, “Shining City,” will be published in July.

Susan’s note: Authors and professionals we can help you. If you want coaching and 2 or 3 short video segments about your book, your business and or an interview check out the BizSpeak & Video Workshop and the Authors’ SpeakEasy Workshop

It is a great way to market your services and spread the word through many distribution sites.

Here’s some more ways to use video clips for authors.

1) Have you been You Tube’d? If you haven’t this is the #1 place to load your book video.

2) Put your video on your own website, don’t let a single visitor land on your site without getting the touch and feel of your book.

3) Send a sample of your book video to every media contact you pitch. Never let a press kit leave your office without a disc.

4) Got a social networking page? If you do (and you should) add the clip or a link to it on the page.

5) When you pitch the media, don’t forget to insert a link to the trailer in your email. Don’t send it as an attachment; chances are an over aggressive spam filter will have it for lunch.

6) Blog about it every chance you get. No, I’m not talking about repeating a blog over and over but blog on what success you’ve had thanks to your video. And oh, yes, add a link to the book video too.

7) Trying to get a signing but have been unsuccessful? Let your book speak for itself, literally. Drop off a copy of your book trailer to an as-yet-unconvinced bookstore person and I can almost bet you’ll get asigning in the store.

Ready for your close-up? There’s no quicker way to a potential producer’s heart than through his eyes and ears. Seeing a book come to life can sometimes be a great way to sell someone on the conceptof turning your book into a movie.

9) If you’re doing a signing bring the book video to show while you’re signing books. I’ve known authors who’ve done this and they sold almost twice as many books. The video really pulls in readers!

10) Just like you can tell a book by its cover, you can often tell a bookvideo by its packaging. Get your CD cover professionally printed. Don’t skim on the first impression! In fact, why not have your video burned to a business card size CD that you can pop into the card slot of a presentation folder?

Reprinted from The Book Marketing Expert newsletter, a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. For more info see: http://www.amarketingexpert.com.

Linda Hollander was a speaker and author and this clip was of her speaking at the Speakers’ Summit08.

Here’s some more ways to use video clips for authors.

1) Have you been You Tube’d? If you haven’t this is the #1 place to load your book video.

2) Put your video on your own website, don’t let a single visitor land on your site without getting the touch and feel of your book.

3) Send a sample of your book video to every media contact you pitch. Never let a press kit leave your office without a disc.

4) Got a social networking page? If you do (and you should) add the clip or a link to it on the page.

5) When you pitch the media, don’t forget to insert a link to the trailer in your email. Don’t send it as an attachment; chances are an over aggressive spam filter will have it for lunch.

6) Blog about it every chance you get. No, I’m not talking about repeating a blog over and over but blog on what success you’ve had thanks to your video. And oh, yes, add a link to the book video too.

7) Trying to get a signing but have been unsuccessful? Let your book speak for itself, literally. Drop off a copy of your book trailer to an as-yet-unconvinced bookstore person and I can almost bet you’ll get asigning in the store.

Ready for your close-up? There’s no quicker way to a potential producer’s heart than through his eyes and ears. Seeing a book come to life can sometimes be a great way to sell someone on the conceptof turning your book into a movie.

9) If you’re doing a signing bring the book video to show while you’re signing books. I’ve known authors who’ve done this and they sold almost twice as many books. The video really pulls in readers!

10) Just like you can tell a book by its cover, you can often tell a bookvideo by its packaging. Get your CD cover professionally printed. Don’t skim on the first impression! In fact, why not have your video burned to a business card size CD that you can pop into the card slot of a presentation folder?

Reprinted from The Book Marketing Expert newsletter, a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. For more info see: http://www.amarketingexpert.com.

View a video clip of Linda Hollander speaker and author at the SpeakersSummit08. She was talking about Corporate Sponsorship.

At the Speakers’ Summit08 I talked about Creating Info Products -take a look at this short video I created.

I will be using the video for selling the mp3 of the talk on the description page and I will make it available for folks who want to hire me for the presentation to their groups and I might put it in my e-zine as well as in the Speakers’ Summit08 description of my talk and I am sure that I will find other uses for it as well.

Here is a short list of info products that you could create which was part of my handout at the Summit.

TURN YOUR EXPERTISE INTO PROFITS

➢ Books
Published or Self-Published

➢ Mini-Books
Smaller versions of your book with cut-down content used as premiums

➢ E-Book- Compile related product information or instructions into an ebook. You could publish it in text, pdf, html format

➢ E-Book Of Reviews – Publish an ebook of stuff that’s related to your target audience that you could review like products, web sites, movies, etc

➢ Dictionary Of Terms-Publish a web directory or ebook dictionary of terms relating to your specific business industry or subject.

➢ Audio/MP3 Books

➢ Transcripts- Create an ebook of text transcripts of a related live event. It can be a seminar, speech, class, interview, etc.

➢ Article Compilation

➢ Blog Compilation

➢ Teleseminars – Expert Call Ins Set up a date and time when your customers can call up and talk directly with experts that are related to your industry

➢ Online Video-Allow customers to download or view a related how-to video or informative seminar right over the internet.

➢ Webinars over the internet

➢ Audio/MP3 Programs
Allow customers to download and listen to a recording of an expert that is being interviewed right over the internet

➢ Video Trainings- DVD’s/MP4’s

➢ Multi-Media Products
Combine Printed materials, video and CD’s

➢ Home-Study Courses
Multi-media product format designed to be a complete system in a box.

On October 7, ’07 I posted an article on how to plan a book blog tour and then again on February 2, ’08 I posted another one about virtual book tours. I have been fascinated with the concept and thought it was a brilliant way to take advantage of the technology that is out there.

Book signings are passe and authors need to look elsewhere to get the word out about their books. A virtual blog book tour costs very little and you don’t have to travel and you can reach thousands of people in a short time. You can organize it yourself or you can hire book blog specialist to do it for you.

I received an e mail request last week from Nikki Leigh with an invitation to participate in a 3 day book blog tour for Dr. Joe Capista. I agreed and was very impressed with the information that was provided for me to post the information.

Enjoy the interview with Dr Joe Capista. Take notice of his video book trailer, photo and book cover all necessary elements for a successul book blog tour.

If you are an author who would like to connect with Nikki Leigh to inquire about a blog book tour her e-address is nikki_leigh22939@yahoo.com and her website is www.nikkileigh.com/promo.htm

Interview with speaker Dr. Joe Capista and Author of What Can a Dentist Teach you about Business, Life and Success?

Where you are from and where are you now?
I reside in Media, Pennsylvania with my wife of 34 years. I have a dental practice in Broomall. I have lived in this area all my life. My roots are here, my family is here, and my community is here. I’m a Pennsylvanian through and through.

How did you get started writing?
Not counting all the goals I have written over the years and the business plans, I officially began writing with my newly released book called What Can a Dentist Teach You about Business, Life and Success? Discover Secrets to Achieving Total Success!

I have owned and operated my dental practice for over 30 years. I grew my practice from a 1-chair struggling practice to a multi-million dollar business with nearly 50 team members.

For years I have mentored business professionals and done training courses on how to build a business. I found I had a knack and passion for sharing my information. Initially, my work was with other dentists, but it grew into working with a variety of business types.

Over the last few years I have also done presentations to business groups. My writing was a natural evolution from my business success and working with others. The more I worked with others and did presentations the question came up frequently as to when I was going to write a book.

I had entertained the thought for some time, but about a year ago I decided that I would write a book. The book is a culmination of my business philosophy as well as overall success in all areas of one’s life.

What people will read in the book is not your typical business book. I combine a very pragmatic and spiritual approach to what I call Total Success.

What do you do when you are not writing?
When not writing I can be found doing a number of different things. One being, I still practice dentistry. I love dentistry. Always have and probably always will. I can also be found giving speeches, running, spending time with my family, traveling and overall, enjoying life.

What would readers like to know about you?
I think readers would like to know that I am very passionate about what I do in all areas of my life. I believe we create our own happiness by our thoughts, beliefs and actions.

Although I am blessed with an extremely successful life, it wasn’t always like that. I grew up in an average blue-collar neighborhood and struggled in school as a kid. And yet, from as far back as I can remember I wanted to be a dentist. I can remember digging in the dirt and filling up the holes pretending I was filling a cavity. That was at the age of 10.

Early on I didn’t get a lot of support for my dream. My high school guidance counselor, Father Melton told me I should pick a different goal rather than trying to become a dentist.

It was at that point I formed the belief that we can either believe what another person thinks is best for our life or follow our own dream. I will forever be grateful I followed my dream. Because of it I have had an incredible life.

I think what your readers would also be interested in know is that along with my dream came a lot of hard work. It didn’t just happen. I had to work for what I wanted.

What inspired your first book?
The desire to document the very systems that have allowed me to create the life I have. These systems don’t just apply to building a successful dental practice. They can apply to virtually any type of business.

How do you manage to keep yourself focused and on track?
Actually, there is a whole chapter in my book about how to stay focused and on track. I am very clear on the fact that having a laser beam approach to what I want to accomplish makes all the difference as to whether I achieve something or not.

Do you write to make money or for the love of writing?
For the love of writing and yet, because I do know how to make money from various ventures I have been involved in, it is very likely I will make great money from my writing. I think an advantage I have in writing about business is the opportunities that have opened up with my speaking and mentoring. The book was released in late December and already I have had some incredible things happen as a result. One is, with one speaking engagement I did, a gentleman who heard me nominated me for the Small Business Owner of the Year Award for a very large Chamber of Commerce in my area.

The recognition this will give me, my book and my business may not be able to be measure in exact return and yet I do know it will open up other opportunities.

Something I believe in is that nothing is an end in and of itself. Everything we do either moves us closer to our goals or further away. When I wrote the book I didn’t write it to make money. And yet, because of the marketing we are doing with the book, money will be a natural outcome of my writing.

What are some traditional methods of marketing you have used?
I have a marketing firm on the West Coast who is handling a lot of my marketing. I know that we have had a lot of media releases sent to the press that have given the book visibility. I have done dozens of presentations to local associations that has also gained some nice visibility. I have a very nice media kit with a beautiful sell sheet. One thing we have made sure of is to create an identity for the book.

What are some unique methods of marketing you have used?
We have been using the Internet a great deal. Lots of blogging about the book as well as an Amazon.com campaign where dozens of Joint Venture Partners are helping to get the word out about my book. I have done lots of web radio interviews as well as article writing and distribution online. I am launching a series of teleseminars that will all be in some way connected to an aspect of the book.

Do you sell through a website? If so, what’s the address? If not, why not?
Most definitely. http://www.joecapista.com/amazon.htm

Where can people order your books?
They can order it directly from my site and they can order from http://www.joecapista.com/amazon.htm

What format are your books – e-book, print, audio etc?
At this point the book is only available as hardcopy. I do have an eBook available on my site on how to build a multi-million dollar business.

What do you have in the works now?
Right now I am continuing to build my speaking business. I am in conversations with some business associates about starting a full-fledged training company. That is another area I will be putting some time and energy into.
What does the future hold for you and your books?
Lots of fun. I just love what writing a book has done for me. It’s incredible. Although I would like to think I could have done this sooner, I think the timing in my life has been perfect.

What was the most successful thing you did to promote your books?
We are doing it right now. An Amazon.com campaign along with a blog tour. The visibility is incredible.

Have you done a book trailer?
Yes see YouTube Book Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvqiYWp4CFY

What do you speak about?

You, Your Business and Success
An inspirational keynote presentation that explores your thoughts, actions and outcomes in creating the life you want.

The Million Dollar Letter
In this incredibly moving keynote presentation, Joe shares his most popular signature story about how contribution to others is at the core of our joy, happiness and well-being. Join Dr. Capista as he shares the journey he and his team took with Jackie, his most memorable patient. Learn what happened that took Jackie from a place of being a timid, fearful and shy to a woman who now shares her courage and joy with others.

The Success Triangle
A highly requested presentation that helps participants explore aspects of success that often go unchecked. Understand the correlation between an excellent product, your marketing and how you sell. One missed element can determine the difference between a mediocre business or a wildly successful enterprise.

Success and Spirituality
What Spiritually is and is not, and how it fits into having a successful life.

This book is a great resource for anyone looking for both a pragmatic and spiritual approach to building a life of Total Success.To order: What Can a Dentist Teach You about Business, Life and Success? If you order in the next 24 hours you will receive over $2,551 in bonus gifts from experts around the globe. Go to http://www.joecapista.com/amazon.htm

If you are an author and want to know how to market your book I encourage you to subscribe to John Kremer’s Book Marketing Tip of the Week and visit his website it is a rich source of information.

John is offering a once a month complimentary Q & A Teleseminar.He wrote in his e-zine.. I am no longer answering individual book marketing questions via the phone or email, but I have committed to doing two free Q&A teleseminars every month for anyone who wants to ask me questions they need to have answers for (on book publishing, publicity, and marketing).

The first free John Kremer Q&A Teleseminars will be held twice on Tuesday, March 4th, once at 3:00 p.m. Eastern, Noon Pacific time, and a second call at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 p.m. Pacific time. I will answer anyone’s questions during those two times (obviously different questions each call). You are welcome to attend both sessions or to listen to the calls later.

Phone-Number to Dial for both calls:

218-486-3696

Use Conference ID for both calls:

2092800#

New pages just added to the Book Market Website:

Selling Books in Bookstores and Working with Distributors: Q&A http://www.bookmarket.com/qbookstores.htm

Designing and Pricing Your Books: Q&A http://www.bookmarket.com/qdesigns.htm

Getting Publicity for Your Books: Q&A http://www.bookmarket.com/qpublicity.htm

Selling Your Books Outside of Bookstores: Q&A http://www.bookmarket.com/qspecialsales.htm

Selling Your Company and Other Rights: Q&A -http://www.bookmarket.com/qrights.htm

Success Stories: Novels
http://www.bookmarket.com/tipnovels.htm

Success Stories: Poetry
http://www.bookmarket.com/tippoetry.htm

Success Stories: Selling Direct to Consumers Face to Face http://www.bookmarket.com/tipdirect.htm

Success Stories: Selling Books Online
http://www.bookmarket.com/tiponline.htm

Success Stories: Promoting Books via Contests http://www.bookmarket.com/tipcontests.htm

Success Stories: Buying and Selling Rights http://www.bookmarket.com/tiprights.htm

Success Stories: Selling Books via Bookstores http://www.bookmarket.com/tipbookstores.htm

Success Stories: Promoting Books via Publicity http://www.bookmarket.com/tippublicity.htm

My next post on Monday 3/3 will be an interview with an author and speaker Dr. Joe Capista about his new book What Can a Dentist Teach You About Busines, Life and Success. I am participating in his book blog tour in conjunction with the release of his new book.

Copyright © 2007 by Cheryl Kaye Tardif. Reprinted with permission of the author

Over the years, authors who wanted to promote their books directly to the public had one main option; you had to physically travel across the country conducting book signings and readings in various bookstores and praying that people would show up. This meant spending money on flights, hotels, transportation and meals. This traditional type of book tour is expensive and very few publishing companies are willing to pay for them. But now, authors have a new method of ‘touring the world’―the virtual book tour.

Virtual book tours (also known as virtual author tours, guest blogging, blog tours, or VBTs) are a simple concept. The author tours various blogs and sites that pertain to a theme in the book or to writing in general. This way, you can potentially reach thousands of avid readers each tour day from the privacy of your office or home.

The goal of marketing your book is to expose it to as many people as possible in an exciting, cost-effective and entertaining way. Guest blogging can achieve that goal. Most blogs are archived, so your post becomes permanent and often viral, spreading from site to site. That is leverage. You are in essence leveraging your internet presence and duplicating yourself with every VBT stop. Your blog tour is working for you even while you sleep. Try doing that at a bookstore signing!

Virtual author tours really took off in the past year or two. They began with a handful of authors posting to other blogs in order to promote their works online. They announced those dates just as they would a bona fide book signing. This kind of author tour is now becoming all the rage. Some bookstores are no longer allowing authors to do book signings. Limited space and time constraints are the common reasons. Plus, it just isn’t time efficient and monetarily feasible for most authors to do the physical cross-country bookstore tour. Well, unless you are one of the super authors that get paid the big bucks, like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. And since I am neither, I decided to hold my first blog tour this past August―for the entire month―to promote my latest novel Whale Song.

Virtual book tour services and book marketing experts are popping up all over the internet. Authors can now outsource the organization of a VBT. I suggest that you thoroughly check out these companies and ask yourself if the price is worth it. Some services cost thousands of dollars, while some cost less but only post your content to duplicate sites―ones they have set up themselves. The latter is not an advantage to you. You need to have wide coverage and exposure to various sites and audiences. Go where your readers are.

Planning a VBT is time-consuming, but not that difficult. You may find it more worthwhile to take the time to plan your own blog tour, since you’ll have more control over who hosts you this way. Or you may decide that hiring someone to coordinate the tour is best. Do what’s right for you. I chose to do my own because I wanted to have flexibility in what each site posted and I enjoyed the contact with my hosts.

How to organize a virtual book tour:

• Start planning at least 1 month before you want to begin, and never before your book is available for sale. I suggest you allow 1 month when planning a 2-week tour and 6 weeks for a 1-month tour. It takes time to get the hosts lined up and on board and you don’t want to shortchange yourself.

• Read everything you can find on virtual book tours. There are numerous articles online and many books that give great advice. Check out Steve Weber’s Plug Your Book! for VBT advice and more, and John Kremer’s 1001 Ways to Market You Books for numerous marketing tips.

• Determine the length of your book tour―1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month.

• How many hosts will you need? 1 a day is best. If you have a radio interview, you could have it scheduled on a day when you have a text post appearing on another blog.

• Make a list of keywords and phrases that relate to your book.

• Search for these terms on Google and look for any sites that show up on the first page. Sites on the first Google page are the ones that your potential audience will find more easily. Make a note of these sites or save them in your Favorites under a folder marked VBT contacts.

• Search Technorati as well, although personally I found this method more time-consuming and confusing. Look for sites that have a high Authority and high number of Fans. Keep in mind that Authority means that people have voted for this blog, but that it doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best site for you.

• Use Alexa to get traffic results. Some sites or blogs may not rank well on Google or Technorati but may still be a viable host for your VBT.

• Look at the amount of reader participation. Do people leave comments? Is the topic of the site perfect for your book? Often lesser known sites and ones without a Google PageRank are little goldmines. You may find that the host will go out of his or her way to advertise you and your VBT. Don’t ignore sites by friends or fellow authors either. One day these sites could score an 8 or 9 on Google.

• Install and use Google PageRank. This is a simple tool that allows you to view the Google Rank of sites and blogs, which is Google’s interpretation of how important the site is based on the authority of inbound links that lead to the site. Go through your list and check their Google PageRank. List them in order of importance and contact the highest ranking ones first. In the beginning, contact about 25% more hosts than you actually need. Not all will say yes.

• Write an email that you’ll send individually to each potential host. Let them know what you’re doing and what you can supply. I always like to point out the benefits to hosts―more traffic, new visitors, fresh and interesting content, prizes, and a link on my website. What’s in it for them? That’s what they want to know. Make sure you hook your host, just like you would with a query letter to a publisher.

• Internet radio and promotional sites that charge small fees also make wonderful hosts. ArtistFirst Radio Network and Passionate Internet Voices Radio are online radio networks that interview authors in exchange for a donation or small fee. For an a la carte or membership fee, Author Island is another excellent site for authors holding a virtual book tour. You can post a book trailer and excerpt, plus advertise your contests and tour.

• Confirm hosts’ dates, topics and ask them to post the night before. This way you are not waiting all morning for them to post your content. Let them know you’ll send them the information 3-5 days before their date. If you send it too early they may lose, misfile or delete it. What will you submit? Each blog or site will usually feature one or a combination of the following: a book cover, a summary or synopsis, an interview, book review, an article that fits the site’s theme, a short story, an excerpt, a contest, an audio-cast or a book trailer video.

• Advertise your VBT via online and media press releases. It is a great investment, since it’s no good doing a virtual book tour if no one knows about it. One leading press release distribution service that I use almost exclusively is 24-7PressRelease.com, where you can pay from $10.00 to $299.00, depending on your distribution requirements. However, I can attest to the fact that a $45.00 release is the minimum you’ll want and its effectiveness is worth it. Other online services include PRWeb and WebWire, and don’t forget to send releases to the free services too, like ClickPress.com and FreePress.com. Press releases can be extremely beneficial if written correctly and distributed extensively to the right audience, and this means submitting them to your local media (newspapers, TV, radio) as well.

• Publicize your virtual book tour and other events on BookTour.com, a free site that connects authors to readers by listing author events and making it easy for readers to set up reminders and track their favorite authors.

• Promote your VBT on all your websites and blogs on an events page. Put up a schedule with your hosts’ home page URL. I found it more exciting to post a weekly schedule the day before the week began. It prevented people from going to host sites too early and kept them coming back to my website to see where I’d be going next. I promoted the mystery, which worked to my advantage since I’m a suspense author. This also gave me 1 extra blog post each week, and therefore new content.

The day before each virtual stop:

• Send out a reminder to your host and ask them to post that night. Make sure they have book cover jpgs, your photo and anything else they might need.

The morning of each stop:

• Confirm that your host has posted your content. Check the site. Copy the full URL that leads directly to your post. The home page will change and you want your links to always lead to the exact page that the host has created just for your content.

• Change the home page URL on your schedule to the exact page link. This is how you really leverage yourself. Now when someone stumbles across your schedule and clicks on the link, they’ll be directed to your post, not your host’s ever-changing home page.

• Write an introduction about the day’s stop and post it everywhere. Copy the first paragraph or two of the interview or article and use that for your intro. Post intros to all websites and blogs that you have access to. Don’t forget to post to your Amazon blog, MySpace blog, and MySpace bulletin. The latter goes out to all your MySpace friends. Make sure you have some!

Follow-up:

• Check your host site frequently throughout the day for comments and answer any questions directly on your host site. Do this every other day afterward for about a week. Offer to write a possible follow-up article, depending on what you posted originally.

• Assess the success of your virtual book tour. Set up TitleZ and/or Charteous to monitor your book’s Amazon sales rank throughout the VBT. You should see some lower ranks (lower is better!) during your blog tour, particularly if you have a contest or incentive that inspires more sales of your book. Be creative and have fun!

Authors are now starting to comprehend the full potential that blog tours have to offer and how they benefit everyone involved. You could sign books at a bookstore for three hours plus driving time and reach a few hundred people yet sell only to a few dozen, or you could organize a VBT and promote to millions of people worldwide. Virtual book tours take time, patience and research, but as I have discovered, they are definitely worthwhile. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So why not start today? You have the entire world at your fingertips!

If you found this article helpful, please consider picking up a copy of Cheryl’s newest novel Whale Song through Amazon.

This is a question I get asked all the time. Let’s see what Scott Jeffrey, www.BestSellingAuthor.com has to say.

The decision to self-publish versus publishing with a major publisher is sometimes irrelevant. Can you get a publishing contract from a major publisher? Naturally, this isn’t such a straightforward question since you really don’t know until you try, but here are some questions to ponder:

Can you get a book proposal in the hands of someone who will read it without going straight to the slush pile? Do you have any contacts in the publishing field? (Contacts aren’t essential, but they certainly can help.)

Do you have an agent? Someone who will champion your work—someone who is passionate about your message? (If you’re approaching small to medium-sized publishers, you don’t need an agent.)

Do you have a platform for selling large numbers of books like a radio or television show, a weekly or monthly column in a highly circulated magazine/newspaper, or a huge customer/fan base that buys your existing products?

Do you have an enticing, fresh idea (or a new spin on an old idea) for a book that a publisher will want to publish? And do you have the “expert status” to back it up?

Other Factors for Making your Decision

Motive: Why are you writing this book? Are you looking for fame or fortune? Are you just trying to share your message? Your motive for writing this book is an important consideration: You may be happy just getting a hundred copies of your book from a print-on-demand service. Or you may want to walk into a bookstore and find your book on the shelf. Perhaps you just want an additional product to sell at your speaking engagements.
Time: You can self-publish your book in about a fifth of the time (if not less) than it will take a big publishing house. Do you need the book right away to begin building your career? The publishing process of a major publisher generally takes a little over a year. Add the time it takes to land a publishing contract and you’re dealing with a long timeline.
Money: There are two factors to consider about money.
Are you financially “able” to self-publish your book? Self-publishing a run of 5,000 hardcover books will cost you $20,000 to $50,000, depending on the quality of the final product. There’s a misconception that self-published work has to look self-published. This is only true if you cut corners: one can typically distinguish a $250 book cover from a $5,000 one.

Do you want to make money with the book? This goes back to your motive for writing the book: if you already have a platform from speaking, etc., your book can become an income-generating product in the back of the room. From an economic standpoint, you can make considerably more money if you self-publish instead of going with a publishing house. Conversely, if your book has bestseller potential, a major publisher will give you significantly greater distribution capabilities.

The Economics: An Illustration

Self-Publishing: Let’s say each book costs you $2 to print (all costs included) and the book sells for $15. For every book you sell, you earn $13.

Publishing House: Let’s say, as the author, you get 20 percent royalties (meaning you get 20 percent of what the publisher makes, which is around 55 percent of the retail price of the book). With the same $15 book, you’ll earn only $1.65. (From the discussion above in “The Advance,” 30,303 books at $1.65 equals your $50,000 advance.)

If you sell 10,000 books at your venues, you’ll bring in $130,000 versus $16,500 from a publisher—that’s a 780% difference! Of course, if you don’t have a built-in platform for selling those books, they can take up a lot of space in your garage.

Advantages of a Major Publisher

There are many advantages to going with a major publisher:
Self-publishing a book is like starting a company—there are innumerable hours of work and challenges involved in producing the final product.

Publishers generally offer strong distribution capabilities for getting your book on the store shelves. Although there are a select number of distributors that work with self-publishers, it’s difficult to match the distribution capabilities of a large house. Plus, there are loads of headaches in dealing with these distribution channels.

You’re enrolling an entire team of professionals to help. Publishing houses have graphic designers, editors, copy editors, proofreaders, etc. in-house. Finding all of these components on your own can be a daunting task.

Publishers have relationships. You never know what contacts your publisher might have that could catapult your book to stardom.

Publishers take on all the risk (and invest all the money). Instead of investing tens of thousands of dollars of your own money, publishers take on this responsibility and even give you an advance prior to any book sales.
There’s a certain level of additional legitimacy that you get from a large house. It’s as if they are validating your existence in the marketplace.

Scott Jeffrey is an author coach and the author the 10-CD audio program, Everything You Need to Know to Become a Best-Selling Author. For more information, please visit www.BestSellingAuthor.com

Your Book Blog: 10 Practical Tips
by Debbie Weil

1. Just do it. As soon as a plan to publish your book is in place, start your book blog with www.TypePad.com or www.WordPress.com (free). Worry about the details later. Just get it going!

2. Grab the URL that matches the title of your book. If you’re not sure what the final title will be, register everything it might be. It costs less than $9 for a one-year registration on www.GoDaddy.com or the registrar of your choice. When the title is finalized you can move your TypePad or WordPress blog to that URL.

3. Mention the URL of your book’s blog in your book. In the text, direct your readers to www.yourbookblog.com for “updated or additional resources” or “useful links.”

4. Post to your book blog whether you feel like it or not. Try to post at least every 10 days, even if you’re in a crazy phase with your book. You want your blog calendar to show no fewer than several entries a month. Remember, the sooner you start blogging, the sooner your blog entries will show up in Google search results.

5. Don’t be afraid to write about your competitors. In fact, link to their blogs. Link to everyone and everything that relates to the topic or focus of your book. Links are what make the blogosphere go round. You’ll look more knowledgeable as a result, and your blog entries will come up in search results on keyword phrases relating to other books and authors.

6. Offer a free chapter or excerpt as a downloadable PDF. And be sure to embed links to your order page on Amazon or BarnesandNoble.com or to your site so readers can click through from your PDF to buy your book.

7. Ask for an email address from people who want the free chapter. Make it a quid pro quo. Get your blog visitor’s email in exchange for your download. Now you’re building an email list. Send these folks an update when your book is published with a direct link to the online order page.

8. Consider starting a companion podcast. This is the newest new thing and kind of fun, as well as surprisingly easy and inexpensive to create. Podcasts are a way to extend the content of your book into another medium. And they’re wildly popular. You might do interviews with some of the experts you quote in your book, and maybe you can parlay your podcast into your own radio show (see, for example, www.debbieweil.com/speaking/resources and www.corporatebloggingpodcast.com).

9. After publication, use your blog to extend the shelf life of your book. Andy Wibbels, author of BlogWild: A Guide for Small Business Blogging (Penguin Portfolio, 2006), ends his book with the following paragraph: “ As in all good seminars, it’s great to give participants a bag of goodies to take home with them. I wasn’t able to shoehorn everything possible about blogging into this book, and some of the techie stuff might go out-of-date as blogging matures. So, for a complete resource of updates, tutorials, and other goodies, go to www.goblogwild.com/goodies.”

Clever, don’t you think?

10. Just do it. Don’t overthink it. Work on your book. Start the blog. Figure it out as you go along.

Debbie Weil, a speaker and marketing and business communications consultant based in Washington, DC, is the publisher of an award-winning e-newsletter, WordBiz Report (www.wordbiz.com/signup.php) and the author of The Corporate Blogging Book, published by Penguin Portfolio in August 2006 and available at Amazon, via 800/CEO-READ, and in major bookstores. To download chapter 1 and other material for bloggers, visit www.thecorporatebloggingbook.com.

Sample Book Blogs

Buzz Marketing with Blogs by Susannah Gardner
www.buzzmarketingwithblogs.com
See Gardner’s Book Bits, including downloadable PDFs of chapter 1 and the contents, along with a PDF press release and links to author info and reviews.

Dear Mom: I’ve Always Wanted You to Know by Lisa Delman
lisarachel.typepad.com
This blog has links to book-related events, including Heartshops and Teleseminars.

Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble
redcouch.typepad.com/weblog
Israel and Scoble posted sample chapters as they were writing and engaged readers heavily in the writing process. No need to do that unless you’re really secure as a writer.

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
longtail.typepad.com
Anderson blogged the book while he was writing, thinking openly about his topic and soliciting input from readers.

by Jean-Noel Bassior

1. Forget the horror stories you’ve heard about the publishing world
Your friend Jason told you that his cousin’s mother, Edith, sent her manuscript to a publishing house or literary agent two years ago – and she’s still waiting for a response. What Jason left out is that Edith wrapped her 400-page manuscript in brown paper and addressed it to “Editor,” Simon & Schuster. Are you getting the picture? You wouldn’t respond either if you got a thousand packages in the mail each week for “Occupant.” A lot of stories circulate about what happens when authors submit their material to agents and editors, but be slow to judge. The truth is, if you learn to play the publishing game like a pro, you won’t have Edith’s experience.

2. Be a letter, not a package when submitting to literary agents
Believe it or not, literary agents open their mail. Why? Because they’re looking for gold – a lively, focused query letter. What’s in it for them? Sheer joy. They know that if a writer can craft a dynamic query that actually tells them what the book is about, it’s worth their time to ask for more material – and they do. That’s when you send a package – and when you do, on the outside you write “Requested material.”

3. Know how agents and editors think
Ever been to Manhattan? It’s not just the center of the universe – it’s the hub of the book publishing world. And even though not every agent lives there, most of them are in a New York state of mind. If they seem brusque, don’t be fooled. That impatience is just a drive to get to the Next New Thing – which, hopefully, is your book project. They want you to hook them on your query in 10 seconds or less because they’re on your side. They’re looking for fresh, focused ideas, and they’re hoping your query letter, book proposal and sample chapters will be page-turners. In short, they want you to succeed.

4. Your query letter must do two things
Whether your book is fiction or non-fiction, your query has to (1) make agents and editors see the book in their mind, and (2) make them ask to see more material. There’s an art to writing the irresistible query. It may take some time to get the hang of it, but don’t give up. Learning how to write powerful queries and book proposals sharpens your writing skills.

5. To beat writer’s block, write it badly
Most writers never show you their first draft. Why? Because it ranges from fair to awful, with flashes of brilliance in between. Writing is about bringing visions and concepts from your mind into physical reality and you don’t always get it on take one. Fortunately, there’s an activity called “rewriting” that gets you from “Geez, will this ever come together?” to “Wow, I like that!” So relax and start anywhere – at the end, in the middle, even with just one word – and write it badly. Get something – anything – down, and trust the rewriting process to shape it. It’s like chipping away at a block of marble to get the sculpture inside to emerge. Or, as artist Paul Klee once remarked, “take a line on a walk” and see where it leads you.

6. Where there’s a will, there’s a way to organize
Ever feel overwhelmed by stacks of research? Are you staring at piles of notes, e-mails, interview transcripts, clippings and reference books, wondering how all this material will ever flow magically into chapters? Relax. You can find a way to organize your material. Here’s just one:

Print out a few pages of notes or an interview transcript, or photocopy some pages from that book with the info you need. Number the pages with a felt tip pen at the top right-hand corner of the page (1, 2, 3, etc.). What you’re going to learn is how to divide the info on each page into bite-size chunks that can be indexed with, well, index cards. Let’s begin.

Let’s work with that transcript of your interview with Dr. Snark, a famous scientist you’ll be writing about in your book. As the interview begins, he’s talking about the discovery that won him the Nobel Prize. As soon as he changes the topic (or you ask him about something else), take your felt tip pen and draw a horizontal line across the page. Mark a big “A” in the right-hand margin. That’s section A, where he talks about winning the Nobel Prize.

Read on. Now he’s talking about his childhood, still on page one. When he finishes, draw another line across the page and label that section “B” in the right-hand margin. As soon as he changes topics, draw another line and label that section “C.” Keep reading the transcript, drawing a line with your felt tip pen across the page whenever the topic changes and assigning that section a letter in the right-hand margin. Begin with “A” on each new page. On some pages, there will be three subjects, so you’ll have “A,” “B” and “C” in the right-hand margin. On other pages, Dr. Snark may talk about six different things, so you’ll go from “A” to “F.” Remember: Every time you begin a new page, start with “A.”

After you’ve done a few pages, reach for some 3 x 5 index cards and create a card for each section. For example: Remember where Snark talked about winning the Nobel Prize? That’s 1A. Mark 1A in the top right-hand corner of an index card, and write a key word in the middle of the card that will bring back that part of the interview. “Nobel Prize” may be enough. Take another card, label it 1B, and write some key words that will remind you of what he said about his childhood. And so on. Are you getting the hang of this? Eventually, you’ll have a card for each section of the transcript, and you’ll know precisely where everything is. And guess what: You can plan your chapters by shuffling the cards into different orders, experimenting with the organization of a chapter – or the entire book. Then, when it’s time to write, lay the cards out in order on your desk and follow the plan – or change it. You’re in control.

Yes, it’s a challenge to do this grunt work, but it beats thumbing through hundreds or thousands of pages of research over and over, muttering, “I was sure I saw that quote in this pile.” You can index anything – e-mails, old newspaper clippings, even those opening lines for Chapter 8 that you scribbled on a cocktail napkin one night in a stupor. (Just tape the napkin to an 8½ x 11 page and number it, too.) And this is just one way to take control of your research. You can create a system that works for you. The important thing is to know that you can take control of your raw material instead of feeling it’s about to crush you. Even if you end up with hundreds of index cards, you’ll know where everything is – and that’s a great feeling. It’s the way out of overwhelm.

7. Do these 3 things in bookstores when nobody’s looking

• Read Acknowledgments. Look at books similar to the one you want to write. Does the author thank his or her agent or editor? Grab those names. You may want to send those folks your query letter.

• Go on a title search. Looking for a title for your book? Browse the titles of bestselling books on display. Notice the rhythm and play between title and subtitle. Make it a game – you may want to jot down titles you like, but the important thing is to let that rhythmic play seep into your subconscious mind. (Don’t be surprised if you wake up one morning soon with a great working title for your book.)

• Read at random. Open a book that looks interesting and read a page. Like it? Keep reading. Bored? Put it down. Why do you like some books and not others? The ones you like keep you glued to the page, right? How does the author do that? Study his/her style and figure out why it keeps you reading. Your own style will improve as you notice what skillful writers are doing.

8. Hey, kids! Start your collection of rejection slips now!
Every writer has them. They mean you’re serious, you’re in the game. See them as badges of honor.

9. If you crave love or a response to your query, include a SASE
Be sure to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope so the agent or editor can reply on your dime. Or, use a pre-paid postcard with a box for them to check if they’d like to see more, that is, your book proposal or sample chapters.

10. Believe that you can and will get published. In the end, that’s what counts.

Jean-Noel Bassior is a journalist who specializes in celebrity interviews. Her work has appeared in many publications, including Redbook, Parade, McCall’s, Woman’s World and AARP The Magazine, and she’s been syndicated worldwide by The New York Times and Knight Features (London). She is the author of, Space Patrol: Missions of Daring in the Name of Early Television, published by McFarland.

For more info about the Book Mentor Program, call 310.285.3009 for 24-hour taped message or e mail thebookmentor@gmail.com .

Author readings and signing sessions, once the staple of publishing publicity, are being usurped by virtual encounters and promotional videos.

By Teresa Méndez | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the November 30, 2007 edition

The author tour, with its accompanying readings and signings, has come to be the quintessential tool for promoting books. It is a chance for writers to charm their readers and for readers to glimpse the person behind the words. At its best, the meeting can be electric. (At worst, nobody shows up.)

But in the past five years or so, observers say the traditional author tour has been in decline: Fewer writers are being sent out, and those who do tour make fewer stops. Among the many reasons for this shift are marketing tools that have made it possible to orchestrate a virtual encounter, without the hassle or expense of travel. Publishers and authors are now touting books through podcasts, film tours, blog tours, book videos, and book trailers. In fact, it’s unusual for a book not to have some sort of Web presence. (Blue van Meer, the fictional main character in the 2006 novel “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” by Marisha Pessl, even has her own MySpace page.)

Publicity departments used to be places where wacky ideas originated but languished, says Carol Schneider, executive director of publicity for Random House. Now, with the Internet, she says, “they are really able to carry [those ideas] out.”

Each is a small experiment, an incremental move, as the publishing industry has begun to embrace the Internet and other new media. It’s hard not to wonder, though, whether their cumulative effect will one day render the face-to-face bookstore meeting between writer and reader obsolete.

An author’s emissary: a short film

Man Booker Prize-winner Ian McEwan opted not to take his 10th novel, “On Chesil Beach,” on the road this past summer. In his place, a short film was screened by bookstores in 54 US cities. On Veterans Day, the second in the film series “Out of the Book,” by Powell’s Books, kicked off its tour. The movie features commentators including Joan Didion and Bob Woodward discussing the late David Halberstam and his book about the Korean War, “The Coldest Winter.” Meanwhile, a company called TurnHere has launched an ambitious project to create an online book channel with short Internet videos – the founder likens it to an MTV for books. So far, BookVideos.tv has exclusively aired Simon & Schuster authors. But it recently announced plans to expand coverage to 10 other publishers.

Both video ventures promise a few things bookstore appearances can’t always deliver. They offer insight into a writer’s inspiration and process – back stories that may not come through by simply listening to a writer read his work aloud.

And now, the video

To promote her memoir, “The Glass Castle,” Jeannette Walls enlisted her once-homeless mother, Rose Mary, a captivating character in the book, to appear in a three-minute video. Rose Mary shows off a few of the paintings she created that are mentioned in the book. Just imagine an author trying to tote her mother’s artwork – not to mention her mother! – on tour.

Such films are polished and packaged, which certainly cannot be said of every writer.

“Some authors are really engaging and some authors, frankly, are not,” says Dave Weich, marketing director of Powell’s Books. Video offers a way around that. “There’s a lot of editing that takes place,” admits Sue Fleming, vice president of online marketing at Simon & Schuster. “We can forgive a certain lack of mediagenic-ness.”

The videos have another advantage: They eliminate the humiliation for an author of showing up at a bookstore event only to find the place empty. Joseph Finder, who toured Boston and the Midwest over three weeks in August for “Power Play,” his most recent thriller, says store owners feel terrible about poorly attended events. And there’s always an excuse: Either the weather was too nice. Or it was too foul. Or else a local football game drew away all the customers.

Finder has produced a book a year since 2004 – and toured for each. Still, he says, a perennial question among author friends is: “What’s the point of the book tour?” He has even penned a short piece lamenting the downsides of the tour for Publishers Weekly, a leading trade publication. This year, for the first time, Finder experimented with a book trailer for “Power Play.” But he says he’ll keep touring as long as his publisher will send him. “You don’t know what works or doesn’t work,” he says. “You have to do everything you can.”

Publishing lore credits “Valley of the Dolls” writer Jacqueline Susann and her husband, Irving Mansfield, with creating the modern book tour in the 1960s. She is said to have doggedly pushed her books onto customers and even sweetened up the truckers who delivered them with coffee and doughnuts. But some form of book tour dates back at least to the 19th century. Between 1853 and 1870, Charles Dickens gave more than 400 readings across the US and Europe.

Reaching far-flung outposts

These days, a book tour by a well-known author usually travels to just a handful of cities. Chances are, even the most ambitious promotional treks won’t reach a small bookstore in, say, Dubuque, Iowa. For that reason, those involved with online marketing suggest that virtual events are actually reaching people who wouldn’t otherwise come into contact with big-name authors.

“It’s an interesting paradigm,” says Mr. Weich of Powell’s Books. “People tend to ask, ‘Isn’t this just going to replace the author tour?’ But most places in America don’t get author tours, at least of [McEwan and Halberstam's] caliber.”

As for the question of whether new media will supplant a centuries-old book-touring tradition, even critics of junkets say that meet and greets will survive.

“In a way, the author tour has suffered from its monopolist role in book promotion,” says Weich. “It’s a really tired format.”

He believes competition from other types of marketing may encourage the book tour to be more imaginative, to reinvent itself.

Budget tours

Already, publishers are thinking more strategically. Morgan Entrekin, head of Grove/Atlantic, says he is sending about 20 to 30 percent fewer authors on tour, and those he dispatches are visiting 20 to 30 percent fewer cities. But this winter, Mr. Entrekin arranged for the authors of “Halsey’s Typhoon,” a nonfiction account of a treacherous World War II Navy mission, to visit naval bases and shipmate reunions. It was an author tour, but aimed at a niche audience.

In August, Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine and author of “The Long Tail,” launched BookTour.com to connect authors with potential audiences. The site is a way of using the Internet to improve the author tour.

“We’re all authors, so we’ve seen the ugly side of book touring first-hand,” says Mr. Anderson. “The reason we chose to start our company around the book tour itself, is we believe in face-to-face contact…. We believe in author tours. We just think they can be done a lot better.”

Soon, they may be.

 See 10/7/07  Post Virtual Book Tours

by Fern Reiss, CEO, PublishingGame.com/Expertizing.com

Here, some seldom-considered tips on getting more publicity for your book and business, straight from the top journalists and literary agents who participated in our Expertizing Publicity Forum.

Be prepared for The New York Times
When a participant in the Expertizing Publicity Forum pitched the New York Times business columnist, the columnist was very interested in pursuing it as a feature story—until she went to the business’s website, which was under construction. She notes that it’s important for authors and business owners to be fully prepared before they send press releases or get in touch with journalists. This sounds obvious, but novices make this mistake all the time. “I think this business is a great idea, but I don’t know that I’d want to pitch a national paper if your website isn’t ready,” she cautions. So be sure you have all your ducks lined up, before you pitch the nationals.

Share your personality with Inc Magazine
One of the editors at Inc. Magazine stresses that you need to share anecdotes, stories, and colorful details to make an appealing pitch. She tells businesses that want to be in Inc. to forget the press release format, and send her a letter emphasizing the most unusual and dramatic parts of their journey. Most of all, she says, “Let your own voice and character shine through the pitch. A personality profile lies buried at the heart of many great business stories. Give me a sense of how you think about yourself and the world. Persuade me that you’re someone Inc. readers will want to spend time with.”
One of the Expertizing Publicity Forum participants followed this editor’s advice—and landed a multi-page feature on her business in this important publication.

Provide details for Time Magazine
The most effective pitches, says a writer at Time Magazine, contain plenty of details. When Selena Cuffe, President of Heritage Link Brands, utilized the Expertizing Publicity Forum to pitch Time Magazine, she hit a home run—except that the writer needed many more details, and told Selena that her national business editors needed numbers, numbers, and more numbers—everything from details of revenue to how long they’d been in business. Selena provided the details—and ended up with a feature on her business in Time Magazine.

Remind literary agents of your connection to your audience
Chioma Isiadinso, CEO of Expartus, a successful admissions consulting company, participated in the Expertizing Publicity Forum because she was hoping that a book on the topic might expand her platform, and broaden her business appeal. She connected with a literary agent through the forum, but the agent thought publishers would want to know how Expartus was set up to reach its readers, via email lists, speaking schedule, etc. “Publishers will want to know that the author has instant access to readership, with the savvy to secure that readership with or without the publisher’s help.”

Chioma added a section to her proposal—and with the agent’s help, succeeded in selling her (unwritten) book, Brand Your Way to an MBA, to Sourcebooks, a major publisher. (You’ll be able to find Chioma’s book in bookstores next year.)

Fern Reiss is CEO of PublishingGame.com (www.PublishingGame.com) and Expertizing.com (www.Expertizing.com) and the author of The Publishing Game: Find an Agent in 30 Days, The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days, and The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 Days as well as several other award-winning books. She also runs The Expertizing® Publicity Forum where you can pitch your book or business directly to journalists; more information at www.Expertizing.com/forum.htm. Sign up for her free monthly report on promoting your book and business at www.PublishingGame.com/signup.htm

I had to share the following e-note with you that I received from Steve Martinez, President of Selling Magic. This is the kind of note that keeps me going. Thanks, Steve.

Susan,
I was thinking about you the other day. No, it wasn’t a romantic dream. I was thinking about how you helped me with your passion for speaking and helping others. You have certainly helped me grow my business and although I haven’t scheduled anything lately to attend your sessions. My lack of response does not indicate that I won’t be. I have made great progress as an outgrowth from the strategies and techniques that I learned from attending some of your meetings.

I’m currently listed as a “sales expert” with an international group and things are going well in my consulting business. Our second e-book is out . . . http://www.sellingmagic.com/TSE_V2_7.pdf and a Christmas edition is in the works. I have been contacted by a book publisher to include some of my sales articles in their collection of articles. Although there is no payment for these works, it is great exposure for my business.

I just wanted to encourage you to keep doing what you’re doing. It works.

Today I am sharing an article written by Marisa D’Vari.  She offers great tips on growing your business through speaking.

“It’s my dream to have my books in bookstores!” enthuses a first-time author. Though I smile and stay silent, my mind is screaming, “Wrong! You should be strategizing how to get your books out of bookstores!” Returns are a serious problem in bookselling today, and unless authors are proactive, it can only get worse.

Publicity and word of mouth are the traditional “fixes” that grow your books legs, allowing them to march out of the stores. A third element can enrich the mix–public speaking.

Many authors speak about their books at bookstores in the course of doing launches and tours. Why stop there?

Whether your books are fiction or nonfiction, individuals and groups can benefit from your knowledge, and they will even pay to hear what you can tell them. In fact, public speaking can create a strong subsidiary market for your knowledge in various forms. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on speaking as a mechanism to increase media attention and word of mouth for books.

Finding Eager Audiences

A popular myth asserts that the bookstore is the most appropriate venue for speaking about your book. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth. Consider the typical bookstore talk audience. If they are not part of your family and friends network, their only common denominator is that they like to read and value the opportunity to experience authors reading and discussing their own work.

Now consider that a more targeted audience may be available to you, which you are not addressing. Spend a few minutes doing some intense brainstorming to target the three groups of people who would be most strongly motivated to buy your book.

Then ask yourself the following questions:

1. What do these people read, watch, and do for fun?

2. Are there any clubs, associations, or organizations these people already belong to?

For illustrative purposes, let’s assume your book is on gardening, and you’ve determined that your #1 audience collects gardening books, visits gardening centers for fun on weekends, and watches gardening shows on cable TV.

Good start. Now you want to find organizations, clubs, and/or associations that cater to these individuals. A quick, friendly call to your local librarian can point you in the right direction. Call the clubs, organizations, and associations, and find the appropriate person to hear your verbal pitch that you become their speaker. In most cases, you’ll be warmly welcomed, but they’ll expect you to speak for free.

Free?! I can hear you grumble.

Relax. The engagement is free, but you’ll bring a box of books and sell them at full price. You can bring a brochure and offer consulting services. And you can invite this wonderfully targeted audience to subscribe to your e-zine so that you have them as customers forever. That way, you can sell them more gardening books down the road. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even create your own gardening products one day and can work with this valuable list.

Depending on the subject of your book, it’s also possible that power players from top corporations are in the audience. They may be so entranced by your speaking ability that they offer you the opportunity to speak to their corporation. Then you could make a nice fee for your trouble.

Your biggest opportunity is to parlay the speaking engagement into a publicity opportunity that will get a photo of you splashed on the appropriate pages of local papers. Just call up the editor of the appropriate section of the paper, explain that you are a local author invited to speak in front of Such-and-Such group, and suggest that it would be great if they could have a photographer there to immortalize the event.

Start with the largest newspaper and work your way down to neighborhood papers (which, by the way, can usually be counted on to show up!).

Parlaying Publicity

Even if the photo “just” circulates in your own community paper instead of the Sunday “Styles” section of The New York Times, you will soon find yourself having achieved “celebrity status.” Everyone from the corner grocer to the dry cleaner will be saying they saw your picture–and “What’s this, you’ve written a book?”

Smile and say you’d be happy to personally sign it for them the next time you’re in, adding that there are some copies over at Such-and-Such bookstore. You can even make this offer stronger by adding that you’ll give them a little freebie–this could be a bookmark you produce yourself or a publisher’s promotional item.

At this point, you’re beginning to generate “word of mouth” sales. The dry cleaner might very well tell her niece in the Midwest that she met you, a “real live author,” and the niece could buy your book and tell several friends.

Continue to market yourself to associations, organizations, and even trade shows that tie in with the subject of your book. You’ll quickly see that one booking leads to other bookings, and that you’re increasingly in demand as a speaker.

Help! I Don’t Know How to Speak!

What? Of course you do! You’ve been speaking since you were two or three.

What you probably mean is that you don’t know how to organize your thoughts into a compelling, entertaining talk that people will enjoy so much that they’ll want to take a piece of you home in the form of your book.

Here’s a template that you can use to create an entertaining talk. Try to keep it to 20 minutes, at the most. Remember that though your expertise brought the audience in, the entertainment value of your talk is what will keep them hooked!

Talk Template

Introduction

- Why the audience needs to know your theory about the subject of your book (which I will call X from now on)

- How your audience can use X to solve their problem

- Your credentials for writing the book and discussing X

- How you have broken down the complex issue of X into three key points

- POINT ONE

Introduce this point clearly and distinctly.
Support this point with facts, statistics, and an anecdote.
Conclude this point.
- Do the same with POINT TWO and POINT THREE.

- Summarize the points you’ve made, accentuating their benefits.

- Announce that you’ll take questions for 10 minutes before making your concluding statement.

- Make your concluding statement, summarizing your key points again.

- Strongly state (not merely mention) that your book is available at the back

of the room, PLUS add a special benefit they’ll get with their purchase.

Special Benefits: People do not buy unless they’re motivated. The fact that you’re a speaker and an author helps, but ensure profitability by offering more. What’s more? Autographs are good, but not enough. Try these ideas!

- Create a freebie that you can give away with your book.

- Give a special “this night only” discount.

- Say that people who buy the book will be entitled to get your e-zine.

(You do have an e-zine, don’t you?)

Make Yours a Happy Book

Remember, your objective in speaking is more long-term than selling a carton of books. You can use news of the event to create media releases to send to papers all over your area in advance, and even after the event. You can use pictures the media took the night of the speaking event for future publicity and your Web site. You’ll have several new names to add to the “hot list” on your database. You will have improved as a public speaker!

Remember, a returned book is not a happy book. Create happy books by speaking on their behalf. Silent by nature, books don’t have the power or ability to assemble a targeted audience and reveal their brilliance in spoken form. You do.

Marisa D’Vari specializes in presentation training, media training, and book publicity. This article is adapted from her book “Media Magic: Profit and Promote with FREE Media Placement.”

BTW:  Have you checked out the brand new membership site- Speakers’ Community ?

There is a 60 day trial period available till the end of the ’07 and you can post your profile in the Community Directory which is open to the members and the public.

Yesterday I spent part of the day with John Kremer and learned more about this amazing man.

He is all about book marketing and teaching you how to sell more books — a lot of books. He teaches a workshop called Book Marketing Blast-Off Seminar which is being offered in Los Angeles, December 7-9. John is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and for the past twenty years, he has edited the newsletter on the subject: Book Marketing Update. Also for the past twenty years, he has consulted with some of the top bestselling authors in the country.

- He has designed the strategy that enabled a self-published author to become a New York Times #1 bestselling author of 9 books!
- He has worked with several other small publishers to set up publicity campaigns and distribution networks that enabled them to sell hundreds of thousands of books!
- He has ferreted out little-known book markets that enabled publishers to sell 5,000 … 10,000 … 20,000 books in a single sale!
- And he has saved publishers hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands of dollars by telling them what works and what does not work — and why!

This is John

Over lunch John agreed with me that many authors do not know how to speak their books whether it be a 30 second pitch, a book signing or a fourty minute talk. And that some authors don’t even recognize that speaking is a fantastic way to market their products.

So here’s what we dreamed up to support authors and wannabees. Speaker Services (Jack Barnard and me) will make a guest appearance at the Book Market Blast-Off in December and offer tidy tidbits to the attendees. After the New Year and the date is not set yet that we will mutually produce a 3-4 day workshop where authors will learn the inside secrets of speaking and how other book publishers are selling more books every day.

BTW Authors: The Authors SpeakEasy workshop is coming up November 9-11 in Los Angeles taught by Jack Barnard and it includes a one camera video shoot. I still have a few openings. Take a look.

I am thrilled about the Speakers’ Community Membership Club I announced it less then a week ago and we have 20 members so far. The first teleclass is Monday, November 12 with Chellie Campbell. We will be talking about How to Make a Six Figure Income Without Leaving Your Home.  Chellie is the Author of Zero to Zillionaire and The Wealthy Spirit and creator of nationwide workshops that ease financial stress shows how to make more money – and have more time off for fun!

This call is FREE for all Speakers’ Community members. Not a member? Join now to access the call and take advantage of my special FREE 2-month Speakers’ Community trial offer. Read more about it and the benefits and instant bonuses. Go to www.speakerscommunity.com

I would love to hear your comments.