The Writing Life

Use Speaking to Increase Your Book Sales

2012-01-29T09:42:00.005-07:00

In many ways they seem opposite ends of the spectrum: writing and speaking. When they've tested writers and editors, the results have shown the bulk of these people are introverts. They aren't the life of the party. Instead they prefer to communicate with their keyboard or pen and paper.

Yet repeatedly I find the truth in what my friend Alex Mandossian teaches: the money in books is not in the book itself but it is in explaining the book.

One of the ways you give your book exposure and “explain” the book is through public speaking. As I've written in the past, someone has to hear about your product at least seven times before they decide to purchase it. A key part of this repeat exposure comes through speaking.

In the weeks ahead, I have a number of opportunities to speak and teach at different types of meetings. I maintain my speaking schedule at this link and continue to add new events.

Would you like to make 2012 a breakthrough year for your speaking?

I'm always looking for new resources to help you be more successful with selling your books and your writing. One of those areas could be speaking.

Last week, I learned about the Speaker Expert Teleseminar series which begins on Tuesday, January 31. If you hear the speakers during the live recording, then it is FREE but if you want to hear them on your own schedule then you can get the paid version to receive the recordings and the transcripts from the calls.

It looks like every Tuesday night for the next few weeks, the Speaker Expert Teleseminar series has a terrific line-up of teachers and topics.

Build A Body of Work

2012-01-27T07:30:00.003-07:00

I want to return to a basic of writing—any type of writing. Whatever you write, are you writing consistently? Are you continuing to work at building relationships with the gatekeepers (magazine editors, online editors, book editors, literary agents and other professional writers). I know it is basic but consistent writing and working at this business is critical. It rarely comes easy or quickly to any of us. In fact, we often fight the discipline and consistency of writing.

Occasionally someone will look at the volume of my own writing and exclaim, “How do you do it?” It’s just like eating an elephant, one bite at a time. As writers, we write one sentence then one page at a time. Over seven years ago, we moved to Arizona and I sorted through a lot of materials in this process and threw away unnecessary papers. I kept my magazine clips—and there are literally boxes of them. Some days I’m amazed that I’ve written over 60 books and the first one. When I Grow Up was published in 1992. In these years, I’ve been able to build a body of work. The concept of consistency and building a body of work may be new to you.

Years ago on the way to a writer’s conference, I chatted with a literary agent. I was just beginning my writing work and he encouraged me to continue building a body of work. It’s not a single book or a single magazine article but the sum of your work in publishing that eventually makes an impact. What are you doing to build a body of work? Are you writing consistently? Are you growing in your understanding of the publishing business? I confess that I learn new terms and new aspects constantly.

Some days I don’t feel like cranking out some words but I do it. As I’ve traveled the country and worked with different writers. I know some writers are inspirational writers. They only write when they feel the story in their fingers and put it on paper. Others are journeymen and professional writers. They pound the keys day in and day out—whether they feel like it or not. I fall into that latter category (most of the time). It’s helped my consistent writing.

As a young journalist training in news editorial, one summer, I interned on the Peru Tribune, a small town newspaper in Peru, Indiana. I’m fairly certain anyone I knew isn’t at the newspaper any longer. We had no computers and the typesetting was done with a Linotype machine in the back of the building. We had our story meetings at 7:30 a.m where the managing editor talked with the reporters about the stories to be written that day. In that short meeting we received our particular assigned stories, then hit it with the full knowledge of our 11 a.m. copy deadline. Our stories went quickly through the editor and appeared in the printed afternoon paper at 3 p.m. We had no time to sharpen our pencils or hem and haw about writer’s block. We had a deadline to meet—which we met day after day.

I’m committed to writing consistently. I want to keep my fingers on the keyboard and keep them moving to write articles, chapters for books and book proposals. I’m committed to building a body of work. It might not pay off immediately but in the long run, I know consistency counts.

Make Your Best First Impression

2012-01-22T12:53:00.005-07:00

You are enthused about your book idea and are eager to explain it to an editor or literary agent who can champion your cause and get your book published. It's been my privilege to listen to many authors pitch their book ideas at a writer's conference or in a written proposal or on the phone.

I've heard some great presentations where the author has practiced their words or refined their written words so it flows and is pointed at the perfect target. These writers are determined to make a good first impression with their idea and find someone to champion their cause. Whether they have verbalized it or not, they understand that they only get one chance to make a good first impression and they came prepared.

Also I've seen the writers who have blown their opportunity. They've stumbled with their oral presentation or the gem of their idea is over on page 10 or 20 (which will not be read by most agents because they quit after the second page). They've missed it and many of them are not even aware of what they have missed.

Over the years, I've been inside of some of the top New York literary agencies. While it may not seem like it to the novice writer, I can tell you that each of these publishing professionals are actively looking for the next bestseller. They want to find the idea which will burst on the scene and capture the imagination of the reading public. That deep-seated desire drives them to carefully listen to authors when they pitch their idea or to read hundreds of query letters and proposals.

Are you finding this agent who can champion your cause? Are you crafting the best possible book proposal to capture their attention? You will learn valuable information from going through the book proposal creation process—no matter what happens with your book idea. I can tell you the value of this process because I've written numerous book proposals. Not all of these proposals have been published but with each one, I learned some valuable skills in the creation and polishing process.

To help you in this process, I'm going to include several resources in this post. First my 12 lesson Write A Book Proposal course includes my latest teaching in this area. It is step-by-step teaching and on autoresponders so it comes automatically week after week.

Also I have a free teleseminar on proposal creation where I will be answering your questions on February 2^nd. Right now you can download my free Ebook, Book Proposal Basics when you ask a question.

Finally last month I did an interview with Felice Gerwitz on her BlogTalk Radio program Information in a Nutshell. We spoke for about 30 minutes on book proposal creation. I edited through this program. You can right click and “save as” at this link. I encourage you to download the program to your computer and hear it. Or as another way to hear it, you can use this button:

First impressions are important when you pitch your book idea. Make sure you give yourself the best possible opportunity for success with an excellent proposal.

Train Without Leaving Home

2012-01-21T14:00:00.004-07:00

Travel can be a hassle. I know first hand since almost every month I am on the road traveling to a different event. Especially since September 11th, 2001, just getting through the airport is more complex—much less all the other elements in travel.

Despite the hassle, I'm still excited about the live events and how important they are for every writer. Over the years, I’ve written many times about the importance of a writer’s conference. There are many key insights, training and relationships that I’ve formed at these events. I have a number of events scheduled for 2012 as you can see at: http://terrylinks.com/sked I encourage you to check the link from time to time because I update it on a regular basis.

I also understand the importance of constant learning outside of conferences. In the next few weeks, I’ve created a couple of events. They require no travel and you can gain this important teaching in the comfort of your home listening to it on the telephone or on the Internet through the webcast. If at all possible, I encourage you to listen to them live. Pull out a tablet and write down the important ideas which you learn. It will be different for each person. I often find several key action items which come from each of these sections—whether I'm hosting them or attending them. I provide these resources as a key way you to grow in your skills as a writer.

January 24, 2012

Ask Rick Frishman FREE Teleseminar Of the many people I know in the publishing community, one of the key experts is Rick Frishman. Just follow this link and read his bio. The founder of Author 101 University, Rick is also a publisher.

I encourage you to ask Rick any question about why you should attend a writers conference or anything in the marketing and publicity area where he has specialized. Rick is the author of numerous books and if you register for this FREE event, then you will receive immediate access to Rick's Ebook, The Top 20 Tips for Aspiring Authors. This Ebook is loaded with valuable insights for every writer. Follow the link to register and get the details. Join Us For A Live 70-minute Teleseminar Tuesday, January 24, 2012 (8 p.m. EST/ 5 p.m. PST). If you can't attend during the live event, go ahead and register because everyone who registers will receive the replay information. Then you can download it to your computer or iPod and listen to it at your convenience.

February 2, 2012

Ask About Book Proposals FREE Teleseminar One of my passions is to teach people how to make the best possible pitch to an editor or literary agent. Over seven years ago, I wrote Book Proposals That Sell which continues to help people.

During this event, I will be answering your question about book proposal creation and marketing. When you register for this event you will receive a free copy of my Ebook, Book Proposal Basics. Follow the link to register and get the details. Join Us For A Live 70-Minute Teleseminar Thursday, February 2, 2012 (8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST). If you can't attend during the live event, go ahead and register because everyone who registers will receive the replay information. Then you can download it to your computer or iPod and listen to it at your convenience.

I will continue to bring these valuable training events to you on a regular basis. Each one provides valuable insights. I hope to speak with you soon.

What Is Your Postcard Strategy?

2012-01-18T22:19:00.020-07:00

Editor’s Note: I’ve written about postcards and the importance of them for every author. I’m bringing you this excerpt to help you learn more about postcard marketing. There is much greater detail in the Postcard Marketing Handbook.

By Lina Penalosa

Allow me to save you a lot of heartache and disappointment by saying right now, don’t bother with postcard marketing if you only plan to do a single-step campaign. In fact, don’t bother with marketing at all.

I can’t tell you how many business professionals I’ve encountered who decide postcards, sales letters, TV commercials, coupons, advertisements or anything else you can think of doesn’t work in their market because they didn’t get the results they wanted after a single-step campaign.

And what’s worse is they draw these false conclusions AFTER repeated warnings from their consultants that:

• Single-step marketing rarely, if ever, works,
• You have to build relationships with your prospects before they’ll trust you enough to buy from you, and
• It often takes an average of 7 to 11 touches before a prospect can even REMEMBER seeing your message, much less do something about it

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t expect to get decent results on your first postcard mailing. If you follow ALL of the advice in this book, you will. But I am saying if you’re thinking, “All I have to do to sell 1,000 widgets is send out A postcard,” you might want to rethink your marketing strategy.

Why? Because the more mailings you send a prospect and the more mediums you use to communicate your message, the more likely you are to enjoy a successful campaign.

Remember, POSTCARDS ARE NOT MIRACLE WORKERS. If all it took was one mailing to make all the people you desire buy or do what you wanted, there wouldn’t be much need for regular, consistent marketing much less multi-media marketing would there?

So, if you haven’t already, sit down and plan out your marketing strategy. Figure out how many different ways you can communicate with your audience and how many times you can afford to touch them over a given period of time.

Only then should you proceed with designing, writing and sending your postcard mailing.

Let me also say that if you are on a strict budget, postcards are an excellent low-cost option for multi-part mailings because of the low cost per thousand.

Reduce Your Production Time

How? By tweaking the message you already have then re-mailing. Yes, it’s important to touch your prospects multiple times and in multiple ways but that doesn’t mean you have to create a new message from scratch every single time.

On the contrary, once you find a message that works (through testing which we’ll discuss later), you’ll want to use it over and over again.

Now perhaps each piece will have a different headline, different proof points or feature a different benefit, but the USP and overall message should remain largely the same. After all, it is a series mailing and each piece should be related to the previous and subsequent ones.

Feature A Low-Cost Or No-Cost Offer

Second only to the single-mailing mistake, the worst mistake I see marketers make is trying to use a little-bitty postcard to move mountains. What do I mean? Simply that it’s not reasonable to expect a 3.5” x 5” or even a 6” x 9” postcard to sell expensive products and services. There just isn’t enough room on a postcard to persuade someone to fork over thousands or even hundreds of dollars for your product or service. That’s what long sales letters, teleseminars and other marketing mediums are used for.

Instead, your strategy should be to graduate your prospect to the next step in your sales funnel by getting them to call in, write in or fax in their request for a free or low-cost book, special report, teleseminar, CD or some other item with a high perceived value. Of course you can sell low-cost items quite effectively with postcards, but if that’s not your market, you’ll want to use the approach described above. Remember, the trick is to get your prospects in the habit of saying “yes” to you by making it easy, not by requiring an act of congress to pass a budget amendment. Got it?

About the Author: Lina Penalosa is a marketing consultant, expert copywriter and professional speaker. Her specialties include the art of the soft-sell, teaching others to write results-generating copy with integrity and purpose, and marketing to women.

Excerpted from the Postcard Marketing Handbook, How to Generate Leads, Sales, and Web Site Traffic With the Most Affordable Direct Mail Strategy on the Planet, used with permission.

Open A New Door for Your Writing

2012-01-17T07:01:00.004-07:00

It's important to experiment as a writer with different types of writing. Why? Because until you try it, you never know where you will find your own area of expertise.

Maybe you love to write magazine articles for printed publications (which I recommend) or you are focused on a longer novel. Even in the middle of that type of writing, I recommend you take a little time and try other types of writing.

The experience of trying new things adds life and richness to your writing and communication. This commitment to growth and continual learning has always been a dynamic in my own writing life. It's why I continue to read how-to write books—even though I've published. Or I read online publications or Ebooks because I'm committed to trying new things.

As I've attended conferences, seminars, read books and teleseminar events, I've determined that I want to learn from experts or experienced people. The experienced people can cut your learning curve and show you how to avoid the pitfalls and discover even greater success with your writing.

It's one of the reasons I continue to write these entries in The Writing Life and bring you experienced resources. Almost five years ago, I met Ellen Violette at Mega Book Marketing University in Los Angeles. She was teaching one of her early live events yet I could see that Ellen knew her topic: Ebooks. Known at the Ebook Coach, Ellen has had her own success with Ebooks and taught many others about this area of writing.

To help you learn about Ebooks, Ellen has agreed to teach a free event on Wednesday about The 7 Biggest Mistakes that People Make Authoring an Ebook and How to Avoid Them.This one hour event is free and will be rich with content and ready-to-apply information. I encourage you to register for it.

As a part of the registration, you will receive a link to a study guide. Print the study guide and attend this training opportunity on Wednesday, January 18^th at 4 p.m. PST/ 5 p.m. MST/ 6 p.m. CST/ 7 p.m. EST.

If you can't make the live event, go ahead and register because you will receive the exclusive link to the training which you can download to your computer or iPod—and still catch all of the information.

Ellen is a true expert in this topic of Ebooks. This training can open a new door for your writing. Hope to speak with you during this live event.

5 Keys For Getting Word Of Mouth Traffic

2012-01-16T23:07:00.004-07:00

By Jimmy D. Brown of iBusiness Owner

One of the most powerful, high-converting forms of traffic that you can generate is via word-of-mouth. Think about it for a moment…

When you use traditional advertising, you’re basically tooting your own horn. People tend to be a bit on the skeptical side with regards to your products or services. They put their defensive walls up. They think, “Well of course he’d say that – he’s trying to sell me something!”

But now imagine that this same prospect receives your advertising message from a friend. Maybe the friend says, “Wow – you need to check out that new sports memorabilia store on 10th Avenue. You’ll LOVE it!”

Will this prospect check it out? You bet! And that’s because someone he knows and trusts made the recommendation.

You understand now why word of mouth marketing is so powerful – and why you’ll want to make sure you put it to work for your business, too. Here’s how:

1. Create something worth talking about. People won’t talk about your business if it’s not buzz worthy. So if it’s not naturally buzz worthy (i.e., worth talking about), then need to create something for people to talk about.

Examples:

• A publicity stunt. Kick start the viral effect by sending out press releases, using social media to spread the word and advertising it.

• A contest. A big, exciting contest with awesome prizes tends to create a buzz. But if you create a contest that includes a referral component (e.g., “get an extra chance to win by telling your friends”), then your contest becomes even more buzz worthy.

• Something controversial or even offensive. Be careful with this one, as doing it the wrong way can alienate your prospects. But do it right, and you’ll draw then closer. For examples, just look at what partisan political commentators say on their radio shows and on their blogs.

• Something extremely unique, useful or entertaining. Here you can create a useful tool, report, video or other resource that your prospects are likely to pass around.

• An amazing deal. Create coupon codes to offer a “once in a lifetime” deal – then watch your prospects share these codes with their friends!

2. Make it easy to share. In other words, don’t create hoops.

Example: If you’ve created a viral video, then put it on YouTube.com so that people can access it and share it easily.

3. Give an incentive to encourage sharing. If you create something share-worthy (like a humorous video), people will naturally share it. But if you give people an incentive to share it, you’ll get even better results.

Example: The online bank ING often runs a referral promotion. The person who gets the referral receives $25 if they open a new bank account. But the person who provides the referral also gets an incentive if his friend joins: Namely, he too gets $25 deposited into his account.

4. Provide a call to action. Whether you’re incentivizing your word of mouth campaign or not, you still need to provide a call to action. This is where you specifically tell your prospects and customers to share your marketing message.

Examples:

• “Tell your friends about our new line of products and you’ll receive 5% off your next purchase every time one of your referrals becomes a paying customer!”

• “Give your Facebook friends a laugh – click here now to share this video!”

5. Offer tools to make sharing easy. Finally, you can offer tools to make it easy for your customers and prospects to tell their friends. Examples of tools include:

• Business cards, flyers or paper coupons that people can distribute.
• Social bookmarking buttons.
• “Tell a friend” forms.
• Facebook and other social media widgets (so people can share with one click).

And there you have it: Five keys to unleashing the power of word-of-mouth marketing.

Of course this is just one way to expand your market reach. When you join the iBusiness Owner site today, you’ll discover plenty of other ways. Plus you’ll discover other ways to increase your market reach, get new customers and make more money. So visit http://www.ibusinessowner.com to see what it’s all about – do it now, because you won’t be disappointed!

Why Do You Write?

2012-01-15T13:56:00.008-07:00

By Cecil Murphey

Why do you want to write? What pushes or compels you to keep on writing even though you receive rejection after rejection?

Those are the two major questions I’ve often asked writers at the more than 250 conferences where I’ve spoken or taught continuing classes over the past thirty-five years.

The conferees’ responses vary, but the first ones usually begin with high-sounding tones—as if they want to please me, the teacher, or out of a desire to sound erudite. More than once someone has said, “I want to light the way for others to follow.”

Another said, “I see writing as a high and holy occupation because we’re committed to save the world from ignorance.”

That’s commendable—and maybe even true—but I knew those weren’t the deepest reasons.

“I write to make sense of the world,” one man insisted.

“Sounds profound,” I said. “Perhaps a little too profound for me.”

He added that he had so much chaos in his daily living that writing was one way he could make sense of his life. When I pushed him to explain further, he admitted he had read the statement in a book, liked it, and was satisfied with that as an answer.

A woman at a conference in Tennessee held up a laminated 3x5 card she kept in her purse. She said that the words, a quotation from Henry James, inspired her every time she read them. She later mailed me a copy:

To live in the world of creation—to get into it and stay in it—to frequent it and haunt it—to think intensely and fruitfully—to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation—this is the only thing. I read the quotation many times before copying it here (with her permission). The only thing? That statement seems extreme, although I’m sure some people find the quotation inspirational. The words sound noble and probably inspire others, but they don’t do anything for me. Perhaps I’m too much of a pragmatist.

To get beyond such lofty language, about five years ago I started opening my lectures this way: “Why do you want to write? While you think about your answer, I’m going to give you several reasons I write. After that, I’ll listen to your responses.”

As soon as they focused their attention on me, I said, “I write because I’m so full of myself, I believe the world is waiting to read my brilliant thoughts.”

They laughed, a few nodded, and all seemed to know what I meant. I went on to explain that I also write because I’m driven to share my thoughts and insights on life.

“I’m a needy guy, and out of my need to feel appreciated, valued, and affirmed, I write,” I say. “That’s as simple and direct as I can put it. Our needs express who we are, what we lack, what we yearn for. All of us feel deficient in some ways.”

I make one additional statement that seems to give several conferees the freedom to speak. “Writing is one way to compensate for my feelings of inadequacy.”

The conferees relax. They no longer need to impress me with lofty statements. They’re ready to give me gut-level responses.

Sometimes, to push them to think deeper, I add, “I write to resolve issues and explore possibilities. At times, it’s a form of therapy. I’ve learned so much from my inward exploring, I’ve probably saved half-a-million dollars in therapist’s fees by being a writer.”

They usually laugh again.

Finally, before I allow them to respond, I write one sentence on the board or flip chart:

I write to find out who I am.

Then I wait.

The hands start waving, and they yell out the kind of things I like to hear. From my perspective, they finally speak from deep inside themselves. This is no longer an exam where they have to voice the right answer to please the teacher; they don’t have to sound noble, sophisticated, or even spiritual.

Occasionally someone will say, “I want to have a book to use as a way to open up a public-speaking career.”

That’s certainly a legitimate answer.

Most of them, however, have deeply personal reasons for writing. “I want to share what I know.”

“I have things to say to enrich others.”

“Writing broadens my life. The more I write and ponder,” one man said, “the more I understand human nature, God, and the world in which I live.”

“Writing satisfies my creative urge.”

“I just have to do it!” one woman yelled. “Many times I tell myself I’ll never write another word, but within a day or two I’m pounding the keyboard again.”

It’s interesting that “to make money” rarely appears on their list of reasons.

Why do you write?

About the Author: New York Times best-selling author and international speaker Cecil Murphey has written or co-written more than 120 books including the runaway bestseller 90 Minutes in Heaven with Don Piper.

Cast a Big Vision

2012-01-14T15:58:00.008-07:00

Editor’s Note: This article is the fifth in the Content into Consistent Income Series. Here are the links to the other articles: Use Your Content in a New Way, How to Keep Them Coming Back, Set It and Forget It and Be More Than a One-Hit Wonder.

If you’ve followed the Content into Consistent Income Series, then you already know that there’s a truckload of profits waiting for you on the backend of your site. That is, you can make extra money by offering more products and even more expensive complimentary products to your members.

Now, one option is to be an affiliate for related products and services. The better option is to create these products yourself. That way, you keep 100% of your profits.

Here’s what I suggest: While you’re planning your first membership site, you should also simultaneously plan what complimentary products you’ll sell on the backend. And one way to make money on the backend is by creating a family of related sites and linking them together.

Let me give you an example from my friend and mentor Jimmy D. Brown. He runs the following two membership sites:

• InfoProductPipeline.com – this site teaches to create an entire empire of information products that you can offer for $17, $47, $97, $997, $1,497 and even more.

• Traffic-Fuel.com – This site teaches how to get completely free traffic to any website.

You can see why linking these sites together (cross-selling them on the backend) works. Any marketer needs to learn how to create content, so they join Contentnaire™.

Every marketers – even if they create their own products – will want to drive free traffic to those products so they will join Traffic-Fuel to learn how to get bigger paychecks.

Tip: The advantage of creating a family of sites goes beyond merely having something to sell on the backend. A family of sites also helps you develop your brand and grow your brand recognition. And that means more sales, more customers and more profits.

Now let me give you a few examples of how you can create a family of membership sites around a related niche (or even around a singular topic):

• Let’s suppose you run a health site on the topic of lowering one’s blood pressure. You might also create sites around similar problems, such as lowering cholesterol levels and leading a heart-healthy lifestyle.

• Maybe you run a training site that teaches people how to housetrain their new puppy and teach him basic manners (sit, stay, etc). You might create another site focused on getting rid of problem behaviors such as jumping, biting, digging and similar. Your third site might be for those who want to teach their dogs tricks. You might even create another sites centered around dog agility.

• You run a homeschooling site that focuses on delivering lesson plans and ideas for math. You can create a family of sites on other topics such as science, English and history. Or, you can offer homeschooling lessons by grade (e.g., 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, etc).

When you’re building your first membership site, ask yourself: What ELSE do my customers want?

Do your market research to find out what other products they’re currently buying. Then create a family of sites around related topics. It’s the quick and easy way to tap into the backend profits… on autopilot!

Are you ready to get started? I wrote this series of articles to show you how to start your own membership site. I invite you to check out the details and start your own site through the Simple Membership System. You can have a big vision for your writing and it begins with one small action step.

Be More Than a “One-Hit Wonder”

2012-01-10T08:29:00.013-07:00

Editor’s Note: This article is the fourth in the Content into Consistent Income Series. Here are the links to the other articles: Use Your Content in a New Way, How to Keep Them Coming Back and Set It and Forget It.

Many authors are focused on a single book idea. They craft a book proposal and pitch it over and over. Yet if you think about the publisher’s perspective, they are looking for authors with multiple book ideas or more than a “one-hit wonder.”

In this Content Into Consistent Income Series, I’ve been talking about the merits of a membership site. I’m going to use a personal example of how you can become more than a one-hit wonder with your topic.

About eight years ago as a frustrated acquisitions editor, I wrote Book Proposals That Sell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. This book continues to help writers and has 100 Five Star reviews on Amazon. I sell the Ebook version. Yet I knew I could do more with this important topic to writers. At any moment, there are millions of proposals and manuscripts in circulation in the offices of publishers and literary agents. Unfortunately many of them are poorly crafted and have no understanding of the importance of the pitch. You have seconds to catch the interest—and it involves work and understanding the audience for your pitch (an editor or an agent).

I took my experience and some of the content in Book Proposals That Sell and repurposed it into a membership course called Write A Book Proposal. My book is different from the course because the book is a series of secrets or insights about proposals where the course is much more step-by-step creation of an excellent book proposal—yet each one is focused on the same topic.

Can you take your book or something that you regularly teach or speak about and repurpose your content into a membership course? The membership course can be a critical element in what some people call your backend and position you in the market as more than a "One-Hit Wonder."

When you first thought about opening a membership site, you probably spent at least a little time crunching the numbers.

Example: You did calculations like this: If you have 200 members each paying you $50 a month, that’s $10,000 per month. Or if you open multiple membership sites, charge $27, and get 500 members, that’s $13,500 per month. Or maybe your goal was 1000 members across one or more sites each paying $19 per month, which puts $19,000 in your pocket.

Chances are, however, you stopped calculating when you figured out that final front-end figure. But here’s the thing: That “final” figure only tells half the story. If you’re only taking into consideration your front end profits, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

You see, some of the easiest money you’ll ever make is by selling more products and even more expensive products to your existing customers on the backend.

Consider this: If you put up a good sales letter for your membership site, you may convert anywhere from 2% to 5% of your visitors. So if 100 people walk through your virtual door, two to five of them will become members.

Now let’s say you have 100 members paying you $20 per month (that’s $2000 per month). These 100 members are going to be open to your other offers, meaning you’ll likely convert in the double digits. So perhaps you offer these 1000 members a $50 ebook – you may find 20% (20 members) taking advantage of the offer, which puts an extra $1000 in your pocket.

With just one offer you boosted your income by 50%, simply by selling a product to your existing customers! Now imagine if you did this with 500 customers… 1000 customers… or more. You can see the possibilities!

Now in order to tap into these backend profits, you need to offer something that complements but does not compete with your membership site. One of the best ways to do this is to recommend related products from within each lesson. That is, you tell your members where to get more information on a topic that you’re not covering in depth.

Examples:

• Let’s suppose your membership site teaches people how to create and market their own products. And let’s suppose you get to the topic of search engine marketing. You may go into depth on the topic of SEO, but refer your members to another product in order to learn more about PPC marketing.

• Your general “how to adopt a child” site might refer members to specific sites or products if they want to adopt children from specific countries, such as Guatemala or China.

• You might refer your dog obedience and training members to a “trick training” book (since you’re not covering that topic in the site).

• Your weight-loss site might refer people to an ebook that covers weight loss supplements, herbs and vitamins in depth.

Another way to make money on the backend is by recommending that your members buy a specific tool in order to complete a task.

Examples:

• During the lesson on SEO (search engine optimization), you may recommend that your readers purchase a WordTracker.com subscription.

• You’re teaching people how to do build and profit from a mailing list. You recommend Aweber.com.

• You’re teaching people how to repaint a classic muscle car. You recommend a specific store (using your affiliate link) where people can pick up the sanding and painting supplies.

• Your golf site might point people towards buying a specific set of clubs.

There’s a fortune that lays hidden in the backend of your membership site.

You can tap into this fortune by regularly making related, complimentary offers to your existing members!

I’ve written this article to show you the potential for the Simple Membership System. Get yours today and begin building your backend so you are not a one-hit wonder. Finally watch for my final article in this Content into Consistent Income Series where I explain how to create a family of sites.

You Can Set It and Forget It

2012-01-07T09:10:00.003-07:00

Editor’s Note: This article is the third in the Content into Consistent Income Series. Here are the links to the first article (Use Your Content in a New Way) and second one (How to Keep Them Coming Back).

Quick, what is it about a running a membership site that makes you NOT want to run one? If you’re like most marketers, the idea of being chained to your computer week after week delivering content is a major downside.

When you first got online, you probably had dreams of living the “Internet lifestyle.” You couldn’t wait to get away from the daily grind and job responsibilities. And yet if you run a membership site, it can feel like a job. You can’t see yourself running off to play on some exotic beach when you need to upload content at least once a week or more.

One alternative is to outsource this task. That is, you hire someone else to upload the content every week when you’re not available. But outsourcing comes with it’s own problems – namely, you need to have 100% trust your freelancer to upload the content on time.

So if you haven’t yet developed a relationship with a freelancer, you probably won’t feel comfortable leaving your business (and your customers’ satisfaction) in a stranger’s hands.

Now before you toss aside the idea of ever having a vacation while running a membership site, let me give you two game-changing words: Autoresponder delivery.

You see, with a traditional membership site (like a Private Label Rights (PLR) site), all members get the exact same content. So the person who just joined today is going to get the same content this month as the person who’s been a member for a year. Next month, everyone gets the same content again.

Obviously, this doesn’t make sense if you’re running a training site. That is, you want everyone to start with lesson #1 and get the lessons in order. So the person who joins today gets lesson #1. Meanwhile, the longtime member may be getting lesson #50.

The solution? A true “set it and forget it” model, which you can achieve by delivering all the content using an autoresponder.

Here’s how it works…

1. You create content for your entire course. So if you have a yearlong course with weekly lessons, you’d create 52 lessons. If you have a three month course with weekly lessons, you’d create 12 lessons.

2. Load your course into your autoresponder. Next, you need to get an autoresponder through a service like Aweber.com or GetResponse.com. Simply load up your messages into your autoresponder. Set the first lesson to go out immediately after the customer joins the course. Set each subsequent message to go out on a weekly basis.

3. Create a sales letter. Now create your sales letter and insert your order button (from a payment processor that accepts recurring billing, such as PayPal).

4. Drive traffic to your site. Here you can use all the usual methods of driving traffic, such as affiliate and joint venture partners, content marketing, pay per click marketing, social media marketing and similar.

5. Play golf (or whatever). Now the members roll in and your autoresponder takes care of the rest, leaving you free to do what you want!

Just imagine: You could set up multiple autoresponder-based, fixed-term membership sites. Just set one up, drive traffic and move on to setting up the next one. Rinse and repeat until you’re making as much money as you want! You can learn the full story on how to establish your own membership site with the Simple Membership System.

In my next article in this Content into Consistent Income Series, I’m going to show you how to create a backend offer. Watch for it in a few days.

As you can tell, I believe there is huge potential for every reader through the Simple Membership System. It gives you the ability to set it up and forget it.

How to Keep Them Coming Back

2012-01-05T08:23:00.004-07:00

In my first article in the Content into Consistent Income series, you’ll notice that I gave an example of a 12 week course. That was no accident.

You see, most people who think of “membership sites” think of content that’s delivered weekly or monthly… indefinitely. Members pay month after month and the owners deliver month after month.

This works fairly well if you’re running a PLR (Private Label Rights) membership site or something similar. Many of you will not even know what I’m talking about here so it’s not the type of site that writers and authors would create. The majority of you will want to create some sort of training site. Your members are going to drift away if you just give them tips and tricks indefinitely. And they might even bail out a couple months after joining, simply because there’s no end in sight.

So here’s what you do instead…

Create a fixed-term membership site. This is a site that runs for a specific period of time, such as three months, six months, twelve months… or any length of your choosing.

Tip: For best results, create a step-by-step series as described in Part 1 of this article.

Here’s why this works…

Imagine if your site went on indefinitely. Someone might join and after a couple months quit. That’s pretty normal. But if the course only stretches out for six months, psychologically the customers will feel better if they just remain a member for the entire six months. They want to see through to the end.

This is actually a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) trick. Simply put, people don’t like unfinished business. That’s why they’ll even read books they don’t like or watch boring movies – once they’ve invested some time into the activity, they want to see it through to the end.

While just creating a fixed term site created this psychological commitment to your course, you can make the commitment even stronger by building anticipation for the upcoming lessons. That is, from the very first lesson you work on “selling” the other lessons. Like this:

Build anticipation for the whole course in lesson #1. Your first lesson should include an overview of all the lessons. But don’t just write it out like a table of contents. Instead, write it like bullet points to a sales letter.

Example: “In Lesson #3 you’ll discover a simple trick that will triple your conversion rate!” In other words, arouse curiosity whenever possible.

Build anticipation for the next lesson at the end of each lesson. At the end of each lesson you’ll want to include something like, “Stay tuned for next week’s lesson, where you’ll find out the secrets of creating cash-pulling headlines!”

Build anticipation for future lessons and bonuses periodically. Finally, from time to time you should remind members of upcoming lessons. For example, in lesson #5 you might remind members of a particularly valuable lesson or bonus that you’re offering in lesson #9. Again, write it like a sales letter bullet, where you arouse curiosity and put forth a benefit.

The biggest challenge in running a membership site is retaining members.

With a typical membership site, your members may only stick around for two or three months. But you can quickly and easily ensure that more of your members stay around for six months, twelve months or even longer by creating a fixed-term membership site!

I’ve got complete information about how you can launch your own membership course in my Simple Membership System. Check it out today and think about how you can use your own content for such a system.

Finally watch for my next article in this Content into Consistent Income series, I’m going to show you how you can set up your membership site and forget it.

Use Your Content In a New Way

2012-01-04T11:52:00.005-07:00

If you write on a regular basis (magazine articles, blog, or books), then you are constantly generating a steady stream of content. If you speak on a regular basis or teach on any subject, then you have a wealth of material.

This article is the first of several to give you some ideas how you can turn this material into a new source of consistent income. I’ve written in the past about repurposing your content but with your own membership site, you take remaking your content to a new level of potential. I’m suggesting you start your own membership site. In fact, I’ve developed a complete product to show you much more indepth than this short article. Here’s where you can learn about the Simple Membership System.

The first step is to select your niche and your topic.

Now think about this for a moment…

Your goal is to get members to happily pay you month after month for content. Obviously, that means you need to:

Over-deliver with quality content. You want your members to feel like they’re getting a steal for the price.

Give your members what they want. If you’re just starting your site, then look to the top-selling products in your niche to see what your target market is already paying for.

But here’s something else…

In order to get your members paying month after month, you need to be able to make them look forward to each upcoming lesson. And the best way to do that is by creating a membership site around a step-by-step process. That is, your lessons teach your members how to achieve a specific result.

You see, if you just provide tips and tricks for your members, there’s no sense of continuity. Your members don’t develop as strong of a psychological commitment to staying a member, because they won’t have a need to see the course through until the end.

Now imagine having numbered steps and lessons instead. When someone is receiving lesson 10 of a step-by-step process, they’ve made an investment of time and money into learning the process – so they are less likely to “bail” before they’ve received all the steps.

Let me give you a few examples of sites that teach a specific achievement or result using a step-by-step process:

• How to start an online business.
• How to write a sales letter.
• How to choose, train and raise a puppy.
• How to adopt a child.
• How to homeschool your child.

Now let me give you an example of what a 12-week online marketing course might look like:

Step 1: Choose a niche.
Step 2: Market research.
Step 3: Plan your sales funnel.
Step 4: Get a domain and hosting.
Step 5: Get an autoresponder.
Step 6: Write your autoresponder messages.
Step 7: Create a squeeze page.
Step 8: Product creation part 1 – research and outline.
Step 9: Product creation part 2 – create and polish.
Step 10: Create a sales letter.
Step 11: Drive traffic – free methods
Step 12: Drive traffic – paid methods.

Notice how each step builds on the previous step.

It starts with a member not even having an idea for a niche… and ends with the member driving traffic to a sales letter and making money.

In other words, if the member completes the steps as the course progresses, he or she should be able to enjoy a specific achievement or result by the end of the course.

Note: The above example is a 12-week course. Naturally, you could easily stretch this out to a year or more by creating more steps and more in-depth steps. You could go on indefinitely as long as you kept providing more advanced info as the course progressed.

One final tip…

To keep your customers happy, make sure that they are progressing and enjoying results right from the beginning.

Example: If you create a yearlong course, don’t stretch out the process for a year. Instead, give the step-by-step instructions your customers need to experience some type of results immediately (within a few weeks or month after joining) and then provide more in-depth instructions as the course progresses.

In short: Satisfy your customers’ needs for instant gratification while still providing the continuity that will keep them as a member. You’ll learn more about that in Part 2 of this series.

Meet A Lover of Words

2012-01-03T10:26:00.004-07:00

While many people recognize my years in the book publishing business, I spend years as a magazine editor and a journalist writing for different print publications.

I was an editor at a missionary publication called In Other Words which was the flagship publication for Wycliffe Bible Translators. In Other Words was a member of the Evangelical Press Association and because I was the editor of the magazine, the various staff members were active members of the EPA.

Often during these years I was able to attend the annual conventions of the Evangelical Press Association. These meetings were held in different locations in the U.S. and involved listening to keynote speakers who challenged us to be better editors and also attend workshops to improve our craft as editors.

As a part of these conventions, we got to visit with our fellow editors and exchange stories and experiences. I always looked forward to these gatherings with several hundred colleagues as almost like attending an annual reunion.

One of the regular attendees to these conventions is someone who is now a bestselling author Jerry B. Jenkins. At times a number of us would get together and play games like Scrabble. Late one night I learned first-hand about one of Jerry’s skills.

He is a lover of words and grew up in a family who loved solving puzzles. In fact, he is a world-class Scrabble player. I mean the type of player who knows the three letter words and the critical game-winning strategic thinking for Scrabble. To make things “fair” Jerry played against three of us. Three editors against Jerry didn’t seem like it was fair in some ways—except even three editors working as a team were whipped that night. Talk about a lesson in humility!

Over the years, I’ve had some terrific opportunities to interview Jerry for different magazine articles. I have cherished each opportunity because I learn so much more than I’m able to build into the magazine article which I eventually complete.

Now on January 5th, I again have an opportunity to ply Jerry with questions—except this time the majority of questions will come from you. Will you take advantage of this opportunity?

If you could ask Jerry B. Jenkins, the bestselling author who has sold over 70 million books—any question about writing or marketing for the Christian writer. What would be your question?

Take 30 seconds and think about it and type in your question along with your first name and primary email address. I hope it’s one of the questions that I will use when I interview Jerry.

Anyone can ask a question at: www.askjerryjenkins.com and register for the free live 70-minute telewebcast on Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 5 p.m. PST or 8 p.m. EST. Every registrant will receive a free 24-page Ebook, Pursuing Publication, an excerpt from Jenkins Writing for the Soul.

Don’t have time to listen during the workday? The event will be recorded and every registrant will receive access to the replay links which can be downloaded to a computer or iPod.

Create a GBHG for This Year

2012-01-01T14:59:00.004-07:00

Do you have a Great Big Hairy Goal (GBHG) for the new year?

Whenever the calendar flips to a new year, it's an opportunity to change and make some dream of yours happen. Mark Victor Hansen often talks about the necessity of creating this GBHG. Write down your goal in a few words. Then paste it on the mirror in the bathroom or on the top of your desk or some place that you see it often.

When you see that goal what steps are you taking today to accomplish this GBHG?

One of my friends wants to publish her fiction. She has taken courses and attended writers conferences. Active in publishing, she regularly helps other writers improve their books through detailed work and critiques. From time to time, I ask this friend about her own writing and what is happening with it. Year after year, it never happens and yet I know she continues to hang on to this GBHG.

I love what my friend Bodie Thoene told me years ago about the work of writing her 600+ page manuscripts. “No little elves come out at night and type my pages,” she explained. Instead Bodie consistently writes pages and completes novels.

Maybe you've actually completed several novels or nonfiction manuscripts. It takes something else to get that material published. You have to craft an amazing pitch or book proposal. Yes, fiction authors need book proposals. You have seconds to grab the attention of the agent or editor.

If you've done the work to create this proposal or manuscript, it does absolutely no good to keep it in your computer or file drawer. You have to actively be looking for the right connection—the right editor or the right literary agent who will champion your cause and get your book into the marketplace. I'm keenly aware that it is hard work and takes consistent and regular effort.

Consistent effort is how you accomplish a GBHG. You have to take your larger goal and break it into smaller goals. Get it on your daily list of “things to do” so you move forward and accomplish your goal.

A year ago, I was speaking with a friend about how I had not accomplished one of my GBHGs. For a year, I took a course on how to create a membership course. I worked through the lessons in the course and created my game plan of what I would make and what it would look like. I even wrote the website for it. But it never happened. I was speaking with this friend about how I had never pulled it completely together to launch this project. It was in limbo where it resided only in my head and not in the public.

As I spoke to my friend, I was struck with how crazy I must have sounded. In that moment, I decided to take action and complete my course and launch it.

Taking action is not simple. It required hours of focused work yet last year I launched my Write A Book Proposal course and have had great feedback from the various students who have completed the course. The course is 12 lessons and over three months. I am continuing to market this course and encourage people to take it. I know it is helping writers around the world to have better proposals and pitches.

Last summer, I met one of my students who came to the writers' conference in Philadelphia. She came from Sydney, Australia! It opened my eyes that my online course has no geographic or time boundaries. Students can learn on their own pace and schedule anywhere in the world.

I've got my own GBHG for this year. I've written it down and I've broken the goal into smaller parts that I can easily accomplish—with consistent effort. I'm excited about the potential of my GBHG to help many people in the weeks ahead.

OK, now it's your turn. What have you been dreaming about in your heart to accomplish, yet for whatever reason not getting done? Pull out some paper or open a file on your computer and write down your GBHG. Then break it into smaller steps and create a plan for you to get it done in the weeks ahead.

We've started a new year. I believe you can get it done. I will be accomplishing my GBHG. How about you?

An Unusual Interview Opportunity

2011-12-28T14:47:00.010-07:00

I love to learn from others who have spent years in publishing—and especially those rare individuals who have written many books and become bestselling authors. One of my long-term friends is Jerry B. Jenkins. He has written more than 175 published books and sold over 70 million books including over 62 million in the Left Behind series.

Jerry’s diverse career has included stints as a sportswriter, photographer, sports editor, magazine editor, magazine publisher, book editor, book publisher, biographer, marriage and family author, syndicated cartoon strip writer, and graduate school writing instructor.

On Thursday, January 5, 2012, at 5 p.m. PST, 8 p.m. EST, I’ll be interviewing Jerry in a FREE 70-minute teleseminar. During our interview, I will be encouraging listeners to learn about and get a copy of the 27th Edition of The Christian Writers Market Guide. Last year, Jerry took over the authorship of this critical reference book from our friend Sally E. Stuart.

Everyone who registers for this free event at: http://askjerryjenkins.com will be able to ask Jerry a question about writing or marketing. I’ll use these questions to grill Jerry during the teleseminar.

In addition to asking a question, for registering, you will receive a chapter from Jenkins’ book Writing for the Soul called Pursuing Publication. This free 24-page Ebook is immediately available when you register for the event.

If you can’t make the LIVE event on January 5th, I encourage you to go ahead and register for the event. If you don’t have a question, just say “no question” and reach the confirmation page where you can download Jerry’s free Ebook. Why go ahead and register? The event will be recorded. Shortly after the teleseminar, everyone who registers will receive the link to the recording. Then on your own schedule, you can listen to the replay recording on your computer or iPod.

I’m looking forward to the January 5th event at: http://askjerryjenkins.com and hope to speak with you soon.

Do You Want A Bestseller?

2011-12-26T06:25:00.009-07:00

Authors regularly ask me how their book can become a New York Times bestseller. It’s because of my role as a book publisher at Intermedia and my years in the publishing business. I wish I had some magic bestseller pill that I could dispense when I get this question but I don’t know how to find that pill. I don’t believe there is anyone who has that pill.

Sure there are people who will sell you programs and plans to push your book to the top. In some ways, looking for a formula for bestsellers is like checking out the latest diet book. These diet books always appear at the end of the year and the beginning of a new year. People face a new year and are determined to find the magic formula for losing weight and getting into shape. Over 15 years ago I wrote a diet book in 11 days which has sold over 100,000 copies.

My co-author told me, “Terry, losing weight is simple. You need to eat less and exercise more.” Yet this co-author realized people needed more instruction than these simple words.

I can tell you the simple words work. In the last 12 months, I made a decision for my own eating habits to eliminate as much sugar and carbs in my diet and to exercise daily. Throughout the entire year, I only missed about 16 days and mostly because of travel. The results: I weigh over 30 pounds less than I started January 2011 and I feel better. Yet to make such a change, I had to make many daily decisions about eating and exercise. It took a great deal of hard work to achieve what I accomplished.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been re-listening to the audio tapes from Mega Book Marketing University 2007 with Mark Victor Hansen. I’ve not heard this information in several years. Even mega bestselling authors like Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield worked like crazy for the first several years to sell their books. They followed the rule of five—where they each did five things each day to promote their book. That consistent action of a radio interview, a television interview, a newspaper articles, a blog post, etc. after a while reached a tipping point and the books became a bestseller.

Woven into the fabric of their story about success for Chicken Soup for the Soul is a consistent message of hard work to promote and market and sell their book to readers.

There is no magic pill. Most authors are unwilling or uneducated to do the necessary promotion work for their book. It takes a daily and consistent effort. What steps are you taking today to establish your presence in the marketplace and your expertise in your particular topic or area?

Recently I met with an author who wants to write a book about the sanctity of Christian marriage. I can appreciate and value such a desire. Her book (which I haven’t seen) may be terrific. I encouraged her to begin writing magazine articles and to start blogging about her marriage experiences. Also I encouraged her to begin a twitter account about marriage and posting on Facebook about marriage to establish her own expertise in this area. The regular effort to promote her own expertise on her selected topic will take some time to pay off but I believe her consistent action will pay off. It doesn’t happen instantly.

You’ve probably heard about someone who has become an overnight success. Yet when I look closely at these overnight success stories, these people have been in the trenches for years writing their stories, speaking to audiences and building their reputation in a particular area of the market.

Stake your claim and your area. The dream is possible but it will take hard work. There is no doubt about it but I believe you are up for the task.

Ten Tips For Getting Traffic Through Social Media

2011-12-17T09:01:00.009-07:00

Editor's note: Today I'm honored to welcome Jimmy D. Brown and his guest entry for The Writing Life.

By Jimmy D. Brown of Traffic F.U.E.L.

Here then are 10 tips for using social media to drive traffic to your sites…

1. Complete your profile.

When you first open your Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo or other social media site account, fill out your profile (including a picture). Doing so makes it easier for people to get to know you and build relationships with you, which will make it more likely they’ll click through to your site.

2. Interact.

Social sites are, by definition, social. They’re two way streets (not monologues). That’s why you shouldn’t just post content and move on. Instead, spend a few minutes each day interacting and getting to know people in your network.

3. Include a link to your site on your profile page.

This tip is simple but effective: Give people a reason to click through from the social media site to your blog or squeeze page. A promise of a free solution usually makes for a good enticement.

4. Ask your followers to “retweet” and repost.

If you create a “buzzworthy” post (such as a post on a hot or even controversial niche topic), as your Twitter followers to “retweet” it and ask your other social media networks to repost it.

5. Spend time each day growing your network.

Commit to spending at least 10 minutes each day growing your network. You’ll see big results by the end of the month. And you’ll be amazed at the size of your network in six months or a year from now. 6. Link your social site pages together.

Link your Twitter account to your Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, HubPages and other social media pages. And vice versa.

7. Use your real name so that you’re easy to find.

People who want to do business with you won’t respond well to working with “BaseballBoy72.” Instead, build trust by using your real name. Doing so also makes it easier for others to find you on Facebook and similar sites.

8. Post good content.

Social media is not just about networking, it’s also about sharing information. If you share some of your best information with your network, you’ll get respect, trust… and more sales. Plus you’ll establish yourself as a niche expert.

9. Optimize some of your content.

Some social sites (such as Yahoo! Answers and Squidoo) get crawled and indexed regularly by the search engines. As such, you may consider optimizing some of your content for the search engines by including relevant (longtail) keywords two or three times for every 100 words of content.

10. Get the most benefit for your time.

Instead of trying to interact and build relationships with thousands of prospects, consider building a relationship with a handful of partners. That’s because just one good partner can send you hundreds or thousands of prospects and customers.

In summary: Social media is only expected to grow in the future – and now is the best time to get involved if you’d like to grow your business right along with it. You can start today by applying the ten traffic-generating, relationship-building tips you just discovered!

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Jimmy D. Brown is the publisher of Traffic Jam newsletter and the owner of Traffic F.U.E.L. membership site. Drop by today to learn how to get completely free traffic to any website. Get your free traffic newsletter at http://imstitute.com/go.php?offer=write2sell&pid=20

Prepare for Your Media Interviews

2011-12-14T10:09:00.002-07:00

Several years ago, I wrote a book and my co-author appeared on the Today Show. I was excited about this opportunity to reach a large audience with the news about our book. I watched carefully the short segment to see how our book would be promoted.

By the end of the segment, I was yelling at my television. My co-author never mentioned the book. This person acted like they didn't even have a book. Talk about a missed opportunity! This person appeared before millions of people and didn't weave the title of our book into the conversation.

It's a personal example of where my co-author wasn't prepared for media interviews. If you are an author or small business owner, you want the media to interview you. Those interviews give you a chance to tell people about your business or latest book or newest product release. Do you prepare for these interviews or just “wing it?”

From my experience most people get out of an interview what they put into it. If you prepare and have your “talking points” then you take control of the exchanges and increase the possibilities that the interview will result in the type of article that you want.

Many authors haven't had media training or preparation to meet with the media. They have no concept of how to give a killer interview with the media. To help you in this area, I turned to Hollywood correspondent, Gayl Murphy. During her successful broadcasting career, Gayl has interviewed over 14,000 celebrities. From her years of experience as a journalist, she knows firsthand that for a killer interview, “You've got to tell it to sell it.”

Gayl has put together a special report of Interview Tactics and you can get this free report today when you register for our December 20th teleseminar. In the process of getting your free report, you can also ask Gayl a question about how you prepare for the media to interview you.

I'll be asking your questions to put Gayl on the hot seat and grill her about survival techniques for when the media interviews authors. I'm excited to host this live event and ask your questions. If you can't make the live event, go ahead and register because the teleseminar will be recorded. Everyone who registers will receive the replay information.

I'm looking forward to this opportunity for you to learn from such an experienced professional as Gayl Murphy. I hope to be speaking with you during our live event on Tuesday, December 20th. Register today.

Little Actions Have Big Potential

2011-12-13T09:13:00.003-07:00

Are you dreaming of some great things happening in your writing life over the next few months? I hope so. I look around at the publishing community and see great opportunity for readers—online and in print—in books and in magazines. As I read the publishing news, I learn about a continual stream of new publications and new publishing efforts. Each one is full of big potential—only if you take action.

As I speak with authors, I find many of them have deep-seated dreams for their novel to find a publisher or their nonfiction book to jump on the bestseller list. I applaud the dreams but they must be backed with consistent action. Are you searching for the right publisher for your next work? Are you actively approaching literary agents to champion your cause? When you learn about a new editor, are you writing that editor and pitching an article or an idea? Are you approaching long-term editor friends with your ideas and pitches?

When I dig into what these authors are doing to expand their writing life, I find very little action. I don't know what will catch fire and become the next best thing in the new year. I do know I will not find it, if I'm not actively looking. Also if you are stuck or not finding a place for your work, I encourage you to knock on a different door. If you are writing novels, then try to publish some short stories. If you are writing a nonfiction book or book proposal, then pitch some magazine articles and write some shorter works. If you don't have any presence online then begin building one. There are few overnight successes but the key is to take action every day and build potential. That potential remains unrealized if the pitch is never made and the book stays on your computer or in your file drawer.

It's an old image but big doors turn on little hinges. As a writer, you are looking for the right connection or connections to move you into the next level with your publishing life. It will not happen unless you are on the move and taking action—daily action.

And when you get rejected? I've been in this business many years and I believe it is important to plan your response for how you will handle rejection. I encourage you to follow the example of Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield. When they were looking for a publisher for Chicken Soup for the Soul and getting rejected. Each time, they turned to each other and said one little word, “Next.” That word propels you forward to the next opportunity and the next place to consider your work. It prevents you from sticking the idea back in your drawer and never sending it out again.

A Key Tool For Every Author

2011-12-11T15:07:00.003-07:00

From my years in publishing, I've learned authors are a stubborn bunch. Most of us have huge dreams for our writing. We want other people to read it, publish our work, pay us fairly for our work—yet we don't want to actively be involved in marketing our work and telling other people about our writing. We want to create and write more words. I've been consistently teaching writers to add regular marketing to their writing life. These skills are something that everyone can learn—and it's not too early (or late) in the process for you to begin building your audience.

Recently I met with a much-published author who had a stack of proposals and ideas for books that he wanted to write. I admired his drive and desire to write new books. He does have some websites and I checked out those sites. During our conversation, he mentioned that he didn't have a platform or visibility in the market.

As I looked at his website, this author was missing a key tool in his arsenal of reaching his audience. He had no list-building device on his website. There are many different forms of this list-building device. In general, the author offers a free Ebook or a free audio or a free special report—in exchange for the reader giving their first name and email address. In the last few years, I've created a number of these types of offers.

For example, my Straight Talk From the Editor, 18 Keys to A Rejection-Proof Submission is a free Ebook. I promote this Ebook on my name website, my blog and a number of other places including twitter.

When you create one of these tools, you are gathering names and emails for an email list. Each time you send an email (whether a single offer) or an e-zine, you include the removal or unsubscribe links so the reader can no longer receive your mailings.

Everyone begins with a small number of subscribers then through providing consistent quality materials, your list grows and your audience grows. To me, List Building is a key tool for every author or would-be author. It doesn't matter if you are writing nonfiction or fiction, poetry or novels or magazine articles, every writer and author should be working on this regular communication tool.

To help you with more of the details about how to build a list, I've launched The List Building Tycoon. This step-by-step guide will teach you the various elements of list building and start today to gather your audience. This 76–page resource is backed with my 60 day risk-free guarantee.

Whether you get my List Building Tycoon ebook or not, I hope you will begin to take action and develop your own audience. It's a key step for every author.

Use Audio to Grow as a Writer

2011-12-03T12:48:00.002-07:00

Each of us have the same constraints for our writing life: time. Yet some people manage to get so much more done in that 24 hour period. We want to write (and have plans in this area) yet we also want to continue to grow as writers and communicators.

One of the tools that I've been using for this area of growth has been audio. While I don't have a long commute like many people, I do spend a fair amount of time in my car driving—even in short bursts of time like five or ten minutes. How do I use those short amounts of time?

Several years ago, I purchased Jack Canfield's bestselling book, The Success Principles, How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. I hauled the book to a conference where I saw Jack and he autographed my book. I hauled the book on several trips—yet never managed to crack open the pages and read it. If you are a reader, I imagine you have a few books where you handle them in the same way.

I decided I wanted to learn the information in The Success Principles and another means to that information was through audio. I purchased the audio book and loaded the six CDs into my car player. Then for the next few weeks every time I was in my car—even for a few minutes—I turned on the audio book. In a short amount of time, I heard every single CD and learned a great deal from these CDs. In fact, the experience was so valuable to me that I plan to hear the entire book again soon.

Several weeks ago, I launched Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams Audio. It is almost an hour and a half of my teaching about different ways you can jumpstart your publishing life. It doesn't matter whether you are unpublished or much published, you will gain practical insight and inspiration from this CD.

Karen Morerod, author of More Than Just A Pretty Face, wrote about my CD, “The most challenging thing for me is: time. My family is great at giving me writing time, but after working seven hours away from home, my energy/creative levels are waning by the time I get home - IF, indeed, I have the luxury of being at home in the evening.

Many times I’ve driven the two hours from KC to Mahattan and I must say, listening to your CD was the fastest drive I've ever had! Usually when I try to listen to CDs in the car, my mind wanders. But this CD totally got me encouraged to get BUSY - plus it had such practical ideas. The CD gave me vision! It was wonderful.”

Time is the challenge for every writer. If you choose wisely, you can use audio as another tool in your arsenal to grow as a writer. It's what I'm doing. Are you?

Continually Build Your Audience

2011-12-02T11:57:00.001-07:00

It's one of the simple yet necessary actions for every author or would-be author. They need to continually build their audience—people who follow them, learn from them, enjoy whatever they have to say and read their work and finally buy their products and services.

While the need is simple, the importance can't be overstated. There is a great deal of competition for our attention in today's marketplace.

There are multiple ways to build this audience for your message. For years, I've encouraged authors to regularly write a newsletter and send it out. I've been building my own newsletter list since February 2004. On a regular basis I send this publication to my audience. This consistent communication device helps you:

Build your expertise and credibility in the marketplace
Allows you to encourage and motivate others
Gives you a means to share information
Gives you the ability to sell your products and services

Yet here is one of the keys with a newsletter—you need to continually add subscribers and build your audience. One of the easiest ways is to give away a free Ebook or something of value to the people you want to attract. In exchange for the free Ebook, the reader has to give you their first name and email address. Through this exchange you build the reach of your audience and message.

For several years, I've been using a tool to build my subscriber list called PopUp Domination. Whether you have a regular website or a Word Press blog, PopUp Domination is a great resource because it allows the reader to easily sign up for your free offer. In addition to receiving the free offer, that reader is added to your list of subscribers for ongoing communication.

I use this tool on several different websites including the one with my name: www.terrywhalin.com. If you go to this site, you will see that you can receive my free Ebook, Platform-building Ideas for Every Author.

Another place I use PopUp Domination is at the sign-up page for my affiliate program: www.terryinfo.com If you go to this page, you will see the pop up for my free Ebook, You Can Make Money and the simple sign up buttons.

A third place where I use PopUp Domination is on my Book Proposal Coach website: www.bookproposalcoach.com. You will receive a 91–page Ebook, Book Proposals That Sell Extra Special Report.

Currently PopUp Domination is announcing the third version of their program. I recommend you look into it as an important tool in your arsenal of building your subscribers and audience for your message.

Gain Skill at Choosing the Right Word

2011-12-01T10:24:00.008-07:00

For every writer, a key foundational skill is word choice. It's critical to use the right word at the right time. Nancy Ragno has written a terrific tool in this book, WORD SAVVY, USE THE RIGHT WORD EVERY TIME, ALL THE TIME to help every writer in this area.

In the opening pages, Ragno clearly identifies her audience and what you will learn in these pages: "Being word savvy mans that you keep abreast of the times. You stay on top of important new words entering the language and are alert for words you need to know. You are aware of the keywords computers are likely to scan for your resume. You know the important terms and buzzwords in your field. Through word savvy you stay in the loop, maintain your competitive edge, and keep on top. How can you achieve word savvy? This book tells you what you need to know. You'll learn how to:

* Master seventy-six commonly confused word pairs.

* Conquer fifty-two commonly misused words.

* Use tricky singulars and plurals with assurance.

* Include the right keywords in your resume.

* Keep abreast of new buzzwords in your field." (Page 1-2)

As someone who has studied the language for many years, I loved reading this book and found many great reminders plus I learned a great deal from it. Becoming WORD SAVVY is a key step for every success-oriented reader. I recommend this book.

Move Into High Gear

2011-11-27T10:24:00.001-07:00

Time has marches on. We've reached the holiday season again. I can hear the Christmas music in the malls and watch the decorations spreading throughout my neighborhood. The family has celebrated their Thanksgiving feast and is looking forward to holidays together. I love this time of year.

In the publishing world, many of the key decisions grind to almost a standstill. When I was an acquisitions editor, it was almost impossible to have a publication board meeting to present new book ideas and authors. That means proposals and pitches pile up until after the holidays. Many of the publishing professionals are focused on sending holiday greetings, attending company functions and generally taking some time away from the office for family and vacations.

When you hear about this standstill you have two choices about how you react. You can throw your hands up and say, “Guess it's a bad time to send anything to publishers or agents.”

Or you can lean into it and decide it's a great time to move your work on a proposal or pitch into high gear. I encourage you to take the latter approach because it will help you move forward. Recently I held a free teleseminar about proposal creation. I answered many questions from writers. As I've held these events, I've found many people ask almost exactly the same question for a particular topic. This event was recorded and you can download the replay right away to your computer or iPod and hear my teaching. Plus you will receive a free 24–page resource, Book Proposal Basics when you go to the website. If you don't have a question, just type “no question.” Take action today and get my teaching about proposals.

If you want to push forward with your book idea and get your proposal in the best possible shape, I recommend you take my step-by-step Write A Book Proposal course. I set up this course on auto-responders which means if you sign up on a Tuesday, you will immediately receive the first lesson. Then seven days later or on the next Tuesday, you will receive the next lesson. This 12 lesson course includes a number of surprise bonus lessons and a graduation gift over three months. You complete the lessons on your own pace and it builds until you have a complete book proposal and sample chapter. You will be ready to hit the new year running hard and find a traditional book deal for your book.

Maybe you feel like you have a handle on creating an excellent book proposal. My next suggestion is to establish your own Simple Membership System. Almost every writer that I know has some skill that they teach to others. What do you teach? Can you take that information and repurpose or use it to create your own course? I believe the next few weeks create an opening for you to begin to craft your own teaching into an online course. The Simple Membership System is a complete package with three bonuses and detailed information to launch your own teaching.

If you are checking your email repeatedly looking for a response from a publisher or literary agent. You will be hard pressed to get a response during the next few weeks while they are focused on the holidays. It's not a time to relax but instead you can move your writing life into high gear.

I've written this article to encourage you to take action and move your writing into high gear. I'm taking my own advice and finalizing several of my own projects over the next few weeks. I believe you can achieve your publishing dreams. Yet it doesn't happen on its own steam. You have to take action each day to keep things moving forward.

The Beauty of Gratitude

2011-11-19T10:55:00.002-07:00

We live in a thankless world. It's rare to receive a handwritten Thank You note for any act of kindness. It's almost a lost practice to send little notes of appreciation.

Repeatedly I've seen the beauty of gratitude as I express it for different actions. For example, recently I received a book in the mail from an author. He was excited about the contents and sent it to me. I often write about books and review books so I can appreciate the effort from this writer to send it to me and get it into my hands. Unfortunately from my years in publishing, at a glance, I could tell this product was homemade and lacking in a number of areas. I'll not be writing about this book nor reading it. What could I do to encourage this author? I decided that I could express my appreciation to this author and wish him all the best with the book.

I pulled out a Thank You note and expressed my appreciation and put it into today's mail.

Because I've been writing about books for years, authors will often send me their books. I appreciate the gesture but often it is a challenge to find any time to read these books. Even writing a short note of appreciation takes time but it is time well-spent in my view.

I love the season of Thanksgiving because it renews our focus on gratitude. Are you looking for a way to touch people, build relationships and get noticed? A simple step is to develop an attitude of gratitude. As you increase your focus on thankfulness and gratitude, it will lift your spirits and help you become a positive influence to the people in your life. I'm committed to being grateful much more than during this season. It's a pattern I want to carry out every day. How about you?

Where Do You Autograph a Book?

2011-11-08T11:16:00.001-07:00

I love autographed books from the author and keep them on my shelves for years. In yesterday's mail, I received a new book. The author and I corresponded about it through email and I asked her to autograph it. I was surprised at where she signed my book—on the inside of the front cover.

In the last few months, I've received several autographed books from new authors who signed with a ballpoint pen on the inside of the front cover.

From my years in publishing, the inside cover of a book is not the normal place for an author to autograph a book. For years I've been attending book trade shows where authors sign books for booksellers and others who attend. The most common place to autograph a book is on the title page.

Often the title page has a little space for the author to sign the person's name, a little personal sentence along with their signature. When it comes to hardcover books, they frequently have a blank page right inside the cover or the opening page of the book. It's another spot where authors frequently sign books. Paperbacks are almost always signed on the title page of the book.

Also when you autograph a book, it is best to use a permanent fine point marker. Over the years, ballpoint pen tends to fade where the permanent marker will continue to look good for years to come.

I've signed a number of books. My first step is always to ask if the person wants me to write their name. Some times they have purchased the book for someone else. Other times they just want me to sign the book without personalizing it. Also carefully make sure you spell that name correctly since you are signing directly on the book. I never presume I know how to spell the name and have heard many unusual spellings of names over the years.

Besides writing the reader's name, I will write something to commemorate the occasion of our meeting like “Terrific to meet you in _____.” I make a point to sign something personal and unique to each person. Why?

Years ago I was interviewing bestselling authors. I was new to publishing and I carefully prepared for each interview and read as many books from an author as I could before I spoke with them. I carried these books to my interview and in the final moments would ask them to autograph the book. It was a great learning experience for me to see where each person signed the book, how they personalized it and handled the autograph process.

One of the most memorable experiences is an example of how not to autograph. I lived in Southern California and drove to the home of a bestselling author to interview him for a magazine article. I sat in his living room for about an hour for the interview. At the end of our time, I pulled out a copy of his most recent book and asked him to autograph it. “No problem,” he said as he flipped to the title page. He quickly scrawled his name and returned the book to me. I thanked him but inside I was floored that he didn't even personalize it with my name, the date or anything else.

This experience taught me a lifelong lesson about autographing books. If possible, I always personalize every book that I sign. My goal is to create a prized book that the reader will want to keep for years.

Twist Your Skills in a Different Direction

2011-10-31T11:40:00.026-07:00

Many of us have a plan of what we want to do with our writing such as publish a book or write for a publication or get our work out to others online. You’ve worked hard to learn the skill of writing.

Could you take your writing skills in a different direction and find more opportunity and success?

It has happened in my own writing life. At first I wanted to write books yet I wrote magazine articles, radio scripts and many other types of writing. In the midst of heading one direction with your writing, it’s easy to lose sight that your writing skills can be used in a variety of ways.

Today I wanted to write you about one of these other ways. Picture it: Working from home by making your living on eBay^®. No more boring corporate meetings. No more rush hour traffic. No more office politics.

Sound good?

Then you may want to consider starting an exciting career writing and selling products on eBay^®. (Click Here to learn more.)

You can get started in three easy steps...

Step 1 Find a product source.

The key to making money on eBay® is to find low-cost products that you can sell for a tidy profit. Thus you need to find a source of cheap or even free products.Here are three such sources:

Troll yard sales in your neighborhood. Go early for the best selection. Go later for the best deals on remaining merchandise.

Look for deals on www.Craiglist.org. Be sure to check out the “free” ads section.

Find closeouts and other specials. This is where you get good deals on new merchandise, by buying in bulk, buying closeouts, buying from stores that are going out of business, etc.

Step 2: Write good auction titles and descriptions.

Those who make a lot of money on eBay^® know that good photos, compelling auction titles and exciting auction descriptions make all the difference in the world. It takes writing skill to create compelling titles and interesting descriptions.

For instance, just consider these two statements:

Bad Example: “Realistic doll moves her eyes and even cries.”

Versus…

Good Example:“Your daughter’s eyes will light up when you give her this doll! She’ll have so much fun playing with this realistic doll, because the eyes move and the baby even cries.”

See? The first is just a statement of fact and features. The second statement weaves features and benefits together, which makes the description more exciting. And exciting descriptions compel people to bid, which means your auction ends at a higher price!

Step 3: Sell on the backend.

Once your auction ends successfully, you collect your money and ship the product. But this isn’t the end of your relationship with your buyer.

Indeed, it’s just the beginning. That’s because your next step is to include a flier in the shipment, which will promote additional related products to your winning bidder.

Tip: You can also write and send out postcards in the mail later on. And you can offer your customers a freebie – like writing a free downloadable report – to join your online mailing list.

Example: Let’s suppose you’re selling children’s dolls. You can write fliers then send them out to promote additional dolls, as well as accessories such as doll houses and doll clothes.

Now that you have a good handle on how to get started on eBay^®, it’s time for you to discover the secrets of finding low cost products, getting more bidders and having auctions end with high bid prices. You can find all these secrets and more inside the 31 Day Guide to Making Money on eBay^®. This 60-page resource gives you the step-by-step help that you need to start writing in this direction.Get your copy here.

If you are thinking about trying out the 31 Day Guide to Making Money on eBay^®, thisis a great time and you can do it RISK-FREE. Get this guide, read it and use it for up to 60 days and you can return it for any reason, just send me an email and I will refund your money. It’s that easy. Get your guide today.

Three Ways to Grow with Audio

2011-10-30T15:37:00.003-07:00

How are you making the most effective use of your time? Each of us have the same constraints of 24 hours in a single day. When that day is gone, the time has forever disappeared. As I look at my own life, I see huge blocks of time which have been wasted in mindless activities.

As a writer and communicator, I'm committed to continually growing and learning more about my craft. Audio products provide another way to learn new skills and ideas. Here's three ways that I use audio (and you can use them too):

1. Turn off the radio in your car and instead listen to an audio CD. I drive every day a short ten or fifteen minutes to my mail box. During this brief time in the car, I could listen to my radio or sit in silence. Each idea has value but instead what I've been doing for years is to listen to a brief portion of an audio. I've heard entire audio books in these brief amounts of time because I'm listening on a consistent basis.

2. Add the audio to your favorites on your iPod and listen to it while you take a brisk walk or another form of exercise. As writers, we spend hours sitting at our computers. The exercise will help clear your thinking and work your heart and lungs. Plus if you take your iPod along, then you can listen to an audio recording. It depends on the audio but the stimulation may work well into your writing. It does for my writing and I highly recommend it as another way to grow in your craft and make good use of your exercise time.

3. Decide to take 10 to 15 minutes each day and listen to an audio on your computer. Whether you take a break in the middle of your day or end your day listening to the audio, you can grow from the experience of listening to an audio product on a regular basis. I've listened to nonfiction and fiction books as well as many teaching CDs. The time spent listening to these audio CDs has helped my own writing life—and I know it will help yours as well.

To help you grow in your writing, I've created an audio: Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams Audio Workshop. I packed the CD with the maximum amount of information that it will hold. Also I've added the MP3 file when you purchase the physical CD along with a number of outstanding bonuses. This product comes with my no questions asked love it or return it for a full refund 30–day guarantee.

If you have a question about publishing, I hope you will ask it for my free teleseminar on Tueday, November 1^st. I'm giving a free 26–page Ebook, Follow the Characteristics of Success, which is a chapter in Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams — and I've never given it away before this event. If you can't make the exact time, then please sign up because everyone who registers will receive the replay information so you can download the audio to your computer or iPod and listen to it on your schedule.

I hope you will begin to make use of any down time with a few minutes of an audio product. It will help you keep growing as a writer and communicator. It is certainly working for me and I know it will work for you.

A Valuable Article Habit for Writers

2011-10-29T16:50:00.005-07:00

Many people have used the adjective “prolific” when they speak of my body of work. It is true and in the printed magazine world (more than 50 publications) and the book world (more than 60 books with traditional publishers) and in the online world (more than 1,000 searchable entries in my blog).

I've encouraged you to build your own platform through many different tools and resources. People continue to get great value from my free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. If you don't have it, use the link to get it now, and then print it and read it.

Also I've been an advocate for repurposing your content and getting as much mileage as possible from it. For example, I've taken magazine articles published years ago and reworked them and sold them as reprints to a different publication or used them on my online newsletter. Or I've taken my blog articles and used them in my personal newsletter, Right-Writing News. Or I've used this same material and reworked it to become a chapter in a published book. This skill of repurposing your content is a valuable skill for every writer to learn and consistently practice. In a tiny way, I started an area with articles but it hasn't been changed in some time.

Recently through two resources, I've learned that I've been missing out on even more exposure and online traffic to my site. While I've been repurposing the material within my own resources, I've not been getting the articles out in the broadest possible way to build additional traffic and exposure. Many of my blog entries could be stand alone articles which others can use in their blogs and electronic newsletters. This type of exposure doesn't happen in a vacuum. You have to set it up right and I haven't. But I'm going to change with a new and consistent plan.

I've created a new location for these articles on my personal website (follow the link). At the moment, I only have a couple of articles on this page but I'm committed to regularly growing these articles. Also I will be submitting these articles to several of the top article sites to get additional exposure for them.

While I'm just getting started on this valuable habit for writers who produce excellent content, I want to give you two resources that will explain a systematic approach for authors to distribute their content. The first is a three CD audio program from Bob Bly called The Article Marketing Kit. For two of the CDs, Bob interviews Wendy Montes de Oca.

The content on these CDs is excellent and well worth listening to them several times. You will learn how to use Content 2.0 to distribute your free content so you can generate massive traffic, establish your reputation as an expert in your niche, build a large and profitable opt-in e-list, cement your relationship with your subscribers and increase orders, sales, and revenues online.

During the Content 2.0 teleseminar, Bob and Wendy will walk you through the five critical steps of effective content syndication:

1-Syndication partners and networks.

You'll learn the identities of web sites and partners who can offer your content to their visitors and members. Also they show you how to submit your articles to these places.

2-Online press releases.

Every article can and should be reworked into a press release that you can post on PR web sites such as PRbuzz and PRLeap.

3-Network communities.

Discover how to use Twitter, Digg, and many other social media to drive traffic to your content and your website.

4-Article directories.

Wendy and Bob review which article directory sites are important and how to submit articles to them.

5-Relevant posts.

Post excerpts from your articles on relevant blogs, forums, and bulletin boards - with a link to the full article. Bob and Wendy cover a great deal of other information in this course and you can learn more of the details at The Article Marketing Kit.

The second excellent resource in this area of Wendy Montes de Oca's new book, Content Is Ca$h. Last month, I included an excerpt of Content Is Ca$h. In the introduction, the author clearly identifies her audience: "This book is ideal for marketers, editors, bloggers, solopreneurs, freelancers, consultants, copywriters, and webmasters." (Page 8).

Whether you are a brand new to the concept of repurposing your content or an experienced marketer, practical wisdom and insight to apply to your daily business is packed into the pages of this book. The author writes with authority and depth of knowledge. Many people are not leveraging their content to increase their earning power. They need to apply this information to their business.

It is a resource that I will be reading and re-reading in the days ahead to apply the pages to my writing life. I highly recommend CONTENT IS CA$H as a tested resource.

Beware of the Hard Sell

2011-10-17T10:32:00.005-07:00

Editors Note: I wanted to give you a taste of Barbara Techel's book, Class Act. I requested an excerpt. In this article, she gives sound advice for every book author when it comes to the hard sell. WTW

By Barbara Techel

As an author, you have two reasons for making appearances: Primarily to spread the message you were passionate enough to write about in the first place, but also to sell books. The reality is that, in order to continue spreading our messages, we must sell our books to finance the effort¬. If we’re lucky, we’ll leave behind a pleasant or at least worthwhile reading experience, as well. But we must be careful not to let that need overshadow the needs of those who invite us to speak in the first place.

Many authors get caught up in a heavy-handed sales pitch, when what the audience expects is an informative, entertaining or inspiring talk about a subject they’re interested in. There is nothing that turns an audience off so much as feeling they are captive to a sales pitch, so do everyone a favor and avoid this pitfall.

Instead of thinking about sales, when doing a presentation anywhere (but especially in a classroom), think about bringing value to your audience by sharing your message, your author story, and your book in a way that either teaches a valuable life lesson or inspires or encourages in some way. The impression you leave is what will create awareness of your message, interest in your books, and put you in demand as a speaker.

Be very careful to keep your sales language so subtle that it’s almost invisible. This is especially important when talking with young audiences. You do not want to blatantly market to children…or to people of any age, for that matter. There are ways you can gain book sales from your appearances, which I will cover in detail later in this book, without any hard sell.

Barbara Techel is the award-winning author of the Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Dog book series. She has shared her story of hope and inspiration about her dachshund, Frankie, who is in a wheelchair, with thousands of children and adults since 2007 with over 300 author appearances to her credit. Barbara is also a speaker and publisher. Learn more about her work at: www.joyfulpaws.com

Excerpt From Class Act, Sell More books through School and Library Author Appearances By Barbara Techel [Joyful Pay Prints Press, Paperback]

Sell More Books With This Book

2011-10-16T18:16:00.005-07:00

Millions of books appear in print each year. Check the link in the last sentence if you don't believe me. Many authors are unsure how to generate sales for their books. Barbara Techel can show you the path to sales and success through school and library appearances. CLASS ACT emphasizes schools and library settings but also is ideal for any author who wants to speak since she mentions civic groups like Lions Club and Kiwanis.

As Techel writes in the introduction, "In this book, I share everything I wish I'd known when I started out promoting my new books…One of the best ways for you to promote yourself and your book is to get out there and do it. That may sound funny, but it's easy to think your way into an endless cycle of not knowing where to start, and so being afraid to get going. When it comes to book promotion, especially to libraries and classrooms, action is your friend. You've already taken a great first step by buying this book. Read it through, and then begin talking with teachers you know, or friends of teachers. Let them know what you're up to, and what you have to offer. Also with the Internet and other technology we have at our fingertips these days, we have so many options available to help us connect with these potential presentation venues." (Page 7-8)

Key details are covered in this book such as how to put together your presentation, how to locate speaking venues, what to charge, how to pitch and promote. Then Techel includes successful organization and business steps when going to the venue. She also covers details about how to do remote computer presentations using Skype.

As a book author and publisher, I found this book a comprehensive how-to guide book which covers the details. If you are an author of any type of book (nonfiction or fiction) (children or adult), I encourage you get this book and follow the advice. As they say, "The devil is in the details.” CLASS ACT includes the details that you need to successfully sell more books with personal appearances in the classroom or libraries.

Answers for Your Proposal Questions

2011-10-11T22:50:00.003-07:00

You pitch your book idea to an agent or editor. They ask for a proposal since these publishing professionals do not read manuscripts but read proposals.

Then you run into a snag and have a question. Where do you turn for answers? Or maybe you've been submitting your manuscript and getting little response or only form rejections from agents and editors.

You believe your idea is a solid one for consideration yet something is off and you don't know where to turn with your questions.

I've got good news. It's likely you are asking the same question that others are asking. Many years ago, King Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

As an editor and literary agent, I've answered the same questions from different writers from different parts of the country. Thursday, October 13th I'm hosting another teleseminar about the creation and marketing of book proposals. I'll be answering your questions for a full 70–minute free event. If you can't make the live event, still register because it will be recorded and you will receive the replay information which you can download to your computer or iPod.

In addition as a resource, I've created a new Ebook, Book Proposal Basics. When you register for the teleseminar, you can get this free 24–page resource.

If you don't have a question, that's OK. I encourage you to go ahead and sign up. Just put “no question” in the box asking for a question and you will quickly reach the confirmation page where you can instantly download the free Ebook.

I look forward to answering your questions about proposals on the call.

10 Rules of Social Marketing (Guerrilla) Engagement

2011-09-30T10:21:00.009-07:00

Editor's Note: Today I have a special guest blogger with some terrific insight for every writer. I hope you enjoy Wendy's article as much as I did. Terry

By Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA

As the social media landscape grows with mainstream and niche sites, so will the innovative ways to get marketing messages to members of these social media sites. However, before you starting posting away with your guerrilla marketing tactics, it's good to keep in mind my 10 rules of social marketing engagement:

1. Be aware. Know each social media community's law of the land. Each network, forum, blog, chat room, and bulletin board has its own set of rules that you are required to abide by as a member. Read the rules and stick to them. If the site has a specific area for promotional or marketing messages, keep your posts of this nature restricted to those areas. If rules dictate what type of messages are allowed (such as no overtly self serving, defamatory, illegal, elicit, or pornographic material), follow the rules. Any deviation will prompt a warning by the site's moderator or a ban from the site.

2. Be active. Don't just go in a few times and hit members with your marketing message. Get involved. Participate in discussions. Interact with members. Read and respond to engaging posts with no hidden agenda.

3. Be relevant. Make sure you're posting in areas of the site that are relevant to the topic you're discussing. Many forums have segmented subareas by category and interest level. This helps the members easily find the topics they're interested in and keeps you from muddying the waters in unrelated areas of the site.

4. Be genuine. Let the conversations flow organically. Contribute real, thought-provoking comments that members will find interesting.

5. Be useful. As a member, your goal is to participate in intelligent, useful discussions. Make sure you're adding value to the site in some way. Your comments should also be valuable to the reader and not random posts. Nothing gets under members' skin more than messages that appear to be blatant spam.

6. Be subtle. Don't overlink. Many marketers embed their entire message with URLs to whatever page they're trying to drive traffic to. Less is more here. Some sites even have rules about not allowing links in the body copy of a post, but keeping them only in the auto signature field where your username is. Links should be relevant to the post (such as a great article that you want to share with members-then enclose the link so they can read for themselves). Use links sparingly.

7. Be balanced. Mix up your messages. Don't just go into a site and start spamming away with your marketing messages. Go in. Hang out for a few weeks. Get to really know the members and the site. See which areas of the site have topics and discussions that vibe with you. Mix up your posts. Find balance with the editorial and marketing messages you're posting. The idea is to provide value and engage. If you overmarket, it will be transparent, and you'll be labeled a "shill." That will affect your credibility with other members.

8. Be informative. Don't limit your article uploads or links to your own publication. Be aware of what's happening in your area of interest. Be able to have intelligent discussions about different news, events, and publications under your subject matter. If you see other related articles that you think members would find interesting-even material from other publishers -share the knowledge. After all, that's ultimately what social media is about.

9. Be personable. Develop relationships with the community on both a "friend" and an expert level for your area of specialty. Let your personality and credentials shine through with the information you share. Offer free expert advice. Share funny stories. Have witty discussions. Start to truly develop a memorable presence and bond with the community.

10. Be respectful. Don't spam your fellow members. Many social communities (such as Facebook and LinkedIn) post user email addresses on their Profile page. This leads to a flurry of unsolicited emails to the unsuspecting user from social networking barracudas that use this personal information for their own self-serving purposes. Remember, just because an email is posted on a user's profile page doesn't mean that person opted in to receive solicitations, promotions, or similar email communications. Sending unwanted and unsolicited emails is spam, plain and simple. Don't exploit community members' personal information.

Wendy Montes de Oca, M.B.A., has a diversified background that includes nearly 20 years of experience in marketing, media, financial services, and law. She has a proven track record with both acquisition and retention efforts, as well as has both editorial and copywriting success. Her specialties include multichannel marketing (print, Web, email, direct mail, radio, and TV), with expertise in Internet marketing. You can learn more at: Precision Marketing Media.com

Excerpt From Content Is Cash: Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales,Leads and Buzz By Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA [Que Publishing, Paperback]

Questions to Ask When Rejected

2011-09-29T14:01:00.005-07:00

It is no fun to receive those rejection notices from a magazine or book publisher or literary agent. Almost everyone uses standard form letters in this process. Because of the high volume of submissions at some places, you are fortunate to even receive a rejection notice.

When you receive a rejection, there are some questions that I like to ask myself about the submission.

First, did I send it to the right editor and the right place? The publishing world is constantly changing and I've heard Sally Stuart say that at least 90% of the entries in The Christian Market Guide change each year. It's one of the reasons seven years after Howard Publishing changed to Howard Books, that I continue to receive submissions to the Fiction Acquisitions Editor at Howard Publishing (a role I've not had in years).

Second question: Do I like and believe in what I sent out? When it returns, you have an opportunity to adjust your pitch. Most of the time, it's probably ready to go out to someone else but it's a good question to ask. My much published journalist friend Kelly James-Enger calls rejections a bong and encourages you to get it right back out into the market in her article here: http://bit.ly/pupeLa Look at #10.

Third question: Can I take my material in a different direction where I can get my material into the market and earn the money directly (instead of a once-a-year royalty payment from a book publisher)? In the past, I've encourage you to look at your material differently. Recently I've created a new product to teach you how to create your own course. Everyone has something to teach others. It's the model that I used to create my proposal course and now I've pulled it together into an affordable--yet robust program for any writer: Simple Membership System

For every writer persistence and perseverance is a big part of this work. You need to be on a continual search for opportunity. When you find it, latch on to it and run toward it. The search may take a while but you can get there with continued effort.

Cut Your Learning Curve as a Writer

2011-09-26T17:17:00.003-07:00

The world of publishing is constantly changing. There are many different ways to learn about these changes such as blogs, online newsletters, books and audio recordings.

None of these ways will replace face to face exchanges and sitting in a workshop learning from professionals. In the many years that I've been in publishing, many of my educational moments came at a writers' conference. I've formed relationships which have lasted many years and many other benefits from my investment to attend a conference. I know it has cut down my learning curve as a writer and propelled me down the road to publication.

I've heard many bestselling authors tell me that their career went rapidly forward after attending a writers conference.

This week I've convinced Rick Frishman, the founder of Planned Television Arts (one of the largest Public Relations firms in the U.S.) and publisher at Morgan James Publishing, to sit on the hot seat of a live teleseminar about the importance of writers conferences. Rick is the founder of Author 101 University, which has been held multiple times in various cities.

In this free event, Rick will be answering your questions about why you should make the investment of time and money to attend a writers' conference. I hope you will go over to the site and ask your question.

If you can't make the live event on Thursday evening, I encourage you to still sign up for the event. It will be recorded and everyone who registers will receive the link to the recording.

I look forward to asking your questions to Rick Frishman on Thursday.

Write A Memoir That Sells

2011-09-11T13:09:00.003-07:00

Without fail, it happens at almost every writers conference.

Some writer will come to me with a memoir or personal experience book. I can see it in their eyes and expressions. They've already met with the literary agents and editors who have told them that they can't publish this type of writing. Discouraged with such pointed news, they want my advice about what they can do with their work.

Each of these writers has invested countless hours on their writing. Some of them have blogged their experiences while others have simply cranked the words into their computer. Their stories are driven with their desire to help others who can learn from their experiences.

Because I've been in the publishing industry for many years, I can see both sides of the situation. The editors have good reasons behind their reluctance. Many of these writers are inexperienced, unpublished with no visibility in the marketplace (readers or fans) yet they want to tell their story. Others are trying to write a book too soon in the normal cycle of events for an author.

I have a number of concrete action steps these writers can take to change their situation and produce a memoir that sells.

1. They need to practice their storytelling and writing craft through producing personal experience magazine articles. Many publications take personal experience stories. Look at the magazines which you see frequently. Study the publication and note the articles which are written in the first person and include personal experiences. Notice the big pattern of the story. These types of article are each driven to a single point or take away lesson for the reader. When you are published in magazines, it will give you publishing experience and more visibility in the marketplace. Also you will reach many more people with your shorter magazine articles than you will probably reach with your books.

2. These writers need to set up a blog to capture their raw writing and get it into the marketplace. The search engines like blogs and it's a place to build an audience and group of readers for your work—provided you do more than write the blog. You have to have a goal for your blog and write with a purpose. I suggest you get a copy of my risk-free guide, The 31 Day Guide to Blogging for Bucks because it will help you make money from your blog and also focus it.

3. A key to reaching the literary agents or editors is to have an excellent book proposal or pitch. Take my Write A Book Proposal online course or read my Book Proposals That Sell to help you learn more in this area.

4. Get more ideas and tips from this excellent article by Mary DeMuth in the June 2011 issue of The Writer called A Smart Approach to Memoir. For example, this article points out a National Association for Memoir Writers. While I was unfamiliar with this group, I know the power of organizations and from looking at their website, believe they have many solid resources to help your memoir writing.

5. Read memoirs on a regular basis. One of the questions that I regularly ask these memoir writers is, “Do you read memoirs?” To my surprise, they often answer that they do not. Just look at the memoir/ autobiography section in any bookstore or your local library and you will be surprised at the variety of books and topics in this category. These books do continue to sell on a regular basis.

Recently I read David and Nancy French's excellent book, Home and Away: A Story of a Family in a Time of War. The book is well-written and full of practical take away messages for every reader. It's the same type of material that I recommend you build into your own memoir. If you do, then you will write a memoir that sells.

Don't let the naysayers get to you. Memoir continues to sell and be published. You have to persist to find the right place for your writing.

Reviews : A Missing Piece For Many Authors

2011-09-06T18:00:00.004-07:00

For many authors, book reviews are a mystery. They have no idea how book reviewers select the books that they write about. Nor do they know how to get review copies of their books into the right hands of the decision makers. Many authors have no idea that they can do anything about book reviews. These authors wrongly believe that if they write a great book, then it will be reviewed in journals and magazines. Yet they are simply hoping that because they've written it, the readers will come to their book. It's simply not true.

In 2010, there were over 3.1 million new books that entered the marketplace. This large number does not account for the books published before 2010. Just follow the link and review the numbers. Every author has to take action and be actively involved in the various aspects of promoting and telling people about their book. One of those aspects is book reviews.

To help you know more about the details of book reviews, I'm hosting a live teleseminar on Thursday, September 8^th with Dana Lynn Smith. You can ask a question and register for this live event at: http://yourbookreviewed.com. Also you can pick up a copy of Dana's free report, The Real Truth About Getting Book Reviews, when you sign up for this event.

If you can't attend the event, then go ahead and sign up because it will be recorded. Everyone who signs up will receive a copy of the recording following the event.

Dana has a new Ebook, How To Get Your Book Reviewed. If you check out her Ebook, you will notice several bonuses—including my 32–page report, Why Book Reviews Matter. You will get the inside scoop through the free Ebook, the teleseminar, Dana's Ebook and the bonuses.

This information will add a missing piece for many authors to your plans to market your book and get it out to the reading public. Hope to speak with you on Thursday.

If You Are Tired of Getting Rejection...

2011-08-20T16:55:00.006-07:00

You need to change up your game plan. On one hand, you are to be applauded for getting your material out to the editor or agent for consideration. Some writers never even take that active step. Every published writer has had plenty of rejection, it comes with our profession. The basic task of every writer is to get their writing to the right editor for the right publication at the right place and the right time.

There are many reasons for rejection and some of those reasons have to do with the writer and some of them have to do with timing.

A key step to changing your game plan is to get some more information or training. This training can come from a writers conference or instruction from others online like my Write A Book Proposal course or from how-to books.

In Philadelphia, Conference Director Marlene Bagnull was talking about the merits of Mike Nappa's book, 77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected, and how to be sure it won't happen again! Marlene wrote an endorsement for this book that calls it “a must-read book for writers who want to get their book in print. Now only will you learn why your manuscript has been rejected, you'll learn how to fix it.”

It was toward the end of the second day of a panel of book editors and Marlene was speaking about Mike's book. I encouraged her to read Reason No 1. Flipping to the page she read, “Your Writing Is Crap.” It was not what you usually hear at a Christian writers conference.

According to industry insiders, there are a million proposals, queries and book manuscripts in circulation in different literary agencies and publishing houses. If you have submitted anything to an editor, you normally receive a form rejection letter saying it didn't meet their editorial needs. The form letter gives no insight for why you were rejected.

Mike Nappa pulls back the curtain and helps writers understand why their precious book pitch was rejected. He is straightforward and frank with his advice which is generously on every page of this well-written book.

For example, Reason #14 is one most writers don't want to learn: "You are lazy." Nappa concludes this section saying, "If you want to get published, you've got to be willing to do the work it takes to optimize every opportunity. If you don't want to do the work, all of the writers conferences and workshops in the world will not do you any good. Remember there is no such thing as a lazy writer...only those who get published and those who don't." (Page 69)

The 77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected are divided into three main sections: Editorial Reasons for Rejection, Marketing Reasons for Rejection and Sales Reasons for Rejection. With Nappa's years of experience as an editor and agent, he has poured terrific value into this book. No writer likes to be rejected but every writer can profit from a detailed study of this book. I highly recommend it.

The Perils of Procrastination

2011-08-17T10:43:00.005-07:00

Many writers operate under the philosophy, why do today what I can put off until tomorrow? Yes, they have dreams but they are not consistently working toward achieving that dream. Year pass and they continue wanting to get their book published yet it still has not happened.

I met one of these writers at the Philadelphia conference. I’m going to use the name Bob but his name was not Bob because I don’t want to embarrass him but simply use him as an example. As we talked about his book, Bob rummaged through his papers and showed me a proposal from the year before which a faculty member had written and given specific recommendations for improvements and changes. In the weeks and months between last year’s conference and the current one, Bob had not reviewed the revisions and made the improvements. Instead he tucked it into a file which he brought to the next conference. He was mired in a procrastination cycle. I’m certain from time to time Bob wonders why he is not making progress on his dreams about a book—yet he is not taking action to learn his craft, improve his writing and continue moving forward.

Also at the conference, I was talking with a faculty member and made a suggestion for a possible project. This editor agreed it was a good idea then said, “I have this problem with procrastination. It will take me a while to get to it.” At least he was acknowledging his challenge and the validity or merit of my idea for him. At the same time, with his words, he was putting off taking any action on the idea until a later date.

I understand the challenge of procrastination. My writing and publishing life is crammed with activities—much more than is humanly possible to accomplish. Yet I also know the merits of goal setting and continually moving forward to accomplish a concrete goal.

Over three years ago, I took an online course from Jimmy D. Brown called Memberaire. The program is designed for anyone to learn how to create their own online course and launch it in a short amount of time.

Enthused about what I was learning from Jimmy each week, I followed the lessons and completed the assignments. I decided not to launch my course right away but to work on the creative aspects with a different schedule. Because of the volume of other deadlines and projects, I wanted to have more of the course in place and written than just a lesson or two as Jimmy suggested. I loved the course material and read it faithfully. The tyranny of the urgent forced me to slack off on completing the weekly assignments yet I stuck with his course.

It ran for a full year. As each lesson arrived in my mailbox, I faithfully printed each one. I burned through several reams of paper with these weekly assignments.

At the end of last year or two years after completing Jimmy’s course, I was reviewing some of my future projects. I chastised myself for not completing and launching my own course. I clearly made a decision to stop procrastination and take action. I began to speak daily time on creating and launching my own course. Ultimately several months ago I launched my Write A Book Proposal course and have students taking the course around the world.

My creation of the course was not without glitches and learning many lessons. For example, my course is a three month course which involves something called recurring billing. That means after 30 days, my shopping cart has to bill for the next 30 days. Then after 30 more days, the shopping cart has to bill for the final month. Because the course is available 24/7 students begin and reach that 30 day point at different times. Ideally you set up the controls so it is handled automatically. For the first batch of students I handled that billing by hand but now it is all automatic. My persistence and continual effort has paid off. I’ve received glowing comments about my teaching in the course from different students.

While in Philadelphia, I met one of my students who came to the conference from Sydney, Australia. She got on an airplane and came 17 hours to reach the U.S. then seven more hours to reach Philly. I was honored and amazed with such passion and effort to come to a conference—and this student’s enthusiasm for my Write A Book Proposal course.

I’m happy to report that I took action on my procrastination. You can do the same with your writing. What projects or dreams are you putting off to “another day?” Make a decision to take action and reach for your goals. It will take planning and consistent action but you can definitely get there. You don’t have to be stuck in the past. The future is yours if you reach for it.

Keep Your Message Fresh

2011-08-08T08:19:00.001-07:00

In a few days, I'm headed to Philadelphia for the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference. I look forward to the opportunity to see old friends but more importantly to give back to other writers and help them achieve their publishing dreams. My schedule worked out to be a bit complex this year since I return home on Saturday night, then leave late Sunday morning for the Oregon Christian Writers Summer program. I'm excited about both of these conferences. At each location, I am teaching different workshops.

When I teach, I prefer to use paper handouts rather than Power Points or something else. In my view, simple is better in this case and less likely to cause trouble. I've been in workshops where the instructor apologizes for his crashed computer or spends the hour fooling around with some gizmo instead of teaching his content. I'd rather cram as much information into my time as possible to give the greatest value.

I spent a number of hours this weekend pouring through my handouts for my workshops. While I may have taught this information before, I do not want to pull out my old notes and simply give the same old tired information. It's not how I keep the information fresh.

Each day I'm learning new methods to improve my own writing and I want to pass that information on to others. I added lots of new information and new resources to each of my handouts.

It's normal for a conference to restrict the number of handouts that they allow per workshop. I understand because they are trying to limit their expenses. I've found an easy way around that limitation. After I revise my handout, I create a PDF, then put that handout online. Each handout includes a link at the bottom of the first page to where the resource is located. As a part of my workshop, I call this detail to their attention and encourage people to go home, pull up the handout and track each of the online resources for additional teaching beyond the workshop.

I hope the participants make good use of this added resource. If I was sitting in the audience, I certainly would make a point to follow through when I returned. In fact, I've done it a number of times from conference instructors.

Because the workshops are recorded, occasionally I receive emails from people who are listening to my teaching from several years earlier. For those listeners, I want them to get the greatest value from these workshops.

If you would like to attend one of my forthcoming conferences, you can keep an eye on this link. On this page, I maintain the latest information about where I will be teaching.

I've given you some ideas about how I work on keeping my message fresh when I teach. It also applies to my writing. How are you keeping it fresh? Are you writing about the same old stuff or are you still breaking new ground? If you are stalled in one area of the market, I encourage you to look for new opportunities. They are all around you if you are looking for them. You can plow new ground for your writing but you have to be active and take the first step.

I've got a number of new projects in the works for the coming days so stay tuned. I'm keeping my message fresh and challenge you to do the same.

Plan For Your Blog To Succeed

2011-08-06T10:58:00.008-07:00

Over six years ago, I started blogging from my passion to help others in the publishing community. My idea was simple: to give my insight about the writing and publishing world. I’m using those words in the broadest possible way so I write about the magazine and book worlds. I highlight new products that I’ve created and what I learn from others. While I never dreamed it would get this big, my blog has over 1,000 searchable entries in it. This place alone has a wealth of material about writing.

Millions of people start a blog with no plan. They have a passion for their topic and begin pouring words into their blog and posting them on a regular basis. I applaud that passion but one of the keys for your blog to succeed is that you have a plan for how your blog will earn money.

I’ve heard of people who turn their blogs into a six-figure income center yet I’ve also watched others start a blog, work hard at it and then eventually abandon it because it didn’t make them a dime.

I’m sure you’d like to be in the former category rather than the latter.

You can increase your chances of doing so but following these three easy steps for making money as a blogger…

Step 1: Create quality content in a hot niche.

People aren’t interested in reading ads or “spun” articles that are nothing more than gibberish. They want solutions to their problems. And that means they need quality content. In other words, they want useful information that solves their problems.

Here’s the key, though: While the information you provide should be useful, it should also be incomplete.

That is, it shouldn’t completely solve your prospects’ problems. After all, if you completely solve your prospects’ problems, then they really have no need to buy what you’re selling.

One way to provide useful but incomplete solutions is by sharing articles that tell people what to do, but don’t go into detail about how to do it.

Example: A marketing blog might have the instruction “buy a good domain name at NameCheap.com,” but it doesn’t get into the details of what it means to buy a “good” domain name. Then the blogger can point to a short report that tells people how to build a website (which includes how to choose a good domain name).

Step 2: Monetize your blog.

You’re already providing useful content. Soon you’ll have plenty of readers eyeballing this content. So before you bring in the traffic, you need to find ways to monetize the traffic. Here are three ways:

* Promote products and services. These could be your own products or affiliate products. If you don’t know or understand the word affiliate, I encourage you to get my free Ebook on this billion dollar industry (click the link in this sentence). Read my Ebook and sign up to become one of my affiliates.

* Sell advertising space.

Example: You can sell a rotating banner ad on the home page of your blog. You can even sell plain text links.

* Get people on your list. Instead of focusing on getting people to buy products or click on ads, you can focus on getting them on your list. Then you can build a relationship with them, which makes it easier for you to sell products on the backend.

Step 3: Drive traffic to your blog.

Your blog is ready to make some money – now you just need traffic! Here are three ways to get traffic:

* Start a Facebook Fan Page. I used a simple tool Facebook Fan Page Engine to build my own Facebook Fan page. You can see my Facebook Fan page at this link. Please click the “like” button and get my free Ebook.

* Get JV (joint venture partners). Then co-promote each other on your blogs, such as by guest blogging.

* Submit articles to article directories such as EzineArticles.com.

There’s not enough room in this article to share with you all the tips you need to know to make a killing with your blog. That’s why you need The 31-Day Guide to Blogging for Bucks. Get your copy here now: http://bucksforblog.com.

Ten Ways to Capture Your Blog’s Passion & Profit

2011-08-04T15:45:00.016-07:00

Most people start blogging because they are passionate about their particular topic or subject matter. Each day they pull up to their computer and crank out some more words then post it and go on with their day. Through their blogging, these writers:

* Establish themselves as an expert on their topic

* Begin to gain readers to their writing

* Grow their communication skills through regular writing

While I applaud these three benefits from blogging, take a minute and think about the time and effort you are pouring into your writing. Can you balance that effort and turn a profit from your writing? Whether you are just starting a blog or have been blogging for some time, I want to give you the top ten ways to make money on your blog.

1. Create clever post titles. People don’t come to your blog to read advertisements. Instead, they come to read good content. And their first clue as to whether the content is good is based solely on the titles of your blog posts. That’s why you need to create interesting, benefit-driven post titles.

Example #1: Here’s an example of a ho-hum title: “Dog Training Tips”

Example #2: Now here’s an example of a title that will get people reading your posts: “10 Surefire Dog Training Tips That Will Have You Firing Your Dog Trainer!”

2. Optimize your content for the search engines. Your blog won’t put a dime in your pocket if no one reads your content and sees your ads. That’s why you should seek to optimize your content to pull in traffic from the search engines. You do this by finding out what keywords your market is already searching for in Google, and then including these keywords in your articles two or three times per 100 words of text.

3. Weave product recommendations into your content. Your ads shouldn’t be confined to your blog’s sidebar – you can also put them directly into your content.

4. Post regularly, such as twice per week. Doing so makes your blog “sticky.” It also gives your readers a reason to keep coming back and again and again, which gives you another chance to sell them something.

5. Create regular weekly features. This is another way to get your visitors to return on a regular basis.

Example: You can create a feature called “Friday’s Super Tip,” where you post your very best niche-related tip every week.

6. Make use of your blog sidebar. You can post text ads, banner ads and other graphics, links to your best blog posts and a newsletter subscription form in your sidebar.

7. Rotate products on your blog. Doing so keeps your blog fresh. But it also gives you a chance to track and test your offers to see which ones put the most money in your pocket.

8. Use pictures. You can post relevant pictures in your articles as well as your sidebar, which will work to draw people’s eyes to your content and ads. You can get these photos for as little as $1 each at stock photo sites.

9. Encourage people to subscribe to your RSS feed. People who are subscribed are more likely to become a regular reader of your blog.

Don’t just rely on people subscribing to your RSS feed, however…

10. Get people on your newsletter list. One way to do this is to password-protect some of your best posts, and then offer access to these posts only to those who’ve subscribed to your newsletter list. Another way is through a Feedblitz account. Use the link to set up a 30 days trial. You can set up a simple way for people to subscribe to your blog and receive it through their email. I have over 500 subscribers to my blog using this system.

These tips are just scraping the surface when it comes to making money with your blog. If you want to make real money with your blog, then you need an in-depth guide that shows you exactly how to set up a blog, create content for it and make money with it. You can get The 31-Day Guide to Blogging for Bucks by going to: http://BucksForBlog.com.

Discover Passion and Profit in A Blog

2011-08-03T07:34:00.025-07:00

You have selected a topic that you love and started a blog. For most of us, we are passionate about that topic and it is a fun place to write our thoughts. While the word “blog” has become common it started from the term web log or a place on the web to log your thoughts. According to one site, there are over 450 million active English blogs.

I enjoy writing in my blog yet in these challenging economic times, I also see the value in combining my passion with earning some money. Over the next several entries of The Writing Life, I want to show you several different ways you can either start a blog or begin to earn from your blog. And since a blog is so flexible, there are plenty of ways to monetize it.

Here are the top three ways:

1. Sell your products.

This is the most obvious way to make money with a blog: If you have products or services to sell, then promote them on your blog.

You can put permanent banners and text ads in the sidebar. I encourage you to take a moment and look closely at what I've done on The Writing Life. If you click some of the banners, you will see they refer to some of my products such as my Write A Book Proposal course or my book, Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. You can also weave your product links into your actual blog posts.

Example: Let’s suppose you’re selling a weight loss book on your blog. You can post a “Top 10 Tips for Losing Weight” article on your blog. And then at the end of the article you can include a link to your book, “101 Tips for Losing Weight.” If people like your 10 tips, then they’ll be eager to buy your book.

Why does this work so well?

Because blogging gives you the opportunity to showcase your expertise. When you establish yourself as a trusted expert, people are more likely to buy from you.

2. Sell affiliate products.

Don’t have your own products?

No problem: You can sell affiliate products. That means that you get a commission every time someone buys a product or service through your affiliate link.

There are plenty of big companies that have affiliate programs. One of the most popular affiliate programs for physical products is the a Amazon.com program, simply because your buyers already know and trust Amazon.com.

But if you’re going to sell downloadable information products, then one of the best affiliate programs is via Clickbank.com, where you’ll find thousands upon thousands of products to sell. Best of all, the commission rates are generous. You’ll see them as high as 50% and even 75%! I've written a free 30–page Ebook, You Can Make Money. Just follow the link and get it.

3. Insert AdSense ads.

Still another way to make money on your blog is by showing Google AdSense ads on your site. You make money every time someone clicks on your ad!

Here’s the biggest benefit of this method:

You don’t have to sell a thing. You don’t have to convince anyone to buy. All you have to do is post good content on your site to attract prospects… and you get paid every time they click on an ad. It’s easy!

What’s next?

I’m sure by now you can see that there’s a world of profitable opportunities waiting for anyone who wants to start up a blog.

If you’d like to know what the Internet's wealthiest bloggers know about making money with a blog, then look no further than The 31 Day Guide to Blogging For Bucks. I encourage you to get your copy right now—risk-free since you can use it for 60 days. This guide will really open your eyes to the possibilities!

Find the Right Path for Your Writing

2011-07-31T22:01:00.003-07:00

Last Saturday I spoke at the Fifth Annual Roaring Lambs Writers Conference in the Dallas, Texas area. There were over 200 people attending this sold-out event. As a publisher at Roaring Lambs Publishing, I met one-on-one with many of the participants to help them with their writing. The relationship building and interaction is one of the key benefits of making the effort to attend a writers' conference. I'm going to be attending several more conference this year. Follow this link to keep up on my speaking schedule. I'd love to meet with you and cross paths at a future conference.

From meeting many writers at these conferences, I've learned one of the keys is to see where they are in the writing process and then help them however I can from my experience. Today I want to focus on one of those meetings with some specific advice yet I will also broaden the advice to work for every writer.

This particular writer was typical of many writers that I meet. Jim was passionate about writing devotions. He had launched a blog and started to send these devotions to friends and gain readers. He clearly had passion because he had written over 300 devotions. At the conference, Jim was trying to determine his next steps for his writing.

My first suggestion is to try to publish some of his devotions in printed magazines. Print magazines has a lot greater credibility than posting on a blog since it has a higher standard. There are many devotional publications. I suggested Jim try The Upper Room which reaches millions of people each day. This magazine has great guidelines and details for any writer on their website.

If Jim wants to publish more than a single devotion in a magazine,then I suggested he explore working with the book packagers. I've written several entries about packagers over the years but here's some for you to explore for more detail:

Barking Up the Wrong Tree Sept. 13, 2005

Just Teach Me The Rules Sept. 14, 2005

Knocking on the Wrong Door Sept. 6, 2006

Work with the Middleman Sept. 12, 2006

Start at the Beginning Feb. 6, 2007

In Jim's case, he had written a series of devotions. What is it that you have written? Maybe you love writing personal experience stories or fiction. Maybe you like to write how-to information. Find the print magazines that take your type of material. Study these magazines and begin to pitch story ideas to these publications. Yes, you be writing a novel and that writing can continue. But editors and agents are looking for writers with publishing experience. One of the fastest ways to get that publishing experience is in shorter writing (magazines). If you write fiction, you will learn a great deal writing short stories and publishing those as you continue to polish your novel.

Finally I want to return to Jim's blogging. I believe in the merits of blogging. It's one of the reasons I have over 1,000 searchable entries in The Writing Life.

As a resource for everyone who blogs, I'd like to tell you about The 31–Day Guide to Blogging for Bucks. This 65–page Ebook will give you the step-by-step guidance to doing more than creating content with your blog. You will be able to generate income from that effort.

Each of us as writers have to find the right path for our writing. It may take a bit of searching to locate the right path but I believe it is out there for you. Are you engaged in the search?

Celebrating Another Bonus Day

2011-07-28T11:17:00.010-07:00

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, I learned the great Evangelical Theologian John R. W. Stott died at the age of 90. Almost 20 years ago in 1992, it was my privilege to spend a few minutes interviewing Dr. Stott for a story that I published in a magazine targeted to Christian retailers. I own a copy of Basic Christianity which Dr. Stott signed for me saying, “Thank you, Terry, for the interrogation.” I was not a difficult interview but he was using his British humor in the message. I will always treasure the book and that time with him. In honor of his remarkable life, I dug into my files and found that story which I’m sharing with you today in this entry of The Writing Life. If you read it closely you will see lessons of giving and sacrifice that I encourage you to build into your own writing life.

5:00 a.m. Most of us are sound asleep but John R.W. Stott swings his legs over the side of his bed and starts the day in prayer:

“Good morning, heavenly Father; good morning, Lord Jesus; good morning, Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, I worship you as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Lord Jesus, I worship you, Savior and Lord of the world. Holy Spirit, I worship you, Sanctifier of the people of God. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Heavenly Father, I pray that I may live this day in your presence and please you more and more. Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow you. Holy Spirit, I pray that this day you will fill me with yourself and cause your fruit to ripen in my life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons in one God, have mercy upon me. Amen.

Stott has begun each day with a version of this Trinitarian prayer for decades.

For over 40 years, Stott hasn’t taken a daily newspaper. Instead he turns on his radio to the BBC World Service and catches their half hour news and commentary as he shaves and showers. Then at 5:30, John begins an hour-long devotional time at his desk. “It’s my to read, pray and study the Scriptures,” says John Stott, who is now in his eighties. “Every day is fresh and I try to thank God for another bonus day.”

After devotions, Stott turns to his latest writing or reading project and spends another hour at work before breakfast. One of his major projects has been a series of commentaries called The Bible Speaks Today series from InterVarsity Press where he was the New Testament editor. This series aims to explain the biblical text and to relate it to the contemporary world. “Commentaries are not readable, but this series is meant to be read,” Stott says. Contributing himself to the expositions of the Sermon on the Mount, the Acts, Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians and II Timothy, Romans, 1st Timothy and Titus, Stott completed the twenty-four volume series in 1995.

The final book in the series was The Message Of 1 Timothy & Titus. In this Bible Speaks Today volume (previously released as a hardcover book with the title Guard the Truth), John Stott finds in 1 Timothy and Titus a dynamic truth that orders Christian life in the church, the family and the world. Here is the lucid commentary we have come to expect from Stott, ever faithful to the text and time of Paul’s letters. But in a manner unique to Stott’s role as a distinguished Christian statesman, this work’s interpretive and pastoral voice remarkably echoes Paul for our own day. One generation speaks to another: “Guard the truth.”

Dr. Stott is best known for his Basic Christianity (InterVarsity Press) which received a Gold Book award for reaching the two million sales figure (now over 2.5 million in print). Basic Christianity continues its popularity because it presents the intellectual basis for the gospel. In 1992, the ECPA honored Dr. Stott with its International Award for”his tireless efforts to encourage thoughtful biblical exposition and preaching throughout the world.” While the majority of his over 40 books have been published by InterVarsity Press, other publishers include Zondervan, Tyndale, Moody Press, Eerdman’s, Baker Books and Fleming Revell.

Last January, InterVarsity Press released the latest Stott title, Why I Am A Christian which provides a compelling, persuasive case for considering the Christian faith.

Although he has traveled to over 100 countries throughout his ministry, Stott has always sought the simple life. He lives in a two room apartment in Central London. In 1971, he had published several titles, and his royalties were increasing beyond his personal needs. “After thinking and praying about how to use them, I believe God led me to form the Evangelical Literature Trust,” Stott says. About 95% of his royalties are donated to ELT. Dr. Stott has no idea how much he’s given through the years, but according to David Spence, who chairs the U.S. Board of ELT, it has accumulated to more than half a million dollars. ELT is administered by volunteers, consequently almost all the contributions go directly to providing books to thousands of third-world and East European pastors, seminary professors, libraries and students.

The Bishop of London installed Stott at age 29, to the prestigious Anglican church as its Rector in 1950. The Bishop commissioned a different book each year for his flock to use for Lent devotions. A couple of years later, the Bishop asked Stott to write that year’s Lent book--originally published in England as Men with a Message, later titled A Basic Introduction to the New Testament (Eerdmans). Stott received his royalty for this book in a lump sum of 750 pounds and then invested it in purchasing a retreat called “The Hookses” in West Wales.

“It was a ruin and had been unoccupied for several years,” Stott says of the slate-roofed Welsh farmhouse cottage located a mile from the nearest neighbor, and without telephone, electricity or television. On the Pembrokeshire cliffs, it commands a superb coastal view. Gradually Stott has put the buildings into order, and most of his books since 1954 have been written there.

For sessions of two or three week, John Stott will go to The Hookses and write. “I’m rather Victorian in that I don’t use a typewriter or a dictating machine, let alone a word processor, to write,” he says. “After 50 years, I’ve got into my own rhythm for writing.” Using plain bond paper and pen, John will study and write six hours without a break. Then after some exercise, he will return to his desk and continue for another four hours or so.

Now the Rector Emeritus for All Soul’s Church, Stott splits his time each year between the church and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (six months), at which he lectures, traveling (three months) and study and writing (three months).

As he considers publishing, Stott sees the production of literature as a precious partnership between author, publisher, distributor and retailer. “The Bible tells us that it is good to be dependent on each other,” Stott says. “As John Donne says, ‘no man is an island.’” The inter-dependent relationship is biblical and precious to John R.W. Stott.

_____________________________________________________

W. Terry Whalin understands both sides of the editorial desk--as an editor and a writer. He worked as a magazine editor for Decision and In Other Words. His magazine articles have appeared in more than 50 publications including Writer’s Digest and Christianity Today. Terry has written more than 60 nonfiction books. See more about his writing at www.right-writing.com/whalin.html. Terry and his wife, Christine, live in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Overcome A One Star Review on Amazon

2011-07-20T09:20:00.004-07:00

It is a shock to check out the customer reviews on Amazon and learn some reader has found your book worthy of a one star review. I've had it happen. I'm even including an image to show you the one star review. Yet it can be overcome and I'm going to give you the details.

Amazon has the biggest online bookstore on the planet. Yes they sell much more than books but if you have a book, you want to pay attention to the customer reviews on the page. Readers are constantly reading these reviews and making a buying decision about your book from those reviews.

I love books and regularly read new books. One of the ways I support good books is to take a few minutes and write a short review of the book and a rating on Amazon. I'm often surprised when I go to the book on Amazon and discover three or four reviews. Or often I'm the first person to write a customer review about a book. It did not happen in an instant but I've continued building a body of work through these customer reviews and I've written over 330 Amazon reviews. Many of them are positive because I'm writing the reviews to support authors that I love their writing. In some cases they are controversial. For example, check out the reviews of Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail by Caitlin Kelly. While the book has only been out three months, it has a mixture of positive and negative reviews. People either love this book or strongly dislike it. Here's the permanent link for my review of Malled. It is worth reading and I enjoyed this book.

The Shack by William Paul Young has been rooted in mixed views since it was published. People either love or hate this book but it continues to be a bestselling book. At this writing, it has over 4,600 reviews. Notice the mixture of almost 3,000 Five Star reviews and over 800 One Star reviews. Yet because of the overwhelming majority of Five Star reviews, the average is Four Stars for this book.

The key fact that many authors overlook is that the Amazon stars are averaged. If your book has dozens of Five Star reviews, then you can overcome any low reviews. Now if you only have one or two reviews for your book, then a low review has a lot of impact on the average.

If you have a book, here's several ideas for you with your Amazon page:

1. Monitor your page on a regular basis. Many authors ignore the page where their book is located. I regularly check these pages for my books and note any activity.

2. If someone has written a Five Star review, then use that information. Tell others about it. When I see that anyone has written a Five Star review about my book, then I tweet about it to my followers with a link to the review. These tweets generate even more buzz about your book.

3. It does not have to be a new book. Also work on your older books. For example, my Book Proposals That Sell has been out in the market for years. Currently there are over 95 Five Star reviews on Amazon.

4. Whenever anyone emails me about how my Book Proposals That Sell helped them, I respond back in appreciation then I ask them to go over to the Amazon page, cut and paste those sentences along with a Five Star review (and I remind them that the Five Star review is important because the stars are averaged). Not everyone takes action and writes the review—but a certain number of them will post the review.

As you increase the number of Five Star reviews for your book, you are also protecting your book when you get a one star review. As you can see from the illustration from my page at Book Proposals That Sell, I have a few one star reviews. In spite of those reviews, my average is still Five Stars. You can overcome a low review if you are aware and working at it.

Whether you have written many books or no books, do support books with simple straight forward reviews on Amazon. You will be making a difference and helping others make wise buying decisions.

Away From Your Computer

2011-07-17T18:27:00.002-07:00

Often it happens in a shopping center parking lot or in the mall. These people will be walking with a glance every other step at a phone they carry so they can easily see the screen at all times. I assume they have their smart phone on Facebook or Twitter or some instant message where they don't want to miss anything on their computer. These individuals have elevated the computer to become a critical part of their every minute.

For many years, one of the best places to disconnect and get away from your computer was at 30,000 feet in an airplane. Yet even in the plane some people are connected to their computer. While I was waiting for a recent flight, a fellow traveler was telling me how he booked is flights on the basis of whether the flight had an online Internet connection so he could continue to be connected throughout the flight.

This coming week, I'm headed to Dallas for another conference and I love that time on the plane to write and read—generally to be disconnected from email and my phone. I understand it is a choice and a matter of focus. In the phone area, I've chosen not to have a smart phone and be connected to my email 24 hours a day. I believe it adds some balance to my life.

When I'm away from my computer as I will be for a couple of days this week, I do take some proactive actions when it comes to social media—Twitter and Facebook. I want to continually feed information about publishing and great products to my followers and friends.

Hootsuite is the free tool I use to schedule these tweets. My twitter account is hooked to my Facebook and LinkedIn. It was a one-time action to set up on Facebook and LinkedIn so my tweets are replicated on these other social mediums—automatically. I don't have to do anything for the tweets to show up on these sites.

Using Hootsuite, I can schedule three or four or more tweets at different times to appear while I'm away from my computer. I will schedule these tweets at some point during the week ahead. I know it works and people read these tweets and take action from them. Earlier this year, an editor was going to call me. He and I follow each other on twitter and he noticed that I had just put out a tweet. His assumption was that I was sitting at my computer and had sent that information to twitter. Yet when he called me I was walking down the concourse in an airport on the other side of the country. I had just gotten off an early morning flight. You never know how people are using these types of tools to continue to touch their followers. I use them and will continue to use them.

Another tool that I will be using when I'm away from my computer is Tweet Adder. This program works around the clock to add targeted followers. If you haven't tried the free download, I recommend you try it and begin to actively use it. The program has a one-time fee and you can get a 15% discount by using the coupon NICHE15 when you check out.

How about you? Do you take action and schedule tweets which appear when you are traveling?

Start Now & (Eventually) Get Big

2011-07-16T12:25:00.004-07:00

Last week I passed over 32,000 followers on Twitter. When people see those numbers, they wonder how they did it. I see many people who have less than 200 followers on Twitter. Other people haven't tweeted in months and have given up on their involvement—yet over 200 million people are active on twitter.

Others react strongly when they see that I have over 4300 friends on Facebook. The typical person on Facebook has a few hundred friends.

I can often hear the amazement in the voice of people when they learn that I've written over 60 books or that I've written for more than 50 printed publications. I do have a large body of work that I have been growing for many years. It did not happen instantly or overnight. Instead body of my work has been growing for years.

The same thing has happened with my Twitter following. It began slowly but I've been consistently growing that audience. It is not magical but happens in small incremental and consistent action.

I've often heard authors say they took years to become an overnight success. We live in an instant society where everyone wants to write the next bestseller. I hear these unrealistic ambitions from authors almost daily. These authors have published a book or two with modest success. Other authors have never published a book yet they believe they have the next bestseller. There is nothing wrong with ambition but it has to be followed up with a consistent plan of action.

I've spoken with a number of authors who believe they have the next bestseller—yet a year later when I speak with them these authors are in exactly the same unpublished spot. They are “talking” about getting their book published.

Here's my encouragement to you:

1. Take some time to plan your writing goals. What are you doing to consistently write for online publications or printed magazines? Are you working on your book proposal to show an agent or editor?

2. Take some time to plan your marketing goals. What are you doing to build your audience for your topic? Are you actively using Twitter and Facebook? I've encourage you to look into Tweet Adder for Twitter. Get the free download and try it. Use this program consistently to build your twitter audience. You can even get 15% off the one-time fee if you use the code: NICHE15

3. Take consistent action with your writing and marketing efforts. That constant action will pay off for you. It will not happen overnight but with regular action, you will get there.

You have to take action today to be able to eventually get big.

Become A Magazine Editor

2011-07-15T09:47:00.003-07:00

Some of you will have to use your imagination a bit because you don't have a lot of publishing experience or even if you have publishing experience, just let go and imagine for a few minutes.

You've been offered a new position as a magazine editor. Now your responsibility is to reach your target audience with solid writing on a regular basis. You will have to write a few articles. You will have to reach out to other writers and get their material. You will look for some products to review and advertise. Then you will add subscribers and be involved in the business aspects of producing your publication.

Feel a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility? It doesn't have to overwhelm you. In fact, there are easy-to-use resources to help you create the content for your publication.

I've often encouraged writers to begin their own magazine—an electronic newsletter. This magazine is a consistent way you can reach out and touch your audience with solid content—and remind them that you want to help them in your particular subject or area of expertise. I have had a newsletter for many years, Right-Writing News. Follow the link and you can see it and subscribe to it. When you subscribe you will receive free ebooks—and access to all of my years of back issues.

Publishers, editors and agents are actively looking for good writers but they want these writers to come to them with a ready-made audience. What are you doing to create this audience? Yes, you are working at your writing and storytelling skills—which is excellent. But are you making audience-building a priority? I hope so because having a ready-made audience could be the tipping point between finding your champion inside the publishing house and a form rejection.

Robert W. Bly has been one of my long-term friends and a mentor in this area of newsletter creation and marketing. His Ebook, Ready-Made Ezines, has a revised second edition and is excellent.

In the first part of this Ebook, Bob provides important details about the creation and writing of an Ezine. He answers important questions such as:

Why do you do it?
How frequently to you touch your audience?
How do you expand your audience and get people's email addresses?
How can you create it in two hours or less?
Do you send the Ezine in HTML or text?
What are the two most important lines in every email?
What are the 14 things Bob likes to put into his Ezine?

In the second portion, Bob gives the lasting value of this particular resource: ready-to-use Ezine articles on different topics that you can cut and paste into your own Ezine. The articles are organized into ten different categories for easy use.

This valuable resources is an investment in your own writing life but from my view it is well worth it. You will gain education and the practical articles that you can use for weeks into the future to build your own audience. This resource matches a consistent message that I've been giving to writers. Every writer needs to be developing their own audience and their own products.

If you don't have an Ezine, then take the first step with Ready-Made Ezines. If you already have an Ezine, then you will find more ideas and a treasure-trove of ready-t0–use articles. I'm going to be using this resource in the days ahead. How about you?

Developing Your Author Platform Online

2011-07-14T07:00:00.021-07:00

By D’vorah Lansky, Guest Blogger

I’d like to thank Terry for allowing me to be a guest here today. As you know, Terry is a remarkable, kind and giving person who knows a great, great deal about the authoring industry. Terry also knows a great deal about the area of online marketing for authors.

Today I’d like to talk about developing your online author platform. An author platform is a place where people can come to connect with you. It is where you share your message and it refers to the size of your following/readership and your presence on the Internet. It is essential for an author to have an author platform. Your platform raises your visibility and allows people to get acquainted with you.

Here are a few things that you can do to develop your online author platform:

· Set your blog or website up so that it makes a positive statement about you as an author. If you have any intentions of speaking, you are going to need a website which actually shows people who you are and what you speak about.

· Have a media page or speaker sheet that can be easily accessed on your website. Include low-resolution and high-resolution images of both you and your book cover.

· Outline a talk that you give related to your book. You can include five bullet points, or a list of sample questions, that you can cover.

· Include a brief and an expanded bio and your contact information. When composing your bio, rather than beginning by listing your credentials, begin by speaking about your strengths as a speaker or captivating presenter. For example, you might say, “Terry is a dynamic and engaging presenter.” It is important that your bio talks about you as a speaker, in addition to listing your credentials.

· Add a page to your website that lists your speeches, events, presentations and programs.

· Include a section, on your media page, that links to your videos and recorded interviews.

· Make sure that you have a professional presence on the social media networks. Social networks provide you with the ability to reach a large number of people easily, develop your presence, share your expertise and impart the message of your book.

Whether you are beginning with a well-established website and large audience, or you are just setting up your website and beginning to grow your audience, there is much you can do to develop and promote your online platform.

The fastest way to develop your new or existing platform is to make sure you have an attractive-looking blog or website where people can come to find out more about you and your book. Develop a daily writing schedule and post articles to your site several times a week. Interact on the social networking sites and invite your target audience to enjoy reading the articles you’ve posted to your site. You will soon come to be seen as an expert in your field and you will develop relationships and friendships with your readers.

D’vorah Lansky is the author of Book Marketing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Selling Your Nonfiction Book Online - Visit her book blog and check out the full virtual book tour schedule at: www.BookMarketingMadeEasy.com.

D’vorah offers programs for nonfiction authors interested in growing their brand and their book sales through online book marketing practices and strategies. You can purchase her book on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/oft9Pt

A Crucial Element to Book Proposal Success

2011-07-10T09:38:00.007-07:00

After reading thousands of book proposals, I know for a fact that many writers fail in the section about their competition. The writer either falsely believes there is no competition (every book competes) and writes that information explicitly for this section or they write a section which is incomplete and not persuasive.

Whether you write nonfiction or fiction, the competition is an important part of every book proposal. Below I’m including an excerpt from the excellent Publish Your Nonfiction Book, Strategies for Learning the Industry, Selling Your Book, and Building A Successful Career by Sharlene Martin and Anthony Flacco. Yes, Sharlene and Anthony have focused on nonfiction but if you are a novelist, do not be fooled into thinking this material is not for you. It is equally important for you to learn. Every writer can profit from a careful study of this book. Here’s their valuable excerpt:

“Next to your platform, your book comparisons (or comps) section is the biggest key to the success of your proposal. Your comps section must consist of three to six examples of recent books that are similar to yours, and which sold well. Take time and care in considering the right comps for your project. They must reflect well on the potential success of your book.

To find appropriate comps, you can start with online booksellers such as Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble (www.bn.com). Look for recent books that cover the same or similar subject matter as yours. Because trends and habits change, a book that did well thirty years ago will not necessarily do well today, and so it will not be a good comp. There is no use in comparing your book to a dinosaur. Additionally, new people are constantly moving into publishing, and they might not be aware of a book that old—or even one from ten years ago. Newer books give agents and editors a point of reference for current consumer buying habits in your field.

No matter what your book title and subject, you are sure to find a few comps that are close. Amazon.com offers several million titles; a few have to be similar to yours. When you find eight to ten books that look promising and that are similar to your book, check those titles in terms of sales. The number one mistake that authors make here is that they list comparative titles without any thought to the success of the books. There is absolutely no point in holding up a book that tanked as a supporting example.

Many authors use the daily sales rankings at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble to determine sales success, but these numbers only reflect very current sales and are not accurate indicators of the overall, long-term sales of a book. A better bet is to go to the best-seller lists in The New York Times or USA Today. Both publications archive their best-seller lists and you can check to see which of your prospective comps are on those lists. If you are lucky, you will find one or two of your comps have done exceedingly well. One might even have a blurb on the cover to the effect of “Sixty Weeks on the Best-Seller List!” or you might find a book that is in its fifth or sixth printing.

Then do your homework. Find the publishers of the recent comps that sold well, and go to their websites. See how many books they release each year and how large their backlist is. If you want to attract a large publisher, you need to use comps that have been published by a large publisher.

If these steps have completely eliminated your prospective list of comps, go find some more. If some comps are still on your list, go to an actual bricks-and-mortar bookstore or a library to find an actual copy of your prospective comp. Then assess it for quality. If the manufacture of the book is done as shoddy work, that publisher will not be among the respected in the industry. When you hold the inferior book in your hands, it becomes apparent that if you had used it as a comp, that would only draw an unfavorable comparison—something that you surely want to avoid.

As you can see, this process can take some time. After you finally get three to six suitable titles, pull information for the comp’s title: author, publisher, publication date, page count, ISBN, and whether it is hardcover, trade paperback, or a mass-market paperback. Be careful: Many popular books have more than one edition, as well as large print and audio versions.

You definitely want to choose the printed version that sold best. Often, but not always, it is the original hardcover printing of the book. Pull a cover image so agents and editors can get a visual. Format the image as you did the other photos in your book proposal, then place it in your document near that book’s title information.Next, decide how best to compare and contrast your title with each of the comps. To do this, (a) develop a one-paragraph description of the comp, then (b) add another paragraph of analysis explaining how your book offers positive points that the other book lacks. The common theme for all commercial nonfiction is that your book is similar to others in ways that have proven successful, but it is also uniquely yours by virtue of your valuable perspective.

CAUTION:More is not more, here. One prospective author sent us a proposal that included twelve comps, ten of which were from small, university, or self-published presses. If your goal is to be with a university press for the prestige, then by all means use those books as comps. But don’t use these kinds of books and expect to get a sizable advance, as those presses pay very little in the way of up-front money.

With the proliferation of information on Internet, there is no excuse for an author to remain ignorant about the profession. Check out your references. For example, if the publisher of a prospective comp doesn’t have a website, run! If the website is cheesy, run faster. Consider that the way this sloppy website looks to you now is how you would look to others, if they learned that this publisher was handling your work.

Never bluff. You must read your competition. Otherwise how will you determine the right way to position your book? You could easily end up looking like a fool by declaring a certain book to be a “comp” for yours, when your recipient is aware that it is not a good comparison. With today’s tight budgets, accurate competitive analysis is more important than ever, but the onus of it is upon you, ahead of the publisher. When you multiply your book by hundreds of others, it is clear that editors at publishing companies have no time to do this for each book that they are thinking about buying. But if you try to bluff your way through with lazy work, you will never know how to predict what your recipient already knows about the topic. The accuracy of your comps is another arena where you can demonstrate that you are the writer for this book.

Regarding the language in your comparison: Certain words and phrases are the kiss of death in the comps section of a proposal. Never say, “This book is better than__________________ .” Who knows whether your proposal might end up being read by the agent or editor of the book you just slammed. It can happen! A better way to approach is to say: “My book offers _____________ in order to go deeper into the topic than other books have done so far.”

Never try to get off with light work by claiming that “there are no other books out there” like yours. This is actually a very old and tired gimmick that has been attempted far too many times to carry any weight. Many of your competition will try it anyway, which is fortunate for you because it isn’t going to work for them, either.”

Excerpted by Permission from Publish Your Nonfiction Book by Sharlene Martin and Anthony Flacco (Writer’s Digest Books, 2009) Pages 74-77.

Contains Years of Wisdom and Insight

2011-07-07T23:26:00.011-07:00

If you have ever had the yearning to become a Christian screenwriter or actor or producer or director, then you will take years off wasting your time with this book. Dr. Ted Baehr, the Founder and Publisher of Movieguide, has written a comprehensive guide. As he writes in the introduction, "It is a critical time for people of faith to communicate through the mass media of the entertainment industry...This book intends to help you to do just what Jesus commanded: herald His good news in movies and television, the marketplace of entertainment." (Page xxviii)

Dr. Baehr breaks the contents into two main sections: Foundations and Step-by-Step. Each section is loaded with practical yet detailed information into the business. While the author has years of experience, he has reached out to 30 diverse Hollywood experts with stellar credentials. He interweaves these contributors throughout the book and it strengthens the message and impact of the contents.

While this book is loaded with practical information, I want to give one detailed example as a taste of the contents from the chapter, "If It's Not On the Page...":

"Remember that the average movie takes nine years from start to finish. The Passion of the Christ took ten years. Evita took twenty-three years. Batman took seventeen years. There are several reasons why it takes so long. First, there are 300,000 scripts submitted every year to the Writers guild of America and many more are written that are never submitted, aside from the flood of novels every year, but less than three hundred movies open in theaters every year. Thus, most scripts never make it into production. Second, Hollywood movies cost over $104 million to produce and distribute in 2010, and it takes a long, long time to get all the elements together so that some distributor or investor will want to put up this kind of money. Third, most people take years to get the script right. The Los Angeles Times interviewed a woman who was trying to twenty years to sell her script. She said that in all those years she had not had the time to take a scriptwriting course or read a book on scriptwriting. The Los Angeles Times and all of us should be perplexed: What was she doing all that time that she could not take a moment to learn her chosen craft?" (Page 150 to 151)

Before you follow the beckoning siren of Hollywood, you need the detailed information in How to Succeed in Hollywood (Without Losing Your Soul) A FieldGuide for Christian Screenwriters, Actors, Producers, Directors, and more...