Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Express Yourself Authors Conference

Come listen to Dan Poynter, Brian Jud, Penny Sansevieri, Paul Krupin, myself, and many others at the Express Yourself Authors Conference.

September 29 to 31, 2006, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania — Express Yourself Authors Conference

During this conference, I'll be giving a new special talk that I've never given before. This is an extra special bonus just for this conference. It will knock your socks off.

As my way of extending the benefits of this Authors Conference to you, Infinity Publishing has allowed me to offer you a $50 discount off the full registration fee of $639 with lodging or $429 without lodging. If you are a member of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) you may deduct both discounts. On the registration form at http://www.authorsconference.com, in the space just above the line “Discounts Available…” print my name, and on the right-hand side print -$50. It’s as simple as that. Note: this offer expires on September 15th.

Photo Fraud from the Media

Can you believe it? The media actually fakes photos! I was shocked, well, not really. Don't believe me? See the following from aish.com: http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp.

Why does the media do this when there are so many legitimate stories out there, when there is already enough horror in the world that you don't have to fake it. But they do, and they do it way too often.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Have You Wikied Yourself Yet?

On Monday the South Bend Tribune published an article on self-promotion as a good thing. In the article, they noted, "After his 11-minute MySpace: The Movie, became a YouTube phenomenon -- 8 million views and counting -- David Lehre scored an agent and is now developing a comedy show with Fox. Brooke Brodack signed a deal with Carson Daly Productions after Daly noticed the 20-year-old's YouTube videos. Book deals for bloggers are now so common that they have their own trophy, the Lulu Blooker Prize: the first winner was Julie Powell, whose book Julie and Julia has sold more than 100,000 copies."

As part of the article, they described six ways to self-promote your work via the Internet -- as described by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. One of his points was to make yourself easy to find. As part of this suggestion, he recommended that you give YOURSELF an entry in Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia of encyclopedias. Do it today.

Go to wikipedia.org. Search for your name. If there's not an entry, write one. It's that simple. You'll have to create a personal account in Wikipedia before you can create an entry. Note that they discourage promotional entries, so focus on the books you've published and the things you've done to help people.

Check out John Kremer at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_kremer.

After you do that, read the rest of the South Bend Tribune article at South Bend Article.

Retire Secure

My friend Jim Lange has a great new book out called Retire Secure. If you order it today, you'll get tons of great bonuses! Here is the info....

Can you live too long? John planned to die young. He had every reason to live. He loved life, was healthy, happy and had a great career and a loving family. His life expectancy was good, but one small decision insures John will live for many years after his retirement savings runs out.

What was that one small decision? Find out at: http://www.langebook.com.



You know the trends. You will live longer. The government will not pay you enough to live on, and many corporation are freezing or eliminating traditional retirement plans. Leaving millions at risk. Fortunately, you need not be one of them.

When you read Jim Lange's Retire Secure, you will see how a few strategic decision will vastly improve your income possibilities over the decades you have left to live. This can be very important to authors and publishers. I urge you to spend a minute right now and pick up a copy of Jim's book Retire Secure.

The book is on sale today, with a special bonus gift package worth $3,277 when you order a copy of this inexpensive book. Go to: http://www.langebook.com.

At the same time as you help yourself, you'll also be helping Jim make his book an Amazon.com bestseller. Now, that's a win for both of you. His book is already at 1,600 and moving up!

I've been working with Jim now for more than a year, and the man is smart. He knows what he is writing about when he covers the subject of retirement -- smart retirement, where you keep more of the money for yourself and your heirs than for the government. A lot more money. I trust this man to give only the best advice.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Top 101 Book Publishers on the Net

Congratulations to McSweeneys and Nolo for being among the Top 101 websites selected by PC Magazine for 2006. For the entire list, see http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,7488,00.asp.



These 101 websites are places where you want your books to be featured. Check them out!

BookSmart is not very smart

Anyone who pays "as little as $29.95 for a single copy of a 40-page hardcover book, custom jacket included" is not very smart. Unless that's all they want, and they want it to be mindlessly easy to create. That's what it costs, as a minimum, to publish one copy of a book using BookSmart software from Blurb.com.

Now, Blurb.com does offer some great BookSmart software to make a book out of a blog, website, or user-generated content website (such as MySpace or Flickr). But their cost to print that book afterwords is high. The balance you have to seek as a BookSmart author is how much time the software saves you in laying out a book (if it actually does save you time) versus the cost to print that book in comparison to Lulu.com, AuthorHouse.com, InfinityPublishing.com, etc.

Blurb.com, itself, is brilliant. Incredible. They just received another $12 million in additional venture capital to build their business. Wow. No venture capital firm is making that kind of commitment to a real book publisher. Too bad.

Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners led this round of additional investors.

Eileen Gittins is founder and CEO of Blurb. John Balen is general partner of Canaan Partners, the lead investor.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Does It Pay to Nag?

Nagging Oprah


Does it work to nag top media people? Here are a few stories that indicate the power of nagging, or the power of persistence.

It worked for Chicago author Michele Weldon, who regularly pestered the producers of Oprah for over three years. Finally they said yes. Michele's appearance on behalf of her 1999 book, I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman, produced sales of about 35,000 copies.

It didn't worked for self-published author Maria Veloso and her site nominatemidwinterforoprah.com (no longer an active site). If the signature count had reached one million, Veloso would have submitted the evidence for Oprah's consideration. She gathered over 18,000 signatures, but that wasn't enough to do the trick.

Persistence can sometimes pay and sometimes not. Either way, just be nice about it.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Make Money with Google AdSense

If you'd like to make some spare change or big money with Google AdSense or Shopping.com or other pay-per-click advertising opportunities, then check out these blog posts:

Erik at ProductWiki.com provides an interesting look at how Google AdSense and Shopping.com ads pay off for his consumer electronics review blog. Check out his post at http://blog.productwiki.com. Pay attention to what he has to say. Then read the following post:

Eric Guiguere, author of Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense, provides some inside advice on how to optimize your Google AdSense listings. Read his blog here: http://www.memwg.com/blog.




Then read his book. A great read if you want to make passive income from your websites (besides selling your books). I use Google AdSense on most of my web sites except for my main BookMarket.com website. In the next several months, though, I plan to redesign that site as well to include Google ads. It just makes sense to use AdSense to increase your subsidiary income.

You can order Eric's book by clicking on the cover image above.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Free Teleseminar: Amazon Bestseller Campaigns

Would you like to see your book on Amazon.com's Bestseller List?

You'd be silly not to want that. Because you'll move lots of books, Plus, being on Amazon's Bestseller List can open the door to many other opportunities -- selling your book to a larger publisher, publicity opportunities, speaking engagements, selling foreign or film rights, etc.

And wouldn't it be fun to add bestselling author to your resume?

To learn a simple formula any non-fiction author can use to make their book an Amazon Bestseller, you're invited this Thursday, August 10th at your choice of two times: either 2:00 pm Eastern (11:00 am Pacific) OR 7:00 pm Eastern (4:00 pm Pacific) for a 75-minute telephone seminar on...

How to Make Your Book an Amazon.com Bestseller and Sell Tons of Copies Even if You're a Marketing Novice

You'll hear Steve Harrison interview two authors, Randy Gilbert and Peggy McColl, about the simple system they've used to make many books Amazon Bestsellers

Your only cost to participate in this 75-minute telephone seminar is your normal long distance charges (same as when you're calling Aunt Edna in Connecticut).

To register for either of Thursday's calls, go here now: Amazon Bestsellers.

On the call, you'll learn:

* Randy & Peggy's ingenious yet simple, five-step formula any author can use to hit the Amazon Bestseller list in only 38 days at almost no cost.

* How they've used the formula to make numerous books Amazon Bestsellers and how one author used their formula to sell 6,828 copies for $27 each without spending a dime on advertising (yes, that's $184,256.00 in sales!).

* Why their formula works for all types of books, fiction or non-fiction, regardless of subject -- whether they're self-published, POD, ebooks; newly-published or even those that have been out for years.

* Why you need absolutely no marketing expertise or experience to implement their Bestseller Formula.

* Big mistakes almost all publishers make selling books on Amazon.

* Case histories of several authors who've hit the Amazon Bestseller list using this approach.

* How the morning after hitting #5 on the Amazon List, Randy started getting calls from agents and publishers from all over the world intersted in buying foreign rights.

* Want big-time publicity? You'll learn how becoming a Bestseller makes it much easier to get media exposure.

Again, there's no cost to participate in this telephone seminar except your normal long distance charges.

To register for the telephone seminar, go here: Amazon Bestsellers.

Who knows, maybe I'll be seeing your book on the Amazon Bestseller List soon!
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