Book Titles Are Important

How important is a title? Critical. Indeed, it is possible to sell a book based on the title alone. That's what Cindy and Alan Garner did with their self-published book, Everything Men Know about Women. The book was written under a pseudonym, Alan Francis, and is now published by Andrews McMeel.

Why do I know that the title alone sold the book? Because the book had nothing in it except 120 blank pages. Yet the book sold well over 2 million copies!

A Brilliant Novel Marketing Idea

I found the following story in Roland Hachmann's Web Jungle. It's a wonderful example of an entrepreneurial author:

Back in 1897, novelist W. Somerset Maugham, now best known as the author of Of Human Bondage, was having trouble selling his first novel Liza of Lambeth because his publisher wasn't interested in advertising the book. So he took matters into his own hands.

He placed classified ads in a few daily newspapers in London. The copy read: “Young millionaire, lover of sports, cultivated, with good taste of music and a patient and empathetic character wishes to marry any young and beautiful girl that resembles the heroine of W.S. Maugham’s new novel.”

By the end of the week, the first edition had sold out. The novel went on to get critical praise and many, many more sales.

Now, in today’s world, a classified newspaper ad like that won’t work because people don’t read the classifieds like they use to.

But the basic strategy of tying your book into your potential reader’s dreams and aspirations, that will always work. Maugham tapped into his potential reader’s desire for love (a universal perennial yearning that every romance novel taps into).

For more such success stories of debut novelists, see http://www.bookmarket.com/debutnovels.htm.

An Experiment in Blogging

I'm helping out one of the students in my New York Times Bestseller Program, Mark Joyner of Simpleology.com.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.


• How to get traffic to your blog.


• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Double Your Order Page Orders

If you want to almost double the number of orders on your website, here are two tips for doing so:

1. If you offer a free trial for any of your products, add this word to your description of the trial: Risk Free. Instead of saying a free 15-day trial, say: a Risk Free 15-day trial.

2. If you have a two-column listing of your products, change it to a single column. One publisher who did this got an 88% (almost double) higher conversion rate on orders by making just that one simple change.

Personalize Your Books

Random House has just partnered with SharedBook to give users a chance to create personalized versions of some of its books via its website. The first book to go live is the classic children's book The Poky Little Puppy.

For $25.00, people can add a custom dedication to the book and upload a photo to the front of the book. The book is then printed on demand as a laminated hardcover. An uncustomized version sells for $4.99 on Amazon. Consumers have to sign a user agreement stating that the customized book is for their own use and not for resale.

Personally, I think they could have done more to personalize the book. For example, allowing consumers to add their child's name into the text of the book.



This is the first time SharedBook has partnered with a book publisher. It has previously partnered with Yosemite National Park, AllRecipes.com, the Little League, JumpTV Sports, and other websites to allow consumers ways to make books using the content on their websites.

SharedBook CEO Caroline Vanderlip is talking to other publishers about making similar offers. Check out SharedBook's website to find out how you could offer the same kind of personalization on your website.

They offer an API interface so you could do it if you know anything about programming API interfaces. Note: I don't. Here's a link to their how-to info on implementing an API: http://sharedbook.com/press/press/open_api_howto.html.

Below is one example of such an interface:

Novels Via Cellphones

A New York Times article recently covered the phenomenon of Japanese novels being written and delivered via cellphones. While many thought it a novelty, the phenomenon has turned out to be the genesis of some of the bestselling novels in Japan for last year.

Indeed, of last year's ten bestselling novels, five got their start as cellphone novels self-published by their authors and later picked up by a publisher and bought out as a printed book.

A debut novel Love Sky by Mika was read by 20 million people on their cellphones or on websites where the novels were hosted as well. When the novel was published in book form, it became the #1 selling novel in Japan for all of last year. In addition, the novel was made into a movie. Not bad for what was essentially a self-published novel.

Internet Marketing Recommendation

Many of you might know of Armand Morin's success in producing and selling tons of information products and services, including many that I use in running my Internet marketing business. If you want to know more, click here: Internet Marketing Explained. I can't wait to get this product myself. It is going to be loaded with information.

For just a hint of what it will contain, read this PDF book: The Obvious Truth by Armand Morin. This free book outlines the 16 basic and easy steps to building an income-generating Internet-based business.

John Kremer's Birthday Bash Free Teleseminar

John Kremer's Birthday Bash Bonanza Teleseminar was held on Wednesday, January 16th. To listen in to the free recorded teleseminar via the web, go to: http://www.InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=1615035.

During this free teleseminar, I gave recommendations on what online and offline services and resources would be best for you and your book. If you want to do publicity, carry out a full-scale Internet marketing campaign, sell your book to a larger publisher, sell to catalogs, or whatever you want to do in marketing your books, I showed where you can get the resources you need to sell the most books.

For details on many of the services and resources I featured in the teleseminar, see http://www.bookmarket.com/if.htm.

Title Change Makes All the Difference

When Russell Simmons showed Oprah Winfrey a copy of his book manuscript, she said that his title The 12 Laws of Success was corny. She said the book should be titled Do You!.

As Simmons noted later, "I knew she was right, so I went back to the publisher and we changed the name."

If anyone else had told Simmons to change the title, the publisher might not have listened -- but you don't ignore Oprah. She's smart. And she's influential.

A Crazy New Way to Increase Sales

This is an article from 2007 that Joe Vitale has given me permission to reprint here. I like it. I thought you might enjoy it as well.

In my new book Zero Limits, I talk about the unusual therapist who helped heal an entire hospital ward of mentally ill criminals -- without seeing any of them.

I've since learned his method for healing, which involves cleaning yourself of all negativity in order to see change in others. It seems bizarre, but when you take care of your own issues, they disappear in other people.

The whole idea is to love the problems away. You do it by saying "I love you," and a few other statements, non-stop. I've been doing it for two years now and my life is astonishing. I live in an almost moment-by-moment state of bliss.

Once I learned this method, I started to use it on other things besides illness. Since I'm a practical metaphysician and an entrepreneur, I wanted to see if this wild method would work on sales and other bottom line results.

Whenever I would write an article -- much like this one -- I would send love into it.

Whenever I would write another book -- like my new one Zero Limits -- I would keep saying "I love you" in my mind.

What I noticed is my emails and articles would get read and distributed to millions of people. And my book Zero Limits became an Amazon bestseller -- six months before it was published.

But I didn't stop there in my testing. Because I want to be sure this method works for others and not just me, I taught it to my close friends.

Bill Hibbler, coauthor with me of the book Meet and Grow Rich, was skeptical. But he borrowed a pre-publication copy of my book Zero Limits, read it, and started loving his products and his list of subscribers. Here's what he said:

"Sales for Jan 1-4 were 41.39% higher than Dec 1-4. During the four day period in January, I didn't mail my list or launch any new promotion during that time. All I did was clean while reading your book and throughout the day."

Bill went on to tell me he saw sales increase from sites like http://www.create-ultimate-ebooks.com -- which he wasn't promoting at all.

How is this possible? How can cleaning yourself with a mantra like "I love you" make a difference in your sales?

It appears that there is nothing out there. The entire world is a projection of what you feel inside. So, if you feel love, you will attract love. Because love contains gratitude, you attract more things to be grateful for. This is the essence of my book The Attractor Factor and, of course, of the movie The Secret.

You get what you feel. That's it. At heart I think you (I) just want love. Well, so does everyone else. When you say "I love you" inside yourself, you cleanse yourself and you radiate an energy that others feel. The result: more sales.

Still skeptical? Look at it this way: Even if this whole method seems totally crazy to you, what harm can come from you saying "I love you" in your mind as you make calls, write emails, deliver pitches, and go about your day? If nothing else, you'll have better feeling days. Try it and see.

By the way, I love you.

-- Dr. Joe Vitale is author of way too many books to mention, including the bestsellers The Attractor Factor, Life's Missing Instruction Manual, and the forthcoming head spinner Zero Limits. He's also one of the stars in the hit movie The Secret. His main website is at http://www.MrFire.com.

The book Zero Limits was published in July, 2007. You can order it from Amazon.com today. Read an excerpt at http://www.ZeroLimits.info -- the world's first website to cleanse you as you visit it.

Soft-Sell Marketing Conference

Bridging Heart and Marketing is the first-ever soft-sell Internet marketing conference, on February 22, 23, and 24 at the Westin, LAX (that's right next to the Los Angeles Airport). If you've always felt uncomfortable with hard sell conferences, you'll like this conference which shows how you can triple your income with a soft-sell approach.

Besides Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski, the organizers, the faculty include Mike Filsaime, Scott Martineau, Jody Colvard, Beth Davis, Donna Fox, and Tom Justin. Even their sales letter page is more soft-sell than most I've seen. Check it out at: http://www.bookmarket.com/softsell.htm.

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Alex Carroll will be hosting a teleseminar on Monday, January 14, at 6:00 p.m. Pacific with Judith Shervin on Bridging Heart and Marketing -- all about soft sell marketing.

If your book or message fall into any of the self-improvement, inspirational or mind/ body/spirit genres, you cannot afford to miss this call. And even if they don't, you still need to hear this message. It will shape the future of all marketing.

Here's the call-in info: 620-294-4000; PIN: 222078#.

Read, Listen to, and Watch Some Beautiful Books

Wow, I just discovered the Alive! eBook Network and it is beautiful and enticing. It allows you to create and sell multimedia ebooks that feature text, audio, and video.

They've already featured Dan Millman, Marc Allen, Carolyn Ellis, and others. You provide text, audio recordings, optional photos and other graphics, video (if you have some) and then they do the heavy lifting of creating the multimedia ebook plus the non-glamorous technical stuff for ebook security, hosting, and integration into your shopping cart. Cost: $2500 plus a cover design.

Their covers are gorgeous and the books are involving, which means that your customer not only gets to read you but also hear and see you.

Check out their samples by clicking here. You'll like what you see and hear.

Great Book Cover

Great book cover:



For more info, see the Blogger blog: http://www.jayjaxbooks.blogspot.com.

My First Video: A Great Song

Listen to this great song from my friend, Tim Peterson: Angels Watching Over You. Note: Tim isn't a great singer, but he's a great songwriter.

Useful Free Ebooks on Internet Marketing

Here are a few new PDF reports that I've added recently to the FreeBooksForAll.com website. These are really neat reports worth looking at if you want to market wisely via the Internet.

How to Cash in on the New Internet and Flood Your Business with Customers by Rocket Helstrom. This one tells you how to increase the number of visitors to your website.

How to Create Internet Money Machines Without Ever Building a Website by Frank Sousa. This one is really great for those of you who are are uncomfortable doing HTML or website design.

How to Uncover Red-Hot Niches with a Simple Step-by-Step Formula by Myleena Phan. If you have trouble figuring out who would be interested in your book or website, this report can help you figure out what your niche is.

Happy New Year's: 100 Times a Year

I do wish all of you a happy new year and a prosperous one as well. But if you fail to celebrate the new year on January 1st, you have more than 100 other new year's days you can celebrate. For details on those, see http://www.manyhappynewyears.com.