The Publishing Profits Podcast Show | Writing | Marketing | Books | eBooks | Audiobooks | Authors | Entrepreneurs

Derek Doepker is the first guest to come back on the show for a third visit. In Episode 24 we talked about creating a great book marketing strategy for long-term success and some awesome tips on saving money when you self publish, and in Episode 94 we talked about developing a success mindset and some powerful personal development advice for authors and entrepreneurs. Today, Derek’s going to talk about the new Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) ads platform, and how you can use Amazon ads to skyrocket your book sales and earn a great ROI. Derek first experimented with Product Display Ads around 2014 when Amazon first rolled them out. He rarely made a profit with them. After two months of experimentation, he forgot about them. Product Display Ads appear on the right-hand side of the screen after the Also Bought section of book listings on Amazon book pages. In 2016 Amazon Released Sponsored Product Ads. Derek started experimenting with these ads immediately and his first experiments yielded additional book sales for his own books of $3,505 in just under eight weeks. The difference between Product Display Ads and Sponsored Product Ads is Sponsored Product Ads allow an author to target keywords for their book. Product Display Ads require you to target individual books. After his first experiments, Derek tried using Product Display Ads with books in other categories and got his students to experiment with them as well. What he found was Product Display Ads have the potential to be extremely profitable as long as the book you’re advertising converts well already. Amazon Ads Budget: How Much to Spend/Bid on a Campaign When setting up an Amazon Ads Campaign you want to consider two things. The first is your ROI and the second is your total sales. Your ROI is certainly important. You want to be profitable with any ad campaign you start. In the end though, total sales end up being more important. The more sales you have the larger your audience and the larger your reach is. The more sales you have the better you do in Amazon’s rankings, and the more sales you have the more money you make. If you want to bid conservatively you can bid $0.05 – $0.10 a word and you’ll be more likely to have a positive ROI. Bidding conservatively may lead to fewer impressions (displays of your ad) and fewer overall sales. If you bid $0.25 or more per click you will get more impressions and you’ll likely find more profitable keywords to use in your ad campaign over time because Amazon will show your ads to more readers. These keywords may be more expensive but they will often lead to more overall sales. Amazon will tell you the minimum budget for a campaign is $1/day. Derek thinks it’s best to budget between $3 to $5 per day for the first week. Derek likes a week of data to really tell how a campaign is going. So for around $20 you can test a campaign and see how it’s going to go. Setting up an Amazon Ads Campaign You can setup a campaign from your KDP dashboard. What you want to do is start an ad campaign and choose a “Sponsored Product” campaign. From there choose the book in your dashboard you want to advertise. At this point you can choose between “automatic targeting” and “manual targeting.” Manual targeting allows you tell amazon which keywords you want to advertise for. Amazon will allow you to have up to 1,000 keywords in a campaign. It’s best to cast a wide net when choosing keywords for your campaign. In general, more keywords lead to more profitable campaigns because you never really know which keywords will convert browsers into buyers until you test it. Amazon only charges you when people click on your ad. So if you have keywords that aren’t getting any clicks on your ads they won’t cost you anything. Pro Tip: If you don’t have a paperback version of your book, get one, especially if you’re running an Amazon Ads Campaign. It’s true that Amazon ads will take you to the kindle book page, but Derek and I have seen significant increases in paperback sales as well as ebook sales when running Amazon ad campaigns. If you don’t have a paperback version of your book you’re just leaving money on the table (Here’s a free guide to get your book published in paperback). Keyword Research for Amazon Ad Campaigns There are several different ways to approach keyword research when it comes to Amazon ads campaigns. 1. Look for popular authors and books in your genre. These will be good keywords to use in your campaign. Search across genres. Think about your audience. Who might be interested in your book? 2. Use amazon suggested searches. These are the searches that pop up as you’re searching in amazon’s search bar. Suggested searches are used a lot because they are what amazon has found people type in a lot to the search bar. 3. Use paid keyword research software. There are several software tools th

Michelle Paisley Reed is an author, inspirational speaker, and spiritual channel. She’s written four screenplays and five books, including a bestseller we recently published together called Manifesting Miracles and Money: How to Achieve Peace, Purpose, and Plenty Without Getting in Your Own Way. Michelle is working on a new reality TV show called “Don’t Change The Channel.” Michelle has been a writer her whole life. Her love affair with writing began after she got a poem published in a literary magazine in the eighth grade. She became an instant celebrity at her school and has been a writer in one form or another ever since. Her love of reading and writing led her to become an English major in college. After college, she became a reporter because she needed a job to pay the bills. She rose through the ranks at her job very quickly and became a feature editor in short order. Her work allowed her to develop a strong writing habit. But it was very stressful so she took up yoga as a hobby. Eventually, she opened her own yoga studio. The first book she published was on yoga. How Meditation Can Boost Creativity This was a great interview packed with information. We talked about meditation and how it can help you become more creative. We also talked about mindfulness and how to develop intuition. This is a must listen for anyone who wants to achieve success more smoothly while enjoying the journey. Michelle has a process she calls channeling books. She meditates in the morning before writing, and then writes for as long as she’s moved to. When she was younger she used to try to hit targets. When she wrote like that she didn’t produce anything publishable. The greatest success comes to people who aren’t concerned about making money. They’d write books even if they weren’t paid a dime. It’s your passion and dedication to your work and your message that will drive you to write great books that readers will love. Everyone deserves a creative outlet. Your writing is your legacy. A good writer is always changing and growing. You’re going to write different books and evolve as a writer through time. Getting Your Ego Out of The Way We all have wants, needs, and desires. They have their place and can be useful. The problem is your wants, needs, and desires can also block you from a higher form of expression. If you practice meditation it can lead to a deeper wisdom and allow you to tap into a higher form of expression. The next step is to realize that you aren’t creating the book yourself, you’re merely the channel it’s coming through. Meditation can also help silence the constant inner monologue we all play in our heads, and allow us to be open to flashes of insight and intuition that allow us to move in the direction we’re supposed to go in this life. It’s also important to understand that our ego is something we all carry with us as long as we’re alive. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you learn how to function outside your ego through meditation and reflection, you will be more successful, productive, and happier. Developing a meditation practice can take time. Don’t give up if it doesn’t seem to work at first. There are many different meditation practices. Tips for Starting a Meditation Practice If you’re just starting out or haven’t gotten into the habit of meditating on a regular basis, try starting with a guided meditation. Using guided meditation is easy because all you have to do is listen to the meditation and relax. You can meditate doing almost anything. You don’t have to sit in the lotus position to meditate. The primary aims of meditation are to quiet the mind, help you become fully present in the moment, and help you find inner peace. Meditation is a learned skill. Start easy. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Find a meditation practice that fits who you naturally are. If you like to walk, walk around your neighborhood. If you work all day take a couple minutes during your lunch break, go outside and appreciate the beauty of the world around you. Meditation is all about paying attention to the present moment and quieting the constant inner mind chatter and thoughts about your future and your past. If you’re fully present in the moment, that’s the place where you can access insights and intuition that will help you live a happy, productive, successful life. When trying to create a meditation practice for yourself, look towards activities that you enjoy. Those will most likely be your shortest route to success in figuring out what works for you. The real power of meditation is its ability to open you up and allow you to be your best, happiest self. When you’re happy and energetic you attract other people into your world and they will want to be around you. Meditation Made Simple 1. Focus on your breath. 2. When you have a thought, imagine it’s a cloud in the sky and let it drift away. 3. Repeat as necessary until the end of your meditation session. Meditation as a Way of Life Medi

Chris Fox is the best selling author of several books on Amazon including No Such Thing As Werewolves. He used to be an iPhone and iPad app developer before transitioning to be a full-time author. He’s written several sci-fi/fantasy books as well as several helpful nonfiction books for authors. In episode 52 week talk about Chris’s journey and how to find your target audience. If you haven’t listened to that episode I strongly recommend it. Today Chris and I talked about how to get Amazon to sell more of your books by understanding how their data science and marketing systems work. This was a great interview with a lot of information on marketing your books on Amazon. Using Data Science to Sell More Books on Amazon Data science is being used everywhere in the world today, especially on the Internet. Websites gather two types of data: anonymous data, and personal data. Anonymous data is collected through the use of tracking pixels that track what websites you visit from the various links you click on. Personal data is collected any time you set up an account at a store, website or a social networking site. When websites collect personal data they’re not going to know you as a person, but they will be able to make guesses about your tastes and preferences as well as your buying behavior based on the information you give them when you set up your account. Every website you visit, everything you purchase, and every interaction you have online is monitored and recorded. Using this information, data scientists can make informed decisions about who you are and what you like to buy. The cool thing for authors is you can use data science to help you sell more books on Amazon—and the results can be huge! The Martian: A Book Marketing Case Study Andy Weir first wrote The Martian as serialized fiction on his blog. As he wrote it, he released the book one chapter at a time for free. By writing the book and interacting with his readers he amassed an e-mail list of about 10,000 people. When he finished the book his audience asked him to put it up on Amazon. After he put his book on Amazon he e-mailed his list of 10,000 hardcore sci-fi fans that the book was available for $0.99. Very quickly Amazon sold thousands of copies of The Martian. When Amazon’s data science algorithms kicked in, Amazon showed the book to more sci fi fans, and a lot of hardcore science-fiction fans bought and really liked the book. So Amazon began promoting it to other hardcore science fiction fans, and more people bought the book. This caused Amazon to promote it to more people which caused more sales, and the cycle continued. Amazon’s data science algorithms have the potential to make a good or great book that is loved by a certain type of reader “go viral” and sell thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of copies. The key to Andy’s success was he sent targeted traffic to Amazon (and he had a great book that readers loved). The reason that’s important is because the people who bought Andy’s book also bought other science fiction stories, and that caused The Martian to show up in the also bought section for people who bought other popular science fiction novels. It’s important to promote your book to targeted readers who read books in your niche or genre. The first 100 to 500 sales of your book are very important because they train Amazon’s algorithm to find your ideal readers. You want to make sure Amazon is showing your book to the right audience—and if you send untargeted folks (like friends and family) to buy your book on Amazon, you could be shooting yourself in the foot. If you tell your friends and family that your publishing a book on Amazon and they don’t normally buy books in your genre, that will lead to a poor conversion rate when it comes to people who click on your book from the also bought section. That will tell Amazon that your book isn’t profitable for them to promote so Amazon won’t promote your book. How to Find Your Target Market 1. Start by making a list of the genres you’re interested in writing in. 2. Browse those categories on Amazon. Look to see how crowded that market is. The more competitive a category is, the harder it will be for a new author to break into that category. 3. Once you’ve satisfied yourself that you can break into that market, and that market has a large enough audience to be worth your time, buy 3 – 5 books in the genre and read them. 4. Make notes on genre conventions. See if there are similarities between the books. 5. Read the reviews of the books that you buy. Make notes of what people liked and didn’t like about the different stories. Keep those elements in mind as you design your story. This article on how to become a bestselling author on Amazon talks more about the process of finding your ideal readers, with step-by-step instructions and examples. Using Pai

Joel Kessel is the founder of Kessel Communications, a strategic communications agency that helps businesses communicate better. Joel specializes in media relations and PR Strategy for business owners and thought leaders. During his sophomore year in college, Joel got into a small talk with a news reporter while waiting for his shift. The news reporter gave him a very bleak picture of how his life would be in the radio industry and he persuaded Joel to work in public relations. In the fall, Joel went back to school and he ended up majoring in journalism with a focus on Public Relations (PR). After he graduated in Ohio, he went to Chicago to start his career in PR and he has been doing it for 24 years. This is an awesome interview where Joel talks about how to make journalists more receptive to your message, how to use his PESO model for public relations, how to build relationships with top influencers, and how to be the leader in your niche. Public Relations Strategy Today anyone can call themselves a reporter or media person if they have a laptop or a cellphone. But when Joel talks about media, he’s talking about journalists—professionally trained people from a reputable company. So how do you get journalists and key influencers in the media to be more receptive of your message? Put yourself in a journalist’s shoes. Today, we are bombarded with messages, stories, and “news” constantly. Because of challenges like fake news, social media algorithms, and what’s trending, a journalist’s job has changed in the past decade from a nine-to-five job to a 24/7 search for new and important stories. The first thing a journalist looks at is the source. Where did the information come from? A lot of people look at Facebook for their news and that’s okay. But if you want to find out what’s true, you still have to look at the source and determine how reputable and credible the source is. You want to become that kind of source that journalists can trust. To become the source of news and leader in your market, there are four areas to look at, and it’s called the PESO model. PESO Model of Media Strategy Paid Media – This is where you pay someone to say something nice about you or get your message out. Earned Media – An example is the podcast show you are listening to right now. Tom allowed Joel to talk about his expertise in his platform. Joel didn’t pay Tom to get on this platform; he earned his media placement because of his expertise. Shared Media – These are the sharing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and the like. Owned Media – These are your books, website, blogs, and other content platforms that you own. This includes all the content you make to educate and add value to readers and people you are looking to connect and engage with. If you start with an integrated approach in these four areas, it’s going to help elevate the likelihood of getting your message out there in a big way. Joel said, “don’t look at these four areas as separate buckets.” Use the PESO model to get the same message across in variety of ways because some people today are consuming information in different ways. Craft your story and get it out there. Develop a Media Marketing Plan Even before you start looking into the PESO model, you need to have a media plan and this is how Joel does it. 1. Start with your goals. What are you trying to accomplish? What would success look like a year from now? Is it selling x amount of books? Is it to have x amount of people connected on Facebook? 2. Talk about your audience. Who are your ideal readers and ideal customers? Where do they hang out? How do they get their information? More importantly, what are their pain points? What frustrates them? How do you insert yourself to share your message in way that they will appreciate the most? 3. Create a message map. This means listing problems, challenges, and frustrations, and then providing solutions to help alleviate some of those problems and some of those results. You don’t have to hire a full-blown agency to do this for you because you are going to spend a lot of money ($5,000 a month and up) and expectations may not be met. You can do great public relations work on your own, but you have to get a guidance, get a coach, get an advisor or a consultant that will lead you down the right path. Connect with Top Influencers or Media People in your Industry When it comes to media relations, it’s really about how you build relationships with the media. 1. PR Should be Done Online and Offline Relationships are the backbone of any successful engagement in life. Most people fail to build great relationships and that’s why they fail to get great PR results. Joel said he is doing social media, conversing with people through Twitter, but he also attends conferences to meet people face-to-face and these turn into long-term relationships. He is now part of a mastermind group based on a group of people he met o

Adam is a preacher, teacher, novelist and #1 international bestselling author of over 100 books on the Christian faith. With over 2 million books distributed, his titles range from devotionals, to prayer books, to Christian inspiration, and inspirational fiction. This was a quick interview loaded with information. In this podcast we talk about Amazon’s algorithm, the right way to launch a book, and the right way to do book promotion. Three years ago Adam retired for medical reasons. He was buried in medical bills and his wife was the only source of income his family had. As a stay-at-home dad with time on his hands, he decided to write a book. He had an idea that had been rattling around in his head for years. He wrote it and published it. The book The Power and the Passion didn’t do very well and isn’t available anymore on Amazon. Fortunately, Adam wrote a second book at the same time. It was much shorter and with very little work on Adam’s part the book stuck in Amazon’s algorithm. It made about $10 a day without Adam promoting it. That’s when a lightbulb went off for Adam and he realized that if he learned how the system worked he could find an audience and make a living selling books on Amazon. Understanding Amazon’s Algorithm Amazon is more than a store. Amazon is a search engine. When you go to the Amazon search bar to search for something Amazon is going to try and find the things most related to your search that it can to serve your interests as a customer. You will find that certain customers will search for certain keywords, and if you can create a product that aligns with those customers needs and your product ends up converting for Amazon, Amazon will give you greater visibility so you have more of a chance of converting for them. This is a win-win situation. You get more customers because of more visibility, Amazon gets more sales and more money, and customers are happy. Why Book Launches Are Important It’s important to have a book launch plan to attract the attention of Amazon’s algorithm so that you can have greater visibility over the long-term. To understand how to best implement a book launch plan you have to understand what behavior Amazon is trying to reward. Amazon wants to promote entrepreneurs who are continuously marketing their work. If an entrepreneur is continuously marketing their work available on Amazon, that means Amazon gets more traffic, more customers and more money. So it’s in their vested interest to give visibility to those people who are marketing their work themselves. Think of it this way. Amazon is partnering with you and recognizes that you are the type of person that will promote your own work. So Amazon gives you a bigger platform to promote your work which in turn gives you a bigger platform to drive traffic back to Amazon. Before you launch your book you need to: 1. Choose the right categories for your book. They need to be categories that get enough traffic so that you can get a decent number of sales and they need to be relevant to the book you’re selling. 2. Choose the right keywords for your book. Like categories featured the keyword terms that people search for that are relevant to your book. How to Do a Book Launch To Gain Visibility and Get Noticed by Amazon’s Algorithm Amazon is constantly updating their algorithm. Amazon’s goal is to have as many happy customers of possible. That’s why they reward long-term sales. As of February 2017 this is the best way to launch your book. 1. Optimize your Amazon product page by getting the best cover you can, choosing the best keywords and writing the best product description possible. 2. Search for book blogs that will promote your books. There’s a list of good book blogs below. You pay these book blogs to drive traffic to your book. 3. After the book blogs have even knew a steady source of traffic for about a week, that’s when you use your big e-mail list if you have one or Facebook ads to scale up your visibility. Caution the only way to get the best results is to do all of these things together. If you don’t follow every step you aren’t going to get the results you want.   Advice for New and Aspiring Authors If you are a new author book blogs will help you build a fan base more quickly than you can by yourself. It’s important to realize long-lasting success on Amazon takes time. If you’re promoting your first book do as much if you can within reason. Don’t spend money you can’t afford to try and strike it rich. Use book blogs to build up your mailing list and readership. If you keep producing good work and satisfying your audience sooner or later you will be able to launch a book big enough to get the kind of visibility you want. Start where you’re at. It’s possible to create and market your books very expensively at the beginning. As you publish more books you&#8217

Derek Murphy is the bestselling author of several books including his new novel Shearwater. Derek has a wealth of experience in the publishing industry as a professional editor, cover designer, consultant, keynote speaker, and as a bestselling nonfiction and fiction author. This is our second time interviewing Derek. In episode 37 we talked about how to make book covers that sell books. This time we talk about book marketing strategies and how to use the book giveaways alongside Facebook ads to quickly build your e-mail list. Derek also had some interesting things to say about the difference between marketing for nonfiction and marketing for fiction books. Fiction vs. Nonfiction: How the Markets Are Different Fiction readers tend to read 10x more books than nonfiction readers. Fiction readers are more loyal. It’s much easier to convince a fiction reader to buy more of your books. If they like your writing they will want more of that experience. The secret to making money in Kindle Unlimited is to keep your audience reading longer. The longer they read the more page reads you have and the more money you make. If you put a book out permafree and it gets a high rank, Derek has found that if you switch the book over to paid the rank tends to be sticky. He switched over one of his books from free to paid and it has been consistently ranking in the top 2,000 books of the Kindle store for over a month. He’s making about $2,000 a month with that book right now—a book that started as permafree. Not bad for a free book! Readers tend to get even more excited about fiction than nonfiction—your loyal fans will go out of their way to support you if you communicate with them and ask them for help. Writing fiction requires different skill sets than writing nonfiction. Building An Author Platform: Book Marketing for Authors While writing fiction is different than writing nonfiction, the skills required to market your work are universal. It’s important to take the long view if you want to be a professional writer. It takes time to write stories and build the type of loyal audience that will buy every book you write. Giving away some of your books for free is a powerful way to market your work, especially if you’ve optimized your Amazon product page for keywords so that people can find you. A lot of authors say they refuse to give away their books for free because they don’t want to train their audience to expect free books. But many successful businesses give away free samples all the time. When was the last time you tried a free sample at the grocery store? You may not buy the product right then and there, but you’ll be more likely to buy it the next time you see it, if you liked it, because the product is more familiar to you. The food company allowed you to try their product with zero risk. When you offer your book for free, you allow a customer to try your book without risk. It’s much easier for you to find an audience when there is no barrier of entry to the world to create. The key to building a platform without doing a lot of book promotion is to make sure that you put your books on the right “bookshelf.” This means choosing the right category and subcategory for your book and optimizing your product page so that people find your book when they search for keywords. Once you have your book published on Amazon, experiment with tweaking your book description every so often by using different keywords in it. Your book description stays with your book forever. The return on investment of writing a better description is way better than advertising because as soon as you stop advertising there is a danger that your book will sink again. Kindle Unlimited and Pricing Derek has found that if you price a fiction book at $0.99 and offer it through Kindle Unlimited the rank will stick higher because more people will buy who aren’t in Kindle Unlimited. The higher rank translates into greater visibility so that people who do use Kindle Unlimited will see your book more and borrow it. If the book is good they’ll read to the end and you can get much more money for that customer then you would if you price the book at $5 Because of the way the Kindle Unlimited works where authors get paid per page reads, fiction books tend to be more profitable than nonfiction books in Kindle Unlimited because fiction books are longer. Book Giveaways and Facebook Ads: A Simple E-Mail Marketing Strategy to Build a Massive List. Here’s an easy way to build a massive list of responsive followers. 1. Find 10 best-selling books in your genre. 2. Buy them with the intention of giving them away. 3. Setup a giveaway on one of the sites mentioned below in the links and resources section. 4. Start a Facebook ad campaign and target people who liked the books you bought. Tell them about the giveaway that you’re doing. 5. Make sure that in order to enter the giveaway your prospect ha

Craig Ballantyne has been the Editor of the personal development newsletter, Early To Rise, since 2011. His daily essays reach over 150,000 readers and teach people how to build their wealth, improve their health, and become the best version of themselves. He now coaches entrepreneurs around the world how to turn their ideas into money and to help people all over the world. Craig is also a fitness expert and the author of the groundbreaking fat loss workout systems, Turbulence Training, and Home Workout Revolution. He has been a contributing author to Men’s Health magazine since 2000. He created the Turbulence Training Certification program to show personal trainers how to help men and women lose weight without equipment or cardio exercise. There are hundreds of TT Trainers around the world dedicated to his 10 Million Mission of helping ten million men and women transform their lives before 2020. Craig has an advanced research background, completing a Master of Science Degree in Exercise Physiology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He continues to study the latest in health and performance and to help his readers improve their lives. This is a great interview. We talk about time management, how to be your most productive, book marketing, and how to create a sales funnel from a nonfiction book. If you’re a nonfiction author Craig gives you a model you can use to create a six- or seven-figure business with your expertise. Time Management The Three C’s of Time Management 1. Control what you can. Craig chooses to control his morning because it’s the easiest time of day for him to control. 2. Cope with what you can’t control. 3. Concentrate on What Counts. Figure out your highest value activities. As much as you can, focus on the activities that will move you toward your goals. Craig attributes his success as a blogger and author to dedicating the first hour of the day when he wakes up to writing content. The 1% Solution If you don’t have an hour a day, just wake up 15 minutes before anyone else and spend 15 minutes a day on your highest priority task. Arnold Schwarzenegger did the math and 15 minutes a day is 1% of your time. If you spend 1% of your time every day on your most important task you will achieve your goals far faster than you ever thought possible. If you commit 15 minutes a day to writing your book, you could have a manuscript ready to publish in as little as 10 to 12 weeks. The secret is to outline what you’re going to write the night before. Go to sleep and let your subconscious work on how to craft the words. If you have a rough outline done, writing on a blank page will be much easier. Alice Monroe once said “Write in the slivers of time.” Craig says that everyone has Magic Time where they are three times more effective than the rest of the day. The best way to increase productivity is to figure out what time of the day that is for you and then protect that time from distractions. For many people it is the morning when they first wake up. For some people it’s early in the afternoon, and others are night owls. If you’re not sure when you’re Magic Time is, just pay attention to how you feel throughout the day for a a few days It may help to write down what you do with your time. When do you feel most alert and awake? When you feel like you have the most energy? Once you’ve discovered when you’re Magic Time is, it’s important to protect it from distractions so that you can be your most productive self. It’s important to have separate blocks of time scheduled for creative activities and business activities. The creative mind and the business mind can’t peacefully work together during the same blocks of time. It’s best if you set aside certain blocks of time for different types of activity. If you want to be more successful than you currently are, one of the most important things you can do is hang out with people who are more successful than you. Your level of success can be measured by the five people you spend the most time with. Choose to spend your time with people who will make you strive to get to their level. Book Marketing Craig does two things to market his book. First, he does as many podcasts as he can to get his message out there. He came up with this strategy after talking to his mentor Dan Kennedy who said that every time he does a teleseminar call he sells 100 books. Craig thought if teleseminars can do that for Dan Kennedy, each podcast interview might be worth 20 sales of his book. In 2016 alone, Craig has done over 100 podcast interviews. The benefits of these interviews go well beyond direct sales. Podcast interviews have made Craig a better communicator and have allowed him to tighten up the sales pitch for his book. The other thing that Craig has done to promote his book is create The Perfect Day Formula Kit. This is a $200 info product full of worksheets

Kathy Meis is the founder and CEO of Bublish, the world’s first complete publishing solution with integrated brand-building, marketing and discoverability features. Kathy’s career began when she graduated Indiana State. As a reporter she worked for Forbes building the editorial brand from scratch. When the Internet emerged as the new way to communicate and connect with one another Kathy witnessed respected editorial brands in the print media become fractured. As a freelance writer and ghostwriter of business books she began to think about the problem and how to fix it. She realized that the container of content was very important to the brand itself. She created bublish as a sort of “online container” to help authors maintain a consistent brand on the web, and to re-create the experience of browsing a bookshelf online. Book Metadata Metadata is data about your book. Before the Internet metadata was a backend product publishers used to help books navigate the distribution process. It was a way for publishers, bookstore owners, and librarians to organize the books they had to help consumers find what they want. Today, metadata is a consumer facing process. That is, consumers are using the search engine algorithms to comb through metadata and find what they’re looking for. This makes it more important than ever that content creators create appropriate metadata to make their content discoverable by their ideal reader. The world is so reliant on search algorithms today that if you don’t make your metadata relevant and computer friendly, you will quite simply get lost in the crowd. There are two types of metadata: 1. Simple metadata — that is metadata created by the author directly. Examples include: Cover, product description, and title. 2. Enriched metadata — includes metadata created by customers, as well as metadata that doesn’t necessarily relate to one particular book. Examples include: reviews, excerpts, hashtags, blog tags, awards you’ve received, and author bios. Metadata is vitally important because it creates your online brand. It’s how people find you online. Digital Branding The key to Digital Branding is to be indexed in as many ways as possible and to be consistent about your author message with everything you post online. Rich Snippets are a powerful way to differentiate yourself from your competition. They are tools offered by Google which allow you to give the search engine more specific information about who you are and what you sell. If you use Rich snippets in the right way on your website, people will be able to find you more easily. Whenever possible the things you post online should be keyword rich. You should choose keywords that clue your potential audience into who you are and what your brand’s about. Search and Discoverability on Amazon The best Amazon marketing starts with your manuscript and positioning. We have to start with the product figure out who your audience is, and what genre you’ve written. This will help us position your book in front of readers who want to buy it. The most important piece of metadata that you will ever show the world as an author is your cover. It’s the first thing potential customers see. It has your title, your subtitle, and your name on it. If it’s done right, the cover also conveys a sense of the genre your book is in. This is just as true for nonfiction as for fiction. Beyond the image, covers can also contain metadata searchable by search engines that tell them what the book is about. Nielsen did a study that showed book covers that were properly optimized with appropriate metadata sold 432% more copies than covers without appropriate metadata. The next piece of metadata you show the world is your title. You want to carefully research titles in your genre. You want a title that isn’t used too much but still feels like a title from your genre. If your book has a subtitle that’s another piece of metadata that search engines use to help consumers find your book. With nonfiction books it’s common to put the benefit that your audience will receive from reading the book in the subtitle. With fiction books it can be helpful to use a keyword that describes the genre to the reader, i.e. dystopian technothriller or Vampire Romance If you’re writing a series, you can also have a series title. This is another place you can have keywords to make your work more discoverable. Now we come to the second most important piece of metadata after your cover. That is, your category pathway (a.k.a. Categories on Amazon) Your category pathway is how Amazon consumers find you when browsing through Amazon for a book. It’s important that you place your books in an appropriate category so when someone sees your book they have a basic idea of the reading experience they’re going to get when they buy your book. If someone’s looking for a military sci-fi ad

Ben Krueger is the founder of Cashflow Podcasting, a done-for-you podcasting and marketing service for entrepreneurs and thought leaders. This interview was great. It contains everything you might want to know about the business of podcasting. We talk about how to start a podcast, the history of podcasting, the different podcasting platforms, the different types of podcasts you can do, and so much more. If you’ve ever thought about starting a podcast, listen to this interview and take notes, then listen again. Ben began working in the podcast industry during a business internship in the Philippines. His internship was ending, and he needed to figure out how he was going to make a living. He was talking with Dan Andrews host of the Tropical MBA Podcast one night around this time. Dan complained about what was involved in the postproduction side of podcasting, and they came up with an agreement whereby Ben would handle postproduction for him. Ben’s business has expanded from there. The History of Podcasting The podcasting industry has gone through two major waves of interest. Around six years ago, the first wave of podcast were created by people interested in getting their message out there. These podcasts were in the categories of self-help, and learning. There was a decline in the podcast marketplace in 2011. Between 2011 and 2013 the technology caught up to the platform. Everything became screens and smartphones, and you could access podcasts wherever you were instead of relying on the iTunes. In 2014 iTunes had its billionth download and it’s only grown from there. Now they even have cars with built in podcasting capability so you don’t have to bring another device with you. Podcast Platforms As the podcast industry has grown several platforms have been created to meet the demands of the marketplace. Itunes: as of right now 60% to 75% of all podcasts are downloaded through iTunes. There hasn’t been a major update to the iTunes platform for podcasts since 2013. The new and noteworthy section of the iTunes platform is noticeably glitchy. Ben has a hunch that iTunes will overhaul its podcast platform in the next one to two years. Google Play is another channel where you can access podcasts. It’s Google’s answer to iTunes. Stitcher is iTunes for android devices. As of right now, (January 2017) it runs smoother and is easier to use than iTunes. Sound Cloud is basically YouTube for audio files. There are other podcast channels on the web as well. Google Play, Stitcher, and Sound Loud, along with other podcast delivery channels account for between 25% and 40% of all podcasts downloads. So it’s quite possible to build a following as a podcaster outside of iTunes. How to Monetize Podcasts There are two ways to make money with your podcast. 1. You can create a podcast with the aim of drawing a big audience to get sponsorships and make money that way. In order to make a good living with sponsorships you have to have at least 30,000 downloads a month, or you have to podcast for an audience that sponsors want to get in front of. OR 2. You can create a podcast with the aim of building a community of listeners that you sell your own products to. This is usually the way that works best for authors. If you use your podcast to create a community of listeners, and leverage those listeners when you have a new book to release it can be very powerful. SEO Tips for Podcasts Use YouTube. YouTube is owned by Google and it’s much easier to rank for keyword terms by posting a video of your interview than trying to rank your show notes page on your blog. Two Ways to Use YouTube 1. Use screen capture software like Camtasia. Play your podcast audio, and have the image that accompanies it be either your iTunes artwork, or an image of you and the person you’re interviewing. 2. Make short 3 – 5 minute videos that are excerpts from your podcast interview. Post them on YouTube with a call to action to listen to the full interview and links about where to find you. Types of Podcasts In today’s marketplace there’s every kind of podcast imaginable. From traditional educational podcast, to conversational podcasts, to podcasts that are just one person and their thoughts. As a podcast producer you have to decide whether you’re creating the podcast for your audience, or for yourself. One type of podcast that has been successful is an interview style podcast where you make a list of all the people you want to interview, create a podcast around the topics you want to talk about and then use the podcast as an excuse to interview these people. It can be much easier to get business people and thought leaders to talk to you if you have a podcast because you’re offering them the opprotunity to get their message out to a new audience. Podcasting for Authors A few authors have distributed audio versions of their books through iTunes. These haven’t gotten massiv

Joseph Clough is the best selling author of Be Your Potential published by Hay House. He is also the creator of over 200 hours of Hypnosis and Coaching MP3s and videos that are being downloaded over 3,000,000 times every year. He is an international Speaker, Celebrity Coach and Hypnotherapist. This was a great interview! In this podcast we talk about hypnosis, how to change your mindset, how to deal with anxiety, how to get a book published even if you failed high school English, and Transmedia messaging. There is a wealth of information here. You may want to listen more than once. Joseph’s journey to successful hypnotherapist started because, like many successful people, he had to work through his own issues. Joseph was a painfully shy child who had trouble learning things. When he was young his math teacher asked him a simple math question that he didn’t know the answer to. The teacher told him that if he didn’t know the answer to the question he would never go anywhere. That moment stuck with him for many years. It was the beginning of a path that led him to be a college dropout working at a job that he was unhappy in. That’s when Joseph’s father, a successful hypnotist himself, told Joseph to get out of his own way and study hypnosis. It was through the study of hypnosis that Joseph found his calling to help other people. Hypnosis helped Joseph let go of his own issues of shyness and fear of speaking in public. Success for Joseph came from understanding himself, dealing with his own issues, and helping other people with theirs. Everyone has the ability to achieve their dreams. We all have a book inside us. We all have the resources and abilities we need in order to be successful. All we need to do if we get stuck is change our mindset. Change Your Mindset If you want to achieve something and you feel like you’re stuck in a rut understand that only you can: Assume responsibility for your own life. Be the instigator of your own change. Choose right now to take different actions in your life that lead to the results you want. Resolve now that My life will be a product of what I create. How to Change Your Mindset In order to change your mindset, you have to understand where you are on your journey. You have to understand what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, and what your strategy is for achieving what you want. If your stuck or frustrated, realize somewhere in the world someone has gotten the results that you want. Figure out who they are and how you can model their results. This will make your journey to success much quicker and less painful. How to Deal with Anxiety Anxiety comes from our reptile brain. It comes from a time in human history when, in order to survive, humans had to be hypervigilant about all the dangers that surrounded us. While anxiety served the purpose back then, it can often be a roadblock to success today. Anxiety is what happens when you focus on everything that can go wrong in a situation. Usually what happens is there’s one thing that you’re worried about, like giving a presentation in front of a group of people, and your mind will come up with every conceivable thing that could go wrong. One way to handle anxiety is to focus on everything that can go right in this situation. Consciously ask yourself: What can go right in this situation? Another question that works well is: What can I do differently? Your mind attracts what you think about. So, when you’re anxious try to put your state of mind into a different perspective. You’re anxious about a moment in the present which is tied to expectations about your future. Try looking at the moment through someone else’s eyes. This can disassociate your emotions from your experience and give you a fresh perspective. Disassociation from your emotions gives clarity in the present moment. Quick Fixes for Anxiety Every person is different and every situation is different. None of these solutions works in every situation. But here are five ways to deal with anxiety in the moment. 1. Get away from the situation. Take a walk outside if you can. 2. Play awesome music. Play music that you find uplifting. 3. Write in a journal. Psychology studies have shown that people who write in a journal about their frustrations and anxieties have better relationships, are happier, and more successful in life. 4. Meditate. Meditation has been used for thousands of years to help clear the mind. 5. Hypnosis. Hypnosis is simply a different kind of meditative state where you’re training the subconscious mind. How to Get a Book Published: Be Your Potential — A Case Study There are many ways to get a book published today. Joseph is a prime example that even if you’re not good at writing, you can still write a book. After several years helping others through hypnosis Joseph decided that he wanted to write a book. He opted to speak his book and have it transcribed becau

Amy Newmark is publisher, editor-in-chief and coauthor of the book series Chicken Soup for the Soul. By curating and editing inspirational true stories from ordinary people who have had extraordinary experiences, Amy has kept the twenty-two-year-old Chicken Soup for the Soul brand fresh and relevant. Amy was always a writer. She started writing stories in kindergarten. Her first career was as a Wall Street analyst, where she hoaned her storytelling skills still more. Wall Street analysts find companies they think are good investments and then write stories about them. In 2007 Amy and her husband were looking for a new challenge. They both completed successful careers in business, and just sent their youngest child to college. Rather than retire, they opted to purchase the Chicken Soup for the Soul publishing company from founders Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. Jack and Mark were looking for people who could bring the Chicken Soup for the Soul Brand into the Internet age. That’s just what they did. Chicken Soup for the Soul survived a recession that saw Borders fail, Barnes & Noble close a number of stores, and hundreds of independent bookstores closing. In this podcast interview we talk about the power of storytelling, brand strategy, and transmedia storytelling. We also discuss how Amy launches a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, and how to submit your writing to be featured in the next book in the series. This is a podcast packed with information. The Power and Importance of Storytelling Storytelling part of everything that human beings do. In business, it’s important to tell the story of your product in a compelling way that communicates its value. Telling stories is the way we pass down wisdom, culture and advice. The Chicken Soup for the Soul Brand Chicken Soup for the Soul was founded in 1993 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. They built the brand over 15 years, and began looking for a successor in 2007 to guard their legacy and bring it into the Internet age. Amy and her husband took over in April of 2008 and since then Chicken Soup for the Soul has put out 134 books. Now they average a book a month. Several people have tried to imitate the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand without success. Chicken Soup for the Soul has the integrity, longevity, good distribution channels, and reach in popular culture. It is because of all of these factors That Chicken Soup for the Soul can get thousands of submissions for every book they publish. Transmedia Storytelling It’s important today to find as many different ways to repackage and repurpose your products and brand in as many different ways as possible. Under Amy’s leadership Chicken Soup for the Soul has branched out in many different areas. In the publishing arena they have skinny books and guided journals. This Christmas Wal-Mart sold a gift basket with a box of soup, a mug and a skinny version of a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. Chicken Soup for the Soul started a nationwide bullying prevention program. The curriculum has been approved in Dallas and New York City. The focus is on teaching the values of tolerance, respect, compassion, and kindness to crowd out bullying behavior. The curriculum has already been rolled out for grades 1 through 8 in the high school curriculum will begin in 2017. This is a nonprofit venture supported by The Boniuk Foundation They work with other nonprofits such as the Alzheimer’s Association, The Humane Society, and The Boys and Girls Clubs of America They allow book contributors to buy books at a discount and sell them for fund-raising. Chicken Soup for the Soul has two shows on television. Project Dad which can be seen on the Discovery Channel and TLC, and Hidden Heroes a Saturday morning television show on CBS. A movie is also in development. Finally stories from Chicken Soup for the Soul can be read for free on chickensoup.com Curvy and Confident: A Book Launch Case Study Curvy And Confident has 101 stories about loving yourself and your body. It all started in 2015 when the Natasha Stoynoff introduced Amy Newmark to Emme. (Emme was the first plus size supermodel.) The three of them began talking about writing a Chicken Soup for the Soul book that address the issues plus size women have in this society. Amy agreed that it sounded like a good idea for a book. From there she asked everyone she knew if they would buy a book on the subject of body image. Everyone she asked said they would love to buy a book like that. From there, she e-mailed 6000 people on Chicken Soup for the Soul’s mailing list and asked for submissions on the website. Often, they will make a book idea if they don’t get enough stories to go through. In this case Amy got thousands of stories, it was evident this struck a chord. From there a team of editors chose about 300 finalists. Amy, Emme, and Natasha chose their 101 favorite stories. Natasha did the first round of editing, and Amy did the final roun

Dr. Amy Cannatta is the #1 International Best Selling Author of PURSEpective; From Ruin to Resilience and she writes for The Huffington Post. From the age of 13 her friends and family told her to write a book about her life experience, and the way she views the world. She finally decided to write a book 2 years ago after winning a speech competition that she entered at a business conference. In her winning speech she told her story of overcoming domestic violence, her struggles to get through chiropractic school, and how resilience helped her overcome her challenges. Several members of the audience encouraged her to write a book because other women were out there who would want to hear her story and how she thrived with her resilient attitude through her adversity. From the moment she decided to write her book it took less than a year for her to write it, publish it, and have it become a number one bestseller on Amazon. For Amy, it was a truly supernatural experience. She is passionate about teaching you how changing your perspective can turn tragedy into personal transformation. This was such an uplifting discussion. We talk about the power of resilience, building resilience, dealing with depression, and how to change your mindset in this powerful podcast interview. Building Resilience Resilience is a universal power that every human being has the ability to tap into. Resilience is the ability to pick yourself up after you fail. The faster you are able to recover from failure the more time you’re able to devote on this earth to living your purpose. Tapping into resilience is a skill you can master. All you have to do is commit to doing something every day that takes you outside of your comfort zone. It’s being outside of your comfort zone that allows you to grow as a spiritual being. The more comfortable you get with being uncomfortable, the more successful you will become. When you are afraid of doing something ask yourself, “if I do this and fail will it kill me?” If the answer is no, the truth is you have nothing to lose. Dealing with Depression The most important thing anyone dealing with depression needs to know is that it’s okay to get help. If you don’t have a therapist or doctor you trust, ask people you trust for recommendations. 350 million people around the world suffer from depression. Know that you aren’t alone in what you’re going through. What about people who are clinically depressed but still feel stuck in a rut? Here are some proven techniques to help you get unstuck and move forward in life. Own where you are. Understand where you’re starting from and be kind to yourself. Be okay with needing help Understand that it’s okay to not know what you don’t know. Recognize that the ego always gets in the way of personal growth. It’s more concerned with validating who you are than allowing you to grow and become someone better. Ask for help whenever you need it. Asking for help is the key ingredient to faster growth in business and in life. Find an expert you trust who’s achieved the goals you wish to achieve, ask for their advice and follow it. Change Your Mindset by Asking the Right Questions The way to change your mindset and perspective on a problem is to ask the right questions. There is one question everybody asks themselves when things aren’t going their way of life. If some variation of: “Why isn’t this working?” The problem with that question is that it focuses your mind on the wrong part of the problem, the past. The truth is, if some part of your life isn’t working it doesn’t matter why it’s not working, and asking that question in that way generally leads to a negative personal judgment spiral. Here are some more positive questions you can ask to help you get unstuck and move forward in life. What am I not seeing here? What can I do differently? Who can I ask for help? Who can I reach out to that might have a different perspective? By using these questions to shift your perspective your mind will come up with different answers that lead to better results. Above all, be kind to yourself. Understand that you are your own best teacher and realize that most goals you want to achieve have been realized by other successful people. As for the goals that no one has achieved yet there are several examples in history of people doing what was once thought impossible.   Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Amy Cannatta on Facebook www.amycannatta.com/rr — Amy is a relentless resilience workbook and guide to a millionaire mindset. www.amycannatta.com — Amy’s business website pursepective: From Ruin to Resilience: A Handbook for Rebuilding Your Life — Amy’s bestselling book on resilience. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!).   The post 118: Building Resili

Greg Cope White is a produced television writer. He also steps in front of the camera and hosts. The Pink Marine, his first book, just came out in November, 2015. His writing credits include HBO’s Dream On, Norman Lear’s The Powers That Be and 704 Hauser, Fox’s Life With Louie, Sony’s animated series Jumanji, and Disney’s Social Studies. I interviewed Greg almost exactly a year ago today. He returns to the podcast to share the lessons he’s learned from publishing his first book, the advantages of self-publishing over traditional publishing, and the marketing tactics that have been successful for him. Here’s Greg’s story: Greg began shopping his book, The Pink Marine around to traditional publishing houses in early 2015. Around April 2015 he narrowed it down to two publishing offers. The first was with a reputable publishing house, but in the offer letter they said, “we love his story and his voice, we’re just concerned his book will get lost in our list next year.” Greg didn’t want to get lost on any list so he opted to go with the publisher his agent had worked with before. The only hint of concern his agent had was that this person changed publishing houses four times in the last 20 years. Because they had a successful working relationship before and because Greg was told by the publisher that his book did not need editing they decided to go with that publisher. Greg signed a contract with the publisher in April 2015. When he got the gallies from the publisher they were terrible. He started editing them as if they were a television script and sent them back to the publisher. The publisher informed him he would have no control over the design and layout of the book. Greg got his agent involved and took over control of the design and layout of the book. The book was published in November of 2015 and the cover was blurry because the cover designer the publisher insisted upon purchased the lo-res image when creating the cover for the book. That’s when Greg and his agent started to get really concerned. Through November and December there was no e-book version of The Pink Marine available. Greg’s agent estimates that he lost out on 15,000 e-book sales because of this. In mid-December Greg was in New York doing promotional stuff for the Food Network. He met with his Ingrams Representative and asked them if his next book was self published would they still work with him. They told him, “we’ll publish anything you write.” On December 15, Greg told the publisher to cancel the contract and the publisher refused saying, because of Greg’s high-profile, the publisher would be ruined if Greg canceled his contract. On January 7, 2016 Greg suffered a massive heart attack due to stress from this process. The doctor told him he had to get rid of all stress in his life and from the emergency room he e-mailed his publisher and agent informing them that the book contract was canceled. With guidance and help from his friends at Ingrams, Greg formed his own publishing imprint About Face Books and now publishes the book himself. He had an e-book version of the manuscript available in all the major online bookstores in about two days. Jason Story designed a new cover for the book with the appropriate high resolution image. In February of 2016, while recovering from his heart attack, Greg auditioned for the job of narrating his audio book. He was happy to get the job, because it’s a SAG credit. And he was well paid for it. Indie Publishing Benefits After Greg canceled his contract he and his agent had a conversation where the agent offered to take his book to other traditional publishers who have shown interest before. Greg opted to go the Indie publishing route for several reasons. 1. Self-publishing gives you more control over everything including: cover design, interior design, price, and distribution. 2. You get far more money for each book sold as a self published author. Greg was getting about 80 cents per book in his traditional publishing contract. Now he makes about $5 a book. 3. Because Greg got so much more money for each copy of his book sold, he’s more motivated to promote the book and he’s tried several promotional strategies. Marketing Your Book: Strategies That Work in 2016 1. Have an author website and/or an individual website devoted to the book for marketing. Create an Amazon Associates account and they will give you an associate link you can use to promote your book. On top of the royalty you receive will also receive a small commission for driving traffic to Amazon. 2. If possible, link a charitable organization to your book. Greg supports the Veterans Writing Project to help veterans write their stories down and get them published. 3. Make T-shirts and other related merchandise. Greg wears a T-shirt with the cover image on his book wherever he travels and especially to book and trade events. There are many websites

Chandler Bolt is the author of Book Launch: How to Write, Market & Publish Your First Bestseller in Three Months or Less AND Use it to Start and Grow a Six Figure Business. He is also the founder of Self Publishing School, one of the most successful online training programs for authors. Chandler was a C level English student who hated writing. In the last three years he has published six books. He decided to write a book with a friend from college about his experiences running a business and going to school full-time. The book went from idea to bestseller on Amazon and just under three months. Chandler dropped out of school shortly thereafter and the royalties from the book paid the bills. It continues to bring in thousands of dollars a month in passive income. We had an intense conversation packed with information. In this interview Chandler shares his 3 Step System for Writing a Book, we talk about amazon marketing, hiring employees, and much more. Here are the highlights: Writing a Book: Chandler Bolt’s 3 Step System Step 1: Mind Map First, write your book idea down in the middle of a white piece of paper. Next, write down everything you know, or can think of about your book topic. You’ll use that brainstorm diagram to create a mind map where you group related ideas into sections of your book. You want to organize your book into 4 – 7 sections. Now that you have your ideas organized into sections, the next step is to arrange the sections in a logical order for your book. Step 2: Decide on Chapters Once you have your sections in a logical order is time to drill down further and decide on chapter subjects. After you have your chapter subjects, the next step is to mind map each individual chapter and then make a point by point outline of your chapter so that you can create your book quickly and easily. 3. Write the book Armed with your detailed outline its time to write the book. You can either use your detailed outline to go point by point and write your manuscript, or you can dictate your manuscript into a digital voice recorder using your point by point outline and have that file transcribed. (You can also use voice recognition software and do the same thing.) Tips For Writing A Book Understand that your mind map and outline are not set in stone. They are a starting place that help you organize your thoughts around your book idea. Co-authoring a book is like trying to paint one painting with two hands on the paintbrush. The most important thing a new writer can do is to set a deadline for a rough draft. Have someone who can keep you accountable. Publicly announce your rough draft completion date so that your publicly accountable as well. After you complete your first rough draft, you begin to believe that it’s possible that you will publish a book There are a few advantages to speaking your book rather than writing your book. It’s usually faster. If talking comes easier to you than writing, your ideas will flow more freely and your manuscript will read like a conversation with your audience. As a side note, if you dictate your book you won’t have to worry about spelling typos. It’s important that you mind map and outline your book beforehand so that you can keep track of where you are and what you’re talking about when you’re dictating. It’s really easy to go off on a tangent when you’re dictating into a recorder or microphone without a plan. 3 Types of Creators When it Comes to Writing a Book: 1. The researcher — the person who meticulously researches a topic or story idea. 2. The “0 to Draft” person — The person who writes into the dark 3. The editor — the person who polishes the draft into a final product. Play to your strengths. With the Internet is really easy to find people to partner with who can do the parts of the process that you don’t want to. Hiring Employees 1. Create a job scorecard — this is where you create a job description, decide on the key indicators of performance, and drill down to the type of person who would be best fitted for that job. 2. Source the right candidates — this is a numbers and quality game. 3. Select the best candidate — this is where you choose your employee 4. Sell them on working for you — chances are if there were a really good candidate they’re going to have plenty of job offers. Amazon Marketing Amazon is a buyer search engine. It functions like Google, but Amazon’s audience is interested in buying books and other products. Do keyword research, figure out how people can find your book by searching Amazon. Do an Amazon search using the keywords you’re targeting. Look at what books are ranking for those keywords. Look at their sales rank and reviews. Create a launch team for your book. Reviews are important to Amazon’s search engine, and a launch team will eat you a number of good reviews on or before for your launch

Dave Chesson is the founder of Kindlepreneur.com and bestselling author of several books. He’s also the creator of Publisher Rocket, a software tool that helps authors find the best keywords to rank their books. Dave Chesson started his online marketing career building niche websites. He’d make money through people clicking on advertisements on those websites and through affiliate commissions from products he would advertise on the site. The problem with that business model for Dave is that you don’t make much money for advertising to a small market. That’s when a lightbulb went off for Dave and he decided to write a book related to a niche website that he created. He funneled the traffic from its website over to his book on the subject and created a steady stream of income from KDP and has never looked back. In our conversation we talked about Search Engine Optimization, How to Sell More Books on Amazon, and Publisher Rocket, his Amazon keyword research tool. Here are the highlights. SEO Basics and Philosophy for Authors There are two basic things you need to do to optimize your website for Google. 1. You have to index the site so Google knows that your website exists. You also want to make sure that Google knows what your website is about so that it can place your website in the appropriate search results. You do this by using relevant keywords and meta description to clue Google in to what your website is about. 2. The next thing you want to do is keyword research. Anchor text is the clickable text on any website. So when there’s a link to The Kindle Publishing Bible “The Kindle Publishing Bible” is the anchor text. How to Sell More Books on Amazon with SEO The same basic steps apply to ranking your book on Amazon. 1. First you have to index your book. You do this by publishing it on Amazon, placing it in the appropriate category, and using Amazon keywords related to the topic of your book. You’ll also want to use keywords on your Amazon product page. 2. Next, you want Amazon to see your book as the authority on the topic or in your genre. Amazon sees your book as an authority when people buy it. Amazon wants to make as much money as possible, so books that sell more copies are going to appear higher in search results. The way to make sure that your book stays high Amazon search results is to push targeted external traffic to your Amazon page. You can do this any number of ways. Here is a short list of ways that have worked from there authors: Build a website on your topic. Let people know about your book on that website. Dave gets thousands of dollars in royalties each month from book sales that come from visitors to his niche websites that were built specifically to promote his books. Facebook ads. Many authors have found massive audiences using Facebook ads that allow you to target people who like books in your genre or on your topic. Amazon ads. Amazon ads are super targeted traffic. These ads appear on Amazon and anyone who clicks on them is one click away from buying your book. Guest posting. Guest posting on appropriate blogs allows you to link back to your Amazon book page. The Right Way to Link Your Amazon Product Page There’s a right way and a wrong way to link back to your Amazon product page The wrong way to format a link: The right way to format a link: Both links will take you to your product page. But the first link has tracking data which will confuse Google and Amazon’s search engines and may negatively affect how you show up in their search results. All links should point to the shorter base URL to avoid confusion. The Best Kindle Keyword Tool for Authors Publisher Rocket is an advanced keyword research and book idea validation tool. It helps you find markets where people are buying books and it reveals underserved markets. It allows you in a few keystrokes to see what people are searching for and what they’re spending money on. It also helps you to find underserved markets by showing you keyword phrases that people are searching for that don’t have books written about them yet. Finally, it helps you research your competitors so you can see what’s working for them and adjust your marketing strategies where necessary. SEO Resources Mentioned in the Interview SEO for Authors by Dave Chesson — the PDF that Dave promised you. kindlepreneur.com/— Dave will show you how to sell more Kindle books. Publisher Rocket — the Amazon keyword research tool developed by Dave smartpassiveincome.com — Pat Flynn’s website with a ton of great information on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 115: Using SEO to Sell More Books on Amazon with Dave Chesson appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Jon Nastor has always been an entrepreneur. He went to high school in a small town in Canada. He played drums in a punk rock band during his high school years and he took it upon himself to organize shows so that his band could play them. When other punk rock bands were touring the area Jon would rent a hall and by refreshments to sell for extra money. Rather than complain that his men had no gigs to play, Jon took matters into his own hands. This began a pattern that he’s followed his whole life. 1. Jon has a problem. 2. Jon figures out the solution to this problem. 3. Jon sells his solution to other people who have the problem he had. In this podcast we took a deep dive into what an entrepreneur is, entrepreneurship development, and why it’s important to know your audience as individuals and friends. What is an Entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is a problem solver who sells their solution to market of people who have the same problem. Most entrepreneurs begin like Jon. They have a problem or recognize a problem for from their own life. They figure out the solution to the problem. Then they sell the solution they found to other people have that problem. If you want to be an entrepreneur the final step is the most important. You have to sell your solution to a group of people who have that problem. Entrepreneur Development: The Keys to Success Remember success is a journey. Take it one step at a time. Figure out how you’re going to sell your product before you create it. You want an audience for what you’re going to create. Look at markets that already exist. Identify the gaps in those markets. What questions aren’t being answered? What needs aren’t being met? Create something to fill the gap. Don’t be a copy. Come at the problem from your own angle. If you try to exactly copy someone else’s solution you will be directly competing for their audience that they’ve already established relationship with. As you begin building your brand focus on your audience. Get their feedback and adjust to serve them better. hacktheentrepreneur.com: A Case Study Jon started his Hack the Entrepreneur podcast for himself. He wanted to interview 30 entrepreneurs to help him grow in personally and professionally. He started the podcast because there was a gap in the market. He didn’t see podcasts dealing with the entrepreneur mindset, so he decided to create one for himself. When he started the podcast he hated podcasting. He did it in order to interview those 30 entrepreneurs. As his audience grew his focus shifted to serving that audience to the best of his ability. The first version of art for his podcast was a simple yellow graphic. He had a yellow graphic design on fiverr.com because he saw that there were no entrepreneur podcast shows with yellow graphic on iTunes. It differentiated his show visually from other shows in the iTunes marketplace. It filled a “visual gap. ” Look for gaps whenever possible. Know Your Audience and Give Them What They Want Jon wrote his book, Hack the Entrepreneur: How to Stop Procrastinating, Build a Business, and Do Work That Matters because his audience literally demanded it. The five parts of his book: 1. Being wrong 2. Fears 3. Habits 4. Mindset 5. Ideas Come directly from the five categories he organizes his podcast into. He chose his organizational structure because members of his audience asked specifically for him to do it that way. It’s important to know your audience as well as you know your circle of close friends. This is the only way to be the best at serving them. There are several different ways to learn about your audience individually and as a whole. Direct e-mail: give your audience a personal e-mail address where they can e-mail you with any questions they might have. Answer all those e-mails personally. This takes time, but it will give you invaluable insight into your audience as people. The more one-on-one conversation you can have with your customers the better your business will do. Surveys: you can send out surveys to your audience with specific questions to help guide you into giving them what they want. It’s important to have a true conversation with your audience. Talk and then listen to what they have to say. Most importantly: love who you’re creating content for. When you love your audience you create the best content you possibly can and at the same time enjoy your work. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Hack the Entrepreneur: How to Stop Procrastinating, Build a Business, and Do Work That Matters — Jon’s book based on his popular podcast. http://hacktheentrepreneur.com/ — Jon’s website for the podcast if you subscribe to the mailing list Jon will give you his top 10 all-time hacks. Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness by Neil Strauss — a fascinating series of interviews with famous musicians. Like thi

Brian Anderson is the bestselling author of The Godling Chronicles series. He was a musician for many years until he decided to write a novel. Within a year of publishing his first book, he was earning enough money to support his family and write full-time. Brian experimented with writing fiction for several years before his seven-year-old son gave him the beginning of the idea that became The Godling Chronicles. The conversation with his son was an epiphany moment for Brian. That’s when he realized people want to be entertained with stories, not clever writing. In this podcast we cover every facet of the indie publishing business. We talk about the structure of the story. We talk about how to produce a professional quality novel, and we discuss the best way to market your novel from the moment you decide you want to write it. Story Structure The first thing that every aspiring writer has to understand is that stories have a basic structure. Every story has a beginning, middle and end. People read genre fiction to be entertained. They are reading to escape their daily life. They’re reading to experience emotional and/or physical danger without putting themselves in harms way. On the most basic level the story equation goes like this: you create character(s) the audience wants to root for, you put down in a heap of danger, and then you get them out again. The longer your story or novel the more times your characters get in trouble, and the trouble gets worse and worse building tension until you release it at the climax. One thing Brian has found helpful is to have every chapter of his book ask a question that’s answered in a later chapter of the book. Indie Publishing Plan For Fiction Authors 1. Choose a genre So, you want to write a novel. The first thing you have to do is choose a genre for your novel. It’s best to choose a genre that you like to read. You’ll write a better book if you write a genre you’re familiar with because you’ll know what stories you like to read and you are a member of your own target market. Don’t write in a genre you’re unfamiliar with just to try to make money. 2. Search for Forums and Blogs Now that you’ve decided what genre of book you’re going to write you a Google search for forums related to that type of fiction. Become part of those form communities. Take part in the conversation. You can learn a lot about what your potential audience likes and doesn’t like by participating in forums. A Word of Warning Don’t spam the forums and don’t pester people pleading with them to read your book. Those types of behaviors will get you banned and give you a bad reputation in that community. 3. Write the Best Book You Can Write the best book you can paying particular attention to story structure. Make sure you have characters that people like and root for. Make sure there’s a beginning middle and end. Make sure the tension of the story rises throughout the book. 4. Produce a Professional Quality Product It’s important these days to produce the best quality that you can. There are more indie authors today than ever before and we’re all going toe to toe with traditionally published authors who have editors and cover designers working for them. If you want to have a fighting chance of being noticed in this crowded field you have to be willing to pay for the resources it takes. That means at the very least paying a professional editor and cover designer. When looking for an editor, realize that you get what you pay for. Beware of people making promises that sound too good to be true. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Look for an editor who likes your work. The best editors make suggestions they don’t argue endlessly with you over small details. The best thing to do when searching for an editor is to ask them to edit a sample of your work to show you what they can do. (Most professional editors won’t even give you a price before they read a sample of your writing to determine how much work they will have to do.) Some people will encourage you to edit your work yourself. When you edit your work yourself, all you’re doing is writing another draft. You’re too close to the word you’ve written to judge them impartially. You have to have a second pair of eyes look at your work dispassionately. That’s the only way to make it better. In order to produce a professional quality product you have to get a good cover designer. Ideally, you want a cover designer who has designed covers for your genre. If you do this, you have a better chance of having that type of cover that will catch the eye of your ideal audience. The final piece of producing a professional quality product is to write a blurb that keeps the interest of your audience. It should be 200 words or less. The purpose of the blurb is to make the reader want to open the book. When writing your bl

Vic Johnson is the author of several best selling books, and some have been translated into Japanese, Russian, Czech, Slovak and Farsi. He has appeared in numerous video programs with Bob Proctor, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitley and Mark Victor Hansen, among others, and he is the founder of AsAManThinketh.net He started his personal development journey because he was desperate. In 1997, he made $14,027 and on that income he had to support a family of five. That year he was able to save up enough money to go to a seminar where the woman presenting said: “The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief.” Vic immediately began to put this sentiment into practice through the proper use of positive affirmations followed up with action. Within one year he made over $100,000. Two years after that he had a six-figure business, and three years after that he had a seven-figure business. In this podcast Vic discusses how to create a personal development plan, how to change your mindset, the proper way to do positive affirmations so that they lead to results, and how to achieve your goals. Beliefs Are Our Programming Everyone is programmed with beliefs. Your beliefs make up your mindset. You are who you are right now because of the beliefs you hold to be true. If you haven’t installed your beliefs consciously, then you’ve accepted the programming of the influencers around you. Your family, friends, bosses, and teachers have all shaped the way you think and behave. A belief is a thought you accept to be true because of evidence. Here’s the funny thing, the evidence can either be true or false. History is full of examples where people believed something that simply isn’t true. Here’s a short list: A Few Massively False Beliefs In the 1500s Europeans believe the world was flat. It takes money to make money. A college degree is necessary for success. Success is impossible for people who have ADD/ADHD. The truth is the Earth is a giant sphere. If you have a good idea and a business plan to implement it you can find someone who will give you the money to execute it. Bill Gates dropped out of college. He doesn’t have a college degree and yet he is one of the richest people on the planet. When it comes to ADD and ADHD, 300 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have that problem and they’ve managed to be successful. So you can see it’s pretty easy to have a false belief. The problem with the false belief is it leads to faulty decision-making. Change Your Mindset If you want to change your results you have to change your mindset. That starts by uncovering your own false beliefs. You do this by simply being aware of the thoughts you’re thinking as you think them. Then ask yourself: “Is this true?” Once you’ve uncovered a false belief, you have to search for the truth. Vic often used to tell himself, “I never have enough time.” The truth of the matter for Vic is he always has enough time to do what he needs to do. Once you have uncovered the truth behind your false belief the next step is to create a positive affirmation. Vic created 52 positive affirmation cards. Every time the situation came up that related to an affirmation you would read that affirmation allowed and follow it up with action to anchor the new thought habit in his mind. The Right Way to “Do” Affirmations People often say that affirmations are silly and they don’t work. The truth is that thousands of people have used affirmations to become massively successful. If you’ve tried affirmations before and they aren’t working for you it’s probably because: 1. You haven’t done them long enough, or 2. You haven’t done them in the right way. Everyone is different. Our circumstances are different. Our strengths and weaknesses are different. Our mentality is different. There’s no way of knowing exactly how long it will take affirmations to affect your life. If you practice them persistently on a daily basis they will influence your mindset and your results. When you say a positive affirmation you have to have emotion behind it and you have to take action consistent with the affirmation in order to overwrite your old programming. The affirmation is the thought. The action you take behind the affirmation is the evidence. And that’s how you install a new belief system – by changing your thoughts and your actions. A Personal Development System to Achieve Your Goals 1. Define your goals. Write them down on a piece of paper. 2. Identify how you think about your goals right now. Pay special attention to any negative beliefs you have surrounding your goals. 3. Find the truth behind any negative beliefs you might have surrounding your goals. 4. Create affirmations to install new beliefs. 5. Find someone who has already achieved the success you want for yourself. 6. Study their success closely and identify the

Phil began his journalism career at Pace University as an assignment reporter. He started doing movie reviews after an interview fell through. The newspaper needed to fill the space so he offered to review My Favorite Year starring Peter O’Toole. The editor and read and then asked him to continue doing movie reviews because he was good at them. From there, Phil began to do freelance articles for media outlets such as the New York Daily News. Phil has been writing for various media outlets ever since. In the film arena he writes for Cinema Craze, Film Snobbery, and Video Librarian. Phil is also a financial writer who has written for National Mortgage Professional Magazine, and profit confidential. He also runs business-superstar.com which focuses on entrepreneurship and startups. We covered a wide range of topics in this podcast. Phil stared writing tips and techniques for new writers covering a wide variety of topics. Writing Tips Don’t get pigeonholed. Be versatile. Write on different subjects and do different things. The wider your field of interest, the larger your audience. Know what you’re doing. Every writer needs an editor. You need a second pair of eyes to look at your stuff. One of the biggest problems with the Internet is that there’s very little quality control anymore. Get a writing mentor anyway you can. Teachers, published friends, and magazines that sell to your target market are in good place to look for mentors. Ask people what they think. Ask the world for what you want. Until you have the courage to ask you’ll never get anywhere. There are two types of criticism constructive criticism and mean-spirited criticism. Understand that constructive criticism is trying to make your work better. Do what you can to address it if you agree with the criticism. Mean -spirited criticism should be met with self-deprecating humor whenever possible. Otherwise, indifference is always a healthy response. Remember you can’t possibly please everyone. It’s important to be a team player whenever possible. Negative personalities destroy careers. If you go around acting like a prima donna your reputation will follow you everywhere and people who look reluctant to work with you. Read that type of stuff you want to write. If you want to be a science fiction author read science fiction. If you want to write short stories read for stories. If you want to write novels, read novels. Read widely. Read outside your genre or niche as well. Different authors and cultures have a different way of communicating with the written word. Poets and Writers Magazine is a good resource for those people looking to break into the publishing industry. How to Become a Successful Writer Perseverance is the key. You have to believe in yourself and keep going. There is no such thing as an overnight success as a writer. As much as possible, maintain a positive attitude. The editor who rejected you today might buy the same story a year from now. The most important element in any story is a compelling characters. If you’re characters are compelling than your audience won’t care about them. The 1950 film Rashomon is a case study in how to create compelling characters. Successful Writing Techniques When researching a subject be sure to use credible sources. Credible sources include traditionally published books, independently published books by known experts in the field, interviews are known experts in the field. Outline before you start drafting. It will help you organize your thoughts, and make your presentation more coherent. Rewriting is the most important stage of writing. Read your words aloud to see how they sound. Never be afraid to throw a draft out and start from scratch. Never be afraid to state your own opinion. Expressing your opinion your way is what makes your writing unique. Your audience will find you if you stay true to yourself. You have to be able to connect with people. Healthy Working Habits for Writers Try to get up and move once an hour. it’s important to have an ergonomic desk. Stay hydrated. Your monitor should be at arm’s length, especially if you’re using a laptop. Sitting for hours at a time in one position can damage your neck otherwise You should also turn off your machine periodically. Computers and cell phones weren’t meant to be on 24 hours a day. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview In Search of Lost Films — Phil Hall’s book explores the history of cinema and explains how these famous films became lost. Rashomon (The Criterion Collection) — a mindbending Japanese thriller that exemplifies how to create compelling characters. http://filmsnobbery.com/ — Phil Hall is managing editor http://cinema-crazed.com/blog/ — another website you can find Phil’s stuff http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/ http://www.profitconfidential.com/— Phil covers the US stock market on this website. The

Marc Reklau is a Coach, Speaker and author of the #1 Amazon Bestseller 30 Days— Change your habits, change your life which since April 2015 has been downloaded over 100,000 times on Amazon and has been translated into Spanish, German and Korean. Before he wrote his breakout bestseller Marc worked as a printer for a publishing company in Spain. When the German market for books dried up in 2013 Marc was fired from his job. He decided to use his savings and the unemployment he got from the government to pursue his dream of making a difference in the world. He was inspired to write his book for all of the young people in Spain who saw no hope during the global financial crisis. Marc knew from his own experience and training in self-improvement that if you form proper success habits it’s possible to change your life in a very short period of time. He began work on 30 Days— Change your habits, change your life in April of 2014 and it was live on Amazon by September of 2014. In our conversation we talked about why it’s important to have your book translated into English and Spanish. We talked about the pros and cons of selling foreign-language rights, and Marc revealed a solid international marketing strategy that everyone will want to hear. Bookbub is amazing. When Marc’s promotion went live on bookbub he got 40K free downloads in one day. Bookbub download momentum peters out from the second into the third day. Take that into account when planning your promotion. It’s important to realize that you can’t manually turn off a bookbub promotion. If you do you will never get another one. One surefire way of marketing your books is to write more books. One benefit of publishing a book is that it gives you authority status so that you can teach your subject is that something you’re interested in. Spain is a much smaller market than the US. So it’s much easier to get noticed by Amazon executives there. When you sell foreign rights to a publisher in another country you’re giving up the ability to market yourself. Often when you sell foreign rights you’re only paid once by the publisher regardless of what the contract says. Translators are more expensive than native speaking editors. So if you can translate your self that may be the way to go. 80% of traditionally published books are never sold. They are sent back to the publisher and recycled. Only 2% of authors so more than 500 copies of the books they write. While paperback books may make up a fraction of your sales they lead to different business opportunities such as coaching clients and speaking engagements. Everyone should write a book. Publish your book no matter what your inner critic says. you will get approximately 1 yes for every 10 rejections. Marc’s International Marketing Strategy 1. Have your book translated into American English and Spanish. America is the largest market for e-books in the world. And there are 500 million Spanish-speaking people in the world. 2. Use free promotions (including bookbub if you can get it) to get massive downloads of your e-books from Amazon.com when you’re book is free on Amazon, make sure it is free on the other Amazon websites you are selling the book. 3. After the free promotion period, set the price to $.99 so that you can get some screen shots of your book being a number one bestseller on Amazon. Use those screenshots as part of your promotional packet. 4. Amazon in Spain (Amazon.es) is a relatively small market. Selling five books a day there is likely to get you in the top 100 of the general store on Amazon.es as of October 2016 . 5. The whole point of all this is to have Amazon Spain actually promote your book for you. This is the exact strategy Marc used to beat out Tim Ferris and David Allen in the time management category on Amazon.es. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview 30 Days – Change your habits, Change your life: A couple of simple steps every day to create the life you want — — Marc’s international bestseller Bookbub — the big name in ebook promotion http://www.babelcube.com/ — an online marketplace where you can find translators to translate your book into different languages. The translators split the royalties from the translated version of your book. http://www.marcreklau.com/ — Marc’s personal website http://goodhabitsacademy.com/ — Marc’s course on changing your habits. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!).   The post 110: International Book Marketing Strategies with Marc Reklau appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Honorée Corder is the author of 20 books, including You Must Write a Book, Vision to Reality, and Prosperity for Writers. Honorée coaches business professionals, writers, and aspiring non-fiction authors who want to publish their books to bestseller status, create a platform, and develop multiple streams of income. She is currently working on I Must Write a Book the companion workbook to You Must Write a Book. It will be available later this year. This is our second podcast interview with Honorée. You can also listen to our first conversation on creating prosperity for writers. Why Write a Book? In this podcast we talk about how to prepare for and outline your first book, what it takes to create a quality published book and where first-time authors should invest their money in terms of book production. Honorée also discusses how she launches and markets her books. This is an essential listen for any first-time author. Here are the highlights of our conversation. Every professional would benefit from writing a book. Your book takes the place of your business card, although you should still have both. A book helps clients decide whether you are the person they should hire. The way to be the no questions asked expert in the room is to write a book about your topic. Your book can be your portable sales pitch. Start a conversation with your prospect and mention that you have a book. Reading your book will answer their questions more deeply than you can in the short conversation. It will help the prospect get a sense of who you are, and whether or not you mesh together well. Business cards are disposable, books are not. Your book is a perpetual marketing piece. You can create multiple streams of income from one book You can create multiple streams of income by simply publishing your book in different formats (Kindle, paperback and audio.) You can also create multiple streams of income by repurposing some or all of the content of your book into different things. (Courses, speeches, and coaching for example.) You should write a book because a book leaves no question that you are the best at what you do. A book on your subject is the best marketing tool you can have. If you take the time to write and publish a book and do it well it will lead to opportunities, connections and conversations you wouldn’t otherwise have. A big mistake first-time authors make is they try to put everything they know into their first book. Having a conversation in your mind with your ideal reader is a good way to think about what types of information you need in the book and what types of information you can leave out or put in your next book. It’s important to make all your books look professional including your first book. It’s important that you write every day. First, it develops the habit of writing which is essential. Second, if you write every day you’re more likely to remember what you wrote so that you don’t repeat yourself. Writing is a muscle. If you don’t do it every day your writing muscle doesn’t say strong. You can write for 10 or 15 minutes a day every day to keep your writing muscles strong. It doesn’t have to be a massive time commitment. If you have a manuscript started and took some time away from it don’t be afraid to dive back in. You’ll probably gain momentum faster than you think. There are times when life takes over and you can’t devote as much time or energy as you want to writing your book. That’s okay. Just keep going from where you are when you can. When crafting a book title it’s important to make it memorable. For nonfiction books the title is what the book is about and the subtitle is the promise the book has to deliver on. The subtitle is the benefit that the reader will get from reading and acting on knowledge of the book. When asking for advice be sure to ask a professional, whether it be about your book cover, or your title or anything else related to your book. There are two marketing phases for every book. Phase 1 is 30 – 45 days before a book is published to 44 days after you’ve published a book. Phase 2 is 45 days after you’ve published a book to the day you die. Phase 1 is when you’re launching the book and letting the world know it exists. Phase 2 is when you do 7 things every day to sell your book until you die. When you create a book for the marketplace you have to invest upfront in creating a quality product. There are a lot of free and low-cost methods for marketing your book that are as effective if not more effective than things like high-priced ads. when you’re asking someone to read your book you’re asking for their most viable resource, their time. It’s important to be consistent in your marketing efforts. If you do something to market your books every day there will begin to be a snowball effect. If you spend $1000 on one ad campaign you may get some sales in the short

Matt Abrahams is the author Speaking Up Without Freaking Out. He teaches both Strategic Communication and Effective Communication at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Matt is also Co-Founder and Principal at Bold Echo Communications Solutions, a presentation and communication skills company based in Silicon Valley that helps people improve their presentation skills. Matt traces his interest in communication skills back to his first year in High School. Everyone in Matt’s freshman English class had to introduce themselves and give a speech about who they were. After Matt completed the assignment his teacher encouraged him to pursue speaking contest because he saw that Matt had a talent for speaking in front of people. He entered a speaking contest two weeks later and began his presentation on Karate. During the presentation Matt split his pants. He ended up doing quite well in that tournament because that disaster took him out of his prepared remarks and forced him to focus on communicating with its audience. Matt believes that moment was a turning point in his life. Because of his experience Matt became fascinated with how to harness confidence and anxiety to communicate better. He studied psychology as an undergraduate and went on to get a postgraduate degree in communication. This is one of the most information packed podcasts I’ve ever done! In this podcast we cover 6 major topics: 1. How to manage anxiety when speaking in public. 2. How to craft a good speech with a strong narrative. 3. How to practice your presentation for the best results. 4. How to engage your audience and make your speech something they are a part of, rather than something they are just observing. 5. Book marketing methods. 6. How to get started as a public speaker. 2 Techniques for Managing Anxiety 1. Deep Breathing— this is one of the most studied techniques for managing anxiety. Anxiety is often triggered by the fight or flight response that happens whenever your brain feels in danger. Deep breathing can help you calm down and slow down your autonomic nervous response. 2. Greet Your Anxiety— this technique comes from the study of mindfulness. A lot of times what happens when you get nervous is the anxiety takes over, and you get more anxious because you are nervous. Rather than engaging in the emotion, just take a moment and greet your anxiety. Notice that you’re getting anxious and comment on as if you’re observing it from the outside. You can think something like, “oh, I realize I’m getting anxious. That’s understandable. I’m a situation that has significant consequences and it is quite scary.” Often, holding this type of internal dialogue with yourself these you the few seconds you need to interrupt the anxiety spiral. Also, it gives you options. You can actively think about how you’re going to react to your emotional state. Sometimes that’s all you need. 2 Narrative Structures for Crafting Speeches 1. What, So What, Now What in this structure, you explain something to your audience. (That’s the What.) Then you explain why it’s important. (That’s the So What.) Then you tell them what to do with it. (That’s the Now What .) Matt illustrates this structure in the podcast. 2. Past, Present, Future This is where you talk about how your product or company worked in the past. Then you talk about how it works in the present. Then you talk about how it will work in the future. 2 Techniques for Engaging Your Audience If you want to make your speeches and presentations more compelling focus on engaging with your audience. Here are two quick ways you can accomplish that. 1. Ask questions — Ask questions they can respond to, or have short exercises based on your information that the audience can engage in. The questions you ask can be poll questions for the audience, so you can engage with the entire group instead of just one person. 2. Imagine This/what if — Rather than asking questions that require a response, you can ask your audience to imagine a situation and then paint them a picture with words. This requires your audience to actively use their imagination to work with you in creating the experience. How to Practice Giving a Speech 1. First find one person or a group of people you can have an informal conversation with and just talk your speech through with them. 2. Next find a space that mimics the venue you will be giving your speech in. If you’re going to be in a speech on stage try to find a stage where you can practice. If it’s going to be a smaller room with fewer people try to find an environment like that. You may not be able to replicate the exact conditions of your presentation, but the closer you can come, the smoother your presentation will be on the day because you’re used to delivering your content in this type of venue. 3. If possible you may want to record yourself either in video or using some sort of audio capture so that you can observe your unconscious behaviors and be aware of them. If you record

Kenneth Atchity began writing stories as a child under his mother’s supervision. By the age of 16 he was a book reviewer for the Kansas City Star (no one at the newspaper realized how old he was when they hired him over the phone). Ken started in the film industry after working as a professor for 17 years because he wanted to work on the creative side of story rather than the critical side. He came up with an idea that turned into 16 films and never looked back. His company has developed over 30 films and published over 150 novels. Ken has a reverence for stories and the art of storytelling that shines through in this interview. This podcast is packed with information. We talk about what makes a good story, what you need to sell your story to Hollywood, and history of storytelling. Here are the highlights of our conversation: The way to sell a story to its largest audience is to write a book and make a movie out of it. You can also do it the other way, and write a book based on a movie. The power of having a story that is both a movie or TV show and a book is that you have two separate audiences that discover the story and each of them will seek out the story in the other medium. People who read the book first will watch the movie or TV show, and people who watch the TV show first will buy the book. To make your story into a movie or television show, it has to be highly dramatic and have a universal message that a large audience can connect with. A good treatment can sell them with the idea of your novel even if your novel is missing some basic elements of a good Hollywood screenplay. A treatment is a brief written pitch that shows the movie that exists in the story. Ken’s book on treatments can be found in the Links and Resources section below. After you’ve written your treatment you should reach out to a contact in Hollywood. If you don’t know anyone directly to you don’t have any friends who might be able to connect with someone one place to look is writers conferences. You can go to writers conferences and sign up for a lecture from somebody who is connected in Hollywood and that will give you a point of contact. When you meet your point of contact simply ask them for their advice. Don’t ask them to buy your story idea. Give them the elevator pitch of your story. If they’re excited by that give them a copy of your treatment and they’ll look at it seriously. Often if they aren’t interested for some reason they may be able to point you in the direction of somebody who might be. Don’t offer to buy them lunch. Just ask for five minutes of their time. You should be able to tell people what your story is about one or two sentences. If it takes longer something is wrong with your story. The pitch for under siege starring Stephen Seagal was Die Hard on a boat. the pitch for Splash starring Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah was: It’s a fish out of water story only she’s a mermaid. The secret to a good pitch is to make it short. Make it something that leads the person you’re talking to to ask questions. If you’re in a producer’s office in Hollywood and they ask you five questions about your story, they virtually invested in your story already. The most important character in every story is the audience. Always pay attention to the audience. Always be thinking about where the audience’s attention is at. Structure your story for your audience. How to engage your audience when they aren’t responding to the story you’re telling. After you’ve sold your story stop talking. Never bring notes to a pitch meeting. Stories are about humanity. Storytelling is about capturing the audience in a relationship with you that leaves the rest of the world out. The audience lives inside your story. That’s why it’s so important to not have anything in the story that takes them out of the story. The most important thing when selling your story is to keep the audience on the edge of their seat all the way through the pitch. If you can do that chances are very good story will sell. Ideas themselves don’t make movies. Good storytelling makes movies. Writing a good story shows that you’re a good storyteller. There are no new stories. It’s how you tell the story that makes the difference. An idea can’t be protected. Only written documents can be protected. If you have a good story idea at least write a treatment of it so it can be protected. The human race runs on stories. Storytelling is a sacred vocation. Before the written word storytelling was how civilization got passed down from generation to generation. Storytellers were a protected class of citizen in ancient times. Storytelling is our primary way of holding reality together. The myth of the starving artist is just another destructive story we tell ourselves. It’s a story rooted in victimhood, and no good protagonist is ever a victim fo

Shama Hyder is the bestselling author several books including Momentum: How to Propel Your Marketing and Transform Your Brand in the Digital Age. She is the award-winning CEO of The Marketing Zen Group—a global online marketing and digital PR company. She did her grad school thesis on Twitter when it only had a few thousand users. Shama started her own business because she saw opportunities in the field of social media that no one was exploiting. “You could already tell [even at the beginning] that twitter was shaping the Internet,” Shama explains. In this podcast we talk about the history of Twitter and we dive deep into the marketing strategies that work on Twitter and other social media platforms. Marketing in the Digital Age Here are some of the highlights of our conversation: Even at the beginning Twitter was shaping the conversation of the Internet. The power of Twitter is how it allows people to connect and communicate with one another. One of the first user bases of Twitter were seventh grade teachers teaching evolution and trying to figure out how to introduce a sensitive subject like evolution into the classroom. When social media was the new thing it was hard to get big companies interested in the opportunity that was there. The ROI for social media is definitely there otherwise businesses wouldn’t do it. The nice thing is we have more metrics today than at any other time in human history to figure out what types of marketing are working. Even so, it can still be difficult to pinpoint exactly piece of marketing was the tipping point in your buying decision. We can tell a piece of marketing is not working. What we can’t exactly quantify is how much each piece of marketing affects your buying decision. Marketing isn’t an exact linear equation. Another reason you know the ROI is there is because digital media is where the audience is. You may see a product marketed five or six times before you decide to buy it and there’s no way of knowing which of the six instances caused you to make the decision buy the product. Five Principles of Momentum For Marketing in the Digital Age 1. Agility Through Analytics in Marketing Look at the numbers for answers. Eliminate myths and sacred cows. What do the numbers tell you about where you are right now? One of the best ways you can make use of the overwhelming amount of information today is to ask intelligent questions and find the data that gives you the answer to those questions. In the case of Google Analytics There are two pieces of data that you can look at to get valuable information about your visitors. The first piece of data is called your Bounce Rate . Your bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your site immediately after arriving there. If your bounce rate is 70% or above you know you’re not converting well on your website when traffic it gets there, or you’re sending the wrong type of traffic to that site. The other thing you can easily look at using Google Analytics is the amount of traffic you’re getting from mobile devices. If you see that you’re getting 50% of your traffic from mobile devices but your website is a mobile optimized, you know that you’re missing out on 50% of the traffic that could be doing your site. 2. The Power of the Right Kind of Customer Focus in Your Marketing Customer focus in the digital age isn’t about the customer always being right. Modern companies have to evaluate what interacting with their brand says about the customer. In this Internet age we all have a digital foot print. For companies to succeed in this new world they have to make sure that interacting with them reflects positively on the customers who do so. The ice bucket challenge is a great example of modern customer focus and action. The ice bucket challenge got people all over the world to engage because the people who started it understand human psychology. The ice bucket challenge was something that was fun, a little bit challenging, and out of the norm and entertaining. It was fun because you get to challenge your friends to do it. It was a little bit challenging because of the ice bucket aspect. Dumping a bucket of ice water over your head is not a pleasant experience. However, it’s only moderately unpleasant, so most people will do it for a good cause is out of the norm and entertaining because there’s an element of slapstick humor involved. The key to understanding and modeling the ice bucket challenge is to ask and answer this question: What does doing business with our company allow our customers to say about themselves? Put another way, How does doing business with the company added value to our customers and/or their identity? Facebook is a master of this concept. Every so often they will remind you of posts you’ve made in the past, and on your birthday they create a personalized video of all your friends wishing you a happy birthday on Facebook. Th

Matt Bodnar is the author of Location Based Marketing For Restaurants: Simple, Low Cost, Easy To Use Tactics To Get Customers In The Door. Named a “Rising Restaurateur Star” by the National Restaurant Association and a “Strategy Pro” by Restaurant Hospitality Magazine, Matt is a partner at early stage investment firm Fresh Hospitality. Bodnar joined Fresh in 2011 after several years working at Goldman Sachs. Fresh Hospitality specializes in systems to help the companies they invest in scale up their businesses faster than they would be able to on their own. They’ve developed proprietary software that helps them manage all the variables that go into creating a successful restaurant experience in different food markets. Today Fresh Hospitality has more than 150 locations over 15 different brands that they have invested in. They do $250 million annually in their portfolio. This podcast was great! We discussed how to be successful in a fast/casual sector of the restaurant business. We also talked about Matt’s podcast The Science of Success , and the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and why adopting a growth mindset is so important. Here are some highlights of our conversation: Coming out of the financial crisis of 2008 it became clear to the partners of Fresh Hospitality at the fast/casual sector of the restaurant business (which has an average of $10/lunch order) was much more resilient than other sectors of the restaurant business. So they chose to target that market sector. Restaurant chains like Chili’s and TGI Friday’s have been squeezed out in a lot of cases while places that operate at one of the two “barbells” of the fast/casual market have won out. The two barbells are restaurants that cater to healthy minded individuals and restaurants that cater to customers seeking an indulgence experience. The reason that 95% of restaurants fail is because the restaurant business is a very low margin business. For every $1 you give to a restaurant $.05 of that is profit on average. That means there is very little room for error. Restaurants have a lot of moving parts. With such a low profit margin, a lot of first-time restaurant enthusiasts structure their contracts for leasing business space and equipment in such a way that makes it almost impossible for them to succeed. SAAS = Software as a Service The Science of Success podcast began as a power point presentation that Matt was asked to give to a company CEO. It’s important to push through and expand your zone of discomfort. Once you do that more opportunities will become available to you. You can give people all the tools and information they need to change. In the end they have to want to change for change to take place. Self-awareness is the most important quality as a predictor of success. People who are self-aware understand where they’re at and they are more able to change because they understand more about themselves and what they need to change. Having a high emotional IQ is also another predictor of success because you’re less likely to offend people and it’s easier to understand how to deal with challenging situations. People are driven by their emotions and the better you can sense the emotions of the people around you, the better equipped you are to decide the best course of action in business deals and interpersonal relationships. “Starve all your problems and feed all your opportunities.” — Peter Drucker The ability to accept reality as it is, especially when the situation is not ideal is an important trait to have. Another important trait to have in business and in life is the ability to accept responsibility for everything that goes wrong in your life. The more you accept responsibility for those things that go wrong the more control and ability you will have to alter the circumstances of your life. If you can accept where you are right now and look at negative feedback as an opportunity to grow and improve, you can do and be anything you want in this life. If you constantly deflect and blame others for the criticism you’re receiving you’ll remain where you are — unable to grow. The Elements That Fresh Hospitality Look for an Investment Opportunity The restaurant has to be in the fast/casual market. The restaurant has to cater to either customers concerned with healthy eating or customers seeking an indulgent experience. The restaurant has to have raving fans locally. The founders of the restaurant have to be people of integrity. They have to be people that the partners of Fresh Hospitality can work well with and get along with. Quality ingredients are also a paramount concern. Every location that Fresh Hospitality invests in deals in fresh ingredients. (Only one brand has a freezer and that’s because they make handmade popsicles.) Fixed Mindset Vs. Growth Mindset Those who have a fixed mindset are very tied to their identit

Zoe McKey is the bestselling author of Find What You Were Born For: Discover Your Inborn Skills, Forge Your Own Path, Live The Life You Want. Zoe speaks five languages fluently and provides communication and personal development coaching to clients all over the world. Zoe is from Romania, a post-communist state bordered by Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine and Moldova. Because of its communist history, capitalism has not yet fully taken hold there, and Zoe calls her self publishing adventure a “reckless jump” that has paid great dividends. When she took the leap into self publishing she was a working student and she decided to quit everything to focus on self publishing as her career. When Zoe decided to take the plunge and write a book to be self published she had several doubts, any one of which might have stopped another person from writing their book. First, Zoe is not a native English speaker. Second, this was her first self-help book. She wasn’t well-known in the marketplace, although she had a few coaching clients. Finally, as a woman in her 20s, she doubted that she had wisdom worth sharing. Now she has a whole line of personal development books available on Kindle Unlimited. She has helped people all over the world. This interview is really an inspiration and just goes to show that anyone with persistence and determination can be successful at self-publishing. Zoe has a fascinating personal story. Her father left her to fend for herself at the age of 14 after giving her just $30 to live on, all the money he had in his pocket. She survived 11 years on her own before moving back to Romania. We had a wide-ranging conversation which included the topics of: self-publishing, personal development, and the importance of listening and developing personal relationships. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation: Don’t wait to share your wisdom. You don’t know who your book will help. How Zoe uses the example of Harry Potter and Hogwarts to keep her going. The best way to learn is directly from your audience. That’s the power of self-publishing. Authors can directly connect with the people buying their book. They can use feedback directly from their audience to decide whether or not to change their message in any way. It’s important to filter out negative feedback that is not constructive from constructive criticism. You can learn from constructive criticism. Negative feedback that isn’t specific should be ignored. Every book you publish makes you a better writer. So every time you write and publish a book you’re the best writer you can be, and you get better every time. How to write books quickly and with a lot less struggle. It’s important to get along with as many people as possible. The only way you get anywhere in life is with the help of other people. There is true power in reciprocity and giving back to others. How to write several different books in the same niche using the “pickle jar” analogy. We all have the same types of problems, whether we are a billionaire, blue-collar worker or homeless. The human condition is universal. Listening skills are important. Practice them with your friends. The more you listen, the more you will learn, and the more you will be able to accomplish your goals. To practice your listening skills in conversation, ask questions related to what you’re talking about with your friends, continue to listen and ask more questions. Zoe’s coaching clients usually know the answer to their problems. Zoe’s expertise as a coach comes with knowing the right questions to ask. One way to increase your social skills is to be genuinely interested in other people. The most important person in anyone’s life is themself. If you are genuinely interested in them they will like you better. If you approach people with interest and a genuine smile that will go a long way to making a good first impression. A smile is a very simple way to connect with other people easily. How to begin the process of writing a book in English if English isn’t your first language. If you are a non-native English speaker and your main clients are in America it is best to choose an American native speaker. If you choose someone in England or Australia they will have different idioms and spellings of words than the American audience is used to. Books by Zoe McKey Daily Routine Makeover: Guide To Focused Action, Productivity Hacks, Stress-Free Performance – Get Things Done In Less Time Find What You Were Born For: Design Goals That Bring Purpose To Your Life – How To Shape Your Future, Craft Goals To Your Calling And Create Lasting Change (Book 2) Build Grit: How To Grow Guts, Develop Willpower, And Never Give Up – Strength Of Character Manual Build Social Confidence: Maximize Your Social Likability, Handle Tough Conversations Easily, Get Along with Everybody – Proven Hacks to Boost Your Charisma

Bobby Casey is an entrepreneur, investor and and business strategist. He is an advocate for privacy and freedom for citizens like you and me. As a sought-after speaker on free-market economics and offshore businesses, Bobby travels the world working with entrepreneurs helping them properly structure their businesses and their lives for long-term success. Bobby has always been a serial entrepreneur. He has Bachelors Degrees in Economics and Finance. He has Masters Degrees in Law and Entrepreneurship. Bobby has started, bought and/or sold 12 different companies. He has traveled through 45 states and over 70 countries. In our fascinating conversation we talked about how to protect the value of your assets and the power of being a digital nomad. Here are a few highlights: Being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone. You’ve got to be emotionally and mentally equipped to deal with the hard times and failures that you will see in your business life. As with many things in life, confidence is key. Being an entrepreneur is an emotional roller coaster. 98% of the things you worry about will never happen. There are always ways to make money. There are great opportunities to make money on craigslist, eBay, and as an Amazon seller. If you’re writing a contract between two companies you own it can be very simple and straightforward. When paying royalties to your offshore company you do want to pay market rates, or it may be a red flag for an auditor. You can spend the money from your offshore business using a debit card on legitimate business expenses. You can really lower your cost of living by becoming a digital nomad. There are huge tax advantages to being a digital nomad. Living as a digital nomad can remove a lot of distractions from your life. You are not as concerned about what other people think of you. You’re not as concerned about “Keeping up with the Joneses.” The Benefits of Having an Offshore Business 1. Asset Protection when you have an offshore business is easier to protect your intellectual property because the countries that specialize in these sort of business arrangements make it very difficult for foreign creditors to come after your property. That’s what they’re in business to do, after all. 2. Tax-Deferred Income and Wealth Creation Another benefit to setting up an offshore company is you can grow your wealth faster the more money is outside heavily taxed societies. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Craigslist — a place where you can advertise and buy/sell goods and services. EBay.com — one of the Internet’s biggest auction sites, also a place where you can sell used goods. Become an Amazon seller — instructions for how to set up your own storefront on Amazon.com and use Amazon’s ability to generate traffic to make money for yourself. globalwealthprotection.com — Bobby’s website. Read his blog and join his mailing list for free. You can also contact him about his consulting services. Job Free: Four Ways to Quit the Rat Race and Achieve Financial Freedom on Your Terms by Jake Desyllas — this book explores 4 strategies for living without a job. It talks about extreme saving, unjobbing, lifestyle businesses, and startups. Why You Should Know the “Double a Penny a Day” Analogy — the article that talks about compound interest on Bobby’s website. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 103: How to Lower Your Taxes Legally with an Offshore Business with Bobby Casey appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Amy Collins is the author of The Write Way: Everything You Need to Know About Publishing, Selling and Marketing Your Book. She worked as a Book Buyer for a large books and magazines publisher, selling to Barnes & Noble, Target, Costco, Airport Stores, Walmart, Books-A-Million and other major book retailers. Amy used to be a musician. She needed Christmas presents one year and decided to take a part-time job at a bookstore. When the season was over she planned to return to her life as a singer but she was persuaded to stay on. A year later she became the book buyer for that store. Within a year she was promoted to book buyer for the entire chain of 16 stores. She was offered a job as a sales rep for Prima Publishing (now a division of Random House). Five years after that she became director of sales for a nonfiction publishing house in Boston. Ten years ago Amy decided to start her own business and level the playing field for small publishing houses and independent publishers. She wanted to give them the same opportunities that the big publishing houses have to distribute their books to stores and libraries. This interview was information packed! We talked about how to develop marketing plans, productivity, various revenue streams that authors can receive, and how to get your book into brick and mortar bookstores and libraries. There are several different revenue streams that authors can receive from libraries from direct sales to licensing deals and more. If you want to learn even more about Amy’s step-by-step process for getting self published books into libraries after you listen to this podcast, you can check out the free webinar with Amy where she walks you through the library distribution process for self published authors. Here are some of the takeaways from the interview with Amy: The rules change every six months. You have to stay informed and know what’s happening in the publishing industry. Print-on-Demand (POD) is a business model that allows you as the publisher to take advantage of the technology of digital printing along with just-in-time ordering to create a print on demand program for your readers. If your book is 300 pages or less and black and white, or a children’s book that’s 48 pages or less, print on demand is a wonderful business model that allows you to earn $2 in profit for each book (which is all you should expect anyway) and take all the risk out of it. If you realize there is a mistake you can fix it almost instantly and all future versions of your book will be corrected. In the old days Amy would have to throw out the entire run of a book with a printing error in it. Now all you have to do is correct the book file, send it to CreateSpace or Ingram Lightning Source and move forward. It’s possible to get a print on demand book into libraries and the bookstore chains today, and Amy has helped hundreds of self published authors do just that. If you want your book in libraries and bookstores you need your book to be professionally edited and have a professionally designed book cover. If you have a quality book, the fact that it is print on demand won’t prevent you from getting into libraries and bookstores. Independent brick-and-mortar bookstores are a growing sector of the economy. In 2009, there were 1,691 independent bookstores. Today there are over 2,100 independent bookstores. If you want to get into independent bookstores, approach the American Booksellers Association. They have some wonderful programs that aren’t too expensive. Get your book into the White Box Program. The key to getting your book into bookstores as an indie author is to start locally. Start with your local bookstore and library. Go see the manager and head librarian and give them a copy of your book. Local businesses and libraries want to see authors from the area succeed. The big chains are different. To get into Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million you have to start by pitching to someone at their corporate offices. It’s easier to convince a librarian to give your book a chance. Librarians always want to see local authors succeed. Bookstores don’t like to give their money to Amazon. If you want to sell your book in brick-and-mortar bookstores sign up for the print on demand services at Ingram Spark a.k.a. Lightning Source. Barnes & Noble is now in the print on demand business. A link to sign up is in the resources section. Baker and Taylor is the largest wholesaler to libraries in the world. When you sign up with them they will charge you around $500 in sign-up fees if they accept you. The fees are definitely worth paying if you plan to distribute your physical books into libraries or bookstores. Before you start reaching out to bookstores and libraries, you have to create demand and solicit quality reviews. It’s important to get reviews at Amazon but you also want reviews from places like Booklist, Midwest Book Review, and Kirkus. These p

Dani Hedlund published her first novel Threads of Deception at the age of 18. After experiencing the difficulties of getting her book published she founded Tethered by Letters in 2007 to help other new writers perfect and publish their work. Tethered by Letters is a nonprofit offers free writing coaching, publishing, and editing guidance and it has grown into an amazing community of writers, editors and artists from all over the world. Dani began writing Threads of Deception when she was 15 years old. When she finished writing the book a year later she had no idea what to do with it. She grew up in a farming community and didn’t have any publishing contacts. She spent the next two years of her life trying to get someone in the publishing industry to take her seriously. When she was finally able to hold a copy of her published book in her hands she thought of all the times she almost gave up. That’s when she decided to create Tethered by Letters to help new authors navigate the publishing industry. One of the breakout successes that Tethered by Letters helped to navigate the publishing industry is Isaac Marion who wrote the short story that inspired the movie Warm Bodies. He has since written a novel that expands on the short story. Our conversation covered many topics including: the best way to break into the publishing industry, strategies for writing query letters, and common mistakes that new writers make. Here are a few of the highlights from the interview: If you want to make a career out of writing you can’t simply wait for the muse to bless you with a wealth of ideas. Writers Write. You have to put in the “butt in chair” time working at your craft if you want to succeed. If you want to be traditionally published today the most important thing you need to do is build a platform. The easiest way to do that is to get your short stories published in journals, magazines and anthologies. When agents see that you’ve already been published they are more likely to look at your work because they see that other people have taken a chance on your writing. It’s classic social proof. The short form side of the publishing industry is incredibly diverse. Over 90% of literary journals do not pay writers for their submissions. Those journals have value because agents and editors read them. Tethered by Letters does pay for the submissions that they end up publishing. Why book deals and film deals are the way to earn the most money in the industry for fiction writers. Every time you publish it helps your career. You should practice your craft by writing short stories. When you write short stories you’re exposed to your errors in a much more condensed and navigable way. It’s much easier to understand what you’re doing wrong in a shorter piece of fiction because there are fewer moving parts. This can lead to faster learning and improvement. Enjoy the process of writing and submitting your work. It’s the only way to survive the journey and become successful. You will grow faster in a less painful way if you write short fiction first. Writing short stories is a good way for you to figure out what kind of writing sells well in your market. It’s a good way for you to judge the audience reaction before investing time in writing a novel or series of novels. Any author that tells you, “I only write for myself and I don’t care what other people think,” is lying. Authors write because we want people to hear what we have to say. In order for people to hear what we have to say we have to find our audience and entertain them while exposing them to our point of view. The most common misconception among new writers is: “If my reader didn’t understand what I have to say then my reader isn’t smart enough.” As a writer our primary job is to communicate ideas. If the reader doesn’t understand the idea that you’re trying to communicate it’s the job of the writer to revise their work so that it’s understandable to as many people as possible. The biggest thing that new writers have to learn is that you can be wrong. All humans are fallible. The flip side of that is that revision is always possible. The easiest thing to do is identify the writer by how grandiose their writing is. How many words are you using? Are you trying to show off your literary erudition? The purpose of writing is to communicate ideas clearly so that the largest audience possible can understand them. New writers often try to put too much into one story. It’s because they feel like this is their one shot at writing. The truth is that if you’re a good writer you can have as many shots as you want at writing. So choose one idea, finish it and then write something else. Simple stories are the ones that work. Concentrate on telling a good story. Remember the type of stuff you like to read. Don’t get bogged down in the techn

Elliott Katz is the bestselling author of Being the Strong Man A Woman Wants and six other non-fiction books. He is a professional speechwriter and has written on a wide-range of subjects from the outdoors to the economy to how to stimulate ideas and innovation in the workplace. When Elliott wrote Being the Strong Man A Woman Wants he was only writing it for himself and his friends. Shortly after he put it up on Amazon he was approached by agents in Mexico and Poland. That’s when he realized the book has international appeal and he became interested in the topic of foreign publishing rights. To date, the book has been translated into 24 languages. Our conversation delved deeply into the topic of how to license and sell foreign language publishing rights even if you are a self published author. Elliott talked about the three major advantages of selling in foreign markets. He also talked about pitfalls to avoid when negotiating foreign publishing rights contracts. Here are some of the highlights from our conversation. Books aren’t like toothpaste. People look at your cover and they are looking for a book to help them with their problem. If you have a good cover and good information your book will do well. The Internet makes it much easier to find agents who want to sell your book in foreign countries. (There are links below to help you find foreign agents for your books.) The benefit to having an agent in foreign countries is they have contacts in their publishing industry. It makes your book stronger to have an agent standing behind it. Before you seek out a foreign agent ask yourself, “is this a book that would appeal to foreign markets?” Cultures may be different but human nature is the same throughout the world. In the United States and Canada it’s very common to have one agent represent you exclusively. In foreign countries you can often have several agents representing your book. When foreign agents ask for exclusivity don’t feel like you have to say yes. Think about it and the way your options before moving forward. 3 Advantages to Selling Your Foreign Rights 1. It is another income stream. 2. You reach people in parts of the world that don’t speak English 3. It gives your book an extra layer of credibility it wouldn’t otherwise have. A Standard Foreign Rights Publishing Deal The deal is typically structured like this: In their initial offer the publisher will tell you how many books with a plan to print and the commission you get on each book sold. So let’s say a German publisher wants to print 5,000 copies of your book and sell it for the equivalent of $15 US. They want to give you a 7% commission on the first 5,000 copies. When you do the math 7% x $15 x 5,000 copies = $5,250. The Formula for Calculating Your Advance on Royalties Here’s the formula most publishers use to calculate your advance on royalties for this kind of deal: Royalty Rate x Retail Price x # of Copies in First Print Run = Your Advance After the German publisher sells those 5,000 copies, you have “earned out” your advance and you will be paid royalties at the agreed-upon royalty rate on all sales after the first 5,000. It’s important to maintain contact with your publisher because some publishers aren’t good about sending regular royalty statements. Having a literary agent who specializes in foreign rights can help because their job is to follow up on these deals and make sure you keep getting paid. One thing you can negotiate is your royalty rate after the first printing. It’s legitimate to ask for a raise because in the first printing a publisher factor in the cost of a translator. The translation of your book is a one-time cost so it’s fair to ask the publisher to give you more money on a sliding scale as they sell more books. It is also important to note that when you sell foreign publishing rights, the only thing you’re selling is the right to publish your book in that country. You’re not selling merchandising rights or movie rights, and you should avoid selling worldwide rights for a specific language in most cases (exceptions may apply, so do your research!). Email Template Letter to Send to Foreign Language Rights Agents to Sell Your Book Internationally Dear [Name], Being the Strong Man a Woman Wants: Timeless Wisdom on Being a Man is right for your market. It helps men improve their relationships and save their marriages. As one woman wrote: “If my husband of 38 years had understood these basic but crucial truths, our marriage would not have disintegrated.” A man wrote in an Amazon.com customer review: “My wife has noticed a change in me for the better. This book has saved our marriage.” Click on the link above and read more Amazon customer reviews. Extensive media interest The author has been interviewed on numerous radio and TV shows. Here’s sample TV interview. Breakfast Television, Canada&#8217

Jeffrey Fox is the New York Times bestselling author of 11 business books that have been translated into over thirty languages. He is the founder of Fox & Company, a management consulting firm that shows clients how to dollarize their value proposition to overcome price objections and shorten the sales cycle. Jeffrey started Fox and Company in 1982. He wrote his first book How to Become CEO as a monograph for his children and the children of his clients. He was asked to speak to a group of promising college graduates and he gave them copies of his monograph as graduation gift. Unbeknownst to him a copy of his monograph got into the hands of a book packager in California. The book packager called him and said, “I think you have a book here.” They worked together for about a week to format the monograph into something resembling a manuscript. From there Jeffrey got an enthusiastic agent and they were able to sell the book very quickly. Our conversation covered some powerful topics including marketing and the power of writing short and simple books here are a few of the takeaways: Readability is the thing you most want when you publish a book. You want your audience to be able to read and understand what you say. In marketing you have to find the obvious and then say it in a way that hasn’t been said before. 90%-95% of all business books aren’t read past page 14. When writing for an audience write for yourself first. Make it simple. Write your statement and then say why it works. It’s no easy business to be simple — Gustave Flaubert A brand is a promise. A brand is not the product. A brand is the name of the product What you’re watching for in the marketplace is positive brand awareness Positive Brand Awareness means that your brand is associated with the highest quality and the highest prices. A brand is worth more than the physical property of the company. You’d rather own a market than a mill. And a brand that represents the market. The biggest mistake that new entrepreneurs and new authors make is they think social media is their message. Social media is the method for getting your message out. Figure out what your message is and then choose the media best suited to transmit that message. A book has to be interesting to have any staying power. When you publish a book traditionally it’s important to have an agent who specializes in the genre of book you’re writing. When writing in a new market that you’re not familiar with it’s a good idea to get beta readers and listen to their feedback. The #1 problem in business today is 90% of businesses don’t know how to price their products. You should always price your products based on the value they give your customer. So if your product costs $1 to produce and it provides the $20 of value to the customer you can safely price that product at $15 Another huge problem is how to overcome the price objections of your customers. In order to do that you have to know your product and your competitor’s product enough to be able to explain why, even though your product is priced higher, your product is a better value in the marketplace. When explaining the value of your product people want numbers, facts and figures. Adjectives alone don’t cut it. When selling business-to-business products the buying decision is 15% “feel-good factor” and 85% “does this solve my problem?” With selling in the consumer market a lot more buying decisions are based on the feel-good factor. It’s especially important today to get out of your office and meet your customers face-to-face. The secret of listening to feedback is to listen for something. You want to listen for specifics like dates, facts and figures. It’s very important that you listen to feedback dispassionately. Listen to yourself. Listen to your customers. Don’t go by commonly held wisdom. 3 Steps to Creating an Author Brand from Scratch 1. You’ve got to write something interesting, something good. 2. Your audience has got to be able to read it and like it. 3. You’ve got to decide what media to put your message on. The 2 reasons Everyone Buys Everything 1. To solve a problem 2. To feel good (or some combination of these two.) Jeffrey Fox’s Books 1. How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization 2. How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Client 3. Secrets of Great Rainmakers: The Keys to Success and Wealth 4. How to Become a Great Boss: The Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees 5. The Dollarization Discipline: How Smart Companies Create Customer Value…and Profit from It 6. The Transformative CEO: IMPACT LESSONS FROM INDUSTRY GAME CHANGERS 7. How to Be a Fierce Competitor: What Winning Companies and Great Managers Do in Tough Times 8.How to Make Big Money in Your Own Small Business: Unexpected Rules Every Sma

Kristen Joy is the bestselling author of 26 books including the Author’s Quick Guide to Finding Your Target Market. In 2003 she turned her life-long love of reading and writing into a full-time career she loves, and now she teaches authors and entrepreneurs how to create books that bring their passion to life. In 2003 Kristen was hired to be the marketing director of a self-publishing services firm. When that company folded, she started her own company doing the same thing for her clients. When she got tired of publishing books for other people she sold that company and started a publishing company to publish her own books. How to Start Your Own Publishing Company Shortly thereafter, she was cornered by her first coaching client who begged her to teach him how to start his own publishing company. When she quoted him a price she couldn’t say no to, and he said yes, her adventure really began. She discovered that she enjoyed coaching people. To date, she’s coached clients to create 50 publishing companies. Some of her clients publish their own work exclusively while others publish several authors. She started the current phase of her career as the Book Ninja a few years ago when she published 18 Kindle books in 18 weeks. She took what she learned from that experience and created her course The Kindle in 30 Challenge Self Study Program. In this podcast we covered many topics including: how to start your own publishing company, the author mindset for success, and the history of self-publishing. It was an interesting discussion packed with insight. Here are some of the key takeaways: To be successful as a Kindle publisher you’ve got to want to be a Kindle publisher for reasons that go beyond just dollar signs. Starting your own publishing company can open a few doors for you. It’s important to take action if you want to succeed in life. If you want to sell a lot of books it’s important to realize that there is work that needs to be done after you publish the book. You can’t simply publish your book and forget about it. The key to success in publishing or anything else is to make what you’re doing your heart’s work. When you love what you do your work doesn’t feel like work. It feels like a fun project. When publishing other people’s work, it’s important to walk them through the process and give them parameters so they have realistic and clear expectations of a timeline. When publishing your own books realize that this book is a permanent reflection of who you are, so put out the best product you can, even if it takes longer. Having a professional cover design is one of the most important things you can do to effectively market your book. Your cover is your book’s first impression. Make the best first impression you can. Make sure you have the best cover you can afford. Make sure your book is formatted so that it’s readable. Make sure you edit the book so that it makes sense and there are as few typos as possible. After you have a good product you can do anything to drive traffic to it. Every book you publish should have a way for people to join your e-mail list. Write a series. Nothing markets your books like more books in the same series. Build a relationship with your audience. The know, like trust factor is HUGE. Recognize that you are an authorpreneur, not just an author. The secret to building a brand is to be professional and deliberate about it. Having a logo for a brand is a good thing. If you’re branding yourself have professional headshots taken. (This can work well for nonfiction and fiction authors.) Successful fiction authors brand themselves as that particular genre’s expert. (Think John Grisham for Legal Thriller and Nicholas Sparks for Bittersweet Romance.) Nonfiction authors brand themselves as experts in the topic or category. (Think Robert T. Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame.) To build your brand is an author takes on average 3 to 5 years. The fastest way to self-publishing success is to focus on one genre. You can still write books in other genres, but really focus on building one genre at a time marketing wise. When building a personal brand it’s important to make it personal. Make sure who you are shines through in the way you communicate with your customers. It’s important you build a brand you’re proud to be identified as. For every copy of a Kindle e-book sold today there is a paperback copu sold today. When Kindle books first came out and they were the shiny new thing fiction books sold at a rate of 3 Kindle e-books to 1 paperback edition. Nonfiction books have always sold about 1 Kindle e-book to 1 paperback edition. There are requirements to get into brick and mortar bookstores that most self published authors simply don’t meet. You can make a good living only selling your book online. Depending on the type of book you have and your goals traditional bookstores mi

Carmen Simon, PhD, is the author of Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions. A cognitive scientist, she has helped some of the world’s most visible brands craft memorable messages by focusing on how the brain works. Her sought-after keynote speeches unveil science-based techniques for getting others to see your way, remember your way, and go your way. Doctor Simon began researching the book Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions. because of an experiment that she did about two years ago. She showed a group of 1500 people a 20 slide PowerPoint presentation and then asked them two days later how much they remember. What surprised her was that about 1/3 of the participants didn’t even remember that they had been to a PowerPoint presentation. We had a fascinating conversation about memory, marketing and how the brain works. Towards the end of the episode we discussed neuroscience, why it’s important and what we know about how the brain works on a macro level. Here are just some of the highlights of our conversation. People forget their lives almost as quickly as they live them. You only live in business to the extent that your audience remembers you. Unsurprisingly, paying attention improves memory retention. There are 15 variables we can use to improve other people’s memory. Repetition, emotion, distinctiveness, and familiarity are four factors that improve your audiences memory. Familiarity is important. The brain prefers to conserve energy when possible. So if you can start by giving the brain something it’s familiar with, that allows you to bypass the brain’s filter and help people remember what you have to say. A particularly effective tactic is to start a presentation or story in a way that is familiar to your audience and then gives them something distinctive to jar their expectations. If you surprise people in a familiar setting they are likely to remember it. People remember things in many ways. The brain likes habits because habits reduce the amount of thinking that you have to do. If you appeal to people’s existing habits it’s much easier for you to sell them because they don’t have to learn new routines. When doing a PowerPoint presentation consider what your audience expects. Every audience is different and you want to tailor your PowerPoint presentation to the expectations of your individual audience. Give your audience what they expect. Less is not more when it comes to memory. To create a strong memory you need a maximum amount of stimulation and sensation. Don’t simplify complexity, manage complexity better. You have to earn the right to tell a story in presentations. It’s important to have a good mix of what people expect and the novelty. If you give people too much of what they expect the brain will tune out and think about other things. If you give people too many surprises the brain will be overloaded from stimulation and start thinking about more familiar things. The importance of disrupting the brain’s pattern in order to get more attention. A disruption is an interruption of a pattern the brain has habituated to. Allow the brain to form a pattern first and then disrupt it. Attracting someone’s attention is not that difficult. Keeping attention for a sustained period of time is much more difficult. The brain is capable of paying attention for extended periods of time. Everyone is different and it’s impossible to judge anyone’s individual limit of sustained attention. The brain habituates (or zones out) very quickly to a stimulus that does not change. Two Reasons the Brain Zones out 1. The degree of variation within a particular stimulus. 2. The degree of arousal (which is very subjective.) In the past 20 years what has changed is the brain requires more stimulation to maintain attention on the topic being discussed. the more modes of stimulation (think human senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell) that you can put into a presentation of the more memorable and will be. In the 1930s and 40s the average shot length for movies was 10 seconds. Modern movies have an average shot length of 2.4 seconds. This reflects the brain’s need for greater change in its stimuli. Look at your own material and ask yourself this question: How often do I provide a cut for my audience? The stimulus your providing doesn’t really matter that much. What matters is how often you change the stimulus. Think of your presentation as a performance. The longer you want the brain to stay with you, the more changes in stimuli you need to provide. The brain has been designed not to miss anything, so if you can vary stimuli to the brain it will pay attention longer. Science can predict what pictures you will remember. Our memories are not an accurate record of reality. Every time we have a memory we have the ability to change it right then and there. Lin

Bo Bennett is the bestselling author of Logically Fallacious and seven other books. He is also an avid entrepreneur and founder of ebookit.com, a company that formats and distributes eBooks, print on demand, and digital audio books. Bo wrote his first book Year to Success in 2004. Back then the indie publishing landscape wasn’t what it is today. He spent $30,000 to print 3000 hardcover books and another $500 a month to store those books at his printers warehouse. He sold some of those books through a traditional book tour, but he didn’t sell enough copies to make it a viable option going forward. He started looking into self-publishing and different ways of distributing his books. After three years of research (from 2006 to 2009) Bo decided to start his own company helping authors publish their books. That’s how ebookit.com was born. Our conversation covered several topics including how to tie your nonfiction book into an online course and the importance of pricing an e-book appropriately. Here are some of the takeaways. How promotion and self-publishing has changed over the last 12 years. How to sell more books at your book signing. It’s important to create an individual marketing strategy for every book you write. How to create a website with free information that sells your book. How to convert your website into a book that won’t have a duplicate information problem on Amazon. Nonfiction authors can create an online course that covers the material may have in their book. You can sell this course for a higher price point than you can the e-book, and it also has the added benefit of promoting the e-book. Never delete anything. If you delete a chapter from a book put it in a file somewhere. You may be able to repurpose the content later elsewhere. The biggest mistake authors can make is submitting a book to online retailers with a crappy cover design. It’s important to have a decent looking cover because book buyers associate the quality of the cover with the quality of the book itself. Another mistake authors make is pricing their e-book. Generally speaking you want your e-book to be priced between $2.99 and $9.99. If you price your book under $2.99 you get a smaller percentage of each sale. If you price it over $9.99 you’ll get fewer customers. Between $2.99 and $9.99 is the sweet spot. The money/time the equation and how it relates to selling indy books. In order to sell your book you need both money and time. If you don’t have a lot of money you need a lot of time. If you don’t have a lot of time you need a lot of money. It’s best to have at least some of both. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Logically Fallacious – Bo Bennett’s book about logical fallacies. Logically fallacious website – the website that Bo turned into a book. Year to success – Bo’s first book Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Expanded Third Edition – the book Tom bought for $70. It looks like you can buy used copies for a little bit less. www.bobennett.com – Bo’s personal website. www.ebookit.com – Bo’s service where he and his team will convert to and distribute your e-book to all the major online bookstores. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 96: Online Marketing and Promotion Strategies for Indie Authors with Bo Bennett appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Bestselling Author Mark Goulston started as a clinical interventional psychiatrist and UCLA professor of psychiatry. He learned to “hack” into the minds of suicidal and potentially violent individuals to prevent acts of destruction to others or themselves. He next went on to train FBI and police hostage negotiators. Mark has written several books on effective communication that teach you how to get your message heard using a powerful communications secret – listening. Mark began his career as a psychiatrist with a specialty in crisis intervention. There are many instances where a patient will be admitted to a mental hospital because they’re suicidal and then in order to get discharged a psychiatrist on the outside needs to agree to see them because they still require treatment outside the hospital setting. Mark helped many patients abandon their suicidal tendencies. It was while seeing these patients that Mark developed the skill of “listening into” somebody. He drew from these experiences to write his first book, Just Listen. Our conversation was fascinating and covered many topics including: psychology, how to develop a book title that grabs your audience, and techniques for communicating. Here are a few of the takeaways: The power of listening into somebody. Listening into somebody means looking at the conversation from their point of view. The difference between listening and listening into. The power of listening and how it delights us. The key to listening is to care about what the person is saying when they’re talking to you. If you care about what people are saying and you are truly present with them in that moment, they will let you take them anywhere. It’s important that you don’t do a bait and switch. If you’re listening to a customer simply to try and sell them something and you don’t genuinely care about them itwill show through. The importance of staying true to your values. Use the Think like Steve Jobs Formula to come up with great book titles. Writing thoughtful reviews can be a great way to network with authors. How to network using LinkedIn discussions. How to be truly present in a conversation. Be a first-class noticer. The purest form of listening is listening without memory or desire. The importance of letting go of your own personal agenda when you’re listening to people. The value of Purposeful Agendaless Listening When networking get the person you are networking with to talk about something that is important to them. If you can have a conversation with someone that helps them be a clear on something important to them they will be grateful to you and you will form a strong connection. Be more interested than interesting. Be more fascinated than fascinating. Boredom occurs when I fail to make the other person interesting. Write what it is you would like to read. Whenever you get stuck staring at the screen just ask yourself, “what would I like to say here” or, “what would I like my character to say here?” Even if it’s not exactly right at least he gives you a jumping off point to make it better. The difference between should and want and why it’s important. How to Calm Down Irrational People with the FUDN Approach The FUDN approach stands for: Frustrated Upset Disappointed Now What It works like this. Imagine you are talking to someone who is very angry. When they take a break from ranting you say, “you sound frustrated what’s that about?” And then you listen to what they have to say. When you’re listening you need to listen for four things: hyperbole (exaggerated statements or claims, whether negative or positive), inflection, adjectives and adverbs. Hyperbole, inflection, adjectives and adverbs all have emotional juice in them. So what you do after you’ve asked the first question is listen, then ask them to tell you more about whatever they’re getting emotional about. So if someone tells you that something is “awful,” you respond, “talk more about what’s awful.” What you’re trying to do is give the person you’re listening to a conduit to get rid of their frustration safely. Once you judge that the frustration is diffused you move on to stage 2 and say, “if I were you I would be upset, what are you upset about?” After you ask the upset question you listen for the same four things you were looking for in stage 1: hyperbole, inflection, adjectives and adverbs. Again, you’re listening for these things because they indicate where the speaker’s emotion is. Once you understand what’s really bothering somebody asked them to elaborate until you feel you’ve pulled the upset out of them. Then you move on to stage 3 and you say to them, “if I were you I would be disappointed. Are you disappointed about something or someone? Are you disappointed in me?” After you a

Laura Morton has written over 40 books and a staggering 19 New York Times Bestsellers, with a wide range of celebrities, including Al Roker, Justin Beiber, Joan Lunden, and Danica Patrick—just to name a few. She has worked in the entertainment industry for more than 25 years as a writer, producer, speaker and entrepreneur, and continues to pursue projects in publishing, production and electronic media through her company, Laura Morton Management. Her first career was as a television producer. She got frustrated because she would spend a lot of money to hire script writers and have to rewrite them. That’s how she discovered she had a talent for storytelling. The first person she cowrote a book with was Joan Lunden, Joan Lunden’s Healthy Cooking . Laura met Joan when she produced Joan’s workout video. When Joan and Laura pitched the idea of a cookbook/weight-loss memoir to Joan’s agent he said it was a terrible idea. The book went on to become a New York Times bestseller, and the rest is history. We had an interesting conversation about celebrity, storytelling, and what it takes to be an author. Here are some of the takeaways: The difference between being a ghostwriter and a co-author. When you would want a ghostwriter vs a co-author. The difference between writing in a male voice and writing in a female voice. How to suppress your own voice and write in the voice of your character/collaborator. The importance of having ownership of what you write. The process of recording someone else’s life story. The importance of trust in a collaborative relationship. The importance of liking who you’re working with. 4 hour work sessions and the point of diminishing returns. How long it takes to record someone’s life story. The power of creation and how books take on a life of their own. Writing a book is a good way to become recognized as a thought leader. A moment of transition is probably the number one reason why someone decides to write a book. The number one rule in writing is: write what you know People love to read celebrity experiences. People love a great victory. The importance of context in relation to content. Content is the information we see. Context is the lens we see it through. So if you’re having a bad day and your friend isn’t, and they text you a sarcastic joke you could take itthe wrong way because of your emotional state. That is context. The importance of being concise and to the point in your writing. The difference between writing and giving speeches. The importance of “killing your babies.” You don’t have to be famous to have your story told. There is value in everyone’s life experience. How shorter attention spans today have influenced publishing. Write what you love. Write what you know. Write what you have a passion to write. Write everyday. If you’re not connected to the material it won’t work. Writing a book is hard enough. You have to have a real passion for what you’re doing in order to power through the obstacles and challenges that will pop up. Know where you want to land and work backwards. What do you want to get out of this book? You can’t jump into something if you can’t go all in. If writing isn’t your passion, don’t choose it as a career because it will be a frustrating career. Making a book a success is all on you. If you self publish you’re the one that has to find a way to promote your book. If you get a book deal with a traditional publisher, you still have to be the one to promote your book. Even with big name authors traditional publishing companies don’t really do active campaigns. They just put the book out there. If you can’t sit down and write one day get on social media. Start building a platform there. Busy people are always working. If you stay busy people are going to want to work with you. You will be seeing someone with a good work ethic who has things going on. Enthusiasm is the most important element in what you do for a living, because what you do for a living is live your life. People love to be around enthusiastic people. Do something every day. As a new author breaking into the writing business, if you allow yourself to go into a dark and brooding headspace, it isn’t going to serve you. You’ll probably end up having to get some other type of job, then when you approach the end of your life you will say, “I always wanted to be a writer,” instead of, “I am a writer.” 3 Reasons People Write Books 1. It’s a branding piece 2. They need the money 3. Their writing something for their legacy. There’s something they want to be remembered for. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Joan Lunden’s Healthy Cooking — Laura Morton’s first co-authored book. Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters — John’s book on how to achieve significance in yo

Derek Doepker is the #1 Amazon Bestselling author of Why Authors Fail, and several other books. Derek leads hands-on training workshops, courses and retreats to teach authors how to turn their passion for writing into a sustainable business. Derek began his self-publishing journey as a serial entrepreneur trying to turn his passion for health and fitness into an income he could live on. He tried blogging and YouTube videos before turning to Kindle publishing. Derek gained success with his third book 50 Fitness Tips You Wish You Knew . Derek says that book was successful because he shifted his intention for the book. Rather than just wanting the book to be an Amazon bestseller, he focused on writing a book that he would be proud of. “If I died in 30 days… I wanted to leave something behind that would be great.” That book went on to do almost $6000 of royalties in 11 days (in December of 2012). At that point Derek realized he turned a corner. He knew he had to share his experience with others so they could avoid making the same mistakes he did. Derek created Kindle Bestseller Secrets and has published several best-selling Kindle books since he started. Our conversation covered several topics all around author mindset. Here are some of the takeaways. The things you might classify as failures are simply steps on your journey. You only fail if you give up and stop trying. “Overnight Successes” usually take longer than we see. Most people don’t need more information, they need more implementation. In order to succeed you actually have to act on what you know. Just reading books and gathering information isn’t going to help you. The only way to learn how to write books is to try writing, and learn what works and doesn’t work for you. Another mistake authors make is to only go half way in their efforts. For instance, they spend all their time writing, editing and polishing manuscript and then they don’t want to spend the money on getting a good cover. Having a good cover is one of the most important things you can do to help your book be a success. Be yourself. Don’t try to please everybody. Who you are and how you write is what makes you different from everyone else. That’s how you find the audience who wants to hear from you. The principles of success are timeless. Study success principles to future proof yourself. In order to be a success you have to be willing to fail. Our failures teaches us the most valuable lessons. The Key to Success: Always do the best you can and learn from the results, whatever they are. Then move forward. Professional authors are persistent. They keep going until they get the book right. in order to get good at something you have to be willing to be back first. No one is going to see your first draft except you. When you’re writing just write. You can edit and be critical after you get your first attempt down. Have the willingness to do something that’s below your potential. That way you have created something. Then go through the process of perfecting it. Never compare your first draft to someone else’s final draft. And never compare your first draft to the final draft of your last book. Readers aren’t buying what you say as an author, they’re buying how you say it. Readers are buying your perspective, not your information. The first step to getting over a fear of rejection is to acknowledge that you care what other people think. After you acknowledge it,the next step to getting over a fear of rejection is to answer the question: what do I care about more than my fear of rejection? You can choose what you focus on. Rather than focusing on people who don’t like your work, focus on writing for the people who do. One fear a lot of authors have is they have spent a lot of time and/or money to produce the best book they can and it will be a failure. It’s certainly possible to see that as a failure and to say, “I spent all this time and money and have nothing to show for it.” But if you are committed to your author journey and don’t give up, the truth is your “failure” was an education. In the United States hundreds of thousands of people go to college and spend thousands of dollars not knowing for sure whether or not their degree would help them get a good job. If you want to be a successful author, take your failures in stride and just take the next step. Be committed to being better than you were yesterday. Value lessons more than successes and you will never lose again. Create a case study. Document your journey trying to do something. After you’re done you may be able to sell it to other people trying to do the same thing. This can remove any inhibitions you have about trying something new. Because if you try something and it fails, you can document that and other people will benefit because of your experience. By trying and failing you’re

Jesse Lakes left Apple to launch a series of websites that utilized the iTunes and Amazon affiliate programs, but realized they had an issue with monetizing geo-fragmented audiences because of the country-specific affiliate programs. They came up with a solution, and as the project became a success, it was clear that they had built a tool that other authors, entrepreneurs and marketers would benefit from using. Jesse knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur starting early in his college years. He did several entrepreneurial projects in college before getting the opportunity to work for Apple and manage their affiliate program. When Jesse realized he was only making the problem of geo-fragmentation worse working for Apple he decided to create a tool to solve the problem. That’s when we got together with his team and created geniuslink. Geniuslink is a link management tool that allows you to create a link that will function over all the Amazon storefronts. A genius link figures out where in the world a click came from and directs the clicker to your product in the appropriate Amazon store. This leads to a better customer experience, more sales for you, and potentially more affiliate income. In this podcast we talk affiliate marketing, international business and the two link management tools that Jesse and his team operate: the subscription service geniuslink and their free alternative BookLinker.net Here are some of the takeaways: Companies like Apple and Amazon have different affiliate programs in different countries because it’s easier to create different business entities in different countries for tax reasons, rather than create tools that work worldwide. One reason Amazon doesn’t redirect customers to the appropriate store is that it’s technically complicated to do. Another reason is there are digital rights issues when you cross country lines. Generally speaking, the country your credit card is registered in is the country that you can legally buy digital products from. Geniuslink Benefits With geniuslink  you can make money from a number of affiliate programs with just one link. All you have to do is sign up for the individual affiliate programs on the various Amazon storefronts, and wherever your product is bought you will get affiliate credit for that sale. geniuslink allows you to track where your clicks are coming from so that you can determine where your marketing efforts are doing the most good. Getting started with geniuslink 1. First, decide if you want to focus more on being an author than on marketing. If that’s the case you want to go to BookLinker.net. This is a free tool that has similar functionality to genius link. It has a simpler interface and it’s free. 2. If you’re interested in the marketing side, sign up for Amazon’s associate program. (Please note: some states are ineligible for the Amazon associate program. Please read the terms and conditions.) 3. If marketing really excites you, consider signing up for two or three of Amazon’s Associates programs in different territories. The Top 4 Amazon Associates Programs 1. Amazon.com Affiliate Program — America’s affiliate program 2. Amazon.co.uk Affiliate Program — Amazon’s affiliate program for their UK store. 3. Amazon.ca affiliate program — the affiliate program for Amazon Canada. 4. Amazon.de affiliate program — Amazon’s affiliate program for their German store. geniuslink Advanced Features Retargeting — retargeting is the practice of buying ads and sending them only to a targeted group of people who have visited certain pages on your website. It is a very profitable way to advertise because you already know these people are interested in you. Now, using geniuslink, you no longer have to direct people back to your own website to run one of those campaigns. You can actually target an audience that clicked a geniuslink anywhere on the web and arrived at your Amazon sales page. A/B testing with links — with geniuslink you can set up a link to randomly assign a percentage of your audience to a different destination and then track the sales conversion on both sites. In this way you can figure out which site converts better for you and adjust your marketing accordingly. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview www.geni.us — The full-fledged link management tool with advanced marketing features, including target selection and A/B testing. www.BookLinker.net — the free alternative to geniuslink with a simpler interface. Amazon Link Engine — a WordPress plug-in that works with geniuslink to make sure that your customers get directed to the appropriate store front and you get an affiliate commission. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!).   The post 92: How a Better Link Can Help You Sell More Books Internationally with Jesse Lakes app

Barbara Cave Henricks is the author of Mastering the New Media Landscape: Embrace the Micromedia Mindset. She has worked as a publicist in the publishing industry for more than two decades, and now runs her own publicity firm that’s been very successful called Cave Henricks Communications. She started her career as a stringer for NBC news. After working for them for about six months she moved to Washington DC and produced several things including the Larry King radio show. As a producer of the Larry King show, Barbara went through hundreds of books a week trying to find guests for the program. Going through these books Barbara saw the vast majority of them shouldn’t have been submitted by their PR firms for consideration, because they so clearly weren’t right for Larry’s show. That’s when she decided she wanted to work the other side of the equation. She got a job at Workman Publishing and eventually decided to strike out on her own. This podcast is filled with tons of insight into the mindset of PR firms as well as how to make the best use of social media. One thing Barbara kept coming back to in the interview is the three types of media channels that exist today and how they all fit each other. Three Types of Media Channels 1. Earned Media — any media that has a gatekeeper, including traditional media and podcasts. 2. Rented Media — social media channels such as Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. These are referred to as “rented media” because if the website goes away then your community on that website goes away with it. 3. Owned Media — any media channel you own and control yourself, including your own website and email list. Here are some of the takeaways: There are three types of media channels and they all feed one another. Authors now have the ability to communicate directly with their audience. We no longer have to rely on gatekeepers to give us access. PR firms today help you access traditional media channels. They can also train authors on how to use social media, personal websites, and blogs to reach an audience. Traditional media is more valuable today because there are fewer traditional media channels than there were before. PR firms can be content creators for your website. Everyone is a layman journalist. PR firms help you come up with a strategy to promote your book on all fronts. It’s important to focus on multiple media channels and not rely on just one. The more channels you’re a part of, the greater your reach and the larger your audience. While it’s important to have multiple media channels, it’s equally important to have a strategy in place. Consistent posts to your social media platforms is a must. Don’t sign up for a social media account if you’re not going to update the account regularly. Make sure to update your social media bios to reflect the book that you are currently promoting. You can’t create a twitter account, or any social media account is 100% self-promotional. The best way to use twitter to promote your book: find bloggers, reporters, and reviewers who work in your genre. Follow 20 – 100 of them. Listen in on their conversations and respond when it seems appropriate. Twitter is like a big cocktail party. If you ignore social media today you’re missing an opportunity. Social media is one way you can get past the gatekeepers. Social media is a place where you can be in control of the message. Social media provides societal proof that things are trending. Traditional media likes to cover trends. Growing an audience in owned media is very valuable. If you only rely on social media and those channels shut down you’ve lost the connection to your audience. When you have your own website and mailing list you control the connection. Your website should have things on it that make people want to come back to it. What websites do you check regularly and why? Use these questions to figure out what you might want to put on your website. When you have your own website you want to have a way to capture people’s e-mail addresses. You also want to have a way for them to contact you. This is part of building your audience. Offer valuable content on your website to build your audience. The value of being recognized as an expert in your field. How long you should expect to promote a book launch. Personal development books, books on the subject of health, and cookbooks always have motivated buyers. Fiction books are very review dependent. You want to get reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and wherever else you can. PR firms tend to specialize in a certain genre of book. So authors should look for PR firms who work in their genre. The challenge for authors is staying relevant in the marketplace. The importance of taking the long view. The cost of a PR campaign. How and when you will see a return on investment from your PR campaign. When it makes sense not to spend

Debbie Drum is a best-selling author, blogger, and marketing expert. She is also the creator of Book Review Targeter, a very powerful software that helps authors get more reviews for their books. Debbie’s journey got started when she googled the words “how to make money online” in 2010. She made her first money publishing books in 2011 and never looked back. She grew her audience with a simple strategy: she published a book a week in several different marketplaces and gained traction as people discovered her through her work. Debbie currently has 50 products that you can buy related to Internet marketing and marketing videos. During our conversation, which covered online marketing, getting book reviews, and book review software, Debbie emphasized the importance of having multiple streams of income and selling products in your books when possible. Here are some of the other takeaways: The importance of people seeing you as a real person. The power of video marketing in today’s world. The importance of honesty and transparency in marketing. The importance of creating content to build an audience. Make a plan before you start writing. What is your intention for the book you’re writing? What does success look like? Make sure every piece of content leads the customer to where they can get more from you. Make sure every piece of content leads to a way for you to make money now or in the future. Have a marketing plan for your books. Have sources of income beyond the books you publish. Use your books to drive customers to those sources of income. Growing an e-mail list is a necessity. You need to have some way for your audience to opt in to your email list with every piece of content you publish. Practice what you want to get better at. In order to get good at something you have to be willing to do it badly at first. When you write a book or shoot a video for YouTube you’re putting yourself out there in a very raw way. It’s going to be uncomfortable at first. It’s important to do what is uncomfortable so that you can get better at what you’re doing and accomplish your goals. Ignore negative people and just do your thing. The importance of being passionate in the work you do. You should wake up excited in the morning. And if you aren’t excited to go to work you’re doing the wrong type of work. There are no real rules for self published authors. The power of individual creativity in Internet marketing. People can tell if you’re not being authentic. Just be honestly yourself and you will go far. Don’t be overly negative about yourself. You want to be humble without being a downer. The power of one-on-one communication in today’s world. Long term success in business is all about long-term relationships. Affiliate Marketing Tips 1. It’s important to test out everything you recommend. 2. If you’re going to link from your book to an affiliate product, it’s better to link to a video review on that product, then have a link from that video to the product in question. In the video you can tell your audience about your experience with the product. Tell them about your challenges and successes with the product. It comes off as more genuine and less spammy. How to Get Reviews for Your Books 1. Find a book like yours on Amazon. 2. Right next to the star rating, there will be a live link to the reviews of that product. It will have the number of reviews of that product. Click on that link. 3. When you read a review, at the top you’ll see: “by” and then the Amazon reviewer username that this person has chosen. The Amazon reviewer username is clickable. Click that and you will get to their Amazon profile. 4. Once you get on to their Amazon profile, you will be able to click and see if they have an e-mail address where you can e-mail them. 5. Then all you have to do is e-mail them and start a conversation that goes something like this: Hey there, I see you have reviewed [the book they’ve reviewed]. I have a book that’s similar to that. It’s free right now on Amazon and I’d really appreciate some honest feedback on the book. If you’d download it and give me an honest review I’d really appreciate it. Thanks so much! Sincerely, [your name] 6. It’s important that you ask for honest reviews. It’s against Amazon’s terms of service to ask for four or five star reviews and you could get into a lot of trouble. But as long as you ask for honest reviews in a genuine way you’re conforming to Amazon’s terms of service and you’re completely above board. 7. Build a relationship with the people who e-mail you back. The relationship is the true value of the exchange. People are more likely to buy things from those they know, like, and trust. Book Review Software Debbie spent years creating her amazing book review software, BookConnect, which allows authors to c

Tucker Max is the #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and several other books. He is the CEO and co-founder of Book In A Box, a company that turns book writing and publishing into a service. Tucker was also nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009. Tucker’s unique journey to becoming an author started in 2001 when he began emailing his friends short stories he wrote as a way to distract himself from the job he hated. His friends found the stories so entertaining that they forwarded them around to their circles and Tucker began to build a following. After he was fired from his job Tucker was encouraged to pursue writing as a career. When he couldn’t get a publisher to buy his material he decided to put it online for free in late 2002, before the word “blog” even existed. Because of the popularity of his blog, traditional publishers came back to him. Now they wanted to publish his work. That deal gave the world I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. In this podcast we talk about how to get a distribution deal with traditional publishers so you can get your book into brick and mortar bookstores and keep more money in your pocket. We also talk about the three things that you should do before you sit down to write your book. It was a truly fascinating conversation. Here are some of the takeaways you’ll learn in today’s interview with Tucker Max: Why you shouldn’t just copy and paste your blog to make a book. How to become your own publishing company and use a traditional publisher as a distribution channel to get into brick and mortar bookstores. Why you have to sell at least 100,000 copies of a book as a self published author before brick and mortar bookstores will be interested in carrying your book. How being a publishing company as well as the author of the book creates more work for you. Why it’s important to hire an interior design firm if you’re going to sell your books in bookstores. What you have to do to prepare for a meeting with “C-level executives” at a traditional publishing company. Why you should always have a publishing attorney look over your contracts. The deal terms that must be negotiated in a print-only publishing/distribution deal. How much it costs to get your book into wide distribution in brick and mortar bookstores. Your book is your business card. It’s a way to show the world what you know and what you can do. In-store sales for books only account for 25% to 30% of all book sales. The problem almost all new authors have with marketing and how to solve it. Start writing your book with the reader in mind and selling your book becomes easy. Podcasts are an easy way to reach your audience. Do guest post on blogs geared to your audience. The importance of narrowing your audience. 3 Questions That Will Determine Your Marketing Strategy 1. What result do you want from this book? What result, if you achieved it, would cause you to label this book a success? 2. What audience do you have to reach in order to get that result? As much as you can determine your “ideal reader.” It’s as much about who is in your audience as the size of your audience. 3. What do I know that is interesting and valuable to that audience? After you answer these questions marketing becomes much easier. All you have to do to market your book at that point is get it in front of the audience you’ve defined. The more specifically you can define your audience the easier it is to find channels to market directly to them. Tucker’s Books 1. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell 2. Assholes Finish First 3. Sloppy Seconds 4. Hilarity Ensues Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview https://scribewriting.com/ — Tucker’s website where he will help you Turn Your Knowledge into a Book in 12 Hours. https://scribewriting.com//our-books/ — Where you can get a free copy of Tucker’s book The Book in a Box Method. This book shows you Tucker’s method for writing books quickly and easily. You can also buy it on Amazon using this link: The Book in a Box Method: The New Way to Quickly and Easily Write Your Book Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 89: How to Get Self Published Books into Book Stores with Tucker Max appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Joel Friedlander is the author several books including The Self-Publisher’s Quick & Easy Guides, a series of ebooks that help to solve key challenges for self-publishers. He has won the AIGA “50 Books of the Year Award” for his work at Aperture Publishing, and the Printing Industries of America Gold Award for his book design and production. He is the owner of Marin Bookworks of San Rafael, California and runs the very popular site for self publishing information TheBookDesigner.com Joel is the son of a printer. So he’s been around publishing most of his life. He opted to go into design because it was more interesting to him than standing next to a printing press. He started Marin Bookworks in the 1980s after working for Aperture publishing because he wrote a book he knew no other publisher would want to take on. Marin Bookworks serves small and medium-sized publishing houses as well as independent authors. We had a fascinating discussion that covered a range of topics including: went to use an offset printer rather than on demand printing, the future of publishing, and the advantages and disadvantages of being a self published author.. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation. How to self publish print books and how to determine which printing options are best for you based on your book, the market and your budget. Self publishers can produce many different types of books profitably, if they have the right market and know how to produce those books. The state of self-publishing today and how author responsibilities have multiplied. The need for education in the self-publishing space. Self-Publishing a book the right way can cost anywhere from $120 to $20,000 depending on the kind of book you’re doing, the market you are selling to, and what you want to do with it. $20,000 is the budget you should have if you’re trying to publish a front list book with a national book tour. If you want to do a high quality print book and ebook you’re probably going to spend $3000 and $6000. The process of self-publishing a coffee table book. The key to being successful with print on demand is finding the right market for your print book. Here’s a tip: one thing you might want to do as a new author is publish the e-book first, and only publish a print book after your audience asks you for one. This way you know there are people out there who want to buy it. The importance of connecting your production and your marketing. People have a price ceiling on what they’ll pay for entertainment. It’s important to tailor your book length to your market. If you have a long book consider splitting it up into shorter books. When it’s a good idea to go with offset printing versus print on demand. The advantages of offset printing. The process you go through from finding a short run printer to distributing your book. If you want to sell books in bookstores you almost have to use the offset printing. Print on demand books have a bad rap because they weren’t good quality in the beginning. It’s very hard for self published authors to to sell books in brick and mortar bookstores simply because of the volume of books that need to be produced in order to have that strategy be successful. The only major disadvantage for a self published author is how difficult it is to get in to the traditional supply chain of distributors and bookstores. Traditional publishers only advertise books they think are going to sell well already. Book buyers don’t generally buy a book based on who published it. If your book is the quality they expect they will be happy to buy it. A book that would take a traditional publisher a year and a half to two years to publish can be published in a few weeks by a self published author. The Hybrid Author Movement. Traditional publishers buy books seasonally. So the acquisition editor of Harper Collins may be buying books for Fall of 2017 right now. Another major advantage for self published authors is that we can talk directly to our audience. Traditional publishing has always been a business-to-business selling model where publishers sell books to distributors and bookstores, not directly to readers. Readers will talk to authors in a very different way than they talk to the publisher of a book. Authors who are part of the market they are selling to have a much deeper understanding of the customer. The author who has overcome depression and writes a book about it is much closer to the audience than a traditional publishing company is. The future of publishing. How to start your own publishing company. If you want to support yourself financially you really need more than one book. Options for Distributing Your Books out You Get It from the Printer 1. You can try to get a book distributor. This is complicated and expensive, so if that’s the option you choose, you should know up front before you order the run from the printer. (Mo

Christian A. Brown is the best-selling author of the critically acclaimed Feast of Fates (the first book in the genre bending Four Feasts until Darkness series.) It received a Kirkus Star Review in 2014. He’s appeared on AM 640, Daytime Rogers, and Get Bold Today with LeGrande Green. He actively writes a blog about his mother’s journey with cancer and gender issues in the media. Originally, Christian was a personal trainer. When his mother was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2010 he became her primary caregiver. Being a long-term caregiver gave Christian an abundance of free time and nothing to do with it. So he dug out the manuscript that he’d been working on for about a decade and decided to actually finish the thing. That manuscript eventually became Feast of Fates. Christian’s self-publishing journey is fascinating. In this podcast we talk about working with an editor, getting a publicist, and some of the mistakes he has made on his journey. Here are some of the takeaways: Create a schedule for writing and do it every day. Even if you only have a little bit of time be consistent and committed to your writing. When in doubt just sit down and do the work. Writing isn’t always creative and inspired. Sometimes you just have to force the prose out. The importance of finding an editor. As a professional writer, you need to get over your sensitivity to criticism. You only have one chance to make a good first impression. You have to believe in yourself. When you self publish you have control over every aspect of your product. It’s important to think of your novel as a product because that’s what it is. Don’t run an advertising campaign unless you have more than one book, or you have money to burn. Advertising campaigns can get expensive really fast. Build your platform. Have an email list. Choose your social media channels and attack them. Every author should have a primary editor. Another place to spend some money is to hire a visual artist. If you’re not a web designer you should hire one to build your website. It’s best to run an ad campaign when you’re book is selling well. Then your advertising will magnify its success. The Kirkus review was a wise investment. When you write a good book you’re going to get some bad reviews. When you blog aim for consistency. You never know when people discover you. Over time your blog readership will increase. Encourage other artists. Every author is fighting for visibility. Try different things and see what works. Try engaging on Facebook with images rather than just plain text. Bookbub will probably reject you at least once before you get accepted. Keep trying. They are an extremely valuable resource to expand your audience. Once you develop your brand a publicist can be valuable for getting you into media that you wouldn’t be able to get into yourself. BookBub can help you outsell massively popular traditionally published authors. Believe in yourself. There’s enough success in the world for everyone. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Get Bold Today — a wellness podcast with LeGrande Green. Stephen King’s On Writing — a memoir with some important nuggets of writing advice from one of the most successful authors of all time. Christian’s website — you can find the latest news on Christian, as well as his blog that’s updated every Sunday. Feast of Fates — Christian’s first book Feast of Dreams — the sequel to Feasts of Fate Mary Sue — the premier destination for entertainment geeks, female or otherwise. Coverage includes movies, comics, TV/movie fandom, and other cool stuff. Kirkus Reviews — this company has been reviewing books since 1933. It is a leading voice in the world of book discovery. They are a well-respected company that guarantees impartial reviews. BookBub — the world’s biggest ebook promotion website with a mailing list of more than 5 million readers. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 87: Hardcore Writing Wisdom with Self-Published Novelist Christian A. Brown appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Daniel Hall is a bestselling author, speaker and consultant. He is also a coach, a lawyer, a nurse, a blogger and an entrepreneur. Daniel is the creator of the popular “Real Fast” training programs designed to help authors, speakers, coaches, consultants, trainers, Internet marketers and entrepreneurs effectively grow their businesses faster and profit more effortlessly. He is also the CEO of the brands Playtime Gadgets and the Backseat Nanny. Daniel’s journey began with self-publishing his first book, Speak On Cruise Ships: 8 Easy Steps To A Lifetime Of Free Luxury Cruises, in 2008. When Daniel graduated high school he went into nursing school. From nursing school Daniel went right into law school. During his law school years he wrote for the law review and that helped him refine his communication style. Daniel went on to practice law for several years and, as he says he, “fell into a job of trading my public speaking skill for rides on cruise ships.” He did this for several years and people kept asking him, “How do you do this and how can I do the same thing?” It dawned on him that he should write a book and make it digitally available. That’s what he did. He offered the book for $97 on Amazon. The book went on to sell over 2500 copies grossing over a quarter million dollars, and it’s still available on Amazon today! We covered a lot of topics in this podcast including the importance of building a relationship with your audience and how to quickly write books and record webinars. Here are just a few of the takeaways: The importance of building an email list. The importance of building a community. You have to have a way to reach out and touch people when you want to. Your email list is the most important asset you’ll ever have. The importance of serving your list. One way to serve your list is to promote your customers to people you know. Using Google hangouts as a free way to start doing webinars. Good marketing is simply about education. All you have to do is teach your customer that you have the solution they need. The importance of breaking big goals into smaller tasks. Quick Writing Tip: record a conversation and have it transcribed. From here you can do some light editing to make it readable, then publish it. Another variation: Create a PowerPoint presentation. Teach your PowerPoint presentation. Record and transcribe that. People like shorter nonfiction Kindle books People by nonfiction books for the solution they present. When you’re writing nonfiction get to the solution fast. That’s what the audience wants. Your book needs to be long enough to solve your reader’s problem. No more. No less. Every book title makes a promise to the reader, either explicitly or implicitly. Your job is to over deliver on that promise. Best-selling books are those books that are the most complete, not necessarily the longest. One new idea is all you need to set your part from the competition. Every business owner should be an author building their platform. How the industry has changed since 2008. When Teaching or Hosting a Webinar it’s best to: Make sure the audience gets immediate actionable information they can apply right now. When you are going to pitch a product at the end of your webinar make sure the audience gets value whether or not they buy from you. Answer every question the audience has, whether or not you go over time. Every person’s favorite word is their own name. You can never give too much to your audience. Answer questions as they occur in the presentation. When you do this make sure to call out by name the person who asked the question. This does 3 things:. It keeps people engaged and excited about your webinar. It lets people know that you’re doing the webinar live. Finally, it lets the audience know that you care about them. Books You Should Read 1. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert Cialdini 2. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 3. The Success Principles(TM) – 10th Anniversary Edition: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield 4. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Speak On Cruise Ships: 8 Easy Steps To A Lifetime Of Free Luxury Cruises — Daniel’s guide to speaking on cruiseships. Playtimegadgets.com — innovative products and training for the world’s best tech gadgets BackseatNanny.net — keep your backseat neat, organized and kid friendly with this backseat organizer. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert Cialdini — a scientific look at the art of persuasion. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly — how to get in the “flow” state. The Success Principles(TM) – 10th Anniversary Edition: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield — a classic book on what it takes

No matter how long you have been in the entrepreneurial space there is no question that you want to have an even greater level of success than you’ve experienced to this point. Today’s guest, Kelly Roach, is an author and business coach who specializes in helping entrepreneurs increase their sales and success through practical strategies that get results. On this episode of the podcast you are going to learn how to amplify your business no matter who you are or what you do by learning the key strategies for success in sales, and much, much more. One of the main benefits of being an entrepreneur: time freedom. Kelly Roach was living the dream in corporate America. She was very successful, getting promotions every year, and at the top of her game in her career field. But the sacrifices she had to make in order to attain those levels of success were not something she could sustain for very long. She didn’t like having to work long hours, missing key family events, or being mentally absent even when she was at home. Becoming an entrepreneur was the key to her building a lifestyle she desired with the kind of success that can create real time freedom. On this episode you’ll get to hear Kelly’s story and get a taste for what it could be like to build a business that provides exactly what you need for your life. Why you need to think differently about sales. What do you think of when you hear the term “sales?” Is it a pushy approach? Is it a used car salesman at the corner lot? Is it cold calling or door to door interactions? Kelly Roach has learned and coaches her clients to understand that sales is nothing more than serving. Your job as a salesperson is to ask enough questions that you are truly able to understand your potential customers’ needs. Then you will know how to serve them best, or whether you can serve them at all with the products you have available. There are some keen insights into sales and the sales process on this episode, so make sure you take great notes! The main things that hold entrepreneurs back from selling more products and services. The advent of social media and social media advertising has been a wonderful thing for the business community. However, many people have come to believe that the use of social media makes the need for face-to-face conversations less important. Kelly Roach believes that the lack of sales success that most entrepreneurs experience is directly related to that mistaken belief. One of her favorite sayings is, “conversations are cash,” which essentially means that face-to-face interaction is the best way to close sales and actually grow your business. Kelly’s insights are valuable, and you’ll get more than you can implement on this episode of the podcast. Success in sales is a matter of understanding the sales cycle and sticking with it. Selling your product or service can be a very discouraging thing. The “no” answers can demoralize you and cause you to give up. But when you understand how sales happen and the numbers of sales “touches” you need to make to create a sale, you’re able to have a broader perspective and keep going when things are hard. Kelly Roach is a business coach who has a great deal of experience helping entrepreneurs get past those obstacles and increase the level of success in their business. If you want to get on board that kind of business fast track you need to hear what Kelly has to say. Outline of this great episode [0:14] Introduction of Kelly Roach, author and coach. [1:45] How Kelly got the entrepreneurial bug. [3:09] Kelly’s use of time freedom to amplify the quality of her life. [3:59] Monitoring the disconnect between who you are and what you do. [5:06] Why Kelly wrote her book, “Unstoppable.” [6:12] The key strategies that enable entrepreneurial success. [8:44] How entrepreneurs can build a profitable business quickly. [10:58] The process Kelly uses when coaching entrepreneurs. [14:42] One of the main things that holds people back from selling more. [16:36] Strategies and success stories for building a database from scratch. [18:00] The benefits of having a coach to overcome fear of sales. [20:37] Advice for days that don’t go well in sales. [22:37] Understanding the sales cycle: awareness, knowledge, liking, trust. [26:08] Why you should give people value up front to amplify the sales cycle. [28:18] How you can find and connect with Kelly and get her free resource. How you can connect with Kelly Roach Website: http://kellyroachcoaching.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellyroachinternational/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyovertonroach Twitter: https://twitter.com/kellyroachint Google+: https://plus.google.com/+KellyRoach/about Resources & Links mentioned in this episode Kelly’s book: Unstoppable Kelly’s podcast: Unstoppable Success Radio Text “Get It done” to “44222” to get Kelly’s free “Get it Done” guide. TV show: The Profit Follow Tom on: Websit

Mike Matthews is the bestselling author of more than a dozen books including Bigger Leaner Stronger for men and Thinner Leaner Stronger for women. He blogs at MuscleforLife.com and LegionAthletics.com with over 1 Million visitors every month. Mike always thought, “Why isn’t there a book out there that actually teaches you what you really need to know to eat right and build muscle without all the BS and garbage?” That’s why he wrote and published his first book Bigger Leaner Stronger in 2012 on the side while he was working full-time writing employee training manuals. It all started as an experiment to see if people even cared about what Mike had to say. They did! Mike’s book sales started to take off in just a few months. Book sales became so impressive, he decided to quit his job and recruit his friend Jeremy to work together on growing his budding fitness business. Together, they launched MuscleforLife.com in March, 2013 which now gets more than a million visitors every month. They also started Legion Athletics to bring super high-quality supplements to the marketplace. Here’s a few gold nuggets you’ll learn in this interview with Mike: Why you should focus on creating the highest quality, most amazing book, product or service you possibly can. Mediocrity won’t take you to the top. Go way above and beyond what your competition is doing. Why it’s crucial to create a product, book or service that fills a gap in the marketplace. Do something that no one else is doing so your customers can make an easy choice to go with something different. Why most body building supplements in retail stores are almost worthless. You can grow a very profitable business and still do the right thing, create great products and keep your integrity intact. Conscious capitalism does exist, and it can be an incredibly fulfilling journey to pick. Why “me too” fitness books don’t sell well. Why you should be enthusiastic and interested in what you’re writing. Your emotions will come across to your reader! How to craft a book title, book cover and description that will help you sell more books. Mike’s “survey system” for selecting great brand names, book titles, headlines and more. Why spending your time and money on writing great content and writing more Why Mike still answers every email he gets personally (which is pretty shocking given how big his business is and how many people read his books). Every blog post or book you publish is a part of your body of work. Are you happy with your body of work? Why having tons of writers on one website with disjointed messages and contradictory advice only confuses readers and doesn’t actually help anyone. Mike also talked about The Stockdale Paradox where prisoners of war who say to themselves “I’m going to get free by Christmas!” year after year are the ones who don’t last. Mike believes a lot of entrepreneurs are tricking themselves into failure by constantly chasing short-term goals and retirement instead of focusing on doing great work and adding value to people’s lives. When they don’t hit those goals, they lose hope and give up while people like Mike are still chugging away and focusing on adding value. A Great Question to Ask Yourself What is something unique I can create that will add real value to people? Links and Resources from the Show Bigger Leaner Stronger for men on Amazon Thinner Leaner Stronger for women on Amazon MuscleforLife.com to see Mike’s blog and learn more about fitness LegionAthletics.com to see Mike’s high quality supplement company GetStackedApp.com to get Mike’s free workout app to help you get more done in less time at the gym Brad Thor’s Thriller Code of Conduct that served as an inspiration for the cover of Bigger Leaner Stronger NeilPatel.com for Search Engine Optimization info and great marketing advice QuickSprout.com for more great SEO info and learning how to create great content for your website that will attract more traffic and customers for your business CoSchedule Headline Analyzer for analyzing and improving headlines for blogs and marketing and more Advanced Marketing Institute Headline Analyzer is another tool Mike uses to help him write better headlines Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 84: The Book That Birthed a Multi-Million Dollar Fitness Company with Mike Matthews appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Heather Ann Havenwood is the bestselling author of several books including Sexy Boss. She started with internet marketing back in 1999 and has helped create several multi-million dollar businesses. Here’s a few highlights of the things you’ll learn from our interview with Heather: How a late night infomercial for a $3,000 seminar about owning your own business changed her life (and how she was recruited to work for that same seminar company) How Heather became an information marketing expert (and why educating your audience can be your most powerful marketing tool for any business) Heather’s book writing process that involves lots of talking and no writing (for her) Why attracting the right team members to help with your book project can make it so much faster, easier and more fun Why you should definitely get your books in audiobook format as well (and how to hire someone to produce your audiobook for you even with little or no budget) Why you should focus on the long-term success of your book and your message instead of only focusing on short-term launches and promotions Why you should write an “evergreen” book that will remain relevant for a very long time and continue to be in demand from readers and produce sales for you How publishing your book can help you easily get booked on podcast shows and media interviews How to leverage your book to meet the top influencers in your industry and create valuable business and personal relationships with them How to start your own seminar program from your book Why it’s so important to get out and speak publicly whether for free or not so that you can meet your readers and learn more about them, who they are, what they want and how you can help serve them even better A powerful question to ask yourself when you’re feeling stuck: “Does this fuel my confusion or strengthen my clarity?” Heather highly recommends reading The Game of Life and How to Play It Learn more about Heather and connect with her at heatherhavenwood.com Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 83: Become Your Own Sexy Boss in Information Marketing with Heather Havenwood appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Todd Tresidder graduated from the University of California at Davis with a B.A. in economics and a passion for creating successful businesses. A serial entrepreneur since childhood, Todd went on to build his own wealth as a hedge fund investment manager before “retiring” at 35 to teach others. Today, he provides advanced investment and retirement planning education at FinancialMentor.Com showing you what works, what doesn’t, and why from proven experience. It occurred to him as a young man coming out of college that the homeless people in Santa Monica Park had more freedom than he and his friends had working for “cubicle nation.” That’s when Todd realized that freedom was one of his core values. FinancialMentor.com came about when Todd’s wife challenged him to come up with a way to teach financial skills to the average person. When he launched the site he promised himself he’d take it down if things ever got ugly or he experienced a backlash because of his radical ideas. Fortunately, the opposite has happened allowing Todd to teach countless people like you and I how to become “terminally wealthy.” The podcast covered a wide range of financial topics like: Expectancy investing and how traditional passive investing models get it wrong. The difference between probability and expectancy and why the difference is so important to wealth creation. The three asset classes you work with in building wealth: 1. business/entrepreneurship 2. real estate 3. paper assets The principles of risk management and how they apply to the the different asset classes 2 ways to control your risk in real estate investing: nonrecourse financing, and valuation discipline. The primary risk management question, “How can I lose money with this? The importance of making your portfolio risk diverse How your business is an asset The two stages of wealth creation and why it’s critical to control your level of spending when building wealth. The Terminal Wealth Equation The advantage of self-publishing over traditional publishing The importance of identifying your values and honoring them with your spending. How to buy a good motorhome at 30 cents on the dollar The power of habits in finances and wealth creation Todd also discussed the parable of The Three Blind Men and the Elephant and why it’s so important to understand the complete picture when talking about investing. He teaches his coaching clients a process he calls 7 Steps to 7 Figures. It’s a complete course on wealth creation that takes six to nine months to finish. Todd is building a course for the general public he hopes to have available by the end of 2016. The Wealth Creation Formula Make more than you spend and invest the difference wisely. Links and Resources from the Show FinancialMentor.com Todd Tresidder’s website where he teaches financial literacy and wealth creation. The Financial Mentor Podcast where Todd interviews other wealth experts on a variety of topics 52 Weeks to Financial Freedom Todd’s 52-week e-mail course that teaches you the steps necessary to achieve financial freedom. 18 Essential Lessons From A Self Made Millionaire Todd’s free e-book where he tells you his personal story of wealth creation and what he learned along the way. How Anyone Can Retire in 10 Years (or Less) Todd’s blog post on exactly how to retire in 10 years or less Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 82: Financial Planning and Building Wealth with Todd Tresidder appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Shahab Anari is the bestselling author of several books in Iran. He is now a personal branding expert and teaches other authors, coaches and entrepreneurs how to grow their income and influence by building a powerful personal brand built on authenticity and passion. Shahab’s journey to becoming a bestselling author started in school when he became the #1 student in the country for an important school exam. He started getting many requests for his advice on succeeding in school, and so he started teaching others, giving workshops, and began writing his first book which quickly became a national bestseller in Iran in 2000. Here are some of the key takeaways from this interview with Shahab: Why following your passion and being great at what you do is crucial to your success as an author How to become an expert in your field and get great at teaching others the skills and ideas you’ve learned along the way Why you should take a “strong stance” with any nonfiction book you write, and why it’s important to have a unique message that most people have never heard before In order to be interesting in your field, you have to be boring. That means working hard, studying hard, and putting in the time, energy and effort in your work to become the best you can be. Shahab’s inspiring philosophy on hard work and practice: “The more you sweat in advance, the less you will sweat on the stage.” Some of Shahab’s favorite authors include Jack Canfield, Brian Tracy, Tim Ferriss, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Malcolm Gladwell. For personal branding books, he recommends William Arruda, Dan Schawbel and Peter Montoya. Why authors need to have the “entrepreneurial spirit” in order to succeed, and why promotion and selling is crucial to your success. Shahab’s morning ritual In the interview, Shahab shares his morning ritual. He wakes up at 7am. He meditates and gets centered for 5-10 minutes. He then reviews his goals in a Microsoft Word file and reads them in the morning and before going to bed at night. Then, he studies and does personal coaching for two hours. He then works with clients on personal branding for three hours. He practices for speaking gigs for 1-2 hours each day (or gives the actual speech). He studies sales and marketing for 1-2 hours each day (he’s planning his next major book launch and his goal is to create an international bestseller by 2020). He spends the rest of his time networking, talking to people and building relationships. You can connect with Shahab Anari and learn more about his work at shahabanari.ca Connect with Shahab on LinkedIN here Connect with Shahab on Twitter @shanab_anari Connect with Shahab on Facebook here Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 81: Personal Branding Tips and Becoming an Expert in Your Field with Shahab Anari appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Shelley Hitz is the bestselling author of more than 40 books including Self-Publishing Books 101: A Step-by-Step Guide to publishing Your Book in Multiple Formats. Shelley is the founder of Author Audience Academy and TrainingAuthors.com where she teaches authors how to write, self-publish and market their books. Shelley never really wanted to be an author. She published her first book in 2008 as a resource for her speaking business. In 2011 she quit her job as a physical therapist to go on the road with her husband, who was a professional speaker, and join him in the family business. They rented out their home, got an RV and started traveling the country to live their dream. As it turned out, they decided to do this the year the speaking gigs dried up. Unemployed, unable to go home because they’d rented out their house, Shelley had to find something to do with her time that would help them make the income they needed. That’s when she got an email in January 2012 about a Kindle publishing course, and the rest as they say, is history. Over the next year Shelley published 23 books on Amazon! This interview is jampacked with information. Here are some of the takeaways: It’s important to develop a system, a checklist of things that you do that’s repeatable. How to use Kindle book series to achieve success. How to break bigger books into smaller books and make a series out of them Everyone is different. What works for one author may not work for you. It’s important to write every day. The idea of a “writer’s date,” where you schedule a block of time to work on your project. Speaking the book and getting it transcribed may lead to faster results. (You can also use dictation software.) Track everything: environment, time of day, mood, how you are writing your book (speaking it, writing it longhand, typing it.) After a week or so you should start to see patterns. You can use this information to help you be more productive. Anything you measure is going to get better. Why tracking for a short period of time may be better than tracking indefinitely. How tracking what you do gives you insights into your own process Avoid the pitfall of becoming addicted to learning. The 80/20 rule: 20% of your efforts will produce 80% of your results. What you have to do is find out your most productive 20%. Track your marketing activities to figure out what is working best. Use your strengths to accomplish your goals. There are several different ways to market. Find a marketing method that plays to your strengths. The importance of an email list. How to nurture your email list. Marketing is about the relationship you have with your customer. You want your customers to know, like and trust you. Think of marketing as inviting someone into your home for a cup of coffee to get to know you. The power of permission marketing. The permafree marketing strategy. The importance of charting your own path to success, instead of trying to copy what someone else is doing. When you figure out those things you like to do and spend more time doing them success is less of a struggle. Marketing is simply a question of education. If your audience knows enough about your books and what you do, and your product solves a problem for them, they will buy your books. Let your personality into your marketing. Evergreen marketing: you do the work once and it keeps working for you forever. The importance of autoresponders. How to write an Evergreen email series for your autoresponder. How to use your blog posts in email marketing. Evergreen tweets and posts. The value of leveraging online marketing tools. The importance of investing in your business. The power of scheduling your Facebook posts and tweets. Create an Evergreen tweets file. The power of webinars for nonfiction authors. Take Action Tips 1. For 1 day write down what you’re doing every 15 minutes. What did you learn about how you use your time? 2. Listen to the podcast and try to find one Evergreen marketing strategy you can use today or in the near future. How will you implement it? Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Self Publishing books 101 — Shelley’s beginner’s guide to self-publishing Author Audience Academy — Shelley’s course on publishing your nonfiction book in the next 30 days and using ant to build a profitable business. trainingauthors.com — another website where Shelley teaches self-publishing strategies A Life of Gratitude — Shelley’s book on gratitude Shelley’s Seven Day Writing Challenge — Shelley’s free challenge where she give you resources and ways of tracking your writing to help you understand your own patterns so you can adjust and be successful. Shelley’s Podcast — Author Audience: Helping You Reach More People with Your Message Strengths Finder 2.0 — the book that helps you find your strengths HootSuite — a way to schedule t