Best-selling author Donna Marie Thompson FREE Virtual Book Tour

Donna’s book, Bouncing Back From Loss: How to Learn from Your Past, Build the Present, and Transform Your Future is a great read for anyone who’s been through life’s ups and downs and especially for those who are currently facing less than perfect circumstances.

Meet Donna, hear about her book, and how she has bounced back from a series of losses that sideline most of us.

Plus valuable insight on using the Donna’s actions steps to bounce back.

This virtual book tour session is FREE, and available from any phone.

Get the details and register here: Bouncing Back Book Tour

Kevin Eikenberry writes great books on leadership.

He also has the launch blueprint down as well as anyone I know. Working with Kevin and his team is fun and profitable.

Watch the video, look at the offer today, and order a copy of the book for anyone you know that wants to be a better manager.

When you do, you’ll see the blueprint at work. Kevin’s community and the network of other best seller book authors who get involved with these cross promotions.

A great book and a blueprint launch will make for a best seller and build a business right

Five years ago today we changed Matt’s business forever.

We launched a book and his life has never been the same.

Matt had a business before he wrote this book, but the next month grew sales by 300% and then doubled the next month. In the process, Matt has become one of the best resources for authors and small resources who want visitors to their web site. He tests, and retests, and created automated process that make it easy for anyone to to succeed.

That’s the power of working a system and sticking to it..

Authors often look at the "how to make money promotions" Matt does today and ask: Do this work?

I have to say "Only if you do what he says"

You may have a business that getting a lot of attention and your web site is converting well. You may not like the style of promotion Matt does. If so, don’t watch this video.

If you want more traffic to your web site, more readers and more sales, watch this video and learn from Matt

Watch the traffic and income video

Today is Matt’s birthday. Again he’s breaking records with a huge promotional push and outstanding offers.

The "make a lot of money" and "Kill it" language Matt uses is full of hype, but what he teaches works. I know,.. I’ve worked with Matt for years, seen how hard he works at this and how much he cares about ever customer, no matter how large or small. His customer service is great and the products are true values.

Matt will tell you about selling books and product in your niche even if your own book is not yet out. Paying for your marketing and promotion and starting a relationship with your target readers… Or use the same traffic building tactics and direct the traffic to your own book or offer.

Whether you buy or not, watch what best selling author Matt Bacak does. He’s the real deal

I am a paid affiliate for Matt’s products. I rarely suggest any "make money online" products, even those that I know work.. but I’m proud to endorse this because Matt is a client, takes very good care of his customers and has always been quick to follow up on any questions or problems from authors I’ve referred to him.

Have a look. Don’t let the sales style turn you off. If you want to make money, or get a lot of traffic for your book’s web site, Matt’s methods will help you.

Watch the traffic and income video

We a launching a book to BEST SELLER status on December 7th.. and we are doing it with LOVE.

We have been collecting gifts from our network and will offer a LOVE PACKAGE.

Join us as we reach out to millions of readers to share our love of books, or love stories, and build a love connection with great authors who write about love, relationships and ways to have a better life.

What to Share

We are each buying a copy of Tianna Conte’s Love’s Fire: Beyond Mortal Boundaries from Amazon next Tuesday. Then sending a copy to someone who may benefit from a love story, and perhaps another to a friend who has lost a loved one.

Then we are sharing love with everyone on our email lists, our blog readers, our social networks and inviting them to join us. Tianna’s book will rise to best seller status and allow here additional promotion opportunities to share this message with many more.

A Love Package For Our Readers

Anyone ordering on Tuesday gets 47 bonus gifts from our Love Network of authors and friends supporting us in this event.

Share the love. Put a note on your calendar for Tuesday December 7th, first thing in the morning.. order the book here

Use the BUTTON here to share this post. And click on the LIKE BUTTON to share this with your Facebook friends.

We Would LOVE More Authors

If you have a gift to share we can add you to the promotion. It’s easy.

1. Plan to buy Tianna’s book from Amazon on Tuesday 12/7
2. See how to add your gift to the Love Package FREE
3. Share this page, the event, and Tianna’s book with everyone you can
4. Consider interviewing Tianna for your blog/show (optional, but worth it)

If you don’t have a gift, just make sure you are subscribed to this blog, and/or our PARTNERS MAILNG LIST so you get the free training and announcements I send.

Cross promotions like this one give every partner more exposure, and give you the best chance to meet other authors who understand the power of networking and helping each other grow. The joint venture partnerships of our authors and readers is always the best part.. I’ve watched dozens of partners form six and seven figure business deals from an introduction like this.

I can help you too

Thousands of Online Marketers came to Las Vegas last week for PUBCON. An conference for webmasters, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Social Media and Internet businesses.

Many of the sessions were about Twitter and Social Media.. and how to make them work for business. In one session, “Latest Trends on Twitter,” I shared my thoughts about what make Twitter work so well in the new world of marketing and a step by step approach to getting your message out today.

I told them about Edward Bernays, the greatest marketer of the 20th Century and the 3 steps for making a message spread.

Bernays is the guy who invented Public Relations. Before Bernays, we called it propaganda. Propaganda wasn’t a negative term until much later. In fact, Bernays wrote a book Propaganda in 1928 long before the Nazi’s gave the word a bad name.

Bernays was an expert as determining the desires of the public, then crafting his messages into short, memorable ideas that people would want to share. Today, we these memes.. the smallest unit of an idea, Or the more popular term for a short repeatable message: sound byte

Bernay’s worked for pork producers. They wanted to sell more bacon. After researching how people thought about bacon and breakfast, Bernays decided to tie bacon to the more popular dish of eggs and created the phrase you likely use today: “bacon and eggs”

In 1929, Bernays placed article in newspapers from his Middle America Information Bureau featuring quotes such as “Doctors recommend that Americans start the day with a hearty breakfast such as bacon and eggs.” Before that, this popular phrase didn’t exist.

Today, one might question the health benefits of that statement, we won’t discuss that here. What’s important to our study of marketing messages is that the simple idea of attaching bacon to the more popular eggs and creating a short, memorable, easily repeatable phrase has worked over an over again.

Twentieth Century media was broadcast. Companies with money to buy enough advertising would use it to create the popular slogans and products we talked about. In the Twenty-first Century, we’ve got a fragmentation of the old media and many channels that connect person to person without a centralized middleman (ie the publisher or broadcaster) and everyone can create and choose their own messages. It’s much, much more expensive to try to buy your way into popular culture, which makes crafting your sound byte more important.

Today, more than ever, it’s vital that you distill your message into a short meme that can be shared. A sound byte version that is consistent and repeatable.

Once you have a sound byte, you next work on finding groups of people who are already having a conversation about your topic. In the past 15 years, millions of web sites, special interest forums, niche blogs and personal web sites have been created and recently, Facebook and other social media have allowed anyone with any interest to connect and identify themselves. The cost of connecting is essentially zero, so there is no longer a need to trust a centralize authority (big media) to decide what message gets spread.

You can create your own community from scratch, but the leverage of connecting with thousands of existing groups and communities will work faster. Their structure will be stronger and is now the best means to share your sound byte.

Once you have a sound byte and engage with the conversations online, the third step is one that often frustrates marketers trained in the 20th Century… you must count on serendipity to succeed.

Serendipity is not “wishing for good results”… rather, it is the essence of tapping into the market power of trillions of individual conversations going on right now.

The science of chaos theory tells us that random events are extremely difficult to predict on an individual basis, but very dependable when grouped together.

You use serendipity every day.

One example of our dependence on chaos and serendipity is a water faucet. It would be impossible to predict the flow of one drop of water from the faucet into your glass (will this be the drop that splashes onto the counter top?) but you can count on the majority of the drops winding up in your glass.

Thanks to the extremely low costs of producing and sharing media today, you can share your meme (sound byte) over and over, through text, video, audio on blogs, social networks and media sharing sites where conversations are already happening.

When your message resonates with the reader, they can easily share it with others in that group, and groups that you don’t even know about. While you can’t predict which message unit will resonate with any of the groups, once you build relationships with these groups and learn their desires, you will begin to improve your odds of resonating and serendipity will kick in.. bringing you success well beyond anything you could have predicted for one campaign.

There are still many opportunities to buy your way into a conversation. Advertising a meme that resonates will speed up the chance that it will succeed. (advertising a message that does not resonate will not. It just adds to the noise at best and could even create an backlash).

The work of Edward Bernays shows us that the principles of marketing that work best are not new. The media has changed, and the days of multi-million dollar launches over loading us to break into the conversation are pretty much over. The playing field is a level as it’s ever been.

Use this simple three step process in any media for effective promotion:

1. Distill your message into a sound byte
2. Join the conversations. Add value while using your sound byte
3. Expect serendipity

My own sound byte version of today’s marketing is “Listen and Love” When I speak about marketing, I tell businesses that the conversation is already going on, then encourage them to listen. Once they really listen to people, they find things they can do to add value and do it (the “love”).

Using this approach to creating a meme, then sharing it, is “Listen and Love” on steroids. Once you begin to see the value of listening and responding as you would to help a friend, you will find your sound byte gets picked up and repeated. People don’t want to be sold. They do want to do business with someone they know, like and trust. You can build this trust with an authentic sound byte you spread while you listen and love.

The story of bacon and eggs is just one of many case studies from the work of Edward Bernays that we’ll be sharing in a book soon. Let me know if you see value it this method, or would like to know more about marketing this way.

I suspect you’ll think of Edward Bernays next time you order bacon and eggs.

Listen to the Healthy Helpful Authors Partner Training Call

We had some of our 427 partners in the promotion for 11/17 come on a training call. I reviewed how we are leveraging the positions we have to be more attractive to potential readers.

If you have a health related topic, or something that can help others who want to live a healthy happy lifestyle, this book promotion is a great way to join our network FREE.

Come to out Facebook Page to join us, or read about the book promotion here

While working with authors who have joined our free Facebook page to promote good health, helping people and sharing great books during November, I found some authors are still having trouble with Facebook

That’s because Facebook is NOT a place to sell book directly.. it’s a HUGE RESOUCE for building a network that will help you sell more books than you ever thought possible.

The key to Facebook, social media, and ALL future book marketing and promotion: Today RELATIONSHIPS are more important than transactions.

Think about this.. you go into a bookstore and see a bargain bin. Do you expect to find the best ideas and help there?  NO. Those are the losers. The books that aren’t worth full price.

While some of the old rules of retailing apply to books and information products (i.e., having a sale).. for the most part, the more direct selling an author does, the lower the value of his expertise.

What you want is readers BEGGING FOR HELP and ANXIOUS TO ENGAGE. Social media is perfect for this.. and Facebook is the hands down leader.

So what do you do?

You stop saying “come buy my book” and start building relationships.. it’s as simple as that.

Here’s the action plan:

Start by finding like minded authors. I’ve talked to thousands for non-fiction expert authors over the past decade. Nearly every author I meet understands that their book is like a business card… just the start of relationship.

Finding authors in your niche, or related topics is easy today. Many of them already have a Facebook Page.

For an example.. I’ll use Brandi Funk’s “Cut Your Health Care Costs Now”

You’ll want to join us on this one.. It’s current, it’s gaining momentum fast, and (BIG HINT) It’s the one Warren is working on right now, so you know you’ll get more promotional oomph immediately

Go to Our FACEBOOK PAGE and LIKE the page

Now you are ready to cross promote with our network.

Our partners are posting on blogs, their Facebook pages, their newsletters, Twitter and more about others in the promotion. These tell people about Brandi’s book, and the idea of getting healthy information out this month. So here’s what you do:

1. Post on your blog that you are one of the authors supporting this promotion. You’ll want to mention Brandi’s book and link to the Brandi’s Facebook page.
   It can be a review of the book, a description of the promotion, or short narrative of why you are joining us to promote good health and healthy helpful authors. Anything BUT an ad for your book (we’ll get to that)
2. Tell Facebook and Twitter. Tell your readers, Tell your network.. Tell the world.
3. We will do the same. The traffic you get will be to that post.. and the world will see you are a giver
4. More people come to this page, some buy the featured book and some go back to your gift announcement.

This  publicity is permanent because the links on the web will be left up, indexed by search engines, and found by readers again and again.

Brandi will continue to post health tips here and network with the partners in the program. Soon there will be thousands of LIKEs (fans of the page) and high authority link juice (that’s SEO talk for “Google will like you more”)

When you start promoting like this… Shining the light on others besides yourself, you’ll find plenty of other pages and others to help out. They will be happy to tweet and talk about you AFTER you have done it for them. Simply LIKE their page, comment on their blog, share a link, blog about them or whatever else you can think of to promote their good work (for free and in just a few minutes of your time) and they will LOVE YOU.

Remember. You can get anything you want out of life if you help enough other people get what they want. While it’s normal for you to include your web site with your signature, mention your book or blog in a post, or share a resource that will lead to making you money.. more and more, people are attracted to those who HOLD OFF selling and help others first.

As all of your partners work to build the network. You can create your own Facebook page, cross promote new products, all that marketing stuff… but READERS want to see conversation. Makes sure you start with conversation!

Build the network and you will build your own brand. The next step is ON FACEBOOK

November is a great time to think about health.

It’s National Diabetes Awareness Month, and I’m reminded of a huge best seller success we had a few years back bringing awareness to the dangers of diabetes. During that promotion, dozens of authors built connections with readers and several started relationships that continue to this day.

It’s also Movember, an anti cancer campaign where men are growing a mustache this month. I’m personally using as an excuse not to shave. (no photos please)

How Authors Will Promote During This Healthy Time

If you have a book that promotes good health or a better life, this is a great time to be on the lookout for cross promotions and good causes.

As we say, the best way to attract new readers for your book is to get involved and network with other authors with similar great books. Remember, your best buyers will not be buying just one book and the most likely readers from your book (and leads for other business) will be those buying books on subjects like yours.

When you see a good book, do as many of these as possible.

Buy a Copy of “Cut Your Health Care Costs Now”.

You are an expert author. You should know the best books. As Mark Twain Said

“Never trust anyone that writes more than they read”

When you meet an author, they ALWAYS appreciate the compliment of “I bought your book” (try it, it really works on ANY author, no matter how famous). Let them know that you bought it through reviews, email, comments on their blogs, or some of the idea below

Tell Your Followers

There’s trick we use to get readers of newsletters, email list and blogs to buy. We make sure there are offers from many sources. Studies have shown that people tend to be turned of from a barrage of messages saying “buy my stuff” but love to hear about great products from others.

A review in your newsletter, an excerpt from book on your blog, or mentions on your radio show, speeches and teleseminars will add value and make you stand out as the expert (see Twain quote above)

Reach Out While the Author is Promoting

Most authors are as anxious as you to get more publicity for their book. Instead of begging for coverage, use the tools at your disposal to lend a hand to authors you meet. And if you don’t know them, use this as an opportunity to connect.

When an author has a new book out, they are busy… but this is exactly the time that they will want to be on your radio show, be interviewed for your blog, or talk to your audience.

The Recipe For a Best Seller Network

It’s simple:

Buy a book, promote the author as much as possible the ask them to be your guest.

I’ve done these 3 steps over and over. There are many variations, but I know try to always approach an author I want to have recommend me by ordering their book, finding their Twitter and Facebook ID and sharing it with my readers, commenting on their blog on any post that I can and only then calling them.

Rather than a cold call, I get to hear “Thanks for calling. I appreciate you” .. after that, they are in your camp, asking you how they can help you and looking for ways to cross promote, endorse and grow with you.

We talk often about social networking and social media to market your book.

Sometimes, I think authors suppose that these are good for promotion, and something that you switch on after your book is released. That may have been possible in the past, but is not the smart move today.

Not only do I strongly recommend that you start building relationship and your brand online today.. there is research out that show you’ll have a better book with better ideas, a richer experience and more fun.

Steve Johnson has great ideas.

He has been working on ideas and innovation for the past few years and now has a book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation 

I hold that the connectivity that has increased in our capacity to generate new ideas at a faster rate than ever before. While there is still much benefit from closeting yourself off to contemplate, I suggest you find a balance where you use the power of collaboration in all you do.

Collaboration and networking are a part of every Best Seller Roadmap I do. Start building relationships, your online network and marketing team the minute you decide to write a book.

What are you doing right now to collaborate more?

I stopped best selling author Jim Kukral in the hall at Blogworld Expo to get his ideas on how authors can build a business by getting attention.

Jim’s book ATTENTION! This Book Will Make You Money is full of ideas that will help any author get attention for your message and sell more than a few books

We talk about selling books, best seller lists, and making money with book marketing here, but I know this is not the best motivation to write a book and become an author.

Authors have valuable expertise and experience to share with readers. After speaking with thousands of authors, I’m convinced that most are writing with a passion to help others.

I did a strategy session with author Debi Silber and was impressed with her giving attitude

Debi is a Registered Dietitian, Personal Trainer, Whole Health Coach, Lifestyle Expert just for moms and the author of The Lifestyle Fitness Program: A Six Part Plan So Every Mom Can Look, Feel and Live Her Best (recommended by Parenting Magazine.)

Her web site has a ton of helpful content and video along with a report I liked call “10 Tips to Avoid Weight Gain From Mindless Munching”

The giving doesn’t stop there. Each month Debi chooses a “Mom-Of-the-Month” and let’s her choose what charity she give half her profits to.

When you visit Debi’s web site, you’ll see the passion. There’s the usual design of a small business entrepreneur, but once you get to know Debi, you’ll get the passion. Sure, she wants the book sales, leads and business success… It’s just necessary to fund the passion.

Do me a favor. Take a look a Debi’s site and comment below if you see the passion.

When you are building a business, you are likely to find a lot of talk of “killing it” “attracting eyeballs” and “return on investment” calculations.  Don’t be turned off by the old school business strategies. Planning, testing and measuring what works is a big part of business success.

Just don’t let it override you passion. That the reason we are authors.

What do you do to show PASSION in all of your marketing?

Today’s special post is from Rebel Brown, author of Defy Gravity. To receive a free workbook with your copy of Defy Gravity, click on the book cover now.

How Big is that Dinosaur?

Publishing has to be one of the largest Gravity markets I’ve seen in years. By hanging on tightly to the way they’ve always done it – publishing status quos can make it really difficult for innovative authors to do their thing. Talk about dinosaurs!

In my own personal journey toward the publication of Defy Gravity, I’ve learned a lot about avoiding the publishing tar pits where the dinosaurs exist. Here are some tips I’d like to share with you.

1. Independent is a good thing. Publishing is the only industry I can think of where being an independent entrepreneur is viewed by some as a negative. In technology, financial services, small businesses and more – being innovative, striking out on your own and choosing to be different gives rise to resounding applause. In publishing – if you choose to independently publish your book – some of the old guard will say you’re not a real author. What rubbish!

As an independent author I had the chance to make my own decisions about everything from content to book cover design to promotion. I had the opportunity to do things differently, to stand out above the noise – and most of all to stay true to myself and to my vision for the book. Those are all things I would have lost at the hands of a traditional publisher. They’d own the book – not me. They’d make all the decisions – not me. And they would do it exactly the way they’d always done it. Where’s the innovation in that?

2. Dare to be different. I’ve been a consultant for twenty something years, yet I’ve never heard so many rules about what you can and can’t do when it comes to a book. All based on the way it’s been done in the past, all designed to have you conform to those who came before you – all designed to make you a follower and not a leader. I’ve never heard a business want to make their products conform to what everyone else is doing – where’s the value in that?

Maybe that’s why so many people tell me I’m an original voice in this market. I chose to ignore the rules and do what I thought was best –based on my own experiences and knowledge, which after all is what my book Defy Gravity is all about. I wrote the book the way I thought it needed to be written, zany humor, commentary and all. I focused on my own voice and I didn’t listen to what others were writing about. Write your own book, not everyone else’s.

3. Stick to your guns. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “That isn’t done in this business.” My response was, “Well, maybe it should be!” Then there was the time when one of the retail chains told my publisher they wouldn’t carry Defy Gravity unless I changed the cover art. The reason? It didn’t look like every other business cover out there. Here we go with the status quo again. Well, I’d just returned from a conference where some 500 people showed me how much they loved the cover on the Advance Review Copy. So I wasn’t about to back down. And I didn’t. I decided to keep the cover – because I knew it was the right cover for my book. If that retailer didn’t carry the book, so be it. There was a lot of consternation in certain quarters about my decision, but I stuck to my guns because my readers had spoken.

Today, that cover gets more positive comments than I would have ever imagined. It’s the thing that gets people to pay attention to the book – and isn’t that what a cover is all about? It wasn’t very easy to follow my intuition and stick with the design I believed in. As an author, I want every retailer to carry my book and get the word out there. But, I’m happy to say that despite their initial reluctance, the retailer in question wound up coming around and placing a substantial order. When you stick to your guns, dinosaurs either evolve, like they did in this case, or they go away and become extinct.

4. You don’t need millions. The first three publicists I spoke with asked the same first question. “How much money do you have?” The story was that I needed 5-6 full time people, a million dollars and a corporate backer, and of course a nice big retainer with a big fat publicist to launch my book if I wanted any attention.

More Gravity! That’s like saying you have to advertise and do mega email blasts to communicate with your customers. That’s such OLD news. Thanks to social media and the internet – you can create a groundswell of momentum behind your book without breaking your bank. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Darned near every person who supported my book with endorsements, promotions, interviews and more – I met on Social Media! Not my clients, of course, but everyone else.

Social media gives us the opportunity to form relationships, share ideas, get to know one another – all in a down to earth, truth on the table fashion. What better way to create momentum for your book than through the people who appreciate your messages and story. Forget the big dollars – be yourself, make friends, share your views and let social media build the momentum for you.

Most of all – write the book you want to write. Believe in yourself and be unique. That’s the best way to ditch Gravity, dump the dinosaurs and power your success.

My friend Michael Port has been posting fascinating videos like the one below.

Here he talks to Bob Burg, best selling author of “Endless Referrals” and “The Go Giver” series about the similarities of these two authors books.

Selling books is not a competition. With webcam technology, you can put two authors on the screen and explain concepts from each others work with very little cost in time and effort.

If you’re not getting enough interview requests for you book, maybe it’s time you learned one of these systems and started asking other authors. I know dozens of authors, big name best sellers and up and coming smart experts who are anxious to share.

Got a video or radio interview program? Let me know. I’d like to feature best author interviews on this blog, especially topics that will help other authors. And by the way.. I’m available for interviews too :)

Michael Port and Bob Burg on Relationship Building, Book Shrinking, and More… from Michael Port on Vimeo.

I’m reading posts from New York Times Best selling author Ramit Sethi on his blog named after the book.

Like many modern authors with a tech background, he’s naturally doing many of the techniques I teach.

I could list them here (I have in other posts) but today, I think it’s best to say “Go watch this guy, model what he does and BE RICH”