Amazon.com and Apple have changed the publishing industry forever – and that’s good news for authors, consultants, professional service firms, speakers, trainers and any other thought leaders.

Here’s how it used to work…

Publishing a book used to be a slow, cumbersome, time-consuming process. Even if you managed to get your book accepted by a publisher (and that process could take a year or more), it didn’t mean you would get it on the bookshelves quickly. On the contrary! That was just the start of the process.

When your book did finally arrive, the publisher did some initial marketing and publicity for it, but it wasn’t long before they moved on to their next project. After all, their job is to sell books, not to sell your book.

When they did sell your book, you would get a royalty… usually a very small royalty. To be fair, the publisher paid for the entire production of the book, so they took all the risk. So it’s not unreasonable that they would take a larger profit than you. But it did mean that most authors didn’t get rich from their book royalties.

The publishing model has changed.

Some authors didn’t want to wait to be picked by a publisher, so they self-published their books (After all, the “publisher” is simply the person who pays for the production of the book). Decades ago, this was called “vanity publishing”, as if only authors with big egos would publish a book this way. But that’s certainly not the case, and many experts chose self-publishing because it’s faster, easier and more profitable than the traditional publishing route.

Of course, if you self-published a book, you paid for everything, and so you took all the risk. You get to keep all the profits, but you do take all the risk.

Not so long ago, self-publishing was an expensive and risky business, because you had to estimate how many books you could sell before you did your first print run. Many authors were too optimistic, and ended up with boxes of unsold books filling up their spare rooms!

The “print on demand” process has removed some of this risk, because it’s no longer uneconomical to do a small print run. And even if you want a larger print run, you can do this offshore in places like China and India, for a very reasonable fee.

So self-publishing has become a legitimate way of getting your ideas into print. Some people still look down their nose at it, but provided you still invest in quality editing, proofreading, layout and design, a self-published book can be every bit as good as a printed book. And sometimes much better!

Now we have the e-book revolution.

Thanks to Amazon.com’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad, there’s a new revolution in publishing: e-books.

As an author, you no longer have to go through the expensive process of printing a book on paper. You simply publish it in electronic form, upload it to Amazon.com, and it’s instantly available to millions of potential customers. Amazon.com has created free Kindle apps, so that even customers without a physical Kindle device can read Kindle e-books on their iPad, iPhone, Android phone, Android tablet, Mac or PC.

An e-book might mean “electronic book”, but it’s much more than just the electronic equivalent of something that used to be printed. E-books can be very short or very long; they can have links to audio and video, or even have audio and video embedded in them; they can be given away as gifts to build credibility and foster loyalty; they can be shared (legally and illegally); they can be updated instantly whenever new material is available.

In short, an e-book is nothing like a book. The e-book revolution really is a revolution.

Will you be one of the revolutionaries?

Inspired Press Publisher can help you on your publishing journey.

John’s style of mentoring was all about story telling.  He used his own stories of performance and development to deliver an impactful message.   He held me to a very high level of expectation and by mentoring me through story telling I was able to grasp the full intention of the standard.  It was not about words on a piece of paper, it wasn’t about meeting a certain criteria; it was about the human experience that would be enhanced by meeting this standard.  It was about the employees who would receive the best training specific to their roles in a company, it was about managers that would be able to do their jobs better as leaders, it was about the customers who would be treated like gold.

Because of his mentoring style, I got it.  I became the first practitioner to the IIP Standard in the United States.  I still use his style of mentoring today when I am helping others to learn or change their stories.

How are you mentoring?  Are you talking at people or are you getting them to listen to you?  Can you imagine telling your stories to the world?  I can.   Let’s do this.

Listen to Toni discussing her views on storytelling.  Share your views below on storytelling.

Toni Reece is a founding partner in the International Association of YOU.  Toni’s bio.

Publicity is getting the word out about your product, service, and/or ideas. It brings visibility, credibility, opportunity, and sales.

Publicity provides the seal of approval of a trusted outside source: a journalist. Like testimonials and awards, this third-party validation helps the buyer choose your book in the crowded marketplace. It also means that a lot more people hear about your book.

When you get free publicity rather than pay for advertising, you give up control over the content. But you have the added legitimacy of being chosen to represent your field. Because news coverage at least pretends to be unbiased, it is more valuable than advertising; you get, in a sense, a testimonial—a disinterested, credible party who thinks you’re worthy of positive attention. Many people take news coverage more seriously than advertising—and may be more likely to be influenced by it than by a paid ad.

Think you can only get publicity when your book is new and fresh? Think again! Yes, it’s easier when your book is a new release—but I’ve gotten significant publicity for books that were several years old at the time. Once I had a book featured in both Reader’s Digest and MSN’s home page within about a month—eight full years after publication.

And of course, you can use media quotes in your book publicity, to leverage more coverage, and to boost Google’s ranking of your name, your site, and ultimately, your book.

In fact, I strongly recommend highlighting the places you’ve been quoted on your website, in your author bio, and anywhere else it makes sense—maybe even your social media profiles. When people visit one of my press pages (for example, http://greenandprofitable.com/contact/media-room/ ) and see that I’ve been quoted numerous times each in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, and many more, and my name and book cover were even featured on a Times Square billboard owned by a respected news organization, it shows them that what I have to say is important and has been vetted by top media. And when there was a little kerfluffle over whether my Wikipedia page should be allowed to stay up, my defenders pointed out that I had been quoted repeatedly in the New York Times. Even if your biggest clip is from a small-town local newspaper, I’d still mention that you’ve been cited in the press.

And sometimes, publicity leads to more contacts that advance your career: a meeting planner contacts you to see about doing a speech, a different journalist sees the story and wants to cover you as well, a company president sees the article and decides you’re the perfect consultant to get that company out of a rut. In short, the book becomes a doorway to far more lucrative ventures.

Oh yes, and don’t forget that sometimes, an article or a TV or radio interview can actually motivate people to go out and buy that book! Especially if you make it easy by including your website, your phone number and some kind of special offer.

Which would you rather read? “Electronic Privacy Expert Releases New Book” (snore!) or “It’s 10 O’Clock—Do You Know Where Your Credit History Is?” Press releases, book jackets, sellsheets, web pages from Shel Horowitz (award-winning author of Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, and six other books) tell “the story behind the story.” Say goodbye to boring copy! Shel will write material so compelling that people thank you for letting them read it. www.FrugalMarketing.com/publishers.shtm

Shel is also available to speak on book publishing and marketing, green business/green marketing, and success with ethical business practices. He writes the monthly columns, Green And Profitable and Green And Practical.

All purchasers of Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green are entitled to more than $2000 worth of bonuses, just by registering at http://www.guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com/resources-2/bonuses

Now, to be fair, trade shows and book signings aren’t exactly the same thing. You would be surprised, however, what they have in common.

Start by getting a favorable location; get nice, professional signage from a company that makes custom backdrops; and get ready to do lots of smiling. Here are some tips to make a book signing successful:

Become Endeared to Your Fans:

If there is one thing that truly endears you to your fans, it’s a personal connection. Even though you don’t have much

Book Signings

time with any one person, open up and share something personal that the person will remember. He or she will tell all their friends and relatives about the encounter, and ensure that person will be a fan forever.

Share Something Personal

Be ready with a few anecdotes or experiences to tell your fans. Prepare enough that the many people in line won’t hear the same one. It doesn’t hurt to practice a bit beforehand so your greetings and stories don’t sound unconfident.

Be Gracious

Unless you’re a person who has a stiff reputation to uphold, make sure to be gracious. Thank the patrons and the venue for hosting you. Move people through the line quickly, but make each person feel like you gave them individual attention.  Personalize autographs if you have time as it means more, and often helps book sales as most won’t loan out signed books.

If you have the time, give freely. If you don’t have the time, move quickly. Every night that Jay Leno performs on the Tonight Show, he shakes the floor-sections’ hands. Although it’s barely a touch sometimes, those people still go home to brag that they shook hands with Jay Leno on TV. Any interaction is a positive for someone who looks up to you.

Cross/Prep Sell

You’re not here only to meet fans, right? You’re here to work. Don’t miss the opportunity to let your fans know in casual conversation which book you have coming out next, or what to look forward for down the pipeline. You may feel salesy or scummy saying something like, “Make sure to buy my book that’s coming out in July!”, but to someone who is excited about getting to meet someone they consider a celebrity, they’ll take that as a personal favor rather than a plug. Rather than self promotion, they’ll take it as their duty to buy your book.

Remember the goal of any book signing is to sell more books, but it shouldn’t appear that way to fans. Help them to believe that you do this for fun. They’ll reward you because they’ll believe you’re rewarding them.

About the Author
AJ Wilcox is a long-time marketer who has spent many weeks strategizing, designing, and working trade shows. He loves watching new entrepreneurs find success through smart marketing tactics. He also loves running, exotic cars, and home automation.

(This is a photo of my Writing From Your Soul process in graphic and symbolic form. I’m working on a better, possibly even more visual graphic.)

Because I’m very much into symbols (you can take the girl out of the English teacher, but you can’t take the English teacher out of the girl. Or something like that), I looked up “spiral” in The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols.

Immediately, I could see how this symbol, which I had just intuitively glommed onto, truly fit the writing process I had created.

(Download your free Writing From Your Soul system and get the complete, detailed, 13-step process, if you don’t already have it.)

Below, I’ve noted what the Encyclopedia had to say about the spiral symbol, and then I’ve applied that to the concept of writing from your soul.

• The origin of the Universe. As far as writing from your soul, I interpret this as that place inside us that is a part of the Universe. Our gifts. Our purpose. Our calling. We, as part of the bigger whole, carry that Universe inside us, and so we need to share and continue to be part of the whole.
• The seed of potential energy. Wow. Imagine… your soul yearns to connect. You have a passion, which is what caused you to start your business in the first place. You take that passion and its message, and connect it to the world. You’ve planted a seed that will grow, expand, develop.
• Tremendous energy, like a whirlwind. I know I’ve experienced this. Once I hit on my soul purpose of helping others write from their souls, it was as if the floodgates opened. I’m still in awe as I look back over the last few months at what I’ve created and the new ideas in front of me, inches away, waiting with baited breath for me to step into them. It’s intoxicating, and I love that whirlwind energy! (Although I’ll say for the record that there needs to be a downtime to that high-energy cycle.)
• Full of possibilities. Gee, ya think? Once you go deep into what your soul wants to say, it opens up the world. The spiral is never-ending, and the deeper you go, the more the possibilities grow.
• Journey. You don’t stay in one place when you’re traveling along the spiral. You’re going on a journey. It can be scary, yes, but it’s well worth the risk.
• Cyclical phase of evolution. Think about it… DNA is a double helix, two spirals together. Nothing in the world is static. When you dig deep into what your soul wants to say, you’ll say it, and then go on to the next thing. You will evolve. Your customers and clients will evolve. Your business will evolve.
• Curiosity about what’s coming next. This has been the most fun part of my own journey into writing from my soul. The possibilities have unfolded, and what could come next is so exciting. “Ooooh, I could do this! And I could do that! And I wonder what would happen if I did this and that….”

The trick is to go deep, listen, and then let go. Yes, it’s hard. We so want to be perfect, great, have impact…. But those wants stop us in our tracks. It’s as if we have to embrace one part of the path (what our soul wants to say) and let go of another part of the path (attachment to results and outcomes).

So what would happen to you, your business, your clients and customers, your products, if you took a step on that first path and really listened to what your soul wanted to say?

And then you said it.

Want to write from your soul? Of course, you do! Because when you write from your soul, you connect more deeply and successfully with potential clients and your community. Download your free Writing From Your Soul system at.

Guest Post by: Dawn M Goldberg, Creativity and Writing Expert

5 Ways Authors Can Utilize Google+

As each new social media trend emerges, so do new and improved tools for getting things done. But every profession has its own desires and needs to meet. From accountants to zoo owners, what does the newest social media addition have to offer? We thought we would take a look at the question from the view of the author. So without further ado, check out the below five ways writers can use Google+ to their advantage.

1 Circles – As anyone with a Facebook or Twitter account knows, you often have to set up two accounts. One for family and friends that has that picture of you with the foam dome and another with all your work contacts that is strictly business. However, Google+ has the impressive option to categorize those you make connections with into various circles and allows them to see only what you would like them to.

2 Contributor – Are you an author with many published works online? Sending all the links to a potential business partner and even keeping track of them can all be a nightmare, even with the use of a spreadsheet program. Eliminate all of that by utilizing Google+’s contributor feature which allows your contacts to instantly click on your list of contributions and be taken there. It is practically a virtual online portfolio that you can easily update on one program.

3 Logo inclusion and more – When you do use the contributor feature for Google+, there are also other bonuses. If the site or blog you have contributed to has a logo, Google+ will automatically include it on your profile. You can also choose the order in which they are displayed, the titles, and much more.

4 Video chat – No need to download any extra video chatting programs if you have Google+. Those who also have it can easily and instantly begin video chatting. Use the feature to chat with editors, other writers, or even friends. You can also chat with multiple people using the option.

5 Other writers – If you think you’ll be the first author to take the Google+ plunge, think again. There is this impressive Radiology Assistant which helps students find the right radiology degree.

Casey Roberts is a student and also writes for Radiology Assistant which helps students find the right radiology degree.

Customer's stories

Most businesses have feedback systems in place to gather good and bad customer stories.  They use surveys, polling, or receive direct feedback from the customer through email or phone conversations.  This feedback is crafted in the form of sound bytes, which provide limited information, and in some companies is dismissed all together.  My job was turning those sound bytes into stories.  What actually happened?  What did the customer experience?  Why is it relevant to the company?  How serious of an impact did it have?  And most importantly, I needed to get back to the customer with the answers of how their problems would be fixed.

I had to facilitate the story from the customer and craft it with a beginning, middle, and end.  Their story had to have impact on the corporation’s success.  That did not mean that every piece of feedback had to be epic but it did mean that every customer had a story to tell, big or small in impact and I took that job very seriously.  By turning the customer’s sound bytes into stories of impact, I was able to get the “fixes” in place quicker and the customer happier.

Do you have a person within your business that is in charge of telling the stories of the customer?  Or are you dealing with feedback about your business in sound bytes?  Which one do you believe is more effective?

Toni Reece,
Partner, Association of YOU
President, The PEOPLE Academy, Inc.

Are There Black Boxes in Your Business Story?

One of the employees that I needed to talk to was “Beth”.  Beth had been with the company for 35 years and her daughter and granddaughter worked there as well.  Beth had held many jobs, but the job she held for the last 10 years was one of “black box quality control”.  What that meant was that she was to inspect all of the black stainless steel boxes that came to her to make sure that they were the right size to hold all of the electronic components that went into the church organs.  She looked at 300 boxes a day and she knew what she was looking for but no one else did. She knew by sight and feel if there was something off about these boxes.  The day came for me to sit down with Beth and engage her story about her work and Beth was scared to death.  The only way she agreed to come to talk to me was if she could bring her best friend.  They showed up shaking and holding hands.  They were terrified.

As I gently engaged Beth to tell her work stories, one of the questions I asked her was “what do you do when a black box is not right in some way, where does it go?”  Her eyes became huge and she paused and whispered to me “I take them home”.  What? Beth had not been told what to do if she found a defective box and she did not want the organs to have bad boxes, she was proud of the work she did and she did not want to get anyone in trouble.    Beth kept a trash bag under her station and every time she found a bad black box she put it in the trash bag and took it home.  She had hundreds of these boxes in her garage.

Think about your stories that are going inside of your business.  Are your employees telling their work stories so others can learn from them?  Are you crafting training stories for your employees so they too are not taking black boxes home?

Toni Reece
Partner, Association of YOU
President, The PEOPLE Academy, Inc.

• Starting a blog – Starting your own blog is a good way of raising your profile online and creating a personality that
  

  Do what you do best - write

  people can become interested in.  There are a number of ways to go about it:

  • Write a blog of your experiences as a writer trying to sell the book, also talk about your life and thoughts in general.
  • Write an informational blog about your area of expertise. If you have written a book on gardening, it is a good idea to create a blog giving information about gardening techniques and knowledge. This will give you some credibility in your chosen subject.
  • Write a creative blog. Blogs do not always have to be functional. You can use a blog to create a page full of interesting and creative writing pieces that showcases your talents as a writer.

Guest blogs – Writing interesting and relevant blog articles and appearing as a guest poster on other people’s blog sites is one way of promoting yourself and getting your name noticed by a varied audience. If you can include a link to your website or book sales site, this may lead to follow through sales.

• Social networking – Social networking sites are a good idea for anyone trying to sell a product or service, as you are able to connect with people by writing interesting and informative posts. People love to browse through these sites and interact with other users, if you are able to get your name out there and drum up interest in your book, it will be time worth spent. If you manage to get a lot of followers on a site such as Twitter, you can also post up snippets of your book to give people a taste of what is on offer.

There are many other ways to get your name out there for free, it just takes a little hard work, time and determination, but utilizing the internet in these ways as part of a larger marketing campaign is definitely worthwhile.

This guest post was written by Abigail. She is a freelance writer who has written on a variety of different subjects including Silver and Gold and Chinese Panda Gold Coin.