(It’s what I talk about in my Find Your Publishing Path free teleseminar–path #2 and #3.)

When you’re an author, you have a business card that lasts forever, sharing your message and wisdom with the world. In fact, a book is often your ticket to getting invitations for paid speaking engagements, media attention, information products, higher fees, and a steady stream of clients.

However, writing and marketing a book can be challenging, especially if you don’t know where to begin. Aspiring authors can get bogged down and never finish their books, or, even worse, write a book that no one wants to buy.

I’m really excited about an event happening the month of August, Successful Author Secrets: Navigating the Course from Aspiring Author to Best-seller and Beyond. This ground-breaking program will feature
21 successful authors who will tell you the truth about what it took for them to become successful.

Just imagine learning from author super stars like Michael Gerber, Marci Shimoff, Loral Langmeir, and T. Harv Eker. The best teachers are those who have mastered the task.  These folks are proven master authors who are ready to share valuable information you can use right away. Yes, some have even been on Oprah’s couch. I want to hear about that!

If you are even remotely considering writing a book to build your business, check out the all-star line up of speakers at this on-line event happening in August. And, you can attend for free!

Check it out here.

The success attracts a top-notch literary agent.

Now the big question is: Should you go with the agent, who may be promising you a huge contract with a Big Six publisher?

Surprisingly, the answer is NOT a no-brainer.

It may not be in your best interest as an author to let the agent take your book and shop it around.

Why not?

Here are the considerations from  someone who’s been in publishing for a long time and has seen all sorts of things happen (few people will tell you what you’re about to learn). Read more

What, you don’t know what the three publishing paths even are?

Don’t feel bad, few do. Until recently, there weren’t really more than one publishing path.

But as you know if you’ve been reading me at all, things in publishing have changed tremendously.

Now there are three pretty distinct paths of publishing, and if you don’t know what they are and which one you’re on, you could make some pretty bad mistakes.

Like you could even publish the wrong way, spending money you didn’t need to.

Or you could spend years of your life trying to get published one way when another way would save you time and prove much more profitable.

So, I am making available a class I taught awhile ago, at no cost to you. There’s even a Study/Resource Guide available for you to take notes on and refer to.

Go here and find your best publishing path!

I

Why?

Because I heard a great interview by the author on the radio. I knew I had to get his book.

Alex Mandossian often said, “You don’t make money writing books, you make money explaining books.”

Test it for yourself.

Think about the last time you bought a book. Wasn’t it either because someone recommended it, or because you somehow heard the author talking about it and it seemed interesting to you?

Notice too the viral element. I’m telling you about it, and word is going out via my blog, emails, Twitter, Facebook. All because of one interview! (And no, I do not work for the publisher. They don’t know I’m doing this, but I would love a review copy, hint hint!)

Check out my past Virtual Book Tours and see if you’re not at least tempted to get one of the books. Just browse the left-hand column for an author or topic that interests you. I’ve got lots of topics to choose from, from leadership to parenting to health. www.virtualbooktourexpert.com

The book, by the way, is Richard Swenson’s In Search of Balance: Keys to a Stable Life. I took notes on the interview, and can’t wait to read the book. It’s a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot, and Dr. Swenson’s other book, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, was excellent. Life-changing, really (though I admit, I need to go back to it).

Why is a topic for another blog post….

Bamboo is an interesting plant. Its growth starts underground, where the rhizome system that supports the canes are developed.For three whole years, the plant establishes itself underground and there is no apparent growth. Nothing appears to be happening.

In the fourth year, shoots appear. The bamboo canes grow in height and diameter for only 60 days every spring. After the 60 days, that particular cane will never grow again.

However, because of the rhizome system, the next spring the shoots that come up will grow much taller and faster in those 60 days. After a bamboo grove has been establishing its rhizome system for 5 years, the canes that grow in that fifth year can reach as much as 90 feet (for certain species, in certain conditions)–all in 60 days!

Becoming a successful author is largely about establishing a strong “rhizome system” that will support the growth you can experience seemingly overnight–growth in the number of people who are exposed to your message and who themselves will begin to spread the word.

What it takes to develop that underground system is what I’m all about as a publishing coach.

That’s why you see a bamboo image in my new header.

I’m not about to promise you overnight success. I just don’t believe the real world works that way. You don’t really believe it does, either, do you? Much as we’d like to believe the fantastic claims of writing a book in 14 days or becoming a bestseller overnight, you and I know deep down that these are promises from clever marketers who want to sell us their products.

Instead, I’m going to show the exact process you need to go through so that you can lay the proper groundwork (“rhizome system”) and accelerate your growth.

Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to take 3 or 4 years for you to see any signs of growth. Unlike bamboo, the process for you can be accelerated.  That is my goal!

However, I do want you to not get discouraged if at the beginning there’s no apparent sign of anything happening at all. Under my direction, you WILL make progress.

The first step is to sign up for my Author Success Plan, a meaty, 5-part course that will lay the groundwork and show you the ABCs of Becoming a Successful Author.

What you learn in these 5 lessons is based on my 32 years of experience in publishing as an author (11 books),  editor, copywriter and marketer. They are things no one else is saying because few people know them.

The investment is small–$5. I’d give it to you free, but if I do that it’s likely it will just sit on your computer gathering cyberdust. I’m asking you to invest a little something so that you actually open and read and do the lessons. (Each lesson contains Action Steps.) I want you to benefit from these lessons.

Get your Author Success Plan now so you can immediately begin to receive your first lesson in what it takes to become a successful author. (If you want to see more of what’s in each lesson, click here.)

No more. And I recommend you avoid them at all costs as well.

This is the third incident I’ve had with them. This time they billed me before my “next due date” and refuse to credit me.  The domain was transferred well before the stated “next due date” to me and to the registrar I transferred to (godaddy.com).  1nad1 said it was renewed before the transfer went through, but that’s not what Godaddy shows and what is clearly on the WhoIs record.

What they do, apparently, is bill BEFORE the time is up. Maybe even whenever they see you’re trying to transfer? Who knows. I started the transfer more than a month before my “next due date” for billing–plenty of time to have it go through. I did all the necessary things on my end and, in fact, got a notice from Godaddy that the transfer had gone through BEFORE even that earlier 1and1 billing date.

Here’s the kicker: When I told 1and1 that I would just alert my credit card company, 1and1 said they would shut down my account!

Do not do business with 1and1.com Internet!

As I said, this is at least the third time I’ve had an issue with them. What I experienced before was simply questionable practices.

This is egregious.

I spent the day transferring my many accounts to godaddy.com, which has always been great to work with. Their support is wonderful, and I’ve never had one problem. (I don’t use them for my web hosting, just domain names. If you want to use them, Google “godaddy coupon codes.” Those don’t work on transfers, though, as you get a really low price on those.)

I’m not the only one with an issue. Here’s another post about their terrible service.

So, be forewarned. I love to praise companies with good service, and I have many times. Those with especially bad service–I warn about.

If you publish with a traditional publisher, they MAY enter your book in a contest and pay for it. Then again, they may not.

If you’re self-published, you will have to enter your book yourself.

Here’s a free service called AwardSync that allows you to search once – by keyword, by industry, by geography (and more) – then sit back and get automatically notified when applicable awards are announced.

It’s free and does the work for you. You’ve still got to win on your own, though! Sign up for free now here.

As an author or aspiring author,  I assume you do.

Here’s a way to use your reading to get traffic back to your own website.

First, a pop-quiz question: What’s a site that gets a LOT of traffic? Like, thousands if not millions a day….

If you guessed amazon.com, you’re right!

So, when you post a review of a book that’s related to your area of expertise, you get to create a link back to your site.
Because the link comes from a credible, highly-trafficked site, you will rise in the search engines.

Here’s how:

Create an account at Amazon. If you’re already a member at Amazon then you’ve probably already bought something from them and that’s even better. You’re an established member of and you’ve already completed your first step. Amazon won’t allow you to make comments unless you’ve purchased something there. (May I suggest a great book that made it to #3 on amazon recently–a book that will, if you implement it, change every area of your life in amazing ways? It’s here—and yes, I did write a review!)

Create your profile. Talk about yourself, using relevant keywords. And of course, put a link to your site.

Review products. The next thing you need to do is to give product reviews of items for sale on Amazon. If there are books you’ve read, then go the section where they ask you for your review of the product and give one. Each time you give your review of a product make certain you leave your name and in your signature should be a link back to your website.

Do you know how many people visit Amazon on a daily basis? More than visit your site, that’s for sure. Each time someone sees your review, they will see your name and the link back to your website. This is a simple, free and easy way to put your name out there and get more traffic back to your website.

Use this powerful method and let me know your results with it. It’s one of the more fun ways I use in the “Multiple Presences on the Web” strategy. (I once decided my dream job would be to get paid well to read. This is at least mildly related to that.)

J

I was very impressed with the way they are going about the launch, which you can view here. Please view it in your browser after reading this post, and you’ll have an example of what I consider to be a “book launch” with panache–something you can model for your own.

What I like about it is, first, it’s not full of hype. Even the clean look of the site adds to this feel.  (The actual topic is incredible enough, it doesn’t need any more hype. This truly works–I’ve tested it for 3 years,  my own testimonial can be viewed here, and I’ve seen it work wonders with many, many other people as well–including my 78-year-old mother.)

Second, they give you a couple of free videos whether you buy anything or not. Yes, they are building their mailing list, but with integrity. The videos add to the value of the book  (and yes, the desire to get it) in an honest way. (The Dr. Bruce Lipton video is in 7 parts, at least 70 minutes long.)

Third, you get truly valuable bonuses: access to a teleconference series, “Secrets of Dynamic Living,” as well as other bonuses. Classy bonuses, related to the book’s topic, from people who truly know about The Healing Code and want to promote it. Not a bunch of no-value bonuses from everyone under the sun.

So check out the launch page, buy the book, enjoy the bonuses.

And if you want to read an excerpt, you can do that here. Note: If you missed out on the launch, you may still get the book and the bonuses, but only here (my special, which includes free shipping and bonuses of my own, as well as the ones offered on launch day).

So what makes an author successful?  “[Successful books] are typically written by known authors or from authors who at least have media platforms and can help us promote them,” Hyatt says.

There you go again–platform. Will they take a risk on new authors? Yes, if the books are “exceptionally well written.” And, of course, if the author has a platform.

Hyatt says Nelson is going to cut 50% of their new title output. That means it’s going to get even more difficult to get published this way. I’m sure they’re not the only ones taking this stance (because I know so many people in the industry, and other publishers are doing the same thing).

So that leaves us with the same issue: how to establish a platform. It is possible. You have to be patient and work steadily toward that goal.

I’m working on a course that will help you do just that, but I also recommend Mark Joyner’s Bestseller Blueprint course. It’s the most thorough I’ve seen, and it includes information none of the other “gurus” talk about because they don’t know it. Mark is a #1 New York Times bestselling author four times over, so he should know what he’s talking about! Plus the lessons are fun and easy to digest.

Make no mistake, it takes an investment–time, energy, money.  Joyner’s Simpleology courses talk about how these constitute the  only Power we really have–time, money and energy.  Money is actually a result of an investment of your Power. In Simpleology 102 he defines money as “the direct result of the intelligent use of Power (time, money, energy).”

The money part of being an author will come only from the intelligent use of your Power. My goal is to steer you toward that.