Noah defines it as this mathematical equation: number of people you reach divided by time.

Publishers don’t care how you reach them–radio show, podcast, Twitter, email list.

In fact, they prefer you have a combination of all of the above.

The easiest place to start, however, is

an email list.

Despite how spam has wrecked email, it still remains the “workhorse” of marketing, as Noah said.

Tired as we are of spam, we still do read the emails that matter to us.

You want your emails to be in that list of emails people eagerly read.

So how do you do that?

Well, over the past 5 years I’ve made a study of online marketing and have come up with just a handful of people whose systems truly work, who offer them at a very good price, and who themselves operate in integrity.

(These are the only kinds of people/programs I recommend.)

One of those who make the list is Jimmy D. Brown, who has been around the Internet since 1997, and who has made a six-figure living at it since 2000.

In fact, Jimmy practically invented list-building online!

And Jimmy has just agreed to let me post an except from his course “List PROFIT System,” which is a fantastic course for beginners. It really should be recommended reading for anyone starting an online business, in my opinion!

After you read this excerpt, be sure to grab Jimmy’s FREE report “Six Steps To Six Figures With List Marketing.”

But, first — I’ll share a few pages of the actual paid course.

Excerpt from List PROFIT System
by Jimmy D. Brown

PART 3: Seven Opt-in Triggers That Get Subscribers Like Crazy

You can have all the right “ingredients” to an opt-in page (the things we just talked about in the previous section) and still not get great results. It’s how you put everything together that counts.

So, that’s what I want to share with you now.

You’re about to get the benefit of results from more than five years of tweaking and testing (and tweaking and testing some more!) the opt-in process. I don’t know if there’s anyone who’s been doing THIS longer than I have. I was using a mini-site to get subscribers since back in 1999 – back when list-building pretty much meant having a link on your site that said, “To join my list, click here.”

While there are a gazillion variations and distinctions, there are some basic “triggers” that I’ve found really do dramatically improve your opt-in rate.

There are seven of them…

Note: The first three are very basic, but I’ll be revealing some ideas that you’ve probably not considered before…so read them anyway. The final four are more “advanced” in nature. You’ll find that only those “in the know” are using them. Add your name to the list.

1. Offer Real Perceived Value. Years ago I went to the late Corey Rudl’s web site and he was giving away a free subscription (like everyone else) to his newsletter. What made his different than the rest? It had a simple notice near the subscription form reading, “$197.00 value”.

Instant perceived value at the time. (That’s not the case now with everyone putting inflated “values” on their free offers).

The point is this…you can CREATE perceived value. Here’s how.

- UNIQUENESS. One way to do this is through your own “unique” approach to your free offer. You can say the same thing as someone else in a totally different way and see a marked difference in responses.

For example: “$600 cash back” is NOT the same as “A year’s worth of free gas” to someone about to buy a car. (Especially today with gas prices rocketing skyward in leaps and bounds!) “A year’s worth of free gas” has a much higher “perceived” value even though its monetary value is the same.

What makes your list unique?

I *highly* recommend you grab the FREE report “Six Steps To Six Figures With List Marketing.”

It’ll give you an overview of the essential pieces involved in profitable list marketing. He’ll show you how to build a big list that responds to you–this is the key! Numbers don’t mean a lot; loyalty does.

A strong author platform is made up of people who love your message and your style. Jimmy will show you how to do it.

Check it out.

This is especially true about your author platform. Hyatt points out all the ways a publisher can tell how many people visit your blog, or how many previous books you’ve sold. (By the way, the tool he mentioned, Compete.com, is something you can use to track your own progress. Especially if you take the “Develop Your Audience” class.)

One thing I’ll add that’s also part of this “New Era of Publishing”: we’re all so connected now. If I want to check out a person’s integrity, I have a whole network of people I can ask who probably have had dealings with the person or product. While I always give the benefit of the doubt to people, if several people say a company, person, or product did not live up to expectations, then I take note.

Hyatt gives excellent advice. Read it and take it to heart, and you’ll sleep well at night.

That’s why I want you to listen to a different class this week other than my Publishing Coach Weekly teleseminar.

I am working on something exciting that will show you how to create a global audience for your message.

I’ll tell you about that soon enough, but in the meantime, I want you to take the Podcast Secrets Preview training on Thursday evening.

This 2-hour training is going to lay a foundation I want you to have for when I show you how to create a global audience.

It will give you some steps, upon which I’ll show you how to build an author platform, for being “well heard and well paid

for what you know and love to do.”

It is 2 hours (maybe longer, knowing Alex Mandossian), it is taught by Alex and Paul Colligan, and it will cost you $20 with the VIP discount I obtained for you.

If you can’t make the live training, you will be able to listen to the recording within 24 hours. And you will have that recording, and your notes from the Action Guide, to refer to forever.

As I said in my recent blog post, podcasting may be one of the easiest and fastest ways to establish your author platform.

Author platform is what will allow you to be well heard and well paid.

Audio and video are increasingly effective and popular.

Knowing how to use these venues will give you the edge in getting your message out there.

And I know no one better to teach you than Alex and Paul. I took Podcast Secrets last year, and will attend it this year with video in mind as well. (My most recent foray into that will be posted at www.abundantgiftsblog.com as soon as I can get to it, assuming technology works as it should.)

I hope you will take advantage of this training. (Yes, it is a preview of the entire Podcast Secrets course, but the way they do preview calls, you will get a lot of valid training out of the preview itself–or you get your money back.)

I hope you will avail yourself of this important step toward becoming well heard and well paid.

Imagine people flocking to your website to sign up for your newsletter.

Imagine orders coming in for your book every day. (Or leads for your business, or sales, or …)

All because you learned how to do what may be the quickest way to establish an audience: start a podcast. (You’re probably familiar with what a podcast is by now, but in case you’re not, read my article, “What is a Podcast and Why Would an Author Want to Podcast?”)

A podcast is a great way for authors or aspiring authors to create that all-important

“platform.”

With a podcast, you can reach a lot of people, and you can measure how many people download your podcast. This allows you to know the factors that go into that “platform” that publishers look for: number of people reached, over time.

If you can say that 30,000 people download your podcast every month, that’s a pretty impressive platform.

Publishers may well take notice. The first thing they ask me, when I approach them about a client’s book idea, is, “What’s their platform?”

In fact, podcasting may be THE easiest way for an author to build a strong platform.

But how do you get going?

Glad you asked!

This coming Thursday, Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian are going to teach you how to get started in the Podcast Secrets Preview Call. You can access it at www.podcastsecretspreview.com.

I took the Podcast Secrets course last year, and I can tell you, it’s excellent.

One of the things they teach you, right from the start, is how to monetize your podcast.

In fact, I took Podcast Secrets because I had just started a podcast.

The course showed me that, in fact, what I was doing was not monetized correctly for my business. Had I not taken Podcast Secrets, I would have continued pouring time into something that was fun, but not profitable.

I now know how to make it worth my time.

And you will, too, if you take this training.

I got a $79 discount on your tuition, so you only pay $20.

That’s $10/hour for training that you will be able to go back to again and again-you get the replay within 24 hours, so even if you can’t listen in live, you will gain the benefits.

If you’re technologically challenged, no worry. One of the things I liked best was that it’s very step by step.

I was just looking over my notes from last year’s Preview Call. Here’s some of what was covered:

• 8 reasons for creating a podcast
• 7 ways to make money from your podcast
• How to produce podcast content quickly and easily
• Where to find the time to podcast
• How to get your podcast promoted by Apple
• How to get others to listen to your podcast
• How to find out who your audience is, so you can better serve them
• How to tell if your podcast is worth your effort
• How to get your podcast listeners to take the action you desire (sign up for your list, buy your book, etc.)
• What makes a podcast listener buy?
• . . . and more (Alex is famous for overdelivering)

I believe this will be well worth your small investment of time and money. I secured you a special $79 discount. Use the code PC916 when you get to the web page, so that you only pay $20 instead of the $99. (Though I think what you’ll learn will be worth $99. I know–I took it!)

Noah revealed his own journey as an author … which holds many surprises.

Did you know this successful author, who is represented by one of the top literary agents in the country, started with a self-published book held together with tape?

And that, only 3 years ago, he was $35,000 in debt and living in his parents’ basement?

How did he dig out of THAT place to get a six-figure publishing contact with a top publisher, and exposure on the alphabet soup list of top national media (NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, etc.)?

Find out in this telling interview. You will be encouraged by Noah’s story.

More than that, you will come away with tips on how to build your platform (and the mathematical formula for what an author platform is), and what to do if you, like Noah, don’t LIKE marketing (he much prefers writing and teaching).

You will come away with New Era Publishing marketing techniques that will get your readers to actually consume your information (even if it’s NOT about money or success), how to contact media who are looking for what you have to offer, and more.

Listen to the replay and, please, DO the action steps, suggested! They’re very simple.

And if you have another question about how to promote a book/information product, ask it here.

“How would I be able to get the word out if I published a book? I currently have no “platform.’. I am not on tv/radio/public speaker . . . what are some of my options, or should I wait until I get a platform?”

I’m not sure if Michael already has a book written yet, but the time to think about “getting a platform” is before you even start writing.

And you don’t “get a platform,” you build one.

A “platform” is publishing and media industry speak for your following. So, what you need is to build a following. How?

A number of ways. First, you need to find the people who are already interested in your topic. Here are some suggestions:

1. Google “[yourtopic] forums” and “[your topic] discussion groups” and find some groups that are interested in what you want to write about. Join them, and “listen” to the discussions. When you find a topic with a lot of activity, write an article about it. Then, post to the group that you have an article about it. Also check out Ning groups–there you can create your own.

2. Open a Twitter account (free report on how to here). Find some well-known person in your field on Twitter and follow that person. But not only that person–follow other people who are following them. Reply to people and give good information. Chances are, people will read that and follow you, too.

3. Open a Facebook account and post all about you. (Facebook seems to have come up on top of the Social Networking sites, more than MySpace, which has gotten spammy.)

4. Start a WordPress blog. Start blogging about your information.

An excellent course that teaches all about using Twitter and Facebook with a WordPress blog is Cathy Perkins’s Blogging with WordPress in a 2.0 World. She also has wonderful free weekly teleseminars about blogging with WordPress.

5. Likewise, write articles for ezinearticles.com and other article directories. (Find a list of links here.)

6. Once you get even a small following, begin doing a teleseminar or podcast. You can interview other experts, or do your own teaching. The audio element adds “marketing intimacy,” Alex Mandossian says. Even if you don’t have a lot of people listening initially, teleseminars are a way to create content that you can “repurpose” into blog posts and articles.

7. If you have a book or even an ebook, do a Virtual Book Tour in which someone interviews you about the book. Alex Mandossian, who created a particularly helpful kind of Virtual Book Tour, says, “Authors don’t make money writing books, they make money explaining books.” So true!

All of the above methods work together. Over time, when you work at it steadily, as you create your content and get it “out there” in all these ways, you create your following.

With that, and a book proposal in hand, you then approach a publisher or agent. Nowadays no publisher will even look at you unless you have a very strong platform.

But don’t be discouraged. As you go about building a platform, if you do it in the way I and those I recommend teach, you will be creating intellectual properties (including a print book, but other products as well) that will be valuable enough for your followers to pay for.

Building a strong platform is the primary business of an author-not just the writing. You need to have important things to say, you need to say them well, but most important of all is finding ways to connect with people who are already looking for your information.

This is the heart of what I’m calling New Era Publishing. It’s easier to do now than ever. That’s why I continue to say–no matter about the economy; this can be the best time to be an author.

Especially if you’re willing to see yourself as something of a carpenter/writer. (Get it? A writer who builds platforms…)

Well, I just came across a most exciting new resource to help you get exposure in, perhaps, The Washington Post or New York Times.

Could that help you in any way, do you think?

I’m talking about a service called Help a Reporter. Sign up with your email address and three times a day, Peter Shankman will send you a list of all kinds of things reporters are looking for. (Thank you, Peter Shankman–and Bonnie Dillabough,founder of the Yaktivate.com podcasting network, Cookie Cutter Group teacher and Internet marketer extraordinaire, for telling me about this!)

Here’s what Peter served up tonight, to give you a taste.

#BUSINESS AND FINANCE

1) Making Lemonade from Failure (The Washington Post)

1.5) Small Biz Affected by Eco Downturn (New York Times)

2) Need Analyst Comments on Zappos.com – (E-Commerce Times)

3) How to Best Pitch a Client (DM News)

4) Local Using Search in Online Marketing

5) Small Biz and Access to Credit (California Executive)

6) Pros and Cons of 4-Day Workweek/Flex Time (My Midwest Magazine)

7) Thinking on your feet (Monster.com)

Writing on US Dollar and Bailout (Australian Mag. called Insto)

9) Why Credit History Outweighs Cash Flow (Real Estate)

10) Economy Anxiety in Young Children

11) Energy Experts: Can current RPS be met?

12) Story and Info on Billionaire Jeff Green

13) Entrepreneurial Bloggers Needed

14) Part Time Professional?

14.1) Have you had success with using HARO? (Peter Shankman)

#GENERAL

14.2) Postponing Retirement (Anon National Wire Service)

15) Contacting Marie Osmond?

16) Looking for Locum Tenens Doctors

17) Fraud/Faking Deaths (Nanaimo Daily News, British Columbia)

18) Do We Marry People Like Our Parents?

19) Foreclosures (Metro International)

#HEALTH/FITNESS

20) Menopause (National Site)

21) Controlling your Asthma (Health Magazine)

#LIFESTYLE/ENTERTAINMENT

22) Guest bloggers: SF/fantasy/horror

23) Recycling Denim

24) TV Music Programmers

25) Famous Homeschool Graduates/Parents

26) Great Autumn Eats

27) Holiday Gift Guide (Shake That Salt)

28) Healthy Size 2 Women for Fitness Book

29) Looking for Relationship Expert

30) Party Planners for Super Bowl Parties

#TECHNOLOGY

31) Mobile Phones and Barcode Scanners

32) Seeking Project Managers

33) Stories of Business Blogging Success

#TRAVEL

34) Best Honeymoons for Wine Lovers

35) Travel Gear for Holiday Gift Round-ups

**************************

There’s more–you get details on all that’s listed–but you get the picture.

I can hardly believe this resource costs nothing. I have no idea how Peter Shankman does this–I hope he outsources this!

Folks, this is a goldmine, and I hope you will hop right on it. I have a growing list of contacts to follow up myself. One is for writer’s tips that will go into a book, and all I have to do is take one of my articles, copy, paste, submit–and I get all the extra exposure!

“What do you look for most in a publishable author?” I asked.

“Platform,” was his quick answer. “It’s all about platform.”

Platform is industry speak for an audience. People who are already in your “tribe.” People who are already following you.

That’s what publishers look for, first and foremost.

“Do you look for authors who have self-published and are already successful?” I asked.

“Usually those authors don’t need us,” he answered. “But if they are successful and they want us to publish them, we’d certainly consider it.”

So there you go. If you’re an aspiring author seeking a publisher, work on your platform. It’s more important to work on getting known than on going to endless writing workshops to improve your writing. Another editor once told me, “We can fix the writing, polish it up. It’s harder to create the platform.”

Sometimes, the first editor told me, a publisher will work to help an author create a platform, if they really believe in the author and the message and that a large market exists. He told me of a case in which they sold 20,000 books by two relatively unknown authors, in the first year. But they published the book because they knew a particular group–pastors–would be interested in this book. They marketed heavily to pastors at conferences and their hunch was right–pastors want the book.

It all comes down to one of the very first questions you must ask yourself: Who is my audience? How can I find them? (For more about the crucial questions you need to answer, preferably before you write your first word, check out Write Your Book Right: 12 Questions Successful Authors Always Answer.)