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.)

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.

How did I learn how to do Virtual Book Tours?

Through master trainer and inventor of Virtual Book Tours, Alex Mandossian.

Virtual Book Tours are only one kind of teleseminar Alex teaches. There are many other forms and purposes for teleseminars, all of which can help authors and business people build a platform, sell more books, stay in touch with their audience, and even create new products at the speed of sound. Not to mention, turn a very nice profit!

Alex will be teaching his premier course, Teleseminar Secrets, in December. Before the training begins, he will be holding a Preview Call. I got you a VIP discount for that call.

Here’s what I’d like you to do:

1. Read my new Publishing Coach Weekly article on “5 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Build an Author Platform–Before or After Your Book is Published.”

2. Ask your question about teleseminars. I’ll be answering them on next week’s Publishing Coach Weekly call.

3. Sign up for Alex Mandossian’s Teleseminar Secrets Preview call on December 4 at http://www.teleseminarsecretspreview.com. When you do, you will also be eligible for my 1-hour+ follow-up strategy call focusing specifically on what you learned from the Preview Call and how it relates to being (or becoming) an author. This will also prepare you to get the most out of the Teleseminar Secrets course itself, should you take it. (And I highly recommend you do.)

So go here now to read the article and get all the details.

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!