1. Specific tips for “taming the email beast” and restoring email sanity from time management expert, Randall Dean.

I’m going to confess just how many emails are sitting in my email inbox–or rather, were, before I learned Randy Dean’s email strategies.

Find out how to go from hundreds of unread emails (or more!) to zero … how to drastically cut down the time you spend on email … how to keep email from usurping personal and work time … and more.

You even get to ask Randall your question, now and during the call.

There will also be a special offer just for listeners of this call. (But you’ll get a lot out of it even if you don’t take advantage of that, so listen in-and tell your friends and colleagues!)

Just go here: http://www.wordstoprofit.com/tamingemailbeast.com.

2. Randall is the author of two books, including (surprise) Taming the Email Beast: 45 Key Strategies for Better Managing Your Email Overload. His publishing story is quite interesting—and will provide hope to authors who aspire to get published by a traditional publisher. We’ll talk about the “new era publishing” strategies he’s used and is using to get published and to promote his book and other products.

Randall also recently conducted an amazon.com campaign to launch the book. Find out what it takes to do that.

You can listen either via phone (there are a number of local call-in numbers available now!) or via webcast, on the computer. Click here now for the call-in details and to ask a question.The call will be recorded and archived, so if you’re reading this “after the fact,” you can still listen at your leisure. But you can’t ask us questions about either topic live, so ask now and/or on the call!

There’s a reason some people get published and others don’t, and usually it has to do with the fact that published authors have put in the effort to gain expertise, build an audience, and actually write the book or get a good ghost writer to write it. They go through the work of putting together a good proposal, they don’t quit when they get rejected, or they self-publish intelligently.

My goal with this blog and my other resources is to give you the tools that can lead to your becoming a successful author. However, a hammer does no good in itself. Only in the hand of the carpenter does it hit the nail on the head.

Read Seth’s blog. To suggestion #2, I would amend, if you want to become a successful author, spend your 120 minutes:

• writing an article and posting it to article directories
• coming up with some free “Special Report” on your topic that you can give away to start relationships with people (ask them for their email addresses to get the report)
• setting up a blog and writing 2-3 times per week
• finding other people who are already talking about your topic (Ning groups, Yahoo groups, blogs) and enter the conversation by posting. Put your Special Report offer in your email signature line when you do post.

Everything else, listen to Seth!

“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.)