Saturday, February 27, 2010

SECOND SIGHT




Second Sight by Judith Orloff, MD (2nd Edition)

In this moving personal story Dr. Orloff recounts her "journey to become whole" by first accepting and then embracing her intuitive abilities. She tells of her childhood fear of her intuition, of her physician-parents' efforts to ignore and even deny them, and of her slow awakening to the understanding that her intuition is truly a gift. She tells of her struggle to incorporate her abilities into her practice and of the many successes she's experienced with patients ever since. Second Sight is a soulful and friendly bestseller.

Text from the back cover


As a child, her vivid dreams and intuitions were whispered about behind closed doors. As a medical student, she denied the "shameful secret" by immersing herself in the absolutes of science. Then as a psychiatrist, Dr. Judith Orloff recieved proof of the value of her gift when an intuition foretold a patient's suicide attempt. In this remarkable self-portrait, she takes you on the journey of a lifetime, one that brought her from ignorance to understanding, from loneliness to peace, from despair to hope...

NOW SHE TEACHES YOU HOW TO UNCOVER YOUR INTUITIVE GIFTS


“There is no elite to which the gift belongs--the seeds have been planted in all of us....each one of us is multifaceted, radiant, teeming with possibilities.”
As she tells you her own story, Dr. Judith Orloff will teach you how to recognize intuitive experiences in everyday life, awaken your own intuition with special mind-empowering exercises, and use meditation, prayer, and dream interpretation to broaden your possibilities. And like Dr. Orloff you'll soon be on a quest to reexamine your life, your beliefs, your future...and your own wonderous potential.
GET your copy of Second Sight ON MARCH 1st and receive 80+ GIfts from amazing teachers such as Dr. Joan Borysenko, Rev. Michael Beckwith, and Deepak Chopra, and Shirley MacLaine at http://www.drjudithorloff.com/second-sight-promotion/

Judith Orloff MD is author of the new book SECOND SIGHT: AN INTUITIVE PSYCHIATRIST TELLS HER STORY AND SHOWS YOU HOW TO TAP YOUR OWN INNER WISDOM (Three Rivers Press, 2010 updated edition). Her other bestsellers are Emotional Freedom, Positive Energy, Intuitive Healing. Dr. Orloff synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition, energy, and spirituality. She passionately believes that the future of medicine involves integrating all this wisdom to achieve emotional freedom and total wellness. For more inspiration and free articles visit www.drjudithorloff.com

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

READ COLLECTED MESSAGES I - FREE!

IF YOU CLICK ON THE BOOK COVER, A FREE ON-LINE READ OF COLLECTED MESSAGES I: GUIDES FOR PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION IS AVAILABLE. YES, IT'S FREE-THE ENTIRE BOOK!

Please Add a Title

Friday, February 19, 2010

If you don't do this...By Kathleen Gage


If you don't do this, you are not serious about marketing your book
by Kathleen Gage


YOU ARE INVITED TO ASK QUESTIONS VIA THE COMMENT SECTION OF THIS BLOG-KATHLEEN WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS THROUGHOUT THE DAY, 2/20

Ask most authors why they write and they will likely tell you it is respond, “To make a difference.” Regardless of whether they are fiction or nonfiction authors, something drives us to get our message out.
Unfortunately, a great many authors will never have more than a handful of people reading their works other than family and friends. This is directly related to their lack of knowledge and understanding of their need to promote their own books.
Prior to all the choices available due to the Internet and Social Marketing the greatest limitation in marketing was time and money with money being at the top of the list for most authors.
Because of Social Marketing what is possible is far easier and much less costly than ever before. One would be foolish not to take advantage of even a few resources available literally at their fingertips. A few minutes a day of focused online marketing effort can increase your visibility and book sales in leaps and bounds.
In the past one plus one equaled two. In the world of online marketing this is not at all the case. Online one plus one equals lots of other ones who are spreading the word for you with the press of a button. That is, if they like what they see and if they believe what you have to say is worthy of their button pushing.
Although very much talked about, Social Marketing is also very misunderstood. Take Twitter for example. Lots of authors don’t bother with it at all because they have no clue as to the real (and far reaching) benefit.
Truth be told, there are many trains of thought regarding exactly how to use twitter. Recently, I attended one of the top Internet marketing conferences where a main topic of conversation was social marketing. Not only did I have the opportunity to share the platform with experts like Willie Crawford, Jeff Herring, David Perdew, Denise Wakeman, Lynn Terry and Kevin Riley, I also sat in on a few sessions as a student.
If the names I mentioned aren’t familiar to you, a quick google search will show you just how knowledgeable these experts are in the areas of Internet and Social marketing. Each brings a wealth of information to the table. While one expert said, “I use Twitter to connect with people and be very casual without any overt promoting,” another expert said, “I overtly promote on Twitter and it works for me.” Who’s right? Actually, both.
The one who overtly promotes has such an incredible following that people know him, like him and trust him to the point that they look forward to his promotions.
As an author you might be wondering what this has to do with promoting books. Actually, everything. And here’s why. With Social Marketing you have global reach to potential readers. However, to make your efforts worthwhile, you must be strategic in what and how you use the Internet.
Blogs are the hub of what your social marketing efforts should include. From there, everything else feeds into your blog. You can build a wonderful following with your blog by writing and posting short articles, post excerpts from your books, put book trailers for your fans to enjoy and much more.
In that the blog is the hub, the idea is to drive every other part of your Social Marketing position back to a specific location like your blog.
Here’s how it works. Say you post your book trailer on YouTube. You then use the embedded code from your YouTube video in a blog posting. Once you have the blog posting done you do a tweet about the video with the permalink in the Tweet so that you are driving readers back to your blog.
You can also take the blog permalink and post on your Facebook wall to drive people back to your blog. If you belong to groups in Facebook, you can post a short note about the video with the permalink driving people back to your blog.
To optimize your YouTube position, be sure to put the permalink from your blog posting at the beginning of the video description. Use the http:// at the beginning of the link so it is live. This way, with one click readers are right back at your blog.
This is a process that can be done in literally 15 to 20 minutes a day. To really gain visibility for you and your books, add this to your daily activities. Within a very short period of time you will definitely see an increase in your blog traffic.
Your blog must be optimized in order to gain the greatest benefit when someone visits the location. Set it up in a way that people know what the blog is about, that you are the owner, and some way for them to subscribe to your blog. Without these essential elements you could miss readers for future books you write. Miss readers, you miss buyers.
About the author
Kathleen Gage is an Internet marketing advisor who works with spiritually aware speakers, authors, coaches and consultants who are ready to turn their knowledge into money making products and services. Find out how you can learn from Kathleen on how to become more visible and sell more books using the Internet through her Street Smarts Marketing VIP Club at http://tinyurl.com/y8jokrz


PART II

Attention authors! Sell more books for less by utilizing Internet systems
By Kathleen Gage


If you’re like most authors you have a very important message you desire to share with as many people around the globe as possible. Unfortunately, many authors never sell more than a handful of books because of one primary reason; marketing and promotions of your book.

I have been an author for many years and I can assure you, hands down, a well planned and well executed online promotional campaign can open up incredible opportunities both in the short term and the long term.

Below is some essential information regarding what you can do to begin your book launch.
Online book launches can be a springboard into other opportunities such as additional product development, speaking and consulting jobs and increased expert status.

There are three phases to a successful campaign

Phase I Pre launch preparation
Phase II Launch
Phase II Post launch

Checklist of what you need to do to launch your campaign

Create a budget for your launch
Select the date of the launch
Complete your book before the launch date
Register your book with Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com
Secure Joint Venture Partners
Secure appropriate, high value bonuses
All web design work done
Copy write various pieces of information for the campaign
Automate your process
Develop a backend plan for multiple streams of revenue
Take time before your book is published to plan your book launch. The more thought you put into marketing and promoting the book, the more likely it is that you will have a hugely successful book on your hands.

About the author

Kathleen Gage is an Internet marketing advisor who works with spiritually aware speakers, authors, coaches and consultants who are ready to turn their knowledge into money making products and services. Find out how you can learn from Kathleen on how to become more visible and sell more books using the Internet through her Street Smarts Marketing VIP Club at http://tinyurl.com/y8jokrz

Thursday, February 18, 2010

DEADLY LUCIDITY




JUST RELEASED FROM ATTMPRESS:

Deadly Lucidity
By Julie Achterhoff


Caught in a tangled web of dreams and nightmares, Marie Reilly is being hunted by a psychopath in the dream world she can't escape. Her single ally, a Ranger named Murphy, may be her only hope. He must help her reach the great Fortress, where
they've been told there is a way back to her reality. Together, they fight their way through the twists and turns of Marie's mind so she can have her life back. But what of their burgeoning passion for each other? How can she leave the man she has come to
love behind in this nightmarish world he has called home as far back as he can remember?

About the author:


Julie Achterhoff has lived all over the United States. She is the mother of five children. Julie started writing when she was very young, and kept a few teachers up at night with her stories. A play called "Angel in the House" was her first bigger effort. Then she wrote a novella titled "Native Vengeance," which was published by Demon Mind's website for the 2008 Halloween Edition. Her novel, "Quantum Earth," was published by All Things That Matter Press in 2009. Julie lives in California with her son, Sage.

Julie's book can be ordered from http://allthingsthatmatterpress.com and will appear on Amazon.com soon.

MARKETING WITH BOOKBUZZ

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: 2/20


If you don't do this, you are not serious about marketing your book
by Kathleen Gage


The above topic will be a guest blog posted on Saturday, February 20th.

Kathleen will be available to answer any questions you might have via the comments section of the blog.

We hope you will all stop in and participate in this marvelous marketing session.

Please feel free to post this announcement and invite others to come on by and participate.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

18 BILLION

Did we learn our lesson from 9/11? Is it still possible that terrorists could strike American soil? We like to think not, but does our desire match reality? In an exciting new book, Jack Gresham paints a scenario that is not only feasible, but frightening. Reminiscent of Abe March's, "They Plotted Revenge Against America," Jack's portrait of a possible attack reminds us that that if we fail to be diligent, the next terrorist attack to make the news could be in our backyard.

America in the bull’s-eye
New thriller explores the reality of a United States in the midst of a terrorist attack.




18 BILLION
By Jack Gresham
Synergy Books / November 2009

SYNOPSIS: In Washington, D.C., a cell of Afghan terrorists—armed with a nuclear weapon—conspire to rob the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of 18 billion dollars. The money is intended to fund Mohammed of Babylon, who is the prophesied redeemer of Islam. Mohammed, however, is a man of peace and must find a way to rectify the wrong done to the United States without angering his followers.

In the meantime, a federal investigation into the attack uncovers a frightening plot by an international corporation to fund and manufacture global terrorism, leaving the feds wondering what it will take to counter the terrorism already set in motion.

The book leaves readers asking themselves, “Could something like this really happen?”


ORLANDO, Fla. – From the Oklahoma City bombing to the attacks on the World Trade Center, it seems the United States can never stray too far from the crosshairs of terrorism. Even today, suspicions are swirling around the recent shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, speculating it was a religiously fueled act of jihad. Is this tragedy a chilling reminder that, eight years after September 11, America is still at great risk of terrorism?

Author and former Air Force pilot, Jack Gresham explores the consequences of this possibility in his new international thriller. The first of four books in the “Mohammed of Babylon” series, 18 Billion (Synergy Books, 978-0-9823140-0-5, November 2009, $15.95) takes readers on a suspenseful and thought-provoking journey to a modern-day United States, once again in immediate danger of terrorism.

“There is a lot more going on in the world than we are told by the government or even by the media,” Gresham says. “I want to submerge readers into this alternate world and raise the question ‘Could this really happen?’ in their minds.”

In 18 Billion, Afghan terrorists in Washington, D.C., use nuclear weapons to rob the Federal Reserve of 18 billion dollars. The money is stolen to fund Mohammed of Babylon, a peaceful leader who is the prophesied redeemer of Islam. Shocked to find himself at the center of religious extremism, Mohammed must find a way to right the wrong committed against United States without forfeiting the trust of his people.

“18 Billion isn’t just a story about a terrorist attack in the United States and its outcome,” Gresham says. “It’s also about a man who is conflicted between his belief in nonviolent jihad and the fundamentalist principles of his followers.”

As the story unfolds, the government discovers an international corporation by the name of Global Consultant Ltd. that poses an even greater threat. Concerned with money over ideology, the corporation forces American officials to consider just how far they will have to go to protect their country from terrorism.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jack Gresham started his career as a jet pilot in the United States Air Force, before earning his degree at the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1961. He established a specialization in orthopedic surgery and spent five years in Saudi Arabia developing an orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation department in a local hospital. Before his retirement in 2004, Gresham went on numerous medical mission trips abroad to places such as the Ukraine, Brazil and Africa. He also recently completed a tour on the board of directors for the Learning Institute for Elders (LIFE) at the University of Central Florida. Gresham currently lives with his wife, Moena, in Orlando, Fla. For more information, please visit www.jackgresham.com.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Ten Steps to Effective Blogging



THE FOLLOWING IS A GUEST BLOG POST BY AUTHOR MARVIN WILSON


IMPORTANT NOTICE-MARK 2/20 ON YOUR CALENDAR. OUR GUEST BLOGGER WILL BE KATHLEEN GAGE-SHE WILL POST ON KEY THINGS AUTHORS MUST DO...SHE WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS ON THE BLOG!

NOW BACK TO MARVIN:

Ten Steps to Effective Blogging

So, you’ve started a blog. That’s great. No, really, it’s important nowadays, if you are an author, to have a blog. But remember one very important thing about blogging. Just having one doesn’t mean anyone is going to go to it. There are millions of blogs out there in the Blue Nowhere, so thinking that just publishing a blog is going to get you traffic, page views, followers, and ultimately help you sell more books, is akin to using needle in the haystack logic. It’s like publishing a book as an unknown author and thinking just because it’s there people will flock to buy it with no self-promotion on your part. Not gonna happen.

When I first put up a blog, some five years ago, I was absolutely thrilled when someone actually visited it and … even left a comment! It was a circle-this-day-on-the-calendar type of event. Take the wife out and celebrate. Today my primary blog has regular visitors from around120 countries across the globe with new “unique” visitors all the time, gets over 200 hits, close to 100 visits, twice that many page loads, and receives an average of 20+ comments per day. Not bad. Certainly not the kind of traffic a blog written by a household name famous blogger gets, but enough to make a significant impact on my book sales. How did I make this happen?

I thought you’d ask, as have many other novice author/bloggers, so that’s why I put together this crash-course post on how to get your blog spiffed up, running on all cylinders, and most of all … noticed, with regular readers. After all, that’s what we want, right? Lots of loyal readers who enjoy our style of writing, look forward to our posts on our blogs, and as a result will figure investing in our books is a good idea.

So let’s get started. Follow these ten steps to the letter, and I guarantee that within months you’ll have a popular blog with an abundance of readers.

1. Post regularly. I put up a new post every day. Most popular blogs do this. You can get away with say, three posts per week, but no less. Otherwise, people will not log onto your blog regularly. Why should they? It’s the same old same old when they do. An aside fringe benefit to daily posting is, it is excellent discipline and practice for a writer. You have to come up with something interesting, even shoot for brilliance, each and every day, and on a different subject every day. It keeps your muse sharp and available. When I’m feeling particularly brilliant, I write several posts in a single day and store them. That way, when I get a day where I have that dreaded “deadhead” feeling, I have several good posts I can use to keep the blog moving and my readers happy. Oh and also important in this topic, keep your posts reasonably short. Blog-hoppers have a maximum five minute attention span. Read your post and time how long it takes. If it takes more than five minutes to read it, cut it down or people will either not bother to read it at all, or just skim read it and not get all the content. This post, for instance, is way too long. I’m only doing this for a special interest group who will (I hope) find it of enough interest and value to read the whole thing. If I were doing this on my primary blog I’d make it a series and only post a couple tips per day.

2. Have a theme for your blog. People do Google searches for blogs on topics of interest to them. Search engines seek out blogs for people looking for specific subjects. You want to attract people who are interested in good books, and people who like to read books in your preferred genre. You don’t have to have a blog mission statement that is limited to just books, although you can do that, but you might include reviews of other books, invite other authors to be featured on your blog, or post writing tutorials, or post about interesting developments in the industry. Use your imagination, figure out what you can write posts well about that is of enough interest to you to keep you inspired to write about it. And you can be somewhat eclectic if you have several such areas of interest and expertise. My blog statement includes lots of humor, all things literary, promoting spiritual growth, and even an occasional political/social/economic rant. Also – your blog name should be the same as your url. That way people will find it easier to remember and return to your blog. If you blog is titled, let’s say for example, My Meandering Muse, your url should be http://mymeanderingmuse.com

3. Provide value in your posts. Nothing is more annoying than a blog that does nothing but tout the author’s own books and/or products. It’s all about relationship marketing, hmm? Nobody wants to be “sold” something when visiting your blog. Soft sell them on you by becoming a source of valuable information and entertaining reading. Your posts should include links to interesting sites, new and exciting software and/or other programs of interest to your readers, how-to information, notices of events happening they’d like to know about, trends in the industry – whatever. Tell a humorous story that makes them laugh occasionally. Your blog is not all about you. It’s about your readers and providing value to them. Do that and they will love you and wind up buying your books.

4. Get your blog looking good. Even with stock blog services like Wordpress and Blogspot, there are tons of custom themes available to make your blog have a distinctive appearance. Do a Google search for “free custom layouts for blogger (or wordpress)” – pages of sites will come up, with thousands of themes to choose from and how to information on installing the html code into your blog. Experienced blog-hoppers yawn when they log onto a blog for the first time and see a standard, boring, regular ol’ layout with no pizzazz to it. In addition, if you use wordpress, which I prefer for a lot of reasons, having used WP and blogspot, you can, for a small fee, upgrade and have the “wordpress” taken out of your url. This looks more impressive to the professional blogging community. Url’s with “blogspot.com” or “wordpress.com” in them are considered small potato blogs. It looks best and most impressive to have simply,Your Name Here– trust me on this one.

5. Add some gadgets. Gadgets drive traffic to your blog. Both blogger and WP have scads of free gadgets in their standard dashboard offerings. Plus you can do Google searches for additional interesting gadgets. Add a statcounter and check it often – track how much traffic you are getting and from where. Put a flag counter up in the sidebar. Add a translator gadget for foreign visitors. Put up a picture of your book cover (yes, this kind of soft sell self-promo is okay) and have it hyperlinked so when people click on it they go to the book’s buy page. Start a blogroll where you list with links some of your favorite blogs that might also be of interest to your readers. Just look into this, you’ll be amazed at how many gadgets are available. A word of caution here, don’t overdo it. Some blogs get so gadget crazy they look cluttered and detract from the post itself. Find a good balance for your style and readership. Again, it’s all about, value, value, value … select gadgets that will be of interest and/or assistance to your readers.

6. Link your blog to all your social networks. If you are not Twittering, Facebooking, Goodreading, Linkedining, all those amazingly powerful tools available to help get your name out there, shame on you, you should be. If you are, good for you, if not, start right now, and have your blog url linked and fed into your profile page. People go to your facebook page, see a snippet of your blog post, find it interesting, click on it, and BAM! – You have another visitor to your blog. This is how we roll, peeps. Get with the program.

7. Cross link your blog to multiple other sites with hyperlinked words and/or phrases within your posts. If you post about a particular author, or book, or blog, or interesting website, or whatever, put that mention in bold and hyperlink it with the site’s url so when people click on it they can go right to the subject matter you are posting about. This accomplishes two good things. One, it adds value to your post, the convenience of being able to click and go with ease if they want to find out more about the subject. Two, search engines will recognize the links on your blog and people visiting those other sites may be attracted to your blog as well. Bingo was his name-oh … more traffic for your blog.

8. Ping your blog. There are several good pinging services available for free. My favorite one is http://pingmyblog.com On this site you can key in your blog name, your blog url, select “all,” click on “agree to terms,” click on “Ping My Blog,” and presto – your blog gets sent out to dozens of powerful search engines all around the planet in a snap. After I started pinging, within two months my blog traffic increased threefold. And it keeps growing. Every time you publish a new post, ping your blog.

9. Visit other blogs and comment on them. Do a Google search for blogs with topics of interest to you. Visit them, read the posts, and this is most important … leave a comment! Not just some wimpy “Great post!” or “Love your blog!” kind of rubbish, compose a real comment with some content that lets the author of the post know you actually took the time to read the post and have something of interest to add, share, or ask a question about. You are a writer, hmm? Write like one. An important axiom to remember here: comment unto others as you would have them comment unto you. One of the first things I do when checking out a new (to me) blog to see if it might be a good spot to host a stop on one of my virtual book tours, is check to see how many comments the blog gets on average. If it’s less than 10 per day, I pass. You want comments, and a boatload of them, all the time. This is imperative, along with high traffic volume. I always click on the statcounter and see what the traffic volume is like. Traffic and comments are the two largest indicators of a successful blog. So again, how do you get traffic and comments? Become a visitor and commenter on other blogs. Once you get noticed as a regular reader on several blogs who leaves well written and interesting comments, not only will in most cases the authors of those blogs start visiting your blog, their readers will start noticing you and hop on over to check your blog out as well. Also important here, when you leave a comment, make sure and either hyperlink your signature with your blog url, or put your blog url under your signature. Just one link, please. You look blatantly self-promoting if you list all your twitter, facebook, myspace, primary website, and blog links. Keep it to one, no more. The best most professional way to do it is to hyperlink your signature. Here is the html code for doing that, using my name and blog url – which you simply replace with yours to make it work for you.

Marvin D Wilson">Marvin D Wilson

Substitute your blog url for the blue characters (blog url) and your name for my name, and this formula will allow you to hyperlink your signature, making it easy for people to click on your name and go directly to your blog.

10. Once you have your traffic and comments up to a respectable level, host other authors and bloggers as featured guest posters on your blog. If you hear on another author’s blog that he/she is planning a virtual tour soon, offer to host a stop for him or her on the tour. If you like a certain blogger who posts on topics of interest to your readers, offer to let them do a guest post on your blog. They will in most cases offer to return the favor at some time or another, and both of you benefit, as your readers will learn about them, and visa versa. If you are fortunate enough to land a really popular author and/or blogger as a guest, you will be exposed to many new blog-hoppers as their fans will visit your blog and some of them will like yours and become regular visitors of yours.

In closing, I would advise you to get ready to roll up your sleeves and do a lot of work. Getting a popular blog going is not an easy task. It requires discipline and determination. You will at first find it a monumental undertaking, but take heart. It gets easier. Once you get some momentum going, it will become second nature to you, and feel as easy and natural as fixing your morning coffee. The benefits are many. You will make new friends. The blogging community is full of wonderful, friendly, and interesting people, who love to help each other out. You will experience the joy of logging onto your blog after not having been there for a couple hours and seeing several new comments and your traffic for the day is skyrocketing. And most importantly for us authors, eventually you will see a dramatic increase in your book sales, and when you release that next book, you will have a waiting readership that loves your style of writing and will buy your next novel.

And in the end, that’s what we all want, hmm?

~~~~~


Statcounter - http://www.iwebtrack.com/free-web-page-counter/stat-counters.htm

Twittering – http://twitter.com

Facebooking – http://www.facebook.com

Goodreading - http://www.goodreads.com/

http://pingmyblog.com – http://pingmyblog.com (wink and lol)