Lunch & Learn Webinar - 10/23 – Publishing Your Book – Tips from the Trenches

If you are in the process of trying to get a book published, or have ever even thought about it, this online session is for you. In this lunch and learn workshop, experienced industry insiders will share their insights and knowledge.

Lunch & Learn Webinar: “Publishing Your Book – Tips from the Trenches”
Date: October 23, 2008
Time: 12:00 noon to 12:45 pm (PDT)
Cost: Complimentary

Register now at:

——> https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/768916852

Regards,

Training Coordinator
training@people-onthego.com
www.people-onthego.com

Webinar Details:

Whether you are interested in publishing a book to share your experience with others, market your products and services, and/or help your team or company get publicity, this panel discussion will provide you with valuable insights into the process of book publishing and into the options that you would need to consider. You will hear from many experienced publishers, agents, and writers, and have the opportunity to ask questions and get answers.

Register now at:

——> https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/768916852

Questions?

——> Please contact training@people-onthego.com

Let me know how it is, I am going to be at this live Denver social media event with Jive, and may not make it back in time for this webinar. Or join me at the live event, it is also complimentary.

Please share what happens online, just in case I miss it…

Thanks to andrewhyde for retweeting @MoCheeks : who wrote on Twitter: DON’T VOTE !! http://tinyurl.com/44vo9h // 5 Friends (very well done video). are you registered yet?

Hope it incites inspiration in you, too! I actually checked to make sure I was registered after seeing this, even though I was pretty sure I was. It worked!  Thanks everyone who was involved in getting this video out.

It’s been a while since I posted, sorry about that, life has been super busy! I hope to update you on all of it soon, but wanted to make sure you knew about this upcoming WordPress Teleclass I am doing for Dhyan of Satisfaction By Design (First 10 To Comment Get In FREE) :

Oct 15 – It’s a Blog. It’s a Website. It’s a Marketing Tool … It’s WordPress! (Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink) WordPress makes blogging easy, but do you know the advantages to creating your whole site with WordPress? This powerful (and free) application has a system to manage your content plus a visual editor, making it simple to bullet point copy, add images, and more… all without paying a designer. Find out why WordPress is loved by search engines and why you should consider building your entire site on this powerful platform!

If you have been considering building a site, this is the way to go. It offers so many advantages, which we’ll address on the call.

I’m so excited to share this info with Dhyan and her loyal listeners! And, Dhyan has generously given me a few free passes to the event (a $27 value!). The first three 10 (Dhyan has given me more tickets!) folks to comment below that they want to attend will get to join in free.

Or just register for the class, it’s very reasonably priced:

SIGN UP, NOW

To see samples of sites I have created using WordPress, I have put a list of links up on my UniqueThink site.

Hope to have a lot of folks join in on this one. WordPress is one of my favorite topics!

See ya on the call…

Bethany

P.S. If you are one of the first 10 to comment below, I’ll send you an email with details to call in! Thanks!

Secrets to Creating a Search Engine Friendly Website

Time and Place Date: Thursday, May 22, 2008
Time: 10:00am – 11:00am PDT (that’s 11am for MST)
Location: Online

PRICE: FREE

Register by clicking here

I was so excited to learn about this event that I signed up immediately upon seeing the invite. I am always interested to hear what the experts are saying about creating a search engine friendly site!

Though it is a field I am involved in, search is not my main focus: I like to focus on the visitor experience (after all, if the site is enjoyable for the visitors – who you are ultimately trying to get – it will help your search rankings, as well, because they will come back often and share your site with their friends.). But that doesn’t mean I ignore the search engines.

There are definitely proven steps you can take that help both the visitors’ experience and the search engines’.

That’s why, many of my clients’ sites get ranked quite well. In fact, I just got an email from one today (Read an excerpt from his email below and click on the screen shot to the right – just taken a few moments ago – to see a larger view of his current Google Results):

I am really happy with the work you’ve done on the site/seo. I get a lot of great feedback about the ease of use of the site, and that it is highly informative, and looks great. And I am hearing from a lot of folks (due to people finding the site in Google).

- Joseph Brenna from GuitarLessons.JosephBrenna.com

Another client sent this note after we posted a newsletter related article on his site:

Now indexed! Took all of about 4 hours from the posting.

-Adam from Lingoport

For those who don’t know, it used to take months to get your site indexed by Google and Yahoo. Fortunately, things have changed and now search engines send out crawlers all the time, to look for new content. Also, today, there are ethical ways to get indexed immediately. The above is an example of that.

What did we do? Simple, we built both these sites on the WordPress.org platform, which means when you post something, it doesn’t wait for the search engines to find it, it submits content to them, but that’s a post for another day.

To be able to share these kinds of results with my clients, I have to stay up on the changes happening in the industry.

Now, I am not an expert at SEO, and I have never claimed to be (in fact, if the client’s budget allows for it, I often recommend they hire a proven SEO firm to work along side me).

Since I am often creating my clients’ sites (whether with an outside firm’s assistance or not), as well as handling their marketing needs, it is critical for me to be as informed as possible of the ever changing world of search.

See, it is like this, the rules for search engine optimization are ALWAYS changing. So, if you are reading an article or a book that is more than 1 year old (maybe even 6 months old), chances are some of what’s mentioned has changed.

That doesn’t mean you won’t get ranked, but it Could possibly mean that you won’t get ranked well.

I don’t say that to be harsh or critical, I say that to make sure you understand that you either have to hire someone who is on top of these changes or (if you have a small or non-existing marketing budget, which is why I created MarketingAndWriting.com – and who I am trying to help here) you need to take the time to listen to free seminars, like this one, from (and this is equally important) reliable sources like the SEMpdx (which is the Portland Search Engine Marketing group).

They are doing this free webinar with Stoney deGeyter, President and CEO of Pole Position Marketing.

I registered for this great event so quickly, I didn’t even look at the calendar, to see what I had scheduled for that day. Turns out I am going to be on a road trip that day, so I do hope they record it (they usually do record webinars)! Just in case, please come back here and share all you learned!!!

Eliana Berlfein and the ladies of the Boulder Design Group have invited Angela Bowman and myself to give a WordPress Workshop for them, tonight at 5pm. So, email or call me to find out details, if you can make it.

At our last BDG meeting, Angela and I started telling everyone why we love WordPress. By the way, until last month, I had never met Angela. Yet, we connected so powerfully and, well, I guess persuasively that the group asked us to do a full presentation about how to use WordPress to build websites.

The best part is Angela and I come at it from different angles.

I come from the traditional offline marketing world and have been loving the Internet since 1995, when I first started using it as a research tool. Since then, with my company, UniqueThink, I have taught myself how to do social media and build search engine and visitor friendly sites for clients with small budgets.

Here is an example of some recent WordPress based sites I created:

Approachable Nutrition

Joseph Brenna’s Guitar Site

And, the latest (which I am collaborating with Patricia McFadden, the author on) is:

P.S. McFadden: Children’s Writer

Angela Bowman is a graphic designer, who started building sites for clients and found the versatility of WordPress was an incredible benefit for her and the client.

Here are a couple of the sites she used WordPress on:

Wendy the Weaver

Financial Abundance Guide

And, boy I wish I could show you her latest two, but they are still being designed and I am not sure she’d be happy with me. However, they are 100 times better than the two I just showed you of hers, not that they aren’t great sites.

But the fact is, we both are getting better every day, not only in our areas of specialty, but in each others areas, as well. And part of that reason is because we are sharing information with each other (and we’ve only known one another a month, yet we’ve both learned so much!).

So, tonight we are sharing that knowledge with the ladies of the Boulder Design Group.

If you are interested in the WordPress Workshop and can’t make it tonight, contact us to arrange for us to do this workshop with your group.

Event: 2008 Marketing eSummit
Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Event hours: 11am – 5pm EDT / 8am – 2pm PDT (that’s 9am for us mountain folk!)
View the Program Agenda

CASTING A WIDER WEB

Join in to discover best practices, get expert advice on emerging technologies in online marketing, and the best part is it is free & you don’t even have to leave your desk.

Sign up today! And meet me there.

Also, if you do attend, come back here and share the most important tip you learned!

After all, a main marketing tool for any new book is its cover. This series, being put together by Barnes and Nobles, offers a look into the designing of book covers.

The first interview is with John Gall of Vintage & Anchor Books who shares his 5 rules for good book cover design.

My only disappointment in this series is that it is not a book, or at least it isn’t yet. Though I enjoyed the video, I would love to have this as a hardcover coffee table book, which had both the covers and the stories behind them.

Also, as a marketer, I’d have put a link on the page to be notified of the next installment in the series. This would make the visitor happy, because they’d remember to come back, plus B&N would have them on their mailing list.

What do you think? Let us know… post a comment below.

Click here to watch Cover Story now.

However, something made me check it out and, well, maybe it was exactly what I needed. It reminds me that sometimes you don’t need words to create a timeless message.

So, I decided to put the video here for you.  Hope it incites inspiration (on whatever level) for you, as well:

Inciting Inspiration: Combining timeless genius for a fresh look at today

The YouTube page states this:

No cue cards, no teleprompters, and no second takes–legendary funnyman Sid Caesar pioneered live television sketch comedy with his 1950s sitcoms Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour. This classic sketch is “Argument to Beethoven’s 5th,” Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray play a married couple in a argument with pantomimed action and the dialogue is classic music.Enjoy!

I know, whenever I have any kind of creative block, I do as Joel suggests, and I remove myself from where I am. I saw a video years ago, can’t recall where, and they talked about this. They said when a ‘man’ (their words not mine) has a problem he needs to solve, he will usually do something to blow off steam. They showed a guy going out and playing basketball.

Then they said, LADIES, are you listening: “Women” (again, their words not mine) tend to dwell on their problems and don’t move pass them as easily. So, to prove them wrong (about women), I have always gone for a walk, gone for a drive, or even moved to another project. While I am doing the other activity, almost always, a light bulb goes off and I find my solution.

Just keep a small notebook and pen handy, so you can pick up where you left off…and bring your mittens (if you take Joel’s ‘uniquethink’ for locations to visit…)
Enjoy

By the way, if you have your own ‘uniquethink’ (a special trick or tip) for removing writer’s block, share it with everyone here, by commenting below.