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Book Launch Today – Spiritual Author Charlene Proctor
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Today’s featured “Spirit Author” is Charlene M. Proctor, Ph.D. Her new book The Oneness Gospel is celebrating its official Amazon launch TODAY Tuesday April 24th, 2012. Get your copy of the book and a collection of downloadable “thank you gifts” at http://onenessgospel.com/book-launch/pages/launch.html
If we were to believe what we see in the media, it would seem there is an overwhelming amount of suffering in the world. Even in the affluent West, chronic stress and depression are frequent topics in the News, affecting so many people in their personal and professional relationships, and their overall happiness.
But in spite of all this, there walk among us a few “spiritual messengers” who see the world quite differently. These guides tell us that the root of suffering lies in our belief that we are separate and alone, when in truth we are all intimately connected to the Divine, the Whole—the One. And when we understand this Oneness fully, we will see and experience Joy all around us.
Author Charlene M. Proctor, Ph.D. is one such messenger. As an ordained Minister of Spiritual Peacemaking and a Deeksha facilitator trained by oneness guides from Fiji and India, Charlene is on a mission to spread this message of Joy. Truly, Charlene’s her entire life’s work is devoted to help awaken the Divine magnificence within all humanity.
That’s why Charlene wrote her beautiful new book The Oneness Gospel: Birthing the Christ Consciousness and Divine Human in You.
The Oneness Gospel is a rich mix of East and West, and science and mysticism, transcending the boundaries of religion, and uplifting the reader to that place of Oneness where Joy resides. In a style that is both accessible and inspirational, Charlene expertly weaves together philosophy and practice, bringing us an understanding that there is ultimately only one purpose in life—to achieve Oneness with the Divine.
The Oneness Gospel is celebrating its official Amazon launch on Tuesday April 24th. When you buy the book during the launch, you’ll also receive some very special “thank you gifts” from Charlene and her friends and colleagues
- The MP3 download from Charlene’s recent webinar “Your Journey to Joy ” AND
- An invitation to “Twelve Principles for Becoming a Divine Human“, a special online discussion with Charlene coming in May 2012, AND
- A complete library of downloadable spiritual and personal development gifts from authors, speakers, coaches and other enlightened professionals from around the globe. I’m offering a gift too: 4 audio meditations from my Garden of the Soul workshops.
I do hope you’ll have a look at Charlene’s beautiful new book The Oneness Gospel today, and that this message of Unity and Joy fills your own life, and the lives of those you love.
Again, to find out more about the book and the free gifts go to:
http://onenessgospel.com/book-launch/pages/pre-launch.html
Wishing you a joy-filled day!
Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC is a certified, award-winning coach, teacher, marketer, social media expert, radio host, speaker and author of the number one bestseller The 7 Graces of Marketing: How to Heal Humanity and the Planet by Changing the Way We Sell. Her eclectic approach to marketing incorporates her vast professional experience in the music industry and the educational sector along with more than two decades of study and practice of the spirituality of India. In her work as a promotional manager she has produced a long list of bestselling mind-body-spirit authors. Spirit Authors is a site dedicated to providing information on publishing and book promotioin for and about mind-body-spirit authors, both established and aspiring.
Passionate about re-establishing our connection with the Earth, Lynn also supports the work of the Transition Town network in her hometown of Bedford, England.
Lynn is also the Founder of the 7 Graces Global Conference, or 7GGC, a meeting of minds taking place in various cities around the world and via worldwide live stream. The aim of 7GGC is to bring together business owners, marketers, media professionals, journalists, conscious consumers and eco-focused community groups, who will create a Tipping Point for change towards greater awareness of and responsibility for the impact our work has upon our health, happiness, economy and natural environment.
Back when I started Spirit Authors 2 years ago, it was my intentions to create a site that could help mind-body-spirit/self-help authors– both aspiring and extablished–to learn how to establish themselves online, so they could learn how to spread the word about all the great work they do. 
It was my experience that a great many artist, holistic and spiritually-minded people didn’t like to do marketing; and as a result, they stuggled to survive financially. I found it sad to see so many people give up on their dreams, so I wanted to make sure Spirit Authors provided them with lots of (free) resources that could help them.
At the exact same time I was launching Spirit Authors, I began writing a new book of my own, which originally was intended to be a book for all those sensitive souls who didn’t like marketing, but needed to do it. I thought if I could help create a new paradigm for these kinds of people, it might be useful.
But after I started diving deeply into the subject of marketing, I discovered so many revealing (and sometimes shocking) things about its history, intention and practice, and so many serious issues arising from consumer culture, that I knew this book was going to be something altogether different from what I had originally intended.
And now, after 2 years of daily writing, researching and pulling it all together, TODAY–Tuesday December 13th, 2011–is the big Amazon launch for my new book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell. (Click the title to find buy the book and receive some great gifts).
The 7 Graces of Marketing is a bold, holistic and often spiritual examination not merely of the world of advertising, but also of our entire world view. It reveals how our relationships with Self, others, our businesses, our economy and the Earth impact our health, our economy and the delicate ecological balance of our natural world. As much for the conscious consumer as the business owner, this book shows why traditional ways of selling are ultimately doomed to fail, and how both business owners and consumers can begin to heal the world by embracing a new paradigm I call ‘The 7 Graces of Marketing.’
When you buy the book TODAY you can receive the complete set of 7 MP3s (over 10 hours of audio) from last week’s 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit, with 24 internationally renowned speakers, such as Joe Vitale, Eric Pearl and 22 others, speaking about the ‘7 Deadly Sins’ of marketing and the ‘7 Graces’ of marketing. You’ll also receive dozens of other gifts offered by my friends and colleagues, to express our appreciation for your support.
To buy the book, and claim your MP3s from the 7 Graces Telesummit, and receive a fabulous selection of gifts from my friends and colleauges, here’s all you need to do:
- Sometime TODAY, go to http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/launch.html. This is the “launch” page.
- On that page, you will see links to buy the book on Amazon US, Canada or UK (yes, you may purchase the book from another Amazon site; we just didn’t have room for all the links)
- Click a link to buy the book on the Amazon of your choice. You may buy the book in either paperback or Kindle version
- After you have purchased the book, Amazon will give you a purchase code. The purchase code is a 17-digit number, and it looks like this: 123-1234567-1234567. Copy this number to your computer clipboard.
- Return to the “launch page” and enter your name, email AND your Amazon purchase code in the form.
- When you hit the button that says “Yes, Please!” you will be taken immediately to the “bonus” page. This page has all the links to take you to the bonus gifts.
- Just click the links of the gifts you would like to download.
That’s all there is to it!
I am extremely passionate about this subject (as you will have heard if you listened to last week’s telesummit), and I am dedicated to getting the dialogue started in the business sector so we can change the way we do marketing, and make a brighter, healthier, happier world for our children and children’s children. I do hope you’ll check out The 7 Graces of Marketing.
Click HERE to get the book, the MP3s and free gifts now
Please PAY NO ATTENTION if Amazon says, “Only 3 left in stock” or “Ships in 1-4 weeks”. We have test ordered the book, and it takes about a 7-10 days to ship, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to “be out of stock” because this is a “print on demand” book, which means the book will be printed and shipped to you whenever you place an order.
If you have any questions or experience any problems, please do not hesitate to contact me via the contact from on this site.
AND, I’d love to hear what you have to say about the book after you have read it, so be sure to subscribe to this blog so you can find your way back here. I’m also starting a 7 Graces of Marketing Community for everyone who has bought the book, and who would like to meet others of like mind who want to bring ethics and values back into our business and marketing. So please do stay in touch.
With gratitude and appreciation,
Lynn Serafinn
Author, coach, author promotions
How Many Books Will I Sell? Top 10 FAQs from Authors
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As a book promotion expert and book campaign manager, I receive a LOT of requests for consultations from authors who are preparing to publish their books. Some are experienced authors who have published in the past, either self-published or through a royalty publisher. Others are first-time (and usually self-published) authors. During our initial consultation, I tend to hear many of the same questions again and again. As these questions are so key to authors before they decide whether or not to do a full-blown “bestseller launch” for their book, I thought it might be a good idea to pull together my “Top 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions” I am asked by authors on almost a daily basis.
Q1: How many books will I sell during my online book launch?
First of all, let’s define “the launch” as a 24-48 hour period of time in which we will be driving traffic to buy your book. Asking how many books you will sell during that time is really like asking “How long is a piece of string?” It depends upon so many factors that we can only, at best, give a very broad figure. I have had clients who sell as few as 50 books during a launch and others who have sold around 1000. The average self-published author tends to sell between 300 and 500 books during a launch. Those with major publishers might sell twice that amount, not necessarily because the publisher helps with your promotion, but more because people recognise the “brand identity” of the publisher and are more willing to take a chance on the title. And of course, if you are not a first-time author you will probably sell more books if people know your name already. The key to selling more books is to devote a fair amount of time well before your launch to cultivate and grow your audience. That’s why I spend the first two months of work with my clients developing strategies and systems to build their platform and mailing list before anything else.
Q2: How do I become an Amazon bestseller?
If your book sales are amongst the Top 100 in any category on Amazon, you are technically a “bestseller.” You don’t have to be in the Top 100 of all books. There are dozens of categories and sub-categories on Amazon, and if you achieve a sales ranking in the Top 100 in any of these, you can say you are a bestseller. Of course, it is always nice to hit the “Top 20″ or the “Top 5″ or (best of all) the #1 sales rank in one or more categories.
Q3: How many books do I need to sell to be an Amazon bestseller?
Again, this is not a question I can answer definitively because being an “Amazon bestseller” is a relative title, and it depends upon: 1) how well other books in your categories are selling on your launch day and 2) how competitive your categories are. Some categories like “Religion and Spirituality” or “Business and Investing” are extremely competitive with thousands of titles up against many famous authors for the top position on the list. Other categories, such as “channelling” or “alternative medicine” are less competitive.
Q4: How can I choose the category I will be in on Amazon?
If you were to ask this question of some of the top publishers (I have), the common answer you will receive is this: “You can’t.”However, I have found this not to be 100% true. Let me explain.
First of all, when you submit a book for publication through Lightning Source (for example), you choose 2 “BIC” (Book Industry Communication) categories, which are standard categories that are used by all publishers and distributors. Now the problem lies in how retailers interpret these categories. Think of the last time you went to look for a book in the shops. Sometimes it might be in the “self help” category, while other times it might be in the “spirituality” section, etc.
Amazon “interprets” your BIC categories according to their “virtual” bookshelf. To make things even MORE confusing, Amazon UK, Canada and US might not interpret your book at all in the same way. Even major publishers have told me they have no real control over this. Some authors find their books placed in very strange categories. BUT here’s the big secret I have found: I your book is not ranking in the right category, you CAN get Amazon to change it via Author Central in the US and the UK. Just write to them and ask them to recategorise your book. My book The 7 Graces of Marketing was placed in the “accounting” category at first (NOT!!). When I wrote to Author Central, they very quickly and painlessly put the book into the cateogries I requested: business ethics and marketing/sales.
If you are unsure of what categories to choose, your best bet to get your book in the RIGHT category is to do some market research to find out which categories other titles appear that you feel are the closest in content or message to your own book. Don’t go for a “top level” category like “Business and Finance” or “Health and Wellness”". Go for a sub, or even sub-sub category. Get it as precise as possible. That will not only help you increase your likelihood of reaching the top of the ranks (as it will be less competitvie) bit it will also increase the likelihood of people who are looking for your book will find it, because Amazon’s system will group it together with similar books.
Then, make triple sure you get placed correctly, do two more things: 1) make sure your title, subtitle, back cover copy and description use keywords that help point the folks at Amazon in the right direction AND 2) start putting some TAGS on your book page that help people find your book.
PLEASE NOTE: All of the above is mainly with respect to PRINT books. For Kindle, you can actually SPECIFY two categories via Kindle Direct. These bypass the BIC settings altogether, as Kindle is an Amazon proprietory format.
Q5: Why don’t I see my book listed in a category on my Amazon listing?
You won’t see your book listed in a category unless it is in the Top 100 of that category. Until that time, all you will see is its overall sales rank, which changes every hour. Amazon US and Canada tend change just past the top of the hour, while Amazon UK tends to change at 40 minutes past the hour.
Q6: How can I find out in which categories Amazon will place my book?
It’s not always 100% reliable, but the best way to “guess” which categories you will appear is to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the screen until you see the words, “Look for Similar Items by Category.” There you will see several suggested categories that are likely to be where your book will be placed when ranked. If these categories look range or irrelevant, refer to Q4 above.
Q7: How can I track my rankings?
So far, Amazon does not have any legacy tracking system for rankings, which means you basically have to watch the rankings yourself like a hawk during the launch, as they change every hour. Typically, my clients and I stay up for the full 24 hour period in shifts, in constant communication on Skype, to watch the rankings. The only way I have found so far to “log” your success is to take screen shots. I use the program “Jing Pro” for this. There is a free version, but the Pro version is very reasonable, and has many worthwhile features. You can download it at http://www.techsmith.com/jing/. DO take screenshots of EVERY stage of your rankings. They make great images to add to your promotions when you are sharing the success of your book with readers, media and event managers. To track your rankings for OVERALL book sales, see Q8 below.
Q8: How can I track my actual sales?
Tracking sales is another matter altogether. Of course, the most reliable method is when you receive your royalty report and payment from your publisher or printer. However, these can some to you months after your launch. There are two ways I have discovered that can give you ball-park figure of your sales during a launch. Once is to use your Amazon Associates link on your purchase page, in which case you will see the sales appear within a few days in your Associates account. Another is to use an online tracker such as Novel Rank at http://novelrank.com, which can show sales on a daily and monthly basis. They also show, in numbers and in graph format, your overall sales rankings (not category rankings) over a given period. Bear in mind, to get the best from this service, you need to start tracking your book on their site several weeks in advance of your launch.
Another option is to sign up for Amazon Advantage, although as far as I can tell, you can only sign up for this if you will be directly supplying Amazon with inventory. If a company such as Lightning Source will be printing your books on demand or you will be using a subsidiary publisher, you will need to speak to them about whether or not you can use Amazon Advantage, as they will be fulfilling the sales and sending you the payments and sales reports (of course they will also have some sort of reporting system for your sales as well, which will tell you your overall sales, not just to Amazon).
Kindle sales are updated once a week in Kindle Direct.
Q9: How much money will I make on book sales during my launch?
This depends completely upon:
- How many books you sell
- The retail price of your book
- The cost of printing your book
- What your royalty arrangement is with your publisher (if you have one)
- Whether or not you use your Associates account for sales.
Let’s say you have a 250 page book that sells for $15 and you sell 500 books on your launch day. That is a gross intake of $7500. Amazon pays you according to whatever wholesale “discount” you have agreed to sell your books to them. Let’s say you have agreed to sell your book to them for a 55% discount off the retail price (a fairly common figure, although this can vary). That means they will pay your publisher 45% of gross, which is $3375. If you are the publisher, you will receive that money from Amazon.
From that amount, you need to deduct your printing costs. The cost of printing a 250 page book through a company like Lightning Source is around $4.15 ($0.90 per unit and then $0.013 per page), which means 500 books would cost $2075. Deduct that from what Amazon will pay you, and that leaves a net profit of around $1300.
If you are going 100% self-published, you will make the whole $1300. But if you are receiving a percentage of net from your publisher, you would take the percentage from this amount. Many subsidiary presses take 50% of net, which means you would make $650on 500 books. If you are working with a royalty publisher who pays you a given percentage of retail or net, you will have to calculate it accordingly.
If you use your Amazon Associates link during your launch, you can earn between 4% and 7% of your retail sales as a commission. In other words, if Amazon were to sell 500 books at $15 (although they will tend to sell it at a lower price), you would make an extra $0.60 – $1.05 per unit. You ALSO make a commission if your buyers happen to buy other products at the same time. It all adds up, so it’s worth making sure your links are in place during a launch.
Please note that these figures are accurate as of this edit (July 26th, 2011).
UPDATE DEC 2011: I’ll be writng another article in the New Year about chosing the right royalty structure for your publication and different ways to use eBooks/Kindle to drive traffic to your print book. Be sure to subscribe to this blog to stay on top of new info articles.
Q10: What’s the real benefit of doing an Amazon bestseller launch?
I’ll be honest with you: it costs a heck of a lot more to run a bestseller launch than you will receive in immediate monetary returns. I think you have probably already deduced that doing an Amazon bestseller launch is NOT going to make you lots of money selling books. So it does beg the question why people bother to do them at all, and why people like me are continually booked months in advance to do these launches.
So here are some of the real advantages of doing an Amazon launch:
- It builds your online platform significantly, which ultimately leads to more business for you
- It establishes long-term relationships with dozens of networking partners
- It raises your credibility as a professional, which has an impact upon your income
- It establishes you as a leading expert in your field, making you a sought-after media guest and keynote speaker
- It just plain feels great to say you’re a bestselling (especially a #1 selling) author
Deciding to do a bestseller campaign should not be an impulsive decision, nor should it be entered with rose-coloured glasses. My most successful clients are those who entered our work relationship with this level of understanding. They did not have unrealistic expectations, and they took the “kudos” of their bestseller status to build stronger and more viable businesses that could only have come about as a result of their Amazon bestseller campaign. I think most of these would tell you their decision to do a launch made a positive difference in their business.
I hope this article is useful to any of you who are currently preparing to publish a book in the coming year. Please do leave comments below and feel free to contact me via the contact form at http://spiritauthors.com/contact if you have any questions about this content, or you wish to discuss an upcoming launch.
And, as always, don’t forget to subscribe to the Spirit Authors blog for regular tips for authors, both established and aspiring.
Lynn Serafinn is a transformation coach, book promotion coach, radio host and bestselling author of the book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self, as well as the upcoming book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell. She also works as a campaign manager for mind-body-spirit authors and has produced several #1-selling book campaigns. She is the founder/creator of Spirit Authors, a virtual learning environment and community that offers training, coaching, business-building and inspiration for mind-body-spirit authors, whether established or aspiring. As part of her work with spiritual and self-help authors, she also regularly hosts large-scale online virtual events (usually free of charge) with world-class speakers on a range of mind-body-spirit topics. Subscribe to her Spirit Authors blog at http://spiritauthors.com/category/news/ so you can receive more useful tips and news about upcoming online events. While you are there, do check out the excellent and affordable online courses for authors available.
If you are an author seeking 1-to-1 support or campaign managment for your upcoming book launch, you are also invited to request a free consultation by filling in a contact form at http://spiritauthors.com/contact. Please note that full service campaigns require a 6 to 8 month lead-in time, so be sure to contact Lynn well in advance of publishing your book.
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7 Facts about Self-Publishing Royalties and Print-on-Demand
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Book promotion expert Lynn Serafinn from Spirit Authors shares her tips on what every first-time author should know about royalties, retail price and printing costs before they self-publish a book.
Recently, in one of my LinkedIn Groups, a new author asked, “Does anybody have experience with self-publishing companies and the way they pay royalty fees?” I thought the answer to this question was something many new authors would like to know, so I thought I would share my response with my Spirit Authors readers. Below is a copy of the post I made on December 15th, 2010.
Hi there LinkedIn,
Here’s a breakdown of how most self-publishing royalties work:
By self-publishing companies, I assume you mean “publishers” such as iUniverse (probably the most known, but really only one of many) who set up your book to be distributed via print-on-demand (POD). The company I used for my first book is a small company called Authors Online – http://authorsonline.co.uk. I chose them because they are a small friends-and-family run company who take good care of their clients.
The POD press most often used is a company called Lightning Source. There are 2 major Lightning Source plants (when I last checked), one in Kentucky and one over here in England in Milton Keynes.
These kinds of companies don’t generally get your books into shops, but rather focus on Amazon, B&N, etc. The self-publishing publisher sets up your ISBN and arranges for your book to appear on all these online retailers. But be SURE you read the fine print. I had a scenario not very long ago when one of my clients went with Create Space (Amazon’s own print-on-demand publishing company) and they did NOT place the book on all 6 (now 7) Amazon sites throughout the world, cutting down SIGNIFICANTLY on my client’s sales. So be sure you ask if the company GUARANTEES you will be on all Amazon sites… but (if your book is in English), most especially Amazon US, Canada and UK.
Ok, so here are 7 facts about self-publishing and typical royalty structures:
1) Amazon buys your book for 45% of the retail price. That means, if you book retails for $10, Amazon pays your publisher $4.50 (not you… unless you actually START a publishing company and are selling the books directly to Amazon).
2) From that $4.50, your publisher subtracts their printing costs. Not sure of what they are in the US, but here in the UK, the costs are typically 1p (let’s say 2 cents) per page, plus 70p (let’s say $1.25) for the cover. So a 100 page book would cost $3.25 to print (don’t quote me on the exact figures; these were current as of 18 months ago in the UK. DO ask your publisher these questions).
3) If the book costs $3.25 to print, and you have received $4.50 from Amazon, it means your NET is $1.25.
4) Most self-publishers do a 50/50 split of the net, or in that ball park. That would mean your royalty per book sold is a whopping $0.67. Most payouts are quarterly, starting 4-6 months after publication.
5) Of course, you could also set the retail price higher to ensure you get a higher royalty. The best thing to do is to go online and check out similar books in the same niche, and check out their page count, and see how much their retail price is. Bear in mind, that Amazon will normally sell you book for LESS than retail, but you will still receive 45% of retail unless you tell them you are willing to take less in order to drive up sales (not recommended for first-time author, frankly!).
6) If you go FULLY self-published (i.e., set up your own ISBN, deal with Lightning Press, etc), then your royalty is 45% of retail. Subtract your printing costs from that, and that is your net profit per book. That is what I am doing with my next book.
7) Last option: getting the books printed in bulk (most do this overseas) can drive the cost per book WAY down, but you have a massive front-loaded investment at high risk because the minimum run is usually 1000 books or more to get a good price. PLUS you have the set-up costs, as it is not the same as digital POD. Any time I have seen new authors do this, they end up with a house full of hundreds of unsold books, and feel very discouraged. I don’t recommend it unless you have a solid promotional platform and good distribution set up. ALSO, bear in mind that if you go this route, book distributors tend to take the books on consignment and they don’t pay anything if the books don’t sell. And who do you think is responsible for the marketing? You guessed it – you. Furthermore, they might take 300 books from you when they first come out, but they can RETURN every book that hasn’t sold (or worse–been returned to the retail shops!) after a certain period of time.
BTW, I help self-published mind-body-spirit authors via my site Spirit Authors at http://spiritauthors.com. I’m re-opening Module 3 on self-publishing in February 2011. The course for writing your book (Module 1) and building your online platform (Module 2) are already available. You can take a 7-day test drive of those courses for only $1.
I also do full-service Amazon book launches at http://spiritauthorscoach.com. Drop me a line if you would like to chat.
Warm wishes,
Lynn Serafinn
About Lynn Serafinn, Creator of Spirit Authors
Lynn Serafinn is a transformation coach, book promotion coach, radio host and bestselling author of the book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self.
Her upcoming book, The 7 Graces of Marketing, is coming in June 2011.
She also works as a campaign manager for mind-body-spirit authors and has produced several top-10 book campaigns, including FOUR #1-sellers, in 2010 alone. She created Spirit Authors to offer training, coaching, business-building and inspiration for mind-body-spirit authors, whether established or aspiring. Contact Lynn about YOUR book project at at http://spiritauthors.com/contact.
Be sure to subscribe to this blog for regular book writing and promotion tips (just fill in form at right of your screen).
Sign up for Lynn’s bi-monthly newsletter Creative Spirit (fill in form below) packed with inspirational articles, self-promotion tips, broadcast guide to her radio show, and news about upcoming spiritual author book releases.
Throughout the year, Lynn also hosts large-scale telesummits with world-class speakers on a range of mind-body-spirit topics. Your subscription to Creative Spirit will ensure you’ll be the first to know how to attend these free events.
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Channelling and Writing – Interview with Author E.Dee Conrad
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Today I have the great pleasure of being the host on Day 6 of the Virtual Blog Tour for A New Dawn Awaits by author E.Dee Conrad.
A New Dawn Awaits is a compassionate and inspiring channelled collection of short inspirational reflections, bringing together wisdom of the ages, showing us how to access knowledge that has been part of our consciousness, but has been dormant, for eons. E.Dee’s intention in writing this book is to help readers reach inwards into their divine essence and outwards to the energy that connects us as one humanity.
Yesterday, E.Dee visited Shelagh Jones’ Wheel of Life blog at http://ht.ly/2C1hN. For today’s stop on the tour, as so many of my readers are authors in the mind-body-spirit genre, I thought it would be interesting to interview E.Dee on the topic of what it is like to channel a book, as I think it can be both a tantalising and daunting idea for writers. I asked E.Dee four questions on the topic.
* * * * *
Lynn: Can you tell us a little about your emotional journey of being “called” to write a channelled book?
E.Dee: I was 16 when I first realized I would write a book – but a “technical” one, not fiction, which somehow made it more possible in my mind. This realization lasted about 15 seconds and didn’t reappear for another 27 years! When it resurfaced, I was scared because it really pushed me out of my narrow comfort zone, but I was also excited because it felt like a project that would allow me to contribute to humanity on a scale I never thought possible.
Lynn: What advice can you give to writers who are curious to explore channelling but don’t know how to get started?
E.Dee: We all have the ability to channel and most of us do it on a regular basis – we just don’t realize it. It is easiest to “hear” what the universe or our higher selves are saying when our mind’s are clear and calm. The best way to calm your mind is to meditate. Personally, I prefer chanting meditations because they engage my brain and I find the sound vibrations to be very soothing and healing.
Lynn: How has writing a book of this nature changed your life?
I have become much more aware of my spiritual side and more focused on its development. Having read my book, I have tried to live by its suggestions, with a particular focus on becoming aware of my thoughts and thinking of others as I would like them think of me. This has shifted my life and brought more peace, harmony, joy and love into my life.
Lynn: Now that you have “transcribed” A New Dawn Awaits, do you have any desires to write a book you haven’t channelled?
No, I have absolutely no desire to write a book by traditional methods. When I channel a writing – be it a blog, article, or book – there is an amazing energy that flows through me. This energy is full of compassion and lightness and forms words. The reader also experiences this amazing energy because it is somehow embedded in and flows from the work.
* * * * *
I hope you enjoyed this interview with E.Dee Conrad and that you’ll check out her book A New Dawn Awaits, which is coming to Amazon on Tuesday September 21, 2010. You can receive a collection of over 30 beautiful personal development gifts when you buy her book on the day of her launch, including one from me: a mini eCourse of my workshop “Making Friends with the Monsters Under Your Bed”.
In addition, E.Dee is hosting a very special FREE telesummit entitled “The Shift. The Message. The Transformation” on September 14th, 15th and 16th with nine of today’s most vibrant authors and speakers on the topic of the consciousness, transformation and the global “shift” occurring on our planet today. If you’d like to attend, all you have to do is request a “launch reminder” about the book, and you’ll receive all the information to attend. If you cannot make the live event, you can download the audio at your convenience.
To find out how to buy E.Dee’s book and receive these gifts,
including the FREE pass to the 3-day online telesummit, go to
http://spiritauthors.com/pages/edee/new-dawn-awaits-by-edee-conrad.html
AND you can read all about the telesummit and the guests at
http://virtualspiritualevents.com
For more insight into what tomorrow might bring in this era of the “great shift”, be sure to follow E.Dee tomorrow when the next stop on her Virtual Blog Tour is Tomar Levine’s blog at http://ht.ly/2uLKI
As usual, please do feel free to share your comments and thoughts below. I love reading your feedback.
Self-Published or Publisher? When is the Right Time?
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Lynn Serafinn shares thoughts on shifting from a being die-hard indie artist to approaching a major publisher.
Some of you who know me and my work might be surprised to find out that it was only a few months ago when I wrote my first full book proposal. It’s true I was a ghost-writer for another author and my work has been (anonymously) published in several books by a prominent New Age publisher. But I never needed to write proposals for those books. And it’s also true I’ve written loads of business and project proposals in my time– especially when I was the head of a college department– so I know what it takes to write a proposal to “land” a contract. But I had never written an actual book proposal for my own writing until this contest.
Why? Because most of my life, I’ve been something of a “die hard indie”. It comes from my background as an independent musician/label owner in the 1990s. Since the 80s, our band had tried to get our recordings heard by major labels, but learned quickly that it was virtually impossible to get a big label to listen to an unsolicited demo. So, we started our own label, and gradually built up a following by getting our titles into major independent distributors in the US and the UK. We reached a level of success when our release entitled the Imagine EP hit #1 on several club charts in 1994.
It was then we had a brief encounter with a major record label-one of the top 3 in the world. The A&R (the person who signs artists to the label) had been given our record as a “buzz” title from the owner of an underground record shop in Boston, and he called us from New York saying he wanted to come down and meet us in Arizona (where we lived at the time), as he was interested in signing us. Had they done so, it would have meant we would have had worldwide distribution, MTV videos and have been sent on tour with some of the biggest names in electronic dance in the world at that time. It was every musician’s dream come true.
Or so we thought.
When we actually met the A&R face-to-face, it became very obvious he had clear intentions of changing our image and sound into something we were not, and we simply didn’t want to become. Our band was an electronic trance group, but he proposed a long list of “improvements” for us, including bringing in big rock drummers and sexy young female vocalists. Being in our late 30s, the A&R more or less said we were “too old” for MTV and we would have to do something to make us “saleable.”
But the truth was, in spite of the A&R thinking we were “too old”, we were actually “too young” as artists to move into the arena of working with a major label. We weren’t used to working to deadlines and were accustomed to having the luxury of taking as long as we wanted to complete projects. We were still finding our “voice” and creating our sound, and bringing in professional producers who would impose their own “spin” on our embryonic sound threatened to stop our creative growth altogether. And from a marketing standpoint, although we had managed to get a #1 club hit, we were still just getting started on building our following and didn’t really know our target audience fully, or how to reach them at a global level. Because we had a very small platform, if the A&R changed our image as he intended, we were likely to lose the audience we already had, and not appeal to the audience to which he would be targeting.
We started to realise we simply weren’t ready for this leap. Believe it or not, I used to wake up at night with panic attacks at the thought of it! After all those years of thinking this was what I wanted, I realised something wasn’t right about it. As a result, our connection to the label just sort of dissolved after a couple of months, and our label continued on with our own independent enterprises.
My experience in the music industry certainly coloured my decision to go self-published when I was getting ready to release my book The Garden of the Soul in 2009. I figured big publishers are probably like big record labels in that you needed to know the right time to approach them. And now that I have been self-published for the past year, and have since created successful marketing campaigns for many other authors, both published and self-published, I do think my reasoning was correct.
In my experience, there are 7 main factors to consider in your decision to approach a publisher:
- Discipline. Could you make a commitment to meet writing deadlines if given them? Have you transcended the trap of ONLY being able to write when you are “inspired” or can you sit down and get into the groove when you need to?
- Stylistic maturity. Is your writing style “mature” (well past the embryonic stage)? Could others easily talk about your style and your message as compared to other books? Is your style powerful and developed enough that editors would not want to change it significantly?
- Emotionally prepared. Are you ready to “show up” as a public image? Are you ready to be seen, and critiqued? Are you ready to speak transparently on a global level? Are you ready to release your vision, unattached to whether people like it or not?
- Identity. Do you know who you are as a writer and as a person? Do you have a clear idea of your ‘public image’, i.e, who you are to your readers, fans and audience? Can you stand calmly within the wisdom of your own identity when dealing with a publisher?
- Platform. Do you have a well-established platform (i.e., a large fan base of people who know your name and your writing)? This is undoubtedly one of the major factors publishers will consider when you approach them, and something that will make it much less likely for them to try to “reshape” your image.
- Marketing. Do you know how to reach your audience? Do you understand principles of marketing? Can you explain how you would market your book to publisher in a way that would make them say, “Hey, this one has some great ideas”?
- Time Commitment. Are you ready and able to commit LOTS of time to promoting your book? Is your life free or flexible with regards to family or other work commitments? Could you travel frequently without disrupting the rest of your life?
Speaking for myself, I couldn’t give a 100% “yes” answer to any of these things when I first met the A&R back in 1994. In 2009, when I went to publish The Garden of the Soul, I’d say I had these covered about 75%. But, in my opinion, 75% wasn’t enough for me to approach a publisher at that time. Before I approached a publisher, I wanted to be able to give my full 100%. THEN the time would be right… at least for me.
When I wrote my proposal this year, I felt it to be truly a transformative process. I realised when I was writing it that I had finally reached my “100% Ready” place. I knew who I was. I felt I could write at the drop of a hat. I had a platform. I understood marketing. And most of all, I had already written my book and I completely believed in it.
Being a self-published writer was ABSOLUTELY the best thing for me when I had chosen to do so. The experience helped me develop as a person, as a writer and as a businesswoman. But now I have firmly established my platform, and really know who I am as a writer, I feel confident about making the shift to working with a publisher over the coming year… and at the same time, I also have the confidence that I am able to flourish as a proud indie author, and enjoy the ride on my own as well.
I hope you found these reflections and pointers to be of value in your own journey as an author. Please do leave a comment below to share your own thoughts and experiences.
About Lynn Serafinn, Creator of Spirit Authors
Lynn Serafinn is a transformation coach, book promotion coach, radio host and
bestselling author of the book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers
that unearth the Self. She also works as a campaign manager for mind-body-spirit authors and has produced several #1-selling book campaigns. She is the founder/creator of Spirit Authors, a virtual learning environment and community that offers training, coaching, business-building and inspiration for mind-body-spirit authors, whether established or aspiring. As part of her work with spiritual and self-help authors, she also regularly hosts large-scale online virtual events (usually free of charge) with world-class speakers on a range of mind-body-spirit topics. Subscribe to her Spirit Authors blog at http://spiritauthors.com/category/news/ so you can receive more useful tips and news about upcoming online events. While you are there, do check out the excellent and affordable online courses for authors available. If you are an author seeking 1-to-1 support or campaign managment for your upcoming book launch, you are also invited to request a free consultation by filling in a contact form at http://spiritauthors.com/contact.
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A Real Spirit Author – Caron Goode’s Book ‘Kids Who See Ghosts’
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Caron Goode, author of Kids Who See Ghosts
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that in addition to providing articles on writing and promoting your book, I also like to highlight mind-body-spirit authors of note who have new books I think would be inspirational and/or helpful to my readers. Today, I have to pleasure of sharing an interview I did with award-winning author (and member of the Virtual Faculty here on Spirit Authors) Dr Caron Goode about her new book ‘Kids Who See Ghosts’, which is coming to Amazon on Tuesday June 8, 2010. To find out how to buy the book ‘Kids Who See Ghosts’and receive free personal development gifts on June 8, 2010, go to: http://www.kidswhoseeghosts.com
This interview is Day 4 of a 2-week Virtual Blog Tour for this unique new title. Check out yesterday’s stop at the ‘Intuitive Parenting’ blog at http://intuitiveparenting.wordpress.com/
Lynn: Hi Caron. My audience are all ‘Spirit Authors’. What’s your personal definition (or definitions) of the word ’spirit’?
Caron: I feel spirit is the loving intelligent energy within and without. In the book Kids Who See Ghosts, we use the term ’spirit walker’ to refer to those ‘persons’ who walk in spirit, as physical walkers refer to those of us still in body.
In the field of spirituality, metaphysics, paranormal, and higher consciousness, people whom I interviewed for the book commented to me that that the term ‘ghosts’ was distasteful to them. Yet the public knows the term through the media that pumps the word into our psyches. So spirit, spirit walker, ghosts all refer to those souls or person in the spirit world.
Lynn: What are the reasons why you wrote Kids Who See Ghosts?
Caron: After I posted a blog article about the television debut of Psychic Kids on the A & E channel in the United States, the web site was flooded with tens of thousands of requests for help and information from parents whose kids were seeing ghosts. Some parents wanted to know how to protect their child, how to handle their kids’ fears, whether or not to seek medical assistance. Others felt their children demonstrated intuitive gifts.. Still others needed information as to appropriate age ranges for having imaginary friends or how to handle teens who still had some “ghostly” acquaintances.
Over time, the questions were the same, and each situation was unique, requiring time to respond and gather information. The next logical step was the book.
The timing was perfect to interview parents, psychologists, skeptics, shamans, and psychics and find out what the temperature was on the topic; and boy, it ranged from icy to sizzling hot.
The most important reason for writing the book was because I couldn’t fathom that a child would be unable to sleep in their bedroom because something so frightened the core of their being. And, if they were afraid of their world as a child, would they still be fearful as an adult.
Lynn: Is this book just about “ghosts”? What other answers will people find in your book?
Caron: Kids Who See Ghosts is a guide to help parents empower their children by moving them through theirs fears and to have success in befriending, helping, conquering, or loving their ghosts.
The true answers as to why children see ghosts, how they experience their world of spirit walkers, and how a shift in brain-wave frequency or perception can open or close that door. What would happen if kids learned to shift their moods and control those images?
Lynn: How does your book Kids Who See Ghosts speak to our innermost spiritual selves?
Caron: What is inside your deepest spiritual self? We know that the human eyes see light, and only a sliver of the entire light spectrum at best. Each human brain, as a transmitter and receiver of energy, determines the images. So why do some eyes see demons and scary figures of death while others’ eyes see angels or light?
Kids Who See Ghosts gives people pause to question the ghost phenomenon, and ask what it portends for our endless curiosity about the extraordinary. Is it a distraction from our spiritual essence, only the doorway for the curious, a trend destined to open the human mind to deeper intuition or involution?
Lynn: From an author’s perspective, what is unique about how you wrote the book?
Caron: Unique for me was not taking a cognitive approach, thinking about the content, the proposal, worrying about the topic being too far out for my field, expertise, and professional reputation. For the two books, Raising Intuitive Children and Kids Who See Ghosts, I felt a strong intuitive pull that the time was now. I sat down immediately to write the Kids Who See Ghosts book proposal, sent it to the agent, and the publisher loved the idea. I followed my intuition as a purposeful guide for how to write, manage and complete this book.
Lynn: What can aspiring authors learn about how you wrote it?
Caron: This was a new experience to interview twenty people, from professionals who work with kids, to parents, and skeptics and psychics, and weave a sellable story of such diverse themes. The themes that eventually emerged was listen to children, do not judge ghost experiences, do not the put down or judge the kids who have them. The caretaking of the children was a theme of all those interviewed, even the skeptic. My motto became, “You don’t have to believe in ghosts, just believe in and respect your children.
I hope you enjoyed this article with author Caron Goode. If you want to hop on the Virtual Blog Tour with us, follow Caron tomorrow on the Kids Who See Ghosts Virtual Blog Tour Day 5 at author Glenn M Smith’s ‘Sensitive Self Help’ blog at http://sensitivesselfhelp.com
AND… be sure to sign up for the book launch reminder so you can buy Kids Who See Ghosts and receive free personal development gifts on June 8, 2010. To register, go to: http://www.kidswhoseeghosts.com (if you are reading this article after that date, you may buy the book directly from that page).
About author Caron Goode
Caron Goode is an award-winning author, health psychologist and medical intuitive. She helps parents and families through her writing, coaching and teaching, and by training parent coaches. She is also the Founder of Academy for Coaching Parents International. Caron is also a member of the Spirit Authors Virtual Faculty and frequently attends our bi-monthly ‘members only’ calls and our member forum. Taking Spirit Authors for a test drive is a great way to get to know Caron and our other Virtual Faculty members.
About Lynn Serafinn, Creator of Spirit Authors
Lynn Serafinn is a transformation coach, book promotion coach, radio host and bestselling author of the book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self. She also works as a campaign manager for mind-body-spirit authors and has produced two #1-selling book campaigns, and another #2-selling campaign, in just the past 4 months. She created Spirit Authors to offer training, coaching, business-building and inspiration for mind-body-spirit authors, whether established or aspiring. She’s also in Round 2 of the Next Top Spiritual Author contest! To check out Lynn’s video entry, brand new book proposal and read 80 pages from her book The Garden of the Soul, go to http://www.NextTopAuthor.com/?aid=2016. A free gift awaits you when you cast your vote.
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Reflections on Next Top Spiritual Author Contest Round 1
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In a previous post, I told you about the Next Top Spirit Author Contest in which I am a contestant. The contest is open to unpublished or self-published authors. Authors did not need to have completed (or even started) their book to enter. I entered my book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self, which I self-published just a little over a year ago. My hope is to take it to a much wider audience, and also to get some backing for the follow-up I am currently writing, A Practical Guide to the Garden of the Soul, which contains 80 practical lessons for cultivating the four principles in The Garden of the Soul.
Today (Monday May 3rd) marks the final day of Round 1. Since the contest opened to the public vote on March 29th, tens of thousands of people have voted for their favourites amongst more than 3000 entries. Now the field is going to be narrowed down to 250 who will advance to Round 2, based primarily upon their public vote, as well as a small challenge the authors were given to do.
Round 2 will be a bit different because the 250 Round 2 authors will then construct a book proposal for their book, which will go under the scrutiny of Hampton Roads publishers, who are offering the Grand Prize in the contest– a pretty nifty publishing contract. A portion of the points in Round 2 will once again come from the public vote.
So by Tuesday, thousands of authors and authors-to-be, including myself, will find out whether or not we will advance to the next phase of this competition. I can feel the energy getting really “buzzy” amongst the authors these past few days.
Although this is only Round 1, the contest has already been quite a journey. For many, the very act of creating an audio or video “pitch” was a major achievement. For others, it was the challenge of stepping out of their comfort zone to ask people to vote for them. Speaking for myself, if nothing else happens as a result of having entered this competition, I am grateful for two things: 1) being put under a deadline to make a new book trailer (I am SO pleased with how it turned out and it is getting a lot of hits on YouTube) and 2) meeting dozens of great new authors who are now connected with me on Facebook and Twitter. Both of these are great gifts in their own right.
In some ways, Round 1 has been a bit like being in the auditions for the X-Factor (our UK equivalent of “American Idol”). Behind the scenes, we have a “share” page on the contest site that is sort of our equivalent of “The X-Factor House”, where everyone hangs out together and learns the idiosyncrasies of the others. It’s really interesting to watch and interact with all the fascinating personalities there. And just like The X-Factor, while there is a lot of love and connection amongst the contestants, there is also the underlying knowledge that this is, after all, a competition, and people will be voted off, bit by bit. It could happen to any one of us. That’s the nature of any competition, and it is vital for all of us to know how to “be with” the competitive process, without allowing it to affect our sense of Self and inner determination.
When I was a young musician, I took every defeat in competitive scenarios as a blow against my self-worth. Because I grew to fear judgment and rejection, I became afraid to take risks for many years, and thus I limited my creative growth and personal empowerment for a very long time.
But these days I approach such challenges quite differently. I apply my whole self to the task, and allow myself to take the risk of being “rejected”. These days, I feel the most important thing in life is to have the self-knowledge that I did not hold myself back from applying myself fully, and that I did the absolute best I could at that particular moment.
While taking this approach to a competition (and life in general) does not ensure we will “win” a specific reward, I do believe when we are fully ready to step into both the risks and responsibilities involved in the act of succeeding, we will win the award, the title, the prize, the praise, the gift– or the learning– we are meant to receive. If you do not hold yourself back from the Universe, it will hold nothing back from you.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that everyone in the contest has stepped up to the plate and “pitched” their vision to the world makes them all winners, already on the pathway to their own dreams.
I wish all the spiritual authors in the contest the very best of luck.
If you have voted for me already, I’d like to thank you warmly for your support. And if you haven’t had a chance to yet, it would be great if you took a few minutes to do this before the end of the day today (Monday). Here’s how:
- Go to http://www.nexttopauthor.com/profile.cfm?aid=2016 and watch my video entry.
- Register to vote; they will send you a confirmation email before you actually can vote.
- Check your email for the confirmation email, and click on the confirmation link
- Go back to http://www.nexttopauthor.com/profile.cfm?aid=2016 and vote for me (you can also vote for other authors by doing a search).
As my thank you gift to everyone who votes for me, you can pick up 4 audiobook excerpts from the book. That’s over 1 hour of fr*ee audio. You’ll see the link to the gift right after you have voted.
If you are on the social networks, it would be great if you clicked the big Twitter or Facebook buttons on my page and shared them with your friends.
Thanks everyone!
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Interview with Author, Publisher, Vrinda Pendred on New OCD book ‘Check Mates’
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Vrinda Pendred
If you follow my weekly radio show on Blog Talk Radio, you know I open every episode by saying it explores “personal empowerment, life purpose, balance of mind, body and spirit, and how to tap into the inner hero that lies within every human being.” While I believe all of my guests are “heroes” in their own right, never have I been more filled with emotion to introduce the hero of the show I hosted this past Wednesday, April 28.
Why? Because the guest was my own daughter, Vrinda Pendred, author and founding Director/Editor of Conditional Publications, a new independent publisher dedicated solely to publishing the works of authors with neurological conditions. Their first book ‘Check Mates’ comes out on May 11, 2010, and it is nothing short of groundbreaking. What makes Check Mates so special is that it is a collection of short fiction and poetry either about or inspired by the struggle with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, all written by people with OCD. Whether solidly real, allegorical, or completely fictionalised, all the compelling work contained in this collection portrays the true story of this greatly misunderstood condition.
It is also the first ever book of fiction written entirely by OCD authors—including Vrinda herself.
This interview is stop number 6 on Vrinda’s 14-day Virtual Blog Tour to promote the launch of Check Mates. Yesterday Vrinda stopped by the blog of Yvonne Perry from Writers in the Sky. If you happened to miss that stop, just click here.
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Listen to the interview:
OR if you cannot view the player, CLICK HERE to download the MP3:
In our interview together on April 28, Vrinda started out by describing the struggles she faced as a child growing up with neurological disorders.
She was first diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at age 7, but doctors did little to educate her, her parents or her teachers about the disorder. She describes the frustration of not being able to explain what compelled her to think and do the things she did, and how this impacted her childhood experiences and emotions. For years, she pretty much kept the reality of having Tourette’s hidden from her friends, but she finally had a breakthrough when the topic of Tourette’s came up in a discussion in a science class at school when she was 13 years old. She described how learning more about her condition was a “stunning” revelation, and how it released her from the feeling she needed to hide her condition from the world.
Wanting to understand her condition, Vrinda requested to go back to the doctor to find out more. It was then that a new neurologist finally diagnosed Vrinda with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Vrinda, now 27 years old and extremely knowledgeable about both Tourette’s and OCD, said she finds it “shocking” she was not diagnosed with OCD by the paediatric neurologist when she was 7 years old, as “half the stuff you brought me to the doctor for [at age 7] was actually OCD, and not Tourette’s at all.”
Vrinda explained that OCD, Tourette’s, autism, bipolar disorder and other neurological conditions are genetic in nature, but the way they manifest in a person are “completely founded in your own emotional experiences in life.” Vrinda and I discussed how her diagnosis opened up my own understanding about my own frustrations as a child because my father (Vrinda’s grandfather) had OCD, although it was never diagnosed when he was alive. Vrinda gave some pretty humorous examples of her grandfather’s OCD behaviour in a way that only a fellow OCD person could recognise.
I asked Vrinda about the freedom she has found from learning about her diagnosis. She described how most of her life she had suffered from the terrors of intrusive thoughts, and when she found a name for what she was experiencing, and realised that other people experienced the same thing, she stopped feeling “crazy” and alone. She said, “Once it had a name, it seemed so much smaller. As soon as I could box it and put a name on it I said, ‘Ok, this is the OCD—and I am more than it.”
Vrinda discussed how Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has successfully helped her with many of her obsessions, by enabled her to learn how to allow her anxieties to pass without acting upon them. She said, however, that “intrusive thoughts” were frequently much more difficult to overcome and she is still challenged by many of them.
Vrinda discussed how important it was for parents to “educate” teachers about how OCD impacts the child’s behaviour and performance at school. She gave an example of how helpful it was when one compassionate teacher allowed her to take an exam in his private office so she would not be challenged by her OCD by being in a distracting environment.
Vrinda went on to talk about her book Check Mates. She explained that the title “Check Mates” refers to the tendency for people with OCD to “check” things, and also because it is a collection of stories by people who have now become good friends (“mates”). The 20 authors of this book all met each other on a social network called “OCD Tribe” (http://ocdtribe.com). Vrinda said it was “indescribable” and “life-changing” to find a “tribe” of people who all shared the same condition.
She explained that what makes Check Mates unique amongst other books is that it is not a “self-help” book, but rather a book of fiction by OCD authors. She said she felt fiction was “more powerful” than an autobiography in this case, as readers who do not have OCD would be able to see something of themselves within the stories as well.
She explained how the stories in the book shed light on the wide range of the types of obsessions people with OCD have, such as fear of death, post-partum OCD, pre-occupation with religion, compulsive cleaning, self-harming, hoarding, counting rituals, checking, etc. “We wanted to show that OCD is a very complex thing. When you see it on television, they only ever focus on one or two problems that seem really extreme. They certainly don’t ever talk about the thoughts, or ‘pure obsessional OCD’ (obsessive ruminations), which in my view is the most debilitating problem.”
If you or a family member has OCD, or any neurological condition, you definitely will want to check out Check Mates when it comes out on Tuesday May 11.
You can do this by heading over to: http://conditionalpublications.com/pages/check-mates-launch.html
When you are there, be sure to sign up for a “launch reminder” so you can receive over 30 free personal development gifts when you buy the book on the day of its launch. Amongst the gifts are a free short story on Tourette Syndrome from Vrinda, and a free mini-course from me called “Making Friends with the Monsters Under Your Bed.” Just click HERE to read more about the book and the 30 free gifts (if you are reading this article after that date, you may buy the book directly from that page).
I should also mention that a portion of the proceeds from the sale of every single book goes to OCD charities, so when you buy it, YOU are also making a difference.
Being Vrinda’s mom makes me understand what they mean by the term “pride and joy.”
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Be sure to follow Vrinda to her next Virtual Blog Tour stop on Sunday May 2nd, hosted by Geoff Laughton at http://geofflaughton.com/gltc/blog/.
AND… don’t forget to sign up for the book launch reminder so you can buy ‘Check Mates’ and over 30 free personal development gifts on May 11, 2010. Just go to http://conditionalpublications.com/pages/check-mates-launch.html
Your Book Marketing Plan – Who Should You Be Promoting To?
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Great tips from guest blogger and Virtual Faculty member Dana Lynn Smith, “The Savvy Book Marketer”
As you write your book and develop your book marketing plan, one of the first priorities is to define your target audiences.
The primary target audience for your book is the “ideal reader” that the book was written specifically for. In your book marketing plan, define the characteristics of your ideal reader, asking questions such as these:
- What is their age range, gender, and education level?
- Where do they live?
- What is their family status – single, married with kids, retired couple?
- What is their income level and occupation?
- What are their interests and hobbies?
- What makes this person the ideal reader for your book?
- What are their book buying habits?
In addition to the ideal reader, most books have several secondary audiences. Your book marketing plan should include strategies for reaching audiences such as these:
Readers – people who buy the book to read. This is the most obvious category and it includes your primary audience as well as secondary audiences who have an interest in your topic or genre.
Purchasers – people who buy the book for someone else. For example, people buy books as gifts, parents and grandparents purchase books for children, women buy men’s health books, companies and organizations purchase books to give away as gifts and premiums. Who would be likely to purchase your book for someone else, and how can you reach those folks?
Retailers – companies who buy your book to sell it to others. If you’re selling through physical bookstores or other retailers, you have the task of convincing these resellers that your book will sell in their stores and demonstrating how you can help generate demand.
Influencers – people who communicate with your target customers and can let them know about your book. The influencers may be the most important category of all, especially in online marketing and social media. Think about how much you can multiply your marketing efforts when other people spread the word to their own readers, customers, and networks.
Your book marketing plan should outline specific tactics for reaching influencers, including print, broadcast and online media. You can reach the media through traditional publicity efforts as well as online press releases and article distribution.
Other important influencers include authors, consultants, and bloggers who cater to your target customers. These folks can mention you, your website, and/or your book in several ways, including blog posts, links, Twittering, ezine articles, and media sharing tools like Digg.
Here are some tips on working with influencers:
- Search the Internet to compile a list of the top websites, blogs, ezines, magazines, newsletters, online forums, books, ebooks, clubs, and association that cater to your target market or cover your topic.
- Study each site to get a good understanding of what they do and how it relates to your book, and look for possible promotional opportunities.
- Write a thoughtful, customized email or letter sincerely complimenting the prospect about their site, publication, or organization, and suggesting some specific ways that you might work together to your mutual benefit.
It’s also important to read the top blogs and online forums on your list and look for opportunities to make useful comments about posts. When commenting, include a short signature such as “John Smith, author of How to Grow Roses.” See this article for tips on how you can subtly promote your book by commenting on blogs.
How can you enhance your book marketing plan with strategies for promoting to all of your target audiences?
Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of the Savvy Book Marketer Guides. For more tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter, visit Dana’s book marketing blog and get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you sign up for her free book marketing newsletter. She in a member of the Virtual Faculty here at Spirit Authors. Click HERE to download 5 free podcasts from Spirit Authors, where you can hear Dana speaking on “Pre-Publication Marketing Musts.”
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A Rising New Star in the Spirit Author Universe
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Patrick Ryan’s New Book Number-1 in Spirituality
Recently I’ve been telling you about a new book called Awakened Wisdom: A Guide to Reclaiming Your Brilliance by my friend and colleague Patrick Ryan. Well the book had its official Amazon launch yesterday, and I simply had to write to you to tell you that within the first few hours, Awakened Wisdom became a bestseller in spirituality in both the US and Canada.
Most impressively, the book reached an amazing rank of 29th in overall books, out of many millions, and took the Number-1 slot in Canadian spirituality sales (click to see a screen shot), and the #3 slot in self-help, sharing the very same page on Amazon with top-selling spirituality titles such as Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love. At one point, Patrick and Eckhart were dancing back and forth in the top 5 spots on the Canadian list, which is interesting because so many people have compared these two writers even before the book was released.
In the US, where the competition is even steeper, the book reached the Number-2 rank in Kindle spiritual self-help titles, and the paperback was the 18th most popular spiritual title yesterday. I have high hopes that today, that figure will soar up later today, as news of the success of the book starts to spread.
Not too shabby for a first day, don’t you think?
Born in the Canadian prairies, and surviving a near-death experience in his youth, Patrick Ryan has been a life-long spiritual seeker. He spent some time as a Buddhist monk in Burma, and has studied the world over with healers, shamans and other indigenous wise people. The culmination of his multifaceted experiences, from the home-spun to the esoteric, is to be found within his unique, and inimitably down-to-earth, system of spiritual development he calls “Awakened Wisdom”, which he has taught in workshops throughout the world for several years. The essence of those teachings, along with practical exercises for cultivating them in your life, may now be found within the pages of his newly bestselling book.
I should also mention that I consider Patrick to be one of my personal mentors. I studied with him for nearly a year on the Co-Active Leadership programme, and I also took his internationally acclaimed Awakened Wisdom course. I can say without any reservation that my life would not be where it is today had our paths not crossed. I was my great delight and pleasure to be able to give something back to him by acting as his campaign manager for this thrilling Amazon book launch.
The Awakened Wisdom launch continues today and tomorrow, and in celebration of its official release, Patrick Ryan and a group of his colleauges, including authors, coaches, entrepreneurs and spiritual teachers are giving away over 40 exceptional personal development and spiritual growth gifts when you purchase a copy the book during the launch.
One of these gifts is an unprecedented 2-session “Awakened Wisdom Virtual Experience”, in which author Patrick Ryan will take participants on a journey through the “8 States of an Awakened Life” via webcast in May. This is a rare opportunity to learn directly from a world-renowned spiritual teacher—and now top-selling spirituality author.
I myself am offering four never-before-offered audio meditations from my Garden of the Soul Workshop, on the Four Principles of Give, Receive, Become and Be.
To pick up your copy of the Awakened Wisdom, get all those free gifts, and sign up for this very special event, which is open ONLY to those who purchase the book this week, go to:
http://www.awakenedwisdom.com/Public/Amazon/BookLaunch/index.cfm
Make sure you do this as soon as possible, as the launch ends this Friday, April 23 (extended from April 22). And if you are reading this AFTER that date, you can still find out how to buy the book by clicking the link above.
Thanks for your support in helping this rising new star in the spiritul author universe shine so brightly! I wish ALL of you Spirit Authors reading this a future where YOU are shining even more brightly.
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Meet Patrick Ryan – author, coach and Chief Waker Upper
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Patrick Ryan
Today is stop number 3 on the Virtual Blog Tour for Patrick Ryan’s book Awakened Wisdom – A Guide to Reclaiming Your Brilliance, which is coming to Amazon on Tuesday April 20. Yesterday, Patrick stopped at Schall Adam’s Girlfriend Mentors Site. For more awakened wisdom, be sure you check out Schall’s interview at http://www.mygirlfriendmentors.com/blog
“As students, we see our teachers come and go. After we leave, rarely do we get the chance to come back to tell them how they have impacted our lives. It is difficult to explain how the act of telling a teacher he changed your life can make you feel complete. What greater privilege can there be than to be able to tell someone, ‘You are the person who awakened my soul from its slumber; you were the vessel whence I found my voice.’”
This is a passage from my book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self wherein I describe the feeling I had when I was reunited with a particularly influential teacher from my past after 33 years. It is a wonderful thing to be able to glorify and give back something to our teachers and mentors, no matter how old we are. That is why, with great delight, I wish to share with you the highlights of a recent interview I conducted with one of my personal mentors, Patrick Ryan.
Patrick Ryan is an executive coach, leadership trainer, spiritual teacher and author. He was one of two leaders (the other is the wonderful Mary Butler) who trained, held and watched me evolve when I was on the 10-month Co-Active Leadership programme in 2007-2008 in Spain. Patrick and Mary’s expert training transformed my life in the most profound way and I can say without reservation that I seriously doubt I would be doing what I am doing today had I not crossed paths with them. After the course was over, I also had the great pleasure of talking Patrick’s workshop Awakened Wisdom when he delivered it in London (a rare treat). It was on that 3-day course that I stood up in front of a room of people and declared boldly that I was finally stepping into the (somewhat scary) call to become an internationally known author and spiritual teacher, no longer hiding from my own Essence. And the rest, as they say, is history… and the future is still unfolding, minute by minute.
So of course, when Patrick asked me to be the manager for the launch of his book Awakened Wisdom – A Guide to Reclaiming Your Brilliance, which was the long awaited book version of the teaching he had been transmitting through his workshop for many years, it was a no-brainer. What an opportunity to be able to give something back to one of the people who shaped my life so profoundly. In a nutshell, I simply want other people to enjoy and bask in the simple wisdom of his teachings. I also want Patrick to enjoy what he deserves by seeing his book reach thousands—perhaps millions—of people.
As part of the promotion for his book release, I had the great pleasure to interview Patrick on my radio show Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul on March 24th. It was a wonderful interview, and I thought as part of the Virtual Blog Tour, it would be perfect to share the highlights from that interview with you. You can hear or download the complete interview in the player below:
If the player does not appear correctly on your screen, you can grab it online at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lynn-serafinn/2010/03/24/ep-58-living-an-awakened-life
Here are some of the highlights of that interview:
Wisdom Gained From a Near-Death Experience
When Patrick was in his late teens, he “died”, his body being kept alive only from CPR. During that time, he “met the Divine,” which he describes as “that wisdom that is of this Universe and that this Universe is of”. He said this meeting, “Woke me up in a most profound way to the mystery and the ultimate nature of this world we are living in.”
He said, “That experience allowed me to see that there is a profound Wisdom holding this Universe. It enabled me to trust that that Wisdom ‘just is’, but at the same time it provided me no answers. So, I still had to go and figure it out. And that really is the journey all of us are on: ‘figuring it out’. And I think the thing we’re figuring out, at the core of it, is ‘who is the one that is walking the walk of this life?’ And, at the end of the path, when you keep dropping the veils, and move further and further into the Essence of that answer, you find there is no distinction between you and your neighbours, no distinction between you and the animals and the forest, or even the organisation you work for, and that we are just this one entity, this one Being that reflects back and forth who we are to each other.”
Reflections on Hearing and Answering Our “Call”
Patrick was leading a life on an entrepreneur, but was always interested in what makes people behave the way they do. He said he woke up one day curious about what else was “out there.” He felt “called”.
“But like with any call,” he says, “you usually cannot see the path ahead with much clarity. So it requires you to take a leap and just enter onto that path.”
I asked him, “What are some clues that people are hearing ‘a call’ in their life?”
He said, “For me, and also for a lot of people I was spoken with, some of the common factors include a ‘stirring within’, a sense of dissatisfaction with life as it is today, and a desire to touch into a deeper meaning or purpose. There’s a wanting to get more fulfilment or more congruency between our moving through every day and the higher levels of values we know exist, even if we don’t understand what they are.”
“I had always dreamed about going on a walkabout,” he continued. “That dream had never left me. And that’s something people should pay attention to. What’s the recurring, nagging, dream that won’t leave you alone? First it knocks gently, and then it shakes you harder, and at some point, if it’s important enough, it’s probably going to create something in your life much more dramatic until you ‘get it’.”
Experience as a Monk in Burma
Patrick told his story of how he became a monk in a monastery in Burma in the mid 90s, even though he had no such prior intention, nor did the monastery have a policy of taking on western disciples (he goes into this story in greater detail in his first book The Eagle’s Call).
He gave us a little taste about the essence of the teachings he received during his time as a monk, as well as a student of many shamans and other masters around the world. He said, “At the end of the day, I’m a very practical guy, and as much is it is easy to become seduced by the mysticism and big words around spirituality, it’s very important to me to be able to ground it to my daily life in such a way that makes sense. That’s why I created the ‘Eight States of an Awakened Life’ that my book Awakened Wisdom is based upon.”
Distorted Self, Divine Essence and the Observer
Patrick went on to explain the three-part aspects of our nature: the “Observer”, the “Distorted self” and our “Divine Essence”. He said it’s important to know “who’s in your shoes” at any particular moment in life.
He describes the “Distorted self” and the voice in us that “wants to take us out of the game” and “hold us in a zone of safety and comfort” and “whispers messages to us like ‘you’re not ready for that yet, if you do that people won’t like you, etc.” He said that it is interesting how the body will so often respond to this by getting ill on the very day you are meant to do something you fear, etc. He said, the more the “Distorted self” takes over the decision making in our lives, the more isolated we become and the more ‘self’ there is in us.
“On the other side, we have that part of us that is infinitely wise, that moves with the wisdom of what we acquired in this life, and also that goes beyond what can be explained by what we received in this life. This is the one in us that does not get caught in fear—the one that is about creating beauty in the world, about bringing life-giving energy into the world and transmitting it outward. It’s the one that can go into an organisation and sit in a meeting and speak the truth about what’s really going on, in a way that makes everyone go ‘Wow, you just nailed it. That’s exactly what we needed to hear.’ That aspect of us, I call the ‘Divine Essence’ because the more connect you get to this aspect, the less ‘self” there is in it.”
He said that our “Observer” is that other part of ourselves that is able to report the facts in life clearly and without judgment. Both Divine Essence and Distorted self are receiving the report from the Observer and “we get to choose who we’re going to put in charge.”
The Eight States of an Awakened Life
In the last part of our interview, Patrick named and described his “Eight States of an Awakened Life”.
1. A Good State of Intention
2. A Good State of Words
3. A Good State of Being
4. A Good State of Purpose
5. A Good State of Effort
6. A Good State of Practice
7. A Good State of Doing
8. A Good State of Understanding
He then offered a few REALLY simple and very profound practical example of how to apply the principles. If you wish to hear more, please listen to the audio.
Book coming to Amazon Tuesday April 20, 2010
I also strongly encourage you to buy Patrick’s book Awakened Wisdom – A Guide to Reclaiming Your Brilliance. Dozens of leaders in the mind-body-spirit field have joined together to support Patrick in celebration of the coming of this book, and are offering over 40 free gifts to everyone who purchases it on the day of its Amazon launch on Tuesday April 20th.
I myself am offering four audio meditations from my transformation workshop The Garden of the Soul, to cultivate the four spiritual principles of Giving, Receiving, Becoming and Being. To be sure you receive this gift, along with all the others, just go to http://www.awakenedwisdom.com/Public/Amazon/BookLaunch/index.cfm and sign up for launch reminder so you remember to buy the book on April 20th.
I hope you enjoyed this interview with Patrick Ryan, which was stop number 3 on the Virtual Blog Tour for Patrick Ryan’s book Awakened Wisdom – A Guide to Reclaiming Your Brilliance.
Tomorrow, Thursday April 8, Patrick stops at Caron Goode’s “Intuitive Parenting” site. It should be really interesting. Check it out at http://intuitiveparenting.wordpress.com
Vote for Lynn Serafinn Next TOP Spiritual Author
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Please check out the video I made as my “pitch” for the “Next Top Spiritual Author” contest. I have entered my book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self, which as many of you know, is currently self-published.
The grand prize is a book contract from Hampton Roads Publishing, one of the top Body-Mind-Spirit publishers in the world, along with a promotional package worth over $50,000.
There are 3 rounds of voting. The first round starts MONDAY March 29, 2010, and ends April 25, 2010. I could REALLY use your vote to help me advance to Round 2.
Here’s the video podcast I made for my contest entry. I poured my heart and soul into it!
And here’s the same video as it appears on YouTube. I’m putting both versions because sometimes people have trouble viewing certain video formats. If you cannot see EITHER of these videos on your screen (or you wish to see it in a LARGER window), view it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8P92UVYwCQ.
If you think The Garden of the Soul deserves to go to a wider audience, please help me by:
1) Watching this video to help you decide whether you think I deserve to win the title Next Top Spiritual Author AND THEN
2) Voting for me at http://tinyurl.com/TopAuthorLynn between March 29 – May 3 (the page will not be live before the 29th).
And there is NO pressure to choose only one author to win this contest! There are hundreds of great authors for you to consider, and you can vote for as many authors as you like (but you can only vote ONCE for each author per round).
I you can help me advance to Round 2 of this exciting competition, I will be EXTREMELY grateful!
My motivation is fuelled by your encouragement and comments. I’d love to hear what you have to say about the video, my book and whatever else, in the comments box below.
Thank you everyone!
Warm wishes,
Lynn Serafinn
P.S.: If YOU are a spiritual author, EVEN IF you are just in the very beginning of wanting to START your book project, YOU should enter this wonderful contest. Unpublished and self-published authors are invited AND they give you lots of help to develop your “pitch” if you don’t know how to do it yourself. Check out the Next Top Spiritual Contest and ENTER NOW at http://www.nexttopauthor.com/index.cfm. It’s going to be a fabulous journey, and I hope will take advantage of it.
[mlb /]
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I went to Lynn's workshop on Spiritual Marketing on the recommendation of a good friend, who told me that she is the Queen of Networking. She is! It was one of many talks I went to at a week long event. It was fantastic, the best workshop I went to all week! Lynn verbalised and clarified some of my concerns about marketing, having been exposed to various internet courses on building your business. She has opened my eyes to ways of building my business in ways that fit with my values. I will paying more attention to this wise woman.
Lynn has provided such insightful guidance on publishing and promoting my new book 
Lynn was hired for the Amazon book launch of my book 
