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Andy Interviews Seth Godin LIVE Thursday...And We're Invited!

Heads up y'all--I know we have some rabid Seth Godin fans in the house, so I wanted to let you know ASAP that Andy will be doing a LIVE interview with Seth on Thursday, June 21st at 2pm ET.

This is FREE by invitation only, and I'm inviting ya!

I think there is limited room on the call, so hop on over to the registration page to reserve a space pronto.

On the call, you will discover:       

• Why quitting may be the best thing you can do for your business (and your life)
• How to become the “best in the world” at what you do
• When to quit a project, relationship or idea and when to stick it out
• Why the best in the world quit all the time – and why you should too!

I'm excited--I just signed up and got the message "You're In!"  Hope to see you there!

Update: In case you missed the call, don't fret. They recorded it, so you can download it for free here and also get a special bonus offer. Hmmm, I wonder what it could be???

Carrie Bradshaw's Guide to Launching a Book with *Style*

Carrie got really lucky when she was doing her book launch.

For one thing, even though she was making the typical palty writer's wages (and what little money she had she was spending on designer clothes and a closet full of Manolo Blahniks) she was somehow able to have the book launch of every writer's dreams.

Her friend Samantha, a PR big wig, volunteered to organize everything for free. Samantha found a stylist to help Carrie convey the perfect image on her book cover (I guess the stylist worked for free too). Sam planned the huge, expensive book launch party (apparently the publisher paid for that) with everybody who's anybody on the guest list and photographers lined up waiting for Carrie's big arrival. A dream!

Unfortunately, not many of us have a best friend who's a publicist. And God knows that in reality, even major publishers don't help authors get the word out about their book. There's no launch party, no all expenses paid book tour. Nada.

It's like, slam bam thank ya ma'am with the publisher's of today! Hardly any follow up care at all after your baby hits the bookshelves.

But that's okay--even if Carrie hadn't had Samantha and the fairy tale publishers, she could have had a stylish book launch simply by implementing a few online marketing strategies.

Since Andy has already been through all this book launch stuff before, I asked him for some pointers. Here are the main things I learned from him, plus I threw in a few bonus tips of my own for good measure:

1) Get a big list--A list is a database of email addresses collected from people who give you permission to contact them. Everybody's inboxes are already overflowing, so you've got to give folks a really good reason to fork over the old email addy. Maybe you lure people to your list by offering to send them a weekly or monthly ezine filled with things they want to read (this is what Andy does). Perhaps you have a promo offer--"Give me your email address and you could win a free copy of my book."  You can get creative with it, but you'll want to have a website or blog where you have an in-your-face subscription box that allows folks to sign up for the super generous thing that you're offering them.

2) Start blogging. If I were in charge of your book launch, I would have you start your blog at least 8 months before your scheduled launch. I know, I know, that takes a heck of a lot of pre-planning, plus you've got to actually write quality stuff on the blog during that time to build up your readership.

Yes, it's a lot of work, but quit your complaining already. Writing is your thing, remember? A writer should have an unfair advantage over the mere mortals who do most blogs, so play that card. Use writing as part of your marketing strategy. I'd like you to write 5 days a week, one post a day. If you can't handle that, then post at least 3 times a week. If you aren't willing to do that, then honestly, a blog might not be the best idea for you. You've gotta post pretty frequently. Of course the topic of your blog will be the concepts surrounding your book.

3) Setup a "media room" on your blog or website, then get your blog mentioned in mainstream print media. Yeah, I know. The media room part is easy. The getting national mainstream media exposure, not so easy. For a step-by-step guide on how to do both of these things, see my article over at Coachamatic.com. 

4) Cultivate online relationships. Your goal is to make friends all over the blogosphere. These friends will help you spread the word about you and your book when the time comes. To do this you've gotta leave the little lily pad that your own blog sits on and hop, hop, hop on over to your neighbor's blog. You'll go around to various blogs and communities socializing, leaving relavent comments, getting to know people, encouraging other bloggers, and eventually you'll make your way into neighboring ponds where you'll meet even more friends.

Think of yourself as Julie McCoy, cruise director of The Love Boat. In addition to writing on your own blog, socializing is your daily job. Thank God it's fun, cuz you've gotta do it pretty much every day to cultivate those relationships.

4) Execute an online article publishing campaign. Ahh, one of my favorites. When you're using online article submissions to promote a book, the trick is that you can't directly write about your book. With online articles, publishers want quality educational content, and that means nothing promo-y is allowed.

So, if your book is about an American living in Marrakesh, Morocco, then you can write wonderful accounts of what it's like to live there, where to go, what to see, what the culture is like, what the architecture is like, but under no cirucumstances can you ever say, "In my new book, My Marrakesh, I talk about..." Subtlety is the key and you'll want to start submitting articles about 6 months or more before your launch. If you follow my tips, you can launch an absolutely kick-ass online article writing campaign for your book launch.

5) Buy ads on AdWords to send traffic to your site.

6) Go on a virtual book tour. Your publisher won't spring for the 4 star hotel and the first class plane ticket for your cross country book tour, and you're not independently wealthy, so you've gotta be forward thinking when it comes to book tours.

Going on a virtual book tour means that you make arrangements with the friends that you've been making across the blogosphere to make guest appearances on their blogs. One day you'll hang out at so-and-so's blog, doing interviews, sharing thoughts, and perhaps doing a guest blogging stint. The next day, you're on to another person's blog. This is where all the time and effort your invested into your Julie McCoy impersonation pays off in terms of your book launch.   

Whew! Those are the 6 steps that Carrie (or you) would follow to do a book launch if she (or you) didn't have the fairy tale publishers and the best friend who happens to be a publicist.

Admittedly, this does require a bunch of work, some advanced planning, and a good dose of patience. Maybe this wouldn't be the book launch of Carrie's wildest dreams, but it's one that would fit her (and your) itsy-bitsy writer's budget while still making a decent splash in the market.

Could your blog snag you a book deal?

Hemingway hated the name the Lost Generation.

He and his fellow ex-patriots were not lost at all, he said.

They had found what they were looking for--a place where they could be free to create, to be left in peace, to be amongst like-minded artists and to write what would become some of the greatest works in American literature.

I can just imagine them waking up each morning and going to the cafe to read and write all day long. What a romantic existence to be surrounded by and encouraged by their peers and to be able to focus solely on the craft of writing.

This ain't Paris (at least I'm not in Paris, but some of you lucky devils might be!), but we have a wee bit of that writing comraderie going on today in the blogosphere.

Sort of a 21st century virtual Lost Generation tribe (except we're not lost either, and we're all in our own countries and most of us have day jobs and can't devote all day to writing--well, you know what I mean!).

Some of us bloggers are snagging book deals, and it's becoming clear that it's not entirely out of the question that the blogs that we lovingly tend everyday may have the potential of going hard-cover and ending up in libraries and bookstores someday.

I guess it depends on what you've been writing and how often you've been posting, but truthfully I think that some of the blogs I visit regularly are book-worthy. I would buy 'em!

So, how can we hustle this process along and earn our spot in Barnes & Noble sooner rather than later?

Gina Trapani has a series of posts about how to turn your blog into a book (or how to start a blog with the intention of turning it into a book), and I've been enjoying reading her advice.

Her instructions are based on her own experience--she was offered a book deal for her blog Lifehacker and the book is now in stores. Here are Gina's tips in part 1 and part 2, with possibly more are on the way.

What's cool is that the agents are approaching the bloggers, not the other way around. Gina says,

More than ever before, literary agents are paying attention to quality weblogs, and publishers are looking for someone with writing chops and a fresh take on a topic.

Gina also advises:

Pick your topic, set up your blog, and post to it obsessively, every single day. Consider blogging every day practice and preparation for when you'll be writing your manuscript every day. While you're blogging, it may not seem like you're working towards a book deal, but you are: every post you do is a tiny bit of research you'll refer back to later during your manuscript production.

I think her tips are good advice for making a well-written blog even if you don't have any plans for turning it into a book.

So, I wonder if any of us will go down in literary history. It could happen--without a doubt, some of you are extremely gifted writers, and your blog may be the unlikely stepping stone that launches you into a literary career.

And when that happens, I'll be able to say I knew you when...:-)

(Thanks to Darren for hooking me up with the links!)

Would You Like A Free Copy Of Seth Godin's Book "Unleashing The Ideavirus"?

Yes, I thought so. So did I. You can download it here for free. Or, if you want it in "book form" you can buy it. Personally, I'm more excited about the free version :-).

Book Publicity Horror Stories...

First let me say that I don't have any book publicity horror stories of my own, but I can start us off with a happy book publicity tale which I'll try to spook-ify as best I can. ;-)

Once upon a time, I was supposed to be coordinating publicity for Andy's book Blogwild!.

I say "supposed to be" because I don't think he really needed anyone to try to get him publicity. It seemed like journalists and major newspapers and magazines just miraculously "found" him.

While I was researching and writing to hosts of obscure internet radio shows trying to get him some air time, he would IM me to say, "I'm on the phone with 60 Minutes!" or "USA Today called," or "The Wall Street Journal just put me on their 'must read' list".

Mind you, none of this publicity was solicited. They just "found" him via his blog or other interviews he'd done.

I think that he's been so successful with garnering major publicity because he laid the ground work for a marketing machine years and years ago (before his book was even published) when he started his blog and got his name all over the internet.

Andy Wibbels In The Wall Street Journal!

Andy Wibbels is a media magnet these days. Last week he was in USA Today, before that he was talking to 60 Minutes, and then today his book, Blogwild! A Guide For Small Business Blogging, is featured in The Wall Street Journal (print edition).

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Congratulations, Andy!

Slackers--Unite!Oct. 17: Shut Up and Write! (free)

For one day, all writers from around the globe are invited to join forces and participate in Andy Wibbels' legendary "Writing Integrity Day" (aka Shut Up and Write!).

"Writing Integrity Day" is part positive peer pressure, part writing game, and part tricking yourself into being productive. This is for authors, wanna-be authors or just anyone who has some writing that they need to do but have been putting off. So, basically it's for everyone under the sun, and it's completely free.

You can work on anything-- ariticles, blog posts, a novel, your newletter, journaling--whatever.

Check out the details and call-in info of Andy's "Writing Integrity Day".

658.872 WIBBELS--Blogwild hits libraries!

   

For those of you who are library addicts, you'll recognize that 658.872 WIBBELS is a call number.

Yep, that's right, Andy's book, Blogwild! A Guide For Small Business Blogging is at some public libraries! (I believe this is in Chicago.)

Having a globally published book must be so exciting. Last week Andy got a report that someone saw Blogwild! in a bookstore in Shanghai!

But I think it's the coolest thing that it's hangin' out in libraries now. You know that you've made it when you're honored with your own Dewey Decimal number!

Congratulations, Andy!  I would have this photo framed, if I was you!

A Week in the Life of a HOT Problogger

I gotta brag on Andy for a few minutes, cuz I'm just so excited about how popular he's been with the mainstream national jounalists this week.

I think it started off on Wednesday with a call from a producer at 60 Minutes. Yep, that's right. 60 Minutes. The TV show. They were doing a segment on online privacy, data mining, the AOL data leak and wireless wire tapping, and who do they turn to as a resource? Andy. Of course. They found him through his blog. (He had blogged on all that stuff.)

Great writer = Great blogger? Not exactly...

Blogging can be a great tool for authors who are marketing their books...sometimes. Author M.J. Rose points out the shortcomings of this assumption. This Just In: Flogging -vs- Blogging.

It's not for everyone, but it may work for you if...