This is a fairly new way to make your phone work for you…as a writer, you probably travel a lot, going from place to place promoting your book, doing book signings and more. And if you are keeping up with the latest trends in cell phones, you surely have a Blackberry, iPhone or one of the new Androids. Now, while your waiting for your next flight, or taking a break while driving, or in between events, you can spend some time making a little extra money doing what you would do anyway (OR you may want to use this service as a book publisher or author to promote your book(s)).
I think the following video is going to explain things a lot better than I will, but basically, you get points for doing simple tasks that are fun, or may be part of some research you are doing, and much more. The points add up, and when you reach a certain number of points (listen to the video below) you are rewarded with cash that you can transfer from your WeReward account to your PayPal account. It’s nice if you are a member of Facebook or Twitter because sharing this with your friends can help them, and you.
I love making a little extra income, or a lot, doing creative things like this, and as soon as I upgrade my phone in the Spring (yes, waiting for my full credit toward a new phone) I’ll definitely be adding this app.
Enjoy the video, it’s short, easy to understand, and to the point.
Post contains both personal and sponsored information.
The cost that goes into writing and publicizing a book varies depending upon many factors…such as whether you self-publish and self-publicize, or whether you use a publicist. Maybe you are a publicist, the voice and writer who puts your client out before the public eye through websites, press releases, emails, social media, and so much more. If you are a publicist, you obviously want to make sure that the difference between what you are paid, and what you pay to publicize is decent so that you make the income that you need and deserve.
With the internet being a powerful form of communication, you want the best pricing for the services you use. Yes, there are many things available that are free, like free press release sites, places where you can write articles for free to publicize your book, etc., But to have a nice, clean website for people to refer to, you, the author…or the publicist working for an author…want to have the best priced webhosting hub to turn to when building your own website, or a website for someone else.
Be sure to do your homework when viewing different services…and when deciding whether you want to promote your own book, or pay someone to do that work for you.
Marion Elizabeth Witte takes us on a very personal journey into her past as an abused child growing up in a farmhouse in the prairies of North Dakota. Her childhood was not only cold and harsh on a physical level because of the cold winters in a home that didn’t have adequate heat, plumbing and more, but cold and harsh because of the upbringing that she had to endure.
When you open the book, and see the picture of her as an innocent, beautiful, little child, and then read the story of hardship and abuse, you can’t help but want to protect the little child in the picture…and any little child…so tender, so innocent, who may be in the same situation…and this is Marion’s goal. Her story details her abuses, the history of abuse in the family in previous generations, and how she compensated for her needs in her adult life. But compensation is not healing. Marion shares the various places of healing that took place in her journey. It is a very detailed journey, and I imagine that writing the book must have played a role in the healing process itself.
The most wonderful thing that can come from our challenges is the opportunity to turn around and help someone else who may be facing the same thing…and this is what Marion does as an advocate for abused children.
Read this book, and may I suggest another that I found helpful when going through some healing of my own on a spiritual level…maybe Marion will see this and add it to her journey…maybe she already has…but a wonderful book and study by Beth Moore called “Breaking Free”.
You’ve been typing for hours…sometimes the words are just flowing from your mind to your hands to the keyboard, other times you struggle and can’t find the words, but finally they come and you type them. Perhaps you are typing an article, your first draft of a book that you have been wanting to write for years and years, and finally, it’s coming together, just the way you like it, and you feel a great deal of satisfaction. Then the unthinkable happens, your computer suddenly makes a few strange sounds, and “crashes”. Your heart sinks, palms begin to sweat, you wonder whether you will see the work you have been laboring over with such great care ever again.
It is times like this that I dread….I don’t backup my system as regularly as I should, and the problem is that I know better. I have been looking into the possibility of using an online backup service, I have heard about a few. I liked one because you could try it for a month and see if you like it, and another, idrive.com, because you could back up 2GB for free and get a good idea of how you like the system. I have more than that to store, so if I like it, the fee is appealing, and it works with a PC, MAC, even iPhones and Blackberries. SO, I am going to give a service like this a try, and if you aren’t backing up your work somewhere other than on your computer hard-drive, maybe you should too?
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Yesterday was “National Columnist Day”. You are a writer, so the idea of being your own columnist and writing your own press releases should come naturally, or does it? Who knows more about you than…you! But do you have what it takes to sell yourself?
Press releases are a wonderful way to let people know about anything you want to announce…including your book. You write it as if someone else were writing it for you.
Depending upon the personality, this may not be as easy as it sounds. If you are the type of person who finds it hard to speak positively about yourself, you may not find it easy to talk about your accomplishment in the enthusiastic and positive way that is needed to sell it. If you know this is your tendency, you can do your best to put that thinking aside for a while and write as if you were someone else writing about your great new book or publication.
Besides newspapers, there are sites on the web where you can publicize yourself with your press release…or with a little rewording, you can use the same write up on article marketing sites.
Rather than “re-invent the wheel” so to speak, I found a site that lists 50 free press release services, I don’t know what ones are better than another, but as you look through them, consider whether the site is one that you’d take a second look at…how appealing are they at first glance?
Yes, a day set aside, especially in Dublin, Ireland – but elsewhere as well – to celebrate an author, a writer, James Joyce!
How did the name for the day originate, and why honor James Joyce on the 16th of June? Some would just say “why not”, but let me explain a bit. Joyce wrote the novel “Ulysses” and one of the characters in the book went by the name Leopold Bloom. Mix that together somehow with the fact that Joyce’s first public appearance with his future wife, Nora Barnacle, was in Dublin on June 16th in the early 1900′s (1904), and you get Bloomsday, named after the character in Ulysses and celebrated on June 16th. An odd mix, but it seems to work in Ireland, where they celebrate the day with “Ulysses” readings, reenactments, and so much more to make for a wonderful and fun day.
Not to diminish the importance of such an author and book, they are both great, but it just goes to show you that it doesn’t take an awful lot to find a reason to celebrate…may we all be so inclined!
I enjoy “Book Marketing Expert” newsletter each month, and in the latest issue, the writer shares the following very helpful information…and at the end, follow the link and sign up for the newsletter if you aren’t already receiving it, it’s a must if you are an author, or wanna-be author or writer.
Getting a Head Start on Holiday Sales
‘You know, I used to laugh at the “Christmas in July” ads until I promoted my first Christmas-related book. We actually started the promotion in July and it was the perfect time. Why? Well, maybe no one is buying or thinking about December in July, but the holiday buying season is tough. In order to make any kind of headway you must start early, not just to capture the December sales but also to get in front of any early shoppers. Once those Christmas in July ads start to hit radio and TV, consumers (those who like to shop early) start to gather ideas for their own shopping lists. ‘When is it too late to start thinking about the holiday market? November is definitely much too late, October is iffy, but if you’re staring September in the face and haven’t done a lick of marketing towards holiday sales, that might be your last chance. Better to start early – mid to late summer is always great. Here are some tips to help you get a head start on the holiday buying season.
Events: start early. If you’d like to do events in December I suggest you start calling stores now. Many stores don’t do in-store events after Thanksgiving, but if you have local connections or some independent stores they might be open to this. Speaking at non-bookstore venues falls under the same category: start early.
Promos: start planning your promos in the fall. I recommend starting the promo rollout right after Thanksgiving and planning a succession of promotional announcements all the way through late December. If you need to get special pricing on books or if you’re going to bundle your book with some other items this will give you plenty of time to plan for that.
Website: now is the time to make sure your website is ready for your holiday marketing. As you begin planning your promos make sure your web designer is ready to go to make any changes your site might need.
Targets: definitely define your target markets as soon as you can, the earlier the better. If you don’t have a good, solid idea of who you’re marketing to yet don’t use your holiday campaign to test this. Test market early. You’ll be glad you did. Don’t waste a holiday promo if you don’t have to. Knowing who you are going after will save you in costly marketing mistakes (and this goes for any time you are marketing).
E-books: I suspect with all the e-readers that have hit the market in the last 12 months, and with both Target and Best Buy carrying e-book readers, you’re going to see a lot of promo for this over the holidays. Make sure your book is keyed into this market, what I mean is: if you had planned to get your book converted to an e-book, now is the time. Also, you might want to offer a special promo, if someone buys your e-book have them forward you the receipt for an additional special holiday bonus.
Social media: if you’re not on Facebook or Twitter now is the time, and even if you are, this is a great time to maximize your efforts and plan how you’ll use your social media to enhance your holiday promos. Will you offer specials to your social media “tribe” only? Will you have exclusives just for them? Consider early on what your social media strategy will be.
Exposure: if your exposure online is minimal, now is the time to ramp it up. Contacting blogs, websites, doing article syndication, participating in blogs, doing guest blogging – all of these are great ways to gain exposure online. Remember, it’s not just about the holiday promos, it’s about making sure you are searchable online. Meaning that if someone searches on what you’re offering you’ll come up in the results. This will help you capture holiday shoppers who haven’t been exposed to you or your message yet.
The key to a successful holiday promotion is planning, and enough advanced marketing that you’re not spinning your wheels in the Fall wondering why you’re not making any traction. If you’re ready to explode your holiday market, start early, it’s the best way to make sure you have a spot waiting for you when the busiest shopping season of the year comes around again”
Isn’t that a great article? It’s used with permission, and the source information is as follows:
Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com
When you are ready to move a large number of books, or anything for that matter, please take a moment to consider using a service where you have a service move your items for you…but you can do the packing so that you know that it’s done right, and not have to pay the price you would if someone else were to do it for you.
Please take a look at the “pods rates” link for more information in a blog post explaining the similarity between “Pods” and a different type of packing equipment. I know my husband and I have been talking about selling our home, and I love books, so have shelves and boxes full of them. If I were to move them, and of course the other things that are precious to me in my house like my dishes, and collectibles, I’d like to pack them myself so I know that they are being treated with tender loving care. It’s tempting to think that by having a moving company pack for you (at least tempting to me) they will be liable should anything happen to your precious items…I wouldn’t want to take that chance even if the mover promised that I would be compensated for damage because I love my collectibles and books too much. So doing our own packing is definitely the way that we would go. How about you?
What kind of music or phrases do you like hearing in the background when you’re reading a book? Peaceful? Adventurous? None at all? We live in a time when, amazingly, we can listen to words or music of our choice every time our cell phone rings. I have a different ringtone set for each member of my family so that I recognize who is calling me, something that suits their personality, but I’ve never downloaded ringtones so my selection is limited…and never knew that there are sites with huge selections of tones to choose and download from (I’m a little behind the times). Though I’m not likely to choose green day ring tones, as a lover of books, and the Bible, I was amazed to find, under the “religious” category, Bible verse ringtones.
So, I could pick a verse that would encourage me when I heard it, or remind me of the person who is calling. I need encouragement, and my husband calls once or twice a day, so for him, I think I’d pick either the “Beatitudes” or the “Armor of God” ring-tone, as it would put my mind and thoughts in a positive place every time he called, no matter what news the call may contain.
Looks like fun. Do you assign ringtones to the contacts on your cell phone list?
Which came first, the day set aside to dream, to think of a better America, and to consider what you can do to be part of making it happen, or the book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama. In this book, now President Obama, shared his vision for America, and the things shared in the book became a good part of his campaign platform.
And now June 4th is called by some “Audacity of Hope Day”. I’m not very certain that President Obama would want us to be reminded that the origin of the title for his book was a sermon delivered by his controversial and long-time Pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Though many of the sermons presented in the media were out of line with a hopeful America, this particular sermon was inspired by the painting of a girl who had little, dressed poorly, bruised, scarred and holding a harp with only one string which she had the “audacity” to play making music to God.
It is this sermon and the use of the word that inspired the title of Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. I sometimes wondered whether, after the criticisms and challenges that come with being a President, no matter who that President is, whether he will come out the other side with one string left to play, and will he play it to praise the Lord.
, Ireland – but elsewhere as well – to celebrate an author, a writer, 
!
” and one of the characters in the book went by the name Leopold Bloom. Mix that together somehow with the fact that Joyce’s first public appearance with his future wife, Nora Barnacle, was in Dublin on June 16th in the early 1900′s (1904), and you get Bloomsday, named after the character in Ulysses and celebrated on June 16th. An odd mix, but it seems to work in Ireland, where they celebrate the day with “Ulysses” readings, reenactments, and so much more to make for a wonderful and fun day.
. In this book, now President Obama, shared his vision for America, and the things shared in the book became a good part of his campaign platform.