Discussion Groups can be a gold mine for generating interest in your book. Search discussion group sites like Yahoo Groups and Google Groups for groups that are relevant to the topic of your book. You can also search for discussion groups by subject matter. Type in the search engines +discussion +groups +mothers +young +children, for example. Join the groups that have at least 500 members and are active. It’s better if the group is un-moderated. You’re not going to spam, absolutely not. But groups that are un-moderated usually have higher activity levels. The posts don’t have to go through the time lag that’s required for the moderator to approve it. If the group is moderated you can see if the activity level is high by looking at the number of posts in a month.

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When and why should you, the author, take care of your own book marketing and promotion?

Has your “child” been born? Is your book printed or your e-book created in PDF? It’s beautiful, of course, isn’t it? Now what do you do to bring it to people, to let them read and enjoy it? In other words, 5% of work - writing - is behind you, but 95% of work - book marketing - is still ahead.

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Once upon a time, people went to bookstores when they wanted to buy a book. Or at least, that was the theory. Actually, non-bookstore channels have been a big part of book sales for decades—at least since authors like Joe Karbo (”The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches”) back in the 1960s.

For my own books, whether they were self-published, done with a small commercial house, or by a New York conglomerate, I’ve found that selling direct is more secure, more financially rewarding, and far less hassle than sweating out the returns game with the bookstore channel.

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This is actually one of my favorite things about article marketing, because article marketing allows me to gain not only traffic and subscribers through the articles I write, but my own subscribers read my articles, which adds to my credibility and unique identity.

One of the things that is really important in any selling relationship (any relationship, for that matter) is trust.

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Part One: Desire and Fear

Creating convincing characters that are believable takes time and discipline. Creating dynamically real individuals without imposing your own thoughts and impressions upon them is not easy to do, but this step is often the difference between a novel or screenplay that sits in a closet and one that finds its way around town and into the hands of audiences. Spend time with character development — building your characters before they enter the world of your story — and you turn the process of writing your manuscript into an easier and more enjoyable ride. You also get the added reward of a finished product that agents, publishers, producers and readers can truly be excited by.

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Article marketing has emerged as one of the best ways to propagate your website online. This low cost and highly effective tool has made even Fortune 500 companies include it in their marketing campaigns. Today there are thousands of article directories which freely accept articles from users.

Why it works

There are many reasons why even the big companies have turned to this fairly simple marketing tool. Most article directories accept article submissions free of cost. All you need to do it register and then start posting articles. It is also a great way to boost back links to your site. Usually all such directories have a resource box in which you can advertise your site and include a link back to the site. In this way you can increase the number of hits to your site in a very short time.

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Without book promotion, no one will know that you’ve written a book that can change their lives. Without proper book promotion you won’t sell your book. However, sometimes proper book promotion can be well… dull. Here are 3 out of the box tools to promote your book.

# 1 Advanced Email Marketing

Email is by far the fastest way to get the message out that you have written and published a book. Try this email marketing promotion on for size. Send every single person that you know an email announcing your book. Offer them a free report, free book, or some other special bonus for everyone that signs up for your newsletter or purchases your book. Add an extra bonus for every person that is referred by another.

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For many online entrepreneurs and web merchants, article marketing is a tried and tested way of boosting your web traffic and creating more hits to one’s website. This is the reason why article marketing is so popular nowadays. It also does not involve shelling out lots of money – all you need is a lot of time and the determination to succeed! Here are four great methods that can really do wonders for your article marketing campaigns:

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There is is, the first ‘yes’ you have a book signing. In the eurphoria of the moment (next to the fabulous one when you actually received your copies in the mail), this sounds great. But then, thoughts run to thinking of all the negative things that could happen. And there are so many negatives with the biggest one along the lines of, will anybody show up at all? If they don’t, I’m just going to be sitting there.

Once you come to understand that you are central to the success of the book signing, you’ll be a lot happier.

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FORWARD

Kal Bishop’s 188 stage Hero’s Journey (Monomyth) is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the hundreds of Hollywood movies we have deconstructed (see URL below) are based on this 188+ stage template. Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.

[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].

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