• Importance of the storytelling in marketing
• What kind of stories could you tell
• The importance of transparency
• How to find your differentiator
• what is a fractional CMO
• The future of work

• Importance of the online communities
• How Appics managed to build such a loyal community
• Influencer marketing
• Authenticity online
• Importance of he cooperation with other partners
• Future trends of the social media platforms

• The importance of the marketing involvement from the start
• The need for the tech and marketing departments to work closely together
• The role of the ego of the tech founders
• How do reach out to potential early adopters in a right way
• Non linear career paths
• The value of (real) diversity and tech recruitment
• Tech startup branding and the importance of building founder personal brand

In this episode we discuss:

• how much has LinkedIn changed over the years
• "overnight" success
• what to do when you're invisible on LinkedIn
• LinkedIn engagement pods
• LinkedIn algorithm
• how to succeed on the LinkedIn platform

• The value of experience
• The experience economy
• Brand and commodities
• Becoming the story everyone is sharing
• Experience in marketing

- data driven marketing and human stories

- importance of personalising content

- how one chooses target audience

- advertising and promotion

- how to find unique angle

• Online content creation
• Personal branding and positioning
• The 7 Vs framework
• LinkedIn and its algorithms
• How to choose the right platform
• Monetizing your content

• How to build audiences of buyers from scratch 
• Virtual events 
• How to adjust your marketing during the COVID 19 
• How to create a content that builds an audience 
• Cold emails and their impact on your brand 
• How do you choose a the right business mentor? 
• Predictions for post coronavirus period 

• how Marc grew his audience and business
• how to pick a niche
• how much content you should give out for free
• how ti differentiate from others who offer similar services
• how to grow engaged Facebook group
• how did Marc create his brand
• podcasting and what it can bring to your business

If you enjoy the podcast, please help it grow by subscribing and leaving a review!

Many people prefer to pretend this is not the case. But I need to tell you this anyway. So you are able to look at things realistically. So you avoid being disappointed because you had unrealistic expectations.

Here is the truth  

Building an engaged and loyal audience takes time and loads of content creation.

Of course all those who advertise the attractive “have quick results” model pretend that it’s not the case. You get “write a book in a day”, create an online course in a week, grow your brand in a month type of messages all the time. And of course that’s much more exciting than what I said. It sounds so much better than my “it takes time and work and you have to be persistent and patient” story.

I get that. I totally understand. But nevertheless, I prefer to tell you the bitter truth than the sugar coated lie.

I was walking in the city the other day and went to Covent Garden. Usually there are many different street performances out there - from music to magic tricks and stuff. And since I love watching people I took some time and stuck around for a while. So I ended up seeing how one of the performers, who had the largest crowd gathered around him finished for the day. He said good bye, gathered his last portion of applauses, bowed, packed his stuff and left. Obviously the crowd too, melted out and after few minutes there was no one around.

Few minutes later, a slim guy with long hair came and started setting up his mic and took out his guitar. Now it was his turn to start performing.

So there was this guy all alone with his guitar and mic standing there. I realized that probably that’s exactly how we look when we are just starting. We have no audience, we have the tools, we have not created anything yet and we get those uncomfortable fear of failure, self doubt and vulnerability of being judged.

And the people - in our case the audience, pass by going to watch someone else performing because he already has a big crowd gathered around him therefore he must be good, right?

So what happens next. Yup… the guy starts playing his guitar and singing his song. Did everyone run and gathered around him immediately? Nope… It took quite a while. For at least 2 full songs the guy was standing there, singing to no one. All by himself, creating his magic. He was not noticed yet, he did not have anyone to perform for yet… but he kept playing.

That’s what happens to us too… we write blog posts, record podcast episodes, do videos, lifestream… and for weeks nothing happens. We feel like we are talking to ourselves. We feel invisible, unknown, unappreciated. At some point we are like “why the hell am I doing this, no one cares anyway”, right?

So what happened to the guy? Well after a while few people came and stood to listen, then some more… after the songs they started clapping, few others paid attention and joined. After a while he got traction and gathered a pretty decent audience.

Do you see the parallel?

The guy showed up, took the courage to put himself out there, created his music, persisted even though no one paid attention for a while, kept going on and only after all that things started moving. What would have happened if he gave up after song 1. Yup, nothing…

It’s the same with us. We have to realize that there are others who do similar things out there already, that no one is going to notice us from day 1, that we need to create awesome content consistently until people start gathering around us and that we need to stick around and do our best not to give up even when we think no one care…

Because honestly... [No one will care in the beginning. But that’s ok. That’s how things are. Even the person who eventually fell in love with you did not care about you at your first encounter.

Building...]]>Today I want to talk to you about something that you may not like to hear. Many people prefer not to tell you this.

Many people prefer to pretend this is not the case. But I need to tell you this anyway. So you are able to look at things realistically. So you avoid being disappointed because you had unrealistic expectations.

Here is the truth  

Building an engaged and loyal audience takes time and loads of content creation.

Of course all those who advertise the attractive “have quick results” model pretend that it’s not the case. You get “write a book in a day”, create an online course in a week, grow your brand in a month type of messages all the time. And of course that’s much more exciting than what I said. It sounds so much better than my “it takes time and work and you have to be persistent and patient” story.

I get that. I totally understand. But nevertheless, I prefer to tell you the bitter truth than the sugar coated lie.

I was walking in the city the other day and went to Covent Garden. Usually there are many different street performances out there - from music to magic tricks and stuff. And since I love watching people I took some time and stuck around for a while. So I ended up seeing how one of the performers, who had the largest crowd gathered around him finished for the day. He said good bye, gathered his last portion of applauses, bowed, packed his stuff and left. Obviously the crowd too, melted out and after few minutes there was no one around.

Few minutes later, a slim guy with long hair came and started setting up his mic and took out his guitar. Now it was his turn to start performing.

So there was this guy all alone with his guitar and mic standing there. I realized that probably that’s exactly how we look when we are just starting. We have no audience, we have the tools, we have not created anything yet and we get those uncomfortable fear of failure, self doubt and vulnerability of being judged.

And the people - in our case the audience, pass by going to watch someone else performing because he already has a big crowd gathered around him therefore he must be good, right?

So what happens next. Yup… the guy starts playing his guitar and singing his song. Did everyone run and gathered around him immediately? Nope… It took quite a while. For at least 2 full songs the guy was standing there, singing to no one. All by himself, creating his magic. He was not noticed yet, he did not have anyone to perform for yet… but he kept playing.

That’s what happens to us too… we write blog posts, record podcast episodes, do videos, lifestream… and for weeks nothing happens. We feel like we are talking to ourselves. We feel invisible, unknown, unappreciated. At some point we are like “why the hell am I doing this, no one cares anyway”, right?

So what happened to the guy? Well after a while few people came and stood to listen, then some more… after the songs they started clapping, few others paid attention and joined. After a while he got traction and gathered a pretty decent audience.

Do you see the parallel?

The guy showed up, took the courage to put himself out there, created his music, persisted even though no one paid attention for a while, kept going on and only after all that things started moving. What would have happened if he gave up after song 1. Yup, nothing…

It’s the same with us. We have to realize that there are others who do similar things out there already, that no one is going to notice us from day 1, that we need to create awesome content consistently until people start gathering around us and that we need to stick around and do our best not to give up even when we think no one care…

Because honestly... [No one will care in the beginning. But that’s ok. That’s how things are. Even the person who eventually fell in love with you did not care about you at your first encounter.

Building and maintaining good quality relationships take time and effort. And that’s what you ultimately need to have - a good quality relationship with your audience.

So don’t get distracted with all the shiny objects that promise you many subscribers, readers and listeners in a week.

Think long term and think quality instead.

As I said building an engaged and loyal audience takes time and loads of content production. So accept that fact and do your best. 

In this interview we talk about:

• how launching a podcast helped Jon establish his personal brand
• how switching the attention from himself to his audience became a turning point for the podcast success
• how Jon makes money with his podcast
• how to get amazing guests for your podcast (special tip explained in details from Jon)
• how to get funding for your business (special tip from Gary V)
• being everywhere vs being really good at 1 thing

Food for Thought

Podcasting is very intimate. No one's gonna pick you up and push you and get you started, but when you're already in motion everybody wants to grab your hand and pull you along. [spp-tweet tweet="Nobody is going to care about your product or podcast more than you do!"] [spp-tweet tweet="If you try and be all things to all people you're gonna be nothing to no one."]  

Useful Links

7 Day Podcast Challenge

Hack the Entrepreneur Show List

Rainmaker

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How successful people become even more successful (the book)

Today I’d like to talk to you about something that comes up quite often.

These days I am being approached by people who, just like me few years ago are starting from scratch. No one knows them yet, they have not produced anything yet and they want to start but don’t know from where and how.

And I can totally understand why they are confused. These days there is so much information on the internet. There are already many courses, podcasts, books, videos, tutorials and new ones are emerging with each day.

So many choices, so many “gurus”. Who is the best? Which information is really valuable?

Newbies get an overdose. Many end up consuming almost everything out there.

I am sure some of you have bought online courses you never actually used, bought books you never read and downloaded a podcast episode, which you did not listen to. And with the ones you did… did you take action and apply the knowledge?

Probably not…

What confuses people even more is that there are many opinions and advice that contradict each other. One expert tells you the best proven method to do something and the other expert tells you the exact opposite.

So what should you do?

Well, maybe it would be best to start with the idea that there is no one magic button, no one solution fits all, no copy and paste template to follow.

Many tend to market their courses by saying “I have made xxxx dollars in a month, let me show how exactly did I do that”. That might be true… or not, but that’s not the point. What is more important is that one has to realize that even if you copy the same strategy you may not get the same results.

There are so many additional and not so obvious variables that play a role in the success… and some are impossible to duplicate… for example the personality factor, the fact that the guy might have already had strong network and connections in his niche and many others.

Ok Ani, now you confused me even more you may think. Now where do I start anyway?

The funny thing is that here too we have 2 completely contradicting options. And both sides claim that those worked perfectly well for them.

Many say that when you are starting from scratch, before doing anything else you should choose your niche and come up with your ideal audience avatar. By knowing what your audience needs you end up providing content, service, product for them which resonates with you and your stuff, which leads to engagement, loyalty and success…

On the other hand many others claim that you should decide what your passion is, what’s your main message and what you want to do and just do it. Be yourself and those who resonate with you will come and gather around you. So basically the short version of it is the expression - your vibe attracts your tribe.

I have seen both methods to work. And in that respect you have a choice. It’s up to you which route you wanna take.

But there is one thing in common: no matter which option you choose you will need to create content.

Creating content is something I truly believe in and I think that most of the different successful strategies do have digital content creation as their core part.

And what usually...]]>

Today I’d like to talk to you about something that comes up quite often.

These days I am being approached by people who, just like me few years ago are starting from scratch. No one knows them yet, they have not produced anything yet and they want to start but don’t know from where and how.

And I can totally understand why they are confused. These days there is so much information on the internet. There are already many courses, podcasts, books, videos, tutorials and new ones are emerging with each day.

So many choices, so many “gurus”. Who is the best? Which information is really valuable?

Newbies get an overdose. Many end up consuming almost everything out there.

I am sure some of you have bought online courses you never actually used, bought books you never read and downloaded a podcast episode, which you did not listen to. And with the ones you did… did you take action and apply the knowledge?

Probably not…

What confuses people even more is that there are many opinions and advice that contradict each other. One expert tells you the best proven method to do something and the other expert tells you the exact opposite.

So what should you do?

Well, maybe it would be best to start with the idea that there is no one magic button, no one solution fits all, no copy and paste template to follow.

Many tend to market their courses by saying “I have made xxxx dollars in a month, let me show how exactly did I do that”. That might be true… or not, but that’s not the point. What is more important is that one has to realize that even if you copy the same strategy you may not get the same results.

There are so many additional and not so obvious variables that play a role in the success… and some are impossible to duplicate… for example the personality factor, the fact that the guy might have already had strong network and connections in his niche and many others.

Ok Ani, now you confused me even more you may think. Now where do I start anyway?

The funny thing is that here too we have 2 completely contradicting options. And both sides claim that those worked perfectly well for them.

Many say that when you are starting from scratch, before doing anything else you should choose your niche and come up with your ideal audience avatar. By knowing what your audience needs you end up providing content, service, product for them which resonates with you and your stuff, which leads to engagement, loyalty and success…

On the other hand many others claim that you should decide what your passion is, what’s your main message and what you want to do and just do it. Be yourself and those who resonate with you will come and gather around you. So basically the short version of it is the expression - your vibe attracts your tribe.

I have seen both methods to work. And in that respect you have a choice. It’s up to you which route you wanna take.

But there is one thing in common: no matter which option you choose you will need to create content.

Creating content is something I truly believe in and I think that most of the different successful strategies do have digital content creation as their core part.

And what usually happens?

As I said in the beginning, many end up being trapped in consuming content. They consume everything, accumulate knowledge, get contradicting advice and end up in a never ending circle of content consumption. And that itself results into never starting producing content.

Many people only think about writing a book, starting a blog, recording a podcast. They wait till the ideal moment comes. They wait till they are ready. Until they learn everything they need to know about the subject.

But guess what?

There is no ideal moment!

 You will never be ready and there will always be things which you won’t be able to learn until you actually start doing things.

Also…

You will keep staying an invisible consumer, because until you actually produce your own stuff and put it out there. People won’t know that you even exist.

So I guess my short answer to all those who ask me where to start is…

Start by producing your very first original piece of content online. Simple as that.

A small blog post, a short recorded episode, just few paragraphs of a story, a short video… anything you prefer. Simply do it.

Don’t consume media - become one yourself!

Hope this will make you look at things from another perspective and will encourage you to finally start acting.

If you have not done anything yet then this is the perfect time. Go and produce something today! - but before that if you have a minute, please subscribe to the Brand Architect podcast on iTunes and leave me a review.

Have a productive day and I’ll come to you with more in the next episode!

In this interview we cover:

• how to make sure that your website differentiates from other websites
• elements that demonstrate your brand
• what makes a good website
• website design elements that help with conversion
• how to use your website to connect to your audience
• how to make a good web developer brief
• what is an ideal website

As you have probably noticed I have missed my schedule. That has happened only few times over the last 2 years… and in fact that’s exactly what I want to talk to you about in today’s solo episode.

So why did I drift away from my schedule and skipped last week? Probably you expect a serious excuse but I am not sure there is any.

The thing is… I have been going through lots of internal debate and spend a lot of time thinking about things and as a result I have partly lost my motivation, inspiration and drive.

Did anything special happen to trigger this? Well, not really. I simply went through yet another paradigm shift.

I came across the term paradigm shift ages ago back at the university. We had amazing communications professor, with who we went through Stephen Covey’s bestselling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The paradigm shift was described there by a powerful example. I will read it for you and those who don’t know what it is will immediate understand what I mean.

So here we go…

I remember a mini-paradigm shift I experienced one morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly - some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene.

Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway.  The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.

The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.

It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?"

 The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, "Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either."

Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn't have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man's pain. Feelings sympathy and compassion flowed freely. "Your wife just died? Oh, I'm so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?" Everything changed in an instant.

Powerful example, isn’t it?

I guess the short version of explaining paradigm shift is the quote from Dr Wayne Dyer:

“When we change the way we look at things…..the things we look at change.”

Join the Brand Architect Club here!

In this interview we talk about

• how to choose the topics that your podcast audience will be interested in
• creating your ideal podcast listener avatar
• the 4 pillars of content (passion, money, health and transformation)
• the importance of audience engagement
• the importance of being yourself
• using the language of the audience you broadcast to

Food for thought

The same but different every episode! You have  to close the circle with the listener - you + (your guest) + your listener

Want to Launch a podcast?

My Guest

Today I am interviewing Katya Varbanova (Livestream Katya). Katya is livestream strategist and the founder of the Peri 10k. Peri 10k is an exclusive mastermind of livestreamers.

In this interview we talk about

• how did Katya start her community
• how to start livestreaming if you don't feel comfortable about it
• the difference between video and livestreaming
• which livestreaming platform is the best if you want to build your audience from scratch
• personality type vs livestreaming success
• how to use livestreaming as part of the holistic content strategy
• how often do you have to livestream in order to get traction

Want to Launch a podcast?

I will have a half-day live workshop in London on July 30.  I will share everything that worked for me to launch a top New & Noteworthy podcast, grow the audience from scratch to 15k listeners and interview my favorite international influencers.

The one quote that stood out for me and that I truly loved was:

Different is superpower!

In this interview we talk about

I hope that you and your audience are doing well and the week has been productive and positive so far.

Mine is not as productive as I wanted it to be, but on other hand we all deserve a break once in a while, right?

In the previous episode I promised to share with you my thoughts and experiences provoked by the New Media Europe.

For those who don’t know - and probably many of you don’t since it is not in the US - New Media Europe is a conference for people focused on growth.

This is the conference for entrepreneurs, freelancers, business owners, content creators (including podcasters, bloggers, vloggers) and startups in all stages of growth.

And I had the privilege of being one of the speakers at that event. I was a speaker for the first time but hope not the last because I sort of enjoyed being on stage. As one of my speaker friends puts it “it’s like being a rockstar”. And I have been a rock soul since my teenage years… Hoops it seems I drifted away… that is not what I wanted to talk to you about.

During the intense week end I had several thoughts that I wanted to share with you, because they are related to what we do. So let’s start…

1. It is very important to be among like-minded people

We usually spend most of our days working online and that can make us feel a bit lonely. Most probably there are not many people among our relatives and friends who are from the same field. That means that they do not understand what does it feel to be in our shoes - they don’t imagine our struggles, challenges and success stories… When I land a guest post on a big website, when I am invited to speak, when I get a good review for my book or a podcast many don’t really realize that it is a big deal. And self-motivating ourselves non stop is not an easy thing to do.

That is why events where like minded people gather are very important. That is where we realize that we are not the crazy weirdos who have chosen to go against the traditionally accepted career path. So events like this are great place to finally feel like a fish in a water. And you end up meeting new awesome people, which is always an amazing bonus!

2. Be yourself

We talk a lot about personal branding and branding your business. There are various elements and tactics and strategies, which we definitely will be covering in the Brand Architect podcast. We also hear a lot about being authentic and genuine and how important that is. Being authentic has become one of those fancy new expression everyone is using these days.

Well at New Media Europe I vividly saw why being true to yourself in your online branding is very important. The conference lasted two days + we had a gala dinner and award ceremony. This is a pretty long time. This means that if in your online branding you had positioned yourself anything else but who you really are - pretending for 2 whole days + the evening would be very hard. You’d rather spend time having fun and not stressing out about how you are perceived. And that can happen only if that’s how you and your brand is online. This personal meeting should only reinforce the image you had created and not confuse people. You don’t want people realize that you are not at all who they thought you were.

3. Online vs offline

These days we have so many different means to connect with...]]>

I hope that you and your audience are doing well and the week has been productive and positive so far.

Mine is not as productive as I wanted it to be, but on other hand we all deserve a break once in a while, right?

In the previous episode I promised to share with you my thoughts and experiences provoked by the New Media Europe.

For those who don’t know - and probably many of you don’t since it is not in the US - New Media Europe is a conference for people focused on growth.

This is the conference for entrepreneurs, freelancers, business owners, content creators (including podcasters, bloggers, vloggers) and startups in all stages of growth.

And I had the privilege of being one of the speakers at that event. I was a speaker for the first time but hope not the last because I sort of enjoyed being on stage. As one of my speaker friends puts it “it’s like being a rockstar”. And I have been a rock soul since my teenage years… Hoops it seems I drifted away… that is not what I wanted to talk to you about.

During the intense week end I had several thoughts that I wanted to share with you, because they are related to what we do. So let’s start…

1. It is very important to be among like-minded people

We usually spend most of our days working online and that can make us feel a bit lonely. Most probably there are not many people among our relatives and friends who are from the same field. That means that they do not understand what does it feel to be in our shoes - they don’t imagine our struggles, challenges and success stories… When I land a guest post on a big website, when I am invited to speak, when I get a good review for my book or a podcast many don’t really realize that it is a big deal. And self-motivating ourselves non stop is not an easy thing to do.

That is why events where like minded people gather are very important. That is where we realize that we are not the crazy weirdos who have chosen to go against the traditionally accepted career path. So events like this are great place to finally feel like a fish in a water. And you end up meeting new awesome people, which is always an amazing bonus!

2. Be yourself

We talk a lot about personal branding and branding your business. There are various elements and tactics and strategies, which we definitely will be covering in the Brand Architect podcast. We also hear a lot about being authentic and genuine and how important that is. Being authentic has become one of those fancy new expression everyone is using these days.

Well at New Media Europe I vividly saw why being true to yourself in your online branding is very important. The conference lasted two days + we had a gala dinner and award ceremony. This is a pretty long time. This means that if in your online branding you had positioned yourself anything else but who you really are - pretending for 2 whole days + the evening would be very hard. You’d rather spend time having fun and not stressing out about how you are perceived. And that can happen only if that’s how you and your brand is online. This personal meeting should only reinforce the image you had created and not confuse people. You don’t want people realize that you are not at all who they thought you were.

3. Online vs offline

These days we have so many different means to connect with people from all over the world. Few months ago, when I was still living in Armenia I was relying on purely online communication. And I had never met anyone from my network. We have video calls, live streaming platforms and the communication online is as close to the real thing as it could possibly be. It could probably replace the real thing altogether, right? - wrong!

I can’t really explain and put into words what it is exactly, but there is a certain something that you feel and experience only when you meet the person in real life. It is a completely different quality of communication and I don’t believe it can be replaced with anything that online options have to offer at this point.

4. What do you do?

On events like that when many people meet each other for the first time there is one popular question that everyone asks the other. “So what do you do?” is something we hear over and over again. And that’s during a coffee or lunch break, which means you can’t go ahead and tell the long version of your life story.

That is why putting your brand and what you do in one short and crystal clear sentence is very important. You have to be very precise about who you are what you do.

Since the question will be inevitable and you will be getting it all the time, make sure you have the best answer to give.

5. Stay in touch

I truly believe that the biggest value you can get from conferences and events are the people you meet and the connections you create and the relationships that you build. That is why the worst thing you can do is go away from the event and never be in touch with the people you met there. Follow up, stay in touch and continue networking online. Yes it can’t replace a personal meeting, but in case that can’t be done online is still much better than nothing.

Ok, since I am finishing this episode with stay in touch. Hey feel free to connect with me. You can email me by clicking the link here.

And don'r forget to join the Brand Architect Club here.

If you are introvert and don’t feel like connecting then you can still help me grow the podcast by subscribing to it and leaving a review on iTunes.

Laura Roeder is the founder of Edgar, a new social media automation tool designed to prevent updates from going to waste. Since 2009, she's been teaching entrepreneurs how to harness the power of social media marketing and create their own fame at LKR Social Media.

Laura was named one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under 35 in 2011, 2013 and 2014 and spoke at the White Houseabout the value of entrepreneurship.

Laura has spoken at numerous influential industry conferences including, BlogWorld, The South by Southwest Interactive Conference, Real Estate Connect, The Social Communications Summit and Blogher, discussing online marketing, social media, and personal branding. Laura has been seen on Fox News, Forbes.com, CNET, The Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, Mashable, Yahoo Finance and many more influential publications and media channels

In this interview we talk about

Hey everyone! How do you like the new podcast name? 

As you see the changes I am making are becoming real now. But there are things that do not change and it’s still me - Ani Alexander :)

Those of you who have missed the news can check out episode 156 where I spoke to you about the evolution of the Write to be Read podcast and why it will be turning into something else - hopefully something as exciting as what we had or even better. If you need more details, please check out episode 156. 

ok so - welcome to the Brand Architect - the podcast that will show you how to stand out, get noticed and be heard. And it will also help you establish your brand and grow your online audience.

What I also realized was that we do need a community where  you will get all the emotional and practical support, knowledge, accountability and relationships that you need … all in one place. The Write to be Read was an amazing experience, but I’d love to engage better with my audience and dedicate more time and attention to our relationship. That is why I am building the Brand Architect Club - the exclusive community for my podcast listeners. Since it is just born I have a limited time offer for lifetime membership for you, so make sure you check it out. We already have more than 30 members there and I’d love to see you there too!

Now that I covered all the updated for you let’s finally get to our today’s interview.

Today I talk to Janet Murray. Janet helps people get press coverage in newspapers, magazines and on radio and TV. She has 15 years’ experience writing and editing for national newspapers and magazines.  You can find her PR blog here. You will find out how to pitch media and get media coverage that will help you grow your audience and business.

Today my guest is Kim Somers Egelsee. She helps men and women find their passion and purpose, develop and design it, forget the fear and move forward with positive communication, action, confidence and success. She does this through coaching, speaking, mentoring and consulting. Kim is the #1 best selling author of “Getting Your Life to a Ten +”

This episode is gonna be very different from what you’re used to. In fact I have to be honest and say that this particular episode was the hardest to record… well maybe apart from the very first episode of course…

I aired the very first episode of the write to be read podcast on July 1 2014 - almost two years ago. And it has been very exciting, bumpy and rewarding journey since then.

For me launching a podcast was an experiment. Apart from the fact that I really wanted to help writers, I was also driven by the curiosity of whether I could actually do it or not. I had no big plans connected with the podcast and I had not even decided for myself for how long I will be doing it.

If back then one would say that I would end up sticking to it for almost 2 years and that I would have tens of thousands regular listeners I would probably not believe it. But things turned out the way they did and I am extremely happy with where I am now.

I also appreciate every single one of you who’s listening … because you are the ones who made it happen. If you were not listening, if you were not providing feedback, writing podcast reviews and connecting with me I would most probably not have enough motivation and determination to carry on. So thank you!

Since I got into the exciting world of podcasting and my podcast grew apart from the listeners, writers - people from the self-publishing industry started to know me… Then other podcasters got connected too… then I networked with coaches and speakers, other creatives, online entrepreneurs… obviously with over the 120 guests who were interviewed up to now and after our move to the UK I met many new people here too… Some of you also know that I have been  one of the early adopters of the live streaming platform Blab and have recorded some of my podcasts there… so the Blab community became the one I interact often with too…

So it has been a long journey from people thinking “who the hell is this?” to “oh, I think I’ve heard about her somewhere”.

Now, why did I say that recording this podcast episode was the hardest you may think… Well because this one is a bit personal and I am still not very comfortably getting up close and personal publicly and also because it includes a news which I can’t predict your reaction to. So all this is kind of scary… but I’m gonna do it anyway.

As you might have already noticed I love changes and not only embrace them when they come, but also initiate them very often. I have never been from those who resist the change and love things stay the way they are. I am not from those people - I don’t think there has been a hairstyle out there that I have not tried… and those were the smallest scale changes I’ve made.

Since the launch of this podcast things evolved. My audience did not only grew in numbers but it just grew… and that is amazing. What I mean is, the podcast was initially created for newbie writers who were trying to write a book, who were trying to figure out how self-publishing works and who wanted to become authors.

I am super proud that many of the listeners actually did write their first books, some even published them already and few have several books out there already. That means that Write to be Read has accomplished its main mission.

Few weeks ago I sent an e mail to my list and offered an hour Skype call to the first 6 people who replied. From the feedback I’ve got from...]]>

This episode is gonna be very different from what you’re used to. In fact I have to be honest and say that this particular episode was the hardest to record… well maybe apart from the very first episode of course…

I aired the very first episode of the write to be read podcast on July 1 2014 - almost two years ago. And it has been very exciting, bumpy and rewarding journey since then.

For me launching a podcast was an experiment. Apart from the fact that I really wanted to help writers, I was also driven by the curiosity of whether I could actually do it or not. I had no big plans connected with the podcast and I had not even decided for myself for how long I will be doing it.

If back then one would say that I would end up sticking to it for almost 2 years and that I would have tens of thousands regular listeners I would probably not believe it. But things turned out the way they did and I am extremely happy with where I am now.

I also appreciate every single one of you who’s listening … because you are the ones who made it happen. If you were not listening, if you were not providing feedback, writing podcast reviews and connecting with me I would most probably not have enough motivation and determination to carry on. So thank you!

Since I got into the exciting world of podcasting and my podcast grew apart from the listeners, writers - people from the self-publishing industry started to know me… Then other podcasters got connected too… then I networked with coaches and speakers, other creatives, online entrepreneurs… obviously with over the 120 guests who were interviewed up to now and after our move to the UK I met many new people here too… Some of you also know that I have been  one of the early adopters of the live streaming platform Blab and have recorded some of my podcasts there… so the Blab community became the one I interact often with too…

So it has been a long journey from people thinking “who the hell is this?” to “oh, I think I’ve heard about her somewhere”.

Now, why did I say that recording this podcast episode was the hardest you may think… Well because this one is a bit personal and I am still not very comfortably getting up close and personal publicly and also because it includes a news which I can’t predict your reaction to. So all this is kind of scary… but I’m gonna do it anyway.

As you might have already noticed I love changes and not only embrace them when they come, but also initiate them very often. I have never been from those who resist the change and love things stay the way they are. I am not from those people - I don’t think there has been a hairstyle out there that I have not tried… and those were the smallest scale changes I’ve made.

Since the launch of this podcast things evolved. My audience did not only grew in numbers but it just grew… and that is amazing. What I mean is, the podcast was initially created for newbie writers who were trying to write a book, who were trying to figure out how self-publishing works and who wanted to become authors.

I am super proud that many of the listeners actually did write their first books, some even published them already and few have several books out there already. That means that Write to be Read has accomplished its main mission.

Few weeks ago I sent an e mail to my list and offered an hour Skype call to the first 6 people who replied. From the feedback I’ve got from them I realized that the podcast has already covered most of things newbie writers need to know when they start and much more…

Parallel to that I had been thinking a lot about how things were evolving and noticed a trend. The first thing was - people who approach me are not only writers anymore. They are creative individuals, who do something online - authors, speakers, coaches, online entrepreneurs, podcasters…

Some need emotional support, some come for advise about podcasting and most of them are trying to figure out how to establish their personal brands and grow their audiences online. So although “officially” I’ve been working with writers and all my content was tailored to self-published authors I’ve spent some time behind the scenes working with people who have nothing to do with writing and publishing. I’ve even been actually doing some coaching for them I never spoke about before…

So the change seeking bug started visiting me since months… I periodically had this desire to go ahead and change everything… and if I was my eccentric 20 year old self, that’s exactly what I would have done, with no plan, no fear and no expectations…

But I was 20 ages ago… and I want to do it the right way. So this time I put a lot of thought into this.

So I thought - hey if things are evolving who said the podcast should stay the same? If you are a change addict like me probably you’d welcome some change too, right? We have all the archives of the podcast and there are more than 150 episodes dedicated to becoming authors that can always be gone back and listen to. Why don’t we move forward and get to the next level?

I want this podcast to become a place not only for writers but also for all content creators, personal brands and online entrepreneurs. You may be surprised, but you and them have very similar challenges. So just like Write to be Read was encouraging and inspiring writers become successful authors - this new version of the podcast will help you and all those people establishing their brands and growing their audiences online. Because let’s face it - without an audience you can’t do anything.

So eventually it will be a newer, upgraded version of the podcast we have but with slightly different angle and broader audience. I say broader and not different, because I truly believe that authors too need to grow their audiences and writers and authors too are personal brands. And I am counting on you to join and support me in this new journey. In fact this time, I don’t want to do it all alone, I want us to do it together.

So why was this podcast episode so difficult to record? Because my biggest fear is that I may lose you because of this change that I am initiating and that’s the last thing I want to happen.

I have done things already about this and have the plan in place. I have even started implementing part of it already, but there are still things I have not done yet.

I was thinking about re-naming the podcast but could not come up with a new name as good as the Write to be Read, so I decided that we could have some fun about it… why not?

Who are more creative with words than writers - right? So let’s have a contest. Email me your versions of the new podcast name and slogan to ani(at)anialexander.com. The 5 people who will come up with the most creative and catchy podcast name and slogan proposals will get a free lifetime membership to a community that I’ve set up literally few hours ago. You can get all the details about it here 

I launched this awesome online community (which does not yet have a name cause I plan using the same name as for the podcast), because I think that we need to have a place, which is more interactive and you may need more support and deeper knowledge than what you are getting from the podcast. Since it’s new we will be building it together so I will need founding members. That is why instead of the monthly fee which I will be charging later, my audience gets a limited time offer of one time small payment only. So once again you can check all the details at here  and I would LOVE to see you inside.

So today we are May 11th and you have 1 week to come up with something creative for our podcast name and slogan and send me an e mail to ani(at)anialexander.com. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Since I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while and there has been strong resistance inside… I am glad I finally did it. So I am pushing the publish button and there is no turning back.

Thanks for listening and hope that you will be with me even after the changes. Would love to see you as members of the community. Meanwhile, take care and have a great day!

He writes psychological thrillers – novels and short stories. His latest novel, The Ghost, is the story of a troubled film critic who finds himself menaced by the victim of a childhood prank.

When he’s not working on his own words, he’s fiction editor who specialises in copy editing but also offers developmental/structural work and copywriting.

In this interview we talk about the importance of the relationship between the author and editor.

It was nice to meet in person Mark Dawson, Joanna Penn, Ricardo Fayet from Reedsy and Dan Wood from Draft2Digital.

And of course I met new people and as a result you will be having new interviews with very interesting guests coming up, so if you haven’t done so already please make sure you subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Stitcher not to miss any of the upcoming cool content.

I wanted to make today’s episode about the London Book Fair and share my impressions, observations and takeaways from the time spent there.

So this will be a bunch of different thoughts in not so structured format, but hopefully you’ll like it nevertheless.

What is the London book Fair?

The London Book Fair this year celebrated its 45th anniversary. It is the world’s leading publishing event: the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. It had 25,000 publishing professionals from over 124 countries.

Impression Number 1 - Self publishing’s place

The London Book Fair was held at Olympia, which was built at 1886. The stunning buildings have unique atmospheres and create unforgettable settings for events, exhibitions and conferences.

The place was huge - so huge that you may get overwhelmed and have no clue where to go. I even lost the cloak room at the end of the day and I was risking going back home without my coat. It took me about 25 minutes to finally find the place and get it. The funny thing - well it was a minute away from the place I started the search.

Anyway I think you’ll be more interested in self-publishing than in my coat.

So on the fair I realized how self publishing was perceived in the industry. As I said that place was huge, but vast majority of exhibitors were from the traditional publishing industry.

So all self-publishing related boots (when I say all I mean only 3 - Amazon, Kobo and Draft2Digital) were put in the furthest possible corner - at the very end of the floor - completely isolated from the main hall. That fact itself illustrated that self publishing was still not considered as serious player in the publishing industry and is completely ignored by the traditional publishers.

In fact the whole place was centered on printed books and the digital solutions were not highlighted at all. Besides that by walking through few boots and asking few questions I realized that the traditional publishers have been ignoring the existence of the self publishing solutions so much that they did not even have basic knowledge about those.

But I’d love to see what will be the situation at the same London Book Fair in 5 or 10 years.

Impression Number 2 - Books

Being a book lover it was amazing seeing so many different books at one...]]>

It was nice to meet in person Mark Dawson, Joanna Penn, Ricardo Fayet from Reedsy and Dan Wood from Draft2Digital.

And of course I met new people and as a result you will be having new interviews with very interesting guests coming up, so if you haven’t done so already please make sure you subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Stitcher not to miss any of the upcoming cool content.

I wanted to make today’s episode about the London Book Fair and share my impressions, observations and takeaways from the time spent there.

So this will be a bunch of different thoughts in not so structured format, but hopefully you’ll like it nevertheless.

What is the London book Fair?

The London Book Fair this year celebrated its 45th anniversary. It is the world’s leading publishing event: the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. It had 25,000 publishing professionals from over 124 countries.

Impression Number 1 - Self publishing’s place

The London Book Fair was held at Olympia, which was built at 1886. The stunning buildings have unique atmospheres and create unforgettable settings for events, exhibitions and conferences.

The place was huge - so huge that you may get overwhelmed and have no clue where to go. I even lost the cloak room at the end of the day and I was risking going back home without my coat. It took me about 25 minutes to finally find the place and get it. The funny thing - well it was a minute away from the place I started the search.

Anyway I think you’ll be more interested in self-publishing than in my coat.

So on the fair I realized how self publishing was perceived in the industry. As I said that place was huge, but vast majority of exhibitors were from the traditional publishing industry.

So all self-publishing related boots (when I say all I mean only 3 - Amazon, Kobo and Draft2Digital) were put in the furthest possible corner - at the very end of the floor - completely isolated from the main hall. That fact itself illustrated that self publishing was still not considered as serious player in the publishing industry and is completely ignored by the traditional publishers.

In fact the whole place was centered on printed books and the digital solutions were not highlighted at all. Besides that by walking through few boots and asking few questions I realized that the traditional publishers have been ignoring the existence of the self publishing solutions so much that they did not even have basic knowledge about those.

But I’d love to see what will be the situation at the same London Book Fair in 5 or 10 years.

Impression Number 2 - Books

Being a book lover it was amazing seeing so many different books at one place. Colorful, different shapes and genres, good quality books everywhere.

You can only imagine how disappointed I was to find out that all those books were only there to be looked at… oh and you could touch them too of course. But no one was giving away any books and you could not buy any one of them.

So my initial plan of bringing home new reads did not work and the next day I went back with a much smaller bag…

Impression Number 3 - the Author HQ

Amazon had a space within that far away self-publishing corner I mentioned, where it had its Author Headquarter. There it organized different panels and discussions, where Amazon’s successful independent authors were featured.

The authors staid after their session to interact with the audience and answer their questions. That place was very dynamic and always full. People were even sitting on the floor because there was not enough space. That made a big contrast compared to the half-empty and boring boots in the main hall.

Even the people were different at the Author Headquarter. The dress code was more casual, there were indie writers with beards, tattoos and crazy shoes. The atmosphere was not official and people were relaxed.

This whole difference was very similar to corporate life and entrepreneurship. The “normal” people who thought they were more legit and reputable in the main hall and more prestigious space and the cool people who were more fun, independent and creative.

I think you can guess where I spent most of the time at the fair, right?

Impression Number 4 - Writing is part of the author

When I spoke to the authors and listened to their sessions it became obvious that writing was integrated part of their life and their personality. It was their passion, it was their lifestyle, it was their business and part of who they are. They had the writing in their daily routine. You could not imagine those people not writing or not reading. They were trapped in what they had chosen… in a good way, of course.

Impression Number 5 - Writing Success

When I was listening to the successful independent writers such as Joanna Penn, Mark Dawson and Rachel Abbott I found one similarity there. All three of them had corporate pasts and used their business mindset in marketing their books and putting their author brands out there.

None of them wrote and waited to be discovered. All of them treated writing and their books as business, all of them made a plan and worked hard to make things happen.

As opposed to many fiction writers who consider their writing being art and shy away from marketing the successful authors balanced well their creative processes and the promotional efforts.

Impression Number 6 - Don’t Give Up

Rachel Abbot has sold over 2mln books already. And she is completely independent self-published from the very start. Guess what was her initial target? One thousand copies.

Mark Dawson confessed that when he put his first book on Amazon in the first month he sold 1 or 2 copies only. And this is the same person, who made almost half a million dollars last year from his book sales.

What did they do besides creating the business plan I mentioned before? Well, they did not give up. I am sure the road was not very smooth and they must have felt like giving up at least once… but they haven’t. And that made all the difference… (wow the last part sounded like Robert Frost poem The Road Less Travelled)

You can get more details about Sommer following the links below:

His website

His Twitter

His Instagram

Do you wish you could just write books and avoid all the intimidating and frustrating details of book publishing?

If yes then I’ve created the best solution for you!

Simply go to Publish to be Read send over your draft manuscript and get your professionally published book in only 3 weeks!

He has been featured on over 70 media channels, many to include national/international media outlets such as MTV, USA Today, MSNBC, BBC, NHK World, Al Jazeera and many others.

Along with his media exposure, he has become the most requested speaker in his industry, traveling around the world speaking to some of the world’s top government agencies and private organizations. It is because of Andrews’ success in the media that he was able to become the top in his industry and triple his fee’ in less than 1 year. Andrew’s goal is to help 500 Entrepreneurs triple their income through media exposure by the end of 2016.

In this interview we talk about

• the difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing
• how to markets your books
• the business aspect of being a writer
• building author brand

Food for Thought

If passion was money every poet would be rich. If the great writers in history had to market their own work chances are we never would have heard of any of them. The hardest thing to do in a crowd is to get noticed. If you are  are a writer - write! Be happy that you have the ability to write. If you'd like to share your thought with me and other Write to be Read listeners, make sure you join our Facebook group.

In the previous days I have come across the same topic several times. Then I thought that maybe you have not heard of it yet so decided to let you know about this. What I am talking is Amazon Giveaways. Amazon let’s you create and promote a giveaway of items that are sold there. The interesting part of this for us is that we can now create kindle ebook giveaways. 

What many authors did before was organizing book giveaways - mainly on Goodreads. Unfortunately you could give aways only paperbacks. I tried a giveaway of my first novel Highfall on Goodreads and although it did bring visibility to my book it did not impact the sales figure.

So why is Amazon giveaway different you may think. Well before I dive into this, I have to make a disclaimer. It seems like the Amazon giveaway can organize only the US residents, so if you have amazon.com account but no US address linked to your account then you won’t be able to make it… Hopefully they will roll over to the other markets soon too. The good news though is that you don’t have to be in KDP Select to be able to organize giveaways and of course giving away ebooks is more affordable and there are no shipping charges involved obviously.

Ok now let’s see why would you as an author possibly want to make an Amazon giveaway.

The first obvious reason, of course is get your book front of more people. And since those who have already purchased your book are not eligible for your giveaway you will end up will be reaching new potential readers.

The second good thing is that all the participants, who have not won the giveaway get the free sample of your book. Which means that the potential new readers will probably get the taste of your writing style.

Another good thing is that when you organize your book’s Amazon giveaway you can choose chose an option where in order to participate people have to follow you on your Amazon’s author page. This means that whenever you have a new book out all who follow will be notified. It is not as good as having them on your e mail list of course, but it is most probably the closest thing you can get with Amazon.

To wrap this topic up I’ll just need to say that your giveaways can last up to 30 days, ebooks purchased for the giveaway are non-refundable and you can check there is a Twitter hashtag #AmazonGiveaways you can follow. And maybe the best part of it all is that those who have tried the Amazon giveaways tell that it impacts book’s sales ranking.

Ok, that was it about the Amazon.

Now I will share my ideas about giveaways in general.

I personally feel uncomfortable, when things are not under my control. That is why strategies, which rely on specific social media channel, or only one platform, or an audience, which is not mine are not my favorite. I mean what if something happens to Facebook one day? Where do I find all those people who liked my page… You see what I mean right?

That is why I prefer to put time and effort bringing my audience to my place, that is my website and my e mail list. Are you already there btw? If no check out www.anialexander.com

Having that said I prefer to use

In the previous days I have come across the same topic several times. Then I thought that maybe you have not heard of it yet so decided to let you know about this. What I am talking is Amazon Giveaways. Amazon let’s you create and promote a giveaway of items that are sold there. The interesting part of this for us is that we can now create kindle ebook giveaways. 

What many authors did before was organizing book giveaways - mainly on Goodreads. Unfortunately you could give aways only paperbacks. I tried a giveaway of my first novel Highfall on Goodreads and although it did bring visibility to my book it did not impact the sales figure.

So why is Amazon giveaway different you may think. Well before I dive into this, I have to make a disclaimer. It seems like the Amazon giveaway can organize only the US residents, so if you have amazon.com account but no US address linked to your account then you won’t be able to make it… Hopefully they will roll over to the other markets soon too. The good news though is that you don’t have to be in KDP Select to be able to organize giveaways and of course giving away ebooks is more affordable and there are no shipping charges involved obviously.

Ok now let’s see why would you as an author possibly want to make an Amazon giveaway.

The first obvious reason, of course is get your book front of more people. And since those who have already purchased your book are not eligible for your giveaway you will end up will be reaching new potential readers.

The second good thing is that all the participants, who have not won the giveaway get the free sample of your book. Which means that the potential new readers will probably get the taste of your writing style.

Another good thing is that when you organize your book’s Amazon giveaway you can choose chose an option where in order to participate people have to follow you on your Amazon’s author page. This means that whenever you have a new book out all who follow will be notified. It is not as good as having them on your e mail list of course, but it is most probably the closest thing you can get with Amazon.

To wrap this topic up I’ll just need to say that your giveaways can last up to 30 days, ebooks purchased for the giveaway are non-refundable and you can check there is a Twitter hashtag #AmazonGiveaways you can follow. And maybe the best part of it all is that those who have tried the Amazon giveaways tell that it impacts book’s sales ranking.

Ok, that was it about the Amazon.

Now I will share my ideas about giveaways in general.

I personally feel uncomfortable, when things are not under my control. That is why strategies, which rely on specific social media channel, or only one platform, or an audience, which is not mine are not my favorite. I mean what if something happens to Facebook one day? Where do I find all those people who liked my page… You see what I mean right?

That is why I prefer to put time and effort bringing my audience to my place, that is my website and my e mail list. Are you already there btw? If no check out www.anialexander.com

Having that said I prefer to use KingSumo’s giveaway plugin for Wordpress. The giveaway is done so that it increases participant’s chances to win when they share your contest like crazy and therefore it easily goes viral. But that is just the bonus. The best thing is that you are getting the list of all participant’s emails, which you can later use. I have used this only twice for now, but have seen great results with both giveaways.

The things is… if you are unknown writer like me, most probably people will not be interesting in your book’s giveaway, because they have not read you yet and they have not heard your name either, right?

Yup…

But what you can do is - choose several bestseller’s in your genre or around your book’s topic and have a bundle of those books with yours inside as a giveaway. Like that you will gain a list of people, who are interested in your genre or topic and are your potential readers. And even if they don’t read your book (although part of them will check it out I think) you will still have their names and email address.

In this interview I try to understand what Reedsy is, how it works and how writers can benefit from it.

Make sure you check out their book editor tool - it's great.

In his presentations, Tim uses lessons learned from his love for Rock ‘n’ Roll music, traveling an average of 30,000 miles annually on his Harley Davidson motorcycle, coaching clients, and speaking to audiences.

I met him on Blab and we had several interesting conversations there, so I thought that it would be nice to have him over at the podcast too. Today we spoke about blogging, branding and many other things.

Ray covered the most important points from his book in our interview, but I do recommend getting the book especially now when he is giving away a physical copy of the book for free (until March 1st).

Click to Claim Your Book Now

Food for Thought

Copywriting is simply writing that persuades people to buy into idea or a product or a service or a believe.

Nobody is going to sell your writing with the passion and the care and the intimate knowledge of the writing better than you.

We are more effected by stories than we are by facts.

What you are actually selling is the transformation that your product or service brings about.

Selling is essentially a transfer of feelings. - Zig Zigler

You have to have feelings about the product or service you're selling.

About the Book

Ray Edwards's  book provides a step-by-step, fill-in-the-blanks system for writing persuasive copy for websites, sales and promotions. Ray’s sales copy is amazingly effective – having sold an estimated $200 million in products and services over the last 5 years. Now he shows you how, step-by-step, you can use the same methods he does. It’s all spelled out in the new book How to Write Copy That Sells.

For those of you who don't know Pat yet below is his short bio. Pat Flynn makes a living on the internet and considers himself the luckiest person on the earth. Through his very popular blog Smart Passive Income and his Smart Passive Income Podcast  he shares his experience and helps his readers reach their goals. I think it is also important to mention that Pat was also from the very few people, who encouraged me to start the Write 2B Read podcast.

This time we speak about Pat's second book Will It Fly? How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money, which launched just few days ago. In this interview Pat explains:

• what the book is about and how he came up with the idea to write it
• the struggles Pat had writing his second book and how he got over them
• when did Pat mostly write the book
• how did Pat Flynn get his first draft up
• what was the initial title of the book and how did Pat found the title that he uses now
• how to validate your non-fiction book idea before starting to write it

I guess that was it for today.

As I mentioned in this episode I am working on a coaching offer for my podcast listeners and other writers and/or entrepreneurs, who are looking to establish their personal brand online. In case you're interested and prefer not to wait until everything is set up please get in touch and we can start making things happen straightaway!

If you enjoyed the interview, please subscribe to it below and you will not miss any upcoming episode. [text-blocks id="podcast-subscription-links" plain=1]

Stefano L Tresca was employee #8 at Wind, a telecom startup company sold for $12.1 billion. Before joining this venture, he was a teacher of Italian for Koreans, a web designer, and an ice cream maker, just to name a few.

Bestselling author and passionate about travelling, he worked in over 20 countries, until he quit the corporate life in 2011. Today Stefano enjoys mentoring startup companies, writing and occasionally consults for corporations on innovation and investments.

Many years ago, he felt in love with the city of London, and that's where he lives now when he's not traveling. 

In this interview we talk about

• how he wrote his book Future Cities that became a bestseller
• what did the Amazon bestselling rank actually brought
• the 50-50 rule
• the hidden secret superpower
• the mistakes he made with his very first book

Useful links: Stefano's book - Future Cities: 42 Insights and Interviews with Influencers, Startups, Investors Kindle Edition Lanyrd - the social conference directory

The Full Blab Interview

Wanna grow your audience and business with Blab? Check this out!

[text-blocks id="podcast-subscription-links" plain=1]

I hope you had nice holidays and amazing New Year celebration. And with this recording I’d like to share my wishes to you for 2016.

I wish that we all read more and learn new things. Although we don’t talk about it often, I am sure that writers have not only to write but also read every day.

I also wish that we travel and get out in nature a lot. Travels will bring new experiences and topics to include in your writing as well as help you become open-minded.

I wish that we all toss away the self-doubt and start believing in ourselves, because no one will believe in us until we do.

From now on I wish we don’t wait for the right moment and start right away. Don’t waste time

waiting. Don’t make your life one long stay in a waiting room. Do what you always wanted to do in 2016. Believe me there will be no better time.

I wish that instead of complaining and blaming others we practice gratitude and thank for everything we have.

I wish that we all stop resisting the change and embrace it instead in the upcoming year. Changes will help you grow and bring in new opportunities you can’t get otherwise.

Instead of worrying about the past I wish we get new experiences, meet like-minded people and celebrate our small victories in 2016. Let go and leave things in the past and move on. You’ve got another chance for a  new start. Make this your year.

Let’s not make excuses. Let’s keep going and pursue our dreams without giving up. You are responsible for making your dreams come true. So make things happen in 2016.

Let’s get inspired and inspire others. Let’s motivate and be motivated. Do it with your writings, with your talks, with your speeches, Facebook statuses, Tweets… anything will work.

I wish you to set goals for 2016. Don’t expect immediate results in order not to be disappointed, but set positive mindset and fight back your fear of failure. One step at a time you’ll get closer to your goals, simply make sure you do make the first step.

I hope that in 2016 you will be bold enough to be different. Don’t depend on peoples’ opinion and don’t follow the crowd.

I wish all those who are not in love yet to fall in love in 2016. And those who are in love will keep working on your relationship.

I wish you also take some time to spend it with yourself. Make a date with yourself and think, reflect and listen to your inner voice. Focus on your feelings, find your passion and make decisions. Believe me, no one knows you better than yourself.

I hope that in 2016 you will be fair to yourself and to others. Don’t lie. It’s not productive.

When you reach the point at some stage in 2016 when the stress is high and you are tired, take a vacation and relax. Take a break and get back your balance.

And please don’t forget to daydream and smile on daily basis.

And never get discouraged… but if at some point you do - tune in to the Write to be read podcast and I’ll do my best to inspire and encourage you, so you continue moving forward!

Take care and wish you an awesome year ahead!

Food for Thought

Obstacles are really just opportunities in disguise.

Failing is learning what doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up.

If you think you can or you think you can't you're right.

If you want get something done give it to busy person.

A dream with a deadline suddenly becomes a plan.

You can have everything you want out of life - you just can't get it all in once.

The writing is the small piece of the puzzle.

Too many people listen to everybody that gave up on their dreams to convince themselves to give up on theirs.

Motivation is like shower - you need it daily.

You don't get to live forever but what you create can - so why not focus on making what you create matter?

Being a writer means that you believe that you have something that is worthy of other people's time.

Building a global business has never been easier.

The harder I work the luckier I get.

There's always a way to connect your thoughts with the world.

Jay has been throwing value bombs during the whole interview so I strongly encourage you to listen :)

I wanted you to know about the special limited time offer they have for us and make sure that you don't miss that valuable free bundle.

In this bundle of 50+ resources the most respected names in self-publishing share their best content for free. The bundle contains 30+ Free ebooks, 9+ Free eCourses and 5+ Free audiobooks.

click this link and get your Christmas gift from Gootriter now! 

I am proud to be part of that initiative and I am sure you have heard my interviews with most of those, who contributed to this (you can check the list of the interviews below). The special offer expired on December 20th, so make sure you go and grab it now. I assure you it's extremely valuable and you will learn a lot!

Just click this link and get your Christmas gift from Gootriter now! 

Check out Write to be Read podcast episodes with those, whose resources are presented in the bundle

How to Organize a Successful Kindle Book Launch with Chandler Bolt

How to Be An Author Entrepreneur with Joanna Penn

How to Make Full-Time Income with Kindle Books with Steve Scott

How You Should Market to Sell More Books with Jim Kukral

Grabbing Attention with Derek Doepker

Sell More Books with Bryan Cohen

All You Need to Know About Book Covers with Derek Murphy

How to Promote Your Book with Matt Stone

How to Know if Your Book Will Sell or Not with Alex Newton

How to Become a Kindlepreneur with Dave Chesson

How To Be Insanely Creative with Sean Platt

Self-publishing and Writing Live with Johnny B Truant

Horror is Like Pizza with James Thorn

How to Start Writing Your First Non-Fiction...]]>In this episode Adam Bailey from Goodriter.com will explain how and why did they come up with the idea to launch Goodriter and why it will become one of the most valuable resources for all writers.

click this link and get your Christmas gift from Gootriter now! 

I am proud to be part of that initiative and I am sure you have heard my interviews with most of those, who contributed to this (you can check the list of the interviews below). The special offer expired on December 20th, so make sure you go and grab it now. I assure you it's extremely valuable and you will learn a lot!

Just click this link and get your Christmas gift from Gootriter now! 

Check out Write to be Read podcast episodes with those, whose resources are presented in the bundle

How to Organize a Successful Kindle Book Launch with Chandler Bolt

How to Be An Author Entrepreneur with Joanna Penn

How to Make Full-Time Income with Kindle Books with Steve Scott

How You Should Market to Sell More Books with Jim Kukral

Grabbing Attention with Derek Doepker

Sell More Books with Bryan Cohen

All You Need to Know About Book Covers with Derek Murphy

How to Promote Your Book with Matt Stone

How to Know if Your Book Will Sell or Not with Alex Newton

How to Become a Kindlepreneur with Dave Chesson

How To Be Insanely Creative with Sean Platt

Self-publishing and Writing Live with Johnny B Truant

Horror is Like Pizza with James Thorn

How to Start Writing Your First Non-Fiction Book with Cathy Presland

Publishing and Collaboration with Tom Morkes

How to Gain and Grow Audience with Podcasting with Meron Bareket

Ok, so now hearing them on a podcast you know that what they provide is useful and good.

So before it's gone on December 20th, 2015 make sure you get the free bundle here!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

In this interview we talk about the awesome free tools Dave has created for self-published authors, about publishing and of course, book marketing.

Food for Thought

Books are a commodity at this point.

You have to create daily ritual around creation of the thing that needs to be sold.

Figure out what you wanna write first.

Running giveaways are the fastest road to get bigger results.

Give away your first book for free. You give it away so people can sample you.

Don't target giveaway sites.

The first book always takes the longest.

You're not gonna make living on one book usually.

Come up with more stuff more often.

Being an author has become about generating leads.

The Full Blab Interview

Many of you were reaching out to me asking if I am doing NaNoWriMo this year or not so I decided to make a separate episode letting you know and providing explanations and thoughts about the subject too. I wrote both of my novels Highfall and DreamDown participating in NaNoWriMo and it was a great experience.

There are few elements to it that I think are very important for newbie writer. Most of us struggle to finish writing our novel – especially if it’s our first novel. NaNoWriMo adds motivation and encouragement to your writing process. First of all you have a deadline and target wordcount + a challenge. And second, the forums with writers like you who have the same struggles and are as excited as you are adds to the emotional support that you will definitely need while writing your book.

So that is why I participated in NaNoWriMo 2 years in a row and as a result wrote and self published my 2 novels. This was the good part.

Now let me continue by saying that this year I am not doing NaNoWriMo and am doing something different instead. Before you think that I am contradicting to what I just said let me explain why. NaNoWriMo is good at making sure that you finish writing your first draft. And as all of us know the first drafts are very bad.

After that you will need to work on it. The first draft is definitely not what you’d like your readers to see. I guess what I want to say is that NaNoWriMo is good in making sure that you put out those words and that you complete your first draft. It is also very good in developing your habit of writing every day and if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while you know how important that is.

But NaNoWriMo has absolutely no impact on the quality of your writing. And that’s what differentiates the good book from the bad one.

So what I did this year instead of NaNoWriMo was enroll in writer’s bootcamp, where I will hopefully learn how to write well. And as a non-English speaker the challenge for me is bigger than for most of you out there. This is the second month I’m learning at the bootcamp and I’d like to give a big shoutout to Randall Andrews, who is putting up with my complicated character and unpolished writing.

The first side effect that I got from being able to differentiate good quality text from the bad one was realizing that what I had written up to now is not written well. It’s one thing when you know it as an abstract fact and it’s completely another thing when you have proofs for that. And believe me, that realization was not a very pleasant one and at some point it even made me think of not writing anymore. But then I understood that by learning how to write well I will be able to correct what was not written well up to now, instead of deciding not to write at all.

So why I am doing re-writes and concentrate on the quality of the writing is because if I did my 3rd NaNoWriMo I would most probably write my 3rd novel in the same manner I did the previous 2 ones and end up with the same results in terms of quality. So what I am doing now is going through my first novel Highfall and applying what I have learnt so far to what I had written back then. Like that I will learn on my mistakes, make sure I am aware of the most common ones and make it easier not to repeat them again in the future.

So I guess this whole episode gets down to one conclusion – NaNoWriMo is...]]>As most of you – especially the fiction writers know – November is the National Novel Writing Month and around 300k people are writing their novels right now. Their challenge is to complete 50k words in 30 days, which may sound hard but I think it sounds much harder than it is in reality.

Many of you were reaching out to me asking if I am doing NaNoWriMo this year or not so I decided to make a separate episode letting you know and providing explanations and thoughts about the subject too. I wrote both of my novels Highfall and DreamDown participating in NaNoWriMo and it was a great experience.

There are few elements to it that I think are very important for newbie writer. Most of us struggle to finish writing our novel – especially if it’s our first novel. NaNoWriMo adds motivation and encouragement to your writing process. First of all you have a deadline and target wordcount + a challenge. And second, the forums with writers like you who have the same struggles and are as excited as you are adds to the emotional support that you will definitely need while writing your book.

So that is why I participated in NaNoWriMo 2 years in a row and as a result wrote and self published my 2 novels. This was the good part.

Now let me continue by saying that this year I am not doing NaNoWriMo and am doing something different instead. Before you think that I am contradicting to what I just said let me explain why. NaNoWriMo is good at making sure that you finish writing your first draft. And as all of us know the first drafts are very bad.

After that you will need to work on it. The first draft is definitely not what you’d like your readers to see. I guess what I want to say is that NaNoWriMo is good in making sure that you put out those words and that you complete your first draft. It is also very good in developing your habit of writing every day and if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while you know how important that is.

But NaNoWriMo has absolutely no impact on the quality of your writing. And that’s what differentiates the good book from the bad one.

So what I did this year instead of NaNoWriMo was enroll in writer’s bootcamp, where I will hopefully learn how to write well. And as a non-English speaker the challenge for me is bigger than for most of you out there. This is the second month I’m learning at the bootcamp and I’d like to give a big shoutout to Randall Andrews, who is putting up with my complicated character and unpolished writing.

The first side effect that I got from being able to differentiate good quality text from the bad one was realizing that what I had written up to now is not written well. It’s one thing when you know it as an abstract fact and it’s completely another thing when you have proofs for that. And believe me, that realization was not a very pleasant one and at some point it even made me think of not writing anymore. But then I understood that by learning how to write well I will be able to correct what was not written well up to now, instead of deciding not to write at all.

So why I am doing re-writes and concentrate on the quality of the writing is because if I did my 3rd NaNoWriMo I would most probably write my 3rd novel in the same manner I did the previous 2 ones and end up with the same results in terms of quality. So what I am doing now is going through my first novel Highfall and applying what I have learnt so far to what I had written back then. Like that I will learn on my mistakes, make sure I am aware of the most common ones and make it easier not to repeat them again in the future.

So I guess this whole episode gets down to one conclusion – NaNoWriMo is good but it is not enough. It’s the first step of the process and there is a lot to come after. Those of you who have not taken that first step – I encourage you to do so. And don’t worry that NaNoWriMo has already started – set your own timeline and make your own challenge. It will still work. And those who already have the first manuscript – work on the text and make sure that you’ve done your best and you’ve worked on the quality.

And if you have – then our self-publishing services can help you with all the rest that needs to be done, like editing, book cover, formatting, etc. Simply visit www.publishmybook.today let us work on your book and save your time, so you spend it on writing. I guess that was all I had for you today.

Don’t give up and keep writing!

• reasons why people don't write although they want to
• writer's block
• writer's doubts
• what to do when you lose inspiration
• writing discipline
• how to come up with new writing ideas
• writing productivity tips

Food for Thought

[spp-tweet tweet="You write first and then only clarify the idea."] The energy that you bring into writing is as important as what you write. You can get Morgan's free ebook called 12 STEPS TO WRITE AN E-BOOK here

The Full Blab Interview

Wanna grow your audience and business with Blab? Check this out!

The most important is that Tom is one of the best storytellers that I have met so far.

In this interview we talk about the power of the storytelling and Tom shares his knowledge and opinions around the topic. It was originally done on Blab and you can see the full recording of it below (including the Q&A and extra talks). The podcast is the edited shorter version of what we had covered.

Food for thought

Stories become a bridge between truth and meaning and between the presenter and their audience.

You don't just make a presentation - you ARE the presentation.

Don't wait for perfection before you start writing.

Recognize that before you ever write you are already an author. Meaning that there's a message that is already in you and it's already coming out of you whether you recognize it or not. You're already authoring a message with your life.

Full Blab interview

Find out the limited offer for the Blab Traction Course Here

Find out the limited offer for the Blab Traction Course Here

Today I am talking to Bob Yeager. In 1995, at the age of 17, Bob Yeager was recruited from a local college to interview at a telemarketing firm called Dial America. Within two hours of the initial job orientation and with no formal sales experience, Bob was asked to head up training of over 30 sales teams across the country in his unique approach to selling. This interview is long but valuable so invest 1 hour in finding out how to create an evergreen marketing campaign for your books!

Food for Though

It's not about what you say about your book.

It's about what everyone else is saying before the book is even released.

Sales and marketing it's now a community of people who are going to talk about this message together and they're going to make a group decision to buy it.

Today what authors and marketers are doing is manufacturing media.

Publish every day something.

If you want exposure on the Internet then every day you gotta produce something.

Today's marketing for everything you're doing  - you have to put a face and a voice now. You have to give people a character, a persona, a tone in a story that they can embrace.

You have to be willing to engage with people.

If you are interested please check out all the details here!

My  guest today is Alex Barker. Alex is By day a pharmacist, by night a hero to his 2 daughters and wife, and by early morning a business owner. His mission is to help men and women find a disciplined approach to success in life and business. I highly recommend his podcast called 66 Day Experiment.  In this interview we will be talking about habits, motivation and writing a book.

Food for Thought

If you want something to be contagious and be shared naturally between people your idea has to be unique. There is no such thing as failure - there is only feedback.

Useful Links

66 Day Experiment Blab Traction Course  

• why did he decide to write a book
• what was the hardest part in writing a book
• how did he overcome the fear of sharing his writing with the world
• what does he mean by the phrase "stop sabotaging your life"
• where to find the encouragement if you don't get it from the people around you
• the 3 steps to achieve your full potential

If you are Write 2B Read podcast listener and have written and published your first book thanks to the knowledge and the encouragement you got from the podcast, please drop me a line and I'll feature you in podcast's special episode!

Follow me on Blab and participate in the live interview by asking your own questions to my guest and me.

Today I am talking to Tracey Goodwin. She is known around the globe as The Red Sweater Lady, a title that somewhat fell into her lap. She started out winning speaking awards when she was 12 years old.

She was never really a stranger to the spotlight as she went on to become a professional actor for years making her living doing television commercials. But, there’s so much more to the back story. At a young age, while she loved speaking, she did not have a great voice and was put into intensive voice training.

She learned an incredible system that dramatically changed her speaking voice for the better. Over the years she has pulled all her education and training as well as life experiences together to create a program for clients that truly works.

In this interview we mainly talk about voice technique and storytelling.

Food for Thought

Our voice, whether it is written or spoken is absolutely directly linked to our psychology.

Voices are like message they are different and they are all beautiful.

The minute we become predictable we lose our audience.

You're not going to speak to everyone.

We were careless and happy. I remember that in those times we loved challenging each other. And it seemed like I was the one who would always accept the challenge.

If someone (especially a boy) told me you can’t do… something, like climb on the highest branch of the tree, or jump down from a wall, or ride the bicycle hands free, or anything else – my first reaction was immediately answering “I can”.

I was not sure I could, but as soon as I was hearing that they thought I can’t I immediately wanted to prove them wrong. As a result I had few triumphal victories by proving them wrong and also few bruises and bleeding knees when they were actually right…

Now let’s fast-forward many years. I am not a child anymore. Almost everything has changed in my life since then… but I still get different “you can’t” statements from people.

And we all do, right?

There will always be someone who will say that we can’t do something, or that we have to stop dreaming, or we should compromise or that it’s time to quit. They tell that you need to be realistic, that you need to be responsible and that you have to finally grow-up.

And every time that happens I recall those guys back from my childhood and I immediately want to prove them wrong. Then I realize that the most important person, who has to believe that I can – is me.

Because if I don’t believe in myself then even if others do nothing will work out… and just the opposite, if I do believe in myself – no matter how many people tell me I can’t – I still will do it and succeed.

So now when I get those negative statements I no longer need to prove them wrong. In fact I don’t think I have to prove anything to anyone. All I have to do is keep believing in myself and keep doing what I think is right for me.

So if you have found your passion and if you have a dream and you have decided to follow them – go for it! Don’t wait for permission. Don’t ask for acceptance. Don’t listen to what people think.

They are not in your shoes – but you are. They don’t have the right to make decisions concerning your life. Listen to your inner voice instead. Listen to your heart and what it tells you, because it knows you best.

You don’t need other people in order to gain self-confidence – you already have it inside, you simply need to tap into it.

So now, when someone tells I can’t – I smile to myself and think “watch me”, but I don’t rush and climb that tree like I did years back. I do it on my own terms, I take my time and do what I had planned initially and believed it would work out. And I don’t quit until it actually works out

Challenges are good – they keep you motivated and make you push forward. People who don’t believe in you can’t hold you back if you don’t let them.

So follow your passion, keep writing and when you reach where you wanna get send signed copies of your published books to all those, who told you that you couldn’t.

Meanwhile, don’t give up and keep pushing forward!

In this interview we talk about

• journalism and creative writing
• A.C's first book The Anonymous Source A.C.'s writing process
• dealing with criticism
• his book launch strategy
• why did he create the WRITER 2.0 Podcast.

Useful links

A.C. Fuller's website

The Anonymous Source

Writer 2.o Podcast

Most of us lead dull and ordinary lives, and spend most of our days doing what needs to be done and have no time left to do things that inspire us instead. Life gets on the way and keeps us away from what we dreamed of.

We grow up and get stuck in the routine, responsibilities overload us and with the time we get used to it. Some people stay in that state forever.

Some others manage to break through and get inspired again. Those who do eventually start inspiring others by their own example…

Looking at people who lead inspired life brings hope and faith. Faith that it is possible and hope that we will be able to do the same…

People, who inspire us are those, who don’t wait for the inspiration to come to their life – they provoke it.

Those are the people, who have a dream and are not afraid to do everything that needs to be done to get closer to that dream.

Those are the people, who find the courage to face and overcome their fears and who are willing to go through the painful process of growth.

They don’t let procrastination get on their way. They are willing to leave their comfort zone, because they know that success is outside that comfort zone. And then as a contrast we have the other group of people… unfortunately that group is much bigger.

Those are the people, who are ready to let you down, who can always find reasons why your dreams won’t come true and who settle with the mediocre.

Now, let’s recall what Robin Sharma often tells. He says that we are the average of 5 people we spend the most time with.

 So look around. Who are those 5 people? Do they inspire you? Do they bring you down to the reality? Do they encourage your passion or advise to grow up instead?

I personally love being different and don’t like copying what others do. But when I am looking at people who lead inspired life I think it’s worth doing an exception and copy their mindset, lifestyle and excitement.

Writing may be a lonely process, so you will need to get excited about that. You need to be inspired enough to be willing to take action.

You have to be inspired enough to initiate changes. You need to be motivated to follow your passion.

If you don’t have those 5 people in your real life, who will help you with that, look for them somewhere else. Read the books that inspire you, listen to podcasts that encourage you, find groups where like-minded people gather, go to meetups. Find ways to provoke the inspiration in your life. Anything that might work is worth trying.

Meanwhile, what I can offer is this podcast. So if you haven’t done so yet please subscribe to it on iTunes or Stitcher and leave a review for me there.

Also go and download your free guide that will help you FIND THE WRITE MINDSET and Build Your Writing Confidence 

Keep writing and stay inspired!

In this interview we speak about

• writer's block
• finding your writing voice
• how to become your ultimate self
• personal change
• writing a memoire

Food for Thought

You have to be willing to write crappy stuff until you get to the good stuff.

If we're afraid to show who we really are we have no business writing.

Memoire writing is a deep healing process.

You will change when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.

Download Your Free Guide - FIND THE WRITE MINDSET & GET PUBLISHED: The 5 Steps To Build Your Writing Confidence

The thing is many talk about how to write a book, how to self-publish it and how to do book marketing but very few talk about how to actually get emotionally prepared to become a writer. I am talking about the write mindset here…

There are many emotional barriers that newbie writers have in the very beginning and unless they overcome those they will not get to the stage of writing a book, let alone publishing and marketing it.

As I already mentioned in one of the previous episodes 81% of people say they want to write a book…and only 1% DO.

I strongly believe that although the 80-% come up with logical and objective excuses for not writing their books, in reality the reasons for not writing are mindset related. When people say that they don’t have time to write or that they can’t write well… the real reasons are much deeper.

I think many of us used different credible excuses but in the reality we did not write the book because we were afraid and we were not ready. To be honest, I think all those who have not written a book yet think they are not ready. And I think absolutely all writers go through the same emotional journey in the very beginning. So believe me, even the most well known authors have been in your shoes before.

We all think that our writing is not good enough. We are not yet ready to open up and share our writings and we are afraid of being judged. And that’s normal. All published writers have been there. I even think that even after reaching success, even after getting acknowledgement and status many writers still think that their writing is not good enough.

There are different emotional barriers that stand between the newbie writer and his dream of seeing his name on a book cover. On the other hand the sad fact is that the only way to find readers is overcoming those barriers and actually publishing.

Writer’s doubts are what we all experience and need to overcome to become authors. And sometimes those doubts are so strong that overcoming them alone is very hard. Sometimes you do need support and encouragement.

So last week I decided to address that issue and create something that will help you out in case you are one of those writers, who is just starting. I created a guide called   FIND THE WRITE MINDSET & GET PUBLISHED : The 5 Steps To Build Your Writing Confidence.

I wrote that guide to help you get over the mental blocks to publishing your first book. I tried to explain there How To Become A Writer and what it takes to become a writer, so you know in advance and get prepared. You will also find out about The step most writers never take..although it is often the easiest one. And you’ll also learn What To Do With Your First Draft.

I truly hope that this guide will help you with the emotional aspects I mentioned in this episode. So if you’d like to get my guide and build your writing confidence I am giving it out for free at www.anialexander.com/mindset I will truly appreciate if you could share the link with everyone who you think will need it and help us change the statistics and have more than 1% of people writing their books.

So get your free guide now.

Meanwhile let’s write and create amazing pieces that others will enjoy reading.

Don’t miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

In this interview we talk  about

• the right reasons for writing
• the "can't" brick walls and what stands behind those
• 3 stages all entrepreneurs (and writers are entrepreneurs too) go though during their journey
• the power of incorporating your personal story into writing
• the benefits of having a good editor
• writing for big publications/websites

Food for Thought

Most of us write because we have something inside that we want to share.

If you don't have anything inside that matters to you and that you want to share into the world than writing is gonna be really, really hard work for you.

If you have something inside you that you wanna share then the first step isn't really the writing - it's the getting comfortable sharing!

People remember ideas, not words.

There are so many reasons for people to say they can't.

What is the purpose for your art?

Don't ever abdicate your writing to the editor.

Whatever you've been to and whatever you want to share with the world has value.

The important thing is finding the people it has value for.

Useful Links

Dixie's website

Dixie on Facebook

1. You are avid reader

2. You own many journals

3. You can’t walk past stationary shop

4. You take pen and notepad everywhere with you

5. You have more books than friends

6. You love watching people

7. You Listen to life stories and think about how to write them up in a book

8. Writing is always in your priority list  

9. You love solitude and enjoy “me” time  

10. You think about the book you’re writing and the characters no matter  what you do

11. Spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes annoy you

12. You hate any “real” and “normal” 9-6 jobs  

13. You listen to other people’s conversation trying to find a new story  

14. You dream of making full time income writing  

15. You hate editing

 16. You have your personal list of things that boost your creativity  

17. You feel guilty if you haven’t written for a while

Well, those were the signs I came up with, but I am absolutely sure that there are many other signs I forgot to mention. Please add those in the comments and let's have a much bigger list at the end :)

Don’t miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

In this interview we talk about

• the fear of sharing her fiction writings and how she overcame it
• why Rebecca did not give-up when she wanted to
• book marketing efforts that worked best so far
• Rebecca's unique approach to building her e mail list
• social media and its importance
• future plans

Useful Links

Rebecca's website

Publish My Book Today

So what about those 80% of people who want to write a book and don’t? Why do they give up their dream? Why don’t they write a book if they want to? All they have to do is sit and write, right?

WRONG!

Those 80% have their reasons… I have been there too and I think I know some of the reasons that keep them away from their dream.

They all have stories locked in their soul and messages inside that stay silent. They all would love to share their stories, but they can’t. And although it is sad, it can be explained.

Today I decided to make a solo episode about those 80% and try to explain why they staid where they were while the other tiny 1% actually wrote their books.

When you talk to them and ask why they don’t write a book if they would like to, they come up with different reasons.

“I don’t have time”, “I don’t have a good idea”, “I am not ready yet…” and  then they come up with follow up phrases that are supposed to make things sound better - “One day I will do it”, “I will start as soon as I get more free time”, “I am writing it in my head…”

Now, I know it will sound cruel and many of you might not like hearing this, but I don’t believe a single word. What I believe instead is that those are just excuses and the real reasons for not writing that book are completely different. The real reasons for not writing are much deeper.

No one  has time - but everyone can make time. Many don’t have ideas but they can come up with new ideas. And none of us was ready when we started writing our first books with no clue how to do it.

After all if 1% can do it the other 80% can do it too…

So what are the real reasons then?

Well I might not know them all but I can tell you the reasons I had myself a while ago.

The biggest reason was that I was afraid. I was afraid to  share my writings with others. Putting myself in the vulnerable situation where strangers could judge me was scary. I was afraid of criticism and I had fear of failure. I had writers doubts. I wasn’t sure that my writing was good enough. I wasn’t writing novels because I was not sure that I could finish them. What if I do start writing a book and never finish? It would feel like failure…

The other part was the permission. I had a feeling that someone had to allow me to write a book. I thought: “Who am I to write a book?” “What do I know about writing?” “Why should people read what I write?”… I felt like I was not entitled to become an author. I thought that my writing should be no more than a hobby. I was waiting for someone to tell me that I can write.

Only years later I realized that we don’t need permission to be writers. We don’t need to WANT to be a writer. We don’t need to decide to BECOME a writer. All we need to do is decide to BE one.

Going back to the sad statistics again - 81% of people say they want to write a book…and only 1% DO.

Check This Out!

My Favorite Resources

Get Your Free Audiobook Here

In this interview we talk about

• why did Dan decide to write a book
• which marketing efforts had the biggest effect for his book launch
• how to differentiate with content
• content marketing
• his new book Content Machine

Food for thought

If you write the book that really hit a nerve that gets people's attention and do a good job marketing the book yhen it can really open some amazing doors.

You need to impact people.

There is no point in writing and creating anything if it's not gonna involve in some kind of change in people.

With your content you should be differentiating from other people who have the attention of your audience.

Useful links

Dan's website 

Content Machine Resources

Thunderclap

Click to Win Professional Kindle Cover for Your Book

Today my guest is fiction author D. D. Marx.

She had a successful corporate job and was making great money, but was unsatisfied and unhappy.

A while ago she found herself without a job and that's when it all started. She wrote her first novel, which is part of a trilogy,  was inspired by dear friend lost in a car accident 20+ years ago.

Writing the book became the final healing mechanism to let it go. D.D. decided on the names of the trilogy, book cover, her pen name and built out all her social media channels even before she started writing the book.

That made her be already committed to the work. D.D. is visiting book clubs and talks about the book.

Original Ideas

D.D. among other social media channels uses Pinterest to market her book.

She has created boards for each character of the book and pins things that the characters could like there.

In the book the main character falls in love with a chef. So a real chef comes with D.D. to book club meetings and cooks recipes from the book.

Advice from D.D.

Stay committed to the process.

Make sure the stories come from your heart.

Surround yourself with like-minded people.

Click to Win Professional Kindle Cover for Your Book

Have you heard Jack Ma’s quote that says “If there are 9 rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one." 

Looking back I realize that most of the time I’ve been chasing all the rabbits. The visible ones, the invisible ones… I looked for new places to spot new rabbits… and as a result I was doing many different things and getting mediocre results at best. No surprise that I did not catch any of those rabbits.

Focus has been a challenge for me. And it’s mainly because it is difficult for me to choose just one thing to focus on. Deciding what is the most important thing for that moment can be hard. And even when you decide… sticking to it is even harder. There are many people fighting for your attention.

There are many distractions getting on your way. There is family, there are relatives, there is social media, the stupid TV, the good weather luring you to go out, the new e mail, which just arrived….

The distractions are endless and they will always take you away from your 1 chosen thing all the time. That is why by choosing a goal you want to focus on, you should make that a top priority. Everything besides that should come AFTER you have completed the task you focused on.

If you need good results you have to be ready to sacrifice. You will need to give up many things, or at least postpone them for later. Focus on the most important at the moment – and the most important thing for that moment is reaching your goal. That means that you need to allocate time and effort on things, which will get you closer to the desired result.

So if you have to write a blog post today, for example start your morning with that task and don’t leave your seat until it’s done. Don’t proceed with anything else before you have your blog post written and completed. Only then go ahead and let yourself get distracted. After – and NOT before or during.

My problem has been that I always had too many things on my plate at the same time. I worked on several projects. I did different unrelated things. I did not prioritize things by their importance and pushed myself too hard to do and complete them all. As a result many things did not work, I started burning out and the disappointment was always somewhere around.

Now I decided to do the opposite and focus on 1 rabbit instead. It was hard decision to make, but I did give up several things I was planning to do. I didn’t even start those projects. No matter how exciting they seemed, I decided to give them up. So right now – Publish My Book Today is my top priority. I want to make it work, I want to make it grow and succeed and I want to keep focused on it until it does. You are welcome to check it out, provide your feedback and let me know what you think.

I still kept 2 rabbits though… because I simply could not give up this podcast and let you all down.

So think about what projects are you working on. Think about which are important and which can be left for now. And choose the rabbit you’re going to focus on.

Click to Win Professional Kindle Cover for Your Book

Today I am talking to Jim Heskett. Jim is an author, a world traveler, indie podcaster, purveyor of reviews, and writing advice. Steven King was the first author Jim fell in love with. Later, he wrote 2 screenplays with his room mate. Jim had day job, while writing his very first novel, which took him 2 years to complete since he was endlessly revising it. After unsuccessful tries to get agent's attention and find a publisher he finally decided to self publish. And I am sure he has no regrets. In this interview we follow the journey of becoming self-published author, discuss what worked for Jim best, how to deal with having several different audiences and get his advice for newbie writers.

Useful Links

Jim Heskett's website

Indie Author Answers podcast

How to Make $450k a Year By Writing Fiction Mark Dawson's interview on Write 2B Read podcast

In this interview we talk about

• how Dorie build her platform through blogging
• advantages of being a published author
• how to choose what to be about
• the 3-step process of reinventing yourself
• the 3 word exercise, which will help with your branding

3 Step Process of Reinventing Yourself

Step 1 - find out where you are now (what are you known for) Step 2 - create a vision of where you wanna go and what do you need to do in order to overcome the gap of where you are and where you wanna be Step 3 - live your brand (make sure everything you do is in line with the brand you wanna become)

3 Word Exercise

Go to half a dozen friends and colleges and ask the following question - "If you had only 3 words to describe me what would they be?" You will be able to see certain trends and you might want to capitalize those in your branding.

Useful Links

Dorie's website How to Start Writing for High Profile Blogs

In this interview we find out

• Ken's journey from being a police officer to becoming financially free and retired
• how one book changed Ken's life
• the challenges writers face today
• what Next Century Publishing does
• what is Reader's Legacy and why writers should get engaged there now

Useful Links

• Next Century Publishing
• Reader's legacy
• Learn How to Write a Book in 2 Hours (free ebook)

In this interview we talk about:

Preorders and their benefits

Transitioning from Amamzon to other platforms

Why Smashwords is the best choice

Writing and marketing series 

Food for Thought

Every writer in the world has a right to publish a book.

The most important piece of the puzzle is to write a super awesome book.

If your book is only good - the good is not good enough anymore.

The book has to take the readers to the emotionally satisfying extreme.

Readers are reading either for an emotional experience or for an intellectual experience. (sometimes the combination of both)

There has never been a better time to be a writer.

Useful links

Smashwords

Smashwords Style Guide

Also - consider signing up for the Self-Publishing Success Summit, which is the best online summit on the topic with amazing line-up. On that summit 37 World-Changing Authors & Entrepreneurs Reveal How to Write, Market & Publish Your  First Book AND Use It To Get To 6 Figures

You can get your FREE access to the Self-Publishing Success Summit here.

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Today I decided to be completely honest and share my struggles with you. And the reason for this is not to ask for petty or anything. I simply thought that some of you might have been going through the same thing and we could possibly figure out how to overcome some of those struggles.

So, periodically I am getting writer’s doubts and I start questioning myself if I can really write? If what I write is good enough? If I have any potential at all? And if my writing is worth anything.

These doubts became really strong recently. The reason is - I have enrolled in Writer’s Bootcamp and starting from the 1st of this month we are writing up different exercises… Then we read,  provide feedback, critique…

The ultimate goal of the course - or at least how I see it -  is to learn writing well, to make sure that your quality is high and that you learn the craft. But it’s a painful process. I guess any growth is…

It’s painful because in the beginning you start realizing where you stand now. And now… having objectively evaluated where I am, I am not happy about that. So now the doubts are no longer about if I am good or not… because I already know that I’m not… at least yet. The doubt now is about the future… it’s about whether I will be able to master the craft and ensure the quality I’d like my writing to have.

I think the bootcamp was just a catalyst. We usually have writer’s doubt coming back to us when we don’t see results… and when we don’t see result we lose the motivation to carry on. And I guess when we lose motivation that’s when we have to push harder… otherwise we may end up sliding down the spiral… and coming back up will be harder than pushing a bit more from where we are now…

So every time I get into the stage when things don’t grow and I don’t see results I get disappointed. Right now, looking at what I’ve done so far I realize that things haven’t moved much… my podcast has not grown from what it was few months ago, I have not finished my book and I have abandoned my fiction…

And what’s the hardest to admit is that it’s completely my fault. I should have worked harder, I should have written more and I should have put aside my humbleness and promoted more what I’ve already done…

So today I spend some time and went back to my reviews. I read the reviews you guys left for my podcast and I went to Amazon and read the reviews that were left for my fiction books. Usually it helps me get on track and reminds me that there are some people who need what I do and that my time and efforts are not wasted.

That made me think that maybe writer’s doubt grows when there is lack of encouragement around. [spp-tweet tweet="Writers, who go through the painful process of growth are vulnerable."] They need an extra hug and a positive affirmation.

Meanwhile, let’s chin up, pull ourselves together and work harder.

Also - consider signing up for the Self-Publishing Success Summit, which is the best online summit on the topic with amazing line-up. On that summit 37 World-Changing Authors & Entrepreneurs Reveal How to Write, Market & Publish Your  First Book AND Use It To Get To 6 Figures

You can get your FREE access to the Self-Publishing Success Summit...]]>

Today I decided to be completely honest and share my struggles with you. And the reason for this is not to ask for petty or anything. I simply thought that some of you might have been going through the same thing and we could possibly figure out how to overcome some of those struggles.

So, periodically I am getting writer’s doubts and I start questioning myself if I can really write? If what I write is good enough? If I have any potential at all? And if my writing is worth anything.

These doubts became really strong recently. The reason is - I have enrolled in Writer’s Bootcamp and starting from the 1st of this month we are writing up different exercises… Then we read,  provide feedback, critique…

The ultimate goal of the course - or at least how I see it -  is to learn writing well, to make sure that your quality is high and that you learn the craft. But it’s a painful process. I guess any growth is…

It’s painful because in the beginning you start realizing where you stand now. And now… having objectively evaluated where I am, I am not happy about that. So now the doubts are no longer about if I am good or not… because I already know that I’m not… at least yet. The doubt now is about the future… it’s about whether I will be able to master the craft and ensure the quality I’d like my writing to have.

I think the bootcamp was just a catalyst. We usually have writer’s doubt coming back to us when we don’t see results… and when we don’t see result we lose the motivation to carry on. And I guess when we lose motivation that’s when we have to push harder… otherwise we may end up sliding down the spiral… and coming back up will be harder than pushing a bit more from where we are now…

So every time I get into the stage when things don’t grow and I don’t see results I get disappointed. Right now, looking at what I’ve done so far I realize that things haven’t moved much… my podcast has not grown from what it was few months ago, I have not finished my book and I have abandoned my fiction…

And what’s the hardest to admit is that it’s completely my fault. I should have worked harder, I should have written more and I should have put aside my humbleness and promoted more what I’ve already done…

So today I spend some time and went back to my reviews. I read the reviews you guys left for my podcast and I went to Amazon and read the reviews that were left for my fiction books. Usually it helps me get on track and reminds me that there are some people who need what I do and that my time and efforts are not wasted.

That made me think that maybe writer’s doubt grows when there is lack of encouragement around. [spp-tweet tweet="Writers, who go through the painful process of growth are vulnerable."] They need an extra hug and a positive affirmation.

Meanwhile, let’s chin up, pull ourselves together and work harder.

Also - consider signing up for the Self-Publishing Success Summit, which is the best online summit on the topic with amazing line-up. On that summit 37 World-Changing Authors & Entrepreneurs Reveal How to Write, Market & Publish Your  First Book AND Use It To Get To 6 Figures

You can get your FREE access to the Self-Publishing Success Summit here.

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>57549293eecb06abbd25e545c024b951Fri, 10 Jul 2015 12:28:50 -040006:22falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Gain Your First 10k ReadersToday my guest is Nick Stephenson. Nick was born and raised in England. He is a fiction author and novelist, writing in the mysteries and thrillers genre. His approach to writing is to hit hard, hit fast, and leave as few spelling errors as possible. We are discussing how to gain the first 10k readers and what Nick did exactly in order to make full time income from writing fiction books. Nick shares practical and simple tips, which can be replicated easily with even only one written book. Nick is also speaking at the Self-Publishing Success Summit, which is the best online summit on the topic with amazing line-up. On that summit 37 World-Changing Authors & Entrepreneurs Reveal How to Write, Market & Publish Your  First Book AND Use It To Get To 6 Figures

You can get your FREE access to the Self-Publishing Success Summit here.

Food for Thought

The statement "The best marketing is writing your next book" is a myth. N1 focus should be getting more readers sign up to your e-mail list and building relationship with them. Offer reader magnet they can get in exchange to their e mail address: something related to your books. Set up marketing system in pace, which later will work on autopilot, so you will have time for writing.

Useful Links

Nick's website First 10K Readers course free videos and case study Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>Today my guest is Nick Stephenson. Nick was born and raised in England. He is a fiction author and novelist, writing in the mysteries and thrillers genre. His approach to writing is to hit hard, hit fast, and leave as few spelling errors as possible. We are discussing how to gain the first 10k readers and what Nick did exactly in order to make full time income from writing fiction books. Nick shares practical and simple tips, which can be replicated easily with even only one written book. Nick is also speaking at the Self-Publishing Success Summit, which is the best online summit on the topic with amazing line-up. On that summit 37 World-Changing Authors & Entrepreneurs Reveal How to Write, Market & Publish Your  First Book AND Use It To Get To 6 Figures

You can get your FREE access to the Self-Publishing Success Summit here.

Food for Thought

The statement "The best marketing is writing your next book" is a myth. N1 focus should be getting more readers sign up to your e-mail list and building relationship with them. Offer reader magnet they can get in exchange to their e mail address: something related to your books. Set up marketing system in pace, which later will work on autopilot, so you will have time for writing.

Useful Links

Nick's website First 10K Readers course free videos and case study Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>4000d67ff2a7847592000bbb75542f00Mon, 06 Jul 2015 11:53:39 -040044:18falsefullAni AlexanderGrowth Hacking

Today I am talking to Tom Morkes. Tom is a West Point grad, Iraq War veteran and CEO of Insurgent Publishing. He is the author of the new book Collaborate: The New Rules for Launching a Business Online.

Tom was Write 2B Read podcast guest in episode 49 and you can hear it at this link.

Food for Thought

Crowdfunding is not good for building an audience.

If your reach isn't there and if you don't have built audience in place the crowdfunding campaign will not be successful.

Crowdfunding is a way to create an event around your book.

There are many growth hacking tools that will help you grow your readership and increase book sales.

Useful Links

Tom's website

The Growth Hacker's Guide to the Galaxy (support the kickstarter campaign here)

Indiegogo

Kickstarter

Publishizer

Inkshares

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>

Today I am talking to Tom Morkes. Tom is a West Point grad, Iraq War veteran and CEO of Insurgent Publishing. He is the author of the new book Collaborate: The New Rules for Launching a Business Online.

Tom was Write 2B Read podcast guest in episode 49 and you can hear it at this link.

Food for Thought

Crowdfunding is not good for building an audience.

If your reach isn't there and if you don't have built audience in place the crowdfunding campaign will not be successful.

Crowdfunding is a way to create an event around your book.

There are many growth hacking tools that will help you grow your readership and increase book sales.

Useful Links

Tom's website

The Growth Hacker's Guide to the Galaxy (support the kickstarter campaign here)

Indiegogo

Kickstarter

Publishizer

Inkshares

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>85cfd9dad05c0dc4dbf5d9f082302cbcTue, 30 Jun 2015 09:13:11 -040042:43falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Grow Your Audience in 18 Seconds

Today I talk to Parviz Parvizi. Parviz is co-founder of Clammr, a mobile app and platform making audio more social and viral. Users are calling Clammr, which features snack-sized audio clips of 18 seconds or less, the “Instagram of Audio.” Previously, Parviz worked at McKinsey & Company, Goldman Sachs, the FCC, and O’Melveny & Myers. He has advised top 5 global media companies and mobile carriers on strategy and growth. He was a founder of McKinsey’siConsumer research initiative on digital consumer behavior, authoring 3 of the Firm’s 10 most-downloaded media sector knowledge documents. Parviz holds a JD from Yale Law School and AB from Cornell.

In this interview we talk about the Clammr app.

Clammr brings social engagement and discovery to audio.  

Users are calling our app Audio Instagram and Audio Twitter.  Listeners get personalized streams of Entertainment & News in 18-second bites that they can launch automatically into full-length music, podcasts, and news.

Audio content creators love Clammr as a way to make their content more discoverable and viral.  Blogs and video producers love us for reaching audiences when they can't look at screens.

Advice and Links

Download Clammr for iPhone/iPad in the App Store or by visiting http://clammr.com

Use the web-based publisher to upload files and for a basic listening experience if you are on Android: http://publisher.clammr.com

Workshop and update videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC5x7Z_UUMu-Ev_k9ftnP1g

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>

Today I talk to Parviz Parvizi. Parviz is co-founder of Clammr, a mobile app and platform making audio more social and viral. Users are calling Clammr, which features snack-sized audio clips of 18 seconds or less, the “Instagram of Audio.” Previously, Parviz worked at McKinsey & Company, Goldman Sachs, the FCC, and O’Melveny & Myers. He has advised top 5 global media companies and mobile carriers on strategy and growth. He was a founder of McKinsey’siConsumer research initiative on digital consumer behavior, authoring 3 of the Firm’s 10 most-downloaded media sector knowledge documents. Parviz holds a JD from Yale Law School and AB from Cornell.

In this interview we talk about the Clammr app.

Clammr brings social engagement and discovery to audio.  

Users are calling our app Audio Instagram and Audio Twitter.  Listeners get personalized streams of Entertainment & News in 18-second bites that they can launch automatically into full-length music, podcasts, and news.

Audio content creators love Clammr as a way to make their content more discoverable and viral.  Blogs and video producers love us for reaching audiences when they can't look at screens.

Advice and Links

Download Clammr for iPhone/iPad in the App Store or by visiting http://clammr.com

Use the web-based publisher to upload files and for a basic listening experience if you are on Android: http://publisher.clammr.com

Workshop and update videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC5x7Z_UUMu-Ev_k9ftnP1g

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>87c4c9aecd2f98ae38d370a6171322cfFri, 26 Jun 2015 17:48:08 -040044:30falsefullAni AlexanderKindle Unlimited Pages Read

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

These days I’ve come across many articles and questions concerning Amazon’t new policy that will be implemented starting July 1st. At first it seemed confusing even to me, so I went through some stuff and decided to clarify things for you today.

For those of you who have not heard about this yet - the news says that Amazon twill pay Kindle authors only for pages read…

Before digging into this let me make one thing clear from the very start. This will only affect self-published authors whose books are available on Amazon’s lending services I mean those who self-publish their books exclusively through Amazon’s “KDP Select” program. It means that the news applies only at cases when Amazon prime members get your book for free from the Amazon Landing Library and if you are not enrolled at KDP Select program nothing changes for you.

But what if you are enrolled at the program. Before the change each month Amazon fixed a price per each landed/downloaded book and paid everyone that amount. So basically each landed book was viewed as a sale and the price was set by Amazon.

What will happen from now on? Well now what will matter is how many pages have the people who have landed your book have actually read. If someone downloaded your book and never opened it - you won’t get paid at all. So you will be paid for each page read.

“We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read,” the company said. Basically“ Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.”

Some might think about fooling the new system by making the fonts bigger, double spacing the thing, etc, right? Well Amazon thought of it too and developed a “Kindle Edition Normalised Page Count” (KENPC) which standardises font, line height and line spacing. So that part has been taken care of.

Since some have asked what I think about this here we go….

First of all it is good that the writers have the choice - it is only for the KDP Select authors, so if you don’t like the new system you can still sell your books on Amazon and be out of the KDP Select.

Second I am thinking about my personal reading experience. I am not from those people who feel obliged to finish the book when they start reading it. In average I finish only 1-2 books out of the 10 that I pick up. I give a book chance of 20-30 pages - it either hooks me or it doesn’t and when it does’t I don’t feel like investing my time and attention into it. If the writer is not able to keep my attention and want me read more then he’s probably not a very good writer, right?

So in that respect I think that it is fair. There are so many VERY short non-fiction books, which have only one main message and lots of air inside. There are non-fiction books, which were written in 2 hours. Why should their authors be paid the same as a thriller writer of 140k word book, who spent months writing the book? Maybe if that new system applied to all book sales and not only the landing library we would have less of those small non fiction crappy books which were outsources just to make passive income for the publisher? Maybe in that case only really good writers would make money and not those who don’t even write the books but outsource them and use keywords and stuff to get the downloads? Maybe, I...]]>

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

These days I’ve come across many articles and questions concerning Amazon’t new policy that will be implemented starting July 1st. At first it seemed confusing even to me, so I went through some stuff and decided to clarify things for you today.

For those of you who have not heard about this yet - the news says that Amazon twill pay Kindle authors only for pages read…

Before digging into this let me make one thing clear from the very start. This will only affect self-published authors whose books are available on Amazon’s lending services I mean those who self-publish their books exclusively through Amazon’s “KDP Select” program. It means that the news applies only at cases when Amazon prime members get your book for free from the Amazon Landing Library and if you are not enrolled at KDP Select program nothing changes for you.

But what if you are enrolled at the program. Before the change each month Amazon fixed a price per each landed/downloaded book and paid everyone that amount. So basically each landed book was viewed as a sale and the price was set by Amazon.

What will happen from now on? Well now what will matter is how many pages have the people who have landed your book have actually read. If someone downloaded your book and never opened it - you won’t get paid at all. So you will be paid for each page read.

“We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read,” the company said. Basically“ Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.”

Some might think about fooling the new system by making the fonts bigger, double spacing the thing, etc, right? Well Amazon thought of it too and developed a “Kindle Edition Normalised Page Count” (KENPC) which standardises font, line height and line spacing. So that part has been taken care of.

Since some have asked what I think about this here we go….

First of all it is good that the writers have the choice - it is only for the KDP Select authors, so if you don’t like the new system you can still sell your books on Amazon and be out of the KDP Select.

Second I am thinking about my personal reading experience. I am not from those people who feel obliged to finish the book when they start reading it. In average I finish only 1-2 books out of the 10 that I pick up. I give a book chance of 20-30 pages - it either hooks me or it doesn’t and when it does’t I don’t feel like investing my time and attention into it. If the writer is not able to keep my attention and want me read more then he’s probably not a very good writer, right?

So in that respect I think that it is fair. There are so many VERY short non-fiction books, which have only one main message and lots of air inside. There are non-fiction books, which were written in 2 hours. Why should their authors be paid the same as a thriller writer of 140k word book, who spent months writing the book? Maybe if that new system applied to all book sales and not only the landing library we would have less of those small non fiction crappy books which were outsources just to make passive income for the publisher? Maybe in that case only really good writers would make money and not those who don’t even write the books but outsource them and use keywords and stuff to get the downloads? Maybe, I don’t know… but I see the logic of encouraging authors who's books readers want to read.

The Goldfinch, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Donna Tartt, was one of 2014’s biggest sellers. But I read today that data released by Kobo showed that only 44 per cent of readers who downloaded it read to the end. Maybe people downloaded it because it was an award winning book, because it was a bestseller and many spoke about it. But apparently over 50% of them did not like it enough to read till the end.

On the other hand, as one of the authors stated - if we apply the same logic then it means we should pay for the burger according to how many bites we had… huh?

So the new thing I spoke about today is effective July 1st.

What I’d like to mention though is that it will be happening all the time. Amazon has been changing it’s algorithms many time before and it will be continuing doing so along with its policies. And it is good to know about the new things coming up and be prepared but what is ore important I think is to make you sure that you write the best book you can. Because if your writing is good, if it resonates with the reader, if it makes the reader feel and think, you will most probably succeed no matter what!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>56545731e723ca35ff11032aa25ee8dcTue, 23 Jun 2015 15:09:01 -040008:55falsefullAni AlexanderMake Your Writings Be HeardToday my guest is Beren Hollins. Beren Hollins is a Doctor from Britain who now works in Canada. He is planning to publish his first novel later this year and with that in mind decided to commit to the idea of building an audience in advance. So he started The First Three Chapters Podcast.

His podcast features new  books and help new authors get visibility and gain audience. Beren reads the first 3 chapters of the book in audiobook format and lets his listeners know where they can buy the book in case they like it and want to read the rest.

In this interview we talk about Beren's journey of becoming author, the plans he has about the launch of his first book this year, podcasting as a way for authors to gain new audience  and how you can benefit from The First Three Chapters podcast.

Hearing the words that you've written read by somebody else is just amazing. It brings it to life in a way that's hard to describe. It certainly makes everything about the words you've written much more real.

Useful Links

The First Three Chapter Podcast on iTunes

Beren's website

Podcast Incubator

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>Today my guest is Beren Hollins. Beren Hollins is a Doctor from Britain who now works in Canada. He is planning to publish his first novel later this year and with that in mind decided to commit to the idea of building an audience in advance. So he started The First Three Chapters Podcast.

His podcast features new  books and help new authors get visibility and gain audience. Beren reads the first 3 chapters of the book in audiobook format and lets his listeners know where they can buy the book in case they like it and want to read the rest.

In this interview we talk about Beren's journey of becoming author, the plans he has about the launch of his first book this year, podcasting as a way for authors to gain new audience  and how you can benefit from The First Three Chapters podcast.

Hearing the words that you've written read by somebody else is just amazing. It brings it to life in a way that's hard to describe. It certainly makes everything about the words you've written much more real.

Useful Links

The First Three Chapter Podcast on iTunes

Beren's website

Podcast Incubator

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>b31aa31d0aa2427aac155360f00062f2Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:39:42 -040043:08falsefullAni AlexanderTransform Your Life Story

Today my guest is Christal Earle. She is entrepreneur, speaker, passionate author and transformational coach.We all tell stories to ourselves and the world about who we are and what we are here to create. Christal works with  people who want to understand how to take their unique story, voice, passion and purpose into the world in a way that resonates and connects with who they are and the audience they want to reach.

In this interview we talk about how the stories we tell ourselves may keep us away from success and how to change them into new stories. We also

We look for what we want but we find what we believe.

 

Useful Liks

Your Brilliance Unlimited (Christal's website)

Transform Your Life Story: A Ten Day Journey to Change the Stories You Tell Yourself (Free eBook)

You can e mail Christal at Christal (at) yourbrillianceunlimited.com

Resonate: The Stories We Tell Ourselves (Living Inside Out Book 1)

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

<

div>

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>

Today my guest is Christal Earle. She is entrepreneur, speaker, passionate author and transformational coach.We all tell stories to ourselves and the world about who we are and what we are here to create. Christal works with  people who want to understand how to take their unique story, voice, passion and purpose into the world in a way that resonates and connects with who they are and the audience they want to reach.

In this interview we talk about how the stories we tell ourselves may keep us away from success and how to change them into new stories. We also

We look for what we want but we find what we believe.

 

Useful Liks

Your Brilliance Unlimited (Christal's website)

Transform Your Life Story: A Ten Day Journey to Change the Stories You Tell Yourself (Free eBook)

You can e mail Christal at Christal (at) yourbrillianceunlimited.com

Resonate: The Stories We Tell Ourselves (Living Inside Out Book 1)

Don't Forget!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

<

div>

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>09ce01b838c3577180503efc3e04f2ebTue, 16 Jun 2015 12:51:31 -040049:47falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Work a RoomSusan's first book- the classic bestseller -How To Work A Room-(now available as a silver anniversary revised edition in print, as an ebook and audiobook) has sold over one million copies in 13 countries. Named by Forbes.com as one of the Networking Experts to follow in 2015, Susan RoAne, an author and in-demand international keynote speaker, has shared her message of connection and communication with audiences worldwide, and in diverse publications including: the New York Times, Sydney Telegraph, Financial Times, Globe and Mail, USA Today,forbes.com, Men's Health,Buzzfeed , the San Francisco Chronicle, huffington post and The Wall Street Journal as well as on TV, Radio and podcasts worldwide. Her clients include Coca Cola, Kraft Foods, The US Air Force, UnitedHealth Group, Yale University, Apple Computer, Procter and Gamble, authors@google, Intel, Stanford University, LinkedIN, The National Football League, — and, her personal favorite . . . Hershey Chocolate!

Interview highlights

Writing is isolating but the part of being an author is you have to be out there so people know who you are and that you create visibility. [spp-tweet "You are your own best PR person."]

When we’re face to face something happens that cannot be replaced by anything online.

Don't give your title during introduction - give the benefit of what you do and what your book will do.

Small talk is how we build those little details connections that link us to people and have them engage with us.

Little small talk starts and leads to a big talk.

Always know the etiquette and the culture of the room.

Writing a book is hard but everything after is harder.

Bring who you are to what you do.

Useful Liks

Susan's website Dan Poynter's website Author U Publishers Lunch Publishers Weekly Writer's Digest

Important!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>Susan's first book- the classic bestseller -How To Work A Room-(now available as a silver anniversary revised edition in print, as an ebook and audiobook) has sold over one million copies in 13 countries. Named by Forbes.com as one of the Networking Experts to follow in 2015, Susan RoAne, an author and in-demand international keynote speaker, has shared her message of connection and communication with audiences worldwide, and in diverse publications including: the New York Times, Sydney Telegraph, Financial Times, Globe and Mail, USA Today,forbes.com, Men's Health,Buzzfeed , the San Francisco Chronicle, huffington post and The Wall Street Journal as well as on TV, Radio and podcasts worldwide. Her clients include Coca Cola, Kraft Foods, The US Air Force, UnitedHealth Group, Yale University, Apple Computer, Procter and Gamble, authors@google, Intel, Stanford University, LinkedIN, The National Football League, — and, her personal favorite . . . Hershey Chocolate!

Interview highlights

Writing is isolating but the part of being an author is you have to be out there so people know who you are and that you create visibility. [spp-tweet "You are your own best PR person."]

When we’re face to face something happens that cannot be replaced by anything online.

Don't give your title during introduction - give the benefit of what you do and what your book will do.

Small talk is how we build those little details connections that link us to people and have them engage with us.

Little small talk starts and leads to a big talk.

Always know the etiquette and the culture of the room.

Writing a book is hard but everything after is harder.

Bring who you are to what you do.

Useful Liks

Susan's website Dan Poynter's website Author U Publishers Lunch Publishers Weekly Writer's Digest

Important!

Join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there on July 1st!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>072c611c42de2ccd93403334c3208fd4Tue, 09 Jun 2015 10:41:59 -040052:44falsefullAni AlexanderAbout Inspiration and Experiences

Guess what? Write 2B Read podcast is almost 1 years old and its birthday is on July 1st. I thought about how to celebrate that milestone and yes it deserves a celebration because I have super unstable personality and for me a year is quite long… So I thought what to do and realized that this podcast would not stay alive until now if not you - my listeners. And it became completely clear to me that whatever I decide to do should be done with you. That is why I came up with the idea of having a live Q&A hangout with anyone who would like to join me to celebrate together our podcast’s birthday.

I thought that it would be nice to finally get together and have fun. Besides I have never done videos before and most of you have only heard my voice, so this will be the first time I’ll quit my comfort zone and get on live video for you. You will be able to ask me anything you’d like to know and I will do my best to answer… but guess what? I don’t know everything so if there will be questions, which I don’t know how to answer I will either cover those in the upcoming podcasts or get a guest who knows about the topic ok? And maybe… I will also get a surprise guest for you. In any case I think it will be fun and I’d love to have you there.

Simply click here and register to the hangout. I will do the rest :)

If for some reason you will not be able to make it live - don't worry. Make sure you register and I will send you the recording. 

Today I will have a solo piece and I’ll share with you my thoughts about inspiration and experiences.

We all had periods when we were not inspired enough. When we opened our computer screen and stared at it with no clue what to write about, or how to start what we thought about writing … as a result we got irritated, it made things worse and it is very probable that we gave up, shut the screen and left the desk… It has happened to me many times. And it does not feel good at all.

So where one should look for inspiration? Is it something that comes to you whenever it wants? Is that unexplainable muse controlling when and how you write? I don’t want to believe in that because as soon as I do I will feel as if nothing is under my control and I am not a writer but rather inspiration’s tool which it uses to express its thought…

Thinking back I realize that one can draw inspiration almost from everything. Life itself is a great source of inspiration. And I know what you might think - compared to all those books with amazing life stories yours might not be so interesting or so inspiring… and that might be true… but there are still ways even in that case. My life has never been dull to be honest and I’ve always been through different stuff which could eventually make a good story but I have not yet gained the courage to write about my life yet… at least not the way it should be written. But I have written about other people’s lives instead. My both novels Highball and Dreamdown were written based o true life stories, which later were modified into fiction. So yes, if at this point for some reason you don’t think that your life could be source of inspiration for your stories turn to other people’s lives. You don’t know people, who's lives inspire you? Cool - pay attention to the content shared on social media, see what stories are in there and get interesting life stories from there. Or simply get out of the house, go to a coffee shop and while you breath in the aroma  and enjoy every sip - watch people. Watch them and come up with their life stories - who are they? Why are they here now? Where they will go after they finish their coffee? Who do they love? Why do they look sad or tired? What dreams do they have?

There is Benjamin Franklin]]>

Guess what? Write 2B Read podcast is almost 1 years old and its birthday is on July 1st. I thought about how to celebrate that milestone and yes it deserves a celebration because I have super unstable personality and for me a year is quite long… So I thought what to do and realized that this podcast would not stay alive until now if not you - my listeners. And it became completely clear to me that whatever I decide to do should be done with you. That is why I came up with the idea of having a live Q&A hangout with anyone who would like to join me to celebrate together our podcast’s birthday.

I thought that it would be nice to finally get together and have fun. Besides I have never done videos before and most of you have only heard my voice, so this will be the first time I’ll quit my comfort zone and get on live video for you. You will be able to ask me anything you’d like to know and I will do my best to answer… but guess what? I don’t know everything so if there will be questions, which I don’t know how to answer I will either cover those in the upcoming podcasts or get a guest who knows about the topic ok? And maybe… I will also get a surprise guest for you. In any case I think it will be fun and I’d love to have you there.

Simply click here and register to the hangout. I will do the rest :)

If for some reason you will not be able to make it live - don't worry. Make sure you register and I will send you the recording. 

Today I will have a solo piece and I’ll share with you my thoughts about inspiration and experiences.

We all had periods when we were not inspired enough. When we opened our computer screen and stared at it with no clue what to write about, or how to start what we thought about writing … as a result we got irritated, it made things worse and it is very probable that we gave up, shut the screen and left the desk… It has happened to me many times. And it does not feel good at all.

So where one should look for inspiration? Is it something that comes to you whenever it wants? Is that unexplainable muse controlling when and how you write? I don’t want to believe in that because as soon as I do I will feel as if nothing is under my control and I am not a writer but rather inspiration’s tool which it uses to express its thought…

Thinking back I realize that one can draw inspiration almost from everything. Life itself is a great source of inspiration. And I know what you might think - compared to all those books with amazing life stories yours might not be so interesting or so inspiring… and that might be true… but there are still ways even in that case. My life has never been dull to be honest and I’ve always been through different stuff which could eventually make a good story but I have not yet gained the courage to write about my life yet… at least not the way it should be written. But I have written about other people’s lives instead. My both novels Highball and Dreamdown were written based o true life stories, which later were modified into fiction. So yes, if at this point for some reason you don’t think that your life could be source of inspiration for your stories turn to other people’s lives. You don’t know people, who's lives inspire you? Cool - pay attention to the content shared on social media, see what stories are in there and get interesting life stories from there. Or simply get out of the house, go to a coffee shop and while you breath in the aroma  and enjoy every sip - watch people. Watch them and come up with their life stories - who are they? Why are they here now? Where they will go after they finish their coffee? Who do they love? Why do they look sad or tired? What dreams do they have?

There is Benjamin Franklin  quote which says "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."

I’d like to talk about the second half here - about doing something worth writing. I know that what I’ll say now may not be something you’d like to hear because we live in materialistic world and many prefer things… BUT my advice to you will be

Buy experiences not things.Why?

Well I don’t know about you but although I love my Prada sunglasses they don’t inspire me to write. I simply enjoy wearing them. But on the other hand when I am making a short trip, or meet new people, or read a thought or feelings provoking book I do get inspired to write.

So if you think your life is not inspiring - make it become inspiring. Fill it with experiences - go ahead and create the life which will inspire you to write. Become one of those people who's life stories are worth sharing with the word.

Well that was the dose of inspiration from me and before we part once more I’d like to remind you that you can join the Write to be Read podcast birthday party by registering at here.  I will be more than happy to meet you there!

Take care, have a great week end and keep writing!

Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

]]>cea386d7a57f3a2e90c5a6ad0c272fd2Fri, 05 Jun 2015 11:31:39 -040009:18falsefullAni AlexanderTalk About Audience Today I will be talking to Peter Shankman. The New York Times has called him "a public relations all-star who knows everything about new media and then some,", while Investor's Business Daily has labeled him "crazy, but effective." Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you merge the power of pure creativity with  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a dose of adventure, and make it work to your advantage. An author, entrepreneur, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about Customer Service, Social Media, PR, marketing and advertising.

Interview Highlights

Books are great to get speaking gigs.

As you start to create value people will notice it and if it's good people tend to share it.

Having an audience is a privilege - it is not a right!

You have to figure out what your audience wants and that comes from knowing who they are.

You have to be willing to be open.

Failure is great because it teaches you how to improve.

Every day is a chance to create something better.

]]> Today I will be talking to Peter Shankman. The New York Times has called him "a public relations all-star who knows everything about new media and then some,", while Investor's Business Daily has labeled him "crazy, but effective." Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you merge the power of pure creativity with  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a dose of adventure, and make it work to your advantage. An author, entrepreneur, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about Customer Service, Social Media, PR, marketing and advertising.

Interview Highlights

Books are great to get speaking gigs.

As you start to create value people will notice it and if it's good people tend to share it.

Having an audience is a privilege - it is not a right!

You have to figure out what your audience wants and that comes from knowing who they are.

You have to be willing to be open.

Failure is great because it teaches you how to improve.

Every day is a chance to create something better.

]]>c0ab119486bd5c10d4b5a32659f0f97dTue, 02 Jun 2015 09:19:13 -040032:23falsefullAni AlexanderCoincidences in Life

First of all thank you so much for the amazing feedback for the episode 100. For those who have not listened to it - the write 2b read podcast episode 100 featured interview with me, which my friend podcaster Bill Nowicki had recorded just few days after the podcast was launched. So if you wanna know more about me as a person and find out who stands behind this voice and as I’ve been told pretty thick James Bond girl accent - then head over to www.anialexander.com/100

By reaching the milestone of 100 episodes I spent some time thinking about how much I have learnt in less than a year of podcasting… And it’s not like all the things I’ve learnt are related to podcasting, not at all…

So today I would like to talk about the coincidences in life… which later, looking back are things that had to happen in order to lead you to things which you had to come across.

In order to explain what exactly I mean I’ll refer to the Write 2B Read podcast - which you are listening to right now and which has become a very crucial part of my life. So let me tell you its story.

I thought about podcasting long before I actually launched this podcast. I love to talk, I love people, I am curious and I am a story teller, so it was sort of logical that podcasting could be something that I would enjoy… BUT what happens usually when we want to do something? Yup… self-doubts and excuses attack and push back the intention to do something new. And that’s exactly what happened to me back then. I recalled the fact that I have an accent and that would not sound well… I thought that the technical part of producing a podcast was very complicated and I also thought that no one would like to be interviewed by a completely unknown Armenian podcaster…

And then the coincidences in my life came by one by one. First of all one of my good online friend and a fellow writer Rob Cubbon introduced me to my current podcasting mentor Meron Bareket. I don’t even remember how did the topic come up. It was long after the self doubt had won and I had decided that podcasting is not something I could possibly manage and had forgotten about it. So I got introduced to Meron’s free video tutorials, where he covers everything you need to know about launching a podcast  (which by the way you can get too at www.podcastincubator.com/write2bread) and after watching the first few videos I realized that technically it is not as complicated as I thought.

That sort of made me think that things were not impossible. So I drank a bottle if beer and recorded a few second audio to send out to few British friends and see if my accent would be bearable. The feedback was great and they told that I should definitely go ahead and start a podcast.

So it all led me reach the point when I though “what the hell - let’s try it”. For me it was just an experimental project. I was going to do my best, try and see what happens.

Now, when I think back … I might have never known Rob (btw I still don’t remember how we met online)  and respectfully not be introduced to Meron… Even after the launch I might not have put so much time into it… or got so many amazing guests… or might have given up at the early stage…

So I guess, things happen for a reason. When they do you don’t yet know where those things will lead you to…

Yes there is an element of luck to meet the right person at the right time, to come up with an idea at...]]>

First of all thank you so much for the amazing feedback for the episode 100. For those who have not listened to it - the write 2b read podcast episode 100 featured interview with me, which my friend podcaster Bill Nowicki had recorded just few days after the podcast was launched. So if you wanna know more about me as a person and find out who stands behind this voice and as I’ve been told pretty thick James Bond girl accent - then head over to www.anialexander.com/100

By reaching the milestone of 100 episodes I spent some time thinking about how much I have learnt in less than a year of podcasting… And it’s not like all the things I’ve learnt are related to podcasting, not at all…

So today I would like to talk about the coincidences in life… which later, looking back are things that had to happen in order to lead you to things which you had to come across.

In order to explain what exactly I mean I’ll refer to the Write 2B Read podcast - which you are listening to right now and which has become a very crucial part of my life. So let me tell you its story.

I thought about podcasting long before I actually launched this podcast. I love to talk, I love people, I am curious and I am a story teller, so it was sort of logical that podcasting could be something that I would enjoy… BUT what happens usually when we want to do something? Yup… self-doubts and excuses attack and push back the intention to do something new. And that’s exactly what happened to me back then. I recalled the fact that I have an accent and that would not sound well… I thought that the technical part of producing a podcast was very complicated and I also thought that no one would like to be interviewed by a completely unknown Armenian podcaster…

And then the coincidences in my life came by one by one. First of all one of my good online friend and a fellow writer Rob Cubbon introduced me to my current podcasting mentor Meron Bareket. I don’t even remember how did the topic come up. It was long after the self doubt had won and I had decided that podcasting is not something I could possibly manage and had forgotten about it. So I got introduced to Meron’s free video tutorials, where he covers everything you need to know about launching a podcast  (which by the way you can get too at www.podcastincubator.com/write2bread) and after watching the first few videos I realized that technically it is not as complicated as I thought.

That sort of made me think that things were not impossible. So I drank a bottle if beer and recorded a few second audio to send out to few British friends and see if my accent would be bearable. The feedback was great and they told that I should definitely go ahead and start a podcast.

So it all led me reach the point when I though “what the hell - let’s try it”. For me it was just an experimental project. I was going to do my best, try and see what happens.

Now, when I think back … I might have never known Rob (btw I still don’t remember how we met online)  and respectfully not be introduced to Meron… Even after the launch I might not have put so much time into it… or got so many amazing guests… or might have given up at the early stage…

So I guess, things happen for a reason. When they do you don’t yet know where those things will lead you to…

Yes there is an element of luck to meet the right person at the right time, to come up with an idea at a time when there are people who are willing to help you execute it, to gain the courage when you need it most…

but if you embrace what comes and later on help the chain reaction with putting some time and effort on top of the initial coincidence amazing things may happen.

When you get an idea for a book - help it become a book - start writing it and don’t let the uncertainty about whether it will sell or not stop you.

When you meet someone online - help that person change your life - talk to him. I am connecting to 3 new people online each day. Some of them later become online friends, business partners and avid listeners.

When you think about doing something you’d like to do - don’t overthink - just do it. Don’t let the imaginary barriers stop you from starting.

When you get self-doubts - try to see how real the doubts are… maybe they are created and imagined by you and have nothing to do with the reality.

Look back at all the coincidences in your life and you will realize that they were not pure coincidences. They were chances, opportunities and the beginnings of something new. They were the turning points and the twists that you needed in your life.

They may lead you to amazing changes and make you create something amazing.

Maybe coming across the Write 2B Read podcast was not a coincidence either and the fact that you are listening to me know means something… like that you need to write that book inside you, or you need to find out how to share the book you have  already written with the world - or simply get the inspiration and the encouragement that you needed now.

Go ahead and make things happen. You can do it!

Oh and go ahead and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes to make sure that you don’t miss anything new :)

]]>c2672561a3109a14de55e607cf385865Fri, 29 May 2015 08:56:03 -040008:35falsefullAni AlexanderWho's That Girl? Revealing the Real Ani

We are at episode 100 and I still can't believe it! It has been a very exciting and fruitful period.

I still remember how I recorded and later re-recorded many times my very first episode. I sounded nervous and did not like the result... but it is still there the way it is. I did not record a new one to replace it, because I thought that it is fair to leave it the way it came out ...

I have enjoyed almost all the interviews done until now and I am proud that I've spoken to so many awesome people. It blows my mind to realize that every day someone I don't know listens to me somewhere on the other hand of the world. It feels weird and at the same time amazing to realizing that there are many people I have never met who hear my voice at least twice a week...

I truly appreciate every single listener. Every time I feel down I re-read your reviews and e mails and the day gets better.

I won't be mentioning names, cause you know who you are and you are so many but I  would like to thank everyone, who has encouraged and helped me make this happen.

In the episode 100 you will hear an interview with me which was recorded just few days after the launch of the Write 2B Read podcast and it will help you know me better./p>

 

Below are the interviews I've done in no particular order for you to listen if you have not done so yet. Just click on the image and it will play.

Here are the interviews and short solo pieces: 

We are at episode 100 and I still can't believe it! It has been a very exciting and fruitful period.

I still remember how I recorded and later re-recorded many times my very first episode. I sounded nervous and did not like the result... but it is still there the way it is. I did not record a new one to replace it, because I thought that it is fair to leave it the way it came out ...

I have enjoyed almost all the interviews done until now and I am proud that I've spoken to so many awesome people. It blows my mind to realize that every day someone I don't know listens to me somewhere on the other hand of the world. It feels weird and at the same time amazing to realizing that there are many people I have never met who hear my voice at least twice a week...

I truly appreciate every single listener. Every time I feel down I re-read your reviews and e mails and the day gets better.

I won't be mentioning names, cause you know who you are and you are so many but I  would like to thank everyone, who has encouraged and helped me make this happen.

In the episode 100 you will hear an interview with me which was recorded just few days after the launch of the Write 2B Read podcast and it will help you know me better./p>

 

Below are the interviews I've done in no particular order for you to listen if you have not done so yet. Just click on the image and it will play.

Here are the interviews and short solo pieces: 

3168faa4578fcdab5808fe59543898b1Sun, 24 May 2015 06:13:14 -040046:06falsefullAni AlexanderWhat They Don't Teach at School

When I was young we trusted the educational system and thought that it was enough to gian all the  knowledge one needs to have for the adult life. Maybe that’s because the educational system was much better back then… or maybe it’s because we were extremely naive… I don’t know.

Now, I start really disliking schools. I have a feeling that most of the important things are not taught there. Besides that in the times when the access to information and knowledge is  just few keystrokes away I don’t see the value schools bring so much…

When I talk to people and complain about the schools I am also trying to explain what I wish I was taught there and what I wish I knew back then… 

So I decided to share those with you today.

I wish that instead of teaching what one should do in life and what is wrong and right they taught us to follow our dreams… Unfortunately most of us forget about our childhood dreams by the time we grow up.  But maybe that would not happen if we were told that dreams and  adult life could co-exist and that childhood dreams are not necessarily incompatible with the real life. I meet so many people, who wish they were doing something else instead, who still recall the dreams they had in the past and regret that they never even tried to make them happen.

Schools concentrate so much on the pragmatic thinking that sometimes we end up thinking that dreaming is stupid… dreaming big becomes sign of being immature and as a result many of us end dreaming  altogether…

Well you know what? All that is a bullshit! I am more than certain that we all need to dream. Always! No matter how old we are. Dreams should be part of our life and I wish someone told that to me at school, so that is why I am telling you this now. Follow your dreams so instead of regrets or dreamless life you’ll end up being excited.

The other wrong misperception we have is that if we study well we will get a guaranteed success. But that’s not true at all. Only the academic knowledge is not enough… there is so much more you need to have. You gotta have emotional intelligence, which is not taught in any school yet. You need to have a certain unique personality and no one can teach you how.

So what do we learn at school apart from the academic stuff? Well we are told the standard life scenario… we are brought up to think that the right way is to study well. to graduate and get into university. After that we have to find a job, climb the career leather, get married, buy a house, have kids….  What they don’t tell us in school is that there is a choice - and the choice is not simply studying well and being successful and rich or study poorly and be poor and unhappy as they imply.

They should teach at schools that there is always a choice and most importantly there is a choice of NOT following the crowd.

And that leads me to the next thing I wish they taught… children at school should learn that if not awesome than at least

[spp-tweet "it is ok to be different."]

I went to school in times when the Soviet Union still existed. Back then any kind of differentiation (not only at schools, but everywhere else) was punished. We were supposed to dress, think and behave the same way… all of us. Maybe that is why I love the fact that I can no longer hide the fact that I am different and love being that way.

I also wish that children at school were told that one does not necessarily have to work for someone else and that it’s a choice too. I believe that there are people who do not need to ever create a CV and who should start their own thing straightaway. Yes, I agree that the entrepreneurship is not for...]]>

When I was young we trusted the educational system and thought that it was enough to gian all the  knowledge one needs to have for the adult life. Maybe that’s because the educational system was much better back then… or maybe it’s because we were extremely naive… I don’t know.

Now, I start really disliking schools. I have a feeling that most of the important things are not taught there. Besides that in the times when the access to information and knowledge is  just few keystrokes away I don’t see the value schools bring so much…

When I talk to people and complain about the schools I am also trying to explain what I wish I was taught there and what I wish I knew back then… 

So I decided to share those with you today.

I wish that instead of teaching what one should do in life and what is wrong and right they taught us to follow our dreams… Unfortunately most of us forget about our childhood dreams by the time we grow up.  But maybe that would not happen if we were told that dreams and  adult life could co-exist and that childhood dreams are not necessarily incompatible with the real life. I meet so many people, who wish they were doing something else instead, who still recall the dreams they had in the past and regret that they never even tried to make them happen.

Schools concentrate so much on the pragmatic thinking that sometimes we end up thinking that dreaming is stupid… dreaming big becomes sign of being immature and as a result many of us end dreaming  altogether…

Well you know what? All that is a bullshit! I am more than certain that we all need to dream. Always! No matter how old we are. Dreams should be part of our life and I wish someone told that to me at school, so that is why I am telling you this now. Follow your dreams so instead of regrets or dreamless life you’ll end up being excited.

The other wrong misperception we have is that if we study well we will get a guaranteed success. But that’s not true at all. Only the academic knowledge is not enough… there is so much more you need to have. You gotta have emotional intelligence, which is not taught in any school yet. You need to have a certain unique personality and no one can teach you how.

So what do we learn at school apart from the academic stuff? Well we are told the standard life scenario… we are brought up to think that the right way is to study well. to graduate and get into university. After that we have to find a job, climb the career leather, get married, buy a house, have kids….  What they don’t tell us in school is that there is a choice - and the choice is not simply studying well and being successful and rich or study poorly and be poor and unhappy as they imply.

They should teach at schools that there is always a choice and most importantly there is a choice of NOT following the crowd.

And that leads me to the next thing I wish they taught… children at school should learn that if not awesome than at least

[spp-tweet "it is ok to be different."]

I went to school in times when the Soviet Union still existed. Back then any kind of differentiation (not only at schools, but everywhere else) was punished. We were supposed to dress, think and behave the same way… all of us. Maybe that is why I love the fact that I can no longer hide the fact that I am different and love being that way.

I also wish that children at school were told that one does not necessarily have to work for someone else and that it’s a choice too. I believe that there are people who do not need to ever create a CV and who should start their own thing straightaway. Yes, I agree that the entrepreneurship is not for everyone… but working for a company is not or everyone either, right?

I also wish that children knew that it is ok to fail and that there is no such person, who has never failed before. Children have to be taught  not to get discouraged, not to give up, stand up straight and try again when they fail.

School tests and exams are designed in such way that they make children to use their left brain and only the left part of their brain is graded as a result. That is good, left brain is very important indeed … BUT they should know that right brain also exists and it also needs to be used.

Just like they learn the basics of math they also need to learn about their creativity and intuition.

As you can see I don’t expect too much from schools and universities. On top of what we get there, I think that the life and personal experiences are the better teachers.

]]>70b0bcce6ca3e5180c49617bde9f5240Thu, 21 May 2015 11:11:42 -040009:58falsefullAni AlexanderWriting, Money and Book in a BoxMy today's guest is Tucker Max.

His first book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, is a #1 New York Times Best Seller, spent five years on the list, and has over 2 million copies in print. His second book, Assholes Finish First, and his third book, Hilarity Ensues, are also NY Times Best Sellers. He co-wrote and produced the movie based on his life/book, also titled “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.” He has also been credited with being the originator and leader of a new literary genre, “fratire,” is only the third writer (after Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis) to ever have three books on the NY Times Nonfiction Best Seller List at one time, and was nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

Interview Highlights

There is 1 way to know if your writing us good and that's if people who don't know you and don't care about you read it and recommend it to their friends.

Quality is not measured by how beautiful your sentence is. The quality of your writing is measured by how may people take value from it.

There is no such thing as a strategy that works all the time.

If you're an author and you think that selling a lot of books will change your life and will solve all your problems and make everything better and complete you as a person - it won't.

All that money does is make you a bigger version of whatever you were before.

Useful links

Book in a Box

Book in a Box book (coming soon)

]]>My today's guest is Tucker Max.

His first book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, is a #1 New York Times Best Seller, spent five years on the list, and has over 2 million copies in print. His second book, Assholes Finish First, and his third book, Hilarity Ensues, are also NY Times Best Sellers. He co-wrote and produced the movie based on his life/book, also titled “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.” He has also been credited with being the originator and leader of a new literary genre, “fratire,” is only the third writer (after Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis) to ever have three books on the NY Times Nonfiction Best Seller List at one time, and was nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

Interview Highlights

There is 1 way to know if your writing us good and that's if people who don't know you and don't care about you read it and recommend it to their friends.

Quality is not measured by how beautiful your sentence is. The quality of your writing is measured by how may people take value from it.

There is no such thing as a strategy that works all the time.

If you're an author and you think that selling a lot of books will change your life and will solve all your problems and make everything better and complete you as a person - it won't.

All that money does is make you a bigger version of whatever you were before.

Useful links

Book in a Box

Book in a Box book (coming soon)

]]>62b93582f5622ca57a1e30d03cba70e8Mon, 18 May 2015 13:12:51 -040034:36falsefullAni AlexanderYou Wrote a Book. Now What?

Many authors think that writing a book is very hard and that once you finish your book, the rest is a piece of cake.

Well I would argue about that. For example personally for me the writing process is more enjoyable and much easier than everything else that needs to be done after that.

Once you have completed your manuscript there are so many things that you need to do after. It may even make some writers feel overwhelmed and confused.

So let’s understand what should you do once you finish writing your book? What are the things that you will have to deal with.

1. Get feedback Who you should get feedback from?

Well many rush to their friends and family but I personally think that it is not a good thing. First of all – they are people who might not be able to be objective. Second, they may feel bad about hurting your feeling and may not provide any negative feedback. And the third thing is that they may not be your audience. For example I write women’s fiction and it is logical that my husband is not the most suitable person to approach for feedback. So try to find readers, who enjoy reading books similar to the one you’ve written.

1. Consider modifications based on feedback Just because you have received feedback does not mean that you have to change the book based on absolutely all the points that were brought up. Try to objectively evaluate what you received and make those changes that will benefit your book and which were objectively true.
2. Self-edit

Your manuscript has to be self edited. In fact maybe you will need few rounds of self-edit. One before you send out the text             for feedback and one after you have made the final changes to the manuscript.

4. Proofread There will always be typos and grammar mistakes which you have not caught so you should take that fact as granted.

          Ideally you should get professional help; but if you can’t afford it, have at least 4 to 5 different people go through your manuscript. That way you will minimize the remaining errors.

5. Professional editing Many authors I have interviewed so far have mentioned the importance of having professional your book. It definitely will make the experience of reading your book much better one. It will also ensure that your book ensures good quality text.
6. Research your competitors Ideally you will have to do that before even starting writing then book, but if you have not done it yet n case you have not done it do some research. See which books in your genre are bestsellers now. What are they about? What do readers like about them? How are they priced? What do their covers look like? And so on. Make sure you have the picture of where are you getting into and how to make sure that your book is at least as good as other books in there and make sure you know what differentiates your book from the others.
7. Decide about the platform Yes, Amazon is still the obvious market leader but it is not the only self- publishing platform out there. You can also consider – B&N, iBooks, Kobo, etc. You have to decide whether you would like to concentrate exclusively on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or embrace all the possibilities.
8. Format the book Yeah… that is yet another boring thing that needs to be done. Each platform requires a specific format of the book and you have to make sure that the book is formatted well and it is easy for the eye to read.
9. Choose your category Choosing the right category and subcategory is very crucial. It will help you with your books rankings and visibility. That is why you will need to spend some time...]]>

   Many authors think that writing a book is very hard and that once you finish your book, the rest is a piece of cake.

   Well I would argue about that. For example personally for me the writing process is more enjoyable and much easier than everything else that needs to be done after that.

   Once you have completed your manuscript there are so many things that you need to do after. It may even make some writers feel overwhelmed and confused.

   So let’s understand what should you do once you finish writing your book? What are the things that you will have to deal with.

   1. Get feedback Who you should get feedback from?
   
   

   Well many rush to their friends and family but I personally think that it is not a good thing. First of all – they are people who might not be able to be objective. Second, they may feel bad about hurting your feeling and may not provide any negative feedback. And the third thing is that they may not be your audience. For example I write women’s fiction and it is logical that my husband is not the most suitable person to approach for feedback. So try to find readers, who enjoy reading books similar to the one you’ve written.

   1. Consider modifications based on feedback Just because you have received feedback does not mean that you have to change the book based on absolutely all the points that were brought up. Try to objectively evaluate what you received and make those changes that will benefit your book and which were objectively true.
   2. Self-edit
   
   

   Your manuscript has to be self edited. In fact maybe you will need few rounds of self-edit. One before you send out the text             for feedback and one after you have made the final changes to the manuscript.

   4. Proofread There will always be typos and grammar mistakes which you have not caught so you should take that fact as granted.
   
   

             Ideally you should get professional help; but if you can’t afford it, have at least 4 to 5 different people go through your manuscript. That way you will minimize the remaining errors.

   5. Professional editing Many authors I have interviewed so far have mentioned the importance of having professional your book. It definitely will make the experience of reading your book much better one. It will also ensure that your book ensures good quality text.
   6. Research your competitors Ideally you will have to do that before even starting writing then book, but if you have not done it yet n case you have not done it do some research. See which books in your genre are bestsellers now. What are they about? What do readers like about them? How are they priced? What do their covers look like? And so on. Make sure you have the picture of where are you getting into and how to make sure that your book is at least as good as other books in there and make sure you know what differentiates your book from the others.
   7. Decide about the platform Yes, Amazon is still the obvious market leader but it is not the only self- publishing platform out there. You can also consider – B&N, iBooks, Kobo, etc. You have to decide whether you would like to concentrate exclusively on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or embrace all the possibilities.
   8. Format the book Yeah… that is yet another boring thing that needs to be done. Each platform requires a specific format of the book and you have to make sure that the book is formatted well and it is easy for the eye to read.
   9. Choose your category Choosing the right category and subcategory is very crucial. It will help you with your books rankings and visibility. That is why you will need to spend some time to choose the best category for your book.
   10. Set your book’s price Come up with the pricing strategy for your book.
   11. Look for reviewers Make sure that by the time your book goes live you have at least several reviews up. Send potential reviewers a free copy of your book in advance.
   12. Choose a title Coming up with the title may be very difficult. But you have to have it ready for one of the most important part of the whole thing – that is getting the book cover.
   
   
   13. Imagine your cover Readers WILL judge your book by its cover. The cover is what will make people either click on your book or not. So it would be nice if you could spend some time to imagine your cover concept. Even if you will not be the one creating it – you still need to provide the designer with a detailed brief.
   14. Find a book cover designer ok – now that you know how you want your book to look like you will need to find someone who will make one for you. Unless you are a designer please don’t make your cover yourself. It will look unprofessional and harm your book on a long run.
   15. Write a book description Writing a good book description is a challenge. The description is your sales pitch and it has to make people want to know about your book more – therefore want to buy and read it.
   16. Publish the book ok.. only now you can finally publish the book.
   
   

   As you can see I did not cover the marketing side, neither I spoke about the book launch strategies.

   What I covered were the obligatory things that you will need to do with your manuscript in order to make sure that it becomes a book ready to be published.

   So please don’t think that if you have finished writing your book, you’re done. As you already saw – there is a lot more to do than the writing.

   Meanwhile.. before you get there, make sure you do complete writing the book you have started!

   Oh and in case you don't wanna deal with all that and need affordable but good quality solution check out our new service!

   [text-blocks id="podcast-subscription-links" plain=1]

   ]]>7f5419c18398122c2ec3fa04a72545d1Fri, 15 May 2015 13:37:15 -040014:22falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Create and Market Content

   My today's guest is Chris Marr. Chris Marr is a content marketer, blogger and podcaster. He helps businesses in and around Fife to embrace content marketing strategies and improve their communication.

   He is content marketer, blogger, Director of Learning Everyday Ltd, Founder of The Content Marketing Academy and Host of The Marketing Academy Podcast.

   Interview Highlights

   Content Marketing: the ability to communicate with people without selling to them.

   Go with the platform your audience resonates most and you feel comfortable with.

   The best thing is to stick to one main platform in the beginning.

   You can create community around your content.

   It is very important to connect on a personal level with your audience.

   Building audience takes time.

   [spp-tweet "Build your audience piece by piece, one person at a time."]

   You don't need to create more content. You can engage with other people's content that is already there.

   [spp-tweet "There are thousand and one ways to get your message out there."]

   The mistake that people often do is they try to do too much. They get overwhelmed and spread themselves too thin. Because of that they do the next mistake and become inconsistent with their content.

   The best way for anyone to differentiate is by being as personable as possible.

   [spp-tweet "One of the best ways to connect with your audience is being yourself."]

   People remember the lessons through stories.

   ]]>

   My today's guest is Chris Marr. Chris Marr is a content marketer, blogger and podcaster. He helps businesses in and around Fife to embrace content marketing strategies and improve their communication.

   He is content marketer, blogger, Director of Learning Everyday Ltd, Founder of The Content Marketing Academy and Host of The Marketing Academy Podcast.

   Interview Highlights

   Content Marketing: the ability to communicate with people without selling to them.

   Go with the platform your audience resonates most and you feel comfortable with.

   The best thing is to stick to one main platform in the beginning.

   You can create community around your content.

   It is very important to connect on a personal level with your audience.

   Building audience takes time.

   [spp-tweet "Build your audience piece by piece, one person at a time."]

   You don't need to create more content. You can engage with other people's content that is already there.

   [spp-tweet "There are thousand and one ways to get your message out there."]

   The mistake that people often do is they try to do too much. They get overwhelmed and spread themselves too thin. Because of that they do the next mistake and become inconsistent with their content.

   The best way for anyone to differentiate is by being as personable as possible.

   [spp-tweet "One of the best ways to connect with your audience is being yourself."]

   People remember the lessons through stories.

   ]]>06e40bac08c53aabfd63a556b1c99f0eTue, 12 May 2015 07:50:33 -040053:31falsefullAni AlexanderWhy We Give Up

   We all have given up at some point. All of us at a certain point have stopped believing that we’ll be able to make it. Some of us have done it often, some just very few times, but all of us know how it feels.

   The  sad fact is that most of us give up far too soon.

   I was thinking the other day - why do we actually give up? What are the most common reasons and are there any ways to get around those?

   Let’s get to the first reason - discouragement. No matter what you have decided to do, as soon as you share it with people there will be at least few who will tell you that YOU Can’t Do it and come up with different reasons about why it can’t be done. At that point you may decide to give up the idea even before giving it a try.  Instead of thinking about giving up think about how are you going to prove all those people wrong. Get inspired by the biographies of Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs and Ray Charles and all others who proved that discouraging words have no power.

   In fact proving those who doubt me wrong has been pretty good motivation for me so far!

   The second reason why people give up is lack of self-confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself you will always be tempted to give up because you won’t believe in your success. The self-doubt will be keeping you from pushing forward.

   I was there too.

   I somehow thought that I was not strong enough to make my dreams come true… but then there was a shift in mindset which sort of set me free. And it was one simple realization. The realization that none of the people who have succeeded are better than me. They worked harder, they were persistent and they believed in their dreams - but they were not better… and you are as good as them.

   The third reason for giving up may be the lack of focus. These days there are so many distractions… Social media, TV series, and different smart phone notifications not letting you focus on the important things. If you don’t keep focus on your goal you will end up with insufficient results and that will discourage you.

   That reminds me of yet another reason. We give up when we don’t see immediate results. We all want things to happen fast and it is hard to realize that it takes time. There is no such thing as overnight success so we have to keep in mind that it takes time and be prepared not to give up at least for that certain period of time.

   The other reason you give up may be that you lack motivation, enthusiasm and inspiration.

   When I am starting something new I am on fire. I am full of enthusiasm and I am motivated. But with the time things may start cooling off and at some point the self-motivation may not be enough to keep me moving. That is when I may think about giving up… that is when I need to go back to beginning and try to recall the big why. Why did I start that project on first place and what was initially motivating me? that brings me back on track most of the time/

   People also give up because they miss their comfort zone. No matter what kind of life you had - you were used to it and that brought comfort. Now when you have initiated changes you entered the stage of uncertainty and struggle, which by no means is comfortable. What makes me not giving up in those cases is the thought that once I get where I wanna be my new comfort zone will be a much better one.

   We also often give up because we initially thought that things would be easier. But then I’d say that anything worth achieving is hard. Yes the easiest option is to just give up… but then, will it be easy living with the regret that you gave up midway?

   On the other hand I...]]>

   We all have given up at some point. All of us at a certain point have stopped believing that we’ll be able to make it. Some of us have done it often, some just very few times, but all of us know how it feels.

   The  sad fact is that most of us give up far too soon.

   I was thinking the other day - why do we actually give up? What are the most common reasons and are there any ways to get around those?

   Let’s get to the first reason - discouragement. No matter what you have decided to do, as soon as you share it with people there will be at least few who will tell you that YOU Can’t Do it and come up with different reasons about why it can’t be done. At that point you may decide to give up the idea even before giving it a try.  Instead of thinking about giving up think about how are you going to prove all those people wrong. Get inspired by the biographies of Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs and Ray Charles and all others who proved that discouraging words have no power.

   In fact proving those who doubt me wrong has been pretty good motivation for me so far!

   The second reason why people give up is lack of self-confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself you will always be tempted to give up because you won’t believe in your success. The self-doubt will be keeping you from pushing forward.

   I was there too.

   I somehow thought that I was not strong enough to make my dreams come true… but then there was a shift in mindset which sort of set me free. And it was one simple realization. The realization that none of the people who have succeeded are better than me. They worked harder, they were persistent and they believed in their dreams - but they were not better… and you are as good as them.

   The third reason for giving up may be the lack of focus. These days there are so many distractions… Social media, TV series, and different smart phone notifications not letting you focus on the important things. If you don’t keep focus on your goal you will end up with insufficient results and that will discourage you.

   That reminds me of yet another reason. We give up when we don’t see immediate results. We all want things to happen fast and it is hard to realize that it takes time. There is no such thing as overnight success so we have to keep in mind that it takes time and be prepared not to give up at least for that certain period of time.

   The other reason you give up may be that you lack motivation, enthusiasm and inspiration.

   When I am starting something new I am on fire. I am full of enthusiasm and I am motivated. But with the time things may start cooling off and at some point the self-motivation may not be enough to keep me moving. That is when I may think about giving up… that is when I need to go back to beginning and try to recall the big why. Why did I start that project on first place and what was initially motivating me? that brings me back on track most of the time/

   People also give up because they miss their comfort zone. No matter what kind of life you had - you were used to it and that brought comfort. Now when you have initiated changes you entered the stage of uncertainty and struggle, which by no means is comfortable. What makes me not giving up in those cases is the thought that once I get where I wanna be my new comfort zone will be a much better one.

   We also often give up because we initially thought that things would be easier. But then I’d say that anything worth achieving is hard. Yes the easiest option is to just give up… but then, will it be easy living with the regret that you gave up midway?

   On the other hand I would not say that giving up is something terrible and wrong. Sometimes you may end up having too many things on your plate and that may make you overwhelmed. Sometimes you may need to give up certain things because they may not be a priority at that point.

   What is important that you don’t give up your dreams and the things you want really bad. Don’t give up your passion and never give up writing!

   Get a free audiobook from 150,000 available fiction and non-fiction titles for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player here.

   [text-blocks id="podcast-subscription-links" plain=1]

   ]]>7d206feb598a53925cdf36e5896351d5Fri, 08 May 2015 12:56:27 -040008:15falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Make $450k a Year By Writing Fiction

   My today's guest is Mark Dawson - the author of John Milton series. Until recently, Mark worked in the London film industry. He now writes full-time and is working on three series.

   I found out about Mark Dawson few weeks ago, when I read the article about him in Forbes. Last year Amazon paid Mark $450k. I tried to find out how did he make it and which were the main components of his success.

   In this interview we you will find out

   • Where did Mark gain knowledge about self-publishing and book marketing  
   • When he realized that things start happening
   • How did Mark build his e mail list 
   • How Mark manages to be so prolific 
   • How Mark makes sure that his readers want to read the next book in the series 
   • How to use Facebook ads
   • How long did it take Mark to become full-time author 
   • Which is the most powerful marketing tool for authors 
   • How much money Mark spends to publish each of his books 
   
   

   Useful Links

   Self Publishing Formula (Mark's free videos)

   Mark Dawson's website

   The Self Publishing Podcast

   Rocking Self Publishing podcast

   The Creative Penn podcast

   You can get free audiobook here

    

   ]]>

   My today's guest is Mark Dawson - the author of John Milton series. Until recently, Mark worked in the London film industry. He now writes full-time and is working on three series.

   I found out about Mark Dawson few weeks ago, when I read the article about him in Forbes. Last year Amazon paid Mark $450k. I tried to find out how did he make it and which were the main components of his success.

   In this interview we you will find out

   • Where did Mark gain knowledge about self-publishing and book marketing  
   • When he realized that things start happening
   • How did Mark build his e mail list 
   • How Mark manages to be so prolific 
   • How Mark makes sure that his readers want to read the next book in the series 
   • How to use Facebook ads
   • How long did it take Mark to become full-time author 
   • Which is the most powerful marketing tool for authors 
   • How much money Mark spends to publish each of his books 
   
   

   Useful Links

   Self Publishing Formula (Mark's free videos)

   Mark Dawson's website

   The Self Publishing Podcast

   Rocking Self Publishing podcast

   The Creative Penn podcast

   You can get free audiobook here

    

   ]]>85639ef674286a9adf2b8a2eb48d280eTue, 05 May 2015 08:02:47 -040044:45falsefullAni AlexanderA Talk About Success

   Click the banner below and get a free audiobook from 150,000 available fiction and non-fiction titles for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.

   

   I am not sure you know this, but a while ago I was a self-development blogger. My blog was called Life Probabilities and although I am no longer the owner and the author of the blog it still exists.  Now Vinod is the owner of the Life Probabilities and he is covering self development related topics there so you can check out the blog if you like similar topics.

   So today I will present you with one of the blog posts I wrote at Life Probabilities about success. Since the thoughts I had are still valid I decided that I could share them with you here too.

   Who doesn’t want to be successful?

   Yup, that’s what I thought. No one.

   These days there are many talks about becoming successful, not giving up after failure, getting there, striving for perfection and such. All that is supposed to motivate and encourage…

   But sometimes, just the opposite happens.

   Sometimes reading all those articles and coming back to where you are at that moment may make you even more depressed.

   Why is that?

   I think it is because many self-development authors contribute to the stereotyping of the meaning of success. The same thing does the TV, the media and the society.

   If you ask around about who is successful many will somehow come up with the names of celebrities, rich businessmen, top managers or well-known people.

   No one will think of a single mother who raised a creative and happy child. No one will come up with the name of a person, who left everything behind in order to follow his dream. No one will recall the young guy, who spent days and nights outside with his camera in order to finally make that perfect shot he had in mind.

   What we need to understand is that success is not a fixed term. Success is different for everyone. For one being successful may mean climbing up the career ladder. For someone else it may mean not working for a corporation. For someone success may be being rich and famous. For someone else it is about a happy family and genuine friends. For some writing and completing a full length novel is already a success, but for someone else the success is becoming a bestselling author.

   Besides that your vision of success may be evaluated periodically. At different stages of your life you may have different understandings of success. Life does not stand still and you have the right to change your mind and follow different goals.

   Success is a complex term. It is not always obvious and visible. Being true to your values may be a success itself. Reaching inner peace and harmony, may also mean that you are successful.

   In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey he has one exercise. You have to imagine your funeral. Think about who will be there and what will they say about you and your life. Surpassingly what you would like them to say is what you are supposed to achieve during your life.

   For me success is living so that the words I would like to be told at my funeral are told when the time comes.

   By the way for you, the listeners of the Write 2B Read podcast, Audible is offering a...]]>

   Click the banner below and get a free audiobook from 150,000 available fiction and non-fiction titles for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.

   

   I am not sure you know this, but a while ago I was a self-development blogger. My blog was called Life Probabilities and although I am no longer the owner and the author of the blog it still exists.  Now Vinod is the owner of the Life Probabilities and he is covering self development related topics there so you can check out the blog if you like similar topics.

   So today I will present you with one of the blog posts I wrote at Life Probabilities about success. Since the thoughts I had are still valid I decided that I could share them with you here too.

   Who doesn’t want to be successful?

   Yup, that’s what I thought. No one.

   These days there are many talks about becoming successful, not giving up after failure, getting there, striving for perfection and such. All that is supposed to motivate and encourage…

   But sometimes, just the opposite happens.

   Sometimes reading all those articles and coming back to where you are at that moment may make you even more depressed.

   Why is that?

   I think it is because many self-development authors contribute to the stereotyping of the meaning of success. The same thing does the TV, the media and the society.

   If you ask around about who is successful many will somehow come up with the names of celebrities, rich businessmen, top managers or well-known people.

   No one will think of a single mother who raised a creative and happy child. No one will come up with the name of a person, who left everything behind in order to follow his dream. No one will recall the young guy, who spent days and nights outside with his camera in order to finally make that perfect shot he had in mind.

   What we need to understand is that success is not a fixed term. Success is different for everyone. For one being successful may mean climbing up the career ladder. For someone else it may mean not working for a corporation. For someone success may be being rich and famous. For someone else it is about a happy family and genuine friends. For some writing and completing a full length novel is already a success, but for someone else the success is becoming a bestselling author.

   Besides that your vision of success may be evaluated periodically. At different stages of your life you may have different understandings of success. Life does not stand still and you have the right to change your mind and follow different goals.

   Success is a complex term. It is not always obvious and visible. Being true to your values may be a success itself. Reaching inner peace and harmony, may also mean that you are successful.

   In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey he has one exercise. You have to imagine your funeral. Think about who will be there and what will they say about you and your life. Surpassingly what you would like them to say is what you are supposed to achieve during your life.

   For me success is living so that the words I would like to be told at my funeral are told when the time comes.

   By the way for you, the listeners of the Write 2B Read podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook download with a free 30-day trial to give you the opportunity to check out their service.

   So you can get the number one international bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People mentioned in this episode or any other audiobook of your choice for free at www.audibletrial.com/write2bread 

   ]]>bbb78baec5531f8057cee683583e2874Fri, 01 May 2015 14:59:46 -040008:32falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Make $4,5k Monthly Passive Income from Kindle PublishingMy today's guest is Jyotsna Ramachandran. She is a stay-at-home mom and an online entrepreneur. Her kindle publishing business Awesome Life Resources has given her the freedom to earn a full-time income from home. Jyotsna shares her experience of building a home business through her book Job Escape Plan.

   In a short period of one year Jyotsna managed to set up her Kindle publishing business, which brings her $4.5k monthly passive income. She has portfolio of 45 published books in 7 different niches. The most amazing part of it is that until now she had not even had written any of the books she published. I tried to dig into the details and show you the business model she is using. You could go ahead and try it too.

   Kindle Publishing Business Model 

   • Choose a profitable niche on Amazon
   • Research the bestsellers in that topic and see how they are selling
   • Read reviews of those books and see how to position your book differently
   • Hire freelance ghost writers
   • Publish the book
   • Have the book for free for 5 days (by enrolling in the KDP Select program)
   • Promote the free book to gain maximum exposure and download numbers
   • Get reviews
   • Correct the book if needed (based on negative feedback)
   • Have your book featured on Buck Books
   • Build e mail list fore each niche
   
   

   The team that is needed to keep the kindle publishing business going 

   • VAs doing all the admin work
   • Ghostrwriters
   • Book cover designers
   • Editors
   • Narrators (for audio books)
   
   

   7 Steps to Start Business from Home, Grow It and Quit Your Job

   1. Get reality check
   2. Design your dream lifestyle
   3. Get into the entrepreneurial mindset
   4. Identify the niche you want to get into
   5. Choose the ideal online platform
   6. Get ready by investing time and money to learn the business
   7. Go ahead and start
   
   ]]>My today's guest is Jyotsna Ramachandran. She is a stay-at-home mom and an online entrepreneur. Her kindle publishing business Awesome Life Resources has given her the freedom to earn a full-time income from home. Jyotsna shares her experience of building a home business through her book Job Escape Plan.

   In a short period of one year Jyotsna managed to set up her Kindle publishing business, which brings her $4.5k monthly passive income. She has portfolio of 45 published books in 7 different niches. The most amazing part of it is that until now she had not even had written any of the books she published. I tried to dig into the details and show you the business model she is using. You could go ahead and try it too.

   Kindle Publishing Business Model 

   • Choose a profitable niche on Amazon
   • Research the bestsellers in that topic and see how they are selling
   • Read reviews of those books and see how to position your book differently
   • Hire freelance ghost writers
   • Publish the book
   • Have the book for free for 5 days (by enrolling in the KDP Select program)
   • Promote the free book to gain maximum exposure and download numbers
   • Get reviews
   • Correct the book if needed (based on negative feedback)
   • Have your book featured on Buck Books
   • Build e mail list fore each niche
   
   

   The team that is needed to keep the kindle publishing business going 

   • VAs doing all the admin work
   • Ghostrwriters
   • Book cover designers
   • Editors
   • Narrators (for audio books)
   
   

   7 Steps to Start Business from Home, Grow It and Quit Your Job

   1. Get reality check
   2. Design your dream lifestyle
   3. Get into the entrepreneurial mindset
   4. Identify the niche you want to get into
   5. Choose the ideal online platform
   6. Get ready by investing time and money to learn the business
   7. Go ahead and start
   
   ]]>de6f954d3718c9b31ffeed0d16be1c95Tue, 28 Apr 2015 10:15:41 -040040:22falsefullAni AlexanderDream Big. Start Small

   The whole week I’ve been thinking a lot. The more I thought the more I got confused. Well thinking too much is a dangerous thing I have to say. Sometimes overthinking keeps you from actually taking action. You keep thinking and analyzing and coming up with outcome scenarios and after that coming up with back up plans… then back up plans for the back up plans which would not work… In short I was totally confused and lost.

   I was thinking about my personal brand, about my presence online… about what to do next, about what to change and what to keep the same. I got in touch with good friends, who spent their time listening to my stories and plans and hopes and stuff.

   I guess I wanted to know what I had to do… I was trying to map up my desired future and retro-plan it coming up with a plan how to get there. And as a result I learnt few things which I want to share with you today.

   The first thing I realized after speaking to many people, and most of them are quite successful and prolific - is that I am not alone and many of them don’t have a clear vision either. And that’s ok… You see as far as you can see and you are able to see further only if you move forward. So by staying in one place and not moving you won’t see the future I’m afraid. No one knows where he or she will end. We can’t predict how life will turn out. But what we can do is act, try, experiment, do our best and walk  one step at a time.

   The other thing that I understood was - I was stuck because I felt overwhelmed. And I was overwhelmed because I was dreaming big. Please don’t get me wrong, dreaming big is good. The thing is when you are planning your actions looking at the big dream it may feel impossible. Reaching that big dream may feel very complex and complicated. And when that happens you may get stuck at one place.

   So I would rather say Dream Big but Start Small. As Lao Tzu said the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. No one reached enormous success immediately. The success we see and think is an overnight success is cumulated result of many consistent small victories and accomplishments. So instead of feeling confused and instead of panicking because I did not know what to do next, all I had to do was take the first step and see where it takes me.

   Putting these lessons into the more specific writing sphere I could say that don’t think too much whether you are good enough or not to write a book, don’t think too much whether people will like it or not, don’t overthink about how to promote, market and sell it. And also don’t think about a 600 page novel right away. Simply take action and write your first page.

   Ok so that’s it for now… Move forward by writing one page at a time and enjoy the process!

   Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

   Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. 

   ]]>

   The whole week I’ve been thinking a lot. The more I thought the more I got confused. Well thinking too much is a dangerous thing I have to say. Sometimes overthinking keeps you from actually taking action. You keep thinking and analyzing and coming up with outcome scenarios and after that coming up with back up plans… then back up plans for the back up plans which would not work… In short I was totally confused and lost.

   I was thinking about my personal brand, about my presence online… about what to do next, about what to change and what to keep the same. I got in touch with good friends, who spent their time listening to my stories and plans and hopes and stuff.

   I guess I wanted to know what I had to do… I was trying to map up my desired future and retro-plan it coming up with a plan how to get there. And as a result I learnt few things which I want to share with you today.

   The first thing I realized after speaking to many people, and most of them are quite successful and prolific - is that I am not alone and many of them don’t have a clear vision either. And that’s ok… You see as far as you can see and you are able to see further only if you move forward. So by staying in one place and not moving you won’t see the future I’m afraid. No one knows where he or she will end. We can’t predict how life will turn out. But what we can do is act, try, experiment, do our best and walk  one step at a time.

   The other thing that I understood was - I was stuck because I felt overwhelmed. And I was overwhelmed because I was dreaming big. Please don’t get me wrong, dreaming big is good. The thing is when you are planning your actions looking at the big dream it may feel impossible. Reaching that big dream may feel very complex and complicated. And when that happens you may get stuck at one place.

   So I would rather say Dream Big but Start Small. As Lao Tzu said the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. No one reached enormous success immediately. The success we see and think is an overnight success is cumulated result of many consistent small victories and accomplishments. So instead of feeling confused and instead of panicking because I did not know what to do next, all I had to do was take the first step and see where it takes me.

   Putting these lessons into the more specific writing sphere I could say that don’t think too much whether you are good enough or not to write a book, don’t think too much whether people will like it or not, don’t overthink about how to promote, market and sell it. And also don’t think about a 600 page novel right away. Simply take action and write your first page.

   Ok so that’s it for now… Move forward by writing one page at a time and enjoy the process!

   Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

   Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. 

   ]]>0477cbb66546f1d6b61d68f646a3a04eWed, 22 Apr 2015 13:03:40 -040005:56falsefullAni AlexanderWhat Makes People Click?

   My today's guest is Liston Witherill.

   In 2014 Liston walked away from a CMO position at a $10M company to start my own thing. He was already totally booked in his consulting business two months before leaving. That is because Liston is a proudly trained conversion copywriter and he is no joke when it comes to sales. He spends most of his time trying to understand how people are making decisions.

   In this interview we talk about the copywriting, as well as writing book description and sales page.

   Below are just the few highlights of the interview. Yes, I do this on purpose. I don't provide you with a transcript so you go and listen to the show.

   Highlights

   Present the book in such way that it resonates with the people, who read about it.

   Copywriting is NOT a creative writing.

   With copywriting we always have a goal of getting someone doing something very specific.

   Number one mistake in copywriting is that people talk about themselves.

   The copy should be focused 90% of the time on a reader and what he wants.

   Want to know more?

   Check out the special free resource Liston has created for you!

   Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

   Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

   ]]>

   My today's guest is Liston Witherill.

   In 2014 Liston walked away from a CMO position at a $10M company to start my own thing. He was already totally booked in his consulting business two months before leaving. That is because Liston is a proudly trained conversion copywriter and he is no joke when it comes to sales. He spends most of his time trying to understand how people are making decisions.

   In this interview we talk about the copywriting, as well as writing book description and sales page.

   Below are just the few highlights of the interview. Yes, I do this on purpose. I don't provide you with a transcript so you go and listen to the show.

   Highlights

   Present the book in such way that it resonates with the people, who read about it.

   Copywriting is NOT a creative writing.

   With copywriting we always have a goal of getting someone doing something very specific.

   Number one mistake in copywriting is that people talk about themselves.

   The copy should be focused 90% of the time on a reader and what he wants.

   Want to know more?

   Check out the special free resource Liston has created for you!

   Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

   Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

   ]]>9c828c3b186a7272556f24c6453f1ca2Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:09 -040053:17falsefullAni AlexanderThe Importance of Relationships

   Today I would like to talk about numbers… No, no - we will not go into maths or any calculations.

   I want to talk about how the digital numbers sort of determine how cool we are…

   Let’s see how people who don’t know you judge about your reputation online? They look at how many followers you have on Twitter, how much traffic does your website get, how many likes your Facebook page has, etc. They check who your Facebook friends are and how many of those are well-known and influential people.

   It becomes a game of large audiences, big e mail lists and download numbers.

   Let’s look at the traditional publishers. They don’t care about what kind of book you have. All they care about is how large is your audience and how many of your book you could sell to them… Which makes me think - hey if I had a large audience and could sell many books why would I need you anyway?

   The problem is - When we get into that swirl we forget one simple truth and that is - those numbers represent people. Every single one is a human being who lives, feels and thinks.  Our e-mail list is not a  list of e mail addresses - it’s a list of people. When we look at our website traffic graph - it’s not clicks - it’s people who made those clicks and ended up on your website.

   Many don’t realize that it’s not about the size of your audience. It’s about the engagement of that audience. It is about the quality of that audience.

   So how do you create a high quality audience. I think it can be built only through relationships.

   Honest, sincere and human relationships…

   And I do believe that human relationships can be built in the virtual space. You may not be meeting those people in person, but you have the opportunity to connect with them.

   At the beginning I was chasing numbers too… I logged in to my Amazon KDP dashboard and tracked the book sales. Those numbers impacted my day’s mood and low numbers made me feel like a failure… But then I looked at it otherwise… Even if only few people gave my the precious gift of their time and attention and if they spent hours and days reading what I wrote and it made them feel something - that’s already impressive and great.

   If I compare my podcast stats with the very popular podcasters I may get depressed at some point. But it doesn’t happen because I don’t do that.

   I look at the stats and try to remember that on the other end of the word, there are people, who listen now and hopefully get inspired and encouraged by what I’ve got to say. And if this podcast helps even only few of you - then I’ve accomplished my goal.

   I truly believe that it’s all about relationships. Relationships are not built overnight and it is a long-term thing. But believe me, it’s absolutely worth it.

   It may seem difficult but it is not really. If you care about your audience and provide value to them you’ll be fine. So many successful people during our interviews repeated over and over again that the key to success is helping people. So I guess  it’s time to listen.

   The thing is - It’s not about you… it’s about them.

   By shifting your mindset from “what is it for me?” to “how can I help them” things will start changing.

   Ideally there should not even be “me” and “them”. If you manage to create a community, which will be called “we” then you’ll totally nail it!

   So don’t chase numbers. Instead have a goal of creating a loyal audience, who will be around and who will support and encourage what you.

   So today I wanted you to Think about those things - because I think that it’s crucial.

   That’s it for today. Take care and keep building your dream!

   ...]]>

   Today I would like to talk about numbers… No, no - we will not go into maths or any calculations.

   I want to talk about how the digital numbers sort of determine how cool we are…

   Let’s see how people who don’t know you judge about your reputation online? They look at how many followers you have on Twitter, how much traffic does your website get, how many likes your Facebook page has, etc. They check who your Facebook friends are and how many of those are well-known and influential people.

   It becomes a game of large audiences, big e mail lists and download numbers.

   Let’s look at the traditional publishers. They don’t care about what kind of book you have. All they care about is how large is your audience and how many of your book you could sell to them… Which makes me think - hey if I had a large audience and could sell many books why would I need you anyway?

   The problem is - When we get into that swirl we forget one simple truth and that is - those numbers represent people. Every single one is a human being who lives, feels and thinks.  Our e-mail list is not a  list of e mail addresses - it’s a list of people. When we look at our website traffic graph - it’s not clicks - it’s people who made those clicks and ended up on your website.

   Many don’t realize that it’s not about the size of your audience. It’s about the engagement of that audience. It is about the quality of that audience.

   So how do you create a high quality audience. I think it can be built only through relationships.

   Honest, sincere and human relationships…

   And I do believe that human relationships can be built in the virtual space. You may not be meeting those people in person, but you have the opportunity to connect with them.

   At the beginning I was chasing numbers too… I logged in to my Amazon KDP dashboard and tracked the book sales. Those numbers impacted my day’s mood and low numbers made me feel like a failure… But then I looked at it otherwise… Even if only few people gave my the precious gift of their time and attention and if they spent hours and days reading what I wrote and it made them feel something - that’s already impressive and great.

   If I compare my podcast stats with the very popular podcasters I may get depressed at some point. But it doesn’t happen because I don’t do that.

   I look at the stats and try to remember that on the other end of the word, there are people, who listen now and hopefully get inspired and encouraged by what I’ve got to say. And if this podcast helps even only few of you - then I’ve accomplished my goal.

   I truly believe that it’s all about relationships. Relationships are not built overnight and it is a long-term thing. But believe me, it’s absolutely worth it.

   It may seem difficult but it is not really. If you care about your audience and provide value to them you’ll be fine. So many successful people during our interviews repeated over and over again that the key to success is helping people. So I guess  it’s time to listen.

   The thing is - It’s not about you… it’s about them.

   By shifting your mindset from “what is it for me?” to “how can I help them” things will start changing.

   Ideally there should not even be “me” and “them”. If you manage to create a community, which will be called “we” then you’ll totally nail it!

   So don’t chase numbers. Instead have a goal of creating a loyal audience, who will be around and who will support and encourage what you.

   So today I wanted you to Think about those things - because I think that it’s crucial.

   That’s it for today. Take care and keep building your dream!

   Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

   Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

   ]]>2394b590af62251ce7af185baa46834eFri, 17 Apr 2015 08:07:01 -040007:08falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Gain and Grow Audience with Podcasting

   Today I have a very special guest. If I had not met him online most probably the Write 2B Read podcast would not exist. My guest is Meron Bareket. He is the host of the Inspiring Innovation podcast -  and the Podcast Incubator - The World's Best Step-By-Step Podcast Training & Community To Take You From Zero To Launching A Successful Podcast. The Podcast Incubator was the only resource I used when I launched my podcast in only 3 weeks.

   I knew nothing about podcasting 3 weeks before my podcast launch so I had to learn everything from scratch. I know that there are many famous brands to go to but where I personally went to and got everything I needed was at the Podcast Incubator. There are step-by-step videos, I have access to Meron Bareket, who ensures over the shoulder support and the community is absolutely amazing. For me personally relationships are important and Podcast Incubator is where I found high quality relationships with the mentor and other members. I not only go there when I need answers to questions, or help with technical issues, but also when I seek encouragement, inspiration and moral support.  I am absolutely convinced that Podcast Incubator is a unique place, where you get answers to all your tailored needs.In this interview we will be covering the exciting subject of podcasting and find out how authors can use that marketing platform in order to get exposure and gain new readers. 

   [spp-tweet " Podcasting is the most exciting marketing platform on the Internet."]

   In this interview we cover the following:

   How much do you have to invest to start a podcast 

   What podcast types you can choose from 

   How to get audience from scratch with podcasting 

   The future trends of podcasting 

   Free resources and bonuses you can get 

   By getting the lifetime free access to the resources you will find out about how to:

   • Plan your podcast
   • Set up your show
   • Choose gear and software
   • Record your podcast
   • Edit your podcast
   • Set up your podcast hosting
   • Launch your podcast
   
   

   Meron was kind enough to offer 2 bonuses on top of it all

   1. Extremely valuable 1 on 1 call with Meron
   2. Premium module with Tim Paige covering podcast intros/outros and how to build your e mail list fast
   
   

   Resources mentioned

   • Audio-Technica ATR 2100 microphone – good quality and affordable microphone, which is ideal for recording at home
   
   
   • Call Recorder for Skype – this is what I use to record my  interviews for the podcast
   
   
   • Libsyn - this is the hosting service I use for the Write 2B Read podcast. Use the coupon code “inspire” while registering and you will get 2 free months
   
   
   • Bluehost - when I created it I knew very little about websites and hosting services that is why one of the most important things was the customer...]]>

     Today I have a very special guest. If I had not met him online most probably the Write 2B Read podcast would not exist. My guest is Meron Bareket. He is the host of the Inspiring Innovation podcast -  and the Podcast Incubator - The World's Best Step-By-Step Podcast Training & Community To Take You From Zero To Launching A Successful Podcast. The Podcast Incubator was the only resource I used when I launched my podcast in only 3 weeks.

     I knew nothing about podcasting 3 weeks before my podcast launch so I had to learn everything from scratch. I know that there are many famous brands to go to but where I personally went to and got everything I needed was at the Podcast Incubator. There are step-by-step videos, I have access to Meron Bareket, who ensures over the shoulder support and the community is absolutely amazing. For me personally relationships are important and Podcast Incubator is where I found high quality relationships with the mentor and other members. I not only go there when I need answers to questions, or help with technical issues, but also when I seek encouragement, inspiration and moral support.  I am absolutely convinced that Podcast Incubator is a unique place, where you get answers to all your tailored needs.In this interview we will be covering the exciting subject of podcasting and find out how authors can use that marketing platform in order to get exposure and gain new readers. 

     [spp-tweet " Podcasting is the most exciting marketing platform on the Internet."]

     In this interview we cover the following:

     How much do you have to invest to start a podcast 

     What podcast types you can choose from 

     How to get audience from scratch with podcasting 

     The future trends of podcasting 

     Free resources and bonuses you can get 

     By getting the lifetime free access to the resources you will find out about how to:

     • Plan your podcast
     • Set up your show
     • Choose gear and software
     • Record your podcast
     • Edit your podcast
     • Set up your podcast hosting
     • Launch your podcast
     
     

     Meron was kind enough to offer 2 bonuses on top of it all

     1. Extremely valuable 1 on 1 call with Meron
     2. Premium module with Tim Paige covering podcast intros/outros and how to build your e mail list fast
     
     

     Resources mentioned

     • Audio-Technica ATR 2100 microphone – good quality and affordable microphone, which is ideal for recording at home
     
     
     • Call Recorder for Skype – this is what I use to record my  interviews for the podcast
     
     
     • Libsyn - this is the hosting service I use for the Write 2B Read podcast. Use the coupon code “inspire” while registering and you will get 2 free months
     
     
     • Bluehost - when I created it I knew very little about websites and hosting services that is why one of the most important things was the customer support. I changed about 4 hosting service providers and at the end, comparing all of them I ended up with Bluehost. It seems to be the best in terms of price/quality of service and I am quite happy with it.
     
     

     Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. It means that I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase at no additional cost to you. But that is not the only reason. I could have made a long list of different things I don’t believe in for commission’s sake. But I featured here only those products and services, which I truly believe are helpful and useful.

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

     ]]>be2aa2b2689bc70c9e7008563b1a3410Tue, 14 Apr 2015 06:25:00 -040052:41falsefullAni AlexanderOpportunities in Life and WritingWhile many of those who live here are over excited about Kim Kardashyan’s visit to Armenia I instead make sure that you have fresh audio content that will encourage and inspire you.

     Today it will be just me pouring out the thoughts that I decided to share with you. So we’ll have a short solo piece this time.

     Did you know that if you close your eyes facing towards the sun you’ll see very nice bright colors inside your  head. The colors will be changing and vary from yellow to bright red with a bright orange and all shades  in- between those. You will enjoy the esthetically pleasant sensations.

     Well I didn’t know either, until one day when I was writing in the balcony just before the sunset. When the  sun came out and started kissing my face I decided to take a moment and concentrate on the nice sensations. So I took out the sunglasses and closed my eyes facing the sun.

     Why am I telling you this you would wander and what does it have to do with writing?

     Well, while watching those nice colors I realized how important the opportunities are. I thought that we       never know what the opportunity will bring until we try something new. In the above example, just one   small and unusual act brought me to a completely new place. A place I had never been before.

     I think one should pay attention to different potential opportunities. The same goes for the writing.

     Sometimes the problem is that we are so obsessed with the book we are writing, that we don’t notice other things around us. We might be so focused on the initial plot of the novel that we miss the nice new twist that was not initially planned.

     When I was writing my first novel I thought about the characters and re-lived the story day and night. At that period I stopped driving a car, because I sometimes forgot to look at the streetlights and signs. And what happens when we get obsessed with our book? Well, besides the fact that the chances are that we will actually finish it this time, we might also miss opportunities.

     In fact, when I look back I realize that many of the exciting things that happened to me did actually happen, because I noticed the opportunity and was proactive about it.

     I’ll share just one simple example so you can see what I mean. 

     Not many know this but my short story Stars was published by Paulo Coelho on his blog. And that was long before I had any substantial online presence or had published any of my writings. I simply read on Paulo’s blog that he was looking for short stories and he will publish the ones he liked.

     Well I have to be honest here. I am not reading every single post he puts up on his blog, so it was partly a luck too. But when I did saw the post I saw an opportunity there. If I thought too long over whether to send my story to him or not, nothing would have happened. Maybe nothing would have happened even after I did send it. That was possible too. But I would never know if I did not try. So sometimes all you have to do is ignore the self doubt, stop over analyzing the situation and simply act! That’s all I did and as a result ended up being published by Paulo Coelho and my story is still there on his blog.

     I guess what I wanted you to realize is that the Life is full of possibilities. We simply need to be open and flexible enough to embrace them.

     Pay attention to the opportunities that come your way and they may take you to a better place or change your life completely.

     Just go ahead, write your best book, overcome self-doubt, don’t miss the opportunities that are around you and believe that everything is...]]>While many of those who live here are over excited about Kim Kardashyan’s visit to Armenia I instead make sure that you have fresh audio content that will encourage and inspire you.

     Today it will be just me pouring out the thoughts that I decided to share with you. So we’ll have a short solo piece this time.

     Did you know that if you close your eyes facing towards the sun you’ll see very nice bright colors inside your  head. The colors will be changing and vary from yellow to bright red with a bright orange and all shades  in- between those. You will enjoy the esthetically pleasant sensations.

     Well I didn’t know either, until one day when I was writing in the balcony just before the sunset. When the  sun came out and started kissing my face I decided to take a moment and concentrate on the nice sensations. So I took out the sunglasses and closed my eyes facing the sun.

     Why am I telling you this you would wander and what does it have to do with writing?

     Well, while watching those nice colors I realized how important the opportunities are. I thought that we       never know what the opportunity will bring until we try something new. In the above example, just one   small and unusual act brought me to a completely new place. A place I had never been before.

     I think one should pay attention to different potential opportunities. The same goes for the writing.

     Sometimes the problem is that we are so obsessed with the book we are writing, that we don’t notice other things around us. We might be so focused on the initial plot of the novel that we miss the nice new twist that was not initially planned.

     When I was writing my first novel I thought about the characters and re-lived the story day and night. At that period I stopped driving a car, because I sometimes forgot to look at the streetlights and signs. And what happens when we get obsessed with our book? Well, besides the fact that the chances are that we will actually finish it this time, we might also miss opportunities.

     In fact, when I look back I realize that many of the exciting things that happened to me did actually happen, because I noticed the opportunity and was proactive about it.

     I’ll share just one simple example so you can see what I mean. 

     Not many know this but my short story Stars was published by Paulo Coelho on his blog. And that was long before I had any substantial online presence or had published any of my writings. I simply read on Paulo’s blog that he was looking for short stories and he will publish the ones he liked.

     Well I have to be honest here. I am not reading every single post he puts up on his blog, so it was partly a luck too. But when I did saw the post I saw an opportunity there. If I thought too long over whether to send my story to him or not, nothing would have happened. Maybe nothing would have happened even after I did send it. That was possible too. But I would never know if I did not try. So sometimes all you have to do is ignore the self doubt, stop over analyzing the situation and simply act! That’s all I did and as a result ended up being published by Paulo Coelho and my story is still there on his blog.

     I guess what I wanted you to realize is that the Life is full of possibilities. We simply need to be open and flexible enough to embrace them.

     Pay attention to the opportunities that come your way and they may take you to a better place or change your life completely.

     Just go ahead, write your best book, overcome self-doubt, don’t miss the opportunities that are around you and believe that everything is possible!

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. [text-blocks id="podcast-subscription-links" plain=1]

     ]]>9a65c31d403ea5c99a708fa8ec02d354Thu, 09 Apr 2015 12:07:34 -040006:34falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Gain Readers Using InstagramMy today's guest is Nathan Chan. Nathan is the Publisher & Editor of Foundr Magazine, a digital magazine for young entrepreneurs on the App Store & Google Play store. Nathan launched Foundr in March 2013 from his bedroom and in a small period of time it has become a top 10 ranked 'Business & Investing Magazine' on the app store. He has had the pleasure of interviewing some of the most accomplished entrepreneurs around the world namely Sir Richard Branson & Arianna Huffington and much more.

     But surprisingly enough publishing a magazine and entrepreneurship are not the topics we have covered in this interview. I decided to talk to him about Instagram because he had amazing results using that channel.

     In over 5 months Nathan started his magazine Instagram account from scratch and reached over 110k followers. Besides the brand exposure and the community around the brand he is now receiving around 1200-1500 e mail sign ups a week. How cool is that?

     In this interview I tried to pick his brain and find out what are the main things we need to know about using Instagram and how could we use it to get amazing results.

     Interview Highlights

     Engagement on Instagram is 50 times better than on Facebook.

     Serve your community by producing content.

     Quotes work extremely well on Instagram.

     Be very clear in your bio what your account is about.

     To grow followers on Instagram

     • create content that really resonates with your audience
     • create content that is sharable
     • create content that is valuable and that people want to come back to
     • be consistent (post at least 2-3 times a day)
     • utilize hashtags
     • follow like minded accounts (30-40% follow back)
     • find top influencers in your niche and build relationships with them
     
     

     More you post faster you grow.

     Useful Links

     Instagram Domination training

     Wordswag app (IOS)

     Phonto (Android)

     Tags for Likes

     Canva

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

     ]]>My today's guest is Nathan Chan. Nathan is the Publisher & Editor of Foundr Magazine, a digital magazine for young entrepreneurs on the App Store & Google Play store. Nathan launched Foundr in March 2013 from his bedroom and in a small period of time it has become a top 10 ranked 'Business & Investing Magazine' on the app store. He has had the pleasure of interviewing some of the most accomplished entrepreneurs around the world namely Sir Richard Branson & Arianna Huffington and much more.

     But surprisingly enough publishing a magazine and entrepreneurship are not the topics we have covered in this interview. I decided to talk to him about Instagram because he had amazing results using that channel.

     In over 5 months Nathan started his magazine Instagram account from scratch and reached over 110k followers. Besides the brand exposure and the community around the brand he is now receiving around 1200-1500 e mail sign ups a week. How cool is that?

     In this interview I tried to pick his brain and find out what are the main things we need to know about using Instagram and how could we use it to get amazing results.

     Interview Highlights

     Engagement on Instagram is 50 times better than on Facebook.

     Serve your community by producing content.

     Quotes work extremely well on Instagram.

     Be very clear in your bio what your account is about.

     To grow followers on Instagram

     • create content that really resonates with your audience
     • create content that is sharable
     • create content that is valuable and that people want to come back to
     • be consistent (post at least 2-3 times a day)
     • utilize hashtags
     • follow like minded accounts (30-40% follow back)
     • find top influencers in your niche and build relationships with them
     
     

     More you post faster you grow.

     Useful Links

     Instagram Domination training

     Wordswag app (IOS)

     Phonto (Android)

     Tags for Likes

     Canva

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

     ]]>c5d125d231f86e469e95b97195d14e80Tue, 07 Apr 2015 08:02:34 -040040:32falsefullAni AlexanderStop Waiting and Start ActingI personally hate waiting… Waiting puts me into vulnerable situation. When I am waiting for something it feels like I do accept the fact that the thing won’t happen until a certain period of time is passed. It makes me feel weak. It makes me feel as if things depend on anything else but me…

     From the very young age we are taught to wait… We had to wait for the dinner so after that only we could eat the desert.

     We had to wait until we grew up… Because there are so many things I could do only then.

     That was why I impatiently wanted to grow up fast when I was a child. The gown up life seemed so attractive back then.

     And once we grow up we end up waiting on a bigger scale. We keep postponing things for later. We postpone building our dreams, following our passion, getting rid of certain things that make our life miserable… we wait for the right time to start doing things that we’d like to do.

     How many times have you heard the phrases like “As soon as the kids grow up…”, “When I have more time…” , “When I find a well-paid job…” , “As soon as we pay the mortgage…”.

     The sad things is that very often we and that “right time” never meet up. Just like the horizon… we keep walking towards it but the distance between us seems to stay the same.

     The reality proves that you will never have the ideal conditions. There will never be the perfect moment. Life will continue getting on the way and things will keep happening. There will always be new things coming between you and your plans. Always!

     How can you be so sure about the future? How can you take the risk of putting off the things that are important to you? What if that right moment never arrives? What if something happens in-between?

     Why do we think that time is not precious? Why do we often start living only after a major paradigm shift? Do we have to survive an accident or get a cancer or lose a close one in order to understand that there is no sense to lose time waiting?

     You may say that you’ve got too many obligations and time-consuming responsibilities. And I won’t argue back. Not because I know you - most probably I don’t. I won’t argue back because we all do have those obligations and responsibilities.

     Do you think that all the successful people were completely free, with no family, no money issues, no problems at all? Well, I have to disappoint you there.

     Most of the successful people were exactly in your shoes before. They too had things to deal with, they too did not have the ideal time to take action… but the difference is - they did not wait. They did not sit and wait for the perfect moment. They did not wait until they have time - they made time for the things which were important to them.

     When I meet new people and they find out I am a writer many of them tell “I want to write a book too one day”. One day? Which day? You think you will ever get completely free 6 months to sit alone in a forest hut and write that book? You think you will wake up from a knock on the door and when you open it you’ll see that “one day” on your doorway saying“ I’ve come you can start now” ? Something tells me that might not really happen…

     What if instead of waiting for that one day you start now? Sooner you start bigger the chances that you’ll actually make it happen.

     But if you keep sticking to that dangerous future tense you will risk staying where you are now.

     Do you really want to let your entire life become a waiting room? No?

     [spp-tweet "Then stop waiting and start acting."]

     ]]>I personally hate waiting… Waiting puts me into vulnerable situation. When I am waiting for something it feels like I do accept the fact that the thing won’t happen until a certain period of time is passed. It makes me feel weak. It makes me feel as if things depend on anything else but me…

     From the very young age we are taught to wait… We had to wait for the dinner so after that only we could eat the desert.

     We had to wait until we grew up… Because there are so many things I could do only then.

     That was why I impatiently wanted to grow up fast when I was a child. The gown up life seemed so attractive back then.

     And once we grow up we end up waiting on a bigger scale. We keep postponing things for later. We postpone building our dreams, following our passion, getting rid of certain things that make our life miserable… we wait for the right time to start doing things that we’d like to do.

     How many times have you heard the phrases like “As soon as the kids grow up…”, “When I have more time…” , “When I find a well-paid job…” , “As soon as we pay the mortgage…”.

     The sad things is that very often we and that “right time” never meet up. Just like the horizon… we keep walking towards it but the distance between us seems to stay the same.

     The reality proves that you will never have the ideal conditions. There will never be the perfect moment. Life will continue getting on the way and things will keep happening. There will always be new things coming between you and your plans. Always!

     How can you be so sure about the future? How can you take the risk of putting off the things that are important to you? What if that right moment never arrives? What if something happens in-between?

     Why do we think that time is not precious? Why do we often start living only after a major paradigm shift? Do we have to survive an accident or get a cancer or lose a close one in order to understand that there is no sense to lose time waiting?

     You may say that you’ve got too many obligations and time-consuming responsibilities. And I won’t argue back. Not because I know you - most probably I don’t. I won’t argue back because we all do have those obligations and responsibilities.

     Do you think that all the successful people were completely free, with no family, no money issues, no problems at all? Well, I have to disappoint you there.

     Most of the successful people were exactly in your shoes before. They too had things to deal with, they too did not have the ideal time to take action… but the difference is - they did not wait. They did not sit and wait for the perfect moment. They did not wait until they have time - they made time for the things which were important to them.

     When I meet new people and they find out I am a writer many of them tell “I want to write a book too one day”. One day? Which day? You think you will ever get completely free 6 months to sit alone in a forest hut and write that book? You think you will wake up from a knock on the door and when you open it you’ll see that “one day” on your doorway saying“ I’ve come you can start now” ? Something tells me that might not really happen…

     What if instead of waiting for that one day you start now? Sooner you start bigger the chances that you’ll actually make it happen.

     But if you keep sticking to that dangerous future tense you will risk staying where you are now.

     Do you really want to let your entire life become a waiting room? No?

     [spp-tweet "Then stop waiting and start acting."]

     ]]>a1444e32ae0185fab03e9ab1c918c10eFri, 03 Apr 2015 17:08:43 -040007:08falsefullAni AlexanderThere Are No Accidents in Writing

     My today's guest is Gabriela Pereira. Gabriela is the Creative Director and Instigator of DIY MFA, the do-it-yourself alternative to a Masters degree in writing. She earned an MFA from The New School and has taught writing both online and at writing conferences. Her book about DIY MFA is due out in Spring, 2016 from Writer’s Digest Books. Learn more at DIYMFA.com.

     We spoke about writing, of course and below are the highlights of our conversation.

     What Gabriela Said

     Whenever I see a debut author launch their first book it makes me realize that magic is possible.

     I do believe that writing is a teachable skill.

     There are no accidents in writing.

     You should strive to reach the point when you can break the rules on purpose.

     There is no right or wrong way of writing because that would mean putting your brain on autopilot and following the rules.

     Every word should be in your writing for a reason.

     When you're just putting your words on a page you're creating the raw material.

     Putting words in a page may be a struggle.

     Once you've gotten yourself into a routine and into a habit of writing fairy regularly it's a lot easier to sustain that momentum.

     I believe that writers should write the thing that doesn't make them want  to break the computer.

     If you hate it - don't write it.

     You wanna remember the individual humans behind the numbers.

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. 

     ]]>

     My today's guest is Gabriela Pereira. Gabriela is the Creative Director and Instigator of DIY MFA, the do-it-yourself alternative to a Masters degree in writing. She earned an MFA from The New School and has taught writing both online and at writing conferences. Her book about DIY MFA is due out in Spring, 2016 from Writer’s Digest Books. Learn more at DIYMFA.com.

     We spoke about writing, of course and below are the highlights of our conversation.

     What Gabriela Said

     Whenever I see a debut author launch their first book it makes me realize that magic is possible.

     I do believe that writing is a teachable skill.

     There are no accidents in writing.

     You should strive to reach the point when you can break the rules on purpose.

     There is no right or wrong way of writing because that would mean putting your brain on autopilot and following the rules.

     Every word should be in your writing for a reason.

     When you're just putting your words on a page you're creating the raw material.

     Putting words in a page may be a struggle.

     Once you've gotten yourself into a routine and into a habit of writing fairy regularly it's a lot easier to sustain that momentum.

     I believe that writers should write the thing that doesn't make them want  to break the computer.

     If you hate it - don't write it.

     You wanna remember the individual humans behind the numbers.

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. 

     ]]>cc767a776f4de58fbf4a3ebb0347f150Wed, 01 Apr 2015 11:30:39 -040046:46falsefullAni AlexanderGrabbing AttentionDerek Doepker is a multiple #1 bestselling author with books in the fitness, self-help, and publishing niches.

     Through his courses – which include ‘Kindle Bestseller Secrets’ and ‘Hooks for Books’ – he has trained thousands of authors on how to write, publish and market their books successfully. He’s also got a #1 bestselling book called ‘Why Authors Fail’ that reveals the 17 mistakes that stop self-published authors from achieving success and shows how you can fix them.

     In this interview Derek provide self-publishing advice and shares the most common mistakes that writers make.

     Advice from Derek

     Put yourself in the shoes of the book buyer. Imagine yourself going through the experience of buying your book.

     Become very reader-focused.

     Turn competitors into companions.

     Tips for your book's success

     1. Grab attention (by the book cover, title and description)

     • Paying for professional book cover is investment, not an expense. If you book does not have a good cover you will be losing out many sales or your book might not sell at all because of its bad cover.
     
     

     2. Understand who the target reader is

     • Look at the successful books in your genre. Read their reviews and find out why people liked it and what readers did not like.

     • Survey people and find out what they need

     
     

     3. Get guidance

     Learn from people who are already successful.  Shortcut to success is seeking out mentors, coaches and resources that will guide you through the entire process.

     Common Mistakes Writers Make

     1. The wrong mindset

     Many writers think about "How can I get value?" when getting into it instead of thinking "How can I give value?"

     2. Perfectionism

     Many writers spend years because they want to make their book perfect before it is published.

     You can't get a perfect book until you make imperfect attempts and learn from them.

     3. Distractions

     Many writers let themselves distracted often while working on their book.

     4. Not following proven formulas

     Writers either imitate what was done before (in a copy-paste style) or they get too creative.

     Useful links

     To get Derek's free Kindle marketing audio training visit eBookBestsellerSecrets.com

     You can find Derek’s fitness website at ExcuseProof.com

     You can check out Derek’s self-publishing books here on his Amazon Author Page at http://www.amazon.com/Derek-C.-Doepker/e/B00UH3IBJM

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. 

     ]]>Derek Doepker is a multiple #1 bestselling author with books in the fitness, self-help, and publishing niches.

     Through his courses – which include ‘Kindle Bestseller Secrets’ and ‘Hooks for Books’ – he has trained thousands of authors on how to write, publish and market their books successfully. He’s also got a #1 bestselling book called ‘Why Authors Fail’ that reveals the 17 mistakes that stop self-published authors from achieving success and shows how you can fix them.

     In this interview Derek provide self-publishing advice and shares the most common mistakes that writers make.

     Advice from Derek

     Put yourself in the shoes of the book buyer. Imagine yourself going through the experience of buying your book.

     Become very reader-focused.

     Turn competitors into companions.

     Tips for your book's success

     1. Grab attention (by the book cover, title and description)

     • Paying for professional book cover is investment, not an expense. If you book does not have a good cover you will be losing out many sales or your book might not sell at all because of its bad cover.
     
     

     2. Understand who the target reader is

     • Look at the successful books in your genre. Read their reviews and find out why people liked it and what readers did not like.

     • Survey people and find out what they need

     
     

     3. Get guidance

     Learn from people who are already successful.  Shortcut to success is seeking out mentors, coaches and resources that will guide you through the entire process.

     Common Mistakes Writers Make

     1. The wrong mindset

     Many writers think about "How can I get value?" when getting into it instead of thinking "How can I give value?"

     2. Perfectionism

     Many writers spend years because they want to make their book perfect before it is published.

     You can't get a perfect book until you make imperfect attempts and learn from them.

     3. Distractions

     Many writers let themselves distracted often while working on their book.

     4. Not following proven formulas

     Writers either imitate what was done before (in a copy-paste style) or they get too creative.

     Useful links

     To get Derek's free Kindle marketing audio training visit eBookBestsellerSecrets.com

     You can find Derek’s fitness website at ExcuseProof.com

     You can check out Derek’s self-publishing books here on his Amazon Author Page at http://www.amazon.com/Derek-C.-Doepker/e/B00UH3IBJM

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. 

     ]]>96106eedd9ab6549793f6b4a3b583782Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:32:01 -040048:22falsefullAni AlexanderHow to Make Time for Writing

     My today's guest is one of my best friends Julie Sheranosher.

     Julie was a Captain in the army and had absolutely no choice but to get REALLY good with time management. She found out that she has a talent for understanding people's needs and routines and matching them with custom-tailored time management systems that work for them.

     Julie quit the army and became a Time Hacker, helping the highly successful entrepreneurs to reach the NEXT level. She has a blog, 2 podcasts, book and a whole bunch of happy clients.

     Today we will talk about how to make time for writing every day and Julie provides us with practical tips of how to make it happen. Below are the highlights of the interview, but as always they don't cover everything we spoke about. That is why I encourage you to dedicate about 50 minutes to listen to the interview itself and learn much more than I covered in the notes.

     Highlights

     Time Hacking is all about finding how time can work for you instead of the other way around.

     It all comes down to finding clarity, focus and priority.

     Every single day you get 24 hours no matter what you did with the previous ones. It doesn't matter if you've managed it well or not. You get a new fresh start.

     There is no such thing as "I don't have time". Time is not something you have. Time is something you make.

     If you want something to happen then you make time for it.

     Multi tasking is basically doing more things slower. I am never ever busy. I'm always doing what is the most important thing right now.

     I am never busy for anything because it's always my choice.

     Changing habits take from 28 to up to 32 days straight. And if you stop in the middle the counter starts from zero and you have to start over again.

     If you can't see results and don't see early wins you won't stick with it.

     Useful Links

     Julie Sheranosher's website

     The Time Hacker podcast

     Julie's Time Saving Tools

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. [text-blocks id="podcast-subscription-links" plain=1]

     ]]>

     My today's guest is one of my best friends Julie Sheranosher.

     Julie was a Captain in the army and had absolutely no choice but to get REALLY good with time management. She found out that she has a talent for understanding people's needs and routines and matching them with custom-tailored time management systems that work for them.

     Julie quit the army and became a Time Hacker, helping the highly successful entrepreneurs to reach the NEXT level. She has a blog, 2 podcasts, book and a whole bunch of happy clients.

     Today we will talk about how to make time for writing every day and Julie provides us with practical tips of how to make it happen. Below are the highlights of the interview, but as always they don't cover everything we spoke about. That is why I encourage you to dedicate about 50 minutes to listen to the interview itself and learn much more than I covered in the notes.

     Highlights

     Time Hacking is all about finding how time can work for you instead of the other way around.

     It all comes down to finding clarity, focus and priority.

     Every single day you get 24 hours no matter what you did with the previous ones. It doesn't matter if you've managed it well or not. You get a new fresh start.

     There is no such thing as "I don't have time". Time is not something you have. Time is something you make.

     If you want something to happen then you make time for it.

     Multi tasking is basically doing more things slower. I am never ever busy. I'm always doing what is the most important thing right now.

     I am never busy for anything because it's always my choice.

     Changing habits take from 28 to up to 32 days straight. And if you stop in the middle the counter starts from zero and you have to start over again.

     If you can't see results and don't see early wins you won't stick with it.

     Useful Links

     Julie Sheranosher's website

     The Time Hacker podcast

     Julie's Time Saving Tools

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group. [text-blocks id="podcast-subscription-links" plain=1]

     ]]>5d06f7fcd9199bff4c9056edbf32e5c7Mon, 23 Mar 2015 13:47:36 -040050:31falsefullAni AlexanderAbout Life, Idea Muscle & Failure Porn
     Last Chance!
     The Write 2B Read Master Class starts in a couple of days, so if you are interested to become part of it and publish your book in 8 weeks - hurry up!
      

     The Interview

     I wanted to interview James Altucher since many months already, but the self-doubt, insecurities and other nonsense was keeping me away from connecting with him. Finally, one day I got the courage and wrote him a Facebook message. And I'm glad I did.
      
     The reason I wanted to have James on my show was not that he is a  famous. If you have followed my podcast you know that I don't choose people who are famous, but people who are interesting to talk to and who are able to provide value to you - my listeners.

     I knew that my interview with James would be packed with wisdom and that you'd enjoy it too. For the very few of you, who don't know who James Altucher is - I have included his short bio below for you. James Altucher is a successful entrepreneur, investor, board member, and the writer of 11 books including the recent WSJ Bestseller, "Choose Yourself!". He has started and sold several companies for eight figure exits. He's on the board of a billion revenue company, has written for The Financial Times, The New York Observer, and over a dozen popular websites for the past 15 years. He's run several hedge funds, venture capital funds, and is a successful angel investor in technology, energy, and biotech. He has also lost all his money, made it back, lost it, made it back several times and openly discusses how he did it in his columns and books. Although I encourage you to listen to the interview, because there is no other way to feel the energy and the flavor of our conversation, I have included the important points James mentioned during our talk below for you.

     About money and time

     If I lost $20 I could always make $20 back. But if I lose 20 minutes of my life I will never ever be able to rewind the clock. I will never ever be able to make those 20 minutes back.
      

     About the idea muscle

     Every day I try to exercise my idea muscle so I write 10 ideas a day.
      

     About  job

     Job is a very small subset of ways to make a living. Make a living - make a life. Life is much bigger than just the job.
      

     About failure

     There is no such thing as absolute failure. There is too much "failure porn" on the Internet. Much better is to set yourself up in such a way that failure becomes strengthening to you.
      
     Don't call a failure - failure. Call it an experiment!
      

     About life

     Life is like experiment where we add and subtract and merge ideas and come up with new ideas.
      

     About Abundance

     Persistence + Love = Abundance
      

     About success

     The best predictor of successful tomorrow is a successful today.
      

     About publishers

     Publisher's don't care about you. They care how much your book is gonna sell.
     Traditional publisher blocks you from your audience and from communicating to your audience.
      

     About being nervous

     I am still nervous every time I hit publish.
      

     About being a good writer

     If you write a good book in popular genre you'll be successful. But I think the key is really to focus on being a good writer. Improving your skills at writing. Because then the genre will find you.
      
     Ultimately the goal of whether you're a good writer or not is if people enjoy...]]>
     Last Chance!
     The Write 2B Read Master Class starts in a couple of days, so if you are interested to become part of it and publish your book in 8 weeks - hurry up!
      

     The Interview

     I wanted to interview James Altucher since many months already, but the self-doubt, insecurities and other nonsense was keeping me away from connecting with him. Finally, one day I got the courage and wrote him a Facebook message. And I'm glad I did.
      
     The reason I wanted to have James on my show was not that he is a  famous. If you have followed my podcast you know that I don't choose people who are famous, but people who are interesting to talk to and who are able to provide value to you - my listeners.

     I knew that my interview with James would be packed with wisdom and that you'd enjoy it too. For the very few of you, who don't know who James Altucher is - I have included his short bio below for you. James Altucher is a successful entrepreneur, investor, board member, and the writer of 11 books including the recent WSJ Bestseller, "Choose Yourself!". He has started and sold several companies for eight figure exits. He's on the board of a billion revenue company, has written for The Financial Times, The New York Observer, and over a dozen popular websites for the past 15 years. He's run several hedge funds, venture capital funds, and is a successful angel investor in technology, energy, and biotech. He has also lost all his money, made it back, lost it, made it back several times and openly discusses how he did it in his columns and books. Although I encourage you to listen to the interview, because there is no other way to feel the energy and the flavor of our conversation, I have included the important points James mentioned during our talk below for you.

     About money and time

     If I lost $20 I could always make $20 back. But if I lose 20 minutes of my life I will never ever be able to rewind the clock. I will never ever be able to make those 20 minutes back.
      

     About the idea muscle

     Every day I try to exercise my idea muscle so I write 10 ideas a day.
      

     About  job

     Job is a very small subset of ways to make a living. Make a living - make a life. Life is much bigger than just the job.
      

     About failure

     There is no such thing as absolute failure. There is too much "failure porn" on the Internet. Much better is to set yourself up in such a way that failure becomes strengthening to you.
      
     Don't call a failure - failure. Call it an experiment!
      

     About life

     Life is like experiment where we add and subtract and merge ideas and come up with new ideas.
      

     About Abundance

     Persistence + Love = Abundance
      

     About success

     The best predictor of successful tomorrow is a successful today.
      

     About publishers

     Publisher's don't care about you. They care how much your book is gonna sell.
     Traditional publisher blocks you from your audience and from communicating to your audience.
      

     About being nervous

     I am still nervous every time I hit publish.
      

     About being a good writer

     If you write a good book in popular genre you'll be successful. But I think the key is really to focus on being a good writer. Improving your skills at writing. Because then the genre will find you.
      
     Ultimately the goal of whether you're a good writer or not is if people enjoy your writing.
      
     The only way you can improve as a writer is by reading and writing every day.
      
     Writing is about storytelling it's not about lecturing.
      

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.
     ]]>73b08105f1304a90608981fb0b6f8b4bTue, 17 Mar 2015 11:16:51 -040055:00falsefullAni AlexanderCreative Success

     My today's guest is Srinivas Rao. Srini is a bestselling author and the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative podcast. In this episode we have a pretty unstructured talk about things related to success and creativity.

     About expectations

     Expectations are killer of joy.

     You will never live up to everybody's expectations.

     Part of what kills our ability to so things is that we have these lofty expectations and when we don't - suddenly things are lot easier.

     There is a beauty about being a beginner and not having an audience and not having anybody reading yourself. There is something very liberating about that.

     About feedback

     Feedback can become whole other form of addiction.

     We're culturally conditioned to seek praise and avoid criticism.

     About the audience

     We've kind of really gotten obsessed with growing the audience - almost to a fault. And the challenge with that is that we're trying to do work that is designed to build audience as opposed to work that is designed to strike a cord or touch someone's heart.

     Biggest lesson

     It doesn't stop after you had first level of success. That's not where it ends.

     What helps creativity

     Being away from the computer. The key is shutting down every digital distraction.

     What kills creativity

     One thing that kills creativity is comparison.

     About books

     "Where my work started to improve and change is when I stopped reading books about social media and blogging. Once I literally stopped reading any books about marketing or online marketing or social media and then my work got significantly more interesting and better."

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

      

     ]]>

     My today's guest is Srinivas Rao. Srini is a bestselling author and the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative podcast. In this episode we have a pretty unstructured talk about things related to success and creativity.

     About expectations

     Expectations are killer of joy.

     You will never live up to everybody's expectations.

     Part of what kills our ability to so things is that we have these lofty expectations and when we don't - suddenly things are lot easier.

     There is a beauty about being a beginner and not having an audience and not having anybody reading yourself. There is something very liberating about that.

     About feedback

     Feedback can become whole other form of addiction.

     We're culturally conditioned to seek praise and avoid criticism.

     About the audience

     We've kind of really gotten obsessed with growing the audience - almost to a fault. And the challenge with that is that we're trying to do work that is designed to build audience as opposed to work that is designed to strike a cord or touch someone's heart.

     Biggest lesson

     It doesn't stop after you had first level of success. That's not where it ends.

     What helps creativity

     Being away from the computer. The key is shutting down every digital distraction.

     What kills creativity

     One thing that kills creativity is comparison.

     About books

     "Where my work started to improve and change is when I stopped reading books about social media and blogging. Once I literally stopped reading any books about marketing or online marketing or social media and then my work got significantly more interesting and better."

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

      

     ]]>9208a6cc51e790874d93b0bc0db3f0a2Thu, 12 Mar 2015 13:03:44 -040040:47falsefullAni AlexanderContent Marketing Insights

     My today's guest is Ryan Hanley. He helps brands and businesses find their audience, tell their story and win the battle for attention online. He is also the author of Content Warfare: How to find your audience, tell your story and win the battle for attention online.

     What is content marketing?

     Content marketing is the process of creating media in the effort to add value to an audience.

     About building audience

     It's a culture of audience building. You are never not building an audience.

     About your book audience

     You don't write a book and then go and find an audience. That would possibly be the worst possible thing you could do as an author.

     About time

     You never gonna find time. [spp-tweet "You either make time or you don't wanna write a book that badly."]

     Benefits of the Crowdfunding (besides the money)

     1. it validates the idea
     2. it activates the audience
     3. it is a good accountability tool
     
     

     Drawbacks of the crowdfunding

     With crowdfunding your core audience has already bought the book. So you have to sell the book twice: once to those who will fund your book and once again when it is published.

     Those who back up your campaign will not be part of your Amazon sales and therefore contribute to your book's bestselling rankings.

     Good News

     Ryan raised $10K with his crowdfunding campaign and it took only 147 people to fill that campaign. This means that you down need huge audience - all you need is couple of hundred people, who are willing to invest in you.

     Useful Links

     Ryan Hanley's website

     Content Warfare (Ryan's book)

     Publishizer (crowd-publishing platform for authors)

     Book Baby (POD hardcovers)

     CreateSpace (papaerback)

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

      

     ]]>

     My today's guest is Ryan Hanley. He helps brands and businesses find their audience, tell their story and win the battle for attention online. He is also the author of Content Warfare: How to find your audience, tell your story and win the battle for attention online.

     What is content marketing?

     Content marketing is the process of creating media in the effort to add value to an audience.

     About building audience

     It's a culture of audience building. You are never not building an audience.

     About your book audience

     You don't write a book and then go and find an audience. That would possibly be the worst possible thing you could do as an author.

     About time

     You never gonna find time. [spp-tweet "You either make time or you don't wanna write a book that badly."]

     Benefits of the Crowdfunding (besides the money)

     1. it validates the idea
     2. it activates the audience
     3. it is a good accountability tool
     
     

     Drawbacks of the crowdfunding

     With crowdfunding your core audience has already bought the book. So you have to sell the book twice: once to those who will fund your book and once again when it is published.

     Those who back up your campaign will not be part of your Amazon sales and therefore contribute to your book's bestselling rankings.

     Good News

     Ryan raised $10K with his crowdfunding campaign and it took only 147 people to fill that campaign. This means that you down need huge audience - all you need is couple of hundred people, who are willing to invest in you.

     Useful Links

     Ryan Hanley's website

     Content Warfare (Ryan's book)

     Publishizer (crowd-publishing platform for authors)

     Book Baby (POD hardcovers)

     CreateSpace (papaerback)

     Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group

     Please feel free to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

      

     ]]>e6e0910c8081a20702fe3cda9711e42eMon, 09 Mar 2015 11:41:15 -040045:21falsefullAni AlexanderHorror is Like Pizza