Holiday Promotions

Barely into July, and I am already thinking about promoting my work for the holidays! Not really all that unusual ... I have to decide how I am going to promote, where I am going to promote, and then find out how much it is going to cost. And I want the promotion to start soon after the beginning of November, so that people have the time to order my books, get them, then send them out as presents. 

I am going to be doing half-page ads in  the October edition of Attune Magazine, a quarterly devoted to personal growth, poetry, and metaphysical themes. I am also going to be doing videos for my site pages and to pout up on You Tube. Okay ... I am not going to do them myself, I am going to have them done by Mary Nale, the founder/editor for Attune Magazine.

Here is a link to an awesome video that Mary did for co-author Brad Tesh and my self for our book  "Seek Joy ... Toss Confetti". If you want to see more of Mary's portfolio, click here.

I will also be promoting through my Twitter, Facebook, and Google + accounts. If I get terribly brave, I might even chance trying to set up a Google + Hangout! That is still in the "iffy" stages! ;-)

And yes, I still have to WIP's ongoing: an e-book on decision making, and another e-book ... the first in what I hope will be a series of mysteries. I am looking at an issue here, though. I want to self-publish, and Create Space wants bucks per page after an author hits the 110 page mark. That will one heck of a short mystery! ;-) Do it in parts, perhaps? ;-)

Paying Attention To Life

 

So often we do not pay attention to life. This happened to me this past week, when I received a post from a friend who was at the end of her financial rope in continuing to keep open two well used and significant tools within the Tarot community - Attune Magazine (she is founder and editor), and Attune Magazine Radio on Blog Talk Radio. Aside from her time, it takes money to keep these venues going. I was appalled that I had not seen this situation coming, and immediately took what action I could take. I also placed a challenge out to the Tarot community, and this was their response - Thank You! I am very proud of the Tarot community, and its ability to step up. A small plug for Mary here - If you would like to place an article/interview/review/poetry/video/ad in Attune Magazine (this is a quarterly magazine, next issue due out in July), or if you would like to be interviewed on Mary's radio show, click  here -  Attune Magazine.

Speaking of gentle promoting - my friend Jennifer Sieck invited me to an event called the Fishbowl on Facebook. The event will be going on all weekend. All we do is introduce ourselves, and place a post and a link on the event page. Jennifer also suggested making up a free card at Vista Print to add some pizzazz to my posts, so I did that too! I get to read about other practitioners/counselors/artists, like their pages,and they in turn like mine! What a deal! And what a group of very nice people!

There are a couple of links that I would like to share with you. The first one is very close to my heart - Kindle Formatting. I have a couple of books in the world of Kindle, and wish that I had known this before I very haphazardly managed to get them  up! Future books will go up with much greater ease!

I dearly love the lady who wrote this post - although we have never met, and never spoken. She is so clear, and so organized - her work is a pleasure to read! Second Thoughts On Publishing Your Print Book.

What a year! My co-author Brad Tesh and I have been promoting our book, Seek Joy ... Toss Confetti on several Blog Talk radio shows (thank you to Mary Nale, Maggie Lukowski and Jean Maurie Puhlman, Melinda Carver, and Jennifer Sieck!), and even managed to get a page up on Facebook - Seek Joy ... Toss Confetti. Next up for me - promotingmy new Tarot book - Tarot, Rituals, and You.

One last link, for those of us that are self-publishing - Write and Promote Your Indie Book Quickly and Easily .

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

(c) 2000 - 2013 Bonnie Cehovet

Republication in any format prohibited without written permission from the author.

Promoting, Promoting, Promoting

 

The past couple of weeks have been focused on promoting "Seek Joy ... Toss Confetti", the book that I co-authored with Brad Tesh. Our interview with Mary Nale of Attune Magazine Radio can be found here - Seek Joy ... Toss Confetti. We have an upcoming interview with  Jean Maurie Puhlman and Maggie Lukowski on Personal Empowerment For Your Soul, and two more radio interviews scheduled for May (I will place links here at a later date).

We offered our book as a free download on Kindle this past weekend, and had a very good response. We will do this again in a few weeks - it lets people know who we are, as well as have access to our book. While the free download is for the Kindle version only, we do have a print version through Create Space. The books can both be found here - Seek Joy ... Toss Confetti.

A work in progress for me is getting a book page up on Facebook. Then we will have to map out a plan of action to keep people talking about the book. There are many ways that we can do this - including sharing excerpts from the book, or discussing points from our "Toss the Confetti" section at the end of each chapter. This is a section that suggests ways in which people can actively place joy in their life. 

Brad and I are both very excited about this book, and feel that the first step is just to get people talking! We really don't realize the lack of joy in our lives until we start to loo for it ... and find it amongst the missing!

My next book,which will also be an e-book, addresses the subject of decision making. The ability to make decisions is where we empower ourselves. Understanding how to make informed decisions, and take decisive action, is what manifests our dreams into reality! Stay tuned!

(c) 2013 Bonnie Cehovet

 

Long Nights

This has been another of those very long nights. Not complaining - I do my best work at night. But this has been a labor intensive, pay attention to detail marathon to put together the book that I am co-authoring with Brad Tesh. It is finally together, and we know what we need to add to it. Then it will need to be proofread a few times, edited a few times,and formatted for submission. Of course, submitting the book for distribution is the beginning of another process - promotion. This is a process that I don't like really well. 

I did the change-over from my Google Reader feed to a WordPress app - I m not very impressed with it. The exporting of info from the Google Reader went very well (thanks to a lady in the Google + Women community!), I just don't like the WordPress format. LOL I will continue to follow my Google Reader until they take it away from me on July 1st!

I am getting ready to start another e-book - this one on  the Art of Making Choices. Quite excited about this project!

Heads up on a very interesting lady - Mary Nale of Attune Magazine. Her near future plans include a series of writing broadcasts on Blog Talk Radio - you can access the schedule here. She is also accepting submissions in diverse categories for her quarterly, Attune Magazine.   

(c) 2000-2013 Bonnie Cehovet

Creative Writing

I was blessed this weekend in that I was part of a rocking Creative Writing webinar! I was presenting the webinar, but, as most presenters will attest to, we soak up as much wisdom as we bring to the table! I want to thank Mary Nale for hosting these webinars - for providing the space and the technical expertise to make this all happen.

I am not the only person presenting with Mary - check out her blog site, and see what she is offering! (Attune Magazine). I do have two upcoming classes in February - "How To Get Your Book Published" on February 11th,and "Writing Reviews" on February 25th. Mary is open to hosting many different topics - contact her to discuss what you would like to present, and she will make it happen for you!

During my Creative Writing webinar I talked about what creative writing was, where to find creative writing prompts, how to get started writing, where to get story ideas, and a bit about how to use the Tarot with writing. We did a couple of writing exercises that truly blew my socks off! These ladies could write!

One thing I did find out in researching my presentation was something that I had never really thought about - that creative writing can be applied to both fiction and non-fiction, and that it can be applied to all genres - blogs, stories, articles, poetry, auto-biographies, biographies, literature ... you name it, you can write it creatively! I am not talking about making things up, I am talking about presenting a subject in a fresh manner. That is what creativity is all about.

There is a wonderful side effect to writing creatively - it frees your mind, and it frees your soul! It allows your ideas to flow, and when your ideas flow consistently, wonderful opportunities begin to come your way, like magic!

Happy writing!

(c) January 2012 Bonnie Cehovet

The Art of Promoting

What a weekend I had! On Saturday I did my first webinar with Mary Nale - and it went very well! Deep sigh of relief here! Many thanks to the wonderful people that attended this webinar - I appreciate each and every one of you taking the time to be there! I also appreciate the fact that Mary took the time to go over the "room" with me beforehand, so that I could bring up pages and move my little cursor around with some semblance of knowing what I was doing! I think that Mary chose an excellent site to work with, and wish her much success with future webinars. Two of those webinars will be mine - one will focus on Tarot, Birth Cards, and Affirmations, while the other will focus on Tarot, Birth Cards, and Journeying.

On Sunday morning I joined Dax Carlisle, Mark Reed, and Mary Nale on Tarot Today. I am listening to the show in archives as I write this blog, hoping that I don't sound too bad. I want to thank all of the people in the chat room - I appreciate your dropping by to listen! I also appreciate all of the people that will be listening to the show in the archives! The chat about my book was wonderful, I chatted with the people in the room a bit, and had a wonderful chat with Colin, who called in from the UK! Many thanks to Colin for calling in. He is a marvelous individual, and just an incredible artist!

Following Tarot Today I attended a two-hour seminar with Stephanie Arwen Lynch (Tarot By Arwen). The seminar was for writers, and addressed character definition and plot development. If you want to work with Tarot and writing, please check out the services/seminars that Arwen offers. She is an incredible reader, author, and teacher/mentor.

I have a webinar coming up on the 21st of Sepember with Linda Marson of Global Spiritual Studies. I highly recommend working with Linda if you want to do a webinar. Like Mary Nale, Linda works with her presenters to get the Power Point pages set up (note: Mary's pages are not Power Point), and to make sure that the presenter knows how to work witht he pages, and work with the pointer. I will be chatting with Linda this Wednesday night to get a better idea of my next step. I have my pages together, and my graphics for the cards ... and I thought this was "good to go". Not! The first thing that Linda told me when she saw my pages was that I needed to add visuals to retain the interest of my audience. I dragged my feet on that one. However, when I did my webinar with Mary, the same thing came up when I beat people over the head for feedback. So, I am taking the work that Linda did re my pages, and looking for good visuals to go with them. I have to redo the text that I gave Linda into bullet points (Linda did this for me, but I want to change them a bit). I consider myself incredibly lucky that I connected with two very professional ladies that are making my presentations look very good! :)

I have one more thing that I need to do on promotions, and that is to send the laminated book covers that Schiffer Publishing sent me to local bookstores. I have to write a quick promotional letter to go with them, and they will be off!

I am learning the art of promotion slowly but surely. It is very much easier for me to promote other people through my reviews and interviews. Promoting myself ... that is a whole other ballgame!

(c) August 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Google Plus, Google Plus One, Webinars & More

Most people that I know are putting out work in more than one venue. They need to maintain a network of contacts in more than one world, as well as promote their work in the best manner possible. The new Google Plus app appears to be a very good way to go. People are taking to it very well ... it is easy to sign up for, and there is the availability of creating "circles" ... i.e. putting people with the same interests in the same circle. You are notified when someone puts you in a circle - but not which circle you are being placed in. IMHO, this is a benefit - no one feels left out, and the information t hat you want to get out goes out to the people that it is meant to get out to. The issue that is coming up is that people are signed up for it, but not yet conversing much. My thought on this is that we want to view it in the same manner that we view Twitter - there needs to be a sense of sharing, so that a connection is made with other people within our circles. In that way, when we send out promotional posts, they are part of the overall picture, and not just promotion. If that were the case - why bother with Google Plus?

Google Plus One is a big part of the promotional picture, in that when people click on your Plus One icon you move yourself into a better place in the Google ranking. IOW, you have a better chance of being seen.

Google is doing something that I am not sure about - not sure what it is connected to. The Google Plus One icon is appearing on the right hand side of the pages that comes up when you run a Google search. Now there is also an icon that brings up (in most cases) a view of the page that is being linked to. It seems good, but it also seems a bit "Big Brother" to me.

With all of this running in the background, I am about to start setting up Internet time to promote my upcoming book, "Tarot, Birth Cards, and You: Keys To Empowerment". There will be a webinar this coming October with Linda Marson (http://www.tarotjourney.com.au/), where I introduce the concept of using the Birth Card pairs as a counseling and meditation tool.

Another avenue of promotion will be Internet seminars with Mary Nale (http://naleandcompany.blogspot.com/). The focus here will be how to place the Tarot Birth Cards in day to day life - whether you are reading for yourself, or reading for someone else.

My site page is quasi "set up" ( http://www.bonniecehovet.com/?page_id=125), and I have a preliminary Animoto video out on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kk_CsBezoA). I am doing a short write up of one Birth Card pair each month on my Tarot blog, and plan to do a short Animoto video for each of the Birth Card Pairs. I will also be setting up a Face Book page - once I get those logistics figured out! Oh ... I have a contest to figure out for my Tarot book. Talking archetypes? Sherlock Holmes take on the archetypes?

Other directions for me? My mystery novel in process, and my work on a friends music site. There will be some interesting promotions coming up there, you can be assured!

(c) July 2011 Bonnie Cehovet