I don’t feel is time for me to leave my current provider just yet as it still serves me well, but just for the fact that TalkTalk got their TV Ad spot on, they have succeeded in taking me a step further to consider a switch over sometime in the future.

Ads are incredibly powerful, in the sense that even if you don’t see an immediate return on your investment, it can also drive sales up in the future. If you get the Ad right you must look at it as a short/mid and even long term investment. I have a strong feeling that TalkTalk is harvesting a huge crowd to their services with this new ad, and even though they haven’t got me yet – their ad did!

WATCH THE TV AD HERE

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But is this true?

Continue to the article by Michael Hyatt

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The new Follow button lets Twitter users instantly follow a Twitter account without having to leave the site they’re on. This is particularly convenient, because users no longer have to search Twitter to find the account they’re looking to follow (which can be a hassle). The button is similar to Twitter’s Tweet button, which lets users tweet specific content with their own followers.

The Follow button is an excellent tool for small businesses, especially those who are looking to create a bigger online presence. The only option prior to the introduction of the Follow button was for businesses to direct users to their Twitter page via text or image link, and hope the user would click the Follow button over on the microblogging website itself.

To add a Follow button to your Website, you first need to set it up. You can set it up by going to Twitter’s Follow button Web page and entering in your user name, what color background the button will be against, and whether or not you want the button to show your accounts number of followers. You’ll then get a code to paste in your Website, which looks like this:

That’s just an image, because the Follow button requires javascript support (and apparently PCWorld’s blogging tool doesn’t have that). The Follow button supports nine different languages, including English, Japanese, and Italian.

According to the Twitter blog post, “For publishers and brands, adding the Follow Button to your Website and using Twitter to stay connected with your audience is a powerful combination. People who follow your account are much more likely to retweet and engage with your Tweets, and to repeatedly visit your website.”

Follow Anderson on Twitter (@crispimwire) or on Facebook

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And so I make them laugh, and warm them from within,
They all think they love the clown, but I let no one in.
My grease paint smile, always there, for that is all they see,
Everybody loves the clown, but no one will love me.

It’s not because some haven’t tried, but they have tried in vain.
I am so unsure that I can love, without causing pain.
The gift of love is the power to hurt, and so hurt, I must be,
That now I flinch in fear almost, when love approaches me

I crave the warmth a woman brings, as any man would do,
But lying deep within me, is the fear I will hurt you.
So if you want the man that lies beneath the wide smile charm,
Be prepared to bring with you, a very soothing balm.

For it will take a woman, with patience, warmth and care,
To wipe away the grease paint smile, and find me under there.
And when she finds the man I am, and sees the wounds I bear,
Will she have the courage, to take me in her care?

And will I have the strength I need, and trueness to the core?
To return her love and care, and make her all I’ll live for.
I live in hope that just maybe, this special woman lives,
And we can share the happiness, that true love always gives.

Written by Derek Haines

Random Posts

The Thank You Economy is a great book for exploring ideas and I think every entrepeneur  and business mind alike should read it. I very much recommend this latest book by Gary Vaynerchuck. The audiobook has some extra features and contain some more information, also it is read by the author himself, who lacks no enthusiasm! A great book to listen to while you’re either driving back and forth to work or doing your morning exercise.

The world of business is coming full circle. The rise of the Internet and the empowerment of the common consumer has created a fundamental shift in how businesses are expected to behave.

 

The Thank You Economy  Available on our Amazon Shop[ UK ] [ US ]

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I was watching the news the other day and feeling quite depressed by the figures on unemployment, even the current financial figures aren’t really all that bad.

I think, however, that the latest figures on unemployment will be slightly improved in the next few months and is my hope the growth continue full steam ahead! Although there are still 2.65 million unemployed in the UK this is down by 35,000 according to the latest figures.

It might only be a small change but there is already some hope and with the number of jobs available starting to increase again jobseekers are starting to find more opportunities. If you are unemployed or looking for a new job I advise you to keep your options open and maybe consider part-time work if it helps you get on to the career ladder.

Like I mentioned, we will be launching a new job board tool to help jobseekers and recruiters to find each other. At the launch of this new website, jobseekers will be able to search and apply to over 50,000 live jobs. Full access will be given for recruiters to upload their latest vacancies in all sectors across the UK and abroad.

A full post will come soon with more on this and a link for new accounts!

Meanwhile, if you are looking for a job or want to advertise a position, please feel free to use one of our partners:

Quick links for popular sectors:

Administration Jobs: http://www.cv-library.co.uk/cgi-bin/create.cgi?id=100763

Retail Jobs: http://www.cv-library.co.uk/cgi-bin/create.cgi?id=100763

Customer Service Jobs: http://www.cv-library.co.uk/cgi-bin/create.cgi?id=100763

Sales Jobs: http://www.cv-library.co.uk/cgi-bin/create.cgi?id=100763

IT/Technical Jobs: http://www.cv-library.co.uk/cgi-bin/create.cgi?id=100763

You can search all of our jobs here: http://www.cv-library.co.uk/cgi-bin/create.cgi?id=100763

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Two working artists David Bayles and Ted Orland,  wrote a book called, Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, in this book they tell us a story about an art teacher who did an experiment with his grading system for two groups of students. It is a parable on the benefits of failure. And here is what happened:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A,” forty pounds a “B,” and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” hoever, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A.” Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

So, it doesn’t matter whether your objectives are in the area of art, business, ministry, sports, or relationships. The only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often, and fail forward.

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Enter the world of independent publishing. It’s different, that’s for sure but, so far, the experience is more enjoyable. I’ve had a lot of input into cover design, layout and getting blurbs that, yes, appeared on the cover.

My partner in this venture—and I call this house my partner because that’s how I feel—is Park Slope Publishing, a new independent based in Brooklyn which calls itself an “environmentally friendly and green publisher.” That means it uses print on demand technology and e-books.

That also means not doing a print run of thousands of books but, in this age of e-books, I’m okay with that. Park Slope publishes the number of trade paperbacks readers want and we all save a few trees in the process.

One thing I knew at the start was that I wanted the books that were published to be in the trade paperback format. To me, mass market paperbacks look too cheap and hard cover books are anachronistic. Personal preference, but that’s how I feel. The publisher readily agreed to go that way.

We came up with three different designs for the cover (using the services of Joel Friedlander, aka The Book Designer) and settled on what we felt was the best.

Taking Over the Blurb Project

One thing that I really wanted was good cover blurbs. With the big publishers, I never had the chance to get the blurbs on the cover as I wanted; this time I wasn’t going to be denied, especially since I felt that, with such a personal work as a memoir, I needed to quote someone who would be impressive.

I put out a lot of feelers. Some people that I felt sure would come through did not but I was overwhelmed with gratitude when the well-known author Ken Auletta of The New Yorker magazine came through big-time with a very generous blurb. It was all the more exciting because he’d warned me up front that he would read the book but not promise a blurb unless he enjoyed it. Thankfully, he did, saying, “Paul LaRosa has written a poignant and funny memoir that reads … as breezily as a delicious tabloid newspaper.”

We put that blurb on the front cover. You can read his entire quote on the back cover and you can be sure, dear reader, it is totally genuine. Ken had no reason to help me out on this one but he really enjoyed the book.

Another happy surprise was Theresa Weir, the best-selling author of her own memoir The Orchard, which was picked as one of Oprah Winfrey’s best books of 2010. I loved it too, and found Ms. Weir on Twitter. Would she be interested in reading my memoir? She said yes and, within weeks, I had my second generous cover blurb. Both were from highly reputable authors.

Working with a small house, it was easy to change the cover design a bit to get the blurbs included.

Moving on to Marketing

The next issue was marketing. Those not familiar with publishing should understand that, even if you’re published by a Big 6 publisher, there is almost no marketing or advertising done for you as an unknown author. The best you can hope for is a couple of radio interviews and perhaps a bookstore reading or two. No advertising. The rest is up to you.

It’s counter-intuitive but the Big 6 publishers put all their advertising and marketing muscle behind brand name authors who need their help the least. Do you really have to push John Grisham’s new book? With his advertising budget, you could help a dozen unknown authors. It doesn’t make sense to me but that’s just the reality of modern publishing.

For my new book … I wanted a publisher to care about this personal work as much as I did.

Anyway, marketing is something I’m comfortable with, having done it for my four previous books. We drew up a press release and sent out advance copies to anyone we could think of. Again, the book received such nice reviews that I’m almost embarrassed. One reviewer compared me to a poet, another to a painter. It was heartening and we had even more good buzz to help us.

We also both used social media—Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and our own websites—as much as possible. I’m very comfortable with social media and began to spread the word, ramping up as we got closer to the publication date (April 18, 2012).

Next Stop: Distribution

The biggest hurdle was distribution. The best thing the Big 6 publishers do is get the books into bookstores but, even then, unless you’re well-known or your book catches lightening in a bottle, the bookstores will carry maybe five copies and put you on shelves that you’d need a GPS system to find.

We figured that these days, many if not most people are used to buying their books online and we took out Facebook, Google and Goodreads ads. I did try to talk my way into some local Brooklyn bookstores with mixed results. Believe it or not, the best luck I had was with a Barnes & Noble store in my neighborhood. We’re still waiting on the small independent bookstores to get back to us.

Using social media and press contacts, we were successful in getting online reviews, great blurbs, at least six radio interviews (including one on NPR), two television interviews and we’re still hoping for more.

It’s been a fun experience so far and I’m guaranteed a much bigger royalty share than I would have had with a Big 6 publisher. And you can help out—buy a book! As they say on Facebook and Twitter, .

by Paul La Rosa (@PaulLaRosa)

Paul LaRosa is an Emmy-award winning producer at CBS News but got his start as a newspaper reporter at The New York Daily News. He also has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and is the author of four previous non-fiction books. To read his blog and for more information, please go to his website at www.paullarosa.com.

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THE THINGS WE DARE NOT TELL
Henry Lawson

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

There’s the old love wronged ere the new was won, there’s the light of long ago;
There’s the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we’re doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.

We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.

Original text: Henry Lawson, When I was King and Other Verses (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1906): 56-57. x.908/578 British Library

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