I have conducted a few studies and my research concludes that comfort foods like chocolate brownies are the number one enemy of stress (did you know “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts?”). Sure, I’ll admit that this research was conducted under some questionable circumstances. Ok you’ve got me, the subjects tested were my friends and family, but the results were unanimous!

Do your part and help uplift those poor, miserable souls around you - get in that kitchen and start baking! Thankfully, with a book like Joan Donogh’s “Now….you’re cooking! Comfort Food Classics” the task can be fun and easy. Joan is a humanitarian of the highest caliber, sharing her amazing comfort food classic recipes for pasta, coffee cake, bread, cookies and even candy. Yum!

Joan, you are an angel. I feel better already.

The Lulu “Mini-Storefront” widget attracts visitors from your blog, MySpace page, Facebook profile or personal website to your Lulu content.  With the Mini-Storefront, your captive audience can view your book, read the description and - the best part – buy your book(!) all from the comforts of your website.
Let’s try the Facebook Widget – Here are a few tips to keep in mind when setting up your widget with your Facebook profile:
1. When you add the application to your profile, you must use your storefront name. You can find this from Lulu by going into My Lulu, clicking on the My Storefront link on the left side of the screen, click the Customize Storefront link in the upper right, and then click on the Store Info tab.

2. When you publish new content, change the access levels of existing content or delete content, you will have to click on the link for the Lulu Mini-Storefront in the upper left of your Facebook profile, and re-enter the storefront name from step 1.
With those in mind, follow the steps for adding the widget to your profile and voilá you are now able to show your Lulu works to all of your friends.

Not on a social network but still want to be a part of online marketing? Try the web buttons and banners! All you have to do to make it happen is to go to the “My Lulu” page and click on the “Promote” icon (a star) next to one of the available products. Customized code is created and can then be placed on other websites to generate a button or banner ad.  There are a variety of buttons to choose from, so you can have one that doesn’t clash with the site design.

So now that you have these two tools at your fingertips, try them out! The best way to sell your book is to sell to those you know

The Jenkins Group , an independent publishing services company, says four out of five people they surveyed said they believe they have a book to write. Even fewer actually sit down and write a book and even fewer get published. Many established literary agencies in New York and elsewhere get upwards of 500 email and snail mail book queries a week and less than one percent of them are considered for representation.

So how do you get published with those odds?

It is easier than ever to get into print with the magic of print on demand and do-it-yourself publishing web sites like Lulu.com. Lulu is one of the few sites where it is free to upload your manuscript, design your cover or pick a pre-designed one and publish your book complete with an ISBN number and distribution on Amazon.com. There is no minimum number of copies to purchase, no hidden, we gotcha fees, and no secrets about how much you will make on each sale, what Lulu makes and what print and distribution costs amount to for your book. You keep all your rights and you set the price and the royalty.

So what are you waiting for? Change your odds of getting in print today. Go to Lulu.com, register, and start publishing! What? You’ve done that already? Okay, now comes the hard part made easier by Lulu – the marketing and promotion of your work.

If you wanted to sell homemade jewelry on the web, you would put up a web site complete with a storefront and check out cart and sit back and hope one hundred or more orders a day came your way. Now, would they? Most likely not. You have to promote your site, its market advantages like price, quality, brand, and ensure you are reaching people who are interested in buying homemade jewelry.

It’s the same when publishing a book. If you write a romance novel or a technical manual on how to tune the engine of a 737 you have to reach the right market with your message. One of the great advantages to using Lulu is that you can choose between doing everything yourself or buying the marketing services of publishing professionals from Lulu.

Here a few cool tricks I use to market my Lulu books . And they are free. Go to Google Blog Search and search for blogs pertaining to the subject area of your book. When you find some, read a few posts and leave a comment with a link to your book on Lulu or to your web site. This takes time and you must leave a comment with some substance for it to work. But if you hit the right blog with the right audience, it’s like winning on a slot machine in Atlantic City. One post increased traffic to my site by six times in one day! You can also do a search on Google, but you will get mostly web sites and often you cannot leave a comment.

Offer a free download of your book for a limited time. After all, if someone is willing to read your entire book on a computer screen they must be pretty interested in your work. What usually happens is if they like your book enough, they will purchase the print copy out of convenience since it is easier to read a book in print than on a computer display. This is also helpful when you send out press releases – you can direct the media to download your book for review. This is the preferred method of distributing your electronic version to the press and reviewers. If you attach a copy to an email, press people most likely will not open it for fear it may contain a computer virus or Trojan horse.

By the same token, send emails with links to your book to people involved in your book’s subject matter and ask them to review your work and write a short review. Mention that you can include their comments in your book if they want.

If you have never written a press release, Lulu offers an excellent template that walks you through the process so you can produce a professional release that the press will read and hopefully follow up with you. I used to be a journalist and it was nearly impossible to read every piece of mail that came into the office. But a professionally written press release always managed to get read.

And if you want to write your next book rather than market your current one, you can easily purchase Lulu’s many marketing and distribution services created and offered by professionals in the publishing business.

Just keep in mind you are the best sales person for your work – you are closest to the content and you are passionate about what you wrote or you would not have made the effort to create a book.

Luckily, I’m here to ease your tensions with a list of books from Lulu to help alleviate some of those money woes.

One of the most common financial problems experienced today is debt. If you find yourself in that boat, check out Janine Bolon’s book, Ditching Debt . This financial guide provides easy principles on how to deal with the debt you already have and how to prevent yourself from incurring more.

Also plaguing the minds of most working Americans today is retirement. In Secure Your Retirement , Lulu author John Mahaney shares his personal story of how, after his early retirement at age 41, he took his net worth from $40,000 to $1,000,000 in just ten years. (Seriously, where do I sign up?)

Of course, if you’re looking for a more lighthearted read, pick up The Girl’s Guide to Money Etiquette by Julianne Pekarthy and Heidi Farr. Jam-packed with hilarious anecdotes of when money and personal relationships collide, this money etiquette guide is sure to keep you advised and entertained.

So before you go into panic mode, pick up one of these great books and educate yourself!

Blogs are certainly nothing new. They started to gain traction around 2003-2004, and have been increasing in popularity ever since. Corporations, marketing professionals, journalists, and writers of all stripes use them on a daily basis as a marketing tool, so why shouldn’t you? Blogs can be one of the most effect methods of creating an audience, and can help get the word out about the book you’ve spent the past several months, or even years, working on.

Getting Started

Find a blog provider. Wordpress and Blogger are the two most popular blog providers, and they are both free to use. There are also other communities out there that enable blogs, such as Vox and LiveJournal. If you aren’t sure of which you should use, try them all out and see which one best suits you.

Find a theme or topic and stick to it. You want to stay focused on a specific topic, so your readers know what to expect. If you write about science fiction, try keeping most of your posts related to science fiction topics. This helps to create a loyal fan base.

Reach out to everyone you know. You have to start somewhere, and people you know are going to be the most receptive to reading what you’re writing about. If you write about interesting topics they will forward it to their friends, and hopefully the chain will continue. You can also do things like put your blog URL in your email signature. If you’re a part of a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, post announcements about your blog.

Think about your readers. Ask yourself: “Why would anyone want to read my blog?”. If you can’t answer that question, then you may need to find a new theme or collection of topics. Although your friends and family may be regular visitors to keep tabs on you, casual visitors are only going to be loyal readers if you write about something they care about.

Establish a writing routine. The best way to ensure your readers come back is to set the expectation that your blog will frequently have new content. Additionally, blogs that are more frequently updated rank higher in Google searches.

Branching Out

Reach out to other bloggers in your area of focus. The number one way new readers will find your blog is via links on other blogs, so establish relationships with other bloggers. Leave comments on articles you find interesting. If you write on a topic that another blogger covered recently, provide a link to their article. You can also branch out by creating a blogroll that has links to other blog owners. It is important to note that you want to do this after you have a few quality posts under your belt. You want people to link back to you, and they aren’t going to if your blog is lacking content.

Promote your book on your blog. This may sound painfully obvious, but this is the most crucial part. Scott McKenzie, author of the horror novel Rebirth, uses the Lulu ‘Buy Now’ buttons directly on the front page of his blog. Lulu also provides a Mini-Storefront (a flash widget) so you can enable all of your published works to be embedded on your blog or social networking page (MySpace, Facebook, etc.).

Create podcasts. Mur Lafferty is well known both in blogging circles and in the self-publishing world, for good reason. In addition to putting her work out for free in PDF form, she also creates audio podcasts of her creative works before it is available in print form. By allowing her readers to get interested in the story before it goes to print, there is an immediate buzz and interest on the release date which results in more sales. If you’re not sure where to begin, Podcast Free America is a good place to start.

Set up a Feedburner account. You want to create loyal readers, and readers become loyal by subscribing to your blog via a feed reader such as Netvibes or iGoogle. By using Feedburner, you can track how many people are subscribing to your blog. Read more about utilizing Feedburner for your blog.

Tying It All Together

Create connections to and from your blog with the other places you have a presence online. Your Lulu Storefront enables you to import RSS feeds. By importing the one from your blog, visitors to your storefront can see new and fresh content. Additionally, link to your blog from your book description on Lulu, and perhaps printed in the book itself. You want your readers to become repeat customers, so keep them interested in what you are working on next.

Becoming a successful author doesn’t happen in a week, and neither will building a popular blog. Just stick with it and continue writing. If you create content on your blog that makes people want to continue coming back, you can transform these readers into readers of your book. Readers are much more likely to buy your book when they know you and have a connection with your writing.

In the past year, another great way to find and communicate with people who share your interests has emerged: Twitter. This web-based communication tool allows you to have conversations with numerous people whether they share your interests or are simply interesting in their own right. If you’re shy, you don’t have to actively engage people in conversation; you can follow people that interest you and sit back and watch the conversations unfold.

Twitter allows you to communicate in 140 characters or less. You can also share links to longer blog posts, news items, or websites. The current political candidates are using Twitter to organize their supporters and keep people informed about what is happening in their campaigns.

To use Twitter simply sign up for an account and get a username. The process is easy and only takes a few minutes. You also can use a picture (or an image of your book) to represent yourself.

Once you create an account you need to start finding people to follow. You can input your email account details and Twitter will show you if people you already know are using the service. You should also use the search tool to find people who are talking about topics that you want to follow . I did a search for “Lulu.com” to find other authors who use Lulu. Simply follow each user to create a list of people who are interested in Lulu.com and self-publishing.

Try searching for other topics that interest you. I enjoy hockey and am working on a book about youth hockey, so I searched for “hockey” and then followed other people who enjoy the sport. This has allowed me to join in on conversations with my target audience: hockey fans. As I have gotten to know them, I have been able to talk to them about ideas for my book, and even solicit feedback on some of my chapters. I know that once I release my book, I will have a built-in audience that is not only interested in my work, but has also participated in its creation.

Once you start following people, you can begin to see their conversations and whom they talk to. Start following people you find your friends talking with. Always remember, the messages you post will be viewable by everyone unless you send a direct message to an individual user. Before you know it, you’ll be networking and making friends. To get started, you can follow Lulu.com HERE and weRead HERE.

There are a number of other tools to help you:

Twellow.com: Directory of Twitter users
Twitter Search: See what people are talking about
Twirl: Put Twitter on your desktop

Questions? Comments? Post Below!

Over the course of 12 years, Martijn Mulder and Dirk Kloosterboer (with a little help from their friends) have tracked down, photographed, and catalogued the filming locations of every James Bond movie ever made. Luckily for us, their hard work is now available in a beautiful, full-color book featuring hundreds of photos and complete guides to finding the settings of all your favorite James Bond scenes. From 1962’s Dr. No to 2006’s Casino Royale, On the Tracks of 007 will take you around the world to over 370 locations in 24 countries.

Earlier this week, I interviewed Martijn by email, and below he shares his thoughts on James Bond, location hunting, and the incredible journey that became On the Tracks of 007.

There are four questions that have to be asked in any interview with a James Bond expert, so we better go ahead and get them out of the way: Who is your favorite Bond, your favorite Bond girl, your favorite Bond villain, and of course, what is your favorite Bond movie?

My favorite Bond will always be Sean Connery, although I think George Lazenby did a hell of a performance as well. Favorite Bond girl is Dame Diana Rigg as Tracy, the girl Bond marries and loses in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Christopher Walken plays the perfect psychopath as Max Zorin in the below average A View to a Kill. My favorite Bond movie is the earlier mentioned, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s a fantastic film, with a great script and a director who understood how to make a good (Bond) movie.

Your book catalogs over 370 locations in 24 countries from 22 films- a massive undertaking by any measure. What inspired you to start this project, and what kept you going for the 12 years it took to complete it?

Although hundreds of books have been written about James Bond in the past 30 years, not one deals specifically with the filming locations. I noticed in the early 90s that this was mainly because of the lack of information. Of course countries were mentioned, occasionally a specific place or house, but that was it. So I started compiling a list from what WAS known at that time. I was the very first ever to publish such a list on the then emerging internet and mostly all location information that can be found online today is derived or often copied from this list.

In 1998, I teamed up with German fellow Bond fan Dirk Kloosterboer - who sadly died in 2004 - and together we saw a potential book project looming. We started traveling, individually or sometimes together to all these countries we had found, often armed with snapshots taken from the TV screen (pausing our VCR at the right time). Careful research almost always resulted in the discovery of all the locations used for a particular film. It’s like movie archeology. It’s a fun hobby. Bond always travels to the most fascinating places, the most beautiful houses or hotels, and getting there didn’t mean taking a quick photo of the outside, no we just had to get access. Ringing the bell often worked but climbing a fence worked as well. During this journey we met so many hotel managers and property owners with interesting stories that it simply had to be written down in a book.

You have a number of top 10 lists in your book covering the most beautiful locations, the hardest to find locations, the most changed locations, and the lost locations. One thing I didn’t see was your top pick. Of all the locations you visited, which was your favorite?

Of course all the top 10 lists in the book reflect my personal opinion, so the #1 “most beautiful James Bond location” is my personal #1. Being far away from the normal tourist routes, all alone on top of the sleeping volcano Shinmu-dake in Southern Japan [the location of Blofeld’s volcano in You Only Live Twice], staring at its fluorescent green crater lake, is something I will never forget. It’s a unique location that should be visited by every Bond fan at least once in your life.

For me, the comprehensiveness of your project is made even more impressive by the fact that when you started this project in 1998, the James Bond franchise had been around for more than thirty years. How difficult was it to find some of these locations decades after they had appeared in the movies?

That actually was the most fun. I have never been much interested in the recent locations, because they are still exactly as they were a few years ago. It’s the early Bond locations (the 60s Connery-era) that were by FAR the most interesting to find. Armed with our TV-screen snapshots, we wandered through the streets of Istanbul, trying to find a street that was used in 1963s From Russia with Love and in the end it took about five taxi drivers to find it. The first four said they knew the place but took us to wrong streets. Finally one took us all the way to the other side of the city, where we would never have looked ourselves, but he was right. And even there we had trouble recognizing it. Cities tend to change rapidly. Downtown Tokyo today is impossible to match to 1967’s You Only Live Twice locations. But the bigger the challenge the greater the fun.

Any tips for fellow Bond location hunters?

Buy the book. It saves you at least 15 years of research. No, seriously, the best advice in general is to prepare well in advance. Get as much information as possible, study maps before you go, point out possible places where you think your locations might be found and bring some images from the scenes with you. If you think you know where to go to, start traveling. If you still haven’t got a clue, try sending your photos by email to local shops or tourist agencies. Most people are willing to offer a helping hand. Or when you’re “on location” ask around. Taxi drivers and other (preferably elderly) people know a lot about their city or country and how it looked years ago. And never give up! And when you’re there, just ring the bell and explain that you have a professional interest in their property. Say you’re writing a book about it or an article in a magazine. This gives you miles of advantage to regular fans.

When we next see James Bond, he’ll be headed to South America for Quantum of Solace. How far behind will you be?

Not so sure yet. As I explained earlier, recent locations will not be hard to find and are therefore not particularly interesting. The ESO site in the Atacama Desert in Chile on the other hand is so remote and visually interesting that I think a visit will not be postponed very long. Next summer perhaps?

Ready to get started on your own James Bond adventure? Order your copy of the ultimate James Bond field guide at Lulu.com and be sure to check out the official site at www.OntheTracksof007.com

Want to ask Martijn a question? Care to share your own James Bond experiences? Post a comment below!

A family that’s fit together has fun together – especially if you’re playing one of the fun games in Kathi Wyldeck’s Family Games.  Filled with games like “Robin’s Nest”, “Crusts and Crumbs” “Red Rover” and other outdoor games, you’ll be playing till the streetlights come on and it’s dinnertime.

Speaking of dinner…let’s work on the healthy part of the day.  With organic and health food stores everywhere, slow food movements and even fast food places offering a fruit cup instead of fries, eating healthy is becoming easier. If you’re looking for some new and inventive recipes, try the Runner’s Cookbook (ooo..running and cooking) .

Think health equals a long time to cook?  Au contraire! With Healthy Meals in 30 Minutes you can create a variety of gluten-, dairy-, sugar- and soy-free meals without having to slave over a stove all day.

So with plans in hand for a fun day, go enjoy Health and Fitness Day with friends and family.  The more the merrier and the better the games!

I sprung out of bed 6 minutes before my alarm went off, frightened the sleep out of my husband with a loud “YARRRRRG!” and jumped into my pirate garb! I popped my eye patch on and got into work early enough to be the first to greet my boss. “Ahoy! Ye scurvy-infested wench!”

On most days and with most bosses, a greeting of this nature is probably not acceptable, but if the urge is strong and runs deep within your soul, you’d better do it today. International Talk Like A Pirate Day is the coolest holiday there is. Move over Flag Day; get the heck out the way Thanksgiving. Aye, International Talk

Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket at a book signing in Lincoln City, OR. Photo by Margaret Hood

Like A Pirate Day makes all the other holidays walk the plank of disappointment. This holiday has an attitude and ye best be prepared for pirate-speak, lest ye find ye’self in ol’ Davy Jones’ Locker.

And who do we owe our booty to fer creating this rum-filled holiday? Why, who else but one our very own Lulu authors and his pirate cohort! A few days ago I had the extreme pleasure of talking with one of the co-founders of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, John ‘Ol’ Chumbucket’ Baur, via email.  Sit down, grab some rum and take a listen, wont ye? Arrrrr!!!

Ahoy, scallywag! Thank ye for doing thiser here interview with me. I be understanding these be very busy times for a buccaneer of ye stature, and I owe ye all the doubloons in the sea fer taking the time to jabber. I be asking ye a few questions about thiser here holiday to let the folks out there on the open seas know a little bit more about ye. Yaaarg!

So tell me, me friend, how did ye create “International Talk Like A Pirate Day?”

The whole story is on our Web site, www.talklikeapirate.com.
Here’s the reader’s digest version.

My friend, Mark Summers, and I were playing racquetball when one of us - there’s no remembering who now - reached a little too far for a shot and let out an “Aarrr!” Well, as you might expect with “guys,” we started insulting each other in pirate talk. When we finished we realized we’d had more fun than we ever had before, so much so that we never play racquetball anymore, we just talk like pirates. We realized the entire world - every man, woman and child on the planet - needed one day a year when they were allowed, even encouraged, to talk like pirates, just for the sheer, anarchic fun of it.

Did ye scallywags expect the world would embrace Talk Like A Pirate Day as much as it has?
We had no expectations whatsoever; basically this is a very silly private joke among a couple of friends that has grown into a private joke shared by a few million friends all over the world. We’re just riding the wave.

What brought ye to Lulu? Have ye made much gold here?

We had been writing a blog story and our Web Wench mentioned that we could get it printed at Lulu. We put it up there. And the children’s book (A Li’l Pirates ABSeas), which no responsible person would buy for a child. It depends on what you mean by success. Have we sold thousands and thousands of  books? No. But we’ve made beer money, and the fans that’ve wanted copies of the Tales of the Festering Boil have been able to get them.

What projects are ye buccaneers working on now and when will they be released?

Our new book is out from Kensington - “The Pirate Life: Unleashing Your Inner Buccaneer.” It’s the ultimate self-help book (results may vary; consult your physician.) We’re working on another Festering Boil tale that will be on Lulu, and there’s some other writing stuff going on that we can’t quite announce yet. Soon, but not yet.

Right-o me friend! I will be looking forward to trading me riches for a copy of them there books. It will be a good trade, as I know fer sure me life will be greatly enriched be ye wise words. Do ye have any closing remarks for the people out there on the open seas?

We just want people to have fun with our idea. Let yer hair down, swagger, and say “Aarrr!” Talk Like a Pirate!

Ye can find the Pirates’ Lulu storefront page here: www.stores.lulu.com/chumbucket
The official Talk Like A Pirate site can be found here: www.talklikeapirate.com
If Ye Need help talking like a Pirate, visit www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html

]]> http://lulublog.com/2008/09/19/a-pirates-life-fer-me-fer-today-arrrr/feed/ http://lulublog.com/2008/09/19/a-pirates-life-fer-me-fer-today-arrrr/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/lulublog/~3/395539155/ http://lulublog.com/2008/09/17/customize-your-way-to-a-published-success/#comments Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:38:17 +0000 Cary Allman http://lulublog.com/?p=242 When I was in school, nothing stressed me out more than having to edit and format those 10 to 15 page term papers, so I can’t even imagine how much pressure authors must feel when tackling those massive 300 page manuscripts. Now, Lulu authors have it easy! Lulu Services has whipped up some exciting new offerings to better meet everyone’s needs and ease a little of that pre-publishing anxiety.

Introducing (drum roll, please)…Customizable Publishing Packs!

The standard Publishing Pack is PERFECT for anyone who is feeling a little overwhelmed about putting the finishing touches on their work, because this service bundle has industry professionals take care of pre-publishing needs like editorial work and custom cover design.

Wait…it gets better! Now, anyone interested in the pack can choose to customize their bundle with one of Lulu’s four formatting services. These offerings range from a basic service for text-only manuscripts to a custom service for longer books with an unlimited number of images.

If you’re looking for a way to move your project to the next level, a Lulu publishing pack will take you there and beyond!