Sixth in a series of articles, we’ll discuss various issues and practices associated with modern ways of selling over the phone.

*****************************************************************
The New Telemarketing is a set of selling practices designed to accomplish several things:

(1) To sell more goods and services than its predecessor, the “traditional” style;

(2) To be less offensive than its predecessor to buyers;

(3) To be consistent with a customer service style of communicating;

(4) To help in recruiting and retaining qualified phone representatives and managers; and

(5) To repair and reform the image of telemarketers in business and consumer communities.
*****************************************************************

Traditional telemarketing is a burn out for most reps that don’t have the personality, drive, or physical constitution to stomach its challenges.

It requires call after call be made to people who respond, by and large, antagonistically.

The average non-salesperson finds this regimen daunting, and continuous rejection is alien to his or her experience and sensibilities.

She doesn’t communicate in an adversarial way with her friends or family, and she probably hasn’t been required to do it in other business contexts. So, why should she put up with it in a phone environment?

The negatives we associate with traditional telemarketing aren’t inherent, they’re matters of choice and design. The scripts we use are talk-a-thons, one-way monologues that invite incessant rejection.

If we change the communication content of calls, we’ll change their impact not only on clients, but on reps, as well.

For example, traditional telemarketing is geared to telling. It tells prospects about a product’s features and benefits, and it tells its way to a close.

The New Telemarketing is consultative, and it asks its way to a sale. It’s much more in keeping with the relationship values we expect from friendship, family, and customer service; its egalitarian, and not dictatorial.

Reps like to communicate in a give-and-take manner, which is the model upon which The New Telemarketing is built. It is low-key and not high-pressure.

This wears well on everyone.

If you train reps, as I have, in both styles, and give them a choice, they’ll opt for TNT, time and again.

In a future article, we’ll discuss the fact that with The New Telemarketing traditional objections and rejection become much less of a concern.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of www.Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone®, You Can Sell Anything By Telephone! and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com

We will begin by defining what a marriage is.

It is the union of two souls, two hearts, two minds, two people and one love; it is a commitment that you make with your partner as long as you both shall live.

A marriage should be both give and take and in an ideal world a marriage is made in Heaven and solemnised on Earth and therefore should last forever. It should be a relationship from which you get everything you both want.

Unfortunately quite often it does not end up that way, a lot of the time this is due to inaction rather than actions. There are sources where you can get resources aimed at helping you in this endeavour from the outset, you have dreamed of your wedding for years (come on ladies we know you have! – Blokes – well they won’t admit that they have even if they did!).

You can use your attitude and thinking to mould and Manifest the Life You Want and see amazing improvements over time. Make no mistake – your life will end up the way you both decide whether that is consciously or not is entirely up to you. Marriage lasts forever.

Understandably there is major importance attached to the longevity of a marriage. A wedding on the other hand is “only” one or two days where you gather with loved ones to celebrate the decision to marry one another forever. It’s probably not difficult to organise a bog standard wedding, but come on, you or your partner didn’t dream about that did you – we’re sure you wanted the best day ever – right?

Well… Don’t be fooled then, a wedding is much more than just one or two days, you will need to be up to speed on everything that needs to be done up to one year in advance to make that day or two as special as you envisaged it to be in your dreams!

As mentioned before, our aim is to help you with this by providing a detailed series of e-books that will help you step by step through the wedding process which will ultimately aid you in ensuring you have a stress free pre-wedding period, wedding day and married life thereafter.

Kaval & Shilpa Patel are a recently married couple. Kaval is an Internet Marketer & Financial Market Trader, Shilpa is a Trainee Health Psychologist. The article is one of a series of articles. You can find the other parts to this article series by visiting Excelsior Wedding Services

When Doug and I got married in May 2003 we were very intentional about our choice in a home. Rather than max out our financial resources, we chose to live very simply in a small, but charming 1926 Sears kit house.

You may have heard of these “kit houses” – they were, literally, house kits sold through a Sears catalog. They were shipped by train, and arrived with lumber, nails, and assembly instructions. It’s as solid as a rock, well-built, cozy – and by 2006 standards – pretty tight quarters, even for newlyweds.

We love this little, old house with the big, tall trees. But, it was an adjustment, living in a house as small as this one which, by the way, was “target- rich” for some upgrades – to the kitchen and to the bathroom (notice – only one bathroom!)

Who lives without a dishwasher? Who can get by with only about 3 feet of counter space? How can I live without cathedral ceilings, multiple built-in ovens, a wine cabinet, two sinks, granite countertops, and separate offices for every member of the family?

I could feel my growing discontentment – my dissatisfaction taking over – my covetousness growing like a big, ugly green monster. With the Lord’s help, I got hold of myself and decided I was NOT going to let this evil overtake me!

By golly – we were living within our means in a simply delightful home, in an old-fashioned neighborhood, in a darling historic town in rural Maryland – where people strolling past our front porch on their way to the post office every morning smile, wave, and exchange pleasantries.

Over the course of the next 2 years, I became absolutely content – thrilled that I didn’t have all that extra square footage to keep clean and organized!

I got used to the kitchen and the old, but still working appliances. We were doing just fine – happy with our simple living. We chose not to focus on the trappings of the latest and greatest “stuff” that too often takes a person’s joy captive – leaving them with nothing but dissatisfaction, frustration, and a feeling of always needing more.

Then one day the old refrigerator finally gave out. It coughed, sputtered, and just flat stopped. This was the moment I’d been waiting for – the opportunity (well, the need) to go shop for a new “ice box!”

We decided on a basic, regular model – freezer on top, no ice or water dispensers in the door – nothing fancy – but I am still doing the happy dance about this simple little necessity! Who cares that it’s too tall to fit into the spot where the old refrigerator stood and we had to put it in the dining room. It’s sparkly and new, and purrs like a kitten!

I had to wonder if I would have derived so much excitement and pleasure out of the task of “just” buying a refrigerator had I not learned to be content with the very basics of life.

This whole experience has taught me a great lesson -

contentment and thankfulness are the rich soil where true happiness takes root.

By practicing contentment every day in the little things, rather than longing for “something more,” we can find ourselves living each day with the childlike joy and wonder we thought we’d lost many years ago.

Visit LifeHouse Coaching to sign up for “Blueprints for a Dream Life” and receive Edi Sowers’ f*r*e*e* weekly articles, coaching tips, and special offers. Edi works with women business owners who work at home and face the arduous challenge of balancing their personal and professional priorities in order to build their dream life.

The name of the game is CHANGE — that’s true at work, and it’s also true in life. In both situations there are FOUR skills you can trust:

1. LISTEN TO YOURSELF. Try to trust your intuitive judgement. Often, this displays itself as the very first thought you have in a given situation. Another suggestion here is to use a small notebook to record your thoughts and ideas, how you’re feeling at any moment, and any new thought about a plan or a purpose.

2. FOCUS ON ONE — OR A FEW — ACTIONS AT A TIME; PRIORITIZE. Success, as change, occurs as a series of small steps. You don’t have to tackle everything at once, just as you don’t have to eat a whole meal in a single gulp. Take it easy. Think, “One thing at a time,” then act on each thought, complete each action before going on to the next.

3. GIVE YOURSELF TIME. Science has shown that it takes many repetitions to establish a new pattern in humans…it takes about 21 days to establish a habit (or extinguish one). Be patient with yourself.

4. REVIEW ACTION IDEAS DAILY. Make a TO DO list every day (or every evening for the next day, or every Friday for Monday). Keep your action list out in the open, where you can see it, edit it, check off completed items, etc. And be aware of STRESS and how it affects you.
Change on the outside usually produces some signals, symptoms or signs on the inside. Let’s look now at THREE CATEGORIES in which you’ll receive signals — stress warnings – that you should pay attention to.

- Physical signals – may include headaches, rashes, feelings of exhaustion, stomach upset, minor pains and aches, and so on.

- Mental signals – negative thoughts, confusion, inability to concentrate, reduced productivity, sleeplessness, or forgetfulness.

- Emotional signals – anxiety, fear, feelings of frustration, depression, withdrawal, feelings of helplessness or powerlessness.

Which of these signals might you be feeling these days? Pay attention to them. Perhaps it would help to write them down, get them outside of yourself so you can see them more clearly. To repeat: What’s going on physically? What’s going on mentally? What’s going on emotionally?
Next, let’s look at some of the things you can do to counteract the feelings that come up in changing times. There are four major categories of action from which you can get some relief from the stress responses to change.

1. DIET. Eat at least three meals a day and drink lots of water (remember that coffee, tea, and colas don’t count as waterBalance your intake of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Maintain low-fat, low-sugar intake. Restrict alcohol use. If this information is new to you, or if you don’t understand some of the basic principles of nutrition, seek out professional advice from your doctor, then perhaps enroll in a structured weight control program (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and so forth). This course of action is particularly advisable if you are chronically overweight, underweight or if your weight varies widely and/or quickly.

2. REST. It’s more than just a good night’s sleep. Arrange for some quiet time each day — read, meditate, listen to music, or look at art. Refrain from eating late at night, and try doing relaxation exercises before bedtime.

3. EXERCISE. Walking is good…can you do it daily? Work out aerobically at least three time a week for at least 20 minutes at a time; participate in a game or sport, if you can, on a regular basis…by the way, bowling counts!

4. RECHARGING. Schedule regular time with family, friends. Don’t talk about work or other problems, just enjoy their company. Establish, revise, review and record personal and professional goals. Meditation is productive here, as is yoga (for some), prayer (for others) or hand-oriented hobbies such as model building, whittling or playing a musical instrument. Also, take a few moments once or twice a week to assess what you’ve accomplished during the interval since your last assessment. You may be pleasantly surprised at just how much you’ve accomplished.

Copyright 2002, 2005 Optimum Performance Associates/Paul McNeese.

Paul McNeese is CEO of Optimum Performance Associates, a consulting firm
specializing in transitional and transformational change for individuals
and institutions through publication. His publishing company,
OPA Publishing, is an advocacy for self-publishing authors of
informational, instructional, inspirational and insightful nonfiction.

Email: pmcneese@opapublishing.com
Websites: http://www.opapublishing.com and http://www.opapresents.com

When you work with web site traffic, you must have the tools that show you the real picture about this traffic. You must know for sure how targeted your visitors are, what they want, what offers they like more, what offers cut down their motivation to use your product/service.

Only professional URL tracking tools can show you the real picture about your online business. And those who do not want to see real picture, venture their business to a great risk of losing everything.

HOW TRACKING WORKS.

Nothing difficult at all. You create a special link and put it inside your copy, mailing message, autoresponder letter, pop-up window, web page – anywhere you wish. Your URL gets special ‘counter’ that is activated every time someone clicks your link. When you know the statistic information about clicks on any of your links, you see the response that your business gets with clients, subscribers and web site visitors.

A simple example will show how URL tracking can help you to qualify the motivation for your products among subscribers. Let’s say you have 3,000 subscribers in your car driving tips course. Using URL statistics you can see how much clients exactly are ready for special action with your web site.

You write email letter to your subscribers, saying: “bla-bla-bla. You are my subscribers. I have terrific car related offers to you.”

Then you place several trackable links with text:

“…Click this link if you want to get discounts for car wash:
http://www.YourWebSite.com/link1

Click this link if you want to get car insurance:
http://www.YourWebSite.com/link2

Click here if you do not have a car and want to get loan for car purchase:
http://www.YourWebSite.com/link3 …”

This example is simplified, but you can get the idea. People will click on particular links if they like any particular offer. And you just look at the statistics for the number of clicks on each link and know:

1. How many people from your list have a car (link 1 + link 2)

2. How many people from your list do not have a car (link 3)

3. How many people from your list are interested in lower prices car wash services (link 1)

4. How many people from your list need new car insurances (link 2)

5. How many people from your list ignored all your offers (3,000 – link 1 – link 2 – link 3)

This info is very useful. Maybe after such a test you will find out that 2,600 out of “your” 3,000 subscribers did not click any of the links at all. Then you should think it over: maybe you do not have a car targeted traffic.

That was an example of URL tracking aimed at qualifying the subscribers into different groups by their interest. But tracking can give more useful info about your online business.

You can check what type of your ad copy is more effective with a simple URL testing technique. Write two ad copies that will differ in some copywriting elements. Put two different links in these copies. Track both links and you will immediately know what ad copy works better. No hypothetical suggestions, only real facts.

The technique is universal: you can test different variants of texts, offers, products and services and see what works and what not. This technique is called split testing in Internet marketing. You make several variants (i.e. split you offer into several testing variants) and see what variant gets better response. Then you choose that variant that works better and stick with it, do more and more split testing to get a better and better effect from your web site.

Now that you know the benefits of using URL tracking, you should know what features professional URL tracking tools should have.

PROFESSIONAL URL TRACKING TOOL SHOULD HAVE THESE FEATURES:

- you can create and test as many URLs as you wish;

- you can make two types of links: HTML and TXT links;

- you must be able to edit your URLs;

- you must be able to track link statistics to see: when the link was clicked, how many times it was clicked, how many unique clicks were made, etc.

URL tracking does not bring you traffic, but it shows the most truthful picture about what traffic you get to the web site. This is a very important tool: it is always better to dodge troubles in advance then to face problems all of a sudden.

Nickolay Bokhonok – CEO And Owner Of DesktopMoney LTD. Inventor of Internet marketing software and scripts. Successful Internet entrepreneur. Learn more about web site traffic building strategies, tips and tools at Free Traffic System web site.

Free Traffic System – Your Web Site Traffic Doctor.
info@FreeTrafficSystem.com

A couple of summers ago, I finally had the chance of my life, the chance that I had been waiting for the longest time, travel to Europe. As a kid in all of my history classes I would always wonder what it would be like to travel there, and see all those beautiful cities that I have learned about on TV, and watching movies filmed in them. I was very excited, mostly about Paris. We flew to London and then Madrid, and travel by train from there. On our way to Paris, as we were looking through our guide, once city that was not even in our itinerary but looked interesting, was Barcelona. So we decided to head over and spend a day. As soon as we arrived I could not believe so much beauty, I thought to myself the people that live in this city are so lucky to be from here, I wondered if they knew how lucky they were. We spent some time at the beach, thank goodness we brought along our Acceletrim weight loss product; our bodies were lean and healthy. We admiring the Mediterranean, after that we walked everywhere and soon realized that this city was just to wonderful and interesting to live the next morning, we booked three more days at the hotel, so we could see all of Gaudi’s masterpieces and get to go to the Passeig de Gracia, and make it to a Barcelona F.C soccer game. I loved everything about this city, the Catalan culture and of course the amazing food, I cannot wait to go back.

Are holiday bills surprising you? Are you hoping that if you ignore your finances long enough, maybe they will fix themselves?

Let’s liken our finances to a garden. If we neglect the garden, weeds will grow and take over. The garden gets so bad we don’t even want to look at it! But, with a little maintenance and tending the garden becomes a joy.

The first step towards creating a joyful financial garden is learning to save.

Why bother saving?
Before we delve into the often scary place of finding out how much of the money is going in and out, we need to find a motive to dig deep.

You need to know why you want to save mo’ney. Do you want to own your home, reach financial independence, get a vacation home on an island? Or do you simply want financial peace so you’re not worrying about money?

Once you get that vision of what you want to achieve you will have the motivation to examine your finances.

Financial Dream.

How much will it cost to fulfill your vision? Work out some figures, and write down your estimation. This is your financial goal.

When do you want to achieve your financial dream? 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? Now you know not only how much you need by when. This tells you how much you’ll need to save each year to reach your goal in your required timeframe.

Look at your finances.

You can’t bury your head in the garden sand of your finances or you will end up with pricker bushes and weeds the size of trees.

You know what you want, when you want it and how much you want to save. Now you get to see if you can save that much. Look at your in’come and expenses. Do you have more coming in, then going out? If you do, you have a great start. If not, we’ll look at how to create savings in a minute.

Save first.

The biggest mistake people make is to say “I will save whatever is left over.” Don’t try this at home. Your expenses will expand to use up any money that is there.

Instead, put money in savings first. Many companies allow you to automatically deduct money to put into a savings account. You won’t miss it, because you’ll never see it.

Now you get to play the “How Can I Live on the Rest” game. Challenge yourself and be innovative. Are we having fun yet?

I can’t save that much!

If you can’t save as much as your goal, don’t sweat it. Start saving whatever you can. The psychological impact of bringing in more than you spend will help motivate you to save even more. And it feels great! Starting with $10 a month is at least something!

Prune those expenses.

The easiest and quickest way to save more is to cut your expenses.

First, get rid of cre’dit card de’bt. If you can’t use your card responsibly cut it up or put it in a block of ice in the freezer.

Next, list everything you spend money on. For each item ask if this is something that you can cut with no pain. Or will it cause a little pain. Or will it feel like taking off a limb?

Beside each item, list how much you would save each month by eliminating or slashing that cost by 50%. That number is what you could save for your dream. Imagine what you could do with that cash!

Some suggestions for cutting expenses.

Get books and magazines from the library instead of buying them

Get rid of things that don’t add to your life

Cancel the gym membership and workout with a buddy

Ditch the cell phone till you can start saving

Think about your car- can you get around without it? Do you really need a second car? Can you replace your newer one with an older car? The car is one of the biggest expenses when you include repairs, insurance and depreciation. Selling a car could give you thousands of dollars in savings.
Rent a cheaper place! At least until you have 6-12 months of living expenses stashed away in a savings account. If the mortgage is killing you
- give yourself a break. Talk to a financial planner or accountant about selling the place and renting cheaply, or renting out your expensive place and renting cheaply.

Eat out less. Go out for coffee instead of lunch with your friends. Or invite them over to your place.

* * *

OK – there’s a blueprint to start taking financial responsibility, and to begin to enjoy your financial garden, instead of dreading being attacked in it! And coaches – feel free to use these ideas with your clients.

David Wood is a personal and business coach, and an original founder of the International Coach Academy – a global coach training school.

Looking to become a life coach? Get your free copy of ‘50 Power Questions’ to use with your life coaching clients, and to take charge of your own life. Download here:
http://www.solutionbox.com/freedownload.htm

And find out how these ordinary life coaches are making $30,000 to $1.4 million per year! Finally they share their secrets: http://www.10SuperCoaches.com

The short story market is one of the hardest to break into. There are thousands of well-known writers pumping out short fiction, and thousands more just like you, struggling to get themselves published for the first time. But there are several things you can do to set yourself apart from the rest and start working your way to the head of the pack.

Attention to Detail

First things first, make sure your manuscript is professional. Use a plain, 12-point font, times new roman is the norm. Double-line space the entire manuscript and only left-justify your text. Use a minimum one inch margin on both sides of the page, and top and bottom. Put your name, address and contact number in the top right-hand corner of the coversheet, put your story’s title and your byline in the centre of the page. Rights being offered should go on the bottom-left corner and approximate word count on the right. Thereafter, make sure the first three words of the title and the page number appears in the page header on the right-hand side. Place your title about two-thirds of the way down the first page, your byline immediately underneath, and start your story one double-spaced line below that.

If this manuscript was for a short story competition you would normally need to remove the coversheet and delete any occurrences of your name from the final draft. Though you should always check the competition’s guidelines as some do differ.

If you can submit an error-free, professional-looking document, you will already have beat out all the dreamers who think they’ll get their story noticed if it’s printed on pink paper, bordered with little stars, or hand-written in old gothic. None of these strategies will give you an edge; they will only make you look too eccentric to be worth an editor’s trouble.

Choosing a Title

Though an editor may want to change your title, a title can sometimes make or break your entire submission. Don’t alienate yourself by selecting a title like ‘My Dog Rover,’ or ‘The Story of My Father.’ Instead, go for something mysterious or edgy, like ‘Bark the Dead Down,’ or ‘The Meanest Old Bastard from Here to Melbourne.’

Know When to Take Instruction

Get on-line, not just for e-publishing, but for print publications as well. Find out what your target publishers are looking for in terms of genre and submission criteria, such as format and word length. You would be surprised at how many new writers will attempt to submit a piece that is 3,000 words too long, or is on a topic completely unrelated to the regular content of the publication they are attempting to break into. If you can follow a publisher’s submission criteria to the letter and are sensitive to what their publication is trying to accomplish, you will find yourself pulling even further ahead of the other writers.

However, you don’t always have to listen to the dictates of publishers. Many editors will tell you that if you are submitting a piece to them, do not submit it to any other publisher at the same time. If they find out they have been wasting their time on your piece while you’ve gone with another publisher, they could blacklist you. Although, authors will tell you a different story. Rather than having eager publishers fighting over your work, the truth is that you will probably submit your story, wait for months to hear from the publisher, and then get a letter of rejection. Is your time really that much less valuable than that of an editor? Experienced authors say submit, submit, submit. Just be sure to keep a list of all the places you have sent your manuscript so you can withdraw it if you get lucky.

Writing Competitions

While it may be hard or even impossible for a never-published author to get their manuscript in front of an editor, one strategy for breaking in is to enter short fiction contests. These contests usually come with some prize money and an opportunity to be published. However, beware of scam contests. Any contest that says you’re a winner and then asks you for money is a scam. Any contest that says you’re a winner but wants to publish your work without paying you is a scam. Don’t be fooled – research contests as thoroughly as you would a publisher. A reading or entry fee is pretty much the norm, but again beware, watch out for high fees in return for small prizes.

Get Tough or Get Out

Being neat, professional, competitive and a contest-winner may help to put you at the head of the pack, but these do not make up a never-fail formula for success. The truth is, your stories are going to be rejected a disappointing number of times. Just remember that this does not mean your story is bad, and it does not mean that you will never succeed. It just means that you are going to have to learn to accept rejection. Some of the greatest authors in literary history have been able to paper their walls in rejection slips.

If a rejection contains comments of any kind from an editor, you know you’re on the right track. You made them care enough to want to teach you something, and this is no small feat. Whatever an editor has suggested, consider it carefully. Try making some of these changes and resubmit.

Don’t Forget that this is a Job

Like every other stage of the process, this is hard work. Writing is like any other job, to do it well, you have to work your butt off, and deal with bosses that are going to give you a hard time every chance they get. The biggest mistake a new writer can make is to give up when things stop being easy. As soon as the creative juices don’t seem to be flowing, or they can’t get part of the story just right, they quit. This attitude is all wrong. Writers that are getting published aren’t better than you; they’re just working harder than you. Authorship can offer huge payoffs, but only to those who are willing to quit playing and do some real tough storytelling.

One last thing you can do to advance further ahead of the pack is to do your research. Writers used to depend on annually published directories like the Fiction Writer’s Market to get the scoop on submission criteria and publisher addresses, but today the Internet is the place to be for the short story writer. The new frontier when it comes to short story publishing is on-line. The form is ideally suited to on-line publications, websites and as a downloadable for hand-held devices. So warm up your mouse and start pounding that keyboard, you’ll never know unless you give it a go.

How does a person bridge the enormous gap between a manuscript and a book? There are three options: trade (commercial) publishing, subsidy (vanity) publishing, or self-publishing.

Commercial publishers are the so-called “giants” in the industry. Forty-five percent of all sales are monopolized by five major publishers today: Unfortunately, they’re so big they no longer hear the voice of the little person. Continuing corporate mergers and take-overs compound the problem. Unless you are famous (or infamous), your manuscript has little chance of making it through the corporate front door. And even if it does, this can be more of a curse than a blessing. Trade publishers typically offer a $2,000 to $10,000 advance against royalties. Yet industry statistics show that only one in 10 books ever earn back that advance. That’s a 90% failure rate! It means you’re unlikely to ever get any more than that paltry initial payment.

Those who sign with commercial houses have no guarantee their book will be properly presented to the public. A disproportionate chunk of advertising dollars is spent on authors with established track records or well-known names. We hear many horror stories about authors who make media appearances to promote their work . . . yet customers can’t find their books in bookstores.

In desperation, many novices turn to subsidy (vanity) presses. Beware! Here the ink hits the paper only when the author underwrites the cost of the entire venture. But despite the investment, the author is expected to sign away most rights and receives only a partial royalty for books sold. Plus the vanity publisher’s name on your book stigmatizes it, causing it to be shunned by important reviewers and booksellers. Marketing efforts by vanity houses are dismal to nonexistent. Most Print on Demand (POD) companies fall into this category.

Self-publishing is a viable option for many. This “do-it-yourself” method places you in complete control of the entire process. Critical decisions concerning the title, cover design, editorial content, marketing, and distribution are made by younot by some executive sitting in a remote New York office. Yes, you invest in your project. Done properly, however, this is a prudent investment in your future.

In the past ten years, overall quality in the industry has skyrocketed. Well-edited manuscripts, eye-catching covers, and high-tech marketing techniques are the norm. Privately published titles typically command respectand profitsfor their authors. Proactive authors selling and promoting into nontraditional markets can be very effective.

Here’s the approach many savvy people are taking today: They self-publish initially and promote their book to success. Then they leverage this successful track record by “allowing” a trade publisher to buy the rights to their proven product. This way they have the clout to command a higher advance and can negotiate more favorable terms. By removing the risk for the commercial publisher, you put yourself in a more powerful position. Success can be yours. Self-publishing your book is often the profitable alternative.

Many dramatic success stories have left their imprint on the entire self-publishing movement. Such was the case of Louise Hay, author of a phenomenally successful line of books, who chose self-publishing to launch her works. She began with a 48-page staple-bound edition of Heal Your Body; her second venture, You Can Heal Your Life, captured the #9 spot on the trade paperback best-seller list for 1988! Her books and resulting tapes and seminars have helped hundreds of thousands to discover the pathway to well-being. And they’ve helped Louise to wealth.

Consider the example of self-publisher Ted Nicholas. His How to Form Your Own Corporation Without a Lawyer for Under $50 started its journey with $5,000 borrowed from a life insurance policy. The result? Over 800,000 copies sold to date. Entrepreneurs of America, a service for independent business people, is just one of his latest spin-offs. Capitalizing on his direct mail wizardry, Nicholas published The Golden Mailbox, a how-to guide for selling books through the mail.

The classic career counseling handbook, What Color Is Your Parachute? originated its climb to best-sellerdom as a self-published title. Author and clergyman Richard Nelson Bolles eventually sold the rights to Ten Speed Press, where the book continues to move at a rate of 300,000 copies a year. The total number of copies sold so far is over five million!

These dramatic success stories have left their imprint on the entire self-publishing movement. Today, more and more people are deciding to publish their own books and keep all the profit!

© Copyright 2005 Marilyn Ross

Marilyn and Tom Ross are the coauthors of 13 books including the best-selling Complete Guide to Self-Publishing and the award-winning Jump Start Your Book Sales. Through phone consultations and ongoing coaching/mentoring, Marilyn empowers authors and self-publishers to realize their dreams. She can be reached at 719-395-8659 or Marilyn@MarilynRoss.com.

Visit http://www.SelfPublishingResources.com for free meaty information on writing, self-publishing, and book marketing strategies.

Like her contemporary Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen also fictionalized middle class society; however in Larsen’s works, there are undercurrents that imply middle class values are not always ‘good.’ Nella Larsen’s only two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) were ‘novels of passing’ but unlike their predecessors, these two novels are “more complex and ambitious” (Davis 560). In these works, Larsen “explores the relationships between appearance and reality, deception and unmasking, manipulation and imaginative management, aggression and self-defense” (Davis 561). Perhaps Larsen is able to delve deeper into the consciousness of people torn between two worlds because she herself had experienced living in both the ‘white’ world and the ‘black’ world. Larsen’s mother was an emigrant from Denmark, and her father was from the Virgin Islands. During her early childhood, she lived in a “white working-class neighborhood of Chicago,” and attended an elementary school which consisted mainly of the “children of German and Scandinavian immigrants” (Wall 91). However, Wall reports that Larsen suffered “alienation” in her home life, and was “ostracized at school and in the neighborhood” (Wall 91).

In her teen years, Larsen attended Wendell Phillips High School, and later “enrolled in the high school department of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee” which put Larsen among middle class African Americans (Wall 92). But Larsen left Fisk after only one year, apparently “she was no more at home in an all-black community than she had been in a white one” (Wall 92). After leaving Fisk in 1908, until she enrolled at New York’s Lincoln Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1912, there exists no evidence of her life in the intervening four years (Wall 92). Larsen says that she spent some time in Denmark attending the University of Copenhagen, but Wall asserts that “in fact, Larsen did not leave the United States” (Wall 92). Wall further states that what Larsen did in that period of her life “remains a mystery,” that Larsen “went to great lengths to conceal” (Wall 92).

After graduating from nursing school in 1915, Larsen accepted a position as an “assistant superintendent of nurses at Tuskegee Institute” (Wall 92). While working at Tuskegee, Larsen discovered that “along with their academic and vocational training, students were also schooled in subservience and docility” (Wall 92). Larsen left Tuskegee after one year. She returned to New York, where she quickly became discontented with nursing and obtained a position as an assistant with the New York Public Library; this move put her in contact with the New Negro intelligentsia (Wall 92).

Larsen’s personal life, like her characters, exhibits a continuous quest to establish an identity for herself. But Larsen, if she ever did succeed in her quest for a sense of self, adroitly concealed it from her contemporaries and from the rest of the world. This concealment of her self is described by Wall in an interview with a reporter:

The interview concentrated on more personal concerns. The “unforgivable sin” was being bored, so [Larsen] selected only amusing and natural people, not too intellectual. She would never “pass,” because “with my economic status it’s better to be a Negro. So many things are excused them. The chained and downtrodden Negro is a picture that came out of the Civil War.” And while she claimed to be “not quite sure what she wanted to be spiritually,” she knew she “want[ed] things – beautiful and rich things.” (Wall 120).

Wall describes many more instances of Larsen’s flippancy in public, detailing the “considerable lengths” that Larsen utilized to “project a frivolous image” (Wall 120). The reasons for Larsen’s deceptive image is unclear, but Wall surmises that “behind its mask, one supposes, [Larsen] felt safe” (Wall 120). This “masquerade of femininity” is a major theme in Larsen’s novels, as also is transgressing social, racial, and gendered boundaries. The themes Larsen employs mark her as a Romantic novelist.

Bibliography

Davis, Thadious M. “Nella Larsen.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 427-28.

Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.