Making our Life Purposeful

After we begin to live our lives as a young child and and we are so focused on ourselves we eventually grow out of it hopefully.  Then we can evolve and find a means to provide our lives with some meaning beyond just making money.  In the end if we have a higher purpose it should be to touch others in a way that adds meaning to their lives and our own.  to inspire others to become better humans and treat each other with respect while pursuing our own higher meaningfulness is an admirable cause.  It is not for those that just espouse to be good people, it is for those that mean to be and act as such.  If we can help our fellow man that is the greatest purpose I think humanity can see and find value in someone’s life legacy.  If Hollywood wanted to change the outcomes of real humanity they would produce a show solely focused each week on showcasing these selfless acts as a primary medium to influence positive change in our society.  Now that would be a show I think we would all be influenced by and the cool thing is that the stories would be real and not artificial and made up.  I hope that by discussing this maybe others will also discuss this need and perhaps I can create a spark that will become viral and generate the change I think we could all use at this time.

2nd Edition of The Next America-Thriving and Surviving in an Unpredictable Economy is released

My latest book is the 2nd edition of my smash hit book, The Next America originally published in 2011 and now updated for 2014 and released by  Motivational Press.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Next-America-Survive-Unpredictable/dp/1628650842/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396394702&sr=8-2&keywords=9781628650846

2nd Edition The Next America- Being Released by Motivational Press 2014

Exciting news everyone… my first edition of the Next America-Moving Beyond a Fragile Economy was released in 2011.  I began to network about possible new traditional publishers in late 2013 for a revised 2nd edition to this very popular book.  I finally found an awesome Publisher in Motivational Press, and their Publisher/CEO Justin Sachs.  Wow what a great crew of people.  Motivational Press only produces books in the non-fiction genre and within the particular focus of my books target audience.  Those would be people concerned about how to get ahead in these challenging times and those folks that want to advocate and learn about what changes we need to make to rebuild the American Dream today.  I signed my publishing contract with them Christmas Eve 2013.  I am very excited about this new 2nd Edition of “The Next America-How to Survive and Thrive in Today’s Unpredictable Economy.”  I wanted to make all my friends and fans aware of the anticipated release of my latest book in the Spring of 2014.

 I hope you all have a Healthy, Prosperous and Happy 2014!

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Book Campaign Review

Hopefully by giving others my own experience with these various services it will prove to be valuable in both avoiding services that don’t work so well and/or simply aren’t worth the expense.

I must first disclose that my own experiment with direct marketing is being undertaken on a modest budget of approximately $500 to $750 per month.

My expenditures for this 3 month campaign have cost me a total of approximately $1300.00

The campaign began in October 2013 and officially concludes at the end of January 2014.

The following are the services I choose to market my book, “The Next America.”

Book marketing campaign costs broken down by service.

My Target audience is 1 million recipients but this will be difficult without the Bookbub distribution. I believe a more realistic number is closer to 400,000 recipients.

It should be noted that my focus includes email blasts, banner ads, and book reviews as well as page sponsorships. I feel it is a very diverse cross section of Author choices.

Kindle Nation
39,000 social-$259- possibly Dec.-No
184,000 email -$99-Oct- Yes

# I have not witnessed much improvement in rankings or sales in the 4 weeks since this was undertaken.
My rating on this is 1-Star (Low Value)

Book daily blast -$49
25,000-50,000
Oct. Nov, Dec

The service seems very well performed. Probably the best value in the book blast email services. Again not much in sales ROI. My rating for this service is 2-Star (mediocre value)

Book bub- $600- rejected twice
522,000
I have not been able to get my book placed with this service so NO rating.

Pump Up Your Book
Dorothy blogs- $398
20 bloggers-book blast
Dec

I am excited to watch this service. Great person to work with.

EbookIt -$390-No
Press releases
Seems expensive for what you get. NO rating.

Smith Publicity-$3496-No
Amazon optimization
This service is beyond my budget although I’m not sure if such expenditures would be justified.
NO rating given.

Authorit- $3095-No
All major media press
This service also seems expensive.
NO rating given.

Piece of Cake-Yes
$159 Press campaign
Dec
4000 media contacts

Seems like the best bargain I’ve run across in the media press release choices. It comes with a custom Press release.

3-Star Rating for distribution and cost-effectiveness.

Your First Book Review-Yes
$149
Dec
NO rating yet

Book Club Banners 60 days-Yes
$80
Dec and Jan 2014
No rating yet

Book review club- Yes
Jan 2014
$50- 10 major book sites
Seems like a fair cost for distributed unbiased reviews.
No rating yet

Kindle Book Review-Yes
Tweet 4U- $25 for 30 tweets
Seems like a low cost to teach book audience.
No review yet

.99 cent book- 14,000 subscribers
$20 for two weeks
Dec 19-31
I am running this with my Kinfle special for the month.
No review yet

Online Book Club-Yes
Level 4 review
$100
Dec and Jan 2014
No review yet

Kindle Nation Genre Sponsorship
$99- Yes
Nov and Dec
No review yet.

As I monitor my book sales I will edit this post and improve my review comments and place my Star Ratings on each utilized service.

Good Luck!

Fast and Furious

I’ve been conducting a three month orchestrated marketing campaign to get my book on everyone’s radar! It’s been a very well planned Ecampaign using a number of well known book publicity tools, emails, bloggers, social media and articles. I have begun discussion with a major publisher and their editorial board.

All this is good news. My final push is going to be a video trailer and book reading club media kit.

Then I will do a media press release and literary agent query letter promotion. My goal is to be in full distribution on the bookshelves by next summer

Whew… Very heavy lifting but I think the book has a powerful message all Americans should become familiar with, “you are either part of the problem or the solution, if we want better governance, fiscal responsibility, fair taxation and a return of our core values as a nation then we have to become vocal and engaged!” We do not have to forgo capitalism and/or tax ourselves into oblivion to restore an America that works for all of us…

FDI and Rating America’s Local Cities

I recently was one of the Judges for FDI Magazine a group owned by the Economist Group out of London, England the magazine folks!  During my review of our best and brightest it just continued to occur to me how there is such a disparity between those cities getting themselves turned around and those stuck in the old Pre-GFC mindset of prior to 2008.  Old approaches in this capital market are not going to get worthy projects funded.  Banks, Venture Capitalists and Private Wealth folks have all changed their appetite and approach for investing and it isn’t very simple anymore to get even a great project with tremendous public support and financial incentives funded.  I am going to attach the FDI article for any of you who would like to review the outcomes of our best and brightest local economies according to FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) magazine.The Next America; Moving Beyond a Fragile Economy

Welcome to The Next America; a Discussion of Getting our Economy moving

These are chaotic times and all the media hype and big government intervention over the past three years has done nothing to put average Americans back to work… it could be argued that our unemployment rate and underemployment rate are vastly under stated as well.

While many of us feel daunted at having any ability individually to make a difference in this seemingly high level national debate… that is the farthest thing from the truth.  Our country was founded on taxation and unfair treatment by an elite over blotted government and monarchy. Perhaps it is time we get busy at the grass roots level to let the 545 major policy and decision makers in all branches of the federal government know either ship up and start working towards We The Peoples best interests or we are going to throw you out and force our Republic Health to be mended.

We as a collective voice if well informed can begin to make this movement towards creating a better 21st century than a big government ponzi scheme… just look at Europe for evidence of how this dance card plays out.  The encroachment of economic freedoms always leads to the restriction of civil liberties and personal freedoms.  Help me get this movement started by voicing your comments here and read my latest book which describes how we can get our country growing again for everyone, without becoming a Nanny State full of fiscally irresponsible entitlements.

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