The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #672 Dec. 11, 2012
Publisher: Joan Stewart
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“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
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In This Issue
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1. Pros & Cons of New LinkedIn Profile
2. Promote Your Ebooks for Free
3. Your Own Membership Site
4. Hound Video of the Week
This Week in the Hound House:
I’m trying the falafel recipe from Falafel’s Drive-In in San Jose, Calif., which I discovered in the “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” cookbook. The falafel will be tucked inside those yummy whole wheat pitas I made on Sunday. Heaven in a pocket!
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1. New LinkedIn Profile Pros & Cons
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The profiles of most LinkedIn users already have been switched over to the new look.
The pros:
–It includes a bigger profile photo. If yours isn’t perfect, you need to replace it with a better one, or get a new one taken.
–Under your profile, there’s a new “Contact Info” button that looks like a Rolodex card. It opens up to display a variety of ways people can contact you. I included my work phone number, Skype number, email address and Twitter link. This is also the place where your website URL and three websites of your choice are listed. (More about this below.)
–The full synopsis of all the places where you’ve worked, and the schools you’ve attended, is gone.
The cons:
–People have to work hard to find your website URL. I like the “Contact Info” button because it’s a convenient place to list your phone number. But I hate the fact that the website address is hidden. Here’s a workaround: Include your URL in your all- important headline, the summary that’s next to your photo. You can also mention it when describing your job experience.
–All the recommendations are still there, but the total number is missing. What’s the point?
–LinkedIn, please bring back the Events feature.
There are many more changes, and you can review them all when your profile switches over. In the meantime, don’t miss using the “4 Secreted LinkedIn Power Tools to Connect with Journalists and Put Money in Your Pocket.” Wayne Breitbarth explained them all during the webinar I hosted with him in August. You can access the video replay and all the bonuses.
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2. Promote Your Ebooks for Free
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Free ebooks are a powerful way to dazzle people with your expertise, or entertain them. Include lots of links inside the book so people can click and learn more about your products and services, consulting and speaking.
Two of the very best ways to promote those ebooks are through word of mouth and using hash tags on Twitter.
If you want word-of-mouth promotion, let the dozens of Twitterers whose accounts are devoted to free ebook promotion know about your book. They include:
–@KindleBookPromos which welcomes your books, promotions and author interviews and tweets them to its 9,217 followers.
–Aenix Amador, aka @KindleFreeBooks, tweets to his 3,369 followers.
–@Freebnooksy tweets daily postings of high-quality free ebooks for Kindle, Nook & Apple to its 2,738 followers.
As for hash tags, consider adding these hash tags to your own tweets about your free ebooks: #freeebook, #Kindlefreebooks, #Kindledeals.
The three Twitter accounts and the three hashtags are excerpted from long lists compiled by Penny Sansevieri, the book publicist who was my guest on the webinar “How to Launch a Book, Promote It & Sell a Truckload–Without an Expensive Publicist” on Thursday. Her handouts also included a dozen websites that want to know about your free ebooks, five book review sites, and a list of important links to websites like the one where you’ll find an alphabetized list of the hundreds of book categories on Amazon.com.
Right now, the people who registered for Thursday’s session are downloading the video replay, the handouts, Powerpoint slides, two of my special reports, free ebooks from Penny and lots of other goodies. If you’re writing a book, or you need to promote one that’s been stagnant, grab this package right now, or at least tell Santa about it.
The testimonials on the page speak for themselves.
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3. Your Own Membership Site
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This idea isn’t for everybody, but it’s perfect for authors, speakers, consultants and experts who want to create a new revenue stream next year.
Create a membership site, where people pay a monthly fee for access to your content and your community. This is one of my priorities for 2013.
Join Steve Harrison for a free telephone seminar on the “Passive Income Blueprint for Authors/Experts” on Thursday, Dec. 13, at 2 or 7 Eastern Time.
On the call, you’ll hear Steve interview Stu McLaren, the nation’s top expert in helping authors and experts build wildly popular community and membership sites that provide ongoing passive income. McLaren has helped over 40,000 authors, consultants, top experts and entrepreneurs turn their content into membership sites.
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4. Hound Video of the Week
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Cuteness Alert: How would you like your dog to greet you like this every day when you come home from work? No self-respecting cat would be caught dead doing what this Dachshund puppy does.
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