The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #686 Jan. 29, 2013
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. Tips for Pinterest Contests
2. Hollywood Needs Your Book & Idea
3. TV Docu-Series Seeks Marketers
4. Hound Photos of the Week
This Week in the Hound House:
I’m in Week 4 of Eben Pagan’s 12-week time management program
called “Wake Up Alert.” I now get at least eight hours of sleep
every night and I drink a liter of water first thing in the
morning. Those two changes have turned me into a new person–
clear-headed, full of energy, and more able to concentrate on one
task at a time. I’m finally breaking the nasty habit of
unproductive multi-tasking.
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1. Tips for Pinterest Contests
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Pinning pretty pictures on Pinterest is one thing. But are you
making money from it?
If not, a Pinterest contest could be your ticket to publicity
that goes viral, and a real return on your investment of time.
Pinterest expert Beth Hayden offers these three tips:
–Ask your followers and readers to create pinboards based on a
theme you select. Harrods department store in London sponsored a
contest that asked their followers to create storefront ideas
based on the theme of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. Better
Homes & Gardens also ran a similar “Dream House” contest for
their Pinterest followers.
–Keep it simple. Don’t ask contest participants to do five
different things in order to enter. Make it a two-step process:
Create a board, and tell them to tell you about it, whether it’s
on Twitter, email, or in a blog comment.
–Don’t sponsor contests too often. Once or twice a year is
enough. You want them to be REALLY special.
There’s a lot more involved than just those three tips,
especially if you want your contest to go viral, and you’re using
it to grow your email list and pull traffic back to your website.
Beth will share tips on exactly how to do that when she’s my
guest during a webinar on “How to Use Powerful Pinterest Contests
to Grow Your Audience and Explode Your Profits” from 4 to 5:30
p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Jan. 31. We’ve got a great package
of bonuses for everyone who registers. If the time is
inconvenient, sign up anyway. You’ll get the video replay and
the slides.
P.S. On the bottom of the registration form, under
Comments/Special Delivery Instructions, let me know your website
address. Beth will choose several of them and make
recommendations during the webinar for specific types of contests
that she thinks will work best for you, depending on what you’re
selling.
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2. Hollywood Needs Your Book or Idea
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If you’ve written a book, or you have a great story to tell, or
even a series of blog posts on the same topic, there’s a thriving
market for you in Hollywood.
That’s because, today, there are more broadcast channels,
thousands of cable channels, a growing number of independent film
companies, movies and videos on demand, online movies and MORE
media outlets than at any other time in history. They are
starving for novels, true stories, nonfiction books and “how-to”
books that can be turned into movies.
Adaptations are especially super-hot. An adaption is a movie or
TV show based on an existing source, like a book or a manuscript,
or even a collection of your blog posts.
The current trend in Hollywood is for studios and producers to
buy book/screenplay packages. The option fee is like free money
to an author, and if your book gets produced, then you get
royalties.
The producer of a documentary on the Miami drug wars bought the
rights to Billy Corban’s book just for the title: Cocaine
Cowboys.
More than 29,200 movies started out as books. And 5 of the 9
films nominated for Academy Awards this year were adapted from
books.
Will yours be next?
Join Steve Harrison on a free teleseminar on Thursday, Jan. 31,
at 2 or 7 p.m. Eastern, and listen as he interviews a Hollywood
insider on “How to Sell Your Book or Story to Hollywood as a
Movie or TV show…Even If It’s Self-published.”
As soon as you reserve your spot on the call, Steve will send you
a “Turn Your Book Into A Movie” worksheet that will help you
write the perfect “Logline” for your book–an important first
step you need to take if you want to get the attention of a
Hollywood agent or producer.
Even though the call is free, I’m a compensated affiliate for
Steve’s company, which offers a variety of training programs and
services for authors and authors-to-be.
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3. TV Docu-Series Seeks Marketers
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A major cable network is on a nationwide search for the most
ambitious and business savvy go-getters who wants a chance to be
the Director of Brand Marketing at a top fashion ecommerce site.
Candidates will compete in a new docu-series that follows them
during the competitive interview process.
The casting director needs the following information: your name,
contact information, a current resume, a recent photo, and a
brief synopsis of why you’re the next big director of Brand
Marketing. Email to TheOfficeProject@Yahoo.com.
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4. Hound Photos of the Week
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Have you seen the photos making the rounds of “public shaming of
dogs”? It sounds inhumane. But when my sister emailed me about
two dozen of the best photos yesterday, I couldn’t stop laughing.
You can find them all, and dozens more here.
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