Category Archive for Hear and Meet Shel

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter, October 2011

News Flash: I Was Inducted Into the National Environmental Hall of Fame

Read all about it and see a picture at https://greenandprofitable.com/i-was-inducted-into-the-national-environmental-hall-of-fame-today/ I hope to post a video next week, if the videographer sends me something I can use. Several dignitaries in attendance, too.

Contents of This Issue:

A Marketing Ploy that Cut Through the Clutter

UPS dropped off a surprise package from Random House recently; it looked like a box that would be used to ship a case of books.

When I opened the box, I saw a smaller, unmarked, white box, shrinkwrapped and floating on a cushion of air-filled plastic bags. I cut the shrinkwrap, opened the box, and took out a black slipcase, unadorned except for a line of headline type saying “GUESS THE YOUNGEST AGE EVER TARGETED BY A MARKETER.” Just below and to the right, these words in a starburst: “Be the first to know with this fascinating sneak-peek.”

The press kit inside the slipcase inside the box on top of the outer boxFinally, inside the slipcase, another, very deluxe box.  The front cover answered the question on the slipcase. When I opened it, the inside cover had four panels of marketing copy, contact information, *and* a video player containing three video trailers and a screen about the size of an iPhone’s. Needless to say, the graphics on the whole thing were extremely professional. The main part of the box contained two cutouts: one held an advance review copy of a new book, Brandwashed, by Martin Lindstrom, and the other held a small red plastic infant bottle whose label, extremely reminiscent of the famous Heinz catsup bottle, declared,

“WHINES EST’D 2011 BRAND WASHING YOU’RE NEVER TOO YOUNG”

The two enclosures were topped with a custom plastic tray that had a cut out for the bottle and fit snugly but comfortably into the box.

I remembered that Lindstrom had personally e-mailed me two weeks earlier, asking if I’d be interested in reviewing his forthcoming book. He’d written,

Like you, I have long been a proponent of environmental responsibility and have sought ways to encourage others to take a more active role in making and keeping our communities more “green”. That is why I think you should take a careful look at the multi-million dollar world-of-mouth marketing experiment that I had funded and chronicled in Brandwashed. I wanted to study just how persuasive word-of-mouth marketing could be as pertaining to household decisions, and in the latter stages focused specifically on environmentally conscious products and services. The results were shocking!

I’d been impressed at the time that he not only sought me out but that he spoke directly to my key interest area: the intersection of marketing with the environment.

As book reviewers go, I’m pretty low on the food chain. Typically, I do one review a month, in this newsletter (whose circulation figures don’t exactly set the world on fire)—and then the reviews get posted on Amazon about a month later. To receive such an intricate package despite my low status in the book review world was a recognition that somebody, in this case a best-selling author and top consultant in my field, values my opinion enough to be sure he gets noticed—and that’s flattering.

I had a number of reactions to receiving this package, and as a marketer/environmentalist who educates other marketers and environmentalists, I’d like to share some of them with you. The insights you might gain from a look into my psyche may help you as you design your next campaign.

  1. Undeniably, it was effective. As it happened, I hadn’t yet picked out a book to review this month, and with half the month gone, I needed to start. Martin’s book didn’t even stop at the top of the pile; it went directly to my exercise bike, where I read while working out, and I started reading it that very night (see my review elsewhere in this issue).
  2. To make that impression cost quite a bit of money. I’m guessing the package cost at least $50 per copy to design, prepare, and send. Am I enough of an influencer to be worth that investment? It would be nice to think so, but I don’t know.
  3. Obviously, the campaign is reaching people who do have a great deal of influence. On October 6, less than 10 days after publication, the book not only has 41 reviews on Amazon, but the #1 and #2 slots on three subcategories for marketing books and an enviable overall rank of 283. His earlier book, Buyology, is also doing quite well at the moment, probably with a little help from Amazon’s “people who bought also bought” trick.
  4. While the marketer in me is quite impressed, the environmentalist part of my brain is appalled. This was a very resource-intensive effort involving unrecyclable mixed materials and weighing seven pounds. In tiny print on the back of the player box, it notes that you’re not supposed to throw this out in the trash and should return the box to the video player company for processing. Not a lot of reviewers will even see that note, and fewer still will go through the trouble to find a suitable box, address a label, and pay for the postage to return it. Reviewers get dozens of packages per day, and many cases, get them pre-opened by a mailroom employee. The slipcase and the two outer boxes can be recycled with my other cardboard, but the rest of it is problematic. This is especially ironic, given Lindstrom’s personal message to me.
  5. After experiencing this elaborate and expensive press kit, I am surprised by the book cover, which in my opinion is both unattractive and unimaginative. If a client came to me with this cover, I’d have advised a different concept.
  6. Targeting is key. This book was well-targeted to me, and Lindstrom’s personal message was even more targeted. Had I received a similar press kit for, let’s say, a book about Britney Spears’ hairstyle shenaningans, I would have been annoyed instead of intrigued, and the whole thing would have gone into the recycle bin without a second look.

How would you react if you received a package like this? Click on this link to tell me, or to make any other comments. Please tell me if I have permission to publish your comment publicly. I’m thinking of gathering the responses into a blog post (which is also an easy way for you to get a link from my site—just include your URL in the e-mail).

 

Friends Who Want to Help

The Best-Conceived JV I’ve Seen

Do you do Joint Ventures? As I hinted last month, I’m helping to orchestrate a particularly exciting one, involving celebrities, politicians, environmental education, kids, quilts and all sorts of other cool stuff that appeals to the media and will get you coverage and contacts. We’re planning ahead on this–want to get commitments this year for ramping up early next year and a launch that ties in with Earth Day next spring–but don’t wait to get involved. If you’d like to receive an invitation as soon as we’re ready, please use this link to tell me (and let me know if you think of yourself as more of a marketer, or more of an environmentalist).

Unfamiliar with Joint Ventures? Basically, we partner with you, you tell your own contacts (like the readers of your e-zine or blog), and if people make purchases from your link, you earn a commission.

30-minute No-Cost Consultation with Scott Cooney from Green Business Owner, and a Cool-Looking Sustainability Game, Too

Scott gave me one of these consultations, and I very much appreciated his fresh perspective. He’s also just developed a very spiffy-looking game on sustainability themes, set in Hawaiii. To get your consult, visit GreenBusinessOwner.com, and then click on the Consulting link on the top menu. For the game, go directly to this link.

Two Book-Publishing Conferences:

D’vorah Lansky’s Online Book Marketing Conference

Check out the amazing speaker line-up for the 3rd Annual Book Marketing Conference Online–I now almost all of them and can vouch for their good work. And this one has a series of free preview calls, too.

* Kathleen Gage: “Become an Online Bestselling Author in Today’s Crowded Author’s Market”
* Carolyn Howard-Johnson: “Your Awards: How to win them and then use them to set your book apart”
* Brian Jud: “Selling More Books, More Profitably to Non-Bookstore Buyers”
* Lynne Klippel: “Going Beyond the Book: Fast, Easy Product Creation for Authors”
* Jill Lublin: “Be the News”
* Connie Ragen Green: “How to Repurpose Your Existing Content to Become a Bestselling Author”
* Marnie Pehrson: “Using Social Media to Create a Buzz About Your Book”
* Penny Sansevieri: “Maximize and Monetize Social Media -3rd Annual Book Marketing Conference”
* Felicia J. Slattery: “How Authors Can Create a Signature Speech to Build Platform and Sell More Books”
* Dana Lynn Smith: “The Secrets to Planning a Profitable Virtual Book Tour”
* Steven E. Schmitt: “How I made millions by listening to my intuitive voice”
* Noah St. John: “Attract More Money Blueprint: Your Hidden Power for More Wealth and Happiness”
* Denise Wakeman: “The Secret to Author Blog Success: How to Dominate Your Niche with a Book Blog”

Get the details at: https://www.bookmarketingmadeeasy.com/center/idevaffiliate.php?id=139

Publishing Conference in Nevada Next Month

This is taken directly from a press release I received: PubWest, the leading trade association for small- and medium-sized book publishers, is pleased to announce the full agenda for the PubWest Conference 2011 in November. The programming includes notable keynotes by Len Riggio, Chairman of Barnes & Noble; Tyson Cornell of Rare Bird Lit; and Kevin Smokler, author of the forthcoming essay collection Practical Classics. Sessions include intensives on Digital Publishing and Creating EPUBS with Adobe InDesign CS5.5, Exploration and Discussion of the Chicago Manual of Style’s New 16th Edition with Alice Levine, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Marketing, Optimizing Digital Production Workflows, Improving Your Publishing Company’s Profitability, Product Line Branding and Permissions, “Green” Publishing, Faceoff between Traditional and New Social Media, Enhanced E-Books, Metadata and Discoverability, plus lively and interactive roundtables held by professionals in the industry.

Registration: www.pubwest.org/conference. More info: kent@pubwest.org

The Living Organization

Tough times call for better ideas – Packed with powerful insights, tools, and practices, this book is a potent resource for aspiring, emerging, and seasoned business leaders alike. Norman Wolfe reframes and broadens our understanding of how organizations can create better results. Every leader, every CEO, board member and senior executive will benefit from the practical guidance this book provides. The Living Organization – check it out: https://bit.ly/puW6nt

Hear & Meet Shel

October

  • Speaking at Bioneers-By-The-Bay, wonderful conference October 21-23 in New Bedford, MA, https://www.marioninstitute.org/connecting-for-change My talk is Sunday October 23: signing books at 12:30-1 p.m. at Bakers Books tables inside the Butterfly Exhibition Tent, then presenting Getting Buy-In: Building Stakeholder Consensus for Sustainability, at Bristol Community College, 800 Purchase St., Conference Room. Note: this is the very first time I’m giving this talk, aimed at activists, government leaders, and green business owners. Lots of good nitty-gritty stuff about how to analyze and reach your market.
  • October 28 and beyond, my interview on Good And Green Radio will be available at https://wgrnradio.com/archive-good-and-green-radio-with-susan-davis/
November
  • I’ll be walking the floor in the afternoon at the Green Expo Opportunity Fair in Springfield, MA, at the MassMutual Center. Let me know ahead if you’d like to meet there.
  • November 15, 8:00 pm ET/5 pm PT, January Jones interviews me: 818-431-8506
  • November 16, 7 pm ET/4 pm PT: Interviewed on Your15Minutes Radio’s “Brand This” with Shaun Walker and Reid Stone, www.your15minutesradio.com
  • November 17, 11 a.m. ET/8 am PT: Interviewed by Susan Rich on “Get Noticed Now.”
January
Remember-if you set me up an engagement, you could earn a generous commission.

Another Recommended Book: Brandwashed

Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, by Martin Lindstrom (Crown, division of Random House, 2011)

Both as a marketer and as a consumer, you want to understand the psychology of modern-day marketing (and especially the particular marketing subset called advertising). Without a clear picture of just how deeply manipulated we are, at a level not even dreamed of when Vance Packard wrote The Hidden Persuaders back in the 1950s, you will be defenseless against the continual assault on your wallet.

Martin Lindstrom, an industry insider who has helped big brands go deep into their consumers’ minds and come out the other end with fistfuls of money, turns his attention to explaining how these companies get inside your brains, and what they do once they get there.

While he certainly pays attention to the traditional buy triggers, like fear, sex, celebrity, spirituality, fear, and nostalgia—each of which gets its own chapter—the real news in this book is the evolution of companies’ knowledge about us, and how they manipulate every aspect of your “buyer experience,” through a huge range of tools, to create the desired effect: a ravenous, insatiable hunger for the company’s brand.

This well-written and well-researched book should give anyone pause. But perhaps the scariest part is how early it starts. Marketers have known for many years that buying habits and brand loyalties acquired in childhood can shape lifelong preferences. That’s why, for instance, computer companies value the elementary education market so highly.

But it starts much earlier than that. Literally, the music you hear, the smells you experience in the womb can influence your choices all through life. And peer pressure has been documented at 14 months old.

The positive side of this is that these sensual memories can help with things like stroke recovery. But the Big Brotherish part of it is disturbing. Add in such factors as the deliberate manipulation of fear to literally make us stupid and not only do you have a commercial marketer’s paradise, but also (here I’m extrapolating from Lindstrom) the easy ability to whip up patriotic fervor to justify evil actions by governments (think about the manufacture of anti-Jewish sentiment during the Holocaust, or anti-Muslim sentiment in the US following 9/11, with the media cheering on the crackdown in both cases).

Another key insight: when we encounter arousing images, we perceive ourselves as sexier. (This is what psychologists call “transference.”) No wonder so much of advertising features sultry women and hunky men. And according to his research, straight men are a major, if hidden, market that responds to those pictures of hunky men. Also, the male who is conscious of his own beauty and spends lavishly on personal care products/services is a hot new trend.

Celebrity marketing is related to this; we perceive ourselves as increasing our status and power when we read and watch those with high status and power—they are our idealized future selves. Celebs (including various royal families) feed into this and deliberately manage their personal brands very carefully.

Concerned about privacy? Basically, it no longer exists. Data mining is far more sophisticated now, and companies can create incredibly detailed profiles not just segment-by-segment, but person-by-person. They know who you are, what you wear, what you eat, where you work, where you are (if you use a cell phone), and how long you’ve spent on which web pages. Not only do we voluntarily reveal enormous amounts of information about ourselves to companies like Facebook and Google (and some companies have learned how to subvert the privacy safeguards and harvest this), but there’s plenty of data collection going on without our consent, too. And data mining companies sometimes require their customers to provide more data if they want the service.

But wait! There’s more!

  • Some products, notably in the cosmetics industry, do the opposite of what they promise, thus feeding more purchases because the wearer thinks, “I must not have put enough on.”
  • 60 percent of teens think they can buy their way to happiness with the right brands (and many of them will outright reject unbranded items)
  • While brands are seen as a path to self-esteem, knowingly buying a counterfeit lowers self-esteem
  • Nostalgia marketing has hooks back to our earliest childhood; we long for simpler times before we had grown up worries, and will welcome even products we ignored at the time
  • GPS-like devices on shopping carts allow stores to track individual movement patterns in the store—while digital price signage allows companies to actually change prices to reflect trends at different times of day
  • Receiving advice that seems to be expert shuts down our critical thinking, even if the expertise is weak or is really celebrity in disguise)—and word-of-mouth from a trusted friend or colleague *definitely* counts heavily

Lindstrom ends the book with a complex experiment he set up, giving a real family a mission to influence the buying habits of their friends.  The results are shocking; go read the book to learn what happened, and to learn many more startling tidbits than I had room to describe. (See, now I just implanted a suggestion to you. I’m not being paid in any way to recommend this book and am not using my Amazon affiliate code. But I’d love to see whether my self-perception as a trusted expert translates into sales that bear out Lindstrom’s hypothesis, despite my transparency about it —so if you buy the book on my say-so, please drop me a note: mailto:shel@frugalfun.com?subject=IBoughtBrandwashed .) Please tell me if I have permission to publish your comment publicly. I’m thinking of gathering the responses into a blog post (which is also an easy way for you to get a link from my site—just include your URL in the e-mail).

Current Issue: December 2010

**Holiday Offer: Do Your Shopping Here and Get Great Bonuses**

You know you’re going to make those New Year’s resolutions about working more *on* your business and less *in* your business. Here’s your chance to get some wonderful practical tools for yourself and for the entrepreneurs in your life:

These offers are good during the month of December. Buy just one copy of any of our award-winning marketing books directly from us, and get as a bonus a copy of my very practical e-book, Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life-With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle.

Which books qualify?

  • Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet (with $2000 worth of bonuses)
  • Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World (with the Missing Chapters e-book, covering Web 2.0/social media and other new developments
  • Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers (just for people marketing books. Includes several hundred dollars worth of bonuses.)

Be sure to enter the coupon code: HolidayCode1 to get your free bonus!

Buy three or more shipped to the same address (mix and match titles or buy the same book for all your friends), and get both Painless Green AND my 280-page e-book on how to have fun cheaply, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty With a Peasant’s Pocketbook.

Plus you still get the bonuses that already come with the books (for Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green , that’s already more than $2000 worth of goodies).

Be sure to enter the coupon code: HolidayCode2 to get all of your free bonuses!

To preview and purchase: visit https://www.frugalmarketing.com/cart/index.php?main_page=products_all

For more detailed previews of the individual books including the bonuses that they include, please visit https://shelhorowitz.com, where you’ll find links to all of them in the section called “Do-It-Yourself Resources.”

**BIG Announcement: Green And Profitable Column Now Available**

For more than 20 years, I’ve wanted to be a syndicated columnist, with one column appearing in dozens or hundreds of publications. I even packed up some samples and tried to get the attention of the big syndicates every now and then.

Well, I got tired of waiting. I decided that if I were ever going to fulfill this lifelong ambition, it would be on me to make it happen. I also decided that while there’s no shortage of political commentators of all stripes, there aren’t a lot of people talking about how to be green and profitable.

Since that’s the subject of two entire books I’ve written, plus most of my speaking and a good deal of my blogging and newslettering, I realized that I was uniquely suited to write such a column, and that I was probably going to have a much easier time marketing it than trying to sell yet another politics column. And indeed, I launched Green And Profitable in November and immediately picked up a newspaper here in Massachusetts and a website in Australia. My goal is to use this column to drive home the message that green IS profitable by landing 1000 publications to run the column by the end of 2012–so that the message is found all over and actually might have some impact in the world. 2 down, 998 to go :-). I’ve posted three sample columns at https://greenandprofitable.com/green-and-profitable-column/#sample

To get this properly launched, I’m offering an incredible price: for the first hundred media that sign up for the column, the price will be just $10 per article, guaranteed through the end of 2012. And I’m also offering individual subscriptions for your own use (not for republication), at an even more phenomenal price of $10 for unlimited six-month access. Wow!

If you read any magazine, newspaper, website, blog, or newsletter, or listen to any favorite radio shows or podcasts (there will be an audio version), I’d be delighted if you ask them run the column (once you ask, please send me an e-mail to shel at principledprofit.com, subject “I requested your column” or Tweet me @ShelHorowitz, and tell me the name of the publisher. If that publisher subscribes, I promise I will do something nice to you. Please direct your publisher contact to https://greenandprofitable.com/green-and-profitable-column/ — where I’ve put all sorts of material about why the column, how to run it, etc.

If you’d like to subscribe as an individual, without republication rights, please visit https://www.frugalmarketing.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=82&products_id=233. And thank you so much!

Analysis of a Really Bad Book Query Letter (With Lessons for Non-Authors, Too)

Ever dream of getting a big New York publisher for your future best seller? Don’t do it like this—in fact, don’t send any kind of pitch letter that makes these mistakes:

M husband has a finished book and he is looking for a Book Agent or Book Publisher. His book is geared for young adults. He is a Highschool teacher and his students are chomping at the bit to read his book. We are sitting on a gold-mine! If you are interested, please leave your information so we can send you more information on the book! Thank you so much.

This was an actual query, submitted through a media query submission service. Let’s play a little game with this, just for fun. How many things can you find wrong with this post? Use the comment form to respond, and then scroll down to see my list (don’t cheat!)





Publishers are deluged with queries and are actively looking for reasons to say no. Any of the eight points below will probably trigger rejection. All of them together? This proposal is going nowhere, fast. Similarly, executives look for reasons to brush off sales pitches…customers of any kind want to be romanced, but this letter is more like the equivalent of a wolf-whistle on the street corner.

  1. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation count. I notice two typos (dropping the y in My and running high and school together into one non-existent word), one inappropriate hyphenation, and four inappropriate capitalizations.
  2. Writing style counts. This limp and wooden paragraph gives me no confidence in the author’s ability.
  3. I don’t even know if this is fiction or nonfiction, let alone the subject and genre. Tell me what the book is about, tell me your working title, get me interested.
  4. Young Adult, in the children’s book market, is a much younger reader than high school. She doesn’t know her terms and her audience, which means she doesn’t know the industry, which means the product is not likely to be salable.
  5. Don’t give me hype (gold-mine). Give me facts.
  6. What a great market analysis—NOT! His students are eager for the book. OK, let’s say he teaches five classes of 30 kids each, which would be a pretty big load but not out of the question. OK, so that’s a universe of 150 students per semester. If even 25 percent of the market actually buys (and that’s about 5 to 10x more than I’d guess), you’ve just sold a whopping six books. That won’t even pay for the cover design. I think this particular gold mine may be all played out. And no other markets are mentioned.
  7. What’s his name, what are his credentials, and why isn’t he writing his own letter?
  8. Finally, why submit this to a media pitch service that goes to experts across all genres, seeking publicity by answering reporters’ queries? The targeting is very poor. It would make a lot more sense to pitch a list of actual publishers, don’t you think?

And by the way, if you’re thinking of submitting a book proposal or query letter to an agent or publisher, a bit of expert help can make a huge difference. I offer critique services, rewriting, or writing from scratch. And I’ve sold to Wiley, Simon & Schuster, and Chelsea Green, as well as gotten nibbles for my clients from many other fine houses. For those authors better suited to self-publishing, I walk you through every step of the process and we come out the other end with something as good as books coming from major publishers.

Another Recommended Book: Good For Business

Good For Business: The Rise of the Conscious Corporation, by Andrew Benett, Cavas Gobhai, Ann O’Reilly, and Greg Welch (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Reviewed by Shel Horowitz, primary author, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green

If you ever doubted that corporate social and environmental responsibility play a role in business success, consider some of these stats:

  • In a survey of consumers across the U.S., France, and U.K., 74 percent of consumers believe businesses bear as much responsibility as governments for driving positive social change
  • 76 percent  take responsibility for avoiding products from unethical companies, and 63 percent have made purchase decisions based on company conduct
  • An astonishing 85 percent believe that companies need to stand for more than just profitability

All of these are taken from the appendix of Good For Business: The Rise of the Conscious Corporation, which ends with 11 pages of juicy stats. And there are plenty of important stats in the main text, too: such as:

  • The market for organic foods in the U.S. grew by nearly an order of magnitude in just eleven years, mushrooming from $3.6 billion in 1997 to $33 billion in 2008
  • Just the compact fluorescent light bulbs sold at Walmart kept 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere—the same result as removing 700,000 cars from use
  • Reputation accounts for 75 percent of the difference between book value and market capitalization; in other words, good behavior translates into real dollars when a company is sold
  • On the aggregate, companies listed on the 100 Best Places to Work returned 14 percent a year on investment, compared with just 6 percent for the overall corporate economy
  • Tesco, the U.K. supermarket giant, built a store in 2008 that uses just 30% of the energy of a store built just two years earlier

Plenty more to this book than statistics, of course. Much of the text draws from four cornerstone concepts—corporations need to:

1. Be about more than profit.

2. Treat both employees and customers well

3. Champion sustainability

4. Respect the power of consumers

Case-study companies, including well-known examples like Marks & Spencer, Ben & Jerry’s, Nike, GE, Whole Foods—and many less-frequently cited examples, including not only companies but also nonprofits—are examined in light of these four criteria, with many specifics.

There is a long digression on mission statements, which the authors reinvent as a living, changing document they call a USOD (Useful Statement Of Direction). Were it up to me, I’d have edited that part down. But this one small negative is more than compensated by pearls of wisdom such as the way a Conscious Corporation turns transparency into advantage, even as old-style companies see it as a recipe for paranoia. (p. 186)

Hear and Meet

December

January

  • Speaking on Green and Ethical Food Marketing at the Sustainable Foods Summit, San Francisco on January 19, 2011. https://www.sustainablefoodssummit.com/
  • January 24, 2 pm ET/11 am PT, Guest on The Coach Is In Internet radio show.
February
  • If I can work out some logistics, I’ll be a panelist (not the same thing as a speaker, in this case) at Ken McArthur’s next JV Alert, Orlando, February 18-20. I’ve heard amazing things about these conferences, and am eager to experience it. If you’d like to go too, click here for the very impressive speaker lineup and registration link INSERT LINK
March
  • Social Media for Terrified Authors: How to Turn Scary Into Success: Wednesday, March 30, 2 pm ET/11 a.m. PT, with Shel Horowitz and book coach/social media maven Judy Cullins.
    * Have an impact on the three major social media networks in just minutes a day: control social media and keep it from controlling you
    * Understand how to spread your content around the Internet with just a couple of clicks: more ROI for less work
    * Turn social media connections into website traffic, book sales, and client gigs without spending any money to do it.
    *Increase your credibility as a savvy expert.
    *Define and find your book’s target audience on the big 3 social media marketing sites–and market directly to the exact people who can benefit from your book.
    * Get your website or blog pages highly ranked on Google and other search engines.

Just $19.95, and includes several valuable bonuses. Click INSERT to get all the details.

April
  • April 8-10 I plan to attend the National Conference on Media Reform, in Boston. I’ve attended two previous conferences and am always blown away.
  • Saturday, April 23rd, 2011 10 AM-4 PM, my wife and I will exhibit again at Amherst Sustainability Festival in downtown Amherst, MA
May
  • Once again, I’ll be attending Book Expo America, May 24-26 in New York City, and probably IBPA University May 22- 23
Recent Interviews You Can Listen To
Articles By Me

Domains for Sale

I have some excellent domain names that I don’t anticipate needing in the future. If you’ve been looking to start a business of your own or expand your existing business in a different direction, this may be just what you need. Interested in buying any (or all)? Drop me an offer at shel at principledprofit.com

  • RecessionBusterBooks.com
  • The-Perfect-Life.com
  • EarthConsciousMarketers.com
  • FrugalFun.info
  • GuerillaMarketingGoesGreen.com (note: Only one r. I’m keeping the 2-r)
  • PrincipledProfits.com

Friends Who Want to Help

Success Bug LevelUP Business Acceleration Program: an amazing learning community for business success with stellar faculty, assembled by Spike Humer (long-time chief strategist for Jay Abraham, who I consider one of the top business thinkers in the world today), my co-author Jay Conrad Levinson (the original Guerrilla Marketing man as well as the advertising legend who brought us such iconic campaigns as United’s Friendly Skies and the Marlboro Man), and my new friend Barry Plaskow who is coordinating the whole thing from his bases in the UK and Israel.  https://nanacast.com/vp/98574/38467

Janet Switzer’s How Experts Build Empires: What secret weapon do Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup), Jay Abraham (see above), and Tony Robbins all credit as a huge factor in their success, worth many millions of dollars to each of them? A one-woman marketing and packaging strategic powerhouse named Janet Switzer. I heard Janet speak at a conference a few years ago and took a steady stream of notes as fast as I could bang them into my keyboard. I’ve also listened every chance I can to any teleseminar where she’s presenting. She thinks big, helps others see the big picture, but also knows how to get down and dirty with little tweaks that make a huge difference. And she co-authored The Success Principles—the one self-help book I recommend constantly–with Jack Canfield, which means she probably wrote the bulk of it. Normally, to get help from Janet, you need to buy into her very expensive mentoring program. But right now, she’s selling the ‘How Experts Build Empires Marketing Plan for only $97. Yeah, that may seem like a lot for an info product, but I have never known Janet to delivery anything less than enormous value. I would expect that you’ll get something worth many times more than the purchase price, as long as you implement even 1/10 of what she suggests. https://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1268266

Become a “Pay It Forward Angel” with radio host Dr. Pat Bacili—No Cost https://tinyurl.com/288y76d is the link for a huge giveaway with nothing to buy. Joining me in providing a gift are people like Nancy Juetten, Findhorn Press, and about 150 other luminaries. Some of the people working with Dr. Pat on other levels (for instance, hosting a program on her Transformation Radio Network) include the actress and mystic Shirley MacLaine, musicians Melissa Etheridge and Olivia Newton-John, and bestselling author Dr. Wayne Dyer.  She fully expects to transform the world through creating a giving culture, so you may as well start by looking at the amazing array of gifts to you when you sign up at no charge for her Transformation Community.

Karen Hudson and Lily Hills, radio show co-hosts of “The Goddess to Goddess Empower Hour~Inspirational Information for Women and the Divine Dudes that Love Them,” have just released their new book, A Feminine Manifesta.

I love seeing people like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela cited in a women’s self-help book! The integration of personal and political may be the single biggest contribution of modern feminism. Social/global/environmental change cannot be separated from personal empowerment and personal behavior.

A new book, The Feminine Manifesta, by Karen Hudson and Lily Hills (radio show co-hosts of “The Goddess to Goddess Empower Hour~Inspirational Information for Women and the Divine Dudes that Love Them”) makes the connection very nicely. Particularly if you haven’t read a lot of the personal empowerment/personal is political classics, this is a book you’ll want to read.

Particularly now, during the launch promotion when you get 25 wonderful gifts totaling more than $1500 in value, including my own 12 New Year’s Resolutions For a More Ethical, Ecological, Profitable, and Successful Business. Preview all the gifsts–and the book, of course, at https://www.afemininemanifesta.com/preview_bonus_gifts.html

Are you tired of rushing? Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in Our 24/7 World, is giving you the gift of time this holiday season. When you purchase one or more copies of her book (as seen in O magazine, Redbook, on NPR and CNN.com), you will receive bonus gifts at no extra cost. The offer is only good for Tuesday, December 7th so mark your calendar!

Why is there power in slow? It is scientifically proven that slow is faster and fast is merely exhausting.

Christine’s 101 principles will help you establish a more positive relationship with time so you have more of it. If you want to live in state of time abundance versus time starvation, The Power of Slow is for you. And of course all your friends on your gift list, too! www.powerofslowbook.com

Give a Little, Get a Lot: The Unstoppable Foundation has an amazing event taking place right now where you have the opportunity to get cutting edge information from some of the world’s leading experts at 80% to 90% OFF discounts…with 100% of the money going to a charity that is educating children in Africa.  This is an opportunity to transform your life and the lives of thousands of children in Africa.  Find out more in the introduction video with the founder of the Unstoppable Foundation, Cynthia Kersey: https://www.unstoppablefoundation.org/

Hear & Meet Shel, August 2010

* Friday, August 6, 1:35 pm ET/10:30 a.m. PT (and Arizona time, which is where Hollis is), Hollis Chapman interviews me over Blog Talk Radio on Green Guerrilla Marketing, 30 minutes. https://getresponse.com/click.html?x=a62b&lc=HYWO&mc=m&s=ANhX&y=F&

* Friday, August 6, 4 pm ET/1 pm PT, Maureen Kedes from Vertex PR interviews me, also on Green marketing. https://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1409

* Friday, August 20 ,1-1:25 p.m., “Reaching the Green Consumer.” Boston GreenFest  (the entire event  takes place August 19-21, 2010). One of the cool things about this event will be a display of cars that traveled
100 miles (from Greenfield, MA, near me) on a single gallon of gas. https://getresponse.com/click.html?x=a62b&lc=HYWW&mc=m&s=ANhX&y=R&

* Tuesday, September 7, 1 pm ET/10 a.m. PT, Lillian Brummet interviews me on Conscious Discussions Radio, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/consciousdiscussions or (646) 478-4758

* Monday, September 20, live interview for https://createchatter.tv 9 pm ET/6 pm PT

* Tuesday, September 21, Ronda Del Boccio (The Story Lady) interviews me about Green marketing (90 minutes). Noon ET/9 a.m. PT. Listen in by calling 646-478-0823 or visiting https://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/jvqueen (it will be featured for a week).

* Monday, September 27, 8 pm ET/5 pm PT: Sandy Lawrence interviews me on the creating book marketing strategies we used for Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green. Info: gayla@perceptivemarketing.com

* Wednesday. September 29 at 5pm ET/2 pm PT, Dave Mathison from Be The Media interviews me about green guerrilla marketing (postponed from July). https://getresponse.com/click.html?x=a62b&lc=HYW0&mc=m&s=ANhX&y=9&

* October 2, I’m speaking at the second annual Self-Publishing Book Expo in New York City, https://getresponse.com/click.html?x=a62b&lc=HYWi&mc=m&s=ANhX&y=r&

* October 12 at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT: My third annual presentation to the MUSE Online Writers Conference. This time, Selling a Self-Published Book to a Traditional Publisher

* October 13, I’ll be interviewed again for the Guerrilla Marketing Association’s weekly calls–this time by Alexandru Israil from Romania, 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. Contact: alexandru.israil (at) gmail.com