The Clean and Green Club

**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

• December 7th, 5-9pm ET, Green Marketing for the Food Industry, Speaking and Exhibiting at Holyoke Community College, Kittredge Center Cafeteria, $25 for adults – TONIGHT
• Thursday, December 9, 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT: How to Create A Message that Resonates with the Green Consumer, 60-minute webinar for Strategic Sustainability Consulting, https://www.sustainabilityconsulting.com/events-list/webinar-green-and-profitable-creating-green-messages-that-ma.html Contact: tracy (at) sustainabilityconsulting.com

January

• Personal profile of me as a green marketer on Stephanie Chandler’s website (print)
  https://businessinfoguide.com/interview-with-author-shel-horowitz-guerrilla-marketing-goes-green/
• With I. Vitt Argent on Green Marketing: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/ivaradionetwork/2010/10/27/kiva-talk-radio-interveiws-guerilla-green-business
• With TJ Walker on social media: https://www.tjwalker.com/2010/10/13/radio-shel-horowitz-shares-some-communication-tips-on-using-social-media/
• With Carma Spence on public speaking:
  https://publicspeakingsuperpowers.com/featured-speakers/shel-horowitz/
• With Lillian Brummet on conscious marketing and green living:
  https://www.blogtalkradio.com/consciousdiscussions/2010/09/07/conscious-marketing

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/