During the past year or so, I have done nearly a hundred talks about my book, “LADIES: A Conjecture of Personalities.” It’s about the First Ladies – the OLD First Ladies, Martha through Mamie. Since they talk to each other and cross through centuries, it is, of course, an historical fiction. In doing so many lectures, I thought it might be interesting to discuss are some of the things I have learned….
1. Sadly enough, while my audiences LOVE my talks (and they are never the same), not too many actually BUY the book.
A lesson learned: People need to be interested in the subject or genre. They read what they like to read – sci-fi, romance novels, murder mysteries, etc. So while they may enjoy spending an hour listening attentively and say lovely things about you and your presentation, it doesn’t mean they will outlay twenty bucks to read the book. Do not take it personally.
2. Be selective in choosing your target audiences. A book about raising two-year-old twins probably will not appeal to the Rotary Club. My book about the “old gals” appeals to a wide range of audiences, but mostly women, and mostly older women at that. I have done well by appealing to Woman’s Clubs, Historical Societies, Libraries, Senior groups, etc.
A lesson learned: Be very selective choosing senior groups. The “younger” seniors are wonderful. They are still working, still driving, still traveling, etc., and reading. They love having interesting speakers. The older seniors, or super seniors” who live in senior residences or assisted-care facilities are not your best audience for obvious reasons of frailties. Go if they invite you (and if they will pay). Do not solicit them.
Another lesson learned: Be very selective choosing religious groups as an audience. Of course this depends upon the subject matter of your book/lecture. Many church or synagogue groups will be happy to have you as their guest and will enjoy your talk, but few actually purchase books that don’t deal in some way with their religion – at least not in that venue.
3. To charge or not to charge: Fortunately for my financial circumstances, I am not dependent on book sales for a living. So I started out by doing my programs for free, hoping that publicity and book sales would follow. I wound up doing a lot of talks and driving a lot of miles for limited publicity and very few (usually under 10) books sold. Like I said, you have to be interested in the subject.
By the time I did a couple of dozen free talks and having my audiences LOVE me and refer me along for more FREE talks, I did a little soul-searching. If I am good enough for FREE, maybe I am good enough for PAY. After all, I reasoned, when people call me, they always ask about my fee, indicating they are prepared to pay an honorarium. So I decided that “I don’t charge but my CAR does.” I’ve kept it nominal: If the group is within 20 miles from my home, I charge $50; if it is more than that, I charge $100.
A lesson learned: Few groups object. My car is happy.
Occasionally I still do a freebie, or go to a senior care facility (although those facilities usually have a budget for programs). I like doing a good deed, and the “oldies” love hearing a talk on something other than cataracts, blood pressure or managing their incomes.
Another lesson learned: Do not be afraid to turn down a group if it is far away and they won’t pay. Unless, of course, you usually sell a heap of books. Then you can go to the North Pole if you like.
4. Finally, know your audience:
This is important to any speaker, of course, but doubly so for me, since my subject is so varied and can be arranged to suit my listeners. Always as the Program Chairman (or whoever contacts you) to tell you a little about their members: their general age category, general income category (particularly if you are contacted by a social worker), the general purpose of the group, i.e. charitable, social, academic, etc.) and anything else that may be of importance to the speaker.
For instance, I was invited to speak at a banquet given by the Ladies’ Auxiliary of a large hospital. So I decided to talk about the health problems of some of the “old” First Ladies. At a “Red Hat Society” program, I picked three First Ladies who I thought they would enjoy having as “honorary members.” For other groups I sometimes choose one or two “old gals” that might be pertinent to their organization.
A major lesson learned: Do not forget to promote your book and read to them a little. Sometimes I get so carried away about my subject matter that I neglect to encourage book sales. Make sure you talk about your book, why you wrote it, why they should purchase it, why it makes a wonderful gift, and why they should recommend you and your program to their friends.
About The Author
Feather Schwartz Foster is the author of “LADIES: A Conjecture of Personalities” and “Garfield’s Train” (to be release in 2005). She has made nearly 100 personal appearances to discuss her book.
08 Feb
Posted by admin as Uncategorized
Before you start to write make sure you are inspired.
I am a guy that feels the presence of God in my life every day. I am a guy that hears from the Holy Spirit, Jesus and the Father. Before I ever sit down at a keyboard to type I have inspiration hit me. First I get the title of the article and this is followed by a confirmation deep in my heart that yes, this is an article that I have to write and something that will prove useful to people.
Sometimes I will go ten days and I won’t get inspired or won’t be in the mood to write. Then I sit with my first title and right away my hands are moving. When you have a good message to say and a true feeling of knowing you can help people with what you are going to say you are half way to a very good and helpful article.
Be honest, be really honest.
When you have a title and a reason to write and the words are forming and coming onto the screen take off all of your masks and get personal with your readers. Think little about your perceived reputation and how people are going to view you and your image and when you write dig deep and share your heart and innermost most personal feelings with a person.
Tell them where you have failed, tell them that you are a novice, tell them things that were painful for you, tell them of your frustrations, and use you personal life and business life to illustrate your points.
When I read I like to read the character of the person who is writing. If the person is honest with me I tend to trust them more. If they are honest about how stupid they had been before they came into the knowledge they are currently sharing with you, you can trust them to be being honest with how important the current knowledge is that they are sharing with you.
I write a lot of spiritual articles and I am always telling people that I have no formal Bible college education and that I am a simple common guy, and yet when they see wisdom in what I say it is my honesty that allows them to see the glory and wisdom of God using such a simple man as me to educate.
If you know your article is important enough to write, make sure you go all the way in the article and give the people some gems of honesty in your writings. Let them know you are not so smart just a guy or girl that banged their head up against the wall so many times in failure that today you are so happy to be sharing the solution to your problem that your stupidity hid from you for so many years.
Give people a personal piece of you and as your heart shares your deep and personal truth their hearts will resonate with happiness that they are hearing such truth and honesty and a deeper and more spiritual satisfying answer to their question then it could have been.
Get your eyes of the money that you might earn from them,
I have had my book for sale on this site for over six weeks and not one person has bought my book much to my shock as one thousand readers read my articles each week. I think part of the problem is that the book is made up of sixty six articles that are free to read online at Ezine articles.
Yet I have written twenty or more articles since that book has been for sale and each of them have just as much of my heart in them. Four people have read my book and have been deeply moved by what I have written in it and so I know that once a person buys my book they will be blessed and I simply need to create a website with all the reviews of my book before it might start to sell.
It’s not that the book is not good as the four people that have read it are very glad I gave them a copy it is just something that is wrong in my approach.
Your articles might not generate as much income as you might like, but don’t let that discourage you from sharing valuable information with people for free.
Jesus shared three years of his life with the world at large in public ministry and he taught his disciples, “Freely you have received freely give.”
Jesus gave his sermons at no charge and healed for no charge and willingly took our punishments and sins upon himself and died a very hard and painful death for free.
Jesus’ life and teachings should inspire all of us, and as a man that did not make much money in his life of ministry you have to agree whether you are a Christian or not, his short three years in Israel in public life has made one of the biggest impacts on the earth today of any other man in history.
Love was his message. Love what you do and love the people you write for and you will soon see yourself finding real joy in writing articles, more inspiration to write more articles and you will find the courage within yourself to be honest in all that you write.
A loving article that’s aim is to educate and bless the people that you write to on an article site like I use will leave your readers with a lasting impact. Don’t feel you have to hold any knowledge back so that they need to come and buy your service off you to get their job done, give your knowledge away for free.
So did this little article help you?
Post a comment or rate it at the bottom out of five stars and encourage me to keep on digging deep.
Take care and happy writing.
Matthew is one of two people that operate a site at escapeministries.net escapeministries.net Escape ministries is a place where people can be ministered to over the internet, by reading articles, watching videos and receiving personal prophetic words. James and Matthew invite you to visit today to look at some of the articles they have collected and watch some of the video teachings they are setting about to produce for you. You are encouraged to sign up for our monthly newsletter or simply email James or Matthew with any of your comments. We hope that you might bookmark it and come back to visit often as we pursue our mission statement that is found on our home page.
You can visit and view their video’s live at youtube by going direct to youtube.com/EscapeMinistries youtube.com/EscapeMinistries
We’ve all heard the phrase: “I had Spanish in High School, but it didn’t get me very far…” When it comes to learning Spanish, is taking a Spanish class the right way to go, or is it a waste of time? What’s the absolute best way to learn Spanish?
When it comes to learning a language, you’re up for a challenge. Spanish will take you some time and energy to master. If you know some French or Italian however, you’ll have a much easier time. I learned Spanish on my own at home after considering all my options.
I thought about taking a Spanish class. I really did. But then it occurred to me – I would have to pay extravagant prices and show up to every class at their time, not on mine. I hate being in a hurry and to me life is to be lived on my schedule.
So, I decided to learn Spanish on my own, without any Spanish class. I got myself set-up with a great Spanish course and I started studying on my schedule and when I wanted to. I did one session a day following my course, but then it hit me.
I wasn’t getting anywhere.
The words I was learning didn’t seem to stick in my head. The grammar rules I had so often studied and practiced weren’t working for me when I tried talking. And, worst of all, I felt humiliated when I tried speaking.
At that moment I was sure I needed some help. I was almost ready to take up a Spanish class like everyone does – but because I like being different and because I’m stubborn, I told myself there must be another way.
That’s when I spoke to Spanish teachers and people who new their stuff. I told people about my problem, and I asked them for some solutions. I got a lot of information from them. I also went and read all sorts of books and articles on communication and languages to understand the whole concept.
Obviously learning a language wasn’t the easiest thing for me to do, but thanks to all that research I came up with a bunch of proven tips and techniques that have now gotten me speaking fluent Spanish.
Today, thanks to those techniques, I’m certain that no one needs to take their time and assist to a Spanish class. No one needs to pay, leave their home, listen to a teacher or even follow strict guidelines. The only things you need are the tricks I used and a good Spanish course.
If you’re interested in the techniques I used to learn my Spanish, you can sign up for my free dspanishclass.com Spanish Class and learn how to speak Spanish. I’ll show you exactly how I did it.