Every author needs a bio. But please, don’t bore us. Make it exciting. Here is a good example of a great bio from Yolanda Adams. Tip: Don’t take for granted that everyone knows “that stuff” and leave out details that will entice and excite your publics.  Hear the interview with Yolanda Adams on the Chocolate Pages Show.

Yolanda Adams

About the Author

Ever since her late-‘80s debut Just As I Am, Yolanda Adams has triumphantly carried the torch for contemporary gospel and inspirational music via 12 glorious albums. Stunningly beautiful, exceptionally educated, filled with the spirit and blessed with one of the most powerful voices in any genre of music, this Houston-native and one-time school teacher has been a stately beacon of God’s light, earning numerous accolades and awards for her shining efforts, including the first American Music Award for Contemporary Gospel Artist, four Gospel Music Association Dove Awards and four National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Grammy® Awards (including 1999’s Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album for Mountain High…Valley Low which featured her secular breakthrough hit “Open My Heart,” and 2005’s Best Gospel Song for “Be Blessed,” for which she was a co-writer).

Growing up her mother studied music, so she grew up well aware of R&B, jazz and classical music as well as gospel. When she debuted on the independent Sounds of Gospel label with Just As I Am (1988) and later on gospel’s Verity label with Through the Storm (1991), Save the World (1993), More Than a Melody (1995), Songs From the Heart (1998) plus live sets in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. (both in 1996), she was often criticized within the Christian community for blending secular music with gospel as well as for her fashion-conscious attire. However, with the shifting tides of music and culture, Yolanda was ultimately embraced as a positive and pro-active presence, and a modern image of faith, attestable by her seven NAACP Image Awards.

She went on to be to major label Elektra/Atlantic Records where she blossomed even further with the releases Mountain High…Valley Low (1999), Christmas with Yolanda Adams (2000), The Experience: Live (2001), Believe (2001), Day By Day (2005) and What a Wonderful Time (2007).

Yolanda is heard on over 40 radio stations reaching over 5 million listeners who tune in daily across the country on “The Yolanda Adams Morning Show,” a program of her creation and ownership in thrilling conjunction with Radio One. Most of Yolanda’ fans know she was once a school teacher, but far less know that she earned her college degree in Radio/Television Broadcasting!

Yolanda is currently working on her eleventh studio album and planning to tour in Fall 2009. Yolanda Adams was born, raised and currently lives with her daughter Taylor Ayanna in Houston, Texas.

http://www.click2houston.com/video/22425505/index.html

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Here are some ways to use Twitter to make it effective in your overall online marketing and branding:

1. Link to helpful articles. Add your own comments or ask for feedback.
2. Teach a lesson in 140 characters. Add #lesson after
3. Invite people to subscribe to your ezine, blog, or facebook page.
4. Tell your followers you have a free gift on your website.
5. Re-tweet good posts by other people, but don’t go overboard—most of your tweets should be yours.
6. Announce a conference, book or CD release.
7. Make introductions to people who are also on Twitter. (Just use the “@” sign)
8. Congratulate others when they share good news.
9. Sparingly link to your own blog posts. Don’t over promote yourself.
10. Tweet out videos (yours or others) from Youtube.
11. Post an inspirational quote or message. Show your personality. Add #quote after it if you can.
12. Ask questions that encourage responses. Engage!

And see this infographic on how people are using Twitter.

Twitter:  @pamperry

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Pam Perry’s Klout score: 73

http://klout.com/pamperry

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Pam Perry, PR coach www.pamperrypr.com

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You Really Must Learn this STUFF!

An Author’s Plan for Social Media

Make your list and stick to it!

Get a PR  Coach to keep you accountable if you have to!

1. Set up a URL for the book, and/or maybe one for your name. Need help finding a URL? I use Ajaxwhois.com for simple effort in searching.
2. Set up a blog. If you want it free and super fast, WordPress or Tumblr. I’d recommend getting hosting like Bloghost.me.
3. On the blog, write about interesting things that pertain to the book, but don’t just promote the book over and over again. In fact, blow people away by promoting their blogs and their books, if they’re related a bit.
4. Start an email newsletter. It’s amazing how much MORE responsive email lists are than any other online medium.
5. Have a blog post that’s a list of all the places one might buy your book. I did this for both Trust Agents and Social Media 101.
6. Make any really important links trackable with a URL shortener. I know exactly how many people click my links. [bit.ly]
7. Start listening for your name, your book’s name. ( Covered in this post about building blocks.) [search.twitter.com]
8. Consider recording a video trailer for your book. Here’s one from Scott Sigler (YouTube), for his horror thriller, Contagious. And here’s one from Dallas Clayton for his Awesome Book. (Thanks Naomi for pointing this out).
9. Build a Facebook fan page for the book or for bonus points, build one around the topic the book covers, and only lightly promote the book via the page.
10. Join Twitter under your name, not your book’s name, and use Twitter Search to find people who talk about the subjects your book covers.
11. When people talk about your book, good or bad, thank them with a reply. Connect to people frequently. It’s amazing how many authors I rave about on Twitter and how few actually respond. Mind you, the BIGGEST authors always respond (paradox?)
12. Use Google Blogsearch and Alltop to find the people who’d likely write about the subject matter your book covers. Get commenting on their blog posts but NOT mentioning your book. Get to know them. Leave USEFUL comments, with no blatant URL back to your book.
13. Work with your publisher for a blogger outreach project. See if you can do a giveaway project with a few bloggers (here’s a book giveaway project I did for Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years book).
14. Offer to write guest posts on blogs that make sense as places where potential buyers might be. Do everything you can to make the post match the content of the person’s site and not your goals. But do link to your book.
15. Ask around for radio or TV contacts via the social web and LinkedIn. You never know.
16. Come up with interesting reasons to get people to buy bulk orders. If you’re a speaker, waive your fee (or part of it) in exchange for sales of hundreds of books. (And spread those purchases around to more than one bookselling company.) In those giveaways, do something to promote links back to your site and/or your post. Giveaways are one time: Google Juice is much longer lasting.
17. Whenever someone writes a review on their blog, thank them with a comment, and maybe 1 tweet, but don’t drown them in tweets pointing people to the review. It just never comes off as useful.
18. Ask gently for Amazon and other distribution site reviews. They certainly do help the buying process. And don’t ask often.
19. Do everything you can to be gracious and thankful to your readers. Your audience is so much more important than you in this equation, as there are more of them than there are of you.
20. Start showing up at face to face events, where it makes sense, including tweetups. If there’s not a local tweetup, start one.
21. And with all things, treat people like you’d want them to treat your parents (provided you had a great relationship with at least one of them).

This sounds like a lot of steps. It is. But this is how people are finding success. Should this be the publicist’s job? Not even a little bit. The publicist has his or her own methodology. The author will always be the best advocate for his or her own work.

Never put your marketing success in the hands of someone else. Always bring your best efforts into the mix and you’ll find your best reward on your time and effort.

You might have found other ways to be successful with various online and social media tools. By all means, please share with us here. What’s your experience been with promoting your work using the social web?

Article by: Chris Brogan is the New York Times bestselling author of the NEW book, Social Media 101. He is president of New Marketing Labs, LLC, and blogs at [chrisbrogan.com].

Need a short cut or system?

See video ==> Social Media Leverage Multipliers http://bit.ly/oqxDf9

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Guest post by Dee Stewart

My novel, A Good Excuse to Be Bad has its national release June 28, 2011. When I noticed how I close I was to the book launch date I realized that although I have had the busiest, most trying, family in crisis year than I’ve ever had still needed to apply the action items I often encourage my clients and my Dee Goody Mail members. So as a reminder to myself and to up my accountability, I am sharing my checklist here.

1. Relax. (you don’t have to do anything us, but enjoy it all. so chill)
2. To enjoy this time throw a party.
3. Now promote that party in every free outlet you can find.
4. Get some door prizes for the party.
5. Promote the biggest door prize on your site and every where you can near the venue two weeks before the event.
6. Book a second event, because this party will be so cool. Your buddies will not want it to end, so have another place for them to meetup and provide an invite at this party.
7. Invite people who matter to you and gift them for being such a great help.
8. Prepare what you will read. Practice it.
9. Pay for an ad in your local paper or local email blast.
10. Prep the venue staff for your party. Early visit. Take your book. See who will be working for you. Give them a phone script in case someone calls wondering are you actually there.

Bonus. Have Fun. If no one else have fun, you better! LOL

One more thing. Today is the last day to enter to win a free autographed copy of A Good Excuse to Be Bad. Click the Good Reads pic or the link above to enter.

Dee Stewart is an inspirational book reviewer for Romantic Times Magazine,  contributing writer to Hope for Women Magazine, staff columnist for Christian Fiction Online Magazine, owner of Christian Fiction Blog and DeeGospel PR, an entertainment PR boutique. She is alsoMiranda Parker, novelist for Kensington Publishers Dafina Books. Her debut novel “A Good Excuse to be Bad” releases July 2011

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Become An Online Mentor

Want to be a mentor, but finding it hard to carve out the time? Try e-mentoring. With the use online software, mentors and mentees log into a secure online environment where they can converse under supervision of moderators and coordinators.

Pam Perry, PR coach and social media strategist and founder of Pam Perry PR, has found mentoring new talent online more than rewarding–and easy. “Our company lives in the digital space – and all our employees and vendors operate virtual. So it’s easy for us to mentor interns online. We use the social media tools and create private websites via Google and Ning for them too,” says Perry.

pam perry, PR Coach

E-mentoring is less time-consuming than face-to-face mentoring–and also allows companies to mentor newcomers who may not be located in the same city. And, while some critics say e-mentoring just does not offer the same quality as in-person mentoring, those who have tried e-mentoring feel it is the wave of the future.

“Some things are taught and some things are caught, meaning you can learn a lot from a book or lecture. But when you’re in a mentor relationship, you are really required to watch and observe more. It’s more like modeling and you learn from imitating systems, procedures and protocol. Information is about access. When you have access to a mentor – you will never be without sound guidance, a wise answer or a valuable lesson,” notes Perry.

For Allison Babb, mentoring–and being mentored–is a constant in one´s career. “I’m mentored directly from mentor coaches, through books, through live events and through virtual programs. It just never stops for me. I’m always looking for expert guidance and I never stop learning or being mentored. It’s a constant journey,” she says.

Hoe to get started e-mentoring? There are several online sources: eMentor Pro (http://www.e-mentoring.org/) has been helping offering Internet-based mentoring since 2002; Pa e-mentoring (http://www.pa-ementor.org/) offering career mentoring for high school students; and e-mentoring (apps.mentoring.org) offers the applications to begin mentoring online.

Why e-mentor? E-mentoring has several advantages: it can be done anywhere at any time, there is an online history created of what has been accomplished (which can be reused whenever needed) and it can also be used in conjunction with in-person mentoring.

In-person mentoring usually takes up to three months, but says Perry, through e-mentoring, you can mentor up to a year. “When you mentor an intern, it’s good training for them and you are also coaching them to be better prepared for a real job with your firm. They will also have an affinity to you that may last a lifetime,” says Perry.

When mentoring has been completed, your company may have developed its next talent. “When the formal mentoring is done – hopefully a real genuine relationship has blossomed. And when that happens, you really are never done “mentoring” that person. You keep in contact and you know it’s a success when your mentee reaches out and begins to mentor others just the way they were mentored. That’s when it’s full circle – and that’s a blessing for everyone involved,” says Perry.

source http://www.tnj.com/news/business/become-online-mentor

**********

Video from Relentless Aaron

For details on Pam Perry’s mentoring/mastermind group:

email her at pamperry (at) ministrymarketingsolutions.com

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I hate secrets, don’t you? I spent so many years online looking at gurus and big shot bloggers trying to figure out how they actually made money online and no one would tell me! Everyone tells you how easy it is to sign up for affiliate links, but nobody tells you how hard it is to get folks to click your ads.

Everyone tells you that you have to have a website or a blog if you want to build your business, but no one tells you WHAT TO DO when people aren’t coming to your website or even worse, when their coming to your website but Nobody is buying.

Right now I feel like the Magician who is about to be forced into exile because I’m about to tell you how this trick called Internet Entrepreneurship actually works! I don’t want you to get lost like me, so I want to be the first to let you in on the most powerful internet marketing tool around. *Drum Roll Please* The most powerful internet marketing tool that you have at your disposal is your list! Right now I am guessing you are thinking either one of two things: (1) “Aww, come on LaShanda, you said that last week!” OR (2) “Your list? What list? I need a list?”

Whether you have heard me talk about list building before or not, keep on reading, because today I have something new to say. Here’s the thing that most online entrepreneurs don’t understand. In spite of the fact that most people, you, me, and everyone else in cyber space don’t jump to buy the first thing they see online, MOST entrepreneurs think that by constantly sending out direct sales emails or getting more traffic to their website they will eventually get People to buy.

In reality that’s not how the web world works, especially with new scams, spam, so-called experts and everything in between popping up EVERY SINGLE DAY. AND especially in a slow economy, people aren’t just going to buy what you are trying to sell them. And what about the people who bought from you before? Have you taken the time to see if they will buy again? Before I go on a rant, let me tell you why List Building is the most powerful internet marketing tool. Building a list is the only way you can effectively communicate and track people who want to buy what you have to sell.

Believe me when I say that I know how frustrating it is to TRY everything online and still not make a sale. When sales were slow or non-existent, I started to feel powerless too, until I tapped into the power of List Building and took back my power. Click by click I discovered the Internet Marketing Power Secrets that nobody wants to share but now I’m ready to tell it all.

I want to share my list building SECRETS and REVELATIONS with you.
I want to tell you what most entrepreneurs don’t know or EVEN understand about listing building, because this isn’t the kind of FREE Information the other experts are going to give.
I want to show you how I created my list and built it click by click.

Are you ready to know what I know? Download my l eBook:

Internet Marketing Power

This ebook is my smallest one to date. Its less than 20 pages, but every page is well worth reading. I know what it’s like wasting time online, so I didn’t want to waste your time with pages and pages of fluff. I get straight to the meat in this eBook, plus I give you a few extra bonuses. This eBook includes links to watch 5 of my best Internet Marketing How-to Videos, which are currently only available to my paid subscribers. Plus, I want to make sure I know everything that I know so I’ve included my Plan to Profit eBook, which is my 40 page blueprint to Online Business success. Plus I give you the back-door link to get FREE Lifetime membership to my Smart Business Newsletter, which is currently only available to paid subscribers. So you get two eBooks, 5 videos and lifetime access to my Newsletter for one low price.

THIS EBUNDLE INCLUDES:

1. My eBook: The Easiest Way to Make Your First $100 Online
2. My eBook: Selling Your Products and Services Online
3. 7 Day eCourse: Getting Customers Online
4. Video Tutorials On Internet Marketing for Beginners
included in the eCourse and inside eBooks

My personal note: I totally know, like and trust LaShanda Henry. If you want to get your internet marketing going and start making money, get her stuff. Don’t sit on fence any long. This train is moving. Get on board. CRUSH IT!

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