This is the survey result of 325 people conducted by myself
so I can improve at my own book signings. After completing
the survey, I saw the wealth of insight it had given me. I
felt it was important to share it with a wider audience. I
also interspersed some personal experiences.

The survey was conducted by Catherine in-person with people
who attended book signings at area bookstores in Northern
Virginia metro area between January 2004 and September 2004.
A total of 325 people completed the survey.

Here is their response to one of the questions: Why do you
go to book signings?

If you are wondering how this can help you in marketing your
book. These 10 items are extremely important. They tell
what authors need to give to their audience in order to
increase their books sales and to connect with the audience.
When you know what you audience wants, what they expect, the
guessing fades and transforms into a great book signing
event.

Here are the top ten responses in answer to the first
question:

1. People desire to be acknowledged for taking their time
to come — by you, the store, and others that came.
Participants who have either already read the book, come to
meet other like-minded people. They have a social intention
and you need to give it to them. Most book signings don’t
have any social aspect to them so create one. When you
include ways, you will definitely increase sales. People
want connection, they don’t want to be ignored. Get them
to talk to the people around them. Introduce one person you
just met to the next person to them. There are many
techniques or create some of your own. A seasoned author
learned to do this over time. Learn to do it sooner.

2. Curiosity. People are normally curious about authors
and how they write, or how they got their book published.
Tell them about your journey with all this. For the wanta-
be or gonna-be writers there because their vision includes
what you are doing, give them that feedback. It creates
immediate connection. Even if they didn’t come not to buy
your book, usually they will change their mind, just because
you settled their curiosity.

3. Entertainment. Yes, you need to be entertaining.
People do want that and they stick around (meaning they
don’t get up and walk out) if they get it. Show energy, use
hand gestures, and please stop reading from the page (number
one pet peeve). Over and over again, I saw people leave
when the author continued to read his presentation from the
page. People don’t expect perfection. They had a heavy
week, or day, and they want some way to lighten it up. Even
if your book is a heavy topic, lighten it up. Comical
anecdotes about yourself are great!

4. Oh, the old, “what’s in it for me” discussion. What are
the benefits for them to read the book? Is there some
information that will help shift their thinking on anything?
Use testimonials, ones that have some meat on their bones.
Yes, you may need to make some assumptions on where the
audience is at. Go ahead and do that. Create a few that
cover a wider perspective and it will deliver to a wider
audience.

5. There is nothing wrong with encouraging more sales. Who
else might be interested in the book. Their boss, friends,
sister, who? Go ahead, give gift ideas. What holidays or
events can you tie the book to? Is Christmas, Mother’s Day
coming up? Tie your topic and the holiday together if you
can. Mention the type of people who like to read this sort
of book. No, don’t say everyone and anybody. This is
sometimes hard for authors because they attach it to
“selling.” Drum roll…heaven forbid…selling. When an
audience is so enthralled in a book and its story, their
mind isn’t on buying two books. They walk out with one and
then when turning page three or five, a flash appears,
“Ooops, I should have bought one for my boss.” I guarantee
you that it is very unlikely they will return to the
bookstore to buy another copy at that point.

6. Do some things where you make extra connections with the
audience. Just don’t sit behind the table. Stand up, shake
hands — no limp ones either, and look them directly in the
eyes when you ask them, “Who would you like me make this out
to?” Ask if they would like another book made out to
someone else?

Here’s a SECRET tip. It makes a BIG connection. The
Japanese do this all the time. Put down the pen. When you
hand over the book, hold it cover up facing them with both
hands, present it to them slowly, purposely, as if it’s
worth a million dollars and a very special gift. Look deep
into their eyes at the same time (okay this part is
different than the Japanese), and say silently in your heart
and in your voice, “Thank you.” Watch them light up. Of
course, smile.

7. As mentioned earlier, audiences come with a hidden
agenda — to have a good time. To enjoy themselves. Create
that space of joy and lightness for them. Don’t think you
don’t have any control. The store wants you to succeed.
Share with them what type of experience you want the
audience to have. Ask for recommendations, ask for things
that haven’t been done before too. Give inspiration in
language, in thoughts, and in stories. Stories that pulls
the heart strings. If there isn’t one in the book, find
one.

8. There is nothing wrong with giving away a trinket, toy,
item, that comes from one of the characters. Or even it
isn’t directly and just somewhat related. You don’t need to
spend lots of money on promotional items. Think. This
might require approval by the host store. You will usually
find that as long as it usually doesn’t cost them anything
and it increases book sales, they will encourage it. Give a
gift if they buy two or three copies. Find a unique magnet,
or something funny, something that doesn’t cost much but it
just ads to the incentive to buy more than one. Sometimes
the book store is returning something and can give you a
remainder sale price. Ask.

9. You can’t say thank you too many times. Remember to
smile, say thank you, and be there with a loving and open
heart. This creates an attractive energy and pulls people
towards you.

10. Share tidbits about how the idea of the book came to
you. Did you write 15 minutes a day, a certain word count?
Did you get help from others, who? Did you struggle with
some part or something? Was there someone there for you
that inspired your journey? Please not the spouse comment
all the time. To singles this is boring and people said a
turnoff. Share tidbits about your childhood. There is a
child in all of us. Share your childhood with your
audience. Especially funny screw-ups.

Well, I hope you enjoyed learning what audiences want at
book signings. This process was definitely an eye-opener
for me. It gave me a real taste of people and their
expectations. Maybe another future survey would be to get
people to tell me why are they leaving early.

© Copyright 2004, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing &
Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet
writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and
articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com
blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

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Few election campaigns in recent memory have generated the media feeding frenzy equaling that of presidential hopeful John Kerry. This is because John Kerry is both a Senator and a Catholic. Senator Kerry has compiled a rather consistent voting record against legislation that protects innocent human life. Despite such actions in Congress, he still routinely attends Mass and partakes of the Eucharist.

Taking cover under the familiar “voting my conscience” defense, he contends that his actions are proper to his professed religion. Endless debates have erupted over whether his behavior constitutes grave scandal to American Catholics and, by extension, the whole Church. His flagrant disdain for Church teaching forces the question of whether he, and all Catholic politicians of similar ilk, should be refused the Eucharist given the perceived disgrace engendered by their participation.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear on the sanctity of human life. It echoes the position held by Christians throughout the ages. In addition, two recent documents remind public officials of how they must carry out their duties in light of their Catholic faith. One is the “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life” issued by the Vatican in 2002. The other is “Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility” issued by the American bishops in 2003. Finally, the Code of Canon Law (No.915) clearly asserts that those “…who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Communion.” Taken collectively, it is fair to say that the Church has made itself quite clear with respect to the value of life and the role Catholics, elected or not, have in its protection.

Many bishops and noteworthy members of the laity have weighed in on this divisive issue. Some steadfastly contend that the Eucharist must be protected from scandal and therefore refused to certain public figures. Others, however, say that the Eucharist is not to be used as a weapon for behavior modification. Prayer, dialogue and proper catechesis should be employed to address the problem, not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Son of God. The furor continues.

Observing this maelstrom prompts some reflection on its root cause. While the storm rages in the media, the true instigator remains quietly under the radar. I refer, of course, to contraception. Perhaps we have forgotten that contraception is the bedrock of abortion. In America, contraception is mainstream doctrine. It is the anchor of feel-good philosophies like choice, freedom and rights. Americans happily justify their use of contraceptive drugs or devices as part of life in a modern, enlightened age. We employ them without a second thought as to their sinister capabilities.

Contraception laid the groundwork for de-linking marriage and sexual intercourse. That done, the sexual act was transformed. It was originally intended as a physical manifestation of marital love open to the gift of life. It is now mindless recreation whose only end is pleasure. The natural outcome, a child, is simply a disposable commodity.

Sadly, many “good” Catholics have jumped aboard this guilt-free cultural bandwagon. In fact, thousands who declare themselves pro-life on the abortion issue vehemently defend their “right” to contraception. Their participation is often justified by simple disclaimers like, “I just don’t happen to agree with the Church on that issue.” The more defiant will assert that, “The Church has no business in my bedroom” or the ever-popular, “What does the pope know about the cost of raising kids?”

These fellow Catholics either fail to fully realize, or they simply deny, the fact that every chemical method of contraception is abortifacient. Every pill, implant, or injection, whether before or the morning after, works to ensure pregnancy does not occur. They all do this by flushing out a fertilized egg if necessary. This is abortion. It is a clinical fact. A completely unique human life is summarily ended in the privacy of our own home.

This reality cannot be softened or denied. It cannot be politically corrected. Drug companies even try to mitigate the evil by redefining when life begins. They attempt to sell us on the notion that life does not begin at conception but at implantation or first sensation. This is a lie. Adopting this notion, however, helps couples assuage any lingering guilt while buying more time for the vendor’s product to be used. The number of innocent lives brought to an end each day in the abortion mills pales in comparison to those ended in the American bedroom.

Enter John Kerry, poster boy for disobedience to the Church’s teachings. He embraces abortion while brazenly accepting the Eucharist. How many “good” Catholics join him and “obstinately persist in manifest grave sin?” Some of these same Catholics publicly lambaste Senator Kerry for his abortion stand yet knowingly engage in contraceptive practices themselves. Others quietly support his behavior in order to prolong the “legitimacy” of abortion and protect their contraceptive choices. Like our defiant Senator, are any of these folks piously accepting the Eucharist each Sunday? Like him, are they fooling themselves by proclaiming that their faith life is separate from their “real” life?

Senator Kerry is most definitely in need of our prayers. He needs to turn in humility to Holy Mother Church. He needs to meet with his bishop to obtain the knowledge and guidance he lacks. Most of all, he needs to honor the Eucharist.

Many of us must also undertake this same journey. Before wallowing in the scandal incited by a politician, each of us must look hard at our own level of Christian obedience. Perhaps we have been duped into participation in the culture of death. If so, are we willing to embrace the “new morality” at the price of our very souls?

About the Author

Gary Shirley, his wife, and three children are members of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Kennesaw, Georgia, where Gary serves as catechist in the adult education program. Gary is an Archdiocese of Atlanta certified catechist (both PSR and RCIA) with 14 years teaching experience. Email him at gary.shirley@searchlogixgroup.com.

Are you looking for new business to get into? Well, if you love cars and you’ve always been a car buff then perhaps starting an auto detailing company this Summer might be right for you. Auto detailing in the summer months means you get a tan and you get to work outside and if you love cars that is another bonus.

The good thing about auto detailing is that people love their cars and there are 250 million of these cars in United States of America presently. And as automakers sell over 17 million cars per year there are always new cars to detail, as well as old cars that need to be refurbished.

One thing about auto detailing is that if you do a good job then the word will get around very fast and you will help lots of referrals and always have a completely filled schedule. Of course there is a Catch-22 in that you may have a waiting list of the several weeks long. The better you are of course the more money you can charge from all the referrals you will get and thus the more people who will pay you the extra dollars because they want you to do it and not someone else.

Auto detailing can be fun business and also challenging when you get a real dog. Most of the cars you will clean and detail will be pristine, however every once awhile you’ll get a car you wish you never met. But, this is one of the challenges that all car detailing company’s face and this is what separates the men from the boys. Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

There are several types of websites you can set up:

Product or service orientated Affiliate program orientated
Content/ad based

Product / Service Orientated:

With this type of website, you create a product or service, and
then charge people for its use or access. This is time consuming
if it is your first time, but highly profitable if it is a
digital product. This is because with digital products such as
ebooks, you only have to pay a few small fees such as web
hosting, domain name, html compiler etc. There are no expensive
overheads such as premises, which you would have with a brick
and mortar business.

With this type of website, you should have a target market in
mind and you should have a good knowledge of it.

Digital products can be a one time effort and then just collect
the money with every purchase, where as a service may require
the occasional maintenance.

Affiliate Program orientated:

With this type of website, all you need is an interest in a
topic and a good knowledge of it, find the target market, then
include a few affiliate links which are related to it. Obviously
it’s a bit more work intensive than that, but that’s the gist of
it.

The best thing to do would be to keep this website focused on
one area, such as golf. Then perhaps you could include reviews
of as many golf clubs on the market as you can, and for each
one, include an affiliate link to a golf shop at the bottom of
the review.

Please remember that you are not selling to the visitors of your
site. You are just supposed to be providing them with
information, your affiliate partner is the one that does all the
selling. All you have to be concerned about is getting people to
click on your affiliate link and sending them to your partner,
nothing more.

Content/ Ad based website:

These are very profitable, but also take a very long time to
start up. Marketershandbook.com is an example of a content based
website. I have content for people to read, and I also have
several advertisements on a few pages, this is what pays for the
cost of development and maintenance. of the website.

Each of these articles has been search engine optimized for a
specific keyword to bring in more traffic for that keyword, this
in turn, generates highly targeted traffic which will be
interested in the ads which are displayed, hopefully generating
revenue.

This way everyone wins, you the reader get free valuable
content, the advertiser’s generate income though sales, and I
generate our income from the advertisers. If you have the time,
this is one of the best websites to choose in our opinion.

The best part is, even if you don’t have knowledge of the area
you want to write about, you can still do this type of website,
however it will cost you more money. You can hire people to
write the articles for you at quite a low price. If this is the
route you want to take, then you should go down to elance.com.
Its a website with more people dedicated to specific tasks than
you could ever need. And it’s completely free. I definitely
recommend you check it out.

Last week, as I was standing in the checkout line of my local grocery store, I found myself staring at the dozen or so magazines on display. As I gazed upon the various photos and headlines praising or trashing the celebrity du jour, I got to thinking.

What kind of celebrity would Socrates be if he were alive today? How would we treat him?

In what way would he ask his questions in the 21st century? He never wrote much of anything–we know his ideas mostly through the work of his student, Plato. Would he give speeches? Would he have televised debates? Would he have his own talk show?

If so, who would be his guests?

Socrates was famous in his day. He was loved and admired for his ideas and his relentless questioning, and he was despised for the same things. Like all celebrities, he had his fans and he had his detractors.

Socrates himself said, “I am utterly disturbing and I create only perplexity.” He understood his role as a provocateur, but he also had the best of intentions. He simply wanted to give people the opportunity to question themselves in order to become better humans.

Well, there are a lot of celebrities who push our buttons, but we don’t tend to think of them as philosophers!

What if we did? What if we could separate the thoughts from the thinkers? We tend to dismiss the whole package–the persona–instead of taking a good look at revolutionary or inflammatory ideas. We marginalize our radical thinkers.

The rapper Eminem is a radical thinker, though many would say he is just plain radical. In his way, he is true to himself. He has broken through to mainstream consciousness because he touched a nerve–and got a lot of press.

Would Socrates be a rapper today? Would he be a professor? A performance artist? How would we regard him?

He was notoriously unattractive. Would photographers surround him, taking photos to sell to the tabloids? Would we care about him if he didn’t make it on the cover of our favorite magazines?

At first glance, it may seem that we are sorely lacking in philosophers today. Perhaps we have an outdated idea of what a philosopher looks like. Not all philosophers have beards!

Do you think of Eminem as a philosopher?

Do you think of Julia Butterfly Hill, the environmental activist who lived at the top of a massive tree for two years, as a philosopher?

Do you think of Rush Limbaugh as a philosopher?

Well, they do think. They do question. They provoke discussion and argument, and they are passionate about their ideas. That makes them a lot like Socrates.

Who inspires you today? Which thinkers make you think?

What is it about them that appeals to you? Is it their ideas or the way they are presented?

We’ve become quite savvy about packaging. We expect professional presentation. We discount the ideas of those who don’t look the part of a thinker. Of course, there are exceptions. Albert Einstein could pull off that wild-haired look. Bill Gates isn’t known for his sartorial splendor. Some might argue that Stephen Hawking is actually more compelling and impressive because of his physical challenges.

Whether we admit it or not, we each have our own biases about the appearance, age, sex, nationality, or religion of the thinkers of today. What are yours?

I’m afraid Socrates would need a good public relations team in order to be heard amidst the cacophony of thought-mongers today. The prescribed process for publicizing your ideas now goes something like this: write a book, get a publisher, do tons of interviews and book signings and readings, and cash in. It helps immensely if you appeal to the mainstream culture, or if your book manages to stir up a bit of controversy. Creating buzz is what gets thinkers noticed today.

Socrates was good at creating buzz, but he would face a lot of competition in the 21st century thinkers market. I like to think that he would find a way to be who he was and that we would appreciate his gifts.

Think about what you read, what you listen to, and what you consider worthy of your attention. As you do so, remember Socrates.

There are loads of passionate thinkers in our world today. Look for the ones who aren’t shouting from the rooftops, and consider those who turn you off completely. Expand your view of what a philosopher is. In the process, you’ll become a better one yourself.

About The Author

Maya Talisman Frost is a mind masseuse. Her course, Massage Your Mind!: Defining Your Life Philosophy, has inspired thinkers in over 70 countries around the world. She is the publisher of the Friday Mind Massage, a free weekly ezine serving up a satisfying blend of clarity, comfort and comic relief. To learn more, visit http://www.massageyourmind.com or http://mindmasseuse.com.

maya@massageyourmind.com