Distribute Your Self-Published Book - Part 1

By Judy Cullins

Where is your book now? With a distributor? In a book store? Or, did it already die an early death after a few months?

New self-published authors often believe they need a distributor to sell a lot of books. They want to use Ingram or Baker & Taylor because they think they need to get their book into the "brick and mortar" bookstores like Barnes and Noble.

Authors go through many hoops and snags to accomplish this-- what I call the "traditional publishing nightmare" of inefficiency and lack of support for authors. Usually the author only gets around 10% royalties and has to pay back all promotion expenses such as book signings. So many hoops, some give up. So many authors I speak with who have gone this route still have hundreds, even thousands of unsold copies littering up storage space. Talk about discouragement.

Distributors Can be Dangerous to Your Book's Health and Your Wallet

One author wrote, illustrated, and marketed six beautiful children's books. Her books were well reviewed and received. For some time, the profits rolled in until her distributor went bankrupt, owing her $160,000. After she stopped crying, she decided to take her books on the road—to local fairs and talks where she could KEEP all the profits.

Distributors take quite a chunk of money from the author's profits too. They charge the author for storage, and when books are returned, the author loses those sales, and has to pay the distributor too. Authors lose from the bookstores because their payment is late or unreliable. Some authors wait way beyond 90 days. In fact, many just don't get paid. Writers are not always good at collections either. These middlemen not only take most of the author's profits, they cause much stress too.

How Can Self-Published Authors Distribute?

Self-published books include: print books (perfect bound, comb bound, print on demand or print quantity needed, or stapled) or eBooks (sent over Email through Word or Portable Document Files)

Local Distribution.

For each venue, make sure to include ordering information such as your Web site URL, your company address, your toll-free 800 number, your local phone number, and an order page to fill out for fax or phone orders.

1.Distribute through the Press.

-Create a "Power Press Release" (include tips and how-to's)
-Get a Feature Story from the Media
-Write a how-to article and submit

2. Distribute through a local Talk Show-Radio and TV or guest speak for another person's teleclasses.

Just a phone call away you can reach 100's of people interested in your book's topic. Do some research on www.teleclass.com. From my guesting with other experts every 2 months, new clients come; new book and teleclass sales increase to make up half my income.

On the talk shows or the teleclasses, offer the audience a free report to capture their email addresses. You can also send it through your host and she will distribute that information to her large email list. Of course you include your sales-pulling signature file at the end.

3. Distribute at local talks to groups. Sell your print books at the back of the room. Take a clipboard and capture everyone's email at the talk. These people become your dedicated sales force and tell others. Word of mouth takes up to one or two years, so be patient for results. Check your library for Clubs who need free speakers.

Develop a selling two-sided flyer with testimonials, your book cover, excerpts, and an ordering coupon. Take books and flyers with you everywhere. Offer to all you meet, even your dentist!

Authors need to be proactive in book promotion because publishers won't do it for them. (Part 2 of this article is available)

Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach, Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," and "How to Market your Business on the Internet," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says...and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 140 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com

Quiz: Will Online Book Marketing Help Sales?

By Judy Cullins

Most authors sigh a sigh of relief when they finish their book. Then comes the awesome task of marketing the masterpiece.

You may choose the traditional route--to give talks, write press releases, or do book signings. While good up to a point, your bigger sales are through Online book marketing. Will you be successful in this arena if you know nothing? A little something?

Use these 10 questions as a guide to know what book you'll want to investigate and invest in to widen your selling success.

1. Do you consider yourself a "newbie" on the net? "non-techie?" If so, are you willing to spend some time and money on learning the best ways to promote your book online from teleclasses, one on one coaching, or group coaching? It takes a few exposures to such skills as writing articles and submitting them to free opt-in ezines.

2. What are your resistances to learning Online book promotion and marketing? Right now, write down some of your resistances to both marketing and marketing on the net. Maybe the time to learn, the cost to learn, and the final cost to implement. Remember that smart people delegate and you can too.

3. Do you know the old adage for business insanity? Keep doing what you are doing and you'll keep getting the same results! While we don't want to change, Bill Gates says there will be two kinds of businesses in the 2000's--The ones who use e-commerce (check the non techie sales letter here for the exact quote.) Write down one or two goals or changes you are willing to make to sell more books Online.

Three years ago your coach knew nothing! Cajoled and coaxed by savvy friends and associates, she leaped over her doubts and created a business so successful, she can travel when she wants as well as remodel her home and buy a new car.

4. Do you write two or three major marketing goals down in the pages of your organizer and look at them each day? Remember the payoff of these goals. You don't just want to make money. You want to make enough money so you can take that needed vacation, send your kids to college, or buy that long needed car.

5. Do you practice at least three "high-level" activities each workday on your main marketing goals? If not, start writing down three each day in your organizer. Don't distract to other projects until these three are finished.

6. Do you write your "high-level" activities down in your organizer the night before, so you can get a running start in the morning? Let your subconscious work on your goals all night while you get your needed rest. No more worrying and by morning, you'll be yelling, "Eureka! I'm stoked on Internet Marketing."

7. How disciplined are you with your book being a success? Remember that discipline is to stop doing what hurts you. How are you wasting your valuable time, not doing what will give you big rewards? Write down one or two self-destructive habits you are willing to stop 2 or 3 days a week. Remember the payoff--you'll be getting your valuable information into the hands of more people who need and want it.

8. Are you easily distracted and keep pushing important to do's to the next day, next week, or next month? Treat your book as a business and know the wonderful rewards of being known by many as the savvy expert, earning the money you deserve, and enjoying an easy path of lifelong income. You'll soon stop talking on the phone to much, and start depositing those many checks and credit card orders.

9. How much time are you willing to put into learning how to do Online marketing each week? Once you learn a little, you'll see the great results and how easy it is to implement this easy and fun way to share with others. Thousands and more Online users are waiting to buy your book. They surf web sites and sign up for free ezines for free information they need. Your book's topic will please them, and it takes so little time!

10. Are you organized? Do you have all the parts you need to market and promote your book in files you can find in a minute? We waste over 150 hours a year looking for important paper. After I hired my low-cost computer assistant from a local school, I reduced my workload over half and can find anything in a minute because Erica does all my computer filing. More time to play--and that's another plus.

Bonus: How's your money, honey? It's best to set aside marketing money and time each month. When lean times come, you can keep going just like the bunny. When you operate a business without this important tool, you'll stay in kindergarten. As soon as I spent marketing money from $200-$700 a month, my book sales skyrocketed far above my investment.

Once you get aware of what needs to be done, and you are willing to take a baby-step, your book will keep on helping others as well as yourself.

Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach, Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," and "How to Market your Business on the Internet," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says...and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 140 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com

Why Should I Buy your Book?

By Judy Cullins

How would you like to have countless people clamoring for your books and willing to visit your Web site to buy them?

Most entrepreneurs wait until their Web site is designed before they think about marketing their products on it. What a shame!

When someone asks you about your book, maybe you've said, "My book is about…." You mention the features such as tips in a book or your story. Your story may be too long and bore your prospective readers. These mistakes will turn your prospective buyer off. What they want is a quick billboard visual of your book--your 30-60 second "tell and sell."

Without your "30 Second Tell and Sell" that strongly states the main benefit, audience, and what makes your product unique, you will bore your visitor and lose that attention you need to entice him or her to take out their wallets and pay you on the spot.

Your "tell and sell" gives your book audience a reason to buy. The "Tell and Sell" is the shortest sales letter you will write. You can also use this one to two-sentence blurb at any business meeting or appointment where you only have a few seconds to impress. Speakers refer to it as an "elevator speech."

It's Not the Book, It's the Hook!

It's best to know your sizzling title, unique selling points, preferred audience and benefits before you put words to paper, before you even write a single chapter. But, even if your book is already out, you can still motivate endless book sales with your "tell and sell." Be prepared to write five to seven versions until the best one emerges. And, remember your "tell and sell" must be clear, compact, compelling and commercial.

How to Build your Bullet Proof Tell and Sell

1. List your title. For instance, "Write Your EBook or Other Short Book—Fast!"

2. Add your major audience and benefits after you say the title.

Example: "Write your eBook..." offers authors and small business people short cuts to design and market your top selling book so you can share your unique useful message with the world, become known as the savvy expert, and make consistent, ongoing top money each month.

3. Add a sound bit that will help people connect easily with your book. Compare your book to a famous one. Call it a companion piece to a famous author's top title. Your potential buyer will want your book because it is in good company.

"Write your eBook" picks up where Dan Poynter's "Self Publishing Manual" leaves off. It's the nuts and bolts you need to market and design and fast-forward write a book that sells.

4. Put them all together, they spell your own "tell and sell" that you memorize with enthusiasm and share with everyone next time someone asks you, "What's your book about?"

Final example: "Write your eBook or Other Short Book--Fast!” offers authors and small business people like you short cuts to design and market your top selling book so you can share your unique useful message with the world, become known as the savvy expert, and make ongoing top money each month. Recommended by Dan Poynter, it picks up where his "Self Publishing Manual" left off.

The Big Benefits of Owning your "tell and sell"

When you know your "tell and sell" before you write your book, you'll be marketing while you write. You will give your audience so much more. Your book will be much improved because you will write more organized and focused copy making it easy for your buyer to understand. Every chapter will prove your "tell and sell." You will also write faster, because with focus, you'll need far less edits and rewrites.

Knowing benefits sell, you now can be ready when you meet anyone anywhere with your book's "tell and sell."

Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach, Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," and "How to Market your Business on the Internet," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says...and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 140 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com

Seven "Really" Truly Unique Ways to Sell More Books

By Catherine Franz

These marketing tips aren’t for the weak at heart. Use discretion and know where the ego and self-promotion boundary stands for you.

1. Use a fold over business card. Place your book information inside the fold. The title on the bottom side of the fold so it is seen first when the card is opened. Only one book to sell right now, no problem. To fill up the page, add the book’s tag line or this book is about paragraph. On the top of the fold, list three places the book can be purchased.

2. When you are paying your bills, slip one of your fold over business cards inside.

3. Hand your card out to everyone you have a conversation with. Whether it’s the server, a desk or grocery store clerk, or anyone else. This isn’t boasting, this is marketing. I’ve done this on many trips it always increased my mailing list and sales in big ways.

4. When you tell others about your topic and they ask for a tip. Give them two and then tell them what chapter they can find more in. If your card lists several books, circle the book that continues to give them more tips.

5. Always carry one of your books in your hands, cover facing out, wherever you go. Even parties. Keep a dozen books, protected well for frequent shifts and temperature changes, inside your car. Not the trunk.

6. Wear a T-shirt with a copy of the book’s cover on the back and your URL at the bottom and on the front. Or list’s Amazon.com’s URL if you prefer. Get T-shirts for the rest of the family too. When the whole family is wearing one in an unusual color the information will always get inquiries.

7. Create Get a member page and profile on Amazon.com and the other online booksellers. Know and understand member profiles on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com). On Amazon, select help and type in member profile. Be on Amazon’s bestseller list. Sell any damaged books in Marketplace on Amazon.

Catherine Franz is a Marketing & Writing Coach, niches, product development, Internet marketing, nonfiction writing and training. Additional Articles: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Sell Your Book with Pennies

By Julie Hood

Imagine you share a huge penny jar with each of your potential readers. Every interaction with a reader either adds or subtracts pennies from the jar. When readers need your info (non-fiction) or entertainment (fiction), they will trade the jar for your book, but only if the jar is full. Overflow the penny jar, and your reader will buy nearly everything you write.

Notice there are two conditions for exchanging the jar for your book. First, the jar has to be full enough. Your reader has to believe that you will either answer a burning question for them or entertain them enough to trade in their jar. Second, your timing has to correspond perfectly with their needs.

FILLING THE JAR

So how do you fill the jar? Satisfy a need or answer a question for your reader. Let me give you a few examples:

-- Answer my question on a discussion list, add a few pennies.
-- Publish a weekly ezine, and provide me with info I’ve never seen before, add a lot of pennies.
-- Get a good book review, add some more pennies.
-- Let me read the first chapter of your novel, add a few pennies.
-- Add more if you have a website packed with resources.
-- Personally respond to emails, add pennies.
-- Write a book that I just can’t put down, and the jar gets really heavy!

An interaction with a reader can also take away pennies. Go negative, and you’ve lost your reader for life. Here are a few ways to subtract pennies:

-- Waste my time with an ezine filled with advertising and boring articles.
-- Publish an ezine, and then abruptly quit with no explanation.
-- Ignore repeated emails from your readers, and it’s like dumping out the penny jar.

EXAMPLES

Here are some personal examples from books I’ve purchased during the last year.

My favorite cookbook author sends a free weekly ezine which teaches me something new about healthy eating (the really good articles add quarters instead of pennies to her jar!). She gives me yummy recipes and answers all my emails. I’ve bought every one of her books and signed up for her weekly recipe subscription.

I had a very specific question about publishing in trade magazines. I found a book on a writing site that I thought might answer the question. I searched for the author’s website and sent him an email. I still haven’t received a response to my email, and I never see this author mentioned on the websites I visit. Will I ever buy this book? Probably not.

For fiction writers, entertain me with your stories (and yes, I personally want a happy ending that makes me feel good for reading the book, but thankfully not everyone is like me!). I have a core list of authors I search for when I’m looking for entertainment.

THE BIG QUESTION: WHEN

When will your reader need your info? Now this is the tricky part. Your potential reader must find you back when they need your answers. Let me give you a couple more examples:

I found Bobette Kyle’s How Much for Just the Spider? book after reading a glowing book review. After visiting her site, I was impressed with the amount of info she had collected (more pennies in the jar). I emailed her to see if her book answered a question I had on book marketing that had been bugging me for weeks. She responded that her book didn’t answer my question, but she gave me the answer anyway. Wow! I was so impressed I bought the book on the spot.

Another non-fiction author with an outstanding reputation wrote a seven-day email plan that gave me really good info (plenty of pennies). However, the book didn’t answer a direct need for me. I liked what the author had to say, but I couldn’t justify the price tag for a book I wasn’t sure I needed. So I still haven’t bought the book. Every so often I get an email from the author, usually with several nuggets of useful information, but I still don’t have a compelling need to buy his book. Will I buy it someday? Maybe. Especially if it goes on sale! Or if the author makes the jar overflow.

The “when” question can be particularly thorny for fiction writers. Your readers have so many entertainment options (movies, TV, internet, sports, etc.) that catching them with time to read can be a challenge. Word-of-mouth is critical to get readers interested in your book. You may even have to give away a free book to get them started. Then, regular contact is crucial.

WHAT ABOUT PRICE?

Yes, the price of your book does matter. In the example above, I didn’t buy one of the books because it was too expensive. However, if your penny jar is full enough, the price may not matter much. For example, I never buy hardback novels at regular price. Why should I when I can get a paperback that will be just as entertaining? But the other day I spent $22 on a hardback novel. Why? Because the author’s penny jar is overflowing. I will buy nearly anything this author writes. Finding the correct price point for your book is important, but it isn’t the most important factor in getting readers to buy your books.

So as you market your books, be sure to give away those pennies! Where else can you use pennies to create a reader for life?

Want to learn more? Visit http://www.organizedwriter.com.

Julie Hood is the author of "The Organized Writer: 30 Days to More Time, More Money and Less Frustration," an ebook with a roadmap for combining a writing career with the rest of your life. She manages the OrganizedWriter.com web site and writes Writer-Reminders, a weekly newsletter for writers. Newsletter subscribers receive a free ebook, The Sidetracked Writer's Planner. When she isn't writing, she sneaks in cleaning house around a busy household with two children, her husband, and two avid golfers.

Copyright 2004 Julie Hood, Finally Organized LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Increase Book Sales: When a Book is No Longer Just a Book for Sale

By Catherine Franz

Do you have books sitting in your garage that you haven't sold yet and looking for ways to move them? Then you will want to know about these five outrageous ideas that aren't difficult and can be just plain out fun.

Dede Hall, author of The Starving Student's Cookbook had very poor sales for her books. Then one day an outrageously light bulb moment appeared. She added an inexpensive skillet with the book and shrink-wrapped them. Then she took 150 of them to two stores that she thought wouldn't sell them. Yes, to her surprise, all 150 sold in two days. Dede stumbled on an outrageous idea and it worked out big time. She sold over 100,000 copies in a few months. Where did she sell them? Thought you would never ask. Price Clubs and K-marts.

Do you have a book that could be packaged with something else and create outrageous sales for yourself? It's Christmas time and no it isn't too late. But before you dart off to come up with an outrageous idea for your book, continue reading so that you can get all the facts.

Another cookbook was repackaged with a scarlet ribbon and some imported cinnamon sticks and then sold at department stores in the housewares and gift sections. The book couldn't sell at $5.95 but flew off the shelves at $10 and went into second printing in 30 days.

Would your book sell well in a three-ring shrink-wrapped binder? Why not create and audio or CD version of the material. Just read directly from the material. You do not have to be fancy. Add "read by the author" language to the outside in big letters. Or maybe "F-R__E-E Bonus, Limited Time Offer, Free Audio read by the author" in big letters.

Another key is to look for an item that makes the package larger than the book. This requires a larger space and then bigger visibility.

What about a book on money? Add a mug labeled, "Millionaire" and watch it fly off the shelf. Do not forget the second part of the formula -- the place you are going to sell it. When you add the mug, it is now considered a gift item. This opens the doors to more stores and places.

Try all the independent gift shops, especially at the airport. They are always looking for these type of unique combinations.

Have an exercise book? Add a "walking meter" with it. The one that measures how many miles you are walking. Have no clue what they call those things but I have bought three over the past few years. Again, now it is a gift item. How about contacting a sports equipment vendor and selling them copies of your book that would be a freebie for a limited period with a purchase.

Get the store to add a sign, "limited quality" and watch them go even faster. What is great about this angle is that gift stores, department stores and similar stores are much more open to add things to their shelf. They will work with you much better than a bookstore.

Now that you brain is going a mile a minute with ideas, best wishes for selling many more books!

Catherine Franz is a Marketing & Writing Coach, niches, product development, Internet marketing, nonfiction writing and training. Additional Articles: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Five Things You MUST Do In Order To Sell Your Books

By Sheri McConnell

Want to sell more books? Learn from an expert the five things you must do in order to achieve your goals.

1. You Must Find YOUR Market

Hopefully before you even wrote your book, you sat down and mapped out who your potential customers were. If you didn't, don't waste any more of your time selling books to people who don't want them. Knowing your audience before you write your book creates focus. Figure out who is most likely to read your book. If cat lovers are your market, don't bother wasting your time with all animal lovers. Spend your marketing efforts and budget on cat lovers. Can't find the cat lovers? See below...

2. You Must Create a Community

If you are having a hard time finding your market, find them by creating a community for them. The Internet allows you to create a place where all cat lovers can talk to each other, have live chats with you (the author) and ask their questions, get mailings about your events, find other resources for cat lovers, post their cat's picture in your forum... you can see that there is no end to what you can do with the Internet. You can use click-and-point services to create your own website like I did for the NAWW (National Association of Women Writers) or you can hire someone to do this for you. We feature writers every week in our newsletter who have built wonderfully large communities from scratch in a very short time (less than a year) using the Internet. Check out NAWW Member, Dotsie Bregel's site at http://www.boomerwomenspeak.com.

3. You Must Create a Database

To sell books, you must have a mechanism in place to store all your potential customers' contact information. Intimidated by the thought of creating a database? Please don't be, just go to your nearest office store and you can purchase a database program for less than $50. Some website providers even have this function built straight into their website. Keeping track of your customers' basic information is crucial to the success of your long and short-term sales. At the very least, you must capture (enter) their name, address, and e-mail. You will use this database to quickly and efficiently communicate with your customers through future e-mailings and direct mailings. Add customers to your database by networking (and speaking!) at conferences by simply saying, "I have this free (report, booklet, etc.--something you created that is what every cat lover would want to read) and I would love to send it to you with my free weekly newsletter." Just grab their card and put a little check by their e-mail so that you know you got their permission. Another faster and easier way to build your database is by doing it online. Have a sign-up box right on your website for new potential customers. Doesn't matter how you do it, just do it!

4. You Must Have a Call to Action

Busy people need a reason to act now. Whatever your form of communication is with your customer, it must have a call to action somewhere in it if you want them to stop what they are doing and make your book a priority. Include wording that says 'act now' because if you don't you will miss this opportunity. The best calls to action include date expirations, liquidation sales, early-bird sales, etc. Simple technique, very powerful!

5. You Must Have Fun

You must have fun creating your community, networking with future customers, and thinking of creative/seasonal calls to action. When you have fun doing what you love, people want to do business with you. Hopefully the book that you wrote came from your passion about the subject. Now that you are selling your book, you get to live the "sharing of your passion" on a daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis. It is up to you--the more you live it, the more books you will sell!

Sheri McConnell is the President of the National Association of Women Writers (http://www.NAWW.org). She helps women writers and entrepreneurs discover, create, and profit from their intellectual knowledge! Free reports for writers available with subscription to NAWW Weekly. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband Seth and their four children. Contact her at naww@onebox.com or her toll free number at 866-821-5829.

How to Quickly Find and Sell Old, Valuable Books and Cookbooks

By Helen Hecker

Old books can make for a fun home-based business while giving you a profitable side business that will make you money and cultural experiences too. You may already have a nice collection of old, rare, vintage or antique books or cookbooks.

Cookbooks are the third most popular category among new books and a good one to start with. People often raid their parents' and grandparents' collections to find good used cookbooks.

To find and buy old books, first check your local library for its "Friends of the Library" book sales. They have annual sales of donated books and many antique dealers line up for these. Of course it helps to know your prices, so to begin with you might stick to a particular category, for example cookbooks. You can usually get books for 25 cents to a dollar and on the last day they have a bag sale.

Sometimes you can get books free at the end of the sale. But the best time to go is the night before the sale when they let the members of the "Friends" buy cheap, in advance of the sale. Membership usually runs about $10 a year and you can easily make your money back with your first sale. It's a good cause besides.

You want to look for books that you've done your research on, of course, but also look for any book from the pre 1900s in fair condition. They will usually get you at least ten times what you paid for it.

Also look at flea markets, garage sales, estate sales and auctions. I found a signed copy of a rare, signed Julia Child cookbook with dust jacket intact in fine condition at an estate sale. It was also signed by her husband Paul Child, the illustrator. The book was appraised at $500.

The house was in an area of little houses with older folks. Don't judge a book by its cover or a house by its appearance I guess is the lesson here! You never know what you'll find. I also found some other great cookbooks and books there.

To research the value I would avoid the usual rare book price guides. Many of these are outdated. The actual price is today's price.

To find out what the books should sell for, go to your favorite search engine and type in the title. You should be able to find sites that are selling the same title and give you a broad range to choose from. Finding 'sold' book prices are much better.

One you've established a price, the fastest way to sell these books is to sell them online at your own website or get a free one from any of the sites who are offering this service.

I'd definitely add photos of the books. They should be of high quality. Take close up shots of the title page and a sample recipe page. Take shots from different angles. Pick about six of your best shots.

If you're in hurry, price them lower than the other books. If you aren't in a hurry price them at the high end of the range. Then when the others are sold your price will be a bargain. Antique books will generally rise in price as they become rare.

Of course there are many other ways to sell your old books. eBay is another of course. And there are lots of ways to sell them offline too. Be open to different venues.

Finding and selling old, rare, vintage or antique books or cookbooks is great fun, with very little upfront costs. With these tips and this information, it should help you know how to start buying and selling used books and cookbooks, have a nice side home-based business, a cultural experience, and lots of fun too.

For more information on finding and selling old books or cookbooks go to www.SellCookbooks.com a website specializing in buying, selling, publishing and collecting cookbooks with tips, advice, resources including information on selling old, rare, vintage and antique cookbooks

ESL Book Review- Zero Prep- Ready-to-Go Activities for the Language Classroom

By Jane Wangersky

Okay, it's a cliché to say a book changed your life, but this book changed mine. It cut my prep time down to minutes. Using the activities in this book, I learned how to teach for two hours using only half a page of notes.

The authors don’t tell language teachers not to plan. They tell them not to over-prepare: making up dictations and comprehension questions, previewing vocabulary in readings. Over-preparation can make teachers too controlling, too busy, and just too tired to function well in class.

Read this book and you won’t fall into that trap again. Instead, learn to turn your announcements into a listening activity. Get a class of reluctant beginners talking with Tell It Like It Isn't. Use any set of directions to create an Acting-Out Dictacomp -- an activity that combines TPR with writing and also promotes cooperation. Do the unimaginable and make sentence structure a source of entertainment with Sentence Contraction and Expansion. I’ve done all this, and so can you.

The book is divided into chapters on icebreakers, listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, and structure (grammar). Each chapter gives directions for six to 22 low-prep activities. Indexes group the activities by routines (brainstorm, chain, cloze, etc.) and uses (class cohesion, preview, review, settling down). Although most activities are for intermediate to advanced students, there are about 30 suitable for beginners, and many others can be adapted for them. (The authors have also published a book for beginning classes.)

So quit staying up late the night before class to make up worksheets and circle vocabulary words. As the back cover copy says, "When teachers teach less, students learn more!"

Zero Prep: Ready-to-Go Activities for the Language Classroom, by Laurel Pollard and Natalie Hess, Alta Book Center Publishers, 1997. ISBN: 1-882483-64-2

Jane Wangersky is editor of the ESL Free Press, a daily online news source for ESL learners and teachers. She is the author of the e-book Each Week for A Year: Readings for ESL Students on Everyday Life, available in Canadian and U.S. editions from Lulu.com. You can download her free e-booklet, Taking Your English to the Street: Six Common Problems and What to Do About Them, at the ESL Dollar Store.

The Invisible Path to Success - A Book Review

By H. Tim Sevets

Many books have been written around the concept of asking the universe for what you want and then allowing that desire to manifest itself. In The Invisible Path to Success, Robert Scheinfeld takes that idea and gives it some interesting twists that should appeal to many seekers.

Rather than view the universe as some huge magic black box that will answer our wishes if we only ask correctly, Scheinfeld asks us to consider it as an extraordinarily complex web in which every part is connected to every other part. For purposes of manifestation, the key aspect of this is our interconnectedness with all other human beings. All of us, he says, are constantly communicating with one another at an invisible, subconscious level.

So here we are, all of us, sending signals from mind to mind to mind, whether we're aware of it or not. Therein lies the key to fulfilling our fondest desires. He recommends taking advantage of that web of minds by composing "classified ads" asking for exactly what we want, and then "inserting" those ads into the network to be passed along until they reach just the person or persons who can answer it.

Scheinfeld offers a number of techniques for creating and sending those little wish-ads. For example, he describes writing out the ads on paper and placing the paper in a "wizard box" as one such technique. (There are other ways to work this ad idea, but this is one of his favorites.)

Another concept important to The Invisible Path to Success is that each of us has an "inner director" who is ready, willing and able to carry out our instructions for getting in touch with the people and resources we need to achieve our desires. If we give clear, unambiguous instructions to this director from the outset, he/she will take it from there. In other words, we need not fret or worry about whether or not things will work out; our director will make sure that they do.

There are some good ideas here for anyone embarked on the path of conscious creation. As Scheinfeld assures us, with this book you can finally relax and "[t]rust that you'll get what you asked for – or something even better."

The Invisible Path to Success is published by Hampton Roads Publishing Co., Inc., of Charlottesville, Virginia; ISBN # 1-5714-083-X.

H. Tim Sevets is books editor for the Solid Gold Info Writers Consortium, where he specializes in objective reviews of the top money-making reports available over the Web. Recently, he reviewed an e-book that claims to show how to make money by tearing up old books and magazines and selling them on eBay. Read his opinion at http://www.solid-gold.info/tear-up-old-books-sell-ebay.html.