December 2018
Season’s Greetings! Getting together to celebrate with friends and family, enjoying good food and drink, listening to holiday music, giving presents and getting presents – these are just some of the things that make this such a wonderful time of the year. Speaking of giving, for the members of the loyal SkillBites community, I have a special holiday gift that you can read about below. I wish you and your family a joyous holiday season and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
2019 is nearly here. What are you going to do differently next year so that you achieve more than you were able to achieve this year? Doing the same things you did this year is likely to cause you to go backwards.
One approach is to decide where you want to be at the end of 2019, and then plan how you will get there. Do this for your business, health, family and any other area that is important to you. Tell others about your plan so they can monitor your progress and keep you accountable; otherwise, it is too easy to skip doing things that you know you ought to do but aren’t critical in the short term.
If you are seeking to ignite your business in 2019, a great way to do this is by writing a book and becoming a published author. You’ll gain instant credibility and visibility, enabling you to attract more prospects and get paid speaking engagements and media exposure. If you know that you want to write a book but are having trouble with it, I can help you with that. I have developed a workshop on getting your book done. This makes a great, unique gift for a loved one as well. For more information, contact me at judy@skillbites.net as soon as possible.
- New Books
SkillBites will soon be publishing Todd Cipperman’s book, The Compliance Advantage: 10 Must-Know Trends to Protect Your Investment Firm. The Securities and Exchange Commission imposed nearly $4 Billion in disgorgement and penalties against investment firms in fiscal 2018 and continues to investigate and bring cases at a record pace. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has doubled down on Mary Jo White’s commitment to examinations and personal accountability. How can a leader of an investment firm protect the franchise against this unprecedented scrutiny? Todd Cipperman, a recognized authority on investment compliance and regulatory issues, cuts through all the enforcement and political noise to describe the most significant compliance trends and offer insight on how to survive them. Mr. Cipperman identifies 10 critical trends that investment management executives and compliance professionals must know to protect their franchises and offers practical suggestions about how to respond to the regulatory environment.
SkillBites will also soon be publishing Eric Walton’s revised edition of Downline Leadership: Blueprint for Network Marketing Leaders. The book is the ultimate guide to leadership in the network marketing world. It consists of 10 modules carefully crafted to strengthen one’s network marketing leadership, including how to develop relationships and gain influence with one’s team, to build a thriving business. In the end, we all desire to touch more lives and build a thriving business—and we want to help others do the same! In this book, you will learn how to use your leadership to achieve those goals and others.
2. The SkillBites Show
Each month, we bring you an expert to help you get your book done, leverage your book, grow your business or improve your life. The shows are recorded, so if you can’t listen to one live, you can listen to the recording by clicking here.
Our next SkillBites Show will be held on Wednesday, December 19, at 1 pm ET. Our guest will be Maura Sweeney, author, international speaker, podcaster and frequent media guest. Maura will provide helpful resources, innovative tips and anecdotal stories for authors wishing to raise their public profile and extend their reach and credibility through the media.
To listen to the live presentation, you can call in at (641) 715-3660, Access Code: 467398.
Last month we heard from Kim McDonnel, a Holistic Health Coach and Spiritual Counselor and author of You Change, They Change: How to take control of your life by losing control over others. Kim talked about her journey to health through the system that she teaches in her book as well as how she accomplished the creation of her audiobook. If you missed this presentation, you can listen to it by clicking here, or you can read some of the tips from this show on the SkillBites blog at http://resources.skillbites.net/blog/.
Do you have expertise that you believe would benefit the SkillBites community of entrepreneurs and authors? If you would like to be the guest on the monthly SkillBites Show, contact me at judy@skillbites.net or 610-783-4519.
3. Tip of the Month: Collaborative Book Writing and Selling
Several authors have come to SkillBites disappointed with the lack of results from having participated in a collaborative book. Typically, collaborative books involve paying money to write a chapter in a book with several other people, often competitors, and one “big name” author so each chapter author can claim to have written a book with the big name author, such as Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. The more well known the big name author is, the higher the fee to participate. By and large, from what I have been told, the books do not sell well, the chapter authors do not gain the credibility that they were seeking, and they are left with hundreds of copies of the book.
There are times, however, when a collaborative book can work out well. For example, consider a book about the various legal issues that new business owners should be aware of. Each chapter could be written by a different attorney specialist – business formation, employment law, intellectual property, contract law, etc. The authors are not competing against each other. Each can shine in his or her specialty area. More importantly, if they all promote the book, then the book’s sales will be much greater than they would be if only one author were promoting the book.
This can be a pretty powerful approach; for the organizer, however, it can also be a lot of work. Some of the issues the organizer would need to address include:
- Identifying the topics in the book and who will write which chapters,
- Setting deadlines on the writing and following up with the participants,
- Determining what to charge each author,
- Finding an editor, layout designer, cover designer etc., and
- Making it easy for each author to promote the book, such as by creating social media messages, email messages and the like.
4. Entrepreneurial Survey
A colleague of mine is doing a survey in connection with her doctoral thesis on the entrepreneurial behaviors of growth and scale-up business owners, and would appreciate it if anyone with 4 or more employees would take the time to complete a 10-minute survey for her. The link to the survey is https://fox.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cYELR5ief8HOiax Thanks in advance for your help.
5. Holiday Gift
In the holiday spirit, SkillBites is offering a $200 coupon that can be used for a one hour book strategy session, designed to help the author who is struggling with writing a book or with marketing a book, or toward the registration fee for the Book It! of Publish It! courses or toward any SkillBites service over $1000. To obtain your coupon, email me at judy@skillbites.net or call 610-783-4519. The coupon must be used by December 31, 2018.
6. Earn Commissions For Referrals
Do you know anyone who has been wanting to write a book but has been stalling? Let them know that SkillBites offers a variety of services to make book writing and publishing easy, quick and convenient. When you sign up to be a SkillBites affiliate, you can get a commission for each person who signs up to purchase SkillBites services through your unique referral link. To obtain more information and to sign up for our referral program, click here.
Thanks for supporting SkillBites. If there is anything you think we ought to be doing better or anything we should be doing that we’re not, please let us know. We value your input.
Cordially,
