September 2018
I love coming across interesting tidbits. Recently, I’ve come across a few that I thought I would share. I’m reading the biography of Ulysses S. Grant, which is an excellent book. Do you know what the S stands for? No one does, because he wasn’t given a middle name beginning with S. In fact, Ulyssess was his middle name, having been born Hiram Ulysses Grant. It turns out that when he was applying to go to West Point, the Representative of Ohio who sent in a recommendation referred to him improperly as Ulysses S. Grant. West Point would not correct the error even when Ulysses advised them of it; and the S stuck with him ever since. With his first two initials U S, he was nicknamed by his West Point classmates ‘Sam’, after Uncle Sam.
I’m also listening to a wonderful course called How to Listen To and Appreciate Great Music, part of the Great Courses Series. I learned that Mozart was not given the middle name Amadeus. Mozart’s full name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. ‘Theophilus’ means lover of God in Greek. Wolfgang enjoyed playing with language, sometimes referring to himself as Wolfgang Gottlieb, the German version of lover of God, and sometimes as Wolfgangus Amadeus Mozartus, using the Latin version. The Latin version was the one that a musical critic and historian used, and it stuck thereafter.
Tidbit number 3 comes from a gardener, who had the misfortune of being stung by a wasp while driving. He told me that if you put a little salt mixed with either water or spit on the site of the sting right away, the salt will absorb the venom and the pain will diminish greatly.
1. New Author
SkillBites will soon be publishing Rick Itzkowich’s book, The Referral Playbook: How to Increase Sales with Proven Networking Strategies. Rick takes the work out of networking. You don’t want to work harder, you just need an action plan to put your networking skills to best use. Rick lays it out in the pages of this book. Learn how to leverage the networking events you already attend and the referral tools at your disposal, to ramp up or slow down turning your referrals into business, without losing what you have already achieved. The book will be available on Amazon.
2. It is Time?
So many people tell me that they really want to get their book written but they just can’t find the time. To help those for whom getting a book done is a high priority, I have developed a workshop designed to enable you to find the time to get your book written. The workshop is 4 one-hour sessions, one week apart. The fee is $195. There are 7 places left so if this is something you want to do, please contact me at judy@skillbites.netas soon as possible. Registration will close for this workshop on September 14.
3. 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 Tuesday, September 18 at 1 pm ET. Our guest will be Isaac Navias, owner of Localfi, a company that helps local businesses flourish. Last year alone, Localfi created over $5,000,000 in additional revenue and thousands of new customers for local businesses. Isaac will be talking about the power of word-of-mouth online advertising.
To listen to the live presentation, you can call in at (641) 715-3660, Access Code: 467398.
Last month we heard from Ben Gioia, a 2X bestselling author, international speaker and President of InfluenceWithAHeart.com. Ben talked about the key elements to enable one to gain the power of influence. 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/.
SAVE THE DATE: Next month, the SkillBites Show will be on October 17 at 11 am ET. Our speaker is Karen Yankovich, the LinkedIn Queen, who will share some free LinkedIn secrets and explain about how to optimize LinkedIn to get MORE CLIENTS.
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.
4. Tip of the Month: Publishing on Amazon
Following up on last month’s newsletter, Amazon has now announced officially that it is merging CreateSpace into KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). For the time being, CreateSpace is still available for uploading files for print books. It is unknown how much longer it will be available, and whether all books published through CreateSpace will need to be transferred over to KDP.
KDP, as explained in last month’s email, started off as the eBook publishing arm of Amazon, while CreateSpace was the publishing arm for print books. KDP expanded to include print books a few years ago, but most people continued to use CreateSpace. While it makes sense for there to be only one platform for publishing both a print book and eBook on Amazon, KDP is not yet ready for handling print books.
One author advised that when she went to transfer her print book from CreateSpace to KDP, her computer screen froze and the button that KDP told her to click to complete the process never appeared. Another author advised that when he ordered 36 copies of his print book through KDP, he got a message that the book is back ordered (even though it is supposed to be print on demand). He tried again and was able to place the order; however, the books came in 7 installments! Three of the installments only had 1 book in them, and 2 of the installments had to be sent back because the books were damaged. He received 37 emails with tracking information, and has yet to receive the last 11 books. I’ve never experienced anything like that with my book orders on CreateSpace.
I also had a terrible experience with my first effort to upload the files for a print book through KDP. Each time I tried to upload the files, I got an error message that the ISBN I entered for the book was already in use. I contacted KDP’s help line, which sent me a link to an article that didn’t answer my issue. I contacted them again, and they asked me for more information, which I provided. The third time I contacted them, they admitted that they could not find any other use of the ISBN, nor could they advise me how to get the files uploaded. The only solution they proposed was that I buy another ISBN and try using that. Of course, that would mean revising the interior of the book to put the new ISBN on the copyright page and revising the cover to put the new bar code on the back cover. Fortunately, CreateSpace is still around and I was able to get the files uploaded to CreateSpace without a problem.
I have talked to other publishers and they have related similar horror stories getting print books on KDP. So for now, I recommend sticking with CreateSpace for your print books and KDP for your eBooks.
5. How are you promoting your book?
What have you been doing to promote your book? I’d love to hear what has been working for you, or if you’ve tried different marketing tactics that haven’t gotten you the results you desire. I’ve been developing a course on how to market and leverage your book, and your feedback as to what has worked or what hasn’t would be very helpful for me. You can email me at judy@skillbites.net, or call me at 610-783-4519. For those who share what they’ve been doing, I’ll return the favor with some additional ideas that they could try.
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,
