What is Ambition

So many people lack ambition, which is a strong desire to do or achieve something that requires hard work and determination.

A lack of ambition is why so many people never see the types of results that they want in life. We all have the power to change that.

In this short video, learn the one thing you have to do if you want to see change in your life.

 Until next time,

To get more advice, encouragement and support, click here

Looking For A Way To Brand Yourself? Hire A Publishing Professional.

I just posted this video on a cool way to gain exposure, increase your business and get more sales. Bet you never considered how a simple book could propel you to instant expert status. Check out the video below, and if you are not a published author already and you are in any profession, you and I truly need to talk. You can email me directly at coachsand@gmail.com to get started today.

Here's that video:



Until next time,

Two Sites For Your Book Promotion

Book Promotion is hard enough. So, I'm about to help ease some of your burdens. Instead of only offering one site for book promo, I am going to offer two. The Self-Published Life and Book Promo will team up to provide two sources of book promotion for authors needing to add to oomph to their marketing mojo.

We are hard at work trying to come up with new and exciting ways to help authors sell more books. I mean, let's be honest, not many people write books not caring how many copies they sell.

Some of us actually write and publish books with the hopes of making enough money to quit our day jobs and write full time.

The more times people see and hear your name, the more eyes that will end up seeing your book.

So, I am writing this post to ask for your input.

What do you as an author struggle most with when it comes to your book promotion?
What do you think should be added to book promo packages?

Book promo dot net will be focusing more on teaching authors how to better promote their books, as well as offering various services to help them to get their name out there.

The Self Published Life will host the featured author stories.

More details are coming soon.

Like for instance, I don't know if you take advantage of the promotional activities you can do with amazon to propel your book to bestseller status.

I will be doing an exclusive webinar in a few days to cue you in on some ways you can gain maximum exposure for your ebooks.

Ebook promotion is especially difficult, and you can't just rely on posting about your book in groups on Facebook. There is a great big world out there online, and I am going to help you uncover it.

But, this exclusive webinar is reserved for members of my mailing list.

Have you joined yet?

If not, click here, and when you join me, you will get a special gift.

Talk to you soon,

Book Promo Dot Net Is Now Home

Hey everyone,

Sandra here. Just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that The Self-Published Life has moved to a new home on the web: bookpromo.net. All of the featured stories have also been moved over there, so go and check it out. Be sure to sign up for The Hot List so that you can get exclusive content just for subscribers.

Talk to you soon,

Meet Crow In The Hollow Author, Brian W. Parker

February's Featured Author is Brian W. Parker, author of 'Crow in the Hollow.'

Bio: Brian W. Parker has been drawing and coming up with stories since he could walk. He’d stop, if his overactive imagination would give him a rest. (Wait, that’s not true at all.) He’s the creator of the graphic novel series YOU CAN RELY ON PLATYPI, and Crow in the Hollow is his first novel.

He currently lives in Gresham, OR, with his lovely (and very patient) wife, Josie , a self-impressed orange cat named Peanut, and one easily excitable Yorkie named Shaft.

'Crow In The Hollow' Excerpt:

In the blue cold of winter, the people of Orin’s Hollow sat in the town square, talking excitedly amongst themselves–their faces lit by the flickering orange light from the tall bonfires.

They sat and waited to see magic with their own eyes.

The man they waited for only came once every five years, and always in mid-winter during the Sundering celebration. Now, as they sat together, men, women, and children all breathless with anticipation, the Storyteller walked quietly across the boarders of the town. He appeared, as always, on the old bridge that crossed the Shadow River just as the last light of day left the frost-covered branches. A wind began to stir, whipping the little flames of the gas lamps in the square into a tizzy, and lifting clouds of ice crystals free of the trees. It cast them about in an ephemeral dance that swirled and twisted through the air, quickly taking the form of a man. He stepped into the Waking World like a shimmering winter breath made flesh and bone. 

How to contact the author:

believeinwonder.weebly.com 

Purchase your copy of 'Crow In The Hollow"  from Amazon:

SEO For Authors: Can Your Readers Find You?

 I will just have to come right out and say it; and you may hate me later. But the truth is very evident: the vast majority of authors have no clue about SEO. Sadly, this is a huge reason as to why your book sales are suffering tremendously.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What it means is pretty much, having your product set up to show up when people are online looking for things. For instance, when you type in 'red shoes' on Google or one of the other search engines. Well, if you have a site that sells red shoes, and your site is set up properly, your site will be the one that people find.

One of the best methods for SEO is the have a blog. People are completely missing the boat when it comes to blogging. Blogging for your business, no matter what the type, can add hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions to your bottom line.

Of course, all of this stuff can get complicated.

You are not an internet marketer, right.
You're just the lady who sells red shoes, right.

WRONG!

You have to educate yourself on how things work online because online is the way of the future.

You can be the red shoe lady dot com. And you can write blog posts on how to find the perfect red shoe, what clothes work best with red shoes, how to find red shoes for any occasion...you pretty much catch my drift, right. I hope so.

You want to get as many Google searching eyes as you can to find your red shoe site. And you help them to do so with SEO.

I hope I haven't scared you.

But it is something that definitely has to be learned.

Until next time,

Yahoo Email Accounts Hacked; Not Certain How Many

Yahoo reported that the email accounts of an estimated 273 million users may have fallen victim to a hacker. If you have a Yahoo email account, you are being advised to change your password immediately. It is unclear of just how many of the users have been directly affected by this attack, but it is believed that the hacker was able to gain access to the accounts via a third-party database compromise.

Scenarios such as this are becoming all too familiar in the world we live in today. With advances on technology, becoming the victim of a hacker is all too close for comfort.

Target found itself in the middle of a security breach back in December, when the credit card information of an estimated 110 million people was loosed into the hands of a hacker. Adobe even found itself the victim of a security breach in which the information for millions of users was compromised.

Neiman Marcus was slowly hacked over a three month period.


It is a pretty scary thought. But in the technology driven world we live in, these types of things are to be expected.

So, how do you protect yourself from becoming the victim of a hacker? How do you keep your information from falling into the wrong hands? I found a very informational article that you may just want to check out over at Wired.com's Innovation Insights.

In the mean time, be careful out there my friends.

Until next time,

How To Control Your Finances As A Freelancer

If you are self-employed as a freelancer and you offer one to one services to clients, more than likely you also have to play the role of being a bookkeeper. And that isn't always an easy feat.
Our money is not certain and overspending for the month could mean the difference between paying a bill or buying food for the month.
It is important to get your finances under control. And I think I may have found the perfect solution.
 I joined a program called Financial Fitness Club. Doing so has helped me to finally get my finances in perspective so that I can do more in my business.
If you are a freelancer or any form of an entrepreneur, you probably base your income on how many clients you have booked for the month. Assuming all the clients pay their invoices on time, you can pretty much bank on the amount you will have to spend. But, if you don't have a budget in place to help you get a grip on that spending, you will soon find yourself broke and living from client to client. If you're like me, you can't guarantee when the next client is coming or where they are coming from.

That's one of the reasons why this particular program is so important.

The Financial Fitness Club is a program that teaches people how to get their finances under control, as well as how to make some extra money online.

They have a program called 'Every Dollar Counts', where you have to account for every single dollar that you spend each day. I was able to get a mental picture of where my money was going and how much of it. I saw that as soon as I made money a big chunk of it was already spent, and what wasn't already spent would soon be on a pair of cute shoes or a handbag. There was no real budget in place. I spent whatever I wanted without regard.

The Financial Fitness Club was started in July of 2013 by two friends in Oklahoma and since then, the program has helped transform the lives and finances of thousands of people across the globe.

To join the club, you have to make a one time investment of $50 and after that, you get access to the 'Every Dollar Counts' program and some other programs and services the company offers. And if you share the program with others, you are paid a referral fee of $5-$10 for each person that you refer. What a way to sweeten the deal.

It's in the best interest of everyone to get a grip on their finances so you can know how much you're spending and to start saving for a rainy day.

Until next time,

P.S. Interested in learning more about The Financial Fitness Club? Click here.

The Fairy Daughter Teaches Kids About Lying

Children don't always understand the dangers of lying. They also don't understand how 'telling stories' can hurt people.

"The Fairy Daughter" by Aaliyah Gates tackles the issue of lying.

Isis is a young fairy who likes to get her way, and when she can't she lies on other kids to get them into trouble.
When the Great Fairy Locket turns up missing, the entire land of Icedome is forced to stay in their homes until the locket is found.
Isis knows where the locket is, but doesn't tell because she doesn't want to get into trouble. So she does what she knows best--she lies.

'The Fairy Daughter' is written for school-aged children with the hopes of encouraging them to always tell the truth.

The book is available on Amazon.

Until next time,

The Self-Published Life: Have A Young Reader? Consider This Book From Six Y...

The Self-Published Life: Have A Young Reader? Consider This Book From Six Y...: Aaliyah Gates has written her first book, and has a second book set to be released in January 2014. The unique thing about this author...