Promoting Your Books

John's Comments on Other Things

Something to Think About

“If one has not given everything, one has given nothing.” — Georges Guynemer

$10 Million in Sales

“Someone once asked me how much I made for my first Guerilla Marketing book. The answer I gave was $10 million. The book itself only paid me about $35,000 in royalties, but the speaking engagements, spinoff books, newsletters, columns, bootcamps, consulting, and wide open doors resulted in the remaining $9,965.000” Jay Conrad Levinson, author, Guerilla Marketing series

George Washington for President: 2005

I saw the following note in the LBN Alert ezine: "GEORGE BATTLE: If George Washington came back from the grave and tried to recapture the presidency, he'd wallop President Bush by nearly 20 points."

Below is my response to the article:

Well, gosh, this statement is rather ludicrous. Given no campaign, Washington would have beaten most presidents of the last century by 20 points.

But, if he had to campaign, my guess is that he'd lose. His wooden false teeth wouldn't help him in the TV age. And his speech patterns would get him kicked off American Idol in three seconds flat. I don't think he could win a campaign in this media age, no matter how noble his intentions.

Plus, once he ran, he'd run into trouble with his background. He'd be caught in too many lies about cutting down cherry trees and tossing coins across the Potomac. Then, of course, there's the problem of him owning slaves. It would all come out in a gory campaign, and he wouldn't know how to defend himself. He'd have trouble making it through the primaries, much less the general campaign.

Alas, and he might have made a good president, but will we ever find out?

John Kremer, Book Promotion Expert

John is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and editor of the Book Marketing Update newsletter.

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The Inside Secret of Book Marketing

An Interview with John Kremer

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Promoting Your Books

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An Ecological Note

Every once in a while I get to write about something other than book marketing. This is my turn to do that. Below are two recommendations I read about in National Wildlife magazine. If you do these two things, you could lessen the human contribution to global warming. Personally, I believe much of global warming is simply the workings of natural processes that turn the earth alternately hot and cold, but I also recognize that we humans can also have an impact. Why not lessen that impact if we can.

1. Replace one regular incandescent bulb with an energy-efficient compact fluorescent. I've done that with the two major bulbs I use to light my work space. Not only am I saving money by using less energy, but the light is like natural sunlight. It's great.
If every family in the U.S. replaced just one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent, we would decrease heat-trapping emissions by more than 90 billion pounds a year. That's staggering. That's equivalent to taking 7.5 million cars off the road. And you save an incredible amount of money and get better light. What a deal.

2. The second action is more expensive. Automobiles account for 1/3 of our country's output of carbon dioxide emissions, the largest source after power plants. Increasing U.S. mileage standards to 40 mpg would prevent as much carbon dioxide from being emitted as is released by the entire country of Mexico. It would also save more oil than we import from the Persian Gulf every year. Not only can we cut down heat-trapping emissions and lower the risk of global warming, but we could cut out our dependence on the Persian Gulf countries (which gets us embroiled in wars over there at a huge cost of people and money).

Plus, personally, we could save a lot of money. If your current car gets 30 mpg and you switched to a car that got 40 mpg, you'd save on gas. If you drive 10,000 miles per year, your cost for gas at $2.00 per gallon would be $666.00 per year at 30 mpg and only $500 per year at 40 mpg. The more you drive, the more you save.

But what really appeals to me is the fact that we could eliminate our dependence on Persian Gulf oil and the compromises we currently make with the despots that rule many of the countries in that region.

My next car will be a hybrid that gets good mileage. Such cars cost about the same, but save a ton on gas and toxic emissions. I can't wait until they make cars that run on water.

We all have a choice on how we impact our planet. Buy the compact fluorescent light bulbs today. That's easy and will save you money right away. Then, when you are ready to buy your next automobile, insist on one that gets good mileage. The cost of gas is only going to go up, not down. You'll save a lot of money over the lifetime of the automobile.

And, now just a note of something I really like.

I think that comedienne Margaret Cho might be one of the most honest and most powerful writers writing today. Catch her blog. There are some powerful issues—as well as mundane—that she brings up. And the way she writes, it cuts deep. Check out her blog here: Margaret Cho's Blog.

And another blog heard from:

"If you don't like what a book is saying, you can just close the damn thing. Try doing that with a man. And it's a hell of a lot easier to organize your books than to organize a man." — Patricia Storms, blogger, Booklust.