Penny Sansevieri, author of the new Cosimo title Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet, has posted a document at Scribd describing a sampling of the programs she has taught at writers’ conferences under the auspices of her firm Author Marketing Experts. Among them:

• Making the Most of Your Writers’ Conference
• Red Hot Web 2.0 Tricks to Sell More Books
• Making the Transition from Self-Publishing to a Traditional Publisher
• Super Savvy Self Promotion
• Creating a Book Hook
• Getting on Radio and TV Today

Sansevieri encourages anyone seeking advice on promoting a book in the brave new world of Web 2.0 to contact her via Author Marketing Experts.

Visit www.redhotinternetpublicity.com for more information on Red Hot Internet Publicity, the book.

BONUS! Get Penny Sansevieri’s “Ultimate Twitter Resource Guide” free at Cosimo’s Scribd page.

Red Hot Internet Publicity is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

No Comments »

John Renesch, author of Leadership in a New Era, from Cosimo partner Paraview Press, asks at the blog of Good Business International: “Lobbying in the U.S.: Why Not Call It Bribery?”:

A major factor in the meltdown of Wall Street was due to the mixing of risky speculative investing with what used to be seen as conservative local banking. This occurred in 1999 when the post-Great Depression regulations that kept these two very different cultures separate was repealed. It took only nine years for the resultant bubble to blow up. A bubble with which we infected the entire world! Here again we have the most powerful lobby in Washington calling the shots.

When powerful lobbies are allowed to have so much influence on legislators and participate in writing the rules that favor their industries or enterprises there is a major blurring of the boundaries between being influential or informative and corrupting lawmakers to tilt the playing field in their favor. We’ve all heard stories of widespread bribery in other countries. Some of you may have firsthand knowledge of this cost of doing business in countries where bribery is commonly practiced.

So what is the difference between paying an official to obtain a favor and contributing to a campaign, helping to write favorable legislation or encouraging preferential treatment under the already-skewed laws to gain similar favors?

There’s much more. Please read the whole essay at Good Business International.

Leadership in a New Era is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

No Comments »

Barbara Biziou, author of the Cosimo title The Joy of Ritual: Spiritual Recipies to Celebrate Milestones, Ease Transitions, and Make Every Day Sacred, has made available a series of seven videos at her Web site, Joy of Ritual, explaining the importance of ritual and encouraging us to create our own rituals. The series includes the videos:

• The Value of Ritual
• Creating Meaningful Holiday Rituals
• Rituals to Bring Generations Together
• A Ritual for Morning
• Ritual for Evening
• Rituals for Hard Times
• Creating Personal Rituals

Please visit Biziou’s site to learn more.

For even more guidance in the power of ritual, try The Joy of Ritual:

Ritual is a universal language that gives substance and meaning to our lives. People are eager to honor the significant moments in their lives and Barbara Biziou, one of America’s foremost ritual experts, teaches us how to restore ritual to its rightful place as food for the soul through practical, easy-to-use ritual recipes that are inspiring and fun.

Rituals can enhance daily routines, enrich milestones, and guide us through difficult transitions. Whether you’re releasing fear, bringing deeper meaning to a family or community gathering, or celebrating an important event, THE JOY OF RITUAL is like a wise best friend that reconnects us to our hearts and souls.

The Joy of Ritual is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

No Comments »

Wayne Hurlbert at Blog Business World has posted a glowing review of the new Cosimo title Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet, by Penny Sansevieri. From Hurlbert’s review:

For me, the power of the book is the author’s emphasis on the importance of employing the connective and relationship building nature of the internet. With the incredible volume pf books being published every day, an author must create visibility or be lost in the ever deeper sea of published works. Penny Sansevieri provides the vital map, for navigating and discovering the many treasures available, to an author utilizing the internet effectively. The author knows instinctively that the road to true internet success is through building trust through relationship building. The many internet tools for engaging others, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, are ever growing in number and effectiveness. The author teaches their proper use. for building deep personal connections with others.

There’s much more — read the full review at Blog Business World.

Visit www.redhotinternetpublicity.com for more information on the book.

BONUS! Get Penny Sansevieri’s “Ultimate Twitter Resource Guide” free at Cosimo’s Scribd page.

Red Hot Internet Publicity is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

No Comments »

David Brooks went “In Search of Dignity” at The New York Times this week, and couldn’t find much:

First, there was Mark Sanford’s press conference. Here was a guy utterly lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling self-exposure even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael Jackson and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently untouched by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of adulthood. Then there was Sarah Palin’s press conference. Here was a woman who aspires to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.

In each of these events, one sees people who simply have no social norms to guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions.

Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system.

To whom did Brooks turn when Mark Sanford, Michael Jackson, and Sarah Palin disappointed him? The first American president, George Washington:

Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation’s Constitution — that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.

as exemplified by George Washington’s Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior, available in a beautiful new edition from Cosimo.

Before he was an American Founding Father and the new nation’s first president, George Washington (1732–1799) was an excruciatingly correct child with a passion for propriety. At the age of 14, he copied out 110 rules for elegant deportment from a work created by Jesuits in the 16th century as a guide for young gentleman of quality, and through these rules, which he took greatly to heart, we can see the beginnings of the man Washington would become taking shape.

Though many of the rules deal with matters of etiquette — such as whom should rise for whom in mixed company — many others concern far deeper matters that touch on personal philosophies about judgment, honor, success, and conscience. As a peek into the manners of a bygone age, this is an intriguing work. As a peek into a great man in his formative years, this is an extraordinary one.

George Washington’s Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

No Comments »

Cosimo Books is pleased to announce the publication of Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet. Leading Internet publicist Penny Sansevieri releases this revised edition with writing both intelligent and energetic: its main focus is on getting your work out on the web efficiently and effectively.

The Internet has changed the landscape of book publishing forever. That’s why four of the largest New York book publishers hire Sansevieri to mentor their own Internet publicity department employees. It’s also why these major publishers routinely recommend Sansevieri to their authors as an Internet publicist. Sansevieri made one of her own books an Amazon.com best seller for three months running. She’s the inventor of the Virtual Book Tour and a leading expert on using the Internet to promote books of all kinds. She firmly believes that self-published books and niche titles can benefit even more from the Internet than celebrity and mass-market books.

Learn:

• 12 blockbuster techniques to use blogs for book publicity
• the best way to design, write and promote a Web site to sell your book
• the 6 “need-to-know” rules of publicity for the Internet age
• proven “live promotion” techniques you can use to reach a worldwide audience — from the comfort of your own home!
• 13 Web sites where you can post your press release for free
• the documented secret of author who sell 3 times as many books as anyone else
• …and much, much more!

With an exceptional foreword by publishing veteran Laurence J. Kirshbaum, founder of LJK Literary Management, this essential manual to navigating the wilderness of online publicity is the ideal guide for learning the fine points of book marketing on the Web.

Visit www.redhotinternetpublicity.com for more information.

BONUS! Get Penny Sansevieri’s “Ultimate Twitter Resource Guide” free at Cosimo’s Scribd page.

Red Hot Internet Publicity is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

No Comments »