While the financial health of CIPA has made a significant improvement this year, we can’t exist on the member dues alone. In order to keep CIPA financially viable, we need sponsors.

To meet our sponsorship goals for the month of May, we are asking for help from our members to pitch in and help with a sponsorship drive. I’m confident that if we each reach out to a few companies, we’ll meet our goals by month end. And to make the game exciting, I’m happy to share that there will be cold hard cash available to the individuals who step up and secure new sponsorships for CIPA.

You will earn 10% for every dollar raised up to $5,000. And if the result of your efforts exceeds $5,000, you’ll earn 20% for every dollar raised! How cool is that? The reason is simple: fundraising often comes down to who you know. There are no doubt companies and individuals you know better than anyone else. When the request comes from someone they know, the odds of securing sponsorship go up significantly.

Who could benefit from sponsoring CIPA? Any organization that has anything to do with literacy, writing, publishing, fulfillment, printing, graphic design, web design, marketing, or any other product or service we as authors and publishers utilize. Think of the partners you’ve used in the past.

The process of registering to participate in our fundraising drive is simple. You need to first sign up at http://www.cipacatalog.com/become-a-cipa-agent/ and we’ll send you a short one page contract and all the details you need to get started – including what to say in an email, on the phone, details of each sponsorship level, and a special webpage for sponsors to sign up or learn more about becoming a CIPA sponsor. We also have a list of companies that we feel could benefit from becoming CIPA sponsors that we can provide to you.

Sponsorships begin at just $100, and if you are a service provider who could benefit from greater visibility to our members, I’d encourage you to check out becoming a CIPA sponsor yourself.

Note: Sponsors who sign on before May 15 will have the additional benefit of special recognition at the CIPA EVVY Awards dinner on May 18 – in addition to the perks that extend into the 2013-2014 CIPA Year.

I hope you’ll consider joining us in this campaign – the future of CIPA heavily depends on it! And I’m glad the board has approved compensation for those willing to step up to the plate. We are also looking for a Sponsorship Chair – someone to join the CIPA Board who will pick up the ball for the coming year and work with agents who sign on to solicit funding on behalf of CIPA.

CIPA EVVY Awards Banquet is May 18!

Ward Lucas, Former 9News Anchor

A quick reminder about the upcoming CIPA EVVY Awards Banquet. This year, it will be hosted by Ward Lucas, a name you might recognize as he’s an Emmy Award-winning journalist and longtime news anchor on NBC’s 9 News. But did you know that Ward is also a published author? I’m sure he’ll have plenty of entertaining stories to share as he announces this year’s award winners. As I mentioned last month, I strongly encourage you to support your fellow authors and publishers whenever you can. Also – if you buy your banquet tickets by May 10, you can come to the May 11 CIPA Meeting on Radio Interviews for FREE!

P.S. May 18 may also be your last chance to see yours truly, as our house in Fort Collins is on the market and we are expecting to move back to the central coast of California (where I attended college) this summer. If I don’t see you, know that I will miss all of you very much and am forever grateful for the opportunity to serve as your president.

Get out and enjoy the spring weather (while you still can!),

Brian Schwartz
CIPA President 2012-2013

Your most valuable resource is your time. Time is something that can never be restrained or saved up. Once it’s spent it’s gone forever. And every moment, like it or not, we lose it. Like an unstoppable army, time marches on. Where we choose to spend our time is the only aspect within our control. I love time because it’s the great equalizer. In the end, we all eventually run out of it.

We may strive to be more efficient, and doing so allows us to take on more. But when you stop to look where you are, many of us find that we’ve been heads down trucking down a path unintentionally.

The challenge of life (and the fun) is to pick the path that leads to fulfillment of our heart’s desire. When you are on the right path, you know it. Life is good, and you feel in control of your destiny and in your happy place. But I’m sure there are times you aren’t so sure, and you question if the path you are on is the right one.

Here’s my advice: Trust that the path you are on is the right path. Period. No matter where you are, know that you made the best decision you possibly could with the information you had at the time you made it. Everything is perfectly as it should be for you in this moment. Every day is a learning experience. Every day we make progress. Even when you are frustrated with your results, believe me when I tell you from my heart that we are all exactly where we should be.

This leads to a point I want to make about experience vs. education.

I have achieved far more in my life as a result of experience than I have from education. We do need some education to give us the confidence to take action and thus gain experience. The amount of education we need to take before action varies for each of us. I’ve discovered that those with higher self confidence will take action with less education. Less self-confident people need more education before they take action and gain that valuable experience that makes all the difference.

Take Doug Odell – founder of Odell’s Brewing in Fort Collins. He is probably one of the most self-confident individuals I’ve ever met. He is the godfather of the microbrewery movement in Fort Collins because he was the first to take action. When I voluntarily dropped out of corporate welfare in 2008, there was far more I had to unlearn than there was to learn. As a first time author, I needed experience. I had already learned everything I needed to know – what I needed was more experience. More experience, greater self-confidence, and better intuition.

With experience, comes intuition. The more experience we get in an area, the more our intuition will guide us down the right path. I firmly believe that you can never go wrong when you follow your intuition (or your gut), as long as that intuition is rooted in real experience (and not blind faith!).

But sometimes, the information gathered will be so compelling, that our quantitative mind takes command and our actions follow. Then, for a split second, somewhere along the way our gut tells us otherwise. And we’ve all made those decisions we’ve kicked ourselves for later. At the time, they made perfect sense. The logic added up. But we also knew in our gut, something wasn’t quite right.

Trust your intuition. I firmly believe that one of the unspoken and unteachable keys to success in life is having a strong intuitive muscle, and the faith to follow it.

So I want to invite you to utilize your membership with CIPA to build your intuition muscle.

Engaging with your peers, take action, and gain the essential experience. The more you get involved, the more you become. You can accelerate your experience through your participation in CIPA. The more we support each other, the more successful we all become. On May 18^th, I would like to invite you to the 19^th Annual CIPA EVVY Awards and support your peers. Tickets are just $40 which also includes dinner!

Our monthly meetings provide a unique opportunity to hear first-hand best practices rooted in reality, new perspectives based on others’ experiences, and actionable steps you can take to build your own experience and in turn your intuition.

Trust your intuition. Trust your gut. Trust in the perfection of the moment.

See you on April 20, and I hope again on May 18 at the annual CIPA EVVY Awards Banquet.

All the best to your self-published success!

Brian Schwartz
CIPA President 2012-2013

The CIPA code for member pricing is: CIPA$

When this code is entered on the payment page, and APPLY is clicked, the rate will adjust to $99 for one person, or $149 for two.

Click here to find out more! 
$99 for one person; bring a friend for just $50 more.

Date: Friday, March 22, 2013
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Registration & Breakfast will begin at 8:00 a.m.
Where: PPA Center

Hot lunch buffet and handouts provided

Modern technologies… Digital Media… Social Media and Social Sharing…

Do you embrace them, or run from them? Are you engaging with your target market via social media and social sharing? Or are you still trying to market your business the same way you did twenty years ago?

Segments will include:

• Blogging & Content Creation Made Easy for Speakers
• Leveraging Google+ and Google Hangouts to Make $$
• Twitter vs. Facebook Smack Down: Compare and Contrast Twitter and Facebook for Business ROI
• Essential Speaker Tech Tools (to make life on the road easier and more profitable)
• Get Booked & Stay Booked with LinkedIn
• Your Web Site & Content Creation Plan for 2013
• Creating Your Action Plan
• Wine reception (okay, that’s not really a segment but will happen at the end of the day)

Find out more here!

In last month’s column, I wrote of the analogy of a farmer and how viewing yourself as one can help you stay focused in your publishing endeavors.

This month, I want to ask you to put on a different hat; the hat of a hunter.

We all know the reference to our ancestors as hunters and gatherers. Hunters and gatherers stem from the most primitive part of our brain. We see animals doing it all day long. They are constantly hunting and gathering. It gives them the energy to live, love, and play.

As humans, we are fortunate to have not one, but three brains. One: the instinctive brain (hunter/gatherer, fight/flight). Two: the emotional (limbic) brain (pain/pleasure). Three: the left/right sides of the thinking (neocortex) brain. The left brain asks ‘why?’, while the right brain asks ‘what?’. More on this later, but I want to plant the seed of why vs. what now.

The left brain is deeply rooted in our past experiences, while the right brain is the creative, future imagery aspect of our brain. When you think in terms of the past (was), your left brain is engaged. When you plan for the future, your right brain is in charge (what’s next).

Being in control of our actions involves developing a better understanding of how our brain works. Why do we often fail at acting consistent with what we know we ought to be doing? Because our three brains aren’t aligned. While your thinking brain has determined the best next step (what you ought to do), your emotional brain might sabotage the good intention because it’s perceiving some level of pain in the result. Your decision to act or not comes down to those tasks where all three brains are on the same page.

Can’t one of my three brains just make an overriding decision? I believe it’s the *instinctive* part of our brain truly in charge, the one we were born with, the one that exists to keep the rest of us alive and intact. But I’m smart enough to know the one in charge (the instinctive brain), isn’t exactly the smartest apple on the tree. So I’m going to have to do a little manipulation to get it to act the way I want.

Back to the hunter instinct as you go about your day ahead. Take another trip in your mind and look at how it might play out… You know in your gut that there’s something vitally important to get resolved, and it’s something you need to put 100% of your focus into right now, so try this imagery on with me:

You are leaving the cave. The more time you spend outside the cave, the more dangerous it becomes. Minimize your exposure and get back as quickly as you can. But before you head out, it’s important you’ve adequately prepped for the safest journey possible. Be sure to take all your tools with you, but travel light so you can be nimble when necessary. Decide to make as few decisions as possible on this journey. There are more journeys ahead, but right now you need all of your energy to complete that which has already been decided.

You are out of the cave and fully exposed now. There’s no more rehearsal and it’s time to get to work and complete the task you’ve been called to do today. If you need others to help you, be sure to call on them early and be sure they are fully equipped for the journey ahead. The fight begins. Your instincts will call on all your experience and knowledge to win the fight (or in this case, finish the task) as quickly and effectively as possible. You are the hunter. Your sole goal is to bring back the reward (the result), so the best you can do is focus on the task at hand and not be distracted by the result. Expect to get bruised along the way – what’s a warrior without a few wounds? Wear them with pride. Please, for your own safety, don’t ask WHY in the middle of the fight – your left brain is not the problem solver. Instead, ask WHAT – as you need all the creativity and optimism of your right brain right now. After you’ve determined WHAT, shift into fight mode by stating I WILL and get to it.

Tips to remember…

Asking: Why am I here or Why am I doing this? = no progress

Asking: What am I doing here or What needs to be done? = progress

Stating: I Will = a decision to act.

The word ‘What’ calls on the hunter inside you to step up and solve the problem. The word ‘Why’ instead looks at the past and all the flaws of spent time that’s gone. Asking ‘Why’ isn’t going to serve you right now – because you’ve called on the ‘Will’ which is the trigger to proceed.

Don’t leave without your self-confidence!

The most successful hunters are armed with a high level of self-confidence. Self-confidence is the most important tool of all! And that self-confidence comes from belief. And belief comes from seeing evidence. And evidence is built from action. So to build more self confidence, you need to take more action. Action begins with two words: I will. Don’t leave the cave without your most important tool – self-confidence. In the battle ahead, your self-confidence will be tested. Consider it your most important weapon.

Never ask why, instead ask what. State I will and action will follow. What follows action is experience. What follows experience is self-confidence. Self confidence answers the why so you can get on to the next what.

So the only question left to ask is: When will you?

Hope to see you Saturday! Don’t forget the change in the location because of the downtown St. Patrick’s Day parade. I’m excited to see what creative new thoughts and experiences come as a result of being on a different field.

-Brian Schwartz
CIPA President 2012-2013

NEW DATE - TUESDAY, March 12, 2013

6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, 1345 28th St. / (303) 443-3850
=======================

Copyright, Fair Use, and Permissions: What You Need to Know for Print
and Digital Media is sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Publishing

Professionals Guild/The Publishing Pros and Boulder Editors.

Get substantive, practical, and up-to-date information and insights from
publishing professionals Joyce Miller and Jon Tandler. Seminar will
include a Q&A.

NO PREREGISTRATION. Tickets at the door (cash or check): $10 general
admission

Joyce Miller is a copyright clearance specialist and owner of The
Copyright Detective; her book Copyright Clearance for Creatives (Jan.
2013) will be offered at a discount to attendees. Jon Tandler is an
attorney with the Denver/Phoenix firm Ryley Carlock & Applewhite. He
specializes in copyright and publishing law and represents publishers,
packagers, distributors, university presses, trade associations,
agencies, and other firms engaged in the publishing industry. Both
Miller and Tandler are generously donating their time.

Not-for-profit event
For more information: jody@bermaneditorial.com

Bermel was also interviewed on Dr. Carl Helvie’s radio show to discuss resisting conventional oncologists’ pressure tactics to just go along with the treatment, despite evidence-based proof that conventional chemotherapy treatment has an effectiveness rate of only 3%. Link to her radio segment is here. Bermel’s conclusion: it is more challenging to survive the conventional treatment of chemo than it is to survive the disease itself. Her book can be found on Amazon.

I want to share with you an analogy that is likely familiar to most of you. As you begin to read this month’s letter, I’d like you to role play with me. Put on your farmer/gardener hat.  Think of your actions as the seeds, and your book as the crop you’ve planted.  I think you’ll find that gardening/farming and publishing actually have a lot in common!

Both farming and gardening provide wonderful analogies for the mindset to succeed in publishing (and maybe even in life).  I’d suggest you use this analogy, as I do myself, to build your own publishing empire. I’ve personally found the days I think like a farmer, are the ones I can call my most fruitful.

As farmers, we don’t get immediate results – instead we must await the result of our actions taken today.  In order to reap a harvest tomorrow, we must plant seeds today.  The reality is that most results are largely outside our control anyway, yet they often take our attention from what we can control. What you should give your attention to instead, are the seeds of action you plant today. For it’s the rewards you reap tomorrow that can be attributed to those seeds.

Crops can’t be harvested unless seeds are planted, cultivated, and allowed the space to grow.  A smart farmer knows that the right variety of crops will grow high and become profitable.  Other varieties, not so much.  Every season, it’s a bit of a gamble. The key to be a successful farmer is in selecting the crops that will be in high demand and short supply at the time of harvest.  This is similar to an author writing a book today that will be in high demand tomorrow.  If there’s no demand for your crop (ie. topic), then you can’t expect to demand a high price for it either.  Trust that over time, the value of a crop will fluctuate.  If too many others are selling the same crop, the price goes down… eventually, nobody is making any money until someone invents a new variety that makes the others less relevant.

Last month, I shared the importance of making space for the important items on your plate.  If you plant too many seeds in too small a space, none will survive – in fact, they may all grow a little, but not enough to be harvested.  Instead, plant the seeds that you want to see grow and give them space to grow. See the result as the goal, and seeds as the steps to get there.

You can plant seeds all day long, but there’s no guarantee they’ll grow. In fact, throw a seed in the ground and ignore it – most of the time, it won’t grow. We are bombarded with distractions all day long that will try to pull our attention away from what is most important.

The fact is that the most successful farmers focus on one crop at at time. They don’t try to plant a bunch of different crops, but instead pick one they can grow the best, and work at creating the best crop available anywhere.  Don’t dilute your efforts.  The smart publishers pick a niche and dive as deep as they can into that niche.

Just remember that if other farmers see increased demand for a crop, they’ll likely rush to plant the same crop, and when they do, the price will often fall and demand will be diluted. But trust that it’s good to be in early and often.

Are you using the right tool for the job?

In order to succeed in farming, you will need a set of tools.  Like a farmer, the tool shed of a publisher includes key partners, technology, wisdom, experience, and other farmers.  Successful farmers are always looking for the best tool for the job.  Always be asking: Is this the right tool for the job?  Be sure to talk to your fellow farmers – what tools are they using? Is there a more effective tool (or process) I should adopt?  CIPA offers a wonderful venue for this type of exchange.

Early to rise

Farmers are early to rise. The work ahead demands an early start. There will be times of the year when you must get up early, work long hours, and do it again the next day.  Other times, you’ll be able to throttle back, give yourself some time off, and reap the rewards of your harvest.  This reminds us of the importance of having passion in whatever it is you do.  A person with passion will always outwork someone doing something simply for the profit.  One caveat – some people’s passion is profit!

Are you planting annuals or perennials?

You need to have a good balance of annuals & perennials.  If you plant too many perennials, you may end up with a yard in the winter that doesn’t have any plants.  Too many annuals and the perennials can get lost in the landscape. The smartest gardeners plant a variety of perennials that bloom throughout that year.  That way, the landscape looks beautiful year round!  As a publisher, can you think of titles that will be in demand year after year? I think about the authors who write relationship advice and books about love… they reap a harvest every Valentine’s Day!

Annuals = immediate abundance but short lived beauty

Annuals are readily available, and may be in demand. As a publisher/author, they may show up in the form of services that meet the immediate needs of your readers. But to stay competitive, each year you will need to update your services.  Think of it as the opportunity to assess the needs of the marketplace (or changing environment), and plant the appropriate annuals. Annuals can be used to backfill your income while you wait for perennials (see below) to multiply. The drawback of a business full of annuals is that you must constantly plant a new crop of annuals (ie. clients) each month.

Perennials = long-term recurring reward

Perennials require little maintenance and will reward you with blooms (cash-flow) year after year; they can also multiply, providing you with additional profits over the years to come. Plant a perennial this year (ie. publish a book) and you will be building a recurring cash-flow for years to come. But since perennials multiply, to stay healthy, they will require periodic thinning. If you do make space, overcrowding will occur and flower production and disease will naturally decrease the population. Thinning requires digging up some of the plants, pulling or cutting them apart and replanting; this process must be repeated about once every three years. Some Perennials self-multiple with little maintenance.  Strive to find a theme in your work that allows for the seed you plant to be a perennial.  This begins early in the ‘idea phase’ of your topic by picking ideas that can be ‘perennialized.’ You can see this in action with publishers who create multiple spin-offs of their topic and multimillion empires as a results. Some better known examples include: Chicken Soup for the Soul, Guerrilla Marketing, and The Dummies Series.

Benefits of Using Both Perennials and Annuals

Most gardeners prefer a mix; perennials provide constant beauty, while the annuals give the gardener the opportunity to change things up a bit.  As an authorpreneur – it’s up to you to find a mix that works… even the most successful farmers get caught in dry spells when the crop they’ve planted is in abundance without enough demand.

Care & feeding of your crops

Initially, seeds need water to germinate. They need to be planted in fertile soil. The right conditions are key during a seed’s infancy. Some seeds will go dormant if ignored, and they may be hard to find later.

Things that are in your control, things that are not

You can control things like the water you feed your plant, the weeding, and attention you give it.  You can set it up so it can get plenty of sunshine (exposure), but you can’t control the sun or the rain.  The most important thing you can do as a smart farmer is to be wise in knowing the care and feeding a particular crop will require. Do you have space in your ‘yard’ for it?  Will it steal sunlight from your other plants that are already growing?

Weeding

Weeding and maintaining your crops is a never ending process, so you are best to accept that fact and get used to it.  The most successful businesses fail when the owner takes the success for granted and starts to ‘kick back’ and just watch his crops grow.  Truth is, successful people work harder once they are successful to stay successful.  Weeding is a daily battle. So be sure to always be on the lookout for weeds and the sooner you pull them, the less work it’ll be.  Let them go too long, and it becomes harder and harder to remove them. Think of your bad habits as weeds – the sooner you eliminate them, the easier they’ll be.

Relationships

Your relationships  are seeds as well.  You’ll need to do some occasional wedding so others in your ‘yard’ can thrive.  You can sell your ‘seeds’ to other farmers who will plant them in their pasture, and you’ll both receive a reward at harvest time. Keep in mind, the partner farmer can do much better when you provide the tools and training to help them thrive.  Also, many will use that training to create their own crops and eventually could become a competitor.

Co-op

One of the many facets to running a successful farm is to participate in marketplaces that allow you to sell your harvested crops!  One unique model that creates a high margin is co-ops and farmers markets.  Co-ops are ongoing ‘store fronts’ where customers can buy at a discount.  Farmers markets are events that showcase a farmer’s crop to a targeted group.  What Co-ops can you participate in as a publisher?

As you think of yourself as a farmer or gardener, ask yourself:

• What seeds have you planted this week?

• What weeds have you pulled?

• What season are you in? And what are you planning for your next crop?

• What is your CASH CROP? And are you paying it enough attention?  How are you improving it?

Are you a farmer or hunter?

One of the reasons I left my job in sales was because of the ‘farming vs. hunting’ mentality that existed where I worked.  Management saw each of us as either a ‘farmer’ or a ‘hunter’. The hunters were expected to find new clients, the farmers job was to cultivate existing clients to yield a profitable harvest.  I was a farmer in a company that valued hunters.  We all have unique experiences that make us better suited as farmers or hunters.  I’ll plan to expand on this article next month by creating an analogy for those of you who might have a tendency or preference to be a hunter.  But until then – put on your farmer’s hat and get to work!

-Brian Schwartz
CIPA President 2012-2013

And how do you find out what you don’t know about publishing and marketing so  you don’t make expensive mistakes?

Eat that elephant one bite at a time. And -

Build your platform as you write your book. Seem counter-productive to do two big projects at once? On the contrary, doing both at the same time will actually make your book more sellable and will give you a boost in presales.

Join CIPA board member and book marketing consultant Mary Walewski as she takes you through the platform-building process with her Platform Checklist, a workbook she developed just for this class.  A case study featuring two longtime CIPA members and their new book will show you step-by-step just how you should build your platform and make your book sellable

After the case study, you’ll have plenty of Q & A time  to ask questions about your own platform.

Here are three things you’ll learn in this class:

• ONE essential thing you must do to be successful with your book.
• TWO simple things you can do that will pay you back exponentially down the road.
• The THREE biggest reasons your book fails to sell.

Can’t make the live class? Register anyway! This class will be recorded for later viewing.

“Build Your Author Platform:  A Step by Step Guide.” will be presented live on Monday, Feb 11 from 7 pm to 9 pm, via webinar.

Cost of the Focus Forum is $25 for members and $45 for nonmembers. Register here on CIPA’s website. After registration, you’ll receive your link to register for the GoToMeeting webinar directly from Mary Walewski. Before the class, you will also receive your copy of the Platform Checklist in MS Word format. A class recording will be available for participants after the class.

Never been on a webinar before? All you need is your computer, internet connection, and either a computer headset or a phone to hear the audio. No driving – and for that matter, no shoes – required!

The Beast from the Swamp by J. Robert Flier: Flier gives the reader a powerful plot driven story that will have you afraid to put it down. The character dialogue invites you right into their mind and does well at creating empathy with their circumstance. A good horror story with just a dash of romance, the techniques and thrill of the hunt, and insight to the mind of the drug world. An easy read!