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Success Stories:
Promoting Books via Contests

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The Great American Homeowner Challenge:
David Bach Strikes Again!

The Great American Homeowner Challenge is a three-year effort between bestselling author, David Bach, featuring his latest book The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner, and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner encourages homeownership as the first step towards achieving financial freedom. Based on this book, Bach's FinishRich Media and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage have created The Great American Homeowner Challenge, a financial literacy campaign designed to stimulate, educate, and help 10 million Americans to buy a first home, second home, or investment property in the next three years.

On New Year's Eve, representatives from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and FinishRich Media will welcome revelers in New York's Times Square by giving out Challenge promotional materials, including a free chapter from The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner to help get participants started on the path to homeownership. Details of The Challenge will unfold throughout 2006 with a series of events including free educational consumer expositions in 14 major cities where Bach will speak.

For more information, visit http://www.wellsfargo.com/challenge and http://www.finishrich.com.

If David can create such an event with a rich partner company, why can't you? What are you waiting for? Make a New Year's resolution to do something great this year! Something big. Something grand. Something impossible.

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“Just wanted you to know that one of the many reasons that I have sold thousands of books, and will continue to do so is because of power-packed info that you send out to authors. This e-mail alone has given me at least four new ideas to get my books into even more hands.” — Kevin Wayne Johnson, Writing for the Lord Ministries..

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Motivation Inspiration Month

Neal R. Voron, author of the inspirational novel The Obstacle Course is looking for authors in the self-improvement community to participate in his efforts to promote January as Motivation Inspiration Month. Voron hopes to enable authors to tie-in their own marketing efforts to a month-long self-improvement publicity umbrella magnet that is inherently designed to support individuals’ efforts to sustain progress towards achieving their New Year resolutions and other personal and business goals.

He has established each January 3rd as Resolution Kick-Off Day to launch a month of activities to make a real difference in peoples’ lives.

How can authors participate? Through Voron’s upcoming web site at http://www.MotivationInspirationMonth.com, he will offer various e-books: a guidebook that explains the event and lists planned activities; a resource guide; a compilation of tips; and an anthology of articles about different topics concerning self-improvement.

He is looking for authors to share relevant content or activities: teleseminars, webinars, special offers, free giveaways, or contests/sweepstakes during the month. To participate, email him at nvoron@voron.com.

Voron said authors who contribute to this year’s Motivation Inspiration Month activities will have an opportunity to get a co-branded version of RyKy Records’ upcoming Self-Improvement Songbook they can distribute to their own audiences. The PDF ebook will include lyrics and links to introductory soundclips for several songs, including: “Dream The American Dream,” “For Your Dreams,” “Faith Can Move Mountains,” and “Maybe Tomorrow.”

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Surf Dog Small Wave Competition

TCB Cafe Publishing sponsored the nation's first surfing competition for dogs on August 20th at Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego, California. The event included a book signing for The Dog's Guide to Surfing, published by TCB Cafe. 200 people came for the event which featured 29 surfer dogs.

Press coverage included USA Today, Yahoo News, local TV news, the Travel Channel, Associated Press, Surfing magazine, New York Daily News, Austin Statesman, San Diego Reader, San Diego Union-Tribune, Good Morning San Diego, SignOnSanDiego, Wireless Flash, and more.

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YouTube Videos and Contests

New idea from Cy Tymony, author of Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things:

I'm using a contest, blogs and YouTube.com to gain more awareness for my Sneaky Uses books:

Science fair season will soon arrive and students will be looking for unique project ideas. I've made available nine free conservation science project videos online and am sponsoring an energy-saving competition. Details are included below:

The first annual Energy-Saving Video Competition at YouTube.com starts now - sponsored by Sneakyuses.com. Videomakers can now use their creativity to help save our resources and win prizes. They can enter by uploading a short video clip at YouTube.com.

Sample how-to videos and competition details are posted at:
http://www.youtube.com/groups_videos?add&name=Recycle

Videos must be posted on YouTube.com in the Recycle Group before December 15th.

Awards include a DVD player, a portable MP3 Player with thumb drive and a USB WiFi adapter. Winners will be announced in a YouTube video and at Sneakyuses.com on January 15th, 2007.

HOW TO ENTER:

STEP 1 - CREATE YOUR VIDEO - Length limit: 2 minutes - Must include at least one of the following: an unusual fact about alternate energy; a demonstration of resource conservation; or a creative reuse of an everyday object. Energy-saving, alternate energy and related links are posted at Sneakyuses.com on the Free Projects page.

STEP 2 - SIGN IN TO YOUTUBE & UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO

A. GO TO THIS LINK: http://www.youtube.com/groups_videos?add&name=Recycle
(If you do not have an account, it’s free to join.)

B. FILL OUT YOUR INFO: Name, email address, username and password.

C. JOIN THE RECYCLE GROUP You must join the group and add your video to be officially entered.

This is a creative way to make use of YouTube.com. Check out his videos on YouTube.com. Have you made any videos for your book yet?

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