Crypto Talks

My today's guest is one of my best friends Julie Sheranosher. Julie was a Captain in the army and had absolutely no choice but to get REALLY good with time management. She found out that she has a talent for understanding people's needs and routines and matching them with custom-tailored time management systems that work for them. Julie quit the army and became a Time Hacker, helping the highly successful entrepreneurs to reach the NEXT level. She has a blog, 2 podcasts, book and a whole bunch of happy clients. Today we will talk about how to make time for writing every day and Julie provides us with practical tips of how to make it happen. Below are the highlights of the interview, but as always they don't cover everything we spoke about. That is why I encourage you to dedicate about 50 minutes to listen to the interview itself and learn much more than I covered in the notes. Highlights Time Hacking is all about finding how time can work for you instead of the other way around. It all comes down to fin

Last Chance! http://www.anialexander.com/masterclass (The Write 2B Read Master Class) starts in a couple of days, so if you are interested to become part of it and publish your book in 8 weeks - hurry up!   The Interview I wanted to interview James Altucher since many months already, but the self-doubt, insecurities and other nonsense was keeping me away from connecting with him. Finally, one day I got the courage and wrote him a Facebook message. And I'm glad I did.   The reason I wanted to have James on my show was not that he is a  famous. If you have followed my podcast you know that I don't choose people who are famous, but people who are interesting to talk to and who are able to provide value to you - my listeners. I knew that my interview with James would be packed with wisdom and that you'd enjoy it too. For the very few of you, who don't know who James Altucher is - I have included his short bio below for you. James Altucher is a successful entrepreneur, investor, board member, and the writer of 11

My today's guest is Srinivas Rao. Srini is a bestselling author and the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative podcast. In this episode we have a pretty unstructured talk about things related to success and creativity. About expectations Expectations are killer of joy. You will never live up to everybody's expectations. Part of what kills our ability to so things is that we have these lofty expectations and when we don't - suddenly things are lot easier. There is a beauty about being a beginner and not having an audience and not having anybody reading yourself. There is something very liberating about that. About feedback Feedback can become whole other form of addiction. We're culturally conditioned to seek praise and avoid criticism. About the audience We've kind of really gotten obsessed with growing the audience - almost to a fault. And the challenge with that is that we're trying to do work that is designed to build audience as opposed to work that is designed to strike a cord or touch some

My today's guest is Ryan Hanley. He helps brands and businesses find their audience, tell their story and win the battle for attention online. He is also the author of http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SUCLLIA/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00SUCLLIA&linkCode=as2&tag=lifeprobab-20&linkId=3HULYOV2XIHPZEZV (Content Warfare: How to find your audience, tell your story and win the battle for attention online.) What is content marketing? Content marketing is the process of creating media in the effort to add value to an audience. About building audience It's a culture of audience building. You are never not building an audience. About your book audience You don't write a book and then go and find an audience. That would possibly be the worst possible thing you could do as an author. About time You never gonna find time. [spp-tweet "You either make time or you don't wanna write a book that badly."] Benefits of the Crowdfunding (besides the money) it validates the idea it activate

My Today's guest is James Thorn. J. Thorn is a Top 100 Most Popular Author in Horror, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure and Fantasy (Amazon Author Rank). He has published over one million words and has sold more than 130,000 books worldwide. In March of 2014 Thorn held the #5 position in Horror alongside his childhood idols Dean Koontz and Stephen King (at #4 and #2 respectively). James believes that reading dark fiction can be healing. James admires strong people who are not afraid to speak their mind. http://jthorn.net/about-me/ (You can watch this presentation) at the Author Marketing live where and find out about all the mistakes he made at the very beginning. You can get more details and contact James http://jthorn.net (through his website). Impressive Quotes "I figured out what to do by failing over and over and over again" "I think talent is overrated. Perseverance is essential in becoming a writer" "There was a moment when I was sitting at my desk and had my finger on a delete button on a title

Neeraj Kumar is an IT Professional based in London. He was born and grew up in India and moved to the UK in 2000. Neeraj has just launched his maiden Novel called ‘The I.T. Immigrant’, which a biographical fiction. On this Podcast Neeraj shares some insights about his writing journey, what inspired him to write this Novel and some practical tips and tricks he has applied in his own writing and book promotions. Neeraj can be contacted via his Facebook page Don't forget to check out the Write 2B Read Master Class http://www.anialexander.com/masterclass (You can get all the details and reserve your spot here)  The Master Class starts on March 20 and the group will be limited to 25 people. 25 people only because I want to ensure that I have enough time to provide you with the personal support, encouragement and over the shoulder guidance on top of the knowledge you’ll be getting. http://www.anialexander.com/contact-2/ (Please do not hesitate to contact me) and ask anything you need to know but could not fin

Today I would like to talk to you about the most exciting and at the same time scariest moment. That is the moment when what you’ve been working on for a while is put out to the word. Many of my guests have mentioned that the biggest challenge that writers are facing is hitting the publish button. Many writers complete their work and stop there. There are so many amazing stories hidden somewhere in someone’s computer folder or in someone’s drawer. What makes publishing a book so scary? I can tell my personal opinion. I think that what keeps most of us from putting ourselves out there is the fear of failure. We are afraid to fail publicly. We are afraid that the book won’t be liked, that the book will get bad reviews. We are terrified that people will be asking “so how is your book doing?” and we’ll have to admit that it is not selling… Besides the emotional pressure we are having with ourselves, by putting our work out there we are putting ourselves in a situation where we also have to deal with others. B

When I was about 6 years old I got my very first roller skates. To be honest I don’t even remember where they came from, but they were very classy for the Soviet times. The skates were from those you attach to your shoes, with red leather upper side and laces… they had 4 rubber wheels each. Two in front and two in the back. Oh and the size was adjustable, so I could use them like forever… or until they broke or something. After getting the skates and feeling super happy I had to learn skating. It was winter and it was snowing outside… I was even more impatient than I am now. And people who know me well will tell you that I am one of the most impatient people they have ever met. So what did I do? No, I did not go outside - because those who know me well will also tell you that I absolutely and intensely hate cold. So I decided to make my first tries on our living room carpet. Every day I was putting the skates on and trying to move without falling. As you can imagine there were many falls… I fell on the

My today's guest is Joe Bunting. He is a writer and entrepreneur. He  ghostwrites books for busy leaders. He also wrote a http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Write-Short-Story-Submit/dp/0988449706 (#1 Amazon Bestseller) "Let's Write A Short Story" and publishes the blog for writers called http://thewritepractice.com/ (The Write Practice). He also founded http://storycartel.com/ (Story Cartel). In this interview we discuss different writer's struggles and Joe suggests ways to overcome those. Tip For Your Writing Observe and try to describe whatever captures your eyes. Taking notes of what is going on around you. It is a good lesson in showing and not telling. Very valuable tip for your storytelling. Biggest Struggle + Solution The biggest thing that people struggle with is the ability to finish their writing. It is important to give yourself deadlines and to break up your writing project into smaller chunks (chapters, section, etc.). It is so important to give you deadline that gives you focus. And the hardest part

My today's guest is Tim Paige. Tim is proud to be the Conversion Educator at LeadPages. An experienced marketer in all forms of media, Tim spends his days speaking to the most successful marketers across multiple industries, and sharing his findings with business owners who want to increase their marketing results. In this interview Tim provides practical advice about where to start building audience, how to drive traffic to your site and how to build, grow and treat your e mail list. Where to Start? It's one thing to be a fantastic writer and artist and it's another thing entirely to get people to actually experience your fantastic art. Start by building your e mail list cause it's an asset you own. Fist place Tim recommends to start is get the "title of your book".com domain and link that to a landing page. What is a landing page? It is a webpage, that's designed for people to take an action.  And typically that action is to opt in - i.e. give their e mail address. Many people give a free chapter of t

My Guest My today's guest is Mark Schaefer. Mark is a college educator, http://www.businessesgrow.com/services/social-media-consulting/ (marketing consultant), and author of four http://ow.ly/H7I3F (social media marketing books) including http://ow.ly/H7I3F​ (Social Media Explained). In this interview we talk about personal brand. We discuss why is it so important and Mark provides valuable advice on how to create a personal brand as an author. I encourage you to listen to the interview, because I think it was really a good one. Self-Publishing vs Traditional Publishing 3 big advantage of the traditional publishing distribution advance boosts your ego BUT... People are mostly buying online anyway, so the distribution does not impact so much. One can get corporate sponsors for his/her book. That is even better than the advance, because you don't have to pay them back. You get total control when you self-publish (what to write, how to write, how to market, etc.) Food for Thought Taylor Swift recentl

My today's guest is Jesse Krieger and he am a guy who loves traveling the world, learning languages and cultures, making friends along the way and starting businesses. Jesse love it so much that he wrote a book called http://www.amazon.com/Lifestyle-Entrepreneur-Passions-Business-Anywhere/dp/1614486271 (Lifestyle Entrepreneur: Live Your Dreams, Ignite Your Passions, and Run Your Business from Anywhere In The World), which became a bestseller. In this interview we talk about the different opportunities that books may bring with them and discuss what it takes to have a full time author career and become lifestyle entrepreneur. Takeaways You have to grow a lot as a person in order to grow your business. The book became the doorway to all the possibilities to make money that are related to the book. Your book is your hook. There is no excuse to not have a success with your book if you're willing to put in the work and show up consistently and put in effort. If you are published author you still have to pro

I did more than 60 interviews already and you may have already noticed that there are several things that keep being repeated. Many guests justly keep giving the same advice. But there are also cases, when guests tell things that contradict each other. Today I would like to draw your attention on one of those cases. Many guests firmly believe that one should build an audience first and only after growing it to a sufficient size one should go ahead and publish a book. On the other side I had guests, who told that one should not wait until there is a large audience in place and it is good to simply go ahead and publish the book while starting building the audience. I don't think that there is right or wrong opinion on this. Both seem justified. So today I will simply share what I did back when I was starting from scratch. That does not mean that you should do the same of course, but by describing my journey I hope to provide you with a real life example. First of all, I think all of us agree that having larg

Simon Denman is founder of British web start-up, http://Readersintheknow.com (Readers in the Know), the first global book promotion website for Amazon-listed books. He is also the author of http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0089YQPI0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0089YQPI0&linkCode=as2&tag=lifeprobab-20&linkId=KJOCBVQYPW3TOMBT (CONNECTED), a speculative science novel published in 2012, which reached number one in Amazon's bestseller ranks for both thrillers and science fiction within five days of release. Prior to this he spent 26 years in a variety of senior roles within the IT networking and security industry. In this interview we talk about how Simon got 10k downloads of his first novel http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0089YQPI0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0089YQPI0&linkCode=as2&tag=lifeprobab-20&linkId=KJOCBVQYPW3TOMBT (CONNECTED) with KDP Select free days promo and after that sold 1500 copies  in 6 weeks Why did he create http://readersinth

My today's interview is with Toby Downton. First time author Toby Downton has written Solarversia, a novel about a game played in Virtual Reality by 100 million people. He hopes to make the game in the book in real life and has devised what he thinks is an original marketing plan. In this interview Toby shares his unique marketing plan and also tells where and how is he finding potential readers for his novel. Toby has very interesting approach and I am sure that many things he has done so far can be applied to any book. Listen and see how thinking outside the box can lead to a well-developed and potentially successful marketing plan. http://solarversia.com/about/ (If you sign up to the newsletter) you'll get a free advance copy of the book and a chance to play the promotional game Toby mentioned in the interview. Useful Links http://solarversia.com (Solarversia novel website) https://twitter.com/tobydownton (Toby's Twitter )  

Today my guest is Derek Murphy. Derek is a book cover designer and author who blogs about self-publishing and book marketing. In this interview we concentrate on the topic of book covers and hopefully it will help you understand the topic better, know what makes a good book cover and understand what important role does it play. Interview Highlights If you have a good book and you have a good book cover and you put it in front if readers, than you shouldn't do other marketing. The problem with great cover is that it raises readers' expectations really high and people expect much more based on the cover. The kind of reviews you're receiving are related to the cover. You need a cover that matches your book. The book cover still has to work for those and attract those, who have not read the book yet. It doesn't really matter if the cover matched the details of your book precisely because the readers have not read the book yet so they don't know the details and by the time they finish reading the book they

Steven Aitchison is a personal development writer and product creator and he has been writing personal development products for his blog at http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog (www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog) for the last 8 years. He also has several personal development products helping thousands of people around the world: more recently, due to the overwhelming success of his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ChangeYourThoughtsToday (https://www.facebook.com/ChangeYourThoughtsToday) he was almost forced to produce a Facebook course showing others how to utilise the power of Facebook for marketing, promotion and engaging more with readers and fans at http://www.yourfbchallenge.com (www.yourfbchallenge.com) That is why in today's episode we will be talking about Facebook and more specifically, how can authors use Facebook to build and grow their audience, sell more books and make money! Below, I have included several tips that we have covered, but I encourage you to listen to the interview, becau

A while ago I told you http://www.anialexander.com/first-writing-experiences/ (the story of how I started writing). I still can’t explain why and how exactly that happened. But after the first poem, which I wrote I’ve been writing on and off for 20 years already. http://www.anialexander.com/are-you-afraid-of-being-judged-you-should-not-be/ (Just like most of you I did not share my writings with the world and kept them to myself.) I did not even read most of what I’d written, because I loved and enjoyed the process of writing more than the result itself. After a while though I decided to show it to my mum to get opinion. I handed her the piece of paper with my hand written poem on it and asked to tell what she thought. Mum took it, read it and told only two words - “not bad”. Although the feedback was not negative, I took it exactly that way. The expression of her face and the way she pronounced those two words sort of showed that she meant just the opposite of what she said. And although, maybe I have let i

Giveaway Celebration I am really happy to announce that last week my podcast passed 50k downloads. This may not sound too much for some, but for me it is very special. The reason is - when I was launching Write 2B Read the biggest fear I had was that no one will listen. That's what I was scared of most. So reaching 50k downloads is huge! To celebrate that (+ my birthday this month) http://www.anialexander.com/giveaway (I created a giveaway for writers, which you can see here.) The winner will get Scrivener + 2 books, which will help become successful self-published author. http://www.anialexander.com/giveaway (Please check it out and share with those, who might be interested.) Now let's get to the interview My today's guest is Bryan Cohen. Bryan is an actor, freelance writer, author and an occasional game show contestant. He has written over 30 books, which have sold more than 30,000 copies. His newest book is Ted Saves the World, the first book in a new YA paranormal/fantasy series.  With Jim Kukral from

Celebrate with a Giveaway I am really happy to announce that last week my podcast passed 50k downloads. This may not sound too much for some, but for me it is very special. The reason is - when I was launching Write 2B Read the biggest fear I had was that no one will listen. That's what I was scared of most. So reaching 50k downloads is huge! To celebrate that (+ my birthday this month) http://www.anialexander.com/giveaway (I created a giveaway for writers, which you can see here.) The winner will get Scrivener + 2 books, which will help become successful self-published author. http://www.anialexander.com/giveaway (Please check it out and share with those, who might be interested.) Don't Forget As you already know the podcast is sponsored by the http://www.authormarketinginstitute.com (Author Marketing Institute). AMI wanted me to let you know that their next event for authors is coming up at the end of Jan. It's called Author Marketing Live and it's a virtual conference. That means you can attend from you