Boring bios are more potent than sleeping pills.

Yet you read them all the time in people’s online press rooms, in their books, and even on the mini-profiles they write on their Twitter and Facebook pages.

Sometimes job-hunters include a useless paragraph of incredibly dull information on their resumes.

Publicity expert Nancy Juetten hates boring bios, too. The arrogant ones really get under her skin. They include sentences like this:

“Complimenting her extraordinary capacities as a prodigy composer of collaborative entrepreneurial masterworks is her former multi-disciplinary career as an entrepreneur and corporate executive, encompassing 34 years of exemplary achievement in well over twelve industries, including…”

She wrote about those kinds of bios at her blog, and  just created the Bye-Bye Boring Bio Action Guide ($49), which should be must-reading for every author, speaker, entrepreneur, coach, consultant and expert who needs to rewrite a bio or make over their current one, and for every job-hunter who really wants to stand out from the crowd.

It includes handy templates, examples of great bios, and work sheets that will help you inject life, fun and even humor into even the most boring bio. 

Nancy is running a special promotion that ended on Sunday. But she said that anyone who writes  “Joan Stewart” in the comments section of their online order form throughout the month of March 2010 can get an anniversary bonus gift, her Publicity Express Digital Workshop which is a package of audio files and other goodies. The bonus applies to the Bye-Bye Boring Bio Action Guide and her DIY Publicity Success System.  Order here.

Here’s Nancy’s own bio:

Nancy Juetten (rhymes with “button”) is a passionate and engaging publicity trainer who shows business owners across America how to get seen, heard, and celebrated in their own backyards … and beyond.  She created the NEW Bye-Bye Boring Bio Action Guide to help job and publicity seekers wake up decision makers and open doors fast.  Her essential advice: “It’s your story.  Tell it well.”

Before you send that next press release, or add copy to your online press room, or post something to your blog, or upload a new article to an article directory site, use Mickie Kennedy’s 8 top tips for proofreading.

His company, eReleases, writes and distributes press releases for people who don’t want to do it themselves. Several of his tips, like letting the release sit for a day or so before you return to it and edit with a fresh pair of eyes,  are old copyeditor tricks I used when I worked as a newspaper editor.

I commented at his blog and offered four more tips:

• Check all numbers.  If the headline says “8 tips for spring cleaning,” make sure the text includes eight tips, not seven. If the story says X is Y percent of Z, double-check it on a calculator.
• If there’s a phone number within the press release, pick up the phone and call the number, even if you are the one who typed the number and you’re sure it’s correct!
• Ditto with URLs.  Make sure all URLs click through to correct web pages.
• Make sure someone’s name is spelled the same way throughout the release.

Before you hit “send,” also check to see that the release has a call to action.  Some press releases I read miss that element frequently. It’s the one opportunity you have to tell readers exactly what you want them to do: go to an online catalog, call for tickets, download a free report, etc.

The call to action was one of eight items  on Janet Thaeler’s checklist. for press release writers. She was my guest during a teleseminar on Keywords: The Magic Magnets That Pull Journalists & Consumers to Your Press Releases.”

Do you have your own proofreading tricks? Share them here.

Action Sports Hub is looking for action sports enthusiasts who can write articles.

You can work you own hours from your home and at your own pace.

Email samples. Write to them at Action Sports Hub Inc., 7071 Warner Ave., Suite F-416 Huntington Beach, CA 92647.

If you’ve never written an article, see “How to Write How-to Articles.”

Shotgun Sports magazine is looking for articles on trap, skeet, hunting, sports clays and 5-stand.

Hunting articles can include the following topics: upland birds, large game, small game, waterfowl and turkeys. Readers consider these to be the toughest targets: deer, grouse, waterfowl, quail, turkeys, chukar, pheasants and elk (not often taken with a shotgun, but it can be done), so they’d like help with those.

“When you are writing about clay targets, these are the ones they say they most need help with: rabbits, dropping targets, long, flat crossers, chandelles, battues, long, fast crossers, hard rights, straightaways in the wind, teal, trap doubles, and very slight angles that look like a straightaway and, of course, the mental side of the game,” editor Linda Martin says. ” The non-competitive shooters just want to know how to have more fun and beat their own personal best.”

She said readers want more reloading advice, gun-cleaning and maintenance tips, and advice that will help non-competitive and new or struggling shooters improve. They’d also like tips on how to overcome those one or two targets that seem to be keeping them from moving ahead.

Email your stories to her for the 2010-2011 Shotgun Sports schedule

Artists frequently make the mistake of failing to capture email addresses at their websites because they can’t think of anything to offer in return.

That’s why I was gratified that on today’s preview call for the smARTist Telesummit 2010, the annual virtual extravaganza on how artists can market their work, artist Melanie Banayat asked:

“What’s the best way to use your website to build a mailing list? Internet marketers use lead capture pages to build theirs and offer something of value in exchange for someone’s email address. What can an artist offer?”

Host Ariane Goodwin directed the question to me. Here’s my list of nine freebies:

1. A video. Demonstrate how to do something. An oil painter can show how to blend colors. A needlepoint artist can show how to do a complicated stitch. A woodworker can show the best way to polish a piece of furniture. 
      
2. Special previews. Offer “sneak peek” previews of your artwork and other projects only to those on your email list.
     
3. A coupon. Offer a coupon good for X dollars off a purchase. The bricks-and-mortar stores do this all the time. A good shopping cart will let you create a coupon. Here’s a free ebook on how to buy a shopping cart. (I’m an affiliate.)
     
4. An article. Think of the Number One question people ask about your artwork. Write an article on that topic.
    
5. A buyer’s kit. Let’s say you sell beautiful handmade jewelry. What’s the best way to store it so it doesn’t get damaged?
    
6. A flow chart.  Show the steps you follow to create something.
     
7. Quotations and jokes. If you paint horses, how about offering the top 20 quotes about horses? Or the 10 best horse jokes? You can find them free all over the Internet.
     
8. A trouble-shooting guide. If you sell beautiful clothing made of rich fibers, explain how to remove stains from the material. What can the buyer do if the material snags? What are some tricks on how to cover up a spot that can’t be removed?    
       
9. A cleaning guide. How do you clean various types of artwork or things like delicate figurines, origami,  or beaded jewelry?

I offer a free cheat sheet on “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release” which you’ll get when you type your email address in the box on the right side of this screen. I listed many more ideas in my special report that lists 55 free things you can offer to generate publicity or capture people’s email addresses.

Once you start building a list, keep in touch with your readers by reguarly sending free tips and updates about your businesses. And don’t forget to let the media know about the freebie you’re offering. That’s one of many ways that artists can generate publicity.

If you’re an artist, or you’re in any other type of business, what kinds of freebies do you offer in exchange for email addresses? Let’s hear about yours.

If you’re looking for publicity from bloggers or traditional media but can’t think of an idea to pitch to them, here’s a quick way to find several. 

Longtime Publicity Hound Norman Lieberman reminded me about this yesterday when he emailed me to see if I had a list of questions that Publicity Hounds can ask themselves, designed to uncover nuggets of information that are possible story ideas.

I gave Norm two resources. The first is my “Story Idea Tickler List,” part of the handouts for my “Savvy Media Relations” workshop: 

1. What’s new or unique about your business?
      
2. What do you offer that your competitors don’t?                                                   
         
3. How do you help people solve problems, save time or save money?
       
4. What business mistakes have you made that you learned from?
      
5. What new trends have you spotted in your industry?
      
6. Is there a social or political issue you feel strongly about? (Write an opinion column, letter to the editor or blog post.) 
       
7. Are you sponsoring a contest or an award?
       
8. Can you piggyback your topic off a holiday or anniversary?
       
9. How are you using technology in your business?
       
10. Do you have any good visuals that tie into your story idea for television?
        
11. What about your personal life? (Hobbies, travels, food, clothing, etc.)
        
12. Have you formed an interesting partnership or alliance?
        
13. What how-to articles could you write?
             
14. What topics are good fodder for a tip sheet? (9 tips for….)
        
15. On what radio talk shows would you be a good fit and what’s the hot story of the day that ties into your expertise?
        
16. Are you the local angle to a national or regional story?
           
17. How are you using social media in your business? 
       
18. How can you piggyback onto celebrity news? For example, here are 10 ways to generate publicity from the Tiger Woods mess and here’s how Connie Dieken, a Cleveland TV personality and media trainer, got publicity by piggybacking onto celebrity outbursts.
       
19. Do you have an interesting  stand-alone photo you can offer the media? Newspapers and magazines often use these photos as fillers.

If those aren’t enough, you can check out the free sample chapter of my ebook, “How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound” where you’ll find more ideas, and a fuller explanation of some of the ideas listed above. 

What ideas have you pitched recently that other Publicity Hounds could also use? Share them here.

Thousands of people who are being downsized, right-sized and capsized during this bad economy aren’t waiting around for a job offer. They’re looking to the Web for their next career—and maybe even riches.

Enter e-Riches 2.0–Next-Generation Marketing Strategies for Making Millions Online, a new book by Internet success coach Scott Fox.

If you’re one of the victims of this economy and you want to start selling online, or you’re new to Internet marketing, you can learn all about the basics of what it takes to create a successful business online. If you’ve been selling online for several years, the book will bring you up to speed quickly on how to add social media to your marketing mix.

Here are Scott’s 10 recommendations on how to use social networking as a marketing tool.

1. Invite a half-dozen or more friends to get your network started. Practice using the tools of the social network to communicate with them. For example, you can “add” friends on MySpace, “poke” or “write on the walls” of Facebook connections, or respond to some questions in the LinkedIn “Answers” section. (See Social networking ROI: A testimonial more valuable than an ad.)
              
2. Start engaging, publishing, and interacting. Get to know some people—that’s  why you’re here.
       
3. Be authentic. A big part of being authentic is letting the “real you” out to play. Nobody wants to play with a “suit,” so don’t be afraid to be yourself (within professional and legal limits, of course). Mixing the personal and business sides of your life is more common than it used to be.
       
4. Only try to connect with others with whom you really do have common ground. Indiscriminate friend requests are “friend spam.” They are  no more appreciated than email spam or junk mail in the real world. (And if people you don’t know starting linking with you, your own network will soon be less valuable, too.)
                
5. Ask for help. Most social network users are online to be social, and most are happy to help by sharing their knowledge about how the systems work.
              
6. Use feeds to keep up with your friends’ activities and broadcast your own. Posting your own status constantly and cleverly is a great distributed engagement marketing tactic. This is one of the “missed opportunities” I discussed during the teleseminar I hosted this month on 11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook. 
      
7. If you have a blog, feed its posts into your profile page. This will automatically help keep your pages fresh and share your writings with a new audience, too.
      
8. Join some groups—learn the lingo and the tools of the network by using them and observing how others use them, too. Joining groups will also begin to create a natural dialogue with other users that will grow over time.
      
9. Be a good and involved citizen in those groups to cultivate new friends. There’s no better way to gain the respect of any community than adding value by sharing info, support, or companionship—and these tools will amplify the effect. If you are an expert, social networks are a great way to spread your reputation cloud for that expertise.
     
10. Create your own group. Once you are comfortable, start a group around your product or brand. Position yourself as an expert resource and offer to help and facilitate community. Members usually proudly display the names of the groups to which they belong on their profile pages. This can lead to lots more clicks (and members) as others see your group’s name or logo on friends’ pages and in their feeds.

Scott’s book includes more than a dozen examples  of real-life Internet marketing success stories, from a North Carolina furniture store that profitably captures high-end customers using pay-per-click search engine text ads on Google, Yahoo! andMSN (Chapter 21), to the article syndication strategy that has helped a Christian stay-at-home mom to attract lots of profitable traffic for her blog (Chapter 16).

The book  is $25 and published by AMACOM, the American Management Association.

Starting July 20, Squidoo lenses will be limited to no more than nine outbound links to the same domain.

What does this have to do with publicity? Plenty.

Squidoo, a content-sharing site, is a great place to promote your expertise. Google views it as an authoritative site and gives it a page rank of 7/10. You can create a Squidoo lens on one or more topics and share content such as articles, videos, photos and other resources.

Most lensmasters include outbound links to their own websites which is fine.  I’m guessing  that too many lensmasters have been including too many links to their own sites, thus generating too many reader complaints to Squidoo.

I’ll be going over to Squidoo later this week to update my own content and count the number of links at my own lens on how to get publicity. Lensmasters who don’t comply can have their lenses removed.  All that hard work down the drain! Don’t let that happen.

Read their policy update and the 4 things you can do to get ready for the changes.

Let’s see a show of hands.

How many of you like receiving cold calls from people selling ink cartridges, aluminum siding or ads in your local Yellow Pages?

That’s what I thought.

That’s why a speaker should think twice about hiring an assistant or virtual assistant to cold call meeting planners. It sends the message, “I’m too important or too busy to call you myself, so I’m sending my assistant to bother you with an annoying cold call.” 

Why are cold calls bad? 

Because way too many speakers—and their assistants—are making them. I made hundreds of cold calls myself when I was on the speaking circuit, before I knew any better.

The best speaking engagements I booked weren’t from cold calls. They were the result of meeting planners finding out about me from somebody else, or reading an article I wrote for their industry publication and calling me. When a meeting planner calls you to ask about your availability, you’re in a much better position to command the fee you want.

If a VA is making calls for you, she probably can’t answer all the questions meeting planners might ask about things like negotiating your fee, speaking about a topic that’s not part of your repertoire, altering the content of a particular keynote or workshop, doing a webinar instead of an in-person program, and many other unexpected subjects.

That’s why asking an assistant to cold-call meeting planners is a lousy idea for most speakers.  I said MOST speakers.  I’m sure some of friends in the National Speakers Association have assistants who make these calls for them—but only after they’ve done extensive training with an assistant who already knows their business intimately.  Expecting a $40- or $60-an-hour VA to present you to meeting planners puts you at a disadvantage.

             
6 ways to use publicity to book gigs

Here are six ways to use publicity to help you book speaking engagements—and ways to involve your virtual assistant in each:

—Write articles to attract the attention of meeting planners. If you’re trying to speak before a particular trade association, contact the editor of the group’s magazine or newsletter and ask if they accept articles from experts. If your article appears in that industry’s trade magazine, the meeting planner who hires speakers might see it. If you make a cold call after the article appears, you can mention the article. Your VA can research industry publications and order back issues.

—Create short videos that tie into your topics. Have your VA upload them to the video-sharing sites. Meeting planners who are using the search engines to find speakers will find the videos. If they like what they see, they might call you. Your VA can do keyword research for you and tag the videos.

—Answer questions on LinkedIn. Create a profile on LinkedIn and spend time each week answering questions that pertain to the topics on which you speak. This is a powerful way to promote your expertise. Each person who asks a question can flag one of the answers as a “best answer.” The number of “best answer” designations you’ve received shows up on your LinkedIn profile. Your VA can look for questions that pertain to your expertise and call them to your attention. See my article on other ways to use LinkedIn to promote.

—Actively seek recommendations on LinkedIn. If a meeting planner is considering you and another speaker for her group’s annual keynote, and the other speaker has more recommenations than you do at LinkedIn, guess who will probably get the job? Ask every meeting planner who has been thrilled with your work to recommend you there. Ditto for every editor who has published your articles and has a strong relationship with you. Ask your VA to remind you to ask for recommendaitons. 

—Tweet about your topic at Twitter. Link to helpful articles and blog posts you have written. Share other articles you’ve found online. Ask compelling questions that lead to lively conversations. And, of course, tweet about your speaking gigs. Your VA can peform a variety of searches on Twitter to find people who might be in a positin to hire you and who you would want to follow. (See “How to Use Twitter to Amass an Army of Followers, Customers & Valuable Contacts—and Promote.”)  

—Blog about your topic. Use keywords that meeting planners would use if they’re searching for someone with your expertise. Listen to the teleseminar I conducted with The Blog Squad on how to “Build Your Biz with a Blog: It’s Not an Option Anymore!–How to Build a Professional Blog that Turns Prospects into Clients.”

            
Leave your footprints

All those tasks will take  time. But the big advantage of all of them over cold calling is that you’re leaving your footprint at every step along the way, building a trail of expertise that will live online forever, and making it easy for meeting planners to find you.     

Finally, spend some time in the Compilations category at the SpeakerNetNews website to learn about some of the more innovative ways that speakers book gigs. 

Here’s an article that will help you find a virtual assistant to help with publicity. When you’ve found an assistant, it’s time for training. Here are tips on how to train your VA to help with publicity.

Local Real Estate Deals, a bi-monthly nationwide magazine, needs expert articles that provide helpful advice for investors, first-time home buyers, real estate agents, loan officers and people who may have had credit problems.

The June/July issue focuses on green topics and the Denver real estate market. For more information, email editor Emily Cass.