Using book-signing events to network with authors and writers is essential if, like us, you offer niche skills.

Here at the very end of 2011 the time is perfect for aspiring writers to launch their books within the digital arena.  

This tidal wave of activity within digital publishing, which has been steadily building up over the last few years, isn't about to end soon, in fact it's probably heading for tsunami proportions.

Computer Weekly's Matt Hamblem reported on e-books in March 2009:

E-books poised for 'huge surge' in 2010

"Fictionwise research also shows that the company's typical customer is a woman, between 40 and 50 years old, who tends to have a higher-than-average income and level of education. In comparison, a few years ago, the typical customer was a man, who might have been a "gadget freak," Pendergrast said.

Analysing the demographics at this particular book-signing event proves the assertion to be correct.  

By far the majority of the audience were ladies of that age, and although they might well have their tablets, or e-readers stocked full of digital books, they don't give up easily on the opportunity to get the authors signature on their hard or paper-backed books.

Photo courtesy of Andy Kropa/Getty Images North America

Allison Pearson the focus of this particular book-signing event, proves to be a savvy lady.

Savvy lady indeed!  

She knows how to 'do-it-right' … a writer and journalist, Allison Pearson decided to write about what she knows best.

She serialised a story about her experiences as a full-time working mother, her story was read by thousands of readers of The Daily Telegraph.

Then on the back of this success she published the book "I Don't Know How She Does It"  and it became a best seller, a smash hit with working mothers across the globe.

It didn't take long for Hollywood to notice her name on the list of best-selling authors :  they came knocking on her door pleading with her to sign a film contract.

So what followed that huge tidal wave of success?

Book #2 of course, in the same popular genre. Capitalising on the success of the 1st book. Here's the savvy bit: she identified her target audience right from the word GO!  And, that is what many, many 1,000's of aspiring authors DO NOT DO! Apart perhaps from the one-and-only John Locke of "How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 months" fame.

This time Allison's book focussed on the teenage experiences of falling in love with a 'pop-star'!

Book #2 is called "I Think I Love You": very apt considering the idol in question is David Cassidy.

I attended a book-signing event at Patrick's Restaurant, Mumbles (in conjuction with Cover To Cover Book Shop) where Allison gave an extremely entertaining talk about the road to success, obviously not lingering long on the pain she'd suffered, while in the grip of depression.

Part of our work here at PBS is helping authors and writers to fulfil their dream: we are helping them to publish their works in the digital world, via Kindle & Nook e-Readers etc. etc. 

In a fraction of time compared to tradition publishing, PBS transfers the precious book from it's raw Word document state, into a digital book, instantly downloadable for purchase by the author's fans, friends and family. 

N.B. ~ Whilst we do not act for Allison Pearson in this niche market, we are able to say that attending 'book signing events' such as this has helped us to network with our target clients.

At this event two new clients signed up for the PBS Digital Marketing Package.  :oD

If you are still not convinced about the power of e-Books read what Mike Elgan at Computer World says:  he recently did a complete U-turn on his views regarding the potential success or failure of e-Readers:

Why Kindle rules

"I've dissed and dismissed e-books for years. But three factors I didn't anticipate reversed my long-standing attitude."

To review the added value features of Kindle scroll through the 4 pages.

Nancy Hopkins Reily says "There's a Book Inside Everyone" or more precisely "inside everyone is a book waiting to be revealed".  

I hope we can help you to reveal your book, at some time in the not too distant future.

Prevention is far better than cure.

There's no doubt in my mind that if you are able to begin to influence your offspring into the right mind-set at a very early age, and continue to drip feed the safety message to them as they grow, they will have a much better chance of staying safe on the web.

The message is best delivered within the warmth and security of the family.  I'm of the opinion that school isn't always the right place to get this message across, no matter how sincere the teaching staff are, I think the message best comes from within the loving arms of the parent.

Some basic advice on practical use of the Internet, which should be tweaked to suit your individual child, and a very good video for the 7 – 13 year old age group.

PhotoCredit: Fotolia ©Cherry-Merry

What has branding got to do with me, I'm a sole trader!

If I had a £5, $5 or …, for every time I've heard that from a small business owner, I'd be a very wealthy lady.

This article addresses those individuals who think it doesn't apply to them. They believe they are too small to have to worry about such things.  That I'm afraid is a fallacy.

It's just as applicable to you the solo-entrepreneur as it is to large corporates.  Cyber-criminals would love to harvest your personal information and your business identity.

Branding is about protecting your personal and business identity.

You need to take a pro-active approach to 'branding', and protecting that brand.  Your 'stamp' or 'brand' should be unique.

From the moment you begin to act on 'that great business idea' you need to think in terms of building a robust brand. More advice and help on branding.

PhotoCredit: Fotolia © F.C.G.

Rebecca snatched the glory in this worldwide competition and she was just 15 years old. She competed in a field of  228,000 international rivals, to win the Excel category outright! 

Here she is with her fellow competitors they are holding their winners certificates.  Her prize was a cheque for $5,000!

There's nothing geeky about Rebecca, you'll see from the video below that she's a regular 15 year old who is the epitome of youthful charm. Let's hope she continues to love working with Excel and finds herself the right Degree Course to further her talents.  It's obvious there is no lack of mentoring in this respect with such a strong role model for a Mom.

The 79 finalist gathered in San Diego, California to compete for the title following qualifying exams held in their own countries in October 2010.

Rebecca said "First we had to take a qualifying exam which I took back in about October. Then at the end of June we got the phonecall saying I'd got the best score in the UK so I was coming to Dan Diego for the world championships."

The 'we' she refers to is herself and her mother, who is a Microsoft trainer. So I guess the 'nature' & 'nurture' elements are in balance in this instance.

IT Learning Specialists, Prodigy's website reports:

Rebecca, from Sawtry Community College in Cambridgeshire, scored an incredible 100% in her specialist subject Microsoft Excel at the finals. Rebecca had earned her right to attend the world finals back in May after she achieved the top nationwide score in the Microsoft Office Specialist Excel certification exam.

Since then Rebecca has continued to hone her skills by studying at lunch and in the evenings at her school, supported by Pam Kitchen her instructor at Sawtry Community College.  

The final rounds consisted of timed tests in which the contestants had to build a spreadsheet to present a set of data.

Sponsors Certiport have posted a Flickr folder which contains photographs of the event.

Now more than ever before, passwords need to be cryptic, obscure and impenetrable.

If enterprises with sophisticated IT security get hacked, just imagine how easy it might be to hack your data.

The greatest threat to individuals using the internet is identity theft via access to personal and unique data.  Email accounts are hacked regularly to target personal information and so too are computer files hacked, revealing banking details, and passwords. Hackers once inside your PC, can leave malicious code which will attach itself to your files and spread to other PC's that might have cause to share these files.  

Read the full post in order that you protect against unwittingly falling victim to hackers who would steal your data and control your computers.

Virtual Assistants test lots of IT tools: we are constantly looking for ways to make our processes more efficient. 

We don't charge clients for time that isn't spent on the tasks we work on, on their behalf.

So we learn to be discriminating in choosing IT tools, tools to help expedite project tasks.

Enter, Paymo the Time-Tracking and Project Management Tool.

Paymo helps me to multi-task.

Oh! I should, at this point, also add that I am not affiliated with Paymo, and have not entered into promotion agreements with the company. 

Multi-tasking is second nature to the Virtual Assistant. I sometimes have 10 different Projects open at the same time.  The first file I open at the beginning of the working day is the Paymo Dashboard and Time-tracking Widget.  Using multiple screens, I can spread the files that I am working on, out across the displays. As work progresses in the week I take Overview snapshots like the ones on the next page…. Paymo Overview Reports.

Peninsular Business Services introduces a Guest Blogger.

The absolute-best-part of being active in social media is the opportunity to meet great people.  Layne Tinsley is one of the lovely people I have met since the early days of my engagement in social media, almost two years ago.

I am delighted to bring you a guest blog from Layne.   Her blogging at ‘Administrative Sparkle’ is always sparkling:  it oozes expertise and enthusiasm, and should not be missed, so I am taking steps to make it the very first website that I endorse here on Peninsular in our BlogRoll.

Between us Layne and I have over 50 years of commercial experience, gained at the workface, as it were, either as a student, a practitioner, a teacher/lecturer or entrepreneur.  Our full profiles can be viewed on LinkedIn the serious networking environment for professional people.

Layne talks about Meeting Etiquette, in her first contribution: this is something we can all refresh ourselves on.  Too many business meetings, and other types of meetings, that I have attended over the course of my career, have fallen short of the best practises.

We can all recall meetings that have been difficult and painfully drawn-out but it doesn’t have to be that way: help is at hand with ’25 Tips’ to encourage it to run smoothly and leave you keen to attend in the future.

One which grabs my attention is #19 If the meeting goes off topic, remind attendees of the agenda.  Sometimes the Chairperson has more than his/her hands full, so offer up assistance by helping to keep the topics on track.

Thank you Layne, I know this blog will be of immense interest to lots of folk in my network.

Promoting our sister website

VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS IN WALES

Our sister website is heaving with good advice for people needing help with Internet Security, Data Protection for SMEs, Social Media.

We promote their Facebook Page below which some might say has been a while in arriving.  We wanted to ensure that we had given sufficient time to the task of researching Facebook before recommending it to our clients to add to their Social Media toolkit.

With adequate attention paid to the permissions and security settings we conclude that it could be a useful tool for some business owners.

Used in conjunction with other Social Media tools it can help to bring a wider audience of potential customers/clients forward and into the sales funnel.

A screenshot of our Facebook Business Page at Virtual Assistants in Wales

Best possible use has been made of the additional Tabs feature. We have added a Welcome Tab which announces “Hello, this is how we can help you’, and an Enquiry Form which encourages people to send us enquiries for various services.

Virtual Assistants in Wales is also well represented on Twitter so we have added a Tab which relays all of the Tweets from our main account at @LadyBizBiz.

There are subsidiary accounts to look out for on Twitter too:

@ParaTecVA          For more technical work

@BizGodmother     For more family/home based assistance

@GowerBizAngel   For locally based assignments in the Swansea/Gower area

There is also a YouTube Tab that utilises the videos from Ladybizbiz’s Channel.

The main considerations in using the Business Page is that you must have ‘Admin’ Rights in order to add extra Tabs to the account.

If you have used the older Facebook Profile account you will only take a short while to adapt to the structure of the Business Page. The main point to remember is you will be switching between them frequently because for some bizarre reason you can only import the Apps while you are within the Personal Profile.

Controls and Permissions

You have total control over what appears in your Business Page Wall. You might have selected to follow a favourite business, or a client’s business but you don’t have to allow ALL their updates into your stream.  You can select to Hide their updates individually or completely.

Sometimes the volume of updates that people make to their Facebook account is astounding. I repeat, you don’t have to allow them all onto your Wall: you can sift through them, allowing only the ones you want to remain there.  You may have ‘LIKED’ them but you don’t have to like the volume.

On the Personal Profiles we have been used to adding Friends, now with the Business Page, we ‘Like’ other business’ and sincerely hope that they will return the compliment. (But, don’t hold your breath).

Curation in Social Media

Facebook, like all other Social Media platforms, needs close moderation in order to run smoothly.  If you choose it as part of your toolkit it will need attending on a daily basis, at the very least. If you are short on time for curating your Social Media accounts then the sensible option is to outsource the task to professional moderators.

Virtual Assistants in Wales offers a Social Media Curation Service. Let our ‘super Social Media sisters‘ help you.

I posted this last year, but it is worth sharing with you again,  …. and again,   …. and again,   … I wonder if it'll be updated at any time soon?  (It now needs Google+ ! )

A very cleverly produced YouTube Video came into my orbit today and I thought it summed up nicely the distance mankind has travelled through the millennia.  Shame that peace, joy and goodwill for all mankind has yet to be achieved.  December 27 2010.

Enjoy!

I view this video not from the perspective of a Christian but nevertheless it has resonance for me.  

It is not intended to offend in any way.

What else is missing from the mix?

Don’t panick we can help you with your email management.

If you are thinking “What’s the stress in managing email”?    You are obviously a person who is well versed in the use of IT tools and possesses a solid skill-set.   This blog post is here to help those who aren’t quite there yet.

You feel like you are drowning in a sea of mail. We can help!

What you need is a strategy for managing your email, and that might well mean managing multiple accounts.  The recommendations I make here involve a combination of things:

• Setting up a Master Account
• Routing multiple accounts through to your Master account
• Using the services of a Virtual Assistant to manage the process seamlessly.

You’ve reached a point where your distaste for and aversion to IT is out weighed by the realisation of just how essential it is to give your business an edge over your competitors    …………….   continued.