Monthly Archives: November 2019

Help For The Inner Journey

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By Denise Turney

There may be no journey as hard or as rewarding as the inner journey. Unexpected experiences, outright shocks, long awaited successes, heartbreaks and joyous, peaceful events that can stretch into weeks, sometimes years, are part of the inner journey. If you’re up for it, you could be in for the ride of your life.

What If Hope Doesn’t Know The Way

Play it safe (stay where you) and you may find yourself in need of help, particularly as it regards mental health than if you had stirred your courage, gotten started and stepped right into change. Whatever your prior decisions, if you want your life to improve, don’t keep doing what you know isn’t best for you.

natural inner journey with trees in woods
Path thru nature – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by ForestWander

Don’t just hope that an old situation will get better with time. After all, instead of enduring defeat, you could seek help. This article shares three ways to receive help for the inner journey.

To begin, practice mental health awareness to avoid getting stuck, burned out or anxious. Mental awareness could help you to get and stay mentally sharp. No need adding more struggle to your journey.

Stay Mentally Sharp on the Inner Journey

Fortunately, achieving mental sharpness may not be hard, especially if you are committed to your journey for the long term. If you’re looking for ways to get or stay mentally sharp, here are a few suggestions:

  • Add at least three activities that you enjoy into your day (e.g., a hot, scented bubble bath, listening to your favorite music, reading a good book)
  • Get enough deep sleep
  • Meditate or still your mind
  • Pray and trust the Creator
  • Pay attention to your dreams and other forms of inner communication
  • Treat your body to a healthy diet (e.g., fresh vegetables, delicious fruit bursting with flavor)
  • Daily exercise (get your body moving)
  • Write down your dreams (Don’t get too surprised if you start spotting dream themes or recurring symbols that your subconscious pushes up to your conscious in your dreams.)

Different Kind of Travel Map

Next, take inspired action. This means that you’re not just throwing paint against the wall, hoping that it lands in the right spots. Also, don’t worry too much about getting it right. You’re going to make mistakes.

Yet, don’t accept mistakes as habits. Steer clear of convincing yourself that taking the wrong action is “okay” just because everyone makes mistakes. Examples of inspired action include:

  • Signing up for a free training
  • Joining and actively participating in a support group (e.g., mental health support group, startup founders support and networking group)
  • Attending a specific event
  • Contacting a certain person who can aid your progress
  • Waking in the morning when your brain is most alert, allowing ideas and answers to bubble up

You’ll know in your gut when the inner voice of wisdom is prompting you to take action. That inner voice of wisdom is your real voice. Even in this world, you can listen to it.

Seek Help from Someone Else

Should you feel stuck or confused (circling the mountain because you don’t know what to do), seek help. Avoid limiting “help” to mental health therapy with a licensed psychologist.

After all, bonding with friends, truly listening to the people who you partner with, and working with someone who has been stuck before (and who found her way forward) are other ways to seek help. Key is to seek input from someone who can offer you a new perspective, someone who can speak with conviction.

As an example, you could seek the support of a life coach who has deep experience in your field. A coach could help you to see your blind spots. Just be open to listening.

Above all, keep going. Your beautiful life won’t unfold with the snap of a finger. But it will unfold if you listen to your inner wisdom, practice mental awareness, stay mentally sharp and, if when you get stuck or confused, you seek help for the inner journey.

Making the Inner Journey Easier

As a final thought, when it comes to covering inner ground, consider external travel. Think about it.

New York to Kenya may be a long way to travel, especially if you go by boat. Oahu to Tuscany isn’t better. Yet, technology has helped to make it easy to see the path that you must take to get from one of those travel destinations to another. Do your homework, and you can even know what to expect when you arrive.  

There are plenty of travel websites and travel packages you could use. Talk about taking the fear out of making a decision about a new journey. Technology has taken a lot of unknown out of world travel. Mental awareness and the right support can do the same for the inner journey.

Although your life’s detailed plans aren’t uploaded on a travel website, you aren’t absent help. In fact, the more you listen to the inner voice of wisdom, the better. Listen to the inner voice of wisdom and you could avoid mental health roadblocks.

That alone could keep you fueled with enough motivation to keep going, and you need to keep going. After all, how else will you know what this phase of your never-ending journey will look like? Even more, how else will you come to know what you really are?

7 Winning Podcasts Must Haves

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Winning podcasts are fun, educational and controversial. They are also growing. Featured show topics range from books, sports to politics, science, education, family and entertainment. Although they are taking off, managing a successful podcast takes planning, smart execution and targeted marketing. We’ve compiled seven must haves that can take your podcasts from average to winning. The first must have starts with your passion.

Podcasts and Passion – A Perfect Marriage

Dolly Parton, Jillian Michaels, Dr. Drew and Shaq are among the celebrities who have a podcast. Millions of people have seen these celebrities’ work. Yet, Dolly Parton, Jillian Michaels, Dr. Drew and Shaq don’t podcast about topics they know little about. Instead, they focus on their passions.

Off The Shelf Books podcasts graphic
Off The Shelf Books Winning Podcasts

So, what are you passionate about? I love books and story. Therefore, it’s no surprise that my podcast features author interviews, book conferences, screenplay writers, poets, literary agents, editors and book publishers. See how I marry podcasts and passion by catching Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio.

Choosing a podcast that links to your passion is a huge time saver. You’ll know which guests to schedule, where to narrow your podcasts marketing and the types of questions to dig into during each episode. Even more, you could be viewed as an “expert” in your passion field, especially if your podcast takes off. Next, you’ll want to choose a quality podcast hosting platform.

Podcasts Hosting Companies That Score Big

Blubrry, Buzzsprout, PodBean, Castos, Simplecast and Audioboom are among the top podcasts hosting companies. Points to pay attention to when selecting a hosting company include monthly storage limits, pricing, advertising, community and marketing tools that each company offers.

For example, SoundCloud’s monthly storage limits start at 3 hours and goes up to unlimited. Pricing is comparable to the podcast’s storage needs. Require more storage, prepare to pay a higher monthly hosting service fee.

Additionally, some hosting companies share ad revenue with their podcasters. Blog Talk Radio does this. But Blog Talk Radio has a telephone dial in feature that some podcasters and listeners aren’t crazy about. Which brings up the third winning podcast “must have”.

Connection Options

Returning to Blog Talk Radio, there is an option to listen to their radio podcasts thru a chat room. Skype is another way to catch a Blog Talk Radio Show (more about Skype later in this article). iTunes, a Bluetooth connection, the Alexa app, Skype and Zoom are tools to record and/or listen to podcasts on.

Each comes with pros and cons. For this reason, when choosing a podcast hosting company and a tool to record podcast episodes, pay attention to sound quality. If you want to experience a visual connection with your podcast’s guests, consider Zoom.

Depending on your recording experience, you could use your smartphone to record podcast episodes. Before you choose this option, check your phone’s sound quality. Also, ensure that sound doesn’t breakup or go in and out.

Make It Easy for Listeners to Love Your Winning Podcasts

For starters, great sound quality is a way to make it easy for listeners to love your podcast. Additionally, host and guest’s preparation, choice of questions and consistency are the next winning podcast must haves that can set your show apart.

Do yourself a favor and choose engaging guests. People in your passion field who have knocked out online radio interviews before can help turn an episode into a slam dunk. But even if you go with inexperienced or shy guests, your show can leave a good impression on its listeners.

To achieve this, research guests a week or more prior to their interview. Also, ask questions that require wordy answers. For example, questions like “Do you like to read family sagas?” “Is hockey your favorite sport?” and “Were you a history major?” make it easy for guests to give one-word answers.

This isn’t what you want. Therefore, “Do you like to read family sagas?” could become “How did you develop Tammy Tilson, the family matriarch, in Spiral?”

Turn Podcasts Guests into Fans

Following up on this, develop enough questions to keep the show flowing. On Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio, I create at least 30 questions for each guest. Often, I don’t get to each question. But having 30 questions to ask each guest keeps the show from experiencing lulls.

It also helps guests to relax and enjoy the show as it unfolds. To keep listeners coming back, be consistent. For example, you could schedule a podcast episode for each Saturday morning. Just pick the same time (e.g., 11am/EST) to air your podcast.

Consistency cannot be over stressed. Be there when your guests and listeners are. Last, market your podcast.

Spread the Word About Your Winning Podcasts

Social media, press releases and offline radio, television and print interviews are a few places where you can market and advertise your podcast. If you have a YouTube channel, consider marketing your podcast there too.

In addition, you could market your podcast at your blog, at podcasts directories and by leaving bookmarks, postcards and flyers at places that your target audience frequents. Also, ask your guests to tell their supporters about your podcast and their feature interview.

Content marketing platforms like Taboola, Outbrain, StoryChief and Newscred are other places where you could market your podcast. As with other marketing platforms, pay attention to pricing and service range and depth.

In closing, podcasts popularity is backed by strong numbers. According to Music MPH, 150 million people in the United States have tuned into a podcast. About 150 million Americans listen to a podcast at least once a month. Nearly 103 million people tune into a podcast each week. Listener range crosses at least 100 languages, making podcasting an effective marketing tool.

Here Are 3 Reasons Why You Should Always Choose Love

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By Author Denise Turney

brown sand always choose love text on beach shore
Love written on beach – Photo by Porapak Apichodilok on Pexels.com

Always choose love because, in reality, what else is there? Love is the gateway to peace. It is powerful, all-encompassing and eternal. Destinies, miracles and life itself owe all they are to love. So why the pull toward fear, worry, violence and trauma?

Are we that out of touch with our core? Has love, to us, become the greatest mystery?

Oh, the wonder of love and yet it’s never what you expect. You definitely don’t expect love to be elusive, and yet that is often how love seems. In fact, the harder you pursue love, the further away it seems to move.

What if Love is a Choice

And it’s this elusiveness that brings up a not-to-be-ignored point. Love is a choice, not an emotion or object that you can hold or take ownership of. Therefore, to find love, always choose love. Sound simple?

On a clear day, times absent struggle, disappointment or pain, it is simple. Let someone lie on you, betray you, bully you or abandon you and the simplicity of choosing love flees. During these complicated emotionally charged experiences, there’s so much to gain . . . and lose.

It all comes down to the choices you make. Choices because it might take a series of choices to get from hurt, anger or fear to love. But how do you know you don’t always choose love? How do you know you’re asking for an unloving experience?

About the Love Guarantee

Although you don’t have to be convinced that love is worth always choosing, you may be eager for confirmation that your pursuit of love will not fail. Childhood abandonment, relationship conflicts, not to mention communication struggles at work, can shy you away from love. Should this happen, you may demand a guarantee that love will work.

Love Always Pays Off
Love double heart graphic – Wikimedia Commons, Picture by Nevit Dilmen

After all, who wants to look or feel foolish? But it’s impossible to get a guarantee that the best thing is to always choose love. If you still need a guarantee, you could peek in on other people’s relationships, witnessing how it plays out when they choose love or fear.

Signs You Don’t Always Choose Love

However, that probably wouldn’t convince you that it’s best to always choose love. On the contrary, that’s their relationships, not yours. Or you could suffer through life, afraid of what might happen if you choose love. And suffer you might eventually do, in a habit kind-of-way. Best to catch yourself, spot what you’re doing, early. Do any of these signs that you’re not choosing love resonate?

  • Making excuses not to connect with other people
  • Replaying former relationship conflicts until the memory thread starts wearing thin
  • Working harder to protect yourself from sad romantic endings than you do at opening up to healthy relationships
  • Boxing love in small or narrow perceptional passageways
  • Feeling anger or fear when you let someone get emotionally close to you

That or you could spend years, which is a long time, trying to define love, not actually experience love but define it. Truth is, because love encompasses all that is real, it may be impossible to define love.

3 Reasons To Always Choose Love

Fact is love doesn’t always come with flowers, compliments, warm emotions, excitement or romance. Yet, rewards you gain when you always choose love are immeasurable, as these three reasons show:

  • Joy, peace and love cannot be separated. Choose love and you gain joy. Even more, you gain peace. Additional benefits include trust, strong faith that love works, sharper inner vision, a clear conscience and confidence.
  • Ease at forgiving is another reason to always choose love. After you experience the results of love, you may never want to be blocked again. Lack of forgiveness blocks the experience of love.
  • Third, choosing love allows you to let life unfold unhindered, naturally. Additionally, you may feel more energized, balanced and supported. Also, you might expect good things to happen to you simply because you believe that, as someone who always chooses love, you deserve good.

The good news is that love encompasses all. Plainly, inside love is love for the Creator, love for Self and love for all of creation. Practice love and you sleep good at night. You gain experiences (also known as “proof”) that love works, even in this world – love works.

Choosing Love Changes Everything

By always choosing love, you can see how time or space cannot stop love. This doesn’t mean that everyone believes in love, let alone chooses love. Past experiences cause many people to fear love, to believe that love caused the pain in their relationships.

In fact, some people make themselves hard to love. It can take years to see that this is a call for help. In fact, Raymond Clarke starts learning to cry out for love early. He learns this lesson through his father, the one parent who stayed back to care for him when he was only two years old.

Raymond’s father is bitter, hard, abusive. His words cut. They’re sharp, spoken to do damage and they don’t fail. But Raymond has a gift. He has a gift that opens doors for him. He also has a decision to make. He too, like you – like all of us – has to decide whether he will always choose love.

You can read more about Raymond in Love Pour Over Me.

10 Best Ways Writers and Book Readers Start Smart Connections

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By Author Denise Turney

Connecting writers and book readers is truly an art. After years of writing, publishing, marketing and selling books, I have learned effective strategies to increase book sales. I am going to share several of these winning book marketing strategies with you in this Chistell.com blog post.

Chistell Publishing author Denise Turney writers and book website
Chistell Publishing Writers and Book Readers Website

These strategies don’t involve spending more ad money. Even more, these book marketing tips aren’t about living on the road with boxes of books stuffed in your car trunk.

Smart Connections with Book Lovers Isn’t Pricey

Howbeit, attending book festivals and the right literary events helps when it comes to connecting with book readers. (Keep reading to find out how attending large scale book events makes its way onto the 10 best ways that writers and book readers make smart connections.)

Several of the strategies won’t cost you a dime. Also, depending on your existing support system, you might not have to implement all of the strategies to start seeing an increase in sales. However, what you will have to do is to be serious, and I do mean serious, about staying with the book marketing process long term.

Additionally, you will have to engage in at least two of these 10 actions. Let’s begin.

First of the 10 Best Ways Writers and Book Readers Make Smart Connections

This first strategy will get you out of the house. Added to selling books is the rewarding chance to network and meet authors, the very people who can tell you about more effective ways to increase book sales.

Attend book festivals, large scale events. But don’t just go to any book event. Research festivals, conferences and book fairs. Find out how many attendees are expected at the events. If these numbers aren’t posted at the event website, email the event organizers and ask them to share this information.

After all, the last thing you want to do is to pay a registration fee for an author’s table at book festivals that only attract 20 readers. Also, check event websites (or contact the event organizer) to see if you can participate in radio, television and online promotions organizers run.

Organizers offer these services at competitive prices to help cover the cost of running book fairs. Before you sign up for the fairs, make sure the registration fee is competitive enough to allow you to generate a profit. Book fairs that attract 10,000 or more book buyers could make it easy to sell 60 or more books. If you’re out-of-pocket costs is $250 or less, you could easily earn a profit.

More Ways Writers and Book Readers Connect

Start your own book festival. Consider requiring attendees to register for the event in advance. This way, you will know how many people are planning to attend. Use this data in press releases, announcements, social media posts, flyers, direct mail and on postcards.

But don’t go it alone. Network with other writers who run book festivals. You might be surprised how many writers organize events. Connect with these authors and get tips on ways to gain sponsors and local media coverage.

Apply for awards. I’m seeing more book awards shows. These awards shows are similar to popular music and film awards shows. Similarly, book awards shows can bring you lots of exposure and help you make smart connections.

Engaging Book Clubs and More

As a fourth tip, reach out to book clubs. Choose book clubs that read the types of books you write. Please pay attention to that. Don’t try to force a connection. Make it easy on yourself and reach out to book clubs that align with books you write.

In other words, you won’t have to convince these book club members to want to read your books. All you should have to do is introduce your books to the club members.

Here are six more ways that writers and book readers make smart connections:

  • Create and send colorful, attention-grabbing postcards to local media, book club presidents and book bloggers.
  • Follow these postcards up with direct email
  • A week later send recipients a snail mail
  • Post flyers about your book on college campuses, local libraries, etc. Request approval from administrators before hanging the flyers
  • Inside direct mail, include short overviews of your books, your bio and the benefits that the organizations and their readers or listeners can gain from reading your books.
  • Shorten the time it takes to generate direct email messages by signing up with email marketing platforms (e.g., Constant Contact, MailChimp)

Final Four Ways to Connect with Avid Readers

Throughout the year, schedule radio interviews. Thanks to online radio stations and podcasts, this should be easy. As a tip, you can find radio stations and podcasts to interview on by following media influencers on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Focus on being on the radio or on a podcast at least once a week. You could even start your own podcast like I did. Check out Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio. In fact, depending on the types of books you write, you could gain a feature Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio interview. Listen to the show. See if there’s a fit.

Graphic of Off The Shelf Book Podcast with author Denise Turney
Off The Shelf Book Podcast

If there is a fit, contact me through the show.

To connect with readers and gain more book sales, also attend networking events. Stay local and you could reduce your out-of-pocket traveling expenses.

These networking events are different from book festivals. Examples include chamber of commerce awards luncheons, arts workshops, professional meetups and business startup discussions.

Exchange business cards with people who attend these networking events. Who knows, some attendees might help you get into large corporations they work at, which leads to the next tip to get more book sales. Depending on your book’s topic, you could speak at large corporations, sharing insights and research findings with corporate employee networks, etc. Should this happen, conduct book signings at the end of these speaking engagements.

You Can Get More Book Sales

Run a writing contest. You could also run a Q&A contest that focuses on one of your books. As a prize, you could give winners a collection of your books and/or a bookstore gift card.

Additionally, blog about your books. This isn’t a one and done. Be dedicated. This means, that you’ll publish a new blog post at least once a week, once a month at the absolute minimum. Write naturally and use a SEO plug-in to improve search engine rankings.

Furthermore, consider using tools like Google Analytics to track the effectiveness of your blog posts. In relation to this, regularly update your website content, including website meta tags.

Love Pour Over Me book in author Denise Turney personal library bookcase
Love Pour Over Me in book library

Also, reach out to other bloggers. Make sure they blog about the types of books you write. Ask to be interviewed or featured at these book blogs.

Tips to Get More Book Buyer Connections

Just for fun, here are even more ways writers and book readers start smart connections. Set up automatic social media posts. I’ve actually met media professionals this way and gotten published in major newspapers and magazines.

But don’t just publish auto messages to social media platforms. Actually, log into social media platforms and ask questions, post motivational quotes and info about your books. Also, respond to messages that other posters share. Please don’t just take or only advertise your books. After all, you’re trying to make smart connections.

To grow your readership, write and publish new books. As simple as it may sound, this is one of the best ways that I have found to increase book sales. However, make sure that you write your best book. Great books can create surprising word-of-mouth sales.

Let’s Talk Amazon and Barnes & Noble Book Retailers

Update your Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble book descriptions. Over the course of a year, I might revise my book descriptions three to four times. Add keywords that readers use to search for the types of books you write. Also, link your book blog to your Amazon Author Central page. You could also run book Amazon ads. If you do, track the results and make changes as needed. Start small and update keywords that you use in the ads. Keep tracking results.

Additionally, create profiles at popular book websites like Good Reads, CushCity and iTunes. Familiarize yourself with book distributions (e.g., Ingram, Baker & Taylor) and see if they are running book promotions you can participate in.

There are lots of actions you can take to increase your book sales. But these book marketing strategies have actually worked for me, which is why I am sharing them with you. These aren’t strategies that I just read about. These are book marketing strategies I have tried and gained results from.

One final note, the path to more book sales sounds simple. Just start selling more books by making smart reader connections. Yet, as simple as it sounds, it can take months to find and connect with your book’s perfect readers. The above book marketing tips shared in this post can save you years of trial and error.