This article was first published on March 14, 2016, in The Huffington Post.

Over the past month, I have fielded numerous inquiries about book development and promotion, so I figured it would be helpful to share with you my tips for both. In this first installment, I’ll focus on the starting point question of whether to self-publish or pursue a mainstream publisher. There is really no right or wrong answer here. Instead, there are pros and cons of each route, along with numerous variables to consider. Here are some of them:

Self Publishing Pros:

• You have total control over content and publication date.
• You receive all the profits generated by book sales.
• You don’t need to develop a book proposal (which is like a business and marketing plan for the book, plus book summary, chapter summaries, and sample chapters).
• You don’t need to have an already-established platform (impressive media clips, a strong social media following, previous work with VIPs, previous speaking engagements at leading venues) to entice literary agents and publishing company editors.

Self Publishing Cons:

• There is no advance.
• You have to pay for publication.
• You have to do all your own promotion.
• Media, VIPs, and speaking venues may not take you as seriously as if you publish through a recognized publishing company.
• There are a number of self-publishing company scams out there, attempting to take advantage of the eager and unsuspecting novice author. It may be difficult for a lay person to distinguish between what is legitimate and what is not.

Mainstream Publishing Pros:

• You may get an advance, and it may be large enough to take time off to write your book, without also having to work during that time. Getting an advance is more likely with a larger publishing company and with more accomplishments under your belt, ie, a stronger platform (see “bling” reference above). If the publishing company expects your book to sell well, they are more likely to offer a greater amount of money up front.
• The publishing company does all the work of publishing, and the physical books usually appear more professional, polished, and higher quality than self-published books.
• The publishing company does a certain amount of promotional work – including securing media, booking speaking engagements at book stores, and creating a limited number of promotional items for those engagements.
• Mainstream publication establishes you as a credible author – the bigger the publisher, the higher your credibility as a trusted source of information. This credibility in turn makes it easier to generate respect and interest from media, VIPs in your field, and prestigious speaking venues. It additionally helps generate “brand trust” – ie, it offers third-party validation that makes people feel more comfortable with you and therefore willing to invest in your products or services.

• You may end up with an editor who doesn’t “get” you or your work and who demands edits that you feel compromise your integrity or that of your book. The more edgy your book is, the more likely you are to find yourself butting heads with a mainstream editor. Remember, they want to sell books.
• Unless you are an A-lister and/or your book takes off like wildfire, shortly after publication, you will get a limited amount of time and attention from the publishing company, with regards to book promotion. You are likely to have to invest a certain amount of time, energy, and resources into promotion, even with some of the larger publishing companies, especially if you want a targeted and sustained promotional campaign.
• The publishing company is likely to send out a one-size-fits all press release to all media outlets, whereas media editors/producers respond best to pitches tailored to their specific audiences – for example, one version to health magazines, another version to business magazines, and still another version to women’s magazines. Remember my previous blog post about how to spin yourself from different angles? A mainstream publisher will not do that.
• The publishing company is likely to just send out press releases, without calling editors/producers, or to send out press releases and call, but just once or twice, before stopping. It can take as many as three or four persistent phone calls and emails before editors/producers respond, given how busy they are. Frequently, after finally getting one of them on the phone, following multiple pitches, they confess to having no idea what the pitch is, despite repeated voicemails and emails – which they then scroll through and find in their inbox. It often takes a certain kind of relentlessness to get the attention of media, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the pitch or the interest in the topic.
• With some exceptions, you need to develop a book proposal, referenced above, regardless of whether the book is already written or not. It is often harder for people to write summaries of chapters than to write out the entire chapters, and while you may love writing about a certain topic, you may not love writing about the business of that topic. Again, a book proposal is a marketing plan, designed to convince editors that you can sell your book and generate a profit for them.
• It is likely to take you much longer to go the mainstream publishing route than the self-publishing route:

1. • After developing the book proposal, you will need to identify literary agents who are not only competent and well-connected but who are also a terrific match for your particular book.
   • Once you find the best literary agents for your book, you will need to develop a killer one-page query letter, to entice said literary agents to take you on as a client.
   • Once you sign with a literary agent, you will need to wait for days, weeks, or months, while your literary agent wines and dines editors at the various publishing companies – with no promise of actually placing the book, even after all that time.
   • Once you sign with a publishing company, you will need to write your book (if it’s not yet written), then wait for the editor at that publishing company to review and finalize your book content – which may include a significant amount of back-and-forth with you, especially if there are disagreements about content edits.
   • You then will need to wait until the publishing company is ready to release the book, given all the other books it already has in queue.

So…Which route to go?
My general rule of thumb is this:

If you have a nominal or entirely non-existent platform, you might be better off self-publishing. You can use this book to build your platform, then circle back around to mainstream literary agents and publishers down the line, to republish your book once you have a strong social media following, speaking engagements, VIP collaboration, and media clips under your belt. Alternately, you can see this book as an investment in your platform, then leverage that platform for another book – for which you can go after mainstream publishing.

If, however, you have accumulated a significant amount of “bling,” you might be better off going the mainstream publishing route. While you still will have to invest a certain amount of time, energy, and resources into book promotion, you won’t have to pay for publication; you’ll get at least a certain amount of support with media and speaking engagements; and you may get an advance. (Who doesn’t like extra cash?) Perhaps most importantly, you’ll have the extra validation and prestige that come with mainstream publishing – which in turn can open all kinds of doors to you.

If you need help writing website content or editing your book, target students in the English, journalism, and communications tracks. If you need help with developing or promoting your business, target students in the business, marketing, and communication tracks — the latter of which will be especially keen on promoting your business through social media.

These kinds of internships are the most coveted, because students get hands-on experience putting their studies into practice, as opposed to making photocopies, fetching coffee, and doing other mundane tasks around the office. In addition, it’s thrilling to be a 20-year-old and in charge of running some aspect of a company. Your intern will love you for that trust and incredible opportunity. Just be sure to pick students who are juniors or seniors, have high grade point averages (I recommend no lower than 3.4), and have excellent references.

In my own case, I ran numerous mentorship-internship programs over the years, where I hand-picked communications students and taught them everything I know about media, marketing, and PR. While I didn’t pay them, I did arrange for them to get school credit, wherever possible. When I was a freelance journalist, one of my interns was so talented that I had her writing my pitches and ghostwriting an article by the end of the program. When I was running a wellness company, Dancing with Pain, my intern organized my classes, ran my social media campaign, and landed me interviews with LA Yoga and ABC News. She even came a hair’s breadth away from placing me on Oprah!

But can youth really run my business?

Let me put it this way: I started my media, marketing, and PR work as a high school student in San Francisco, when I got together with my close friends and organized a student group that protested California budget cuts to education — called SOS: Save Our Schools. We organized rallies and actions that involved thousands of students, as well as government officials from the city and state levels; we got ourselves all over the top local newspapers, radio, and television stations; the California State Teachers Association started an organization named after ours; the mayor sent us a letter saying that he could not ignore the passionate voice of young students; and I believe it was at least in part because of our efforts that the budget cuts ended up getting reduced – among other things, saving the honors and Advanced Placement programs, which were going to be cut.

Which all goes to say, yes, kids can do stuff. Give them a chance, and give your wallet a break. It’s a win-win all around.

This article was first published in The Huffington Post, on February 16, 2016

Just because you’re in the field of holistic health does not mean you need to stay sequestered in holistic health media, or even in health media. By thinking expansively and creatively about who you are, what you do, and whom you serve, you can position yourself as relevant for a diverse cross-section of media. How do you get out of a limited media mindset? Think of yourself as a prism, catching the light at different angles, depending on how you hold that prism.

Let’s say you are a holistic nutritionist. It’s pretty straightforward to think about pitching general health media, or health sections of newspapers, with the angle of optimal nutrition for optimal health. Go beyond, by thinking about the additional applications of nutrition, and pitch the corresponding media markets:

Local
Offer a local summer cleanse program, and prior to the event, pitch local television, radio, and newspapers with an interview, offering pointers on how to do a safe and effective cleanse.

Political
Pitch political magazines with an investigative look at the links between racism, poverty, and nutritional deficiency among youth.

Business
Pitch business magazines with an exploration of what C-suite members typically eat, and what they need to eat (or not to eat) for peak performance.

Ethnic
Pitch ethnic magazines — in particular, those of your own ethnicity, so you can include compelling family stories — with an exploration of healthy ways to prepare traditional meals.

Advocacy
Pitch patient advocacy magazines (targeting those with diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, etc) with guidance on the optimal diet for managing or eliminating that particular health condition.

Op-Ed
Pitch the op-ed section of newspapers with an opinion piece on why you would like to see health insurance companies subsidize juicing as part of a healing regimen, just as they subsidize pharmaceuticals.

Fitness
Pitch fitness magazines with the best foods for increasing muscle mass, building stamina, and losing weight in healthy and sustainable ways.

Food
Pitch food magazines with delicious, nutrient-dense, and time-saving recipes.

Alma Matter
Pitch your college magazine with a story about how a particular experience at that college influenced your decision to become a nutritionist.

The media mindset is quite different than the marketing mindset. The idea is that you are not promoting your services per se, but rather, you are positioning yourself as a go-to specialist, who has a deep understanding of the importance and applications of your specialty. With this approach, you can get into, and stay in, the media spotlight, across a broad spectrum of media markets. Doing so keeps you relevant, increases your search engine optimization (media links to your website are gold), and boosts your status – in the latter case, increasing your credibility and therefore making people more likely to trust and work with you.

So go ahead: Think outside the box, and take the media world by storm.

The tool I use is a comprehensive inventory process, through which I ask pointed questions that not only identify each hat my client wears, but that also get “underneath” each hat, connecting the dots in between: I discover the essence of who my client is, as a soul walking around on this earth; how that essence translates into what my client does for work; how that work feeds the souls of those whose lives my client touches; and so on. Inevitably, a common theme emerges. That theme becomes my client’s brand, informs my client’s message, and captures my client’s audience.

I’m able to guide my clients through the inventory process on a deep level, because among other things, I myself wear many hats, so I understand how the whole renaissance thing works: You’re excited about life. Curious. An explorer. Passionate. Someone with an abundance of energy. Someone who cares. A lot. I get you. I am you. And I was also told, repeatedly, to reel it in, to stop bouncing from one thing to another, to “focus.” I was focused like a laser beam! It’s just that people were looking at the outer manifestations of that focus, not at the focus itself. They just couldn’t see it.

True, on the surface, I appear to be all over the damn map — a Jewish multicultural educator, journalist, feminist activist, holistic health coach, author, musician, and general rabble rouser (voted “class troublemaker” in high school — the only category with no runners-up!) What the heck does one have to do with the other? In my case, they are all about raw and powerful healing, individually and collectively, in a synergistic loop. And not only has my work in one field enhanced my work in another, giving me a unique edge over others in that field, but my work in one field actually has created my work in another:

My ability to sing global Jewish music led to my workshops on Jewish multiculturalism, which led to my international speaking engagements at prestigious venues, which led to my journalistic articles in top media, which led to my first inquiry about public relations work, which led to, well, this here blog post. The path was far from linear, and there were a million other ways that my work criss-crossed and fed into each other. Bottom line is that the journey was exhilarating. When one thing wasn’t flowing, another thing was, in a constant stream of movement, growth, and transformation.

So no. You don’t need to choose one hat and stick with it. You just need to channel all your sparkling little streams into one glorious, powerful river.

1. 1. 1. They want to know that this individual can perform.

      Whether engaging a television audience or writing a

   compelling blog post

   , the people featured in top media need to have magnetic draw, to increase eyeballs and drive sales.

1. 1. 1. They are conservative.

      Media at the top has a lot more at risk than smaller, independent media. For this reason, they are far less willing to take a risk. The talent they feature need to have a

   track record in smaller media

   , to ensure this talent is a sound investment. Think about it this way: If you’re about to hire a contractor for work, you want that individual vetted out by someone you trust, right?

1. 1. 1. They are watching their peers.

      While there are very sharp, independent thinking editors and producers out there, marching to the beat of their own proverbial drums, most are in fact looking around at the Joneses of media, to see what everyone else is up to. It’s how they gauge what’s hot and what’s not. If the Joneses are doing it, so will they.

   Media feeds media

    feeds media, in a bandwagon effect.

For all these reasons, you need to build you your media portfolio step-by-step, beginning with the smaller, independent, niche outlets that are willing to take a chance on you, and climbing up from there, one hot media rung at a time. This objective in turn requires a comprehensive and savvy marketing and PR campaign – optimizing your brand and message, identifying and accessing the ideal target audience, strengthening your following and engagement on social media, establishing collaborative relationships with VIPs in your field, and speaking at prestigious venues, in a synergistic, self-reinforcing web.

Did you ever have something on your to-do list that required 10 sub-steps to knock off that one item? Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.

1. Refine your brand, target audience, and message.
Get clear about the essence of who you are, what you do, and why you do it. Spend a little time soul-searching! Reflect on how your personality, life experience, spiritual beliefs, and professional training uniquely equip you to do your work in your signature way. The distillation of these answers is your brand. Next, think about who needs exactly what you do, the way you do it, and why. Voila! Now you have your target audience. Keep in mind that your target audience is not “everyone.” If it is, you have not done your homework. Lastly, play matchmaker with yourself and your target audience: Choose language that communicates your brand in such a way that your intended demographic immediately feels drawn to you — recognizing you as the one who understands them and meets their needs.

2. Write a rock star bio.
Establish why someone immediately should trust you and recognize you as an expert in your field. To this end, make a list of all your formal and informal credentials — professional degrees or certifications you have received; awards you have won; venues where you have presented; media where you have published or been featured; VIPs with whom you have collaborated; and relevant life experience you have acquired. You may not have a culinary degree, for example, but you may have grown up in a family of gourmet chefs. If you are a restaurant owner, that life experience is key to include in your bio. Once you have your list, select between one and three of the most prestigious examples of each; ditch the rest; and make it consistent throughout — for example, two of each category, Noah’s Ark style.

3. Revamp your online presence.
Invest your money into designing a customized, professional website with a domain name that people naturally associate with you or your brand — for example, “YourName.com.” Be sure to incorporate a blog and social media icons linking to the most prominent sites — Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Keep the social media URLs as consistent as possible, with each other and with your website — ie, “SocialMediaChannel.com/YourName.” Design your website so that it is easy to navigate, using menu items that clearly identify where to find what, and be sure to have both a testimonials page and a media page, to help develop your credibility. Organize the media page with the sub-headers, “Print,” “Video,” “Audio,” and “Press Kit,” and list each entry according to clip title, media outlet, date, and embedded clip or link to clip. Busy media professionals have zero time to futz around on your site, so keep this page well-organized.

4. Enhance your credibility
Public relations (PR) is based on the triad of perception: VIPs, media and venues. Start with the people and places you can access now, and methodically step-ladder your way up. For example, if you are a raw food chef, approach a local cardiologist about co-facilitating a presentation on foods to eat for optimal heart health. Set the presentation date for sometime in February, national heart health month; offer the presentation at the doctor’s clinic or at a local library; and approach the neighborhood newspaper about covering the event. The more local and low-profile the VIPs, media, and venues, the more apt they will be to work with someone who is not already established. For your next PR campaign, aim a little higher and leverage your accomplishments to date. In honor of Mother’s Day, for example, approach an OBGYN specialist at a large local hospital, proposing an event about foods for optimizing health during pregnancy; offer the presentation at a conference room at the hospital; and approach the local TV stations about covering the event. Keep working your way up the chain, showcasing your latest and greatest accomplishments on your website, until you climb all the way to the top.

5. Blog your way to fame
Blogs are an essential way to establish your authority on a topic and develop relationships with VIPs in your field. Start by writing articles on your own blog, to establish your unique voice. Next, identify key people in your field – from A listers to D listers – and invite them to blog-swap, starting from the most accessible individuals and working your way up the prestige hierarchy. When you write an article for someone else’s blog, promote it heavily on your social media channels, both as a sincere thank-you gesture and as an investment in your relationship with that individual. When others write articles for your blog, request promotion on their social media channels as well. Over time, begin looking for blogs with large platforms. Don’t be shy! Contact the owners of blogs that appear on the first few pages of a search engine result on your area of expertise. Tell them why you are interested in their blogs; send your rock star bio; also send examples of previous blog posts you wrote; and propose what you would like to write for their blogs. Once you are well-established as an independent blogger, approach top media outlets and propose blogging for the appropriate sections of their blogs as well.

Just because you are doing ground-breaking work does not mean you automatically will get recognized as a thought leader. If you truly have the goods, however, and if you run a strategic PR campaign, you can work your way to stardom.

In a flash, I understood how mobile devices take branding and marketing to a whole other level of business-consumer interaction.

Now I am the first to admit that I have been living under a mobile devices rock, out in the hi-tech desert somewhere. It was entirely intentional, mind you: In a world of incessant interaction, I like to have me a little peace & quiet, making a smartphone seem like a dumb idea. Any savvy entrepreneur, however, must renounce her Luddite ways sooner or later, so I recently kissed my dumb phone goodbye and caved to the 21st century inter-connected madness.

Seeking to better understand how mobile devices are game-changers for the world of business, and figuring I was not the only smartphone virgin out there, I decided to speak with a few leaders in the field of mobile marketing, to see what all the fuss is about and learn how to apply the knowledge to business management. Here is my takeaway of the 4 basic principles of a successful mobile marketing campaign:

Consumers are hooked up.
Raymond Kasbarian, CEO of Zypline, brought to my attention a 2013 report by the International Telecommunication Union, which states there are 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. True, Kasbarian acknowledges, numerous people have multiple subscriptions, but that’s still a whole heck of a lot of subscriptions, especially considering that there are 7.1 billion people total on this planet. In addition, according to Mary Meeker’s 2013 Internet Trends Report, brought to my attention by Jack Philbin, co-founder and CEO of Vibes, the average smartphone user reaches for her device about 150 times per day.

In a word: Wow.

Consumers are looking for you. On their phones and tablets. Now.
According to a 2013 report by Forrester Research, 89 percent of consumers use a search engine on their mobile device — which all goes to say, your content better be mobile-friendly, if you want said consumers to find and do business with you. “Companies should devise an approach to mobile that optimizes the mobile experience first, and then tie that mobile experience back to other platforms,” advises Louis Gump, president and CEO of LSN Mobile.

To this end, says Shayan Naveed, brand strategist at Nine9Nine, make your website and other content responsive to mobile devices. “Responsive design means that the content is easily viewed on a consumer’s device,” he explains. Mike Wehrs, CEO and president of Scanbuy, agrees, adding that optimizing content for mobile devices means keeping in mind considerations such as bandwidth variance tolerance, battery usage, and total time to load over a mobile network under average conditions.

Among other important features, says Mandy McEwen, founder and CEO of Mod Girl Marketing, make sure that when your information is viewed, the viewer is able to call your company with the click of a button.

That one, I know, is a deal-breaker for me. In the short time I have zipped around California, using my smartphone, I have searched for umpteen restaurants associated with the word “organic,” then called to see what percentage of their food was certified as such. If a search came up without a call button, that restaurant did not get my business.

Understand how consumers are using the medium.
Jeff Hasen, chief marketing officer of Mobivity, brought to my attention a Google report indicating that mobile search is significantly more action-oriented than search via PCs. Three out of four mobile searches, Hasen explains, trigger follow-up action — whether additional research, a store visit, a phone call, or word-of-mouth communication.

When a consumer uses a mobile phone, adds Philbin, “the phone becomes a tool to solve a particular mission.” Whether it is finding a product review or accessing a coupon, he says, it is the job of the marketer to understand both consumer needs and consumer use of the medium, so as to create a targeted and successful mobile marketing campaign.

Philbin gives the example of the mobile wallet, where consumers can store coupons on their smartphones. “Consumers no longer have to remember to bring their coupons and loyalty cards to their favorite retail stores,” he emphasizes. “Instead, they can store them on their smartphones and be reminded of offers when they are near a store and when an offer is about to expire.”

For reasons like these, experts agree, incentives for brand loyalty are paramount in the world of mobile marketing. “Loyalty to brands has never been more important,” says Hasen. He cites a Yankee Group study, in which nearly half of mobile users decide where to shop or otherwise conduct business, “based on whether a business has a mobile loyalty club.”

Integrate Your Marketing Platforms
Michael Becker, North American market development and strategic advisor for Somo, sums up the relationship between marketing platforms like this: “Mobile needs other media, and other media needs mobile.” An effective mobile marketing campaign, experts agree, must take what Philbin calls a “holistic” approach, integrating seamless customer experiences across all available shopping channels — whether email, internet, mobile, or in-store. Content must be viewed and perform equally well on all devices — meaning that marketing strategists must have awareness and mastery of the nuances of, as well as understanding of how consumers engage with, each device.