BookBuzzr interviews Michele Brenton – Author of Alternative Poetry…

A few months ago, we had the swine flu scare in India. Everywhere I went, I saw people wearing masks. And everybody kept cleansing their hands with hand-sanitizer. You could practically cut the fear in the air with a knife. At this point, I stumbled upon a BookBuzzr book with the words "Alternative Poetry - Lite" in the title. Intrigued, I flipped through a few pages. And before I knew it I was smiling ... and then laughing! Then I came across this little verse which was so relevant to the "lets-keep-everything-clean" mania that had enveloped me and all other people in my immediate surroundings:

Where There's Dirt There's Life
Nothing good comes from sterile and pure.
The best things in life spring up from manure.

I was able to draw my own conclusions from this poem and more importantly it lightened my heart and made me understand that the fear that people were feeling at that point in time did not mean anything. So when I recently got the opportunity to interview the author - Michele Brenton - I jumped at it:)

So here goes:

Hi Michele ... Can you tell our author community of readers, a little about yourself?
Hi Vikram... I'll try.
I read fluently when I was two years old and became known to friends and neighbours as 'The Professor' and as 'Bossy Boots' to my immediate family! I was extremely pompous and enjoyed telling everyone how to behave and lost my temper if I wasn't taken very seriously indeed!
'The Professor' would be quite disgusted at the fact that I am now known as banana_the_poet – but I'm quite happy about it. :)
As I grew up I found I was much happier standing on the sidelines, observing and writing rather than trying to control everything and everyone around me. I suppose the simple fact nobody ever did what I told them might have had something to do with that change of tactic LOL


And can you tell us about your book (in verse form if at all possible :))
Alternative Poetry Books - Yellow edition
It's yellow and red and will sit on your shelf
waiting for its friends;
There will be another six
before this series ends.

It isn't exclusively funny and it isn't entirely sad
like life my poetry series
will lead you through
times good and bad.

Each Alternative Poetry Book
will be of a different hue,
To send a rainbow message
of hope from me to you.

I don't expect to change the world
or even cause a riot,
But I'll know I got my message through
If you care enough to buy it.

On opening your book, I see the Tai Chi circle in a few places. What does this mean?

I love that symbol so much! It combines opposite/reflecting images to create an eternal harmonious circular completeness. Life is made up of good and bad, happy and unhappy, dark and light, night and day etc
Balance can only be found by using both sides of every equation.
I hope my poetry books embody balance by alternating fun, light, amusing and silly poems with serious, dark, earnest and thoughtful ones.



Any tips for someone looking to write funny poems?
Always put as much thought and care into writing funny poems as you would into a serious one. Just because a poem is intended to be amusing doesn't mean it needn't be a 'good' one. While I play with meter, cliches and rhymes etc I always do it purposefully. I believe that every facet of a poem should always have been chosen for a reason and if asked I should be able to justify each and every choice.

I noticed that you've got over 10,000 widget views and nearly 700 full screen views on BookBuzzr. Any tips for author looking to market their book on the Internet??
The BookBuzzr widget is a fantastic little gizmo and I love it! It has a few places where it could be improved – but nothing is perfect straight away and I am confident it will eventually be pretty close to perfect due to the marvelously responsive attitude you guys have to feedback.
I put my widget on my blogs for my visitors to preview the little sample e-book I put together as a precursor for my full 84 page paperback.
I also use my Twitter presence to point people at my BookBuzzr pages and have told people about it (with the link of course) on the various forums I frequent. I recently posted to a poetry genre forum on Amazon and included a link to BookBuzzr on that – I would have been mad not to as unfortunately the 'look inside' option on my Amazon listings proved to be rather disappointing.
I've been impressed by the recent addition on the BookBuzzr format of a page at the end of the widget that highlights other BookBuzzr books for readers. That's a great idea and means that for each BookBuzzr author that gets reads a group of other authors have a chance to be spotted as well. A win win situation for readers and writers.
This is the first book I've ever tried to market and so I am very new to how this all works but I was very pleased to find Freado and BookBuzzr – it has streamlined things considerably – and most people seem to like playing with the flippy pages :)
I also started a Blog Tour to promote my book – this being one stop on the Tour for which I am very grateful. I had no idea what a Blog Tour was a month ago – but now here I am doing one – and I still don't have much of an idea, but it seems to be a GOOD THING TO DO – so I am doing it and so far it has been a lot of fun.
Time will tell if it was useful in the marketing scheme of things, but as long as we're all having fun and it isn't costing anyone anything but time – it is worth a try.


Do you market your book on Facebook? Why or Why not?
I haven't ever been able to get into the Facebook vibe. Not sure why. Maybe because it feels very complicated to me and I like simple things best. Twitter is very simple so I quickly got hooked. BookBuzzr is quite simple to use and so I found it accessible to use, similarly the Blog.co.uk blogging community I use is simple and easy to make sense of – and that is why you'll find me there.
But Facebook – I joined but I haven't been back more than twice. I have asked friends and family who are Facebook members to mention me on there – but I don't know if they have, or if anyone has taken any notice if they have.
I have a nagging feeling I ought to do more on Facebook – but I spend so much time already on Twitter, my blogs, the forums I participate in and I am busy with putting together the next books in the Alternative Poetry Books series AND I have to fit real life in somewhere too – so Facebook is lost in the 'might have been' box at the back of my brain.

You are also offering 50 embossed signed certified limited editions of your book. I think it's an absolutely fantastic idea because it's like buying a souvenir. In fact, I feel like ordering one for myself! How should people go about getting a copy?
Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly
http://TheAlternativePoetry.blog.co.uk/2009/10/16/alternative-poetry-books-yellow-edition-here-it-is-7181615/
This is the direct link to the 'buy it here' page on the blog I set up specifically for the Alternative Poetry Books series, where the special signed copies can be purchased.
This link can also be found on the 'BUY' button on the BookBuzzr widget - which lists ALL the various purchasing options/links including for standard copies via the usual online stores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble and will soon carry details of local bookshops which will stock or order the books for you. I update the 'BUY' information regularly as the situation develops and once all 50 embossed signed copies are gone I will remove the link from the widget.

And finally, can you make up a verse / poem / limerick about BookBuzzr?
Behold the BookBuzzr widget!
It is so small and neat;
if you were out of your mind
and the oddball kind,
you could work it with your feet.

You'd have to take your socks off
in the privacy of your house,
and soon you'd be flipping pages
as your toes clicked away at your mouse.
But you might find one small problem
though the widget would work with ease,
If you use your feet to access it
your mouse might smell of cheese!

(Note: This interview with author Michele Brenton is part of her blog tour. She was previously featured on Dan Holloway's blog. Her next blog interview will be with Tom the Seasideman.)

Vikram of BookBuzzr Interviewed by Chad Lilly of Inner Circle Publishing

A few days ago, I was interviewed by Chad Lilly of Inner Circle Publishing. It was a fun, conversation that covered plenty of important topics related to online book-marketing technologies, internet marketing for books, book-promotion through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and much more. You can listen to the interview here or below.



Incidentally, Chad Lilly has had a phenomenal amount of interest generated in his book - "uncommon sense" ever since he put up the book on BookBuzzr. Over 2,000 people have already viewed his book and he mentions that he has experienced record sales on Amazon. So that's additional validation for BookBuzzr. You can check out Chad's book below:

BookBuzzr Interviews Chad Lilly - Founder of Inner Circle Publishing

Your book - uncommon sense - has a unique style and touches the reader in a very different way. Can you tell us a little about the book?
"uncommon sense" was my second book and contains poetry focused on the development of our intuitive process. It seems as if universal wisdom has always been written in this sacred language of metaphor: Poetry. Thus the reason why all 'sacred' books were penned by Poets (and later called Prophets). Touching on topics like: Inner Learning, The Power of Day Dreams, Manifestation, and Awareness ... 'uncommon sense' was written for those with eyes to see and ears to hear the Mystery of life, through this charade of living."

What inspired you to write this book? Can you share the story behind your book?

"I believe the more we listen to that still, small voice within ... the more it will tell us. My desire to share this process with others via the words / ideas presented in 'uncommon sense' is what inspired me to write it. I think the more people directly connected to source and receiving their inner visions INSIDE ... the clearer our outer world vision will become, and the faster our dreams will manifest into the lives we live. Poetry opens our soul to hear and feel the intangible aspects of life, and I wrote 'uncommon sense' to help others hear and feel for themselves."

Chad, Your books have received a great amount of interest on BookBuzzr and Twitter. What are the reasons for this interest?
"It feels as if we're moving into a time when spirituality and awareness are becoming more common place, than taboo. We're all searching for meaning and reason, and currently, I believe we're starting to see more value in these intangible realities. In other words, perhaps people finally OWN enough to 'stuff' to know there's much more to life than just owning 'stuff'. This shift in our collective 'line of sight' may be one reason why many are now seeking insight and understanding with that same degree of passion they once sought 'stuff'. What we offer in our books (over 70 of them) ... is awareness. And it seems the interest we are receiving now (after 10 years) is party due to a conscious awakening that's rapidly spreading around the world via the most powerful of all magic: Words."

Do you have any tips for authors to get the kind of views (over 2,000 full screen views on BookBuzzr) and interest that your books have generated?
"More coffee ... less sleep. ;-) Those seeking to gain exposure for their work need to understand how to induce cooperation. It's just that simple. The problem is ... we've been too busy competing with one another to [co]operate effectively. Especially authors and artists. If you are the only one promoting your work, then you will only procure the number of views YOUR immediate network can reach. However, if 10 people are promoting the same work ... that work will receive 10X's the views with 1/10th the work. So, if you want 1 million people to see your book, which method would be more effective ... personally contacting 1 million people and telling them? Or having 1000's of people cooperating to share it with 1000's of others? (And using social media, such as Twitter ... we have this at our fingertips and can produce it TODAY, using only cooperation.)"

You also run two publishing companies - InnerCircle Publishing and Revolution Press. How are these publishing companies different from other publishers out there?
"My wife Sonja and I own and operate InnerCircle Publishing and Revolution Press. What makes us different from other publishers? ICP/Rev-Press Authors retain 100% of the net sales on every copy sold. Our Authors retain creative control over the final production of their book (Page and Cover Design), while providing world-wide distribution to every bookseller via Ingram. And while no other publisher has ever offered either of those ... what really makes ICP/Rev-Press unique is how it has been designed to market and promote the books we publish ... you see, ICP was designed to function along the same lines as Nature, via symbiotic relationships and cooperation, where the actions of one organism contribute to the benefit of the whole, and vise versa. So EVERY title published by ICP/Rev-Press receives the exponential exposure provided by each and every author actively promoting their work daily. And working together, we can produce more than any one working alone."

You also have a very strong presence on Twitter with over 10,000 followers. Do you have any tips for authors looking to use Twitter as a platform to market
their books?
"Again, learn to induce cooperation. Twitter is a great example of the real-time power of cooperation. For instance, let's say you have 1000 followers on Twitter, and I'm one of them. And you post this message in the stream to @icpchad (or DM): 'The world awaits the next level, and this is another step [YOUR BOOK LINK].' You will have just posted a promo link for your work to potentially 1000 people. And if I ReTweet it again to my 10,268 ... now we've put your work out to a combined total of over 11,268 (with only two clicks) ... what if 100 people RT this? <---- Cooperation produces exposure, and the greater level of cooperation you can produce, the greater exposure your work will receive."

Are there any other avenues that authors should keep in mind when marketing their books online (Amazon, Facebook etc.)? Do you have any other marketing tips for authors?

Put your book in front of as many people as possible ... using every possible avenue ... everyday. Social media sites offer a tremendous marketing value for those seeking to connect and promote ideas, products, or services to the masses ... provided they are used as tools to induce cooperation and they are procuring actual views to your book. To date, I have found nothing that procures more actual book views than BookBuzzr. Just getting people to go to a link and to view the description and book cover does not always result in sales, while getting people to actually READ the material the book offers has proven to be much more effective. For instance, in just over a month of using BookBuzzr, my books, 'A Day in the Mind' and 'uncommon sense' both climbed to record sales rankings on Amazon. It seems the more people who read them, the more they sell ... once people know about the books and their content. BookBuzzr is the best way to get people to actually read books online. So use ALL of your social media sites and networks as a way of placing your BookBuzzr widgets in front of more people ... while encouraging others to SHARE it. Thank you BookBuzzr for making this possible."

BookBuzzr - The One Free Tool That Every Author Needs for Book Marketing

You upload your book-extract to fReado and it becomes available through BookBuzzr

Readers discover your book extract on your site, on blogs and on fReado.com

Readers sharethe book with others on blogs, social networks and forums

As an author trying to market your book online, you may find that many of the simple steps involved in Internet marketing are actually quite daunting. Consider the simplest and most important pre-requisite of offering an extract of your book online in a nice to read format that can be easily shared among your readers. 99% of author websites are unable to allow sampling of books on their websites. They simply stick in an image of their book and hope that this is enough to stimulate the desire to read the book among site visitors. You know you can do better than that!
BookBuzzr is built from the ground-up for word-of-mouth (or shall we say, click-of-mouse) book-marketing. By signing up for BookBuzzr you can allow readers to browse through portions of your book in a nice to read online, flip-book format where the experience is similar to reading a real book. Additionally, they can get a single place listing of all things related to your book such as links to where they can buy your book, where they can discover interviews with you, where they can listen to podcasts related to your book and more.
Need another reason to sign-up for BookBuzzr? Let's talk about "share-ability" or "distribute-ability." Let's say you saw a book-extract of a book that you loved and you want to share this with readers of your blog. The best most people can do is to put up a link to the book-extract. But is this enough? The era of people going to a few "destination" websites to get their content is over. Today you are as likely to see an interesting video embedded on a blog that you discovered as you are of seeing that video on YouTube. So we've taken care of this for you. Fans of your book can easily embed your book on their personal blogs and become ambassadors for your book.
BookBuzzr is intended to take care of most of the details related to online book-marketing and book promotion on an ongoing basis. At the very least, BookBuzzr helps you to:

• Reach your target audience by allowing them to discover your book in various places such as blogs, websites, social networking sites and more.


• Tell them that your book is available by providing links to places where they can buy your book.


• Persuade them to read it by allowing them to easily sample your book with jaw-dropping book simulation technology.

As a bonus, when you sign-up, you also get listed on fReado.com where readers can interact with you and with other readers. Further, you can link from fReado to your own author-site or blog thus helping your search engine rankings. Because fReado.com is optimized for search engines and because fReado.com is regularly crawled all over by the major search engines, the information about your book will soon be noticed and your pages should be listed in response to web searches. We also have plans to connect fReado with Facebook Connect. This enables your readers to:

• Seamlessly "connect" their Facebook account and information with your book


• Connect and find their friends who are on fReado


• Share comments made on your book with their friends on Facebook

Sign-up now for free and join other elite authors who understand the art of online book promotion!

Given the growth of Twitter and it's importance in helping authors build their platform and sell more books, a number of Twitter features have been added to BookBuzzr to help authors market their book on Twitter with a large degree of automation. The goals behind these features are:

• To help the author gain more followers on Twitter


• To make the book more visible among the authors' Twitter followers


• To help readers of the book share the book among their Twitter followers.

These Twitter features for marketing books online include:

• Authors can schedule tweets about their book in their Twitter accounts daily or weekly.


• Every time a reader opens an author's book-excerpt, a tweet goes out to the authors Twitter followers mentioning that the book was opened.


• Readers will find a link to follow the author on Twitter when they are reading the author's book-excerpt and when they finish reading the book-excerpt.


• Readers can tweet about the book with just a few clicks.

Why your book cover image is as dead as a fish out of water when it comes to marketing your book online

As an author, you know that a lot of effort goes into your book's cover - its title, the imagery and so on. Of course, the cover's aim is to get a reader to open the book and sample your writing - and then hopefully, buy the book. In terms of marketing a book, giving a reader the opportunity of glancing at the cover and flipping through the book's pages is the bare minimum required.


There's nothing wrong with this approach except that it works only in physical bookshops - the book will ultimately sit on a bookshelf somewhere, where a reader can easily browse through the book. But as you know, the world has changed a lot and people don't buy books only in bookshops. Books are also marketed online through blogs, social networking sites and of course, your own website.


Nonetheless, authors continue to use the book's cover image - basically just a static picture of the book cover - in their online marketing efforts. This image just sits there, and potential customers cannot do what they would in a physical bookshop - open the book and start flipping through the pages right there and then.

In short, you continue to use a method that is meant for the physical world, in the online world. The fish - your book - that swims in water (the bookshop), is dead out of it (the online world).

It's a huge marketing opportunity wasted.

Your book-cover image

Your BookBuzzr Active Book Cover

This is where BookBuzzr comes in. It's a neat, nifty 'widget' (basically, a software tool) that enables readers to easily do online what they would do in a bookshop - 'open' a book and start reading immediately. Readers do not have to hunt for your book's excerpt on your site. Bookbuzzr also displays the pages as they would in your physical book - with the same layouts, fonts and so on. Best of all, the pages really flip so the reader gets an authentic reading experience. Of course, you decide how many pages of the book you want to show. Here's what the widget looks like.

What can you do with BookBuzzr?

1. Replace your book's cover image with the BookBuzzr widget.

For starters, you can - and must - replace your book's cover image with the widget wherever your book appears. This would include:

» Your website
» Your blog
» Share your widget with family, friends and colleagues on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn

2. Email signature

BookBuzzr also comes in the form of an email signature, which also looks like a flappable book.

3. Twitter integration

Moreover, given the growth of Twitter and its importance in helping authors build their platform and sell more books, a number of Twitter features have been added to BookBuzzr to help authors market their book on Twitter with a large degree of automation. The goals behind these features are:


» To help the author gain more followers on Twitter
» To make the book more visible among the authors' Twitter followers
» To help readers of the book share the book among their Twitter followers.

These Twitter features for marketing books online include:


» Authors can schedule tweets about their book in their Twitter accounts daily or weekly.
» Every time a reader opens an author's book-excerpt, a tweet goes out to the authors Twitter followers mentioning that the book was opened.
» Readers will find a link to follow the author on Twitter when they are reading the author's book-excerpt and when they finish reading the book-excerpt.
» Readers can tweet about the book with just a few clicks.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As you know, it's very important for users to be able to find your book through search engines such as Google. When you sign-up, you also get listed on our sister site, fReado.com, where readers can interact with you and with other readers. Further, you can link from fReado to your own author-site or blog thus helping your search engine rankings. Because fReado.com is optimized for search engines and because fReado.com is regularly crawled all over by the major search engines, the information about your book will soon be noticed and your pages should be listed in response to web searches.

BookBuzzr Interviews Dr Mani, Author of "Think, Write & RETIRE! "

Dr. Mani please share a little about yourself.

Thanks for having me on this interview, Freya. I'm a paediatric heart surgeon, and treat children born with congenital heart defects.
Since the vast majority of my patients come from families of low economic means and are unable to afford the expensive treatment, I came up with

the idea of running an online enterprise which funds these surgeries.
As a result, I now have an information business online as well as a non-profit Foundation. From a combination of business profits and
charitable donations, we have funded 52 operations until today, with many more to follow.

What inspired you to start the Children's Heart Foundation? Can you share a little about it?

Around April 1998, I first came up with the idea of using profits from my fledgling online infopreneur business to sponsor heart surgery for one child

who could not afford it. It was a vague hope, I had no idea if it would work - but to my surprise and encouragement, that happened within 2 years,

and then grew to helping three more kids.
This sparked off the bigger idea of funding many more surgeries, and that's when the formal structure for a non-profit foundation was put in place.

The Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation was registered in October 2003, that's almost 6 years ago. And over this period, it has grown steadily to

where we are today, with over 1,000 donors, having raised funds to sponsor more than fifty operations.
That's how a dream, backed by purpose and nurtured with persistence, can grow.

Your mission is to make high quality heart health

care accessible and affordable to every Indian child. How are you doing this?

There are many dimensions to this effort. First comes building awareness of the problem. Many people know that adults get heart disease, but few

are aware that children can be born with heart conditions that are just as serious and life-threatening.
Seven of every 1,000 children born alive in the world have some form of congenital heart defect (CHD), and more than one-half of them
require treatment. Many are fatal without timely correction. And almost always, the cost of this is high.
In India, there are only very rough estimates. In my home state, the figure is over 47,000 children are affected by CHD - and many more are born

every day.
So, after building awareness, the next step is to deliver thetreatment necessary to help this large group of children.
The effort involves a combination of private enterprise and Government backed action, both of which are progressing at a healthy pace. Our State

Government has recently put into place so me initiatives that have gone a long way in helping over 1,000 children with CHD in the last year alone.
Finally, the toughest problem of all is preventing CHD (or detecting it early enough to minimize the consequences of it), and that is in the realm of

research - an area where I hope to have some impact, but only later after my primary goal of helping as many children live has been achieved.


You are an author of four books. Which of them is closest to your heart and why?

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I have actually authored over 70 books in digital format, though I've only

recently build up the nerve to publish them in physical form. My first print book, "Think, Write & Retire", was well-received and reached #83 on

Amazon.com in the Business & Investing section. All profits from that launch are being used to sponsor heart surgery.
But if you ask for the one closest to my heart, it has to be the one due for publication next. Its title is "47 HEARTS - How To Live Your
Dreams And Reach Your Goals With Passion, Purpose & Persistence". It will be out soon, and you can keep up with it at http://47hearts.com


You have been active online for many years now. What are the different marketing activities you have done for your various books

and foundation?

It would be easier to list the ones I have NOT done! :-)
Name it, I've probably tried it. Email, blogs, direct mail, tele-marketing, SMS marketing, newspaper ads, articles, integration marketing, joint entures,

affiliates, online video - I've tried it all.
The ones I use most often and effectively are email marketing to my own in-house list, social networking on platforms like Twitter, blogging, and a

limited amount of search engine optimization efforts. I've found that being very good at a few channels of marketing works better than being average

at many more.

What has made a big difference? Do you have any recommendations for other authors?

For authors, my best advice would be to focus on building your platform BEFORE even writing your book. Your digital platform is a way to reach your

core audience - book buyers.
Have a blog, and post regularly to it. You could share excerpts from your book, or discuss how you wrote it, or detail the lives of your characters or,

more effective than others, use it as a way to spread your ideas even further... by discussing the THEME of your book.
That way you attract the kind of reader who identifies with you, is interested in what you stand for, and will likely buy your book when it is out.

Targeting the right audience is what matters, not size of audience alone.
Use social networking to reach more people and invite them to your blog. I would focus on two or three social networks and go 'deep'. My favorites

are Twitter, Facebook and forums. Yours may be different.
Finally, get 'launch partners' involved. Anyone with an audience that may be interested in your book is a good fit. Let them preview your book, so

they can write about it to their followers. Allow them to give away a few copies in a contest. Offer to 'guest blog' for them. Try to get in front of

their audience - but in a way that also gives THEM value.
All of these worked for me. But then, my experience with book launches is pretty narrow, so take this advice for what it's worth! :)


Do you have a message for authors and readers out there?

Dare to dream.And dream big.Then, do not give up on your dream - no matter what happens.Dreamers see the world, not as it is, but as it should

be. Remember, nothing worthwhile happens in a short time. Or easily. Or effortlessly.
Be prepared to put in the effort that your dream demands. Be prepared to wait for as long as it takes to make it come true. Be happy at all that

happens along the way as you move towards your goals.
And trust that it is worthwhile - because when dreams come true, even in a small way, it is magic! And it will completely transform your life!

An Interview with Author, Marketer and Surgeon: Dr. Mani

I am glad to have Mani Sivasubramanian or Dr. Mani (as he likes to be called) with us today. Dr. Mani is an author, an internet marketer and a pediatric heart surgeon. He lives in Chennai, India where he runs the Children's Heart Foundation.

1. Dr. Mani please share a little about yourself.

Thanks for having me on this interview, Freya. I'm a paediatric heart surgeon, and treat children born with congenital heart defects.

Since the vast majority of my patients come from families of low economic means and are unable to afford the expensive treatment, I came up with the idea of running an online enterprise which funds these surgeries.

As a result, I now have an information business online as well as a non-profit Foundation. From a combination of business profits and charitable donations, we have funded 52 operations until today, with many more to follow.

2. What inspired you to start the Children's Heart Foundation? Can you share a little about it?

Around April 1998, I first came up with the idea of using profits from my fledgling online infopreneur business to sponsor heart surgery for one child who could not afford it. It was a vague hope, I had no idea if it would work - but to my surprise and encouragement, that happened within 2 years, and then grew to helping three more kids.

This sparked off the bigger idea of funding many more surgeries, and that's when the formal structure for a non-profit foundation was put in place. The Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation was registered in October 2003, that's almost 6 years ago. And over this period, it has grown steadily to where we are today, with over 1,000 donors, having raised funds to sponsor more than fifty operations.

That's how a dream, backed by purpose and nurtured with persistence, can grow.

3. Your mission is to make high quality heart health care accessible and affordable to every Indian child. How are you doing this?

There are many dimensions to this effort. First comes building awareness of the problem. Many people know that adults get heart disease, but few are aware that children can be born with heart conditions that are just as serious and life-threatening.

Seven of every 1,000 children born alive in the world have some form of congenital heart defect (CHD), and more than one-half of them require treatment. Many are fatal without timely correction. And almost always, the cost of this is high.

In India, there are only very rough estimates. In my home state, the figure is over 47,000 children are affected by CHD - and many more are born every day.

So, after building awareness, the next step is to deliver the treatment necessary to help this large group of children.

The effort involves a combination of private enterprise and Government backed action, both of which are progressing at a healthy pace. Our State Government has recently put into place some initiatives that have gone a long way in helping over 1,000 children with CHD in the last year alone.

Finally, the toughest problem of all is preventing CHD (or detecting it early enough to minimize the consequences of it), and that is in the realm of research - an area where I hope to have some impact, but only later after my primary goal of helping as many children live has been achieved.

4. You are an author of four books. Which of them is closest to your heart and why?

I have actually authored over 70 books in digital format, though I've only recently build up the nerve to publish them in physical form.

My first print book, "Think, Write & Retire", was well-received and reached #83 on Amazon.com in the Business & Investing section. All profits from that launch are being used to sponsor heart surgery.

But if you ask for the one closest to my heart, it has to be the one due for publication next. Its title is "47 HEARTS - How To Live Your Dreams And Reach Your Goals With Passion, Purpose & Persistence". It will be out soon, and you can keep up with it at http://47hearts.com

5. You have been active online for many years now. What are the different marketing activities you have done for your various books and foundation?

It would be easier to list the ones I have NOT done! :-)

Name it, I've probably tried it. Email, blogs, direct mail, tele-marketing, SMS marketing, newspaper ads, articles, integration marketing, joint ventures, affiliates, online video - I've tried it all.

The ones I use most often and effectively are email marketing to my own in-house list, social networking on platforms like Twitter, blogging, and a limited amount of search engine optimization efforts.

I've found that being very good at a few channels of marketing works better than being average at many more.

6. What has made a big difference? Do you have any recommendations for other authors?

For authors, my best advice would be to focus on building your platform BEFORE even writing your book. Your digital platform is a way to reach your core audience - book buyers.

Have a blog, and post regularly to it. You could share excerpts from your book, or discuss how you wrote it, or detail the lives of your characters or, more effective than others, use it as a way to spread your ideas even further... by discussing the THEME of your book.

That way you attract the kind of reader who identifies with you, is interested in what you stand for, and will likely buy your book when it is out. Targeting the right audience is what matters, not size of audience alone.

Use social networking to reach more people and invite them to your blog. I would focus on two or three social networks and go 'deep'.

My favorites are Twitter, Facebook and forums. Yours may be different.

Finally, get 'launch partners' involved. Anyone with an audience that may be interested in your book is a good fit. Let them preview your book, so they can write about it to their followers. Allow them to give away a few copies in a contest. Offer to 'guest blog' for them. Try to get in front of their audience - but in a way that also gives THEM value.

All of these worked for me. But then, my experience with book launches is pretty narrow, so take this advice for what it's worth! :)

7. Do you have a message for authors and readers out there?

Dare to dream.

And dream big.

Then, do not give up on your dream - no matter what happens.

Dreamers see the world, not as it is, but as it should be.

Remember, nothing worthwhile happens in a short time. Or easily. Or effortlessly.

Be prepared to put in the effort that your dream demands. Be prepared to wait for as long as it takes to make it come true. Be happy at all that happens along the way as you move towards your goals.

And trust that it is worthwhile - because when dreams come true, even in a small way, it is magic! And it will completely transform your life!

All success

Dr.Mani

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions Dr. Mani. Best of luck in all your endeavors. To know more about Dr. Mani and the Children's Heart Foundation visit his website.

Links to resources mentioned in the interview:

About the CHD foundation

Little smiling hearts we've helped

About Dr.Mani

Think, Write & Retire

Dr.Mani's blog