Speakability - Your Speaking, Self Publishing and Toastmasters resource

Television shows like “The Antiques Road Show”, “The Collectors” and “The Antique Collector” have made us much more aware of our histories than ever before. Many attempts in the past have been made to help us preserve those family memories. Kodak was instrumental in getting an inexpensive camera into the hands of millions of people so they could record their family experiences in either stills or movies.

In time the VHS tape was developed and large cumbersome movie cameras that would use these tapes to record family events and have them played on your home VCR and TV. In time, very small, moderately priced, digital movie cameras were introduced, where the movies could also be played back directly from the camera to your television, and the sales went wild.

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Are you writing a book about food? Good because I can’t get enough cookbooks and books about food. There are endless topics to cover, not to mention, a lifetime worth of recipes. If you are a food lover like me and love reading about and looking at pictures of food, then you have chosen the most universal topic. We all have to eat!

There are so many beautiful books on the market extolling the virtues and sumptuousness of food. It’s no surprise given a growing market in North America filled with people who are obsessed with food. Just look at the Food Network on TV, the proliferation of recipes available on the web, the cooking section of your local bookstore. Cookbook sales are growing with our consumer demand for a visual feast even, if we are not that experimental with new dishes. It seems we all love to look at food, think about food, and yearn for foods from other places.

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The most common mistake people make when self publishing their books is to ignore marketing until it is too late. As an author, you want your book to be the best in its category. To make it stand out from the rest, you need to market your book carefully and there are a lot of decisions to make right at the start.

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Many years ago when I worked in camera store, a customer came in one day with a very old roll of unexposed B&W film. He wanted to buy a camera that would fit that type of film so he could use up the film. The film was so old, all camera manufactures had long since quite making cameras that would take that type of film. I explained to him that the roll of film was worth maybe $2.00 (if it was still any good) and suggested he throw out the old film and consider a new camera and wooowooo “color” film. He thanked and left with is old roll of film.

I think about this story quite often when I am dealing with authors and writers. They have such knowledge and enthusiasm for their ideas and topics, unfortunately many of them, especially new writers and authors seldom give little if any thought to who will be buying their books and where and how they will be getting them.

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The proliferation of home computers, internet connections and digital imaging has combined to re-invent a once considered “obsolete” industry. More books are being printed than ever before and distribution channels for them are evolving through areas of expertise and specialties. Consider, you visit a winery and pass through their wine tasting room. Among the items available are some books on wine tasting, which are not even available at your traditional Bookstore. This is quickly becoming the new-age of the published book, and everyone can become a part of it.

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The combined Toastmasters group in Victoria BC have united all their club’s websites under a new name …
http://www.victoriatoastmasters.com

If you’ve had an intense fear of public speaking for many years and have tried a variety of ways to rid yourself of the fear - without success, you’ve probably concluded that you’ll probably never get rid of the fear. Or, if you do, it will take a lot of time, effort, and reinforcement.

If you’ve used most conventional methods to get rid of your fear, you’re probably right. The Lefkoe Method (TLM) is not one of the conventional methods. In fact, TLM is the only technique that has been scientifically proven to totally eliminate the fear of public speaking. As Lee Sechrest, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, concluded after conducting a rigorous scientific study with 36 people who had a severe fear of public speaking, “The Lefkoe Method was effective in virtually eliminating the fear of public speaking.”…..

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Interesting and powerful visual aids can almost guarantee a successful and overly effective speech. A majority of speakers don’t use visual aids or when they do, they make it almost impossible for the audience to fully understand, listen to what you are saying, and to take notes at the same time.

Visual aids that are poorly designed will often force the listener to decide between listening to you or reading the visual aid…guess which one they’ll choose? If it takes your audience longer than seven seconds to understand your content, they will become readers at that point and stop listening to what you are saying…

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Like most pubic speaking consultants, I usually hammer all the reasons a person should not be afraid of presenting. However, the more coaching I do, the more I realize the fear is legit. People should be afraid of getting in front of a group.

While there is a lot to gain from speaking publicly, there is also a lot to lose. Here are seven reasons to be scared…

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