What does it take to make the top 100 Tweeters? Check out these interesting facts about the world’s most popular popularity contest.

As you read this, remember:

• TwitterCounter.com tracks 4,069,598 Twitter accounts.
• These stats were taken as of 19:00 GMT -8, August 25, 2009
• Some of the definitions below are rough descriptions because some things on Twitter (and the internet in general) seem to defy description.
• Note that this list is of those with the most followers. This does not take into account two other important stats on Twitter: who is following the most people (and the ratio between that and followers), and who has the most Tweets.

If you examine the top 100 list at TwitterCounter.com, you’ll notice the following trends…

• Ashton Kutcher is still number one. Nobody really knows why.
• The White House ranks dead last, at number 100. (But Obama himself ranks #9.)
• Twitter themselves only rank #5 in their own arena.
• Two of the top 100 are not human: they are cats. (Sadly, there are no dogs represented.)
• A cat (Socks) is more popular than the White House, Larry King, Levar Burton, John Legend, and Nightline.

Of the entire population of the top 100 people;

• Only 7 of the top 100 are not Americans.
• Only 2 are strictly political, non-corporate entities: the White House, and #10 Downing Street
• There are still nearly twice as many men as women on Twitter, as individual ID’s go: 24 women to 43 men.
• 29 of the top 100 are corporate entities, tweeting for marketing purposes.
• Only two of the individual identities are (publicly) not heterosexual.
• Of the individual entities, only 9 are of African-American descent. This includes Oprah, Athlete Shaquille O’Neal, the President, Rapper and Marketer Sean Coombs (P. Diddy), Rapper 50cent, Rapper Soulja Boy, Singer Mariah Carey, Rapper MC Hammer, Actor Levar Burton and Singer John Legend. (Again, notice that only two of these are women.)
• The top three seem to be indicative of most of the list: Ashton Kutcher (white American male), Ellen Degeneres (white American woman / philanthropist / slightly quirky / stylish / TV star) and Britney Spears (white American entertainer, of a sort).

I must ask myself:

• If we are using Twitter for marketing purposes, how many of us know for sure that this is our market, or are we just racking up numbers?
• If Twitter is designed for mobile use, and the biggest group on Twitter is men, does that mean that more men than women are using their cell phones for more than just making phone calls?
• Why in the hell are people following Ashton Kutcher?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:49 — 13.6MB) | Embed

Here’s a quick interview with Vikram Narayan, President of Freado.com, which produces two great new promotion tools for self-publishing Authors. Think Social Marketing for Authors at high speed.

This 15-minute interview introduces Freado.com and BookBuzzr.com, which allow any Author to promote a book excerpt, promote how to buy their book, and almost any other marketing info you can think of. These tools make it easy for any blogger or website to pick up and display your book, plus, there is direct integration for social media tools like FaceBook and Twitter.

All Authors know how hard it is to drag traffic to your website, but these tools about outreach – it’s about pushing your stuff to where the people already are. As Vikram rightly says, “… marketing your book online consists of a number of small activities that need to be done regularly… making your book extract available on your blog or on your facebook profile is very basic… and this takes your book extract to where the traffic is.”

Recognizable Authors using this service include Dan Brown (Angels and Demons), Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper), and and Joel Osteen (Become a Better You).

There are some “blips” in this recording due to the long-distance phone recording, so just for reference, the friend of Vikram’s who wrote the book that inspired the project is Chetan Dhruve, and his book is titled “Why Your Boss Is Programmed to Be a Dictator: A Book for Anyone Who Has a Boss or Is a Boss”. Other success stories include Tony Eldridge’s The Samson Effect.

(Note: I say in the recording that it’s early June, 2009, but it was actually recorded this morning, July 10th, 2009. What can I say – I recently gave up caffeine.)

Enjoy!

I’ve just updated my website with a new tab labeled “Speaking”, and there you’ll find my revised speaking topics for the rest of 2009.

Short Talks:

1) Using Online Marketing to Get Attention for Your Brick-and-Mortar Business

2) What is “Social Media Marketing” and How to Use it for Greatest Effectiveness

3) Tapping the Potential of Digital and Paper-Based Publishing for Small Business

Long Talks (1.5 hours or less)

1) eBooks – The Next Generation

2) You’ve Written an eBook – Now What?

I’ll be traveling quite a bit this summer, and offering these talks to various organizations in Canada and the USA. If you’d like to book me for a lecture or talk, please call me toll-free at 1-866-907-4084, please drop me a line at info@humanuspublishing.com.

I also really enjoy creating fresh material tailored to the needs of your organization. If you don’t see a topic listed that you’re interested in, just ask. I may already have it in my archives. Some of my additional topics include;

- PodCasting (What It Is, and How Anyone Can Do It)
- Affiliate Marketing for Authors
- Building Your (e)Book Business
- Market Research for Your Book in 1 Hour or Less
- How to Create Your (e)Book From Scratch
- Using You Tube to Market Your (e)Book with Video
- … and more

Here are my tips for creating your best book or eBook video trailer to promote your product on video sites like YouTube, and places like Twitter or FaceBook.

The job of the video book trailer is the same as that of a movie trailer: give them a taste, but keep them wanting more. It should accurately reflect the content of your book, but not give away the farm.

Perhaps most importantly, this video should be able to be distributed all on its own: if people see nothing about your book but the trailer, they should know (1) what your book will do for them, (2) how much it is, and (3) where to buy it or find out more. This way, you can distribute the video almost any way, through any media, and it will do the same job.

As a sales tool, I won’t bore you again here with my now-familiar rant about video being the most powerful communication medium, how anybody can do it in their basement, and how the cost-benefit ratio of all online marketing tools is highest with video.

Let’s skip to the tips.

- At the very top of the cheap-and-simple scale, you can always cobble together video clips using Windows Movie Maker, now part of basic Windows. Mac fans have numerous choices, but the objective here is to use whatever allows you to get it out the door the fastest.

- Focus on benefits, rather than features. (Yeah, I know you’ve head me lecture about that before, too.) Will the book tell them how to shave minutes off their best marathon run time? Will it teach them how to drug-proof their kids? Will it give them an advantage when they apply for their next job? It’s not about “how to”, but rather about “you can have this too”.

- Keep it under 2 minutes. Longer than that and you lose them.

- Put a ghost image of your URL on every screen, either in the bottom corner or across the bottom. Just make sure you don’t block the view of stuff on-screen. If you can’t put a ghost image, be sure to clearly display the URL at the beginning, somewhere in the middle, and again clearly at the end.

- Include a copyright statement as the last screen with your company and the year.

- Enhance the mood using cool music, appropriate tempo and pace, and additional stock video if need be. (iStock.com now offers video as well as still photographs.)

- Use video of YOURSELF talking, as per an interview format. If need be, get someone to sit to the side of the camera and ask you questions from off-screen. This is really important, because it enables readers to connect and build (virtual) trust with you as a source for information. You might feel silly, but just get your hair done and get in front of that camera. It will be over soon, I promise. (Just be sure to get enough raw footage that you have plenty to choose from. If you don’t like it, you can always leave it on the cutting room floor.)

- Do not use crazy special effects unless your book is about crazy special effects.

- Don’t just accept the defaults in whatever editing program you are using, whether it be Windows Movie Maker or Final Cut. Question everything for quality, appropriateness, and clarity. Fonts, fade-ins, credits, etc.

- When in doubt, be subtle.

- For background music, I’ve been using StockMusic.net for some time now. Good selection, and you are guaranteed not to be sued.

- Use humour – but don’t let it be too dry. An audience will really warm up to you if you let out your funny side.

- Upload the video to YouTube for easy distribution and natural traffic. Yet again, your early keyword research comes in handy here, as you can plug in your pre-determined keywords around the video, and double-whammy your SEO work. Google LOVES a well-catalogued YouTube video. There are many other sites that will help you distribute your video, but YouTube is a great place to start.

And finally, be sure to test it on at least 8 people. Make sure these are people of all ages and backgrounds, and not necessarily in your market. Even if they don’t understand certain buzzwords, the video should have enough generic appeal so that everyone can “get” you immediately.

A friend of mine, Sheri K. Hoff, inspired me to write this blog post when she recently released her own video trailer. Her book, The Keys to Living Joyfully, is selling briskly not only because it’s a great book, but because Sheri has taken personal responsibility for getting it out there.

Sheri made this trailer herself, and I’m thrilled that she took the bull by the horns and got this out the door. And yes, that beautiful dancer is her daughter. Good for you, Sheri!

• Woo-Hoo! The pressure is off, and I’m staying in BC for the rest of the summer. Not moving until this autumn: 2 much work 2 do on my house! #

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There are many reasons why getting someone else to ship your books, CD’s or other products makes good business sense.

What is “fulfillment”?

Fulfillment is the act of shipping, or fulfilling orders from Readers who purchase your book or product off your website or through your company. Fulfillment providers will sometimes even manage your entire inventory for you, keeping monthly counts, packing, documenting, and of course shipping orders, sending out larger shipments to retail stores, and then billing you at the end of the month for that service.

There may be some confusion between the terms fulfillment providers, and those who call themselves “drop shippers”, which does not really apply to self-publishing Authors. A drop shipper owns the product until you tell them to send it to your customer. Drop shippers will then typically send you a check at the end of the month for the difference between your cost on the product, and what it was sold for to the consumer. In the case of a fulfillment provider, YOU own the product, be it a book, CD, or whatever. Somebody else is just warehousing it for you, and sending it out when  you send them a packing slip. At the end of the month, you pay them a fee based on volume.

Perhaps you’re casually saying to yourself right now, “But I have plenty of time – I can easily ship my own orders for now.” That may be true – for the short term. But be honest with yourself: how many hours a day are you spending managing logistics instead of creating new products? Do you even enjoy shipping? Does it take time away from your family? Does the money you save equal what you could have earned in the time it took you to do all of that work? (Experience tells me that no, it didn’t.)

Even if time and enjoyment were not issues, perhaps ask yourself if you should be shipping your own products, when your time is better spent running your business. After all, what is your “real job”? Instead, what would happen to your business if you spent that time setting up affiliate relationships to sell your products for you?

(By the way, if you’re looking for the plug in this post, here it is: I have used Michael Bickler of EG Liquidation in Washington State for a number of years. He’s amazing! He ships anywhere in the world for me at an unreal price, and he actually *cares* about his customers. You can email him through info_at_egliquidation.com and tell him I sent you.)

What does it cost?

Fulfillment providers will typically charge a fee based on orders that leave their warehouse, plus a pallet fee for storing your product for each monthly cycle.

Here’s a cost worksheet based on a provider that shipped 100 books for you last month:

Basic pallet storage fee:                                         $____.____

Packing cost per book:                                           $__.____*
Label/envelope cost** per book shipped:     $__.____
Actual freight or postage per book:                  $__.____***

Cost per book:                                                            $__.____ (caution – heavily estimated)
Times 100 books:                                                      $______.____
Plus pallet charge:                                                     $____.____
Total monthly charge:                                             $______.____

Charge per book to ship (revenue):                   $__.____
Times 100 books:                                                      $______.____

Remaining profit:                                                       $____.____

The idea would be to leave a small additional overhead to cover things like returns, delivery problems, etc. A provider should agree with you in advance on a specific cost for things like accepting returns, replacement shipments, and forwarding shipments to you at your own address. While this worksheet assumes that the last line would be two digits, this really shouldn’t be thought of a profit center – it’s more like a slush fund for “just in case” situations.

* This cost can vary widely, and fluctuate from time to time. This can be much lower or much greater depending on volume, item type, packaging, etc.

**Often the post office or courier will provide envelopes or even cardboard boxes at no charge to ensure consistency for their agents.

** Bear in mind that postage rates vary widely based on things like weight, dimensions, book thickness and so on.

The next time you’re thinking about where to store your books, CD’s or other products, why not think instead about what you could create in that extra couple of hours per day.

• San Fran Jul 8 Self-Publishing Confrnce InStock moved to new hotel- now at the Hotel Monaco rather than the University Club. Better parking. #
• “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” Mae West – Actress, Author, Screenwriter, Playwright, Director, Producer… Inspiror. #
• The economy made me do it: check out http://wizardofebooks.com for info about my eBook editorial, ghostwriting, affiliate, and design svcs. #
• Thanks to @reneeshupe for hosting this AM’s MasterMind Call with @coachclaire, @sherikhoff, @kimplumley, @angelacrocker and @peggyrichardson #
• Do you have a fave #hotdog vendor in your city? What makes him/her special? #

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• Man, do I ever need to get out and see the new #StarTrek – haven’t heard a single bad review yet. #
• Oooh – conference for #self-publishing authors: http://www.instockconference.com/ July 18 in Frisco. Anybody else going? #
• Can’t wait for my #mothersday breakfast in bed tomorrow AM: Fruit Loops, scrambled eggs, green juice and a cuddle with my girl! #

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Let’s face it: writers don’t get a lot of exercise. I’ve discovered this recipe that makes a really crunchy and filling low-carb snack.

Low-Carb Crunchy Writer’s Snack Mix
(This makes enough to last at least a week or more.)
- 1 box Bran Buds
- 1 bag raisins
- 500g toasted sunflower seeds
- 500g toasted pumpkin seeds
- 250g toasted sesame seeds
- 1 Tablespoon sea salt

Toss in large airtight sealed jar, and spoon out when you feel munchy. Little goes a long way.

The raisins add some carbs, but they are more than offset by the bran, and seem to reduce cravings for sweet stuff. The seeds provide omegas and keep one from feeling hungry because they take a while to break down. If I eat about 3-4 Tablespoons of this before midday, I eat far less lunch.

Makes a nice snack with fried onions – just chop an onion, fry in EVOO, and add the mix to the pan. Can also add spices, curry powder mixes, other low-sugar dried fruit or nuts, chili flakes, bran flakes, flax seed, dried vegetable flakes, etc. Use it to top off soups or mix into tuna salad. Delish!

Chris Pirillo (Twitter ID = @chrispirillo) is a genius – in 12 minutes, he got several thousand people to instantly click to his late-night online talk show.

Here’s what Chris posted to Twitter:
“Your Twitter avatar will appear in my next video if you reply to this tweet over the next few minutes. :) http://live.pirillo.com/”

I just happened to refresh my screen at the moment he posted this, and instantly sent him a direct reply saying, “@chrispirillo What’s the video about?”

I then clicked on the link above, http://live.pirillo.com/, and this is what I saw…

(Check out my mug on the screen just over his left shoulder – it matches the photo at the top of this blog.)

Everybody wanted to see their avatar, so they clicked over to watch the show. Simple. Brilliant.