Two Landmarks This Week

Earlier this week , I posted my 300th blog post. The overall goal is to reach 1,000 and reach 500 by the end of the year. In the last few weeks, blog hits and comments have noticeably risen, and my colleague and mentor, Lloyd Lofthouse,  for this, saw a big jump between the 300-400 mark.

In addition, Left Coast Voices broke into the top 1 million ranked blogs (there are 400 million) and this went quicker than we anticipated. It is important to set clear and measureable goals. I feel this is what separates those serious authors from the hobbyists. 

I am interested to hear from authors who focus on blogging to sell their books:

1) What were your goals for the year/month/…

2) At what point  in your blog and online development did you begin to see consistent sales rise?

 

——————————————————————————————————

Alon Shalev is the author of The
Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A
Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of
the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides
spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area.
More on Alon Shalev
at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter
(#alonshalevsf).

The Audacity of Leadership

I once ripped the audio version of The Audacity of Hope by one Barack Obama (the publicity campaigns that some authors will go to ensure book sales!). I have never bothered erasing it. At the gym, armed with my iPod shuffle,  I might be pounding the treadmill to the beat of Alanis Morissette one moment and then the next focusing on President Obama’s rich voice. Beyond inspiring messages, a chapter of his book can take up several minutes of exercise time – a serious consideration to help shed the pounds.

Now I really got into his Presidential election and I suspect I wasn’t the only one since a few people voted for him. Yesterday, while listening to his book I heard something like: we need to create a new political model that goes beyond the bi-partisanship and with focused cooperation will bring more effective legislation (these are my words, I know you said it better, Mr. President).

I want to share that, while I am still a big supporter, I have become frustrated with the Democrats (when they held the house and senate), playing too nice to the Republicans. I think this has been an influence of the President, but has yielded little reciprocation – in fact we saw the birth of the Tea Party and the rise of some very scary characters.

While getting down on POTUS, I then saw this bumper sticker today and it made me rethink.

Maybe it is not so audacious to still hope…

——————————————————————————————————

Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).