This blog post is only for people in BC, Canada.

With the controversy surrounding smart meters, my friend Chris put this clever video together.

Warning  – some adult language.  No matter your politics, I’m sure glad my friend can see the crazy media spins and just bring things back to everyday common sense.  Good job Chris!

Stefanie

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Apple announces countdown to 25 Billion App Store Downloads!

In a day or two, some lucky person will download the 25th Billion App sold in the Apple App Store.  The winner will receive $10,000 gift card prize.

From Apple: “As of today, nearly 25 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 25 billionth app, and you could win a US $10,000 App Store Gift Card. Just visit the App Store and download your best app yet.”

When this happens it’s going to be big news and you’ll see it on TV.  Apps ARE BIG NEWS.   That’s why you need to get YOUR OWN APP into the store.

Think about the PRESS YOU would receive if it was YOUR App that was downloaded.

Stop being left behind,

Go to www.AppCreatorstore.com to receive your own custom App at Cost (for friends of Stefanie & Scott only).

The countdown is currently at: 24,511,564,959! (actually already in minutes I am wrong)

Go here to see the real time counter:  www.apple.com/itunes/25-billion-app-countdown Watch customers buying APPs in REAL time.

You will see for yourself the POWER of Apps!

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On behalf of myself and my team, we wish you a very happy Holiday Season and a New Year filled with peace and prosperity.  May the Holiday Season and New year bring only happiness and joy to you and your loved ones.

Our hard working office will be closed until Jan 3rd  to give our staff time to celebrate the holidays with their families. 

But as my gift to you, I wanted to pass on my mom’s recipe for shortbread cookies.  These are so buttery and delicious, they are crisp, yet melt in your mouth.  (The secret – corn starch and icing sugar)

Mom’s Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:
¾  cup butter, softened
½ cup icing sugar
½ cup corn starch
1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:
In a mixing bowl, mix dry ingredients and add softened butter and work with your hands

Roll into 1-in. balls. Place 1 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Flatten round balls into circle and using a fork, make a crosshatch design with the tines of the fork on your cookies

Bake at 300 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Enjoy!

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This short video came across my desk this morning, and if you have 5 minutes, it is a great social media business video to watch.

You will see how one airline company a fun social media campaign that succeeded to not only build a solid relationship with its customers (social media’s main purpose) but to also create a major buzz campaign for the company itself.

Plus I think it’s a great example of how to do an on-line campaign that brings offline smiles to people.  An online/offline combination campaign is my favorite one to do. They did well.

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You may be out shopping for yourself or for Xmas gifts.  Well if you are, I have a special treat just for you.

Sure, fashion can be fun, but dressing well (even if it’s not expensive) can help catapult your image, and income, which is VITAL for every Entrepreneur and Professional who wants to reach higher targets this year and/or sell higher priced items or just simply gain the credibility you deserve.

Since your image can impact your bottom line in your business, I’ve arranged for you to be my special guest on this content packed Webinar with Noel Wu, Author and Celebrity Image Connoisseur.  He’s worked with political leaders and famous athletes like Magic Johnson and now you.

Benefit from his expertise and love the way you look and feel every day in what you are wearing.  Plus you’ll learn how certain clothes can help you to “own” any room you walk into.  That’s a powerful thing!

And by the way – this call is for both Men AND Women.
 
Noel is going to show you “The 3 Biggest Mistakes” most people make when getting dressed. We’ll also talk about “How to be the ‘It Factor’ from the Inside Out” and own any room you walk into! It will be well worth it!

When you register, you will receive a special 2 step link to attend. After you sign in, you will be provided a special webinar link. You must also enter your info here to be fully registered for the webinar. Then you will be provided a special “Go to Webinar” link unique to you. All you need to do is to click on that special link to be granted access to the webinar.  Then just sit back, relax, listen, and learn. Noel can help you earn more money in your career by presenting your image in a proper way.

Here’s the access that allows you to attend this Webinar as my VIP guest:
http://www.emagecouture.com/registration

All the best,
Stefanie

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It’s my birthday today, and before you ask, no I am not revealing my age.  HA HA.  Some years I feel weird about my age, others I don’t.  This is one of those slightly uncomfortable years.  Does that ever happen to you?

Anyways, I am packing up the puppy and heading out of town this weekend to spend time with my parents and sister.  With everything that has been going on personally the last few weeks, I am happy to keep it low profile and small this year.

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you in my life and allowing me to do the work I love doing every day – helping people realize their dreams and building product lines for them.  So thank you for that.

I hope you enjoy your weekend (maybe with your loved ones) as well!

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I know this is short notice, but I’ve just been invited to speak on the panel at this cool outsourcing event in Los Angeles California  at the Westin LAX hotel Dec 2nd – 4th, and if you were in the area I wanted to make sure you would be able to attend.  In fact, this is a $1997 ticket price, but Daven is letting me bring 20 people for free (in return for my help with his event).  So if you’re interested, please attend with me.

Just so you know, this is NOT a massive speaker line-up with people selling things.  This is 3 day TRAINING on how to outsource your business.  I am looking forward to learning more about this myself.

Daven is the CEO of 123Employee, and he has helped thousands of small business owners work less and make more money. He teaches from experience, he has turned multiple passions into million dollar businesses and today he run’s his multi-million dollar outsourcing business and manages over 350 employees… from his laptop and cell phone! At ‘Outsource Live!’ Daven will disclose many of the secrets and strategies he has used and how you can use the same strategies in your business.

You will learn how to create a practical wealth generation plan. How to outsource your social media, marketing to increase lead generation, how to SAVE valuable time and delegate effectively without stress, so you can work less, earn more, how to leverage software, and much more.

The event is usually $1997, but if you use this special code: WEBPASS

You can attend for FREE, but you must use the code!
Click here to learn more www.stefaniehartman.com/recommends/outsourcethis

Hope to see you there. 

PS – Sign up but also let me know you’re coming.  That way I know who to look out for.

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A Day to Remember AND Reach Out.

We often take for granted the very things that are most deserving of our gratitude.  Please spread the message of courage, love and peace to everyone you know and meet today. 

A personal observation…

Almost everyone now knows a family related to a soldier.  One of my friends said she was surprised when her husband went to war for a year that many of her closest friends did not even call her to see how she was coping with her three kids as a new single mother. 

In fact it was people she barely knew who offered to help her shop, brought over some food, or took her kids off her hands for a few hours so she could have simple ‘me’ time.   We are all so busy, but if you find it in your heart and you are able to offer some time to war vets or their families, that you personally know or through associations, please do something for them.    Because, in war, there are no unwounded soldiers.  I know that would mean the world to them.  I am doing the same, and spending time my friend this Saturday.

9/11 was painful, now we are here at 11/11/11.  Please, take a moment to stop and commemorate Remembrance Day on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, of the year.

Quotes to pass on:

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” G. K. Chesterton

“Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.” Daniel Webster

Warmest Regards to you and your family,
Stefanie

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Just quickly wanted to let you know one of my long-time students and mastermind graduate Carmen Dragomir is featured in this magazine issue!  Look for her on Pages 82 – 84.

http://canadianbuildersquarterly.com/digital-edition

Carmen is a real sweetheart, as well as a brilliant designer, so I’m thrilled for her.  Hope you are too!

Stefanie Hartman

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Is there opportunity here or not for you?

I am fascinated by all the changes happening in the book industry and publishing world right now.  We are truly smack dab in the middle of a major historical shift.  I have called several book industry people and no-one seems to know what will die or how it will be reborn, but they all agree this is a very interesting time in history.  They are taking the famous “wait and see approach”.

As for me, well that’s just not my style is it? (more about that below)

One of the things I am following is the adventures at Amazon.  Personally I think Jeff Bezo’s is either one of the smartest guys out there (and I do admire him) or just one lucky son-of-a -gun. Amazon has pretty much taken over the book distribution field (direct to consumer) and when they opened, many bookstores run by families or small business owners had to close up shop, almost overnight.  Life following fiction as in the Tom Hanks movie “You’ve Got Mail” from years ago – except this time Jeff Bezo didn’t marry and rescue all the women who owned the small book stores well loved by their communities and neighbors.  To be fair to Mr. Bezo, polygamy is illegal or at least frowned upon in most states, so what could he do, really?

More on the drama, earlier this year- large chain bookstores were seen closing their doors, many Canadian and American Booksellers declared bankruptcy including Independent Storied Books who won the bookseller award for 2009 (doesn’t that blow your mind), Arcade Publishing (who published James Beard, Ingmar Bergman) and even Canadians largest book distributer HB. Also gone from the book publishing landscape are Fenn and Company and Europe’s largest Newspaper Publisher, Axel Spiegel.    Even Borders Books filed for Chapter 11 and one of the largest and oldest Publishing Houses declared bankruptcy.  What’s amazing is that in many cases, no-one suspected any of these companies were in trouble.

Is this really new though?   I did some digging (ok online research) and found out that even the famous writer Mark Twain went bankrupt.  He didn’t like his current publisher (they weren’t doing much for him and yet making most of the money – gee, sound familiar?) and he wanted to make more money for himself.  So he got together with a friend of his Charles Webster (his niece’s husband) and put together his own publishing house.  Twain also put his money into a friend James Paige, who invented a typesetting technology to help Twain produce books faster.  The machine never worked properly so Twain lost all his money and even had to get a bankruptcy lawyer in the 1880’s. 

But fret not; there is always opportunity in failure and loss.  If Mark Twain had succeeded as a book publisher, it is highly speculated that he may not have gone on to write his many famous novels, which caused his fortune to return plus hundreds of years of young readers adoring his much loved adventures.  So don’t despair with what’s happening now, nor what may personally be happening to you.  There is another bend in the road to get you past any roadblock, and sometimes if I dare say, it may even be fate setting you straight onto a better path.

Now, Amazon seems to have the publishing world in its sites.  It has started a new division to publish authors.  And now the fight is on.  Many bookstores who feel that Amazon has tried to put them out of business, are now trying to figure out if they should deny or display books published by Amazon on their store shelves.  Many are saying, “No Way”, while Barnes and Noble are possibly trying for a compromise by only agreeing to allow them if Amazon agrees to give  rights to the book on their e-reader Nook and not just on Amazon’e proprietary Kindle reader.  Nothing has been decided as of writing of this blog.

Amazon seems to be approaching authors by buying some titles for print and some just for e-book format.   It does seem unclear how much marketing help they are actually giving authors though as Seth Godin’s new book, The Hangman’s Daughter, published by Amazon, has had some good sales, while other published books by Amazon seem mediocre.  In fact most books that have been sold, have been sold on Amazon for $3.99 or less on their deal of the day program.  Amazon is also giving away free books through its Vine Program in exchange for reviews.  When approached, Seth Godin said most of the marketing was done by him already.  Having said that, that seems to be the future and current trend for authors anyways – to market themselves.

It used to be a romantic thought to be a writer, when I was kid thinking about it.  To spend hours over a typewriter (I’m dating myself here) or computer, ok iPad now, starve (romantically) while you wait for that coveted letter in your mailbox (now email), to find out if your life is about to change and a publisher has bought your book.  Then comes money, media interviews, book tours, celebrity status and a new house and car for you and your mother who always believed in you.

Now you hear stories of publishing firms buying your book for less and less money and ‘maybe’ assigning a small media budget for you.

I speak with authors every day, weighing the pros and cons and trying to help them decide whether it’s best for them to go traditional or independent (self-publishing).  I am also teaching them how to create their own media kits, how to create blog or social media buzz (great marketing on the shoe string budget of a writer) and how to create 6-figures themselves from their books post print.  Basically how to get them and you, to think like Mark Twain, but through today’s technology while making more money for yourself.  So feel proud.  You are in good company.

More than ever (yet apparently also in the 1880’s), writers need to have the street smarts of how this industry works, how not to get eaten alive and how to come out of your book with a smile on your face and hopefully a big fat bank account.  Thankfully I have been helping authors do this for over 10 years.  But how I teach it has changed as more and more opportunities present themselves.

The trend that spanned the last 5 – 10 years was to be the ambassador of your own health. Educate yourself first, don’t just fly blind.

Now I’m finding myself giving that advice to my writers, especially nonfiction.   But the rainbow here is that now more than ever, you have the chance to be innovative, cool, and make more money than ever for your book (from product lines, sponsored events, app’s, games, group consulting,  etc.).  It’s just going to take a little powerful knowledge (which you can do) and old fashioned elbow grease.  In fact, I am working hard with some very special people to put together something for you monthly to get you in the know, so you can feel empowered and take charge of your life and business.

Isn’t that what we all want in the end?  A better life.  An easier way.  An understanding of what to do instead of falling prey to paralysis by worry and concern. And last but not least…Money rolling in.

Personally I’d like to see local bookstores find a way to stay alive.  I treasure them as much as I treasure libraries that are also under attack (but they are fighting with the help of loving community friends).  I love walking into them. I love the electric quiet.   I get a warm feeling like I’m home, then a building excited feeling of discovering new adventure and new favorites I don’t even know about yet.  In fact bookstores say that over 50% of sales in the stores are unplanned purchases.  And they also say that many e-book purchases are made only after the titles are discovered in person at a store first.  So why can’t they both exist?

I use e-books for work or business books and my nighttime ritual of fiction has to be (for me) paperback where I can curl under the sheets with a good book and my trusted book light.

I’m on 2 missions over the next 15 months – one, to get more kids to read, and second to help more adult writers to not only get their books out there but make their own money from their books via back-end book business.  I see MASSIVE opportunity for you now.  Everyone is looking and watching the change (even my industry insiders), I say – hey why not BE the change. 

Please post your feedback on what you think about this post and my viewpoint on this.  Do you share my optimistic Mark Twain view on a greater opportunity emerging here for you or not?

And hey 2 minutes ago when I started writing this I wasn’t even planning on doing this part, but if you want answers, please take 1 minute (or less) and post on my blog what you’d like more help with.  I promise to incorporate it somehow into the info I create, even if only 1 per cent of you ask for that help, heck if even only you wants to know.

Also, putting this info and program together is going to require massive effort on  my part here, not that I’m complaining, well ok a little, but I’m really only remarking about it because in order to do this I need to put other projects aside. So please give me your serious input on this.  All feedback and viewpoints are welcome and appreciated. I promise not to heckle if you don’t.

Warmest Regards,

Stefanie

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