Dear Friends,

This year don't set goals, set aspirations. Don't make a map, create a compass. So advises Stephen Shapiro, author of Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! (http://www.goalfree.com) A reformed goal-aholic himself, Shapiro found that the happiest people followed their inner compass and paid attention to where their interests lead them.

In Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul® I called this "Following Your Gypsy Spirit." Go where the energy is hot. Move in the direction you're pulled in, whether it's toward people or to Portugal. "Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down," says Charles F. Kettering, Engineer and Inventor.

My favorite line in Shapiro's book is, "...Life is not about efficiency. It is about exuberance." He also says, "And you can't map out passion." No, you sure can't. But what you can do is have a sense of how you want to feel this year.

One of my other favorite quotes is from Harold Thurman Whitman--"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

That's what I want, to do only what makes me come alive. That's my one "resolution".

Abraham-Hicks says, "A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don't allow the happy moment, because they're so busy trying to get a happy life." So let's forget about the proverbial "happy life" for a minute and find out what makes us feel good, what makes us come alive. One thing that makes me come alive is reading. And I hope you are the same because I have something special in store for you which I'll tell you about in just a minute.

The other thing that is important to me is connecting with good people. This is something that I envision daily. And I meet the most amazing people! When I'm in Paoli, Pennsylvania, for Christmas I always love to go to the Farmer's Market in Wayne which has many Amish merchants. It makes me feel calm just to see women so rosy-cheeked with no make-up, people not so caught up in commerce. Somehow, at the market, it seems that we are exchanging blessings instead of "shopping" and buying stuff we don't need.

From one woman I talked to while we were all eating lunch at the communal table I learned a new way to cook rotisserie chicken at home with a self-basting gizmo. I met another woman in line for BBQ ribs who had twin girls who insisted that they dress differently so they would be independent individuals. People are fascinating, complicated, curmudgeonly, annoying, difficult and marvelous. As platitudinous as it is, people really do make the world go 'round.

There are a lot of people who know how to make things go 'round in ways that I don't. Four months ago I had made it my mission for the New Year to develop a program where I partnered with people whose work I respected and admired--to gather together who had the best, most popular marketing and publicity products--so I could give them to you.

My products alone only give you a small piece of the publicity puzzle I've spent these last four months preparing. One of my other "aspirations" was to give away more. And since I can't do that with my time, I thought and thought about how I could. When these two ideas clicked together I had it....The result: I've pulled together every single thing that you'll need to do a comprehensive publicity campaign for the year. Yes, for the year. (Whew!)

One of the things I also wanted to do for you this year was to write, "How to Get into O Magazine." I think that this desire is second only to getting on The Oprah Winfrey Show for mainstream publicity seekers. I've been wanting to write it for years, but just didn't have the time. This idea gave me the incentive (ok, I had to give up sleep for a few months). So, this is one of the products you'll receive when you take a look at what I've got for you here.

Consider this my gift to you for the New Year. May all your aspirations happen as they will.

Warmly,

Susan

P.S. Thank you all who sent me emails, for your kind, consoling words about the death of my beloved cat Buddhishka. I miss her terribly, but your letters made my heart a bit lighter.

The Oprah Magazine: Get into O

Knowing how valuable it is to get in O, consider your competition and understand that, like The Oprah Winfrey Show, the standards at the magazine are some of the toughest in the industry. O prides itself in being a publication that values beauty, courage, attention to the finer points of relationships, and people doing amazing things in the world. To get in, here are three things you should know.

1. It's got to be beautiful.

If your product packaging and product itself isn't an eye- stopper, it's most likely not going in O. One publicist who has gotten a number of her clients in O told me that she had a client whose product was fabulous, but the packaging didn't show well so she had no plans to pitch it. Jeanine Boiko of J9 Public Relations, who got her client Bonjour Fleurette in the magazine three times for three different products, has a rule of thumb. "For a product to work in O, ask yourself this: if you walked past your product on the shelf somewhere, would it catch your eye and make you stop? It must have unique, attractive packaging that will photograph well." Jeanine's advice, especially to new business owners, is to not play it cheap with packaging. "At the end of the day, it's all about the draw of your packaging."

2. It's got to be meaningful.

If you're looking to write something for O, Executive Articles Editor Dawn Raffel says the magazine teaches people how live their best life: "It's about realizing your own greatest potential and also about making a contribution to others." Whether you want to write about yourself, be written about, or write about someone else, ask yourself two questions: Are you/they making a difference in a big way? Are you/they making a difference in a way that is important to Oprah?

Genevieve Piturro, founder of the Pajama Project, gets a "yes" on both counts. Her charity gives new pjs to abused and poor kids, many whose mothers are in prison. Some of these children never owned any pjs, and certainly not new ones. "They lose their minds when they get pjs. You'd think we were giving them chocolates!" says Jennefer Witter of The Boreland Group who was the publicist responsible for Piturro's placement in the magazine. Pitturo scores big on two points: She tapped into one of Oprah's key areas of importance: abused children. And she created a remarkable endeavor that caught a lot of people's interest given the emotional pull of her story. When you think about children going to sleep at night in a fresh pair of pjs instead of tattered, dirty clothes, it conjures an image of safety and home. Made me want to donate....

3. It's got to be well-written.

O's readers expect the content to dig deep into emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being on many levels. O delivers on this expectation by seeking out top authors and freelancers from the best national magazines and newspapers in the country from the New York Times to Wired to write on topics as diverse as women slavery to how men really feel about breast implants to the death of a beloved dog. You can either be interviewed by these experienced writers or write an essay or feature on a topic that touches the heart of the O reader.

To get into O, The Oprah Magazine may take you 1-2 years. But I've haven't met one soul who said it wasn't worth it. Henry David Thoreau said, "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." So if getting in O is one of your dreams, keep advancing toward it with all the steadiness of a tulip reaching, reaching toward the sun.

The above was adapted from "Get into O Magazine" which is available here. The e-book also has a section on how one woman got her product on the Oprah's Favorite Things Show.

Here are some of the results of people who got into O, The Oprah Magazine. I wish you similar success.

==> "The O feature got us into over 100 retail outlets," says Denise Loren of http://www.bowwowtv.com, whose company makes DVDs for dogs, which increased her business by 75%. With no money spent on advertising, they made $100,000 in retail/wholesale dollars last year. "The impact for the company once we were in O was that it legitimized us. And that's important for a one-product company."

==> Genevieve Piturro who founded the pajama project, a charity to give new pjs to poor kids, went from 5 chapters to 30 and growing. She got 9000 new pjs donated and a donation of $5000.

==> Stephen Shapiro, author of Goal-Free Living: "How to Have the Life You Want NOW!," says that his article helped springboard him into Entrepreneur, Investors Business Daily, and Family Circle. His speaker bookings increased dramatically, he got listed as one of Tom Peters' "cool friends" and is in process of shooting a pilot for a TV show.

==> Author of "Yes Lives in the Land of No," BJ Gallagher says, "I'd been trying to get the attention of this high- powered agent forever. Just last month the top-notch agent signed me to an exclusive contract representing my next book. Did my O article make her more inclined to say 'yes' to my book proposal? Undoubtedly."

==> The volume of Dr. Volgman's cardiology program at Rush University Medical Association expanded substantially. "O put the program on the map," says publicist Chris Rush.

You can get this 136 page e-book in addition to popular products and programs from more than 20 marketing and publicity experts who have partnered to bring you intelligence that will get you publicity in every area from speaking and getting on national TV to getting buzz on the net to making your book a bestseller. Go here: http://prsecrets.com/store/ to find out more.

P.S. Please pass this on to at least 5 friends, colleagues and associates or anyone you know who would like to promote themselves, their business or product, become a speaker or make their book a bestseller. Thank you!

Get the Giftlist

Start your year off promoting yourself in all possible niche markets.

The Giftlist highlights all the holidays, special events, and seasonal specials all year round for print contacts at national and regional magazines, the top 250 daily newspapers, wires, syndicates and news services, as well as national network, cable and syndicated television shows, plus national radio. Editorial calendar information is targeted at the "December Holiday" season. You can get a list for the US, Canada, the internet and Moms, Dads & Grads, Easter, Mother's Day, proms, weddings, Father's Day, graduation, gardening, fashion, skin care, fitness, cooking, travel, and all those feature stories celebrating better weather.

"Spotlight Branding" is also key right now as "pilot season" is upon us. If products (from beverages to sporting gear) are incorporated into a pilot then the show is picked- up. These opportunities represent huge potential in media exposure. Both products are key to promote now.

Amy Bates Stumpf who runs the service gives this advice for the 2007 Holiday season. "Start in May/June. Know all your holidays, special issues so you can find the ones best suited for whatever you're promoting." Go here now

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Quote

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

~ Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898), Alice in Wonderland