One of my superpowers is that I have decades of experience with a wide range of publishing and marketing systems. I have the tools to make a lot of things happen.
Your Complete End-To-End Marketing Solution could include some or all of the following implemented over time:
Books and Courses for sale or use as lead magnets.
Website, Social Media, and YouTube presence.
Blog, post, and video campaigns.
Email strategies and campaigns.
Speaking and podcasting (video and audio).
Online and in-person presentations and webinars.
Summits and Challenges.
Writing and Copywriting.
Publicity campaigns.
Print assets.
I can also assist you with business software, including Kartra, HighLevel, and StreamYard.
Share your audacious dream goals with me, and I’ll create a roadmap to help you achieve them.
I will then work with you to implement some or all of it on a done-with-you or done-for-you basis.
And can also be your chief cheerleader and advisor if you want to implement it yourself.
Over the decades, I have helped many people and companies achieve their project goals.
Often, it started with a request for help doing something I may not have done before. Many of the tools and skills I have now came from figuring out how to help people.
Past Adventures
Here are some of the adventures that came from saying yes.
Selling How to Coach Baseball to Kids VHS tapes and CDs.
Cancer Benefit Concerts.
Many websites across niches, including botanical gardens, choirs, concerts, theatre productions, bands, real estate investors, natural health companies, and dozens of my own projects.
Project Management stints during the Smoke and Mirrors Venture Capital boom of the last millennium. One took me to Hong Kong with a company that wanted to do online trading.
Some Technical Writing gigs.
Software development for a large consulting company and my own clients.
A singer in a band I was in was a PhD candidate for Applied Psychology. A request to help compile a BASIC program led to over twenty years of developing and supporting psychometric assessment systems for hiring and development. At one time, every person who applied to work at TELUS took a Values In Action assessment we designed for them. Ka Ching! Our most comprehensive system was a Management Assessment for senior managers and CEO candidates. The owners aged out and resisted succession, or we would still be running the service today.
Some quirky music videos with musicians I played with.
Videos for concerts, theatre productions, food recovery, urban farming, botanical gardens, family events, weddings, and much much more.
Sizzle reels for speakers.
Promotional and training videos on many topics.
Many online interviews with people who have interesting stories and offers.
A wide range of personal and family story productions.
Video interviews with pioneers of the Natural Health industry.
Comprehensive marketing, including landing pages, social media, blogging, and email.
Formatting and publishing books in print and other formats.
Online courses.
Live events such as concerts and coffeehouses.
At one choir concert, I engineered the sound, used three video cameras, and sang in the choir. I could control the mixer with my phone and popped out from time to time to check the balance.
In simple terms, I have a deep set of experiences, tools, and strategies to help people publish and market many things.
If you have something you want to share as an author, speaker, or course creator, I can help you.
Want to share personal and family stories? I can help you with that.
Have a vision for the world to share? I’m your man.
Want to sell tickets to shows and events? I’ve had a lot of success with that.
Do you have products and services to sell? Let’s get the word out and create the systems to make the sales.
I have an affordable and sustainable retainer to work with you to achieve your publishing and marketing goals.
The retainer is $388 for the first month and $88/month until cancelled.
The idea is to launch your project, keep it available online, and build over time. Examples include landing pages, sales funnels, blogging websites for stories and marketing, and more.
Your project may be much bigger than that. We can discuss that as we get the first steps done.
Here are some sample projects for the Golden Publishing Retainer.
Personal and Family Story Productions
One of the things I love to do is capture, preserve, and share family stories. This is why I bought my first still and video cameras.
Over the years, I have created everything from photo montages to books to multimedia collections and websites to share personal and family stories.
I am running a Family Story Challenge: Capture family stories while you can.
I teach people how to plan, collect, assemble, and publish one or more family stories.
Working with me for a story production includes:
Planning the stories to capture.
Creating a set of Google Drive folders for you and your family to upload and organize photos, documents, and other media to have a safe place for it and for use in story productions.
Assembling one or more story productions.
Creating some or all of the following to share the information and stories:
Blogging website for multimedia content that can grow over time.
Print books.
Audiobooks.
Video presentations.
Secure multimedia repository.
In many ways, a website that I provide is the best place to share stories over time.
Earlier this year, I ran a Writing For Fun challenge, encouraging people to write simply for the sheer joy of it.
There are also many reasons why you may want to publish books, including:
Leave a legacy.
Share information to make the world better for people or businesses.
To be entertaining.
Englighten the world.
Build your world presence, influence, and authority.
Attract clients and customers to your offers.
Get speaking gigs.
Why do you want to publish your books?
Whatever the reason, here is how I help authors publish and market books:
Help with the planning and assembly.
Copyediting. I can recommend some developmental editors and ghostwriters.
Preparing the manuscript for submission.
Preparing covers for the print and eBook versions.
Submit to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark as appropriate. Part of the discussion is whether you want to self-publish or submit to a traditional publishing house. I can help with those decisions and support promotion either way.
Help with query letters and social media campaigns to promote the book before, during, and after the launch.
One thing to consider is creating an author website right away to publish excerpts and promote the book before it is published.
Video has been a huge part of what I have done for the last thirty years and continues to be a large part of the publishing and marketing I do today.
My YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/gregdixon2007 gets around 1.8K views a month organically across hundreds of videos published since 2007.
The channel is something of an archeological dig of everything I have been interested in along with many interviews and client projects.
Many more video projects are not public on the channel.
Video is key to story productions, marketing, training, fun interviews, and more.
I have recently been extracting the audio for a podcast.
Video using in-person and online tools can be part of your Golden Publishing Retainer.
Leverage Your Golden Content With Courses and Membership Programs
If you have book content that teaches helpful things for people and businesses, I encourage you to create an online course and membership program to make a difference in lives and make money.
Maybe you already have a book that would be good for that?
Going the other way, perhaps you have online courses and training programs that would make good books.
Publish Everywhere!
Here are the main elements of my Golden Publishing Sales Machine.
Publish a Book
Publish a related Online Course and Membership Program
Cross-market
Use the content for promotion, including webinars.
The main reason I subscribed to Kartra was to create and sell online courses.
I have all of the tools, experience, and strategies to implement a Golden Publishing Sales Machine for you.
Kartra is also great for sales landing pages, email marketing, webinar funnels, payments, and other resources for your success.
Purchase the Shared Visions Golden Publishing Kit using the same link. All of the challenge trainings will go in there to augment publishing resources already there.
Retain me to help you with all of the steps of your Story Productions.
One of the easiest story projects you can do yourself or with my help is to create a slide presentation with photos and captions identifying the people and events.
I have created dozens of these presentations for birthday parties, weddings, and memorials.
The most recent was a tribute to Rocket Norton at the recent Rock Beats Cancer benefit concert. The five-minute presentation is mostly photos with some video.
A happier project was to put together family photos for my son’s wedding. He grew up in North Vancouver and his bride grew up in the Maritimes with the wedding and reception in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
The photo slideshow with a music background started with baby photos of each and pictures of activities as they grew up separately (with many interesting parallels).
I included photos of parents, grandparents, siblings, uncles, aunts, and cousins with captions for the names, relationships, and events. It was an excellent way for each family to learn about the other family.
We looped the video on a large TV at an Aunt’s house between the wedding ceremony and the start of the reception. Many people watched and commented on relatives they had not seen recently.
We also projected the video as part of the reception.
We used Google Drive to collect the photos from both families.
I used PhotoShop to crop and restore the photos, though Canva and other photo editors will work for this.
Today, I will use Apple FinalCut Pro to assemble the photos with transitions, captions, and music. Any video editor would work for this.
I can put it together for you. I will need the photos and notes about each photo for the captions sent by email or uploaded to a Google Drive folder.
The finished presentation can be embedded on a web page or played on most modern televisions from a USB Memory Drive.
Memory Refresher for Seniors
A great use of these family presentations is for seniors and others who are experiencing memory loss.
The photos and videos with captions and possibly a voice-over can be a fun way to refresh memories of family members and events.
Digital Photo Frames
There are many ways of presenting these photo presentations, including inexpensive digital photo frames for your loved ones.
Emphasizing the Unlimited part of Shared Visions Unlimited Publishing, I encourage and help you to publish your book in multiple formats on multiple platforms, including:
Printed Book and eBook through Amazon and IngramSpark Put your book out far and wide forever and possibly make some money.
FlipBook Easy distribution and support for multimedia elements. Help people, build authority, and increase influence.
Digital Experience Edition Secure multimedia portal for your book content and support material. Great potential for direct sales.
Audiobook A market for those who prefer to listen.
Video Versions Illustrated readings, training, …
Today, I suggest adding a blogging website to the mix and possibly starting by writing and publishing your book on a blogging website.
Why You Would Consider Publishing Your Book As A Website
This is for you if your reasons to write and publish a book are along these lines:
You have joy in the creating and writing process itself.
You have insights or stories you want to share with the world.
You want to increase your authority and influence.
You may want to use a book as a lead magnet for your products and services.
You want to engage your readers with your content and get feedback to improve the print book.
You collaborate with an editor or writing coach.
This is not for you if you are a perfectionist who wants everything perfect before sharing.
I build high-performing and search-engine-optimized WordPress sites for marketing and various other purposes. Here is why this approach can work for your book and why I am going to use this approach for my own books:
WordPress provides a great platform for writing and collaborating on posts and articles.
Attention to Search Engine Optimization and submitting to Google Search Console can boost your search presence.
The pages can have rich multimedia content and links to related resources.
WordPress provides a good search function for the site itself. This is fabulously useful.
The Google Translate plugin can translate the site instantly. I still think this isamazing! Check out the language selector at the bottom-right of this window.
You can invite feedback and comments for your content as you go.
Sharing to social media platforms is easy.
Linking back from social media platforms and YouTube is easy.
Writing Live and Testing Content
I have a few books in mind: The First Book of Lazy, All My Relations, Adventures in Moving, and The Golden Publishing Sales Machine.
I will create a website and start writing at least one of those books live soon.
Here is the plan:
Register a domain name with the working book title.
Create a website with key plugins, including Yoast SEO, Google Site Kit, and Ultimate Blocks.
Create a home page with a book description and a working outline of topics.
Write the first chapter.
Submit the site to Google Search Console for indexing.
Write a chapter regularly. I will aim for at least three a week.
Post a link to each chapter on social media.
Consider doing a broadcast for each chapter.
I use Grammarly to keep my writing somewhat under control!
If I get readers and interest, I will combine and publish in some or all formats such as a print book, eBook, flipbook, audiobook, and Digital Experience Edition.
At the very least, I will have fun writing and publishing the chapters:-)
The Kartra All-In-One business platform combined with WordPress sites hosted on the Cloudways cloud hosting program.
This article explains why I use this combination for many of our publishing and marketing clients and why you would consider these platforms for your projects.
What Kartra Brings to the Table
I was part of the Kartra Beta Test program and customer since 2018.
It was good from the start and keeps getting better.
Similar programs that I have looked at include ClickFunnels, Keap (InfusionSoft), New Zenler, SamCart, Kajabi, and others. Each has its strengths, though my clients who try them usually come back to Kartra.
I can help clients who use other platforms, though I will always recommend Kartra first. I am likely one of the top Kartra experts in the world and call myself The Kartra Whisperer.
While Kartra is relatively easy to manage for individual steps, it is like a cargo container load of Lego parts that can be combined in many ways.
Kartra also has a rich set of design options for a tremendous range of branding possibilities.
Typical Uses For Kartra
Here are the things I use Kartra for:
Sales Pages. A simple sales page with some text, image, video or audio, and a buy button is all that is needed for things like concert tickets, theatre tickets, or goods and services people want.
Payments. I joke that ‘Kartra’ is an exotic Asian goddess of commerce. There are tons of options for flexible and creative payment options and also self-management for your clients.
Funnel Campaigns. The simplest funnel is a landing page with an opt-in form, thank-you page that subscribes the person to one or more email.
Marketing Automation. Kartra can chain together a lot of things to happen automatically to generate sales, including evergreen webinars.
Email Marketing. Send broadcasts or sequences to people selected by lists, tags, or behaviours.
Video and Other Media. Video, audio, images, and files can be used in Kartra assets or shared on their own.
Membership Sites. One of the reasons I chose Kartra in the first place was to host courses and memberships in a multimedia portal that can contain almost anything and connect with other Kartra tools. This is the Digital Experience Edition included with my Golden Publishing Sales Machine.
Calendar. Kartra provides a good and very sophisticated Calendar system.
Quizzes and Surveys. The quiz and survey tool took years to release and was worth the wait. Good for marketing and courses.
Integrations. Kartra has native implementations for many services like payment processors, SMS, Google Calendar, and more. It also integrates with Zapier, which can connect Kartra to almost anything.
Affiliate Program. Much of marketing success is based on referrals and affiliate promotions.
Kartra provides embed codes to use on websites and other places for flexibility.
I am a prolific writer and something of a Zen Master for getting things in searches.
WordPress is by far the best platform for writing and blogging a lot of content.
Also easy to have the clients and team members collaborate on creating and publishing content.
While WordPress can integrate almost anything through plugins and use different themes for different looks, I stick to the fast and attractive Hemingway theme with a lot of emphasis on blogging.
Most of the many hosting platforms I have used in the past were good until they were not anymore. And many were slow and expensive.
Cloudways allows me to register a name in Namecheap and have a fast, secure, and managed WordPress website up in a few hours.
I have not needed to call customer support yet.
As an Agency, Cloadways allows me to add new sites for little more than the cost of registering the domain.
Namecheap has enough options for domain management and email formatting to provide the necessary services.
I am only hosting WordPress sites on Cloudways at the moment. The platform also supports:
WordPress provides the fastest and easiest way to get an online presence with fabulous support for blogging and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Embedding landing pages and other Kartra assets on the WordPress website takes advantage of all Kartra has to offer from the client’s Kartra account or from my Kartra account.
This is a collection of most of musician and writer Rocket Norton‘s lifetime creative output, including books, recordings, videos, photos, and courses,
If you want the Complete Book Journey with the Digital Experience Edition, published books, and comprehensive marketing, the Publishing Sales Machine may be for you.
What is the Publishing Sales Machine?
We combine the content collected during the book development process to create a Digital Experience Edition, Marketing Assets, and Sales on the journey to publishing the print editions.
This makes the Book Journey fun and profitable early in the process.
