The book publishing industry is currently in turmoil but I want to start by saying "No worries - because you can do more than that."

What do I mean by that?
The average poet sells 35 books. A poet that travels, does book fairs, reads a lot - sells about 260 books. A famous poet, about a handful, gets a decent advance, and sells a few thousand copies.
96% of ALL books listed on on Amazon sell less than 1 copy per week, even less when it is in a traditional bookstore environment. The average attendees for a book signing is 8.

And the average profit of a self published book sold on Amazon is $2.50 (for a $17 book) This is the goal of poets - to become a published author - to have a book - and having a published book is a great goal.

And even more of you want a traditional publisher - so your royalty goes to about $1.70 per book.

But right now, with books selling less and less, and your message becoming even more important, you need to add to your 'book' goal - alternative methods of publishing and promotion. Over the next few newsletters, I am going to give you more details on different methods such as ebooks, kindle, CD, audio, podcasts, blogging and comments, audio post card, newsletter, video, twitter, facebook, tubemogul, teleseminar, virtual book tours, shared promotion, articles, cross promotion and others.

Today I am going to talk about YouTube. If you want to get your poem heard, by possibly thousands, so many more than your book - and get your message out - record yourself reading your poem.

There are easy ways to do this.

1. Create a www.youtube.com account - it is free to join.  Here is mine - http://www.youtube.com/marketingmaestro

2. Put images together and then have the poem display. See CFP member example - Nikhil Parekh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVy5AL6x_40

3. You can record your audio on your computer and wrap some pictures around it.

Here is my sample of that. This is me reading from my book (this video cost me $12 to have created)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex-ESiOlfs0

4. Read your poem in front o a video or have a friend record you when you are at an event. Here is an example of that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCp8h_MXTas

So a book is great, but the new publishing pardigm is Market, Medium and Message.

So reach the market, by using various mediums to spread your message.

There has never been a more important time for poets to emerge as positive influencers such as what Nikhil Parekh does, and get the message out that can make the world a better place.

If you're thinking I can't do this - I'm not technical - no worries - go to www.elance.com and someone there will do it for about $15. I have paid as low as $3 and high as $22. Really cheap for a huge impact that you can repurpose for about 8 other things.