Author, Editor and The Intrigue Queen Of  Thriller Fiction

Video Interview

Audio

Coming Soon

Bio

Introduction

Alana Woods is The intrigue queen of thriller fiction, Alana is an award winning author and she’s also a Professional editor for over 30 years. Her novel Automaton, won the Australian Fast Books Prize for Best Fiction in 2003. It was also nominated by Sisters In Crime for the 2004 Davitt Award, which is for the best Australian female crime fiction for the year.

Bio

I was a 10 pound Pom, emigrating from the UK to Australia with my parents and two older brothers in 1951. It was over 40°C when we landed and my mother later said she had wanted to get on the first boat back home. The photo shows us on The Asturiasen route via Russia in November 1951. I’m the one with the doll.I was a month short of four when the boat docked and six when my sister was born. My parents bought land in the coastal wilds of Seaview Downs, South Australia, about an hour out from Adelaide and for the next 15 years I explored my way through school and books, the beach and books, roaming as far as my feet and bike would take me in a day, and books. As you can see, Seaview Downs was pretty desolate in those days. We lived in the caravan until dad built something a little more permanent. There were two adults, a teenager, two youngsters and a new baby in that caravan!In 1966 I met John, the Gawler boy to top all boys, married him the next year, and the year after that had twins, Simone and Simon. We get ribbed about that all the time, mostly from the twins themselves. You can see from the wedding photo that I was a Mod. Mine and my bridesmaids outfits were considered very radical.Three years later Nicole joined the team. For a moment the doctor thought she was twins too, and we joke with her now that it would have been Nicole and Nicholas. You can imagine the derision the kids aim our way!In 1980 we packed our bags and moved to Canberra to further mine and John’s careers.Until I left full-time work in February 2004 I was a professional editor and eventually became Director of Publishing at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The photo to the right shows me at Parliament House with the Chairman, Prof Allen Fels, the day the ACCC came into being.In 2004 John and I moved to the Sunshine Coast, spending five years there before moving back to Canberra because we (read into that I) missed the family.

We now spend part of our time in the UK with Simone, who lives in West Sussex with her husband and three young children. That’s me with my oldest UK grandson at Worthing, a beachside town just along the coast from Brighton. We had fish and chips for lunch.My fiction work includes two published novels, both literary suspense, and a collection of short stories.My non-fiction work includes two works. One is a guide to writing good fiction: 25 essential writing tips: guide to writing good fiction. The second is a family medical history diary in which you can keep a record of everything of a medical nature that happens in your family.My first novel, Automaton, won the Australian Fast Books Prize for Best Fiction in 2003. It was also nominated by Sisters In Crime for the 2004 Davitt Award, which is for the best Australian female crime fiction for the year. The story was inspired by my five years working with the Commonwealth Court Reporting Service in Canberra during which I spent many a day in the Supreme Court recording the agonies of those unfortunate enough to be in the dock and their families, who would watch and usually suffer in silence. The photo shows me at the award presentation with the ABC’s Peter Ross, who was the judge.Automaton, with a new cover, was re-released in October 2011.My second novel, Imbroglio, is literary espionage suspense. It was released in October 2011.In mid-2011 Simone mentioned that she was preparing to publish two journals for the home (click here to see them). It prompted John to say that ever since the children were small he had thought that a journal in which you could record all of your family’s medical history would be really useful. After recovering from my surprise that it had taken him so many years to mention it I decided to publish Family medical history. It’s a departure from my novels, but one I hope will be enthusiastically received.I’ve been working on a third novel, Dragline; literary suspense with a corporate law theme this time. I finished the first draft ages ago but not being happy with it I put it aside to think about. However, I think it’s time to get back into it.

Interview Questions

• How and why you decided to became an author?
• What’s your background?
• Why your family decided to move from the UK to Australia?
• Why did you leave your full-time job as a professional editor?
• Which one of your fiction books and non-fiction books you like the most?
• What inspired you to write your novel Automaton?
• What’s the secret to a compelling hook when writing a fiction book?
• How do you write characters that live and breathe?
• When do you show and when do you tell when writing a fiction book?
• Why sometimes do your descriptions fall flat when writing a fiction book?
• Who should tell the story? First, second or third person point of view when writing a fiction book?
• Why did you decide to write Family Medical History?
• Which is more difficult in terms of writing for you and in general fiction or non-fiction?
• What’s your writing routine? and what do you do to write efficiently?
• Publishing or self-publishing and why? Which one would you choose if you have both options?
• What’s the definition of indie authors?
• How an author can choose the right editor for his or her book efficiently?
• Do you still do editing work, if yes how much do you charge for copy editing and developmental editing per word?
• What’s your advice to new authors?
• Tell us more about your other projects that you are currently working on or planning for the future?
• Share with us some of the tools or software that make you more efficient?
• What’s your daily life and work routine looks like?
• What are your other hobbies?
• Who are your top 3 mentors?
• What’s the biggest failure moment in your life and what did you learn from it?
• What do you do to change your mood when you are depressed?
• What’s the best advice that you ever received?
• What’s your favorite quote?
• If you have the chance, what would you say to advice your younger self?
• What are your top 3 favorite books?
• What are the top 3 people that you are inspired by?
• Do you listen to any music when you work?
• What makes you really happy?
• How people can contact you?
  

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The post E68: Alana Woods On How To Write Your Next Great Novel or Fiction Book appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

         The #1 bestselling author of the Miracle Morning Book, Success Coach and International Keynote Speaker

What’s The 95%  Reality Check? Is working in the morning really productive comparing with working after midnight for people who don’t have to wake up early, or does that depend on the person?

His powerful formula guaranteed to empower you to overcome any limitations that have held you back in the past so you can begin to truly “Loving The Life You Have While Creating The Life of Your Dreams.”

Video Interview

Audio

Bio

Introduction

Hal Elrod is the #1 bestselling author of the Miracle Morning Book, Success Coach and International Keynote Speaker

Bio

Hal Elrod is a #1 bestselling author, international Keynote Speaker, hall of fame business achiever, one of America’s top Success Coaches, national champion Sales Manager, record-breaking Sales Rep, ultra-marathon runner, grateful husband & proud father.

Known as “Yo Pal Hal” since hosting his first radio show at age 15, his greatest triumph came at age 20 after he was hit head on by a drunk driver and found dead at the scene…

Despite being clinically dead for six minutes, in a coma for six days, breaking 11 bones and being told he may never walk again, Hal defied the logic of doctors and the temptations to be a victim, and he bounced back to prove that ALL of us are capable of overcoming extraordinary adversity to create extraordinary results in our personal and professional lives.

Hal has appeared on dozens of TV and radio shows across the country, and he’s been featured in numerous books, including The Education of Millionaires, the all-time bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Cutting Edge Sales, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales, Releasing the Chains, Living College Life In the Front Row, and The Author’s Guide To Building An Online Platform, to name a few.

His #1 bestselling book, The Miracle Morning and his highly acclaimed #6 bestseller, Taking Life Head On! are two of the most acclaimed books on Amazon with a combined 120+ 5-star reviews.

Books

The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed To Transform Your Life… (Before 8AM) is already a runaway #1 bestseller, and it may be the simplest, most effective way to create the life you’ve always wanted, and faster than you ever thought possible.

What if you could miraculously wake up tomorrow and any—or every area of your life was transformed? What would be different? Would you be happier? Healthier? More successful? In better shape? Would you have more energy? Less Stress? More Money? Better relationships? Which of your problems would be solved?

What if I told you that there is a “not-so-obvious” secret that is guaranteed to transform any—or literally every area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible? What if I told you it would only take 6 minutes a day?

Enter The Miracle Morning. What’s now being practiced by thousands of people around the world could perhaps be the simplest approach to creating the life you’ve always wanted. It’s been right there in front of us, but this book has finally brought it to life. Are you ready?

The next chapter of your life—the most extraordinary life you’ve ever imagined—is about to begin. YOU DESERVE AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE. IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP TO YOUR FULL POTENTIAL.

Taking Life Head On: How To Love the Life You Have While You Create the Life of Your Dreams is the unbelievable true story of Hal Elrod’s miraculous triumph over tragedy, giving you his powerful formula guaranteed to empower you to overcome any limitations that have held you back in the past so you can begin to truly “Loving The Life You Have While Creating The Life of Your Dreams.”

At age 20, Hal was on top of the world as one of the best salespeople in Cutco Cutlery’s 50-year history. Then Hal’s world ended when he was hit head-on by a drunk driver and found dead at the scene… Defying the logic of doctors, Hal went on to become a Hall of Fame business achiever, International Speaker, Life Empowerment Coach and Bestselling Author, all before the age of 30. Hal is living proof that all of us are capable of overcoming any adversity, defying the odds,and  creating miracles in our own lives.  In this must-have bestselling book, he shows you how!

Website & Social Media

https://halelrod.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/themiraclemorning

https://www.facebook.com/yopalhal

https://twitter.com/halelrod

Interview Questions

• What’s your background before the Miracle Morning?
• How did you start in sales? And then why later on did your income go down you lost your house and accumulated $50000 in credit cards debt?
• Tell us the story of your accident and what did you learn from it?
• Why should we wake up in the morning?
• What’s The 95% Reality Check?
• Is working in the morning really productive comparing with working after midnight for people who don’t have to wake up early or does that depend on the person?
• Why waking up early in the morning is important for our energy, stress, happiness and fitness?
• What are the other benefits of waking up in the morning?
• How to wake up in the morning?
• What is The 5-Step Snooze Proof Wake Up Strategy?
• What’s The 6-minute Miracle Morning?
• What to do after waking up in the morning?
• How to fight the feeling of being sleepy when waking up early in the morning?
• How to beat insomnia?
• What’s your personal sleeping routine?
• What is The 5-Minute Rule: to Discover how to overcome any NEGATIVE emotion and transform a negative attitude into a positive one?
• Publishing or self-publishing? Which one would you choose if you have both options and why?
• How much do you charge for 1 on 1 coaching and how does it work?
• Tell us more about your other projects that you are currently working on or planning for the future?
• Share with us some of the tools or software that make you more efficient?
• What’s your daily life and work routine looks like? 
• What’s one marketing strategy that helped you the most in developing your business?
• Who are your top 3 mentors?
• The most important factors for success in 3 words?
• What’s the biggest failure moment in your life and what did you learn from it?
• What are the Top 3 apps that you use on your smartphone?
• What do you do to change your mood when you are depressed?
• What’s the best advice that you ever received?
• What’s your favorite quote?
• If you have the chance, what would you say to advise your younger self?
• What are your top 3 favorite books?
• What are the top 3 people that you are inspired by? 
• What makes you really happy?
• How can people contact you?

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The post E57: How to Wake Up Early in the Morning & Why It’s Important for Our Energy, Productivity & Happiness – Interview with Hal Elrod appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.

Ever since I shifted managing my business from offline to online, I have been searching for and testing out new ways of managing one of the biggest wastes of time I encountered during this transition: my email inbox.  The system I’m currently using (Al Kiremli Email Efficiency System) took me two years to perfect.

While less than 10% of my businesses are online, and the remaining 90% are offline, I manage more than 95% of my communication with my offline teams (investors, partners, franchisees, branch managers, PA, etc.,) and online teams (accountants, VAs, researchers, web developers, graphic designers, lawyers, transcribers, social media managers, etc.,) primarily through email.

This model allowed me to avoid having an office and specific working hours, allowing me to wake up anytime I want, work from anywhere I want, travel anytime, play my favorite sport anytime, and more importantly having my own free time when I want to and spend it with the people that I like and want to spend it with. The most challenging thing I faced after shifting to this online management style is the tsunami of emails I received, which was filling my inbox with 100-200 emails a day, not to mention spam.

Just checking and replying to these emails was taking me 6 to 12 hours a day. So in effect I had created another full-time job for myself, which was sitting in front of the computer and replying emails. In theory it’s not a bad job compared to what some other people have, because I can still do it from the beach, the mall, a café, or from home, and I can do it in stages; not necessarily all at once. But still, it was taking over my life, and brain, by taking so much time away from me during the day.

The step by step process that I use to send and reply to my email in 95% less time to what was taking me before is the following:

1-    Hire a virtual assistant (VA) through (elance.com) on an hourly basis. This will cost you from $4-$7 an hour, and I currently pay about $5 an hour to my VA, at a monthly cost of $100-$200. Bear in mind this VA will have access to your emails, so select them wisely and test them with a fake or less important email account before giving them access to your main email accounts;

2-    The emails VA will read your emails then send them to you as voice messages through WhatsApp on your mobile device in the following format:

Text from VA:  Email: (Email No. As per the sequence of emails received that day) (Sender, Name)

Voice from VA: this is a recording of the email received, and it should always start by the email number to avoid confusion should you have sent them a messages through WhatsApp in the meantime

Text from You: (Email No.)

Voice from You: (Your voice reply to the email)

Sometimes you prefer to reply in writing, in that case:

Text from You: (Your written answer)

A Snapshot from WhatsApp for the process

3-    For the emails that you need to reply by yourself because they’re personal, or critical to a business deal, or include an attachment that you need to review,  then you need to reply to your VAs voice message as follows:-

Voice Message from VA

Text from You: (Email No.) (F) f here stands for forward, but forward to where?

A Snapshot from WhatsApp for the process

4-  You then need to create a secret email address that nobody knows about except for your VA. Even your family and friends should not know about this secret email address, because this is where your VA will forward the emails that you need to review or reply to yourself. This means that  now you will have 5-20 emails to check (and no spam!) on your secret email address instead of checking 100-200 emails in your main inbox. So basically your VA will act as smart filter and gate keeper from the world to you and a quick answering and forwarding machine from you to the world

5-    Depending on the type of email reply that you want your VA to send, your VA can reply from their email address and use a range of business cards when they reply on your behalf. For example, they could reply as your VA, using your business card and email address if you want to make your reply appear as if it came directly from you.

6-    When I want to send an email to my team or reply the emails in my secret email address I use a free app called Say it Mail it because when you speak, you usually deliver the idea you want in a better and faster way, and you avoid what usually happens when writing an email such as formal greetings, Proofreading for spelling mistakes, and continually reviewing your written response.

6-1-  This is what you see when you open the app.

6-2- When you click on the Microphone the recording starts so you start your voice email.

6-3- When you click again on the Microphone the recording stops and immediately attach your voice email to your email screen, you just need to click send and your voice email will be emailed to the email address that you want.

Currently this is the email system that I use to save 95% of the time I spend sending and receiving emails, and it works very well for me. of course mistakes happen sometimes, but in terms of efficiency this is the best system that I  have ever come up with.  Now I spend about 15-45 Minutes a day answering my emails, unless there’s something long that I have to read like a partnership or leasing contract.

If you use some different techniques please share them with us in the comments section, or post any questions that come to mind.

The post How to Be 10x Times more Efficient in Checking, Replying, Sending and Receiving Emails appeared first on 1on1 Business & Marketing Mentoring.