I'm Randy Ingermanson and I'm the author of seven books. If there's anything that's made me FURIOUS over the years, it's that public speakers have an UNFAIR advantage over the rest of us when it comes to promoting their books.

Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine named Bryan. I met Bryan several years ago when he emailed me out of the blue to ask if I'd be willing to write an endorsement for his novel.

I could see right away that Bryan's book had the kiss of death on it. For starters, it was a Christian young adult novel, and that market niche was shrinking at that time.

But a bigger problem was that Bryan was writing a FANTASY. Everybody knows that fantasies don't sell in the Christian market.

I figured Bryan was wasting his time, but I could also see that he REALLY wanted to write his novel. I didn't want to give him false hopes, but I agreed to meet Bryan at a writing conference to talk. There, I read part of the manuscript. It was pretty good, but needed some work on the craft. I pointed out the problems I saw and told Bryan that I'd be happy to read the novel for endorsement if he fixed the problems and sold the book.

Bryan reworked the novel and sold it to a publisher he'd been working with already. A non-fiction publisher.

Get this -- his publisher had never EVER done fiction before. (As if the odds weren't long enough already, that made it even MORE likely that the book would die a quick death.)

Time passed and I received an Advance Reading Copy. I read it, liked what I read, and wrote an endorsement. When the book came out, I received a complimentary copy in the mail.

I crossed my fingers and hoped it would sell at least a few thousand copies, enough so the publisher wouldn't get slaughtered.

A recent issue of Publishers Weekly noted that Bryan's series has sold over 150,000 copies. So far.

You read that right. The book that had the triple kiss of death on it has succeeded wildly. Stupendously.

The author was Bryan Davis and his book was RAISING DRAGONS. You can easily Google Bryan to find out how his DRAGONS IN OUR MIDST series is doing now. If you do, you'll immediately see the key to Bryan's success.

Bryan Davis is a public speaker with a constant stream of speaking engagements at schools around the country.

Guess what he talks about to those kids? That's right, he speaks about fantasy. Then he sells boatloads of books at the back of the room.

The kids read the books and talk about them to their friends. That creates tremendous word-of-mouth, which fuels the flames of his sales.

I do a bit of public speaking myself on the subject of how to write fiction. That's one of the drivers for my success in teaching fiction. (I publish the largest electronic magazine in the world on "how to write fiction" and sell a number of products on my web site on writing fiction.)

But I've never tried to use public speaking to promote my books. Because I didn't know how. My teaching engagements have always come to me; I've never gone looking for them. And my speaking topics are not related to the topic of my books.

In recent months, I've realized that I could be doing a whole lot more to promote my books if I'd get out there and start public speaking on something related to my books.

But like I said, I didn't know how. That's the sticking point for most authors. We can speak just fine, but we don't know how to build our speaking platform.

So I talked to a trusted friend of mine who DOES know how. Mary Byers is a member of the National Speakers Association and has been speaking for almost twenty years. She's also got a couple of books in print, and she promotes her books when she speaks.

There are "writers who speak" and there are "speakers who write." Mary is a speaker who writes. That's why I went to her. She knows what it takes to build a speaking business from the ground up.

Mary and I did a series of teleseminars in October/November of 2007. I interviewed her and she spilled her secrets on four important topics:

• Getting Engagements
• Setting Fees
• Preparing To Speak
• Growing Your Business

Each of these is critical to building a strong platform as a public speaker.

We recorded the teleseminars, and you can listen to them all now, just the way our original listeners heard them. But you have the advantage that you don't have to wait for each weekly installment -- you can get them all NOW.

One thing I love about Mary is that she's so down to earth and practical. She spells everything out and makes it sound simple. Not simplistic. Simple. I like that. I can do that. I intend to use Mary's methods to start speaking on topics that will build a platform for my next series of books.

What about you? Are you interested in learning from an expert?

You've probably been hearing at writing conferences about the importance of having a "platform." Editors and agents really perk up their ears when they hear you're a public speaker. Why?

For a ton of reasons. Public speakers have name recognition. They have credibility. They earn money while promoting their books, which they can then sell at the back of the room. They build rapport with their listeners, and that converts directly into sales. They develop connections with other speakers and publicity people. And they have the skills to present well on radio and TV, not to mention on those pesky book tours.

That's why editors and agents start drooling when they meet a prospective author who is a speaker. Because the name of the game these days is promotion. And it's so much easier for a publisher to promote you if you're "promoteable."

Here's what you'll learn in Teleseminar #1, "Developing Topics and Identifying Your Market":

• The first step to take if you're just getting started
• How to sell a speech before you write it
• 3 ways to know you've got a great topic
• How to know what topics are "hot" right now -- and why you shouldn't care
• 3 questions to ask yourself that will generate tons of ideas for talks
• How to create marketable topics that are guaranteed to interest others
• How to get hired to speak when you don't know anyone
• How much to charge when you're just starting out
• How to build your confidence in your speaking ability
• What's the MOST important thing to deliver in your speech
• What to do if you have a bad day and your speech is a flop
• The ONE secret every aspiring speaker needs to know

Here's what you'll learn in Teleseminar #2, "Setting Fees":

• 7 issues to keep in mind when determining your fee
• What is a fee schedule and how do you use it?
• Why a fee schedule is only part of the answer to setting your fees
• How to know if your fees are in the ballpark
• 3 magic questions to ask when setting your fees
• What is "fee integrity" and why should you care?
• 6 reasons why you MIGHT consider discounting your fees, and what to ask for in exchange
• Should you work with a speaker's bureau?
• How much will speaker's bureaus charge you?

Here's what you'll learn in Teleseminar #3, "Preparing for the Engagement":

• The FIRST thing you MUST do when preparing for a speaking engagement
• 11 questions to ask to make sure you'll give a killer speech
• 3 things to do before you arrive
• What to do as soon as you walk in the room
• How to work the audience before you even start speaking
• The ONE secret to being a GREAT speaker
• 3 reasons why you should be wary of PowerPoint presentations
• What to do when somebody asks a question you can't answer
• How to sell your books without being an obnoxious sales-droid
• How to use your speaking to promote your future books
• How to follow up after you speak

Here's what you'll learn in Teleseminar #4, "Growing Your Speaking (and Writing) Business":

• 3 ways to get more speaking engagements
• 2 things that will KILL your speaking business
• 2 approaches to branding yourself as a speaker
• 5 ways to maintain enough writing time when you're a speaker
• How to generate word of mouth for your speaking business
• How to get your writing and speaking to promote each other
• How to get your audience to help you with research for your books
• 3 ways to earn money speaking without leaving your living room
• 3 ways to combine your writing with your speaking to earn money

"Encouraged and Inspired"

"Practical information is packed into Randy Ingermanson's four-hour seminar. I was encouraged to discover that I'm on the right track as a writer/speaker and inspired by Mary Byers' helpful points how to develop my speaking program especially how to handle the delicate subject of setting fees."

Shirley S. Tye, Little Britain, Ontario

Mary is a professional speaker who earns quite a lot of money speaking, so I couldn't ask her to do these teleseminars for free. If you're like me, you don't mind buying knowledge from an expert. I've learned that's the quickest way to success.

The great thing about teleseminars is that I can spread the cost over a lot of people. That keeps the price low for everybody and it makes sure Mary gets a fair deal. That's what the buzzword-mongers call a win-win situation.

Here's what you'll get with each teleseminar:

• A handout that you can print out before you listen, with blanks to take notes. If you're a tactile learner who needs to take notes to stay focused, this'll be perfect for you.
• A complete script for the teleseminar. So you won't have to take notes if you don't want to -- we'll do it for you! If you prefer to not even listen to the teleseminar, you can just read the script. It's all there.
• Some worksheets on how to put into practice what you learned during the teleseminar.
• A professional recording of the teleseminar, compressed in MP3 format, that you can listen to as many times as you want. You can listen to it online. Or you can save the audio to your computer and play it at your leisure, as often as you like. You can even load it on your iPod so you can get inspired while you exercise or drive. It's up to you.

Note that Teleseminar #3 has TWO worksheets, while Teleseminar #4 has NONE. Teleseminars #1 and #2 each have ONE worksheet.

If you went to hear Mary teach this at a conference, you'd pay for gas, meals, lodging, and the conference fee. And you'd have to travel, which is a hassle. You could pay hundreds of bucks to do that, and it would be well worth your while.

We don't want you to pay hundreds of bucks. This is the internet age, and things can be done way cheaper these days.

We'll give you the handout notes, the teleseminar, the recording, the transcript, and the worksheets -- all at the speed of the internet -- and all for just $25 per teleseminar. And you can get all four teleseminars for just $50! (That saves you 50%.)

We won't waste your time justifying the price because it's Xtremely fair. The fact is that your first paid speaking engagement will almost certainly pay for the cost of all four teleseminars. Here are the details. If you want to pick and choose among the four teleseminars, click on the individual links to add them to your shopping cart. If you want all four as a bundle, click on only the "All 4" link at the bottom and save 50% off the price of the individual teleseminars.

"Information Rich"

"I always pay attention when Randy offers one of his teleseminars. He attracts great speakers and Mary Byers, who taught these four classes on public speaking, was certainly one of them. Clearly Mary knows about public speaking. Her presentations were well organized, information-rich, well paced and beautifully delivered. The adjunctive materials, which include not only the class handouts but a transcript of the presentation and "extras" like forms and checklists, will be great for future reference and were worth the cost of the class many times over. I'm off to present at a national conference at the end of this week and I will certainly be a better speaker and a better advocate for my business for having taken this teleclass!"

Dhyan Atkinson, Boulder, Colorado, www.satisfactionbydesign.com

To buy any or all of these teleseminars, just click on the appropriate link in the pink box below.

As I said earlier, we ran these teleseminars in October/November of 2007, so they're all recorded, compressed in MP3 format, and ready for you to download and listen to RIGHT NOW. (The audio files are highly compressed and only take up about 11 MB each.)

I'm set up to accept payment through Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex, and PayPal.

If you feel queasy about doing an online purchase, that's OK! Just click on one of the links above and work through the shopping cart up to the payment page. Then print the order form and cancel the online order (so you don't have to enter any credit card info.) You can mail me the order form with your check at this address:

Randy Ingermanson
2210 W. Main St., Suite 107
Box 103
Battle Ground, WA 98604