Have a chance to win the book called, The Shack that is autographed! This is the hottest book on the planet right now!
(This is a long post, but you will be glad that you read to the end.)
I had the privilege of sitting with the author William Paul Young recently. What I heard and learned while I listened to him was amazing. Paul should write a book just about his own life. Who is William Paul Young? Don’t feel too bad if you don’t know his name, but you sure should know his book called, The Shack!
(BTW….. You can order a copy of The Shack, through Amazon.com for only $8.24 by going to the right side bar and selecting the The Shack, book in the I recommend, icon. You can’t get much cheaper than that.)
The story behind the story is that Paul just wanted to write a story for his children. He wrote his book and just published 15 copies at Office Depot to give to his friends and family. How basic is that? You are published out of Office Depot?
Some of his friends that received the book liked what he wrote so they sent his book to several friends through email. The friends also liked the book, and they sent it to many of their friends. Within a month, Paul was getting thousands of emails from people wanting him to publish the book for real this time.
He contacted 26 publishers and they all turned him down. Their excuse was that if a niche (topic area) wasn’t popular right now, they wouldn’t publish it. If the niche was too popular right now, they wouldn’t publish it.
They had a printer put their book together.
They didn’t know how many books to print so they had the printer print 10,000. The printer sent 11,000 and charged them for the extra 1,000. Within another month they were close to selling those books. They had another 20,000 printed. The printer sent 22,000 and charged for the extra 2,000.
It happened again. They sold out within a month. This time they ordered 30,000 books. The printer sent 33,000 and charged for the extra 3,000.
They decided that they didn’t like giving that much money to a printer who was trying to make an extra buck off of them. They started their own publishing company called, Windblown Media.
The growth kept escalating. They couldn’t keep up with the orders.
That was less than two years ago. They have now sold over 6.2 million books! (As of this writing.) The book has been the # 1 selling book on the New York Times top ten list for over 40 weeks straight! It has been written in 43 languages. (That must cover everything but Pig Latin.) It is the # 1 best seller in China, Mongolia, Britain, Canada, Australia, and many other countries.
It is also the # 1 book in the prisons. Why is that? The prisoners relate to the villain in the book and seek forgiveness. This book helps them to feel forgiveness. There is a tremendous revival in the prisons. This book has sold more books to prisoners than most books have sold in a lifetime to the regular public.
You can see how much money is flying into Paul’s hands. Let’s say he gets 50% royalties from the book. (I know this is very high, but remember he is part owner in the publishing company.) So most hardback books sell for $25-29 dollars. Let’s just go with the low figure of $26.00. Paul gets half which would be $13.00. Now multiply that by 6.2 million books! That is over 63 million dollars just for Paul.
Why am I telling you all these details about how much money Paul is making? Because just two years ago he lived in a 900 sq. ft. home with his wife, six kids and only one bathroom!!! He didn’t know if he was going to get the bills paid at the end of the month. He worked three jobs, and one of his sons also worked just to pay the bills.
Isn’t that a great story??? Well, I haven’t even gone into Paul’s past yet, and there is a lot more to tell you about how the book got started. That will come in the next few posts on this site. I will give you some key words like I do for Google to entice you, and I bet you will come running back looking for the next post: sex abuse, non-caring father, an affair with another woman, suicide.
Now try NOT to come back for THE REST OF THE STORY!!
I had an talk with Paul, and I will have quotes I received from him that I was able to write down. I also have a side story about talking to Paul about my own book, Close Encounters of the Heavenly Kind: Life Beyond Bumper Stickers.
I suggest you bookmark this site and also sign-up for the RSS feed so that you know when I have posted.
You may want to read the newsletter I write that will have other stories like this plus excerpts from my own book, Close Encounters of the Heavenly Kind: Life Beyond Bumper Stickers, (that Paul Young is reading.) I will explain that to you later in my next post.
To be able to read the newsletter go over to the icon in the right side bar and click on, “Sign up for my free newsletter.” Then put in your email address. You will then receive about two newsletters a month. This will also give you a chance to win one of the free autographed books. Each book has a different personal note, and his autograph.
NOW!!! Here is the way you can win a free book called The Shack, and is personally autographed by William Paul Young, the author.
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Everyone one who has already subscribed is eligible to win a free autographed book.
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Everyone who subscribes between now and the drawing date for the books will be eligible.
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Everyone who refers another person to subscribe will have their name put in the hat again. If you refer 20 people you will have 21 chances to win a book.
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The drawing date will be selected later. I will announce the date about a week ahead of time. So get out there and find those friends to subscribe. Be sure to tell them that they will have a chance to win a big name authors book and autograph.
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I have one easy way to know that you referred people, and who they are. Send me the emails addresses of all the people that you had subscribe, to doug@dougbolton.com. I will then check in my subscription roster, and if they there, you will receive more chances for the drawing.
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There are only ten books to give away. Each will have a different inspiring statement and an autograph from William Paul Young. That isn’t very many, so subscribe and get your friends to subscribe quickly.
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Again, it is easy to subscribe. Just go over to the right side bar and click on, “Sign up for my free newsletter.” Then put in your email address, and you are set.
Now go for it!! Subscribe yourself, and go out there to find a ton of other people!! Be sure to let them know that they have a chance at winning a top selling book. You should get a lot of people if you tell them about the book, The Shack, that is autographed, and that they could own one.
* I want to thank Randy Engermanson for his help and advice. He has to be the top marketing guru on this planet. Got to his site at: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog, and see some pretty amazing thoughts; ideas on marketing; how to write fiction, and some just plain hilarious commentary. You will be glad you did.
Doug Bolton
OUT!!!