-> This is the Final Issue of Shel Horowitz’s Monthly Frugal Fun Tips

As I’ve mentioned in the past several issues, I set a deadline of March, 2010 for this newsletter to be self-supporting through voluntary donations. You’ve voted with your feet. I have been giving of myself every month in this newsletter all the way back to May, 1997. I’ve told you hundreds of ways to save money on travel, dining, entertainment, kid activities, cheap shopping, recreation, and more. 13 years in, I can’t do it for free anymore, and you don’t want to pay for it. So with this issue, I fold my tent. I’ll still send you the notices of upcoming events and offers, since I’ll be doing that for my paid subscribers to other newsletters—but I’m all done writing this monthly tip. Be sure to scroll down for the final tip; it’s a good one.

If you’d like to say thank-you for all these years of service, and get extremely valuable information a the same time, may I suggest that you purchase one or both of my consumer e-books, both designed to save you many times their very small purchase price:

Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life-With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle, which will help you become more Green and save money

The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty With a Peasant’s Pocketbook, which saves you big bucks on travel, dining, entertainment, and other FUN

NOTE: the above links go to the preview pages. If you want to go directly to the order form, use this link instead.

-> This Month’s Tip: Be Your Own Food Producer

Here in the Northeastern United States, spring is in the air and people are beginning to think about their gardens. If you’ve never had a garden, or even if you don’t have a place for a garden, think about doing so. Consider this… (Click here to continue reading)

-> All Pre-March Clean and Green Memberships Extended

Note: Because February presented some logistical challenges in getting the Club rolling, if you joined the Clean and Green Club in January or February either as a paying member or for the two-month no-cost trial, we are counting your membership as starting from March 1; trial memberships will run through March and April.

There are now well more than one million exact-match hits on Google for “Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green”–wow! I don’t think I’ve ever been involved with something that had this much buzz.

This book is going to make some serious waves. It’s a completely different approach to the business mindset, based in ethics, cooperation, and environmental principles, and it’s generating some significant buzz. Reporters who’ve been interviewing me have been asking a lot deeper questions than I’m accustomed to getting–which is great.

Grab your copy and run your business according to its principles. You may find you suddenly have a significant competitive edge, and that it’s easier to be profitable even during a downturn.

Three formats available: paperback, Kindle, and traditional e-book. However you buy it, be sure to visit

http://guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com/bonuses to claim the $2600 worth of bonuses (that’s about 120 times the price of the book!).

For paperback, your choice of five bookseller links from the bottom of the home page and several other pages at http://guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com

For e-books for B&N Nook, Blackberry, iPhone, iPhone Touch, PC and MAC: click here

For Kindle: click here

Oh, and if you’d like to help out with the launch, and at your option earn some very healthy commissions, please visit http://guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com/submit-a-bonus/jv

-> Hear and Meet Shel

• John Ritskowitz, a/k/a the Marketing Medic, will be interviewing both me and my Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green co-author Jay Conrad Levinson Tuesday, March 16, 3 pm ET/noon PT. This should be interesting, because John is coming up from Connecticut to do the interview live, and Jay will join us by phone from Florida. John and I have known each other online for several years, but have never met. So he’s coming up for the afternoon, we’ll have lunch together, I’ll show him around the farm, I’ll tape an interview with him for my Clean and Green Club, and then he’ll interview me and Jay. By that time, we should be all warmed up and will probably head into some pretty advanced territory. https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/481396353
• Dave Mathison from Be The Media–a wonderful book, BTW–interviews me on Green markerting. david (at) bethemedia.com
• Just Added! I’ll be speaking in NYC Friday March 19 at GoGreenExpo’s Business Day, 12:30 pm ET, and then signing copies of Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green. Business buyers get in at no charge on Friday (with a relevant business card). If you’d like to attend Saturday and/or Sunday, here’s a discount code (gets you into the Architecture Fair also): visit http://www.gogreenexpo.com and use promo code NYSPEAKER when registering for tickets.
• March 24, I’m doing a teleseminar for Stacy Karacostas on Green and ethical business success: stacy (at) success-stream.com
• April 15, 9 pm ET/6 pm PT: Tweleseminar, “Communicate the Value in Your Values.” Justin Sachs, justin (at) justinsachscompanies.com
• April 24, I’ll be exhibiting at the Sustainability Expo in downtown Amherst, MA: CiccarelloS (at) amherstma.gov
• April 25, I’ll be speaking on collaborating with a co-author at the American Society of Journalists and Authors conference in New York. http://asja.org/wc/2010/
• April 29, 3 pm ET/noon PT, I’ll be presenting on Grassroots Book Marketing Strategies for Stephanie Chandler’s virtual Nonfiction Book Writers Conference: Contact janica (at) authoritypublishing.com
• May 8, I’ll be speaking once again on book marketing at CAPA University in Hartford, CT: http://www.aboutcapa.com/capa_university_writers_conferen.htm
• It looks pretty likely that I’ll be speaking on Green Marketing at SolarFest, sometime the weekend of July 16-18, in Tinmouth, Vermont. This is a wonderful event; I attended several years ago, and you can read about it here: http://www.frugalfun.com/solarfest.html
• October 12 at 7pm ET/4 pm PT: My third annual presentation to the MUSE Online Writers Conference. This time, Selling a Self-Published Book to a Traditional Publisher

-> Friends Who Want to Help You

• I’ve listened to several calls with Jack Zufelt over the years, and read a number of his newsletters. He’s smart, aggressive, and not afraid to be direct. $1 gets you a trial of his DNA of Success membership program – read all the details at http://bit.ly/b0C7Cg (affiliate link)
• If you’re a freelancer, consultant or solo professional in any field, I have a book recommendation for you. My friend Ed Gandia and two co-authors just released The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle (Penguin/Alpha). This book is brimming with practical, proven strategies the authors have used to consistently attract great clients, earn high incomes and enjoy a flexible lifestyle. And if you pick up a copy by midnight this Friday, you’ll get up to $321 in extra goodies. To learn more, visit http://www.TheWealthyFreelancer.com/amazon
• There’s no better way to get traditional press (a/k/a mainstream media) covering you than to answer inquiries from reporters looking for sources. I’ve used this strategy to be cited multiple times in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, even Woman’s Day (among many, many others). I subscribe to every service I know about that connects journalists and sources. My old friend Steve Harrison from Radio TV Interview Report has just launched a new one, with no charge for leads. http://bit.ly/bD6WzG (affiliate link). Given how much it costs to advertise in RTIR, this is a real bargain, at zero cost.

-> New on the Sites, March 2010

-> Media Coverage of Shel

-> Which of Shel’s Books is Right for You?

-> Administrative Information

Subscribe, unsubscribe, back issues, etc.

Published monthly since May, 1997 by Shel Horowitz
16 Barstow Lane, Hadley, MA 01035 USA
413/586-2388

This is the Final Issue of Shel Horowitz’s Monthly Frugal Fun Tips

As I’ve mentioned in the past several issues, I set a deadline of March, 2010 for this newsletter to be self-supporting through voluntary donations. You’ve voted with your feet. I have been giving of myself every month in this newsletter all the way back to May, 1997. I’ve told you hundreds of ways to save money on travel, dining, entertainment, kid activities, cheap shopping, recreation, and more. 13 years in, I can’t do it for free anymore, and you don’t want to pay for it. So with this issue, I fold my tent. I’ll still send you the notices of upcoming events and offers, since I’ll be doing that for my paid subscribers to other newsletters—but I’m all done writing this monthly tip. Be sure to scroll down for the final tip; it’s a good one.

If you’d like to say thank-you for all these years of service, and get extremely valuable information a the same time, may I suggest that you purchase one or both of my consumer e-books, both designed to save you many times their very small purchase price:

Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life-With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle, which will help you become more Green and save money

The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty With a Peasant’s Pocketbook, which saves you big bucks on travel, dining, entertainment, and other FUN

NOTE: the above links go to the preview pages. If you want to go directly to the order form, use this link instead.

This Month’s Tip: Be Your Own Food Producer

Here in the Northeastern United States, spring is in the air and people are beginning to think about their gardens. If you’ve never had a garden, or even if you don’t have a place for a garden, think about doing so. Consider this:

• Fresh food tastes a LOT better! Once you’ve tasted the real thing, you may never again be able to choke down a cardboard tomato grown 3000 miles away and gas “ripened” to make it turn something resembling red. Even I was astounded at how much flavor the sunflower seeds we grew last year had when we harvested them. I always thought of sunflower seeds as a somewhat tasteless but nutritious food—boy, was I wrong!
• Local organic food has a much lower carbon footprint. Chemical agriculture uses enormous amounts of petroleum products, and so do transportation and storage.
• Local organic food is also healthier. Fruits and vegetables start losing their nutritional value as soon as they’re separated from the plant, so if you pick as you consume, you get more nutrients. And if you’re growing organically, you don’t contaminate your body with as many toxic pesticide residues (though in our polluted world, your produce may not be 100% pesticide-free). And no farmers or gardeners get sick from the chemicals you’re not applying.
• Tending your garden, you’ll get sun, outside time, and even some exercise—not to mention the joy of adding beauty and function to your own life and to the world.
• Growing your own is frugal.If we pay five bucks for a flat of six tomato plants, and those plants yield 1000 fruits (yes, we’ve gotten those kinds of yields, and more), that means each scrumptious tomato costs us half a cent.

If you have a sunny spot outside, so much the better. But even if you don’t, I have a friend who used to live in a basement apartment in densely populated,urban, cold-in-the-winter Providence, Rhode Island. She managed to grow herbs and dwarf tomatoes on her windowsill, despite the very limited amount of sun. If she can do it, you can do it.

I know your time is important, so start small. The first year, maybe all you want to do is something very limited. Try two tomato plants, one or two basils, and some dill. If you’re more ambitious, add a row of green beans. All of these are easy to grow. Other than snipping the flower stalks off the basil (and pulling up weeds every few days), none of these need much maintenance. If you get hooked, try broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and even a couple of rows of corn and one or two sunflowers. We’ve even grown artichokes!

-> Snacking Sensibly: Shel Horowitz’s Monthly Frugal Fun Tip, February 2010
Candy…gum…chips…soda…Twinkies (and similar)… Not only is that stuff not at all healthy, it’s amazingly expensive. Get your kids on the road to healthy eating with many healthier and cheaper alternatives. And the younger start, not only will it be easier, but you’ll develop a lifetime of healthy habits.  Click here to continue reading.

-> Hear & Meet Shel, January 2010

• I speak at the two-day Forum Davos conference in Davos, Switzerland, February 9: “Communicate the Value in Your Values and Turn it Into Sales: Effectively Marketing Your Social/Environmental Commitment” (this is the same hall and just after the world-famous Davos World Economic Forum, where people like Bill Clinton speak–I’m extremely excited).
• February 16, Smart Networking Radio, Liz Lynch
• Feburary 17, The Blog Squad, Denise Wakeman
• Feburary 21, WMUA-FM and CSR Wire, Francesca Rhiannon
• Monday, February 22nd at 9:00 pm ET, 6 pm PT, I’ll be leading another teleclass for Hilton Johnson’s organization (which means, once again, you’ll be getting notices about his health coaching and about the other speakers booked that month, which include T. Harv Ecker). This time, my topic is “Create Value from Your Values.”
• February 23, the incredible Sean D’Souza from Psychotactics will interview me about cracking the best-seller list without any kind of big dollar outlay.
• Wednesday, February 24, 5 pm, I’ll be exhibiting my new book and other goodies at the Amherst-Area Chamber’s Buy Local Expo. Somewhere within ten miles of Amherst, MA.
• I’m attending Ryan Lee’s Continuity Summit, March 4-6 in Stamford, CT, http://www.ryanlee.com/rsvp/. He’s not even charging for the seminar, though of course, you’re on your own with lodging. Last year’s conference was excellent, although a bit high-pressure for my taste.
• March 17, Be the Media, Dave Mathison
• March 24, I’m doing a teleseminar for Stacy Karacostas on Green and ethical business success: stacy (at) success-stream.com
• March 26, Passions and Possibilities Project, Sue Oliver
• April 25, I’ll be speaking on collaborating with a co-author at the American Society of Journalists and Authors conference in New York. http://asja.org/wc/2010/
• May 8, I’ll be speaking once again on book marketing at CAPA University in Hartford, CT (also in negotiation to speak at both IBPA-U and Book Expo America later that month)

You can also read several recent interviews with me:

• Willi Paul interviews me on sustainability and frugality: http://www.planetshifter.com/node/1455
• Dollar Days, on frugal/ethical marketing and the new Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green book: http://blog.dollardays.com/small-business-expert-interview-shel-horowitz-ethicalgreen-marketing-expert/
• The Examiner, on environmental advocacy, the Greening of my own life, and environmentalism’s intersection with marketing: http://www.examiner.com/x-14744-LA-Renewable-Energy-Examiner~y2010m1d4-Interview-with-Shel-Horowitz-of-Frugal-Marketing
• Dr. Dave Hale interviewing me and other experts on our social media predictions for 2010: http://drdavehaleonline.com/blog/social-media-predictions-for-2010/

-> Friends Who Want to Help

• If you follow me on Twitter, you might notice that some of my Tweets originate from “ShelHorowitzEthicalGreenMarketing”–and that if you click on that origination message, it takes you to the home page for my new book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green. I think this is waay cool. If you’d like to get your own branded tweets, from whatever you want to be known for and pointing to the link of your choice, it costs nothing to sign up: http://su.pr/1vpxQN Thanks to Tammy Fennell for developing this, and telling me about it.
• Suzanne Evans is driven by a passion and desire to help business owners discover the key to success – being authentic in their business. In just two years she grew her business from zero to a quarter of a million dollars by helping more people. She thought this growth was normal and when she realized it was not, she wanted to find a way to share her journey with you. In retrospect, she realized that helping more people and making more money begins with finding your own authentic marketing blueprint. The coolest part? When she stopped traditional “salesy” marketing, she made over a half a million dollars. She’s sharing her story on a no-charge call on January 12: http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1076845
• At the recommendation of both Mari Smith and my long-time Virtual Assistant Michelle Shaeffer, I just signed up for Backupify, the leading social media Backup provider. Backupify makes secure, automated, daily backups of your online accounts. Backupify supports backup of Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Wordpress, Basecamp, Flickr, and more… 15 services in total. Too new to know how well it does, but certainly worth trying. Best of all, Backupify is free if you sign up before Jan 31st. Click this link to register.

-> Media Coverage of Shel

Candy…gum…chips…soda…Twinkies (and similar)… Not only is that stuff not at all healthy, it’s amazingly expensive. Get your kids on the road to healthy eating with many healthier and cheaper alternatives. And the younger start, not only will it be easier, but you’ll develop a lifetime of healthy habits.

My kids are now 17 and 22, both seriously into food, and I think some of the reason is that we got them into stuff like the below at age 2 or 3:

• Celery sticks with peanut butter filling the curve (maybe a couple of raisins, for decoration)
• Cheap canned pitted black olives: let them put one on each finger and eat them off one at a time
• Thin slices of tofu, dipped in low-salt soy sauce or Bragg’s Amino sauce, rolled in nutritional yeast, and fried to a crisp
• Dried fruit (we find organic inexpensively at the remainder store or at Trader Joe’s
• Make-your-own whole grain cookies and even crackers–when kids participate in making them, they’re much more interested in eating them
• Darker, richer, less sweet chocolate (most kids will even eat a 55% cocoa bar, especially if it has nuts–and that’s far healthier than the 35% typical in even the better milk chocolates–though personally, I like it around 80%)
• Freshly toasted nuts (2-3 minutes in a toaster oven, and what a flavor and aroma!
• Apple slices with almond butter

Hundreds of others, but I’ll stop there.

-> Creative Cooking with Winter Veggies
This year, in addition to our regular farm share during the summer months, we joined another CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) farm just for winter vegetables. So our counters are filled with squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, while beets, parsnips, and celeriac take up much of our vegetable drawer in the fridge.  So we have to get very creative with our cooking… (click here to continue reading)

-> Hear & Meet Shel, January 2010

• Pioneer Valley Book Launch Event for Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet, Broadside Books, Northampton, MA, 7 pm, Tuesday, January 26.
• Roger C Parker, a well-known marketing guy and author of numerous books including Looking Good IN Print (a classic of design principles that’s been on my bookshelf for decades), interviews me about my brand new book Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson), Wednesday, February 3, 7 pm ET/4 pm PT. This is for paid members of my co-author’s Guerrilla Marketing Association, but I’m allowed to invite people to the call. Check the Green and Ethical Marketing Page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Green-and-Ethical-Marketing-with-Shel-Horowitz/203659771513?ref=mf or my Twitter feed http://twitter.com/shelhorowitz for the call details after January 28.
• I speak at the two-day Forum Davos conference in Davos, Switzerland, February 9: “Communicate the Value in Your Values and Turn it Into Sales: Effectively Marketing Your Social/Environmental Commitment” (this is the same hall and just after the world-famous Davos World Economic Forum, where people like Bill Clinton speak–I’m extremely excited).
• Monday, February 22nd at 9:00 pm ET, 6 pm PT, I’ll be leading another teleclass for Hilton Johnson’s organization (which means, once again, you’ll be getting notices about his health coaching and about the other speakers booked that month, which include T. Harv Ecker). This time, my topic is “Create Value from Your Values.”
• February 23, the incredible Sean D’Souza from Psychotactics will interview me about cracking the best-seller list without any kind of big dollar outlay.
• Wednesday, February 24, 5 pm, I’ll be exhibiting my new book and other goodies at the Amherst-Area Chamber’s Buy Local Expo. Somewhere within ten miles of Amherst, MA.
• I’m attending Ryan Lee’s Continuity Summit, March 4-6 in Stamford, CT, http://www.ryanlee.com/rsvp/. He’s not even charging for the seminar, though of course, you’re on your own with lodging. Last year’s conference was excellent, although a bit high-pressure for my taste.
• March 24, I’m doing a teleseminar for Stacy Karacostas on Green and ethical business success: stacy (at) success-stream.com
• April 25, I’ll be speaking on collaborating with a co-author at the American Society of Journalists and Authors conference in New York. http://asja.org/wc/2010/
• May 8, I’ll be speaking once again on book marketing at CAPA University in Hartford, CT (also in negotiation to speak at both IBPA-U and Book Expo America later that month)

You can also read several recent interviews with me:

• Willi Paul interviews me on sustainability and frugality: http://www.planetshifter.com/node/1455
• Dollar Days, on frugal/ethical marketing and the new Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green book: http://blog.dollardays.com/small-business-expert-interview-shel-horowitz-ethicalgreen-marketing-expert/
• The Examiner, on environmental advocacy, the Greening of my own life, and environmentalism’s intersection with marketing: http://www.examiner.com/x-14744-LA-Renewable-Energy-Examiner~y2010m1d4-Interview-with-Shel-Horowitz-of-Frugal-Marketing
• Dr. Dave Hale interviewing me and other experts on our social media predictions for 2010: http://drdavehaleonline.com/blog/social-media-predictions-for-2010/

-> Friends Who Want to Help

• If you follow me on Twitter, you might notice that some of my Tweets originate from “ShelHorowitzEthicalGreenMarketing”–and that if you click on that origination message, it takes you to the home page for my new book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green. I think this is waay cool. If you’d like to get your own branded tweets, from whatever you want to be known for and pointing to the link of your choice, it costs nothing to sign up: http://su.pr/1vpxQN Thanks to Tammy Fennell for developing this, and telling me about it.
• Suzanne Evans is driven by a passion and desire to help business owners discover the key to success – being authentic in their business. In just two years she grew her business from zero to a quarter of a million dollars by helping more people. She thought this growth was normal and when she realized it was not, she wanted to find a way to share her journey with you. In retrospect, she realized that helping more people and making more money begins with finding your own authentic marketing blueprint. The coolest part? When she stopped traditional “salesy” marketing, she made over a half a million dollars. She’s sharing her story on a no-charge call on January 12: http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1076845
• At the recommendation of both Mari Smith and my long-time Vitual Assistant Michelle Shaeffer, I just signed up for Backupify, the leading social media Backup provider. Backupify makes secure, automated, daily backups of your online accounts. Backupify supports backup of Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Wordpress, Basecamp, Flickr, and more… 15 services in total. Too new to know how well it does, but certainly worth trying. Best of all, Backupify is free if you sign up before Jan 31st. Click this link to register.

-> Media Coverage of Shel

Here in New England, and in much of the Northern Hemisphere, we’re heading into winter: a cold, dark time of cocooning, staying at home a good deal more, looking for antidotes to cabin fever. Short days and below-freezing temperatures keep us at home a lot more, and it’s easy to get restless.

What better time to trot out a tradition as old as humanity itself: storytelling. For tens of thousands of years, people have been educated and entertained, have kept their culture alive and passed it to heir children, by telling stories in the dark, cold nights.

Today, we no longer have to rely on shamans and griots to tell those stories. Our memories are no longer entrusted solely to the fragile and fickle oral repositories.

We have books. And audio books. And professional storytellers who give concerts. A fabulous 5000-year tradition of poetry, drama, and fiction, of memoir, of narrative prose. And of course, we have e-mailed jokes and Youtube videos and even events like the 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge just completed in Northampton, Massachusetts (which raised over $8000 for a literacy group, by the way).

Even better, we don’t need to build a fire. Electric light makes this effortless.

Yet we, as a culture, have largely forgotten the oral tradition. This month, I urge you to rediscover it. Reading aloud is a whole lot easier than keeping the memories of past generations in your head. You don’t have to create the material, just share it out loud.

My wife and I have had an on-again, off-again tradition of reading to each other. We’ve done entire Shakespeare plays, a poem a day from one of the many poetry books on our shelves, some of our own work, ethnic folktales, even jokes. On long car trips, we tend to do audiobooks (my favorite so far is Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which we’ve listened to twice as we drove from Massachusetts to the Midwest and back, a few years apart. The Orson Welles Les Miserables from the 1930s is another favorite.) It definitely makes the winter go by faster.

Enjoy!

-> A Life-Changing $11.95 Gift for the Entrepreneurs in Your Life
A one-time deep-discount (minimum 32 percent) offer from now through December 31 that WILL NOT be repeated, ever. And the more you buy, the bigger the discount, all the way down to 77 percent, in case quantities. Your perfect chance to snap up inexpensive but extremely valuable gifts for business owners, key staff, colleagues, and customers
This may be the perfect gift for the entrepreneurs and marketers in your life, especially those who’ve been hit hard by the recession. Imagine a roadmap to business success that shows how to…
Click here to continue reading

-> Very Important: The Sustainability of My Newsletters—Please Read
Don’t panic—I’m not getting rid of the newsletters. But I *am* changing the business model. Please read on for the reasons why, the important details of what happens next, and how you can participate most effectively for your own needs.
Click here to continue reading

-> Master Classes: Shel Horowitz’s Frugal Fun Tip, November 2009
Here’s a Frugal Fun idea I hadn’t thought about until this past Monday, when I had the amazing privilege of sitting in on a master class with superstar cellist Yo Yo Ma, coaching three different teenage chamber groups.
Click here to continue reading

-> Hear & Meet Shel, November 2009

• Environmental journalist Diane Tegarden interviews me December 8, 1 pm ET/10 a.m. ET, for her monthly 30-minute Renewable Energy Radio Show (I imagine we’ll be talking both about Painless Green on the consumer side and Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green on the business side). Listen in: 712-338-8710, PIN number 618#
• March 24, I’m doing a teleseminar for Stacy Karacostas: stacy (at) success-stream.com
• April 25, I’ll be speaking on collaborating with a co-author at the American Society of Journalists and Authors conference in New York. http://asja.org/wc/2010/

-> Friends Who Want to Help, November 2009

Here’s a Frugal Fun idea I hadn’t thought about until this past Monday, when I had the amazing privilege of sitting in on a master class with superstar cellist Yo Yo Ma, coaching three different teenage chamber groups.

My 16-year-old son, who plays violin and oboe and is very serious about both, was one of eight students chosen to participate. And all the parents got to come, too.

Ma is warm, gracious, funny, and has no ego hangups. He greeted each musician personally and asked their names. He also shook hands with all the parents. His musical advice was extremely perceptive, and focused not on technique but on how to feel the piece. He even had one of the players “channel” the composer and talk about “his” feelings while writing it. And he joked a lot; he clearly didn’t want the students to get awestruck and tense, and made a point of coming across as a regular person with some skills, insights, and enthusiasm to share.

As a non-musician, I felt I got a whole lot out of the session. And that’s when I decided that master classes would make a good topic in this newsletter, because you don’t have to be a serious student or even in the genre to get a lot out of watching (save actual participation for those who are serious, and just watch). OK, so you may not get too many chances to sit in when one of the top classical musicians in the world is teaching—but plenty of people, in all the arts, do master classes. Musicians, actors, painters, and dancers often come to colleges to deliver a lecture, and a lot of the time, offer an advanced-level training while they’re in the neighborhood. I’ve seen a number of these events listed in calendars of local newspapers and entertainment weeklies, open to the public. Many of them have no fee. Even for those who do charge, it’s worth asking if you can audit and not participate, for free.

I googled “master class” plus the name of a nearby town and found master classes have been offered locally by

• The a cappela singing group The Bobs
• Separate offerings by a dance troupe and a choreographer
• Actress Vanessa Redgrave
• A professional film scorer

That was just Page 1. There were more than 3000 others. Try it for your town.

–> This Might Be the Cheapest Way to Stock Your Closet/Bookshelf/CD Collection
The thing about fashion is that we’re all programmed to get tired of the stuff hanging in our closets. The manufacturers and retailers, of course, want you to just go out and buy more. But we’re talking frugal here. How’s this alternative…  Click here to continue reading.

–> My Quandary = Your Opportunity
You might have heard that the rights to my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, got picked up by John Wiley & Sons, and it forms the basis for my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson). The new book will include all but, I think, two chapters of Principled Profit, plus some 20-25,000 words of new material. Wiley will publish it in 2010. I’m especially proud of this because, following an e-mail introduction by one of Wiley’s business authors, I landed the deal and negotiated the contract myself. But my problem is…my contract with Wiley forces me to stop selling Principled Profit by the end of this year. And I still have quite a few left. This was a groundbreaking book when it came out–one of the only voices showing that ethical business not only made good moral sense, but good business sense as well. While there are more resources in this area than there used to be, it’s still really hard to find this sort of solid, practical advice on both the theory and the implementation, in a nice, easy-to-read format that anyone can put into practice. So I’ve got a deal for you! Want a copy for yourself? Take $5 off the original $17.50 price. Visit http://snipurl.com/kdq1j to order this remarkable book. Just visit and enter the right code:
GET5OFF – $5 off one copy
GET10OFF2 – $10 off two copies
GET15OFF3 – $15 off three copies
With any of these three coupon codes, you’ll also receive my two newest e-books free with your purchase. Get all the details here.

–> Friends Who Want to Help

• The brilliant George Kao, the best social media trainer I’ve ever encountered (and I’ve tried quite a few), is actually letting me share his slides from his fantastic presentation on September 22. If, now or in the future, you expect to be marketing on social media, and especially Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you absolutely want to spend some good focused time with these slides.  http://georgekao.com/socialslides
• Booklets are Much Easier to Write than Books-Learn the Secrets Paulette Ensign, the Booklet Queen, is running a new teleseminar series: interviewing nine people who’ve been successful as authors of booklets. Booklet Author Success Series Paulette beleives in delivering a lot of value, and her interviews generally go well beyond the basics. This series is no exception. Among the topics: preselling thousands of copies before you write the first word, partnering effectively with charities, using the same content a gazillion different ways. The first of these calls starts today, September 15, 2 pm Eastern-but don’t fret if you missed it. She’s making recordings available.Reminder also that I’ll be speaking for Paulette Thursday evening on creative book marketing and bulk book sales; see the “Hear and Meet Shel” section
• Tipping the Point is a quick-start guide to viral marketing, using integrity and ethics-and incorporating many examples.  In fact, there’s so much good stuff that I took the very unusual step of becoming a dealer and putting it up for download on my own cart. And let me tell you, something has to be really good for me to do that. I still can’t believe he only wants $9.95 for this!  Please click here to get your own copy, and yes, I do benefit financially (a little, anyhow) from your purchase.  http://shelhorowitz.com/go/tippingthepoint/
• Author 101 University Rick Frishman is doing another Author101 University, Oct 30 & 31 in Las Vegas. http://snipurl.com/25r7o
• If you’ve seen Mark Joyner’s wonderful Cashmap series, you know that he and his business partner Brad Semp, and some subject-matter experts, have created a wonderful tool for thinking differently and holistically about a whole range of stuff, from managing e-mail to healthy eating to happy marriage. Mark is offering quite a deal right now: 10 of his best Cashmaps for just a dollar, and a free month of the Cashmap program. Grab this one before his sanity returns.
• Jim Donovan, author of several bestselling books on having a happier life (and a long-time friend and occasional co-panelist), wants you to have a happy middle-aged and elder life. He writes, “If you didn’t know when you were born, how old would you be?”  Are you ageless – full of energy and ready to go – no matter what your birth certificate says? Or does the prospect of aging leave you deeply concerned about what lies ahead?  The rest of your life can be the best of your life: http://www.BestLifeBook.com
• Two new no-cost offerings from The Blog Squad, known for their high-content programs:
  Get the Best Out of Your Blog – Free 5-Part Video Course: http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?Clk=3217930
  Quality Blog Traffic – Free Audio Program: http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?Clk=3217931
• A Search Tool That’s Better than Google? How about one that delivers your choice of results from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Yelp, Wikipedia and various other places-and displays results before you even click? Try it yourself at http://frugalmarketing.com/search.shtml#web – click where it says “Say Hello to Search 2.0? and start typing your query. You might want to bookmark this page, which also allows you to search all of my dozen-plus sites at once and even provides tips to help you find exactly what you want in any search (people have thanked me quite a few times for this little tipsheet).
• Judith and Jim’s “Bridging Heart and Marketing III (BH&M III) – the Soft Sell Virtual Conference,” October 8-18, online from anywhere in the world. The conference motto is “Marketing with Consciousness and Conscience.” Judith and Jim are the authors of The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back, which I reviewed a few months ago at http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2009/04/15/another-recommended-book-the-heart-of-marketing/ Learn more at http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=3221681
• Sokule (pronounced so-cool) is a cool new Twitter-like social network offering some revenue possibilities. Check into it at http://su.pr/ADj6Fh
• AdWords guru Perry Marshall has a new version of his Definitive Guide. He’s one of only two people I trust for useful, actionable AdWords strategy. The 2010 edition actually has over a dozen brand new chapters covering things like the Content Network, Analytics, Quality Score, and the new interface. Prices start at $49 for the basic one-module version: http://bit.ly/5YdBJ
• This is by far the cheapest program on how to become a #1 bestseller that I’ve ever seen. 9 audios, plus support materials and bonuses. I have not personally reviewed the material but I did look at the scope of what it covers, seems like a lot of good info. Again, I haven’t listened–just sharing the information. http://shelhorowitz.com/go/yourbestseller/

–> Hear & Meet Shel, October 2009

–> Which of Shel’s Books is Right for You?

–> New on the Sites, October 2009

–> Administrative Information
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Published monthly since May, 1997 by Shel Horowitz
16 Barstow Lane, Hadley, MA 01035 USA
413/586-2388