We have a very special guest today at Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion! Welcome Dyan Garris, author of the intuitive cooking cookbook,
VOICE OF THE ANGELS COOKBOOK. Dyan is here with us today to tell us how she pumps up her own online book promotion!
Not only that, Dyan is on a virtual book tour and we get to be her third stop!
And, wait, there's more...leave a comment below and guess what? You could win a free copy of her book! Is that cool or what?
Let me tell you something, too. I have her cookbook. O.M.G. And the pictures...O.M.G. Well, let's get to know this talented cook and not only that, find out how she promotes her books so that you might pick up a couple of helpful hints in that area. Okay, are you ready?
I give you the talented and beautiful, Ms. Dyan Garris!!!!
Welcome to Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion, Dyan! Can we begin by having you tell us what your book is about?Hello Dorothy. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
This is not just an ordinary cookbook. The book comes with a warning: This is real food! And it is. The book is about taking raw ingredients, not necessarily lettuce and tofu either, and transforming them into something that truly nourishes you on every level. It’s about opening your creative centers and having fun. Talk to your food. It’s about listening to your inner voice about what your physical body wants to be fed and then making it in a loving and delicious way.
VOICE OF THE ANGELS COOKBOOK is about intuitive cooking. Why did you choose this subject to write about?
I’m a psychic, clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairsentient. I could say I was ordered by Divine guidance to write the book and that would be true. It was a natural segue. However, one of the main reasons I wrote it was because when my mother was dying she tried desperately to write all her recipes down and make them into a cookbook for her family. She mostly finished it, but I think it was not in the complete way that she really wanted to do it. What I wanted to with my own cookbook was to do it in a way that I know she would have done her own if she had had the time, energy, and opportunity to do so. I dedicated my book to her and that’s why. It’s a loving tribute to her.
The intuitive part of the book is because it’s the way I live my entire life - by intuition. I talk to my food. I talk to everything. I listen to guidance and take it seriously. I’ve fed a lot of people in my lifetime – with the vibration of love - and they always ask, “How do you do that?” When I thought about it, the answer is, “I talk to it.” And I really do.
The cooking interest that I’ve always had is a form of vibrational attunement, which is the foundation of my work in music, meditation, energy work, writing, etc. It’s like composing a song. You take single notes (ingredients) and make them into a melody. You take the melody and add different layers until it feels right. Then you have a feast. Then you have something that vibrates and resonates with your whole being, not just your stomach or taste buds. So you end up feeding not only the body but the mind and spirit as well.
Cooking should be fun and creative, not a mundane or intimidating task. Everyone’s body is different and what feels right for one person to eat isn’t necessarily so for another person. Some are vegans, some are not. A particular way of eating might be healthy for one person and not for another. You should eat what your body tells you it wants. And if you make it yourself, you know exactly what is in there.
I’ve also included several “intuitively speaking paragraphs,” which suggest easy or different ways to make the recipe by using your own unique intuition, and twelve food-related channeled messages, such as “Layers,” “The Party,” “Ode to Popcorn.” So, it’s entertaining and thought provoking too. And I don’t just leave you high and dry trying to intuit something out of thin air and scratching your head halfway through the recipe. The book has definite recipes. The intuitive part comes in where you say to yourself, for example, I don’t eat meat, what can I substitute here? Or you might think to yourself that a particular recipe would taste better to you if you used a different type of cheese, or would be easier if you rolled it up, sliced it, and baked it on a cookie sheet instead of baking it in a 13 x 9 inch pan. I’ve tried to leave the door open for endless possibilities. One has only to think it in order to be on the path to creating it. I don’t believe in limitations. So, you can follow the recipe exactly as it and/or make it your own in the process. I’m a facilitator and a spiritual teacher, so I’ve tried to facilitate the opening of the creative centers of the person using the book and teach something on a deeper level as well. You don’t have to make it my way. Make it your own way. And then enjoy what you’ve created.
In regard to promotion, what have you been doing to promote your book online?
You can get an amazing amount of exposure online. The biggest, most exciting thing I’ve done so far is sign up for the virtual book tour. I just finished the book at the end of August and tuning into my psychic guidance I was informed I needed PR. So I did my homework. I contacted several PR firms. One person seemed completely dumfounded that I talk to my food. He couldn’t get off the phone fast enough and hung up with a resounding “click” in my ear. Others were “too busy.” “You what? What do you mean you talk to your food?!” Another wanted thousands of dollars for radio promotion. Another wanted a ridiculous sum of money per week for book promotion, also mostly AM talk radio. I think radio is a wonderful adjunct but it shouldn’t be the whole promotion. And I don’t need to pay anyone a crazy amount of money to get me on radio. It’s something one can do themselves.
I already have a blog for my main site
http://www.voiceoftheangels.com/, but I started another one specifically for the book promotion.
I sent out two press releases through PRNewswire. One was a feature targeted to specifically to food industry groups. The other was a regular press release.
Of all the promotional items (bookmarks, press kits, etc…) you have used to promote your book, which one was used most effectively?
The press kit is an important part of any promotion. I just revamped mine as it was getting too confusing with all of the other books and products I’ve recently added to my line. A one page electronic press kit is also a good tool to have. You can post that on your website and the press can pick it up. I’ve got 7 websites, 2 blogs, 2 myspace pages, www.voiceoftheangels.com, www.newagecd.com, www.dyangarris.com. In an promotion exposure is key and all of the promotional items should work together.
Do you feel that the Internet has opened doors for authors who never dreamed they’d ever see a publishing contract and how has it influenced you in regards to your own publishing journey?Absolutely! There are no limitations and there are no dreaded rejection letters that every writer has a stack of. Everyone has an opportunity to have a voice. Publishing used to be and still probably is somewhat elitist in nature, so the Internet has opened up a whole new vista for everyone.
When I first developed the Voice of the Angels – A Healing Journey Spiritual Cards in 1993, I started shopping them around to publishers because that was the only viable pathway. Nothing was on the market that was even remotely similar to these cards yet. They are divination cards with angelic channeled messages and what is also different about them is that they have a companion CD of music and meditation. The scenes from the cards are all scenes and imagery from the guided fantasy/meditation. It’s a completely integrated healing journey. You can read a review at
http://www.voiceoftheangels.com/page/32. The cards were not computer generated – I drew them - and I made some of them in 3D with real Swarovski® crystals and other elements and then had them photographed. The vibration and energy of them is palatable and very different from highly stylized cards.
At the time no mainstream publisher wanted to touch this project. Decks of cards were stiill very expensive to produce. I shopped it around further to some of the smaller publishing houses to no avail. A few months later the first deck of angel cards with channeled messages came out. And that was fine because competition makes things interesting and spurs one on to greater heights. At the time I thought my journey was going to be to produce many different types of angel divination cards. This is so much better and so much more exciting! I still keep the rejection letters to remind me there are no limitations, there is a reason for everything, and most importantly there is a Divine plan that’s probably better than anything I could ever come up with.
Yes, the Internet and the current technology has made publishing an entirely different story in every way.
If you were in the middle of Manhattan (or any busy thoroughfare) and you wanted to call attention to your book, what would you do and what would you say?
I’m a little nutty, so I would probably put on some angel wings and start waving a spatula around…“Free samples”….”Angel bites…”
If money was no object, how would you promote your book?
I would do exactly what I’m doing. Right now I think the virtual book tour gives the most mileage for the investment dollar. And it is perpetual as well. I would add in angel workshops and teaching people how to tune in to their intuition more. I used to teach classes on that and chakra balancing. So I think it would be fun to do again. And also I would add touring, in terms of doing live meditations and teaching people how to meditate more effectively. That is actually next on my list. One can’t hear or talk to their food totally if they can’t quiet the chatter of the conscious mind.
Lastly, how do you determine your book’s success?Here is the best way I can describe it and this is one of the twelve channeled messages in the cookbook:
“The Measure of Success” © 2007 Dyan Garris
We are taught from a very young age to measure everything. Someone handed us an invisible yardstick and we've carried it around for years measuring and measuring. We measure our height and weight and waistlines. We measure our growth and our progress with someone else's idea of milestones. We measure our food and our food ingredients because we are afraid to use our intuition. Some are even afraid of nourishment.
We measure our IQs. We measure our bank accounts. We measure ourselves against others. For years the size of one's car was an accepted measure of one's supposed success. Lately, we use the quantity of the things that we have as a measure of success. We must be ok if we have three cars in the garage, two or three houses, 401(k)s, stock options, and whatever else passes as someone's illusion of how success is supposed to show up.
When did we become pieces of paper, inches, centimeters, teaspoons and 1/4 cups? When we expect and desire "success" to return to us as pieces of paper, this is what we are manifesting and eventually, if we put enough energy on it, it will return to us that way.
Pieces of paper in and of themselves are completely worthless. It is the energy we put behind them that gives them the power they have today. It is an illusion. It is the under-"lying" belief systems that shape perception.
Money is simply energy. Our fair exchange of energy could just as easily be beads, corn, guns or butter. It doesn't matter. It is energy and thoughts about such things that fuel the power of matter.
If we insist upon "success" showing up and returning to us as money or things, we then limit the universe's ability to bring us what we need in other ways. We limit ourselves to our version of the story. In our attempts to be so big, have we really become so small?
The true measure of a man is not found in his wallet but in his heart. The only thing that is real is love. It's what everyone goes out of here saying, thinking about and remembering. Everything else is an illusion. So, how successful are you?
Copyright 2007 Dyan Garris is the author of Voice of the Angels-A Healing Journey Spiritual Cards, Voice of the Angels-Talk To Your Food! Intuitive Cooking, and more. Visit her website at www.voiceoftheangels.com and www.newagecd.com or www.dyangarris.com for New Age music CDs, free angel card readings, Daily Channeled Message, free stress release articles, and more.
Thank you for coming, Dyan! Can you tell us where everyone can pick up a copy of VOICE OF THE ANGELS COOKBOOK?
Thank you for having me, Dorothy. I appreciate it. The book is available at
www.voiceoftheangels.com/page/65.
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Greek cooking
We have a very special guest today at Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion!
As everyone knows, I, along with my staff at 
music is coming to 
"The concept of this cookbook," says Dyan, "is to raise the culinary experience to a more spiritual level. I want readers to feel what they cook and, on some level, communicate with their food. Cooking should be fun and inventive, not intimidating, with the end result being a creative exchange rather than a mundane task."
AND HILLARY CLINTON
WARMING
