How I started on LinkedIn

Book Review: "Let's Connect" by Ajay Jain

2008-04-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

The book's subtitle Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work shows exactly what it is all about.

The 200-page book is better than a regular manual on how to use technical features of LinkedIn, the most successful professional networking site nowadays. (Such manuals can get outdated even before their publication date I believe, as the technology is being developed very fast)

The author put together LinkedIn members' best experiences and collective wisdom in the chapter Ten Ways to Get LinkedIn to Work for You as follows:

-Your Ever Expanding Rolodex

-LinkedIn Answers: a Global Focus Group

-Networking Plus

-Branding and Marketing Yourself

-Hiring People

-Finding a Job You Love

-Finding Vendors and Service Providers

-Running Background Check

-Entrepreneurs: Get Opinions and Investors

-Selling and Brand Building

The LinkedIn professionals cited throughout the book range from the experienced and famous as Guy Kawasaki, the best selling author and columnist, to new members as yours truly, Olga Kellen ;-)

It reflects the fact that the book is helpful for everyone, as really LinkedIn is, in developing one's career, getting contracts and professional contacts.

"Do you want to be Linked In or Linked Out? The choice is yours", as the author suggests in his introductory chapter.

The Let's Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work by Ajay Jain's website: http://www.techgazing.com/linkedin/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

One Year on LinkedIn

2008-04-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

It was about a year ago when I discovered LinkedIn and started my profile. I had been active on LinkedIn for about 8 months in 2007 and then became busy with some offline stuff in 2008 and was not be able to answer questions and communicate on LinkedIn as much as I used to. Hope to be back though ;-)

What happened during my LinkedIn absent time? My first degree connections number stayed more or less the same, as I used to make new connections mostly through answering those questions on LinkedIn that were within the scope of my expertise.

Nevertheless my network grew by approximately 1,000,000 members (!) in 4 months of my "LinkedIn laziness" because my connections continued to acquire new connections of their own. So, LinkedIn really works while you are asleep! So far, I'm connected to 5,000,000 professionals worldwide.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Blogging, Self-Publishing and LinkedIn

2008-01-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

I started this blog in June 2007, soon after I joined LinkedIn.

When I realized that the best way of making connections and becoming visible on LinkedIn was to answer those questions where I had expertise, I started this blog and often linked the posts to my answers.

This way it's much easier to answer LinkedIn questions that are asked over and over again - about publishing and self-publishing for example.

There is a book inside every person, they say, so any LinkedIn member who is going to write their book or writing it now or has written some, asks a question about publishing and/or self-publishing. These questions appear very often on LinkedIn.

I worked with self-publishers and published articles on the related topics:
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Olga_Kellen

Some of them are as follows:

New Author's Publishing Options

Publishing or Self - Publishing

How to Choose Publishing Companies

Common Publishing Mistakes Authors make

Your Newly Published Book Marketing and Promotion

As E-Book Author You Can Successfully Sell Your Expertise Online

How To Find Literary Agent

The articles covered many self-publishing topics, but there were still many to cover, especially on the book selling side of the self-publishing. That's one of the reasons why this blog was born as How-I-Started-On-LinkedIn and then turned to self-published book sales ;-)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Lulu Book Sales Ranking

2007-12-31T10:15:00.000-08:00

Three months ago I became a POD Lulu self-publisher (see my post of Oct. 1st) with a goal in mind - to prove that there will be no book sales without my own marketing and promotion. Here's my booklet available in print and as a download: http://www.lulu.com/content/1233344

It is a how-to on one of the hottest topics today; it appeals to the right niche of 25 million readers, the price is right - not too low, not too high; keywords are right too; seems like no problem to sell? (Please remember that I deliberately haven't done any book promotion)

How many sold? One...

My Lulu Sales Rank is 71,754 ... What does it mean?

As Lulu explains on their website:

"What does the Lulu sales rank mean?

Similar to sales ranking lists at leading bookstores and news outlets, Lulu determines the top sellers based on monetary amounts rather than number sold. (Lulu feels that authors whose books cost $19.95 shouldn't have to compete head-to-head with creators who give their content away.)"

There are about 1.2 million of Lulu books, among all of them some are priced in the same common range as mine - I guess they make about 80% which means I compete with about 1 million books.

So, among 1 million books I have the sales rank of 71,754 with one sale only... which means that over 90% of other books do not sell even one copy???

Anybody willing to correct my math? Welcome to leave a comment then...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

After 8 months on LinkedIn I have 4,000,000 connections

2007-12-24T09:27:00.000-08:00

After 8 months on LinkedIn I have about 300 first degree connections, 100,000 second degree and 4,000,000 third degree which means that I'm able to reach about 30% of all LinkedIn members worldwide.

It's interesting to mention that I haven't done anything special to get all these connections. I just answered questions and got connected with some of the askers after some post-discussion. Also I have to mention that while during December I had no time to answer questions on LinkedIn, my network stopped growing...

Based on my answers LinkedIn considers me having expertise in the following categories:

Using LinkedIn
Writing and Editing
International Law
Business Development
Business Travel
Job Search
Professional Networking
Economics
Personnel Policies
Staffing and Recruiting
Exporting/Importing
Internationalization and Localization
Events Marketing
Lead Generation
Manufacturing
Interface Design
Incorporation
Starting Up

It doesn't make me an "expert" in all these categories of course, but anyway people who asked these questions considered my answers as "best" which means I'm capable of something ;-)

As I am l looking for interesting projects in Internet Research, Internet Marketing, International Business, Translation and Localization, the more people know me and see that I have knowledge, the higher are my chances to land the projects.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

LinkedIn Absenteeism

2007-12-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

I've been busy with some other stuff lately and dropped my every day visits to LinkedIn for a while...

What happened?

I don't show up among the experts, don't receive new invitations and inquiries; my network stopped growing and my LinkedIn life became actually very dull ;-(

So, the conclusion - if you want to get anything from LinkedIn, you have to be really active on the site!

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Interview with Kathie M. Thomas, the Author and Lulu Self-Publisher

2007-12-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

You are welcome to read the interview with Kathie M. Thomas, the Author of Worth More Than Rubies: The Value of a Work at Home Mum, who sells her books from Lulu and her own website too. You'll find out what promotion she does for her newly published book.

General Info:

Q1. Title:
A1. Worth More Than Rubies: The Value of a Work at Home Mum

Q2. Author:
A2. Kathie M. Thomas

Q3. Genre:
A3. Christian Living

Q4. One-Line description of the book:
A4. Women are encouraged to return home to work, and care for their families.

Book Sales:

Q5. For how long has your book been on Lulu?
A5. 2 months

Q6. How many copies have been sold from Lulu during this time?
A6. 12 (192 views)
I've sold nearly 200 from my own website though

Book Promotion:

Q7. Is the book being promoted from your own website(s) and/or blog(s) that link to your Lulu listing?
A7. Yes

Q8. What other Internet promotion venues have you used - free and/or paid? Direct emailing, writers' websites, etc.? Any paid advertising?
A8. Articles, book reviews, book websites

Q9. How much time have you spent promoting your book? (approx)
A9. Every single day, some days only 5-10 min, other days an hour or more

Q10. How much money have you spent promoting your book? (approx)
A20. Hard to say, but over $1,000 so far

Thank you, Kathie, for sharing this valuable info with us.

The Conclusion: BOOK SALES ARE THE DIRECT RESULT OF THE BOOK PROMOTION.

Kathie sells almost 20 times more books from her own website http://www.worth-more-than-rubies.com than from the Lulu listing as the result of her promotion efforts.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Interviewing Lulu Self-Publishers on LinkedIn

2007-12-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

About two weeks ago I posted a question on LinkedIn: "Self-Publishers on Lulu.com, would you like to be interviewed (by e-mail) for my Blog?

We'll be talking book sales and money in self-publishing.

You are free to choose whether you want to make it public and it'll be some promotion for your book, or make it private if you are not comfortable with revealing your numbers.

All stories are welcome: making money with self-publishing or spending money and getting nothing in return..."

The response was rather active: several Lulu authors of one or two or three books and even one Lulu publisher of 1,500 titles!

I emailed everybody my questions concerning sales of their books and promotion the authors did to get those sales. Guess what? Only ONE author replied... I'll publish her interview in my next post. So, what happened to the rest? No sales from Lulu I believe...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Anybody Can Self-Publish Nowadays?

2007-11-26T09:50:00.000-08:00

The other day I was at the library and by chance ended up at an event hosted by independent presses "How to become a citizen journalist".

Well, it's so easy nowadays and anybody can self-publish through blogging, self-publishing books and there they were talking about self-publishing online and offline newspapers.

There was a university professor teaching journalism among other speakers. During the discussion period I had a chance to ask her a question that is always on my mind: "Don't you think that this huge amount of writing/publishing amateurs is diluting PROFESSIONALISM in writing?"

I'm one of those bloggers you know ;-)

She said that this was an important question and in her opinion there were two sides to it: from a reader's point of view we have to be patient and keep reading the amateurs if the topic is interesting to us; from a self-publishing writer point of view we have to do our best if we have something important to say on the topic we know and master.

I like it!
So, folks, let's keep doing our best in writing and reading ;-)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Making Money in Self-Publishing

2007-11-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

Are there money to make in Self-Publishing?
Absolutely!

Who is the sure bet to make money in Self-Publishing?
The Printer, the Manufacturer of books.
That's why all self-publishing companies like Lulu, etc. first of all provide their printing-on-demand services (POD) to authors and anybody else whom the author manages to direct to his/her listing on the self-publishing company's website.

Who else is making money in self-publishing? Quite possible that nobody else if the book doesn't sell... The author buys some amount of copies to send as vanity gifts to their family and friends, and possible some more review copies to make reviewers interested in the book. This is the end of story - the printer got paid by the author and nothing happened after that. The POD won't cry over that, they just sign up more new authors and repeat the cycle with them over and over again...

It's a much more cheerful picture for the author if the book sells in some quantities.

So, here we come to the core question - how the self-published author can make sure that the book sells? Book Marketing and Promotion would be the only answer if you want to sell your book to the public. It's not easy or cheap and there is no guarantee that you'll have some positive ROI (return-on-investment). It's quite possible that you'll never return the money spent on marketing and promotion of your book... There are happy endings sometimes too... Depending on the book and promotion efforts...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Selling Self-Published Books

2007-11-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

When and why should you, the author, take care of your own book marketing and promotion?

Has your "child" been born? Is your book printed or your e-book created in PDF? It's beautiful, of course, isn't it? Now what do you do to bring it to people, to let them read and enjoy it? In other words, 5% of work - writing - is behind you, but 95% of work - book marketing - is still ahead.

What's the most common mistake new authors make? They start thinking of selling their book only after it's printed. There are a lot of activities that could and should be done prior to publication date, but we'll talk here now about book marketing and promotion after publication.

Marketing and promotion go hand-by-hand; sometimes it's difficult to distinguish which is which. We can put it this way: marketing concentrates on bringing your book to places where people buy books, and promotion concentrates on making people become interested in buying your book.

And you, the author, are the one who is in charge of book marketing and promotion, as a responsible parent of your brain child, your work.

If you were published by a big publishing company, the company takes care that your book appears in big bookstores, and that's the end most of the time. It's mostly your own problem from then on, as little promotion is often done for new authors by big publishing companies.

The shelf life of a book in a store is often very short - typically about half a year. After that it'll be "remaindered." No more promotion. No sales. That's how your book can breathe its last breath in silence on a store shelf.

If you are self-published, you have much more control of marketing and promotion, and you can sell your book happily for years if you yourself are able to create the demand. Then the issue of getting your book to bookstores becomes subsidiary or even unimportant at this stage.

So, your need-to-do-list in book marketing and promotion will include the following:

-selecting right markets for your book;

-finding ways of reaching them with an offer;

-listing your book in all book industry sources available;

-making your book available through online and offline stores;

-letting the buying public know about your book through published online and offline press releases, reviews, articles, interviews, advertising, etc. etc. etc.;

-getting your book reviewed, yourself interviewed, articles about yourself and your book written, sales copies prepared, etc. etc. etc.;

-creating your book online presence - that's last, but not least - it's getting more and more important as more and more people get information and make purchases online.

The exact course of action depends on your book, its topic and aiming, of course.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Publishing, Self-Publishing, Print-On-Demand

2007-11-05T12:23:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of confusion between the use of these words: publishing, self-publishing and print-on-demand.

Here's a definition of Publishing and Self-Publishing from Wikipedia: "Publishing includes the stages of the development, acquisition, copyediting, graphic design, production – printing (and its electronic equivalents), and marketing and distribution of newspapers, magazines, books, literary works, musical works, software and other works dealing with information, including the electronic media. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers."

Any time there is a question on LinkedIn "How to publish my book?", there is an answer "Use Lulu.com and you are okay"

In reality, no, you are not okay yet, if you are going to sell your books to the public. Yes, the process of uploading your manuscript on Lulu is a snap. Yes, Lulu will print and ship a book in a snap IF and WHEN there is an order placed. BUT where will the order come from?

The business model of POD (print-on-demand) is selling printing services to the book authors/publishers who are supposed to order books for their own sales or somehow send their book customers to the ordering page. So, printing-on-demand is actually the process of manufacturing books, not selling them. Uploading your book to Lulu means that you covered just the first part of the publishing process - production.

More on SELLING books later.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

My Lulu Book Sales

2007-10-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

A month ago I became a POD Lulu self-publisher (see my post of Oct. 1st) with a goal in mind - to prove that there will be no book sales without my own marketing and promotion. Here's my booklet available in print and as a download: http://www.lulu.com/content/1233344

It is a how-to on one of the hottest topics today; it appeals to the right niche of 25 million readers, the price is right - not too low, not too high; keywords are right too; seems like no problem to sell.

Guess what? No sales. None, zero. Why? Because it was meant to be so. Because POD is what it is - PRINTING ON DEMAND. It has nothing to do with selling books, it prints books FOR THE AUTHOR who creates THE DEMAND. In other words, any POD sells their printing service to the author, that's it. No POD sells books to the public, period.

So, when you think of publishing your manuscript, think of two components: printing books and marketing/promoting books for sales. So called self-publishing companies like Lulu.com and others provide tools for printing only, the marketing/promotion part that sells books is resting with you, the author. And it is not cheap...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Power of LinkedIn 2

2007-10-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Now, why do we all do this online professional networking? For consultants/freelancers it's rather obvious - landing new projects, right?

So, how about that on LinkedIn?

So far, I got two clients and hope for more ;-)

When I just started thinking of working online (it was translating), the first thing I did, was posting my resume on Monster and similar sites. The results of filling in all those numerous forms were highly disappointing...

My next step was kinda direct marketing of my services to "maybe" companies that could use them. It worked and works. It's no fun though as marketing takes up lots of work and time. It is considered right to spend 20/80 of your time in marketing/paid assignments, but for me it looks more like 40/60 ;-(

Well, here comes the good news - I joined LinkedIn! With this unlimited possibility of networking in my preferred environment - the Internet - it started to be fun looking for projects at last!

I'd like to mention that recently I put my resume again on Graigslist and Kijiji seduced by the ease of the process and some remarks here on LinkedIn that it works. This time I offer much more than just translations, it's also about helping small businesses in many ways with Internet marketing, market research online, etc. Guess what? MLM only... Thanks, but no, thanks...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Power of LinkedIn

2007-10-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

Do you remember a slogan "An apple a day keeps doctors away"? A little bit too optimistic, maybe...;-)

I have one of my own; it's about LinkedIn:
"An hour a day keeps boredom away and brings contracts your way"

I've been active answering questions on LinkedIn for approximately one hour a day for 6 months. So far I've become connected through this activity to
180+ members as my 1st degree,
60,000+ as my 2nd degree
and
3,000,000+ as my 3rd degree connections.

I did a little math: my speed of acquiring professional LinkedIn connections worldwide is approximately
1 person an hour as my 1st degree connections,
300+ persons an hour as my 2nd degree connections
and
15,000+ persons an hour as my 3rd degree connections.

It's amazing, isn't it?

Please note that I didn't do anything special to acquire connections. If I did, the numbers would be higher I believe. Same thing if I could spend more hours on LinkedIn.

Next time - what the numbers do to you...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

After 6 months on LinkedIn I have 3,000,000+ !

2007-10-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

It's official - I'm connected to 3 million professionals around the world out of 14 million registered members of LinkedIn. This growth in my network actually happened through Questions/Answers mostly.

If interested where my LinkedIn connections come from - geographically and industry wise - please see my post of September 15th.

My direct LinkedIn connections are in 57 industries, but my extended network gives me access to 147 additional industries (including Farming - isn't it interesting for a city girl?)

My direct LinkedIn connections are in 87 locations, but my extended network gives me access to 1410 additional locations, including Montpellier in France (I'd like to go there!)

Where else on the planet of Earth could I have connected so widely? LinkedIn is quite a unique opportunity to do so.

I'm listed to have expertise in the following categories:

Using LinkedIn
Business Travel
Job Search
Professional Networking
Economics
Personnel Policies
Staffing and Recruiting
Exporting/Importing
Internationalization and Localization
Events Marketing
Writing and Editing
Manufacturing
Incorporation

I even was not aware that I actually had that much knowledge ;-)

It doesn't make me an "expert" in all these categories of course, but anyway people who asked these questions considered my answers as "best" which means I'm capable of something ;-)

I have joined some more LinkedIn groups, they are new, not very active yet, but I'm hoping for the better future ;-)

As I am l looking for interesting projects in Internet Research, Internet Marketing, International Business, Translation and Localization, the more people know me and see that I have knowledge, the higher are my chances to land the projects.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

I became a Lulu POD Self-publisher

2007-10-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

There is so much talk about Lulu.com on LinkedIn. Somebody recommends using Lulu.com whenever there is a question how to publish a book. Nobody talks about book sales though.

Some time ago I made an attempt to evaluate Amazon book sales of POD self-publishing companies (see my post of August 20). The sales were miserable. If a book doesn't sell on Amazon where buyers are actively searching for books, then it doesn't sell on a self-publishing company's website either.

I have decided to perform an experiment on myself to prove that publishing on Lulu.com doesn't sell books.

I am writing a book now. The manuscript has not been completed yet, but meanwhile I created a short version and published it on Lulu.com for free. Here is the link, ready to sell to anybody in the world from Lulu.com: http://www.lulu.com/content/1233344

The process of Lulu self-publishing is really easy and quick, no doubt about it.

I won't pay for marketing or promotion, I just want a pure experiment - how many copies will sell without any author's marketing and promotion? I only emailed the link to a dozen of friends telling them to feel free to forward it to anybody who might be interested, and also put the link here on the blog, that's it.

The short version is a how-to on one of the hottest topics today; appeals to the right niche of 25 mln readers, the price is right - not too low, not too high; keywords are right too; seems like no problem to sell.

I'll tell you in a month or so about the results of my experimental book sale on a self-publishing POD website (if any).

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Linkedining

2007-09-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

I recall using a meta search engine dogpile.com some 7(?) years ago. There were so many search engines at that time that it was the way to go. Then somebody mentioned to me that Google was his favorite, it was better than others. I tried it and used since.

Once upon a time somebody used "google" as a verb somewhere for the first time ever. Google became a household name and everybody is googling nowadays.

The other day it happened to me to use "linkedin" as a verb and also "linkedining" in one of my answers to questions on LinkedIn. It was just fitting so well there.

As I never saw it before, for a moment I thought that I was a pioneer ;-)

Then I googled "linkedining" and discovered 6 entries with this word which means that it is not a novelty at all.

So, "linkedin" is a word now. My spell check forces me to correct it all the time, but I am linkedining anyway ;-)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Who Knows You on LinkedIn?

2007-09-21T10:42:00.001-07:00

I have just come across a quote from David Perry, executive director of a recruiting firm and author of the Guerrilla Marketing series of books.

He says in the Ottawa Business Journal: "In the old days, it was what you knew. Then it was who you knew. Now, it is who knows you".

Building LinkedIn network just fits exactly this "who knows you" idea, right?

While you are asleep, more and more professionals out of 14 million of LinkedIn members, including potential business partners and clients, hiring managers and recruiters, get to know you.

As I am l looking for interesting projects in Internet Research, Internet Marketing, International Business, Translation and Localization, I am building a rather versatile LinkedIn network of professionals from various countries and industries.

So, who knows me on LinkedIn?

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

My LinkedIn Direct Connections Analysis

2007-09-15T10:26:00.049-07:00

I deliver as promised - here is a snapshot of countries and industries of my first degree LinkedIn connections.

I took the first 100 of them for this little research. They are presented in the alphabetical order on my LinkedIn contact page, so sorry guys with the names at the end of the alphabet - you are not included ;-(

My LinkedIn direct connections are located in the following countries:

62% - USA
9% - Canada
9% - Western Europe
7% - UK
4% - Asia
3% - India
3% - Middle East
2% - Eastern Europe
1% - South America

It looks like LinkedIn is quite international, but about 70% North American and about 20% European, with the rest of the world accounting for about 10%.

My direct LinkedIn connections represent the following industries:

30% - IT, Computers, Internet
16% - Staffing, Recruiting, Human Resources
9% - Finance, Accounting, Banking
9% - Education, Training, Coaching
9% - Management Consulting, Industries Consulting
7% - Marketing, Advertizing
6% - Publishing, Writing/Editing, Translations
4% - PR, Communications
3% - Pharmaceuticals
3% - Real Estate
1% - Legal Services
1% - Government Administration
1% - Retail
1% - Health, Wellness, Fitness

It looks like IT specialists are dominating here, and Recruiters who search for them, are the second largest LinkedIn group.

I would like to add that there is a current problem with LinkedIn definition of industries. Members are allowed to choose just one industry they think they belong to, but many of us belong to two or more at the same time. For example, a person lists herself in "Pharmaceuticals", but at the same time she is actually doing marketing of the pharmaceutical products, but cannot list herself in "Marketing" too. Or he lists as "Banking" doing recruiting for banking industry in reality, but there is no possibility to add "Recruiting", etc. It would be nice to have this freedom of showing all our skills in various industries to be available for potential searches instead of being limited to just one industry.

As for one, I would like to list myself in "Research", "Internet Marketing" and "Translation", but right now I have no such option. There is a rumor that LinkedIn guys are working on this issue. Hopefully, they will get it straight some time soon.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

LinkedIn Connections

2007-09-13T04:15:00.000-07:00

I have been on LinkedIn for 5 months and the number of my direct connections approaches 150. They were mostly made through Questions/Answers area. I mean when I answer somebody's question, very often he/she asks me to get connected to discuss the matter further, or I ask for the same. I answer questions in the fields of my expertise in self-publishing, small business and Internet marketing. I also answer some general and polling questions when the topic is interesting for me and I have time.

According to some theories, 150 is considered the right number of connections to manage in somebody's personal network. I do not believe this is true for Internet connections though. Those are not people with whom I meet for coffee, it does not take up too much of my time to maintain the Internet connections. I make sure that I answer their questions on LinkedIn and emails in my inbox as fast as I can, that's about it.

I have 50,000+ of the second degree connections and 2,500,000+ of the third degree connections. It's amazing to think of how many professionals around the globe I am able to reach out now.

There is a useful LinkedIn feature called "Introductions". When you look at somebody's profile who is not in your direct connections, but in your 2nd or 3rd degree connections, you always see a path to this person through your connections. If you have any interest to get in touch with this person on LinkedIn, you send an email through this path asking participants to forward your email further to reach the person of interest. It works, if participants pay attention and forward as asked. I received an inquiry this way myself and also forwarded.

There was a discussion on LinkedIn how to deal with such introductory emails. Some members think that they are supposed to forward introductory emails only in case if they are in a position to recommend the person who asks to be introduced to somebody else. I do not think so and just do forwarding as asked. It is their own business I guess why they want or do not want to talk to each other, it is up to the end recipient to decide whether he/she wants to accept the introduction or not. It is the Internet, I am not giving away somebody's home address after all ;-)

It is interesting to see where my first degree connections come from. I mean countries and industries. Being a generalist myself, having changed countries and industries several times, I am inclined to build a network rich in diversity.

I will do the analysis of my network and post the results soon.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Some Book Promotion Price Tags

2007-08-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

As we could see from Amazon book sales numbers for print-on-demand self-publishing companies titles, they actually do not sell (see the previous post).

The new authors usually think that if they self-published with a self-publishing POD (print-on-demand) company for several hundred dollars or better yet for free, they are going to sell their books and make money. No way! The business model of POD companies is selling TO AUTHORS (or their families and friends), but NOT TO PUBLIC.

It means that if the authors' intention is to sell to public, the authors must do their book promotion themselves to make public aware of their books and to create the demand. It takes time, effort and money.

Some ideas for books self-promotion can be found in the following article:
Your-Newly-Published-Book-Marketing-and-Promotion

Here are some examples of HUGE price tag book promotion campaigns:

Source: Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition; 3/23/2007, Vol. 249 Issue 68, pB1
"A Few Sales Tricks Can Launch a Book to Top of Online Lists"

The article reports on a service available to authors who want their book titles at the top of online bookranking lists at websites such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. The service is offered by a public relations firm. For $10,000 to $15,000 they will propel an author's book to the top of the list with a mass email it calls the Best-Seller Blast.

Source: Bookseller; 1/13/2006 Issue 5212, p14
"Huge campaign for self-published novel"

The article reports that electronics entrepreneur Larry Tracey is to launch his self-published novel with an advertising campaign that outstrips most of those from large publishing houses. The chairman of power supply solutions provider XP Power is backing "Seagulls Dance" with £50,000 of television advertising and a full-scale musical, financed from his own pocket. The romantic novel, set in early 19th century Ireland, will include a CD of the lead song from the musical.

Source: Forbes; 1/30/2006, Vol. 177 Issue 2, p72
"Promote It Yourself"

The article reports that with book sales flat, authors are promoting themselves. J.A. Konrath got a the book deal with Hyperion in 2003, but quickly realized the publisher was only promoting its most promising titles. Konrath now spends 90% of his time and about $40,000 per year hawking his books. So far it's working. The first two have sold 70,000 copies, prompting Hyperion to give him another six-figure advance for three more. Other authors also find creative ways of selling their work.

So, get creative with your promotion... to pay less... but there is no way to sell books without promotion...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Amazon Book Sales of Print-on-demand Self-publishing Companies

2007-08-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

Self-publishing has become very popular. As they say, there is a book inside of everyone and with all the self-publishing companies around it's very easy to publish one's book. "Become a published author!" is all over the Internet. All these print-on-demand self-publishing companies offer very easy entry terms most of the time. The author just uploads the book content on their website, they take care of everything else and it costs the author nothing or not much.

Now, in a blink the author is published with a link to his/her book on a self-publishing company's website. As soon as the self-publishing print-on-demand company gets a paid order for the book, the book is printed and mailed directly to the person who placed the order. A snap!

The question is - who is going to find the newly published author to order his/her books? Unfortunately, nobody, even if the book is a killer... If people search for books online, they go to... yes, that's right, Amazon. So, since all the author's relatives and friends have received an email with a link to order the newly published book and ordered it (or not), the next step is to show the book up on Amazon if the author is going to sell to public.

This step involves some money spent by the author to buy an ISBN and bar-code for the book as the Amazon inventory process requires them, but it's affordable. Also the print-on-demand self-publishing company will charge the author for putting the book on Amazon, the price varies from one company to another.

Now, the book is on Amazon and ready to be sold to any person in the world. How will it sell? Let's see...

I have made an honest attempt to analyze Amazon book sales of self-publishing print-on-demand companies. It's not easy to find numbers when it comes to money made ;-) but some evaluation can be done anyway.

First, the choice of print-on-demand self-publishing companies to analyze their Amazon book sales. There is a list of 48 such companies compared by their services and fees, available on the Internet. So, without inventing anything new, we'll go with this list.

Some of the print-on-demand self-publishing companies from the list are not on Amazon with their books at all, but most of them are represented by just a handful of titles which makes it impossible to get any stats on their sales. Out of 48 analyzed, we are left with only 7 (!) self-publishing print-on-demand companies that make some book sales on Amazon to general public. Their names are as follows: Authorhouse, Booksurge Publishing, iUniverse, Lulu, Publish America, Trafford Publishing and Xlibris. (It appears that there is no sense to compare the other 41 self-publishing companies' services and fees as their authors' book sales to general public are so minimal that they are almost invisible.)

Second, the book sales numbers evaluation process. I assumed that 6 months is quite a good period of time to let sales get some momentum for a self-published print-on-demand book and looked up for Amazon sales for representative samples of randomly chosen titles of the above mentioned companies published approximately 6 months ago. I have to mention here that only Amazon knows the exact number of books sold, but some information can be extracted from Amazon sales ranking system anyway.

Book sales for 1,265 titles of the above mentioned print-on-demand self-publishing companies were analyzed for this research. With the 95% confidence level I can say that from 0% to 1% of print-on-demand self-publishing companies' "best selling" titles sell approximately one book a day on Amazon, while from 100% to 99% of the titles sell less than that or none at all. A shocking discovery on print-on-demand self-publishing for aspiring authors, isn't it?

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

After 4 months on LinkedIn I have 2,000,000+ !

2007-08-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's official - I have 2,000,000+ third degree LinkedIn connections! It is through only 50 first degree connections and I haven't really started inviting members to connect yet . These connections have been made mostly through Questions/Answers area of LinkedIn.

What else is new?

I have expertise in the following categories now:

Job Search (1)
Economics (1)
Exporting/Importing (1)
Internationalization and Localization (1)
Events Marketing (1)
Incorporation (1)

It means that in these categories my answers were rated as "the best" by askers. These categories are more or less in line with what I am looking for: some interesting new projects in Internet Research, Internet Marketing or English / Russian Translations.

So far so good - I have some expertise requests coming in...

I have joined 3 LinkedIn Groups: Forbes.com Entrepreneurs, MRKF (Market Research Knowledge Forum) and LIBS (LinkedIn Business Strategists). Not lots of activities in each of them though...

Jiglu (Beta) Autotag widget is running on my blog now. A LinkedIn member posted a request for testers and I subscribed. It seems to be a nice addition to any blog. The developers are still working on the tool to improve its functionality.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Amazon book sales for Lulu self-publishers

2007-07-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

I deliver as promised: here we are with the estimate of Amazon book sales of Lulu self-publishers. I have decided to limit my research to Amazon sales only as the information is relatively easy to get, and Amazon is Amazon anyway which means that the results are convincing - if you cannot sell a book on Amazon, then where in the world can you? Also, if a title is on Amazon, it means the author is willing to sell to the public, as opposite to some authors who have no such intention and publish just for their family, friends, etc.

I also have to mention that only Amazon knows the exact numbers of books sold, but it is possible to estimate the numbers based on public information available on Amazon.

As a sample, I looked at Amazon sales of 100 random titles published by Lulu in January 2007; they are a mix of all genres, languages, formats, etc. Now we are in July, so the sales should already gain some momentum for these books during the 6 months period.

The results of the estimate of Amazon book sales for Lulu self-publishers are as follows:

5% sell approximately one book a day
10% sell approximately one book a week
28% sell approximately one book a month
45% sold one book or two during the six months period
12% sold none...

So, as we can see approximately 57% of Lulu authors do not sell at all; we cannot consider one or two books during the half-year period as sales, agree? About 38% sell a book once a week or once a month - personally I would not consider these amounts as sales either, that estimates approximately 95% of books as non-selling. 5% as "the best selling authors" of this sample sell a book approximately once a day. How much money is “the best selling author” making with one book a day?

I agree that the sample could be more representative for 1,000 titles or better yet for all Lulu 8,000 titles currently selling on Amazon, broken into categories by genres, formats, prices, languages, etc. If one knows how to use Amazon stats, it can be done. It would be much more time consuming, but I believe the results will not differ much.

Now, is Lulu to blame? No. Whom? The authors. Or better yet, the authors' misconception of print-on-demand (POD) services. Authors often think that publishing with a POD automatically presumes selling books. Nope. Books do not sell themselves and PODs do not sell books, although some of them provide technical tools for selling as Lulu does putting their titles on Amazon.

AUTHORS SELL BOOKS! That means authors' marketing efforts and money (!) must be involved before and after the publication date. No other way to sell books for self-publishers whether they publish with a POD or another type of small press.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Self-publishing questions on LinkedIn

2007-07-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

I see there are many questions about self-publishing on LinkedIn. Many members have written a manuscript or are writing or are planning to write and want to publish it of course. Well, in today's world it is not the easiest thing to do… I keep saying that writing is a fun stuff, but publishing is a tough job…

I had been working with self-published or aspiring authors and published online articles based on my experience. My articles are on various websites, but there is one place where most of them can be found: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Olga_Kellen

So, I answer those self-publishing questions to the best of my knowledge to help people avoid mistakes that can cost them a lot in the future. I mean money and also lost copyrights and hopes, etc.

Also the questions brought me to think about some Internet Marketing research to do – to compare terms and services of actual companies with the Internet presence that help aspiring writers to become published authors. As a good marketer I have checked what has been done on the topic already. Great! There is a report on sale comparing 48 self-publishing companies. Okay, I am free from this particular problem, anybody who needs this information can google it.

Another topic that I have been thinking of is that many LinkedIn members recommend lulu.com as a self-publishing company as the upfront fees are low. But the thing is that nobody talks about SELLING books, everybody talks about publishing… The business model of self-publishing companies is based on selling books to the AUTHOR, not to the public though… They do not announce it of course.

So, I have decided to undertake a little research – how many books actually a lulu.com self-publisher can sell? I’ll let you know the results as soon as I can put them together. When it comes to sales numbers, it is getting to be difficult ;-)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Week 4, What Happened to me on LinkedIn

2007-06-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, here are some results after one month of my LinkedIn membership for your attention.

Connections: a dozen of direct connections. I was not really active in acquiring them; what I did from the very beginning of my membership was the following:

-I sent invitations to connect on LinkedIn to members who studied at the same university during the five years I did (it's easy to search for your schoolmates at LinkedIn); some got connected, some replied with nostalgia messages but didn't connect, some didn't reply, one replied with a nasty message: "I don't know this person". On LinkedIn you have 3,000 invitations to send out for free, seems a lot for the beginning, but if you get 5 "I don't know this person" messages, the LinkedIn admin will block your membership and you are out. This way LinkedIn fights spamming, so you'd better behave ;-)

-I sent invitations to some friends who were not members but could be interested to join LinkedIn as I thought. Some joined and automatically became my connections, some ignored... Well, it's life, people are busy and overwhelmed with their own stuff...

Also I got connected with some LinkedIn members who contacted me through Questions/Answers.

Now here is the fun part: my second degree connections (they are connections of my direct, first degree connections) are 7,000+ and my third degree connections (they are connections of my second degree connections) are 1,000,000+! So, I got connected with more than one million professionals around the world in a month!

Recommendations: I recommended one person and was recommended by another one.

Expert: yes, I became an Expert of the Questions/Answers section of LinkedIn. I started answering other members questions posted publicly, right from the beginning. It gives me a satisfaction of helping people and also brings new connections and shows my expertise to the community - LinkedIn is all about networking after all! ;-)

When a member asks a question and receives answers, he can rate some answers as "good" and "best". When a person who answered, gets his/her first "best", the LinkedIn automatically puts the person into Experts directory and shows the number of questions this expert answered "this week" and "all time", and also the field of expertise of this expert.

Now I am listed as an Expert under just two sections "Exporting and Importing" and "Internationalization and Localization", both are pretty close to what I am able to do and looking for in terms of new consulting projects: Internet Marketing, Internet Research and English - Russian Translations.

Inquiries about my expertise: yes, I got a couple of inquiries, nothing can be finalized at this time, but the talks are encouraging.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Online Networking

2007-06-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Networking Online vs. Offline...

Let's come to think - what is not online nowadays? Not so many things or maybe even none will come to your mind, right?

Anybody probably has a common opinion that both are equally important - networking online and offline; I won't argue, no way.

It is just my personal preference to network online for two major reasons: first - consulting services that I offer in Internet Research, Internet Marketing and Translation are performed and/or delivered online; and second - the ease and availability of online networking.

I can get online any time of the day or night and start interacting with people around the globe. At the same time I can leave any time, get offline and stop interacting at my own wish without offending anybody. Isn't it really great?

There are people in my LinkedIn network who graduated from Harvard and Yale and I can easily involve them in conversation although I don't go to their alumni meetings.

There are people from so many companies within my fingertip reach in my online network that it's just amazing; I wouldn't be able to meet them in a million years if I relied on seeing them in person at offline networking events.

There are people in my LinkedIn network from America, Europe and Asia; at what kind of offline events could I ever meet them?

So, it's my personal thing - to network online and that's why I started on LinkedIn and I'm very happy that I have found this web-site which is so much my spirit.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Week 3, more LinkedIn Features

2007-06-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

There are other features on LinkedIn that I have not experienced yet.

First of all, there are 3 levels of a paid membership with more possibilities than a free option that I have; they are as follows: Personal Plus, Business and Pro. There was a question posted on the topic some days ago: "Should one upgrade to a paid account on LinkedIn and why?" Opinions were divided approximately 50:50… Those who use LinkedIn for business purpose are in favor of upgrading. I feel that I have not used all the free possibilities to the fullest yet, so for the time being I’ll stay with the free membership.

There is Service Providers Directory here on LinkedIn; I still have to find out how to get into it with my services in Internet Research, Internet Marketing and English – Russian translations. My major goal of joining LinkedIn is to find new consulting projects in my area of expertise through networking online. I am going to write more on networking online and offline here.

There is a moderated LinkedIn Blog where everyone can post or comment upon approval.

There are LinkedIn Groups; you can join an existing group or start a new one.

Lots of things to explore…

Internet Marketing Education

2007-06-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

I deliver as promised: here is the LinkedIn based analysis of education of people working in Internet Marketing. It is not a scientific research, but rather a little snapshot...

I picked up the first 100 profiles that LinkedIn provided in response to my search of Internet Marketers all over the world and looked at their education.

The results are as follows:

1 - Lawyer
3 - E-Commerce
13 - Education not shown (I assume it is not relevant to the occupation)
14 - Computer and Technical Science
20 - Marketing
21 - Languages, History, Drama, Political and Human Science
28 - Business, Management, Finance, Economics, Real Estate

So, we can see that education of specialists working in Internet Marketing falls into the following categories:

3% - E-Commerce
23% - Marketing, E-Commerce including
51% - Business, Marketing and E-Commerce including
49% - all kind of various folks... who are Internet Marketing self-taught, just like myself...

If only specialists with the E-Commerce degrees worked in Internet Marketing, the Internet would be a very deserted place ;-)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Week 2, LinkedIn Search

2007-06-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

There is a keyword search engine built in LinkedIn. You can search people, jobs and answers, with refined search possibilities by industry, location, etc.

The search results are well organized and show the path I can use to connect with people who appeared in my searches.

I have searched for LinkedIn members who consider themselves "Citizens of the World" just as I do. Well, there are about 30 of the like-minded members as it appears... Later I'll try to connect with them of course.

Also I would like to undertake a small scale research: what kind of education do Internet Marketers have? It is relatively easy to do on LinkedIn. I will tell you the results of my findings later.

The reason I am personally interested: I consider myself as self-taught in Internet Research and Marketing - having solid background in science research, taking Internet courses, reading a lot and applying the acquired knowledge I feel quite comfortable in the field. But recently I was asked by a HR person: do you have education in Internet Marketing? Well, I don't... but I also think that others working in Internet Marketing don't have a formal education in it either... We'll see...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Day 7, I rested

2007-06-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

I am staying away from LinkedIn this day, but it is not that easy as it becomes addictive ;-)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Day 6, My LinkedIn Profile

2007-06-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Having played around with most of the LinkedIn functionalities for a while, I am back home - to have a critical look at my rather poor-looking beginner's profile... Well, it definitely would benefit from some beautifying...

Here is the urgent To-Do List on Profile Improvement:

-Detail descriptions of current and past positions held

-Thoughtful summary

-More connections and recommendations

-Additional information: my interests and 3 web-sites

I have decided to link to "My Resume and References", "My Articles: Self-Publishing, etc" and "My Blog: How I started on LinkedIn"; as I am a Google's fan, I have created these several pages with Google Page Creator and Blogger.com, here we are ;-)

My Resume
My References
My Articles: Self-Publishing, etc
How to Build Book web-site
How I started on LinkedIn

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Day 5, LinkedIn Recommendations

2007-06-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

There is another interesting feature at LinkedIn called "Recommendations". It works both ways - a member can give and receive recommendations.

If you happily worked with somebody in the past or work now and you see the person is a LinkedIn member, you can invite them into your network and post your recommendation to their profile.

Also you can request to get recommended for your work well done from any member of your network. Actually you will really need recommendations if and when you apply for a job at LinkedIn, as there are messages at the bottom of some job postings: "Applicants with recommendations are preferred. Referrals through network preferred. No third party applications"

As I am interested in finding consulting projects here on LinkedIn I started this process of requesting recommendations. It is not the easiest thing to do as you should collect your memories first, then try to get in touch with people who might recommend you, invite them to join LinkedIn and/or your network and ask for a recommendation... Well, it does not work all the time I can tell you... People are busy and you do not want to be a pain in the neck... So, you wait after sending an e-mail...

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Day 4, Jobs and Hiring on LinkedIn

2007-06-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a professional job, LinkedIn is the best place to be as recruiters, headhunters and hiring managers are plenty on LinkedIn.

As for one, I am self-employed and although I would not reject an interesting and rewarding job, and I am open to relocation as well, but my main interest is in consulting projects, preferably working through the Internet. I am a generalist and performed research and wrote reports on a variety of topics, among doing other things like translations, publishing, Internet marketing, etc., so let’s see…

Can you find a job on LinkedIn? Absolutely! There is a section called "Jobs and Hiring" and some jobs posted are posted exclusively on LinkedIn while others come from many job and companies web-sites in the same search. As always you can search jobs by keywords, locations, industries, functions, etc.

What is important and unique for LinkedIn, when you open a job description there is always a little message comes along that says how many people in your network work at the hiring company and are open to help you get this job! This way you can work your way into the company with the help of insiders, if they are willing to help you with that.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Day 3, LinkedIn Questions and Answers

2007-06-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

Now, another very interesting question: "Why and how do people ask questions on LinkedIn?" It is obvious that most of them have a genuine interest in expertise of other members that LinkedIn can provide.

But look at some who are wording their questions in a sophisticated way to get self-promotion, but to avoid to be accused in getting self-promotion that is against the LinkedIn policy.

Some post "$50,000" questions as I call them. Instead of hiring a consultant to help with a project at hands they try to dig into other members expertise so deep and wide that it seems that they expect professionals to do a job for free.

Polling questions are posted every day, and they receive more answers than others. Researching answers is even more exciting than questions.

So, after some short period of reading, I started answering questions. My attitude is simple - I answer when I know the answer. I also reply to some polling questions when I have time and interest.

I started posting answers to questions about publishing and self-publishing, book marketing and promotion, marketing services on the Internet, e-commerce, e-books, building small business websites, search engines optimization, websites promotion, translations and teaching languages, immigration and visas, real estate, etc. They are all in the scope of my expertise and often result from my previous research on a broad variety of topics in business and industries.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Day 2, LinkedIn Invitations

2007-06-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

Now, how do you socialize and network? First off, you have possibilities to invite anybody you know from the past or present, to be in your network. They might be already LinkedIn members or not yet. It is your own choice to do that or not, it depends on your networking goals.

I started sending invitations to my classmates (there is a feature for that, classmates come up almost automatically), friends and other nice folks I met in life who might be interested to join LinkedIn and look around... It is amazing to find out how your classmates are spread all over the world nowadays!

While building your own network you can do a lot of things anyway. There is an interesting section of the site called "Answers". Reading it and posting to it you can get in touch with so many interesting people! Anybody can post a question or answer a question there.

Some people post so highly technical questions that an average human being can only understand a question mark there…

Some ask questions that a normal 6th-grader could answer…

And everything in between – most of the questions fall into this category of course.

The "Answers" section is in English, although some folks post something in other Latin alphabet languages, well, good for you, those who can understand :-)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

Day 1, I joined LinkedIn

2007-06-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

One rainy afternoon I was searching the Internet for like-minded folks who do everything Internet: working, researching, reading, entertaining, buying and selling, socializing and networking, etc. As for one I only sleep and eat offline.

Association of Internet Researchers (AIR) came up in my search. As much I hate giving away my addresses including the old spam-dirty Hotmail for any occasion, the temptation was bigger than me and I subscribed.

Pretty soon I discovered that this was an organized international group of nice academic folks who mainly researched behavioral habits of the Internet human beings like me. Well, okay, I truly believe I deserve to be studied at the University level; I have nothing against it, but I wanted more than that – I mean to be a part of something, not just a subject…

One of the AIR posts mentioned LinkedIn.com as one of the best professional networking sites on the Internet. It seemed right for me to join and become a member what I did… and discovered the whole new world! My world!

There are professional people networking from all over the planet of Earth: Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, Arctic and … well, Antarctic seems to be missing… maybe they will join later? Professionals range from Art to High Tech, from a student to a CEO, and everybody in between.

One can join LinkedIn on their own or having received an invitation from a member. The first thing one will be prompted to do is creating a profile of course. The process is completely painless as LinkedIn techies thoughtfully prepared everything for you, you just fill in the fields for your education, companies you work now and worked in the past, maybe your essay, interests and hobbies if you wish (all templates, no work on your side), and you are in business of socializing and networking.

You can easily include three links to your own web-sites in your profile, anything you wish: your company, blog, resume, your dog’s birthday party site, etc. As LinkedIn is high in search engines (Alexa’s #182), linking from it will help your sites SE positioning by the way.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen

How I started on LinkedIn

Book Review: "Let's Connect" by Ajay Jain

One Year on LinkedIn

Blogging, Self-Publishing and LinkedIn

Lulu Book Sales Ranking

After 8 months on LinkedIn I have 4,000,000 connections

LinkedIn Absenteeism

Interview with Kathie M. Thomas, the Author and Lulu Self-Publisher

Interviewing Lulu Self-Publishers on LinkedIn

Anybody Can Self-Publish Nowadays?

Making Money in Self-Publishing

Selling Self-Published Books

Publishing, Self-Publishing, Print-On-Demand

My Lulu Book Sales

Power of LinkedIn 2

Power of LinkedIn

After 6 months on LinkedIn I have 3,000,000+ !

I became a Lulu POD Self-publisher

Linkedining

Who Knows You on LinkedIn?

My LinkedIn Direct Connections Analysis

LinkedIn Connections

Some Book Promotion Price Tags

Amazon Book Sales of Print-on-demand Self-publishing Companies

More on LinkedIn Questions / Answers

After 4 months on LinkedIn I have 2,000,000+ !

Amazon book sales for Lulu self-publishers

Self-publishing questions on LinkedIn

More LinkedIn Happenings

Week 4, What Happened to me on LinkedIn

Online Networking

Week 3, more LinkedIn Features

Internet Marketing Education

Week 2, LinkedIn Search

Day 7, I rested

Day 6, My LinkedIn Profile

Day 5, LinkedIn Recommendations

Day 4, Jobs and Hiring on LinkedIn

Day 3, LinkedIn Questions and Answers

Day 2, LinkedIn Invitations

Day 1, I joined LinkedIn