by Yvonne DiVita

He's the first. Here. On this show. Paul Chaney, a BFF from my early blogging days, is the first man invited to be a guest on Smart Conversations. Cue the confetti and big balloons! 

Stand in for Brad Pitt

Paul is a freelance writer, editor, and digital marketer. Altogether, he has more than 25 years of digital marketing experience. That means he not only has been at this a long time, he's been at it longer than I have. He was already a professional marketer when I met him, in those long ago days of business blogging, when the world looked askance at us.

And he's the best stand in for Brad Pitt that I can imagine. (watch and learn)

No Dummy  At All

Paul is the author or co-author of four books that cover the topics of social media, social commerce, and business blogging. He also served as technical editor of many of Wiley's "For Dummies" series of books on internet marketing, including topics such as search engine optimization, pay per click, WordPress, and blogging.

Paul shares how his book Realty Blogging and his book Digital Handshake, came to be, a few minutes in. Great stories about writing and publishing.

Around six minutes in the discussion turns to marketing proposals for books. Yes, traditional publishers ask you for a marketing proposal, folks. Acceptance of your idea or manuscript depends on it.

One important lesson to learn is that publishers, traditional publishers, and some small presses, want to know how many books YOU can sell, before they will work with you. And, if you land a deal, you "maybe if you're lucky, you make some royalties." Just the facts, folks. Just the facts. 

Paul also represented the American Marketing Association as a social media marketing workshop instructor, worked with The Knowledge Engineers, a UK-based marketing consultancy, teaching social media marketing to major advertising agencies, and had the privilege of working with the United States Department of Commerce to conduct social media marketing workshops in Ukraine.

I loved Paul's comment at 23 minutes, "Never edit your own stuff."

Shake Your Future Up

In my work, I talk with would-be authors, and new start-ups - generally solopreneurs - who are holding on to the past as if it will keep them from hanging themselves on the future. Somehow they believe past performance is a predictor of future earnings. While it's good to reflect on the past, it's never good to live there. Paul shares his epiphany at around 11 minutes in - the only tense is future tense. Because the past is gone, and the present is an arrow in flight.

It's up to you to grab the future and shake it into what you want it to be.

To that end, he shares a that "if you write about anything for 6 months, you'll become an expert in it." From a fellow author, he reveals. Watch and learn.

Clubhouse and Podcasting? The Death of blogs?

As the conversation comes to a close, Paul shared something profound about blogging and social media. Back in the day, in 2005, we bloggers agonized over comments for our blog. Today, comments are found on social channels. Where the post is shared. Rather than on the blog itself.

This conversation, where we speak from the heart and shoot from the hip, closes with a short bit on social audio - clubhouse and podcasting. Two ways to create that personal voice you want to present to the world.

Will they, I wonder, be the death of blogs? Since I did not ask Paul, I will need to have him back on to answer that question. Hmmm...

Visit Paul on LinkedIn 

Visit his website

And enjoy his wit on Facebook

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