I am so sick of hearing authors say, “If only I can get on Oprah, then my book will really take off.”

I think most of the people saying this:
(a) haven’t watched Oprah
(b) don’t know who watches Oprah
(c) don’t have a clue as to what Oprah talks about on her show
(d) have extremely unrealistic definitions of marketing
(e) have completely unfounded goals for publicity
(f) think Oprah is in the business of selling books (which she is not!)

Mind you, I don’t think ill of anyone with these thoughts, just that their thinking is misguided.

I don’t know ANYONE who went on Oprah and sold 10,000 books to catapult themselves to best-sellers status on a truly legitimate Best-Seller List, with the exception of the authors Oprah selected for her Book Club.

But I could be wrong.

So I’m issuing the Oprah-PR LEADS challenge in the spirit of honest journalism:

If you have sold $10,000 of books from one appearance on Oprah, send me your proof and I’ll give you a year of PR LEADS for free and I’ll tell your story in glowing tones to my blog. If I’m really off target, I’ll limit this offer to the first five people who respond with proof.

I don’t want to hear about a friend of yours, or a person who is a client of your agent’s niece, or anyone else you might have heard bragging at the bar at a writer’s convention. It must be Y-O-U. I want to hear from people who have really accomplished this.

By the way, in case you didn’t notice, I’ve lowered the limit to win. You don’t have to sell 10,000 copies of a book, but $10,000 worth of books. At $25 per copy, that’s only 400 copies, an amount that many speakers can sell from the back of the room at a nice-sized event.

The deadline is this Friday, February 10, 2006 so I can post the results next week.

Just send your proof and your story to me at dan@prleads.com. You can fax me your royalty statements or other proof to me at: (952)-400-8883. You also must be willing to do a 5-minute interview with me via the phone that I will post on my website so people can learn how you accomplished this miraculously feat and how you capitalized on it for future sales.

I really hope I am wrong on this. But if I am not, then we’ve gone a long way toward adjusting your PR and marketing goals to something that will truly make sense for you.

Dan Janal
Your Fearless PR LEADER
PR LEADS Expert Resource Network
www.prleads.com/index.htm