Playing the part of Internet DJ, here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading the past few days.

1.) 50 minutes of Peter Shankman – how can you go wrong?  Peter talks about self-promotion, and it just so happens that his Help a Reporter service allows us to easily do just that.  If you’re not using HARO, start today!  I have used it several times with great success.  Every single opportunity doesn’t result in a “hit,” but you will respond to enough chances that you’ll start getting press attention.

2.) Can the Care Bears really teach us about being a successful entrepreneur?  Entrepreneurship is about hard work, good product, good timing, and confidence. I have low points in my own entrepreneurial life… times when I wonder if its all going to work… times of true stomach-churning self-doubt.  If you can’t handle watching the 5+ minutes of Care Bears, just know that you have to believe in yourself in order to make your own luck, and eventually succeed.

3.) The difference between salad and garbage is….. timing!  Sonia Simone at Copyblogger reminds us that direct marketing can completely flop if not truly targeted.  Additionally, becoming an expert in a very specific niche can turn into successful inbound marketing, which I’m finding is a much superior way to market my product than outbound marketing.

4.) Chris Brogan implores you to stop adding him to your email newsletter.  Bottom line – spamming people is bad. I am certain that I have, at one time or another, marketed myself in a way that could be construed as spammy.  Maybe it’s one extra tweet about one of my products, or a Facebook wall post about my bacon t-shirts on a bacon fan page.  Brogan talks about the rash of email newsletters he receives that he’s relatively certain he didn’t subscribe to.  Marketers of Earth: you are just pissing people off with this!  Maybe there’s an argument that for every 10 people you piss off, you’re reaching 1 person with your MLM message…. volume = $$$.  It’s the v1agra spam email mantra – carpet bomb the Internet with your wares and sales will come.  It’s a sucky life to live – don’t market your product in this way!