Need help with your sales copy or mar­ket­ing strat­egy? About to launch a prod­uct or pro­mo­tion, but unsure if it will work? Or sim­ply wish you could pick my brains for an hour?

(And want to pitch in for a great cause at the same time?)

Well, for a lim­ited time, you can.

As a free­lance copy­writer and con­sul­tant for the bet­ter part of 20 years, I’ve had the won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to cri­tique, review, con­sult, and coach thou­sands of peo­ple and projects.

At first, I did it because it was my liveli­hood. But today, my wife and I own sev­eral, prof­itable busi­nesses, and so I out­source much of it to our per­son­ally trained staff.

For this rea­son, I don’t do hourly con­sults any­more. When I do coach­ing or con­sult­ing, I give pri­or­ity to my mem­bers and rarely take on new clients. If I hap­pen to work with a new client, I do it mostly for fun. (But I also charge a min­i­mum of $3,000 for it, too.)

Well, if you ever wanted to “rent my brains” for an hour, and for a frac­tion of that price on top of that, then here’s your chance. Plus, you’ll be help­ing an impor­tant cause.

One that’s par­tic­u­larly mean­ing­ful to me and my fam­ily.

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I want to give you a quick update on things. You may have noticed I haven’t blogged any­thing new in a while. But there’s a reason.

Before I explain, check out this free newslet­ter. It’s high qual­ity, with top-​​shelf con­tent, and it’s 100% free. I’m proud of it, because I was a part of its incep­tion, and my wife and I are in the pre­miere issue.

I believe it’s going to be the gold stan­dard in the Inter­net mar­ket­ing newslet­ter indus­try. When so many newslet­ters out there are paid for and marketer-​​specific, this newslet­ter cov­ers a wide range of mar­ket­ing top­ics, strate­gies, and experts.

And the top­ics are not overly gen­er­al­ized, the­o­ret­i­cal or philo­soph­i­cal stuff. There’s going to be tons of strategy-​​specific ways to max­i­mize your mar­ket­ing and your mon­ey­mak­ing efforts. A great way to start 2009!

Note that there will be an offer on the result­ing thank-​​you page for a dif­fer­ent prod­uct. But you’re not held hostage, and the newslet­ter will still arrive in your email inbox, even if you refuse. It’s not manda­tory at all. Sign up and instantly get your first issue.

Now, speak­ing of my wife, here’s the rea­son why I’ve been out of the loop…

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Here at the Big Sem­i­nar in Atlanta, the same ques­tion seems to pop up over and over again. I walk with a cane now, and peo­ple keep ask­ing me, “Michel, What’s wrong? Are you OK? What happened?”

I don’t blame them. My wife told me I was turn­ing as white as a ghost, so we’ve decided to go back to our room to take some time — and pres­sure — off my spine.

I thought to myself, “Maybe I should take advan­tage of this down­time to blog about this — that way, more peo­ple will know what’s going on.”

You see, I have a bro­ken back. Literally.

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As promised, my wife has finally “exposed” her­self for char­ity, recorded the event on video, and released it to the entire world.

If you were liv­ing under a rock these past cou­ple of weeks, let me put you up to speed.

Sylvie Fortin, who shaved her head in prepa­ra­tion for her breast can­cer chemother­apy treat­ments, decided to turn it into a fundraiser for Avon’s Breast Can­cer Cru­sade. She “sold” sec­tions of her scalp, sim­i­lar to those pixel ads you see on the Internet.

Basi­cally, we recorded the event on video and at the end of it turned an image of her scalp into a click­able “map” of sorts, lead­ing to web­sites of the top spon­sors. The cool thing about it is, we raised over $13,000 for breast can­cer research and awareness!

Thank you to every­one for your sup­port and gen­eros­ity. If you want to watch the video and see my newly shorn wife’s head, check out my wife’s blog at Breast​Cancer​Vic​tory​.com.

When I say that my wife is prob­a­bly the strongest woman I’ve ever met, my words don’t do jus­tice to show how strong she really is.

Since her chemo was sched­uled to start next Wednes­day, rather than embar­rass­ingly lose clumps of hair over the next few days, Sylvie has decided to turn her loss into some­one else’s gain.

She decided to cut her hair before the treat­ments and donate her now use­less mane to a char­ity called Locks of Love, which cre­ates wigs for dis­ad­van­taged kids with long-​​term med­ical hairloss.

But there’s more to this story…

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Octo­ber is Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month. As you know, my wife has started a blog about her breast can­cer at Breast​Cancer​Vic​tory​.com. In addi­tion to being some­what ther­a­peu­tic for her, she’s not only enrich­ing people’s lives with her story but also cre­at­ing aware­ness about this silent killer.

Every 1.9 min­utes, a woman is diagnosed.

So any­thing you can do to help is so impor­tant. Even small things. Run in your local “run for the cure.” Talk about it on your blog or in your emails (early detec­tion and pre­ven­tion is the sin­gle great­est “cure”). Donate to it directly. Shop “pink” dur­ing Octo­ber when­ever you can (from retail­ers who donate por­tions of your purchase).

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Sylvie is so upbeat and pos­i­tive about her breast can­cer — and her upcom­ing mas­tec­tomy on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 11 — that she decided to make the best of it in the only way she knew how… “Mar­ket and mon­e­tize it!”

She decided to start a blog about her jour­ney, com­plete with AdSense, affil­i­ate links and more. Cre­at­ing and writ­ing on a blog is part ther­a­peu­tic (she feels lib­er­ated by writ­ing about it), part edu­ca­tion (she wants to use her “adven­ture” to increase aware­ness), and part profit (breast can­cer key­words are very profitable!).

Nev­er­the­less, it’s part of the heal­ing process and great med­i­cine for her soul. As she says so fer­vently: “Life gave me lemons, so I might as well make the best of it. Lemon­ade? Heck no… I’m going to turn lemons into lemon merangue pie!”

Go take a look at Breast​Cancer​Vic​tory​.com and post a comment!