I was going to quote and link to one particular article on Joe Konrath’s blog, but the more I read, the more I realized you should read it all. So click on that link and head over there. Joe shares powerful lessons for people wondering whether self-publishing is viable vs. finding a publisher.
December 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
2010: The Year Self-Publishing Became Respectable
December 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Hello again!
I traveled to Israel (and spent 3 days in Cairo) for the entire month of December. It’s great to be back in California, although I always love visiting Israel.
- Image via Wikipedia
Speaking to many old friends and new acquaintances in the world of engineering and high-tech, my conviction that writing a book is the number-one way for professionals and startups to promote themselves has been confirmed and strengthened. People invest so much in printed marketing collateral that just winds up being thrown away. Books hang around, and continue to deliver your message for a long time.
So many startups have complex stories to tell, stories that require more than some pretty pictures and a few bullet points. Books provide an opportunity to wax eloquent on the complexities and make them understandable.
Of course, the same applies to individual professionals. What do you want your prospects to know? A book is a vehicle for conveying it in a comprehensible way.
November 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Thanks
Thank you, dear reader. Whether this is your first visit to my site, or you’ve been here before, I appreciate you reading my words.
I want to connect with you, to learn who you are, to find out how I might serve you. It’s an important part of what I came here to do. Thank you for helping me fulfill my mission.
I think I am never any happier than when I am dwelling in gratitude.
Love and blessings,
Joel
November 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
You can “just start writing,” but you won’t wind up with a book
You want a house. You have a lot. You’ve got a general idea of what the house should look like. So you think, “Time to act! I’ll just jump in.” You head off for the lumber yard. “Let’s see, I’ll probably need some 2×4′s. Oh yeah, and some cement. Some nails–I’ll get 50 pounds, and come back if I need more”…
A house? You think this track leads to your dream house? No way.
Why?
- Image by New York Public Library via Flickr
Very simply, because you have no idea what goes first, and what goes next. Never mind permitting and all the stuff that has to happen before construction. How about a foundation?
You get the idea.
Your book is the same.
Just start writing, and you’ll have… a bunch of writing. But it won’t be a book.
A book has structure. Create the structure first. Then write. That’s the quickest way to produce a book.
October 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The Unknown Messenger: Your Voice
Kim Page and I, under the auspices of NextNow and Bill Daul, did this workshop on 10/24/10 in Palo Alto. Kim spoke about auditory voice, and I spoke about written “voice.”
September 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I’m offering a free teleseminar on October 7
Consultant, coach, solo professional: Want more clients? More revenues? Become known as the expert you really are by writing a book!
Most people think writing a book is hard, and has to take a long time. And that getting it published and promoted is difficult and expensive.
But actually, it can be easy, quick, fun, and cheap.
If you just learn a few simple techniques used by prolific non-fiction authors, you’ll discover how to:
- Finish your book in just a few short weeks!
- Publish it for little or no money!
- Promote it far and wide, at little cost!
- And create an information marketing empire with multiple streams of income, based on your book!
Space is limited, so register right away! http://moreclients.eventbrite.com/
Warmly,
Joel Orr
PS To register: http://moreclients.eventbrite.com/
September 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Back in the saddle again
I took off the period from the Memorial of Trumpets (what most Jews call Rosh HaShana) through Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, at least in terms of blogging. I didn’t stop working entirely, but I did focus on just a couple of things, and on taking full advantage of joining with my people in reflection on the past year and the coming year, and on making things right with fellow humans.
In the Yom Kippur prayerbook, it says that in observing the day we can find forgiveness for offenses against God, but that for offenses between people, we must go to them. That’s a very practical and loving point of view, and I appreciate it.
- Image via Wikipedia
And that goes for both asking and giving forgiveness.
Hmm…what if I cast a broader net here? OK. If I have offended you, my reader, in any way, I ask your forgiveness. And I invite you to write or call me and tell me about it, so that I can also seek not only forgiveness, but a place of reconciliation. I mean it. My cell number is 650-336-3937.
I’ve grown more and more aware of the significance of emotions in my life and in my communications. When I was a math grad student, good writing was elegant, and elegance meant succinctness. Expressing a thought in the fewest possible words and symbols was the peak of elegance. Unfortunately, I carried that over into my writing. My greatest challenge is to being juicy, and not just concise.
It’s odd, because I’m a very emotional person. I just didn’t accord emotions–mine or those of others–the weight they deserve in human discourse. Now I can say that I feel bad about that. Sorry, even. And determined to do better. (See? Feelings! 
)
Feelings enter naturally into fiction and memoirs. But less naturally into the books being written by my typical clients, who are typically trying to explain their “special sauce” to prospective clients. And that fact makes them all the more important. Emotions are what engage the reader, not facts. Facts are important, but feelings communicate.
September 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
After the book
Read this from Bob Stein, of the Institute for the Future of the Book:
the future of the app
08.02.2010, 10:37 AM
posted by bob stein
Assuming that whatever replaces the book in the futurist landscape to come will not be called “a book,” people often ask me why I named our group The Institute for the Future of the Book. My answer has consistently been a variant of the following: while it’s true that whatever replaces the book as a crucial mechanism for moving ideas around time and space is not likely to be called “a book,” since we don’t have that word yet, “book” works better than “institute for the future of discourse” or “institute for thinking about what comes after the book.” I end my answer by suggesting that one day we’ll realize that a word describing a new-fangled object, or perhaps a word referring to a range of behaviors has come to signify the dominant media form which has in fact supplanted the book.
I’ve always assumed that day would be years or even decades off. But recently, while listening to the Flux Quartet play Morton Feldman’s First Quartet on a gently swaying barge in the east river, i suddenly recognized our first candidate — “app.” It’s not the pretty or expressive word I was hoping for, but it feels right.
The aha moment went like this . . . . while zoning in and out of the Feldman piece I started to think about the iPad that I’d been using for the past six weeks — not only for most of my reading, but for playing expressive games like my current favorite, SoundDrop, answering email, surfing the web, watching videos, and listening to music. The iPad has become the center of my media universe, much more than my computer, iPod, or iPhone have ever been. My text used to come in an object we called a book; movies came on tapes, laserdisc, and DVDs, music on records and CDs and games on cartridges and CDs. Now they are all appearing as apps of one sort or another on my iPad.
The distinction between media types was a lot more important during the analog era of the mid-twentieth cenury. In 1950 no one would confuse a novel with a movie or a song with a TV show. But today we have e-books with video sequences, and movies published with extensive text-based supplements. Is Lady Gaga a music star or video star? More
What do you think? And if you’re in the neighborhood on September 13, come to my Meetup here in Mountain View, CA, to discuss it.
August 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment
A book-writing tip from Clippy
Well, it’s not really from Clippy, the hated Microsoft “helper” that came with Office and was finally buried in 2007. Clippy is mentioned in this fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal by Stanford professor Clifford Nass:
Alex Nabaum
By CLIFFORD NASS
When BMW introduced one of the most sophisticated navigation and telematics systems into its 5 Series car in Germany a decade ago, it represented the pinnacle of German engineering excellence, with great advances in accuracy and functionality. Yet BMW was forced to recall the product—because the system had a female voice. The service desk had received numerous calls from agitated German men who had the same basic complaint. They couldn’t trust a woman to give them directions. More
Go ahead, read the article. Then come back here.
What speaks to me in this piece is the significance of rapport, and the ease with which it can be created and broken–even with semi-animate objects. It makes me think: What about my book is generating rapport with my reader? What’s breaking rapport?
I’m using “rapport” in the sense that it is used in NLP–neurolingistic programming. Here’s one definition:
Rapport is the quality of harmony, recognition and mutual acceptance that exists between people when they are at ease with one another and where communication is occurring easily.
Why use this?
In general, we gravitate towards people that we consider similar to us, because people like people who are like themselves – like likes like. In rapport the common ground or similarities are emphasised and the differences are minimised.
Rapport is an essential basis for successful communication – if there is no rapport there is no (real) communication!
I’ve not seen writing teachers address rapport categorically. Maybe it’s time we do. What do you think?