How To Write A Book | Joel Trains Authors
Write a book. Start your own Internet business.
It was a good day at FastPencil.com. My friends at this Campbell, CA startup were featured on VentureBeat and in the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the new FastPencil Pointers podcast site–that’s with me and my buddy Bill Quain–is up, and the podcast is also available in iTunes.
All of which probably means it’s time for you to take a look at FastPencil.com and see what it has to offer authors and publishers. Good stuff.
No. You can have someone do it for you.
Different people have different ways of working with authors. And of course, it very much depends on the type of book you want written.
I’m writing a book for an inventor/engineer right now. He does not intend to use it to market his services; he wants to simply put forth some of his ideas, many of which are quite provocative, into the world.
I’m speaking with another person who also has provocative ideas, but wants to use the book to build a speaking platform and additional products.
Different purposes, different processes. With the first book, we worked to come up with a detailed table of contents. Then I interviewed the man accordingly. Now I am turning those results into a manuscript.
And he wants me to be the author.
With the second, the client will be the author. I will structure, interview, and write. I don’t plan for my name to appear on the book.
In both cases, I will take care of the publishing, and consult on the promotion and sales.
Is this a good way to do things? That depends on your goals. My time–and that of anyone who you’d want to have write a book for you–is valuable. The question you have to answer is: How valuable is your time? Would you be better served creating new products for your business, or writing your book yourself? (I can help you do that, too, of course.)
Do you want it done quickly? What’s it costing you not to have a book out yet? When you consider the whole picture, the cost of having someone write a book for you might show up as a good investment.
There are other–less expensive–shortcuts to getting a book out. For example, I have a template-based book kit for coaches, and will soon have them for other professions. For a few hundred dollars, you can create a good book, and have it published inexpensively.
If you’d like to discuss your options and possible strategies, click on the calendar in the right-hand column to pick a time for a no-obligation strategy call with me.
Your book can replace your color brochure. Let’s do a simple comparison:
A brochure tells what you do, what benefits the prospect will get, and how to contact you.
A book can do all that–plus you have as many pages as you need to explain the uniqueness of your process and to share case histories of clients you’ve worked with.
A nicely designed and nicely printed brochure establishes your significance.
Your book establishes you as an authority, not just someone who was able to afford a fancy brochure.
Do you keep fancy brochures you get? No? Neither does anyone else. They throw them out as soon as you’re out of the room.
Do you throw away books? Especially books that have been inscribed to you? No, and neither do I. Your book will hang around your prospect’s office or home–probably forever.
What does a brochure say about you? That you have good artistic taste; that you invested in a nice brochure.
What does a book say about you? That you are an author–and therefore, an authority. An expert in your field.
A nice brochure is expensive–$3-$5 each, by the time you’ve paid a designer and printer.
A hundred-page book with a full-color cover is $1.10 in quantity 500–less in larger quantities.
So–what’s a better investment for you? Book or brochure?
My friend Bill Quain says that the four most important words for an author are: “Tell them a story.” In years of writing and public speaking, I have found no more powerful instruction for a communicator.
So what’s a story? From Google: “A message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events.” This innocent definition c
ontains some powerful thoughts:
Ira Glass, of This American Life, offers storytelling tips. The two main parts of a story are an anecdote and some reflection, according to Glass. He says, “The power of the anecdote is so great…No matter how boring the material is, if it is in story form…there is suspense in it, it feels like something’s going to happen. The reason why is because literally it’s a sequence of events…you can feel through its form [that it's] inherently like being on a train that has a destination…and that you’re going to find something…”
Reflection is telling about the anecdote. Why am I telling you this? What’s important for you to know?
Dr. Clare Albright has some good storytelling tips, including:
(Read this about the original “…dark and stormy night.” When my kids were growing up, they were greatly entertained by the recursive, “It was a dark and stormy night, and a band of robbers was seated around a table. Suddenly, one of them said, “Hey, Jack, tell us a story!” And Jack said, “It was a dark and stormy night, and a band of robbers…”)
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Literally? Nothing. A book, even one with a cover, and your name and face on it, and marvelous content describing your uniqueness, and the uniqueness of your approach to your clients’ greatest pain, will do nothing for you. Nothing.
However, you can do a lot with your book. You can use it as a key to unlock hitherto sealed doors, a credential to bring you the respect you deserve, a validation to allow you to charge the fees that are your due.
Moreover, the book-writing process–actually, my book-writing process–will empower you to take the stuff that is floating around in your head and turn it into an organized body of knowledge. That organized body of knowledge can become a book, and much more–ebooks; courses; keynote speeches; and many other products.
By writing your book my way, you actually inventory your store of knowledge. You see, if you are like most people, you don’t know what you know. That is, you can’t make a list of all the things you have learned. You just know them, and they serve you in your profession. But if asked to make a list of them, you’d be hard put to lay them out.
My book-writing process empowers you to do just that–to list all the things you know in a way that you can share them with others.
Once you have this catalog, this inventory of your peculiar expertise and experience, you can easily turn it into products. Each chapter in your book can be a string of podcasts. Each subchapter is, at the very least, a blog entry. The book’s title is a theme for a course, a membership site, a coaching program–you get the idea. It’s all knowledge, and it has value.
So do it. Try my book-writing process. Build your new business.
Perfect Pages by Aaron Shepard is an indispensable aid to someone who wants to produce a fully formatted book manuscript in Microsoft Word. Get it for about $12.60 at Amazon.com and read its 150+ pages, and you will save yourself a lot of grief.
Now you may think, “I’ve used Word forever. I don’t need additional tips.” You may be right, but I doubt it. Book formatting requires different
things than article or report formatting.
Word is a powerful program, and it can also be maddeningly cranky. This book helps you avoid the cranky parts.
The few pages on styles are so lucid that you will get your money’s worth from the book if you just absorb them. Styles are the blessing and the bane of Word, and the five pages Shepard devotes to them are spot on.
Partial contents:
This book will save you time and energy if you write in Word. Highly recommended.
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My friend and colleague, Bill Quain, sent me this shocking thought:
The Kindle Is Practically Worthless
I just heard a very interesting story about the Amazon Kindle. It demonstrates just how much publishing has changed, and how many opportunities there are today for authors – if you just open your eyes and your minds! It is time to think different.
Why do I say “The Kindle is worthless?” Read this:
My friend Rocco is one of theose classic gentlemen from the Old School. He is 79 years old, and after a career in the hotel business, he became a college professor, and eventually a college dean. Today, semi-retired, Rocco still travels frequently. Before his recent trip to Paris for a meeting, he bought an Amazon Kindle.
Rocco was amazed at the convenience of the Kindle. He told me that he immediately bought four books and put them on the machine. “It only weighs 11 ounces,” he said. He loved it, and used it extensively on the plane trip.
When he got home from Europe, he was unpacking the Kindle and dropped it on to the tile floor. When he turned it on, a large area in the upper right corner of the screen was unreadable. He called the Amazon support center to see what they could do.
The technician he spoke with tried directing Rocco on a few “saves,” but nothing worked. So, the technician said “We will overnight a new Kindle to you. The package will have an envelope to send us the old one back – no charge.” Sure enough, the next day, the new Kindle arrived and Rocco was back in business. Amazon even transferred his four books to the new machine.
Do you see why I say the Kindle is practically worthless? Amazon places very little value on the machine. They place TREMENDOUS value on their channel of distribution. If that channel closes (if the reader no longer has a working Kindle) then Amazon cannot sell books! Folks, the machine is practically worthless. The problem-solving process is where the value lies. A Kindle is only worth something (to both the owner and the supplier) if it is in working order and if the owner is buying books to read on it.
Some Points to Ponder
Some Lessons to Learn
Stop wasting your time trying to find a traditional publisher and a traditional agent. Self-publish your book NOW. There are people out there with Kindles who want to read your book. There are also people who buy from Amazon (and other distributors).
Remember, there are riches in the niches! Know your market segments and work them hard. Give them exactly what they want and they will want more.
If your dream is to be in a bookstore, then write a great book and promote it to your niche. Sell some books. Look for a traditional publisher AFTER you sell a lot of books. Better yet, let them look for you.
Kep your costs down. Amazon makes money because they have few costs. Look for a “print on demand” company. Better yet, look for a company that gives you ALL the tools you need to publish your book for FREE. (For more information on this incredible news flash, write to me at bill@quain.com and use the subject line “How do I get FREE publishing tools?”
Be like the Amazon Kindle. Don’t worry about the bookstore, worry about the book buyers.
Bill Quain, Ph.D.
CEO & Executive Author
Wales Publishing Company
(609) 399-2119 – office
(305) 606-8976 – cell
www.walespublishing.com
bill@quain.com
Helping authors WRITE,PUBLISH, and SELL their books
This is one of Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People.” It also corresponds to an ancient Jewish dictum that is part of the Shabat service, “Lekha Dodi”: “Sof ma’aseh b’makhshava tkhila,” says the Hebrew–”The end of a deed is in prior thought.”
Here’s the application to books: If you want to wind up with a book, you have to start with a book in mind.
“Well, duh!” I hear you snorting. And yet–most people who want to write a book don’t do that. They start with some general notion that they want to get to a book, then do random things–journaling, reading, lots of web surfing, thinking, feeling frustrated… and are disappointed and distressed that they seem to be no closer to a book weeks or months or years later than when they began.
It’s not their fault. It’s as if they had determined to travel to some distant destination–say, Joplin, Missouri–but had no idea where Joplin is.
So they start traveling. They drive, they walk, they fly, just to be moving. But they never get to Joplin, and feel worse and worse about it all the time.
One thing that would be helpful would be a map. Here’s one:
That’s how you build a book. You begin with the end in mind.
Need help? Schedule an appointment with me for a free strategy session. Click below.
In book-writing, as in other activities, the quality and quantity of your output will depend on your state. No, I don’t mean California or New York. I’m referring to your internal state–the vector sum of your emotions and feelings. What comes up for you when you ask yourself, “How am I?” Serene? Frazzled? Happy? Grumpy? Some combination?
Many people experience their emotional state like the weather, believing they have no control over it. If you are such a person, I have good news for you: You can affect your state.
Were you ever in the middle of an angry exchange when the phone rang? Did your anger spill over to the phone call, or did you find you were able to “switch gears” and “get into a different head”? If you were able to set aside your anger and enter into a conversation of a completely different tone, you can understand what I mean–and that it is within your reach.
The first step: Be aware of your state. Ask yourself uncritically, “How am I? What am I feeling?” Accept whatever answer comes up for you as useful information.
Now ask: Is this state serving me at this moment? Is there some other state that is more appropriate to my current activity–completing my outline; writing a blog entry; preparing for a business call? Here are some things you can do to create your own pattern interrupt and choose your new state:
Brainstorm your own list of pattern-interrupts. Use them! Your writing will benefit.
I went to an amazing seminar this weekend. The focus was on sales–and I just saw you wrinkle your nose. That’s ok. That was my reaction, too, when I first thought about it. I see it differently now.
Two years ago I began to realize that I was resisting sales. When I was a computer-aided design consultant, I did almost no sales. I was a celebrity, and $10,000 keynote speeches, $25,000 consulting engagements, and more, just flowed to me, because I was THE star.
When I became a coach, and decided to focus on helping people produce books, and income from follow-on products, all that changed. Nobody knew me. So I knew I had to learn about marketing and sales.
Marketing–letting my market know who I am and what I can do–has come fairly easily to me. But sales? No.
I realized I resisted sales as a yukky activity, as a sleazy kind of coercion, as a way to get people to do things they don’t want to do, for my own benefit. I knew that wasn’t right, so I adopted a motto: “Selling is an act of love.”
You see, I know I have something nobody else has: A way to help people express themselves by producing a good book, quickly and easily. And then taking the work they put into producing the book and leveraging it into an entire business. It can be a life-changing experience, as it already has for several of my clients. I want people to know about it.
But I was stuck with these bad–and incorrect–beliefs about selling. And one more, even more deadly to the sales process, that I just discovered this weekend.
What I discovered was that the overriding program in my communication process was that I want to be liked. I so wanted to be liked that I’d gladly forgo a sale to ensure that the person I spoke with would leave the conversation liking me.
Thus I sabotaged myself–and them.
Sometimes, just shining the light of truth on a situation is enough to change things. I believe that’s the case here. I learned to lead my prospect through a series of transactions that result in us both being able to make an informed decision about the question: Are we right for each other? Is there a match between their wants and needs and what I offer?
To help my prospect reach that point, I have to take control of the conversation–gently, but definitely. When the prospect asks, “Never mind all that, how much will it cost me?” I must civilly get their permission to bring them to the point where I can give them an answer that will make sense. “Of course you want to know how much it will cost. Would it be ok if I ask you just a couple more questions so that I can give you an accurate and meaningful answer?”
It’s a dance, and I must lead skillfully, so that my dancing partner enjoys and profits from the dance–even if we never see each other again.
Think about this when you write your book. Communication is a dance.