I was reading about efficiency, about getting things done, when I came across the concept of a “displacement” activity, which was defined as something we do from some internal need for variation or incubation. I liked the term, “displacement”; it carries no hint of accusation or guilt induction. I think that many like me are sometimes drawn to activities that are not clearly “on task” and feel like we are being self-indulgent.

(I am distressed that I did not make a note of the source of the term; I’ve made a point of putting everything I want to recall from the Web into Evernote, because it’s so easy to do. Another demonstration of human imperfection….)

Some of my displacement activities are related to work–reading book-writing related blogs and technology blogs, for example. Others are less clear–downloading pictures from my camera and organizing them. Some are an obvious expression of my need for a break–reading books, for one.

When I feel that my use of time is out of control, I start to track my time, noting exactly what I’m doing all day. The simple recording of times–when I do stuff, when I switch to other stuff–helps me be more aware. Here’s a piece of a fascinating NYT article on the subject:

Humans make errors. We make errors of fact and errors of judgment. We have blind spots in our field of vision and gaps in our stream of attention. Sometimes we can’t even answer the simplest questions. Where was I last week at this time? How long have I had this pain in my knee? How much money do I typically spend in a day? These weaknesses put us at a disadvantage. We make decisions with partial information. We are forced to steer by guesswork. We go with our gut.

That is, some of us do. Others use data. A timer running on Robin Barooah’s computer tells him that he has been living in the United States for 8 years, 2 months and 10 days. At various times in his life, Barooah — a 38-year-old self-employed software designer from England who now lives in Oakland, Calif. — has also made careful records of his work, his sleep and his diet.

A few months ago, Barooah began to wean himself from coffee. His method was precise. He made a large cup of coffee and removed 20 milliliters weekly. This went on for more than four months, until barely a sip remained in the cup. He drank it and called himself cured. Unlike his previous attempts to quit, this time there were no headaches, no extreme cravings. Still, he was tempted, and on Oct. 12 last year, while distracted at his desk, he told himself that he could probably concentrate better if he had a cup. Coffee may have been bad for his health, he thought, but perhaps it was good for his concentration.

Barooah wasn’t about to try to answer a question like this with guesswork. He had a good data set that showed how many minutes he spent each day in focused work. With this, he could do an objective analysis. Barooah made a chart with dates on the bottom and his work time along the side. Running down the middle was a big black line labeled “Stopped drinking coffee.” On the left side of the line, low spikes and narrow columns. On the right side, high spikes and thick columns. The data had delivered their verdict, and coffee lost.

He was sad but also thrilled. Instead of a stimulating cup of coffee, he got a bracing dose of truth. “People have such very poor sense of time,” Barooah says, and without good time calibration, it is much harder to see the consequences of your actions. If you want to replace the vagaries of intuition with something more reliable, you first need to gather data. Once you know the facts, you can live by them.

Steve Levin pointed me to a wonderful article on digital publishing in the Wall Street Journal. It is a great overview of the publishing and self-publishing worlds, where they clash and overlap, and what an aspiring author should know about them. Thanks, Steve!

Most people are responsible. They make commitments and keep them, even when it is not convenient or pleasant to do so. We often say that someone who does that “has character.”

“Character is doing the right thing even when nobody is looking,” said JC Watts.

What has this to do with writing your book? Well, many ostensibly aspiring authors say that they want to write a book. They say they want to get it done by some date or some event. They even say they’ve committed to doing it.

But then they don’t.

The problem with allowing yourself to break commitments, especially commitments to yourself, is that it gets easier, the more you do it. Eventually you allow yourself to break commitments to others. As the cliche says, it’s a slippery slope.

You’d be much better off not to make a commitment, then to make one and ignore it. I’m focusing on book-writing, but this holds for everything in life.

One thing you can do to help you stick to commitments you make to yourself: Make them public. Let everyone know that your outline is going to be done by a certain date. That your book will be ready for editing by a certain date. And so on.

Another thing you can do: Work with a coach. A coach is a perfect accountability partner. The fact that you are paying them will help you keep your commitment, because you don’t want to have wasted your investment in the coaching.

If you are already working with a coach, your book belongs on the list of goals that the coach helps you prioritize. If you’re not working with a coach, and feel stuck in your business or your life, find one; just use your search engine and enter “coach” plus your area of interest.

If you want to focus on your book, get a book coach. (I’m a book coach; click here to set up a free strategy call with me.)

That’s the answer given more than two decades ago by Nicholas Negroponte (founder of MIT’s Media Lab and of the “One Laptop per Child” project) to the question, “What’s the next step beyond personal computing?” It came to mind when I read this piece from the New York Times this morning:

Intimate theater

I attended such a performance in Manhattan in the early seventies, and loved it. Physical touch is important to me, and I experienced the event as being warmly and lovingly embraced, with safety and even propriety.

Not everyone likes to be physically touched. But every reader likes to be touched emotionally by what they read–even if the way into their emotions is through facts and logic.

When I write, I like to think about what my reader would experience as intimacy. Here are some of my thoughts:

• The reader wants to feel as if the text is addressing them personally, not as part of a mob.
• The author should come across as human and vulnerable, but without detailed discussions of hemorrhoids or other manifestations of TMI (too much information). Of course, what is and is not TMI will vary by audience.
• For me, typos and misspellings are jarring. I’ve learned that this is not a universal sentiment, but I nonetheless work hard to eliminate them.
• I avoid phrases such as “Some of you…,” which address a group of people rather than an individual reader.
• I experience smart-ass “humor” and cynical statements as turn-offs; your taste may vary.

I strive for intimacy in my writing—appropriate intimacy. What’s appropriate? Clearly, that’s up to you. Lately, I’ve noticed that movie trailers open with a rating caution: “The following preview has been approved for appropriate audiences.” Huh?

You are the author of your book. You choose your audience, by design or default. It’s up to you to decide what’s appropriate. Be bold.

Fiddling with type is not a fruitful pursuit for most authors. Unless your expertise is page design or typography, this domain—full of subtlety, nuance, and beauty—will distract you from your writing.

I think it’s a left-brain/right-brain issue. If you are drawn to the niceties of fonts, it’s because your right brain has itches that need scratching. By all means, honor them—but not during writing time. Treat your attraction to typefaces as a hobby, a passion to be pursued in time you’ve allotted for it.

I’ve spent hours on type and typefaces with the feeling that it’s the stuff of books. And it really is—but for designers, not authors.

Having issued that dire warning, let me now share a couple of resources I ran across this morning. First, Typetester, a site that makes it really easy to compare fonts:

Next, the current issue of the Big Brand System biweekly newsletter has fascinating information, including why you should avoid Verdana on your website. (Sign up for this free missive here.)

When I became a coach, I joined a BNI chapter in Palo Alto. And when I decided to focus on helping people write books, I was struggling to come up with a memorable “elevator pitch” that would encapsulate what I offered. One Wednesday morning, the words just popped out of my mouth, unpremeditated: “I’m Joel Orr, book midwife. You have a book inside you, and it wants to come out; I’m here to help it be born.”

Mindy Gibbins-Klein

I loved the image, and so did my BNI friends. It was sticky and evocative. And having attended a live birth in my youth, it resonated with my feelings on helping an actual human being into the world (as I had on January 5, 1975).

I began to use the “book midwife” term to promote myself–by inserting it in my email signature. Shortly thereafter, I received a warm and polite note from Mindy Gibbins-Klein. She’s been “The Book Midwife” since 2002, and has actually registered the trademark for it in both the UK and the US. She asked that I not refer to myself in that way, and I responded that I would stop doing so.

What I did not immediately understand was that calling myself a “book midwife”–quotes, no caps, no “the”–might also weaken her claim to her intellectual property, because it could lead to the phrase becoming generic. Now I know better.

As a coach of aspiring authors, I am very sensitive to such issues, and fully support Mindy’s position on this matter.

So I thought it would be appropriate for me to state publicly: If it’s “The Book Midwife” you’re looking for, that would be Mindy. From what I’ve learned about her products and services, they are first-rate. I encourage you to go to her site and sign up for her inspirational emails.

Are you in the Bay Area of Northern CA? I just scheduled my first MeetUp, in Mountain View, for Monday, 8/9/10, at 7 pm. For full details, including the address, and to RSVP, see this link. The meeting is free. I plan to hold them every 2 weeks. Come join me!

I heard a coach say to another coach at our Silicon Valley Coach Federation meeting last night, “I tried to word my website copy so as not to exclude anyone who might become a client,” she said. The other coach replied, “Bad idea. Think of it like this: If you needed knee surgery, would you prefer to see a surgeon who does heart surgery, brain surgery, knee surgery, and plastic surgery? Or one who only does knees? You need to focus narrowly, so that your potential clients will see you as an expert in the domain that is of interest to them.”

It’s the same with your book. You must address it to SOMEone, not to everyone. If you attempt to reach everyone, nobody will see themselves addressed by the book.

So, yeah, you need to choose your niche carefully. If you choose one that is too small, you will have difficulty building your business.

One powerful set of tools for use in finding your niche are the ones used by Internet marketers for keyword research. Some of the best of these are free, like Google’s keyword tool. Use it to find out what keywords match the topics in which you are interested, and how many searches there are for them. That will give you an idea of the size of your market.

And within your niche, find out what the greatest areas of “pain” are. What are the problems to which most members of the target market are seeking solutions? Visit forums and blogs that focus on your niche topic, and learn what people are most interested in. Focus your book on your chosen niche, and address the problems of the niche in its title. That will help your audience find its way to you.

You are an expert; your clients are seeking your expertise. You can’t be a general expert.

I’ve heard more than one account of friends who set out to write a book together–and lose their friendship. This won’t happen to you if:

• You write alone, or
• You have clear boundaries in the collaboration, and
• You observe the boundaries assiduously.

Whether you have read my book, heard me speak on my method, or just been a reader of this blog, you know the essence of “The Simple Secret To Writing A Non-Fiction Book In 30 Days, At 1 Hour A Day!”: Structure first, then content.

Sounds simple, I know. But it is not something most people are used to doing, and they don’t know why it might be important when undertaking to write a book. The metaphor I usually use is the building of a house: You don’t start with a trip to the lumberyard. If you do that, you will wind up with a yard full of stuff, and no idea as to how to assemble it into a house.

You start a house with a trip to an architect, who creates a plan. The plan makes its way into the hands of a builder, who uses it to create a list of materials. Then, after the materials have been acquired, a foundation is prepared and a frame built. That becomes the skeleton of the house.

It’s the same with a book. If you create your “framework”–your outline–first, it’s easy to write your book. If you don’t–well, good luck. You’ll need it if you hope to get a book done.

Creating the framework has an additional benefit: It makes the delicate process of collaborative writing practical. It does so by creating boundaries.

You see, once your framework is complete, all the book’s pieces–its chapters and subchapters–are defined and named. So if two people are to work collaboratively on a book, they should:

• Structure the book together, at least at the table-of-contents level.
• Then they can split the chapters between them, and each create the list of subchapters for his or her own chapters,
• Or structure the whole thing together, and split the subchapters up.

The place where many collaborations bog down is at the level of paragraphs. By dividing up subchapters and chapters, that opportunity for failure is avoided.

You and your partner may choose to identify yourselves as the respective authors of different parts of book. Or you may choose to have an editor “Homogenize” your distinct writing styles into a consistent “voice.” Either can work.

Structure makes collaboration possible.

As a result of a teleseminar I gave yesterday, my calendar has been full of strategy calls with people who want to write or market a book and need questions answered or help. (If you want to book such a free call with me, click here.)

I’ve been amazed how many of the people I’ve spoken with have a well-established platform for marketing their book and other products. What’s a platform? It is a collection of ways in which you already have contact with a significant audience–frequent presentations; a newsletter; on-line or newspaper or magazine columns; and so on. If you contact a literary agent or a publisher, they are sure to ask about your platform. Do you have one? What is it?

A solid and broad platform is the key to immediate volume sales of your book. One person I spoke with has a continuous stream of corporate presentations on the very topic about which he is writing. I pointed out to him that most of his corporate clients are likely to want a copy of his book for each member of the audience; this could double his revenue from a single engagement! He agreed.

If you already have an established platform, think how you might take advantage of it to promote your book. If you don’t yet have one, consider investing time and energy into the creation of an appropriate one; it will both greatly increase the volume of your book sales, and enhance your market presence for your professional services.

Arielle Ford says in the Huffington Post:

“I don’t buy authors, I don’t buy books, I buy platforms.” – #1 Self-Help Publisher in the world

One of the biggest mistakes authors make is thinking that they have to first write a book or the book proposal and then go out and look for a publisher. In reality, the biggest thing you need to do before you approach a publisher is to build your platform.

You want to be able to say to any publisher, “I have 3,000 names in my e-mail database. I’ve have been a guest speaker on 10 radio shows. I have done 20 paid speeches, and I am scheduled for four weekend workshops. Here is my list of upcoming speeches, the interviews I have done and my press kit.”

The reason you want to be able to tell a publisher all of this is because the only question they really have for you is, “Who is going to buy your book?” If you have something important to say and you are on to something that’s really great, you still aren’t ready to be an author until you have a platform.

Pay attention.