I keep coming back to the power of clustering in this blog because I keep meeting people who once learned how to cluster and then never used it.

Our Creator did not provide our brain with an index. As a result, we usually don’t know what we know on any particular topic. “Do you know anything about electric trains?” “No. Well, wait–I had a Lionel set when I was 10. It had three tracks. I remember seeing some other kinds in my neighborhood hobby store–I think they were HO scale and NN scale. Oh, yeah, and…” 20 minutes later, you realize you do know something about electric trains. And given more time, you’d discover more.

Neuroscientists are making great strides in understanding how we remember stuff, but it is still mysterious in many ways. Without understanding how it all works, clustering gives us access to our knowledge so that we can make a list of what we know and don’t know about any topic.

This is useful at many phases of the book-writing process. You can cluster a title for your book; a subtitle; chapters; subchapters; and more. And before you talk to your book coach, you can cluster the topics you want to be sure to cover.

Cluster what to say in your presentation. What to tell people about on your web page. What you should pick up at the supermarket.

Cluster is a mining tool, to let you get at the riches you have stored in your mind. Gabriele Rico devotes an entire book to it: Writing the Natural Way. Highly recommended.

How do you cluster? Here’s description from the blog of writer Dustin Wax.

Try it!

Not in the printing; in the writing.

Colorless writing is boring. In his blog, journalist (The Economist) and teacher Andreas Kluth writes:

Color has to be in support of something. And that something has to be an idea, a thought, a story. The mistake many writers make is to list details. Lists are boring; we use them to go shopping. Details are boring, unless they illuminate some meaning. It does not have to be epic. It can be quirky, amusing, moving, insightful, whatever. But there has to be a there there.

So the trick is to find substance, and then to take away details so that only a few splashes of light and color remain, which then filter out the entire sensual world around the reader and deliver him to that one place that you, the writer, have in mind for him. In terms of thought process, it may be the opposite of what my students were doing, and what I used to do.

I can find no better illustration than Rembrandt. You are drawn deep into this man. If I asked you, you would say that there is so much color in this painting, so much light. Only then would you notice that most of the canvas is dark, that very little of it is … in color. (Click here to see what he’s talking about.)

Thanks, Andreas. That works for non-fiction books, as well as for journalism. You want to take your reader on a journey, but it must be purposeful. I was once on a flight from the east coast to California, and the pilot took us down for a view of the Grand Canyon, because the day was beautiful. The view was fantastic, but I learned later that the pilot was severely reprimanded for departing from the flight plan. Several passengers, it seems, felt they had been taken for a ride they did not ask or pay for. Your readers deserve to get where you promised to take them, too.

If you want people to buy your book, you have to let them know of its existence, and where to order it. To do this, you need to know who they are, and where to reach them. And much to the surprise of many new authors, this is not only the case for self-publishers; it’s true for authors whose works are published by major publishers, too.

Most major publishers put promotion dollars behind winners, not newbies. So if promotion was a reason for you to seek a publisher rather than publishing yourself, strike it off the list.

For most non-fiction authors, the very best way to sell your books is through speaking engagements. For corporate gigs, you can often offer your book at a discounted price to the client, so that they can buy a copy for each attendee. I’ve sold thousands of books this way, and so have many other speakers.

In other speaking environments, you can sell them in the back of the room after your talk, if the venue allows it. (Although I would suggest having a higher-priced product at the back of the room, such as a CD series, a DVD series, or a course, and throw in the book as a free bonus. But if you do this, do not offer the book for sale as well; most people will just buy the book.)

One of the best investments an author can make is to buy “1001 Ways to Market Your Books,” by John Kremer. Then read it, and start implementing just a few of the hundreds of excellent ideas in its 700+ pages.

My buddy Bill Quain and I are doing a podcast series on behalf of FastPencil.com. It’s called FastPencil Pointers, and you can get it on iTunes or here. As we were preparing next week’s issue, I realized that many people do not know what self-publishing and publish-on-demand are.

Definitions:

Self-publishing: The publishing of a book or books where the author is also the publisher.

Publish-on-demand: The use of print-on-demand equipment to produce books in as small a quantity as one.

Thanks to the Internet and modern printing and binding technologies, it is possible for an author to publish his or her own book without having to invest heavily in large quantities of printed copies and the attendant logistics.

A self-publisher can use a publish-on-demand company for producing the book, or simply have it printed by a traditional book printer.

POD companies often offer additional services to the author, such as ISBN codes; cover design; connection to distributors, like Ingram (who supply bookstores, like Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.); editing; and more.

The initial POD vendors were not always transparent about the specifics of their service offerings, and sometimes left customers unsatisfied with the value of the “packages” they had bought. Today, competition has forced these firms to be more open about precisely what they do and do not provide. It’s easier for an author to make comparisons than ever before.

I recommend self-publishing to all my authors. If you publish your book yourself, and sell a few thousand copies–and then pitch a major publisher–you will be in a FAR better position to bargain for royalty rates, promotional budgets, intellectual property rights, and more. But frankly, at that point you may ask yourself whether the imprimatur of the major publisher is worth what you may have to give up.

As an author, you will make out better financially if you get a cover designed; get your book printed; and control your own promotion. Now, you may not have the time or the inclination to do those things, and there are plenty of people who will gladly undertake to do them for you; but whichever way you go, you should study the process so that you will understand what you are buying.

Dalia’s daughter Tamar bought Dalia and me an introductory Improv class for our birthdays (10 days apart in June). We went a couple of nights ago. It was wonderful!

Improvisational theater, now known as “improv,” is a Zen-like practice of being in the moment and interacting with others in games. In our class, and in improv in general, there is a general atmosphere of positivity. A “safe place” is established by the teacher and the students, where no-one need fear criticism or ridicule, and the goal is to have fun.

Some simple rules make possible a wonderful and warm intimacy among strangers:

• “Yes, and….” Whatever frame, story line, or assumption is put forth by the person from whom you “receive the action,” honor it. If she says, “And then a duck flew into the room,” and looks at you, you must accept the duck and move the action forward from there.
• Make others look good. If another actor seems to have departed from the harmony of a scene, do your best to expand the situation so that the possibly awkward move somehow fits harmoniously.
• Feel free to make mistakes, because none of us cares.

As I sit by my computer, working on my book, I am now benefiting from these rules. Whatever weird idea is presented to me by my muse, my research, or my editor, I explore it from a “yes, and…” point of view. Where might it lead? I can do this freely, with abandon, because right here and now, it’s ok to be wrong, it’s ok to step out of harmony.

And I am determined to make others look good. Whatever I’m writing about, whoever was involved, whatever strange things they may have done, I choose compassion as my guiding emotion when commenting on them and their actions.

All of this gives my writing an uplifting spirit, an exuberance it had been missing for a while.

Try it!

I’m afraid of fiction writing. I’m afraid if I started, I would lose myself in it and forget to come out, forget to pay the bills. I’d just refine and refine and read more good writing and go back and write some more.

So I push it away. I stick to the purposeful prose of non-fiction, and teach others to do the same.

But still. I love the beauty of the writing craft, the endless possibilities. And while you are writing your book that tells your story, in a way premeditated to communicate your uniqueness to prospects and clients, you have the passion that can move, even dazzle–that can fuel a small fire in the reader, or even fireworks.

Go read about matchbook literature, and enjoy the stimulation.

A friend sent me a video of an unusual performance of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, which you probably know and enjoy. It led me to think: How can I mirror this kind of innovation in my book writing? First watch the video; then we’ll talk.

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OK, now that you’ve seen it, how does it speak to you? What can we model, as book writers, that can make our books more engaging? Comments are open.

Aspiring authors have been asking me this question for years. Today, through a chance encounter with Dave Grossman’s website, I finally got the answer. See this simple but elegant explanation. After reading it, you will know what to do.

As the final installment in my birthday festivities, my wife took me to the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco, to see The Birth of Impressionism. The unusual number of well-known masterpieces by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pisarro, Cezanne, Gauguin, and others is here thanks to the Musee D’Orsay, their usual home, undergoing extensive remodeling.

I have a deep love of Impressionist art, dating to a Paris visit in the eighties. It was before the conversion of the old train station into the Musee D’Orsay, and the Impressionist art was cheek-by-jowl on the walls of the Jeu de Paume building in the Tuilleries garden. (Don’t all these place names make you want to go to Paris?)

I was wandering around, wondering what all the fuss was about. I had never looked closely at Impressionist art before; it just seemed messy and blotchy. Suddenly I came upon this painting of Monet by Renoir. Reading the sparse legend, I realized that these two friends were in their early thirties when this portrait was done.

I was in my late thirties at the time. Something struck me, and suddenly it was as if Monet was a real person. Everything in the painting became real to me. And I was moved to tears.

As I moved along to other paintings, the experience continued. All the Monets and Renoirs affected me this way; also Mary Cassat’s work. Sisley’s later paintings, and some of Pisarro’s, opened that channel of light to me, too.

And it never left me. Even a small, low-resolution reproduction of a Renoir or a Monet still evokes the feelings in me, as if I were looking into another world. The art changed me, and opened new worlds for me.

That is what I aspire to in my writing: To have an impact on my reader that transcends the moment.

Joel at 17

My daughter sent me some old pictures for Father’s Day. This one is of me when I entered the Israeli army, at 17.

If the main purpose of your book is to play a part in marketing your professional services, one of the most powerful stories you can include is yours. People feel like they know you if they know something about you, and the more they know, the closer they feel to you.

You don’t need to include a complete autobiography, or the details of who came to each of your birthday parties from age 1 onward. Tell the parts that brought you to where you are today, practicing what you do.

Perhaps you had an experience that led to a turning point, a major shift of some sort. Such accounts are exciting! Everyone longs for tales of hope, because if you were able to overcome your challenges, perhaps they can overcome theirs.

Start by clustering your story, thinking in terms of its role in your book. (If you’re not sure what clustering is, search for “clustering” in this blog, using the search box at the top right.) Edit and prune unemotionally; readers will appreciate it. “Awww!” is not the reaction you want, so avoid sappy sentimentality and self-indulgence. But don’t be afraid of telling about emotions.

Some pictures of you in your youth can be helpful, but are not essential.

Don’t go overboard. Remember the purpose of the story. You are saying, “These are some of the circumstances and experiences that brought me to where I am today. This may help you understand why I am passionate about what I do, and why I feel strongly that I can help others move ahead.”

Run it by a clear-headed friend or associate, even before the book is edited. Writing about yourself is hard for everyone.