Got an email from my friend: “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, I’ve been given a great opportunity to focus. The bad news: Cancer in my liver, spine, and brain.”

The prognosis is pretty negative–a few months, perhaps.

Because my friend is a private person, I won’t share my friend’s decisions about plans for the remaining time. (Notice I’m avoiding gender references.) Suffice it to say the plans are inspiring, brave, and loving.

Whenever I hear this type of news, it makes me think of my own mortality. I’m 62. I expect to be around for a while yet. I feel good.

But I have to ask myself: What do I want to do in the time that is left to me? What message do I want to share with you, with my family members? What impression do I want to leave here, when I move on?

I want to encourage you to ask yourself these questions. I think they help us leave more congruently, so that our intentions match our actions and values.

Take some time. Think. Write. Express your love.

I have a question for you. But first, I need to describe one of my products to you. Please read the description, especially if you are NOT a coach.

If you look at the tabs above the header of this site, you’ll see one that says Coach Book Kit! If you click on it, you’ll be taken to a long sales letter that leads up to a free 26-minute video, explaining why every coach should write a book–and how my template-based coach book kit is a powerful shortcut.

My kit works like this: Based on the principles I write about in my book, The Simple Secret To Writing A Non-Fiction Book In 30 Days, At 1 Hour A Day!, I teach coaches how to write a book that will explain their “special sauce.” Then I give them all the words that need to be in every coaching book–sections defining coaching; distinguishing it from therapy and consulting; relating how the coaching relationship works; offering examples; and more.

All of this is delivered in a Microsoft Word document, with blank pages that include my instructions for what THEY need to fill in.

Now, a coach could take my free book, and write a book fairly quickly. But the template-based kit greatly accelerates the process. One coach, Bud Bilanich, used the kit to write a book in 5 hours.

Here’s my question: Do you think a GENERIC book-writing template, with step-by-step instructions, would help you write your book? If using it would give you some assurance of completing your book in less than 30 days, at no more than an hour a day, would you want it?

How much would it be worth to you?

I’ve been brainstorming the content of such a kit, and I’m starting to get excited about it. I think it could be a breakthrough for many would-be authors.

But then, I love writing books.

What are your thoughts? Would you want to hear more about such a product? Please comment below.

Actually, it’s the headlines that are most entertaining–at least here in Silicon Valley. First there was the Steve Jobs performance at the announcement–speculations about his health; comments on his presentation style; and ultimately, admission by Valley and industry insiders of their own iPad lust.

Act 2: Between the announcement and the delivery, all the comments on what’s missing from the device–multitasking; built-in camera; Flash…

Act 3: Press and commentators love the iPad, gushing over it. But yesterday’s San Jose Mercury-News: “Not clear if consumers will like it.” Oh, yeah? Just let them at it, and we’ll see…

I think it’s a milestone. Yeah, it is a bigger iPhone, without a 2-year contract. But it’s more than that: It’s a gorgeous, light, sexy, powerful thingy that does video and audio, has a decent typing solution, and just makes you want to touch it. It is the Kindle you fantasized about (and the Kindle app is one of the first on the device).

What does it mean to the world of books? It adds acceleration to the ebook phenomenon. It opens up the market for multimedia books, with movies, sound, and links built-in. Personally, that excites me; much as I love print books, and love to write them, being able to include sound, movies, and links in my creations really gets my creative juices flowing.

So, yeah, it’s expensive, and the early adopters will be the gadget-lovers. But if it really can bring the sensuous iPhone experience to more-efficient typing and browsing than you can do on the small iPhone screen, and it sure looks like it can, I think it will quickly capture many hearts and minds and credit cards. Amazon has sold over 1.5 million Kindles at $300-$400, with no color and much less functionality. I don’t think the current exuberant estimate of 6 million iPads by the end of 2010 is unbelievable. (Actually, I just checked–Morgan Stanley is projecting over 10 million!)

And yes, I want one.

A good book, in my definition: A book that keeps its promise.

What is the book’s promise? That it will answer the question implicit in its title.

Let’s look at some examples I’ve randomly chosen from current non-fiction best-seller lists:

• CHANGE YOUR BRAIN, CHANGE YOUR BODY, by Daniel G. Amen. The promise is clear: Read this book, and you will learn how to change your body by changing your brain.
• The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, by Michael Lewis. How the US economy was driven over a cliff; here’s what happened. You have to go below the title to learn what the “Doomsday machine” is, but there is a promise: Read this, and you’ll learn what happened.
• HOW TO NEVER LOOK FAT AGAIN, by Charla Krupp. “How-to” books have obvious promises.
• Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some succeed and others don’t. “How to succeed” is not implied here; the promise is that you will understand the “why.”
• Have a Little Faith, by Mitch Albom. A true story, surprising in many ways, answers questions evoked by the title: How? Why?

You get the idea. By virtue of these books having made it onto best-seller lists, you can rest assured that they kept their respective promises to their readers.

Your book is an offer, in the sense of a deal: “Read me, and you will get what the title promises.” Sounds obvious. But if you examine books that didn’t make any best-seller lists, you’ll find many among them that disappoint.

People who don’t keep promises are not respected in our society, and with reason. You can’t trust them.

If you write a book to enhance your professional stature, to “credentialize” yourself, to serve as a “trojan horse” in your prospects’ offices and homes, pay attention to this point. You cannot afford to let down your readers; they will not easily forgive you.

Improv–improvisational comedy–has become epidemic. Classes and performances pop up all over the place. Improv is taught to corporate teams as team-building.

It’s fun. It builds intimacy. It works.

Like I wrote in an earlier post, we had several young people in our Passover Seder on Monday night, and we wanted them to get involved in the Seder. These are people who are happy to be Jewish, but have little or nothing to do with synagogues or Jewish life in general.

Now, the central part of the Passover meal is the retelling of the coming out from Egypt. “We were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt…and the Lord brought us out, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.” The preservation of Jewish culture and spirituality hinges on the telling and retelling of this and other stories.

But it’s also important to know that it was Moses, not Charlton Heston, who led us out of Egypt. And reading through the traditional story, we felt, would not make much of an impact.

So my wise wife, Dalia, suggested we improvise. “Everyone can take a role, and tell the story from their point of view.” We did that.

At one point, one of the participants suggested we use the improv technique of telling the story sequentially, where each person says a sentence. That’s when it started to get really funny. (I think it helped that we served Pisco Sours as the “first cup”….)

A good time was definitely had by the diverse group. And it occurred to me that my book writing–and yours–could benefit from improv techniques:

• Make statements, not questions; questions put too big a burden on the other party, unless they are simple, yes/no affairs.
• Accept all offers. Take the context created by the person working with you and work with it. If you are writing alone, as most of us are, take your “offer” from the news, from blogs, from random people you engage with, from Twitter. Go from there.
• Go with the flow. “Yes, and…” is an improv term; embellish what is given to you, rather than fight it.
• Be generous in your own offers. Inspire your readers with big thoughts, lots of possibilities.

Improv is still kind of new to me. Can you think of other ways it can be applied to book writing? Comment below.

Storytelling: If you have small children, or remember being one, you know that they love to hear the same books read to them and the same stories told to them over and over. And if you skip something in the story, your four-year-old will be quick to point it out, and will insist that you rectify it.

While young parents are driven to the edge of madness by the demand for storytelling repetition, us book writers should pay close attention to this need. It teaches us something about a fundamental human “itch” that needs “scratching.”

In a larger context, culture is preserved through storytelling. I was reminded of this last night at our Passover Seder. “Seder” is a Hebrew word meaning, ”order.” This is the one meal on the Jewish holiday calendar where the order of food, drink, blessings, readings, songs, and more is prescribed. And it’s done at home, amidst one’s family and friends, not in a house of worship.

Central to the Passover meal is the Haggada, the telling of Israel’s coming out from Egypt. Storytelling. “We were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt…and the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” We recite the plagues visited upon the Egyptions. We sing songs in praise of God, whose grace preserved us.

This year we had several thirty-somethings among us, whose interest in the full seder was polite but not deep. So my wise wife suggested we do a storytelling “improv” version of the Hagaddah. We went around the room–having first substituted a Pisco Sour for the first cup of wine, which helped to loosen tongues–and had each person tell a portion of the story, as they remembered it–no holds barred.

The result was hilarious, delightful–and profound. Feelings and thoughts came out that would not have been heard in a standard Seder.

The lesson for book writers: Make your storytelling personal. Tell a story, preferably one that has meaning in the context of your tribe. That is what will grab everyone’s attention, and enable them to hear what you are saying.

Doubt is uncomfortable; certainty is absurd.

– Voltaire

Speaking about the faith of Abraham as described in Genesis 15, Rabbi Janet Marder shared this quote from the famous French atheist, to encourage the doubters in our Tora study class last Saturday.

The discomfort of doubt can lead to growth–of knowledge, of faith, or even of doubt. It’s a goad that moves us forward. Questions are much more powerful than answers.

Image via Wikipedia

I keep six honest serving-men(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Rudyard Kipling, “Just So Stories”

When you are trying to create the structure of your book, these are the questions to apply, over and over, to your ideas. If you ask them of yourself, and offer answers, you pre-empt your readers’ questions. They are not left feeling unsatisfied: “How did that happen? When was that? Why would she do that?”

Certainty–actually, it’s probably more accurate to say, “certitude”–is often considered an important attribute of leaders. You have, I’m certain, your own examples of leaders who confidently led their followers astray. Somehow, the confidence of others inspires us to have confidence in them.

But certitude (a personal conviction about an external fact) is not the same as confidence. Certitude leaves no room for question, no room for doubt.

It is likely that your reader does not feel certitude about things you’re writing about. On the one hand, if you express certitude–”This is the way things are”–you may inspire confidence. On the other, if you share your doubts, and talk about your sources, you help your reader draw her or his own conclusions. That will be appreciated.

So show and tell your reader how you arrived at your conclusions, and on what you base your recommendations. Expose your sources. Your readers will thank you.

And read more.

1. Stop writing. If you’ve been filling pages, online or off, just stop. Don’t throw it out; it may fit in your book. But that’s not on the critical path to getting your book done.
2. Identify your audience and their pain. If you don’t know to whom you are writing, you are unlikely to have a successful or even passable book. You have something to say to someone. It should address a specific point of pain, an ache your reader is desperate to get rid of. Who is that audience? Who is, in fact, your ideal reader? Write out a clear description. Test it! Find someone like that, and interview him or her.
3. Name your book. The title and subtitle of your book articulate a promise to the reader. The promise is that they will be relieved of the pain alluded to in your title and subtitle. That’s what will get them to pick the thing up.
4. Create your “diamond” structure (read about it here). Know the question and answer for the book, for each chapter, and for each subchapter. When that’s nailed down, you are ready to write.

For more details, read my free book.

Rainbow from my bedroom window

It rained last night. When I awoke around 7:15, the sky was battleship grey. I decided to shut my eyes for a few more minutes.

When I opened them again, at about 7:30, the sky was even a bit darker. But there in awesome glory was a rainbow. I sleepily raced for my camera and caught it.

Somehow, the experience of a rainbow is so much more than the picture. There is so much promise in it. In Genesis, God gives Noah the rainbow as a promise that the world will never again be destroyed by water. But to me, there seems to be much more. It seems to say to me, “Spontaneous beauty is all around you! And you have no clue as to how or why it works. And it’s ok! Be grateful.”

Why is this important to book-writing? I want people who read my books to feel that way. I want to inspire a sense of awe and gratitude in people–not to me or for me, but for their lives, for the beauty and goodness that are theirs.

In this blog, I focus a lot on how your book can serve your business. But with all its utility, a book is your child. You love it because it is your child. You want it achieve its full potential. You want it to do well by doing good.

And you know that it is a mysterious creation, one whose totality is beyond your grasp.

On a recent visit to Israel, I saw a play, “The Same Sea” (“Oto Hayam”), based on a book by famous writer Amos Oz. He appeared on stage before the play to speak about his experience of writing the book, which was unlike anything he wrote before or has written since. “I feel like a cow who discovers she has given birth to a seagull,” he said.

Rainbows. You can’t see one whenever you want, but they are around us.

Your book is going to be read by people. Do you know anything about them? If you say, “Well, whoever is attracted to it will read it,” you are right. But you will attract more of the kind of people that you want to reach if you know something about them.

I’ve written about having an “avatar” in mind when you are writing your book. And I try to do that as well. Within the past few days, I was twice surprised by people, who turned out to have backgrounds, interests, and experiences I would never have imagined.

A friend asked me to substitute for her at a BNI meeting. Having been a member myself, I knew I’d enjoy it–and I did. And I met a gentleman there who surprised me.

His name is Alex Lubin, and he has a business that employs professional handymen. (I highly recommend him if you’re within 50 miles of Sunnyvale, CA.) We chatted for a while. Turns out he has a PhD in computer science from Stanford; was vp of Cadence, an electronic computer-aided design company with which I am very familiar; created and sold an intellectual property company based on Russian inventions; and more. Now he runs handymen.

This morning, I needed a notary. I put “notary” and my zip code into Google, and came up with All Things Notary, just a couple of blocks away. I drove over and found an unassuming house at the address. The notary pulled up right after I did, and invited me inside.

He took care of the notarizing, and we chatted a bit. He is Robin Roberts, PhD (business administration). He has a background in nuclear engineering; holds multiple patents; invented, built, and marketed the first device to print out (on paper) caller ID’s, then sold the company to Radio Shack; has been a professional photographer since the fifties; own a kennel (next door) together with his mother; has authored a book….

If I were writing for notaries, I wouldn’t have pictured anyone like Robin. If I were writing for handymen, or small business owners that rent out handymen, I would not have pictured Alex.

Yet the more I get to know people, the more I realize how wide a range of uniquenesses they exhibit.

So when you think of your readers, make room for a variety of qualities and interests.