Move Into High Gear

Time has marches on. We've reached the holiday season again. I can hear the Christmas music in the malls and watch the decorations spreading throughout my neighborhood. The family has celebrated their Thanksgiving feast and is looking forward to holidays together. I love this time of year.

In the publishing world, many of the key decisions grind to almost a standstill. When I was an acquisitions editor, it was almost impossible to have a publication board meeting to present new book ideas and authors. That means proposals and pitches pile up until after the holidays. Many of the publishing professionals are focused on sending holiday greetings, attending company functions and generally taking some time away from the office for family and vacations.

When you hear about this standstill you have two choices about how you react. You can throw your hands up and say, “Guess it's a bad time to send anything to publishers or agents.”

Or you can lean into it and decide it's a great time to move your work on a proposal or pitch into high gear. I encourage you to take the latter approach because it will help you move forward. Recently I held a free teleseminar about proposal creation. I answered many questions from writers. As I've held these events, I've found many people ask almost exactly the same question for a particular topic. This event was recorded and you can download the replay right away to your computer or iPod and hear my teaching. Plus you will receive a free 24–page resource, Book Proposal Basics when you go to the website. If you don't have a question, just type “no question.” Take action today and get my teaching about proposals.

If you want to push forward with your book idea and get your proposal in the best possible shape, I recommend you take my step-by-step Write A Book Proposal course. I set up this course on auto-responders which means if you sign up on a Tuesday, you will immediately receive the first lesson. Then seven days later or on the next Tuesday, you will receive the next lesson. This 12 lesson course includes a number of surprise bonus lessons and a graduation gift over three months. You complete the lessons on your own pace and it builds until you have a complete book proposal and sample chapter. You will be ready to hit the new year running hard and find a traditional book deal for your book.

Maybe you feel like you have a handle on creating an excellent book proposal. My next suggestion is to establish your own Simple Membership System. Almost every writer that I know has some skill that they teach to others. What do you teach? Can you take that information and repurpose or use it to create your own course? I believe the next few weeks create an opening for you to begin to craft your own teaching into an online course. The Simple Membership System is a complete package with three bonuses and detailed information to launch your own teaching.

If you are checking your email repeatedly looking for a response from a publisher or literary agent. You will be hard pressed to get a response during the next few weeks while they are focused on the holidays. It's not a time to relax but instead you can move your writing life into high gear.

I've written this article to encourage you to take action and move your writing into high gear. I'm taking my own advice and finalizing several of my own projects over the next few weeks. I believe you can achieve your publishing dreams. Yet it doesn't happen on its own steam. You have to take action each day to keep things moving forward.