Be A Light in the Darkness

Have you listened to the news lately? It's pretty dismal and each day it seems to increase. I was interested to read my friend Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson has made a self-imposed media fast. I'm convinced there is another way you can take with your work and your writing.

Last night I was listening to Alex Mandossian teach the opening class of the Teleseminar Secrets course. Alex was talking about how this year has been one of his best ever in terms of sales. It's not a story that you hear often but you need to be listening for these gems of encouragement. Cynthia Kersey at Unstoppable.net recently wrote, "Unstoppable people don't believe in failure. They see mistakes as opportunities to learn and develop new skills and strategies, not as failure. Failure implies waste, that nothing has been gained. On the contrary, people can gain much from every mistake and setback along the road to success. Mistakes and failures are inevitable and even essential; they are evidence of action --that you are doing something. The more mistakes you make, the greater your chance of succeeding. Failures indicate a willingness to experiment and take risks. Unstoppable people know that each failure brings them a step closer to achieving their dreams." How can you be unstoppable?

I've got several plans in motion for the future which on the surface seem impossible. Often little voices seem to shout inside that I should not be working on such a project. Instead of listening, I plow ahead into uncharted waters because like Cynthia Kersey says, "It's through adversity and failure that we ultimately win. being able to see failure as an opportunity for learning and improvement is critical to becoming unstoppable."

In a series of entries, I'm going to pull some information and insight from Guerrilla Publicity. I recently read the second edition of this book and it's filled with applicable information for writers and anyone interested in publishing. Many people would like to delegate the whole publicity area to someone else. They hire a "publicist" for a season or set an advertising budget. With a different mindset and attitude, you can reach more people with less of a financial investment.

As the authors explain in the introduction of Guerrilla Publicity, "Most people don't know the value publicity adds to their businesses or how to implement it." You can learn the basic skill of relationship building from these authors who write, "Guerilla publicity works best for small- to mid-level businesses and provides the widest exposure at the lowest price--and it costs far less than advertising and can produce better results. Publicity lets you tell your story in greater depth than advertising, which is crucial for new and unique enterprises."

Each chapter of this book contains many insights and critical steps for anyone to build a presence in today's marketplace with the latest cost-effective techniques. Get this book and study each page because it will give you the edge that you need to stand out and succeed.

Watch for another entry about some of the information in this book--but in the meantime, be a light in the darkness. It will attract people to your message.

Use Your Book For Leverage

Are you leveraging the power of your book to engage your reader? You may be wondering what I'm talking about since many people see the book as their end goal. These people are trying to learn the craft of writing and take the necessary steps to get their ideas into print--which is a great starting place in the journey.

The book isn't the end but it's the beginning in many regards. Repeatedly I've heard my friend Alex Mandossian say, "People do not make money writing books (true). People make money explaining books."

I've probably burst a few people's dream with those words about making money writing books. In the last few days, I've read Patricia L. Fry's excellent book, The Right Way To Write, Publish and Sell Your Book (more about this soon). Fry writes on page 14, "The Author's Guild has determined that a fiction book is successful if it sells 5,000 copies and a successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies." Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry write in Putting Your Passion Into Print that less than 10% of books published (yes fiction and nonfiction) ever earn back their advance. These statistics are the norm and you could break out of the norm but realize what you have to overcome and leverage to make that happen. While hope springs eternal, it is good to root your hope in reality.

I was stirred to think about this concept of leverage for books earlier this week with a thought-provoking post from Paul Mikos at Cumberland House Publishing. As Mikos wrote in his post quoting Michael Cader from Publishers Lunch another source that I will also use, "The book, Cader said, 'is the [most] meaningful place for you to have meaningful interaction with your readers…When I finish a book, I want to know what to do next… Can I write the author? … Is there a club? … If there's a Web site, don't just give me a URL, tell me what's good there.' [Cader's] larger message: 'Get your mind-set out of the book business and into the reader business.'

Mikos pointed me to read this article from the EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Noelle Skodzinski. Here's the paragraph from this article that I want to point out: "Books have a power, for many of us, unparalleled by television or movies. We grow strangely attached to the characters. I recently finished reading “Water for Elephants” and didn’t want the story to end. I wanted friends to read it, to share the experience. And I definitely want to read another book by Sara Gruen. Fortunately, the publisher was smart enough to tell me what other books she has written."

How are you leveraging this power in your own books and creating products which explain your book? Are you doing it through a regular newsletter where you connect to your readers? For example, several years ago I wrote Book Proposals That Sell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. While the book is available instantly in an Ebook format, it is also in a paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many other places. It is important to give the book to people in as many different formats as possible. In addition, I created several products like the audio interview with eight top editors and literary agents in publishing called Secrets About Proposals. As another tool, I'm providing daily proposal coaching through another product, Proposal Secrets. Or I've provided an audio package of my teaching about book proposals called Editor Reveals Book Proposal Secrets.

Each of these products is an example of how I'm leveraging my book and focused on attracting readers and growing the audience. You can follow the same pattern.

The Importance of Interviewing

There are many different types of writing. Whether you are working on a book manuscript or a magazine article, one of the best skills that you can continue to use and develop is to interview others. Whether you are looking for great quotations for your article or background research, interviewing is a critical skill.

I want to encourage you to watch a few minutes of Alex Mandossian as he talks about this important skill of interviewing. Also make sure you take the brief marketing quiz to see what you can learn from that simple exercise. Also the $20 preview call is coming up on June 5th. Every author (no matter whether you have published one book or no books or many books) will learn a great deal from this inexpensive call. The call previews the Virtual Book Tour Systems course where I will be teaching an hour about book proposal creation. Just reading the VBT page, anyone can learn a great deal of information.

I hope you find this information useful. And if you just want to see something funny, then check out this YouTube video for an "author book tour" launch. If you've been involved in such matters you will realize the truth behind the humor.

In the last couple of weeks, I've thought about these entries a great deal but not created much material. It will be even harder for me to add entries over the next few weeks. I leave later today to drive to Los Angeles for Author University 101 tomorrow then a couple of days at Book Expo America. I return home for a day, then I leave for Write To Publish in the Chicago area. I'll be teaching the Freelance Career Track where every participant has to have published at least one book. I've worked hard over the last few days to create some fresh information for those sessions.

While I am away from these entries for a few days, I hope you will make use of the rich resource of material in the search tool in the right hand column of The Writing Life. Keep looking for fresh ways to grow in your writing craft and knowledge about the marketplace.

The 7-Question Author Profile Quiz

I have a quick multiple choice question for you to answer today.

Here it is:

"Which of these three statements best describes your current or future book or info marketing project?"

(a) "I'm a published author who needs more sales and marketing advice with my current campaign."

(b) "I have a written manuscript that I need to complete in order to publish it into book or info product form."

(c) "I have a book in my heart that I need to write first and then learn how to promote it."

What's your answer going to be?

No matter what your ANSWER is, that's just one of the 7-Question Author Profile Quiz my colleague, Alex Mandossian, has developed to see how you stack up against other authors and infopreneurs worldwide!

To get free instant access to this Quiz, you'll need to click this link.

The Quiz takes about 60-seconds to take and you'll get your "Author Profile" a few minutes after you're done. It's fast. It's easy. And it's fun so take this Quiz now.

If you're an author, info marketer, small business owner or Entrepreneurial CEO and you have a book in your heart, then this "Author Quiz" is a must do for you.

Also after taking the Quiz, you'll also be eligible to attend a live tele-training on June 5th (2 hours) that will teach you how to sell more books (or info products) faster, better and with less human effort. Here's the link again to the "Author Quiz."

Use Power Verbs In Your Writing

Each Wednesday, I listen to The Wednesday Minute from Alex Mandossian. I've mentioned this free program before but his information yesterday was particularly relevant to writers--of all persuasions. Whether you write copy for advertisers or nonfiction or magazine articles or fiction books, you need to pay attention to the number of adjectives you use in your writing.

Instead of sprinkling adjectives into your material, make sure you are using power verbs. Put the work of the writing on the verbs instead of trying to lean on the weaker adjectives.

First, I recommend you listen to yesterday's Wednesday Minute. It will take you less than six minutes.

Next, make sure you download the Resource and study these power verbs. They will strengthen your writing.

This little program includes some solid advice if you are struggling with writer’s block as well as improving your writing.

Finally, if you want to receive The Wednesday Minute, sign up on this website. I recommend you do it quickly and ignore the antics of Rick Raddatz who has turned this tool over to Alex Mandossian.

Inspiration for Book Marketing

It's a national holiday in the United States as we celebrate our independence. Because it falls on a Wednesday this year, I received the regular Wednesday Minute from Alex Mandossian. If you want to subscribe to The Wednesday Minute then follow this link. It is a free resource and I’ve only been taking it for a month or so. From the sign-up page, Rick Raddatz started this endeavor but now Alex is carrying it forward. Ignore the munching on this page and sign up (it goes on a very long-time--so please ignore it and quickly sign up). Rick is the co-creator of InstantTeleseminar.com.

Today's Wednesday Minute is about The Greatest Ad Of All Time. According to Alex, it's a wonderful tool for Writer's Block plus you can learn something in the process. I always learn something listening to this brief presentation and I thought you'd like to know about it. I will not steal Alex's teaser by telling you about the specifics of this ad but it was a surprise to me and appropriate for today.

How Do You Consume Products?

In these entries about The Writing Life, I've written a great deal about book covers, back covers and book titles as key to draw the reader into the pages of your book. If you want to read these entries, then I suggest you use the Google search engine tool in the right-hand column.

What if you looked at the question from a much broader view? I'm talking about consumption and how products are consumed or purchased. Over the last few months, I've been learning from Alex Mandossian. If you go to his website, you can download his free Ebook, 5 Secrets To Making Change (which is excellent and something I've read). If you glance through his background, you will see why I appreciate this experienced marketer.

Last week I was listening to Alex and podcast with Paul Colligan and the lessons they've learned from 50 podcasts at Marketingonlinelive.com. At the top of the page for Marketing Online Live and right in the center of this page, there is a sign-up box for email bonuses. I signed up--simple with first name and email address. Why do it? You receive the link and information for Consumption Secrets by Alex Mandossian which is a $247 course. From signing up, you receive over 60 pages in an Ebook format plus five MP3 files of Alex teaching. You can download the material and listen to it on your computer or your iPod.

I've been listening to the teaching and I have read through the Ebook and found it valuable information for anyone who cares about how to improve your relationships with your customers. Whether you are a writer or not, this resource can help you improve that communication.