Expand Your Territory

I began yesterday's entry pointing to a USA Today story about Guy Kawasaki.

Repeatedly in these entries, I've encouraged writers to expand their influence or build their platform or influence in the public. It's one of the key elements that editors and agents are looking for when they open your proposals or pitches. Why? People who have followers or a ready-made audience are better candidates for their books or their magazine articles. Editors for magazines are looking for stories which they can highlight on the cover and sell more copies of their publication. It's a simple common sense fact but in the creative process, many writers lose track of these details.

In several recent entries, I've mentioned the social marketing called Twitter where you write something in 140 characters. As a writer you learn how to tell interesting things in short bursts. It's a great skill for any writer to enhance and develop.

I don't know if you've looked at Guy Kawasaki's Twitter profile but as of this writing he has 25, 898 followers. This number fluxuates constantly but that's a lot of individuals who receive his "tweets."

This week, Guy posted a detailed article about how to increase your followers on Twitter. If you want to gain a following, it's something worth considering in your array of various ways to touch an audience. Following some of the advice in Guy's article, I set up TweetLater to automatically follow and automatically welcome people. This system allows you to send a message to welcome your followers. I've created one that is distinct for me. What are you doing to create one which will be personal for you? (If you are even using this system). If you need some basics about Twitter, then download this simple Ebook called Mastering Twitter in 10 Minutes or Less.

More than anything for this aspect of the business, make it fun and your own personality. It's part of our constant search for the audience and balance in our lives.

Not Accepting Failure

The USA Today headline blared, "Entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki doesn't accept failure." What's up with that?

Through the years, I've heard Guy speak a number of times in different settings. When I worked at Christianity.com, I met Guy at a conference (years ago). He is an out-going, highly-visible and innovative person. I encourage you to read the USA Today article and in particular this last quote: "At the end of my life, is it better to say that I empowered people to make great stuff, or that I died with a net worth of $10 billion? " Kawasaki says. "Obviously I'm picking the former, although I would not mind both." You can actually hear Guy Kawasaki tomorrow (Tuesday, November 11th) if you follow this link.

I began to consider what it takes as a writer in today's environment to not accept failure. It means summoning the courage to persist in the middle of rejection. It means continually pitching and knocking on doors until you locate the right one (or ones) which open for your work.

If you want to get your book idea published, are you learning the best possible way to pitch and position your idea when you talk with literary agents and editors? The expectations of editors and agents are high ones for book proposals and manuscripts because of the flood of information coming their direction. You have seconds to capture their attention and you don't want to squander that opportunity.

I've been re-reading Fern Reiss' excellent book, The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 Days. On page 18, Reiss includes a remarkable list of books which were self-published when introduced to the reading public. Here's just a few of 27 titles:

A Time to Kill by John Grisham

In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

The Elements of Style by William Strunk

The Publishing Game is focused on how you can create your own book and push it into the market. It honestly says, "The entry barriers to independent publishers are high. True, by independently publishing you bypass the agents and publishers who wouldn't even unwrap your manuscript. You have control. Unfortunately, unless you have a direct line to your customers, you may nonetheless find it difficult to get your book into circulation." (page 18 & 19). Then the promise of the book, "On the other hand, there are creative ways to bypass these entry barriers. This book tells you how."

The route to getting published is not easy. Can you take a smaller (and shorter) goal such as writing for magazines before your book idea gets into print? Absolutely. Editors and agents are looking for evidence of your involvement in the publishing world--and writing for print magazines can validate and build that confidence.

Keep stretching and learning. The next bit of information you gain from your writing education may provide the key to open the door of opportunity. I encourage you to look into a session I did with eight top editors and literary agents called Secrets About Proposals. You can instantly access this information, download the audio and listen to it. A second tool that I created to help you get on the publisher and agent radar is Proposal Secrets:

This audio coaching program will help answer the typical questions that authors have about pitching and proposals.

Finally I want to return to something everyone can apply to their writing life: attitude. Look inside and summon the courage to persist and move ahead with your dreams and not accept failure. This attitude will show up in your writing.