Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Writing
$100,000 Mistakes in Book Writing
Aug 27th
“A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should.” ~Author Unknown
This article assumes that you have some interest in getting a non-fiction book published some day. You might find it interesting even if you don’t have any such desires!
Book Writing Mistakes Cost $100,000
Last time I talked about the mistakes that I made after I decided to write a book. I would guess that those mistakes cost me at least three years – three additional years where I did not have a book working for me to increase my income. Guessing what that has meant to me in lost income from additional speaking engagement fees, increased coaching income and direct book sales to my seminar participants, without out even calculating in any book sales thru Amazon or other sources, I am going estimate that not having a book for those three years cost me at least $100,000 in additional income. (Wow! It even hurts to type that out and read it!)
What will it cost you to add an additional three years onto the book writing/publication/marketing cycle? I don’t know, but I guarantee it will cost you at lot! Depending on your business, it could cost you much more than $100,000!
So what would I do differently if I was starting a book today and wanted to get it done and working for me as quickly and elegantly as possible?
11 Steps to Non-Fiction Publishing Success
- I would completely forget about getting my first book published traditionally and I would immediately start the process of becoming an expert on self-publishing. (I’ll talk about the why of this in future entries, and notice that I said first book.)
- I would find and join or create a non-fiction writer’s group that met weekly and made me read new, not revised, material each and every week. (I’ll talk more about this in future entries as well.)
- I would immediately start blogging, however short the entries, 5 times per week. (More to come here as well.)
- I would immediately hire an email newsletter service and start collecting names of people that like my material. (More coming)
- As quickly as possible, I would start to release a weekly newsletter to those collected names – however short the newsletter! (More coming)
- I would create a Mastermind group of like energy and achievement minded and completely different skills people and we would begin to meet weekly. (Much more about this process later – this is one of my strongest passions!)
- I would decide and commit that I was going to write every single day, no matter what, and I would slowly amp up the volume of that writing. (More coming)
- I would hire a book writing coach, if I could afford one, or join a monthly book writing coaching membership site if I could not afford a personal coach. (More about this to come as well)
- If I wasn’t already a public speaker, I would join Toastmasters and start the process of becoming one! (Yes – you guessed it…more coming)
- I would open a twitter account and start following people that interested me. (More to come!)
- I would start on account on LinkedIn and then dedicate just a bit of time each week here.
I wouldn’t expect to get all of these things done right away. But I would expect to have most of them in place within six weeks and all of them in place and working for me within six month. (In point of fact, I don’t quite have all of them in place myself yet, but I will within a couple of weeks!)
Did I mention yet that I have a non-fiction book coming out in September of 2011? I do! More about that next time as well.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” ~John Wooden
Avoid These Mistakes When Starting Your Book
Aug 25th
“A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.” ~Rita Mae Brown
In 2005 I decided that I was going to write a book. As I mentioned in my last entry, this wasn’t a consciously made choice. My unconscious mind decided that it was time to take action and let me know this at the end of a seminar.
I am not sure why I made that decision at that particular time. I had known that I would benefit from a book for years; as a seasoned and in-demand seminar leader, I almost always had the opportunity to sell products at the end of my presentations. Instead I used this time for chatting with attendees and over time, many of these chats ended up becoming coaching or consulting clients. (Although I can successfully coach virtually anyone that speaks a common language with me, I only consult on a handful topics.)
So, these seminars, along with other marketing techniques, kept me with a consistently full coaching practice, commonly with a waiting list, and I was complacent. Not lazy, just complacent.
Use me as a BAD example
Once I had made the decision to become a published non-fiction author, I thought about it virtually every day. And there is the beginning of the first mistake. I thought about it everyday. I invested energy into it every day. I felt bad that I wasn’t writing more – almost every day. What I didn’t do was take action on it every day – that would have taken a different and much wiser decision!
Three Mistakes I Made
Looking back 6 years, I am embarrassed. I should have known better! As an NLP practitioner, I had helped hundreds of people get unstuck and begin taking consistent action from a place of pleasure. From my slightly more enlightened future, I can look back now and see three big mistakes that I made.
- My first mistake was not deciding – not committing to – taking action every single day.
- My second mistake: I was using a pitiful motivation strategy to get myself to take what little action I did take! (I’ve talked about good and bad motivation strategies before and I will again – really useful stuff!)
- Finally I was not accountable to anyone for getting this book done. The only person I was reporting to about it was me and that was just not good enough.
Next time I’ll talk about what I would do differently and what I am doing differently now to write books.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“Choices are the hinges of destiny.” ~Attributed to both Edwin Markham and Pythagoras
I want to be an Author?
Aug 24th
“To be a writer is to sit down at one’s desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone – just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over….” ~John Hersey
I want to be an author? Really?
I remember clearly the day that I decided that I was going to write a book. I had just finished presenting one of my business seminars at the Boulder Colorado Chamber of Commerce and I was standing in the front of the room meeting some of attendees. The seminar had gone well; perhaps 80 people had shown up for the ninety minutes of my presentation.
This was in the early fall of 2005 and I had at this point been writing and presenting business seminars for nearly 10 years. The seminars were fun for me and they made me some money – sometimes a little…sometimes a nice amount. I mostly gave these smaller seminars at various Chambers of Commerce around the country as a part of my marketing for my coaching practice and they worked well then and work still marvelously. I never tried to sell anyone on coaching. I just gave my best, did my absolute best for my audience, and if it was the right time in their lives – we ended up working together.
I had been asked many times if I had a book or audio program and I always responded with something similar to: “I’m a great coach and a speaker, but not an author.” That was my standard response but on this day I startled myself by responding: “I don’t have a book yet or an audio program, but I’m going to.” Wow! Really? What was different about that day? I don’t know, but I know now that it was the true response.
Fast Forward Five Years
It has been nearly five years since that time and although my book is not yet done, I can now see the actual end of the marvelous, frustrating, incredible, time consuming, best ever, worst ever process. My book will be out in 2011 – almost exactly 6 years since that seminar. What took me so long? What did I learn along the way? What can you learn from my experience? Excellent questions and I will answer them soon.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.” ~Gerald Brenan
Learn to Write Like Author Richard Bach
Mar 9th
“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.” ~Richard Bach
Last time I wrote about planning and the importance of setting big goals, long term goals that stretch out at least 10 years. I was going to write today about the process of setting these goals and how to create a great attitude that makes this process even easier and even more fun. Well, scratch that bit of learning for a couple of days, wonderful as it would be and will be again and instead let’s go on a little adventure filled side-trip together. Let’s take a trip into the mind of best-selling author and pilot Richard Bach.
Learn to Write Like Richard Bach
I have been reading Richard’s books since early 1970 and after nearly 40 years, his books are still some of my best friends. Just like my human best friends, I enjoy seeing Richard’s books each time and I enjoy spending time with them. Also just like my human friends, Richard Bach’s books are smart and I learn something from them every time we meet. I had the pleasure of finding a short video interview with Richard Bach a couple of days ago and it really had an impact on me. I am including a link to this video here and I encourage you to watch it. For ears that are ready to hear, there are wonderful, bright and beautiful gems of empowering beliefs just waiting to be picked up in this interview. Next time I will talk about some of these beliefs that Richard is gifting us with and how we can use them to make our own writing better and more fun for us and for our readers. The link will autoload and start to play immediately. Link to Richard Bach video interview.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you’ll find something solid to stand on
Or you’ll be taught how to fly!” ~Richard Bach
There’s Nothing Like the Smell of a New Laptop
Feb 12th
“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” ~St. Francis of Assisi
My new laptop arrived a couple of days ago and I have been immersed in moving my computer life from an older machine to a new machine. This is quite a bit more work than I had imagined, but it will be worth it. I travel quite a bit for speaking and I write for hours each day – pretty much every day, so I got the best laptop that I could find for mixing travel, speaking ( I use my laptop as a prompter while the audience sees the presentation on the screen behind me.) and writing while on the road. I ended up choosing the new Sony Vaio “F” series with the fastest quad processor and lots of ram. I have only been playing with it for 2 days now and I love it. Fast – super fast and Windows 7?- this is a great improvement over Vista. I am sure that Vista had some great features – I just never found them. I had downgraded the 5 computers in my system to XP to avoid the madness of Vista. Anyhow, I love the Sony “F”. I love what I have experienced of Windows 7. And of course, there is nothing like that new laptop smell!
That’s all the time that I have for today. Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.” ~Henry S. Hoskins
The Birth of an Executive Coach
Feb 9th
“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Birth of an Executive Coach
Last time I finished talking about my decision to self-publish my first book even though I had traditional publishing offers on the table. This time I’m going to talk about some of the actual content of my upcoming book – a book about goals and achievement.
I was born as an Executive Coach in May 1989, although I did not know that this was my destiny at the time. Like most newborns, I did not have a clue what was going on and it would take me a number of years to make sense of the world around me.
In May of 89, I left my well-paid job in Retail Mega-Box management, well-paid but otherwise boring and totally unsatisfying, and went into Executive Search (headhunting) and the temporary employment business. I had only trivial experience in either of these businesses. I had been called by headhunters a few times, looking to move me from one Mega-Box to another. These headhunters didn’t seem too bright and they seemed to make a great deal of money. (Interesting combination. I certainly wanted to make a great deal of money and at times I was a veritable idiot. I filed this information away for further analysis.)
In the world of temporary employment, I had worked extensively at numerous temporary agencies in Southern California after I graduated from college. Eventually I found my first career position and stopped working temporary assignments. While working, I had gained some great information though – there was a great deal of money to be made in the temporary business and they, the owners that I had met, didn’t seem all that bright either.
What does this have to do with my first book on goals? I’m getting there, I promise!
Death as a Counselor
In December of 1985 my father died of leukemia. He was relatively young, 61 years old, when he died. Vibrant and healthy for most of his life, in 18 months he was stripped of virtually everything – his physical vitality, his freedom of movement, his privacy and eventually his life – in 18 short months he lost all of these.
I visited him almost every other day for most of this time. My blood was helping to keep him alive and we saw more of each other in this short time than we really had in years. He talked often of the things that he was going to do if he got out of the hospital. He was going to travel again. He was going to go see the pyramids. He had a long list of things that he wanted to do and experience. He died without having done any of these – he died with most of his dreams unlived.
His death affected me deeply. I was 26 years old when he died and I swore that I was going to do my best to retire before I was 40 years old and I was going to live my dreams – for both of us.
Goals were the Starting Place
I did manage to retire before I was 40. This early retirement only lasted about 10 years, no one had told me how much money could be spent if you had full time to devote to the process of spending, but my next early retirement is coming up fast. And this time, well, I have a much higher number in mind for my retirement! Come back next time and learn more about how goals were the starting place for me then and the drivers for me now.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” ~ Sir Edmund Hillary
Self Publishing – My Final Analysis
Feb 8th
“And Winter slumbering in the open air, wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring”! ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge (and Bill Murray in Groundhog Day).
(As I write this entry, we are experiencing another blizzard here in Iowa. Another blizzard – no! I am more than ready for this winter to be over!)
Last time I wrote about some of the reasons why I was choosing to self-publish my first book.
Here is the rest of my reasoning.
My Reasons for Self-Publishing my First Book:
- Speed: I can get a book out much more quickly. I can get a book out in 6 months or so, including much of the pre-marketing, versus the 14 to 18 months for “traditional” publishing.
- Profit: I will make much more profit from each copy of my book that is sold – especially if I do a print run of 5,000 to 10,000 copies.
- Control: I will be able to control every aspect of my book’s creation and publication. It will truly reflect my vision.
- Learning: I will learn a great deal about the book publishing business and since I intend to publish more than one book, this knowledge will serve me well in the future.
- Better Future Deals: I know a little bit about book publishing and my likely sales results right now. After I get this first book out and have the results of my first marketing cycle, I will know much more and be in a better position to negotiate with agents and publishers for future book deals – should I decide to go the traditional path in the future.
Please notice that I did not mention anything about self-publishing so that I could get published. I think that any author, that has done their homework and has a book worth publishing, will eventually find both an agent and a publisher.
Should you self-publish? Maybe – maybe not. If you have an audience already and don’t want to invest the time in learning the book business – then find an agent, have them find you a publisher and let them handle it for you. You will still be doing much of the promotional work – I don’t think there is a way around that unless you are a really big “name” in your field. Otherwise, self-publishing is worth a ponder.
Next time I am going to talk about the actual content of my upcoming book and why I chose to write this one first.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome”. ~Anne Bradstreet
Is Self-Publishing a Wise Choice?
Feb 5th
“Patience is also a form of action”. ~Auguste Rodin
Last time I talked about some of the things that I would not be getting by self-publishing my first book. Now let’s start talking about the rewards of self-publishing.
Rewards of Self-Publishing
- I have much more control of the entire process. My choice of proofreaders, editors, cover design and designers, who gets contacted for peer reviews and many other choices; I get to make these decisions. (There is opportunity and peril here. If I make poor choices here, I am not going to get good results.)
- I learn the book business. I intend to be a successful published author and publish many books. I certainly have the material for many books. I believe that the sooner I learn the process of publishing, the better off I will ultimately be.
- I intend to be a successful published author. (Yes, I said it again…I know.) My research indicates that more than 90% of the first time non-fiction authors, published traditionally or self-published, never make any significant amount of money from their writing efforts. My research also indicates that something in the neighborhood of 90% of the first time non-fiction writers never get a second book published. These seem like very bad odds to me and I wanted a way to stack the deck in my favor.
Next time I will explore in more detail how self-publishing, done properly, can hopefully stack the deck wonderfully in my favor – and yours too.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“Patience is the companion of wisdom”. ~St. Augustine
I’m an Idiot for Self-Publishing?
Feb 4th
“One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it”. ~Sidney Howard
I’m an idiot for self-publishing? Maybe, but maybe not. Last time I talked a bit about what I had recently learned from my study of the genius British novelist Charles Dickens. I also mentioned that some of what I had learned from my study of him had been a deciding factor in my decision to self-publish my first book. I think if Dickens had been beginning his writing career today, he would have almost certainly self-published his first works. Then I think he would have partnered with a great publisher for his next works.
For me, the decision to self-publish was a hard one. I am already busy and writing and then publishing a book – and really doing the proper promotion to ensure a great reception for the fledgling book – this is a lot of work. I had no idea how much work it was until I began the process. For me at least, the writing of the book has turned out to be the easiest part. All of the things that the publisher would do for me, if I had sold the rights of my first book immediately to a publisher, – that has been quite a steep learning curve.
So why did I decide to self-publish? I’ll start from the side of what I won’t be getting or what I am giving up.
- It will cost me more money to self-publish, quite a bit more. Since I am taking on all of the costs of proofreaders and editors, cover designers and printing and the hiring of top-notch PR people, all things that a publisher might have done for me, I am spending more money.
- I am giving up a great deal of my time learning the book business. Had I sold my book immediately, I would have needed to learn very little about the book business – at least at first. I could have let the publishers handle all of the details for me.
- I am giving up the money that I could have made by simply coaching or speaking instead of learning the book business. I am usually fully booked or as booked as I care to be for coaching and I could have simply coached more, earned more, and let the publishers do what they know best.
- I am giving up some credibility for this my first book. A self-published book does not have the credibility in the eyes of some people that a traditionally published book has.
- I am almost certainly giving up some sales that I might have had otherwise. I don’t know all of the distribution channels that an established publisher knows and although I am learning fast – it is certain that I will miss some of them – and not sell those copies of my book.
So, with all of that, why on earth would I self-publish? We will both have to wait until next time for that answer – my time is up for this entry.
Next time I will explain the balance of my thinking about traditional publishing versus self-publishing.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs”. ~Vance Havner
Charles Dickens and Groundhog Day
Feb 2nd
“Groundhog Day is a lot like a rock concert but the people are better behaved and there’s a groundhog involved…” ~Tom Chapin, editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper.
… As an aside, it is Groundhog Day in the United States while I am writing this entry. Although I am not sure that “Punxsutawney Phil” is any better at weather forecasting than me, and I am not very good; I do love the concept! The cute little devil did see his shadow today and has forecast 6 more weeks of winter. Not a shocker – this winter does not seem to want to let go. …
Last time I talked about my first book and its upcoming release in November of 2010. I also mentioned that my decision to self-publish this first book was influenced by my research into the life of Charles Dickens. Here is a bit more about that story:
I recently read “The Making of Charles Dickens” by Christopher Hibbert and I really enjoyed the experience! I not only discovered a new author whose style I liked, but a prolific author as well. This means I have lots of great books waiting for me to find and read. I also got some great insights into what might have helped Charles Dickens be the incredible novelist that he was. (Did you know that he is one of the very few authors that has never gone out of print? And this, as I write this entry, some 140 years after his death? Wow!)
I am always looking for the “secrets of success” or the unique beliefs that help exceptional people be exceptional. Here are some of the secrets that I extracted from my recent study of “Boz”:
1) Being extremely focused on the task at hand – fiercely determined to get it right – is a key to success in writing (and any other aspect of living.)
2) It is okay to be afraid about the reception your writing will receive – as long as you are brave enough to get it out to the public to read.
3) Believe in the value of your writing, even if others at first do not share your enthusiasm.
4) Write about what you know intimately well and share the clarity of your vision.
5) Don’t be afraid to ask what you think your writing is worth.
6) You can do more than you think you can.
7) It is fine to use newest technology to publish your books. (Dickens commonly used magazines and serial releases of chapters – then he sold the books as completed documents. This was pretty cutting edge stuff for the day.) This final point is the one that swayed me to the side of self-publishing.
Next time I’ll be talking about the complete set of reasons why I decided to self-publish this first book and what the implications might be for you and me.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time”. ~Charles Dickens from his novel “David Copperfield”