Posts tagged writing a book
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
My First Book Released November 2010
Feb 1st
“Writers will happen in the best of families”. ~Rita Mae Brown
I am excited to announce: (Drum Roll Please) … My first book will be released for sale sometime in early November of 2010. (The exact release date will be set soon.) I am very excited about this upcoming event and virtually all of my spare energy is going into this project.
I’m not sure why it took me so many years to finally make the decision to write a book. I have known for many years that I wanted to write a book someday, that perhaps I wanted to write more than one book. Anyhow, about 18 months ago I committed to myself that I would write a book and get it published and this year it will finally happen.
I am going to be self-publishing this first book. I have had offers to buy my book from traditional publishing houses and I was originally going to follow that path. I will discuss in an upcoming post my reasons for taking the other path of self-publishing for this first book. (I will say for now that my research into the history of the famous English novelist Charles Dickens had much to do with this decision – you can read about that in an upcoming post as well!)
This will be my first book, but it will not be my last. I am completely committed to publishing a significant number of books; indeed it feels like I am being called to do so. I have enough unique material after nearly 30 years of coaching, speaking and consulting to write at least 20 books and I think, once I have the process figured out, the next books will happen much more quickly and easily.
Will I self-publish all of these? I don’t know that yet, but it seems unlikely. It is enough for now to get this first book written as well as possible and get it out into the world.
That’s it for this entry. Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good”. ~William Faulkner
Online Success and Writing Part 2
Jul 22nd
“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” -Samuel Johnson
In my last post, I asked if you were willing to write for two hours per day if you knew that amount of effort would make you successful? Are you? It’s not a casual question and it is not a trivial commitment. Writing, and all of the associated tasks – reading, proofing, rewriting – these can be a challenge to add into your daily schedule. I know for me it was a significant effort to find this much additional time in my daily routine, I have been fully booked as a coach and a speaker for years, but the rewards from the discipline of daily writing have been tremendous and are growing rapidly.
So, are you serious about making money online and gaining all of the benefits that will bring? Then that means you need to write and from this point forward, I am going to assume that you are. (Motivation is not a constant for most people, it surely is not for me. Still you are going to need to stay in touch with your motivation to keep yourself moving forward. My NLP skills can do great things for us here and I will talk about motivation and motivation strategies in later posts.)
The Fundamentals of Online Success
Here again are the five fundamental pieces, as I understand them today, of becoming successful online.
- You need to be visible – people need to easily find you and whatever it is you want to sell online.
- You need to be credible – people need to believe that you know what you are talking about.
- You need something to sell – this can be your own products or the products of someone else or a combination.
- You need a following – people that care about what you write and say.
- You need partners – in Internet terms, you need affiliates, that will sell your products for you.
Writing is the Key!
Writing directly relates to each of these.
- For visibility – you need to be writing to your blog and making tweets on a very regular, but not irksome, basis.
- For credibility – as you write and read and research, you and your readers, will believe that you know what you are talking about.
- For having something to sell – ideally you are going to take some of the life knowledge that you already have and make it easy for the right people to find you and pay you for that knowledge.
- For having a following – the only way that I have discovered to do this, that really works and sticks around, is to be or become an expert and to write about it.
- For finding and developing partners – once you have good content, a following, and a product, it is fairly easy to find good partners.
So, writing really is the key. Another big question is: What do you write? Well, the topics are of course up to you, but there are some fundamental places you must write and I’ll talk about them soon.
This is a Work in Progress
Understand that I don’t have all of the answers yet. My blog is a chronicle of what I am learning and doing to become a success selling products online. I have hired the best coaches to help me and I am learning and doing as fast as I can. Why not come along on the journey?
What I am Doing Today to Move Forward
- I am writing a blog post.
- I am continuing to read: Writing Nonfiction by Dan Poynter and Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson.
- I am putting together my binder for my manuscript on my NLP based Goal Setting Product. (This will be my first product that I offer for sale online.)
- I am going to tweet on Twitter – enough to be useful, but not so much as to irritate.
- I will continue to work with my existing clients and help and learn.
- I will make some outbound marketing calls for locating speaking gigs for later in the year.
- I will go pick up my new IPhone (finally!) and start to learn how to use this tool.
I expect that will keep me busy. Till next time…Jack
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” -Stephen King
The Book Begins
Jun 4th
“Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” -Dag Hammarskjold
I will have a book published and for sale by the end of the business day Wednesday September 17th. Great! I have made that commitment. Now, how do I make sure that happens? (Especially since I still have not yet selected the topic of this book.)
First I will put these three pieces together. 1) I will figure out what I want. (My Outcome – as specific as I can determine this early on in the process.) 2) Why do I want it. (My Purpose – what it will mean to me to have it done.) 3) What do I need to do, and by when, to make this happen? (My Actions – what specifically do I need to do.) In my language, I will put together an OPA Project – Outcome, Purpose, Action.
The concept of an OPA Project is not mine. It comes from my time with the great coach and speaker Anthony Robbins. Thanks Tony. I encourage you to watch how I lay out this project over the next 3 months. I think you will find it interesting and useful.
Till next time…Jack
“Challenge is the space between what is and what can be.” ~ Joshua L. Hilley