When it comes to writing, people generally fall into one of two camps. There are the people who love writing and do it whenever and wherever they can, and then there are the people who hide under their beds to avoid ever writing anything again. (Ok, I lied. There’s a third, small camp that doesn’t care one way or the other about writing...but they don’t matter here.)
If you’re in the second camp, it’s possible that you’re suffering from a writing mindset block.
Read MoreYears ago, authors wrote a manuscript, photocopied it, sent it off to whichever book publisher they hoped would publish it, and waited. Those days are long gone. Most book publishers today, save for a few small and some niche houses, don’t work directly with the author until they’ve decided to publish a book. Rather, authors work through literary agents.
Today authors query a literary agency with their manuscript idea rather than a publishing house. The agent then queries (pitches) publishing houses on behalf of an author. When a publisher is interested, the agent negotiates the best deal possible for the author. A publishing house signs a book and handles the production (editorial and design), printing, and distribution tasks that self-publishing authors are responsible for. Authors typically work with publicity departments to coordinate marketing efforts, as authors assume some responsibility for marketing and promoting their books in today’s book publishing climate.
Read MoreThis month I’m reviewing Book Launch Blueprint: The Step-by-Step Guide to a Bestselling Launch by Tim Grahl. Grab a copy if you haven’t already checked out this book. Wonderful read!
Read MoreISBN is book publishing-speak for International Standard Book Number. It’s a 13-digit number that’s used to identify and track (for sales inventory purposes) every book that is published for retail sale. Many self-publishing authors don’t pay attention to it, but that can be a mistake. This post explains what you need to know about ISBNs and how they affect you as an author.
Read MoreWhat is it about that harmless little apostrophe that trips up so many people? People ask me often about issues regarding plurals and possessives (and especially the dreaded combo of a plural possessive!). The basic definitions are simple enough, right?
Plural signifies more than one.
Possessive signifies ownership and belonging.
Yet this is one of those often-confused aspects of English, so this week we’re going old school — as in, elementary (middle?) school English class for a quick grammar lesson. Ready?
Read MoreYou won’t know what the market looks like for a book like yours without conducting a book marketing analysis. This is an important step of the publishing process whether you’re planning to publish traditionally or you’re planning to self-publish. (In fact, if you’re publishing traditionally, I can almost guarantee that this will be a required part of your submissions package.)
Read MoreSometimes book titles themselves are catchy and clever but don’t actually tell you what a book is about. Enter your subtitle. The subtitle can expand on the title. Don’t get me wrong: You WANT a catchy title so that it’s memorable, but you also want to be clear to readers what they’re getting in your book.
"Sometimes book titles themselves are catchy and clever but don't actually tell you what a book is about. Enter your subtitle." (Tweet)
Case in point: I recently received an email from a former editorial colleague, from my days working for publishers directly. She congratulated me on the publication of my book, Write.Publish.Market. and said that she had purchased 20 copies to gift to her editing clients. While I certainly appreciated her support (and those sales!), my book isn’t going to help her clients, who publish in academic journals. If my colleague had read my subtitle, she would have known: From Idea to Published Book: The Creative Entrepreneur’s Blueprint. My book is for book writers, not journal article writers, and it’s for creative entrepreneurs, not academics.
Read MoreEvery year is the year I’m going to declutter and minimize the “stuff” I have hanging around in my house. And every year…it doesn’t happen.
As a business owner, I’m in the same boat. I want to reduce the number of services I offer so I can simply focus on what I love (but I love it all). I want to stop being so busy and start getting more done (but there’s so much to do). Sigh.
I’ve read all the books and pretended to do all the homework, but yet nothing changes. So when I heard about the book Essentialism, I knew I needed to check it out. And you know what? I just think I might have gotten some key takeaways that can help me get to a more essentialist mindset.
Read MoreIf you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know the ways a book can help your business. To offer a quick recap, think credibility/authority, visibility, growth, and money. (You can read a full post about this HERE) A book will bring you credibility in your particular subject area, so think about what that area is. What are you known for? What do want to be known for? Then think about who your audience is (remember: It’s not everybody!) and how you’ll get in front of them. Word-of-mouth will be a huge asset with regard to book sales, but you need a bigger-picture plan, too.
Read MoreAfter hearing again and again that every business needs a blog, you finally took the plunge and added one to your website. You published some posts, and waited to be flooded with awesome new leads.
But nothing happened.
What went wrong? A blog isn’t “Field of Dreams.” Just because you built it, doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will come.
Read MoreDo you have questions about writing? Lots of creative entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and bloggers do. Here are some that I’m asked regularly enough that I thought, “Hey, that would make a good roundup blog post, Jodi.”
Read MoreI hear statements like these all the time from bloggers and creative entrepreneurs. Or they say they want to write a book but that “now isn’t the right time.” That might be true for a small number of people, but for others: nope. These are all just excuses. The truth is, you only REALLY need two things to start your book today: a plan and accountability.
Read MoreChances are, when you’re writing a blog post or article, you save your notes in a Google doc or maybe even in Evernote. A book is much more complicated project to organize, due to the volume of material. Whereas you might save an article or two to read before writing a blog post, you might have 50 or 100 bookmarked for book research. A Word or Google doc can become unwieldy and overwhelm you when you realize just how much information there is to keep track of, let alone in an organized manner: articles to read, websites to look at, hashtags to search on Twitter, people to interview. Enter Trello.
Read MoreWhen writing roadblocks come up, you feel like the loneliest writer on the planet. I promise, though, that this happens to all writers — professional, first-time, whatever. The important thing is to have a plan to work around these creative blocks and get back to writing. So much writing advice tells you, “Sit your butt in the chair and get the words written. If your goal is to write 1,000 words, then sit there until you write 1,000 words. Period.” That sounds great in theory, but that’s not always realistic. Please don’t misunderstand me: I am not suggesting that, at the first sign of not knowing what word to write next, you throw in the towel for the day. (Sorry!)
Read MoreWelcome back to Off the Shelf, friends! We’re trying something a bit different with Off the Shelf in 2017. Instead of me posting reviews each month, an entrepreneur friend and I will be trading reviews of the same book. This month features a review from my editorial colleague Liz Thompson of House Style Editing. | The Happiness Equation By Neil Pasricha
Read MoreLet’s call a spade, a spade: A book is A LOT of words. Even if you, say, blog a couple times a week, a couple thousand words at a time, you're producing 5,000 or so words a week. A book, on the other hand, is tens of thousands of words. In other words, it’s a lot more words than you’re used to writing. That said, you’re producing 5K words per week (good for you!), so you’re in good shape to build a daily writing habit. It doesn’t matter WHAT you’re writing. It just matters that you ARE writing.
Read MoreSometimes you’ll see the writing process as having four steps: writing, revising, editing, and publishing. In that scenario, prewriting is included in the writing phase. Prewriting is a separate step from writing. I cannot over-emphasize that point! If you sit down to write 50,000 (or more words) with a topic and a few key points, but nothing else, you’re in trouble. Prewriting is the legwork and preparation to make the actual writing easier and faster. So really, the writing process has 5 steps:
You already know the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Unfortunately, we all still judge books by their covers. Design impacts our buying decisions all the time, but today I want to talk to you specifically about the importance of a good book cover.
But first, let’s think about your book like a food truck. You could buy Joe’s Tacos out of a beat-up, red van without a name on it. Or, you could buy Joe’s Tacos out of a shiny, teal-and-yellow-striped taco truck. Same tacos, but which one are you more interested in? Your book content is the same, but a book cover may attract or repel readers!
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Almost without fail during Book Brainstorm Sessions (my version of discovery calls) and even in initial conversations with new clients, I hear this sentence: “But I’m not a writer.” That’s the point where I smile and take a breath, and we have a chat about mindset. I bet if you’re reading this blog post, you’ve had that same thought (or even said it out loud). Simply put, if you’re going to write a book, you must shift your mindset from that of a business owner writing a book to that of a writer. When you’re done writing, you can switch hats back to business owner — promise.
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