Essay Online

My latest book “How to Earn Money in Retirement” (How To Books ISBN 1845281128) has just been published and hits the bookstores in early May 2006.

As I was writing the mss about nine months ago it occurred to me that there might be another book lurking right there in the text. Accordingly I took notes; mentally deleting a chapter here and adding a few more there, expanding on a topic, sketching out another, and so on.

As a result of this dual tasking I started writing a new book immediately after finishing the project in hand and decided to submit a proposal sooner rather than later.

Next up I received an email from one Nick Hutchins, the freelance reader reviewing the text for “How to Earn Money in Retirement”. Nick’s message simply read, ‘Do you realize you have another book here?’ To which I equally succinctly responded, ‘Yes, I know, and I’ve just submitted a proposal’.

Now it just so happened that Nick had a meeting scheduled with the publishing house a few days hence at which he raised the subject of two books in one.

In the mail today I received a contract for the second book, “How to Grow Your Small Business Rapidly Online” with a publication date of April 2007.

The point to this dissertation is: always be on lookout for additional niche markets for the book you are currently writing and milk your idea for all it’s worth.

The first book is aimed at active retirees and the second at go-ahead small business owners in all categories. I might dig deeper to ascertain whether other niche opportunities lie dormant in the original text.

The majority of niche non-fiction topics are capable of this sort of clinical analysis and it is worth pursuing because if you get a proposal accepted for one specific niche, you will more often than not get another proposal similarly accepted if your subject matter is in similar vein.

If you’d like to learn more on how to milk your books for all they’re worth, visit the website featured in the resource box below…

Mothers of newborn babies are used to being asked, “What’s your baby’s name?” As innocent as it may sound, the deeper question behind the question is: “Did you give any thought to your child’s name, or did you just pick something out of thin air?” I submit to you, that there are millions of babies around the world who will grow up with names that people won’t understand, with no meaning at all, names they themselves don’t like. Many of them will eventually apply for and legally change their name.

Think of your book as your “baby.” This is not to belittle the birthing process, because after almost losing both my wife and daughter during childbirth on November 26, 1983, I believe that nothing can really compare to it. However, there are some parallels. As your book is born in your heart and makes its way out of your womb, and you finally announce to the world that it is here, how will the name you give it affect how it is received by total strangers? Will they eagerly embrace it, or will they be “like a calf staring at a new gate?”

Every advertising guru I’ve studied talks about the importance of a good headline. Claude Hopkins states: The purpose of the headline is to pick out people you can interest. You wish to talk to someone in a crowd. So the first thing you say is, ‘Hey there, Bill Jones,’ to get the right person’s attention … What you have will interest certain people only, and for certain reasons. You care only

for those people. Then create a headline that will hail those people only.”

Jay Conrad Levinson said: Every guerrilla destined for marketing victories knows very well that if you have ten hours to spend creating a marketing weapon, you should spend nine of them creating the headline. It’s the first impression you make, often the only impression, and the rest of your marketing weapon will live or die by the quality of that headline.

Jay Abraham points out, “A headline is an ad for the ad. Its purpose should be to reach only those who are most qualified to be a prospect for your proposition.” There is very little difference between a headline for an ad and a book title. A standard clich

Most people tend to dismiss what they’re good at. Part of it is that you become so accustomed to having whatever skill you have that you cease to notice it. Sometimes it is out of a sense of false humility. But every single person has innate talents and gifts that enrich people’s lives&ndashAND provide a source of income for you.

How can you discover what your true talents are? Let me give you a hint. Where your passion is, you will find many of your natural abilities that you probably take for granted.

But it’s more than passion. It’s profit. Thousands of people have harnessed the unbelievable power of their natural talents to not only enrich others, but literally enrich themselves financially.

Here are some questions to consider. Answer these and you will have the core for a profitable business.

1. Define your ideal client.

2. Who are the people you have been working with if you are already in business? What have you liked or disliked about them? Are there any common denominators?

3. What kinds of people could ideally benefit from your knowledge?

4. If you had all the money in the world, what would you be doing?

5. Interview three people you most respect (friends and family members) and ask them what they see you doing? What are your strengths from their standpoint?

6. What have you always been good at?

7. What did you dream of doing as a child?

8. What needs/values do you care about most?

9. Whom do you admire most?

10. What makes you most fulfilled?

11. What do you love to do the most? What are you passionately against?

12. What have you felt called to do?

13. What legacy do you want to leave for your children and grandchildren? What do you want to be remembered for most?

14. Analyze your ‘competition’ and find out all about them. This will give you ideas as to your niche and how you can brand yourself.

15. Remember that you want to make sure your target market has money.

Two On-going Exercises

Produce your own personal inventory. This inventory should be focused on the following:

1. What you know…focus on the attitudes, knowledge and skills

2. Experiences you’ve had

3. Training you have had

4. Destinations that you have been to

5. Titles that you have earned

Create a list of several hundred, even thousands, of descriptors. Note: you will have to keep pen and a pad of paper on you at all times as you will realize all the talents you do have!

Now create a list of “What You Are”:

Record a description of yourself. For example, I am a man, father, husband, basketball player, a lover of pizza, wings and Indian food, slightly bald, a resident of Sarnia, have four degrees, play the piano, traveler, speaker, author and creator of the entrepreneurial authoring system etc.

Keep in mind that you want to make sure of two items: 1. the market you are targeting has tremendous wants and desires and 2. the market has money to spend&ndashin other words, it is hungry for your information.

Spend some time journaling for a couple of hours. Let it all hang out. Write as quickly as you can and get in touch with the real you.

Narrow business possibilities to two or three. You can do this by playing the devil’s advocate with each of your ideas. Provide as many reasons as you can why you shouldn’t go with an idea. Now check by completing a focused target market key word analysis on your top two or three ideas.

My three best methods of creating a book and building an online business is three fold: 1. analyze the key words that my target market is using to define their problems; 2. analyze my competition to see how they view problems and what solutions they are offering; and 3. talk directly to my target market about their negative perception of people doing similar business to me.

In doing the above, you will gain a much better grasp at the gap(s) that exist in the market place and you will gain a competitive advantage as you seek to fill this gap.

Put these exercises to work for you and enrich your life and your pocketbook.

Business is about influence, or “leverage.” Your book that you will author is a tool to leverage your credibility. And the first step in preparing your mind for success is to see yourself as an expert. Another way of looking at this is that you must sell yourself first to your dream of the possibility of becoming a best selling author.

So there are really two sales that must take place: the first sale is the one you make to yourself. The second sale is the one that actually produces money for you when members of your target audience complete the transaction with you.

To master the sale to yourself it is imperative that you write your own book. No ghost writer. You want your voice to come out strong and clear. One of the concepts we will discuss is your UPP which stands for your Unique Personal Proposition&ndashwhich means your unique story. There is nobody better to get your message out then you! No one else has your story. Remember that the main reason people come to the Internet is to solve problems.

The purchasers of your book want your guidance. So you are paid to provide solutions to the problems that keep people up at night.

Creating Ideas

Here is how you create ideas: Complete a five minute exercise where you put your core concept in the center of a piece of paper and list as many ideas that are related to what you want to do. The key is to write everything down and do not pre-judge anything. This is the creative phase. You want to write as quickly as you can. Do not reflect at all on your ideas. The personal reflection comes in the next phase.

The key to brainstorming is recording all your ideas. This allows your subconscious to find relationships among them. There are three relationships that your mind will look at when analyzing your ideas. The great philosopher Socrates first espoused this concept 300 years before the time of Christ.

This process involves analyzing a) the similarity of your ideas (What is this concept like?); and b) The contiguity of your ideas (How are the ideas related to each other); and then c) the contrast of your ideas (How the ideas are different).

The ideas you create should all be involved in solving your target market’s problems. To bring this home on how this should guide the writing of your book, the late and great G.K. Chesterton summarized the importance of analyzing problems first when he stated that the focus should not be on your book, but on understanding and magnifying your target market’s problems first.

Your focus is not on you or what you think people need, but on the people&ndashyour target audience&ndashand what they tell you they need.

This begins with understanding the difference between empathy versus sympathy. As an author, you must empathize with your target market. Empathy goes one step further than sympathy. Though the difference is essentially one of focus. Sympathy is the ability of showing how sorry you are that one person is going thru a painful situation. Empathy focuses on providing solutions for your target market. And the solutions that you provide should communicate the desired attitudes (what should I think) and the specific skills that are required to move to the desired end point (How do I get what I want and why should I do it a certain way and how do I implement an overall strategy in my life to make it happen).

Implementation is a key reason why information is the enemy to ultimate success. Information alone is passive as it fails to contextualize content. There is no implementation or ACTION if all you have is information. It is all content and no context.

The Author’s Mindset

The first principle is preparation. Authoring your best seller is no different than preparing to participate in an athletic event. You don’t just show up on game day without putting your body through immense preparations. The key to authoring a best selling book is to prepare before you start writing.

Here are the steps in preparation as we see it: there must be order in your life. Order begins in your mind, and then it must be channeled with a concrete game plan. Your success must acknowledge the need for patience, endurance and the ability to act in the face of fear and failure. Success does not come easily. You pay the price every step of the way.

The first step in preparation is to acknowledge your dream.

But what good is a dream if it stays in your head? You must give your dream legs. Thus, the second step is to take action on your dream of authoring your book. Don’t wait for life to slow down, because you know it won’t. Start making your dream of authoring a book a reality today.

I have been writing professionally for more than two decades and teaching writing nearly that long. Every conference, every writing staff, and every class has always included some writer who asks: “How Can I Become A Better Writer?”

They don’t usually like my answer. “Practice writing every day and read to study the writing of others every day.”

They don’t like the answer for one of two reasons usually. Some people are looking for some quick-fix, magic formula that will make them a good writer in three easy steps. Although my suggestion involves only two steps it is pretty obvious that it is a long-term project. The other group of people will sneer at the first because they consider themselves “real writers” but they don’t like the answer any more than the others. They believe they have a gift that simply needs to be unlocked by the magic key that published, successful writers possess.

The simple truth is that there is no way to improve your writing other than to continually practice your craft. Write every day. Experiment, plan, revise, and revisit. Make challenges and deadlines and competitions. Push yourself and your writing will reward you. I promise. Write something inspired by a writer you admire and then write something completely your own.

However it is not enough to simply write in a vacuum — or an ivory tower. You must also read the writing of others. Read far and wide. Read fiction, nonfiction, poetry and song lyrics. Read argument and persuasion, read informative and biographical, read science and fantasy. Read talented and skilled professionals and read those who are still finding their writing feet.

You are reading to gain inspiration and confidence. You are reading to build your vocabulary and your stockpile of writing tricks. You are reading to learn more about the rhythms and patterns of language. You are reading so that as you write you will be able to develop your own unique voice.

Learning to be a better writer is not the work of a weekend or even a semester. Learning to be a better writer is a life’s work. If you really are a writer then you will never consider your work done. I don’t know a professional writer who sits back and says “I’m done learning now, I’m as good as I’m going to get”. Certainly it need not take a lifetime to reach professional status but you shouldn’t make that your goal. Thinking in those terms can hold you back from becoming the best writer you can be.

For example, perhaps the reason your particular project was rejected had nothing at all to do with your writing but was in fact due to your topic, the particular needs of that publisher, or even the mood of the editor when your submission came across their desk. The truth is that you cannot control when you become a published, professional writer, but you can control your progress toward improving your writing. Believe me, the stronger your writing becomes then the easier it will be to achieve that other goal. When you reach the point that you regularly deliver quality writing then you will find a market. If you write it the rest will come.

Have an idea!

If you can’t think of an idea for a book or other product, get some help by asking contacts, colleagues or clients. Failing that, get some brainstorming software such as Mind Manager. If none of that helps - go for a long walk, forget everything and let your subconscious get to work.

Think

Once you have an idea, just let it mull over in your mind. Jot down associated ideas and thoughts. Produce a mind map, if that’s your thing, or a list of ideas and thoughts related to your original product concept. Always have a notebook with you so you can jot down ideas as they strike you. That means keeping the notepad by your bed so if you wake in the middle of the night you can record the idea and go back to sleep!

Set up an ideas bank

Get a folder or a concertina folder that is divided into sections. Label each section for one of the themes your book or product will cover. Put your notes into each appropriate section of the folder. As you read newspapers and magazines, tear out any useful information and bung it in the appropriate section. As you browse web sites and see useful pieces of information, print them out and store them in your folder in the relevant place. Don’t judge what you collect; if you think it may be valuable, just collect it and file it.

Talk to people

Don’t keep your book idea a secret. Talk to anyone who you know who could help provide you with useful information. Interview relevant experts and chat with colleagues and contacts to collect extra material.

Produce an outline

Having written some notes, collected some background material and chatted to people you should now be able to come up with an outline for your product. At first, start with a broad outline of the main themes you will cover. These will make up your chapters. Now, take each theme and subdivide it into the particular points you want to make or things you want to discuss.

Write

You don’t have to start at the beginning. Choose any of the small parts of any chapter and write as much as you can about it. Don’t worry about the grammar, the spelling or the niceties of your literary style at this stage. Just write whatever comes to mind about the specific subject you have chosen. Once you’ve done that, select another part of your detailed outline and write about that. Let’s say you have 10 chapters each with five sections. That’s 50 sections you need to write. For a 30,000 word paperback of around 120 pages, that means you need around 600 words per section. By taking it a section at a time it is more manageable. If you only did one section per day, you’d have a complete book in only seven weeks.

Edit

Once you have your sections written, you’ll need to pull them together. You will also need to write some connecting paragraphs and sentences to make things flow.

Get some help

Having produced your first draft, get someone else to read through it and suggest changes. Do not be precious about your work. You are seeking their changes; you want them to change things. Otherwise your material will not be from a reader’s perspective, making it less attractive. Once your reader has suggested changes - make them! Then tidy up your work.

Get some more help

Now get someone else to edit your work. They need to go through it with a fine toothcomb, looking for inconsistencies, poor argument and lack of detail or clarity and so on. There are plenty of freelances who will do this from the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (.sfep.org.uk).

Check and re-check

You are on the home straight now! All you need to do is check the work of the proofreaders, make sure that your final text is correct. Stop thinking you could have written a different or better book. Just check this one is OK.

The hardest thing you’ll ever have to do is to ‘start’. When you want to travel, the hardest part is to just ‘go ahead and go’. But once you start, everything follows. The same goes with writing. I don’t know about you, but when I write, the first sentence in the article gets erased five times before one becomes permanent. But once you get through the first sentence, writing the whole article will be a breeze.

There are actually a lot of ways by which you could begin your article. You could start it with a quotation, a question, an anecdote, or you could go straight to the point. There is no exact formula for starting. You can start your article with any sentence, as long as it suits your purpose.

What’s the Purpose of the Article?

So think about why you’re writing that article. What is your purpose? Is it to entertain, to inspire, to persuade, or simply to inform? If you want to entertain, then a funny anecdote might do well. If you want to inspire, then a famous quote may do. If you want to persuade, then maybe you could start with a question. If you want to inform, then you could go straight to the point.

Let me give you a concrete example. Let’s say that your aim is to persuade people to buy your product. I mentioned that if you want to persuade, starting the article with a question might do the trick. Let’s say that your product is a water bed. Maybe you could start your article with a question like, “Have you ever had a night when you couldn’t sleep because of your lumpy mattress?” or “When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep?” This is a good strategy because you’re automatically creating a bond with your reader. If your reader answers “yes” to your question, he will be able to relate, and if he is able to relate, then he will be interested.

The First Line

But asking a question isn’t the only way to start an article. If you can make it work, then an anecdote might be perfect for your article. Maybe you could tell a story about a friend of yours who didn’t want to buy the bed at first but was persuaded to do so after a bit of prodding. And then give them a punch line. It has to be funny, or at the very least, unexpected. Maybe you could end your anecdote by saying that your friend went to your office, fuming. He kept on glaring at you so you asked him what was wrong. And then he answered, “I got into trouble at work because of your bed”. And so you ask him why and he answers that he woke up late because the bed was so comfortable. You’ll have showcased how comfortable your bed is and entertained your readers at the same time.

Again, there’s no exact formula for starting to write an article, just let your imagination run wild.

Publishing a book is one of the best ways to build credibility and gain exposure. Not only can it position you as an expert in your field but it could also open the door to entirely new opportunities just because you are now an author. Indeed, almost any author will tell you the best thing they ever did was publish their first book.

There are three primary options for getting your book published. The easiest way is to self-publish the book yourself, meaning you complete the work and send it to a printer. Done. The second option is to use an independent publisher. These are legitimate publishers but they’re smaller than the big boys and tend to specialize in one area or another. The last option is the most ambitious and it involves the industry majors like Penguin and Random House.

Any aspiring author would prefer to get their book published by a major publishing house. It gives you far more credibility and enhances your chances of selling the book once it’s on retail shelves. But getting one of the big publishers to publish your book is no easy task. There are a number of things you need to keep in mind before you even get started.

Most importantly, the big publishing houses only work with proven authors. That means it’s extremely difficult to get them to work with you on your first book. They want to know you’ve successfully sold books before. And if it’s your first book, you better have an impressive platform and an audience you can easily tap into to promote sales. Bottom line; they don’t really care what your book is about. Their top priority is your ability to sell it.

The big publishers generally don’t deal directly with the author anyway. They prefer to deal through Literary Agents. These are basically screeners who receive hundreds of book proposals each month and sift through them looking for those with real potential. Getting a Literary Agent is step one if you hope to get your book published by one of the big publishing houses.

A great way to find Literary Agents is to go to a book store and find books similar to the one you’d like to write. Then look at the acknowledgments. In most cases, the authors will thank their agents in that section and you can simply make note of their names and then look them up on Google. Then contact them and see if they’re accepting new proposals.

Book proposals for the big publishing houses are generally quite large. It’s not unusual for the proposal to be 100 pages long. In fact, you’re almost better off writing the entire book ahead of time and then putting the proposal together afterwards. You’ll end up including a sample chapter in the proposal anyway and there are plenty of other things it should include. You can find more information about what needs to be included by doing a Google search for book proposal.

Getting your first book published by one of the industry majors is difficult but it’s not impossible. Do your research on the front end and learn how the system works. That will be your greatest asset when starting the process. You can find a lot more tips and tricks for getting books published on my website and I hope you take advantage of the free information available there.

Publishing a book is one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert in your field. Not only that but the book demonstrates your expertise in its best and most organized format. And perhaps the biggest advantage of all is that your book allows people to be introduced to your expertise without you doing a thing. Yes, you have to write it and get it published. And you also have to market it. But after that, you can sit back and let people read it on their own time.

So let’s talk about some of the realities behind publishing your own book. The biggest misconception people have about the process is that the publishing company does the marketing. Untrue. Regardless of the publishing company you use, the responsibility falls squarely on the author. And that’s a rude awakening for most aspiring authors.

Marketing is no easy task and the biggest priority of publishers considering your book proposal is NOT the quality of your writing or the brilliance of your idea but your ability to market you own book. Yes, it’s true. The biggest thing publishers look for when they evaluate book proposals is your audience and your following. They call it your platform and it refers to the activities you do everyday that put you in front of potential buyers.

The best thing you can do to increase the odds of your book proposal getting accepted by a publisher is to build your platform. Whether that includes workshops and seminars, press releases and media publicity, interviews and special events, blogging and podcasting or internet marketing, publishers need to know you have a strategy to promote your book and the tools necessary to pull it off. Indeed, they’re looking for a certain amount of star power.

If you don’t have a platform when you submit your book proposal, it won’t even get a second glance. That’s why it’s absolutely imperative to get the process started early. Offer workshops and seminars. Develop a website and build awareness and traffic. Use press releases to announce events or special milestones. Write articles, both online and off. Look for speaking engagements to build credibility and gain exposure. These are the things publishers will favor when evaluating your proposal.

Another misconception about getting a book published is that you’ll make money in the process. Unfortunately, this is rarely true on the first book. As an unproven author, you won’t be able to negotiate a big percentage in the book deal and the marketing campaign will devour most of the profits. The primary objective behind your first book should be to build credibility, gain exposure and validate your abilities as an author, including marketing. If you succeed, you’ll get a much better deal on your second book and that’s where you can start making money.

Publishing a book can be one of the best steps a person can take when developing a business. It sets you apart from the vast majority of others in your field and people will forever more treat you differently. But you also have to be realistic with the process and that’s what this article is all about. There is lots of information that can support the development of a platform and the marketing requirements on the Tactical Execution website and I encourage you to take advantage of those resources.

There are basically three options for getting your book published. You can try to get your book proposal accepted by one of the industry giants like Penguin or Random House but that’s a tough road. Those companies only work with proven authors or those who already have huge platforms and salivating audiences. Having said that, if you manage to get accepted, you’ll end up with a huge implied endorsement and a ton of indisputable credibility.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could self-publish your own book. The nice thing about this approach is that the only person who has to approve your book is you! If you want to publish your own book, go right ahead. In fact, given the advancements in technology, you can do exactly that and order as little as one book at a time. The downside is that the credibility is far lower than with a major publisher.

These two options seem to be on opposite ends of the continuum and indeed have plenty of differences between them. Luckily, there’s a third category that sits comfortably in the middle. It’s the category of smaller independent publishers and there are thousands of them. They range from very small mom and pop operations to well-established significant publishers. They tend to specialize in one genre or another and often become leaders in their area of expertise.

Soliciting the independent publishers is a great way for a new author to break into the market. Find one that specializes in your particular area and visit their website. They will tell you exactly how they want to be solicited and you’re well advised to follow their guidance. Find out exactly what they’re looking for and then cater your proposal to their specific requirements.

It’s not necessary to have a Literary Agent when soliciting independent publishers. Don’t get me wrong. Having an agent is always a good idea. But you do have some additional options when dealing with the niche players and many will accept proposals directly. Most want you to send it to their Acquisitions Editor but I recommend checking with their website before addressing the envelope.

Getting a book advance is less common when dealing with independent publishers. It’s not impossible but I wouldn’t bank on it. The upside is you’ll have more access to the people reviewing your proposal and that’s half the battle. Don’t pester them. They probably get a few hundred proposals each month. But a polite and well placed phone call rarely hurts and it gives the editor a chance to hear your speaking voice at the same time.

Becoming an author is something you only do once. Once you’ve published your first book, you will forever more be an author. And it can change your life, not to mention your career. Don’t waste your time approaching one of the industry giants when your odds of being accepted are significantly less than 1%. Instead, find an independent publisher that specializes in the subject you’re considering and target your efforts accordingly.

Tactical Execution has made a business of helping others achieve their goals. We provide implementation solutions for a wide variety of marketing objectives and all our programs are designed to maximize immediate results. Please visit the website to take advantage of all the free resources available there.