Anne H. Janzer's Blog, page 29

Perennial Seller (A Book Review)

The Short Version: A Welcome Focus on the Long Haul

In an age of short attention spans, failing fast, and unicorns, Ryan Holiday has written a refreshing book about creating work that lasts. The advice in Perennial Seller applies to all creative endeavors, from building companies to writing books. It’s both realistic and inspiring.

The Long Version: A Worthy Read for Writers and Marketers Alike

On my blog here, I review books about marketing and about writing. Perennial Seller, by Ryan Holiday, works for both groups.

Holiday lays down the challenge right in the title – create something that keeps selling. He challenges us to do work that has a chance of lasting – perhaps ten years, maybe longer.

Sounds obvious, right? But we’re surrounded by short-term thinking in every aspect of our lives.

This quote (page 3) really resonated:

People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds. They want to make something timeless, but they focus instead on immediate payoffs and instant gratification.”

If you want to do work that matters, you may have to combine a long view with a great deal of work, a bit of faith, and a lot of luck.

The book has four sections that mirror the process of creating work that lasts.

Part One covers the creative process. Writes Holiday,

We must set out, from the beginning, with complete and total commitment to the idea that our best chance of success starts during the creative process.”

This kind of commitment isn’t easy. It requires sacrifice, time, patience and effort. And there are no guarantees.

Yet when reading a book I can tell, almost instantly, if the author was trying to create something that lasts, or something that fills a fleeting need, makes a quick buck, and disappears. It’s much more exciting, as a reader, to become personally invested in work meant to last.

Part Two describes positioning – this is for the marketers among you! Positioning for the long-term requires that you focus on the audience needs rather than your own.

Part Three covers marketing. Here, too, Holiday has terrific advice for book authors in particular about avoiding the obvious paths and choosing strategies that support sustained growth.

In Part Four, building and maintaining a perennial seller’s platform is a job that is never done, nor would we want it to be. If we care about what we do, if we’re doing work that matters, then we must invest in the platform.

For writers and potential authors, Perennial Seller offers realistic advice and motivation to work on your craft and create something meaningful rather than fast.

For marketers, the book is an important reminder to focus on the long-term relationship with the customer. It’s hard to build a business that endures based on fleeting transactions. Ongoing customer relationships will give your business staying power.

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How to Give Effective Writing Feedback (Part Two)

Delivering Feedback That Makes a Difference

Do you feel flattered when someone asks for your feedback on their writing? Don’t get ahead of yourself – your brilliant wisdom and advice may fall on deaf ears if you don’t deliver it in a way that the writer will absorb.

The first post in this series talked about how to clarify the writer’s needs and expectations in this situation. With that insight, you understand what kind of comments to provide.

How you deliver your feedback can be almost as important as what you say.

Writers Can Be Tetchy

Remember how you felt as a student, getting writing assignments back covered in correction and commentary? If so, you can empathize with the writer. Receiving constructive criticism about your writing can be painful.

Even if the writer truly wants honest feedback to make the work better, some part of them doesn’t want to hear it. And, if a work colleague includes you in a mandatory review process, watch out. They may be even less open to to any changes you suggest.

Your goal: Deliver feedback in a way that preserves the relationship, while guiding the writer to improve the piece.

Go ahead and mark up a copy all you want, but don’t dump it all back on the writer. Take a moment to frame the comments carefully, or you may cross the fine line between constructive and negative feedback.

Here are a few guides for offering review comments.

Judge the Writing, Not the Writer

Many writers take criticism and feedback personally, as an indictment of their skills and abilities. Focus your comments on the project itself, rather than the writer.

Instead of this: Your writing style is too formal.

Try this: This piece is more formal than the other content the company produces. 

Even if you (privately) think the writing is terrible, don’t tear into the writer. Your job is to help the person make this particular piece better, not to “fix” them as a writer. If the person repeatedly receives and absorbs helpful and constructive feedback, their skills will improve over time.

Differentiate Between Objective and Subjective Issues

Certain types of feedback are always valid and important, no matter what your role in the review process. These include:

Spelling errors and typos
Factual mistakes
Violations of corporate naming conventions

Other comments and suggestions fall into a gray area:

Issues of style and tone
Whether or not something is confusing to you
Which grammatical rules to adhere to

If your feedback falls into this category, present it as your opinion, rather than fact. For example: I find this text confusing.

Perhaps the writer’s style plays fast and loose with grammatical rules. That may be an intentional choice. Ad copy, for example, makes effective use of sentence fragments.

Frame the Feedback for the Reader

Filter your subjective responses through target audience’s perspective. If you aren’t part of that target audience, then your personal preferences may not matter.

Read that one more time: If you aren’t the target audience, your opinions may not matter.

For example, if you’re reviewing a manual intended for auto mechanics and you have never once opened the hood of a car, your subjective responses to the text may be irrelevant.

Focusing on the reader also helps the writer think beyond themselves while receiving the feedback. Remember, the content’s job is to serve the reader.

Frame critical feedback from the reader’s perspective. For example: Our customers include many people for whom English is a second language. Consider using a simpler sentence structure so they can read and understand this with less effort.

Focus on What, Not How

The review process is a golden opportunity for writers to get perspectives beyond their own and to defeat the Curse of Knowledge. (See Three Reasons It’s Hard to Write For Your Audience.)

As a reviewer, you can help the writer by reporting honestly what doesn’t work for you:

Sentences that you have to read twice
Words or acronyms that are unfamiliar
Anything you find confusing or unclear

However, it’s not your job to tell the writer how to fix the problems. That’s a matter of opinion. The writer may have their own ideas about the craft, and yours may not be welcome.(You can offer help, though.)

As author Neil Gaiman advises writers:

“When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”  (See Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing post.)

Related Resources

The first post in this series: How To Give Feedback on Other People’s Writing (Part One)

My free online course on Managing the Review Process

The post How to Give Effective Writing Feedback (Part Two) appeared first on Anne Janzer.

The Power of Moments (A Book Review)

The Short Version: A Must-Read for Subscription Marketers

The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact should be required reading for marketers who participate in the Subscription Economy. The book both inspires and instructs us in creating the moments and experiences that foster meaningful connections, in our lives and businesses alike. Oh, it’s also well-written and entertaining.[image error]

The Long Version: Why Moments Matter

In Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath taught us how to make our ideas “stickier.” In Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, they showed us how to look beyond the rational mind to find other motivators of human behavior and beliefs.

To these valuable lessons, they’ve now added a third, about creating meaningful moments. The Power of Moments may be the most important of the three books, because it applies equally well to our business and personal lives.

The lessons of this book are invaluable for businesses that participate in the Subscription Economy – or any business that depends on sustaining long-term relationships with customers. Which is to say, nearly any business.

If you practice marketing in the Subscription Economy, you must realize this:

Subscription business success isn’t about the stuff you sell – it’s about the relationship.

Instead of transactions, focus on moments.

Moments Large and Small

Stuck with a magnet to my refrigerator is a photo of a mountainous profiterole slathered in chocolate sauce. Looking at it, I relive a surprising and funny experience at a small restaurant in an outer neighborhood of Paris.

I could tell you the story of the lively discussions with the waiter, the enormous portions of the entrees, the waiter’s insistence that we could split a “small desert,” and the giant tub of chocolate sauce that topped the whole thing off. But the story loses something in the telling. As the saying goes, you had to be there – and that’s the point. 

The way that the dessert was delivered transformed the evening from a lovely meal to an unforgettable experience. Experiences like this are special to those who are present, as they happen. These fleeting moments last in our memories and color our perceptions.

We all have important, defining events in our lives: weddings, graduations, births, deaths. The big ones are important, but the smaller ones enrich our lives as well:  the memorable exchange with friends, an unexpected gesture, words of wisdom imparted from a mentor. These moments shape our lives and relationships.

In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath suggest that we don’t have to leave these experiences to chance. We can make the time and space for them, and create them with intention. In the business context, we can plan and execute special moments for our customers.

Moments in the Customer Experiences

Successful customer experience isn’t only about smoothing out the obstacles and friction in the customer’s path.

Enthusiastic customer loyalty usually grows from critical moments – when the customer service agent goes the extra distance to resolve a problem creatively, or the business does something unexpected that surpasses expectations, or an employee makes a meaningful connection with a customer.

Those events build the exceptional customer experience – and they are often within our control as businesses.

The authors describe four general categories of special moments:

Elevation (the unexpected touch that elevates an interaction)
Pride (a recognition of a customer achievement)
Insight
Connection

The book offers solid advice on how to build those moments, such as turning “pits” into “peaks,” breaking the script of business-as-usual, and so on. Examples drawn from many different contexts make the book entertaining and instructive.

From Prosaic to Special

In one of my favorite quotes from the book, the authors exhort us to “recognize where the prose of life needs punctuation” and build moments around it.

Prosaic customer interactions can also benefit from moments.

For example, the café chain Pret a Manger empowers its employees to spontaneously give away a certain number of food or drink items every week. Employees can choose the recipients, and the actions are  random enough to delight unsuspecting customers.

How much fun would it be to approach business in this way, for your employees and customers alike? What if you can translate routine customer transactions into something more meaningful or unexpected?

Value Nurturing and Moments

If you’ve read Subscription Marketing or my previous writing about value nurturing as a marketing activity, you may recognize the alignment between these special moments and the practices of nurturing the customer’s perception of value:

If you create moments of pride by celebrating customer successes and transitions, you’re adding value to the customer relationship.
If you create and foster community among your members and craft moments of connection, you’re adding value through community

Moments of insight, connection, pride, and elevation add intangible value to the customer experience, no matter what you’re selling.

For example, does your business notice or remark on customer transitions or successes? When a customer chooses to unsubscribe, can you mark the occasion with something more meaningful than an exit survey? What if you crafted special moments for transitions, or created reasons to celebrate your customers’ acheivements?

The Power of Moments should inspire you to look at ordinary transactions, customer transitions, and even service failures as opportunities to add lasting value to the customer relationship.

 

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2018: The Subscription Economy Gains Speed

It’s the first monthly round-up of Subscription Marketing news for 2018 – and I have a feeling that this year is going to be a doozy.

The pace of change seems to be accelerating with each passing year, although perhaps that’s because I finally got around to reading Thank You For Being Late by Thomas Friedman over the holidays. (The irony of waiting a year to read it has not escaped me.)

But when it comes to the Subscription Economy, let’s look around for a moment and see where we are, in January of 2018.

In the Rear View Mirror: The Holidays

Subscriptions made big strides this holiday season.

First, my personal data point. After writing about the pros and cons of gift subscriptions, I went ahead and gave subscription gifts to my own family:

To my son, a New York Times digital subscription
To my daughter, a year’s subscription to the Big Idea book club
To my mother,  a subscription to her favorite source of foreign television mysteries, the MHZ network

They’re all media (although the book club ships physical books.) We’ll see how much the recipients like them over time.

But Amazon gave itself the gift that keeps on giving – more subscribers.

According to Amazon’s press release, over the course of a single week, more than four million people signed up for Prime memberships.

Four million!

Remember that Amazon shoppers who are Prime members buy more from Amazon than those who aren’t. Each of those new members represents not only the membership fee, but ongoing sales. This is a great start to the new year for the company.

You may be wondering how many people signed up for trials (to get the free shipping), and won’t convert to paid members.  No doubt, some. But Amazon is masterful at enticing subscribers to stay. My money is on them having a good conversion rate.

Where We Are Right Now

On one morning this week, people contacted me from France and Brazil about the practices in my book, Subscription Marketing. Add that to the success of the Japanese language edition of the book, and something’s happening globally.

Want to read about subscription marketing in French? Here you go.  Now I know how to say value nurturing in French (nourrir la valeur).

Every day I see great examples of companies doing value nurturing. For example, TripAdvisor sent a video, which it personalized, about the impact of the reviews I’d written in 2017. There’s a good use of customer data. Here’s my video.

Plus, the volume of news about subscription businesses is simply getting to be more than I can filter. Subscription Insider does a great job of collecting and curating this, by the way.

But, I’ve put together a few things to check out. So, pour yourself a cup of subscription coffee (Blue Bottle At-Home?) and look/listen to this list:

An investor’s perspective on the Subscription Economy – Nihil Basu Trivedi of Shasta Ventures is a guest on the Zuora Subscribed podcast.

Subscribed Podcast: Nikhil Basu Trivedi on D2C Subscription Businesses

The Rise of Subscription Boxes: What Makes Us Sign Up? This post talks about fashion boxes, but really, the behavior applies to all kinds of subscription retail.

15 SaaS Retention Strategies and Subscription Renewal Best Practices. Check out this meaty, strategy-filled post from Barry Feldman.

Subscription Marketing: 2nd Edition. In case you haven’t read it yet, this represents my best advice about subscriptions. I’m experimenting with Amazon’s suggested pricing, which means that you can get the Kindle version for $3.49. Yes, apparently that is the optimal price for that book. Who am I to argue with Amazon?

The Road Ahead: Events in 2018

Get out your calendar and see where these upcoming events might fit:

 

March 12-13, New York

SUBCOM 2018 East

The lineup for this event in March looks fabulous, with speakers from Match.com, Book of the Month, ZipCar, and McAfee all sharing their subscription lessons.

May 30-June 1, Denver

Subscription Summit

This is the annual conference for subscription box companies, hosted by the Subscription Box Trade Association (SUBTA).  Early bird pricing ends soon.

June 7-8, 2018, Campinas/SP Brazil

Superlogica Xperience

This is Latin America’s biggest SaaS event.

What’s Your Next Move?

Without predicting the future, I can safely say this: standing still is not an option. If you’re not yet offering subscriptions, you’ll probably need to. And if you are, you’ll need to up your game, adding value to the subscriber experience, to keep ahead of an increasingly crowded field.

What are your plans?

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How to Give Feedback on Other People’s Writing (Part One)

If you identify as a writer, people will ask you for feedback on their writing. These requests come in many forms:

A friend’s son asks if you can look at a college essay
A work colleague emails you a project report to review
A relative shows you a memoir they’re writing
Your spouse asks you to look through an important email before sending it

Each situation calls for a different type of feedback: a gentle nudge, thoughtful critique, careful questions, or detailed proofreading.

If you don’t read the situation correctly, you can damage the relationship with the writer and do a disservice to the writing itself.

My great-uncle was an esteemed educator, composer, and professor. (Name withheld to protect his memory!) People who wrote to him often found their letters returned covered in red ink. Students, relatives, strangers—no one was immune from the scourge of his editorial eye.

I’d start sweating merely writing a note on a Christmas card!

Perhaps it was an intentional strategy to keep his list of correspondents short.

If that’s the persona you want to cultivate, go for it. But you may alienate your friends and colleagues.

Before providing feedback, you’ll need to understand two variables: the stage of the writing project and the writer’s specific needs for feedback.

Know the Project’s Stage

To everything, there is a season… and an appropriate type of feedback for every stage of a writing project. (Bonus points for humming the tune from The Byrds after reading that sentence.)

For example, authors sometimes ask me to look at the structure and general approach of a book manuscript. In the world of books, this is a developmental edit. I resist the temptation to fix grammar or comment on word choice at this point – it’s too early. Those words may disappear in further revisions.

Match your feedback to the writing stage.

Early in a project’s development, provide feedback on the big picture: how well the structure achieves its purpose and meets audience needs, and so on. For projects that are farther along, style and clarity are fair game.

If something is about to be published, focus on typos, grammatical issues, or details that are easy to fix. Publication day is not the time to suggest structural changes unless you see a dire problem.

Professional editors differentiate between developmental edits, line edits, copy edits, and proofreading. Many people don’t know or use those terms. Ask leading questions to figure out the current stage of the work and the writer’s expectations:

How far along is this piece in its development? Do you feel like you’re almost done working on it?
What kind of feedback are you looking for?
Is anyone going to proofread it, or would you like me to do that?

Knowing the stage helps you figure how what level of feedback to offer. But that’s not enough to be effective in your comments.

What Does the Writer Need?

There’s a reason that the person is asking you for feedback.

Are you particularly familiar with the topic or audience?
Does the writer want your advice on writing style? On content? Both?

Perhaps they’re only looking for affirmation or support. In this situation, a raft of critical comments might do more harm than good. Try supportive guidance instead – validation and confidence may be more valuable for this writer than a detailed copyedit.

Effective editors balance feedback with the writer’s needs

Make sure you understand the purpose of the piece:

Who is the target audience?
Why will they read it?
What is the writer trying to achieve?

Once you’ve clarified your mission as a reviewer, deliver exactly what you have permission to provide.

Stay In Your Lane

You may be tempted to overstep the bounds of your assignment. Use caution.

When asked to review something, my first instinct is to start reworking because I love revising and polishing. But, having been the recipient of unwanted revisions in the past, I’ll ask permission first: This could be clearer – may I revise a section to show you what I mean?

Sometimes, the answer is no, and that’s fine. I don’t want to turn into my great uncle.

Related Resources

In the perfect world, writers would give you all of this information when they ask for feedback. We don’t live in a perfect world, but we can make it a better one! Send the writers you work with to my free course on Managing the Review Process.

The next post in this series will cover how to deliver writing feedback that makes the work better.

The post How to Give Feedback on Other People’s Writing (Part One) appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Enlisting Your Future Self as Your Writing Partner

Writing can be a tough and lonely road – and sticking to long-term writing plans bedevils many aspiring writers. So writers look for external support for their processes, and accountability for their goals.

These external supports may include:

In-person writing or critique groups
Social media groups (Facebook groups are a popular option)
Writing coaches

But there’s someone else standing by, ready to help if you ask.

Your best, strongest coach and accountability partner might just be … your future self.

The Power of the Future Self

I’m not trying to get all new-age, touch-feely here. Cognitive science backs me up on this one.

Visualizing and empathizing with a future version of yourself can help you resist temptation and do the work to achieve long-term goals.

You have probably heard about about Walter Mischel’s famous marshmallow studies, in which  the ability or preschool children to delay gratification eerily foretold future success in life. One strategy young children used to distract themselves from the treats in front of them was visualizing how proud they would be when they succeeded. (You can read more in the book The Marshmallow Test.)

They resisted the immediate gratification of the treat for the sake of their (near-term) future selves.

Psychologists and others speak of individuals and cultures with a “future orientation.” The ability to envision and plan for the future is critical to both personal and societal success. The more clearly you can envision the future, the better your chances of sticking to a long-term plan.

Or, as Ed Yong writes in an article in The Atlantic, “Self-control is just empathy with a future you.”

Before you can empathize with this future self, you have to get to know that person a bit better.

Envisioning Your Self in a Better Future

What are you trying to achieve with your writing? If it all goes as well as possible, what will your life be like in a few years?

The first step is to form some picture of your life after you’ve achieved your long-term writing goals. Pick a time far enough in the future that you feel “different” than you right now, but not so far off that you don’t recognize yourself. A few years may be enough.

Whether you’re writing a book or blogging consistently, what kind of personal transformation would you look for? How would your career change, or your sense of yourself?   How do you feel about yourself and your work? What kind of advice would you give other people just setting out on this path?

Spend some time thinking about this future version of yourself. It’s reverse planning – instead of thinking of the tasks you want to do, imagine the inner state you want to reach, and figure out how to get there.

Once you can imagine this future person, make friends with them. You will want to call on them, again and again.

My future Anne will talk me down from distractions and calls me out on rationalizations and digressions. She’s definitely wiser than I am.

Get comfortable with the idea of “future you” as one of your advisors.

When You Should Check In

Now that your future self is on board, take advantage of their advice when you most need it:

When motivation slips – as it often does on a long-term project
When you are tempted with other, more immediately gratifying projects
When you are stretching the boundaries of your comfort zone – say, asking a big-name author for a blurb or interview
When you have a difficult decision to make, such as whether to partner with a co-author or how to publish

In each of these situations, try checking in with your future self.

You might use a freewriting exercise to interview your future self about the situation you’re facing. Or, write yourself a letter of advice from your future self.

Sometimes, simply contemplating the future version of yourself shifts your perspective so you can spot the right course or take an uncomfortable risk.

For example, say you have to speak in public or shoot a video – something you haven’t done before. What about five years from now – will this still be frightening? Or will it be old hat?

Simply envisioning that version of yourself can give you the confidence to proceed.

Likewise, if you are offered an opportunity that does not fit well into your future vision, that’s reason to pause and think carefully before proceeding.

Becoming the Future

The more you check in with this other version of your self, the more they become part of your current being. Your activities and decisions begin to manifest the person you plan to be. And you may become the writer you envision being.

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2018: Are You Ready for the Changes Ahead?

For indie authors, 2017 was a year filled with change. 2018 will be no different! Read my manifesto on handling change in this Nonfiction Authors Association blog post.

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Reviews Make You a Better Business Writer

If you write on the job, then you know that you’re not really done with a project until it makes it through reviews and approvals.

A lingering review process can add weeks or months to a project, frustrating everyone involved.

Many writers think of the review/approval process as the last hurdle that their work has to clear. It’s something to get over, get past, or even (sometimes) sneak around.

What if you changed your mindset about reviews and planned for them from the start? What would happen if, instead of treating the review process as a hurdle, you saw it as an objective and a goal?

This simple shift in mindset can make you more productive and effective while improving your writing.

Become a More Productive Writer

If you’re writing in the workplace, it doesn’t matter how many words you can write in an hour or a day. What matters is how much of your content reaches its target audience.

Your writing productivity is measured in finished projects.

If you don’t plan in advance for reviews and approvals, your work can linger there for weeks, months, or longer. You might also end up having to revise the content multiple times to please various stakeholders.

A little advanced planning can reduce the chance of rework and revision. And by proactively managing reviews and approvals, you can ensure your content reaches is readers quickly.

It’s worth spending a little time at the start of your writing project to ensure that the “last mile” will be successful.

Reviews Make You a Better Writer

Even if you don’t need anyone to sign off on your work, it’s still a good idea to run your work past other people for feedback and perspective.

The review process is your last chance to check for errors, problems, omissions, and anything else that can get in the way of achieving your objectives. It’s one more opportunity to make sure that the work meets the readers’ needs, not just your own.

Reviews, done right, protect the quality of the work.

A Free Online Course on the Review Process

I’ve put together a short, free online course on Mastering the Review and Approval Process. Here’s what we’ll cover:

How to get your writing projects approved quickly and out into the world
How to get the right people to provide feedback on the right things
How to ask for reviews in a way that improves responses

In three quick lessons, I’ll share strategies that you can use for your next project to improve its chances of sailing through reviews and approvals.

Sign up for the free course here.

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What’s Your Mountain?

“A mountain is just a series of hills.”

My father gave me that advice as I hesitated atop a particularly lengthy, mogul-filled ski run. Dad was a wonderful skier and my first ski instructor. He understood that standing atop that slope, I needed perspective and courage, not instruction.

A mountain is just a series of hills, strung together. I knew how to ski a hill or a short run, so I could do this.

Breaking difficult runs into segments gave me the courage to point the skis down the slope. I learned to pick a safe point beyond the first headwall to regroup and plan out what would happen next. Then I would visualize a plan to cover the ground between me and that point – plotting a course through the moguls or estimating how many turns to make on a steep headwall.

Instead of fearing what lay beyond, I focused on mastering the shorter stretch in front of me.

His advice stuck with me, resurfacing whenever I face a a larger challenge. It applies to many challenges in life, including writing.

Tackling the Big Writing Project

Many people have valuable information or great stories to share. But they hesitate to undertake such a long, difficult task with uncertain outcomes, and in hesitating miss the opportunities for personal growth that come from completing this kind of project.

Writing a book may seem like starting down a long, black-diamond ski run, particularly if you have never done it before. But it’s not an insurmountable challenge.

Writing a book is a series of manageable tasks, strung together with courage and fortitude.

A nonfiction book, for example, is the result of research, careful thought and analysis, planning, outlining, drafting, and revision. Taken individually, none of these activities is inherently dangerous, difficult, or daunting. You could figure any one of them out, given time and attention.

Fiction-writing processes vary: you may plot then write, or discover the plot through writing. You may wind back, abandon parts, regroup and reorganize. But still, it’s writing, word by word, hour by hour. You know how to do this.

Starting Isn’t the Hardest Part

The downhill skier benefits from gravity and urgency. You’ll reach the bottom of the hill eventually, even if you fall. And you can’t hang out on the slopes for too long without freezing over.

Writers can stop at any time. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

You can pause in the process to rest, refresh, or ask for advice and guidance. You can delay the writing when life intercedes, or change course with the book when a option opens up, like a skier spotting a more interesting trail partway down the mountain.

But it’s also easy – tempting, even – to abandon course partway through. From the midpoint, a book project can feel particularly daunting.

Halfway through, you may shudder at the scope of the draft remaining, or the amount of revision the work will take. You may start to question your writing, judgment, or sanity. And many people abandon their books, without reaching an end

But if you keep taking it one section at a time, eventually you reach the end, a different person than you started out.

What’s Your Mountain?

What if you think of your book as your mountain, and have the faith to set out on it?

You may not see the entire course from this vantage point, but you can pick off the terrain that lies ahead, the first chunk of the work.

Perhaps you can start with deep, intentional research, or freewriting on a topic. Your next step might be creating an outline, followed by drafting one specific section.

Divide the larger project into its component parts, and then start on the next logical step. As you go, keep track of where each step fits into the overall project, so you can track your progress.

Create Your Own Gravity

Commit to the project the way that a skier commits to the mountain – by pointing the skis down the fall line and getting going.

Give yourself some momentum.

Since you don’t have gravity, use other tactics to keep yourself going when the work is frightening:

Set short-term goals as well as long-term ones
Create a plan to meet your next short-term goal
Let other people hold you accountable

The short-term goals are the key to getting your long-term plans done.

I apply my dad’s advice regularly when setting long-term goals.

At the start of each year, I have many annual objectives, but a year is simply too long and uncertain an interval to set concrete plans.

Who knows what will be happening a year from now?

But this next quarter – that’s something I can plan for and execute on.

How about you? What’s your mountain? Do you yearn to tackle a big project?

What can you get done toward that project in the next quarter? The next month?
Given that, what needs to happen next week?

Take a look at the next steps – those right in front of you. Short-term goals are the ones that get you out of bed in the morning. The whole project might seem frightening or huge, but this next part? You’ve got this.

 

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Subscription Marketing: Was 2017 The Chasm Year?

If you’ve read Geoffrey Moore’s seminal book Crossing the Chasm, then you know that there’s a point at which a new technology goes from early adopter to mainstream acceptance. Getting to that point is the hard part – a chasm in which many startups flounder.

The subscription business model isn’t a startup or technology, but it shares many similar hurdles. This revenue model has struggled to get past skeptics as it enters new industries, and to be taken seriously as the game-changer it truly is.

When I first published Subscription Marketing in 2015, some people thought it only applies to newspapers and magazines.

Things have changed.

I suggest that 2017 was the year that the subscription-business model crossed the chasm into mainstream adoption. These are a few of the indications on which I base this assertion:

2017 saw several notable IPOs of subscription-based businesses, including Stitch Fix, Roku, and Blue Apron.
See this CNBC article about how companies like Stitch Fix resist the “subscription box” label. Once people start arguing over labels, you know you’re getting somewhere.
Some people say the whole subscription thing is a bubble – surely a sign that it’s hit a critical mass.
Wall Street finally understands subscription revenues. My mother, who follows earning reports, has started mentioning the impact of recurring revenues on publicly-traded companies she follows.

When my rather technophobic mother starts talking about something, you know you’ve hit a tipping point.

On a personal but related note, 2017 was a banner year for the book Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn.

The revised and expanded was published early this year.
The Japanese language version of the book came out in November in Japan, and became the bestselling book in several Amazon Japan categories, including marketing and advertising.

Who knows what 2018 will bring?

Are You Giving Subscriptions as Gifts?

Subscription box companies have been appealing to gift-givers this holiday season. Yet I would suggest that you think carefully before embracing this trend. Read my post The Gift of Subscriptions: A Mixed Bag (or Box).

A Few Gift Options

If you are giving subscriptions as gifts, here are a few new or interesting options beyond magazines and fruit:

For the person who doesn’t like doing laundry: Subscription underwear! Fruit of the Loom has jumped into the subscription underwear business with Fruit to your door. It’s the largest entrant in a crowded market, with meundies, splendies, and panty drop. I’m not kidding.

For the car enthusiast: Depending on where you live, you might be able to give someone a new car… subscription. Ford has Canvas, Cadillac offers BOOK, and Porsche has the Passport program.

For the magazine reader: Rather than giving a subscription to a single magazine, give the recipient an online subscription to nearly any mainstream magazine with Texture.

Just for Fun

Watch the video for this humorous, seasonally-appropriate subscription offering: Coal.

Something For You

Treat yourself or the people who work with to advice that will build a better 2018.

Free online course: For anyone who writes in the workplace, I’ve created a free, short course on getting your work through reviews and approvals. Sign up for it here.

Bulk purchase discounts: Want to share your value nurturing philosophy with others? Take advantage of bulk pricing discounts for Subscription Marketing or any of my books.

What Are Your Predictions for 2018?

What do you think lies in store for marketers in 2018? For subscription based businesses? Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

The post Subscription Marketing: Was 2017 The Chasm Year? appeared first on Anne Janzer.