Lisa Tener's Blog: Lisa Tener's Writing/Publishing Blog, page 47

Book Spooks: The 13 Demons That Bar You From Writing Your Book -- And How to Slay Them

If you're like most Americans you share that dream of becoming a published author one day. Maybe it's for that new dream career of public speaker, coach or consultant. Or perhaps you want to transform the world one reader at a time. You might fancy yourself as the next Elizabeth Gilbert. Or you just have a story burning inside you.



Or maybe smoldering. You just can't seem to get that fire truly burning and write the darn thing. Sure, maybe you're not that serious. It's just a fun fantasy. But more likely there truly is a book inside you yearning to get out and you're just suffering from one of the 13 Demons of Book Block.



How do you slay your demons? Well, first you need to name them:



Phantom Priorities: Do you volunteer on numerous non-profit committees? Take on too many projects at work? You're going to have to say "no" to some things for a while and put your book first to get it written. And make e-mails and Internet surfing your reward for getting the writing done. Just don't do them first.



Boundary Bogeymen: Listening to the ranting of your former college roommate at three in the morning? No more. You'll need to set firm limits to get your book written.



The Troll of Time: No one has time to write a book. And most successful authors have less time than anyone. So you'll need to find time in your busy life. Schedule your book writing time into your calendar and keep it sacred -- like an important business meeting.



Overwhelm: It's easy to get caught in that thick soup of overwhelm. Find a step-by-step way to tackle your book one step at a time -- identify the book concept and write your outline before you ever write a word.



Muddle: A relative of overwhelm, muddle keeps you confused. Keep coming back to your outline and vision for the book. Find the support of a writing buddy or class to keep you clear and on track.



Fear of Failure: Oh that fiendish fear -- to slay it, you'll need to ask yourself, "What's the worst that can happen?" Truly imagine that. Can you be okay with it? Now you can focus on the best that can happen.



Fear of Success: Oh no! The best that can happen is you become rich and famous and the paparazzi follow you everywhere. No privacy. Or worse, you get lots of attention and people hate you. What do you do with that one? This truly is a realistic fear. We all fear change and success brings change. The more you can imagine your success and come to terms with it, the easier it will come.



Haze and Murk: If you're not clear of your vision and goals, you're more likely to fall into this trap. Write a vision statement and read it daily to serve as a beacon of clarity.



The Voice of Self Doubt: Maybe it was your fifth grade elementary school teacher. Maybe it was your dad. Someone told you that you couldn't write. Or children should be seen not heard. Or another of the endless variations that now play in your head. Change the station. Thank that voice and move on. And find supportive people to build confidence.



Vampires: You know those people who suck your energy when you talk about your creative pursuits. The solution is obvious -- never mention your book to them. And if they bring it up, change the subject. Married to a vampire? Um... garlic. And find a few book angels to even out the score.



The Ghoul of Perfectionism: Oh perfectionism looks all pretty on the outside, but it really just keeps you from getting words on the page. Allow yourself a lousy first draft and you can edit it (or have a professional go at it) later. No one writes perfect prose on the first try.



Lack of Knack: Maybe no one taught you to write well. Read a few good books on writing, starting with the classic, The Elements of Style and perhaps the newer Writing Tools. Take a class and learn from a seasoned pro. Most poor writers just never learned the skill -- maybe you were never taught. Remember, there are always good editors to take you to the next level.



Isolation: Don't write your book in seclusion -- get a community to support you -- a writing buddy, online class or workshop, or a coach can keep you accountable, confident and supported.



If you're ready to take those first few steps to writing your book, join me for a free book writing teleseminar, "Birth Your Book: From Inspiration to Published Author" on September 18 at 8:30 pm Eastern time. You'll learn the first five steps you need to get started, the decisions you need to make before you ever write a word, the most effective strategies to make time and stay committed and how to write a book that can attract top publishers.

Write the Right Book

As a book-writing coach I see one "issue" more than any other: authors and would-be authors who don't know what book to write. Either they write the wrong book (often) and have to start again -- often years later -- or they have so many ideas that five years after starting they still haven't decided on a topic. Truth be told, both behaviors are forms of writer's block.



So how do you know what book to write? I tell my authors to do a pre-book audit -- and it always works:



1. Identify the Vision for the Book. Let's say you're writing a book to help parents navigate the ways computers affect their children and you have an idea-a-minute. You likely have two or three books going on and yes, you have double or triple vision. Instead, begin by asking yourself the following and give one answer for each: a) What will this book do for your life, your work (or business), your lifestyle?; b) How will this book affect your readers? What will their lives be like before and after reading it?; and c) Imagine how your book will affect the larger world -- it will. In the earlier example, you may end up focusing solely on the Internet and protecting children, rather than all computer issues. If you can't state your vision in one sentence, it's not a workable vision.



2. Identify Your Core Readers. Many authors are confused about their audience. One day you're writing for people suffering from heart attacks; the next day your audience is lovesick singles. Once you've completed 1 above, picture a dartboard. The bull's eye is your core reader. That's the person you imagine when you're writing your title, your outline, your bio and every word in-between. Write with this core audience in mind and your book will be conversational (versus self-conscious), compelling (versus boring), and accessible (versus scattered) -- and it will have a lot more impact.



3. Clarify the Tone and the Features. Features include experiential exercises, callouts or sidebars or quotes in the margins, or perhaps graphs or an index as well as any artwork. Tone is the "voice" of the book. A children's book "speaks" in one "voice"; a parenting tome in another; one for those lovesick singles (of all ages) in another. It is best is to use your own natural writing voice as it comes out on the page with that core audience in mind. If you're not sure, find someone(s) who loves to read and reads books similar to yours and ask him/her to have a go at a few sample pages. Do this section only after completing 2 above.



4. Determine the Theme. If you're writing a memoir, you'll need to figure out what goes in and what stays out by identifying the core theme of the book -- i.e., learning to love food (for a chef). If a scene or vignette does not support the theme, it's out, no matter how funny or brilliant.



5. Determine the Scope. For how-to books in particular, you'll need to clarify both a) what level of information your readers want and need (for instance, how technical to get); and b) how much to give them in one book. Give your readers enough information to make a difference in their lives, but not so much that they are overwhelmed. Save the overflow for a second book, an article and/or an information product. And make sure you meet your readers where they are. For a book on philanthropy, for instance, your readers may not be ready to devote 10 hours a week to volunteering so start with a few hours a month. Feeling like a failure isn't a page-turner.



6. Structure Your Book. Starting to write before you have a structure is the number-one book-writing mistake. One-hundred percent of the time, the result is too much material and then, having to start over again, sometimes after years of work. So what is structure? For some, it's an outline; for others, it's a box of color-coded index cards in book-order with content, features/ideas on each one. Some authors I work with swear by mind-maps (diagrams representing ideas, tasks, words, etc. arranged around a central theme) to organize their books. Whatever you do, do it before you start to write. Yes, it will change as you go along but without a foundation there is nothing to evolve from.



Done with your pre-book audit? Now, it's time to start writing! Are you finding it challenging to find the time to actually write? Author and Huffington Post blogger Roseann Bane offers a simple suggestion for making time to get your book written.



What are your biggest book writing challenges? Share them here to get advice.

The New Short Book Proposal

It seems everyone is writing a book these days and everyone seems to know that to sell that book, you need a book proposal. Many of us also know that book proposals are often as long and time-consuming as the books themselves! The good news is that some proposals are starting to shrink -- and if you can make the case for your book in fewer words, your chances of having it read may just be far greater.



Here's what you need to know to go short:



The Compelling Overview. Yes, as literary agent Jake Elwell of Harold Ober Associates says, nowadays we often buy books based on a two-minute decision after reading a synopsis on BN.com or amazon.com. Ditto for the proposal; it opens with an Overview and if you come up with a short, to-the-point Overview that you can picture on Amazon or BN.com and it grabs us all, you may very well be able to go short or at least shorter.



The Subject is Timely. Who wants to slog through 100 pages if a book needs to come out right away? If yours does, come to the point in your initial Overview and make it strong, compelling, succinct. Don't waste time -- it may be too late by the time you're done.



You're a Google Favorite. If you come up on Google -- whether or not you're famous -- so much so that editors will find a wealth of information about you/your subject -- you may want to take some pages off your proposal. Editors go to Google before anything else.



Your Online Presence Speaks For You. If you have a strong online presence -- period -- so editors or agents can find complete material online, you're a candidate, too. As Sandra Dijkstra, founder of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, says, in some cases proposals have gotten shorter because more of us are displaying our wares online. "We can use a bigger online presence to sell a shorter proposal to publishers for a full-length book."



You have a Snapshot Idea. As agent Miriam Altshuler, who recently sold a book on a five-page proposal, says, "some ideas are very snapshot and easy to define" but cautions you have to make a clear case for your book if you go short. I agree. For example, a client of mine wrote about raising a child diagnosed as severely autistic by following her own rules, not always those of the medical community. The result? That child just graduated from Brown University. That was a Snapshot.



You have Subject Momentum. Agent Deirdre Mullane recently sold the book Soldier Dogs to Dutton in a six-figure book deal and in a 15-page proposal (no sample chapters or chapter summaries) based on the author's platform, the subject of the book and the momentum carrying this subject, in this case "a leading reporter offers a tour of military working dogs' extraordinary training, heroic accomplishments and lasting impact... " Enough said.



You Know The Elements. You must know the key Proposal Elements in order to turn a longer version into something more abridged. They are: The Overview; Introduction; Book Concept; The Market; The Competition/Complementary Books; Promotion Plan; Author Platform; Table of Contents; Chapter Summaries or Outlines; Sample Chapter(s).



The Proposal is Distinct. This means that any one or several of the Elements is succinct, strong and compelling. For instance, a book offering alternatives to antidepressant usage describes its market as "people who are depressed, anxious or unhappy" along with statistics -- a huge market. Chapter Summaries are often half-pagers but you can go with a few sentences if they are quick, compelling and to-the-point. Mullane sometimes uses the book's introduction -- or part of it -- to replace the proposal Overview.



You have a Platform. Agent Michael Larsen defines Platform as, "your continuing visibility with potential buyers, online and off, on the subject of your book or the kind of book you're writing. Your promotion plan shows how you will leverage your platform to sell books." It can take 100 pages to prove you have a platform when in fact you don't. And you won't hide that a 2,000-person mailing list isn't the mid-five figures or more many a major publisher would love to see. So take time to platform-build before you send in a proposal. Whatever you do -- only put in your strong points. Do you blog for The Huffington Post? WebMD? Have key media appearances in print, radio and/or TV? Better a few power-packed sentences than pages that put editors and agents to sleep -- or worse, that they don't bother reading at all.



Read up on It. If you've never written a book proposal before, read Michael Larsen's How to Write a Book Proposal; Terry Whalin's Book Proposals that Sell; or Jeff Herman's Write the Perfect Book Proposal.

Platformania! Building the Best Book Platform

Everyone knows that you, the author or author-to-be, most likely can't get a top agent or publisher without a so-called "platform." And that what began as a simple way for those writing or planning to write books to market their wares has become an industry-wide panic button for them, instead. Let's just call it Platformania!



First, a definition. Platform is your reach or following online and off. It includes the number of people on your mailing list; your social media reach; traffic to your website and/or blog; traditional publicity in print, radio and/or TV (especially relevant if you have a column and/or radio or TV show); the number of people you reach via speaking engagements, teleseminars and webinars, and any other way you get in front of people.



For the bestselling author in all of us -- a simple Platform Primer:



1. Who needs a platform? Platforms lead to a lot more than a top agent or publishing house -- they get you jobs, they get you clients, they help sell products. So let's begin with who doesn't need a platform. If you never plan to write a book or need public attention for anything at all ever, don't bother.



2. Start now. A client of mine spent more than a year building enough of a platform -- mainly high profile blog columns and an active, engaging Twitter presence -- in his competitive niche (relationships and dating) to attract the attention of a top agent and publisher. It's like saving money -- start saving as a kid, not ten years from your desired retirement. As a result of his platform, a top ten publisher contacted him before his agent sent his book proposal out!



3. It's the engagement -- not the numbers. Platform is not only about numbers -- it's about how engaged people are with you. For instance, writing comments on your blog posts, re-tweeting you, calling in to your radio show, putting your YouTube videos on their Facebook page and website, buying your information or book-related products.



4. Know the elements. Begin by creating an up-to-date checklist of Platform Elements and how engaged others are with them (see definition above for additional elements): a) do you have a website? What kind of traffic does it get (in unique visitors per month)?, b) do you blog?, c) and social media? What do people see when they Google your name? Is it what you want them to see? And again, how engaged are people you connect with?, d) have you received media attention? If so, where? (see definition above for additional elements).



5. Choose a start point. You can't be everywhere at once and do everything well. Focus on the biggest possible results by a) determining your target audience (let's say lovesick singles); b) figuring out where among the platform elements they hang out (Online? Off? Facebook? LinkedIin? Are they magazine readers? TV watchers?); and add in c) what interests/excites you (i.e., you hate being online and love watching talk shows.) Begin with rough estimates, i.e., singles in their 20s and 30s are on Facebook; they also read fashion magazines. Fine. Let's begin.



6. Invest in education: Ask, "How can I get training to do this well or better?" If you identify having others -- i.e., journalists -- interview you as a platform element detail, get some media training. If you've never blogged, find an expert to help you develop a blogging strategy and a results-driven editorial calendar. Always ask people you know for references before investing in training, especially in social media (much of it can be a waste of time unless you do). You can also look for someone who does platform building well and either find out where they trained or train with them.



7. Outsource. While you want to "own" your platform presence, you may be able to outsource aspects of it, especially if you know how to oversee it well. For instance, have someone put together your newsletter, run a Facebook contest or pitch you as an expert for media opportunities. You may not be able to afford a company to do it for you but there is a solid talent pool out there, especially for beginners. Finally, if you have any adjunct goals to your primary one of attracting a major agent and/or publishing house/contract -- i.e., having residual income from the platform itself; and/or creating a certain community response -- feel free to seek assistance there, too.



So build your platform now -- without that industry-wide mania!