Posts Tagged ‘promotion’

Probably the single most damaging undertaking is the practice of judging ourselves. We judge ourselves, we project how others might judge us as well we judge others in relation to our own self-judgments. You can imagine how much energy this takes moving throughout the day.

In my previous writing I shared how you have set intentions about how your day will unfold before you’ve opened your eyes. That’s because you have set judgments about yourself, life, jobs, money … you’ve set judgments about everything and anything. These judgments take the form of assessments, assumptions, expectations, beliefs and interpretations, and before your feet hit the floor you are operating based on what you’ve already decided will be happening for the rest of the day and how that influences the rest of your life.

In your work environment, suspending judgments begins by flexing muscles that cultivate conscious choice-making regarding who you be and how you be in whatever role you play.

A client of mine, Chuck, works in the marketing department of a Fortune 100 company. At 47 years of age, he’s at a point in his career where he is rethinking what it is he is wanting to do for the next 20 years. Should he stay in corporate work and move up into a director position; leave Los Angeles and move back East to be closer to his aging parents – he carries a worry that if he doesn’t move back now he might regret it in the future; or should he go into a field that he is passionate about. He wanted a session with me in hopes that I could help him figure it out.

Chuck does a good deal of comparing – how he measures up to others around him. He begins to think he should be more like Candice who is strategic, smart, innovative and develops relationships effortlessly. He begins to slump in his chair as he describes Candice’s attributes. In many ways, Chuck is very accomplished and has had an exceptional life; however he continually carries an extraordinary list around in his head of what he should be and how he should be. He has little idea what he really wants for himself in relation to his career because every want is followed by a “Yes, but, I should be …”

Within our session, Chuck began to observe the degree to which he automatically assesses his actions by projecting an assumed reaction from his colleagues. He doesn’t really know what their judgments are, but they influence him none-the-less. He’s judging himself based on some preconceived interpretation about how he thinks he measures up or should measure up. Again, this is exhausting. And, Chuck is not alone. Millions of us are continually assessing and judging ourselves and others and we have little idea that we are doing it.

Bringing shifts and changes into business begins with you. It starts with you cultivating awareness about how you be who you be and by noticing your judgments about yourself and those with whom you share your day, be it your boss, direct reports, customers and clients. It begins with acknowledging this automatic response and then getting curious about where those judgments and interpretations come from. That curiosity will begin to allow you to expand your awareness and wonder how you came to choose what has become so automatic.

What’s the Alternative to Judging?

We will always judge, compare, assess and interpret. These are essential and valuable tools in distinguishing and discerning what works for us and what doesn’t work for us. However, because they are used primarily unconsciously they create more harm than healing. We don’t have to stop judging, but it may be helpful to suspend it long enough to notice the value that judging brings.

If you are wanting to bring change into the workplace, or if you just want to cultivate awareness in yourself, what is it that you want to practice in relation to judging, expecting, interpreting and assuming?

Notice when you judge something as right, wrong, good or bad; notice where something or someone is too slow, too fast, not enough or too much and needs to change. This also goes for noting these thoughts about you. The object of this practice is just to notice. You’ll notice too that you’ll begin to judge yourself and what you notice, saying “yes, but, I am right,  or they are wrong.” What’s the point?

What does judging and assessing as a practice do for you? How does this empower you? Does it allow you to create change in relation to yourself and your environment? Does it allow you to feel righteous and better than, and if so, how does this impact on the reality you are wanting to create for yourself?

Coming back to Chuck for a moment: Chuck recognized that he was afraid of being judged and through his continuous judgment of his work environment he always played it safe, staying within what he assessed as appropriate. And up until our session he hadn’t realized that this practice of judging and assessing is what keeps him from getting promoted to a more senior position, where he would have to lead in ways that would be innovative and may be perceived as risky. He is now at a choice-point where he can choose with awareness, what he wants and what he is willing to practice to support that outcome.

The automatic thinking that we do always consists of judgments. Just bringing awareness to our judgments allows us to be curious about just how true they really are. This allows us to choose differently if it serves us to do so. Enjoy the exploration!

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Tagged as: assertions, Assessments, career, Dr. Rosie Kuhn, failure, Judgement, Judgment, Leadership, management, promotion, Spirituality in Business, success

Resist the temptation to start your Author’s Journey to a brand-building book by immediately starting to write. The Author’s Journey refers to my series of 34 ActiveGarage posts describing the steps involved in writing a nonfiction book to build a personal brand.

Instead of immediately starting to write, take the time to ask the right questions. It’s important for you to get your bearings by developing a “big picture” view of your writing project.

An important part of the “big picture” is focusing on the desired end result. By identifying the goals of your journey, you’ll be better able to make the right decisions at every stage, so you can write and market toward them as efficiently as possible, helping you focus your writing and avoid digressions, false starts, and wasted time.

There’s magic in asking questions

Perhaps Brian Tracy, said it best in his international bestselling book, Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement:

The very act of questioning opens your mind and expands your options. It increases your creativity and stimulates your imagination. Questioning enables you to think more effectively and reach better decisions.

Brian Tracy re-emphasized the importance of authors asking questions before writing during a recent Published & Profitable interview, (Number 100 in my recent series). He discussed how asking questions helps authors focus on their readers, their needs, and their hot buttons while sharing the process he has used to write 50 books that have been translated and are sold in over 37 countries.

Alexander Ward, American author and pastor, stated it differently:

Before you speak, listen.

Before you write, think.

What kinds of questions & answers?

There are 4 categories of questions you should ask before starting to write your brand-building book. These correlate to Published & Profitable’s 4 steps to Writing Success: Plan, Write, Promote, and Profit.

Your answers to these questions don’t have to be elaborate or formal. You don’t even have to work on your computer; it’s entirely to jot down your answers by hand.

The ideas behind your answers are what matters! So just quickly write down words, ideas, and phrases that you can go back later and expand. There’s no need to write in full sentences, and you don’t have to be concerned with grammar. The answers are for your eyes only- – it’s OK to change your mind when you go back later and review your answers.

Planning questions

There are three types of planning questions:

• Your goals and objectives. Start by identifying your long-term goals and objectives beyond the rewards of selling your book. Concentrate on how you are going to leverage your book into lasting and profitable relationships with your readers. Avoid writing and publishing decisions that might limit your ability to achieve your goals.
• Reader goals. Who are your intended readers, and what do they hope to gain from reading your book? The more you know, the easier it will be to target the right readers, choose the right title, and provide the right right content.
• Competing books. Finally, you have to analyze competing books, so you can position your book as a better alternative to anything that’s currently available.

Just as you wouldn’t start a business without a business plan, you shouldn’t start to write a brand-building book without knowing your goals, your market, and your competition.

Writing questions

Next, you have to answer a series of questions about your ability to write as consistently and efficiently as possible, so your book is completed on time. This involves answering questions like:

• What’s the best way to create the right content plan?
• How can I find the time to write my book?
• Who can help me write my book?
• How can I avoid writer’s block?

When you’ve answered these questions, you’re ready to start writing!

Promoting questions

Books- -even the most helpful and best-written books- -don’t sell themselves. Authors have to begin promoting the book while writing the book.

Ideally, book promotion never really ends, because your book’s brand becomes your brand!

Creating a book promotion plan involves evaluating current online visibility (or author platform), looking at ways to build your expert network, exploring free promotional tools, and creating an integrated book marketing plan.

Profit questions

Leveraging your book to meaningful and lasting profits involves answering questions about looking at how other authors profit from their books, evaluating ways to create and manage information products, and looking at ways to attract lucrative speaking opportunities.

Questions, answers, and action

The above are just some of the ways that questions lead to answers, and answers lead to informed action. Take the time to ask- -and answer- – the right questions and save time writing the book your market is waiting to read!

If you’d like to get on the inside track to learning more about asking the right questions before writing a book to build your brand, drop me an e-mail or sign-up to receive my weekday blog posts in your in-box.

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Tagged as: active garage, Ask questions, author's journey, How to write a book, marketing, plan, profit, promote, promotion, published and profitable, roger c parker, roger parker, write, Writing for Business

Last week, I discussed some of the ways authors can attract profitable speaking invitations.

This week, I’d like to take the idea of “speaking for profit” to the next level, which involves creating, marketing, and producing special events like conferences, seminars, and workshops. These differ from speaking in two important ways:

• Multiple presenters. Conferences and workshops, often called “bootcamps,” typically involve multiple speakers. Often, there’s a well-known keynote speaker, followed by sessions conducted by subject area experts- -often other authors- -who may be paid, but often participate because of the visibility and opportunity to demonstrate their competence to attendees who may be coaching or consulting prospects.
• Affiliate marketers. Authors presenting conferences and workshops often depend on marketing affiliates to help promote and sell tickets to their events in exchange for either a flat fee, or a percentage of each attendee’s fees.

Major profit potential

Profits for authors presenting in-person events can be significant. Profits quickly mount up when you have 100 or 500 people paying several hundred dollars to attend a live event. Successful events also create a buying frenzy of back-of-the-room profits from books,
CD’s, DVD’s, and workbooks.

Soon after Looking Good in Print appeared, I became a lead speaker for desktop publishing conferences produced several times a year around the country by Thunderlizard Productions, a partnership of three authors. I remember staring out at hotel ballrooms filled with participants who often faithfully attended each year’s conference, as well as pre-conference and post-conference workshops.

Other sources of event profits include:

• Booth rentals. This involves renting booth in an adjacent “open-to-the-public” exhibition space to firms interested in marketing to conference attendees.
• Sponsorships. Often, corporations sponsor pre-conference breakfasts, sponsored lunches, and happy hour afternoon networking events.
• DVD’s and CDs. When events are recorded, post-conference sales of audios, transcripts, and videos create excellent content for direct-marketing and back of the room sales at upcoming events.
• Pre-registrations. Before one year’s event ends, savvy producers are usually offering significant discounts for attendees who pre-register for next year’s conference. These pre-registrations, of course, help pay for marketing next year’s event!

All is not entirely rosy, of course; promotion and space rental costs can be huge, and the potential of major losses is possible because of events far beyond your control. I also remember numerous event cancellations immediately following 9/11, and the current economic environment doesn’t encourage attendance at anything other than the most important events.

As a result of this, authors are frequently turning to “virtual events” based on computer and telephone-based teleseminars or webinars. These typically take place over several days. Whether in-person or virtual, however, the principles remain the same.

7 keys to success and profits

Even more than books, conferences and workshops are planning-intensive. Success involves careful planning and co-ordination. Planning often begins a year, or more, in advance.

Above is a copy of a mind map I’ve created to help clients plan their event’s success. The map’s purpose is to help you co-ordinate the 7 key activities that will determine your event’s success and profits:

1. Planning. Planning involves answering 2 key questions. The first question is, Where and when do you want to hold your event? This involves identifying and contacting conference and banquet facilities in the areas where you want to host your event. Realities like availability and pricing have to be balanced with desired requirements. The second question is, Who do you want to attend your event? As a successful author and marketer, you’re probably familiar with the concept of personas, described in Author’s Journey #2: How to Target the Right Readers for Your Book.
2. Promotion. As soon as you have locked-down space availability, it’s important to start preparing your online and offline marketing. Once you have identified your location and target market, you can start preparing landing pages and a web site for your event, even if the pages won’t go live until later. Details can always be added, but it’ essential to give copywriters and designers enough time to prepare the foundation for a multi-faceted and multimedia promotion program.
3. Sales. In addition to creating sales copy and attractive landing pages, you have to set up a sales system which will not only facilitate online registration and sales, but also will allow marketing affiliates to sell for you. First, you have to sell your event to marketing affiliates, getting them behind your event. Second, you have to provide your affiliates with the sales tools- -e-mail copy, pre-written blog posts, graphics- – they need to sell their markets. And, finally, you need to sell- -or convert- -visitors when they are sent to your website.
4. Content. Next, you need to create a “table of contents” for your events by identifying and contacting other experts in your field and convince them to speak at your event. Scheduling can be time-consuming because of the necessary co-ordination. Mind maps help you visually display the status of various time slots each morning and afternoon of your event. With a map, you can easily keep track of multiple speakers and multiple conference rooms throughout your event. After deciding who speaks when, you have to work with them and make sure their presentation addresses the topics you’ve agreed upon.
5. Visuals. Most events include a video component as well as a spoken message. Among the decisions you’ll have to make is whether or not to require all presenters use a presentation template that’s branded to your event. By encouraging presenters to use the same template pays off in terms of projecting a consistent and professional image. Again, your Workshop Planning Map can help you track the status of the various presenter’s visuals.
6. Handouts. Attendee handouts will play an important role in the perceived value of your event. This is no place for last-minute cost cutting. To your attendees, your handouts are their primary “souvenir.” Attendees, and their attendee’s friends, co-workers, and employers, will judge the value of your event by the quality of your handouts. In addition, evaluations are an important part of your event. Handouts must include clearly-marked evaluation forms that must be collected after each presentation.
7. Follow-up. Your event isn’t over on the last day. The success of next year’s event is paved by what you do after the event. Ideally, if your event ends on a Saturday, attendees will receive a “Thank You” gift in the mail on Monday, their next day back at work. By sending a tangible expression of your appreciation to attendees- -ideally, a “bonus” item that relates to your event- -you’ll be cementing a relationship that will last for years.

Although broken apart for clarity, above, many of the above tasks have to be simultaneously addressed. By analyzing all of the tasks involved in a successful event, and displaying them on a single mind map- -especially one that can be shared online by everyone involved in your event’s success- -you can monitor what’s been done, and what still needs to be done.

Planning & profits

Planning is a constant theme throughout a successful Author Journey, as you can see from my previous 32 posts.

But, no amount of planning can protect against every eventuality; Who could have foreseen the empty planes and empty pre-paid seminar seats following 9/11? Yet, by focusing on the above issues, and giving yourself and your team enough time to do the job right, you can leverage your book into a series of profitable events that may catapult you into an entirely different tax bracket!

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Tagged as: 7 keys to profitable special events, affiliate marketing, audio conferences, author's journey, book sales, book signings, bootcamps, booth rentals, Content, handouts, pre-registrations, presentations, profitable speaking invitations, profiting from speaking, promotion, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable, publishedandprofitable.com, roger c parker, roger parker, special events, sponsorships, video conferences

Many authors find that finishing their book on time, and avoiding writer’s block, is easier than they expected. This is one of the reasons that successful authors spend a lot of time in the planning stage, positioning their books and preparing a detailed content plan.

The more you plan, the easier it will be to write and finish your book on time!

As a result, once you have created a content plan and have committed to daily progress, you’ll find finishing your book is mostly a matter of “work” rather than stress.

Keeping on schedule

Comfortable, stress-free writing is important because it’s essential that you finish your book on time. You simply can’t afford to get behind schedule; too many people are depending on you to finish your book on time.

If you’re working with a trade publisher, they have already committed to a publication date, and have scheduled numerous staff and freelance resources like:

1. Cover and inside-page designers
2. Developmental editors
3. Technical editors
4. Layout and production
5. Proofreaders
6. Sales and promotion resources

If your manuscript arrives late, it can lose its place in the publisher’s production cycle.

Worse, if your manuscript delays your book’s publication, it may not be available in stores when previously-scheduled marketing and promotion events take place. Delays also make bookstore owners and buyers question their previous purchase commitments, which can lead to canceled orders before your book even appears!

Keeping on schedule is primarily a matter of:

• ŸStarting with a detailed content plan. Ideally, by the time you start writing, each chapter in your table of contents contains Level 1 and Level 2 subheads indicating what you’re going to be covering, and where it will appear in the chapter.
• Prioritizing your time. Which involves recognizing the importance of your book to your future and committing to as little as 30-minutes a day to finishing your manuscript. Pages quickly mount up!
• Avoiding distractions. Distractions can take many forms, including unnecessary self-editing while writing. Your immediate priority is to complete the first draft as quickly as possible, so you and your editors can make it all it can possible be.
• Delegation. There are probably some tasks which you consider “writing” that you may be able to delegate, such as listening to, or transcribing, interviews, researching quotations, and checking for minor spelling errors as you go along.

Writing out of order

One of the most important ways you can keep your writing on schedule is to write out-of-sequence. Or, as I prefer to think of it, “Write the easiest stuff first!”

Specifically, instead of starting by writing the introduction and chapter one, start in the middle, with an “easy” chapter- -one with lots of detail you can just about finish in your sleep.

Not only that, you don’t have to write entire chapters! Instead, write an easy section, or subsection, then go on to another “easy” section or subsection of a different chapter.

There are two points involved:

• ŸFinish it! First, its essential that you finish the first draft, so it can be massaged into shape.
• Build up speed. Second, progress builds upon progress. Even if you feel like a cat who’s stayed out all night when you begin writing, once you’ve written that first paragraph, or two, you’ll find yourself writing faster and faster. Once you get started, and into the rhythm of writing, it’s easy to keep going.

In fact, it seems that writing a book is primarily a matter of “starting to write” each time you sit down for a writing session!

Of the more than 500 nonfiction authors and book coaches I’ve interviewed, a large percentage state that the introduction and Chapter l of their books is usually the last to be written.

What about writer’s block?

A lot is written about writer’s block. Writer’s block refers to an author’s sudden inability to make any progress writing their book. It’s characterized by extreme stress that gets worse the closer it gets to submission deadlines.

Many new authors fear writer’s block is “part” of the writing process. However, here are a few observations about writer’s block:

• ŸWriter’s block doesn’t have to be a part of the writing process. Although writer’s block gets a lot of press, it’s not a given! It’s doesn’t have to happen. It’s not “part” of the writing process. Writer’s block is more a symptom than a cause. There are things you can do to prevent it.
• Writer’s block isn’t forever. It can be cured! There are strategies and workarounds you can choose to restore productivity to your writing sessions. As you become a more comfortable writer, you’ll find yourself knowing the warning signs and can take immediate action.

Tips for avoiding writer’s block

Here are some of the ways you can keep writer’s block from appearing:

1. Planning is the best way to prevent writer’s block. Stress is caused by the unknown, but when you know what you’re going to be writing, you’ll become comfortable with the writing process. That’s why a detailed content plan is so important; when you know, down to the subhead level, what you’re going to write about in each chapter, finishing your book becomes more a matter of “doing it” than “creativity” or “inspiration.”
2. Consistent daily progress prevents writer’s block. Stress is often caused by overly-ambitious goals, like trying to write a book in sequential order during holidays, vacations, or weekends. By expecting yourself to write during “marathon” writing sessions creates a great deal of stress. It is infinitely less stressful to write 30 minutes every weekday, hoping only to write a page or two of double-spaced copy, than it is expect to spend a day in isolation and anticipate writing 25-50 pages.
3. Progress builds confidence, preventing writer’s block. Your confidence and enthusiasm will increase to the extent you track your progress and can view a constantly growing number of completed pages. This is why it’s so important to print your latest pages on 3-hole paper and save them in a 3-ring binder, at the end of every writing session.
4. Reasonable expectations prevent writer’s block. As a result of the way writing is traditionally taught, authors tend to compare themselves to impossible standards- -often, their own favorite authors. It’s important to keep things in perspective; few authors write perfect first drafts! Often, the perfection that appears in a book is the result of months of extensive writing, rewriting, and editing involving several specialists. Writing is a team effort, and your job isn’t to prepare the perfect first draft, it’s to write a good, solid first draft and be willing to work to make it as good as it can be.
5. Frequently review what you’ve written and what you want to write the next day. Immediately before going to bed, for example, review what you’ve written that day, and go over your writing goals for the next day. This engages your mind; while you’re sleeping, your brain will be processing and organizing information. As a result, when you sit down to write, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you get up to speed.

Basically, give yourself a break! Give yourself every advantage possible, beginning with a firm content plan, a realistic commitment to daily writing progress, and don’t compare yourself to your favorite authors. If you get to talk to them, chances are, your favorite author will admit that they depend a lot on their editors to get the job done right.

What to do if writer’s block occurs

Here are a few of the strategies that I, and my clients, depend on to defeat writer’s block.

1. Write something else. Don’t prolong the agony; if you are stuck at a particular point, temporarily put it aside, and write something that’s easier to write. If you are stuck getting started in Chapter One, for example, jump ahead to an easy-to-write bullet list of resources or recommendations in the middle of Chapter Five.
2. Change the format you’re trying to write. If you’re having trouble writing about a specific topic for your book, try describing what you’re having trouble writing in a letter or a memo. Tell your wife, a friend, your co-author, or a trusted customer what you’re trying to write about.
3. Write less. Instead of trying to write a complete chapter, or section of a chapter, give yourself a 1-page limit! Force yourself to cover the topic in just one page! Reducing the amount you feel you have to write takes away a lot of the stress.
4. Give yourself a time limit. Another way of overcoming writer’s block is to give yourself a 5-minute deadline; get a timer and see how much you can write, as quickly as you can, in just 5 minutes. Once you start writing, of course, you’ll probably find it difficult to stop…and your writer’s block is a thing of the past.
5. Pick up the phone! Most people find that it is easier to talk than it is to write. So, invest in a digital voice recorder, or voice recognition software, and your pick-up the phone and call a friend or a trusted co-worker, and simply tell them what you’re trying to write, and why its so relevant. Have the call transcribed, and you’ll have the first draft of your book.
6. Offer a free teleseminar. Teleseminars are great writer’s block fighters; they provide a deadline for action, and make it easy to share the information you already know. There’s little, or no, cost involved, and you can schedule them at the last minute, i.e., 24 or 48 hours in advance, thanks to today’s e-mails and social marketing tools. Don’t worry about the number of participants; the event is primarily for you, providing an audience, a deadline, and a limited amount of time, for sharing your ideas and creating a recording you can later transcribe.

These are just a few of the simple steps you can take to cure writer’s block. The important thing to remember is that writer’s block is a result of stress; stress caused by unrealistic goals and/or a lack of planning your writing before you start to write.

Like for health issues in general, for writer’s block – prevention is the best cure!

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, designers, editor, layout, preventing writer's block, production, promotion, proofreader, Publishe and Profitable, publishedandprofitable.com, publisher, roger c parker, sales, transcribe, Writing for Business

Your book proposal for your first book is among the most important documents you’ll ever prepare. It often represents the formal beginning of your journey to a published book.

Book proposals serve two primary, and several secondary, purposes:

1. Sales piece. If you’re hoping to have a conventional publisher sell your book through online and through bricks-and-mortar retail bookstores, your book proposal functions as a direct-response sales letter intended to them to invest time and money into your project. It has to spell-out the inevitability of your book’s success to skeptical readers.
2. Marketing plan. Regardless whether you are looking at trade publishers, or intend to publish your book yourself, your book proposal must describe how you are going to market and promote your book before and after it’s publication. Your proposal has to describe the market your book addresses, the benefits it offers, how it differs from existing books on the topic, and the specific steps you’re going to take to sell it to its intended readers.

Secondary purposes include providing a sample of your ability to communicate in print. In many ways, the style and detail of your proposal are as important as the contents of the proposal. A professionally written and presented proposal communicates to literary agents and acquisition editors that you’re an author worth paying attention to. Even if the proposed book doesn’t meet their current publishing needs, a proposal can open doors to other opportunities.

But, a rambling proposal that hasn’t been thoroughly edited and proofread can close the door to future possibilities.

Elements included in book proposals

A book proposal includes seven sections. These provide the structure needed to communicate the details of your project. The sections include:

1. Engagement. The proposed title and the first paragraph of your book must immediately engage the interest of your agent or publisher in the first paragraph, or two. The title and opening paragraph must communicate at a glance, describing what your book is about, how it differs from the competition, why it will sell, and how you’re going to market and promote it. The first sentence and paragraph of your proposal must “hook” your prospective agent or editor’s interest and “sell” the importance of reading on. Each sentence and paragraph must continue selling, providing details that support the premise, or big idea, behind your book. If the initial sentence and paragraph fail to convince, the remainder of your proposal probably doesn’t have a chance, either.
2. Description. The second section, sometimes called an overview, provides an opportunity to step back and provide the details necessary to support the promise offered by your book title and first paragraph. Think of this section as the 30,000 foot view of your project, your qualifications, and how you came to propose the book.
3. Market. Next, you have to prove that a market exists for your book. You have to describe the characteristics of the market you’re writing for and their goals and objectives. You have to prove that you know how to reach your prospective readers and tap into their urgent need for assistance solving a problem or achieving goals. In addition, this section must include a review of existing books, so you can show how your book provides a fresh, needed perspective that goes beyond any currently available book.
4. Contents. After you have proven the existence of a market and the need for your book, you have to prove how your book will live up to the promise expressed in its title and the premise described in the opening paragraphs. It’s not necessary to completely write your book, but it is necessary to show that you have put a lot of work into organizing your book into sections and chapters. Each chapter should be described in a couple of sentences, followed by 7-10 bullet points corresponding to the main ideas you plan to include in each chapter.
5. Author platform and promotion. This section begins with an overview of your current online presence, and goes on to describe how you are going to market and promote your book before and after its publication. Limit your marketing plan to the print, broadcast, public relations, and social media that you realistically expect to employ for marketing and promoting your book, and list the marketing affiliates and professional services you intend to work with. Remember that your marketing plan will be judged on both its detail and its creditability. Avoid unrealistic promises or a laundry list of media alternatives, but do emphasize your network of professional connections in your field.
6. Qualifications. Why should a publisher trust you with their money? How do they know you will deliver. Rather than list your academic credentials, family situation, or employment background, place the emphasis on your accomplishments and achievements. It’s not important that you “love to write” or have “great passion for your topic.” It’s more important to communicate that you are driven to succeed and do whatever it takes to accomplish your goals. (Note: you don’t have to say you’re a good writer, because the writing in your proposal should speak for itself!)
7. Details. This section, like the previous, can be relatively short. In this section, describe the anticipated size of your book and the number of pages you’d like to see in the printed book. Describe the number of colors and illustrations, or photographs, you intend to include. And briefly mention topics for follow-up topics that will expand the book into a series. Finally, provide a realistic date for completing the manuscript, following receipt of a publishing contract.

Your proposal is an investment

If the above sounds like a lot of work, it can be!

However, your book proposal is an investment that doesn’t have to be repeated! Once you have your proposal, you have done the hard part—you’ve identified a book that needs to be written, and you have identified the information needed, and you have organized that into a logical order.

You’ve also created a marketing and promotion plan for selling your book.

Many authors find it harder to prepare a book proposal than it is to complete a book!

Writing is easy when you know what you’re going to write, and marketing becomes easier when you know what you want to happen, and when.

Writing a book proposal can be a lonely proposition, unless you’re working with an experienced book coach. But, when you’re actually writing your book, you typically have access to editors and proofreaders who will provide the feedback and support necessary to create a successful book.

Prepare your book proposal as carefully as you’d prepare a marketing plan for your career. Your book proposal can be the catalyst that transforms your career and, with it, your life!

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Tagged as: 7 elements of a book proposal, active garage, author platform, author's journey, book proposal, contents, crafting, description, details, elements in book proposals, engagement, investment, market, marketing, promotion, proposal as an investment, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable, qualification, roger c parker, sales

Social media is not for the weak of heart. It requires a certain level of risk taking and willingness to experiment. The success of social media is based on contribution, connections and community. There is no one way to identify what tools within social media are relevant to your business objectives. This has not stopped companies and individuals to adapt to these tools and some have successfully harnessed the raw power of social media. No doubt, there are many people and companies who are still resisting this new social phenomenon. Like it OR not – this is here to stay.

I have spoken to many people in different organizations and some have shared with me their concerns of using social media.

Here are a few that I want to share with you all:

1. We can’t have a Youtube video. If the advertisement on RHS of the video is of adult content, it will dilute our brand.

2. We can’t open up Facebook to our employees since we are a Financial services company and have to protect client information.

3.  We really are interested but don’t know the best practices around what works and what doesn’t work.

These are all valid concerns. Just recently, an article in the wired blog mentioned that Military may ban Twitter, Facebook as security ‘Headaches’.

And yet there are other companies who have transcended to leverage social media in a compelling and effective manner. In my previous post, I committed to sharing some stories of companies who are using social media in a creative and innovative manner.

Here are a few stories:

COOL factor: Held a series of highly effective recruiting fairs in Second Life, a 3D virtual world,  that showed EMC the undeniable power of social platforms for business.

ROI: EMC’s employment brand operation has a zero spend budget. The number of followers on EMC Careers Twitter channel and Facebook are growing. There is a spike in the number of resumes per job opening. Therefore, ROI is positive.

COOL factor: A unique JetBlue promotion called, yes, “All You Can Jet” offering people a $599 ticket for unlimited travel between Sept. 8 through Oct. 8 to 57 cities where JetBlue flies. Main promotional components appear to have been a release over PR Newswire and a tweet sent out by JetBlue at around noon that day.

ROI: Total PR buzz of the effort at 31 million search results and 10 million blog posts in seven hours.

I believe that we live in a new world where we are all connected. We can  leverage these connections to create new possibilities. Truly, there has never been a time when things changed so dynamically. This does not mean that traditional media is dead. It is a great resource for mass distribution – like selling a book, launching a product or a career. The idea that your competitor has more connections and has the ability to hurt your business has driven companies to adapt social media. I believe it is the new Socioeconomy (study of the relationship between economic activity and social life) – a shift more profound than the launch of an automobile or the cell phone.

Contributed by Deepika Bajaj, President and Founder, Invincibelle, LLC. Invincibelle helps women who live and work in a multicultural world to accelerate their professional growth. You can follow Deepika on Twitter at invincibelle

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