Archive for September, 2008

Posted on September 17, 2008 - By Sharon Lindenburger
A glut of books? Is there any hope for YOUR book?

Last night I listened to a teleseminar delivered by Mark Tauber, Senior Vice President and Publisher at HarperOne. Mr. Tauber had lots of interesting things to say, as he provided tips to prospective authors who hope to publish with HarperOne (or with any other publisher!)

He talked a lot about the need to make your book stand out from others and how difficult that is to do.  He pointed to the huge changes in the publishing industry–leading to trends such as the growing need for an author to have a “platform” (i.e., a media presence, a speaking career, some area in which they are well known), the 90-day window to make a book sell well (i.e., you only have three months to get decent sales before you are overtaken by other books), and the huge increase in books in the self-help empowerment area. Tauber mentioned that over 176,000 books were published in the US alone last year. I’m not sure if he meant non-fiction books or all books, but I think he meant non-fiction.

I could just imagine the thoughts going through the heads of many of the prospective authors on the call. “If the competition is that high and so many other authors (such as Arielle Ford who hosted the call) have such great contacts with famous people who will help market their book, what chance do I have?”

I have a firm and unshakable belief that every good book can find its readers IF certain conditions are met:

• if the author has a passion for the topic and deep knowledge of the topic
• if the author has the courage to write the book with a strong voice that reflects the author’s passion
• if the author seeks out good advice about the creation and organizing of the content, and then learns how to prepare an equally passionate proposal

Tauber said one particularly wonderful thing last night. He said that there are always going to be people who have original things to say, an interesting perspective to present, a way of imparting wisdom in a fresh way that can capture the attention of publishers and readers.

So, instead of worrying about the “book glut” out there, focus on your own content, what you love about it, what you are passionate about, what words of yours do you want to meet the world, and then tell that story with all the passion, love and commitment inside you.

The pathway to a successful published book is, as Tauber says, not a walk in the park. But it IS do-able. Don’t be one of the discouraged. Instead be one of the encouraged….and go for it.

And know that you don’t have to do it alone. There are people like myself, and other book coaches out there, who can help you uncover your greatest publishing asset–your own passionate writer’s voice that speaks your own wisdom.

Posted on September 11, 2008 - By Sharon Lindenburger
There’s nothing passive about good content

A big part of your “story-sense” and narrative flow is the feeling of forward-moving energy in your writing. When the flow of your content keeps pulling your reader forward (even if you write about the past), your readers go with you where you want to take them.

However, nothing wrecks the sense of momentum more than the use of passive verbs. No, I don’t intend this as a grammar lesson, but please bear with me a couple of minutes while I rant about passive verbs. Passive verbs are “energy suckers” that can drain the liveliness out of your writing.

Passive verbs occur a lot in reports such as the minutes of committee meetings, briefing documents, executive summaries, etc. No wonder so many of these kinds of reports come across as dull and the members of your organization just don’t want to read them.

• “The meeting was held at 3 p.m. Wednesday, September 10″

• “A decision was made to increase the marketing budget by 15%.”

• “Several dissenting viewpoints were heard by the task force before the vote was taken.”

Sentences like that “dull down” your writing, even if it is just a business-oriented report.  Passive verbs slow down the pace of writing, often to a snail’s crawl.  The passive voice does not convey power or authority; rather it conveys the sense of some outside force acting upon people–hardly the kind of voice you need if you want to communicate with energy.

• “The task force held its meeting at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, September 10.”

• “The task force decided to increase its planning budget by 15%.”

• “Several members disagreed with the budget increase and expressed their views to the task force before all members voted.”

Now the above sentences are not brilliant sentences you would kill to read (since they’re from a business report!) but I have converted them into active verb forms. Even in such bland “task force meeting minutes” sentences, the mere use of an active verb gives the sentences more energy, more sense of authority, more “voice”.

Since passive verbs are so common in business writing (and in my opinion shouldn’t be), many writers of books, newsletters, and other written content make the mistake of thinking that resorting to the passive makes them sound more “official” or more authoritative in presenting their material. They think it’s a way of getting their own voice out of the way so that the “material” stands on its own.  If you want good content, this is a fatal error. Don’t go there!

You don’t want to get rid of your own voice. You don’t want to come across as a passive person with a tepid writer’s voice.  Just because a piece of writing is factual (as in “non-fiction”) doesn’t mean it’s voice-less. You want energy in your writing. If you write a book, article, press release, or newsletter about your area of expertise, don’t hoodwink yourself into believing that passive verbs make you sound good. They don’t–they just make you sound boring.

Eliminate the passive. Replace it with the active. This is one very easy way to immediately enhance the authenticity and energy of your writer’s voice.  Whenever you write anything, read it over and root out any passive verbs. Find a way to replace them with the active form of the verb.

It’s amazing how much this improves the entire energy and voice of your content.

Posted on September 2, 2008 - By Sharon Lindenburger
Content rules! Content rocks!

In the publishing game, content rules! And if you want people to pay attention to your content, it has to rock! This is another way of saying “Content is king.”

Many people, when they desire to publish something–be it a book, an article, a press release, a newsletter, or even blog–get all concerned about the publishing process itself.  They start asking, “What publisher should I pitch?” “Should I self-publish?” “Can I get an agent?” “What should my layout look like?” “I should get a good designer for my logo or webpage or book cover.” “How do I find a distributor?” “How can I make back-of-room sales of my book or info product?”

All of these are valid questions.  If you want to publish your words to the world, you definitely should ask yourself those questions. The only problem is that these are not the first questions you should be asking. By focusing first on the publishing process, you are putting the cart before the horse, or as an editor colleague of mine likes to say “you’re roasting the chicken before the egg has hatched.”

Before you consider how you want to publish, you need to ask yourself “What do I want to publish?” What do I want to say? What’s my message? What’s my content?” This may seem self-evident. You may say, “Of course I know what my content is. It relates to my expertise and my experiences.” And that’s great. But there’s a huge difference between knowing what your content is and exploring the most compelling way to tell it.  It’s amazing to me how many prospective authors spend far more time exploring all the design possibilities for their book cover but haven’t deeply mined the content that’s between the covers.

The actual process of publishing today offers you myriad ways of seeing your words in print (or on the screen). These days it seems that virtually “everyone and their dog” is writing a book, or starting a blog, or creating a newsletter or ezine. This is especially true of the self-help, empowerment, and motivational fields, which in North America alone represent an industry generating more than $100 billion dollars. No wonder so many people want to get in on a financial pot that huge!

The good news is that there are more and more opportunities to do so. The bad news is that the competition to get noticed and to have a recognizable marketable result from your writing is fiercer than ever. It’s no longer enough to have a wonderful book design or a great marketing plan. You need to have content that’s more compelling, more interesting, more genuine-sounding than your competition.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t write about something someone else has written about. After all, there really are no new ideas under the sun (and indeed some of the most powerful empowerment books and writings are coming from the ideas of authors more than a hundred years ago, even thousands of years ago. Just check out the types of books about how Shakespeare’s wisdom can apply to your business, or how the Buddha’s teachings help you deal with stress.)

So it’s not necessarily “newness” you’re looking for, but rather the unique way you tell your own story, your own take on the subject. It is by developing your own writer’s voice that you will make your content sound magnetic, rich, and original. What is the “writer’s voice”? It’s your ability to make your words sound like you, the way you make your words be you.

In the past, the term “writer’s voice” applied a lot to fiction. But it applies equally to non-fiction. Just because your book is factual or motivational or educational doesn’t mean there is no story structure or a voice. There most certainly is! Every piece of published material, whether short or long, whether print, broadcast, or online, tells a story. Your presence is within absolutely everything you will ever write.

There are ways to uncover your writer’s voice.  I’ll be talking about a lot of these in this blog. My purpose and my passion is to help you find your story–the wisdom within the words you seek to bring to the world, the words that will strengthen your success and draw your audience (and clients) to you.

Look at it this way:

• Content is king (or queen).

• Publishing process is the king/queen’s warrior knight.

• Marketing is the king/queen’s servant.

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