Are You The Best Person to Write Your Book?

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #4

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Of course you are! You’re the expert in your chosen topic – or you will be by the time you research your topic and place your unique spin on it. You need two things to qualify as a business book author. You can handle both of them or hire a pro for the job. But in the end, your blog post requires the involvement of your brain. Two things you need to qualify as the best person to write your book:
1. Writing Skills
2. Something to Say

Writing Skills
Well, duh. Remember in this series you don’t have to worry about writing your book yet. Instead, write a series of simple blog posts. Posts may run anywhere from about a hundred words to say 500 at the high end. Write your blog post until finished. If it seems long, chop it into two blog posts. Writing a blog post requires:
Knowledge and expertise: Write your message based on your expertise for the topic and theme you have already chosen (review the previous blog post on this topic if you haven’t taken this step yet.)
Critical thinking skills: When you write about a topic you have to analyze it and render judgments that will inform your readers and motivate them to act in new ways.
Wordsmithing: You should have at least a basic understanding of how to structure a sentence and paragraph. If you don’t, consider an English 101 class at your local community college. You need to understand basic grammar, word choice, and other things that constitute a well-crafted essay. Otherwise, you will require a budget for a professional, like me, to write and edit for you.
Storytelling: Create a well-crafted message with impact that motivates your readers to take an action. Storytelling involves the way you set up your topic in the reader’s mind and then wow them with a compelling statement that builds tension in the reader’s mind. Hook the reader’s attention and keep hooking them throughout your blog post with challenging statements and questions that continue to raise the level of tension. Tension is the key to storytelling. It’s the feeling in the reader’s heart that makes them want to know more.
Promotion: Blog posts succeed when you attract readers. When you blog your way to a book, you will at the same time build readership for your book when it comes out.

The second thing is having something to say about your topic. I’ll dive into what to say in my next blog post on this topic. In the meantime, have fun. And if you would like my help as a coach, post a comment below or contact me at paul dot Lloyd dot author at gmail dot com.

What Are Your Business Passions?

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #3

Writing a book about your business expertise? Start by making a list of the things you might write about as blog posts. Later, you’ll gather the blog posts into a book. Business activities to place on your list:

• Favorites that you are passionate about
• Things you have special knowledge or experience about
• Significant problems you have solved
• New innovations you developed
• Ways you improved existing methods
• Anything else that interests you

Write your list and save it for future reference, but before you do, choose one topic that most appeals to you. This may be a tough decision, but you’re up to the challenge. Ask a few associates to choose one from your list that best describes what you know or do best. Often your colleagues and customers know your business expertise better than you do. Once you’ve gathered the list and surveyed your network, pick one topic to be the main focus of your book. The other items on the list will be useful as supporting material for your main topic.

With a topic in mind, think about a theme. Your theme is the main idea or underlying principle behind your book’s topic. For example, the topic of Jim Egerton’s book, Business on the Board, is how to deploy effective strategies and tactics in managing your business, functional area or department. His theme is: Use chess to guide your business decision making.

Once you have a topic and a theme in place, answer the following question: What is the wildest or most unexpected thing you can say about your topic?

Make a list of wild and unexpected statements about your topic and theme.  Don’t worry about whether they are true or false at this point. The idea is to circle around your topic and theme to give your book a sense of direction. Think of this exercise as a way to fine tune your topic and theme or test it to see if it passes the “Who cares” test.

Have fun. And if you would like my coaching help, post a comment below or click here to contact me at paul dot lloyd dot author at gmail dot com.

Are You an Expert?

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #2

When you publish a book, you automatically qualify as an expert because… well… you wrote the book, didn’t you?

But how do you attain the confidence that you are an expert in the first place? Begin by understanding the two kinds of experts:

Knowledge experts: people who carry most of the needed information around inside their heads as a result of education and experience. Physicians fall into this category as do other professionals like lawyers and accountants. You already have a certain amount of knowledge expertise thanks to your education and business experience so you bring at least some of this kind of expertise to your book. You may even bring a lot of this type of expertise to your book project. But either way, you will want to use the other kind or expertise as well.

Research and Reporting Experts: People who research a topic and then report on their findings are experts. College professors fall into this category. For example, a philosophy professor has researched the world of philosophy to the extent that he or she now has a Ph.D. in the subject. The information the professor shares in their philosophy classes is derived from their research and learning experience. They also bring some of their original thinking to the class, but most of the “facts” are derived from research. You have this kind of expertise whenever you learn something through a Google search or a grad school class. You will use this kind of research and reporting in the process of writing your book.

When you combine your knowledge, experience and research, you build the base of knowledge needed to write your book. You also want to add your own insights, opinions and recommendations to the mix of expertise deployed in a book writing project.

Think about the know-how you have acquired through your education and experience. Make a list of things you know well and then review it to see if it points you in the direction of a topic you’d like to write about. Have fun. And if you would like my coaching help, post a comment below or contact me through my company’s info@ email address at ironlayersecurity.com.

Write That Book!

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #1

Writing a business book is one of the scariest of activities. Yet, becoming an author is often the key to opening the door to promotions and new job offers, launching a new business, taking a local business global, and increasing sales. Along the way, your book project becomes the means for taking your expertise to a new level through research and learning opportunities associated with your book project.

But Paul, book writing is such a huge project!
You can handle it because you’re not going to sit down and write a book. You’re busy and you don’t have the time in today’s fast paced world. What you do have time to accomplish is a blog. With enough planning upfront, you can turn your blog posts into a book. Think what you can do with a 15-minute daily commitment. And if you find you have more time on your hands for the writing process, you can speed the whole thing up and get your book to market faster.

How book is a book?
Books in the traditional book store sense can run to several hundred pages. But with the Internet, people are self-publishing ebooks of a much shorter length. With planning, you can write a series of small books and later combine them into one large book so you don’t have to wait for long before you have your book up on Amazon. And you do it by first writing blog posts.

Hey, Paul, I don’t know what to write about.
You may feel that you are no expert like those national gurus who come around making speeches and selling lots of books and six-figure consulting gigs. Guess what? Those folks didn’t start out as experts either. They became specialists when they combined their knowledge and experience with a boatload of research needed to write a book about their topic. And they don’t think of their book as an educational tool for a grad school class. Instead, they use it like a company brochure or business card to minimize or eliminate their competition.

I’ll write more about what it means to be an expert in the next post in this series. In the meantime, start thinking about your area of expertise. What would make a good book topic for you? And begin having fun by outlining and writing about your book idea. And if you would like my coaching help, post a comment below or contact me through my company’s info@ email address at ironlayersecurity.com.

Questions for Readers

Yesterday, I posted the two rules for readers. By “readers” I refer, of course, to those unfortunate individuals who happen to know an author well enough to be asked to “read” their novel before the author publishes it. The idea is to provide brief comments, both positive and negative.

Oh yes, one more thing before you volunteer to become a reader… the writer is not asking you to edit the book so there’s no need to note all the typos, grammar errors or other stupid mistakes. It’s okay to note them if you wish, and the writer will appreciate anything so noted, but that’s not the job of the reader. Your job is to read, enjoy and then make a few comments about what you liked and didn’t like about the novel. So here are the three questions the writer most wants answered:

1. Did you read the entire novel? If not, what chapter or page did you stop on? (This question is important in case multiple readers stop on the same page or chapter because it tells the writer that something is amiss with that part of the book.)
2. What three things did you like most about the novel?
3. What three things did you like least about the novel?

There. That doesn’t sound so difficult, does it? Enjoy.

If at all possible, please respond to the writer within two or three weeks.

How to practice to become a “reader”
If you wish to practice being a reader, may I recommend starting with my thriller novel Steel Pennies? When you are finished, contact me with your comments at paul @ zuklloyd dot com. (Don’t forget to mush the address all together and use a real dot.) Put “Reader Comment” in the subject line so I don't think your important missive is spam although a piece of Spam with a bit of mustard might go well at the moment.

As your reward, I’ll email a free PDF copy of my “solve-it-yourself” mystery book – The Case of the Knife-Tossing Networker: 12 Mysteries Requiring Deductive Reasoning. BUT BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR AMAZON.COM ORDER NUMBER AS PROOF OF PURCHASE IN YOUR EMAIL. THIS NUMBER IS WRITTEN ON YOUR RECEIPT FROM AMAZON.COM.

Since I do not use an autoresponder like those online marketing gurus recommend, please allow a few days to hear back from me. If you don’t hear within a week, check the email address you sent it to. Or use the link at the bottom of the Me page (see links above).

Steel Pennies is racially-charged murder, mayhem and mischief wrapped around a teenage romance gone wild. It explores racial tension and forbidden love during the early days of the civil rights movement. It's a thriller written in a noir style laced with biting humor and oddball characters.

As another author wrote:
“Machine-gun sentences.  Fast.  Intense.  Mickey Spillane-style.  No way around it.  Paul is a top-notch noir writer.  Top-notch.”
Thomas Phillips author of The Molech Prophecy

Please click here to begin reading Steel Pennies.

Two Rules for “Readers”

Have you ever been asked to be a “reader” for an author? It’s a fun way to read a novel for free before it’s released. I recently sent the first book of my new novel series to my readers for comment. Here’s what I told them…

Dear Reader:
Thanks for agreeing to read my new novel. A novel “reader” is a person who helps a writer complete a novel by – you’ll never guess – actually reading it. But you also have one other big important task. This second task is the one the writer needs completed before the novel goes into print – your job is to tell the writer what you think of the book.

Rule 1: Give negative feedback
The negative helps the writer understand what needs fixing before releasing the novel upon an unsuspecting public. The things you find wrong with the book are what the writer is blind to due to “forest-for-the-trees” syndrome. An example includes using the word “mountain” ten times in one paragraph. Another is killing off Bob in chapter two only to have him show up alive and well in chapter eight. One more example is noticing that nothing actually happens in the middle of the novel.

Negative Feedback Massages the Author
Readers often are afraid to give negative feedback because they don’t want to hurt the writer’s feelings. Let me assure you that is never the case. Here’s why…

Seven Secret Steps for handling negative feedback
There are the seven secret steps the writer goes through when presented with negative feedback:

1. Go into deep mourning characterized by great weeping and gnashing of teeth. This lasts for a full day usually, sometimes a bit longer.
2. Blame the reader. Yes, the problems you pointed out in the novel will be your fault for about two or three days.
3. Review the reader’s mean, nasty negative comments and realize they actually make sense and some minor revisions may help improve the novel.
4. With great reluctance, make the changes needed by the novel. Usually major improvements happen during this step.
5. Notice that the changes actually do improve the novel.
6. Become deeply appreciative of the reader’s comments and contributions to making the novel better. The writer might even express gratitude to you for your contributions to improving the novel, but don’t count on it depending on the timing of Step 7.
7. Totally forget that the reader made the comments in the first place and think it was all the writer’s idea to make the changes which of course results in the writer’s ego being massaged.

As you can see, expressing negative comments to the writer results in massaging the writer’s ego in a nice, positive way. So be sure to make some. Make them up if you have to, but let’s not get carried away.

Rule 2: Make positive comments even when you have none
The positive comments you choose to make massage the writer’s ego as well, but they also can prove useful in promoting the novel. Make stuff up if you have to. Your positive comments assure the author remains among the living a little longer while supplying the kind of promotional copy usually only available from professional advertising agency copy writers and liars (redundancy planned).