I have a hangover and I didn’t drink last night. (Or for the past several nights, come to think of it. I’m slipping!) But I have that uncomfortable feeling, a little queasy, a bit of a headache. Maybe it’s the nagging knowledge that I should have done something and didn’t. It’s the open loop. The…
Details
If you’ve been thinking about writing a book, you already know that it can increase your authority and credibility. But no one talks about the flip side: If your book is poorly written or produced, it can hurt your credibility. Credibility Means Getting Your Facts Straight The most obvious way to lose credibility is to…
Details
I’ve talked about being a bestselling author before in videos and seminars, but the topic has been the subject of so much debate in two writers’ groups that I am in that I can’t resist diving back in again An article by Brent Underwood in The Observer (Behind the Scam) discussed how he became an…
Details
I have several prospective clients who contact me from time to time saying they want to write a book. At least three of these people first contacted me over five years ago. So far, they are still “getting ready” to write their books. Maybe you, too, are still getting ready to write your book. Like…
Details
Withholding is just not pretty. If you’re writing a nonfiction book or information product, you need to tell everything you know about the subject. People buy from you because they need that information. Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t break your subject matter down into several books or products. But you do need…
Details
Choosing your book topic would seem to be pretty much of a no-brainer for most of us—after all, we typically set out to write books about the industry we work in. Most of the people I coach, ghostwrite or edit for use books to reach out to their specific target markets. Their general topic is…
Details
I had an excellent English teacher in ninth grade, Mr. Lynch. Actually, I was lucky enough to have many excellent teachers but there are a few whose voices still ring in my head. Mr. Lynch is one of those voices. He would assign a paper and invariably, someone would ask, “How long should it be?”…
Details
Writing a high quality book takes time. But unless you’re writing the Great American Novel or the Unabridged History of Everything, you don’t want it to take too long. I shoot for 90 days for my coaching clients for a reason and not just because it sounds snappy. When you’re writing something as large…
Details
“Every writer or wanna-be writer has ideas for books. The problem isn’t finding an idea, it’s choosing one” ― Jo Linsdell I was approached last week by an acquaintance who was looking for writers to write books that he had ideas for. The deal was that he would supply the idea and 30-40 pages…
Details
I talk to a lot of people who want to write a book and one of the frequently asked questions I hear is “How do I start my book?” I specialize in non-fiction books, manuals mostly so if you are looking to write a novel, this is probably not the post for you. However, if…
Details