One of the hardest pieces of my day is resisting the urge to run downstairs to the bakery and get something delicious. I am trying to lose the weight I gained during COVID lockdown (and pre-lockdown, to be honest) and the bakery is not helping. It sits there, like a spider in a web, just…
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A book excerpt is a handy repurposing tool when it comes to marketing your book and building your list of potential readers and clients. One of the early discussion topics with my business book clients is about creating a lead generator. They all get that same expression in their eyes: “WAIT! WHAT? I just spent…
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I have spent many hours this week just watching the water. I’m watching the boats and the cars, the “self-walking” dogs and the people, too, of course. But mostly I watch the water. The tide doesn’t roll in here on the Ria Formosa. (Sorry, Otis.) It creeps in, it seeps in. It subtly edges into…
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Blogging isn’t for everyone, but that’s why they make chocolate AND vanilla. Because my clients are authors, I always recommend that they have a blog. But truth be told, not everyone is cut out to be a blogger. Not everyone has the time to blog. Not everyone has the perseverance or patience to keep going…
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Moving to Santa Luzia is my fourth move in five months and it should be my final move for at least a year, maybe longer. To qualify for Portugal’s D7 residency visa, I had to have six months of accommodations lined up. At the time I applied, you could have AirBnB reservations or even long…
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The idea behind writing a nonfiction business book is not to generate revenue directly from book sales (although that is always nice), but to use the book to generate income for your business. That means putting the book in front of your target market is more important than actually selling the book to your target…
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The time to think about how to promote your book is while you are writing it. I do this. I teach this. So I really should have thought of this sooner. I’m working on a couple of books at one time, trying to finish up a series, going back to a book I had almost…
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“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” Chinese Proverb I found this gem while researching another Chinese proverb for a book I am working on. And it resonated with me because it laid out how I have felt (for the most part) since I moved to Portugal. I am…
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Growing up outside of Boston, our American history classes touched on how cobblestone sidewalks and streets came to be. In the 1800s, cobblestones were used as ballast in ships coming from Europe. They were offloaded in American port cities, making room for the cargo that was being exported to Europe. The cobblestones were repurposed to…
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You’re close to the end; you’re finally about to finish writing your book. You can almost taste it. And then…Something weird happens. Maybe not to everyone… but to most people. You slow down. Your writing pace slows down. You get writers’ block. You endlessly tweak chapters that are done. There’s a reason for that: You’re…
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