Tag: Book Publishing

Ready for a Book Breakthrough? (Summer Camp 1.2)

Summer (Author) Camp Preview!

Can you sense it? The tastes of summer
coming alive, the smells, the yearning to
step fully into yourself as Conscious Creator
…and yet your hesitancy to reveal the
sweet and juicy heart of your message and to
become visible around what is at your core.

As you are planning your upcoming week,
I don’t want you to miss out on this special
Summer Camp preview opportunity for creators —
especially if you are a writer, author, messenger.

Summer brings out those creator-longings,
and the times urgently call us to reflect on–
and then dive into — ideas and projects
from the heart. There’s a spaciousness that
summer allows and invites — for you to go
after what you care about most and feel
called to share with the world.

In fact, I know that many of you have been
thinking about taking that big leap to start
(or finish) a book and feeling increasing
urgency to make your mark with your work.
(And if you know my story, you realize
I am on a similar path, even as I guide
others to do this!)

Now, with some time to breathe, maybe your
excitement about deciding to “go for it”
may be accompanied by some anxiety and
a few (or several) questions:

. Is it really the right time to publish?
. Can I truly be successful with my
message and book?
. Where do I begin?
. Can I believe the stories and advice I
hear on what works — and what doesn’t?

From inside the publishing industry, things
are shape-shifting at warp speed, much like
all the other changes we are facing.

Then there’s all the hype, conflicting advice,
and the pressure to “publish, publish publish!”
All this can make it confusing and difficult
to find the best path for YOUR message and book
in today’s noisy and competitive market.

And, without that clarity, it’s easy to waste
creative energy, time, and money only to realize
that you might be following a path that doesn’t
align with your timing, budget and goals.

If you’re thinking about writing, publishing, and
figuring out the best next steps for your ideas,
message and work, I invite you to take advantage
of a fantastic no-cost call from my colleagues
and friends, Janet Goldstein and Elizabeth Marshall.

Clear your calendar for
Wednesday, June 27 at 3:00 pm EDT on
the “5 New Rules for the Right Time to Publish.”

Janet and Elizabeth are the real deal, with years of
experience in traditional and self-publishing worlds,
and they understand how to help “real people” like us
to develop and share their work with the widest
possible audiences.

I’ve been a fan of Janet and Elizabeth for several years.
I have already booked this call onto my calendar!
Publishing is just moving too fast for any one person
to stay on top of all the details. I attended
Elizabeth’s and Janet’s very first Book Breakthrough
when it was a single day, live in Dallas. So I highly
recommend their work.

On this all-new content-rich call,
you will discover how to:

• Find your “right thing” to publish
and promote right now

• Pick the RIGHT MODEL for your book or project —
and why the “start from scratch” approach
doesn’t work today

• Leverage the Big 3 Ingredients that you need to
successfully develop and launch your book or message

• Uncover your real WHY for publishing —
and how the answer makes every step of the
process more successful and more fun

https://lizmarshall.infusionsoft.com/go/rules/bobbye/

On the call, they’ll include examples of current clients
and they’ll sprinkle in stories from their work with
bestselling authors you know and love, including
David Allen, Harriet Lerner, Barbara Kingsolver,
Howard Behar, Michael Port, Seth Godin, Keith
Ferrazzi, and Carol Roth.

Don’t put off your publishing dreams a moment longer.
Register today for The 5 New Rules —
a content-rich, no-cost call
with Janet and Elizabeth:

June 27 at 3:00 pm EDT (12:00 pm PDT).

No-cost Preview call sign-up:
https://lizmarshall.infusionsoft.com/go/rules/bobbye/

You’ll be glad you did! I look forward to joining
you on the call.

Love, Light & Laughter,

Bobbye

P.S. This call is a preview of what Janet and
Elizabeth will be teaching as part of their
Book Breakthrough Virtual Master Class this summer.
(Yes, it’s summer camp for authors affordably available
right from the comfort of your own home!)
Based on their incredibly successful live event,
this 4-week online program is an affordable way to
help you break through with your idea, book and
business — and sooner than you ever thought possible!

https://lizmarshall.infusionsoft.com/go/bbtnycmc/bobbye/

P.P.S.  I so believe in the value of their
work that I’m committed to spreading the word.
Using my links means I receive
a referral fee — only if you decide to purchase.

Book Marketing Menu

For many years, I worked in the book publishing business doing marketing and publicity. The following Book Marketing Menu gives authors and would-be authors the master list from which they can draw inspiration and their to-do list. It’s big and hairy. There’s a lot to do. BUT, start with what’s easy and comes naturally for you.

Your book is your legacy. Are you ready? Ready to live your legacy? To own the greatness of your vision, message, or project? To express your gifts? To connect with your tribe, so that the people who need to hear your message can hear you?

The following Book Marketing Menu outlines for you an array of ways to add power, presence, and platform to your vision, book or project.

Continue reading “Book Marketing Menu”

Boost Your Writing with Reading

I admit it. I’m a book person. (Yearbooks in school started my publishing journey. Then working in corporate book publishing for ~20 years. Then freelancing for a variety of publishers, ghostwriting books, marketing books, writing press releases for books, helping people with web sites about books, coaching people about their books… Finally focusing on creating my own books. And all the while reading and buying still more books. Maybe lightening my load soon when I get my new iPad. We’ll see…)

In fact, I may be a book-a-holic. Yes. There it is. Out there in public. One of my “drugs of choice” is books. My husband despairs of my book piles that threaten to topple over. Our house my not really be sturdy enough to house my existing library. (Clued in about this by those funny cracks that seem to keep appearing…)

During my childhood, summer was a time to fall deeply into books. I’ve also been an avid re-reader, revisiting stories that resonated with me time and again.  “So many books, so little time,” is a phrase that was tailor made for me. How about you?

Simultaneously to reading comes the writing. Or vice versa. In fact, there are real synergies that grow in a process of reading and writing.  Each one feeds off the other.

Many people are interested in bringing more ease and authenticity into their writing. They long to be purposeful with their messages about their businesses and projects and creations and ventures. One of the ways to find your authentic voice is to practice writing, ideally in a public sphere like this blogging challenge, where you will be able to tap into a zeitgeist and community of like-minded others and to receive feedback.  You’ll be both reader and writer here.

In addition to writing, reading can be a powerful way to embrace and test your writing. One summer, I went through the letters of Virginia Woolf — volume after volume. Yes, that summer my friends from college received letters from me that unconsciously picked up the tone and flavor of VW’s letters. You can’t help but learn from your reading. It’s what nourishes your soul and heart and voice and mind.

So I want to acknowledge and thank the folks at Flashlight Worthy Books on Twitter as  @flwbooks for sharing this link. It inspired my blog post (as books are wont to do) and offers windows to “see with fresh eyes” in ways to rethink and revisit your own writing process.

“7 Great Titles for a Writer Digging for Inspiration”

And welcome to the second 30 day blogging challenge for 2010. Follow the fun on Twitter at #blog30.

Writing Your Inner Journey–Blog Challenge Post 14

I came across marketing expert and coach, Tara Kachaturoff, on Connie Ragan Green’s 30-day blog challenge.  Her post today, “Marketing Your Book – The strategy may be in “why” you wrote your book,”  suggests that authors and would-be authors look at the reasons why writing a book was important in the first place. Tara explains, “You can often find hints of marketing strategies that might be a good fit.”

She concludes, saying,  “I believe there is value in taking time to explore your original intentions as you may find some highly aligned and inspirational strategies that are perfect for you!”

Tara’s insights are right on the money. What she opens the door to here is the deep dive, what I call the “inner journey.”  In particular for conscious creators, visionaries, thought leaders, and paradigm-changing authors, writers, messengers, healers, and soul-preneurs, this sort of reflection creates the foundational inner work that strengthens the creator and the project. But why, you may ask, does that matter?

What I have discovered and observed over my time in corporate book publishing and a decade-long self-employment journey helping all kinds of clients with their words,  is that all the fantastic outer stuff is great.  But using those juicy marketing tools alone can result in “bright shiny object syndrome” without the foundational grounding of this inner journey.  Both creator and creation become like a tree without roots, and just as unlikely to thrive.

Think about it. Without examining your underlying motivations, your vision, aspirations, and goals, without the inner clarity that comes  from envisioning your path and ultimate destination (or at least the next few steps), then you risk traveling the road that old saying describes: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Ideally this inner work and inner journey takes place before the book is published.  But as Tara observes, it can be powerful at any point in the process. I like to point out the importance of this by saying “the inner journey IS the journey.”

Safe travels to all!

Post 14 in the 30 day blogging challenge. Follow the great collegiality on Twitter at #blog30.

What Shelf? — Blog Challenge Day 12

The conundrum of the interdisciplinary writer and not fitting into book categories.

“I wonder if real art comes when you build the thing that they don’t have a prize for yet.” Seth Godin

I thought of Seth’s comment earlier this week as I browsed the bookstore preparing for my “competitive analysis” for the Write Synergies book that I am ostensibly working on. As I consider the focus for this [first] book, I’m not even to the point of being concerned that there’s no prize yet. What is a concern is that the book’s author (moi) rarely sees it fitting on any of the available bookstore subject shelves.

Part of the process of developing your book and message is to see where your big ideas and visions locate themselves on the continuum of other creations, books, and messages of other thought leaders. You want to be out there, but not too out there. You want to have a shelf and category in the bookstore as a destination, a place where your people will naturally congregate, where they go for information and books similar (but not too similar) to yours. And online, you want the keywords, especially the long tail keywords, that people search for to find you and your information.

Over here, things aren’t cut and dried. Over here, the subject boundaries are more like permeable membranes. When you’re a passionate interdisciplinarian, they don’t make shelves for that.

Post #12 for 30 Day Blog Challenge. Follow us on Twitter at #blog30.

Linchpin’s Message: Own Your Genius and Live It

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

So asks Seth Godin in his latest bestseller, Linchpin. I could go on and on about it. In fact, I have pages of notes, quotes, and inspirations. His latest is an impassioned plea for all of us to recognize our genius and use it — specifically in the workplace.  There’s a lot in here that dovetails with the message of “The Write Synergies Path to Owning Your Greatness,” of living your legacy and sharing your gifts with the world.

Seth Godin is speaking directly to the hearts of millions of dispirited working folk who walk around half alive most of the time because they thought their whole self was not welcome at work.

But stirring things up the way he does can be scary when so much in the work world is becoming commodified. (That old race to the bottom, lowest-cost goods and services achieved by finding the cheapest labor.) But some people and businesses manage to sidestep that commodification.

The story we’ve all assumed is that customers want the cheapest stuff. But maybe there’s a crack in that facade.  Don’t we see at least a few who are wanting something extraordinary in their customer experience as well? Some customers even seem willing to pay for that something “extra,” the unique and human, the creative, the “art.”

Seth Godin highlights that something extra as “emotional labor,” (from the work of Arlie Hochschild) and points out that this “emotional labor” may be the one thing that we are most suited to  provide. We are potentially geniuses, due in no small part to the emotional labor, the connections we make, the tenor of our interchanges when we allow our brilliant selves to shine. Yes, we have to come out of hiding and invisibility.

The “emotional labor” that we put into what we create becomes the basis of the art of our lives and work, the basis of the new maps of the territory that are so needed, the much-needed emotional connection in the exchanges of our work lives. Sounds good.

BUT for the Resistance. The heart of the book, the longest chapter, and the one Seth Godin actually “begs” his readers to read, is “The Resistance,” running 49 pages. Why do we regularly and systematically fall back to the old, seemingly “safe” habits of invisibility, of not standing out? He attributes this problem to what he terms “the lizard brain,” that has seen to our survival as a species for hundreds of thousands of years.

And this is exactly what we don’t need to do now. The lizard brain is leading people down the wrong path — the path of busywork, of doing what doesn’t matter, and not producing much of anything that does matter because we are so intent on keeping our heads down and staying invisible.

Seth Godin has trained himself to ignore the “lizard brain” and “ship.”  “Shipping,” in this context, is getting the work out there. I’ve been in business for myself for a decade now.  It’s moderately easier to “ship” as a solo — Getting the client work done and out there. It’s also somewhat easier to stand out as a solo and harder to hide. It’s much easier to take Seth Godin’s message to heart, because as solos, we are our own team. We have to create the gifts and the art, the indispensability as we serve our people, our “Tribes,” a term I’ve embraced from Seth Godin’s previous book of the same name.

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

The publisher I worked for (before my foray into the entrepreneurial life) published some books from Seth Godin’s original book packaging company, eventually some by Seth Godin himself.  This decade-old connection reminds me that we in corporate businesses and entrepreneurial ventures alike have been holding our collective breaths, waiting for permission to show up fully.  We’ve been hiding out. Someone has pulled back the curtain on Oz. And it’s time to stop hiding.

Revel in the gifts of insight, the art, the perspectives that Seth Godin shares in his most personal book to date. The message ties back beautifully to one of his blog posts, “You Matter.”  Read it. It’s powerful. I mentioned this post in my blog earlier too.

The sign of a great book: Like a jazz combo, lots of improv and riffs flow from the central starting point.  That’s a big part of the gift that Seth Godin has made to us at the beginning of this new decade.  In his own blog and those of his circle and tribe, the ideas continue to flow, to be refined, discussed. We experience the concepts in motion, with people taking action, mobilizing around the insights to bring them off the page and into the office, taking things further.  It’s his gift, and it’s a big one. Get the artifact  — the book Linchpin — and enjoy the gifts. Don’t forget to continue the conversation.

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

( If you click, you will be taken to the book’s Amazon page where I, as an affiliate, will get a small referral percentage if you purchase.)

More full disclosure: I was among the early recipients of the book to review in exchange for a donation to the Acumen fund.  Admittedly,  I’m late in “shipping” this commentary/riff/review.  But I hope that won’t stop you from exploring the gift that Seth Godin is offering. It’s high time we bring our whole selves to our work, and truly give our gifts and own our greatness.

Celebrate National Bookstore Day on Nov. 7

Bibliophiles and bookstore lovers (and publishers and authors): Mark your calendars for Nov. 7 to celebrate all the bookstores you love! (Especially the independents!) Publishers Weekly, the publishing trade magazine, is sponsoring the national day to honor bookstores and all the benefits they provide. Check out the article from my old pal, Ron Shank, now PW’s publisher,  at: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6696364.html?nid=2286&rid=##CustomerId##&source=link

Resources to Create a World that Works for All

Berrett Koehler Publishers (affectionately known as BK) carries out its vision of “a community creating a world that works for all” by actively and transparently partnering with its authors, stakeholders, vendors, and shareholders.  As someone who has been in and around the book publishing industry for nearly 30 years, I can tell you with assurance: These guys are the real deal.

Given the situation as it stands, “a world that works for all”  recognizes that we need to change — personal change, business and institutional change, as well as societal change.  The publisher has resources to focus on leveraging change from each of these arenas. You pick the area with the greatest resonance for you.

BK Life titles address the personal transformations required; BK Business titles address institutional/corporate issues; and BK Currents titles focus on the largest, societal, and systemic issues.

BK Publishers are the folks who brought you John Perkins’ bestseller, Confessions of An Economic Hit Man, Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog, Repacking Your Bags, leadership classics like Leadership and the New Science by Margaret Wheatley (bringing quantum physics to business leadership!), Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute, A Complaint is a Gift, and Beverly Kaye’s half-million copy bestseller, Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em.

Newer  titles that I find particularly intriguing include: The Introverted Leader, Glow, Lift, and Framing the Future.

Click ForeWord Magazine to see my review of BK’s Breakdown, Breakthrough by Kathy Caprino. 

You, as a friend of mine,  can access over 800 resources from the BK publishing archives.  By ordering your BK titles through the link here, you will automatically get a 20 percent discount on any BK publication that you order.

PLUS, you can take advantage of a summer special for just a few more hours!  They are concluding their summer sale, so order through August 31 to receive an extra 20 percent discount  by entering “summersale09” during checkout on the BK website — for a total discount of 40 percent.

Act Now: Through Monday, August 31, 2009, all books, e-books, whitepapers, audio books, DVDs, and digital toolkits are an additional 20% off when you use the SUMMERSALE09 e-coupon during the check-out process. Click here: Berrett Koehler

Remember at checkout, use this e-Coupon code = SUMMERSALE09

To see the wealth of ways to “Create a world that works for all,” (and save money too) connect to Berrett-Koehler publishers or use the following  link:

http://clickserve.cc-dt.com/link/click?lid=41000000028480391

Publishers’ University!

Highlights of Publishers’ University in NYC May 26-28, 2009.

It’s time for the annual Publishers’ University–next week!  What happened to May?!  It’s sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association.  I’m leading two panels this year:  The Publishers’ Repair Kit and Converting Promotion into Book Sales.  We have attracted amazing speakers again.  I will also be up bright and early to share my expertise at the pre-breakfast round tables, “Ask the Experts.”  I love the chance to connect with colleagues in the book publishing business, to meet exciting new publishers who are passionate about what they have to say, and to help convene these panels where we all contribute to each others’ learning and success.

If you have been thinking about publishing and want some grounding in the fundamentals and good business practices for *every* aspect of book publishing, then you should consider IBPA’s Publishers’ University a required stop on your highway to success.  You can learn more at http://www.ibpa-online.org.  From that home page for the association, click on the icon for Publishers’ University.  If you can’t make it to New York, you can order recordings of any or all of the sessions.