“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.