Author Blog

Whether you're writing your first book, or if you've just finished it, you should be thinking about improving your writing. According to the guys over at tiny gigantic, you shouldn't just think about it. In their piece, "10 Writing Tips To Make Your Mother Proud" they discuss ten straightforward practices to become better at writing.

The most interesting tip to me is about reading your own writing aloud. Does your writing sound like the way you talk? If not, re-write it so it does. Practicing this tip alone can also help you become a better speaker. Becoming a better speaker will bring more opportunities to talk. With a well written book and a great presentation in tow, the odds are in your favor for even bigger opportunities going forward.

The title of Robert Sutton's book added a word to George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words." For those unfamiliar, Robert wrote, The No Asshole Rule. In doing so, the book gained a tremendous amount of attention for the idea. But, it also gained a good amount of attention for the title. Through the process, the author was presented with issues of censorship that were at first humorous, but eventually became annoying, and ultimately confusing. In the Huffington Post, Sutton details how magazines, awards presenters, and radio hosts refused to say the name of his book. He then goes on to discuss those that wanted him to say it, sometimes as much as possible.

Whether or not you decide to use profanity in your book title, talk, etc., it seems important to understand Sutton's experience - to understand what to expect if you do (both on the anti and supportive sides), and also as a social commentary on modern day censorship issues.

For over 10 years, Charles Fishman has been a senior writer at Fast Company magazine. He knows a thing or two about research (he was the first reporter allowed inside a Tupperware factory as well as the nation's only bomb factory), but even more so, the man can write.

Our very own own Todd Sattersten had a 30 minute conversation with Fishman on writing - the craft, the practice, the process, drafting, rewriting, voice, listening, speaking, and a variety of other points are covered; and the insight is excellent. Fishman also wrote The Economist's best book of 2006, The Wal-Mart Effect, so his work as a journalist branching into best selling author reveals a breadth of experience many other authors just don't have. This is great stuff to learn from.

You can listen to their conversation here.

I just returned from the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, TX. Every year, thousands of bands flood the city, and play in every nook and cranny available. Theaters have shows, bakeries have shows, bars have shows, coffee shops have shows, hotels have shows, and people also just walk down the sidewalk singing and playing guitar. As I walked down 6th Street one night, I could literally hear 100 different songs at once. It was a bit overwhelming. I contemplated all of it - the logistics, the travel, the organization, the city, but most of all, was it worth it for all these bands to do this?

Certainly, there are a ton of industry people there, so many people are hoping to get noticed and finally get their big break. If that's really why you're there though, you're probably going to leave disappointed. Quite simply, it's best to really be interested in what you're doing; work hard at it, and enjoy the heck out of it. The rest will work itself out.

Back in the office, now I'm thinking about authors. I talk to many of them, and it's a similar story; everyone wants their big break. Do you want to become a sought after speaker? A best selling writer? A marketing guru? A guitar hero? Whoops. Well, you get the point. Identifying a sense of purpose can help create your strategy, one that carries with it appropriate goals and the drive and excitement to stay on course. I think musicians and authors are also similar in that they cannot necessarily depend on what they've done in the past. It's what they're doing now that counts to their audience, and will keep that audience growing.

In any case, it's good to be back, and listening to one song at a time.

Publishers rely heavily on author's own audiences to drive sales of their books. The same thing happens in music. The most aware and avid customers are the ones already familiar with the content source. It only makes sense. But, obviously some people have larger audiences than others, so how do you build on that - in quantity and quality?

Robert Scoble wrote a great article in the April 2008 edition of Fast Company magazine called "Meet the Press." Using Timothy Ferriss as an example, a year ago, no one knew who he was, and now, he appears everywhere from CNBC to Maxim magazine, spreading the idea from his book. Easier said than done? Scoble details Ferriss' strategy.

Ferriss wrote down the names of his favorite bloggers and made a goal to meet them. He attended blog conferences where these people either spoke or attended and set up dinner meetings with them. At dinner, he told some engaging stories about things he had done. By the end of dinner, he was connected, and went on to post comments at their blogs and linked to them from his site, which they in turn reciprocated because the bloggers were now familiar with him. In this process, the bloggers (the media voices) got to know him, but more importantly, so did their audiences.

Scoble writes, "A couple of months later, when he asked those bloggers for permission to send them a copy of his book, most said yes. Within a week, he had dozens of blog reviews - because he got to know us first rather than just firing off a pitch."

There's a big lesson there, folks, straight from the journalist's mouth. Pitches are a dime a dozen, but connections are worth a whole lot more.

"Books are messages from the dead, if not now, certainly eventually. Anyone who writes or makes books must feel this aspect of the book. They can be a form of immortality, for me as well as for the subjects of my books." - Caren Heft

Realizing our ideas can become an obsession. We'll stop at nothing to have our idea become something tangible that other people can see, use, and think about. So much so that this drive can cause us to make mistakes, but it can also bring a lot of outward and inward satisfaction. Or, according to bookmaker Caren Heft, a sense of immortality. Whether or not the book you write lasts forever, it certainly can physically outlive you, and hopefully, the ideas within will inspire people for generations to come.

Some publishers are trying different things out to spread awareness and interest in the titles they publish. Harper Collins, for instance, is experimenting with releasing free complete versions, chapters, and sections of their titles and watching the results to see if they increase sales. Listen to the NPR segment here.

I'm curious to see if this does work. It does for music, and likely will for content, but I'm betting it also works against the content. After all, books aren't like pop music. Taking chunks of text out of context might be similar to hearing a :30 second sample of Beethoven's 5th and thinking, "oh, this is what it's all about." In the end, we might buy something and get a bunch of stuff we didn't expect, or not enough of what we assumed. Buying ideas involves a certain amount of chance, and everyone, especially publishers, are trying to take as much chance out of the equation as possible. But is it working for the readers?

I'd love to hear about some author experiences with this. Alex Kjerulf, are you out there?

Last night I hung out with author and speaker John Moore. Little did I know, not only is he an expert on business and marketing, but also on Belgian Ale, and old school hip hop. Even though he had a big presentation today, we stayed up pretty late talking about beer, business, and music. Of course, there's ties between all of them, but the biggest point John stressed in all the stories we shared: be yourself, and by doing so, be different.

In talking about beer, we looked at small breweries that tried to be big players, and ended up with a big diluted product. In comparison, we then looked at the absolute glory of obscure beers that come out of Belgian monasteries that surpass most wines in their complexity and flavor. That stuff is the real deal - original, and different.

In music, we talked about how hip hop died in the mid-90s because executives found a big market for it, and started "creating products" - making sellable artists, as opposed to finding the people with passion on the streets who lived day to day for their music.

Finally, we talked about how this idea applies to being an author and speaker. No matter what you do, you have be real. The more you start diluting your product to appease the masses, the less unique it is, and the more possible it becomes to replicate. So, any success you achieve on this path becomes short lived, and the original passion is less fulfilled.

Mere hours later, John was on stage, sharing this same idea to 300 BMA members: Be different, build your brand from the inside out, and don't sell out.

Authors: keep it real.

What better a way to start a Friday, than with a cup of coffee and an incredibly insightful chat with author and speaker Tom Peters? All authors should take a listen to this, particularly those just getting into the speaking game. Find out what role books play in the process, what to do with slides and notes, what to learn about your audience beforehand, how to determine fees, and tons of other great information from the guy who's spent the past 30 years speaking to millions of people all over the world.

So, grab your own preferred beverage, get your notepad ready, and click here and listen.