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Paperback
200 pages
ISBN 9780761156444 Published Feb. 2010
Workman Publishing
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Posted Sept. 24, 2010 11:04 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
➻ The new edition of the Penguin Business Beat has been released. This month's episode focuses on performing under pressure and includes Paul Sullivan, author of Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don't, and CNBC host Maria Bartiromo, who recently released of The Weekend That Changed Wall Street. As always, Jack took a look inside one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, going with Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches for this occasion.
The Business Beat also shares views from inside the publishing house, with Portfolio publisher Adrian Zackheim giving some book suggestions on performing (or not) under pressure, including Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. And this episode introduces a new segment, "Books at Work." This month, Viking publicist Gabrielle Gantz discusses Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark.
➻ Being a fan of Writing Tools, Gabrielle may be busy celebrating National Punctuation Day today, something she would have in common with Meredith Blake at The New Yorker's book blog—The Book Bench.
➻ Todd Sattersten, our former president and co-author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time has published "a 150-page custom book entitled Everything I Know About Business Books" in preparation for this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Todd was kind enough to share a free sample of the book with Ed Nawotka and Publishing Perspectives.
➻ Callie Oettinger recently interviewed Michael Bungay Stanier at Steven Pressfiled Online. He discussed his book, Do More Great Work, published earlier this year, and the big ideas contained therein.
➻ Bob Sutton's Good Boss, Bad Boss is now available, but he has accepted the fact that no matter what else he writes, he is and will forever be "The Asshole Guy." He tells us why in On Being The Asshole Guy: [The] New Chapter in The No Asshole Rule:
Regardless of anything I ever wrote or said about management, or ever will, I am condemned to be that guy for the rest of my life. This book was first published in North America in February 2007. The No Asshole Rule has sold over 125,000 copies in the English language, plus over 350,000 copies translated into other languages (especially Italian, German, and French). I have given hundreds of media interviews and received thousands of emails filled with stories, studies, questions, compliments, and insults from readers—or from people who haven’t read a page but instantly love or despise the book based on the title alone.
The No Asshole Rule was just released in paperback for all you out there yet to read it.
➻ Oronte Churm (a.k.a John Griswold, author of The Democracy of Ghosts) wrote recently about how the greatest service we can provide a writer we're critiquing is Squinting at the Stories, and then he digressed into something altogether different and wonderful concerning poverty.
➻ And speaking of poverty, Julien Smith—co-author with Chris Brogan of Trust Agents—blew my mind last week when he pondered a big question, Where the Poor Go. It's a post about gentrification, condos, Facebook getting into location based social software, European immigration to America, angel investors, and the "force exerts its influence wherever you are on the chain." All in 401 words.
➻ Banned Books Week begins tomorrow, which leads us to the obvious question: Which book would you like to see banned? I'm going with The Boz by Brian Bozworth and the menu of the International House of Pancakes.
➻ "It's taken years to make a beautiful shroud." —Nathaniel Rateliff
Nathaniel Rateliff - Shroud from Ryan Adams on Vimeo.
Yeah "You should have seen the other guy."
Do More Great Work
Posted March 5, 2010 5:07 a.m. by jon
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
I met author Michael Bungay Stanier at last year's ASTD conference in Washington, DC. My plane had just landed, I had a mere hour or two of sleep, and was on cold medicine. The bustle of the training conference quickly woke me up, and meeting Michael was a great dose of reality. We talked about his work, 800-CEO-READ, and then he passed me a copy of his book Do More Great Work, mentioning that it was getting a substantial update and reprint the following year.
Later that day, as I waited for my plane to take me back to Milwaukee, I sat in the airport, and was consumed by Michael's book. It was a small, interestingly shaped little book, and upon opening it, I instantly realized that this guy had a lot of great things to say. It was packed, but flowed like a Seth Godin book, each chapter keeping me curious for what was coming next. I immediately wrote Michael after arriving back in the office and congratulated him on the fine work (and this was indeed an example of the "great work" he refers to).
Fast forward to February 2010, and the aforementioned new and updated version of Do More Great Work is now available. I wasn't sure how it could get any better, but he's added some great additional voices this time around: Seth Godin, Chris Guillebeau, Penelope Trunk, Tim Hurson, Leo Babauta, Dave Ulrich, and Michael Port - each contributing original pieces that support the book's focus.
But, what's it about, you ask? Every day, we fill our time doing things, and even the best performers in the world have a fraction of time that could be changed to focus on better work. First off, the book defines what that is. "Doing better" is a tricky concept, and the book clearly defines what bad, good, and great work are. From there, we can identify what those things are in our lives and follow the rest of the book and its 15 'maps' to create a plan to change. This book is a resource to improve processes, not just a book to make you feel better about what you do.
For a better glimpse into the book and Michael's ideas, also check out his recently published ChangeThis manifesto!
Publishing Chat With Michael Bungay Stanier
Posted Oct. 5, 2009 7:48 a.m. by jon
In Blog - 800 CEO Read Blog
For the past couple of years, I've done something here called the Author Blog. Some of you might be familiar with it, but others not so much. The solution to that is that I'm now going to bring some of the best of these posts to our main blog, starting with this new post. Though the Author Blog was geared mainly toward topics that authors would find interesting, I'm betting there are some other people that might be curious to know more about what business authors think, the issues they have to deal with as the face of publishing changes, and how ideas get constructed to be spoken, written, and presented to the world.
I met Michael Bungay Stanier at this year's ASTD conference in Washington, DC, where he was kind enough to pass me a copy of his amazing little book, Find Your Great Work. In February of 2010, Workman Press will release his new book, Do More Great Work. I followed up with him to hear his take on writing, and the two paths of publishing - traditional and self-publishing. It's a nice overview of what it's like in the business author's world, and I hope you enjoy the read. Check out Michael's books, too! Great stuff.
800ceoread: How did you get the idea to even write a book? What purpose did you see it serving that wasn't addressed before you wrote it?
Michael Bungay Stanier: This is a great question and a great place to start. I think anyone who's toying with the idea of writing a book should ask: Why? Why a book? Why now?
Sometimes we've just got something that has to get created, has to get out in the world. Fantastic. And if that's true, I think it's worth stopping and asking: of all the ways you could shape that information, is a book the best way? What about any number of other formats you could consider?
And if you think "A book is the secret to success and fortune and fame" - well, that's also an assumption worth questioning. Most books don't open those particular doors.
But to come back to your question - "for the sake of what?" - it was two things. First, the arrival of the book idea and shape almost fully formed in my head one August vacation. As it happens, I was staying at the cottage where Einstein used to stay for his summer holidays in up-state New York, and perhaps some genius juju rubbed off on me. And second, it's part of a bigger business strategy for me - the book is a way of finding and engaging future clients in the work I do around helping organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. The right sort of book can help spread what Seth Godin would call an idea virus.
8cr: Did you initially intend to self-publish, or did you try traditional publishers first. If you tried traditional publishers, talk about what that process was like.
MBS: I jumped right into self-publishing and for a number of reasons. First, I know it takes a whole lot of effort to get a traditional publisher. If you're going for one of the bigger names, you need an agent. That's a challenge. Then, if you find an agent you need to get your manuscript accepted. And that's another challenge. And then, if you get your manuscript accepted - hurrah! - you have to deal with a very different financial model than if you self publish.
If you self-publish, you'll spend money up front - perhaps on hiring an editor and hopefully on hiring some sort of designer - and then you can print your book for less than $5 a copy and often closer to $2 or $3. If you sell the book for $15, that gives you a pretty good margin. If you know how to bundle it with other products then you can sell it for more than that.
With a traditional publisher, they take on the risk of the up-front costs and they give you some sort of advance on future sales. But the financial model shifts significantly. You're earning less than 10% off the cover price of any books sold - maybe a buck a book for a $15 book - and you start getting that money quite a while after the book's been published.
8cr: What were the most challenging aspect(s) to self publish? What were the most rewarding?
MBS: The more challenging aspects are keeping up the discipline of writing new drafts. Without a iron-first-in-velvet-glove editor, it's easy to flake out on a "this will do" standard. Also, holding yourself to the standard of "this can't look and feel self-published" is important - something that was both challenging and rewarding.
I loved having full control over the design process. Because content is now ubiquitous, I think the design - the look and feel - of any book is a critical place where value gets created for the reader. Being in charge of creating something that's beautiful was fantastic.
8cr: Your next book will be published by a traditional publisher. Talk a bit about the difference in the process from self publishing.
MBS: Let me frame these comments by saying I'm working with Workman as my first traditional publisher. I've got nothing to compare them to, but by all accounts Workman are one of the most flexible and most innovative publishers, willing to brand themselves and to invest in their authors. And I'm excited to be working with them. AND the difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing has some stark comparisions.
The first thing that's different is the shift in control. Self-publishing, I'm writer, editor, designer, marketing and sales. Personally, I like that - my deeply controlling nature underneath my nice guy facade... As soon as you hand things to a traditional publishing company, control gets a little diffuse. It's now a conversation - and often a very good conversation - about content and structure and form with your editor. And it's harder to tie in marketing and "how to make this book catch people's imagination" as part of the on-going conversation, because there are now different departments - marketing, sales, corporate sales, international sales, PR, etc - all handling their own specific remits.
The second thing I notice is the difference in pace. With discipline and focus, you can conceivably write and publish a book yourself in six weeks. With a traditional publisher, a pretty speedy turn-around is nine months. These days, to me, nine months feels an eternity. This is a time and a place where people carry out exchanges in 140 characters or less, where you can connect with anyone in the world instantly, when you can self-publish in an instant. The extended time comes from the number of different iterations we do of the book - perhaps 5 or 6 as it moves through various editing and design stages - and the need to get the sales force and the distribution logistics set up to make it happen. So I get why it takes 9 months - I just think it's an increasing area of vulnerability of the business model.
8cr: What do you see as the biggest benefits of working with a traditional publisher?
MBS: Well, I'm still in the process of finding that out. We're in the middle of the process right now - we're just moving the manuscript through the copy editing and type-setting phases and beginning conversations about marketing.
Certainly, one of the benefits is a rigorous editor. I was pretty happy with the self-published version and - truth be told - slightly wary of my editor. What would she do? What value could she add? Will she compromise my voice? But the truth is that her edits have made the book tighter, more comprehensive and more useful for readers.
Second and most obviously, distribution. The new book will be in bookstores and at airports and findable by a lot more people. My goal is to spread the idea of more Great Work and less Good Work, and for me having Workman helping with traditional channels of marketing, PR and distribution is one key element of the strategy. They're able to talk to people and open up conversations which would be much more challenging for me on my own. For instance, I'd love to get the new book into something like the Fedex-Kinko's chain so it's one of the books people can pick up after they've printed something out or sent a parcel on its way. With Workman, that's a possibility. Without them, I'd be pushing my luck.
