Thursday’s profit tip for authors

Nonfiction books are purchased for change, to help readers solve problems and achieve goals. Titles that promise change, and books that successfully deliver on the promise, create prospects interested in finding out more about other ways you can assist them.

Thus, when describing your firm’s product and service offerings in your newsletters and online marketing, relate your products and services to the same topics of change that you described in your book. Often, a simple rewrite can do a better job of convincing prospects that you are uniquely qualified to assist readers apply the ideas they’ve learned in your book to their specific circumstances.

The starting point is to rewrite the headline on the page where you describe your products and services, for example.

• BEFORE. Many authors use generic headlines to describe their offerings, such as “Coaching and Consulting” or “Products and Services.” These weak, generic terms fail to build an association in the reader’s mind between the book they have just read and the assistance they can get taking the next step.
• AFTER. Instead, the headline should build a bridge between the book and the author’s products and services. A more effective headline could begin, “Additional resources to help you…” and it should end by restating the same benefit, or promise, that you offered in your book’s title.

Likewise, each of your products or services should be linked to the change promised in your book. The more specific you are, the more details you provide in your product and service descriptions, the more successful you’ll be converting readers into clients.

What to do
Spend a few minutes and make a list of all of the ways you help your clients achieve the change you wrote about in your book, and the specific benefits they’ll enjoy. Once you create this list, you can refer to it preparing product and service descriptions for your catalog pages.

Tonight, Published & Profitable members and friends are invited to attend a special teleseminar interview when host Roger C. Parker talks to Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth and Awakening the Entrepreneur Within.

Michael Gerber’s “systems-based” ideas have had a profound impact upon small businesses throughout the world. Tonight, he’ll be discussing the story behind his latest book, Awakening the Entrepreneur Within, and his latest projects, described at Michael’s Awakening the Entrepreneur website. (Where you can sign-up for his newsletter download a free chapter).

The call takes place Wednesday evening, May 14th, between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM EST. Contact Published & Profitable for call-in instructions. There will be an opportunity to ask questions.

Wednesday’s promoting tip for authors

Use care when selecting where you will promote your book and build your brand by contributing articles to other websites. There’s more to choosing the right site than just the size of the site and its traffic. You’ll be judged by the company you keep, including the design of the site as well as the quality of the other articles appearing there.

For example, I found much to like at Suite101. The site’s overall presentation and the quality of the articles added credibility to its contributor’s articles. What do you think?

Tuesday’s writing tip for authors

Published & Profitable members are invited to download my updated Table of Contents planning template intended for use with Mindjet’s MindManager mind mapping software. Mindjet’s MindManager is a software program that permits authors to display the contents of their books on a single screen, or printed on a single sheet of paper.

The revised Table of Contents planning template is based on careful analysis of the chapter organization of dozens of best-selling business and self-help books. Titles analyzed in Published & Profitable’s AUDIOS + MAPS section included:

• David Allen’s Getting Things Done
• David Roam’s Back of the Napkin
• Timothy Ferris’s 4-Hour Workweek
• Dan Pink’s Whole New Mind
• Yanik Silver’s Moonlighting on the Internet

In every case, the individual chapters were grouped in sections typically called parts or steps. Organizing chapters into sections makes it easier for authors to write their books and easier for readers to read their books. In each case, sections break reading into chunks, or segments, which provide a context for the information contained in each chapter.

The new Published & Profitable chapter planning mind mapping template helps author better-organize their books in terms of the steps needed to accomplish the desired change that their books offer readers. The revised template also makes it easier for authors to schedule their work and visually track their progress as they write their book. Mindjet’s MindManager offers Task Icons that allow authors to see which chapters have been completed as well as the amount of work remaining to be done in each chapter.

Monday’s planning tip for authors

Research can play an important role in planning your book’s success. You need to know what’s selling and what are the characteristics that book reviewers look for when reviewing books. An excellent starting point is to explore the writing of Richard Pachter, who reviews business and nonfiction books for the Miami Herald. Richard offers numerous articles, blogs, and resources at his website, www.wordsonwords.com. Richard Pachter’s resources include:

• Reviews of the Best Business Books of 2007. You can easily access his detailed reviews of each title. You can also link to his lists of the Best Business Books of each of the previous 3 years.
• Review Rap Blog of music and books, with an emphasis on business books intended for a broad business market. (i.e., no self-help, technical, business to business, etc.)

Miami Herald’s Business Monday Book Club
On his site, Richard includes a link where you can join the Miami Herald’s Business Monday Book Club. A limited number of readers, who join by submitting an e-mail containing their postal mailing address, are sent copies of books for review. They have 3 weeks to submit their reviews. Excerpts from their reviews are included in Richard’s review of the books. (See Details.) It’s a great way to expand your library at no cost while building your credentials as a published writer.

Friday’s upcoming event for authors

Attend the next Published & Profitable guest teleseminar interview. Our guest, Stacey Kannenberg, successfully balances creativity, positioning, and promoting power with motherhood. Stacey is the author of two popular children’s books, Let’s Get Ready for Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready for First Grade!

The power of these titles is their appeal to parents to give their children a jumpstart on success. And, on this exclusive Published & Profitable interview, you’ll learn what brought Stacey to this point, and how she is leveraging her success to the next plateau.

Stacey’s story shows the power of a good book backed-up by marketing savvy, an ever-renewing target market, a unique approach, and excellent execution.

Find out what she’s doing to expand her market and leverage her books to even greater success on a special Published & Profitable member event.

Our exclusive interview takes place Friday, May 16th, at 11:00 AM.

Thursday’s profit tip for authors

Early this week, I attended a teleseminar interview involving Michael Port and Stephanie Diamond, two members of Published & Profitable’s Editorial Board. Michael was interviewing Stephanie on the occasion of her new book, Web Marketing for Small Businesses: 7 Steps to Explosive Business Growth.

One of the best parts of the call occurred when Michael and Stephanie were discussing her days at AOL, where she was Marketing Director. Michael discussed the challenges of growth and success which can derail many firms–large as well as small, (including businesses operated by authors). “Many firms that are successful, when small, forget the simplicity their original success was based on. The bigger they grow, the more complicated they become!”

Michael’s advice? “Keep it simple and never forget what your success was based on!”

To learn more, download the entire podcast, which I highly recommend.

Wednesday’s promoting tip for authors

Authors looking for ways to promote themselves and their books should investigate Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out website. Help a Reporter Out helps editors and reporters locate authors and other subject area experts willing to be interviewed for articles, books, blogs, and podcasts. Once you register–for free–you will receive up to 3 e-mails a day, each containing up to 10 detailed queries from reporters looking for individuals willing to be interviewed.

If you locate an opportunity that sounds like it could help you promote your book to an appropriate publication, e-mail the reporter placing the query. If they like you, they will immediately get back in touch with you and describe the next step.

If you’re an author or blogger looking for individuals to interview, visit the press page at Help a Reporter Out and register as a journalist. You can then submit detailed interview and research requests that Peter Shankman will send out to others, increasing the likelihood that you can locate subject area experts or individuals with stories and experiences you can incorporate into articles, blogs, books, case studies, interviews, and website content.

Tuesday’s writing tip for authors

One of the easiest ways to get your book written on time is to commit to daily progress, a little at a time in short daily working sessions and–most important–track of your progress each day. The easiest way to track your progress is to use a Daily Progress Log, such as the one that Published & Profitable members use.

Whether you fill out the Daily Progress Log by hand, or simply update the template using Microsoft Word, you’ll enjoy a feeling of satisfaction each day as you enter your latest daily progress. More important, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you’re making progress writing your book. Daily writing, backed-up by tracking your progress, is the best way to meet your publisher’s deadlines and prevent writer’s block.

Monday’s planning tip for authors

One of the wisest voices in nonfiction writing is David Meerman Scott, a member of Published & Profitable’s Editorial Board. David brings years of international journalism and press relations experience, along with the knowledge he researched while writing The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

One of David’s recent comments to me was to emphasize the importance of using Google to research potential titles before it’s too late, so they can find one that they can “own”. As David relates, “Before I settled on the titles of my three books Eyeball Wars, Cashing In with Content, and The New Rules of Marketing & PR, I made sure that those phrases were not used in books, or ideas like mine ever before.”

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