Writing Lessons from James Patterson

You may love James Patterson's books. You may hate them. But you can't deny his success - if you measure success by sales.

• He's published more New York Times best sellers than anyone: fifty one. Thirty five of them hit No. 1.
• Last year, he sold 14 million books in 38 languages.
• He publishes books at an astounding rate: 9 original books in 2009. He plans to publish at least 9 in 2010.
• "Since 2006, Mr. Patterson has written one out of every 17 hardcover novels...bought in the United States."
  

Jonathan Mahler's recent New York Times article on Patterson (James Patterson Inc., 1-24-10) gave me some insights worth chewing on. Here are my takeaways:

1. Writing can be a team sport. Writing is popularly viewed as the lone venture of recluses who hole up in their basements, surfacing every 9 months or so to submit their finished products to their publishing houses and do their national book signing tour. Then it's back to the basement. But in reality, perhaps there are as many ways to write as there are writers.

Patterson's writing has evolved into a method that doesn't require him to write the entire book. He envisions the broad strokes of the story and writes a detailed outline that can run up to 50 pages, triple spaced. (He writes it in long hand on a legal pad and gives it to an assistant to type.) He then gives the outline to one of his five coauthors (each specializes in a particular series or genre), who writes chapters and hands them back to Patterson for revisions or rewrites.

The benefit of team writing is that members of the team can concentrate on what they do best, or what they like to do best. The task of writing a 250 page book requires a vision, a knack for telling a story, the ability to create interesting, likeable characters, structuring, titling, creating cool analogies, and piddling over grammatical minutia. Just because someone's bag of talents and interests doesn't include one or more of these skills shouldn't automatically preclude her from being a writer.

It's considered normal for a screenplay to involve a visionary, several writers, and input from a legion of people, including actors and pre-release audiences. Couldn't many authors benefit from such a team approach?

2. Take your marketing seriously. Most authors seem averse to personally marketing their books. To them, it almost seems morally repugnant - like bribing people to read something they should choose of their own volition. But read up on the business of writing and you'll discover that publishers these days insist that authors involve themselves in the selling of books. I'd suggest that Patterson's success is at least partly due to his personal involvement in marketing his books.

As a former ad executive, he's intimately involved with the design, publishing and advertising of his books. In his early years of writing, Patterson repeatedly challenged conventional industry practices in book marketing. It's quite possible that if he hadn't taken rather extraordinary measures in advertising those early books, he'd just be another writer today.

3. Keep improving. Of one of his early books, Patterson says, "That's an absolutely horrifying book.... I actually tell people not to read it."

4. It's tough to get a first novel published. Over a dozen publishers rejected Patterson's first manuscript. Once published, it won a prestigious Edgar Award. Everyone in the industry tells me it's much more difficult to get published now. So don't let rejection indicate to you that your writing sucks. All authors, except best-selling authors, get rejection after rejection.

5. Don't expect everyone to like your books. Stephen King has called Patterson "a terrible writer." A Washington Post reviewer called one of his works "subliterate." To which Patterson responds, "Thousands of people don't like what I do. Fortunately, millions do."

6. Story trumps sentences. In his early work, he obsessed over his sentences. Now he's more interested in stories than sentences. Mahler describes Patterson's writing as "light on atmospherics and heavy on action, conveyed by simple, colloquial sentences." Patterson says, "I don't believe in showing off. Showing off can get in the way of a good story." He writes short chapters and avoids "description, back story and scene setting whenever possible." He prefers to "hurl readers into the action and establish his characters with a minimum of telegraphic details."

7. On writing what people want. "I have a saying. If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for a few friends, get a blog. But if you want to write for a lot of people, think about them a little bit. What do they like? What are their needs? A lot of people in this country go through their days numb. They need to be entertained. They need to feel something."

8. On loving your work. Patterson's grandad once said to him, "Jim, I don't care what you do when you grow up. I don't care if you drive a truck like I do or if you become the president. Just remember that when you go over the mountain to work in the morning, you've got to be singing." Patterson said, "Well, I am."

9. Understand the publishing industry's bias toward best-selling authors. Times have changed. The industry has changed. Before 1980, if you sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in hardcover, you had a "hit" book. Today, to be a blockbuster, it's gotta sell at least one million copies. How did this happen, and how does this affect authors?

When conglomerates consolidated the industry in the 1980's, they sought larger profits by pushing for bigger best-sellers. "Under pressure from both their parent companies and booksellers, publishers became less and less willing to gamble on undiscovered talent and more inclined to hoard their resources for their most bankable authors. ... The few books that publishers invested heavily in sold; most of the rest didn't. And the blockbuster became even bigger."

My takeaways: 1) If you're already a best-selling author, the traditional publishing industry is a great way to go. They'll publish you, spend the money to market you, and pay to have your books displayed in the most prominent places in bookstores. 2) If you're not already a best-selling author, expect it to be very difficult to get published (or republished) with traditional publishers. If you do get published by them, they probably will do little to market your book. If you've gotta market the book yourself anyway, and have the time and motivation to consider the new tools of publishing, consider the self-publishing option.

Time Saver for Typing the Same Text Over and Over

I found a free clippings manager (multi clipboard) that's a free "ad on" with Firefox. Once I copy my five line signature (see at end of this post) into the program, I can hit ctl/alt/v and then click "n" (for "name") and the below signature magically appears! This should save me a lot of time!

Without a multi-clipboard, we copy text to put into another document or program, but once we copy a second text, the first text disappears. With a multi-clipboard, you can store any text that you find yourself regularly typing, so that you can paste it without having to copy it all over again.

It's called Clippings 3.1 and can be downloaded here if you're running Firefox as your browser:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1347

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html

Writer Insights from Anita Renfroe

Anita Renfroe is a humorist who's been described as "Erma Bombeck meets Carol Burnett, with a bit of Weird Al Yankovic thrown in." As the key note speaker at last week's Georgia Writers Association conference, she kept us laughing as she passed on insights gained from writing seven books. Here are my takeaways (sometimes expounding upon her suggestions):

• The last five years have turned the publishing industry on its head. The playing field has been leveled. Now it's more "Wild West" out there. More and more, readers and viewers are "voting" their favorite videos and books to greater exposure. Regular people can suddenly catapult to the top. Find ways to take advantage of these tools.
  
  One day, Anita's children encouraged her to put a video of her "William Tell Mom" presentation on YouTube. People loved it, forwarding it to friends, so that soon, 1.5 million people had viewed it. Then, Good Morning America came knocking, catapulting her to 200 speaking engagements per year.
  
  
• Prior to this, she was primarily in a coccoon, taking care of her family and serving her husband in ministry. Don't worry if you're still in that coccoon stage. It's those real life experiences that give you the writing material for the rest of your life. Relish the stage your in.
  
  
• It took time to realize that she had a talent for humor. She wanted to be a musician, but people kept telling her she was funny. Listen to other people's comments. Sometimes they can see your talents better than you can recognise your own.
  
  
• You don't have to be in love with the writing process. She enjoys "having written," not the writing. While writing for a deadline, she can get excited about doing anything that has nothing to do with her current project. Use "the power of avoidance" to write other stuff for the future.
  
  
• The more you write, the better you get. Her first publisher told her that most artists have to write 1000 bad songs before they write a good one. Keep writing and get those "bad songs" out of your system.
  
  
• Work on your people skills. In the publishing industry, it's all about relationships. Nobody wants to work with a freak. If you put your manuscript into an editor's hand, but you don't come across like a nice person who'd be enjoyable to work with, your manuscript may never get read. Publishers don't want to work with writers who won't work with them on improvements, deliver manuscripts late, won't listen to their suggestions, whine every time they have to rewrite something.
  
  So, if you go down in your basement to write and pop your head out once a year to relate to other humans, you'll probably find difficulty getting your stuff published.

Thanks Anita, for an insightful, enjoyable presentation!

The Many Styles of Writers

No, I'm not talking about their many genres and voices. I'm talking about the many styles of the writers themselves - the wonderfully varied ways that writers learn their craft and complete their manuscripts. If a young writer studies or mentors under only one or a small number of seasoned writers, she might assume that all writers should approach their craft in the same way. Yet, the more I read about great writers, the more variety I see in the way they approach their craft.

Today, I attended seminars by some very successful authors at the Decatur Book Festival - billed as America's largest independent book festival - and was struck by their differences. One spoke of the necessity of great research for his novels. Another said that, in his opinion, it was all about the story rather than the research - that an author, with his slight of hand or wizardry, uses his words to make people believe the story is true. If a person objected that he gave an Atlanta street the wrong name in his novel, he'd reply, "what do I care? It's fiction!"

I've heard some authors say, "Become a writer only if it's the only thing you can do." One author said that this was the case for her. Everything else she failed in. Yet, she had this great urge to write. Conversely, one successful author on a panel was a lawyer by trade. Another was a physician who taught in medical school. Obviously, they had talents besides writing.

Some authors are solitary folk; others love real-life relationships. Some authors write religiously from 6:00 AM till evening with few breaks. Others write at night, like Tolkien, after the kids are in bed. Some writers studied writing in under grad and Masters programs; others never studied writing, but simply one day thought, "I could write a better book than this crappy novel." They basically learned as they went, took criticism gracefully, and learned the craft. Some are in love with the words and the process. Others, like Mark Twain, said he wrote because there was money in it. Some write the novel start to finish on their own. Others, like James Patterson, collaborate.

I think that's a good reminder for all of us. Whenever an instructor or influential writer makes dogmatic pronouncements about "the way all serious writers write," consider that he might not know the wonderfully varied ways that writers approach their craft. Learn from the masters of your genre. Consider what they say. But in the end, do what works for you.

On Writing and Publishing Excellence

Last weekend I visited my son in California, taking him to ski and snowboard Mammoth Mountain. Until that trip, I'd only skied the Southeast and considered myself a decent skier. But Mammoth taught me a lesson in excellence.

After a seemingly endless ascent on a lift that turned my knuckles white from my terrified grip, I was quite proud to find myself looking down the huge slope beneath me, basking in the headiness of "now I've made it to the big time." But after admiring the view for a few moments, a movement in the distance behind me caught my peripheral vision - another lift that I could barely see, taking skiers to a dizzying height that dwarfed my slope in comparison. From the lofty height, expert skiers would shoot down a slope that appeared to be only a degree or two off from a sheer cliff.

(I took the pic from the top of my lift. The top of the higher lift ends in the top left corner of the photo.)

My slope suddenly looked rather small -- a feeling akin to the kid who thinks the McDonald's playground is cool until he sees an advertisement for Disney World.

Now don't get me wrong. The humbling experience didn't dampen my spirits. I'll always treasure the time with Benji, the breathtaking views, and the exhilarating runs down the slopes. But it was both humbling and challenging to gaze upward and realize that there was more, should I aspire to excellence in the sport.

I immediately thought of my writing and publishing. It's cool to be published with a traditional publisher and to have my ideas translated into multiple languages. But it's also cool to glance up at the lofty heights attained by the greatest authors of my genre. They keep me from getting comfortable. They challenge me to keep getting input, gleaning from their wisdom and tweaking my style.

They also challenge my marketing. By glancing up regularly at the lofty heights attained by great book marketers such as Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, I'm challenged to keep reading up on marketing, trying new methods and pursuing those that work with gusto.

So enjoy your writing and publishing at whatever level you've reached, but don't get comfortable by neglecting to regularly reflect upon the greatest in your field. There's always so much more to learn!

On Writers and Their Websites

As a writer, I own and operate several Websites. It's one of the best things I've ever done, since now I have over 1000 individuals visiting my sites each day. The sites give me both income and busy places to tell people about my books. Two of my sites are www.jstevemiller.com and www.character-education.info .

If you're into writing for the long-haul, you'll probably find yourself needing an author site, a site for one of your books, a site on the topic of your books, and sites for other purposes. Over 10+ years of working with Websites, I've learned a few things. For one, many people spend way too much for their sites. Here are a few tips on where to find a place to build your site (Web Hosts).

I'm recommending that you set up your sites as cheaply as possible. (If you're independently wealthy, read no further. Just find a top-notch Web designer and shell out the bucks. But even then, I'd comparison shop, or you won't be wealthy for long!) I'll start with the most cheap (free) and move all the way to less cheap (about $5.00 per month).

1) You can get a free site through Google with no ads on it, and it might be just fine if all you want is an online brochure to direct people to on your business card. (Search "google g-mail." and sign up for a free g-mail account. Now, look at your g-mail account information and click on the "google pages" link.)

But Google Pages is new and has its limitations. As I write, people are having problems connecting their custom Web address (url) to it, so that I don't think you could have www.mynewbook.com (substitute your book name or author name or the topic of your site) as your Web address. I'd want my own distinct Web address so that people can find me easier. It also looks more professional.

Also, you may have trouble expanding if you want to do e-commerce (sell stuff to people using credit cards) or databases.

But if all you need is a cheap, online brochure (you can make it very professional if you like), this is one way to go. It's got online tools to help you build a simple site, so that you don't have to learn a daunting program like DreamWeaver.

2) You can get a free site through places like www.tripod.com, but they'll feature ads on your site. If you don't mind having ads, then Tripod might be a good choice. They've been offering sites longer than Google and have more helpful tools.

3) Going to paid servers, there are lots of great, cheap options. A good place to find reviews of servers and comparisons of prices and features is www.cnet.com . (Click "web hosting" on their left menu.) I pay $5.00 per month for each of my sites, which have tons of people coming to them and hundreds of pages of materials. I'm probably using less than 5% of the space I could be using.

I'm considering www.godaddy.com for a new site I want to build, primarily because they have a very cute Indy race driver on their home page. Besides this nice feature, they've got 24/7 support, lots of space, lots of free ad-ons (blog, etc.). Domains are cheap through them (c. $9.99 and under per year) and Web space is under $5 per month. I'll also compare www.hostgator.com , but their alligator picture isn't nearly as cute as the racing chick.

I think both of these hosts give you tools to easily build a simple site using templates and their own tools, so that you don't have to invest in software like Macromedia DreamWeaver or Microsoft Expression Web, which are getting more complicated to use because of stuff like Cascading Style Sheets (don't even ask!)

If you decide later to get fancy with the site, like adding e-commerce or databases, these sites support this stuff and you can continue moving forward.

These servers often have stock images you can use. But I absolutely love www.istockphoto.com . Offering over 3 million images (and growing wildly!), easy to search and only $1 per small photo (you don't need huge images for the Web), I always find what I need. Don't copy people's images from the Web (like searching Google Images and randomly copying). People who do this are partly responsible for "starving artists' syndrome." Feed good photographers by purchasing their pics.

If you just need a simple site with attractive information about your books and services, don't spend big bucks. Fool around with some of these inexpensive options. If you need help, enlist your children or a college student studying Web design who desperately needs some experience on his/her resume. If it still doesn't look as professional as you'd like, offer a graphic designer who does good work (look at her portfolio on the Web) and works out of her home (low overhead) a couple of hundred dollars to "take what I've got and make it look more professional."

Recovering from English 101 Trauma

Think back to your early English and Writing Classes. How have those experiences shaped your writer image? Maybe more than you think.

So Cherie and I were listening to some tapes on writing by seasoned writers Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg. One of them described a former student who was perhaps the best writer she had ever taught. Yet, the student couldn't believe that she was actually a good writer. Why? Because her English teachers in high school commented solely on grammatical errors.

Imagined example: she pours her heart into a story and eagerly awaits a morsel of praise from her teacher. Instead, she sees, scrawled in red, "You still don't understand the proper usage of the semicolon."

OK. Useful point. But beyond the semicolon travesty, was the paper interesting, funny, creative, heart-felt? In the final analysis, aren't those aspects more predictive of a great writer than proper semicolon placement? Why then aren't those aspects more often pointed out and rewarded?

I suppose it's easier and more objective to count up the grammatical mistakes, subtract from 100 and assign a grade. But editors can provide semi-colon assistance. And no acquisitions editor ever, in the history of publishing, excitedly presented a manuscript to her superiors with the glowing remark, "this author's semicolon placement is unsurpassed."

I typically hated writing in school. It was all about not making mistakes; seldom, if ever, about being funny or informative (did I use that semicolon correctly?). So let's try to get over the damage done to our writing esteem by the grammar police.

Some of the most creative and entertaining writing I see these days are in newspaper vents, unedited blogs, and informal movie and book reviews. I applaud their daring. Writing with no editor is akin to streaking - running with no clothes. Scary, but strangely freeing.

Go ahead. Blog, e-mail, write movie reviews on Amazon, express your opinions, just for the fun of writing. Let the grammar police cringe, grind their teeth and rail against the rampant unprofessionalism. I'm just excited that so many people are writing their thoughts, their jokes, their stories, their passions.

Chapter 9: No platform? Then build a platform that suits your personality and strengths. Recommendation: Utilize the Web

Platform as Service

Guy Kawasaki was one of the original Apple employees responsible for marketing of the Macintosh computer in 1984. Today he works as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, listening to people’s upstart ideas and deciding who to help fund. In an interview, Kawasaki observed an important differentiator among business start-ups. From his vast experience, if a person raves about how his venture will make tons of money, he doubts it will succeed. But if someone describes in glowing terms how his venture will help lots of people, Kawasaki is all ears. Here’s one that’s likely to fly.

I think this applies to authors building platforms to publish and market their books. So let’s rephrase this chapter title. “Building a Platform” sounds like I’m doing everything I can to put myself on a pedestal. But I think the best way to build a platform is to find ways to serve. In a real sense, you don’t build a platform at all. Instead, you find ways to serve people and one day you’re rather surprised to find yourself standing on the platform that sprung up as a byproduct. So let's call this chapter, "Find Ways to Serve."

Are you familiar with the Maui Writer’s Conference? It's one of, if not the most respected writers conferences in existence. Go to Maui and you'll meet top editors, Hollywood script writers, etc.

Do you know its history? John Tullius had made it as a writer, pulling in a secure six-figure income from his articles and ten books. Then it came to a screeching halt. Mysteriously, for a three-year period, he couldn't sell anything. And he couldn't write. Maybe his muse had jilted him. Maybe he'd contracted acute writers' block. Whatever the case, the result was devastating. According to Tullius, "I lost everything - the car, the home, my self-respect."

But then a letter arrived from his uncle Frank, his successful writing mentor who'd turned Buddhist monk after a losing battle with alcohol. Frank invited him to come visit at his Thailand monastery. Enclosed was a round trip ticket. What did he have to lose? He went.

Upon arriving, Frank led him to a view of a couple of dozen children, playing in a courtyard. "They are my students," he explained. "I came to teach them."

Tullius was confused. "I thought you came here to be a monk."

Frank replied that after sitting around for about a month, they introduced him to his students. He'd discovered what everyone there discovers, that they're way to wrapped up on themselves and need to instead find ways to serve others.

Then he sent Tullius away. "You want me to leave?" he complained. I've only been here a few hours." But Frank had passed on his message, and Tullius took it to heart, starting with taking invitations to speak to writers groups about their writing. He saw writer's hunger to learn the trade and get into print. He knew the industry well and had found a way to serve.

With the help of some friends, he pulled together the first Maui Writers Conference, which eventually became the largest writers' conference in the world.

As an added bonus, his muse returned, restoring his love for writing and allowing him to write two best-selling novels. Each morning he wakes up dreaming about how to serve other writers. The more he serves, the more he receives. (Summarized from Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul, pp. 152-158).

[Add later: Book on shameless self-promoting – used to be called “caring.” On using social media – go out to serve. Meet people’s needs.]

Benjamin Franklin ended up with one of the largest platforms ever. He was one of the most famous men of his time and will probably remain famous forever. I think one of the main keys to his success was that he woke up every morning asking, “What good shall I do today?" At the end of each day he asked himself, “What good did I do today.” No wonder he impacted the world as few before or since.

When he wanted to help the common people benefit from the wisdom he collected, he didn’t put it in a book form. He put it in a calendar called “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” It both met a need for wisdom among the common folk and contributed greatly to his ability to retire in his early 40’s to devote himself to his inventions, starting a pretty neat country, etc.

So how can you serve others with your expertise? Speak at a school? Write an article for a charity? Answer people's questions on forums? Respond to someone's blog entries?

The Traditional Speaking Platform

Today, there are many ways to build a platform. The traditional way is to brush up on your speaking skills and speak everywhere you can: classrooms, business meetings, seminars, radio, TV, business meetings, etc. Today you can start meeting people in your specialty area through www.meetup.com and branch out from there.

This is how Mark Twain publicized his books. He was an entertaining speaker and he hit the speaker’s circuit.

Most of us know something about this type of platform. But many can’t take advantage of it because either the thought of speaking to a group makes them nauseous or they’ve got responsibilities that keep them from getting out. The latter has been my case, as I care for my elderly father who has cancer, my grandmom who’s 102, and my own children. This has forced me to build a different kind of platform. I couldn’t have done it fifteen years ago. The technology wasn’t in place. But fortunately, we can all take advantage of it today.

The Web Platform

Benjamin Franklin never considered himself a great speaker. But he found other ways to get out his ideas. I think that today he would have included blogging and other Web tools in his arsenal.

Not all of us are speakers, but we are writers, which means we are the most strategically qualified people to take advantage of the tools available on the Web. “But I’m not a techie!” you may complain.

Listen, I’m not a techie. I’ve never taken a computer class. Not one. I don’t know any programing languages. Not one. But I’ve got several websites, two blogs, a forum and a couple of e-zines going out to about 8,000 people who’ve signed-up on my sites.

I know enough of Microsoft Frontpage to write my content and design a basic Web page. That’s about 1/1000 of what Frontpage can do, but it’s all I need. I know about 1/10,000 of what PhotoShop can do. But it’s all I need to edit pictures for my sites.
I’m the Webmaster, content editor and primary designer.

Most sites and blogs today can be designed with user-friendly tools that are getting more user-friendly all the time. When tasks are beyond my skills, such as adding a database or setting up e-commerce, I pay reasonably priced programmers one-time fees to set things up for me so that I can use them.

I set up a forum last month that cost me about $200 in programming. It’s a free, open-source program that he needed to customize a little. I built the pages for the character site, but paid a KSU programming student under $1000 to add e-commerce and all the back-end stuff I’d need to have a members section, automatically process credit cards, keep up with subscriptions, send out an automatic welcome e-mail, etc.

Listen, we hear about Bill Gates and the original Google programmers and their great success. But I’m convinced that it’s not the techies who have the most to gain from this revolution. It’s the writers. I’ll tell you why.

If you read any book on having a successful Web site, blog, etc., they’ll say something like this:

“The three most important words in real estate are ‘location, location, location.’ The three most important words in Web site success are ‘content, content, content.’ And who, may I ask, writes the content?

So let’s say some geek has put together a site that has all the latest gadgets, all the latest technology and is designed to perfection. If it doesn’t have any content that you’d want to come back for, will you ever revisit the site? No. When it comes to successful Web marketing, content reigns supreme. And we, the writers, are the content masters. Can we all stand, hold hands and break out into a rousing chorus of “We are the Champions!?!.”

Now seriously, let me ask you this. When you decided to go see Kite Runner at the Theater and you searched the Web to find where it was showing, did you see one movie site and go, “Wow! What ugly colors! And there’s not even a flash presentation or podcast. That’s so Web 1.0!”

No. You went to the site for the information – the content. If it gave you what you were looking for and made the content easy to access, you were happy and may have even bookmarked the site to visit before your next movie hunt. The Web is all about finding great content.

How does this work for building a platform for your book? Imagine you’re writing a novel set in the North Georgia Mountains in the early 1900’s. You’re doing tons of research about the location and period and decide to set up a Web site for people interested in that time and place. You’ve got much more cool content than you could ever use in your novel. Why not put it somewhere? So you put it in a well-organized way on a site and people begin to come.

How the Web Revolutionizes Marketing

Note how this revolutionizes marketing. We used to be stuck with “interruption marketing,” where advertisers interrupt your favorite TV show to try to sell you such essential items as mood rings and Ginsu knives. But with social networking, we allow people who are already looking for products to find us. People out there are already searching for help with their finances or a solution to their style of worship problem or a novel set in the North Georgia mountains or materials for character education. With a well-positioned blog or Web site, I simply allow those people who are already searching to find me.

How many of you already have an author site? Another site besides the author site? A blog? Okay, so let’s start from scratch for those who have nothing.

Baby Step 1: Start Interacting on Existing Blogs and Forums

The best first step is not to set up either a blog or a Web site. Rather, go exploring what other people are writing about North Georgia mountain life on blogs and Web sites and forums. Click the thingy at the bottom of someone’s blog entry and comment on their blog. Enter a discussion of North Georgia moon shining on somebody’s forum. Now congratulate yourself! You’ve just entered the new world of social networking on the Web!

I read this “how to get your feet wet” approach in my current read, The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, by David Meerman Scott. I had it confirmed at SoCon, the techie conference.

Two good places to search blogs are:

• http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/
• http://blogsearch.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wb
  

Caution! Don’t fall to the temptation to just look around for discussions that allow you to push your book. Social networkers can smell shameless marketing a mile away. If you find yourself doing this, go back to How to Win Friends and Influence People, part 2, section 1:

“You can make more friends in two months of becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” (Carnegie, p. 54)

Forget “building your platform.” Remember “helping others.” Social networking on the Web is about entering into thoughtful discussions and helping people find what they’re looking for. Bring up your book or articles only when they flow naturally in the conversation and meet expressed interests and needs. Eventually, you establish yourself as a trusted expert and become the go-to person for those needing information on the topic. As a by-product, you look around and discover that, to your surprise, you’re standing on a platform.

Baby Step #2: Create a Blog

Why a blog? First, it’s super easy. I set up my first two blogs in about an hour. Second, it gives you an easy place to collect your writing and thoughts that might later become articles and books. I started late with blogging because I didn’t get it.

Note: Don't be afraid of new technology! Learn it the way my middle school twins do it: fooling around and asking friends. A friend (Trey) shows them his Myspace page. They're impressed and absolutely must have their own. "How did you do that?" they ask. "Just go here and punch this" he replies. They do it and, after a few missteps, have a Myspace page.

"Look David, Trey's got his favorite song and a Youtube video connected to his page. Let's see where you click to set that up!" After a few mis-clicks, they figure it out.

They didn't have to take a continuing education class or read a book. I call it "learning by fooling around and asking dumb questions."

We adults get overwhelmed with new technologies because we're afraid to fool around and embarrassed to ask dumb questions. It's like we fear that in setting up a personal blog, we'll click the wrong combination of buttons and bring the Web to a screeching halt. Tomorrows' Wall Street Journal will announce to the world, "Idiot blogger Steve Miller broke the internet yesterday, causing the Internet to crash, and subsequently the entire U.S. Economy."

Get over it. When you start setting up your blog and come to something that doesn't seem to work, blame the idiot programmers who were supposed to make it user friendly. Poke around. Look in the help files or the help forum. If you can't find the answer in under five minutes, ask your 12-year-old for help or call your friend who already has a blog. The entire Web is being built by people asking stupid questions and fooling around. So get your blog started now so that in a week or two your blogless friends will come to you, timidly asking how to set up a blog. Suddenly, you're the expert!

My blog's at www.blogspot.com. It's free. I set up two blogs in about two hours without reading a book on blogging or taking a class on it. In fact, I've never taken a computer class. I don't know any programming languages. Yet, I excel at asking dumb questions and fearlessly fooling around.

With so many useful technologies coming at us writers so quickly, we simply must keep learning. As Al Rogers of the Global Schoolhouse Network said, "In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." (Al Rogers, Global Schoolhouse Network)

Baby Step #3: Get a Host and a Web Address (URL)

Pay $5.00 to $10.00 a month for a site that allows me to have more space than I'll ever need and runs every feature I'm likely to ever need. If you don’t have $5.00 per month to spend, start with a free Web space. Some Web hosts allow beginners to choose from thousands of templates and build your site without having to use additional software. Additionally, you’ll need to pay about $1 per month for a distinct URL, like northgeorgiamountainlife.com. You can probably get your url through your Web host, or buy it from places like www.000domains.com .

Side note: Don’t overpay for a site! We see people paying thousands for something their middle school son could have put up on a free server. Sites like www.cnet.com [click “reviews” , then “all categories”, then “web hosting”] review and compare hosts for price and quality. As I write (3/6/08), www.hostgator.com is very popular, starting at $4.95 per month for more space and bandwidth than you’ll probably ever need. Search cnet’s forum also for people’s experiences with various hosts. Check with other Georgia writers to see what hosts they use.

How do you choose a name for your blog or forum? Consider choosing, not just something memorable, but a word or phrase that people are already searching in search engines. But more on that later.

Baby Step #4: Create a Simple Site That’s Easy to Navigate

I’d start with an author site. First, look at a bunch of other author sites. Decide what features and organizational structure you like. Second, get it out there. Third, ask your children, husband and friends to try to find something on the site and see if it makes sense to them. Ask everybody to give their honest opinion and revise.

(Recommended reading: Don’t Make Me Think)

Baby Step #5: Make It Easy for People to Find You on Search Engines (Learn to Think Like a Search Engine)

Google spiders crawl the web to determine whether your site gets on page one or page 170 of a search. Now, try to think like a search engine. If you were Google, what characteristics of sites would you try to bring to the first page of a search? (This is a very important step, which may lead to innovations that you never see the experts recommend.)

The technical term for this area of study is “Search Engine Optimization,” or SEO. I was forced into studying it because I had more content than almost anyone at the time on youth ministry, but I couldn’t get my site positioned any closer than the fifth page of a google search (which might as well have been Outer Mongolia) for the all important term “youth ministry.”

Here are some of the basics of helping people find your site. This is the outline I use when I’ve been a guest lecturer on search engine optimization in a KSU New Media class.

1. Use a good host. (Assume free sites might not be as professional?)

2. Offer great content that people want to return for and link to.

3. Brainstorm all the words and phrases people might use to look for your material.

4. Discover which of these words and phrases are searched significantly. (http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-playground.php )

5. Determine which searches (words and phrases) you want to attract with each page. (Many don’t enter your site from the home page.) Some terms may be searched less, but are more targeted. (“Character Education Lessons” rather than “Character Education”)

6. Offer lots of free content out in the open (not in a database or locked away in a members’ section.) Use the word “free.”

7. Use your key words generously (but don’t get crazy: eight times in a content page might look good; fifty times may look like you’re trying to spam the system.

8. Use your key words in different ways and on different parts of the page (top and bottom, in naming links, names of images, as a “heading” [see font type in MS Word], in bold).

9. Use key words in meta tags (not visible to site visitors, but to spiders).

10. Put appropriate tags below your blog entries.

11. GET INBOUND LINKS (from other sites and blogs) and word them with the appropriate key words. This is key!

12. If you have problems attracting certain key terms, and if you legitimately consider yourself having top content, consider starting a separate portal site (Like: “Top Sites on North Georgia Mountains”) for your topic, recommending your site as one to go to.

13. Experiment with “pay per click” with Google Ad Words and Yahoo Marketing Solutions.

Warning! Don’t attempt unethical tricks like hiding key words in the same color as your background. There are many tricks out there, but search engines typically find them out and ban them. Also, don’t submit your site to places claiming, “We submit your site to 100 search engines.” Studies show it doesn’t work.

Note: When you begin to think like a search engine, you’ll have to deal with two sets of tensions:

• Writing for people versus writing for search engines. Your titles, links, etc., can no longer be just cutesy, creative phrases. You need to consider what searches you want to find you. Since your book will be searched by topic in Amazon, consider search engines when naming your books. Example: “The Contemporary Christian Music Debate” versus “The Redemption of Rock”
• Designing for people versus designing for search engines. (Content in an image or flash presentation may look great but won’t be seen at all by search engines.)
  

It’s been awhile since I researched this topic and I’m sure that I’m way behind the curve. But here’s a site I found yesterday that has some free tools and articles to help you learn more about search engine optimization. http://www.webconfs.com

Baby step #6: Start Putting Up Regular, Excellent Content

A good place to start is to have a Home page, another section for Articles, another for Recommended Reading and another for Links. You’re researching anyway. If nothing else, it gives you a good place to keep up with your research. Don’t try to start something like a forum unless you’ve already got a good many people coming to your site.

An ambitious goal would be to become the portal for all things about your niche. You become sort of like the trade association, the place to find the best articles and enter the best discussions and the place to discover the best-recommended books in the field or the best set of links to the most helpful sites.

Now there’s no way I could do that for personal money management in general. I can’t compete with the excellent sites of the huge mutual fund companies or Money magazine or the Microsoft Network. But I can aspire to have the go-to site for those teaching personal money management in the schools or in service agencies or to your children. You could have the go-to site for….

How I Developed My Web-Based Platform

In about 1995 I decided to serve youth workers globally. (Actually, after my wife was diagnosed with cancer and we had to return to the States from Slovakia, this was the only way I could conceive of keeping my ministry alive and supplementing my income while caring for my wife and four boys. In the former Communist block, most of these guys wanted lesson plans that had been formerly been banned by the Communists. So I began writing lessons that were translated and distributed to youth workers via CD’s. I met a need.

When I discovered how to use the Web in the mid 1990’s, I began putting the lessons on a site to reach a more global audience. Today, I offer over 150 articles on how to do youth ministry, over 3500 speakers illustrations searchable by topic or as a database, over 1000 pages of lessons and articles on how to study and how to teach. So it’s no shock that, for a time, around 700 unique visitors were coming to the site per day. (Now I’ve had to start over after a friendly parting with the organization I was with, so that today we’re still in the rebuilding stage.)

On the Character site I’ve collected scores of articles on character education by educators, experts in developmental psychology, etc.

Where do I get these articles?

1) I ask permission for any great article I read. Most authors let me reprint them on my site, as long as I give proper credit and a link back to their site.
2) Out of print books that are still the best.
3) In print books that allow a chapter for use.

Why would they give them away free? Because they want exposure and to get links back to their sites. I’m doing them a favor!

“That’s overwhelming!” you object. “How could I ever develop such a vast resource?” Well, for me it’s the same way I’d eat an elephant - one little bite at a time. Start with reading other people’s blogs in your area of interest. Comment on them. Start your own blog. Ask your friends how they did this and that on their blog.

Ask your friends about their Web sites. Start yours. Get permission to put somebody’s article on it. Keep adding great content a little bit at a time and commit yourself to never stop learning. Ask at least one stupid question every day. That’s how you learn the Web.

Our character site, providing character education resources to public schools gets from 500 to 700 individual visitors per day. That’s about 1000 people per day coming to those two sites.

It all started and progressed with serving people and one day I looked around and, what do you know, I was standing on a platform.

A Note on Containing Costs

Sam Walton’s brother, Bud, says that they made money at Wal-Mart by saving money. Sam drove around his old truck. Their early offices were shabby. By containing our monthly costs, we can make it as writers!

Each of these sites costs me $5 per month to have the site hosted (cost for the servers that host it) and about $1 per month for each Web address (url). And as hard as I write and add new material, I’m still only using about 5% of the space I could use for that amount.

I work at home, so I don’t have to pay for an office or gas. I can’t emphasize enough – contain your costs. If your platform and publishing expenses get out of hand, you’ll never make any money selling your writing.

Sources of Revenue

My involvement with the Web has slowly morphed my thinking on books and magazines. While they’re still important, they’re certainly not the only way to disseminate ideas and support my family with my writing. In other words, these Web-based tools aren’t just a platform for my book-writing. They are worthy enterprises in themselves and in a real sense my books become platforms for my Web-writing. Here are some ways I can generate income from my sites:

1. Selling memberships to my members’ areas. On the character site I sell a membership to its members section (lesson plans, stories, activities, etc.) to individuals for $14.75 for a year or $24.75 for four years. An entire school can use it for $99.00 for one year or $199.00 for four years. Generally, this all happens automatically from my end. They find it on the Web, subscribe by credit card or request to pay by check. I check my e-mail and answer occasional questions. Otherwise, it flies on auto-pilot. I may be making sales as I speak to you today. Nobody has to wrap books and take them to the post office. It’s all online.

2. Selling advertising through Google Adsense and other services. If you start getting a lot of traffic, you can make money from ads, just like a magazine. (But please, no annoying pop-ups!) It’s easy to set up and experiment with. You can do it on your blogs as well as your sites.

3. Selling recommended books and getting a referral fee from Amazon.com. As I researched finances, I began to write book summaries as a free service to those who would like to know the gist of some great books on personal finance. This is different from Amazon book reviews. I just summarize the advice of each book. That helps me to retain more from my reading. But it helps people studying finance to compare, for example, what Suze Orman recommends for investing as opposed to Dave Ramsey. Once you set up an Associates Account with Amazon, you can copy and paste some code into your html (You don’t have to know html code. I don’t.) that links the book to Amazon. If someone buys the book, or simply goes to Amazon from my site and ends up buying any book, I get a cut. And it all happens silently in the background without me having to fill orders, flowing into my bank account each month.

4. Selling e-books. Although I have no present motivation to read books on hand-held devices (1. I mark up books for future research. 2. I’m not on the road a lot.) I know that they’re valuable to many others. Why not make it available when it’s free? I’m working on a Kindle book and may also sell one as a pdf.

All of these products produce multiple streams of income for an author. None of these avenues were available before the Web revolutionized everything.

The End Product

As you get your blog and site set up, you can spend your time writing. If you can’t sell your article to a magazine, you can put it on your blog and your collection of articles. (In fact, I never write an article that they won’t allow to be put on my site after their publication.) If I can continue to increase the revenue from my writing, I can work from anywhere in the world that I can access the internet.

The result? I’m offering people something of value, something they’ll come back for. In my books, I’ll refer readers to my sites. On my sites, I’ll refer readers to my books. If you love to write, it’s a really fulfilling way to live!

By the way, we can all help each other out as Georgia Writers by linking to one another’s sites and blogs. It’s in all of our interest to increase our traffic by getting better positioned with search engines. Search engines strongly favor sites with many incoming links. If the thirty people here linked to your site, don’t you think that would help? So everyone get on Crowdvine, type in your author site, then ask the other authors if they’d set up a section on their site for “Author Links.” This is a no-brainer. Let’s do it.

Other ideas on utilizing the Web or on other types of platforms that work? Respond below!

Chapter 7: No platform? Then follow the standard rules for submitting to publishers.

Most don't. The temptation is this. You’ve spent all this time and energy on your manuscript. So you type up this query letter in a day and fling it out there.

An acquisitions editor told me recently, “Most submissions are worthless.” So, to separate yourself from the herd:

1. Know what the publisher is looking for. (See the current edition of Writers Market.)
2. Find how to write a query (refer to one from agent’s site).
3. Polish it and get input and polish it again.

Polish, Polish, Polish

Beware of the Writing Witch, the virus that infects Microsoft Word, who messes up your writing. I know she exists, because when I reopen a document that I self-pronounced “brilliant” the previous day, to my shock and amazement, it often sucks the next morning. I know I don’t write that poorly. The only explanation is that the Writing Witch opened into my document during the night and misspelled words, deleted periods, put ¾ of the sentences in passive tense and threw in prepositions at the end of sentences. Only time and further revision chases her away.

Remember, today that acquisitions editor has taken home 30 query letters to try to go through over the weekend. She’s looking for reasons to narrow them down. A misspelled word might be just the excuse she’s looking for.

Cherie just took a grant-writing seminar. In it, the speaker told of someone who lost a multi-million dollar grant because of misspellings in the proposal. Yes, perfection matters in a query and proposal.

Give Publishers What They Ask for in the Format They Request

Because of not paying attention to what publishers want, textbook publishers get proposals for novels and children’s books.

“How to Write a Query Letter and Proposal” goes beyond the scope of this workshop, so I’ll just refer you to a couple of helpful resources if you want more.

The Thomas Nelson Guide to Writing a Winning Book Proposal, by Michael S. Hyatt. Read it free at: http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/Downloads/WritingABookProposal.pdf

Book Proposals That Sell, highly recommended book by W. Terry Whalin.

Do you have other ideas or questions concerning book proposals and queries?

Chapter 6: No platform? Then find raving fans and top-notch blurbs.

The Power of Blurbs

The word “blurbs” is marketing speak for quotes from people about your book. Most “How to Get Published” books that I’ve read mention getting great blurbs as a sort of “Duh” and quickly move on to the next point. But I think that top-notch blurbs are critical and there’s an art to acquiring them. They’re particularly critical for those of us who don’t have great platforms, since they allow us to leverage the platforms of others.

If you’re Albert Einstein, you don’t need a quote from the head of the Physics Department at KSU saying you’re smart. But if you’re the head of the Physics Department, you could have used a quote by Einstein. But I should revise that statement. Even Einstein needs quotes of others to say that his book’s relevant, helpful, readable, impactful, etc.

I'm currently reading a Chicken Soup book for writers. With over 30 books to the series and worldwide sales of 50 million copies in 30 languages, it’s nothing less than a publishing phenomenon. You'd think they'd be beyond needing blurbs. Yet, a full third of the back cover is devoted to blurbs. Open the cover and you’ll find two full pages of blurbs.

If Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (the Chicken Soup authors/compilers) still need blurbs, how much more do we? So let’s camp here for a minute.

When you’re considering a book by an author you don’t know, don't you look seriously at the blurbs? Let’s say you like Sue Grafton’s style and you’re looking for other novels of her type. You find a novel with a blurb by Sue Grafton saying, “I wish I’d written this book!” Does this endorsement help sway you? Of course! If you’re looking for a book on Amazon.com, do you typically read some of the reader reviews before purchasing? I do. I want to know what others are saying.

I hit a local library sale last weekend, particularly looking for books on “persuasion,” for some future research. I found one book that looked like it might fit the bill, but

1) I didn’t know the author.
2) I saw no bio telling me why this author was worth reading. I started thinking, “Come on! Convince me that I should read your book!”
3) There were no blurbs, either by experts in the field or even just general readers. She failed to establish her authority and I put it back, not even willing to pay $1.00 for it! One enthusiastic blurb might have sold me.

For the low- or no-profile writer, a blurb can grant you instant authority. It’s as if someone on a higher platform took you by the hand, lifted you up and allowed you to share her platform.

Getting Your Passion into Print is a wonderful book on getting published. The authors work for a New York publisher and understand the publishing industry intimately. Understanding the power of blurbs, they put them on the front cover and even the binding, so that browsers could see a blurb without even taking the book out of the rack. Brilliant!

Why are blurbs so critical? Praise yourself and you’re bragging; let another praise you and it’s authority.

As King Solomon put it,

"Let another praise you, and not your own mouth;
someone else, and not your own lips."

Blurbs for Agents and Publishers

Don’t view blurbs as only for potential buyers. Think earlier in the process. I see them as huge for acquiring an agent and a publisher. Imagine the state of one of my early manuscripts as it sat on the desk of an acquisitions editor who has thirty manuscripts piled on her desk, of which she she can choose one. She’s looking for reasons to narrow down the list. So she sees this no-name author (me) with no publishing record and no platform. She’s ready to shove it into the return envelope with the standard rejection letter ("Doesn’t meet our present publishing needs.”) when she notices a blurb on my one page query from prolific author Josh McDowell saying that every mom dad and child needs to read it. So she reads further into the proposal and finds that Robertson McQuilkin, respected author and president of Columbia International University, calls it the best manuscript he’s read on a much-needed subject. Barry St. Clair, a noted authority on youth work and prolific author, says it’s critical for our times.

Now it’s one thing for an author to tout his manuscript as the start of the next Chicken Soup phenomenon. But when a respected authority in the field says it’s good, the acquisitions folks just have to take it seriously.

Blurbs as Platform

For Enjoy Your Money, I first got blurbs from those who gave me early input on the book. Those blurbs give me a platform from which I can pitch ideas to the media and to bigger reviewers. Example: As I write this, I've been e-mailing book reviewers to find some willing to review my book. One wrote me back today saying,

"I usually don't review books on finances, but your book has amazingly good reviews so far...."

Hmmm...so sometimes it takes good reviews to get more good reviews. My early reviews by friends and acquaintances made me look good enough to get the attention of higher level reviewers. The higher level reviewers will hopefully open up opportunities with even higher level reviewers.

On Getting Blurbs

How did I find Josh McDowell and get him to slow down enough to look at my manuscript? I knew he was traveling with the rock band Petra and would be speaking at Atlanta Fest at the Six Flags theme park. I also knew he was getting flack from traditional pastors for traveling with a rock band. So I volunteered to give him a ride from the airport to Six Flags. I picked him up, gave him my elevator speech, and put the manuscript in his lap. He started reading it on the way to Six Flags and was hooked.

Robertson McQuilkin? I graduated from the school where he served as president. Barry St. Clair? I would soon be working for his organization, training youth leaders in Eastern Europe just after the fall of Communism. I plopped it into Barry’s lap as we were flying to Europe. By the time we landed in Vienna, he’d finished it and written a blurb.

The author of a novel who spoke at Georgia Writers a couple of months ago met popular speaker and author Andy Stanley where their kids were playing baseball. He took an interest in her book and gave a great blurb that she says helped greatly in launching her book.

For my present book, here is a list of my blurbs. Blurbs are usually an afterthought to writers. But I put these together before I even had an agent or a publisher. Study these for a moment. Make a couple of notes. Circle something of interest. Note which is the most powerful to you personally. Which do you think would be the most powerful to a publisher? Note carefully the variety of takes on the book and how they might appeal to different people.

Advance Praise For
Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It, and Give It

"A fast, fun read with practical and often remarkable insights. Should be required reading for every high school senior and every young adult who's landed his or her first full-time job. I'm incorporating parts of the book into my lectures." (Robert A. Martin, MBA, CPA, Lecturer of Accounting in the prestigious Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, founder of a tax and consulting firm.)

“Had I read this book in my 20’s, I’d be financially independent today. It’s a remarkable blend of fabulous research with clear and lively writing. You’d pay an expert quite a sum for this caliber of counsel. That’s why I say that the best investment you make this year just might be this book. Your second best investment will be the copies you buy for your children.” (Dr. Dwight “Ike” Reighard, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, HomeBanc – One of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work, four years in a row.)

“As a practicing CPA and financial counselor for the past 35 years, I've read scores of books and periodicals on personal finance. Just when you think you've heard it all, something like this comes along. It's rare and refreshing to find a book so enjoyable, so accurate, and so life-changing. I’m purchasing hundreds of copies to give away to graduating seniors.” (Larry Winter, Winter & Scoggins CPA's ; Certified Valuation Analyst, Certified Fraud Examiner, Personal Financial Planning Specialist)

"Financial responsibility has reached a state of crisis. This book attacks the problem in a common sense, refreshing manner that anyone can understand and apply to real life. It should be required reading for all young people, before they find themselves broke, deeply in debt and miserable." (William C. Lusk, Jr., Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Retired, Shaw Industries, a Fortune 500 company and the world’s largest manufacturer of carpet.)

“A very entertaining, engaging book! The characters are appealing and aid the reader in interacting with the principles taught. Although especially geared to older teens and young adults, all ages will enjoy it and benefit. Meticulously researched and documented. Chock full of financial and lifestyle wisdom. I’ll keep plenty of copies in my office to hand out to clients.” (Dr. Ken Walker, Psychologist with the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice and Director of Dalton Counseling Service. Former regional credit manager.)

"A comprehensive look at managing your money. For me, the genius of this book is that it gathers wisdom from top financial gurus and uses it to explain clearly and practically how average folks can apply it to everyday living." (Alan Buckler - Allstate Insurance)

"I loved the story and the characters! Read this book and you'll get the practical tools and wisdom to chart your own course toward financial freedom." (Jamie Maddox, former Senior Business Analyst, The Coca Cola Company, present Pastor of Stewardship, NorthStar Church)

"For me, the section on savings was worth the price of the book, detailing scores of hidden ways to save a fortune over a lifetime. Then, unlike many books, it goes beyond 'having more' to 'doing more with what you have.' (Bryan McIntosh, Ph.D., Dalyn Corporation)

"I really liked the format! The dramatic layout used a totally different part of my brain when I read it...it's like watching a movie or reading a novel. The story line kept my interest so that I got through it quickly. The content was very inspiring. "Living differently" and "starting a financial counterculture" hits home to me. And it was SO PRACTICAL! I think it will also appeal to most of my generation and the one coming up behind me." (Anthony Daniel, age 28, Chemist, Tiarco Chemical)

"Clever! The movie script format pulled me into the story and endeared me to the characters. Before I knew it, I found myself thinking about money strategies that I'd have never learned from traditional finance books. Teaching finance through people stories works for me. Rather than staring at obscure charts, I just followed the lives of successful people. Finally! A readable book on personal finance for people who don't want to read a book on personal finance...which of course is me and just about everybody else!" (Mark Hannah, Film Producer)

In my opinion, the Larry Winter quote should be the most persuasive to publishers. It’s guaranteed money. Also, here’s a person who believes in the book enough to put his money behind it. So I put his quote in my one page query and scattered others throughout my proposal.

Use Your Early Blurbs to Leverage More Blurbs

Once you’ve got a few people saying your book is great, even if it's just people in your writer's group, use those quotes to get other people’s attention. The book review guys at Money magazine probably get wheelbarrows full of financial books that authors want them to review. But if I send my one page proposal to them with a quote from the CFO of Shaw Industries, they might actually take it seriously.

I really like football running back Warrick Dunn. Off the field, he helps people get a home who could never afford one on their own. I think a blurb from him would help me to reach athletes with my book. Also, he could give copies to the people he helps. Armed with this set of blurbs. I think he would consider reading it and commenting.

Standing on the platform provided by early blurbs, you should be able to attract higher profile people to read your manuscript and provide more blurbs.

Consider Your Target Audiences and Acquire Blurbs Targeting Them

Brainstorm a variety of blurbers (is that a word?) who might appeal to different groups of potential purchasers. The 29-year-old chemist could appeal to the under 30 crowd. A public school principal appeals to educators. The CPA’s and financial advisers let the publisher know that this isn’t hokey advice; it’s got a stamp of approval from people who work in this field every day. The businessmen appeal to other businessmen and those who respect business successes.

Now you may assume that I’m unusually well connected. But I consider myself the opposite. After my tenure at Flat Creek Baptist as minister of youth, I continued to climb down the corporate ladder. I moved with my family to Slovakia where we served other youth workers. After my wife was diagnosed with cancer, we moved to Acworth, Georgia, where I cared for my wife and seldom ventured past the mailbox. After she died, I raised my boys and wrote from my home. Then I married Cherie, blending my four boys with her three, giving us seven boys. Now I care for my parents and 102-year-old grandmom.

The point is, I haven't been able to get out much in ten years and don't consider myself well-connected at all. To find blurbs, I simply started thinking about people I’ve known and my parents have known through the years, people Cherie knows at work, any people who might have an interest in the topic, and asked them politely if they were interested.

Begin by asking for help in the form of honest input

Many are honored to give input on a manuscript. After each of my readers gave me constructive criticism, I asked if they could tell me briefly what they liked about the book and how they might recommend it to others. I took notes, then asked if they’d mind if I tried to word them a quote from what they said. I promised to come back with the final wording to make sure they felt it accurately expressed their feelings.

Tip: don’t necessarily give out your entire book to a person at first. That can be daunting. Start with one chapter; then ask if they want more.

Write Your Own Blurbs as You’d Like People to Say Them

This sounds just plain weird, but hear me out. Most of your readers probably aren’t professional writers. Besides feeling self-conscious about their writing, they're busy. Even if they are writers, their writing is on the line with their blurb and they want it to look good. So why not offer your assistance?

With your niche audiences in mind, write out your dream blurbs. I usually come up with stuff like this while I’m driving. Carry around a recorder to avoid wrecks.

As early readers try to express what they feel about your book, you’ll see that parts of your pre-written blurbs express what they’re saying and make them look better in print.

After one person read the manuscript, I looked over my pre-worded blurbs and said, “Is this what you’re saying?” He saw what I was doing, looked over my list, pointed to his favorite blurb and said, “I want that one!”

You see, blurbs aren’t just about me. They’re about making the blurber look good as well. For some, it’s free marketing that gets their names in print. It’s free advertising. It helps them with their platform. No wonder it’s not too difficult to get people to offer blurbs for an informative, interesting book.

Where to Find People to Give You Blurbs

Preexisting Connections

So I began to think through my connections and their connections. At this stage, I wanted honest input on making the manuscript better from a variety of people. Getting blurbs was secondary. They were honored that I would want their expertise.

Bill Lusk was a friend of my family when I was growing up on Dalton. Ike Reighard was at one time my pastor. Bryan McIntosh was in a small youth group I once led in Dalton, just after college.

Alan Buckler sells us car insurance. His wife Julie studied journalism. (With seven boys in our family and at least seven cars, do you think our insurance provider is willing to do us favors?)

How did the “Putting Your Passion into Print” folks land the blurb from the successful author of The Kite Runner? They were in the same writing group together before The Kite Runner was written. So network with authors wherever you are. You never know….

Friends of Friends

Do you have either a famous relative or decent connection to somebody famous? Do your friends have connections with someone famous, or someone important in the field you're writing? Ask around and you might be surprised.

Example: Wouldn’t it be cool if I could get a blurb from Warren Buffett, the wealthiest man in America and arguably the best investor to ever walk the face of the earth? Impossible? Maybe not. Warren Buffett bought Shaw Industries, of which William Lusk (the friend of the family who read my manuscript and gave me a nice blurb) was CFO when Buffett bought them. Mr. Lusk has a picture in his house of himself standing next to Warren Buffett, holding Buffett's wallet. Amazingly, I'm one step removed from Warren Buffett!

Activity for Your Next Writer's Meeting: If you got to know the thirty people at the next Georgia Writers Association meeting, your second level contacts could easily number in the tens of thousands. So make it a point to arrive early, stay late, and get to know as many as you can, exchanging business cards.

Here’s my challenge. Since it's often more who you know than what you know, make a habit of meeting new people wherever you are and finding out a little more about them every time you rub shoulders. A waitress I met at Waffle House had written two historical novels. The guy who changes your oil might have a brother who’s famous. A rocket builder in California told us at a social networking conference that although the welders in his organization work at the bottom rung of their business, he often gets his best contacts through them.

Listen: THERE ARE NO SMALL PEOPLE. Everyone is your intellectual superior in some way. Everyone has contacts that you don't have. Everyone is the gateway to someone else. So treat people with the importance they deserve. They’ve had experiences you’ve never had, gone places you’ve never been, know people you’ve never met.

Looking back to my high school classmates in early 1970’s, growing up in the little north Georgia town of Dalton, that hippie/counterculture kid now designs helicopters for NASA; the biggest goof-off now speaks four languages and serves the poor in Burkina Faso, the stereotypical nerd is a big-time lawyer and one of the flag twirlers in the marching band is Deborah Norville, two time EMMY award winner and host of INSIDE EDITION. Listen, there are no small people here today and you never know what your next door neighbor may become. So get to know them and treat them with respect.

People Who Owe You One

So much of success in publishing and marketing is about connecting. It’s about helping others, not in order to get something in return, but in order to simply serve. But as you serve, watch out as that good you’ve done boomerangs back to you

So don’t be afraid to ask those you've served to help you. Others benefit from the joy of sharing when you give them the opportunity.

That’s why a month ago I opened up a new file labeled “People Who Owe Me One”. I thought, “I’ve given away free advice and free resources to hundreds of people over the years. Some of them would love the opportunity to give back. Why aren’t I keeping up with those folks?” Now I am.

Give and it will be given to you!

Social Networking Via the Web

Some writers aren't comfortable getting to know new people face to face. Fortunately, we now have many excellent, free, Web-based social networking tools that writes can exploit. LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool. It’s basically a personal Web page where you invite your friends, associates and acquaintances to link to you. That’s level one. But once you link, you can also see your friends’ connections, which is level two. You can’t e-mail your friend’s friends without your level one friend’s okay, which protects everyone from spam.

I believe LinkedIn started among techies in Silicon Valley to connect with others in high tech. Now it’s everywhere. Journalists use it to get introductions to people they need to interview; job seekers find openings and insiders to find the real scoop on a business; you can use it to find people who might give you a blurb for your book.

So let’s say you need a blurb from somebody in PetSmart about your book on pets. There’s a good chance that somebody you know has a connection who's with PetSmart.

Example 1: Someone sent me an article showing that the Sprint Foundation was handing out grants for character education. I thought, “I wonder if any of my contacts work with Sprint?” I didn’t find any on the first or second level, but on the third level I found over 500!

Example 2: A week after I set up my LinkedIn account, a recent graduate of MIT asked me to connect, due to our mutual interest in youth ministry. He runs a site that’s a portal to inner city ministries. That’s perfect for getting the word out about my finance book and character materials, both of which work well in urban settings. Also, this guy has a contact who works at Fidelity, one of the largest investment firms. Do investment firms want to encourage young people to save and invest rather than spend. You bet! What a great contact! But I’d have never had an in to Fidelity without LinkedIn.

Members of Georgia Writers can join the Georgia Writers Group at Linkedin, giving you many ready-made connections. Check the Georgia Writers Website for more information.

Blogs, forums and other free social networking sites such as MySpace, Crowdvine, Ning, and FaceBook allow us to connect with many, many people who are already interested in the specific topics we’re writing about. Some of them may read an advance copy and give you a blurb.

Take a class on social networking or read a good book about it if you can. Or, just do what the young people do - play around with the tools until they start making sense to you. If you get lost, ask a neighborhood middle schooler.

Start connecting by going to www.gwa.crowdvine.com or finding it on the Georgia Writers Web site. Sign in. Then, throw caution to the wind! Be bold! Randomly invite people to be your friends. Ask questions. Put up a funny picture of yourself (or of your cat, if you don’t want to be identified). Suggest solutions to others’ questions. Make some mistakes by randomly clicking obscure buttons. Sit back and see what happens. We’re all new at this because the technology is so new. I just learned Crowdvine a month ago. It’s really fun and useful!

And it can make connections that lead to great relationships and blurbs and publicity for your books.

Once You've Acquired Some Blurbs, Use Them Everywhere!

1) In your query and proposal.
2) In your marketing plan.
3) Scattered throughout your Web sites. (Example: http://www.character-education.info)
4) Collected on a special page on your site. (Example: http://www.jstevemiller.com/aboutmoneybook.htm )
5) In Amazon reviews.
6) For targeted marketing.

To sum up the importance of blurbs to those without platforms. You’re at a bookstore looking for a book on personal finance. You first notice the high platform authors. “Ahhh…Dave Ramsay…I’ve heard him on the radio and seen his billboards. Hmmm…Suzie Orman…I’ve seen her on Oprah. “J. Steve Miller…who the heck is J. Steve Miller?…hmmm…these business leaders say it’s the most innovative, readable and accurate financial book on the market…that’s exactly what I’m looking for…I wonder what others are saying (as he flips to the first page to find ten other blurbs).

Your ideas or questions concerning blurbs? Post them below!

Chapter 3: No platform? Then find a niche.

And don’t just find it; prove to publishers that it’s a legitimate niche. Why? Because if your manuscript is no different than 100 other books in its field, buyers will consistently choose the big name authors over the no name authors.

Rich Dad Poor Dad was published and became a best-seller. I doubt he had a platform before the book was published. But it stood out because of its unique angle on finances.

Imagine that you’re down and out financially. You have $20 left to your name and you’re browsing at the personal finances section of Barnes and Noble to find a book to help you put your finances in order. You see Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and think: “I’ve seen him on the radio and on billboards. He must be good.” You see a book about Warren Buffett’s financial secrets. “Best investor ever,” you think. Then you see a book by Steve Miller. You think, “Didn’t he sing ‘Fly Like an Eagle?’ Why is he writing about finances?”

Placed among a crowd of high platform authors, I’ve got to convince publishers and readers that my book’s different. Here’s what I’m telling publishers up front in my query:

The Breakfast Club (An Amazon "Essential Video") meets The Wealthy Barber (two million books sold) as MONEY: HOW TO MAKE IT, SAVE IT, INVEST IT AND ENJOY IT! teaches personal money management in a story form that captivates both young and old. It seeks to answer the financial cry of our times, especially targeting those who are just starting out in finances (18 to 25-year-olds) and those who are already reaping the results of unwise and detrimental financial decisions (26 to 39-year-olds).
Okay, so this book is a story targeting young adults. That sets it apart from 95% of the financial books. Then I explain other distinctives:

• Well researched and documented, giving it the ring of authority  Multi-Cultural (Afro-American, Hispanic, Oriental, Caucasian)
• Multi-Generational, including characters from eighteen to eighty
• Defies stereotypes of various cultures and sub-cultures
• Story form grabs and holds the reader's attention
• Likeable characters
• Neither talks down to students nor ridicules teachers
• Encourages learning from one another and reliable sources
• Includes building knowledge, life skills and character, so that schools and social organizations should find it useful
• Encourages giving, not just getting
• Empowers the learning disabled
• Includes reviews, thought questions and assignments
• Practical
• Realistic
• Broad use of real life stories
  

I want publishers and readers to say, “I get it! This draws from the great financial minds, but puts it in a story form so that I can read and understand it. Now that’s different!”

Think of your current project. Yes, it’s unique. Otherwise you wouldn’t be writing it. But how will you convince the publisher that it offers something of value that’s very different from the high profile Donald Trumps of your topic or genre?

Input: Post your ideas or questions on "niche" below.

Chapter 1: No Platform? Then start thinking like a publisher

Authors tend to think that publishers are simply looking for great writing on an interesting subject. But if we’re to sell our ideas to publishers, we must learn to think like a publisher.

Here’s how the acquisitions editor, who currently has your query letter and proposal sitting in a huge pile next to his desk, may be thinking:

"I love great writing, but my children are hungry. Convince me that your book will sell and make us a profit."

Sure, they love great books. But more than that, they love great books that sell. To publishers, strong platforms mean strong potential sales.

So you’re an acquisitions editor with 10 manuscripts on your desk, all of them about personal finance. Why risk publishing the unknown financial writer when they could take the guy who teaches successful financial seminars from coast to coast? So when you’re sending a proposal, do more than point out your unique angle and convince them that you can write; convince them that you can sell the book.

And by the way…start working on solutions now! Don’t wait until you’re trying to pitch it to publishers. If you’re on the first chapter of your first book, set up a file on your computer or in hard copy and label it “Marketing and Platform.” As you get ideas, put them there and calendar when to implement them. Much of what I say is much easier to do when you’re still researching your book.

So the first, and I think most important point, is to begin thinking like a publisher. Following are some things I’ve done as a result.