Last time I wrote about my fiction writing, I promised I would share how I’m working on the novel, and a little more of what it’s about. Here you go… William Brown sees dead people, talks to them, and they talk to him. But this ain’t Sixth Sense or Shaun of the Dead. And I
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I grew up reading (thanks Mom!). I read mostly fiction books. Hundreds of books…sometimes hundreds of books in a single year. The first “big” fiction book I read was the Civil War novel, Rifles for Watie, when I was seven. It was 352 pages. I then read The Dark is Rising and The Lord of
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If you want to write a business book you face three primary challenges. You’ll have to figure out how to: Get started Keep going Finish and publish Before I go into each challenge and some tricks to make these a lot easier, my own story as a first-time author might be instructive. I published my
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How much does it cost to publish a book? It depends. Asking how much it costs to publish a book is like asking how much it costs to buy a car or a house—it depends. Do you want a 10-year old used Hyundai with 200K miles on it, or a new BMW straight off the
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Your book doesn’t need to be limited to just one message. In fact, the more messages the better, because you never know which one will jump out at a reader and become the reason your book changes their life. As you consider potential messages to include in your book, try out the eight “power messages”
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I don’t normally do product reviews, but I’ve been testing this service and think it’s good enough to share with other authors. WHAT IS PUBBY? Pubby is an online service that helps you get Amazon reviews for your book. If you’re asking yourself, “How do I get more Amazon reviews?!” then this is one way
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Every author wants more reviews (mostly good ones, although a mix looks more natural) on Amazon. Reviews signal to potential readers that others are interested in the book and like it. If your book has fewer than 20 reviews, it looks like nobody is interested in it. If it has over 100 reviews, it looks
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I hate to break it to you, but nobody is going to memorize your entire book. No one will remember most of your book. Chances are, your readers will forget virtually everything they read in your book, except for one or two key phrases or ideas. Those key takeaways will become “the message” readers get
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“Why am I writing this book?” The year was 2013, and I wanted to save my marketing agency from imminent bankruptcy. I had recently started writing for Forbes as a contributor and I needed to figure out some sort of magic formula to get the most out of my articles. The reaction I wanted from my ideal
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The most important part of your book is your “book hook.” This is a distilled, one-sentence description of your book and the reason it’s the most important thing is because it’s the thing that gets people to read your book. Your book hook may become your subtitle or part of the description, or feature prominently
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