WRITE THE BOOK.

SELL THE BOOK.

Your great idea will surely fly if you can just sit still long enough to make it into a book. Maybe it will even be a movie!? Well, if you’re already writing a book, you know that writin’ books ain’t no piece a cake. What you maybe don’t know is that sellin’ ’em is a nightmare . . . even if you happen to be a professional salesperson!

Many entrepreneur types might disagree with that thinking, but it’s hardly ever an entrepreneur that writes a book. So reasonable risk-taking is not even an issue. It’s really all about shifting gears in your work schedule and transitioning your mind to an unfriendly and foreign range of engagement. In other words, get ready to suck it up!

Even long after you’ve Googled your brain into delirium trying to figure out all the pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, and after you’ve investigated and perhaps actually tried some “crowd sourcing” adventures, the bottom line is that WRITING the book is the easy part! SELLING it is the real challenge.

For one thing, disenchanted authors often find themselves swimming upstream against well-intentioned reminders embedded in their friends’ and family’s declarations of “it takes money to make money!” And these comments are no doubt accompanied by tsk-tsk head-shakes, knowing nods, and pitter-pat changes in discussion topics.

Oh, and then there’s those football coach-like claps on the shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay, boy!” OR “You go, girl!”—- “Y’all just need to put that writin’ stuff in a drawer and git on with life! Maybe someday, it’ll work, y’know?” Well, maybe someday it will. BUT if “them there is fightin’ words” to you, getting on with life means that someday is today, is now.

(It means you aren’t buying into depression-ridden chatter.)

Ta-ta-ta-dah  ta-dah! You’re brave. You’re courageous. And maybe stupid, but so what? If you’re ready to dig in, dig in! Start working an extra hour at night instead of watching TV news. carry a notebook or smart phone “pad” and jot down ideas as they pop into your head all day, every day, and keep it bedside for insomniac nights.

Here’s where it all comes together. Writing the book. Selling the book. Write and REwrite your brains out. Then devise two marketing plans, two sales plans, and two PR/publicity plans. The first of each of these is a CREATIVE plan (what to say and how to say it). The second of each is an IMPLEMENTATION plan (where, when, and how to distribute the creative plan results).

So, for example, plan what you say for a meaningful drum-up-sales interview, and how you will say it, then go out and drum up the interview. A book signing requires a table, chair, signage, pens, single dollar bills and rolls of coins, a pleasant appearance, beverages and snack foods. A news release had better be newsworthy! Your Tweets better be provocative!

Remember people DO judge a book by its cover! (And you, your in-person and online appearance, and behavior are all part of your cover.) Lest you think this is “all talk,” please visit my new book-for-sale site HERE!  Thank you!

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WRITING   YOUR   BOOK 

It’s just not the same as editing, designing

 formatting and publishing, distributing,

branding, promoting, legalizing, and

marketing your book… or selling it!

READ BEFORE YOU LEAP, YOU 81%!

Why am I telling you this? What makes this relevant to small business? HA! 81% of all Americans think they “have a book in them” according to a New York Times survey report . . . uh, that’s like over 200 million people in the U.S. who want to write a book — more than total viewers of the most-watched-in-history 2012 London Olympic games!

WOW! That sounds like a sizable market right? And an awful lot of new books on the horizon, right? Wrong! How could that be? Well, first off– like the old days when TV first came out, and everyone watched it with the same passion we now relegate to smart phones, all humans thought they could write TV commercials because they watched them!

In other words, if you don’t read, you can’t write. According to industry findings reported at www.SelfPublishingResources.com, the average book buyer reportedly never reads more than the first 18 pages of a book she or he has purchased!!! If you don’t read complete books, you can’t write books worth reading. And if your first 18 pages don’t shake the walls loose . . .

Second: WRITING your book is the easy part!

And even if you DO write a book worth reading, you’d better have a lot of money and/or considerable professional expertise with editing, designing, formatting, publishing, distributing, branding, promoting, marketing, contract law, and sales. Even IF you can manage getting a big-time agent, publishing house, and publicist, the buck still stops with you! Even if.

Discouraging? Absolutely. My best guess is that 80 of the 81% will fall by the wayside trying to effectively manage the tasks noted in the paragraph above. That’s a big pile of dead book efforts! Ah, but now there’s CROWD SOURCING to the rescue!

Go to this site now for an example of how to make your book work once it’s written. Oh, yes, and it’s only a couple of hundred dollars to create! IT’S THE NEW WAY TO SELL BOOKS. IT”S THE WAY ALL FUTURE BOOKS WILL BE SOLD!

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Hal@Businessworks.US   

BOOK SMARTS!

     Business people who read books are smarter by far than those who don’t. Any businesspeople. Any business. Any books. (Source: opinion, based on many years’ experience in the role of a  businessperson, as well as in the roles of author, editor, and publisher.)

     If we are to believe the technologically-heralding reports from popular and questionably-prominent online publishing industry sources that are marching (stampeding?) shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the Internet’s more narcissistic literary agents, paper books are on a suicide mission.

     It is, if you’re listening to their breathless banter, only a matter of time before libraries become mausoleums or are emptied for fireplace kindling (uh, no, wait, that would be too much air pollution, right?). 

     Has hi-tech trespassed on sacred ground? Are books as we know them truly doomed? Will  school and campus backpack industries fold? Without backpacks, will chiropractors go out of business? Will the control of human life by basic plastics industry businesses like American Express, MasterCard and Visa come to an end?

     Will the basic plasticpeople collapse in the face of the all powerful Oz … only to relinquish their control of humanity to more sophisticated plasticpeople? We shall depart from the influences of mere plastic cards to instead be controlled by a consortium of tech babies cranking out the likes of Amazon Kindles, Hearst Skiffs, and Apple iPads?

     First of all, except for the POD (Print On Demand) entrepreneurial upstarts, the  industry— not terribly unlike banking and healthcare — is at least a thousand years behind times. Publishers, editors, agents, literature professors and many writers continue to re-arrange their blankets and umbrellas as the tsunami heads for the beach.

     Many continue to sit on their hands, rocking back and forth, waiting for the new tech revolution to lift them out of their arcane library stacks and into cyberspace where they can look back over their shoulders and count the dead and dying works of fiction and nonfiction that have cornerstoned our planet since the beginning of time.

     But here’s a hefty sprinkling of reality: Paper books will not die in our lifetimes. (Source: opinion, based on many years’ experience in the role of a  businessperson, as well as … uh, did I say that before?) Books as we have always known them , may in fact increase in number and value as tech advances continue to astound even those computer gurus of the 90s.

     Because? Because with even all the books in the world catalogued into a single, lightweight, bendable, rechargeable pad you can carry inside your jacket … there is nothing like a book! And there is especially nothing like a shelf or room full of books to coax first your eyes, then your fingers, into submission. Computerized page-turning replication is not page-turning.

     And nostalgia aside, there is still nothing like being able to open two or six or ten volumes for side-by-side study … to be able to go back and forth to compare and contrast the creations and opinions and research findings in side-by-side reviews of author fantasies and expertise. And can you imagine curling up in front of a warm fire with your dog and a good electronic pad?

     Yes, there are some things, important and dramatic things, like humanness, that technology will never be able to recreate. Books can be accessed via tech readers and go into computerized reading devices. They can be formatted for online reading and downloaded on your printer as ebooks, but the humanness of books can never be replaced. I mean, imagine no “thunk” when you drop one.

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

This isn’t the movies and

you’re not in Hollywood! 

     What?  You thought you would be finding more hard core “sales-and-business” stuff here?  Well, working on your authenticity is the most genuine and arguably most important sales-and-business stuff you could ever set your sights on. 

     Businesses (and salespeople) succeed or fail based on how authentically they come across to their internal and external markets. 

     What your employees and suppliers think –for example– of the approaches you take to managing your business, or piece of the business you’re charged with, will positively impact your reputation, sales, and of course customer relations, even R&D projects!

     So, don’t be bashful; let’s take a little inventory.  How much of every day do you waste time and energy “playing the boss role” (making power plays, flexing your internal politics muscle, acting controlling, acting like a know-it-all, exaggerating your accomplishments, glossing over your errors) instead of just “being” the leader? 

     How much, in other words, do you try to influence others by attempting to impress them vs. simply gaining their respect by relating to them at their individual levels? 

     This isn’t the movies and you’re not in Hollywood. 

     Regardless of their stations in life, everyone in your daily path brings a certain energy to bear on each issue.  I grew up in an obscure, dilapidated, 3-room, third floor walk-up apartment next to the railroad tracks in one of America’s richest communities. 

     And if that sounds paradoxical, consider that my father was a mailman, whose advice was sought after daily by mayors, police chiefs, doctors, and Congressmen.  He was confided in by top “Fortune 500” corporate executives, and trusted by well-known authors, columnists, and artists. 

     He was a “closet confidant” to many big-name radio and TV personalities who lived in our low-profile, waterfront village north of New York City.

     How was this possible?  Harry escaped the ravages of genocide and came to America as a six year-old waif with a handful of rice.  He had no formal education, but he considered every encounter everyday as genuine and meaningful. 

     Harry listened carefully, spoke and laughed and cried from his heart, and never pretended to be someone he wasn’t.  He was quick to admit he didn’t have all the answers.  He was a character, all right.  He was the Norman Rockwell style   www.nrm.org/ personification of humility.

     He would have been a smash success at any business venture, but he liked who he was, he liked what he did, and he respected his “customers.”  In spite of his faults, and too much whiskey, he was nonetheless a success at being himself!  And he made sure his two sons grew up to appreciate the values of authenticity.

     In my thirty years of business coaching, consulting, and training, I can attest to this single quality as that which separates successful people and businesses from the wannabees, hasbeens and alsorans: authenticity.  It needn’t be perfect; but it does need to be vigilently practiced and consistently pursued.  How’s yours?  Halalpiar  

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 69 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.