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Today, we tackle a contentious issue among authors.
How good does a book have to be?
Many new authors – especially ones that don’t have a lot of other writing experience – are understandably concerned about this. We all put a lot of heart and soul and time (and sometimes money) into writing a book. We don’t want to go through that and find out at the end that it wasn’t good enough.
Today, we will fix this. Let’s begin.
Hello, and welcome back!
In yesterday’s edition of “let’s write a book strategically”, we discussed the purpose of your book, the primary aim that it’s designed to achieve. Today, we’re talking about what kind of book it is.
Let’s face it – you have an inconceivable amount of knowledge stored in your head. Your life and business experience has given you wisdom, insight, and understanding that you never could have predicted. You could write lots of books about lots of things. In the Write a Book With Me program, we tackle what to put into the book you’re writing, and what to leave out.
But how in the heck are you supposed to decide what book to write in the first place?
Now, you may already know the answer to this question. You may have long ago decided you’re writing your mother’s life story, or a practical guide to low-light gardening, or a tell-all memoir of your crazy summer in Phuket. If you’ve already decided that, then you can go about your business and I’ll see you tomorrow.
But if you’re anything less than 100% sure, keep reading, because I can probably help.
So, you are (or might be!) considering writing a book. (Excellent! Small world.)
In this little series, I’m going to walk you through a strategic process to help you answer the most important questions that come up in the early stages of planning a book.
Our first strategic question is this one…
I just finished reading Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for Your Ideas, Business and Life Against All Odds by Mark Schaefer, on the recommendation of our curmudgeonly misanthropic founder Naomi, who refers to Schaefer as “the only marketer I actually like”.
So, I read it. And I liked it so much that I decided to write up a book review.
Every month or so, I revisit my email signature to see if there’s a tweak or two that I can make to help bring in more writing clients and drive sales to the Karma Store. I usually don’t do much – just a slight adjustment to encourage people to pay more attention to what’s in my signature and (hopefully!) decide to click on the links inside.
These tweaks seems to be working – since I started doing these monthly signature adjustments, I’ve seen a small but noticeable uptick in clients and Karma Store sales.
I wish people paid more attention to what’s in their email signature, because it’s one of the most effective ways to build awareness for what you sell and differentiate yourself from other businesses. You can make very good money over time from even a marginal investment in crafting a good signature.
However, most people just treat their signature like a business card. It’s either boring and unmemorable, or it’s packed full of so much information that nothing stands out. So the people who could be developing interest in what you sell… don’t.
You deserve better than that. I’d love for you to have an email signature that gets people to pay attention, think about what you sell, and take some kind of action that brings them closer to buying from you.
Here’s what you need to know.