Has life thrown you for a loop lately? If so, there might be a book in it. Let me tell you about Bruce Huck, owner of TriOasis, A Cellular Energy Center in Portland, Oregon. During a routine checkup, Bruce's regular naturopath heard an unusual heartbeat. He hadn't felt any warnings, but further tests showed that he needed quadruple heart bypass. Anyone can imagine what a shock that might be. One minute you're helping people with their health problems, building a business, staying active, … [Read more...]
Design for your tribe
No matter where you live, what continent, or how sophisticated your city, you see tribe members every day. In fact, other people see what tribe you belong to. In the small town where I live, there is a group of people who came here from Russia decades ago. You know the women by their long dresses and hair accessories, the men by their Russian-styles shirts and beards. But it’s not just ethnic clothing. As I write this in a Portland Starbucks, there’s a man sitting nearby with colorful … [Read more...]
Quality Book Design Tells Your Book’s Story
https://youtu.be/cC0KxNeLp1E In this funny and inspiring TED Talk from a few years back, book designer Chip Kidd talks about his approach to creating a book cover that expresses what the story is about. It's hard to overstate the importance of a book cover. It's the single most important piece of advertising for your book. Some authors cheat themselves by going for free or cheap design. (Although sometimes it doesn't make sense to spend hundreds of dollars on a professional design that for a … [Read more...]
New Post on LinkedIn Pulse
I just posted the introduction to my forthcoming book on LinkedIn Pulse. It talks about the challenges of the business world now, and how to overcome them by becoming an author. … [Read more...]
Make Money as an Author, without ‘Selling’ a Book
There are more than half a million books published in the United States every year, and on average they sell fewer than 250 copies each. So when I tell you that you ought to write a book for your business, it’s easy to be skeptical. After all, you’ve got too much to do with your time to waste it on a time sink with no payoff. But for the kind of book I'm talking about for you, a client-attracting book, the ordinary rules of "how to make money in publishing" don't apply. Traditional Publishers … [Read more...]
Traditional publishing vs. self-publishing: Which is right for you?
Until not too long ago, self-publishing wasn't an option for professionals who wanted to build their reputation with a book. Traditional publishing was like the huge shiny skyscraper downtown, and self-publishing was like the rundown office park out in the boonies. But now self-publishing has moved uptown, and if you look closely, you can see cracks in the facade of those shiny office buildings. But here's the thing: I can't say, "Pick this one" or "Pick that one," no questions. It just … [Read more...]
