| Hosted by: technogranny Title: Techno Granny, Publishing a Book, What You Need to Know |
| Time: 12/13/2010 10:00 AM EST Episode Notes: Weston Lyon is the author of 14 books and a passionate professional speaker. He is celebrating his 10th year in business and while he'ss considered a serial entrepreneur, Weston primarily focuses on helping Coaches, Speakers, and Entrepreneurs Become Authors Things we will talk about: 1. What is your idea? 2. Outline, how do you organize it? 3. Fill in the blanks, do you have enough material? 4. Goal, audience, message! 5. I don't know, flibiddy flab! 6. How do you get Testimonials for your book? 7 Traditional vs self publishing 8 Writing it yourself vs a ghost writer or organizer 9. Massive process of putting a book together to be readable 10. What do you gain by doing the book, sooner rather than later 11. Copyright and intellectual property issues when someone else writes for you, how do you protect yourself? Listen to archived show at: |
Weston Lyon is the author of 14 books and a passionate professional speaker.
He is celebrating his 10th year in business and while he’s considered a serial
entrepreneur, Weston primarily focuses on helping Coaches, Speakers, and
Entrepreneurs Become Authors.
Weston is also the Chapter Director for the No BS Marketing Meeting here in
Pittsburgh, where he teaches No BS direct response marketing techniques and
strategies to ambitious entrepreneurs and serious salespeople.
Weston’s Key to Success is:
BE PASSIONATE & TAKE MASSIVE ACTION
1. The idea? Before you even come up with an idea for your book look at your core business and determine what you want the book to do and lead readers to.
For example: If you’re a fitness coach the logical, and smart, path to lead readers to is your fitness coaching service. That’s where the money is, right? So, your book should be about your philosophy, your exercises, and your routines.
Remember this: the book isn’t where the money is…the back end is where the money is!
In this example, the back end is coaching. It could be speaking, consulting, a mastermind group, a bigger info-product, a seminar, or whatever you choose.
2. The outline? Once you analyze your back end, determine why you’re writing a book, and come up with a logical idea for your book, it’s time to outline the puppy.
Your outline depends on the TYPE of book you want to write. For simplicity, here are 2 types of books you can write: 1. Tip Book or 2. How-To Book
Tip Books are books that give the reader a handful of tips (7, 19, 37, whatever) they can use. To outline this type of book: brainstorm as many points as possible you want to convey. Rewrite them in a logical, flowing ordering and you have a basic outline.
How-To Books are books that teach the reader “how-to” do something. To outline this type of book: brainstorm the steps involved to do what you’re teaching. Each step is a chapter.
3. Fill in the blanks? One of the most asked questions I get is: Do I have enough content to write a book? Answer: If you don’t, you can always write more.
Don’t be concerned if you have enough or not. I’ve written 14 books and have helped numerous others do the same. Just write until you’re done getting your point across…there are ways to increase page count if that’s what concerns you (wink wink).
Don’t shoot for word count either, if you’re self-publishing. Only traditional publishers care about that. Instead, write your book in a Word Doc (single spaced, 12pt font) and shoot for 50+ pages.
This isn’t a perfect science, but it’s a good rule of thumb. 50 pages this way will turn out a 120 page book (roughly). In my opinion, that’s a perfect size!
People in today’s society don’t like reading massive books. One of my goals when writing a book is to GET IT READ. Big books are intimidating. Small books get read.
Now, if you want to write more, then write more. After all, it’s your book.
4. Goal, audience, message? This goes back to the first question…know your core business and your back end. Your book should be an extension of your core business and dovetail into your overall business plan.
5. I don't know, flibiddy flab? Sure you do! You know your business inside and out and you (should) know your customers inside and out.
Your book should simply teach them something they want to learn more about. If you’re a coach, teach them in your book what you teach them in person. If you’re a speaker, teach them in your book what you teach them from the stage.
What if you own a local business…say a flower shop? Teach them in your book how to celebrate life with flowers. As an example: teach men how to be more romantic all year round. Give them ideas…and have all the ideas incorporate giving different types of flowers.
6. Testimonials? The easiest way to get testimonials is to give a ton away for free…strategically. I learned this from my buddy, Scott Ginsberg. When he writes a book, he gives hundreds away for free to get testimonials.
Personally, I haven’t done this as well as I should have. One of the follies of moving from one project to the next too fast…I’ll have to work on that – haha.
7. Traditional vs self publishing? This can be a lengthy discussion…but some things to note are:
· Traditional Publishing has no upfront costs, while Self Publishing does.
· Traditional Publishing takes time to find a publisher, while Self Publishing takes little time.
· Traditional Publishing takes 12-24 months to get your book out to market, while Self Publishing takes 6-12 months if you do it by yourself…and less than 6 months with a company like mine.
· Traditional Publishing offers minimal royalties on your book (unless you’re an established author)…we’re talking under $2 per book; while Self Publishing offers much more per book…around $7-9+ per book.
· Traditional Publishing gives you very little room to make a back end offer, while Self Publishing gives you all the freedom you want and need to lead prospects to your back end.
Both have their pros and cons, naturally. I’ve self published all my books and teach people how to do that - actually we do all the work and heavy lifting of self publishing for our clients.
8. Writing it yourself vs a ghost writer or organizer? Writing a book yourself takes a lot of discipline. It can be done…and is all the time…just know that going into it.
Getting a ghost writer can make a lot of sense if you don’t have much time for writing, but can be expensive. Again, do it if it makes sense…just know your budget and your back end profit potential.
Having someone help you organize your thoughts is a good idea, too. Organization of thought is really the hardest part for first time authors (in the writing portion).
9. Massive process of putting a book together to be readable? Yes. Publishing a book takes a lot of time and energy. It can be frustrating at times, too, since publishing isn’t your core business.
Can you do it yourself? Absolutely. However, sometimes it’s just smarter hiring someone who knows what they’re doing. It really depends on you, your business, your time management skills, your organizational skills, and you patience. If you’re good in all these areas, do everything yourself. If you lack in any, hire someone to save you time, energy, and sanity.
10. What do you gain by doing the book, sooner rather than later? You gain positioning in your field, which leads to more opportunity and profit.
Waiting to write a book can cost you thousands (even tens or hundreds of thousands) of dollars. Not in book sales, per se. But. In back end profit.
If you have an idea and a back end to lead prospects to, writing a book NOW can help you take your business to new heights you cannot duplicate without a book…at least it’d be hard as you know what to duplicate.
11. Copyright and intellectual property issues when someone else writes for you, how do you protect yourself? Good question, but one I’ll pass onto your attorney. Listen, you NEED to protect your intellectual property. So…whatever you decide to do, make sure you get a contract stating all copy rights are yours! Consult a professional for further assistance.
For Techno Granny listeners ONLY…and ONLY until December 31st, 2010: Go to http://www.westonlyon.com/technogranny2010.php and take advantage of getting all your questions answered in a 30 minute free phone session. No obligation or sales pitch…just answers to your questions.
Weston Lyon
412-974-0739
6 McCabe St.
Sewickley, PA 15143
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Serious Pittsburgh Entrepreneurs ONLY:
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Again, just until the end of the month, Weston will answer any questions posed by TechnoGranny listeners here’s the webpage for you:
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