Your Book: Bland and Generic or Distinctive and Powerful

The ninth (bonus!) secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book.

Of business cards and books…

If you’ve ever been to a business networking event there’s often a curious dance that takes place around business cards… Despite modern tech and apps the simplest way to share our contact information is still via our business cards.

After a few years networking I’ve now got a massive collection of cards—at the time of writing it stands at around 800 cards. I know of others who have thousands…

During this period I’ve heard many marketing gurus telling business owners and entrepreneurs that they need a book, that a book is the new business card.

Mmmmm.

There’s a bigger question about this statement, however, if I put that aside for the moment and just take it at face value there’s still an interesting way to explore it…

When I look at my collection of 800+ business cards about 60 of them stand out clearly.

Most are incredibly bland, generic and don’t in any way remind me of the person I spoke with. Most will have a name, contact info, logo or business title on them but no explanation of what they can help me with.

What kind of book do you want yours to be?

Unfortunately most business books I see, which are developed through anonymous marketing-led processes, end up like the vast majority of the business cards I receive. They’re bland, generic and don’t communicate anything of lasting value.

Of the other 60 business cards—the ones that do stand out and are in some way memorable—there are two different kinds.

There are the cards that might have a photograph of the person or a striking company design on it. So these cards tell me about the person.

The others may also have a striking way of presenting their company’s mission and services in a way that I can see what they can do for me or for someone else I know. Ultimately these are the cards that are truly useful and can genuinely lead to new business conversations.

Your book is so much more than a business card, however, you can take some cues from the best business cards that are out there…

Your book—Your business

Your book isn’t a business card… it is your business… the way you create it, present it, share it and focus it on solving your readers’ problems is the way you and your business will be judged.

Careful preparation, development of new skills and approaches, a rigorous fixation on meeting the needs of the readers at the highest quality will show that you are genuinely an expert, an authority who has something meaningful and powerful to share that can make a real difference.

Yet, there’s even more to it…

The time, energy and investment you put into creating your book can be leveraged in a much broader sense.

If you imagine the creation of your book as laying the foundations for a comprehensive product business (other books, audio programmes, online training, etc.) there is a tremendous opportunity to build a business that sits alongside your current business.

When you’re thinking about working with an author services company, a book coach or a traditional publisher see if they’re strategically thinking about more than simply the book… Do they also have the ability to help you design, structure and build a comprehensive product business?

The ninth secret—create your book, not as a business card, but as your business.

Is it ever better not to work with a book writing coach?

The eighth secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book…

Have you ever been at a business or networking event and found it tricky to make small talk?

Imagine my delight when I met a young marketer at a networking event who mentioned he was in the midst of writing a book. I said to myself, “This is going to be fun!”

If only…

I was keen to find out

how the writing was going
who his ideal readers were
what the message was
what results it would offer
how his own personality and quirkiness were going to appear in the book, etc.

Then I discovered he was writing his book as part of a write-your-book-claim-your-space-become-the-go-to-authority-in-your-field sausage factory that one of the big internet marketing companies has created.

He was about two-thirds of the way through writing the book, but struggled to explain what it was about.

One of the big selling points is that the budding author is coached through the process so that they can complete it and get it out there. He was two-thirds of the way through the book, had been working on it for a couple of months… and couldn’t remember the name of his book coach or really describe what they’d helped him with.

The role of a book writing coach

If you’ve already written books and enjoyed success with them (whether through large sales or through fewer sales to perfect readers who then become big-ticket clients), then it is unlikely you need a coach to take you through the book planning, writing, development and publication process.

For everybody else…

A great book coach:

Has a personal, professional relationship with the author
Is able to probe, question and uncover layers of expertise the author doesn’t value yet
Encourages the author to clarify their message and audience
Helps the author to write the book the reader wants and needs
Assists in the development of all the writing and structural skills that other kinds of writing don’t need

The list goes on an on.

So, how do you choose a good book coach?

Well, if you meet someone who is a book coach and you’re thinking about working with them review your first encounter or conversation with them.

On reflection did they:

Connect well with you—were they professional and able to listen?
Ask great questions that made you think about things in a new way?
Help you get clarity about how to speak with your audience?
Inspire you with confidence that they could help you turn your information into real results for the reader?
Suggest ways in which you could build on your existing skills?

There’s a lot more to research afterwards. Look at the kinds of projects they’ve worked on previously. Are they distinctive or dull, generic or genius, plain or passionate?

Think about how you want your effort, your message to be sculpted—then you’ll be in a position to know who can coach you to authoring success.

Then, at the very least, should we ever meet at a networking event, you’ll leave me inspired rather than deflated…

The eight secret—Not all book coaches are created equal…

How to Get Your Book Out—From Obscurity to Smash Hit

The seventh secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book.

Deadpool.

Deadpool—the R-Rated superhero movie that smashed the box-office records…

How did this obscure, minor hero with a potty mouth and repulsive face get cinemagoers flocking to see him? And what does this have to do with your book?

When you’re planning on writing your book what do you want most?

When you sit down to start writing the book itself what do you want most?

When your book is edited, designed and finally published what do you want most?

There are lots of possible answers, among them:

making a big impact
changing many minds
reaping rich financial rewards
being seen as the go-to expert in the field
attracting many more clients to your business
knowing your ideas and experience will live on after you are gone

All of these are noble intentions and desires. BUT there is a fundamental target that underpins every single one of these loftier goals…

What should you want most?

READERS

This may seem ridiculously simple and obvious but it is something that most aspiring authors, whether fiction or non-fiction, seem to forget…

Without an audience for your book you cannot have the impact you desire, the ability to influence the way people think, the financial rewards you deserve, etc.

Where are you starting from?

If you already have a sizeable audience through your existing business (an extensive email list or social media following for example) then you start from a strong position. If not, then it is vital that you begin to develop an audience-building strategy that kicks into play long before the book itself is published.

You have a unique opportunity today with the advent of social media, internet marketing and your own web presence to communicate directly to your potential fans and customers. This needs to happen before the book launches—why not share some of the ideas and strategies from your book and get feedback as you work through it?

We sometimes fear giving away our best stuff but it is one of the best ways to cement the relationship with our audience and potential clients.

You may not have the challenges of the cancer-ravaged Deadpool—the unknown with a $60M budget to recover. But there are plenty of lessons to learn from his success.

The Deadpool Strategy for Audience Building

Ryan Reynolds, who plays the ex-mercenary, clearly loved the character, the story and the movie. He couldn’t resist spreading the word in funny, challenging and provocative ways in video, tweets and public appearances above and beyond his contractual obligations… and a growing audience loved it and paid their money to watch.

Be thankful you don’t have to dress up in tight lycra, leap into the air or turn the air blue—your audience will likely thank you too… if you enchant them, intrigue them, provoke them and above all support them.

The seventh secret—Grow your audience first, publish your book after…

Please use the comment button above to share your own thoughts, questions or experience.

DIY Publishing—Is it the Route to Success or Disaster?

Would you rewire your house?

How about replacing an archaic sewage system?

Should you?

And what does that all have to do with self-publishing?

The sixth secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book.

Why do we call in professionals to deal with essential maintenance or installation of electrical and plumbing equipment in our homes?

Here are a few of the key reasons:

Because our family’s safety and wellbeing is our number one priority.
Because we lack knowledge or skill when dealing with these potentially dangerous elements (electricity and water).
Because we don’t have the time or inclination to spend time and money learning the ins and outs of electrical engineering or plumbing systems so we can do it safely ourselves.

Some do go it alone…

Yet, if you have ever stumbled across programmes such as DIY SOS, you’ll know that some well-intentioned amateurs do have a go at their own electrical, plumbing or building work… Often with disastrous and dangerous results.

Now, I’m not going to argue that attempting to self-publish your book will put you in a life-threatening position. But it could cause serious damage to your reputation or credibility as an expert or professional in your field.

Self-publishing or just pressing PRINT?

Most people understand self-publishing as the process whereby the author undertakes all the preparation of their book / e-book and then uploads it directly to the various publishing platforms (Kindle, etc.). This is presented as easy to do. Why waste time working with publishers or editors, or indeed with anyone else at all if you can simply press a button and your Word document gets sucked up into the cloud and you can declare yourself published?

This isn’t publishing, not even self-publishing. It is simply the equivalent of pressing the PRINT button on your laptop, except this time it doesn’t print out on your printer it magically appears in the Kindle store.

Genuine self-publishing

True self-publishing recognises that a lot more goes into a powerful, compelling and successful book than simply pressing the PRINT button on your Word document.

A true self-publisher will know that, to guarantee the quality, integrity and impact of their book, they’ll need to invest in…

editorial and development work on the text
careful design of the cover and the interior (which many self-publishers pay little attention to)
having an understanding of the various distribution options
knowing which routes to market will be most appropriate
researching the legal pitfalls and financial technicalities of self-publishing platforms
understanding your market, audience, and how you promote your title to them

If you’ve got the time to spare it is possible to create a powerful, compelling, high quality and successful book using genuine self-publishing.

Do what you do best

But if you’d rather focus on your area of strength and expertise to develop the quality of the content then you’ll choose to rely on others whose expertise can shape, edit, design, produce and distribute your books and e-books.

Yes, you could rewire your house.

Yes, you could mess about with sewage.

Yes, you could self-publish.

But should you?

If you self-publish properly (managing your own team of editors, designers, etc.) or choose to work with experienced publishers, you will create a professional, high quality book with the greatest potential to transform the lives of your readers:

Because your readers’ wellbeing and results are your top priority.
Because you aren’t aware of the many hidden dangers that lead to putting out badly edited and designed books.
Because you know that your clients want you to share your expertise with them in the most powerful way.

…and to do all this you’ll need to leverage other professionals’ skills.

The sixth secret—self-publishing isn’t the easy option, it’s the dangerous one.

Can writing a business book damage your business?

The fifth secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book.

When you begin to write a book that will share your insight and attract your ideal clients towards you a hidden danger lurks…

I wish someone could warn the authors of bland, generic business books… warn them that a book designed simply to be a business card for their business can seriously damage their business and their brand.

The finished book can undermine your

genuine expertise and damage your brand.

Your expertise comes from a journey filled with challenges and opportunities.

No-one else can replicate the hours invested, struggling to solve a particular problem and the feeling of relief when you finally cracked it.

No-one else can replicate your worst mistakes (though they may be able to benefit from what you learned).

No-one else can replicate the fine-tuning that you bring to every situation with your clients, often unconsciously, that flows from years of experience and adaptation.

This reservoir of insight and inspiration can be shared powerfully through a business book. But most coaches, consultants, trainers or business owners who write a book will fail miserably when attempting to share their wisdom and expertise. They will undermine the very thing that makes them successful.

So how do you avoid this danger?

The quality of your expertise has to be matched by

the quality of the writing and communication in your book.

Everything you have invested in developing your mastery of your profession needs to be reflected in your ability as an author.

If you’ve got tremendous expertise but the book you write is of poor quality this will tell readers that you’re a low quality worker and you should not be trusted.

The tragedy is that many business authors who write a business book to claim their space or demonstrate their authority actually damage their brand as a result. Many don’t even know this has happened to them as their readers/potential clients won’t usually tell them.

You’ve invested years crafting your expertise—a new craft is needed when you want to share it more widely.

The mastery you enjoy in your own industry, niche, or service, has taken many years to develop. You should rightly be proud of this accomplishment. Turning that insight and experience into a comprehensive, compelling and transformational book also takes time to craft.

Unless your daily work involves writing professionally to inspire, inform and impel your readers to action you will need to focus on developing this key skill.

Choose one of the following options to ensure that the quality of your book matches your expertise:

Reflect on how much it has taken to be an expert in your profession and invest an equal amount of time and effort in crafting your writing skills—weave this through your authoring as you plan, draft, refine, edit and design your book.
Locate professionals who have invested an equal amount of time and effort as you have, but in the publishing field. Those whose expertise can complement your own and ensure that it is presented brilliantly.

Your family and friends can’t give you objective advice in these situations, they know how amazing you are and won’t want to hurt/criticise/disappoint you even if they do have a suspicion the book isn’t as great as it could be.

Some book coaches who work within a marketing-led model simply reduce your wisdom/insight/experience to the basics: The 27 Steps to X, The 13 Keys to Y!

While they make for catchy titles they massively undervalue your true worth and the uniqueness of your hard-earned expertise. Ultimately this will disappoint the reader who is looking for genuine depth and transformation.

You’ve spent many years building up your brand,

ensuring that it is the hallmark for quality,

consistency and professionalism.

Make sure that your book not only maintains those standards

but raises them to new heights.

Oh, yes—secret five—If your book is not of the highest quality, your readers will believe your expertise is of the lowest quality.

Writing a book is easy… throw together your collection of blog articles

The fourth secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book

So let’s start by acknowledging that there are some good books that are simply collections of random blog posts. I’m sure there must be though I haven’t really been lucky enough to find them yet.

If only I had a pound/dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say, “You write a blog, then you should write a book, it’s not that much trickier.” They might as well say, “You can write great emails you should write a play,” or, “You write great post-it-notes why not write a dissertation on quantum physics?”

Now I am being more than slightly tongue-in-cheek here. Yet the assumption that a book is simply a collection of 250-500 word bits is one that has forced a lot of business writers into mediocrity and invisibility.

The difference between blogging and writing a book

The purpose of writing a blog is very different from the purpose of a book.

With a blog you’ve got a minute or two (a few hundred words) to capture the imagination of your reader and implant a single thought/feeling/course of action.

With a book you have the potential to spend six or seven hours speaking to the reader directly inside their head in a continual conversation that can inspire, motivate, call to action, define strategies and reflect on their results.

How much would you spend to get your prospective clients to listen to you and trust your voice as much as their own?

Yet, with the brilliant book only you can write, you have that opportunity for free. The secret to doing this comes from discovering your author voice—the particular tone, character, philosophy, vision and story that will help you write in the most captivating, authentic and powerful way.

Discover your voice and you will be communicating in a way that blog writers will envy. Your voice, inside the readers head—for seven hours! But not your voice, their own voice speaking your words as if they were their own…

Taking your reader on a journey of discovery, insight and transformation in those seven hours requires you to step up your writing game. This can be done without too many challenges, but only if you can see how important it is to develop your writing skills so you can transform your readers more effectively.

Readers are smart,

that’s why you want to communicate with them!

They’re smart enough to notice when something hasn’t been cared for, hasn’t been crafted, hasn’t been tailored just for them.

When that happens the other voices in their head start to interrupt, start to heckle,

What’s the writer doing? Did they bother to check or update this? Why should I waste my time on this when the writer didn’t spend any time making it the best it could be?”

Make sure your voice is undisturbed within their mind—captivate them, lead them on a journey where they are the hero and your insight guides them to success. Your author voice, the one you lovingly and carefully craft, is hard to resist…

Oh, yes—secret four—Writing books is a craft, poor writing tells your reader you’re not worth listening to.

Get to know what makes you different—the base for an outstanding book

The third secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book

How do you get to know the best solutions for your clients?

How do you find out what makes them tick, what makes their business tick, what challenges they face, what opportunities are ahead, what resistance they have to making necessary changes?

Chances are you’re thinking something like, “Well…

I take time to ask them lots of questions that I know uncover the underlying issues and motivations.
Then I’ll discover how they view the world and the challenges that model creates.
We will explore other options.
Then we implement strategies that can bring about the results they want to achieve.”

Yes, there is something about this that probably rings true with anyone who runs a business or facilitates change through coaching, consultancy or training. But, and it is a big BUT, you may not really know what it is that truly makes the biggest difference to your clients.

Your formula for success with your clients

You have a general, or even highly detailed process, that you are consciously aware of. Yet, how often does a client get silenced by a simple question, puzzled, struggling to answer before they respond with, “I’ve never thought of that before, I can see that now, I just never noticed that pattern…”

Could the same be true for you?

When we spend a 1-2-1 day with an author it is a real privilege. As publishers we receive masterclasses in coaching/HR/addiction… whatever the topic of the book is. Yet there are also wonderful moments when we ask questions that stump the author, that force them to go inside and figure something out.

At the end of a day with an amazing leadership coach I remember him saying, “WOW! No one has asked me these questions before!”

Could it be that what makes real change work for your clients is something you’re not entirely conscious of, something that you do naturally, something intrinsic to your way of thinking and being that you don’t even notice along the way?

Is your secret sauce, still secret?

Perhaps there is an overall process that you apply to situations that you’re not aware of. This could be the most useful and powerful of all your strategies—and you don’t even know about it.

Many business writers, even the ones who move beyond throwing information at their readers, present what they think it is that they do to lead others to transformation. But very often their books contain information, clichés and anecdotes that everyone else in the field uses. This is because they don’t realise that in order to write to teach, inspire and motivate others to transform they need to learn what truly makes them different.

What is it you do to affect the business or lives of your clients when many others have failed to do so? Are you certain that you really understand this or have you simply accepted that it all rests with your strategies or techniques?

Perhaps you are running some sort of meta-level process you haven’t been consciously aware of…

Get someone to question everything you do, they have ways of making you talk!

If you want to make your book stand out, make your book most effective, then you need to invest time discovering what it is that makes you different. Or you could short-change yourself and simply say, “I’m different because of the 10-point success formula I developed [substitute your own instant answer here].”

If you want to write the book that shows clearly how you are different, more reliable, more effective, more authoritative and more transformational than the others in your field why not do what you do for your clients?

Get someone whose expertise you can rely on to question you, to interrogate you, to draw out what is really going on, what it is really that makes you different and therefore makes such a difference to your clients.

Oh, yes—the third secret—Discover what makes you different, you may not know this yourself…

Secret four, coming soon…

Your readers want you… not Google!

The second secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book…

“Oh, I’ll just google that.”

How many times have you heard that or said it yourself?

The instructions you received from IKEA on your flatpack wardrobe/closet are indecipherable so you go to Google/YouTube to see if a video can show how to build it. Or perhaps the argument has been raging for ages about the year in which Rambo was released—a quick google will solve the issue.

Undoubtedly the speed of access to information online through portals such as Google has led to huge shifts in how we all do things. Many people thought that with instant access to information would come instant solutions, instant results, instant transformation.

We now know that the dotcom revolution has brought enormous changes but we are also aware that information alone does not bring about change. Google may provide access to gobbets of information rapidly but this doesn’t mean we know how to make sense of it or apply it powerfully in our own context.

Companies have been born, grown and even collapsed during the information revolution but there is a new revolution in the making. One you are involved in and which can lift your own business to new heights.

Rescue your clients from information overload and deliver real transformation for them

More and more people appreciate that they are drowning in information; they realise the quick-wins they sought through immediate answers and solutions were an illusion. As an experienced coach, trainer, consultant or business owner you know that often the key to turning a situation or business around is not a lack of information. The information to achieve what your clients want is already available to them in a multitude of ways online.

What makes you an expert begins with the first realisation: you understand that simply presenting people with information and strategies very often fails to achieve the desired result.

The second element of your expertise stems from your accumulated wisdom, knowledge and strategic thinking: knowing what to do, how to inspire, challenge and motivate your clients when they struggle with applying information. You may sell yourself as a trainer/consultant/coach but essentially you help people get absolutely clear about why they need to change and the benefits they will achieve through that change—your strategies, when applied, will deliver that transformation.

Information + Knowledge = Fertile Ground for Transformation

Many business writers make the fatal mistake of throwing everything at their readers.

If I push out every bit of information, every fact, every strategy, every nugget of wisdom and insight this will show I’m an expert and help my readers at the same time.”

But at the end of the day this doesn’t work. You simply become another source of information overload… More information, less transformation…

So when you think about writing your book, the book your readers really want to read, you need to see yourself as a transformation agent rather than an information agent. Most often transformation doesn’t come simply from information but from knowledge—the accumulated wisdom, experience and insight that you communicate with your clients to motivate, change and equip them in simple, effective ways to reach their goals.

So, please, don’t compete with Google by overloading your readers/clients with even more information—take time to think about the process of transformation you want your clients/readers to enjoy. Make this the heart of your book.

Oh, yes—the second secret—It’s not about information, it’s about transformation…

Remember, please use the comments button (at top of the post) to share your thoughts.

Secret three coming soon…

Is the book you’re told to write the one your audience wants to read?

The first secret the gurus don’t tell you when you’re writing your book…

There is one lethal syndrome you never want to encounter when speaking with someone. You also definitely don’t want this to occur when someone picks up your book or looks at your product range.

TEGO (tee-go) leads to disaster, destruction and the death of your hopes for converting your audience into paying clients. It is also guaranteed to get a reader to put your book down and never give it a second thought in the future.

So, what is this mysterious TEGO?

It is the moment when the person you are speaking to finds the colour of your neighbour’s hair more interesting than your pre-planned pitch. It is the moment when a potential client drifts off into their favourite daydream whilst you share your wisdom and knowledge. It is the moment when a reader turns a page, sighs and drops your book in frustration.

You’ve experienced TEGO yourself. Indeed, you may even have triggered it in another person occasionally. Sadly, I have done this many times…

A guaranteed way to induce TEGO is to forget the essential principle of good business communication. When communicating with a client or potential client it isn’t what you do that is important. It is what you can do for them that is important.

When we are looking to grow and develop our business we either want a solution to a problem or a way of creating new possibilities for our business. We want to get rid of pain or we want to create some pleasure.”

When meeting prospective clients (in the room, online or via your book) the most important message you have to share is the one your audience needs to hear—that their problem is understood, that there is an effective solution to their problem and they can access that solution easily through you.

Most people who induce TEGO talk constantly about themselves, about the features of their product or service, about their venture-capital-backed brilliance or the 150 years of their traditional family business. They do this thinking that their prospective client will easily sign up on the dotted line. How wrong they are.

The result of their monologue is TEGO – The Eyes Glaze Over…

So many business books end up making the same fundamental mistake.

The business author writes down everything they think they know, hoping to impress the reader by demonstrating their authority and expertise. This is not how to write a business book—they fail to remember one vital point…

How to avoid TEGO and write the right book

The book you think you have to write to show your authority is not the book that will truly touch, impress and inspire your readers.

Understanding how to write your entire book for the benefit of your reader rather than yourself is, paradoxically, the only way to ensure that your book really does benefit your business.

Don’t pretend to speak with them—really take time to understand them. Show your appreciation by detailing how you will love their problems. Demonstrate your reliability by freely sharing powerful information and strategies from the first word to the final full stop.

Then, and only then, can you be confident that TEGO will not strike.

Oh, yes – the first secret – It’s not all about you!

Keep your eyes peeled for the second secret, coming soon…

Acknowledgement: A big thank you to Michael Henesy, a truly wonderful communicator, for introducing me to the concept of TEGO.

The 8 secrets the gurus don’t tell you about writing your book

8-secrete-dont-tell-you A book… the new business card?

Have you been to events where the main speaker suggested you write a book, claim your space or become a thought leader?

Perhaps you’ve been encouraged at networking events or seminars to demonstrate your authority and expertise by getting a book written and published. Experienced coaches, trainers and consultants are being told, “You should, you need to, you must write a book!”

It is commonplace now to hear that a business book is the new high-impact business card. Apparently this business card will automatically unlock massive growth and profitability for your business…

Make it a brilliant book…

Clearly, as publishers, we believe in the tremendous value a book can bring to a business… a great book, a brilliant, a compelling, a transforming and powerful book.

Sadly, the vast majority of expert coaches, trainers and consultants who invested time and money in writing a book never reaped these magical rewards. Despite what they were told by the gurus their book hasn’t made them stand out, demonstrated their authority, turned them into a thought leader or dramatically improved their business fortunes.

So does the fault lie with the gurus who promote the creation of books purely as a marketing tool or with the naïve coaches who end up with poor books? Why is it that these books didn’t turn out to be great, brilliant, compelling, transforming and powerful books?

Avoid the pitfalls, know the facts…

It’s what the gurus don’t tell you that leads many business authors to disappointment…

As publishers who work with experienced, expert and successful coaches, trainers and consultants we know that there are some basic elements that many skip over when promoting the idea that writing a book is the key to a golden future. Once you understand these eight secrets you’ll be able to avoid the worst pitfalls that first-time business authors frequently make.

This introductory series of posts at immersive.pub will step you through the eight secrets the gurus don’t share with you. These make ALL the difference to the book you can write to drive real growth for your business.

So here’s number one on the list—look out for the detailed post to come shortly…

Secret #1 – It’s not all about you…

So, what do you think?