A Sneak Peek Inside the Damn Fine Words Writing Course

James — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 05:00:54 +0000

Damn Fine Words is going to be the writing course that changes the whole game for your business. And it’s the course everyone’s been waiting for.

Now, you may be curious about what’s inside the Damn Fine Words writing course, and I don`t blame you. Everyone’s excited to learn more about this innovative resource!

Allow me to crack open the doors and shine a light on a bit of what you’ll find inside…

Just Three Sentences

Lesson 4 is my personal favourite, and in it I reveal a secret content-creation technique that’s extremely valuable:

You only need three sentences to write. Web copy, blog post, ebook chapter… You’ll feel like you’ve discovered a hidden secret.

Most writers don’t even know about this technique. But I do – and if you add this writing technique to your day, you’ll be churning out all the copy and content you need. Easy breezy.

Don’t Write At All

Lesson 16 is another one I really like – it teaches you how to improve your writing without writing anything at all. It applies the science of physiology to your writing for smooth reading that works.

You’ll eliminate all those awkward sentences – and trust me, even awesome writers have plenty of these. Your writing will sound so natural that readers think you’re talking straight to them. Which you will be, of course!

Stir Up Action

The art of a good call to action gets covered in lesson 15, and trust me, we’re not going to talk about that “click here” BS. You can do better than that.

I’ll explain exactly how to write so that people take the action you want. They’ll contact you, call you and buy from you more than before. (You might even want to test out your new action skills on your kids – maybe they’ll finally clean their room!)

The Mental Stuff

Writer’s block? Pfft. Not here. In lessons 10, 18 and 19, I cover techniques that let you sweep away the obstacles in your head that hold you back and prevent you from getting results from your writing.

You’ll learn how to make writing easy, stop staring at a blank page and start hitting publish to get your words out there with confidence and pride.

Enough of that crazy myth that writing has to be hard. That’s carried on long enough, don’t you think?

If you’re ready to learn how to write for results – and so much more – then visit Damn Fine Words and preregister today. Take advantage of the time-limited $200 discount being offered right now.

But don’t wait. That discount ends on September 1st.

Leave a Comment!

Post by James Chartrand

Damn Fine Words (the internet's most game-changing writing course ever), James Chartrand is the pen name of a copywriter, problogger and online entrepreneur from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her work features on major sites across the internet. She loves the color blue, her kids, playing guitar, ice skating, and equestrian sports.

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
A Sneak Peek Inside the Damn Fine Words Writing Course first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Upcoming posts will focus on better writing skills, in honor of Damn Fine Words‘s launch. It’s the only online writing course that teaches you how to improve your writing skills AND get business results. Registration is open right now, and with a juicy discount too. Don’t miss it!

You know that writers need to read to improve their writing skills. All the experts say so.

And they’re right. But reading doesn’t just mean curling up with a great book or surfing your favourite blogs on your coffee breaks. It means finding out exactly what other writers do. It means discovering what works – and what falls flat.

You can’t just point and say I liked this post but not this one. If you want to improve your skills as a writer, you need to be able to figure out why you liked this or that – and what made it work.

So let me show you how to be a better writer, starting with structure.

Getting a Grip on Structure

Some blog posts, sales pages and ebooks just work. You get absorbed in them. You never get lost or have to read a paragraph twice. Once you’ve finished, you feel like you’ve learned something (yes, even with a sales page).

How do the writers do it? Great structure.

You can take a piece of writing – however long or short – and figure out the underlying structure. I’ll take you step-by-step through a couple of examples: one blog post and one ebook.

First Example: How to Turn Your Blog Traffic into Money (blog post)

Take a look at How to Turn Your Blog Traffic into Money by Darren Rowse.

The purpose of the post is to recommend Premise, but the structure isn’t that of a typical review or recommendation. This is how it breaks down:

Introduction
First section, called “The cornerstone of my new approach”, where Darren explains a landing page and why it’s important
Second section, called “Specifically designed landing pages work better”. Having introduced the idea of a landing page, Darren goes through a brief story about what he did wrong in the past and what he’s doing right now
Third section, which is the first place where Darren mentions Premise. He explains what it does, talking about benefits (“It takes the ‘too hard’ part of landing pages and completely eliminates it”) and features.
Call to action: The affiliate link to Premise in the final paragraph.

Normally, reviews and recommendations follow a predictable format. They’ll mention the product name in the title of the post (which helps for SEO) and in the introduction. An affiliate link appears near the top. The post focuses on the product and what it does.

Darren takes a very different route here. That’s partly because he’s pretty much the antithesis of a hard-sales guy – but also because there are tactical reasons to structure the post like this.

Let’s take a closer look:

#1: The post is framed to draw us in. If you don’t know what a landing page is or why it’s important, then a title like “Create Easy, Effective Landing Pages With Premise” simply won’t work. But “How to Turn Your Blog Traffic into Money” makes the benefits completely clear.

#2: We learn what a landing page is. The first section is useful, informative, and has a persuasive function. It doesn’t just give a dictionary definition of a landing page – it also spells out a number of great uses for landing pages, making us think, “Hmm, maybe I should do that…”

#3: The mention of Premise comes when we’re ready. Once we really understand why landing pages are so important, we’re presented with a solution: a piece of software that takes care of all the hard work.

This is also the first point at which an image comes into the post, automatically drawing our eye and marking this section as important.

Using Darren’s Structure

If you liked this structure, you could:

Create a review that starts off by explaining why the reader needs your solution – before you even name or present the product/service.
Write your review so that it’s useful by giving valuable information – as Darren does in the first couple of sections.
Make sure there’s a clear call to action in the very last paragraph of your review.

What if this structure didn’t work for you? That’s okay too. Figure out why you didn’t like it:

Perhaps you felt a bit cheated by the title: You were expecting a big, comprehensive post about making money through blogging, and this turned out to be about landing pages.
You might have felt tricked into a sales pitch, since the mention of Premise doesn’t come until the end.

It’s fine to dislike a post, but don’t use that as a reason to stop reading. Use it as a chance to figure out why some things don’t work for you and why they might not work for your audience.

Second Example: 5 Big Mistakes Creative People Make With Money (ebook)

I’ve chosen 5 Big Mistakes Creative People Make With Money by Mark McGuinness as the second example.

It’s available for free download (you don’t even need to put in your email address), and it has an unusual and innovative structure. This is how it breaks down:

Cover page
Copyright note and information about sharing the ebook
A one-page introduction that sets us up for what’s to come – “[a] story about two creative people and their relationship with money (and other things)”
A short story told mainly in dialogue format through two main characters – Oscar and Jay. This is split into six scenes in chronological order, each headed with a different year and location and takes up 24 pages.
A section that explains the story and lists five money mistakes (the ones referred to in the title), using Oscar and Jay’s story to show how these mistakes affected Oscar. Each mistake is covered in one page, making this section 7 pages in total.
A one-page introduction to a free seminar as the conclusion to the ebook.

This isn’t what you’d normally expect from a non-fiction ebook. When I opened it up, I wasn’t expecting such a long story (nor one told mainly in dialogue). I had to read more slowly than I normally would, and I found myself caring about the characters … and starting to think about some of the mistakes that I’ve made in my own creative business.

Why does this ebook structure work?

#1: It’s creative – which is especially important, as the ebook is squarely aimed at creative people. But stories work on all of us. That’s why bloggers often open a post with an anecdote – sometimes starting in the middle of a story to heighten the pull.

#2: We’re told what to expect. The introduction sets up the story. In fact, before you even get that far, the cover hints at the story with a drawing of two creative-looking types, a man and a woman.

#3: The structure is deliberately crafted. In the short story section, every new scene is titled with the location and year. The scene begins with a paragraph or two of description before moving into dialogue. (Sometimes the dialogue is face-to-face, sometimes on the phone, sometimes text chat – but the underlying structure remains constant.)

In the short section on the 5 money mistakes, each mistake takes up a page. That might seem like a purely cosmetic point, but it’s part of the structure. If one mistake took up three pages and another took up half a page, the ebook would feel poorly balanced.

Using Mark’s Structure

If you liked this structure, you could:

Write an ebook in two distinct parts, breaking each part into short, easy-to-read sections
Use a case study or a fictional story to illustrate your topic before going on to explain in more detail
Make all your points in a list the same length: one page of your ebook, for instance, or two paragraphs of your blog post.

Now, maybe you didn’t like the way Mark wrote this ebook. I’d encourage you to read it anyway so that you can figure out what exactly wasn’t right for you. For instance:

Was the story too long? Perhaps 4 pages would have been fine, but 24 pages seemed like too much.
Did the structure of the story make it confusing? (At first, I didn’t know who Jay was, because she wasn’t named in the first scene. In fact, I initially thought that Jay was a man.)

Again, there’s nothing wrong with disliking a piece of writing, but you need to figure out why you feel that way.

Your Turn: Pick Apart a Piece of Writing

So you’ve seen how I do it. Now it’s your turn to find a blog post, ebook or other piece of web copy and pick its structure apart. Start by looking at:

Introductions and conclusions – how do these help frame the piece?
Chapter lists (in an ebook) or subheadings (in a blog post) – do these follow a logical progress? How do they fit together?
The structure of each chapter or subsection – is there any consistent pattern? For instance, does each chapter have an example halfway through and end with an exercise?

If you learn something new or come up with a great idea for a post or ebook of your own, let us know in the comments. Tell us about your structure experience, or why you like or don’t like a particular writer’s usual structure use.

Leave a Comment!

Post by Ali Luke

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach from the UK, and her posts can be found all over the blogosphere. She’s the author of the popular Blogger’s Guide series of ebooks and has just released The Blogger’s Guide to Irresistible Ebooks – which will take you step-by-step through creating and launching your own ebook. Men with Pens readers get a $5 discount with the code “penmen”.

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
How to Improve Your Writing Skills by Analyzing Structure first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

They tell you to write. They tell you that your success depends on quality content. They tell you to produce lots of it. You should blog. You should improve your web copy. You should write sales letters. You should comment and tweet and say insightful things on Facebook.

No one tells you how.

Until now.

For years, people have asked me to teach them what I know. How to write engaging posts. How to write snappy headlines. How to create compelling web copy. How to draw readers in. How to create succinct, powerful articles.

How, how, how…

These weren’t writers setting up shop to be hired. These were entrepreneurs and business owners who wanted – no, who needed – to write more effective, compelling content so they could get results.

They knew the grammar. The punctuation. The sentence structure. They wrote well… but not well enough. It showed in their web copy, because it didn’t bring in sales. It showed in their blog posts that didn’t get comments.

It showed each time they tried to write for their audience. Because it just didn’t work.

And these people wanted to learn how. How to improve their writing skills so they could create the type of engaging, compelling, effective content everyone tells them to write.

So I decided to show them.

Damn Fine Words is the answer.

Damn Fine Words is the most exceptional, innovative writing course ever created. If you’re a start-up business owner, an entrepreneur, a self-employed freelancer, an in-house writer, a blogger, an editor… if you need to create effective content to market your business (or someone else’s), then Damn Fine Words is for you.

A cross between a writing course and a business course, Damn Fine Words teaches you valuable techniques, content-creation tricks, and insider strategies top writers use every day to get results with their target market.

That’s what Damn Fine Words is about: Results.

And the Damn Fine Words course helps you get those results in less than 10 weeks. Packed with 20 hands-on lessons specifically designed to teach you how to be a better writer, a more effective writer, it’s geared to help you improve your writing skills fast.

Not by the end of the course, either – by the end of each lesson.

You’ll enjoy fun activities and practical, hands-on exercises. You’ll benefit from specialized tasks called Use It Now, designed to show you how to immediately improve your business. You’ll be learning from day one – and all through the course.

Here’s the awesome part:

Many course owners slap material up, set everything on automation and walk away. Not me. I spent a full year working hard to produce the best educational material possible. And while I automated some tasks to make your life real easy, I’m not walking away.

No sir. You’ll have special access to a members-only area where you’ll be able to get advice, tips and feedback on your writing, and I’ll be there every day. Ask questions, learn new tricks and pick up great techniques that help you get the results from your writing you’ve been searching for.

And that’s just the beginning.

Want more details? Click here to visit Damn Fine Words and learn more about this game-changing course. By the way…

Pre-registration is now open.

And if you register for Damn Fine Words before September 1st, you’ll benefit from a $200 launch discount.

This course will change your life. You’re going to love it.

Leave a Comment!

Post by James Chartrand

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Damn Fine Words: The Writing Course that Gets Business Results first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

If I asked you the question, “What’s the movie Breakfast At Tiffany’s about?” you’d probably say something like this:

“Isn’t Audrey Hepburn in that? And doesn’t she really want to have breakfast at Tiffany’s?”

Yes, she is, and yes, she does, but those things are not, in fact, what Breakfast at Tiffany’s is really about.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is about overcoming discouragement and fear. It’s about achieving a unique, compelling style. And most of all, it’s about fierce, do-what-you-have-to-do love.

In short, it’s about everything you need to succeed in your writing life.

How to Fight Off the Mean Reds

In Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey Hepburn’s character Holly Golightly describes the difference between “the blues” and what she calls “the mean reds.”

“The blues are because you’re getting fat and maybe it’s been raining too long, you’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.”

As a writer, you will get the mean reds. It’s guaranteed. If you are sharing the stories that need to be shared, you will get scared. You’ll doubt yourself. You’ll consider giving up and running back to the safe little life you had before.

The mean reds are the unanticipated fears that halt your progress.

I’ve been there. When I submitted a guest post at Firepole Marketing on creating your most compelling content, I felt the mean reds sneaking up on me. I felt afraid, and I didn’t know why. I wondered if I’d been too honest, and if I’d shared too much.

Fortunately, there’s a cure for the mean reds, and you can look to Holly’s personal antidote for a clue. Her response to the mean reds is to go to Tiffany’s. But why?

In her words: “[It] calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there.”

Tiffany’s is a place of elegance, beauty, and most of all, craftsmanship.

When the mean reds strike, go to a quiet place. Think of a piece of writing that inspires you. Then, start writing. Do the work. You don’t have to finish, and you don’t have to say anything brilliant (though, once you get going, you might.) You just have to begin. You find your writing voice by…writing.

The antidote to the mean reds is proactive creation.

Attracting Fans with Compelling Style

Contrary to popular belief, Holly Golightly’s magnetism isn’t based in the pearls or the little black dress. It’s found in her charismatic personality, her winning smile, in the bold way she moves through the world.

The same is true for you and your writing. Crafting a compelling style is about doing the unexpected and making people notice. As Holly observes, “It’s useful being top banana in the shock department.”

In today’s terms, Holly’s ‘personal brand’ is one part naiveté mixed with two parts elegance, three parts impulsivity and a dash of humor. She keeps a bottle of perfume, a lipstick and a mirror in her mailbox. She sleeps with tassled earplugs. She keeps her phone in her suitcase to muffle the sound. These are small, idiosyncratic details, yet they capture viewers’ attention. Decades later, we still can’t look away.

Consider this in terms of your website, your writing. You need to stand out as yourself, with your quirks on display. Where do you do the unexpected? How do you take your interests, your personal stories, and use them as creative fuel?

Erika Napoletano promises readers free ponies when they sign up for her mailing list. (I haven’t received my ponies yet, but that punchy little false promise made me want to subscribe.) James Chartrand adds spice to her writing with pull-you-in analogies and provocative web design. These writers produce fantastic content, but it’s the small personal touches that serve as bait to hook readers in.

Becoming a Classic Through Fierce Love

Contrary to popular belief, the emotion that motivates Holly Golightly’s character is not romantic love. In fact, the happy movie ending we love so much doesn’t exist in Truman Capote’s original story on which the film was based.

What, then, drives Holly to do all that she does? It’s sisterly love. Holly’s character is shaped by her profound, protective love for her brother, Fred. Though Fred never appears in the film, he has a deep significance for our heroine.

Fred’s disability is only hinted at in the film. Holly says that she’s saving money so that she can take care of Fred, though she doesn’t specify why he needs her help. Most tellingly, Holly says people think Fred is, “a little slow…a bit dotty…” and that, “[the Army's] really the best place for him until I can get enough money saved.”

Despite appearances, Holly’s gold-digging isn’t the work of a social climber. It’s the desperate effort of a sister who longs to provide for her brother. The vision of being reunited with her brother is what Holly holds closest to her heart.

In order for you to succeed as a writer, YOU need to have a vision. You need to have a goal you’re so passionate about that you’re willing to humble yourself and face potential rejection for it. Underneath the glitz, that’s what Holly is doing.

Every day, ask yourself: What is it that I’d be willing to get down on my knees for?

Whatever it is, that’s what you love. That’s why you write. That’s what will keep you going when you feel like giving up.

And that’s what will make you a classic.

Leave a Comment!

Post by Caroline McGraw

Caroline McGraw is a would-be childhood paleontologist who digs for treasure in people. She blogs about finding meaning in your most challenging relationships at A Wish Come Clear.

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
How Breakfast at Tiffanys Teaches You to Become a Classic Writer first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Perfectionism. It’s a tricky little concept. People work like dogs at a project and smile as they say they just want something to be so stellar, so excellent, so clearly brilliant that it’s…

Well, perfect.

But let’s call perfectionism by its true name, shall we?

Fear.

That’s what perfectionism really means: that you’re scared of saying something’s done, something’s finished, something’s good enough. You double-check and you hire pro after pro to go over the work and you tweak and rewrite and stress and worry. You just can’t let go.

Because you’re full of fear.

Fear of getting something wrong. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of not having the results you hoped for. Fear that someone didn’t do the job well enough. Fear of lack of control. Fear of letting go. Fear of people laughing, of embarrassment, of failure.

Or maybe even fear of success.

Perfectionism doesn’t mean you appreciate perfection. Perfection doesn’t exist. It just means you’re full of self-doubt, but you can’t admit it.

Who wants to face the demons within themselves, after all? If we admitted they existed, we’d have to do something about them. We’d have to struggle with them, fight with them, understand them, and overcome them.

Better to be a perfectionist.

Life’s much easier that way. You have a tidy little excuse that helps you pretend there aren’t any demons, no inkling of fear within you. You won’t have to take any chances or meet anyone’s expectations. You won’t have to let go and trust someone else. You won’t have to risk reactions you aren’t prepared to face.

You’ll never fail. And you won’t succeed.

You can stay safe and stagnant as you chase the impossible goal of perfection. You get to avoid taking risks and facing what really scares the pants off you. Like admitting the truth:

You’re not a perfectionist. You’re just afraid.

Leave a Comment!

Post by James Chartrand

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Is Perfectionism Holding You Back? first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

You’ve probably heard about time management. All those books and blog posts will give you a wealth of tricks to squeeze a few more workable minutes out of your day.

But none of those tricks are any good to you if you sit down exhausted and your head bounces off your desk. If you’re blurry-eyed and nodding off at 7pm, you can imagine how the work you do is going to look.

So forget time management. Let’s talk energy management instead.

I’m not talking about the solar cell, wall socket, gas pump type of energy—I’m talking personal energy. The type of energy your body needs to get you through the day.

And to use energy management, you need to think like a power company.

Being Busy Kills Your Power

We live in a busy world. And because of that, we’re constantly running low on energy.

Between info overwhelm, constant connectedness, and increasing obligations, our personal energy is continually being drained.

Not too long ago, that wasn’t a big issue. A good night’s sleep, and you woke refreshed and ready to shred the world.

Today is different. Most of us aren’t smart with our personal energy.

Sleep is important, sure, but sleep just restores energy. Managing personal energy, focusing on regenerating it and using it to its greatest potential helps you reach new heights in both quality and productivity.

Power Companies Manage to the Max

Imagine you’re a power company executive. Your top three concerns (if you want your company to succeed) producing, storing, and delivering. If you don’t manage those concerns properly, your customers demand energy…

…and you can’t provide.

I asked you to imagine you’re a power company executive, but here’s what I’m telling you: you already ARE a power company executive. You need to make sure you produce, store and can deliver energy on demand.

Here’s how you take care of your first concern, producing energy: You need to eat well, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep.

Simple. Boring, but simple.

The second concern, storage, is pretty easy to manage too. The human body is darned efficient at storing energy. I don’t have to look further than my own waist to see evidence.

Where we often fail is at the third concern, delivering energy when we need it. And this can have a big impact on the quality of our work. Thankfully, our bodies are great at delivering energy.

We just suck at scheduling those deliveries.

Take a look at what I mean:

Let’s say your high- energy time when you’re most creative is about 7am. Yet you stay up until 2 am to watch that Justin Bieber movie one-more-time.

Your down time, that period where you’re feeling real low-energy, happens every day around 2pm. Yet you go ahead and schedule an important consulting call at 2:05 pm.

You plan a whole-day marathon work session because you have a big deadline coming up. Yet you know darned well that two hours of straight work is about your limit before you need an hour-long break.

So how can you be a better power company and improve your energy delivery? Try these three steps:

Schedule delivery around peak supply times

Our bodies don’t produce a steady stream of energy all day. (No, really. It’s true.) There are peak times and off-peak times.

You probably already know when your body peaks with energy. I have a delivery of energy at 6 am and another at 9 pm. But that’s me. Everyone in my family has different peak times.

Figure out when your peak times occur. That’s the best time to schedule in your next task and deliver energy to it.

Use good fuel

You are what you eat. Come on, you’ve heard that before. As a power company executive, you might want to think of it in these terms:

The quality of your energy depends on the quality of your fuel.

Loading up on caffeine and sugar when you need an energy boost does perhaps give you a quick jolt. But it’s lousy-quality energy and is usually short-lived, followed by a not-so-pleasant crash. (Watch out for your head hitting that desk.)

Eat good quality food for fuel. Especially because there’ll be a time when you need that fuel – and it usually comes when you least expect it.

Plan for unexpected demands

Power companies plan ahead for those unexpected moments when everyone wants energy at a bad time. They can’t afford to crash – and neither can you.

What happens if you know your peak time but that big assignment comes in just as your energy is waning?

No worries. Get a special delivery.

Try a quick cat nap or a power snooze, say 10 to 20 minutes before you plan to start working. A little exercise, like a five-minute walk, might help boost your juice. Try two yoga moves to a good tune.

All these activities spark your power and produce a special delivery of energy for you to use.

But of course, special deliveries cost extra. You generally only have enough energy to get you through the day, so a special delivery of it means you’ll pay the price.

That price is usually a little bit less energy later on.

The relationship between your personal energy and the quality of your work is unique, and it’s strong. Keep it well managed, think like a power company, and you could take your productivity to new levels.

Maybe even light it on fire.

Leave a Comment!

Post by Mike Davenport

Besides creating crazy stick figures at Stick Figure Simple, Mike Davenport helps presenters and writers with simple pictures that work fast to get the point across. You can find him at Google+ and follow him on Twitter.

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
How to Manage Your Energy Like a Power Company Executive first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been called many things in my life. Patient is not one of them.

So when I received strong interest for my fourth book from traditional publishers and was told they’d put it out in spring of 2012…

Well. Like I said, I’ve never been called patient.

I decided to take control of my own destiny and circumvent traditional publishers – and I’m going to tell you exactly how I raised money, planned my coupe and sped up publication of my fourth book by one full year, so that you can do the same.

Antiquated Is In the Past

I’m no newbie to publishing, having written three books already. I’m well aware that book publishers and the publishing industry at large are behind the times.

Many publishers cling to antiquated methods. To boot, those methods are becoming less relevant every day. And what’s more, the publishing industry often rejects books deemed to be too risky. That means your book may never see the light of day – and if it does, it takes forever to get it there.

Here’s the catch: People want to read and learn as soon as possible.

The good news? It’s easier than ever to circumvent old-school publishing gatekeepers.

Taking Control of Publishing

Many first-time authors don’t understand that when they sign contracts with traditional publishers, they’re not writing for readers.

They’re writing for publishers.

Your publisher’s editor has final cut. The last word. Executive decisional power. If the editor doesn’t like the direction of the book, she can change it. That means publishers can dilute the message of your book.

Suggestions to improve the book are one thing, but corralling the central theme to make it more “mainstream” increases the risk that it won’t be unique and great.

I believe I’ve written a great book. I didn’t want its fundamental message altered by anyone but me. I won’t have my book repurposed into a “me-too” publication.

Not on my watch.

Giving Your Book a Kickstart

Authors have an outlet: the internet. It’s never been easier to reach masses of people via books, blogs, music, or video. No longer do creative types need traditional gatekeepers, especially with the help of some pretty neat sites.

Like Kickstarter.

I found out about Kickstarter back in May of 2010 via Seth Godin. The site allows creative types to fund their projects, be they books, CDs, movies, works of art, or new toys.

Producing a quality book means using good people–and good people cost money. So I was intrigued enough to give Kickstarter a shot last year to raise money for my third book.

It worked in spades.

The results of my first Kickstarter project were amazing. After about a week and a half, I met 40% of my goal! I hit 90% of my funding in less than a month and locked in the full amount I needed just a few days later.

I’m using Kickstarter to raise funding for my fourth book too, and I’m off to a good start. I budgeted out how much I needed for editing, proofreading, cover design, interior design and book production, and then posted up my financial goals and project description.

How to Kickstart Your Funding

Kickstart won’t automatically bring you money. People need to want to help you fund your project – they’re the ones donating the cash, after all.

That means many Kickstarter projects go unfunded. Lack of interest, lack of believable marketing plan, lack of motivation, or lack of incentive.

Here are three tips on how you can maximize the chance that your Kickstarter project is successful:

Offer an incentive – Books, CDs, posters, thank-you cards, or any other tangible object goes a long way to encourage people to donate.
Run the gamut – Don’t make all your incentive rewards high-value… or low-value, for that matter. Aim for both – and don’t forget the middle.
Stay involved – Frequent updates help keep the buzz going. If you offer them in a multimedia way, that’s even better

Once I’ve reached my funding goals, I’ll be heading to Lightning Source (LSI), a professional printing company for print-on-demand that handles older titles from big-time and traditional publishers.

This begs the question: Why avoid subsidy presses like AuthorHouse or Lulu?

While there are exceptions, many self-published books look unprofessional. Mine won’t. The New Small is a case in point. It turned out great.

And to make great happen, you need to hire great professionals: a cover designer, an editor, a production person, and a proof-reader. You’ll also need a good-looking website and money for marketing and public relations.

Maybe you’ve heard of the Project Triangle: You have the options of fast, cheap and good – and you can only pick two. It’s not possible to optimize all three – one always suffers.

I chose fast and good. Which would you pick?

Leave a Comment!

Post by Phil Simon

Phil Simon is an author and recognized expert consulting companies on how to optimize their use of technology. His contributions have featured on The Globe and Mail, the American Express Open Forum, ComputerWorld, ZDNet, ABC News, Forbes, The New York Times, ReadWriteWeb, and many other sites. His fourth book, the Age of the Platform, will be published this year..

These days, it’s cool to be a consultant. Everyone’s becoming one. Hey, it’s the easy path to fast cash, right?

You write a sales page, you promote your new service, and you become an expert. Simple.

And most likely, you rock. Your fans and friends tell you that all the time, so it must be true. And they’re great too, and you tell the world all the time about your fantastic consulting clients. It’s a nice way to market your services and get other people wanting to sign up, but it’s true! You love them!

Why wouldn’t you? Fast cash, remember?

People fall for fake consultants constantly. They have no way of knowing who’s good and who’s just playing around.

I worked years to build my skills and round out my experience online before even attempting consulting. I had decades more business experience from my offline careers as well. I didn’t offer consulting until I was sure I wouldn’t screw things up for my clients.

Other people? Meh. They don’t give a damn. I see bad advice flying around. There are some good ideas, and that’s great if you feel like experimenting with them, and there’s lots of support and encouragement, and that’s wonderful.

But ideas, experiments and encouragement do not a consultant make.

A peer of mine recently asked me to listen to the recording of a consult she’d received. So I did… and it had been bad advice. Wrong, all wrong. Just plain faulty with a lack of perspective, not much business sense, and way too many warm, fluffy fuzzies.

I wrote her a blunt email that went something like this:

“Just listened to that audio file and I wanted to let you know I HIGHLY counsel you ignore everything that consultant said. She’s suggesting a marketing message and strategy that’s totally wrong for the target market you’re aiming for. That is NOT your target market. Forget everything you heard on that call.”

Like I said: Wrong. All wrong.

I got a reply back from my peer that made me heave a sigh of relief: “Don’t worry. I know the market she was talking about, and I know they can’t afford me.”

And then she wrote something that stopped me in my tracks: “I also think she was talking about herself. She’s building something similar to what I’m aiming for, and it sounded like she was giving herself advice as she talked it through on the call.”

Wow. A consultant subconsciously self-consulting? Doesn’t surprise me a bit.

But it does scare me.

How many consultants are out there being paid to talk about themselves? They don’t ask about your target market – they assume it’s the same as theirs. They don’t ask about your concerns and fears – they assume they’re the same as the ones they feel. They don’t ask many questions about what type of business you have, how you run it or what your problems are – they figure they know most of that already.

They sound smart, these consultants – to people who don’t know any different, of course. Get on a call with one of them and they sound wise and sage as they say things like, “I know; I’ve been there! You should…”

Authoritative statements carry authority. They’re powerful. People listen and follow. (And if they don’t, in most cases they still nod and agree the “expert” must be right.) But just because you know how to sound like an expert doesn’t mean you should be offering your expertise.

Any idiot can grab a Skype line and tell people what to do. And that, my dears, is when sh** becomes dangerous.

If you don’t know how to carry out a proper consultations, which questions to ask, and which potential solutions are best, then you’re just pretending – and you can cause other peoples’ business some serious damage.

If you’re talking through your own issues and masking it as advice to someone else, you need to stop. Stop your consulting and fix your damned problems. Don’t use other people’s businesses as test grounds to see if your ideas might work.

And for the love of Pete, don’t do self-help on a consultation call.

Consulting is hard – very hard. Don’t think it’s easy. You might get lucky, sure. You might work with a few people who admire you, want to be just like you and ask to learn to do what you do. In that case, your advice might help. You might get customers that are in such desperate need that any help is good help.

Even when it’s bad advice.

But be honest with yourself. When you get a customer about whose business you know nothing, say nothing. Tell them you can’t take this consult on. Admit that you don’t know enough about their business or understand enough about what they do. Fess up that you don’t know their target market. Or what goals they seek. Or which tactics and strategies might help them reach it.

Too many people are out there playing consultant when they really have no right to be doing so. They have good ideas, that’s all. And sometimes those ideas might actually be worthy of trying out.

But if you’re not a true consultant and if people actually act on the advice you just tossed off without thinking, they’ll struggle. They’ll pick up the wrong clients, reach the wrong rewards and end up in a business quite far from their original plans.

They may even fail.

All because you thought you were a consultant.

Sorry, you’re not. You’re just someone with a buy-now button.

Leave a Comment!

Post by James Chartrand

“You’re nobody ‘til somebody loves you,” sings sexy crooner Michael Bublé. He ain’t wrong. You’re nobody in the blogosphere until you’ve been shown a little love by the influential sites that serious bloggers read, Tweet and flock to.

You know the ones – they boast six-digit subscribers, have a cult following on Twitter, and bring celebrity and name recognition by association.

Don’t get me wrong; you can have a totally groovy experience at lesser-known sites and accomplish many valuable blogging goals through those avenues.

But think of it this way: If you had the chance to stay as a guest at a three-star hotel or a five-star hotel, which would you choose?

It‘s a no-brainer. You’d choose the 5-star option. It has better amenities, a reputation for excellence, and a more attentive and highly trained staff to see that you have everything your heart desires during your stay.

Given the choice between blogging for the big dogs and blogging for the little dogs, the benefits of going for the higher-ranking option are obvious. Take my own case in point: When I recently had a guest post published at Problogger, I got:

Nearly 400 Tweets (more than I’ve gotten collectively in the last two years of blogging)
A slew of comments and Facebook mentions
Several new commentators and visitors to my own blog
A request for a guest post at a popular business blog

You can do it too. Here are six compelling reasons why you should blog at top sites – and six ways to make the most of the opportunity when you land a guest post.

It saves you time. If your objective is to market your blog successfully and make the most of your efforts, one guest post at a top site could yield more exposure and potential connections than publication on a dozen sites with smaller followings. View it as a way of working smarter, not harder.

Advance your blogging swagger: Check to see if the site you are targeting has an editorial calendar. Why? Often these calendars provide valuable clues to future themes and designated deadlines – which gives you a better chance of getting the right article in front of the blog owner at the right time.

It puts you in a different league. Think of it as success by association. Just about everybody blogs, but not everybody blogs well enough to appear at top blogs. It shows that the big dogs who run those blogs value what you say – and if they value it, their readers understand they should value it, too.

Advance your blogging swagger: Make sure to cite your former “top-dog” guest posts in your bio and pitches when approaching editors with your request. Those credentials help you stand out in a sea of other would-be guest posters, since your blogging chops have already been established by one of the big dog’s peers.

It looks good on a writer’s/blogger’s resume. With the fierce competition out there, anything that gives you a competitive edge is worth pursuing. Even though it’s not a paid publishing credit, getting an article on one of the top blogs is still impressive and can give you a leg up when trying to land a new client.

Advance your blogging swagger: Use your writing experience of guest posting at top sites to negotiate a higher blogging rate when applying for paid work.

More than your “15 minutes of fame”. I kid you not. Some time ago, when I posted at Daily Blog Tips, I was still receiving and responding to comments to my post four months later. Trust me here: The top sites’ archives are accessed at a rate that your personal site typically will never be.

Advance your blogging swagger: Make sure to reserve quality time to respond to comments from readers and to answer related questions for as long as people choose to comment (it’ll likely go beyond that first day). Taking the time to comment shows courtesy and respect for the readers. It also increases the likelihood that you’ll be well received by the blog owner for future considerations.

It breeds confidence. A guest post at a prominent site does more for your ego than positive affirmations or compliments. The better you feel about your own abilities and desirability as a guest blogger, the easier it is to approach other blog owners or aim for more ambitious blogging goals.

Advance your blogging swagger: Once you’ve established yourself and gotten some experience under your belt, consider targeting sites that pay for your guest posts. The Work From Home Blog offers a list.

It puts your work before readers that are outside your niche, exposing you to a much larger audience. Numbers aside, blogging giants like Problogger, Copyblogger, Men with Pens, and Daily Blog Tips have readers that span multiple niches, demographics, industries, and even geographic regions. You’d be wise to tap into that power.

Advance your blogging swagger: Enhance your visibility even further by posting your guest posts to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon. This can potentially lead to new networking opportunities and broadened horizons.

Now that you know the “whys”, here are a few tips on the “hows”.

Speak you-nique: Say something different or put a new spin on an old topic. Infuse your own personality and style of expression in your work. In today’s competitive environment, both online and off, it’s important to stand out, stay relevant and be memorable. Learn to identify and capitalize on your individual strengths and gifts. Naomi Dunford at Ittybiz.com is a great example.
Consult the archives: Check the list, and check it twice. No matter how well you write, if what you’ve created has recently been covered at the targeted host’s site, chances are your efforts will be in vain, and you’ll have wasted everyone‘s time.
Be strategic in your efforts: There are literally thousands of blogs out in the blogosphere. Of those, probably hundreds accept guest posts. As a good rule of thumb, you should target those that have a good following, a PR ranking of 6 or above, and excellent content. As they say, you’re judged by the company you keep.
Remember that you never get a second chance to make a first impression: This is more than a cliché; consider it a cardinal rule for success. Watch for typos, grammar and spelling errors. Have a second set of eyes go over your post before submission as well.

On a final note, make sure that you leave your readers with great take-away value. This ensures that your blog owner host is happy to have you come around and guest blog again.

Leave a Comment!

Post by Jennifer Brown Banks

Jennifer Brown Banks is a veteran freelance writer, pro blogger and creative consultant. Her work has appeared at award-winning sites such as: ProBlogger, Daily Blog Tips, Technorati, and Search Engine Journal. She was recently chosen as one of the “60 Best Minds in the Blogosphere.”

It’s not a question anyone really wants to ask themselves – but it is the most necessary question in professional writing.

And if the quality of writing around the web is any indication, it’s a question very few writers ask themselves.

Most people starting out as professionals will receive the following advice: write. Just write. Keep writing.

I know. I give that advice myself.

Recently, though, I realized that this advice is only useful after you’ve asked yourself the all-important question: are you good enough to begin? Because if you’re not good enough to write professionally, then the only thing you’ll accomplish by writing and writing more and keeping on writing is –

Well. A lot of bad writing.

The 10,000 Hour Rule

You may have heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s “>10,000 hour rule. It basically states that you have to put in 10,000 hours actively trying to get better at a skill before you will be considered expert in it.

When new writers receive the advice that they should just keep writing, their advisors are essentially telling them to keep knocking out those 10,000 hours. It’s great advice.

What Gladwell doesn’t mention is that you can’t do your 10,000 hours out of order. Those first 500 hours or so are going to be mastering the very rudiments of the skill. In writing, this means you’re going to learn how to form your letters, how to spell, how to create basic sentence structure.

Theoretically, all of us mastered these skills back in grade school.

Except that clearly many of us didn’t.

I see a lot of people who don’t really know where to place a comma. People who don’t understand that even if two words sound alike, they are not spelled alike (“here” and “hear” come to mind). People who write long, nonsensical run-on sentences because no one ever quite finished teaching them that every subject needs a predicate.

If you haven’t figured out the fundamentals, all the advice to write and keep writing and write more won’t help you.

Because you’re just going to keep repeating the same mistakes.

The First 500 Hours

At a certain age, it’s assumed that you mastered the fundamentals. If you’re 30 years old, no one is going to dream of sitting you down to teach you how to correctly use a comma. It’s not done.

Unfortunately, I recently had to sit a 30-year-old friend of mine down to do just that.

He’s a smart guy and he wants to learn how to be a professional writer. He wants to get good at this. He asked me to help him. And for about two months, I worked with him on creating compelling, pithy paragraphs, great headlines, and interesting content.

He was great at all of that – but somehow, his writing was always just a little . . . off.

You couldn’t quite put your finger on it. It didn’t quite sound right. There were too many basic errors to be typos and yet he didn’t make the same errors consistently. He misspelled certain words – also inconsistently. He couldn’t hear when a sentence was awkward.

I finally sat down with him and asked what the deal was.

And he confessed that he’d never figured out this stuff in school. The way the teachers taught was straight out of a textbook, and if you didn’t understand it the first time, it was too late – they’d already moved on to the next lesson plan. There was no personal attention, no one willing to explain why a red-circled mistake was a mistake.

The reason he made inconsistent mistakes was that he’d gotten good at guessing what was right. But he didn’t really know.

Which meant that he was never going to be good enough to be a professional writer if I just encouraged him to write a lot and corrected his mistakes.

He was missing the first 500 hours. And embarrassing as it was, we had to go back to the beginning and teach him the fundamentals before we could move forward with our lessons in professional copywriting.

So. Are You Good Enough?

If you want to be a professional writer, there’s no reason you can’t be.

But it’s important to ask yourself this question first: are you good enough to be a professional?

If you haven’t figured out the fundamentals, then no, you’re not good enough – yet. You’re going to have to put in that work first. You’re going to have to go through the first 500 hours.

You have to know how to write properly before you can learn to write well.

Does that mean you can’t learn how to be a professional writer? Absolutely not. It just means you can’t skip ahead. You can’t learn how to write amazing headlines before you learn subject-verb agreement. You can’t learn how to craft compelling introductory paragraphs before you learn how to avoid run-on sentences.

Encouragement Brigade

I’m the last person to discourage anyone from dreaming big. If you want to write professionally, I salute you. If you’re willing to put in the hours to become an expert in the field, I take my hat off to you. And if you are willing to ask yourself this one hard question, I will actually drop a deep and deferential curtsy in your direction.

Because it’s a really important question.

And every would-be professional should ask it.

Leave a Comment!

Post by Taylor Lindstrom

Taylor is a freelancer working out of Boulder, CO, and she blogs for people who are too good to fail over at... well, Too Good to Fail. Go check out her beautiful stories and words of encouragement - and remember that while you may not be good enough right now, being great is definitely part of your potential.