I’m starting a Zoom room today at 4PM. Here’s what’s happening: A reading from a master of nonfiction writing. Discussion — how did he do it? Your questions Join me here: https://zoom.us/j/326376698 If this is useful, I’ll repeat. Hope to see you there. Put it in your calendar!
You’re stuck at home. You have internet access and, maybe, a little more time to yourself. Should you write a book? This advice is mainly for those who write business books and self-help books to gain influence — my primary audience. But I hope that all authors currently sheltering at home during the coronavirus crisis…
Your job is to write. The publisher’s job is to turn what you write into a book. So why should you worry about printing? Those ink-stained wretches can handle it, right? Not quite. Musicians need to know about microphones. Architects need to know about plumbing. If they don’t, what they conceive doesn’t come out quite…
Great business books include case study stories. They also include frameworks and analysis. For maximum effectiveness, never mingle the two. Here’s an example to clarify what I mean. In The Age of Intent, the book I ghost wrote about artificial intelligence last year, there is a story at the start of the customer service chapter…
IngramSpark, a self-publishing service, has now defined a set of trash book categories that it will no longer feature or distribute, including AI-generated books. As AI books get better, though, they might want to reconsider. IngramSpark is a print-on-demand and ebook distribution service offered by Ingram, a major book distributor. It delivers the same features…
Business books are full of advice. They’re also full of pronouns — and pronoun-driven confusion — around when to use “we” and when to use “you.” Start with this: you should write directly to the reader. Compare the following two alternatives: Marketers must spend less time on SEO and more time on the creation of…
Sometimes you pick up a book and immediately think, “This is so useful, how is it possible that nobody has written it before?” Melanie Deziel’s The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas is such a book. If you have or aspire to have an audience of any kind, this book is for…
If you want to write a book, ask these two questions before you start — and every day as you work on it. How will my reader see the world differently? What are they going to do about it? If your book is not going to help your reader to see the world differently, why…
Do you know everything there is to know about the topic you’re writing about? If not, you’re not trying hard enough. I want you to be obsessed. This is not a recommendation to acquire a mental illness. Obsession is a strategy, and I want you to apply it strategically. Here’s how it works. You think…