Disruption in the publishing industry is confusing for authors. Getting published in the traditional way is harder now, but there are a lot more ways to get a book done — and a lot more people who can help you. I’ve collected all my book wisdom into this post, with links to more detail. Potential authors…
Most business books are boring because there are no people — just endless rambling on about strategy. You need people and stories to make them come alive. I wrote my first business book proposal in 2005. It was for a book called “The End of TV as We Know It,” and it reflected my decade…
Self-publishing is much faster than traditional publishing. But can you create a quality book that way? Yes, but only with a disciplined process and the right support team. Here’s my insider’s account of how Shel Israel and Robert Scoble pulled it off with their new book book, The Fourth Transformation: How Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence Change Everything. Shel…
Robert Scoble and Shel Israel just published The Fourth Transformation: How Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence Change Everything. It’s an indispensable guide to the future, and a gripping read. Get yourself a copy. This is not an unbiased review. While Scoble and Israel wrote this book and are responsible for the content, I edited it….
Here are five ideas for my next book. Tell me which one you like best. Thinking Without Bullshit: Embracing the Discipline of Analytical Thinking Based on my 20 years as an analyst and my training in mathematics, I will describe the steps you need to take to think like an analyst. Will feature interviews and examples from…
The joy of BlendTec’s “Will It Blend” videos is that they take expensive, painstakingly produced items — like iPhones — and reduce them to an undifferentiated mess. And that’s just what a book index does to the content in a book. Writing Without Bullshit covers a wide range of content, because everything is fodder for a writer….
My book publishes tomorrow. This is the first book I’ve written without coauthors and a company behind me. How did I get here? Why a book on this topic? I received 10,000 press releases in my 20 years at Forrester. I estimate that 2% of those had any relevance at all. In the ones that…
Today, I’ll share some insight into how I do outreach to influencers . . . and the power and courtesy of the answer “No.” I am going to reveal how I’m doing publicity and how it feels. I’m doing most of my own publicity outreach for the new book. The publisher has a list, but…
Authors and books don’t compete. Instead, they support each other. I wonder why that doesn’t happen in more places? I noticed this as soon as I became an author. The other authors welcomed me as a friend who’d joined a club; we’d all shared a similar experience. Authors blurb each others’ books, even (or especially) if they…