I’ve been writing professionally for 40 years. You can’t write the same way in your sixties as you did in your twenties. But you can take steps to maintain that the quality of what you write and the enjoyment you get from doing it. In this post, I’ll break down the elements of the writing…
I’m astounded by readers’ very small responses to very big problems — at least as manifested by how they respond to my blog. Readers have a responsibility to think bigger than that. For example, if I write a post called “Why Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t realize Facebook is evil,” people respond “I quit Facebook.” As if…
The estimable Maggie Langrick, founder and CEO at the publisher Wonderwell, spent an hour interviewing me about everything about books. We talked about how to plan, how to write, how to promote, and basically, how to succeed as an author. It’s long. But it’s full of goodies, because Maggie knows just what to ask. Enjoy.
Is your book the same as other books on the market? If so, why are you bothering to write it? Every book needs to be differentiated. Every book needs a superlative. It must be the first, best, biggest, most comprehensive, most practical, most intriguing, or best illustrated book of its kind. This is not something…
“What’s your process for ghostwriting a book?” This is a simple question with 31 million possible answers. It all depends on how the author (client) and the ghost writer plan to work together. Here’s a set of questions that the writer and the author/client should agree on before you get started. These apply to nonfiction…
This post is about the changes in my work and this blog starting in 2022, including two new books. Time to reexamine my work Historically, I’ve remade my career every seven to ten years. Things change in your life and your work; it’s best to be thinking about it before it gets stale. I’ve remade…
I’ve written about the reader question method of organizing a nonfiction book, with one question for each chapter. Now let’s go deeper. Which questions make for the best chapters? A recap of the reader question method As I describe in an earlier post, the reader question method is ideal for an advice or how-to book….
“I want to write a book,” you say. “That’s a huge undertaking,” your author friend responds. But how big is “huge?” Here’s a detailed way to think about the time it will take. How to use this planning tool To make your planning more effective, I have created a publicly available spreadsheet showing book tasks…
When it comes to book sales, does a social media following guarantee sales? Of course not. That’s what’s behind the New York Times piece, “Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, ‘It’s Unreliable.’ ,” a naive and oversimplified take on what it takes to sell books. How books sell In the olden days — before COVID…