Is it time to write your book?

When I was in the throes of publishing my book Storytelling for Small Business last year, I was fortunate enough to meet talented author/coach and now friend & colleague Rochelle Melander, the Write Now! Coach. So many of you have told me in the past few months that you’d like to publish a book too, I thought an introduction was in order. So everyone, meet Rochelle. Rochelle, meet everyone. Enjoy.   —M.

 

Some people say that a book is the new business card, but the benefits extend beyond sharing your brand. Once that book is out in the world, it can benefit your business in myriad ways.

No matter what type of a business you own, a book will help you:

  1. Increase your credibility
  2. Teach potential clients about you and your work
  3. Build trust with your audience
  4. Educate and inspire your readers
  5. Attract new clients
  6. Increase brand loyalty
  7. Build buzz for you and your business
  8. Access influential leaders
  9. Capture media attention
  10. Earn more money

Woot! That’s great news for business owners. But before you set aside precious time to write and publish your book, it’s important to consider whether now is the right time to write a book. Over the years, I’ve discovered a few signs that help people recognize when they’re ready to write a book. Here they are:

You have something to say.

You have a unique process or approach to your work—and you are excited to share it with others. Perhaps you write blog posts or articles. But you’d like to explore this idea in more detail—and the blog posts are just not long enough for you to say what you need to say. A book can help you do that. When you write a book, you can shape your ideas, dig into a topic in detail, and share what you know with your readers.

You have an audience eager to read more.

Perhaps you blog, teach classes, or work with clients. Your readers and clients regularly ask you for more information. They’re excited by your ideas and long to hear more. Or they love your process and want to be able to do it at home on their own. If you have people who want to hear more from you, a book offers you the opportunity to share your story or process with them.

You have more clients than you have time.

Perhaps you can no longer help everyone who comes to you. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Even with offering classes or group coaching, you still have more people who need your support. A book could be the answer to this problem. A book can teach the foundational elements of your work or guide the reader through a basic process that you no longer teach. For example, a career coach who no longer writes resumes might design a book that helps the reader create one.

Your message is timely.

Maybe you have a story or a process that fits well with the struggles that people are facing right now. Or perhaps your book is tied to a current event, like an election or the anniversary of a big historical event (this January we celebrated the 100th anniversary of prohibition). Or maybe you have a conference or retreat coming up, and you’d like to have a way to share your ideas with as many people as possible. All of these are good reasons to take that book off your someday list and start writing.

You feel called to write a book.

This sense of being called to write a book shows up in different ways. Maybe you wake up earlier than usual and know you need to use the time to create something valuable. Or you react strongly to someone else’s success, feeling jealous of them or frustrated with yourself. Or you get teary when you attend a book signing or a play, knowing that you are called to create something, too. However the calling shows up, pay attention: these are signs that the time to work on your book is now.

How to move forward

If you read the reasons above and found yourself shaking your head, “Yes!,” then it might be time to write your book. But how do you move forward? It’s often as simple as setting the intention to write your book by a specific date and then taking time to create it. Of course, there are things figure out along the way: what kind of book do you want to write? How do you get your ideas on paper? And what’s the best way to publish a book?

When it comes to doing something new—like writing a book—many of us experience challenges: we feel afraid, we don’t know how to do the next thing, or we get overwhelmed.

But the antidote to fear is simple: start. Here are three small steps you can take to start writing your book:

Choose your topic. My guess? When you read the reasons above, your ideal topic popped into your head. If not, take a look at your work and choose your topic from one of the following:

+Ideas or content that excites or engages your reader

+Frequently asked questions

+Information about your topic that you wish everyone knew.

Make a list. Once you have a topic, make a list of everything you’d like to cover in the book. If you have an idea about how you want to write about the topic—as essays, questions, or short anecdotes—make a note of that, too.

Write. Set aside time in your schedule to write. I find it’s helpful to tie your writing to something else you do every day, like your morning cup of coffee. Next time you pour that cup, bring your laptop or notebook with you—and write. Even if you write just 100 words a day, those words will add up over time.

If writing a book is something you’d like to do, then go for it. And if you need help, and would like to talk about your project and how I can help, schedule a free consultation.


 

Rochelle Melander, WriteNowCoach.comWrite Now! Coach Rochelle Melander is an author, a certified professional coach, and a popular speaker. Melander has written ten books including Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (And Live to Tell About It) and the forthcoming book, Level Up: Quests to Master Mindset, Overcome Procrastination and Increase Productivity. As the Write Now! Coach, she teaches professionals how to write books, get published, and connect with readers through social media. Get your free subscription to her Write Now! Tips Ezine at http://www.writenowcoach.com.

 

Tools for tiny businesses: I heart you, Boomerang

The email tool for “inbox Zero” at the end of my day. No, really, it works.

In his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World,  Cal Newport talks about his end-of-day “shutdown ritual,” and the importance he puts on clearing his mind of lingering distractions from projects-in-progress and from unanswered or unread email.  His advice is that we do everything we can to “…ensure . . . every incomplete task, goal, or project has been reviewed and that for each you have confirmed that either (1) you have a plan you trust for its completion, or (2) it’s captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right.”  For me, part of that is the holy grail of “inbox Zero.”

Are you overwhelmed with email sometimes?  I know I am, regardless of my attempts to stay off junkmail lists and direct my subscriptions to a separate email address just for them. That just means I’m inundated with email that I actually WANT to read, which is arguably even harder to cope with.  I honestly don’t know what I’d do without Boomerang.

Boomerang lets you schedule the redelivery of emails back to you, schedule outbound emails, set reminders for yourself to respond to an email or look for a reply, attach notes to yourself to an email, pause your inbox for a while, and a lot more.

This is what is looks like in action:  I open my inbox in the morning to my bazillion emails, am immediately overwhelmed, and go back to bed.  No, not really. I just check the checkbox next to the ones that don’t need an immediate response (notifications, for example) then click “Boomerang” and choose whether I want them to be redelivered to me in an hour, or four hours, or four weeks.


That brings up a pane of possibilities for times (and conditions) to return the email to your inbox…

 

…and they are out of my hard-working brain until I need to address them. You can even write yourself a note or a reminder about some aspect of the email:

 


On the sending side of things, Boomerang lets you schedule outbound emails, so if you need to write someone first thing tomorrow morning and are worried you’ll forget, you can simply schedule it. Note the groovy new red SEND LATER button for setting a time and date you want the email to go out:



….as well as the ability to ‘boomerang’ the email back to the top of your inbox if a particularly important email doesn’t receive a reply:

 

There is also a “Pause Inbox” feature that lets you stop emails from arriving in your inbox for a set period of time so you can focus better, and a new feature called Respondable that helps you write better emails—emails that are more likely to get a good response—by scoring the language you use on factors like positivity, politeness,  and more.

For years I thought that whole “inbox Zero” aspiration would always be out of my reach.  But by managing the function of my poor tormented email inbox, I’m looking at a clean slate almost every night, and am able to enjoy the brain-mending rest of turning off my computer/mobile and taking some joyful downtime. This is the most indispensable $5 I spend all month.

Anyway, I’ve gushed enough. If you think might help you focus and get more mental rest too, you can learn more and get your own Boomerang here: http://www.boomerangapp.com/

 

Wisdom from our clients, for our clients

wheatley-cover-sffhWe are very, very fortunate to work with the people we do.  Not a single day goes by that I don’t feel that realization washing over me.

It was a rather difficult day, with lots of bad news in the media from every corner, and a creeping sense of despair made it hard to stay focused on the work at hand.  I know others in my tribe have days like this too; they tell me so.

Then, as usual, something happened to make me remember all the good news as well.  What follows is the text from Margaret Wheatley’s poster created for her 2012 book So Far From Home: Lost and Found in Our Brave New World.  It’s a list of behaviors that contribute to an atmosphere of sanity, in these times when we sometimes seem to be descending into fear and chaos.  It may or may not be the antidote for you that it was for me today, but either way, I thought I’d put it out onto the airwaves:

Warriors for the Human Spirit

We are grateful to discover our right work and happy to be engaged in it.

We embody values and practices that offer us meaningful lives now. We let go of needing to impact the future.

We refrain from adding to the aggression, fear and confusion of this time.

We welcome every opportunity to practice our skills of compassion and insight, even very challenging ones.

We resist seeking the illusory comfort of certainty and stability.

We delight when our work achieves good results yet let go of needing others to adopt our successes.

We know that all problems have complex causes. We do not place blame on any one person or cause, including ourselves and colleagues.

We are vigilant with our relationships, mindful to counteract the polarizing dynamics of this time.

Our actions embody our confidence that humans can get through anything as long as we’re together.

We stay present to the world as it is with open minds and hearts, knowing this nourishes our gentleness, decency and bravery.

We care for ourselves as tenderly as we care for others, taking time for rest, reflection and renewal.

We are richly blessed with moments of delight, humor, grace and joy.

We are grateful for these.

(Meet Meg Wheatley at http://margaretwheatley.com – she’s amazing)