Well, okay, it wasn’t quite my first. It was my second, but it was my first real shot at hosting a webinar by myself. I called it “3 Steps to Winning a Nonfiction Book Contract,” and here’s what I learned in no particular order.

1. Webinars are fun!

I really enjoy the anticipation of the event and then watching people enter the webinar, acknowledging them, serving them. And I enjoyed providing what they told me later was valuable information and then answering questions. It’s quite a rush actually.

2. Webinars are collective.

The vast majority of the time the internet is a solo experience. We surf the Web as individuals. Webinars are more communal. My webinar had about thirty people, but some have close to a thousand. Mine was like a classroom. Larger ones can be like small concerts! It is a different way to be on the Internet, and I think that’s cool!

3. Webinars are live.

Most of the time we’re interacting with already published material. In a webinar participants are part of the publishing process. They are part of the broadcast! Again, that is distinct from the way we normally experience the Web, and again, that’s awesome.

4. Webinars are a great way to learn.

The thing about a webinar is that typically if somebody shows up, they are willing to dedicate some time to it. This too is terrific because it increases the chances they will learn something valuable and incorporate it into their lives.

5. Webinar participants are generally forgiving about technical problems.

I had a few technical issues in my webinar, and you can be sure I’ll do what I can to avoid them in the future. But I’m pleased to say people were good-natured about it and rolled with the punches. The only way to learn, sometimes, is to mess up trying. And I was grateful to be the recipient of a lot of grace amid my mess-ups.

6. I need to think more about the place of incentives in a webinar.

A couple of times in my webinar I offered a free tool by providing a link to an opt-in page. I did this mainly because I already had those pages ready to go, so they were simple to give people. But one webinar participant expressed “struggling” with the incentives. I get that. If I’ve registered for a webinar, I’ve already given you my email address. Why should you keep asking for it?

7. I don’t know how to sell on a webinar.

Originally I wasn’t going to sell anything on my webinar. I was just using it to interact with writers and list-build a bit. At the last minute I decided to offer a very limited opportunity to sign up for Book Proposal Academy. Webinar participants had 15 minutes to respond, and that was it. Not one person signed up. BPA is an awesome course. I’ve heard this from too many people to doubt it. But clearly I have some learning to do when it comes to selling via webinar. That’s okay. I’m new to this. I’ll get better.

8. I like to incentivize notes taking.

At the beginning of the webinar I encouraged people to take notes by letting them know that if they uploaded a picture of their notes to my Facebook page, I would pick someone for a 30-minute call with me. (By the way, I got this idea from Lewis Howes via Michael Hyatt’s Platform University.) It was fun to see all the notes on my Facebook page, of course, but even more important: these folks likely got a lot more out of the webinar by being engaged throughout it.

9. I like prerecording a video for part of the webinar.

I prerecorded a video for part of the webinar mainly because I had the content recorded already and because I was nervous about losing some energy by the end of the webinar. It was still a live webinar. I was there the whole time. Even though I had some trouble with the recording (my error, sigh), I liked doing this because it allowed me to watch what was going on in the chat box and to create and publish polls during the webinar.

10. I’ll keep doing them!

I just love the interactivity of a webinar. I received instant feedback about how well it went. And I also received amazing, smart, relevant questions during the Q&A at the end. One of the questions was about how to write a bio, which gave me an idea for my next webinar!

My Next Webinar: “How to Craft a Killer Bio”

If you’re a creative, you need a great bio. The right bio can open doors. What I’d love to do is curate a webinar that helps people craft one for themselves. My vision is for people to walk away from the webinar with a solid bio. That’s what I’m going to try to do. Want to join me? CLICK HERE. I’ll send a replay to everyone who registers.