Later this year my buddy Mike and I will go on our annual camping trip. It’s one of the highlights of my year. Sitting by the fire. Hot coffee in the morning chill. Long conversations. Man, I love it. Here’s a pic from last year’s trip to Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine State Forest. Nice, right? But […]
Blog reader Ryan Atkins from Flat on My Back recently emailed this question about platform: “In a recent post of yours, you mentioned having at least 1,000 email subscribers before moving forward with publishing. This was surprising to me as I had assumed differently after hearing much higher numbers from query rejections last year. After […]
Grant Baldwin is the founder of The Speaker Lab, a training company that helps public speakers learn how to find and book speaking gigs. Through his popular podcast The Speaker Lab and flagship coaching program Booked and Paid to Speak, he has coached and worked with thousands of speakers. His book, The Successful Speaker: Five […]
Writing a book proposal and landing a book deal is hard work, but it can be done. I recently sat down for a video call with writer, spiritual director, and speaker Brian Plachta about his journey from a small platform to a landing a book deal. We talked about: how Brian pushed through his fear […]
The most obvious benefit of writing a nonfiction book proposal is it could lead to a book contract. But several other benefits are less obvious; the purpose of this article is to share what they are. Ready? Here we go! Writing a book proposal . . . Gives you space to dream. Think of your […]
Not long ago I was in a video call with a coaching client who was struggling with how to structure her book. She has a brilliant concept. Her book meets a real need real people have in a unique way. But her first draft of the contents page did not deliver on the promise of […]
Every once in a while a book captures a truth so well it changes everything. That book for me is The Alchemist by Brazilian-born author Paulo Coelho. Coelho wrote it in his native Portuguese, and the English version reads a little clunkily in my opinion. It’s a bit disjointed and herky-jerky. But the book still gets […]
He looks like a baby hippopotamus.” That’s what I overheard my fifth-grade teacher say when I tried out for hurdles before our one-day track-and-field competition. That I remember this comment some thirty-five years later says something about how much it stung. Fast-forward to about three weeks ago, when I’m training for my first triathlon. I’m […]
It’s one thing to write your book; it’s another to write about your book. They’re very different types of writing. For one thing the audience is sometimes completely different. When you’re writing your book, you’re writing for readers. When you’re writing about your book, particularly before it’s published, you’re probably writing a book proposal for […]
You’ve probably heard about the editor whose privacy was interrupted by a book proposal sliding under a restroom stall door at a writer’s conference. Suffice to say there are good ways and bad ways to get attention. Yet, if you want to get your book published, attracting an agent and publisher is vital. My old […]
