Lisa Tener

Book Writing Coach

Uncategorized

Why Aren’t You Writing? Afraid?

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Your Book Writing Coach

When you start writing a book, your demons will come up. That’s a good thing. You get to clear them. However, you often have to name them before you can clear them.

Here are two demons that almost everyone grapples with–just two sides of the same coin: Fear of Success and Fear of Failure.

Over the past couple weeks, a participant in my Bring Your Book to Life Program found himself severely challenged in making progress on his book. We did some work with his “muse” and got powerful answers about how to get back to the writing flow he experienced earlier on in the course. But I had a feeling the Fear of Success and Failure Demon lurked somewhere as well.

I asked him about it and he said, “I thought of that. Yes.” We went back to his muse to unblock.

His answer to the fear was to ask two questions:
1. What’s the worst thing that can happen [if I fail]?
2. What’s the best thing that can happen?

The answer to question 1: “Nothing. I’m right where I am, which is not all bad.”

Holding published books by Write Your Book Clients. Is yours next?

His answer to question 2: “It’s tremendous. I’m in front of the room having fun, laughing, joking, teaching and improving lives. And getting paid to do it. The money is important but more important is helping people.”

I asked him to connect to the second image before he writes each day. To feel how good it feels and set himself up for that success. I also suggested he start the morning envisioning himself writing with ease–feeling inspired, the words flow, and he enjoys uninterrupted writing time.

What’s your worst case/best case scenario? How can you set yourself up for success? What are you envisioning to start your day or writing time?

Harvard Gems: 7 Tips for Aspiring Authors from the CME Publishing Course

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By Rachel Horwitz

Rachel at lunch at the Fairmont Copley’s famed Oak Room with Lisa’s clients and book writing participants working on polishing their book pitches

Lisa has asked me to share some gems from Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course. For a soon-to-be English language and literature graduate I found the course especially enlightening. The most prevalent theme? Course director, Julie Silver, MD, stressed over and over: Develop your platform (your following, especially online) in order to interest publishers and also sell books, once you become published. Of all the leading edge courses run by the diverse faculty—from editors to publishers to book coaches, publicists and literary agents, I discovered several tips and secrets to improve my writing skills, which you may also find beneficial.

In a workshop on Narrative Writing, I picked up powerful tips from Elizabeth Rider, MSW, MD:
 

1. Capture the experience using all your senses to paint a picture for the audience. Even in a how-to book, the anecdotes or stories should come alive for your readers.
2. Before you ever send out a manuscript: reread, review, revise. Lisa adds that by reading aloud you will hear things you may not notice when reading “in your head.” In addition, you can have someone else read to you and you’ll discover additional opportunities to refine your writing.

Another influential class titled, Making English Move by publication consultant, Susan Aiello, DVM, ELS provided the following strategies:

3. Use strong verbs to be vivid and precise (this is one of Lisa’s favorite writing tips as well).
4. Thin nouns and adverbs; nouns and adverbs can make a sentence wordy and can be replaced with verbs

Rusty Shelton’s Media Training as well as a short chat with the digital media strategist, left me with a solid concept of how to begin building my author platform:

Lisa and Rusty connecting at the publishing course
5. Blogs are paramount: reviewing books will not only please authors, but attract attention and make connections.
6. Interviews online, on the radio and television are auditions for more interviews. Post any interviews on your website.
7. 35% of journalists are required to be on Twitter. If you want to get to know journalists in your field and potentially be interviewed by them at some point, there’s a window of opportunity to get to know them through following them, commenting on their posts and tweeting.
Workshop in progress

These inspiring workshops guided authors who have been stewing on a concept for years to strengthen their content as well as providing blossoming writers like me with the nudge to begin. I was reminded of how essential a platform is for an author and the advantages it provides. Not only did the conference allow me to network with these professionals but also absorb their critiques in a manner that was enormously beneficial to an aspiring author and member of the literary field.

Rachel Horwitz is a graduating senior at The University of Rhode Island, majoring in English. She is resurrecting her writing blog and will soon include reviews of food writing, environmental writing and writing tips. She is in the job market, seeking a full- or part-time position in publishing related endeavors: editing, research or writing. She’s done an incredible job here at Write Your Book and we wish her great success in future endeavors.

Highlights of Harvard Medical School’s CME Publishing Course

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This is one of the best conferences on book writing and publishing–probably the best if you are writing a health related book. So, if you attended, here are some highlights to remember and a few reminders about how to get published. If couldn’t make it, here’s your crash course.

At dinner with literary agent Rebecca Gradinger and Vicki Dunckley.

At dinner with top Literary Agent Rebecca Gradinger and psychiatrist/soon to be author Vicki Dunckley (I’m the one smiling behind the camera), one theme that came up is  that it’s harder than ever to publish fiction–even a talented author who would have easily been published five years ago.  Guess that’s why they’re all going digital/self publishing.

The good news is, there’s always a market for good self-help, how-to and other nonfiction–as long as you develop your following and have a new angle or fresh voice on a topic of interest to a strong niche audience. The competitive market should propel you to think creatively about your book concept and write the absolute best book you can. My clients are seeing great responses (and signing book deals) even in this market. You can, too.

Bring Your Book to Life participants practice their pitches at lunch.

The 70 second book pitches were the best ever this year. And Bring Your Book to Life participants did an especially inspiring job. Here they are practicing and fine tuning their pitches at lunch–all heard back from agents who heard their pitches and wanted to  connect and see their book proposals when ready.  I felt like  a proud mom.

What makes a good pitch? A compelling hook, a clear market, impressing agents with your platform or following, something fresh…and humor always helps!

While no one’s going to ring a buzzer and say, “Time over” when you pitch in real life, this is great practice at making in impression in a very short amount of time. Try it at home–a great exercise.

Connecting with Rusty Shelton, President and Founder of Shelton Interactive

I always enjoy connecting with Rusty Shelton–he was the publicist on my first book and many of the greatest opportunities in my career have come through Rusty. He’s one of those people who is always doing great things for others–even when the publicity contract is over!

Rusty’s new company, Shelton Interactive, designed my new website which I will unveil in the next few weeks. This year was particularly special in that Rusty and I had breakfast in the Oak Room with one of our favorite agents to discuss the book we’re working on and received enthusiastic feedback. More on that soon…

Harvard often provides the opportunity to connect with clients of mine whom I’ve worked with for a year or more, but never met in person until now.

I enjoyed connecting with Dr. Vicki Dunckley, whom I’ve worked with for over a year without having ever met her in person. Vicki just became a blogger on Psychology Today and I’m sure that helped agents get excited about her book pitch–she went from very little platform to instant platform.

Of course, the topic had a great deal to do with their enthusiasm. If you’re wondering how computers affect your kid’s brain and what you can do about it check out Vicki’s blog and her Psychology Today column. The moral of the story here–start with your own blog and then pitch a fresh and polished post to a big blog like psychology today, the Huffington Post or WebMD.

Oh, so much more to tell you about, but that will be another post for another day…

If you were at the conference, do share the highlights:

– What was the most important tip or advice you learned?

– What insights or breakthroughs did you experience at the conference?

– Did you get clearer about your book?

Need Research for Your Book? Hire an Intern

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Research can be one of the most time consuming parts of book writing–and  can put the kibosh on the whole idea. How freeing would it be to find someone else to do that research for you?

Here are a few things you need to know when hiring an intern:

1. Often, universities have an online form to fill out and students can read about your project. Check out some local colleges (although they don’t need to be local to do research, it may be helpful to simplify your parameters).

2. Some colleges even have “for credit” internships where you may not need a to pay for the assistance. However, you need to be sure you’ll be teaching the student through the internship: if the position requires them to do everything themselves without supervision and training, it probably won’t quality as a for-credit internship, nor should it.

3. Make sure you get references. A poor intern can take more time than doing the research yourself. A great intern is worth their weight in gold (I have a great intern!).

4. You might also ask colleagues if they know of a bright, skilled college or high school student.

5. If you’re paying the student, you may want to do a test run and give them a small project to see how they do with it. This can save valuable time for both of you, especially if it doesn’t work out, you won’t have invested too much. In a for credit internship, you probably can’t do the test run.

6. Here are questions to ask references:

– Would you hire this person for a job?

– What are their strengths?

– What areas do they need to work on?

– Did they complete projects on time?

– Did they show up for all meetings?

– Are they self-directed or do they require a great deal of supervision?

We have a wonderful student intern at Write Your Book, University of Rhode Island student Rachel Horwitz. You’ll be hearing from Rachel over the next week as she shares some gems from Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course.

If you’ve hired an intern, any advice you would add? If you haven’t, any questions you have about hiring an intern to help research your book?

For Love and Money: Your Book and Your Business

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Many aspiring authors write their books from a yearning or passion to get their message out to the world. This is a beautiful place to come from–whether your book will help people heal, help them be better managers or help them choose the right college.

Take another step, now, and think about how you’ll reach these readers and have the greatest impact on their lives. Will you reach tens of thousands of people through public speaking? Will you offer teleseminars and private coaching to help them take the work deeper?

And don’t stop there. I want you to also think about what your book will do for you in your life.  Will it have you traveling to exotic places to give seminars? Will it make you prosperous through all the clients it helps you attract and doors it opens?

Sometimes people tell me, “I don’t care if I make any money with my book.” Really? What if your book can help you make an even bigger difference for people because of the success it helps you achieve? And why don’t you want money?

Some of the people who say this are struggling to make ends meet. Unfortunately, it’s harder to make a positive impact in the world if you’re experiencing struggle in any part of your life. How much more of an instrument of joy, peace and love can you be when you have abundance and prosperity in your life?

Start thinking about the business of your book and how it will help you be in service at an even higher level. As you make more money and have more success with your book, you get to make even more of an impact for other people.

I’m fortunate to be part of an amazing line up of speakers in the Fire Up Your Business Conference over the next couple of months–luminaries like Stephen Covey, Ken Foster, T. Harv Ecker, Stephanie Hartman, Penny Sansevieri, Rick Frishman, Joe Vitale and many more. Check out the registration page for the full line up of speakers.

As I’ve been listening to these calls I’m struck by how these thought leaders–and most of them are published authors–have so much to give. Their success stems from a place of service to others. And most of them are also quite prosperous. Let these leaders be your teachers and mentors.

Join me for this amazing virtual conference and learn how you can:

  • Make more money doing what you love.
  • Create a greater impact.
  • Enjoy a never-ending stream of clients or customers.
  • Take your business to the next level.
  • Oh, and, of course, leverage one of the most powerful business building tools of all time–your book!

See you on the calls. I’d love to hear your comments on what you’re getting out of the call–come back to this page or my facebook page and let us know what pearls of wisdom and powerful tools these speakers are giving you to Fire Up Your Business.

I’d also love to hear what you’re hoping to hear on my call! (We should have a date in April shortly–sign up for the free conference and you’ll be notified when it’s scheduled).

Your Book is a Hot Date

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You’ve probably already heard me say, “Schedule your book-writing appointments in your calendar for very specific times and keep these times sacred.”

Think of it as a hot date or a meeting with the President.

If something else comes up, ask yourself, “How will it impact my book to say ‘yes’ to this?” That question can get you back in touch with the risk you take when you blow off book-writing.

When Lisa Jesswein interviewed me on Positive Now on Empower Radio she mentioned that she writes the same time each week with her book-writing partner. Her partner couldn’t meet for the past two weeks but Lisa kept her “date” and wrote anyway. That’s the kind of consistency it takes to get the job done.

How do you maintain that kind of stick-to-it-iveness?

– Find yourself a writing buddy and hold each other accountable.

– Ask your life coach,  business coach or mentor to hold you accountable.

– Hire a writing coach.

– Take a book writing class.

– Start your own book-writing group. If you don’t have anyone to ask, post at the library.

While professional support can be the most effective and efficient (and include additional benefits beyond accountability), if you’re on a budget, there are several ways to get your accountability free. So, no excuses.

Empower yourself right now and make a commitment on this blog post to get your accountability. How will you do it? (Or how are you getting that kind of support)? Share here.

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