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Posts Tagged ‘book’
Monday, September 6th, 2010
 Patience means the capacity to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming angry or upset (Roget’s New Millennium Thesaurus).
Patience is required at many different levels on the Writer’s Journey both with yourself and with others.
Why is patience such an important quality for writers?
First of all, writing a book for publication is a long term business.
Despite the fact that there are always exceptions to the rule, there are very few books that are written and picked up by an agent or publisher straight away. The norm is for the process to take time.
The stage where patience is most required, and one of the most important for all writers seeking commercial publication, is finding the right people to work with – agent and/or publisher.
The reason that it takes so long for publishing professionals to respond to your approach is that they genuinely do have an extremely long list of other tasks on their ‘To Do’ list. And this is before they even get to assessing new projects from new authors!
Add this to fact that they are almost always in meetings and inundated with material to read, and you’ll begin to get the picture.
Ironically, once a decision is finally made, from that point onwards everything suddenly switches to tight deadlines where everything needs to be completed ‘yesterday’.
With self-publishing, the long term nature of successful publishing takes into account the whole life cycle of the book. In this situation you need patience to nurture your book to success long beyond the launch.
It requires patience to cultivate mutually rewarding working relationships with people who will help to sell, market and promote your book. It also takes patience to build up a strong relationship with your readers that is likely to be rewarded by them buying your next book too.
Life has a way of taking the time required for projects to come to fruition – whatever that may be – rather than an arbitrary timeframe you may have decided you want to impose.
Usually, there is a bigger picture at work – if only you could see it then and there.
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Tags: agent, author, book, marketing, publication, publisher, readers, writer, Writing
Posted in Creativity, Publishing, Writing | 6 Comments »
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Julia McCutchen interviews Lisa Cherney
Have you ever wondered how you are going to attract the attention of agents, publishers and readers with your book ideas when there are so many other writers trying to do the same? You know that your approach / story / philosophy is different but how do you communicate that and ensure your voice is heard?
In this interview we will talk about ways for you to find the words you need in order to market yourself successfully. You will learn how to talk about your Unique Abilities with passion and clarity, and by the end you will know:
- The value of effective marketing for authors today
- How utilizing Unique Abilities will make you stand out from the crowd
- The critical differences between your “target” and your “ideal” agent/publisher/reader
- Simple methods for communicating your uniqueness in your marketing
- How to build your Unique Ability portfolio to build your author platform
Lisa Cherney is a marketing expert and President of Conscious Marketing, now celebrating its 10th year. Lisa’s mission is to help business owners find their authentic marketing voice so they can attract their ideal clients. As co-author of Inspiration to Realization: A Women’s Guide to Business, Personal & Spiritual Fulfillment, Lisa has the personal and professional expertise to adapt her award-winning and insightful approach to showing authors how to engage with successful marketing strategies to support publishing success. For more information see www.consciousmarketing.com
Date: Thursday 9 September Time:16:00 BST / 11:00 EST
Want to listen to this teleseminar interview for free but not yet an IACCW member?
Find out about how to do so and discover the other benefits of becoming a member of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers (IACCW) by clicking here …
Tags: author, book, book proposal, Lisa Cherney, marketing, Publishing, Writing
Posted in Events | No Comments »
Monday, August 30th, 2010
 Here are 3 tips to help you find the right publisher to approach with your book:
1. First of all, think about who you know who might know someone with a connection to the world of publishing.
Before you dismiss this suggestion with the thought that you don’t know anyone who has anything to do with writing or publishing, just stop and ponder for a moment.
Sometimes a friend of a friend may be just the person you need to speak to. Perhaps their colleague at work happens to know someone who’s just had a book published or started a job in the industry? Or maybe they know someone who works in a bookshop and who is familiar with the subjects that publishers specialise in.
You just never know where these connections can take you and naturally if you are able to come up with leads that result in personal recommendations of publishers to approach, this can be one of the best ways of being introduced to the right publisher for your book.
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Tags: author, book, publisher, Publishing
Posted in Publishing | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
I hope you’re having a good week so far as we head into the new month of August.
This is just a quick courtesy reminder that today, Tuesday 3 August is the registration deadline for the Writer’s Journey Raise the Bar Individual Coaching Program.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to check it out, you can read all about it, watch a short video and access the audio recording of the Preview Call by clicking here …
This individual coaching program has been created for writers at any stage of the writing journey to benefit from professional feedback, guidance, structure and support.
My commitment to you is that I will meet you exactly where you are on your writer’s journey and guide you to raise the bar to the next level – whatever that is for you – so that you make solid progress and experience tangible results.
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Tags: agent, author, book, book proposal, creative process, mindset, platform, publication, publish, readers, writer, Writing
Posted in Announcements, Book Proposals, Creativity, Publishing, Writing, marketing | No Comments »
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
 Perseverance is about dedication, resolution and stamina, and can be defined as the ‘steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose … especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement’.
If you were to exchange the word ‘perseverance’ for the phrase ‘writing a book for publication’, the remainder of the sentence would still be accurate!
The Writer’s Journey certainly includes many points along the way which demand an incredible amount of determination and tenacity.
It can be a long path from inspiration to publication and how you handle the inevitable challenges will make all the difference to the quality of your journey and to the end results.
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Tags: book, marketing, platform, publication, publish, readers, Writing
Posted in Publishing, Writing | 2 Comments »
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
 It’s summer and we’ve created a fun Summer Special IACCW Membership Contest which starts TODAY, Thursday 8 July and runs for two weeks until Thursday 22 July.
Check out the details by clicking here …
This is a playful contest which has serious intent because the task we are inviting you to engage with to enter the Contest is one which needs to be done anyway! So it is entirely relevant to everyone who is writing a book – or who wants to write one – and there are a range of fabulous Prizes on offer including two Bonuses which all participants receive!
We would love to invite you to join the fun, participate in the Contest yourself (it’s quick and easy to enter), and invite all of your writing friends too!
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Tags: author, book, compelling key sentence, writer, Writing
Posted in Announcements, Creativity, Events, Writing | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
 It is with great pleasure that I introduce here our first guest blog post from author and publisher Jo Parfitt:
They say you should write about what you know, and so, in 1998 I wrote and published a book called A Career in Your Suitcase, based on what I had learned about creating and maintaining a portable career overseas.
You see, what I ‘knew’ was how to create a career, based on what I most loved to do and then move that career from country to country. In my case this meant from England to Dubai, then Oman and onto Norway. In a really old chestnut of a cliché, ‘I had been there, done that and got the teeshirt’ and I believed that my experience qualified me to write the book. I was right. People loved my book and in a couple of years I had sold out. It was time for a second edition.
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Tags: authentic, author, book, publish, writer, Writing
Posted in Creativity, Publishing, Writing | 2 Comments »
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
 Writing a book for publication is a real commitment of time and energy which demands your focus for weeks, months and sometimes years. The sparks of enthusiasm which are present at the beginning of the process when your ideas are fresh and your motivation is strong show up on the page in a positive way.
The challenge for many writers is to maintain the momentum at this level of creative expression right through to completion.
For some it is a question of avoiding the many distractions which take you off in other directions entirely. For others, commitments to ‘everyday life’ activities can lead to losing touch with those first creative sparks, and as a result, the writing grinds to a halt.
One of the most important ingredients for completing long term creative projects successfully is to recharge your creative soul on a regular basis to ensure you always have access to your original impulse to keep you moving forwards.
So here are 7 simple ways you can recharge your creative soul to maintain the momentum with writing your book:
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Tags: alignment, book, creative process, creative spirit, Writing
Posted in Creativity, Writing | 4 Comments »
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Julia McCutchen interviews poet and author Jay Ramsay
Thursday 1st April at
16:00 BST / 11:00 EST
A poem is like a butterfly. A moment seeds itself inside us. A memory.
An experience when we saw, we felt, perhaps even, we knew.
It touches something deep in us. Deeper than words. And something begins, in that inner space. Something that is uniquely ours to speak of.
There is a poet in all of us. However unknown or neglected that part of us may be, it is there, often just waiting for the right conditions to present itself.
Whether you write – or want to write – poetry, fiction or non-fiction, discovering the poet in you is like revealing the hidden treasure which will nourish your creative soul.
Writing poetry is also a powerful catalyst with the potential for inner healing and personal growth. By the end of this inspiring interview you will understand how:
- poetry is not just literature, it is a whole way of being, a whole way of relating to life
- poetry’s home is in the expression of the values that make our lives worthwhile
- poetry doesn’t just take place on the page, it is all around us in the living air
- so called amateur poets are sometimes more relevant than professional ones
- to be conscious of moments during the day when you experience poetry and apply that state of being to whatever your current writing project is
Jay Ramsay is the author of over 30 books most recently Out of Time: Selected Poems 1998-2008 (PS Avalon), Places of Truth (Awen), and The Poet in You (O Books). Co-founder of the Angels of Fire poetry collective in London in 1983, he has performed his work in public for many years.
Want to listen to this teleseminar interview for free but not yet an IACCW member?
Find out about how to do so and discover the other benefits of becoming a member of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers (IACCW) by clicking here …
Tags: author, book, creative, poet, poetry, Writing
Posted in Events | No Comments »
Monday, March 15th, 2010
 With many authors yet to embrace fully the platform-building potential of Twitter, are we already seeing the next wave of possibility for this microblogging site?
It seems that authors in Japan may be ahead of the game when it comes to creative usage of Twitter as a new trend emerges with authors actually writing books on Twitter.
When you consider that each ‘tweet’ is just 140 characters long, it must be quite a challenge to write a Twitter novel!
As most writers understand, it is often much harder to craft a powerful message or tell an enticing tale using a modest number of words. So the reduction to a handful of characters is taking the minimalist idea to the extreme.
Yet, according to freelance journalist Felicity Hughes* who writes a blog for the Japan Times, Japanese authors have begun writing Twitter books.
Perhaps even more intriguingly, this trend is being watched by publishers who are looking to the internet as a “testing ground for new talent”.
This is good news for authors who are hoping to attract the positive attention of agents and editors, many of whom are active on Twitter themselves.
In fact the first collection of Twitter novels, One Hundred and Forty Character Stories, was published by Discover towards the end of last year and includes 1,000 short “novels” from 10 professional writers.
Although this is clearly very early days, it is fascinating to see how creative both writers and publishers can be when it comes to taking stories to the marketplace.
So what can be learnt from their example?
In my view, this is an opportunity to remember that “less is often more” when it comes to writing, and that lesson is probably one which many of us benefit from being reminded of more than once.
What are your views on Twitter as a potential literary tool and how easy do you find it to write less to say more? Add your comments below …
* With thanx to The Bookseller and to Felicity Hughes for providing source information and for inspiring this commentary.
Tags: agent, author, book, platform, publisher, social networking
Posted in Creativity, Publishing, Writing | 2 Comments »
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Patience means the capacity to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming angry or upset (Roget’s New Millennium Thesaurus).
