Write For The Walmart Crowd: 3 Tips

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I’m working with a highly educated mental health professional.  Right now I’m editing the manuscript for her first nonfiction ebook.  She spends a lot of hours each week writing, so you’d think there wasn’t a lot to be changed.  How wrong you’d be!

So that we’re clear, there’s nothing wrong with her words, her grammar or her punctuation.  It’s just that normally her reports are meant for other professionals like herself, and members of the court, the schools systems, etc.  This book is targeted toward parents.  Most parents are, at best, casual readers.  50 Shades of Gray, sports stories in the paper, instructions on how to put together a bunk bed – you get the idea.  The verbiage, sentence structure and chapter length in this woman’s book is, frankly, far above the head of the casual reader.

If you, like my client, are writing a book for mass readership, there are three very important tips you need to keep in mind.

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Skip College

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I’m not the only one saying it.  If you want to be an entrepreneur, skip college.  This link is about learning a trade instead (plus some other stuff), but the idea is the same.

I know a lot of great young people who are currently in college, or have graduated in the last few years.  Most of them – most folks I know, really – have the “dream” of going to work for someone else and getting paid a weekly wage.

But where would they work if no one wanted to start new businesses?  Do new things?  Take chances?

If you want to start a business or do your own thing, it’s highly doubtful you’ll learn even the fundamentals by sitting in a classroom.  Go out, try things, fall on your face, pick yourself up, and try again.

A Good Grab

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If you were sliding down the side of a mountain to your certain death, would you insist on grabbing hold only when the very best opportunity presented itself?

Hell no!  As long as you could make a good grab, one that would at least slow you down and give you better opportunities for better grabs, you’d do it.

I have clients who argue with me about this.  If you’re creating a product – a book, a DVD, a membership site – for the first, second or even 3rd time, you don’t need “perfect” or even “great.”  You should be happy with “good enough.”

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Girl Entrepreneurs

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I’m in my local Barnes & Noble, supposedly working on  my next book.  During a walk to restore my numb butt, I just ran across a small display of products.  They’re not quite toys, but close.

If you’ve heard or seen the word “gamification,” you might understand what I’m trying to wrap my brain around.  “Toyification” maybe?  I don’t know.

It’s a line of products by Fashion Angels called “It’s My Biz.”  They’re a series of intro-to-entrepreneurship kits that introduce the concept of starting and running your own business.  I’m really intrigued by the Ultimate Business Guide.

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A New Beginning

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Wow, that sounds dramatic.

Hopefully it isn’t as catastrophic as it appears to be.  I finished a draft of my book Profitable Web Hosting last week, three full weeks before the due date.  I’ve got the next one outlined on 3×5 cards (yes, really!).  But they fell on the floor and got messed up.  What’s a guy to do?

Well, I have had a free program for a while that allows you to input bits and pieces of text and rearrange them into something more coherent.  But I just didn’t like the damned thing!  So I went looking for another one.

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New Book Coming

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I just completed the first draft of my next book.  I mean like 5 minutes ago!  I’m approximately 3 weeks ahead of schedule.  ‘scuze me while I bask in the feeling for a few minutes.  Projected “publication date” is January 2nd (I think – I don’t have my planner with me), but it will probably be available by mid-November.

This is cool, because the book following that was mostly written but has been – well, let’s call it misplaced.  Rather than hunt for the digital files, I will probably re-write it, and the next three weeks will certainly help by giving me extra time.  The projected time for that one was February of 2015.

I’ve been thinking about my books for the last few days, since I’ve been listening to the Sell More Books Show podcast.  I need to create supporting video content for these as well, and I was thinking about cranking out a book every other month next year.  I may not be able to do that if I create the video content myself.  I’ll probably have to find at least one virtual assistant, probably more than one.

Selling Something Else

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RecEx_front_coverI’ve been on vacation.  That said, I’m a terrible business owner slash sales person in general, because I almost never have business cards or a book with me.  It’s true, I brought both of those on my trip, but they were safely packed away with my laptop in my hotel room when I ran into a very nice young gentleman.

We got talking about his family’s business, and how they’ve been running an extension to their business without marketing for several years.  They’re planning on trying to “flip the switch” on marketing at the beginning of 2015.

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