The beginning of that sentence is, “I do stupid things.” Well, silly anyway.
Amazon has this system where you can run a “giveaway.” I wanted to try it out. Now, the silly part isn’t what happened – I gained 132 followers to my twitter (@AhZhillAy) account. Nor the fact that I set the system to give an ebook to every 12th person.
My new book Profile Your Target Market is about to come out, and someone’s already interviewing me about it! The always gracious Melissa Smith, a Virtual Assistant Staffer & Consultant, interviewed me for a discussion she was having with her virtual assistant students. If you’re looking for a virtual assistant, or if you’re a VA and want superior working conditions, I highly recommend you contact her.
I used to hate it when people gave me explanations like I’m about to give you. I wanted a magic formula – “Do A plus B, and you’ll skip over the following steps and wind up at Q a wealthy person.” Then I began to realize that people weren’t skipping over steps to keep secrets. It’s those in-between steps that are unique to each of us, that we have to go through ourselves, that help us define what “success” is for ourselves, and how we look at the world in general.
I’m pretty good at sales, but I hate it. Absolutely. I’ve never been able to separate a sales rejection from personal rejection. I began to think about it, and look around at the sales process. In our society, people mostly act on recommendations and (bluntly) snob appeal. If someone recommends an expensive wine, that’s the one we’ll order. It tastes like crap, but we convince ourselves it’s great. We’re looking for a dentist, so we ask our friends. Or a plumber. Or a car mechanic. We ask our friends, and in general we do what they tell us, and we stick with the result unless it’s too painful in some way. “The best salesperson is a satisfied customer.”
So. . . where do I get my ideas? I watch, and I think, and I go through pain of some sort, and I try to figure out how to get the results I want with as little pain as possible. If there’s a formula for me, it’s “Time plus Thought minus Pain = Ideas.” I know that’s not what you were looking for, but I hope you can understand me and where I’m coming from a little better.
I’ve been working on the layout for my next book, Profitable Web Hosting. In addition, I’ve firmed up dates through the end of 2015 for books and ebooks that I’m working on. I have a couple dates where I’m planning on publishing something, although I’m not yet sure what they’ll be.
Here’s the latest list with the dates:
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.
Originally the term masterpiece referred specifically to a piece of work by an apprentice or journeyman who wanted to become a master craftsman in the European guild system of the Middle Ages. That piece was often displayed in the guild house as evidence that the worker had sufficient skill and expertise to warrant being a master at his chosen craft.
You’ve written your book. It’s published – print, ebook, audio, maybe all three. You wrote a first draft, then a second, third and forth. Then there was the editing. Sometimes you changed a line, or a paragraph. Sometimes it was a word, or just a punctuation mark. But you’re tired of the damned thing, and it doesn’t matter anymore because it’s published. You can forget about it.
Well. . . no. You can’t. Novel or non-fiction, in order for people to stumble on it by chance, loving every word and telling all their friends to buy a copy, the book must be promoted.
Here’s a sad (perhaps) fact for you: all that effort to write your book is just the tip of the iceberg. In order for you to become the next shining literary beacon, the bottom 90% of your iceberg needs to be completed. You need to be interviewed, to be quoted, to do readings for rooms small and even smaller. You need to remain completely upbeat when getting up early and staying up late for phone interviews, saying the same things over and over again. Blogs and magazines won’t go out and find your book on a store shelf, rushing home to read it and gush over it to their myriad readers. It needs to be put into their hands.