Use Your Words: Should You Write a Book?

photo © 2008 Ed Yourdon | more info (via: Wylio)

Every Tuesday on BlogTalkRadio I host Use Your Words, a 30 minute show where I give you speaking tips!

After asking on my Facebook page about the types of things you all wanted to hear about, I discovered that “writing a book” was right there on the top of the list. So I decided to tackle that in yesterday’s show. Listen in here.

A few thoughts from the show, in no particular order:

1. It’s very hard to get a book published today by a traditional publisher.

They’re looking for a great, compelling idea with a readily available and identifiable market. In other words, they don’t want lots of new books on “how to get closer to God”, which is basically what most of us who speak want to write. They want something very specific, that addresses a problem.

Unfortunately, if we write books for a specific niche, they’re hard to sell if we speak to general audiences. So traditional publishers aren’t likely going to help us much.

2. Self-Publishing is very expensive.

I say more about self-publishing in this post, but keep in mind that you’re looking at roughly $5000. That’s a lot of money. You can expect to sell books to about 10% of your audience, roughly, so if you speak to 300 women a month, and you publish 1000 books, you will likely sell them in three years. If you can guarantee that you can do that, self-publishing may be worth doing. If you can’t, then you should think about waiting.

3. Writing a Book Takes Time You Could Spend Elsewhere

Writing a book will take you at least six months to do well. In that six months, you could have been, instead, building up your web presence and your online community, which in turn would make it easier to sell that book (or to attract a traditional publisher). You could have been researching other speaking opportunities, or even writing magazine articles.

I’m not saying it’s not a good idea; only look at what should come first. Personally, I would concentrate on building a big online presence first, and then writing the book when you have a natural audience to sell it to. I talk more about my perspective in the radio show, so listen in!

In the meantime, if you need things to sell as you speak, a better route is to find something cheaper to produce. I have a great teleseminar that teaches you how to Create Information Products to sell, and helps you brainstorm what will work for you. 

And this summer, I’ll be doing a webinar on how to get a book published, if you’re serious and you do want to pursue this. I’ll give you all the ins and outs, and teach you how to have the best reception from publishers. You don’t want to miss it, so sign up for my speaking information here!

Use Your Words: Multiple Income Streams from Speaking

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Every Tuesday at noon EST I give a 30 minute BlogTalkRadio show on elements of a speaking ministry–and it’s totally free!

Yesterday I talked about how to create multiple income streams from speaking. That sounds very high falutin’, but its meaning is quite simple: most of us just make speaking fees when we speak, but that often isn’t enough income to support the amount of time that we put into speaking. So let’s find other ways to make money from speaking that can help boost the income, so we can afford to speak more!

Let me give you an example: say you’re just starting out, and you’re beginning to get paid engagements, and your fee is $250 for a one-time talk, or $800 for a retreat. In order to make $20,000 a year, a part-time salary, you’d have to speak for 10 weekends a year, or 1 a month (excluding December & January), and 48 evenings a year, or roughly 1 a week. That’s really very busy, and probably not all that likely.

On the other hand, if you start selling CDs when you speak, or workbooks, then you increase your income without a whole lot more time. CDs are easy to produce, and workbooks are easy to produce, too! You can also sell e-books off of your website.

Listen in to the show to hear more! And here are some other blog posts that deal with this subject of how to boost your income when you speak:

What to Put on your Book Table
Making a Living from Speaking (goes over this show’s content in much more detail!)

Finally, if you want to go in depth in this topic and figure out how you can create products that will actually sell and generate some income–and how to sell them–my audio download on Creating Information Products will have you brainstorming for days!

How to Write a Book Proposal

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So many of my followers on Facebook and Twitter have been reporting the various stages their book proposals are in, so I thought it was high time that I share with you how to write a book proposal! I’ve written about six in my life, and three have been accepted and published, and the others are with publishers right now. So it is something I’ve done successfully (and I hope to have good news to announce soon on a 2-book deal), and I’m going to share with you what I have found goes into a good proposal.

What Publishers are Looking for

My agent told me recently that publishers are interested in three things:

1. Writing Ability
2. Strong Idea
3. Platform (ability to sell the book)

Guess which one matters least? Writing ability! It’s great if you can write, but the world is full of talented editors and ghost writers. If you have a stellar idea, one that has been done before, but which catches the imagination or which speaks to this generation in a unique way, that’s what’s important! And if you have the platform to sell the book, whether it’s through a strong internet presence, media presence, or speaking engagements, then you’re attractive to publish, even if you don’t write well.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write your proposal well or work on your craft. It’s just that you must think like a publisher when they’re reading you book proposal. They’re asking themselves: Can I sell this? Does this author have the ability to sell this? They’re not really asking if you can write. Not anymore. Sounds cynical, but it’s true. So with that in mind, you need to slant your whole book proposal to show that this is an idea that has merit, that it resonates with people, and that you have the ability and the dedicaton to sell it.

What a Book Proposal Is For

A book proposal is not a book. It is simply a proposal to write a book. It is an outline of a book, a description of that book, a market analysis of what’s already out there and where this book would fit, and a marketing plan. It’s also a profile of the author. It’s there so that the publisher can scan it quickly to see whether it has merit. Send a book that the publisher has to read dozens of pages for before they can make up their minds and it’s doubtful it will even get looked at. Publishers don’t have time. You send a proposal so that publishers can skim.

With that in mind, let’s look at the main elements for a book proposal. You can follow this outline pretty much exactly. Where I’ve said Main Heading, simply make that a main heading, and then use sub-headings for the rest. Here we go:

Main Heading: Overview
1 – 1 1/2 pages in length.

Here’s where you sell your book! You’re going to spend a page to a page and a half describing what your book is about, what makes it unique, and how you will sell it! You’ll expand on all of this later, but here’s where your writing skills will come into play. Write this well, and you’ve got them hooked.

Open with a compelling or funny anecdote about the problem that your book is addressing, or the main element of your plotline (if you’re writing a novel). Make them WANT to keep reading. Don’t open with “my book will address this problem”. Open with the problem: 15,000 people a year die from addiction to Diet Pepsi, or whatever it may be. Or tell a funny story.

Then on to outline your book. Can you describe your book in a sentence? In a paragraph? You should be able to, because once it’s written, you’re going to need to in all of the publicity.

Here’s my sentence for my first book:

To Love, Honor and Vacuum is for all those exhausted women who feel more like maids than wives and mothers.

See? Or how about this one:

It’s 10 p.m. He wants to start snuggling. She wants to start snoring. Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight will help women break this impasse–and have fun along the way!

What you’re doing here is addressing the main problem that people who buy your book will have, and showing how your book fixes this problem. Don’t describe your book; describe the benefits that your book brings. If it’s a novel, describe the voice that you speak from, and the feeling that the reader will get from reading the book.

Heading 2: Description
1 1/2 – 3 pages

Next, you’ll start the description part of the book proposal. This may not sound that different from the overview, but you’ll go into greater detail. You’re not trying to be attention grabbing or cute in this section; you’re trying to help them picture what the structure of the book will be like.

Most books are divided into sections. If so, your description can have three headings, for the three sections (or whatever is applicable). Show which chapters go with which, such as this one for my book Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight:

Subheadings based on sections, like this:

How We Think of Sex (chapters 1-2)
How We Change Ourselves (chapters 3-4)
How We Change Our Relationships (chapters 5-8)
How We Address Specific Issues (chapters 9-10)

I think I called those sections something cuter, but that gives you a sense of it. Then, under each description, very briefly describe how you’re going to deal with the issue. Will you use mostly anecdotes? Do you have experts you’re going to interview? What works will you cite? What are the problems you’ll address?

Subheading: Extras
At the end of the description section, relate any “extras” that will be in your book. Do you have an appendix where you’ll include your survey results? Do you have questions at the end of each chapter to use as a Bible study (that’s a big plus today!). Do you have little tips you’ll be including in boxes throughout the book, offset from the text? Talk about these!

Subheading: Spin-off Products
Can your book be spun into a movie? Into a screenplay? Can you write a workbook for it? Does it lend itself to a calendar? Don’t just name every possible spin-off; only the plausible ones here.

Heading: Market Analysis

Subheading: Competition
Here’s the tough part: where does your book fit into the current market? You’ll need to include some books that your book resembles, and then tell why yours is better. So do your research! Get on the internet and look at other books written in your field. How is your book different? How does it solve a different problem? Does it complement this book? It’s not always bad to have a book that is similar but not completely the same, because if that book sold really well, and you can piggy-back on it, then your book will look more attractive!

Subheading: Primary Market
Next tell who your primary market for the book is, as specifically as possible. Don’t just say “Christian women”, say Christian women, from 25-40, who are married with children at home and attend an evangelical church”. Really break it down so that they know who your target is.

Subheading: Secondary Market
Are there other groups your book will fit with that will be easy to market to? For instance, you may think your book will sell great with Catholics, too, but evangelical publishers have troubles selling in the Catholic market, so that may not be the best one to mention. But if you think your book could sell well at Christian camps, or at marriage conferences, or as a study book for women’s Bible studies, mention this under “Secondary Markets”.

Heading: Marketing Plan

Here’s where you come in! What are you going to do to sell this book? This is often the section of the proposal that sells it to the publishers. If you can make a realistic marketing plan that shows that you are dedicated to doing the work that sells the book, then you’re much more attractive.

And what goes into a marketing plan? Don’t say that you’re willing to do book signings. Everybody does book signings, and they don’t sell that many books. Talk about what events you’ll create that you’ll talk to bookstores about, like “Girls Night Out” events where women come to scrapbook and hear a reading, or “Mommy’s Corner”, where moms bring their little ones for a story time.

And what are you willing to do online? Do you already have a buzzing website? Do you already have a blog that attracts a bunch of readers, or a Facebook Page where people stop by religiously everyday? Are you on Twitter? Do you have connections with some of the big websites in your niche, where you can guest post? Write these all out.

I can’t list all the ideas (I’d need a separate blog post for this), but here are some possible sub-headings you can use to fill in:

• Website Marketing
• Social Media Marketing (including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.)
• Bookstore Events
• Media Blitz (what radio stations and TV Stations you’ll contact)
• Speaking Engagements
• Book Reviews

Under each sub-heading, don’t just say that you will contact magazines for book reviews. Talk about the magazines you already have a working relationship with, or the websites that you already have built up friendships with, to show that you have an “in”. Everybody is competing for space, and if you can show why it’s more likely that you’ll be granted space, you’re much more likely to be believed!

Heading: About the Author
1 Page

Brag about yourself for one page! Talk about who you are, what you’ve done, what credentials you have to write this book, what marketing you’ve already been involved in, and what you’ve already written. Make it personable.

Heading: Chapter by Chapter Outline
1 page per chapter

Now you provide the outline, chapter by chapter, for your whole book. I find this part challenging, because it’s hard to write an outline for a book you haven’t written yet. How do you know what will go in each chapter? But try your best to make it compelling, and include short anecdotes to open each chapter outline, if applicable.

Heading: Sample Chapters
Include 2-3 sample chapters, usually near the beginning of the book, and usually consecutive, so publishers can get a sense of how it reads.

And that’s it! Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? It is! It’s almost as hard as writing the book! But do it right, and by the time you sit down to write the book you’ll be much more focused. You’ve already thought about how the book will be positioned to sell. You’ve thought about what the real message of the book is, and what benefits it brings to the reader. You’ve summed it up in one sentence. You know what your different sections are. And now, when you put it all together, it flows better!

If you’re finding this intimidating, you can get more information on writing a book proposal from Michael Larsen’s excellent how-to book. But know that you can do it!

Create an idea that excites and has merit, and build yourself a platform so that you can show the publisher you have something to offer. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to tackle the book proposal!

And if you need to know where to send it, Sally Stuart’s Christian Writer’s Market Guide lists all Christian publishers in North America (and some elsewhere). It’s a wonderful resource.

You’ve got all you need now. So go to it!

Use Your Words: Making a Living from Speaking

Today’s Use Your Words BlogTalkRadio program addressed the question, “Can I really make a living speaking”? If you didn’t get a chance to listen live, listen in now right here!

If that question is nagging at you, though, here are my thoughts.

First, of course it’s a tension between income and ministry. We think that if we’re doing something for God, it should be free. And He may be calling some of you to speak for free, or to speak on faith! But I do think it’s okay to charge. If you are dedicating your time to speaking, you need to also make a living out of it. Few families can afford to have someone driving all over the place, gone for long amounts of time, without generating an income.

So if you need that income, here are some ideas:

Multiple Income Streams work best

I once heard a career coach say that it is easier to make $100,000 by making $10,000 from 10 sources than by making $100,000 from one, and I think she’s right. If you’re aiming to make a living speaking, you’re probably looking at wanting to make around $40,000. It’s easier to make $10,000 from 4 sources than to make $40,000 from one source. So what are those sources?

• Speaking Fees
• Product Sales
• Writing Fees
• Internet Revenue

You may be able to come up with some other ones, but in general, those are the four biggies. So let’s look at each in turn.

Fees

It’s hard to make $40,000 from fees alone without burning yourself out. Even if you charge $2000 for a weekend retreat (which only a few speakers can manage, and only in a few geographical areas), you’d be looking at speaking 20 weekends a year. That’s almost half of all available weekends, if you subtract Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. Few of us would be willing to give up all of our weekends. And if you only charge $1000 for a full weekend, which is more the median fee, you’d have to speak for 40 weekends. Pretty well impossible.

You could do a combination of weekends/weeknights, of course. If you charged $400 for a weeknight, and $1000 for a weekend, you’d have to do 20 weekends and 50 weeknights. That’s ten full weeks of speaking each and every night.

Those who manage to do this tend to speak in bunches: they’ll speak every weekend and a bunch of nights in October, or they’ll be on the road all through April. They tend to get their engagements through a booking agent.

It can work, but it’s very tiring and it takes you away from your family a great deal. Fees alone will not take you to a reasonable income. You need to supplement with something else.

2. Book Table Sales

In general, I make more from sales at my product table than I do from speaking fees. And products can be very useful for the kingdom! If people like what you have said, and if they have felt God’s presence, they want to continue that. If they can buy a book, a CD, a Bible study, or a workbook that takes them deeper into your message, they’ll get great benefit from it.

So don’t think of it as “selling junk” (and please don’t sell junk!). Offer products that are useful and that expand on your message. The cheapest to produce would be:

1. CDs of your talks
2. Bible studies on the subject of your talk (publish them in a binder with an insert for the cover)
3. Workbook with charts, lists, or Bible verses that help them work through your talk

More expensive ones would be:

1. DVDs of your talks
2. Self-published (or royalty published) books

But the sky is the limit! Listen in to a teleseminar on how to create and sell these products here. It’ll give you so many ideas your brain will be working overtime!

3. Writing

Once you have gained some recognition, you can write columns or articles in your denominational magazine or newspaper, or in local newspapers (my column is published in secular newspapers, but it goes out to a few hundred thousand homes every week). You already know how to communicate by speaking. Learn how to communicate by writing, too! Attend some Christian writing conferences to network and get some ideas. Sally Stuart’s book Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2010is very helpful when it comes to breaking into magazines and newspapers. And don’t forget that many websites are popping up that pay for content!

In general, magazine and column writing will pay more than book writing, if you do it regularly. Unless you become a best-selling author, selling short pieces tends to make more money. So don’t dismiss these short pieces! Do your research, and see if you can turn some of your talks into articles!

4. Internet Sales

If you’ve been following along with my Use Your Words radio program, and reading this blog, you know that I’m a big believer in having a web presence to get speaking engagements. People want to check you out online before they take the plunge and hire you. So you need to set up a good blog or website. And you need to be engaged in Facebook or Twitter or other social media sites.

So you’ve done that. You’ve been writing high quality blog posts. You have readers. What do you do with them?

It is not enough simply to write. If you have the readers, you have to give them something to buy so they can take your message to the next level. Offer audio downloads of some of your talks. Create e-books of devotionals, or collections of your best blog posts or articles. Create reports on how to parent better, discipline better, pray better, or anything! If you speak on organization, sell a collection of reproducible charts or lists. Sell a collection of Bible verses people can cut out that speak directly to your topic! The list is endless. And as these downloadable products are purchased, the buyers get them immediately without you having to mail a thing. It couldn’t be easier!

If you’re confused about how to set this up, or you want to explore this idea further, this talk takes you through the steps.

You can also turn your internet customers into members by creating a membership site. Regular viewers can see your blog posts, but if they want access to articles or special videos, they have to pay a premium. It doesn’t have to be very much, but each little bit adds up, especially since it doesn’t mean any more work for you!

If you work steadily at each of these areas, you’ll soon find that you have little bits of money flowing in from different directions. And little bits can add up to a healthy income. Best of all, you’re enlarging the kingdom by reaching people in all different ways. So don’t create junk; create quality talks, products, and posts, and you’ll find that if you combine all of these aspects, you can indeed make a living by spreading the message God has given you!

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What to Put on Your Book Table

…now the answer to the above question seems obvious, doesn’t it? BOOKS!

Ah, but what if you don’t have any books? Or what if you have only one? Then what do you do?

I have four books out, plus two compilation books. But I have a TON of stuff on my book table. Why? Because you do not have to just sell books! And if you don’t have books, never fear! You can find stuff to sell, too.

What we need to realize is that the book table is not actually about selling books. It’s about selling information. And information can come in a variety of forms.

The first way you’re transmitting information is by speaking, of course, which is why you’re there in the first place. So we know you can speak. You may feel like you can’t write, but if you can speak, you can communicate. Thus, there are a variety of ways that you can still create items to sell.

Here are some ideas:

1. Sell CDs of your talks. Just record them, edit them (it’s not as hard as it sounds), and then burn them. To record them, you can purchase a digital voice recorder which you can then plug into your computer to edit the sound file. Here’s the Digital Voice RecorderI use.

Once you have a bunch of talks, you can even package together ones on the same theme. For instance, I sell three CD pack for marriage, one for moms, and one for any woman, regardless of kids/marital status. Then I had someone create a nice CD sleeve for them, that looks like this:

2. DVDs of your talks and conferences. This one is a little more pricey because you usually will have to pay to have a professional quality video made. However, sometimes you’ll be speaking in a church which already has the video camera set up to record things. Ask ahead of time, and see if you can have someone record you in exchange for a reduction in the fee. Videos come in handy for other uses, too, like putting snippets on YouTube or using as a promotional DVD, so it’s good to record whenever you have the chance!

3. Bible Study materials. If you’re speaking from a particular passage, can you take what you’ve done and turn it into a 6-week Bible study course? You just need to come up with some good questions, ice breaker ideas, and different passages to study each week. Buy those binders that allow you to put a sheet of paper in the front, and now you have a Bible study. You can sell it for $25, and then give people the rights to photocopy it for their groups. It may not seem like much, but groups are always looking for studies that don’t require homework (and sometimes NOT having a book that goes along with the study is actually a bonus!).

4. Gift Baskets. Did you talk about grief? Did you talk about friendship? Did you talk about encouragement? Why not create a gift basket that goes along with what your topic? Add a few pretty printed cards with some of your key Scriptures or sayings, and then put cute things that go along with it, like a mug, flower seeds, bath products, chocolates, or whatever. People can take it home to give to a friend to encourage them. Try to keep it inexpensive and simple.

5. Mugs. If you have a pithy saying that you use a lot in your talk, consider getting a mug made up. Many malls and printers have places where you can order customized mugs, and see how much it would cost for a quantity of 100 or 200 to start.

6. Charts/Checklists/Calendars. Do you talk about getting organized? Do you talk about making time for God? Do you talk about prioritizing family, or finding time for relationships? You can create several charts or workbooks that help people implement what you’ve said. Again, they don’t have to be expensive, but you can stick them in an inexpensive binder with an attractive cover, or sell them in a duotang with an attractive sticker with personalized graphics on the front.

In all of these items, the trick is to come up with inexpensive graphics that make your products look professional! Ask around to see if there are any amateur graphic designers in your church, or any IT people who are willing to do some work on the side for some extra money. Or, if you’re on Twitter, send out a request for moms who want to make money on the side. The internet is filled with really talented moms who want to work from home, so you’re sure to be able to find somebody!

These are just some ideas that don’t have to do with books. Do you have others? Leave them in the comments! Or if you don’t have a clue what to sell, leave your topics in the comments and maybe we can come up with some ideas for you!

I’ll be launching a FREE email course soon on how to launch your speaking ministry, followed by one on how to create products. If you’re interested in being informed of these, let me know here!