A friend is writing a book and asked me what I thought about taking a writing trip. "I’m going to Bali to write for a month." she said. Big mistake! I thought. The goal of writing a book in Bali never ends well.
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Every Friday is giveaway day. Comment to win! I enjoyed reading Essentialism, a new book by Greg McKeown. Personally I’m not much of a minimalist (except when it comes to travel gear). In fact, I’ve even joked that I’m a maximalist—I want to do it all! Even so, this book challenged me and improved my…
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I used to read Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, and other travel magazines every month. This was old-school reading: there were actual magazines that came in the mail to my house each month.
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You don’t write a book because it’s a good thing to write a book. You don’t write a book to “build your platform.” You write a book because you can’t bear not writing a book. You have something to say and you’re willing to put in the effort, day after day, to craft that message in the best possible manner.
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I received a copy of the new book Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath, two brothers and co-authors responsible for the previous bestsellers Switch and Made to Stick.
I've always enjoyed Chip and Dan's work, so when our mutual publisher asked me to share an excerpt of their new book, I was happy to do so.
Check out the excerpt below, or pick up the book for full reading.
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Over the past few years, I've hosted more than 100 events with readers in eight countries. There is no “author school” where one learns to do these things—it's very much been a make-it-up-as-I-go process.
I've also received a lot of questions from other authors, aspiring authors, musicians, artists, and other readers who like the idea of taking their show on the road.
In this (long!) post I'll share a few stories, highlights, and lessons learned from the past three years of coordinating and hosting book events. I hope something here will be helpful to anyone who hopes to reach more people with their message.
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Greetings from the Pacific Ocean! Happy New Year's to everyone in advance. I'm currently flying over the water and will miss New Year's Eve (all of it) due to crossing the international date line today. Don't feel bad for me, though—I'm en route to my penultimate country. If all goes well, tomorrow I'll be on Tuvalu and only one country away from ... all of them. (Also: I like the word penultimate. I think it means “almost there.”)
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Most important: to write a good book, you need a good idea. No one wants to read a book without an idea, no matter how well written it may be. Always start with something to say.
But let's look at the practical aspect—how do you actually write a book?
It turns out it's not that difficult. You basically work with the time-and-money concept, where you break down exactly what you need to accomplish the desired goal. How much is required?
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Today is the launch of our long-awaited Unconventional Guide to Publishing, a comprehensive resource to help those who want to write, sell, and publish a book. Here's the link for those who are interested: --> Monster publishing guide—get it now, rah-rah, etc.
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A while back I was sitting in a room with Jonathan Fields, a fellow author and good friend. At the front of the staging area, a publishing executive was talking about the state of the industry.
Does anyone have any questions?
Someone had a question, and a good one: "If I want to write a book, what's the first thing I should do?"
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For the past three years, I've written at least 300,000 words for publication. It's not that difficult, and you can do it too—it mostly requires an ability to focus. If you don't have this ability at first, fear not: it's a learned process.
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Thanks so much to everyone out there who was a part of the 63-city Unconventional Book Tour, which just wrapped up in beautiful Vancouver last weekend. We're working on a bigger project to document the whole experience for everyone, but for now I just wanted to express my gratefulness.
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Have you heard the news about the death of publishing? Books are going extinct! Paper will cease to exist! Buy stock in digital ink.
Seth Godin, a mentor to me and the rest of the internet, recently announced his retirement from traditional publishing. Seth is perpetually ahead of the curve, so as usual, most people completely missed the point in responding to the news. When I read his interview, I thought “Wow, I need to catch up.” If I had twelve bestselling books, I'd say farewell to traditional publishing too. So everyone else in publishing, traditional or otherwise, who doesn't have twelve bestselling books needs to get to work.
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I don't claim to be an expert, but I've been writing 1,000 words a day almost every day for the past 120 weeks. That's the most important tip of all—to be a writer, start writing. You'll figure out a lot of things along the way.
But for all of you overachievers out there, here are some other ideas that may help.
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Yesterday I rode my bike down to Laughing Planet on Belmont Avenue for a $4.85 burrito. The sun was out and all was well. On the ride down I replayed the classic “time/money/no object” game in my head. You know, the one where you ask: “If time and money were no object, what would I do today?” This is a fun game to play, and it's even better when you realize that you wouldn't change much about your plan. In my case, I had about $60 in my wallet—but the only thing I wanted to eat for lunch was the $4.85 burrito. I could have had a million dollars in my laptop bag, and I still would have taken my $35 "Craigslist special" bike down to the burrito place.
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