The Cuckleburr Times » book editor

How to Design Your Book to Grow Your Business (and Your Income)

Melinda Copp — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:01:59 +0000

Many savvy business owners know that a book can be the ultimate marketing tool. Writing a book on a topic related to your business establishes expertise, expands your marketing influence, and generates new leads-all while bringing in income from book sales.

However, you can’t just write ANY book. You need to strategically design your book to attract the right kind of leads and clients to your business. Where should you start? Consider the following three steps.

1. Fill a Need in Your Market

If you want to write a business book, then the first step is to figure out what need you will fill. Like all products that are invented to satisfy some useful purpose, your book should offer a new process or solve a problem in your readers’ lives. So think about it: what does your market need and want? What solutions can you offer them? What can you show them that will make their lives easier? Figure this out, and you’ve got the foundation for a successful business book.

2. Develop Your Process

Once you know what solution you will offer your book’s readers, you need to distill that down into steps or a process that they can apply on their own. Although you may not realize it, you probably use the same process, or explain the same concepts, with all your clients. To get this process down on paper so readers can use it, start by listing all the steps. What do your readers need to know (or do) first? What step comes next? What actions will take them from the place they are now to the place where they need to be? Each of these main steps should have sub-steps, which can then be grouped together into chapters. By putting all these pieces together, your book’s structure should start to develop.

3. Sell the Benefits

With your steps in place, you need to look for the big-picture benefits this process helps your target market achieve. What goal will your readers reach if they implement the strategies provided in your book? How will their lives ultimately improve? What deep human need does your book help fill? The answers to these questions are the benefits. These are the things people want that you can provide. And these benefits are what will sell your book. Keep this in mind as you’re writing your book, and your readers will find it irresistible.

Business by the Book

Writing a book is an excellent way to expand your influence, create new leads, and generate new income in your business. And writing the perfect book for your market starts with identifying a need, developing your process, and then communicating the benefits of your solutions. When you use these three steps for designing your book as the ultimate marketing tool, your market will hear your message loud and clear-and they’ll only want to buy from you!

Melinda Copp is a book editor and book ghostwriter who specializes in helping aspiring authors achieve their writing goals. Sign up for Melinda’s free e-zine, and learn the top ten mistakes aspiring authors make and how to avoid them!

Simple Ways to Improve Your Creative Writing

Melinda Copp — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:02:15 +0000

Creative writing can be a rewarding pastime. Many people turn to the pen to unwind after a stressful day. Some creative pieces can even be sold, turning a pastime into a source of additional income. However, many pieces that get written never see the publisher’s desk. Why? Because although creative writing is a hobby for many people, they need to produce professional-level work if they want to get published.

If you want to improve your creative writing, whether for your own benefit or to help get a work published, consider these tips.

Be a Well-Read Author

Being a well-read author does not imply that your works are read frequently. Rather, you need to constantly read the works of professional authors you wish to emulate. Choose your reading material carefully for its creative writing merit. The classics are always rewarding to read, and books that have been given this title received it for a reason. These authors know how to take words and craft a story that is easy to understand, causes one to think, captures the attention, and leaves a lasting impression. Pay attention to not only the way the author crafts the story, but also to the way he uses language.

Of course, you want to enjoy these works, not just read them for scholarly reasons. Even if you do not take a single note while you read, perusing great works will help you hone your writing style. The more well-written works you read, the better your own writing will be.

Avoid Imprecise Words

Some words have been used so often in the English language that they no longer have meaning. Words like “nice,” “great,” and “big” are overused and imprecise. Be as specific as you possibly can when you write, and use variations of these overused, vague words. Reading “the girl strolled through the park,” is far more interesting to read than “the girl walked through the park.” Both sentences mean the same thing, but the word “strolled” allows the reader to better picture the scene. The world “walk” can mean too many different types of movement.

To improve in this area, purchase a good thesaurus. When you are tempted to use a common, everyday word that does not have a precise meaning, look it up in the thesaurus. Find a synonym that means what you intend, and use that instead. Of course, avoid using words that are too flowery or hard to understand. Strive for simplicity as you strive for precision. And use a dictionary to double-check the nuances of words you find in the thesaurus.

Keep It Concise

New writers often add extra, unnecessary words to their writing, such as adverbs and passive verbs. You can make your creative writing much stronger by eliminating these unneeded words. Many adverbs (words that end in -ly), for instance, can be weeded out of writing without changing the meaning. If you use a lot of adverbs, then you need stronger verbs.

Another way to make your work more concise is to avoid writing in the passive tense. Passive tense verbs use some for of “is.” For instance, instead of, “The man was fired by his boss,” you could say, “The man’s boss fired him.” This uses fewer words, sounds stronger, and presents a more active image to the reader.

When you are finished with your work, read through it, and eliminate as many unnecessary words as possible. The more concise your writing is, the stronger it will sound to the reader.

Your Creative Writing Success

These tips will help you turn acceptable writing into writing that glows. Remember, when you are writing, less is more, precision is important, and the more you read, the better your finished written product will be!

Melinda Copp is a writing coach, book editor, and ghostwriter who specializes in helping aspiring authors achieve their writing goals. Sign up for Melinda’s free e-zine, and learn the top ten mistakes aspiring authors make and how to avoid them!

Did you like this? Don’t miss out! There’s plenty more to discover from Melinda and other excellent writers at The Cuckleburr Times.

How to Use Social Media to Market Your Book

Melinda Copp — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 01:31:17 +0000

Social media web sites, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and even MySpace, can be perfect places to market a book. If you are already connected to the online networking and media world, stay there, and start promoting your work. If you are not connected, consider adding a few of the following strategies to your marketing tool kit.

Make Your Posts about Your Book

Do you regularly update your Twitter or Facebook status? If so, make sure that, as much as possible, your status updates are about your book. Many users will post things about their day or their families, but if your goal for social networking sites is to market your book, keep your status updates professional in nature. This will keep your book at the forefront of your followers’ minds.

Create Fan Clubs

Many social networking sites allow users to build groups or fan clubs. To spread the word about your book, you can make your own groups and fan clubs and encourage your friends to join. This will eventually encourage others to join when they see your friends’ notifications about the group. In this way, your name and the name of your book are getting out there and noticed.

Be sure to monitor these groups, however, as they are sometimes fodder for spam, and no one will spend time discussing your book on a forum filled with spam posts. Also, be sure to include information in these groups about where your book can be purchased, including links to Amazon and other online sellers if available.

Use Event Notification Options

If the social media site you are using has an event notification capability, use it. If you know you are going to hold a book signing or public reading, create an event and invite people online. Encourage them to invite their friends as well. This gets your name and the name of your book noticed, even if it does not increase the number of people at your book signing.

Set Up a Blog

One form of social media that you may overlook is a blog. A blog gives you a chance to post information about upcoming events, learn what your readers liked and did not like about your book, and stay connected with your readers. You can post a tidbit from a book or elicit discussions about different sections of the work.

Keep in mind that blogging must be done regularly to work effectively as a marketing tool. People expect blogs to be updated on a regular basis, and if not, they will stop reading. This will allow your book to slip from their minds, which also means that they are not telling people about your blog and introducing more potential readers to your work.

Build an Online Persona

In all of your social media and networking work, keep your online persona consistent. Whatever image you want to portray about yourself and your book, keep it in mind any time you post something or make a comment on someone else’s post. Always be looking for new opportunities to introduce potential readers to your work, but do so in a professional way that works in conjunction with they type of writing you wish to be known for.

Spreading the Word through Cyberspace

Social media and online networking are the wave of the future, and offer numerous opportunities to gain a following. Soon you will see your readership expand as you market your book through social media, and, as an added bonus, you will have the chance to connect in a more personal way with your readers.

Melinda Copp is a writing coach, book editor, and ghostwriter who specializes in helping aspiring authors achieve their writing goals. Sign up for Melinda’s free e-zine, and learn the top ten mistakes aspiring authors make and how to avoid them!

Want to Write a Book? Five Tips to Set and Achieve Your Writing Goals

Melinda Copp — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:48:37 +0000

If you want to write a book, or tackle any other important writing project, then setting clear, powerful goals can put you on the path to success. No matter what you hope to accomplish, the following five tips can help you get there.

1. Define Your Goal

The first step in setting and achieving goals is to determine what exactly you want. Strong goals are specific goals. For example, “I want to devote more time to writing this year,” doesn’t have as much meaning as, “I will spend one hour a day writing my book.” “Devoting more time to writing” offers too much flexibility. Spending one hour a day writing is much more specific and easy to understand. So be clear about what you want if you really want to see a difference.

2. Give Yourself a Deadline

Putting a deadline on your goals gives you a target to aim for and allows you to gauge your progress with a timeline. For example, if you want to write a book this year, you might give yourself an intermediate deadline for completing the first draft and a final deadline for completing your revisions. This timeframe will help you moving forward and give you checkpoints to aim for on the path to success.

3. Be Realistic, but Stretch Yourself Too

Overly lofty goals are often unattainable, which can be frustrating and disappointing. If you aim too high, then you risk giving up on your writing goals. So make sure your goal is something that you can reasonably achieve in the timeframe you’ve established for yourself. At the same time, don’t set your goals too low. Stretching yourself a little will make your success that much sweeter-and you’ll feel empowered to accomplish even more!

4. Write Your Goal Down

We’ve all heard that if you want to make something happen, you have to write it down. And it’s true-writing down your goals gives them more power. Writing your goal in an important place that you can revisit often will help you stay focused, as opposed to writing it on a napkin or scrap of paper that eventually gets thrown away. So write your goal in your journal or on an index card that you carry with you all the time.

5. Envision Your Success

If you really want to achieve your goal, then imagine what it will feel like when you’ve already done it. Imagine the satisfaction you’ll feel when your book manuscript is completed and polished. And imagine how wonderful it will feel to see your name on the cover of your book. Revisit this feeling of success and satisfaction every time you sit down to write, and before you realize it your dreams will come true!

To Your Success

Writing a book, or completing any other writing project, is easy when you are clear about what you want and you take steps to make it happen. With these five strategies, you can achieve any writing goal you want. So what will you accomplish?

Want to Write Better? Strengthen Your Writing With Three Self-Editing Tips

Melinda Copp — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:31:11 +0000

The English language, like mathematics, has rules that make your message clear and understandable. In today’s era of e-mail and text communications, some may feel the rules of communication are largely unimportant as long as one gets the message across. But we know from verbal communication that how one says something is often as important, maybe even more important, than the actual words being said.

When you want to ensure your written communications are professional and clear, knowing the following three few self-editing tricks can enhance your prose.

1. Check Your Commas

One piece of punctuation that frequently trips up even the best writers is the comma. While the comma has many different rules and uses, one of the most helpful is this: don’t use a comma if two sentences divided by a period will do. Make a statement. End the sentence. Following this rule will help you avoid run-on sentences and keep your writing simple and easy to read.

2. Simplify Your Sentence Construction

Grammar rules are difficult to understand, even for English students. But knowing what a strong sentence looks like, and then not straying far from that construction, can be helpful.

Every sentence has nouns and verbs. For example, consider three parts of the sentence, “The boy runs to the store.” The most important part is the verb, or action word, “runs.” The other two parts are both nouns. “Boy” is the subject, the thing doing the action, while “store” is the object, the thing being acted upon. In effect, this structure amounts to noun, verb, noun, or “a something does something to something.”

An easy way to figure out if a sentence is strong and active is to make sure the answers to the following three questions are clear in the way your sentence is constructed:

• What is being done?
• Who or what is doing it?
• Who or what is it being done to?

Now consider this sentence: “It is the boy who ran to the store.” It has the same three parts from the first example. “Boy” is the subject. “Ran” is the verb. And “store” is the object. However, it has extras words that weaken the sentence’s meaning: “who,” “it,” and “is.” And adding these words broke away from the “a something does something to something” model, weakening the overall effect.

3. Activate Your Verbs

Another important rule is use the imperative verb form rather than the form with the suffix “-ing.” The imperative form is a verb’s un-conjugated form. For instance, “to deliver” is the imperative root of “delivers,” “delivered,” “will deliver,” and “delivering.” In many cases, “-ing” verbs are a sign of a weak or awkward sentence.

Now consider the sentence: “The boy runs to the store delivering apples.” While the sentence is not incorrect, the imperative form can be used with a stronger clarifying effect: “The boy runs to the store to deliver apples.”

Self-Editing Your Writing

Although it always helps to have your work professionally edited, you can use these tips to eliminate many of the grammar and style issues that weaken your writing. These rules make it easy to find unclear sentences and keep your writing active, concise, and professional.

Melinda Copp is a writing coach, book editor, and ghostwriter who specializes in helping aspiring authors achieve their writing goals. Sign up for Melinda’s free e-zine, and learn the top ten mistakes aspiring authors make and how to avoid them!

Where to Start Writing Your Book

Melinda Copp — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:33:44 +0000

Writing a book is such a big project that many aspiring authors have no idea where to start. If you’ve been thinking about writing a book, you can use the following three steps to turn your thoughts into action!

Step One: Define Your Topic, Audience, and Competition

When writing a book, it helps to have a clear idea of what you want to cover and who you want to reach. It also helps to know your competition-what books have already been written on the same topic and how yours will be different (and better).

So first, consider your book’s topic. What is your book really about? How will your book benefit your readers? What problems will it solve? Really take the time to scrutinize your topic and the strategies you plan to outline.

Next, ask yourself two questions: 1. Who needs and/or wants the information in this book? 2. Do these people buy books? Think about your book like a business. In any business venture, you need to know who you’re serving and whether or not the market is big enough for your book to sell successfully.

Finally, compare your book to what’s already been written and published on the topic. To find out what books yours will be competing with, go to Amazon.com and search your book topic. What titles come up? Have your read these books? What will make your book different? How is your book better? What gives your book an edge over the others?

Step Two: Make a List

Once you’ve narrowed down your topic, defined your audience and their needs, and considered your book’s competition you can start planning what you will include in your book and how it will be organized. Start by listing everything you want to include based on the information you gathered in step one.

If you’re writing a how-to book, then make a list of topics, examples, anecdotes, and strategies you plan to include. And if you’re writing a memoir or other narrative work, list the scenes you want to use to tell your story. Let your mind go on this, and brainstorm as many ideas as you can. You may not keep them all, but for now you need to get the material out of your head.

Keep in mind that, at this point, you aren’t making any final decisions. Remain flexible and open-minded; you will probably change things around once you actually start writing and researching. But making this list will help you get organized and give your writing some direction.

Step Three: Start Writing

You knew this step was coming! The only way to write a book is to sit down and start writing. Dedicate a specific, regular time to write every day. And if you can’t write every day, then make sure you write on most days.

Having your list will be handy on days when you don’t feel inspired. You can just look at it, pick a topic or scene that gets you going, and then stick with it until you’re done. Write as much as you can as often as you can, and work through your list until you’ve covered everything you want to write about in your book. Then before you know it, you’ll have a draft finished!

Writing Your Book

There’s no reason aspiring authors should stall writing their book before they even start. If you have a story inside you that you want to get out, use these three steps to get your writing started. You’ll be an author before you know it!

Melinda Copp is a freelance editor, writer, and author of the e-book The WRITE Way to Author a Profitable Book, a resource for entrepreneurial writers who want to create a marketable informational product that sells. For more information about Melinda and her services, visit her online at MelindaWrites. If you have any questions about how Melinda can help you, send her an email at info@melindawrites.com.

Get Published – Three Secrets of the New York Publishing World

Melinda Copp — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:48:14 +0000

Every writer dreams of attracting a lucrative contract from a major New York publishing company. And although not everyone achieves that dream, many writers do. But they have to rise above everyone else and prove they have what it takes to write and sell a profitable book.

If you want to improve your chances of winning that contract, consider the following secrets to getting editors’ and agents’ attention.

1. Write Your Best Book

Although this may seem obvious, you might be surprised at how many writers send off manuscripts that they themselves haven’t read and revised. But when agents and editors are swamped with manuscripts, you may only have one shot to make a professional impression. If you want to be taken seriously, then you need to do everything you can to make sure your book is the best it can absolutely be. What does that mean? DON’T send your first draft! Read your book from start to finish over and over again until you can’t find anything to improve. Then give it to someone else-someone you can trust to be honest and helpful-to read it as well.

2. Build a Platform

You can’t come from out of nowhere if you want a publisher to risk thousands of dollars buying your book. You need to establish a record of experience and expertise. If you write creative works, like memoir or fiction, publish in respected, widely read journals. And for business and how-to books, promote yourself and your ideas through speaking engagements, publishing articles, and publicity. Other ways to build a platform include selling 5,000 or more self-published books, building a list of clients and qualified prospects, and writing a blog that gets thousands of visitors. A platform lets editors and agents know that people like you and you’ll probably be able to sell a lot of books.

3. Make Connections

If you don’t live in the city, then making connections in New York can seem impossible. It’s not; and knowing someone in the business (or with connections in the business) can be the break you need to stand out and sell your book to a major publisher. What can you do to make connections? Attend writing conferences and literary events; network with other writers; and tell everyone you meet that you’re a writer. You never know when a friend of a friend will work in the publishing world.

Your Path to Commercial Publication

It takes work to sell your book to a major publisher. But even if your writing skills aren’t quite ready, you can start looking for opportunities that will better your work, build your platform, and establish connections that will help you on your path to publication. Everyone has to start somewhere!