Humor in Book Marketing: Getting Attention Without Begging
A Buy My Books flowchart works because it says the ask out loud and lets readers laugh with you. Here is mine, what has sold my books over the years, and how to build your own.
Article Index (Page 2)
WritingHow Long Should a Chapter Be? Manuscript Habits That Save You Later
A chapter is as long as one complete thought, and a thousand words is plenty when the thought is finished. Keep with next and real heading styles stop a manuscript from fighting you through every revision.
BusinessThe Business Novel and the Companion Workbook: Two Formats Business Authors Overlook
Most business books are lectures. A business novel lets the reader ride along while characters learn the lesson, and a separately sold workbook gives them something to do with it afterward.
Book MarketingThe Back of the Book: Index, About the Author, Acknowledgments and Back Cover Copy
Everything after the last chapter serves a reader who already bought your book, and the back cover sells it to one who hasn't. I cover indexes, author bios, acknowledgments and back cover copy, and what I recommend for each one.
Artificial IntelligenceI Build My Own Software Tools With Claude, and Some of Them Bit Me
When a commercial tool annoys me, I build my own with Claude. My booking system took 44 versions and one bug silently threw away bookings, and the habits I learned from it apply to any writer or small business owner.
BusinessWhat Years of Buying From IT Vendors Taught Me
A big-name hosting vendor missed our payroll, and paying the penalty to leave was the cheapest fix we had. Here are the rules I took from years on the buying side of IT, from small vendors to exit clauses to…
WritingI Write Books for a Living. I Barely Read Them Anymore.
I write books for a living, and I haven't finished reading one in about five years. The shelf behind me on video calls is set dressing, and the reading I do now comes in pieces, a chapter at a time,…
BusinessThree Management Habits That Waste Good People
Some management habits never get anybody fired, and they still burn through good people. A boss who needs 100 percent of the information, a review that dredges up a mistake fixed nine months ago, and a meeting built to pat…
Book CoachThe Coach and the Webinar That Sold Me Nothing
I paid a coach a couple of thousand dollars for a 52-week course that turned out to be PLR material I already owned, and I quit a webinar halfway through because it taught nothing. Both are easy to spot before…
Personal GrowthThe Work I’d Cringe At Now, and Why I’m Glad I Do
Old work makes you cringe because your judgment kept improving after the work stopped. I deleted almost 200 web pages of LinkedIn branding articles, and an early book I ghostwrote makes me wince, and both taught me what to keep…
Book MarketingWho Is Your Book For? Build a Reader Avatar Before Chapter One
Before I write chapter one of any book, I build a reader avatar: one specific person the whole book is written to. A book or its PR aimed at everybody works for nobody, so I build the avatar first and…
Book MarketingPreface, Prologue, Foreword or Introduction: What Goes Where
A preface tells readers why you wrote the book, and most of them skip it. The introduction is the two to four page sales tool that decides whether they buy. This piece covers what each opening page is for, where…
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