Mark Cuban Did It and So Should You
For a couple of years now I’ve been telling you to harvest your blog posts, white papers and newsletters into a book. Could it be that Mark Cuban has been listening all along?
Until he says otherwise, I’m taking credit.
Cuban’s book, “How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It” is admittedly harvested from years of blog posts and sells for $2.99.
Here’s a guy whose blog readership hits between 50k-1m readers and he’s trying to sell what’s already out there in an ebook? Yep, and So Should You!
The WSJ notes that Cuban “refocused” the work and doesn’t expect readers to take it in like a literary masterpiece. ”Don’t feel you have to read it like a book,” he writes in the book’s foreword. “Use it as a way to get fired up. A way to get motivated.”
Cuban’s book is about 30k words but I say you can go to market with half that.
Here’s how to start writing a book:
- Do you read newspaper opinion columns? They average 700 words, so if you’ve written 22 pieces of that length, you could compile them into a book.
- Most blog posts average 300+ words, so 50 posts would total 15,000 words. Count the average words in your blog posts and do the math.
- How many speeches or presentations have you delivered? Those add up, too. If standard speech without long pauses runs 150 – 170 words per minute, a 20-minute speech is 3,000 to 3,400 words. If you’ve delivered five 20-minute speeches on your subject, you’re ready to roll.
- Your old newsletter articles are good book fodder.
Read my series on writing, designing, publishing and promoting my book. Better yet, let’s get started on YOUR book.
Self-Publishing: Everyone Needs An Editor
Ask any professional writer about the need for a fresh set of eyes and they’ll tell you it’s essential. I don’t have an editor for my blog posts and newsletters, but when I write long form, whether a white paper, article or book, I always collaborate with one.
When putting together my team for Live Full Throttle I knew I’d use Aprill Jones (@aprillwrites on Twitter). Aprill writes copy and is as an account social media content manager with an area advertising agency, in addition to being a freelance copywriter and editor. We’ve hired each other to edit client’s book projects.
Editor as Reader Advocate
There are different kinds of editing assignments, only two of which I’ll cover here, the “conceptual” editor and the “copy” editor.
The conceptual editor is akin to an architect and a copy editor to a home inspector. The conceptual editor guides the writer in how to present the material for maximum impact, while the copy editor makes sure the final output doesn’t distract the reader with inconsistencies, punctuation, grammar and other details of craftsmanship. Some projects call for another layer of edits between conceptual and copy, because familiarity with the work dulls the senses (and that familiarity begins with the writer). Editors are the readers’ advocates for the project.
For Live Full Throttle, I asked Aprill to focus somewhere between conceptual and copy edits on the first round. I originally wrote:
In 2005 Karen was diagnosed with Choroidal Melanoma, a form of eye cancer. Five years later, in a three-month period, her position with an Episcopal parish was terminated, her husband left her, and she was literally run over by a Mack truck while riding her motorcycle out of state.
She described cancer was “a skate” compared to the triple-whack.
What’s a laid off minister facing divorce do with a paid sabbatical? Take a motorcycle trip on a Suzuki Boulevard, of course. But what began as a wind-in-the-face opportunity to assess life and career options ended in an orthopedic exoskeleton from neck to waist.
After Aprill’s feedback it became:
In 2005 Karen was diagnosed with Choroidal Melanoma, a form of eye cancer, which she described as “a skate” compared to what came five years later. In a three-month period during 2010, her position with an Episcopal parish was terminated and her husband left her.So what’s a laid-off minister facing divorce do with a paid sabbatical between employment and unemployment? Take a motorcycle trip on her Suzuki Boulevard, of course.But what began as a wind-in-the-face opportunity to assess life and career options ended in an orthopedic exoskeleton from neck to midsection when Karen was literally run over by a Mack truck several states from home.
Advice for self-publishers
If you are a business professional planning to use a book as a door opener for speaking engagements or as a leave-behind with clients, remember that old saw about judging a book by its cover: people will judge YOU by your book. Your book should be at least as professionally designed, written and edited as it would have been in the hands of an experienced publisher.
No matter how well you write, you need an editor or two. Non-fiction writers, I’m not telling you to hire the local high school’s British Literature teacher as an editor, I’m advising you to hire someone who will read your work on behalf of your intended audience. Works of high literary fiction read very differently than self-help and inspirational books, which is how Live Full Throttle is categorized. The white papers, newsletters and books I write for financial professionals are different from Brit Lit, too. Command of the language and its conventions is just the starting point when looking for an editor.
I wrote a post last year about how to find the right ghost writer for your project. Some of that applies to finding the right editor:
Before you hire someone to write for you, be sure they have domain expertise. My specialty is business writing and nonfiction because I have the background and education to do the job well. If someone asked me to write for pharma or hi tech I’d have to take a pass — actually I’d have to question why they called me in the first place!
The right relationship starts with due diligence, including work samples and client referrals.
For self-publishers hiring book design firms, ask if the firm can refer editors they’ve worked with in the past. Some firms even have copy editors on staff.
When I ghost write, I also function as conceptual editor, but I wouldn’t take on a copy editing job. If you’d like to work with Aprill and me on a project, send me an email.
Do I Have Enough Content To Fill a Book?
Everything I write on this site is addressed to business professionals who know they need to produce content, including books, to enhance their professionalism, to grow their client base or to achieve a social outcome. If this applies to you, read on, but if you want someone to help you write a novel, I’m not the person you’re looking for.
Start with 15,000 words
Let’s put a stake in the ground and say that a book has at least 15,000 composed words. Whether those words are delivered to the user electronically, in an MP3 or on paper is a matter of platform. Just how big is 15,000 words? These examples may help:
- Do you read newspaper opinion columns? They average 700 words, so if you’ve written 22 pieces of that length, you could compile them into a book.
- Most blog posts average 300+ words, so 50 posts would total 15,000 words. Count the average words in your blog posts and do the math.
- How many speeches or presentations have you delivered? Those add up, too. If standard speech without long pauses runs 150 – 170 words per minute, a 20-minute speech is 3,000 to 3,400 words. If you’ve delivered five 20-minute speeches on your subject, you’re ready to roll.
- Your old newsletter articles are good book fodder.
Begin with a guide
You could begin writing your book by publishing a series of “guides” for download or as handouts after Rotary Club meetings or as leave-behinds with prospects. These are also called white papers, executive briefings, special reports and ebooks. Subject ideas:
- Credit repair guide for those who’ve declared bankruptcy or lost a home in foreclosure
- Estate planning guide for those who want to leave money to family members and social institutions
- Annotated checklists:
- to help business owners perform due diligence on an acquisition
- for life insurance clients to ascertain that their beneficiaries are in order
- necessary to maximize tax deductions
- Suggested points in an operating agreement for family-owned businesses buying the previous generation’s interests
- Case study of how you helped a client use a Qualified Personal Residence Trust to pass real estate to children
Enjoy the ride
It’s important to enjoy your book’s subject. Even if you hire a ghost writer to do the grunt work, you’re going to be immersed in the book project for quite a while, from writing it, to the promotional activities required to get a return on your invested time and money. That’s another reason starting with something smaller than a full-fledged book is helpful — if you tire of the book or you’re out of material before the first guide is written, that’s an early sign that the book concept needs to be re-formulated.
Yes, you can buy book authorship
If you don’t have any original content and you’re not willing to develop it, there are companies that will sell you a pre-written book that you can lightly customize. Beware that in the world of digital downloads and interstate commerce there’s no guarantee that your audience won’t catch on to this ploy. If they do, your strategy will backfire. I can’t help you there. Where I can help is in writing blog posts, newsletters, articles and other materials that we can roll into a book later.
Books are Marathons, Articles are Sprints. Sprint First
My stream of inquiries has picked up lately from business professionals who want me to ghost write their books. YEAH!
When an inquiry comes from someone who already produces content — whether a newsletter, blog, white papers, articles or presentations – our job is relatively straightforward. Not easy. Not cheap. Straightforward.
When, however, I get a call from someone who recognizes the marketing need to publish something, but only has a vague idea of what they want to cover and what they want readers to learn, I’m reluctant to sign on with the project. Why? It’s the equivalent of turning a couch potato into an Olympic athlete. Yes, it can be done, but most people don’t want it enough to do what it takes to achieve it. In these cases, I encourage them to start smaller (more on that below).
Then there’s the caller who just wants something — ANYTHING — without going the licensee route. In case you’re unfamiliar with that racket, here’s an example:
How was I going to derive his original voice? Where were the case studies? Did he just want me to re-write something for him based on company brochures? The assistant answered by sending me the two books that lit the fire under her boss. She said they wanted “something like them, but original.”
The first one was a Print-on-Demand (POD) book that permitted light customization by licensees. They could place the words “Courtesy of (insert name here)” on the front. The back cover allowed a 3″ block at the bottom for copy of their choice. The other was a booklet, not a book (8.5″ x 11″ pages stapled in the middle and folded) covering myths about annuities. A nice business model for the authors, I suppose.
Excuse me while I spit.
Consider an article or eBook first
If you want to write an original book of at least 15,000 words (otherwise it’s a booklet or article) and have nothing original for me to go on, be prepared to stroke a big retainer check and to spend a lot of time on the project.
If you’re not quite ready for that kind of marathon, start with a sprint. Consider a white paper or eBook of about 4000 words highlighting case studies from your practice. An article will give you something to test drive and refine or expand upon in the next edition or eventual book.
Final note: a professional layout and attractive illustrations will make your book or article something you’ll be proud of and something people will actually read — and isn’t that the point? I can help you find a graphics professional if you aren’t already working with one.
