Red Shoe Blogger: A Manifesta

http://longawaypix.com/blog/

Let’s mash up reality and assume that Dorothy wrote The Wizard of Oz and it is a memoir told through the lens of pharmaceuticals and it is to be published next year.

Dorothy has written a great book: part trippy fantasy, part freudian/jungian/wonky archetypical therapy, part love letter to friendship, and a prefeminist, feminist, post-feminist meditation on the nature and power of femininity wrapped in a trendy, little-dog-carrying, hot-shoe-wearing package.

It is Sex and the City meets Eat Love Pray meets Little Red Riding Hood, on acid. It is a journey. It is a great book. It must be read.

Dorothy knows this. She feels it right from her soul to the soles of her ruby red shoes. She can see the future: a movie. Musicals. The talk show circuit. Oprah. Much money, much love, much conversation, and a place in popular imagination.

It can be all of these things, not because she promotes the flying monkeys out of it – which she will, and absolutely should do – but because it offers a watery answer to our thirsty, questioning souls: you are the author of your own affair.

(Plus there are weird scary creatures who learn to love each other and grow as twisted, maturing moral entities and we all know that stuff sells. I hear a little book called Twilight is doing quite well these days.)

So this book should sell. It needs to sell. Dorothy wants it to sell.

Even more than that, Dorothy wants it to be read, to land, to take root, to grow, to inhabit, fertilize and animate our popular imagination.

If I was Dorothy – and I am – I would start a blog before I even started writing the book. I’d go all Seth Godin and build a tribe on Twitter. I’d find my people. I’d give them somewhere to find me. I’d get on the cluetrain. I’d Oprah. I’d firestart. I’d listen to Leo Babauta when he says he doesn’t believe in SEO. I’d make friends. I’d work the aich-ee-double-hockey-sticks out of ProBlogger and spend serious time with Outspoken Media. I’d figure out the lessons learned by our pantehon of blog gods and best-selling writers. I’d figure out the mechanics of demand and distribution and audience and I’d build it and they would come. And if they didn’t come, I’d go get them and then hug and pet and feed them because that is the purpose of promotional tricks and lassos and rodeo ponies and hoopla.

But I would only do that if, like Dorothy, I had something wizardly to offer: the journey. The passion. The learning. The love. The living. The lessons. The magic. The really, really great content. Please.

And this is what exasperates me about the ‘blogging and social media for money’ superhighway. So many times I follow the yellow brick road laid by an enterprising blogger who’s working the system – rocking the comments, manufacturing controversy, guest posting, paper-training SEO, tweeting – and when I get there and pull back the curtain…nothing. No wizard. No magic. No message. Just a lot of mechanics and whirling buttons and a robotic, soulless special effects machine.

Honestly, that’s what a lot of problogging and blogs and social media enterprises are looking like these days. It is turn-key blogging. It is execution unsparked by ideas. It is a waste of time and tweets and it won’t make you money.

Straight up: I LOVE money. I want money. I make money and you should, too. I want you and Dorothy and every other problogger out there to have as many tiny dogs – more! – as you and your minions can carry.

I just want you to make that money from selling wisdom, truth, experience, art or sparkly scarlet maryjanes (and if you are, I’m ALWAYS in the market for red shoes, so please put me on your mailing list).

I want you to make an offering. I want you to have something to offer. I want you to be a Red Shoe Blogger. I just made that up.

A Red Shoe Blogger is not blogging exclusively for money.

A Red Shoe Blogger has a mission and is animated by passion and all the tips and tricks and hacks and tools and tweets are harnessed in service of that divine, cosmic, helpful, genuine, meaningful objective.

That mission is Home.

So this is what I want from all the Red Shoe Bloggers out there: I want you to buck the system, or work the system, but know that the system is not a slot machine that will pay off if only you keep pulling that arm and never ever run out of nickels or take a pee-break.

Success is not only about the systems.

The home address of success is passion, talent (let’s be honest), creation, contribution, collaboration, conversation, and community.That is where hot sweaty abundance and cold hard cash reside (FYI, they’re totally a couple) and I wish more bloggers lived there too.

Because, after all, there’s no place like home.

___________________

Red Shoe Blogger was my first guest post for ProBlogger in October 2009 – and, as I tried to say yesterday, it is my manifesta and my mission.

Is this your mission, too?

image credit: Jennifer Longaway


May 21, 2010 | filed under: Meaning, Money, People, Purpose, Work

45 people have we need you too.

How to Get Unstuck, Part 3: You Have Everything You Need and All You Need is Love. And to Launch Something. hint hint.

The third part of getting unstuck is people.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself because my life is a reverie. My life is like a dream I dreamed when I dreamed of beautiful people.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever before had the kind of love and loyalty that I have in my life right now – and all I can say is thank God and thank Twitter and Thank God For Twitter.

There is a perception that Twitter is frivolous and we’re all talking about our last ham sandwich – and we are, and that’s ambient intimacy – but I have met incredible, inspired, talented, heartfelt and heart-full people on twitter.

People who’ve become my soul’s people, my sisterfriends, my brothers-in-arms, my mothers, my lovers, my compadres.

So I could wax lyrical about Twitter, but that’s not the point.

The point is that right now, and during the past year, every time I was stuck I have been overwhelmed by the visceral, tangible support of people who want to love me up (and do).

Just over a year ago, I had a new place, a newish job, and was newly single. Life was fine. I was going to work and taking care of my kids and running on that hamster wheel every day and it all meant…nothing.

So I started a blog and discovered another blog that rocked my world, and, dare I say it, changed my life.

Yeah, I’m talking about White Hot Truth with Danielle LaPorte. I read it obsessively. It lit me up. I learned things. I stayed motivated. This thing I was doing – writing, blogging, making meaning – seemed…

possible.

And so one fine day last June, I took a day off work and drove to Whistler for a firestarter. And on the winding highway on the way to Whistler I wrestled with my identity, my purpose, my practicality, my comfortable suburban life, and my bills. (As in: how is this cute thing I do – writing – gonna pay ‘em?)

Finally, forty-five minutes into the drive and thirty-six years into my life, I gave up the fight. I gave up the stuck.

I said, fuck it. I’m an artist.

And everything Danielle said in that firestarter was for me and everything in that firestarter affirmed that I must scrape back the bullshit and be faithful to my purpose. That I must be true to who I am.

An artist. A writer.

I got misty-eyed and emotional only moments into the session.

And when I got home, I found an e-mail from Danielle:

you are one talented writer. You’re hot shit and the Real Deal and you should be getting your ass published as widely as possible.

I cried my eyes out.

I needed that.

I needed that to keep going.

I kept going.

____________________

Now, almost a year later, writing is paying the bills. I still get stuck, though. I get stuck because I take too much on. I get stuck because I’m wed to what I should do rather than what I want to do. I get stuck because there’s something I want to offer and I’m scared to offer it. I get stuck because it is easier to start a piece or an essay or a book than it is to finish it.

And people – my mentors, peers, friends – are what un-stick me every time.

I wrote a piece about Dave Doolin last week – about how much his consulting, his website, and his book have helped me improve my blogging.

And then, a couple of days later, I wrote a piece about how I was stuck.

Within moments of posting that piece, I had a text message and then an e-mail from him. Minutes after that, we were on Skype talking to each other and he was totally in it to win it with me.

Dave and I had been making noises about writing a piece together but hadn’t actually done it…and that night Dave told me we were going to write that piece together, now.

So we did. We texted on Skype and wrote a post together using a shared Google doc. We wrote the piece from start to finish in forty-five minutes.

This was huge to me.

It was huge for three reasons.

First.
Something wasn’t quite right in my life – I was stuck – and here was my friend instantly, 100% in it with me, helping me muddle my way through it.

That kind of loyalty means everything. And this is why I love Twitter (and Dave) with an unholy passion: because I first talked to Dave on Twitter. Now he’s my friend and he’s got me when I’m stuck. Wow.

Second.
I’m not a team player (don’t tell anyone). I am a writer. I like to do things by myself. Also, I’m pretty book-smart, which means I’m still scarred from years of group-work in high school where well-meaning teachers matched me up with kids who saw me and saw an easy A. So my experience with group work (slow, and all on me) is why I don’t much care for collaborating.

Recently I’ve had people – really lovely, talented, compelling people, people I really do want to work with – approach me to collaborate on projects and I’ve turned them down simply because I thought I don’t like collaborating.

But writing this piece with Dave etched a new collaborative groove in my head. Usually it takes me two to three hours to write a piece; when we wrote together, it took forty-five minutes. It was fast and it was satisfying.

It was fast because as I was writing something, he was finishing another sentence, or editing a paragraph I had just written; or as he was writing something, I was inserting digressions into the middle of his paragraph or pulling the threads through the piece. The back-and-forth and the pace and the creation was rewarding.

So that was a clicky lightbulb moment: collaborating can feed the creative process instead of stalling it.

Third.
I was stuck last week because I had a number of pieces started and zero pieces finished. I was frustrated. I wasn’t crossing anything off my list. And the less I finished, the less I finished. Over and over. Not finishing was feeding and breeding more not finishing.

And Dave instinctively knew that what I needed to get moving, to get unstuck, was to finish something. Anything. Now.

And so we started – and finished – that piece, together.

And I was lightened. The whole week hadn’t been a waste, after all.

Good-bye, stuck. Thank you, Dave.
————————–

So that’s how Danielle LaPorte helped me get going, and keep going when I first started out, and how Dave Doolin helped me get going, and keep going, last week.

Your people will get you unstuck if you let them.
————————–
Which brings me to my Big Stuck.

For a while, I’ve had the feeling that what people want from me (and what I want to give them) is not Yet Another Boring E-book.

I’ve felt that what we need to do, together, is connect.

I’ve felt like what I have to offer is writing, and love. (And writing is just a channel through which love flows.)

I’ve wanted to offer classes and consultations about how to develop your unique writing voice, and how not to be a boring writer.

(Please, let’s not be boring bloggers. There’s so much competition for that. There’s none for being you.)

But…I Am A Copywriter. I should be doing that – not hanging out on Twitter all day and talking on Skype and answering questions by e-mail.

But that stuff – the answering questions, the helping, the loving – is what I love to do.

Recently I was telling my friend (insert mental air quotes around that, please) F that my best qualities are also my worst qualities. My best quality is that I’m a Lover which means I take care of the people around me. My worst quality is that I’m a Lover, which means I make other people’s missions my own, and sometimes more important than my own.

F said, maybe helping other people with their missions IS your mission.

Maybe he’s right. I thought the same thing just a week ago when I read Danielle LaPorte’s The FireStarter Sessions vook (video-book).

In The FireStarter Sessions, Danielle insists that you MUST do what you love. You must lead with your strengths. You must choose the things that light you up so that you can light the way for yourself, and for others.

I write and I love and even my writing is loving. The things that get me really excited are helping other people. When someone e-mails me and they have a question, or they need help, a close review, or advice, I’m all in. I’ll drop the things I should be doing to do that.

I can look at someone else’s writing and instantly, instinctively know if it needs sugar or salt or more heat. I know how to season it and cook it. I know which ingredients are missing, how to amp up the emotional contrast and tension, and what technical tricks – rhetoric, typography, poetic devices – will work.

I understand how to train your writing voice to sing. I love editing your pieces. I love talking to you about your writing and encouraging you to take risks – and I’ve done that quietly, informally, and freely for several writers and bloggers.

So that’s what I want to do, and what I’m going to do – and what the people around me have encouraged me to get unstuck enough to do.

So let’s do that.

Do you want to write more persuasive, emotional, meaningful pieces?
I’ll download to you everything I know about writing and teach you to do that.

Do you want to unlock your writing voice?
I’ve got the keys.

Do you want to know how to build (and make money from) a blog, all while juggling a job, family, and life?
I can show you how I re-framed every single obstacle in my life – full-time job, single mom, two kids under five, very little child-care or support, no money, no time – into an opportunity and out of those opportunities created a rapidly growing blog, new business and new life for myself.

Do you want to guest post for A-list blogs?
I can tell you how I did it so you can do it, too.

Do you want to blog better? Do you want to know what you’re doing right (and maybe what you’re doing wrong)?
Dave Doolin and I will review your blog – the art and the science of it – consult with you, construct a report for you, and tell you how to do it better.

And do you want it in a face-to-face class or do you want it on the phone?

Because baby, I can do it both ways.

—————–
How Not To Be a Boring Writer: The Workshop

Vancouver, Saturday July 17th, 25 spaces available, $50 per person
E-mail to reserve your space (or to organize additional dates! Hell yes, I’ll travel!)

Red Shoe Blogger

I review three of your pieces and then we work together on the phone to amp up your unique writing voice.
E-mail to book a session ($100)

League of Extraordinary Bloggers

The Art and the Science of Blogging. Blog Review, Report, and Personal Consultations with Dave Doolin and Kelly Diels.
E-mail to book your blog review ($150)

May 20, 2010 | filed under: Love, Meaning, People, Purpose, Work

41 people have we need you too.

A Love Letter to Dave Doolin. I mean, Blog Post Engineering.

I started blogging one year and two weeks ago (April 18, 2009).

When I started, I wanted to Just Get Started. Now.

(‘Just do it’ really is a recipe for success. I have LOTS of great ideas, but the only ones that count are the I ones I execute – and NOW is always the right time.)

And when I started, I didn’t want to figure out WordPress, I just wanted to write.

So that’s what I did. For the first six months, I used GoDaddy’s built-in blog whatchamacallit and a template. I wrote and I pressed publish. I wrote and I pressed publish. I wrote and I pressed publish.

And then I got to promoting my pieces with links on Facebook and Twitter.

So it was publish and promote. Publish and promote.

That works, but it takes a lot of muscle (and a lot of friends!) – and it does not really endear you to Google.

Google loved my name + cleavage but not much else. My search traffic was mostly imaginary.

And search engine results are pretty important for building passive traffic. It is how you maximize the impact of your magnetic words.

Some of my old pieces, for example, are pretty good, and they’ve been read by six people: me, my mother, my sisters, Heather and Monica.

(There is a profound irony here: my most fervent supporters and early day commenters get the least of me IRL because My Blog Ate My Life. I’m sorry, my loves. It will get better once I figure out how to scale my business beyond my time.

I will have to cut and paste this into an e-mail from my mom, who had to stop reading my blog when I started writing about my sex life. I’m probably more relieved than she is. I’m also relieved that my six year old does not have independent internet access. Yet.)

But, as they are, Google will probably never send good traffic my way. These post lack tags, they’re not categorized, they don’t have descriptions…and so on. After all, I wrote and pressed publish. I didn’t do any of the backend stuff to make my blog posts search engine friendly.

Mostly because I didn’t know how to.

Learning To Blog – AFTER I Started Blogging. Whatever. It worked for Me.

In October/November, when I decided to get serious about blogging, I knew WordPress was the way I’d go. But I didn’t want to figure it out. I just wanted it done for me, so I could write and press publish, write and press publish.

So kickass web developer, Amanda Farough of Violet Minded, takes care of all of that. I tell her what I want to happen. She makes it happen and sends me invoices. We’re both happier for it, and so is my blog, which now looks and feels so much more ME.

But I still wasn’t getting a lot of search engine traffic. ‘Write and press publish’ wasn’t serving me very well. I knew that all those boxes in the WordPress interface that I left empty probably had a purpose.

They do. They really do. They want to make your blog posts kiss up to Google and friends.

I sighed and said some bad words and knew I had a little lot of work ahead of me. Fortunately I have a friend who knows ’bout this stuff.

(And, not coincidentally, he’s having an “un-launch” this week.)

Wherein I Extol The Virtues of Dave Doolin’s Website in A Weekend and Blog Post Engineering

Any of you who follow my Twitter stream already know that I’m obsessed with Dave Doolin Website in a Weekend.

We’re sort of in the same business (blogging) but Dave Doolin is terrific at all the things I’m not – which is basically everything that is NOT writing and being social.

I’m good at the outward facing stuff. I like the promotion part of blogging. I could mainline Twitter. Facebook and I are going through a bit of a rough patch, but I think we’ll pull through. Guest posts? We started off slow but now I’m all in. Commenting? We’re friends with benefits.

Most of that stuff I picked up, intuitively, and then figured out the ‘rules’ thereof from ProBlogger and Copyblogger and a little prodding from Josh Hanagarne.

And sites like ProBlogger and Copyblogger are TERRIFIC for explaining the promotion and the how-to-write a blog post part of blogging – which is all the stuff I like to do and am naturally pretty good at.

Website in a Weekend covers the ins-and-outs of writing and community-building too, but I read it because Dave Doolin teaches me the stuff that is not intuitive – like how to link to a specific paragraph or section of a blog post instead of the entire piece. Or how to structure the url (slug) of your piece for maximum keyword/SEO bang. Or how to make sure your tags, categories, description, title and slug all echo each other’s keywords and get you lots of good SEO juju.

In other words, how to do all that stuff I wasn’t doing.

(As Dave says, I was basically treating WordPress like it was an online version of Microsoft Word. Write, save/publish. And that’s it.)

And this stuff – the stuff I wasn’t doing – is pretty essential.

Look Ma, RESULTS!

The way I was blogging meant that I wrote a piece, tweeted it, and it got lots of love for a day or two and then disappeared into my dusty archives – without a way to find it again. That kind of blogging is like putting a book in a library without cataloguing it. Not smart. Not find-able.

So I got Dave to teach me how to do it. I bought his book, Blog Post Engineering, and did a couple of consulting sessions with him.

And look what happened:

When I do the things that Dave taught me, personally and in Blog Post Engineering, I get search engine traffic. That means that pieces I wrote a month ago or a week ago are continually getting hits, because the search engines can find them.

That makes me really happy – because the point of all of this writing is that people read my words.

So getting the backend right – optimizing each blog post so that the search engines can find it – means that I’m extending the life and audience of each piece I write.

And I don’t have to write for search engines (which is good, because I’m an ARTIST, doncha know, and We Don’t Do That). Instead, I write what I want and then wrap it up in tags and title attributes and anchors that help search engines find it and love it up.

To me, ‘blog post engineering’ is like interior design. In interior design, you’ve got to get the envelope right: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the light. The basics. Once you’ve got those right, everything else builds on top of that. If you’ve got peeling plaster walls, your sofa will never really look good and the room will never feel comfortable.

Blog post engineering helps me get the envelope right so that my words can find their audience, and invite them in, continually.

I’m so glad I took the time to figure it out, and that Dave (and Blog Post Engineering) helped me do that.

Which is why I tell my friends who are starting blogs (hi Cara!) and daughters of friends who are considering starting a website (hi Acacia!) to read Website in a Weekend, take Dave Doolin’s free course, and buy Blog Post Engineering.

It is not just because I’m kissing up to Dave (though there’s that, too). It is because Dave Doolin + Website in a Weekend + Blog Post Engineering, taught me stuff that made me a little smarter and my blog a lot better.

Just ask Amanda Farough, who I am pretty sure fell out of her chair when I – the queen of don’t tell me a damn thing about tech because I Don’t Wanna Know, just make it work and we’ll never speak of it except in hushed tones – e-mailed her a line of buggy code and said “someone has hacked my site; I found this”.

I might have told Dave this story in a giddy, “look at me! I’m so smart!” moment. He was very proud of me.

But I digress. Go check out Blog Post Engineering. I guarantee you’ll learn lots that will make you (and your blog) better.

And in three months, Google might love you 117% more, too.

May 5, 2010 | filed under: People, Work

24 people have we need you too.

How To Get A Book Deal – The Accidentally Epic Series

Here’s a list of all the pieces in the accidentally epic how-to-get-a-book deal series based on advice from published authors to a wannabe (that’s me!):

The how-to-get-a-book-deal piece, in full:

How to Get a Book Deal. An Evolutionary, Biblical Approach. (This Is Why I am a Writer And Not a Scientist.)

The How To Get A Book Deal Interviews, with:

* I also did phone-interviews with Josh Hanagarne and Gretchen Rubin but get very, very sad when I think about doing more transcription

**My phone interview with Gretchen Rubin – in which she gave me some personal advice that really landed with me – inspired me to be a little nicer, online. Gretchen Rubin is my Jiminy Cricket.

Guest Posts at Write To Done (that triggered this whole series):

Guest Post at Write to Done: How to Get a Book Deal: Part 1 – Printasauraus Rex Vs. The Blog: Publishing 2.0

Get Thee A Blog, and A Big One: Guest Post At Write to Done

March 28, 2010 | filed under: How To Get a Book Deal, People, Work

no people have we need you too.

How to Get a Book Deal. An Evolutionary, Biblical Approach. (This Is Why I am a Writer And Not a Scientist.)

You know the old saw, “if you want to learn something, teach it”?

I’ve got deep, dark nefarious plans to write a book.

But I don’t know a thing about the publishing industry. Agents, proposals, negotiating, and advances are a sexy mystery to me.

So I asked around. I asked

Gretchen Rubin – The Happiness Project, Power Money Fame Sex, Forty Ways to Look At Winston Churchill, Forty Ways to Look at JFK, Profane Waste (with Dana Hoey)

Leo Babauta – The Power of Less

Danielle LaPorte – Style Statement

Erin Doland – Unclutter Your Life in One Week

Josh Hanagarne - I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you…but watch him. A book is coming…ok I can’t keep a secret. Read the piece.

Chris Guillebeau – The Art of Non-Conformity (in stores Fall 2010)

I asked them: how’d you get a book deal, baby? (With variations on that theme.)

And they told me. And it was goooooood.

(You can read my interviews with Erin Doland and Chris Guillebeau, here. I’ll run the interview with Leo Babauta, tomorrow.)

The first two (of four) parts of this mammoth essay (3500+ words!) appeared at Write To Done, as

Here’s the piece, in its entirety.

____________________

How to Get a Book Deal. An Evolutionary, Biblical Approach. (This Is Why I am a Writer And Not a Scientist.)

Want a book deal? Think your magnetic, compelling, ninja talent for the written word is all it takes?

Think again.

Now, says author/blogger/truth-telling goddess Danielle LaPorte, “two-thirds of a publisher’s decision is based on your platform”.

In other words, your blog. How famous are you? How big does your audience and ‘platform’ need to be?

“Pretty fucking huge, apparently…” continues LaPorte, who was in New York last September pimping her latest book proposal to agents and publishers, “because I just got told I’m not famous enough.”

Publishing. It is Ancient History so Study the Scrolls.

Danielle LaPorte knows a lil’ something about the publishing racket.

In a former life, LaPorte was freelance book publicist for publishing houses like Simon and Schuster and Harper Collins. Now she has a juju personal development site called White Hot Truth, a rockin’ inspirational speaking career, and a new TV gig.  And that’s not all: four years ago, she and a co-author wrote Style Statement and sold it to the prestigious Little Brown and Company for a $150,000 advance.

Back then, she didn’t even have a blog.  True story.

Bestselling author Gretchen Rubin didn’t have a blog, either, when she pitched her Happiness Project book proposal to publishers. An established, best-selling author of four books, her read on the blog/book deal relationship is a little less go-blog-go.

In publishing circles, says Rubin, “there is some skepticism about bloggers. Books and blogs are very different mediums. Can a blogger write a book that hangs together as a narrative?”

Still, Rubin’s agent encouraged her to start a blog.

“She planted seeds,” says Rubin, “and I was resistant…” Eventually, though, she started her blog, The Happiness Project, to test her thesis that novelty (new medium, the blog) and consistency (maintaining the blog and writing new content daily) are essential components of happiness.

Now, Rubin has been told that “your blog is more important than your book. Never forget that.”

Those stories – legends of non-fiction book deals signed only three to four years ago and captured without carefully cultivated venus-blog-traps – might be ancient history.

Printasauras Rex? Meet Twitter. It Will Eat You Alive. Play Nice.

It was about a two-and-a-half year process from securing an agent to it [the book] coming off the presses. Painfully long. It is totally jurassic. The publishing industry is antiquated.

Publishers have not seen the future. There are a few who are admitting that things have to change and that they are Jurassic and that the future is social media. The future is multimedia expressions of all forms of literature. – Danielle LaPorte

The publishing industry might be prehistoric, Jurassic and slow-moving, but it will follow the scent of food. Or cash.

You’ve got a blog and an email list and an RSS feed of devoted readers to whom you can announce – and pre-sell – your book? Yes, please.

Gary Vaynerchuk knows this. He also knows his worth. Vaynerchuk worked 5 days a week for seventeen months to create his cult/platform and estimates the audience for Wine Library TV at 90,000 people per episode. He has 850,480 followers on Twitter. When he mentions a wine, it sells.

Craig Haseroty, the owner Sojourn Cellars, a small winery in California, told the New York Times that “nothing has put more people on our database and sold more wine than Wine Library TV.” Vaynerchuk mentioned their wine and their switchboard lit up. In 24 hours, Sojourn Cellars answered 500 phone calls and e-mails. They sold a lot of wine.

That’s the power of suggestion. Vaynerchuk’s followers are vayniacs.

Somewhere out there, Seth Godin and Chris Brogan are smiling, knowingly.

With this kind of clout, the wine-spitting social media maestro Vaynerchuk was not likely to say “book deal? Really, ME? Really REALLY? Oh THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.”

Legend has it that Harper Studio is publishing 2.0. They’ve heard of this little thing the kids call a ‘platform’ and are willing to share the profits – and also the pain and price of promotion – with authors.

And President Bob Miller apparently doesn’t pay a penny over $100K for an advance.

What is a Vaynerchuk with a legion of devoted, possibly tipsy vayniacs to do with a price ceiling?

Blow it up.

Vaynerchuk set up shop in the Harper office.  Tweeted about The 26th Story, the Harper Studio blog. Watched, in real time, as that blog suddenly drowned in traffic.

His point: my people like me. They like my suggestions. They WILL buy my book and make all of us rich and pfooey! I throw down my handkerchief in a faux snit and laugh at your measly $100K!

(This is not a direct quote.)

The result? Gary Vaynerchuk – who casually admits that he doesn’t read books – signed a seven figure (translation for the math challenged: at least a million dollars), ten book deal with Harper Studio. His first book, Crush It, debuted in September 2009, and yeah, it did make the New York Times’ bestseller list.

And he’s not even a writer.

I know. I just died a little, inside, too.

The moral of the story? (And, I argue, the moral is not just a story because it is based on a very comprehensive, validated sample of at least three published authors, which makes it a scientific fact.)

Get a blog, rock it out, and then go get yourself a book deal.

Need a Book Deal? Get Thee A Blog, and a Big One

Newbie authors and big deal bloggers Chris Guillebeau, Leo Babauta and Erin Doland accidentally and accidentally-on-purpose hacked their way through the publishing jungle with their brain children/addictions – Art of Non-Conformity, Zen Habits and The Unclutterer – firmly in tow.

If Chris Guillebeau was forced to identify his favourite child, he’d waffle: ”I really love them both.”

But I’m going to kill them both if you don’t choose.

“I guess if I had to choose, I’d choose the blog since it allows me to reach more people…”.

Even so, Guillebeau started his blog with a book deal in mind. “It was one of the primary goals of starting my blog,” he says, “I felt like I had a message to share and wanted to write a book.” He knew that it would be “hard to break into the publishing world without a strong online presence” and so along came ”the blog and everything else I did online for nearly a full year prior to getting the book deal.”

Guillebeau has now signed a deal worth more than a handful of m&ms but less than $100K, and “in terms of the time commitment, probably reflective of minimum wage.” What the hell, Chris? “That’s OK with me, though – I feel very grateful that I can do what I love to do”. Well, okay then. You’ve got a book deal and we don’t. Thanks for rubbing it in.

Guillebeau is probably writing that book right now – likely while sitting in a plane or an airport terminal, poor baby – and expects his book The Art of Non-Conformity to be in stores September 2010.

Like Chris Guillebeau, Leo Babauta also loves his first-born best. His blog “is my baby, and will always hold a special place deep within my heart” but publishing a book was “a fantasy come true,” thanks to his blog:

As my blog took off, publishers and agents approached me. My blog had 26,000 subscribers within the first year, so it was obvious my writing was connecting with a lot of people — people who responded enthusiastically…

It was essential that I built up my audience with my blog before I tried to sell the book. Publishers get a million requests per second (about the same as the number of Google searches done per second), and you need to stand out. If you have a successful blog that has shown your potential as a writer and marketer, you have a good shot at least. If you don’t, you’d better have an AMAZING proposal.

Leo Babauta knows what he’s talking about. He has to. He has six kids to feed which is why I’m so glad his publisher advanced him $80,000 for his 2008 book, The Power of Less.

I digress.

Unlike Guillebeau and Babauta, Erin Doland doesn’t talk about her blog and her book in parental terms, but that is because she has a problem. She is “obsessed with reading and writing books the way druggies pursue their next high.”

In fact, before Doland signed her book deal, she would lie in bed at night and “stare at the ceiling and feel like I had failed to achieve one of my purposes in life.” And then, during the day, she’d bitch about it. “I wasn’t quiet about this failure…Everyone I know was well aware of my feelings of inadequacy over not yet having written a book.”

Thank goodness for her wildly popular blog, The Unclutterer, because “if it weren’t for my posts on Unclutterer.com there wouldn’t be Unclutter Your Life in One Week. My agent and editor both were fans of my writing on the website, and they wouldn’t have had a clue whom I was if it weren’t for the site.”

But they did and they do and Unclutter Your Life in One Week came out November 3, 2009.  Bulging garages and strung-out attics everywhere are detoxing as we speak.

Get Thee an Agent

Josh Hanagarne has some serious blog juju.

World’s Strongest Librarian is less than a year old, but traffic doubles each month; writing furiously helps Hanagarne muscle through Tourette’s Syndrome; ‘his people’ are icky-sticky passionate; and oh yes Seth Godin e-mailed him to say thanks but no thanks to Hanagarne’s offer to guest post.

Why was Godin’s rejection magic?

Because in Godin’s humble, genius-marketing opinion, Hanagarne’s story should be a book, not a guest post, and so he should talk to Godin’s literary agent RIGHT NOW. Seth Godin hooked Josh Hanagarne up.

This is a blogger’s wet field-of-dream. If you write it (blog it!), they will come.

The magical baseball/blogging/cornfield of publishing dreams worked for Leo Babauta, Erin Doland and Josh Hanagarne. But what if your imaginary agent doesn’t hear your frantic law-of-attraction affirmations “I will get an agent and a book deal and a sick, sick advance, I will get an agent and a book deal and a sick, sick advance” and magically appear?

Simple: Go get yourself an agent.

“This is the hardest part”, says Gretchen Rubin, who kicked it old school and knocked on doors.

So did Chris Guillebeau. Yes, even social media savvy and internet famous Chris Guillebeau had to get out there and actively seek representation.

Before his blog waged war on Alexa, Guillebeau “approached everyone I could think of and more. I knocked on doors, posted on my blog that I was looking for an agent, and asked a couple of hundred people for referrals. Some people wrote back, some didn’t, but that’s just how it works.”

Now that Guillebeau’s campaign for world domination is firmly underway, “the tables have turned and I get approached all the time. I’ve been fortunate to receive a lot of good media coverage – New York Times, CNN, Business Week, etc. – and out of that experience, a number of other people have made contact to pitch me on things.”

Recruiting representation worked for Rubin, who oozes kind words about her agent, and it worked for Chris Guillebeau. Guillebeau is utterly, completely, passionately sold on his agent, David Fugate with LaunchBooks. “He’s fantastic,” says Guillebeau, “and the book would not have sold so quickly without his great work. He also spent a great deal of time refining the proposal to make it both more marketable (which I expected) and also much better in terms of content (which I didn’t expect but greatly appreciated)”.

Danielle LaPorte would approve. When choosing an agent, she advises writers to “hold out for the love,” because, after all, “it is a potentially life-changing relationship. Your agent will be your greatest advocate. They will want to get you the most money, because, you know, they’re getting 10-15% of it, so they will want to get you the exposure.”  Not only that, but “the right agent will actually work with you to craft that book. They could be hugely influential in the finished product. They will go to the mat to you in the end on everything from price point to pub date to cover design. It is really important.”

And the writer/agent chemistry doesn’t have to be interpersonal-clicky-butterflies love.

“It may sound contradictory,” admits LaPorte, “but you and your agent don’t need to see eye to eye on the material. You need to have free reign with your voice. An agent can be philosophical opposition and still go get you a good deal and help bolster your career.”

How did she find her agent for Style Statement?

The answer makes for a great story. Malcolm Gladwell (yes! Malcolm Gladwell! Poet-wooing, point-tipping, intellectual whodunit-spinning, best-selling, Malcolm Gladwell!) makes an appearance.

Like doorknockers Chris Guillebeau and Gretchen Rubin, Danielle LaPorte found an agent it an old-fashioned way. She read books.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell “profusely, adoringly thanked his agent” whom, he argued, should be the “next president of the United States or at the very least the CEO of Microsoft.” LaPorte thought, “she’ll do” and e-mailed Malcolm Gladwell.

(Duh! Who wouldn’t?)

LaPorte put on her charming pants and danced. She wrote, “I’m Canadian. You’re Canadian. You’re from Etobicoke. I know how to pronounce Eh-toe-bih-ko. You’re half-black. I have dreadlocks. Here’s my concept. Help me get to your agent.”

He replied within two days, writing, “You’re so charming. How could I refuse?”

To recap: kissing best-selling Godin/Gladwell ass can land you an agent. If that fails, your blog is your baseball/cornfield and if you build it they will come. If that fails, try calling around, knocking on doors, writing letters (and maybe even reading books!) and asking for one directly.

But by all means, by whatever means necessary, get an agent, and a good one, and one you like (even love), because a good agent will help you write and sell a great proposal.

And that’s what you sell, when you hawk a non-fiction book: a proposal. So the agent/author/proposal triangle is important.  Get all the angles right.

Write a Divine Book Proposal

Ah yes, the book proposal. If you’re writing non-fiction, you sell a proposal, not a finished manuscript.

What is a book proposal? It is a hook, a map of the book (the table of contents), your bio, market research (ie where does this fit? Who will read it?), marketing (how will you and the publisher sell the pants off it?) and oh yes, some sample chapters to show that you really can write more than a proposal.

And now, apparently, a book proposal needs to include the weight of your platform. Who are you? How big are you? Who is talking about you? How do you talk back? How much does Alexa and Google love you?

Need help licking the proposal beast? It is easily available online and in the bookstores. Leo Babauta “found a few examples of proposals on the web and picked out the parts I liked best, merging them into one kick-ass document.” Danielle LaPorte used a template created by Linda Severson and then “when it felt right to go out of the box, I did. I am not Times New Roman. I am not double-spaced”.

Even with all the resources easily available, every single author I spoke to (LaPorte, Rubin, Babauta, Doland, Guillebeau) said that when it came time to cook up a proposal, their agent was in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, apron strings tied, stirring the pot.  Agents are helpful critters. That’s why you should get a good one.

Josh Hanagarne found oodles of helpful proposal writing books. He would read how-to-write-a-proposal book, revise his proposal, read another book, revise the proposal, and did that, several times, until his agent said “I want you to stop reading those books.”

So, if you’re stuck, what about a proposal coach?

I put the question to our intrepid authors.

Q. Proposal Coach. Did you use or consider using one?

The answers could be characterized as follows:

A1. What is this mythical creature of which you speak?

Erin Doland: No. I didn’t even know there were such things as proposal coaches.

A2. That sounds like a scam.

Leo Babauta: I didn’t know they existed. If they do, they are probably scammers. The info you need to write a proposal is available free online. A proposal coach would make money on the insecurities of writers, which are notoriously large and numerous.

A3. Your agent is your proposal coach.

Chris Guillebeau: I thought that was the role of a good agent. The problem I see with a proposal coach is that they aren’t the ones who will pitch your project to publishers. I suppose if you’re having a hard time getting a concept together, then such a person could help, but realize that you’d likely end up doing it all over again with a good agent.

A4. Might not be a bad idea.

Gretchen Rubin: That might not be a bad idea.

So there you have it. It might not be a bad idea to get a proposal coach, if that’s your thing, but it is probably a better idea to just get a great agent who will help you write a killer proposal.

The Deal. Negotiating. You Need a Meat-Eater for This.

Back in the day, Oprah had a shark of an agent. Sort of. He’s actually an entertainment lawyer, has been called “the little-known power behind the media queen’s throne”, and Oprah herself says he’s “a piranha.”

Oprah’s piranha/entertainment lawyer is Jeff Jacobs and they met when she was looking for contract advice in 1984. Jacobs advised her to build a brand and create an empire rather selling herself as talent-for-hire. Then he helped her create Harpo.

That worked out fairly well for her.

If Oprah has a piranha, you need a shark. We’re talking about media now, not publishing, but the lesson holds.

The lesson is this: get the right agent. Then, when you’re approaching publishers, “Don’t go with your begging bowl”, cautions Danielle LaPorte, because “for an author, a book is a huge upfront investment”. (Penelope Trunk blogs that writing a book is a ‘time sink’.)

In other words: don’t be afraid to walk away.

And don’t lose sight of your art. That’s why you have an agent. Your job is the content. Do you want to write a book, or any book, or do you want to write your book?

Josh Hanagarne, for example, doesn’t want to write about Tourette’s. He wants to write a memoir of his abusive, dysfunctional relationship with Tourette’s. He wants to “write on a nerve”.

Danielle LaPorte wants to “go back hold my baby a little while longer”, and while she does that, she wonders, “if there were no agents, no publishers,” (heresy! blasphemer!) ”no twitter followers, is this the book you would want to write?”

Are Angels Singing and Monks Chanting? A little?

Is this the book you want to write? Is your agent the shiz? Did you rock out the proposal? Did the proposal-writing process make your manuscript into the book you didn’t even know you could write?  Did your publisher present your agent – who is of course the shiz and a negotiating shark (or piranha) of paleolithic proportions and origins – with a huge oversized cheque with your name written all over it? Or just an adequate cheque?  Adequate is fine. Cash may be king but books are divine.

The writers in this story may be online gurus and entrepreneurs and daily micro-publishers (what is a blog, after all?), but at heart they are bookies. As in book-lovers, not loan sharks.

Chris Guillebeau – straight up – admits that his goal, from the drop, was a book deal. Erin Doland suspects that her “friends are happier than I am now that I have a book under my belt simply because they no longer have to listen to me talk about it”.  Gretchen Rubin was already a best-selling author when she reluctantly started a blog that happily took over the world. Leo Babatua was so happy to get a book deal that he stopped and dropped it like it was hot. “I’m big on booty moves”, says the Zen Habits, simple-living guru, simply.

So there you have it. Want a book deal? Get a blog. A big one. And rock it out.

I know. The (snobbish, print-loving) writer in me just died a little, too. Again.

———-

Here’s a list of all the pieces in the accidentally epic how-to-get-a-book deal series (with from advice from published authors to a wannabe (that’s me):

The How To Get A Book Deal Interviews, with:

* I also did phone-interviews with Josh Hanagarne and Gretchen Rubin but get very, very sad when I think about doing more transcription

**My phone interview with Gretchen Rubin – in which she gave me some personal advice that really landed with me – inspired me to be a little nicer, online. Gretchen Rubin is my Jiminy Cricket.

Guest Posts at Write To Done (that triggered this whole series):

Guest Post at Write to Done: How to Get a Book Deal: Part 1 – Printasauraus Rex Vs. The Blog: Publishing 2.0

Get Thee A Blog, and A Big One: Guest Post At Write to Done

March 27, 2010 | filed under: How To Get a Book Deal, Money, People, Work

16 people have we need you too.

the blogging for money game seems a ballsy one, to me

I have this idea – more of an observation than a fully-fleshed out structural theory – that the how-to-make-money-online blogging conventions are pretty male.

The model:

person has a question/problem, types it into Google, follows links to pages that rank high for those query keywords, lands on a page of an ‘online authority’, who ultimately provides – for sale – a ’solution’ to that problem

and so, to capture that traffic and convert it to a sale, probloggers aim to rank highly on Google (authority), structure themselves as likeable, trustable experts (authority), and offer infoproducts that solve problems

the bloggers, then, who will be successful, are the ones who follow this model, exploit it, and provide solutions

that’s how you monetize. You capture the questions and provide the solutions.

and, as a result of this process, and as a function of how people read online, effective blog posts are structured in a particular way:

  • pithy headlines
  • short sentences and paragraphs and just short, in general
  • body text carved into sections using Headers to facilitate scanning
  • lists
  • brief, lean and to-the-point (the solution, the tip, the hack)

my observation: the information-finding model and the genre conventions are linear, analytical and about problem-solving and solutions

my beef: the websites that provide solutions are the least bewitching and entrancing to me (with an exception or two, and usually that’s due to a relationship I’ve got with the blogger, or by how deeply they’ve embedded their personality in their prose)

and…A-list solution bloggers = men

probloggers tend to be men

hell, bloggers, it seems, tend to be men

this linear, solution-hunting model and attendant blog-writing genre just feels very male to me

and so lots of the advice – even the basic genre conventions – about how to be a successful problogger just plain put me off

and that’s it. That’s my observation.

January 28, 2010 | filed under: Work

64 people have we need you too.

Attention Bloggers: Authority. What is it? Why Do We Need it? Tell me…

I’m working on my weekly piece for ProBlogger. It is about AUTHORITY.

(“Authority” was in capital letters for a reason and that reason is that I’m tempted to insert bad words before and after.)

The title, so far: I fight Authority but Authority Always Wins. (Yep, totally ripping John Mellancamp off.)

But: my basic quandry. What the hell is authority?

We use the word in so many ways…what do we mean when we bloggers tell bloggers to blog with authority? That authority is one of the keys to success?

So, my questions to bloggers:

What is authority? (or: What do you mean when you talk about authority?)

Why do we need it?

please talk back…either in the comments or on Twitter by e-mail kelly at kellydiels dot com.

January 24, 2010 | filed under: Work

30 people have we need you too.

How To Get A Book Deal. Thirteen Questions with Chris Guillebeau.

Recently I attempted to write a pithy little post – like, say 750 words – on How To Get a Book Deal for Write to Done.

I interviewed six people and turned in a 3,200 word encyclopedia and the very nice people (Mary Jaksch and Leo Babauta) at Write to Done didn’t chastise or abuse me in any way. Wasn’t that nice?

Instead, they turned my sprawling monster of an essay into a four-part series, which has been really terrible for my blog traffic. I mean, who wants all these readers, any way?

One of the people I interviewed for How To Get a Book Deal is Chris Guillebeau, who is just about the most focused, goal-oriented and nicest guy in the whole world.

I’m so glad it is him who’s rocking out World Domination and not say, Napoleon, who attempted that already and did not fare well. I’ve been to Elba. It is very nice but I imagine a little confining for your average power mad dictator.

In addition to writing useful guides, a nifty blog, and a book, Chris also very sweetly agreed to answer thirteen questions for me. Here’s what I asked him and what he had to say.

___________________________

How to Get a Book Deal. Thirteen Questions With Chris Guillebeau.

1. Are you a bookie? (I’m inventing a new connotation for that word.  In my world, “bookie” means someone who loves books so intensely that friends and family suspect that nudity may be involved.  I don’t actually mean “do you get naked with books?”. FYI. But feel free to elaborate, if need be.)

Chris Guillebeau: I’m not sure I’m that much of a bookie, but yes, I’ve always loved books. I try to read widely and learn from everyone as much as possible.

2. Was writing a book a long-held, secret fantasy of yours? (I suspect that our audience would really appreciate it if you used G-rated words and did not digress into lavish descriptions of any other kinds of fantasies.  You have my email address for those. Feel free. Thank you.)

Chris Guillebeau: It was a not-so-secret fantasy; in other words, it was one of the primary goals of starting my blog. I felt like I had a message to share and wanted to write a book, but I also knew it would be hard to break into the publishing world without a strong online presence. Thus came the blog and everything else I did online for nearly a full year prior to getting the book deal.

3. Danielle LaPorte said in a firestarter that her smokin’ hot blog is about finding her people, creating beauty and a community, and she hopes that when the time comes, her book will be a best-seller. Tim Feriss, I’m pretty sure, articulated (and did!) the same thing only with a less poetry and fewer dreadlocks and holy hassenfeffer* has that worked out something fierce for him. Penelope Trunk, on the other hand, loves her blog because it gets her free fancy laptop bags and oral sex but thinks that writing a book is a time-sink. Which brings me to my questions: Which came first, the idea for your blog or your book? How did your blog help you get the book deal? Which is your favourite child?

Chris Guillebeau: See above– first the book idea, then the blog– although I definitely saw the two as related. Having a good reputation as an up-and-coming online writer (I like that term better than blogger for some reason) helped me establish relationships and get people to pay attention.

As for the time-sink thing, well, I like Penelope but I have a different perspective about that. You could also say that a blog is a time-sink because very few people read the archives. I guess it comes down to whether you really want to write a book or not. For me it was an important goal by itself and not merely a marketing tool. I haven’t gone through the whole publication process yet (that comes next year), but as of right now I feel like that it was totally worthwhile and I can’t wait to do it again.

As for which is my favorite between the blog and the book, I really love them both. I guess if I had to choose, I’d choose the blog since it allows me to reach more people, but they are different animals.

4. Did you approach an agent or a publisher with a book idea or did someone approach you? (I can’t find a way to make that question sassy or entertaining. It’s all on you, now.)

Chris Guillebeau: I approached everyone I could think of and more. I knocked on doors, posted on my blog that I was looking for an agent, and asked a couple of hundred people for referrals. Some people wrote back, some didn’t, but that’s just how it works (see more on rejection below).

Ironically, now that I’m internet-famous (for whatever that’s worth), the tables have turned and I get approached all the time. I’ve been fortunate to receive a lot of good media coverage (New York Times, CNN, Business Week, etc.) and out of that experience, a number of other people have made contact to pitch me on things.

5. Who’s your agent? Are you still on speaking terms? If I call him/her, will she confirm that?

Chris Guillebeau: My agent is David Fugate with LaunchBooks. He’s fantastic, and the book would not have sold so quickly without his great work. He also spent a great deal of time refining the proposal to make it both more marketable (which I expected) and also much better in terms of content (which I didn’t expect but greatly appreciated).

In short, I’m glad I connected with David before I became better known, because now that I get a lot of pitches it’s sometimes hard to tell what everyone’s motivation is.

6. Did I tell you why I’m writing this piece? I want to write a book AND get it published AND I know nothing about how to do this.  Hence: How To Get a Book Deal. Anyhoo, Josh Hanagarne told me that you don’t actually sell a non-fiction manuscript, you sell a proposal to write a manuscript.  Is he lying? (He’s been known to lie for entertainment purposes so I’m fact-checking.)

Chris Guillebeau: First of all, good for you on your ambition. Never let anyone discourage you, especially a whiny published author who tells you how terrible the industry is. It’s true that publishers “don’t get” a lot of things, but that’s why authors and prospective authors need to take control of their own careers.

Now that I’m off the soapbox, to your question: Josh isn’t lying; that’s a correct assessment. The proposal is usually quite lengthy (think 40 pages) and includes sample material. The more sample material you have, the better– so in a way, you do write at least some of the book in advance. I only had one chapter, and in retrospect I wish I had two or three.

7. What kind of research – resources read, people talked to –  did you do to prepare to write your book proposal?

Chris Guillebeau: This is roughly the path I followed:

1) Read as much as I could, both online and in the usual proposal books
2) Wrote the best possible draft proposal, which wasn’t that great but focused heavily on why I could make the book a success with the right agent and publisher
3) Started looking for an agent, and then worked on everything else with him since he had much more experience than me.

8. Did you consider hiring a proposal coach?

Chris Guillebeau: I never knew such people existed… I thought that was the role of a good agent. The problem I see with a “proposal coach” is that they aren’t the ones who will pitch your project to publishers. I suppose if you’re having a hard time getting a concept together, then such a person could help, but realize that you’d likely end up doing it all over again with a good agent. For some people that might be beneficial.

9. So. You wrote a book proposal. Now what? (By this I mean: did your agent shop it around? Did it go to auction? Did you go to New York and schmooze?  Tell us a pretty story. Don’t worry, I’m a lazy fact-checker.  See, for example, #6.)

Chris Guillebeau: Agent shopped it around– lots of initial interest, then lots of rejections– the usual process, I think. Much of the proposal shopping is done by email and phone now; I offered to go to New York and talk with people, but heard that wasn’t really necessary these days.

I’m not sure if that’s a pretty story, but I guess the nice part came when David called and said we had an offer from Perigee, a division of Penguin. We did a conference call with them, checked with a few other editors, then made a verbal commitment with Penguin. Many weeks later (I was surprised at how slow things work), we finally did the paperwork.

10. Is Erin Brockovich your hero? That’s not really the question.  That is called foreshadowing. Let’s go EB for a minute and talk numbers: Your book deal is signed.  Visions of spectacular, over-sized but truly, madly, deeply deserved cheques are dancing in your head. What figure is on that cheque?

(Or, if you can’t tell us because then the IRS and your freeloading relatives will expect to get some, too, then just give us a range, like:

A. I got paid in M&Ms
B. I got paid in S&M
C. Less than $100K but I’m not quitting my day job
B. $100-200K, I’m taking this interview from my new jacuzzi tub in MY NEW HOUSE SUCKA
D. $200-300K and people say blogging doesn’t make you money but it got me a book deal MUWAHAHAHAHAHA
E. More than $300K. Please don’t hate but I’m now so rich and famous that I had to head-hunt one of Guy Kawasaki’s interns to take this interview for me. I’m surfing as we speak.)

Chris Guillebeau: I’m actually not sure if I can say it publicly or not. It was in the “C” category if that helps– not fabulous, but decent. In terms of the time commitment, it’s probably reflective of minimum wage. That’s OK with me, though– I feel very grateful that I can do what I love to do. After the launch next fall, I plan on traveling to every state and province in North America on my own Unconventional Book Tour to make sure it’s successful. Then I’ll write another book, and another. It’s a long-term strategy.

11. HOLY HESSENFEFFER*! You got THAT much?! Clearly, it was time for the happy dance. What were your dance moves?

Chris Guillebeau: It wasn’t “THAT much,” but I was definitely excited when it sold.

12. Is there video of this alleged dance and, if so, is anyone currently blackmailing you with the footage?

Chris Guillebeau: Not that I’m aware of.

13. What is your book called, when is it coming out, and how can we get it?

Chris Guillebeau: We went through about 30 titles and then went back to the source: it’s called The Art of Non-Conformity, it comes out in September 2010 (only 320 days to go!), and as long as you’re alive and online when the time comes, I’ll do my best to get the word out to you.

Bonus Question:
After your book deal was signed and during the book-writing process, did your editor ever force you to sleep in her office for weeks just to get a semi-coherent draft out of you?
(It happened to Elizabeth Wurtzel, or perhaps more accurately, to her editor.  There may have been illegal substances involved.  You don’t have to answer this but please do.)

Chris Guillebeau: No, for better or worse I actually haven’t had much interaction with my editor yet. She’s friendly and supportive, but I’ve gone through most of the writing process independently so far. Perhaps that will change as we finalize things and start planning the marketing campaign.

Bonus Bonus Question:
Anything I’ve missed that you think is important?

Chris Guillebeau: The most important thing for any budding author to think about is, “Why will people who don’t know me care enough to buy this book?” You have to have a very clear answer for that, backed up with as much social proof or compelling sample material as possible, in order to get publishers to pay attention.

The marketing part of my proposal was at least five pages, single-spaced. You have to think of this as a business, like it or not. Those who are able to do that will have a much easier time than those who are interested purely in the artistic side of publishing. This doesn’t mean you have to “sell out” and develop your proposal around a topic you’re not passionate about; it’s just a reality that’s better to face than ignore.

*gratuitous Laverne and Shirley theme song reference. You know you’ve made it when you can casually work a Laverne and Shirley lyric into your writing.  Book deal, schmook deal.

PS Chris, thank you so much for taking this interview. Just ignore my snarky footnotes. We both know I’m jealous.

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In addition to writing lengthy email interviews with me (and encouraging me to scale up and keep at this writing thing awwwwww), Chris Guillebeau writes really useful guides that help you in your quest for world domination (for good, of course).

(They’re so useful that I signed up as an affiliate, so if you buy one, I get a couple of bucks, too. Yay!)

As I promised during my fake mid-life crisis* last week, I read the guide on airmiles – “Become A Frequent Flyer Master” – and can report a shift.

I was one of those people who didn’t sign up for loyalty cards because I didn’t want The Man documenting my cold medicine and toilet paper choices. That’s a violation of privacy, right?

Yet I have a blog called Cleavage in which I write about sex (and money, and meaning). The sex I have. With other people. Because that’s not private, at all.

This, I believe, is called cognitive dissonance. And I may have carried on not collecting air miles – just out of habit – had the Become A Frequent Flyer Master guide not pointed out (very helpfully) that with some strategic choices and a plan I can fly first class to Asia or Africa for 43 cents. Okay, maybe a few more cents are required, but you get the point.

So: airmiles. Free travel. Travel hacking. I’m in. Eff privacy. I don’t believe in privacy, anyway. (Didja notice?)

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If you’re interested in more advice like Chris Guillebeau’s about how to get a book deal, here’s a list of all the pieces in the accidentally epic how-to-get-a-book deal series:

The how-to-get-a-book-deal piece, in full:

How to Get a Book Deal. An Evolutionary, Biblical Approach. (This Is Why I am a Writer And Not a Scientist.)

The How To Get A Book Deal Interviews, with:

* I also did phone-interviews with Josh Hanagarne and Gretchen Rubin but get very, very sad when I think about doing more transcription

**My phone interview with Gretchen Rubin – in which she gave me some personal advice that really landed with me – inspired me to be a little nicer, online. Gretchen Rubin is my Jiminy Cricket.

Guest Posts at Write To Done (that triggered this whole series):

Guest Post at Write to Done: How to Get a Book Deal: Part 1 – Printasauraus Rex Vs. The Blog: Publishing 2.0

Get Thee A Blog, and A Big One: Guest Post At Write to Done


December 9, 2009 | filed under: How To Get a Book Deal, People, Work

7 people have we need you too.

Why I Blog. Writing. As Essential as Breathing – Guest Post by A Design So Vast’s Lindsey

I asked ‘why do you blog‘ and you answered.

The answers are rich and many and substantiated a theory: that we blog for freedom. For art. For voice. For love. And, as usual, Lindsey wrote some prosetry.

I just made that word up and I’m not even sorry.

I will use pieces of some of the answers in a guest post for a biggie blog. But I had to share Lindsey’s answer with you, in full. Here it is.

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Blogging is writing, which is as essential as breathing for me.  It is also a way to meet (and be met by) people whose lives and stories are very different from our own. I am sometimes keenly aware of the general homogeneity of my life. I love my life, of course, but I do have a certain restlessness of the spirit that is slaked, in part, by learning about people whose lives and choices are very different from my own.

Been thinking about Why I Blog. I know I feel a visceral impulse to share the stories of my life, both the mundane ones and the meaningful ones. I know that writing often helps me put shape around my nascent or amorphous thoughts, helps me understand the underlying current beneath a riptide of emotion. Joan Didion put it best: “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.”

But there’s another, impossible to ignore, reason why I blog. After all, blogging both assumes and actively seeks an audience. Obviously I need, on some level, to know that someone is reading my words. I think this is a reflection of the basic human need to be truly seen. But is it exhibitionistic? Does it make the thoughts and content less meaningful? Is it the wrong thing, to want someone to be reading? I have thought about this a lot, struggling with the initial feeling that it is immature and needy of me to need someone to be out there reading me. On some level this is just a continuation of a pattern of needing to be validated and approved by the big bad world out there, isn’t it?

I think it is that, yes. But I think it is more than that too. I imagine that most writers write for an audience, whether it’s an audience of one (perhaps Steven King’s Ideal Reader) or millions. I cannot in good conscience claim the title of “writer” for myself, but I know that one reason I blog is because I hope to, someday, provide for someone else that shimmering sigh of recognition that some writing I’ve read has given me. That bone-deep sense of being not alone when someone else can put into words thoughts or feelings that have swarmed incoherently around my head and heart. If I can, someday, give a single reader that feeling that I have had so many times in my years of blog-reading, then I will be happy. It feels arrogant to even wish for that, but in truth, I do. I am personally sustained by those moments when someone else’s writing makes my heart physically swell with identification and awareness, and I aspire to provide that for someone else.

For me, more than the community, more than the catharsis, more than the story-telling, it’s about that. About that feeling of recognition, that single moment when you read a sentence or a paragraph and suddenly understand something you’ve known all along in a new way. Which, when I think about it, is sort of an amalgam of community, catharsis, and story-telling. I’ve been blessed to be on the receiving end of that feeling many times, and I continue to hope that I might provide it for someone out there.

To illustrate my point, here is one such passage – a paragraph that made me shiver because it put into such beautiful words something I’ve thought before. A paragraph that happens to be ABOUT that feeling. (oh so very meta).

Have you ever looked at, say, a picture or a great building or read a paragraph in a book and felt the world suddenly expand and, at the same instant, contract and harden into a kernel of perfect purity?
- Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries

Yes, I have. And I did just there. And that’s why I write.

(And no, I am not arrogantly comparing myself to one of the great writers of the last few decades. No. I come up to Carol Shields’ ankle. But she inspires me.)
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you can find more of Lindsey’s thinky, shimmering words at A Design So Vast. Please do.
December 7, 2009 | filed under: Language, Meaning, Work

6 people have we need you too.

Get Thee A Blog, and A Big One: Guest Post At Write to Done

I adore Google alert. Look! Your name is somewhere! Maybe I’m a narcissist. Maybe I should go kiss my biceps in the mirror.

I just tried but I can’t find them.

So back to writing for accolades. Part 2 of my “How To Get a Book Deal” series is up today at Write to Done and features interviews with:

(I didn’t get the title of Erin’s book right in the first version of the piece. EEEEEK. Mortified. Lesson learned: do not fact-check your own pieces and do NOT ever hire me as a fact-checker. In fact, I think I need a fact-checker. A free one. I can pay in gratitude. How’s that for a job advert?)

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PS here’s the series, so far:

How To Get a Book Deal – Series (4 total)

Part 1. Printasauraus Rex Vs. The Blog: Publishing 2.0

*featuring interviews with Gretchen Rubin, Danielle LaPorte and the book publishing saga of Gary Vaynerchuk

Part 2. Get Thee a Blog (And A Big One)

*featuring interviews with Leo Babauta, Erin Doland, and Chris Guillebeau

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PPS – If you’re interested in the publishing game, then you’re in luck because storyfix is running a month-long series on getting published.

And let me tell you something about storyfix: if you’re a writer, you’ll probably like it, a LOT. It is about writing, the racket/craft, and written like an intellectual whodunnit gone good conversation. Larry Brooks has style. He also gives GREAT e-mail – so good that I was compelled to proposition him by reply e-mail. He declined. Hi Larry’s wife.

December 6, 2009 | filed under: How To Get a Book Deal, Language, People, Work

3 people have we need you too.

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