In today’s video, I ramble on about why writing like you speak is dumb and leads to badly written books.
Moxie Books
The Moxie Books Blog
All the answers to all the questions you may have about writing your book. If you can't find the answer – ask me. I'll write an article.
Strippers shafted by sharecropping
Use all the tools at your disposal: build a rabid Instagram following, especially if your business is visual like aerial arts, painting, cartooning, and exotic dancing – but please don’t make it the only thing you do.
🐞 we need tiny beetle steps not giant leaps
The thing about tiny beetle steps is, eventually they add up to great big leaps.
We get hung up on the great big leaps. We strive for massive improvements, to become an overnight success, and wish for miracles to happen fast.
Forward to normal
What do you want your new world to be like?
Your life? Your business? Your relationships?
4 Lurking Horrors That’ll Kill Your Book
Beware the spooks, ghouls, and monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting to destroy your book…
Choking the onions
I’ve put off weeding that veg bed for a bunch of reasons, none of them good. And so I’ve wasted more time worrying about the onions than it took me to just do the bloody weeding.
13 Books That’ll Help You Become A Better Writer
Two questions get fired at me often:
How can I become a better writer?
What books do you recommend I read to get better at marketing my business?
My answer to the first question is: write. Write every day and don’t worry too much if what you write is sometimes crap. You’ll get better.
Write. Edit. Improve. Repeat.
And read everything you can get your hands on, good and bad.
Your Pencils Could Always Be Sharper
Perfectionism keeps us all stuck, and it may well drive us into an early grave.
Growing Like a Rotting Badger
If we’re not drinking the Koolaid, if we’re not hustling 24/7 and obsessing over growth, we’re somehow less than those other entrepreneurs and business owners we see crushing it every day. I call bullshit. Not all growth is healthy.
Commit no nuisance
Our whole society is geared to keeping us quiet, keeping us in line, and not making a fuss.
the 1%-ers
We think that unless we can make giant leaps forward and see enormous and sudden improvements in what we’re doing, we’re not doing anything.
It’s hard to keep going when keeping going is hard (and boring).
Having a religious experience
You can create a sacred space even in a shared office, a busy home, or a public café; it just takes a little ingenuity and a certain amount of hard-headed resolve.
Sloth: Every Day Is Like Sunday
Michael Stipe was right, eh?
Oof. What a few days, eh?
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
New year new…?
Within the haze of end-of-year parties and admist the overindulgence of the festive feasting period glows an ember.
The glimmer of an idea.
The hope that perhaps this year will be different.
Maybe this will be the year we’ll write our books or run that marathon or start that business or go after that big contract.
The 67,000 mile-an-hour Book
We all have the same amount of time in the days, weeks, months, years.
So why do some people get tons of writing done, and others struggle to make any progress at all?
How To Write In Pictures
Flamingo your writing by making me feel, see, smell, taste, and touch…Silence.Sudden silence.The kind of velvet silence that soaks up every whisper.The only sound in your head is the bass-beat of your panicked heart… and all eyes are on you.What’s the worst thing that can happen during your competition pole dance performance? Wardrobe malfunction? Nope.
What do you want to do?
Don’t let anyone shame you into ridiculous productivity.
Don’t be pushed into doing more than you want to.
It’s okay not to be okay.
Are you a shenanigator?
Seth Godin calls it making a ruckus. Which I like.
But I call it being a shenanigator.
That escalated fast…
Well, that escalated fast.
Honestly, I’ve been thinking and mulling over and wondering what to write (and resisting the urge to make terrible jokes because too soon?).
So today I’m going to share what I’m doing while the world goes into lockdown.
📺Do you have a reader magnet? 📺
Your book is just the beginning…
It’s not enough to have a book out there (although that is AWESOME obviously) – it needs to work for you.
The Two Voices in Your Head
Want to know why we say things to ourselves we’d never say to others – and how we can be a little kinder to ourselves?
How To Beat “Writer’s Block”: 3 Fun Exercises To Get You Writing
Think of your introduction as a sales letter for the rest of your book. Your reader is thinking, subconsciously, “What’s in it for me? Why should I give up my valuable time to read this book?” You need to convey that in your introduction. Here’s how…
How I stopped drinking alcohol
Since Christmas 2018, I’ve probably had fewer than 20 alcoholic drinking occasions – and when I have had a drink, it’s generally been one small one.
And it hasn’t been a struggle.
Ditch the Shoe Leather
Start Writing Your Book Today If you want to learn more about how to write, self-publish, and market a book for your business, snaffle yourself a copy of How The Hell Do You Write A Book? Then check out the blog and podcast for more articles and guides. If you want a little (or a
Michael Stipe was right
Michael Stipe was right, eh?
Oof. What a few days, eh?
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
This is your brain 🧠 on knowledge
Are we asking the right questions?
I don’t always ask good questions. I ask obvious ones.
Like, “Why do I always procrastinate?”
Recruit friends to help you
Habits are easier to keep when people are cheering you on.
3 top tips to get book reviews on Amazon
You’ve written a great book, you’re getting wonderful feedback on it, people are contacting to tell you how they’re getting on and how much they love the book, and yet on Amazon… it’s crickets.
Why your projects are always late…
Whether your project is a giant railway infrastructure, a cottage renovation, or writing your book, it will inevitably take way too long and cost much more than you budget. It’s because you suffer from the planning fallacy — with a healthy dose of optimism bias and overconfidence thrown in.
100 lbs lost – real self found
Whatever you want to achieve, it’s what you do every single day that counts, not the one-off grand gestures.
This blew my tiny mind
Have you ever read something that, when you think about it later, is obvious – but at the time, it blows your mind?
Don’t be a rotting badger
Grow.
Grow grow grow.
It’s all we ever hear from online gurus, business experts, and people who think they know stuff.
🚆 long train journeys are the best
The thing about tiny beetle steps is, eventually they add up to great big leaps.
We get hung up on the great big leaps. We strive for massive improvements, to become an overnight success, and wish for miracles to happen fast.
Lessons From My Book Launch
If anyone ever tells you launching a book (or any product, for that matter) is easy, smile sweetly and back away. They’re either lying, or utterly clueless.
Why aren’t you achieving your goals?
Let me ask you again: why aren’t you achieving your goals? Do you know what’s missing? Which tiny beetle steps you need to take?
15 Reasons to Write a Book
Ever thought about writing a book but never quite got started? You’re not alone.
Here are 15 reasons why I think you should write a book in 2020…
Back in the 80s Without the Shoulder Pads
If you make a mistake, people will forgive you, especially if you put it right. If you make a mistake and then disappear, you’ll be considered a douchecanoe.
Why do I always procrastinate?
Are we asking the right questions?
I don’t always ask good questions. I ask obvious ones.
Like, “Why do I always procrastinate?”
How Gluttony Could Derail Your Book
Too much of anything is a bad thing – and that goes for writing, too. Gluttony can squash your book. Don’t let it…
Are We Sleepwalking Through Life?
Just because I got elbowed in the face once in Primark doesn’t mean everyone who shops in Primark is an arse. Just because I got elbowed in the face once in Primark doesn’t mean everyone who shops in Primark is an arse. Repeat until I believe it.
Do you know how I rationalised that ugly little belief? By telling myself I don’t shop in Primark because it’s unethical and because I want my clothes to last for more than two washes. (Both those things are also true, it’s just not the true reason I don’t like Primark.)
Always picked last
When you see competitors doing well, it feels kinda like getting picked last.
Why aren’t they choosing me? Why them? What do they have that I don’t? I know my products and services are better, so why am I picked last?
Atomic Habits: My Book of the Year in 2019
Want to know how I’ve gone from a chaotic cranefly who couldn’t get out of bed to a 6 am person who writes every day and sometimes eats like a healthy adult?
Information water-cannon overload
Does going online feel a bit like you’re being water-cannoned with well-intentioned but overwhelming information?
It’s a one-person kitchen dammit
I’m often asked where I get all my ideas for writing from, and how I can keep telling stories. People wonder when they’ll get hit by the inspiration fairy.
Truth is, you won’t be.
Proud of Yourself? The 7 Deadly Sins of Writing a Book
If we’re not telling the truth, there’s no point in writing… don’t let pride get in the way of your truth.
Getting mad at your future self
We’re basically a bundle of habits, good and bad.
Which means every single action we take is a vote for the person we want to be.
Don’t drink and prime
Don’t just read; do.
Of course, some books make it easier to do that than others… Like my new book How The Hell Do You Write A Book. It not only makes it super simple for you to take action on what you’re learning, it also helps you write a book of your own that people will read and use and get value from.
Will Writing A Business Book Make You Rich?
Occasionally, business owners tell me they’re secretly dreaming of rolling around naked in piles of cash like Scrooge McDuck. Perhaps you think a book could make you filthy rich…
10 Ways To Choose Your Book Title
Your title is one of the most critical parts of your book. If you write a crap title, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your book is, most people won’t read it…
Criticism Hurts: How To Take The Sting Off
Some people will love your book. Some will hate it. So what? Once your book’s out there, what people think of it — and you — is beyond your control…
Roast potatoes for brains
Post-festive-sludging and I feel like my head is stuffed with roast potatoes.
I am struggling to form a coherent thought, let alone write about one.
This is extraordinarily vexing to someone who writes for a living.
How To Outline Your Business Book Lightning Fast
Let me ask you again: why aren’t you achieving your goals? Do you know what’s missing? Which tiny beetle steps you need to take?
Don’t rely on your friends
It’s up to us to persuade the right people that our books are worth investing in.
Nobody else is going to do it for us – and that’s a really cool position to be in because it means we’re in charge of our own destiny. We get to make our own successes (and failures) without relying on (or blaming) others.
Deeper not wider
It’s incredibly tempting to throw everything you have at your courses and products and articles… but how about, instead, you go deeper and narrower?
Write Your Book’s Introduction In 3 Simple Steps
Think of your introduction as a sales letter for the rest of your book. Your reader is thinking, subconsciously, “What’s in it for me? Why should I give up my valuable time to read this book?” You need to convey that in your introduction. Here’s how…
The Splendour Of Hard Things
We think that unless we can make giant leaps forward and see enormous and sudden improvements in what we’re doing, we’re not doing anything.
It’s hard to keep going when keeping going is hard (and boring).
Resistance Is Futile, Or, The War Of Art
One of the best books I’ve read on how to beat resistance and procrastination is The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield. Here’s my review…
Asking The Right Questions
Knowing what questions to ask when you start to write your book is the hardest part… We spend so much time looking for answers, we rarely stop to think if we’re asking the right questions. And sometimes we don’t know which questions to ask at all…
Waterboarded at the dentist
What are you willing to endure to get what you want?
“I’m the kind of person who…”
The reason we fail to make the changes we want and achieve the results we desire isn’t willpower or laziness or lack of ability; it’s because what we’re trying to do is at odds with who we believe we really are.
Start Writing Your Book Today
I'm on a mission to create 1,000 business owner-authors and help them transform their lives and businesses. Join us: download the Ultimate Guide to Beating The Blank Page Of Doom.