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.
The blurb on the back is the third most important part of the cover after the front cover design and the title. I would have loved a step-by-step instruction manual for writing my back blurbs, but there wasn’t one. So I made my own guide. Here it is.
Perfectionism keeps us all stuck, and it may well drive us into an early grave.
The short, sweet, and comprehensive guide to choosing a book coach who understands how to get your Big Book Idea out of your magical brain and onto paper
Does going online feel a bit like you’re being water-cannoned with well-intentioned but overwhelming information?
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…
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…
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.
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?
Whatever you want to achieve, it’s what you do every single day that counts, not the one-off grand gestures.
Too much of anything is a bad thing – and that goes for writing, too. Gluttony can squash your book. Don’t let it…
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…
I have a quick tip for you: remember that writing a book is like falling in love.
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).
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.
Our whole society is geared to keeping us quiet, keeping us in line, and not making a fuss.
Of all the negative emotions, after shame, I think envy takes the biscuit: it seeps into everything we look at and it keeps us stuck.
Be grateful for what you can do.
Your body and mind (which are inextricably linked) are incredible. What you can do with them is wondrous.
Criticism and feedback can feel like eating kiwi fruit with the skin on: uncomfortable, even painful, leading to shortness of breath.
But only for a few minutes. Maximum 7 minutes. Then I have to pull myself together and crack on.
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.
If we’re not telling the truth, there’s no point in writing… don’t let pride get in the way of your truth.
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…
My purpose is to write. To share my stories and other people’s stories – especially those people whose voices are muffled and marginalised. People who stand up for humanity and thoughtfulness and against oppression and cruelty and blind adherence to a doctrine that makes no sense.
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.
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…
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.
Ever had insomnia? Not just a little trouble sleeping, but the twitchy, panicky, staring into the void teetering-on-the-edge of madness insomnia?
Every now and then, it feels like you’re poised on the knife-edge of sleep—so you grab at it, wildly, desperately, only to feel sleep slip away, leaving you grinding your teeth.
To me, that’s what the Blank Page Of Doom feels like sometimes. When I have the seed of an idea I can’t quite hold onto—or too many ideas, boiling across my brain too swift to catch.
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.
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.
Habits are easier to keep when people are cheering you on.
Seth Godin calls it making a ruckus. Which I like.
But I call it being a shenanigator.
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.
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.
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?
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…
“Aargh! I hate writing my about page!”
Yep, we all do, toots. We all find it tough.
How do you strike that careful balance between “hilarious, kind, and helpful” and “obnoxious douchecanoe”?
Tricky.
Luckily, I have a quick tip for you
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.)
Are we asking the right questions?
I don’t always ask good questions. I ask obvious ones.
Like, “Why do I always procrastinate?”
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.
None of us has any control over a global pandemic or other people’s behaviour or thoughts or actions. I don’t think we’ve ever lived through a time of such uncertainty. And yet I was trying to control it anyway. Perhaps you were, too. That’s what humans do; we try to control stuff.
Which is, quite simply, exhausting.
The flash of inspiration you’re waiting for? It ain’t gonna happen. It is a myth; a myth that has stopped good writers from writing since humans first scratched their shopping list on the cave wall…
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.
I wanted to share a few things that might help you navigate what you’re feeling right now, including some of the ways I’m feeling
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?
Our brains are wired that way, to always see the bad – the problem – rather than the good. It used to keep us alive back when we lived in caves.
Remember this next time you’re stuck. Remember it when something threatens to derail your plans to write. Be more like Beetrice, focused on writing your book.
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?
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?
Grow.
Grow grow grow.
It’s all we ever hear from online gurus, business experts, and people who think they know stuff.
Have you ever been stuck? Staring at the Blank Page of Doom in despair?
Yep, me too.
Have you ever blamed it on “writer’s block”?
Yep, me too.
Here’s the thing, though: there’s no such thing as writer’s block.
It’s a made-up myth, a lie we tell ourselves to get out of doing the work.
Are we asking the right questions?
I don’t always ask good questions. I ask obvious ones.
Like, “Why do I always procrastinate?”
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.
Our brains are wired that way, to always see the bad – the problem – rather than the good. It used to keep us alive back when we lived in caves.
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.
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.
Michael Stipe was right, eh?
Oof. What a few days, eh?
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
If you want to write your book, you need to build a good writing habit or you’ll never manage it.
What are you struggling with? What feels horrible?
What if, instead of saying you’ll write 500 words a morning, all you have to do is make a cup of tea, open your document, and scribble down what you’re going to do next?
Make it easy and make it attractive.
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.
Words in print have a weight and a resonance that words spoken out loud lack…
Writing is a source of great anxiety to a lot of people – including me, sometimes. Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I have all my shit together.
Most of us are starters, not finishers. We’re entrepreneurs, so we’re easily excited and enthused by new ideas and big plans and the next shiny thing — but when it comes to finishing what we started…? Writing that book? Launching that course?
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.
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