Five Things to Think About Before You Agree to Co-Author a Book

I’m having a fabulous experience right now helping two professors get out a book on AI and machine learning for marketers. They are both brilliant and personable and respectful, not just of each other’s expertise but mine, too. As you can imagine, given the topic, it’s a bit of a beast, but the book is …

Academic to Business Communications: Making the Jump

In academic writing, you offer a hypothesis, present all the facts in an objective manner, and then offer a conclusion. The objective is to get your thinking in front of other academics (people thinking about the same topic) who will then consider all of your facts and then either validate or challenge your hypothesis/conclusion. The …

Using Presentations to Develop Your Book Idea

There are many ways to write a book and one approach many of my corporate and academic clients like is to work out the book contents by creating a series of presentations and then delivering them to a live audience. What’s nice about this approach is that you can get immediate feedback on your ideas. …

3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Write a Business Book Alone

You’re at the top of the food chain now and it’s great but there’s more pressure than ever to drive business results because if nothing happens, all fingers are pointing at you. At the same time, you know a book would help you raise your firm’s profile with prospects and influencers and give your marketing …

Ideas Are Seeds: When You Plant Them This Can Happen

Sometimes I miss my Michigan and Detroit and so last night I started Googling Detroit things and thought about the inimitable Russ Gibb, who I once had as a substitute teacher in the 7th grade. Rather than recite the lesson plan left by Mr. Westcott, our journalism teacher, Mr. Gibb perched on the edge of …

It’s Already Been Done…But Not by You

“This is the third business book I’ve done for you and I have to tell you…they’re all so different!” This is a direct quote from my rock star copy editor Candice, upon completing work on my last book project, Home Service Millionaire by Tommy Mello. Yes. They are. But why? The principles are basically the …

A Book is a Project

There’s an old adage that says the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago, and today. If you’re inclined to write a book, now is always the best time to get started. The problem is…days, weeks, months, and maybe a couple years go by and you don’t find time to work on …

So You Want to Write a Non-Fiction Book…

So you want to write a non-fiction book? Awesome. Well, how exactly are you going to do that? If your friends and family are saying stuff like, “Just start writing!” or “Just get the ideas down, you can organize them later!” or “If you build it they will come!” Don’t listen to them. If you …

A Book Knows What it Wants to Be

Your book already knows what it wants to be. The question is…will you listen? If you’re inspired to write a book, there’s something you know or have experienced that you feel the need to share with the world. Especially if this is your first book, you’re going to be tempted to copy the structure of …