Author Archive
How preparing a 5-minute Ignite talk is like writing a short book
Riddle: how is a 5-minute Ignite talk like a short eBook? Both are condensed, both are challenging to create. Giving a five-minute Ignite talk (they’re like mini TED talks) is a tricky performance: your slides advance automatically every 15 seconds and your words have to match up. Five minutes – and 20 slides – is not much time to get across your idea. […]
Strutting the boards: what you can learn from acting
I made my stage debut this summer in a local production in Stonington, ME. Wow. It was both scary and exciting. Acting is very different from speaking before a business audience. There is always an element of performance when you’re delivering a keynote. But this was something new. Luckily, it was a 10-minute play written by a local playwright so […]
If you’re an author, how often should you blog?
I’ve been seriously remiss in blogging this summer. Lots of excuses. I’m spending the summer on the coast of Maine and it is a lovely place. We’ve been swamped by visitors, both family and friends. My delicious four-month-old granddaughter kept us up at night. But who cares. How lucky – how blessed we were – to have my daughter bring her […]
3 productivity tools to help you write a short book
Although the beauty of writing a short book is that it is do-able, your censorious, procrastinating, lizard brain can still make it hard to sit down and, er, write on a daily basis. Here are a few tools we’ve gathered to make the process easier. Just Do It From delightful author Dan Pink comes an iPhone app suggestion, Wonderful Day. It’s marvelously […]
What eBook authors need to know about copyright [VID]
As an eBook author, you may have questions about copyright and about how to protect your digital content. You may also be asking whether you need to take legal steps to protect your eBook. I decided to check in with attorney Rachel Rodgers for some answers. Rachel specializes in business law for entrepreneurs and runs an online law practice, Rachel Rodgers Law Office. […]
Price vs. value: what is an eBook worth?
When you say, “What is an eBook worth?” are you asking what the price of an eBook should be. Or are you posing the question: what is the value you get from downloading and reading an eBook? Aha. Two different things, right? Let’s look at value from two different perspectives: that of the author and that of the reader. The […]
A Summer Shipping Package to help you finish writing a short eBook
One of the participants in Beta Author Boost asked me recently if she was the “only one who had failed.” Eegads. No – ! No one failed. I won’t let them. What she meant is that she got stalled or stuck writing the manuscript of her short book and hasn’t finished yet. But it’s perfectly normal when you are writing […]
On writing and productivity: do you have a Not-To-Do list?
I have a confession: most Monday mornings I wake up in a fog of procrastination. A wall of inertia throws itself up as soon as I open my eyes. It’s not that I don’t love my work. Because I do. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I felt this excited. It seems everyone wants to write and publish a […]
Want to reinvent your life and work after age 60? Follow Sam and me as we reinvent a yin yang life on the coast of Maine and in Brooklyn.
