Book Excerpt from Getting Your Book Out of the Someday Box

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Wednesdays we’ll be posting excerpts of Joel’s writings. Today’s excerpt is from Getting Your Book Out of the Someday Box.

Connect with an accountability mentor. You have friends and professional acquaintances who’d be delighted if you asked them to help you get your book done. A couple points on choosing them:

1. They need to believe. Somebody once started the lie that having someone tell you you’ll never succeed would inspire you to prove them wrong. Wrong. You do not need a troll, you need a rabid cheerleader who’ll make you believe when you forget to.

2. They need to not believe. … more … “Book Excerpt from Getting Your Book Out of the Someday Box”

“Found Around the Web” Writing Resources

Posted on by Sue L Canfield

[image: Carol Tice]We’ll be posting a couple on Tuesdays and Thursdays other writing resources we’ve “found around the web”.

Today’s resource is Carol Tice, an award-winning, fun-loving freelance writer living in the Seattle area. Carol’s blog is “Make a Living Writing…practical help for hungry writers.”

Local Authors at Our Local Library

Posted on by Sue L Canfield

[image: Local Authors at Our Local Library]Sue contacted our local library, The Rice Lake Public Library, to ask them about their policies concerning carrying local authors and self-published books. Below are her questions and the responses.

1. Will the local library carry books written by local authors? We will and do. However, in order to be purchased for inclusion in our general collection, local authors need to meet our general selection guidelines which include … more … “Local Authors at Our Local Library”

201

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/270267 by Kaliyoda http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Kaliyoda” width=”128″ height=”256″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-3217]Last year ended with my 200th article here.

Even numbers lining up like that intrigue me.

Let’s change things up a bit, shall we?

A few years ago I declared it “my year to change everything.”

Not too proud to re-use a theme, I’m declaring this (again) “my year to change everything.”

Year-End Wrap Up and 3 New Published Clients

Posted on by Sue L Canfield

It’s the last day of 2013 and it’s been Someday Box’s best year! Here are some of the things we accomplished this year.

  • Helped half a dozen authors determine why they should write a book, what specifically that book should be about, who it should be written for, and how to make it happen by means of a Pathfinding Session and Road Map
  • Coached two clients to get their books written
  • Assisted three new clients get their books published in 2013

It was especially exciting to have two clients publish their books within just a couple of weeks of each other. Were we ever busy! You’ll want to check out each of their books.

[image: client books published in 2013]

First up was Simon Forder who published … more … “Year-End Wrap Up and 3 New Published Clients”

Acting on 1 Idea (Guest Post by Chris Taylor)

Posted on by Joel D Canfield
Chris Taylor gave me the nudge I needed to start acting on all the books I read. Here’s some background on what he does, and why.
I’m including the feature-length version of Chris’ bio because it’s so cool.

By the time he was 22 years old, Chris was leading a sales team of 120 independent contractors. His team consistently ranked in the top three productivity offices of roughly one-thousand North American teams. He attributes his team’s consistently high performance to a relentless focus on leader and culture development.

Chris left Direct Sales in 2006 to pursue his passion of leadership and team culture development on a larger scale, and founded Actionable Books in 2008. ActionableBooks.com – a company dedicated to using business books as a platform for leader and team growth – earned Chris 2009’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, a shortlisting for PROFIT’s Fuel Awards (2011) and has been the topic of articles in the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star and Toronto Business Times, as well as an audio interview for Profit Magazine’s BusinessCast.

In 2010, Chris launched “Actionable Interviews” a video interview series with best selling business book authors and leading thinkers in the business space. To date he’s conducted 42 interviews for the series, with highlights including Seth Godin, Dan Pink, Susan Cain and Sir Ken Robinson. It’s through these conversations that Chris developed The Salaried Entrepreneur™; an innovative team development methodology that’s being used internationally by companies large and small.

Chris currently lives in Spain with his wife, Amy.

Call Me Pollyanna (Guest Post by John “Pollyanna” O’Leary)

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
I met John on a series of phone calls hosted by our mutual friend Trevor Gay, who, like us, is mad as a hatter. John is working on a book, and like many of you, he’s taking forever.

[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/80376 by Jeff Prieb http://www.sxc.hu/profile/ctechs” width=”222″ height=”157″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-3196]Here on Someday Box Joel often lays out the case for self-publishing your book—instead of chasing the REALLY BIG PUBLISHING DEAL. I would have to agree that there are benefits to self-publishing. But based on my experiences as a writer (and author of the forthcoming book, Business Lessons From Rock) I believe it’s only fair that you should hear the other side of the argument. Let me take a moment to enumerate the advantages of pursuing a major publisher. There are many.

… more … “Call Me Pollyanna (Guest Post by John “Pollyanna” O’Leary)”

Married to an Author

Posted on by Sue L Canfield

[image: Joel and Sue Canfield]I’m married to an author. I work with an author. In fact, many authors. In my work for Someday Box I’ve worked with a dozen authors or so this year. In my virtual assistant business I’ve worked with another dozen or so this past year. So I know quite a bit about authors.

If you are married to an author, you know authors can have their quirks.

… more … “Married to an Author”

What Question Can You Answer Best? (Guest Post by Phil Wrzesinski )

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
I’ve known Phil for some time. His intense love for his family sometimes outshines the fact that he is a brilliant marketer and incredible teacher.

[image: ?]My first book started writing itself the day a local childcare owner asked me, “Phil, I shop a lot, and I have to say, your store has the best customer service I’ve ever encountered. What is your secret?”

The short answer was simple. I hire good people.

She pressed me further. “Can you do a presentation to our Child Care Association about it?”

Sure.

Now I needed a longer answer. Fortunately, the answer was there and pretty soon I had a presentation and the outline for a book.

The funny thing is that I never set out to write a book. I think the book had a life of its own, born when the question was asked. At least a dozen times throughout the process I wondered what made me think I was capable of writing a book. Mostly I ignored that thought and kept writing. After all, I was just answering a question.

Your business has the answer to a question, too. There is something you do better than most other businesses. You have a philosophy, a reason, a method for why you do what you do and how it makes your business better. It may be one of your own design, or one you stole from someone else, or one you pieced together from several sources. Someone has probably already asked you why or how you do what you do.

You just have to start writing it down.

My second book started the same way – with a question.

… more … “What Question Can You Answer Best? (Guest Post by Phil Wrzesinski )”

The Language of Young Adult Fiction (Guest Post by Cheryl Campbell)

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
Say hello again to Cheryl Campbell, YA author with an unusual perspective I admire.

Burnt Mountain The Monster Within was born from an idea that I wanted to try to write a story that my niece (at the time 5 years old) and nephew (at the time 3 years old) might enjoy as teenagers. I figured this would give me plenty of time to come up with something, and plenty of time to figure out how to get it done. I had never written a book before and had zero clue about how to do it. So I sat down, jotted some notes, typed a few pages, and kept chipping away at it. Many revisions later it started to take on some shape.

As I kept going, the shape became more recognizable as a story. I was watching movies and reading a lot to figure out what made the stories that I loved so great. Lord of the Rings, both the books and the movies were key factors in my research. Star Wars also ranked at the top. What I loved so much about them was the way they crossed all age groups. Anyone, any age could get in to see Star Wars. No profanity. No sex. No graphic violence. Both franchises had movies with some violence, but none of them were rated R.

… more … “The Language of Young Adult Fiction (Guest Post by Cheryl Campbell)”