Now in our 7th year, The Write Room, LLC is pleased to announce our expanded services for independent authors.

Over the last few years, it’s become easier than ever to publish a book. But all self-publishing consulting services are not alike. And we’ve been frustrated when we meet aspiring authors who have had less than stellar experiences with “publishing firms.”

We’ve created a solution. We’ve assembled a powerhouse of creative and technical professionals – photographers, graphic designers, cover artists, digital marketing and social media professionals, and public relations specialists – to give independent authors the ability to truly become a self-publisher. We particularly love working with business consultants and professionals who know that a book can bring their expertise to a new audience and can help them thorough the entire self-publishing process.

We’re excited to continue on this journey.

Step 1: I’ve got this idea

Out of all the things you need to write a book, this is the one that’s non-negotiable. You can (and in some cases probably should) turn to a professional for any other aspect of the process, including writing the actual content, but without an idea and the urge to communicate it, there is no point.

So, you have an idea for a book. This can take very different forms depending on whether you are a business person distilling your message for a largely professional audience or if you have devised the ideal storyline for a new spy thriller. First, while the idea is still new, get it down on paper. Time is not your friend in this instance — in fact, the longer you wait, the more likely you will be to talk yourself out of it. Everyone has something worth saying, but most of us seem to have an inner critic that will scoff at any idea until you are convinced it isn’t viable. Being able to view your writing with a critical eye is important, but not until much later in the process. For now, send that critical voice on a long needed vacation or lock it in a closet, but don’t allow it to stop you before you’ve even begun.

Give yourself permission and time to fully explore the idea you have. Take notes, lots of them, and allow them to be as creative and dissociative as you’d like. Go off on tangents. The point is to pin your thoughts to paper so that later you can come back and sort them to see the direction your book should take. While you may be certain that you want to write a book to inform people about the myriad options they have to use fabric in home decorating, you may find out that half the things you wrote down were about the impact of color on people’s mental state. That’s your passion — you need to make it your niche in the design business and more importantly you need to be sure that topic is fully incorporated into the book you write.

Hand-in-hand with refining your topic is the need to define your audience. A book written to encourage retired philanthropists to do charity work is going to sound very different from one written to urge high school kids to volunteer in their communities. Let’s make this even simpler: you wouldn’t talk to your grandmother at Sunday dinner the same way you speak to your friends over drinks, nor would you use the same tone to approach your boss about a raise as you would to get your children to hang up their coats.

As with your idea, spend a little time to picture your ideal audience. Who will benefit most from your idea? Who are you picturing most engaged in your story? What group do you most want to share your message with? That is your target audience, and they are going to be very influential to the rest of this process. Take notes about them, cut out pictures from magazines if need be. Unless you are content to write a book that sits unread on a shelf in your office, your audience is going to be metaphorically sitting at the table throughout much of the publishing process.

Those two things — your idea and your audience — are what you need to have clear in your mind in order to move forward with your book. Jot things down, scribble notes, take pictures if needed and toss them all into a folder to refer to later. Once you know what you want to write about and who you want to write it for, in many cases, the hardest part is over.

The event was lovely — perfect setting, spectacular food and a chance to meet the characters! Kudos Martin on a great book and a wonderful evening!

For more info visit:
www.theleafpeopleworldwide.com

Still, there are some challenges when attending these events, particularly the crowded ones. Sometimes there are so many people are in one room, it’s difficult to have more than a couple of conversations. It can even be challenging to find someone you know is already there. Worse, you don’t want to be one of those people you see sprinting through the room, flinging business cards at everyone with barely a “Hi, nice to meet you.”

And even if you end up with a pocket or purseful of business cards from new potential contacts, clients or referrals, face it – many of us don’t have a solid follow up plan for what to do with their new card collection.

Here are a few tips to make these networking events more worthwhile for you and your business:

1.  Go in with the mindset of making a handful of meaningful connections, rather than collecting cards from as many people as possible and having no conversation. If you find three new contacts that you’d like to follow up with for a lengthier discussion, you’ve made it a successful event.
2. When someone new introduces him or herself and offers you their card, don’t immediately put their card away, or just add it to the growing stack. Take a few seconds to read their card in front of them – maybe ask a question or two. If you want to follow up with them on something, maybe jot down a note on the back to the card.
3. If the event includes food and drink, and you’re thirsty or famished, try to get there as early as possible and grab a quick snack or drink before it’s crowded so you’re not trying to juggle glasses, cocktail napkins and business cards at the same time.
4. A day or two after the event, make sure to begin following up with individuals you’ve met. But it probably shouldn’t be a “hard sell” follow up. Just a quick note or email. If you do want to schedule a coffee or lunch with someone you’ve met, make a note in your calendar to follow up with the person and schedule your meeting soon.
5. And really, don’t be one of those people that sprint around a networking event flinging business cards like you’re dealing blackjack. You’ll be memorable, but for the wrong reason.

Any tips for business networking you’d like to share? Let us know.

Mary Ellen

    Amazon best-selling author Dee Ernst has just released her latest book, A Slight Change of Plan. Showcasing her storytelling genius, Dee once again brings you characters that feel like people you know, with a storyline that will keep you reading long past bedtime. This book is one to buy for yourself or give to the reader on your list.

Monster Mini Golf‘s newest location on Hope Road in Eatontown, New Jersey is the perfect place to hold the hippest holiday party! Throw out the image of tattered putting greens and impossible windmills, Monster Mini Golf amps up the volume and explores the possibilities of what miniature golf can be.

Jumpstart your resolutions

The Write Room, LLC is pleased to announce the publication of The Real Fountain of Youth: Simple Lifestyle Changes for Productive Longevity. Co-authored by Fitness Trainer Eraldo Maglara, NSCA-CPT, owner of Jersey Fit, Inc. and Fitness by Eraldo, this book provides motivation and how-to instruction for a lifestyle makeover that will provide life-long benefits.

We’d been itching to change our website for a while. More and more we felt that it didn’t really reflect who we were and more importantly, it didn’t reflect the work we do. We pride ourselves on getting to know our customers — on listening until we know so much about your business that we can reproduce your tone, the voice that you use to address the marketplace. Then we ask questions and listen some more until we have a solid read on your audience. Only then do we sit down to write. Somewhere along the line when we first created our site, our ability to partner with our customers, our agility and creativity did not make it onto our web pages.

After months of talking about changing things, we did something radical. We undertook our website renovation as a new project. The Write Room website was scheduled in like our other clients. And because we are committed to our clients, to delivering every bit of what they want and very often more, treating our own job like we would treat a client’s made all the difference. We went from “Yeah, yeah, we need to fix our website” to “Just wait until you see it!”

We brainstormed with our web guru Eric, Mary Ellen slogged through oodles of templates, and we finally arrived at a look, a format and some fresh, new copy. Along the way we realized the momentum that we create in our clients’ projects had infused our own. I’m tempted to use screenshots from the project to illustrate the sort of transformation we can offer. Our aim was to communicate the full range of what we do by showcasing some of our clients, in a crisp, fun, mobile format.

Let us know if we hit the mark.