One thing that we can safely predict – authors will be more and more responsible for financing their own work in the future. The fall of the big publishing system is a boon for authors in many ways, but the initial financing can be a struggle.

One service that many of our authors have used to help raise money and support is Kickstarter. After following some of the campaigns, doing some research, and testing different strategies, here are our top 5 tips for authors who want to use Kickstarter.

1. Set your goal at what you need, but don’t overshoot. One big mistake authors make is to ask for more than they really need and then fail to reach the goal. With Kickstarter, it’s all or nothing. Cut everything but the basics, then once you hit the first goal you can add supplemental goals with ideas and guidelines about what you’ll do when you reach new benchmarks. This way, you are walking away with something and you can always add more if you have a lot of support.

2. Look at other Kickstarter campaigns for books in your genre and see which ones are successful. Can you use similar rewards? What kind of copy did they write to sell their product? Did they already have a following that it supportive, or are these new fans?

3. Include as much media as you can. You should have at least one video, some pictures, some sample chapters, and whatever else you can think of. Make your project stand out and don’t do it halfway. If you want to get serious about your video, try shooting it yourself but pick up this lighting studio – Cowboy Lighting Studio - first. It’s what we use at Lucid Books and it’s great and very affordable at $60. Not a video person? If you have a big budget (Go big or go home, right?), try using www.breadnbeyond.com to make a video. They are very good and it will look great, just plan to spend at least $600.

4. Offer a really small reward ($1 – for sincere gratitude) and a really big reward that your’e sure no one will pick. Make your $25-$30 reward offer the most bang for the buck – most people give in this range, and you want to make it tempting. Think creatively about what rewards to offer . . . be sure and check other successful campaigns!

5. Don’t get discouraged and keep updating. Most campaigns will start and finish well, but the activity is almost always slow in the middle of the campaign.

Mason Currey, author of the new book Daily Rituals, sets out to do just that. His book covers some of the best authors and creators and answers the question that we all want the answer to: How did they do it?

Here are a select few of my favorites, summarized from the book:

Soren Kierkegaard: His routine included three things – writing, walking, and lots of coffee. He would typically start off writing early in the morning, then go for a long walk around midday. He claimed to get his best ideas while walking. Then he would go back home to write. He kept his energy up with coffee, though it may be more accurate to call it sugar. According to his biographer Joakin Garff, “Kierkegaard had his own quite peculiar way of having coffee: Delightedly he seized hold of the bag containing the sugar and poured sugar into the coffee cup until it was piled above the rim. Next came the incredibly strong, black coffee, which slowly dissolved the white pyramid. The process was scarcely finished before the syrupy stimulant disappeared into the magister’s stomach . . .”

Benjamin Franklin: Franklin would rise early and take his daily bath while reading or writing. Only, Franklin’s bath was not with water, but with cold air. He would sit in his chamber without clothes while “bathing”, and write.

Ernest Hemingway: Quoted from The Paris Review, Hemingway explained, “When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as your write.” Hemingway always stood up to write, and kept a chart of his progress so we would never fool himself.

Jonathan Edwards: He spent at least thirteen hours a day in his study writing and working, starting at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. He would often break up his routine with physical activity and always kept a pen with him to record thoughts. He once said in his diary, “I think Christ has recommended rising early in the morning, by his rising from the grave very early.”

Truman Capote: “‘I am a completely horizontal author,’ Capote told The Paris Review in 1957. ‘I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched out on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’be got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis.’” (126)

Flannery O’Connor: After her daily prayers, coffee, and going to mass, Flannery would write for three hours every morning. Her usual output was three pages. She once said, ‘I read a lot of theology because it makes my writing bolder.’

Charles Dickens: Would work for hours in complete silence, his office perfectly arranged. His usual output was 2,000-4,000 words a day. He always took a three hour walk as well, where he would continue to work on his story.

Stephen King: He writes every day of the year, even holidays and his own birthday. He almost never quits until he reaches his 2,000 word daily quota.

What’s your writing routine? If you are struggling with finishing your book, you may need to institute daily rituals like many of the artists and writers in the book.

The bad news is that model won’t work anymore. You can still find plenty of publishers willing to sell you marketing plans, but trust us – they are useless without the author’s involvement. The main reason we started our Partnership Publishing is so that we could create a system that gives financial rewards to authors who are willing to do the hard work to get their books sold. You wrote the book, the reality is that you will have to do most of the marketing for it to succeed, and you deserve most of the rewards.

It’s true that marketing and sales is hard work, a tough grind for anyone who is in the book business. But every once in awhile you come across a simple but brilliant strategy that you can use to significantly increase your sales. We’ll share a strategy you can use to more than double your efforts to get book reviews below, but first see how you answer the questions below.

How important is Word of Mouth Marketing? According to the author of Contagious, a new book detailing how to make anything go “viral”, it is the most important form of marketing there is. In fact, the average American has more than 16 conversations every day promoting some type of product by word of mouth. But how do you generate that kind of buzz about your book?

Social media, right? We are all sharing more online about our lives than ever before. What percentage of word of mouth marketing would you guess happens online?

75%?

50%

33%

How about 7%? That’s all that online social media contributes to online marketing. The solution that many marketers come up with to generate buzz is to Facebook & Tweet until there fingers fall off, but there are more effective ways to generate word of mouth marketing in the real world.

Ok, here’s the way you can double your book reviewing efforts. This is a great tip that I picked up from Give & Take (both Contagious and Give & Take are new books written by business professors at Wharton). Send two books when you contact someone to do a book review, along with a note asking the reviewer to pass on the book to someone they know who would enjoy the book.

Simple, but effective. Don’t pass on this because you think it sounds too easy. I review a lot of books, at least a dozen every month. As one of the top 1,000 reviewers on Amazon, I get at least two or three requests a day to review more books. If an author sent me two books in the mail, it makes their pitch more effective and they probably jump ahead in the queue. Here are at least 5 ways sending an extra book with a personal note will help.

1. Book reviewers love books. I talk about books all the time and loan them out. Giving a book to someone that they will like and review is a great way to help someone.

2. A personal note makes a big difference. Less than 10% of the books I personally receive include a personal note.

3. By giving an extra book, you are incentivizing the reviewer to read your book. If they want to share the book with someone who will really love it, they will have to read it first.

4. By letting a reviewer target someone who will like the book, they are doing some of the hard work for you. You want to put your book in the hands of people who are likely to like it, no easy task. The reviewer will take care of half the job for you.

5. You are also giving a copy of a book to someone who likely doesn’t get a lot of free books. They probably don’t have a backlog of books to review and will relish the opportunity to be one of the first to read and review the book.

Do you use any methods to help with your word of mouth marketing? What kind of marketing help would be the most helpful to you, as an author?

Here are three simple tools that anyone with a smartphone can use to significantly increase their productivity by better management of their time. By downloading and actually using these tools you will never forget to return emails again, create to-do lists seamlessly, and keep a record of everything you do each day.

1: Mailbox: This is my new favorite app, and the most useful one that I have found for managing email. It has many advantages over the standard email app that comes with an iPhone, but here are my three favorites.

First, you can “snooze” any emails that aren’t top priority. This will let you concentrate on what needs to be done now without fearing you will lose track of other emails. This may not seem that important to you right now, it didn’t to me at first. Download it and try it, it will help immensely.

Second, you can easily add content to custom made lists. I sign up for multiple blogs to keep updated on business, writing, books, and more. It’s very easy to save content in custom lists now, and you can do it right from your phone.

Last, you can easily delete or archive emails with a simple swipe now. Keeps your inbox clean and free of any junk mail. (This app is free, but there is a waiting list for it. May take you awhile to download it.)

2: NudgeMail: This tool is not an app, and is extremely easy to sign up for and use. Whenever you send an email, if you want to be reminded that you sent it and have it bounce back to you at a certain time, you just add a simple address in the BCC part of the email. For instance, when I send communication to an author for the first time, I will add “3days@nudgemail.com” in the BCC. Three days later, nudge mail will send it back to me. Use this, and never have another sent email get lost in the shuffle. There are endless options for when you want it kicked back to your, from two hours to 3 weeks to any date in the future. Check out more info here.

3: IDoneThis: It’s easy to lose track of what you are actually getting done each day, or prioritize the wrong thing. Sign up for this free service at IDoneThis.com. (Hint: make sure you sign up for the personal service, which is always free). Once a day, whenever you want, they will send you an email asking what you got done that day. You simply take 30 seconds to reply, and I Done This creates a calendar of what you are doing each day. This will provide some personal accountability to make sure you are writing and will give you an idea of what you are really spending your time on each week.

Bonus tip #1: Too techie for you? We have an article on the 5 best non-tech tools for authors here. My favorite analog tool is a multipen - use it everyday, huge time saver.

Favorite Productivity Boosting Books:

1. Mindhacker

2. The 4-Hour Workweek

3. Eat That Frog

4. Leaders Who Last

5. The Mind Map Book

Would love to know what tools you use as well, just add some ideas in the comments.

So far, I have read two of his books in the past couple of weeks, A Sense of Where You Are and Levels of the Game. The first is an biographical account of Bill Bradley, written while he was still at Princeton. The second is a book detailing a single tennis game between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. McPhee does such a great job telling the story of this tennis match that you will “see” more of the match by reading this then you will by watching the actual match.

Here are some of the lessons that I have learned from reading McPhee so far:

1. Research everything. One of the striking things about McPhee’s writing is how much research he has to do to complete his books. For anyone writing, research should be at the top of your list if you want to write compellingly on a subject. Follow the 95% rule, and shoot for learning more about your subject then at least 95% of your intended readership. Any lower and you aren’t really an expert, and any higher will have diminishing returns for your time invested.

2. Dialogue works. Letting your subjects speak for themselves, whether fiction or non-fiction, is very important. Sometimes the best thing a writer can do is get out of the way. Dialogue also has the advantage of being exact and moving the story along at a quick pace. Be selective with what you include, but include a lot. It’s easier than ever to interview and record these days, just use your smartphone to record or try using Google Hangouts for video recording.

3. People are fascinating. It’s easy to get caught up in the WHAT of your book, rather than the WHO. Dive into who your book is about – their background, their influences, their hobbies, their future, their friends, etc. You will find that building around a real individual and fleshing out their life on paper will tell your story better than focusing on just the facts. One other advantage that this method has is that it circumvents a reader’s defenses – they can’t object to a list of facts that they don’t think will work because they are just learning more about someone’s life and how they did it.

4. Perspective is everything. Don’t settle for the right answer on the angle to tell your book. Instead, always ask yourself  this question, “What are the best ways to tell my story?” Explore multiple answers before settling on one. I would never pick up a book on a tennis match and expect to enjoy it – I’ve never even watched a match on television. But a match reveals years of strategy and relationship between two individuals, highlighted by racial tension and the vastly different backgrounds of the two men playing.

5. Tell it quickly. One of the McPhee characteristics that I really like is how quickly his stories move despite his microscopic focus. His books rarely have chapters and they read like one long essay on a single subject. One way to accomplish this for yourself is to follow the advice of Stephen King and Anne LaMott - write your first draft only for you and write it as fast as you can. Your second draft is for the reader.

Reading is one of the best things you can do as a writer, and reading McPhee’s work will help you write better and appreciate the art of the craft even more. Below are the two books that I mentioned with links to reviews I wrote on them as well.

Review for A Sense of Where You Are

Review of Levels of the Game

First, he is popular. For whatever reason, King has connected with as wide of an audience as almost any other modern author. What he is saying and how he is saying it resonates with tens of millions of people across the world. How does he do that?

Secondly, he is prolific. With more than 40 books to his name, King is one of the fastest novelists to write in this era (Quick: who has written more published works than any other author? Answer). What is the secret to the volume that King has been able to consistently produce for years?

King wrote a memoir on writing called, appropriately enough, On Writing. The personal story of his years-long “overnight” success is contained in the first section of the book, and the rest of the book is filled with tools, methods, and advice for writers. Here are the best gems from the book that any author can learn from:

• “I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.” (50)
• Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. (57)
• Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around. (101)
• One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. (117)
• Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful. (118)
• Verbs come in two types, active and passive. With an active verb, the subject of the sentence is doing something. With a passive verb, something is being done to the subject fo the sentence. The subject is just letting it happen. You should avoid the passive tense. (122)
• I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. (127)
• When composing it’s best not to think too much about where paragraphs begin and end; the trick is to let nature take its course. If you don’t like it later on, fix it then. (132)
• If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. (145) [He suggests reading 4-6 hours a day]
• If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. (147)
• Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. (147)

Before we get into some specific things you can do, the first thing you have to do is accept that you are an author-salesperson. You must sell yourself and your book in order to succeed by any measure. Whether you wrote your book to grow a business, start a movement, speak to a generation, or entertain moms of toddlers, you must convince others to buy it. Daniel H. Pink has written a new book called To Sell Is Human that argues that almost everyone is in sales these days, even if they aren’t in a sales job. For an author, this is especially true. You might not have known it when you started writing, but you must become adept at moving others if your book will ever succeed.

By Any Other Name: As an author, the title of your book is one of the most important ways you can sell it. Don’t make your title ambiguous and confusing. Make it very, very easy for your target audience to find your book and connect with it. Think about other titles in the category you are writing and research them. Does your title stand out from them? What separates your book from theirs? Can anyone tell? For help developing your book’s “Unique Selling Proposition” (the main idea that is different from anything else), this is the best book I have read on it.

More Than Books: When I use the term author-salesperson, many people assume that means that the author is primarily trying to sell their book. In most cases, your book should not be what you are selling, but your primary vehicle to market it. For instance, if you are trying to grow a speaking business, you should not be overly concerned with how many people are buying your book. Rather, you want to focus on moving the right people to pick up your book and motivate them to schedule you to speak. Use your book to point to resources and ideas beyond your book, and do it often. Ideally, you should be able to give away copies of your book for free and still accomplish your goals. If you can do that, you are on the right track.

The Empty Chair: One of Dan Pink’s suggestions in To Sell Is Human is to use the empty chair technique that Amazon’s CEO, Bezos, uses all of the time. It serves authors well too. When you write, always keep the reader in mind. What do they want to learn? What is the best way to convey the information to them? When you write, put an empty chair nearby to remind yourself to attune to the desires of your future reader. When you are pitching your book to others, use the same technique to hit on what’s important to them. A physical reminder nearby will help you more than you think; try it a couple of times and you will see the difference yourself.

Experience Beats Features: Research shows that people value experiences over features in the long run. When you are promoting your book, focus on the experiences that it will bring to the reader not on the book’s features. Instead of listing the content, tests, and appendices of a guide to gardening, convey the experiences that they will get from gardening. The feel of the soil, the careful attention you have to pay to the natural environment, the harvesting and enjoyment of the hard work. What is more compelling?

This book will teach you how to grow 47 varieties of vegetables in the Springtime, without a fear of weeds. It also features an appendix with recommended planting times for a dozen different climates.

Nothing beats growing tasty tomatoes from seed to harvest. This book will help you enjoy the sweet taste of tomatoes around your family’s table as soon as you can get your hands dirty.

Ask Yourself: Ask yourself a question before crafting any marketing strategy or working at an author event, like a book signing. “Can you sell your book to these people?” List 5 reasons why you can, and focus on these strategies as you put together your marketing for any event. By asking yourself a question rather than just stating that you can sell the book, you are creating new connections in your brain for thinking about how to sell your book to others and developing specific strategies, not just positive affirmation.

Reverse Shoplifting: One of the best, most practical tips that I have read in any book on marketing for authors is the idea of reverse shoplifting. Get your book into stores no matter what it takes, even if you have to sneak it in yourself. This may seem counter-intuitive as you are giving your book away for free, but just think the benefit. Shoppers who are looking for a book in your category will find your book. Like we said before, selling your book should only be a vehicle to get the reader to the your true goal. Write a personal note in the book, leave a paper that describes where they can find more information, and direct them to where they can order more copies.

Here are some ideas on where you can leave your book:

Coffee shops

Church Lobbies

Used book stores – on the shelf

New book stores (if it’s set up for distribution, like all of the books that Lucid Books sells, you can leave it on the shelf and the store will still be able to sell it and make money – and you will actually get a royalty, offsetting the cost of giving it away)

Restaurants

Areas your target reader will find it (ex. leave a book on gardening on the gardening shelves of your local feed store)

As you can tell by the six techniques we have offered here, becoming a great author-salesman starts during the writing process. Think about your ideas and ask good questions while you are writing and you will be ahead of the game. Also, pick up a copy of the excellent book To Sell Is Human for more techniques on pitching others and moving people.

Writers are the most creative people in almost any field. Shaping a blank page into meaningful text using just 26 letters seems impossible, but writers are able to do it every day.

It is easier than it has ever been to find an audience for your work. Once you produce something, the computer and the internet are great tools for bringing it to life. Unfortunately, these digital tools also have a dark side that can destroy your creativity.

Writers who use the computer exclusively are in danger of editing themselves much too quickly. When all it takes is a click of the keyboard to eliminate a random thought or a bit of text that doesn’t quite fit, you are missing part of the journey of creating something from nothing. All good ideas start off as slightly odd or too random, but in the digital age many of these ideas are never realized because they are deleted too soon.

One way to fight this is to engage your hands and your body as you write and create, and save your computer for the polishing and editing. Below are 5 ways that you can use analog methods to increase your creativity.

Mindmaps. This is still my favorite method for outlining a book, whether its one you are preparing to write or one that you are just reading. All you need is a blank page and box of crayons, though this book by Tony Buzan is full of good ideas.. This method of outlining is very hands on and will help you make new connections for your book that you would never pick up if you just used a digital outline. See an example here that I created for a short book about Jonathan Edwards.

Analog Desk. In Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon shares his idea of setting up two desks: one for your digital tools and one for your analog tools. It’s a great method for moving back and forth between your creative mode and your editing mode, and one that I will be implementing soon.

“The computer is really good for editing your ideas, and it’s really good for getting your ideas ready for publishing out into the world, but it’s not really good for generating ideas.” (Steal Like An Artist, 58)

Use Your Hands. Whether its a hobby, helping your kids build Lego towers, or playing a sport, you should engage your hands frequently. There is a connection between kinetic energy and creating something that is lost when you just sit in front of a computer.

The next time you are struggling to come with a new idea, keep it in the back of your mind while you play with your kids. Your brain will keep working on the problem and the motion of your hands will help. This is also a useful tool when you are stuck at your office – get up and walk around, stand up while you write, or take a break and do anything besides sitting and thinking.

Pile-It. One of the most successful non-fiction writers around, Dan Poynter, suggests using the pile-it for your research. It’s a simple three step process that will get you organized more quickly than any digital method.

First, cut out or copy all relevant research to your book that you want to use. If its in a book, copy and print it out. If its in a magazine or newspaper, cut it out.

Second, use your outline (or your mindmap) and make piles of your research for the different topics you choose.

Last step is the simplest. Just pick the most interesting pile and start righting. Prioritize the most interesting and you will build momentum as you move on to other areas.

Mark It Up. One of my favorite analog tools is the multi-pen. I carry at least one with me wherever I go, and its a great tool to have on you when you are reading a book. Use a different color for notes, for quotes, for your own personal index, and just about anything else that you want to remember in a book. Don’t be content to just read a book and take notes on your computer – mark up your books.

Mindhacker has an excellent chapter on marking up your books, and you can also get some tips from Kay Arthur’s books on Bible study.

What analog tools do you use to fuel creativity?

Tools for Writing: Writers must first fill their toolbox if they want to write a book worth reading. Read books about grammar and words and how to write short stories. Here are a few of my favorites in this category:

Wordsmithy: The best overall book on writing that I have read. Will help you immensely, and point you in the right direction so you can improve your weaker areas.

Writing Tools - 50 simple writing tools to help authors accomplish small goals.

Forgotten English - Great book with unique, forgotten words. Great if you love language.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue - If you ever wanted to learn about the history of the English language, this is a good read.

Structure and Form: Once you have the basic building blocks in place, you will have to refine your work. Reading books on style and form will help immensely. Writers skip this step all too often and leave it up to the editors to do the refining work. Don’t make the same mistake. Once you learn how to edit and improve your own work there is no limit to how great of a writer you can be.

The Elements of Style - Classic, always one of my first recommendations

Line by Line - Editing your own book, clearly explained

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers - Very good as well.

The Joy of Writing: Writers need to be encouraged often because writing is really hard work. Reading writing memoirs will help you push through and finish that book. Commiserating with fellow writers, even if it is just on the page, can be very rewarding.

Bird by Bird - Top recommendation, great to read while you are in the writing process.

On Writing - Stephen King is one of the most prolific writers of our time, and he gives some excellent advice here.

The Writing Life - Short, but thought-provoking.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the writing process – break it down and build slowly. If you can buy and read just three books on writing, get Wordsmithy, The Elements of Style, and Bird by Bird. Which books have helped you in the writing process?

Few would-be writers grasp just how difficult writing is. Many assume that it is a natural talent that they just don’t have and, despite the idea that has been brewing in their minds for years, give up before they start. Others assume that it is pretty easy – with a little luck, a gifted editor, and a couple of months of work anyone can do it. Don’t make the mistake of treating writing as an impossible talent or a trivial pursuit. Pursue it, always continue to learn, and find criticism wherever you can and you will improve.

According to Robert Greene’s upcoming book, Mastery, there are three steps that you must take in order to master anything:

Observation & Study. Before you become a writer, you must be a reader. Devour books that are in the genre you would like to write in. Read writing helps constantly. Pick up old dictionaries and books about odd words. Learn a new language, modern or ancient. Before you can even practice the art of writing, you have to create a foundation of great writers to build on.

Recommended Reading:

Any book in the genre you want to write in – read the best and build on them.

Wordsmithy – One of the best how-to books.

Bird By Bird - Great encouragement for writers.

Forgotten English - Develop your love for language.

The 4-Hour Workweek – Great read & one of the best organized books available.

Practice & Critique. In the second phase of mastering writing, you will need to put what you have learned into practice. Start writing daily. Work on your editing skills. Improve your sentence structure and develop your own voice. Buy workbooks and writing guides and work on your prose. Write outside of your genre and stretch yourself. Try to get smaller pieces published in newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Seek out experienced critics and insist that they find things wrong with your work.

Recommended Reading:

Simple & Direct

The Elements of Style

On Writing Well

The Plot Whisperer Workbook

Spunk & Bite

Writing For Publication. After observing and practicing the art of writing, you should start to write your own work for publication. Because of the groundwork you have already done, you will be able to focus on delivering great content rather than working on your technique as you go. Focus on developing something that is unique compared to other books in the genre, but that will also connect with those who love the best titles that are there. Continue to seek out criticism, but also trust your own writing voice at this stage. After you have put in the hard work, its best to trust your instincts at this stage.

Recommended Reading:

Mind Map Post – Learn how to use mind maps to outline your book

Top Ten Writing Tips From Accomplished Authors

Books on Mastery Coming Soon:  Mastery by Robert Greene, The 4-Hour Chef by Tim Ferris, & a new book coming from Josh Kaufman next year.