This week’s podcast is from the Effective Public Speaking book. A funny thing happened on the way to the podcast. I’ve been heads-down, proofing and finishing the book. I plan to start the index today. That’s all finishing the book. I hate this part, but if I don’t do it, I can’t publish the book. […]
Several of my fellow writers are busy writing their nonfiction books. Since I’ve published a number of books, they’ve asked me to take a look at their book covers. Too often, the cover does not do the book or the author justice. The title is too small, the author’s name is way too small, and
How do you start a piece of writing? I often start with a “story,” an anecdote about a person with a problem. Long ago, I read a project status report from Clive. It was so boring that I skimmed it—only to read this as the last sentence: “This project is at substantial risk of not
Some writers don’t believe the promise of my Free Your Inner Nonfiction Writer book. They don’t believe writing can be fun. Or that writing can free your mind to think of more ideas as you write. They tell me writing is a slog, that they hate it. And they can’t wait to finish the piece.
Many writers struggle with perfection. They interrupt themselves with editing and trying to make the writing “perfect.” In their pursuit of perfection, they don’t finish and publish. But not publishing creates two problems: Not publishing means the writer receives no feedback. Sometimes, that means the writer stops writing. Worse, the writer continues to try to
You’ve written something. But before you hit “publish” you’re worried about how some readers will react. Will they like what you wrote? Will they dislike it? The answer is “yes” to both. That’s because each reader has a different context. If you write to one ideal reader, you have a good shot of finding readers
Are you worried about your ability to pay for books you want to read? Several of my newsletter readers have that problem. They’re unemployed and trying to figure out what to do next, their pivot. Since they read my newsletter and blog, these people trust my advice. They have asked where to find my free
Several newish writers have asked me how to help their readers find their writing. What they’re doing does not seem to work. They write on LinkedIn and on other social media sites. But the people they want to attract to their writing do not seem to find it. That’s the writer discoverability problem. Every writer
When I started to work in 1977, we didn’t have testers. I wrote tests for my code, code reviewed with other people, and—every so often—tested other developers’ code. We missed lots of errors, both in logic and functionality. That led to a ton of product and project risks. (Yes, plenty of late and unplanned feedback
Each week for a little over a year, I’ve been recording a little podcast and video. It’s called “60 Seconds of Johanna’s Writing WIP.” I’m doing this as an experiment for two reasons: Market the writing before I publish it. (Yes, the “launch” is a form of marketing, but I’m also planning to experiment with