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Express Yourself ! Seven Simple Steps to Getting In Print
You are good at what you do, maybe even great! But who
knows? And this really is the issue - if they have neither
heard of you, nor met you, and missed out on the benefits of
doing business with you - then you need to be proactive and do
something about it.
Getting yourself in print is neither difficult nor expensive
so what’s your excuse for not having your own self-promoting
book out there with your name on it? All you need to do is
start the process of getting some ideas together and getting
them in a format that you can put easily in front of your
colleagues, clients and prospects.
1. Choose your
main hobby, or an area of your business that you are
passionate about and on which you have strong opinions.
Consider some of the reasons you love it and realize how
skilled you have become at what you do in this area of your
life. Realise the benefits others would get from learning
from your views.
2. Decide on a
number of important messages that you think people should hear
about from you when they want to be educated about this topic
or theme you have selected. If you identify 10 core important
messages this is bound to be enough for your first information
product. If I were writing a piece about Client
Communications I might jot down core points such as: Spoken,
Written, Internal, External, Procedure Meetings, Sales
Meetings, PR Material, Interviews, E-mail, Client Complaints.
Communication in each of the 11 contexts listed is both
important and unique.
3. With each of
your ten themes now think about what you would want to get
across in your message about this overall topic and think of
perhaps six sub areas. For example, if I was following the
theme of the PR Material I might choose the sub areas of
Creating a Press Release; drafting a News Announcement;
identifying Newsworthy Stories; Managing Negative PR aspects;
collecting Positive Product Case Studies; and developing Media
Contacts.
4. Now that
you have a group of sub areas, you can think of bullet points
for each of these. Choosing these carefully is a simple
process and will give you a lot of content for your articles,
or even for a full book. Again following the example of
the PR theme and the section on developing Media Contacts,
what would now happen is that you list simple points in the
order that you think they might be best expressed. Here a
sample first five to get you started,
i.e.
·
Listing journalists from Industry or Sector Magazines
·
Developing a Database of Names
·
Creating a Media Timetable for the Year
·
Asking for the Publication Media Packs
·
Identifying Your Media Objectives, etc
5. Now start to
make notes on each of the sub themes until you have say 10
pages or 10 paragraphs of information on each one. The point
here is to list what you already know and get it down onto
paper or screen as quickly as you can. It is amazing how
quickly you can get the information into a format that has
value, structure and order and which your audience will be
keen to receive.
6.
With the
information in front of you, start to place it into a natural
structure. Going back to the idea of Communications as
theme, you would find it easier to start with an Explanation
of why communication is important, how it serves people, and
the value of it to a particular setting or context, before you
place other items at the front of your document.
7. With a work
in front of you that is ordered and has structure, you are now
in a position to make good on the whole package and work
through it with a quick first read to ensure the style that
you have written it with is coherent through the whole piece
of work. If you are making use of a case study in two
chapters, find another for each of the remaining chapters. If
you share a personal - and relevant- anecdote from your own
experience in some of the chapters, make sure you do so for
all of them.
Now you have the above seven pointers for getting your
content ready, you can enjoy another of Nick’s articles, this
time on the topic of reaching the people who will distribute
your written non-fiction material. To receive further ideas and
notes about getting yourself in print please email him
nick@rampley-sturgeon.com
Nick Rampley-Sturgeon
is the author of many books including the best seller from
Prentice Hall FT “Small Business BIG Profit” a great book
that is available via the Small Business Success website and
which will give you insights, ideas, and practical mechanisms to
grow your business profits from the time you start reading it
right through until you absorb the last valuable section.
He runs the
great “Get Your Book Written Now” residential weekend
from a rural conference centre in the Yorkshire Dales, sharing
with you practical and proven ways to make money from
communicating your Non-Fiction Ideas and ensuring your name is
known for the great ideas you have. Introduce yourself and your
ideas on 01943-608586
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