Would You Like To Turn Your Novel Into A Bestseller?

What makes the work of a novelist sell well?

Genius, good connections in the publishing world – or just old-fashioned, hard editing?

Some clues come from Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel. Ian Fleming’s original draft was put on show earlier this year to mark the 60th anniversary of the novel’s publication.

It did not spring immaculate from his typewriter. Nor did Fleming have any publishing connections or prior experience in novel writing.

He succeeded – the novel went into three print runs in its first year alone – because Casino Royale was immensely readable. Why? As the manuscript shows, Fleming edited his first draft massively.

We can all learn from his copy-editing process as we strive for best-seller stardom. Here are just a few examples taken from one  passage.

1. He replaced ‘flat’ or literary constructions with simple words, short sentences and active verbs.

The first draft read:

Bond had had a feeling that this might be the CIA man and his impression was confirmed as they strolled off together towards the bar.

That became:

Bond had had a feeling that this might be the CIA man. He knew he was right as they strolled off together toward the bar.

The changes are small but one long sentence is now broken in half and the second one has acquired a terse verb: ‘He knew he was right.’

In this passage, we also read:

Bond was pernickety in all he ate and drank.

Fleming struck out that very British term ‘pernickety’ and wrote:

Bond was always meticulous about what he ate and drank.

Even then, Fleming had his eye on a wide readership. The novel had to work on both sides of the Atlantic.

2. He split up passages of dialogue to add vitality.

In the first draft, Fleming wrote:

“A Dry Martini,” he said. “One in a champagne goblet. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka.”

In his second draft, Fleming inserted an extra line of dialogue.

“A Dry Martini,” he said. “One in a champagne goblet.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Just a moment, now listen. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka.”

Just seven extra words but the passage has gained vitality. And is there a hint of conflict with the barman? (“Just a moment, now listen.”)

3. He simplified the characterization.

In the original draft, Fleming had the CIA man introduce himself to Bond with the words:

“My name’s Felix Leiter. Glad to meet you.”

Bond replies: “Mine’s Secretan.”

Fleming had intended to give Bond an assumed name ‘Secretan’ when on covert operations. But he realized this might confuse the reader. So he deleted ‘Secretan’ and inserted ‘Bond’. The rest is history.

He ruthlessly cut everything that might distract or confuse the reader – at least, everything that did not have a plot purpose.

4. He wrote in the ‘voice’ of his character.

Fleming also changed his style to reflect that of his character.

The first draft was written in Fleming’s own ‘voice’ – that of a cerebral university man, educated at Eton and Sandhurst. That wouldn’t do for Bond, a man of action, not words. So the draft was rewritten in plain words, short phrases and loose constructions that made sense quickly.

For example, the sentence (quoted below) in Casino Royale is ungrammatical. As a senior civil servant, Fleming would not have allowed himself to write so badly; but we forgive Bond. Grammar was not among his strengths.

He was quite honest to himself about the hypocrisy of his attitude towards her. As a woman, he wanted to sleep with her but only when the job had been done. 

‘As a woman’ is a dangling modifier. Taken literally, it implies that Bond is a woman. Would the average Bond reader notice? Probably not. So Fleming was unconcerned about it.

That’s a very simple 4-step process – copy editors know it well – but it offers us all a quick way to improve our work, whatever genre we write in. It’s also a lesson we can study when we’re tempted to play with words and strut our stuff. Fleming hid his cleverness behind a clear plot structure. The language is invisible. Its focus is on telling the story – or rather, letting the story tell itself.

It’s interesting to note that Fleming had “meager financial expectations” of the income he might gain from his first novel. He protested when his publisher Jonathan Cape wanted to sell Casino Royale too cheaply. “I am not in favor of reducing the price of the book to 10/6d [less than a dollar]. I think it would be a mistake for your first thriller to seem to be given away.”

But the publisher cut the price. And the Bond phenomenon was born.

That’s another message worth remembering today, when self-publishing authors debate the wisdom of selling an ebook at 99 cents versus, say, $9.99. If a debut novel is good enough to stoke a vast demand, it probably doesn’t matter how low it’s priced. The profit is in the after-market, the follow-on sales.

James Bond went on to feature in 30 subsequent novels, 14 of them written by Fleming himself. The total Bond franchise revenue – from novels, films and merchandise – is now listed as $7,979 million.

Did a simple copy-editing process achieve all that? Of course not. But it made a very good start…

Do you find that writing the first draft is hard work but revision is fun? Or the other way round? Is it difficult for you to change your own style to write in the ‘voice’ of your characters? Or do such role switches come naturally to you? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

About the author:

Dr John Yeoman, a successful commercial author for 42 years, is a tutor in creative writing at a UK university. A wealth of further ideas for writing fiction that sells can be found in his free 14-part story course here. 

Image: Secret Agent courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

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Would You Like Get Ideas For Great Content From Your Bookstore?

Every time you sit down to write an article, it’s the same story.

You sit there and you can’t really think of what to put in your newsletter.

You really want to say something, but nothing comes out.

The longer you sit there, the longer the minutes will tick away.

And before you know it, the phone will be ringing, the distractions will be piling up and you’ll find yourself mindlessly wandering through Facebook or emails.

That’s why you need to leave your office.

Go down to your local bookstore instead. Get yourself a coffee or a drink first, and now that you’re in a different state of mind, go to the section where you can find books on your topic.

Which means that if you write about gardening – well, head to the gardening section.

If your business is graphic design, the graphic design section it is. No matter what your area of expertise, you’ll find a few dozen books on the topic.

What do you do next?

Open the book to the Contents Page. Here’s what you’ll find. You’ll find a dozen topics, just sitting there for you. And you? You’re already the expert.

So let’s say your newsletter is about ‘gardening’ and you are in the gardening section of the book store.

Your eye falls on a book called “Raised Bed Gardening”.

You open the book, swing right to the contents page, and voilà, this is what you find:

Chapter 1: Advantages And Benefits To Using Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 2: The Proper Placement Of Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 3: Standard Designs and Preparation For Your Raised Bed Garden

Chapter 4: Plants Suitable For Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 5: Potential Problems That Are Avoided With Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 6: Making Your Own Compost

Chapter 7: Best Soil Recommendations For Your Raised Bed Garden

Chapter 8: Strategies for Planting Seeds In Your Raised Bed Garden

Chapter 9: Natural Methods To Resolve Crop Infestation

Chapter 10: Crop Rotation In Gardening

Suddenly you have at least ten topics that you know quite a lot about.

Well, get out that pen and paper, or take a picture of the Contents page with your smartphone. And then close the book. Yes, close it, because you have everything you need. Within that Contents page were about ten ideas that you could easily write about—after all, you do know a fair bit about raised bed gardening, don’t you?

But you can’t write ten articles just today, so start with one.

Let’s look at the topic that we spotted in Chapter 9, for instance: Natural methods to resolve crop infestation. Now the author of the book would have methods, but hey, you have your own methods as well.

And this is the important part…

The subscribers on the mailing list — your mailing list — care a hoot about what that author thinks.

But they do care what you think. They care about the way you present your ideas. Remember, they signed up to your list for a reason. So even if you were to write exactly the same ideas as mentioned in the book, they would still want to hear your take on it.

Now that you have your topic, make several points about how you’d deal with ‘infestation’.

Talk about the what: What is infestation?

Talk about the why: Why is it such a problem?

Talk about the when: When does it mostly occur?

Talk about the steps: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4.

Talk about the mistakes: What mistakes does a home gardener make?

And there you have it. Your visit to the book store is super-fruitful.

You got ten topics and just one topic has gotten you all fired up. There are still nine more to go. And you’ve opened just one book.

There are dozens more books, but you can leave those for another day. Finish your coffee and let’s head back to someplace where you can jot down your ideas. Once you’ve done the jotting, only then do you go back to your office to complete your article.

But isn’t this plagiarism? Aren’t you just copying and ain’t that nasty?

No, you’re not just copying. That is why you closed the book immediately after you wrote down the topics on the Contents page.

The goal was not to get ‘inspiration’ from what the author wrote. Instead it’s just a way to get you jumpstarted on some topics. Because you sure as heck can write a ton of stuff on any of the topics in the Contents pages of the books on your topic.

The place you were stuck was coming up with the idea itself. If you chose to keep the book open, you might have inadvertently copied the author’s ideas, and that would be bad. Mucho bad!

Instead, all you’re doing is firing up the ideas in your brain and ideas are free. There’s no copyright on ideas.

Surely I can do this while sitting in my office—why go to the book store?

A big part of writing is getting your brain in the right frame of mind. With all those distractions in your office, it’s hard to think, let alone write. In the book store, your mind is a lot more relaxed.

Everyone gets stuck when writing.

Almost everyone continues to sit in their office.

Almost everyone avoids the trip to the local bookstore.

Make the trip. And make it soon.

It sure beats going nuts about writing your next newsletter.

Have you used your local book store to find content? Or do you find content ideas in other nooks and crannies? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments!

About the author:

Sean D’Souza is a writer, marketing guru and expert on sales psychology. To read more articles by Sean, and get a very useful free report on “Why Headlines Fail”, go to PsychoTactics.com

Image: Bookstore courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

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Would You Like To Use Fear To Write Better?

Being a writer means living in terror.

I don’t mean the terror of a zombie apocalypse or of circus clowns.

I mean the incessant nagging of self-doubt.

Do you ever ask yourself any of the following:

• Do I really have what it takes?
• What if they reject my proposal?
• What if no one takes my ideas seriously?
• What if I’m just not meant to be a writer?
• When will they discover I’m a fraud?
• Who am I kidding anyway?

Self-doubt can be completely debilitating.

But if you listen to it closely, this type of fear can become a potent tool for revealing your deepest desires and showing you how to attain them.

Fear Tells Us What We Need

We tend to think of fear as something to avoid, but it often turns out that behind self-doubt hides something we desperately need.

For example, I have numerous fears about writing a novel:  the fear of criticism, not finding enough time to write, finding out I’m not as talented as I like to think I am, etc.  However, beyond all the things that make me hesitate, there is a powerful desire to hold the finished work in my hands, to have my ideas perfectly articulated, and to receive praise from friends and family.

This tension of being drawn toward something and simultaneously repulsed is what creates the visceral discomfort of self-doubt that makes us want to run.

The fact that self-doubt is ultimately rooted in desire is precisely why it’s so hard to ignore – we don’t want to lose sight of something precious! If there is no strong need or desire, there’s no self-doubt either.  For example, I have no fear of getting a pilot’s license – though objectively, flying is more dangerous than novel writing – because I have no desire to learn to fly.

Fear Tells Us What It Will Take

While self-doubt reminds us of our goals and desires, it also tells us – as nothing and no one else will – the price we must pay to achieve those goals.

When I think about writing a novel, I immediately start imagining the frustration of writer’s block, the sting of rejection slips, and the fight-or-flight terror of one-star reviews on Amazon.

Now, I have a choice.

I can accept these fears as challenges I need to overcome to reach my goal, or I can let them become excuses to put off doing the work that will get me closer to my desires.

If I push on, then my fears have given me the chance to prepare myself mentally before facing the challenges the real world will throw at me.

If I let myself be discouraged instead, then my fear has still served me well – by testing my resolve and keeping me from diving into something I wasn’t sufficiently committed to.

Either way, my fear shows me clearly what I need, how to get it, and makes me choose deliberately, instead of blindly chasing my desires.

Fear Helps Us to Grow and Makes Our Achievements Matter

I’ve often bemoaned how much more I could accomplish if only I was more courageous.

However, I’ve found, like so many before me, that courage isn’t the absence of fear; it is the decision to proceed in spite of it. As we face our self-doubts and overcome obstacles, our courage begins to grow, allowing us to face bigger challenges. Little by little, we become the kind of person worthy of the goals we’ve set.

Overcoming fear is also part of what makes achieving a goal meaningful.

For example, when I was a child I consistently brought home straight-A report cards.  My parents and teachers always made a fuss, but at the time school was easy for me, so it never felt significant.  No major obstacles meant no self-doubt, but no sense of accomplishment either.

Several years ago I entered a talent show to play the guitar and sing in front of an audience of fifty friends and coworkers.  I was nearly frozen with terror, certain of imminent death by humiliation, but I have never felt as victorious as when I finished my set – not even when I found out at night’s end that I had taken second place.

How to Use Fear to Write Better

Self-doubt presents us with a choice:  ”Here is something you need, and here’ what’s keeping you from it.  Ignore it and avoid the struggle, or go for it and maybe gain something priceless.  Your call.”

This challenge can liberate us from a life of complacency, and can also help us know ourselves better, but only if we learn to make use our fear, to friends with our fear.

How?

Step One:  Acknowledge and name your self-doubts.

Go ahead and write down one of those big fears.

Then break it down into all the smaller fears that it consists of.  For example, if writing and publishing a novel is my big fear, the small fears might be the fear of criticism, being accused of self-promotion, or learning that my ‘profound ideas’ are just clichés distilled from watching too much television.

If you have trouble coming up with your big fears, just try to think of something you’ve always talked about doing, but have never gotten around to.  That’s doubt’s calling card.

Step Two: Think about what you really want that’s on the other side of this fear.

Think about the reward you will get when you face and overcome this fear. Write this down in as much detail as possible. Imagine what it will be like to sign copies of your book for fans, to receive your first five-figure royalty check, or to give a reading in front of a thousand people.  Have fun with this step!

Step Three: Take the fears you listed in Step One and rewrite them as steps to be taken to reach your goal.

This is how your fear and self-doubt can literally provide you with a roadmap to your goal.  For example, I might reformulate my worry about having my writing criticized as “Find an online critique site where I can practice receiving anonymous criticism.”

This process allows me to change my mindset from “I don’t have what it takes to write a novel!” to “If I follow these steps, someday I’ll hold my story in the palm of my hands”.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

It’s almost impossible to make friends with the gut-twisting, visceral experience of fear, but if we wait for fear to go away before acting, we might end up never doing much of anything!

So practice pushing through the physical sensation by first overcoming small fears and then building up.  Visualizing the rewards of going beyond the fear is another way to motivate yourself.

The good news is that even if you try and fail, facing up to your fears is a meaningful accomplishment in and of itself.  If your goal is to get a raise and you make your best appeal to your boss but still get a “no”, you can at least feel better knowing that you tried, and you’ll be that much more confident – and better prepared – the next time around.

When you make friends with fear, you win either way.

What are your big fears, and what might they be calling you to do?  Share your answers in the comments below to help others start thinking about how to make the most of their self-doubt!

About the author:

Ryan Urie is a freelance writer living in Moscow, Idaho.  Check out his freelancing advice and samples of his creative work at moscowfreelancer.wordpress.com.

Image: Fear courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

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Do You Apply These Lessons From Marketers?

To the uninitiated, writing can seem like a pretty easy gig.

You just spend the day watching television and surfing the web, and when inspiration strikes you saunter over to your computer to dash off a few brilliant paragraphs, send them off to an editor, and you’re done for the day.

This is the life, you sigh as your fix yourself a mojito and sit back to wait for your fan mail and royalty checks.

Living the dream.

Obviously, we know it doesn’t work exactly like that. We know the stress of looming deadlines, the agony of rejection, and the uphill trudge that writing can be on those days when doing what you love just doesn’t feel like that much fun.

And there always those niggling questions in the back of your mind: “Is this good enough? Will any one read it? If they do, will they care? Even if they care, will they pay me for it?”

It can be enough to make you nostalgic about that summer landscaping job you had in high school.

Almost.  ;-)

Now here’s the good news: quite a lot of that anxiety can be lifted by thinking just a little bit like a marketer. You can *know* that the people who read your work will respond to it, get excited about it, and share it with their friends.

Here’s how…

Even When You Work for Yourself, You Aren’t Really Working for Yourself

Every smart marketer knows that they may be the creative mind behind an operation – but they aren’t working for themselves, they’re working for their client.

The client must be thrilled, entertained and satisfied – but even the client isn’t really the boss. The real boss is the end-user. The person who will see the material and decide to take action.

That client = your editors.

That end-user = your reader.

It can be difficult, after years of training and studying, trying to find your true, most genuine voice, to start having to give more weight to what they want to read instead of what you want to write.

Fortunately you don’t have to deal with this difficulty – if you spend just a little time figuring out who out there is most likely to love what you have to say.

In marketing, we call this finding your ideal customer. In writing, it’s finding your ideal reader. Who is going to be most likely to respond enthusiastically to your voice, and where are they?

If you can get in front of them and build a relationship with them, both you and they will benefit.

First Impressions are Formed in Seconds – Don’t Waste Yours

Once you’ve identified your ideal reader, and positioned yourself where they can find you – you still have to grab their attention, and you’ve only got a tiny fraction of time to do that.

People tend to skim headlines until they find something that piques their interest, so you’ve got to make sure that your titles, covers, headlines and any advertising you do is riveting.

This can feel like groping in the dark, but remember, you’ve just discovered who your ideal reader is. You know them, what they like and what interests them.

You can leverage your understanding of your ideal reader by putting yourself in their shoes and imagining “what will attract me the most?”

You can also research what they are interested in by checking out the blogs and news sites they read, and looking at which kinds of posts (and which headlines!) are most popular with them.

You’ll have to experiment with different styles, but eventually you’ll find the formula that works for you and reels the readers in.

Doing a great job? You’ll probably annoy someone along the way…

The best writing is informed by passion, and when you’re passionate about something, the odds are that other people are as well.

However, they aren’t always passionate in the same way you are.

For every person who loves The Walking Dead, there’s another person who despises it. The same is true of pretty much any topic. You see this all the time in marketing – the best advertisements are the ones that cause controversy.

This wasn’t as much of an issue twenty, fifteen, or even ten years ago, when popular response to writing was somewhat more nebulous and hard to pin down. With the advent of the internet and blogs, however, every opinion gets aired, sometimes vociferously.

Someone is going to hate every word you write.

And that’s a good thing.

If you can stir someone up enough that they go out of their way and tell you how awful you are, you can rest assured that you’ve stirred up many more to respond positively. And they will look out for more of your work in the future.

Whatever Your Medium, You Can ALWAYS Use More Fans

It doesn’t matter if you’re a fiction writer, a movie critic, a current events reporter or anything else – having more fans of your work is a good thing.

The more people you have relationships with, the more people will be eager to read and buy your work.

The more fans you acquire, the more credibility you have with larger organizations like news media, academic institutions and publishers.

Imagine you have just completed a manuscript and want to either have it traditionally published or do it yourself.

If you have a small, lukewarm audience, publishers might not be willing to take a chance on you, and there simply won’t be enough people to make self-publishing worthwhile.

But if you have a massive, raving audience hanging on to your every word, publishers will scramble for you, and you’ll have the freedom to go our own way if you want to.

So whatever your preferred genre or style is, it’s worth stepping outside your box to find more people who will respond to you.

But You Can’t Spend All Your Time Searching…

It’s easy to say that you need more fans, and another thing entirely to go out and get them.

Which is why you need a plan. A system that will point you in the right direction, and give you the steps you need to do it quickly and efficiently so you can spend more time writing (for more people!).

That’s why I developed the Write Like Freddy training program which is especially geared towards writers who want to leverage their strengths to find and get in front of new audiences – the fast and easy way. ;-)

Which of these lessons do you apply? Or have you successfully applied any other lesson? Share your thoughts in the comments!

About the author:

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is the co-founder of Firepole Marketing, the “Freddy Krueger of Blogging”, and the co-author (with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, and many others) of Engagement from Scratch! (available on Amazon, or as a free download). If you want to learn to “Write Like Freddy”, click here.

Image: Writers learn from marketers courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

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Would You Like To Develop Your Narrative Voice?

“A real writer learns from earlier writers the way a boy learns from an apple orchard — by stealing what he has a taste for, and can carry off.”
― Archibald MacLeish, American poet, writer and Librarian of Congress

Have you ever singled someone out in a crowd because you liked what they were wearing?

Did you go home and try to recreate the outfit with what was in your closet?

Did you wear it better than they did?

Or did you tear it off vowing never to wear the clothes that way again?

Modelling writing is kind of like that, only instead of figuring out how to make a statement with your clothes, you do it with your words.

I spent years developing my narrative voice, that unique way of telling a story that was particular to me.

How I found my voice was by “stealing” from other writers, trying on different points of view, tones and styles until I found one that was my own.

Note: Modelling, which is what I mean by “stealing”, is very different from plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization, and the representation of that author’s work as one’s own.

How To “Steal”

1. Borrow the structure: Does the passage below remind you of something?

“Once upon a time there were two cities within a city. One was light and one was dark. One moved restlessly all day while the other never stirred. One was warm and filled with ever-changing lights. One was cold and fixed in place by stones.”

The first line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities reads: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

In the passage above, taken from A Graveyard for Lunatics, Ray Bradbury “borrows” Dickens’ structure in its comparison of light and dark imagery.

2. Use the setting: Another way you can model is to use a setting from popular literature.

As you read these passages, see if you can spot the similarities:

“A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street…the cask had tumbled out…the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell…The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them …Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped…Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads.”

And…

“The driver had been coming out of the turn on the inside when the wagon had tilted and gone over. As a result, the kegs had sprayed all the way across the road. Many of them were smashed, and the road was a quagmire for twenty feet. One horse…lay in the ditch, a shattered chunk of barrel-stave protruding from its ear…Wandering around the scene of the accident were perhaps a dozen people. They walked slowly, often bending over to scoop ale two-handed from a hoofprint or to dip a handkerchief or a torn-off piece of singlet into another puddle. Most of them were staggering. Voices raised in laughter and in quarrelsome shouts.”

Did you catch the comparisons?

The rural setting? The overturned cart carrying spirits? The road made swampy by the spill? The people trying to sop up as much of the spirits as they can with whatever materials are handy? What about the shattered walnut shell mirrored in the second passage’s lame horses and shattered skulls?

The first passage is from a scene in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, the second from Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman. In the modelling of this passage, King and Straub use Dickens’ setting, making it their own by serving it up with the dark and graphic horror their readers know and love.

3. Break with convention: I recently started reading the Kathy Reichs’ Temperence Brennan series and her use of dialogue tags intrigues me. Here’s an example:

“Which gives the chapter location.” Ponytail.

and

“Warm-hearted ladies, all.” Kuricek.

When writing conversations between more than two people, Reichs often drops the dialogue tag (i.e., said) and gives only the name of the speaker. This helps keep the conversation fast and the reader on track, without having to read repetitive tags.

In my example, a boy (Kal-El) is on a bed, listening to a conversation. Delirious, the boy imagines he is Superman recovering from a confrontation with Kryptonite:

“What is he?” Lois.
“A boy.” Jor-El.
“But he’s not…human.”
“He was once.”
“But not now?”
Kal-El swallowed.

The style worked for me in this scene because in his semi-conscious state, the boy would not be fully aware of his surroundings and might only have the presence of mind to identify the speaker and nothing else. In this case, the break from traditional dialogue tags fit, and I kept it in my final product.

4. Steal style: Things like simile, metaphor, and alliteration (the repetition of sounds) are hard to do well.

Stealing an example from a bestselling author in order to model it is a great way to practice. Here’s an example from Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister:

“I was as dizzy as a dervish, as weak as a worn-out washer, as low as a badger’s belly, as timid as a tit-mouse, and as unlikely to succeed as a ballet dancer with a wooden leg.”

And my modelling of it:
“I was as bouncy as a ball, as happy as a hosed-down hippo, as high as a misty moon, as loud as a loon, and as unlikely to keep quiet as a ticking bomb nearing zero.”

In my modelling, I steal the repetition of simile, sounds and comparisons as well as the structure to create an entirely new passage.

How to “Steal”

• Keep a journal. Begin one (if you haven’t already), with paper and pen or digitally.
• Read voraciously.
• Every time you find an interesting passage, make note of it in your journal. You might choose Richard Castle for his hard-boiled narrative, or Janet Evanovich for her conversational tone, Kathy Reichs for her attention to detail, or Anne Rice for her dark mood.
• Then, on days you feel abandoned by your muse, go to the orchard that is your journal, pick an apple and take a bite.
• Study the passage to find the one thing that made it stand out for you in the first place. Then steal by modelling it.
• Finally, similar to the apples in the orchard, cultivate it over time, mixing and matching it with other styles until you create a narrative voice that is distinctly your own.

You can try to connect it to your current manuscript, or write an independent passage to use later.

If you’re lucky, you might figure out where your taste lies, and set down the roots for a future project.

Here are three wonderful passages to get you started. Don’t forget to share your modeled passages in the comments!

“Moon. Glorious Moon. Full, fat, reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing too the full-throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of the wind roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, the teeth-grinding bellow of the moonlight off the water.”
-Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“This meal happened to be a make-believe tea, and they sat round the board, guzzling in their greed; and really, what with their chatter and recriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening.”
–J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“He felt his smile slide away, melt, fold over and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness.”
–Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

About the author:

Elise Abram is an English teacher, former archaeologist, and published author and blogs about the writing process, popular culture and its ties to literature and literary elements. 

Image: Woman eating apple courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

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Would You Like To Create A Style Of Your Own?

If you were to look at Picasso’s work, you could spot it anywhere.

If you were to listen to Sting’s music, you’d know it was Sting.

If you were to read Dan Brown’s book, you’d know it was Dan.

So how come these folks have a style and you don’t?

You know you don’t have a style, because if you took your cartoon or your article and placed it amid another person’s work, no one would be able to pick out your work as unique.

And that’s because it’s not.

Imagine you’re trying to learn how to cook a yummy dish like biryani.

Now biryani tends to be a very complex, almost scary, type of rice dish. It’s filled with a list of ingredients as long as your arm, and the process can be intimidating.

But if you’re determined to crack the ‘biryani code’, you’re going to follow the instructions in great detail. The exact ingredients, sequence and methodology must be followed to ensure that you replicate the dish.

And this means you’re copying.

When you’re copying, you’re replicating the style of the person you’re copying.

But if you make this dish several times, changes occur. You may read about another type of biryani or watch a few videos. And suddenly, instead of boneless chicken, you’re using chicken with bones. Or instead of chicken, you’re using veggies.

Sooner or later dropouts occur as well.

You stop referring to the recipe because you’re comfortable with the sequence and ingredients. And then you create your own kind of dish.

You may forget some ingredients, add others, or do something quite different altogether. And if you mix, mingle, and keep learning how to make this dish, you soon get your own style.

Style is not about invention.

Style is about copying. About ‘tracing’, and ‘copying’ and ‘then rendering from memory’. The more you trace, copy and render from memory, the more the concepts mix in your brain.

And eventually, one day—not too far in the future—you’ll have a style of your own.

But you need to practice and mix and mingle.

If you slavishly copy one person’s style, you’ll soon become a replica of that person’s work.

When I first started out in cartooning, I used to copy Hagar the Horrible. And my work was a replica of Hagar the Horrible. But then I added other cartoons, like Dennis the Menace, Calvin and Hobbes etc. And my work became my own.

Today I have a distinct writing style, drawing style, speaking style etc.

And so can you. You already have a style that’s quite your own in many areas of your life. And it’s time to pore over those concepts so that you can apply that style to your writing as well.

So practice away.

Copy a lot.
Trace a lot.
And render from memory a lot.

And yes, make sure you copy from different sources.

And then, about 6-9 months from now, you’ll have a style that’s quite different from anyone else’s.

But if you keep doing what you’re doing, without copying, you’ll just become a copy—of yourself.

If you want to continuously evolve, you need to keep tracing, copying and then rendering your own impression. That’s the only way you’ll keep learning and evolving your style.

So that when you make biryani, they’ll say you made biryani.

But when I make biryani, there’s a certain point of difference that makes it quite my own.

Make your own biryani. Write your own bestseller. Start today, and share your ideas and experience in the comments!

P.S. Copying is different from plagiarism. If you’re not clear about the difference, look up the dictionary.

About the author:
Sean D’Souza is a writer, marketing guru and expert on sales psychology. To read more articles by Sean, and get a very useful free report on “Why Headlines Fail”, go to PsychoTactics.com

Image: A Style of Your Own courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

The post Creating A Style Of Your Own: Why It’s So Hard (And So Easy) appeared first on Write to Done.

Would You Like To Be A Highly Paid Writer?

It is painful to see how many great writers are willing to accept low paying assignments or to write for free.

This is not okay.

Skilled writers who are committed to their craft know the amount of work that goes into a well-produced work. and should be compensated accordingly.

While some writers live by the ‘feast or famine’ philosophy, there are many who are earning a sizable income from their talent and expertise.

The seven habits below separate underpaid writers from ‘well-fed’ writers, a term coined by Peter Bowerman, the author of “The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Commercial Freelancer in Six Months or Less”.

Avoid these habits to become a highly-paid writer. Begin living your profitable writing life today!

1. Wallowing in stinkin’ thinkin’

Do any of these statements look familiar?

• “I’m not good enough.”
• “There are lots of great writers; why would they choose my article, story, etc.?”
• “I can’t…”

If you find yourself thinking – or worse – saying any of the above, stop now.

These statements are not only spirit killers; they are dream killers. Stinkin’ thinkin’ is the main reason why most writers are underpaid – the lack of belief in themselves, their skills, and the value they offer through their writings.

There are three ways to get over this condition:

• Affirm every day: “I am the best writer I know and the world is waiting to read my work.”
• Write every day, even if you’re just journaling.
• Join a writing group. It could be a professional association, a local meetup or an informal writing group.

I know of a small business owner who admits to having a poverty mindset. She would accept low-budget clients who had high expectations just to pay her bills, which was emotionally and financially draining.

When she finally got fed up with that lifestyle, she changed her mode of operation. She invested more time in attracting her ideal clients, which made her feel better about serving others. She now has a prosperous mindset and the bank account to match it.

Only when you change your mind will you change your bottom line.

2. Playing it safe

There are several ways writers play it safe.

• Only writing what you know
• Not taking risks
• Hiding behind a computer and pen
• Afraid of being controversial
• Giving in to the fear of rejection

When I left my job to write, I submitted query letters to a few magazines, received rejections or no responses, and got discouraged.

After that experience, I completely stopped pitching stories for a few years.

Today, I have a new outlook on my magazine writing life: pitch, submit, follow-up. And I look forward to rejection letters. It means that at least one person has read my work.

Be bold. Be courageous. Dare to be different and do things you’ve never done before.

Be the “you” that you didn’t know you could be. 

3. Accepting low rates

Accepting low rates is one of the worst things writers can do.

But when you are in a famine mode, you will work for food, no matter how little you are paid.

There are at least three reasons why writers do this:

• They are in the early stages of their writing career.
• They just want to pay their bills.
• They want to get and keep clients.

What’s worse than accepting low rates? Quoting them. It’s one thing for people to offer low rates, but it’s entirely different when you subject yourself to them…on purpose.

Early in my writing career, I would tell people to “just give me something” for the work I provided – which was usually between $25 and $50. And I used to actually think that a client ‘picking my brain’ over a $20 lunch was a good thing. Now, I prefer that people pay me for consultations and I eat only when I’d like to.

When you get to the point where you really believe that time is money and that your time is invaluable, you will charge differently.

When you build the confidence to ask for the rate you desire, you will most likely get it.

4. Not building your skills

• If you are still using a typewriter, a tape recorder or any other pre-21st century gadget, it’s time to upgrade to new technologies.
• If you do not write often, take classes or attend workshops and conferences, you need to change your mode of operation.
• If you are not active on at least one social networking site, you need to get started today!

You have to write often; stay abreast of what’s happening in the writing world; and understand multimedia and social media.

Most importantly, you must be tech savvy. You don’t have to be a guru but you need to have basic knowledge of online, tablet and mobile technology because this is where everything is moving.

A member of the Chicago Writers Association shared a story about pitching an editor for her book. The editor wanted to know how big her platform was – how many followers she had on Twitter, friends on Facebook and connections on LinkedIn.

She did not have a social media presence. Do you know they rejected her, not because of poorly written work, but because she had no platform?

Building your skills is not only a resume-booster; it will also position you for personal and professional opportunities.

5. Failing to plan

There is no truer saying than “when you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

When I first left my job and 12-year human resources career in 2008, I knew that my name would grace the bylines of Chicago, Essence, Parade, Time and Entrepreneur magazines. I had no plan B because my plan A just had to work.

Well, it didn’t.

And when the money ran out, I was a wreck.

To avoid being like me (which I highly recommend), mix paying gigs with writing for fulfillment to ensure you can sustain yourself. 

6. Thinking like a writer, not a business owner

Generally speaking, most creative people like to create. Period.

Writers like to write; painters like to paint; and musicians want to play. However, until we attach a value – specifically, a dollar value to our expertise – we will continue to be starving artists.

I, personally, like to eat.

There are five things to consider when assessing value:

• The services you are going to offer
• To whom you will offer your services
• Your experience
• The value of your time
• The value you provide to your customers.

Ultimately, the answers to these questions will become the foundation of your business plan, which is your roadmap to becoming a well-paid writer.

Remember that I had no plan when I left my job? I would write anything for anybody for any amount they gave me. I was just happy that they liked my work enough to consider me for their projects.

As I began to write my plan, my confidence in myself and my writing increased, because seeing the dollar figure confirmed the value of my work. It also made it easier to quote my rate.

Today, I have a 10-page business plan to highlight the services I provide, the rates and estimated times for those services, and the value I provide to my clients.

7. Lack of marketing

Marketing is necessary.

You may not want to do it but you have to do it if you want to get paid what you’re worth.

It is also one of the ways you can distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Here are a few tools you can use to promote yourself and your services:

I know an author who has published five books but has no website. I was floored. Do you know how much money this person is losing because she cannot be found online?

Here’s the main lesson from this author: at a minimum, have a website or blog site that highlights your offerings. Accidental visitors can convert to actual clients.

Always  promote who you are, and the value you to provide to others.

If you are practising any of the seven habits above, you need to stop immediately!

Declare today that you are going to kick your bad habits and become the highly paid writer you deserve to be.

Do you have a ‘starving writer’ story? What did you do to become a highly paid writer? Share your story in the comments section below.

About the author:

Marcie Hill is the author of “62 Blog Posts to Overcome Blogger’s Block”, the only book produced to date that focuses exclusively on how to create content for online properties. Check out her blog to get free tips on how to overcome blogger’s block.

Image: Highly Paid Writer courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

The post Become a Highly Paid Writer: Avoid These 7 Habits appeared first on Write to Done.

Do You Want To Use Your Dreams To Be Endlessly Creative?

People often ask me for writing advice, and they’re surprised when the first thing I tell them is to keep a dream journal.

In fact, many people look downright suspicious, perhaps fearing I’ll go on to advise them to use healing crystals, or only to write when Mercury is in the ascendant.

But keeping a dream journal is perfectly sound, if neglected, writing advice.

The best thing is that the process works even if you’re one of those people who never remembers dreams.

I know. Because I used to be one of them, until I trained myself to remember.

The mind is more malleable than we realize.

What is a dream journal?

A dream journal is just a book that you keep next to your bed, so that you can write in it as soon as you wake up.

And I really do mean as soon as. A dream is a slippery fish. If you delay at all, even just for a minute to brush your teeth or plan your breakfast, it’s gone.

The idea is to write down everything you remember of your dreams.

When I first started, this was almost nothing. Then, it was just a few vague impressions. With more practice I began remembering more and more details.

Now I can cover pages of my book each morning, often reaching back beyond my latest dreams to recall some from earlier in the night.

Why bother?

There are several reasons why every writer should keep a dream journal.

1. Get fantastic story ideas. If you keep a dream journal, you’ll never be stuck for ideas.

Your mind effortlessly creates stories every night. Most of them will be boring, or unusable, or just plain weird.

But every now and then, your sleeping mind deals you something that makes you reach for your pen with thumping heart.

Paul McCartney famously dreamed the song Yesterday, so clearly and fully that he was sure he must have heard the tune somewhere before. Luckily he wrote it down anyway, and it became one of the most popular pop songs of all time.

2. See the world differently. The best stories or scenes are often those in which familiar things are presented in a fresh way.

What better training for the imagination than dreams? In dreams, you may find yourself in a mundane situation at work, but your boss is an old school friend you haven’t seen for thirty years.

Or you’ll be making breakfast in your apartment, but the apartment is now inside your parents’ house.

I had a dream recently in which Paris was not in France, but in the United States. I still think there’s a great story in there, if I can work out how to tell it.

3. Get inspired. If you’ve been writing for a while, you’ve probably had that incredible experience where the words come to you so easily that you feel you could write all day.

You write things that shock you, things that seem to come from somewhere else. You’re in a state of inspiration, wonderful while it lasts, but depressing when it stops and you realize you can’t recapture it.

In the past, people attributed this to God. ‘Inspiration’ comes from the Latin inspirare meaning ‘to breathe into’.

People believed that God breathed into them, creating works of genius that they merely had to put on paper.

If you don’t believe in God, then believe in science instead. Sigmund Freud gave us the id, and Jung took it a step further, positing the existence of a collective unconscious.

Dreams provide a natural access point to these subliminal realms, enabling us to tap into a source of endless inspiration.

4. Break writer’s block. Finally, if you keep a dream journal, it means that the first thing you do each morning is to write – with no pressure, straight from the subconscious.

It’s very difficult to have writer’s block when you write a couple of hundred words first thing every morning. It sets you up for the day much better than filling your head with traffic reports, weather forecasts or the jingle-jangle of pop songs.

Try it!

So go ahead, give it a try. All you need is pen and paper, and a few minutes each morning.

Don’t judge or analyze your dreams. Just write them down.

You probably won’t get gold-dust right away. Your notebook will probably fill up with the mundane, the nonsensical and the embarrassing.

But over time, you’ll start to see the benefits. Your writing will become more creative, and ideas will come to you easily rather than having to be dug out at great cost.

And who knows, maybe one night you’ll dream the next Yesterday and be able to fund your writing for the rest of your life.

“Have you ever tried keeping a dream journal? Or have you had good story ideas in your dreams? Leave a comment and let me know!”

About the author:

The post Use Your Dreams To Be Endlessly Creative appeared first on Write to Done.

Would You Like Your Competition To Help You Find New Work?

Whether you’re an aspiring or seasoned writer, you will struggle to find new clients at various points in your career.

Writers face fierce competition as the market of freelance writers widens and publications fold.

And in an economy struggling to recover, companies often cut their freelancers first and redistribute writing needs in-house. The need to diversify and find new clients is crucial if you want to stay a working writer.

Most writers start looking for new clients in the same place — magazines and newspaper racks in the community. It’s also easy enough to do a few Google searches to find companies in your area who might need a copywriter. But then what? Where do you look next?

When I moved back from New York City to my hometown in Atlanta, I didn’t know what the market was like, or where to start looking for new writing work. I still had some clients in New York, but I wanted to break into regional writing.

I searched Google for “Atlanta magazines” and “Atlanta publications” and came up with a few ideas, but I wasn’t really satisfied.

I knew there must be other resources out there. Frustrated by the lack of search results, I wondered who other Atlanta freelancer writers were writing for.

That’s when it dawned on me. If I could see what my competition was up to, I could find outlets faster and easier than if I were to go it alone.

The Benefits Of Studying Your Competition

When you take a thorough look at what your competition is doing, you reap the benefits of their success and hard work. Instead of spending hours hunting down new markets and leads, you have a wealth of insight in a tidy portfolio.

Studying your competition shows you:

• Which clients are already open to freelance writers
• Which markets (you might never have heard of them) are publishing
• What ideas the publication wants
• What fees clients potentially pay freelancers

In essence, learning from your competition is like having your own writer’s guide, complete with client ideas, potential testimonials and rates.

But it takes a little practice to study your competition and learn to apply it to your own work.

How to Study Your Competition for Success

1. Google the terms “freelance writer” or “copywriter” with whatever city or town you live in. For example, I started my search with “Atlanta freelance writer”. You can also perform searches like “music freelance writer” or “freelance real estate copywriter” to find writers specializing in your preferred niche.

2. Read your competition’s bio. If this particular freelance writer has 30 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, and you focus on micro-business content for consumer magazines, move on. You already know their client list isn’t going to suit your needs. You need to find someone who is in your niche, or in a niche you want to occupy.

3. Check your competition’s portfolio and skim through their roster of clients. This is a great way not only to find new clients, but also to figure out how big your market is. You might want to write exclusively about tennis, but may realize that all your competition works for the same three publications. With so few markets to choose from, it’s time branch out into other sports or industries.

4. Read through a few of your competitor’s clips to get an idea of what the client looks for. Many of the ideas I gleaned from my competition aren’t just about new publications, but also about new markets. I never thought about writing case studies until I found several writers specializing in this niche, and realized there was a paying market for it in my field.

5. Search for testimonials to see exactly why a client loved your competitor’s work. Every writer wants to get inside an editor or client’s head to deliver the best work possible. Testimonials can shed light on everything: how the editor loved your competitor’s ultra fast-turn around, professionalism, ease to work with, wit or fresh ideas.

6. Review your competition’s list of services. Writers often moonlight as editors, fact-checkers or marketing consultants. Look at what publications or materials your competition edits to get new client ideas. But this step also reveals new types of services that you could charge for, like social media consulting, for instance.

Save Yourself Valuable Time

Studying the competition saved me an enormous amount of time in hunting down new publications. Within a half hour, I had a list of dozens of markets I could tap into immediately.

Based on my competition’s success, I already knew these clients hired freelance writers, the types of articles or material they needed, and why they liked my competition’s work. In some cases, my competition even listed their rates, giving me an idea of what these clients were willing to pay.

One publication I found through a competitor’s portfolio gave me an assignment the same day I contacted them.

Thanks to my competition, I knew this specific publication published service journalism pieces with a light and friendly tone. With this in mind, I crafted a query letter with a similar tone and outlined how I would approach an article on major healthcare providers in my city.

This wasn’t the topic my competition had written about for the publication, but I still had enough information to figure out that they might be interested in it.

Get a Leg-Up On Your Competition

Studying your competition is a tool to inspire new ideas for the market you’re trying to enter. If you know your competition inside out, you can figure out how to do a better job than them.

If you can see what your competition is writing about, you can analyze their work and find ways in which you would do it better.

Let’s say your competition wrote an article for a pregnancy magazine about relocating during your second trimester. The article quoted doctors, but not women who went through the experience.

You can come up with a like-minded article, such as changing jobs while pregnant, and pitch your idea, offering both expert and personal sources you’d like to quote.

Now think of other ways to add to the article — maybe a sidebar, with steps on how to make the move easier.

Respect Your Craft

While studying your competition offers valuable insight into new markets, you should tread carefully.

Learning from your competition should always be approached ethically. It won’t do you any favors to copy your competitor’s exact ideas and re-pitch to the same clients.

Approaching the same clients with the same ideas but with a rate discount to undercut your competition only shows you’re unprofessional.

Or, worse, it shows you’re a disingenuous writer with a poor work ethic.Your potential client might also assume you can’t be trusted with sensitive company information or sources.

Look to your competition’s success as motivation to propel your career forward, but respect your competition, yourself and your craft by diligently developing your own ideas and voice.

The road to writing success isn’t always a bumpy one; sometimes the path is well worn by your competitors paving the way for you.

How have you benefited from your competition? Or has someone benefited from studying you? Share your experiences and ideas in the comments below!

About the author: 

Susan Finch is a freelance writer with an eclectic background across guidebooks, web copy, magazine articles, iPhone apps, and TV promos just to name a few. She helps writers build successful freelance careers at WordGlam.com.

Image: Studying the Competition courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

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Would You Like To Harness The Power of Your Value Proposition?

Have you ever tried to write something persuasive and felt that you’re not getting it right?

Maybe your writing feels generic. Maybe it’s disorganized, or too pushy. Maybe … you just don’t know. And readers don’t take the action you’re hoping for. Does this sound familiar?

If you don’t sell the product or get the subscribers, the time you spent writing has been wasted. The waste is twofold: you don’t get the results you hoped for, and your potential customers — your readers — lose faith.

But some people get their writing to work like magic—every time. Each word, every sentence just pulls the reader along until they subscribe to the blog or buy the product.

It might look like magic, but it’s not. All it takes is a few sentences.

What you are missing is: your value proposition.

What is a value proposition?

Your value proposition describes your unique value.

Your unique value is what your competitors can’t or don’t offer, but it’s what your customers want.

For example, you might offer the greatest expertise, lowest prices, fastest delivery, best customer service, largest selection, highest quality, or simply a trendy specialty.

Your value proposition should be a combination of a few unique and valuable characteristics or qualities.

Why you should identify your value proposition

A value proposition is a collection of the most compelling reasons for people to buy or sign up for your product or service.

It is what makes people care about what you say.

If your sales or landing page doesn’t give readers a great reason to read on, they’re not going to do it. And they surely won’t subscribe to your list or buy your product if you haven’t got them thinking about the value.

It doesn’t matter if you have something great to offer. It doesn’t matter if your email list or product is the best in the world.

All that matters is whether the reader perceives the action—buying, subscribing, and so on—to be worthwhile, to be of value to them.

If you don’t understand how to manage a reader’s perception, you can’t persuade them to do what you want.

Without that knowledge, you’re writing blind—hoping to say the right things in the right order in the right way to get the result you want.

It’s like trying to play chess without seeing the other player’s moves.

And many bloggers and business people attempt to do exactly that. They don’t have a clear vision of the key ideas that will persuade their readers.

Yet they wonder why their business or blog isn’t growing.

Those key ideas, which make all the difference, form your value proposition.

Making people believe your value proposition

But being unique and valuable isn’t enough; people need to believe you, too.

Your word has little weight out here in the blogosphere. You can say you’re the best or your product is the greatest in every way imaginable. And people won’t believe any of it.

Not unless you give them a reason.

That can mean testimonials, statistics, studies, and/or common sense. But you need something to back up your claims. Otherwise people disregard your words as “marketing talk.”

In many cases, someone might write a pretty good sales or landing page but forget to include a reason to believe any of it.

The proof doesn’t have to be as obvious as “here’s a study that proves what I said”. Instead you could say, “according to study XYZ” and then make the claim.

If a part of your value proposition is to offer the lowest prices, don’t just say your prices are the lowest. Give a lowest-price guarantee.

If you call your product better than its alternatives, explain exactly how it is better.

If you say you’re an expert at something, have other experts support your claim with testimonials rather than just calling yourself an expert.

Don’t let your sales or landing page fail just because people don’t believe what you’re saying.

How to infuse your value proposition into your writing

When you have a strong value proposition and you know how to prove everything in it, you need to use it in your sales copy.

The effectiveness of your writing relies heavily on how well you infuse your value proposition into it.

It’s a collection of the most persuasive arguments you have, much like the psychological strings you need to weave into your copy.

If you forget to use them, you won’t persuade anyone to buy from you, except those in the most desperate need of your product.

But if you have a fully developed and refined value proposition, you’re likely to experience the seemingly magical ‘ads write themselves’ effect. So it’s unlikely that you’d forget to use it.

Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:

1. Use your headline to give a clear idea of at least one part of your value proposition. The concept behind the headline is much more important than the exact headline formula you use, though both impact your results.

2. Dedicate at least one sub-headline (and the following section) for each of the core concepts of your value proposition. These are the ideas that are most likely to persuade the reader, so don’t shy away from them.

3. Tie all your product’s features to your value proposition. Don’t just casually mention something in your sales copy. Instead, explain why that particular concept or element helps deliver one or more of the core concepts of your value proposition.

Of course, you can’t do any of this if you don’t know what your value proposition is.

If you’re trying to persuade someone to do something—buy a product or service or just subscribe to your blog—take the time to figure it out. Even the newest or smallest blog or business has a value proposition. What’s yours?

Use the comments to tell us what makes you, your blog, your email list, or your product special. Why should people pay attention to it? And why should they believe what you’re saying?

And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them.

About the author:

Right now, Peter Sandeen is probably knee-deep in snow (he lives in Finland) with his wife and dogs. But you can download his quick 5-step system for finding the core of your value proposition.

Image: Offering Value courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

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