What Does it Mean to be a 21st Century Author?

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Elizabeth Marshall, Host and Founder of Author Teleseminars and Co-Author of The Contrarian Effect along with her colleague Janet, held a teleseminar/webinar on “What does it meant to be an author today?” It seems that many authors get stuck around their book. They have a great idea or concept but can’t seem to move forward or strangle their idea to death because of the tight grip they have on it. It’s time to ‘wake up’ and become a 21st century author who knows and understands that writing is a business.

The teleseminar/webinar included the following people

1. Jenny Blake. She’s a leader and coach at Google and author of Life After College. Jenny said, “It’s a business, and takes more than a love for writing. Authors need to build relationships with people. You need to edit and market your work.”

2. Scott Ford. Is a leading financial advisor and author of Financial Jiu-Jitsu. During his first radio interview in November 2010, he was asked, “How leverage tied into finances and Jiu-Jitsu?” He had to give 200 pages of his book in 5 minutes. It was clear that his message wasn’t clear. He had to finalize his message and make it clear and concise. Scott said, “Sometimes things fall into place. My idea came to me while working at a wealth management firm. I was passionate about Jiu-Jitsu and realized that the correlation between MMA and finances. The challenge was the messaging of it.”

3. Cheryl Dolan. An executive coach and innovative public speaking expert with an exciting book in the works! She had an “Aha” moment around how to start a book. She had to figure how to make an interactive lab into a book. Second, she found herself doing all the work such as writing her book, creating website, writing the copy, etc. Cheryl felt like air was being sucked out of her. She had to shift her environment and had to get out of the house. Cheryl got a team in place and started beta testing (she speaks about this in her book). She realized she couldn’t do it alone. Isolation wasn’t working for her.

Authors must nourish their ideas instead of choking them to death. Understand that writing is a business. You’ll need to develop relationships with people in order to grow your platform. You need to be comfortable with asking for help. Being isolated doesn’t work as many authors have discovered. It’s important to find the right path for you that will lead you to your audience, speaking engagements, and overall success.

Rebecca

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