One of the most common questions I get asked is how can authors find the best people to help them get their book published and promoted.

I always tell people go to the bookstore (or their bookshelf) and look for titles that match the one you want to publish.

You can immediately see the publishers who released the books. You can get a good sense of their choices about packaging—whether typography, titling, or trim size. But the best source can be found inside the book.

In the world of book publishing, we also have a wonderful tradition of thanking people for the work they have done on books.

By looking through the Acknowledgments section, you can see everyone who contributed to a book: the agent, the editor, the publisher, the publicist. If someone helped write it, you see who (but sometimes you have to read between the lines). Authors will often thank earlier readers and inspirations for writing in the first place. They always thank family and friends.

From there, you can get your first set of answers to things like:

• Who might represent a book like mine?
• Who might buy a proposal for a book like the one I want to write?
• Who has experience promoting the kind of book I want to write?
• Are there other experts who might contribute to the overall success of my project?

And remember the Acknowledgments section when you write your book and pay it forward to the next author who needs the same help.

Click here to receive more updates on trends, case studies, and news from the world of business book publishing.

In 2004, I went to my first Book Expo, the yearly convention for booksellers. The event still serves as the milestone in the calendar where publishers launch their new titles for the upcoming fall and holiday seasons (these days less than what it was then).

I’d only been working with 800-CEO-READ for a couple months at that point and I was lucky. That year BEA was held in Chicago, only 90 minutes from our headquarters in Milwaukee. The proximity gave me an opportunity to get a close-up of the industry. 

It was special for other reasons too. 800-CEO-READ was a part of the Harry W. Schwartz bookshops and that year David Schwartz, owner and son of the founder, was honored as Bookseller of the Year. David was very ill at that point and couldn’t make the trip. The company chartered a bus for employees, giving the opportunity for many to attend the convention for the first time. The group accepted the award on his behalf. David passed away a few days later. 

Most of the day in Chicago, I followed my client (and soon to be boss) Jack Covert from meeting to meeting. He was booked in 30 minute segments from 9am to 5pm each day of the show – 20 minutes to talk and 10 minutes to walk.

In our race between two publisher meetings that day, we turned a corner and we both heard “Jack!” We stopped. Jack and the gentleman shook hands. “Todd, let me introduce you to Ray Bard.” 

That introduction changed my life.

In the years since, neither Ray or I can point to what got our friendship started. Ray spoke at the 800-CEO-READ author event in one year. He gave Jack and I sound advice on publishing The 100 Best.  When I started attending SXSW Interactive in Austin, we’d have lunch.  Eventually I added a few days to that yearly trip to give us time to talk books, publishing and whatever else came up. 

We’ve helped each other on projects almost as long as we’ve known each other. A time or two, we joked about finding a way to work together on a more consistent basis. That talk got more real last year when I left IT Revolution. For me, I was excited by the opportunity but cautious about anything that could affect our 15 year friendship.

In this month’s note I wanted to share two pieces of news.

First, I have joined Bard Press as Deputy Publisher. Ray and I plan to keep the same approach to the business—publishing one book a year, focusing on helping authors bring their best work to the widest audience of readers possible. In 2020, Bard Press will celebrate its 25th year and our plan is to keep publishing for another twenty-five years. 

The second piece of news is about our first collaboration together. 

On June 3rd, Bard Press will be publishing The Gift of Struggle: Life Changing Lessons About Leading by Bobby Herrera. Bobby shares the leadership lessons he learned from his life growing up in a migrant farming family, serving in the U.S. Army and building a successful career in business. Bobby co-founded Populus Group in 2002 around the core idea that everyone deserves an opportunity to succeed. 

Ray and I believe this book serves that same mission by showing, as Bobby says, “struggle is the most honest and revealing measure of progress towards the leader you desire to be.”

The book is available now for preorder in print and ebook.  The audiobook, narrated by Bobby. will publish the week of June 3rd.

If you would like to find out more about The Gift of Struggle, there is a three chapter excerpt you can download here. 

P.S. I will be in New York City from May 27th to June 1st for BookExpo 2019. If you are going to be at the show, stop by the Bard Press booth. If we should meet up, drop me a note.

Sam Anderson wrote a piece for New York Times Magazine that ran over the weekend called ‘What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text’ about the importance of marginalina to books. Anderson shares his love for writing on the pages of books:

Anderson also shares the rich history of marginalia dating back to the 1700’s and how digital editions of books should allow this to flourish again.

With all of the talk about adding audio and video to books, sharing bookmarks and comments with my friends is my idea of an enhanced ebook. We are taking tiny steps towards this with Kindle-capable tweeting but we seem a long way away from what we all want to do through these social networking tools we us every day.

Let’s take it to the next step and imagine a marketplace as active as Amazon’s used book market that would allows people to sell their marginalia as an add-on to the ebook you just bought. That next layer of data would accelerate discovery of thoughtful passages and bring an in-text critical analysis. You could read along with the reviewer and discover as they did insights and art of the author. You might by multiple copies of marginalia to enjoy a favorite book again and again from different angles. Or imagine how this could be used in the educational setting giving instructors the ability to share what they teach with their students. And as Anderson points out, this data layer could be turned on and off with a touch.

I still think we need map; a standard linking structure of permalinks that would allow us to easily link to passages within the book and share those with others across an array of platforms. This is yet another reason why page numbers is a bankrupt mechanism for establishing location within a book in the digital age.

My first reaction was that publishers should build this infrastructure and maintain the narratives of both author and readers, but as we have watched the web develop, no one has maintained a vertical integration of the data stack. The successful companies have always built on what was there and gave people hooks to expanded it further.

The trouble is that book publishing is not native to the digital landscape and without a common set of mechanics to enable this sharing, progress is going to be difficult. The change in focus at Open Bookmarks from a standards approach to a principles approach shows that difficulty.

I continue to be hopeful. There is too much conversation going on for the industry not to see how readers want the reading experience to evolve.

“Fact: If all business books were edited to be 80% shorter, there’d be absolutely no adverse effect on civilization.” –@counternotion

I see a day soon when there will be peace between business book readers and business book producers.

Peace?

“Where’s the conflict?” you may ask.

Well, let’s look at both sides.

Readers want great ideas that help them solve problems. That’s what they have always wanted. They want inspiration. They want to see the steps. They want their worldview altered. As Kathy Sierra says, readers want to kick ass.

Producers want credit for the idea. That is what they have always wanted. Authors wanted credibility gained from the bound edition of their hard work. Publishers want to make money distributing these insights to the masses.

This sounds like a wonderfully uncomplicated case of supply and demand, but when you ask readers their biggest complaint about business books, they always lead with “They are too long” or “They have too much fluff” or “The only thing I need to read is the introduction.” While I also hear from readers that the quality of the ideas in the books sometimes disappoints them, this is not the primary grievance.

Producers already know this. Ask authors how many times publishers have asked for higher word counts. Ask publishers about the pressure to maintain price points by having to maintain page counts. Ask retailers about how much they dislike small books with narrow bindings that won’t sit nicely on their store shelves.

All of these pressures lead to artificially lengthened books. The modifications include larger font size, smaller trim size, and plays of all sorts with margins and spacing; all methods to maintain impression of substance–an idea important to publishers and authors alike. A friend of mine refers to issue of substance as ‘The Whomp Factor’ or the amount of noise the book makes when the book hits your desk. The louder the thud, the higher the publisher’s retail price and the author’s consulting fees.

If you don’t believe there is a disconnect over length in business books, we only need to observe that an entire industry segment exists to provide readers with only the main points of a book. Historically, the primary value of book summaries has been time saved as they have been traditionally expensive, driven by the same economics as publishers, but digital distribution is pushing prices lower with individual summaries at around half the price of the book itself. Or buy a subscription for a year and that price drops to one-tenth the cover price. Publishers have long lived with what they believe is a symbiotic relationship with summary providers. Publishers accept increased awareness for their books knowing a summary may cannibalize that same book’s sales.

I believe ebooks may be the place where both sides in this conflict can find peace. Without the physical qualities to judge a book, readers may be more open to shorter reads at similar price points if the material is good. And publishers may feel less pressure to maintain page counts in a world where that quantity changes based on the reading device.

The idea of shorter business books raises all sort of interesting questions.

• Can you charge a similar price for a shorter e-book versus a printed p-book? (Yes, you can. Early publishers are ceded price too quickly)
• What changes something from an article into a book? (The word ‘book’ is broken; I talk about that problem in this video)
• Do book publishers start to compete with magazine publishers for the appropriate place publish to long form material?
• Is there a duration dividing line for fee-driven and ad-driven business models in publishing?
• What is the better way to measure length? (I took a shot at answering that one too)
• Do you need book summaries if the book get shorter?

Reader want ‘books’ that deliver value for the time spent. The question is who is going to deliver that in the new era of digital publishing.

Seth Godin has been making the same plea in the last several books. “We Need You To Lead Us” was the subtitle of Tribes. Using reverse-psychology, Linchpin asked “Are You Indispensable?” to prod us into action. “I sell fireworks,” he says at the beginning of Small Is The New Big in talking about how his writing encourages those with great ideas to get them done.

In Poke The Box, Seth removes the whatever directional intent there may have been in those prior works and imploring us to do something, anything. There are no barriers left.

Inger isn’t photographing the Portland’s live music scene because someone told her to. Modern Skirts’ Gramahawk album was made up of music they wanted to make.The King’s Sixth Finger didn’t make sense to publishers, but it didn’t stop Jolby. Amanda Hocking and her 900,000 copies sold didn’t wait to get picked.

If you are already doing, you don’t need Poke The Box.

If you still need a push, here is it.

Business books are solutions looking for people with problems.

Take a look at these three new releases:

From Bud to Boss: The Secrets To A Successful Transition To Remarkable Leadership by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris

The pitch from Kevin and Guy is very clear: our book can help you be successful in your first role as a leader. I would guess that hundreds of thousands of people are giving that first leadership opportunity every year. You could see this book working in venues ranging from schools to companies to non-profits to religious groups. The book reminds me of The First 90 Days, where the argument was a handful of transitions determined that overall arc of your career. From Bud to Boss would be helpful to a lot of people.

10 Steps To Successful Virtual Presentations by Wayne Turmel

Did you do a Skype call this week? Have you attended a WebEx meeting in the last month? When moving from emulating phone calls with the new technology and add pictures or video, virtual presentations get alot harder. Wayne says that fewer than 15% of managers use these sort of tools, mostly because of fear and lack of training. This reminds me the rampant problems with poor Powerpoint presentation that finally started to get addressed in books like Beyond Bullet Points, Presentation Zen, and Resonate. It seems to me that there are thousands of people who could use the tools and tips that Wayne has to offer.

The Freak Factor: Discovering Weakness by Flaunting Weakness by Dave Rendall

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Our strength grows out of our weaknesses,” and that strikes at the heart of the book Dave wrote. His message reinforces the work that Gallup has done over the last decade: Leverage your strengths while appreciating and embracing your weaknesses. Or as Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea says, “Like yourself, not despite your flaws and so-called deficits, but because of them.” The book is heavy on people with pictures and profiles who live this philosophy. This book is 178 pages of permission to be the person you have always wanted to be.

These are all great books that solve specific problems – succeeding in first leadership experiences, using digital tools for effective, remote presentations, and finding the courage to embrace who we are.

If you are dealing with anyone of these issues, the three books above are great solutions to consider.

Link