Today our regular guestblogger Dave Baldwin shares two books with us: Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog and Seth Godin’s The Dip which are about making money while pursuing your passion. Artists shouldn’t starve while they live their dreams and transform others’ lives. They deserve prosperity and abundance. Enjoy this post!

Lately, I’ve been chewing on a critical question: what does it take to make serious money doing what brings joy and fulfillment? Why is it that some people seem to do it naturally, while others struggle at it for their whole lives? Why is it that thousands (if not millions) of highly educated, skilled, and talented people fail to make the kind of money they’re really worth?

Have you ever wondered why some painters are able to sell their work for tens of thousands of dollars, while some artists create breathtaking works that sell for less than $100? Economic value is based on perception, and perception is subjective. I used to believe that if I simply felt enough passion for what I was doing, others would also feel my passion and would compensate me accordingly. This turned out not to be such a sound business model as I’d expected. Creating the perception of high worth is a more complex science than I realized, but I do believe it can be broken down into small pieces. It really boils down to doing more of the things that generate revenue and less of the things that don’t. This is easier said than done, especially for creative people.

The first place I looked for insights into this challenge: Eat That Frog by personal effectiveness expert Brian Tracy. The system that Tracy lays out seems to have been designed especially for people like me. The first principle, which Tracy dubs “Setting the Table,” is essentially a methodology for setting priorities. Tracy outlines 21 principles for accomplishing just about anything. However, I’ve personally found that this type of system requires a high level of discipline to implement. Quite frankly, I don’t have that kind of discipline, and I know I’m not alone in that regard. However, for those of us who have a hard time sticking to a system, there is hope.

Many of us have come to learn that creativity is an asset and a liability at the same time. Our tendency to constantly innovate new approaches and solutions, while highly useful for tackling difficult problems, also distracts us from getting simple things done. We are easily bored with the mundane aspects of managing life and making money, and by nature, we tend to procrastinate these things as long as we can. Sound familiar? Creativity also creates a second problem: the tendency to “chase shiny objects.” For some insight into how to deal with this, I consulted a second resource: The Dip by Seth Godin.

Every time I’ve read The Dip, it’s helped me to better understand what things I should quit, and which activities I should continue. I’ve found that when my plate is too full and I have too much going on, my ability to think clearly is compromised. When overwhelm exceeds a certain threshold, chaos takes over. At this point, the greatest system in the world will make no difference, because even the sincerest of efforts to follow it will be assaulted on all sides by interruptions at unpredictable intervals that demand immediate attention. During times like this, cutting out activity is the surest way to regain control of the situation. However, it’s critical—as Godin puts it—to “quit the wrong things, stick with the right things, and have the guts to do one or the other.”

Becoming the best of the best in any given field, says Godin, is about finding that one thing you can do best, and quitting everything else. This process requires some experimentation, of course, and the path to excellence invariably involves starting some of the wrong things. (If you’re creative, it involves starting a lot of the wrong things!) Even when you start doing the right things, you’re likely to find yourself needing to quit portions of them. In my example, I have been blogging regularly—and I’m not going to quit. However, I realized that I could ask myself a useful question: what topics could I quit blogging about? At that moment, I realized I was on to something.

Adding new habits into your schedule doesn’t always help, especially if your schedule is already overloaded. However, the habit of quitting is an easy habit to adopt. What do you think would happen if you quit doing one tiny unproductive thing, freeing up just a little slice of time, each day? What do you think would happen if you quit creating all art, except for the kinds of art that generate income and that fully express who you are?

If you love to create art in any form and would like to increase the income you earn from it, you may simply need to create a personal system that moves you toward your financial goals, one day at a time. If you are the kind of person who can take a pre-designed system and implement it consistently every day, Eat That Frog may provide everything you need to make more money from your art. If you’re like me and have a tendency to procrastinate, you will probably need to start by weeding your activity garden, in which case I would recommend starting with The Dip. Taken together, these books create a powerful framework for reorienting your creative passions onto a more lucrative trajectory.

Remember that while passion does not always lead to revenue, revenue frees up time—and extra time allows you to pursue your passion.

About Dave:

Dave Baldwin is a writer who lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina. He facilitates a networking group in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Your Turn:

What activity can you quit so that you can earn more revenue? Make your decision to pare down your tasks and then I’d like to see where you are in two months or less!

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Today we welcome author Maria McKenzie who shares an insider tip that not many writers do. If you follow Maria’s advice, you’ll save yourself time and energy!
 

Thank you, Alice, for inviting me to post with you today at Write From the Inside Out!  My name is Maria McKenzie and I’m the author of the Amazon Bestseller The Governor’s Sons.   

Prior to discovering my love of writing, I was a librarian for several years.  I enjoy doing research, but as writers, writing is our first priority, not research. Sometimes, however, we can end up wasting hours looking for information that we thought would be relatively easy to find. 

That’s when we need to turn to “human resources.”  People can be our best options when looking for those elusive answers! Today I’d like to share an example of how an expert helped me prevent a research issue from becoming a serious time drain.

I asked my husband for input on a scene I’d written involving a dynamite explosion. My husband knows explosives, but he’s not an expert—he just built bombs as a kid (miraculously, he still has both eyes and all ten fingers). After I’d read my scene to him, hubby ripped it to shreds. Granted, at that point, I hadn’t done any research. I’d only used what I’d seen on TV as a guide—never a good idea. My husband couldn’t answer all my questions regarding dynamite, so I turned first to the encyclopedia, and then to the Internet.

Although I found lots of information (including the fact that Alfred Nobel, of the Nobel Peace Prize, created dynamite), I couldn’t find the answer to every single question I had in order to write a believable scene. Instead of going to the library, checking out books and investing more time, I decided to locate a human resource—someone who’d give me more than I could find in a stack of books for the particular episode I had in mind. After playing around for a little while online, I located the International Society of Explosive Engineers. With local chapters all across the country, I called the chapter chairman closest to me.

Understandably wary, the gentleman informed me that he usually wasn’t allowed to answer questions unless someone had gone through the proper channels. After trying to convince him that I really wasn’t a terrorist, he asked me to explain what I was looking for, and then told me he’d decide what he could or couldn’t answer. After the first few minutes, he realized I was safe and literally had no clue whatsoever about explosives.

This explosive engineer taught me more about dynamite than I’ll ever need to know. He even provided me with a more realistic scenario for what I was trying to describe, as well as a way to kill off a bad guy in the aftermath of an explosion, while the good guy survives.  In the end, my source gave me 45 minutes of his valuable time, answered all my questions, and let me pick his brain!

Nothing like communicating with a human resource through the good old fashioned way of talking! Sometimes that’s the most useful research out there.  Next time you run into a brick wall, pick up the phone and call an expert so you can get back to more important things—like writing!

For more information on research and contacting experts, visit my blog at www.mariamckenziewrites.com, and click on “Published Articles.”

Your Turn:

Do you have an exciting adventure in research to share?  And as far as research goes, do you love it or hate it?

Thanks again, Alice for a chance to post for you and your audience!   

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Photo credit: Marthanna Yater

You’ll have your new book in your hands in a few months AND of course you want your book in many other hands too, with preferably a sell-out situation on the horizon. Want a fun way to draw in readers while meeting new people and audiences? Host or co-host a house party.

Hosting an awesome house party for a book launch requires planning and time like all things worth doing. If you plan well, folks will be talking about your house party seven months from now.

Here are the ingredients for your awesome book launch house party:

• A good mix of people you know and those that you don’t

• Twenty minutes set aside for you to read from your book

• Friendly hosts who LIKE throwing parties

• Live music like what’s in this clip!

• Good food like strawberries, sushi, cheese, grapes, chicken fingers, mini-quiches that requires NO forks.

• A variety of drinks—champagne, anyone?

• A large area for mingling and for the reading

• Fairly easy parking and a good location

Planning Tips:

If your house isn’t the right size, ask a friend who loves a good bash and doesn’t mind lending his/her home for the night.

Be very clear as to what you’ll provide—are you supplying all of the food and drinks while your host supplies the live music and paper/plastic goods? Remember, the host has to deal with wear and tear on their house and with the clean up/take down.

Send out your Evite a month before and also use Facebook and email. Buy a stack of postcards from Vistaprint and snail mail out invitations, too. Have your co-host also invite their neighbors, coworkers and those who would love a literary bash.

In the invitation, share a bit of who you are, what your new book is about and give an excerpt or sample/video of your work. Say you’ll have doorprizes, giveaways, and lots of food and drink! If your invitees have never been to a book launch before you might want to state that a book launch is a fun, casual party to get to know the author and meet new people. State on the invitation what kind of dress you suggest for folks to wear: casual, cocktail or festive! Mention that there’ll be live music!

Line up some food and drink sponsors so you can keep your expenses lean and mean.

Promote your event to the media and to reviewers.

Prepare to have someone take photos and video, as well as handle the money when you are signing the books.

Set all of your merchandise, food and drink up the day before—not as your guests are arriving!

Get posters made of you and your book cover and position them behind the area where you’ll be reading so your cool posters are in all of your pictures.

Most of all—relax and have fun!

After the party, be sure to thank your hosts and your guests.

There are a few cons to a house party, but not too many:

Some people don’t want to go to someone’s house they don’t know and some people feel uncomfortable meeting new people in someone else’s home.  Guests do have to stay longer than if they dropped in at a bookstore (that’s why you have good food and live music!). If there are guests who look uncomfortable upon arrival, it is up to the host to welcome them and make introductions ASAP.

House parties aren’t free and I believe guests shouldn’t have to bring food and drink unless they want to (so no potlucks for a house party since you want guests to buy your book—making them bring their own food/drink AND expect them to buy your book is a bit much). Plan your budget and don’t go over it. See if you can barter for the live music and ask your very close friends to donate cheese and beverages.

House parties require a lot of prep work, but they are most relaxed atmosphere than a bookstore, library or coffee shop. You also don’t have to split your sales with anyone! (unless you want to give to your co-host or a charity).

For the guests of a house party:

Come prepared to buy the book (if you don’t have the book) or else contribute in some fashion by taking photos, cleaning/setting-up, taking video, listening  to the author, taking the author’s info for your friends, or helping the author with signing books, etc. Also, if you don’t know the author, chat and meet the author. This didn’t happen at a house party, but I hosted a reception/signing and these twerps showed up, sacked my food/drink and then scurried off. Not cool.

Your Turn:

What have I missed off of this list? What tips can you share that made for a successful house party?

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Photo credit: Marthanna Yater

What’s the story behind my poetry? I thought it was only fair to spend a little time talking about new book, After the Steaming Stops available now for $10 till the end of April! Read some of my poems here.

I also want you to check out this video (only 2:30 minutes!) from Diogenes Ruiz of Entertainment Triangle which also reveals the “why” behind my poetry.

Let’s get this party started:

Where did my book title (After the Steaming Stops) come from?

From an Aunt Jemima waffle box—if you check out the instructions on the back you’ll see some of the boxes say, “Bake until the steaming stops” after you’ve poured the batter into a hot waffle iron.  I love to make waffles on Sunday mornings and came across this phrase—and thought, “how intriguing.” I changed it to “After the Steaming Stops,” to reveal what happens after the anger and after the love is gone. Many of my poems use domestic imagery and I also wanted the title to have an element of danger—which is steaming. Steam will burn you and it can also melt your love. Love is represented by the frozen popsicle heart that’s being lowered via ladle into the pressure cooker. In this case steam, one of the three states of water, is a metaphor for love in my book. Some love is solid (you know it’s unconditional), some liquid (it flows all around you and you know it’s there), some is steam (it’s in the vapors and you don’t know if it really even exists).

What are these poems really about?

All of my poems are stories, or narrative poems, about love’s flare-ups and endings. They are mostly true stories of what happened to me as a three-, eight -or ten-year old and how inappropriate my parents acted with me. As a kid, I remembered these incidents, locked them into my head so one day I could write about them. All of the quotations from my folks are real. Some poems weigh more on the father than the mother to give them equal time and I’m sympathetic with both. I also love to write about death! I also have two historical poems about a near death and a death and how they affected me. My poem “Early” is about a train engineer who kills someone on the tracks just because he was doing his job. I got the idea from that poem by reading the paper. The article said that over the course of a train operator’s career, they will kill three people on average.

What makes my poetry stand out?

My endings! I like to give readers an unexpected punch in the final line. I use stories and images that will stay in your brain for years (so sorry about that!) and many of my poems include my dry sense of humor, too. My poetry is very accessible and easy to understand BUT the more you read my poetry, you’ll discover more layers and more intrigue!

Your Turn:

What else would you like to know about me or my poetry? Please add your comments here!

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How much should you networking? How much is too much or too little? Regular contributor Dave Baldwin shares his insights on networking based on his own experiences and upon reading Great by Choice by Jim Collins. Enjoy and hope you leave here today with a renewed sense of where networking fits into your business.

In 2007, when I first discovered the concept of networking, I was excited. I saw that the human race had yet to discover its greatest potential. I realized that the world we live in was built not by great individual accomplishments, but by networks of people collectively committed to things greater than they were. It was not one lone individual that gave birth to the United States, for example. It was a group of people who devoted their mortal existence to the genesis of a new world. That is what networking is all about.

Jim Collins recently released a new book called Great by Choice. He examines companies that started out small in tumultuous environments, but managed to weather the storm. He refers to these companies as “10X-ers,” because every single one of these companies outperformed the general stock market by a factor of ten times. These companies were pioneers, rebellious by nature and fanatical about their core values. I asked myself: could mere mortals like me apply these 10X-er principles to networking?

For right now, I’ll just highlight one of the 10X-er habits that Collins places in the limelight: the “20-Mile March.” This habit simply amounts to identifying an aggressive-but-sustainable pace, and exercising the discipline to stick to it every day no matter what. By contrast, the poorly-performing companies in Collins’s study grew like kudzu on steroids, only to collapse like botched soufflés. They over-exerted themselves and burned up resources frivolously when they had the wind at their backs, and they retreated when the weather got rough. The 10X-ers, on the other hand, kept driving forward on bad days—and exercised the discipline to pace themselves on good days.

In 2007, when I first discovered the concept of networking, I did not approach it like a 10X-er. I jumped on the idea like a toddler in a candy store. My networking plan was simple: go everywhere and meet with everybody! I set up an account with Meetup.com, and within a week, I joined over 40 different Meetup groups. Sometimes, I would attend three Meetup events in one day. Shortly after this, I encountered business networking groups and did the same thing. I showed up for every business networking group I could find. When the going got rough and money started to run short, I pulled back and almost completely stopped networking altogether.

At the root of my inconsistent behavior was a lack of clear purpose. I made a habit of asking people to meet me for coffee “so that we could get to know each other’s businesses and see how we can help each other.” I sometimes made special trips all the way across town to meet with people without a well-defined purpose. Many times, I had one-on-one meetings with people that I never saw or heard from again. When I took an honest look at what I was really doing, I saw that my real goal was to feel accepted by people. The feeling of acceptance took hold of me like a drug, and I kept coming back for more until I could no longer afford my habit. I think that the underperforming companies in Collins’s study probably suffered from a similar addiction to growth.

If there’s one thing I took away from reading Great by Choice, it’s that discipline is quite different than I thought. I used to think that discipline was about forcing myself to do more when I felt like doing less. However, that’s only possible for short periods of time. The 10X-ers showed me that discipline is actually the opposite. Champions do less when they feel like doing more. Weight-lifters, for example, are known to stop when they’ve reached their prescribed number of reps for the day, even if they feel like they could do two extra sets. High performance begins with conserving excess energy and resources for when they’ll be needed later.

How does this apply to networking? In the world of networking, high performance comes over time as the result of doing just the right amount and no more. There comes a point of diminishing returns, after which it’s time to stop networking and get back to work. I exceeded this threshold by a long-shot, and I paid a price for it. Strategic networking, on the other hand, is about creating a long-term vision with short-term objectives and seeking out the specific people who can help make the vision a reality. The real art of networking is creating win-win relationships both in the long term and the short term. It takes practice to achieve mastery in networking, just like playing the piano or oil painting. Slow and steady wins the race.

At the time of this writing, I have three major networking events that I have scheduled into my calendar every week. I attend Toastmasters on Thursdays, BNI on Fridays, and my Pay it Forward group on Tuesdays. Any time I look at the possibility of adding something else, I ask myself how it will support my specific objectives. I also ask if I’d be willing to give up a networking opportunity to make room for it. If I wouldn’t, it’s probably not worth it.

Dave Baldwin is a writer who lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina. He facilitates a networking group in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Your Turn:

How much networking is too much? How much is too little? And how much is “just right?”

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My new book, After the Steaming Stops  (Main Street Rag, 2012) has now been published and I’m proud to announce my listing of upcoming readings and events. My book is $10 (reg $11) throughout the month of April and available via my website.

Hope you can make some of these book events!

here they are:

• Friday, April 6, 6:30-8:30 pm, 207 Fayetteville St., Re/Max City Centre, Raleigh. Get your signed copy of Alice’s new book of poetry when you stop by this reception to enjoy wine and cheese and the amazing guitar of musician Dave Cox.
  
  
• Friday, April 13, 7:30-1:30 pm, Two Trees Farm, Johnston County, Join Alice and friends at a house party. RSVP to Alice at alice@aliceosborn.com for address and directions.
  
  
• Tuesday, April 17, 5:30-7:30 pm, Unwine’d Wine Bar, 201 W. Chatham St., Suite 103, Cary. Get your signed copy of Alice’s new book of poetry when you stop by Unwine’d Wine Bar in downtown Cary to enjoy wine and complimentary truffles. Unwine’d features jazz, tapas and of course, wine!
  
  
• Monday, April 23, 8:00-10:00 pm, East Bay Meeting House, 160 East Bay St., Charleston, SC, as part of Monday Night Poetry & Music
  
  
• Sunday, May 6, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, NOFO @ The Pig, 2014 Fairview Rd., Raleigh, Join Alice at her signing, Bring out the whole family for NOFO’s amazing Sunday brunch. Alice’s poetry book and NOFO’s gift store make for great gifts for Mother’s Day, May 12!
  
  
• Tuesday, May 8, 5:30-7:00 pm, 8450 Honeycutt Rd. – Suite 100, Raleigh, Join Alice for a free wine tasting and book signing at Vinos Finos y Picadas Wine and Tapas Bar to celebrate her new book of poetry.  Vinos Finos y Picadas is a South American wine bar with over 350 wines by the glass, bottle or case.
  
  
• Sunday, June 3, 2012, 3:00-4:30 pm, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood St., Asheville, as part of POETRIO
  
  
• Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 5:30-7:00 pm, Taste Full Beans, 29 Second St. NW, Hickory, as part of Poetry Hickory

Sara Claytor says, “From snakes to movie stars to childhood memories of parents, lesbian neighbors and more, Alice Osborn’s persona persistently captures a certain wonder and bewilderment of the existing child inside us all. This is a book crammed with images, explicit descriptions, characters and emotions. It needs to be read.”

and Joseph Bathanti says, “Alice Osborn’s After the Steaming Stops is a provocative family invocation—at once precisely journalistic and richly imagined. Nothing goes unnoticed. Osborn’s eye, and what it falls upon, is her enduring story, leavened with unflinching candor. These poems are wonderfully narrative, and cannily crafted, luring the reader in with their easy inviting gait. Yet beneath each tidy surface, trouble roils—trouble Osborn does not turn away from in language deceptive in its declarative set-up, and deadly in its ultimate knockout. These poems never stop steaming.”

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Today we welcome Wendy K. Perriman who shares her knowledge about female warriors and the female heroic journey. Wendy is the author of Fire on Dark Water (New York: Berkley Trade, 2011) and will be joining us at Wonderland Book Club in April 2013. Enjoy!

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Female warriors. As Suzanne Collins demonstrates in her highly successful trilogy The Hunger Games, you can’t go far wrong with an invincible female protagonist like Katniss Everdeen. Indeed, in recent years proactive women have moved boldly center stage, producing such memorable heroines as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, Kay Scarpetta from Patricia Cornwell’s medical thriller series, and Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It must be every editor’s dream to see the next sister-warrior emerging from the slush-pile!

Penguin Books signed my debut historical novel primarily because Fire on Dark Water features a strong female character, an English gypsy called Lola Blaise. When Lola is duped into marrying the buccaneer Captain Edward Teach she becomes thirteenth wife of the infamous Blackbeard, scarcely guessing the unconscionable deeds she will have to perform to avoid the fate of her tragic predecessors. Tales of piracy continue to capture the popular imagination and feminists have looked to Anne Bonny and Mary Reed as historic examples of tough heroines. But carried away by such romanticism many writers lose sight of the fact that most buccaneers were greedy, bloodthirsty killers with addictive or pathological natures. I sought to portray the real pirates of the Caribbean. I also wanted to create the first literary pirate novel since Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and yet still appeal to readers who wouldn’t usually buy nautical fiction. Therefore Lola’s character had to fulfill a range of criteria. History requires her to be as real, believable, and accurate as possible so she interacts with genuine people in documented situations throughout the novel. Then although Lola suffers terribly at the hands of Blackbeard and his crew, she has to survive the ordeal in order to tell her tale. And while she is a thief, liar, outlaw, and killer, she needs to remain sympathetic. For a detailed account of how I tackled this process please visit the Fire on Dark Water website (New York: Berkley Trade, 2011)

Do fictional female warriors share common traits? Most definitely yes! They are primarily cunning and smart—and whether skilled with a bow, gun, scalpel, or computer, their bravery is ultimately rewarded. These women are driven, organized, calm under pressure, often opportunistic, and while neither Salander nor Lola is particularly likable they take no prisoners and earn the reader’s respect. Heroines may face different challenges motivated by love or duty, anger or revenge, greed or necessity, and yet they all retain hope. They learn to thrive in a hostile environment, sometimes with the help of others and the benefits of training, but always with resilience and ingenuity. Yet despite the commonalities, these characters are strikingly different. Fortunately for the writers among us, bravery comes in many guises so there are endless possibilities for the development of new warriors. And perhaps it doesn’t matter who they are, or where they come from, as long as they each adhere to the sterling advice offered Katniss Everdeen , “Make sure they remember you!”

About Wendy K. Perriman

Wendy Perriman has published two scholarly books on major literary figures. The first, A Wounded Deer: The Effects of Incest on the Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006), concludes that Dickinson’s enigmatic poetry may have originated from a personal exposure to trauma. Her second book, Willa Cather and the Dance: “A Most Satisfying Elegance”, (New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009), suggests that Cather was among the first intellectuals to train as a leading balletomane, and to utilize dance imagery to enrich and subvert the subtext of her novels. She was awarded a Ph.D. at Drew University in 2003 and here she also won theMichaelEllisPrize for the most innovative M.A. thesis, and theHelenLePage and William Hale Chamberlain Prize for the best-written doctoral dissertation. Originally from ancient English town of Kirkham, Wendy Perriman now resides with her family in the sailing community on the shores of Lake Norman nearCharlotte in North Carolina.

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Whether you’re an independent author (read self-published), or publish with a small press or are a poet whose name is not Billy Collins or Maya Angelou, you have to book your own signing gigs, much like independent musicians book theirs. Your publisher is too small to do it for you. How do you go about doing this? Well, today we’re going to discuss booking a gig in your own backyard with local business owners.

How To Book a Gig:

Study where other authors in your area are booking. Where are they having their readings or signings? Ask them for an introduction. Studying the biweekly NC Writers’ Network Reading e-blast that comes out every Thursday afternoon is a wonderful start. You should also know the difference between a reading and a signing—a reading is where you take about 10-20 minutes to read your material before an audience and a signing is where you’re behind a table and folks are milling about and you don’t read your work at all. Attend your friends’ readings and talk to the people in charge, telling them that you are also an author. Follow up with an email and phone call. This is how I got my gig at NOFO @ the Pig two years in a row!

Approach local venues where it’s in their best interest to partner with an author. I tend to stay away from chains unless they do a lot with the community and schools. Mention strongly what you offer—can you bring in a lot of traffic on a slow night? Talk about the best times for them and for your people. For example, if you want to book at a ladies’ boutique consignment store you need to tell the owner (only if it’s true) that you can bring a lot of women to their store who will buy stuff and that Sunday afternoon would be the ideal time for this crowd. I booked a signing/wine tasting on Tuesday May 8^th from 5:30-7pm with Pat West of Vinos Finos Y Picadas Wine and Tapas Bar at Lafayette Village Shopping Center in North Raleigh just by participating in a Femfessionals event. Pat knows that networking and partnering with local businesses make all of the difference for his store’s continued success.

 Depending on your theme, which we’ll discuss below, figure out what store and shops will best suit you and your audience: yoga studios, art galleries, clothing boutiques, food specialty stores, real estate offices, antique stores, chocolate store, wine shops, and coffee shops. While bars and restaurants may be a good idea, be aware of their noise levels. Don’t focus exclusively on bookstores, but if you have a bookstore opportunity, please go for it! Bookstores know how to set up events and they know how to publicize via social media and their e-newsletters, which may not be the case at some of the venues I’ve listed above—you may have to rely on your own publicity/marketing machine.

What is your book’s theme? If it’s self-help or exercise or healthy eating, or geared toward women, think about where your readers would like to go and see you read or sign your book.

Offer refreshments. Either you can provide your own refreshments or buy them from the venue and make sure you advertise what these refreshments are in your copy. For instance, say that there will be complimentary wine, cheese and Cake Pops!

The bottom line is that you want to find receptive business owners who want to help local authors succeed—it is win-win for both of you to pull off a successful event. I would also zero in on folks who have a history of helping authors—make sure you support them by shopping in their store, too! Most of all, always make it fun, don’t be a diva and roll with any changes. Doing so will guarantee a re-booking and even more support going forward from your local business partners!

Your Turn:

What did I leave off of the list? If you’ve booked reading gigs, please share with us what worked or didn’t work.

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Today we welcome back regular guestblogger Dave Baldwin who shares his book review of Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi with us at Write from the Inside Out. As always in his blog posts, Dave provides you with valuable insights from his own hard-won experiences. Read on and we’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

I’ve been wrestling with a big challenge since I came to Raleigh and started out as a freelance writer. The million-dollar question: how can I develop a selling formula that’s effective and works naturally for people who fall on the introverted side of the Myers-Briggs personality scale?

A big part of my answer came recently when I picked up a copy of Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. I wish I had read this book a lot sooner. I think that every high school student should read this book before going to college. Ferrazzi does a great job explaining the concept of networking in a way that’s not only friendly to introverts, but highly practical. Networking is one of those skills that’s not taught in schools, but should be, and I think Ferrazzi would agree with that statement.

Ferrazzi recalls a story about a time when he offered some advice to a young man who was considering starting his own public relations firm. Ferrazzi asked his mentee if he’d spoken to any prospective clients yet. The would-be entrepreneur replied that no, he didn’t see any reason to do that. His plan was to save up money for a few years, quit his job, incorporate, rent an office, and then start looking for clientele. His rationale: he couldn’t expect to have any credibility with clients unless he had an office. Ferrazzi advised the future business owner to start immediately contacting the kinds of people who might become his clients in the future—and offering them his services free of charge.

Ferrazzi’s advice was based on a number of different factors. For one, offering pro bono services would build trust, goodwill, solid relationships, and a professional reputation. Also, it would help the budding PR expert to learn about the nature of the business and craft a great service offering—without having to work under the pressure of being expected to deliver. Finally, Ferrazzi notes that no matter how good anyone is at what they do, no one can expect to meet a new prospective client and be hired by that person the next day. It takes time to build relationships, and people hire professional services on their own timelines.

When I read this story, I was excited and outraged at the same time. How could I have failed to think of something so simple? At the same time, an uplifting question occurred to me. What if everyone made a practice of giving away their services free of charge each month? I realized that Ferrazzi’s approach was doable for introverted business owners. Contacting someone to offer them a pro bono service with no expectations is a relatively easy thing to do—especially when compared to making sales calls.

In the early days when I first made the decision to go off on my own, I did exactly the kinds of things Ferrazzi advised his student not to do (though I didn’t rent office space). For example, during my brief venture as a distributor with Herbalife, I spent $200 on a pack of fliers made to hang on doorknobs. I got up at 3:00AM to sneak around a neighborhood and hang them for people to find in the morning. I walked into local stores and asked for people’s names and phone numbers. I called my friends and family members and asked them if they’d be interested in free “wellness evaluations” (sales pitches for health supplements). My mentors also advised me to put fliers under people’s windshield wipers at the rate of 1,000 per day. (I had neither the stomach nor the patience for that.)

My early training in sales came from boisterous, outgoing people. Extraversion dominated the culture of selling. In 2002, when I sold Cutco knives, a large portion of our training focused on simply being loud. Sales trainings were conducted to the tune of dance music at a rapid beat. Cheering and applause were mandatory. (You would literally be asked to leave the room and not come back if your body language or facial expression appeared to be less than enthusiastic). There was little talk of building relationships during these training sessions, except as an afterthought. We were encouraged to build rapport, but only as a tactic for closing the sale.

Approaches like Ferrazzi’s haven’t gotten much attention until recently. I used to think that I would never be able to sell—because sales required a different kind of personality. I came to realize that conventional selling, for the most part, had been designed for and by extroverts. I realized in 2007 that it was equally feasible to develop a sales method that would suit introverts equally well. Never Eat Alone, I think, covers this territory exceptionally well. The ideas I got from this book inspired me so much that I decided to start a new networking group.

If you struggle with networking or with your business in general, this book is definitely worth a read. You’ll find something in it for you. If you are looking for ways to pay it forward and help others, Never Eat Alone will provide even more value. Check it out!

Dave Baldwin is a copywriter who lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina. He facilitates a networking group in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Your Turn:

Entrepreneurs: we want to hear from you. Pro bono services yes or no? Has offering pro bono services made a difference for your business?

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