If you’re like every other human being on the planet, you have some fear of writing.

Why is this? Is it because we desperately avoid thinking too much (because thinking is what we must do to write)?

I think it’s because of our education. We were encouraged to write before we had anything to write about. We were asked to write what we thought of countless events, people, and historical facts before we even knew what they meant to others. How in the world would we know what they meant to us?

Writing is a form of critical thinking. It helps us put on paper how our brain works. Oftentimes, we don’t really think critically because it’s too much work (or because we’re afraid that others might think we’re dumb).

But in this day and age, we need writers and we need them now.

Here’s how to write something TODAY:

1. The golden age of the literati has passed. Write what you know, write what you want to know, write what you think. Really, it doesn’t matter if someone thinks it’s stupid, because the Internet is so vast, no one will call you out and kick you off the island. Sure, folks may disagree, but writing now is more about YOUR take on a subject, not the right take on a subject.

2. When you first write, it’s private. The first draft is for your eyes only. You just have to put it down. You can always edit it later, or you can throw it away and no one will ever see it. It’s a great reversal of risk to know that you will not show your first drafts around town. Don’t fret. All first drafts are shitty (thus sayeth Anne Lamott).

3. Pretend you are sitting across the table from someone who asked you a question and you write to answer them. Pretend you both are drinking deep mugs of coffee and it’s laid back and relaxed and this person doesn’t care if you riff, they are genuinely interested in what you have to say.

4. Consider that what you are writing may save someone’s life; not literally, but they are desperate to know the solution that you have in your brain. Write for them. Help them. The “Good Samaritan” gene is very strong in our psyches these days. You will be so happy to be helping someone, you’ll forget you’re writing.

5. Forget pretense. No one thinks you’re cool, no one thinks you’re good looking, no one cares what you say, no one gives a crap if you screw up. But really, people do think you’ve got it and you just have to write it. But the less you focus on what others think and more about how you feel, the better the writing will flow.

6. Focus on success. Say you write this and it’s good. Say you write and it goes viral. Say you write this and people flock to your blog to read it. How would that make you feel? Good, yeah?

7. It’s just words. You just need to put the words into sentences and the sentences into paragraphs and the paragraphs into sections. Really, you’re just organizing words. Perhaps an outline first would help? Then the words that are in the outline can keep you focused as you expand on them throughout the piece. I use a scratch outline: 1. a. b. 2. a. b. 3. a. b.

Action Tip: What do you have to write today? Use one of these quickstart techniques and get started! Any other quickstart techniques you’d like to share with your fellow writers? Leave a comment!

Really? You think so?

I don’t think so. Social media just takes the right mindset and skills.

And we all got skillz. Right?

A social media mindset requires a few key things from an individual:

1. Commitment to seeing it through. A lot of folks that don’t do well on social media give up way too soon. They are hesitant, they don’t dig deep, they only give 50% effort. The folks that do well on social media have embraced it as their brand builder. They’re in it for the long haul, they don’t intend to give it up unless under duress. Even without enough sleep, they continue to forge ahead, planning, strategizing, communicating.

2. Willingness to learn . . . everything. Even if it’s relearning everything they’ve ever known for as long as they can possibly remember. They will do it. They’ll put the time in, they’ll talk to the people, they’ll read the books, download the podcasts, study the courses. They’ll always be thinking about what’s next. They’ll never just sit back and rest on their laurels. They are serious. Don’t look away . . . these folks will be way ahead quicker than you can say Marco . . .

3. Courage. Shameless, brazen courage. A courageous social media user fears nothing. They have thick skin, are resilient to people ignoring them, don’t mind when people pester them (unless it’s prolonged), know what they’re worth, and know what they want. They get up every day knowing that it’s one more chance to enlarge their “web real estate” by giving out good information, helping someone find a good solution, and being as authentic as possible. They are not pushovers, but they are not mean. They just have courage. They have pluck.

These things can’t be gained from any Dummies guide to social media. A social media user doesn’t get these from a conference or from a book. It’s a mindset choice. To go or not. To make a move or not.

It’s this kind of social media prowess that makes people sit up and say, “wow, who’s that. I gotta know more about her!”

Action Tip: Is social media difficult for you? Is there a way you can take just one of these points and try to apply it to what scares you the most? Any of them will work, it’s all about what you choose to do . . . right now.

You may be an author or a writer. And you love this, because to speak in front of more than one or two people (maybe even that too!) scares you to death.

But learning to speak as an expert on what you write about? There’s a gold mine in there, trust me.

I’ve been speaking on being a writer and marketing as a writer since 2002. My venues are small, about 100-200 people and they are writing conferences, usually themed, spiritual writing conferences, fiction writing conferences, and it’s only growing from there. I’ve met tons of people who always want to know what’s new in my writing career every time I see them in person or on Facebook!

That’s a powerful way to reach more than your immediate acquaintances about your latest book, don’t you think?

How does one find speaking opportunities?

Here’s a list of ideas:

1. Your local community. Churches, civic groups, libraries, bookstores, just about anyone who has a published book has a veritable golden ticket to local speaking engagements. There may not be pay, there may be a small honorarium, but the opportunities are there.

2. Your regional chapter of a national writer’s organization. Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustators, America Society of Journalists and Authors, Romance Writers of America, there are many more out there. You could speak on a writing topic or a research topic for these groups.

How to practice speaking in front of an audince?

1. Twitter chats. It’s happening already on Twitter. Grab a hashtag (#WCLW for Michelle Rafter’s Word Count Last Wednesday, for instance; I’ll be the featured guest on September 29 talking about using Facebook for authors!). Get people to get on Twitter at the time of the chat, and start chatting. It may start out small at first, but it will grow. This helps you get used to writing-speaking before you actually have to.

2. Webinars. Have a great idea that helps people with how-to steps? Host a webinar. (Again, this isn’t EXACTLY speaking, but it’s excellent training.) I’ve got an upcoming free webinar with Writer’s Digest in the next few weeks (I’ll keep you posted!).

Action Tip: Consider speaking as well as writing to build your platform and to get visible as an expert. You may really enjoy the experience!

Email is the future.

Wait, is this 1995 or 2010?

Well . . .

The big discussion online this week is whether or not you should drop your blog in favor of an email newsletter or eZine. And the consensus is that for many online businesses and consultants, dropping the blog may be more beneficial.

I’m not sure I agree that this is a good approach for authors who are trying to become experts and build their brands online. I think authors (and most small businesses new to social media) should use both. Wondering how each one would work best for you?

Read on.

Either: You blog when you are trying to build a brand. Blogs can be added to search engines, can come up as search engine results, can be forwarded, liked on Facebook, Tweeted, added to Stumble Upon, and replied to with a comment.

Or: You send out an email newsletter when your audience knows so much about you that they don’t have to scrape the Google results to find the info they’re looking for. Say, you’re Lauren Conrad (who also has a blog, btw). Lauren Conrad could send out just an eZine once a month and still sell tons and tons of books. But pair an email newsletter with a blog and wowza!

Either: You blog because you are a writer and have a lot of extra tidbits to share with your audience that work well as a blog and/or eZine material. You blog because you are trying to sell a product, not just a consulting service. You want to sell books, not to just be a thought leader.

Or: You send out an email newsletter because you find that your product pitch for each newsletter gets you a 120% return rate the first week after sending out the newsletter. Think of how this is amplified for you with a blog. Say you send out an eZine issue and it is forwarded by a subscriber to a friend. They plug in the info from the newsletter into Google (or better yet, simply click from the newsletter) to your blog. They read about you, they read some of your posts, voila! They decide to buy the product too!

Either: You blog to become an expert. People are looking for a solution to their problems (be it organic gardening, how to travel well, how to take great photographs, whatever) and you’re it! The blog is proof to them that they have found the right person to turn to.

Or: You send an eZine to solidify your status as an expert to folks who read your blog and whose ears perk up when they see your name on Twitter. It’s a deep level of commitment to be allowed to send strangers email (with promotions, no less!). It’s an honor.

And if you don’t yet do it yet, well, it’s time to get with it!

Action Tip: Do you have a blog and no email newsletter or eZine? What are you waiting for? I recommend Aweber or Constant Contact for email list management (about 20 bucks/month). For folks who want to get started with zero cost, try Mad Mimi (free up to 100 subscribers).

{Answer my 3 questions on transferring a blog to WordPress here (no opt in required!): http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BC32RS8}

I’ve said before on this blog that you should start with social media (as an author) with the lowest barrier to entry (easiest entry point). I am now here to say: start a blog.

You may be freaking out. You may be saying, “Hey, she just reversed and contradicted herself!”

Say what you will, but don’t freak out.

A blog is the lowest barrier entry to social media. Seriously. Consider a blog your new content hub. You only have to post information that your audience wants and that you already know. It isn’t rocket science and it shouldn’t take you hours of your day. It should take time only because you want it to be the best it can possibly be, not because you’re sitting there freaking out in front of your computer that this social media/blogging thing is a waste of time and will anyone even read what you write?

Don’t give away your energy.

Remember, how everyone used to say that email was archaic? That it was outdated, old? Recently, it was said that Generation Y doesn’t even use email. That’s all true.

But, as the Internet grows by leaps and bounds (yes, still), the people just now getting online in a serious way are using email and email alone. Less than half of the new Internet users polled in a 2009 study are on social media. Thus, the way to the majority of your buying audience’s heart . . . at least for now . . . is blogs.

Wait a minute. Did you say blogs or email?

I said blogs.

Blogs can be delivered via email using RSS. Blog posts can be emailed. Ezines are emailed, which direct people to posts on your blog.

Folks have been saying that email is out. Well, it’s back and in a major way. And I’ve heard several people in the past week say (out loud) that they are thinking about ditching their blog and going strictly to email. I think that is a great idea . . . for them . . . but for authors and writers and anyone who is trying to sell books, it’s a mistake.

You’re going to gather interested people to yourself by writing. The best way to get that writing seen (aside from writing your book) is still a blog. You can Tweet out your posts. You can post your blog writing on Facebook. You can spread so much content around, it’ll be like spreading jam on a PB&J sandwich.

Because your blog is your content hub. It’s central intelligence. It’s where everything originates, draws from, points back to, and circulates around. You create a blog, you’ve just begun your journey into social media.

Unless you are really, really good at email newsletters. If you can knock out your own email newsletter that gathers thousands of subscribers without a blog, go for it!

But I’ll go down in history as the one who said: a blog is a content hub. It works, if you’re willing to do the work.

Action Tip: So, you’re going to start a blog? Not sure where to start? Sign up for my biweekly social media strategy eZine (sign up box is up toward the top of the page and to the right of this text) and you’ll get tips and tricks on blogging, including a free ebook, “Author’s Guide to Blogging” coming soon from yours truly.

Lots of questions:

How do I market the books already published and have time to write the new books?
How do you corral the social media? It’s taking over my entire life!
I can’t focus on the new book when I’m so into promotion for the recent one. Help!

These are normal questions. This is the age-old question for any artist. How to make a living and create amazing art at the same time? I don’t think we’ve yet hit a solution either. I hear novelists, artists, screenwriters, actors, producers, and directors asking the same questions all over? Been on any art or writing forums lately?

There is no easy one-size-fits-all answer.

It depends on your work. What strategy do you have in place to write new work and promote the published work? How do you keep yourself sequestered to bring forth the new dream when every day Twitter scrolls by like textual diarrhea?

I like to think of marketing as playing a game. Robert Middleton of Marketing Ball fame talks about how marketing is like a game of baseball. You move from base to base as you answer the questions your prospective customers ask of you. For book authors, prospects are asking: Does this author know what she’s talking about? Is she a good writer? Does he provide practical tips for me? Do I learn what I need to know from this guy’s book?

Think about how you can create a marketing strategy from just those questions. You could start a blog or eZine and answer those questions in different variations using different mediums. A blog post talking about how you discovered the steps you give in your book, an eZine sharing a case study about how another professional you know tried their own method, then found yours and they had much more success. Get the idea?

Another strategy would be to tell a story. And we’re writers, this is what we do for a living, right? The story can be how all your life you were drawn to this certain kind of cheese (bad example, but bear with me) and then suddenly, one day you realized that this other cheese suited your needs better. And voila, your life was changed, the world opened up, the sun came out, and so on and so on. You engage your audience (and their questions) by telling them how you experienced those same questions and how you decided to answer them. And then you publish that “story” as a manifesto or as a white paper or as a series of blog posts that people searching for you on Google will find when they click on your web site or blog. You’re preloading your content with the most likely questions. And then on your blog, you host a link to our book from independent booksellers and Amazon so that people who see that you do know what you’re talking about. They realize you will answer all their questions and they will learn something from you and they order your book. Or they leave a comment or they lurk for several maddening weeks until they buy.

You can’t force people to buy your book. You can’t force anyone to read your blog. You can, however, make it so inviting, so interesting, so intriguing that your target readership just can’t resist.

Action Tip: Information no longer goes out to an audience. The audience comes looking for information (mostly via the Internet). How can you take advantage of this shift in our society (called inbound marketing) and use it to your advantage?

I was talking about my BSM (before social media) writing career with someone the other day and as I spoke, I realized that many of my readers here might not realize that this social media for authors thing was a direct result of me being an author whose books went out of print. I didn’t just decide that I was going to become an expert at social media . . . oh yeah, for authors. I am an author. And I am thrilled with social media. And much of what I see happening in social media right now is primed for authors. The publishing industry may lose midlist authors at the speed of sound, but the social media industry is saving them.

Yeah, I was one of those lost authors. Back in the 1990s, I wrote books, eight of them in fact. I sold all of these books without social media (or an agent for that matter) and I learned a lot about how tough the publishing industry is.

It’s tough. It used to be tougher to get yourself noticed by publishers. Back then, there wasn’t Facebook or Twitter or even blogs. This was 1997; the Internet was AOL. I had only been online for two years and my computer was so old (a used 486 laptop) that I had to turn off images whenever I wanted to download web pages. I had an extra phone line for my dial up Internet access. (Yes, I did live way out in the boonies; in a town of about 1,500 people actually.) I helped the postmaster with her email, often going back into the mail sorting room to restart her hard drive. (She still remembers me and tells my mother hello all the time!)

So it’s not like I didn’t have the Internet or email. I did. And I used it to my benefit by connecting with a lot of information, including how to write book proposals and how to approach publishers. The first publisher I approached didn’t do royalties (I was so naive without an agent, I didn’t care) and gave me a flat sum to write seven books for them in 1997 and 1998. They had liked my poetry. (Again, yes, I was a poet once. I poured out my grief in verse after the death of my beloved grandmother.) And so, I was published.

How did that happen? I still don’t know. I was in the right place at the right time. My books may have been from a packager/small publisher, but they scored endcaps in Targets for three years straight. My books were in gift shop catalogs for years. I remember, because I sent out letters to local gift shops telling them so. (Businesses like gift shops didn’t have email back then.) I talked up my books for as long as they were in print.

That may surprise many of you. I know a lot of authors who believe that marketing and promotion of a book only happens in the six weeks leading up to and after a book is published. Yes. And those authors are now out of print.

Just like me.

And I didn’t ever stop marketing. I’m still out of print. It doesn’t mean my books are bad or poorly put together (they were gorgeous hardcovers with vellum book jackets); I have several sitting on my shelf right beside me. It means that there was too limited a way for readers to find out about my books. It means that there were no tools in place to help authors promote and market their books for as long as they are in print.

Things are so much easier in 2010 (I am so thankful!) and my next book will be so much fun to promote! I, for one, can’t wait to start the promotion part. It’s now my favorite thing to do (second to actually writing and revising my book).

Why, you may ask? Why would you love to market and promote?

Because it’s so much better now. It’s possible for authors to promote and market their own books better than their publishers. It’s possible that authors will become bigger brands than publishers!

And that gets me very excited.

Action Tip: Have you been thinking you’ll only have to promote your new book for a couple of months around the release? Can you change your mindset?

In future posts, we’ll be brainstorming ways that authors can promote their books to keep them in print for many, many years and in a way that doesn’t let the promotion take over the writer’s life. Stay tuned.

We’ve got a lot of new readers coming into this blog, and I get so many questions about Twitter every day, that I’ve decided to do a month-long feature on Twitter and how authors can use it better. Part One will be about what Twitter is used for.

A lot of authors (and small businesses) tell me that they are overwhelmed by the thought of micro-blogging. “It’s too fast-paced,” says one author. “What is the point?” or “It’s full of worthless chatter. There’s nothing on Twitter I want to read,” say others.

I wish I could convince them about Twitter, but I can’t go around talking every author into using Twitter (for one thing, I only have 24 hours in a day), so if you’re an author and are wondering if using Twitter is a worthwhile endeavor (or if you have author friends who are still on the fence about Twitter), read on.

1. Twitter is an excellent way to get to know others in your niche and to produce quality content for those who follow you. Your Twitter feed should be full of folks that you want to meet and talk to in order to: 1. further your career, 2. build your business, or 3. earn expert status. Once you begin interacting with folks who share your interest, you’ll then meet all sorts of interesting people who you can follow, and who in time, may follow you. But that depends on the content you create.

2. Twitter increases your visibility on the Internet (the Library of Congress has archived every single tweet, did you know that?) and helps you to be seen as the expert you desire to be. If you bring your brand to Twitter (what is your brand? this may take some thinking about BEFORE you jump on Twitter, or if you’re like me and got on Twitter and then rebranded), you’ll need to be blogging, replying, posting information that is geared to your platform. More specifically, you’ll need to Please Write Like You Talk to your audience. (How do you know what your audience wants to know? You need to find out before you start Tweeting, or again, if you’re like me, you figure it out sorta by accident and then must redirect.)

3. Twitter builds your tribe. Ever had a posse? That’s what it can be like using Twitter. You have folks who follow your Tweets and as a result retweet (don’t know what that is? don’t worry; I’ll explain in a future post this month) interesting ideas from you out to a larger audience (this really works!).

Basically, Twitter is another form of blogging. Rather than 500-word chunks, you’ll be dispensing information out in shorter bursts (140 characters or less) and there’s an art to mastering this. Not everyone who blogs well will know what to do on Twitter, but don’t worry, if you’re looking for DIY info on utilizing Twitter, you’ve come to the right place.

Action Step: What would you talk about on Twitter? What are your interests, what magazines do you read, what websites/blogs do you follow? What do you find yourself thinking about most of your day? What do you already talk about (or blog about) on a regular basis? Answers to those questions will point you in the right direction.

Yikes, so much going on over this ebook kerfuffle with iPad. An important update from Michael Cader at Publishers Lunch (if you don’t get his Publishers Lunch free emails–or his Publishers Lunch Deluxe paid emails–you SHOULD!):

We’re going to keep grinding our way through the idiosyncracies and challenges of life under the agency model, understanding that all of this is a constantly moving target. [emphasis mine]

While Random House has gotten all the attention as the biggest trade publisher whose titles are not available via the just-launched iBookstore, it should be underscored that so far, very few companies of scale outside of the Agency Five have a presence there. [emphasis mine] In addition to those already announced–Perseus, Nelson, Workman, Sourcebooks, and F+W–we found lists of titles from Hyperion and Kensington (henceforth known as the Non Five).

But the list of absent publishers is much larger. For now it includes Abrams, Andrews McMeel, Bloomsbury, Chronicle, Harlequin, Hay House, HCI, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Norton, Regnery, Rodale, Sterling, and Wiley. Also missing are prominent Perseus distribution clients like Grove/Atlantic, rising indie publishers like Quirk and Skyhorse, and all the big university presses. [emphasis mine]

We know that at least some of the publishers listed above are far along in their discussions with Apple and hopeful of reaching agreements soon. Among the issues are Apple’s hardcover price parity requirements balanced against Amazon’s reported unwillingness to negotiate changing to an agency model with any companies outside of the Agency Five, plus the time period Apple gives publishers to change their pricing with other customers to comply with Apple’s agreement.

While the Non Five we reached declined to discuss their plans and conversations about terms, the current state of play is more or less self-evident. Apple’s published terms of use indicate they are an agent for all books in the iBookstore, just as Amazon clearly denotes when the ebook is sold and priced by the publisher rather than Amazon. If you check the Amazon listings for Kindle titles from any of the Non Five, you’ll see that they are still sold by Amazon.

While the Agency Five have moved to agency terms across all their ebook retailers, the Non Five are currently driving a hybrid model: agency for Apple, and wholesale everywhere else. The big question–for the Non Five as well as for other publishers still negotiating with Apple–is how long and how well a hybrid model is sustainable.

And then this link from the Times on the green-ness of the new iPad (an interesting viewpoint considering over 300,000 iPads were sold in one day), but can we rejoice that over 250,000 EBOOKS were sold that same day? That’s a lot of books and not a single tree was used in their printing! Woohoo!

I’ve got Twitter clutter. Do you?

It’s my own fault. I started an account (@trishlawrence) a few years ago and let it grow. And it grew and grew and is now completely unmanageable and out of control. But it does what I want.

A few weeks ago I was in despair at my Twitter. I started a new Twitter account a few months ago (@realbrilliant) and two accounts were killing me. Plus I felt like a failure. I wrote a very well-read blog post on Twitip about how one should NOT ever use two Twitter accounts.

Perhaps this post can clear all this up once and for all.

One Twitter account is the best option UNLESS:

• You’re like me and doing more than one thing online and need to keep those things separate.
• You’re not like me and figured out a long time ago that to sell multiple services or products may require you to get multiple accounts.
• You just enjoy having as many Twitter accounts as possible (that’s fine; I’m not saying one word about it).

And as I shamed myself inwardly and felt like a fool, I realized something. My original Twitter feed is doing exactly what I want it to do. @trishlawrence is for my author self. I don’t want it to sell anything but me as an author. I can post anything I’m working on to that account and I have people coming to my blog to check it out. It works!

Question for you: If your Twitter is cluttered, what are you using it for?

My second Twitter is for a very different purpose. @realbrilliant is for my social media strategy business for small businesses and authors. The folks on that list are only there because they have something remotely related to that topic. Are you following @realbrilliant and an author? Are you looking for tips on social media to build your tribe? That’s what it’s for.

Question for you: Are your Twitter followers/followees your target market or tangentially related to your target market? Why not?

And so my Twitter clutter has cleared, but not really. Twitter is not this static social media tool that just sits there waiting for you to wake up. I now take an hour a week to research Twitter strategies for both my feeds and to implement new ideas I find (both for myself as an author and for my author and small-biz clients).

Question for you: How much time do you spend each week researching your niche on Twitter?

Up next will be “The Big Decision on Facebook: To Fan Page or Profile?” Stay tuned!