Author: Dan Blank

Why Publishers & Writers Need to Embrace Digital Media

I read the most incredible article this week, and I want to take the time to really explore what it means. Specifically… what it means for you and your career as a publisher or writer.

The article is a Fortune piece on Conan O’Brien, and his transition from old media personality to becoming a multimedia brand. Even if you hate Conan, read the article. It’s an important reflection on the power EACH OF US has to reshape our lives and careers.

What amazes me is that this happened last year. By then, Twitter was already seen as normal, when we all felt like we missed any “opportunity” with Twitter that would have profound effect. And yet, here we have Conan’s story, which perfectly embodies not just the power of digital media, but the power of an individual who focuses on purpose and connection.

Below are highlights from the article. But this is the main theme:

“Like millions of other Americans, Conan O’Brien’s life has been disrupted by the digital world, and he’s been forced to reinvent himself.”

If you are in publishing – if you are a writer or creator – consider how this article reflects on your career. On how we have ALL been challenged by new media, but that there is opportunity hidden within it if we care to look. I want to be clear: Conan’s story is not about technology. It is about removing the pretense, about getting back to basics – connecting with people, and doing so via a shared purpose.

If you don’t know the basic’s of Conan’s recent experience: after 17 years as a late night talk show host, NBC made an unreasonable demand: to move his show, until after midnight, and put his biggest competition (Jay Leno) in the time slot ahead of him, at 11:35. Conan would not make the move, so he left the show of his dreams. Via social media and the web, fans helped support him, and it lead the way to a very different type of career for Conan.

Okay, here is what I took away from the article:

  • Conan Focused on Greater Purpose and Beliefs, not Selfish Motivation
    His response to NBC’s demand that he move his show from 11:35 to 12:05:
    “For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting… I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction.”

    This wasn’t a discussion of contracts or formats. It was about the greater affect of his decision on the people it affected most: the fans and the work he would be building – a work that has a rich history. Messing with those things in the name of profit alone is not something he wanted to be a part of.

  • Context Matters
    Conan’s use of Twitter started when a fan created an image, Facebook Page and Twitter account to support him. In coming to his support, Conan saw the power of social media – something he knew nothing about. When he saw its use within the context of his situation, a light bulb went off.

    For those in publishing – some of this talk about digital media, social media, apps, etc must seem very foreign. Look for ways to put the proper context around it – to see how it can connect you with your core mission of sharing information and stories – of connecting with people.

  • The Role of “The Audience” has Changed
    On the generational shift, thanks to the web and social media: “It’s an audience that doesn’t want to be just an audience — they want to be participants. They love being connected to one another and to the celebrity objects of their affection; they love posting and creating and remixing.”

    In the publishing world, I hear the phrase “People still love holding books” a lot. You know what, I love holding books too. We all love books. But that’s not the question. The question is… do some people enjoy connecting with information and stories in a different manner too. Is there another opportunity IN ADDITION to holding books. One that does not belittle the book, but is simply different from it. When we stop focusing on the book, and start focusing on readers, a world of possibilities opens up.

  • We Sometimes Represent Things Greater than Ourselves
    “Generation X is finally at the stage where they can have the jobs the boomers had, and the economy crashes. There’s nothing left for them: There’s no Social Security; there’s nowhere to invest. Conan was a great stand-in for the frustration with this never-ending boomer legacy.”

    For a writer or publisher, this is about understanding that people’s relationships with your work is something deeper than purchasing and reading a magazine article or a book. That the work LIVES within them, they think about it and act on it long after the process of reading it has ended. Consider what those deeper connections are all about.

  • Value Can Be Created Where There Was None Before
    “What was interesting about it,” points out O’Brien, “is that all the legal prohibitions were coming from people in the old media. They were saying you can’t do all these things, and pretty quickly we realized, ‘Wait a minute!’ Someone said, ‘Does that include Twitter? No. It doesn’t include Twitter.’ And so I started tweeting.”

    If the publishing world tries to create the digital media (eg: ebook) world in the same image as the print world, they will find challenge after challenge. The rules that we think apply don’t really exist. But for most of us, it is scary to consider this – that these rules that secure our world-view don’t exist. For others, it leaves an opportunity. To help shape the world, and improve it.

  • Power is in Aligning Purpose to Connection
    “On January 23, 2010 after taping his last broadcast, Conan O’Brien, a guy who had been a staple of late-night television for 17 years, no longer had a show. Nor did he have a Facebook or Twitter account yet.” A month later, he amassed 250,000 Twitter followers in his first day on Twitter.

    Was Twitter the key in Conan’s success? No. It was merely a channel, be it a relevant one for his audience. It was his purpose – in combination with the channel – that had such a profound effect. When you approach a channel like Twitter, you can’t think about what it can do for you, you have to think about what you are putting into it. That is what matters.

  • Learn by Doing
    He sold 120,000 tickets to his live concert tour with a single Tweet, and sold out 30 shows within a few days. During the live shows, they would create a unique twitter hash tag, so Conan could keep track of what was happening in the audience, and use it in his performance. “Suddenly O’Brien wasn’t just performing for fans; he was also engaging in a conversation with them.”

    Conan kept exploring what could be done – how to further connect with his audience – even during a theater tour, something very traditional. Again and again, he broke down barriers that separated him from his audience.

  • Freedom Matters
    With his new show on TBS: “O’Brien is in control of all the on-air creative and, just as important, all the digital use of his content. He and his production company Conaco own the show. Among the other late-night talent — Leno, David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson, and Jimmy Fallon — Letterman is the only host who owns his show. It’s the opposite of O’Brien’s setup at NBC, says Ross, a partner in the company. “Conaco owns the show, and TBS is a participant. At Tonight, NBC owned the show, and we were participants.” And ownership makes all the difference for O’Brien and his team.”

    It is hard to state how big of a shift this is for the media world. Conan will not be the last to experience a shift like this in their career.

  • Rewrite the Rules of Success
    “Team Coco touches more than 5 million people each month, many of them primarily consumers of O’Brien’s brand of humor online. “A lot of television executives still have the idea that a show is something everybody watches.” His team also shares clips from the show very quickly – so instead of people needing to rip them and post them, Conan’s team encourages them to simply share.

    Conan’s new role is something very new and very traditional at the same time. Regardless, he has rewritten the rules of success, paving the way for others.

So why am I so excited about this story? Because it’s not just about creating great content and broadcasting it, but about strengthening the CONNECTION and ENGAGEMENT between the creator and the audience. Digital media is not about marketing to people – tricking them to engage with you. Rather, it is about aligning for a common purpose.

For each of us, this is about not just embracing a thing (digital media), but embracing a change in our own identity. That even though we may have EXPECTED our careers to be one thing, we have to be open to shift and expand. Not for the sake of ‘media’ – but for the opportunity for our work to have a deeper affect on the world.

In the end for Conan, it wasn’t about him keeping “The Tonight Show” at all costs – about sitting in Johnny’s chair. It was about connecting with people – entertaining them – making their lives better.

For those of you in publishing and who are creating great work that flows through the publishing world – this comes down to the idea of whether you are focusing ONLY on the book or magazine or newspaper – or if you are focusing on the effect your work has on people’s lives, regardless of media type. And that the opportunity in front of you is to strengthen your connection to the world, and give your work the chance to have a greater purpose and effect.

-Dan

How to Be a Successful Writer: Be a CONNECTOR

You can manifest an entire world. That is the power of a writer, of a creator.

Now, the difference between a “successful” writer, and everyone else who puts pen to paper, is something very simple:

Sharing.

That’s it.

Sure, the quality of the work will determine the scale of the success. Will you have a few fans or a few million fans? Too many writers never share their work. It is born out of inspiration, and dies at the bottom of a desk drawer, or as some file hidden away on a hard drive. It is never shared with spouse, friends, family, or anyone else.

How can a work even have a chance to affect others if it is never shared? How can a writer improve their work if they never see how people react to it?

It used to be, that sharing was REALLY hard, really rare, and really expensive. But not anymore. It’s easy. It’s free. It’s your opportunity to gain or lose.

Sharing is not about marketing. Sharing your work is about allowing it to breathe. To change it from a “thing” (words on paper or screen) – to something that will live, spread, and grow.

Many writers have been confused at this new opportunity, thinking that their role was to create, not to connect. But inherently, being a creator is about connection: to an idea, a place, to knowledge.

Your body of work is not a thing that you put on the shelf. Your body of work is an invisible inspiration that flows through the lives of all you connect with.

Your work – be it a book, article, or some other creation – is NOT what happens when people pick it up. Your work is the EFFECT that happens once they put it down. Your book will eventually be put on a dusty shelf. It will eventually disintegrate in time. It’s just an object. But the ideas you share – how your creation manifests itself in the lives of your readers – THAT is the power of a writer.

This is why music works, why live performance works:

“You and the audience manifest the entire world, an entire set of values, an entire set of possibilities out of thin air.”
– Bruce Springsteen

It is hard to create your body of work. Countless hours of thought, of staring at the blank page or screen. And that is exactly why it deserves the chance to grow – to spread.

Are writers now marketers? I think that is the wrong question.

What I care about is if a writer is a CONNECTOR. Connecting us to ideas, to knowledge, to inspiration. To connect their work to those who can benefit from it. To create something unique, that binds us together.

Do you want your work to spread – to have an EFFECT on the world? It is up to you to make it happen.

-Dan

How To Get Off the Sidelines of Your Writing Career

I spent the past week meeting dozens (hundreds?!) of writers and publishing insiders at two events:

  • Writers Digest Conference
  • Digital Book World

These were days filled with learnings and inspiration, and have left me considering how it is that a writer takes the reins of their own career – to shape their own destiny of creating and sharing their work. I had such a great time at these events, and spoke at four sessions:

Today, I want to talk about ways that you as a writer can shape your career. How to stop wondering about the future of publishing, how to stop waiting for someone to answer your query letter – how to begin to not just work TOWARDS a writing career, but to actually experience it.

One thing was clear at both of these events – people are getting very serious about embracing the business side of publishing – to ensure that there is a vibrant future for writers and publishers in the print and digital domains. Authors were actively discussing marketing tactics and the business of publishing – publishers and other insiders were reviewing reams of data to understand the marketplace and find opportunities.

The centerpiece of the Writer’s Digest Conference was a “Pitch Slam” where writers would be able to pitch their books to high profile agents. This was a very cool event, and an engrossing site in so many ways.

Hundreds of writers waited to be let into the Pitch Slam room. I watched them practice their pitches the previous day and that morning – this was a huge opportunity for each of them to get feedback from professionals, and perhaps even find an agent who wanted to work with them. As you approach the room, this is the middle of the line:

And here we are at the front of the line:

Finally everyone is let in. I found it really symbolic how thin the doorway was, compared to the size of the crowd waiting to squeeze through it, and even the size of the room inside. As if there is not enough room for everyone to become a successful writer.

Here we have it: authors in organized lines waiting for their 90 seconds to pitch the agents who are seated. This is incredibly difficult for both the writers and the agents, yet at the same time, a rare opportunity for both:

This really floored me: that invisible line separating the writers (on the right) and the agents (on the left.) A barrier to reaching their dreams, to reaching readers.

This was such a great event, and I spoke to many writers who had been preparing for months for this moment.

So my question is: what ELSE should a writer be doing to build their careers? Once you have gone home from the Pitch Slam, once you are back in your day-to-day routine, how do you turn that dream into a reality while you wait for the phone to ring? And taking this one step further… what should writers be doing that will help them if an agent actually does take them on. How can the author help their book do well?

This is the thing: writers are waiting to connect to gatekeepers, when the gates to their audience no longer exist as it once did.

Of course, the role of agents and publishers is AS IMPORTANT as ever, if not more so. But, along WITH them, there are so many other things a writer can be doing to build their career. There are ways that writers can access readers, build a fan base, and nurture that process, all on their own. Imagine how much more successful your books can be if you are doing this IN ADDITION to working with agents and publishers.

Anyhow, the following tips are what I have come away from the conference thinking about.

Choose Your Identity
In the past several days, I heard publishers, agents, authors, and everyone in between discuss issues surrounding publishing. The digital revolution has provided many opportunities and many challenges, but inherently, they have each left us with questions about identity. What is the role of an agent? Is an author also a marketer? Do you need a traditional publisher?

If you are going to be a writer, my advice is this: be a writer. Don’t wait for the validation of a publisher or agent in order to change your identity from hobbyist to author. Decide who you want to be, then embrace it. They say acceptance is the first step to the road to recovery. I also think it’s the first step to the path of success. If you are going to wait for the world to validate you before you truly embrace your identity as a writer, then you will find too many reasons to never give it your full effort. And with that, you run the risk of never truly being a writer, because you have yet to commit 100%.

This is not one bit about diminishing the role or value of agents and traditional publishers. It is about the primary reason most people do not pursue their dreams of being a writer. That they are there own worst enemy – the only person stopping you is you.

I’ve heard story after story from creators – that they never finished their great novel, because they didn’t get a big advance from a publisher; that they gave up music entirely because their music label dropped them; that they don’t have time for their art, because they have to mow the lawn.

As I write this at 4am, I can’t help but feel that we are not faced with a lack of time, but a need to prioritize. That the drive to create a body of work lies not in others allowing us time, but in the motivation to realize our purpose as writers and creators.

Embrace All Aspects of a Writing Career: Art, Craft, and Business
If you are a writer, is it an art, a craft, or a business? If it is a mixture of all three, where do you draw the lines in your own writing career?

Perhaps the lines shouldn’t be drawn too firmly. Again and again, I am hearing people in publishing talk about the need for writers to build their fan base, to begin marketing their expertise and passion before they have even finished their book. That their work as a writer is a combination of art, craft, and business, and each needs to evolve in tandem. That if you spend years collecting ideas, but not honing your craft, then you will hit a wall. That if you spend years honing your craft, but not establishing a fan base, then you will hit a wall.

These things work together to build a career: the art, craft and business aspects of your writing. You can’t put off one of them for years, hoping that magically you can tack on a solution at the last minute. Balance your focus – because this is not just about creating a work, it is about building a sustainable career – one in which you interact with readers and build a fan base over the course of years and decades.

I remember walking through one house my wife and I were considering purchasing awhile ago. There were photos on the wall of magazines that the owner – a writer – had been published in, and covers from the book he had published. And it clearly represented a creative time period of their life that took place in the early 1970’s.

While I was impressed at their accomplishments, I had wondered why there were no works posted from the past 3 decades. Why was there not sustained career growth over the course of a lifetime, instead of a mere blip in their career as a writer?

I don’t know the answers to that one person’s story, but I imagine that at some point, they stopped evolving their art, their craft, or their business experience in publishing. And all three are essential to be engaged with in order to grow.

Take Action
Here we are in the publishing world, with writers and publishers and everyone in between considering the path forward.

But there is no established path anymore.
However, there is a choice. To cut your own path.
To take personal responsibility to shape your identity.
To make choices based on your personal goals.
To create a foothold for your own career, rather than simply wait until you are magically ‘discovered.’

Take the reigns. Don’t wonder what will happen when OTHER people act on your behalf.
Arm your self with the tools and connections to make it happen. Not as a negative – a reaction. But a positive – an action.

It’s too easy to feel that we could move forward if we only had that ONE missing puzzle piece. Find that missing piece you need.

Structure Your Learning
Why does the Weight Watchers program work? Points, meetings, and accountability. They create a structured system that makes you accountable to YOURSELF, and does so by connecting you with other people each week. There is no hiding in the Weight Watchers system, the points don’t lie, and if you miss the meetings, then you aren’t really in the program. Standing on that scale in front of other people is a critical part of why it works.

Find a way to learn the skills you need – regardless of the fact that you likely have no spare time. There will NEVER be time. We are all balancing family, work, home, hobbies, a social life, and other obligations. And yet, some make the time to build their writing career, and others will only dream of having one. Structuring the process by which you build your career is a key way to ensure it actually happens.

This is not just about learning, it is about executing. That you need to not just PLAN, but you need to DO.

Likely, you need to build a platform for your career – to establish the skills you need that always give back. The skills of surfacing creative ideas, skills of honing your craft, and skills of connecting with the communities and marketplace that your work speaks to.

There are a variety of ways to do this. I am offering one way to do this – an online course for writers to Build Your Author Platform. Maybe this course is for you, but maybe it isn’t. The fact is, there are plenty of other course, writing groups, coaches, workshops, and ways to structure your writing career. Find one that works for you.

Make a choice – make a commitment. Involve other people in this process. Don’t work for a decade on your novel before you show it to anyone – before you get your first glimmer of feedback, before you engage your first fan. Do it now. The only thing stopping you is you.

Why do I say you should get off the sidelines of your writing career? Because we all have to realize that there is no coach who is going to let you in the game. It’s just your initiative that does it. Others will undoubtedly help you along the way – but don’t wait for it – earn it.

Let me know how I can help. Thanks.

-Dan

Announcing: Build Your Author Platform

I am excited to announce an online course I am launching: Build Your Author Platform. This course provides writers the skills they need to engage their audience, establish their brand, and grow their writing career. Whether you are a published author or not, this course is for you.

I’ve worked with hundreds of writers, training them in online content and marketing strategy – THIS is the course I’ve developed to not just share these strategies, but work WITH you to personalize them to your needs and goals. The course begins on March 2, and enrollment is still a few weeks away. The info below is a preview – if this course sounds like it may be fore you, sign up for updates, discounts, and bonus material.

This course teaches you the strategies and tactics that you need, and it all happens in an online environment where we are working together as a class to help each other move towards our goals.

The course covers:

  • How to set clear and actionable goals that build your credibility as an author, and create a realistic plan to achieve them. This is not about throwing dozens of strategies at you, assuming you don’t have a family, career and personal life to attend to. This is about setting priorities, and creating a clear path forward.
  • How to define the value of your work, and create your personal brand. Most people have a hard time explaining the value of their work in a concise manner that will engage their target audience. I’ll take you through the process to ensure you are creating a brand that aligns to the needs of your audience, and your long term goals as a writer.
  • How to clearly target the readers and communities you are most interested in. Too often, marketing is about vague terms about ‘audience’ – we dig into practical ways to attract the real people you are hoping to engage.
  • How to identify the needs and desires of your audience – the things that get them to stand up and take notice. We review research methods that are specific, targeted and actionable.
  • How to optimize your online presence. If you don’t yet have one, we review the best practices to setting it up. If you already have an online presence, we identify how to best optimize and leverage it.
  • How to create high-quality online content that will attract the community you love. Be it text, audio, video, or a mixture of them all, we review the tactics that work, and how to create a system to make this manageable. It’s too easy to say “blog every day” – I take you through ways to identify what will work, and how to do it with your existing resources.
  • How to share your work in a way that builds real connections with your audience online. This is not just about ‘getting followers’ – it’s about building real connections with real people – setting the foundation for a fan base, or extending one if you have it already.
  • How to create sustainable workflows to ensure consistent audience growth. It’s not enough for me to just help you during the course, I want you to walk away with a system in place that will ensure you find new ways to engage your audience long after the course ends.

This course is filled with strategies and tactics, culled from my experience of executing these ideas, not just reading about them. We cover content strategy, online marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, and so many other topics. And we deal with them in a frank, down-to-earth manner. This is not a course for techies – it’s a course for real people trying to move towards their goals and build their writing careers.

I will be sharing more details on the course in the coming weeks, but here are some details to get you started:

  • This is an online course – you simply need a web browser to access it.
  • It will start in March and run through April.
  • There is a mix of structured lessons, feedback from your instructor (me!) and interaction with other students. The goal is not to just dump information on you, but to give feedback, to personalize these strategies to your needs.
  • Throughout the course, you won’t just learn about what you should do, you actually execute on the ideas. By the end of the course, you should be on your way to establishing your author platform.

Who is this course for? Published authors, pre-published authors, and writers of all sorts. I’ve tested it with fiction writers and non-fiction writers – both will find incredible value here.

I will be sharing more info in the coming weeks as I move towards launch.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Thanks.
-Dan

How Should Writers Use Social Media? With Purpose.

As a writer or publisher, how will you affect the world? What is the purpose in your work?

These are questions I’ve considered often in the past few years, pondering how my work can help writers and publishers reach their goals. I often come back to the ways that digital and social media has enabled us to come together, to share, to find solutions. But there is one thing I always try to keep in mind:

Social media is neutral. It’s how you use it that counts.

I want to share a few examples of what I mean from outside the publishing world, and then consider lessons that we can each use in building our careers, and creating our work.

Story #1: Social Media is to Amplifies Your Purpose

There’s an interesting story being built one Tweet at a time, the story of Cory Booker. He is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and has become known for using Twitter as a communication channel to the citizens of Newark. For instance, during a recent snow storm, he used it to help identify areas that need snow removal. And here he is helping to dig someone’s car out of the snow:

(link via SEO & Blogging Tips & Tricks)

But the thing is, Twitter didn’t make Cory Booker get out in the snow to dig a car out. What’s more, there are a million reasons why someone would think that Twitter is exactly the WRONG tool for his job – serving a city of people who may have never used Twitter before.

He is leading them to it. Not to Twitter, but to purpose. He is using Twitter as an open communication channel to reach him directly. When is the last time a city like Newark had a direct communication channel to the mayor via your mobile phone? And when is the last time something like a Tweet could bring the mayor himself out to dig out your car from the snow?

Twitter didn’t do that. The citizens didn’t do that. A passionate leader with values and a mission did that. One man.

Using social media is about scaling what makes you a decent human being. It is about focusing on goals, and being clever about ways of achieving them. It is not about ‘followers,’ but rather, it is about building real connections in any way possible. Mostly, it’s about caring.

It’s not what social media does for you, it’s what you do with social media.

Story #2: Purpose vs Features

This is the choice we all have: what to talk about on social media. We’ve all heard the jokes of Twitter just being people talking about what they are eating for lunch, but that isn’t often the case with the folks I follow. They are building something greater, sharing their purpose.

Here is an INCREDIBLE video of Steve Jobs talking about just this: the need to talk less about what it is you do, and more about why you do it:

(Video via Scott Gould)

This video was taken just after Steve rejoined Apple in the 1990s after being away for years. The company had declined a great deal, and was nothing like it is today. He talks about getting back to core values:

“Our customers want to know who is Apple, and what is it we stand for.”

And that’s what I think social media is about. That is the opportunity for you, be it personal or business. Be clear about what you want people to know about you, be clear about how your Tweets connect to a larger purpose – a larger contribution that you are making to the world with your work, with your career.

Steve shares the example of Nike:

“Nike sells a commodity. They never talk about the air soles. You get a feeling with them. They honor great athletes and athletics. They spend a fortune on advertising, and you would never know it.”

When these companies present themselves, they rarely talk about the features of the product. Apple is not about computers or iPods or iPads. Nike is not about shoes. They are about enabling. They are about the EFFECTS of those products.

What will your effect be?

(Further reading: This topic also the focus of the book Start With Why, by Simon Sinek. Worth the read.)

Story #3: The Long-Term Value of What We Create

I just found this inspiring video about NASA, made by a fan. This act in itself shows how we look for the inspiration of an entity’s purpose, not just news on their latest efforts – this fan was frustrated that NASA does such a poor job communicating it’s mission. The video talks about how our work today, leads to greater purpose, well beyond our own lifetimes:

Is your work this forward-thinking? Are you looking down the road at your effect not just this year, but beyond our lifetimes? It’s an incredible thing to consider.

How should writers use social media? With purpose.

All of these examples are challenging, mostly because they force us to focus on our deeper purpose, not momentary marketing tactics. I’ve worked with hundreds of writers over the years, and this is always the hardest part – not in the tactical elements of crafting and sharing, but in identifying their purpose, their value, their relationship to the community, and their goals. The tactics flow from that center.

And of course, all of this has me considering my own purpose – how I can best help those around me. It’s 4am as I write this, one of many late nights considering this topic.

This is why I am about to launch an online course for writers, one that focuses on everything mentioned above: how to identify your purpose and goals, how to use digital and social media to get your message out, and how to serve the needs of your readers and your community.

It’s called “How to Build Your Author Platform,” and it’s an intensive online course for writers. I’ll be sharing more info next week.

Thanks.
-Dan