Category: Education

Why I Love Writers, Publishers, and the Community that Supports Them

My business – We Grow Media – reached it’s one year anniversary of active business recently, and I wanted to take a moment to talk about my view of publishing, of the world writers are facing, of the opportunity in front of all of us, and give you a behind the scenes glimpse at my business. I created a video talking through things – but you can also read through it below:

I am constantly working with writers, with editors, with publishers – each trying to create something new in the world. This is not just “some bright idea” for a book or product, but rather, deeply wrapped up in their identity, their personal journey, how they affect the world, how they serve others, and what they hope their legacy will be.

For many people the work they are creating is something they have obsessed over for years, and cuts right to their core. This isn’t just a story, a book, a product, a service, an event: this is them making meaning of the world – them reaching out to others. Them, mattering.

If you are a writer, a publisher, or part of the community that supports them: this is who you are. This is the legacy you are creating.

For some, this means carving out a new identity. For others, it means building a new career. There is so much more wrapped up in this. And this is why I LOVE working with writers, publishers, and the community around them.

There is a lot of talk about the ‘future of publishing.’ What is more interesting to me is the PRESENT of publishing. Where anyone can create a brand, can create a work, can share their work, can connect with others, can find an audience, can get involved, can – YES – earn money from their work.

This is where we shape our ideas, let them loose in the world, watch them grow, and connect with like minds. This is where we help each other become a part of something meaningful.

This is why I started We Grow Media. Why I took the risk of launching a business, of making a commitment to writers, publishers, and the community around them. Because of this:

You inspire me.

When I work with clients, I always start with goals. We need to know where you are going if we are going to create a path to get there. And we always end with a plan for sustainable growth and iteration for months or years to come.

I love working with people to not just market a single book, but to build a writing CAREER. Yes, the former is a necessary part of that, and I work with writers on specific strategies and tactics to do just that. But who you are becoming, what you will accomplish, how the power of your work will shape the world, how you will help the community around your work – that is what endlessly engages me.

So who do I work with, and what do I do? Here’s the short version:

  1. Consulting with publishers.
    I work with publishers of all kinds (book, magazine, app, etc) in online marketing, content strategy, branding, business development, social media, search engine optimization, and web analytics. For most – we are baking these things into their core business, identifying core areas for growth, creating ways for them to more deeply engage their communities, and building the skills of those within their company. We are creating a framework that makes this all sustainable.

  2. Working one-on-one with writers.
    Similar to how I work with publishers, I partner with writers to build their writing career, establish their brand, and make things happen. I work with writers of all kinds – fiction, non-fiction, memoir – and have worked extensively with journalists and editors as well.

  3. Teaching classes and workshops.
    I love teaching. I regularly teach online classes in the topics listed above, and offer workshops at conferences. I teach in-depth classes at WeGrowMedia.com and introductory classes through Writer’s Digest University. This is an area that I am planning a lot of expansion in later in the year.

For each of these, I focus on helping people create a roadmap – a real strategy – and the tactics to back it up. There are tons of tips online, all a Google search away. But I offer a framework, choosing where to focus your resources, how to find the highest return on investment, and creating a process of iteration that leads you to your goals.

This goes beyond knowledge alone – it is how we come together to build something. Every time I launch a new class, I am amazed at how quickly we become a community of people working TOGETHER. That students go from struggling by themselves alone to working with a group that is actively helping each other reach their respective goals. THIS is why I love teaching classes and workshops. This is what it is the core of We Grow Media

Chris Rock has a wonderful piece on the difference between having a career and having a job (warning: strong language):

Here’s the gist:

“A job is something you do because you have to, a career is something you do because you love it. There ain’t enough time in the day when you have a career. When you have a job, there is too much time.”

This is my career. I am in this for the long haul. My wife and I have made some major decisions to ensure that we are committed to We Grow Media, for me to work with writers, publishers, and the community around them.

One final quote, this time from Don Draper in Mad Men, when discussing which direction to take on a client’s campaign:


“We have to commit to one thing. They don’t like wiggle room, they like to see us blowing up bridges behind us.”

Making a commitment to writers, publishers and the community around them is not a sacrifice, it is an opportunity. To work with those who inspire me, those who are creating a world I want to live in. If that is you, then THANK YOU.

-Dan

Embracing Change

If you are in publishing, media or are a writer, you are well aware of the incredible transitions going on in your industry. Digital media is changing every aspect of the business models of these fields, and we find ourselves swept up by the wave in one way or another.

Transitions are often things that folks avoid. They wait them out. They linger, they stall. But these transitions don’t have to happen TO you. In fact, YOU can happen to them.

It’s almost absurd how the music industry, and now parts of the publishing industry have waited for Apple and Amazon and Google and others to TAKE control of the transition. To embrace it as an opportunity, instead of a threat. But a company like Apple realized something critical:

You can CHOOSE transition, not have it thrust upon you.

When you choose transition, you can build from the core. You are not reacting, you are shaping. The way you approach it comes from your own DNA – not by plugging a thousand holes in a leaking dam.

Transitions Are Opportunities to Live Up To Your Potential

When we talk about building our careers, we are talking about creating our lives. Creating our success. We all inherently have potential. Every single day, we have potential to do something remarkable, something that positively affects the lives of others, that shapes the world we live in. But most of us are too busy doing other things, attending to obligations, so the potential waits.

There is a phrase that has become popular in the startup and business worlds:

“Fail often, and fail fast.”

I appreciate the sentiment that people are trying to express here, but feel that this phrase takes a lot for granted. Namely, that the “failure” that is referenced here never seems to be debilitating failure. You know, failure where you lose all of your money, have to fire your entire staff, where you lose your job, tarnish your reputation, waste millions of dollars of your employers resources. “Failure” that can’t be recovered from very quickly or easily, which honestly, is how I always defined the word.

What I think the people who use this expression are trying to convey is this:

Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Fear failure. That’s natural and smart. But don’t be afraid to consistently try experiments that you will learn from. Sure, many of your experiments won’t work, but none will be debilitating to you, your family, your colleagues, partners or employers.

When we fail, there are often consequences. But when we experiment, we learn. We don’t just sit in a chair and assume – we FIND OUT. We push ourselves beyond what is known – maybe a bit beyond our comfort zone, and we LEARN. This is where growth comes from; where new knowledge comes from; where we learn how to navigate transitions and find success, instead of just battening down the hatches on rough waters and hope to merely survive.

Setting Expectations – Taking Control of the Wheel

I am a huge fan of Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com, who interviews entrepreneurs. Recently, he shared what he has learned when interviewing entrepreneurs who have written and published books:

“Authors don’t want to talk about their books after they’re published, for the most part. One of the reasons I heard is that they have this big vision for how big their lives are going to be, how much their lives are going to change after they publish their book. And they imagine their publisher is going to get them publicity, that they are going to get themselves publicity, they are going to be on Oprah, and then…”

“…nothing happens.”

“They have to hustle to sell their books, just like they have to hustle to sell anything. People aren’t paying attention to them. Once they realize that, and they push as much as they can, they don’t want to talk about the book anymore, because some of them are just a little embarrassed by how poorly it did compared to their vision. So they move on with their lives.”

When I work with writers to help them build their careers, it is often about building their platform – enabling them to build the connections they need, the skills they need, and to find new processes and ideas to provide a sustainable writing career.

That, just trudging along is not going to get them to their goals. Just Tweeting, just blogging, just doing any one thing is not enough. That your career needs to have a strategy, not just an unending list of to-do’s.

To create this strategy, to develop this platform, you often need to expend resources, usually time or money or a combination of the two. It’s an investment.

Investments are often full of hope and fear. I hear a lot of people share their personal mantra as some variation of “no fear.” But I think fear is natural, it is okay. Stagnation is not. It’s okay to have fear, it’s not okay to let it stop you. This sentiment is best embodied in this quote:

“The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he, whose noble soul its fears subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.”
– Joanna Baillie

You Must Make the Time to Grow
Years ago, my brother was a manager at a major retail chain – a store so big, it required 10 managers to run the entire operation. His day was a rush of managing a lot of employees, a ton of merchandise, and assisting hundreds of customers.

One day, his boss came up to him and asked: “Andy, do you want to go grab lunch?” – meaning a sit down lunch across the street at Bennigans. The first time this happened, my brother replied: “I have a lot to get done,” hinting that taking an hour for lunch would throw off his whole day.

His manager looked him in the eye and said: “If taking a single hour off will disrupt how you are running your department, then you aren’t managing correctly.”

My brother went to lunch that day, and every other day he was asked. He built a stronger relationship with his boss, which lead to more career opportunities (and an actual friendship) down the road.

The point is this: it easy to feel overwhelmed in your job, or pursuing your writing career. Don’t let it stop you from growing. Take the time to learn new skills, to experiment, to have lunch with someone you want to know better, to serve your community without any clear indication that anyone will return the favor.

Thanks!
-Dan

Showing is Not Teaching

I am excited to announce the summer session of my 8-week online course: Build Your Author Platform. (click the link!)

This is my flagship course – something that I have spent months and months developing. This course gives you a complete strategy to build your brand and become a part of a community of people who appreciate your writing.

Recently, I’ve talked about why I love teaching. Today, I want to talk about the difference between truly teaching, and merely “showing.”

I bought something this week, and while opening it up, I couldn’t help but noticing the promises it made on the side of the box:

Fisher Price Door Toy

WOW! How much would you pay for something that does all of that? Maybe $10,000? Or more? I mean, this is comparable to a college education, right? At this point, you must be asking, what magical gadget can teach all of this. May I present to you:

Fisher Price door toy

Sure, it’s a new toy for my 9-month old son’s play area – essentially a big doorway with lots of buttons to press. But does pressing buttons equate to teaching?

I am considering this as a metaphor, how each of us approaches career development, and the many projects and services that we encounter that somehow promise us an easy path to our dreams.

Now, the object above SHOWS my son what letters look like. Maybe if he presses some button it will say “A” in a pre-recorded voice. But this is not teaching. And this is the failing of many training and education products and services aimed at adults in developing their careers. Showing is not teaching.

Teaching requires the instructor to “get their hands dirty” – not just wrestling with the material, but working WITH each unique student. Oftentimes, it’s not just about intellect, but about emotions. Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it occurs within the context of our already busy lives. And let’s face it, each of us are coming from a different place, and have different goals.

The larger educational system solved this by creating standardized tests and assigning letter grades to determine who “passed” and who “failed.” I won’t go into any commentary on that, and I won’t pretend that is a straightforward issue. (massively complex, in fact)

With launching the summer session of my Build Your Author Platform course, I have been obsessing over issues such as this: how can I best TEACH; how can I actually move the needle in someone’s life, bringing them closer to their goals.

I have been developing this course for well over a year now, and this is only the second time I am making it available. Why? Because I keep wanting to analyze it to make it even stronger. I took 2 months off between the last offering in the Spring. That time has been spent analyzing feedback from students, adding features, and ensuring how my time can best be spent with the students who sign up.

If you feel that this course would benefit someone you know, please spread the word. Here’s that link again:

Build Your Author Platform.

Thanks!
-Dan

I Love Teaching. Why? Because I Love Learning.

I spend a lot of time considering how we learn, and how training and education programs for adults are created. So today, I want to talk about why I think teaching is so important, why I think it should be at the core of my business, and why I feel the web has reshaped the ability for us to learn in new ways.

The Problem With Many Education Programs: Teaching and Automation
Too often training and education are automated. For instance, in a training program in which a curriculum is created, trainers “deliver” the modules to group after group, and then the check-box is marked that it has been “rolled out.” There may even be a 300 page PDF file shared as a “leave behind” in case students have a question.

In an online education system, scheduling software, “online classrooms,” and pre-recorded components allow a simple “delivery of material” over the course of a period of time, thereby calling it a course or training program. But chunking up a book into 12 parts, and sharing it over 12 weeks is not teaching, is not education, is not training. The same way that throwing a newspaper on your driveway each morning is not the key part of informing you of world events.

In the same regard, online courseware has been evolving for a long time now, but I am always amazed at how it focuses on providing many options around process, and what seems lost is an environment that truly connects people. (more on that below)

Sometimes, courseware is simply a way to scale a particular effort. That they set it up, and then just try to pump as many “students” through it as possible. Again, this is delivering educational material, but not necessarily the process of education itself.

The Essential Ingredient to Education: Human Connection
In my own experience, there is A LOT more going on in the education process than simply transfer of knowledge.

When adults look to take a course on something, it is rarely a simple process of reading material, understanding it, then applying it. There are questions, uncertainties, fears, excitement, and an experience of learning that happens between not only a teacher and the student, but between students.

I use the web and automation tools for some aspects of how I teach, but not to replace the human contact. That’s the scary part for most. Some teachers or trainers will complain about that part of things – the one person in the room who always asks too many questions, or the student who thinks they need to prove that they know more than you.

But an essential part of education is debate, discussion, feedback, brainstorming, tearing us down, building us up. It’s about getting past emotional barriers, not just intellectual barriers. There is a reason that army training is not simply a manual saying: “wake up at 4am, run 10 miles, then go to target practice.” The social element is critical.

When you work with kids in a traditional classroom setting, you see this as well. You see it in eyes, in the lilt in people’s voices before they ask a question or give an answer. You see it in how they come to solutions, and why they go off course. You see it in the interactions between students, in the halls between classes, and in how they engage with their world.

The Teacher is Student
Inherently, I learn as much (or more) from the students I teach, as they learn from me. These are experts, creators in different niches, with loads of experience. I learn about their field, about their journey; I learn what engages them and what doesn’t; I learn – through them – what allows for progress, and what gets in the way; I learn how they learn; I learn how to effectively communicate with a variety of people, with a variety of goals.

Education is a constant process back and forth. It is an evolution – one where those who come to learn are inherently part of the instruction process.

I’ve yet to find a way to better educate myself than by working with a variety of people who go through the courses I teach.

Learning is Shared Experience
When a typical adult considers taking a course, a key barrier is often finding the time in their already busy lives. They are busy juggling their home life, work life, hobbies, kids, and so many other things.

What is always amazing to see though, is how ENGAGED these become with the class once they sign up. And not just with the material or with me, but with the other students. You see little communities forming, where each students goes out of their way to help another. They form relationships and a support network that lasts long after the course ends.

The learning experience is best when it is a shared experience. There are bonds created there not just between knowledge and person, but between people. They are able to explore the material from a variety of different viewpoints, and have more examples and context by which to understand how to apply it in their own goals.

Teaching and learning evokes the best part of who we are – of how we want to become, share, and grow. That’s why I love teaching. That’s why I am banking the future of my business on it. This is why teaching – and learning – is at the center of everything I do.

-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