Looking for a platform to publish your book?

The great thing about marketers is they write great books, but not all budding authors have a platform. Thomas Knoll is looking to change that. He's encouraging people through ThePoint.com, a new activism website, to pledge to write a book on a platform that he'll develop. As long as he receives 20 pledges he'll build the platform. He only asks that people follow-through, participate and be willing to write their book on an open platform - open to collaboration, community and feedback.

It's a great idea. It uses social media to help would be authors write a book, builds a platform for continual feedback (hopefully producing a better book) and builds a community of 20+ people, all starting from the same spot of having an idea that they'd like to put to paper and using a new tool to do it.

It's become easier over the years to self-publish and this is one more step in the open spread of ideas. If you're looking for a platform to publish your book join Thomas and keep me updated on what you'll be writing about.

Image credit: Flyzipper

Celebrate Earth Day by watching The Story of Stuff

It's Earth Day and to celebrate I'd like to share a link to a noteworthy video, The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. It explores the linear system of the materials economy and its impact on humanity. The message is important and the production is incredible. It features Annie Leonard narrating the story amongst a background of ever changing hand drawn animations.

I'm intrigued by the video on two levels. The message resonates with my desire to not only do my part to reduce my footprint, but also to find more meaningful ways to get involved with environmental initiatives. And, from a marketing perspective the message is creatively delivered, it's engaging and it's fun to watch. There's information to challenge us as marketers to identify new consumer needs/wants and to more thoughtfully produce products to meet those needs.

I hope you'll give it a watch. If not for the message then for the inspiration in creating your own presentations and videos.

image credit: The Story of Stuff website

A Creative Book Promotion Inspires

I’ve been uninspired lately. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t posted to this blog in over a week. But that changed last night when I was on BzzAgent submitting a bzz report for a product I’m testing out. Here’s what inspired me. Dave Balter (founder of BzzAgent) is coming out with a new book, The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II. That’s not what struck me. Dave’s first book Grapevine was great, but I wasn’t feeling a need for a sequel. What caught my eye was the promise that with every pre-ordered book Dave would mark it with handwritten annotations and (this is what really interested me) Seth Minkin, BzzAgent’s artist-in-residence would illustrate some of the annotations. Seth is one of my favorite artists. I love his work; it’s quirky and fun, much like Seth himself. And I’d happily pay for a book that included some of his hand drawn illustrations. So I’ve placed a pre-order for a book I’m not all that interested in reading. I did it because of the extra effort that Dave and Seth are willing to put into the effort. We can all learn a lot from this example and I hope it inspires you, as it will me, to put a little extra effort into our products, marketing or whatever else we’re concentrating on. And the icing on the cake – the book was only $7 and at checkout I got a surprise, Dave will be throwing in a free copy of Grapevine.

Follow a story using Google Maps

The biggest gift of a story is its ability to transport its readers to another place. But what if you had the ability to literally follow the characters along with the words? Now you can thanks to Penguin Books' We Tell Stories where author Charles Cumming shares a story, The 21 Steps using Google Maps as the delivery mode.

And the fun doesn't stop there. We Tell Stories is a study of alternate book writing using digital technology. While Cumming's choose Google Maps, Toby Litt decided to use a combination of blogs and Twitter as the main publishing platform for his story Slice. Kevin Brooks is letting readers get in on the writing of Fairy Tales and Nicci French is writing Your Place or Mine live.

Over the next two weeks there will be two more stories written in two very different ways. This is a great exploration of how different industries can adopt technology to engage their audiences. I'll be paying attention to the stories, both for reading enjoyment but also to see how these technologies could integrated into other industries. You can keep track of the updates at Penguin Books' We Tell Stories website. And please share any ideas you garner from this effort in the comments section.

Credit to Springwise for bringing this story to my attention.

A Gem on public speaking from Now, Discover Your Strenghts

I'm in the midst of reading Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. The purpose of the book is to point you to your themes - your natural talents that can be built into strengths, but also included is a fascinating overview on brain development. And escalating the book to one of my favorites are the little gems of information spread throughout. The point of this post is to share one of those gems with you.

Public speaking is a talent. To some it comes easily, but to others it can be a struggle. One of the best assets a public speaker can have is being able to tell a story, or to weave several stories together into one cohesive speech. Here are some steps, taken from Now, Discover Your Strengths to help you build your presentation storytelling skills.

1. Write down any story or fact or example that resonates with you.
   
2. Practice telling it out load. Listen to yourself actually saying the words.
3. These stories will become your "beads," as in the beads of a necklace.
   
4. All you have to do when giving a speech is string your beads in the appropriate order, and you will give a speech that seems as natural as a conversation.
   
5. Use 3-by-5 cards, or a clipping file to keep adding new beads to your string.
   

That's the gem that I wanted to share with you; I hope you'll find it as useful as I do. And if you're curious and have read Now, Discover Your Strengths, my themes are: Relator, Adaptability, Empathy, Individualization and Input. What are yours?