Book Writing Secrets: Let Your Audience Help You Write Your Book
ByBest-selling author Robert Allen is writing a new book. And he has a way of not only getting his audience notified, but also involved in the actual writing of the book.
For years, Bob has been doing mentoring calls every Wednesday morning called “Breakfast with Bob.” During these calls, he focuses on “inner wealth” issues. I appreciate his spiritual approach.
This summer, he has been letting his listeners in on how he’s developing the content for his new book, coauthored with Mark Victor Hansen. The working title is The Last-Minute Millionaire.
Bob has been sharing some of the exercises in the book, asking us to do them and give him feedback. On this past week’s call, he asked those of us who did the exercise from the week before to comment on what it was like for us. (It was excellent, by the way. Check out the 8/13/08 class.)
As he listened carefully, you could tell he was taking notes. In fact, he really liked something I said, and asked for my name, so maybe he’ll quote me! (That would be the 8/20/08 class. All classes are downloadable.)
It strikes me that this is a wonderful way to write a book. Those of us who have been on the calls are already invested in Bob’s book. We feel like we’ve actually helped write it!
If you’re still developing your book, find ways to get people to help you write your book by giving you feedback and even coming up with their own ideas. You can do this through Ask campaigns and teleseminars, on a blog, in a social networking group like Ning or CollectiveX.
It shows humility to ask people to help you write your book. Bob Allen has that humility, and it’s wonderful to hear. Perhaps “it takes a village” (or as Seth Godin would say, a “tribe“) to write a great book.
Speaking of interaction, I’d welcome feedback on what you might have tried along these lines. Leave a comment below, please.
And stay tuned, because I’m investigating a very cool way to get people into your “tribe.” Plus, I will be unveiling something new I’m launching–next week I hope–that you will want to know about.
