by Richard Triggs | Feb 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
One of the most important marketing tools for any business is the creation of high-quality content. We know this and both big business and small business alike are pulling out all stops to create mountains of content to feed to ever increasing demand. However, not all content is created equal.
There is high quality, problem-solving, stimulating content that really engages the reader or viewer, and then there is the content that is simply churned out to tick a box (write an article today, shoot a video today etc).
I strongly believe that your content has to reflect your passion for your topic. If you’re bored with the content you are creating – expect your audience to be bored with reading and watching it. That’s not really the best way to create engagement. In fact, if your boredom comes through in your content, you’ll probably be scaring potential customers away.
Just like a professional speaker needs to get themselves into a peak state before they go on stage, I think as writers we need to get ourselves into a positive and peak writing state. We need to think about our audience, put ourselves in their shoes, make sure our energy is good, we are sharp and we are ready to provide the best possible advice that we can. Our passion for our topic needs to shine through.
Look at the content you read or watch all of the time. What is it about this content that engages you? More often than not it will be related to the energy of the content creator as much as the quality of the advice they offer. But if you think about the professional speaker analogy, great advice and ideas delivered by a deadly boring presenter will fail to cut through with the audience. And that’s my point exactly.
If you aren’t excited about the content you create, don’t expect your audience to be excited about it. Simple as that. The same applies to any kind of writing, including writing a book.
by Richard Triggs | Feb 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
Today we communicate more than ever – but do we actually say anything more significant? If anything, we communicate at a much more superficial level in spite of all of the new communication tools.
Words are powerful, whether they are spoken or written. I learnt this when I was still in primary school. My school entered a poetry competition open to every primary school in Australia. Each student could write a poem and they were sorted by age and then submitted to the judges. They received tens of thousands of entries and it was a surprisingly big deal.
We could write our poem about anything we wanted to so I wrote my poem about drunks. I used to see a lot of drunks near where I lived at the time. I remember the poem went along the lines of a drunk opening the hotel door, he walks out followed by a waft of smoke and bar-room noise. He looks upon the back alley as his kingdom, the rats are his servants and the mound of rubbish his royal bed.
Somehow, I won the competition. I was so happy, until I found out the prize was a pile of books and an Australian flag for the school and I got nothing. Just what a kid wants to hear! But what I did get out of it was an appreciation of the power of words and just how much impact they can have on people.
Since that time I have tried to be the very best communicator I can be. Being able to speak in front of a group of people doesn’t make you a great communicator. Some of the most impressive people I have seen speaking have been terrible presenters. Some were really nervous, some mumbled, some were disorganized or late, but all of that was forgotten because what they had to say was so incredibly powerful and inspiring.
A few years back I was approached by the local businesswomen’s club and asked to present at their monthly meeting. Typically there would be about 200 of the leading businesswomen in town attending this event and it was quite a big deal. I asked them if they would like me to talk about something to do with business, but they said that they would prefer to know more about me and where I had come from, as no one really knew (I had one of those very unusual childhoods growing up as an orphan).
I was a little uncertain about what to say, so I decided to tell them my whole story, right from the beginning. About halfway through this 40-minute presentation I stopped and looked around the room. I knew many of these women and what I saw on their faces was a look of shock, some were even crying and some just sat shaking their heads. Others had huge beaming smiles and looks of pride spread from ear to ear. Whatever emotion they were feeling, I knew that for the very first time I had got through and connected at a very real level to a group of people.
At the end of the presentation I had an overwhelming response and many of the ladies came up and gave me a big hug. I had no idea that my story would have such an emotional impact. A good friend of mine had snuck into this same event. He came up to me at the end of my presentation and he was really angry, which shocked me a little. He said, ‘I have known you for almost 20 years and I had to come to a public talk to find out more about you in 40 minutes than I have learnt in 20 years.’ My friend stormed off and I stood there a little perplexed.
Before that I rarely made mention of my earlier life, certainly not the ugly parts. I simply didn’t think that anyone was interested in my background. I realized that I had been communicating all my life, but was my communication inspired? Not at all. So why would we want to talk so openly and be so real? I often get asked if I feel exposed when I talk so openly about my life. Strangely enough I don’t. The experience I have when I talk using inspired and real communication is so much better than the experience of just getting up and talking about business.
When I am real and lay it on the line, saying things as they really are, I get incredible connection with people, powerful emotions fly, everything is just a bit out of control and I open my heart and speak from deep within. At the end I feel amazing, I feel inspired and I am filled with love and respect for those around me. I think it is hard to get that same level of emotional connection when you are holding back and saying what you think your audience wants to hear.
The world is craving real people, people who can talk openly and who can inspire simply by their actions. This is the most powerful of all communication and we all have our own great story to tell. It doesn’t have to be about climbing Mt Everest or amassing a billion dollar empire. Most people can’t relate to these feats. But they can relate to people who live a similar life to them, who have to deal with the same challenges and overcome them however they can. In other words, real people.
Inspired communication is from the heart. It is forthright conversation and communication that have power and impact. It is not just a pile of words spewed out for the sake of making noise. It is important regardless of whether you are speaking to a room with 10 000 people in it or just you and a friend having a chat over coffee. Life takes on a whole lot more meaning when you can communicate at this level.
That said, inspired communication doesn’t come naturally for most of us so we may need to learn a few new skills. These are areas that I work on every day and I have found that it doesn’t take long to get the hang of them.
Firstly being able to have inspired communication means being an excellent listener. Most of us are not, even though we think we are. How many times do we finish sentences, listen to someone else talking and turn the conversation to make it about us? To be an exceptional listener, which has to be the goal for anyone wanting to have deeper connection with others, you have to really listen to what people say. To do this we have to learn to keep our ego in check.
The next stage of inspired communication is to be genuine. To say what you feel more than what you think. We are masters at intellectualizing our feelings but it is so much more powerful to let the emotions be and find the words to express them rather than change them. If something makes you angry, talk about it with the passion that anger deserves. If something makes you feel joy, then talk with the joy in your voice.
From here, we have to be prepared to talk openly and honestly. This means being vulnerable because you have to share parts of yourself that maybe you don’t share very often. This is the part that I struggled with for most of my life, but once I learnt to be open, I grew to love it. You will make some people uncomfortable, or maybe it will challenge you personally, but if you hold back, your communication will always be at a lower and more superficial level and have less meaning and effect.
If you can master the art of inspired communication there are many rewards. Connection is the most significant reward, especially as we live in a world struggling to connect effectively. Being able to connect at a deeper and more honest level with others will have a profound effect on each and every relationship you have, both personally and professionally. People will respond to your new level of communication by opening up and communicating in the same way.
I have seen it and experienced it many times, yet it never ceases to amaze me. It isn’t easy, but taking small steps and knowing how wonderful it is when you have truly connecting conversations with people will change your life.
Please don’t be afraid of being yourself, of being real and honest and saying it how you see it. And, last but not least, please don’t ever think that you have nothing interesting to say. I have yet to meet any person on the planet who doesn’t have something of value to say, even if they don’t realise it yet. Become an inspired communicator and one person really can change the world.
by Richard Triggs | Feb 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
If you’ve always wanted to write and publish a non-fiction book, this competition is for you. We are offering our ‘Platinum Publishing Package’, valued at over $30,000, to one lucky winner. Every imaginable aspect of the writing and publishing process is included, from the absolute best providers of publishing services in Australia.
Entry is easy: all you need to do is fill in the entry form and tell us in 150 words or less a little about your book and how you would use it to grow your business, raise awareness about a specific issue or opportunity, or build your own personal profile.
The winner of this competition will receive:
- A complete book writing and publishing coaching programme with Andrew Griffiths Author Academy.
- Writing accountability with Australia’s #1 accountability coach, Darren Finkelstein.
- A high level edit of your manuscript – thanks to our team of editors at Publish Central.
- Cover design and internal layout – done by our design team at Publish Central.
- Printing – thanks to McPherson’s, the best book printer in Australia.
- Your book on Amazon, Booktopia and many other outlets.
- Professional author images for use in all promotional material thanks to Jason Malouin.
- An Author Show Reel video – by Mel Hird.
- A post-publishing book leveraging programme thanks to Andrew Griffiths Author Academy.
This is easily the best publishing package in Australia and we’re sure you can see why it’s worth $30,000. Entering our competition will only take a couple of minutes. The winner will be announced on Thursday 30th of June, 2022. So don’t wait – enter today by clicking on the button below.
This competition is open to entries from Australia and New Zealand only.
ENTRIES CLOSE COB 3rd JUNE, 2022 (AEST).
by Richard Triggs | Feb 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
ARTICLE by Michael Hanrahan – Founder of Publish Central.
I’ve been around books and publishing my whole life, so I’ve seen people do some rather crazy things with their books. To help you understand what not to do in your self-publishing journey, here’s a little story about Bob and all the self-publishing mistakes he made. Bob of course isn’t real, but I have seen everything you are about to read happen at one time or another … more or less … (and not with my involvement, of course!).
How not to self-publish your book
Bob has written a book, and starts doing some research online about who can help him self-publish it. He chats to a few companies that would manage the whole process for him and gets a few quotes, but they are higher than he expected – over $13,000.
Bugger that, thinks Bob. I’m smart. I know how to manage a project. I can do this myself.
So Bob enlists his wife to edit his book, because she reads a lot. And one of the companies mentioned proofreading, but Bob reckons a few of his mates reading it will do him just fine. They know how to spell. Bob also remembers that the kid over the road prints a video-game newsletter for his friends, and for $800 Bob enlists him to do his book cover and interior. And the local printer – who usually does brochures, posters and mailouts – says ‘of course’ she can print Bob’s book.
She can print anything!
Bob now thinks he can get the whole thing sorted for under $4000. Stupid rip-off self-publishing companies.
So Bob’s wife reads the book carefully, and ‘edits’ it with the best of intentions.
But she doesn’t notice that Bob refers to a glossary that isn’t there. She doesn’t realise that his Forward should be a Foreword, and also that his Foreword isn’t actually a Foreword or a Forward but a Preface. She doesn’t notice the jump between Australian spelling, US spelling and – occasionally – no spelling. She applies the grammar rules she learned at school, which are often wrong, and doesn’t notice the numerous copyright infringements.
But, Bob’s happy! And his wife thinks it’s awesome.
He passes the book to the kid over the road. The kid doesn’t know how pages are meant to be placed in a book, or how page numbering works, or to have a larger margin on the inside of the page to allow for the spine. And he doesn’t know anything about book genres, so he creates a cover that he and Bob think looks great but is completely inappropriate for Bob’s target market.
Bob’s wife loves it.
Bob then supplies the files to the printer. When they try to set up Bob’s book for printing, the files supplied by the kid fall apart. The fonts aren’t embedded. The colour mode is wrong. The image resolution is low. The margins are incorrect. The left-hand pages should be on the right-hand side and vice versa. The spine width on the cover is wrong. Not the sort of problems you have printing your video-game newsletter on your inkjet printer in your bedroom. And Bob gave the printer and the kid different information, so Bob’s print quote is wrong too.
When they finally get this all sorted with the help of somebody at the printer who actually knows how to professionally prepare files, Bob’s books are printed at last. But, as the printer isn’t an expert book printer, the binding is poor, the spine is out of alignment, the colour is flat and the lamination is peeling.
Bob isn’t happy – and he doesn’t yet know about all the typos and other mistakes people are going to find in his book because reading a lot and being good at spelling don’t actually qualify you to work on a book. But, he doesn’t have the time or the money to start again, so he decides to soldier on.
* * * * *
So Bob is now ready to promote his substandard book. He’s not super-happy with how it turned out, but he sees little choice but to persevere.
Just as he did with the self-publishing companies, Bob looks into distribution and publicity and decides it’s all too costly. He can do himself! (Bit of a slow learner is our Bob.)
Bob begins by spending a few hours online compiling a list of bookstores he could send his book to. He then writes an email and contacts these stores. Bob doesn’t know that many stores won’t deal with self-publishers who don’t have professional distribution. He also doesn’t know that some of the chain stores have a central ordering process that goes through their head office – the individual stores don’t place orders. He also sends to a store that is now a dry cleaner, to another store that only sells romance novels, and another one that closed down three years ago. And he has no idea what the standard trading terms are, so when a few interested stores do reply and ask about his terms he has no idea what to say.
Bob also tries his hand at publicity. Again he spends a few hours researching media outlets that he thinks might be interested in his book. He writes up a five-page media release – because the more info the better, right? His wife edits it for him, and he starts posting out books.
A week later he tries to follow up on the books he sent out. He doesn’t know exactly who to contact, because he didn’t personalise the mail out – he just addressed the packages to ‘The editor’ or ‘The producer’. Most of the people he talks to have no idea what he’s talking about. When he does finally get hold of a few people who saw his book, one of them says, ‘Oh, you’re the guy who sent us a five-page media release full of mistakes. We threw it in the bin.’ Another person says, ‘Your book looked terrible, we threw it in the bin.’ And another one says, ‘I have no idea why you sent us this. We never do books. Didn’t you listen to our show first?’
Not happy with just messing up his publicity, Bob decides it’s time to work on the bookstores again. He calls around all the stores he emailed to try to persuade them to take his book. A few of them do, just to get off the phone. They all return it immediately when they see how poorly produced it is.
Bob now understands why it’s good to have professional help, but it’s too late for him. His book is shoddy, he’s annoyed the media and the bookstores won’t waste their time with him. His book – How to be an Awesome Project Manager – disappears into the publishing black hole of poorly produced books, never to be seen again.
* * * * *
How to self-publish your book
I may have exaggerated a few things in this article just for a bit of fun, but all of these are very real mistakes that very real authors make. Believe me – I’ve seen it. So, if you’re going to self-publish a book for your small business, make sure you enlist some experienced, professional help, from a team like ours here at Publish Central. Anything less is just a complete waste of time.
