Category: New Business Development

Yesterday,
I received a snail mail
from my 11 year old niece.
She’d started a story,
and wanted me to finish it.

Because that’s what I do.
I finish things.

If a story has solid bones,
I finish it.
If a project is valid,
I finish it.

Finishing is rare.
Many, many people start projects.
Starting is interesting,
exciting, fun.
Continuing is hard.
Finishing is harder still.

But finishing is where the payoff is.
Only completed stories
end up on bookstore shelves.
Only completed products
get sold.

Successful people finish.

There is a natural growth cycle
for a reseller.

When resellers are small,
they are more likely to
work with indie manufacturers.
Their volume is small
so managing multiple suppliers
isn’t as much of a burden.

As reseller grow,
they streamline the supply chain.
They work with larger manufacturers,
manufacturers that can supply multiple products.

If the manufacturers want
to continue to supply the reseller
with product,
they have to grow
at the same speed or even faster.

That’s where I am
with one of the big romance eBook resellers.
They’re growing.
I want to stay relevant to them
so I’m in a race to grow as quickly.
I’m advertising.
I’m producing more.
I’m publishing with larger publishers.

If I’m not successful,
I will be forced to go to a smaller reseller,
but if I am successful,
my sales will jump to another level.

Grow with your reseller
or your reseller will outgrow you.

One of my buddies told me yesterday
that she assigns project tasks
when they need completing
because
“People do their best work
at the last minute.”

WTF?

Newsflash, friend.
Professionals ALWAYS
do their best work
but giving them two days
to think about a task
will result in a better thought out product
than giving them a half hour
to think about the task.

When I get a last minute task
and it isn’t a legit emergency,
I either think
‘this person doesn’t care about this task’
or
‘this person is so disorganized,
she’ll probably fuck up
the brilliant work I’m doing for her.’
Neither increases the chances
of me doing my ‘best work.’

Save last minute requests for emergencies.
Give your team mates
as much time as possible
to complete their parts of the project.

“Nothing in the world
can take the place of Persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common
than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone
are omnipotent.
The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved
and always will solve the problems
of the human race.”

Terry Starbucker recently posted this quote
from Calvin Coolidge
and I thought I’d post it too.

Why?

Because it is the middle of July,
and
the weather is wonderful.
Non-business building friends
are skipping off work
and taking it easy.

I could also
except one of my pen names
is close to breaking out
and what I do
this summer,
this month,
this DAY,
will make a difference
to my long term success.

Persist.
Succeed.

While working the business gig,
I wrote 1,000 words every day.

I then took a vacation
and 2 weeks off of the writing.
I did a few edits
but no fresh writing.

When I returned to writing
and writing full time,
it took a full week
before I was back
to easily writing my 1,000 words a day.

A full week.

I knew how to write.
I had the tools.
I had forgotten how to creative think.

Many companies have
a creative ‘season.’
They have a time of year
that they lay out all their
prospective new projects.

If you wait until this time,
expect to take longer
to come up with the brilliant ideas.

I, however, prefer to creative think
every single day.
When I was in new product development,
I’d come up with one new product idea
every day.
It could be a silly idea.
It could be an unpractical idea.
But some of those 365 ideas
were gold.

Creativity is a muscle.
Use it or lose it.

Being a romance writer,
one of my biggest concerns
is the trend toward
free content
(whether legit or pirated).

I’m not the only person
with this concern
and many people are working
on solving the problem.

Many of these people
are involved with the biggest industry
on the net.
Yep, the adult entertainment industry.

So I’ve been reading porn,
straight up sex stories
with little plot
and no romance.

I don’t read it for the content
(though that certainly is educational).
I read it for the possible ‘solutions.’
I see the embedded links
to naughty ‘hidden’ photos.
I see the attempts at including video.
I see the continuation of the ‘scenes’
in print format.
All this would be considered
cutting edge for the romance writing community.

If you’re in entertainment
and you want to remain in entertainment,
you should be familiar
with what is going on
in the adult entertainment industry.

One of my buddies complains
about her neighborhood being cold and impersonal.
“No one says ‘hi’,” she claims.

So I asked her
“How many people do YOU say ‘hi’ to?”

The answer?
None.

I live in a big city
but my neighborhood is far from cold.
Why?
Because I say ‘hi’ to everyone,
and people, being polite,
say ‘hi’ back.
Coldness banished.

Folks talk about people being selfish.
Christian Lopez is far
from selfish.
He gave a game ball,
worth $250,000,
back to Derek Jeter because
“He deserves this,
he’s worked hard for this …
I’m not the type of person
to take this away from him.”

What do you do
if you want to encourage more
of this unselfish behavior?

You reward it.
You give him season tickets.
You introduce him to his heroes.
You give him media coverage,
so other people can see
that there ARE unselfish people
in the world.

Be the person you want others to be.
Reward the behaviors
you want to see more of.
Create the world you want to live in.

Recently, one of my books
was nominated for a Best Of award.
The nominations were decided upon
by a selection committee
but
the award
was given to the book
with the most votes.

The other books
were written by established authors
with huge readerships.
My book received a tiny slither
of their votes.

I was excited.

Why?

Because it showed me
how many more readers
there were for me
to dazzle.

The wider the gap
between your sales
and the competitor’s sales,
the bigger your opportunity.

I’ve recently taken
a leadership position
within my local writing chapter.
I don’t have much excess time,
but I had to take it.

No, no one held a gun to my head.
I could have said no.

But I believe in this organization,
and since people are needed to lead it,
taking my turn at the helm
is the responsible thing to do,
and it is expected.

That is how it is
with project teams also.
A buddy of mine
liked being on project teams
but he didn’t like leading them.
When a project came up
that his department had to lead,
he passed on leadership.

So someone else within his department
led the project.
That someone else has now
replaced him on the other project teams.

If you’re part of an organization,
you should take your turn
leading, initiating, growing that organization.

Seth Godin has a great post
on how free is no longer a loss leader
for similar for-pay products,
and how some customers expect
certain products
(like music and books)
to be free.

“As the free-only cohort grows,
people start to feel foolish
when they pay for something
when the free substitute is easily available
and perhaps more convenient.

Think about that
–buying things now makes
some people feel foolish.
Few felt foolish buying
a Creedence album in the 1970s.
They felt good about it,
not stupid.

This new default to free
means that people with something to sell
are going to have to push ever harder
to invent things that can’t possibly
have a free substitute.
Patronage, live events,
membership, the benefits of connection
–all of these things are outside the scope
we used to associate with
the creative business model,
but that’s changing, fast.”

In the novel-writing world,
we haven’t yet figured out
what that invention is.
It could be advertising.
It could be clubs.
It could be… I don’t know.

If your product has
no incremental costs of production,
you should be thinking about this.
Hard.