The Time Is Now to Take Your Publishing Dreams to the Next Level

In the past several years I've had the pleasure of attending a couple conferences more than once (others I've attended only once). What I like so much about going to the same conference year after year is that I get to build relationships and face-to-name recognition with some of the return conferees. I get to see their progress. I get to hear wonderful updates. I also get to hear the same stories I heard the year before: "I know I said I was going to have my blog up and running, but..." "I know I said I was going to start to speak, but..." "Is it OK for me to still send you my manuscript?" Yes, of course, but I thought I was going to see something last year. What happened?

For some of them, I could not imagine living through what happened to them between conferences. Some stories break my heart. If this is how this last season has been for you, this post is not necessarily for you. You have to take stock of who you really are at the core and what your season is speaking to you about the timing of your efforts. It is definitely not my purpose in this post to move you in one direction or the other on that front.

For the rest of us who know there are no more excuses, let's get to work!

• Read the book
• Take the class
• Join the group
• Writers group
• Critique group
• Hire the professional
• Start the blog
• Get social
• Facebook page or Twitter account
• Rally a community
• Start a movement
• Tap your network
• Speaking engagements or counseling/consulting opps
• Wise counsel
• Take the advice
• To change directions on the book--more defined audience, from testimonial to teaching
• To scrap this book idea and start over (especially if its your first book, you've been shopping it to every editor and agent at the conferences and no one has a place for it. Let go of the rejection and grief and start again with the new knowledge you've gained. I see writers return to the same conference year after year with the same manuscript in the same place, no new platform, but they come and see me to see if I have any new interest in what they've shown me before. But there is nothing different to cause me to think differently.)
• Make the paradigm shift and get in gear
• Just do it

You've been sitting on the plan. You know what to do. Talk is cheap. Walk it out. There is no better time than now. Determine that you will show up to the next conference or life coach meeting with more of your publishing to-do list conquered. Prove to yourself that can take this dream by the horns and make it happen. Silence the naysayers, even if one of them is you.

I hope to see you at the next conference with that not-to-be-shaken, accomplished look. I hope that I will see the proposal or manuscript in my inbox you promised me last year. Stir up that fire and press the accelerator. You can do it!

How to Shorten Your Nonfiction Book When You Feel You Couldn't Have Said Less

Are you at a point in writing your book where the 100,000-word mark is a distant memory? Is your book so long that Jesus may come before anybody can finish reading it? And maybe you've been writing on your book for years and have no idea what the word count is or how to find out. I think that perhaps now is the time to click the Tools menu in Word, select Word Count, and see where you are.

How to Lengthen Your Nonfiction Book When You Feel Like You've Said Everything

Are you working toward a word count and it seems like an impossible goal because you are running out of things to say? Well, let me help you. I have been known to take an author’s manuscript that was half the word count it was supposed to be and double it with these cool tricks that do not water down the content at all.

First review what you have written. Then ask yourself these five questions (oh and answer them):

Create Your Own Book Scene (CYOBS) Right Where You Live

For a couple years while I was in college, I worked at Bath and Body Works as a sales associate. Listen, during the holidays that place was (and still is) a mad house! Our lines would go through the entire store out into the mall. One way we tried to make things easier or maybe more "customizeable" for our customers was to encourage them to make their own gift baskets. We would have empty baskets or cute containers with "grass" or straw in the bottom and the customers would mix and match their favorite scents (we called them flavors then) and products and put them inside the baskets to create the perfect gift. Then we would put Cellophane wrapping around them and secure it all with our signature BBW ribbon. We called them CYOBs (create your own baskets). It was funny because not all the customers were as excited about the CYOBS as we were. Some wanted us to do it all for them--and we would sometimes, because we were awesome. But basically they were just ruining the whole idea all together!

Do It Scared

Something I am learning: If you wait until you have no feelings of fear and everything is perfect before you do something your heart has been longing to do, you will never do it. Do not mistake faith for a feeling. Faith is about trusting in God's infinite ability to act on your behalf. His word over your life or the one thing you are aiming to do is sure. He does not fail.

Yes, prepare. Yes, be excellent. But then do.

A Simply Beautiful Story of a Journey to Publication

Guest post by Kariss Lynch

Staying on the path to achieving your dreams is not easy. Quitting seems like a REALLY good option on most days. Ignore those thoughts. Seriously. When you think of quitting, shun it like the dark evil it is. Recognize it. Call it out. Re-encourage yourself. And keep moving forward.

I love stories of persistence, diligence, and hard work against all odds. This particular one is close to my heart, because I had the pleasure of watching it develop from a not-too-far-off distance. I met Kariss Lynch at the 2011 Christian Writers Guild Writing for the Soul Conference. She sat at my table for one of the meals--the decadent, gourmet meal--asked me excellent questions, and seemed determined to learn and find the way to success in publishing but was very conscious of writers conference etiquette. I don't even think she had anything to show me until we met again at the 2012 Writing for the Soul Conference. I remember this clearly because I sensed something unique and great in this young woman. I came back to my office after the 2011 conference talking about her with nothing in my hand to show. Two short years (short from my editor's perspective; she may tell it a whole different way) after our first meeting she finds herself a published author.

So for your inspiration, I am honored to share Christian fiction writer Kariss Lynch's story of her journey to publication. I hope it inspires you to never, never, never give up on pursuing what you know you have been specially chosen for.

Here is Kariss, in her own words...

Write to Your Strength: An Editor's Rant With 6 Tips at the End

Perhaps, if I hadn't had the call I had recently from a strong potential author, I would not have had the inspiration to write my first post of 2013. Perhaps if I had not had the call, I would not have had this level of confusion in my head. Why? Why in the world would someone who is thinking about writing a book write to something that does not play off of their strength? A rhetorical question, obviously, but certainly something to think about--even if you aren't so "wisdomly challenged" (yes, I made that up).

I realize that my blog comments could be filled with all kinds of reasons to write poor fiction instead of the next breakthrough health book if you're a doctor who has come up with a state-of-the-art weight loss and diet program. "It's best to follow your heart" would probably top the list. But, even though I partially buy in to that kind of thinking, I am not sure I could ever be completely won over to it in this case.