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Strategy, Tactics, and the Plan for the Next 97 Days

2010-09-02 11:30
Have you heard the news about the death of publishing Books are going extinct! Paper will cease to exist! Buy stock in digital ink. Seth Godin, a mentor to me and the rest of the internet, recently announced his retirement from traditional publishing. Seth is perpetually ahead of the curve, so as usual, most people completely missed the point in responding to the news. When I read his interview, I thought Wow, I need to catch up. If I had twelve bestselling books, I 8217;d say farewell to traditional publishing too. So everyone else in publishing, traditional or otherwise, who doesn 8217;t have twelve bestselling books needs to get to work. Then I read something on a publishing web site with another author complaining that The only authors who sell books anymore are those who have popular blogs. This puzzled me. Where does a popular blog come from-does the blog fairy descend from the sky with a passionate group of readers, all eager to support a new writer Or does it maybe have something to do with consistent, dedicated work over a long period of time Speaking of Books and Strategy A few days from today I 8217;ll head out on the world 8217;s first Unconventional Book Tour to 63 cities. Venues are now posted over here... at least for the cities I have lined up so far. I get a lot of credit for being strategic, which is overstated at best-or more likely, completely untrue. I really don 8217;t have a strategy besides what anyone can see on the site. But yes, friends, there is indeed a method to the magic. The method is called: Dream very big. Decide to do big things and then set them in motion. My strategic plan is: say yes to everything. The tactic is: get up early and stay up late. Whoa, so strategic! I know, I know... I 8217;m really giving away the secrets to the store. Next, get very smart people on your team, like Reese the Superstar Design and Nicky the Genius Developer. Together they do things like make the Unconventional Book Tour site come to life, where people can sign up, post directly to Twitter, and even volunteer to bring cupcakes. (And just wait till you see the World Domination Summit site... coming next month. They 8217;re raising the bar even higher for that project.) The point is that you don 8217;t have to figure everything out before you get started. Dreaming comes first; details come later. Which leads to another very important point: If you have a big dream, you should find a way to pursue it. Derek calls it the hell yes moment - when you hear about something that sounds amazing, don 8217;t worry so much about what else you have to do to make it work. Just say hell yes. You 8217;ll be scared about it in the beginning and happy about it as you work it out. Now, the process of following a dream is not without stress and tension. The point is not to retreat from the tension, but to embrace it and live in it. I am frequently reminded of this quote by MihГ ly CsГ kszentmihГ lyi: The best moments in our lives are not the passive...
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