Guy Kawasaki is former Chief Evangelist at Apple and now holds the same position at Canva the online design tool. He has also authored 12 books, recently co-authoring The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users with Peg Fitzpatrick. A legendary marketer, there are many lessons writers can learn From Guy Kawasaki, to help them write, publish, market and sell books. This article takes a look at a few such tips.
Self-publishing (or artisanal publishing) is a realistic option
Initially an author who had published traditionally, Guy had an experience after the publication of his book Enchantment, which involved not being able to obtain 500 copies of this title in e-book format to give to attendees at a speech he was due to give. The book’s publisher said that it could only provide the title through stores such as Amazon, and Apple. The woman who was managing the event attempted to buy copies from Apple, but they would only permit her to buy 10. This occurrence led Guy to self-publish his next book entitled What the Plus!: Google+ for the Rest of Us, or to take up artisanal publishing, which is the term he uses for self-publishing.
If you’re struggling to get your book published and distributed traditionally for whatever reason, you can self-publish and learn a ton of new business development skills along the way. In order to learn more about self-publishing, it’s definitely worth checking out Guy’s book called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur — How to Publish a Book, which he co-authored with Shawn Welch.
Don’t write just for the money
Want to write a book just to make money? If so, you might want to check again your motivations for getting your book published. According to Guy, writing a book to make money and/or become famous is doing so for the wrong reasons. Instead, you can do what Guy suggests and write a book that carries real meaning, and is based upon sharing your unique voice in a way that will positively impact the lives of others.
Get your followers to help
Guy’s approach to writing involves getting his crowd in on things early on, such as asking followers on social media to critique his work and asking for volunteers to edit his writing. As an author, developing an author platform early is vital; this also involves creating a following on social media. Invite your followers to be a part of the creation of your work. This will help you in creating a stronger bond with them and also give you invaluable feedback.
Get some assistance from the pros
A strong recommendation from Guy is to hire a copy editor to help pick out mistakes in your manuscript, which would be next to impossible to find all by yourself. Also, Guy says to get a cover created by a professional cover designer to really make your book stand out from the rest. An eye catching cover really does come to the fore on digital stores, increasing the likelihood of potential buyers clicking on it and going through to the page for your book.
Keep going
Guy is inspirational in so many of his teachings. One particular piece of advice is to never give up; especially as self-publishing is not an easy route. He says, “It can take years to make a book a success—it may not even be your next book or your next next book that succeeds. But you’ll never know unless you try, and you never give up. You cannot quit your way to success.” As an author, follow suit and keep persevering!
Image credit: Ted Murphy on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]