The two most important kinds of writing

If asked how many kinds of writing there are, most of us would create a long list. For instance, there is fiction, non-fiction, educational, sales, marketing, email, self-help, blog writing, and on and on and on.

Although you could make a case that each of these talks to a different audience and has different conventions, all of them have the same inherent weakness or strength. Every single one of them!

They are either boring or interesting.

How many of you have read a novel you couldn't put down? That's because the author made it interesting. Remember that novel you read the first two pages of and tossed? That author was boring. Same type of writing, different results.

Novels are pure stories. The same techniques that create powerful emotional involvement in a novel will create the same emotional involvement (and will to buy) in non-fiction. Jeff Walker (internet marketer, Product Launch guru) says that a good sales message is simply a story and uses all the techniques I give you below (and more).

Your job as a writer, marketer, salesperson, blogger, teacher, and every profession, is to make your products and services interesting to your customers. The words you choose and order in which you write them will either convince the reader to buy from you or turn away. And once the reader turns away, he or she is gone forever.

How do you make your writing interesting? Here are a few tips:

1. Create a memorable headline or first line. This line grabs the reader's attention in such a way that they must continue reading. You can do this with a controversial statement, an unusual fact, a question, or even a single provocative word. I learned this very early on writing newspaper headlines.

2. Put yourself into your writing. If you are absent, your writing will bore your readers. Remember, you bring experiences, biases, and insights into your subject that nobody else has. Insert your opinions, side comments, your unique style of thinking and talking, and people will eat up your prose.

3. Use vivid imagery. Your reader will relate to your material more if he or she can visualize it and relate it to their own experience. If you use a phrase that jogs a powerful memory or sense in your reader, they will stick with you longer.

4. Use dialogue even in non-fiction. Dialogue puts the reader into a scene where they can experience the events as they occur. It creates suspense, grounding, a sense of truth, and can guide the reader away from consciously thinking about whether or not to buy your product and into an emotional experience where buying what you sell is perfectly natural.

5. Use a strong call to action. If you write 500 pages and then don't tell your reader what to do with what they just learned, you have wasted your time. Every piece you write needs a call to action of some kind to tell the reader what to do with your material.

There are many other ways to make your writing interesting. However, if you apply these five, you will find yourself writing far better than most people. To get started, study writers you admire and marketers whose copy works. Look at each section and ask yourself how that writer did the things I outlined above. Then practice. Your first efforts might not work well but with practice you will improve.

If you want to learn more quickly, check out my writing protege program at www.leepound.com/protegeprogram.htm.

Now, go out and write the most INTERESTING prose you can come up with!

Have a very successful 2009

We've seen such a difficult economy in the last few months that many people are discouarge about prospects for 2009. Watch to this inspirational video and then go out and make the new year the best one you have ever had.

Warm wishes for a great 2009,

Lee Pound

The Write Coach

How to Write a Book

One of the most common questions I get is, "How do I write a book?"

I suppose one could be facetious and answer, "With a computer." Or even better, "With a pen, or pencil, or paint, or whatever."

The truth is, it isn't the writing part that's difficult, it's the starting. People have all kinds of preconceived ideas about writing that just aren't true. Like, you have to be perfect the first time, you have to know how to write, you have to have long years of training, you've enver written a word, etc.

Writing a book is like any other job you do. You start with the first word and keep adding words, preferably in some kind of order. You add stories, you add lessons, you add information, you pull it all together, you tell people what you want them to do.

Having said all that, here are the basic steps you take to write your book:

• Choose a topic
• Narrow your topic
• Divide your topic into five to 15 areas (these become your chapters)
• Decide what to cover in each area
• Choose the examples that illustrate your information
• Choose the stories to illuminate your examples
• Write an introduction that outlines what you want the reader to get
• Write each chapter, one by one, until you have a first draft

If you want to get more detailed information on the writing process, check out my Solutions Press Protege Program at www.leepound.com/protegeprogram.htm.

Meanwhile, take a stab at writing your book. Good luck!

Is My Book Good Enough?

People keep asking me whether their book is written well enough for publication.

This is a difficult question to answer. In my experience only a professional editor or publisher can tell you when your book is ready. Many details that the average writer knows nothing about will affect readiness. These include:

• Overly wordy copy
• Rhythm of the sentences
• Clarity of sentences and paragraphs
• Originality of material presented
• Presence of the author in the writing (do you get the sense that an individual actually wrote this?)
• Overuse of adjectives and adverbs
• Purple prose
• Use of powerful verbs and nouns
• Repetitiveness

These items can affect the readability of the book's content more than the facts presented. If the prose is awkward, your reader will notice the writing, not the information you present. This you don't want.

Watch here for more on these items.

I'm giving my "Write Your Book" talk at Speak Your Way to Wealth

It's become more important than ever for people in business (like professionals, coaches, consultants, etc.) to write books and articles as a way to stand out from the crowd.

Unfortunately, most people think writing a book is too hard or takes too long. So I've decided to emphasize how you can write and publish your book for a reasonable amount of money in a reasonable amount of time in speech this year at the Speak Your Way to Wealth seminar.

In case you haven't heard of it, you can get all the details on Speak Your Way to Wealth (I put it on with my business partner Arvee Robinson) at http://www.speakyourwaytowealth.com/. It's August 22-24 in Manhattan Beach, California. Check out the videos on the left side of this blog for more information.

I just published a book for one of my clients, Tom Northup, which you should check out on Amazon.com. It is called Five Hidden Mistakes CEOs Make and it is already bringing him new business.

And Now The Biggest Tip Of All

To speak effectively, you must not only read about speaking, you must practice it and you must observe great speakers in action.

You also need a basic understanding of speaking craft and the speaking business.I've worked hard over the last few years to learn my craft and expand my skills and over that time searched for a seminar that would give me both skills and marketing information targeted directly at speakers and found few that met my needs.

So I decided to create my own.

It's called Speak Your Way to Wealth and it will be held on August 18 and 19 in Newport Beach, California.I'm really excited about how this has come together. We've brought together major speakers from all over the country to present. They'll cover everything from how you can create products and make money from back of the room sales to how to use storytelling in speeches, how to create great PowerPoint presentations, how to grow your business through speaking.

Check out the lineup at http://www.speakyourwaytowealth.com/.

Check back here often because we will have updates on the seminar.

Welcome

You never know when you will get a great education in professional speaking. At today's National Speakers Association meeting in Los Angeles, they gave out the Connie Award after a contest in which six professional speakers competed with three minutes speeches. That's right, three minutes to showcase what you can do.

The speeches were great but even a few of the pros stumbled a bit. The lesson is that even if you feel you aren't ready, take the chance and go for whatever you want, even if you don't win. The winner was Debbie Barnett with her yoga demonstration and speech, which proves that if you add an additional dimension to your presentations you will be less of a talking head and more of a performer and will hold your audiences better.