I am thrilled and honoured to have been selected as one of the ten authors of CompletelyNovel’s One Big Book Launch on the 3rd June.
The new book that I am launching, New Magic for a New Era, explores how we can live a magical life where opportunity turns up around every corner and serendipity lands at our feet.
The book was inspired by the most amazing and incisive business coach I have met in recent years called Lea Woodward. Lea pointed out that although I’d written 10 books (at the time), I had not told my story. This was at the end of October 2014.
My initial reaction was that my life was boring as nothing particularly bad had happened to me and that I had lived a rather charmed life. Lea pointed out that the secret of how I had pulled this off was exactly what was worth sharing.
Thanks to CompletelyNovel, and a bit of time bending, by the end of February 2015, I had print copies of the book in my hands and it was available on for Kindle and in print worldwide. The flood of five star reviews that followed on Amazon quickly convinced me that there is an appetite for a book on this theme.
As it says in the book, “There is no need to go to hell and back, unless you want to”.
The book tells of my transition from being a BBC broadcast engineer to author, author’s mentor, meditation guide and temporal alchemist. It’s involved a transition from one side of the camera and microphone to the other.
In the early 80s, as part of this journey, I left the BBC, spent some time at Sony and ended up forming an independent engineering company in London. The launch of Channel 4 had created a huge demand for independent production companies and their equipment needed servicing and maintaining. I ended up at the right place at the right time.
My offices were located at AKA Film & TV Studios at 60 Farringdon Rd.
Roll the clock on over 30 years and I’m now ‘engineering’ books not cameras. So imagine my surprise when I discover the location of the One Big Book Launch. It’s only at the Free Word Centre now based at 60 Farringdon Rd!
We’re used to trailers for films and TV programmes. They tantalise and tease us to the delights the main feature will hold.
Nowadays multimedia trailers are being increasingly used to promote books and the technology to do them is accessible to all.
Seven elements that make a good trailer
1. Short – less than 5 minutes, ideally 1 minute
2. Sneak preview of book’s content – but adds something additional to the book
3. Link to buy book – but not a heavy sell but do include the book cover for recognition
4. Impactful – if the book has a point to make, this should be contained in the trailer
5. Fully informative yet enigmatic – it should be self contained in its message and encourage the viewer to want more
6. Potential to go viral – include humour or make a point that people want to share
7. Must work on mobile devices – if the trailer includes text, check that it works on mobile devices
Keen as ever to get my feet wet, I’ve had a go at a couple …
This We Know – short and enigmatic …
This We Are – somewhat longer and gives a snapshot of each chapter in the book …
Big Thanks to Lea Woodward and Jackie Walker for pointing me earlier this year at the most fabulous animation tool called Powtoon.
It allows ‘numpties’ like me to put together pretty amazing trailers for product and book promotions – there’s just a few examples below of what you can do with it.
And even better still, they have invited me to do a animation series on how best to communicate a message in Just a Minute … watch the trailer here
Powtoon Application #001 : Product Promotion
I prepared this short trailer to promote my Bending Time ecourse
Powtoon Application #002 : Web Site Landing Page
Here’s a trailer for a new web site for the marvellously talented Sue Warwick
I even used Powtoon to build a whole Udemy training course based on an earlier book called Flavours of Thought. This animation is just one of 30 in the course which comprise over 160 minutes of animated content – phew !!
Last year I wrote and published a book I had no idea I was about to write. I started writing it on the 3rd September and it was ready for publication on the 17th.
It shot into the top 10 books in Philosophy on the UK Kindle store by the end of September and the amazing reviews tell of the impact it is having on readers.
Here’s how I it came to pass …
Step 1: Have a Cracking Idea
I was watching my lovely partner snoozing on the sofa and wondered how many other people were also asleep right at that time. I also wondered how many people who were awake were also really ‘asleep’.
Step 2: Have an Immovable Deadline
I was presenting a workshop on creativity on the 27th September at Sadler’s Wells at the Transformational Media Summit and wondered if I could write a book with a big message – and get it published in time so I could use it as a case study for the journalists attending.
Step 3: Don’t Write a Big Book
To print a title and author name on the spine, you need about 100 pages or so. This equates to around 10,000-12,000 words. My aim was to write a book that could be read in a single commute or sitting.
Step 4: Learn How to Bend Time
I have been studying how we perceive the passage of time and I know some psychological and physiological ways to stretch time so we can get more done in less linear time. See Bending Time to find out how you can do this too.
Step 5: Write Short Chapters
A short chapter can be written and read in one session. What I do is meditate before each writing session for 20 minutes and I can then generate around 1000 words in an hour or so. The chapters in this book were actually around 500 words long so they could be re-syndicated in a blog.
Step 6: Review but Don’t Edit
Before writing each chapter, I review the previous chapter so I don’t duplicate and I ensure continuity and fluidity over the whole book. I only edit massive faux pas but don’t try and proof read or edit the whole. Incidentally, I normally Mind Map my books but this time it just came from ‘nowhere’.
Step 7: Know When To Finish
With epublication and print on demand, subsequent editions are easy. So when the 10,000 words or so are done and the base story is told, that’s time to wrap on this edition.
Step 8: Get Someone Else to Proof Read It
It’s impossible to mark your own homework so get professional, or a friend or colleague with an eye for detail, to read it and sanity check that it’s a Good Book and tells a solid story.
Step 9: Format It Nicely and Upload It to a PoD or ePub service
I use the CompletelyNovel print on demand service for my print books as it is so easy – and support is brilliant. Books normally arrive in 5 to 7 days. I uploaded it on the 17th of September and the box below arrived on the 20th in just three days!!
Step 10: Spread The Word
After finding a couple of other errors in the print books (so much easier than on screen), I uploaded it to the Amazon KDP platform and by the 21st September, it was available to download globally for less than the price of a cup of coffee. A few tweets and Facebook posts later and the reviews started flying in.
The greyscale display of the Kindle and some other e-ink readers, with their somewhat primitive formatting options, present somewhat of a challenge for book designers, publishers and authors.
There are however a few simple things we can do to create much fancier-looking, eye-catching and more readable books.
Note that I am no graphic designer and these tips won’t generate anything like a carefully crafted print book but they will make the book reading process more enjoyable for the reader.
Note too that the screenshots here are blatantly self-promotional from my own books – I am just practicing what I preach!
1. Judging a book by its cover
The book cover is the first thing that registers with our unconscious mind. Getting it right is key and both an art and a science. There has to be good contrast between any graphics or text and the title and author name has to be legible in a range of sizes.
Tip 1 : make sure your cover works equally well on greyscale and colour devices – and in thumbnail
2. Table your contents
With no pages to thumb through, we have to give the reader an easy way to navigate around their books. Including a hyperlinked table of contents is not a nice-to-have or option but a given.
Tip 2 : get a copy of Scrivener which not only generates all ebook formats but also generates hyperlinked tables of contents
3. Use graphics for chapter titles
Use a graphic for each chapter title (and any quotes)
Use an image and graphics to tell part of the story and augment the text, making sure that you follow guidelines for image resolution. Use colour where possible than renders well in greyscale. Also make sure you check copyright and I’ve listed the photo libraries I mainly use below.
Tip 4 : use the free Kindle Previewer to check your graphics in colour and greyscale and on a range of devices
5. Keep it short and consistent
Make chapters roughly the same length and use sub-headings to break long chapters into chunks. This works best for non-fiction but can apply to some fiction too.
I am thrilled and honoured to have been selected as one of the ten authors of CompletelyNovel’s One Big Book Launch on the 3rd June.
The new book that I am launching, New Magic for a New Era, explores how we can live a magical life where opportunity turns up around every corner and serendipity lands at our feet.
We’re used to trailers for films and TV programmes. They tantalise and tease us to the delights the main feature will hold.
I am really thrilled that my new book, This We Know is seeding new thoughts and forming a new movement.
