006 Terry Whalin on getting published

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Does your bold idea include expanding your influence beyond the few people you interact with daily? Does it require some writing and publishing and a broadening of your platform? Terry Whalin offers us advice from years of publishing experience on how to get our bold ideas out to the audience who needs them.

Who is Terry Whalin? Terry is known as one of the most accessible people in the publishing world. He has a broad range of experience from editing a magazine to writing his own books to acquiring books for publishing houses to being a literary agent. He leads Whalin & Associates where he helps authors bring their products to light. He knows exactly what writers need to do to get their thoughts in print, and, to that end, has developed a training course and speaks at writers’ conferences nationwide.

Although 80% of Americans would say that they have a book in them, very few actually succeed in publishing a book. Since publishing a book can often seem a daunting task, Leary and Armin ask Terry about some of the basic ins and outs of what publishing requires. Narrowing a target audience and being skilled at writing and marketing yourself are key points that will help you get your bold idea out there.

Quotes:

“You don’t want to bury your good stuff on page 10 because they may never get there. You want to start with a bang. You want to have really good storytelling content that pulls people into your book.” —Terry

“The great equalizer that’s out there is the Internet. Anybody can build a social media presence; they can start blogging; they can build a presence in the marketplace if they just take the time and energy to do that and to draw those people to them. As they do that, the more visible and the bigger their platform and the bigger their audience, the more attractive they’ll be to mainline, traditional publishers.” –Terry

“If your idea is God’s idea for you, it doesn’t matter what the minefield looks like, you will have the resources you need, you just need to commit to act on it.” —Leary

Action steps for any bold idea:

• Realize that making your idea happen is up to you. If you aren’t willing to take ownership of the whole thing, it’s not a bold idea you should follow.
• Start small. Don’t take on too big a chunk of the idea to begin with.
• Have a specific target market. Focus on a specific person.

Action steps for writing:

• Start writing. Write on a regular basis, and schedule it into your life so that you are always practicing.
• Envision a single human being and write to that one person.
• Learn how publishing works to be prepared for that portion of the process.
• Use Book Proposals That Sell to design your proposal and plan your strategy.

Resources mentioned:

• Terry Whalin on Twitter.
• Grab Terry’s free e-book, Straight Talk from the Editor.
• Read Terry’s blog.