How to Write A Self-Help book in 30 Days!

Hi everyone!+

As many of you are aware, our publishing company originally started as a ghostwriting firm helping self-help authors get their books written. We still get asked all the time, “How do you all get books completed so fast that are bestsellers?” Well, there is a secret formula and we are now sharing it with you!

Actually the formula is not all that secret, if you really study the self-help industry – and this includes books on personal growth, finances, fitness & health, real estate, sales, relationships, and a myriad of other topics – then the formula would become obvious to you!

Of course few people study books in the way that we do so we are sharing our secret notes on how to structure and then produce a first draft of your book in 30 days. It sounds incredulous, but it really does work and we have proven it with the hundreds of books we have written over the past six years.

We hope you all find this information helpful and it is intended to be shared, so please pass it on to anyone you think might benefit!! Just click on this link to receive the free article: Write a book in 30 days!

Dee Burks – Publisher

Stories Sell, Textbooks Smell!

This week while chatting with one of our authors, Rick McCotter, he offered the quote, “Stories sell, textbooks smell!” I had to laugh and I always do when talking to him (you just can’t help it!) but it goes to the heart of a concept that we teach all of our nonfiction authors. Even if you are writing a book to inform, it’s still all about the stories. Concepts should never be more than 40% of a book – the rest is stories. Stories are what bring the concepts alive and stories are what we remember. Some good examples are Good to Great by Jim Collins (a long time bestselling business book), Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and pretty much any of Malcolm Gladwell’s books. These are all long time bestselling authors because they understand that the concept is just one component of a great non-fiction book. The rest is storytelling. It is not uncommon for someone to sit down and try to write a book and then be unable to figure out why it’s not as great as he ones they see on the bestseller list. Usually it is because they either have an all concept book (think textbook) or they have a book of stories (think memoir). Either way its a yawn. The trick is the ability to combine the two in the right way to have a great and interesting read while allowing the reader to learn and understand your message. That is what we spend the majority of our time helping our authors do and it works.

Case in point: We just released Canadian author Vanora Spreen’s book, Living the Big Picture.

This weekend it zoomed to #1 in three different categories on Amazon.ca and topped the Movers and Shaker’s List. It also went to #2 on the list of all books sold in Canada and was topped only by Steve Jobs’ biography – quite a feat indeed. It just goes to show that good books do well because they are great reads and a tribute to that author’s hard work. Like Rick says, “Stories sell, textbooks smell!”

Best Book Disclaimer Ever….

These days it seems like every book needs some kind of disclaimer – even fiction which by its very definition is ‘not factual’. Of course there are the standard “no dogs were harmed in the creation of this book and the talking dogs contained herein bear no resemblance to any dogs living or dead’ kind of disclaimers but for the most part they are bland and boring and skipped right over by readers.

Today, we were gathering some final items for the layout of Travis Erwin’s new book, The Feedstore Chronicles – the disclaimer being one of them. The book is one of the funniest I’ve ever read and is a coming of age story that takes place in a Texas Feedstore. Travis took a swing at writing his own disclaimer and I have to say that it is one of the best we’ve seen – and it gives a good idea of what is to come in the book. Here it is:

Bullshit.

Generally speaking bullshit is thought of as a negative. As in …

I’m sick of his bullshit. Don’t bullshit me.Or … That is bullshit and we all know it.

However, in my native state of Texas, bullshit and and all bovine fecal matter, has a much better reputation. Here in the beef capital of the world the actual aroma is quite often described as the smell of money. Bullshit’s redeeming qualities extend beyond the feedlot. A natural and organic fertilizer, bullshit is a garden staple and just as it does for plants, a heavy sprinkling of bullshit helps any good tale grow and flourish. This book is no exception. While it is a fact that I spent much of my youth working at a Texas feedstore for an unabashedly nefarious boss, this book is a fictionalized account of those days meant strictly as entertainment to its readers. No character in this book is to be inferred as an accurate or actual representation of any person, living or dead, as the traits, habits, and mannerisms of many were combined and meshed with my own imagination to create the characters contained in these pages. Other than my own, and the two pro wrestlers who had character enough to stand on their own, most names have been changed. So what I’m saying is … take these stories with a grain of salt, maybe even with a squeeze of lime and shot of tequila, because bullshit tastes much better that way.

Travis has been described as Sadaris with a twang and we know that this book will be one that people talk about for years to come as a ‘keeper’. It is due to be released on November 1. You can read more about Travis on his blog: http://traviserwin.blogspot.com/

New Website, New Blog!

Hi Everyone!

We just launched our new website! Actually it is a revamp as our old website was, well, lame. The new one is more functional for our contest and author announcements and it now has all of our books listed with links right over to that author’s amazon page. Its prettier too. We are also starting this blog to give you a peek into the happenings around the publishing office.

So you get an idea of where we are and what the office is like, I’ll give you a quick description. We office in the loft of a great old house in the historic district of Amarillo, Texas. Most of our business is international and we do the majority of our work via conference call. But we occasionally have authors fly in to spend a few days especially if they are hard at work on their books, or if they are coming to our Christmas party, or if they just want to! Liz and have our desks facing each other and Chris (our graphics guy) sits to the side. It is very open concept, not that we necessarily intended it that way but we just got tired of repeating conversations with authors. So now most of our conversations with authors are on speaker so we don’t have to repeat anything! We also have the company mascot, Rocko the English Bulldog, who spends most of the day snoring loudly on his blanky behind my desk. Except when he sees a squirrel out the window. Then he barks his fool head off.

This week, we have several authors visiting us in the office this week to talk about their projects. We have another 40+ books in process at various stages as well so its been pretty busy. We are also calling for entries once again in our Great American Novel Contest so hop over to the contest page on our website (www.tagpublishers.com) and send us your entry today! Deadline is Oct 31 but sooner is always better!

We hope you enjoy the new website and that you will check back here to get the latest updates!

Dee