Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Publishing a Best-Selling Book: Such an old-fashioned fantasy

Be a ghostwriter like myself or scan help-wanted on Craigslist and you realize that the old-fashioned fantasy of publishing a best-seller is still embedded in the national consciousness, at least outside southern California.  There, the fantasy is the screenplay which will become the film to blow records at box-offices and leave critics fawning. 

So concrete is the fantasy of the book that captures America that the real authors-to-be really believe they will be able to obtain assistance from seasoned ghostwriters by offering a percentage of the profits instead of upfront compensation.  They are clueless how few books ever even sell more than 1000 to 7000 copies and how much fewer do that today.  There's more.  They are also clueless about the power of promoting a book and especially about being cunning in doing so.  They're not thinking promotion.  Perhaps what they assume is that like Honda their book will be one that sells itself.

What puzzles me is this mass delusion exists in a digital age.  The odds would be better for getting a message out there, recognition, and getting rich if they configured a compelling YouTube series.  Remember Lonely Girl?  They could test-run that themselves.  If there is interest, they can hire a production crew to make the series for less than the cost of contracting with an experienced ghostwriter like myself.

Bookstores: It's Over

Even before Amazon.com's Kindle model killed the bookstores - indie and corporate - the price war is burying them alive.  Today I was in North Haven, Connecticut.  I could have wandered into Barnes & Nobel, just as I had been doing that for years.  But, I didn't want to be tempted to impulse-buy.  Not when there are such buys on best-sellers at Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon.com.  I could get a Stephen King for eight bucks.  So why pop $20 for any other book in a bookstore?

My hunch is that even special events such as the visits of celebrity authors, e.g. Martha Stewart, won't save the bookstore.  In Madison, Connecticut, Julia's is trying to hang on that way.  Let's check back this time next year to see if it's still there near the artsy movie house.

You're So Vain - Or, at least your boss is

"Is the rich man in 'The Fat Guy From Greenwich' my boss?"

Just about every head of a professional services firm in the Manhattan Metro area assumes he's the model for the venture capitalist Jonathan Miller II [there was never a Jonathan Miller I] who is the main character in the novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich."   Their subordinates, friends, and enemies have been asking me to spill the beans.

You decide.  Here are the first two chapters of "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" Download FGFGchapters1,2.  The novel will be listed online soon and will be available in early winter.

In such Dickensian times

No question, the times are Dickensian.  A lady in her ninth decade has been homeless for four years, and lives out of her SUV.  Lawyers with six-figure school-loan-debt have been laid off and can't find comparable positions.  Less than half of those under-30 have been working.

So, it's no surprise readers of this and my two other syndicated blogs - here and here- have been waiting by the Hudson River, Lake Erie, and the Pacific Ocean, hoping that the next installment on my comedy of manners "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" will magically appear.  I have taken mercy on them.  The novel won't be published until early winter.  So, here is Chapter 2, along with Chapter 1, of the book Download FGFGchapters1,2.  That's it, for now.

"The Digital Handshake" - By Paul Chaney

It's here. 

Finally, that book on social media that I have been waiting for has been published.  I have already given it to two clients and five prospects.  The breakthrough book is "The Digital Handshake: Seven proven strategies to grow your business using social media."  The author is Paul Chaney aka The Social Media Handyman, who's been around the globe teaching what really is effective in social media.  I just loaded up on 16 at three Barnes & Noble stores, for right now.  I've ordered the rest at a discount rate online . 

What "The Digital Handshake" does that other books by geniuses like Chaney don't is this:  It takes us by the hand and leads us past the macro stuff, conventional wisdom and hype right to the practical tactics.  Yeah, immediately, we learn and earn. 

Here's what you get:

• Five Consumer Trends
• Customer Skepticism
• Fragmented media/fragmented audiences
• Who's in control of marketing messages
• Hitting the target, first time
• Customer flashpoints
• Surrender! And have a conversation, marketers
• Blogging for commercial purposes
• Your Social Graph
• Niche online communities
• Microblogging
• Online video
• Podcasting [underutilized, so jump in]
• The Social Media Press Release
• Other neglected tools
• E-mail marketing
• Listening
• Into Action
• Measuring.

Chaney was my PapaBear when I started blogging.  Firmly but with a heart full of love, this blogging coach drove me out of corporatese and into what has become an authentic voice.  So much has that voice rung out that it has resonated right into fiction.  At the beginning of winter, my first novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" will be published.  Here is a peek at the first chapter of that comedy of manners Download FGFGChapter1.

Sweet Jesus, you are wonderful, Paul Chaney.  And may you sell millions of copies of "The Digital Handshake."

"The Great Gatsby" - 21st-century Update

F. Scott Fitzgerald, a mess of a personality preoccupied with old-wealth and its mores, published the book "The Great Gatsby" in 1925.  Yet, the grim lessons of struggling to penetrate the Upper Crust haven't taken, have they.  Too many of us are still trying or have tried and been crushed on that route.  We need an update on the perils of that world of "careless people."

That's what my first novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" is all about.  To be published in 10 to 12 weeks, it chronicles the plight of the outlier or "the other" who craves the approval of The Establishment.  Actually, everyone in the book is an outlier, only in different ways.  Wealth in itself doesn't allow entrance into those circles closed to those not born into them, still rough-around-the-edges, or simply trying too hard to fit in.

The main character Jonathan Miller II aka The Fat Guy From Greenwich has the money, in fact more money, both before and after The Crash, than those in that smug little town on the Gold Coast of Connecticut.  But, no way jose, is he let in.  He manages that by taunting their decorum, being obsessive about piling up more and more money, and tormenting others like himself.  He collects The Establishment wannabes to make promises to, emotionally hog-tie in double binds, and humiliate.  Despite this, most stay with him, hoping to "make it in."  That's the universal tragedy of the power structure of insiders and outsiders.  None of this would have a chance of happening if we outsiders would just succeed as outsiders.

I know.  Until 2003, there had been diverse combinations and permutations of The Fat Guy From Greenwich, in both my professional and personal life.  Then I stopped that.  Abruptly but finally.  Everything changed, from a surge of creativity to the lifting of self-hate. 

Here is the first chapter of "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" Download FatGuyFromGreenwich.  Will it serve as a Greek Chorus, warning the supposed underclass to love themselves and be themselves?  Time will tell.  Six years I have been doing just that.  So far, so good.

Books: Are Hardbacks Over?

After an initial good week or two, books which were supposed bestsellers aren't selling too well.  For example, as Motoko Rich reports in THE NEW YORK TIMES, the late Senator Ted Kennedy's "True Compass" sold 43% fewer copies last week than it did the week before.

Two interrelated factors might be the hardback packaging and the price that traditionally demands.  Both have become anachronisms.  I buy books for the ideas, not for the prestige of displaying it on my office bookshelf.  In addition, I don't buy books beyond a certain price point, even if I am going to refer to it in the long term.  Instead I will scurry off to the library, as I am doing today, to again check it out.

The book industry has to get smart about both the declining perceptual value of hardbacks and about what are the purchasing implications for certain price points.

Ideas: That's what still and always did matter in books

Status, prestige, image - A lot of that died with the Crash.  What always was in demand and is even more now is The Idea:  The Concept that helps us do well and maybe even good.

So I disagree with the contention that folks buy books - the print hardbound kind - to have around their offices and homes.   They buy them to absorb, which often requires re-reading and underlining, the ideas in them.  We understand why BigFoots fail by getting down cold everything Jim Collins says about that in his book on that subject.  We don't buy the book to put it on display.

Therefore, the book industry, whether it mutates into the Kindle version or stays as houses like HarperCollins, will rise or fall based on the quality of content in its product.

Animal Morality Tails - Mankind spins them in troubled times

Since mankind began the art of narrative, animals figured in.  They were especially useful to illustrate painful or tragic lessons that had to be communicated.  So, when I bumped into author Nancy Mura, whose specialty is animal tales aka tails, I knew this is one pro I had to interview, on an exclusive basis.  One of her creations is the "Willie Whistle" Series. 

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JG:  How did "it" all begin - the serious writing, the animal platform?

NM: I have a very rare cancer.  Enough said.  While I was going through chemotherapy I started to write - in earnest.  The fantasy winds up being called "Willie Whistle Who Loves to Whistle." The protagonist is an abandoned puppy who is left at Woof shelter owned by a white Persian cat named Martha May Paws.  There are 13 stories in the series which recount his experiences growing up.

JG: Why do you think animals are used from the beginning of story-telling to communicate messages?

NM: Given America's unending fascination with animals - 77 million households have either a cat or dog - I recognized that Willie would reach audiences.  In troubled times, humanity has always turned to actual animals or stories about animals to calm themselves and derive some kind of joy.

In my books, the animals communicate with humor, kindness, and often noble behavior.  This orientation, at least for me, started way back with all the Walt Disney cartoons and films involved with good and evil and how the situations got resolved.

JG:  On a personal level, what has been the connecting piece with animals in your life?

NM: My family used to talk to our animals and pretend they responded back.  After my family died, I decided that someday I would write a story using all our animals as characters of a book.

JG:  What's your next tail in the pipeline?

NM:  A sequel to Willie Whistle.  There is so much there.

JG:  As they say in marketing: A solid platform.

NM: Yes.

JG: Readers you can order Nancy Mura's books here.   You can reach her at Mssphotography@aol.com.   Her marketing manager is Mindy Schwartz and her illustrator and promoter is Taryn Simpson.  

Mr. Dilenschneider, tear up that manuscript [if you already haven't]

On February 10, 2010, the book division of the American Management Association will publish a handbook on the convergence of digital and traditional tools in public relations.  Currently, on Amazon.com it's being referred to as just that - "Handbook" - since a title hasn't been released.  The author is Bob Dilenscheider, Chief Executive Officer of The Dilenschneider Group.  Sounds good.  And it can be a homerun.

However, Mr. Dilenschneider, tear up that manuscript that was submitted on March 31, 2009 - if you haven't already.  I assisted with the research, interviewing, and writing.  I did that assuming [never assume] that the book would be out in summer 2009. 

The perspective as well as the information, as to be expected in digital time, is already out-of-date. 

For instance, there is little attention paid to mobile.  Yet, one of The Dilenschneider Group's clients Sherwin-Williams is a leader in leveraging the iPhone to help consumers select paint colors in the store to enhance the home. 

Twitter or microblogging is a dominant tactic not only for advocacy but actual selling.  Ana Marie Cox has more than 1.2 million followers for her Tweets so she should have been interviewed for the book on state-of-the-art strategies for building a community with audiences. 

Politico.com seems to be leaving THE NEW YORK TIMES and even THE WASHINGTON POST in the dust.  Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is picking up what it reports for its Institute for Legal Reform daily online aggregation of news.  No, Politico.com, along with its formula for dominance in its niche, isn't in the manuscript.  Its approach, ranging from a speeded-up metabolism to exhaustive coverage, should be deconstructed as a key lesson for readers.

For his readers and the brand integrity of the American Management Association, I hope that Mr. Dilenschneider tears down what had been put together a year before the publication date.