WOW! Women On Writing Blog: The Author Training Manual

Review and Giveaway of The Author Training Manual

Monday, June 30, 2014

Last week my husband painted our living room with nary a grumble. How did I manage this miraculous feat?

Well, I promised to go through my bookshelves and weed out some of the books. Like most writers I am slightly addicted to writer how-to books. Reading them, jotting notes in the margins, marking pages with Post-It notes. Because one of those books will contain the magical advice that makes me an award-winning author. Due to the deal I made with my husband I did donate a few of my writer books to a used book sale. But I couldn't part with Nina Amir's How to Blog a Book and her latest The Author Training Manual.

One of the best things about The Author Training Manual is that Nina manages to be both friend and teacher. One the one hand she'll telling you "here are the things I did wrong," "here are the things I thought" and most importantly, "here are the changes I made." As I read I'm saying, "OMG, I felt that same way! I did that same thing!" So you look at Nina, now a successful author, and say "Hey, if I do what Nina did I could become a successful author too!"

But Nina isn't all about being a friend. She's a tough teacher too (reminds me of a few nuns I had in years past). Happily, The Author Training Manual is very specific. She doesn't just tell you to check out the competition. She tells you step by step how to do it. Nina doesn't leave you to your own devices (writers do tend to procrastinate). Set deadlines! Answer these survey questions! Follow this book planning outline. It's like writer boot camp! Perhaps it is more accurate to call it an author boot camp. The Author Training Manual helps you to plan both how to create the best book possible and how to become the most effective author. It helps you plan in an orderly way while your book is still just an idea. In fact, it way help you decide which of your ideas should become a book.

The Author Training Manual is crammed with extras: planning exercises, sample book proposals, questionaires, and additional reading lists for each chapter. Trust me, The Author Training Manual is one book I will never get rid of--even if my husband promises to paint the entire house!

About the Author:

Nina Amir, author of How to Blog a Book, The Author Training Manual and 10 Days and 10 Ways to Return to Your Best Self, transforms writers into inspired, successful authors, authorpreneurs and blogpreneurs as an Inspiration to Creation Coach. She moves her clients from ideas to finished books as well as to careers as authors by helping them combine their passion and purpose so they create products that positively and meaningfully impact the world. She writes four blogs, self-published 12 books and founded National Nonfiction Writing Month, aka the Write Nonfiction in November Challenge.

Amir holds a BA in magazine journalism with a concentration in psychology, has edited or written for more than 45 publications producing hundreds of articles and had her work published in five anthologies. She has self-published nine short books, including the popular workbook How to Evaluate Your Book for Success and 10 Days and 10 Ways to Return to Your Best Self. She is the former writing and publishing expert on the popular radio show, Dresser After Dark, hosted by Michael Ray Dresser, which has approximately 80,000 listeners per month. Amir also speaks and writes about self-improvement, human potential, and practical spirituality.

*****GIVEAWAY*****

Readers, worried you had missed out on winning a copy of The Author Training Manual during Nina's WOW Blog Tour last month? Well, you've got one more chance! Nina is giving away a copy of her latest! Just enter the Rafflecopter form below for a chance to win! We will announce the winner in the form and follow up via email.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

9 comments book proposals, Nina Amir, non-fiction books, The Author Training Manual, writer how-to

The Places You'll Go, If You Really Want To

Thursday, May 22, 2014

My oldest son is hanging out in New Zealand, and when I mentioned this to a friend who’d recently returned from that same country, the first thing she said to me was, “You’re going there, right?”

Um…I hemmed and hawed.

I love grand adventures, and I’ve always wanted to see New Zealand. Plus, I’d have my own personal tour guide, one I could even boss around.

But it’s…well, it’s New Zealand. Three thousand miles away. Over all that water.

And I hate the idea of flying over all that water. To be honest, I’m not very keen on flying over land, either.

My friend shrugged. “Take a sleeping pill for the flight and go,” she said, “if you really want to.”

If you really want to…a simple enough phrase. But it was packed with far more application than a trip to New Zealand.

I’d been reading Nina Amir’s, The Author Training Manual, and thinking about my writing career. Specifically, I’d been pondering what I’m willing to do, if I really want to succeed.

Would I hop on a plane and head to a venue to sell books because my publisher thought I needed to go? Is my writing career worth facing my extreme fear of flying?

Maybe I wouldn’t have to fly all over creation. Maybe I could just go by car all over the Southeast, scheduling classroom visits and attending book fairs. But I have a terrible sense of direction. Left to my own driving instincts, I could end up in Mexico instead of Mississippi. Is my writing career really worth hours on the road, driving around in circles?

Maybe I could just go to my kitchen (in my pj’s!) and do Skype visits. That’s the kind of marketing that would be squarely in my comfort zone.

It might be putting the cart before the horse, considering the marketing pros and cons of a book that hasn’t sold yet. But I think it’s worth a little bit of pondering, to consider my writing willingness factor. If I really want to make a go with traditional publishing, how far am I willing to go?

For me, that means thinking about how I’d market a book. Your willingness factor might be completely different. It might be whether you can go and speak in front of crowds of people, or if you’ll go from sitting in front of a TV to sitting in front of a laptop to write, or whether you’ll go and spend the necessary money on editing or other means to improve your craft.

It all comes down to the same concept, whether you’re pondering a trip to New Zealand or your wished-for success as a writer: how far you will go depends on how much you really want to.

~Cathy C. Hall
Photo courtesy of Joey Hall