Michael Collie is a graphic designer and the national director of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Australia. He offers this tried and true advice on how to test the market for your book’s cover.
Have you found another effective way to test your book(s) and cover(s) with the market? Tell us.
This video is one of a series of 3-5 minute teaching videos based on workshops led by top international Christian publishing professionals at LittWorld 2012 in Kenya. We give thanks for the dozens of dedicated men and women who serve as our volunteer trainers, many of whom shared their expertise in these videos.
These mini videos on writing, editing, marketing, design, digital publishing, leadership, and more, were shot and produced by Good News Productions, enabling MAI to bring them to you.
Alice Crider is an editor, an author, and an author coach. Since 2011, she has combined her life coaching skills with her writing and 15 years of publishing experience. Here she offers writers advice on how to create a book that results in changed lives. Alice shared these ideas at LittWorld 2012, gathering many of them from “Steps to Bring About Life Change” by David Kopp.
Watch the video and enjoy Alice’s more detailed points below.
1. Identify the reader’s stronghold/problem; show its overlooked significance.
What problem is your reader experiencing?
How has the problem been overlooked?
2. Describe what is being lost to the problem so the reader says, “Yes, I have this problem, and I now realize the personal cost.”
What are they missing out on due to this problem?
What impact has this problem had on their life?
3. Surface the misconceptions in the reader’s language. (Misconceptions are beliefs that keep the reader from experiencing the benefit; these misconceptions may be subconscious or known, but assumed to be inarguable or harmless).
What misconceptions has the reader bought into that keep him/her from experiencing the benefit?
What underlying beliefs do they have that keep them from seeing a new solution or alternate view?
4. State the truths that offer a benefit to the reader, and show why they’re true. (Aha! Lights come on for reader.)
What solution or benefit will you show the reader?
What truths will help the reader see the benefit?
What will give them an “aha” moment?
5. Attack the armed defenders of the stronghold. (The armed defenders are the influences, sins, or fears that violently defend the stronghold and shout the dangers or futility of change).
What might influence the reader to avoid possible change? In other words, what influences, sins, beliefs or fears need to be exposed and torn down?
6. Show the benefitagain, strongly increasing the reader’s desire for the benefit (How? Visualize, make real, show others who are enjoying it, show that the benefit is what the reader was meant to experience and has always wanted, show surprising connection to other deep desires in the reader’s life).
How are others enjoying this benefit?
What connections can you make between the benefit and the reader’s deepest desires?
7. Lead the reader to—then through—a choice to change. (Life change happens when you put down one belief and pick up and implement another. Transformation happens when insight is followed with congruent action, and it is enhanced even more when shared with others).
What will the reader let go of in order to adapt a new view of their life?
What choice(s) will they make?
What action(s) might they take?
With whom will they share their paradigm shift?
Do you have a big idea book in mind?
This video is one of a series of 3-5 minute teaching videos based on workshops led by top international Christian publishing professionals at LittWorld 2012 in Kenya. We give thanks for the dozens of dedicated men and women who serve as our volunteer trainers, many of whom shared their expertise in these videos.
These mini videos on writing, editing, marketing, design, digital publishing, leadership, and more, were shot and produced by Good News Productions, enabling us to bring them to you.
We are pleased to introduce a series of 3-5 minute teaching videos based on workshops led by top international Christian publishing professionals at LittWorld 2012 in Kenya. We give thanks for the dozens of dedicated men and women who serve as our volunteer trainers, many of whom shared their expertise in these videos.
These mini videos on writing, editing, marketing, design, digital publishing, leadership, and more, were shot and produced by Good News Productions, enabling us to bring them to you. We hope you enjoy a taste of LittWorld and benefit from these training tools.
In this first video, you’ll meet Jeremy Taylor, managing editor of fiction at Tyndale House Publishers in the Chicago suburbs, USA. He shares essential steps for editing Christian fiction.
Do you think it’s possible to edit fiction without being a fiction fan? Tell us why or why not.
Subscribe to the LittWorld Online blog to glean more practical tips for publishing and meet with Christians in publishing around the world.
Before writers approach a publisher, Alice Crider suggests you consider these 21 most important questions that editors ask. An editor, an author, and an author coach, she has combined her life coaching skills with her writing and 15 years of publishing experience since 2011. Alice shared this material at LittWorld 2012, pulling much of it from “Steps to Bring About Life Change” by David Kopp.
Idea Questions:
1. What is the big idea, and is it in motion? What’s the dynamic philosophy? (“Dynamic” means energy going in a direction—a domino falling into a line of dominos vs. just one perfect domino; a plot or cumulative argument vs. a premise restated in different ways)
2. Is it over the top? Have we added all the value possible?
3. Is the book necessary, better yet indispensable? Will the book be dominant or is it just another entry in a product category?
4. Is it new? Is it newsworthy? Will it get talked about?
5. Is the content significant?
Writing Questions:
6. Do we have an outstanding title?
7. Do we have the structure right?
8. Are we firmly in control of the reading experience?
9. Does the writing add value, get in the way, or disappear?
10. Why so many words?
Author Questions:
11. Is this author writing from a platform the reader will accept?
12. How are we helping the author promote the book?
13. Where is the author going in his or her ministry life, and what are the next potential books in that direction?
Reader Questions:
14. Do we clearly understand how important the material is to the reader relative to his or her hierarchy of needs?
15. How will the reader use the book, and are we helping?
16. Can I make the advice work? Does the concept both promise and deliver?
17. Have we struck a business deal with the reader by the end of chapter 1?
18. Does the book sell itself on every page? (cover, spine, table, author info, callouts, typography)
Publisher Questions:
19. Do book and author have an in-house champion?
20. Do we know where the book is going in the store? (It falls into an available product category in the retail store, so it won’t get lost or poorly promoted.)
21. Is the publisher positioned to succeed?
Laura Bonney of Canada drafted this poem in a LittWorld writing workshop led by Lillian Tindyebwa and fellow members of the Ugandan Faith Writers Association. Laura’s poem speaks of the unity experienced by participants from vastly different areas of the world.
God Is Here
The birds, God’s alarm
clock, reminded me
of the Creator’s Presence
before dawn. Yesterday on the
bus ride, children with
broad smiles waved from
the side of the road, welcomed
us offering their friendship.
Today in the workshop, as
the Ugandan team share,
I am reminded of the living
God who binds us together.
Although we come from
different countries and
cultures, we can identify
with one another. Most
of us have desert experiences,
trials in life. The common
things of nature: sand,
rain, rocks, sky, help
us process experiences
and give our souls
perspective and hope.
The team work and
beautiful faces of the
Ugandan team blesses
me – their songs, stories,
poems
bring tears to my
eyes. God is here.
