The central executive of working memory is the new battleground for marketers. Writers are successfully surprising Broca, thereby gaining the momentary attention of the public, but an absence of salience remains.

In the language of newscasters:

Are your ads gaining the attention of the public but failing to get results? Find out why and learn exactly what you can do about it. Stay tuned for complete details. (Insert commercial break here.)

In the language of the street:

Ads have gotten more creative, but they haven’t gotten more convincing. This sucks for advertisers and the public isn’t helped by it, either.

In the language of clarity:

Can your product be differentiated?
Can you point out that difference quickly?
Can you explain why the difference matters?
This is effective marketing.

To differentiate your product powerfully and clearly:

1. See it though the eyes of the public. (Insiders have too much knowledge.)
2. Ignore everything that doesn’t matter.
3. Focus on what the public actually cares about.
4. Say it in the fewest possible words.
5. Close the loopholes by anticipating the customer’s unspoken questions.

Have a great week.

As business people, we tend to believe that the best way to get a result is to be there in person, yet we have only so many hours to spend on promoting our business.

We also know that there are countless online networking activities we could be participating in, but it is not always clear which online networking sites are truly beneficial, and it can be difficult to figure out how much time we should devote to online networking in order for it to be effective.

One of the things that has changed in the world over the last five or six years is that we no longer trust the experts very much; instead, we trust our peers. Therefore, in order to try to get some answers to our questions about how much time we should be spending on networking and where we should be networking, both face-to-face and online, we thought the best thing to do would be to ask our colleagues—people like us whom we have met through networking and whose judgment we can rely upon.

Last autumn we did just that. We created a questionnaire to ask people like ourselves how much time they spent on networking, what specific marketing tools they used, and what the balance was between online and offline networking. The final question we asked them was how they liked to network—which events worked best, what size group proved to be the most beneficial for them, and how the process of trust development played out for them. In the end, 650 people completed the questionnaire. Most were from BNI, Ecademy, or LinkedIn.

It took us a while to work out what they were telling us, but the main story is ultimately very clear, not to mention pretty interesting. Based on the results of our questionnaire, below is a summary of how the majority of professional businesspeople we heard from spend their time in regard to their online and offline networking efforts. These are very useful facts to consider when contemplating a strategy to adopt concerning networking your own business, both online and offline.

The most common amount of time that business owners spend on promoting their business is 12-15 hours. This covers everything from sales to networking to online and conventional marketing and promotion.

Face-to-face networking activity proved to be overwhelmingly important to our respondents. However, it is also clear that LinkedIn has become an important networking environment, especially for small businesses.

Other tools our respondents typically use to promote themselves are workshops, PR, online advertising, and email (25% or more use these tools regularly and/or depend on them).

Online, LinkedIn and Ecademy seem to be favored locations while offline BNI and other structured face-to-face events seem to be where people are focusing their major networking efforts.

Most people reported that they prefer to network in groups of between 20 and 40, but some people reported that they prefer much larger groups. Larger groups appear to be more popular with larger companies, European companies, and high growth and global companies.

So, what are the underlying reasons that drive people to larger groups and online activities? We know from some earlier interviews we carried out that the people who most effectively utilize online media also seem to be good face-to-face networkers and that some of these people use technology to “Punch above their Weight.” In other words, they use technology as an alternative to becoming conventional growth businesses.

We decided to check out whether scalability of the business makes any difference—i.e., whether or not the business is limited by demand rather than by its ability to supply, or whether a local vs. a national or global orientation has more of, or any, effect on what people like to do.

What we found was very interesting. It turns out that it is not the scalability of the business that makes the difference. It is whether or not the business sees itself as local (defined as getting 80% of its business within a 50 mile radius) or national (or even international) in scope.

Companies who want to operate with a larger reach use online tools more. They are:

• twice as likely to use LinkedIn (40% vs. 20%)
• much more likely to use Twitter (10% vs. 2%)
• twice as likely to use online social networks (30% vs. 15%)
• more than twice as likely to run a blog (25% vs. 10%)
• more likely to value chance encounters (22% vs. 14%)
• three times as likely to prefer a group measured in 100s and 1000s (16% vs. 5%)

This shows us quite clearly that companies wanting to operate with a larger reach believe that going online and trying to reach a much larger, random population is worthwhile, and that companies wanting to operate locally do not value online marketing nearly as much.

Thomas Power, Chairman of Ecademy, believes that a key challenge in marketing is to meet and become liked by the fifty people who can most affect your business. We think what we are seeing here is that if you have a local, non-scalable business—like a small, community-oriented, organic vegetable business, for example—you can find those 50 people by conventional, local networking.

However, if you are trying to promote ideas or scalable services nationally, you will benefit from the random connections that open, supportive networking gives you.

Another thing we found particularly striking about our survey was what all the groups surveyed had in common across the board.

They all believe that—

you need a core local support group.

Furthermore, in all four categories, the mode (the option) that most people chose in regard to the size of the group they prefer to network with face-to-face was—

a core group of 20-30 individuals.

In addition, they all believe that

trust is generated in the same way—by listening, practicing Givers Gain®, and following up with people quickly.

Having a good reputation is based on the social proof of others’ good opinion, evidence of enthusiasm and commitment, and the reciprocity of giving referrals before expecting them.

Most of all, however, you must

develop the characteristic of clarity.

Being clear about what you do, what you stand for, and what benefits you and your business offer to people who might use your services. Only if people like you, trust you, and know what you do will they refer you to others, regardless of whether you are dealing in online or face-to-face networking.

Since the overwhelming majority of our survey respondents were offering business services—and most business in that industry comes by referral or recommendation—this gives us some real food for thought.

Where does your business fit into these findings? Do you feel that spending more time online would benefit you or not?
________________________________________________________________________________
Lisa Harris is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Southampton. She has completed a number of research projects with Alan Rae investigating how ‘early adopters’ of new technology are using Web 2 tools to ‘punch above their weight’ through a combination of online and offline promotion, collaboration and networking. She can be contacted at l.j.harris@soton.ac.uk, or http://www.lisaharrismarketing.com.

Alan Rae is Managing Partner at Ai Consultants, the research and consultancy arm of Free Spirits Ltd a successful internet trading company. Alan has run small businesses in IT, Business Training and Research since 1981 and is an expert in how small companies can use internet related tools to improve their operations and marketing. He has developed training and information packages for the European Union, the British Government and the business schools at several British Universities. More at http://twittercom/alanrae or http://blog.howtodobusiness.com.

Called “The Father of Modern Networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI (www.bni.com), the world’s largest business networking organization. His latest #1 bestseller, The 29% Solution can be viewed at www.29PercentSolution.com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company (www.referralinstitute.com).

Though mysteries may frequently be passed over for the more “literary” prizes and awards, they’re often seen on that pedestal of success, The New York Times bestseller list. Dan Brown and Patricia Cornwell have recently led the pack, and it would be hard to argue their books—containing history, religion, forensic sciences and biology within their covers—are less than smart novels.

Sue Grafton and John Sandford, two iconic mystery authors, have flourished for years, intriguing and thrilling their fans time and time again as their main characters developed, aged and learned. Grafton’s 21st novel, featuring the same Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone, is publishing on December 1, and its preorders have earned it a ranking of #21 on Amazon’s book list. 2010 will mark John Sandford’s 20th Prey novel, featuring maverick cop Lucas Davenport; he recently contributed a post to a Barnes & Noble blog titled, “The Best Writers Out There are Writing Thrillers.” More than an acknowledgement to his writing peers (and ultimately, his competition) and their genre, Sandford notes his favorites are writers who have “stuck their fingers into the wound.”

Jen, a crime-fiction book blogger I admire, is behind the popular site, Jen’s Book Thoughts. A blessing to the genre, authors, publishers, and other interested readers, Jen has traveled around the country to various conferences dedicated to the mystery community. She believes the people of this genre are the “nicest people you’ll ever run in to,” and the authors are “generous and appreciative” of their readers and fans. And she is an authority on the subject, having featured exclusive content from authors such as Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, CJ Box, Laura Lippmann, and more. Like The Booking Community Online, in general, those involved in mysteries are a tight-knit crowd.

While mysteries often delve into the unknown, the devious, and the gory, I see a correlation with the romance genre. While not the same escapism found in romance, there is typically a sense of completion when turning the last page in a mystery novel—the conclusion often having some sort of justice, reached in a way possible only in fiction, but which we all long to be true and real.

As writer Joe Wallace points out, “Once mystery writers have acquired a fan, they almost never lose him/her. That’s reflected in the personality of the fans–they know everything about the characters they love–and also in the stores themselves… It really is pretty remarkable, and gives me some hope for the future.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on your favorite mysteries and writers, and how you feel a repeating character develops and grows. I invite you to join me on Tuesday, November 24, on Meritorious Mysteries as I guest blog about my love of mysteries and what it’s like to have a behind-the-scenes, close up look at some of the genre’s biggest names.

1. When publishers promote the books they sell, they make more money.

Doing their best imitation of Sylvester McMonkey McBean, Harper Collins has stoked the forges of conservative and liberal vehemence alike to rake in as much money as possible. They booked her a 13-stop combination book tour and political junket in mostly Republican strongholds while at the same time garnering an exclusive view from political polar opposite, Oprah. In the media, where it’s more important to voice an opinion than to discern whether its expression is merited, reporters and talk show hosts alike have raced to usher their views on Palin, and sometimes even her book.

Melanie Kirkpatrick of The Wall Street Journal proudly proclaims, “This is not the prejudiced, dim-witted ideologue of the popular liberal imagination.” Michiko Kakutani, of The New York Times, barely even bothers to disguise her bias, saying that it’s “part cagey spin, part earnest autobiography, part payback hit job. And its most compelling sections deal not with politics but with Ms. Palin’s life in Alaska and her family.” The L.A. Times notes, “Like just about everything she has done publicly since she was thrust into the national spotlight as Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, Palin’s entry into the literary world has been splashy and contentious.”

Talk about splashy and contentious—if you think those entries in the media world seem barbed, you should read the comments submitted to the bottom of each review. They read like a battle zone of over-caricatured evil warlords and hayseed-spittin’, bumpkin buffoons, which leads to my next point—

2. Make sure the book engages a wide audience with deep-seeded feelings.

“Scares you idiots, doesn’t she? I spent a little less than 3 years in Alaska – The Last Frontier. Had to return to the lower 48 with a great admiration of those who live there. She scares you because she speaks the TRUTH,” submits commenter “Bob Leathers” to About.com’s Political Humor blog.

In response “Mike” writes, “Sarah Palin represents the worst of America. She is a bigot hiding behind a phony religious facade while she incites hatred and resentment.”

Wow! United we stand! Having a public forum to vent opinions without a real person’s face and emotions directly in front of you sure makes it easy to spew venom. OR books has even released a collection of disparaging Palin essays called, Going Rouge: An American Nightmare as an “opportunity to offer people a choice, a different perspective on her,” co-editor Betsy Reed says. I’m surprised that no video game company has capitalized on the volcano heat raging between conservatives and liberals by releasing games where one group butchers caricatures of the other side in Grand Theft Auto style.

What you won’t hear from the cornucopia of review opinions is that Going Rogue is boring or dully written. No publisher, much less Harper Collins, would chance a dry thud in the reading department for a book that’s risked this amount of money. Although not the main ingredient, my third point is no less important—

3. A blockbuster book has to read well enough to engage buyers with something relatively interesting.

So Palin (with the unmentioned approval of Harper Collins) enlisted the writing efforts of WORLD magazine editor, Lynn Vincent. Despite the almost-perfect alignment with Palin’s political views, Vincent has writing chops as well, having written the bestselling Same Kind of Different as Me along with numerous other non-fiction works ranging from biopics of scandalized Christians and former terrorists to exposés of the Democratic party. Even Donna Scott, of the notably liberal Huffington Post says, “In a time where too few journalists try to tackle subjects that are controversial, Lynn Vincent is a bit of a maverick. Lynn is witty, funny, and like it or not, evangelical.”

I haven’t read the book. I probably won’t, despite all the buzz and publicity it generates. It reveals no indication of my personal political views on Sarah Palin, conservatives, or liberals. Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Fathers didn’t find its way in front of my eyes, either. Political non-fiction just doesn’t interest me as much as novels with deeper implications about life and the culture we inhabit. I’ll take Tolstoy, Bradbury, Coupland, or Tolkien any day. So I’ll make no comment on what I think of Going Rogue.

I hope prospective writers and publishers see that the publishing world is less of a mystery and more of a cooking recipe with specifically required ingredients. You can choose to publish stories that make you happy, shout out ideas that drive your passions, or simply decide to write words that cause people to pay you. The moneymaking decision requires an organization or person with vast resources to promote your work, an audience that cares about buying it, and enough writing quality to avoid the kind of word-of-mouth that kills crappy movies and lame books.

If you find the balance of your passion with enough monetary income that keeps your dreams afloat, you’ve graduated to a special class of charmed people that walk the earth.

And if I had to choose which character came out shining the brightest in the Going Rogue saga, my vote would go to the writer behind the scenes, Lynn Vincent.

Studies abound that prove the benefits of positivity in the mind/body connection. According to the Women’s Health Initiative, a clinical trial of more than 161,000 healthy women between the ages of 50 to 79, optimistic women have a 14 percent lower risk of death overall than those who are more pessimistic.

And while part of our happiness comes from genetics, and part from circumstances (such as finances, relationships, etc.), experts say up to 40% of our happiness is based on our own viewpoint and how we choose to react to a specific situation.

My speaker’s bio has long stated the key to my success is, “Choose a positive attitude each and every day.”

A great example of choosing a positive attitude occurred just days ago. I have grappled with severe rheumatoid arthritis since I was 27 years old. Four times a year, I have a drug administered by infusion, a process that involves being hooked up to an IV and sitting for about six hours as the drug slowly drips into a vein on the back of my hand or the inside of my forearm. Not pleasant for a needle-phobic like me!

It would be easy to bemoan the injustice, the “wasted” time, or complain about how behind I’ll be at work the next day. However, I focus on the gift of a free day I’ve been given. No meetings, no emails, no cell phone—just an entire day of relaxing in a comfy, overstuffed chair, feet propped up, fleece blanket keeping me toasty, wonderful nursing staff bringing me snacks and smiles while they monitor me.

I actually look forward to sitting with a book I haven’t had time to finish or the latest edition of a woman’s magazine, working on ideas for new articles, or just spending time day dreaming and journaling. The day is about me, and as I leave with my injection site wrapped in a compression bandage (which they always sweetly color-coordinate to whatever my outfit is that day) I realize that I also feel thankful for this down time and for the fact that my chemo treatment is for rheumatoid arthritis and not cancer or some other much more serious medical condition.

Shift your focus from annoyance to gratitude, and you’ll begin to notice the gifts of time that arrive unexpectedly in your life. Plan now how to best use that time to advance your writing career or to take care of yourself.

Author and self-made millionaire Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Surround yourself with positive, successful people in the book industry and you, too, will be a success. Ask them for their success strategies. You will eventually begin to think and behave as they do.

Jack Canfield, of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame, writes about how our words and thoughts affect our body in his national bestseller, The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be —

You must take responsibility for removing I can’t from your vocabulary.

There’s a great kinesiology exercise Canfield uses in his seminars to demonstrate this concept: Have a friend hold his left arm out and push down with the hand on his other arm to test his strength. Then have him say something he believes he cannot do. “I cannot play the guitar” and push down on his arm again. It will be noticeably weaker.

Now have him state, “I can do it!” Remarkably, his arm will be stronger and harder to move down.

Imagine the odds of you completing (or starting!) that novel if your core belief is that you can’t or you’ll never find a publisher. Unarguably, developing a positive attitude will further your career as an author. It is an open door to achieving whatever you desire to accomplish.

Ironically, over the course of the past couple of hours while I was sitting writing this article, my boyfriend, Mark, began feeling ill. His body aches of earlier today turned into fever and stomach troubles. As we have recently been surrounded by friends and associates who caught this latest virus, and as flu symptoms tend to appear very quickly, it’s probably a fair guess Mark will be knocked out for at least a few days, yet rather than complaining, his comment was “Well, at least I’ll lose a couple of pounds!” Now that’s seeing the silver lining!

As for me? I’m just glad he is one of the five people I spend the most time with!

Now, I am simply just positive you will have a great week and accomplish your top writing goals . . . .

That glass ceiling is created by the business owner’s core beliefs about the customer.

Traditionally, 5 out of 10 customers will be in transactional shopping mode. The other 5 will be in relational shopping mode.

Shoppers in transactional mode are looking for information, facts, details, prices. Their thoughts revolve around the product itself, not the purchase experience.

Relational-mode shoppers are looking for a pleasant experience. They want to find the right place, the right person from whom to buy, an expert they can trust. Meanwhile, the transactional shopper is gathering the information that will allow them to be their own expert.

A customer can be a relational shopper in one category and a transactional shopper in another. The labels don’t define the customer. They describe only the mode of shopping, the momentary mindset of the decision maker, the type of ad to which he or she will respond.

Here’s what’s currently happening in America:

One of the 5 relational shoppers has begun to think transactionally.

The reasons are:
(1) concerns about the economy,
(2) access to information via search engines.

Americans spent $29.7 billion online at Christmas (Nov. 1 to Dec 31,) approximately $100 for every man, woman and child in the nation, up 19% from the previous year. In other words, there was $100 fewer dollars per person spent in brick-and-mortar stores in your town than was being spent just a few years ago at Christmastime.

And for the first time in the history of Starbucks, traffic is in decline.

Starbucks has always sold relationally. We pay for the atmosphere of the café with its half-lit earthtones and iconic logo - the idea of affordable luxury - as much as we pay for the coffee. But some of us have begun to compare the quality and price of the coffee itself to the quality and price available from other providers.

Beginning to get the picture?

Starbucks has found the glass ceiling. In other words, they’re selling as much coffee as can be sold relationally.

I’m sure you have your own idea about how Starbucks should respond to their decline in traffic, but the point of today’s memo is this: A glass ceiling exists when you overestimate the number of people who prefer to buy the way you prefer to sell.

People never really change their mind. They merely make new decisions based on new information. Will Starbucks give us new information, a new perspective in 2008, or will they just whine at their marketing department for the inexplicable decline in traffic?

More importantly, what new information will you deliver in 2008? (You realize this memo isn’t really about Starbucks, right? I don’t care about Starbucks. I care about you.)

The Tiny Giant is that 1 relational shopper in 5 who is moving to a transactional perspective. This effectively shifts the marketing balance from 5/5 to 6/4. This doesn’t sound like a big thing until you realize that 6 is 50% more than 4.
Do you have the clear answers that 6 in 10 shoppers demand? Are you willing to provide the growing tribe of transactional shoppers with the information, facts, details and prices they expect?

Or will you simply demand that your marketing team deliver more customers in relational shopping mode? (Please, I’m begging you for your own sake, don’t fall into the trap of believing the answer is to “target” relational shoppers through some magical mailing list, email list, or sponsorship package.)

Think about it, won’t you?

Your financial future hangs in the balance.

With that level of “targeting,” it’s anyone’s guess. There just isn’t enough information available.

But if George Costanza, the white middle-income male New Yorker between age 30 and 44 from “Seinfeld” picks up the wallet, everyone knows exactly what he’ll do.

He’ll keep the money.

By allowing you to imagine their concerns, reactions, and questions, personas allow you to better plan marketing interactions and messaging. Personas are critical to lead generation Web sites, specifically those that want to engage their suspects and prospects in a sales dialogue online and offline.

Personas vs. Segmentation/Demographics
When building personas for your lead gen or demand generation Web site, psychographics are typically more profitable than demographics.

Psychographics give insight into how an individual perceives the world, their belief structures, and some of their core personality traits. Psychographics, in the form of personality theory and motivational research, have a long documented effectiveness at predicting decision-making styles and behaviors — including buying behaviors.

Demographics, on the other hand, are only loosely correlated to behavior and often horrible in predicting marketing response.

Personas tell us how to plan and have a conversation. Demographics mostly tell us where to have that conversation. Both are important.

Using Personas to Take Action and Build Persuasion Scenarios
Web sites and online interactions especially benefit from this by allowing copywriters to plan the interactivity of click paths, the link structure for embedded hyperlinks, and the messaging required for increased persuasive momentum and conversions.

“Actionable personas” have easily predictable and imaginable conversations and reactions, like good fictional characters. They have to generate empathy and engage the imagination.

Meet Melissa Putnam, 23, Sales Assistant, $32,000 Annual Income
Melissa, a newbie at her job, was just asked by the sales manager to research and suggest some potential sales training vendors. Melissa is a people person; she likes to build strong relationships and relies on good first impressions to get relationships off to a strong start. She wants to make a splash and impress the boss.

The Brooks Group, a sales training company, offers all sorts of customized training, many of which would be a perfect match for Melissa’s needs.

Let’s peek at how we planned the interaction on the site for Melissa’s style and needs.

Melissa is a “humanistic,” meaning she’s interested most in relationships. So as she arrives at the Brooks Group Web site, she’s immediately presented with two links to the About Us page, both at the top and left-hand navigation.

When she clicks through, she’s presented with a page that addresses her motivations about midway through, and notices the header “Meet the team.” You also see a picture of the founder, and a link in the active window that reads ‘real coaches.’ This is all Melissa speak.

After she clicks that link, she arrives at the “Working with Brooks Group” page. There’s a lot of content here that is virtual red meat for her. Here she reads a little about coaching and clicks the link near the bottom of the page that reads, “Contact one of our sales coaches, and they’ll talk you through a typical training deployment.”

Melissa is on her way to becoming a lead.

If you click around the site acting as Melissa, you’ll find other paths for her to follow, all leading toward a conversion event, giving her several opportunities to call or fill out the lead form. You’ll find links and elements designed and planned exclusively for her humanistic style persona.

If you’re astute, you’ll notice that Melissa isn’t the only persona accounted for on the site.

Meet Charlie “Nubs” Harrison, 45, Sales Manager, $90,000 Annual Income
Charlie, a former top salesperson, was just promoted to sales manager. He’s starting to doubt he made the right decision. His quote: “Managing these people is like herding cats.”

Charlie is a take-action, spontaneous type. He doesn’t like to waste time and he’s in pain. His sales people are driving him crazy.

Since Charlie has little patience, the first and most visible link in the active window was planned for him. He might also be interested in first learning about the company, Unlike Melissa, he’s looking more for credibility and experience than a relationship.

On the “about us” page, a link is planted just for him that reads, “the ability to manage sales rather than micromanage sales people.” Score for a Charlie type visitor!

As he follows that link, he arrives at the “Herd Your Sales Cats” page that is rich with Charlie language and content intended to speak to his pain. Near the bottom is a link that reads, “Getting started with the Brooks Group is easy.”

Here are things you can do for your personas to better plan your online lead gen interactions.

• Speak to temperaments such as humanistic. When you have content for several on the same page, put elements links and copy for the impatient competitive and spontaneous types higher up on the page, humanistics in the middle, and provide all the deeper details last for your methodical personas. Methodical types are not afraid of reading, so let them at it.

• Account for buying cycles. Ask what your personas need at each stage of the buying process. If they’re early in the buying cycle, they don’t know what they need or how to buy your product. If in the middle, they know approximately what they need. And finally, those in the late stage know exactly what they want. Provide copy, links, and elements for all three stages. In a recent column, I showed how Marketo was trying to convert outside the context of an early stage buyer.

• Understand sales complexity. You need to know how your personas relate to four measurements of complexity and provide content that addresses the questions and issues they face. One persona may have a greater felt need (Charlie), while another needs consensus (Melissa).

You might be thinking, wow, this is a lot of work.

Yup.

Being purposeful and prepared to deal with your prospects is always sweat-inducing work. But with a good plan, the sweat breeds greater conversion.

Bottom line for the Brooks Group: it doubled its leads by planning using persuasion scenarios, components that lead a visitor segment to participate in a conversion action.

Talent, skill and marketing tricks fly out the window at times like these. None of your qualifications matter one bit when adversity puts its hand on your throat and asks why it shouldn’t strangle your resolve to keep going.

“Can’t I just call in sick and tell them I can’t come?” I thought. I hadn’t slept more than 10 minutes that night, and the thought of driving 5 hours, followed by a couple of plane jumps to Wichita Falls, followed by another restless night, didn’t sound appealing in my misery. My emotions told me to hide. But 150 kids had signed up for me to teach them about creative writing. I knew that something special would happen if I could just get there. I rolled my body out of bed and plunged my head under the strange sensations of the shower.

When I was a little boy I loved the cool water in the swimming pool that made Texas summers so much more bearable. Every time I went to the pool my dad would tell me to swim toward him. If any of the rest of you have fathers, you know what happened right before I reached him, legs and arms kicking furiously. He backed up.

It always made me so angry that he did this, and frustrated and whiney. I’d push even harder, feeling unjustly made to swim farther than our bargain and slightly afraid that I wouldn’t reach his arms. But I always did. Years later when I asked him why he always did that, he said, “I wanted you to figure out that you could go farther than you thought you could.”

This morning I was thankful for my father’s semi-cruel lesson. I pulled on some clothes, stuffed my belongings in a bag, checked the directions to the rental car return, ate some granola and fruit, said goodbye to my aunt and uncle after they prayed for me, and headed out the door.

As soon as I got within cell phone range I called my girlfriend Vicki. Talking always keeps me awake on long drives, and she knew that I would need some help this morning. It felt good knowing I wasn’t alone early that morning as I got onto the freeway in Gaylord, Michigan, knowing that I would have to fill up soon, but expecting slightly cheaper gas prices a little further down the Interstate.

Twenty miles later the gas light popped on. “Uh oh,” I said to Vicki.

“What?” she replied, slightly concerned.

Nothing but slushy snow draped over tall trees filled my view. “I hope I see a gas station soon,” I said. Ten miles later I saw my first sign of civilization, billboards. One of them mentioned something about gas, but it looked to be another 20 miles. “I hope this little Chevy Aveo gas tank has as big a reserve as my Honda Prelude,” I thought to myself, noticing that I had seen very few cars on this stretch of road.

A mile and a half from the exit for gas, the Aveo expired. “There it goes,” I said to a concerned Vicki. Glancing in my rearview mirror I noticed a black SUV about to pass me. I rolled down my window and frantically waved at them as I pulled over to the side and switched on my hazard lights. “If I have to walk to the gas station from here, I could very possibly miss my flight.” Off in the distance, angel choirs sang as the old Ford Explorer’s brake, and then reverse lights, came on and started getting closer to me.

A smoking cigarette poked through the gaps in his teeth as the driver asked what was wrong. When I told them I had run out of gas, the younger guy jumped in the back, and I hopped in, never more grateful to have lost my sense of smell. I said goodbye to Vicki for the moment, and my redneck angels, Steve and Mike, drove me to the nearest Citgo and then back to my car with a borrowed plastic container and $5.00 worth of gas.

“How’d you run out of gas in a Chevy Aveo anyway?” Mike asked. “Don’t those things get like 40 or 50 miles a gallon?”

“This one doesn’t,” I said, noting how it had required more frequent fill-ups than I had hoped.

I finished emptying the tank, started the car back up, waved goodbye to Steve and Mike, and drove back to the Citgo station to fill the rest of my tank. Gas here was indeed cheaper than Gaylord, and I had only lost 30 minutes of drive time. Vicki rejoiced with me as I got back on the road. A little while later she had to go, and I called my mom for another partner on my adventure while I ate raw spinach leaves to supply my body with nutrition and keep myself awake. I called a bunch of people that day in my travels, asking them to pray for me or somehow otherwise help me in my quest. You can’t survive if you try to do everything by yourself.

Despite a wrong turn or two I reached the rental car location in time to get a taxi to the airport and make my flight. I kept worrying that someone at some point would quarantine me for my bloodshot eyes and obvious flu-like symptoms, but no one ever did. I slept, shivering and sniffling under a blanket, for most of my flight.

Missy Mayfield of the Region 9 Education Service Center greeted me in Wichita Falls, and I explained my sickly appearance. We both felt confident that once in front of all the kids I’d find the energy to perform and teach. She offered up a local steakhouse as the place to eat, and after spinach leaves, a salad in the Detroit airport, and the most immunity booster, bee pollen, antioxidant, protein powder supplements ever assembled in a smoothie in the Dallas airport, I decided that I deserved steak. McBride’s Steakhouse didn’t disappoint.

That night I crawled into my hotel bed early, and slept for half an hour to an hour at a time. In the middle of the night, I awoke to sheets completely drenched in sweat. My fever had broken, and I already felt better. I changed my clothes and got into the dry bed. An hour or two later, I woke again with more wet sheets. “Can your fever break twice?” I thought as I shifted over to the other side of the bed.

Morning still came too quickly, but I plunged myself into the magic power of the shower once again, reminded myself that God was with me, and listened to hear Him tell me that He was proud of me. It always sounds like my dad.

In front of all the kids the workshop went better than expected. Seventy-five kids from the rural districts around Wichita Falls listened with wide eyes and then wrote furiously when I asked them to. The obedience, attentiveness, and excitement of children always amaze me, and I noticed their teachers writing diligently as well.

When we finished, Missy told me that I had exceeded her expectations. She told me that one of the kids who had read in front of the class had extreme behavioral problems and almost wasn’t allowed to come. “His teacher said that no one’s ever gotten through to him before today.” A weak smile appeared on my face as I relished the joy of kids inspired and motivated as a result of me deciding not to give up in all the challenges that fought against me reaching the next stop on this adventure of doing what I was made to do. I would have never made it without lots of help from others along the way.

Hardship and difficulty will assault you when pursuing whatever road awaits your decision to get out of bed. Talent and ability don’t make that decision easier. You need a reason that’s bigger than yourself and family and friends to multiply the tiny amount of strength you have. The world’s waiting to hear that story. So stick your head under the magic waters of the shower and get ready to live it.

• It was first published in 1996 with the title Push. On Friday, the writer Sapphire’s story of an illiterate, pregnant 16-year-old Harlem teenager named Precious hits movie screens, under the title Precious. The film, produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, has generated plenty of buzz, which has pushed the novel up to No. 22 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list.

• Kicking off the holiday season’s cookbook parade is The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond, which enters the list at No. 29. Her website, ThePioneerWoman.com, packed with family-friendly recipes, receives 2.5 million unique visitors a month.

• Jamie Ford’s debut novel, Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, the latest book club pick at Target, the discount chain, moves up to No. 63 on the extended list. It features a Chinese-American widower who once loved a Japanese-American girl.

For all the news from this week’s Best-Selling Books list, see Thursday’s editions of USA TODAY for the top 50 books or log onto www.top150.usatoday.com for the complete list of 150 best-selling books from last week.

Rankings for USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books List are based on retail sales data collected each week that include more than 2.5 million books from about 7,000 independent, chain, discount and online stores. USA TODAY’s list ranks titles regardless of genre or format, providing one of the best assessments of which books are most popular among readers and consumers each week. USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list has been published each Thursday in the newspaper’s Life section since October 28, 1993.

USA TODAY was founded in 1982 with a mission to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make the USA truly one nation. Through its flagship newspaper and popular Web site, USA TODAY engages the national conversation and connects readers online through social media applications. USA TODAY, the nation’s number one newspaper in print circulation with a total average daily print circulation of nearly 1.9 million, and USATODAY.com, an award-winning newspaper Web site which launched in 1995, reach a combined 5.8 million readers daily. The USA TODAY news and information brand also includes: USA TODAY Education, USA TODAY LIVE, USA TODAY Mobile, and USA TODAY Sports Weekly. USA TODAY is owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI).

Soon, almost everything will come to us when we want it, in digital form.

Following electronic readers from Sony, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, we’re likely to have a new tablet-style computer from Apple by the end of the first quarter of next year that is likely to be a game-changer among those kinds of devices. And the Motion Picture Association of America has just announced that it recommends that studios be allowed to bypass theaters entirely and transmit their movies directly to people’s homes.

This is likely to present the consumer with a raft of options for books and movies (on top of the existing ones for music), but it’s also a sign that new ways of distribution are likely to shake up the entertainment industry even further.

First there was music, when record companies expected to make money off the sale of records. Now, of course, records are what artists put out between tours and record companies are, to a certain extent, distributors and marketers. Musicians had to adapt to the changing landscape and, instead of being recording artists, became performers again.

It is perhaps too early to tell what will become of movie theaters, which are already under pressure financially. Blockbuster movies come and go. Flops are common. The average release lasts only a few weeks in theaters. And theaters make the bulk of their cash from the sale of snacks. Increasingly, people would rather have entertainment when they want it, even if the experience of seeing a movie on the big screen is something that is hard to replicate at home. The release this holiday season of James Cameron’s long-awaited “Avatar,” with its apparently stunning 3D effects, is likely either to strengthen a new technology’s hold on fickle moviegoers, or to be the last hurrah of a dying way of experiencing movies.

What does this mean for the hard-pressed publishing industry? More of same, I think: the continuing growth of the digital landscape and the falling off of the physical, printed book.

Recently, I was speaking with acquaintances who work in publishing, one an editor at a publisher that provides books for schools, the other an editor at a large consumer publishing house.

The publisher that distributes to schools conducted research that indicated that, while young people are comfortable with electronic devices for reading novels, they still prefer the old-fashioned textbook, because it enables them to look back and study earlier pages, which the current clunky crop of e-readers makes difficult.

But don’t you think that will change sooner than later? Coming new technological advances, such as fold-out screens on electronic devices, and the possible simplicity of scrolling back and forth or looking at spreads of pages as in a physical book, along with the probable high-definition color interface of a coming Apple reader, might erase that difficulty and pave the way for a future generation of college kids who’ll learn quickly to rely on e-texts rather than bulky physical books.

The other publishing acquaintance, an editor at that large consumer publishing house, says that the editors there who acquire books are almost paralyzed by uncertainty when deciding what to buy, because every single book has to be a home run. It now takes forever to sell a book, or for a publisher to decide whether to buy it (something I as an author with a book out for sale know firsthand).

Imagine thinking that your job depended on the success of every single manuscript you acquire. That is the kind of thinking that comes from relying on an old-fashioned sales model, where blockbusters support the smaller titles.

The trouble is, there are fewer and fewer smaller titles to support, fewer options for new material the old-fashioned way for readers, fewer bookstores to hand-sell, fewer ways of getting new product out there from big publishers.

Authors have to take matters into their own hands. The old-fashioned publishing market will remain geared toward existing big names and big advances, with the occasional left-field hit, while the newer breed of writers will have to nurture and build their own audiences, relying on digital distribution, digital marketing, and the potential for digital growth.

I wonder if the conventional thinking among certain publishers—a fear of failure that leads to an inability to take risks when the world is changing around them—will lead to failure anyway. In the end, publishing to a certain extent remains a field where no one knows anything — since who can predict the tastes of the public when the decision to publish a book is, to some extent, based on an editor’s personal preference?

In any event, the power is soon likely to reside with the author who can harness the power of the digital world to service the growing power of the digital consumer.