This morning marks the start of a 6 week cruise ship gig on the beautiful Emerald Princess. We’ll be sailing around the Caribbean where winter still means warm water and fun in the sun!

Anyway, I woke up at 5am this morning and checked out of my hotel while it was still dark to make my way to the airport. Ahhh, the glamorous show-biz life, right?

I’ve been on a fall college tour for the past couple of months and Suzy is already down in Miami waiting for me to join her on the ship. As I prepared to return my rental car I noticed a 10 CD success series I’d been listening to sitting in the back seat. As I’d already listened to the whole thing, I resolved to give it to the first person I met who seemed like someone that would benefit from it. I didn’t have to wait long.

“Good morning. Great day isn’t it?”

I looked around. It was still dark out. And cold. And drizzling rain.

“Um, sure. Why are you so happy?” I replied to the strangely cheerful airport parking lot attendant.

“Got nothing to complain about.” he shrugged as he handed me my rental car receipt.

Again: cold, dark, raining. He’s standing outside. He’s returning rental cars. And he’s happy.

OK, I thought, this is a good a guy as any.

“Here. I’d like you to have this success series. It’ll give you something inspirational to listen to while you stand out here waiting for people.”

He burst into a big grin and proceeded to tell me how he’d just invented something and was starting to research how to get investors or sell the idea and how this would really help him on that quest.

You just never know, huh.

I wished him the best on that project and headed into the airport to check in for my flight to the cruise ship. And here’s where the funny thing happened…

I noticed my boarding pass had me sitting in the very back row of the plane, in one of those seats that don’t even lean back. I was dead tired having performed a show the night before and asked the person behind the counter if I could have a better seat.

Actually what I said was “as long s I’m asking for things, how about a free first class upgrade to one of those seats that folds flat like a bed?”

And guess what, that’s exactly what I got!

Now although I do believe you get back what you put out in life, I don’t really believe it’s that localized and immediate. But then again, I also don’t believe in coincidences. So what do you think just happened?

Anyway, they’ve published a followup piece where the reporter interviewed me about hypnosis, life on the road, and “the future”. I ended up revealing quite a bit and think the piece came out great. Thanks to Mike Kamo for an excellent interview.

Here’s an excerpt from the article where I discuss the difference between hypnosis and mentalism:

“Q: Could you explain the difference between the mentalist and hypnosis portions of your show?

A: With the mentalism, everyone is awake. I’m applying the same principles [body language, influence, persuasion] and thought projection, while picking up on people’s emotional states using intuition- a variety of techniques that are all basically rooted in psychology and listening on a deep level- in order to tell people and get them to think of the things that I am projecting. That’s the mentalism- everyone’s awake, but I’m using sort of hypnotic procedures in their awake state in order to get that effect. I’m influencing them to make certain decisions and perceive certain things.

When the hypnosis portion of the show takes place, I’m obviously taking volunteers from the audience and actually putting them under trance, which is also called “theta state,” which is a brain wave state that basically means you’re in a heightened state of sensitivity to suggestion. So when I suggest something in that state, you respond to though it’s real- your body believes it’s real. You’re hallucinating that it’s real, and that’s what hypnosis is.”

Here’s a link to the full article.

And here’s a link to my college hypnosis show site.

Here’s a quote from an excellent article “My Buffalo” ran called
College Hypnotist Casts Spell On Campus:

“One participant was so far gone in dreamland, that when Seth walked up behind him and whispered “sleep now” into his ear (his phrase for getting his hypnotized victims to fall back asleep), the poor guy fell to the ground in a lifeless heap. Seth guided him down safely, of course, but the act was so sudden and convincing that one could not help but believe what they were witnessing.”

Nice

Here’s a link to the full article.

And here’s a link to my college hypnotist show site.

As a result of helping my coaching clients to write and self publish their own books over at www.YourBookInAMonth.com I’ve actually gotten better at this process myself. They say the teacher learns the most and I’ve found this to be true.

The book I’ve been writing and editing for the past couple of weeks, “Cruise Ship Speaking“,  has turned into a case study for these techniques. I’ve tracked how many days and how much time it actually took to write this book. And here are the results:

Writing: 20 hours over 7 days
Editing: 16 hours over 3 days

As you can see, the editing took almost as long as the writing.
I think this is because as I went though the printout of the first draft I noticed areas that:

• needed to be expanded

• were covered more than once

• were unclear

• were out of order

That first draft took about 12 hours to revise. Then I printed out the second draft and whizzed through it in about four hours. Mostly nit-picky stuff like typos. Now that the last day of editing is done it’s off to the proofreader’s and on to the layout artist’s.

I have been tracking all of this to help demystify the process of writing and self publishing your own book. Every speaker should have their own book. Unfortunately, there’s so much bad information out there about how to go about this process that it can get downright overwhelming and confusing. It doesn’t have to be that way. Stick with me throughout the rest of this self publishing process and you’ll see just how easy it can be.

In the next post I’ll show you two different concepts for the cover art and let you vote on which one you think should make it onto the book! Fun

Total time invested today: 4 hours

I have to say, this is my least favorite part of the book writing and self publishing process. Like most speakers, I am extroverted and emotional. I do not particularly enjoy spending all day nit-picking at details, yet that is exactly what has to happen to get this book into shape.

Yes, I could have outsourced the editing to a professional. I will actually. But not in the first go around. I feel strongly that the first pass should be done by the author personally so as to maintain the voice and perspective intended when writing it.

Remember, I do not advocate having your book ghost written. The value in having your own book as a speaker comes in part from getting people familiar with your own unique voice and personality. If you have your book ghost written then you will miss out on that opportunity to connect with your reader.

I will have my book proof read, laid out, and designed by outsourced professionals. But I will write and edit it myself. I suggest you do the same. It takes more effort to do it this way, absolutely. But when you think long term about the business building benefits then the rewards far outweigh the effort.

Every speaker should have their own book. Most know this but few do because it’s not easy. I can show you how to streamline the process, make it more efficient, take a lot of the work out of actually writing it, but it is still work. The good news is that means most of your competitors will never have their own books and you will rise above them on the strength of yours.

Total time invested today: 6 hours

This week I’ll be self publishing the book I just wrote. Follow along as I do this and discover how you can self publish your own book too.

In the next few days I’ll be editing all the content, then laying it all out, getting the cover art done, acquiring the bar code and ISBN, and generally and getting everything ready for self publishing.

For more in-depth information on this entire process, visit www.yourbookinamonth.com

Editing

No matter how well you write, you book will need to be edited before you can publish it. You have two choices here: either edit it yourself or have a professional do it. For my first book, “The Weight Loss Hypnosis Solution“, I went through 8 edits. That’s a bit ridiculous for a self-published book actually, but I was just figuring this process out at the time and learning as I went along.

I hadn’t started with a clear and detailed outline before I began to write that book so it took several revisions before everything was clearly laid out and in a logical progression.

This time around, I’ve written my “Cruise Ship Speaking” book with an outline and a plan in mind from the beginning. That should make it much easier to edit. If I run into trouble I can always outsource the editing, but I’m going to take a crack at it myself first. I think it’s in pretty good shape to begin with. We’ll see

The first thing you’ll need to do before editing your book is… nothing. Take a few days off between writing your book and editing it so you’ll look at the project with fresh eyes. The process of writing can cause you to get to close to everything you’ve just created and incapable of the kind of slash-and-burn editing that will most likely be necessary when your done.

I’ve taken a few days off from this project myself since I finished writing it last week and now feel ready to see what it is I actually wrote. I’ve just printed everything out onto 3-hole punched paper and bound it together with those little brass brads you can get at any office supply store.

It’s 74 pages long on 8 1/8″ by 11″ sheets of paper. That means it’ll be about a 148 page paperback book, because of the smaller trim size when it’s printed. That’s actually a bit bigger than I’d like it to be. One of the things I talk about in detail in the “Your Book In A Month” system is the ideal size and weight for your book. It affects both the cost to print it as well as the cost to ship it. These considerations will impact the overall profitability of your book as well as your ability to sell it.

If the book is too big then people will think it’s too much work to get through and not buy it. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen. My weight loss book is 168 pages long and sometimes it looks as though people are weighing it in their hands while they decide if they’re going to commit to reading it o not.

As important as it is for you to have your own book for credibility, publicity, and positioning purposes within your field, it is also important to recognize that people don’t actually read much these days. They get their information in little bits and bites. So you want your book to look like something fun and easy to consume when they first lay eyes on it. Something they could easily get through on the plane or at the beach.

So one of the things I’ll be doing when I edit my new book is looking for ways to cut down the content and make it easier to consume. I’ll shoot for closer to a 110 page book by the time it’s finished.

Time to get started. I’ve got the first draft printed out and my red pen at the ready. Tomorrow I’ll report on the results of this first go-round. You never really know what you’ve got until you go through it with a fine tooth comb. That’s what editing is all about. Details.

Warning: this may freak you out!

Exactly 1 week ago I sat down at my laptop with the idea of this book in my head and now it’s coming out of my printer, page by page as I write this. Pretty amazing.

Most speakers put off writing a book for years and for what?

Waiting to carve out a chunk of time to write it? I just wrote this in about 20 hours of spare time between gigs this week.

Waiting for the right idea to come along? You know what, if tomorrow I think of a better idea for a book then I’ll write another book, simple as that.

Waiting for a publisher? Hah! That’s the biggest excuse of all. You don’t need a big city publisher to get your book out there for you. These days you can self publish quickly, easily, and inexpensively. IN the next couple of weeks I’ll show you how.

If you’re a speaker and you haven’t written your own book yet it is costing you business.

You must have your own book to be considered an expert in your speaking niche. The longer you wait to write it the greater the chances that someone else will. Don’t wait. Get mad, get inspired, get motivated, whatever it takes. Just get going.

A Great First Step…

Watch the complete video of the seminar presentation I gave on
“How To Write and Self Publish Your Own Book In A Month”.

Check out the video here.

Time invested today: About 6 hours.
Total time it took to write the first draft of this book: About 20 hours.

Today I spent the day helping my coaching clients write their own books. There’s an old saying that “the teacher always learns the most” and I find it to be true.

Every time I work with a coaching client on their book or presentation or marketing campaign I end up inspired to reapply myself to my own career as well. Plus, it’s an incredible feeling to help someone reach their goals and live their dreams.

One of my coaching clients just finished her own book so I took the opportunity to interview her about the experience. She’s a speaker and a member of my “Book Of The Month” coaching club. Now she’s an author too!

(Press the “Play” arrow below to listen to this brief interview)

Sandi is a member of my “Your Book In A Month” coaching program which is currently closed to new members. You can still get the training DVDs and recordings of all the coaching calls though. Check ‘em out here.

Wow! Over 15,000 words written today (16,584 to be precise). I sat down at the computer with my morning cup of tea and just wrote straight through. It’s now dinner time!

A few days ago I discussed using dictation software as a way to speed up the process of writing your book. If you missed that article it’s in Day 3.

I didn’t use that method today though. Just started typing away and never stopped. It may have has something to do with the music I’ve ben listening to.

Superlearning

Did you know that listening to Baroque music played at 60 beats per minute helps to focus the mind, unlock your creativity, and accelerate your productivity? It’s true. I read about that as a high school student in the book “SuperLearning”.

I’ve used the technique for my entire life and always refer to it when I give seminars on Accelerated Learning to college students. A lot of people knock this technique, but as a hypnotist I can tell you, the basic concept of putting yourself in a deeply relaxed state while focusing on a desired outcome is incredibly powerful.

Basically your heart rate slows down when you listen to music at this bpm and your mind becomes more alert as it drops into Alpha state. Studies at Stanford University have even shown that test scores improve when in this state.

It’s not exactly self hypnosis, but it’s close. You’re remaining conscious but oblivious to outside stimuli and the passage of time. You are focused.

Focus

Thoughts are things, or at least they become things if you focus on them intently enough. Before you can achieve any sought after goal you must clearly identify it and then focus on achieving it until it becomes a reality. Whatever the price. Decide what you want then do what it takes to make it happen. There are no shortcuts. There is no “try”. There are no excuses. Only do or die.