Nothing, and I mean nothing, establishes authority and gravitas as strongly as possessing the title, “Author.” Nothing.
And an autographed copy of your book is an absolutely great gift to donors who contribute at a certain level.
Indeed, you could essentially be “selling” your book for $25, $50, $100 or more – for a book that only costs you a couple of dollars to print, depending on quantity.
But you could never write a book, right?
Wrong.
First, your book need not be 7 gazillion pages long. Nor does it need to be hard-cover. Nor does it need to be published by one of the big publishing houses.
A self-published paperback of around 100 pages is perfectly acceptable and relatively inexpensive to do.
Secondly, you don’t have to “write” the book…and if you follow this tip, you could have your finished book written, typeset, designed and printed in less than 30 days.
Start with an outline of what you want to include in your book. The outline will serve as the “Chapters” of your book.
For example, let’s say you want to publish a book outlining your ideas for fixing the government’s problems on certain issues. You might do an outline along these lines…
- Chapter 1: Biography
- Chapter 2: Education
- Chapter 3: Taxes & Spending
- Chapter 4: Health Care
- Chapter 5: Creating Jobs
- Chapter 6: Etc., etc., etc.
Now for each chapter, you’ll create talking points, such as:
Education
- Parental involvement
- Discipline in the classroom
- Ending teacher tenure
- Ending social promotions
- Charter schools
- School vouchers
- Reducing administrative staff
- Etc., etc., etc.
Now, instead of writing about each of these talking points in each chapter, here’s what you do…
1.) Set up an account with a telephone recording service. FreeConfernecing.com is what I use.
2.) Have someone do a recorded interview with you over the phone using the conferencing service. It’s a simple Q&A.
“Tell me what role parents have in assuring their children get a good education.”
Then you answer. In your own words. And in a conversational tone. You don’t want this to come off as a term paper. Nobody likes reading term papers. Even teachers!
And don’t worry about making a mistake or leaving something out. There will be plenty of time to make corrections and/or additions in the editing process.
3.) Have your digitally-recorded interview segments transcribed by a professional transcription service. I use iDictate.com.
4.) Edit the transcription. Shorten paragraphs, change text, add to it, spell-check, grammar-check, etc.
Also, pick up just about any published book and go through the pages to get ideas of extra pages you might want to add, such as table of contents, a copyright page, an introduction, dedication, forward, or acknowledgement page.
And if you’re going to use the book strictly for your campaign, make sure you put your campaign contact information in there somewhere. I often put this on the back cover.
Lastly, don’t hesitate to include lots and lots of testimonials (see next item below) of friends and colleagues saying how great you are! You can add these at the beginning or end of the book.
5.) Have a professional graphic artist design a cover in full color. You can find extremely affordable and talented “virtual” pros using services such as Upwork.com or Fiverr.com.
Get and use a PROFESSIONAL photograph of yourself.
6.) Have the finished manuscript typeset in book form and uploaded to the self-publishing house. There are folks who do this, too, at Upwork and Fiverr.
7.) Get it printed. There are plenty of self-publishing services out there these days. I use InstantPublisher.com
Author and marketing expert Henry Evans says, “Don’t talk to anybody until they know you’re somebody.”
If you have a book, you’re somebody. And that will open all kinds of doors for you with the media, potential donors and organizations looking for a speaker.
Indeed, your book will be the biggest, most impressive business card you can possibly imagine.
So don’t put this off. Decide you’re going to do it…and just do it!
Dr. Chuck Muth, PsD
THE CAMPAIGN DOCTOR
Professor of Psephology*
(homeschooled)
* Psephology (see-FOLLOW-gee): The study of campaigns and elections