Every Company Needs a Good Map

Michael Urlocker CEO of The Disruption Group sent me an email (and permission to share it).
"I noticed you have just released what appears to be a self-published book. I would be pleased to understand how you came to a decision to do so, and as the year progresses, what the book has helped you achieve."

I created a new publishing company because that has been my method of operation for every idea I have. I create the company that makes the product to be sold. Once the decision to write the book was done it just seemed natural to treat it as in much the same manner as any other product I get involved with.

Getting the publishing entity going and preparing for the marketing effort has been very time and mind consuming. I also spent a lot of time finishing the book, which meant that I have not made a map (a diagram) in a while. Then I worked on developing the Squidoo page so that people could hear my voice and see my style to ease their book purchase decision.

After months of working out the process here is - A Modern Magellans Non-Fiction Book Authoring Map. Writing is a lot like Chemistry, Alchemy, and making Moonshine. Not that I actually know how to make moonshine…(to see a larger version of the map just click on it.)

This is not necessarily how it should be done, but it is close to what I did. There are probably very nice maps out there but I did not follow them, I did rely quite heavily on Dan Poynter's Book "The Self-Publishing Manual" which has sold millions of copies for good reason. I also used Morris Rosenthal's book "Print-On-Demand Book Publishing" and Michael Larsen's Book "How to Write a Book Proposal." The Art of the Book Proposal by Eric Maisel is also very good.

This map is displayed using a ScribD embedded PDF document. To see the map in a larger window click on the small square above the slider bar on the right side of the document in the ScribD window. ScribD allows authors to post documents in a number of formats. Authors can restrict the access, file type, ability to download their work. It is also handy because people can read the document or see it before they download it. I used a similar embed on the Don't Eat the Steak page to share the Introduction to my book.

A follow-up to this post will give additional details about these steps. If I try to fit it all in one post it is too much for the system to handle.