This post has been submitted by Penelope Trunk – columnist at the Boston Glob and Yahoo! Finance, blogger at www.blog.penelopetrunk.com and author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.
I’m going to tell you how to get a six-figure book deal from your blog.
People ask me this question all the time, and I have been a little hesitant to give people advice because I had only sold one book, and maybe it was luck, because it’s hard to know how to do anything from just doing it once. But now I feel like I know a bit because I just got my second book contract, based on my blog, from Rachel Klayman, the editor who did Barack Obama’s recent book.
Here are ten tips for getting a book deal of your own that is based on that blog you’ve been writing.
1. Solve a problem.
Non-fiction books define a problem and offer a solution. This is what makes the consumer buy the book. A blog can be a fun rant. A book needs to be more than that.
Do the ‘how to be’ test. Can you say, ‘My blog is about how to….’ And finish the sentence? You need to be able to do that to turn your blog into a nonfiction book.
For my book, I said I’m solving the problem that most career advice books are irrelevant to the current market. I did a they say/I say section. For example, they say report sexual harassment/I say don’t. They say don’t lie on your resume/ I say be practical.
2. Have a big idea.
A blog is a big pile of small ideas adding up to a community of people talking about those ideas. A book needs to be more than that. A book needs to add up to a big idea. You get your advance based on how big the idea is. One of the hardest lessons for me was that I thought I would just put a bunch of posts together in to a book. But my editor rejected that when I turned it in. The posts need to be organized in a way that build up into bigger ideas (chapters) into a big, grand idea (the book).
Aside from Seth Godin, who is an industry unto himself (mostly as a public speaker), there is no record of printing out a blog and having a six-figure-worthy book.
