The Idea

It was January 1995. Muscat, the Sultanate of Oman. Sue Valentine and I sat outside beneath the stars at a farewell dinner for their friend, Susie Evans.

“Look at the palm trees silhouetted against the sky,” said Susie wistfully. “I’ll miss them, but I wish I’d had a cookbook telling me how to cook with dates.”

“I’ll write one!” I said, after all I had written a cookbook before, French Tarts, a decade earlier. French Tarts had been published by Octopus. I thought I knew the ropes.

“I’ll help you!” added Sue, with enthusiasm. A fabulous cook with a PhD in food science, she was the perfect partner.

My mind raced into overdrive. Muscat was a small place, we could target our market easily. Forget finding a publisher, we’d do this one ourselves. “And I’ll publish it,” I added. I did not admit that I had no clue how to do that, but I knew I’d figure it out.

The Plan

In 9 months’ time it would be the Sultan’s Silver Jubilee. With all those opportunities for celebratory gifts and an endorsement, we had found the perfect time to launch our book. It would be out in November 1995.

Sue and I divided the work:

• I would create half the recipes, handle production, form a publishing company called Summertime Publishing, edit it and do all the desktop publishing.
• Sue would create the other half of the recipes, handle local legalities, find a sponsor and organise the food styling, photographs and cover design.

What Happened

Sue found a sponsor, Dateflake (later Tamoor Oman), a factory turning dates into syrup and fibre would underwrite our printing costs in exchange for several hundred gift copies. They would also fund a launch party. The Al Bustan Palace hotel would host a press launch. We signed contracts with local companies MCBS and Al Roya, who would make us legal and do the printing. We did it!

In November, Dates was published.

Dates is On Sale

This is the first edition of Dates…

• We sold several thousand copies in just one year.
• We had tee shirts made that said ‘Make a Date with the Middle East’ and wore them around town.
• A cookbook makes a great gift, so many people bought more than one copy.
• We packaged the book in a basket with a jar of date syrup and a pack of dates to show what a great gift it would make, just before Christmas.
• We organised to have a stall in each of the shopping malls in Muscat, gave away samples of date flapjack and date brownie and sold lots of books.
• We took a stall to the playgrounds of the local expat schools and sold books to the parents as they collected their children.
• We took a stall at Christmas bazaars. We sold hundreds of copies there.

How We Promoted Dates

• We could visit the bookshops and retailers in person.
• Every local newspaper ran our story.
• The English radio station interviewed us.
• We lived in our market. It was easy to target everyone, so we did. But . . .

Sales Dried Up

Just six weeks after Dates was published I was posted with my family to Norway. It was almost impossible to buy dried dates and I was new in town with no network (this was pre-Internet). In 18 months I sold one copy.

Books continued to sell well while Sue was in Muscat, but, a year later, she was repatriated to England. Sales dried up.

Without us there, in our market, actively promoting Dates things went downhill.

Dates is Reborn

In 2003, when I too was living in England, I had a lucky encounter with a man on a train. He spotted I was using a Macintosh laptop and asked me what I did for a living.

• “I’m a writer and author,” I said looking up from my keyboard.
• “I’m a publisher,” he said. “What do you write?”
• “Well, I used to live in Dubai and Oman and . . .”
• “I used to live there too . . .”

Well one thing led to another and it transpired that Zodiac publishing had offices in both the Middle East and England. We drew up in Peterborough just five minutes into our chat and only had time to swap cards before we separated. I held onto his card. Three years later, and after I had published many more books, I recognised that it does not make any difference how good your book is or how brilliant a writer you are. If you can’t target the market easily you’ll have an uphill struggle selling it. Zodiac could be just what Dates needed. I sent them a copy on the offchance that they might like to republish it.

Republished, Relaunched, Revived

In March 2007 Sue and I signed the contract and in May 2008, I travelled to Dubai to attend the launch of the new, updated, Dates, at the Oasis Beach Hotel. It is now on sale in bookshops throughout the Middle East, not just Muscat, as before and elsewhere in the world too, including Harrods.

What I Have Learned

• That you cannot underestimate the importance of being able to target your market yourself.
• That you can sell thousands of copies of book that has local appeal in a small market, like Muscat, if you are THERE.
• If you can find a sponsor to underwrite your printing costs – do!
• Sometimes it makes sense to publish yourself, and sometimes it doesn’t.

In this detailed and revealing case study, Jo Parfitt shows you how a self-published book can go through many phases as it evolves.

The Idea

By September 1996 I had been living abroad for 9 years and was now living in Stavanger, Norway, after time in Dubai and Oman. My husband is in the oil industry and every few years he gets posted. Now, I love to work too, but not just any work, I like to run my own business. Now, when you keep moving, it means that all your hard work building up a client base (particularly pre-Internet) goes down the tubes and you have to start from scratch in the new location. Still, I didn’t let a little thing like that stop me and by 1996 I had managed to work in a variety of areas, all based on my passions for writing, teaching and sharing what I know to help others to grow. Over the years I had:

• Taught word processing, French, creative writing, desktop publishing and trained others to teach for me.
• Made and sold date chutney, Christmas tree decorations made out of local produce and Dorling Kindersley books.
• Written computer handbooks for mainstream publishers such as Macmillan and McGraw-Hill, a cookery book on dates, called Dates (this presentation has a sister presentation all about that one, too) creative writing anthologies, articles for local and international press
• Run a CV writing service

But it was in Stavanger that I first learned about networking and joined the local expat professional women’s network, called WIN. They were stunned to hear about my success at creating, maintaining and adjusting my portable career to fit both my passion and my location and asked me to be their monthly speaker. So, I did. It was my first, ever keynote speech and I was terrified. The audience, however, loved what I had to say.

Soon after, I realised that I did have something to share that helped and inspired others and the title Career in Your Suitcase just popped into my head.

I had already published the first edition of Dates, in Oman, and had seen how much more money there was to be made when you did it yourself and could target the market easily. I had been an expat for almost a decade and knew what publications expats read and where they hung out. I reckoned I would be a fool not to do it myself. So I did.

The Plan

I would ask the people I knew, who also had an inspiring portable career story to tell, to contribute to my book. Some would write a whole chapter, others I would interview and use as case studies. Good at networking by then, I knew of Laura Westbury, who did cartoons for the Shell spouse newsletter, Destinations. I would ask her to do me a cartoon for the cover. I would edit the text myself, desktop publish it myself, find a sponsor to underwrite the printing costs and pay a designer to create the cover. I’d have a two colour cover to save costs.

I had met an American journalist at WIN, who offered to be my assistant in the project for brainstorming purposes. She had lived in Paris and knew of a conference that was to be held there in March 1998. She would try to get us a slot, running a Career in Your Suitcase workshop together and we would launch the book there.

What Happened

I found a removal company, called Andy’s, to sponsor the print run and gave them 250 copies of the book and a full page inside cover advert in exchange.

In June 1997 we repatriated to England and I continued working on the book there, ready for the Women on the Move Conference deadline.

The Internet had arrived and I was able to liaise with my interviewees and contributors by email.

In February 1998 I printed an initial print run of 3000 copies of A Career in Your Suitcase and stored them in my loft.

The First Edition

This is the first edition of A Career in Your Suitcase.

How I Promoted Career in Your Suitcase

• I sent review copies to expatriate publications
• I pitched related articles to expatriate publications – that I was paid for!
• I pitched related articles for free in exchange for a box about me that included details of the book
• I invited journalists who wrote on expat and career issues to interview me
• I offered the book as prizes in competitions
• I offered myself as a speaker to ladies lunch groups, business networks and expat clubs in England as long as I could talk about the book and sell it afterwards
• I offered myself as a speaker or workshop presenter at HR conferences, expat and entrepreneur
• conferences and events. Sometimes for a fee, sometimes not, sometimes just with travel expenses all allowing me to sell the book afterwards
• I organised, promoted and ran workshops to individuals on topics related to my book
• I gave a free copy of my book to libraries
• I formed a website www.career-in-your-suitcase .com
• I did author signings
• I took a job as editor of Woman Abroad magazine, who bought 200 copies to giveaway to new subscribers.

I Sold Out

It took four years to sell out of copies, marketing it solely myself, without the help of Web 2.0 or online networks. However . . .

What I Learned

I should have paid for an editor – it was full of mistakes

I should have paid for a professional designer – it looked rubbish

The amount of books I sold was proportional to the effort I put in

When you have written a book on your specialist subject people think you are an expert and pay you more money for other things, like training and consultancy. I became the only person to have a book on portable careers in print.

Career in Your Suitcase is Reborn

By 2002, and with the deadline of being a speaker at the Women’s International Networking conference in Lausanne, I had the second edition ready to go.

It was completely rewritten, professionally designed, professionally edited and had a super cover. I filled it with testimonials I had received after the first edition.

I found a wonderful sponsor, again to underwrite printing costs, in the world’s leading spousal career’s counselling service, American, Ricklin-Echikson Associates. I gave them the foreword, an advert and asked one of their best counsellors to write some brand new chapters.

I printed 1500 copies lithographically and started selling. An expat magazine in Belgium, called Away (www.awaymagazine.be) bought 250 copies as a subscriber giveaway.

I started an online newsletter, called The Inspirer and focused on building my subscriber base at every opportunity.

Reality Bites

That bringing out a second edition is harder to promote than bringing out a first. I’d already written and sold all the articles I could think of. Promoting it was hard.

Bookshops do not have a section for expat careers or expats and so it was hard for them to place it. Further, bookshops want at least 35% commission and then, what with the postage and the personal cost of selling it to them, bookshops were not such a good idea unless they were expat bookshops in overseas locations.

That selling on Amazon was great – except that they took 55% commission and I still had to pay to post the books to them.

Changing Tactics

When Career in Your Suitcase 2 sold out I recognised that times had changed. Not only did the book deserve another complete rewrite and to be updated, but the world had changed too. I’d lost faith in bookshops and in doing my own order fulfillment. We’d moved abroad again, to the Netherlands, and I needed to simplify my life. Online was the place to sell books. I needed to use print on demand technology and get someone else to do the distribution. When Lean Marketing Press offered me a contract, to publish, design and distribute my third edition, I jumped at the chance. A Career in Your Suitcase, 3rd ed, was published in May 2008.

Final Learnings

• That you can target a global market through the Internet and social media tools but that being a speaker and getting an online presence and coverage in the press is invaluable.
• That the best place to sell my book is on Amazon, but that I make most profit selling ‘at the back of the room’ – to at least 25% of the audience – and by direct sale. I sell in bulk to careers trainers and coaches.
• Sometimes it makes sense to publish yourself, and sometimes it doesn’t.
• If bookshops and libraries do not have a section for your specific type of book it will be hard to persuade them to buy it.
• If you want to sell a lot of books you have to keep on promoting, promoting, promoting. Belong to online networks, Facebook, Twitter, have a blog and send a newsletter.

That I’m still the only one to have a book on portable careers in print but if I don’t keep on promoting my book it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference.

Want to increase your chances of writing a bestselling book right from the get-go? Here are some tips used by the top 5% of authors.

Many successful writers do considerable research before they even get started writing their books. Much of this relies on having a basic understanding of marketing.

What Sells Books?

So Let’s go back to the fundamentals of what sells. Why do people buy books? Usually, it’s the ‘what’s in it for me’ factor. They buy because:

• they can learn something;
• it helps improve their life in some way;
• it saves them money;
• it solves a problem in their life.

To put it another way, people buy for ‘pain or gain’. In other words, there is a pain in their life that needs solving. Or they think they will gain in some way – either emotionally or financially.

It is worth noting that one of the most powerful motivations in marketing is financial gain. In other words, a reader can justify ‘investing’ in a book if they think it will either save them time or money. The trick is to think how you can apply these principles to your own book. This is particularly helpful for non-fiction, though perhaps less so for novels or poetry.

Your Book Title

A book title is one of the most powerful tools for selling a book. It gives the reader a succinct and clear reason for buying your book. Your title can make all the difference between a bestselling book and a book that ends up on the slush pile. The important thing to remember is to put the benefit for the reader in the title.

Examples might be:

• A book targeted at would-be lawyers – ‘Top Tips For Wannabe Lawyers’ or ‘Want To Be Lawyer? – How To Get There Faster’ (WIFM: training)
• A book targeted at the general public – ‘Top Tips To Cut Your Lawyer’s Fees in Half’ or ‘How To Choose The Best Lawyer’ (WIFM: saving money, problem solving).
• A book targeted at a specific niche – ‘How To Sue The Person Who Injured You’, “The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Divorced’, ‘How To Write Your Own Will’.
• A book targeted at other lawyers – ‘What You Don”t Know About Rival Law Firms’ or ‘How To Become A Partner In Your Law Firm In Less Than A Year’ (WIFM: entertainment/competitive edge.)

These titles are off the cuff and imperfect. But hopefully you can see the ‘what’s in it for me’ principle at work and see why a target audience would want to buy them.

This doesn’t mean that a book has to be solely about the subject matter in the title. This just provides a convenient marketing ‘angle’ for a book so that readers (and publishers, in the first instance) can see the benefits and understand why people would buy them.

Looking at the aforementioned titles, I hope that you can see that some books provide a more powerful motivation for buying than others. Saving money, making money, and problem solving are stronger emotional motivations than entertainment or curiosity, for example.

Market Research

Thanks to the Internet, you can now do comprehensive research into what your readers are likely to be looking for. You can check amazon.com to see if there are any comparative books on the subject. This will help you to identify your unique selling points. Why, for example, would a reader choose to buy your book over theirs? What do you offer that other authors don’t?

Don’t be put off if there are similar books to yours. This shows that there is a market for your subject matter. However, you do need to identify what is special and different about your book to make it stand out.

So you want to write a book? But perhaps you’re daunted by the odds? Believe it or not, there is a way to stack the odds in your favour – though less than 5 per cent of writers seem to know about it. If you want to give yourself a fighting chance, then it’s worth spending the time doing some research before you even write a word of your book.

How Publishers Think

When an agent or publisher looks at a book, they want to know it will sell. It is as simple as that: they want to know your book will make money. I will be blunt: if you are a good writer, if your writing is polished, if you are entertaining and witty, that is the icing on the cake. What matters is whether your book will sell and who it will be sold to.

Consider this – 70% of books published don’t make make a profit or even earn back their advance. This is why you need to stack the cards in your favour as much as possible before you approach an agent or publisher.

The approach 95% of writers take is to write a book and then think: ‘who will I sell it to?’ In fact, a slight shift of thinking is needed. First of all, you need to identify your target readership. Suppose you are a divorce lawyer writing a book. Are you writing for: the general public, trainee lawyers, professional lawyers, for example? Each of these groups of people will have different needs and requirements. They will all read a book for different reasons.

Importantly, once you have identified your specific target audience, you can then understand what their needs are and what motivates them. It also enables a publisher, ultimately, to market your book as they can work out where your readers ‘congregate’ – magazines, clubs, associations, ezines, etc – so that they can target their publicity.

Profile Your Readers

Ideally, once you have identified your target audience, you need to step inside their skin so that you can write a ‘profile’ for them. Are they male or female? What is their social class and level of vocabulary? How old are they? What are their top 3 goals? What do they like reading? Which clubs and associations do they already belong to? Which publications do they read or subscribe to? What are their top 3 frustrations? What makes them angry? What makes them happy?

Hopefully, you will see the merits in understanding your readers as your book can then provide some of the solutions to their problems and frustrations. In essence, you are giving them what they are already wanting or looking for.

By the time I had written about my current situation my mind had already worked out how the chapter before led up to this time and how the chapter following would be formed. I was no longer restricting my imagination and inspiration to just focus on that one story at a time, because all the stories were linked! I didn’t need to write all the chapters at once – just scribble a note to myself and put it in the relevant research section for later! I had these inspirational moments on the bus, walking the beach, standing in line at the grocery store and even in the shower. I just wrote myself a quick note so I didn’t lose the idea and then filed it away in my bookbuilding binder. I call these “inspirational bundles” and use clear pockets to keep each “bundle” of notes together, eventually these will inspire my chapter titles for my book.

So how much does this all cost? You can print just one book if you like and buy your books on demand averaging $6.50 a copy plus an initial set-up cost (starting at around $150 if you self publish using LightingSource) or you could opt to buy your own stock for back of room sales and reduce the cost per copy to $6. If you retail your book at $20 that means you net $14 for each sale! That’s a much better return than traditional publishers will give you (An average royalty is around 5% which would net you $1.50 per book – you need to sell nearly 10 times more books to get the same return!)

There are lots of options depending on how many you want to print, how many pages your book is and how it will be bound. These examples are taken straight from some of my quotes from a local Print on Demand printer based on approx 200 pages and full colour cover. There are many things to consider when choosing a printer/publisher including the quality of their print and paper (do you get bleed through on the print to the reverse page?). Most important is the level of service they are offering you, some allow free uploads (i.e. no set-up costs) but remember nothing is for free and there is usually a catch like signing over the rights to your book or only receiving a small royalty for each book sold. What other services do they offer? Do they offer educational programs to help you produce a professional looking book? Do they give advice on layout and design and what distribution services do they offer (i.e. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, online book store, ISBN No. Barcode and copyright) Is your book printed locally or is it shipped out to a 3rd world country where print and paper quality can be an issue.

We all have a story inside of us worth telling whether it is about your travels, your memoirs or a business book to support your business. How many shoe boxes are full of photos, letters and research material and book ideas hidden in the closet or under the bed? How much writing already exists that you have used in newsletters, promotional material and blog submissions which you could turn into a book? For business people who already give workshops, seminars or speaking engagements the material is already written! So why not turn all that material into a book? Because most believe it is beyond their reach to achieve that and they don’t have time to do it!

I know this because I recently self-published my own first book, successfully sold it into all the local bookstores, and received credibility and respect as a first time author. Since publishing my book my business has blossomed, the local media here in Victoria B.C. the capital of Canada, jumped at the opportunity to report on a local author. I have been interviewed by Shaw TV Daily show (and it’s already been repeated 3 times) Local radio shows including CFAX1070AM radio who have interviewed me over 6 times and the local press have run several articles. In fact it has had such a huge impact on my life, my mission and purpose now has become to inspire and motivate other people to tell their stories and become first time authors.

Why is it that so many people feel overwhelmed by the challenge of writing a book? First understand it IS a time-consuming process and it does require lots of research and quiet reflective time, a precious commodity so few of us have. It actually took me 18 months to write my first book, but now I have developed a method to make this process easier, and my second book will probably only take a few months to complete. The other key is giving yourself the reflective quiet time to start, and to do this you must commit to taking yourself away from your normal environment where you will be distracted by the normal routine of life (family, emails, TV, constant interruptions). I strongly suggest you start by choosing a writing retreat for your vacation or a weekend workshop or writing group that meet on a regular basis. If you don’t have to time for any of these, the least you should do is take your laptop or notepad/binder to your local coffee shop twice a week to work on your book. Here in Victoria we have a large book store called Chapters that has a wonderful coffee shop on the premises, authors can work on their book while being inspired by other authors surrounding them!

I run workshops for first time authors in a “retreat” environment, away from the daily interruptions of life; my choice is a beautiful inspiring environment like Peru or the Copper Canyon in Mexico, the perfect environment to get away from it all! The more I thought about that, the more I realized the mobile binder system I had developed to organize the book writing process was perfect for traveling! A favorite pastime when we go on vacation is to read a book, why not WRITE a book while on vacation, away from those distractions and with plenty of contemplative and inspirational time.

Back in 1998 when I left England and started my journey around the world, I promised my 92-year-old grandma I would write letters to her every 2 weeks.  The next time she saw me was in 2001 when I came back for a visit.  She presented me with a suitcase full of my letters and postcards and told me “now write that book”

That planted the seed that maybe I could write a book, even though I had no writing qualifications.  I did not consider myself to be particularly good at grammar or spelling, but everyone kept telling me I had an interesting life and it would make a good book.  Anyway, I had heard how difficult it was to get your book published as a first time author and that seemed like a lot of hard work.

While I procrastinated my Grandma continued to receive my letters and I continued to travel.

In April 2005 I attended a workshop in Singapore on “how to write your book” and that turned out to be the inspiration and motivation I needed to get me started!  By the end of 2005 I was at the final editing stage and by Feb 2006 I self-published my book.I dedicated my book “A seven year journey around the world – discovering my passion and purpose” in memory of Bea, my grandma who inspired me to write my book.  Not only did she pass away before she saw the book in print, she didn’t even get to know I had actually started work on it, thanks to her.

Don’t let this happen to you!  Write your memoirs before its too late, write that fiction book you’ve been dreaming about, write that business book to promote your business and give you credibility, put all those poems and essays into a book, turn your thesis into a book!  Just start.

Remember, you don’t have to be an expert at grammar or spelling or sentence structure, that is what editors are for!  It is just up to you to tell your story from the heart and get started and take the time to educate yourself with the many resources available to make the task  easy and enjoyable!

Madhan Ind{Yeah}: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flickcoolpix/3566848458/

What is stopping you from sharing your knowledge and experience? Don’t let Fear and Ego get in the way of writing and publishing your book.

The biggest obstacle for writing your book always comes down to fear and ego, these are the top 3 objections:

• Is my story interesting enough?
• Will people be interested in reading it?
• Is my writing good enough?

When in reality you should be asking yourself:

• How can I be of service to others with my book?
• How can I help other people with the knowledge and experience I have?
• How can I best get that knowledge across so it is easy for the reader to understand?

Asking these tough questions up front will help you organize your book with the benefits to the reader always at the forefront of your outline.  The most challenging questions I always ask are at the beginning of my InspireABook™ workshops are:

1. Who is your reader? (i.e. age, sex, demographics, customers, friends, family or specific group i.e. cancer patients, entrepreneurs, parents etc,)
2. What will they learn by reading your book? (i.e. educational, inspirational, motivational etc)

Once you can answer these questions we have learnt the focus of your book and from here we organize your content to always reflect the lessons you want your reader to learn in a way it is easy for them to learn.

I’ll give you some specific examples from my clients in the next post – so stay tuned!

Image supplied under creative commons: Madhan Ind{Yeah}  http://www.flickr.com/photos/flickcoolpix/3566848458/

Individually each of these ideas produces results but used in combination you can create some very powerful results. By the end of this article you will have the opportunity to see how you can use these ideas singly and together in an article.

Making Benefit Statements

If you tell your readers what they can expect to gain by reading your article, chapter, book, web page etc. then they are more likely to follow through. Obviously this needs to be modified slightly for each situation. A 500 word article may only need a paragraph or three bullet points. Whilst a book might have the whole of the first chapter, the front and back cover and the whole contents pages set up to sell the benefits of your book. Then each chapter might also start with benefit statements for that particular section.

Telling the Story

We are all socialised to listening to stories. Think about early childhood and having your parents reading to you in bed. How about your favourite TV programme, films and book? Stories intrigue, fascinate and most importantly for us keep your readers interested. Any anecdote, case study or example livens up the sometimes dry world of instructional text.

The other real benefit of stories is that they “make real” the points you are trying to get across. When used skilfully you can use a story to pre-teach your process or idea before outlining it in full. The result this creates in your reader’s mind is familiarity and therefore they are likely to take the point home more readily.

Opening the Loop

Imagine what would happen to a reader if you told them of three huge benefits they will receive from reading a particular chapter. You then in quick succession outline the first two and then explain each in depth. My guess is that you will keep reading through this to find out about the third, particularly if the third is the biggest and most powerful benefit statement. This is the basic idea of opening a loop.

Here is another way of opening a loop. Perhaps the start of a chapter might be an example of a big result you got from using the techniques you will explain in the chapter. You could build the drama of the story, perhaps the stakes were high and the results were critical with you only just finding the solution to the problem in the very last seconds.

You might even add in some pre-teaching or even how much better your life has become because of you taking on board the lessons you will share in the chapter.

All of a sudden what could have been a lifeless chapter on a specific technique can take on a life of its open and draw your reader into really wanting the information you have to give.

Putting it all together

When I first came across these ideas I was overwhelmed about how I would be able to use them and put them together in a meaningful way. This was because I had not yet really seen how easily these ideas can be put together and used.

What I needed were a couple of examples that I could analyse and work out how the concepts fitted together. So to that end I deliberately wrote two articles specifically packed full of these ideas so you can see how easily these ideas are to put together.

The first is the article you are reading now. Feel free to go back through this article and notice the techniques that I have used. The second is a case study I wrote on my own blog about finding markets. You can find the article here in the NLP Techniques Section.

Final Thoughts

In an upcoming article we will talk about techniques you can use to get your readers to backtrack and re-read sections that are important as well as anticipate what is coming up in new chapters. I will see you in a future article where we will explore these concepts more fully.

There are almost 1,000 fans of writing over here on Facebook.  We believe, “The written word will impact someone’s life today.” This page gives you  writing prompts as well as inspiration for writing.  Above all, we encourage you to just begin writing and see where it can take you and what it can do for you.

So, go pick up a pen, or open up a word document on your computer, and just start writing.  You’ll be glad that you did!  And if you get stuck, come and join us on the Writing Fans page and get some inspiration.