Halo Effect (Tap into Colleagues and Influencers on Your First Book)

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

- John Donne

Professional golfers, who mostly compete for individual honors, know they can’t do it alone. Each golfer has a full entourage: caddy, swing coach, short game coach, personal trainer, a therapist for when they’re in a slump and an accountant when they’re winning prize money, and an attorney to handle all the endorsement deals.

A NASCAR driver makes 500 miles of continuous left-turns at close to 200 m.p.h. with no one else in the car, but does so with a full support crew in the pit: gas man, tire changers, statistician, and a guy who wipes down the windshield and the driver’s visor in an open cockpit car. In the movie Rush, the pit mechanic drilled a hole in the driver’s visor with a manual drill, so the visor wouldn’t fog up during a rainstorm. All professional racing teams today employ a Chief Information Officer (CIO) who gathers and packages the terabytes of data gathered from over 100 sensors on the car during a race.

Even with all the intense solitude, independence, intense personal motivation and individual drive required for an author to focus on producing a book, there will be a whole team in the background, from the obscure phase all the way to the famous phase:

· Geek Squad IT Guy (or Girl)
· Intern/Gofer
· Researcher Assistant
· Editor
· Proofreader
· Fact Checker
· Book Formatting Designer
· Book Cover Designer
· Book Jacket head shot photographer
· Illustrator
· Agent
· Publisher
· Personal assistant
· Publicist
· Travel Arranger (for book tours)
· Lawyer
· Stylist
· Bodyguard
· Chauffeur

Okay, Lone Ranger, here are some other people you should identify and cultivate in the course of your book project.

Early Reader a.k.a. “Friend of the Program”

Recruit three to four volunteers who know you and know your topic. Float the working title of the book with them. Share an early chapter list or overall Table of Contents. Share sample chapters.

By all means, don’t overwhelm them with the whole book unless they are a) retired, b) on maternity leave c) have an upcoming LA to Mumbai flight and no reading material selected.

Strike a balance between good cop and bad cop early readers. You don’t want relentless praise or harsh, brutal criticism. You want honest feedback and someone who can spot the major gaps in your work.

You will want someone who either represents or understands deeply your topic and the ideal reader/audience demographic.

You don’t need a middle school grammar teacher on the advance team. That can come later.

You can’t always pay these people but you can thank them in your Acknowledgements section.

Beware of tapping into family members or work subordinates, who might go lightly on you.

Avoid writers or critics who do not approach the book with a sense of organic development, who will critique the book on the merits of the work itself, and not the way they would write it.

If you can find someone who is published, with an agent and a publisher, terrific. The danger will be in thinking that your book can follow their formula. That’s fairly rare; every first book has its own break-through story.

Back Cover Blurb Writer/Amazon Advocate
Out of your early reader cohort, there will be someone who really gets the book.

I try to strike a balance on back cover blurbs, between an insightful comment (credibility) and a name brand expert in your field, in what is known as the “halo effect,” credibility by association.

And you can never have too many “blurbers.” Fill your back cover with the most prominent plugs, and move the overflow to the inside front cover pages. You should be so lucky.

These individuals can also help you with Amazon reviews once the book is published.

Often blurb candidates will be too busy to write you something. It’s quite acceptable to ghostwrite a blurb on behalf of someone, but getting the real thing is the best option.

Foreword Fanatic
This is the highest honor and the priciest real estate. You invite a well-known person to write the Foreword to the book, ahead of your personal Introduction. And make sure you align the Foreword author with the book topic.

Even if Neil Young is your second cousin, is he really the right person to write the Foreword on your golf-themed book? I’d rather get a lesser known PGA tour player who can not only validate your book’s premise but also help with the market appeal, to the golfer demographic. If Neil Young actually plays golf then that beats nothing.

Influencers
Whenever I start a book project for a client, I ask them to tell me all the prominent authors and books in the field. I will then take a deep dive on the Amazon book site, looking at an Influential book’s publication date (is it a new or stale?), publisher (self-published or established publisher), page count (pamphlet or hefty volume), and list price (paperback, hardback and Kindle).

I’ll read the reviews and the author bios. I will look at what Amazon’s algorithm tells me is a book often purchased by the influential book’s readers.

I will also scour the professional organizations and conferences associated with influencers. I will look at video clips of their keynote and panel presentations, their Ted talks, or podcasts. I’ll look at their websites such as you find for Michael Hyatt and Simon Sinek or Seth Godin.

Sign-up for influencer emails. Immerse yourself in the world of authors who make a great living from their books and related products.

I might try to make sure I quote one these influencers in the book, in an epigraph or a brief tactical citation, a subtle name drop so the reader associates their name with my ideas.

Lastly, I start listing all the Influencers in an Excel file, which I later convert to a “Further Reading” list I put at the back. It’s a great bonus feature for a book to say, “If you liked this topic, you might also like books to help you explore the topic further.”

The boldest move of all is to network with and cultivate an Influencer, to see if they might be willing to write a back cover blurb or write your Foreword. You may not pull that off with a first book, but eventually, if you have the real goods and publishing momentum, and you become an Influencer, they just might come around.

Writing your first book is not a solo effort, by any means. Start picking your support team today.

Note: This post is a chapter excerpt from my forthcoming book “Big Splash: Creating Your First Business Book in Less Than Six Months”