Going Outside My Comfort Zone

Hi Manuscript Workers,

This is just a quick note to let you know about a couple things coming up this week. On Monday, August 9th, I’m going to be doing something I’ve never done before, which is going on Instagram Live to talk about The Book Proposal Book! I’m going to be in conversation with Dr. LaNysha Adams, dissertation coach and founder of Edlinguist Solutions at 9:15am PDT / 12:15pm EDT, to chat about what inspired The Book Proposal Book and what I hope it will do out in the world. You can find Dr. Adams on Instagram at @edlinguist.

I have a nascent little Instagram account for Manuscript Works (@manuscriptworks) that I don’t update as often as I should but will hopefully get ramped up more regularly later in the fall. One thing I like about running my own business is the freedom to experiment and say yes to opportunities that let me stretch outside my comfort zone a little bit. The Instagram account is part of that, and the Instagram Live is definitely something that makes me a little nervous, but when Dr. Adams invited me for a chat I figured it would be fun to try at least once.

If you’re a person who shies away from self-promotion, but has a book or some other project that you really do want people to know about, I hope this little experiment of mine inspires you to say “yes” to an opportunity that comes your way. You might find it’s not so scary after all, or that it is scary but you can do scary things. And the bonus will be that more people will benefit from knowing about what you’ve been working on!

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The other big event for Manuscript Works this week is the kick-off of my free 5-day challenge on Wednesday, August 11th (another first for me). If you’ve got an idea for a scholarly book—whether you’ve written the manuscript yet or not—I’ll walk you through a series of steps to figure out which publishers would be the best fit for your project.

The challenge will be right for you if you’re:

• A first-time author feeling lost in the publishing process

• A previously published author who wants to feel more in control of the process this time around

• An author who has no idea where you should publish your book

• An author who already has an idea of where you should publish but knows you need to be able to make a strong case as to why your book is a good fit when you pitch it

• Someone who wants to meet and share ideas with others who are at the same stage

• A nerds who likes worksheets and checklists

After the challenge is over, I’ll have a few next steps you can take if you want more help getting your proposal and pitch ready for publishers. I’ll say more about those in my next newsletter.

Hope you have a great week and aren’t too overwhelmed out there!