Writing

, ,

PIVOT Launches Today! Unboxing + Early Highlights

, ,

HAPPY PIVOT LAUNCH DAY!! I can't believe it's here. After three years of preparing for this moment, now the serendipity lottery tickets truly go on sale.

What's next? Although I have hypotheses, in other ways I have no clue which of my next pilots will pick up steam. And as I learned from writing this book, that is A-OK. 

I can't wait to see what bubbles up next, and for all of you to read the book—or listen if Audible is more your style :). Thank you all for the love and support along the way—I am grateful beyond words. 

The most helpful thing you can do this week in addition to social sharing: leave an Amazon review once you've read the book (and thumbs-up other reviews you find helpful). Thank you in advance!!

Early Highlights

I have had such a blast recording podcasts, doing interviews, writing articles, and ninjafying my own business systems (aka digital nesting) to prepare for the extra traffic 'round JBE digital HQ. 

Some favorites:

Here's an Unboxing video of me seeing my book in hardcover for the first time:

Me and James jamming in the studio for our podcast double-header:

Launch Week Momentum

Here are some actions that will make a big difference: 

  • Spread the word via email. Do you know someone at a pivot point in their career or business? I would love for you to send an email to anyone you know who is searching for an answer to “what’s next?” and could benefit from a step-by-step guide to figure that out. If you have a newsletter, online community or other big platform you can include the blurb in, that’s a super bonus! You can find blurb copy here.

  • I have also created a fun Pivotability Self-Assessment where people can take a short 5-minute survey to determine their Pivot Profile. 

  • Amazon review on launch day. This will be a huge help!! Reviews are a huge signal to potential readers that the book is worth their time and a very strong positive momentum/social proof signal as well. Extra credit: copy and paste your review into Goodreads if you’re on that platform too :)  

  • Super Duper Bonus: Purchase more than one copy. Either buy a book for a friend, or if you work within an organization, see if there’s budget to buy a copy for everyone on your team. If you buy 10 books, you’ll get an Actionable Conversation workshop-in-a-box for free ($500 value) to facilitate a one-hour lunch-and-learn session with your group. I’ll be doing a free webinar with Actionable Conversations on 9/8 where you can learn more about this.  

Now let's go rock this launch week!! 

I'll report back on how it all goes soon :) 

 
,

Been Itching to Write a Book? Join me for a Live 5 Day Book Ninja 101 in May

,

Written by Jenny Blake

I can hardly believe it, but the Pivot manuscript is DONE! D-O-N-E, done. Last week I turned in the very last paper “first pass” edit on Pivot, and now we work on finalizing the cover before sending it off to galley printing (advance copies for media) before the September 6 launch.

It is crazy to think how close this book is to launching. For three years this project had taken up residence in a very large portion of my brain. Only when it was out of my consciousness did I realize how all-consuming it had been, churning in my sleep, my waking hours, my walks, and my showers. Now I'm able to take a step back and share more of my process.

Wondering how long it takes to write a book? Check out last month’s behind-the-business episode of the Pivot Podcast. On Kevin John’s The Writing Coach podcast, I also discuss how surrender and serendipity are playing a bigger role in my launch planning this time around. And I'm very excited to bring you a live 5-day series in May. Introducing . . .

BOOK NINJA 101: 5 Days of Live Workshops

bookninja_640
bookninja_640

Been itching to write a book but not sure where to start? Or in the middle of one but stuck on what’s next? Join me for the week-long Book Ninja course in May with soup-to-nuts practical, tactical tips for generating momentum and getting published.

As one of my book mentors Michael Larsen once said to me, “It is no longer a question of if you will get published, but when and how.” This course includes five live workshops during the week of May 16 (at 3pm ET), with recordings if you can’t make it.

Early birds: if you join Momentum by April 17, you will get this course for free and receive an advance copy ofPivot when the galleys are sent out in May!

Here is what we will cover:

  • Monday, May 16: Systems for Outlining, Researching, Writing, and Editing—Fresh off a three-year marathon of writing Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, I will share my best tips and tools for every stage of the book writing process: how to organize ideas and research, outline the book, chunk writing into bite-sized essays, and how to get unstuck when you hit book block.
  • Tuesday, May 17: Craft a One-Page Book Pitch with Jennie Nash—Jennie will introduce her simple tool for harnessing your idea, framing your marketing strategy, and knowing how to answer when someone says, “What’s your book about?”
  • Wednesday, May 18: Traditional Publishing Q&A with my editor at Portfolio/Penguin Random House, Natalie Horbachevsky—A conversation with my genius editor, Natalie, in which I get to ask everything I have always wanted to know too! We will dig into tips for landing a coveted “Big Five” book deal, what she looks for in terms of platform, what types of big ideas are most appealing to publishers, her role as editor throughout the process, what motivates her to proactively reach out to an author (scouting), and if self-publishing first helps or hurts. You can also submit questions too, and I’ll be sure we cover them!
  • Thursday, May 19: Self-Publishing Success with Taylor Pearson—An in-depth conversation with Taylor Pearson about self-publishing his book The End of Jobs to smashing success—how he sold 5K copies in the first month, 12K to-date, made $35K in resulting revenue, and grew his list by 500%. For a sneak peek at what he will be sharing, check out his post Jesus Marketing.
  • Friday, May 20: Open Q&A with Jenny (+ Special Bonus): Map what’s next for your book project, and ask me anything that is still on your mind. We’ll also do a round-robin sharing (optional) for committing to next steps. All members of the course and the Momentum Community will receive access to my super secret work in progress, the 20+ page Behind-the-Book toolkit, including my proposal template that landed the Penguin deal, my writing tracker template, book tour planning process, and more.

Enroll in Book Ninja here ($125), or get the course for free when you join Momentum, which includes every course and template I have ever created ($700 value), live monthly workshops, and optional private office hours calls with me.

About Jenny

Jenny Blake Headshot - Author, Speaker, Career Strategist
Jenny Blake Headshot - Author, Speaker, Career Strategist

Jenny Blake is the author of Life After College and the forthcoming book Pivot. She isa career and business strategist and an international speaker who helps smart people organize their brain, move beyond burnout, and build sustainable, dynamic careers they love. Jenny combines her love of technology with her superpower of simplifying complexity to help clients through big transitions — often to pivot in their career or launch a book, blog or business.Today you can find her here on this blog (in its 9th year!) and at JennyBlake.me, where she explores the intersection of mind, body and business. Follow her on Twitter @jenny_blake.

,

Want to Write 50K Bloggable Words with Me in November?

,

Written by Jenny Blake If you haven't yet heard from my post at JennyBlake.me, we got a book deal! This post will catch you up on all the highlights: recent announcements, piv0t-related resources, book deal behind-the-scenes, and a NaNoBlogMo group that I'm hosting in Novemeber. Let's dig in! 

About the Book

The Pivot Method will be published in hardcover by Portfolio/Penguin in early 2016, one of the top business and career imprints, and I could not be more thrilled.

Penguin Lobby(View from the Portfolio/Penguin Lobby before my big meeting . . . I pretty much died and went to Heaven . . . and yes, this is exactly what my view of Heaven looks like!)

Portfolio/Penguin is home to books by Seth Godin, Richard Branson, Ryan Holiday, Pamela Slim, and many other "new media" authors like me. Now I've gotta get cookin' on writing! A solid first draft is due in April.

I will be documenting my writing process and systems to share with you along the way, and more importantly, I want to write this book WITH you and FOR you. It's critical that I write what you actually want and need, so I'll be sending surveys, holding phone calls, and creating a course in the new year to help "prototype" and pilot the ideas in the book with your feedback (fitting in with my Pivot Method process too, as it were!).

Make sure you’re subscribed to my behind-the-business updates and following my blog at JennyBlake.me to get all the insider news.

Pithy description is still a work in progress (especially since the book isn’t written yet!), but here’s a quick overview:

In The Pivot Method, The Lean Startup meets a personal playbook for change.

Borrowing from the Silicon Valley mindset of building lean, agile companies that thrive under conditions of risk and uncertainty, so too can we become more fluid in our own lives. The Pivot Method is a blueprint for becoming more resilient in a rapidly-evolving economy, and includes a three-step process for methodically navigating major career changes by starting from a foundation of what is already working.

This book is geared toward anyone who values growth and impact. Individuals will learn how to take calculated risks to pivot within and outside of organizations, and leaders will walk away with strategies to engage and retain top talent.

Plan Your Next Pivot

I'm also thrilled to be a part of General Assembly's Find Your Fit series. It features 7 experts who share everything from job hunting, to personal branding, to pivoting your career (hey, that's me!). Don't miss my video series on how to stay competitive in your field and make your next career transition a success by starting with small experiments.

General Assembly is also offering newcomers a one month free trial of Front Row, their unlimited all-access service to both live and on-demand streaming classes for a number of topics in tech, business, and design.

Book Deal Behind-the-Scenes

For those curious about the deal-making process, check out this newsletter recap and two very scrappy "podcast" calls I recorded recently:

Part One: Behind the Scenes of the Proposal and Book Deal

Part Two: Behind the Scenes of Organizing, Writing and Gremlin-Taming

*Transcripts and referenced images coming soon!

Do you have questions about the process? If so, include them in the comments below! I may not be able to respond to each individually, but I will continue recording pseudo-podcasts that answer anything and everything you're curious about. So often big things like this are hidden in a black box . . . and that's not what I'm about!

You're Invited: A NaNoBlogMo Group!

November marks National Novel Writing Month (abbreviated as NaNoWriMo), which started in 1999. The goal is to produce 50,000 words of a novel in one month. I've never been insane enough to attempt it, but this year feels worth a shot given that I've got a book to write anyway.

Since most of you reading are bloggers not novel writers, I'm setting up a very informal group called NaNoBlogMo via Google Spreadsheet to keep us all motivated for daily whatever writing, while still aiming for 1,000 words a day.

I've been tracking daily writing routines with my good friend Alexis Grant in another spreadsheet, and it has been a big boost so far.

If you're interested in joining the NaNoBlogMo Crew, add your name to a blank row of this spreadsheet. Each day we'll all input the number of words we've written, and I'll likely hold a cheerleading/Q&A Calls during the month as well. Mostly, I'm doing this to hold myself accountable for writing every day, no matter how busy or tired I feel. No excuses! I know it will be more fun with all of you there too :)

[Tweet This] Signed up for @jenny_blake's NaNoBlogMo group—join the crazy train to attempt 50,000 bloggable words in November: http://bit.ly/nanoblogmo

About Jenny

Jenny Blake Headshot - Author, Speaker, Career StrategistJenny Blake is the author of Life After College and the forthcoming book The Pivot Method. She is a career and business strategist and an international speaker who helps smart people organize their brain, move beyond burnout, and build sustainable, dynamic careers they love. Jenny combines her love of technology with her superpower of simplifying complexity to help clients through big transitions — often to pivot in their career or launch a book, blog or business.

Today you can find her here on this blog (in it's seventh year!) and at JennyBlake.me, where she explores the intersection of mind, body and business. Follow her on Twitter @jenny_blake.