On Becoming a Public Speaker
It’s All About Faith, Belief, and Works
An article from the Free Spirit Blog, by Marvin D Wilson
Today we are talking about public speaking. You have already decided, you’re going to line up TV and radio talk shows and interviews, get booths at markets and fairs to sell your stuff, do book signings, give talks at libraries, church socials and other social groups and clubs, teach a class, give a speech at someone else’s class on your subject of expertise, you’re going to line up a whole roster of events and appearances. But for some there is still one problem.
You are scared (bleep)less!
Have no fear, your edifying friend Marvin is here! What was it Winston Churchill said? “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Oh, I know, I know, easier said than done. Nice rhetoric, but how am I supposed to overcome my fear of public speaking by quoting some famous deceased statesman? I break out in hives at the mere thought of being in front of a room full of people! Been that way all my life!
Well, waa, waa, waa … get over it. Look, you have to do this. And, you CAN do it. I believe in you. You’ve written a book. That means you’re a talented person. It means you are intelligent. You can reason, reflect, speculate, consider, calculate, work your craft, and make informed choices. It’s time to choose to get over your fear of speaking. Right now.
Now, if you’ve never so much as introduced yourself in front of a Sunday school class before, I’m not suggesting you start off with a keynote address to a national convention of thousands of people. That would be psychological and emotional suicide. No, I’m suggesting you set yourself up to succeed. Start small. Baby steps. There’s a personal development technique I learned years ago called “stepping outside your comfort zone.”
We all have a comfort zone (let’s acronym it for brevity here – CZ). We have a CZ for noise, for proximity of strangers, for habitat, for temperature, for love and intimacy, for financial security - for every aspect of our lives, we establish CZ’s and love to stay within them, hanging onto our security blankets, contained within our little circles, our bubbles of coziness, as if we’ll get eaten alive by rabies-infested hobgoblins if we let go and step outside our beloved CZ’s.
Well, you know what? Your CZ’s are exactly what is holding you back from busting loose, from getting free, from becoming all that you can be. That entire whole being that God and the universe intends and wants you to be. So, start moving (carefully at first) out of your CZ. You don’t want to leap WAY out of your CZ right away, because you will probably get burned and your resulting gun-shyness will cause your CZ to shrink as a result. Diminishing returns. Trust me, I know, that’s what happens in most cases. (Been there) There are rare quantum leaper exceptions. Only you can know if that cosmic shoe fits. I recommend for most of us, that we take baby steps. Here are some ideas.
Join your local Toastmasters. This is excellent training with people exactly where you are at. Take a class at your local junior college or university on public speaking. Stand up in front of your family gatherings, get everyone’s attention, and pronounce to them all that you have just published a book and then tell them why it is so great and why they should not only support a family member with their purchase, but also talk you and your profferings up to their friends and co-workers and encourage them to do themselves a favor by obtaining some of your books also. Do some networking and form a local social group of people just like you who want to overcome their fears, get out of their CZ on speaking. Meet weekly and give presentations to each other and give constructive critiques of each other’s performances. Invite a professional speaker you know to come to your meeting, give a talk and then listen to yours and share his or her knowledge with you and critique your speeches. This is all safe stuff! Nobody gets hurt … well not too much – a little pain is going to be necessary. As the old Zen saying goes, “No pain, no gain.” But it’s worth it. You will grow and gain in confidence as a result of making yourself vulnerable to the candid and honest opinions of those who care about you.
An interjection is apropos here. Those jitters? The stage fright? That queasiness in your stomach? It never goes away. For some more than others it will to some degree, but for all performers worth their salt, there is always an element of nervousness before a performance. It means you care. Get used to it and get over it. It’s actually good for you! Adrenalin rushes through your body – it peaks your attention, your awareness. Your nerve endings are tingling – great! You are sooooo alive! Barbara Streisand, arguably one of the greatest singers of all time, used to literally throw up before every performance. She would puke! Then she’d collect herself, go out and mesmerize her audience with her dazzle, her maxi, her fabulous talent. The moral of this interjection? Your fears are your best friend. Embrace them. Thank them, and use them to your advantage. Do you know what the difference between a coward and a hero is? A coward is afraid and runs away. A hero is also afraid, but pushes on anyway. Okay, let’s move on.
Next step? All right, your precious little circle of comfort, your CZ has been “stretched” – it’s bigger now. Now stretch it out some more. You follow my drift? Whenever you’ve achieved a larger CZ, push it out a little further. From toastmaster and freshman class courses and speaking to friends, family and church/social club/class members, you go on to requesting to speak to a local meeting of the AARP or the AA, or the MAD, or the (fill in the blank with whatever fits your genre/demographic and area of expertise) – step out and start speaking to people who don’t know you. Big step. But not so big you can’t handle it after all the preparation you’ve done.
Get comfortable with that CZ, then stretch your CZ some more. Repeat the cycle, over and over, until you are no longer comfortable being comfortable.
Repeat those last seven words to yourself. Absorb them.
Repeat them again. Absorb them some more. Meditate more on them. Now personalize it.
I am no longer comfortable being comfortable.
There is no growth in comfort, you dig? If you are not moving forward, you are falling back. Stagnation is recession, because your competition is always moving forward. The world stops for no one.
Eventually, if you commit to this regimen of personal growth, you will be confident enough to appear on live TV and be interviewed on live radio, to speak with authority in front of hundreds. But keep pushing, keep stretching. Never let your CZ hold you back from the next stage of growth. That’s where I’m at right now. Speaking to hundreds. I want more. I want to grow more, to be more. Do you? Take up the challenge with me. Set your goal right now to one day be the keynote speaker at that national convention in front of thousands that we talked about (in fear) earlier. Picture it. You are there. You deliver your speech; you receive a standing ovation, sign three hundred fifty hundred copies of your purchased books afterwards, and have invitations to speak all across the nation (and around the world) from thenceforth. Can you believe it? If you can believe it, if you really believe it and are willing to do whatever it takes, step out of your comfort zone every time it gets too “comfortable,” it will happen.
It’s all about faith, belief, and works.
Read Marvin's blogs at: http://inspiritandtruths.blogspot.com/
I’m a New Author. What is the Best Way to Get Published?
Having gone through the daunting and laborious task of getting that first book published, I thought I’d take some time and write down some things I’ve learned along the way. Maybe some talented new writer can read this and cut down on the amount of frustration, confusion, and anxiety that I went through trying to break through the barrier from “amateur writer” to “published author.” As the published author of only two books so far (as of the date of this writing), I am certainly no senior writing sage – don’t profess to be. However, I am a quick learner, and I think that if you are new to this industry, you will find my observations and recommendations more than sophomoric. Let’s get started.
First, you have to know what you want, and at the same time you must be realistic in your expectations. Unless you are already famous, in the literary world you are an unknown. If you have never so much as had a magazine or newspaper article published, never hosted a successful blog, never had so much as a poem in print anywhere, no literary resume of any weight, you have to realize that NOBODY KNOWS YOU, and NOBODY CARES that you’ve written a book, even though you may believe it’s the next great American novel. Your friends and family have read your manuscript. They may be filling your head with affirmations of how wonderful your precious book is, encouraging you to get it published, assuring you that you are at least equal to Stephen King and will most surely be fantastically successful.
Probably not. Not with your first go-around. Maybe not even with your second or third or fourth book. The King himself went through decades of living as the starving artist before his breakthrough novel “Carrie” vaulted him into “overnight” success. (Read “On Writing” by Stephen King. This is mandatory reading for all aspiring authors). Trying to get a major publisher or literary agent to pick you up (as a novice) is about as easy as herding cats, and as much fun as a root canal. If you go about it the wrong way, you may well become despondent, frustrated, and give up. This article is intended to help you find your way with some clear proven methods of getting your writing career up and running.
So, let’s get started. Here are your down-to-earth choices, Mr. or Mrs. Novice Author. There are four choices available to you.
Here are your real four choices-
1. Self-publish
2. Go with a vanity press.
3. Go with a POD.
4. Get a contract with a small traditional publishing house.
Choice number one: you can self-publish. This is a monumental undertaking. You buy your own ISBN number, you copyright the work yourself, you produce the cover art (or pay an artist for it), you hire a printing press to produce the copies (Amazon.com now has a self-pub option with BookSurge that makes it a little easier, I’ve been told), and then you seek a distributor to distribute your books (which you probably will not be able to get) or you market and sell your books yourself. True self-publishing makes sense only if your work is too controversial for any publisher to print, or if your book relates only to a small geographic area, or perhaps if you just want to produce a textbook for a class you are teaching in some obscure subject that you are an expert at – these types of scenarios. Otherwise, it’s too much work (for this author) to take on.
While the next two options are often (mistakenly) called “self-publishing,” they are actually not. These are publishers that do it (all that work we discussed above) for a fee. They are the vanity presses and the POD (print on demand) publishers. Some of the better known ones are iUniverse, XLibris and AuthorHouse. But there are hundreds of them, just do a Google search. Although they are the easiest way to publish (with many of them, you just pay a fee and they’ll publish it, even if what you’ve written is the most pathetic drivel ever penned). So if you are with me so far, we are now left with two other choices. Get with a good POD publisher, or go for a small traditional publisher’s contract. Let’s talk the POD route first.
A good POD publisher will have standards. The more respectable the outfit, the higher the standards. They don’t publish just any crap. You will in most cases need to submit a query letter to get their attention. You also need to investigate the company enough to know if they are accepting submissions and/or queries at this time. Remember, they are small; they can only publish so many books in any given year. Nowadays they all have websites, so go there and read up on them. Find out what genres they accept and which they do not. Most do not want a full manuscript submission before reading your query. If they like your query, they will usually ask for a sample first three chapters.
Know this: submission guidelines vary so do your homework. Your book could miss a chance at being published just because you didn’t take the time to read up on how a particular publishing house wants you to submit your query/sample/manuscript. That nettles veterans in the industry. If you are too unprofessional to read and follow simple submission instructions, or for some reason can’t read, they don’t want anything to do with you. Remember, these are professionals. They’ve been at this a long time, and they can smell an unpromising slow-learning amateur from a continent away.
After reading your query and sample, if they still like what they are reading, they will likely ask to read the whole manuscript. Then, and only then, (and after an agonizing long wait, most cases – I’m talking months - really) will you find out if you have landed a publisher willing to publish your work. So, first off, you need to learn how to write an effective, attention-getting, professional looking query letter. There are plenty of sources for tutorials on the do’s and don’ts of writing a good query letter. Do a Google search. Two sources I highly recommend from personal experience are Carolyn Howard Johnson’s book, The Frugal Book Promoter, and Janet Elaine Smith's Promo Paks.
So here are some of the advantages of going the traditional route:
A) They pay all the expenses to publish your book. You have no out of pocket costs. Unless, that is, they don’t have an in-house editor to your liking and/or standards and you need to hire one. And, a side note here, you must use a good editor. Even the best authors with dozens of best-sellers already to their credit have an editor. Even editors use another editor for their own books. As the author, you often cannot “see” what is actually on the page. You think it’s there, but it’s not clear or missing altogether – or visa versa. Good editors will spot timeline inconsistencies, character trait/speech inconsistencies, poor sentence and paragraph structure; I could go on and on. This is mandatory – use an editor, a good one. Back to the advantages.
B) Small traditional publishers still allow you a large amount of control over your work. You will still most likely have the say in what the cover looks like. The company I worked with, (Cambridge Books) even welcomes the author submitting the cover art his or herself if they have it. If they like your manuscript enough to pay to publish it, they probably won’t demand that you rework it in any major way.
Now some disadvantages to consider.
A) As with POD’s, small traditional publishing houses do not have staff and budgets to market your book for you. You are just as alone here as with the POD’s. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
B) When I say “small” traditional publisher, that’s exactly what I mean. You have not hit the big time. Getting your first “real” contract can lull you into a deadly slumber, thinking you’ve “made it” and have no work to do except write for a living from now on. Your book could go nowhere, and probably will, unless you start promoting and marketing the living bejeebers out of it starting months before the expected release date.
C) You make less money on the sale per book. Since the publisher has shelled out the bucks to publish your book, they take a higher cut of the proceeds from sales. Your royalties will be a smaller percentage than with POD’s, and your net ROI will be somewhat less on personal sales than with a POD publisher.
Article written by Marvin D Wilson
AVATAR Award-Winning Author
New Novel Website: www.owenfiddler.com
MySpace at: www.myspace.com/Paize_Fiddler
FREE SPIRIT Blog at: http://inspiritandtruths.blogspot.com/
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Email Marvin at: marvwilson2010@gmail.com