Jan 13 2006

Lenses As Books: Part Two

As any good author will tell you, the work is only just beginning when you turn in the finished manuscript.

Promotion and passion are the two defining principles that take authors (and their book sales) from good to great.

Would you write a book, put it on the shelves at your local Barnes&Noble, and sit back and hope people sniff it out? Would you spend time on something you’re proud of, then ignore it?

No, you’d send it to friends. You’d post it on whatever signposts you know. You’d talk. You’d listen. You’d hope people liked your work, and that it inspired them. You might even hope your book made a difference, no matter how small.

Our best lensmasters act like great authors. They promote, with passion. They email their lenses to friends. They blog about them. They watch them and update them. They check the Squidoo Top 100 list, just as authors follow the Amazon bestseller list.

Why do they do this? Is it an inflated ego? Not really. Is it because they’re hoping to become independently wealthy off of their lenses? Not yet.

It’s because it feels good when people get it. It feels good to help, to educate, to connect, to change minds, to meet readers, to be the expert.

Quick! What's Squidoo?

Squidoo is the popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy for you to create "lenses" online. Lenses are pages, kind of like flyers or signposts or overview articles, that gather everything you know about your topic of interest – and snap it all into focus. It's a supersimple, fun and powerful way to share your interests, build your online identity and credibility, and connect with new readers and friends. It's all free, and you could even earn a royalty for charity or yourself!

Get Started!

Tweets