Bryan Heathman's Blog

Life doesn’t always give you what you expect. Sometimes you do everything right, just the way you’re supposed to, but things don’t turn out the way you planned.

If you’re a speaker or non-fiction author who’s using the device of storytelling to make your point, the Hero’s Journey gives a compelling blueprint for crafting your tale. You can grip your audience and leave a lasting impression with the power of a compelling story.

In our last article, The Road of Trials, we saw that our hero was on the brink of earning the right to return home. But first, he must work hard to earn it to earn that right. The task seemed impossible, but the hero launched into it nonetheless.

After you write about the twisting, turning Road of Trials, the hero reached the end of his journey and returned to meet up with a wise and powerful helper, or Mentor. This wise one could grant the hero his greatest wish which is what fueled the hero on his tortuous path.

No matter how much the hero may struggle, his cunning, ingenuity and personal strength have seen him through. The help of unseen forces has paved the way. Now the hero returns to claim the reward that should, by all rights, be his.

When all the barriers have been overcome, the Mentor agrees to meet the hero. It’s at this point that we now find our hero face to face with the Mentor. This is the final test of talent for the hero to win the boon, the prize that has motivated him throughout his entire journey.

As you write, your Mentor represents the totality of what can be known about the hero’s goal and his struggles to reach it. If the hero has done well, then he has earned an audience with the Mentor and expects to be rewarded. His expectations may or may not be met, as this is at your discretion. But the audience with the Mentor is the device that fuels the story forward.

The Wizard ain’t a Wizard

In this series of writing tips to create a compelling story arc for non-fiction writers, we’ve been following the trials and triumphs of Dorothy in the Land of Oz. We use the Wizard of Oz story to help create a mental picture, or framework if you will, while you create your story.

Dorothy and her companions traveled to the Emerald City to ask the great Wizard to grant their wishes. The Scarecrow is seeking a brain, the Tinman wants a heart, and the Lion wants courage. Dorothy’s only wish is to return home to Kansas.

For each request, the Wizard of Oz gave them the same task: kill the Wicked Witch of the West. This seemed not only impossible to the travelers, but to the Wizard himself.

We only learn this last tidbit when the heroes return to the Emerald City triumphant and the Wizard demurs. The companions bring news that the Wicked Witch is dead, melted when Dorothy threw a pale of water on her. Can you picture the “I’m melting!” scene? But the Wizard plays hard to get.

Now, check-out the plot twist the writer of the Oz story throws into his tale…

The companions expect to have an audience with the Wizard right away, though they are disappointed. Several days pass without word from him until finally they grow impatient and demand to see him at once. They threaten to enlist the aid of the Winged Monkeys against the Wizard if he won’t grant them an audience.

Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain

Properly subdued, the Wizard agrees to see the travelers. Much to their surprise, they are led into the throne room of the Great and Powerful Oz only to find a common man hiding behind a screen.

Dorothy and the others find out that the Wizard of Oz is really just a humbug. The Wizard agrees. He even tells them, “I’m really a very good man, but I’m a very bad Wizard, I must admit.”

At this point in their adventure, the Wizard tells them the story of how he came from Omaha quite unexpectedly one day. He was working at a fair when he lost control of his hot air balloon. The wind carried him for a day and night over a vast desert, and then the balloon gently touched down in the Land of Oz.

The people of Oz assumed he was a Wizard since he came from the clouds. He let them think so because they feared and respected him, and it suited his purposes. They made him their ruler, so he ordered them to build him a palace along with the Emerald City.

The city is a beautiful place abundant in jewels, precious metals, and “every good thing that is needed to make one happy.” The Wizard’s only fear has been the Wicked Witches (poor misunderstood Elphaba) and the fear of getting found out as a humbug, not a Wizard.

Once he tells Dorothy and her friends his story, they’re moved with compassion. Then Oz grants the wishes of Dorothy’s traveling companions, drawing upon the contents of his cupboard. He bestows courage on the Cowardly Lion, gives a heart to the Tinman and brains to the Scarecrow.

Despite his best efforts, the Wizard despairs. “It will take more than imagination to carry Dorothy back to Kansas, and I’m sure I don’t know how it can be done.”

Just as Dorothy begins to despair that she won’t be able to return home, the Wizard comes up with a plan. He will make a new hot air balloon and pilot Dorothy back across the desert, leaving the wise Scarecrow to govern the Emerald City in his place.

The city is abuzz with activity as Dorothy and Oz prepare to make the journey home. On the point of departure, though, a sudden twist of fate means Dorothy must stay behind and the Wizard of Oz must travel across the desert alone.

5 Steps for Meeting with the Mentor

For your hero to meet with the Mentor, here are five things you can do:

Upon returning from the Road of Trials, the hero seeks an audience with the Mentor to claim his reward.
The hero meets with the Mentor.
The Mentor proposes the method that will allow the hero to receive his reward.
Preparations are made for the hero’s reward.
Despite the promise of fulfillment, the hero must continue his journey and travel back across the threshold the way he came.

So, you may be asking why does your story need all these twists and turns to the plot? This is a tool called Creative Tension. It gets your reader emotionally invested in the story and they insert themselves into the plot.

Though at first it seemed the four companions would get none of what they wished for, Oz used the wisdom of his years to create a plan to grant each of their requests. The Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion were all given the gifts they’d always wanted.

And as for Dorothy? She very nearly goes home with the Wizard, but for one final mishap. This Hero’s Journey is nearly done, but not quite. Coming up, you’ll discover how the writer creates the Ultimate Boon. Stay tuned!

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing and the host of the Download now from the App Store

The Road of Trials

“In the grand scheme of things,” an author once told me, “there are no mistakes, only tests and lessons.” She was talking about a chapter from her own life—a trip along what I call the Road of Trials—but the principle can easily be applied as we trace the Hero’s Journey.

In fact and fiction, a single choice can mean the difference between comfort and toil, between wealth and poverty, even between life and death.

So far we have taken a detailed look at the craft of storytelling as it applies to the world of non-fiction and keynote speaking.

We met a hero, watched him leave home on an adventure, and have seen him in his darkest hour. But the tests are far from over. In fact, the pressure increases as the hero journeys along the Road of Trials.

This part of the adventure unfolds as the hero meets a series of seemingly unconquerable challenges in his quest to meet his ultimate goal. These might be deliberately designed to test him, or they may be incidental, a by-product of the adventure itself.

Would You Believe… Flying Monkeys?

One classic illustration of the Hero’s Journey can be found in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, as young Dorothy tries to get back to her home in Kansas from the Land of Oz.

As she travels along the Yellow Brick Road with her companions, the Scarecrow, the Tinman and the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy is thrust into a series of cataclysms that test her character and threaten her life. These trials ultimately teach her the lesson—the story’s theme—There’s no place like home.”

After her darkest hour, Dorothy and her friends finally arrive at the Emerald City. With some difficulty and a bit of delay, they’re granted an audience with the great and powerful Wizard of Oz.

They each ask for his help, but they all are given the same task before they can get satisfaction: kill the Wicked Witch of the West.

All of them, in turn, believe this is impossible, and they despair over this impossible task. After all, the Wicked Witch has great power. Nonetheless, the four companions (plus Dorothy’s dog Toto, of course) set out to find the Wicked Witch.

As Dorothy and her friends enter the Witch’s realm, she discovers the travelers and sends a pack of forty savage wolves to destroy them. But the Witch hadn’t counted on the Tinman’s ax, and the wolves are the ones who meet with a bad end.

Next, the Witch sends forty crows to peck at them, but the Scarecrow dispatches them.

The Witch becomes even angrier and sends a swarm of bees to sting the travelers to death – enough bees to darken the sky. But the Tinman uses the Scarecrow’s straw to cover Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion.

The bees find only the Tinman to attack, which proves to be their undoing. Bees can’t live once they have lost their stingers.

Finally, in desperation, the Wicked Witch of the West summons a band of flying monkeys. They do her bidding to destroy the Scarecrow and Tinman, and they capture the Lion, as she commanded.

But the monkeys are unable to harm Dorothy or her little dog because she has the protection of Glinda, the Good Witch who welcomed her to Oz.

It seems that all is lost and Dorothy is doomed to live out her days as a slave in the Witch’s castle. However, one day the Witch provokes her and makes her so angry that Dorothy throws a bucket of water on the Witch.

Little did the girl know that this is the one thing that could kill the Wicked Witch of the West. She melts into a puddle like brown sugar, and the whole kingdom is liberated.

With a little help, Dorothy frees the Lion, has the Tinman restored, and re-stuffs the Scarecrow. After their happy reunion, the companions set out to confront the all-powerful Wizard of Oz and claim what he has promised them.

5 Steps to the Planning the Road of Trials for Your Non-Fiction Book

To place your hero on the Road of Trials, here are five things you can do to outline your non-fiction manuscript.

Re-state your hero’s goal.
Your hero meets with an agent who has the power to help with the goal.
Your hero is given a task or a set of tasks to complete before the aid is given.
The hero travels along the Road of Trials and succeeds with the help of advice, protection or objects he received from his mentor.
The hero completes the tasks and returns to meet the goal.

No matter how much your hero may struggle, his cunning, ingenuity and personal strength will see him through. The Navy Seals have a saying: “When your brain tells you that you’ve given it your all, you’ve only given 40%.”

Let your readers know that when you think you’ve given it all, you’ve only given 40%.

Every road trip has its end, even on the Road of Trials. What lessons will your hero encounter on his or her journey?

Take the first step to unlocking your sales potential. Sales & Success by Made For Success is an all-in-one storefront, personal library and audio player focused on enabling and coaching your sales talents with world-class speakers. Hundreds of hours of insight and experience at your fingertips. Download now from the App Store

It’s a truism we’ve all heard before: the only constant is change. In the adventure of life, who among us has faced not only change but the push towards total transformation driven by the darkest hour of our life? Desired or not! It’s something to which we all can relate.

Your heart pounds. Your palms sweat. You try to see what lies in wait for you around the next bend in the road, but all you can see is the pavement. You’re face to face with the hard reality that whatever happens next, the past is gone, and everything is about to shift.

Whether it’s a family crisis, a car accident, a health scare, or a lost job, we all can relate to that pivotal moment when we no longer look at life in quite the same way. That moment, that attitude adjustment, is often the catalyst to galvanize our strongest opinions. It will strengthen our resolve, and shape a new philosophy in life.

If you’re a non-fiction author using a storytelling framework to illustrate your material, your hero must also face this same moment of truth. This transformation is at the heart of what a hero must confront when telling the story of his journey. It’s the catalyst that compels him farther along his travels and helps him through the coming Road of Trials.

That hour of darkness leads the story’s central character into a sphere re-birth. Like Jonah being swallowed by the whale, the hero is swallowed by circumstances and thrust into the unknown. He emerges with renewed faith and vigor – a whole new perspective.

Whether the action is literal and the hero appears to have died, or it’s figurative, and the hero faces an hour of darkness, his spirit is literally reborn once he exits the situation. Transformed by the experience.

This transformation – this new attitude – is what strengthens him and compels him further on his journey. The higher the stakes, the bigger the transformation. The more memorable the transformation, the more popular your writing becomes!

Escaping the Eternal Sleep

As we’ve talked about the Hero’s Journey in this series, we’ve also been looking at how it evolves in the popular classic “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” written by L. Frank Baum. Dorothy’s quest to get back home to Kansas from the Land of Oz is a great example of how the Hero’s Journey may be played out in a simple but colorful story that everyone loves.

Dorothy and her companions – her dog Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion – all travel together along the yellow brick road. Soon the terrain becomes rugged through the deep forest, they have trouble getting through, especially when they must cross a deep ditch with steep sides. It’s only through their cooperation that they manage to cross.

It isn’t long before they encounter another ditch that severs the yellow brick road, and this time they’re nearly overtaken by strange beasts that threaten to attack them. Once again, the companions only manage to escape by working together.

As the party move along and make their way out of the dense forest, they come to a river that is too deep and swift for them to wade across. The Tin Man uses his axe to build a raft for them. As they cross the river, the Scarecrow’s pole becomes stuck in the mud, and he is pulled off the raft while the rest of the party are swept away in the current.

Each of these incidents is progressively more and more perilous, and they build tension as the story develops. This time, the Scarecrow is rescued when the rest of the party asks for help from a passing crane. The bird hoists the straw man into the air and carries him to shore.

This build is essential in the story. It creates tension and raises the stakes, making the hero’s triumph that much more meaningful in the end. It pulls the reader in and makes them more emotionally involved in the characters.

It also serves as a bridge between the introduction of these characters and their darkest hour, which lies just ahead. Without the build in tension, an abrupt introduction of danger would be jarring.

What happens next in Dorothy’s story is truly a metaphor for death and rebirth. As the companions travel, trying to get back to the yellow brick road, their steps lead them irrevocably through a field of bright red poppies. The flowers are said to cause a sleep so deep that it is impossible for anyone to awaken and leave the field.

As fate would have it, Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion all succumb to the power of the poppies, and they fall asleep. Scarecrow and the Tin Man are immune to the flowers’ potent potion, and together they carry Dorothy and Toto to safety. Once there, they enlist the aid of an army of field mice to haul the Lion out on a litter. All three of them awaken from their deep slumber only after quite some time in the open air.

Though this is a story for all ages, the hero – Dorothy – faces death and nearly doesn’t pull through. Falling victim to the poppies creates a clear line of demarcation, where the past is left behind, and there’s no going back. The companions must go forward. Dorothy’s resolve is strengthened as they journey ever closer to the Emerald City and the hope of fulfilling their unique missions.

5 Steps to Defining the Darkest Hour

In defining your hero’s darkest hour, you can follow these five steps to build tension and affect transformation.

Be clear on your hero’s goal, and define what weakness is most likely to stop progress.
Foreshadow the clues that will make the darkest hour believable.
Pepper your story with challenges for the hero that build in intensity, leading up to the darkest hour.
Place your hero in the situation that is impossible to retreat from, making the only exit the way through the struggle.
Free your hero from the situation, and reveal how the situation has transformed him or her.

In the chronicle of our successes, each of us faces our own trials which transform our lives. Drawing from your own experience, you can lend a measure of inspiration to your writing which leads your readers to their own growth.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing and the host of the Download now from the App Store

Non-fiction authors have a world of colorful choices when it comes to book format, such as this exploration of The Hero’s Journey framework for non-fiction books. However, one adage remains true for both speakers and non-fiction authors alike: Never make a point without telling a story, and never tell a story without making a point.

The trouble many authors face when endeavoring to write a best-selling non-fiction book is putting their material across in a creative, engaging manner. Working-up a compelling story to communicate a message can be daunting.

Ahhh, but there’s a solution! Using what Joseph Campbell termed the Hero’s Journey, you can elevate your non-fiction book to higher ground and deliver exquisite quality. You can tell your story and make your point in a way that draws the reader in and helps them transform into a stronger version of themselves.

Let’s explore how to begin your non-fiction story, based things we can learn from the Hero’s Journey…we’ll call it “The Call to Adventure.”

The Adventure Begins

Now that you know your non-fiction book can be compelling when told in the form of a story, you’re going to need to come up with a really good story idea, or what is called the story arc. Using a few simple techniques, you can craft your message and make it compelling – one that will engage your audience time after time.

The Hero’s Journey is the tale of how the hero pursues a specific goal and in pursuit, the hero is transformed. Modeling your story on the Hero’s Journey provides the structure – the formula – for telling your story in a way that’s reliable, engaging, and makes people think.

In all cases, the story opens with the status quo. The hero is in his own natural setting. Whether it’s through a blunder, pure chance, destiny or a deliberate choice, the hero begins a relationship with forces he doesn’t understand – and the adventure begins!

The non-fiction storyteller uses examples from life, business or a parable. But for the purposes of illustration, let’s take a look at the well-known classic “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. This is a colorful example of an adventure that transforms an average farm girl, Dorothy Gail, and shifts her personal center of gravity to a higher level. As for her realization, the movie version of this tale says it best: “There’s no place like home.”

Dorothy’s journey has the unreal quality of a dream, and she meets up with all kinds of creatures and fantastic forces, both good and evil. But first, she must begin her adventure.

The Oz story opens with Dorothy at home on her family farm in Kansas. The world is a sunburnt place, gray and without color. Even the people are gray. Time, worry and concern for the future have washed have washed the color out of them.

Non-Fiction Writing Tip: In your non-fiction story you can depict the hero’s challenges with the wear-and-tear of everyday life, grinding him down. Imagine Dorothy’s colorless existence as you create the launch-point of your story.

From Out of the Clear Blue Sky

In every Hero’s Journey, there’s a herald or a catalyst to mark the journey’s beginning. An encounter with a mysterious element marks the call to adventure! It means an awakening and a break with the past, a departure from the daily norms.

The herald appears to every hero who is ripe for transformation. In other words, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. The nature of the catalyst depends on the type of story you want to tell.

The hero can decide to make a change, or change can be forced onto him. It can be something as simple as a shift in consciousness, or it can mean following a creature into unfamiliar territory. The herald also may be a force of good or evil. This leaves you with a world of options to pursue, and any choice you make here can be the right one if it is consistent with your message.

For instance, your hero might be pursuing a deer on a hunt, wandering far into the woods and encountering another realm. Whatever the catalyst your hero encounters, the hero has an irresistible fascination with it, and it serves as a guide or a herald.

For Dorothy in Kansas it’s a tornado that sweeps her, the house, a cow and all. She is set down in the colorful Land of Oz, surrounded on all sides by desert. Immediately Dorothy is afraid that she will never see Kansas again, and her quest to return home begins.

Moments like this produce anxiety because as people, we naturally fear change. Change can mean excitement, but usually it means being uncomfortable and uncertain of what lies ahead. It can even mean real danger.

As Dorothy’s adventure ensues, she meets the good Witch of the North who tells her where she is and the consequences of her arrival. The good witch serves as Dorothy’s mentor. She tells Dorothy that if she ever wants to go home again, she must journey to the Emerald City and see the great and powerful Wizard of Oz.

There are many reasons Dorothy may have opted out of the quest, possibly because making those choices would have meant a whole other kind of journey. The hero can either choose to go forward of his own volition, or he may be sent or carried against his will to this other realm. The agent may be benign or malevolent, but the hero goes, nonetheless.

The Writer’s Framework for “The Call to Adventure”

In the larger sense, the journey means a change in the hero’s own perspective. The first stage of the journey – the Call to Adventure – shows us that destiny calls the hero, transforming his center of gravity.

Here are 5 steps you can take to craft the beginning of the adventure in your own hero’s Call to Adventure.

Status Quo: The story opens in the hero’s everyday setting. Describe the hero of your story and how their world looks to them.
The Catalyst: An unfamiliar force draws the hero forward into another realm, away from the everyday. Decide on a person, place, thing or event that moves your hero out of the everyday.
The Goal: The hero has a burning desire to achieve something or reach a destination. Determine what your hero’s goal is.
The Mentor: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Decide who will point your hero in the right direction.
The Adventure Begins: Your hero is off on a glorious (or dreadful) adventure.

Your hero begins the adventure because of a change of heart and a call to an unknown place, a foreign land or a dream. When you begin crafting your hero’s journey, let its tide sweep you off your feet and carry you to the distant shores of imagination.

Are you inspired by examples? Click here to read a short story on how an everyday non-fiction topic like writing tips can be spun into a story framework.

Stay tuned to the Made for Success Publishing blog for more writing tips on The Hero’s Journey framework.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing and the host of the Download now from the App Store

Ahhh, to savor the power of a good story, that is sweet indeed. But how does a non-fiction writer tap into the memorable power of a well-told story? Let’s explore this together through this illustration…

Once long ago on a windswept hilltop, a restless boy—almost in his teen years—looked across the valley, his eager eyes searching for news. He spied a column of weary travelers hiking slowly for their heavy burden. The hunt was successful.

The boy raced down the slope, his hair flying in the wind. He ran straight to the head of the column into the iron arms of his marching father.

“Tell me about the hunt!” he demanded eagerly. “I want to know everything!”

“Patience, young one. You and the rest of the clan will hear disturbing news tonight by firelight when wounds are patched, bellies are full, and hunters’ blood has cooled.”

I’ll bet you want to know what happens next, right?

I mean, come on! It’s human nature. Curiosity burns inside you, like a prehistoric bonfire.

Who is this boy? What kind of game did the warriors hunt? How did the hunters get wounded? What will become of the clan, what is the “disturbing news”?

These questions naturally burn inside us all. We crave stories. In fact, our need for stories is part of our DNA.

This was the conclusion of Joseph Campbell, the world famous scholar of Mythology and chronicler of the Hero’s Journey in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Campbell told us that the Hero’s Journey, or the Mono-Myth, has been told in stories all over the world throughout the ages. Stories from every continent can be broken down into the same basic structure.

Whether it’s Aesop’s Fables, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, or Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, we thrive on the power of stories. We learn and grow through their messages, and we smile with satisfaction once the tale is told.

Capitalizing on What Your Audience Craves

Previously, we took a look at the nature of the Hero’s Journey for the benefit of non-fiction storytellers. Now let’s explore how authors can use its structure to write and illustrate your own non-fiction content.

Your options for writing a non-fiction book are almost infinite when you adapt the lessons of the Hero’s Journey for your work. One of the great truisms of speaking and writing is that you should never make a point without telling a story, and never tell a story without making a point.

The Hero’s Journey folds neatly into this structure as an element, hard-wired deep into our consciousness. It’s a story of coming of age and achieving a new level. Its symbolism conveys a tale of a death and rebirth, transformation into another dimension of being, just as a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

By definition, a hero is someone who has given himself to a cause that’s bigger than himself then returns to his old life to share his experiences. Along the way, he ventures from his everyday world into another realm, one that is full of surprises and challenges.

On the journey, the hero encounters strange forces, and he struggles to reach his goal until there is a decisive victory. The hero returns from his adventure with new power and wisdom that he shares with the people of his native world.

Handcrafting Your Message Like a Journeyman

Using the Hero’s Journey in your work can make the task of writing much simpler. It can also elevate your work to a new level of quality and add a new luster to your ideology.

To begin, split your idea into 3 sections. Next split the sections into chapters—about 3 or 4 per section. Organize each chapter into 3 main points and illustrate your points with a story.

In terms of story craft, many authors use a fresh story and new characters each time they want to illustrate a point. But I say it’s easier—and far more compelling—to use one overarching storyline in your work and chronicle the struggle of a single hero.

Using this model, the 3 sections of your book should correspond to the 3 phases of the Hero’s Journey. Here’s what that looks like.

1. Departure

The hero receives a call to adventure. At first, he’s reluctant to heed the call. However, a mentor figure helps him see the necessity and he heads out on a mystical adventure or quest. This calling can be accidental, deliberate, or imposed on the hero.

2. Transformation

The hero is initiated into a new world. He is either alone or with companions. He encounters obstacles and eventually fulfills his goal. Through the ages, all myths have dealt with transformation such as this. The hero’s consciousness shifts from being self-centric to selfless through his struggle.

3. Return

The hero goes back to his world with the wisdom and powers he’s gained. He offers them as a gift to his friends, loved ones, and comrades. His whole society benefits from his sacrifice and transformation.

If you’re writing a book, you naturally want to captivate your audience and transform the way they look at your topic. Using the Hero’s Journey is a shortcut to your storytelling success, offering the kind of legends your audience craves—raging bonfire optional.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Book Publishing Success podcast show. Bryan works with best-selling business authors including NYT best-selling authors Chris Widener and Tom Hopkins, plus up-and-coming authors including Johnny Covey. Bryan is the author of Download now from the App Store

A gripping book title is sheer magic. When you think about it—I mean really think about it—the book title is the first thing that draws in the reader. Even when you have an attractive cover with emotionally compelling imagery and graphic design, no one would even consider your book unless they first like the title.

When you hand your book to a client, a meeting planner, a speaker’s bureau or the CEO of a prospective company as a gift, the first impression you will make of yourself is the book title itself. It must instantly move the reader to venture beyond the cover and discover the secrets hidden within. That is a lot to ask from 1-5 words, I know!

Next, picture your book on the bookshelf of a crowded bookstore. In some bookstores, there are 75,000 other books competing for a reader’s attention. So your book title has to grab attention and clearly state your thesis…at a glance. Your book title and cover artwork only have 7 seconds to do their job in a retail environment, so let’s explore how to make these seconds count.

If a reader found your book online, the odds are high that they came across your book by searching on your keywords or your genre. Perhaps the search algorithm showed them your book as a being relevant to what they were looking for, or they might have found your volume on a virtual bookshelf along with other similar works.

Whatever means they used to find your book, the only way to captivate your audience is by moving them over that first hurdle— the Title.

There are very specific types of words that magnetize people and promise a spellbinding reading experience. At the same time, there are certain practicalities to consider, including keywords that the search engines love to see.

We’re about to explore the contents of a great title, giving you the tools to make yours unforgettable— and make more book sales.

The first consideration for your title is to determine how many words to use. You may feel relieved to know that many successful non-fiction books of our time have short titles. In fact, modern practices prefer to keep the length to five words or less.

Though this may seem like a godsend if you’re not long-winded, in fact, it can be a bit challenging. Think about it – you’ll have to encapsulate an entire book into just five words.

When we title a book, here is the process we use. A European author we are publishing asked to have his book re-titled after discovering that his original title concept was trademarked. We assembled our team to embark on re-titling. Here is the 10-step process we use internally to perform title work:

Read the manuscript
Read the description provided by the author
Determine the ideal target audience for the book
Discuss what makes the target audience tick
Brainstorm key concepts and keywords
Build phrases from the words outlines in the brainstorming session
Combine title and sub-titles into various combinations
Test the top 3 ideas with a team (focus group, social media and/or author’s street team)
Refine and finalize the top idea
Trademark search and previous title search to ensure the title is not in-use

If your book’s topic is a bit arcane, narrowing down your title to under 5 words can be something of a problem. The best approach is to focus on the benefits and results, appealing to emotion rather than using an intellectual approach. This is where applying serious thought will really pay off.

Let’s have a look at some examples. Here are several books from the business section that have been at one time or another on Amazon’s Top 10 List for over 6 months.

The Art of War – Sun Tzu
It Worked for Me – Colin Powell
Getting Things Done – David Allen
The Total Money Makeover – Dave Ramsey
Today Matters – John Maxwell

Yet punchy book titles aren’t just restricted to classics and standards in the business section. Let’s have a look at some new-school best sellers.

The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
Tribes – Seth Godin
Prosper – Ethan Willis and Randy Garn
The $100 Startup – Chris Guillebeau
The Art of Seduction – Robert Greene
Drive – Daniel Pink
Born to Win – Zig Ziglar and Tom Ziglar

To give you some added perspective on crafting your own alluring title, here are some additional guidelines to bear in mind.

Do use words that end in -ing
Use words that can be understood at the 8th-grade level
Leverage well-known clichés
Over the top words are now unpopular, such as ultimate, mega and super

Besides using short titles with these specific attributes, there are other tactics you can capitalize on. Controversy is one of them. In fact, nothing sells better than a title with an edge. While a descriptive title bogs down and bores the reader, controversy sells every time.

Think of what might interrupt the reader’s thought pattern as they’re searching amongst the many titles they find. Imagine a title that will arrest their thinking on your topic—but be warned: if you make a promise on your cover, you’d better be prepared to deliver it inside the pages! Your title needs to be a match to your content, or your readers will tell on you in their reviews.

Take a look at the titles of these unconventional best sellers.

The 4-Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferris
Leadership and Self-Deception – The Arbinger Institute
What Money Can’t Buy – Michael Sandel
Eat That Frog! – Brian Tracy

When naming your book, there are a handful of common mistakes that can quash readers’ interest immediately. There aren’t many of them, but any one of them is enough to discourage your readers from ever giving you a second look.

One of these common mistakes is a lack of clarity. Make sure that your title is not so clever that no one understands what your book is about. If your title is vague, unclear or fuzzy, you won’t interest your reader. Fuzzy is for caterpillars and koalas—not alluring book titles. Be direct.

Likewise, unclear positioning can turn readers off. Be very clear about who your book is for, why they should read it, and what they can expect to get out of it. As much as possible, evoke this in the book title.

Many new authors make the mistake of thinking everyone should read their book. This is farthest from the truth, as very few books have universal appeal to everyone all the time. Books are all about niche markets and the pros in this business write their books to appeal to narrow groups of people.

In terms of cover design, when it comes to the size of your title on the book cover be sure to leave a bit of breathing room. This is what designers call “white space.” Leave enough of the background so that your title maintains a pleasant balance. You want it to be both readable and attention getting.

A common mistake that authors make is allowing the title and subtitle to take up too much room on the cover. This once was fine when books in print were the main event. But these days electronic distribution is edging into the peak of popularity, and the title design must be treated accordingly so that it appeals to readers online. This means your title needs to be readable in the space a little larger than your thumbnail.

Finally, avoid using language that is outdated, corny or otherwise inappropriate. You may be inadvertently turning off your readers, clients, and prospects by using outdated language, by golly.

If you don’t have access to a focus group when naming your book, try running your title by a group of your friends, social media circles or colleagues. Get their feedback and their impressions. Most of them will be glad to chime in and offer their support.

Now you have the tools to develop an incredible non-fiction book title. Post your book title ideas to this article and open a discussion on your work.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Book Publishing Success podcast show. Bryan works with best-selling business authors including NYT best-selling authors Chris Widener and Tom Hopkins, plus up-and-coming authors including Johnny Covey. Bryan is the author of Download now from the App Store

More and more, I find myself taking creative retreats to develop material for my books and escape the attention clutter of the office. Sometimes I choose a hotel in the desert or a cabin in the mountains. This time I’ve come to Mazatlán to write.

Mazatlán can be an inspiring retreat location, not just for today’s thought leaders but for authors throughout modern history. For example, this Mexican coastal city was a favored destination for Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway. His travels to Cuba, Florida, and Idaho are legendary, but his trips to Mexico are less well known. He frequented the Casa Lucila Hotel where I’m staying now.

As part of my retreat, I have been taking walks on the Malaccan, the boardwalk that lines the sugary beach, wondering if Hemingway walked these same shores. As I walked, I watched the fisherman de-scale the catch of the day on the beach with eager pelicans waiting for morsels from the fisherman’s blade. From here, the windswept Pacific meets the craggy cliffs where divers test their courage, working for tips from the busloads of tourists as a reward for their plunges over the craggy cliff. Facing down a blank manuscript after a sight like this somehow seemed a bit less daunting to me.

I thought about this idea while swirling a martini in the hotel’s lobby bar, weighing my options for the structure of my manuscript’s Table of Contents. I was also mulling over the question of how best to incorporate the Hero’s Journey into my non-fiction work.

For a long time, I’ve coached authors never to make a point without telling a story, and never to tell a story without making a point. My idea is that the well-known Hero’s Journey structure can provide an awesome approach to writing and storytelling, even in the non-fiction book world.

Yet, I was having trouble making the connection between these two concepts in my text. In fact, that’s putting it mildly. Actually, I’d hit a wall. Some call it writer’s block. I found myself musing this unfortunate situation over a cocktail in the lobby. From there I walked upstairs to the hotel’s infinity pool and sat there, staring once again into a blank page. How could I bring the Hero’s Journey to life in a non-fiction work?

Lessons Beside an Infinity Pool

The martini was ill-considered. It cut into my clarity and made it nearly impossible to stay awake as I lounged poolside. Stretched out on a canvas chaise, the hum of the tourists and seagulls quickly lulled me into a stupor. I shut my eyes for a moment.

You can imagine my surprise when I felt a shadow pass between me and the sun, so slight and shimmering that I thought it couldn’t be real. Standing before me was the ghost of the man himself, Ernest Hemingway!

He cupped his salty beard with one hand while the other, curled into a fist, rested on his hip. Had I traveled back in time? Or had he crossed the divide into the here and now? He glanced at the blank page in front of me and sized up the situation immediately. He had once defined writing as pain.

“There’s no rule on how it is to write,” he said.

“Come again?”

“Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly,” he went on. “Sometimes it is like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Standing before me was one of the greatest writers who’d ever lived —and he was talking to me about writing.

“You struggled too, didn’t you?” I ventured. Ernest nodded. I begged him to pull up a chair. Instead, he brushed off my invitation with a dismissive gesture.

I told him I wondered if he had anything to offer me on the Hero’s Journey, but Ernest deflected. Campbell’s work was contemporary with his own; however, they traveled in different circles.

I should add here that in the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell compiled more than 2,000 years of folklore, religion, and myths into one over-arching model. This work established the story structure that’s come to be known as the Hero’s Journey, and it’s found in many tales ranging from Star Wars to Harry Potter. It’s been said that these stories and this model have become part of our DNA as a race. They are bedrock for us as human beings, and we crave them.

I felt stunned, having this conversation with one of the most legendary writers in history. But there I was, lounging beside an infinity pool and shooting the breeze with a ghost. It was clear to me that the act of discussing this topic with him was crystallizing my own beliefs and honing my approach to the work. The moment was not lost on me.

What I like about the Hero’s Journey, I explained, is that it breaks a story into three parts— Initiation, Transformation, and Return. I searched his face, wondering if I should go on. Ernest nodded with a knowing look.

I explained that the Initiation was the phase where the status quo was established for the hero. Life goes steadily along, and nothing much looks like it’s about to change.

Then in the Transformation stage, something happens—a catalyst—that brings the hero face-to-face with a crisis. He meets up with an old soul, a wise one who mentors him. The hero either makes a decision to pursue greatness or else greatness is thrust upon him. He pursues the goal, and in the process, he’s transformed, never to be the same again. This is how the hero gains knowledge he never could have acquired any other way.

In the Return, the hero goes back to his previous environment or way of life, armed with the wisdom, attitude, and experience to help others.

Finding My Resolve

None of this was any surprise to Ernest. There were oceans of wisdom in his silence. He grinned at me with a wink in his eyes. “And…?”

“And I know what I want to say, but sometimes I’m unclear on the framework. I’ll bet you never had that problem.”

“Whatever success I’ve had has been through writing what I know about,” he said.

I let that sink in, and a moment of understanding passed between us. We talked about pain and the lessons of life—how I could illustrate the points of my book by distilling them through the filter of storytelling.

“I’m inspired by this Hero’s Journey concept,” I told him. “I think it offers a great framework for every writer, even for us in the non-fiction genre.”

He simply gazed into my face, picked up a pen from the table and handed it to me. I took it and was still holding it when it dawned on me. “Just one more thing…” but he was gone!

“Will there be anything else, señor?” My waiter was standing over me, blocking the rays of the sun. “I see you have a pen in your hand. Would you like to have your bill now?”

I sat for a moment, emerging from that foggy state between sleep and waking. The dream had ended, leaving only the residue of timeless wisdom. I felt powerfully compelled to write it all down—to render the lessons of history into a practical process, and share the magic brought into this realm from an eternal place.

Whether real or imagined, the journey was over, and I was forever changed. I had come to Mazatlán to have a question answered. I got more than I’d bargained for, enough to last a lifetime.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Book Publishing Success podcast show. Bryan works with best-selling business authors including NYT best-selling authors Chris Widener and Tom Hopkins, plus up-and-coming authors including Johnny Covey. Bryan is the author of Download now from the App Store

In the role of a professional speaker, you are in a competitive marketplace of superstars… TV show hosts, famous athletes, celebrity CEO’s, and mega best-selling authors. So how do you stand out with speakers bureaus and meeting planners when you are a non-celebrity speaker? After all, not everyone can land a plane on the Hudson River and become an overnight superstar on the speaking circuit.

There are many parallels in selling keynote speeches and my role as a book Publisher. One of my main tasks is reaching high volume book buyers. Some buyers are in bustling cities like San Francisco, Sydney and New York. Others are in quaint sleepy villages like Ashland, Oregon, home of the Bard and grape. Wherever the prospects are, the underlying psychology of selling applies.

In selling books, the high-volume buyers are interested in catalogs of books or audiobooks, not just a couple of volumes from a single author. When managing a large list of content, it’s more efficient to buy books from one source.

When buying keynote services, the same rules apply. For a busy meeting planner, it can be easier to buy from a speaker’s bureau than to shop a half dozen individual speakers.

Just as this one-stop-shop dynamic creates massive opportunity, a “swing and a miss” in the sales process can be hard on my business. I’ve got to be convincing. There are no second chances.

That is why I recommend breaking down your sales pitch into increments. If you read my article about how authors structure advertising campaigns, you’ll remember the Rule of Seven. This rule says it takes a minimum of seven exposures to a new idea before your audience will act.

When approaching new retailers or corporations who buy books in bulk for their employees, the Rule of Seven is the technique I use to break through.

There’s no mystery. It’s pure psychology.

Whether you’re selling your latest book to a buyer or pitching high priced speaking engagements, your message needs consistent reinforcement – no less than seven times.

This may seem like nagging to the uninitiated. The creative challenge comes into play when you make the task of reminding someone seem like a fresh idea each time you contact them. This can take many forms.

Let’s explore a case study of the Rule of Seven from a determined non-celebrity speaker who booked over a half-million dollars in keynote speeches in less than a year.

As a speaking professional, your best chances for success start with your ability to sell one-to-many. Tapping into speakers bureaus is an excellent place to start your sales targeting.

Repetition? You Can Say that Again.

OK, so let’s break down a successful campaign. First, imagine this scenario: you are contacting an overworked meeting planner who is not dreading your call, but is actually waiting in rapt anticipation for your next sales contact.

Build your list of contacts by acquiring a list or hiring a contractor to build your list. Initiate contact via social media, such as Linked-In.
Send a customized video email greeting, via a tool such as BombBomb. One Speaker using this service quoted that they are getting a 100% response rate using video emails to introduce themselves.
Make a call and be prepared to leave a scripted voicemail.
Send a physical item to the prospect’s office as an attention getter. Some speakers prepare a “Box of Wow!” to send to important prospects.
Send a follow-up email with a link to your Speaker Demo Reel.
Physically mail your Speaker One-Sheet or a Media Kit.
Send an email with an automated scheduling tool (such as ScheduleOnce) to book an appointment.

Author & speaker, Dr. Allan Colman, is using a similar approach to generate awareness for his consulting services to law firms. He created a coloring book (red-hot category of books) to send in his Box of Wow with a whimsical, educational message geared to legal professionals. By structuring his campaign using the Rule of Seven process, he gained differentiation for his services to a demanding target audience, Senior Partners of law firms.

When you apply the Rule of Seven to your speaking business, you can achieve phenomenal revenues in a very short time. Where will your message take you?

Bryan Heathman is the President of Book Publishing Success podcast show. Bryan works with best-selling business authors including NYT best-selling authors Chris Widener and Tom Hopkins, plus up-and-coming authors including Johnny Covey. Bryan is the author of Download now from the App Store

It’s funny how you can be talking to someone, and they seem to understand what you’re saying. They smile and nod, even interject a comment here or there.

But are they really getting you? Once the conversation is over, it’s like it never happened.

Maybe a few days later the subject comes up again. You hash it out one more time, and this time it seems like you’re getting through.

But no. It’s not that they’re obstinate. It’s just that any new idea requires repeated exposure to becomes internalized. That is how the brain works.

Studies show that people need to hear an idea seven times before it sinks in.

Think about that the next time you ask your teenager to take out the garbage. You don’t have to hound them until you’re “blue in the face.” Just tighten up your repetitions, and you’ll compress the amount of time it takes to drive your point home. After a while, it becomes automatic, and you don’t have to mention it again. Well.. maybe a couple more times.

This brings us to the all-important topic of exposures in marketing campaigns, and what I call the Rule of Seven. When you can leverage this rule, the seven exposures gets your audience to “see the light” and makes a purchase.

It sounds simple – and it is – but it’s not without technique. Let’s cover a few simple rules that you can apply to your book or new product launch to drive sales and create evangelists.

Sales Lessons from the Marketing World

Did you ever notice product displays when you go to a retail store or mall? The brand jumps out at you every time you walk by.

By your third pass, you stop and notice that the featured widget might actually be something you could use to solve a problem or engage a desire. In fact, the product could be tremendously effective. It might even change your life. But the first time you passed by it didn’t even register.

During my Fortune 500 marketing career, I was responsible for rolling-out a retail kiosk for a brand-new kind of service. It was a revolutionary product, and our Marketing team had a pretty robust ad budget to support the US launch. Amazingly enough, our Sales team was successful in putting this display in 20,000 retail locations across North America. Failure was not an option.

You would think that with all those locations and gobs of money for advertising, all we had to do was wait for the checks to come rolling-in. But the fundamentals of consumer awareness apply across the board. We used the Rule of Seven to drive messaging home and make sales.

Using the One-To-Many Approach…Seven Times!

When you are planning your next social media effort or ad campaign, there are a few principles to consider. You can use them when deciding how many ad exposures it will take to reach your audience effectively. It still takes seven repetitions to generate awareness of a brand, a book or service, but you can do it much more efficiently.

In our campaign to drive sales in those 20,000 retail locations, we focused on messaging that went from one-to-many. We carefully planned a series of messages reaching millions of “influencers,” called Early Adopters. The Early Adopters in this industry embraced new ideas and technologies earlier than most, and we knew they would evangelize our product for us.

The structure of the marketing campaign for this consumer packaged goods was built around the Rule of Seven. Here is how the campaign was structured to reach the magic number of exposures:

Trial coupons in Free Standing Inserts (FSI’s) in leading newspapers
Direct mail campaign
Print flyers, delivered by a partner company
In-store advertising in grocery stores, where most people shop 2.3 times (on average) each week
Television commercials
On-kiosk advertising in major retail locations such as WalMart, Target, and Costco
Sponsorship at a series of sporting events

Each one of these venues invited multiple exposures and drove home the message to generate awareness, familiarity and ultimately trial. This marketing philosophy can be applied and works effectively for new product launches and can even be effective for a book launch campaign.

As you plan your next marketing campaign, remember the Rule of Seven. Your patience in generating seven repetitions will prove that seven just might be your lucky number!

Bryan Heathman is the President of Book Publishing Success podcast show. Bryan works with best-selling business authors including NYT best-selling authors Chris Widener and Tom Hopkins, plus up-and-coming authors including Johnny Covey. Bryan is the author of Download now from the App Store

Speakers and authors have a unique professional challenge unlike those in any other industry. While the demands of the job border on the artistic, the reality is that success is most measurable by the tally on the bottom line.

If you’re not making sales, you’re nowhere.

The object of the sales game is communication. As a professional communicator, the more people you reach, the more successful you are. That means more book sales, more speaking engagements, more fans and followers, more evangelists—more connections.

This translates directly to salesmanship, a term that makes many eyes roll and knees quiver. The good news is that success in sales of your IP is a lot easier than you think.

Salesmanship is a matter of building relationships and filling the needs of the people you’re relating to. In its simplest form, sales is a matter of identifying a problem, defining the solution, and directing traffic toward that solution. It starts with understanding the people you’re serving and speaking to them in their own language.

Let’s explore the unique art of selling for speakers and authors by exploring 5 key sales practices.

Qualifying Your Audience

The secret in developing sales skills for speakers and authors is to understand just who it is you’re talking to. You need to define your audience from the ground up to ensure that you are meeting them on their turf.

Determine whether the people you are attracting into your business are qualified buyers. You can have all the rapport in the world with your prospects, but if they’re not able to make buying decisions, you’re just having a pleasant hypothetical conversation.

Do the people you’re addressing have the power to make buying decisions regarding your product? If not, consider ways you can adjust your approach so that they lead you directly to the primary decision maker.

Categorize the chain of command for your audience and understand the role of the people you’re addressing. You might be dealing with people in authority who have the ability to sign off on purchasing decisions. Or maybe your prospects can recommend your content or influence buying decisions. It could be that they are merely end users but still hold sway over the procurement process.

If you’re selling leadership methodologies to a corporation, you’ll need to connect with the person responsible for making those budgetary decisions. If you’re offering real estate investment strategies direct to consumers, the odds are high that you won’t get anywhere until you have a buying agreement from both spouses. Wherever possible, have a clear end game in mind and pre-qualify your prospects.

What Makes Them Tick?

Once you know who you are dealing with, now it’s time to find out what makes them tick. Think about their personalities, their character, their needs and wants.

Who are these people? What do they do for a living? How much education do they have? What do they do for pleasure? What will it take to cross the threshold of their trust and keep you in the room?

These are the kinds of questions that will allow you to reach inside their thought processes and understand the mindset of your audience. Once you do, you can understand their greatest pain. Think about the many ways your book or program can help them ease that pain and make them want to talk about your solutions with their friends and colleagues.

Engage all 3 Learning Styles

Consider the learning styles of your audience and present your case in a way that appeals to many types—visual, auditory and experiential. Studies show that we recall only 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see. But we recall 70% of what we take in through all three channels. Put your message across in a compelling way by mixing up your media for maximum effect.

Audience Interaction for the Faint of Heart

One of the greatest stumbling blocks for authors is meeting face to face with readers and fans in a live setting. While presenting and mingling is a breeze for most public speakers, it’s been the death knell for the careers of many introverted writers. Wherever you find yourself on this scale, mingling with your audience is probably the best way to make a lasting impression and influence buyers.

When you find yourself in a live setting, allow time for questions. You can address them from the platform or find a spot at the back of the room near your product table. Let your audience serve as your own personal focus group. Hear their trials and triumphs, and use their feedback to improve your work.

Use face time with your audience for fact finding. Ask questions that arouse attention and make people think. Get to know what moves your audience. Take advantage of the opportunity to underscore key points from your presentation or book.

Be sensitive to the needs of your audience. Don’t be tempted to run over the allotted time for your presentation. If your talk is long, allow time for breaks and other considerations. Think of ways to anticipate their needs and fill them.

Call to Action

Create interest by using an original or off-beat approach to your topic. Give them a clear call to action when you’re finished speaking and help them take that action as much as you possibly can.

Understand too that you are going to encounter several different personality types—some easier than others. While some have a high drive and are willing to take risks, much more are apt to be conservative with their decision making. Some personalities are analytical while others are more impulsive.

You’ll even find that some are expressive and vocal about their enthusiasm but difficult to move to a purchase. On the other hand, the quietest members of your audience may be your most loyal fans. It takes all kinds, and each one in your audience is vital to your success.

Finally, be generous. Thank them for showing up, and listen to their stories. This is a great time to get to know the people who are keeping you in the word business. You never know whose world you will shift—including your own!

Bryan Heathman is the President of Book Publishing Success podcast show. Bryan works with best-selling business authors including NYT best-selling authors Chris Widener andTom Hopkins, plus up-and-coming authors including Johnny Covey. Bryan is the author of Download now from the App Store