OK. It hasn't quite been 22 months but it sure feels like it. Last week I finally submitted the complete microMARKETING manuscript to McGraw-Hill -- all 56,000 or so words of it. Somehow -- despite a consistently crushing workload, an acquisition, lots of travel, more than a few missed deadlines, a few bouts of writer's block and at least one conversation in which I attempted to convince my agent to return my advance -- the hardest part of writing the book is done.
What started out as a bunch of colored stickies posted to an apartment wall, as I mapped out the outline for my original proposal (note: the outline and the final book don't particularly resemble one another)...
...is now a pretty impressive (if I don't say so myself, although to be clear I mean the pile of pages is impressive; I'm in no position to judge the content itself) stack of white pages with a whole mess of black type on 'em...
Of course my work isn't done. I'm still dealing with the not-so-minor nuisance of securing permissions from the folks I interviewed for the book, deciding who I'll try to chase down for jacket blurbs, am awaiting the next iteration of the manuscript for another round of edits, and am beginning to think about how we should market (micromarket of course) this bad boy.
Oh -- and tomorrow I hop a plane for Nashville where, on Thursday morning, I'll be presenting at the Custom Content Conference. This will be my first speech based in part of some of the ideas in the book (not all of the ideas, but a handful of thoughts about microcontent and what it means for publishers, marketers and marketers who think like publishers). Attendees will leave the room with the first bit o' marketing collateral promoting the book (you can peep it here: Download LLP5510 Verdino Flyer) -- and off we go.
microMARKETING is currently slated for an August release date but if you're interested in pre-ordering a copy or two or ten, you can hop on over to Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders.