I just wrapped a day here in Miami with a group of people I deeply adore.
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Tomorrow, I’m with a client, for a Strategic 1:1 Private VIP Day while here in town.
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In the middle of it all?
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A few minutes to write this week’s issue of this newsletter before heading to bed :-)
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So what’s happening here in Miami??
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I dropped into town for a small, private mastermind with some of the most brilliant writers working today.
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You may remember back in [Issue #060], I wrote about some of the lessons I walked away with from being Inside a Room With 40+ Million-Copy Bestselling Authors from last summer.
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Eight (8) of us from that group decided to get out of the frigid cold and spend some time together in sunny Miami. Collectively, nearly 10 million copies of books sold among those in the room, including the following titles:
Once again, I am walking away with some incredibly brilliant wisdom from some people I deeply respect and admire.
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So scanning through my pages of notes, I thought I’d share with you today…
8 One-Liners to Make You Think: Words of Wisdom from a Room of Writers...
Here they are in no particular order:
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1: The definition of hell is this: Your last day on Earth, the person you became meets the person you could have become.
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2: If titles are too prescriptive, readers dismiss the book because they don’t want yet another thing they have to do.
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3: If your reader doesn’t underline at least two lines in the first two pages, you need to rewrite the opening to your book.
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4: Page turners don’t happen by accident. You must surprise and subvert expectations at every turn.
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5: Before you write, you need to know two things about your reader: Where are they at the start of the book and where do they want to get to by the end?
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6: In the world today, perfect is no longer good enough.
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7: For a reader to believe something, they need to have already experienced some version of it themselves.
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8: Say the thing you think you can’t say. That’s exactly what most needs to be said.
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I’m curious, which of these lands hardest for YOU? Or perhaps which most intrigues you? Shoot me a short email to let me know :-)
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Okay! I’m going to leave you with that for now.
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I need to get to bed and be well-rested for my client day tomorrow.
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Have a GREAT rest of your weekend…
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Remember to hug the ones you love…
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And until next week,
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Ryan :-)
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P.S. Lastly, as a fun aside…
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While we were together in Miami, I did a step-by-step demo of how to use PickFU.com to narrow down potential book titles and subtitles (which I wrote about in detail in last week’s [Issue #084] 5 Forms of Feedback to Gather Before Your Next Launch…)
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And guess what??
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In the process, I may have identified a possible subtitle for Return to Real that tested over 3X better than my previous control (which landed in 4th place). Check it out below:
This is why we test.
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(And why we test again) :-)
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This may not be the final subtitle – but I think we’re getting close….
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BTW – If you’re interested in being an early beta reader of Return to Real and provide detailed feedback on the manuscript…
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Please SHOOT ME AN EMAIL to let me know. I’ll be kicking off the beta reader process next month (February). Stay tuned! :-)
