We are proud of our 40 Six-Word Lessons books and so appreciate our expert authors. But we are always looking for new and varied topics to add to our Six-Word Lessons series. Who do you know who might want to gain credibility in their field by writing and publishing a book to share their expertise on these topics?

• Meal/Food Prep/Kids Lunches and Snacks - Help busy families and career people plan their meals to save money and time and stay healthy.
• Wine Appreciation - Teach your readers to enjoy and appreciate the many facets of the wine world.
• Gardening/Landscaping - Educate anyone on how to create and tend a beautiful, thriving garden, whether a balcony, community garden or a full-sized yard.

If you are someone you know might want to write on any of these topics, please have them contact us at patty@pacellipublishing.com. We would love to hear any other ideas, too--the possibilities are endless!

We are currently working on two more books on the topics of Data-Driven Business Decision-Making by Daniel Rubiolo, and Overcoming Abuse and Adversities by Rae Ann Hall. 

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--By Patty Pacelli and Karen Lynn Maher

Whether your manuscript is self-published, traditionally published, or independently published, you need to know that it's ready for the next phase before it can be published and offered for sale. Along with our colleague, Karen Lynn Maher of LegacyOne Authors, we have defined the three phases of manuscript readiness and what you need to do to move ahead to get your book published.

Phase 1 - Content Ready
Karen works with authors as a coach to help them with much of this phase. We work with Six-Word Lessons authors to help them through this phase as well. Here are the main steps you need to have your content ready:

• Clear message - Know what you want to say and make sure it's very easy for your target readers to understand.
• Purposeful - Know your specific audience and write only to them with the purpose in mind.
• Compelling - Set your book apart by evoking interest and attention. Make your message irresistible and fascinating to your readers.
• Well-researched - Avoid mistakes and inconsistencies by doing thorough research for all aspects of your book.
• Copyright diligence - Make sure everything is your own original idea, and get necessary permissions for any outside information, including appropriate citations and attributions. 

Phase 2 - Manuscript Ready
In this phase, you will work with peers and professionals to contribute to preparing the book for publication.

• Peer/audience review - Ask 3 to 5 colleagues or experts in the field to read a PDF copy of the book. Listen to their suggestions, but make changes as you see fit. They are not looking for typos, or doing copy editing, but giving overall advice about content, based on their knowledge of the subject. Friends and family are not recommended as they will tell you what you want to hear.
• Professional editing - This can be done before or after the peer review. It may involve developmental (big picture) editing, or only copy/line editing for grammar, punctuation and clarity. 
• Title choice - This important part of your book must be finalized before going into the next phase of production.
• Front and back matter written - Don't forget the extra parts of your book, such as acknowledgements, dedication, introduction, foreword, testimonials, or anything else you would like to put before and after the main body of the book.
• Jacket copy written - This is the text that will go on the back of the book, and can be used for the book description on Amazon.
• Author certainty - Make sure the book is exactly how you want it and has no mistakes before proceeding to the next phase.

Phase 3 - Production Ready
In this final phase, your publisher will work with you to make decisions about the final physical book product and help produce it and get it up for sale. Whether you do it yourself or use various teams of publishers or vendors, the goal is to make the book look like a traditionally-published book. The Independent Book Publishers Association has an Industry Standards Checklist for a Professional Published Book that will help in this phase. 

• Trim size - Decide what size and shape you want your book, considering number of pages, cover design, number of pages and more.
• Cover design - This includes the front, back and spine and must be coordinated with the interior book design and follow specifications of your printer. 
• Interior design - Decide on typography fronts throughout book, paper color and other design features. There are templates available on createspace.com and other websites.
• ISBNs assigned - Your publisher will have access to an International Standard Book Number, which must be assigned to any published book. If you publish with createspace.com, you can have them assign one for free. 
• Professional proofreading - You should have someone outside of the author, publisher or editor proofread the final version, both cover and interior, for any last-minute errors. This is not a time to make major content changes. 
• Author approval to print - You are responsible for giving final approval that you are ready to print and publish your book.
• Key words - If publishing on Amazon or any e-book platform, you will be asked for 5 to 7 key words. Do some research to find the best key words someone would use to find your book. 
• Establish accounts - You will set up author accounts with whatever online Print-on-Demand or e-book publisher you use, such as IngramSpark, Createspace, Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords. Your publisher may help with this.
• Author and book marketing plan - Make a plan for how you will market and sell your book, starting with an Amazon Author Page if your book is on Amazon. 

For help or advice with any of these phases, please contact us here at Pacelli Publishing, or Karen Lynn Maher at Karen@legacyoneauthors.com or 206-913-8883 and we would be happy to answer questions or discuss in more detail. Good luck with your writing and publishing! 

Patty and Karen

In this digital and internet age, you might think print and direct mail marketing are not the best method for reaching your ideal clients or readers. However, printed marketing materials can make a big impact and stand out among all the social media posts when they are received in the mail or handed to them. 

One of our latest authors, Kim Pelham, author of Six-Word Lessons on Selling Your Home in Seattle, has created a two-sided postcard offering free copies of her book. This will work well for her, as a real estate agent, because she will receive personal contact from people who could become potential clients. It can be mailed out in an envelope, or you could create one with space for an address and mail it as is. It could also be placed in a location such as a reception desk or waiting room, or simply handed to people when meeting them. There are many possibilities, depending on your industry. They can be created in simple online programs such as Canva.com or PicMonkey.com, or through online companies such as VistaPrint.com. 

​Have fun with all the possibilities to bring more attention to your book and your expertise through printed postcards.

Happy New Year! What a great time to get serious about writing and publishing that book you've been thinking about, or started on, or talked about . . . . As Mary Poppins says, "Well begun is half done." So why not BEGIN?
 
Again this January, Pacelli Publishing will be participating in a great event led by publisher Karen Lynn Maher to help you jump-start your project. You can devote an entire Saturday getting all kinds of expert guidance, as well as plenty of time to actually WORK on your book.
 
2018 Expert Author Writing Summit by Karen Lynn Maher
Heathman Hotel, Kirkland, Washington
January 27, 2018
8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
 
This day-long event is for you if you want more clarity about your unique and awesome point of view and/or you've been thinking about writing a nonfiction book and want a strong nudge to make that dream a reality in 2018.  The whole day will be devoted to planning your entire writing project and setting you up for successful completion.  Karen Lynn Maher, the workshop leader, offered this workshop in April with amazing results:  7 of the 25 participants have already completed writing their books and are at various stages of publishing. You, too, can have that awesome experience.

This is a hands-on, roll up your sleeves, and get to work conference so come prepared to:

• Identify your unique point of view
• Plan your entire book/writing project
• Commit to a plan and writing schedule that works for you
• Create an accountability team

There is room for only 20 people and many seats are already filled.  The cost for the day (including lunch and a networking reception) is $375.  Register at www.loexec.com/writing-summit/

Happy Holidays! We have had a very productive year of work with our authors, and appreciate everyone's patience as we have updated all book covers and added some marketing materials for our authors, including video trailers and mini-blogs. Thank you for your hard work and support and we wish you all the best in this season and the new year!

We are excited to introduce you to our latest offerings in the Six-Word Lessons series!

Karin Quirk, Kirkland family law attorney, calls her practice "Divorce for Grownups" because she believes that divorce doesn't have to be as nasty as people think. Her book, Six-Word Lessons for a Peaceful Divorce, explains Washington State law and contains many practical tips so couples can be informed and learn how to be more respectful and cooperative during this difficult process.

Jim DuBois, former Microsoft CIO, adopted a philosophy of working with his teams to work boldly and with speed, even if it meant making some mistakes along the way.  In his book, Six-Word Lessons to Think Like a Modern-Day CIO, he says, ". . . our world today is evolving faster than ever. We can no longer work the way we were taught in school or by our predecessors." The book will help IT leaders in any company improve their business and stand out in the constantly changing world of information and technology.

Seattle area real estate broker Kim Pelham uses her expertise in staging, organizing and successfully selling and listing homes to make sure home sellers don't leave money on the table when preparing, listing and selling their home. Her book, Six-Word Lessons on Selling Your Home in Seattle, is a must-read for anyone wanting to sell in this unique market. The book includes several links to photos of staging and home ideas.

Six-Word Lessons for Intentional Parenting is Mary Waldmann's third book in the series. She draws on her experience raising three children to be responsible adults, and her passion for following tried and true parenting methods to help children learn and grow to be happy and well-adjusted. The advice in this book is for parenting children ages birth to 10, and has great tips on teaching kids to keep their sense of wonder while respecting themselves and others.

Adding to our new Real Estate category is Six-Word Lessons for Smart Home-Buying in Seattle by real estate broker, Laura Brodniak. Anyone buying a home in the current market in the Seattle area needs all the advice they can get, and Laura has the experience and knowledge to help arm you with the knowledge to compete with other home buyers in this challenging market.

Local publisher, book-writing coach and friend, Karen Lynn Maher, is hosting an ExpertAuthor Writing Summit and Patty Pacelli will be discussing how self-publishing can work for you and some different ways to self-publish. This is a working conference where you will identify your unique point of view, plan your entire book/writing project, commit to a plan that works for you, create an accountability team, and more. Several who attended last year's conference have now completed and published their books. You can do it too! 

Saturday, January 27, 2018, 8 am - 6 pm
The Heathman Hotel
220 Kirkland Ave.
Kirkland WA 98033
$375 - Register here 

Beginning January 1, 2018, Pacelli Publishing's upfront signing fee for authors writing a Six-Word Lessons book will be $400. If you are working on a book proposal and outline for us, it will be $300 if sent to us before that date. Other royalty amounts will remain the same.

Thank you to our authors who have been so cooperative with us in updating their Six-Word Lessons book covers! We are loving the new looks and the photos you have chosen! We have recently added Debbie Rosemont, Tracey Warren, David DeVries, Shirley Enebrad, Nikki Rausch, Thomas Tomasevic, Deenie Robertson and Patty Pacelli. If your cover isn't updated yet, please contact us and we'll help get you going. When you update your cover, we'll also create a video trailer for your book. 

We have also started a new blog on our 6WordLessons website to provide a platform for all authors to write about their book and their business or expertise. We will be rotating posts on this site from all authors who contribute, so please send along any articles, even if they have already been written and/or published on another blog. Each post features the author's book cover and headshot.

We currently have six future authors working on their Six-Word Lesson books, so we'll look forward to sharing them with you soon.

Thank you for your interest, and enjoy the last days of Summer! Let us know if we can help with your writing, publishing or book marketing! 

Patty & Lonnie Pacelli
Patty@Pacellipublishing.com

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As we told you last month, we are updating the covers for our Six-Word Lessons books. Along with that, we are introducing 30-second video video trailers to promote each book. As each author's new cover is completed, Lonnie creates a trailer that features five lessons from the book. We place each video trailer on our YouTube channel, and give the author a file that they can share on their website, Amazon Author page, and social media. If you haven't changed your cover yet, we encourage you to find an image for your new cover so we can get started on your video trailer. The trailers can be found here.  

Also, please check out our new video with testimonials from some of our Six-Word Lessons authors. Thank you to those who gave us your six-word testimonial!  Please go to 6WordLessons.com to see updated covers from Tracey Cohen, Jenni Butz, Ray Waldmann, Mary Waldmann, Sally Palmer, Lauren Archer, Judy Sugg and Alisa Blum, and Lonnie and Trevor Pacelli.  

Congratulations to Tracey Cohen, author of Six-Word Lessons on Female Asperger Syndrome, on publishing her second book, Six-Word Lessons on the Sport of Running. Tracey has been an avid, competitive runner for over 30 years, and has run the Boston Marathon twice, as well as two 100-mile ultraruns. She has put her expertise into a book to help others enjoy running for a lifetime. See her trailer here.

As our Six-Word Lessons authors have heard, we are in the process of launching new cover designs for the Six-Word Lessons books. They now feature a 4 by 4-inch image that depicts your book topic, and the font and design has been changed to look more modern and highlight the subject matter more prominently. The back cover is similar to before but with new fonts. We are gradually rolling out new covers as our authors provide us with cover images. We would love to hear your feedback, and if you are still thinking about writing for the series, maybe this will help make your decision! 

Congratulations to Sally Palmer, Bellevue private music instructor, for publishing her first book on June 30! If you have children in any type of private music lessons, or know a music teacher, this book will go a long way toward setting up your student for success.