| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
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| 00:04 | Lynda Weinman: The woman who you had speaking
at your seminar, Nancy Heinonen, was actually a publisher
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| 00:10 | or no, she was a packager.
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| 00:11 | Or what was she exactly and explain her role?
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| 00:13 | Peleg Top: She is actually, I know not all
people know about this role, she is actually
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| 00:16 | a book producer.
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| 00:17 | Lynda Weinman: Right.
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| 00:18 | Peleg Top: She is the person
between the author and the publisher.
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| 00:24 | So her position is very different
because she produces the entire book,
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| 00:30 | gets it printed, gets it packaged and then
hands 10, 15, 20,000 copies to the publisher
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| 00:36 | who takes it out to market.
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| 00:38 | So she deals with the publisher, with all
of the changes and all of the nightmare
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| 00:43 | parts of the project.
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| 00:44 | So it's actually pretty
nice thing to have in place.
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| 00:47 | It's almost like having an agent.
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| 00:49 | Lynda Weinman: Yeah and you have done
quite a few projects with her at this point.
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| 00:54 | How many years have you
two been working together?
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| 00:56 | Peleg Top: Well, we've only worked together
for a couple of years and the reason that I got
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| 01:00 | on her radar was because she saw some
of the other books that I've done and
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| 01:04 | thought these are interesting books.
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| 01:06 | So she approached to me and said,
"do you have any ideas for books?"
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| 01:10 | Because she would like to produce some
and I did and I pitched her the ideas and
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| 01:16 | she pitched it to the
publisher and we got the deals.
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| 01:17 | Lynda Weinman: Back in the day when I wrote my
book proposal, I didn't have any real guidelines
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| 01:23 | or know how to do it
exactly and I kind of winged it.
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| 01:26 | But are there any rules or thumb that
you would recommend for submitting a
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| 01:30 | concepts for one of these types of books?
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| 01:33 | Peleg Top: Sure.
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| 01:34 | If you're a creative person who has an
idea for a book that doesn't exist out
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| 01:39 | there yet for specific niche market,
flesh out that idea in a way that can
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| 01:45 | sell the concept to your publisher.
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| 01:47 | So think about things that a publisher
would want to know, like why do we want a
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| 01:52 | book on this particular topic?
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| 01:54 | What makes this book unique?
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| 01:56 | Why will this book sell?
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| 01:58 | Who is the target market?
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| 02:00 | What other titles are out there today or
have there been titles on this book in past?
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| 02:08 | And if you can look that up and
see well how many did they sell.
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| 02:11 | It'll be a good exercise for someone to go
through as they're fleshing out their idea.
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| 02:16 | But that's the kind of stuff.
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| 02:18 | Put yourself in the publisher's shoes
and think about if I was a publisher
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| 02:21 | about to take this to market, what kind
of questions will I ask myself about this book?
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| 02:26 | So provide the publisher the answer
because that will be what convinces and
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| 02:30 | persuades him to put the book together.
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| 02:33 | Lynda Weinman: Now at the seminar I attended,
you actually passed out a sample proposal.
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| 02:37 | Are you can share that
with lynda.com members too?
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| 02:38 | Peleg Top: Yeah absolutely.
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| 02:39 | Lynda.com members can get a sample,
basically a template with just,
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| 02:43 | it's basically a bunch of
questions that you need to answer.
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| 02:45 | That's what a proposal is all about.
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| 02:47 | So yeah absolutely, download the
template and put it to good use.
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| 02:50 | Lynda Weinman: So what is that process like when
you're pitching the actual concept of the book?
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| 02:55 | Peleg Top: Well it starts with a phone call.
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| 02:57 | It starts with a phone call,
an enthusiastic phone call.
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| 03:00 | So if you have an idea that is so great
and nobody has done a book like this in
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| 03:06 | the marketplace about this specific
topic, and it could also ultimately serve
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| 03:12 | your business, serve the niche that
you're serving in the marketplace,
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| 03:17 | start with a phone call to a few
publishers and say, hey I have this book idea.
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| 03:23 | Before you even put anything in
writing, just run it verbally by them.
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| 03:27 | If it all interests them, at that level,
they'll will say put it in the writing,
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| 03:32 | flesh this idea out,
let's see what else is in there.
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| 03:36 | So that's the first step, which you
know sometimes they buy the idea and
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| 03:40 | sometimes-- they know the market
a lot better, they know what sells.
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| 03:43 | So the more ideas you have,
the more you can pitch and ultimately if it's
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| 03:48 | the right idea and what they're
looking for, they'll consider it.
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| 03:51 | Lynda Weinman: I think people probably
sometimes look at published authors like ourselves and
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| 03:55 | wonder, "how did they get the courage
to think that their idea was publishable or
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| 04:00 | that their work was of enough value?"
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| 04:03 | And don't you think that kind of
overcoming that insecurity is part of what it
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| 04:08 | takes to come up with your own book
concept but even just to submit your work.
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| 04:12 | I see a lot of people who have
insecurity like "I'm really good enough" or they,
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| 04:16 | you know, "should I really
submit this idea or submit this work?"
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| 04:20 | "Am I going to get rejected and
what's that's going to feel like?"
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| 04:22 | Can you talk to that point a little bit?
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| 04:24 | Peleg Top: Sure.
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| 04:24 | Well, there is no reward if
there is no risk involved.
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| 04:28 | So sometimes we have to step out of
our comfort zone a little bit and go to
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| 04:33 | that place that is unknown
to us and try something new.
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| 04:38 | One needs a little bit of
chutzpah in this arena and getting
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| 04:43 | somebody's attention.
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| 04:44 | But the easiest way to
overcome it is just by doing it.
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| 04:48 | Lynda Weinman: And I think it's also really
important to say that I was rejected and you've
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| 04:54 | probably been rejected multiple times.
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| 04:54 | Peleg Top: Absolutely, absolutely.
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| 04:56 | Lynda Weinman: And that your first idea
isn't the idea that gets accepted and
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| 04:59 | the persistence is part of what you do
to build up your confidence and also
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| 05:03 | your skill at proposing ideas.
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| 05:06 | Peleg Top: And sometimes the idea that
you propose initially may not be the right
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| 05:12 | publisher or the right time.
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| 05:14 | The book that I am designing for the
Greater Good went through three pitches
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| 05:18 | with three other publishers that passed on it.
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| 05:20 | They said, "no, we don't think this book
will sell" and HarperCollins thought it would.
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| 05:25 | So they took the project on.
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| 05:27 | So I actually wrote the book proposal
for this book three years ago and
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| 05:32 | it took us about 3 years.
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| 05:33 | Lynda Weinman: Wow and that book
idea is about the nonprofit and...
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| 05:34 | Peleg Top: Yeah, it's about cause related
and nonprofit-- designing for cause related
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| 05:38 | causes and nonprofits.
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| 05:41 | I always thought it would be a great
book and it took the right person to
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| 05:45 | believe in that idea.
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| 05:46 | And when actually Nancy approached me
and she said, "what the book ideas do you have?"
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| 05:51 | And I pitched her this book
because I had the idea already in the back pocket.
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| 05:54 | She thought it was a great idea and
took the project on and to her surprise
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| 06:00 | the amount of entries that we got for this
book, because these books are a collection
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| 06:04 | of people submitting work into the
book, we had about four times as many
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| 06:10 | submissions than any other
books that they've ever done.
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| 06:13 | So that just shows me that there is
interest in the marketplace for people to
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| 06:18 | read about this topic.
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| 06:19 | Lynda Weinman: Absolutely and for what
it's worth, for my first book proposal, which was
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| 06:22 | rejected, ended up being a bestselling
book idea that I was never able to repeat
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| 06:27 | the success of that one book.
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| 06:28 | It was actually my biggest selling
book idea ever and it did get rejected.
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| 06:32 | So it isn't always the end of an
idea just because it gets rejected.
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| 06:37 | It's certainly important.
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| 06:39 | Well I'm so glad there are people like
you who are creating books like this and
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| 06:42 | thank you so much for sharing
your insights with us today.
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| 06:44 | Peleg Top: Thank you.
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| 06:45 | It's been great to be here.
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