Man alive, I hate that word blog. It sounds like blob and why would I put time and effort into a blob. Gadfreys. I read a few blogs on the web and thought, “Why would I want to look at that lady’s meatloaf? Or read about her kid’s braces or any of the other minutiae that make up our lives? I’m not interested in that!”

I guess the miracle of the internet blogs is that you CAN find something you ARE interested in and read what someone else is doing about it. And of all the people out there, I certainly know what it feels like to put pen to paper and write about “what you know.” I’ve written 40 books that have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

Let me share with you the most important advice I ever received about books. It was from Carol Cartaino, then the editor-in-chief of Writer’s Digest Books, the company who does more books on writing than anyone. Carol, in my opinion, is one of the best in the business and this bit of advice shows it.

“Don, notice that when people have a conversation, they learn from about the age of four on up that if they don’t let others in on the conversation, let them have their say, they will lose interest in the conversation (and you, too).

Surely we all like to tell our story, our experiences, our opinions. ‘Ours’ is our favorite subject. This is only human. But if the other guy can’t get some of his own experiences, opinion, and stories into the exchange, he’ll lose interest. We all learn this in life (or should have), and practice it for a successful interaction with friends and associates.

But deep in our heart still lurks that desire to tell and show our own stuff—we are all this way, even though we may be disciplined on the surface to control ourselves and share the stage. Many people, when they go to write their book, think ‘Aha, now at last it’s all me!’ And yes, you can write your story, your experience, your opinions and lay all this on those readers out there. But writing for someone is not all that different from talking to them. If there is nothing in it for the reader, if he cannot take part in what you write, as he does in conversation, he will withdraw and lay down the book. You have to write like you converse and let the reader have his turn. Don’t just tell him, include him.”

—Excerpt How to Write & Sell Your First Book.

From that: I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! Please send me your comments.

Maybe I really want to be Andy Rooney from 60 minutes who complains about his pet peeves and makes people laugh and reaches millions. But since I’m not Andy Rooney, I’ll just be me here sharing what’s on my mind with you. It’s bound to be opinionated (I’ve even been called OVER opinionated, though I don’t see how that’s possible).

I hope you enjoy it and join me often. WELCOME!

Good cleaning,

Don Aslett

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 3:04 pm and is filed under I believe in CLEAN!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.