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A well-crafted bio is essential for every author and expert and there is a simple formula to follow to make sure your bio has all the right elements. But don’t skip out on the mindset work required to FEEL as awesome about your bio as it reads.

Most book descriptions suck! Why? Because authors and not marketers are writing them. You need to take off your author hat and put on your marketer hat before you write your book description or flap copy. This is a specialized skill and requires a lot of attention to nail these 250 or so words.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why we call book descriptions “flap copy” and why it matters

• The effect the Internet and search engine optimization has had on book descriptions

• The one teeny tiny element that’s missing from almost all book copy that could double or triple your sales.

• How to get your credibility across in your book description without sounding arrogant

• Why other authors can be the key to a successful book description and how to find the right ones

Titles sell books. I wish what sold books was great content. But the truth is people make snap decisions on whether to buy a book – especially a low-cost ebook. Having a great title is one of the most powerful tools at your discretion.

In this episode you will learn:

- Why having a great book title is so important

- The one question ever title HAS to answer

- 10 of the rules I’ve created for myself for writing great book titles.

- 3 great options for testing your book title and one terrible one!

- What you need to know about copyright law to protect yourself.

In this episode Dr. Lauria explains how you can be the hero or the victim of your book journey. As an author you are the director of your experience. It will look to you sometimes like the things effecting your book are coming from outside of you. Maybe your editor will drop out of society and move to the mountains without wifi and take your manuscript with him. Maybe your publisher will close down 2 weeks before you publish. Things will happen but your ability to stay in the driver’s seat is the single most important determining factor in your success.

In this episode Dr. Lauria addresses 3 different stumbling blocks authors run into in picking their topics: Deciding between too many ideas, Coming up with an idea when you are kind of blank, and Knowing what to do when you have an idea but you just aren’t sure if it’s good enough. Using Martha Beck’s 4 stages of change, Dr. Lauria helps you identify where you are on your book journey and how to pick the topic that’s right for you.

In this episode you will learn:

• Martha Beck’s cycle of metamorphisis and how to identify where you are in it

• How to let your topic pick you

• Easy ways to test your topic

• When to stick with the discomfort of not know and when to choose to take action even if you aren’t sure.

• How to defy the laws of the time/space continuum, connect with your book – already written – and find out what you wrote about!

In this episode Dr. Lauria shares lessons from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to A Young Poet. In this book almost every question a new author has is addressed and the answer RIlke profoundly returns to almost each is to turn inward for the truth. Rilke says:

" Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you, because you would not be able to live them, and the point is to live everything.

Live the question now, perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

In this episode Dr. Lauria talks about how long it actually takes to write a book and why so many people take so long! She’ll teach you how to identify if you are a burster or a plodder and how to create a schedule to write your book that you will be more likely to keep. Many bursters think of themselves as procrastinators and many plodders think of themselves as dull or uncreative. You are neither. This is just the way you create. In this episode you will learn how to hardness that.

In order to create a safe place for your inner author, you need to know what you are going to write before you write it. In this episode you’ll learn the difference between writing an outline and writing an InLine. Dr. Lauria explains how the InLine approach leads to a book that makes a bigger difference and is more fun to write.

Most writing workshops and books will teach you to identify the target market for your book. You know women 35-45 with 1-3 school age kids, that sort of thing. But there is a problem with this approach. It’s based on the old school marketing theory of market share in a limited shelf space world. In the current non-fiction literary landscape writing for a target market instead of an ideal reader can spell death for your book.

In this episode why “White Knuckling” it will only get you so far when it comes to authorship. If you want to write a book that matters you have 2 choices. You can write from a place of fear and frustration or you can write from joy and ease. I always say I don’t care if you are joyful and at ease when you are writing a book, but I know when you are, when you book is flowing through you, that your book will make a much bigger impact in the world. Discipline vs. Author Mojo is a choice you get to make and there are no right or wrong answers but knowing you get to decide if the writing process is fun or not is about as empowering as it gets.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• What it means to focus your author mojo

• Why will-power fails every time

• The difference between author mojo and discipline

• How to get your butt in the chair writing

• A simple technique for getting your writing routine rocking

• The difference between good discipline as a writer and author mojo

• The danger of treating your book like a crash diet

• What “white knuckling” your book looks and feels like

• How to create a safe space for your Inner Author to come out and play

• What are the elements of your author mojo and how can you focus each aspect of it