Proud of my book

If pride in one’s work is one of the self-proclaimed mortal sins of 21st century entrepreneurship, I am guilty as charged. Social media, and LinkedIn in particular, makes me that way. With no apologies.

But there’s a story to tell behind all lifetime achievements.

Two summers ago I met an editor from the American Bar Association over breakfast to pitch my book idea: a field reference guide for not just lawyers, but for CPAs and wealth managers and architects, and other professional practitioners of all stripes, and…

1. maybe just some of them no longer practiced law but went into other fields, and
2. maybe others ran two or more businesses as professional consultants, and
3. I knew from my work they all definitely needed to learn how to best self-brand and market themselves on LinkedIn.

This hit a positive nerve at the ABA, I gained approval from LinkedIn to write it (required), and after a lengthy outline process to the ABA, I set forth to articulate what was percolating in my head: the concepts I have been speaking about for now 7 years.

So I wrote my book and was pleased. It said and sounded like me, my work and my viewpoints.

I submitted the manuscript 1 month ahead of schedule, along with sidebar quotes from experts in all sorts of professional fields about how they have optimized LinkedIn for their own purposes. These are the smart people in all walks of professional and multi-preneurial life pursuits with whom I surround myself.  They are located nationwide and in all fields. They market themselves quite well as if their very life depends on it. Because it does!

And I chose Carol Greenwald to guest author a chapter on ethical considerations for attorneys to consider in their LinkedIn marketing efforts. Thank you Carol for the introduction to the ABA, and for your perspective and advice throughout this process.

The manuscript was then reviewed by practitioners who serve on the book review panel at the ABA. Some really positive comments came in.

Off it went to copyediting for the final stages before publication…and about December 2016, I caught wind of a big change coming to the desktop user interface on LinkedIn. I foresaw with crushing fear that my new book would be instantly outdated just as it was being printed.

So I contacted the ABA and they agreed with me: stop the publication process immediately so I could rewrite the book to reflect the newer version of LinkedIn.

That meant my waiting (I admit impatience is well within my nature!) to receive the new version of LinkedIn–and as the lottery for that being provided to me would have it, I was among the last to receive it.

It required slicing out entire chapters of the manuscript because those LinkedIn sections no longer existed.  I had to carefully rethink and rewrite the marketing aspects of new subsections on LinkedIn I was just introduced to. Then there was the matter of providing an entirely new set of exhibits and commentary. Finally, I had to review the cohesive flow of the book…again.

And most of all, it meant a delay, rescheduling and resubmitting for copyediting.

Meanwhile, the artists at the ABA designed a few covers to select from, and I wrote the back cover narrative and saw to it they kept my written tone and voice and commentary throughout the book, cover to cover, just as if I am speaking to you. I wanted this book to be interesting to read.

Finally, after a change in editorial personnel at the most inopportune moment, we progressed to a few final editions for reading, editing and re-reading. It was what I consider a finished product.

It’s my first book. It won’t be my last; the second one is already started.

And here’s a nice thought: the book publication coincides almost to the day of my 7th anniversary teaching and coaching others in LinkedIn marketing techniques–how to be “amazing-er” and tell why they do what they do.

“LinkedIn Marketing Techniques for Law and Professional Practices” is available today (finally) for pre-order (with shipment after June 7) at www.shopaba.org. Psst: it will make a lovely Father’s Day gift. Sorry moms, I missed having it available for your day.

Timing is everything, I reluctantly admit, even when I had to hard stop and jumpstart, now this author’s story is told, just to get to this very gratifying, proud point in my career.