A few words today from Peter Jones my esteemed co-author, about our latest book 🙂

And do please go along to his new look website to find out about more of his work.

 I’m delighted to announce that as promised the paperback edition of How To Eat Loads And Stay Slim is now available from amazon (.co.uk | .com) – or from your favourite bookstore (get them to order it in; ISBN: 978-1490318844).

The paperback has a number of advantages over it’s ebook and audio cousins. Here’s just a few…

1. Unlike the audio and ebook, you can’t ‘switch it off’. It sits there as a constant reminder of the promise you made yourself on the first action point, and the smart-eating principals within.
2. You can write in it! Which means you can jot down notes as you go along, check off the action points you’ve done, and on page 180 put a ‘tick’ next to the stars you’ve earned.
3. You can spill food and drink on it and it still works (useful if you’re propping it up on the kitchen worktop whilst trying out a recipe).
4. It’s sand proof (good for the beach).
5. And bath proof. Sort of.
6. You can use it to temporarily prop up wonky table legs in restaurants.
7. And once you’re gorgeously slender and no longer need it you can sell it, give it to your friends, or donate it to charity – all without a lot of technical messing about or worrying about ‘DRM’ (digital rights management – like you wanted to know that)

Right now the paperback is a mere £6.74 or $8.99 (depending on whether amazon (.co.uk | .com) have shaved a few pence off the price), and as summer’s either here or just around the corner why not use this an an opportunity to change the way you look at food, and take a few steps towards a slimmer you.

If you won a copy of the paperback in our recent promo, it’ll be on its way to you by the end of the week.

Thanks so much, Peter, some very good points, and here is one last slightly tongue in cheek reason to buy the paperback from me:

A paperback makes a much better fly swatter in the garden than a kindle – so what are you waiting for 🙂

Earlier today I interviewed Peter Jones on Twitter. Just in case you missed it, here’s the transcript.

Vikki & Jayne chimed in too.

DellaGalton: So Peter @doitallbehappy are you ready to be interviewed about #boxingday
11:58am, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton Ready and waiting! Shoot! #boxingday
11:58am, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy I have it on good authority that you invented #boxingday is this true?
11:59am, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton I may have RE-invented #BoxingDay 🙂
12:00pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy So tell me about this re-invention?
12:01pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton It’s a kind of a chillout day, and I have one, on average, once a month
12:03pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy So you have a day exactly like today once a month. Is this right? Would you have Christmas Day and turkey the day before?
12:04pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton LOL. For me #BoxingDay isn’t anything to do with xmas. It’s only called Boxing Day because that’s when the 1st one happened.
12:07pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy So, are you saying anyone can have a #boxingday at any time of the year? What gave you this idea?
12:09pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton Yes. That’s the idea. I pre-plan my Boxing Days – one a month.
12:11pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy So what did you do on your last #boxingday, apart from this one that is 🙂
12:13pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton Gosh! I can’t remember exactly – I do so many things. But my Boxing Days definitely have themes
12:14pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy what kind of themes exactly?
12:15pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton Cooking is one; I’ve made chocolate brownies, treacle tart, many many pizzas (base included), and truck loads of flapjacks.
12:16pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy Are there any rules for #boxingday activities then?
12:17pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton @vikkithomp Rule 1: No-pre-planning! Rule 2: Book BD in advance. Rule 3: You can move BD but you can’t cancel it!!
12:19pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

vikkithomp: @doitallbehappy @dellagalton So “planning” to have a day where I don’t go online is a no no? #BoxingDay (which I’ve now broken anyway lol) x
12:23pm, Dec 26 from Twitter for iPad

DellaGalton: @vikkithomp @doitallbehappy absolutely. you can do anything I reckon – and it would qualify.but let’s ask Peter 🙂
12:24pm, Dec 26 from Web

Jayne_A_Curtis: @DellaGalton @vikkithomp @doitallbehappy Im having a large Tia Maria on Ice, I definitely didnt plan it, honest.
12:29pm, Dec 26 from Web

DellaGalton: @Jayne_A_Curtis @vikkithomp @doitallbehappy Now, that sounds like a fine plan Jayne. Peter is this a valid #boxingday activity?
12:31pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton @Jayne_A_Curtis My first #BoxingDay I opened a bottle of champaign – so I guess that answers that! 🙂
12:32pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy @Jayne_A_Curtis Were you celebrating anything specific or just #Boxingday
12:33pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton I guess I was doing what Kate (my late wife) and I used to do on our Boxing Days.
12:35pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy Ah, so Kate was the reason you reinvented #boxingday?
12:38pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton In a way. BD was ‘our’ day. The 1st year without her I replicated what we’d done. After that I decided to do it each month.
12:40pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy Ahhh, that is so romantic. Have you had any other romantic #boxingdays? Romance sounds like a fine theme.
12:41pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton Is that an offer 😉
12:42pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy Right, Mr Jones, getting back to your book. Tell us where we can buy it again 🙂
12:42pm, Dec 26 from Web

doitallbehappy: @dellagalton It’s available as an ebook and audio right now – http://t.co/0VNYp6ef – and @HarperCollinsUK are republishing it Jan 17th
12:44pm, Dec 26 from HootSuite

DellaGalton: @doitallbehappy @HarperCollinsUK Thank you so much Peter. I will let you get back to the official #boxingday. Have fun 🙂
12:46pm, Dec 26 from Web

Follow Peter on twitter @doitallbehappy and me @dellagalton

Just a quick note to introduce Peter Jones, who is my guest blogger today and the tutor of my next Saturday course in Bournemouth on 1st December.  Peter is the author of How to Do Everything and be Happy, which he self published both electronically and in print, and which turned out to be rather successful. I’ll let him tell you about that. 🙂 But suffice to say he knows his stuff. Although I am not teaching this course I shall be there to hold his hand so to speak. And I can vouch for his course personally as I have attended it myself. If you are in the business of self publishing (or you want to be) then I don’t think you’ll find a much finer tutor on the subject than Peter. So over to you, honey.

Many people know me as the author of How To Do Everything and Be Happy. Few people realise however that it was originally self-published, first as an ebook, and then a paperback, and that the sales went so well that the second edition was snapped up by audible.com (the audio book people) and re-published by Harper Collins (new paperback version available to pre-order now on amazon or download as an e-book – blah blah blah) .

A spin off of all this self-publishing malarkey was being asked if I’d like to run a two part mini-course on “e-publishing” as part of the Swanwick Summer Writer’s School. I did, and it was a blast! So much so that I’m doing it again, in Bournemouth, on the 1st of December! I humbly present to you…

ePublishing – (self) Publishing & Publicity in the digital age

Course Content

Whether you want to publish a print book, an e-book, or even an audio book, this one day course will ensure that your first steps in the world of e-publishing are in the right direction.

In the morning we’ll be covering the different options available to the modern e-publisher, how to get started, and pitfalls to avoid. In the afternoon we cover the real work of e-publishing – publicity – with a whistle stop tour of websites, blogging, facebook, twitter, reviews, competitions, give-aways, and pricing.

Is the Course for you?

This course is aimed at those who think they might want to self-publish a work of fiction or non-fiction that is mainly, or completely, text. It may also be of interest to established self-published authors who are struggling with book-marketing, or who aren’t seeing the book sales they would like.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the day you’ll know everything you need to know about ePublishing, the skills required, the costs involved, whether it’s for you, and how to get started.

You’ll also have a step-by-step marketing plan tailored to your own personal skills, abilities and time constraints.

Time and Cost

Queries?

Drop me a line via my Stay In Touch page.

My good Friend and author Peter Jones explains how a misplaced hyphen can dash your hopes of ever being published.

My first real literary ‘rejection’ came at the hands of an agent who we’ll called Kate Slash. On the day that Ms Slash received my manuscript she’d clearly discovered that her husband was indeed the cheating scumbag she’d always suspected he was. Moments later she burnt both slices of toast, the cat threw up all over her white carpet, and she broke a heel on her favourite shoes. I don’t know this for sure of course, but I’m guessing it must be the case because when the first three chapters of The Good Guys Guide to Getting Girls arrived on her desk she wasted no time in telling me how much she hated it. And my god, how she hated it.

I can’t recall off the top of my head all the things she said (although me being me, I assembled them into a list and diligently worked through each point over the following months) but I do remember her final scathing comment:

“Further more the manuscript is littered with typos which is very distracting, and shows a somewhat careless and slapdash approach to your writing.” Or words to that effect.

It was this remark that stung the most. Whilst I was prepared to take on board everything else she’d said, the one thing I was pretty sure I had nailed down was my spelling, and grammar. Throughout my entire professional life nothing I’d written had ever left my computer without being run through the internal spell check, and then read through by myself and my colleagues. Even the pages Kate was busy using to stoke the fire under her cauldron had been scrutinised by several sets of eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with those chapters,” said my mate Pat, “and I should know!” Pat’s an English teacher somewhere in the south-east of England. And given what happened next, maybe that’s as much as I should tell you about him. Or her. I’m not saying.

“Well let’s find out!” I said. “Jules -” (that’s my long suffering assistant) “find me a proof reader!”

Which was how I came to meet Alison the Proof Fairy. I duly sent Alison the same first three chapters and expected to have them sent back with a covering email telling me that she couldn’t find anything to correct.

Boy howdy – how wrong I was.

I’ve just had a quick look at the document Alison returned to me – for old times sake – and believe me when I say I can feel my cheeks glowing again, just as they did almost two years ago. I’d include the file here for you to look at, if I wasn’t too ashamed to do so.

Needless to say I learnt several very important lessons:

Firstly, regardless of how you rate your attention to detail, unless you proof for a living it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll spot all the errors in your own writing. You’re just too darn close to it. But more surprising, unless your friends are professional readers (and may I respectfully point out that being a teacher doesn’t seem to be close enough), neither will they!

Secondly, agents don’t actually seem to accept anything. They reject. As would you if you had a mountain of manuscripts to get through. You’d work through those chapters looking for reasons to throw them out, until you finally unearthed the one document that hadn’t, in any way, made you want to toss it across the room.

Finally, two years on, having published How To Do Everything and Be Happy, with a further two titles waiting in the wings, I realise more than ever the importance of perfect spelling and grammar. I simply can’t take the risk that one of my readers might come across a typo. Particularly if that reader turned out to be Kate Slash. Heaven knows what she might do.

Peter Jones is the author of the best selling self-help book How To Do Everything and Be Happy.
His novel the Good Guy’s Guide to Getting Girls continues to be rejected by agents. Though not because of the spelling.
Find out more about Peter and his books at peterjonesauthor.com

The Positively Productive Writer

I’m a failure every day. Sometimes, I’m a failure several times in the same day! I’m forever being rejected. But, I make a point of telling myself that it isn’t me personally being rejected – just that idea at that particular time.

And because of that, I keep going. I keep writing and sending out work and making pitches to editors. And because I keep at it, I get acceptances too.

I once sent an article to a magazine. It came back rejected. A few months later, I heard the magazine had a new editor, so I resubmitted it. That editor rejected it too. Then some time later, I discovered the editor had changed again, so I resubmitted it to the same magazine. That particular editor accepted it. I hadn’t changed anything in my text. The words that third editor saw were exactly the same as the words the first two editors read. But the third one decided he liked it.

I sent a short story to a UK fiction magazine, and it was rejected. I also sent it to an Australian magazine, who decided to accept it. When they published it, I noticed that they’d made two very small changes. So, I made those changes to my original text and resubmitted it to the UK magazine. The UK magazine bought it.

In both those examples, had I given up after the first rejection, I would not have seen the publication of my words. (Nor would I have received the payments either!)

Once you understand that rejection is merely a moment in time, it makes it easier to move on. We all get rejected. Even professional writers are rejected. (Rumour has it, even the great Della Galton gets the odd rejection or two.)

And being the positive kind of guy that I am, I actually think rejection is a Good Thing. Because only writers who have the gumption to send their writing into that big, wide world out there can ever be rejected. You can only really appreciate what an acceptance means, when you’ve experienced rejection. So, go for it! Stay positive. Stay productive. And one day your efforts will be rewarded!

Good luck!

Simon

www.simonwhaley.co.uk

Twitter: @simonwhaley

Blog: Simon Says! http://simonwhaleytutor.blogspot.com/

The Positively Productive Writer, by Simon Whaley, shows writers how to reject rejection and enjoy positive steps to publication.

ISBN: 9781846948510

UK: £11.99

US: $19.99

Available now on Amazon.

With the new year just days away, Peter Jones shares his passion for personal Goal Setting, and explains why failing them is a good thing.

So, in three days it’ll be 2012. And for the fifth year running I’ll be setting myself personal goals.

A lot of my friends dislike the idea of setting personal goals, like it somehow takes the ‘private’ part of their life – the part that is supposed to be about relaxing and having fun – and turns it into ‘work’. And work, as we all know, is the mortal enemy of fun and relaxation.

Perhaps you feel the same way? I know I did. Having read and listened to more than my fair share of self help books I thought I knew all that I needed to know about Goal Setting – enough to know that it wouldn’t work for me. And as I sat in traffic on the M25, morning after morning, listening to those Tony Robbins CDs, I’d start to wonder whether I’d enjoy them more if I wound down the window and tossed them, Frisbee-like, over the edge of the bridge and into the River Thames far below me.

That was, until I went out for a curry with my old friend Denny.

“I’ve set myself 5 goals for next year,” she told me one winter’s night in January.

“Goals?” I said

“Yeah,” said Denny as she mopped up some sauce with a strip of naan bread. I was stunned.

“Why?”

“Because I’m fed up with my life being like it is.”

“But, setting yourself goals – it’s a little extreme though, isn’t it?” She shrugged.

“Not really,” she said.

“But what if you don’t achieve them?” I asked.

“Then life will stay pretty much as it is, I guess. From that perspective I can’t really lose.” I thought about this for a second or two.

“Maybe I should set some goals,” I said.

“Maybe you should,” said Denny. “What would they be?”

And that was five years ago.

I like to set my goals at the start of each year, and review them at the end. This might make them sound a little like ‘resolutions’ but resolutions are something entirely different. “I will give up smoking” – that’s a resolution. “I have given up smoking (December, 2012)” – now that’s a goal.

Take for instance one of my goals for 2010:

My Happiness Book is published
(Dec 31st 2010)

At the time I set that the Goal I’d hardly started writing How To Do Everything and Be Happy, let alone given much thought to how I would publish it. I didn’t even have the title.

Did I achieve the goal?

No.

That’s the not so funny thing about setting goals – some of the time, perhaps even most of the time, you fail!

But then I’m not particularly motivated by ‘easy goals’ – goals that I know I have a good chance of achieving. They don’t even feel like goals – more like boring items on my to-do list. I had a friend who, on January 1^st, set herself the goal of joining a gym. By the end of the first week she’d achieved it. Was that really a goal? Shouldn’t joining the gym have been part of a much larger goal to improve her health and fitness? In my mind a goal should stretch you. A goal should be ever-so-slightly out of reach. With most of my goals I know that my chances of success are extremely slim, though the chance is there.

So my revised Goal for 2011 looked like this:

“How To Do Everything and Be Happy”
is available in three formats,
and selling really well (to be defined),
whilst I bask in the success (to be defined)
of the seminar(s)
Dec 31st 2011

And will I achieve that Goal??

No.

But I’ll come darn close. The book was released as an ebook back in March, and as a paperback a few weeks later. Both are selling better than I could have ever hoped. An audio version is planned for this coming year, and whilst I’m not exactly basking in the success of my one workshop, two more are being planned for the coming weeks.

Most important of all though, by identifying why I achieved or failed my goal I’m equipped to write smarter, more specific, or maybe utterly different goals.

Working with goals – that is, having them in your life – is something that gets easier the longer you do it. You develop a habit, or a mindset – after a while you start to look at everything you’re doing in relation to how it sits with your goals. In a very real way, your goals force you to decide what’s important to you and move you in that direction. They give you purpose and vision.

And it’s true what they say:

“Without vision the people perish.”

So, people of the interweb – what are your Goals for 2012. Drop me a line or use the comments box below – I’d love to hear from you.

Wishing you a very happy New Year

Peter Jones
Author of How To Do Everything and Be Happy