Archived Webcast: Leadership Presence

Our American Management Association New Media Team did a webcast with Kristi Hedges, author of The Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others, last week. She discussed how to build personal influence in your organization. You can still register and listen to the archived version.

Leadership Presence: How to Build Personal Influence in Your Organization
February 22, 2012
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST
Fee: Complimentary
Meeting Number: 17494-00001
REGISTER HERE.

Presence is the corporate “it” factor. It’s directly linked to your ability to get noticed, forge trusting relationships, and get others on board with your agenda. In increasingly distributed companies, managers are often left alone to translate a vision and galvanize cross-functional teams.

Influence is the primary means for getting work done.

The Wall Street Journal recently weighed in, stating that “presence plays an increasingly important role as companies grapple with a weak recovery and fewer management layers.”

Presence is an amorphous concept with a defined impact in our success. We’re experts at reading others’ presence, but it’s remarkably hard to understand and shape our own without the right approach.

The good news is that anyone can strengthen their presence in a way that’s authentic, natural, and influential whether they’re an introvert, extrovert, aspiring or seasoned leader.

Click HERE to sign up for Kristi Hedges’ AMA Webcast.

Click HERE for more information about Kristi Hedges’ The Power of Presence.

Kristi Hedges is an executive coach, leadership development consultant, and author of Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others (AMACOM). Her proprietary presence coaching model has been utilized by clients spanning Fortune 500 corporations, global professional services firms, entrepreneurial businesses, national associations, and the U.S. government. She’s a leadership contributor to Forbes.com and Entrepreneur.com, and a speaker for Vistage International and The Founder Institute. She writes about leadership at kristihedges.com and tweets @kristihedges.

Author Tips: 10 Turn-Offs for an Editor Reading Your Book Proposal

The following is a guest post by Executive Editor Christina Parisi on common turn-offs encountered in book proposals.

1. Not being qualified to write the book you are proposing. One of the first things I do in evaluating a proposal is look at the author’s credentials. Does he have enough experience to be a credible source of information? Is her experience impressive enough that the media will want to talk to her? And the flip side of this is, does she have anything in her background or experience that detracts from her credibility? For example, if you are writing a book on persuasion and you have a background in advertising, that might be good. If you are using your experience in marketing junk bonds as evidence you are a pro at influencing others, not so good.

2. Exaggerating your platform. Don’t claim a fabulous Twitter following if you have only 20 followers. Platform is really important in most nonfiction books, but not for every book or every topic, so give a realistic impression of who you are and what your reach is.

3. Having unrealistic expectations. Examples of this are: “My book on supply chain is perfect for Good Morning America,” “I won’t accept anything less than a six-figure advance,” “Please let me know ASAP if you are interested in publishing my book because I need it out by next month,” or it could be as simple as, “I am keen to publish my book so I can quit my job and retire.”

4. Asking me what you should write. Once we have an established working relationship we can have this kind of conversation because I will know your strengths and interests. But if I’m looking for a book on hiring an employee and you’ve been an HR hiring manager for 20 years, that does not mean we are on our way to signing a contract. The best books flow from your point of view, your experience, and your voice. If you are not passionate about the project and don’t have something only you can uniquely say, the writing will come off flat and forced. Besides, why would you want to spend all that time writing a book unless you were passionate about it?

5. Sending an inappropriate topic for our program. It requires some work on the part of the author to determine what kinds of books an imprint publishes, but it also takes a lot of work for us to evaluate unsolicited manuscripts. If you want us to take you seriously, please do your homework. Imprints change the areas they publish to meet market demand. Don’t assume that because AMACOM has published parenting books in the past that we are currently publishing parenting books. (We are not, though who knows, we could change again in the future.) To find out what a publisher is currently looking for, you should look at their site and their postings in publications such as Writer’s Market.

These are not exactly turnoffs, but they aren’t much help either…

6. Including only bestsellers as competition. Some authors think that listing only bestsellers, even if they have very little to do with the subject of the book, will convince editors that their books will also be bestsellers. Actually, it generally makes the editor wonder whether the author has realistic expectations, and whether they understand how their book fits into the market as a whole.

7. Claiming there are no competitive books. Other authors think it will improve their chances of getting published if they claim there has never been another book out there on the topic. Not only is this highly unusual, it only takes a minute (or less) for the editor to discover this is not true with a quick search on any online bookseller. Search for competitive books on an online bookseller and choose the most recent or bestselling titles from your search.

8. Forecasting audience size based on statistics. This kind of argument goes something like this: “There are more than 500,000 certified project managers worldwide, and thousands more who are not certified. If only two percent buy my book…” This is not how it works in the real world. Just because they exist does not mean they will buy your book. Clearly identify your audience (in this case project managers) and indicate how you are uniquely positioned to reach this market.

These should be obvious, but alas, they bear repeating…

9. Crashing my computer. Don’t send an extremely large file to my email. Usually this happens when an author has created a jacket for his unpublished book and has a large image file as the first page of the proposal. I have never signed a book based on a proposed book cover and I probably never will. I have, however, been put off by having my email blitzed by files that crash my computer.

10. Making it hard to evaluate your proposal. We provide submission guidelines to help you give us the information we need to evaluate your book. Please follow them—we need all the information requested to do a thorough evaluation.

Christina Parisi is an Executive Editor at AMACOM Books and the Director of AMA Self-Studies. She has been with AMACOM for 12 years and acquires books in management, leadership, training, HR, and general business. For book submission guidelines, see our website.

Earlier posts by Christina:

Four Critical Tips for Killer Book Titles

 

Introducing AMACOM… Aseem

Aseem is looking forward to filling up his bookshelf with our Spring and Summer books!

Next in the “Introducing AMACOM” series is Sales & Marketing Associate Aseem Kulkarni. Aseem joined AMACOM is October 2011.

What were you doing before you joined AMACOM?

Previously, I was working at the academic publisher, Continuum, in London as a Sales and Marketing Assistant. Before that, I was studying for my undergraduate degree in Art History at the University of Edinburgh. Living in the UK for the past 5 years has given me a wealth of new experience that I am excited to bring to AMACOM.

What are some of your responsibilities as Sales and Marketing Associate?

I have a number of duties between our trade sales and marketing. I regularly communicate and work with our sales representatives across the country to ensure that they receive regular media updates for all our titles, receiving finished copies of our books, and sending out regular sales reports. I also assist our Director of Trade Sales and Marketing with preparation for upcoming sales conferences, titling meetings for upcoming books, and competitive book research.

One of the more fascinating responsibilities I have is helping to manage our eBooks program. I prepare payment reports from our several eBook distributors such as Amazon and Google. I find these responsibilities to be of great interest, particularly since the media landscape is changing so rapidly and everything is moving from the physical to the digital.

What are the big challenges you face in your job?

I would say the two big challenges are helping to manage our eBooks programs and keeping up with new trends in business book publishing.

Since my previous experience has been with academic and trade fiction/non-fiction book publishing, understanding business book publishing is keeping me on my toes. From titling, to jacket copy and artwork, it’s a whole other ballgame.

As I said before, working with AMACOM’s eBooks is both exciting and challenging. We have a number of different distributors and as the pace towards e-reading continues, those accounts will only become more important.

What book are you really excited about right now?

I am very excited for our upcoming book In the Shadow of the Dragon by Winter Nie and William Dowell. While I was in Edinburgh, I studied Chinese language and history for two years. At the time I became really interested in watching Chinese films, books, and getting more insight into what makes their culture so different from the rest of the world. This book will be taking a different approach by taking a closer look at Chinese companies going global in markets such as technology and energy.

What book are you reading at the moment?

I just started a book on the American civil war called A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War by Amanda Foreman. Since I spent so much time away from the US, I thought that it would be nice to dive back into reading about American history. The book gives a great insight into Britain’s dependence on Southern goods like cotton and how their involvement might have dramatically changed the result of the Civil War. It also goes into detail about how European intervention has shaped the culture and politics of the US as we know it today.

The Civil War has always been of great interest to me, because certain issues such as the North and South cultural divide still resonate to this day. Since I was born and raised in Houston and am now living in New York, I get the occasional tease for being the Southerner.

What book do you want everyone to discover?

One of my favourite books of all time is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. I read this while I was travelling in Vienna and Prague. It is a story of a young girl who falls in love with reading and books in the backdrop of Nazi Germany. One of the most interesting points is that many of the chapters are told from the point of view of Death. Beware, the ending is very sad and it did not help that I was in a café where The Scientist by Coldplay was playing.

Final words?

In the words of The Terminator, “I’ll be back”. That is, I’ll be writing another blog post.

Thanks Aseem! Read more “Introducing AMACOM” posts here.

Archived Webcast: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans

Our American Management Association New Media Team held a webcast with Emily King, author of Field Tested: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans, and our American Management Association CEO Ed Reilly last week. They discussed the advantages of hiring veterans and how to help them transition into the civilian workforce. Sign up to listen to an archived version of the live webcast.

Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans
Meeting Number: 17499-00001
February 8, 2012
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST
Fee: Complimentary
REGISTER HERE.

Veterans are a tremendous source of untapped talent and come with a wealth of skills and experience beyond those of typical civilian employees. This webcast gives you the insight and tools needed to recruit and retain veterans, and to maximize their value in your organization. Leading companies that hire veterans owe it to themselves and their employees to understand the unique considerations involved. This one-of-a-kind guide reveals how to make the most of America’s top talent.

This program explores the key cultural differences between the military and civilian workplace and reveals how these differences can affect employee performance, satisfaction, and retention. Attend and you’ll gain advice on how to: Attract and interview veterans; On-board them quickly and effectively; Position them for success; Ensure a smooth cultural transition; Manage performance.

Click HERE to sign up for the webcast: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans with Emily King and Ed Reilly.

Click HERE for more information on Field Tested: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans by Emily King.

Emily King is a nationally recognized expert on the transition from military service to civilian employment. She has worked extensively with veterans and civilian hiring organizations and is a frequent speaker at industry events including SHRM and ASTD. She is the author of Field Tested: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans published by AMACOM.

Ed Reilly is president and CEO of American Management Association, a leading global not-for-profit, membership-based management development, research and publishing organization. Reilly previously served as president and chief executive officer of Big Flower Holdings, Inc. Prior to that, he spent over 25 years in a variety of senior executive positions with the broadcast and book publishing groups of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Rosemary on eBooks and Book Clubs

The following is a guest post by Vice President of Sales and Marketing Rosemary Carlough on eBooks and book clubs.

The holiday season just passed delivered eBook readers to many more users. AMACOM’s sales of eBooks had already exploded during 2011. So now we’re very curious to see how sales will continue to grow during 2012, and what the impact will be on print book sales. We have a few titles where print and eBook sales were neck-and-neck at the close of 2011, but for most of our titles the print edition still sells more copies than the eBook. During 2011 our sales of eBooks more than doubled versus the prior year. And eBooks are clearly going global. We already get eBook revenue from sites in the UK and Germany, as well as the U.S., and we’ll soon be adding Canada and France to the list. Early reports are that eBook readers were strong sellers during the holiday season in the UK, so hopefully those sales will grow in 2012 as well.

On a personal level, half of the women in my book group now own eBook readers, including some of the folks who are not really tech-savvy. The real bonus to this is that we no longer have discussions about whether the book is hardcover and too heavy to carry when commuting. We still look at price, although four of us are also regular users of the local library.

The biggest challenge for the book club is deciding what book to read. Some of us always come with suggestions, but coming to agreement is difficult. We check out the book descriptions at online sellers using our smartphones. I’m using Goodreads and have been trying – not very successfully – to get more folks I know who have similar reading interests to join. I’d really like to keep track of their personal reviews of titles I’m considering. I find Goodreads really handy for keeping track of not just what I have read, but also what I want to read. My “To Read” list is always with me when I’m visiting the library or a bookstore, whether in-person or online. So here’s to more good reads (pun intended) in 2012. In fact I’m already in the midst of reading not one, but three books.

Don’t ask.

Rosemary Carlough is Vice President of Sales and Marketing at AMACOM. She started at AMA doing direct marketing when AMACOM had a monthly print newsletter, which was like a mini-catalog. Now she manages all of the marketing department, which includes creative, PR, trade sales, and our rights department. Check the AMACOM website for Sales and Marketing Inquiries.

Earlier:
Rosemary on eBook Sales
Rosemary on Selling Content by Chapter
Rosemary on the Triumphs and Frustrations of Metadata
Rosemary on Fourth of July. Books, baseball, & blueberry pie!
Kama on Running a Book Group