Writing a Book

Writing is something I like to do. It's not something that comes easy by any means. I'm not one of those guys who can lock himself in a cabin in the woods and just crank out a book. I sure admire guys like Stephen King, Seth Godin, and John Irving who can churn out good quality books annually. I don't know how they do it. Strike that, I have a vague idea. I think they just sit down at their typewriter or computer, close their eyes, and just let the words flow out of them. I've tried that, but it doesn't work so well. I'm so easily distracted that as soon as I get an idea flowing and my fingers can't type as fast as the words are pouring out, something else pops in my head and next thing I know I'm Googling something or buying a birthday gift on Amazon.

So I'm going to try something here. I'm going to try and write a book via my blog. Or at least I'm going to try to type out all my thoughts and hopefully turn them into a book at some point.

During my life I've participated on countless industry panels, spoken at college campuses, and given speeches on what I do and how I believe it should be done. When I was in the music business I would fly to Austin, TX every year for the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and discuss how bands could better prepare themselves for being on a major label. I'd head to Las Vegas for the Pollstar Concert Industry Consortium (CIC) where we'd talk about how to market a band while they are on tour. Recently I've done a lot of speaking on how Social Media can forge a better connection between brands and their customers.

All stimulating stuff - if you are in my business anyway.

But I've noticed something recently. You have to write a book. Because if you write a book, then you are an authority. And you don't even have to write a successful book, you just have to write a book. It just sounds better when you are giving a keynote at a conference and they say, Larry Weintraub, author "Blah, Blah, Blah" at 11am.

Used to be that getting a book published was as difficult as getting a record deal or a film produced by a major studio. Not any more. Just like music and movies, you can do it yourself. Just write your thoughts down and go to a site like Blurb.com and voila, you too can have a published book.

So what the hek. Time to write a book. A dozen years ago I should have written a book about the music business. But I didn't have the time and blogging wasn't as easy as it is today. So here goes. I'm going to start writing a book, right here, on this blog. A book about Social Media. A "how to" if you will about how easy it is and how you can do it too.

I am going to try to put something down specifically about this book every Monday. Let's see if I schedule this into my life if it will get done. Then maybe I can write a book about that too. Ha!

Stay tuned. I think this is going to be fun. Or ridiculous!