Tag: author interview

Meet Mike Sherman, co-author of 52 Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us About Customer Analytics

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
This entry is part 1 of 11 in the series Meet the Author

I worked with Mike a few years ago on social media marketing for his book, 52 Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us About Customer Analytics.

Tell us a little bit about your book and business.

Mike Sherman
Mike Sherman

My book (our book, as it was co-written with my son, Alex) is about closing the gap between users of customer analytics and providers of customer analytics.  Too often the users lack sufficient knowledge to helpfully define, interpret or use customer analytics, so they fail to get so much potential value.  Likewise, providers/creators of customer analytics don’t fully understand their end users needs – what decisions they need help making and how the analytics can help them improve their decision making.  So we wrote 52 chapters of easy to digest anecdotes that illustrate how to close that gap.

Why did you write your book?

Alex joined me in Singapore 9 years ago for a semester abroad, at a time when I was leading the customer analytics team at Singapore Telecom. He had developed an interest customer analytics and we began to have substantive discussions.  That lead to him suggesting I speak at his university (SMU, SIngapore Management University) where I titled my talk “Ten things I wish someone had told me about customer analytics”.  The talk drew 600 people.  Alex encouraged me to write a book on that material and topic. I agreed only if he would write it with me.  So we did the project together, working through phone calls, vacations, etc.

Alex Sherman
Alex Sherman

How did you publish your book?

We approached several publishers but all said our material didn’t fit their market profile or was too niche for them.  So we went the independent route.

How did things change for you as an author in 2020 and how did you manage to weather through the year during the pandemic?

2020 and 2021 so fare gave us more opportunities to talk to the book’s material, as remote webinars were more easily accepted (hard to do in person talks when one of us lives in Hong Kong, the other in Washington, DC). 

What is your favorite book marketing tip?

We are frustrated that we know so little about our customers, despite being customer analytics mavens.  Publishing via Amazon means we only know how many copies are sold, the format and which location they use to buy the book (virtual location, e.g. Amazon. com or .uk or .ge).  Two things have worked for us: making it clear to contacts that we welcomed the opportunity to do webinars and that these webinars would be full of content, not just an ad for the book.  Second, we regularly Google the book title, where we sometimes learn about our customers, leading to marketing opportunities.  For example, a short comment by one student at North Texas University about being assigned our book for a course lead us to the professor and the opportunity to do several short webinars for that course, further publicizing our content.52 Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us About Customer Analytics

What are your goals for 2021?

No specific goal, we promote the book opportunistically.  Our one goal was already achieved, we launched the Chinese translation of the book.

Where can readers find your book?

Website or Amazon

Alex Bio:

Alex Sherman is a machine learning practitioner, educator, and author who is passionate about applying analytical tools and techniques in the realm of customer analytics to drive personalized product experiences.

Alex works as a data science manager at Capital One on a computer vision team. Previously, he spent seven years at Deloitte Consulting where he led natural language processing projects for life science clients. Based in Washington D.C., Alex enjoys teaching the practical application of machine learning and customer analytics. He has taught in-person and online data science bootcamps for General Assembly to over 200 students. Alex also shared his analytics experience in a book he co-authored, “52 Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us About Customer Analytics.”

Alex has a Bachelor of Business Administration, summa cum laude, from Temple University, and is studying at the University of Pennsylvania for a Master of Computer and Information Technology.

Mike Bio:

Mike has over 35 years of marketing, CRM/Big data , and market research experience.  He helps clients address marketing opportunities through leveraging big consumer data and traditional market research.

Mike published his first (and last!) book, “52 Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us About Customer Analytics”, co-authored with his son Alex.  The book captures real life lessons learned over their careers, with a focus on practical applications of analytics that connect methodologies and processes to impactful outcomes.

Mike began his career at Procter & Gamble, where he managed both new and established brands.  Mike spent 17 years with McKinsey & Company; while there he created their Asia-Pacific marketing practice and founded their global CRM practice.  Mike was also Global Head of Knowledge Management for Synovate , where he lead efforts to improve the value clients obtain from research.  At SingTel and Hong Kong Telecom he set up  big data teams and drove the use of both customer data and customer research to help the business understand customer and customer data opportunities.

Mike has been based in Asia since 1997 and has supported work in almost every country in the Asia-Pacific region. Mike has extensive experience in the telecom, retail, financial services, consumer electronics and FMCG industries.

Mike has an MBA, High Distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School and two Bachelors degrees, Magna Cum Laude, from the Wharton School and College, University of Pennsylvania.

Mike is a frequent speaker at conferences and published several times in the McKinsey Quarterly on marketing issues in developing and Asian markets.  He is the former Board Chair of AFS-USA, a leading high school foreign exchange organization and an avid traveler, having visited over 140 countries.

Meet George Troy, author of The Five Laws of Retail

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
This entry is part 2 of 11 in the series Meet the Author

George and I worked together for a few years on building his social media presence before and up through the launch of his book.

Tell us a little bit about your book and business.

My book, The Five Laws of Retail: How the Most Successful Businesses Have Mastered Them and How You Should Too, explain the fundamental principals that will enable a business to succeed.

Why did you write your book?George Troy, Retail Consultant

I wanted to help people and also to share some great stories from the retail world.

How did you publish your book?

I traditionally published with Post Hill Press.

How did things change for you as an author in 2020 and how did you manage to weather through the year during the pandemic?

To be honest, not much changed. Writing is a mostly solitary activity that one can do almost anywhere.

What is your favorite book marketing tip?

Great social media support! An author has to speak with a strong and consistent voice across all channels.

What are your goals for 2021?

I am currently working on fiction for a regional periodical.

Where can readers find your book? The Five Laws of Retail

All sellers of on-line books including Barnes & Noble and Amazon. I also write a blog at my website.
I can be found on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

There is a lot of work to do even after a writing project is complete but you don’t have to do it all alone. Get great support from people who will really care about your message.

Bio

George Troy is widely read blogger, author, and consultant focused on retail business communities, including online and brick-and-mortar stores. He has enjoyed decades of real-life experience as a senior executive for some of the best-known and most successful retail companies in the US and globally. A specialist in apparel, footwear, sporting goods, cookware, and home furnishings, Troy has led the retail divisions of Deckers Outdoor (UGG Boots) and outlet divisions of Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn.

When he joined UGG Australia to create the brand’s retail channel, Troy directed all aspects of the business(merchandising, marketing, operations, real estate, store construction, and management), taking retail sales from $0 to $400 million in the US, Europe, and Asia in just eight years. Similarly, Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn brought Troy in to create and build the outlet channels for those brands. Here, too, he directed all aspects of store operations, including HR, marketing, real estate and construction, and merchandising.

Troy is currently a consultant with The Grayson Company based in New York, which offers a full range of consulting services to retail, e-commerce, wholesale, and omnichannel businesses as well as investment firms focused on the consumer sector. The Grayson Company’s CEO Kevin Mullaney says of Troy, “He has extraordinary expertise in field management, site selection, and lease negotiation, and equal capabilities in merchandising, particularly product development and assortment planning.”

Troy serves on the boards of directors of two nonprofit organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not writing about the retail world, Troy spends his time in garden-to-table cooking and also tends a small Pinot Noir vineyard. An avid hiker, he recently summited Mount Kilimanjaro with his family. He and his dog Farley are currently enrolled in the Canine Circus School of Emeryville learning to perform amazing dog tricks.

Troy earned a BA with honors from the University of California, Berkeley in Anthropology. He also holds a California State Teaching Credential.

 

Meet Jeanne Rodriguez, author of Ready Set Work! and Ready Set Supervise!

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
This entry is part 7 of 11 in the series Meet the Author

Jeanne and I connected on LinkedIn a few years ago and I did a social media audit for her. We have stayed in touch and I’ve been pleased to see her apply some of the suggestions from that audit.Jeane Rodriguez headshot

What are your books about?

Ready Set Work! and Ready Set Supervise! are books about how to navigate successfully in today’s work environment. Specifically, Ready Set Work! is a guide for new workers for conquering job jitters and becoming the employee everyone wants to keep. It provides guidance on how to handle hundreds of the most common and most sensitive work situations effectively and confidently.  It gives new workers a centralized source of information with a common sense approach that quickly deals with the issues and gets them back on track comfortably.  It helps take the fear out of working so people can just concentrate on doing a good job and keep that job in today’s economy.

Ready Set Supervise! lays out the most common problems that supervisors run into at work, explains them in a way that makes sense, and enables supervisors to work more confidently all while projecting an air of maturity and dependability. It helps readers become the supervisor everyone wants to work for. Ready, Set, Supervise! goes a long way towards taking the fear out of supervising.  Sane people are afraid of supervision.  It can be scary stuff given the number of legal and policy issues supervisors have to deal with.  And, once you throw in the need for gigantic heaps of common sense, enormous physical and mental stamina, and the fact that supervision means being responsible for the actions of other people, it’s a wonder anybody ever wants the job.

Quite honestly, I wrote the books because I was constantly hearing from employees and employers about a wide variety of issues that they were dealing with at work and there was nothing else out there that covered these same topics.  I spent over thirty years working as a line-worker, a supervisor, a manager, or an executive, and these were the topics where I most often saw people having difficulty.  My target populations include, but are not limited to, Millennials and Gen Ys and target markets include trade schools, tech schools, local work programs, government entities, immigrant service centers, and business colleges.

My overall goal was to produce books full of information that would help people be comfortable in their work environment and succeed in their careers.  I wanted them to be a fun, light-hearted approach to real-life topics, easy to read and understand.

How did you publish your book?

My books were published through Pennico Press.

… more … “Meet Jeanne Rodriguez, author of Ready Set Work! and Ready Set Supervise!”

Meet Anne Janzer, author of Get the Word Out: Write a Book That Makes a Difference

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
This entry is part 8 of 11 in the series Meet the Author

Anne and I have known each other for several years and she always has great tips about writing. She’s even written a guest post for me about BookBub Ads. I am sure you will find helpful information in her interview.Anne Janzer headshot

Tell us a little bit about your book and business.

I’m a nonfiction author and unabashed writing geek, on a mission to help people communicate more effectively through writing. I’ve written four books about writing itself, including The Writer’s Process and Writing to Be Understood. My most recent book is Get the Word Out: Write a Book That Makes a Difference.

When I’m not writing books or blog posts about writing, I can be found coaching business writers, doing developmental edits of nonfiction manuscripts, or helping business authors through the messy middle of their works.

Why did you write your books?

I write all of my writing-related books for the same general reason—to help people communicate and connect more effectively through writing. I keep coming at that challenge from different angles, and for slightly different audiences.

How did you publish your book? Traditional publisher, hybrid publisher, self-published?

I’m an indie author or author/publisher. By that, I mean that I self-publish, but hire professional designers and editors, and approach the work like a publisher as much as a writer. My books should be indistinguishable from those produced by traditional publishers. It’s been a learning adventure.

How did things change in 2020 and how did you weather the year through the pandemic?

As an indie author, I was able to adjust more easily to the restrictions of the pandemic than many traditionally published authors. I don’t rely on retail bookstores for my sales, and don’t plan for big, in-person events. I could adjust the prices and run discounts to reach people when times were tough. The flexibility and control helped.

The pandemic also opened a few doors, such as speaking at a couple “overseas” events that I otherwise would not have done because of the travel.

Oddly enough, the pandemic also created clarity around the messaging of my latest book, Get the Word Out. I had been working with chapters and ideas for months, but when the world shut down, I realized that the theme of the book was really about making a difference. And I was able to snag interviews with all sorts of interesting people because their travel schedules were shut down.

So I weathered the year by connecting with other authors and immersing myself in writing a book. Not a bad strategy, and a great distraction.

What is your favorite book marketing tip?

My book marketing mantra is this: be generous and strategic. If you are only generous, you will burn out. If you are only strategic, people will burn out on you. Find that balance—help those people who are your readers, or who otherwise speak to your readers. Build relationships. You can do this by writing book reviews, contributing guest blog posts, doing podcast interviews … the possibilities are nearly endless.

What are your goals for 2021?

I hope to keep encouraging and supporting authors who want to step up to writing meaningful books. We’ll see what that looks like in 2021: more coaching or editing, perhaps a few small-group online courses, more podcasts and blog posts. And much more reading!

Where can readers find your book?

The best place to find out more is on my website: annejanzer.com. From there you can sign up for my every-other-week emails about writing practices.

All of my books are available on Amazon (here’s my author page) and Bookshop:

You can also find them on my Bookshop page (supporting indie bookstores).

Connect on social media: @AnneJanzer on Twitter, Anne H Janzer on Facebook, Anne Janzer on LinkedIn.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

For all of those authors who worry about, dread, or resent book marketing, consider reframing the way you think about it. Your book is like a beacon for the people you serve. Marketing is how you light that beacon and fulfil the purpose of your book.

Bio

Anne Janzer is an award-winning author, armchair cognitive science geek, nonfiction author coach, marketing practitioner, and blogger. She’s on a mission to help people spread important ideas through writing.

As a professional writer, she has worked with more than one hundred technology companies, writing in the voice of countless brands and corporate executives. She is author of the books Writing to Be Understood,  The Writer’s Process, The Workplace Writer’s Process, and Subscription Marketing.

Her books have won numerous awards, including the Independent Book Publishers IPPY award, the Foreword Indies Book of the Year, Reader’s Favorite Gold Medal, and the IndieReader Discovery Award. They have been translated into Japanese, Korean, and Russian language editions.

Anne also regularly speaks or hosts online webinars for writing conferences, writer’s groups, and corporate marketing teams and writing groups.

Meet Laurie Buchanan, Author of the Sean McPherson series

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
This entry is part 9 of 11 in the series Meet the Author

This is the first in my 2021 series of author interviews. Laurie and I have been connected on social media for some time. She’s a great example of what an author can do on social media!Laurie Buchanan

Tell us a little bit about your books.

My project manager at my publishing house describes the Sean McPherson series like this:
Imagine—Chief Inspector Gamache meets The Last Mrs. Parrish.
Kirkus Reviews said: “Buchanan’s narrative is well-paced, flying right along. . . . the author has delivered an exciting beginning to an intriguing series.”

Why did you write your books?

My first two books (Note to Self: A Seven-Step Path to Gratitude and Growth, and The Business of Being: Soul Purpose In and Out of the Workplace) are nonfiction and a direct result of two decades in private practice as a holistic health practitioner and transformational life coach.
My next book—Indelible: A Sean McPherson Novel, Book One—is a work of fiction in the suspense/thriller genre. It’s the first book in a series that takes place in the Pacific Northwest. It hits the shelves on April 6, 2021. Book two in the series, Iconoclast, is slated for publication in spring 2022.
The Sean McPherson series came about because I heard another speaker at a writing conference tell the audience that once you publish a book in a certain genre, you’re locked in. That’s simply not true!

How did you publish your book? Traditional publisher, hybrid publisher, self-published?

My first two books are published by a hybrid publisher, She Writes Press. The Sean McPherson novels are published by SparkPress, an imprint of She Writes Press.

How did things change for you as an author in 2020 and how did you manage to weather through the year during the pandemic?

Before 2020, I traveled regularly to speak and teach at writing conferences. When the pandemic struck, travel came to a screeching halt, and Zoom (a web conferencing platform) has become part of my regular routine.

What is your favorite book marketing tip?

Because I love photography, my social media platform of choice is Instagram. It’s linked to my Facebook author page. Combined, they make a dynamic duo for sharing news about my books.

What are your goals for 2021?

My primary goal for 2021 is to get Iconoclast (book two in the Sean McPherson series) into my copy editor’s hands and then to my publisher. Once that’s done, I’ll dive headfirst into book three in the series.

Where can readers find your book?Indelible

My books are available wherever books are sold. Here is ONE convenient link that will take you to purchase links for Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, IndieBound, BookShop, Rediscovered Books, Books-A-Million, Google Play, Apple Books, and BookBub: https://www.lauriebuchanan.com/indelible

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

You are cordially invited to my website, lauriebuchanan.com. If you’d like to stay in the loop regarding book launches, please subscribe to my quarterly newsletter.
I can also be found on:

Bio

Author of the Sean McPherson Novels (#seanmcphersonnovels). Imagine—Chief Inspector Gamache meets The Last Mrs. Parrish. Red licorice aficionado. Traveler. Photographer because sometimes, the best word choice is a picture.