The Top 5 Pillars of Influential Authorship - By Lori Anne Rising

Lori Anne Rising

You’re an author. You work diligently for months, even years, to get your book written before the publishing process even starts. Once it is out in the world, you want to know that your book matters, that it makes a difference, that it stirs someone’s heart and soul and in some way, large or small, changes them for the better.


But how? I spend a full year researching how to create powerful, long lasting influence as a nonfiction author. Authors have a unique challenge to creating influence and making a real difference. They have no real power over their readers at all; no way of holding them accountable, no way of rewarding or punishing them for following through or not, no way of even following up with their audience. This means that these authors have to get inside the minds and hearts of their audience and get each individual reader to choose to make the change for themselves and on their own.


How do we do that? Here are the Top 5 of the 10 Pillars of Influential Authorship I discovered through my research:


1. You absolutely MUST be passionate about your topic. If you’re not, you won’t follow it through to completion, and you won’t dive deeply enough into it in order to make it unique.

2. Be extremely clear about the outcome you want to create. Some might call this intention. Some might call this a goal. Whatever you call, it will shape the entire process from start to finish.

3. Craft your message well. Know it. Be able to say it succinctly – and in various ways without watering it down. Not only does it make your writing more engaging, but it helps you as the author to know where to focus, where to trim, and where to add content as you develop it.

4. Finish. While this may seem obvious, how many times have you (have we all, really!) started something and not finished it?

5. Engage your audience in a way that they can’t NOT be a part of the conversation. I call this Values-Based Controversy. Not the kind of controversy you see on Jerry Springer and other day-time talk shows. It’s the kind of controversy that taps into your audiences’ deepest values and gets them to talk about their beliefs, with the intention of leading them somewhere.


So, where do you fall as an author? Are you passionate about your topic, or just interested in it, or worse – just doing it because it’s what you’ve always done or think you can make money at? Are you engaging your audience? How well are you crafting your message? How clear are you about the outcome you want to create from your writing?


If you don’t know where to start, start with the passion you have for your topic. If you have that, the rest will follow – or at least you’ll have the energy and determination to get through
the challenges that may exist. And that matters almost more than anything else. After all, if you don’t have what it takes to follow through, none of the rest matters any way.




Author Bio:
As the Founder of Authorship for Experts, Lori Anne Rising is an author’s coach and editor who invites experts and thought leaders into influential authorship through inspiration, collaboration and strategic planning. She has been a professional writer and editor for over 20 years, a Certified Life Coach for over 7 years, and earned her MA in Organizational Communications and Leadership Studies from Marylhurst University in 2013. By researching the two most influential nonfiction books published in the last 100 years, she discovered the 10 Timeless Secrets of Influential Authorship. To learn more, visit www.AuthorshipForExperts.com, or be a part of the conversation online at www.facebook.com/AuthorshipForExperts. You can also check out Lori Anne’s latest books and Kindle downloads at www.amazon.com/author/LoriAnneRising.