This month our marketing director, Aidan Crawford, and I are furiously finalizing the production of my new book, Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work and its release. Aidan’s technology skills have been a wonderful addition to The CLEMMER Group in reshaping, continually improving, and updating our web site and digital communications work. That’s mainly why he was hired last January. But his writing skills (he’s got over 15 years experience writing for newspapers and magazines) and creativity have been a real bonus and proven very helpful to polishing the book.

I did get a wonderful family vacations in beautiful Prince Edward Island and a few lazy days off this summer. The rest of the time was spent finishing the manuscript and then going through the (somewhat) painful editing and production process. With the help of Don Bastian, an excellent thirty year veteran editor, I let go of some of my hard-written material in the interest of staying focused with the main story. Don’s a persuasive guy. I only cried a few tears as he gently pried the stuffy sections, puffy paragraphs, and wondering sentences, and what I thought was a killer ending worthy of a major literary prize from my clenched hands. Fortunately, there weren’t too many. And as writer and publisher, I had the last say!

We’ve had such success with self-publishing Growing the Distance and The Leader’s Digest. So it’s a no-brainer to self-publish Moose-on-the-Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work. One big advantage of self-publishing is to own all audio, video, and electronic rights. In today’s world, that’s becoming an ever bigger issue as book channels and delivery vehicles continue fragmenting.

The biggest advantage of self-publishing is the economics for selling books in large quantities. We’ve sold over 100,000 copies of Growing the Distance and 40,000 copies of The Leader’s Digest mainly to organizations purchasing hundreds or thousands of them for their managers, employees, dealers, customers, students, subscribers, and the like. Since publishing Growing the Distance in 1999, most Clients booking me for a speaking engagement or workshop purchase at least one book for every audience member. With Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work we’re going to make it very financially attractive to continue this trend.

As the sub-title states, I’ve taken a novel approach with this book. This is my first work of fiction. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed studying and applying the timeless art of storytelling to allow the reader to be a fly-on-the-wall witness to many of the kinds of ineffective and effective conversations and actions I’ve seen over 25 years of working in the personal, team, and organization development fields. I had lots of fun writing the book and tried to balance a humorous and engaging story with leadership learning. I hope readers find it highly “edutaining.”

Next month’s issue of The Leader Letter will provide you with a full overview of Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work. If you can hang in there until then, you’ll be rewarded with special offers to purchase or download pre-publication copies at steep discounts!