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Project Update: Nerve Breakers by Tim Sanders
November 07, 2012
These are exciting times for author and super star drummer Mark Schulman. Last week, I spent some time in the studio with him, talking about our change-the-world plans for his book project.
He's about to wrap up the mansucript for his first book, Nerve Breakers: Conquering Life's Stage Fright AND he's prepping for an appearance on the American Music Awards and a national tour with P!NK. He's one of our Net Minds Select authors, and a long time friend. His book has a fantastic premise: You need to possess a strategy to deal with performance pressure and the resulting feelings you'll get (fright, fear, dread, etc.). He's developed a rock solid approach to dealing with his challenges, playing on the world's biggest stages and guest drumming with legends like Tina Turner (on a moment's notice). To write the book, he's interviewed dozens of other performers, to understand what their Nerve Breakers are.
From actors like Jeremy Piven to place kickers like Robbie Gould to musicians such as Stewert Copeland to business success stories like Zappo's Tony Hsieh...Mark's spent time with them to compare notes. Along the way, he picked up life changing pointers that he applies to his professional music career as well as his growing motivational speaking career. Each section of the book is a Nerve Breaker, a mental muscle. One of my favorites (that I can share now) is the idea of FAITH. You need to have faith in something (you, it, them) to power through distractions and detractors alike. He believes if you can build up a routine, then develop faith in the routine, this will get you through the most adverse or high stakes moments. Gives credence to the phrase, "it's only wierd if it doesn't work" for how some performers approach their biggest moments.
He's built his whole publishing team on Net Minds. His editor is Jessie States, and she's been working on this manuscript with Mark all along the way. His designer is Jason Judy, a co-worker of Jessie's and he's provided early energy to the project with his cover design. Soon, once we get throught the copy editing phase, he'll start the interior layout to prepare for our publication next year. Robert Davidman is on board to run marketing for the book launch. I've known him since we worked together at broadcast.com. He's cooking up a strategy that leverages Mark's brand, and more importantly, the brand promise of the book.
Here's what Mark has to say about the Net Minds Way of publishing: "I'm a band guy. I've learned that the dynamics of working with the right combination of talent, personalities and communication is a delicate balance to achieve an optimum working relationship, ie a great band. Working with Netminds has allowed me to choose my band mates so the journey of writing this book has been enriching, educational and enjoyable. I've known Tim Sanders for many years and knew we would work harmoniously. Being able to choose Jessie my editor, Jason my designer and Robert my marketing manager enabled me to align myself with the best people to actualize the vision I have for my book. These comfortable relationships combined with a fantastic back end deal have made the overall experience of working with Netminds, a rockin' one indeed!"
Stay tuned for a pub date announcement and details on how you can help us market his book.
Notice: To complete his team, we are looking for a seasoned book publicist with a desire to participate in a disruptive publishing project. If you are interested, email me for details.
Join Mark's Nerve Breakers Facebook page
Visit Mark's cool new website (for more on his speaking, instruction)
About Tim Sanders
Tim is a bestselling author and former Yahoo! executive with a mission to disrupt the traditional publishing and self-publishing industries and share knowledge with authors looking to publish and market high-quality books.
Follow @sanderssays