Authoring A Book for Life with Dr. Raman K Attri

Dr. Raman K Attri is an author, speaker, and training thought leader. As a learning strategist, he formulates state-of-the-art training methodologies to teach complex skills at a Fortune 500 technology corporation. As a global training leader, he manages a Hall of the Fame training organization, named one of the top 10 in the world. A highly passionate learner since childhood, he earned two doctorates in learning, over 100 international and educational credentials, including some of the world’s highest certifications.

Undeterred by his permanent disability since childhood, he transformed his inability to walk into becoming the leading global authority on the science of speed in professional learning and performance.

As a prolific author of 20 multi-genre books, he writes about human excellence. His latest book is SPEED MATTERS, aimed to educate leaders about building a culture enabling ‘speed’ in their organizations.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up writing a book?

I was born in India to an impoverished family. I was around six months old when I contracted the poliovirus. That unfortunate event left me with a permanent physical disability. I lost my ability to walk well before I could even start walking. While it literally tied me to a chair, reading and learning were my best bet to success. So, I immersed myself in reading books in my early years. That zest to be fast in something propelled me to become passionate about learning new things quicker than typical kids. At that time, I saw it as my differentiator over other kids of my age and a way to stay ahead of them.

As time passed, I rigorously experimented on various ways to learn faster efficiently. I read things much ahead of my age back then. I became an engineer when I was 21 years old and a scientist at 22. While I served as a technology scientist for about a decade, something inside me told me that I was meant to be in a profession related to learning. That’s when I detoured into a different career. Long story short, now I am a senior training leader at a Fortune 500 corporation. I manage a Hall of the Fame training organization, which is also named one of the top 10 in the world.

In my professional training career, I discovered that even the well-established and speed-savvy organizations weren’t doing a good job in developing their employees. As opposed to accelerating performance, these inefficient training programs decelerated the speed.

So I wondered what was wrong with their strategies. I said to myself that there ought to be a better way. Is there a science that no one had taught them? That question led me to pursue an intensive doctoral study on ‘speeding up the time to proficiency of employees.’ As it stands today, I am the only one in the world who has conducted an in-depth doctoral study on this crucial business challenge. Today, I am one among the handful of global experts on speed in professional learning and performance.

I have the privilege of reaching out to the world’s best organizations and renowned leaders to learn, understand, and extend the art and science of speed to proficiency. I deeply explored how the leading organizations could stay ahead in the game by leveraging time and speed. I realized that time is the only thing available to all organizations or businesses in equal quantity. The strategic way in which an organization uses that available time determines its market positioning.

I have now compiled all those observations and findings into my latest book, SPEED MATTERS. That’s pretty much how I ended up writing this book.

What do you hope your readers take away from this book?

The book SPEED MATTERS is a must-read business guide for futuristic leaders, executives, CEOs, and managers.

This book draws attention to our current context of a high degree of skill obsolesce in today’s fast-paced world. Employees need to learn new skills, new technologies and adopt rapid changes at a much faster rate. My book appeals to global leaders to develop their employees’ performance at the speed of businesses. This book aims to make “speed” as the priority of organizational leaders to stay ahead in the competition.

Business executives will learn to shift their focus away from seeking a false impression of speed by pressing the employees for quicker execution of the tasks. Instead, they will learn to strive for true speed, which can only be achieved by building the capability of the employees to deliver excellent performance consistently, reliably, independently, and proficiently.

In this book, I guide leaders on the concept that reducing time should be the first goal of any training program or an employee development initiative. I have included irrefutable evidence of the massive benefits that they can derive by simply speeding up teams’ time to proficiency metrics.

Some of the takeaways they will get are:

• How can they go about being ‘speed-savvy’ visionary leaders?
• The pressing arguments about why they should focus on developing employee proficiency.
• Learn from examples of how global organizations are using the new time to proficiency metrics.
• Understand the alarming magnitude of time to proficiency numbers in various industries and recognize the impact of shortening it.

In the end, I am hoping that leaders would adopt a thinking process and framework to implement a speed-enabling ecosystem.

What are the top three tools you are currently using to write, publish, and promote your books?

To write

For writing, I use OneNote software from Microsoft. The beauty of OneNote is that you can start a specific file for one book. And then, you can create different chapter structures inside it, followed by sections inside those chapters. While you are gathering notes, scribbling, pictures, and text, you could randomly shift between chapters and sections without having to scroll up and down like in an MS Word document. This allows non-linear thinking in capturing the ideas, thoughts, and materials. I don’t have to worry about the file crashing as One Note autosaves it and makes it available on all of my devices. I could even add or edit things on my smartphone while sitting on a bench in the park.

I would generally transfer all the material from OneNote to MS Word only when I am at the stage of creating a manuscript.

To publish

My books are typically quite long. Some are 300 plus pages. So, to keep its readability in eBook format, I use a stylistic design for the ebook file. It means well-structured formatting of the book that simply looks superb on tablets or other reading devices without messing up layouts, tables, or images. Another tool I prefer is ‘Amazon Kindle create,’ to generate a print replica of the book. The print replica gives a PDF-type look to the eBooks, which is impressive and preserves the look and feel like a printed book.

To promote

I have not found any effective tool to promote my books as of yet. Promotion is all about the places where you talk about it. I depend heavily on my keynotes and talks to deliver educational sessions around my book. However, for new authors, I would recommend setting up some free webinars where they could educate people around some key highlights of the book.

What were the top mistakes you made writing or publishing your first book?

I have potentially made several mistakes to name. The authorship journey is a sum total of trying new things, making mistakes, learning from them, changing the course of action, and doing it again. As I progressed from my first book to my twentieth book, I can see the blunders or mistakes I made in the first book which should have been avoided.

• When I published my book, I was simply in a hurry to publish it as soon as possible. I did not take the time to consult with my own network and peers. I had this anxiety or a weird feeling guiding me to do it first and then let the others know about it. When you do that, you miss an essential component: the reviews and feedback from your peers. Another thing you lose is the opportunity to create some buzz around your book, which typically happens over the period of several months in parallel to writing the book. As a first-time author, your best bet is the people from your closest circle who might buy the book and keep the momentum running. So, if you feel too anxious and avoid making that news public, you lose on a significant segment of potential customers.

• Another mistake I realize now is that I did not do a good job creating a powerful, or should I say, a memorable title for the book. My title was lengthy, and as a result, it did not make an impact. The relationship between title and subtitle is not so much known to begin with, but it should be. I have learned from it, and now I use pretty short, punchy titles and more descriptive subtitles.

• Back then, I knew little about search engine optimization (SEO) to introduce the keywords in the title so that they show up on Google search. Then, I realized that there is a lot of science behind SEO. As a first-time author, you should also pay attention to the category or genre you choose when you publish the book and how you write a book blurb.

• One key mistake might not be apparent to you now, but it comes in the limelight only when you get the book reviewed or read by someone who pays attention to language. I relied a lot on automated tools like ProAid and Grammarly to make sure the book is grammatically accurate. But to my surprise, these tools are not really precise despite the use of artificial intelligence. These tools lack human-like contextual understanding. So, my biggest mistake probably was not using professional editing services back then.

When will you to consider your book a success?

For me, the current book SPEED MATTERS will be a success when I see the executives and leaders at major cutting-edge corporations inviting me to talk about time to proficiency metrics. Another indicator of success, in my view, is when organizations or event organizers reach out to me to educate their corporate audience on this new concept and ask me to share my research.

Success is all about the reach, in terms of ‘who’ reads it rather than ‘how many’ read it. The financial aspect of the number of copies sold is not important. Rather, the reach is important. I have made sure the book’s design could entice the corporate executives to grab a copy from the shelf and take it with them on the airplane.

I think that the definition of success of a book is contextual, based on your goal, your audience, and your purpose. More often, it is personal. Various authors write for different motivations.

For instance, I found my books in some of the best libraries in the world, though the number of copies sold was not much. That’s true success, in my opinion. Then, I wrote a book which contains a collection of poems. I wrote it mainly for my near and dear ones who knew that side of my personality. I hardly worry if it sells or not, it served my goal to make the people closest to me feel proud.

After the poems, I wrote a book which is a collection of hand-painted portraits. It’s a huge, coffee table photo album with a short story on the origin of each portrait. For me, finding the book in my friends’ living room was more pleasant than a journalist approaching me to feature that book in his magazine.

Can you share a snippet that is not in the blurb or excerpt?

“Speed is the devastating competitive weapon in today’s accelerated world. While most organizations have comparable resources, talents, and capabilities, the speed with which leaders develop the proficiency of their employees is the real competitive edge, which acts as a differentiator in the market. The futuristic leaders and entrepreneurs need to understand the science of speed as it plays out in post-covid recovery efforts.”

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

Since high school, I have had this idealized picture that I would become an author one day. In fact, I had written several things, like poetry, stories, and narratives in some form or the other. However, it took me over three decades to become an actual author.

I faced a lot of obstacles during this journey.

The biggest one was the lack of guidance, just like anyone else. During my time, nearly three decades ago, writing books was a well-kept secret known to a few geniuses only. Unfortunately, I did not have access to any book author in my proximity back then to leverage upon. On top of that, despite having good ideas, publishers would not listen to anyone less credible.

I have to say, my authorship career really took off with internet availability. Self-publishing finally opened up a low-barrier path for me. I went through several sources, checked several websites, watched author interviews, and figured out my path to successful authorship.

That’s exactly where I also started building my network. I made a network of three sets of people.

• Number one was the network of peers who were on the same journey as mine. I learned how they were doing things and then assessed if I would be happy taking their route or a different one.

• The second type of network I tried was with those authors who were my favorite or my ideal ones. In some cases, I noted down their e-mail addresses, took time to write some feedback or comments, and ask some questions which might provoke their thoughts. In some cases, my interactions flourished to where I could ask them to review my books. In other cases, they even wrote the foreword of my books. For one of my books, I have had over 10 different well-established, highly credible reviewers.

• The third network I built was to link up with publishers. It was tricky, but now LinkedIn is a great source to build connections with such publishers. Many of them have been upfront with me about what books they would like to consider and their evaluation criteria for the same. I learned a great deal from their initial reviews and then corrected my course.

What advice do you have for new authors who are self-publishing their first book?

I have one key piece of advice for new authors who are self-publishing their first book

The new authors don’t just wake up one night and think of being an author. As I see it, more often, people get overly attached to an idea and usually keep thinking about it in their heads for years before they finally decide to give it the shape of a book. Such first-time authors are so keen to say so many things that when they begin, they want the book to be an all-encompassing, comprehensive, detailed book that could answer any and every question of the readers. They probably harbor a misconception that they just need one book to become an authority in their field. However, to build true authority, you need a series of books on your niche.

Let me give you an example from the process of product development. If a company is developing a product, they will not pack all the features in the first model itself, hoping it will take off big time in the market. Rather, they take a tiered approach by packing a specific set of features into one product model at a time. Then they differentiate another model of the same product with a completely distinctive set of features.

I was on the same boat as other new authors, where I had tons of things to say. When I followed this slice-and-dice method, my incomplete, massive, less-than-perfect manuscripts were ready to be converted into several books, each with a specific scope. Among those, I picked up the first one to go where the content was relatively prepared.

On the same line, I would recommend first-time authors to slice, dice, scope, and sometimes de-scope the idea to a narrow niche. Then pack the associated content and start writing around that niche. Curb your tendency to fill it with other ‘seemingly’ important ideas. Perhaps, you can keep the out-of-scope ideas for another title. The result would be cleaner and less overwhelming projects which are likely to culminate into a published book.

What is the one thing you wish you knew before publishing your first book?

Back in my years, I wish I knew about the importance of writing short, punchy and strong book titles.

I was a scientist for a long tenure, and writing journal papers was part of my job. As you probably know, in scientific publications, the titles of the articles are unusually long. Sometimes it could be as long as 50 words to describe the scope of the problem and intent of the research within the title and subtitle itself. It enables the databases or repositories to index it easily for a subsequent search among millions of such papers.

I continued in the same mode. I ended up having a title which was 10 words long. It was difficult to read and certainly challenging to search too. But once you lock ISBN for your book under a title, you can’t change it. The danger with a long name is that the book will not be memorable. If someone can’t remember it, they won’t search for it.

So, I recommend new authors to write a punchy title with 3 or 4 words maximum and then use a descriptive line in the subtitle.

Please share one thing new self-publish authors can do to gain more reviews on Amazon. 

I think this is a challenging part for many, including me.

In my experience, people care to give reviews either for an outstanding experience with a book or for an awful one. Unless the book is exceptional or terrible, the readers with ‘in-between’ feedback might not bother to leave a review.

Now, there are hundreds of online marketplaces besides Amazon which are selling books. If the readers purchased it elsewhere, they probably won’t go to Amazon and write a review. Besides, more reviews come only when the platform allows a hassle-free mechanism to submit.

I also noticed one more thing. Some readers are careful about reviews because the reviews stay forever on the internet and they stay tied to the user’s profile name. The moment people become extra careful in drafting the review, chances are that they would not write and publish it. So, it is a lost opportunity.

However, eBooks could fetch the reviews more easily, given that people might download the book on their devices and read it inside the Amazon ecosystem.

Can you share some of the marketing techniques that have worked for you when promoting your book?

I have taken about five different approaches to marketing and promotion of my books over the years.

• The first route I had taken was to get the foreword on the book from a highly respected authority, Charles Fred, the originator of the term ‘speed to proficiency’ and the author of the book Breakaway. Asking a recognized authority to write a foreword for the book can become your x-factor and it adds to the credibility of the book. This also sits well with traditional publishers if that’s your route.

• The second technique I used was design-oriented marketing. I released a hardcover edition of the book with a beautiful jacket around it. Given that my audiences are mostly executives, I wanted to make sure the book cover design complements their personalities, tastes, and outfits.

• The third technique I used was to release a press release. It is important because when the press release is published on several news outlets, it floods Google with indexed links. The journalists in the business domain could notice it and come to me for creating a piece of news out of it. You could use the press release as it is when pitching it to journals and later on for your own or pitching to media for interviews or appearances.

• The fourth technique I used was getting a really impressive ‘show reel’ of the book. That makes a good impression when you are pitching for podcast interviews. With that video, wherever I pitched for an interview (podcast, radio or TV), I was invited right away. So instead of writing massive paragraphs, a two minutes video can do wonders.

• The last and the fifth technique I used was to speak at some of the leading forums and conferences. I created a keynote out of the book, which I pitch to the organizers, and I get to deliver the keynote at their conferences. The event organizers would be ready to grab such business-focused topics.

I plan to create lots of video snippets from my keynotes, talks, and media interviews, which I am thinking of releasing on social media progressively to generate more reach.

If you had the chance to start your career over again what would you do differently?

That’s a great question.

I had a keen interest in writing since childhood. But my perfectionist tendencies prevented me from releasing those into tangible publications. Eventually, after several decades, I published them officially.

If I had to relive my career again, I would do two things differently.

• First, I would get into the writing and speaking field totally, as I loved it so much and wanted to shine in it so badly.

• Secondly, I would have opted for a career in learning and teaching as the first choice right at the outset instead of going into engineering or other scientific domains.

Can you recommend a book, a podcast, and a course for entrepreneurs and why?

I have a few recommendations for the upcoming entrepreneurs.

• The book I recommend is ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins. It is a highly respected leadership book developed based on a massive research. It actually shows how organizations traveled the journey to greatness. The book has some undebatable leadership lessons which you can’t find anywhere else.

• The course I recommend is called ‘Crucial Conversations’ by VitalSmart. This is a research-based course on how you can drive and win over tough conversations. They also have a book with the same title. This course or book allows business owners to learn powerful skills to conduct tough conversations in their professional and business lives.

• In recent times, there are several podcasts that have flooded the market. It is rather difficult to select or recommend one. Each podcast has its own value and reach. However, I would recommend two from my niche. One is ‘Active CEO,’ run by Craig Johns, and another is ‘Keep Leading,’ run by Eddie Turner. The reasons I recommend these two podcasts are the expertise of chosen guests, the depth of the questions hosts ask, the intriguing insights that come out of each episode.

What helps you stay driven and motivated?

It’s my firm belief that external motivations or inspirations are short-lived. It can drive you to some mileage, but then, it may not sustain longer. I strive for clarity. Clarity is the most important thing that pushes us forward, requiring no additional motivation or inspiration. The clarity will fuel you in such a way that you would know where to go, what to do and how to do it.

What is a productivity tip you swear by?

I would like to share a very unusual, non-intuitive productivity tip that has led me to write 20 books and earn over 100 international credentials, not to mention 2 doctorates. My fundamental premise of this tip is that the human mind cannot concentrate on a single thing for a long time. If it takes too long to finish, we may lose interest amidst a socially distractive world. So how do we address this challenge?

Well, I am an engineer. So, I will explain my concept of productivity using an example of a computer microprocessor.

A microprocessor seems to do many things at the same time. But the reality is that it splits each task into multiple threads. Then it works on one thread at a time for a very short while before it switches to another high-priority thread that might have more urgency or might need attention for a very short while. But to the user, it seems as if the processor was doing several things at the same time.

In the same way, I believe starting several things like threads. Each thread is an activity for a specific project. When there is a call from another high-priority thread, I will pause working on the current thread. But I would take a note of where I leave it. Then, after addressing the next thread, I would return to the previous thread where I left it.

While many things may seem incomplete on my plate at a given time, there comes a time when most of them will be progressing toward completion. The magic happens when I complete projects, one after another. Admittedly, before that happens, there are periods when others would see me producing nothing. But when most threads come close to completion, I usually surprise my peers with a blast of series of outcomes.

How do you personally overcome fear?

I have been a disabled guy all my life. I lost my ability to walk when I was six months old. From that point onwards, I had to try several walking aids like heavy prosthetics, walking sticks, crutches, etc. Every single step of the way was an unknown fear for me -the fear of falling, the fear of slipping, the fear of hitting something, the fear of losing balance, and the fear of meeting with an accident. I had to conquer these fears gradually step by step at different points of my life. Eventually, I could travel unassisted all over the world. I learned to ride a bicycle, motorbike and then learned to drive a car.

The one thing that propelled me to face the fear was a tip I read from Dale Carnegie’s book ‘How to Stop Worrying and start living.’It stated something along these lines: ‘Imagine the worst that could happen and then, mentally prepare yourself as if it has already happened. The fear will be gone.’

As I look back, I think there is not anything worse than what I’ve already experienced. On one side, it subdues the fear, and on the other side, it keeps me prepared to see if what’s coming next is far worse than what I have seen already.

What are you learning now? Why is that important?

At this moment, I am learning how to perceive and create newsworthy angles from the book. Over the course of my 20 books, I realized that I never created a media buzz. So, despite having such a wide portfolio of books, I am not known to anyone beyond my circle and niche. I realized that it is an art how you pitch your book, as simple as a novel, to media, podcasters, journalists, and magazines, to get features and create a buzz around it. It is a tricky skill to crack, but I hope I get better at it in due course of time. At the same time, I would recommend all new and seasoned authors actively look into this approach.

What is your favorite quote?

In fact, I have two:

“Package the same idea differently, and the result can be truly spectacular.”

“When you can’t find who you are, better focus on what you are meant to be.”

How can we get in touch with you?

I welcome people to connect with me. They can search me on any social media channels, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, using my handle @DrRamanKAttri. Alternatively, they can reach me on my website ramankattri.com or speedtoproficiency.com.

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