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given a TED or TEDx talk or wants to.
As a nonfiction author myself, I’d had the goal of
giving a TED or TEDx talk for three years before I
finally publicly announced that it was my BHAG (big
hairy audacious goal) for 2017. Though the compe-
tition for a spot at the annual TED conference is
fierce, the good news for authors is that TEDx
conferences are everywhere, with more licenses
being granted each year to organizers who are
aligned with TED’s goal: “to spark conversation,
connection, and community.”
Throughout 2016 I looked for opportunities to
apply to various TEDx talks. I even submitted a
one-minute video for the TED conference but didn’t
make the cut. Finally, in October, a door opened.
A connection led me to TEDx Traverse City (Mich.).
It took three pitches to the organizers before I
finally grasped what TED means by “an idea worth
spreading.”
If you’re an author or an aspiring author, the point
of giving a TED/TEDx talk should be to support
your book and to further advance ideas that you’re
publishing or working toward publishing. In my
case, it took a couple tries before I understood the
intersection of the ideas in my book and my idea
worth spreading via TEDx. In my book Green-Light
Your Book, I encourage authors to publish their work
on their own terms, but that made for too limited a
TEDx talk. Though it took some finessing to get
there, my talk, “Green-Light Revolution: Your Creative
Life on Your Terms,” aims for a broader viewership
and speaks to anyone who calls him- or herself
a creative artist, driving home the idea that artists
shouldn’t allow traditional creative industries’ nar-
row view of what’s marketable to determine whether
they become authors or filmmakers or musicians.
The challenge to think bigger was a great personal
exercise, but, as an author who’s always thinking
about growing my platform, I also realized how
important it was to stay on message. After all, a lot
is at stake, and if you go too broad you risk diluting
the ideas that you’re cultivating. Plus, there’s all
that pressure. The talk, whether you succeed or
fail, lives on forever. It’s not like a book that can be
edited to perfection before being sent to the printer.
It’s a performance, and you have a set number of
