For many entrepreneurs and business owners, writing a book is next on their to-do list. Publishing a book gives professionals an outlet to share their uniquely curated skills and knowledge with their followers and the world at large, increasing their impact. However, for many of these professionals, writing and publishing a book is not part of their current skill base.
Coach, consultant and podcast host Tony LaPrino invites Michelle Vandepas onto his podcast, “Facing the Facts” to discuss writing for professionals. They discuss the unique collaborative publishing that GracePoint Publishing is known for, particularly emphasizing why this model is so perfect for entrepreneurs. They also delve further into the differences between traditional publishing, collaborative publishing, and self-publishing. If you’re not sure which option is best for you, this podcast is a great place to start!
Tony LaPrino is a husband, father, business owner, and CEO of Murph & Me, a coaching and consulting agency. His podcast focuses on helping listeners gain control of their life in the areas of health & wellness, mindset & belief, and money & business. You can listen to this episode, featuring Michelle, here, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Be sure to follow GracePoint Publishing and Tony LaPrino on their social media linked below to stay in the loop with all the exciting things coming up!
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Full Transcript
Welcome to the podcast facing the facts the path to gaining control accessing power and ultimately creating a life of abundance. I’m your guide Tony the premium. This episode is for every entrepreneur who wants to reach the next level of success in life, business and wealth. And I’m joined today with a very special guest, Michelle Vandepass. And before we bring Michelle on to the show, I want to share a little bit about who she is in what she does. And Michelle is the nation’s leading expert for entrepreneurs and personal development experts want to share what they’ve learned with the world and becoming an author. She’s the co founder of grace, point matric publishing, the gold standard com shares publishing and as a book coach and a published author, Michelle has worked with 1000s of authors over the last 20 years to publish and promote their books and their work. And as a serial entrepreneur and a serial book selling author herself. She understands the strategy, the messaging and the creative juice needed to build a platform. And she’s a visionary marketer, who combines creativity with small business sense to unleash the power for her clients. And Michelle has been featured in numerous media outlets, speaking about her passions with purpose and profit. And she’s an esteemed TEDx speaker, and a TEDx speaker, coach. And, Michelle, welcome to the show. Looking forward to talking to you. Yay. Thanks. Absolutely. Yeah. Glad to be here. Excellent. What did I miss? Did I miss anything? Anything important about what you do and who you are? Tell me a little bit about it? Well, um, yeah, I’ve lived a lot of years. So there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of stuff under there. We could talk about.
Did you say um, cone or republishing company? I don’t know. Gracepoint? Matrix? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And so what’s really cool is we’re actually we’re in the middle of, you know, locked down and pandemic and all of that. But we’re publishing like crazy. So it’s kind of cool that even though some things have really quieted down and gotten smaller publishing, and of course, online businesses are exploding. Yeah. So yeah, that’s good. Some good. So a little bit of good news in all of this. Have you been in the entrepreneurial game for 20 years? Or what did you do prior to this? longer, longer, longer?
So, you know, as they say, with a lot of entrepreneurs, we always did entrepreneurial things, serial entrepreneurs did entrepreneurial things when they were kids, right. But my first real venture is about 23. And I started an office supply company back in the days where you actually like, walked into small mom and pop store and bought staples. Nice. So yeah, so that was my first venture into entrepreneurialism. But I have had a manufacturing company, I’ve had a restaurant. I’ve owned several things in the office supply sort of genre. And then I went into marketing consulting, and I wrote my first book. And then I went into book consulting, and then it sort of morphed from there. So I’ve been in actually online consulting and book consulting for about 21 years. Wow, absolutely. When did you write your first book? 21 years ago? What was it? I would marketing for the holistic practitioner. And it was about how to market if you’re a service based practitioner, and that book, believe it or not, had things like what color flier paper should you choose? Right? Because that’s back at the time when you were actually printing flyers on your coffee machine and posting them around town. So it’s a pretty dated book, you could still find copies. But you know, it’s nothing about how we teach marketing today. Yeah. Is that what is that what really opened your eyes to say, you know, this is this is what I want to do book publishing and consulting and coaching other authors.
Yeah, it wasn’t it morphed. It grew slowly, right? So I’d been an entrepreneur for so long that I had people starting asking me like, how do I grow my business? How can I market how can I get more clients? And so even while I was running my small business, I started taking on consulting clients for marketing. And then I wrote that book, because most of the people I was consulting with were service professionals and didn’t know how to go get clients, right, not mom and pop stores, but people that sold their services like massage therapists or acupuncturist. And so I wrote the book. And then I slowly more more and more into consulting and book Consulting at the same time. Back then, though, there was no Amazon No. Sure was much different. How I mean, obviously, how different was it back then, to go and even create a book versus where we are today? Yeah, totally. Right. Now you can go online, figure out how to publish an e book and get
develop on Amazon and be done. If you’re the kind of person that likes to dig a lot and try it yourself. Back then it was literally finding a printer, running proofs, ordering 5000 copies that sat in your garage, right? Yeah, these days it is if nothing else, you can get Amazon book up pretty quickly and sell it for 99 cents and see what the heck happens. That’s not necessarily the most professional type of book that’s going to propel a career or help you and I hope we’ll talk about those things. In terms of the process. Totally different, right? It was many 10s of 1000s of dollars in an investment back then. And now you can choose to invest a couple 100 books all the way up to I know someone who sells $60,000 book publishing packages, right. So you’ll have a wide menu of choices. Yeah, absolutely. Why. So as entrepreneurs, I mean, things have definitely changed over the course of time. And I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but it seems like probably the last 10 years, book publishing has been incredibly high and on the rise for entrepreneurs in that marketing and building in everything revolves around a book. Why should entrepreneurs? What should they know about writing? Why is it important? Whew, lots of stuff in there. So let’s, I’ll just dial it back in and start at the beginning. If an entrepreneur wants to write a book, we want to look at, how’s that going to help them build their business, and it may build their business because it’s going to be there long form sales page, it’s going to be their business card, it’s going to directly get them clients. But another way it might build their business is it gives them credibility, that gives them a platform, it gives them something to speak about the coalesces all their knowledge and gives them one thing that they can sell, then that’s going to sort of focus their life’s work or their thoughts or their entrepreneurial thoughts into a new product or service they can sell. Another thing it might do is give them a way for people to click on a link or to go to a link and opt in and build their business through emails. Because people are wanting to find out more and those links are in the book, the most common thing that I find is it’s a combination of all of those, that the book will take you through a journey that is intensely personal, that really helps you hone your message. Who’s your client? Who do you really want to sell to? Who do you want to read this book? And what is it you want them to know? And once that’s in the book, you as an entrepreneur are more confident, more sure of yourself, you know exactly what you want to sell, what you stand on how you set yourself apart from the competition. And that becomes really more evident inside yourself and to the reader because they’ll have that in the book. Right? Right brings a lot of clarity, bring a lot of clarity, which is only good for entrepreneurs, because we tend to be picky people.
I can certainly relate to that. 100% and clarity is a lot to building a business and knowing who you’re talking to what you’re talking about. And where it really where you want to go. Yeah. And
do you find a person who comes to you and says, I want to write a book? Are they 10 years into their their entrepreneur, they just beginning it they throwing all of this experience that they’ve had over the course of the year? Tell me about? Who’s coming to you? And yeah, great, great question. So all kinds of people come to me, but there are certain, certain segments, so I’ll break them out. speakers come to me all the time, I’ve been told I should have a book I want to speak and sell from the stage. And that can be right now virtually or in person, right. So that’s a type of person and they have a message, they already have a signature speech, they want to translate it to a book and go sell it. So that’s one type of person. Another type of person is an entrepreneur who has some kind of experience and wants to put that in a book to help build their business. So it could be they have a marketing agency and they want to write 10 tips about you know, how to market yourself or whatever and you put that out in a book. So it’s a very specific lead generation tool that shows that you’re a leader in your industry. Then there’s a whole nother sort of person who has lived some life lessons.
And they want to teach those lessons through a book. So it could be what I learned through my journey as an entrepreneur, it might be,
I’ve been to hell, and back because of X, Y, and Z, and I want to share that with you.
You know, I lost my whole family in a horrific accident, I get those kinds of stories all the time. But here’s how you can learn and entrepreneurs actually write a lot of those types of books. And so those are basically the three kinds of people that I work with the most. Yep, do you do you find that are people lean towards more of an self help book, more of a teaching book, more of a, you know, a anything more specific in, you know, like a certain segment that you’re finding more of. So everything that I work with is nonfiction. And so because it’s nonfiction, that sort of tends to lead itself to some kind of personal development or teaching book, right? So if you’re a speaker, or a coach, or even a podcaster, you may do a personal development book. But usually, there’s some teaching in there. And it could be, here’s what I learned. Here’s what I got out of it. Here’s my story. Here’s some personal development. And here’s where I’m going to teach you how to do the same. So at least, with my authors, I think it has all of those elements, usually to make a good book, right? Yeah. I don’t want to read all about you. Sorry.
No, I want to read about you in the context of how it’s going to help or inspire me, right. I’m only going from the experience that I have from from the books that I tend to gravitate to. And it’s a nonfiction books. And initially, it starts from the connection that I have, or have found either through a podcast or some recommendation, or maybe it was reading another book, and there was a link to this book, or somebody recommended or whatever it might be. So that’s, to me, that was the first thing was the connection to the person. But then as the books that I get the most out of are the educational books, but they’re speaking to the results that this person received, like they were here. This is the problem that they had, here’s the mechanism that they use to solve it. And here’s the result that they have gotten. And they want to share that with the world. Those are the types of books that you see the type of framework that you see a lot. Right. Right, totally. And
and I think it’s important to keep your audience in mind when you’re writing the book, if you’re going to use it for a lead generation tool, especially, who do you want to buy from you? And write to them? So if you’re going to write a book about weight loss, for instance, are you writing to the people that are fitness fanatics that want to just get in better shape? Are you writing to the people who have 300 pounds to lose? Are you writing to the people that are soccer moms? It might be all of those people. But you have to think that through first, right? So you know, the books that you’re writing to that you’re reading are probably written for you, right? Because you and I may or may not read the same book. Right, exactly. So for somebody who comes to you and and says, You know what? I’ve never written a book before. I know, it’s something that I would love to do. But I don’t even know where to start. Yeah, where do you even go? I mean, there’s so much information out there. Who do you trust? Who do you know, what’s the process? How to make and determine what the books creative energy and the purposes? How do you even start there? Yeah, I love that. So I have a whole course on the purpose of your book. So
what a great lead in for that. Thank you. Here’s, here’s what I would ask somebody, why are you writing the book? Are you writing the book, because it’s always been your dream to write a book, and you’re gonna write the book. And you don’t really, you hope it goes viral. But really, if your best friends and your family buy it, that’s good enough. And that that’s a great reason to write a book, right? So if that’s all you want, and is just on your bucket list, write the book and have fun with it. And don’t stress and publish it and keep the cost down and give it away to friends and family. If you want to write a book as a lead generation tool or to build your platform, then I would start by saying what is the one thing you’re willing to stake you’re put your stake in the sand, about what is the one thing you stand for? What what is it that if you’re talking to a potential client and you
really want their business, what are you going to tell them about you? And that’s what you put in the book. Is it that you have the best customer service ever? Is it that you can help them lose that 10 pounds or 100 pounds? Is it that you’re the best financial planner out there because of x, y and z so
Whatever it is that you would say, to win over a potential client, that’s probably what we want in the book. And then we start building. Are there three tips you have? Is there a process that you use, and we don’t have to give away everything, we’re not giving away things that you would normally charge for footwear explaining to people, why they need your process for giving them some tools to start with. And, you know, a good book coach can help someone through this process. Most entrepreneurs have all this in their head.
They do. And they just need someone to help pull it out. So you can video record yourself, you can audio record yourself, you can have someone interview you, you can start writing bullet points or outlines. You can go back and transcribe all the podcasts you’ve ever been on. Yeah, I mean, that’s a, that’s a really good point. Because it can be I mean, life as an entrepreneur is busy enough. And to say, I’m gonna go and in write a book seems like a very daunting task, and most, and I know where my head goes, immediately says she’s, who am I to write a book? Who am I to even even start or even do something like that only the only the people who are really successful write books. Let’s talk about that myth, right. So I work with people all the time where I interview them, and we transcribe it. And that’s a really easy, fast way for an entrepreneur to get a book done. Lots of people have written books, where the book has helped them become more successful so that what you’re posing is a chicken in the egg thing. Right?
The more successful you become, the more chance there is that you’ll have someone to help you write your book, because you’ll have money to pay ghost writers and editors and those kinds of things. But if you have written web pages, if you’ve been on podcasts, if you’ve written sales copy, if you have an email responder, you can write a book, you just need, you just need some help pulling it all together. Really, entrepreneurs tend to do pretty well with bullet points and outlines. You start putting post it notes up around your wall or writing bullet points. What do I want in the book? Oh, yeah, I had this thought, oh, yeah, I had this thought. And a good editor, or book coach will help you pull together what should go in the book? And what should doubt? Gotcha. So that’s, again, part of your processes as a coach. Yeah. Those are the types of things that you would bring to the table as somebody who came to you and says, I don’t know where to start, I need some help. I know what I want to write about. These are the things that I’m passionate about, this is what I do. How do I put this into paper form? And how do I go about selling it and making a huge impact on the world? Yeah, totally. A lot of I say at the beginning, more words are better. Don’t worry about Self Editing yourself, get it all out on paper, we’ll figure out if it belongs in this book, if it belongs in the sales copy, if it belongs in the workbook, we should just trash that section altogether, we’ll figure that out. Not wasting anything, because as you write this paragraph will lead to this thought which may lead to a brilliant jam that needs to be in. And we may get rid of that first paragraph you did go we want that jam. And we may not get to that jam unless she just goes through the process of writing. Gotcha. So how does that collaborative partnership,
publishing differ from traditional publishing tell us the difference between those two, because that’s probably something that nobody’s even thought about. Yeah, so traditional publishing, the old school publishers, you turn over your manuscript, they take it, they edit it, maybe working with you in editing, but they’ll edit it, do a book cover, publish it, pay your royalty done. Old school, it’s changing a little bit, right. But most people when they think about that, they also think about they have to write a book proposal, send it off to 20 or 50 people to get published, they may or may not get accepted. And once they do get accepted, it’s about a two year process for traditional publishing. So I also want to just talk for a minute about self publishing because the other the other extreme about that is you publish your own book, you put it up, you do your own editing covers, you get it up on Amazon, all your own promotion, right. And then there’s everything in between. What we do with our collaborative publishing is we work with a traditional publishing model where we publish we use our eyes bands, we pay your royalty, but that royalty depends on marketing, what you can bring to the table what we bring to the table what we think the potential of the book is, and so we work together with you to help create marketing. You may invest you may not invest in
It sort of depends, we look at each author independently. And we come up with a plan to help you to help us both get a successful book. And so that’s a little different, because most other publishers don’t do that. Some publishers will charge you, and then take the book and go do the marketing for you, which might work. Right that that works as well. And there’s new publishers out there that do that. We tend to have a team of people here where we talk individually with every with every potential author, what kind of platform Do you have already? Do you already have a mailing list of 10,000 people or 20,000? People? Do you have a social media following? All those things make a difference when it comes to selling books? And if you don’t have that, then maybe we will work with you to start getting that so that you can sell more books? Gotcha, gotcha. Do you see entrepreneurs or whoever, whoever you’re working with, when they come to you? Do they? Do you start to go out to the market and say, Hey, would you buy something like this? Would you buy a book like this and market it before? It’s before it’s published? To see what what kind of grip you got on the market? And whether or not this is going to be successful? Or do you go the other way around and say, here’s the book. Let’s put this in people’s hands. However, we need to? Yeah, that’s a good question. So a traditional publisher, would do more of the first one, where they’re not even going to take a book, unless they think they have a spot for it. And they’re lying. We don’t take every book, but we take a lot of books, because we figure, especially, we’re pretty niche in the business, personal development, self growth, entrepreneurial industry. I mean, that’s that niche, but, you know, we figure if you have a book in you, you have an audience, it may be a smaller audience than you think. But especially if you’re going to use it to build your platform, you need to, you need to do the book, because that’s going to give you credibility. So just by publishing a book, you will get more business because it gives you credibility, it gives you a platform, it’s going to take you as I said earlier, through your own personal growth, where you’ll feel more confident, you’ll probably raise your prices, that comes a lot with publishing a book. So in a traditional market, they’re looking for, can we sell 10 or 20,000 copies? In our model we’re looking for if I sell 1000 copies in my likely to get five new clients from that. And is that enough? Will that more than pay for the book? Right? So if a coach is selling, let’s say, a $3,000 package, and they get five new clients, the first three months, the book is out, that’s a win? Absolutely. And so our our metrics are different, right? Our metrics are different for sure. Would we love to sell 10? Or 20,000? copies of a book? Of course, and have we done that? Yes. But that’s few and far between these days, right? What’s more important is that if you are a health coach, or a financial coach, financial advisor, that you’re selling your book to the people that might want to buy your services, or hire you for speaking or to help you sell your online workshop or to help you get to the next level. Right? And it can definitely be, you know, I’ve seen it be used as, like a prerequisite, Hey, before you come and work with me, you need to buy this book, and you need to read it. And we’re going to talk about this because the things that are inside this book are exactly what we do with our clients. And this is the process. So r&d to go. And if you don’t like it, then you’re not coming in, you’re not coming in, you got to educate yourself in here as well. And some people have, like their whole, like you’re saying the whole process. The other way is, I had a PR agency once send me their book and say if you want to work with me, you gotta read the book. First is how we work together. Yeah, right. Yeah. So same kind of thing. Who talking about? Yep. Now, you mentioned something that I have had no clue about. You use an ISBN. What is that? Great question. So do you have a book behind you anywhere? Yeah, I got one. Hang on. If you open up the copyright page, I’m going to show you here. And on the back of the book. I’m just randomly picking up a book I have here. Oh, we’re not we’re not on videos, audio only. props here. So anybody that’s listening, pick up a book and on the back cover, you’ll see the barcode and across the top it has an ISBN, and then you open up the copyright page, and you’ll see who the copyright is who the publisher is, and the ISBN is listed there. If there’s no ISBN, it means that it’s self published, either at a local printer or through Amazon Amazon does not require ISBN
And that’s okay. They’ll they’ll assign their own ISBN they do they do sign ein numbers, they sign, assign numbers. An ISBN is a little bit like your social security number kind of. Yeah, that’s a really good analogy. So security number for a book. Yeah. And it assigns, who’s the author who’s the publisher of this book, whoever owns the ISBN, owns the book, not the content, but the book as a package. Okay. So if you go pull your ISBN yourself, you buy ISP DNS, and you’re an author, and you pull ISP DNS and you go to a publisher, and say, I want to use my ISBN, you’re self publishing, you’re using the publisher as a consultant, okay? If you turn your book over to a publisher, and they use their ISBN, you cannot then go take that book and, and publish that book yourself. Because the publisher then owns that book for the remainder of the contract until they pull it down. So we’re starting to get a little bit technical here. I don’t know how deep you want to go. But this is a mistake a lot of authors make, okay, let’s help them avoid the mistake. So here’s what I see. I’m going to sort of give you an example. Because I think this will help pull it into focus for people
they’ve hired, they’ve gone to a publisher that they found online, they paid five grand, and the publisher publisher book, didn’t do anything. Publisher took the five grand and ran. They may be really legit. That got the public the book published, right? It’s up on Amazon. It’s up on the publishers page, but nothing’s happening with the book. And then somewhere another the author finds me and says, I want you to publish the book. I can’t. I see it’s under contract for the other publisher. So we’ve got some choices. You can go ask the other publisher to pull the book down. They may they already got paid their five grand they may or they may not depends on their interest and right, you can rewrite a new book with a new cover and start again. Yeah, right. But you can’t just go take a book that’s already been assigned an ISBN and republish it. I see. And that’s a mistake authors make because they don’t realize that they’ve sort of given up control. I see. So now obviously shouldn’t do that. Well, no, I’m certainly. So I mean, that’s a really good point, right? Is giving up control a good thing or a bad thing? Well, let’s say you want a job, you go work for a big corporation, you’re giving up control of your day, but you’re getting a paycheck and maybe health insurance.
Right? It’s not a bad thing. It’s just understanding. Right? It’s just understanding so that you’re making educated choices for yourself, if you think,
yeah, I’m gonna go work for this person. But I realized that I get zero vacation days, then you’re making educated choice. You know, if you’re getting paid $7 million a year, that may be a really good choice. Right? Right. So giving up control is not a bad thing. It’s just understanding it. Yeah, absolutely. Understanding what you’re giving up control of? Yep. And then making an educated choice. And if you can publish with me, same thing, you’re gonna give up some control. Right? Right. I mean, that’s the only way to can completely control this. If you if you self publish and take the whole thing on yourself, or you’re still you still give up some form of, well, okay, here’s another example, you publish through Amazon, Amazon can lower the price, I’ll ask you, Amazon may change the categories, right.
So it controls an illusion, we want to go down that rabbit hole
is definitely understood, definitely understood. That it is it certainly can be an illusion with it. So with all the, with all the information out there, and all the I’m sure there’s a lot of publishers, I’m sure there is.
I’ve never looked say to even start the process or even look, yeah. How would How would somebody who’s never even who’d never done it? And you maybe even if they already have, and maybe they had a bad experience? How do they go about choosing the right and knowing that you have the right type of Publisher and the right person to work with? So I’ll speak for myself, and what we offer and that is, I kind of know when I talk with an author if I want them, and I think they know too. There is a connection that you have or you don’t have, and because we do collaborative publishing, and we’re gonna have some kind of relationship with the author. We want to make sure we
We can at least talk and laugh a little bit together, right? Yeah, publishing, writing a book and publishing is so rewarding, but it’s like anything that’s difficult. If you decide you want to climb Kilimanjaro, or learn how to swim, when you’re 40 years old, or undertake a marathoner to learn a new language, anything like that, is there’s going to be difficult times. So you want somebody in your corner that both pushes you when the times get hard and encourage you.
Right? And so when you’re choosing a publisher, are you going to just turn it all over to them and say, Man, I’m so glad that’s done, here’s my money or not my money, because money’s not in the equation in this conversation here. I’m going to turn over my manuscript, wash my hands a bit, so I can get back to doing what I love. Let me know in the books out, there are publishers like that. And that works for some people, right? Right. Or do you want to be like, I want 100% control over my cover? Then you work with a publisher that gives that?
And so you gotta just think about what are you looking for? And then what if you publish your book and sells 10 copies? Right? Are you going to have a publisher that’s going to say, well, we need to do this, we need to do that we’re going to work with you. We’re going to try this, let’s go try some social media campaigns, or are you on your own? And where’s your royalty fit? So I would always say have a conversation First, decide what kind of relationship you want. And then have a conversation with some people and decide who’s the best match for you? Right? And I’m sure for somebody like yourself, who’ve been in it for a long time, you know, what works? You know, what doesn’t work? You know, the exact type of person that that’s coming to you and from a conversation with them. I’m sure that when you get off the phone with them and say, Yes, this is going to be great. This can be a great project for everybody involved. Seems like, it seems like you really create the environment for a win win situation for everybody try, we try it doesn’t work. Always. Well, we got a pretty good batting average, right?
Here’s the other thing, people are gonna listen to you on your podcast, and they’re gonna know right away. I love this guy, I’m going to subscribe, or they’re not right, and people are gonna listen to me. And they’re gonna say, Wow, I want to talk to Michelle or they’re not. There’s something intuitive about it. Absolutely. I’m sure I’m sure it’s a it’s a very, it’s a personal thing. It is. And it’s a creative process. You know, there’s a science to the actual publishing of the book, what the relationship between publisher and author is a little bit like athlete and coach, maybe. Great analogy. Great analogy. I think there’s there’s coaches that I’ve played for that. Just, Nope, don’t jive. Right. And then they’re the ones that are the ones that you really connect with, make a lasting impact on the rest of your life. And coaches aren’t always the nicest people. But oh, but it doesn’t matter if you know that they’ve got your best interests at heart and you trust them? Yes. That’s absolutely 100% as a that is a great point. And trust is a big word. Yeah. You know, especially in today’s world is building that connection with somebody is one of the hardest things to do. And
you know, writing, there’s nothing, there’s no better way than when you’re writing a book and talking to somebody and have a conversation with them. And they get it they understand. And you can you can feel the difference when you’re talking to somebody that really has your best interests in mind, and wants to put out the best product and have the best experience. Because again, it’s your time to write. I mean, right? And, you know, we gotta make money, too. You don’t want to put out a book that’s not going to do well. I mean, you know, we want to put out a good book, and we want to be realistic about it, too. So we may sell 10,000 copies, or we may say if we sell 1000 copies, this is a homerun for all of us and was trying to do better. But let’s go really work on getting you those five or 10 or 20 coaching clients to absolutely, and I’m sure it’s scary. I’m sure it’s real scary as you know, somebody who comes to you and it’s their first book. And when you don’t have any experience with something. It’s scary. I mean, it’s like I’m gonna spend this money. I don’t even know if it’s gonna work. I don’t even know if it’s the right thing for me. What are what are the mistakes that you want to avoid? Or a new help avoid for first publishers, people who are coming out for their first book, what are the mistakes that they need to avoid? We talked about the ISBN Yep. Another one is people aren’t willing to spend money on editing, and then they start getting bad reviews on Amazon. And you see that all the time. Um,
If you get bad reviews on Amazon, you can get bad reviews. But you got to have good reviews to Most definitely. Right. Everything’s on reviews right now. Right, right. I mean, that’s how I go about buying something, you look at review? Well, you know, back in the old days back in January of 2020, when we would go try a new restaurant, we look on reviews, right? Yeah.
And so you can have bad reviews, but you got to spend money on editing. And people like to cut corners there. For some reason, you got to have a good book cover and a book title. Here’s, I think, where the mistake is that people get married in their head to the vision of what they think the book should be, and aren’t always open to the feedback that if we change the title, or change the cover, it will do better. If we can get through people, like yes, this is your creative project, and it’s your baby. And let’s look and see what’s going to do well and in the business world, see what’s going to sell. If we can have those hard conversations, we can usually find what works for both sides. Ya know, one of the hardest, one of the hardest things to really grasp and let go of is we don’t get to decide what works.
We’re back at that control conversation.
Yeah, I love the analogy.
You plant the seeds, and then see what grows, you let go and let God you know, there’s so many analogies way to look at this, you do the hard work. That saying where opportunity meets preparation and lock equals opportunity. Right? You got to do the work? Yeah, we don’t really know what’s going to happen. Right? Absolutely. That’s really good. But if you do the work, and you do it with good intention, something usually comes out well for all the players, right? Just not it may not be exactly what you expect, right? Worst case scenario, if it’s a, you know, if it’s a big awakening for yourself as the person who’s goes through the creative project, then that’s, that’s something that you can’t, you can’t put a price on. I think every author that has used a book as a business card has has raise their prices.
Right? Because you do get through a place where you’re like, wow, I really know what I’m doing here. Yeah,
absolutely. I’m sure. Do entrepreneurs need a book? Do you need a book to really validate yourself? No. But I would ask the question, Do entrepreneurs most entrepreneurs want to book? Yes.
Will it help? Yes. Are there plenty of entrepreneurs who’ve been really successful without a book? Yeah, totally. Is it another way to market yourself? Yes. Are there entrepreneurs who’ve been successful without YouTube? Absolutely. Do you need you to know if you want you to? Should you do it correctly? Yes. Yeah. Should you leverage it? Should you understand some of the the game some of the rules, some of the hidden secrets to get successful and get the million subscribers or, you know, whatever? Yes, you should learn. So same thing with the book. You don’t need one.
Would it be fun to have one? Absolutely. can use it for marketing? Absolutely. Does it give you platform leverage? Credibility? Absolutely. Yeah, certainly. 100% I can definitely see like a podcast too. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, it’s when I first when I started this thing. I mean, I had no idea.
To me, I certainly do. I mean, I’m selfish by having the people on as guests because I get to learn from some some really creative people and, and you to use it inside of my own world, but also to put it out to the listeners. But this was set up I mean, for me to really just just to go out and have a platform to be able to spill what was going on in my world, what I’ve learned, where I was, the problems that I had, the solutions that I that I came up with, and where I am today and how other people can can just because I’m, I’m just an average guy who’s a husband, father of two and just trying to do the best I can for life and business and wealth and provide for family. Right. And you got a book in there somewhere to write someday, someday. Oh, yeah. There’s, there’s, they’re in there right now. So many things that it’s in there. It’s definitely in there. So, you know, with with things being busy with busy schedules and things and I know a lot of a lot of the things that I’ve seen about writing books is how to put out a book in X amount of time. So oh, 90 days, right? Yeah. Oh, quickly. Yeah. So most entrepreneurs have it in there.
her head, we can get it out of your head and on paper in 90 days, no problem.
It’s the right thing to do. Well, that’s the next question. Right? So for some people, yeah, I’ve worked with people who say, Wow, I just got a big speaking engagement. And I need to get this book out. No problem, we can do that. It may not be your big signature book, it may be a book that you use as a business card. And maybe there’s a bigger book more in depth book that comes later. In 90 days, it’s probably not going to be your in depth, life’s work book, in less unless you have some of it written. But 90 days, we can interview you get it all transcribed, get nice layout, cover, edited, delivered, right. And that works, especially for business card type books, Quick Books, long sales, copy type books, if you really want to put out a book that is your life’s work. And maybe Lee is sort of going to be your signature book, you’ve heard his signature talk or signature,
courses online, those kinds of things that probably will take longer than 90 days.
And so I like to talk and find out what’s the goal of the book, right? How big do you think this is going to be? Is it going to be? Here’s what you need to know about financial advising? And the three things you should interview anybody before you choose? And here’s what I’ve learned in my 20 years of financial advising, we can put that together in 90 days. Gotcha. Absolutely. So a lot of the other craze that I see out there is and a lot of big things that are that are put out there are ebooks. Yeah. From a personal perspective, are you wanting to see more success inside of something that is tangible, that you can grab a hold of, and sell versus having the online version of a book. So you make more money on a paperback, you make more royalties on a paperback, but ebooks sell better? I see. So I think it’s a two pronged approach. I buy both personally, I read a lot of ebooks, and especially with Amazon on Kindle Unlimited, you can read books for free, but if I really liked the book or want to take notes, or if I’m in a bookstore, I buy books as well. So I think I think these days, you have to have both. Okay, yeah, that I mean, that leads into, you know, putting the package together, right? Is it smart to? Is it smart to package everything to have that paperback version to have that hard? Yeah, or a hardcover version? And maybe an audio book? Yeah, absolutely. In the Kindle version, and then the audio version, do you write? Do you deal with the whole package? Or Totally, yeah, yeah, we do all of those. And here’s another that leads me to another mistake, sometimes brand new authors make is they put out a different cover for the Oli audio book, and the paperback and ebook thinking they need different covers. And it should be the same cover, same branding, same everything. Sometimes you’ll have a different cover for a different country.
But in terms of US market, if we’re promoting a book, and we’re even if we’re promoting it worldwide, we rarely change covers once in a while. Right? Right, that makes sense. How do you know when it’s right? How you know, when you when the timing is right, and you’ve been there, and you’ve maybe thought about it for a little while? And maybe we’ve tossed the idea back and forth? And you always talked yourself out of it? How do you know when it’s right for them to spend in to really spread the message? When is the time to read the book? Or if it’s even right for them? Wow. I think you got to talk it through with somebody could be me, another publisher, a friend, someone you trust not somebody is going to be like, Who do you think you are to write a book? No, no, somebody’s got your back. Right? Yeah. If you’re looking to grow your business, write your book. If it’s something you’ve always wanted to do, and it’s on your bucket list, don’t put it off. Write your book. If it scares you a little bit, probably write your book, because anything worthwhile doing is a little bit scary. When I did my TED talk, I was terrified.
If you feel like you’re gonna fail, you should probably write your book like I don’t know how many times I’ve learned Spanish, right? Oh my god, I’m gonna fail again, learning Spanish, but every time I try I get a little bit farther along. And so if if it’s any of those reasons stopping you, you should probably do it. If you just feel like yeah, I want to write a book, but I just know today’s not the day. That’s a legitimate reason. Yeah. But if it’s fear, self doubt, any of those things stopping you. Those aren’t legitimate reasons. You just need to get caught
I gotcha. In to Me, you don’t have to have like to ride around a major event or major tragedy that happened and how you this happened in my life and how I overcame it. No, not everybody has had that happen. Right? Those are not always the easiest books to read. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. So you mentioned something about the TED talks, let’s talk. I mean, that’s a huge craze, right? I know, things are gonna change a little bit with the way that the world is right now about getting in front of the large crowds in person anyway. So let’s talk about public speaking and talking about putting that message out on that platform. Yeah. So you know, Ted, to get on TED or TEDx, you got to have something we’re sharing, you got to have a unique spin on something, and you can’t just get up there and sell yourself your products or services. You can’t even really promote a book. That’s not how it works for Ted. So Ted is a fun thing to do, that also will give you huge credibility. When I did my TED talk, I was scared to death. By the way, I’ve got a whole that’s a whole hour long podcast about how I was curled up in a ball. Scared to death to do it. And then of course, once you do it, you’re like, Okay, that wasn’t so bad. Right? It’s just whenever you try anything new, right? And you feel good. Woohoo, I did it. I got to the other side. Didn’t get me anything in terms of public speaking that I thought it would brought me huge amounts of credibility and street cred. Everybody’s always like, Wow, you got a TED Talk? Well, you got a book, right. And they’re, and they’re so excited.
And so it has brought me business, a lot of business over the years, but not in the direct A to Z way that I thought it would. Gotcha. Gotcha. Absolutely. And, you know, so as we wrap this thing up, I mean, you’ve got you thrown out a whole bunch of stuff, and a bunch of knowledge on writing a book, why it’s important, some of the mistakes you can avoid, when you know, it’s time is right, all those types of things that come along. So for the listeners, we’re going to end this way, what three things? What are the three things that if you are considering writing a book, what are the three major things that you need to consider in action steps that you can take for this book, not for your whole life for this book? What is it you really want to put out in the world? What is it you really think is important for your heart to share right now, start, there might be purpose, it might be financial planning, it might be weight loss, it might be your personal journey, but choose one, and then be okay with choosing that because it doesn’t mean you can’t write your second book next year. But be okay with whatever you choose right now and anchor into that. Find someone to work with, could be online book coach could be a book writing group could be a Facebook group, but you will get discouraged. So you got to get some kind of support somewhere.
It’s hard to just some people can do it, sit in their hole and write their book and get it done and say woohoo, I did it. But if you need if you’re the kind of person feels like you’re gonna need support, find some support. And then understand the process. It’s like getting into anything, you can paint for fun, take up painting and paint all day every day, and have a lot of fun with it. And the minute you want to sell and galleries that turns into a business, it’s a whole different thing. You got to learn about pricing per square inch and frames, and you know, all of it right and commissions. So as soon as you think, Okay, I’ve got this book, I’m gonna publish, it turns into a business. So learn enough of the business or ask enough questions, so that you can be educated in whatever you decide to do. Excellent. Excellent. So let’s say we have a listener that comes and listens to this podcast, and they have they have some interest in talking about a book. And how do they find you? Yeah, so Michelle bandpass.com, or Grace point, publishing.com, my two sites and Google either one of those, and I’ll come right out. schedule a call with me. Awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks for the time. I really do appreciate it was great talking to you learn a heck of a lot about publishing, and writing books and why it’s important. So I appreciate the time. Thanks so much. And take care of yourself. Yeah, this is a blast. Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely.
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