Julie Broad (the "Book Broad" of BookLaunchers) debunks three common myths about writing nonfiction books: (1) you must be a good writer (she recommends ghostwriters, repurposing/transcription, and iterative editing from a bad first draft); (2) self-published books are inherently low quality (she reframes the issue as professionalism — hire editors/designers or a full team); and (3) books don't make money (she argues books can pay off as sales, corporate/association distribution, speaking opportunities, and lead generation if you define a strong hook, audience, and use-case). The video closes with audience CTAs (comments, subscriptions, prize entry).
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Book writing isn't rocket science. You don't even have to be a good writer. Heck, you don't even have to write a word to write a book. So what other myths do you believe when it comes to book writing? Stick around. We're gonna smash myths today. There's a myth. Smash. Smash. Smash. I just really wanted to use that. Hey, I'm Julie, the book broad with booklaunchers.com where where we help entrepreneurs and professionals write, publish and sell a brand and business building nonfiction book. Alright, so the first myth is that you have to be a good writer to write a book. We've already talked about working with ghost writers here, here, and here. We also work with clients who've already written dozens or even hundreds of blog posts. We help them take that content and turn it into a book. Same with podcasters. They transcribe their episodes and we content edit the heck out of it. So to make it read well, sure, someone has to write some transitional material and there's work to be done to create a good hook and an outline for a book. But you don't have to be a good writer. We also work with clients who dictate their book and get that transcribed. The key to all of this is getting something down so we can get to a bad first draft. With a bad first draft, we can dig in with content editing, then copy editing and proofreading and turn that bad writing into good writing. Then that gets your point across effectively and even entertaining your reader along the way. The second myth is that self published equals hack or not good because there's no gatekeeper validating the work. I think we should stop talking about self published versus traditional published and start talking about professional versus not professional. Anyone can upload a book to Amazon and sell it. There's no gatekeeper. And this does mean that a lot of garbage gets published. It's not a self publishing problem. It's a lack of professionalism. Just because you can upload an unedited, unfettered book doesn't mean you should. It's your reputation, your credibility and your brand. And believe me, it's harder than you think to make a book go away once you upload it. We've had people contact us trying to get bad books off their author pages. It's not that simple if some other things have happened already. So save yourself that situation and be a professional. Hire professionals to edit your book and design a cover. If you have a budget, bring an entire team like a traditionally published book would have, so that nobody can tell whether your book was vetted or not, they assume it was the third and final don't make money from books. I hear this all the time. I just met with a very successful businessman two days ago. He and a partner run four companies under a larger umbrella of a consulting firm. They have a large staff and a big revenue base and he said, I have no illusions that this book will make me more than it costs. I challenged him and suggested the book he was proposing probably would cost more than he would make. He just wanted to republish his blog posts into a book. With a bit of discussion, we found a powerful hook to tie many of his best blog posts together and turn it into a pretty compelling read. And I can see how he'll easily sell copies not just to readers on Amazon, but also to corporations who want their teams to read his advice and possibly to associations who want to have him come and speak and give their audience a copy. And on top of that, it will certainly act as a fabulous lead generator for every one of their businesses. Done well, this book could easily make him back the investment 10x in one year. You don't make money from books if you don't get clear on why you're writing it, who it's for, and how you're going to use that book in business. You also won't sell many copies if you don't have anything new or interesting to say. So make sure you check out this video on creating a great hook for your book. Now it's your turn. What other myths are out there that are about writing a book that aren't true? Share your thoughts in the comments below. And remember, if you're commenting on the day a video comes out, you'll be entering to win a prize. Videos come out every Friday. Make sure you're subscribed. I think you can subscribe here or here and turn the notifications on. Which you can do here or here, I don't know. So you can hang out with me on YouTube after the video comes out and smash that thumbs up button if you like this video. See you on the next one. Just because you can upload an oh my gosh. Oh goodness, you can't make that stuff up.
