5 Story Writing Tips for Non-Fiction Authors | Livestream Replay

All right. Hello, hello, my fabulous friends. Let me just make sure. Okay, you're not on mute. Everything should be good. So say hello when you get here. Whether you're on the replay or you're here live, definitely say hello. And I am just going to fix something on my screen and then we're going to dive right in. We have a really, really cool topic for you today. We're talking about story for nonfiction authors. So writing stories for nonfiction authors. And this is, you know, this is not a story workshop, per se. Like, we're not going to dive into deep character and plot development. I'm going to give you the essentials for writing a great story to help really keep your book, make your book engaging and make it a page turner and really have people want to read your book. So still fixing this one thing here and then that should be good. Okay, cool. All right, so Angela's here. Thank you so much. Brian's here. Hello and welcome. Great to have you here. And I'm just going to do that. Okay, cool. So as I said, we're talking about five story writing tips for nonfiction authors. As the author of Self Publish and Succeed the no Boring Books Way to Write a Nonfiction Book that sells, I'm a big fan of Great story. I think it's one of the fundamentals to writing a hashtag no boring books. I'm not a trained writer, though, and I think most people, at least our clients, aren't typically trained writers either. So what I'm sharing are really for all of us non trained writers to write a great story and to ultimately make a book that is not boring. I'm stealing some material. Just so you know, from our fabulous master of manuscripts, Kelly Reagan. Last week we had a session for folks who bought three books or more during launch week. And we had a private mastermind session with Kelly Reagan, who's our master of manuscripts. And she shared some real gold on writing. So I'm actually stealing some of that from her today. And we'll be sharing that with you today. And then I'm actually hoping to steal some material from that session and create a YouTube video for you guys from Kelly. But yeah, so as you're here, make sure you say hello. Let me know that I'm not just talking to myself. And that goes for when you're watching the replay. And you know, while we're at it, I love prizes for those that are arrive on time. So why don't we kick this off and this will get you commenting. Why don't we kick it off with a prize right off the bat. So if you're new to the live streams, there's always prizes. There's two kind of prizes. There's the participation prizes, and they're the prizes for commenting on the YouTube videos the day they're released. So if you're watching the replay on the same day it came out, still participate because you will get entered to win for the next live stream. But the prizes that you can win today we have our oh so Soft journal and our no BoringBooks mug where coffee, tea, and hot chocolate have all been proven to taste better. So make sure you say a comment because the 23rd comment of the day is going to be our first prize winner. So say hello. And while you guys are doing that saying hello, I'm going to kick it off with the first tip. So. And if you just got in here, we're talking five story writing tips for nonfiction authors. So this is one I'm stealing straight from Kelly Reagan, our master of manuscripts, who the master of manuscripts at Book Launchers. She is a writer, she's a content editor, and she is our quality control. So she reads the manuscripts when they come back from editors and come back from the clients and make sure that the book is developing to become the strongest possible version of itself. So she has a very, very important role with the company. And she's actually been. She was our very first content editor that we hired. She's been with us really since the early, early days. So she is really, really bright. It was really great to have her share these tips with our supporters of self publish and succeed last week and one of the ones that she said I loved. And so I'm stealing that for point one, and it is drop your reader into the middle of the action. You don't open it with, you know, today I tried this new cereal. It's called Magic Spoon. It's supposed to be healthy. My son really liked it because it kind of tastes like Fruit Loops. And I felt good about giving it to him. No, you don't start with that. You drop it straight into I crashed my car today or I got robbed at the bank, or the bank got robbed when I was there, whatever it is. That is the crux of the story, the action moment that, you know, he dumped me, whatever it is, I'm just making stuff up. Drop your report thrown in there. You know, I got food poisoning. And, you know, the bank called and they're foreclosing on the house. Those kind of things. Like you imagine as Kelly described this, imagine that you're calling your best friend up on the phone, and you don't tell the best friend all those details. You're like, you won't believe what happened. Boom, out with it. And then you can fill in the backstory as necessary from there. But that gets attention. And look at Hollywood. Hollywood does this so well. You don't open a movie, or very rarely do you open a movie with a slow kind of build up. You know, they're just like, boom, straight in. The aliens are landing. There's somebody's breaking up with you. You know, there's. They really drop you into the action really, really fast. So you want to do that with your readers and your stories that you're telling, too. So let's see who our winner is. Now that we have tip number one. Hello. Hello. Poetry from the heart. Jean De. I don't know if you say, I don't know if it's Jean or Jean, but I'm going to say Jean for now, and then you can tell me if it's not Tobias. Hello, Efren. Welcome. Okay, so it's great Mindful Eats. Great to have you here. So, Angela, do we have. I don't think we have 23 yet. So keep going, you guys. We need the 23rd commenter for our first prize of the day. And I'm just going to keep going with the tips for now. So you got. Yes, she just confirmed. Not 23 comments yet. And if you guys don't know, Angela Jones is our operator over at Book Launchers, so she's here helping me out. If you have questions, she'll be collecting them and we'll answer all the questions not pertaining to the five tips for writing a story for nonfiction authors at the end. And I'm taking from. Oh, Exotic Expression Dance Fitness. Taking a break from your book. And you caught this. Yay. Oh, it's. I was wrong, too. It's Jean. Jeanne. Oh, dear. John. Ina. Okay, I'm butchering that. I'm so sorry. Goodness. I'll have to take a. I'll have to take a break when I'm not live and figure that one. Sorry. Oh, the blue wall. Yeah. So the blue wall is just a little. A blue screen that's also a green screen. My husband is an actor, and he was doing a callback for. He had a callback for a movie, and they do it all by zoom, or most of them by zoom now. So he had to set up the blue because he didn't want the brick wall. And I didn't take it down, but I'M glad you think it's okay. I don't like that. I can see the corner of it right there, but details. Okay, so let me hit you guys with number two. Hey, Bill. Welcome. Okay, so number two, keep a log of stories. You know, become a story collector. So, you know, they don't have to be your story. So in a book, in a nonfiction book, I recommend you have an assortment of stories. A lot of them you want to be your stories, but they can also be stories of other people, something that happened to other people, whether they're clients, whether it's, you know, something you witnessed, whatever it is. And then you also want to collect stories from, you know, the news or. Or speakers that you hear speak and, you know, case study examples, those kind of things. Fables even can work in certain situations. So keep a collection of stories and even test them out. You know, tell your friends which. And then which stories do you have people leaning in my book, really? And I'll highlight a couple of stories from my book today. But a lot of the stories that I shared in there, you. They're already tested in that they're stories that people always ask me to tell again. So I'll tell friends, and then I'm on their podcast, and they'll say, oh, you got to tell everyone about what happened when. And so, you know, you've got a story that is really interesting and engaging. And, you know, if you test it out and people remember it or they tell others or they tell you, oh, you got to tell so and so this story, then you can feel pretty confident that the story works. You may have to work on how it's told, but that's what editors are for. We'll come to that point in a bit. But ultimately, keep a log of stories, because that can be the hardest part, is trying to think of a story for each situation. So start paying attention to the world around you. So reading a cool story in a newspaper, you know, the speakers that you might hear, videos you might watch, you know, like I said, fables. So just be. Pay attention and test them out and kind of keep a log of them. And I think I kind of covered this already, but your stories, really, you want to have a lot of your own stories to build for most nonfiction books, to build your credibility. If writing a memoir, I mean, that book is your story, but you still want to have, you know, moments, right? You still want to have those stories within a story that are happening. So keep track of those and just even think about, you know, when you're Walking alone at night, what happens? Just start paying more attention to the world around you, the conversations that you're having, your own feelings, your own observations. I mean, this is something you take a page from the comedians. The best comedians, the best standup comedians are really, really just watching the world around them and then turning what they see into funny thoughts. So if you just start watching and observing and taking notes, you'll start to have just a plethora of stories that you can draw from for your book. And I think that that's one thing a lot of people kind of. You're on autopilot a lot. So if you start really focusing on collecting great stories and maybe even not that great, like sometimes they don't have to be great stories, but just collecting those stories that you see in the world and making a note of them. You never know when they might come in handy. So let's see if we've got our 23rd commenter now. Ah, Bill Miller. Awesome. Awesome. And Doreen, I know sometimes YouTube doesn't like you click. Doreen just said hello. I never get notifications. So when you click the bell on the channel, I think it's actually. I don't know where it is. Then you should get notified. But it doesn't always work. So if you've clicked that bell, it should be notifying you. But you can always set a calendar reminder or a reminder on your phone. It's 2pm every other Tuesday and we're almost always here every other Tuesday. So. Okay, so number 23 was the date today, is it not? I think today is the 23rd of March. If it's not, I just picked a random number for you as our prize winner. But. Bill Miller, congratulations. Email us at team@book launchers.com and let us know if you want the mug or the journal. I don't know if you've won both yet. I feel like you've definitely won one. If you haven't, you've absolutely earned one because you have been a frequent commenter. Let's see. Here we go. Okay. I don't think anything else there, so that's cool. I am going to. My next thing is I'm going to do a draw for YouTube. So for those of you who are new to the channel, when you comment the day a video is released, you also get entered to win the mug and the journal and sometimes some other prizes. So today I've gone ahead and put everybody's name from the last two weeks into a draw. And I'm just gonna pull up My random name picker. And there you are. So I need the drum roll. I need the fancy sound effects. One day I'll get fancy for you guys. But you can just imagine a drum roll playing right now while we're picking our first YouTube Prize winner. And congratulations. Poetry from the heart. I'm pretty sure everything. And I think you're here too. So let me know what you would like to do if you want to nominate a winner. You want me to draw again? I don't think. And if there is something that you don't have yet, let us know that too. But I think you. I know I mailed you a signed copy of my book even recently. Have you got Dale's book? The Amazon self publisher, the one that I wrote the forward to. If you don't have that, I think Angela has a few copies left. So we could send you a copy of that if you'd like. That would be a backup. Otherwise we can draw again. So let me know. I know I saw you here, so let me know what you'd like to do. Okay. So cruising along. Oh, you don't have that book. Okay, great. So email us@teamoklaunchers.com Although I think I still have your address from when. But anyways, just email teamoklaunchers.com so and let Angela know that you're getting Dale's book. And Angela's here, so she'll make a note of that anyways. But just email her and we'll get that copy of that book out to you. For anybody who doesn't already have, well, first of all, this is the first book you need to get self publish and succeed if you don't have it. This is the ultimate guide to writing a nonfiction book that's going to sell and also engage your reader. So that's number one. And if you do have it, please write a review and send me an email atteambook launchers.com when your review goes live and we'll get you invited to our reviewer party. We're going to have two parties and I've ordered new hoodies. I have new hoodies on the way for this party. So when we hit 50 reviewers and 100 reviewers, we're going to have a party. And everybody who has emailed us that they've posted a review once it goes live will be invited to that. And I'm going to try to make sure that everybody walks away with something because I'm just so grateful. Reviews are the greatest gift you can give an author. And every single review Means everything to me. So I'm super grateful. And that's why I want to have a party to just give stuff to people who review the book because it is hard to get reviewers. And I'm really, really grateful for everybody who takes the time to do so. So please do that. But the other book was the Amazon self publisher from Dale Roberts. And it's a really, really great guide for everything. Amazon. So Amazon metadata, Amazon ads, Amazon relevancy, it is. I even picked up a few things from that book that not only were we not doing for clients, but I wasn't paying attention to. I'd kind of seen it, but I hadn't given it much attention. So I even working in this every day, I got value from that book. So I highly, highly recommend it for folks as well. So that's what, that's what poetry from the heart has won. So congratulations. Okay, let's see. Did, did, did. And Brian says congratulations. Modeling what you're telling us to do. I, I, I, I tell this to my team, too. I will never ask anyone to do something that I won't do myself or that I haven't done already. So yes, absolutely. Okay, let's see. And let's go back to my tips here. My list. Yeah. So recapping. So point number one, and for those of you joining, we're to write a great story for nonfiction authors. And point number one was. Point number one is really dropping your reader into the center of action. Imagine what you would say to your best friend. That was point number one. Point number two is to become a story collector. Point number three is to create some story structure. But again, we're not dropping you into the world of creating Harry Potter's world here. You know, you don't have to get too fancy when it comes to nonfiction stories. Your story needs a character and a problem. If you just think of it that way, just keep it really simple. The problem can be a decision to make or some sort of struggle or obstacle to overcome. This is not a narrative. It's really, really important because I think that that is probably the biggest weakness of most nonfiction books, where you try to tell a story, you try to tell it in a narrative. You know, it's kind of like my life began when I and then this happened, and then this happened, happened, and then this happened. That really isn't a great story. Like I said, drop them into the middle of the action. You've got a character, you've got a problem, You've got attempts to overcome that problem. And what happens and what the struggle is and what is learned from that struggle. And sometimes, let's be real about this, sometimes you don't actually get what you want. And that's part of the story. So what does your character want and what is the struggle to get it? And again, you don't have to have a lot of character development. You do need to give some descriptors. So answer a few questions. I'll just give you a couple of questions as prompts. What does your character want and why? Really important. That is something that you want to address. What has your character tried to do to get to the outcome they want and what has stopped them in their tracks or gone wrong? And this can be real or imagined. One of the big things I talk about a lot when it faces nonfiction authors is the struggles inside of your head. So the monsters, I call them the monsters. And we all have these monsters. Some are bigger than bigger, bigger and uglier than others, but they, we all have these monsters. Fear of judgment has been one of mine for, you know, and it comes along with me always. Imposter syndrome is a very common one too. It's also one of mine. And you really, I like to name them makes it makes them more like my friends now when I name them, get to know them, you know, if I know what their favorite foods are, all that stuff, regardless, I kind of got sidetracked. But they can be internal is what I'm saying. So the obstacles don't have to be real physical obstacles or people or anything. They can be internal obstacles, they can be external obstacles, they can be real, they can be imagined. But you have to really explain that can be a combination as well. And in your story, you want to explain, does your character achieve the outcome? And whether yes or no, what is learned, what changes as a result of this struggle or experience? So in my book, I told one story, I told quite a few stories. I actually opened the book with one story. It doesn't have a lot of struggle, but it does talk about the life changing book. So I open, I open, self publish and succeed with the life changing book story. But chapter 10, I told a story that really doesn't have anything to do with nonfiction, but I told this story and I said, look, mommy, there's a bear. It was early one morning on a family vacation in Whistler, British Columbia. I had my 2 year old son Jackson in his stroller as we walked to the park. Oh, is there, sweetie? Where? I said, still not quite awake. The words were barely out of my mouth when I Saw a rather scruffy brown bear strolling right up to us on all fours. He or she was about my height and had calm looking brown eyes and a yellow tag in his left ear. If I took two more steps, I could have reached out to pet him. Oh, swear word, there is a bear. I turned the stroller around and ran to a nearby store. I later realized you shouldn't have turned and run. But seriously, come face to face with a bear while walking your toddler to the park and tell me what you would do. So the story goes, there's only a little bit more of the story. We survived, obviously, but how do you tie that story in? That was a tough one to tie into my book, but and it doesn't have a big struggle or a big outcome. I mean, we were heading to the park. That was our desired outcome of the day. Our obstacle was a big bear and you know, the outcome was we got to the store. I tied it into the book by, you know, really challenging you to start your chapters with an engaging story. Make people want to keep reading. So it's a little bit of a reach, but I'm really just highlighting that story to share that you don't have to have this giant outcome. Like, it doesn't have to be like I wanted to make a million dollars for a story to have value. There just has to be a character and an obstacle and an outcome and what happens on your way to achieving that and what happens if you don't achieve it. That's really, it's really as simple as that. So point four and then we'll pause for another prize. Tell only stories that your reader needs to read in order to achieve the hook of your book. So again, that bear story was reaching, but it was one of those stories where people always ask me to tell this story of what happened. Because even in Whistler it's very common to see a lot of bears. But it wasn't, it's not so common to be so close that you could actually reach out and touch the bear. So it's really, it's one of those stories that people really, really liked and wanted, always wanted to know what happened and hear about it. So I put it in the book for that reason. And then my tie into the hook was really challenging you to find a story and use stories to engage your reader and keep them interested and always kind of wonder, what else are you going to tell me? What other experiences will I get to, you know, go share vicariously through this book? But the big thing though is Just because you have a great story doesn't mean you're going to need to or really be able to share the story. It has to tie back to the hook of your book. And if it doesn't, you need to save it for the next book. And there was one story in particular that I had written for this book. And when Tim Testa, he's our story expert, was reading this, he said, you know, this is a great story, but I don't know why you made me read it. And it's a good check because it didn't go back to the hook. There really was no tie in. It was just a story that I felt good sharing. I liked the story, people like the story, but I didn't have a way to tie it back into the message of the book. So if it doesn't tie back to the hook of the book, ditch it. No matter how much people say it's a great story, if you can't find a tie in, it really doesn't belong in your book. When we're talking nonfiction, one other example is I told in my book, I also told the story, which is another popular story I always get asked to tell, is when we were coming back from Canada one year. I've lost. Everything's a blur since the pandemic. I don't know what year it was, but we were coming back from Canada, back to Los Angeles, and crossing the border. The border agent stopped us and basically demanded that I prove my company was profitable and that I was employing people. Otherwise they weren't going to let us back into the country, or they were only going to let us come back in for seven days to basically collect our stuff and move back to Canada. So this was a really, really intense moment, which I could probably write an entire book on this whole experience. I summarized it in a very short, very short, like a page and a half story in my book. But I was able to tie it in by saying that I actually look at my choice. My decision to move to the United States and live in the United States is very similar to author's choice when they decide to go exclusive with Amazon, because ultimately, we are beholden to sometimes just the decision of a simple customs person, a border agent, you know, it. The choice to renew our visa comes down to one person's decision. And the choice to let us into the country every time we cross the border can come down to one grumpy agent, you know, demanding to see paperwork, which, you know, when we talked to our lawyer, the lawyer said, well, you don't actually have to do it, but you got to be careful. And so ultimately I just went, produced all the paperwork and we were cleared to go. But it, when you choose to go exclusive with Amazon, you're kind of doing the same thing because Amazon changes the rules all the time. They're always tweaking their algorithm, they're removing our reviews, they're doing all kinds of things all the time. And, you know, they've squeezed, they've squeezed the book prices down and they've done a lot of things that you being tied to Amazon solely really does make you beholden to Amazon. So I've made the conscious choice to live in the United States, but I still keep a foothold in Canada just in case the US Ever changes its mind. And, you know, same thing with Amazon. I don't go except exclusive with Amazon because I have a choice and I can be wide. So I tied that whole scenario, that story and my choice to move from Canada to the US in with Amazon as another place you go exclusive. But if you don't have tie ins like that, it won't fit with your hook. So no matter how great the story is, then it won't work. But if you're creative, there's ways to tie a lot of good stories into whatever you're teaching. So I've tied mountain biking in to, you know, trying to set goals and achieve them. So there's a will, there's a way. But I never did get that one story into the book that, that Tim flagged. All right, so let's do another prize. Oh, hey, Rhonda. Good to see you here. Okay, let's see. I'm just checking your guys's comments here. Angela will be collecting and collecting questions. So if you have questions, I'll be answering all of those at the end. We're cruising along. We've got a few more tips for you. And I see a lot of you have hit that thumbs up button. So thanks for that. It makes you feel good too, I promise. Try it. Okay, so prizes, let's go to YouTube and. Or the YouTube prizing. So for all of those folks who've commented on the Tuesday and Friday videos that have come out, here goes our virtual drum roll and let's choose our next winner. Okay, so. Oh, Joyce Robinson, are you here today? I don't know if I've seen you. Let's see. Joyce, are you here? Is Joyce in the house? So regardless, I'm pretty sure if Joyce isn't here, she'll be watching the replay because she is one of Those loyal, loyal YouTube followers and commenters, and I appreciate every single one of your comments. So please email us@bookteambooklaunchers.com and let us know which of our fabulous prizes you would like. Our no Boringbooks mug or our journal. All right, folks, we have one more participation. We have one more prize. It's a participation prize coming up for you. But before I do that, we do have one more. Oh, yeah, one more. I had to check my notes because I forgot where I was at point number five. I'm also stealing this from Kelly Reagan, our master of manuscripts. And she said, tell the truth. And I think I saw actually Efren saying something about the truth is interesting. I wasn't sure if that was, like, another tip, but in fact, it is another tip. I didn't know if it was related to something I had said or if it was a tip of your own. But Kelly's point in our session that we did last week was, your book will be flat if you don't. And where we see this, a problem in nonfiction is where people want to tell part of the story to make you think a certain way about them. And so they leave out certain parts of the story, maybe where they said or did something that wasn't appropriate or didn't work out or made a mess of things so they don't get judged badly again. It's where the monsters come in. And. And you can create this. This flat feeling book because something's missing. And we've had this happen where they talk about their success and all the great things they've achieved, but they're not actually real about some of the emotional struggle that they're going through right now or whatever else it is. So the book really feels flat if you don't tell the truth. And this really goes back to the lesson. I took a story workshop from Robert McKee, who's one of Hollywood's book, you know, grand masters of story. He wrote this book on story that's like this big story structure and how to tell story. But the big. One of the biggest takeaways I took from his book is stories get their energy from the negative. And that negative is often that very thing that you want to hide that you don't want to tell people about. You're. You're kind of embarrassed or ashamed, but that's actually where you're going to create the real connection. That's where your story is going to get the energy, and that's where things are going to feel real. And the best example I can really offer to you is from my first book, More than Cash Flow. So when I wrote this book on real estate investing, it was really one of those things where a lot of the stuff I decided to share in there, I did it for the sole reason that I knew there was other people out there that needed to hear what I had been through, the mistakes that I. That my husband and I had made, and a lot of the things that I was really quite ashamed or embarrassed of, but I knew those were the very things people needed to hear. And so I told them, even though the whole time I was writing that book, I knew there was family members that didn't know some of the mistakes that we'd made and some of the things that had gone wrong. There was coaching clients because we had a real estate training and education company. And I knew that they didn't know that we made some of these big mistakes. And here we were teaching them how to invest. And the biggest one was we had investors who had given us hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in real estate. And here I was telling them about this house that turned into a crack house and the property manager that rob rent money from us and some of these other crazy things that happened to us or that we did, we caused to happen. The crack house we didn't create, by the way. We didn't cause that to happen. That's. There's more of a story to that one. And we had a property manager who got charged with manslaughter. So we had some wild, wild stories. Things that we were not proud of, things, you know, things that happened because we'd pursued money. We looked at the numbers and gone, man, we're going to get rich from this. And in fact, we ended up with a crack house, those kind of things. And I was raw and I was real, and I did not hold back about, you know, I even said in there, most people start off real estate books about, like, floating on my yacht, driving my Maserati, and like, all of the money. And I was like, you know what? Sometimes I think a job at Starbucks would be better than this whole real estate gig. Like, that's how real I was. And that worked. I mean, I credit that to being one of the reasons that to this day, more than cash flow is still one of I get realtors and mortgage brokers writing me saying, I still give your book to every one of my clients. And that book came out in 2013. So I think the realness made that book, and I think the More real you are, even if it's uncomfortable, the better your book will be. And then if you're worried that you've gone too far, you've shared too much. That's what great editors are for. So I'm going to recap these five points, but before I do that, the participation prize is the first person to tell me what point number four was. You'll be the winner for today. So do tell me what point number four was. All right, let's see. I'm just checking out your comments so I can catch up while I was busy talking. And Bill has only won the journal. So you can get your mug now. And you can now testify to the fact that coffee, tea, and hot chocolate tastes better in this fabulous mug. Hey, Diana. Glad to have you here. Now, let's see. 0.4. I'm just waiting for the winner on point four. Okay. Hey, guy. Good to see you here. Yes, Doreen is our winner. Congratulations, Doreen. So, yeah, point four was to tell stories that tie in with your hook. So email us@teamoklaunchers.com and let us know which prize you would like. So just recapping the five points we covered today, Point one was. Oh, yeah. Point one was drop them into the action. So imagine you're calling your best friend. You're not going to tell them what you had for breakfast. You're just going to say, whoa, you won't believe what happened today, and just dive right in. Number two is to become a story collector. Start observing the world around you to collect amazing stories. Number three, create a simple story structure. You're writing nonfiction. You don't have to create this elaborate world and give descriptions to everything. You really just need a character with a problem that they're trying to solve, and some struggle to solve that problem. Number four is only tell a story if it fits with your hook. It's really important to tie it back to that hook. And if you can't, it doesn't fit. Number five is to tell the truth, the whole truth, because the story gets its energy from the negative. And again, ultimately, really just put as much as you can down on paper and then get an amazing team of editors. If you get a really great developmental or copy. Sorry, a developmental or content editor to just dive into this, your book will be really. They'll cut out the pieces and trim it and help you structure your stories so that they are engaging if you hire the right one. And we've talked about hiring great developmental editors before, but I've actually found and fun Fact for you and Kelly Reagan, who's our master of manuscripts. When I was hiring, when I was adding Kelly to the team, we went through, I don't know, probably 20 different content editors, and we were testing them all, giving them the sample of this book and testing them. And we had a lot of people with a ton of experience. They'd worked for big publishers, but of course, I had this very clear vision that Book Launchers needed to be a company that helped people write great books. They had to be page turners. It doesn't matter that it's nonfiction or a subject that might be dry. It needs to be a page turner. And we went through a ton of experienced content editors with this test, and I couldn't believe that nobody was getting it. And then Kelly, who wasn't an experienced content editor, she was a journalist. She's a trained writer, but she was. She was a journalist, not a developmental editor or content editor. She nailed it. Like, she absolutely aced this test. And so we immediately hired her as our content editor, and she's been with the company ever since. So, yeah, just saying that you really got to know what you're looking for and make sure you're finding the right developmental editor, because a lot of those developmental editors were going to create a book that would read well, it would have the right structure, but it wasn't going to be engaging. So just a little tip for you there. Okay, let's see. What questions do we have? Angela, those are our points for the day. Just a friendly reminder again, if you haven't, please, please write your review for Self publish and succeed once it's live. Email us at teamoklaunchers.com let us know the review is. Email us@teamoklaunchers.com and we'll get you invited to our reviewer party. When we hit 50 reviews, we're having a party by Zoom. And when we hit 100 reviews, we're having a party as well, and I want you to be there. We've ordered new hoodies. We've got lots of swag. We'll have other books. It's going to be fun. So I can't wait for that to happen. So please post your review so we can all celebrate soon. I think that's it. Let's see. Any questions? Daniel says, does showing and not telling involve having to do more writing? Yeah. Cool question. So, I mean, one of the common tips that you get told is show, don't tell. So you want to kind of illustrate in the form of a story, something versus telling. A whole bunch of narrative type things to get you there. It can involve more writing, but I don't tend to see it that way because I want to drop people into the middle of the action. I want to get to the point fast. I mean, none of the stories in my book are more than a page and a half long for the most part, because there's, you know, this isn't a fiction book. People want to get to the meat of your lesson and learn. And at the same time, the stories will help them remember. They will give them something to talk about at the cocktail parties. When we start having those again, or if you're somewhere like Florida, you're still having them, and you really get the story that is memorable, that people will share, that will help illustrate your lesson and cement it, but it doesn't have to go on too long. That said, you know, if you're struggling, just write it all down. It's much better to. It's much easier to cut for an editor than it is to try and get them to tell you what to add. So if it's faster to just write without editing yourself, do that. Brian says. Any tips on story collecting? I'm also a pastor and have used Evernote and made tags to start. That's a great idea to catalog. Any other tips on how to collect and curate? So, unfortunately, I am very disorganized when it comes to that kind of stuff. How I do it for the purposes of videos and books is I just have one document that I keep. I'm not the kind of person that can have like, my Dropbox is a mess, unfortunately. Angela and I talk about that all the time, how I need to get help. We all have our skills. We all have our zones of genius and the things we're great at. And for me, like file organization and that kind of stuff, not so good. So I keep it really simple. I have a Word document and I have a text, a text note thing, whatever you call that on my phone. So for me, YouTube videos live on a Word document on my computer. So I have all my ideas for YouTube videos in a single document, and I literally just use that same document year after year after year. And then for story ideas and other ideas that may become YouTube videos or may go into a book or whatever, I just have a note that notes thing on my phone and I just add it there. Keep it really simple. Because I'm not writing out the full details of the story. I'm really just making bullets. So I'll remember the story. And if it's an article. I'll put the link in there. If it's a video, I'll put the link in there. If it's a book I read with a quote or story that I want to reference, I'll put as many details there as possible to make it easier for myself in the future. But I keep things simple so that it's easier for me. Otherwise, I'll lose everything. So I don't have great ideas. But Evernote, I know a lot of authors who love Evernote. They find it great way to collect a lot of research and stories and all of that kind of stuff. So that can work really well. All right. That's all of the questions. So fantastic. It says mindful Eats, says Angela. The left out story. I don't know what that's. Oh, what was the left out story? Oh, yeah, I don't know if I'll dive into it, but, yeah, I'll maybe say that for another day. Well, I gotta find a tie in for my left out story, but it was ultimately about the reason that we moved to the United States and my husband getting into acting. That's kind of the gist of it. Yeah, it probably made me. It was probably one of those stories where I was telling it so that, you know, I would sound like an amazing wife supporting her husband on this journey to become an actor. I'm pretty sure that's what it was about. And the internal motivation to share the story was so that everyone who read the book would think I was amazing. I don't know if that's true, but it was. It was a story around my husband's acting, and it didn't have a tie into the book, but it was one of those stories, you know, if I'm honest. Okay, but yeah, we'll dive into it another day. Yeah, that's probably why I don't feel like sharing it or I don't know the specific. All the specifics of the story, but I know it was an acting story for my husband and kind of our motivation for going to the States. But, yeah, there you go. Now, you know, I wanted to look like a wonderful wife. All right, you guys, it's been fabulous. Thank you so much for being here. We'll be back here again in two weeks and we will have another fabulous topic. If you have ideas for a future live stream topic, go ahead and post those in the comments right now on the live stream. You can post them or you can post them in the comments afterwards. And I will, you know, look at those and come up with ideas for future live streams or future YouTube videos. I'm always looking for new content. I keep it in that Word document. So, yeah, thank you so much again. If you're watching the replay, this will qualify. So make sure you do. Say hello, and we'll see you guys again in two weeks. Bye.