5 Things that Scare Authors and How to Overcome Those Author Fears | Livestream Replay

All right. Hello and welcome. And you can't see my pumpkins. Oh my goodness. Well, I tried. I tried to get in the Halloween spirit for you all. Hey, Mike, Welcome. So, yeah, happy Halloween week, you guys. I'm trying to get in the spirit here. So I've got little. How about that? Trick or treat, right? Okay. So hello and welcome. So today in the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to move over so you guys can see my pumpkin. Oh my goodness. Evacuated and ready to learn. Efren. Oh, you must be in the fires in California, maybe that's where. Yeah, anyways, so hope you are okay. And Mike says he's seeing my pumpkins, so that's good. I think one actually fell because there was one right there. Okay, here we go. So things that scare scare authors. And it's of course Halloween week and it's a bit of a weird week actually. A weird year for Halloween, of course, because a lot of the things that we would normally do for Halloween we're not doing. And I have a three year old son. For those of you who don't know. You're probably wondering where does all this fun stuff come from? Well, I've been doing Halloween crafts like crazy. So this is my spidery friend. I have many. I've made hundreds. Okay, just dozens, but still we've made a lot of spiders. So yeah. So we're going to talk about the things that scare authors. And I've got five of them. But while you're joining, say hello and let me know what scares you as an author. And, and I'm going to see if we actually talk about it today. And of course we've got Angela in the house, so she's here. So if you have questions she'll be answering and making, making a list for me as well so that I answer all your questions when we get to the end. And one second I'm just trying to fix something that's on my screen that is distracting me and once it is gone. There we go. Okay, that's much better. All right. So fantastic to have you all here. And as I was just saying, trick or treating is kind of weird this year. One of the guys that I work out with sometimes, he said that they're hiding in their house in the different rooms. They're going to have his daughter go door to door in the house and trick or treat. So there's lots of creative ways to still celebrate, but I'm still excited in case you can't tell. And did you know, actually as I was prepping for this, I came across that there's actually a phobia for people who are afraid to write in public. Scriptophobia is the irrational fear of writing in public. So even just thinking about writing in public can send these people into anxiety attacks. It's a rare phobia, but a much more common one is cooler. Coulrophobia. I don't think I'm saying that right. Coulrophobia. I think I butchered that one. Do you know what that one is though? The one that I've said very poorly, it's spelled C O U L R O phobia. So curious if you know which one that one is. So scriptophobia is still a debilitating disorder that can make day to day life very hard for those folks that do suffer from it. So if you think you've got writer's block, imagine if you actually had a real phobia of writing today. We're going to help you with those milder fears. Before I dive in though, and talk about the five things that are that scare authors and my suggested ways to overcome them, Mark in your calendars. November 21st, the that is our next deep dive training and we're going to go deep into book launches and pre sale. And if you want to make sure you get registered, make sure you're on the launch letter, which you can sign up for@book launchers.com seven steps. That's the number seven steps. Angela will probably type it into the chat box for you, so you've got it. And number two, our 25,000 subscriber party is going to be happening probably December 8th. I'm looking at the growth of the channel and where we're at right now. And I think we're going to be able to announce at the end of November that we've hit it and we're going to have that party December 8th. So it will be same time as always, 2pm Pacific Standard Time on December 8th. So fingers crossed that's when it is. And we're going to be unveiling some really cool new swag, which is on its way to me right now. So I've got it with you guys when we're celebrating, so I can't wait. Okay, so let's dive into this. The first fear that I'm going to be touching on today is the fear of not having enough to say or really what I would say is, you know, imposter syndrome. So really thinking that it's not enough to say or that what you have to say isn't good enough. You may find yourself, have I done enough to write a book? Who am I to write a book? Those kind of fears. So very common one. And this to me is really imposter syndrome. You know, a fear of being seen as an imposter. And I get it. When I was writing More Than Cash Flow, my first book, I'd only bought 30, roughly 30 investment properties at that time. And I found myself constantly looking at the people who had done 100 plus deals. And I kept thinking I hadn't done enough to write this book. There were so many people who had done so many more deals. You know, who was I to say the things that I was going to say? And I had the added challenge of multiple people telling me that the book idea I had was too general. And then, of course, Wiley, the major publishing house, turning me down, saying they didn't think I'd be able to sell enough books. So all of that really gave me massive imposter syndrome. Because other people that I knew did get book deals, and I felt like maybe they were more valid in writing their book. But the two pieces that kept me going were the fact that I knew I did have something to say that hadn't been said before and that there were real estate investors that really did need my advice. And the other part was that I also knew that I would forever ever regret it if I did not get the book out of me. And so those two things really drove me forward. And ultimately I did publish the book. And I got to take this off because it is squeezing my head. I tried. I probably have a line on my forehead now because it is just squeezing my. Oh, yes, that hat was a little bit too. A little bit too intense. But I've still got my spider friend and. And there is still a pumpkin there. And then whenever you guys feel like you need a little more Halloween, I'll bring up this guy. And I could even put another spider because, see, Jackson and I have really, truly been working on this a lot. So maybe that's what I'll do because, yeah, there is a red line. Oh, goodness. If this is your first live stream, I promise this. It's not usually this crazy. Right? Joyce and Aubrey and Mike, they're all here. They're regulars. They can tell you. And I don't always wear a crazy, crazy hat. Oh, goodness gracious. Jacqueline says fear of negative reviews. You betcha. That one is coming. Thank you, Jacqueline. Scary is not having enough time. Yes. Joyce says possibly fear of success. Oh, I got that one covered today, Joyce. Good, good. An American Roadrunner motorcycle show. Thanks for being here. I haven't seen you in a while. When someone quotes myself to myself and I do not catch it. Scary. I do not remember all of my writings. Okay, let's see. New swag is coming. Jacqueline, who is our production manager, she doesn't even know what the new swag is. Angela and I were having some fun with the team and we asked them if they knew. And I can't tell you whether any of them guessed it or not, because then Jacqueline might have a clue. But. All right, so really, ultimately, back to that first fear, and again, that was imposter syndrome. For those of you joining in now, do say hello. Let me know what you're afraid of. Make sure I cover it today. And if you have questions, you can ask those, too. But. But ultimately, you have to connect with what's driving you to write the book and know that you don't have to be the biggest or the best or even the brightest doing what you do to have a huge impact with your book. You really just need to be further along the path than the person you're writing for. And you really have to have a clear sense of who that person is and what value you're offering. And that value, if you're thinking of this in terms of the pathway, is whatever's going to make their journey on this path a little faster, easier, more lucrative. It's really about that. And so if you know you're further along the path than someone else and you can help that person that's behind you and you're clear on who they are and how you're going to help, then your book. You are the person to write your book, and I really, really hope that you do. Especially if you have that feeling that I had, which is that you have to write this book and you'll regret it if you don't. All right, fear number two, and then we're going to do a draw. So fear number two is a fear of rejection. Writing a book that nobody buy, nobody reads, that's terrifying. I mean, my, my, my pumpkin isn't very terrifying. It's actually kind of soft and cuddly. Maybe it'll comfort you on your way. But still, fear of rejection is terrifying. And I also know this one personally because Wiley told me to my face. Well, actually, they told me to my email that I wouldn't be able to sell enough books to matter, so try coming back from that one. Well, actually, I did, didn't I? So if you say I can't sell books, I will then and outsell any real estate book that you've ever published in Canada, which is what I did with Wiley. So the secret to this one is obviously vengeance, right? Okay, maybe not. But it did help. The secret is to write a book that you know people will read because you've clearly visualized who that reader is. And I know for those that are new to this, I'm not repeating myself, but it feels like I'm repeating myself because I say this all the time. You have to be clear on your reader. And I'm not talking demographically, I am talking about. I know you're clear enough when I can visualize where we're going to be pitching you when we go to help you market and sell your book. So if I can picture the groups, the associations, the events, the magazines, the podcasts that this person is already paying attention to, then, and the keywords that they're going to be searching, the problem that they're trying to solve, boom. I know we have our audience clear enough. And so that's what I'm looking for. When you're that clear and you have an outcome for the reader, you will be aligned with the book that you know people need. And hopefully you're excited about really helping them with that book because you, you're clear on how it's going to help them. And then that should motivate you to get the book into readers hands and be less afraid of that rejection because you know there's going to be people that are going to be helped by this book. On the other side, you also know that the book is not for everyone because you've specifically designed the book to be for a specific person. So you're okay with rejection by the people that you know the book is not for. And that's a good thing. It's a. You know, some people refer to this as being polarizing and you certainly can be a little polarizing with your opinions and that does help in a lot of sense. But, but really it's just knowing that your book isn't going to be for everyone, but it is specifically for certain someone. And you're really driving to get it to that certain someone. And you want to know a little secret about this one? Having worked with, I don't know, we're well over 200 authors now that we've worked with at Book Launchers. The secret is that if you're worried about this, if you're worried about people rejecting your idea or not reading Your book, then you're probably on the right path, because a lot of people don't worry about this one. And often those are the folks that haven't done enough work getting clear on their reader. They're really focused on the fact that they have an amazing story. And most of the time, honestly, they do have an amazing story. The problem is that they haven't written the story for their for in a way that will actually truly benefit a reader. They've just written the story in a way that explains their story, and it's not the same thing. And so if you are actually fearing this one, you are probably going to do the work that needs to be done to make your book reader focused, and that will allow you to deliver massive value to a reader. So if you're having this fear, you're probably on the right track. The key is to keep going and use that fear to create the most impactful book that you possibly can. So, yeah, that's my little secret on that one for you. Okay, so it's a quiet live stream today. I mean, you guys are really chatting, Patty. But there's less people here. They're missing out on my Halloween theme, I think. See, my red line is gone now. Okay, so, Mish, I don't know if I've seen you or Mish, I'm not sure which. Which way you go, but thank you. It's great to see you here. I don't think I've seen you here before, Mr. Penny Pincher. Biggest fear is that I won't be able to break myself of the habit of editing while I write. Oh, the editing desk. Spiral. I have a video coming out really, really soon for you, my friend, because this is not a problem that you're alone in. This is. This is a challenge a lot of authors face. All right, so today's today's first draw. Participation draw that we're going to do is we're going to go for comment number 31 in celebration of Halloween, of course. I think we've got 31 comments here. So, Angela, if you can count 31 from the top, that would. Jacqueline says, I guessed book launchers, temporary tattoos. That wasn't it. But you know what? I'm totally going to get a hashtag, no boring books, temporary tattoo, and give that out. That's genius, Angela. Let's put it on the list. I'm not kidding. Okay. That's great. So what was I doing? Oh, yeah. 31 from the top will be our first prize. And of course, our prizes are the hashtag no boring books. Mug right here. And our oh, so soft journal, which, honestly, I think is buried under all of the spiders that I so. Oh, no, it's not. It's right here. That was a spoon from my launch. Okay. It's. Here's the journal. And Angela's sending me a new one because this one's full and I'm in need of a new of my own. Oh, so soft journal. Okay, so that's the prize if you win. Let's just see if we have a winner, Mars. DLT is the 31st comment. I was just noticing how many comments you've been putting out there, Mars. Thank you very much. So I'm thrilled that you've won a prize. Congratulations. So email us at team T E A M book launchers.com Angela will drop it into the comments. So make sure you tell us whether you want the mug or the journal, and make sure you give us your mailing address as well. And we'll get that off to you next week because Angela's away this week, so she will mail it off to you next week when she is back in her office. Okay, great. So let's see. Just checking out editing while writing. Thank you. That explains a lot. We'll get to that. All right. Mike loves the journal, which is great. Okay, so going back to the fears, the third fear I want to touch on is the fear of judgment. And this one can kind of rear its head in a lot of different ways. The fear of bad reviews on Amazon. A fear of what other people will think of what you've writt. A fear of looking bad for sharing your truth. A fear of hurting other people's feelings. A fear of losing business because of what you say in your book. Oh, there's so many ways that this one can rear its ugly, ugly head. This one can cause you kind of. We see it coming up in two main ways. One is folks get paralyzed. The other is folks pursue perfection, which is almost like paralysis. It really ends up in the same result. Usually neither one is healthy or productive. Your book will never be perfect. Never, ever, ever, ever. There will always be a typo. There will always be something that you think, I should have changed that. And if you pursue perfect, you will never publish, and you'll spend twice as much money and probably three times as much time trying to get that book out. So really, this isn't serving you. And if you get paralyzed, nobody will ever be helped because. Including you, your business, or your brand, because your book will probably never get published. So here's My perspective on this. First, if you hold back out of fear. So if your fear of judgment just causes you not to say the whole truth or to hold back an opinion because you don't want somebody to disagree with you or judge you for it, then you're going to write a boring book. You have to take a risk and tell your truth and share your opinions in your book, or your book really won't matter. The best books are real and they're not boring because the author took a risk by sharing what really happened for them. And when I wrote More Than Cash Flow, I talked about we had a crack house. It was a known crack house. We had to plead guilty to fire code violations. We had property manager rob rent money from us. The list of things that had gone wrong was quite long, and a lot of them we'd never told anybody. There were very few people in our lives that actually knew the full extent of what we had dealt with. And I knew I had to share them because there was lessons from everything that we had gone through that were of value to the very person that I was writing the book for. That said, we were raising millions of dollars at the time because we were buying a house every month and renovating it. And we were also running a real estate training and education company where people paid us $10,000 for coaching. And here I was about to tell them all the royal messes we'd made. So I was very afraid. And I was also actually quite certain that this would have a negative impact on both businesses. But I again, I was really driven to help a certain person, you know, like a renew real estate investor. Getting into this, that was kind of following some of the get rich quick stuff that we'd followed that caused a lot of these things. But also I just knew I had to get this book out. And so those two things going back to the beginning were what drove me. And frankly, I was really, really wrong. By being honest and sharing my full truth and sharing the lessons I'd learned from it, I really actually connected with a lot of people in a way that made them trust us and really want to do business with us. And so it actually catapulted both of our businesses in a really big way. So that, you know, that's the upside of it. Now, that doesn't always happen. And my situation is different than your situation. And I've got some things at the end that I'll talk to you about. You can kind of weigh this. But the other side of this is there will be people that will judge you. But ultimately, I take solace in the fact that the folks that are judging me and those that write negative reviews, if that's one of your fears, they're rarely the people who truly matter in your life. And they're also rarely people who are doing big things. They're usually not the folks that are achieving greatness and really trying to have an impact on the world, because those people are too darn busy to stop and criticize what you're doing. So remember, the pursuit of perfection is a journey with no destination at all. You're not going to get anywhere with that because there is no perfect. So you're not going to get there. And ultimately, if you start having a bunch of people touch your book, you really are just going to add mistakes and problems. So it's really diminishing returns. So you have to just ask yourself, am I making the book better? Really? Am I making it better? Or am I just procrastinating? Am I just being afraid? And hopefully that, combined with some of the other things we'll touch on, will help you get over this one. This one's a hard one. I get it. It's hard. I pretty much always have this to some degree. But again, it comes back to that impact, that drive to have that impact and knowing that you are going to help certain people and, you know, if it, if it gets you judged a little bit along the way, it's worth that price. So that's my perspective. If you guys have your own, please do chime in. Let's do a draw for YouTube. So as long as. Sorry. Every Tuesday and Thursday we put out a new video. And when you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win either our mug or our journal. Again, you also get one step closer to being one of my YouTube besties. And I've been keeping a list of my YouTube besties, and every one of my YouTube besties is going in the draw, this super special swag. Of course, when we have our celebration livestream, there will also be opportunities to win, even if you're not a bestie. But if you are a bestie, you have a really good shot at winning because it's a small, a small, elite, fantastic group of people who comment on pretty much every video that comes out. And I appreciate you. And putting you in the draw for this super cool new swag is just one way that I show my appreciation. But for everybody who's commented every Tuesday on any video that's been released on a Tuesday or Friday in the last Two weeks you're in this draw. So let's do it. I've got them all entered. I tried to get them all printed and cut and put into this so we could do a draw out of here today, but sadly, I just put spiders in it and I ran out of time. Cutting all these names just really doesn't get me motivated. I'll be honest. There's a lot of names which I'm very grateful for, but it's not very fun cutting them up anymore. So let's do a Halloween drum roll and we'll pick our first. First winner of the day. All right, here we are. It's coming up. And the winner. The winner is Katie Weiser. Oh, this is cool. I don't know if Katie's ever won, but Katie has been around the book launcher scene for quite some time. I think I even reviewed one of her books like two or three years ago on the show as an example. So, Katie, congratulations. Email us@teamoklaunchers.com I don't think she's on live today, but. Oh, Walter. Two lives in a row, my friend. Thank you and welcome. Okay, let's see. Drawing spiders. Okay. Ben Bills. I don't know if I've seen you on a live before, but welcome. So great to have you here. Let's see. Albert Einstein. Nice name. That's clever. Creative moments. Thank you. Welcome. It's great to see you here. Okay, I don't know if I've missed anything else, but. So let's carry on to our fears. We're talking fears for those of you who've just joined in. We're talking the things that scare authors. And I have one pumpkin up there and I had a witch hat on for those of you who aren't here. But the witch hat was squeezing my head so I had to take it off. And Matt, hey, you've been hiding in the corner. Well, come on out. Now's a good time to say hello because we're going to have a question really soon to get entered to win, so we're going to have some more fun. Okay, so next fear. Joyce, I think this was yours. Somebody said this one fear of success. This one rarely ever rears its head looking like a fear of success. I think it's more the underlying cause that is causing you to procrastinate or self sabotage. We see this when an author refuses to put an amazing cover or an amazing title on their book. They do things that just make their book less good and they change their mind a bunch of times. They dilute their message, they delay. To me, in a lot of cases, sometimes it's the other fears, but sometimes it's very clearly a fear of success and sometimes a fear, well, ultimately a fear of success probably runs so deep that it's therapy. Not any kind of advice that I can truly offer you today that will help. It's certainly not going to be our self publishing services that will really help you overcome a fear of success. I've seen it in people. You know, when you have some personal conversations with people as we're working on books, you learn that, you know, their parents, for example, were so busy. They were, their parents were super successful in their businesses, their careers, and they were so busy they never had time for them as children. And so now as they approach, you know, the cusp of massive success, they too have this fear, whether they see it or not, of being so successful they won't have time for their children and repeating that cycle. So that's just one example of where that comes up. Like all the fears, there's usually a deep rooted reason for that fear. And I don't, I can't, I can't fix it today. I can offer you some tools, but ultimately, if you recognize some of these symptoms, you might be able to say, oh, maybe that is me and maybe I'm holding my book back because of this. The reality is that your book can potentially be a massive success and take on a life of its own. We had one author get requested to be on pretty much every major show there is. Good Morning America 2020, Dr. Oz, the list is very, very long. And he said no to a lot of the opportunities and his book was doing incredibly well, but it was too much for him. And the other side of that is so that can happen, but the other side of that is that doesn't happen very often. That's a rare case. Massive success rarely happens. Just your book comes out and everybody wants to talk to you. That does not happen very often. So if you are afraid of success, you can take some solace in the fact that you're going to have to work really hard to create success. So there's still a lot of work to be done. And your book just coming out is not actually the thing that will create massive success. Usually I don't know if that's a comfort or maybe something else for you to be afraid of, but if you've written the book to have an impact on your audience, then I really hope you welcome this success because that means you're going to be Helping so many people with that book. So that's what I hope ultimately is what you focus on and that that pushes you through to getting that book out there. Okay, so our question today. I think I'm gonna. I was gonna go with the Halloween, but I think I'm gonna stick with this author fears question. So our question, the question I want to ask for the participation prize today is what do you think is the worst author fear and why? Or maybe not worst. Maybe we should go with the strongest or the one that stops the most books. So which one do you think stops the most books and why? And I'm going to describe the best answer. Let's just give you guys a minute while I check in, see what you guys are talking about. Okay. Poets. We got a question about poets. I don't know much about poetry. I'm afraid there might be somebody here who does, though. Just checking their answers here. I don't know what that's about, but creative moments missed. Alive. And we'll have to go back and watch. Okay, let's see. Okay, Mike. Fear of thinking you could never write a book, that you're not good enough or interesting enough. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that was mish. You got to tell me how to say it so I don't keep saying your name wrong. I don't like saying people's name wrong. Mars self doubt. Matt rejection. Mike being judged. Brian K. Morris, Rising Tide Publications. Didn't know you were here. Welcome. Greatest fear is fear of change. Life wise. Yeah, that's a good fear to have, too. It's also one of those things where it's a good problem to have. So I always like to have the good problems. So I'm like, is that a good one if that happens? Yeah. But again, it could be fear of success. What changes in your life are going to happen and why are you afraid of that? That's a good one. Aubry. Not being able to manage all the moving pieces when you're working on your own and wearing all the hats. Procrastination. Because there's many valid reasons. Niche like fish or dish. Okay, perfect. Thank you. I love it. Okay. And Kevin McGuire snuck in late burpees. That's what you have to do when you're late. Burpees. And because it's Halloween, you have to do 31 burpees. The first comment I skipped over comparing themselves. Thank you, Bill, for pointing that out. Okay, these are all great. So, Angela, let's pick one. Do you and Jacqueline want to decide which one we should pick? I'm gonna pass the buck on this one. So Jacqueline and Angela from our office are here helping me. So they are going to pick between them. You can randomly pick or pick whichever one you want to touch on or. Yeah, whatever you guys want. I'll leave it to you guys. Oh, it took me a minute. I'm like, why are you telling us about your shoulder? But. Because I was telling you to do burpees. All right, well, Angela and Jacqueline are picking our next winner. I'm going to cover fear number five, which is the fear of asking for Amazon reviews. Now, this is obviously not a like the other fears. You know, fear of judgment, fear of failure, fear of success, imposter syndrome. But in fact, I think this is its own category of fear special unto authors. And I think it's probably all those fears rolled up into one. And this is the symptom, in fact, of all those fears. But it is still one of the biggest challenges that I see authors facing. Because Amazon reviews are the single most important thing for you to do. Once your book is out. To help you create success for your book, there's lots of things you can do. But I always tell authors that are working with us because we're going to be pitching their book, you know, we're pursuing media and speaking. We even run Amazon ads. You know, there's a whole bunch of things that we do to support authors to help get their book out there. So I always say, if there's one thing you do to support what we're doing, it's get reviews. Now, most certainly, this is fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of judgment. Rolled all up right alongside the fear of looking stupid or feeling salesy or imposing on people. And there doesn't seem to be much I can tell you to really overcome this fear, except to prepare you for the fact that there's going to be some people that you truly think or believe are going to support you that won't. But there's also going to be some really wonderful surprises in your network. Those folks that step up and wholeheartedly endorse you, they go over and above to tell others they write reviews. They write reviews and they post them on all the sites. So there's going to be people that disappoint you, and then there's going to be people who delight you and stand out from the crowd as amazing supporters. So for me, I focus on those people, and again, I focus on the readers that need me to get reviews so they know my book is going to help them. Because ultimately, the reviews Tell your reader that your book is something they should pay attention to, they should buy, they should read, because it's going to have an impact on their life. And so asking for reviews isn't about you. It is about getting your book into the hands of those readers. But is it awkward? Is it uncomfortable? Sometimes, yes. But it's also vital to your success, and not just your success. So if you've got all these fears, forget about you. It's vital to the success of your reader having the outcome that you have written the book to help them with. So it all comes hand in hand. So ultimately, you really do have to get over this fear somehow get past it and ask for reviews and get as many as you can. I also like to encourage people. I always tell people the greatest gift you can give any author is a review. And in turn, write as many reviews as you can for books that you've read, whether you know that author or not. I just believe in good karma. And if you're writing reviews and supporting other authors, then there's going to be people that you do nothing for, and they write a review and they support you. So I think those are really my best advice for this one. I know it's tricky, but your readers need you to get reviews, and your goals, whatever you've written your book for, your goals need you to get those reviews. And ultimately, I have a tried and true kind of process that I go through to push past any fears that I have. And I'll give that to you guys in a second. We've got. I gotta go. See, I gotta figure out. I've got to read Angela's comments over here because I can't talk and read at the same time or my sentences would not make any sense for you. So let's see. Okay, here we go. Where are you, Angela? Where? Where? Where? I don't see Angela's comment here. Do we have a winner? Oh, Mish. Hey, Mish. Hey. First live stream and a winner. Talk about lucky. This is your. This is your day. Halloween is for you, right? So for those of you who missed it because we're almost done, I'll put my hat back on because I can squish my head for the last few minutes. There we go. I got into the Halloween spirit for you all today. Okay? So congratulations, Mish. Make sure you email us@teamoklaunchers.com and for those of you asking me for reviews, I read too many books, my friends. If I read your book because there's a reason I need to read Your book. I will absolutely write you of your view. But you know what? There's plenty of people here. And I know it's happened before, and I've posted it on the YouTube page before. You can't do review swaps full stop. You cannot. Amazon does not want you doing that. But there's nothing wrong with a community of authors putting their books out there, even offering each other free copies and having, you know, say, let's say Angela wrote a book. I read Angela's book and I write a review, and Angela reads Mike's book and Mike and writes a review for Mike. It's a community of authors supporting a community of supporting each other. And so there's nothing wrong with that. But asking people for review swaps or anything like that is not legit. And asking the person who runs a book publishing company to write reviews for your book, when all I do is read other people's books all day long, it's a tough sell. But I do write reviews for the books that I read as much as I possibly can, because I do believe fully in that. Okay, so. So. And I will start to write reviews. Is it best to post them on Amazon? I like Goodreads. You can post the same review to Amazon and Goodreads, and it's a great gift to that author to do so. I think it's wonderful if you do that. We have reviewers that we work with for our authors, and they do that sometimes, and it's great. It's a real bonus for that. Okay, so let's see. Okay, I will come back to this. I'm going to just touch on the final thing and. Okay, I'll come back to the questions in a sec. I've got one more point I want to make. And then we have our final YouTube draw. And then I'll just finish off with all the questions that are left. So my little process for overcoming fear, kind of the mental questions I walk myself through if there's something that I'm afraid of. And I'm trying to decide whether I should take action on this fear or not or on this thing that I'm afraid of. So usually I will ask myself, what's the worst thing that can happen if I do this? And sometimes there's a list of things, and then once you put them on paper and look at them, I usually feel a little silly for most of them. But I do go through them and be okay. Will I be okay? Will I survive that? Is it really going to matter in a month, a year, five years from now, those things that happen, you know, people might laugh at me, people might question my sanity, whatever it is, you know, is that going to matter in a month, in a year, five years from now? And then the question that usually gets me off my butt doing the very thing that I'm afraid of. Because usually my fear, and I can't speak for you, but usually my fear is the sign that I really need to do that very thing. And it's just, you know, as Steven Pressfield would call it, the resistance standing in my way. But usually the question that gets me off my butt is will is ultimately, would I regret not doing it? So would I regret it more if I didn't do it or if I did it and it went wrong? And for me, the answer is almost always I would regret not doing it. That's ultimately why we moved to California, because I knew I would always wonder what would have happened if we had taken, if we had taken the leap and moved to California. So I knew we had to. That's why I've written the book, wrote the first book and the second book, to some degree, really. I knew I would regret it if I didn't do it. Frankly, all the best things I've ever done have been facing something in fear and then doing it. Even when I backpacked alone, you know, for many, many months in different countries, countries where I didn't speak the language. The question, as much as my entire family tried to talk me out of these things, I always kind of thought, would I regret it more if I didn't do it? Or would I regret it if something more. If something went wrong, this very thing I'm afraid of went wrong. So that's, for me, usually gets me past my fears. But I also know that I often do things that I'm like, oh, I'm scared of that. Let's go do it. So not always, not always the easy path, I can assure you of that. It's fun, it's adventurous. I've had some incredible stories come out of these things. But yeah, it's not always the easy path that I choose. Two quick things before I go back and answer all the questions and do the final draw. November 21st is our next deep dive. We're talking book launches. We're going to go deep into kind of a pre sale and book launch strategy. Our book marketing manager, Sarah Bean will be with me on that call. Might have some other people from our team on it on that call as well, but that will be happening Saturday, November 21st at 10am if you want to make sure you get the links for that, make sure you're on our launch letter which comes out every two weeks. Weeks. You can get that@book launchers.com seven steps. And our 25,000 subscriber party is probably going to be December 8th. That's what I'm predicting. So you can plan to be here for that. It's going to be extra, extra special. All right, so our final draw, our YouTube draw of the day. I've gone to my random name picker from all of the names that I entered in and we have. Oh, Kresha Spencer. I don't know if you've won before, but she is a regular YouTube commenter. So thank you so much for that. I'm glad that you are a winner. So email us@teamoklaunchers.com and let us know if you want the mug or the journal. I know she always catches the lives after if she's not here live right now. So she will find out that she won. So that's awesome. Congratulations. That was a good one, you guys. Thank you. So I'm going to answer all the questions, but for those of you who don't have questions, you don't have to stick around. I'll see you here again in two weeks for the next live stream. Okay, so going back, I know Angela had posted a question Mish said, how do you make a scientific and mathematics heavy topic more engaging and enjoyable to read? Ultimately, it comes back to your hook of your book. So what's the outcome for your reader? And then I like to use story. Story is usually the best way, whether it's your own personal story or stories of others. But I think story is, well, it's the time tested way to create things that are memorable and to really engage a reader. Now, the story technique you decide to employ or the story techniques you decide to employ will depend on the format of your book, the audience, and again, that outcome. But that, that to me is how you make that enjoyable. My book, my first book, not, not heavy mathematics, but talking about how to calculate cash flow, what makes a great investment property, how to, you know, how to generate more profit as a rental property owner. Those are mathematically or analytical type things. But adding in stories really can layer in some of the drier stuff and I think that really will help you. Okay, let's see how many people work at Book Launchers. Oh, we have 10 in house folks right now. Although we're about to have a pretty sizable expansion. We've got two, three, three Potential new people starting coming up here in the next couple weeks. So it could be as many as 13 in house real soon. But then we have a 40 person contractor team that supports everything else that we do as well. And a lot of our contractors have been with us since the beginning as well. So pretty phenomenal team. I'm very, very fortunate to work with really amazing folks. Let's see, checking out. Did you award the one I won for guessing? Keith? Oh, yes. I don't know if anybody got it. I think that was. I don't know if we did. You got it, but I don't know if we did. I don't remember. Kevin. Okay, bye. Joyce. Okay, just checking here. Do we have any other questions, Angela, that I'm missing? I feel like there was somebody else had a question in here. I thought there was somebody else, but I answered that question from Mars and I think that's it. I don't want to make you guys just sit here and stare at me while I'm trying to find find the questions. So thank you so much for being here. It was fun. Oh, wait. Average reviews for Book Launchers. Oh, every book is different, you know, some. And again, we really encourage our authors to get their own reviews. We do pay for some review services which help Netgalley, which I have a video on Goodreads giveaways. Those are great ways to get video or to get reviews. And then we pitch bloggers and professional book reviewers. But ultimately you are going to get the best results by leveraging your network and your influencers that you know and the people, your clients, your colleagues, all of those kind of folks asking for reviews, you, the author are going to have better results than a stranger asking people to write reviews. So again, it really varies book by book and topic by topic. So there isn't an average I could even tell you. But I do know that I'm not going to pretend to say Book Launchers is going to get you a whole bunch of book reviews because generally speaking, we're going to do what we do on that side and then we're going to focus on the things that will help you sell books and we're going to encourage you to ask everybody you know for reviews. And there's some things we'll layer into the book, book to ask for reviews and other things. But yeah, as an author, that is the one thing I encourage you to always be doing is looking for potential opportunities to get book reviews. It's, it's hard work and you know, you're probably going to ask 20 people to get one, two, three book reviews. It is. It can be really hard. And if you set yourself up for that and you think it's going to be hard and then it turns out to be way easier, that's good news. Right. Versus if you go in thinking you're going to ask five people, they're going to say yes, and you're going to get five reviews. Because that doesn't happen very often. But if it does, that's fantastic news. And it's, you know, I'd rather, I'd rather me personally expect it to be hard and then find out it's a little easier than that, than the other way around. So that's my recommendation. There's always a video on Friday, except in the summer. Excuse me. When we take a break. But there will be a video on Friday. This week. It is. Oh, it's a good one. It's how to handle personal stories in your book. So if you're talking about other people in your book and you're wondering how can I write this in a way that won't make them mad, won't scare them, you know, so I won't get in trouble, etc. That's what we're talking about on Friday. So it's going to be a good one. Thanks for asking. All right. Have a fantastic day. I look forward to seeing you all in two weeks and then again on the deep dive training on November 21st. First. All right. Happy Halloween. Take care, everybody. Bye.