Author Success Stories - Non-Fiction Book Writing and Marketing Tips
A Book Launchers livestream (Nov 26, 2021) hosted by Julie Broad. Five guest authors—Emile Pandolfi, Guy Blaze, Michael Dominguez, Emily Tsitrian and Todd Nyholm—share non-fiction author experiences: reasons for writing, writing processes, production choices (covers, illustrations), launch experiences, marketing tactics (podcasts, launch parties, email lists, selling via Lulu/Shopify to collect emails), distribution (KDP/IngramSpark/Chapters), and lessons like the value of an editorial team, organizing drafts, focusing on a niche audience, and using podcasts/networking to build platform.
Chapters
Hello.
Welcome, everybody. Great to see you all. I'm just going to turn on a little blur factor there, so all the background action doesn't distract us. All right, so it's great to have you here. It is our Saturday deep dive training, and today is an extra, extra special session because we have five guest expert authors here today to share their experience with you. And so today I'm going to introduce them. I'm just giving folks. There's still people arriving, so I'm just giving folks another second to arrive. I'll give you a quick intro of each of them, and then we're going to go one by one through each of them, and they'll get to tell you a little bit more about themselves, about where they're at in the publishing process. And then I've asked each of them to come prepared to share essentially their biggest lesson that they've learned so far in the process, which in turn can be a great takeaway for you, depending on where you're at in your own publishing process. And then I've also asked them to share the biggest surprise that they've experienced so far. And then you guys can ask any questions that you may have, so you can go ahead and type them in at any time. Angela is having trouble getting in, but she will be here momentarily. Her and Zoom have been having a bit of a fight this week. I've been joking that she's been on a slow boat just to every meeting that we've had. It's really quite funny. You guys will probably will notice it today, too. You'll see Angela's name pop up, and then three minutes later, you see a picture, and then two minutes later, Angela actually arrives. So we don't know why that's happening to her this week, but at some point, she will be here and she will collect your questions, and we can ask the authors the questions that you have today. All right, so the folks we have here, I'm just going to move my screen and make them. I see Emile. Hey, Emil. Guy seems to be on a slow arrival as well. So he doesn't have a picture or a face yet. I saw you, Emil. Yeah. Hey, thank you. Thank you. And I saw Guy is coming in, but he's not quite fully here. Michael, I saw you. Hello there. He's waving. Okay, great. And, ah, let's just see. Oh, and then, Emily, I see you now, too. I'm going to move you on my screen here.
Hello.
And I'm missing one. I'm missing one. Todd, I don't See you, Todd. Todd, if you're here, can you unmute?
Can you hear me?
Oh, there you are.
Hello, everybody. I don't know why I don't have a picture. I wonder.
Okay, well, you've got a little bit of time to try to find that, but yeah, right now you're just. It's almost like something's blocking your camera. That's what it looks like is there's something over top of the lens of your camera.
That's.
That's how it is. Well, you can play with it. We'll come back. We'll come back. I'm going to do a quick intro. I don't see Todd, though. Maybe he's on a slow boat in too. All right, well, we'll still do the intros. I'm just going to mute anybody who comes in unmuted until we are ready. There we go. Okay, cool. So those are four of the five. We'll keep our eye open for Todd because he's supposed to be here and I know he was excited. He was even on a live stream earlier this week talking about, hey, Angela, you made it. That wasn't a fast, that wasn't a slow boat. Okay, I'm going to move Angela over onto my first screen too. So I've got her. Cool. And there's some other familiar faces here. It's great to see you guys. I see Tricia, I see Bill. Great to see you. Matthew, Leah, great to see you too. So thank you everybody for joining us today. Okay, so cool. So Emily, Citrien. And hopefully I said that right. Did I say your last name right?
Okay, you did beautifully.
Cool, thank you. We say the names of all our clients every single week. And we've had a couple situations where we have been saying the name wrong, but it's really hard for us to undo it once you've been saying it weekly wrong. I'm glad we got it right. So way to go, Angela. Because Angela's the one that says the names every week, so she's been nailing it. Anyways, Emily. With over 7 years in tech management, Emily has led teams at various companies, from public businesses to startups, including one that grew into a global presence. Now leading the professional services team at Stripe, she hires and coaches team members into their own management careers. Her upcoming book, so she's one of the authors that hasn't published yet. Make Me the Boss is a sassy and mean filled guide that helps millennials survive the first six months as new managers. So I'm really happy to have you Here. Emily, it's been really fun seeing the team work on your book because it's been a whole group effort with the memes.
Yeah, you guys definitely get extra credit for that. I know it's probably a little coloring outside the lines there, but it's going to be awesome.
The team loved it. I think most people were having a lot of fun doing it, so that's awesome. So I'm so glad you're here. So we'll come back. I'm just going to keep introducing folks. Angela, if you see Todd, please let me know. I haven't seen Todd come in yet. So Emile Pandolfi is one of the greatest selling pianists in the music industry. Emil, do you want to quickly say hello so everybody knows where you are? I muted you so you might not be able to hold on. Let's see. There. You got it. If you talk, then people can find you.
Yeah, I am. Yes. Hello everybody. Nice to meet you and thank you, Julie, for having me.
I'm so glad you're here. Thanks, Emil. Okay, so let me just tell you a couple things about Emile. Like I said, he's a top selling pianist and he sold over 4.5 million albums. And he's had, I think 750 million streams of his music, performed hundreds of concerts worldwide. And although he's serious about his playing, Emil is never serious about himself. And he believes that every moment on the piano should be one of joy. And his book, Play it like youe Mean it shares his holistic philosophy that harmonizes method and mindset to help players mature into well rounded musicians beyond training and lessons. And it has been so much fun and such a pleasure. And Anil just launched, so you're getting the perspective of someone who has just launched their book when we talk to him, which is really fun. Then we also have Michael Dominguez. Michael, do you want to say a quick hello so people know where to find you, please?
Hello everybody.
Thank you. And Michael is an award winning sales rep, a member of the ReMax hall of Fame and the founder of Doors to Wealth Real Estate Group, a real estate education group. After becoming a realtor in 2008, which was great timing for that. I know. Having gone full time into real estate investing in 2008. We share that timing, Gene. Michael bought his first investment property and proceeded to add to his Portfol for 10 consecutive years. An armchair real estate millionaire, he provides the roadmap to property investment that creates consistent, sustainable wealth without taking over your life. And I don't remember your exact Launch date, Michael. But it's been like, May 11th, so.
It'S June, July, August. Five months.
Five months. Okay. I guessed right. Cool. Awesome. So you've got the perspective of someone who launched five months ago here as well. And then also, Is Todd here yet? Let me see. Might want to.
Do you want to.
No, I just did a search. He isn't here yet.
Okay, do you want to reach out to him and see if he's having trouble, please, Because I know he was really excited to be here, so I'm a little worried he's having link trouble. Okay. And so we'll wait to introduce Todd. And then we also have. And I know, Hassan, you've moved on me again. Guy, where'd you go? Oh, yeah. So, Guy, is the mysterious rectangle that doesn't have a camera. At the moment, we're not sure what's happened to the camera. And I'm trying to find you on my list here. There you are. Okay. So, Guy, if you want to just say hello so everyone knows where your rectangle is, maybe it won't even let me unmute you. Okay, well, hopefully we can get that sorted out, because it's not even letting me. Yeah. Oh, there you are.
Okay. Can you hear me? So I say hello, everybody. Bonjour.
Great. Thanks, Guy. Okay, so now. And so, Guy, let me back up. So I was trying to. Got myself disoriented on that after two decades of living in America. I'm sure you all heard an accent, so, you know, probably was not born and raised here. Author and Frenchman Guy Blaze was struck by the differences between the two cultures and approaches that we have to romance and sex. He had grown up listening closely to the advice about love his grandmother routinely gave women in his family, and he put it in a book. In Love like the French, he offers his perspective about American relationships, sex, and dating with candid advice to help women with passion, romance, and satisfaction, both in the bedroom and elsewhere. And his book is hysterical. I've had to. I've given it to some friends, and I've given everyone the warning that. That they should not be drinking any liquids while reading your book because there's a good chance that you'll get caught off guard and go and spit. So it's fantastic. So thank you, Keith. All right, so what we're going to do is we're just going to go one by one, and I've seen a few comments, so I'll go check those out in a moment. But I want to kick things off and turn this over to I think we'll start with Michael because he is the. The veteran of the group at the moment. If Todd was here, Todd would take the reins on that. Because Todd has just launched his second book that he's done with us, and his first book came out, I think, just over a year ago. So whenever Todd gets here, he'll take over your veteran status. Sorry, Michael, but to start with, you are the veteran. So if you want to.
I don't feel like it. Let me tell you.
I published my first book in 2013, and I don't feel like a veteran either, because there's always new things to learn and new things to try. So the questions. I'll just kind of refresh your memory. Just tell them a little bit about, you know, why you wrote the book. You know, we've kind of touched on when it. When it came out, and then. And then let's hear your. Your biggest lesson that you've learned and the biggest surprise.
Yeah, well, I guess the.
The.
Well, first of all, my name is Michael Dominguez. I've been an investor now for about a dozen years or so, and I started out by really helping a lot of clients buy investment properties. And I was sort of following a nice pattern and really helping a lot of people make some real money. And then I started to do it myself, probably as much to give myself more credibility as a Realtor as it was to build wealth. But then over the years, it got better and better and better, and I really saw, you know, I built a passion for that.
And.
And so in my real estate career, I. I became known in my community for knowing my stuff and winning awards as Realtor of the year and all those fun things. And so. So anyway, so I. I was very fortunate that I had some incredible mentors along the way that. That guided me, that. That really didn't have any need to do it. They'd already hit their success levels. And. And I always promised myself, or promised, you know, promised out to the community, to the world, that if I ever reached a point where I could pass it on to the next generation, I would do that. And that was sort of the genesis for how I wrote the book. It was my way of passing on the torch to the next generation. That was sort of the idea. I really didn't go in with the idea of selling coaching or I didn't have some secret agenda in terms of selling more real estate. I'm kind of at the end of that path. So it was just sort of a way of. Bit of a legacy play. As much as anything else. So that was sort of the idea. And when I sat down, what I did was I've written a lot in terms of articles and blogs and stuff like that, and that was probably my first thing that I did, which, which maybe some of you guys would have as well. I was making some notes of things that, as far as biggest challenges. But the first thing I did was I went back to everything that I've written and put it all together. And because honestly, you know, I kind of almost written my book just from all the articles that I've written over the years and all the thoughts I've had, I started to put them together almost like a jigsaw puzzle of sorts. And, and that honestly gave me a lot of the table of contents that I used going forward and, and then. But, but honestly the, the number one challenge along the path was book launchers was great. They gently nagged me as I was going through, but I was running my business and running my life and, and didn't really get writing it as quickly as I wanted to and didn't sit down. And I'm the type of guy that I can't just sit down and write. I need to have be in the right space for it. And honestly, it took the pandemic to sort of really shut me down to the point where I could actually really think about it. But if you want to ask me what the greatest challenge was, was actually just putting myself in the mind space. And it took a lot more hours, a lot, like as many hours as I thought it was going to take. It's probably five times that number. It is how many hours it took me. And that was, it's not a good, I'm not giving you a positive here, but that was certainly my biggest challenge along the way. The other difficulty I've had is when, you know, I've known Julie for a long, long time and a few other authors along the path. And one thing that I know Julie built a lot of success with which I was planning on mimicking her success in this way was attending a bunch of investor meetings. And because my personality type is I'm sort of a touchy feely kind of guy. And really that's where I kind of excel is in that sort of environment in a, in a one on one or one on ten sort of scenario, the fact that that was taken away from me was, that was a real challenge for me along the way as well as I didn't have those, those meetings. And again, not that I was hoping to Sell gazillions of books and making tons of money. But, you know, it was, it was, it felt like I was almost having to work a lot of one on ones so many times and talk to somebody for 20 minutes and have them buy a book and I'd make a whopping $6 on the book. So it was, that was, that was, I think, my, my biggest challenges right there and keep, keep going, Julie.
Yep.
Okay. Yeah. And as far as my biggest surprises, honestly, it's something I really hadn't expected is the number of people from all over the world. I've done a lot of podcasts and, you know, in, in the real estate sector, there's just, you know, there's a podcast for every, you know, there's. I think there's more podcasts than people in the, in the human world here, you know, on Earth. So I've been doing a lot of podcasts and a lot of interviews and, and interviewed all over the United States and Canada, England, Australia, and I've met some really, really, really cool people and, and really had some really good bonding experiences. And there's a guy in Australia that we've actually done a few events together now and. Which is kind of fun. And, and he's already invited me to Melbourne and, you know, and that's been really neat where, you know, it's like people that I would never have met otherwise is something. So that, that was one of my biggest takeaways. And then the other one that I wanted to mention that I was thinking about if I was just talking to my wife about this today is, you know, just honestly, the, like, sometimes it almost catches me off guard when I started reflecting back and I say, holy shit, I'm a published author. That's really cool. And, and I know that sounds stupid, but, you know, it's one of these things that, you know, again, if you reflect 20 years in the future and look back and say that's kind of a cool thing to have done. So, so that's. Honestly, I'm never gonna make a lot of money on this book. And that wasn't the intention, but it's certainly a nice legacy play and I've had a lot of good feedback from people and that's. Is that okay, Julie? I don't know what else to talk about.
That's fantastic. Thank you. And I wanna share your book cover. And if you have a. I'm sure you have a copy handy somewhere, I would love for you to also, in a moment, show the interior because you took a lot of Care and put a lot of love and attention in. Into some really, really phenomenal details inside of the book. And so I would love, if you're cool with that, I put a spot with this, but. So this is his cover. This is, again, this is the book Armchair Real Estate Millionaire. And one of the things that I thought was really, really cool was just the vision you had for what you were going to do inside and even on the COVID initially, like, the COVID evolved, which is something I think you don't have to talk about if you don't want to, but it's something I think it's important for all authors to know, is that you may have a vision of what you think the COVID should be. And that's great, you know, especially if you're working with book launchers. Bring that to the table, because our designer kind of starts there. But most covers are an evolution, and it's something fun. We had a presentation on our. In our team meeting this week, and they were showing some of the evolution of, like, concepts in the beginning to what the book, you know, ended up being. And it's one of the fun journeys for an author is to kind of bring it all to life with the COVID So, yeah, I'll turn it over to you and I'll stop sharing so you can bring up the, the interior if you don't. If you don't mind.
Sure. So, like, I always wanted it to have an element of wealth. And, and honestly, even the book title itself changed probably eight gazillion times. And I always had sort of an idea. And, you know, and it's, it's. Honestly, I had some really cool ideas, and then I realized, you know, that I'd look back and some stupid author from 1997 wrote the exact same book title. And I said, shit, you know, sort of thing. It's like, come up with a new one and a new one a new one. And, and, and honestly, I really like the fact that. Or even just right now I'm sitting in a recliner chair. Like, that's like, I just sort of tend to sit back all the time. And, and that's sort of my mindset. And I'd like to think I don't take myself too seriously. And I wanted it to be as fun as possible. I wanted it to be because I've read, you know, as many real estate investors have done, or many people in your. Whatever field you're in. I've read a lot of books and such like that, and some of the ones that are really serious all the time. They're just tough reads for me at least I'm not a huge reader for anything that feels like a textbook. But if it's fun and engaging and, and, and for me, like, again, anything that has illustrations is something I really like. So I thought, you know, if I ever write a book, I want to have illustrations. So what I did was I took some. I, I actually got a, I went to 99designs and got a, a journalist or an illustrator to, to make some caricatures of me. And so they put together. Well, there was different illustrations along the way, but the ones of me in particular, and I'll share with one that everyone thinks is my. Well on it. Well, first of all, trying to see where I can find it. Now there's one of me sitting in an armchair and I actually have that in every single one of my chapters. It's hard to see. Yeah, you're not going to see this. It's not going to show Julie. But it's basically, it's a caricature of me in an armchair. And then I've got one of me looking like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers, sort of holding up my face saying, you know, $1 million sort of thing because, you know, obviously it's millionaire.
If you tell me what page that is on, I can pull up your intel file.
Page 230.
Okay, keep talking. It'll take me a minute to find it.
And so anyway, I was trying to make it fun in illustrations and make it so that it's engaging. And that was the one thing I wanted to be more of a page turner. Because honestly, the person who I wrote the book for was not a seasoned real estate investor. But for somebody who has zero properties, one property, maybe they have their own house and, and maybe a rental, maybe not. But you're just talking about ways that, you know, one of the lines that, you know, I wish I come up with it, but the idea is that real estate should, should fund your life and not run your life. And, and the kind of properties that you're looking for along the way, did it, did it pop up? I didn't see one for the chair. Yeah. So, so, and that, and that really was the mindset along the way is I wanted it so that if you, if you find the right type of properties, it really doesn't take a lot of time out of your day and your week and your life. And, and honestly, it can get to the point where you can make you. So you can retire early. I'm, I'm now in My, Yeah, there's, there's my, there's my. About the author. And I have that, that caricature probably 15 times in the book sort of thing where at the end of each chapter I kind of do that. So there's my. And at the end of every chapter I do a bit of a summary and that's called the Armchair Mindset Playbook. And yeah, so here's, here's me as Dr. Evil, and my illustrator did an awesome job. One little takeaway that people don't know is Dr. Evil, as many people who ever watched the movie would know he would hold a cat. So I actually got my Jack Russell terrier as the, as the photo op for, for that particular one. So I don't know, just. I wanted to be fun. I wanted to be interesting. And, and that was, that was just my personality. I threw a lot of jokes in there that nobody get other than the person or three people that it was intended for. I made a shout out to different people. And you know, it was, it was my journey. And you know, you know, I'm not saying it was right for everybody else, but it was right for me because I may never write another book again, but if I could sort of give a shout out to my son at one point in the book and do a quote that, you know, quote, our favorite movie when he was growing up was Jingle all the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger. So I actually have a Jingle all the way quote in my book and just actually made note that it was for my son. So, so anyway, it was, it was just my journey. And, and, and honestly, I've had a lot of really good feedback along the path and you know, I'm, I'm glad I did it. And I don't necessarily think I'm ever going to write another, but who the hell knows? And actually I just, just, just, just, just committed. I was on a road trip and I sort of had a revelation that I said, you know, I'm really going to have to do this as an audiobook because so many of my, my people, they want audiobooks and it's really not my skill set. I don't think I've got true dyslexia, but I've got issues in terms of reading aloud. So that's, I'm not looking forward to this at all this. But at the same time, once I get started, who the hell knows, I might enjoy it. So. But yeah, I definitely want to. Again, I'm going through the pain now so I can hopefully have a legacy to Provide to my people.
So that's it.
That's awesome. Thanks, Michael. We might come back to you with some questions, but we're gonna give everybody their little spotlight time, so thank you so much. Okay, so we're gonna head over. Oh, Emily's back. Okay, Emil, I told you you were next. But I'm actually gonna go to Emily. Just teasing.
Such similar names, though.
I mean, yeah, I know Angela. Angela was teasing me. She goes, that's not gonna get confused. All right, Emile, you're after Emily. Okay, Emily, so same to you, because you're a little bit different in that your book has not launched yet. So if you want to kind of give people an overview of where you're at and then dive into, you know, why you're writing the book, and then your biggest surprise and your biggest challenge, that would be fantastic.
Oh, man. Okay. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. This is the first time I've really spoke publicly about the book, so I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm excited to kind of start to share my journey. So I wrote a book called Make Me the Boss, and it is a survival guide for first time millennials that are in people manager careers. I've noticed from my own personal experience that there's kind of this shift happening in the workplace, particularly in tech, but I think largely in the corporate world where 20 somethings, 30 somethings are coming into these positions of power and leadership and really not knowing what to do and bringing so more into the workplace and having more expectations from the workplace than previous generations. And so there's so many business books out there. I mean, there's. There's absolutely no lack of business books. But I felt like there wasn't really something that was speaking to a 20 something, 30 something, young, urban, single professional where they're at, let's face it, we spend a lot of time on Instagram, we communicate in memes, we don't like to pick up the phone, but yet we're the ones, you know, our collective generation who's coming into these positions of power. And so I wanted to write a book that both helped people in this position survive and do well and understand their new place in the world, not only in the workplace, but their broader responsibility to their community, but also just kind of help leave a lasting legacy of things that really matter to millennials and millennials more than other generations. We have a reputation for really wanting to see authenticity and values in the workplace, and social justice is really important to us. And so I have a whole Chapter on Black Lives Matter. I have a whole ch on me too. And there's some, you know, there's some lifestyle things kind of peppered in there.
So.
So I wanted to write the book that I felt needed to exist. I mean that, that was really kind of the, the crux of it. I started to write it on my own. I was about halfway through, was going really, really slowly and then a bunch of life stuff happened and it kind of got to the side and I had had a conversation with Julie and I just, I couldn't quite get myself to that point of like, okay, I'm really going to do this. But then the pandemic happened and then the George Floyd thing happened and it was like the world was so upside down. And I kind of realized like, you know what? Now is the time to do this. I'm going to get with book launchers and I'm going to write this book. And if one person reads it, great. So I'm now very nearly finished. I'm in the last phase of the line edits, which I think we're do today. So I'm going to be working on that right after this webinar today. And the book is set to be published in January, which is just a few months away. I don't feel like, because I'm still at the very end of the process, I don't feel like I have an overarching lesson yet. So check back with me in a few months as far as the overarching lesson, but a few of the ones that I've learned in the interim and continue to learn is the importance of an accountability coach. I did not think that I needed this. I'm a super, you know, not like a type A person, but like a minus. Like I get shit done. I've always been an overachiever. You know, I was president of all these clubs in high school and all those sorts of things. I did not think I needed an accountability coach. I did though. I needed somebody that was checking in with me and helping to set goals that were reasonable and that were time bound and that had like a definitive done period. So I wish I had worked with book launchers actually sooner because I think I could have gotten the book done a lot sooner than I did primarily during that, like initial first draft. And I needed somebody in my ear that was kind of like, it's okay that this isn't perfect. You just need to like get what's in your brain on paper. I think the second lesson learned is that I'm still Kind of in the process of learning this, but, you know, it's a. It's kind of dips into the challenges, too. But I'm doing the thing as I'm writing about the thing. So I am a manager in a tech company that is exploding. And so I'm running this department and I'm hiring people and I'm making mistakes and I'm having bad days and I'm doing all the things. And then at nighttime, I'm writing about how to not do the thing that I'm may have done that day. And so it became a real challenge for me to be like, you know, I wasn't my best today at work. Like, I didn't show up to a meeting all that well. I totally, like, said the wrong thing here. I didn't handle this super well, but yet I'm writing the guide for how to do this. Who do I think I am? And so it's kind of an imposter syndrome. But it's also a question that I asked myself and, like, several times had to answer and say what I have to say is still worth saying. And even though I may not be, like, the management guru of the world, who is. That's part of it is we're all learning together, and it doesn't discredit the experience that I have had and the perspective that I do bring. And so I continue to kind of wrestle with that. It's super vulnerable being a people manager, and I write about that in the book. It's also really vulnerable being the author. So I'm doing both of those things at once, and I feel very exposed, and I'm, like, terrified about bad reviews, and I'm terrified that, like, my team is going to read it and what they're going to think, you know, but, like, you still have to do it. You still have to do it. So the lesson of still feeling that what you have to say in your perspective has value, even if you're not necessarily. You don't know everything there is to know about that particular topic and the way that you're writing it and the way that you're communicating it. In my case, you know, it's sassy. There's memes, there's curse words that will land with the type of person that a business book written a lot more academically wouldn't. So having to have faith in myself and trust in the process, I think is an ongoing lesson and I think the biggest surprise.
So far.
So, first of all, no one cares that it's self published. Like, Literally no. Maybe a couple people have asked me, but like, no one cares at all. They're just like, oh my God, you're writing a book. That's amazing. So that was definitely, definitely one. And then I decided to also do a podcast, kind of as like a co marketing tool that was actually ended up being the best thing I've ever done. I found that I really love podcasting, so I put out a podcast once a week. It's called Manager Flow. It's about finding your flow as a manager. But the podcast has been like a foolproof way to network with thought experts in my industry. And so I just talked to other people, managers across the spectrum, different backgrounds, different industries. I asked them about their experiences and then that is like an instant person that's a going to promote my book for me. So it's because we both got value from it. And I'm carving out time every week for me to really think about my material and what I'm putting out into the world that ultimately finds its way into the writing or has found its way into the writing. So that was such a good idea. I'm so glad that I did it. And it may be that the podcast is the thing that takes off and the book supplements the podcast. I don't know yet. I kind of thought it would be the other way around, but I'm excited to see where it goes. And then I think the other surprise is I learned a lot about how I write best. I'm in a profession that requires a lot of writing, a lot of writing emails, a lot of typing on slack all day, a lot of writing about escalations, putting presentations together. For the life of me, I could not get myself up early in the morning and write my book. I couldn't do it. I had to put my work computer aside, go make myself a martini, put on the Real Housewives, and that's when I was able to write and that's when I found kind of my creativity. So it's okay if it's not like the correct way to write or the right way, but that was what worked for me. So just don't be afraid to find that. And then I also enjoyed writing with other people. So I would do Zoom sessions with other friends of mine that had various creative projects and we would just like sit on Zoom on a Saturday morning and they would work on their thing and I would work on, on my thing and we chit chat every once in a while and it made it feel like it wasn't such a chore. Like, it was actually kind of some social aspect. But, yeah, I think that's been my biggest surprise so far. But I think there's going to be more.
We'll see. I'm sure there will be, but that was awesome. People are loving it. And the thing that you're speaking about, I love how you explained how you feel, because you're writing about some of the mistakes that you've made. And me personally, my perspective, I'll never forget. I was on a panel at the World Money Expo or something like that, and I was sitting beside this person I'd always thought was. I'd looked up to him because he was always speaking at all of these things, and he said as somebody was asking questions, he goes, I've heard it all before. I've learned everything there is to know. And I kind of went, no, nobody knows everything there is to know, and nobody's gone through everything there is to go through. And as soon as you have that perspective that you are like, you know, everything you've done, everything, you're not going to learn. And I don't think you'll have the value that you need to have to, or you won't be able to present the value to the reader or to somebody else so that they can learn from you. So I think it's awesome that you are doing it the way that you're doing it. I am certain that your reader is going to love that, because they're not going to want that person who's got 20 years of experience. That's preaching to them. Right? That's not. That's not who your reader is going to resonate with. Actually. That's not who most people would resonate with anyway. Are you okay if I show your cover? Because you haven't launched. It's not public yet, so I don't. If you say no, it's totally fine. But I have your cover.
Oh, no, let her rip. The COVID is, like, amazing.
I love your cover. So I really wanted to show it.
Oh, wow.
Oh, we even got reactions.
Beautiful. Wow.
Kind of a Lichtenstein like indie rock like Juno. It's just like, my demographic is gonna want to buy this book, so I'm so excited. And I dyed my hair to match it, so I don't know if you.
Noticed that, but I wondered. Actually, I didn't know what came first, honestly.
No, the COVID definitely inspired the hair.
Because I think when we talked, we didn't do Zoom. I think we talked on the phone.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think I had, like, a Like a faux hawk, then.
So, yes. Anyways, you made some phenomenal choices with this. I just love it. So I had to share.
Thank you.
I'm so glad we got to share that. There was one question specific for you that I will ask right now. Otherwise, we're saving the questions, but Joe asked this, and I thought it was a fascinating question. So does your company consider what you're writing proprietary? Because some companies might want to take credit as your ideas came as you were employed for them.
So I was really, really nervous about this, actually, and this was one of the biggest hesitations that I had about it. I talked to the. I'm working for a different employer now. When I first started, I talked to their legal counsel about it just to make sure I was covered. And it was basically like, you know, anything that you're using needs to be your own thing. I can't use, like, I have a section on performance reviews. I can't use the, like, employer guide to performance reviews or anything that looks and feels like that. And it very much wasn't like, it's all very much my idea. And now I did conceive of some of it while I was employed. And in some people's employment, paperwork like that gets a little bit messy. Like, any creative thing that you produce while you're employed is technically theirs. But they basically said as long as I kept things really separate, like, I didn't use the same computer. No. Like, Google Drive documents that were in the employer's stuff at all, it would be fine. Um, so I definitely check with your employer's legal counsel where I'm working now. Stripe.
They.
The only thing I can say is that I work there. So luckily, the entire book was done before I started working here. So if. If I had started the process now, I think I would wait until I was on a sabbatical or something like that, just to make it a little bit cleaner. So if you're writing about something that you do professionally and you have an employer, definitely check with their legal counsel just to make sure that you're covered.
Yeah, that's great. And it's important. I've had this conversation with a few people, and number one is if you're writing a book and you are employed by somebody. Exactly. What you said is do not use any company resources at all. Everything needs to be completely your own, and you need to be able to prove that you did it all on your own computer, your own software, all of that stuff. But, yes, I think that was excellent advice. Thank you. Now, they're asking questions about your coverage. So do you want to tell them a little bit about the illustration and the design and all that stuff? Because people love your cover.
Yeah, I love it too. I had basically given this creative direction. I am not like a visual artist person, so I was basically like, y' all come up with whatever you think is great. I love retro. I love kind of like funky, indie, power femme sorts of covers. And they came up with, like, two or three different ones. And then this is the last one they showed me, and I was like, that's the one. So I don't know too much about the creative process behind it. I just gave some kind of overall direction of how I wanted it to feel without being overly prescriptive, and that was the right thing to do because this is not my area of expertise. I just know that it's fabulous and I think pretty timeless. I think this will still look trendy years from now, so really nice job.
Book launchers. We have a few creative geniuses behind the scenes. Our cover designer is absolutely one of our creative geniuses, and she is one of those people who you can tell her how you want the COVID to feel, and she can actually translate it into, like, the visual that you just saw. So we're very, very grateful. She was one of. I hire a lot of contractors, and we kept getting the covers coming in, and I was going, like, who's doing this cover? Like, Cassie? Like, who did this cover, Cassie? Who did this? Like, we need her in house. She needs to be ours. So, yeah, she's extraordinary. But thank you so much, Emily. We'll probably have more questions for you later, but we're going to go to Emile. So, Emil, I just muted myself. I was thinking of unmuting you, and I muted myself. So, Emil, do you want me to run through the questions, or are you ready to take it away?
I can start. Oh, no, actually, run through the questions so that they'll know what we're talking about here.
Yeah. Okay, great. So if you want to just give a quick little overview of why you wrote your book and then. And you can even reintroduce yourself briefly for those people who may have missed the introduction at the beginning. So you know your book title. I can bring it up to you. I can show everybody and then your biggest surprise in writing the book. So kind of the big positive and the big lesson or the big challenge that you faced in writing your book as well.
Okay. I'd like to start by saying I know everything there is to know about my subject and I don't have to learn anymore.
You know, of everyone here, I would probably believe you were closest to that actually being true.
So the book is play it like you mean it. And the reason I wrote this book is that I've been playing professionally for about 40 years at the piano specifically, and I have had a successful career as a pianist. But one of the things that I noticed, I've been surrounded by music ever since I was growing up. And there are dozens and hundreds and thousands of very proficient, excellent musicians. But then there are a few who just really move you emotionally. And I've been fortunate that that's one of the things that I'm able to do is I'm able to put emotion into the music that I play. And that means a lot to me. Part of it, because I'm Italian and I grew up in an Italian household, and we all do everything in high def, you know, and it's bigger than life. And I think that's one of the ingredients. Well, I wanted. I have never been a teacher by profession, but I had a lot to say and I wanted at some point to put forward in a book how you can make your playing from good to excellent or from excellent to emotionally powerful. Because I've always. I had three favorite composers. Growing up, I was not just surrounded by music, but surrounded by classical music. I had a degree in classical music, and my two sisters did also. And my favorite musicians were. Favorite composers were Rachmaninoff and Debussy and Chopin. And in particularly in the case of Rachmaninoff, there's this just raw power that just grabs you. And Chopin has these wonderful embellishments that are like delicate lace. Pardon me. And then Debussy. The impression is, pardon me, the Monet, the musical version of Monet. So I, over the years, I have made my arrangements of what I do for a living is I make arrangements of COVID tunes, mostly music from musicals, from movies and the old standards. So I take a beautiful melody that I already love and I put my, My, my take on it. So a lot of people have to like those because it moves them emotionally. And that was what the whole. That was the whole reason I wrote this book, because I thought, yeah, I need to say for those of us who cannot do that naturally, is there. Are there some tips I could give to how to get to that place from playing really well to playing where people say, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. So that was the. That's the reason I wrote the book. My biggest challenge was. And the advice I would have to. Somebody else is. You gotta be organized. I had about 50 versions of the final draft. I had finished the book pretty much from start to finish before I got to Book Launchers. I had finished the content mostly, and after they had a look at it, they see that I had written the same chapter twice. The book took me 18 months, and maybe I wrote this chapter in January, and six months later, I didn't know that I wrote that chapter and I wrote it all over again in a different, slightly different way. Now I had to decide which was which, which one I wanted to do. Then I had chapters on different subjects that. How do I put them in organized fashion? My. My point here is you have to have some sort of plan, a plan set up to keep everything in order as you go. Because time passes and I'm taking bits of version 10 and putting it in version 12. And I. It was a nightmare for me, even. Pardon me, excuse me. Even though I had most of it already written by the time we were getting to editing, there were a lot of those things where the editor would say, maybe you already use this example to demonstrate arpeggios. Now you're using the same example to demonstrate broken chords. Okay. Things that I wouldn't know. And I read. I'd have to read through the entire book and find out what I did and what I meant and so forth. So I don't have the answer to the challenge, but I advise you to find some way to organize your work as you go so that you don't run into what I ran into for that. So that's the biggest challenge, the biggest surprise was that I could actually write a book. I never thought about writing a book until a couple of years ago, about three years ago. And my biggest surprise that I just loved was that I found out I had a lot to say. Surprise, surprise. You hear me now? I have a lot to say. And once I started writing, it was sort of stream of consciousness or add, whichever. But I just started writing, writing, writing, writing, writing. And I would find that some of the time I work in my own studio. I'm the only person here. I have a piano room, and I have a computer room, and I do all my recording here and so forth. But I would find that I'd be at the computer and no kidding, eight or ten hours had gone by, and I was just writing just as fast as I could write. It wasn't a finished product, but I realized I had that much to say. And I think that those of us. This is my first and only Book. I think those of us who are not sure we could actually write a book. I was at the beginning, I was counting words, and I was saying, how many words in a. In a textbook should you have? And, you know, and I was worried about, did I have enough to say? And then in the end, we had to cut about 20,000 words. So I. My. My best advice is to be organized about what you do. Somehow or other, we can ask Julie about that, how to do it, and. And the biggest surprise was that, that you won't run out of things to say. And you'll find during that, you say, wow, I do know a lot about this subject, and that's kind of a nice surprise. As for the COVID of my book, I sent along a drawing that I thought would be really nice for the COVID and I sent it to a lot of friends, and they all 100% hated it and loathed it and said everything in the world they could say about it. That without stopping being my friend. So. So in the end, Cassandra did the absolutely beautiful cover of the book. And everyone who sees it loves it, just really loves it. And I do, too. And that's all I have to say about that.
Well, thank you so much. Yeah, this cover turned out just absolutely fantastic. I love it, and I love the little touches of it, too. So I think. Yeah, it's great. You guys did a great collaboration on that, so that's wonderful. I did have something pop into my head.
Oh, yes.
I was going to answer your question or your comment. So I think it's great advice. And I think I've had this happen too, where I've written the same story, not quite the whole same chapter, but I've written, like, big section of something in two different places. And working with a writing coach change, like, help that for me. So having somebody that's reading while we're writing, so the outline definitely helps. But I also, as I start writing, I'm kind of like, Emile. I start writing, and I almost don't pay attention to the outline. I'm more focused on like, oh, now I'm gonna write about this. Now I'm gonna write about this. And I look up and I've written, you know, 20,000 words or 10,000 words, and you forget what you've written before. So the outline helps. Highly recommend you have an outline, but it's also useful to have somebody else involved in the process early on. And also, you wrote it over 18 months, I think you said. That's a long time to remember what you did before. So it's totally normal, but ultimately you've got a content. That's what content editors are for. And the book turned out fantastic now, so your process worked in the end.
18 months is a long time to remember. But two hours is a long time for me to remember some things.
Yeah, I know. Even my 4 year old when he gets home from school. What did you do at school today? I don't remember.
Come on.
Anyways, thank you so much. We'll probably come back to you with questions a little bit.
Someone had a specific question for him.
Go ahead.
So, Emil, Marna asked, the picture that's on the COVID is that the same drawing that your friends panned?
It was based on that. The drawing that my friend did was a guy sitting at the piano with hands flying and, you know, and hair flying back. And so the idea, I wanted it to be music exploding out of the piano. And it's. So the drawing that Book Launchers did, it came up with is very, very different from mine. But the idea is this music is popping out of the piano and it's wonderful and it's nothing like. But inspired by. So they took what I had asked for and did something wonderful with it.
Thanks, Angela. Was there any other ones I might have missed?
No, I think that was the only one directed to Emil. Yeah.
Okay, great. Guy, I didn't give you a heads up. Are you in your mysterious rectangle? Are you ready to go?
Who is that Guy? Oh, okay.
I'm just checking. Otherwise I think Todd's here now. But Guy just waiting to see. He might be stuck in mute there. Guy, you should be able to unmute now. And I'll switch the spotlight. There we go.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, I can. Thanks, Emil. I'm going to switch you and put Guy in Guy's mysterious box. Here, let's put this in there. And if it'll let me. It's not letting me. You know what I'll do? I'll share your book cover. How about that?
Yeah, that's fine. Can I talk? Can I talk now?
Please do.
Okay, everybody. Bonjour Emilie. Great presentation of your book. And Emilie else you like. So, my name is Guy, I'm French, came to America. I'm a scientist. So I know how to grow cells in the lab. But I become a writer by accident. So just watching the society, American society and the way people interact and dating. I decided to write a book. So what I this book have brought me. Well, first of all, I met three best selling authors. New York Times from My book, so we become friends. So when. When I listen to Emile's story or Emily, actually, they made the same mistake and the fear of having their book published. And for myself, actually, the decision I made to reach out to the Book Launchers was the best decision because when I listened to those guys who are very successful writers, they made exactly the same mistakes. They wrote books, no idea where they're going, hire their friend to edit their work and publish, and they've become a disaster because they have to pull out their books because there were so many mistakes. So when. When I work with the book launchers, actually it's the quality of work because the book is just, you know, you get. People. Talk to me about the COVID and the design and to the interior, and I get a lot of credit for it. I said, well, it's a team behind the success. So I. I started writing. So my lesson, that first lesson I learned first of all, is the quality of work and the quality of a team. Because I felt like everybody was working for the success. And I mean, I remember Angela, all the team, everybody. When I sent my manuscript, actually I had a different title and different cover and in my mind, but they won because this made me better suggestion. Now I look back and say, okay, they were right. I have to have the capacity of accepting any suggestion to improve anything I do. So what else can I say? Yes. So the book is moving forward, and I decided to write my next book. I'm finishing it next week. And stay with Book Launchers because the experience was great, the first experience. And what I can say also is that I never struggle with my words. I write every day. I wake up in the middle of night, I can write. I have a recorder in my car. Sometimes I just start talking to myself. So I feel like it's a different passion. But I'm okay. I never struggled writing the society. So much to say in America, so many things to see, and voila. So what can I say?
So, Guy, was there anything. As you were going through this process, was there anything surprising that was a nice surprise, something you didn't expect?
Yes, the work, the marketing. Because when someone decides, like me, I decide to write, I never thought about marketing at all. So when I look at the whole process, I realize that, well, first of all, I learned that before even you start writing, you have to think about who is going to read your book. That's the things that many people don't realize. I think they're writing for themselves, actually. You have to know and what people are going to Learn from your book. Those things really never occur to me. But today I'm a better writer because I think for my next book, I have to put all these details in my face and say, okay, who's going to read my book, what lesson they're going to take from the book, and how I'm going to deliver a better message. And I think I'm very comfortable. Great team, Great mind. I mean, I just enjoy working with you guys very much.
Yeah.
Awesome.
So I have one other one I want to ask you. What is something that you learned in the process of writing the whole process of love, like the French that you're going to take in to this second.
Book.
Being focused on the readers? It's not about me, it's about my readers. Like, if you summarize the story of love, like the French, it's a selection of letters that I get from women, American woman. So now my way of delivering because I think sometimes when I look back, I say, well, I wish I have not removed some of the letters that I got from women. But this time I give more details and listen to the review. I go back to the review that I have on Amazon. So I go back to Emilio. Emilio, Emily was talking about the fear of review. But there's a guy called Jesus Christ. He's not perfect. Not everybody love Jesus. So never be afraid of review. Some people give me three, some people give me four, some people give me two. But c' est la vie. You just keep moving. So life is that way. So I learned. Yes, that's what I learned. It's about doing better. I think I would do a better work because I take the feedback even just like when I was working with a book launcher team. Some just the editors, for example, sometimes they would say, okay, can you change this? Because I use a lot of French expressions and sometimes it does not make sense in English, but I have to find a way to improve and it come out very good. I'm a good listener. So voila. Yeah.
That'S great. Thanks. I was just posting in the chat. Most people you say two. Some people gave you three, some people gave you four. Most people gave you five.
Yeah, yeah, but because they keep laughing because all those, the French expressions that they love, actually, they love them. But yeah, I'm just saying that, no, never be afraid of criticism or review. Bad review. C' est la vie. It's life.
Just keep moving. I love that you have gone back and read the reviews to learn for this next book. I think that's phenomenal tip. Because that's actually. I do that with a lot of books. When somebody's coming in, I go and I read their competitions review because that helps me see where they might have an opportunity in the marketplace. So that's great. I love it.
And they even make me. Actually some people are still writing and asking me why don't cover this topic for the next book. And it just adding up that reason. I'm having a little delay. But next week I will be done with the book. My next year. Next year book.
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. We're all very excited to be working on that one with you.
So.
So thank you. All right, well, wonderful. I just going to stop share here and let's see. We have Todd hiding somewhere. I don't see Todd, but I'm told he's here. I'm told Todd's in the house.
I can see him.
Todd, can you unmute so I can find you? Please.
See me now.
Ah, there you are. Fantastic. All right, so I'm going to find you in the box up top. And I haven't introduced you yet because you were. You were the fashionably late arrival. Exactly. So one moment please, while I try to find the thing to allow you to spotlight. I might look at that after. I'll introduce you because I want to make sure we give you a little bit of an introduction and then we'll be turning it over to you to just kind of say is that you've got two different books to talk about. So you can even. You can talk about lessons from the first. The first one, it just said my Internet connection is unstable. So I hope I'm not frozen in some unsightly face. You broke up a little bit, but.
We can hear you now.
Okay, good, because it's nothing like the frozen phase.
One, two, three.
That was weird. One moment. Let's see where we. Oh, there we go. Okay. Okay. So Todd is a somatic therapist specializing in the undeniable relationship between mind and body.
And.
And his studies have made him an expert in many types of therapy, from visceral manipulation and cranial sacral to acupressure, shiatsu and reflexology. Reflexology. I think my team was testing me when they put this together. His most recent book, why do youo Trouble Me so Much? Follows his first book. And I've got both covers here. Ah, why do youo Trouble Me so Much? And he shares his healthy life ladder to help you synergize your mindset and improve your health from the inside out. So, Todd, it is fantastic to have you here. Thank you for agreeing to join us. And if you want to just take it away with a little bit about the why, you can even talk about both books and kind of the overall vision for your author, because I know you have a very distinct plan with your. With your author, with the books that you've written. So I'll just turn it over to you and I'm going to put you as the spotlight so everybody can see you.
All right. Thank you. Yeah, so I wrote both books pretty quickly and almost at the same time, I wrote a third one as well. So I have that manuscript ready and then I laid out three more. So I actually have a pretty specific plan with all of them. The second book, the one I just published, is meant to be an overview of all the others. And the other manuscript, which I haven't published yet, I wrote and I said, oh, I need to find some way to connect all of these. And so the second book, which I published about a month ago, is meant to connect them all. It's a big picture book and a lot of it is trying to share my experiences and fixing my own health and getting through some trauma that I went through and all the things related to that. So I wanted to share the methods I put together and the way that I have healed myself and the people at the clinic and working with people one on one. I can only see one person at a time. And I was trying to find ways to reach more and more. And I seem to do well with words. Being on video is a little trickier, so I'm getting used to it, you know, do it in these things and with the podcasts and stuff. But the words came out pretty easily. The books actually came quickly. And I've been writing basically non stop since I started. So I have the books I mentioned. I also wrote a kid's book and a second half of a kid's book. So I'm trying to, like, just do a little better job of marketing and putting it all together so that I can build something off them all together.
Fantastic. And then if you want to share with everyone something like a challenge or an overall lesson that maybe that you learned from book one that you changed for book two, or even just overall as an author, and then you can dive in or at the same time share the biggest surprises that you've enjoyed in this journey too.
Sure.
I think the biggest challenge for me was faith in my ability to do it because I can at times be easily knocked off by what people think. So I wrote the whole first book and I Didn't tell anyone I know that I was writing anything. I wrote the whole book. And I found an editor to look at it to tell me if I write well enough. And she read it and she said, oh, you did well enough, we could do something with it. So I wrote some more. And then I found book launchers and started working with them. And a lot of things came out of that. And just a funny story about that. When I did publish it, when I finally had it on Amazon, I told a friend of mine that I wrote a book. And she goes, no, no, you can't do it. They're like, no, no, I wrote it already. She's like, you'll never finish it. And I'm like, no, I already finished it. She's like, no, no, you'll never get it edited. I'm like, look, get out your phone, open up Amazon, look out my name. And she still couldn't believe it, you know, and it's that kind of thing that can trip you up, I think, if you're not careful. So that was something I really learned on the first book. With the second book, I didn't have so much of that. Cause I already had it out there. The thing I think I learned with the second book was more about how to flesh out the ideas with the help of an editing team, you know, because I can be a little idiosyncratic in how I write and I like it that way. And so it's nice to get other people to kind of break it up and give you some ideas. And so the working with editors was huge for that. Last week I was doing a local Author's day at the library and I met 10 or 11 other independent authors and I was looking at their books and my book looks 10 steps better than theirs. The way it's put together, the way it's formatted, the way the font is, the way the layout is, you know, the whole thing looks better. And so I think that's a big deal too, because I bought one of their books and I can barely read it because the formatting is off. And it's just like driving me crazy trying to look at it. So that's another thing to think about. I think with independent publishing of a.
Book, I love hearing stories like that. Because I mean, as you know, my whole vision is that our books are as good or better than a traditionally published book. And so, you know, I take great pride, but I love hearing when you've actually been able to do a side by side comparison. So thank you.
It was really noticeable. Like, I could really tell right away, you know.
Yeah, that's great. I'm going to bring up both your covers so everybody can have a chance to check them out. What's kind of been the big, you know, surprise, the big win or something fun that's happened along the way?
I think writing the books and starting to put my own thing out there changed how I saw myself, and that's opening up a lot of doors for me. So I have a lot of things that I want to teach and a lot of things I want to get out. And I'm even teaching a class this afternoon about some of the methods I put together. And so. So the change, the writing of the book and the publishing of the book and getting photographs for the book and doing podcast interviews, it just starts to subtly shift who you are, at least does for me. And that's opening up all kinds of interesting doors. And, like, people recognize me a little bit in town now, and they're like, oh, there's that guy that wrote a book. And, like, is it really that difficult to write a book? And I think a lot of it is starting writing and never stopping and not getting locked down and all kinds of things. So for me, I write anywhere. I'll write in the line at Albertsons. I. I pull over and write on my car. I dictate, I hand write any way I could get it done to make it happen. And I think there's something cool that changes in you, too, when you start something. You work all the way through and you finish it. Because I know a bunch of people that want to be writers, and they may even be better writers than me, but they never get to the end. They never finish it. They never get help by people that, like the team there that can help them out with editing and covers and putting it all together and making something coherent over the long haul.
All right, there's book one. Anything you want to say? I mean, this cover, I got to tell you, I think I've told you this before, but I'm going to tell you again. When I do conferences and I have book, I display some book covers. This one always draws people, like, they come over and they look right at this cover. So this one just really draws the eye in. I think it's partly food, right? We're all attracted to pictures of food, but it's also just the whole way it's all laid out. So anything you want to say about this book or this cover? And then I'll show the next one.
I put that Cover on a shirt. And I wear it around like a blue shirt. And people will ask me about it because there's so many colors in it. So it turned out to be really attractive and really eye catching, like you said.
Yeah, that's awesome. I'll show the other cover here. One second. Oh, I have to switch my screen. One second. I gotta move this one down and bring the other one up. There it is. Okay. Sorry, I'm just doing a little zoom dance while we're. Now it's a guess because both of them are named the exact same file name because we have them all filed under your book title, so. Okay, here we go. Or under. Yes, it's filed under your book title. So then it's both nigh home front cover 3D, which really doesn't help me. When they're both the same title. The file name is both the same. There we go. And there is the second one. So you can see because they are related. Right. We've made the book covers have a similar style because it's kind of a series. The title's the same, you know, so that was cool how I thought this all came together to have a similar format, but also to make sure that it's just, you know, it's a distinct topic. But anything you want to say about this one?
Well, this one is interesting. It took us a little longer to get the right idea across because the essence of the book, I think, was a little more intangible. But I love the way it came out. And people mention it all the time when they see it, how much they like it, and how it directs their thought to what it is. The other thing we changed with this one is we put my middle name and I asked like 100 people, and they're all like, yeah, it seems more professional somehow, or has more weight. And that still cracks me up a little bit by putting my middle name on there, so.
Interesting. Fantastic. Angela, are there any specific questions for Todd before we kind of go back and just pick some of the general questions and.
Well, Virgie asked if your covers were also from the Amazing Cassie or Cassandra.
I believe so.
I don't know about COVID one. Possibly. That was too long ago. If it was. She was contractor then, and she could have been. It's possible. But cover two definitely was Cassie.
I love them.
Yeah, I think they're great. Like I said, they draw people to my booth, so they work.
I think that's it as far as. Yeah, I think we're good.
Okay. What's one of the general Questions. While we've got Todd spotlighted, he's probably a good person to throw one of the general questions at.
Yeah, so this is one of the first questions that came up. So it was right when I was logging on. I'm not sure. Tricia, I think you're still here. If this was specifically for Michael or just, like, in general for all the authors. But Tricia asked, where did you invest your time that gave the greatest return?
Yeah, that's a great question for Todd.
I think the overall planning and arc strategy of everything I wanted to do. So, like, where I wanted to go with the books, how much writing I was going to do, make sure that I wrote every single day. I wrote both my phones or both my books on my phone. So I had it with me all the time. And at that time, I didn't have a computer, but it also allowed me to, like, use my notes and use dates and times so that there was an overall plan for everything that I was doing, including working with a team, including doing marketing, because I was watching videos before I even started, what it would take to publish on my own, because I taught entrepreneurship for a long time, and I have a little business, and so I was already thinking down that line. And so having an overall concept for everything that fit together in a plan, I think was probably most valuable and kept me from wasting too much time.
I love that. Thank you, guy. Since you're also on book two, perhaps you want to answer that question as well.
Oh, wow. Okay.
Please.
Also, please ask a question again, please.
Yeah, for sure. Angela. Yeah, it is.
Where did you invest your time that gave the greatest return?
Well, for I tell you, I just. I kind of related to what Todd just said. I. I write from my phone sometimes, babysitting cells in the lab, writing, and it's just efficient. You know, you just want something cross your mind. You don't have time to look for a pencil. Just. Just tap it in your phone or text yourself. That's how I do it. I text myself a lot to think, to remind myself. Yeah, just. It's a very fun time to do. Writing is amazing.
Thanks, guy. Emil, Emily, or Michael, do any of you have anything you want to add to that? Otherwise, we'll go to the next question. Emily, you brought your video on. So do you want to say, feel free to just hop right in?
Okay, great. So for me, the best investment of time was talking to other people that were thought leaders in my space. So that's where I could both kind of rehearse different thoughts and ideas. That I was working out and also get real time feedback on it. So I still do that a lot. Even though the book is what it is now. But you know, I'm still evolving all my perspectives and things. And so I know a lot of other authors are in more niche spaces, so it might be harder to find people that have similar experiences. But for me, lots of people, managers out there and everyone has something unique to add to my, my shared perspective. So that's continues to be a really good investment.
That's great advice.
Yeah, my, my most best use of my time was to just sit down at the beginning of the day and start writing as fast as I could think. Just writing everything I thought about. And as I said earlier, several hours had passed and I was amazed. I mean I was, I was kind of in the zone. I had the luxury of doing that because, because I wasn't going to a 9 to 5 job. So I, I could have, if I'm not doing concerts or not recording, my day is my own. And I did that a lot. But just to start writing and keep writing and you're bound to come up with something worthwhile. So that's my best use of time.
So. Julie, one, one thing I wanted to share as well was I, I also did a fair bit of organization in terms of my, my table of contents and tried to follow it. But my absolute best use of my time, it turned out was I found myself almost writing it sometimes for someone who was advanced beyond what my, what my typical author or my typical target reader was going to be. So I went out of my way and I probably spoke to about 30 or 40 people who were my target audience and, and what they were looking for in terms of education and, and, and that really helped put it all together for me. I, I was able to start to put the book like things started to come together when I knew what, I knew what they wanted and then I started putting it in that way. So that was something I thought was a pretty good use of my time.
Yeah, that's fantastic because I think you also had clarity of who your reader was and a lot of authors struggle with that, especially in the beginning they think their audience is wide. Now in Emily's case, it is quite wide. But she still had a target audience in that she was fast growth companies, probably in tech, they're managing people. So we still had a very clear audience. But if you're struggling to figure out where you can talk to your readers, you don't have enough clarity in who your reader is. So I love that. This is really great advice from all of you, so thank you. Angela, I know you probably have another question, but I see three different questions kind of all about author, platform and marketing. So I'm going to bunch all of them together and just go one by one to kind of give every author a chance to talk about that piece and then we'll go back to your list. Okay.
Hopefully she heard me. Sorry, I was nodding my head.
I couldn't see you. Sorry, I was still looking at Michael. Okay, thanks. So there's a bunch of questions here talking about how. Let's just see. Kat says, you know, the author platform and marketing is overwhelming. Looking for advice on that. And Efren said, how did you incorporate building an email list if you did, you know, and how did that fit with your process? You know, and then somebody else is asking, how do you start an email list? So I'm just gonna kind of throw it out to each of you in terms of I'm gonna break it up into a two part question which is gonna be, you know, have you done, like, what have you done to build any author platform? And then if you are doing anything specific for building an email newsletter list, if you have a tip on that. So what have you done to build an author platform? And talk about where in the process you started that? And then specific to email newsletter, if you have a specific tip for folks, of course, we have about 35 videos on the YouTube channel about how to do this too. So if we don't hit on something in this, I'm certain we could get you something. All right, so I see Emily, so I'll just turn it over to Emily.
First posting those questions, those prompted questions in the chat. So if you guys forget, I just posted them for you.
Beautiful, thank you.
Okay, so this has not been an area where I've put, I think, as much time as I would like to. And I think that's just the reality of kind of balancing my day job with the side hustle of writing a book. That's okay though, because I think that as I mentioned with the podcast in particular being a bit of surprise, I've been through the podcast able to curate a number of really high valuable relationships with folks that would be great to have in my network. And so as the time comes, as I get closer to the book, I will definitely be leaning on that. But I think for me and my niche audience, I think I need to. I think that actually might be a better focus is connecting with thought leaders that have their own kind of circles of influence in the business world, rather than kind of going through the whole big email list and all that kind of stuff. I do want to do that, and I have very lightweight plans to do it, but have to be reasonable about what I can actually accomplish. So taking baby steps. But once the book's out, too, I think I'll have a lot more opportunities to go on speaking, kind of gigs, participate in conferences, all those sorts of things. So I think the momentum with my particular space will build over time.
Yeah, I love that that's where you're going with this, because I think when you don't already have a platform, you really. Networking with people who do is the smartest thing you can do. And it's the reason my first book went to number one on Amazon in Canada was because of the network I had. I mean, my newsletter. I did have a newsletter list. It was about 10,000 people at the time, so it wasn't nothing. But that's not enough to go to number one. It was really all the people, many that Michael and I actually know in common, but it was all of those people who promoted the book that drove it to number one. So it doesn't have to be your audience. And you're also right in that we even call it a phased momentum launch. So your initial launch, you leverage whatever you have in your network, but then going forward, every podcast interview, every time you speak, you're growing, you know, your focus actually becomes growing your email list and secondarily, you know, selling your book so that you can. Because you can always sell your book to the email list later. So. Yeah, so that's awesome. You're. You know, in my view, you're doing exactly what I think will work really well for you. So that's awesome. Thank you. Emil, you're next. Who I see, so I'll turn it over to you.
There we go. Yeah. Is this about growing an email list still?
Yeah. What have you done to build an author platform? And do you have a specific tip you would like to share?
Okay, I actually don't. We've had mailing lists for about 30 years, and we have about on. We started on hard copies all those years ago, sending out newsletters we would. We would get emails from. I was doing a lot of concerts, so we would always have a piece of paper there that you could sign up. When I was doing concerts on a regular basis, like 30 a year at the merch table, we would have sign up for our email list, and then we would send, you know, send it out first it was a hard copy list and then we changed over to email and so on. My, I've had a website for forever as well, and I don't know, I'm not the one who grows the email list, but I'm fortunate that my wife does the business end of things. And so I don't have any good suggestions except that we've been doing it for so long that we now have about 10,000 on our email list. And I don't have anything helpful to add that Julie and Emily didn't already say.
That's fine, thank you, Emil. I think everybody just likes to hear what other people are doing. So what you've done, I think that's very valuable what you shared. So thank you, Michael. I see you next.
Yeah, I also have a pretty solid database from my years as a realtor and all of the people I've met. But one thing that I had a lot of success early on with, which was a lot of fun, which helped to sort of bring everyone together, was I had a pretty fun launch party. And that was something that was. I had to be creative because I had this, this image in my head that I was going to rent a hall and I was going to have people and I was going to do some different speaking things. And, and like I, and then, and then just the thing about investors that's so awesome is you just bring them together, you talk about about three minutes and then they just entertain themselves and it's really great and they think they have a fantastic time. So that was not an option in, in the Zoom world. So I ended up hiring a, a magician to entertain in between. And we had a whole about an hour and 15 minute event. And, and so that was, that was a lot of fun. And, and then the other thing that I did was, I don't know if it was book launchers or, or someone else, but, but they were suggesting the idea of bulk, bulk purchases. And that's something that, you know, again, depending on your industry, it's sometimes a little more difficult. But I started offering a little bit of consultation for people if they bought 10 books or 20 books and stuff like that. And so I had a whack load of people that ended up buying 10 books. And so I've been giving them some advice afterwards and such. And sometimes there are other realtors or just simply investors or, or what have you. They were buying 10 books so they can get a free consultation with me, which was kind of cool. The one, well, I guess this is a good, in hindsight this is a good problem to have. But at the time it was really frustrating, was on launch day, I guess Amazon and Ingram didn't talk to each other enough and so they ended up saying that I was sold out of books and that was, that was a bit of a challenge. So if you think you're going to have a really good launch day, you definitely want to talk to Julie ahead of time to make sure that doesn't happen. That would be a bit of advice I'd have because it was a good problem because I did sell I don't know how many books on launch day, but it was the hundreds of books and then, like I said, they sold out. That made me cry. Really?
Yeah. It's frustrating when that happens because they don't just say delivers in a few days, then they get the four to six weeks or completely sold out. So you can't even sell the book. So it is frustrating. But at the same time, you broke them. Like you sold so many. You broke them.
Yeah. Then they started selling out of Britain and they were doing like six week delays and they were charging people an extra $10. And I had some people that bought 10 books at that price. And so anyway, it was one of these things that was a fun, awesome day. But again, that's the only thing. If you think you're going to have a really good launch, there might, I don't know, is there something I could have done differently had I known it was going to do that well or what? I don't know.
Not really. I mean, there's some timing, things that may have been better, like Chapters. We'd already been trying to get the Chapters listing, but we could have been directing people to then buy Chapters instead. But it wasn't listing, it wasn't listed. The physical book wasn't listed at Chapters yet because Chapters had not responded to that listing. So some of those things, you know, this is where I'm always telling people a six to eight week launch, pre launch period is really important for Canadians. But also some of the things like that we were doing on our side, the timing was tough because, you know, with this pandemic, people are not as staffed as they should be for their business. And so we're not getting responses to issues as quickly as we used to. So everything I think is just give yourself a little bit more time than you think. And sometimes we've advised people to have their launch party the day after launch so that the kinks can be worked out from launch day. And it's still a launch party, but that's the other thing that we have been doing with some people because a lot of these little glitches come in on launch day, but they're ironed out two days later or even the next day sometimes. But yeah, and your launch party was awesome. Like, the magicians were so fun. So you did, you did a really, really great job.
And I guess my advice to anyone who's ever thinking of doing it is, even if it's outside of their comfort zone, is just, you know, this is a once in a lifetime or twice in a lifetime thing. Put yourself out there and just have some fun with it. And, and what was so awesome with these guys is they had experience with like, I was going to try to run the Zoom call myself, and I'm not a tech tech, I'm a tech idiot. So I don't know how to do any of that stuff. So I was thinking, oh boy, am I going to hire someone like it? So these guys were a one stop shop and they actually helped to put it all together for me and, and made me look good. And, you know, that's, that's all that really matters at the end of the day. So, you know, it was, again, I, I, to be fair, I had to spend a fair bit of money to do it. And then I, and the other thing I've been doing is my, my database is growing because of my website and my Facebook. Facebook. And that's grown. But yeah, it's, it's, you know, spending a lot of time and advertising and money has helped me get there, but just persistence and, and then also the other thing I'm really nagging about is a lot of reviews. I'm trying to get more and more reviews because apparently they say reviews breed success kind of thing, so, so I'm still not at 50 reviews yet. I'm working on it, but it's been harder than I thought to get reviews. And it's people that I know really well and they're not getting reviews. And then I'm, I'm helping them out and I say, okay, I'm gonna help you out, but you got to do a review like now. And so they do.
Thanks. Thanks, Michael. I appreciate it. Guy. What are you. I just muted myself again. It just seems to be my reflex. I'm, I'm.
Can you hear, can you hear me?
Yes. Yeah.
Okay. I have been on close to 10 podcast interview, so I usually mention my website and also I comment on other people's posts and then drop them to my website and encourage them to sign up on my email list. And so that's how I do it. So I'm getting better. Every time that I post on Instagram, it goes to my Facebook and goes to my website. So that's how I'm getting people. Great.
Thanks, guy. Todd, do you have anything to add before we go to a new question?
You know, the thing I think I would add is I'm kind of in a weird place with it because I was writing when I was really sick and I was trying to get my health together. So I was trying to get everything done with that before. I put a lot of time into a mailing list, and I put a lot more time into Instagram, where I have quite a few followers there, But I haven't pushed the email list a lot yet. And so that'll be my next big step now that I have a little more energy and health to push in that direction. So. But I'm also noticing a little bit of a different thing, because people that are, like, quite a bit younger than me, they don't read their email. And as I ask them, I've noticed that. And so I'm like, well, I want to reach people like my clientele who tend to be older than me. They look at their email a lot. And then people that are younger than me, like with Instagram and YouTube and Facebook and TikTok and all those things I'm looking into now.
So it's funny you say that, because we just had a client recently who said, oh, no, I've never read any of your emails. Of course she's a client. So we're sending her things specific to her book, and we're wondering why we're not getting responses. And finally, somebody had a frank conversation. She goes, oh, no, I don't open any of those. So you're on the right track because, yeah, even when you're paying something apparently to send you emails, sometimes they don't read them. Okay, so there was a couple questions that came in. So less. You asked a couple questions, direct message. And I think they might be more for me. So we might leave those to the very end. But I'll just answer this one question because some people might also be wondering this. So he's asking, how do you recover the email address from people who purchase your book from Amazon? And the answer is, you don't. Amazon does not give you any buying information whatsoever. All you get sold is one unit sold. You don't get to know in the United States. You can narrow it down to state, there's some bookscan data inside of your Author Central account. So you'll get some state data, but other than that, you don't know anything. Even with Ingram, you won't know if it was a sale through Barnes and Noble or through some other outlet like you. You don't get that information. You just get unit. You get to find out whether it was an audiobook, an ebook, a hardcover, or a softcover. And that's it for collecting email addresses. What I do personally, because I run some ads to book ads and I don't want to try to predict conversions when I'm running ads. So I use Lulu and I set up my book through Lulu and Shopify, and then that contact information actually does end up in our email database. So I'll post a video on using Lulu to sell through your website, which is what we do for any ads that we run to sell books. But otherwise you don't get. Amazon's not going to give you their data. It would be nice, but they're not going to give you their data. All right, so, Angela, what do we have next?
Next.
Yeah, so this question, and I did find Todd. Both of your covers were done by Cassie, so I went back in and looked. But this question was specifically for you, Todd, from Carol. It says, how did you get into cranial sacral therapy? Are you a physical therapist?
So I'm not a physical therapist in that term, but I do work that's pretty similar, just a little outside the normal pathway. So I went through massage school and then Rolfing school and then cranial sacral school and visceral manipulation school. And I was trying to find my way to figure some of my own problems out, which were a little outside the normal physical therapy paradigm. So I needed things for helping organs, and I needed things for helping the lymph system and immune system and things like that. And so it took me on this interesting journey in a way that's pretty unusual. So I don't know anyone who has the same skill set as me because I just keep learning more and more things and going all over I can, anywhere I can to learn things.
Okay, as far as next questions, Julie, I know you answered one from Leah, in case you already answered the second one, just let me know. But the second one I had noted from them was, who do you recommend for new authors for pod?
Okay, so POD is print on demand. And if you haven't read my book, self publish and succeed. I lay out our exact kind of distribution plan that we use for the majority of our clients. That would be the best way to kind of go through it because it really is a decision tree of what's most important to you. But the short answer is almost everybody gets uploaded to KDP Print, as well as IngramSpark and everybody here. Well, not Emily because she's not there yet, but she soon will be, and she'll be up uploaded to IngramSpark and KDprint. But everybody else that has talked today, that's where they've been uploaded. Les, do you want to unmute? Because I think your question's coming up next. And ask, there's a couple questions you asked about placing your book in the market, and I actually don't really understand the question, so it'd be great if you could unmute and just go ahead and ask.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
What I was just saying is, can you. Can you specifically put your book alongside of others who have a similar book or some. A group of people out there that, you know, other than Amazon that starts that they can. People can see you maybe, maybe more directly. I don't know how to say this. It's. How do you. Can you put it. Can you identify with others who are in a similar group of authors so that you can be seen rather than just in the normal Amazon kind of spectrum of books?
Okay, so I think what I'm hearing is kind of category. So we do category research. So we're figuring out what category your book will go into. And that serves a lot of purposes. One is so the librarians know where to shelf it, where it's going to go. Also bookstores, when you get bookstore distribution, they'll know where to put your book. And then, of course, with Amazon and any online retailer, the same thing. So. So that category research is really, really important. Some people have used category research to game Amazon, which is something I'm always recommending against for this exact reason, is it's far more important that you're with the books that you should be with than that you're in a category that you're going to get that orange bestseller flag for a day so that you can post on social media and get a dopamine hit for a minute. So I don't know if that quite answers your question. But. But category research is really, really important. And we do it pretty early on so that we have all the competition data and we are also able to feed the metadata for the book.
I've just been. The reason I asked is I've been giving opportunities to be on other kinds of sales programs that have more speaker orientation and that kind of thing. Is that important?
Yeah, I mean it is for sure, but I don't think like. Yeah, I'm not sure. I guess I'm just not quite understanding the question. But it's always important to know what books are similar to yours. And even one of the things we were talking about for holiday selling recently is putting a list of the 10 books for your ideal reader and having your book be one of those 10. And that just is really essentially like these are the books that my book fits with. Well, there's.
I've been approached by people like leadership books where they have a whole bunch of very high powered leaders and to be seen in that group as opposed to just in the Amazon. That's what I was trying to get to.
Oh, I see. It depends on how much they're charging for this because that to me sounds like a sales pitch. So is there a fee?
Yeah, yes, you can get it as low as $77 a year.
And who sees it?
Hard to say, you know.
Yeah, I don't.
But it's high powered speaker, you know, speaker people. I mean they're, you know, everybody in the speaker bureau.
Right. I don't know. I'd have to look at it more deeply to really be able to help you with that because it's.
I'll send you the link so you can.
Sure, yeah, yeah, send it my way. I mean, in general, to kind of make it applicable to everyone. I would say that, you know, we put a lot of books in catalogs. I don't know, as though, like very rarely do I actually think the catalog is leading to a bunch of sales. The goal with a lot of the catalogs is to get exposure to the bookstores and the libraries and to start the distribution that way. But some of the catalogs and some of those listings are extremely expensive and nothing happens. So it really comes down to the quality of the catalog and the match for you and your book. So we'll probably leave that there. But I think if you want to send that to me, I'll take a closer look.
One other question I have for you is once you're in Ingram, and I think my next my new book is going to be in Ingram and Spark. And what's the chances of getting into the libraries?
Yeah, it's really, really high. I have a video out recently that I think it's out recently. I did a live stream recently that broke down how to get into Libraries. So I'll post that link for you. Yeah, thanks for being Here. Angela, do we have any questions for the authors? I want to kind of go back to them since they. They've given us their time.
Yeah, okay, let me. Let me go back to my list.
So.
I apologize if I mispronounce your name from Aria. It says, do you have recommendations in marketing a new book?
Sorry, my dog's barking.
Sorry.
Staying on muting, but yeah. So why don't we go. I mean Emily hasn't launched her book yet, but I think. Oh, I hear a voice.
I'm sorry, this is Araya. Angela, what was your question?
I'm sorry, Oreya. Sorry, I was repeating back the question that you had asked earlier. Let me pull it up again. Do you have recommendations in marketing a new book? So I pose that to the authors that we have.
Yes, I. Can I say something really quick? My apologies. My new book is entitled Silent Freedom. A memoir of service with the 101st Airborne Division in assault in Iraq. And I really want that book. I want to see aphids carry that book. It's a patriotic world. Look, I'm a veteran and I served in Iraq four years and I was surprised when I filled out the application. I received a response saying that they deal with large publishing companies and to self published book, but now they have kind of like restrictive requirements that they deal only with large publishers. Has any one of you experienced that?
Yeah, I don't know if any of our authors, you know, because I want to bring all the questions back to our authors and I think most of them have come to us at early to later. You know, their book was either first draft or idea when they came to us. If anybody, if any of the authors are here, have anything they want to comment on that, you know, feel free to let us know. I only see a few people. Few of you. My screen keeps changing, but I'm assuming. I'm assuming not. I'm seeing nothing on their faces and I'm definitely seeing nothing on GI's.
But no, no, no.
I do have a. Oh, sorry.
When you're done, I do have another question.
Go ahead. I want to make sure we give. Give them one more question each and then we can. I'll do a couple cleanups and wrap up from there.
Perfect. And I can also post the Amazon links for the authors. Except Emily's concerns is coming out soon, but for the other four as well. Okay, so this question is from Kat and it says if you are in a particularly niche field and in general the overall audience tends to be a much smaller demographic than others, is it Realistic to consider writing a book for building your business.
Oh, great question.
Yeah, really good one.
All right, Guy, you're talking. So you can keep going.
No, I mean, that's a great question, actually, because we write also to pass our message, so it's important that you consider. But a small niche. Depend on the size of it. I mean, if we use writing books to sell books, then you have to consider the size of your niche. I would say it depends. It's very difficult to answer that question because. Yeah, it depends who is going to benefit from your book, your message, who's going to buy. That's very important. That's our answer to that question.
Not sure if it would help, Guy, but I'm a medium and it's about brave parents and finding purpose after child loss. So I don't know if that would help you define a little more in terms of how niche the audience is.
Yeah, yeah.
I have something I might want to mention. I was at a music conference one time, and the speaker said he was talking about his band was in a very, very small niche market. And. But he said if you had just 1,000 fans and they spent 100 bucks a year, that's $100,000. He was talking about the fact that many musicians say, my music is for everybody. And it's not, of course, but if you're in a very. He was writing for Japanese anime music, but that's a large field. But he had a very specific thing that he was doing. But what I liked was the viewpoint. You don't have to please everybody, but you can make a very good living and get and reach a lot of people. If you have a dedicated fan base that is not necessarily huge, but they like you enough to buy your product.
Yes, that's exactly what I was kind of thinking is a lot of people think it's very rare somebody thinks their topic is too niche. They're usually thinking that or, sorry, it's rare that people think. Are thinking that way. They're usually, like, going wide. And I would rather you have a really focused niche, especially to start with, because it's so much easier to market and connect with them and have people go, yes, this book is my. Like, this is for me. So that. And it's exactly what you said, Emil.
So thank you.
That was a good. A beautiful summary.
Any.
I think. I don't even think there's much more to add to that because I think Emil nailed it. Is there another question, Angela? Michael, do you want to say something?
Well, yeah. Well, just to reflect that One of my early mentors taught me years ago is to make your big. Your business larger, you should make your focus smaller. And I use that in my real estate business to focus on investors. And so, so what I did was I focused really hard on a small number of clients, and then I worked the hell out of those clients. And I used the same mindset with my books. So that was, again, much along the same line. But to make your business larger, you make your focus smaller.
Okay, cool. Great quote. Love that. Emily. Todd, do either of you have anything you want to throw in there?
Yeah, I was definitely hesitant to niche down, I think, because, you know, when you think about, okay, business books, books for managers, books for first time managers, books for first time managers for millennials, books for who are first time people manager, millennials. Specifically in tech, it was, like, frustrating because I'm like, I feel like I'm leaving so much out on the table. But with within that category, there is a lot. And if you think about that buyer, that buyer has money and has influence and is growing. And so it helped me really figure out, like, who am I talking to and how do they want to consume this information and then be less afraid that, like, oh, if I curse or if I talk about pop culture, if I quote Lizzo, for example, like, this person's not going to get that, but my reader will. And they're going to be so much more excited to connect with the book. So it helped me write a better book, but I think the category is actually pretty big.
Yeah, that's awesome. Todd, did you. Do you have anything you wanted to say?
Maybe one thing, you can really use a book like a business card almost, that shows a lot of the information that you might be able to give or services you might be able to apply to people. So it may not be necessarily you make the money on the book, but you make it by showing what you can do through the book and people having seen what it is and what it looks like.
Yeah, that's such a good point. And with my first book, a lot of the value, I mean, I did actually make quite a bit of money from the book sales, but the real value came in people who'd read it and they went, oh, I need to hire you as my coach. Or here's my $250,000. Will you guys go invest it? Because they'd read our process, right? They didn't have any questions. They trusted us after reading the book and they'd read about the process that we followed for our investing. So I think that applies to a lot of businesses.
So yeah, that's great.
Is there anything to do for rapid fire Angela? Otherwise I'm going to wrap this up. As everyone saw, I have an anxious assistant in my office that is ready for mommy to pay attention to him. And I'm sure all of you have lots to do this Saturday as well. Any, any. Is there a question that would work as a rapid fire to wrap things up?
Oh, that was the last question and it was a really great question to end on. So I'm going to be posting emails, Todd's Michaels and Keys Amazon links in the chat so you guys can copy and paste those into a browser, check out their book. But that was the last question.
Okay, fantastic. Well, huge, huge. Thank you. While Angela's posting all those links to your book and Emily, please post where you'd like people to connect with you so they can follow your journey as your book launches. And we'll make sure that everybody gets that as well in an email follow up too. But thank you so much you guys for sharing so generously of your experience and your time today. So thank you. Emily, Emil, Michael, Todd and Guy. I got the five of you, didn't I? It's tough in this view. I'll go back to the bigger view so I can have seats more of you. Yeah. It was so wonderful to hear about your guys experience and have you share this with everyone. I know there's been lots and lots of comments from people saying this was fantastic and thank you and I can really relate to that. So I know a lot of people got a tremendous amount of value. So thank you everyone for being here. And we're not doing one in November because we're going to do one early in December. It's our annual holiday extravaganza, Deep dive Q and A. So we'll have a selection of folks from our team that will be here to answer any and all questions. And we will also have bunch of swag that we will be giving away which we didn't give away your guys books today so we'll have to do that after. We'll do that via email. We'll come up with some way to give away the books via email. But I had meant to do that but I was so focused on the content you guys are giving today that I forgot to do the book giveaway. So we'll make sure we can do that once we can give Emily's away too. You all right? Thanks everybody. Have a fantastic Saturday and thanks again for being here. Bye.
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