Nail the Hook of Your Book - Workshop It Today!

All right. Hello, happy Tuesday! You guys hearing me okay? Okay, Angela's giving me a thumbs up behind the scenes, so that's good. All right, today we're going to work on your hook, so hope you guys are ready for workshop style, because that's what we're going to do today. Um, and I'm going to take you through some stuff, uh, that I did with NSA Georgia last week, and I got emails after that. People said they had breakthroughs. Some people had breakthroughs even on their talks, let alone their books. And so that's why I thought, you know what, let's just do that today. But before I do that, I want to take you back to kind of a specific sound from my childhood. It wasn't an alarm clock or a school bell. It was a doorbell in the middle of the night, often. Because I grew up in a 20-room motel on the side of the highway in rural Alberta, Canada, in a little itty-bitty town that was literally in between Calgary and Medicine Hat, which, you know, most people are probably familiar with Calgary, you know, Canadians here probably have heard of Medicine Hat, and it was literally in the middle on Highway 1. And that motel, my house was actually attached to the motel. We actually lived in one of the motel rooms at the beginning until my parents made enough money to actually be able to afford to build the house, which we then lived in, but it was attached to the motel. So, you know, my parents didn't ever go to work, right? We lived inside of the work. And when the doorbell rang at 2 AM, if, if there was vacancies, my dad would throw on his blue velvet housecoat and go down those stairs and rent a room to somebody. And I worked in the motel from basically as soon as I was big enough to carry a clothes basket, I was stripping beds. And I don't know what age actually I was, but as soon as I could see over the counter, I actually checked people in. And I used to— my parents used to hire a babysitter not to run the motel. I would run the office when they were out, and the babysitter would just be there for my safety to watch over me because my parents didn't feel comfortable leaving, you know, a 12, 13-year-old, even a 14-year-old, probably um, you know, alone running the business as strangers came in and out, you know, renting rooms and getting ice and all of those things. And, um, one of the things I was thinking about the other day, besides the fact that, you know, I learned a lot watching my parents, you know, trade sleep, uh, privacy, you know, lots of their hours of time for a room rental, and, you know, a lot of the lessons that I learned from there, I could I could share so many insights, but one that I was thinking about the other day, because I've been thinking a lot about authors creating intellectual property with their book, and I was really thinking about the fact that they were selling a product. It was a bed. It was a bed, a room, you know, whatever you want to say. And there was a limited amount we could do to make money, right? They could sell 20 rooms, and, you know, they would— they were actually full a lot as in the older— in as I got, you know, in the teen years. In the early years, I think it was pretty lean, but, um, but they were full a lot. And so they, in order to generate extra revenue, they would do things like sell sell food from the office, and they would sell, you know, pop, and, you know, we would collect pop bottles. And so there wasn't a lot of things you could do to actually generate more revenue from the motel. And, and this is an interesting situation because one of the things I get really excited about is the scalability, not of selling books, because listen, your book is a product. While there's not a limit on how many books you can sell, it, it's not an easy thing to go from selling, you know, zero and having no audience to selling millions. But that intellectual property that you create with your book, now that has scaling potential. And, and that's what I wanted— that's why I wanted to talk about the hook today, because as I was thinking about this, I was thinking about IP, like intellectual property, is really the thing about books that kind of breaks you out of focusing on a product and being able to scale. And, you know, the other piece of this is that story, right? The fact that I grew up in a motel. I'll actually show you a picture of the motel, um, if I can remember how to share here. One second, let me just go and share a file for you. I'll show you a picture of the motel, and then I actually have a few slides to walk you through for the workshop portion of this. Um, let me see. I don't want to share Chrome tab, I want to share Where— oh, here it is. Okay, um, so this is not the right slide, just gonna scroll forward and find— this is my NSA Georgia presentation. There is my motel. So that is the thing. I'll make it nice and big for everyone so you can see the motel that I grew up in. Um, glamorous, right? It looks, it looks phenomenal. So that house on the left, that was my house. Oops, and I just clicked the wrong button for you guys here. Going forward, this is just a snapshot of a couple of the slides we're going to do today, but this is just a snapshot of the, of the presentation. So yeah, this is the motel. So my parents' bedroom was, was this room right there up top. Our kitchen was right the, right here, kind of this window, this underneath the motel sign. And there, that was our kitchen, and that was our living room. So, so that's where I grew up. Kind of, kind of funny to think about that. But yeah, so those are stories only I can tell, and The good news is that is one of the differentiation factors that I have over AI. And I think that that is something— oops, I'm going to the wrong slide. I think that's something to really think about for yourself as you write books and you create this intellectual property is like, what is something that only you can write? And that helps you create this intellectual property that is scalable. And so as we kind of dive into the hook, I do this in 3 parts. Because the hook to me has, has multiple goals. Your hook, which you— if you've heard me talk about this before, I've talked about it as the outcome of the outcome. And, and so it's not the first outcome, and it's, it's the second outcome, but then it's not just that. It's for that specific reader with your special sauce kind of layered on. Now, when people start thinking about their book, they often start with something that can lead them in the wrong direction. So before I start talking about hook, I always want to center you around what success looks like for you, because the problem— and I hear this less than we— than I used to, but I still hear it— is a lot of people think, I want to be a bestseller. And that is okay. If you want to check that off your list and go, I made it as a bestseller, that's totally fine. And I will push you to think about what's more— what's beyond that. Like, why is bestseller important? But even more than that, like, if bestseller never happened, but X happened. What makes you think that the book was a big success? For a lot of people, it's like, my business grew. Or I had talked to somebody the other day who said, I am— somebody sees me in the airport and goes, hey, that's the— and I won't say the topic that he's on, but that's the blank blank guy. Um, you know, just like sometimes people recognize me as the Book Broad, right? I do. It is, it is always a little strange. So if you ever do meet me in public, definitely say hello. 'But just preface it with the fact that we haven't met before,' because what has happened to me— it's happened to me several times now— where out of context, so not at an event where I would expect to run into somebody who knows me, um, for example, this happened to me at my gym's pool last summer. Somebody came up to me and started talking to me, and I was sitting there going through my head like, 'Oh my God, she doesn't look familiar at all. Where have I met her? How do I know her?' And eventually in this conversation, it came out that I had never met her. She was somebody who had watched a lot of the YouTube videos and was working on a book and all of that. So definitely say hello. But please, just when you say hello, be sure to let me know that, hey, I've watched a lot of your videos. I'm so excited to meet you right up front. So I'm not panicking on the inside going, am I supposed to know this person? Anyways, all that's to say, your goal probably is that recognition or the impact or growing a speaking growing speaking engagements or building your business, getting leads, you know, growing an audience. There's probably a bigger thing that if your book does that and none of the other things happen, you still feel like your book is a massive success. And so really grounding yourself in what that thing is is super important because it will help guide what you develop as your hook. Okay, what do I mean by that? Well, you're starting with the end in mind. And you will make different decisions based on what that success looks like. Because when you focus on your book as a bestseller, you actually create yourself as the product, which can be immensely stressful and also puts a lot of pressure on you to potentially not even write the book that needs to be written that will connect with the reader. Because now you're really focused on, okay, it has to sell a lot of books, it has to be like this, versus if you write the book that's going to lead to stages It might still be the same stories, but you're slightly adjusting it so that it actually is something that will appeal to the people who would put you on a stage or a brand, right? You're going to tell the stories that really showcase your brand. So that is really important to understand what your bigger picture goal, like what is that singular success metric that you want to have happen? And then, um, and, and I said this already, but remembering that you're creating intellectual property and now more than ever, I think investing in creating a a great product that is a foundation to build upon because it is intellectual property is phenomenal. And this book, by the way, I put this here because this is Nick Hutchison's book, Rise of the Reader. He's been around, he's an Epic Launchers client, and we've worked with him in his agency Book Thinkers as well. And this is his book translated into French by Hachette's French publishing arm. So his book has led to him creating these big events. I'm going to be speaking at his event in July. Um, it's— there's 400 people that he's expecting to be there, which pretty awesome. So if you are in and around or willing to go to the Boston area in July, he's got a, he's got this event on. I don't know if Angela can frantically find the link to it. We're not an affiliate. I'm just, I'm just a proud, I'm just a proud participant. But he's done a great job of turning his book into intellectual property and growing his business from that book and getting paid in a lot of different ways. Because when it's, when you think of it like intellectual property, it can turn into courses, events, it can become, it can be licensed into other languages. So it's pretty phenomenal. All right. So this is the part I want you to have your pen and paper out because I'm going to give you a chance to workshop the hook in a second. And then I want you to share and we'll work through a few of them. I do have a pretty hard stop today. I have to pick up my son and go get his eyes checked. So I know, really exciting, right? But I do want to workshop a couple of people's hooks, and we can continue this conversation inside of our Author Lab over on School afterwards. I will be sure to pop in there tomorrow and work on hooks with, with anybody who wants to participate. But what you want to do now is create this marketing-focused hook. And this is— this hook is the number one reason why we often do not take any books for marketing that have not been with us from editing or earlier. It's because while they might have good stories, they might have good lessons, the book in general might be good, it's lacking this positioning statement. And I worked with the NSA Georgia folks that I worked with last week on this. You know, they're speakers. And so, you know, some of them have really good stories, really honed messages. And yet the first time around with most of their hooks, I was like, that is so generic that it's never going to stand out. Again, you have to remember last year alone, there was almost 4.5 million books with, with ISBNs. So that means there was even more because there's some books that get published in ebook format that don't have ISBNs and even Amazon ASINs. And so they estimated— this report that came out in Publishers Weekly last week, I think they said 3.3 million books were self-published last year alone. Now more than ever, you need to have a really killer positioning for your book so that it doesn't sound like other people's books. And this takes work. Okay, so this is your outcome for the reader. So the first outcome for a lot of people might be motivation or inspiration, and that's fine, but we need to go deeper. After they experience this motivation transformation— or sorry, after they experience this motivation or inspiration, what now happens for them? What's the transformation in their life? And this is where you have to be super specific, and you can only be specific if you understand exactly who they are and why they're going to care about what you specifically have to tell them. So it's really understanding your story, what you're bringing to the table, why you're telling them this story, and who they are. And that's where a lot of people fall down because they're really not clear on who their reader is. They're afraid to go niche with their reader, and so they dilute their message trying to appeal to everyone. And we really, really have to go niche on this in order to stand out and really have somebody, the minute you say your hook, go, oh my gosh, I want to learn more. One of the examples I've been talking about, it's an older one of ours, but it's my favorite example of this, is Michael Brenner. Because he brought us a manuscript that he called The Empathy Formula. And, and, you know, he had had some people give him, you know, honestly, he had some good friends because they told him the truth. But he had some people tell him, hey, listen, nobody's going to buy this book. And he brought it to us and he was like, okay, I just want one last look at this. Like, does this book have any hope? And he was having calls with people on my team and he was telling them his story where he's had like, he had 21 different jobs and all the bosses seemed like they had to be mean in order to get results. Like that's how they acted. They had to be mean. And that's, that's how they got results from their people. And he was just like, mean people suck. And it was kind of this light bulb moment where him and the person on my team went, well, that's it. That's it. Because the reality is who's buying the Empathy Formula? Not the people who need it, right? The people who need empathy, they don't realize they need empathy or they don't want it. But the book Mean People Suck, that's kind of a juicy angle, right? It's something that people can lean into and pay attention to. And ultimately, it's still The Empathy Formula. The subtitle there, which you probably can't read, says how empathy leads to a better life and bigger profits. So it's still The Empathy Formula. It's just packaged with a really compelling, juicy hook that tells you what's in it for you as the reader. And his story of the 21 different jobs and all the bosses that were mean and how he experienced how you didn't have to be like that in order to to get results. That is really what makes this a great packaged piece of intellectual property. All right. So here's where you can start to work on it. I have another, another piece where it's going to be fill in the blank on the next slide. But this is the transformation behind the transformation. So you have to remember that unless you happen to be famous, and if you happen to be famous and you're watching this, I mean, that's amazing. Thank you for being here. I thank everyone for being here. But chances are, if you're watching this YouTube on a Tuesday afternoon or whenever you're watching replay, you are not going to be an A-list celebrity. And, and in that, that means we have to work a little harder to stand out because people aren't just going to pick up the book because our face is on the COVID right? We have to give them a really compelling reason because it's not just about the $15 or $20 they're going to part with. It's about the hours of time that they need to invest in order to consume our message. So they're not buying the topic. They're not even buying that promise. They are buying the promise of how it's going to make them feel, or even more so, who they're going to become as a result of consuming your intellectual property. And so the first outcome is what your book helps someone get or do, right? So even if it's somebody, it helps them make money, right? It's what are they making, why are they making money, like what's the outcome from that money, um, so who, who do they become or what changes in their life as a result of this transformation. And then again, how are you going to uniquely help them with this? We do not want to write any books that AI could write, which means we can't do anything generic, and everything has to have our story and our perspective and our lens embedded into it. And so you got to bring in that lived experience, that tone, and your philosophies of life that you've developed through the life you've lived. One of the things that I love seeing in real time is how when you do this right, it can be an instant light bulb for people who are looking for this. And this is one of our clients that we worked with a few years ago, and she's a phenomenal speaker. And one of my friends who was opening a brand new warehouse for their event— they build the giant booths for like the Consumer Electronics Show and, you know, those like big giant booths that kind of seem like you're walking into an entire experience. So her company builds those for people. So they were opening up a brand a new warehouse space where they build the booths and people can come and look at it. And she wanted a speaker, a mindset speaker. And so she said, who do you know? And I mentioned one person. And then I said, oh, and we have this author. She wrote this book, Head Trash. And it was just like instant. She's like, that one, tell me more. And so I told her a little more and she said, connect me with her. And she didn't ask for the other person's contact information. She asked for Rini's and she said, connect me with her. Rini had to do a proposal, but Rini got the gig. They flew her into Las Vegas and she spoke at the warehouse opening. Because of the title, right? The title was the hook, right? It's the leading killer of human potential, and it's the head trash, right? The, the stuff that we let float around in our minds saying we're not good enough, um, you know, all of that sort of thing. But this hook can be so powerful for everything else. So while my friend never read Rinny's book, Rinny's book got her that speaking gig, and I'm sure many others. So here's the worksheet part, and I'm going to put this here for a second, and then I will come back to it after I touch on reader, and then we'll workshop things. So you, as soon as you have this, you can go ahead and put it in the chat. But there's two ways to go about this, right? There's the, the memoir way, which is kind of the second one, and then there's the typical kind of leadership, self-help, how-to kind of book. And so the pieces in red are what you want to fill in. My book helps, and you want to be specific with your reader, and the first outcome —so they can— and then what's the deeper transformation that that outcome creates for them. Or if it's more of a memoir, you might want to say, through my unique story or my experience or my expertise or this framework, I help your reader achieve the first outcome so they can— second outcome being the deeper transformation. So I'm just going to give you a second to write this down, and then I want to go to just talk about the reader really quickly, and then we'll workshop it. So I'll shut the slides down and come to you guys. Okay. So I'm just going to give you guys a second so you can write this down, and then you can start working on it. Okay, so the piece I want to talk about really quickly before we start working on this is the reader. And I already alluded to the fact that a lot of people are afraid to go too, too specific with their reader. And, and, you know, one of the things I always, I always smile about is when somebody says, well, my book is for women between the ages of 30 and 50. And, and I'm like, all women? Well, yeah, all women. And I'm like, well, okay, um, yes, there's certain things that, you know, probably are very common between the women in that age group. But I said I think we need to go further than that because we, you know, you could take somebody like me and I grew up in that very small town where that motel was. And a lot of my friends that I grew up with, um, you know, that were in my class that were my age, they got married at 20, 21, and they had kids pretty darn quick. Um, I had kids 2 decades later. They are, excuse me, a couple of them are grandmas. And I have a 9-year-old. Most of them still live in and around the town and either work on the farm or pursued kind of smaller— not smaller careers, but like careers where they work at home. They don't— they didn't go work for like a Fortune 500 type company because they're in a small town. That's not available to them, you know. And some of them have not lived anywhere else, or some have only lived where they went to college and that's it. Very different life than what I have lived, as I've lived in 14 different cities around North America and and, you know, have owned multiple businesses and, and now live in Las Vegas. So, and have a young child versus some that are grandmas, and we're all the same age. And so as you start to look at that and break it down, you're going to see that what the things that we're thinking about in the middle of the night, sure, there's probably commonalities about aging parents and, you know, some other stresses of life that are common at this age, you know, changing hormones, like all those kind of things. But ultimately, I can, I'm pretty sure that at least half of what we're thinking about is dramatically different. And so you have to know those things, like what is going on in their head, what are the hopes, what are the fears, what are the dreams. And, and this is important because you're not writing for a demographic, you're not writing for women between the ages of 30 or 50, you're writing for a human. And you're writing for that human, for their emotions, the things that they're afraid of, the things that they're dreaming about having achieved, um, that what they're worrying about. And when you can get into their head and really speak to what they've tried or the outcome they seek and use the words they're using, that is so powerful. And you will immediately make them feel seen. And if you don't do that, you know, one of the things that, that I've started saying lately is if your reader doesn't feel seen, they won't see you or your book. And so it's so important to go deeper and really explain who this reader is, understand what they're worried about, what they're trying to achieve, and how you with your book and that juicy hook that you're working on, how you're going to help them get there. All right. Let me workshop a few hooks before we have to say goodbye. And we still will do a few prizes to wrap things up today. All right. Let's see. Is there anybody that's put one in, Angela?

No, I was just putting that on there that they can ask questions. Well, actually, look, it looks like one just came in from St. John Butler. Okay, cool.

Through my interviews, I expose New Orleans Saints fans to the stories that shaped their 2009 Super Bowl run. Um, so, so I— what's missing here, and please forgive me for being a little blunt because I'm just going to be efficient with time, um, why would I care? Why do I care about the 2009 Super Bowl run and the stories that you're going to tell? So I think we need to get a little bit further into that. Um, and some of this is that I am definitely not a football person, so if it's really obvious to your person why the 2009, you know, run matters, but I would go a little deeper into that, um, and, and just kind of work on that little piece because the exposed part hints at something, but it doesn't really give me the, the experience or the transformation that I'm really going to go for. So that's— I would just keep working on it a little bit.

That's the only one that we've gotten so far, and I haven't seen any questions about it yet either.

Okay, cool. I saw somebody say something. I was at a funeral when a woman started hugging me because she'd read my book. Oh, that's amazing! I love when things like that happen. And this is something I always talk about too when we do our panels and we host our authors. So many people, when they set out on this journey, they think that it's going to be, you know, the money or the speaking engagements or the business growth. And when I ask them what was the most surprising thing that came about, or what was the best part of becoming an author, it was like when I met a stranger or I got an email or a letter from a stranger and my book had helped them or changed their life. Like 100% of the time, that is the thing that people, you know, really kind of go, oh my gosh, that was the best part, was I helped somebody I never would have met otherwise or never would have been able to impact or connect with otherwise through my book. That is 100% of the time the, the impact result that people feel and love. All right, who's else? Who else has a hook? Uh, at— with, uh, NSA Georgia, they couldn't stop. I was like on online forever. Why don't we do a prize while we're waiting? Um, let's see if I can get— I'll actually leave that to you, Angela, because I've messed things up sharing the PowerPoint today. Can you bring up the, the StreamYard prize screen for me, please? Yes, sure.

Give me just a second.

Jennifer Henry says, today somebody told me that somebody was in love with my, uh, my male character Ted. Um, oh, this is good. So, so Kevin Hall, by the way, Kevin has a book launch today, everybody. Congratulations, Kevin. He has a book— I'm going from memory here, but I think it was Book Marketing on a Budget. Or something like that. So check out Kevin's latest book. Um, all right, and then it says, what if the title ties to the book page layout? For example, my next book is Grace and Love. Inside, Grace on left-hand page, uh, I'll love on the right side. I'm not totally sure I understand this question. Um, and I guess maybe because I'm thinking hook versus title and layout. So is it The title, um, are you saying the title is the hook? So I need a little more information, Kevin.

Okay, okay, I'll go ahead and share while he's, uh, typing that.

He said that Kevin said hello yet. Say hello because these are the prizes. Um, Angela, did you get the Maxes yet? Did you get the box?

Yes, I did. I got it on Thursday or Friday.

Did you, did you open it and see one of the Maxes?

They're so cute. I don't have them with me though. I can go off screen and grab one.

It's okay, you don't have to. Um, we won't give one away today, but I was just curious.

Yeah, no, they're super cute. I love them. Okay, sorry, that took a hot second. There we go. Okay, if you haven't yet said hello, this is your very last chance to do so. Surprises—

what do we have for prizes today?

Um, we have our Oh So Soft journal, hashtag No Boring Books mug. Can't be me, so we're gonna have to draw again.

Just go in here. Go in your closet and pick out something real nice for yourself.

If that's the case, I'm choosing one of those. Um, we have copies of Julie's book, Self-Publish and Succeed, Self-Promote and Succeed. Um, I also have some other book copies in my possession that I have authors' permission to give away, so we can use those as well. I think I've got a couple more of Nick Hutchison's book, which Julie had just mentioned earlier, and a couple others that I can do as well. If you are outside of the US though, uh, it will be a digital copy copy. So, um, we would get you a digital copy of either Julie's, um, Self-Publish and Succeed or Self-Promote and Succeed. You might have one or two others in there as well. So let me draw again. Hopefully that removes my name from the lineup. I think it should. Yes. Let's see.

What? How is that possible? That's never happened. It's supposed to remove the winner.

Well, I think it's because it says Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook. Oh, maybe. If it's the Twitch one now, then I need to go buy a ticket.

Okay, Gary, congratulations, Gary. Well done. That icon, it reminds me so much of my sweatshirt that you made for me. It's awesome. All right, so Gary, you know the drill. Email Angela at team@booklaunchers.com and let her know which prize and where to send it. And you are a winner, Angela, for sure. Okay, I saw one more here, and then I— like I said— oh no, this might not be a hook actually. It's— Estella's having trouble putting her hook, so I just said come on over to the Author Lab. I'm gonna, I'm gonna workshop anybody who will start a thread in school today. Actually, Angela, can you do it when we hang up the live? Because I'm gonna have to rush out. Um, so she'll— Angela's gonna start one with the— probably the video, just post this video in there. And, and I will work with you. Anybody who wants to post a hook for the net for the rest of this week, I will personally go in there and work on your hooks with you in there because I do have to rush today. And, and I would love to work on these hooks with you. And I know Stella's having trouble posting hers, so I will work with you on there and, and do it. And, and Kevin will take it over to school as well to discuss more. So come on over to the Author Lab and we will work on hooks for the rest of the week over there. And because this is so important to your, not just your book's success, but your positioning and standing out in this market. But like I said, once you get it right, it will— you'll know it's right because when you tell people, especially if they're in your reader category, they're going to lean in and go, okay, tell me more, this is cool, I want that book, I need that book. And when you get that, you know you've got it right. All right folks, I can't wait to see you again next week. Oh, by the way, We do have some really cool things happening this week. Real quick, on Thursday, I believe it's Thursday, Shane is doing a webinar with Kit on how to get your first 1,000 email subscribers. So that is going to be a great workshop. So definitely check it out. Angela will put the link in here and I'll get it into the description later today. Also on Friday, we're also doing a session with AccuTrack, who is our print book fulfillment company. They do TikTok Shop book fulfillment as well. And that one is on from going from book to brand. So that is going to be a great session as well. Both are free, so you can hop into those sessions. And then I will be back here next week, same time, same place, for, uh, live. And we're only doing 2 lives in April. It'll be this one, and then the other one will be the end of the month on the school platform doing the state of publishing. So We did it. Have a fantastic day, everybody, and I can't wait to see you again next week, and I'll see you over in school. Let's work on hooks. Bye.