How to REALLY Make a Lot of Money from Your Book (Like 6 Figures) with Honoree Corder

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now. Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and today I have the absolute distinct pleasure to have Henri Corder on the show, who is an incredible author. She's written tons and tons of books. I think it's over a dozen now, right? Honoree?

Over 30.

Over 30. So several dozen books. I'm way behind. And she's a professional ass kicker. She's an optimist. She's an incredible collaborator. And we're just super happy to have another marble maker on the show coming in from Austin where it's not super hot right now, thankfully, it's the middle of the winter.

It is not super hot is an understatement. Yes.

Yeah. So, Henri, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Let's first get people kind of oriented and get the coordinates right. Let's talk a little bit about your heroine's journey, if you will, from where you've been through your life. Because I think people, you know, they see all the books, they see all the things that you've done, how successful you are, it's harder to relate to that. But everybody can kind of relate to the. To the story of the failures that got you here. So why don't we just kind of get people oriented to that?

All right, so I'll give you my list from my TEDX talk. So foster kid, divorcee, single mother, no college education. I think that's good enough. There's enough tragedy in those few words, right?

Yeah. Well, hey, I mean, everybody's got their story, right? I was, you know, When I was 2, my dad was injured, mom had to leave, you know, had to work as an entrepreneur to support ourselves when I was a young kid. Get a bunch of jobs, figure it out. Basically, you know, we are dealt the cards we were dealt. And whatever you do with those cards becomes your life.

Absolutely perfect. Yes.

Thankfully, we all have free will and free choice. So when was the first time you fell in love with writing?

Well, I don't know the answer to that question. Actually, I think a really good answer to that question is after I had written a few books and I realized how I'm always looking at where do I find the joy and the passion and the energy from something and where am I pushing the boulder uphill? Because when I. Something feels too hard for me, that's a sign that I need to stop doing it. Yeah. And I realized that writing and writing books and that whole entire process of there's always a new nuance to discover something else to discover, and then there's the feedback from writer readers. That was really cool. I just really liked it. So I decided I wanted to do it full time. So that was right before my 40th birthday. So I would say that would be the time when I realized, hey, this is one of the more fun things that I do. I want to do it all the time. How about that?

So you basically write every day at this point?

I write every day from 6 to.

7Am and how many words can you crank out in an hour?

Sometimes it's 500 if I'm doing some intermittent research. And sometimes. Sometimes it's 5,000.

Wow, that's impressive. Yeah, I timed myself. I did it for 30 days once. I did an hour every day, and I got up to about 2,000 words a day. I thought that was amazing. 5,000 level.

Well, 5,000 if I'm dictating. So I use drag and dictate. So I have a Mac, but I run VMWARE on my Mac so I can dictate words. And I have word gusts of up to 500 words a minute. I'm kidding. That's a high number. But I do talk fairly quickly.

The poor software can't keep up.

Yes. The dragon is like, what is happening right now? Explode. Yeah.

I love it. I love it. So you're like basically the queen of dragons is what you're telling me from.

You know, I don't know. I have some fiction writer friends who go for power walks and walk six miles and dictate, you know, 10,000 words or something. Ridiculous.

So right around Thanksgiving, I got so fed up with nonfiction. I read so many of those books this year. Last year, I should say that I asked online and actually, you know, book in a box. I'm sure Tucker, Max and those guys. Yeah. So Tucker actually reached out and said, oh, you gotta read. I was just looking for something long, epic. That's like, you know, it would take me months to read. So I finally finished it today. His recommendation was the first man in row by Colleen McCullough.

Okay.

And I just finished it, and it's incredible. And now there's four more to read. So I'm gonna be into that series for a while. I'm super excited.

And when you're done read the Martian by Andy Weir. But listen to. Because the production was done by my friends over at Podium Publishing, and the production is unbelievable.

I'll have to re. Listen to that. It was fantastic. I just finished I've read the Martian. I just finished Artemis, his newest one.

Okay.

I really enjoyed that one. Yeah, I really liked it a lot. What are some of your favorite fiction?

Oh, gosh. So my most recent crack reading. Right. So it's the reading where it's like, I'm really tired. It's my miracle morning, but I have to finish reading. I just read a book series by A.C. fuller, which is really good. Like some political action thrillers, which are really fantastic. So. So many. Too many to mention.

I love it.

Yeah.

I just. I think everybody needs a little bit of fiction thrown in for the mix. There's actually a movie being made out of the Miracle Morning, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah, there's a Miracle Morning movie. Absolutely. But to circle back on that fiction, actually from Book in a Box. I can see his face. He's gonna shoot me if he sees this.

Zach.

No.

Charlie.

Charlie. So, Charlie, Charlie.

Owen, dear friend of mine.

Yeah. Dear friend of mine, Charlie wrote Play It Away. And in his book, I hadn't read fiction for years and years and years, and he recommends reading fiction. So now I read fiction for 30 minutes before bed. I come and get in bed before I do my go to sleep meditation, and I read fiction.

So Charlie and I met in Africa for the first time. We had talked on the phone, but the first time we actually spent time together was in Africa. We almost got trampled by donkeys in Africa. True story.

Yeah. So you can't let Charlie die. He's too magnificent.

So I love Charlie to death. Honestly, I gotta have him on the show. I don't know what he's up to nowadays. He's got his.

He's working at Book in a Box.

He's got his job, and he hasn't come on my podcast yet. So. Charlie, come on the podcast.

Come on, Charlie.

Come on, Charlie. Come on. Make more marbles.

As they say in the military. Wtfo.

I love it. Austin's a small place. I'm sure you spend a lot of time with lovely people out there. You get to hang out with Ryan and Sam at all?

Nope.

That's too bad.

What's Ryan?

Ryan Holiday?

No.

Yeah, I just figured all the writers hang out. I guess not. I have this kind of like, Hemingway in Paris kind of like. I feel like Austin's getting that way, like Tim just moved there. A lot of these really great authors are living there now.

I. Tim? Which Tim?

Tim Ferriss.

Oh, yes. I do not know the Tim Ferriss, but I am a fan of the Tim Ferriss. Hashtag awesome. Well, it's funny because I have an author dinner once every two months. Just because authors tend to be introverts and we tend to be at home in our. Me, I'm in my cat pajamas. Not today. I got dressed, but I can't have cats.

I have the kitty. Sniffles. I love cats. They love me. They come right up to me and want to snuggle, but I get the sneezies.

Oh, that's tragic. Well, you need some cat pajamas just for good measure. I'll see what I can do.

And you know, there's like, there's cat people and there's dog people. The dog people all want to hang out together. The extroverts. Right. And then the cat people are like, ah. And they run away and it's not happening for them.

Yes, well, it's how you recharge. I recharge alone. So too many people. I need to come and fill up my cup. So, anyway, I'm sorry you're allergic to cats, and I'm sorry Ryan or Charlie hasn't been on your show. And I'm sorry I'm not hanging out with Ryan and Sam. Yeah. So what can you do?

I just think of people as, in terms of like, their networks and relationships. Right. That's kind of. My thing is I'm a people guy and I always love connecting wonderful people together. So maybe. Maybe it's time for you to meet Ryan. That'd be super fun.

You know what? I have. I think I have met him in person. It's time for me to meet Tim before I moved to Nashville, which is.

Happening that I could certainly send an email, but I don't know. He's a little tougher to get to these days, as things go.

Right. I'm sure.

I'm sure since super busy, victim of his own success in some ways, you know, some good. But I don't think he's suffering. So that's good. And he's certainly helping a lot of people, which I like to see, you know, people using their power for good.

Amen. Amen to that. Yeah. So the Miracle Morning movie is amazing. And Hal is very excited about it. I'm very excited about it.

My friend Teresa is working on the project too. Teresa Larico.

Yes.

She's a lovely lady. She had a tragic incident this year, and she luckily has made a. Mostly a full recovery. So I'm super excited to see her.

Yes.

Yeah. So now that we've talked about all the people, let's talk about all things. Let's make this really clear and present tactical, practical for people. So they should have a book. We get that. Everybody knows that the book is the new business card. Maybe the online course is the new book. Who knows what the next thing is going to be? But for now, written words bound together, undead trees seem to be very practical for people to do. I have two books that I've written that I haven't published yet. One's a collaboration and one's a just, you know, I just feel like I'm still living it, so I'm not ready to say, oh, that's the end of the book yet.

Okay.

You know, for the people listening at home that may or may not be inspired to write a book or feel like they have anything that's worth writing about, I feel like I write 10 books. I just don't have the time personally. But, like, let's say somebody's out there and they have a story to tell, their expertise in some field, like, what is the thing that gets them over the line? Having dealt with a lot of nascent authors yourself, you know, what is the thing you tell them to say, hey, go after it, get after it, make it easy for yourself.

There's a whole lot. There are a whole lot of things in that question. So the first thing is that no matter how busy you are, you have 15 to 20 minutes a day to focus on the process of writing, publishing, and launching and marketing your book, which are four distinct phases that all run together. Everyone would benefit from the process of writing a book and having a book that's indisputable. So I don't know that we need to spend a lot of time there. And if I were talking to someone individually and they said, yes, I have a story to tell, yes, I feel like I have some expertise that I want to share and, you know, what do I need to do next? The next thing is to set a published date in their mind, give it a stop, making the target moving like it's something I'm going to do someday and draw a line in the sand and say, this is when my book is going to come out, and then work backwards from there to produce a professionally done book.

I think it's really important, too, because you can distill 10 years of a life into 200, 300 pages, and then you get the benefit as a reader of all that that's provided it's put together in a way that's, you know, palatable and people can actually get through it and take away the takeaways.

Yes.

What are some of the no, no's. Right. What are the things that people fall into traps with that you would recommend.

Against rushing, taking the cheap and easy way out, not thinking about where the book fits strategically into their business, thinking short term. So I want a best selling book is not the correct answer. You want a best earning book. Ryan did a book called the Perennial Seller.

Yeah. Bestseller.

Yeah. So. And you know, I read that book and agreed with, you know, 96.2% of what he said in that book.

That's specific. I like that number.

Yes. Some people are data people. So I try to.

3.8% of your book I did not agree with.

3.8% of your Book I did not agree with. You know, and who's, you know, my opinion matters to me. But yeah, those are some of just some of the mistakes. They don't get editing. They don't have a proofreader go over the book. So that when you were saying, you know, a book that people can get through. I stopped reading a book 80% of the way through it last night because I just. A fiction, fiction book. I finally just got to the point to where I. The story was disjointed enough. I was kind of like, well, this is an interesting twist and this is really cool. But then they never had the book edited and so it was just too much. Even though it was fun reading for me. So I wasn't trying to judge it. It was just like I felt like I was in a Ferrari in a parking lot with speed bumps. It was like, you know, just when I would start to go, oh, I can't do it. So there are lots of mistakes that people make. There are some critical, you know, half dozen mistakes that people make that will leave them sad and crying in their beer if they make them when they try to write a book.

I like that. And your advice about not rushing, I immediately thought, don't rush. Don't be a Russian. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, they didn't rush. They wrote epic novellas that went on, spanned through.

Correct. They also got it out there, kids. So they also have a published book you can read, which means they set a published date and they said it. There's a difference between don't rush and get that book out into the world. You can always do a second edition. You can always write another book. So sitting on something and saying, I haven't done it for five years is kind of a tragedy. But you can write and publish a book in 30 days or 90 days and do it. Well, I don't think that's accurate because I have my pants on fire. I've done it 30 times myself. More than 30 times myself. And another reason you only had the.

Top half of you on camera, you had your pants on fire. Got it?

Yeah.

My secret is I've been writing it every day on Facebook and putting out to my email list. So, like, if you take the last, I don't know, a year of emails we put out every day, it start. Look, you know, you kind of take away some of the sales emails, it starts to kind of look like a book. And we can start to edit and publish. And I already got a guy lined up for Q2, Q3 to put it together. So I'm pretty excited about it. It's a great process. You just gotta find a way that works for you. Right. Just get into that rhythm. Like you said, just a little bit every day. A surmountable problem. Not like pushing a boulder up a hill.

Correct.

Okay, so books, all right, so people get the idea of writing a book. They understand why it's important. Now, where most people, I think, fumble the ball, myself included, is getting that book from its end state where you're like, okay, I've written the last word and, you know, I know where all the mistakes are. And I'm gonna. They're gonna. I'm gonna judge myself for them for the rest of my life. Now it's like, get that book out into the world. Do you recommend people pre frame the audience with the book or have the audience before they write it or get it out there into the world? What is your general strategy when you give people publishing promotion advice?

Well, so again, you're asking a lot in five sentences or three sentences. So when someone comes to me and they already have their book done in their mind, I ask them a few questions and they realize they don't. Before you put pen to paper, you have to decide who the reader is for your book. You have to decide what you want the book to do. Where does the book fit into your business? What do you want the reader to do or not do as a result of your book? And then you need to frame your book according to that, outline your book, write your book according to that. Most people just go, bleh, okay, I wrote my book, now I want to market it. What Do I do? And it's like, go back and start with a clean sheet of paper and some good questions. So as far as promotion and marketing, those are different conversations. It's different for everyone based on those original questions. What do you want from the book? What do you want the reader to do or not do as a result of that book? If you want people to just buy your book, how are they buying your book? Is it online? Is there a geographic limitation to it? Do you want them to buy your book and then hire you? Are you using the book as a business card or as a replacement for other collateral materials? And then they are going to come and hire you or your firm as a result of that? Lots of different things factor into the promotion and the actual marketing activities.

I like it. And I like to ask a lot of dumb questions so that I get smart answers. That's my strategy. Really?

Excellent. Okay, perfect.

This is an excellent book about this, by the way. If you're not watching the video, it's called book in a box method by the guys over at Book in a Box. So that's Tucker, that's Charlie, that's Zachary, and they kind of lay it out step by step. And they talk a lot about some of these things that honoree is graciously reminding us. It's like, hey, if you don't have a plan, that's a plan to fail, right? Fail. A plan is a fail.

And I have a book called you must write a Book, and the companion workbook, I must write my book, which walks you through.

Bingo.

Some of those things as well.

Where can they find that book, by the way? Is that sold on Amazon? Is that on your website?

It's an Amazon exclusive, actually, yes.

Oh, great. Okay, wonderful.

So.

So, yeah, go to Amazon, check out you must write a book by honor recorder, and you can also write a book.

You must write a book.

You must, you must, you must, you must. I must increase my readership.

Yes.

So, honoree, if you were to have a way to speak to everybody in the world at once right now, you could whisper in all their ears, what would you wish they knew?

The only person standing in the way of themselves is themselves.

The only person standing the way themselves is themselves. So it's not that people can't do things they don't believe they can't do things that they believe that they can't do things.

Correct.

Including writing a book.

Correct.

If you were to start your career over and you couldn't write a book, what would you be doing? What'd you Want to be when you were growing up, I guess is a better question.

I wanted to win the gold medal in the women's marathon in the Olympics.

Are you a runner nowadays? Do you still run? Mm, I do too. I love it. When was the last race?

You know what my last race was? My last marathon. I ran the 99 Honolulu Marathon.

Ooh, Honolulu is nice. Yeah, I. I don't think my body's made to do marathons. It really hurts for like a week after. I don't think I'm gonna be doing a lot.

Yeah, that's not. That's not abnormal even for marathoners, just so you know. Yeah. You don't walk. If you run a marathon on a Sunday, it's like it's not until Tuesday you start walking. Right.

Yeah, I just don't know that's good and sustainable for my knees and joints. As much as I like running, I'd rather do like three to five mile. Just bursts.

Yep. That's what I do. Yep. Yep. I just get it in. It's. I listen to audiobooks and run and it's awesome.

Is that all you do for fitness or do you also work out or.

No, I lift and do yoga and. Yeah, if I wasn't a writer, I would probably do something in fitness and mindset.

Are you a traveler? Do you like to travel?

I do, yeah.

Where's your favorite place to travel? Where would you go over and over again?

Well, I love New York City. I know that's probably not a popular answer, but I love it. Yeah. I lived in New York during my formative years and love New York City.

Where did you live in New York when you were there?

The Upper west side, where all the people live. Hello. 70th in Amsterdam.

Kids, there's a great. On 79th in Amsterdam, there's a really great French brunch place called Nies Matin. Oh, my God. Place that the Five Napkin burger originated. So good.

Okay.

Yeah. Solid, solid. And then my uncle used to be the GM of Zabars for a long time.

Oh, my gosh. Save ours.

Yeah, that was. He was the guy 15 years. He started out sweeping the floors and became general manager.

That's what you do.

Should. Pretty. Pretty impressive. Super fun. He unfortunately passed away when I was quite young, but we had a lot of history with Zabors. Okay, cool. So New York City. Let's describe your perfect day in New York City. How does it look?

Oh, with a run in Central park, obviously.

Okay, great. Way to start.

Six mile loop in Central Park. And then we Would go to H and H Bagels.

Didn't H and H shut down?

I hope not. It's been a minute since I've been. Thanks for breaking my heart today. That's.

Every time I go to New York, something else closes that I used to love. I don't know what that's about. Like the places I all used to go to when I was a kid, gone. What's like Disneyland now? Like everything is a chain or a superstore or whatever.

Yes, correct.

The Disney vacation of New York City. It's a little sad. And most of the cool kids went out to Brooklyn, so Manhattan's kind of like whatever.

Oh, alright. So I would probably go right. Somewhere quiet and then I'd have lunch with one of my friends that lives in New York and then I would go do something else. I don't know, a podcast interview with someone awesome. And then I'd go to dinner somewhere and then the theater.

Are you a big foodie?

Oh, sure, yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

New York's great foodies think I'm a foodie, but I think I'm a foodie. I eat at least three times a day, sometimes seven. So I think that makes sense.

Sometimes seven, sometimes seven. It's either three meals or seven meals. Does popcorn count? I can eat a whole bag in one sitting personally.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Popcorn is a special thing. So anyway, Yes, I love it.

What's next on the horizon for you? What are you working on right now?

Is there swearing on the podcast? Because my next book title has the F word in it.

If it's important to the word, to the book title, absolutely, go for it.

Well, I've kind of struggled with this, but this is what I see. So the book title I'm working on is Stop Trying so hard. Because that's all I see is people just being their inauthentic selves and wondering why they're not being successful.

I think that would jump out at me in a bookstore. I would probably stop and look at that book.

Yeah. So anyway, if I can come up with a replacement for the F word because for some people it jars them to their core and I would want them to not set it aside because it was offensive. It's more of a directive, like, be. Be more of your authentic self and you'll have everything that you want because it will be attracted to you. Rather than trying to read the data ab test the crap out of everything to see what converts the most. It's like, just settle down. Just be your authentic self. And lots of people are going to think you're really cool and nifty, and the people that don't are going to go away. Anyway, that's what I'm working on next. In addition to the Miracle Morning books that are coming out this year.

Exciting.

Very exciting. And moving to Nashville with my family. My daughter's graduating from high school, and so we're relocating to Nashville. I have some speaking gigs on the calendar. I just finished Phil Hellmuth's next book called Positivity. If you don't know who Phil is, do you look like you know who Phil is? Yep. He's incredible human. And I have several clients like him, but he was the first one to say, you can shamelessly drop my name. So that's me. Shamelessly name dropping. And so I have a few clients like him. I'm working on their books with them, and I'm putting together a small group of people that want to come and work with me. So I'm going to have a group of people come to Nashville and work on their book as a group, and then as a group, go back to where they live, but make sure that they get their book done on time and produce it professionally and that sort of thing. So I'm putting that together. I'm really excited.

That's awesome. And by the way, my writing career started in relation to poker, and I have a fun story about this. So there's a pretty successful poker player named Brent that he was in my school. He was a senior in my school in Binghamton when we were seniors and I didn't take any English courses. I was a biology major. But to make beer money, I write all his papers from him because as a senior, he stopped doing English stuff and went and played poker and made like 200 grand that year. So he'd pay me, like, all this money to write his Shakespeare stuff. And he wasn't a great writer. So here's the fun part. He used to be getting, like, C's in his classes. And then I would write a paper for him. It wouldn't get flagged. Plagiarism, because I did it originally for him.

Yes, you were a ghostwriter.

Ghostwriter for him. And I would get A's and A pluses in those classes that I never stepped foot in because they were so impressed with his improvement from one to the other steps.

Oh, my gosh. That's fantastic.

Yeah. So that was my poker story. Brent Roberts, good guy. Good guy.

That's amazing.

Fellow and he know each other, perhaps. Oh, I'm sure So, honoree, Honoree, Honoree, Honoree. How can we move your mission forward? How can we help you collaborate towards a better win, for the better future that you are creating here? Miracle Morning has obviously touched a lot of lives. Phil's book, I'm sure, is going to touch a lot more. You know, if you in your wildest dreams could be connected to a resource, an opportunity, a person, a system that would allow you to move your mission forward faster, what would it be?

I have no idea. That's a great question. And I've not ever.

We like to spring that on people.

You just spring things most people have trouble receiving.

Right. When people ask you, like, really, how can I help you? In your wildest heart of hearts, they're. They either had something you're afraid to ask for or they haven't really thought about it to the point where it's like, oh, I actually know what this is.

You know what? Phil asked me the other day what he could do to help me. And I said, if I had 50 more clients like him in my lifetime, that would be amazing.

Okay, got it.

People who are wanting to write a book and don't want to figure things out and are willing to pay my fee, able to pay my fee, and are good listeners and learners. Take direction.

The fee is $70, so it's quite steep. I'm just kidding.

$70Aminute? No, I think it's more than that. Even I don't even know. But yeah, Yeah, I have the best. I have the best clients in the world. And there you have it. So.

So if you are the best clients in the world and you're listening, please reach out to Henri. If you know the world and you're listening, please reach out to.

Yes, Honoree.

And then what's the best way to get in touch with you, honoree if people do have somebody?

Oh, you know what? Honorecorder.com is a good place to start. I'm NRA on all social media platforms, and that's Amazon.

Re and literally H O N O R E E on all the platforms, on all the medias of social media.

Literally@handorsary.com. yep.

I love it.

Yeah. All right.

So get your book out there. You must, you must, you must stop trying so fucking hard. Very important.

Please, please do it for me. And you don't even know me. Just stop. Just stop. Do it for yourself, because you don't know me.

Yeah, and ask her a lot of questions that are really five questions. 1. Make sure they're done. You get smart answers. Super important.

There's no dumb question. There's no dumb question. There's just the question that you don't ask because you either don't know to ask it or you are afraid to ask it. And then as one of my clients yesterday, so I had a guy who hired me, he paid me for 10 sessions and then after eight sessions, he decided to go to this write and publish your book really quick kind of a weekend. And their strategy was to you title your book and then you come up with a book cover and then you put pre publish it on Amazon so that you have a drop dead date and you have a 90 day Runway with Amazon. Except that he hadn't written the book yet. He wasn't really done outlining it. And so now it's. Now his pants and his hair are literally on fire trying to figure out how to get all of these things done. And he realized that he had a hotline to someone who could help him. So he was like, I'm calling the 911 hotline. I need all of these people so I can produce my book. And he's like, and I'm, I'm totally serious. I'm not going to mess it up.

Break glass in case.

Yes, exactly. Break glass in case of emergency. That was the phone call. Like, I totally screwed up by trying to do it the, you know, the, the easy way. And he's like, as it turns out, there's no easy way to doing something. Right.

Yeah, that's true of books and everything else for that matter. It's like work. That's how you do it.

Yes.

Here's all the work you have to do, but you do the work.

That's correct. Correct, yes.

So how. I have a question. How do you see the publishing industry morphing, changing technologically and otherwise? And what are you most excited about in the industry?

I think that it is very easy for someone to write and publish a book. So there's a lot of, there are just a lot of books out there, however they're produced, if they're produced fast and well, but they aren't as good as they could have been if someone would have slowed down and taken a little more time to.

Dostoyevsky.

Dostoyevsky. So I think that the people who thought that they could get rich quick by writing a book and publishing a book quickly will go away. And the people that are committed to success and doing things in a way that works most effectively. Right. Because there's no judgment for me as a coach. Right. There's no good Bad right or wrong, it just is effective or ineffective. So people will start to do things more effectively even as they learn to do them more efficiently. And I think traditional publishing will change and that there will be more professional independent publishers, indie publishers, who will rise to the top and will make a difference, fiction and nonfiction. And so I'm excited that there's the low barrier to entry. And I'm also excited that there, you know, we're still at. I always say we're still at like one or two o' clock in the morning of, of self publishing, of indie publishing, that there's a long way to go or bear at the very beginning of the industry. And people are. I've been self publishing since 2004.

So you're up. You were up at midnight. You were like right off.

I was up yesterday.

Yesterday.

I got up pretty early in the morning to have actually been up yesterday. So, yes, I just see that there's, there's so many possibilities and that more people who are like Phil Hellmuth and some of my other clients who could have gotten traditional deals and were offered traditional deals, turn them down because they then understood that if they did a little bit themselves and had the right players on their team, they could independently publish and then make all of the money and keep all of the money for themselves.

Yeah, I think that's an important distinction to make. Like, if you already have all the power, why give it away to somebody else who may or may not even do the best job?

Well, and here's the great news about it. Yes, here's the great news about it is when I was having that initial conversation with him about, okay, here's your book deal. And so here's what this means, because when he called me, it was just one of my friends said, and humbly so I'm going to repeat what he said. But he said, you're the best in the world at this, so I want to talk to you. So he said, what's the deal? Tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So he was paying me for my time. I have no skin in the game. I'm not taking a piece of the action. I'm not a publisher, I'm not a New York publisher, and I don't own a publishing company. So I wasn't trying to get anything from him, right? Like, oh, you should do it my way because then I win. Right? So I just said, let me look at your deal. So he sent me the deal and I analyzed it and I said, okay, so if you do it, then this is what is happening over here and this is how much you spend and this is how much you get. But if you do it this way, and I introduce you to people who are all these players who do the things that the publishers do, so the editing, the proofreading, the graphic design, the layout, the copywriting, the blahba de blah. Right. If I introduce you to people who do that independent of me, they're not my people, but they are on my bench, they are my preferred players, then you will spend X amount of dollars. But then you get this percentage from Amazon and Ibooks and Kobo and Diesel and bup, bup bup, bup, bup. So here's this. And he was like, so these are the real percentages. And so all I have to do is hire all these people and they will do this professionally for me and then I retain the rights and I make all the money. Yes, that's what I'm saying to you. It's like, okay, well that's a no brainer. So before nobody knew how to do all of those things. Those people were not available. You only had, you know, you could only go through Jesus and Jesus was keeping all the money. So now you have an option, you have options. And so when people realize how easy it is, that it is not easy, but it is simpler than they think and they can retain creative control and timing control and promotion control and marketing control and money control, it then opens a door to the possibilities. Does that make sense?

Yeah, provided you're not trying to take all that on yourself and learn all those different hats and you have the money and the expertise and the connections that you could go in and do what the publisher does. Because that's really all it is. Just the publisher is a collection of these experts that they have that, you know, they charge this and then they, you know, outsource it to this and they keep whatever the margin is.

That's correct.

So, you know, you could look at any industry and say, how could I do this better, faster, stronger, you know, maybe there's a software play, maybe there's some sort of way to pull in experts and do it for myself, or at least a piece of it that would have precluded me otherwise from sharing that up. Yes, you can actually create that upside yourself as well, Phil. Hell, I mean.

Correct. Well, and I know the strategic piece. I know how to launch and publish a book and make sure that it's a perennial seller, not just a bestseller, for three minutes in a category. So that Someone can say I'm an Amazon bestseller and then I made $7 Whomp. Whomp. Well, gosh, that's awesome. You're a bestseller but not a best earner. And doesn't that sound better?

Best earning and ultimately the highest impact. Right. Because nobody's getting rich off books, say very few people. Right. Living writers that make their entire living from books, you could probably count them on two hands, you know.

No, that's not correct. No, that's not correct. I know a thousand authors who are making six figures. Fiction and nonfiction. That is an incorrect statement.

Okay, that's good. Oh, there's only that actually make good money at this. And by good money, I mean like millions and millions of dollars.

You know, you can live okay on half a million a year. You can live okay on a million a year. Yeah. Especially if you're doing it right and your expenses are low and your return on investment is very high. But I know I have dozens of friends who do very well from their books that are indie published and very few that are traditionally published, but usually because they are hybrid authors, which means that they are a little indie, a little trad. And they make the best of both of those coming together.

So by far, just to clarify and verify, the ones that are successful tend to be or monetarily the most successful tend to be sub published. Got it. And they figured out what you basically just outlined is that they can put together the team to make the dream work themselves.

Yes, they are full time, but they're full time writers. They are at home cranking out story after story after story after story.

Yeah, they put it in the.

Yeah, yeah. Or they're someone like me and Hal who write nonfiction consistently and sell a good number of books because the brand is very strong. So I have the miracle morning brand. I have the successful single mom brand. I have the prosperous writer brand. So my newest one is Like a Boss. Write like a Boss, publish like a boss, Market Like a Boss. That's my newest series collaboration with a successful fiction writer who supports his six children and his wife on his writing fiction fantasy for clean fantasies. Mormon, six kids, wife, full time student, does very well multiple six figure income from his book royalty.

So yeah, this is good. I didn't really understand how deep it could go with the self publishing. I thought it was more of a means to the end because I think the pervasive especially in the entrepreneur, investor, philanthropy kind of community.

I've heard this.

What you're about to say is oh, your book is your business card. You write the book so that people see you as an expert. It's not a money play, it's more of a cachet and authority play.

Where's the button? Where's the button that I push or I go eh. Wrong.

Yeah, no, it's good.

Wrong answer. Yeah.

Because you really understand this industry. And I don't even begin to say.

Well, that's, that's the assumption. And some people that I work with. There is a guy that I work with who wanted only one thing. He wanted a book that was his business card. His clients pay him a five figure monthly fee and his contract is five years and it's geographical in nature. He did not need a book that was sold on Amazon. He did not need a book that was in ebook format. It is a physical book that he was giving to someone to say I am the undisputed expert in this in our area and so read this and then hire me. And the contract was worth 60,000 at a minimum and upwards from there. So he wanted to produce a professional book. It wasn't very big, it wasn't very long, but it was done professionally and it was the, I'm the no brainer choice of the company firm that you should hire to handle these, this process for you. And so printed 500 books. I don't even need that many. So he didn't make money from his book, he made money as a result of his book. But those people are very few and far between. Most people that come to me want a book that makes them money directly. In other words, you give me $15 and I give you my book. Then they're, in addition to that they have something that they're hawking. Right. Their services, their speaking engagement, their, you know, their business in some way, that sort of thing. But yes, I've heard what you've said. Many, you know, from other people.

I think it's good.

People don't make money.

Yeah.

Make money from their books. And it's like I talk to someone every day or I see income reports from people almost every single day. It's like, you know what? I, you know, it's January 16th and I've made, you know, $100,000 this year so far from my sales, from my book sales. And if I didn't see it, I would think how is that even possible? But how cool is that, right? If it's possible for someone, it's possible for anyone.

No, that's huge. All right. And I want to just acknowledge you for going against that tide because you know what? We do These interviews for is to get to the, you know, we pull on the threads until the sweater unravels. You get to the next. This is really solid. I'm gonna title this episode accordingly. It's like, no, you could really make money at books.

Like really make money at books.

This is good. Provided you're dedicated and you want to be world class at it. You have a great team and all that.

Provided you're committed and you have the right bench. You can absolutely make money from your book or books as a result of.

Your book or from your book that you mentioned. You know, the, like a boss series. The, you know, you should write a fricking book and don't make it so fricking hard and all that morning series. Like anything that could be a phenomenon. But not just that, but a perennial seller. But not just that, but also, you know, something that you continue to riff on. Right. It's not just make more marbles. It's make more marvels for kids. It's make more marvels for single moms. It's make more marbles for.

Well, in evergreen content too. It's very rarely do you find something where you're just going to have a swing and a hit in six minutes. It's when I write content, I write. When I wrote, write like a boss. When I wrote prosperity for writers. When I wrote, you must write a book, I wrote information that is evergreen. So it's good today, it's good tomorrow, it's good 100 years from now. Hopefully it's good 100 years from Now. Right. The tactics may change, but the, the idea remains the same. People will always be writing books. You do have the power to produce a good quality book that's going to remain the same forever. If there's something that's hot, you know, you could have written a book about how to get the most out of your MySpace account.

As opposed to most out of social media, which would be more correct.

Right. So if you MySpace, like that would have been a. That's like an avocado, right? It has a shelf life and then once it's dead, it's dead, it goes away. You want to write something, that's. What are the fundamentals? What's fundamentally going to be true forever? What do we know for sure? That business is built on relationships. And the better your relationships, the better your business. That's going to be the same forever. And you just can't fake through any other medium, the eye to eye or face to face contact. This is great, but a meal would Be so much better, right? You and I talking over video is fantastic, but the next time we're in the same zip code, we should have a meal and break some bread and get to know each other on a different level. When you meet someone in person, it just changes the dynamic of the relationship. And you can't fake that in any other, in any other way. You can build up, you can build up to it, you can build on it, but nothing replaces that and that will never change, regardless of technology.

Yeah, that's been really a huge lesson for me is doing almost 100 podcasts now is just meeting the guests in real life. Like, for example, I just had a great one with Dory Clark and she actually flew out to San Diego and hung out at her local mastermind and we had dinner the next night. We actually got to spend a bunch of hours together. And now I feel like I have a friend in addition to, you know, somebody who just came through a professional.

Challenge, came on your podcast.

Right, exactly.

Their own home.

That's the reason I did is I wanted to connect to people. I wanted to see what they were like in person and I wanted to spread their message and help their mission in the world as well. And that's a great benefit. That's the reason people come on. But ultimately, you know, if you're not doing to build the relationships, then you're wasting great opportunity to connect with world class people. So I think that really kind of puts a nice neat bow on this entire discussion. Just like the reason you're writing books, the reason you're podcasting, the reason you're doing the things, yes, you can make money, but if it's not tied to some sort of value or purpose, then maybe the reasons you're writing a book are not the reasons you should be writing a book or doing a podcast or doing whatever.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank you, Anore. I'm grateful that you're here and you got to me in a few different ways. I appreciate seeing as you're all there.

Now we've gone there, now we're friends for life. Like that's it. Now we have to have a meal at some point, for sure.

Well, now I get to tell all my friends that want to write books, like, oh, no, you can write. You can really make money at books.

Yeah, call on a race.

Six figures in 16 days. That's legit. You know, that's not everybody, certainly.

No, no. But yes, yes, it is. It is absolutely possible. And it's possible if you have no resume, but you are willing to do the right things at the right time with the right team.

Monterey on behalf of everybody in the Make More Marbles community, we just want to say how grateful we are that you decided to spend an hour with us. And do you have any parting words for the audience?

You must write a book. And thanks for listening if you've listened this far. Thanks for listening.

On behalf of everybody, thank you so much for being here and we'll have you on again soon. Hopefully sometime.

I'll look forward to it. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles Podcast. For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing abundance life in your health, wealth and relationships, whatever that means to you, head on over to makemoremarbles.com, check out our cool explainer video about what we're about and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play wherever you're listening your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.