201: The Truth About Self-Publishing Your Book (It's Not What You Think)

Foreign welcome to the Creators MBA Podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of digital product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks constantly live launching or worrying about the social media algorithms. I hope you enjoy our episode today and my special guest today is Erin Shaver. Aaron is a blogger, podcaster, motivational speaker, bestselling author of the Politically Homeless Christian and Vice President of Sales and Business development@c self publishing.com he has been featured on the Christian Television Network, iHeartRadio, Family Life Radio and numerous Christian podcasts. And Aaron, thank you so much for joining me here today. I am super excited to chat with you all about self publishing. But before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people?

Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for having me. I always have to pinch myself a little bit that I get to do what I do because so often I think it's easy in life to end up in a, in a job where it's fine, it pays the bills, you know, you clock in, clock out. And yeah, for me to be able to work with aspiring authors every single day is just an incredibly cool experience. So you know, I with all of the the product side of the business as well as a lot of our partnerships, I work with our publishing strategist my touches quite a few different things@self publishing.com but all of them aimed towards helping aspiring authors get their work out there. So it's a pretty neat job day in and day out.

Well, I have to say I am a little bit jealous also that you get to do all of that. That sounds like an amazing opportunity. And I personally am a huge fan of self publishing. I actually self published a book several years ago and it has been a blessing to have gone through that process and today that's what we're going to be talking about. We're going to be talking about self publishing. So you're going to walk us through what exactly does that mean? How do we go about it? We also have a free training that is coming up next week for folks that they can join just a little, learn a little bit more about this. We might have people listening who, you know, have that novel in their head and you know, they, or maybe they have a half written manuscript in their desk if they want to bring that into the world. Or we might have people listening who are an online business owner and they're interested in self publishing a book that they can use as a lead magnet or just kind of elevate their expertise, if you would, in the marketplace. But before we get into all of that, walk us through exactly what self publishing is and why somebody would go that route versus traditional publishing.

Yeah, it's a great question. It's something that comes to us pretty frequently. And it's funny to look back, you know, 10, 15 years ago, when self publishing was first becoming a little bit more prominent and it was almost viewed as a second tier option where it's, well, if I can't get signed by a traditional publisher, then maybe I'll go the self publishing route. And today it's very much the opposite. In fact, you see a lot of very successful authors, authors who have been traditionally published, maybe with their first book, two books in some cases, 10, 15 books that are now actively choosing to self publish because traditional publishing, the landscape has changed where at this point, so much of what traditional publishers are doing is much more almost like a venture capitalist firm where they're just taking flyers, taking bets, and then the ones that pop the books that really take off, you know, they're keeping a higher percentage of the royalties on the back end. And there isn't a lot of marketing muscle that goes behind it. So a lot of authors assume that if I'm with a traditional publisher, they're going to be doing this big press circuit for me. And then you get in there and you realize the marketing is up to me. If you're an author, whether you're traditionally published, whether you're self published, you are the PR person, you are the director of marketing for your book. And once people realize that, and they realize the traditional publisher is not doing a lot of legwork to really help their book get out there in the world, then really it comes down to what are the main services they're providing. You know, the COVID design, the formatting, getting a book edited, setting up distribution, a lot of those have become so easy in today's world that a lot of those very successful authors are asking themselves, well, what is the real value then? And so we've seen more folks shift into that model. There have been some pretty prominent stories that have been out there in the news as a result of some of these authors that people are asking, well, why would they self publish? And a lot of those ability to keep the freedom and flexibility are the main reasons why. And then for folks that don't already have that existing audience, people that haven't already published 10 books and have an email list of 2 million followers. The barrier of entry has now been removed. Where there's not the gatekeeper saying, is your content worth it? Are you someone that we are going to choose to feature? And so self publishing, the landscape has changed so much, the quality has changed so much that so many folks, whether they're creators early on in the process or if they're well established authors, are opting to self publish instead of going the traditional route.

You just mentioned something that I was not aware of. I was under the impression that if you went with one of those traditional publishers, that they did a lot of the marketing and the heavy lifting for you. I had no idea that they didn't actually do that.

Yeah, no, it's, it's such a misnomer. One of our authors, that was a big success story of ours, a gentleman named Mike Acker, wrote a book called Speak with no Fear. If any of your listeners go look it up online, it's pretty frequently a number one bestseller on Amazon to this day, even though it was published back in 2019. He actually used us to publish his first 14 books and they all went great, made really good income. He built a multiple six figure consulting business on the back of his book as a lead magnet. And then he was having so much success with those first 14 books that he did through us that he, for his 15th book, had a traditional publisher reaching out with a traditional publishing deal, advance the whole nine yards, all the things. And he was pretty excited. It's like, oh man, all right, I, you know, I've made it, quote, unquote. And it was funny. Three months after his launch, he reached out to me and we were talking, he laughed. He was like, man, I am never traditional publishing again. I, I made so much more money on my first 14 books and I had so much more control. And I assumed that they were going to do all this work. And the hard part is with traditional publishing is the marketing landscape has changed and the publishing industry at traditional publishers has not. So what they used to do back in the day was, hey, we do a press release. I don't know about you, Destiny, but I can't remember the last book that I ever bought based on a press release. I don't even know where someone would go to view most of those nowadays. And things like a book tour. Well, you know, nowadays what we're doing right now is the book tour. You know, podcasts are the virtual book tour and you no longer need a publishing house to line those up. And so there's so many things like that that are just sort of stuck in sort of 1990s marketing, whereas now it's so much more about online advertising, running Amazon ads, running ads through social media, things along those lines, and traditional publishers don't touch those at all. You virtually never see traditionally published books being advertised in some of the most profitable and productive platforms.

So I love that example that you gave. And the fact that he came back and said he's never going to go with a traditional publisher again just tells us that, you know, self publishing is definitely the way to go. So let's say that somebody is listening here and we have sold them on self publishing. What would you say that they need to do to first get started?

The the biggest thing I always encourage folks to do is get crystal clear on their idea because there is so many different ways you could approach any given topic. If you're looking for the non fiction author out there and you were saying the business owner, you always want to begin with the end in mind. So let's say you do have a specific offer in mind, you have a course that you sell. Maybe it's a coaching program. Really wanting to ask yourself, all right, who is my ideal client? Because a lot of times what'll happen is people will have their ideal client profile in mind and then they end up writing a book not aimed at that ideal client profile. And you really want to make sure there's total alignment in those areas. You then want to say, okay, what would be enough content that would hook this person and say, man, this is so good. Like if Destiny gave all this out in just her book, I wonder what she also has. And yet not giving everything in the book. Because you do want them to then come to your website. You want them to subscribe to your email, you want them to get your newsletter. You want them to potentially sample a free online course that you have as a lead magnet to take them a little bit deeper into your ecosystem. Then eventually, hopefully, they become a paying member of your mastermind community, of your coach and course program. And so you want to really begin with the end in mind and ask that question of okay, ideal client profile, what in a book, what problem can I help solve in this book? And then you can go from there. Because once you've got a crystal clear idea and you've got a really good sense of the pain point you're looking to solve on the nonfiction side, that goes a really long way if you're a fiction author. You mentioned that at the top, this is one of the things that I always encourage folks to do is really take stock of where do I spend the most time reading myself. We have a thriving fiction school, we have an entire division of our company just for fiction authors. And we've helped launch quite a few six figure fiction authors in their career, all self published. And some of them actually started writing in a different genre. And then where they found their ultimate success was not where they started. And one of the biggest reasons was they, you know, we had one person came to us and it was fantasy genre and we've had tons of very successful fantasy authors. And his first few books just didn't really click. But what he loved reading was romance. And when he understood that genre so much better, he understood the tropes, he understood the storyline, he understood what made a great book because that's where he spent his time reading. We had another gentleman that wanted to write originally post apocalyptic dystopian style genre, which big market for that. But it wasn't the genre that he spent time in himself. He loved cozy mysteries. And when he finally switched and we said, hey, what have you thought about just writing cozy mysteries instead of writing this dystopian fiction? And he switched over and has now at this point done over 10 cozy mysteries, built a full time income on it because it was a genre that he loved, that he understood that he knew what he liked reading. And what we always find with fiction authors, it's not a hundred percent of the time if they can write to a genre that they fully understand, if they can write to a genre that they love themselves, they're just going to be so much more equipped to do it successfully right out of the gates and then maybe down the road if they want to write that dystopian fiction, they'll be more well positioned to do that in the future. But in beginning with the end in mind, destiny is the key. If you begin with the end in mind and you actually have a goal in mind of what you're trying to accomplish in your author career, it's going to put you in so much of a better spot.

I love all the examples that you gave and as you were going through here, I'm actually interested in writing a novel myself. Even though I have businesses that I run. I'm like, that'd be so much fun just to write a novel. And I'm like a Janet Ivanovich type person. That's, I love her book. So I was like, you know, that would be fun to write one of those.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right. I love the Guidance that you gave us with with begin with the end of mind. I think that's especially important if we are considering this for our business and how we're going to take somebody on that customer journey there. So let's say that we have an idea for a book. What would be some of the next steps there?

Yeah, the biggest thing that I encourage folks to do is get extremely organized on the front end. And in the training we have next week, we're going to go into a lot more depth and detail. I'll give you kind of the 30,000 foot answer right now. If folks are pretty serious about doing a book in 2025, the free training we have coming up is going be just really the nuts and bolts and lay out a really good game plan over the course of an hour at a high level. One of the things I would encourage folks to do Destiny is get really organized before they start writing. The biggest mistake I find a lot of authors make is they just start writing and they get one, two, three chapters in, and then they hit a bit of a roadblock. They hit writer's block. They're not sure where to go next. And then life gets busy. You know, maybe you've got a business, maybe you've got a family, got other priorities. And all of a sudden what happens is you look up and three months go by. You haven't written in the last three months. And then a lot of times three months turns into three years, turns into your book. Never gets out there. What I found is that if folks will actually get a little bit more organized on the front end, if they'll outline their full book in advance. All right, Here are the 12 chapters. Here are the exact topics I'm going to cover. Here are the stories that I'm going to go into in each of these chapters. Here's some of the main points that I want to hit in each of these chapters. If you already know where you're heading with your writing before you get started, you're so much less likely to hit that roadblock in the middle. And then the biggest thing you have to do if you really want to do this is you have to embrace how you personally are wired when it comes to the creative process. Because so often what I find a lot of authors do, if they have a tendency to hear something that might work for someone else and they try to do that in their own life, fail and then feel like it's them, like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I be more disciplined? Why can't I stick to my goals more. And you know, there's all this self shame, doubt, you know, why can't I do this when the reality is they were taking a plan that might have been perfectly well suited for that person and trying to overlay onto their life where it really doesn't work. I'll give you an example with my own life. When I wrote my book, I had tried to write a book for about 20 years. I love writing. I had a blog for a long time. It wasn't the writing that I struggled with, but when it came to the book, I had heard all these people that were just like, hey, it's a 20 mile march just every day, half hour a day, make sure you write something every day. And that sounds great. And for some people that works really, really well. Some people are built for the marathon. They're built for that slow and steady, just make treat you something every day. What I found over the course of 20 years is inevitably I'd fall off the horse, something would happen, I'd get busy and, and I would just push it to the side, you know, and they always had good reasons. You know, just got married, just had a kid, just started a new job. All these different reasons would come up and, and for me, what I found is I'm much more wired for the sprint. I am much better if you give me a hard deadline that's two weeks from now and if I could just put my head down and go. And so for me, after just struggling for the better part of 20 years after I graduated from college, I actually wrot rough draft for my book that I finally published in two weeks and I just sprinted and I talked to my wife and said, hey, can you handle the kids in the morning till 9am and if I can just wake up a little bit earlier and just knock out three, four hours a day for two straight weeks, I think I could get this rough draft done. And I did. And it was just two straight weeks. Head down, focused. We've had other authors do it over a single weekend where they are busy entrepreneurs and it's hard for them to carve out time of the week. So they just say, hey, I'm gonna take off two consecutive Fridays and for two weekends I'm gonna go get this thing knocked out and they'll do eight hour days. Now for some people, they hear that and say there's no way I could write for eight hours. My brain turns to mush after an hour and a half. And so embracing how you're wired, understanding what is Your creative process, what is your creative rhythm? What phase of life are you in in terms of your family, your business? All these things influence it. So at the beginning, try to come up with a writing plan that you feel like you could truly stick to something that you feel like you could actually do, instead of putting a plan in place that in your heart of hearts, you know you're not actually going to follow through on. Because I think a lot of us do that, especially this time of year, early January, we set goals, and sometimes we set goals and we get excited about them, but in the back of our mind, we say, oh, man, I'm not sure if come February that's really going to have staying power just because of the phase of life I'm in. Try to make sure that you've actually put together a plan that'll get you there. And then once you do it, you have to just commit to it. Which sounds super basic, but I have found so often in life, if you start something and there's not some real pain attached to not finishing it, it's so easy to let ourselves off the hook. And so once you start writing your book, I would tell a bunch of people you're writing a book. I would tell them when you're planning on launching it, it gives you a little bit of external accountability. And then just whatever your plan is, stick to it. And if you do, all of a sudden, you'll look up at the end of it, whether it's two weeks or whether it's six months and you've got to finish manuscript. And it's exciting because your book can have a huge impact on a ton of lives. It's been really fun to see what's happened with my book since it came out. So many other authors we've. It really is a pretty monumental achievement once you get it out there.

I love all the tips you gave us. You know, put together your writing plan and just stick to it. And if you stick to it and then tell others and let them hold you accountable, you'll be much more likely to get it done. And I know that we're going to go into a lot of these tips and how to write and publish your book, even if you haven't started writing yet. So we're going to be covering that in the training next week. And Erin, before I let you go, do you have any last minute tips for the audience?

You know, one of the last things I would say is one of the most important things, if for some reason you're not able to join the training. Just make sure that you realize that the book is just the beginning. So often people spend so much time thinking about the writing of the book and that's the thing that kept them stuck for years, that when they finally commit to it, they don't think ahead to having a really good plan on the back end to launch it, to market it effectively. And you put all this time, all this sweat equity, all this money, I mean, you're going to have to invest into things like a high quality editor and cover designer and where, how am I going to publish it? And then their book launches and it only sells 50 copies to family and friends because they didn't have a comprehensive plan how to get it out there in the market. So the biggest thing I would encourage folks to do is make sure, you know, whether it is with Self Publishing.com with us or with someone else, or if you're doing it just on your own and just kind of DIY it, make sure that you don't launch until you have a really rock solid plan for launch and back end marketing. Because otherwise you just put a ton of time, effort, money into something that just ends up sitting there in the Amazon graveyard with millions of other books where they go to die. So make sure that you actually have a concrete plan in place. The last thing you want to do is launch your book and then worry about marketing later. That's what a lot of authors do. The best possible time to market your book is when it first launches. That's the best time to build momentum. That's the best time to build credibility. And if your book is out there nine months and has three reviews and then you decide to market it, everything is more complicated, everything's harder now. You're pushing the boulder uphill. So that'd be the biggest last piece I would tell folks is make sure after you write it that you've got a concrete plan and how you're going to bring it to market before you even launch so that you're well positioned to have as much success with your book as you possibly can.

And I think that's a very important point that a lot of us would just forget about, right? We focus more on just writing the book and then thinking, okay, we'll worry about the marketing stuff later. So thank you so much, Erin, for joining us today. I would invite everybody to join us in the training next week. We're going to be covering how to write and publish your book, even if you haven't started writing yet. And I'm going to put the link for that in the show notes, so definitely check that out. And again, Erin, thank you so much.

Absolutely, my pleasure.

Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you love the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.