Bonus: Get Clarity and Nail Your Book's Topic

Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host, Destiny Kopp. And in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. And today we're in a three part bonus episode series that focuses on helping you fondly self publish your nonfiction book. I know that many online course creators have a book idea in the back of their mind and you know that a book can be a powerful lead generation machine. So let's face it, if you can launch an online course, you can also write and self publish your book. Just recently I've also been working on my non fiction book and will self publish on Amazon by the summer. So by the time you're listening to this, it may already be out there. Part of this series will simply be walking you through my journey and describing how I use content I had already created in my business to write the product manuscript. So now let's talk about how you can maximize this amazing business changing tool. And during this series I have Dr. Emmy Estacio with me. Emmy is a three times number one best selling author, psychologist and founder of Self Publishing Made Simple. She helps successful entrepreneurs, coaches and visionaries expand their reach by writing and publishing their book on the world's largest online book retailer, which is Amazon. Through her online programs and signature 12 week get it Done challenge, she guides her students through improving self publishing process to successfully launch a book on Amazon even without a publicist. Recently, Emmy was also a guest on my podcast on episode 49. So if you want to learn more about Emmy and her journey as an online course creator, definitely check out that episode. Emmy, thank you so much for joining me. I know we're gonna have so much fun in this episode series.

Oh, wonderful. I'm so glad to be here, Destiny. And I can't wait to share all these goodies to your to your audience.

Well, as you know, I love what you do. I'm going through this process myself and really just wanted to share this with everybody else because one thing I've realized as I was going through this journey to write my own book and my own manuscript, I was like, this is so easy for online course creators because number one, online courses and books kind of go hand in hand and course creators generally, they, you know, they love writing, they love helping people, and a lot of times they already have all of this content already built that they can just use for their book.

Oh yes, totally. I mean for course creators, this would be such an easy, easy peasy lemon squeezy. But I have to say, Destiny, what I found with some of my students who are course creators, one of the biggest struggles that they experience is that they find it so difficult to condense their material into just one book. You know, they get so excited, they have so many ideas, and they struggle to find their focus on their first book. So I think that this is probably the first thing that we need to explore. Especially if you are a course creator and thinking about transforming your course into a book or maybe even just starting a book from scratch and use that as a way to lead your potential students into your course, then this is the best starting point for us.

And that's a great segue because really what I wanted to talk about in this particular episode was how to find that focus. Because you need that focus for, you know, the focus of your book and what you're going to be focusing on and nail your book's topic. So, you know, you talked about it's difficult, right, for kind of these authors and these online course creators to stick to that one topic. What are some ways that they can figure out exactly what. Especially for nonfiction, right? We're creating a nonfiction book. How do we know what to focus on? Because we have so much content, like you mentioned.

Oh, yes, of course. Especially for people who are heart centered, so much expertise and so much enthusiasm out there. They want to write as much as they can and serve their audience. But the problem is, what I've noticed with some of these aspiring authors is that they jump from one topic to another and they end up with half written books, you know, that don't get finished, you know, they don't get published. And with all these projects just hanging because they're jumping from one topic to another, their readers are still waiting for even just one book to get finished. So really the best way to get clarity and to find your book's focus is first of all to clarify your purpose. I'm sure that your listeners as course creators, they know about finding your niche, nailing your niche, and really understanding who you are serving and what are their pain points, what are the main areas of need that they have, their fears, their hopes and frustrations. So the very first thing that you have to do is to clarify your purpose, understand why you are writing this book, whether it is for personal reasons, whether it is to grow your business, to link it to your course as a lead magnet, whatever you really need to clarify your purpose first and foremost. Because when you ground yourself in your purpose and when you go through the process of writing and self publishing your book, when you anchor yourself in your purpose, it's quite easy to just keep going instead of getting distracted by the next shiny object. So clarify your purpose, and as I've mentioned earlier, get to know your audience. As course creators, we do our market research, but with book writing, you also need to do your keyword research. And with keyword research, it's really understanding what people are putting on the search bar on Amazon so you can actually identify very specific topics that you can write about and focus on your book. When you do your keyword research well, you will find that there are specific problem areas that people are looking for when they go on Amazon to look for books, and you get the confidence that there is a demand for it. It stops you from jumping from one topic to another, knowing that there are thousands of people out there typing these very specific keywords, these very specific questions when they go to look for books on Amazon. So to find your clarity and focus, first clarify your purpose, why you are writing this book. Get to know your audience, do your market research, do your keyword research. And finally, you really need to get into the mindset of serving your audience. You don't necessarily have to dump all of your knowledge and expertise in one book. When you have this intention to serve, and when you know your audience well, you can really focus on that particular problem area, on that particular aim, and only serve your audience with the practical and specific information that they need right now that they can apply in their business or in their lives right now or whatever it is, you know, depending on what. What your book is aiming to do. When you have that purpose, that intention to serve, you can really clarify what to focus on, and you can just go for it with your audience in mind.

So I want to go back to a couple things that you said there. You talked about clarifying your purpose, and you mentioned, you know, one of the reasons might be personal reasons. One of. One of the reasons that you're writing your book might be, you know, a lead magnet, right? A lead generation. What do you typically see with nonfiction authors? What is generally their goal with their book, of course?

Well, for many of my students, particularly for those who are course creators and coaches and online entrepreneurs, the main purpose of them writing their book is to generate awareness about their brand and establish themselves as an expert in their field. So when you are able to write a book, you're actually setting and letting the world know that you know about your stuff, that you are a real person. You can share your stories, you can share your voice. So it's a really great way to establish your brand, to Generate warm leads into your business. And particularly if you do this well and if you launch your book strategically on Amazon, it's a really great way to grow your mailing list. So especially if you have a lead magnet inside your book. So it's almost as if you can use your book as a way to have a taster, let people know what you are about, let them know what your expertise is all about, get them to know, like and trust you. But at the same time, also build your mailing list, generate warm leads into your business and nurture them, knowing that they've already read your book, they've already connected with you in some level, and all you have to do is to leverage that and nurture them and build your brand as a result of you writing your own book on Amazon.

Very good, Emily. And I want to kind of also touch upon what you mentioned just a second ago about the, you know, doing the market research, doing the keyword research on Amazon. And, you know, I want to understand this a little bit more, you know, for myself also. So let's just say that I'm a productivity coach. I'll just throw something out there and I want to go to Amazon and do a little bit more research there because I want to do a nonfiction book related to productivity. How would I start?

Right. So if you are writing a book about productivity, think about what your readers will put on the keywords. You know, what sort of search terms they would put when they go on Amazon to. To look for a book on productivity. So let's say, for example, they will put something like how to make the most of my time, how not to get distracted on social media, how to do more with less stress. So you have to be really specific and if you want to even dive into your particular niche. So for example, you put productivity for working moms or productivity for HR heads or whatever it may be, depending on how specific your niche is. You can actually search using the tools that I recommend to my students to look for the keyword search volume on Amazon to see what people are typing in exactly on Amazon when they look for books there. So keyword research is really important because when you identify what people are putting in on Amazon to look for books, you will have the confidence. It's almost like testing your ideas. You know, we do this with course creation as well. We validate our ideas. You know, we test the market. And keyword research is a really great way to get the temperature of the market, you know, to get a sense of what people are typing in on the Search word. So even before you create your outline, even before you, you write the first word of your book, you have the confidence that people are actually looking for a book like yours. And it would be easier for you to focus on that topic because you know that there are people out there waiting, searching, hoping that someone like you will deliver a book that you're writing at that point. So keyword research, really important. It validates your ideas. It gives you the confidence that there are people out there looking for your book. And when you identify those high traffic, low competition keywords, you can really nail that niche and dominate that niche on Amazon.

Very good, Emmy, and thank you so much for that information. Any last minute comments on how to find your focus and nail your books topic before we close out here today?

Oh, sure. Well, basically, we all know about this shiny object syndrome. You really need to have the discipline and avoid getting distracted by that. And the very important thing is you need to really clarify your purpose, set a clear aim. If you have to write it down, pin it somewhere you can see. So that would be your motivation, that would be your focus. Remember that there are readers waiting for you to write your book. And if you keep jumping from one topic to another, really you're wasting your time. You are essentially procrastinating, writing and publishing your book because you're getting something's written but not really finishing anything. So if there are other ideas popping in your head, write it down and maybe put it in the save for later pile. Maybe consider writing a book series because again, you know, that's something that we can talk about later on. But that's another great way to build your brand on Amazon. So for your first book, if this is going to be your first book, make sure that you clarify your purpose, get to know your audience, set a clear aim, write it down. If you have to pin it somewhere that you can see to remind yourself what exactly you are doing for that book. And if there are any other ideas that are popping as you write your book, write them down, put them in the same for later, and consider writing a series in the future.

And Emmy, as you were talking there, it was just, I was just going through my mind how close and how similar creating an online course and writing your book is.

Oh yes, absolutely. And it really goes hand in hand. We're essentially helping our students, whether it's in a course format or a book format. You know, the book is an addition, could be an additional resource to a course. And of course it's like a more in depth way of you know, going into the topics that you cover in your book. So it really goes hand in hand. And certainly some of my best students in the Self Publishing Made simple community, they are course creators because they have this intention to share their knowledge, to share their expertise and they have a really great way of organizing information into into something that can be used and digested by readers and by by their course users. So yeah, you're totally right, Destiny. You know, we have very similar processes and you know, if we can combine course creation and writing and publishing books together, I think it's win win for everyone.

And Emmy, thank you so much for your insight here. Course creators, before we close, I want to let everybody know that we have a special training scheduled for you. If you are interested in writing your nonfiction book, please join us in a live training where you'll learn how to turn your existing content into a number one best selling book and generate warm leads for your online course. I will have the link for that training in the show. Notes. Thank you so much for joining us today and I hope you enjoyed this episode with Emmy. Join us for episode two tomorrow and have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.