225: How to Write a Must-Read Nonfiction Book with AJ Harper

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No amount of expertise or preparation can save you from being nervous about putting your workout into the world. For my own book in a public my actual self on the COVID After writing more than a hundred books, it was shocking to me how stressful I found it and what I had to do for myself to keep myself focused to make sure it was a good experience. And so that's really opened my eyes and has me thinking about ways I can be more helpful to authors in terms of the emotional component. Honestly.

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Welcome back, Free Timers. I am so excited to have today's guest here with us today, AJ Harper. AJ Is an editor and publishing strategist who helps authors write transformational books that enable them to build readership, grow their brand, and make a significant impact on the world. As a ghostwriter and developmental editor, she has worked with hundreds of authors all the way from newbies to New York Times bestsellers. With millions of books sold, she runs many of her own workshops and is writing partner to the one and only Mike Michalowicz, longtime friend of the pod. Together they've written 10 books. I'm sure Free Timers. You have read most of them, including Profit first and the latest, the forthcoming book, all in on Teams. AJ Then put all these gems of knowledge that she has, from ghostwriting to teaching workshops to working with Mike, into this amazing book called Write a Must Craft a book that changes lives, including your own. A.J. welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Well, I'm excited because I was kind of geeking out with you before we hit record. Oh, and it's 11:11. I love when that happens. We met in person. There's no way you would know who I am But I know who you are because I love all of Mike's books and I've gained so much from them. And you and I both attended a Fix this Next workshop in Boont, New Jersey, on drumroll, please. Friday, March 13, 2020. Yeah, I remember. We all got there. We were like, should we be here? Should we not? But there wasn't any clear edict out yet. We were hugging, we were talking, we were convening in that room, and we had no clue that this was the last time any of us were going to do this for a very long time.

I think you said that was your.

Last event for a long time.

It was mine, too.

Years. And we didn't know. The vibe in the room was, like, cautious yet clueless, I would say.

Yeah, it was awkward.

And so when did Write a must read come out?

It came out in May of 2022.

Okay, so this was your pandemic project?

Well, I actually had the deal and I had planned to turn it in. I think it was due right in the spring of that year. So it would have come out in 2020 or early 2021. I had to keep postponing it because Pandemic related. There were a lot of personal things in my life. I actually talk about it in the book. My wife ended up with COVID that week after you mentioned that March 13th. She was in the first round, which I've now dubbed the assassin round, because she's got long Covid, so she's still dealing with it. That early year of the pandemic was just really difficult for my family. And then it just created a ripple effect. And sometimes with books, you try to meet your deadline, but real life intervenes. Hence May 2022.

You shared so beautifully in the book about how you had your own self talk. Like, even though you had worked on hundreds of books throughout your career, here you were thinking telling the publisher, oh, this is going to be easy. I got this. I'm a pro. And it's like these books have a mind and soul of their own. And they just, as you said, they change your life. Even if you're an expert at creating them, it still sounds like it really coincided in a really, really tough time of your life, but also took you on a journey in the process, for sure.

I think authors are always nervous about having to put a book on hold for life, as if we feel guilty about it. And even though I'd coached authors for a long time to say it's okay to put a pin in it, there are simple ways you can Keep it alive, and then come back to it in earnest. It was still hard for me to reconcile that, maybe because people looked to me for that guidance, and I didn't want to let anyone down. But ultimately, I had to do right by my family and the book. And in the end, I'm happy with it.

Yes. And actually, it was so tough for any books that were launching in 2020 or 2021. I know so many authors felt like they launched into the void.

Well, you mentioned 2020 and fix this next. That book came out in April of 2020. It was nuts. Everything that Mike had planned to promote that book was canceled.

And was he able to recover any of that momentum, or does he just. That's tough.

Of course.

Yeah.

Mike is nothing if not scrappy and brave. And so he did a 180, and he started doing all these virtual presentations. Kind of invented this marketing method that he's using all the time now. And we still made the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, despite all the challenges.

One of my favorite mantras from you that you say is the foundation of everything you write, everything you edit, and everything you teach is, a book is not about something. A book is for someone. Can you share more about where this comes from?

It's so interesting because one of the things I ask authors to do is once they arrive at a core message, and what you just actually read is my book's core message is to think about, how did you come to that? Why do you believe that? Why do you know that? And so you can get an origin story, not for you as a person or you as your business or your expertise, but an origin story for the message. And when I thought about that myself, I know why. It's because.

Once I understood that, once I figured that out as a ghost writer, everything changed. Once I understood who my clients were writing for, then I could figure out how to solve those readers problems, how to deal with their issues around the content, how to make sure everything was doable for them. But actually, it goes back way further. My first professional gig, I was 17 years old, so that's more than 30 years ago. And I was a playwright. And I remember thinking, I mean, we have to really care about our audience. I actually gave a little presentation at the request of my mentors to this group of young playwrights. And I kind of sounded off in a very arrogant young way about how we needed to care about our audiences and not create these pieces of art that nobody could understand.

And it didn't get a good reception. I will tell you, it was total crickets, but it was actually what I believe that we have to care about our audiences, no matter if it's somebody we're speaking to, creating some sort of art or it's a book that teaches people how to do stuff.

And it's true that even authors, they might have a faint semblance that it's for someone, but it's not. They're driving raison d' etre of the project you've described in your time as a ghostwriter, which you've mostly sunset beyond working with Mike, who's very public and collaborative in terms of the work you do together. But all these people, thought leaders, you know our favorite. All these thought leaders who would come to you and want a better business card. And it's like, oh, I have something to say. I'm an expert. I want to share my expertise. I want to build my business, build my ip. It's like, that's about me, me, me. It's not this picture of the reader and, as you say, the promise that you're making to them. And so that sounds like a huge shift that. A big aha that you had, but also driven by having so many people come to you with something that's, like, not quite right. Like, it's very hard to write a book that connects if it's about a topic and not for a person. And you just put that so clearly.

Thank you. The funny thing is, all that stuff you want, raising your profile and becoming a speaker or increasing your speaking fees or getting more clients or elevating your status or selling programs, all that stuff that you want because you want a better business card, you actually get more of it when you shift away from that thinking. So it's not that I think that's. That there's something bad and wanting that there isn't. It's just if that's your driving force, everything's harder.

I've always been fascinated by the role of ghostwriter, probably because I've written three books myself now I know how much work goes in. I know that it's years of my life, and I've always been so curious. And now on the podcast, I've had several different conversations, and I've come to see the different perspectives of people who've worked in this role previously. And a lot of them say, I don't want my name on the COVID But I still can't get over. Did you ever find it weird when you've worked as a writing partner or you've essentially ghostwritten a book and Then you see it hitting the charts and it becomes a bestseller. And the person might be on stage or people are thanking them and they're taking all the credit, like, I don't know, something about that would bother me. And if they didn't even thank you in the acknowledgments because they don't want anyone to know, I think that would be such a strange thing to grapple with. But I know I'm projecting that not all ghostwriters feel that way. So I'm just curious to hear what your experience was in situations like that.

You know, honestly, in the beginning, I was just happy to have work. I knew that I didn't want to have a job anymore. Many writers have to have a full time job and then fit their writing around it. And when my son was a baby, I just knew I couldn't go to a full time job, which my level of expertise, what I did as a straight job was working in as executive assistant type work, which is, oh man, you know, running offices and assisting my high mucky mucks. It's usually, you know, 80 hours a week. And I knew I just could not be away from my child. And I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna go ahead and try to write whatever. I'll write whatever. I know I can't make money from writing plays, so let me take whatever. And I was just happy to get the work initially, which I had to teach myself to learn the craft of writing a great book. And because it's not my work, I actually don't have ego attached to it. I think it would be different if I were ghost writing fiction, which does happen, happens all the time. I have definitely have friends who ghost fiction, or used to, and that would have really messed with me, I think. But when you're talking about nonfiction, what you're doing is taking someone else's intellectual property, their stories, their ideas, and making it work as a book. That's different than coming up with heart and soul stuff on your own. So I actually have never once, and I can say this with total honesty, never once felt bad when a client had success. And no one knew about me. Most people didn't know about me. I was that weird ghostwriter that you just had to know someone to find me. So that just happened. That was not by design. It just happened. I got in the right phone tree.

Yeah. And you did great work.

Thank you. And I learned a lot. And so that was what I kept focusing on, was being of service. And once I was in the publishing game, Even just a year or two, I started to realize that I could elevate things for my clients and put out better books. That was my motivation. So I wasn't ever really concerned about it. There are ghostwriters, though, who do get credit in some fashion and sometimes have their name on the COVID So there's all different levels.

I'll put a great New Yorker article from Prince Harry's ghostwriter of just what it's like being a ghostwriter. It was so good. I'll put that in the show notes.

That is a good article.

Yeah. Just always grappling with it. And I still feel like it must be strange to have worked on so many books and to not be able to talk about any of them. But I totally respect that you put them in the vault. Let's talk about your partnership with Mike. So for business owners or aspiring authors who are curious about what it's like to work with a writing partner and could you just walk us through the life of a book, of how it goes? What's the seedling? Does Mike have the idea? Do you brainstorm together? And then how do you work out the roles in terms of. Is he, like, flinging voice memos your way or, you know, how structured? I know sometimes you even do retreats together, so I would just love to hear your process.

So Mike has a list of about 20 books he wants to write, and somehow it's always 20 books, even though we keep writing books. And he's always working on that. He's testing ideas, he's playing with formulas and frameworks. He keeps his notes to the grindstone about that stuff, pulls ideas and references and articles and cool stuff, all without my knowledge. And then when we're ready to start a new book, we schedule a retreat. We didn't always do this, but this is what we've been doing for quite a number of years. So we'll go somewhere for. It's always two nights and two days. We first decide, what are the, you know, maybe couple books that might be a good next fit for the readers. So we're never asking, what does Mike want to do next? We're always thinking, what does the reader need next? And I think that's important if you're creating a body of work. And then once we zero in on that, we'll play with a couple of ideas until we're pretty sure which book it is. And then we spend an entire day mapping it out. And it's actually the entire process that I go through in write a must read. We just can do it in a shortened version because we've been doing this so long together. So what might take an author who reads the book a few weeks or even a couple months we can do. And sometimes it's taken 13 hours a long day. The next book we're writing, we just had a retreat. I don't even know how this happened, but we got all the book fundamentals done and I think it was 27 minutes. Wow, that's amazing. I don't even know what happened. I'm still flabbergasted. This is not normal. It's not even normal for us. 13 hours is still really impressive. And at the end of the 13 hours we'll have all the book fundamentals, which is what I talk about in the book, is a transformational core message, an ideal reader, including a reader statement, and a promise you can deliver on. But we'll also do the entire outline and begin to map out which content goes where.

We'll be right back just after this.

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If you had to unpack that breakthrough in record speed, I mean obviously by now and 10 books you have a mind meld going on. Is there anything else that either of you did differently coming into that that enabled that to go so quickly?

I mean we're both, I think it was just odd. It won't happen again. It won't because it just aligned. It's just one of those magic moments and we might actually say down the road. Oh, that's actually was a fluke because as of right now, we're just starting that book right. So maybe we'll change those things and that's all okay. If it's for the good of the book and the good of the reader, I cannot Break down why that happened. I think it's just. Yes. Years and years of working together, but honestly, it was just some sort of magic day. Cannot be duplicated.

That is a good segue into, not only are you the queen of Hallmark Christmas movies, as am I. My grandma and I love watching them together.

What you do?

Yes, they're amazing.

Do you watch Christmas in July as well?

You know, I just read Book Lovers, which was the first book, like beach read I let myself read in a long time. And it turns the Christmas movie premise on its head in that book by Emily Henry, and that was very delightful. So it was like kind of my equivalent.

Got it. Well, first to have to start texting each other because I have a group of people I text with about Hallmark Christmas movies, and you would be surprised who they are. It people are always surprised that I. I think they don't understand how great Hallmark Christmas movies really are. But I think they also have a wrong view of how women are represented on Hallmark. And to me, it's the great feminist movie channel. They will never say that that's what they do. But to have watch a Christmas movie is great, but also to watch a movie that's got strong women characters, they're the main character driving the story. And I just love all of it. So there's a whole bunch of people I've converted Jenny to being hot.

Well, this is actually interesting because you have such a strong writing background. I know your mom is even an editor. Does it soothe you that the premise is essentially the same and very predictable? Or like, do you unpack it from a storytelling point of view as you watch, or are you just purely blissed out enjoying it, even though you can say exactly what will happen after the first minute of the movie begins?

Oh, the latter. That's the point. I mean, people criticize those type of films and they're based on romance structure. So romance novels are the same way. They criticize that type of storytelling, but it's actually the reason people want it. It's not actually a negative thing that there's a formula. We just want to watch something that we know is going to end well and also Christmas.

Totally. Totally. Oh, my gosh. Okay. That's a whole podcast, actually. I'm sure there are very many fan podcasts about Hallmark movies and Hallmark Christmas movies in particular. I got my grandma a pair of socks. It says, like, I don't know, on each foot it says something. I think even my husband Michael got them. Like, I'm busy. The other foot says, watching Hallmark or There's like a whole industry just saying.

I have Hallmark merchandise.

I love it. One of the things you said at the moment you reveal that in your book, you say you're also queen of managing expectations. Quote, I keep my expectations low. Like sub basement low. So for those authors who think they're going to land on the entire premise and framework and outline of their book in 27 minutes, you got something to say. What is it that you find you need to temper in terms of expectations with authors who come through your workshops?

Oh, man. First of all, it's going to take so much longer than you think to complete your book. And most people rush through really important steps. The steps I mentioned that Mike and I do in one day. We can do it in one day because we're practiced at it. But it is a process to get your book fundamentals lined up. And I can always tell when an author didn't do that. Not having the clarity is a problem. And it kicks off a series of problems, like dominoes. Falling, falling, falling. So I think people are. They have unrealistic expectations about how fast they can organize their book and get the idea for their book solidified. Then it just goes down from there. I should be able to write it really fast. I should be able to publish really fast. I should be able to sell a million copies in the first year. I should be able to get a book dealer or self publish and get the same amount of attention. There's just so many expectations that authors have just because they're misinformed or disinformed.

And that's actually. I'm kind of jumping around. But I often tell people it's a third writing, if not a fourth ideating, a fourth writing, a fourth editing, and a fourth marketing. And each one feels like it's taking forever. Like just when you're done with the writing, there's a whole editing phase that's enormous. So real quick, let's say when you're working with Mike, so when you're collaborating with someone like Mike, who handles the edits and like, is it still just an even collaboration or are you mainly integrating the edits and then he'll give you feedback. I'm just curious. Cause that's its own part of the process. Huge part.

We've evolved into a system that works for us. And it took some practice figuring that out. And then as he grew in confidence as an author, that's also shifted. I should say the editing process for your listeners is not just one phase. It's actually three phases. It's Substantive editing. Also sometimes they'll lump it in and call it developmental editing as a whole, which is the big picture stuff. Does the book work? Then it's copy editing and that's just correcting what needs to be corrected. And then there's proofreading, which is supposed to catch all the stuff that all the other edits didn't catch. So those are actually three separate phases and a lot of people don't realize it. Well, we write together and it's a lot of back and forth.

And often I'll ask, I'll use the term download. Can you download this story that you want to tell here about this such and such? And then he'll send it to me and then I'll sort of work it in. I'll send him on really rough draft of a chapter, he'll add a bunch of stuff. It's just very intuitive at this point. So it's hard to tell where he starts and I end off and vice versa. We're also texting constantly. When we're actively writing, we have weekly check ins and we keep a Google Doc with a very expanded outline that we both have access to. And otherwise we pass Word documents back and forth. Once we get to a completed manuscript, then we'll tag in and tag out. Then everything shifts. So what you never want is to have two people working on a manuscript at the same time, the same document. So when he has it, I'm out. When I have it, he's out. When our editor has it, we're both out. And when our editor gets it, he'll give us preliminary notes. Usually there's two rounds and the first one is the big picture stuff. You get an editorial letter with high level notes and then some notes in the margins in the document. And Mike and I will meet and talk through them. What do we agree with? What do we want to address? I usually will take a stab at it first and then send it back to Mike and then he sends it back to me and then we'll send it back. It's a game of tag.

Yep. Thanks for sharing all that. And I want to add too, within the three main portions that you were talking about the edit. I know there's a part of your book where you talk about you're gonna have way more drafts than you even think that. For me, when I was going through there was many rounds of edits before I turned it into the developmental editor that I was doing on my own. Then the developmental editor read it. Then I gave it back to him to say now, what do you think? I implemented your feedback. Well, then he gave it back to me. Okay. Then I did a whole huge revision. And then it, yes, it might go to copy editing, but I did several rounds of myself. My dad took several looks. The official copy editor they hired took several looks proofreading when it's in manuscript form, several rounds of all of our eyeballs, then it gets laid out in the pages and all kinds of errors can be introduced. It is rounds and rounds and rounds within each pillar of the edit that you even described. At least in my experience.

Yeah, that's always the case. We turn in a pretty clean manuscript in terms of we have a strong through line, we don't need to make big structural changes usually. Sometimes we have to do some big stuff. But even though we have been practiced at this and we just starting book 11, we still have to do all those passes. We still have to do all of it. And in my book, I outline the method that I created when I was a ghostwriter to figure out how to actually edit the thing. Because I had to make sure that the book worked before it went to an editor. So I had to come up with a system for figuring that out and I had to come up with a system for making the book better. Thinking about all the things you have to think about, there's so many things you need to address in terms of are you addressing doubts and criticisms in your book? Are your stories working? Is the sequencing working? Is it inclusive? Is it doable? The list is really long. So I developed this editing method for myself because I was just paranoid every time I would turn a manuscript in.

I know, it's funny, your list was so good. And I had to do the same thing for myself too, because it's like, did I double check all the statistics? Not only are the stories in there, are they accurate, are they updated? A year or two might pass from the time you collect the story to what's actually happening in that person's life, let alone by the time the book is out, all kinds of changes keep happening.

We'll be right back just after this.

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You have some good pet peeves that you share as well, and one of them that made me laugh is your comment about conclusions. Especially for nonfiction authors. It tends to end on some really cheesy like, you can do it cliche. So can you just describe when you think a book falls short in the conclusion, and then what do you think it looks like to nail it?

That is a great question. I've certainly written those types of conclusions in my early days as a ghostwriter, and they're just. To me, they're boring. I don't know who reads them. And people tend to just summarize. I don't know, it's just odd. To me, it seems like a waste of paper.

It's so funny. You mean when it's like some official like, so I taught you about this. We learned this, this, this Go forth and conquer.

Yeah. And I'm not saying it shouldn't be a rally at the end. I think it should. I just think it's awkward the way we do it. So I created this alternative to a conclusion called Call to Greatness. That's what I refer to it. So the philosophy behind it is your reader, hopefully is not exactly the same person that they were when they started the book. If they read every page and if you've asked them to do stuff, if they also did the stuff, then in theory they have at least a mindset shift. Perhaps they have new abilities. Perhaps actual tangible things have changed. Like in profit first, if they actually do the stuff, they actually have a profitable business by the end of the book. I mean, by the time they turn the last page, that needs to be acknowledged. And the call to greatness is what your reader wants and could dream for themselves on page one is different on the last page. I liken it to a mountain at the beginning. They're at the base of the mountain and their view is treetops, the sky, maybe some clouds at the top is the end of the book. And now they can see the horizon. They can see for miles. So they maybe couldn't even envision a bigger dream at the start of the book. But now they can. So if you can center that conclusion around, showing them that this is true for them and reminding them that now they can actually do even more than they ever thought possible. Way beyond what your book promises. I think that's a really interesting rally. And then you can insert artfully reminders of all the stuff they learned in a way that doesn't seem awkward, like a bulleted list or summary. And I think A Good Call to Greatness also has a great story that illustrates that in Mike's new book, all in, which comes out January 2nd. I'm telling you, it's our best call to greatness ever.

Wow.

And I tear up every time I read it. Wow. Every time I read it. We've had some good ones. And I'm partial to my own Call to Greatness, which is about.

I love yours.

Thank you. Which is about my son's transformation that he did himself from not a great basketball player to an amazing basketball player. And what we can learn from that in terms of what kind of writer we want to be. And not even what kind of writer, just getting the book done, writing a must read. But in Mike's book, all in. Get the book for sure. It's an amazing book. It's our best book. We are so dang proud of it. Our editor said it was our best book. But that call to greatness is my fave fave favor.

That is so exciting. Okay. What a cliffhanger for us to go out and get that new one. That's amazing. It must be such a great feeling too, to, you know, when it clicks and I know you, the story you share at the end of Write a Must Read. It's so exciting. Like, even the pace changes and the storytelling and you're right in it. And it's beautifully done. I love what you did there. I also want to hear, by the way, about, well, at the time of this recording, it's secret, not yet announced, but it will be out by the time this airs. Before we get there and before we get to the permission slip, I would be remiss if I didn't ask one of your tried and true questions. Maybe you know what I'm going to say. You say the question that usually gets unexpected and delicious responses. I'm curious. In the over a year and a half now since your book has been out, what do you know now that you didn't know before?

No one has ever turned that around.

That's funny. That no one has ever turned that around.

Funny. I thought you were going to be like, everybody does this.

No, no. It's one of the greatest questions I use, so I would think someone would try it with me. What I know now is that no amount of expertise or preparation can save you from being nervous about putting your workout into the world. And I think I'm more cognizant now than ever before about the writer's mindset, writer's head game, how we have to think differently and reframe constantly to be successful at this. And I've always been helping authors stay in the game. But to go through the process for my own book in a public, my actual self on the COVID after writing more than a hundred books, it was shocking to me how stressful I found it and what I had to do for myself to keep myself focused, to make sure it was a good experience. And so that's really opened my eyes and has me thinking about ways I can be more helpful to authors in terms of the emotional component.

Honestly, I was really encouraged by that too. Because you have a different seat. I'm in the author seat and I have author friends. But you work with so many. And it was something you said even at the start of your book that you said it did not matter the level of the person's expertise, how successful they were in business, how many books they had already written. It didn't matter that everybody still had nerves. Everybody still wonders, is this idea worth sharing? Is this idea good enough? Is it original? Am I enough? You know, like the whole cycle of those questions and it sounds like not only did you experience that even with your background, that it sounds like pretty much every author you've worked with has had that too. No matter their age, stage, business, bank account balance.

Yes. And I think if they don't think that ever, that they're maybe not telling the truth.

Right.

Maybe they don't realize that's what they're thinking. Maybe it shows up in different ways, but that's just comes from putting something new out into the world, creating something from nothing that's going to be a place of discomfort, whatever level. Maybe it doesn't feel like insecurity to some people, but there's always discomfort when you throw something out into the world for public consumption.

So speaking of which, you have programs like your top three book workshop, the must read editing workshop. I'm put those in the show notes. Speaking of launching secret things, putting it out into the world. I don't even know what it is I said before we hit record that I wanted to be surprised. So share with us what's the latest greatest.

I mentioned it to you, because, you know, I started reading your book Free Time and I took the quiz, by the way, and I've done a really good job of managing time. But I realized that I don't have as much time to think and tinker and come up with stuff anymore because I'm usually serving other authors, which I love doing and I don't want to give up doing. I have a 14 week workshop. It's called Top 3 Book Workshop and I teach it twice a year. And I thought it was being so good. I only do 30 students a year. It's twice a year. And I realized recently that I don't have enough time to be creative. And so my big secret is, which will have already been announced by the time this comes out, that I'm changing my workshop. Now this is so funny because most people just scale up, right?

Yes, I love it.

I'm scaling down. I'm going to switch from doing two a year to one a year. So now there's only going to be one big workshop from me so that I can focus on the things I want to write. But also the editing workshop, which is a much more compressed, doesn't include one on one time with me isn't as time intensive for me. I really want to get that out into the world in a big way. And the reason is there isn't really anything out there that teaches people how to edit their nonfiction books so it's ready for their editor or if they're self publishing so that it's ready for their copy editor and people just don't understand editing. I really want to do that. So I decided I'm going to do the thing that most people don't do, which is scale down.

Ooh, I have a big smile on my face because this is true free timing right here. Yes. As a verb, like this is it. It's setting your time free and realizing that you can probably do a great job having one cohort a year. And it's a lot of work leading up to the marketing and filling the seats and then kicking it off. And I love this. As Alexis from Schitt's Creek would say, I love that journey for you.

It's a good exercise too to think about. Okay, well then what's my revenue and then how will I change this and how do I compensate? So to be clear, I've figured out a way to do it without impacting my revenue in a negative way. And I encourage people to try that what if question because I never thought about it before and I just Assumed that I was already doing a good job, but actually it wasn't freeing up enough space.

I love the idea too. Sometimes I think people are afraid to free up space if they don't know what's going to fill it. But if you are a creative person, if your mind is one of your main assets that you have in your business and as a person making an impact in the world, I love the idea of just giving yourself some space and you don't even know what's going to emerge yet, but you're creating the conditions to give something a chance rather than being scheduled out through the whole year. So that's amazing that you figured it out and even how to do it without affecting your revenue too much. That's so exciting.

Yeah, I'm excited. Maybe your listeners are not excited about this secret, but I don't know, for me it's a big deal.

Yeah, it's a huge deal. And I think I'm just so grateful. I mean, it actually is very in line with what we are talking about here, which is doing business differently, choosing freedom, putting freedom like first and foremost and not so that you can just go to the beach every day, but so you can do more of your best work and the work that's so unique to you. And I think that a lot of free timers and business owners are at least here, very heart based, always thinking about other people, their clients, their families. And so we need examples like this to say it's okay, you don't have to always grow and do bigger and do more. And now hire contractors or facilitators to lead even more workshops every year. Like there are ways to keep things elegant and simple and still create space. I think people will be delighted to hear this example.

Well, I'm glad.

Yay.

I didn't want to give up on caring for my people.

Yeah, yeah.

That takes a lot out of me and I'm happy to do it. And if I one time a year, I'm ready to go. Two times a year means about nine months. So when you consider all the things involved. So I'm excited to see what comes up as a result.

Me too. Me too. And look, you've already have your best conclusion call to greatness ever and you hadn't even freed up this time. So I think more great momentum is around the corner. Last question. If you could give fellow authors permission to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be?

I think I would give authors permission to abandon their timeline. Just completely abandon it. If you've got entrepreneurs that want to write. They're going to be thinking about deadlines and timelines and where does the book fit in my business plan. That's a good instinct because you do want to have strategy. But the problem is that deadline is basically kind of arbitrary in terms of creativity. So if we could just abandon it completely but yet still make consistent progress, I think that opens up opportunities for discovery and creativity that don't happen when we force a set schedule based on what our business needs.

Awesome. Thank you so much, aj. It's really a delight to talk this through with you and listeners. If you don't already have it and you have it anywhere in you that you want to write a nonfiction book, you must buy, write a must Read. Aj, I know there's tons of resources and tools on your website too, but is there anywhere else that you would like to send listeners to learn more?

Yeah, writeamustread.com has tons of free resources and deleted content. And then ajharper.com is where you can find out about Workshop.

Cool. I'll put all those in the show notes, including my frivolous speech read. And we should put AJ's favorite Christmas hallmark movie. You'll have to tell me that. You'll have to report back. Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much for your time, aj. What a treat. And thank you for all the brilliant work that you're putting out into the world.

Thank you, Jenny.

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