The No-Ghostwriter Solution: Becoming a Self-Published Business Book Author

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, your host, Jim James. If you've thought about writing a book but have found it a bit intimidating because it's a lot of words— your average book is about 80,000 words, uh, 250 to 300 pages. You can write shorter ones, 100 pages, that's fine, but you'd like to write something a bit longer, a bit more meaty, a bit more substantial to establish your authority. But you don't have the time or the experience. You thought about a ghostwriter, but those can cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars and pounds. Also maybe out of your reach. But my guest today has got a solution for you because she is democratizing the process of writing business books and also fiction and nonfiction. But we're going to talk about business books because that's what this show is about. Barbara Bazbanes Richter is joining me from New York. Barbara, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, James. Pleasure to be here. Excuse me, Jim.

That's okay. Call me Jim James. My folks knew I wouldn't be so smart, so they gave me 2 essentially the same names. Made my life easier throughout school. Barbara, now you started a new business called DIY Book, but you've got a background As a professional ghostwriter. So aren't you taking some of your own business? Aren't you cannibalizing your own business by doing an $89 online book DIY product?

Oh, it would sound like that, wouldn't it? No, actually, this new company was built out of a problem I was seeing on the ghostwriting side. So I've been ghostwriting, I've been writing professionally for 20 years, but ghostwriting For 15 or so. And I would say for every client that came by and signed up for ghostwriting services, I would turn away 10 who simply could not afford quality ghostwriting services. And it made me sad. I was— I used to be a teacher in another life as well. So I wanted to be able to help these people and I wanted to know how I could help them in a way that was affordable for most people. And so that's really where DIY came about, was to be able to give them the tools and in a step-by-step process, show people that they can become authors if they're, you know, follow certain steps. And of course, there's nothing that says you have to follow these steps. You will come out with a book on the other end. A lot of it comes to just sitting there, setting a rhythm and being consistent with it. And consistency does create a form of success. So that's where DIY Book came from.

Okay. And let's just talk then a bit about that, Barbara, because, you know, you've said, oh, it just takes a bit of rhythm, bit of consistency. But I've written 3 books now. It takes consistency, rhythm, and perseverance, let's face it, right?

It does.

Um, so why don't we just talk about how DIY Book helps? Because at $89, you know, for an annual subscription to your service, that is potentially a huge opportunity for anyone that has a book in mind but doesn't know how to get it from their mind into either, you know, KDP, Kindle, or Lulu, or maybe to an established publisher. So why don't you take us through what you're offering with DIY Book?

Sure. So DIY Book offers 2 membership programs. As you mentioned, there's the $89— these are yearly memberships. One is $89 for a life story program. The other is $349 for a business book program. And once an author signs up for either program, you get a weekly writing prompt emailed to you tailored to what you want to write about. So if you're writing a business book. It's a little bit different. It's actually a little bit more discrete in my experience. I got started writing business books. That was all I did for the first couple years of ghostwriting. And there, every book is different, and every year there's different things to talk about. But there is a particular process that you take on the reader's journey because there's, there's a more, I think, specific goal in mind than perhaps there is with a life story. Life story, of course, the goal is to share your story. Business book, you're probably trying to get a client, or you're trying to show your expertise. So there's a way to do that. And so the prompts that the business book writer receives every week are in a particular order. Now, if the author doesn't want to answer those questions or respond to those prompts, they certainly don't have to. And if they want to do them in a particular order that is different from the one that we're sharing, they have access to an entire library of prompts. And these prompts, again, are based on my experience, you know, 10, 15 years writing, uh, business books. Uh, so you write your book in the platform online, uh, in our— your account. It's secure. If you have collaborators, they can use the same account and get in and write as well. And while you're in there, what we've done, which I think is pretty special, if writers want assistance, if they actually want somebody to look over their shoulder and give them some advice, you can book blocks of time with ghostwriters from my team. I have a team of ghostwriters who write for me, and you can book blocks of 5 or 10, and it's a lot more affordable. To get a real human's help in that way rather than contracting for an entire book. But you don't have to do that. It's there as an offer, as an add-on. And then when you're done, all you have to do when you want to print your book is decide if you want an ISBN or not. Not everybody does. Business books generally, I would imagine you do because you want to go sell them. And I think we'll talk about the whole marketing aspect of it. You pick your cover and tell me how many you want and We print them, we send them to you. That's it.

Really, really turnkey. And Barbara, you did mention there about, uh, prompts. Do you want to just clarify the position with AI? I personally just finished, you know, my manuscript is now 125,000 words. Uh, yeah, is that— that's right. And, uh, I can tell you, uh, AI was useful in some, but I end up editing, really, you know, that myself. AI, is it the salvation? I mean, are you giving people a prompt and they hit return and it's giving them the chapter and verse? Or are people still need to write it?

I think if you want to write it, you still probably need to write it. I mean, AI has in the past year, and we kind of launched right around when ChatGPT became affordable, available to the public. So that was really interesting to see happening in real time. It is not the panacea. I don't think, I mean, if you approach it that way and you just plug and play, you're gonna get something back. Is it going to be reflective of your voice? It may not, but it is certainly a nice tool. And there are some that are better than others. And actually on my website, I've reviewed a couple of them. I've got a whole backlog of AIs that I would like to review because some are more intuitive than others. Some stink.

Oh, really?

Some are not helpful at all. Yeah. So I, it's, I think that that's important to know too, is what kind of tool you're using. Like, for example, Grammarly, I think, is very helpful, but sometimes, sometimes it's really not. And I feel like sometimes these AI have their own personalities and you catch them on a bad day, they're not going to be very helpful. But you're right, it's a tool. If you're using it to bounce ideas off of, or if you're stuck on a particular phrase, you're not sure how you want to say it, or, you know, you want to say something about a particular event or moment, or you're trying to create a CTA and you're just not sure, plugging that into AI can give you ideas. But sometimes in my experience, what it's going to give you is very generic. If you're trying to do something that is going to actually speak to your experience as an entrepreneur, it's not going to know that because it can't get in your brain. And also just in terms of the historical data that AI has, it's— I think it stops.

They all vary, but it's not like it's going to reach into the news prompts and be able to tell you what's happening and then apply it to whatever topic you're working Yeah, so Barbara, and in a way my experience with, uh, with the AI of course is it does create vanilla because it's finding what's out there and finding the most sort of common denominator rather than an interesting perspective. Um, let's just go back a step because you talked about business book has a certain structure. Um, I'd love for you to just share with us what that structure should look like. I think that because people are kind of familiar with the consumer one of the story arc, the hero, the journey, the challenge, and so on. But what about a business book, Barbara? What should be the structure of a business book? Because presumably it's not the same.

It's, it's, it is and it isn't. And, and then, and I know that I'm— I just said that that is, but also—

That's okay.

Some business books are centered around the entrepreneurial journey, and that can be a personal story. And it's— the arc is, you know, I was here and I saw a problem in the marketplace and this is how I solved it. Or I saw a problem with myself and then I changed things and there was this transformative moment, and that's where this Product came from. So I guess the way you would condense that is what is the big idea, whatever it is, in your business book? And that can be hard to decide if you're especially if you're an entrepreneur. Are you selling a product? Are you selling a service? Are you selling yourself? So once you've decided what that big idea is, then you can approach these prompts that you're receiving from us, or if you're just doing it on your own, with a little bit more clarity. So that's one thing. And then I would say. What is your hook going to be? You do need a hook. And again, is it— are you trying to sell your reader on something? Are you establishing your authority on something? Are you explaining something new in your field? So those are the two, I think, important things. And also, what is it that— I think as long as you can define your problem also is probably the third element. You define the problem. There's always some kind of problem, at least in my experience, in a business book because you want to solve it in some way or another, whether again it's you or your service or your product. So those three things. Once you have those, the writing of the business book tends to be a lot smoother, whether you're ghostwriting it or you're doing it yourself or using prompts.

Okay, well, you say that because you've been writing for so long. For some of us, it doesn't feel that smooth. Quite a bumpy run, to be honest, but there we are. Barbara, you did mention AI, that you've been testing them. Which would you say is the best one that you've tried?

Oh boy. So I think Grammarly is nice. I've found myself writing in When I'm doing a lot of my own writing, I like the layout in terms of right. I don't like the intrusiveness of the AI assistant. I've turned that off because I it will correct me on grammar when I'm really working on style. So that's another thing. If you have a particular voice, and that just comes with practice. I mean, you you know, Jim, what your voice is. You know what you want to project after three books, how you want to sound on paper. For a first-time author, that can be very hard to figure out. And I'm not some folks can see it; some folks can't. Um, when something is written on a page, what you see and what you hear, sometimes it doesn't match up, or what you hear may not be what your reader hears. They may hear sarcasm, or they may not hear the sarcasm, or, uh, the kind of language that you're using may not be imparting that kind of gravitas. So back to Grammarly, I find that sometimes it just, it will, it frustrates me. It's not me. So I turn that off.

Right.

Um, another one that I have been experimenting with just to see what it is, because I want to write about it, is called Lex. Lex.page, I think. And I, I like it because one, I like the layout of it. It's black, it's a black writing background. I find for myself when I use Microsoft Word, which has kind of been unfortunately the gold standard, um, I don't like the white. I find it, it, it hurts my eyes, so I always change the background on that anyway. Um, I guess I'm going to date myself here. My favorite of all time was WordPerfect.

Yes, you and I both know that one. Yeah.

Yeah. It was just a writing— it was just— it was a writing platform for writers. And what I found with Lexpage recently, I've only just really started playing around with it in the last week or so. It has an AI feature integrated into it, which is something that I'm actually interested in doing for DIY Book, that will talk to you. It won't necessarily— it's like having somebody there that you can bounce ideas off in the water cooler. And again, they're generic. And it's funny, it's something Sometimes I've asked it some specific questions and it says, you should go and look that up. So, uh, I appreciate that. I feel like if I was talking to somebody in the office, they'd say the same thing, like, I have no idea, go, go do your own research.

It's at least a little bit, a little bit on— it has its own conscience. So, Barbara, with— just to be clear then, so with DIY Book, there's no AI? The prompts that you're sending are from your own experience of what the author would need to write next, the next part of their journey?

Exactly.

And, and if that author is writing content using Grammarly or Lex or, or their own, uh, ChatGPT or Anthropic is, is also, I find, quite good, uh, with Claude.ai. Um, what's—

Claude is interesting anyway. Yeah, it is.

We can have a whole AI conversation. Um, what's, what's the workflow or help that people are getting, um, from you as they get closer to the end of the book? Are you helping them to start to edit that as well? Um, because one of the challenges is producing, is writing the book, but actually then you need a, a set of eyes to go through it and see if it's got balance, if it's got pace, if it's got repetition. What are you doing there to help people?

So in their weekly writing prompts, there's an email. So in the actual email itself, I should probably clarify that the actual full prompt is not necessarily in the email. You, you click into the, uh, your account and you see the full prompts, the prompts are pretty meaty. It's not just a one-sentence prompt. It's— there's, there's details there because I'm trying to replicate what I would be asking a client if I were one-on-one on a ghostwriting session. So it's not just, you know, tell me your life story, tell me how you got started in business. It's much more discreet. What was the pain? You know, those sorts of things.

Hmm.

But in the emails that people are receiving, I'm offering some encouragement and I'm trying to scaffold, um, the prompt for them so that they can anticipate what they're going to be seeing when they get into the account. So if they're working on what the problem is that they're trying to solve, for example, I explain in the email why it's important to lay that out for the reader at this particular point in the book. So I guess that's, it's kind of like motivation.

Yeah, and I think that for many people, that's what they, what they need, um, as they're writing, especially as it is by definition a lonely journey. But what would you say is the most common mistake that you've seen business people make when writing a book or trying to write a book?

Mistake? I don't know if it's a mistake. I think it's riding on ambition— not ambition, motivation as your primary driver because motivation tanks. And I think setting your expectations to a realistic level is important. I've, at least in my experience, and this isn't just for business folks, but for just to kind of across the board, people will say, I'm going to devote 5 hours a week to this, or I'm going to devote whatever the number is. And in the beginning, they do, and they're all in, and it's super exciting, and everything is new. And then, you know, the rest of someone's life kicks in and reality happens and, or, you know, you get sick or just you have to go run your business and it becomes unsustainable. And that drop in motivation can be very destabilizing for anybody because if this is something for a lot of people, in my experience, that they've been talking about doing for so long, and then when they start doing it, there's this rush of adrenaline and they're super excited. And then when that tanks, it's hard to recover from that. So, I would say one of the best ways that you can prevent that from happening as a business owner entrepreneur is actually look at your life, look at your business and say, what can I realistically accomplish on a day-to-day and a week-to-week basis to get this done? And that's going to go a long way for when, you know, it's not so fun anymore and you're in the weeds, as you know, you just start to hate your project and you want it done. Yeah.

Yeah, my daughters wondered why I was sort of at night, you know, so many nights in the office. And they're like, Dad, come on, you just come out and watch a movie. And you're like, yeah.

I want to, believe me.

I want to, but it'll be there when I finish. What about collaborations, Barbara? I had Rusty Shelton on the show who started Advantage, and he'd just written a book called The Authority Advantage. And he talked about the power of collaborations. What's your view On that as a way to maybe even get into the first book?

Well, I guess it depends on what kind of— so you mean somebody who would also be getting a byline?

Yeah, maybe you do it with somebody, you partner with somebody, a bit like if you're running a marathon, for example, or doing any long-term pursuit, partnering up with someone could be quite a good way, kind of, or another person writes at the same time as you.

It can be, and I've had experience with it where it's wonderful, and I've had experiences where it's oil and water, and I've just seen it from the ghostwriting side, where 2 people, 2 parties come together, and they have this idea, and it sounds amazing. And it would be a great book. And I'm just thinking actually, for a project that didn't happen, because the personalities were such that they could not make it gel. And it was very challenging. And it's unfortunate, because the book as it was conceived would have been amazing. And I was very excited to be a part of it. But, but that was something— they worked nice in a different domain, but, um, when it came to—

It is a partnership. Now, speaking of different domains, Barbara, shifting just slightly the gears. So you've, you've launched this business, but as an entrepreneur, you've moved from being a ghostwriter and marketing yourself to marketing a product. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about, um, a challenge that you've faced in launching a product? Because for many people that are consultants, they always dream of having a product so they're not selling their own time, they're selling a product. But it has— I know from experience, it's a different dynamic, isn't it? What's been your learning from launching thediybook.us, which is the domain name?

Thank you. You know, it is. I'm still learning. One has been just understanding my market. I mean, I had a very broad sense of who that was, I basically said it's not my ghostwriting clients, it's all these other people. But then also reaching them in a way that makes sense, that has taken constant editing on my end and making sure that the language that I'm using, um, in my marketing, in my, my ads, uh, you know, running ads and, and conveying to them that this is something that they can trust, that this is a product that I have tested, um, I'm constantly testing, that they can trust that what they're putting into it will result in something that they'll be proud of. So that's that for has been probably the biggest challenge. The other challenge is just kind of as a ghostwriter, generally we're not forward-facing people, um, much more comfortable behind the scenes and letting everybody else take all the glory. That is, that is why we're ghosts. Um, so one thing that I've found is, is creating an authority like we— like I try to do for my ghostwriting business clients. You have to be the authority. And that is something that I have had to take on, you know, as the founder of this company, is show people who I am, what I've done from ghostwriting and bringing that here. And that has been, um, It's been exciting. It's not my natural environment, but—

Well, you're doing it very well though. I mean, you're an ambassador for the business and you're extremely articulate. You know your product, you know the domain. So it would come across as though you've been doing this for a long time.

Oh, thank you. That's very kind of you.

Yeah, not at all. Not at all. So what's been the impact on your ghostwriting clients? Because sometimes there can be an anxiety from the core business clients when you launch a new product that they're not gonna get the same kind of attention. Have you had to deal with that at all?

I haven't, which has been really great. I do have a team of ghostwriters. I was fortunate that the business has grown. So I do have a nice tiny but mighty team and they're wonderful. I think combined we have, I don't even wanna say how many decades of experience, but so I do trust them and that has been smooth and there's been no disruptions.

Okay, well, that's perfect to hear. So you're venturing out with the new product, and that's at diyabook.us in case anybody's trying to find it. Barbara, if you've got a tip for someone that is thinking about writing a book, I know we've covered off some of the mechanics, Are there any opportunities that you see that people haven't embraced yet, for example, in the authoring space in business? Something that you could suggest?

In terms of one tip that I think that people could take?

Yeah, if someone's sitting there at the moment listening and going, well, you know, before I'm 50 or 60 or before I retire, or I am retiring and I've I'd like to have a book so I could carry that as a non-executive director or take out. What would you give them as guidance?

Well, I think, so if you're a business owner, you're an entrepreneur, you're already pretty busy and you're saying, how in the heck am I going to fit it in? I would say you can. You're smart people. Don't put it off. The longer you put it off, I mean, there's, of course, on the flip side, people will say, well, I have more to talk about. Well, then of course you could write your second book at that point and talk about how things have changed. I would say if you can manage a business or you're launching a business, You can find the time if you, if you treat it with the same kind of care, uh, that you do everything else in your life. It can get done and it will be super rewarding. And even if, if it's a small print run— and we haven't even talked about marketing and publicity— um, if you just do it for yourself, it is a huge achievement. And people forget about that. Writing 100,000 words, 80,000 words, whatever it is, it is a significant achievement. It changes your brain. It changes your relationship, at least in my experience with my ghostwriting clients. to yourself, to the people around you. Um, I just, I think just for the experience alone. Of course, people are saying, oh, it's kind of like running a marathon just for the experience. I don't know.

Yeah, you kind of get, instead of sore knees like you get with the marathon, you get kind of a sore bottom. I can, I'm just working my way up the body. But Barbara, we, we thank you for that tip. We haven't talked about marketing, but we did say we were going to get some of the benefit of your wisdom on the marketing because as we know, a book is only really 10%, 15%, you've got the manuscript. What do you do with DIY Book to help people once they've got that manuscript and, and it's gone through and they're happy with it? What, what next?

Once they're happy with it, it says if they want and they just want to print it and they have— so I'll back up. Some folks have a publicity team in place in their businesses and they just say, I'm just using this to print out my book and my team's going to take care of it. So then that's, that's what they do. And that actually, we took that into consideration so we could keep the costs low because we don't want to charge people for something they didn't need. But that's not everybody. Some people are bootstrapping and they're doing things à la carte. So once they have their book, what I would say— actually, not once they have their book, when they begin their book, they should really be thinking about marketing and promotion because— and that's whether you have a book deal, you're self-publishing, you're creating your own imprint. And actually, I would say if you're a small business owner or entrepreneur, you don't have a traditional book deal or you're using DIY Book, create an imprint. It's not hard to do. Actually, we help people doing this. But if you're a go-getter, you can figure it out on your own. It really elevates the authority of your brand and your entrepreneurship, whatever you're trying to promote. And that's a big marketing tool, I think, right there. That's pretty easy to do. I would say you want to identify your author platform when you're marketing your book. So what's your online presence? You want to start connecting with your readers, whether it's Facebook or LinkedIn or Reddit or wherever they are, find them and cultivate that tribe. Maybe it's on TikTok or BookTok, I don't know. And then you want to figure out your author events, your book reviews. Are you going to have friends blurb it for you? Are you going to actually reach out to others in your field who have written similar books? All of those things are super important. And then just like when you're writing your book, when you're promoting your book, consistency is huge. If you're, for example, going to have a social media campaign, are you going to do it once a week, twice a week? Whatever it is, it's got to be something that you can do so that you're building that followership. And in the beginning, I will say sometimes if you're starting from a smaller pool of followers, it can be a slog and you feel like Sisyphus going up the hill. Am I ever going to get there? And, you know, I think you will. It takes time. Sometimes it requires an adjustment or you realize while you're doing things I had one client, for example, who recently was doing Instagram and loved Instagram, loved the whole process of it, thought it was just so much fun, but there was no engagement there. So we actually shifted from that to LinkedIn and it's just been night and day. Doesn't like LinkedIn, but it's where she needed to be.

Yeah, interesting. Interesting. So really, as you say, once you've got the book, it needs a whole active campaign over 6, 12 months, doesn't it? Before, during, and after.

Yeah. And the nice thing with business books, sometimes if they're not super timely, like if they're not pegged to something happening in the world, they can be a little evergreen. So if you don't time something directly to your book launch, the nature of publishing has changed so that it's okay. There's this dissemination of information now that people don't necessarily know that if your book published in May and you're talking about it in June, if it doesn't, it doesn't have the same impact, it's okay. You're still reaching new audiences. But knowing that and having that in mind when you're creating your strategy is very important. And budget. And we didn't even talk about budget, but budget is important too. There's a lot you can do on a small budget, but it's very tempting to go blow it on ads and things that are shiny, I guess. Yeah, you don't have to do that.

I won't ask you how much because I'm sure it's as long as a piece of string, really, a budget. It's, you know, you can spend as little or as much as you like depending on the niche that you're going for. And so besides, besides, Barbara, Barbara, I want people to have a reason to come and find you, Barbara Basbain Richter. Um, I'm gonna ask you before I get your details shared, you're obviously someone who reads a lot. You've got a shelf, 3 shelves of books behind you, and those are just the ones I can see. Uh, what about a book or a podcast that you would recommend to my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs?

Hmm, well, I've been listening to a podcast called Acquired. It's hosted by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, and it's about companies, and it's amazing. And so, it's a podcast, honestly, that I didn't know that I would like. I usually listen to running podcasts and French language podcasts. So, yeah, that's one I would recommend. So, if it's something outside your sphere and you love it, tell the world about it. Okay.

That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Barbara, People want to tell the world about their story using DIY Book. How can they find you?

Well, I hope they'll come to diybook.us. And if they want to connect, I'm on Instagram at DIY Book HQ, Facebook DIY Book HQ. I have a podcast called Writing for Immortality. And we host authors, writers, publicists, artists. We review books. This week we're doing actually book reviews for the summer. So come listen to that podcast. It's free. I want to offer as many free resources as possible to folks to be able to write their book with ease. So those are 2 ways. Also on Instagram, Writing for Immortality, if you want to see the list of folks we're talking to. And yeah, that's it. Just type me honestly into Google.

You'll find me. That's a lot. And it's diybook.us. So probably Go there first and you can find Barbara there. Barbara, we found you in upstate New York, uh, in Westchester. So thank you for joining me today.

Thank you, Jim, for having me. It was a great pleasure.

Well, it's been a pleasure. We've covered a lot of, a lot of ground in a short amount of time, and publishing and self-publishing is a huge, huge undertaking. But from personal experience, it's also massively rewarding. I think I've now I've written 3 books, but I, I create anthologies from my guests. So I'm kind of cheating a little bit, really. I'm curating other people's thoughts. Um, but you know, we're all trying to help create some immortality for our ideas, aren't we? Uh, Barbara, we are.

And when folks say, why, why me? Because your story is different. There are people who can benefit from learning from you.

And you've heard it from Barbara. If you're listening to this, people can benefit from hearing your story. So I hope you've benefited today. Day from listening to Barbara's story. And thank you for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James, your host here in Wiltshire in the UK. If you've enjoyed it, do please rate it, review it on the player of your choice, and share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. And until we meet again, think about a book, and if you need to get started, go to diybook.us. Thank you so much for listening.