Chandler Bolt — A 3-Step Process To Envision And Write Your Book

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float Shark with your boy. My boy, Matt Wolf. Joe Fear.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to another episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. My name is Joseph Fear.

I am Matthew Wolf.

There he is. We're very formal today because we're talking about books. These are those things on your shelf that like to gather dust. Unless they are good books, then they don't gather dust or gust in wins. All right, so in all reality today we have a badass self publishing author slash teacher. And he runs a very successful actually podcast and whole school about how to do this. But he's self published, what, six books or more probably, but six best selling books. His name is Chandler Bolt. He is an awesome name, by the way. I thought my name was cool, but his is as cool, not, not cooler. But yeah, total badass episode. And he goes through the exact steps you need to take to kind of get that book going out of your head onto paper and into the market.

And I'll just say this about Chandler. He, he mapped out some processes to like get a book written quick. And Joe and I were sitting here going, damn it. That would have made our books a lot faster to write if we followed those. So, you know, take some notes, get ready to take some notes on this. He's got some really good processes, really simple things to follow that, you know, you know, his sort of usp, his thing that he promises people he's gonna take you from no book to Published author in 90 days.

90 days.

From 0 to 90 days. Published author. And he's gonna map out a process for you on this episode. So let's go ahead and.

Well, and remember, as you're listening to this, there are links if you are driving or something. Make sure to check out our blog because he gives you a lot of valuable links too.

Yep, yep. So let's, let's go ahead and dive in and welcome Chandler Bolt. Hey, Chandler, thanks so much for being on the call with us. How you doing?

Hey, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's just go ahead and start by getting a little bit about your backstory. I mean, we know you do the self publishing stuff. I'm sure you've got a lot of books out there. You teach others how to do self publishing. How did you get into that world? What led you down that path? And why did you decide that's sort of what you wanted to do and teach?

Yes, I kind of tripped and fell into it, to be honest. It was one of those things where I'm a C level English student and a college dropout. Nice. And that's kind of my background. And I wrote and published my first book. It made close to $7,000 in the first month and continued to make thousands of dollars a month in passive income. So it opened my eyes to not only passive income through the Internet and selling stuff online, I mean in this case a book, but just really just the power of books in general to completely change the course of someone's life. So I, I did another book with my brother for charity. I helped a friend do a book and then I was working on just a failing business at the time and people kept asking about the publishing stuff. And this is kind of like, you know, somebody can only slap you in the face so many times before you turn around and look. Right. You know, it's like, okay, people actually want this and they obviously don't want this thing that I'm trying to sell for my other business. So why don't I just totally turn my attention? So that sparked self publishing school. We had like a small 44 person class for the very first class. And that's how I was able to personally kind of prove to myself that I could replicate my results in other people. I did that. I replicated those results for others. And then I said, okay, this is something I can believe in and therefore something I can sell. Right. And so because I can't sell something that I don't believe in. So once that was the case, we just decided to start scaling it.

Very cool. What was your first, what was your first couple of books about?

Yes. So my very first book was called the Productive Person about productivity for entrepreneurs and people who struggle with work, life balance. And then the second book was called Breaking out of a Broken System. And that book, I wrote it with my brother. So my brother plays in the Grammy nominated rock and roll band called need to Breathe. So it's like pretty big band. They've done six albums through Atlantic, you know, been on every Tonight show that you. And just all those things. Right. And so it was, that book was really about, it was charity, but it was about the 15 things our parents taught us growing up that we thought were normal. But then when we got out in the real world, we realized that no one gets taught this stuff. So it was his perspective on those 15 things as a musician, my perspective on those 15 things as a business guy.

That's pretty cool. I like that angle. So what's. I'm actually kind of surprised with how the first book kind of, I mean, I'm sure you did a lot of work and stuff, but that was able to bring in enough income to be like, I mean, totally life changing because I know a lot of people publish books and doesn't really move the needle, you know, it really doesn't bring in much income, subscribers, whatever it might be. Describe a little bit about that first book, that first experience you had publishing.

Oh, it was, I mean, it was life changing. It's. It's a light bulb moment where once you see it, you can't unsee it, right. Once you, once you figure, it's like that feeling of knowing that thousands of people are buying your book around the world that you've never even met and it's happening while you sleep and it's happening. You know, for me, the first, the real light bulb moment was I was snowboarding with my friends in Austria. Like I said, I was studying abroad. Air quotes around the word study.

And so we were snowboarding and my friend was asking about the book and I was like, yeah, it made 400 bucks yesterday while we were snowboarding all day. And that was one of those moments where I was like, oh. As I said it, you know, as I told him that I realized what had just happened. You know, this was that Robert Kiyosaki passive income, right. That I read about in his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. But he says passive income equals real estate. And I was like, okay, well, I don't have enough money to start in real estate. So it's like, you know, it brought me back to that concept of passive income. And sure, not every, I mean, that's definitely not typical results, right. For a book. But really, I think if you do it the right way, the back end of a book can be very valuable. And that's what I teach a lot is. Okay, yeah, it's going to be nice to have that mailbox money that comes in months and years from like, you know, I still make money from that book every single month that I published years ago. So that is a good feeling. And there's not many people listening. I would imagine no matter what you do could say the same thing. Like that you've done something three years ago that you're still getting paid for. A book is kind of a very unique thing in that way. And although it might not be life changing riches overnight, which I think everyone just tuned out and sleep since I said that. Right. But although it might not be life changing overnight riches, I do believe that I like to say the book is like a key that opens the door to Narnia, right? It opens up to this world that you didn't know existed. And I didn't know that I could be running seven figure online education company, right. I didn't know there were podcasts like this that I could be interviewed on that. Just like all these things I didn't know about before becoming an author. So that's where I really think the power is for people is like what harnessing a book for leads, authority and credibility. Not just for you, but also for the business that you're trying to build so really quick.

And that's freaking amazing because I think that summed up what this whole thing's gonna be about. And you mentioned backend. So just. So I'm assuming that's obviously leading to another action they take after the book or whatnot. Just explain a little bit what that means to everybody here.

Yeah, great question. So I'm not talking about my butt. I'm actually talking about the backside of your business or the backside of your book, right? So for me, the book is what I call the front end. My business is the back end. So that means, you know, a lot of people, listeners, are probably familiar with the term value ladder, right? So it's like. And even if you're not, I'll just quickly explain it, right? So it's okay. It's this increasing value ladder. As you climb the ladder, things get more expensive and more intimate in business. So a book is like the very bottom of my value ladder, and then people can go up from there. So it's an entry point, right? So my books drive tons and tons and tons of leads for my business. So, you know, whereas most people pay to get leads, I get paid to get leads through my books, right? I make money every day off my books. At the same time, they generate a massive amount of leads through those books. And so. And those are very high, very highly qualified leads. So people who, you know, I like to call a book a silent salesman, right? Because they're reading my book for like four hours and now all of a sudden we have this deep relationship and I've never even said a word to them. My book's doing all the talking. And so at the end of that, they're much more ready to do business with me. So that's what I mean when I say back end is how are you going to use your book to then segue into, what is that? What does the business look like behind it?

Yeah, no, and I love your philosophy. This Is actually stepping back just something you said a couple minutes ago. But I love the philosophy where you kind of tied it to Robert Kiyosaki and. And the whole real estate thing. Because one of the things that we're big proponents of and one of the things we talk about over and over and over again is the idea that you need to focus on creating as many assets as possible that can generate revenue. You know, real estate is one of those things. But it sounds like you sort of take that approach with a book. Like a book is just an asset that I, you know, I can invest in once and then it's going to sort of pay me dividends from, you know, time and time again throughout the years. And so I love that analogy of, of, you know, you make that once and then you get the. What you call mailbox money. Mailbox income.

That's.

Yeah, that's so my. I told you, my brother's in the music industry. That's a music industry term. Because back in the day, you know, you'd put out a record and then you'd walk out to your mailbox and money would just show up. Royalties from. From record labels, from radio spins, and like all around the world stuff like that. I mean, now obviously it just goes to your bank account, but it's still fun to call it mailbox money.

No, that's cool. I don't think I've heard that term, but I like it. I think we might start adopting that one.

So funny story behind this is like a total tangent, but I was where I heard that was. I was in a business course. It was the best. I mean, before I dropped out of school, it was like the only course that was helpful for me. It was ran by this guy who was just ultra wealthy, very successful business guy, and he hosted like this or he held this club that was like kind of elite. And it was only like, it was the top business leaders from the city of Charleston, South Carolina, which is where the school was. And it was a boardroom style meeting, so only, you know, nothing could leave the room. You had to come dressed up in a suit, like all this stuff, right? And he brought Darius Rucker in one time. And Darius Rucker was talking about the business end behind Hootie and the Blowfish. And that's what. That's the first time I heard that term, mailbox money. I was like, oh, man, that's really cool. I'm gonna use that.

That's awesome. That's. Aw. Well, let's talk a little bit about sort of your process for creating a book. Because I think the impression that's out there in the world is that a book is just this monumental undertaking. You know, people spend two years getting their book out and, you know, you have no idea if it's going to be a success, but you spent all this time in it. You know, George R.R. martin, who does the Game of Thrones book, I don't think releases a book, like once every 10 years. So, you know, I think when people think like, oh, I'm going to write a book, they're thinking like, this is just some insane undertaking. But I think you've got some strategies and some processes to sort of fast track that process 100%.

So our whole thing is we take people from blank page to published author in 90 days. So I really think for this sort of thing, there's two diametrically opposed ends of the spectrum, right? There's one side of the spectrum, which is the old school side, which is what many people are brainwashed to believe, which is a book is going to take years in tons of time, right? And, oh, by the way, you need a publisher, right? And then on the other side of the spectrum, there's people who will say a book will take like a few hours and it can be complete crap, but just publish it anyway. And I don't buy the just publish crappy content. That's not at all what I'm saying. But I am a firm believer in Parkinson's law, which states that an object will swell in proportion to the amount of time or space that you give it. So let me just give an example, right? So this is why America's budget, we, you know, traditionally across the board, household to household, people spend 3% more than they earn, right? Parkinson's Law. You earn more, you're going to spend more. Same reason you're cramming for a test or you need to write a paper in college. What are you going to do? Well, of course you're going to stay up all night the night before, right? Parkinson's law. So I really do believe that. So if you give yourself years to write a book, then certainly it's going to take years. And it might be might, and this is a huge might. It might be marginally better. I actually argue that if you do a shorter and more focused period of time, you'll end up with a much better book and you'll certainly get there faster. So that's what we show people how to do, is hey, hey, walk through the process. And it's not as complicated as you think it is? It's actually pretty simple. If you can write a page, you can write a book. So really just breaking it down. So it's very simple as well as kind of just shattering this misconception that needs to take years.

And I would imagine that misconception is probably the biggest hurdle you have to take people through. Even to think about having their own.

Book written or 100% mental.

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess what are some first steps that like, if someone who has thought about this forever, they know the value of a book, I think it's pretty obvious, but they just don't feel like they're ready to take the leap. But they really want to. What would you tell them?

Yeah, the very first step that I recommend is to create a mind map. And this is like the first step in a three step process that I teach. And it's the most important thing a lot of people get hung up on.

So even before they start writing, they get hung up on all these dumb things that don't matter, like which software should I use to write. Believe it or not, this is the most popular blog post on our entire site is which book writing software is best.

And I love it because it sends me a ton of customers. Of course, and certainly we can link up to it, I mean, if you really want to know. But honestly, like it's the answer. Like this is a spoiler alert.

The answer is whichever one's going to help you get your first words written the fastest.

Right.

Which usually is not. Like a lot of people want to go down the scrivener route. It's a great software or others. But you know, if that's not going to help you get your first words on the page, then you're really just wasting time. So that's to come back. To answer your question, creating a mind map is very important because most people, they, you know, maybe you're listening right now and you think, I've got something I could write five pages about, but I certainly couldn't write an entire book on this topic. Right? Well, when people go through this mind map process, they'll come back to me and they'll say, Chandler, not only do I have enough for a full book, I've got enough for like two or three books and I got to figure out which one to write first. So much better process or much better place to come from. So when I say a mind map, I mean take a blank sheet of printer paper. So blank paper, no lines, old school. Don't do mind mapping software again. How can you do the mind map the fastest? Well, it's not like trying to figure out some new mind mapping software. People are always trying to tell me about their newest and fanciest mind mapping software. I'm like that. I don't care. That's not faster than just doing a normal mind map.

Yeah.

It's just that people want to avoid the uncomfortable and oftentimes mind mapping writing, things like that are uncomfortable. There's a funny joke. Well, I guess it's not that funny.

I don't want to set myself up for failure here. But there's a joke that goes. You can tell when a writer's on a deadline because that's when they'll pop up on Facebook the most. They'll pop up on social media because writing is inherently uncomfortable. So people want to do whatever they can to avoid it. Such as choose book writing softwares, find mind mapping softwares, you know, talk about how they're going to market their book that they haven't even written the first words of. It's just all these things that are just simply a distraction. So take that blank sheet of printer paper, write your topic in the middle of the page, then just branch out, branch out, branch out. Right. Every idea you can think of, book that you've read, lesson that you've learned, stories that you have, that's a big one, really. Stories go through that. And what I would recommend people do is as soon as you stop listening to this interview, take 15 minutes, give me at least 15 minutes and try that. And I guarantee that you're going to find out that there's a lot more that you know about this topic than you think that you know. So that's the most important piece and the starting point. And as well as just getting it in your head if you want to do this, that nothing else matters until you finish your rough draft. Until you finish that rough draft, everything else is just a distraction.

Right. Right. I actually have a question before we talk about any other sort of steps. I actually want to step back before step one. Do you get people that are that purchase your courses or buy your book on how to be self published? You get people that buy that and go into it not even knowing what they're going to write about. And.

Like, what sort of advice do you give them on figuring out what to write about?

Yeah, so that's a great question. So we have, we walk through a process of what we call the idea finder. Because, you know, there's two types of people I found, you know, there's either the first type, which is, I have no idea what I'm going to write about. And then the second type, which is, I have like 15 book ideas, I don't know which one to write first. And they'll oftentimes say, oh, can I just write multiple books at the same time? And we only have two rules inside Self Publishing School. Number one is that you can't write more than one book at a time. You just can't do it. It's not smart. You're setting yourself up for failure. And then number two is you can't edit while you write, because that is the killer. Right? We all know someone who has five chapters of their. Five perfectly written chapters of their unfinished book, right? And they've been sitting on it for years and they're never going to finish it because they're focused on making these five chapters so good. So I certainly see that one of my favorite examples is Eileen Wilder, because when I heard this, I was like, this is crazy. Why in the world would you join this course if you have no idea what you're going to write about? I guess they're just really good at selling it.

Yeah.

People believe they're coming in. They're like, I got this.

And so I was like, man, this is crazy, first off. But then I talked to her and she was like, yeah, I didn't know I was gonna write about, but you told me you'd help me find an idea. And I just trusted and trusted the process and I knew this was something that I was called to do. Like, I have to do this.

Wow.

And so Eileen Wilder, she basically went from no idea when she joined, she wrote and published her book. It's called the Brave Body. Sorry, the Brave Body Method. So it helps women with body image and things like that. So great message. But then she published the book, self published it through the program, all that stuff, and she. It was really successful. And the next thing she knows, she got contacted by a publisher. And then like a few months later, she walked into Barnes and Noble and it was like front and center placement. She's got a picture of her in front of Barnes and Noble, right? So that's a prime example of someone who, you know, in the span of gosh, all told, it was probably about a year and a half. Like, I have no idea what I'm gonna write about. I'm in the front of Barnes and Noble, like my local Barnes and Noble, like, taking a picture with my book. And not because I went in there and put my book in the store, because they actually put it in there themselves.

That's a hell of a testimonial right there.

So was there some sort of. Like, some sort of catalyst or. You know, what. What letter did it decide? Okay, this is the topic that I'm gonna write on.

Yeah.

You know, so we tell people to ask questions or like, I give people prompting questions. Right. Like, what are you passionate about? What do you really like? You won't shut up about it. Your friends wish you would. Right. Like you're talking about all the time. If you're a knowledge worker, which this is a big one. So. Knowledge worker, meaning that you get paid for what's in your head. So you could be an accountant, you could be a lawyer, you could be a manual laborer, you could be an architect. You could, you know, anything that requires you to think. An educator, a professor, whatever. Are there things that you've learned the hard way that people who are. Have been in, you know, would be in this industry, coming into it fresh? Like, if I were to go into your industry today, what would I not know that you know? Right. And then there's that gap that exists between what you know and what I don't. And in that gap is a prime space for a book. Right. You know, it could be. It could be hobbies, like, things that you enjoy, all those things. So I think in Eileen's case, she knew that she had. She, you know, she had a personal experience from going through this, you know, like, struggling with body image and things like that. So she was like, hey, I have this hard personal experience that I went through that I could use that story to help other people.

That makes perfect sense. Yeah, that's cool.

That makes a lot of sense.

And I guess that kind of hammers down this whole I'm not an expert thing, too. It's like, you don't know what you're going to talk about. But also a lot of people. I know when we taught people how to publish as well, but it was more digital. It was a little shorter form. But still, you're dealing with this like, okay, well, I'm not worthy to speak on this. I'm not the authority. I mean, I'm sure it's a similar conversation.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, one of the main objections that we get.

Totally.

And I've got. I've got a kind of a. An illustration that when people hear it, they first laugh and then they're like, okay, that makes sense. I'm over it. Or I'm at least kind of over it. When that's that. So have you guys ever heard of the saying, you know, maybe this is a Southern thing, I don't know, but it's. If you're getting, if you're in the woods getting chased by a bear, you don't have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than your friend. Okay, so imagine that but for writing a book. So you don't have to be the next Einstein, right? This genius, smartest person on earth, this expert. You just have to know a little bit more than the person that you're teaching. You just have to be a little bit faster than your friend or the person that you're teaching. So that's what I like to say to people is, hey, you know.

You know, a little bit more than the person. That's your target audience. You might be a year ahead of them, you might be five years ahead of them, you might be 50 years ahead of them. But no matter what that gap is, you just have to know a little bit more than the person that you're teaching. And in fact, those people oftentimes might not resonate with like a Tony Robbins or, you know, some big name, but they might resonate with you and your story, and they wouldn't have had that information otherwise.

Yeah, no, that's, that's really good stuff. I actually, my, one of my first business was actually called Learn to blog dot com. And I, you know, I sold that business a couple years ago. But that was exactly one of the biggest objections that people had was they would buy the course and say, I'm gonna go blog, but I don't know what to blog on. Well, why did you buy a course about how to blog if you don't know what to blog on? So we had to, you know, we created a ton of training and along that same lines. And you know, you're so right that people just forget how much they know in whatever sort of industry they're in or what they do on a daily basis. You forget how much you know or you just don't, you don't realize that what, you know, other people don't know. So I think that's really powerful and some great advice now coming back to sort of the steps that you put people through. So now we've got a knife idea for a book and we've mind mapped everything out. We've gotten our printer piece of paper and we, we mapped it all out with pen and just have like a, you know, a scribble of ideas of all these things we want to put in a book. Where do you move people beyond that?

Yes. So that's first. That's the first step is the mind map. And then the second step is moving into the outline. So you basically turn your book, sorry, your book mind map, into an outline. And the way that I like to do that is take common themes that you see in your mind map and group them into four to seven common themes. These are going to form like kind of the sections for your book. And then within those four to seven sections, you're going to organize those in the order that you want to cover them and then drill down on a chapter by chapter level. And that's really when you transition from, okay, I have my map to now I have a chapter by chapter roadmap or an outline, right? So now step two, you got this outline. And then step three is to write the dang thing, which, you know is easier said than done. But this is where you get. There's actually a, I have a process for this. It's again a three step process. It's very simple. And so basically what happens here is it's a choose your own adventure. So you go chapter by chapter and you repeat the process that I just taught you. So say chapter one, I'm going to spend 10 minutes mind mapping everything I know on that chapter. I'm going to spend 10 minutes turning that mind map into an outline. And then step three, this is where you choose your own adventure. You can either A, write the chapter, right? So spend 45 minutes to an hour actually following point by point your outline and writing that chapter, or B, you speak the book, right? Which some people, if you're, you know, if you're like me, you're a better speaker than you are a writer. So the process that I recommend there is you go step by step through that same outline and you just speak, you speak the chapter. So you know, this might take eight, this might take 15 minutes, but it's pretty fast. And you have that transcribed and you work with that to form that into a good book. And the difference is if you're speaking it now, when you log into that Google Doc or that Microsoft Word doc or whatever you're using, you don't have a blank page to stare at. If anyone who's had that feeling, you just want to beat your head into the keyboard. It's just like, oh my gosh, where do I even start? But now you've got something that you can work with and that could be massaged into a final draft and into a polished Book.

Well, I like that speaking thing. And I've been toying around with that, actually, in my sections because we have a monthly newsletter we print out. So that was something. I think it was two months ago. I experimented with that. I think it did it the wrong way. And now I know. But this is what I want to ask you is two things. I feel like that actually cuts down the whole feeling like you need to edit on the fly. Because if you're speaking it out, you're just bleh. You know, it's like going. And you're not going to go back and be like, ooh, two paragraphs ago, and delete and rewind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's that. I think that would be great. But how do you. What's your process for doing the audio, the voice, voicing the whole thing out? Is it like literally picking up a microphone and doing that, or are you doing some dictation kind of software thing?

Yeah, so it's kind of. It's. So I think the first and first and foremost, the thing that where most people go wrong, and I would guess where you went wrong when you tried to speak this newsletter, is you got to make sure that you do the mind map and the outline.

Yeah.

And a lot of people are like, well, why not? I might as well just write the thing then, right? This is like 20 minutes I'm spending on. But I promise it'll still be faster and it'll be way better.

Yeah.

Because the biggest mistake I see people make is they just fire up the mic and start talking.

Exactly what I did.

20 minutes later, they're like, I don't know where I am or how I got here. This sucks. It's just like, what am I even talking about about at this point? This is definitely not going to be in a cohesive book. Sure.

It'S going to feel a little weird at first, going point by point through your outline, but then you get the hang of it and you're not going to get lost because you're stringing together thoughts. So that's the first and most important thing. But then, I mean, once you get past that, it doesn't really matter how you record it. I like to use it's Rev.com or the Rev app. I mean, it's a real person that's transcribing it. You can use Dragon Dictation, which is dictation app. Now it's built into Google Docs. You can speak into Google Docs. But even that is more of a distraction than I would Like I just like to speak into my phone and that's, that's the, that's my preferred method. And also, you know, because I have a little bit of a southern accent and Siri doesn't always understand me, you know, things like that. So I like to, I like to have a real person transcribe it. That way I'm not reading the transcription being like, what is this? So it just cuts out some of the work.

I could never get used to like speaking my punctuation either, you know, like, yes, it's hard for me to say a sentence, period, next line, and then say another sentence, comma, you know, like, that's so unnatural.

No flow, exclamation point, smiley face, new line, new line.

Yeah, no, that's exactly actually where I failed. That's where it just like it was almost an aha. Just now as you're saying that I tried to do the dictation thing and I just couldn't get in a flow. I did not have an outline either. So that was definitely double shot to both feet.

Hey, you'll have to try it again and let me know how it works.

I will next week.

So there's two quick last things that I wanted to touch on before we gotta let you go, but one of them is marketing. Now, once you've got this book written.

What sort of first steps would you tell people to do to make sure that people actually see it? Because I'm sure a lot of people go, they write this book, they get it up on, you know, Amazon. Kindle is probably the easiest place to go get it on first. But how do you actually get people to see it on Amazon? It's not like just because it's there, people see it all of a sudden.

Yeah, 100%. This is a great question. So a couple things. Number one resource that'll probably be helpful for people, we have a blog post on how to self publish a book. So everything from how do you create a title to how you use a cover that sells, things like that, we can link that up and that'll be way more in depth than what I could cover on this podcast. But once you have those basics, cover, and that's really important, like you have the fundamentals because you can't market a turd, right at the end of the day, it's still a turd. So you need to make sure that you have something good that you can sell here. So you have the fundamentals. It's a good looking book, It's a high quality book. Now we're turning to marketing. And what most people don't realize is that marketing starts way before you go to sell the book. Marketing starts and how do you position the book? What's the topic? Just how are you positioning this thing? And then once you do move to marketing, the number one tip that I can give is to form a launch team. This is kind of something that we've popularized through self publishing school and now it's a pretty mainstream thing, but it's very effective. So a launch team is basically a small group of people who support your book. This could be friends, this could be colleagues, this could be, you know, co workers, people who go to your church, people that are a part of organizations that you're a part of. It could be the mom at your kids T ball practice. Right. Anyone who might be interested in you and or the topic of your book. Right. So then what they agree to do is check out the digital copy ahead of time, leave a review on day one when it launches, and then just generally support the book. And so that's what they agree to do and what they get in return. They get a free copy of the book. They get to kind of see the behind the scenes at how you launch this book, which I think is pretty cool. And then lastly, what I like to do is put their name in the book and give them an acknowledgement, which people just love that because they've most likely never been in a book before, like acknowledged in a book before, which is a pretty cool thing. So, you know, that really sets you up for success out of the gate. So I could sit here and write off marketing stuff all day, but the end of the day I would just say if you listen to nothing else that I say, just do that. And if you just do the launch team piece, it's really going to set you up for success.

And we'll make sure to link that. Just shoot us over that link and we'll put it in the show notes here for sure. Now I guess I'm trying to think. Yeah. So after you launch the book, obviously it's in the marketplace. I know there's like an upsell process, the value chain and without getting too deep, just for time and all that stuff, what are like the top three next things you would like escalate people into?

Yeah, well, I really have a number one and then everything else is just ancillary. So what I would recommend people do, if you want to see this in action, go to my book published on Amazon or my book book launch and you'll See exactly how I do this, because I'm going to explain it, but it may or may not make sense. So what Basically what I do is in the very. It's like, this is like the first or second page. I give away the audiobook for free. And some people are like, chandler, you're crazy. Why would you do that? Well, I know that to me, a lead is worth way more money than if they would have bought my book, right? That's worth a lot of money to me. So. And I actually do it in the beginning because when people click look inside, they can on Amazon, they can opt in without even buying my book.

That's right.

Which they're thinking, this guy's an idiot. He doesn't know that I can do this. I'm pulling over on him. No, I'm not. Welcome to my sales funnel, right? And you know, with hundreds of millions of buyers on Amazon and only a fraction of them buying your book, it helps to have. You know, I have this. I'm siphoning all these leads and business off of Amazon, this big ecosystem, which is pretty awesome. And so that's the piece I do. I'll sometimes also give video training. I'll give checklists, I'll give workbooks, things like that. Like mention things like that throughout the book itself. I try to keep that under five, maybe 10, at the max of like, hey, I've got this other thing like, that would be helpful. That's totally free. Because any more than that, and it's just like, hey, dude, I get it. You want me to go to your site. But I came here to read this book. So if I feel like you're holding out on me, I'm gonna be upset. I'll leave a bad review or I just want. I'll stop reading the book, right? So I try to keep it pretty low pitch in the book, high content. But in the beginning it's like, hey, you just bought this book or you're checking out this book. You probably don't want to read it anyway because you're busy. And you probably have like 30 other books on your to read list, right? If I just gave you the audiobook, you'd normally Pay, you know, 10 to $30 on Audible for this thing. What if I just gave you that for free? And they're like, oh, my gosh, I really like this Chandler guy, right? Like, we're starting off our relationship on a really good foot and now they're building a relationship with me. Because for my most recent book, that's me, that's recording that audio book. So now we're building a relationship and then that's that, you know, they're exponentially more likely to do business. Business with me moving forward.

Brilliant. I love it.

Very cool.

Well, I think we should probably start wrapping it up, right? We're about.

Yeah. The only other, the only other question I had, and I'm sure it's going to be a fairly quick answer, was like your thoughts on self publishing versus using a traditional publisher. You know, I know a lot of people think, you know, I need to use a traditional publisher if I want to get the credibility in the news and the media and all that kind of stuff. I mean, have you found that to be the case and sort of. What's your opinion on self published versus traditional publisher?

I love how you teed me up. Oh, this will probably be like a quick answer.

This is like, hey, let's record a separate podcast.

I was gonna say that sounds like a long one.

Actually, no, this is a little bit my soapbox. You know what I need to do is just record a definitive or put together a definitive blog post that just drops the mic on this topic once and for all. I get asked on this all the time, but. So the short answer is for 99.9% of people, it makes more sense to self publish. If you're Gary Vaynerchuk or someone who wants to do an international book tour and you do not care about how much money you make from the book than go traditionally published even then, no, they're going to strip you of your creative liberties. They're going to do zero marketing for your book. You're going to make pennies on the dollar of that book. And at the end of the day, you know, like I mentioned already, you just lose a lot of the control. So be prepared to, even if they give you an advance, be prepared to pay that advance back if you don't sell enough copies, which not many people know that. Right. So for everyone else, self publishing is a way better option. Over 70% of all books sold are sold on Amazon, sold through Amazon. So that means that no longer is it necessary to get placement in a bookstore via a traditional publisher, which is formally the only reason you would use a publisher. It's kind of like the good old boys club. So it's no longer necessary. You can certainly the question that you asked was like, media, things like that, you can get a ton of that stuff while still self publishing. That's easy, actually. That's just like working it, meeting people and like knocking on doors that you do not need an agent or a publisher or anything like that for that. If you want to get into Barnes and Noble, sure, you're gonna have to have a traditional publisher for that, but Barnes, and I mean, newsflash, Barnes and Noble are shutting down across the country, and so were a ton of other boys because just everyone's buying books on Amazon. So as much as I hate to see bookstores go away because it's like a beautiful nostalgic thing, it's just the truth. Like it's what's happening. So that's about as short of an answer as I can give.

That's perfect.

And why I really am a fan of self publishing in general. I mean, take it with a grain of salt. I run a company called Self Publishing School, so I'm obviously going to be biased, but that is just my take on the publishing industry.

No, that's exactly what. What Christy Whitman, our mutual friend, you know, we interviewed her earlier, she said the same thing. And she's going through, you know, a massive publisher, New York Times bestseller, but she said straight up, yeah, they don't do any marketing for you. And she said pretty much the same thing you said. And I was like, wow, I did not know that.

And see, most people don't. I mean, I look at it, it's like choosing to ride in a taxi when Uber exists.

Sure.

Knowing that you're gonna do that.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, well, I know you got to get going, so I want to give people some real quick resources to go check out when they leave this. So let's start off by what are the names of your books so they can go check them out on Amazon.

Yeah, I mean, the number one and the best, the one I'm most proud of and my most recent. It's called the Proven Path from Blank Page to Published Author.

Cool. And we'll link that one up in the show notes. And then also, do you have any books that you recommend that you haven't written but that you find yourself recommending to others? Quite a bit.

Any specific topic in mind or just in general?

It could be in general. It could be related to publishing or just in general. I mean, we're always looking for good recommendations anyway.

Yeah. Top book of all time for me is the One Thing by Jay Papasan and Gary Keller. It is a life changing read.

And last question. Where do you want people to go and kind of find your stuff and learn more about you?

Yeah. Best place to go is self publishingschool.com free. I mean, we've got some really good free training there. It breaks down a lot of the stuff that I just taught, but in more detail. So, like my three step process for writing, how to market the book, things like that. So that's generally what people find most helpful.

Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for your time. And yeah, there's a lot of good actionable stuff here. So go learn. Go do it. No, no, go take 15 minutes now. Yeah, outline your damn book. There we go.

Mind map right now.

Mind map.

Perfect. Yeah. Thanks so much for taking the time out today and doing this with us. Some great stuff here.

No problem. Thanks, fellas.

All right, see ya. Hey, thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to this podcast. Now, if you want to to learn more and hear from us every single month, which a lot of people do, it's pretty fun. We actually write this thing called the Evergreen Profits Letter, and that is a printed newsletter that we actually send to hundreds of people every single month to your doorstep. So you actually get it in the mail. You can read this sucker, you can highlight it, you can dog ear, you can scratch some stuff out. If you don't like that one, you say no joke. And that, that's not cool for me. But you can take a lot of different strategies, about 15 or so from every single single issue, and it's really cool. So basically, these are actionable strategies that you can use in your business right away to test out and pretty much build on what you already have going on. So check it out. It's at www.egpletter.com. it's pretty amazing. And you should go check it out, see what it's all about.

Boom.