Amplify Your Authority And Write Your Book … Today!

Welcome to Capability Amplifier, the show for business owners and entrepreneurs who want high performance upgrades for their brains, bodies and bank accounts. Hello and welcome to another episode of Capability Amplifier. My name is Mike Koenigs. I'm here today with my good friend Dan Sullivan. And today we're going to be talking about a topic that befuddles a lot of people, which is writing a book. How to get a book written. And more importantly, there is a statistic that says that 82% of the American population wants to write a book someday. Very few people ever do it and right now more books are being written and published than ever before. Thank you Amazon for that. But if you've been in a spot where you've either been thinking about writing a book and you haven't gotten around to it, or you started writing a book and maybe it's been sitting on your drive somewhere for years and years and years while you're not alone. And Dan and I are going to share with you how we can help you and help you through the process. Dan has written and he's working on his 30th book right now. I've written 13. I've actually helped over 1,800 business owners become best selling authors. So, Dan Sullivan, it's nice to be here with you, sir. Let's talk about books and why you say books are magic.

It's a very, very interesting thing that I've noticed is that if you've written a book, regardless of whether anyone has read the book, you are automatically an authority of some realm in their mind because they can imagine what it takes for them to write a book and they see that you've done it and you've become sort of like a super creature in their mind. And I think the other thing is that I've got a marketing concept that books have names and if you are careful about what you call your book, and it's actually an introduction to a whole area that you would like to be known for in the future. The person who names the game, owns the game. And I think of Stephen Covey with the seven habits of highly successful people. He owned that realm after that. If someone came along and said, hey, I got this book and it's about the habits that really, really successful, they say, oh no, no, no, no, that's already taken. So the naming of a particular area that's of intense interest to you insofar that it actually gets interest on the part of potential readers, is a wonderful way to actually position yourself in a very unique way in the marketplace. The other thing is we're talking here about being the author of a book, not the writer of a book. Stephen Covey did not write the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. I don't even know who his writer was, but he was the author of the book. Okay? And so author and authority. Just keep those two words in mind. If you're the author, you're the authority. So I know you've created a massively effective organizing process for people to be authors, but not necessarily writers, Mike, and all the different capabilities that you need to get a book positioned in the marketplace, get it published. There's lots of who's out there that can help you with this. Before we go on, I'm just going to say one more thing. You've got a very compelling model that in today's world, humans are organized according people who do things, people who know things, and people who are a certain type of being. From your standpoint of right now, with years and years of taking people through the entire book process, if they were going to choose, is it a book about doing, is it a book about knowing, or is it a book about being, which do you think would be the best route at this particular time?

Ultimately, it's going to be a being book. Right. Because our goal is to become a legend or the wise guru at the top of the mountain. You know, you don't want to go to the guru at the bottom of the mountain, you want to go to the guru at the top of the mountain. A phrase I heard years ago which is really smart and wise is he or she who diagnoses the disease is the first to be trusted to prescribe the cure. And going back to what you talked about with regards to the title, how important that is, it's in the beginning there was the word. I am.

The first thing that I focus on with someone, and I will answer your question, is to come up with a great title and subtitle that allows you to own an idea in someone's mind which are a series of words. When you self publish. And there's a difference between doing like if your goal is to do a New York Times best selling book versus a self published book that accelerates and it amplifies and it creates positioning in a marketplace. So what I regard as a business book that gets you business, you want to have an outcome or results driven title. And in a perfect world, it also embodies a feeling or an emotion that people want. So if someone looks at your title and subtitle in your book cover, and experiences clarity and confidence. The process of buying the book actually gives them that feeling, whether they read it or not. Because the truth is, very few books ever get written or read all the way through. The statistics on that are pretty amazing. And I think it was you once who told me what the statistics statistics are. You'll want to share those in a bit. But the bottom line is a feeling and emotion is a feeling of being and doing has very little value today, you know, everything is free on YouTube. And most kids, you know, YouTube is not just a search engine, it's Google. To most people, if you want to learn something, you go to YouTube. So why would someone buy a book or read a book if they can just watch a short video on YouTube? Your book needs to mean something to someone, and that's part of the psychology. So I'll get more into what I've found inspires and motivates someone to actually get it done as we move on here. But why don't you share those statistics about what percentage of books actually get read?

Yeah, well, this is the online book, so it's easier to research online books because it's clicks, you know, like if you have a Kindle and you buy a book, Kindle automatically knows how far you got in that book. Their algorithm actually will say that, you know, if you got 20% through the book, Amazon knows that. But Borders and Barnes and Noble, they faced the music and they said, well, we have to have online books. It can't be just physical books. But they did about five years of readership studies before Borders went down. And then Barnes and Noble got quite a bit smaller. They found that with nonfiction books. So the big division is between fiction and nonfiction, nonfiction books. And that's usually about something doing or knowing that. The average online book that was purchased was read 2%, 2% of the book. But that did not prevent people from saying, oh yeah, I read that book and I kind of really, really know what it's all about. And they could say, well, I read the book, you know, so the whole point is that very few nonfiction books are actually read all the way through. And I'll tell you a little strategy I did to offset that, because I have a very high readership on my books. But, you know, it's just observing how the marketplace actually operates. But fiction books, of course, because they're stories, have a much higher readership. Like the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. They'd be almost 100% readership and they would be pre bought like you pre order, you know, the next Jack Reacher. It usually comes up in late summer, early fall. I've got it read in 24 hours, and I've read it completely. Then I have to wait another 365 days until his next one. So the moment it's released, he's got a million and a half to 2 million readers who just devour it. And that shows you the difference between fiction and nonfiction. But here's the thing about this. Don't think about whether people are actually going to read it or not. Think about the fact that you've written it and people have purchased your book. That's really the reality. If you want to know what the reality is in the world, you want to enter into the realm of book magic. There's two things. You have to have written it and other people have to have read it. Doesn't matter how much they've read about it. You are a magical creature in their eyes. The moment that you write a book, that's so true.

I have a story I'll tell to accent this. And then we can get into a little bit of the how in the doing part. Because I think that's what people are interested in, is like some of it's our mindset, what has enabled us to rapidly create. But just to add to what you say or plus it, I've had situations where people are all concerned about what's inside the book. And the first thing that I do to inspire someone is, you know, I help them. I've got a little process for creating a great title and subtitle. And then I tell everyone, the first thing you should do is you gotta have someone create a book cover. So we had a course that we sold for many years called Publish and Profit, which we would actually make a book cover for you. The reason for that is we'd make a 3D version. We'd do a regular one. I'd say, now print this out, wrap it around a real book and put it on your desk in front of you. Because to your mind, it'll mean you're done visualizing and seeing that and feeling it breaks through a massive border because it feels possible. And that's really a big part of writing a book, like most great things in life is it's a mindset game, right? It's visualization. And this is concrete. I'll tell you a brief story which is a couple years ago, I was on a plane on my way to south by Southwest. I took my seat and I overheard two guys who are sitting in front of me and One of them said, hey, do you see who's in front of us? And the guy turns the other one. He says, yeah, yeah, it's Richard Dreyfuss, the actor. And I look past him, and sure as heck, maybe, like, four seats diagonally from me, there's Richard Dreyfuss. And I'm like, dang, man, I want to meet Richard Dreyfuss. You know, I'd watched Jaws Growing up and Mr. Holland's Opus, all those movies. I'm like, Mr. Guys, this is awesome. You know? So I'm thinking, how in the hell. And I still have my little old, poor farm boy story going on in my head. Why would Richard Dreyfuss even want to talk to me? How can I go out? You know, I'm thinking through this stuff. These guys are chatting. So I pulled out my phone, I did a little research, and the first thing I know is if you want to find your way into someone's heart, you find it something that's really meaningful to them, that tugs their heart. And I looked up Richard Dreyfuss foundation, and sure as heck, he's got a nonprofit. Well, my wife has a foundation. And what do all foundations need more than anything? They need attention and money.

Yes, yes. Not necessarily in that order.

That's exactly right. They need attention so they can get them money, but they need the money. So, first of all, I'm reasonably well qualified because I've raised a lot of money for nonprofits. I know that game. But more importantly, I know how to get attention. And everyone, even if they're famous, needs effective ways to get attention. So I always travel with a couple books in my book bag. So I pulled out a Sharpie pen. I always have a sharpie pen and a book. And I wrote a little thing on a book which was, hi, Mr. Dreyfus. My name is Mike Koenigs. I have an idea about how you can raise money and get more attention for your foundation. Here's my phone number and my email address. So what I did is when we landed, we're getting off the plane. I kind of wedged my way right behind him. And just as we kind of go around on the. I always call it the gangplank, whatever it is. Getting off the airplane, I will reach up And I said, Mr. Dreyfus, my name is Mike Koenigs. And I handed him my book, and I have an idea that'll help you raise money for your foundation. And he looked at me and he goes, boy, I need you. He goes, come with me. Come, let's walk together. So we ended up walking, we sat down, and he goes, tell me what your idea is. So I gave him some ideas. And he says, where are you going? And I'm like, well, I'm going south by Southwest. He goes, me, too. He goes, why don't we. You and me. I'll make sure you and me are sitting next to each other on the next leg of the flight. We can talk all about it. So we get on the plane, of course, he negotiates. We're sitting next to each other, and I've got photos of all this. And like, two weeks later, he's sitting in my studio, I'm interviewing him for a podcast and having a dialogue with Richard about raising money and getting attention. Because as he said, he said, let me tell you something. There's a big difference between being an actor and a movie star. He goes, I'm an actor. But he went on, and we ended up having a great dialogue. I helped him out. I've got the photos. But the bottom line is I wouldn't have had the courage and the confidence or the guts to walk up to him without my book. It's an amazing tool, and it's made more introductions. And the other thing I'll say is, when you have a book, just being able to sign it and hand it to someone starts a conversation. Instant credibility, instant authority, instant influence, power. Even if you've never even sold a copy. And as I like to say, if you hand someone a book and they decide to do business with you and then give you a 50 or $100,000 check, do you care if they read a page of the book or not? That is an important takeaway. So beyond the psychology of the tool, do you want to talk a little bit about what your strategy is for making them?

Yeah. Well, the big thing that I've noticed, and this is judged generally that most of our valuable input in today's age comes in visually. You know, my generation was the first television generation in the early 50s. And then, you know, there had been movies, but movies were a special place that you went to, but television was on all the time. And then it proliferated. And then, of course, the Internet has really taken over. So we're visually. And this has come at the price of writing. One is that people don't read as much on average, and secondly is they don't know how to write. And this is a huge barrier. But they can see that there are people who have mastered the writing, and they become more special type of creatures. Because they have a skill that is sadly lacking for most people. So I come back to something I said earlier, and that is that you don't have to be a writer, but you do have to be an author. You have to have an idea. You have to have something of value that would attract other people's attention, as you did with Richard Dreyfus. And you've got to have a solution that goes along with the issue that you're talking about. So what I noticed is that a lot of my entrepreneurial clients have been writing. I don't call it writing a book. They've been writing book forever. And I know people have been writing book for 15 years. And I said, where are you with book? Because I make a little joke about it. They said, well, you know, I just got a couple more chapters. And I said, well, how many chapters are there so far? And they said, 24. And I said, so the real killer impact of your book is going to be in chapters 25, 26, right? In other words, up to 24, you don't have the killer impact. So it's going to be 25 or 26. And they said, yeah, but there's just some new information I wanted to do. And I said, what's the first chapter? And they gave me the first chapter. And invariably the first chapter is really good. Most books, the first chapter and the last chapter really give not so much good stuff in between. But let's say the introduction and the conclusion are really, really good. One is they get off to a really great start, and then they get through the end and they say, you know, I really haven't delivered here. So they put a conclusion, and if you cut everything out of the book except the introduction and the conclusion, they probably get pretty good readership. So I said, why don't you just take the first chapter and create a little book and get it out to some people so that you can get some feedback. So books 1 through 13 with me were big books. And on average, I would say probably 200 hours of my time. Not pleasurable time at all, Mike. Really grueling time. Isolated time off by myself, working nights, working weekends, then a very grueling editing process. And I said, no, can't do that anymore. So what I do now is I write books that can be read. So I use the Toronto to Chicago. Those are my two strategic coach headquarters, where I go between. I said, the plane is taking off in Toronto. I start reading the book. The plane is landing in Chicago, the book is finished. So it's a One hour book. And it's just on one topic, but taken apart into different mindsets. There's different mindsets that make up this idea. First one I did, it took me a hundred hours to get the format down and everything else. Book number 16, which I got back from the publisher about three months ago, took me 25 hours. And I'm trying to get it down to 20 hours. And what I've done is I've simply identified what's my part of it. I've got the idea I can do a good outline of the book. From then on, it's in other people's hands. One of the things I was a copywriter, like you were, Mike, and copywriters are the best writers in the world because you either write to time or you write to space. Okay, you've either got six inches here, or you've got 30 seconds, or you have 60 seconds, and you got to get a whole story, beginning, middle, and end, in a very short period of space. So what? I've broken down my books. I know exactly the number of pages. I've got four pages per section, and then I have cartoons, and I have an audio support for the whole book, and then I have a video support for the whole book. And then I download a thinking tool in the book, and that's the whole book. It's been a phenomenal marketing tool for me. One is, people say, how do you knock out a book every 90 days? And I said, you know, there's a real trick to this and that. I said, only do the part of the book that is your strong suit, and then surround yourself with editors and writers and layout artists and cartoonists and everything else. So that's my tick. So I said, everybody who's been writing a book for a long time, what if you just took the best chapter out of the book you have right now and made that the book? Amazon's got a service where if you just want to produce one book, they'll produce one book for you. If you want 20 books, pick out 20 readers, get the one book out there, and start getting in relationship with the world. I said, 50% of the author of your book is going to be the feedback that you get from readers. They're going to supply you with the ideas.

So true. So I'll give you a couple tips on how I've written. We'll even expose the fact that one of our intentions with our podcast is that every episode of this podcast can represent a chapter in a book having a distinct concept capability. Amplifier is in Fact, a series of chapters. The way I'll frame this is how do you stay and get inspired to actually get your book written and done in a deadline? Because you do quarterly books in the past. I have, I haven't recently because I'm actually working on a traditionally published book and I'm working on a self published book simultaneously. But what our process, when we did our live event, here's what it consisted of. People would show up for three days and our big promise is you'll walk away a number one best selling author in just three days. People would be like, how is that even possible? The answer is you didn't have to write the book because we'd come up with your title, your subtitle, a book cover, and then we'd teach you how to rapidly write your book, which I'll give you a process in a moment. And then we'd publish it, and then we generated enough sales to push that book to bestseller status. So we're definitely leveraging and we're kind of hacking the system. But we did it all legitimately because the truth is, if you pick good categories in Amazon, you can isolate categories that allow you to achieve bestseller status with about 100 book sales. Okay. The next thing is when you pre publish a book on Amazon, you have 90 days to upload it and finish it. Well, that's a hell of a deadline. Forces you to get the damn thing done right? So you schedule this thing and that means you're going to have to have your content ready in whatever form it is. And the good thing is you can update your content as many times as you want free of charge. Amazon will let you do that. You could update your content twice a day even. Okay. And you can publish. And then if you're not happy with your book, after it's there and you make your deadline, you could take it down the next day. All right, so we live in this flexible environment so you can take away the pressure. But what I did in my last book, and that one was Cancerpreneur. So I told my story of how I basically hacked the medical system to get attention from the medical profession. And I got my doctors involved in my care. What I did is I outlined the book by chapters and then I performed or I spoke my book to a camera through a microphone, chapter by chapter, had it transcribed and sent to an editor in real time. I completed all the content for that book in about 20 hours. Also, it's interesting you bring up 20 hours and I was really happy with it. Now I did Go through a couple edits. But from the time I had the idea until it was published a best seller and sold, was under a week. I'm not saying I want to do that all the time. It was grueling and hard work.

But you proved you could do it.

Yeah, exactly. So I think your recommendation, which is just have one idea, one topic, one concept, don't do a memoir. You know, this does not have to be a novel. And under a hundred pages, like 80 some pages, is an ideal length. It will get read most of the time. And you've got a bunch of pictures in yours, which makes it even easier.

Yeah. So my feeling is that because we've moved away from the age of books, you know, when that was the main form of communication, now it's a capability that you can acquire, and you can do it simply by you having an idea. You have to have an idea. You can't have someone else's idea. You have to have an idea. But this is where your own transformative experience really comes into play. You know, tell a story that you wanted to get here. You were confronted with obstacles. These were the main obstacles that you actually transformed. Everybody loves a transformative story that they can learn about transformation. The only stories I like hearing about are transformative stories. The only solutions that I like reading about are transformative solutions. I don't like any movies where the characters don't transform. You know, they're one way and then they become another way. So my feeling is, do not have a book that's a description or step one, step two, step three, step four, step five. It bores people to death. They can, as you say, download a YouTube video that does it much better than you'll ever do it. So a lot has been taken away from the book world, but what remains of the book world is that humans love stories, and they love most of all transformative stories. They don't want to be educated so much as they want to be inspired.

And you know what? You have Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey to thank for that. That's really what every great story is all about. You know, even Christian mythology, every religion has. It's based on the hero's journey, the transformation.

Yeah, everybody loves transformations. My favorite movie, and I think it may get rewarded for this. But I went to see the Green Book, you know, which was about Don Shirley, a very famous jazz musician and basically a hood from Brooklyn, who was his driver and bodyguard. When Don Shirley in the 1960s decided to go and do a concert tour in the deep south of the United States. And both characters transform on the trip. So it's a journey, and both characters are heroes, and they both transform. And I don't cry in real life. I'm known for not crying in real life, but I'm a sucker for movies. So I came out and Bab said, what do you think? I said, oh, that was five cries. That was five cries. You know, I'm a sucker for a transformative movie.

Me too, I gotta say. And going back. So the secret then, to making your book, even as simple as it is a business book, is you want to establish yourself as the hero who's gone through the journey, but enroll the reader in the process and make them feel like they're going on the journey with you. I've been very obvious about this, like in my own books. Almost all my books have been written to be business books. They were made to ask people to buy my stuff. They've been very direct, except for the last one, the Cancerpreneur. And I had a lot of you in there. It was basically copywriting, and it was designed that way and architected that way. But your objective is enroll the reader, make them feel like they've gone through the journey with you, and give them a reason and an opportunity to do the journey with you. And that's really your call to action. So my last nugget when it comes to writing business books is just make sure there's a clear call to action where you say, hey, if you want to work with me, meet me here, watch this video, and then we can decide if we're right for each other. And it does not take a lot of books. You know, if you need 20 clients a year to make your numbers, it might be 20 books given away. It could be, you know, under 100. Another story for another time is I had a client and I called the book that made a million dollars without selling a single copy. Because this guy just put the book into the right hands of the right CEOs, who said yes, and he didn't have to sell any. It didn't matter. Distribution mattered not. It all had to do with. They resonated with the title, the subtitle, and what the book meant and what they would get. And that was enough to say yes.

Well, the other lesson that I got from your story to start this off is when you fly, always have one of your books with you, pay attention to who other people are saying, as in business class with them, and go into action.

Always be marketing. That is absolutely true.

It seems Like a strange thing. But books take on more and more magical status the further we get away from the age of books.

It is. It's really crazy. I see it as a stepping stone because every good book should be a speech, and every good speech should be a book. In a business environment, your book should be a product. It should include the stories of transformation, which are the people you've worked with. What I always do is I say break it down, teach five steps, and then have five transformational journeys or stories of people that you've helped that relate to what the step is. So if you're struggling, five steps, five stories, your own opening story, and then a call to action at the end, 12 chapters is all you need.

Yep.

That's a nice, simple way of thinking about it. And most people can sit down and answer 10 questions. If you need to answer 10 questions, it can be that simple, too. So that's all there is to it. Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.

You know, this is kind of a change for us, Mike. You know, we're talking about being, you know, being who you are more and more. But actually, this is one podcast where we're both knowers and doers about the particular topic. I think it was great. I learned a lot.

Dan Sullivan, always a pleasure to create with you, my friend.

Thank you, Mike. I never know where it's going to go, but I'm always happy when we get there.

I couldn't agree more. Thanks again and we'll see you in another episode coming up soon. Bye. Bye. Will you head over to itunes right now to rate the Capability Amplifier? Show every rating and review helps spread the message and create more empowered entrepreneurs like you. And if you've already done that, please share this episode with a friend who you know can benefit from Capability Amplifier. And if you have any questions or suggestions, head over to capabilityamplifier.com there you can leave us an audio message and Dan and I listen to every single one of them. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you soon.