48. Julie Broad: Author of Self-Publish & Succeed

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 48 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview the author Julie Broad. Julie, better known as Julie the Book Broad, is the founder of Book Launchers, a self-publishing services firm. Julie is also an Amazon overall number one bestselling author. Through Book Launchers and her popular YouTube channel, she helps subject matter experts write, publish, and promote nonfiction books. Our conversation today is all about her recent release, Self-Publish and Succeed: The No Boring Books Way to Write a Nonfiction Book That Sells. So for those of you listening that are authors or aspiring authors like myself, we talk all things books. And if you stick around until the end, you'll even hear about some of my future book ideas. So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with author Julie Broad. Julie, thank you so much for coming on the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm great. I'm great. I'm so excited to be here. I watch your Instagram all the time. So it's such, such an honor to be here.

We have been collaborating behind the scenes, I suppose, for a little while now. So I'm excited to jump in and talk about your book. For those in the Book Thinkers audience that aren't familiar with you or Book Launchers, can you give an introduction on both?

Yeah, for sure. So I call myself Julie the Book Broad. I'm the founder of a professional services self-publishing company called Book Launchers. And we help professionals and entrepreneurs and really subject matter experts write, publish, and promote nonfiction books. And our authors keep all rights and royalties. And I'm a Canadian, but I live in Los Angeles. So just for a fun fact for everyone.

Oh, I love that. We've had a couple of Canadian authors on the show so far, including Evan Carmichael and Robin Sharma. So I like that. I like that. I loved opening up your new book, Self-Publish and Succeed, and seeing the dedication to every author brave enough not to be boring. So why is it that so many of the books published in this space are boring?

Yeah, I don't, I honestly, there's kind of two thoughts I have on that. One is I think a lot of people are afraid to show themselves in their book. They share a lot of really great expertise. And what happens is you end up with a book that, you know, people feel like they need to read because they want that information, but they don't actually want to read it. So some of it's just not being real and not showing, you know, not showing your warts. so to speak. And then I think the other side of it is they look at all the other books in their space and all the other books are boring. So they just emulate that. And that was me, really my philosophy coming from a real estate background. Before I wrote my first book, which was a real estate book, I'd read every real estate book that had been written. And they all had the how to calculate cash flow, how to choose an area, all of those same things. And it's boring if it's just rehashed in the same way. So, and yet that's what everybody does. So then I think everybody does it that way.

You know, it's interesting. I mean, I've now read over the last couple of years hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these books. And I've been asked a couple of times, how do I write a book that's fun and energetic? How do I differentiate myself? And I hadn't had any resources like your book to really be able to articulate some of the differences between a boring book in a fun and energetic book. So I'm happy that you wrote this, and we'll jump into some of the concepts today. In your introduction, you also said something that I thought was really interesting. You say that being mediocre as an author is a choice. And so what do you mean by that?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of— especially in the nonfiction space, we're not writers, right? Like, by definition, even though I've written 3 books, I don't consider myself a writer. I get a lot of help, and I get support, to write great books. The first draft of every book is supposed to be bad. And so if you don't do what you need to do to make it great, you've chosen to be mediocre.

No, it's a really good point. So chapter 1 is titled The Life-Changing Book. This is the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. So it's a perfect marriage there. The other thing that I loved was that the original life-changing book for you is the same as the original life-changing book for me. The first book I ever read was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And so I'd love to have you tell everybody the story of how you discovered the book and what sort of an impact it had on you.

Yeah, for sure. So I was working for Kimberly-Clark Canada at the time, and one of the workers, like one of my coworkers who'd been with the company for a long time, she just said, you know what, like you're destined for something more than selling diapers. So she said, go and get this book. And this was 2001. So I had to drive to the bookstore and pick out, buy the book at the bookstore and take it home and read it. And that was Rich Dad Poor Dad. And for me, It was a mind shift because at the time I was in the process of applying to go back to school to do my MBA. I wanted to get a 6-figure salary. Like that was kind of the mission I was on. And I kind of looked at it and I went, you know what? Like I'm working really hard for my money and I want to get my money working hard for me. And so it was just that mental shift of, you know, okay, I got to put my money to work for me. And looking at, I still plan to go to school. So how can I get my money working for me while I'm in school? And real estate was the only answer in my mind. And so I took the money I had saved for my MBA and I bought my first 2 rental properties with it. And then I got student loans to fund my MBA instead because student loans are easier to get than mortgages for properties. So that was really the start of a journey to invest in real estate, which led to pretty much everything else I've done since then. So yeah, the mindset of getting your money working for you is so, so important. Yeah.

And the underlying message there that I really enjoyed about the experience or sort of talking about Rich Dad Poor Dad is that the listener, any aspiring writer or author has the opportunity to make a life-changing impact on their reader. And so that's really what you and your business are designed to help people do. And that's what this book is all about. It's let's take your mediocre or sometimes boring book idea and let's turn it into something that can have a real impact. And so that's really important. Yeah.

And a lot of people often, and it's part of the marketing messages in this space too, you often start thinking so much about yourself that you forget about your reader. And that's why I start off by talking about the impact you can have on a reader's life with a book, because the more you focus on the reader, the more successful you're going to be. It's going to create a better book, a more interesting book. And sure, it's going to have massive impact on your life too when you become an author, potentially. There's no guarantees, but it's potentially going to have a massive impact on your life too. But starting there, like starting off thinking, I need to be a New York Times bestseller, That's not reader-focused, and that often leads to that boring book.

Yeah, it does, it does. In the book, I like how you say if you're focused on bestseller status, money, fame, those things, then the book becomes about you, not about the reader, and that's a really dangerous spot to be in. A funny story for you on Rich Dad Poor Dad. So not only was it the first book that I had ever read, and it started Book Thinkers, and sort of everything that I have is owed to Robert Kiyosaki. And I got to be careful saying that. Maybe one day he'll ask for a percentage of the business.

He might claim.

But I was just living in Austin, Texas for a couple of months. And I happened to be prospecting for some book promotions. And I landed on an author named Tom Burns. Tom Burns had just come out with a book about doctors and how they should be investing in real estate. And I met up with him, we had coffee, and he told me that he bought the very first copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad at that Texas gas station that Robert sold his first books to and was able to meet up with Robert, become part of his advisory panel, gift that copy back to him, which Robert now has framed. And I just thought like, what a cool circle of life that this book space has become.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I love that story.

Why do you think that Rich Dad Poor Dad had such a big success, or why do you think it's had such big success? What about the book, the number of pages, the subject matter, the way it was written, what makes it Yeah.

I think, I mean, the story, it read like a fiction book. It was a book you didn't want to put down. You wanted to finish it. So that was part of it. But I think ultimately for people to even pick it up, I think the title and the subtitle sell it. I mean, you instantly want to know what the rich are teaching their kids that the poor and the middle class are not, whether you're the kid or the parent, or even if you don't have kids, as was my case, you want to know, right? Like, what did my parents not teach me?

Yeah.

It's genius. And I mean, the subtitle is so important and often overlooked. Rich Dad Poor Dad on its own, you know, it actually is brilliant for him and what he created afterwards, but that doesn't sell the book. It's really that subtitle that to me sells the book and creates that instant curiosity and benefit all in one.

Yeah, it becomes very easy to pass that book on via word of mouth to friends and family when you're able to articulate the subtitle like that. We'll go a little bit deeper on subtitles in just a minute, but to sort of set the stage for everybody that's listening and wants to write a book, I thought we could start with how to publish. So there are different options, you can go with a traditional publisher, you can self-publish, or there are hybrid models in between. Could you give us sort of a lay of the land and what the landscape looks like for an aspiring author?

Yeah, I mean, for most people, they probably think they want a traditional publishing deal, but typically, A, it's going to be really hard for you to get, and unless you have a really large platform, you're a household name, you're probably— even if you got one, you probably actually don't want it, because the terms aren't going to be that favorable. They can keep all rights. They pay you minimal royalties. And when I say all rights, can we just pause and talk about that for a second? Because this is really important. Yeah, this is super important. So a lot of people, they don't realize that when I'm saying all rights, I'm talking about all the concepts that you put into that. So all your expertise, all the things you've learned, they now are owned by the publishing company. And I have 2 really important examples that really kind of solidified this in my head that I was going to self-publish. It was a friend of mine got a— wrote a book in the real estate space and a pub— a producer wanted to turn it into an HGTV show. Wiley, who was his publisher at the time, wouldn't negotiate. So he ended up having to buy back every copy of his book that was in circulation, which, you know, when you're with Wiley, it's in every single bookstore, probably multiple copies, in order to shoot the pilot for that series because they wanted to use the title and the branding from the book. And he had no right to use that because the publisher owned it. So he had to buy it all back. And then they shot the pilot and then HGTV didn't greenlight the series.

That's tough.

So that was tough. But he doesn't regret it. Like, he fully loves that he has his book back. It's his now. And then another friend of mine, also in the real estate space, wrote a book, and then he left the real estate space. So the publisher republished his book word for word under somebody else's name. All his stories, all of his concepts, somebody else now gets credit for all of those. So it's not, it's not your stuff when you get a traditional publishing deal. It's no longer yours. You have to have permission from them. So it's really important in the nonfiction space in particular, but fiction too. Hybrid is kind of a weird world in between. And there's all kinds hybrid companies, some really sketchy, some actually do a decent job. The benefit of going hybrid is that you're going to have, if you get the right company, you're going to have distribution in bookstores. That's really the benefit, but it's still called hybrid because you're going to pay them and they're probably going to keep some piece of the royalty. Sometimes they hide the royalty in print costs, so you have to buy a certain number of copies of books, or whenever you buy copies of your books, they'll charge you an additional $2 over top of their print costs. Which irks me. I'm like, it's my book, why do I have to pay you more for it? So I'm not a huge fan of it, but for people who want a specific kind of bookstore distribution, it can be a decent option if you choose the right company. And then there's self-publishing, which is you keep all rights, you keep all royalties, but you also take all the risk, right? You're investing in the editing, the layout, like everything is up to you to create the book and then sell it. But the reality is you're selling it no matter which you go with. Like, that's the piece that a lot of people think, if you go get a deal, the publisher sells it, but that's not true. You're responsible for selling your book no matter which choice you go with. So that's why I love option C, self-publish.

Amazon has really changed the game for everybody. It's made the barrier to entry and distribution, I think, a lot easier. You can distribute an Amazon link just about as easy as you could do anything else on your phone. So it makes it easier for people who are looking to self-publish. Sometimes I think there's a misconception with self-publishing that people think they have to do 100% of everything themselves. And so what your business does is it helps people who are looking to self-publish and keep all of the rights, which as you just stated is important. You get to keep all the rights, but you can then work with somebody like Book Launchers to do the editing and potentially ghostwriting, to brainstorm, to be a sounding board, to help you with getting it up on Amazon and everything in between.

Yeah, I mean, I started the company because people were having to hire out all of these pieces. So they would hire the editor, they would hire the designer. And the problem with that is, you know, if you do it right, you're thinking marketing from the beginning. So then you have to project manage, you have to know who to hire. I can't tell you how many people have come to us with a book that they said they paid an editor thousands of dollars to edit. And they're like, my book is grammatically correct, but it's actually not good. And it's, it's knowing when to hire which kind of editor because there's different kinds. So yeah, it's bringing it all into one under under one roof and really producing books that are as good or better than a traditionally published book, but you really being the one that brings your expertise and then gets supported all the way through. So it's, to me, it's kind of the best of both worlds if you, especially if you're a busy business owner or professional.

Yeah, no, I picture sort of a metaphor with a construction site or something like that. And if instead of hiring a construction company, if you have to work with every single individual piece of that project and make sure their schedules overlap and they have the same vision and they're not working on the wrong days. Like, that would be very complicated. So going with somebody like you, everything gets organized, the process is standardized. And to give a little bit more comfort for people who might be interested in working with you, I thought your process for interviewing ghostwriters was particularly interesting and thorough. So would you share that with everybody?

Yeah, I mean, we're always evolving too. So it's actually a section I've been like, I think maybe we should add to this, but I, I send I mean, because we've even refined how we do it even further. But yeah, so ghostwriters are tricky because a lot of people, or a lot of ghostwriters, can't actually tell you the books they've written. They're like legally not allowed to tell you. It's confidential. So it's hard. And then the other piece of it is the book that you see at the end is always very different than the first draft of the book. So how do you judge a ghostwriter based on a book that's finished? When there's been at least 3 people, if it's a good, you know, through a traditionally published or somebody like us, there's 3 to 4 other people who have had their hands in that book before it actually got to the finished product. So it's kind of tricky to figure out who's a good ghostwriter. And so we, we've kind of evolved a process where we send them a test and we get them to test it out and kind of see. And so for other people who don't have an evolved process, I would probably just record a story, like think of a story or some tips that you would put in your book, and then send that audio to them and see if they can capture your voice and write it in an engaging way. Because asking— one of the things people always ask is, oh, can you send me a book that you've written? They can. I would make sure they've written in your genre. That's one of the things that we do. But, you know, the best tip I can give you is to actually have them write something that you've said. And then don't expect it to be perfectly every word that you would normally use. What you want to try to capture is your voice. Like, does it— if you hand it to somebody who knows you, does it sound like you could have written it? And if it meets that, then don't worry about little words because the words are going to get changed when it goes through editing anyways.

Those are all great recommendations, and I'll actually have a couple more questions for you on ghostwriting, I think, a little bit later in the conversation. But before we get to that, I wanted to make a point I've had a couple of friends who say, well, I want to go with a publisher because I want to have that stamp of approval on the binding of the book or on the back of the book. And I constantly say, hey, I've read hundreds and hundreds of these books and I never look at the publisher. I mean, there's just no reason to.

Yeah.

In nonfiction, behavior change is the goal. And it doesn't matter if it was published by Wiley or if it was self-published. If the book is good and it's not boring, like you're saying, and the content can lead to some actionable insight and I could change my behavior, then it was a good book. It doesn't matter whether or not it was published. And so I think a lot of people have that fear. Do you have any final words for people who might have that kind of fear?

Yeah, I mean, there's 2 things, and you've really summarized it beautifully, but no reader ever searches, oh, I wonder what Penguin Random House just put out this month.

Never.

I know. So, so nobody's searching for the publisher. And the other thing is is to kind of remember this whole piece about the book is for your reader, not for you. And looking for a publisher to choose you is really, is kind of your own thing. So put your reader in the driver's seat and really figure out what's best for your reader. And publishers will change your concept. I mean, I tell the story in my book about how the publisher, I was in talks with Wiley at one point, and they were giving me a book idea that I didn't even want to write, but I was like, oh, I'm going to be chosen. I'm so glad I didn't have to write that book. Like, I didn't even want to write that book. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I saw some statistic recently, and maybe you have updated or different statistics, but over 60% of major publishers have gone out of business in the last 10 years or some stat like that that I read somewhere. And I thought it was interesting. I mean, Amazon has changed the game and it's given the voice, it's given a voice to a lot of people that weren't chosen before. And I think that that's really special. So moving on to chapter 2, you say that the single most important thing You need to write a good book is a hook. And so what do you mean by that?

Yeah, I mean, this is where you really pull in what makes you unique and what you have to offer to a reader. And when I say have an— like, let's get really specific because a lot of people say, oh, it's a leadership book. That is not a hook at all. Like, you got to figure out, okay, what does leadership give your specific reader? So once they're done learning about your style of readership, or leadership, what changes in their life? So it's the outcome that you have in mind for your ideal reader. And it's getting that intersection of what makes you unique and cool, so which is usually your story. That's what's going to make the book really interesting. It's that combined with that outcome for the reader and knowing really specifically who is that reader. So, you know, is it leadership for people trying to climb the ladder, corporate ladder? And what happens if they get your style? And it's that outcome. It's that sweet spot, and a lot of people really struggle to get there. And I think some of it— this is where a third party can really help because they can look and go, this is really cool about you. And you may not see that piece. You may actually think something else about you is cool and it's not. But somebody else will look and go, this is what other people are going to benefit from and find is cool. But yeah, the hook is essential. It's the through line of a movie, right? If you're taking it to Hollywood, it's that thing that ties the whole thing together. And if you're struggling to figure out what needs to go in your book, you haven't got clarity on your hook because the hook makes it clear what has to go in.

Yeah, I can really see how a third party would help with that. I've— and we'll get to this at the end of today's conversation, but I have a book idea in my mind and I haven't really shared it with that many people. And I know that the point is to share it with as many people as possible and see if they can remember it and your title and all that kind of stuff. But I just haven't gone through that process yet. You say that the ideal reader is not a demographic. So I'd love to have you sort of explain who is the target reader for your book, Self-Publish and Succeed, and that might shine some light on people who still have a little bit of confusion about this subject.

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, the ideal reader for Self-Publish and Succeed is somebody who wants to write a nonfiction book to ideally grow their business or their brand or become a recognized name. We do work with memoir authors, and I have a couple, you know, shoutouts to memoir writers in it, but typically this is not about that legacy piece, this is about creating something that going to benefit and impact other people. And in that, you notice I didn't say this is for men aged 30 to 50. It is not. This is people with a very specific problem and they need a specific solution. And then you could go even further and talk about how they want to have their own intellectual property and they want to, all of that stuff. But yeah, it's really meant for those kinds of people.

I know it'll probably sound a little goofy, but I speak with a lot of authors who have already published their books and you ask a very simple question. It's the same question that you would expect them to be able to answer, which is, what's your book about? And then you get, ah, you know what, it's so hard to describe, but let me give it my best shot. Or they'll preface with, you know, no matter how many times I say it, it doesn't sound good, or something like that. And you think you need to be able to spit out a memorized answer. And that's what you recommend in the book. You say develop an elevator pitch, be able to answer that question. And so do you have any other recommendations for authors? Like, write your elevator pitch, how long should it be? Those kind of things.

I mean, if you get your subtitle right, that is, like, to me, you know, the No Boring Books way to write a nonfiction book that sells. That's what my book is about. And so, you know, that simplifies life. So if you can nail your subtitle so that anybody knows what your book is about and who it's for, you know, that to me— I'm not a fan of the, you know, practice in the mirror, hey, I'm Julie. I can't do that kind of awkward stuff. So So I like to keep life simple. So if you can nail your subtitle, you're covered.

Yeah, no, that's really important. That's really important. And again, we'll get to some more subtitle stuff in just a moment. There's a motto that you share in the book from Zig Ziglar, which is be, do, have. And you said it's had a really important impact on your life. And so can you share that with everybody?

Yeah, that was a good one. So it's really, a lot of people think that they have to be something in order to have something so that they can do something. So when it comes to books in particular, you kind of feel like in order to be that author, you have to have achieved this pinnacle of success so that you can then write your book. And it doesn't work that way. And waiting for that to happen means you're never going to write your book. Because if you talk to anybody who's climbed a high mountain, what's the first thing they tell you? I can't wait to climb a higher mountain.

Right.

We as humans never feel like we have reached the pinnacle of success. So really thinking about who you are and putting, and really kind of thinking about the things you need to do, you know, to be that person that you are or who you really want to be, and then you'll get the things that you want.

Yeah, it's funny, travel is sort of my thing outside of Book Thinkers that I'm sort of known for and that I spend a lot of time doing, traveling internationally and doing fun, crazy excursions. And whenever somebody asks me like, how was Machu Picchu? Or how was snorkeling? And whatever, I say it was cool, but I can't wait to tell you about the next place I'm going. And so I can imagine that happens with books. Yeah, oftentimes, oftentimes a book becomes a bestseller and then I learn who the author was, you know what I mean? So you don't always have to be super well known in a specific space. You can write about it, define the space, and then become a well-known author afterwards, you know? And that goes back to your first point, which is it's not about being famous, it's about helping the reader. And then maybe you'll become famous later on down the road somewhere, which is cool. Fear. Fear is something that I'm sure you deal with all the time. Authors have a lot of fear-based excuses for why they don't want to write or complete or press publish on their book. And so what are some of the common fear excuses that you hear?

Well, the ones that I hear are different than what I think they actually are usually, which we were just talking about Steven Pressfield, the resistance, right? It never shows its face in its actual form. But, you know, the big one is for a lot of authors is imposter syndrome. And, and I talk about this in the book too, that, you know, when I wrote my first book, More Than Cash Flow, I had this kind of like imposter syndrome thing. Like, I've only done 30— I think I've done 32 or 35 deals at the time. Like, who am I to write a book telling you how to invest in real estate? Because I was looking at the people who had done 100 deals or more. And I'm going like, who am I to tell other people And so that's one, and I see this all the time in different forms. And it's a tough one to overcome. And that's where you really got to focus on the reader because my reader wasn't worried about doing deal 30. My reader was worried about why deal 1 was a hot mess or whether they should even get into real estate in the first place. And I was a lot further down the road and had a ton of really important advice to share with that particular reader. So focusing on that reader really helps you overcome that one. The other one I want to mention, because there's quite a few, but You know, fear of judgment is a big one, of course, because you're putting yourself out there. But the one that people don't often realize is fear of success. It's one that really kind of lurks behind the scenes and never shows up as that fear, but it's the kind of thing that has you going back to the drawing board, you know, to re-edit your book when it's been edited 3 times already. Or the fear of like, oh, I can't do this right now. And it's usually, if you dig into it, somebody had really successful parents who were too busy and they're worried that this will make them be so successful they can't spend time with their kids, or they're already really busy and they're worried their book will blow up and they won't have time for anything. So fear of success is an interesting one. And it's one I always like to mention because people can sometimes go, oh my goodness, that's me. But they hadn't thought about it before.

What's the handle or what's the objection handle to the fear of success one? Because I understand fear of failure, fear of judgment, Those are pretty easy to understand. And I think that if you can get down to that root cause, you can navigate it. But I'm curious, like, how do you navigate a fear of success objection?

Yeah, it depends. Because again, it doesn't always come out in that form. And so for some people, I mean, genuinely, if you are already incredibly busy, adding a book to your plate may not be the right move because it is time-consuming. And to do the marketing well, you know, you don't really want to go there. But But for some people who are kind of— it goes back to that reader again. Truly, I mean, most things, if you go back to the reader and how you can help them and what's important for them, I think that that will be helpful. The other thing is a reality check. I mean, yes, the book's going to take time, but the chances of it being this massive success— my book went to number 1 overall on Amazon. So it was ahead of Dan Brown. It was ahead of Game of Thrones. I sold thousands and thousands of books. I was in the top 100 on Amazon for 45 days. Like, my life did not change in an instant. It was a gradual change of things that happened as a result of that. But I'm still waiting for Ellen to call so I can dance with her. You know, like, for most people, yeah, right? Life doesn't change in an absolute instant. So I think in a lot of ways that fear of success is wishful thinking.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's a really good, that's, that's a really good counterpoint to that. What are So for people who are wondering whether or not they should write a book, on the other side of that, if people are a little bit too overconfident, or if they have expectations that are maybe a little bit bigger than they should be, what are, what are some words of caution that you would give around the number of books that, that are sold on average, and how long it takes to really be in the game, you know, some of those things?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people— we have a kind of a launch strategy menu that we, we share with people, because if you're coming to us and maybe your book idea is phenomenal, but you don't have a platform in this space at all. So you don't have, you know, an email newsletter, you don't have any social media, and you're expecting to become a New York Times bestseller. Like, you're gonna be lucky to sell 250 books in your first month because you don't have— no matter how phenomenal this book idea is, you don't have people that are waiting to buy it from you. The people who are New York Times bestsellers, they didn't, they didn't go write a book become a bestseller. If you look, they already had a massive following in the most, for the most part, or they were writing about an incredibly hot topic, right? Like, you know, that one book, I've just forgotten, Fire or whatever it was about Donald Trump, you know, right before he got elected, that one shot up because it was like the topical book, but that doesn't happen very often. Usually your launch is going to be huge if you have a huge following already. So we kind of layer on at real, like what's realistic if you don't have a following, if you can sell 100 books in your pre-launch and your launch month, if you have zero following in a space, that's a really strong start, and you have to plan to do something every day to market your book in order to grow and build momentum. Over time, you can sell thousands of books if you do that, but you have to plan to do something every single day, unless you've already been doing something for 5 years to build the following that's going to be there on launch day.

No, that's, that's really important to hear, and I think it's going to be sobering for a lot of aspiring authors, but At Book Thinkers, we'll have somebody DM us and say, hey, we'd love to do a book promotion with you, a paid promotion. And if they don't have any social media, then what's the buying process going to look like for somebody who looks at my book review? They'll click to their profile, they'll see that they have 100 followers, they haven't posted in a few months, there's no active story, the, you know, bio is confusing on Instagram, and the likelihood that that reader is now going to purchase the book goes far down. So by preparing and growing some social media, by getting active, I think that those are some really important prerequisites to a book launch. And sometimes people aren't thinking about that. So that's good. There's also an opportunity cost to not writing a book, which I thought was really interesting that you wrote about. And you used an example where somebody waited for 2 years and then all of a sudden the book that they wanted to write had already been written by a couple other people. And one of them was selling out crowds and I might be exaggerating a little bit, but they had a ton of success and they were now the standard in that that space. And so what other sort of opportunity costs are there for somebody who's going to wait and says, I'll do it tomorrow?

That's the beautiful thing about books is you don't actually know what you're missing out on because those opportunities are going to pass by. In his, it was a very tangible— like, there was only one other book when we started talking. There was only one other book out there like his. And then 2 years later, there was dozens. And, you know, some of them were very dominant. It's not always that obvious. And so you think about it, and I talk about this too, Because my first book, which is a real estate book, over the course of 8 years led me to run what I think is the most incredible company, not just for other people, but for myself. This is truly where I feel like everything I've done to date is really— I went through all those things so that I could be where I am today. But to say if I hadn't written my book, I would've missed out on this, I don't I don't know, like, that this was impossible to predict. Sure.

No, I mean, that makes sense.

It's hard, but you're— you are missing out on impacting other people's lives, which is really interesting. On my, on my YouTube channel, I always ask people, what's the biggest surprise of becoming an author? It's kind of my standard question. And, you know, you'd think people would be like, oh, you know, now I'm speaking, I'm doing all these cool things. And which is true for a lot of them, but like almost universally, they all say, I get these emails from people and I have changed their life. Like, that's the piece. So that's the opportunity cost in my mind of you not writing the book. Is there somebody that really needed you and they're not going to get— they're not going to be able to be helped by what you could have said to help them?

I love that. You said that much more articulately than I could, but it's the same thing for a social media platform. If it's impact-focused or has the opportunity to help somebody, people will say, hey, I want to start a book page, but I'm kind of scared. And And, or, hey, I want to start a book page, but I'm not really sure what to talk about. And the biggest impact that starting a book page has had on me is that somebody comes in the DMs and they ask for a book recommendation. And after a couple of questions, we narrow down on what their problem is that they really need to solve. If they read that book and come back and say, hey, this book changed my life, well, that's it. I mean, that's my reason for having the page.

Yeah.

You know, that's why Book Thinkers exists and it's so special. So it's cool to hear that authors are sort of having that same realization. That's awesome. The break-even mentality, I thought, was a really interesting thing that you addressed in the book. What is the break-even mentality and how can we avoid that?

Yeah. So, I mean, this is the, how many books do I have to sell to break even on the cost of self-publishing? And so, first of all, like, and this is partly my real estate investing background, but why would you do anything just to break even? Like, let's set the bar a little higher than that. So that's kind of the first reaction I always have when people say that, how many books do I have to sell to break even? But the second part of that is realizing, especially in the nonfiction space, you're going to make money from your book in so many ways that are hard to measure, and it's hard to always directly attribute it back to the book, but the book opened the door to those opportunities, whether it's because now you've done the hard work of of thinking through your concepts and now you can articulate what you are talking about so much better because you did the work, or whether it's because now you got speaking engagements because now you're an author. And so there's lots of opportunities that come about that are really hard to direct back in a really like, okay, this generated this ROI. So yeah, it's kind of a twofold thing. But yeah, I mean, just in general, like, let's shoot higher than breakeven in life.

Yes. No, I couldn't agree more. And nonfiction is a very interesting space to be in because you're totally right, there are a bazillion and one different ways to complement your book with a program, an online course, you know, consultation, a speaking engagement. What are some of the other ways that people can complement their books, maybe for authors who are thinking, uh-oh, you know, I was just shooting to break even, now I need to come up with some sort of new business idea? Can you spark any ideas?

Yeah. I mean, you don't have to necessarily have an entirely different business. I mean, a lot of people naturally end up doing consulting or speaking or workshops or online courses. Those things are kind of naturally, they naturally evolve. But if you want to just stick with the book stuff, you can then license off rights. Like I just got contacted by a Polish publisher that's interested in licensing the rights to Self-Publish and Succeed. So, you know, there's international rights that you may want to license off. Audiobooks. You might want to create a workbook version of your book. There might be another book in the series. So there's lots of other ways to kind of monetize it. But really, I mean, speaking and consulting, those— you tend to add a zero when you become an author to those kind of things, you know, your speaking fee and your consulting fees and things like that. So that's most common. But there's, there's so many ways. Use your creativity. I don't even want to limit you guys to what I've just said.

No, it's great advice. To give a little bit more context, You said in the book that for Dave Asprey, and I love Dave's books, I follow a lot of the stuff that he puts out. You said that people end up spending 2 times as much on Bulletproof products after they've read his book than before. So it's a compliment, it strengthens the relationship, it creates raving fans. And another example that I can think of is Russell Brunson, who started ClickFunnels.

Yes, absolutely.

He sends out his books for free just because after you read that book, you're sold on ClickFunnels, which is the complementary product or the the next step up on the rung. And he'll get you to sign up for that, you know, 9 times out of 10 if you're a business owner. And so books can be used in really creative ways. Yeah, that's fun. You also said that the person in a specific field will outearn— they could charge a lot more than just your average Joe Schmo with maybe a degree or something like that. So that's another really good reason to write your book.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, the example I think I have in the book was Marie Kondo. I mean, if you pay a regular home organizer to come into your house, what are you paying them per I don't know, let's say $75 an hour. But if you had Marie Kondo herself come into your home, you're probably going to pay $7,500 or maybe even a lot more than that per hour. So yeah, it's a game changer to be the name.

Yeah. Well, you have been number 1 overall on Amazon. So if I'm going to pay somebody to help me with my book, it's probably going to be you. And you're worth more because of that too. So that's cool. I told you that we would get back to subtitles and chapter titles. I thought it was really interesting that Book Launchers does, there's so much more behind it than I thought there was. There's like keyword search and there's brainstorming sessions and there's tons of options and you're running these ideas by tons of different people. So what does that process look like? And again, can you reinforce why subtitles and then chapter titles are so important?

Yeah, for sure. So title and subtitle, the keywords that you put in there have the most value in Amazon and also search engines. So you really want to be strategic with what you put in there. And title, the title of your book can really make or break your book. And you can have the same title as another book unless it's trademarked, like Freakonomics, for example, is a trademark, so you can't do it. But you can't copyright titles, so you can use other titles. But the question you have to kind of ask yourself is, do I want to compete with somebody else with the same title? So it's really setting your book up to appeal to the reader, but to also stand out in the marketplace. place and make it really clear what your book is about. So that's kind of the first piece of it. But the subtitle is a piece that— and a lot of people fall in love with titles. So I like to really harp on that because just because you think your title is great. My second book was called The New Brand You. And if I had told people to say it, you know, if I told them that title and then, you know, 20 minutes later asked them to tell me, everybody calls it The Brand New You. Everybody. I've been on 75 podcast interviews talking about that book and they all called it— well, almost all of them. They even have it in front of them. So if I would have just tested that title a little bit, I would have realized the challenge I was up against. So it's really important. There's so many things to consider, but the subtitle is where we really try to focus on getting that hook of the subtitle and making sure that subtitle tells you who the book is for and what the benefit in reading that book is and does it with keywords. And we're talking Google keywords as well as Amazon keywords, because this is where you're going to get the juice, that search engine juice. So it's really hard, like, that is because of all of the things you're trying to accomplish with so few words, you really have to engage creativity. And so part of our process, we start with the research, we get the client's ideas for what they want their title and subtitle to be. And then as a company, and I mean everybody from our writers to the people who are uploading the books, all the way to the marketing team, they're all involved in brainstorming. And then we have very specific criteria that we kind of run those through as a filter, and then we present a kind of a handful to the client, and it— we go back and forth until we get to what we think is the best kind of title. So it's quite a complex process, and that and table of contents, like chapter titles, I don't think very many people spend anywhere near enough time on.

Hello, Book Thinkers family! A quick word from today's podcast sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible. Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers to celebrity memoirs, business, and my favorite, personal development. And as part of Audible's partnership with us, we're actually offering listeners a free 30-day trial. This trial includes 1 credit good for any premium selection titles you'd like on the whole platform. So that's pretty much any book, including the one we're talking about today. That book is yours to keep even after the trial is over. Now, this trial also includes access to Audible's Plus catalog of podcasts, audiobooks, guided wellness programs, and Audible Originals. You can listen all you want, no credits needed. Now, everyone on the Book Thinkers Instagram knows that I love physical paper books. There's nothing better than having a book in your hand, scribbling notes everywhere in the margins. I kind of tear those things up. But I've been completing an additional 20 to 30 books every single year using Audible by listening when I'm in the car, doing chores around the house, or while I'm on my morning walks or runs. You could take advantage of this free trial by clicking the link in today's show notes or going to www.bookthinkers.com/audibletrial. You will not regret it. Now back to today's episode. Yeah, you said that chapter titles can sell a book. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, so when you, when you see a book you like, most of the time, if it's physically, you probably flip it over, read the back, and then you go to the table of contents. If you're on Amazon, you click look inside and the first page that opens up is that table of contents. And consciously or unconsciously, what happens is people are reading those chapter And they're really deciding if they've ever, if they even need to read the book. Like a lot of times the chapter title makes you feel like you've already read this book, right?

Finding Your Why.

Exactly. Yeah, that's the example I picked on. And then I pick on real estate too. You know, it's like calculating cash flow, choosing a market area. Like if you've read one real estate book, you think you've read this book already. So you want to create chapter titles so that you can create curiosity and sell a benefit in those titles. And what's happened with me, and now many of our clients have had this happen too, is somebody opens it up, they see a chapter title that's interesting, they'll go, hey, can you create a talk on this? And so now your chapter title is a talk title that just sold you as a speaker to talk on that topic. So it's really— and media does this too. I've been on a lot of live television, and you know, the reporter didn't, or the person interviewing you didn't prepare. They open up the book, they go to the Oh, you know, can you tell me about— it's happened to me twice, you know, where they've just done that. So the chapter titles are so important for so many reasons.

Yeah, no, it's fun. With Book Thinkers, I read every single book before we have these podcast interviews because I want to dig things out, like the core themes of the chapter, but use specific examples and kind of show the author that I've read the book. There was one time, and I hate to say this, but I'll admit it, there was one time that I didn't have a chance to read a book. And so I threw all the chapter titles up on the document and it ended up being a terrible interview and I never published it. And yeah, so that's what you get when you don't read the book and you just look at the chapter titles. Some expectation setting again, I really loved how there was a specific piece of the book that talked about how many hours it takes to write a book and some of the ways that you could save your time. So for people who are interested like me, but have never started the process, In general, how many hours does it take to get that first draft down on paper?

It depends if you— yeah, on the computer. Yeah, it depends if you plan it in advance, like truly, if you've done a lot of thinking work, which is hard to put hours on, but, you know, in our company, most of the time people spend 4 to 6 weeks working with a story expert to develop the hook of their book and lay out the structure of their book. So that's a lot more time than I think most people really consider it's going to take, But then when you do that, you can write a book. We usually tell you 5 hours a week, but, you know, 100 hours will get that first draft down. But if you don't do that, then you're more like me writing my first book, and you're probably going to spend 500 hours writing a book that you're then going to still throw out 25,000 words that you wrote because they don't have anything to do with your book. So planning goes a long way. And so spending that time upfront to really think through a lot of these things that we've just talked about will help you a lot. And the other thing, I can give you a tip if anybody is starting to write, One thing that wastes a lot of time is when you finish writing, or sorry, when you start writing for the next day, you, a lot of people reread what they wrote the day before. Don't do that. Before you finish writing, write the sentence with some bullet points of what you're going to do next, and then just pick right up. Like, don't go back and read and edit and read and edit, because you're going to end up with a chap— with the first 3 chapters of your book phenomenal and the rest is garbage, if it ever gets written.

That's a really good piece of advice. What are some standards as far as in the nonfiction space, page count, word count, chapter count? Like, what are your preferences? I know you list them in the book.

Yeah, so it, I mean, it really depends. I think a book should be as long as it needs to be ultimately. But that said, I really want to see a spine, like, with the title on the spine. And in order to do that, you need to have a book that's at least 110, ideally 120 pages. So, that's usually 30,000, 35,000 words. Now, you know, The War of Art is under 25,000 words. So, you can get creative with white space and kind of what you do on a page and shrinking the book down. So, you can do it with less. But most business books, you're looking at 55,000 to 65,000 words, 160 to 210 pages.

So, we'll go back to ghostwriting again since we touched on it a little bit earlier. I have actually been approached a couple of times just because of the Book Thinkers Network about writing a book and, oh, don't worry, I'll take care of it. We'll ghostwrite it. And for me, I kind of— I don't know why I have this feeling, but I have this feeling of like, it's just not right. Like, there's a piece missing if I didn't write my own book, even if I got all the concepts down and spent a lot of time talking into a microphone. Like, there's just something that's missing if you don't write it yourself. And now Is that an objection that you hear a lot? And is that something that I just need a perspective shift on or what's the case there?

When I started Book Launchers, we only had writing coaches because I believed that you had to write your own book. Like I had the same, I was like, you need to be the one. But the reality is I had a client early on. He's like, look, I am too busy. I have 2 businesses. It is not the best use of my time. He's like, I can write it, but I'm not going to. So go find me a writer.

Mm-hmm.

So, and so I did get him a book, and then as I've— or I did get him a writer, and then as we kind of evolved, I approach it as a writing assist. So I don't consider it ghostwriting. Traditional ghostwriting is, you know, you'll create a little bit of the content and you get interviewed, and then they do go off and they do a lot of the research, and they kind of really write the book in many ways without you. You're still involved, and it's still— the book wouldn't exist without you, but it's not the same as what we do. And I— so my guarantee to our clients is you'll still suffer, you'll still feel like you wrote it.

I like that. I like that. And I like the term assist. I think that's an important way to frame it for people.

It's very collaborative, so that— and I think that makes a big difference too. You know, it's very back and forth, and it— you know, the writer's never going off into the distance and coming, showing back up with a book.

Yeah, and you referenced some major memoirs that, that wouldn't have been gifted to us as readers had there not been a ghostwriter, because those people were too, were too busy. And it's important to lift the veil and get behind the scenes with some of the most iconic people in history. And like you said, it wouldn't happen without the ghostwriting. So that provides me a little bit more comfort.

And I mean, honestly, some of the celebrity memoirs I think are written largely that way, right? They go off and they research this person, they interview them, fill in a few gaps, but it is largely written, I think, without them involved in some cases. So everybody does it differently. But yeah, I understand. I feel you because that's how I was. I was like, nope, you're going to write your own book. But—

What percentage of Self-Publish and Succeed was written by you and what percentage was written by your team?

I mean, they collaborated on it, but it was all me. You know, ultimately, that's— I have a very distinct writing style and I love writing. I thought I'd be a writer when I was a little girl. I thought I'd be a writer, but then somebody told me writers don't make money, so I ended up going to business school and then doing an MBA.

I want to write a book or books, I think, in the future, and some of the— I'll ask you some of the questions that I struggle with right now. So you addressed one of them, which is if you're just too busy to write the book and you have too many things going on and you don't think you can focus on it or give it the attention that it needs pre- launch, launch, and post-launch, then don't write the book. And so sometimes I go back and forth. Like, I've written an outline or sort of used the note card method that you've talked about before, but then no progress happens and I get reminded, like, I'm a very busy person. So what kind of questions would you have for me if this was sort of an intro discussion with book launchers about my availability, my interest in writing the book? I'm kind of curious what the process Yeah.

I mean, first I'd want to understand your goal for the book, like why you want to write it and who it's for. That would be— and I don't know if you want me to wait for answers or not. I don't know if you actually want me to ask you these questions.

You know what? Why not? I love the vulnerability transparency aspect, and I'm continuing to show more, I think, to the Book Thinkers community. So for the hundreds or thousands of people that listen to this, they'll know, they'll get a little preview Yeah.

So I mean, that's the question I would start with is kind of why, like, why is writing a book important to you?

So writing a book is important to me because I get asked, what is the first book I should read in the personal development space? 50 times a day, maybe not 50, sometimes 50 times a day. And it's tough because there's no general introduction to personal development. And after reading hundreds of these books, I want to write an introduction to personal development. I want to write a book that will introduce you to a dozen different concepts, some of the more popular ones, and give the reader a gentle introduction, not hand them a 500-page book that's super technical and difficult to get through. So, so I'd love to have a standardized answer to that question without having to go back and forth and really find out what somebody is looking for.

Fantastic. And so, uh, in terms of like the book, if you don't write it, what are you gonna do instead with all of these 50 inquiries? What are you gonna do for the next 2 years if the book's not out?

Yeah, it's a good question. We, we developed a link on the Book Thinkers website where I list a lot of my favorite books based on genre. And so what I'll typically do, if I have the free time and the interest, I'll ask follow-up questions and we'll get get to the heart of what they need and then I'll make a specific recommendation. Otherwise, I just flip over the link if there's too many inquiries in a day and I say, check out these, you know, 200 recommendations, go to the genre that you think you need to look for, pick out my favorite book and then start there.

Yeah, so you're giving up a lot of potential book sales to direct them to the very piece that you could be offering. So there's definitely that piece to think about. I mean, from the time perspective, I usually say, like, can you find 2 to 5 hours most weeks? And if the genuine answer is no, then don't do this. Like, really, truly, it's going to drag out and just haunt you. But if you can find 2 to 5 hours a week, most weeks, then you'll be able to get a book done in the next, you know, 12 to 15 months. And, you know, I think it would be worth it. Based on what you've said, I, like, if you can find those 2 to 5 weeks, I would highly recommend it.

Yeah.

And creating a book and creating that to add to your brand, but also to help all those people because you've just given them a whole bunch of books and now they're going, which one of these do I choose? Like you could just say, this is the book.

And a confused customer always says no. It's one of my, one of the core principles I've learned from reading these books. And so that's a confusing process, I think, for some people. Here's another question I have. So I do have the 2 to 5 hours per week. I mean, time is all about prioritization and I think that it could add to the brand and I think that It's a personal project that I probably spend 2 to 5 hours a week thinking about sometimes. What's the budget look like for somebody like myself who has no writing experience and would need to lean on your team as an example to help with the brainstorming? Basically, like, what's your biggest package look like and what's the budget that I would need to set aside for promoting this?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, we're set up as a membership So we function on kind of a month-to-month basis to support people through the process, because we do marketing at the end. So our kind of dream clients are those that work with us for a long time. They write their second book, they write their third book, and we're marketing their books forever. So that's, you know, how we're set up a little differently. But generally speaking, if you're going to work with one of our writers and get everything that we do to get yourself to a book launch, you're probably looking at about $25,000.

Mm-hmm.

If you're really slow and you disappear, because we are a membership, or you change your mind a lot, then it's going to cost you more because you're going to go slower than our typical timeframe. But most people are going to be able to get their book out working with a writer, you know, in under a year. So that would be, you know, less than $25,000 with us.

No, it's interesting to understand that and spread out over a 12 or 15-month engagement. It's not so bad, you know, but that's That's good to know. And then what other questions did I have? Well, I read in the book that the bestsellers, you're far more likely to have a bestseller if you have a shorter title. And so the title that I was thinking about was You Have an Upgrade Available, but that's 5 words, You Have an Upgrade Available, which is over that limit. So what kind of feedback would you have on that title?

Yeah, I mean, I would start with looking at, okay, why not just call it Upgrade Available? What else can you say? Like, that's where we would start. But again, this is, it's always a really fun And it's a long one. Yeah, we'll take the title ideas. I wouldn't go with all of those words because picture it on a cover and then you add a subtitle to it. Sure, a lot of people always go, yeah, but what about Win Friends and Influence People? Or there's some other ones, but the entire cover is words.

Yeah, no, that's a good point.

So you have to get really hard. Subtitles you can squish in and do fun things with, but the title itself, plus people have to remember it and they're not going to remember all the other little words. So yeah, I would go with the most impactful words. And like, like we said, you know, if you can do it 3 words or less, make sure it's memorable, make sure people can say it, make sure that people— make sure that you can ideally get the website so that you can be the dominant person on that kind of, those kind of words. And check other titles to make sure there aren't any other books that are out there like that. And if there are, the criteria is kind of, are they popular? Are people like— does it have very many reviews? Is it in the same genre? You know, you kind of want to eliminate it that way. But that's where we would start. But we would still do— we'd still come up with all kinds of crazy ideas to, you know, give you the gamut so that you've got lots to choose from.

Yeah, no, all really good thoughts. Well, I am— I had some of my personal questions answered, and I'm happy that we got a chance to highlight a lot of what's in the book. I really enjoyed the book. I'm going to be recommending it to a lot of friends who are asking me about a book that can help them write a book, I suppose. And we get a lot of those questions on Book Thinkers. So overall, thank you so much for your time today on the podcast. I really enjoyed speaking with you. For people who want to learn a little bit more about you or your business, where should they go? What should they do?

Yeah, booklaunchers.com is everything that we do at the company. And booklaunchers.tv is our YouTube channel. And that's my passion project. If you want to talk Talk to me. I respond to all those comments personally. New videos every Tuesday and Friday. So those are the 2 best places.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much. I look forward to our next conversation.

Yeah. Thank you. This was fun.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers, Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Go read something.