Crafting Books that Grow Your Brand and Business | Cathy Fyock | 640

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Cathy Bayock. She is a book author and strategist, and she has, uh, a whole process and methodology on how to sort of help people get the book they want to write and need to write out of them in a smart way. So instead of my attempting to describe it, let's just get into it. So welcome aboard, Cathy. How are you?

Thank you so much, Peter. It's great to be here.

So what is a book strategist, right? Because I think that a lot of people that are in the process or thinking about writing a book, it becomes overwhelming, right? There's proposals to write, there's ghostwriters. Like, what is it that you do? And maybe what is it that you don't do?

Okay. So somebody once said, well, if I need to write a book, do I just start writing? I'm like, no. Now that will get you a book, but I'm not sure that will get you a book that will grow your thought leadership, your business, your credibility, your visibility. It may be fun. It may be interesting, but it may not be the right book. So I think it's really important to start with a strategic plan for what you want your book to do. How do you want it to interface with your business? Do you want it to just establish, uh, your thought leadership, uh, more broadly? Do you want it to be a high-priced calling card? Do you want it to be the curriculum that you use for training clients or classroom training? So thinking strategically about what the book should be. I think is the most important thing as you begin to write a book to grow your business.

Well, and I think that, I think you're 100% right. And then I think the strategy for the book needs to sort of fall under the strategy for the business because oftentimes I think what happens, really, really smart people undergo the, or, or get involved in the book process and they treat it as a whole different thing and it becomes the tail that wags the dog. And it's like, okay, if you're writing a book, to elevate your brand or, or, or show the market that you're smart or attract new clients. Okay. How does that align with your current business strategy? Right? Because it should align with that. It shouldn't be this totally—

Absolutely. It should just go hand in glove. And if it doesn't, something's outta whack. You know, your book is outta whack or your strategy is outta whack. Something isn't quite properly aligned.

Yeah. That, and, and then I think I, I would imagine this is part of your process is to sort of temper or manage expectations around what is possible and what is not and, and all those sort of things. Because as difficult as it is to write a book, and it is difficult, try marketing and selling it and getting something besides your, you know, your brother-in-law to buy it, right?

Yes. Yes. So yes, it, and, and it should not be incongruent with your business marketing plan. It should, uh, again, be highly congruent with that. And, um, in many cases it's just thinking about what do you need to tweak or what do you need to add? And for example, you don't need a whole new website for your book. I think you do need a landing page, but a landing, uh, landing page can be part of your website that now includes your book. So it doesn't have to be this completely separate and different thing. It just needs to be meshed with what you're doing for your business.

Got it. So if I were considering writing a book or thinking about it or whatever, what are some, some advice you might give me or suggestions you might have?

Okay. If we were working together, we would schedule a strategy session. It's generally a 2-hour meeting where we define very clearly the purpose of your book and how it integrates with your business, how it interfaces with what you're already doing, what you want to do. It should— we should identify the thesis statement, what the book is about, what it isn't about, who the reader is and who the reader isn't. And then what is the structural outline? And then from that, we develop a project plan for writing the book, including some checkpoints for the deliverables that we will look for along the way. And then basically I meet with the author on a weekly basis, right? Check in and so forth.

So I wanna double-click, if you will, on the who the book is for, because I see this all the time and I'm curious as to give your experience similar things. 'Cause I'll say to folks, okay, well, who is this piece of thought leadership? Who is this book? Who are you serving? And you know, there's two answers to that question. One is a smart one. Meaning really, really thoughtful psychographically, demographically. I'm, you know, I'm looking for that high potential leader in a high growth company that is experiencing technological change. And you might go, wow, that's a mouthful. But then you think about it and you go, got it. I know exactly who you're looking for. The other answer is, oh, everybody. I've yet to see, uh, you know, a business book. There are other books we could argue, whatever.

Yes.

Where it really is applicable to everybody. And I think that the danger of trying to please everybody is you water it down so much that it means nothing. So how would you either push back on that or violently agree?

No, I, I heartily agree that, uh, and your targeted reader should be absolutely aligned with your targeted client so that you're not reinventing the wheel. You're not going off in some incongruent direction. You are, you know, you're, you're building this thing so that it all works together.

And I think there's a, um, whether it's a fear or, or, or a scarcity mindset, whatever the case may be, when you put these constraints on authors, some of them, you know, kind of freak out a little bit. Oh my God, if it's only this little small group, you know, oh my, my market's small. And it's like, I find it's the opposite that The more constraints that you put on it, it's actually more freeing because it's easier to go, is that really relevant to people that look like that, that, that, that, that? It's like, yes, no, or maybe bang, bang, bang. If you're trying to, again, please too many people, it's, it's impossible.

It's impossible. Yeah. One of my authors, and he brought me the numbers when, when we were working together, but he was writing a book for chamber leaders, chamber of commerce leaders. And he was an executive director. He'd been on several, heading up several organizations. He wrote this book for Chamber of Commerce leaders, potentially also their boards, but primarily the leader. And you know what? That's a pretty big group because he knew the actual numbers. And while you think, oh gosh, you know, Chamber of Commerce is, we're talking about leaders in a very, very niche market. We are, but he became sort of like the go-to guy in that niche market. And that's really what you want. You want to be the go-to expert within your niche market.

Yeah. No, I, I love that. And, and I think there's comfort in knowing that, like, your first reaction to your Chamber of Commerce example is, well, I only know one. Well, of course you do. You only live in one town and of course you knew one. And like, Then you're like, okay, does every major city have a chamber? Yep. Every small city. Yep.

Yeah. Every—

can you like, oh, maybe it's kind of like florists. Maybe there's what I thought might have been a handful. Maybe there's thousands or 10,000 of them, whatever.

Yes.

Why would I ever think about who's the— leads the Chamber of Commerce in Topeka, Kansas, unless I lived in Topeka, Kansas. So, right. It also validates that there is a market that is big enough for what you do and how you do it and all those sort of things. If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps. As well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. Any thoughts that you would care to share relative to the how? And what I mean by that is once we've figured out sort of who we're writing for and you've got your methodology and process, process to write more effectively, now there's a whole other set of questions I have to wrestle with as a potential author of Do I self-publish? Do I hide? Do I do hybrid? Do I go traditional? And it's like, ah, this is all overwhelming. I thought I'd just sit at the typewriter with a glass of wine and, uh, it'll all just flow out of me. It's like, not quite.

Yeah. No, not really. Yeah. Those are some big decisions. I just talked with, uh, an author. She's wanting to write a book to grow her business. And she thought, of course, to go the path of traditional publishing was where she would want to go. I said, well, I don't know. Here, there's some, there's some pros and cons. So we talked about it. And for many of my clients who are writing a book for business growth, to grow their brand, their platform, it doesn't make sense in many cases to go with a major publisher. You own your IP when you self-publish or hybrid publish. And I think that's the option I like to see my authors deal with. You own your IP. You can buy your books at cost. You can mark up your books and you receive the best margin. You have total creative control. You can speed to market. You can get it to market faster. I mean, there's just any number of reasons that, that you should, I think, own your intellectual property as a thought leader and entrepreneur. Yeah.

And I think a lot of it is people just don't know that there are options. I mean, most people think, oh, I have to go to a publisher because I don't know, I buy books and there's a publishing logo on it and blah, blah, blah. But there's, you know, some of the things that you mentioned, control, time to market, cost, risk.

Yes.

Quality. There are more and more options today available for authors. Ever before, which is a good thing, but it also means you have an obligation to educate yourself as to what are the right ones for you today.

Yeah. A lot of authors also think, oh, well, if I go with a publisher, they're gonna market the book for me. That's— I wanna laugh then. It's like, no, not so much. You're gonna market your book pretty much however you, you go about doing it. And you have the most to gain or lose when you're doing it yourself. I think you do a better job when you're self-publishing or hybrid publishing your book. And, and then you have a lot more options for if you want to later put out a training video on your content or a training class or an online class. You may or may not have that capability with the contract that you signed with a traditional publisher, where with the hybrid publishers I work with, you totally own that and have total control. With other rights for other forms and formats for that content.

Yeah. And I think that's, that's another thing that people don't realize is, wait a minute, it's not just the book, right? There's lots of other derivatives and variables and, you know, who controls the IP and what you can do with it and all that other stuff, you know, and, and yes, from a sales and marketing standpoint, Regardless of the path that you go, you are solely, or vast majority of the responsibility of the sales, the marketing, the success of the book is on you. And therefore, if you're gonna put in all that effort to sell the book, shouldn't you reap your fair share of the profits? Right? 'Cause a typical publishing deal is, you know, they'll give you 15, 20 cents on the dollar.

Okay.

That's not the definition of partner I'm used to.

No, no. Most of my authors do far better. By going the hybrid route and assuming more of the risk of their book. But then if you assume the risk, you're going to work really hard to make sure it's going to take off and do its— what it's intended to do.

Yeah. No, I think that's right, because you— the risk and the reward have to be hand in hand.

Yes.

Anything that you're seeing now, because I also think that to some degree You know, it's like the gold rush that, and what I mean by that is you wonder if the only people making money with books are the, you know, the, the people selling the pickaxes, right? Like they did during the gold rush. So there are a lot of, and, and you, you start to discover this once you start to go down the path of, you know, book launch experts and PR experts, and we'll get you on this list and you can be an Amazon bestseller. So can you give us a little sense of sort of what is realistic and what is, let's call it, uh, maybe less valuable in terms of, uh, the, the investment that you're making relative to the promise?

Yeah. Well, I think if you're counting on book sales as a huge revenue stream, you're gonna be disappointed. I think if you're looking at your book as a way to generate higher speaking fees, larger consulting fees, broader access, you know, some of those kinds of things. That's where you make your money. So it's not necessarily on the book sale itself. And the study that you had shared with me, the ROI study, was, was amazing in that it confirmed that. Basically authors who are making money on their books, not on sales, It's really on how you can leverage that book to grow other parts of your business. I'll tell you one, I know of one story, for example, one of my authors never even sold a book, but made hundreds of thousands of dollars on their book because they had a very high, high-value consulting service that they provided. The book was their proposal, if you will, and they gifted the book to high-value prospects. And when those converted, meant reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars in rewards. And that's the key.

Well, and I think that's an interesting, brings up an interesting point where, you know, it goes back to what we said earlier, defining who the reader is. And I think one way—

Yes.

Work with clients to get there, say, okay, gimme the names of 20 people that meet that criteria. 20 people you could name by name, right? You know, if it's, it's head of innovation at a Fortune 1000 company, okay, do you know 20 people that have that title or is that something you made up? Let's go to LinkedIn. Let's find them. And then, you know, to your point, selling a book is a lovely thing, but the reality is if your goal is to, the purpose of the book is to get it in the hand of someone that could go, Aha, here's a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to be my consultant, my advisor, my fill in the blank. Why would you possibly let the barrier of $15 or $20 or $25 stand in the way of that? Wouldn't you want to get it in, into the hands of the people that could, that could engage at that level? Now, if your engagements are, you know, nominal, the math doesn't work, but you have to, yeah, right. A little bit of math here and say, would I invest in giving out 200 books in the hopes of landing 2 clients at $100,000 each? Yeah, that seems like a logical bet.

Yes. Yes. And I know some folks with, uh, their, um, their speaking isn't worth hundreds of thousands, but it's worth $5,000 to $10,000. And you know, you gift, uh, one of my clients gifted 50 books and got 5 full-fee speaking engagements. Well, that was a really smart investment. And again, they didn't have to sell any books at all. They gifted them to— and these were not random people, strangers. These were people that were within their circle. And he wrote a lovely note, you know, to each one with a little card showing how he might provide additional services in that space. And it was an absolute moneymaker.

Fantastic. Well, this has been great. I appreciate all the experience and the knowledge that you're sharing with us today. It's great stuff. I appreciate you, Cathy. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Peter.

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