The Current State Of Publishing And Thought Leadership

There we go.

All right, so let me kick this off. So today our theme is the current state of publishing and thought leadership, which is a subject that is near and dear to my heart and Jess's as well. So Jess and I met, I don't know when that was, last year, Jess? I guess it was towards the fall.

It was last year, but then we actually met in person for the first time in January where we had—

It was this year, okay, wow.

Something good happened in 2020, right?

I know, I know, pre-pandemic, in a very busy, noisy, crowded New York restaurant and— Right, right.

Yeah, so Jess and I got introduced by Michael Bungay Stanier, who's awesome, and he said we gotta connect, and we did, and it was an awesome conversation because I think her and I think alike in a lot of ways relative to thought leadership and publishing, and I just love that from the publishing standpoint Jess is sort of on the cutting edge here of what's going on and where it's going, and the way that you support your authors is really cool. So Jess is the co-founder of Page Two Books up in Canada and has been in the publishing game for— I won't give up the exact timeframe, but quite some time. Not quite Gutenberg, but a little past that, right?

Yeah.

So we're just going to chat about current state of publishing and thought leadership. So I will sort of hand it off to you to start. Just want to maybe just introduce yourself and give us some thoughts in terms of what you're seeing, what's, what's, what's going on right now.

Yeah, thanks, Peter. It's true, it's a real meeting of minds between us. I was thinking I better come up with some kind of contradictory thoughts and remarks because otherwise we're just a bit of an echo chamber. Yes, I do. So we'll try to keep this interesting today. It's, it's an honor to co-host this with you, and I'm really grateful to see people tuning in today. So I, I've been in publishing for about 25 years now, my whole career. I couldn't do anything else. I love books, and I especially love authors. And, and I realized in the course of working in-house for several different publishers that what I love to do best is to support authors in publishing to the highest degree of professionalism. So together with my co-founder, Trina White, we founded Page Two, and that is the whole goal of Page Two, is to really support subject matter experts, thought leaders, and people who are interested in publishing books as an expression and an extension of what they do in the world day to day. So that's really what the company is designed for, and that's where we live and breathe and thrive and flourish. And so the connection of thought leadership and the excellent expression of that, and book publishing to us is very straightforward, but we believe that to do it right, there's some really rigorous best practices we can take to do that, and that we should.

So now that you sort of challenged me to somewhat find something to disagree with, let's see what we can do with that. So let me ask you this. So What you as a publisher, what are you looking for in an author? And what should an author be looking for in their publisher? Because I think sometimes authors think, oh, please, dear publisher, bless me and take me and whatever. But it is a relationship and it is a two-way street. So how would you answer that on both sides of the coin?

Well, I feel inspired by that idea of the two-way street, because there is, I think, in traditional publishing, there's this idea that emerged of how great it is that a publisher chooses you. And that's something that Trina and I— that rubbed us the wrong way. There's nothing wrong with a company curating its, you know, an editorial experience and deciding what its list should look like.

Right.

But we believe when it comes to authors of nonfiction and thought leaders, frankly, I know it might sound a little cheesy, but we really believe you should choose yourself. And so if you have a vision for your work, and if you are being— really doing your due diligence in making sure that that vision connects with your readership, then that book deserves a place in the world, if it's done thoughtfully and professionally. And what I mean by that is— and this ties back to, Peter, your question of what makes for a great author-publisher experience, from my point of view— It's about that author really understanding who their readers are to the best of their ability and who their market base is and what, what it is that they're looking for. And I think the best kinds of books really live at the intersection of those 2 things. This, this, this excellent vision on the part of the author, and then the author's deep awareness and understanding of how that vision merges with what their audience needs to hear. And usually the way that that unfolds in practical terms is the author understanding their own— what we think of as their own market position, right? Where do I fit into my community of experts? How do I fit— you know, so therefore, how would my book fit on the shelf next to theirs? And then How does my book kick it up a notch and stand out? So it's those 2 things, an awareness of where you fit neatly into your category and how you distinguish yourself within that category. And I think I love to chat with authors at any stage of that exploration, but there's a pretty great— it's a pretty great moment when we realize you can see the light come on and the author really gets what their competitive edge is. And, and, and that they're able to express it. That's the key.

So let me, let me build on that. And by the way, just to everyone, if you have questions or anything along the way, raise your hand or do the blue hand thing or just wave at us and we'll— this is a small enough group, we can just intersperse Q&A throughout. How do you know as an author that, that you're picking the right markets directionally? Because from the— on the one hand, You know, what would scare you is when an author came— comes to you and says, oh, this would be great for everyone. Everyone would benefit from this. But if it's too far down the granular level, you're going to go, okay, but the market is 7 people. So what are things that folks could do before a book to figure out so that they come to you with some level of confidence is my market is X and Y, and here's how I validated that hypothesis?

So I, you know, we really thrive when we're working with authors who are not writing in isolation. In other words, they're writing books that are a real extension of the work that they're doing day to day. And so most of our authors are testing this stuff. And that can be testing that happens very deliberately, where you might be sending, you know, posting, I don't know, maybe you're really data-driven. You might be posting blog posts on a regular basis in your subject area, and you're looking at those analytics and taking it seriously so that you know, like, what was that subject, that particular subject that really hit a nerve? We've worked with authors where we've done books like that that have become bestsellers because they might be posting blog posts every 2 weeks. And then there's one that they can see is just gaining serious traction. And they might say, is there— have I struck a nerve here? So that's, that's, I mean, that's one way to do it. You know, another way is about any way, any form of real feedback you can get from your communities of interest. Maybe it's your professional community. Maybe it's people you are connecting with in an academic space, for instance. Anywhere you are able to kind of test your ideas and really cultivate it. And I want to make sure that— Mm-hmm. —that this is not about the echo chamber. It can't just be a small group of people who are really invested in you, who are going to kind of say great things about you. My kids often talk about my mom goggles, for instance. They know I have no objectivity when they do anything. I'm like, great, you are great. And so you need to really make sure that you're kind of— the people you're connecting with don't have the mom goggles on.

So the equivalent of the mom goggles for the author is working in isolation, you know, their gut instinct that I know this is the right piece versus if they come to you and say, listen, let me tell you how I got to the hypothesis on this book. A year ago it started as this, and then that didn't work, and I put out some blog posts and I was bummed out, and then I pivoted this way, and then I tried it this way, and then I finally got the recipe just right because I did this silly thing on LinkedIn and a zillion people liked it, and then I built on that and built on that. Because this is a risk management piece for you as a publisher as well, right?

Exactly. And, and, you know, for the publisher and for the author, everybody has skin in the game. And I think the key is to, to make sure that whatever forum you've used to test your hypothesis, that it's as diverse as it possibly can be within, within that, those communities of interest, for sure. And there's another layer when it comes to the book piece. And this is, Peter, you know, we've often talked about the fact that at Thought Leadership Leverage, you guys are kind of occupying every other space, really. Like, you are building out, working with thought leaders to build out their intellectual property and their expression of how they show up in the world in every other medium as well, whether it's video, you know, various forms of audio podcasting.

Mm-hmm.

Then we might do— we'll do the book piece as one part of that broader whole. And you, I know that you're familiar with the idea of people who are able to connect the dots between all of those various things that they're doing and all of those media. Each one has its own— you can evaluate how you're doing in each one of those, those media in different ways. On the book side, one thing that we love to do early in the process is a competitive title analysis. So once you've got your you know, once you have your idea and you've kind of refined it and you have your own way, you've done your own testing, that's where the publisher can step in. And then they can also say, like, here are the other competitive titles in the landscape, here's how those books are selling. And fortunately, at this moment, we have excellent data. Any publisher that subscribes—

Yeah.

You know, there's that on both sides, of the border in Canada and the US, there's the National Point of Sale Book Sales Tracker.

Yeah.

You can log in, and I can have access to any publisher's data to see how those books are actually selling. So your publisher can run that title analysis, say, this is what's on the landscape, here's how it's selling, and we can also peer into— there are also some databases that will show you deal announcements for other books that are coming out. Know again how you can kind of really refine your concept and the articulation of that concept so it doesn't bump up too closely against others. So that's where, where the publisher's book-specific expertise really comes in. We, for example, go to our reps, our sales reps, distributors, we'll take some of these early concepts and we'll run them past the retailers, and that can be invaluable.

So let's, let's play with for a moment, there's this balancing act of content that is evergreen, right? Like great books and great books that you've published, whether somebody gets them in their hands today or the day it was published, the right person, the right target market is going to have that same reaction. You know, we all know sort of the business classics that even though they might be 5 years old, 15, 20, 25 years old, you still get that. And that's important. And then there's the flip side of that that says, oh, I'm seeing too many people trying to sort of time the wave of COVID of being the work-from-home expert or the distance, you know, managing people from a distance. There's some things that are— I'm not saying they're not important, but if you weren't sort of a domain expert in that pre, you know, there is this little bit of fad thing going on there. How do you— sniff out sort of the real from the, the someone trying to jump in on a trend or something? Because it's really hard to drive— ride the wave of a trend.

It really is. We tried it one time. We were really interested as a company in creating our own Insta books, just almost to test that idea of how you kind of build something as fast as humanly possible, still make it really good, and try to capitalize on a trend. I don't know if anyone remembers Pokémon Go. Remember the summer of Pokémon Go? Everybody was playing that game. We thought, let's do a little guidebook. Overnight, we put it into the market in no time. We got it— I think that was the fastest book I've ever worked on, about 3 weeks start to finish, including the writing and content creation. And guess what happened in September when it landed in the bookstores?

Not so good.

Nobody was playing Pokémon Go anymore. But it was fun. We wanted to really test that concept of the Instabook and talk about— that's an extreme version of riding a trend. And there's place for that, right? There's a— there's room for that kind of risk if you're doing it deliberately and you're doing it with specific intention and purpose. Otherwise, to your point, Peter, about thought leadership and trying to kind of race something out according to a trend, we find that rarely works. Really great books in the nonfiction category. You can, you can sniff those out. Everybody knows them when, when you read them. And what makes a great book is typically one that is really well thought through. There's a reason books take time, right? It's this distillation of thought leadership and expertise over time. And you might be able to, to write that book really quickly, depending on your process, but building in the right amount of time for thoughtful editorial, building a marketing plan, like all of those various parts of the process really take time. And what we've been telling our authors, especially in the time of the pandemic, is yes, I mean, our authors are experts and speakers and leaders, and they're all pivoting in their various areas, right? That's— everybody is trying to stay very current in how they're delivering their information, especially now that there's been a huge a huge shift as a result of the pandemic. But we've been really coaching them seriously on the fact that they are serious subject matter experts. That really means something. You do not have to reinvent the wheel right now.

Sure.

And a really great editorial partnership can help. That's at the foundation of everything. A great editor can help you stay the course with your own authentic expertise and tweak it enough to be able to make it really current. And I'll give you a concrete example right now. We have an author named Riaz Meghji who's writing a book called Every Conversation Counts. And he's a, you know, multi-decade broadcaster. He has a ton of expertise.

Mm-hmm.

And he was writing this book before the pandemic. And we all know that the way the way we connect with people has radically changed. And he's been writing this book and editing it on the fly through COVID. We're launching it early next year. You can imagine, we've been chatting every few weeks, and every few weeks we've got a different hypothesis about how this book is going to get to market. And at the end of the day, what he's done is struck a beautiful balance between using— really kind of grounding the book principally in The work that he's been doing for some time, but being very smart about the specific pandemic moment resonances and references and stories and case studies and things like that. So we're going to, you know, the marketing copy will be set up in just the right way to make it current, but also to really reflect the deep expertise. I would just say don't—

So I want to— yeah, so I want to touch on that balancing act, because I have yet to talk to an author that said to me after the book was done, wow, that came, you know, that took less time, less energy, and got out faster than I, than I thought, and I had all this free time because I had planned so well for it, and wow, whatever. And to me, I mean, I think the record from one of our clients is 10 years.

Okay.

You know, I'm the type that doesn't remember what he had for lunch, let alone what I was thinking 10 years ago. At some point, how do you balance— obviously there's— it has to be quality, it has to be thoughtful, it has to be good as opposed to sort of just add water kind of thing. But I think oftentimes authors, whether it's fear of getting it out there, but not being realistic about the opportunity cost, and we don't want to ship— I'm not advocating shipping mediocrity, but how do you force somebody to get the best they can in a time constraint? That makes sense, you know, so that it actually ships?

Because without shipping, we have a little bit of a problem. So I'm a bit of a nerd in this way. I really believe in methodology and careful practice. Look, for authorship, there is often a moment where the editor— you'll— I hear our editorial director Amanda on the regular saying, forget all this, forget your outline, forget Forget the framework, just write. There are some moments where you need to let yourself go. And if you're feeling constrained by your outline and the concept and the marketing, and you're feeling really overwhelmed by all of the other aspects that you've described, Peter, that go into the book publishing process, sometimes just tuning it all out and just writing can really help. But I will say, I find for myself and many other people who are subject matter experts, having a really solid framework that you believe in and that your publishing team believes in, that you can just kind of really build yourself into, can make— can really— it doesn't necessarily speed up the process, but it can make you feel, I think, a lot more supported in that process and just confident. You know that feeling of being in your flow?

Yeah.

Work that you do.

Well, and the model becomes the bad guy, right? Meaning, wait a minute, it either fits into the framing of the model or it doesn't. So it's not a subjective, etc. So let me just pause for a minute. Anybody have any questions for Jess or me or anyone else? Thoughts, questions, something you want us to touch on? Yes, James, you had your hands up there. I think your mic's on mute though.

Sorry. Okay, so I unmute myself. Yeah, sorry. It's a good title for a book. I unmute myself.

Or go mute yourself, right?

I can see the COVID What's that? I can see the COVID now.

Not unmask. It's far too political. Yeah, unmute. It's just interesting from a mythological point of view, people, you know, striving for relevance and topicality in the current context. But, you know, it just struck me today, actually, that most of the Greek myths— my wife was telling me, talking to me, she says, who was the monster that Oedipus killed? And I'm going, who? Like the Medusa? Medea? Just the Sphinx. And it's like a monster ravaging the landscape, you know, so. It's just this appalling, enormous event, and corona is our Sphinx, it's our Medusa, you know, so it's, it's just the thing that just comes in like a snowstorm and just obscures everything, you know. And it's just interesting to see how authors that have been writing something for 7 years, you know, how are they going to just factor in this total new framework? Yeah.

Yeah, that's a great point. Anyone else with it? Who we got? We got Todd and then Bob.

Yeah. Hi, Jesse. Quest, as Peter mentioned, my book just came out 2 months ago. So one of the challenges when you're not Dan Pink, when you're not Seth Godin, right, and then you have everyone and their mother self-publishing, right? So there's somewhere in between all of those. How do people who are at that you know, somewhere in between, what do you do from a publisher perspective to help visibility, book sales basically, because visibility is one thing, but to get people to click that buy button on Amazon or whatever, have you, you know, what kind of strategy do you have? So separate from the writing, it's the getting it out there into the world. So just want to get some of your thoughts on that.

Well, I think the 2 things are just intimately connected. So there's the writing, which involves the articulation of that concept, right? What is it that makes it clear to the reader and to the customer what you're doing that's so different. And it's also the writing itself. And I'm thinking of the things that we think of as positioning elements, right? It's your title, your subtitle, maybe you have a tagline, it's your marketing copy. Now we know, you know, books in the business and leadership category, for instance, and self-help, we're looking at 80% Amazon dominance. 80% of your sales are going to likely come from Amazon pre-pandemic. Now we're seeing that climb. Again, I'm not advocating any particular— putting your eggs in any particular basket, but just saying online copy is just utterly critical. It's worth really taking the time to make sure that you are able to grab people and to make them understand what it is that you're doing that's different. So sometimes it's an excellent tagline that makes it clear that you have some information that no one else has that the reader needs to hold on to. And what is it that makes you that authentic expert? So I really believe in excellent, compelling marketing copy. And I also believe that there are— a lot of people think of book publishing as a kind of mysterious process. And I think traditional book publishing is. There's been, you know, publishers would license rights and would kind of hold all the keys to the kingdom, in other words. They maintain control of the process. They determine every single aspect really of the publishing, every publishing decision. And so there is frankly a lot of smoke and mirrors going on with respect to publishers and authors. And I know this from working in-house, not because publishers are, you know, the monsters, to borrow James's phrase, but rather like on the contrary, you know, we're very good people, we mean well. But it's that in a traditional context where publishers are licensing the rights and then you're kind of in charge, You've got to just get this job done. And there's— you may or may not along the way want to kind of invite the author to peer under the hood. So all that to say, there's a lot of stuff that the publisher is just kind of doing along the way that the author may or may not be privy to. As an author— and I say this partly because Page Two, we have a different model where we don't license rights, and our authors maintain creative control, and they make the final decisions. in how they're— in how— in every aspect of their book project. And the financial model is similarly flipped, where the authors invest in paying us to produce the work, but then the authors earn a bigger portion of the return. So I just thought that I should clarify when I talk about traditional publishing versus non-traditional publishing—

Yeah.

—and where we sit on the landscape, that's not a bias. I do believe that there are different models that work really well for different people. But no matter who your publisher is, and no matter how you're trying to get the book out there, I do think that there has been traditionally a lot of sort of veiled smoke and mirrors stuff about the books that, you know, the publisher just knows kind of the secret sauce to getting the book out there, and the publisher just wants to write their book and hand it over, and there you go. Frankly, that's— it just doesn't work that way, and it hasn't for decades, not truly. And so The very boring answer to your question, Todd, is there's a mix of— I think there's a mix of strategy and elbow grease that goes into the most—

Yes.

Strategies.

What I would say that I've seen that works is, you know, this is— it is a relationship. It is a fairly long and definitely intimate relationship. And I think the relationships that work best author to publisher are really early on being clear around roles, responsibilities, expectations, because, you know, the— I mean, one day I'll write sort of like the myth debunking of the publishing world, but, you know, the old school thinking that an author says, well, I'm going to, you know, spend a year of my life creating my opus, and then I hand it to the publisher, and then, I don't know, rainbows and, you know, unicorns, stuff happens.

Right.

That doesn't happen, right? And I think The, the earlier on those conversations are calibrated, but this is what we can do for you, this is what we can't, this is where we work together, and this is a partnership, and this is where we don't, right? You know, that to me makes things sort of less sticky later on versus finger-pointing. Bob, I know you had a question earlier.

Actually, I had 3.

Oh, okay. There we go.

But they're all short answer ones. First question is, is there room for another book on leadership? Second, what do you think of taking a series of blogs that are leadership and management oriented, revising them and compiling them into a book, quote unquote? And thirdly, what's your opinion of ebooks?

So why don't we actually— why don't I answer and then you answer, Jess, because we got to disagree on something.

Okay.

Or not. I mean, whatever. So I would say there is if it's damn good. So, you know, on the one hand, there is no need for another book on leadership. There's a book— there is plenty of room for a good book on leadership for a specific audience that is different from— that would be my first piece. The second piece, and I've seen the model before, there are versions of the model. I call it sort of forensic writing. Hey, I've written 100 blogs and I can hire an editor and Stitch it together. As long as it doesn't look like a '73 Pinto with a blue hood and a green door and a bumper howling. If I had one of those—

It was a wagon. A Woody wagon.

The Woody wagon, yeah. No, but as long as it doesn't look like that, I think a lot of times people are looking for easy shortcuts and there aren't any. So there are ways to do that well, and I've seen those done really, really well, and I've seen those done like off, like horrible, awful, like wait a minute, I just turned the page, did 30 pages fall out and there's no flow and there's no—

Right.

You know, whatever. Um, and then your last question was on ebooks. I mean—

Yeah, what do you think of ebooks?

That's, I mean, it's probably 95% of what I read, uh, just for the convenience. And other than Todd, yours is one of the few books I actually bought physical because of the visual nature of it. In the last year or so, but, um, I just think it— well, actually, it doesn't matter what I think. If you look at the data and the trends, ebooks are pretty hot. I mean, people, uh, we all remember the days, or at least I do, of being a dork carrying around 4 books in my briefcase when I actually left the house, and it's nice to have one little skinny Kindle that's got, you know, 1,000 of them.

Sure. Didn't Josh publish a book?

Yes, he did. That's why there's, there's 20 of them coincidentally strategically placed behind me.

Sure.

If you insist, you might hold it up.

If you force me against my will, I will tell you. I'll hold it up. Visual Leadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life. So it's all about using metaphor, analogy, and storytelling in a leadership context. But thank you for asking.

That's a beautiful title-subtitle combo. I really can immediately see the market differentiator there. Seriously, that's excellent. And I like the COVID nice color.

I appreciate that, thank you. Yeah, it was published by Post Hill Press, which is a small publisher, um, but it's distributed by Simon Schuster. So I'm kind of a big— a tiny fish in the Simon Schuster pond, so I'm getting very little support there. And Post Hill doesn't have a lot of power and leverage, so I'm not getting a tremendous amount of support there. So that's why I asked that question before. I'm kind of caught between it's amazing that I have both of them, you know, just as their stamp of approval, but I'm pretty much on my own in terms of getting the word out there with just minimal support from each of them.

Honestly, unless you were already, you know, a blockbuster author with a, you know, a massive kind of track— I really mean massive track record— the publisher's power and leverage really doesn't mean a lot. And I'm saying this not just based on publishers I worked for before, but also I did work as an agent for a time. I've been on the inside of those scenarios with virtually every major publishing house and seen the difference between the author's expectation of what the publisher can do on the marketing side and the reality. And again, that's not to be disparaging. That's more about the reality of the commercial landscape right now. The truth is most of your books are going to sell online. That means most of your books are selling based on people knowing you, knowing to go to your title page, and people therefore— and then an algorithm building on that, right?

Sure.

So that people who don't know you will see the book, it will have increased visibility. But it is that kind of the driving of traffic there. So I wouldn't say, Todd, that you're necessarily at a disadvantage because you're not on the Simon Schuster primary list versus, you know, the list that you're on. I would say you're probably in a much more similar position to other authors than you think. It is just that it's that strategy and elbow grease and constantly getting the word out there through your networks and beyond. Right.

Yeah, yeah, I had this fan—

going back to— oops, I'm sorry, go ahead, Todd.

I was gonna say I had this fantasy of standing at the Barnes Noble on the Upper East Side on 86th Street next to the business books saying, oh, have you read this one? But, uh, by the time this pandemic's over, there may not be any more Barnes Nobles left, so, uh, that, that image of, uh, that happening are, are diminishing by the day.

Or it might be easier to get shelf space there.

Yeah, that's—

So Jess, did you have any different answers to Bob's questions?

I just want like to amplify a few things that you said. Sadly, I cannot argue with you, Peter, because I do agree with you on all of those points. I'd say for anyone wondering about where they fit in, where their book might fit into their category, anytime anyone asks me, and it happens to me easily weekly, is there another— is there room in this category for this book? I'll say yes and no. There are— there's going to be a ton of competition no matter what kind of book you're writing. That doesn't mean you shouldn't write it and that you shouldn't publish it. In fact, the key is to just be hyper-aware of that competition, hyper-aware of the big players in that space, and what are those positioning elements that really make you stand out. Look at Todd's book, Visual Leadership. It's— right away, that provokes curiosity. It's clearly a very specific— it doesn't feel niche to me at all. I feel like as the leader of my company, That's something that I, that I can grasp and I can kind of dip into. And but it's clear that it's something that I don't know a lot about it. I haven't heard about that regularly. So, so those kinds of elements, I think, really make a big difference. So yes, I agree, there's more room for leadership books for sure. Just distinct ones. When it comes to ebooks, this connects back to Todd's question, actually. I'll say Frankly, I'm up for any medium, any medium that allows you to express yourself in book form. Audio, we all know that's massively on the rise. Do it if you can. Books delivered in video content, you'll see more of that coming up soon, I think. Yeah. And I'm not saying this because I'm about the bells and whistles and the technology. That's fine. To me, it's getting the word out. So print, ebook, audiobook, I'm for all of those things. The more venues, the better. And when it comes to ebooks, I'll also say, connecting back to how do you get the word out, the person who introduced us, Peter Michael Magee Stainer, is a bestselling author in the leadership category and coaching specifically. And one of the things that really moved the dial for him was his ebook landing on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list.

Yeah.

As a result of running a BookBub campaign. So, and this is months after he was published. Forget about that typical, like, ooh, let's try to, you know, build every single thing towards the launch date and put all your eggs in that basket and just hope that you spike and then it just kind of catches fire and then you don't have to do anything. That sort of, that might happen in a lottery context, frankly.

It's—

if you take a page out of Michael's book, he's now sold, you know, up to close to a million copies of The Coaching Habit, that book that we're talking about. And it was this ongoing marketing effort, including running a campaign like that, that got that spike, that spiked the ebook, which in turn builds sales for the print edition and the audio. Because guess what? When people go to look for the ebook online, the other formats are positioned there on the title page right beside them.

Yes, yes.

You're driving traffic to all formats.

Oh, great.

I'll pause there. I think there was a middle question, but I probably just agree with Peter.

If I could— excuse me, I just want to speak to Todd for a moment. I think that that title is so hot, it's just unbelievable, because 2 of the greatest trends right now all over the world are visualization and narrative storytelling. So I think instead of looking to publishers or agents or anybody to go out and do it. I think you should, you should focus on who the multipliers would be, the cascaders in your readership, like business associations, chambers of commerce. And the first thing that I just thought of there was the Arthur Page Society, all of the executive communicators in the States, for example. You know, that topic is, is quite hot. Yeah, so it's not— it's just that probably there's no— nobody to go out and deliver it. Like, there's no Uber, like, you know, just around the corner to do that.

But I would also say— thank you, Jason. So I'll use Todd as an example because I know Todd has not been shy by any stretch of the imagination. So Todd has gotten amazing testimonials. He's not shy about reaching out to people that some would consider aspirational. And because it's a great piece and he's passionate about it and he's got the goods underneath the I think he's had more success than most coming out of the gate, and he's created sort of a community of fans and friends rooting for him as well. And there's a generosity there too. I mean, there's, there's one type of author that they, they pop up like a, you know, groundhog every 3 years, buy, buy, buy, buy, and then they go under. People don't really like that. There's a reciprocity, and I think becoming part of various author communities and, and leading with generosity and all those things are Incredibly important. Thank you. And they take time and they take energy.

Yeah, as an extreme introvert, I have pushed myself so far beyond my comfort zone, I don't even know where I started anymore. So it was not easy and it continues to not be easy. So I'm just— I appreciate that support, Peter. Thank you.

Well, that's your next title, Beyond My Comfort Zone. Yeah, we'll be up for competitive. Yeah. So somebody— I saw a hand move. Did somebody else have a question? Robbie, or your mic is off. Let's, you know, just unmute there for a moment. Hey, Ravi, let's see. There we go. How are you?

Oh, this was an out— can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Well, this was an outstanding discussion, much better than I thought. And I want to share some thoughts. I also write on leadership, and this is my last book, and it has made me into some sort of international speaker and coach. And I had written a book which is an update on this, and I finished it by March this year. And I obviously held on to it because there was no word of COVID in it, and it's a book about reinventing democracy and the new leadership we need. Now, I wanted to ask you, in fiction, I know one sends the synopsis or the manuscript or parts of it to 3 or 4 publishers and auctions it. Is that also a practice followed in nonfiction, or what do you advise in that case?

In nonfiction, if you're seeking a publisher or an agent, uh, in, in kind of a traditional capacity— by traditional, I'll just say, you know, the way I think we've come to think about book publishing, where you pitch yourself to a publisher or an agent, and then they will decide whether they want to take you on for representation or for publication. And in nonfiction, the way it usually works is you will put together a proposal that includes many different elements that really express the value of the book, its differentiating factors, and also your yourself as an expert, what qualifies you and gives you the, the authority to write the book, and what is your market reach as an author. And you would typically put that together in a proposal, and then, and then add in your outline, a very detailed outline, chapter by chapter, as well as usually a couple of sample chapters. And then if the publisher is interested, or the agent's interested, they'll request more. And there are some really great resources online that can tell you how to write a great nonfiction book proposal. That are— it's a fairly standard process, and it's a lot of work, but I'll tell you, it won't, it won't be for naught, because it really helps to crystallize your whole— it's like a little business plan for the book, right? It really makes all of those things crystallize, the why of the book and the how.

Absolutely.

So I've been through 2 editions of this book, so I know the work involved in it, but I thought I'll update myself with what the current process is on. I mean, that's what I went through earlier, so it's pretty much the same.

Yes, I think that part of the industry is still just what you would have experienced last time. And I like that idea of from mirage to reality. That's, you know, how to make things concrete. That's great.

Well, that's very nice of you to notice it. In fact, that was the unique part of the book which, which got it going.

I can see, that's very clear.

And I have a similarly interesting, catchy, compelling title for the next book already in place.

Excellent.

It's most relevant in the post-COVID world. But, you know, as an author, one always feels, perhaps rightly or wrongly, hey, this book needs to be published within 3 months. Or 4 months.

Right. Well, that's—

It's relevant now.

Ebooks are a good thing, right? It might be, it might be, uh, take a bit longer to get the print version produced, but, um, that's a good, a compelling reason, argument for publishing books in other media.

Normally it doesn't take less than a year with good luck. Yeah, that's what my experience is so far. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you very much.

So let me ask you this, Jess. So, you know, given that more people have had more time on their hands earlier this year, I think that's changing a little bit. Have you seen an uptick in people coming out with books and all that? Because I've seen a lot. I want to see if you see a similar thing of people, you know, if I would have asked a lot of my clients a year ago what's in their mind, oh, there's 3 books that I want to write. And the next question would always be, what's preventing that? Oh, I'm so busy. Well, if you take away the oh, so busy part, It's usually not the shortage of ideas. So has that impacted your business from what you're seeing, Jess?

It really has, in some magnificent ways. I mean, we heard from people— I heard from someone who had originally reached out in 2014, who then went quiet and came back because as a speaker, he did have some time on his hands and was ready to do the book. So we've had those— quite a few of those experiences. Experiences. And I have to say, my hat goes off to those people especially, because it's one thing to have time, it's another thing to have the presence of mind in the midst of a pandemic to do that kind of work. So even more reason for getting the right kind of professional support on hand to help you do that. It's been— it's not been easy for anyone in that situation. So I do think you'll see— we see a lot of books in production, a lot of books being written right now. It has been an interesting time, and I think you're going to see a lot of new releases next year and after that that are going to involve some really interesting twists on thought leadership. I'm actually interested to know, Peter, from your point of view in many other media as well, as you're working with people who are building out their thought leadership across the board in many different media, what it is that you are seeing, because that's where the rubber really hits the road, right?

Yeah, so there's a— I mean, we're seeing a lot of things. There's a business model shakeup that people don't have a choice but to deal with, right? So a lot of our clients, I would say all of our clients speak. To some, it's the number one line item on their P&L. To others, it's more of a hobby or something they do more strategically. So depending on how important it was to your business model, because even for those that didn't speak all that much, you know, 20, 30 times a year, it's what that led to. If the speaking was the tip of the spear for the business model and there is no speaking, that's a big problem, right? So the flip side of that is we're seeing a lot of creativity and opportunity in places that didn't exist before. So for example, you know, it's the one door open, you know, another, one door closes, another door opens. When you look under the hood at the speaking business, over half of the typical events that people were going to were association-based events, right? So the association has their annual event in, it's usually Orlando or Las Vegas or Scottsdale or whatever. And they're not doing that now, and they're probably not going to do that in 2021. And then when it is time for them to do that, people are going to really go, well, the Zoom thing's kind of cool, and do I really have to go? They still have a charter and membership to serve. And usually if you go back to sort of why did the Association of Pen Sellers or whatever start 50, 100 years ago, it's to serve and educate their members. Well, they kind of got fat and lazy and said, well, the easiest way to do that is let's get everybody under one roof or 3 days, add a little vodka, and like, that'll be fun in Vegas. They have to be more thoughtful about that. So the point of that is you can now go back to the speaking community and say, wow, you know, the speaking community could lead that charge to the association and say, hey, I know you thought of me as a speaker for your blah blah blah event, but I now have 7 derivatives of my speech that are available in video as distance learning. Oh wait, your industry is an industry that has adult learning CLEs or CLUs, you know, real estate agents or attorneys or accountants have. I'll even go through the effort of getting certified for that. So I think there are huge opportunities to use the associations as distribution channel for your content, right? Because I'm always looking at it, you've got— you create stuff for a population, and unless you're going directly at them all the time, there's usually distribution, strategic partners, etc., in the middle that now's the time to make the relationships with those folks. and reach out to them and be, you know, I think the other, one of the other positives coming out of this is there's an opportunity to experiment, to be creative that might not have been so before on both sides. So the associations a year or two ago would go, why would I mess with that? We just do our event every year in April and we sell it out and make a lot of money and life is good. I don't need to try anything new. New is scary. I don't like change. So those are some of the things that we're seeing. We're also seeing different capabilities being honored, right? So the things that work on a keynote platform, being a little over the top, being, you know, knowing how to read the room, all those sort of skills that people develop over a year don't immediately transfer to Zoom. It's not just like, okay, I'll just sit at my desk and, you know, do that. How do you use the tools? How do you figure out what the outcome is going to be? How do you make it more than something that feels good, but a capability that's developed in others and not make it transactional, but make it more of a learning journey. And then the last point I'll make is it's not just a COVID thing. It's— we have a— and I've never seen this before in my life. I don't know if anybody else has— is an economy that was on fire in February, you know, like full employment, you know, people, you know, the balance sheets are exploding. I mean, everything great to Not like, oh, it's starting to turn, but like we hit a wall at 100 miles an hour. And I don't think we faced the realities of what content is relevant in a recessionary economy or worse versus— I mean, think about what was hot in February, the war for talent, you know, the employee experience, mindfulness in the work. You can't give that stuff away today, not because it's bad, but because it's tone deaf in the current environment.

So.

Well, that's where the— That's where thoughtful tweaking, I think, comes in, right? When I— when we're talking about how to adapt your content, thinking about, you know, the employee experience and mindfulness, we have several authors we're working with on books on that subject right now whose books are going to release soon. That's actually more relevant than ever in a way. It's just that you need to now adapt the content to make sure that you are making it very relevant. So for instance, we did for the first time as a team— we're so used to working together. We work with all of our authors via Zoom anyway because most of our authors aren't where we live. But as a team, I'm in my boardroom here, but I'm used to having kind of a bunch of people out there in the office, and we're not having that experience. So from an employee— and yet we just hired a couple people— imagine trying to onboard those people and give them the kind of integrate them into our company culture. So for the first time, some of our authors are gifting us with— those who are coaches and who are mindfulness leaders— and are gifting us the experience of online-based training, like company-wide training.

Yeah.

Stress in the workplace, how to manage, you know, mental health, through this time and beyond. And so, so that's where you're right in saying, okay, you can't give that stuff away, maybe the way it was being written pre-pandemic. But now, without kind of throwing out those concepts, you just— we need to kind of kick them up a notch and make them more relevant.

Right. So if I was somebody that was an expert in corporate culture, I would be putting out things right now as a test of a hypothesis of What is the impact on being remote on my corporate culture? How do I maintain the integrity of it, right? Onboarding, like you said, you've probably never in your entire career onboarded, you know, screened someone, hired them, and brought them on board that you never, you know, broke bread with, or at least had them in your office a couple times, right? But guess what? What is abnormal today is probably gonna be the standard, right, for at least some period of time for many of us. So, you know, how do you onboard remotely? create a sense of community when we're not all, you know, we can't go do the Thursday pizza thing or whatever. So there are new things that lead to, that lend themselves to new problems to be solved with, you know, content that we had. Yeah.

Can I just quickly jump off of one of the points you made? Because I thought it was so relevant when it comes to—

And then we'll get to you, Dan. I see you waving. Yep, we'll get to Dan.

Adapting our content right now, just for the people tuning in. Really want to make some of this stuff concrete. And I love what Peter was saying about the idea of the associations, for instance, how speakers can be marketing your content to the associations in new and different ways right now as a matter of necessity but also opportunity. And I just happened to have— I was just showing Peter before the webinar this book, Black Sheep, by one of our authors, Brant Mensah. It was just in the office today, hot off the press. So I was showing him, I'm really proud of this book and I love this author so much. The subtitle is Unleash the Extraordinary, Awe-Inspiring, Undiscovered You. Brandt is a motivational speaker. And so this is about values-based leadership and motivation. And one of the genius things that Brandt is doing, because he is the guy who's used to getting on a plane and just teach, you know, shows up and works his incredible magic—

Yeah.

—to all of these associations. He had the idea of actually going to them with the idea of finding really easy ways, making it easy for the associations to market the book to their communities, to their own association communities, by offering book fundraisers. So basically, we're helping him set up unique book links to go and purchase copies of the book If you buy it as a member of the association through the association, the associate— it's a fundraising effort for the association as well as for him.

Fantastic, right, exactly.

It's not like— these are not— I mean, that is a smart, creative, strategic idea. It's not rocket science and it's not— it's not out there. It's just real stuff. And yet there's the elbow grease. He had to go to every single one of those associations above and beyond. Normally his his speaking agent would just be doing the outreach.

Sure. Yep.

So it's that, that kind of legwork. I don't— I would never downplay how much effort that takes ever, but it's already working for Brent, and I'm really—

That's fantastic.

Amazed by that.

Thank you. Dan, you've been semi-patiently waiting to get a word in edgewise.

Thanks. I have a chicken versus eggs question. I'm a ghostwriter. I've written 12 books myself, published by Wiley. But I have 2 books now that I'm coaching clients through, and these are books that really could be published by real publishers and get advances for. One is how to get a, get a, get a job during the pandemic. The other is a memoir of a woman astronaut, and she's done spacewalks. I mean, these are good topics. But in order to get to a publisher, you need an agent. In order to get to an agent, You know, it's a chicken versus egg. So I'm confused as to how do you make that first step? Yeah, and yes, I know about book proposals and all that, but they get hundreds. And how do you really— it's as hard now to get to an agent as it is to get to a publisher. So what advice would you give for a book that really has good, good, good opportunities for mass, mass appeal?

I would be really, really targeted in and personalized in the way that I would approach those agents. And sorry if this is kind of Mickey Mouse, but I— when I was an agent, it made a difference to me to have someone reach out to me with— I mean, you need the best possible cover letter, right? So, and I'm sure with your experience, that's not— that's straightforward for you. But the best possible cover letter to get them to read it, but also a way of personalizing it that shows them exactly why you reached out to them specifically. That extra 1 or 2 sentences makes a difference. So when someone reached out to me and said, I love that you published this X book, or I happen to— or, you know, maybe you know someone who worked with someone they know, or it's just those personal links that actually make a big difference, and that really shows that you're reaching out to them for a specific reason. If I believed that I was being— And it doesn't mean that you have to somehow create some fabricated notion that it's not a multiple submission. It, you know, it, you don't have to, it's, you don't have to give them an exclusive, but you can make them feel that you've reached out on a highly personalized basis, and I find that makes a big difference. Okay, great.

Yeah, what I would—

One follow-up question.

Let me, let me, I'll give you a point on that, Dan, though. What I would say is instead of you going cold to an agent, you know so many authors that you've worked with either on the PR side Or them, I would reach out to them and, this is— these are the 2 books, this is what I'm trying to do, which of your agents should I talk to? Because you're already once removed, you don't need to go twice removed, right? And if somebody that you've worked with says, hey, talk to my buddy Dan, he's a great guy, he's done— he's ghostwritten with me, he's done this with me, whatever, that agent's going to pick up the phone.

Okay, good advice.

I read all the acknowledgments always in other books who might do this and make note. I, I would keep a running list of every book in a similar category and who their agents are and what they said about them. And that's another great way to, to do research.

Cool. One follow-up question. There are always unknown authors getting good deals or getting published by the major houses. How did they break through? Do they have like a writing professor at their college who called an agent or a publisher? I mean, complete unknowns With no marketing platform whatsoever, and they're being reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review section. How?

I would—

we need a bit longer to kind of explore that because I find—

Schedule it, Peter, another one.

Yeah, you know, I find that's quite a rare occurrence, and it has been for some time. It's been a couple of decades since I've really seen, you know, people getting picked out of nowhere based on kind of a great idea or whatever. It's right away publishers in the nonfiction space are reflexively looking, going online right away, looking at your social media following and making a call based on that, honestly.

Yeah, or breakout TED Talk or a TEDx Talk or something like that.

Oh yeah, exactly.

So I just want to be mindful of the time here. We're hitting up to the top of the hour. So this has been awesome. If anybody's got any Additional questions, you can reach out to Jess or I via email or social or whatever the case may be. And Jess, thanks for, thanks for popping in and violently agreeing with me. It was informative yet boring. What can we disagree on? We gotta find something.

That'll be the next webinar. It's just disagreement for the sake of disagreement.

Well, thank you all for joining. Hope this was good.

Yeah, it was great. Thank you.

Thank you, Jesse. Thank you, Jess. And Peter, thank you.