Why Business Books Should Build Your Business | Lucy McCarraher | 706

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 Lucy McCarraher. She co-founded Rethink Press in 2011 with her business partner Joe Gregory. Uh, it's a hybrid publisher. And they publish business books for entrepreneurs and authors. She started working with Dent Global in 2013 and mentors lots of entrepreneurs. She founded the Business Book Awards and oh yes, there's this— she's written 17 books. So if we want to know about the world of publishing books and authorship, I thought Lucy would be someone fun to talk to. So welcome, Lucy.

Thank you so much, Peter. Thank you for inviting me. It's lovely to be here. Great.

So, so gimme sort of a high level, right? Just the, the landscape of publishing. What's changed and what hasn't in the last, call it 20 years.

In the last 20 years. Well, it's, um, a lot has changed in the last 20 years and mainly due to technology, I suppose. I mean, before that publishers were the gatekeeper to who could have their book published, who could have their book distributed as much as anything else, because they held the key to bookshops. And you really, if you were an author who decided to write and print their own book, it was virtually impossible to get your book distributed anywhere. So that, that gave rise to the kind of the idea that, and the rather unpleasant phrase of vanity publishing. Because you, you, if you, you know, if you got somebody else to publish your book where you couldn't actually get a contract with a publisher, it seemed like you were vain because, you know, a publisher didn't think your work was good enough, which was in many cases deeply unfair.

Stay there a minute. Cause I, there's a lot there and I wanna, I wanna unpack some of that. So the decision that a publisher used to have to make was, did it align with the publisher's goals, not the author's goals. And the publisher's goals have not changed. I said, how many books can we sell? And we're gonna make some level of profit per unit sold, right? But for many authors, forget the vanity thing, 'cause I think that's, I think those days are mostly behind us. But an author could decide to write a book and say, I'm just writing it 'cause I wanna write it. I don't care how many units it sells, or I actually do care how many units it sells, but I'm the VP of sales. Why should I give someone else 80 cents on the dollar? So to me, there were these two. Yeah, I get there was a, there was a curation piece and if you knew if something came out from Random House, it was likely not junk, et cetera, et cetera. But I think it's really about goals and objectives. And I think if you look at the two populations, the publishing community and the author community, they're often looking for different things out of a book at a, at a point in time. How do you feel about that?

Absolutely. No, I totally agree with that. And I mean, you know, you and I are in the arena of what we'll loosely call business books. And our definition of a business book at Rethink Press and Book Magic is that it's a book that builds the author's business exactly as you have said. And, um, for a traditional publisher has a, has a business model that is, as you say, all about building their business, not the author's business. So, and the only way they can do that is invest in the book and the production of the book and then make their money back on sales of individual books. Usually through, you know, what we call the book trade. So distribution through bookshops or online booksellers. Well, as you say, entrepreneurs, experts, business owners, coaches, consultants can make the return on the investment in their book, not just through sales of books, but through encouraging their ideal clients to come back and work with them through giving their book to prospects, to partners. Through raising their visibility by giving their book to people who have podcasts or speak or give, you know, arranging speaking opportunities, all that sort of thing. So the book is not just a product to, to an expert or an entrepreneur. It is a, it is also a marketing tool. And that's, that's the big difference. And what's happened with print on demand and Amazon and self-publishing is it allowed that kind of author to publish their own books and reap the benefits in different ways.

So stay, stay there for a minute, cuz if we look at this market, right? Everybody's looking for the reader's attention, right? Everybody's looking for a reader, right? If you, you publish a book, you would hope that someone buys it and, and then reads it.

Read it.

There are far more books being published today than there were 5 years ago, 10 years ago, and certainly 20 years ago. Yet the last time I checked, there's still only 24 hours in my day, right? So it's almost by increasing the available supply, you've kind of raised the bar, right? Because when I go to buy a book today, quite frankly, I don't care if it costs me $20 or $30. If I can pick a nugget out or an idea out or something that's interesting, it's worth every penny. If I start to read it and it doesn't, it doesn't do anything for me. I'm not gonna continue to waste 5 more hours of time. Right. You know, it's like, it's the sun pause fallacy of do you walk out of a play that's really awful? You know? And I think the reality is if you're not catching the reader, if you're not hitting them where they are, you know, and, and it's, it's niched out far more than it has before. So how do you, how do you succeed as an author? Now I'm gonna ask you to put your author hat on versus your publisher hat. How do you deal with that?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my author hat and my mentor hat as well. Um, is about, is about understanding for those entrepreneurs and experts, understanding what kind of book they're writing and crucially for who, and not thinking, oh, I've got to have a huge new unique earth-shattering idea that is going to, you know, take the entire world by storm and become an international bestseller. That's not the kind of book. I mean, of course that would be lovely if you did that too, but that's not the kind of book that builds your business. The Book That Builds Your Business is aimed specifically at your ideal prospect. So other people will read it, of course, beyond that particular niche. But if you talk to your ideal prospect, if you understand where they are when they're coming looking for you, your book, and your services, and you can outline in your book how you solve their problem or answer their question or soothe their pain, whatever it is. Through your book.

And that's a difficult needle to thread because by definition, a book is a mass market product, right? Anybody that buys my book is going to read the same 230 pages as anybody else.

Yeah.

But I have to make it feel bespoke. Like when you're reading it, you're, you need to say like, wow, Peter wrote this, or Lucy wrote this specifically for me. That's the thing that was keeping me up at night. Right. And that means you really have to know your market. You have to know your audience, not just demographically, But psychographically, and you also want to put a book out, at least I think, I'd love to hear your thoughts in a way that doesn't date it quickly. Like I always think about books as they need to be evergreen and they should have, no pun intended, a shelf life of 5, 6, 7 years or other, otherwise you're trying to catch a wave. You know, like to write a book on best practices of AI today would be silly 'cause by the time it was published, it would be outdated. But the principles were different. So how do, How do you deal with that of making a book feel like, oh my God, she wrote this just for me when you're writing it for hundreds, if not thousands of people?

You literally do write it for that person. You identify, I mean, we have a tool that we call the 3 Ps of position and it's very simple, but it's very effective. So the first thing, the first P is the person and you identify them very, very carefully and you go very wide and you see, You know, all the problems that your client will have, your ideal prospect, but then you go very tight and you identify, you know, one single overarching problem that every single one of your prospects will have if they are likely to come back and work with you. And the second P is pain. And that is identifying where they are, what that problem is and where they are when they're coming to, to find you, to look for the solution to that pain, exactly at what point they're at. And the third P is promise. And that's the book you write, the promise that you are offering them. And that should be reflected in your title and subtitle, in your cover design, and in the content of your book. It is all about— it is talking to that person directly. So they know, they absolutely feel this book is for me. This author is for me, their business and their services are for me. And I think one of the keys to writing a book that brings people back to work with you is putting in lots of good, short, compelling case studies where you show— they're not testimonials, they're case studies that you're giving as the author of people you have worked with, clients you've worked with. You may be anonymizing them, that doesn't matter, but where you show a problem, you describe your intervention, and you talk about the outcome. And you want every single prospect who reads the book to go, oh, That's me. I want that. I see that that's what they could do. And you want them to do that 2 or 3 times.

Yeah. Stay there a second because what you're talking about is a great framing of a process that people need to engage with before they write the book. And far too often what I see is because writing is somewhat of a solitary, isolated thing, people lock themselves up, write the book that they wanted to write. Which is actually a silly activity because the book that you want to write, if it's not a Venn diagram over against a book that people want to read, you know, that's not a productive use of time. So I think what you need to come up with is an, is a hypothesis of here's what I think I have expertise in, here's what I think the world would like to know or what I could share and help and whatever. But then before you put pen to paper, go through a process like yours to say, Well, who are you really writing that for? Who could benefit the most from that? What is it that you want them to do? And unlike other products, the goal of a book, or not the goal, but a primary goal of a book is not to get people to buy the book, but is to get a subset of people that have bought the book to engage with you in other ways, right? Speaking, consulting about, like, there's a million other things. And that's really weird, right? Because it, you know, if I'm in a consumer packaged goods and I, and I sell you a lipstick, the goal is for you to enjoy the lipstick, not to say, oh, buy other things. So how do you get people to test their ideas to see if there's a market for that versus it's just some intellectual internal fantasy?

Well, I think they've already tested their ideas by having a business. So I think you should have your business and your methodology in place before you start writing your book. I mean, there is the odd person who has such a clear idea of what they're going to do that they can start their business from a book, which can also be useful. But for most people, I would say you need to be embedded in your business. You need to have your methodology very secure. You need to have those case studies I'm talking about. So then you are not— you don't have to test the market because your business is your market. What you're doing for your business is what you're talking about in your book. You're taking them through— I mean, for a start, you give them the benefit of your knowledge and your experience, and perhaps how your industry has changed and why they need to be doing things differently from what they are. But you are taking them through— your methodology is always a great structure for a book. So, you know, first I do this, then we do this. Um, if you have, for example, an acronym, or, you know, your methodology is a model that you can you can show, then that works brilliantly as chapters in your book as a structure.

Yeah. So I, I, I love that idea. And I think that wise authors almost not only just put out their methodology, but they'll say, hey, here's a matrix or framework or whatever it is. And it's been developed over 15 years with 500 clients just like you. And quite frankly, if I would've shown you my first models, I'd be embarrassed to put them out now. So, you know, you're getting the benefit of lots and lots of thought cycles, and you're not the first one to go through this process, right? Like if you, if, if you, you had a medical issue and went to a brain surgeon 'cause you needed a brain tumor, he probably wouldn't open the, the opening conversation with, oh, and it's my first day on the job. I'm so glad. Right? Like, like that wouldn't work. But it's, it's, you, you know, there's, and, and I, I guess where I'm going with that, there's a fine line between the puffery and gravitas, and far too often too many first-time authors are telling you far too much about how great they are and not about the benefit that they brought to the world through, like you said, the testimonials and all that. 'Cause I, nobody wants to hear how great you are.

No, no, absolutely. And I mean, the other kind of stories that I think authors should put in their books are stories about their own journey, their learning journey, how they became the expert in their field. But do not start your book with a whole chapter on this is my life. You know, here's my autobiography. This is why I'm writing this book. It's all about me because it's not, it's all about your reader and your prospect who's reading the book and wants to have their problem solved. So I think it's great to put in little anecdotes, drop them in, you know, to illustrate.

So stay there with the journey because one of, so as, as you're saying that, I'm thinking in my head over lots of folks that I've worked with over the years and the journeys are sometimes fascinating because it's really asking the question of why would anyone listen to you? And so the journey is, well, I used to be this and that, and then I started a co— like, so where have they been? Oh, they've had some interesting perspectives, right? They've been in the boardroom or they've been on the shop floor, or they've started companies and sold them. So therefore you should listen to them about how to be an entrepreneur. Like, 'cause there's lots of other people that are out there sort of pontificating and you say, okay, well, you're talking about leadership. Who have you led? Or how have you led? Or is this some abstract, theoretical, whatever, but you haven't had P&L responsibility, or you don't know what it's like when you can't make payroll as an entrepreneur and you've gotta scramble to get those done. So I think that's important to, to A, be relatable and credible in a way that's not obnoxious, if you will.

Yeah, exactly. And if you break up your journey into little anecdotes, so it's not too much about you at any one time, then you are getting that. You are, you are being vulnerable. You are showing, you know, how you've come by your knowledge. What's what, you're often talking about times that you failed before you succeeded. So you are getting people to know, like, and trust you to realize that you have been on the journey that they are on now and you are ahead of them so you can help them achieve what you've now achieved.

Yeah.

And I think that's a really nice way of doing it. So just dropping them in through the book, but not just making it all about you to start with.

Right. So I, I wanna segue a little bit in the last few minutes that we have. So we've really been talking about sort of the, the ideation and what makes for a good book and all that sort of stuff. And by the way, that's the easy part. Let's talk about the hard part, right? So what are your thoughts, ideas? What are you seeing as it relates to the marketing of a book? Because as difficult as it is to write a high-quality book, marketing it is harder and harder and harder. So what are, what are thoughts that you have on that regard?

It is, it is absolutely. And, and, you know, lots of authors think, oh, you know, I've got my book written and published, the work's over now. It'll go out and work for me. And to some extent it will. But no, you have to really, uh, go out there and market your book to your own niche. And I would say that one of the key things you need to do is stop fixating about how many books are going to be sold, because that's not where you're going to make your money, but give books away to the right people.

So stay, stay there for a minute because it's, it's so unlike any other product, right? Where you say the success of any other product. Right? B2B, B2C, whatever is how many units are you selling, right? What's the growth? What's the margin, et cetera. But this concept of giving it away, right? I've, you know, if I were to decide to open a restaurant in my local community and say, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna give away all the food. Yeah, I'd probably have lines out the door, right? But you're right because the goal of the book isn't the revenue captured from the book revenue, but giving it away deliberately, thoughtfully, strategically, right? And then I think that the giving it away, when you think about that, we, we've developed and devised lots and lots of campaigns. It's not just me handing it to you. That's great. But what if we had, if I didn't know you and there was a trusted friend that we had in the middle and the friend said, hey Lucy, Peter, you know, my, my colleague Peter wrote a book and I think you'd appreciate it. Might I ask him to send one over?

Yeah. And that is a great way. That's social proof, isn't it? Social proof for you, the author, that somebody else is promoting your book for you and, and, you know, a great way of getting extra mileage out of, um, out of getting to your market and getting to other people's markets. I think that's a terrific idea. All those sorts of things are incredibly helpful. I think, I mean, one of the things that, um, we do regularly is to give online free masterclasses about how to write books. And because that's, that's our, that's what we're selling.

Sure.

And we always give away the book to people who come on the masterclasses or the people who register for the masterclasses. So you are growing your market. But I do think, I mean, you'd give away, you wouldn't charge for a marketing brochure or a business card.

Right.

And really a book fits into that pipeline. It is, I mean, we always call your book your undercover sales agent because it has, it does have a price, it does have a value. Some people will pay for it. So as a gift, it is valuable. And the format of a book is unique. I mean, it is ageless, but it is also very modern. So there is, you know, nobody's going to throw a book away. They'll put your card in the bin, they'll dump your brochure.

So it's funny that you say that. So I'm drowning in books, which is not a complaint, it's a good thing. I'll throw away, you know, I get my mail and I'll throw away catalogs and all that stuff all day, every day, cuz it's just, it doesn't interest me. I'm not in the market for furniture this week or whatever. But somebody sends me a book, unless it's a really crappy paperback or something like that, I feel guilty. I might not read it, I'll skim, I'll take a look, but putting it in the trash bin, it's like, oh, to me that's a sin. Don't throw a book in the trash.

Yes, yes, yes. I mean, a book is a cultural icon, isn't it? You have to value it. And also your book, more than anything, any other single thing, a book says expert. Nothing else says expert like your name on the front of an actually beautifully printed and produced book. And that is the value. And then you, you know, you also, that allows you to raise your prices, to go to classier clients, if you like. Once you have proved yourself as the author of a book, you've done something really special. So it's, you know, that in itself is a, is a sales piece.

Well, this has been, um, this has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you sharing your, your wisdom and your stories and, and, and your insights with us, Lucy. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me, Peter.

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