#032 - There is More Than One Way to Publish a Book

So at the time of recording this, I'm visiting my mom and stepdad and my rest of my family in Florida. And my mom and I were taking a walk and she said, you know, I would really like to do some writing on this specific topic. And she shared the topic and everything, but she said, it just sounds like too much work. My mom has published several books at this point. I'm not sure if it's five or seven or ten. You know, it's. It's been several. So she understands the process that you go through when you publish a book. And she is retired at this point and just really doesn't want to over exert herself. And you know, she is. Has been a workaholic her whole life and now is in a better place. And so we were just talking about it and it came into my mind an idea for her. And I said, you know, just take this as an idea. But what if, what if you did this book differently where it felt easy and fun? And my theme for 2023 is keep it simple. CJ likes to say kiss. Keep it simple, Shelly. But also like, what can can we do that seems easy for us or fun? I mean, there's more than one way to publish a book. There's more than one way to do something. There's more than one way to market your books. You don't have to do it a certain way. There's a lot of ways to be effective. And so I just shared with her, I said, what if you.

Wrote this as a blog post and you had a series because she has a blog and she enjoys creating new blogs. And I said, what if it was like a blog series, but you're blogging your book so in advance, you're outlining and deciding what chapters you want and what topics, and then you write about those on your blog and at the end of that you compile it into a short Kindle ebook. Doesn't have to be a print book because the print book seems kind of overwhelming to her at this point. It is a. It is more work. It is. That's what I why I always say, if you want to start with the easiest, quickest, most affordable option, start with a Kindle ebook only. So I was like, you could publish it as a Kindle ebook and see what the response is. If you ever wanted in the future, you could publish it as a print book as well. And she start, she was like, yeah, you know, that actually seems doable. And then we kept talking about it and I told her about the Otter app O T T E R A I and I've talked about this on this podcast before, but it's free to use up to 600 minutes a month, which will be plenty for most of you. You can just speak into your phone or into your computer or wherever you're at. And it will record the audio, but it will also a time stamped transcript, so you'll have the transcript as well. And if you're a verbal processor or if you're short on time, you could even do this on a commute. You know, obviously you would need to make sure you're safe with your driving, if you're driving and all of that. But there's a lot of ways to use the Otter AI app. You could speak into it when you're on a walk, when you're, you know, just the little pockets of time that you have. But my mom is definitely an extrovert, an external processor and so she really liked that idea too. And I said you could just sit down at the table with your husband and just say let's talk about this topic. And as you. Because she said, I just don't even know how to explain this to people. But then she'll talk to me about it, about that, the certain topic that she's interested in and she will be able to say it really, really easily when she's talking about it. So I was thinking, you know, that would be something that, that might be an option. And then we were talking about it further and she's in a Toastmasters group and she's done this for a couple chapters in a book that, another book that she's writing and she'll actually create a speech on that topic and, and then she will turn that speech and write it into a book. So anyways, all of these ideas were just, they're just that, they're just that it's just ideas. But I want you to think like what is it that's keeping you stuck? Whether it's in writing your book and getting that first draft out of your head onto your paper. What are some other options that are available to you that you can try? If it's marketing, what is it that is holding you back? Maybe there's another way to do it, or maybe there's another kind of marketing or another thing, another way to do it. And with publishing your book, maybe, maybe you just want to start simple and start with a Kindle ebook only option and go from there. But there's many, many ways that you can do it. You can hire someone to help you and then they can do all of the behind the scenes work for you. But you're still independently publishing. Anyways, what I want to tell you is there is more than one way to do things. So. So if you've been stuck and you're starting 2023 and you say, I want to move forward in these goals, stop, take a minute and pray, ask God, is there another way that could work for me for this particular project, this particular book, this particular marketing campaign, whatever it is, and go from there. So I hope that this just gave you some things to think about and helps you to get unstuck. I will talk to you in the next episode of Hit Splits.