Ep. 249 WRITE THE RIGHT BOOK

Hey there, Mark Brown. Wait, you're not Mark Brown. Hey, there. This is Darren lacroix on the Unforgettable Presentations podcast. I remember when I grew up in the National Speakers association back in the 90s, I kept hearing, you got to write a book, you got to write a book, you got to write a book. I'm like, I'm dyslexic. I don't even like to read, never mind write. And I just didn't see the importance of it. But it's not just the book. You got to write the book. You got to write the right book, the book that positions you, the book that they want to take away after. And so I am sitting down with my friend, my publisher, a writing mentor, the guru, my friend Henry Devries. Welcome, Henry.

Darren. It's so great to be here and talk about the right book.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. Presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown. Mark Brown.

Your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas. Dive right in.

All right, so, Henry, one quick news story that I missed out because I didn't have the right book, and one quick story from my past and getting started to set this up. So I just spoke in Spain to a group of presidents of aftermarket car parts companies from all over Europe. And the event planner said, hey, send us an ebook of your book and we'll get copies for everyone. And I thought, cool. Except when they got back to me, I was speaking on all in my new keynote. That was the one that fit them best yet. I had a book called 17 Minutes to youo Dream and a book called Deliver Unforgettable Presentations. Now, they knew that These are all CEOs, they give presentations, but it just wasn't in line with what I was talking about. So I missed out because I didn't have the right book. Change that or parallel that to. Early on in my career, I added to my contract, my program agreement that, hey, you could get Darren's book for half off if you get one for, you know, do a bulk order, get one for everyone. At that time, my book was Laugh and Get Rich, which. Which was. That was the title of my keynote. And so it was so cool. I showed up and there was 600 people in front of me. And they had 600 books. Now, this is beautiful because they pre ordered it, they got a discount. I didn't have to pay for shipping. I didn't have to lug them with me. None of that. But even more so, it also positions the listener that they can take it with them, that they can continue the journey on this subject, getting the insights they didn't have time to hear. Because my keynote's only 45 minutes, so it was just, wow, back in the day. That was a beautiful moment. But welcome. Henry DeVries. Thanks for being here. How are you?

I'm great. I'm excited to talk about some tips to give our speakers that can advance their career and give them more impact, more influence, and a little more cash in the pocket.

Yeah, I didn't even realize the importance of it. I just did it because early on in my career I'm like, ah, I keep hearing this over and over again. Okay, so I did it begrudgingly. So glad I did. So glad I put the energy and effort into it. But, Henry, you work with a lot of professional speakers, coaches, consultants, who also have been thinking about a book. Want to write a book. What are some of the mistakes that you see and for everyone? I didn't even say this. Henry, you write for Forbes magazine. You are a publisher. You're my publisher two times over. Give us a little background on Henry and then we'll get into the books thing.

Oh, kind of you to ask. So I run a company called Indie Books International. I'm the author of 20 different books with my own name, 2 020, and 150 books that I've published for people like you and Mark and Patricia Fripp and some really great people. So we've been there. We started Indie Books with my partner, Mark LeBlanc, past president of the National Speakers association hall of Fame speaker, someone who wrote a forward for your book. And we have done all these books and I've Ghostwritten books, over 300 books in the last decade that I've been involved with, including my international bestseller from McGraw Hill, how to Close a Deal Like Warren Buffett now in Chinese. So I've got going for me. I am a professional speaker. I'm paid to speak to business leaders on how to Persuade with a Story. That's one of my books, actually. I have a series on the Persuade with a Story series of books in the five to $10,000 range and touring the country, doing that. As a result of working with me, my speakers and experts and consultants report that they have more credibility, more impact, more influence, and a path and a plan for more money. And then personal note. I am a baseball nut. Some authors call it a baseball problem. I have visited 44 Major League Baseball parks. I've got two to go before I touch them all. One is Miami. And a client in Florida called me the other day and said we should come down and get together. And I said, I agree. Let me check the baseball schedule. Tell you what, I'm available.

Love it, love it, love it.

Hey, let me start with a story, please, and then I'll get to your problems. Is that okay?

Absolutely.

Here's 2015. Let's call the author Bob. True story. I'm going to change names and we're in South Carolina. I'd help Bob publish a book. And he was a speaker in the five to ten thousand dollar range. And he talked to this association, this national association, and they said, well, Bob, you know, it's so prestigious to speak to our association, speak to us pro bono. They donate their speech to us. Now Bob had been Henry trained and Henry's been Darren trained. It goes down the line because he was Henry trained. Bob said, oh, of course, prestigious, I understand. Let me ask a question. Do you have a training budget? And they said, a training budget? What do you mean? He goes, well, an education budget. Does it make sense? This is the magic phrase that pays. Everybody write this down. Does it make sense to have me come in and get everyone excited on this topic and then leave town without giving them the instruction book on how to do it? Then he followed with if some magic word, soft knock at the door. If you would be willing to buy a copy of my $20 book. Oh, I'll discount it down to 15. If you'll buy everyone a copy, I will waive my $5,000 speaking fee to come speak to your group. Now, Darren, they didn't pause for dignity. They said, accept deal. And they took it right there. And one thing to know about this education budget, it's not their budget, it's someone else's budget within the association or the corporation. So they were getting other people's money to pay for it. And I left one important detail out of the story. How many people were at this conference? A thousand. The books cost him five to publish. He knocked it down to 15. He didn't have to do anything. They called me, cut me a check. I shipped the books out. He had $10,000 in his pocket when he stepped on that stage. And three of them signed up to be clients for five figure deals. So that's the power of all this, working together. And just so you know, the inside baseball of what happened with those people who booked him, they went back to their boss and they said, boss, we've just got a deal. He said, what deal did you get for us? And he says, we got a speaker to waive his $5,000 fee, and we got $20,000 worth of his books for only $15,000. And that boss said, good and faithful employees. You have done a great job. That's the power of what we're talking about with the right book.

Yeah. And even if you're beginning and an emerging presenter, here's a way to, like I did, earn revenue without getting a fee. Figuring it out. But what's cool is then you learn that side of it. So when you are getting a big fee or a bigger fee or a big, big, big fee, now you're multiplying it. Now it's another stream of income. But what I want to point out about that story, Henry, is that the people who took the book home, those people that turned into clients, they probably would not have if it was just the speech alone. Now, obviously, it's possible, but when you have more time, when you walk away with that book, people throw away business cards. They don't throw away books. They pass them along, maybe, but they don't throw them away. So I just really want to point out that that book was worth 20 times what the event was.

Oh, I'll tell you my epiphany moment. And you mentioned Forbes.com, and I was paid to write for them. So I'm in Las Vegas covering this big trade show, big trade show in there. And I'm sitting at a table making notes, and there's a big trash can next to me, and I see person after person going through their stuff and throwing these expensive brochures away that people spent all this money on these brochures, and nobody wants to take them home. But they'd have a book. Well, they'd keep the book. They'd stick the book in. Because I don't know if it was the nuns in fourth grade or Mrs. Bandy, but they did a number on us, and they told us books are sacred things. We don't throw books away. And you and I know they are trees that have been ground up and added to ink. But no, once it's all put together, and I closed an office once, and I had 300 books, Mrs. Devries would not let me throw those books away. I had to take them to the public Library, donate them to the Friends of the Library. And they sold my books to make money to buy more books for the library. So books and authors were taught that they're special people. And I usually say, not so much. I've met a lot of them. But in truth, not a lot of us are willing to go the distance to do everything involved in writing a book. And it starts with planning out the right book so that we're not doing a book that doesn't serve us or anybody else.

Yeah, I think it's just want to point out too, that extension of you that, that distilling of wisdom, not just, you know, here are the words on the pages, but it's distilling the wisdom. It's that somebody, an author, took the time to figure out all they had and get it down into a digestible transformational process that people could follow through. So, just like your client, I spoke in Rio for Toastmasters. It was a free event, but I had so many people come up to me after. But what was the coolest part was a lot of people bought the book. And one guy who was the organizer of the event just sent me his book. That my speech and then my book inspired him, that he's been thinking about a book, he's been thinking about writing a book, he's been wanting to write a book. And my book gave him the process to follow the inspiration, the motivation, and he got it done. When I got the book in hand, like he mailed it to me from Rio, I was almost in tears because I realized the impact. But it's not just and for everyone. We're talking about unforgettable presentations. And this is an extension of your unforgettable presentation. It's what you would have said had you had more time. And it's also recapping what you did say. Sometimes people need to hear it twice. But I see so many people out there, and I'm sure you hear this all the time, Henry, that I'm going to write a book. I'm going to write a book. I'm going to going to write a book. So the fact that my speech and then book helped him achieve a goal that he dreamed about, but writing a book, it can be a big process, but it can be broken down into steps that anyone can do if you just make that decision. Henry, I'm supposed to be interviewing you and I'm doing.

You asked the biggest mistakes. I want to share them. Number one, they don't have a target. Niche, niche, niche. Wherever you are, audience in Mind when they're writing the book. They're not writing a book for everybody. It should be for one specific group. Mistake number two, they're not solving a problem or the biggest problem that they solve for the group. The book should solve a problem. That's why people buy nonfiction books, to solve a problem. Three, they don't explain why it matters, like right up front in the first chapter, why it matters that you need to deliver unforgiveness presentations. There's a lot at stake, so you need to explain it. Number four, they don't know what kind of story they're telling. And as a journalist, we know that there are eight great stories that every article, every book should be telling. Is it overcoming a monster problem? Is this about a rebirth, a redemption, a comeback? You know, what is it? So you should. You should know that. You should know where Barnes and Noble would file it if they did sell your book. Amazon uses the same system. So where is that? Oh, it could be in several sections. Great. You get to make a decision. Not making a decision. Big mistake. Another mistake people make is they don't have a trifecta title. So a trifecta title means it wins three ways, like at the horse track. So it wins that it works as a speech or a workshop title. Two, it works as a book title. There's. It's three or four words. Punchy people get it. And three, you can buy the.com URL for 20 bucks to build a little fence around your intellectual property empire. And that's where it starts. You also need a subtitle that tells people who the book is for and what is the outcome you're going to give or what's the problem you're going to solve? Because those are the keywords on Amazon. And people don't find books strolling through bookstores. People find books online, and they go to Amazon and they type in what they're interested in and they'll see what books come up. So those are the biggest mistakes we want to overcome.

Good point. Talk to me about the doubt, because I think that's one of the biggest struggles.

Okay. The struggle's real, Darren. So there's three traps I work to get people through. I call myself the CEO of Indie Books, the Chief Encouragement Officer, and I get people through three traps. The one is the perfection trap, that the book's not perfect yet. If I had more time, the book would be perfect. The perfect book has not been written yet. Maybe the Bible. That was an anthology of 40 different people. But anyway, we'll Digress on that. So other than that, I can't see a book being perfect. And we just have to. There's a Dutch saying, I'll translate it. It's soup. You know, you could cook soup all day, add ingredients, all this at one point you have to declare it's soup. Soup's on. And the same thing with a book. We have to declare it's done. Not perfect. Perfect is the enemy of done. The perfect book that isn't finished is doing nothing for you two is the comparison trap. Oh, you know, my book is not as good as Eat Pray Love. It's not as good as good to great. It's not as good as, you know, fill in the blank. Yeah, those are their books. What about your book? Is it the best? Darren book? The best Henry book? The best. Your book that you could produce. And you're comparing yourself to you. If you put your stories in your book, your book will be unlike any other book there. We're not gathering stories. We don't need you. No offense to Chicken Soup for the Soul. They make more money than I do. Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, they have about 70 books now where they collect stories. But I really advise you that your hidden asset is your stories. And you need to take that into account and in unforgettable presentations, deliver unforgettable presentations. There's all this advice on how to craft a story. My persuade with a story.com website. A lot of information on how to craft a story. And your stories make a difference. Third thing is the belief trap. It's the little voice in the back of your head, by the way, that's not your soul. That's not even your Jimmy Jiminy Cricket conscience. That is your amygdala talk. The almond shaped organ in your head that controls the fight flight or freeze mechanism. We also call it the threat switch. But it's just trying to protect you. It's the one that says don't stand too close to the subway yellow line. Don't jump off of buildings. Don't. Don't dive off a cliff into water you don't know how deep is. It's just trying to protect you. So I've learned to talk to mine and I say, well, thank you. Thanks for giving me that warning. I'm going to go ahead and write this book anyway. Well, you know, do you know enough about that subject? Do you? Are you an expert enough about that? Well, I'm a researcher and when I get done researching it, I'll know more than 90% of the people out there, and they'll appreciate a book like this if that's the problem they have.

Henry, I want to emphasize and magnify something you said, too. It's your perspective that's the difference. So even if there's a million customer service books out there, if we just heard you speak and we liked your perspective on customer service, I want to hear more of your stories. In fact, I want to hear some of the same ones again so I can pass it on to my friend and tell him about XYZ Corporation that did this stupid thing that turned into who knows what, having that perspective. They want more of you. So if they like your book, they might be more likely to hire you for a keynote, for a presentation. So it is finding your perspective on a subject. Like, there's tons of books out there about dreams and goals and what I will say. I don't know if I even told you this, but when I wrote 17 minutes to your dream, I already created the keynote for Game Changers, our annual event that you were at this past year. I already created the keynote, and it was a brand new keynote. And because of the effect it had on people, I woke up in Boston at my sister's house visiting my parents. I'm like, I need to make this a book. Because it just like you said, it solved a problem. It helped people. So I went to Lake Las Vegas every day for 17 days and I wrote the book, but it was already in my head. I already created the keynote, so I already have it organized. So understand, if you have the keynote, that doesn't mean you need to go to left field and write a different book. We want the keynote book, but more that you could tell us if you had more time. So. Because I already did the work on the keynote and structured it and had the stories that I was, let's say, 70% there in my head now, I had to just sit down and let it flow and get it down. Now my other books took a lot longer. It was a different situation. But I really want to emphasize to everyone that it helps position you. Like you say, Henry, you know, send it out to CEOs, send it out to event planners. They're not going to throw that book away. So the thoughts on keynote versus book, like the same book. And I'm so excited. I love this topic that Henry, you said you got to find that niche for the book. Well, you got to find the niche for the keynote. We see this all the time. Oh, anyone could benefit from this speech.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, when I Went all in on that. And your advice? My business changed. I went all in on agency owners. Now other people want me to speak and they find me, but I don't spend any energy on looking for all of them. I just. I'm a heat seeking missile for an agency owner with five to 200 employees. And. And my. My mentor taught me that when I find ones that I like, I need to keep contacting them and being relentlessly helpful to them until they one, hire me or two, file a restraining order. I told that to one agency owner and I said, are you going to file a restraining order? He said, I like gifts. So being relentlessly helpful, important. Oh, going back, circling back. Like a callback in comedy. I told you how to get paid by exchanging book sales. I say that same magic phrase every time I'm invited to give a keynote. I say, oh, that's great. Thank you. Yeah, that's. You know, let's walk through a few things. One, does it make sense to have me come out and get everybody excited with the keynote and then leave town without giving them the instruction book? And then I offer books, and that's how I march that 5,000 up to closer to 10. A lot of things. Darren, I want your permission to tell the 17 days to write the 17 book. I'm speaking in two weeks to the Southern California Chapter, the National Speakers association, and I'm doing the nine different ways to write a book. You have a unique twist on one of my ways to write a book. I call it the misery approach because I've locked myself away, like in a cabin or a resort. You visited a really nice place for 17 days in a row, and voila. I don't know if it was the sloppy first copy or the first draft or the finished draft, but you got a draft of a book done, and it doesn't have to take years.

Yep. Amen. And I want to point out, too, the relentlessly helpful. The key word is helpful, but I love that phrase. If you've said it before, I missed it, but I grabbed onto it today because that's different from relentlessly asking. Relentlessly helpful Restraining order comes from relentlessly asking, being blocked. Yes, relentlessly helpful. Even though it may be annoying here and there, it's even biblical. The judge finally said, all right, take care of that widow. She won't shut up.

Yes. Yeah. And again, we all have different faiths. It's not ask and you'll receive. It's keep asking and you'll receive. But it's in the right way. And as you said, you know, I'm sending books, I'm sending baseball cards from their favorite team. I'm sending white papers, sending them. I'm asking them if they'd like to be interviewed on my show or would they like me to write about them in Forbes or on my agency owner news website. Somebody said, darini says, you know, Henry, you first kind of come on like a Nigerian prince. It just seems like too good to be true that you're going to do all those things for us and not ask any money. But I just found. And our brand is generosity because the more generous we are, the luckier we get in business. That's nothing to sneeze at. Darren.

Yes, sorry.

Old joke.

Nice. And Henry, I want to go back to the old days. I want people now to understand how much easier and simpler they have it than back in the day. I self published back in the day because that was the only thing I could afford to do. And back in the old day, no printers would do a short run of any book. So I had to get 2,500. Henry, I don't know if you had heard the story, but literally this is after my business failure. A wannabe emerging speaker had to live at home because of my business failure. And the pallet truck backed up to my parents garage. Mom had to pull out the minivan to be able to put the pallets of books in there. And yeah, talk about Catholic guilt motivation to sell books.

Winter was coming, carrying all that guilt around. 2. There were two revolutions that happened in the last 20 years. The first was print on demand publishing. So print on demand publishing meant it's as economical to print one copy of a book as to print 1000 books and what each copy would be. So the economy of scale went away. And some of that is now you don't have to warehouse books like you warehoused in your basement, but there's other services that you pay to warehouse your books and all this. We don't need warehousing and we don't need the potential of books getting damaged. So these, all these things. So that went away. The second thing was, and it started in the 90s and then blossomed in this century was Amazon.com and there, there would be the world's biggest bookstore. Everybody with access to a computer could do it. They could, you could order your book and ship it. So while an average, this is a little geeky, while the average Barnes and Noble has 200,000 books and actually I think they're getting less and less books and more gift cards and games and coffee into the Barnes and nobles. But anyway, 200,000 books. Amazon, last time I checked, was selling over 30 million books. So, you know, it's the bookstore that goes on forever. A lot of other magical things. So those two things combined, I was with you, Darren. My first book in the 90s, I had to find an agent and then had to find a different agent. And we got 26 rejection letters before somebody agreed to publish the book. And you know, all those hassles, I. When Print on Demand came out, I self published a book. I call it the S word now. You know, there's a stigma to it. Don't self publish the book. So find an indie publisher. There are about 70,000 of us that will help you plan the book, prepare the book, publish it. Some will even help you promote it. So there's all these services that you can have. So you're a general contractor and they're producing your book. Just like if you're going to do a house, you wouldn't do everything yourself unless you're really talented. More likely, you would hire a general contractor who would manage the painters and the plumbers and the woodworkers to do the house. Same thing with a book. As the mental health commercial in my hometown used to say, if you don't get help from us, get help from somebody. So we're going to be giving people help for two days in wonderful Las Vegas. You, I, and then Devin from my office, who's also my associate editor in chief, we're going to be hands on. Don't expect you're going to go to the casino or nice restaurants. We're going to work you hard for 48 hours and you're going to leave with a first draft of a book.

Yeah. Henry, when I tell people that, people go, what? And you give everybody feedback, which is amazing. Like, I don't think you sleep. I really don't, but I don't. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. La la la la. So if you're listening to this transparently, Henry and I do an event called Write the right book. We haven't done it in a few years, but if you need that help, if you need that guidance, and. And honestly, I think a lot of people need their handheld and their nose to the grindstone. I know during COVID I was like, okay, it's time I did the self publishing route. Hey, that could be fine for some people. I need the project manager. So that's why I invested in you in both books, because I Need that person to say, okay, I don't have the bandwidth to manage my own project in a place that I don't have any experience. That's crazy. Hey, if you get a publisher, great. If you get a literary agent, great. But if you're a professional speaker, author, consultant, that you are trying to just build your business to keep it going to give you another stream of revenue, join Henry and me. If you go to stagetimeworkshops.com there's a little drop down on the right. Just find, write the right book. Join us, use the discount code pod. Well, we'll give yours Henry 25, Henry 25 and get a 25% discount. But most importantly, you're gonna leave with the first draft. If you've been meaning to write a book, you're gonna write a book. Let's just get that in action. And my first goal, when I was writing my first published book, one of the best decisions I did make back then is I made a decision to get it halfway done. Because I knew if I got it halfway done, knowing me, this might not be everyone, but knowing me, I couldn't not finish it. So if you come with this idea, you got some articles written, we're going to give you some pre work to get you ready that in 48 hours you're going to have that dry. I don't know how you do it like it's Henry magic. I don't know how else to explain it.

Well, it's, it's focused attention. It's. One of the secrets is that if you can screen everything out, usually we don't have that luxury. That's why the Seventeen book is so great. Because 17 minutes a day I have lived this. If you do things 17 minutes a day, you can accomplish amazing things. And you could do your book that way or you could do some homework. Come be intense with us for 48 hours. Then go enjoy Las Vegas if that's what you'd like. Yeah, I recommend the restaurant at the Paris Casino myself. So you can enjoy Las Vegas too. And you get this amazing rocket launch that gets you down the road.

Nice. And it's also hybrid by the way, so you can join us virtually. So Henry, I have the CEO that I coached in Istanbul a couple of weeks ago. Her name is Zneb. She and her, her, one of her friends and colleagues are going to join us from Morocco. So that's kind of exciting.

Henry, any what part of international don't you understand? Yeah, it's great.

And Henry, any good stories about some of Your authors.

Well, the year was 2015. The place, Memphis, Tennessee. And we're in an 800 square foot apartment, kind of small kitchen table, you know, a little Formica kitchen table. And there's a stack of unpaid bills. And this is where we meet Penny Reed. And Penny said, well, if you're going to dream, dream big. Now, this was a far cry from Penny's life. Just before that, she was living in a 4,000 square foot home with her husband, ex husband, who was her employer, who gave her all her client work. So now, no big house, no employer, no client work. She's sitting at this table and says, in two years I am going to be paid $200,000 a year as a professional speaker and consultant and author. And that's when we met. And the story goes on. But I found out what she was really good at. Helping dentists grow their business. We got her to write that book. We got her to start speaking on that subject even before the book was finished. And in two years, she presses the print button at her computer and gets her P and L statement. And there it says $200,000 a year, 2,000 from speaking, 100,000 from consulting. Now, Penny Reed gave me permission to tell you that story with two caveats. One, don't make my ex husband the villain of the story. He's not the villain of the story. We just didn't want to be married. And two, tell him it's now 280,000. So that's two years. That's the power of getting all this together. And the book feeds the speaking, the speaking feeds the books. They both feed the revenue stream. We've measured a 4x to 20x return. So people who might put 10,000 into a book, they're going to get 40 to 200,000 back. And we see this time and time again. We have written testimonials on it. We'd love to. Yeah, I don't. And Darren and I don't take any of your back end for this. We do a lot of things. I don't think we've been able to do this since the pandemic, Darren. Yeah, but I know we love doing it.

Like 2018, I think, was the last time.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know what happened in between. I'm, I'm still having a little stress anxiety over those years, but we're out of that now. And now we're back to helping people live and, and, and virtually. Hi, turkey. So, looking forward to meeting people in Las Vegas.

Yeah, I'LL tell you the first day that I got those pallet of books, after I understood what was happening with mom's minivan, that I had to sell the book so she could bring it back in because snow was coming. But when I opened that first box and pulled out that first book, I teared up because it changed how I looked at myself. I was now an author. Look, we have our own insecurities. I was super insecure back then. Yeah, world champion, blah, blah. But you're an author. Gave a TEDx speech. That's cool. But you're an author. It's just, it's part of the plan. If you're a speaker, consultant, author, obviously. Author, author. But look, we're encouraging you to join us. If you don't join us, hey, still write that book. Please write that book. Get help. Don't struggle yourself. One thing from us.

Get help from somebody.

Yeah, exactly.

But I need to add another thing for people because some speakers think it's a good thing when people say, you're so great, where's your book? You should have a book. They're actually judging you. They're saying, if you're this good, why don't you have a book? There must be something wrong here. There's a disconnect. If you don't do it for any other reason, do it for that. It increases your credibility. And your credibility is how you get impact.

Yeah. And honestly, if you have a heart to help people, you will help more people because there are readers out there, they want to read it. And Henry, for me, because I'm dyslexic, audible is a big thing. So I had to bring it out in audible. And you and your team helped me with that as well. That was this time around, that was the important part to me because I'm like, I have to have other dyslexic people be able to absorb my book.

Well, Gen Z doesn't read books. They honor authors. They listen to books. So they have a different way of accessing that information. So that's why the sales chart for Audible books, Darren, is going up like a hockey stick. It's just taking off. So I'm advising everyone now when they're doing a book to also do it in audible and you don't have to read it. There are actors who would have a studio and would love to read your book. One of my authors said this, the two days in the studio to read their book was the worst two days of their life. They would never do that again. And they're A, they're a New York Times best selling author and they won't read their books anymore. So anyway, there's all different ways to slice and dice it and make it work. And you've got Darren, you've got me, you've got Devin in your corner to help you out.

Yeah. Henry, thanks for joining me. If you're listening to this, we hope you are inspired to move forward quickly make the decision whether it's joining us or even just a decision that you got to get that book done. I was actually talking to someone last night, one of my friends who's a rock star, million dollar speaker, and I was telling her about my next book, least likely and she's like, when are you gonna get it done by? Because I took the movie script and somebody kept saying you need to have the book because then you'll have the intellectual property and then it'll be easier to sell the script. And I said, yeah, I'm working on it. She said, how far are you? I'm like, I'm just over halfway done. And she said, when are you going to get it done by? I didn't want that commitment. But she's right. I had to pick a date. So I picked a date. My birthday this year, September 1st. I welcome Dunkin Donuts gift cards. If you're listening to this for my birthday. But seriously, it's make the decision. Until she said that and asked that question, I would have just kind of written it, gone to the lake a few, few times a week. But when I'm like, okay, I gotta get it done, then I start computing. Okay, well if I do five chapters a week, go there three times a week, write five chapters a week, I'm like, that's easy. That's doable compared to 17 minutes to your dream. But, and again, going back to what you said, find that place where you're away from everybody. That's what going to the lake did for me. I wasn't in my office. I didn't have distractions, I didn't have noises. I didn't have the reminder, go check this, check your email. I was isolated with the lake. God. And just anyway, find that place away. But make a decision that you truly want to help people and just by giving a speech alone, I just don't think that's enough. Henry, your final thoughts.

Just to echo all that, human brains are hardwired for stories. Your stories, your stories are what are going to be sticky in their brains. And the book is not another lecture. A book is some good points some of your wisdom and then your stories so that they'll remember the stories and tell them over and over again. Darren, yours is an underdog story. I'll never forget some of the things in your books and then I go back to the books as a reference. So keep up the good work. Looking forward to that new book. Send me a copy and an invoice.

All right. Well, hey, if you're listening to this again, you want to join Henry and me and have us hold your hand, guide you through the process, Crack the whip to do the things you know you should do. And let's just get that out there so you can help more people. Go to stagetime workshops.com and then there's a dropdown. Write the right book. Join us live. Join us Hybrid and you'll get the replays as well. It's a free bonus of $500 value. Get that for free. The price goes up today, I think depending on when you're listening to this. Henry Devries. I would not have two books if it was not for you and your teams. You're a great man, a kind man and just great to call you friend.

As they say, a chick fil a. My pleasure.

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