Ep. 16: How to Write Your Book While Working Fulltime with Kanika Tolver

Welcome to the Pub Date Podcast, the show where two book broads discuss what should happen before, during, and after your book publication date. Brought to you by Broad Book Group with your host Vanessa Campos and Jen Dorsey.

Hello, happy Friday. Happy Friday, Vanessa. How are you today?

I am doing so good. It's Friday and we get to talk to a really amazing author and all around just amazing person because I remember reading her book proposal and then reading the book and getting really excited about it. And I'm like, oh, she has a full-time job. How is she doing it all?

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

How do you do it all? I don't know of many people who get to go and, you know, get a cabin for 6 months or go into a cave or whatever it is you do and only write your book. That's not real life. That's not how people write books anymore because we have to make a living. We have to— you got to eat, man. You got to work. So that's what we're going to talk about today. How do you do it? How do you write your book when you have a life, when you have a job and a family and other things going on? And I think this is the perfect time to talk about this because it's NaNoWriMo. Whether you achieve your NaNoWriMo goal or not, So, um, perfect timing for this. I cannot wait to bring her on. Let's do it. Please welcome our guest. Kanika Tolver is the CEO and founder of Career Rehab LLC, and that's in Washington, DC, where she helps clients transform their careers with coaching programs and events and webinars and digital resources and all kinds of goodies to help people reach their career goals. As an in-demand coach, consultant, speaker, and thought leader, she's been featured everywhere— CNN, CNBC, CBS Radio, Yahoo, Black Enterprise, Glassdoor, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, and all kinds of podcasts and radio shows. Kanika is the author of the acclaimed title Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink the Way You Work from Entrepreneur Press. Kanika, welcome to the pod.

Hey ladies, how you guys doing?

We are great. We're so excited to have you on today. You're one of our favorite people. We go back a long way from Vanessa and I having our, our old days at Entrepreneur, and, uh, we're just thrilled that you're here. Thanks for coming. Yes, thanks.

Thanks for inviting me. I'm super excited about this conversation today.

We are too. So I would love for you to give background to the listeners as to what your normal life looks like, your day job life looks like, and how you kind of started to weave in thinking about a book into that life.

So by day, I'm in the technology industry. I work in the DC area for the federal government. So I'm a project manager for a federal government agency. So I've been in tech for over 15 years. And I've always had the dream of writing a book. My first book, Life Rehab, was self-published. So then I was like, you know, I want to go another route with this. And I was already career coaching at the time. And I was like, you know, I have this amazing idea called Career Rehab. We tried to pitch Life Rehab, and it didn't get picked up. So I said, you know, I got this backup idea called Career Rehab. So, you know, I just really was super passionate about the project. I got a lot of nos. But by day, I have mastered the art of I'm married to the dream, but I'm dating my job. That's kind of how I weave all these things into my life as a tech professional.

I love that. And there's no better person to write the Career Rehab book than you, and also to have this conversation. Because what you just mentioned, dating jobs, is something that you say all the time. And that's one of your— one of the signature phrases that is a Kenneka Tolbert. Talk to me a little bit about how that sort of translates into writing a book. You know, you're dating your jobs, you're doing your work, getting your paycheck, but then you've got this other dream, this other life. And sometimes for people, that's a business, but for a lot of people, that's a book too, right?

Yeah, for me, always writing has always been a passion of mine. So Career Rehab was birthed into the idea of me reinventing my own self within my own industry. So within technology, I was like, you know, I'm tired of having these bad career experiences, but I wanted to like create a book that was based upon some of my experiences and my career coaching clients' experiences, but something that most people could relate to far as dating a job. So when I say dating a job, the job is friends with benefits. So I'm leveraging the 6-figure salary to put into my business and to put into the book and to put into marketing and to hiring a team and to building relationships with people. So I am maximizing my relationship with my job to help foster and build this personal brand that I feel like I've invested years and years and years of time into. But at the same time, I'm taking the benefit of nice check putting it into the book, putting into marketing, and, and all the other things that I do online, and traveling to speaking engagements. So those are kind of the things that I have kind of done when I was kind of like building my brand, and also building my brand as an author.

Sure, absolutely. So before you get to all that though, before you get to all the fun stuff that you got to do to market that book, you've got to actually write it. And you and I were kind of in the trenches there together a little bit. At least I was there for the editorial part, but How do you find the time? I mean, you're a very busy person. So how do you carve it out? What do you do? Do you have any tips?

Yes, I have a lot of tips. I should be a master at this. I should actually talk more about writing a book full-time as a full-time professional. When I got my book deal, I actually was not working. I was waiting for the book deal to happen. And we talked. Entrepreneur had went silent for a period of time. So I was like, you know, I really wasn't even looking to going back to work because I was doing entrepreneurship. I got this amazing opportunity to go back into the government, so I decided to take it. And then right when I signed my job offer, I got the book deal. And I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to write this book? How am I going to write this book, and I'm going back to work, and I'm on probation?

Oh.

Literally, that's how it went. And I was so stressed out. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be on probation for a whole year. I got to go to work every day. I can't take off early. Into this job. I've got to get on a train. I got to commute. And I was like, I really wanted to write this book while I was at home as a full-time entrepreneur. So what I did was I would wake up every morning and write for 2 hours before work. So I would wake up maybe about 5 o'clock in the morning, and I would write. And then I would get in the shower, and I would catch the train to work because I had to be to work at 9 o'clock. That's kind of how I got it in. I spent lots of hours. At the library, at the public library. I hadn't been to the library in years, but I went there on the weekends, on Saturdays and Sundays, and I would spend about 4 to 5 hours there a day on Saturdays and Sundays because I needed to get out of my house because I was like, you know, always writing at home. Another thing that I did that was super important was I made sure that as I was writing that I would check in with Jen to make sure, was this chapter on the right track? 'Cause I didn't have no time to waste. I didn't want to have to rewrite what I put into it. So I did every chapter, I would check in with Jen, I would send it to her, I would upload it into a folder on Dropbox, and I would say, hey, chapter 5 is done, chapter 6 is done, because I was so scared that I wasn't— this was my first time writing a book in a more formalized way. Self-published, it counts, but it doesn't count because it's not following the publisher's rules. So it was very difficult for me to get on board. I just was tired. I just pushed through. But I think being a full-time employee helped me write a good book.

Yeah, I can totally see that. I mean, you have to be on point, right? You, you don't have— like you said, you don't have an option. You can't put it off. You've got a contract with whatever your publisher is. You've got a job. So yeah, you've got a lot of people to make happy. You gotta Gotta stay on top of things for sure.

Yes.

Well, and likewise with the editing. I mean, once you and I got into more of an editorial mode where, you know, you had that draft done, then it was sort of was like the start of a whole new process again, right? Because then we're really digging into that edit and sending you lots of notes and you're like, oh my God, so many notes.

Yeah, but I wouldn't say that I'm an amazing writer from a grammatical punctuation error perspective. Now I have Grammarly installed on my browser and I should have been using that from the beginning. I would say that my best gift and talent is coming up with the most creative concepts for the book. I don't think you have to be an amazing writer to be a good writer. When I say that, meaning I'm saying you don't have to be an amazing person to— that knows how to do everything right with the grammar, the punctuation, because there's going to be another person that handles that later. I think coming up with a compelling title, a compelling story— and we argued about the title, of course— But the subtitle— but I think what I did a really good job is I created something that was relatable, that was easily digestible, and the concepts were something that people never seen in other career development books. Would you, would you agree, Vanessa Campos Campos Campos?

I agree. And I think that that is the process. All the work that you guys did prior to my getting on the project was amazing because you're right, it's that tone, it's your personality, it's who you are that essentially sold the book. And I think that you're at over 100 reviews on Amazon. And I'm just like, every time I see it—

185, to be exact.

There you go. And that, that right there is the driving factor, which we knew when we were talking to you, that you were going to market the book.

In a pandemic, mind you. Let's— when we get to marketing, we're going to talk about the marketing piece because that's the hardest part. Yeah. I agree with you so much that it was relatable. And it was about maybe 75 reviews or something on Goodreads. And Goodreads, they hard. I mean, there's some hard reviewers. They will go ham on your reviews. But you're right, it's close to like over 250 reviews collectively between Amazon, Goodreads, and then you got the Audible reviews. And then you also have like all these other platforms that have the ebook, right, and the audiobook. So No, I mean, it was good. The process was good because Jen held my hand, and then I had an amazing editor. She ripped it apart, but she made everything come full circle at the end. But that part was harder. It was like I was rewriting the book all over again.

Right, yeah. I mean, good copy editors will make you doubt who you are in life. Yeah. But at the end of the day, they do the end work, like you said, that just brings it all together. You know, you and I had already looked at it a million times. I couldn't look at it anymore and find anything. And so that copy editor just really kind of brings it all together and puts you through the wringer, but it's worth it because look what you got in the end. I mean, the book is so great and we just love it. I just think that I read it, I read it often and look back at it often because I think, hmm, I need some career advice today. So go to my old friend Kanika and see what she's got to say.

I still love that cover.

Oh yeah, the COVID is amazing. I didn't like the first rounds of covers that you guys sent me. I was like, this was not what I was looking for. But as soon as we got this cover, I was so happy and excited because it felt exactly what I was trying to convey. It feels good. It feels, you know, it just feels right. And, you know, I really, really appreciate y'all on the COVID That brings up a good point too.

And I guess this is a good time to switch our conversation to how do you market your book while you're working full time? You know, there are so many things in the process once you get past that editorial point that you and I were on, that journey that we were on, where decisions have to be made, like book covers, like what the back cover copy is like, what's your author photo look like. You still have to do all that stuff too while working a full-time job. So talk a little bit about that and the marketing part.

Awesome.

That's a great question. The marketing part of the book is my favorite part. I think that's where I shine the most, and nobody can out-market me in this book space in a pandemic. I mentioned that too as well because I had to cancel all of my face-to-face events. My book came out January 2020. The pandemic started in, of course, December of 2019. So, you know, we kind of went home, you know, from work. We went back and we left the office and had to work from home full time. So I was really sad about that. I was like, oh my gosh. So I pivoted very quickly. Once the pandemic happened and everything got shut down in 2020, I said, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and just create a marketing strategy for myself. And I'm not going to rely 100% on the publisher to do all of the legwork for me. So what I did was I found all of the top career advice podcast shows, and I pitched myself to all of them. Probably over 100 podcast shows that I found online. I found this list and I pitched myself. The second thing that I did was I made sure that I built alliances with people that could help me market the book, like the clients that are in the case studies at the end of each chapter, um, like the experts that I put in the book. And then I also made sure that I connected with other authors like Minda Harts and other people that have a huge following that are my friends who are in the book but also could spread the wealth to, to the book as well. The next thing that I did was I made sure that I did a lot of speaking engagements. A lot of them were paid and some were not paid. But in the beginning, I just wanted to get the word out there about the book. So I did a lot of virtual speaking engagements at conferences. And then the last thing I did was I also worked with a lot of organizations to buy bulk book orders. That was really, really good for me. I did a lot of YouTube interviews, and I did a lot of podcasts.

I love that you bring all those things up because you hit all the points. Market yourself, put yourself out there. Don't rely on the publisher because you're one of several authors that they're working with. A publisher's job is technically to get your book into the hands of the retailers, and then the author's job comes into place, and it's your job to get the people to the retailers. And I think that that's a disconnect that a lot of people have when they're getting into a traditional publishing partnership. But I love your hustle from the get-go. We knew that we had something special with you because it was just like, she's gonna do it, she's gonna do all the things, and she ended up doing all the You did.

And I told you that I wasn't going to stop. Like, I'm still hustling Career Rehab to this day. People are still talking about the book. It's 2 years, almost 2 years in January that the book has been birthed, but it's evergreen content.

Yes.

I feel like next year will be my year now that I'm fully vaccinated to go back into the world and to push it face to face. One thing I want to say is that entrepreneur articles that we did, we forgot to talk about that. We also did pieces of book excerpts from the book. We put that on entrepreneur.com as well. We shared those articles. Those articles did really well. I did a lot of webinars with Entrepreneur as well. The benefit was that I was able to use this device and I was able to use my computer and I was able to go harder because of the pandemic. And I was at home.

Yeah, right.

I think the brand actually grew at a faster pace because we had to pivot and switch to everything being virtual.

Sure. Well, and I think too, I mean, not that there's anything super great about the pandemic, but that, that has been one bright spot, is that when you are marketing your book or anything, your brand or your business, not having to get on a plane and go somewhere and have 2 or 3 travel days involved and have a huge budget involved has been a real benefit for people like us who, you know, kind of have to side hustle a book project while we're doing our full-time jobs. So I agree, I think that's been a really And I think people will continue to do it.

I think I will. Honestly, I don't like traveling for business. I like traveling for pleasure. Right. So personally, my life is not like most authors who are full-time entrepreneurs. Since I have a job, I'm going to have to fit in those in-person dates into my existing schedule. But for me, I have maximized my home life into— creating all of these amazing opportunities with Fortune 500 companies, with small companies, with nonprofits, even with Audible. When Audible reached out and they wanted to do the Audible piece that was paid, like all my partnerships now are going to be paid. And at first I thought I had to do a lot of things for free, but now, like, I feel like I've built the momentum. I'm not doing a whole lot of things for free anymore. And I believe that I can get another book deal with or without an agent. I believe so.

And you've been through the ropes. So I think that you have the expertise. You've proven yourself. I don't know. I get goosebumps. This is an exciting thing to see an author that has just really owned it. And I love everything about it because I think that that is really important. And I agree with you, Pamika. Next year is going to be your year because there's so much movement in employment, employers, and moving into something into a career space that's just really going to make you happy.

And I like that part about Vanessa. You're talking about in that career space arena, people talk about the great resignation, but I was talking about fearless resignation. And that's the same thing, right? That they want to talk about the great resignation all over the internet right now. And there's nothing different from what I said in Career Rehab. They're just calling it the great resignation. And that great resignation, um, this trend is really about people being fearless enough to quit their jobs because either they don't want to go back into the office or they just say, you know I know that this job isn't working out for me because I'm not happy. So we talked about that in the book where we talk about breaking up with jobs. I talked about that before the pandemic, you know?

You were hearing about it before it even happened.

Yeah.

Yeah, so Career Rehab is definitely something that was God-sent because at first, I didn't want to do the book deal. I was like, mm. It wasn't the ideal book deal that my agent and that my team had technically promised me from a lucrative perspective, it still was a good book deal. It still was a great opportunity and a great launching pad for me to move into the direction of my brand. Because now I always want to tell people who's listening or watching this is that a book is really there to help you get booked, right?

I love that.

It's exactly what it is.

So I flipped, I flipped everything into was beneficial for me.

So what's in the cards for you in terms of the next book? I'm excited to hear about your next book idea. Are you going to share it with us?

I'm not. I'm not, because people have been stealing my ideas from Career Rehab and making lucrative moves with that. But what I can tell you, that if you read the book, that the book leaves off talking about divorcing the job for the dream. And I would say that the next book is going to be something alluding to us really focusing on helping people become full-time entrepreneurs. Divorcing the job for the dream. I am a dating my job, but eventually, we have to get to a place where we feel like we can no longer be in relationships with jobs, and how do we— move forward and develop a business that's sustainable and successful while we're still working, and then we transition into that full-time. So something to that sort.

I'm excited. I'm excited because we've— I think we've all been there at some point in our lives and our careers. We keep dating the wrong jobs, and so we find ourselves— until we figure out like, no, I'm worth it. So I'm really excited about that. Please keep us up to date because I want to read it. I want to read first round of manuscript. I want to be all there.

Yeah, maybe you guys can help me. I mean, we can collaborate, but I'm dating book deals now.

Yes.

Okay.

That's going to have to be another complete podcast episode.

Absolutely. Yes. We want to talk about that negotiation stuff that you are very, very good at.

She is. Watch out, HarperCollins.

Yep.

Shout out HarperCollins and anybody that's interested. I can't wait to have a hardback cover book. Yes, hardback cover book.

Like, this is great, but ain't nothing like feeling like, oh, like a jacket on it. Yeah, it's, it's coming, it's coming. I know it is, I can feel it.

Yeah, but I don't want to write my next book working a job, so.

All right, that's fair. Well, that will definitely be the next podcast with you for sure. We are just so grateful that you took the time to hang out with us today. Uh, it's always so good to see you. Keep dropping those gems on Twitter. We'll keep on following.

Thank you guys, I appreciate it.

All right, and thanks so much for, um, for joining us today, everybody. Thanks to our producer Paula Roberts and our executive producer Emily Carpenter-Polskamp of Little Red Communications. We will see you next time. Bye!

We hope that you gained some valuable insights into the world of book publishing. Head over to broadbookgroup.com to learn more about us and all our services. And be sure to check out all our social media @BroadBookGroup. Until then, keep publishing!