4 Must-Ask Questions Before Writing & Publishing Your Book

[Applause]

all right so big question number one is in the early writing or even pre-writing stage and that question that perhaps you’re asking yourself or maybe you should be asking yourself is how do I know if my idea is good enough for a book or if the book that I’m writing is really good enough for publishing launching promotion Etc okay now that tends to be the question that people have in their minds and that they’re they’re thinking about and asking I don’t actually think it’s the right question but I wanted to pose it to you that way because I know that many people do ask that question so the real question isn’t whether or not your idea is good enough it’s whether or not your idea is marketable and strategic for your goals okay so I’m going to take a couple of minutes and I’m going to teach you how to evaluate that one thing that I always ask when I talk to authors one-onone is they’re always eager I mean always eager to tell me about their idea to tell me about uh who their ideal client is and and reader and how this book is going to help them I always ask tell me what you want this this book to do for you and often times they stumble over that sometimes they have it really clear but many times not and this is really the thinking behind whether or not your idea is marketable and strategic for your goals meaning you need to have goals that are really specific to the writing of your book so let me give you some criteria to evaluate number one does your idea your book idea solve a really big problem some would say a bleeding neck problem now we’re talking primarily non-fiction for a few minutes here but people buy non-fiction books to solve a problem to gain knowledge or to experience some kind of transformation in their life so you need to ask yourself does my idea solve a problem for a really specific person who needs this and what pain Point does this address if you can’t think of the answer to that then you may be going far too broad with your book idea and that is the danger that most new Authors uh always face with writing is they think well I’m going to write a book that’s as broad as possible because I want as big an audience as possible and that is the wrong way to think you need to go narrow initially you want to solve a really specific problem for a really specific person okay then you’ll know criteria number one that your book idea is a good idea number two is there a demand for your idea you know sometimes we’re uh working very very hard to come up with a solution for which there’s no problem uh you know look at Amazon and see if books on similar topics exist it’s totally fine that you’re going to have your own take on the book you’re going to have your own experiences your own case studies your own expertise of course but look comp comptition is a good thing you don’t want to blaze a trail on your own you don’t want to trot out into the jungle where there’s no Trail uh embrace the fact that there’s other books on the subject matter that there are other people trying to solve this problem because it means that there is a demand for a solution now your specific solution and your specific uh way about yourself and case studies and examples and life experiences will add a unique unique flavor to your solution but you need to make sure that there’s a problem that you’re solving for all right number three criteria is your idea unique now you don’t need to reinvent the wheel but you know try to come up with a fresh angle a fresh way to describe your solution to the problem you know one of the things that I like to do is I like to trademark stuff that I come up with when we created our ghost writing program and I don’t know anybody that does ghost writing the way we do I I mean we came about it I came about it completely honestly meaning that like I discovered the problem which many many people have in ghost writing uh that I also had working with a traditional ghost riter and I found a solution to that problem that was completely unique to me so what did I do well I put a I put a trademark on it I put a name on it I called it enhanced post writing and I trademarked it myself because it is a unique way from my perspective to deal with that problem so look for a fresh angle on your solution now your personal experience your process your framework all of that is going to enhance the uniqueness of it 100% but look for a fresh way to describe it okay number four does your idea really really important one does your idea align with your business or your personal brand goals okay your book is going to position you as an authority period it’s going to attract clients it’s going to open doors to speaking opportunities media opportunities if you’re in business ask yourself the person that I’m solving a problem for is this person my absolute ideal client I have a good friend that is a pretty big-time speaker and and I’m not going to I’m not even going to tell you the gender of this person but this pretty big-time speaker speaks on a a subject matter in which they wrote about and became a Authority in this particular subject matter and now get speaking opportunities I’m talking about upwards of 15 20 $25,000 for a speaking opportunity and the problem is this person does not want to work with the people that she or he in the past solved the problem for and why is that well it could be a million reasons it could be that your business moved on it could be that you don’t do those things anymore Etc the first book that I wrote is called life after debt it was for my financial services company guess what I don’t solve those problems for people anymore I I don’t have a financial services company I sold that business so always be Forward Thinking make sure that who you’re writing to solve a problem for is who you are super excited to be working with and you want to continue working with at least until you write your next book number five do you have a built-in audience or how do you plan to reach that audience now if you already have a following great from my experience most authors do not but if you don’t have one are you willing to do some work to actually build one are you willing to do speaking engagements are you willing to create cont content what about strategic Partnerships you know these are things that we talk about on a regular basis do you do paid advertising you know your book is powerful but your book is a little like a supercharger and if you know anything about you know internal combustion engines and Automobiles superchargers are great but what superchargers are done are used for is they’re bolted on to an engine to make it faster more horsepower Etc if a supercharger is not bolted onto an engine what good is the supercharger right so in the same way you should have your book bolted on to whatever it is that you’re doing to reach your ideal client do you do paid ads then you do paid ads with your book do you do networking then you network with your book do you do speaking engagements then you do speaking engagements with your book or you can add any of those things as something that you’re going to be doing with your book this is a mistake that authors make authors think I’m just going to publish my book and it’s going to do the work for me it doesn’t work that way right your book has to be bolted on and put in front of an audience whether that’s via social media or content or whatever else your plan is but remember it’s the supercharger it’s not the engine itself the engine is getting that message in front of your ideal client all right number six and final criteria for question number one can you talk about this subject subject matter endlessly and perhaps you’re interested in talking about this subject matter for years to come you know a book isn’t just a a one-time project uh it should be something that you’re passionate about and that you’re willing to promote long term okay your book doesn’t need to have a shelf life it really doesn’t like publish promote profit you know it’s six years going strong continues to go strong continues to sell the message is something that I talk about on a regular basis I include it with my content I include it with my Outreach on LinkedIn I include it with my paid advertising all of it right this is what I do if I chose to do something else then rest assured the first thing I would do is write a book so that I could talk about that thing with my book for years to come okay so again the question is how do I know if my idea is good enough but the real question isn’t is it good enough it’s does my idea contribute to my strategic goals and is it marketable to an audience that’s the way you need to think about it and think about your book all right question number two we have our book we have our book down we know what we want to do we know it’s it’s aligned with our goals we know what our strategic marketing plan is so question number two should I self-publish or should I go the traditional publishing route okay well we’re hybrid publisher which is really a combination of those two things but really ultimately it is um self-publishing plus let’s call it that okay in the past we know that the only real route was traditional publishing until Amazon came along and really democratized the entire process and took the barriers down that traditional Publishers put up so there’s a couple of different things that you need to think about and it’s important for you to think about and then at the very end I’m going to give you one final criteria that’s probably the most important criteria and that’s whether or not a traditional publisher even wants to work with you because you know let’s let’s be honest traditional Publishers aren’t interested in ideas as much as they’re interested in you having a built-in audience but I’ll get to that in just a moment okay so there are several factors to consider in self-publishing or hybrid publishing versus traditional publishing number one is what kind of control over your content and your IP is important to you if you want to have full creative and financial control then you want to control the publishing with a self-published book or a hybrid published book okay because if a traditional publisher comes along and writes you a check or even exchanges many times all they do is they exchange their work on your book like editing and things like that for the rights to your book that’s a bad deal never never do that but many many people do and what they’re going to take from you is they’re going to take control over the creative process they’re going to take control over the speed which I’ll get to in a second and they’re going to take control over your use of the book in the future I have many friends uh one in particular that comes to mind that went the traditional publishing route because he was given a very very large check for his book and I’m talking about many hundreds of thousands of dollars the problem is he cannot use the that title that book that content in any of the ways that I use mine publish promote profit because it is owned the rights royalties and control are owned by the traditional publisher so you have to think ahead of time what am I going to do with this book how am I going to use this book and if you’re going to use this book in ways that we teach which is ways like with free plus shipping funnels and maybe you want to create a master class from it and you want to use the name and the trademark and many different ways then you need to be very very careful with traditional publishing number two speed you know with a traditional publisher uh just expect that even if your book is done today if you finished writing it today it’s going to be another probably two years before your book is going to be published because it’s going to have to go through all the different committees all the different hands to ensure that it gets done so speed is really important if you’re looking to move fast then you can do that with self-publishing or with hybrid publishing all right what about cost well with cost with traditional Publishers generally speaking they’re going to cover all the cost up front so you’re not going to have to write a check to get your book edited get your book designed get your book published so all The Upfront costs are going to be incurred by you in self-publishing or in most cases in hybrid publishing as well because you’re retaining the rights the royalties and the control then the self-publisher is simply serving a function doing for you what may be difficult for you to do with design publishing book launch Media PR Etc a traditional publisher and this is why many people want to go the route of traditional publishing because they don’t have the money uh themselves to actually front for their idea and when they don’t have the money to front for their idea then they look for a traditional publisher but they don’t realize that often times the traditional publisher isn’t interested in the idea what they’re really interested in is your audience if you have one all right next royalties another thing that you need to understand is a key difference generally speaking if you sell your book through Amazon you’re going to keep about 70% of the royalties that’s pretty good if you get a traditional publishing deal you can expect about 5% of the royalties maybe as much as 15% and that is after the advance is earned back in full so if you’re given any kind of Advance or if any money’s are fronted for your project then the traditional publisher is going to take all of that first and then they’re going to take 85 to 95% of all the royalties going forward Forever After that’s paid back pretty significant right in fact nobody would make a deal like that with something that they were assured of selling themselves in fact one of the things that you’ll see and obviously we’re a hybrid publisher more like a self-publisher so uh you know a hammer sees a nail right so what am I going to say um there may be some instances for some of you that traditional publishing would make sense but I can tell you this many people now with very large audiences people like Seth Goden and and uh people with very big social media followings are now going more the hybrid and self-publishing route because they know they don’t need the traditional publisher in any way because the traditional publisher really isn’t going to introduce them to a new audience they’re going to be doing that introduction themselves so why don’t they keep the Lion Share of the money okay last but not least and um I I I referenced this a moment ago and that is the big question is whether not initially let’s say that you say I want to go the traditional publishing route uh for whatever reason I’m not worried about the rights I’m not worried about the speed I’m not worried about the royalties I really want to get a decent sized check or any kind of check uh I I really want to get my idea out there fine then the big question is going to be well what are the criteria that the traditional publisher is going to use to decide whether or not to work with you okay because they’re in business that’s the reason that their names are at the top of big big buildings right they’re in business to make a profit so the first thing that they’re going to be concerned about is the size of your audience do you have a big social media following do you have a big email list do you have a very very large uh past client database if the answer is no to all of those things then the likelihood of getting a traditional publishing deal is probably pretty slim it’s not the idea primarily that they’re interested in it’s the audience of the author that they’re interested in so something to keep in mind what to do remember the question should I go self-publishing hybrid publishing or more the traditional publishing route some things for you to consider and think about number three this is something that I hear a lot and people get excited about it and I understand so let’s address it how do I get my book into bookstores or should I even bother so for most entrepreneurs coaches experts people that are writing non-fiction books answer this question yourself when was the last time comparatively speaking that you were in a bookstore and purchased a book versus purchasing a book online on Amazon Barnes & Noble Etc now I don’t know about you but I have a problem uh I buy books all the time I read about a new book a week and I usually have about three books sitting uh on my desk in the morning uh you know my area where I have coffee and I read and I cannot tell you for me personally the last time that I was in a bookstore and actually bought physically bought a book I do it every single week I won’t say every day but I do it every single week on Amazon or Barnes at Noble via a link so now am I just weird uh because I don’t leave the house and I can’t leave because I have 110 lb Argentine Dogo dog that demands my full attention that is perhaps true yes I will not argue with that point but the statistics also back up what I’m saying 70% of all books are sold on Amazon and it’s even higher number if you just are exclusive nonfiction people that are searching for a solution to a problem where are they going they’re going online that’s the first place people go not to a bookstore so that’s the number one thing that you need to be aware of is in answer to the question how do I get my book into bookstores or should I even worry about it or bother is okay how much does it really matter now I know there’s other reasons we’ll get to those so number one it doesn’t really matter that much because of the number of books that are sold the other thing to be concerned about is bookstores don’t keep books very long okay something to understand about selling your book is that if you do get an order through a 100 bookstores let’s say Barnes & Noble wants to carry your book across a 100 stores in the southeast United States or something like that they will order those books but there will be a buy sell Arrangement made which means that those books will be ordered and if they do not sell quickly usually within a month or two what they will do is they will take those books off the shelf they will send those books back to you at your EXP expense and they will put other books on the Shelf to give those other books a chance to sell so just understand if your books aren’t moving off bookstore shelves then it’s going to end up being a very costly exercise for you because you’re going to have to buy them all back it’s going to be at your expense to get them sent and shipped Etc so just be aware of that they will not sit on bookstore shelves for very long number three bookstores will take a Hefty cut as well in fact retailers will take between 40 and 50% of the profits uh uh of retail profits to house a book it’s expensive to have a retail space we need to understand that um and they deserve that if they’re they’re selling books so let’s just say that with all that aside that it still makes sense for you to get into a bookstore or let’s just say I want to say this as nicely as possible let’s just say that our ego or there’s something within us that just wants to see our book on the Shelf okay uh even though it’ll sell a hundred times faster on Amazon there’s just something within us so what do we do okay there are some steps that you can take to get your book into uh a bookstore number one um you should distribute through something called Ingram spark that’s the easiest way for somebody that is going through the self-publishing or hybrid publishing route because what Ingram spark unlike Amazon will actually make your book available for retail retailers World worldwide so you want to use both Amazon and Ingram spark because Ingram spark will allow bookstores to buy your book or any retailer worldwide to buy your book okay you’re going to have to make your book returnable uh we already talked about that that’s going to be an element that’s important and it it could cost you money just just be aware of that number two is the best thing that you can do is go into your local bookstores and Pitch your local book directly if you have a local Barnes & Noble you should go into that Barnes & Noble with copies of your book you could go into that Barnes & Noble if we did your launch you could go in showing that your book was number one that your book has 100 fstar reviews that your book you know was selling well you can show them physically you’re the author that your book is doing very very well and that’s going to put their book on their radar and you being a local person will have a very good chance to get that book into a local store which could then carry over into a book signing event or perhaps your book getting into a number of regional stores Etc okay so number three if this is important to you start locally this by the way is the exact same strategy that we recommend people that are trying to get PR and media on their own the best thing you can do to get PR and media on your own is go to local radio stations go to the local TV stations Etc because there’s always the element of local boy makes good local girl makes good and they want to feature you the same is true when it comes to getting your book into a local bookstore okay bottom line is look for 95% of non-fiction authors chasing bookstore placement isn’t worth it it doesn’t make sense to do it instead focus on Amazon you could focus on bulk sales we’ve talked about that in the in the past uh marketing directly to your reader right through speaking engagements through PR and media through podcast appearances uh through book funnels all of that uh if you own the rights royalties and control then if a bookstore wants it that’s just gravy that’s just extra we don’t focus on it we’re not concerned about it I mean that personally for my books as well okay so that is question number three that people always ask about bookstores and I get the sexiness and the coolness factor of it really comes down to Dollars and sense it’s not worth your time but start locally if that’s important to you okay all right uh question number four and last but not least this is I think one of the more important ones I talk about this or an element of this most of the time and that is how do I use my book to attract premium clients and or increase my prices how do I use my book to attract premium clients and or increase my prices so we talk about this a lot and I give a lot of very specific strategies but I want to give you a higher level thinking today and talking about it understand this your book isn’t just a book your book is your most powerful marketing asset by far it is your most powerful positioning tool it positions you as the authority in your space the expert in your space I was just talking to a client that we published about a year ago because he’s done some amazing things with his book I did a podcast interview on it I’ll share that with you down the road but he was sharing about it he said Rob he goes I had no idea how many doors my book would open and how many opportunities he goes when I do a speaking engagement sometimes what the company will do if I do it for a a large corporation is they will send copies of my books out to um to like the the middle management the the senior level to middle management level and he said when I get to those speaking engagements I am says I am like a rock star he goes it’s embarrassing he said I’ve you know he’s my age he said I’ve never experienced anything like this before people crowd around me they want my signature they want to take pictures with me and with the book I go it’s totally weird right like it’s crazy I mean we’re just somebody that wrote a book and just understand the power that your book has in the hands of the people that you are solving a problem for your book is not just a book it is your most powerful tool now with that in mind how should you use it well every single way you can think of every possible way you can think of to get it into that person’s hands for free to pay to put it in their hands if necessary to give it away to get it into your ideal Cent hands every single way because it gives you the kind of instant

credibil that you never experienced before in your life determine that based on what your through a couple of marketing potential marketing routines let’s say that you’re really old school you’re belly to belly right you’re you like to kiss babies and shake hands and meet people and you’re a networker great your book should be at every single networking event that you go to if you’re a door kner if you knock on doors as a real estate professional in a multi-million dollar neighborhood your book should be in your hand for every single one of those door knocking opportunities now I say that a little factitiously because no one’s knocking doors these days at least they they don’t come to my door of course I do have a 110 lb dog that walks around the yard so that’s probably another great reason to have a big big dog you don’t get any you don’t get any salesman coming to the door which is kind of fun but whatever it is that you’re doing if on one hand what you’re doing is meeting people face to face and networking your book it shouldn’t be oh you know I’ll I’ll get you a copy of my book it should be oh look I have 10 copies right here I’ll sign a copy for you right uh you want to get it into their hands uh let’s say that you are somebody that’s on social media a good bit well I’ve shared with you about uh many clients one that comes to mind is Taki Moore what does Taki do he gives his book Away on social media he has a funny story always humor in his social media uh content there’s a little bit of humor there’s something that leads to an idea or a or a concept in his book and then he says if you’d like a CO a copy of my book for free just comment below and then some kind of funny word million dooll coach or or whatever easy and now he’s giving away copies and often times hundreds at a time and these are PDF copies I I love to get the actual physical copy in people’s hands but when you’re working on social media that’s no problem you can do a PDF and it doesn’t cost you anything to do that people will read it people will be attracted to your message and people will be most importantly attracted to you so if you have that kind of influence and you’re using it in all of these different ways you’re a NW worker you’re using it that way you’re using it online let’s say now you’re doing more speaking engagements than ever before you’re doing book signings at your speaking engagement you’re selling your books there you’re getting on PR and media whatever it is your book is for sale on your website let’s say that you’re even using paid advertising like I talk about ad nauseum right what’s going to happen when you’re doing that I’ll tell you what’s going to happen you’re gonna have more leads and Lead flow than you’ve ever had before okay so why do people keep their prices below what their real worth and value is I’ll tell you because they’re afraid of losing a deal the reason if you’re not charging what you’re really worth the reason that that’s happening is because you don’t have enough people asking to work with you if you did you would raise your prices it would happen automatically it would happen purposefully why because you’d be full you’d have to add new staff you’d have to add people to take the sales leads or calls that cost money you’d have to build a business or you could choose not to and instead raise your prices commensurate with your worth and do those things yourself so when I asked the question in the beginning right how to use your book to attract great clients premium clients and raise your prices just understand that the answer is the same to both of those things because one leads to the other naturally if you raised your prices today and you have one new person a week looking for your services you may very well lose that one opportunity I understand that there’s real fear in that but if you had 20 or 50 or a hundred people in a week buying your book reaching out to you seeing you as the authority do you think you could raise your prices of course you could and you would raise your prices so the bottom line is your book isn’t just about selling copies or royalties it is a client lead generation magnet and it is your most powerful positioning and marketing tool you are the expert you are the rock star at a speaking engagement when people have read your book I know it’s funny it’s ridiculous silly right you’re still you I’m still me but people see you in a different light because of your book and the more people that come to you the more opportunities you have to serve and charge your real value commensurate with the kind of impact that you make on other people’s lives okay so those are our four questions they deal with different stages of the book writing process whether it’s how do I know if my idea is good enough or should I self-publish hybrid publish or traditional publish uh getting my book into bookstores or just using my book to attract premium clients and raising my prices at you’re going to be you’re at one of those stages now you’ll be at all of those stages if you continue in the book writing process and I hope that you do and I hope that you see the power that your book can have as it meets somebody’s need and solves their problem as it sits in their hand okay so there you go thank you guys I hope this was helpful to you

[Applause]