Latest / The Daily Writer / What It's Like to Work With a Ghostwriter | Adam Boggs

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What It's Like to Work With a Ghostwriter | Adam Boggs · The Daily Writer

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Rider Podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me for this episode of our Summer Expert Series.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's one topic I am asked about far more than any other, and as you can imagine, that topic is ghostwriting.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, the questions come from all different kinds of perspectives.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: They come from writers who want to build a business who are asking me about how I got started and what it takes to build a successful ghostwriting business.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: The questions also come from business leaders on the other side of the fence and other people who want to write a book, but they don't have the time or the skills to do it themselves.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so they ask me all kinds of questions about how the process works.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I love hearing from them because I love sharing about how exciting that ghostwriting is.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I also get a lot of questions from people who don't fall into either camp.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're neither people who are hiring a ghostwriter nor people who want to ghostwrite books, but they come from people who are just curious about how ghostwriting works and what exactly it is that I do all day.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes my wife actually wants to know that the answer to that question.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do all day anyway?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no matter what perspective you actually come from, you will be interested in this conversation with my former client, Adam Boggs.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: We work together on his book, The Business Artist: A Human Approach to Sales, Storytelling, and Creativity in a Data Driven World.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I had an absolute blast working with Adam on this book over the last two or three years.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: The book actually came out about a year and a half ago.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's done really well, and it was a really, really fun project to work on.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Adam describes himself as a self-proclaimed social theorist who loves diving into the intricate workings of our world.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: He has a deep-seated passion for blending the beauty of artistic principles with technology, business, and society, unlocking fascinating new viewpoints along the way.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Adam is also the CEO of Mehana, an intelligent platform to design, guide, and enhance every step of the meeting process.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: With over 13 years of experience in co-creating workshops and designing facilitated experiences for leading tech giants like Google, SAP, and Cisco, Adam has a really deep understanding of what it takes to lead memorable meetings.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So in this conversation that you'll hear on this episode, Adam and I pull back the curtain on what it's really like to work with a ghostwriter.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about the role that he wanted the book to play in his business.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about why he wanted to self-publish instead of using a publisher.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we dive into a bunch of other topics as well, such as how we work together through the initial ideas, drafts, and revisions, his advice for people thinking about hiring a ghostwriter, and from the opposite standpoint, his advice for people considering ghostwriting as a career.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can find out much more about Adam and his book, The Business Artist, by going to his website, which is adamboggs.io.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I also encourage you to check out his company, Mehana, by going to mehana.io.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that is spelled M-E-A-H A-N-A.io.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, here's my conversation with Adam Boggs.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Adam, it's so good to have you here on the show.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is your first appearance on the Profitable Rider Profitable Writer podcast.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I can't talk.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, I'm a professional communicator.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not today, apparently.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's good to have you here.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me for this really fun conversation.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for uh inviting me.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought what we would talk about today is the process of working with a ghostwriter.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've actually never had a client on the show before, at least not to my knowledge, uh talking about the process of working together.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of opening myself up here a little bit.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, just for an honest conversation, because I would love to have your perspective on what this process was like.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not really so much just working with me, although that's part of it, I guess, but also what it was like from your point of view working with a ghostwriter.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um maybe let's start here though.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would love for you, if you would, to let's take a couple of minutes and if you can give people a sense of your background, where you came from in the business world and why you wanted to do a book in the first place.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that would be a good place to start.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I so my my background is I I grew up in the Midwest, uh, live out in California, have worked as a consultant for the better part of a decade and a half.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: As part of that work, I worked at a company called BTS, which was focused on the people side of business, right?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The people side of strategy execution.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is when a strategy fails, it often wasn't the strategy itself that was a bad idea.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's that people have to be bought into that, they have to have the skills and capabilities to be able to execute, especially when a strategy is new and different and changing in an organization.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we would come in and we would kind of figure out, you know, what are the different uh you know capabilities that the organization has, what needs to exist going forward?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do we align people around the strategy?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do we communicate it downward?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and throughout that process, I realized that there's sort of a human element to all of that, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about you don't just receive strategy.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to sort of embrace it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: You receive it based upon your own defense response, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been successful in the old world, maybe somebody else is like desperate to try something new.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have a complex set of individuals inside of a room.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I would largely run meetings and workshops.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes we would create complex business simulations to let people sort of play forward that the new strategy.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in that process, I realize there's a there's a tremendous amount of overlap with art, uh, with how we sort of view and see the world through an artistic lens.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, when you go and look at a painting, there's generally not text on that painting, right?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a there is text that it's trying to evoke, there's an emotional response that it's trying to communicate.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And translating that into the world of sales, which is largely where I was focusing my time and energy, I realized that the most successful salespeople, like disproportionately more successful than others, were the ones that had sort of this artistic angle to the way that they approached conversations, to the way they they saw life, to the way they embraced, you know, different cultures, different perceptions, different forms of reality.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they didn't necessarily always like follow a playbook or the script that I was generally coming to the company to try to get people to use.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were playing jazz, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was the musical metaphor that we put throughout the book.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and when I started to have that hypothesis, then it was like, I don't know, inception, right?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: You see it everywhere.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Once you have this idea of business artist, it then you start to um, you know, kind of incubate the concept and start to float the idea around to other people and kind of do interviews, um, not official interviews, but you try to ask people, you know, what leads you to be successful versus not.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there was something there.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: The uh enough to write a book, maybe not in the beginning, but after, I don't know, another year or two sitting on this topic of a business artist, I felt like it had to come out this this observation of the world through the lens of Adam.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then being able to put a book together is uh is uh intimidating at best, I would say.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, there's there's ways to get it done, and obviously that's how we got acquainted with each other, Kent.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've never actually asked you this, Adam.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank thank you for all that, by the way.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious what what did you first think of?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to give our friend Andy Storch credit here because he's the one who who connected us.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and he's a good friend of both of us, uh, just a really awesome guy in talent development and good thinker, just a wonderful human being.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: What was your first response when he suggested working with a ghostwriter?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's interesting because I first I asked Andy, like, have you worked with this guy before?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have you used ghostwriters before?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: He said, No, but you know, Kent comes highly recommended through this network of people that I'm connected with.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, I look down this path.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think the first, obviously, the first thing anybody does is like a cost-benefit analysis.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to weigh in, you know, the cost of your time to figure out how to how to do this, like when you're outsourcing anything.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then more importantly, if I was going to use a ghostwriter, I wanted to make sure that the person I work with also felt passionate about the project uh that I was working on with them.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you almost have like a co-conspirator to this cause.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just, you know, your ideas being dictated to a, you know, I could go to, I don't know, Fiverr and find somebody in Poland or Ukraine that can just, you know, take a scribble of notes and turn it into a book.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted a partner uh to guide me through this because it was such an important um part of my personality and part of my ethos.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, part of my identity is a little bit wrapped in this book.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that was important.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say when we first, you know, spoke, we talked a little bit about the the process of how you work.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then you talked a little bit about how we could work.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so you gave me space to sort of talk about how do I get thoughts out, um, what's the right process and kind of let me almost lead that process a little bit, which was helpful.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I I I I you know everybody thinks differently, but I'm very much an external processor.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, my best thinking comes out by sending you voice memos.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we did that process, and then you came back to me and the, you know, the fees and the rate and the the the that part checked out for me, then it was just a I would say your um experience having done this with different types of personalities and different people and different book projects before was helpful, right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I because I needed somebody that could lead me through the process, not um, not be like a reactionary soundboard to every new idea I had.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I would say right in the beginning, it was it was pretty apparent that this thing was going to get off the ground in a way that was helpful because it would probably just sat in my head as an idea for another five years, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I didn't have somebody to to push uh and put a deadline against it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: The first time that you um you you put a kind of a manuscript outline together using the 15 chapters, we kind of obviously changed some of that a little bit, but but seeing all of that out let me sort of see that this thing, I don't know, I almost felt like there was a real book to be had, and then it was just the fun work of putting it all the way together.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, I would say taking a pile of raw materials out of my head uh and then putting it at least into like a work in process piece of inventory that you did quickly was was super helpful.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: See, that that's really helpful to hear um uh for a number of reasons.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm glad that you felt confident from the beginning.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, like I was telling so just a couple hours ago, I do a weekly call for my writing group, the Profitable Writer Community.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I shared with him today was that at the beginning of every project, I feel really nervous.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not nervous in a sense that I can't do this, but nervous in a sense of I don't exactly know how this whole process is gonna work out.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I know it will work out, but every project is different and every client is different.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm confident that I can do it, but I I'm always a little nervous because I'm like, I don't know exactly how we're gonna get there.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: You see the destination, but what's the pathway?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: To me, that's where the excitement of it is you're working with another great collaborator and you're figuring things out.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that to me is really interesting.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think you know, collaboration in one word is compromise.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you know, we we had a lot of compromise on this process.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think you probably compromised how you worked in the past with somebody else and and and sort of you know went went in a different direction with me.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I remember you sent me a video proposal, uh, because I had told you that I send I send clients video proposals all the time.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a new type of medium that's not being used well enough versus if I just got like a a contract with a PowerPoint attached to it, I would have been like, eh, right.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember I was sitting out at a friend's house on vacation in Palm Springs, and uh and in pops this like loom video that you had sent, and you kind of said to me, Hey, I like I I wanted to try something based upon our our conversation, how you think send things out.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that that signaled to me that this guy's gonna take a little bit more of a custom creative total approach to winning my business, and hopefully that'll obviously play into the the way we work together.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I also have to give you credit, not just for that.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I had heard of video proposals before, but I don't think I had done one up to that point.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for that.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing was that just because of some because you you at least at that point, uh, when we were working on the book, you were traveling a lot for your work, and we were having trouble scheduling some calls together.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh as a way to kind of get the content for the book, I think you just suggested the idea of just doing some voice notes.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Or some I you had a term for was it a word vomit, or what was the term that you used?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that, sure.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I forget what the term was, but I loved the idea because I thought, okay, this is great because Adam can get his thoughts out of his head and in a way that works for his schedule.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing is that I have actually used that with every client since then, or at least I've given that to them as an option that you don't have to get on calls and take up part of your day.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it at 1 a.m.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: if that's the time that works for you.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Many times I did.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll just give you questions and prompts, and then you can put material together in whatever way suits you the best.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if I ever formally thanked you for that, but that actually was really, really good for my business.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and that's and that's part of the reason why I like ghostwriting, is because I learn things from people.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like you get a little master's degree in every topic that you do a book on, sort of.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a section in the book where we talk about ghost producing, um, meaning audio tracks, right?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the example is this artist called Kavinsky uh with the legendary duo Daft Punk, right?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: These guys get together and created a track called Nightcall, which is on the front of the movie Drive with Ryan Gosling.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we we wrote about it in the book.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: This there's something cool when you hear a production that's ghost produced by somebody else, because you hear you hear the original artist's style, but you also hear something that's like very eerily familiar that's another person's style.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that that came out in our book, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's while I you know I'd like to take you know credit for the ideas and the thoughts.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think when when you would structure um my word vomit into something cohesive, sometimes I would read that and I'm like, man, did I did I write that?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did I say that?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so you would you would come up with, I think, sometimes more articulate ways to to hold on to things.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, I speak a lot in metaphors.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: People sometimes say I do that too much in life.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the metaphors don't work.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you picked up on that quickly and used a lot of metaphors to help me articulate some of the points that we were we were putting together in the book.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a it was a meshing of our styles, I think, as well, which I didn't fully expect when we started this process, but I certainly appreciate it as we got into it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And isn't that really the point of collaboration to begin with?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is you whoever you're collaborating with, hopefully you both bring something of value to the table.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And those things combine in an interesting way to produce something that is greater than the sum of uh there's a word for that, I can't remember what it is.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you know, synergy or you know yeah, synergy, that's what it is.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was thinking of the horse analogy you put the team of horses together, they can pull together what what the weight they they can all pull together is greater than this just the sum of the sum of each individual, sure.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, some some math personal listing is gonna be like that's not quite right, what you said.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now now I have to ask you a more difficult question because you're I guess this this interview can go both ways.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, when we started this this project, um, I think you would put a timeline and a deadline against things, and obviously my schedule kept shifting and evolving.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I I would rethink things a lot.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you would send me something and I would come up with a very concrete point of view on it.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then a chapter or two later I would say, you know, Kent, I I actually have a different thought on that.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it was um, I think you would constantly remind me that it's just your first book, Adam.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can come back to some of that other stuff later, maybe maybe on down the road.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, there was I I felt like I had, and this is a good thing, or maybe not so good for you, but I felt like I had access to Kent, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: From the moment we signed the contract till the book is done and even beyond.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I I had you know constant access to ever if I wanted to just bang out an idea or a thought or an email or or something.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was awesome from my perspective, but I'm just curious as you're advising other, you know, writers how to manage clients, I suspect is uh is an art uh on your side as well, right?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because there was a few times where I felt you know you were giving me some limiting constraints, and there were other times where I could feel like I was maybe pushing against those constraints in in ways that extended the time, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And but didn't necessarily benefit the project.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was just I had to get it out of my own process, you know what I mean?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think the part of the process of from my perspective of just working with clients in general, probably, but also in particular ghostwriting is figuring out you're trying to make judgments about who is high maintenance and who's not.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just put it bluntly.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the also the process of just relationships in general.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um there are times whenever you work with people who are more high maintenance, meaning they want to demand more and more of your time, and then there's diminishing returns the more time that you spend together.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that does happen sometimes with book clients, not often, but it does because there's just more and more ideas and more content, and at some point you have to actually produce a book.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, but I never felt that way with you, Adam.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I never can recall ever thinking, oh, Adam's just is like, hi, maintenance, or this is too much time.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just I always enjoyed talking with you, and I I never felt that there was any sort of wasted time.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And but I think part of working with clients, and I'm sure it's this way in any kind of sales thing, is you have to kind of determine what's the what's the ROI in all these interactions, you know.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're selling something in a store, you have somebody who comes in 15 times to ask about a product.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: At some point you want to go, dude, you've asked enough questions to either buy or don't buy.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't think I'd ever do it perfectly.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you I think you can quickly get a sense of somebody about whether they're going to kind of respect the the parameters of their relationship.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that would apply to any relationship with anybody in your life.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I guess my answer is um it just depends on the situation.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: But with you, I I always felt like there was there was always a purpose to our conversations.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, for sure.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to hear that.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious if we can dive into the process of actually working together.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of ghostwriters ask me about this.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you actually collaborate with somebody as a co almost like a co-writer and produce the actual book?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can have conversations, you maybe you can make an outline, but how does the actual book actually come together?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I could talk probably ad nauseum about this and my thoughts on at least how I think about the process, but how did you feel about the process basically of me doing drafts, and then you would make changes, then I would make changes, then you would make changes.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: How did how did you feel going through that whole process?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: And what was that like?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I felt like we had, you know, we were in a manufacturing plant, right?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we we had a pile of raw materials that was coming out of my head all the time.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, you know, you would add to that pile, but it was just a bunch of uh bolts and nuts and pieces of metal and stuff.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we knew that we eventually needed to build a car, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or or something.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the the the some of those materials were going to go into that car and some of them were not, right?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like when you open up an IKEA furniture and it just scatters all this stuff on the on the ground, right?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think then you know you started to to put structure around 15 chapters, right?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in a on those 15 chapters, three key sections, uh, so five chapters within each section.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started to more easily mentally compartmentalize, okay, these bolts go to this chapter, these ones don't know yet, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll figure it out later, or that chapter needs to shift or alter.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think having just the framework of the book laid out um allowed me to to give you information um that fit into a narrative, even if that narrative had some looseness attached to it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it never felt like we were going through a linear process, which was helpful for me because in the very beginning we we had to sort of figure out where pieces needed to go.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you did a really good job of taking the the raw materials and putting as much fits into you know section two and section three and stuff, and then coming back to me and saying, okay, I I have 80% of what I need for chapter four.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've got plenty of stuff here.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good there.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, chapter five, I'm I'm light on.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then you would give me a series of of voice prompts for me to respond to that were well thought out.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I could see where you're I didn't, it was always like a surprise for me, by the way.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I could I could I could I could see the questions, but I I didn't see the narrative structure that you had already put together in asking those questions, right?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I would I would answer your your questions like I don't know, one one was like, why does empathy have such a negative stigma in society?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an interesting question.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why why you need that or where that goes into chapter you know nine, but I know that you do, right?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And well, I didn't always know.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, then I would answer that question throughout a three week period because that question would be an open question now that I have to answer.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would never just sit there and bang out responses to your questions.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: They would all sit as open questions for me.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them I had immediate answers for, but for many of them, as you know, I would send you like three different voice memos on three different occasions answering.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Same question, um, and and then give that back to you.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then when you would send me the draft chapter outline, I was like, wow, okay.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: He he he structured that thing together using this thing I sent him on Tuesday and this thing I sent him on the following Tuesday, even though it was the same question.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was like magic trick for me, because um, you know, if I if I just tried to answer the question as it was, I would have an answer to it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then three days later, I would be, I would have this like, you know, dilemma where I would think, oh shit, I didn't I didn't tell him this other thought that I had on this, you know.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of give me some space to to complete the assignment, so to speak.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I felt like that worked out well really well for me.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like every at every like couple of days you had new questions for me to respond to.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then would that's really interesting.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting to hear you talk about that because the way that I approach some books, and it it all depends on the project.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I I feel like sometimes people ask me this or that about ghostwriting, and I don't always have a really clear-cut answer because so much of the time my answer is it just depends.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like it's like the attorney answer.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it just depends.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it could be this or it could be this.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my experience, at least at this point in my ghostwriting career, is that sometimes the structure of a book is really clear from the beginning, and you follow that structure and you craft the book and you pretty much stick to the outline.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: There are other books though where you have to kind of find what the book is, and it takes a lot of conversations.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, now that I think of it, um I would say for me it has kind of been split down the middle.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Half of the books that I have worked on or are working on right now are the kind where we develop a pretty rigid outline and we stick with it and we craft the book.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: The other half are more you have a lot of conversations.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: I have an idea where we're going.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: I know the vibe and the tone and the genre of the book, but I don't exactly know how we're gonna get there.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it takes writing a draft of the book to find that out, which is a little bit going kind of the long way around.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think that sometimes that's a creative process.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: You have to find what the book is through the process of creating it the first time.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then you change whatever needs to be changed, and that's totally normal.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but I want to take a moment to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 24:21
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• 24:30
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• 24:34
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• 24:41
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• 24:50
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• 24:57
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• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: To download Vellum for free, visit trivellum.com/slash Kent.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's trivellum.com slash Kent.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's get back to the conversation.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think we had a we had a structure that was loose and I think it it changed a little bit, especially, especially the the latter sections.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because um, you know, it was well for for the listeners who don't know the book, there's the book is split into three sections.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: The first section is about you know what what's going on in the world today that's precipitating the need for for a business artist.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how did we get here?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: The second part is what are the pathways or the options for us given that reality?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third part is is how to become one.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the how to become a business artist, by definition, is is challenging because I don't want people to have a framework or a playbook on how to be an artist.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because right, anti-with, yeah, exactly.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: The whole the whole book wouldn't work if you're if it was like here's here's exactly what to do, steps, right?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I I struggled with that, with finishing the the thought, right?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I would get feedback from people, I would send initials, you know, conversations, because I I had constantly going out into the world to continue to research and interview and talk to people uh about this.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I I'm happy with where we got to with those sort of concentric circles designs.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that I know that that was sort of that came later on in our process, Ken.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it really did.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I again I think it's a process of finding what the book is sometimes.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this book for you, it it's different than other books.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Part of the job of a ghostwriter.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a little side note for people who are listening who are doing this for a career or you're considering it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think part of the job is a big part of the job is knowing what role does this book play in a client's business or their life.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: For you, this is for lack of a better term, I would call this a a big message book where the you're you're not in the business of writing two or three books a year.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your your main career thing, Adam, is not to be an author and to do a whole bunch of books all the time.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, the next time you do a book, it's probably gonna be a little bit down the road because this is this is the message you're landing on for quite a while.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so it was important to kind of have a larger framework of the way that you think about this topic in this book, instead of like doing a series of like three or five little books or something.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that in that in my mind, as the writer, that informs how I approach this.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, we have to kind of have a cohesive framework that then you can use for courses or consulting or coaching or Mehana, which is your company, or whatever else.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So this is kind of like a big message book.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I would I would I would agree with that.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when we when we spoke, you had very specific questions about like why are you writing this?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was important for you to understand to get it then.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, at the time I was like, I don't know, I feel like I have to just get this out, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's the big message part that you're describing.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: The the rest of it I'll figure out when we start to have a book, right?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I I know I have this all in my head right now.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and some some legacy behind will be a book at some point, if if you can help me get there.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I wanted to circle back to for a minute before I move on to another couple topics related to this.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you mentioned questions I would send you, and then you would send back voice notes.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to to jump off that for just a second on for people who are listening on the point of me doing that, which was sometimes there was whenever I'm sending questions for somebody to respond to in the case of voice notes, or when I get on a call with a client, um, I always have a goal for that exchange.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes though, the goal for specific questions is not that I necessarily think that's going to be book content, it's just stuff I'm curious about.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to put myself in the in the position of the reader of the book, and I think, okay, what would I like to hear Adam talk about?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: What's interesting to me with this topic?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times when you just ask questions because you're curious, some really interesting things come up from that.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of that stuff did end up in the book.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: That that was the surprise part for me was the um the amount of uh cathartic output that I got from that process, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just you know, responding to those voice prompts.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Responding to them was so fun, by the way, just for people who haven't done this.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's good.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you know like every time I would get a new voice prompt, there would be really provocative questions that I'm like, if I can even just put an answer to that question in the book, it's gonna be interesting.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes these questions, actually, most of them don't even have real, they don't have an answer that's that's absolute in the world, right?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's an it's a it's a it's a question like, do you prefer prequels or sequels, or you know, do you like stand up or improv?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: These questions don't have a real answer, they have opinions to teach them.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the uh the dissection of those was was fun, and then answering them again at multiple times during the day, whether I was walking outside or I was sitting at my desk or thinking about it at dinner and then typing a note and responding back to you later.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was like that was a multi-month like creative process for me.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious about your that I don't think would have happened if I tried writing a book by myself.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I get intimidated by like a blank word processing cursor staring back at me.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot easier when I just do one thing that I that I hadn't asked about, and of course I know the answers to this, but for those for the benefit of people listening, um, what was behind your decision to self-publish this book instead of A going to a hybrid publisher or B going to traditional publishing route?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: People uh people in the book world, this is a topic of constant discussion among authors and people in the book world.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So why did you decide to self-publish instead of going different routes?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you know, I I didn't want to fit into a publisher's schedule, first of all, because this that I didn't exactly, you know, you and I were working on this thing.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So from a timing perspective, that didn't make sense.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, mostly it was probably the the the control aspect of of what you get uh from a royalty perspective, what you can uh expect to receive.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um there aren't a lot of like good reasons to use a publisher from everything I researched and people I've talked to.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: I just talked to this guy who works at a startup who sold 6,500 copies of his book and he had a publisher on it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked him if he would use that again, and I he said absolutely not.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, I heard stories from from people like that that said they didn't really feel like they got a lot of value from the publisher.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um the publisher got a lot of value from the from the book, uh, but it's also being a first-time author.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna float high up on the on the list in terms of marketing support and getting other things.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And plus I wanted to work with you and build out a kind of our custom marketing approach and strategy, which was also super helpful.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I got you know your your help on that, which I'm happy to talk about.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I hadn't heard a lot of people who said, wow, using a publisher was awesome.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I heard a lot of people who who were self-published that thought that that that was a better route these days, like 2024, um, you know, when it's easy to do.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also like the the fact that you know you when you self-publish, you you get to control every aspect of it and you have you have control over all the the royalties titles afterwards.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: If I ever wanted to turn this into a a business or a course or something, I don't have to like buy back the rights to do that.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really important for me.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Having no knowledge of what I was gonna do from a business perspective, but knowing it'll be something, um, I didn't want to have to have to fight there.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that that's a really, really good point for sure.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm curious about a decision that you made early on in the process.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually and we've talked about this some, but I think for the again, for the benefit of listeners, of course, yeah.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what was behind your decision to put my name on the book cover?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: That that is that that's a point of discussion in the ghostwriting world.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you want to have my name on the cover alongside yours?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anybody who looks at any piece of art in the world outside of writing a book knows that there's collaborators that are well publicized.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like Taylor Swift has 28 musicians on her last album.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can see them all written.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: You go to you go to Spotify, hit the about info, they're they're all there, right?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So much to the fact that sometimes the producers themselves, not the artists, are actually more famous than the actual artists because they're the ones that are producing the mind and the works of somebody else, right?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, if I'm writing a book about being a business artist, a big part of being a great artist is finding collaborators and giving credit to collaborators.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I like how hypocritical would it be for me to write a book about being a business artist, use a use a ghostwriter and not publicly give credit to the to the collaborator.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I liken you know Kent's role to a producer.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're you know, if you're making a record in a studio, you need a record producer to you know pull all the all the artistry together to adjust the volumes, to EQ the tracks, to put it into a structure, to have the overall vision, almost like the director of a movie, not the actor.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes in in in LA people love directors because they get the idea, but like the director has the overall vision, they're the ones that are editing the thing, have the overall story put together in their heads.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: The actors are the ones doing 13 takes that only one of them goes in, but yet they're the celebrities, right?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I I thought about that for like a half a second, and then I was like, Kent needs to be on this book, like he's he's producing my mind.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this book would not exist.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm the the vocal talent or the voice actor in the in the movie, right?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: But but Kent is the director, he's the one who's who's got the the overall structure in the vision, and we collaborate you know immensely on this.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: It it would it I think it's a shame that that uh any ghostwriter has to just be named in spirit if they're working as much as you and I did.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: That that's that's I think a really healthy perspective, and I appreciate that.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for including me on the cover.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I didn't have strong feelings either way.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like in terms of you know, I'm I try not to be emotionally connected to client work and you know that kind of thing.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just try to approach what I do as a as a pro.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's like a pro approach.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: However, the one advantage to to naming a ghostwriter on the cover, if if it kind of meets some other criteria, is that that writer can also help promote the book publicly, which I think can be an advantage, depending on if if the ghostwriter wants that and if they're actually going to help promote the book, and you know, if it kind of aligns with their own author brand, so to speak, and other kinds of things.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, no, I thought that was a great decision, and I would uh I'm honored and thrilled to have my name on the cover.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well you're very welcome.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to read more of yours because you know there should be, you know, if it's like produced by Timbaland or produced by these well-known sound sound producers, there's a certain style uh that they that they have that they carry into it, right?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: So there should be like a produced by Kent Sanders catalog of books, right?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: That if people like books produced by Kent, they're probably gonna like the next book that you that you had your hands on.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even though obviously it's it's ghostwritten and the styles are completely different.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's I suspect if I read all your other books, there's probably something similar that's interesting enough to a reader um that is that is yours alone, that is not held on by the author, would would be my guess.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that that is really interesting.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: There is kind of uh, I I guess I would describe it as a certain level of ghostwriter.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, these are people who have been doing it a really long time, you know, 20 years or more, and they've worked with a lot of famous people and they have a distinct voice or something that they're adding to the process.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And people hire those ghostwriters because they bring something specific to it that that uh author wants.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then that ghostwriter becomes almost a point a point of marketing.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, exact exactly just like in the right.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like if you go watch a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, uh he's never on screen, but you'd kind of know what that movie's gonna be, you know.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's gonna be there's gonna be some action, it's gonna be entertaining, it's gonna be a big blockbuster movie.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't produce Hallmark movies, you know, right?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: He produces a certain kind of movie and is known for that.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious if you can share some advice, I guess, as we kind of wrap this up, Adam.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um what is your advice for I'm gonna do it from both sides, your advice for people who are considering hiring a ghostwriter, and your advice for ghostwriters who are working with authors.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Anything that you would say to either of those groups about the process based on what you've been through.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll start with the first.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have two other friends that that both used ghostwriters and they they interviewed a few.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And by interviewed, I mean they had them write a sample.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, and in both cases, the first ones were like, it looked like somebody wrote that wrote this with AI.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um they were just they were terrible.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: They sent it to me.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was weird metaphors that weren't applied, and the cost that they were spending was like peanut, it was like 5,000.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was like no, no money, right?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: To to do this whole book.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you you get what you pay for a little bit, I would say, uh, first and foremost, from a from a usability perspective.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other thing is uh, you know, it's funny, I run a software startup.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: They say whenever you find an investor, know that it's like a marriage, it's not a date.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I feel like ghostwriting is somewhere between a it's closer to a marriage because it's a long process um and it's a back and forth collaboration along the way.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not uh it's not a transactional conversation.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you interview your ghostwriter, know that you're gonna be on video calls and voice memos and it's gonna be a long, long-term relationship.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that you know, if it goes well, you might do others with that same person.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: So find somebody that you also personally click well with and be honest with yourself.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you don't, if you don't click, just you know, move on.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I think um it's important to find the right match on that side.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, from ghostwriters working with with authors, um, the you know, sample size of one on this one.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would I would say that it's important also to to remember that long-term relationship component and to trust your instincts, whether this person's gonna be high maintenance or low maintenance, to have a structured process.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like they, you know, as an author, I suspect the people who are using ghostwriters have the economic means to pay for it, means they're probably busy professionals as well.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so just know that that you're gonna have to flex a little bit on some of your timelines and rules.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that that person's trying to be insubordinate, it's just that that you know things change and things adapt on the fly.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it's it's your project.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not the author's project.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds silly to say, but the authors are are the the authors who are hiring you are looking for you to be the project manager and to stick to the deadlines and and to push back and say, look, I need this by Friday, or tell me when you can get it to me.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Kent, you did a really good job on that.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes I was like, I'm under the gun here.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: I okay, he says yes, I'll get it there.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, that's some compromise.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so know that you're the you're the project manager.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: The book's not going to get done without your timeline and you pushing it along.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it'll linger forever, I think.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in it, or or it'll be something that isn't great if you're not constantly in charge and managing and tasking the process.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's obvious to you, but it wasn't obvious to me when I started this process, but it was certainly appreciated.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really, really good advice.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but in particular, remembering that you're working with professionals.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people who who can afford ghostwriting are typically they are successful business professionals.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: Not always, but the vast majority of the time that's the case.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: And these people are busy, they have businesses, they have companies, they're traveling.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have to, I think as a ghostwriter, you have to be flexible with that.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you're working with successful people, you got to be flexible.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's so uh it sucks actually a little bit on the author side because like this book project is so important to you, right?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you wouldn't be doing it, you're investing on it.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: You decided it's finally time to crack it and you're gonna go.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd expect that your behavior would would resemble that that ambition, right?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't always.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you know, you're you're you know, you know, you're off in London doing a three-week stint or something, and all of a sudden you're behind and you you now haven't thought about your book for a week or two months.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, you have a ghostwriter who's pushing pushing you.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's just one of these weird revelations that I had because I I thought I was gonna be able to dedicate much more time uh to this um throughout the process.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and then I I would find that it would happen in chunks, right?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like you know, these big surges of time where I would get you 16 voice memos all at once, but then you know, you'd chase me down a little bit for some other ones.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that was it, that was um, you know, that's why we hire you guys that keep us on test.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I struggle with the the exact same thing when it comes to people that I hire for stuff.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've got in my inbox, I've got a couple things right now.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got a couple book projects of my own coming out this year, three actually.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I've got a graphic designer waiting for some stuff for me.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've got an editor waiting for some stuff for me.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so these things that are so important to us in the midst of our busy lives, sometimes it's hard to it's hard to make that schedule actually match the importance of something in our hearts.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure why that is.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, it's it's a really strange thing.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: The book's not paying the bills at the moment, right?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're just yeah, it's not urgent enough, I guess.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, you guys at the end of the day, uh if I I think there's a future for ghostwriting where you get paid on the book sales where you negotiate that that in more.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it it maybe it creates a different type of uh fee structure.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, like is there a more incentive than to have a longer post?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you and I obviously we'll we'll we'll continue chatting, but um when you when you think about all the stuff that happens after a book comes out, I appreciated your your help with me on all that part of it as well.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because as a first-time writer, it's a total black box, like how to publish a book, like all the all the help that you gave me around like how to even get it online, uh, all the different aspects of that.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: That was also, I know you said you were gonna do that, but it it it seems more complicated than I thought it was.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all of those steps.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, getting the graphic design, getting all that stuff done.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot more than just writing the book, I would say, in terms of getting to be successful.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that that honestly, just for the people who are listening who are ghostwriters or wanna be, that's part of a decision that you have to make as a ghostwriter is what services are you gonna offer for clients?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are you just going to do the ghostwriting?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got friends who are they strictly just do the writing, uh, or are you?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: going to offer also offer project management or other kinds of things, marketing things.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, do you want to basically be a solo ghostwriter or do you want to become an agency that does all those things?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think every ghostwriter has to figure out what their strengths are and what kind of business model they want to have.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's a hard thing to figure out because you don't always know when you're starting out where you want things to go.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: And where I have landed personally is um I think I'm leaning I'm going to lean more into partnering with people who do publishing and marketing.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think my main strength is the content.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I can do project management, but there are people who can do it on a far higher level than I can and who really can focus on that.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to lean more into developing some strategic partnerships with that, whatever that may look like.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, everything's constantly changing and evolving.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to be a business artist.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know there you go, man.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well Adam, this has been an absolute blast.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just I can't say thank you enough for the opportunity to work on this book.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was a total blast getting to know you, working on the book and seeing your success with it.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um where can people get the book?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously they can get on Amazon, but where can they go to learn more about Mayhana, which we haven't talked about.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah you and all the cool things that you're doing.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the if hitting me personally will get you to Mayahana.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll just tell tell readers to go to listeners go to just to my personal website which is adambogs.io which is a website that we put up that has the the book and it links back to my business.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Mayahana.io which is M-E-A-H-A-N-A is a it's a web-based uh tool for collaboration, for decision making, for getting alignment among teams.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very different from a a Miro or a mural or a digital whiteboard or simple polling stuff out there.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a way to kind of automate almost a consultant grade style of methodology if you're uh in in business and you're hiring folks in and you're needing to get you know decisions made, you need to get people aligned, ideation sequences to happen.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a very artistic approach to do that, right?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: You hire really good facilitators to get that done.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now there's a software tool that'll help you do that in a more simplified creative way, which is what what Mayhan is built to do.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really my my ethos and my passion is to help create creative people and to not just let you just consume the world but to create the world with it.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so Mayhana is a way for you to to do that as well.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: The book and the business are are really tied together around that central theme of sort of creating creators.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: I love what you're doing.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love the message of the business artist.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think Mehana is something that's really really cool.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just glad that we have connected and we're able to work on this project together and we'll see what the future holds and what what kind of people are impacted by your book and the cool things that happen as a result of it.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you again.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Ken.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hey thanks so much again for joining me for another episode of the Profitable Rider podcast.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: As always I appreciate you taking time to listen I know there's a million other things you could be doing with your time and the fact that you listen to this episode really truly means the world to me.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a lot of other cool episodes and interviews coming in the pipeline but thanks for joining me for this one.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: As you can imagine it was really really fun getting to reconnect with Adam and talk about his amazing book The Business Artist, which I encourage you to check out.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's a link in the show notes to do that.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are a writer who's building a business or you are interested in culture and technology and all the things that we talked about in this conversation today I think you'll really really enjoy that book.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: And as I mentioned also check out Adam's website which is adamboggs.io and also his company which is Mehana and that is M-E-A-H A-N-A.io.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: On the next episode ironically I'm going to feature another conversation with the previous client this time Billy Stanley we got to collaborate on his incredible book The Faith of Velvis which came out three years ago this coming October in man.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to believe it's been almost three years since that book came out.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: And on that episode we're going to feature a QA that we did actually last October to commemorate at that time the two year release anniversary of the book.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we're coming up on the third year, which again is kind of hard to believe but you know Elvis is timeless and um I think you're really going to enjoy that conversation if you read that book and enjoyed it or if you love Elvis or if you just like good conversations in general.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: So make sure you don't miss that one and I will see you then