Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Write and Publish a Book with Marcia Layton Turner

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How to Write and Publish a Book with Marcia Layton Turner · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:02
  321.
• 0:06
  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the smallbizchat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the Small Biz Chat podcast?
• 0:37
  Well, it's time.
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  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
• 0:45
  small business.
• 0:45
  In just 20 minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel your
• 0:52
  business forward.
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  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Business Chat podcast today.
• 0:58
  Now it's time for me to introduce my guest.
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  Her name is Marsha Layton Turner, and she has authored, coauthored, or ghost written nearly
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  80 nonfiction book.
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  Typically, her clients are business owners, CEOs and experts who desire to publish a book,
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  create new business opportunities for themselves or their companies.
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  Some of her past books have been New York Times, Wall Street Journal bestsellers, award
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  winners and commercial successes.
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  She's also the founder executive director of the Association of Ghost Riders, which is the
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  leading professional association for ghost writers.
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  Marsha was previously the director of communications for Eastman Kodak Company and
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  her business to business unit before starting her own marketing agency.
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  For more information, you can go to Marsha Blayton Turner dot com.
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  Marsha, welcome to the Small Business Chat podcast.
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  Thanks so much for having me, Melinda.
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  Really appreciate it.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  So tell me, how did you become a ghostwriter?
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  Because it sounds like it's a good business to get into.
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  Eighty books, girlfriend.
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  Come on.
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  Tell me about this.
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  Yeah.
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  I I write quickly, and that's kinda how the story started.
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  I, earned a reputation pretty early in my writing career as somebody who wrote quickly
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  and who could learn the format of a book pretty quickly.
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  And so when my agent heard about a sort of a problem project at a major publisher, she
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  pitched me as somebody to solve that problem.
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  And so what I needed to do was to work alongside this expert, subject matter expert,
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  to help him produce his book in 8 weeks.
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  The book was 7 months overdue.
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  He hadn't written a word, but he had piles and piles of background information that he had
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  organized by chapter.
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  So we worked together to figure out what needed to be said.
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  We would talk through it.
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  I would read his materials, and then I would send him a draft of a chapter.
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  And we did this, you know, round and round again for 8 weeks until the book was done.
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  He was happy.
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  The publisher was happy.
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  And so I told my agent, that was so much fun.
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  Like, what what was that?
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  I didn't know.
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  She said, that's ghostwriting.
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  I was like, oh, I I want more of that.
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  And so I started letting all the publishers know, hey, if you, you know, if you have these
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  other problem projects, send them my way.
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  And, yeah, now it's like 80 to 90% of all the business that I do is is working with,
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  ghostwriting clients.
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  Well, that sounds like a good gig because you get your money upfront whether the book sells
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  or not.
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  So that's a good deal.
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  Ex exactly.
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  I say and when people say, you know, how is that?
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  Well, I'm like an accountant or an attorney.
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  You know, I get I get paid for what I do.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  So tell me, what would you say are the primary benefits of writing a book in the first place?
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  Like, why is it a good thing to do as a business leader?
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  Well, I think there are lots of different reasons to write a book.
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  In the business world, some of the major benefits are really about positioning,
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  positioning yourself as the industry pioneer or the leader, know, the thought leader, being
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  able to do that then creates other opportunities.
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  But clients don't necessarily come to me and ex express that directly.
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  They might say that they want a conversation starter.
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  Some do say that they wanna position themselves as an expert.
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  They they feel like they're not well enough known in their industry.
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  But it's also a way to package all of that expertise that we've amassed and put it into a
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  particular product.
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  But it's really the the new opportunities that the book will create, besides the actual sales
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  of the book, which which sounds kinda funny.
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  You would think that most people would write a book because they wanna sell a 1000000 copies.
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  And in the business world, that's typically not the case.
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  Most business people come to me and say, I don't really care if it's a bestseller, because
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  I want to use it to drum up more business for my company.
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  Well, I kind of wanted both when I wrote my book.
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  I just wanted to say that.
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  But so but let but let me ask you this.
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  What does it take to get a traditional book deal?
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  Like you and I are both authors.
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  And I get asked this question a lot, but I want to know your answer to it.
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  What does it take to get somebody to pay you to write a book?
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  How does that work?
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  Yeah.
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  Well, things have changed, as as you probably have seen.
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  But you know, I hear from aspiring authors all the time that they want a traditional deal.
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  With they don't really understand what that means.
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  They think that traditional publishers, which today are the big five, which are Penguin
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  Random House, Macmillan, Simon and Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins.
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  Those are the big five.
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  There are other traditional publishers, but those are the biggest one.
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  And I think first time authors assume that if as long as they have a good story or they have
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  really useful information, that that's gonna be enough to get a contract.
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  And that's really not the case, kind of, unfortunately.
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  Traditional in order to get a traditional deal, you need to have a following, what we used to
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  call an author platform.
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  It means that you already need to be known for whatever the subject is that you wanna write
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  about, at least in the business world.
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  And very few first time authors actually qualify for a traditional deal.
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  It's not you can't just say, oh, let me go after that.
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  It's it's hard to get, unless you have, you know, lots and lots of followers.
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  So I talked to a major publisher, an acquisitions editor at a major publisher about
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  a month or so ago, and I and I asked her this question.
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  So what does it take today?
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  Because I didn't really know what the numbers were.
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  I'd heard that the numbers were important.
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  But what she told me was, if you want a traditional deal, you need to have a track
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  record of success, like you, Melinda.
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  You need to have sold more than 25,000 copies of your previous book.
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  So if you have a track record and you've done well, you're more likely to be able to get
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  another traditional deal.
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  If you don't have that track record, then you need to show that you are going to have access
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  to lots and lots of people.
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  You need to have social media followers in the 100 of 1,000, or you need to have paid public
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  speaking gigs set up in the coming year that's gonna that will get you in front of 25 to 50000
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  people.
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  Because these traditional publishers are risk averse.
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  They don't wanna produce a book if they're gonna lose money.
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  So they need you to reassure them that I've got people.
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  They wanna buy it.
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  They're clamoring for this book.
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  And and that's hard for first time authors to do, quite frankly.
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  Well, I like to tell people that it's like, publishers are interested in capitalizing on
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  the fame you create for yourself.
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  They're actually not interested in making you famous.
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  And that and that's something that I don't think most people understand, like, they feel
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  like, oh, I'm gonna write this book, and I'm gonna be famous.
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  Well, no, that's actually not how it works.
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  That's why you see all these celebrities writing books, which you and I both know they
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  didn't write, but the thing is that they're already famous.
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  So they know because they're famous people will buy their book, even if they can't spell cat,
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  right?
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  You know, so it doesn't even matter.
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  I think I was a very rare bird because I got a book deal.
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  And I wasn't anybody yet.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Like, I was I was successful in business in my market, but I was not the small biz lady.
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  I became the small biz lady because of my book.
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  But when I found out it wasn't nothing but God Himself, they got me my book deal because I
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  didn't have any of the credentials that I should have had.
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  However, my book got bumped because the market crashed in 8.
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  And I had 18 months to build it.
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  And it was very early in the early days of social media.
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  So I was the how I became small business lady was literally because I could not get my name
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  on Twitter.
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  Somebody else had gotten to Twitter and gotten Melinda Emerson, which was so ridiculous.
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  Right?
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  My name is not common.
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  Right.
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  But anyway, long story short, I became the small biz lady because I needed a nickname.
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  And my friend who was on the phone with me at the time, she was a publicist.
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  And she was like, well, let's come up with a nickname that tells people who you are and what
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  you do.
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  And I was like, you mean, like Mindy or Melly Mill or something?
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  And she was like, no fool, you're not a rapper.
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  I'm not gonna give you a name like that.
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  She said, let's come up with a name that tells people who you are and what you do.
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  And that was the day I became the small business lady.
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  And and and what's so great about my story is I did such a good job building my brand and
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  building my following on Twitter, that my publisher, Adams Media, which was later bought
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  by Simon and Schuster, asked me to do a workshop for all of their other authors that
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  were in development at the time, and teach them how to build a brand online.
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  And that's when I knew that I had some I had some sauce that I could sell other places.
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  And you know, obviously, we teach people how to become brands now still to this day, 15 years
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  later, which I can't even believe.
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  But, I just think it's interesting that that that people don't really kinda understand how
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  this whole thing works.
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  But but can you explain sort of like, you know, I've done traditional publishing and I've also
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  self published a book as well.
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  Can you talk a little bit about the differences between, okay, I'm gonna publish it myself or
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  oh, I'm gonna, you know, beg an agent to please pitch this book.
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  You know, the whole how do what are the sort
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  of like pros and cons of each door you wanna go through?
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  Sure.
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  Well, I guess there are 2 big doors, or we can divide them into 3 with traditional being 1,
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  hybrid and independent being another, and then the really DIY self publishing would be a
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  third.
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  And although most people assume that traditional is the only way to publish a book
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  because until about 15 years ago, that was the case.
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  Traditional publishers were the gatekeepers.
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  They were the ones that decided what was gonna be published and what was not gonna be
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  published.
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  And today, there are many more options.
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  So with traditional, the reason that it's so appealing to most people is that the publisher
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  pays for all the production.
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  They pay for the cover design.
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  They pay for the interior design.
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  They pay for the editing.
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  They pay for the printing.
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  They pay for the distribution.
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  So it's a nice little package, and you really don't have to do all that much on the
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  production side to get your book out there.
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  That's appealing.
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  What people don't always understand is that in order to even be considered by a traditional
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  publisher, you need to write a pretty substantial book proposal that includes your
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  marketing plan, which is probably the most important section of that proposal because,
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  again, traditional publishers are risk averse.
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  They don't wanna take the risk that the book isn't gonna sell, so you need to convince them
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  that you have enough people out there willing to buy your book.
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  So you need to get this book proposal done.
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  Ghostwriters like me who put together proposals will charge anywhere from 10 to $25,000 to put
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  together that proposal.
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  Once the proposal is done, you then hand it over to a literary agent that you have to find
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  and convince to work with you.
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  They're your sales rep, and that sales rep is gonna take a 15% commission off of everything
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  related to your book.
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  So you you write the book proposal.
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  You get the agent.
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  You sell the contract to a traditional publisher.
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  Again, the big benefit is you don't have to pay anything once you get the contract.
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  Once the book comes out, you'll earn on average about a dollar a book.
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  However, you've given up some control over, like, what the cover looks like and the cover
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  price, and it's gonna take 18 to 24 months before your book even comes out.
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  So people used to have to just accept what was offered, but now they have these other 2
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  options, door b and c, or 2 and 3.
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  So hybrid publishers, you don't have to do a book proposal, and you don't have to get a lit
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  literary agent.
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  You do have to pay for the production, however.
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  So once your book is done, you need to talk to your hybrid publishing options to see which is
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  the best fit, meaning who's what kind of other books have they produced that are similar to
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  yours.
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  You choose your hybrid publisher.
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  You give them the manuscript.
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  They're then responsible for working with you to design the cover, design the the interior,
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  produce it, and send it out.
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  But you get to weigh in on those decisions, and you get to weigh in on the cover price as well
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  because they're not dependent on that money necessarily.
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  So you can price it super high.
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  You can price it super low, wherever you want.
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  And then your royalty is going to be based on the difference between what you pay per book to
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  have it produced and what the cover price is.
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  So there is the potential to make a lot more with hybrid publishers as long as you have the
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  upfront money to invest to get it produced.
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  And what is that number?
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  What is that number?
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  Are we well, how much does
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  it typically cost to get a soft cover, you know, what, 5a half by It's 6, yeah, 6 by 9 is
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  pretty standard.
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  10 to 40000 and up depending upon the additional services that you might wanna add
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  onto that.
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  But at least 10,000 to get the book produced.
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  But the biggest benefit to hybrid publishers is instead of that 18 to 24 month window that you
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  have to wait, it's more like 2 to 3 months.
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  So if you have an event coming up, maybe a corporate anniversary, somewhere where you're
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  speaking and you need a book, hybrid is kind of the only option you have because traditional
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  publishers just can't make that timeline.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  If if you wanna spend even less, you could go the do it yourself, the DIY route, and use an
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  online platform like BookBaby where you pay per copy.
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  There are very few options as far as the cover design, the interior, but you can do it all
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  yourself online, and then you just pay per piece.
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  So you could get a single book for as little as $15 and produce them 1 at a time.
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  Means you you're not gonna make a ton, but you could have that have that produced in a couple
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  of weeks.
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  So those are the 3 main ones.
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  So as as you know, that's a lot of money you just talked about.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean,
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  you talked about somebody paying you 10 to $25 to do the book proposal.
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  Then if you decide to hybrid publish it yourself on the low end, it's 10.
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  On the high end, it's 40,000.
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  So would you help me explain to people because I I tell people all the time, I've sold a
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  100,000 copies of my book, and I'm not rich.
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  So Yeah.
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  And and the average nonfiction book only sells, what, 4,000 copies, Marsha?
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  It's it's even lower than that, I think.
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  However, last week, there was a new study that was released.
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  It's at authorroi.com.
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  And it was a study done of 350 business book authors who had worked with ghostwriters and, I
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  think, primarily hybrid publishers.
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  And they looked at, well, so what'd you get to your point?
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  You know?
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  You spend all this money.
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  What did you get?
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  And I wanna say 64% said that they they were profitable.
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  90% said that these other nonmonetary opportunities came about.
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  So although they might not have sold a 100,000 copies, all these other business opportunities
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  emerged that made it worth their while, and 89% would do it again.
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  Wow.
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  There's, yeah, specific numbers at that website.
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  I was not involved in that, but I was super curious to see that the business people who are
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  writing books for business reasons are getting value from it.
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  Oh, well, you definitely always get value from it.
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  I mean, but I like to tell people it's a very expensive business card.
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  You know, you give away as many books as you sell, typically, if it's a business book.
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  But can you talk about if if I want to hire somebody like you to help me, how do I do that?
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  Well, first off, be very careful.
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  Let me just say there's so many scam websites out there that they look impressive, and so
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  it's so easy to get taken.
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  So be careful.
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  I would say go to reputable sources to get names of potential ghostwriters.
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  You know, turn to your colleagues.
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  Ask, has anybody used 1?
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  And get names that way.
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  You can go to the Association of Ghost Writers.
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  We have a directory of people who have been vetted.
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  I've confirmed that they can write, and they have produced books.
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  American Society of Journalists and Authors also has a directory.
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  Editorial freelancers association.
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  Like, go to known places.
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  Don't go to websites that are, like, you know, best ever publisher.com.
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  I don't know if that exists, but you get my drift.
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  They're gonna say, hey.
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  We can write and produce your book for $2,000.
• 18:37
  No.
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  Don't do it.
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  Don't do it.
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  That's absolutely scam.
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  So if I wanna hire a ghostwriter, what's what's the ballpark I better be prepared to pay?
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  Look, I know I can't afford you, Margie, but I'm saying like somebody else.
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  If I if I wanted if I wanted to hire a ghostwriter to help me, what is what is like
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  low?
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  Give me a range of what we're looking for.
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  Well, I mean, the range is huge.
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  The range is anywhere from 10,000 to a1000000.
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  Like, we know that Prince Harry's ghostwriter got at least a1000000.
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  Wow.
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  But in that range, I'd say most books are between 20 to 60 is what you should expect for
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  somebody who has done this before.
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  Now at the lower end, you're gonna find people who may have ghostwritten a couple of books.
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  They might be Amazon bestsellers.
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  They don't have as much experience.
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  And if you're willing to take that risk, you know, you, for example, you don't need a
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  ghostwriter, but you've done this before.
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  You don't necessarily need a publishing consultant and a ghostwriter.
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  You you so somebody at the lower end, just be aware they're not gonna be as experienced.
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  People who are at at my so I charge 75.
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  75, and that's not even that high.
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  I know plenty of colleagues who charge a 125, a 150.
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  They're working every day on this book on your behalf.
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  And the thing that clients don't always recognize is that while the ghostwriter is
• 20:02
  slaving away, doing all the work for them, they can stay working at their day job.
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  You know, they're still earning money.
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  They don't have to set aside weekends or evenings to work on the book because that's
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  what their ghostwriter is doing.
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  So they can keep earning an income while also having a book produced.
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  Right.
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  So they can keep paying everybody.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, and also drawing their own paycheck.
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  Oh, for sure.
• 20:29
  So, Marshall, what is the best business advice anyone's ever given you?
• 20:34
  I think the best business advice I've gotten was from Michael Gerber in The E Myth.
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  Do you remember that?
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  It's it's a really old book.
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  But he talked about being a technician and being a manager or an owner.
• 20:47
  And when I read this book, I realized that I'm trying to run a business, but I'm so focused on
• 20:52
  the day to day, just getting that task done that I wasn't stepping back and looking at the
• 20:58
  big picture.
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  So he talked about working in your business, not on your business.
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  And when I could see that difference, it really made me come up with goals and take time every
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  day to check, like, is what I'm doing going to actually help me meet my goals, or is it more
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  busy work?
• 21:17
  Got it.
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  Got it.
• 21:19
  Wonderful.
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  Wonderful.
• 21:20
  Well, thank you so much, Marsha.
• 21:21
  You have been a world of information.
• 21:29
  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat Podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 21:34
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
• 21:39
  more fantastic information and interviews.
• 21:42
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 21:46
  website, succeed as your own boss.com.
• 21:50
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.