Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Ep 18: How to Turn Your Book Into a Powerful Business Tool and Authority Magnet

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Ep 18: How to Turn Your Book Into a Powerful Business Tool and Authority Magnet · Glovisor Podcast

• Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Most people believe they have a story worth telling, but very few ever share it. Why? Today's guest is someone who helps aspiring authors and entrepreneurs bring their message to life. Through writing mentorship, editing, publishing support, design, worldwide distribution, and strategic marketing, total publishing and media has become a resource for people who want to bring a book to the world. If you've ever said, one day I'll write a book. This episode may be the one that sparks that mood. If you've ever said one day, I'll write a book, this episode may be the spark that moves you from someday to published. Glovisor welcomes Peter Biadasz Hi Peter. Peter Biadasz: Hello, how you doing today? Joe Abreu - Glovisor: ⁓ great things in yourself. Peter Biadasz: Doing fantastic, thanks for asking. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Pleasure having you on the podcast. Peter Biadasz: Well, thanks for having me here. I really appreciate this a lot. This is going to be fun today. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Absolutely, looking forward to the conversation. All right, so let's begin. Every business has an origin story, but what inspired you to create total publishing and media? Peter Biadasz: Circumstances. As an author, my 10th manuscript was done and I was just unhappy with the publisher I was with. So I reached out to my network and I just asked someone, please give me an introduction to another publisher. Contact these folks, use a VP of a publishing conglomerate. I didn't know him, he didn't know me. I just said, me 20 minutes. Look me up at Amazon.com, you see I'm for real, just give me 20 minutes. Well, the 20 minutes turned into three months of negotiations. And at that point, the owner of the conglomerate showed up and he said, you know, you're writing a lot of books. most publishing companies deal with authors who write one to four, maybe five books. You're at 10 and you're going to keep on going. We can't handle you. He literally said, here is how you have a publishing company. Go to your business manager and start your own publishing company. I laughed because I learned they like to play practical jokes there. I was the only one laughing. Everybody else in the conference room was laughing. So I went to my business manager and she was like, if you don't do this, I quit. This is stupid easy for you. I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, okay, if you had a publishing company, what would you want it to look like? Well, as an author, I know I need, you know, editors, maybe ghostwriters, cover designers, typesetters, worldwide distribution, paperback, hardback, ebook, marketing. She goes, you're already teaching my first book, the business networking on more leads. You're already teaching that you're a total resource for everyone you come in contact with. That's what a networker is, a total resource. So she said, why not total publishing? Well, I said, we're doing marketing too. So she goes, total publishing and media. So just like that, we had the company name and total publishing and media, the total resource of the writing, publishing, and marketing books set in stone. So she said, okay, I'll take care of it. I'll take care of it. Three days later, I'm holding the papers from the lawyers. I now own total publishing and media, a company with zero customers. Okay, so I to two people on my network that I knew couldn't keep secrets for the life of them and went shh. That was on a Thursday. signed our first author the following Tuesday, the second author, the two days after that, I'm customer number three. So it was more of a necessity than really wanting to. That was like 15, 20 years ago. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Interesting. Wow. So most people take a lifetime to start a business, but that's it. In a short time, you just completely switched over and retooled and became a company. Peter Biadasz: Exactly. I always say prayer and persistence. can do almost anything you want. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: That is true. So what did you see in the publishing world that made you realize authors needed more support? Peter Biadasz: Well, being an author myself, I had been with a publishing company was not giving me the support I needed. ⁓ We are one of the few true author owned publishing companies. So when I meet with someone, we have the author to author talk, and then we talk publishing stuff. Most publishers, they have their name on the back of the book. My name's on the front of the book. And my authors have their name on the front of the book. I'm on the back too, but. I know both sides of the fence, both sides of the book. And so that makes a big difference to know what authors really need. Whereas most publishers, it's a business model. If I speak at publishing conferences, there's usually four or five of us. And I always tell the MC, introduce me last. Cause someone, I just know someone along the way, one of the other publishers is going to go, and we're published your own because I wrote a book. You know, you don't know if they wrote it or if was ghost written. But when it comes to me, it's like, OK, my 19th book came out last year. We've been working with authors for a couple of decades. They usually go, OK, that's an author owned publishing company. So he could talk author to author to you. So that's what makes us different. And also, sometimes I tell people, great idea for a book, let's work on that. And sometimes I'm like, maybe that's a good article, but maybe not a book. So the honesty comes in good too. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: ⁓ Now who is your ideal client? Is it a first-time book writer, a business owner, speaker, or an experienced author? Peter Biadasz: Great question. In some ways it's all the above. I always tell people that the three areas that keep us in business are one, someone has the idea for the book. It's up here. They don't know what to do next to get to make it like Microsoft Word document. In fact, that's one of the reasons I wrote right to your first book. That was my 15th book. I'll be able to let you Amazon review by your books. But you know, so they have the idea, but they don't know what to do next. Two, the manuscripts already done. They don't know what to do as far as getting it published. Or three, maybe the books already out there self published with another company and they're just not feeling the love. Those three areas keep us the busiest. ⁓ Because we publish every genre except porn, there's no real ideal client per se as far as you meet someone you go, ⁓ that's an author someday. Depending upon the genre, mean, lot of fiction writers are more secluded type people. A lot of the self-help people are out there just conquering the world. So you never know when you talk to someone, let's say flat out says I have an idea for a book. A lot of times people have information or creative people. Those are the people I love to talk with. ⁓ To me, there's a difference between being an author and being a writer. Us authors, we're idea people. We're creative people. Creative people love to talk to creative people. I have editors that make us look like good writers. Don't try to be a good writer. Be a good author. And that's probably the main thing too. If you go hear a speaker and they have great information, but no books to sell for the back of the room, they'll miss a of money in back of the room sales. So that's kind of an obvious one. Someone that has a lot of information. Someone has a blog, again, the information's already there. Poets, very rarely does someone go out and say, I'm a poet, I'm looking for a publisher. That's more of a personal type of conversation. But if someone has some really big insights, you may say, or ask, have you ever thought about writing that down? And then that's how we pick up a lot of poets. You never know. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: So you bring up a really good point about selling books in the back of the room as a speaker. ⁓ Some people say that the book world has really changed since the Internet came online and now AI. How do you see it changing? Peter Biadasz: Okay, you brought up AI. So I'm going to talk about that real quickly. Publishing has been around for hundreds of years. It's a very mature industry. So anything that's mature is going to go through some changes. I digital technology kind of made the big five publishers kind of not be as important as they used to be. Because at one time it was just a few publishers, they ruled the world. Now you've got, I think this country has roughly 50,000 publishers. Most of them are small. No, we're a size publishing in the industry, but it the authors more power and more variety. So the power shift has been from a few publishers to us authors, which I love. Okay. Now AI. Um, one thing I've been very fortunate is dealing with the U S Congress, a copyright office for a year, decades. Okay. There's some people there that are really good about talking about AI because anything that's touched by AI, AI cannot be copyrighted. So it's very important to make sure that what you're working on is not touched by AI because then you might have some copyright problems. We're in the information business. Intellectual property is just that, it's property. Okay? You want to protect your property. Okay? These are our babies. You want to protect your baby. Okay? When you get into stuff with AI, what AI is is oversimplifying it. Excuse me. AI is like a big database. Lots of stuff in there. It just pulls lots of stuff out. If you have copyrighted material that you own, when you put it into AI, if you read the terms and conditions, which no one does, except geeks like me in the middle of the terms and conditions is you agree when you scan some of the AI, you agree to let that document be used to train AI. So if you have something that's cooperated now belongs to the world. Okay. So I'm over here in the United States. If someone in France republishes it from AI. What's my legal recourse? Probably nothing, okay? Because I'd put it in there, okay? Likewise, if you're something from AI, it's a conglomeration of lots of different people, lots of different places, so it's not copyrightable. I've heard that, I mean, there's all kinds of lawsuits going on. Anthropic AI, last September, did an out-of-court settlement for publishers and writers, $1.5 billion. because they knew, on our side of the fence, know where stuff's being taken from. We know where stuff's being pirated from. And it's resulted in lot of what they call John Doe lawsuits. Let's say you, and I know you would never do this, Joe, but let's say you downloaded something of mine, okay? But I didn't know you. There'd be an IP address that says, okay, this IP address downloaded this. Now you go to the IP provider and say, I know something got downloaded. Who owns that IP address? They're gonna go, no, it's our customer. We're not gonna share that. But if you go to court, file a lawsuit, And the John Doe, the courts will then say, okay, now they will compel the IP provider to provide the name. So that person gets served a John Doe lawsuit right now in California. There's two judges that were complaining because their dockets has so many IP, so many John Doe lawsuits over IP downloading, mostly of movies from three years ago. So just because you think you got away with it, there's a thing called statute of limitations, but so, so my industry, I'm doing a lot of educating people about AI. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: ⁓ wow. Peter Biadasz: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It might be a good idea for a tool for your business, but if you're trying to create intellectual property that's copyrightable, it's a big flat no. And the folks at the Copyright Office last year put out a really great 52 page report, The Geeks Like Us Read, and they concluded that Congress needs to do something. So stay tuned. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: All right, but for someone who's listening right now with an idea in their mind right now, ⁓ what's step number one? Peter Biadasz: ⁓ that's I love that question. Get that question daily. Once you have the idea, you run your computer and open up Microsoft Word and label label the file book. You don't need you don't need it. If you have a working title, great. But a title is a one to five word summarization of the book. The book's not written yet. Don't try to summarize it. But book or an idea and then do a brain dump. Take 90 days and do a brain dump. Anything and everything you can think of that should be in that book. And this is regardless of genre. It might be a sentence, might be a thought, it might be a paragraph, it might be a link, it might be a picture, it might be a person, might be a circumstance, it might be a story, it go on and on. Just throw it in there, okay? Take 90 days, and then after you feel like you've really emptied everything out from here, something really strange happens. Once you get in that creative mode, know, one half of the brain is logical, the other half is creative. You'll be in this creative mode, and you may wake up at three o'clock in the morning and go, ⁓ that should be in the book. Don't worry about running the computer. Make sure you have pen and paper next to your bed stand there. Make sure you have pen and paper or you can record stuff on this so that when you think of that word, if you think of that word, say I'll it down later. When later comes, you'll forget it. Creativity is there, then it's gone. I'll become a master of writing in the dark at night by bedside. Doesn't look good, but I can understand that it's rambling. After you've done your brain dump, then you want to start putting stuff that's Related to each other topically just put them together strike club is just cut and paste move stuff around Okay, then after you've made stuff, so it's all kind of related to her. Then you then you say okay. I've got this clump of an idea of a book This could be a beginning and middle and end again regardless of genre beginning middle and end now beginnings important most books the studies have shown have not read beyond page 18 so you want to make sure that you grab the reader pretty quickly I run across a lot of manuscripts with the Author's saying, well, I'm trying to build up to something. Well, that's good. But if the reader's already put the book down, building up to something doesn't count. Okay. This is not, you're not writing for a grade. You're writing to sell books. Okay. So you're beginning, middle and end. Now on the end part, ⁓ Stephen have Stephen Covey, seven habits of highly successful people. One of the habits is begin with the end in mind. Okay. You're writing a letter to a target audience. Write down at the end of your list, how you want people to feel when you, when they get done reading the book. Okay. Write that destination down that you get this taken this journey. Then the map is guiding you to, I want them to feel empowered. I want to feel them educated. I want them crying because they're sad, you know, whatever you want, put that there. Okay. Then also define. You ask yourself the question, who's my target audience? Who am I writing this letter to? Okay. ⁓ also primary, secondary, tertiary target audiences. It's good to know the second and third, but their primary one, if I'm There was one manuscript I read years ago and the person did not know where their final destination was. And halfway through I said, you don't know where you're going with this, do you? And she was like, no, I really don't. said, yeah, I can tell. So I said, get that final destination so you know when you're done at least. Cause if you don't know when you're done, your readers are not going to know when you're done. So brain dump in order. then what I do with my usually, well, back up the psychology of the way a book is put together. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: You Peter Biadasz: important to know on this one. The front cover entices people to pick up the book or click on it online. The back cover motivates people, open it, and then the table of contents and other beginning material motivate people to buy the book. Okay. So what I do, once I get my outline, my brain dump turns into an outline. What I will do is I'll copy and paste the outline. So I, the outline twice in my, in my Microsoft Word document. The second one is what I'm writing from. To me, a book is nothing but a series of articles. I will write an article about every topic that's in my outline. Because when the audio articles are done, the book is done. And sometimes you don't have to write it in order. Not a fiction book, you probably want to write in order for scene purposes. But a nonfiction book or a poetry book or an illustrated children's book does not necessarily have to be written in order. It needs to tie together, but that's what editors are for. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Right, so if you're writing a biography, you can just do a big dump and then come back and then set everything. And then an editor can help you set it correctly how to make those transitions from one subject to another or a scene to another. Peter Biadasz: Correct. Yes. Also when you write your first draft, be in creative mode, just write the first draft. It's going to stink. Okay, I'll tell you that right now. I've been doing this decades. My first drafts will still come kind of questionable, but the draft is done. Again, one half of the brain is logic, the other half is creative. So if you try to write, then fix something, then write, then fix something, then write, then fix something, you're going back and forth between your corpus callosum, you'll drive yourself nuts. Just write it, get that bad thing done. Know the learning curve when the first book is really steep. It took me five books to kind of figure this whole thing out. But then every time you go through correcting and correcting, it gets better and better and better. Because what you're trying to do, especially with your first book, you're trying to find your writing voice. It takes you years to develop your speaking voice. But if you listen to radio and you hear an artist come on, they start singing. Sometimes you know before the first part of the first verse is out of their mouth, you go, ⁓ I knew that is. Your writing voice is the same thing. I'm primarily a non-fiction writer even though I've written some other stuff too. The biggest compliment I get is, hey Peter, I was home, I was reading your book, or at work reading your book, I could hear your voices, I'm reading the words on the page. I'm like, yes, my writing voice is where it's supposed to be. So it takes time to develop that. It's a craft, like any craft, the more you do it, the better you get. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Now, is there a goal number of pages that you have to write a book or, you know, or is there, you know, if it's fiction, it has to be between 100 and 200 pages? Because sometimes I see that people, when they talk to me about writing books, they're like, well, I have to write 300 pages in order to make a successful book. And I'm like, well, maybe subject has a lot more to do with it. But, you know, you let us know. What do you say about that? Peter Biadasz: Okay, there are industry standards. I tend to ignore industry standards because when someone's buying the book, do they go in the bookstore or wherever they're buying their books and go, you know what? I'm looking for a 240 page book. Or they going, I'm looking for certain information. We're in the information business. Okay? So to me, size doesn't matter. It's about the content, regardless of genre. You've got the Bible, which is the biggest selling book of all time, pretty thick book. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Okay. You Hahaha Peter Biadasz: Then you get out little books like Who Moved My Cheese or illustrated Jules book that sell a lot of books. They're just a few pages. ⁓ So it's, it's, this book is a good example. Okay. I was doing seminars on the basics of writing, publishing and marketing books for a long time. And people would keep on saying, where's your book and how to write a book. Great information. I'm like, no, no, no, no. The world does not need another book and how to write a book. Go to your bookstore, go to the reference section, buy a book on how to buy a book, how to write a book. Okay. So that for years. And then finally I was at a Barnes and Noble in their food section doing a little seminar and someone asked a question. said, look, I can see the reference section from here. When I will get dismissed, go run, buy your book and how to write a book. you know, the next day I was meeting with the pastor and it was almost like the voice of God. And when he said, where's your book and how to write a book. And I was like, oh, okay. So I went to the Barnes and Noble, was out there before. Went to the reference section and picked up the books on how to write books. And what I learned was they're pretty thick. Small print, really boring, okay? My target audience is, I wrote this for my target audience, small enough to get rid of an airline flight, small sections for no back reading, and addresses what busy people like me need, and like you need, and in here it says up front, if you need more information, go to the reference section of your book, of your bookstore, okay? So again, I wrote a letter to my target audience, it's worked out really, really well. So, and again, it goes back to your target audience. Now, when I'm dealing with some authors, I'll say, okay, who's your target audience? And they'll go, oh, they're males and females, 18 to 34, they do this, they buy this, they drive this car, they eat this. Then there's other people I ask, who's your target audience? they'll go, you know, that's a good question. What's a target audience? So I'm dealing with all kinds of people and that's fine. I love education. That's part of what I do is educate, okay? So when you ask these kinds of questions, it goes back to the target audience. The target audience may not care. Like we just did a fiction book, fantasy book. It was 834 pages, I think it was. It pretty thick book, okay? But people in that genre, they're buying 800 page books, okay? Now, the industry will say, oh no, 240 pages, I 320 pages. So what? People are asking for it? We're gonna do it. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: So a lot of people think writing the book is the hardest part, but publishing and marketing may be a little bit harder. What's the biggest misconception that authors have? Peter Biadasz: Everything you just said. Really? Okay, writing the book. way I teach writing the book, when you have the idea, that's like conception. Then the baby, know, just takes in the mom, the writing process and the editing process, that's in mama. Okay? To me, publishing is easy. Birth is easy. Birth is gonna happen. The baby pops out. Okay? Now what do babies do? They lay there. They look cute. Some of them. They... Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Hahaha. Peter Biadasz: They poop and they pee and they eat, they roll over and they go back to sleep. Okay. That's what books are. Then you did they kind of crawl. Then they total. Then they do bigger school. They go through the terrible teen years and become adults. Books are the same way. Okay. Studies have shown on average, takes 18 to 36 months for a book to start to gain traction. Okay. Writing is difficult, but there's tools there publishing to me. That's easy. I mean, that's what we do. That's easy. The marketing from then on speaking as an author. And the more books I write, I've had people that bought my 19th book, they had never heard of my first book way back when. So those sales go up. Okay. If you start writing multiple books, people will learn about your body of work and everything too. ⁓ one of the biggest case studies in our industry is the chicken soup folks. Okay. 144 million books sold biggest in our industry. What most people don't know, and this is what case studies are really kind of cool. What I read was it in years one through eight, when the first book came out, didn't do a whole lot. It did some, it did do a whole lot. In years eight, nine, or 10, there were two years, the author spent the time doing two radio interviews per day per author. In year 10, they became an overnight success. Okay? And so that's what you see a lot of these overnight successes, but when you look at it, yeah, they put the work in, the marketing work, or they had the marketing dollars. Years ago, there was a book that came out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere. So within the industry, we were like, what's the story behind this one? Yeah, they had a marketing budget of several hundred fifty thousand dollars and invested a put one point two million dollars the whole thing. Now, the big question is what how many books are still sitting in the warehouse? Did they break even then they make the money back? So so those are things you look at. So this is a marathon. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. Plus, the other thing, too, is, you know, as you know, when you go to the business world way back when for me, most of the people you're working with are older than you. Then you have the time of life, most of them like your age, then you have time of life, almost everybody's younger than you. Understand those times of life and what you're doing because I've been through the whole gambit and I spent so much time working with people in their 20s and 30s now because this is new for them. They've never learned this stuff. So it's a whole lot of fun that way too. So there's always purpose, but being it for the long haul. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Yeah, I'm sure that they want to hit publish and be an overnight success is what I imagine. Yeah. So what's Peter Biadasz: Yep. And you can do that, but then the alarm clock goes off and you wake up and realize that was a dream. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: So what separates the books that sell and the books that sit? Peter Biadasz: To me, it's marketing. There's a lot of really good books that never sell because no one knows about them. And there's other stuff that people buy because they know about it. You know, I believe in quality of books, obviously, but let the world know the books exist. My marketing method from decades has been networking. Everybody has a network. Studies have shown that people know at least 200 people, but you probably can't name 200 people. Also in our industry, the average book in its lifetime sells 200 copies. So that 200 numbers kind of consistent now for total publishing and media authors, I helped them organize their network because you want to, you want to get to 201 books. We usually when those 40, 45 days to become a head of the industry. Okay. You want to be head of the industry. Um, but because of marketing, um, regardless of what your book is, if you, if your publishers work with you to understand your message and your target audience, you can talk about your regular, but your book regularly and also There's also book events, you book signings, which are fun. Speaking, you enjoy that podcast, you know, radio, mean, media, there's, there's many ways to talk about your book, but you have to know what your message is. Now, one thing that's interesting, um, my degree is in psychology and clinically trained. you learn all these little statistics on things. Um, if someone asks you like in a book signing, Hey, what's your book about? You have literally have eight seconds studies have shown before someone decides. I want to learn more or when you take a breath, I'm going to run away. So when I'm teaching authors about how to talk about their books, a lot of times I'll ask someone, hey, what's your book about? And they go, ah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, on and on and on and on and on. I'm like, okay, here's the stat. Now, 30 seconds, what's your book about? In 20 seconds, what's your book about? In eight seconds, what's your book about? And the people that deliver that eight second one, those are the ones selling books because you know, if you're working with a prospect or a suspect as far as buying your book. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: This is true. Now, how important is the part of the cover design, the title selection, I'm sure that's huge, ⁓ in positioning just to get all the attention up front. Peter Biadasz: Yes, ⁓ very important. Years ago one of my mentors, ⁓ I won't say ordered me, but he's a mentor so you know what they say. He said go to a bookstore, go to biggest bookstore you know and walk up and down every single aisle. I mean you're primarily not fixing right about walk up and down every single aisle. When you find a cover you like stop, look at the cover and ask yourself the question, why do I like that cover? You find a cover you hate, stop and ask yourself why do I hate that cover? It took maybe three to four hours to get to the bookstore. It fascinating. What I learned was non-fiction books, titles between one to five words with a subtitle with attractive cover art you can see from 20 feet away. Fiction books cover the titles usually one to five words, no subtitle. The artwork is the subtitle. Okay, as I said before, The back cover motivates people to pick up the book. So the verbiage is very, very important. A lot of times we have someone that says, I have a cover idea. I'm like, good. Art graphics people, they study what sells and what doesn't sell. You may have a great idea, but how does it apply to your target audience? ⁓ I never thought about that. That's why we do what we do. ⁓ I have a family member that's a great artist and I really, they made this really cool artwork and we want to it for the cover. I'm like, great. How does it apply to your target audience? I don't know, but it's really cool artwork. Okay. Doesn't fly. Now, occasionally someone will present a cover to me and I'll kind of, I'll go, ⁓ you, you know, stuff nine times out of 10. were like, no, we don't. We just got really lucky. And one time they'll go, ⁓ yeah, we know what we're doing. This is what we were. We're in marketing. We're graphic. We do graphics too. yeah. Okay. But their artwork is very, very important. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: So can a book become a powerful business tool? And you had mentioned this earlier of speakers selling in the back of the room. But how about authority attracting clients? How are some of your clients utilizing books? Peter Biadasz: I was doing a book signing with one of my authors who's real successful. He's a big in the car industry, has his own TV show, et cetera, et He makes a lot of money with the book. And when I wrote the book that I was using for the book signing, he said, you know, that book is an atomic business card for your company. I said, tell me more. So I ended up writing an article titled, your book could be your atomic business card. I put his name on the article too, because it was his idea. And he said, take my name off. You're the author. I just do cars. So this is part of the mentoring that we do is. The book should be just a part of the complete marketing plan. If it's used for business purposes, it's just one peg in a lot of pegs. It's a matter of how to use that peg. A lot of times people will take up, we can turn blogs into books, okay? So if the blog's already out there, that's hitting one certain audience. Let's repurpose that information for another part of your target audience, okay? So it can be like an atomic business card. That's what this book has been. My book, More Leads, what if I'm doing work with business networking groups? some atomic business card in that sector, but it's knowing what book applies to what sector. I wrote a book for IT, a book for leadership, so I know for those sectors it's very specific. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: What are the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing? Peter Biadasz: Industry standards. You put you put books in front of people that know books. You can tell real quickly if things are up to par or not. By the way, their typeset, by the way, the verbiage is you want to make sure that you're presenting yourself the very best way that you can. And there are tools out there that people can self publish your books. But the other thing, too, is we have a very big catalog. If you're associated with a publishing company, now you are the coattails of that publishing company. You get you get to associate yourself with all those other authors versus being out there on your own. It's a very complex and mature industry. It's been around 400 years. So if you want to self-publish, there's a lot of studying you've got to do or should do to be a professional in that space. Basically, we've already done that for you. You know, and there's ongoing education too. And that's my previous publisher. That's probably where they dropped the ball with me too, is because even though it was a mature industry, they didn't say, okay, we're your publisher. We're here for you no matter what. or a phone call or email away. So you have the orphans running around. But if you're on your own, you're literally on your own. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: So now what about if I self-published a book and I haven't had a lot of sales? Can I contact you and you can help us? Peter Biadasz: Yes. ⁓ yes. We pick up orphans all the time. We can, if you have your press ready files, I know you laugh, but that's what I call them because it's true. I was an orphan for a while there too. But yeah, if you have the press ready files that we can get you as a part of our umbrella very, very easily. We'll take a look at what you've already done for marketing. We do a lot of marketing teaching. yeah, let them work with folks like that because they've already done the hard part. they realize, and those folks realize how much value we offer. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Yeah. Peter Biadasz: because they've tried to do it on their own and realized that, this is a very mature industry. It's very, very complex. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Sure, so now if this is my first time, I contact you on day one and I say, I have an idea, you give me the instructions, I'll go and write up my book. Now what happens then? I come back and I say, Peter, I have my book done. Where do we go from? Peter Biadasz: Okay, once you have the manuscript done as good as you can make it, usually at that point, there's a lot of free things I do for authors. At that point, I'm gonna give them three more ideas of things they can do to make the manuscript even better. So then you come back again, ⁓ and then usually you do an editorial critique, have a critiquing editor look at it, make sure that ⁓ it's ready for the editor, then we have the editing, true copy editing, then we go into the design, worldwide distribution, and then marketing. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: So you get a lot of free stuff at the beginning. I mean, a lot of your time and a lot of recommendations. That's fantastic. So usually when it gets to the editing part is that we're now we're really a business, right? We're getting into the business side of it. Peter Biadasz: Yes. Yeah, we'll yeah, at that point, you know, they were talking about talking pricing for products and services. ⁓ But I don't like to talk pressing up front because everybody's needs are a little bit different. So, you know, if someone's coming in with come to me, the book self published with press ready files. You know, that's not going to cost a whole lot at all. OK, if someone needs a ghostwriter or illustrators, stuff like that. OK, now now we're talking something a little bit more. But even within all that, there's layers so that the author gets what they want. Plus their budget, I work with people's budgets too. I mean, we're not a one size fits all from that standpoint too. I'm an author first. So if people are going through hard times, we can work with that. If they're going through affluent times, we can work with that too. So I really try to customize it for that. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Do you want to pause right here? Do you want to drink water? Do you want to drink water? It sounded like you were coughing, so I didn't know if you wanted to drink water. Sure, no problem. Peter Biadasz: Pardon? Yeah, allergies. Look, I love the allergies. I spent a lot of ⁓ the weekend doing yard work. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Gotcha, gotcha. All right, no problem. We'll drink some water now. Peter Biadasz: Thank you. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Well, I can tell in your voice. said, okay, I feel like he wants to, I would want to drink at that point too. Great. Uncut. So, all right. So that's fantastic because an individual can come to you with their manuscript or they're thinking of starting the manuscript and they can already get some direction without having to pay anything. don't, you know, they don't have to make a big investment, but at least we get them into that action. We get that. Peter Biadasz: Yeah, yeah, but on here I'm kind like, ⁓ okay, thank you. Feel much better. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: book out there. So get started through the process. That's wonderful for most people. ⁓ But if this individual says, I need someone who's a ghostwriter, can you explain to us what is the ghostwriting process? What do they do and what's the process? Peter Biadasz: Yes. Yeah, ghost writing projects, always, you know, a couple of those going on at the time. Usually those are people that fall in one of two categories. One, they're usually like doctors, lawyers, professionals that is really, really, really, really busy. They don't have time to write literally, but they have a great idea. Okay. The other category is people have great ideas, but they know they can't write. You know, we respect that when someone says I have a good idea. know I can't write. need a ghostwriter. But the ghostwriting process is, is to me, it's easy. But it's also mysterious because I say, get us as much information as you can in your project. You go to Word, write what you can, give us ideas. You know, just give us as much as you can in a brain dump or whatever you're thinking. Then I will try to find the ghostwriter that fits best for that person in the genre, the timeframe, the budget, things like that. And then the ghostwriter will usually interview the writer. usually a series of interviews to try to get their feel, get there with the writing voice is going to be like, and just get the good rapport. There'll be interviews throughout the entire process. Usually the ghostwriter will then write a paragraph or two, send it to the author to say, okay, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. This sounds like me. This doesn't sound like me. So the front end goes a little slow, but then it picks up speed really, really, really, really quickly. Now we were doing a ghost running project for Dr. One time. And we, I think we did three or four projects for him. He calls me up one day and says, this ghostwriter that you got for me, I got a question for you. He'll call me up, ask me a couple of questions. It almost rudely hangs up on me. But I go to my computer that night and there's this chapter that's beautifully written that sounds just like me. How does he do it? And I'm like, I have no idea. The way I picture ghostwriters is that they're somewhere in a basement or an attic, little lamp on and you're just typing away and they're brilliant people. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: you Peter Biadasz: but they have no people skills. Now that's just me. I love Ghost Writers. You guys are great, okay? I'm not saying anything bad about you. But that's just what I envisioned because at the end of the day, they deliver something mysteriously to the author. The author goes, yeah, don't know how he did it, but yeah, I want my name on that. So yeah, it gets interesting. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: So they capture your message, they write a book on your behalf, but they don't get any credit at all. Peter Biadasz: Now that's a case by case basis. had one author, well, it was at the same, the same doctor, the ghostwriter, um, it was a subject matter. He was very, very, very passionate about. And so we came to a contractual agreement. said, look, if you put my name on the cover and you're as written by or presented by, I will help actively market the book. Cause I really believe this one so much. So we came to an arrangement on that. His name was on there. He was, he was doing marketing stuff. It was a great arrangement. Um, some ghost writers. would want maybe to be acknowledging the acknowledgement section. And some ghostwriters are like, this is a contract job. don't want any, no, I'm behind the scenes. I don't want people to know who I am. Cause there are some ghostwriters that really are recluses, which is okay. So, and that's one thing we talked about with the ghostwriter before every project. You know, what are your expectations for, for notoriety or publicity or, or, or whatever. And usually it's a very easy conversation because usually everybody's on the same page real quickly. So yeah. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Excellent. Now, do you have a success story of one of your clients that came to you with a manuscript and you helped them along the way? Peter Biadasz: ⁓ gee. How much time do you have? mean, seriously. My favorite. Gee, I got a lot to tell you. way back when this female from high school, ⁓ her and her parents, she was writing vampire ⁓ stuff back in the day. Vampire, truly Jesus. I think we've published five or six of her books. By the time she graduated from high school, she had a job waiting for her at Disney. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: ⁓ Well, give us your best one or your favorite. Peter Biadasz: And then she went from there to Universal Studios. I ran into her mom a of, a few months ago just to see how she was doing, you know, we were just talking and stuff. And basically her life from the, from high school on was set because of the books, which is pretty cool. There had another author, ⁓ that he, ⁓ has made seven figures on his book, but not so much from selling books, but it's because of the business that the book brought into his business. So another author, a book came out, he ended up running for public office. just the notoriety from the book helped him and get served several terms in public office. So, and there's other people who just use it as a topic business card for their business. We have some people that were able to leave the nine to five job because now they're pursuing their passion. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Interesting. Peter Biadasz: So, mean, again, I could probably write a book on all the success stories. Thank God for that, yeah. I feel really honored just to be a part of the whole thing, to be honest with you. It's pretty cool. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Excellent. FYI, I just gave you the idea about the book, so maybe I need my name at the bottom somewhere. The answer's always yes. That's right. Peter Biadasz: Yes. The answer is always yes. Make it real easy. Easy decision. Easy decision. Yeah, it's really kind of funny. We did a book signing a couple of weeks ago and I like to do multi-authored book signings. You know, six or more authors. And I always have some veterans and some newbies. Okay. First time authors. I mean, newbie in the nicest way. Okay. So one of the guys in the end, he had really, has a really good book, but he's never done public stuff before. Okay. So he was kind of quiet at the beginning of the three hours. Okay. And he was watching everybody else and we were talking marketing plans and a Tom taking some notes. And I went over and talked to him as everybody else did during the three hours. So at the end of the three hours, I walk up to him and say, well, this is your first book signing. What did you think? And he got this big smile on his face and pulled out these pieces of paper. said, I now have a marketing plan. I didn't have a marketing plan three hours ago after seeing what you guys do. I know a marketing plan. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Ha ha. Peter Biadasz: To me, that was a success story. And I know him that he's gonna, he's working that plan now. And he'll end up selling quite a few books. But more importantly for him, it's public speaking. He wants to do some more public speaking things. And he's tied in with some pretty large companies. So he's one of those at 12 months from now when I'm talking to him, he's gonna go, remember the marketing plan I did in that book signing a year ago? This is what happened. So there's all kinds of success stories. And he's not a business person. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Bit up. Peter Biadasz: He never knew what a marketing plan really was before the book signing. Other than our discussions, but he saw. He took the theoretical that he had heard about and saw the practical. And it came together for him. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: If everyone listening could leave with one publishing truth, what would you want them to know? Peter Biadasz: One publishing truth. It's never too late. I have several authors in their nineties that we're working on books with. ⁓ it's never too late. ⁓ we have one author and he is just cranking books out like crazy. He's retired now. I think he's always wanted to write books and never had the time. And now he's got the time and he's, I mean, we'll be in the middle of editing one book. And he said, well, I just completed another one. Yeah, it's coming to another one. Why is the only one taking so long? And I'm like, because you're a monster. This is great. You're a machine. Good stuff too. So yeah, it's never too late. Also, it's never too early. I mean, I think the youngest author that we published was eight years old. know, being encouraging, the encouragement, no matter where you are in life, just the encouragement. The first time you hold your book, as an author, I'll never forget the thrill. I've done this 19 times. The first time you hold a book you just wrote. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Yeah. 8 years old. Peter Biadasz: You can't duplicate that feeling. It's really cool. It really is. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Now who should be contacting you? Peter Biadasz: How to contact me? Joe Abreu - Glovisor: No, no, who should be contacting you? Peter Biadasz: Oh, who should be contacting me? Well, as I said before, there's three categories of people. One, someone has the idea for a book, they don't know what to do next. Two, the manuscript's done, they don't know what to do next. Three, the book's already out there, sell published or with another company and just not feeling the love. Or I'll say four, you're a speaker, you're a presenter, you don't have books for back of the room sales. Yeah, nothing talk to you. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Makes sense. And where can listeners connect with you and learn more about total publishing and media and continue the conversation. Peter Biadasz: Okay, yeah, total publishing and media, ⁓ total publishing and media.com. The and is spelled out A and D. not the ampersand. You can call me at the office. 9 1 8 6 2 4 9 300. I'm never there. Just leave a message. I always return my calls or emails same day, if not next day, even on weekends. That's the other thing too. As an author, I know most events occur on weekends. So many bookstores are not used to being able to contact publishers on weekends. If they have this number. They can contact me on the weekend. So no problem there at all. ⁓ And then ⁓ emailed peter at total publishing and media.com. Plus I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, I have YouTube channel. I'm easy to find. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Excellent. Well, Peter, thank you so much for the conversation. Peter Biadasz: Hey, thank you for having me here today, Joe. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for putting up with my allergy-laden voice here. Joe Abreu - Glovisor: Not a problem. Thank you again. Till the next time. Peter Biadasz: You're welcome. ⁓ definitely, definitely.