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How Ghostwriting Works (with Nick Pavlidis) · The Daily Writer

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things people come to us and part of the writing process that a lot of people overlook is the planning process.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: You plan a book that is positioned to look right in people's hands, to look right on the shelf or on the Kindle or on Amazon.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it gets the right people's attentions, gets them to take the next step, which is to look, to pay attention to you.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you're looking at the cover, to flip it over to the back cover, from the back cover to the table of contents, and then skim through the book before they buy it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's all about taking the reader through a process, through a journey, so to speak, of getting to know the author and then getting to like entrust the author.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Kent Sanders, and this is the Born to Create Podcast, where we explore the stories, wisdom, and insights of creative thinkers who can help you make a bigger impact in your art and your life.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever wondered what it takes to become a ghostwriter?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mysterious part of the writing industry that, by definition, remains hidden from view much of the time.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, our guest today helps shed some light on the whole world of ghostwriting.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Nick Pavlitas, and he is a ghostwriter who specializes in creating professionally written and designed books to help entrepreneurs, speakers, consultants, and professionals expand their influence and enhance their market positioning.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Nick also writes under his own name, most recently with his book called Confessions of a Terrible Husband: Lessons Learned from a Lumpy Couch.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nick also hosts three podcasts Confessions of a Terrible Husband, which is based off of his book of the same title, Attorney Marketing Institute, which is self-explanatory, and Five Minutes with Dad, which he hosts with his two kids.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: On this episode, you'll learn how ghostwriting actually works and how a book can help build your career and increase your business.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Nick also shares practical tips for being more successful in connecting with influencers.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: After the show is over, be sure and check out our show notes at KentSanders.net slash zero zero one.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Before we dive into the conversation with Nick, here's a brief word from my friend Jim Woods.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, I'm Jim Woods.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a writer and I absolutely love good stories.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you, if you want to reach your creative potential, one of the best ways to do that is by listening to the Born to Create podcast.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, Nick, welcome to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much, Kent.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm honored to be here.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you can maybe take a few minutes and share with us your journey from how you went from being an attorney to a ghostwriter, that that is quite a journey that we don't hear of too often.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can share with us that journey, that would be great.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I practiced law in New York City for 10 years, straight out of law school.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the whole time I loved marketing, I loved the writing, I loved the speaking, I loved the interaction that I had with clients, but I did not like the law part of it.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: I really enjoyed the analytical side of it, piecing together the law with the facts, with the goals of the client, and even beyond, I was a litigator, corporate and bankruptcy litigator.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: So even beyond that, that litigation side of it, but the real business goals of the clients or personal goals, most of it was corporate stuff, but business and personal goals of our clients, and tried to help them put together a plan that would help them achieve those bigger goals, even in the midst of, or sometimes through, the legal services that I gave them.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I just loved that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And my the biggest knock in my law practice from the people who were evaluating me was that they didn't feel I quote loved the law.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: I heard that over and over and over again.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I agreed with them.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I don't.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: I like what we can do with the law.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: I love people though.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I really enjoy what I'm doing.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I understand the the intellectual side of it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: I love the analytical side of it, all that stuff, but the law is not what gets me moving.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's what we can do.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So as I got to be busier and busier and busier, I kept getting the bigger and bigger cases and was really, really uh doing well from uh from an attorney perspective, but it was just too much pulling me away from my family.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was a litigator, corporate bankruptcy.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: That meant people could have millions of dollars frozen on a Friday afternoon or a s or sometimes even on a Saturday, I'd have to come into the office.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And one year on my birthday, I had to go into the office out for family vegetable picking, and it was just not the lifestyle I wanted.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I searched for things that I could do that would take pieces of the law, at least the parts that I liked, everything but the law, and make a profession out of it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't want to just abandon it.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: My wife stayed home with our two kids at that point.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is say 2013.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I reached out to a client of mine who had an office near my hometown and where my wife and I are both from the same area in Massachusetts, and I said, Hey, do you need a lawyer?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: I want to come work for you so I could it's part of a two-step plan to launch this business idea of mine.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And she didn't need a lawyer, but I made her an offer that she really could not refuse and said, I don't care what you pay me.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I only care about four things.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: I care about not working weekends.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: If there's an emergency, you'll have my cell phone number, you can call me.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I just I want the default to be I'm not working weekends.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going, I I want a set schedule.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care what the schedule is, I just want a set schedule.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: I want to own my uh online profile because I explained to her that what I wanted to do was build a writing and speaking and coaching business online.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: The fourth thing was um I don't want my email on my phone.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a little weird.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I told her, listen, uh I I understand this is 2013 or 14, whatever it was, at that point, but I don't care what you pay me.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's an emergency, you'll have my cell phone, but I don't want every little buzz or ding to be me thinking my, you know, my I'm not gonna tuck my kids into bed that night.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I started uh working there.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: She was fine.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: I took a pay cut, well over$100,000 a year pay cut, and uh I was there for two and a half years, so I like joking with people that I paid whatever,$250,000 to not have email on my phone.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that was um, but but I did that because what I wanted to do was be able to serve people and commit to an appointment time with people so I could build my writing on nights and weekends.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: So from 8 30 p.m.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: till midnight or on Saturday afternoons, that's when I built my business.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I just started writing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: I kept writing.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: I started with Confessions of a Terrible Husband, and then I used that book as a business card to showcase some of my writing and a little bit of who I am and and where I had come from to get to know people.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: That confessions led to a referral to another book, second book, third book, and uh two and a half years later I left that the practice of law, and I've been ghostwriting and building now uh a small agency that has 10 or 12 people working in various capacities.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So this is something I hadn't sent you in in the questions, but something that kind of comes to mind that I think is really interesting about when I look at the different things that you're doing.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a podcast that you do with your kids, you have the Confessions podcast, which I know I don't know if you're planning on doing more episodes of that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's been a few months since you've had episodes of that one out, but that has been an incredibly successful show.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have your attorney marketing institute show, then you're doing ghostwriting.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything that ties all those together ex except you know, because there are obviously different topics, different genres, different audiences.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Is the thing that ties all those together is that strictly it kind of represents interest of yours, or is there anything else that that ties though those disparate pieces together?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Part of it is I guess there's two things.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Number one is yes, it's definitely interests of mine.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's things that I love to do and do well, but really the well, maybe not the husband thing, but really the that that I I'm do I'm working on, but uh not necessarily do well.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Confessions I have put on pause, and basically I have things in a priority um uh sort of ranked by priority.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: So if something has to get cut out of my schedule, it's confessions because other stuff's busy.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then I don't want to cut out my five minutes with dad time because that's when I get to engage with my kids.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Attorney marketing is dude, I committed to doing in season so I can batch episodes and stuff.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing that that sort of ties them all together, really the concept of relationships and personal accountability.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: So my Five Minutes with Dad podcast, it really we talk about leadership and growing up and just building, being nice to people, building good relationships at school, at home, with our family, with animals, with our society, with our uh with our with the globe, things like that.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh with Confessions of a Terrible Husband, it's all about personal accountability and relationships and just looking at ways that we can be better people to other people, specifically our spouses.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: And Attorney Marketing Institute, just like with with when I you know share about building a ghostwriting business, Attorney Marketing Institute, it's all based on a principle that we only need to have build relationships with three types of people in order to have uh business coming in on a regular basis over time, and those are prospects and different types of referral sources and influencers.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I find that really interesting because so much of the advice that you hear out there from people who are doing writing or speaking or creative work or online business, you know, things of that nature, they say that basically you should pick one niche and you should go deep in that niche.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: But would you say that sometimes the opposite can be true as well, that you can have your hand in a variety of different things and those things can actually complement one another and help build on one another?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh absolutely.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: I there is value for sure in concentrating on a niche.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: So even Attorney Marketing Institute, I I have that brand because I connect with them and I've been successful in that industry.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: But even my ghostwriting stuff, it's the same message, the same process, just applied in a different way.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Nitching uh in my mind is more of a marketing thing than a business thing.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: So with Five Minutes with Dad, that's just something I love to do.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of grown on its own.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: We have over a hundred thousand downloads for a podcast started by a four-year-old, which is just crazy.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Confessions of a Terrible Husband is more than triple that, and it's and we only have 40 something episodes and don't update it a lot.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: So there's something about having this passion and this belief and and creating a simple message that that really gets me excited and connects with people.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: So with ghostwriting, I say, look, there's only really three things you got to do in your book.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: And with attorney marketing, it's that there's only three people you need to build relationships with.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Forget about this technical lead gen and all that stuff.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so from a niching perspective, it it's it's definitely easier to focus on one thing and keep going forward.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: For me, if I did that, my personality would get not bored, but I need to be more well-rounded than or have my life be more well-rounded than if I were to just focus on one thing, just lawyers.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I so I enjoy having those other parts of it uh as well.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think that'll come as a a huge relief to a lot of people listening who have kind of heard the message of you just gotta pick one rut and stick with it basically until you feel successful.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because so many creative people, and you know, I think all of us are we have the ability and the opportunity to be creative, but sometimes some people think of themselves as more creative than other people.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, some people look at the kind of work they do and they think, well, this isn't really creative, but you know, all of us are doing work that is creating value for other people and is creative on some level.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a relief to a lot of people who may think, well, I have three or four things that don't really tie together.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is it okay if I if I'm creating in those sort of niches or if I'm doing these different things that don't tie together?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think that's uh that's really great advice.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I tell people if there's one that you're starting to feel really attached to or that's getting traction, treat that as if it's the your full-time job, so to speak.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: What even if you're only working 10 hours a week on your creative thing, focus half of it or three quarters of it on the one thing and building that, but give yourself the your own side hustle to your side hustle by tickling the other parts of your creative um you know, your creative flow that you want to make sure you get out there and keep moving forward.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want to circle back to the ghostwriting aspect for a few minutes because a lot of people have questions about the ghostwriting profession because by definition of what it is, it's a little bit mysterious.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, by the nature of what it is, it's sort of in the background because you know, ghosts, ghostwriters don't normally put their names on the front of books, and it's very much a an in-the-background type of thing.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what is involved in being a ghostwriter and how do you get to become a ghostwriter?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: With me, uh I I tend to do things a little bit differently.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you look up big ghostwriting agencies that have been around for a while, you'll see a bunch of book covers on their website.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: These are the books we wrote.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, maybe it's just my years of being a lawyer and advocating on behalf of other people that that just uh it just doesn't interest me.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: I know there's value to have your name on books and you can show people your books or whatever.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: But for me, I help people connect their knowledge, their stories, their uh capabilities, their passions to people who need that knowledge or need those stories in order to move forward in some significant way.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people are great writers.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: They just don't have the time to write.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: If they had to take, I focus on business people for the most part with my ghostwriting.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: So if they had to take time out of their day to write their book, they would they could potentially lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, or they could uh have to lay people off because they don't have money coming in.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I help them outsource the creation of their book, telling their story in a way that connects with people.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, we had one writer who um who recorded a video testimonial, I still don't necessarily mention it all the time, but he recorded a video testimonial about working with me, and he runs a marketing business.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's a premier marketing business, it's it costs, it's it's not you know dozens of dollars, it's hundreds of dollars to work with him, uh his agency, and he wanted to attract people to his business.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I worked with him to write a book about how to essentially make him irrelevant.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Here's how to do what we do so you can do it yourself.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And we talked about that, and he was nervous about that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're sort of giving away not necessarily all the secrets, so to speak, because a lot of what he does is he has relationships with marketing partners that people won't have.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: He'll teach you how he does everything, but he's not going to give people cell phone numbers, in other words.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: So we worked, uh we worked together, we put together a 30-day plan at the end of his book.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: We said, This is if you want to get started with this marketing tactic, this strategy, here you go.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: This is exactly how you do it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the equipment you need, here's everything you need.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people got his book and perhaps did it himself.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: But when I saw him four months after he self-published his book, he told me that he had already generated$6,000 a month in recurring revenue from people who got his book, saw he knew what he was talking about, and just gave him a call.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, what I try and do is find that sweet spot for authors so they can demonstrate their expertise in a way that allows people who would never have hired them to begin with because they don't have the budgets or because they're DIYers or whatever reason they are, that allows them to improve their business or personal life in some way and reflect great on the author for the people who don't uh or wouldn't do that, just want to say, okay, this person knows what she's talking about, I'm gonna go hire her, uh, and just attract people to them.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because the P if you help enough people through your book make some progress, if someone says, Hey, how did you lose a hundred pounds?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I read this book.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're gonna come, and maybe the person they're referring or they're talking to is gonna hire you to be their weight loss coach, or maybe they'll buy your book or whatever.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: So what I do is I try and find these people, uh, usually in my networks, and now it's by referral, but who have great message messages to sell and to tell and stories to tell, but need that boost, need to be able to do it in such a way that they can make traction in the market.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: That makes a lot of sense.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there is it's kind of a misconception, I think, with ghostwriting that ghostwriting means, okay, you, Nick, or whoever the ghostwriter is, that you write the book and the person who is paying you or hiring you to do the service has nothing to do with the process, and they just slap their name on the book cover and sell it.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you would say that is absolutely not the case, correct?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because it really is much more of a collaborative process or can be than than that is.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely can be.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've had someone who has sent me 25 blog posts and I turned it into a 60,000 a word book.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we had a one conversation with them and I followed them online, sort of saw what they were up to.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then when they got that 60,000 word manuscript, they went through and they became an editor saying, Oh, this is a phrase I like better than this or whatever, and they just went through and edited their book and we finalized it together.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: I've had someone send me a video course and say, Can you turn this into a book?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it's essentially not transcribing because the the art of telling a story on the uh in print is different than if someone can see you waving your arms around or hear your emphasis and stuff like that.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I've done everything from turn my course to a book to here's literally 25 blog posts to a book to um interviewing people and lots and lots and lots of people for a book.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: I have one book coming out in February of 2019 where we interviewed people all the way all across the country and it was really, really involved, and the author turned into more of an editor.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I have never had a book where someone said, Hey, can you just write a book about planting roses and then put my name on it?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: So there is really, and this is kind of the point I'm trying to get across to people, is you know, for those who who have never written books or aren't familiar with how the book writing and publishing process really works, there's really kind of a blurry or fuzzy line between the terms of creating content and editing and or even ghostwriting, and there's a whole spectrum of things going on there, you know, because a good book is never the result of one singular individual from start to finish, you know.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you turn in a very clean draft of a book to an editor, it's still going to be edited.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's still going to be people who are helping to shape that content and contributing to it, and then you have cover designers and copywriters and all that stuff.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's never the result of one single person, uh unless that person you know doesn't have any sense about how things work, and you know, they they put out a really cruddy sort of book because man, seems like if you if you're the only person involved in creating your book at all, then it's probably not going to be a very good book.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the there's a different part of the brain that you use when you're creating a book versus when you're editing a book versus when you're designing the layout.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that attracts people to my agency is we walk them through very mostly me, but very, very, very carefully through.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what do you want your life to look like three years from now?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: And how, and what book do we need to write to help you get there?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we plan its business strategy, it's life strategy, it's yeah, I understand, but you're a partner at a law firm.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: If you write this book that has nothing to do with law, how is this going to offer that return to you?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: You're not trying to be a consultant.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to be a consultant, this book is not the right book for you.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: I had a lawyer call me up and said, Hey, I want to write a book about real estate law.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: I said, fantastic, we can write a book about real estate law.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: We can even make it interesting.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine that.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: We'll tell stories about buildings that were built and some of the issues they came up with, or whatever.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Or we can create it as a, you know, almost like a fiction story where we we demonstrate some expertise in the law, whatever.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, This is we can do this several different ways.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want to do with your law practice?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, I want to get more clients.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Okay, if everything goes right, what type of law do you uh what type of clients do you want?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, I don't know.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: I said, What do you like most about real estate law?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Nothing.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: I said, wait a second, nothing?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Yeah, I I don't really like it, but I've been doing it for 10 years.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's my that's my thing.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's sort of this person was mid-30s, maybe.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: I said, So that's where you're committing to until you're whatever, 30, 40 years left in the law, you're just gonna lean into it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm not the right writer for you.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, what are you talking about?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I'm not the right writer for you.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because when we write books with people, it gets them more of something.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the last thing I want to do is write a book that you just can't stand.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna get phone calls three years from now.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, I got your book on the real estate law, I want to hire you.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Every time you're gonna get work you don't like to do.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things people come to us, and part of the writing process that a lot of people overlook is the planning process.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: You plan a book that is positioned to look right in people's hands, to look right on the shelf or on the Kindle or on Amazon.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it gets the right people's attentions, gets them to take the next step, which is to look to pay attention to you if you're looking at the cover, to flip it over to the back cover, from the back cover to the table of contents, and then skim through the book before they buy it.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it's all about taking the reader through a process, through a journey, so to speak, of getting to know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: The author and then getting to like and trust the author.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're that's what separates great ghostwriters from good ghostwriters, and I hate to say that because I'm talking about me and I don't I don't like this, you know, say oh I'm a great ghostwriter, but that's what separates the books that perform really well from the books that don't perform well is that planning process.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you would and you would also say, you know, the cover design has a lot to do with that as well, and you know, the the back cover copy that's selling the book and the even things like the subtitle and all those things.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know you had mentioned that before in one of our mastermind groups, how important those elements are, which can be really easily overlooked a lot of times.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, people do judge a book by its cover, and uh the I often say that the words are the seventh most important, and I haven't done the math.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's the fifth and maybe or maybe it's the ninth.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: But the words, if you're if you're not the best writer, we have tools that can help us improve writing.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: We practice and can improve writing.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: You can charge less when you're not as good a writer, and charge more when you when you write faster and better or whatever.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: But what you can't do is you can so you can put decent words inside a book that are interesting and convey a message, but if no one's going to pick it up because the cover design looks like it's unprofessional or it's confusing or the name of the book doesn't give the right feel to the person, they'll never pay attention to the book.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Then the next thing people do is they turn over the back cover copy.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: If they see, if they see that Mark Cuban endorsed your book, or if Mark Cuban endorses your business book, yeah, you put that on the back cover because that tells people, hey, this person whom I respect uh thinks this book is worth reading, or you have some creative copy on the back that says this is what you'll get out of the book, and it's all focused on if someone were to buy this book, why would they buy this book?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: What positive impact would they want this book to have on their life?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Do they want them to get more dental patients?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Do they want them to get more legal clients?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: Do they want them to lose weight?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: So make sure the cover lets them know hey, this is a book for you to achieve something that you want to achieve.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Not about me telling you how smart I am.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing on the back cover.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Then when they flip that open, if the back cover convinces them that, yeah, this is gonna be interesting to read and help me in some way, they look at the table of contents.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's basically your menu of you're at a restaurant, these are the ten things we got.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: If you like what this tastes, if you think you're gonna leave here feeling full and great and and and all that stuff, then you're in the right spot.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that table of contents gets them to buy it.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes they'll flip through.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're doing one thing with a book now where the the target audience is a real busy high-end corporate leader.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: So what we're doing is we're putting a quick summary type of section at the end of each chapter that's like a quick takeaways that's going to be shaded and really highlighted because we we believe that that reader will not just look at the front cover, the back cover, and the table of contents, perhaps the endorsements, but they'll also quickly flip through it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: And if they see these dark sections that that communicates to them in their language, like here are the cliff notes of this chapter, then they'll say, Okay, this guy, this guy gets me.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna get this book and I'm gonna give him a chance.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that is so true.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Boy, I couldn't tell you how many times I've you know, stood in a bookstore or nowadays it's on Amazon.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I always go to the table of contents.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I did that with a book just a couple days ago, and saw that it was something I really wanted to buy or listen to, so kind of took the next step and thought, well, I I gotta have this book, you know, because it was it was framed in a way that made me want to purchase it.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and so when you ask this within within the context of how do you become a ghostwriter, it's for me, what gets me clients is being able to communicate with my clients in a way that makes them feel like I have their best interests in heart, which I do.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: But if they don't feel that, then they won't want to move forward with me.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: If I can speak their language and understand what their goals are from the book, both by asking and by focusing on the business community.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's where my mind is, that's where my brain is, business, legal, coaching, the stuff that I'm familiar with, but understand how they get clients and what clients will do for them and say, look, we need to plan a book.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: If your if your target client is someone who wants to um whatever, wants to lose weight, then we need to speak in their language.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: So what kind of book, what can we put in this book that'll make your book different than other people's and communicate to them?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: So when you speak their language, it it makes it really, really uh almost easy to get clients.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you have seen a lot of doors open for your clients after they have a book out because it helps establish their authority, credibility, helps to get clients, um, and that type of thing.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Would you say that's generally true of authors as a whole where you know you could you could have a level of success in whatever field you have, but there still very much is that perception that having a book on a topic does mean you're a credible authority on that topic.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so in general, you would really encourage people, obviously, to consider writing a book if they want to establish their authority in their space.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And not only to have that presence, that expert presence, but there are two things, or three things really, that a book can do for authors that goes very much underlooked and that a lot of people don't even try to do, and that is to start getting the benefits of their book while they're writing it.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: So number one is we if you're a business person, especially, and you're writing a book about your process or your sales or some sort of something that's important to you, the act of organizing it into a book helps clarify your message, helps you clarify your message, and it helps you improve your sales pitch when you're going into places.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: I had a client who came to me and wanted to write a book about this.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the client's really, really well established in a particular niche in a particular type of business.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, I want to write a book that's three things.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's it's who we are, and it's these are the things that we do, and this is why what we're doing is important.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: And when we got deep into the here is what we do section, there was a lot of um practical things.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: We uh we visit our clients once a week, we uh spend three hours a day with them, we do these things.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's also there was also sort of the um the less tangible things where it's like we have these types of conversations, we have we ask them these types of questions, we so there's the real practical stuff and sort of the touchy-feely stuff or whatever.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: So what I suggested when we were putting down in in paper, it just wasn't coming across really well.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I suggested we reframe the conversation instead of this is what we do, we break it into this is what we do and this is how we do it type of thing.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: So what we do, this is the impact we have on people, and this is how we run our businesses, type of thing.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And just that process, and this guy had been doing it for over a decade, and he said, I have always had you know challenges communicating that, whatever it was.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: We had this really great conversation, and now it's a four-part framework.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: So just the act, and this is what someone at the top of their game, that just the act of organizing it into a book content made him more effective in business.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing it does is it allows you to network and offer things to people.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things I know we talked about a little bit, where there are three types of people you need to grow in your business.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: One is prospects, the other one is referral sources, which I call gatekeepers.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the third one is influencers.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: So these are reporters, uh bloggers, podcasters, things like that in your niche, the people who your future clients listen to, read, talk to, pay attention to, follow on social media, that type of stuff.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're writing a book on how to be creative and how to use creativity in the workforce, you could reach out to bloggers who write about workplace creativity, you could reach out to uh journal freelance journalists, you could reach out to podcasters and say, hey, you're really well known in this industry, I'd love to include a quote from you in my book.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you're writing your book and you have something to offer of value to these people because they want to have their image enhanced.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: They want to have uh some I was quoted in a book or whatever, and if they say, Oh, and I'm not interested, oh well, no big deal.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: You don't lose anything.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: But you have something to offer to people who can help, it can be mutually beneficial for you in the future and for them to continue building their uh their role as an expert or someone relevant to that industry.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: So the act of writing a book, being able to hand someone a book tells them you know what you're talking about, you can organize it into a format that's more than 15 pages, and you're someone to pay attention to, especially when it's done well, presented professionally.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: But if that's the only benefit you get out of the book, that's great, but you're missing some really big things like networking opportunities while you're writing and the benefit you get on your business to begin with.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I would say that all that is so true, and that's been my experience as well.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say someone is listening to our conversation and they want to write books or maybe they they have written some books.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any advice that you would give them about whether to pursue a traditional publishing agreement for the book or to do independent publishing?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on that and and how people can best choose which route to go with that?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: It depends a little bit about your goals.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't wait for permission from a traditional publisher to get a book out.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you can organize your thoughts and you learn new things, and having that book will open up conversations so you could always write a second book or a third book.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I know we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit if someone's just getting started with their first book.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I would start writing it, start organizing it, start planning it.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: And um traditional publishing has its advantages over self-publishing, but self-publishing also has advantages.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you self-publish, generally speaking, you make more per book because you don't have to split the profits with a publisher.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: But you're not, that's not, especially if you're doing business books, but uh that's really not where you are making all your money.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're making your money off of your book by having it point back to your business or helping you transition your business or improve your life and with some other value that's even more uh important than the money.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: But you might go from making a dollar fifty a book in royalties to five, six dollars a book per royalties.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if you sell a thousand books or ten thousand books, it can really add up that difference.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: But if you plan your book so that way that five dollars is only part of your process because you have other things to offer people that your book helps them uh move closer towards, then um then you know it's really not the the five dollars or whatever is not that big of a difference.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the other thing is traditionally published books generally have more distribution.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: You don't always, or I maybe not even often, you don't always, you don't often have uh help.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of publishers, especially first-time authors, they'll say, Yeah, we'll publish your book, we'll distribute it, but you got to market it like you're the only person in town.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: You have to market it as if it is self-published, create the buzz on social media, with networking, with friends, and things like that.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: But generally speaking, traditional published books will sell more copies than self-published books.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have your, if you're a business book and you have people pointing back to like the marketing person I talked about earlier who had the$6,000 in recurrent revenue from it, his was just self-published.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: I work with one publisher who has, generally speaking, four times the amount of sales as a self-published book or then some.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: So if you, for example, I think only 20-something percent of their sales are on Amazon.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: So if you self-publish and only have your book on Amazon, if you're the average book, you are essentially having or giving up three books out there floating in the world for every one that you sell.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: So if your book is a salesperson, I like to tell people a properly written book is like having salespeople floating all around the world pointing people back to you.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: So if you self-publish, you only have one-fourth of the salespeople out there pointing back to you.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: So there are definitely advantages and disadvantages.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Self-publishing is quicker, you have more control, you have less cooks in the kitchen, you can just get it done and get it out.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Traditional publishing, you have some help, but it takes slower.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Bookstores, we have I have a book that I turned into a publisher, I want to say in April, and it's and so April 2018, and it's not coming out until the end of November.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: I had another book, November 2018.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so if that were self-published, it would be in the bookstores, or not bookstores, it'd be up on Amazon right away.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you generally have six to twelve months longer before your book will get into the bookstores because Barnes Noble and Books a Million or whatever have their seasons already planned out well in advance.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: It does worry me a little bit now, though, because you know, the whole thing with self-publishers all along has been, you know, you have more control over your distribution, your pricing, all that stuff.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: However, really, all that you've done is you've transferred from the publishers then to Amazon because Amazon is the big dog in the room.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: They sort of can just make up whatever rules they want.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think we're always unless you're going out and either, you know, whether you're mailing out books yourself from your house or going out on the street corner and selling books, you're always gonna have to have a distribution partner of some kind.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I g I guess there's always a risk in there somewhere.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: You you've got to have these business partners who are stocking books and distributing them and sales channels and all that stuff.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, there's lots of print on-demand options or you can print things.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have a lot of authors who are who are essentially giving their books away.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: They're starting because their book is part of a process to help people by giving them more courses or consulting or stuff like that.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: They'll we've seen many of us have seen them online where it's free plus shipping.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: Just cover my shipping costs and I'll send you the book.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's either$5.99 or$7.99 to cover the shipping.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: And while that seems expensive, I can tell you that comes from uh fulfillment houses.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's how much it costs for postage and shipping.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's shipping and handling.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they'll order a bunch of books and it'll cost them a few bucks a book because they order them by the hundreds of thousands.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: They'll ship them to a warehouse, they pay the storage fees, and they pay$575 or$7.75 or something like that every time someone places an order for the for shipping and handling.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're literally, they're not making any money.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, they're losing money.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And some of them even say, Listen, I'm gonna make you a promotional partner of mine called an affiliate in the in the world of marketing.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna make you a promotional partner of mine, and I'm gonna give you a special um URL, special link that if someone comes to my website from your link and gets my book for free, I'm gonna pay you, and there are people who pay 20 bucks for to g for the right to give their book away because their book is so well positioned to lead to bigger business that it's worth giving their book away for free and paying someone 20 bucks to send someone to their website to do it.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: So um if you do have it, that can be a perfectly fine self-published book because it's part of a marketing plan there that no one necessarily knows or cares.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's on some website, free attorney marketingbook.com or something like that.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, that is a website that I own and perhaps we'll use someday.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: But um, so it's on some sort of a website.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it really depends on what you're doing with the book.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: But self-publishing world, if it's just up there on Amazon, like I haven't promoted Confessions of a Terrible Husband in in years, and it's and it's always surprising when I I if I log in and see a commission there, and part of it's I don't know why it's maybe it's because the podcast is still getting some downloads and people go over there, and I mention it in the show notes of my kids' podcast.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're self-publishing, you need to hustle even more than if you're not.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: And part of that is the planning process.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as we start to wind this interview down here, I want to shift gears a little bit and uh talk about the issue of personal development and habits.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's something I really want to emphasize on this podcast is the importance of, you know, developing our creative lives is not just this random haphazard thing that happens whenever we feel like it or whenever we feel inspired, but it is really a matter largely of habits and routines.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: What are some of the key habits that you try to integrate into your life now that you feel like really contribute to your success?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: I like to get up early.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: I used to be a night owl, and I still I don't I still can stay up late, but I tend to go to bed early.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a big sports fan, and I've just I I've gotten to the point where I can go to bed before the baseball game's over, and I feel really excited about that.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm like a person or something, I don't know, like uh more in control of myself.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: So waking up early, getting out of the house early in the morning, I sometimes with my kids, but many times by myself, um, will get up and take a walk in the morning.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I try to make that a routine, although I haven't uh I haven't done it every single day.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: So getting up, getting productive, feeding my brain early in the morning is something that's really important to me.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then blocking my time is something that I have uh I've when I when I do it, I do really well.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh sometimes there's crunch time.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like right now I'm in the middle of a crunch time.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: A book that I'm that I'm writing has one less week to be written than we had all planned because of a publishing deadline got pulled up.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's it's great though.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be a fun project.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be celebrating it getting done a week before I planned on celebrating it getting done.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: So very true.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I so I am looking for the looking at the bright side of that.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: But blocking my time, getting up and getting moving in the morning uh are two habits that I um that have really impacted me in a positive way.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Any specific books or even podcasts, uh resources that have really made a huge impact on you the last few years, have you as you have made this transition into ghostwriting and more of a creative entrepreneur type of thing?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I for the books, uh, the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks has been big.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: I believe you're reading it as we speak.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh in fact, I've I can show you I've got this uh quote on my phone.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: My well, it uh went off here, but you can can you see that on scope?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's a modified quote, his I forget what he calls it, his daily mantra or something like that.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I modified it for my own kind of uh situation, but yeah, that's yeah, what a fantastic book.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a great book for uh so uh Mindset by Carol Deweck, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, those were pretty big.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, there's Mindset, yep.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've got it on my desk right now.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh those are two books that really impacted me recently.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: I also like the The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: I read that recently, which was uh based on a true story of a cleaning company who couldn't figure out why their turnover was so poor.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: So they would lose employees every 60 days or 90 days or something like that.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's relatively typical for the cleaning industry.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: So they tried giving people raises, it didn't work.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: They tried getting people, because they were generally lower income, many of them didn't have cars, tried getting them transportation, bus service to get to work, that didn't help.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: And only when they started listening to them about their dreams and then help coaching them to help achieve their dreams, even without giving them money to do so.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: So someone said, Oh, I wanna I want to buy a house.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: So they said, All right, let's figure out your budget, let's put things together, what payments do you have, whatever.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: So they coached people to using what they had to achieve what they wanted, and they ended up with turnovers so low that they had to uh they had to not let's just say push people out of the nest, but they did it in uh in a loving way.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: But they they that book is really inspirational book, so I really I really enjoyed those.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: Those are probably the ones that had the most impact recently.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on the current trend?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I guess it's not super current because it's been around for a while, but the trend of having business parables, stories, that's kind of the style of the book I'm working on.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm curious, you know, as someone who's very involved in the publishing and writing world, why do you think those books have become so popular the last 15 or so years?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's because there's a lot of poorly written uh books that are very preachy, teachy, um me, me, me type of style that the parable style is so refreshing because it takes it eliminates that as a possibility.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: There are way too many books.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I I went through a recent book where an author had written a first draft, they sent it over to me and it was I, I, I, I, I, and it's not intentional, but I changed it all to we, we, we.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: That is the audience for that book was a business leader as well.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I I I told the author, I said, if you say I, I, I, this is a business leader, they're gonna feel like you're lecturing them.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: No, make it we, make it a call to action, make it a rally.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: You're rallying the troops, you're you're getting people excited to come alongside me.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that turned that book into a real refreshing read, as opposed to something that was just someone getting, you know, feeling like they're being yelled at by someone.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I think a lot of it's just because self publishing world opened up uh uh opened up the the book industry to people who are essentially putting out marketing materials with a book cover, and um the vast majority of books out there are or maybe not the vast majority, but But it feels as if there are a lot of books out there that are all about the author and parables making.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody loves a great story.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: So what's coming up next for you?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Any um any special projects, any new new ventures?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Anything you want to share?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I have two things that I'm working on that I will likely be hosting from my my main ghostwriting website.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: One is a book and course on how to plan, write, and promote a book the way we do it.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it's basically you don't need if you if you're a DIY person and you just want that sort of expertise on planning a book that's gonna hit the market and point people back to you and help them improve their lives in some meaningful way, you don't have to hire us.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Just follow what this book tells you.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we're working on that.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: I have one of my associate ghostwriters working on that with me.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's gonna be a companion course that walks people through with checklists, like, okay, answer the four questions, write, print out this PDF and answer the four questions.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it walks you through everything there.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then the second one is for people to teach them how to become ghostwriters, how to become freelance writers, uh, so and essentially put me out of business.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: So my goal is to put myself out of business by letting people know exactly how to do what we do and letting people find clients, you know, find our future clients.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Have you found it's the case that whenever people are afraid of sort of sharing their insider knowledge about something, like the gentleman that you mentioned earlier said he was kind of afraid of sharing his process.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: Have you found the opposite is actually true that whenever people get the inside scoop on your process or your knowledge, that that doesn't put you out of business, but actually it increases your business because it it establishes your authority and trust with people?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: And not only that, um there's if you are a higher-end service provider, there are there's a group of people who really need your help who you can't afford to serve.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: Not because of you you need to make more money or or anything like that.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you're busy and you have high-end stuff and you're you have high-end costs because of it, it just doesn't fit into being able to do all of the things you need to do because you have employees to pay, you have other things, uh other people to pay, business partners and stuff like that.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it allows you to help more people and it allows better books to be written in my world.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: It allows better marketing strategies to be there.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: And when people, even when people, if people get my book and they say and and they write their book on their own, and someone says, How do you do it?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna hand them my book.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: And they're if that person is someone who doesn't have the inclination to do it themselves or doesn't write fast or doesn't write well or does whatever it is, they're gonna call me.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: So absolutely I have, and that's why when people uh my my team members come to me and they say, So what are we doing here?
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I say, Okay, we're trying to put ourselves out of business.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: And now they just laugh and they say, All right, I get it, I get it.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's like, should we put this in the book?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, put it in the book.
• 46:54
  unknown: Put it in the book.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: Put our like I help people with some social media in my ghostwriting agency.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I um give away our content planning templates, all that stuff to people uh because it really does just uh it good good things attract people, I guess.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we try to do as many good things as we can.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: And people are always gonna need help implementing those things, no matter how much detail you give them, you know, they always need help with things, at least I do.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: I tell people the only things I charge for are organization and customization.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't charge for information.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: So the book is organized, you're gonna pay for it.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: Cut if you want me to walk you through your strategy and ask you the questions and push and ask you why that's important and ask you what would that do for you, and ask you what do you want your client to feel?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want them to feel excited?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want like the reader?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I if you want me to push you, then you're pay for that.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: But if you just want the process, um my attorney marketing stuff, you listen to my podcast, you can do everything.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: You follow me on social media with for writing or marketing, you can do everything.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not going to be organized because it's randomly, you know, little tips over time.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: So absolutely.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: Information people can Google.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: When you're offering something people can't Google, that's when you don't have to worry about money.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking of social media, last question here: where can our listeners find you online and how can they get in touch with you?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: My ghostwriting website is sort of the hub.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: So if you go to authorityghostwriting.com, that will uh that will have pretty much everything there.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you look for my uh LinkedIn and Twitter are my two favorite social media platforms, Nick Pavlitis, I'm both of them, uh, you'll find me there.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Nick, thanks so much for making time to do this.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the way that you've impacted my life, and I look forward to connecting further.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm honored.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you enjoyed that interview with Nick Pavlitas.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of every interview on this show, I want to share several things that I learned as a way to process the information that our guests shared, but also as a way to make this very practical for you.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: So here are several takeaways from my conversation with Nick.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, take control of your life.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: Nick was not happy with his life as an attorney, so he made a shift.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: He took control and he created the life that he wanted to live.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Are you a passive observer to your own life, watching it go by year after year while your dreams slip away?
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: If so, maybe it's time to take back control and make a plan to work toward your dreams.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, it's okay to not focus on just one business niche.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: This goes against a lot of conventional business wisdom today.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, there's a balance and you need to have a primary focus, but you can be involved in more than one thing, especially if you're the creative type and because you're listening to the Born to Create podcast, of course you're the creative type.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love how Nick's various pursuits all inform and sharpen each other.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, there are really interesting cross-promotional strategies that you can do.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: For example, like what Nick does is he promotes one podcast on another one of his.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, the goal of any business or organization is to serve people no matter what type of work that you do.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is especially true of ghostwriting because the nature of that role demands confidentiality and not usually getting the credit for the work that you've done.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: However, this service mentality is key no matter what type of work that we do.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're all creating art, whether it's books, music, sermons, dance, painting, whatever it is.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, all that art is in service to other people.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Number four, use Nick's strategy for reaching out to influencers.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: I loved his ideas about asking influencers for quotes that you can use in a book or in other types of writing.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: This way, the influencer receives value because it promotes their work, but you also receive value because it helps build a new relationship.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I love those types of win-win strategies where everybody benefits.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: Number five, the power of getting up early and blocking your time.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to become more and more of a morning person, but it's hard for us night owls to change.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: Nick reminds us that it's totally doable and how it can impact your life.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: I also love his thoughts on blocking out your time and focusing on one thing at a time.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is a really powerful strategy that can help you get a lot more creative work done.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Number six, a book does not sell well based on content alone.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: So what Nick was talking about here is the fact that the marketing elements of a book are crucial if you want to make sales.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not enough just to have a well-written book.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: You also need to have a great cover, a good title, a catchy subtitle, some good back cover copy, uh, some good endorsements, a table of contents that relates to the reader, and so forth.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Number seven, writing a book can give you authority and credibility.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: When you put yourself out there as an author, people start to view you as an expert, as somebody who knows what you're talking about.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that you're an author can help lead to increased business.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then finally, number eight, you don't have to be the world's greatest writer to create a book.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: And this is perhaps the greatest lesson of this interview.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to write books, you can get help from other people who specialize in creating books.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Whether that's getting help from a ghostwriter, a co-author, or simply friends who are giving some feedback.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Bringing a book to life is truly a community effort.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the invaluable assistance that a good editor can bring.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: Don't let the fact that you don't consider yourself a quote unquote writer stand in the way of making an impact by getting your book out into the world.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, friends, that wraps up this episode of the Born to Create Podcast.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can find the show notes at KentSanders.net slash zero zero one.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: For more great resources to help unleash your creative powers, visit my site at KentSanders.net and you'll find all kinds of things there that will help you in your creative life.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review on iTunes.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: It only takes a minute, and you can do this by visiting KentSanders.net slash iTunes.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love reading these reviews.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're really a lot of fun.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: When you subscribe and leave a rating and a review on iTunes, you're helping others find the show.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: And when you leave a review, please include your Twitter handle and your review so I can give you a shout out here on the podcast.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks in advance and thanks so much to those who have already subscribed and left a rating and a review.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or a family member who you think would benefit from it.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, this is Kent Sanders telling you to go create something awesome.