Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Ep. 52: Your Story Could Be Your Biggest Business Advantage - Sean Mabry (Ghostwriter)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Your voice is your advantage. Learn how to turn it
- 0:02Speaker 1: into a book and elevate your authority and expand your impact.
- 0:08Speaker 1: Welcome to the Global Advisor Podcast, where we explore business growth, communication,
- 0:12Speaker 1: and personal development through real conversations with people that make
- 0:15Speaker 1: an impact. Today's guest helps experts become authors whose books
- 0:20Speaker 1: do more than just sit on a shelf. They become
- 0:23Speaker 1: powerful tools for building authority, creating deeper connections with readers,
- 0:28Speaker 1: and generating new business opportunities. Through strategic storytelling, messaging, and
- 0:34Speaker 1: book development, he helps entrepreneurs uncover the story that sets
- 0:38Speaker 1: them apart and transforms readers into loyal clients and advocates.
- 0:43Speaker 1: Glowvisor welcomes Sean Mabry.
- 0:46Speaker 3: Thank you, Joe. Great to be here.
- 0:48Speaker 2: Looking forward to the conversation. Sean, please share with us
- 0:52Speaker 2: a little bit more of what you do.
- 0:53Speaker 3: Yeah, so I am an author coach and ghostwriter, which
- 0:56Speaker 3: means one way or another, I help people get their
- 0:58Speaker 3: books done, whether they're writing the book themselves with my guidance,
- 1:02Speaker 3: or they want to just go ahead and hire me
- 1:03Speaker 3: to write the whole thing for them.
- 1:04Speaker 2: That sounds like that's a lot. So what inspired you
- 1:08Speaker 2: to pursue this path?
- 1:10Speaker 3: So as far as writing in general, I've been writing
- 1:12Speaker 3: since age 12. I actually had a visit from Destiny,
- 1:16Speaker 3: if you can believe it. Our music teacher asked us
- 1:19Speaker 3: to go home and write these short stories, and Mine
- 1:22Speaker 3: was about destiny visiting this shy young boy and telling
- 1:25Speaker 3: him he'd go on to do great things. And my
- 1:27Speaker 3: music teacher, a man in his forties was so moved
- 1:31Speaker 3: by the story that he read it aloud for the
- 1:32Speaker 3: rest of class. And I could see even in his face,
- 1:36Speaker 3: how much it touched his heart. And from that point forward,
- 1:40Speaker 3: it was like, okay, well, this is clearly the thing
- 1:42Speaker 3: I'm supposed to do. Uh, and as far as I
- 1:44Speaker 3: got into ghostwriting in particular, my first ghostwriting client reached
- 1:48Speaker 3: out to me at a time when I did not
- 1:50Speaker 3: offer ghostwriting. and said, Hey, you know, so-and-so says you're
- 1:52Speaker 3: the guy that wrote my book. And because I didn't
- 1:56Speaker 3: offer it at the time I was doing copywriting, right.
- 1:59Speaker 3: I was doing a very different sort of work, but, uh,
- 2:02Speaker 3: I said, look, I'll have the conversation, right. I'm happy
- 2:05Speaker 3: to get to know you. And I ultimately tried to
- 2:08Speaker 3: refer him out to another ghostwriter that I trust. And
- 2:11Speaker 3: he still came back and said, no, I think you're
- 2:13Speaker 3: the guy. So I'm like, okay, let's, let's try it
- 2:15Speaker 3: as an experiment. And then next thing you know, here
- 2:17Speaker 3: we are.
- 2:18Speaker 2: What's the difference between being a ghostwriter, a copywriter? What
- 2:22Speaker 2: are the differences between those two worlds?
- 2:24Speaker 3: Yeah, so traditionally, a copywriter is someone who writes sales copies.
- 2:28Speaker 3: So you think of anything from promotional emails to Facebook
- 2:33Speaker 3: ads to even traditional TV commercials. That's copywriting. Ghostwriters typically
- 2:39Speaker 3: write books in the most traditional sense. Um, but lately
- 2:44Speaker 3: we've also seen that expand to include, uh, like there's
- 2:47Speaker 3: a lot of people on goes on a LinkedIn now, um,
- 2:49Speaker 3: positioning themselves as LinkedIn ghostwriters. So essentially they will write
- 2:53Speaker 3: your LinkedIn posts, um, in the voice of the CEO, right.
- 2:57Speaker 3: Or in the voice of whoever else, um, uh, they
- 3:00Speaker 3: want to represent. And that last shift is kind of
- 3:04Speaker 3: interesting to me because when I first got, got into
- 3:07Speaker 3: the industry, like that, that's more what we would call
- 3:09Speaker 3: content writing. And there still are content writers out there too, but.
- 3:13Speaker 3: I think ultimately, the key distinction is that when somebody
- 3:17Speaker 3: is getting into ghostwriting, it's extremely important to capture the
- 3:22Speaker 3: voice of the client, way more so than in a
- 3:25Speaker 3: copywriting position. Like in copywriting, yes, it does matter to
- 3:31Speaker 3: some clients to have their voice represented. But more often
- 3:33Speaker 3: than not, they just care about whether the copy converts
- 3:36Speaker 3: the sale, right? If it happens to sound like the
- 3:39Speaker 3: CEO or not is kind of secondary. That's not secondary
- 3:43Speaker 3: if you're going to be a ghostwriter. That's the number
- 3:45Speaker 3: one thing. It has to sound like the client.
- 3:49Speaker 2: One of our listeners wanted to work with you. What
- 3:51Speaker 2: would that journey look like?
- 3:53Speaker 3: Yeah, so typically the first thing I do with people
- 3:55Speaker 3: is take them through a story mapping session, which is
- 3:58Speaker 3: where we lay out all the different topics they want
- 4:01Speaker 3: to talk about, all the different stories they have, all
- 4:02Speaker 3: the lessons they want to pass on. And from there,
- 4:06Speaker 3: we decide what goes in book number one or the
- 4:09Speaker 3: next book, right? Because a lot of times, very rarely
- 4:12Speaker 3: do I get people that don't have an idea of
- 4:15Speaker 3: what they want to talk about. The problem is they
- 4:17Speaker 3: have millions of ideas on what they want to talk about.
- 4:21Speaker 3: And the important thing in writing a book is that
- 4:24Speaker 3: we have to narrow that down. We have to start
- 4:26Speaker 3: making decisions around who is this book for? What is
- 4:29Speaker 3: this book about? And what can be saved for a
- 4:33Speaker 3: future book, right? Because anyone who's going to have one
- 4:36Speaker 3: book should probably have multiple. And so... that's a whole
- 4:40Speaker 3: idea of like mapping your stick. I call it mapping
- 4:42Speaker 3: your story territory because it's like all these things are
- 4:46Speaker 3: yours to share. Like you absolutely have a claim to them,
- 4:50Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean they need to go right in
- 4:52Speaker 3: this book. Right. And it doesn't mean that they, that
- 4:56Speaker 3: there are other options for how we could share and
- 4:57Speaker 3: present them. Right. Um, some things actually work better as
- 5:01Speaker 3: a standalone piece of content or an article or a
- 5:04Speaker 3: YouTube video or whatever else. Um, and that can still
- 5:07Speaker 3: feed into the book, but it doesn't have to go
- 5:08Speaker 3: into the book itself. So the first things first is
- 5:11Speaker 3: just figuring out what even goes in the book. And
- 5:14Speaker 3: then we start mapping out the outline and the structure
- 5:17Speaker 3: from there.
- 5:18Speaker 2: I think one of the things that confuses me the
- 5:19Speaker 2: most about the relationship of a client with a ghostwriter
- 5:24Speaker 2: is how much do I have to tell my ghostwriter
- 5:27Speaker 2: in order to fill in a whole book? Because if
- 5:32Speaker 2: I fell as a little boy and that changed my
- 5:34Speaker 2: life forever, how do you fill those two points in
- 5:38Speaker 2: my life?
- 5:40Speaker 3: How does that work? That's a perfect example because I
- 5:43Speaker 3: get clients that do have an early childhood story like
- 5:46Speaker 3: that that's really important to them and they want to
- 5:47Speaker 3: include it in the book, which, yeah, of course we're
- 5:49Speaker 3: going to include it if that's what the client wants.
- 5:52Speaker 3: But they have other clients that really don't want to
- 5:55Speaker 3: get into their personal backstory. And the thing is, you
- 5:57Speaker 3: don't have to, right? One of the first things I
- 6:02Speaker 3: teach clients is the distinction between a biography and a memoir.
- 6:07Speaker 3: Because a biography... in the traditional sense, is meant to
- 6:11Speaker 3: cover your entire life, right? Or autobiography, for that matter.
- 6:15Speaker 3: Autobiography just means you're the one writing it yourself. Typically,
- 6:18Speaker 3: a biography is meant to be this huge, expansive, like,
- 6:21Speaker 3: we're going to cover every last detail of your life. Now,
- 6:24Speaker 3: a memoir, which is what I'm writing right now, it's
- 6:26Speaker 3: what I... I always encourage my clients to have an
- 6:30Speaker 3: element of memoir to the book, even if it's more
- 6:33Speaker 3: built on a framework or a methodology. You can still
- 6:36Speaker 3: put in bits of storytelling, but the thing with a memoir...
- 6:39Speaker 3: is that a memoir is whatever frame you want to set, right?
- 6:45Speaker 3: You can write a memoir about a single year of
- 6:47Speaker 3: your life if it was a really eventful year and
- 6:49Speaker 3: you have a lot to say, right? Like there's no
- 6:51Speaker 3: requirement to put it back on the timeline or share
- 6:54Speaker 3: things you don't really feel like sharing because you get
- 6:57Speaker 3: to decide this is our topic and then everything else
- 7:00Speaker 3: falls within that. And I think for business books especially, Yeah,
- 7:07Speaker 3: probably for most authors, it doesn't make sense to go
- 7:10Speaker 3: all the way back to when you're six years old,
- 7:14Speaker 3: unless there's something about that story that ties into the
- 7:18Speaker 3: stuff you want to teach today, right? So that's the
- 7:22Speaker 3: first thing, like anytime you, whatever story you want to
- 7:24Speaker 3: bring in, I'm always going to bring it back to, okay,
- 7:26Speaker 3: how does that support the core idea of the book
- 7:29Speaker 3: that we've agreed on? And if it does, we include it,
- 7:32Speaker 3: and if not, it goes somewhere else.
- 7:34Speaker 2: So what is the average time of a person who
- 7:38Speaker 2: contacts you today to strategize a book to getting published?
- 7:44Speaker 2: Is that months, years?
- 7:45Speaker 3: It ultimately depends on what your definition of published is.
- 7:48Speaker 3: Because if you are thinking of, like, I want to be...
- 7:52Speaker 3: I mean, Amazon bestseller is one thing because there's kind
- 7:55Speaker 3: of ways to game that system. But let's say you
- 7:57Speaker 3: want to be a New York Times bestseller. You have
- 8:00Speaker 3: to go through traditional publishing. For the most part, there's very...
- 8:04Speaker 3: some very, very rare exceptions to that. If you want
- 8:08Speaker 3: to be on like the USA Today or Wall Street
- 8:11Speaker 3: Journal bestseller list, those lists that are like a few
- 8:15Speaker 3: notches below New York Times, those are definitely achievable even
- 8:19Speaker 3: without a traditional publisher. But you got to be ready
- 8:23Speaker 3: for a proper launch, right? And that does not happen overnight.
- 8:26Speaker 3: So realistically, that's about at minimum an 18-month window just
- 8:32Speaker 3: for the publishing side. So then you add in the
- 8:35Speaker 3: writing of the book. Now that's one area where I
- 8:39Speaker 3: am very, very fast. Like I've gotten a client's book
- 8:43Speaker 3: done in as little as 30 days. Now to your
- 8:47Speaker 3: question earlier about like how much, like how far, how
- 8:50Speaker 3: much do you need to give me? That client had
- 8:52Speaker 3: a lot of existing content through podcast appearances and all
- 8:55Speaker 3: the other things. So for one thing, I was able
- 8:58Speaker 3: to bring a lot of that into the book and
- 9:00Speaker 3: adjust it slightly to fit the format of the book.
- 9:03Speaker 3: And then I used our live interview time to fill
- 9:05Speaker 3: in the gaps of what I couldn't find online already.
- 9:08Speaker 3: So especially if somebody already has a public presence and
- 9:12Speaker 3: has already put out a lot of content on their own,
- 9:14Speaker 3: that's one of the first things I look at is like,
- 9:16Speaker 3: what can I do to repurpose, right? Or at least
- 9:19Speaker 3: build scaffolding from their existing content so that I'm not
- 9:23Speaker 3: making them repeat themselves. It's like, you've already done the
- 9:25Speaker 3: work to go appear on these podcasts and get these interviews.
- 9:28Speaker 3: I don't want you to tell me that story again.
- 9:29Speaker 3: I want you to tell me the story that hasn't
- 9:31Speaker 3: appeared anywhere else. So we can put that in the book. Um, uh,
- 9:36Speaker 3: but either way, I, I, I like to keep it
- 9:39Speaker 3: to 90 days to get a first full draft done. Um,
- 9:43Speaker 3: and then usually for editing might take, you know, another
- 9:48Speaker 3: month to three months. So all told, if you're looking
- 9:52Speaker 3: for like a bestseller list outside of Amazon, I would
- 9:56Speaker 3: look at maybe a year and a half to two
- 9:58Speaker 3: years total. Now, if you just want something that you
- 10:02Speaker 3: can get a few print copies whipped up and bring
- 10:05Speaker 3: with you to conferences and hand out directly, that's a
- 10:08Speaker 3: way shorter timeline. That can be within a month of
- 10:12Speaker 3: getting the full manuscript done. It really just depends on
- 10:15Speaker 3: what your goals are for publication.
- 10:17Speaker 2: Got it. So that brings me to who is your
- 10:19Speaker 2: ideal client that works with you?
- 10:22Speaker 3: My ideal client is an expert who has a lot
- 10:27Speaker 3: of different topics that they want to talk about. So
- 10:30Speaker 3: usually they have their main thing that they're, you know,
- 10:33Speaker 3: the business they're currently running, the thing they're known for
- 10:38Speaker 3: to a small group, right? But they know that they
- 10:41Speaker 3: have a much bigger message and they want to be
- 10:43Speaker 3: able to build a bigger authority platform than just that.
- 10:46Speaker 3: And so... By the time someone comes to me, it's like, well,
- 10:50Speaker 3: I've worked in three different industries. I have this like
- 10:53Speaker 3: wild winding personal story of how I got here. How
- 10:56Speaker 3: the heck do I put all that in one book, right?
- 11:00Speaker 3: How do I like untangle this huge mass of ideas
- 11:03Speaker 3: I have in a way that is accessible? And that's
- 11:07Speaker 3: my bread and butter. I love working with those people
- 11:09Speaker 3: because I'm a big believer that the best experts are
- 11:14Speaker 3: the ones that have walked many different paths. and have
- 11:17Speaker 3: taken an unusual path of energy because that's what gives
- 11:20Speaker 3: them that unique perspective. My job is to make sure
- 11:23Speaker 3: that that unique perspective gets from up here onto the page.
- 11:28Speaker 2: Now, getting to the business side of this, who owns
- 11:31Speaker 2: the rights to these books in a ghostwriting agreement?
- 11:36Speaker 3: The short answer is the client, 100%. There are very, like,
- 11:40Speaker 3: I don't ever ask for royalties or anything like that
- 11:43Speaker 3: as part of my contracts. There are some ghostwriters usually
- 11:47Speaker 3: attached to a traditional publisher that will get a little
- 11:51Speaker 3: cut royalties. But generally speaking, the only way you would
- 11:55Speaker 3: ever give up your rights as the author is if
- 11:57Speaker 3: you go through a traditional publisher, because that's just how
- 12:00Speaker 3: traditional publishing works. And then there are certain what are
- 12:05Speaker 3: called hybrid publishers that ask for royalties, usually much less
- 12:08Speaker 3: than the traditional publishers do, partially because you are paying
- 12:11Speaker 3: them up front, which you don't do for a traditional publisher.
- 12:15Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, like in my mind,
- 12:17Speaker 3: like I, you know, I'm getting paid for the service, right?
- 12:20Speaker 3: Like you pay me to write the book. Um, then
- 12:23Speaker 3: I hand it off to you and it's yours. Like,
- 12:27Speaker 3: I mean, I'm happy to, to, to, you know, support
- 12:29Speaker 3: in other ways ongoing if it makes sense, but I, I,
- 12:33Speaker 3: I make my money off of the service. I'm not
- 12:35Speaker 3: trying to, to take over the author's rights in any way.
- 12:38Speaker 2: Now, once someone works with you, do you have access
- 12:41Speaker 2: to other publishers that you can guide? declines to?
- 12:45Speaker 3: I do. In fact, that's actually been a huge part
- 12:47Speaker 3: of my work lately is building a sort of Rolodex
- 12:51Speaker 3: of publishing partners, different levels of investment, I did for
- 12:58Speaker 3: different specialties, because obviously, there are publishers that specialize in
- 13:01Speaker 3: certain topics and certain types of authors. So my goal
- 13:04Speaker 3: is that whatever, whatever level of budget you have, whatever
- 13:08Speaker 3: type of book you're trying to write, I can point
- 13:10Speaker 3: you to the right publisher for it, because especially these days,
- 13:15Speaker 3: it's not one size fits all. There are many different
- 13:19Speaker 3: ways to be published. And for each of my authors,
- 13:23Speaker 3: I want to make sure that they're getting a publisher
- 13:26Speaker 3: that is ready to walk the path that makes sense
- 13:28Speaker 3: for them. And part of that means getting very clear
- 13:33Speaker 3: on what does it mean to be published for you, right?
- 13:36Speaker 3: What is your definition of a successful publishing journey? Because
- 13:41Speaker 3: at the end of the day, there are many different
- 13:43Speaker 3: ways to define that. And it comes back to reverse engineering,
- 13:48Speaker 3: like I want to achieve XYZ great, then either these
- 13:51Speaker 3: are the parts are going to need to set up
- 13:53Speaker 3: yourself or this is the right publishing partner for that
- 13:57Speaker 3: because they they offer XYZ.
- 14:00Speaker 2: Now, can you share an author success story that illustrates
- 14:03Speaker 2: the transformation that your work creates?
- 14:05Speaker 3: Yeah, the I mean, the one I mentioned earlier, the
- 14:08Speaker 3: client who got that book done in just 30 days,
- 14:12Speaker 3: Before I came along, they had that version of that
- 14:17Speaker 3: book sitting on their hard drive for like over a year.
- 14:20Speaker 3: And they had already hired another ghostwriter, they'd already like
- 14:23Speaker 3: messed around with AI, they'd already like done all these
- 14:26Speaker 3: different things, try to get it out. And it just
- 14:29Speaker 3: wasn't clicking. And part of it is like, yeah, he's
- 14:32Speaker 3: a very busy guy, right? He's running multiple businesses, he
- 14:34Speaker 3: does not have a lot of time to sit around
- 14:36Speaker 3: and experiment. But also, he didn't have that clear through
- 14:41Speaker 3: line of this is what the book is about. And
- 14:45Speaker 3: that's part of why it was hard to get the
- 14:46Speaker 3: thing done, right? It's like, if you are unclear about
- 14:49Speaker 3: your purpose for the book, it's very hard to make
- 14:52Speaker 3: consistent progress on it. And on top of that, he actually,
- 14:56Speaker 3: in our first conversation, he said, I've got three different
- 14:58Speaker 3: books I want to write. And I want to start
- 15:01Speaker 3: with this one over here. And I was like, no, no, no, no.
- 15:03Speaker 3: That's book number two. Because the, and this is a
- 15:06Speaker 3: classic mistake I see a lot of authors is that
- 15:08Speaker 3: He wanted to go really narrow and tactical, like go here,
- 15:11Speaker 3: do this, do that. And I helped him understand, for
- 15:16Speaker 3: your first book, if you're not already an established author,
- 15:19Speaker 3: you don't want that. You want the book that's going
- 15:22Speaker 3: to establish you as a character in the mind of
- 15:25Speaker 3: the market so that they want to hear more from
- 15:28Speaker 3: you and dig into the tactics and get down in
- 15:31Speaker 3: the weeds with you. If you try to jump into
- 15:33Speaker 3: that right away, it's tough because... Really, the only people
- 15:39Speaker 3: that are going to read that are people that are
- 15:41Speaker 3: already attached to you and your expertise, which means you're
- 15:44Speaker 3: now just speaking to your existing market. You're not really
- 15:46Speaker 3: branching into new markets in the way that you would
- 15:48Speaker 3: hope the book would, right? Like you said back in
- 15:51Speaker 3: your intro, my job is to write the book that
- 15:53Speaker 3: opens new opportunities for you. So in a sense, it
- 15:56Speaker 3: needs to be the book that can introduce you to
- 15:58Speaker 3: new people. It has to make people understand, oh, this
- 16:01Speaker 3: is who Joe is, right? Not just what does Joe know,
- 16:05Speaker 3: but who is he? Like, why should I care? What's
- 16:08Speaker 3: compelling about him? What's different about him? All that needs
- 16:11Speaker 3: to go into book one. And lucky for us, he
- 16:13Speaker 3: already had some version of that in that list of three.
- 16:17Speaker 3: And I was like, let's move that one first. Start there.
- 16:19Speaker 3: And then, boom, here we go. That book is published.
- 16:22Speaker 3: And you can grab it on Amazon right now.
- 16:24Speaker 2: If listeners remember only one thing from today's conversation, what
- 16:28Speaker 2: do you hope that message is?
- 16:29Speaker 3: Your story should sound like you.
- 16:31Speaker 2: That's great advice. Short, sweet, and to the point. Now,
- 16:35Speaker 2: where can our audience connect with you and learn more
- 16:38Speaker 2: about your work and continue this conversation?
- 16:40Speaker 3: Yeah, so the best way to connect with me is
- 16:43Speaker 3: on my Substack, which I'm happy to link below. I'm
- 16:46Speaker 3: also pretty active on LinkedIn and Facebook, if you prefer.
- 16:50Speaker 3: And then one thing I want to offer your audience
- 16:51Speaker 3: is a custom GPT that I put together called the
- 16:56Speaker 3: Book Clarity Engine. Remember, I say about book clarity, it's
- 16:58Speaker 3: very important. And Part of why I love offering this
- 17:02Speaker 3: to people as a free gift is that I use
- 17:05Speaker 3: this thing on myself when I realize it was time
- 17:09Speaker 3: for me to write a book. Once I realize, again,
- 17:12Speaker 3: I'm serious about ghostwriting and I lock in and do
- 17:13Speaker 3: this thing, but I didn't have a book out under
- 17:16Speaker 3: my own name. This is the tool I put myself
- 17:18Speaker 3: through and it helped me realize, wait a second, this
- 17:22Speaker 3: is the most important story I have to tell. And
- 17:24Speaker 3: that is now the book I'm working on as we speak.
- 17:28Speaker 3: And I'm already working on my second draft, actually. So
- 17:32Speaker 3: the way to get that is to go to mabrygift.com
- 17:35Speaker 3: forward slash clarity. And then that will take you to
- 17:40Speaker 3: an opt-in page, enter your email. That'll give you instructions
- 17:43Speaker 3: for how to access the thing. And by the end
- 17:47Speaker 3: of that conversation, you also have an invite to come
- 17:48Speaker 3: and chat with me to look over your results.
- 17:51Speaker 2: Sean, thank you so much for joining us today. And
- 17:53Speaker 2: we really appreciate your time and all of the value
- 17:56Speaker 2: you've shared today. Yeah.
- 17:57Speaker 3: Thank you, Joe. It's been great.
- 17:59Speaker 2: Thanks everyone for listening. Did this episode inspire you? Share
- 18:02Speaker 2: it with someone who needs it. And don't forget to
- 18:04Speaker 2: follow the Globalizer podcast for more conversations that make an impact.
- 18:08Speaker 2: Till the next time.