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Karen Anderson: What Successful Authors Do Differently · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer: creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there are a lot of different ways to define success as an author.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Some people emphasize bestseller status, some people focus on book sales, and others spend their energy growing their platform.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And all of those are good and valid ways to measure some aspect of success as a writer.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: However, the one thing that everybody can agree on is this success as an author means you are consistently doing the work and getting your books into the hands of readers.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: My guest today is Karen Anderson, and she is eminently qualified to talk about what it means to be successful as an author.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: She is a strategic book coach and associate publisher for Morgan James Publishing.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, full disclosure, I am a proud literary scout for Morgan James Publishing, so I love the fact that Karen and I serve on the same team there.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Karen is also a nationally published author, a co-author on numerous books, a self-published author, a ghostwriter, and an editor.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: She recently co-authored with her husband Steve the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller, The Bezos Letters, 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon, which is now translated into 18 languages.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Karen's newest project is called Unleash the Power of Your Book.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: She and her business partner, Margie Ross, help already published authors relaunch and leverage their books to increase sales and maximize revenue, no matter when the book came out.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: In this conversation, Karen talks about various ways to define success, the biggest mistakes authors make, and the ways in which successful authors think differently.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: This was a really, really fun conversation.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: I loved doing this episode because Karen is not only knowledgeable, she's also just a really warm, friendly, funny, and engaging person.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So this was an absolute blast, and I know that you'll enjoy it just as much as I did.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: So let's get right to my conversation with Karen Anderson.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Karen, thanks so much for being a guest on the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: I am excited that we get to chat again.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a while.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It sure has.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm actually thrilled to be here because I there's nothing I love more than talking about books and writers.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so that makes me happy.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad to be here.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, me too.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel the same way.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm one of those people who could talk about books all day.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: And people in my family, I know get tired of me talking about it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's the same thing for you as well.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, talk about something else other than writing and books and all this stuff.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the world I live in.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Me too, me too.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we're here to talk about what successful authors do differently.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to ask a few questions that are kind of more of a general nature, but then um, towards the end of this, I really want to hone in on this really cool program that you have going called Unleash the Power of Your Book.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's very, very exciting.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get to that in a little bit, but here's a question that I am personally curious about, and I think this will resonate with many of our listeners as well.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: How should we define success as authors?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: How should we how should we know whether we are being successful as authors or not?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And here's here's why I'm asking that is because you can define success as, hey, I published my first book, it didn't sell anything, but I achieved a major goal and that is a major success.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Other people define success as, hey, I sold 10,000 copies, or hey, I sold a million copies.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Where should we put that goalpost as authors, or how do you think about that?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's a really good question and an important question.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think when I talk to authors, um part, you know, part of what I think is important is what's your end game?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what what are you hoping to achieve with the book?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are lots of people that are committed to the message, and then there are the message alone, and then there are people that are committed to the message plus, meaning that if people resonate with the message, then they will consider it a lead gen and it leads them to something else.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And their focus is really on the something else.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I say this all day long that to have a successful a book be a successful lead gen, it has to have 110% value.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning you can't use teaser in your book and go, oh, I'm gonna give them a little bit uh uh in the book, and then I'm gonna lead them over to my products, services, website, whatever.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll conclude it there.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: That will get them there.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: My philosophy is that if you have a book that you want to use as a Legion, you pack everything that you know into that book 110%, like it's stuffed with content and value.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: In essence, so whatever your you're you're promoting, whatever your message is, they can do it themselves.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it has that value, then they don't want to do it by themselves.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: They want what you have to offer and it will lead them to you.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that message then becomes like, oh, I can do this, but I don't I don't want to do this alone.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want community, I don't want to do this by myself.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I need help.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to um only do this.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want, you know, what more is out there.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then that person gets led over to you.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, that's the function of a of a book being a lead gen, even if the lead gen is just about the message for fiction people, like if they love and resonate in in your fiction message, then they want more of the same.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a favorite author, her name is Louise Penny, and I love her.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: She is on her uh in her series, maybe the 13th book, and she's a fiction writer and she's Canadian.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: She's a fiction writer, and I don't write fiction, I write nonfiction.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the world that I live in, but I read fiction every day because it's all about story.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: But she has a new book that comes out, I think, every August.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I sign up like in February for her next book.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And cannot wait.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she's such a good writer.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've read all of her books three times, the whole series, three times.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I read the first time because I wanted to know what happened.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I read the second, read it the second time because I wanted to look at um her character development.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I read them the third time because I wanted to look at how she phrased things and wrote things because I think she's that great of a writer.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: My point being is I wanted more.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the function of a book, a good book.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at is a book successful, successful, what do they want more of?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do they want more of your content?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do they want more of you?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do they want more of what you have to offer?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then you go, oh, and then then it becomes, I think, um, you know, kind of a numbers game.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: You had asked me as a publisher, because I've been I'm with Morgan James Publishing, you know, what we're looking for for a successful book.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So in the trade, in the trade, which is any book retailer online or off, we'd like a book to be successful, to be sound sell around 4,000 copies in the book.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then in uh for the average book, and I've heard this so many times, and I don't know where, but the average book sells about 250 copies.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard that too.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I don't know if that's mether fact, but I believe it because there's so many books that are are are launched every day.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds about right.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it does.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, what what compels a book um into that that category, it really is that balance of looking at the message of the book, how it empowers the the reader, whether emotionally in fiction or personally, or business-wise, you know, whatever, whatever that is.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then then the you know, the to me, the the biggest um indicator of success is when somebody says, Oh, I recommended that book to a friend.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: To me, that's the you know, I got compliments.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've gotten compliments as a writer, which are important to me.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was a page turner.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't, I couldn't put it down and it was in this book, you know, whatever.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Those are important to me.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, the highest, the highest recommendation and indicator of success is really, oh, I told a friend they had to buy that book.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what if somebody doesn't know what they want out of the process?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say if it's if it's somebody listening who they have this impulse to write a book, maybe they've been thinking about it for years or maybe even decades.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: They want to write a book, but they don't they don't have the experience to tell them here's what can result from it, here are some possibilities.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: They just know they want to write a book.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Would you would you say to that person, just write the book and then get the experience and see what happens?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then that way you'll have more data to make different decisions in the future, but just to get that sucker out there and get it done.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, my response to that is really um it's really a message, it's really about clarity in your message.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think if somebody says, I want to write a book, then I go, okay, that's that's cool.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd rather hear from somebody, I've got a message that's burning inside me that I have to get out.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: If they have a message burning inside them and they have to get out, then the the vehicle of getting that book done, whether they write it themselves, hire a ghostwriter, they do a first draft and get a developmental editor, you know, whatever.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about that message.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, so it's it's going, what what am I passionate about in terms of getting this message out?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: What am I bringing to the world?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, I say this all the time.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: The good news is that Amazon has lowered the bar.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So anybody can write a book.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: The bad news is Amazon has lowered the bar.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody can write a book.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's good and bad.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's good and bad.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so you go, what makes a book successful?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: What's going to make that book rise, you know, that cream rise to the top?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's really going to be the the message.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: My personal philosophy is that it's the balance between information and inspiration.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have information only, in my humble opinion, that's called a manual.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, good point.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's a manual.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you have inspiration only, at the end of the the day, the reader goes, Wow, I'm empowered to do that, but I don't know what to do.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so it when you're looking at what you want that reader to do, what what's their takeaway?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like it's the same thing.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have to know what what I say this to authors all the time at the on the last page of the book, what do you want your reader to do?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want them to feel good?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm good with that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want them to come over to connect with you on your platform?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that's great.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if you say, I I've got a message that I need to bring out to the world, and you don't know what you want them to do, then to me, you're not ready to write.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: That may sound a little that, you know, and I've written a lot of books and and I've I've found that the the ones that are really successful is very are very much, it's a passionate message, but it's I I know at the end what I want the reader to do and or feel or take action.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm a marketer, I'm a direct response marketer.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So my you know, I like the call to action, like what do you want them to do at the end of the book?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is it buy your next book?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is it get on your mailing list?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it they have to do something?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you don't know what you want them to do, then you go, okay, so now you know what that want them to do.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then you back into it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, now how am I going to take them on the journey to get there?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: What am I what am I going to write that compels them to get to that point where that they go, their head nodding?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they get me.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: This author gets me.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm going to take action and I'm going to take the next step.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Were you thinking about some of these things whenever you and Steve wrote the Bezos letters?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would say, and I'm not a I'm a formulae, I'm a formulaic person in the sense that I feel like deep down inside I know what I'm doing, but I think it's just lots of years of experience.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of the things that happened, so we wrote this book called The Bezos Letters, 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve's brilliant.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And part of what happened in that was that he came across the the shareholder letters that Jeff Bezos had written.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he he came home one day and he was like, Oh, yeah, I think he sort of lays out how he grew Amazon.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to give them away as a white paper.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I went, oh, that would be no.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's your book.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, people would like to know how how Bezos grew Amazon.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so Steve, being the analytical kind of guy that he is, he's really good at what he does.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he's a good, he's a good speaker, he's a good uh writer.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he just couldn't get out of his own way for the book.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But part of what happened was is he did this analysis.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he did, this is what Bezos did in 97, this is what Bezos did it said in 98, this is what Bezos said in 99.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked at him and I was like, honey, I love you, but nobody cares.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a manual.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is what he did.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's information.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: There was no inspiration.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I we need to extract principles, like what was behind why he did what he did.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's how people can replicate things.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: They need to know and understand the why.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so to me, that was part of what made that book successful and different.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is it wasn't just what he did, it was the why and the principle behind what he did that people could extrapolate and then apply for themselves.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: To me, that's where the power came.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Did you bake in bake marketing principles into the book as you were writing it?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because you have a whole backend thing that's you know, you have a whole website devoted to the book and all these things people can do.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Was that part of the construction of the book and your process, or did all that come afterwards?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think that's a both and, you know, simultaneously kind of at the same time, sort of.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, at the at the end of the book, we wanted them to ask for more.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were designing the website, designing the courses, designing the offerings, designing everything around that.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's a chicken or egg phenomena for a lot of people.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people I know that will design a course.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: They they take this huge amount of information and they do it in a course and then they extrapolate down to be able to do the book.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Other people will take a book and they'll they'll do the core of the book and then they'll build a course off of it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Chicken or egg.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I I think it's one way is better the other than the other.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think it depends on the person.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but for us, it was really pulling that that message, that getting that message honed down to be the core message of the book, and then looking at, and then really looking at building from there.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I would say to it though is that I was very, very, very aware of this information inspiration balance in terms of writing the book.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so um the spoiler alert if you haven't read the book, um, but part of what happens in the book is we talk about when the first opening chat chapters is called Successful Failure.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's the idea of what people like Bezos, what you know, what people can see from looking at his failures and what he did.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and it came from um the the old Apollo 13 movie that Ron Howard did many years ago.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that section of the book.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you, because it was really, it really was looking at, you know, in Apollo 13, they did not they did not complete the miss mission, which was landing on the moon, but they got the men back home alive.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was a successful failure.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: But we bookended that, and I like to do bookends uh in content.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the opening story talking about the Apollo 13.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of the book, we talk about Bezos' passion for blue origin and what it meant, what it means that he wants to create infrastructure in space.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so at in the future, he's doing things for the future, you know, he's he's taking that successful failure, but he's doing things for the future that we can't even imagine right now.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So what kind of bookended that content?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that that's that's really in in writing, it's it's that combination of information and inspiration, and then looking at, you know, what's the what's your call to action?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Once they're they're informed and they're inspired, then what do you want them to do?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Man, that's good stuff.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's good stuff.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's worth the whole interview right there.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Even though I'm not charging for this, it's worth the whole thing.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um because that'll that will really revolutionize your whole book, just thinking in terms of inspiration and information in each chapter, bookending the book.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this is really great developmental stuff.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and that's why to me, and that's why stories, stories are the inspiration.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: You've got you've got lots of information that's factual, but you have to have to surround that in a story because that's what inspires people, and that's what connects with people emotionally.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you have a manual.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are there manuals out there?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh uh are they yours?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: They used to be.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I just got a new washer and dryer, and um, and it didn't come with a manual.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't know how to work it.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve's like, well, they're trying to make it intuitive so you don't need the manual.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to get it online, I was like, oh, okay, times have changed.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that that's it's a really good point, and that people are looking for, they want the information, but then they want to go, oh, tell me it's not overwhelming to work my new washing.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: We got it, the fancy one that has all the bells and whistles because my husband's a tech guy.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's got Bluetooth, you know, I mean it basically doesn't make dinner, but it comes really close.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we've got this.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we need the information, but then I want to be encouraged, inspire me.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's easy for you.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how other people have done it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here let me tell you a story about what happened.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I could write a book about a washing machine because if I'm passionate about like, okay, I'm joking a little bit, but you know, I'm if I'm passionate about helping the consumer who's got bought this new washing machine and and getting getting them excited about it and dealing with all the marketing things, the post-purchase reassurance, did I make the right decision?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how will this help me?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: What will it do for me?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting it off on tangent here, but but the idea is, you know, if you can get excited about what you're writing about and you're it's benefit oriented, not just feature oriented.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you're if you're doing it to help a person feel better, make a good decision, you know, be more successful in life, um, you know, manage the defeats, whatever, you know, if you're excited about that, that'll get communicated in your writing.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you have worked with that was that was tangential, but no, it's all good.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's all good.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: And this is super, this is super important stuff.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: You have worked with a lot of different authors, both in your own business and just because you're so engaged in the in the broader community of writers, but also in your work with Morgan James Publishing, uh, which I love and um have done a book with them that'll come out later this year and and just love the company.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: What are some of the biggest mistakes that you have seen authors make, both in the writing of their books and the marketing?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've seen it all at this point, but if you had to list maybe two or three things, what are the biggest mistakes that they have made and how can we avoid some of those things?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I you know, I I already mentioned it, but I think in terms of writing a book, not knowing, not knowing what you want your reader to do at the end.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think that's a big mistake that people make because they're like, I want to get my message out.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is important for me to get my message out.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's great, but what do you want the reader to do with the message?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like that has to be um um that's that that's paramount.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other thing that I think is um um there's a balance that that happens between, you know, you're supposed to write for one person, right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't write for everybody.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: You write for one person.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say the biggest mistake is um when when writers think that that one person is just exactly like they are.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not true.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was talking to uh an author recently who was like, you know what, I'm a I'm a just the facts, ma'am kind of guy.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Linda, just you know, I don't I don't really care about like the stories percent, just tell me what the steps that I need to do.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, that's how I like to read a book.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know what, the market's more than one person, yeah, hopefully.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's it's really looking at that, um, that oh, that's um that's why it's so important that you write sort of four different people um while you're you're writing the book.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like this is kind of nuanced.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you have to be careful with it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: um but i um a few years ago i i helped ryan levesque with his book called ask a great book which is an online marketing book and this was an interesting it was interesting because ryan had a very very set methodology like this is what you need to do except that it was reading like a manual and so but he had this very interesting story it was an incredible challenge to try to get them to blend together and so what I did in that book that was was fun was I stopped fighting it and so what I did was I did divided the book into two halves and so the first half is the story about how he came up with this idea his story who he was that was and then the second half was the methodology and then in the introduction I gave the reader the option to read it any way they want like if you happen to be and forgive the stereotype a left brain engineer type go to the methodology forget the story don't worry about it if you tend to be more of a right brain creative person read the story first because that's going to give you the context for for why the and how the methodology came about.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the front in the introduction I just gave the reader permission to read it any way they wanted it was like basically two small bitty books that that blended together.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so fun to kind of read the reviews because there were people that would say um they would come back and go, yeah, the book was really worth it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: The method method methodology was awesome but they could have just left out the whole story part.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then then there were people that would come back and would go oh the story was captivating.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that stuff was you know on the methodology was really dry and almost irrelevant at that point.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so it was just it was interesting.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened is it doubled the audience because because it was that sense that uh it was that sense that you've got it here.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you read the methodology and you wanted to know why you could go back and read the story.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was it was there are a lot of creative ways to make it happen.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be linear if that makes sense.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: It can it can be multidimensional.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was just that was just from my vantage point that was just a creative way to solve that problem of how to get both the inspiration and the information together.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just I made them two separate things.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just use that as an illustration you don't have to force it sometimes when you you know it's like I can put a square peg into a round hole something will get broken but I can do it.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it's just a matter of of stepping back and going, oh how could we do this this differently and and make this work I don't know if that answered your question but yeah you know that's the exact same way that Vincent Puglisi did his last book Freelance to freedom.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember looking at reading through that book and going you know I I've never really seen a book that was organized this way.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: The first half a story the second half is basically principles.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: But you've done the same thing with Ryan's book.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: So for people who who want to approach a book that way there are others that are like that.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that can be a perfectly great way to do it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's no rules I mean yeah the book should be what it needs to be.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes and and that's why everybody needs to have um hold their first draft loosely yes I agree now for those who are listening trying not to quote Ian Lamotte but yes I understand I know where you're going with that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: So for those who are listening who do client work ghostwriters freelance writers uh developmental editors and so forth how did you get connected with Ryan because I'm always interested in how people as a ghostwriter myself I'm always interested in how people actually hire ghostwriters and how those relationships happen how people get connected with others and so forth yeah that um because it can happen about a thousand different ways.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and you know I I'd say at the the very the basic core of it it's about relationships and trust I mean and so um I had gone to because I've been a marketer for 30 years and I had gone to a conference it was called Titans of Direct Response.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was a direct response marketing conference a number of years ago seven eight something like that in um it was in Connecticut and my friend Brian Kurt Kurtz hosted it and all of the the the old direct response marketers Dan Kennedy was there Jay Abraham was there um um Kim McCarthy was there like everybody was there and then a lot of my old copywriting friends so my my roots are really in copywriting and editing um and so and compelling people to take action so that's that's the core of who I am and so I I went up there I I had been doing some care family caregiving at the time and I was not I wasn't working.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so this conference came up but all my friends were gonna my old friends were going to be there and I called a girlfriend and I was in tears and I was just like there's no reason for me to go to this conference like no reason like I'm not working I'm not doing anything.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just to be like a high school reunion and she said to me and and these were profound words she said Karen you know that better than most life gets short get your get your butt up there and I was like okay and so I walked in and when I I got there I I saw my friend Brian who I hadn't seen in years and he was with Ryan LeBec and he was like you guys need to know each other like okay and a bunch of people were going to go to dinner and everybody fell out and it didn't happen except for Ryan and me.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly Ryan's younger than my kids I've got kids older and but he was gracious enough to have um dinner with this older person and we ended up having like a three and a half hour dinner and he he shared his what he wanted to have happen for this book.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really a book about helping people consumers figure out what they wanted to buy.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that it would be profound and that it would be um and it it would be really impactful.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and so this was many years ago um and so I did what I typically do was he sent me the a draft of the manuscript and I was like oh please don't ruin your career and so I ended up going which I this my MO I was like you know what just let me do this and and so anyway my that to answer your question I think it's relationships it's being that's why I go to conferences that's why I connect with people on Zoom that's why I do what I do because people will go oh you know what yeah you should talk to this person or you should talk to that it's all about relationships.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and that's what I was hoping well not just hoping you would say that's what I knew you would say but I wanted to ask that because I think a lot of people need to hear that it's not about cold pitching on LinkedIn and all this other you know I mean I I guess that kind of works sometimes but it just comes down to knowing people and people trusting you.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: And man when people are doing a book like that is their life's work many times.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: And they really want to make sure they trust somebody that they get along with the person who's going to help them with it.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a huge factor is just just being a nice person and a trustworthy person.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and I would say that really is the secret sauce why Steve and I were were able to write a book together.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really because he yeah not that we've been married forever so it wasn't that we didn't have a relationship but he trusted me.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he trusted me with his content and with his message and there's so much trust involved and and then it it's good communication.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're working with someone and you're doing their book and again I've I've ghostwritten a fair number of books and and and and here's what I think is the real secret Kent and and that is you're you're writing if you're a ghostwriting a book a book you're writing in their voice.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have to feel them be them know them understand them and and if you do that you can come up with a really powerful book because you are writing in their voice.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge is a lot of people don't know what their voice is.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was just asked this is so funny um for and and people that are writers will get this so I'm actually really good at writing in other people's voices.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I write I know how to write endorsements in other people's voices and to to to write I mean that's what I can do.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And recently um I had worked on a book and um the author came back and we had had a really we had a hard time we were really struggling to find the right person to write the foreword because forwards are are um they're important.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were looking I was looking for a woman and I was looking for a woman that had professional credentials and I was looking for a woman who was a bestselling author.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I had called a friend of mine and she she qualified it but she was like I'm just swamped.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't do it right now.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like okay so we we did a bit of a placeholder and I said okay we'll come we'll come back to this and I just I couldn't find the right person for it.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the author called one day and she was like I've found the exact the right person that I want to write this forward.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was like that's awesome because we really need that right now and I said who is it and she said you and I went huh um let me think about that and then I realized yeah I I was the I was the right person to write the forward the challenge for me was I had I had been writing for other people for so long I didn't know what my voice sounded like.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a it was a challenge for me to write the the foreword in my voice to be able to give credibility to the author um because I had I kind of lost that in the process.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: No I journal every day it's not like I don't have a voice it's just that I'm so used to um getting meshed with somebody else when I'm writing for them that it it feels a little bit different.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well I want to make sure and ask about uh this really cool program that you have going called Unleash the power of your book where you're helping already published authors relaunch and leverage their books to increase sales and maximize revenue of course I'm reading your copy that's not my copy that's yours.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: No matter when the book came excuse me no matter when the book came out can you tell us about this program and how it benefits people and really what it's all about because I love this concept.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well I I I've been in the book world a really long time and and I have um a a girlfriend her name is Margie Ross and Margie had been president of Redmond Publishing for 20 25 years and Margie took a um we're not calling it a a retirement we're calling it a uh a leave she left after after a significant number of years and she's young and and so we were looking at you know at really what we had to offer and part of what we looked at is going particularly with 2020 and what happened with COVID and what happened with books that got launched that there were a lot of people that we knew that were authors and they were really disappointed with how their books had what had happened with their books.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: They had spent all this time writing editing creating crafting launching they'd gotten their their books out and then for whatever reason was not as successful as they hoped.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that they had this sense of disappointment like I've done all this work but it's not really not doing anything.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And part of what we felt that we could bring to the table was um helping authors breathe new life into their their books that they've done.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so even with my husband Steve's book it came out in September of 19 well we were all excited about what was going to happen and some really great things happened in January and February and then they kind of stopped happening in March.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like oh okay so now we got to shift.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of what happened for me and and for Margie it was looking at helping authors to shift and you know if you've created so much for your your book but now you don't know what to do with it.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea is is that you can relaunch your book and there's some ways to do that that can breathe new life into that book.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are other ways that you can leverage that book and that really for a lot of people is that they they they focus so much on their pub date or getting their book out or finally getting their book on Amazon or getting their book out there and then they get they they do all the launch stuff and then they go now what?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there it hasn't as far as we know there hasn't been a lot of guidance in the now what.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: So part of what we do is we do a huge assessment huge assessment of what the author has done so far.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have uh five weeks of group coaching and then we do a blueprint at the end so that authors know the two or three things that they can do take action on immediately to really look at at getting their book out there and um and leveraging their book um for whatever it is they want to accomplish a lot of it's business related um but I I would say for most authors um it's always business related because you have to sell books.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes exactly and you can give books away there are a lot of people that give books away and that's all they want to do which is great but you also need to be pay attention to numbers and how to do that and how to use that book.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's that combination of looking at um of of really looking at what can you do now that's different um and more effective hopefully to relaunch your book into the world and leverage that book to to make it help uh your message not just your message but your your business your goals your dreams for that book I love that wow and there's a lot of people who need that service it was so fun it was so fun because we took this group um we just finished our uh our first one and we took this group and the hard part is is that that people were a little discouraged you know they can and again it's a continuum on how like like we started this how do you define success there's always this one gal and and her book has not sold very many copies and she's got a great book it's a great relationship book and and there are some people that have written to her saying your your book changed my marriage like that success it was really good.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was somebody else who said you know my book has only sold X thousands of copies and so I'm really disappointed.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it it's it's not a it's not a static thing like this is the line for success.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: It really is looking okay what what can you do to get your message and your book in more people's hands and then how can you how can you leverage that book for what you want to accomplish in terms of your book as a business or your business using the book.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love that well Karen this has been an absolute blast I could talk to you for hours about this stuff.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love this is what I love.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for being on the show today I will have links to all this in the show notes of course and um I want to close with this if you were to give one single piece of advice to anybody thinking about writing a book what would you say to them never give up never give up I love that I love that because it's um everybody has to have a first book like you know if you go oh I've I've written multiple books yes but I remember the first book that I wrote it was a long time ago I remember the first book I wrote was it as good as the books that I've written in the last year or two?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: No but you know what it was a good book.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was a good book and it helped people and that's and and it it needed it needed to be done.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so so I think if I had said oh it's overwhelming I can't do this um the timing's not right I don't have the energy nobody's gonna buy it like if I had had those self-defeating thoughts I never would have had a first book if I'd never had a first book I never would have had a seventh eighth ninth tenth book whatever it is and so I I would say never give up I love that thanks for sharing your wisdom I appreciate that my pleasure it was great thank you Ken thank you hey I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Karen Anderson wasn't that a blast she is so much fun and she knows so much about writing publishing book marketing and everything in between she's just uh an absolute joy and a delight to talk to and I always love when she can come on the podcast.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say my biggest takeaway from this conversation is this and it may not be what you expect.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the takeaway I want to challenge you to think more like a business person.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: As you've heard in this conversation Karen is very well versed in the art of editing writing book marketing and so forth but she's also a very smart and very savvy business person.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: And what I want you to take away from this episode that the main thing is that writing is a business.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can make money from your books and that's a good thing.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know the more books that you sell the more lives you can impact.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times we authors sort of run from the business and marketing aspect of writing there's a lot of authors who just kind of want to sit in their little cave and they want to write and be creative and and they don't want to think about the other aspects of getting their book out into the world because they see that as somehow less than or rather they see that as less of a creative act or or somehow it's not as much fun or it's not as creative as actually writing the book.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to tell you that business is an art as well.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Business is creative.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I never want you to assume that the business and marketing side of your writing life is any less creative because actually it involves a ton of creativity.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: It involves a ton of intelligence it involves strategy and I think the marketing and business aspect of your writing career is just as important and it's just as fun and it's just as creative as sitting down and writing the book to begin with.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to encourage you don't run from that aspect of your writing don't don't kind of think oh that marketing and business stuff it's kind of icky and it's not very creative and and I'm not a business person and so forth.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well I want to tell you that I have built a successful ghostwriting business in just a couple of years and I never ever considered myself a business person or marketing person.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it turns out that I'm pretty decent at it and you know what I really really enjoy it and I love that aspect of my business and if I can learn to do it and if I can learn to embrace it and even love the business aspect of writing then I know that you can as well.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: So hope you take those words to heart and I hope that you really enjoyed this conversation with Karen.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: Again she is an absolute blast and a delight to talk to you and I hope that you will check out her new project Unleashed the power of your book and there will be a link in the show notes to check that out and I want to give a very special thanks to Karen for taking the time to be a guest on this episode.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode I want to take a moment to let you know about our daily writer membership community.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know one of the very best ways to develop better habits and impact more people's lives with your writing is to spend time around other successful writers.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're tired of feeling isolated and chasing success on your own, then I know you're gonna love the Daily Writer community.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: For years I searched for the kind of writing community that I would want to join but I can never find what I wanted so I created my own.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the features include weekly writing sprints, monthly community calls, book discussions, calls with guest experts and much more for more info you can visit dailywriterlife com slash community.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks and I'll see you tomorrow