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David Hancock: Morgan James, the Publisher for Author Entrepreneurs · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the poor practices of the Great Writer.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers and teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: In the month of August, on our weekend episodes, I'm revisiting some of my favorite interviews from the last couple of years.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you've listened to these when I released them the first time, they are absolutely worth revisiting because you can always pick up great insights when you listen to a good interview even the second or third time or more.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I am thrilled today to bring you this interview with David Hancock.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: David is a Wall Street Journal and U.S.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Day Today bestselling author, as well as the founder of Morgan James Publishing.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: As the founder of Morgan James, David was selected for Fast Company magazines at Fast 50 for his leadership, free of thinking, significant accomplishments, and his significant impact on the industry over the last 10 years.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to have David as a guest, not just because of his obvious connection with books, but also to talk about the importance of being an author in the first place.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: David saw firsthand how powerful it can be to have books of your own, which is why he started Morgan James in the first place.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's something I don't often get to say about podcast guests, and this is really, really fun.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: David and I also wrote a book together.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, along with our co-author Bobby Kipper, David and I collaborated on a book that will be published through Morgan James next May.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the book is titled Performance Driven Giving.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a follow-up to David and Bobby's first book in the series, Performance Driven Thinking.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited about this book.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It has been so much fun to collaborate with him on this really, really amazing project.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to share more about that early next year, closer to the release date.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So needless to say, I'm grateful for David and I'm thrilled that he's joined me for this conversation.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You'll learn about David's unique background that led him into publishing.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: You'll learn about the benefits of writing a book and also how Morgan James approaches publishing very, very differently.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, let's get right to my conversation with the amazing David Hancock.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: David, thank you so much for joining me on the Time Belgium podcast.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is an honor and a three.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you having made so much fun.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've been blessed by Morgan James about the last several years.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I did have this happening two days ago.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking with a friend of mine about Morgan James.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I talked to a lot of people about Morgan James.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited about my new role as a literary scout course.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he was reading through uh Jeff Walker's launch book.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he's been reading through that for a while, and he said, Oh my gosh, I never even made the connection.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's a Morgan James book.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that was so much fun.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was Jeff Walker's book is amazing.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's amazing, but that was our second number one New York Times bestseller.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, he fought for it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of competition that month.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love that guy.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: His stuff is so great.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm so thrilled that he has a book with you.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: We are as well.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Still selling.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that came out in um I could have told it my nasty thing.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It came out a while ago.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Still relevant, of course.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a couple years, but still selling like crazy, still relevant, and he's still doing the back end on teaching people how to launch and sell their widgets online, whatever that widget might be, books included.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, anyway.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought we would start out since this is a conversation about the entrepreneurial side of publishing, specifically how mortgaging is different.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: I thought we'd start out by talking about the benefits of having a book in the first place.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of whatever the publishing outlet or or format is, what have you seen is so valuable about someone having a book that can help build their business?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'll probably tell you a little bit about my story and then probably will relate to it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can go deeper and why and how and what we did when we founded Morgan James Publishing.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: But um to specifically to answer the question for me, you know, what a book can do for an entrepreneur was very specific.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was a banker back in the 90s, fat, dumb, and happy, never imagined doing anything else.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was doing really, really well.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of fell, you know, fell into a great opportunity working in mortgage banking.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was a top producer and I was making stupid money.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, for college, dropout, barely past high school, you know, I just I found the niche.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was wonderful.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was a top producer, but working hard for it.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I shouldn't, but I was working hard for it.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was competing literally with a thousand people just like me.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we were all offering the exact same products and service.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was basically loosely regulated, you know, mortgage banking products.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I figured if I need if I wanted to stay on top, I need to figure out a little bit more intention or see what else I could do, or how could I add something different, or you know, something.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't know what I didn't know, so I wanted to know it, if that makes sense.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I started to study everything.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I went to you know, industry specific trainings, I went to just regular sales and marketing trainings.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I went to Zig Ziggler, Tom Hopkins, to Todd Duncan, to Bill Backrack, to you name it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I bought I bought their course, I flew to their conference, and I uh and I implemented stuff and I read their books, and all of it worked, but none of it really worked.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing really gave me that bolster in my career that I was hoping for or expecting.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, granted, I was a W-2 employee of a bank, but my commission only job was basically it I got paid for my efforts were, so I knew I had to keep figuring out, you know, what there was out there.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I ended up discovering a book that ended up changing my life.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was a book called Gorilla Marketing.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And this was about the same time that I was going through my you know quest for finding something.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Gorilla Marketing was already in its third edition by J.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Con Redlevinson, of course, but I had never heard of him and I had never heard of the book.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it just really like, wow, where did this come from?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I teased that uh God's got a sense of humor because I either stole it, which I'm pretty sure I didn't, or somebody gave it to me, or it was divinely left on my desk because I don't remember really where it came from.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I read the book and I really resonated with everything.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I realized I was a gorilla and didn't know it.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was leveraging my time, my energy, and my imagination and creating value-added relationships over the bank account.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, truth be told, I had an unlimited bank account at the bank.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I could literally spend as much money as I could even remotely justify in marketing and advertising, but so could everybody else.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we were all just outspending each other each month.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a success in spite of it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I ended up really resonating with the guerrilla marketing stuff and just deep dived in gorilla marketing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was new to me, old to the world-ish, if you will.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I just bought and read everything that had a G and an M in it, and ended up hiring Jay Levison as a coach.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, in his book, he said, Hey, if you want me to take it further and need help, you know, reach out.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean his email, plainest day in the middle of the book, and I responded, I emailed, he responded, and we developed a relationship and I hired him as a coach.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where this really started to change my life, but also ultimately, as you can tell, my career.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: But so in my coaching with Jay, Jay was just affirming, give me great examples and stories, but wasn't necessarily teaching me anything that I didn't already learn from the book or didn't already know because I was doing it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's very affirming, though, that I was heading down the right path.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So don't get me wrong, there's definitely value add, and he was an amazing soul.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: But he then challenged me over a couple months with these three things.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: He said, David, if you want to charge more and negotiate less, he says, You've got to keep doing what you're doing because it's working.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: But you need to add one more thing.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Yeah, who doesn't want to charge more and negotiate less when you're selling something, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that makes sense.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sign me up.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was like, well, what is this?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: One more thing.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm ready.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Teach me what it was, you know, old master.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: But he wasn't ready to teach me yet.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he went on for like the next month to said, David, if you wanted to have those clients that you wish you could get business from that you wish knew about you and would return your phone calls, if you wanted to get those clients to start begging to give you business, you've got to keep doing what you're doing because you're having an impact.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you need to add one more thing.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And surely enough, I had celebrity real estate agents, I had big bankers or CPAs or you know, builders, and I wish I could get their business because that would be wonderful.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: But they didn't return, they didn't return my phone call.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And although I was a top producer, I wasn't the only, you know, top producer.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, man, that would be nice if I didn't have to work so hard to get every client.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be great.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then he went on, like in the third month, about this time I'm ready to kill him because he still hasn't revealed what that one more thing is.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he went on to tell me something that uh I didn't necessarily expect but could appreciate.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: He said, David, if you wanted to have the media call you on a regular basis when something happened in this in your space, you know, whether it's you know television, radio, or print, you know, they always have these talking heads on television or quote people in the paper.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I I I could imagine that that that maybe could be me, you know, but I can't I can't really see that.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, you definitely could, because you're making an impact, you're making a name for yourself.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're definitely on your way there.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: But he said, if you add one more thing, you'll get there faster.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, at this point, you know, ready to strangle the guy.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: What is this thing?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he he told me, he said, Well, David, you need to write a book.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was heartbroken and I laughed out loud.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope I wasn't too disrespectful because I was like, seriously, who am I to write a book?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't write a book.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I barely passed English in high school.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I dropped out of college.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he was very gracious, very loving.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: He helped me understand that I probably was doing enough things that others could learn from, and I probably had something to say, and I certainly could have a platform to get there because I was very successful.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So he helped me figure out how to write an outline and helped me figure out how to write the book and ended up being a stress reliever.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up writing the book in about 30 days.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally just, you know, it came easy.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was ended up being a stress reliever in the afternoons.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'd get home from work and I'd write about what happened that day.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty much that simple.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up getting it published.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't realize that was a hard thing to do.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't remember how many rejections I got, but I ended up getting you know picked up pretty quickly.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it worked.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: In less than eight months, I did everything that Jay said.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I doubled my income.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: I literally doubled all my fees and nobody asked questions.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, the people that I wished were giving me business started to beg to get on my calendar and give me the business.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I had to swallow my pride and take their money because I wanted the business.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because they wouldn't talk to me yesterday, but now they'll talk to me.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then sure enough, the media started calling me on a regular basis, weekly basis, to talk about all the volatile stuff that was going on in the making business back in the 90s.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was laughable, it worked so amazingly well.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, wow, Jay, this is the secret guerrilla marketing weapon in your arsenal that somebody could do to leverage their position in their space.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was absolutely amazing.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, from an entrepreneurial perspective, nothing can give you uh an authority perspective as much as the power of a book.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's deep ingrained into all of our psyches that somebody has to rise as an authority and the book puts that shining badge on their chest saying that yes, they are that authority in the space.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact to be able to charge more and negotiate less because of it, gain additional clients because of it, uh, as well as you recognize from a media perspective because of it, is super, super powerful.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it is really interesting.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, thanks for sharing your story with us.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I've heard versions of that on different podcasts and stuff, but uh it is so inspiring and so motivating.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just love hearing that.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my um talking about me is my favorite subject.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is so interesting though, with you know, so we're doing a podcast conversation right now.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's obviously social media, there's blogs, there's magazines and all that, but there's still something really magical about that book, particularly a print book that you can give to somebody as an actual tangible object.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's still something really magical about that.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and truth be told, it doesn't really matter whether it's self-published or traditionally published, the power of the book is a mindset.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I became that authority during that process.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then as it started to come together with me, I rose even more to the top to be the authority.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest difference between self-publishing today and then some sort of traditional publishing is that third-party validation, which the media often wants.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a there's an extra level there.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: But you're right, the the power of a book is just amazing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So then how did you move from becoming an author, having your first book, and seeing the amazing results that that brought to you in your business, then to founding a Morgan James your own publishing company?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of authors who have success, but very few people think of, hey, I'm gonna start my own publishing company because I'm I'm not happy with how traditional publishing works.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So can you take us on that journey for a bit?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that journey starts immediately after starting my book process.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the book process, although it worked, was one of the worst experiences I had ever gone through.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was obligated to do three books if I, you know, sold well enough to earn that, you know, to be able to do more books with the publisher.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it was it was a horrible experience.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had very little input in anything.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: They made decisions regardless of my thoughts.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I had no input in the cover, no input in the final title.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, even when I got my copies in the mail a few months before pub date, they added chapters to the book that I didn't even know about.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was it was frustrating.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was just uh it was a lack of everything.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I really was like, am I published?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Am I not?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing's going on, I hear nothing, and you know, and then of course the book comes out and it does well for me, but I couldn't sell enough books to make the publisher happy, perceive or perceivably.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was always the conversation I was having is you're not selling enough books to go sell more books.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't know how to sell books, I didn't know how sell mortgages, I don't know how to sell books.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it was a horrible experience.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, man, I'm done with that.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I did convince Jay uh to co-author my second book with me.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And even with Jay, he agreed, which is amazing, but even with Jay as a co-author, um, we still struggled with the relationship with publishers.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now he had sold 15 million books by the time I met him.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um but even with Jay, now he owned the brand, so the title was pretty much locked down, but we did have to really struggle hard to come up with that subtitle, had a little bit of input in the cover because of the camouflage motif and things like that, but ultimately we really had very little to do with the cover and then just argued over everything.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was frustrating.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, when the book came out, we couldn't sell enough to make the publisher happy.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now it didn't sell millions of copies, but it did well.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up selling 40,000 copies to the bank I worked with.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought that was amazing.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so when it came time for the third book, which was a second edition of that book, um, it the frustrations began again.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, struggle with the conversations with the publisher, but really the the straw that broke the camel's back for me was uh in 1999, just before that book was coming out, the publisher was arguing with us about not letting us use the word internet in the book.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, internet was here to stay in 1999, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um granted, we had the Y2K hiccup that we were all kind of worried about, but nobody really thought the internet was gonna go away.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the publisher felt strongly that it was gonna be irrelevant in a year and the book would be dated immediately and people wouldn't buy it because it had bad data.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, needless to say, the internet was here to stay, but I was I set my way thinking I am not gonna publish another book for this link because it was just it was a horrible relationship.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: That was the biggest thing for me, is it just there was no relationship I couldn't make them happy.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up self-publishing a couple books, three three books over the next three years, and loved it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was in complete control of everything.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not not that I'm a control freak.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew, you know, that you know being a part of it, having control over the cover and having control over the title and the final content and all that stuff was, you know, ended up being really important to me.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the books were great, but it was different.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it's very it's certainly better than not doing anything at all.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I will absolutely tell you that.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: But it was different.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't get the same level of respect from the media.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: The fact they never would call me back or call me or talk to me about my self-published books, but they were always eager to talk to me about my traditionally published books.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, you know, I had a hard time selling them.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I really did not sell hardly any books.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the only distribution I had was, you know, there's no social media really back then.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So the only distribution I had, you know, was my garage, my trunk, and the infancy of Amazon.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a big, big, big difference.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was kind of frustrating.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I all the while I'm still working with Jay as a you know as a mentor, friend, coach.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I ended up stopping paying him when he went on with me as a co-author, which is awesome.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but um I said, Jay, this is this is horrible.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, somebody's got to fix publishing.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I know this is it's been it's been this way for as long as I've been writing books, and it is what it is, which I was very surprised to kind of hear that attitude from from Jay.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, man, somebody's got to fix it.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, nobody did.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up spending a year with Jay on what an outline for an entrepreneurial publishing house would look like or could look like.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Building a lot of guerrilla marketing, a lot of zigziggler and serving others, because that's it really ultimately kind of helped me be a successful banker because I didn't try to sell products, I tried to sell an opportunity to help them grow their business because we would just be told, the more successful they were, the more successful I was going to be.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I carried that into the publishing house.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we set up an outline for what an entrepreneurial publishing house would look like and launched it in 2003 with permission from my lovely bride.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I still had a day job as a banker.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I never really imagined quitting the day job as a banker because they were paying me stupid money.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I just knew that there was an opportunity that needed to be filled, and it could be me, you know.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I had nothing to offer except for my you know passion and enthusiasm for a change in my rugged good looks, which is questionable.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I couldn't relate to that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we launched and it worked.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our first dozen books were we had a four book series from Jay, so certainly that was gonna be a success.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Still didn't have very good distribution back then.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had to earn that over the years and uh had very little credibility, had to earn that over the few years.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we ended up naming it after our kids, which sounded like a real company, but meant something to me because I didn't want to do Hancock publishing or something like that because it would sound kind of self-published.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just uh, you know, a path I was hoping to make work.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And relationship after relationship that I had built over the years with um people in in writing and entrepreneurship, we gave us a chance.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some of those first few authors, and I had some big fans and supporters back then, and we just kind of grew it from there.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of like the birth of uh of Morgan James and why I ended up not quitting my day job until about 2000, early 2005, early, you know, or late 2004, something like that.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we have a lot of people listening to the show who uh some people who really would like to have a book traditionally published, other people who are dead set on self-publishing.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: What is different about Morgan James's publishing model that is different than those two experiments?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because these are some really unique things.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to just uh give it a chance to lay this out for authors who are looking for something that is not all the work and like the total everything depends on me model of publishing, but also not the constraints of traditional publishing, which is where Morgan James comes in, of course.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we may not have time to go into all the deep reasons, you know, why some of these things are important to us, um, although you can probably catch the service level.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but for us, it's all about the relationship.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a very relationship kind of guy, and I'd had no relationship in publishing.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, most authors and publishers don't have a good relationship or a relationship at all, or it's a bad relationship, unfortunately.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that they're all evil, but they're, you know, they're big conglomerates and they're publishing 13,000 books a year.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully that three or four of them will sell 65 million so they can continue to pay their bills.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but for me, I I wanted to have, you know, the ultimately I wanted to build something that could have the credibility, the opportunity, uh, the distribution, and and hopefully, yeah, of a traditional publisher, you know, the credibility opportunity distribution of a traditional publisher, but yet have the involvement and the relationship uh and and uh the aspects of what self-publishing could do.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the way I look at it from a 10,000 view is I wanted to set up a company, I could add the value of a traditional house, although I had very little of that to begin with, but I wanted to ultimately have the value of a traditional house, uh, but stay the heck out of the way of the entrepreneur.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because every time I wanted to go speak on the topic, I have to get permission or show them what I was talking about so I wasn't giving too much of the book away for free in my talks.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had limited ability to create courses or other products around my book because they own the intellectual property, and I've certainly had a limited access to my copies of my own book.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, typical publishing, my publisher was also this way.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I could only buy 500 copies of my book at an author discount, which was like 50% of cover price.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Then after that, if I needed any more, I have to pay retail.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was ridiculous.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had no support.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So when we set up uh Morgan James, you know, again, 17 years in the making, um, you know, we had to find, you know, the distribution.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're distributed by one of the nation's largest distributors, actually, the nation's largest distributor.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we had bookstore distribution.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we also have some exclusivity with what we're doing.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I was looking for reasons to say no, but we've got a very specific model that does cater to the entrepreneur.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, 99.100% of our authors are entrepreneurs, and the books are part of something bigger, you know, whether it's a business or entrepreneurial venture or a nonprofit or a faith message, something the book is part of something bigger than itself.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that was important to us.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, we also have over the years been able to come up with uh, you know, that actual distribute distribution that we earned and then the credibility from actually having some successes.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: That certainly helped when our first authors were already significant in their space and we were selling some books, but we ended up hitting our first New York Times bestseller list in 2006 with an amazing book and an amazing author.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And now, Cincinnati have been on the New York Times list 29 times, and actually over 65 times in the USA Today and Wall Street Journal, one that we just found out today hit the list this week.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: So very, very cool.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that finally, you know, is something that's really cool.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: What now Morgan James has been able to bring to the table again, all part of my master plan.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: The master plan.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Those things are important, those things are what traditional publishers can bring to the table.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: But where we differ is I think the reason why we're doing.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so well, and our and we're so successful, and our authors are happy and love us, is that we build in that relationship from the start.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: We work backwards from what is the goal of the author.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, even in us deciding which books to publish, we do about 150 hand-selected nonfiction books each year, and 80% of our decision is the author.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, who are they?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: What are they doing and why?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because you could always hire a better editor, right?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Heck, you can delete it and start over with a new ghostwriter, but you can't fix an author that's not coachable, doesn't care about their readers, or is just a plain knucklehead.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no one to knucklehead authors.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think those exist.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, definitely not with us, that's for sure.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: But you notice I didn't say anything about platform yet.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not necessary about platform.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you're coachable and willing to get out there and hustle, you can start from zero and become a hero by the time the book hits the bookstore shelf.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all very duplicatable.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh if you've got a great relationship with you know an author slash publisher or vice versa, so then you can get there together.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's been something for us that's been very, very powerful, being able to help the authors figure out the old crud now work.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because as I mentioned before, in my experience, in typical traditional publishing, is they expect you as all we as authors to go sell the book even more today, no matter how you publish a book today, whether it's some random house or Morgan James or publish it with you know Amazon or PICO's, it's still gonna be on your shoulders to get the book sold.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what we love to do is teach the best practices on what the authors should do and could do.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And really, we spend just as much time with the authors on the things that they shouldn't do.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't want them to waste their time or waste their money.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's fun.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we help them on those now what's.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but then as far as the book is goes, we you know, we create this really cool mastermind.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: We call it because we're entrepreneurs for the name everything, we call it this entrepreneurial vision mastermind.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we build this mastermind group around every book that we end up accepting for the sole purpose of making the decisions together with the author, looking at their brand, their goals, their purpose in their back end, more so than necessarily what we want as a publisher.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because really, truth be told, what we want is what the author needs, you know, that kind of thing.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: So basically the two teams coming together, the author's team, which could just be them, or it could be them and their you know, co-author or editor or agent or ghostwriter or or neighbor's dog or whoever's important to them is going to be important to us, of course.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then on our team, we've got a gorilla marketing expert, a branding expert, a PR expert, and a design expert, and whatever I can bring to the table.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And together we flesh it all out.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do we have the right title?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do we have the right subtitle?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Does it match the branding?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is it compelling enough?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is it long enough?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is it short enough?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what should the book look like?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: What size?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: What format?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: What should it feel like?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: What price?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And even when should it come out?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: All these decisions we make together with the author, which is unheard of in publishing.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then once that book is done, we want to give them to the author immediately so they can go out there and start leveraging it, start using it, start sending it out to influencers or selling it or using it in the back of the room, so whatever they can to help build their platform and get the word out there.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: But then the fun is the old crud now what.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now the book's out.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: What do we do?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where we work with the author on their platform and the goals they have to help them get there.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of like a high-level version of you know what we do a little bit differently.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we still pay advances to the author, but we don't buy their intellectual property.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: We pay a small advance.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we do pay high royalties, probably double what you know, Wiley or Entrepreneur Press pays.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: But our real you know, value add is blending that opportunity, you know, credibility, distribution, and involvement together with you know, the blending of the self-publishing and the traditional side that makes it work.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: What if someone has already self-published a book, but they are interested in everything that you just said, and their their ears have perked up and they're going, oh wow, this sounds like a cool opportunity, but I've already self-published my book.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever republish books under Morgan James that have already been self-published?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, it would scare a lot of publishers because they the fear is that they've already, you know, exhausted their opportunity to sell the book.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but the reality is most authors don't necessarily know what to do or how to do it, but with limited distribution, they barely scratch the surface.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we sell into 98% of bookstores in North America and 86% of bookstores globally, there's an opportunity that even self-publishing can't reach, that traditional publishing can definitely reach.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very, very important.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not afraid to talk to an author that has either had great success with their self-published book or not.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know that with proper coaching in a good book in a in a coachable author, we can get there.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not afraid to talk to an author that's had uh you know a book self-published prior.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, uh, you know, probably 40% of our catalogs are books that are have you know risen from you know the the you know the the the depths of self-publishing.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's interesting because I'm actually I just finished a book, ghostwriting a book for a client, and I thought, you know, she might be a really great match for this.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: So and but that came up and that's actually why I asked that question is because I'm thinking of my own situation with this client that I have who uh and it's it's um of course if I say it's a great book, that sounds like I'm going, I wrote a really great book.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: A fantastic person and has a great platform and everything.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that that may be something we explore for sure.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of the cool things that that we mentioned right before we I hit record on this call is a couple of the neat things uh just about Morgan James as a company.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I know is a new thing that that you've been planning on for a while is offering healthcare benefits to authors, which I love that idea.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because so many authors are, you know, they're self-employed, they're freelancers, et cetera.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about that and what brought that about and and maybe some details about that for those who are interested?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate you uh you mention that.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: So really it's been a 10-year journey for me.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And over the years, as many times as we're talking to entrepreneurs, it often comes up that uh a lot of entrepreneurs will forego taking care of themselves, you know, whether it's um you know, with either the proper health insurance or or just in self-care by itself, and it adds a stress to their you know, to their lives.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I recognize even myself as a you know as an entrepreneur, our first few years I sacrificed by not having health insurance for the family so I can continue to reinvest in in the company, you know, praying that uh the kids would be okay and I would be okay, and finally got my head together and got myself insurance as we grew the business.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I recognize a lot of our authors didn't.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I started to seek where can we get you know health insurance for one, our companies.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: That was a that was always uh something that we needed over the years.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: In the early days, we had a lot of spouses who had um you know insurance, or a lot of our staff very young, very, very talented, but we're still under their parents.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: But as we grew up as a publisher, both in staff as well as you know, stature, we had to get our own.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, none of it was really affordable, none of it was great, it was very expensive because we're a global company.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: So even here in the States, we've got people spread out all over the country.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: We've got offices in New York, Virginia, and Nashville, and staff from Florida to Idaho and anywhere in between.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: So for us to offer insurance for them was was very complicated and expensive.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so then over my over the 10 years, finally found a group that uh could satisfy something really cool, and it was the ability to add 1099 freelancers or paid people under the corporate group healthcare benefits.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I loved it.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the secret piece that we could then say, okay, now our authors, since they all get paid something, they have to get paid something, they all get in advance, and you know, 99.100% of our earning royalty is right out the gate.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so we wanted to make sure that uh you know they could qualify for our group healthcare, and it finally came together.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: So as of uh September 2020, um, our authors are eligible under our group healthcare benefits.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it was uh mentioned in Publishers Weekly today uh about how unique and uh been told it was unprecedented in publishing that a publisher could care about their authors that much.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I saw a pattern and another hole that needed to be filled.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: It took longer than expected, but it meant something to me.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we had you know immediate signups already for people that were in desperate need for it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very exciting.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what are the what are their other options?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is it something like you know, going with Obamacare or just another privately purchasing insurance on their own versus going with group insurance, which I'm sure obviously it's cheaper and probably has better benefits and so forth.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it definitely is cheaper than going through just the Affordable Health Care Act by themselves.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So if they had a day job with a corporation, then that that's probably best for them.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: They should keep that.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but if they're looking at some state-specific complaints directly as entrepreneurs, they can be very pricey and they can be catastrophic insurance only, which is better than nothing, but they're usually not cheap.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or just uh for many you know, people that are caught between that age 26 and I guess it was 49, it's a really expensive gap in the Affordable Healthcare Act where it's really not that affordable.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and this kind of offers the sweet spots, you know, right in between.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what part of the United States they live in, they can still have access to the you know the group plan, which is more affordable and broader access.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's funny, even that thing in itself I think is such an appealing idea of aside from all the stuff related to books and marketing and business and everything, just the idea that as a company you're offering that to your authors, that really says a lot that, hey, we care about people.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not you're not just a cog in this gigantic wheel to help us make money.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's we care about you and want to develop a relationship with your relationship with you and serve your family.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is so important.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about it's all about that relationship and serving others.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: The more I can serve others, the more it's gonna do for me.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, truth be told, selfishly, if they're healthy and well and out there actively marketing themselves and succeeding, we're gonna do better.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've had dozens of authors pass away on us something over the years, and it's it's it's um it's horrible.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so anything that I can do to keep them alive and well in marketing and doing well for their family is gonna benefit me, of course.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: But truth be told, I I care.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: These are these are our family.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So as soon as we start working together, we consider them family.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one and other interesting thing, I'm just throwing out a couple tidbits here before we before I hit record on this conversation, is you mentioned that you have a new staff member who's transitioned from another publishing company.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you'd like to, or is that is that not something I should put on the podcast?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's fine.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know, you know, we very intentionally launched the publishing house with zero people from publishing.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I'm an extremist in that aspect, but I figured I have a better way.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if I if truth be told, if I had known how complicated it was, I probably wouldn't have done it on purpose.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: So entrepreneurial bliss is heaven.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then over the years, as we figured out who we wanted to be as a publisher and what we wanted the experience to be like, because we only can really control one thing as a publisher, the relationship with the author.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: We can't control how the how the reps perceive a book, we can't control how consumers perceive a book, we can't control book sales.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So really all we can do is uh you know manage that relationship.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: But we want them to have a good relationship and learn during the process so they can be as effective as possible.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: But we didn't hire our first industry exec until about 2008.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, very, very careful to make sure that we're doing it our way, and then we'll learn and fill in the gaps, you know, as we as we grew up.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: But truth, um, I say truth be told so many times she might want to edit that out.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: But so as we continue to grow each one of our divisions over the years, we started with our nonfiction, you know, typical self-help how-to, you know, not you know, nonfiction stuff, to actually launching a clean fiction division, which has been fun.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: We realized that entrepreneurs could tell stories and still be able to teach great lessons, as well as uh an awesome face division, you know, where we do good quality face books.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Again, the books are still part of something bigger, obviously, what's bigger than our you know, relationship with God.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we even have a small kids division as well.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: So each one of these divisions we're trying to grow.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very honored to say that a 20-year veteran, um vice president of a HarperCollins brand called Zonderben, has come on board as our faith publisher.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to tease that he jumped ship to a more logical path, but uh only he could tell you what you know, his his reasons.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: But we're honored to have him.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: And his his that he's been tasked to help us grow that faith division, hopefully to the size of our nonfiction side.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but very excited to have him, and he promises to leave the hierarchy behind and uh really revel in the flexibility and opportunity that he's got under the Morgan James umbrella.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I do I do have to say I have a very soft spot for Zondervan.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I've been a college teacher in my day job for a long time and used to be a pastor, so I've got so many books by Zondervan and have really appreciated so many of their resources over the years.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um that but that's at the same time, that's really cool that you've been able to bring somebody in with that experience and uh particularly somebody from Zondervan who's obviously highly respected and a successful company.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: So watch us grow, brother.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to it.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, David, as we start to wind this down, um if people are listening and they're thinking this sounds really compelling, I love what David is sharing about Morgan James.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: How can I be a part of this?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: What are some next steps that someone could take to consider whether or not Morgan James would be a good fit for them?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or if they have a book ready to go, how would they go about submitting that and going through the process of exploration?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate that opportunity.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: We do get thousands of submissions each year, and we're honored to have them, but we're really truly looking for that, you know, that's that sweet spot of an author that's entrepreneurial in nature.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: The book's going to benefit the reader, but yet the writer cares about the reader and it can grow both lives because of the power of the book.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we're always open to talk.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, our passion is helping authors find their right path, and we're honored to be able to share our path with as many authors as possible, but ultimately the end game is making sure that the author fills their need.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, probably the best way is to come to us because of somebody, you know, a personal introduction from one of our authors or a personal introduction from a literary scout, another like yourself, if you just bring it straight to the table.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, otherwise, we have great resources online at morganjamespublishing.com.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can submit a book.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we'll get through it as quickly as we can.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, if at all possible, you know, maybe you tap on Ken's shoulder to introduce us because we'd be honored to talk.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, David, this has been a blast.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your heart for authors and what you've done for so many people in giving them a third way to publish their books.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's not self-publishing, it's not traditional, but it's something specifically for entrepreneurs, which I love talking about on this show.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you again so much.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a blast.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um very thankful for you and all the ways that you're serving authors.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, I appreciate you.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for having me here.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's an honor to kind of share our unconventional, traditional model with your audience.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks so much.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with David.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, usually I do one takeaway, but I'm gonna do two major takeaways from this conversation.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you have options in publishing.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm so grateful that we live in a time where we can do self-publishing or we can use uh a traditional publisher, depending on whatever your goals are.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can also use a company like Morgan James, which has a very unique way of serving author entrepreneurs.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're not limited like you were 20 or 30 or 50 years ago.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can choose the model that fits any particular project or your specific way of doing business.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And my second takeaway is the power of a book to grow your business and your authority.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: David told the story of having a very successful business, but there was one thing that he was missing, which was a book.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And having a book can double your fees, it can grow your credibility, your authority, it can grow your stature among your peers, and it can just do so many amazing things for your life.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, I'm a big fan of Morgan James, and if you're serious about writing or publishing a book and you think Morgan James is right for you, you can feel free to get in touch with me at Kent at Kent Sanders.net.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am an official literary scout for Morgan James, and I will personally evaluate your idea or your manuscript and I will help shepherd it through the publishing process if it's accepted.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: So something cool for those of you who are thinking about publishing with Morgan James, just get in touch with me and I can uh chat with you more about that.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a very special thanks to my amazing guest, David Hancock, for taking time to be on this episode.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can connect with David on Facebook, LinkedIn, or of course at the Morgan James website, and all those links will be in the show notes.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 38:22
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• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the very best ways to develop better habits and impact more people's lives with their writing is to spend time around other successful writers.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're tired of feeling isolated and tasting successful, then I know you're gonna love the daily writer community.
• 38:42
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• 38:46
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• 38:50
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