Latest / The Daily Writer / October 2021, Business Update

Transcript

October 2021, Business Update · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: 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_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.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailyriderlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey friends, welcome again to my monthly business update, and I hope that you find these interesting.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's helpful to me to think over the previous month and take away some lessons from what I've been experiencing.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I say this a lot, but I don't pretend to be an expert on anything.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I see myself as a fellow learner just like you, and I'm really excited to be able to share what I'm learning.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons that I do these business updates is because I want you to also see your writing as a business.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you're only focusing on your own writing and you don't do any client work, your writing is still a business.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: If there is an exchange of money, even if you're only selling a few books on Amazon, that is still a business.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's definitely a tension between art and commerce, and I don't think that that tension ever goes away.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Artists of all kinds have to deal with it, and they've been dealing with it since probably the beginning of time, I guess.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And unless you have a wealthy patron who's funding all of your creative endeavors, you need to think like a business owner.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why on this podcast, I'm not just talking about creative kinds of topics.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also talking about really, really practical things like business-related things and how to deal with clients and things like marketing and um web design and podcasting and all those kinds of things.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because all of those things are part of the reality of what it means to be an author today.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't really want to sugarcoat things.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't just want to talk about pie in the sky, you know, inspiration, creativity things, uh, although those are a critical part of it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because without the business aspects and without the really practical, down-to-earth feet on the ground, you know, boots on the ground kind of aspects, then you're really going to hamper yourself as a writer because you're short-circuiting your success if you're not thinking about those kinds of things.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I want to dive into those things.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, I'm learning a ton.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm I'm seeing so many ways that I need to grow and am growing so many things that I can do better.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a teacher at heart, honestly.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's helpful for me to look at what I'm doing well and the things that I'm not doing well, which sometimes seem too far outnumber the things I'm doing well, and to be able to share some of those things on the podcast.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, with that said, let's dive in.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: As usual, on these updates, I focus on three areas my ghostwriting business, which is called Inquail Ghostwriting.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then I also talk about the Daily Writer, which is the site of my business where I'm training writers and podcasting and uh coaching and things like that, and also a few personal updates.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in with ghostwriting.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, rather than talking about what I'm learning from specific projects, what I thought I would do this month is I want to share a few lessons that I'm learning right now about ghostwriting in general.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And these are some things that are just kind of on my mind, and these are not in any particular order.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I actually had a bunch of things that I wanted to talk about, but I decided in order to keep these episodes a little shorter, that I would just do three of these.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So here is lesson number one that I am learning right now, and that is you probably need to raise your prices.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think that pricing is not just a matter of what value you're bringing to the marketplace.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your pricing is also a financial expression of your confidence to some degree.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what I mean by that.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there is there is a marketplace value for what you do, and people are willing to pay a certain amount of money for the value that they perceive you bring.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of a sense in which other people determine what your monetary value is in terms of your products or services.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a very clear kind of thing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But pricing is also a reflection to some degree on what your confidence level is.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not feeling very confident and if you don't feel very good about what you're doing, if you're not excited about it and you're kind of timid and meek and and and you don't feel confident, then your pricing is going to reflect that.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're always going to have pricing that that feels a little bit desperate because your pricing is not going to be high enough to reflect the fact that you are really, really confident in what you're doing.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel confident in what you're doing, you're going to feel more bold.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to feel a little bit more audacious, and you're going to kind of want to, you know, sit up in the chair a little bit taller, and you're going to broaden out your shoulders and you're going to say, hey, I'm really good at what I do.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know I can bring a lot of value to the marketplace, and this is what I charge for this.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of psychology that goes into that.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like this has been, I've learned a lot over the past year, and I feel like I've improved a lot, but I have so far to go, as we all do.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: But as I have gotten more confident in my ghostwriting abilities, and as I have added lots of skills to my arsenal over the past few years, particularly the last six months to a year, uh I've gotten a lot more confident and I've started to charge um, you know, a lot higher rates than I did a year ago.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm getting those contracts back from clients and as we're starting projects and as those payments come in, it makes me even more confident.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of like a cascading effect where you take a little bit of a bold step and you raise your rates according to what your value is, then you get you make a little bit more, then you do that again and again and again, and that's how you just raise your rates over time.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's talk numbers specifically.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think at the bare minimum, if you are a person who has a professional ghostwriting business, even if you're doing it as a side business, I think you should be charging at least$10,000 to$15,000 per book if that's the way you're positioning yourself.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I see a lot of writers who talk about, you know, they're charging four or five thousand dollars for a book or ten thousand dollars for a book.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that's fine if you want to start out there, but you really need to get up to, I think fifteen thousand dollars is like the floor, the bottom of the floor for professional ghostwriting.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people who do a lot of$15,000 books.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you enjoy that, uh particularly if you're working with agencies, you know, there's a lot of ghostwriting agencies who pay$15,000 for a book.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, um I am currently working on a book that the contract was for$15,000 from a ghostwriting agency.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I signed this contract close to a year ago, and we're only like a third of the way through this book.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a long kind of a story, to be honest with you.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The book's going fine, but it's been a very, very slow, laborious kind of a process.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I signed that contract back when that was what my rate was.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, well, honestly, even then I thought it was kind of low, but it's through an agency, and you're always gonna make less through an agency.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that particular contract was was a lot lower than what I'm charging now.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the average rate is about$40,000.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, once you get higher up from that lower tier of ghostwriters um to sort of the middle of the pack and what a standard professional ghostwriter is gonna charge, that's gonna be somewhere around$40,000, maybe$35,000 up to$50,000.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of, there's a lot of people who do a lot of books in that price range.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have the upper tier, which is like$75,000 and sometimes far above that for celebrity books and that kind of a thing.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I mention all this because if you have the writing chops and some experience to back it up and you can deliver on time and you can really serve the client well, I think you should be charging more than$15,000, especially if you've done more than one book.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the bottom line is that whenever you raise your rates, you communicate more value to the client and you can also serve that client more deeply.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: So remember, it's not just a function of what will somebody pay me for what I'm doing, it's also a function of what is your what is your confidence level.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to have a realistic assessment of what your skill level is and what your experience level is, and that's very true.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But also it's okay to be confident and you know it's okay to to I think overshoot things a little bit because you can always adjust your pricing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if you start out low, then you can't really raise it from there.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you start out a little high, you can always negotiate a little bit, or you can add in some other things.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Something that I oftentimes do with clients is I will have a rate that I quote, and then I will say, I will do the book, but I will also add in a journal or a workbook on top of that.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the reality is that a journal or a workbook doesn't take that much extra time to create.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you're creating a whole separate thing from scratch.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're creating something that's quicker, that's faster for you to do generally, based on the exact same content.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something that I oftentimes will will put into the mix for clients because it's a really cool value add for them.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's an extra product they can sell.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it doesn't take that much extra time for me to create.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's lots and lots of ways you could position pricing, and there's so much more that I have to learn about this.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the bottom line is probably you need to raise your prices if you're a professional writer.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go into lesson number two about ghostwriting, and that is clients are not mainly concerned about your writing ability.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just in the past three weeks, I've had several conversations with prospective clients, and guessed how many of them have asked about my writing ability?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you guessed it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not a single one of them.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you present yourself as a professional ghostwriter or professional freelance writer, clients just assume that you can write well, particularly if you have a portfolio or if you have references or testimonials or whatever.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're not really concerned about the writing, then what are they concerned about the most?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, clients are generally most concerned about working with somebody who is no drama, they deliver on time and they're easy to work with.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Again, they assume that you can deliver on the writing.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's the other things that make the biggest difference, at least as I perceive it.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: When I have an exploratory call with a client, I always emphasize that I deliver on time, I'm easy to work with, and there's not going to be any personal drama from me.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm there to listen, I'm there to communicate their story in the best way possible.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not there to have them serve me.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the other way around.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I am there to serve the client.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: People love this approach because they already have enough drama in their everyday lives.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: They've got family members, they've got social media, they've got their work, they've got the culture in general that's going berserk these days, it seems like.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So people have enough drama in their life.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as a ghostwriter, I believe it is my job to be a solid, unshakeable rock for my clients.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: When everything else in their life is going crazy, they can absolutely count on me to be an even keeled presence in their life who is not going to let them down, who is always going to show up for calls, who's going to be respectful of their time, who is organized.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to know if there's one, if there's one part of my life that is where there's not going to be any drama, and that's going to be absolutely dependable 100% of the time, it's going to be Kent Sanders, my ghostwriter.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you can present that kind of emotional stability to clients, that really, really goes a long way.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what I see happening with freelancers and ghostwriters a lot is that people are writers are oftentimes they're really worried about presenting their services to clients.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're worried about their portfolios.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're worried about, you know, adding on all these things to projects.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're worried about things that clients are not that worried about.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think it is really, really important to present yourself in a way that's highly professional, that is emotionally mature, that is rock solid, and that is that is low personal drama.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So along with that, I think it's really, really important on your social media profiles not to be putting drama stuff.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't put don't put stuff on your social media that indicates emotional instability.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's probably the best advice I could give anybody, honestly.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have some friends who are are professionals in the writing space.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or many times if you look on their social media feed, there's there's just things that indicate drama and conflict or or things like that.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I think clients, by and large, don't really like that kind of stuff.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Even if your social media is totally separate from your ghostwriting thing, it's not really separate.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Clients see that and what they see is one uh they see one total person.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's important on your social media feeds to indicate positivity, to indicate generosity and thoughtfulness and uh not taking yourself too seriously all the time and those kind of things.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's this is all obviously my personal opinion, but I'm just telling you what I see.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you that clients really, really like working with people who are stable, who are rock solid, and where there's there's no personal drama.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So take that for whatever you will.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let's move on to point number three.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've beaten that horse enough.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that's only because I see it a lot.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't you see this too?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: You just see people with the it's just constant drama.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if you want to build a solid business where people really trust you, you cannot have a lot of personal drama involved in the mix.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now, in your personal life, you might have drama in your actual life.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, all of us have drama.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've got a teenage son, uh, I'm married.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: That, you know, we all have different personalities.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally, there there is drama happening in my life, just as there's drama happening in your life too.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't let that stuff seep onto social media.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, lesson number three, I feel like this is a counseling session.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, whether it's the counseling session for me or for you, I'm not sure.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Probably for both of us.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate you listening.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number three, I'll get here eventually, is this having the right connections makes a huge difference.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I am starting to work on a couple of books for a major publisher, and these books happened.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, they happened really fast, uh, which was kind of unusual.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: But second of all, they happened because another ghostwriter friend of mine recommended me to somebody who has a ton of connections with publishers and other movers and shakers in the book world.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned this, I mentioned this not because I'm anybody special on any level.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm just like an average guy trying to do some writing work.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing this podcast trying to add value to people.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I mentioned this not because I'm anybody special, but simply because I've put a lot of time and energy into building relationships with people and those pay off after time.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, this podcast has been one of the central ways that I have done that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if you listen to this show, you see that I had guests every week, and each of those guests has a whole different network of people than I do.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes my network and their network overlaps, but they have the they have a uh a lot of people that they know that I don't know.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's worth the time for me to interview guests and to get to know them and build a relationship with them because that can pay huge dividends later.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: However, this is not just a one-way street.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: This this is not a deal where I'm like, oh, I can have these guests on my show and and they can do something for me later on.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that kind of a thing at all.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when I build relationships with people, those connections also mean that I can be on the lookout for opportunities for my friends.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I have so-and-so on my show, that means uh, and this is what happens, honestly, a lot of times is I'll I'll do an interview with the guests, then after the interview's done, we'll chit-chat for a little bit and I'll find out a little bit more about what they're working on or what their goals are or what they need.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when I know what somebody needs, that means I can look to my network and think through who is somebody that I need to connect my friend with, who's somebody who can help them.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can be that kind of a person, that really, really pays off in huge ways for you and for your whole network.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like an everybody wins kind of a deal.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, this is how business works.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is really how things actually get done.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about your skills, it's much more about your connections and your relationships.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your skills are important, you've got to have the skills.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have the skills but you don't have a network and you don't have connections and relationships, then you're just not gonna get very far.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you're putting time into building those connections and relationships.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, the podcast has been an enormously helpful way to do that.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's a few things I'm thinking about in terms of ghostwriting.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's go to some things happening with the Daily Writer.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as you know, you know, the ghostwriting of the Daily Writer, there's some overlap there, but generally they're kind of separate deals.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: The ghostwriting is my client work, the daily writer is where I serve and coach and help writers through this podcast and through other things as well.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here are a few highlights about what is happening with the Daily Writer.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got five things that I want to mention here.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is that the Daily Writer is getting more active on Instagram.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have quotes, we have writing prompts, we have other content that's coming soon.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my assistant Rajan is doing an absolutely stellar job with that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and follow us at Daily Writer Life on Instagram.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of cool stuff happening there.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the second thing is that the Daily Writer community is growing and we have the first course coming in November.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be an audio only course.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is not going to be a video course.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be a thing where you have to log in and give your attention to some you know lengthy course.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be a short audio course that you can take while you're walking or while you're doing dishes or whatever it is that you do.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I love audio courses because you don't have to stop what you're doing and engage in a course.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can take the course while you're doing other stuff.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And these courses are also going to be generally short, probably an hour at the max, divided up into several segments.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So this first course available next month is How to Build a Writing Habit, which is also the title of my next book that's coming out, a little short book that will actually be free for you.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the book will be free, but the course will be free as well if you are a member of the Daily Writer community.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited about these courses.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my good friend John Beathan, who heads up Imagine Podcasting, he's a podcast producer and pretty much an all-around creative genius.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's just an amazing guy.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: He has gotten me really thinking about the value of audio courses.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to give a little shout-out to John here because uh he's the one responsible for getting me sort of on this track.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about that course and I will let you know more about that when it's available.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh update number three with the Daily Writer is just about the podcast.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast, the Daily Writer Podcast, obviously, it continues to grow in listenership and it continues to be a great source of content that I'm repurposing into other forms.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I repurpose a lot of content between the podcast, the Daily Writer community, uh books that I'm working on, social media, and uh and other things as well.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm also teaching a college class right now on writing, and I'm doing another course for a friend of mine in his community.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's for Dan Miller's 48 Days community.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm teaching a course on writing for them right now.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a lot of things that are going on, and I repurpose stuff back and forth between all those mediums all the time.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I feel like I talk about this a lot, but this is another benefit of having a podcast is that you can a podcast forces you to create material on a regular basis because you know that people are expecting that material.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so you create the material and then you can use that in other ways.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I'm a massive fan of podcasting, as you know, because it does force you to create that material that you can use elsewhere.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh update number four with the Daily Writer is uh this is kind of an unexpected development.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was not really planning on this, but it just kind of happened over the last several weeks.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that is I've started to offer one-on-one coaching to authors to help them get their books written and self-published.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had a couple of people reach out to me and say, hey, how how can you help me with my book?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily want a ghostwriter.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want something more than what you offer in the Daily Writer community.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: What is a way that you can help me?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did have developed uh some arrangements for coaching where we meet twice a month.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I help them with their book outline, with uh determining what what their goals are with the book, specifically who their audience is, what the competing books of the marketplace are.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Generally, it's all the stuff that I work through with ghostwriting clients, except I'm not writing these books, the uh the coaching client is.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then we meet a couple times a month over a period of six, nine, or twelve months to make sure that their book gets written.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I do developmental editing, I provide feedback and accountability and encouragement and uh some resources and things like that along the way.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's kind of what this coaching programs program is.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested in chatting with me about that, reach out and let me know.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: The spots in this are very, very limited.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I have a couple coaching clients right now.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I could probably do one or two more uh over the next six to twelve months.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really, really busy with client projects as well as the daily writer, but I do have room for a couple more people.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if that sounds interesting to you, just let me know.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can shoot me an email at Kent at KentSanders.net.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you that it is far less expensive than ghostwriting, but it is still it's still absolutely an investment.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because um my time is valuable, but your time is valuable also.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I would hate for you to waste months and years of your life spinning your wheels trying to put together a book project on your own, uh, but really struggling to figure out how to do that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when you have coaching from someone like me who has a lot of experience with this, with this stuff, uh it really helps you to make progress a lot faster.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: I do Intend on doing a pitch for my coaching, but since we're talking about that, I'm just telling you it is available.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: So reach out if you're interested in doing that.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a hard sell thing at all.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm I'm really to the point in my ghostwriting business where I'm so busy with client projects that I've got to start uh thinking about building an agency, which I did not intend on doing so soon in this in this journey, to be totally honest with you.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I'm getting so much interest from people that I've got to think about you know hiring some help and uh training some writers and some things like that.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not this is not a situation where I'm like begging for coaching clients.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a good fit and if I believe that you're serious and and I really sense some passion and a good book idea from you, then we can definitely chat about that.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this is almost a thing.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm being like totally honest with you here, totally transparent.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: With coaching for me, it is it's not something that's really like a big thing on my radar screen, but I do enjoy doing it if it's the right client.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So coaching for me is very much a thing where I'm interviewing the the prospective clients.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a thing where they're interviewing me.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if I if I think you have some good potential and if I think that you're serious and if you you know want to make the investment, then let's chat.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um otherwise, the daily writer community is also a really, really excellent option.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, when you do coaching with me, you also are part of the daily writer community, just to boost your accountability, to boost your inspiration and the people who are helping you with that process.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, enough of that commercial.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to update number five with a daily writer, and that is uh just a quick update on my own book projects.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to books that I'm helping coaching clients with and books that I'm actually writing for clients, uh there's about six or seven of those that I currently have in process right now at different stages.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like I'm writing actively on all those every day.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that kind of a thing at all.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those are in development stage, some of those are in writing stage, some of those are finishing up and those kinds of things.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, in addition to all those, I'm writing three books of my own.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: One is uh a book that I mentioned earlier called How to Build a Writing Habit, that it will be a very short, around 15,000 words book that will be free to you.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this will be my lead magnet for the Daily Writer website.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: That means people can go there and they can download it for free.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: That will be available as a print book on Amazon, but also as a free ebook as well as an audiobook that people can get for free.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It will be on Audible as well.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh obviously, you have to pay for it on Audible, but this will be my lead magnet when people can download the ebook and the audio for free.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, book number two is the book called The Daily Writer, which is 366 meditations on creativity mindset and finding your authentic voice.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the actual subtitle, but it'll be pretty close to that.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: That'll come out next October, and uh I've started formatting that.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of doing like a mock a mock format.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It this isn't like the official designer thing, but I'm working on that steadily and I have a kind of a mock layout for that, and I'm getting ready to finalize uh my edits on the January Meditations.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I will continue working on this book for the next uh four to six months before that goes to the editor, as well as some beta readers.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested in being a beta reader for that, let me know.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm happy to put you on the team for that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, I'll develop a launch team for that book probably next summer.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're interested in reading some early drafts of that, let me know.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy to just shoot it to you.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, I'm working on a secret project that only one other person in the world knows about.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you'll find out more about this book when it comes out uh sometime next year.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So um overall, the way that I am treating the daily writer stuff, this is just kind of a business thing that you might be interested in.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: The way that I'm treating this is that I'm treating ghostwriting as my main gig, and the daily writer is kind of like my side gig, so to speak.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as the daily writer stuff grows and as revenue from that grows over time, then I will I will be able to reduce my ghostwriting client load over time over the next probably two or three, five years, and I will focus more and more and more on the daily writer stuff.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I want you to approach your stuff the same way as well.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Even if writing is your main thing, what is it that you're growing on the side as a side gig or a side hustle?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think multiple streams of income are really important.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you always have a little something that you're kind of messing with on the side.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's fun and I think it's it's exciting to have a few different things going at once.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go on to the final section of this, which is uh a personal update.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just a couple of things that you may or may not be interested in.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I completed a half marathon last Sunday, so a week ago from the time this episode will release, I completed my first ever half marathon.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have a race here in Missouri called the Mo Cowbell race, and it's probably no surprise that there's a reference to a cowbell because this is the Midwest, after all.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: But really, this race is a funny reference to the famous SNL skit, more cowbell, or whatever it's called, the one with Will Farrell where he's like more cowbell that features the music from uh the blue blue oyster cult as well as Christopher Walken in that skit, one of the greatest skits of all time on SNL, by the way.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: But this race has uh a full marathon, a half marathon, and a 5k, and I think something else.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I have done several 5Ks and a 10K before, but I had not done a half marathon.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't really ready for it.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was kind of ready for it, but I hadn't really trained as much as I should have.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I made it through.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: My time was one of the worst times in the whole race, so it took me almost four hours to do the half marathon, which is horrible, terrible, no good, very bad timing, but I did finish.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So out of about out of a little over 2,000 people who ran the half marathon, I was something like 40 people from the very bottom.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not a fast runner by any stretch, but I did it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I finished, and I was really, really sore for several days afterwards.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and there's some good lessons here uh about sticking with the goal, about making it to the end, even if you're tired and you don't quite know what you're doing, even if uh you want to give up halfway through, there's lots and lots of great lessons there that I'll probably explore on this podcast in the future.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to encourage you to get into racing because it's a lot of fun and there's a real sense of accomplishment, accomplishment when you do something significant, like finish a half marathon.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the second thing that I want to just update you on is that I'm strongly considering transitioning to a co-working space.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm recording this, I'm sitting in my home office, and literally in the past couple minutes, there have been like in the past, well, probably 15 minutes, there have been two massive trucks drive by.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is somehow clearing branches from my neighbor's house and they're making a ton of noise.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: You probably cannot hear it on the mic.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then I've got two dogs in the neighborhood that drive me insane and that bark constantly.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, you know, working from home is something a lot of people wish they could do and a lot of people love, but I have to be honest with you, it does have its perks, but it's also kind of uh it's kind of a struggle sometimes because there's so much noise in my neighborhood.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking about renting a co-working space just for uh just for the opportunity to be around some other people a little bit more, but also the quiet and uh just having somewhere to go and be a little bit more focused.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So something I'm thinking about, and I'll keep you posted about that.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then finally, something that uh has been fun lately is my friend Barry Karch, who is a real estate agent, he recommended a novel to me called The Plot, and this was written by uh who is it written by Jean Hanf uh Karelitz.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure I'm butchering her name, but you can just find it on Amazon, just Google the plot novel.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a super interesting novel about a writing teacher who steals somebody else's plot for a novel, and he becomes really, really famous, and then um then somebody finds out that he actually stole this plot.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really interesting, and I've been loving it so far.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it ends, I'm only about a third of the way through it, but it's fascinating because I come from the academic world, so naturally any books about writing teachers are interesting to me, but it also has to do with plagiarism, something that is a big issue in the academic world as well.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been super interesting to see those issues explored in this novel, and I'm very interested to see how the story turns out.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're looking for a good read about writing or about teachers or about those kinds of things, then you're really going to enjoy reading this book called The Plot.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, friends, um, thanks so much for joining me.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've been a little bit rambly on this episode, but I guess it's okay.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you stuck here with me till the end, uh you should get a gold star.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where you would get a gold star or how I would send that to you, but if you got a gold star somewhere, pin it on your chest because you deserve it for sticking with me through this episode.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: We will be back tomorrow with the normal weekday episodes that are much, much shorter.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, I appreciate you.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am grateful for the opportunity to serve you through this podcast, and I'm really, really excited for your success.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: So as always, let me know how I can help.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Feel free to get in touch.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to chat with you.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can contact me on uh Facebook, Instagram, or email Kent at KentSanders.net.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I will see you in the next episode.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.comslash writing prompts.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.