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