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You MUST Write a Book (with Honoree Corder) · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, this is Kent Sanders from Inkwell Ghostwriting.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 152 of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show that helps you grow your business, amplify your authority, and increase your impact through the power of writing.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining me on this episode.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you've probably heard me talk about the value of writing a book.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And of course that would be natural, since this show is called Smart Business to Writing.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it might be obvious, I'm gonna say it again.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Writing a book is a tremendous way to build your authority and credibility.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Writing a book is also a really satisfying accomplishment, not to mention a great way to increase your income and get more business.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm thrilled today to have a guest who is the self-publishing expert.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can literally scour the internet, and I promise you will not find anyone who has more experience, credibility, or success when it comes to publishing their own books and creating a multi-layered, really successful business based on their ideas.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Honore Corter, and she is the author of dozens of books, including You Must Write a Book, The Prosperous Writers Book Series, Vision to Reality, Business Dating, The Successful Single Mom Series, and many more.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Honore is also Hal Elrod's business partner.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hal is the author of The Miracle Morning, which is a fantastic book, and together they have published over a dozen titles in the Miracle Morning series.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Honore coaches business professionals, writers, and aspiring nonfiction authors who want to publish their books to bestseller status, create a platform, and develop multiple streams of income.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I asked Honore to be on the show to talk about one of her newest books, which is called You Must Write a Book.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And she's going to help you understand exactly why you must write a book, why self-publishing is awesome, how she became involved with the Miracle Morning book series, and so much more.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Honore represents what I feel is the perfect podcast guest.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: She's lots of fun, she's a great conversationalist, and she drops lots of wisdom nuggets that will improve your life.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the best interviews in a recent memory that I think I've had on the podcast.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had a ton of fun and learned a lot.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to put a plug in here for Honore's amazing live course that is based on her book called You Must Write a Book.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the course is called Publishing PhD, and I can tell you firsthand that it's absolutely the best thing you can do if you want to learn how to write, self-publish, and market your next book.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into the conversation, I want to encourage you to check out the show notes at KentStanders.net slash one five two.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's KentStanders.net slash one five two.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's head into the conversation with Honore Corter.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Honore, welcome to the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've been really looking forward to this.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for taking the time to do the show.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm delighted to be with you.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you have lots and lots of books out there, and I'll get to the volume of books that you've written a little bit later.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the first thing that I want to talk about, if we can, is your book called You Must Write a Book, which is a genius title as well as a great book.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess my first question related to this is why must somebody write a book?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I guess that's the obvious question that the title of your book presents.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So why must somebody write a book?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Can I say because I said so?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the expert.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, so there are so many reasons I believe that everyone would benefit from writing a book.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um they are in no particular order, but they include establishing themselves as an expert, differentiating themselves from other folks who say they are experts, who actually also might be experts to give themselves a reason to charge more.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Authors can charge 20 to 50 to 50% more or 100% more than what they're charging by being an author.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's a tremendous career booster.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't necessarily like the it replaces a business card, but I do think that instead of giving a business card, which when I hand someone a business card, I will joke with someone and say, Here, would you throw this away for me?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what happens so many times.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's what happens.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but if I hand someone a book, they are going to um go through a mental process where I have just been raised in their mind.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: So true.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, even if they don't read it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I appreciate that you um have read a a book or two of mine.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: As you said before.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I have, I've read several.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um many times people do not even have to read the book of the author that they have gotten to elevate them in their mind as the expert or establish the credibility that they need to engage them in whatever services or products that they are selling.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I think those are just among the the top things that come to mind when when someone says, Oh gosh, why should I write a book?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: It seems so hard, seems like such an intense process.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Why should I go to all of that effort?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the the that's the beginning of the list.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Then there are the intangible things.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the tangible things, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Become an expert, make make more money, those sorts of things.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: But a book can go places that a person cannot go and much more easily.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: So my books have been uh translated into different languages.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's really fun.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I haven't been to Korea, but I have had a few books translated into Korean and French and German and Russian, and that's very cool.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um so they open they can open doors and get you into places that you otherwise could not travel simultaneously by being available to people in all different parts of the world and places.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um your books can go places and to take you play and can take you places that you might not otherwise get to go yourself.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And those are the tangible, that's an intangible thing.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And another one is the relationships that develop when you are an author, you then can meet other authors.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's a a kinship among authors that you don't have if you haven't written a book.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: So those are just a few of my answers on that.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that you know, there is something magical about just giving somebody a copy of your book.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's something intangible that you cannot that cannot be replaced by anything else.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that you've taken the time and effort to write a book, I mean, that's a big undertaking.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard that, yes.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is a it is a big undertaking.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you're you are so right.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: I always carry a copy of one of my books with me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: And when someone asks what I do, and then they say, Well, well, what books have you written?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: I will pull out a book and then they will say, You wrote this book.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just this light that goes on in their eyes and on their face that there is that transference of or that trans um English is my first language.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um there is the the transformation that takes place on someone's face when you go from regular citizen to author.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's an elevation that takes place and you are watching it, you're able to watch it real time.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think though that that is not even the best part.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: The best part for me is when someone says, I read your book and it made a difference to me.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: That is the that is the very best thing, whether it's a conversation that I have with someone live or video chat, or even when I get an email from someone, even when I get an email from someone that says, I read your book, and this is the different that difference that it made for me.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: I've gotten people who write a book, right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: You must write a book, they write their book, they send me a copy of their book with a note, sometimes with a present, sometimes with chocolate.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: They'll send me something and it's a surprise, it comes in the mail.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's lovely.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um the best ones are when someone takes the advice that you put down on paper and it transforms their life.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: They do something that they may not otherwise have done because you took the time to think it through, to put it in words, to put it on paper, to publish it as a book, and they took action on it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's an incredible it's not even a feeling.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a total inner body experience.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's not out of body.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm still in my body.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe it's in and out.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's in there, but it's out there somewhere.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: How many books have you written at this point?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did do I understand right that it's somewhere north of 50?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, 53.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I know you've written on a lot of different topics.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do you decide what to write about?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've you've written on, you know, obviously a lot of things for authors, but also a lot of other topics as well.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you make those decisions?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because you obviously have a lot of different things you can write about and a lot of different life experiences.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do you make the choice about what to hone in on for a next book?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, now my my choices, my my process for making choices is different from what it used to be.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I would like to say that it's all been strategery.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: But some of my books have been suggested to me, and some of them I have just been inspired to write.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: The inspiration has literally come through me.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was an unstoppable desire to write on a particular topic.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: My first book was Tall Order, Organize Your Life, a Double Your Success in Half the Time.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I ended up doing a 10-year anniversary update of that book because if you've ever written a book and then you've written more books and you go back and read that original book, you may or may not make a face.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, that doesn't, that oh, that's awful.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do that again.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I did, I gave it a makeover.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was and and that was fun.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: Then I wrote a book on series for single moms.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: That book started, uh, the book series started as just a single book.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: My desire to empower single moms because I had been a single mom and it turned into a series.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So the decision was gosh, if this one book could help so many people, if I addressed all of the challenges that I saw single moms having because I had been a single mom and had had those challenges, would that be helpful?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it seemed as though anytime I would write a book, like I wrote Tall Order and then I wrote Vision to Reality.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Vision to Reality was supposed to be a companion guide only to a business coaching program that I had created.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: It was supposed to be an explanation because someone would ask me in a coaching session, well, tell me why I'm doing this.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say to them, You want to spend the time that you're paying me for me to explain my methodology to you?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't you rather just have a transformation?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: That didn't make sense.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought, well, let me just write a book about what my methodology is and what my process is.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time I was involved in a mastermind group, and my mastermind group read the book, and they said, This is actually a book you need to publish.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just a companion guide for people that you're working with.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: This could help a lot of people.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So then to round out the trilogy, there had to be a third book, right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just two books, it had to be three.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: So then I wrote a book called Business Dating, which is my networking process, how I develop relationships with a long-term uh relationship in mind, and what that looks like.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone is thinking, okay, I've got all these ideas about books that I may want to write, it seems like sometimes people write books based on I don't know how else to describe it except for an outer force.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like they want to write a book to promote their coaching business or uh a course or consulting or whatever.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just so it's like there's an external force that's sort of pulling them to want to write a book.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: But other times, which seems to be the case where you're writing your books for single moms, that's something that comes out of your own life experience and just a desire to say something and to help people.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do you balance the need between those two things?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I guess level one level is writing a book for a strictly business purpose, but the other level is writing a book just based on an impulse that you have or a need or you've got something you want to say.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that may or may not be a business thing.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I've got a message I want to share.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: If someone is struggling between those two things, can they do both of those things at the same time?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, because I think that if you have an idea, you think, oh, I would like to write a book on this topic.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: It is, it would behoove you to have some intention and purpose and strategy behind it.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: So uh baked into my books is intention and purpose and strategy.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's every single book has been what you said.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: You really uh you really put the nail on the head there when you said it was my desire to help someone.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Every single book that I've written has been um from my desire to help people to sidestep or eliminate pain altogether and to gain pleasure without pitfalls.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: So let's get you from point A to point B as quickly and easily and least expensively as possible without pain and suffering.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So really the the two things are not, it's not like they are opposite goals.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Having a business purpose for a book, but then wanting to help people really shouldn't that all really be the same thing in the at the end of the day.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: I well, I don't like to should on people.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think that you, you, the the royal you, the proverbial you, does best when you are doing well from doing good.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's the underlying purpose for all of my books and baked into all of my books um is that desire to help a lot of people.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I published with Hal Elrod The Miracle Morning for Teachers, and it was a love project.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was 14 months.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I had to work so much harder on that book than any other book because I'm not a teacher.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I had to become a teacher.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: I had to go to school um with books and learn about teaching and teachers and teaching processes and how teachers think and how to be a good teacher.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that was what the essence of the book was about.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it took me about 2,000 hours to get ready to write the book, as opposed to just writing from experience.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And when I published the book and I showed it to someone, they were like, wow, there are a lot of teachers.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: You should make a lot of money from this.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it legitimately had not occurred to me until that very moment.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's really fascinating.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're right.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: I could sell a lot of books and make a lot of money, but that's not why I wrote the book at all.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: That would that was Hal's desire to change a million lives one miracle morning at a time was then um went to the next step, which was how do we help the next generation?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because wouldn't it be cool if we all had these success strategies and skills from the time we were little pumpkins as opposed to when we were struggling adults?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of difference would that make?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Let's learn about meditation when we're in second grade as opposed to when we're 35 and struggling with addiction.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like what a difference that would make, right?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like literally.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So so that was the idea behind the book.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was no logical person to write it other than me.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: There was no one we could.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is my cat deciding to join them.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: So there was no logical person to do it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: But if I was looking for the return on investment, I have a I will probably never get paid in full for all of those hours in a way that if I had worked at something else, I would be paid.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: So in my mind, it's a net loss, but from a money standpoint, but the fact that there are a group of a thousand teachers in Florida that are doing the miracle morning together in their classrooms is a huge wit.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that I saw I saw when the book came out.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh how long has it been out?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: It came out last year, correct?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: December 2nd of 2019.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I remember seeing it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: This has been probably just a couple months ago.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: My first thought, honestly, was this is genius.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why hasn't number one, why hasn't anybody thought of this before?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, I wish I would have had this when I started teaching.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm a college teacher.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So man, I know and I know that's different than public school teaching.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: But but man, it would have made a big difference.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: We did an ex I did an experiment with teachers all around the world in February of 2019.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that those some of those teachers could be teacher contributors and put their stories.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is so cool.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Which was for me, it was I'm not a teacher, so I don't have any cred.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right, I don't have any street cred, so we needed some, I wanted some street cred.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted there to be teachers that were practicing and then submitting their experience to make sure that it was really viable.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing worse than saying, well, this is really gonna work.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then it doesn't work because someone who knew what they were talking about didn't actually do it.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's so true.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to do, I didn't want to do that.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we did an experiment, but now it's being done in thousands of classrooms around the world.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I have the the Facebook group, the Miracle Morning for Teachers Facebook group, and I have a thread that's like, where are you?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: And we got one from Russia the other day.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's in France and it's in Russia and it's in Kentucky.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So so we're we're crushing it everywhere.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a fascinating story how you became connected with Hal Elrod, uh, the creator and the author, the creator of the Miracle Morning series, but also of the original Miracle Morning book.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's hard to say.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have to slow down, Miracle Morning, which is an excellent book.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I love the Miracle Morning for writers.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So fantastic job on that.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: One of my favorite, one of my favorites, Steve's.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Could you walk everybody through how you first got connected with Hal?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I recall right, I think I know how that happened, but I would love to hear you share that just to make sure that because I don't I don't want to rain on your parade.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I have a philosophy that I started developing when I was about 20.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I have all these little rules that I've written for myself.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and one of them is give away what you want more of.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it's the I don't have enough of something, so let me give first and kind of start the law of tenfold return, if you will.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: And here I am, an author, and I'm going, why doesn't everybody review my books?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with people?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't I want more reviews?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: I want more honest five-star reviews, Kent on Amazon.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, but five stars.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Honest, honest, but five star.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for catching that.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so then I had a moment of, oh, but you're not eating your own dog food on Ray.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you are expecting other people to do it, you should be doing it.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you read five books a week.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: So technically, you should be leaving five reviews every week.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: And my rule is I don't finish a book unless I can give it four or five stars, or so many books to read that if I'm not getting value out of something, I'll just stop reading it and then I don't say anything, right?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: If I have nothing, if I don't have something nice to say, I try not to say anything.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like, okay, the very next book that I read and all the books after that, I'm gonna leave.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: If I can leave a four or five star review, if I finish the book, then I'm going to take the five minutes and I'm gonna leave a Amazon or Goodreads review.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the next book I read was The Miracle Morning.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I wrote a review for that book, and Hal says, I never read my reviews from Goodreads, but it popped into his inbox, and my title in there was author of the successful single mom book series.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: And he wanted a book series.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Ryan Snow, who's the co-author of The Miracle Morning for Sales People, had said, Hey, you should do this as a series.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: You should have the Miracle Morning for starting with salespeople.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: And Ryan didn't know how to do a series.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hal didn't know how to do a series, but I knew how to do a series.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that stuck out in Hal's mind.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he wrote me a message and said, How about you do consider doing the miracle morning for single moms?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I was done writing books for sing books for single moms.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'd written six.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of was like, been there, done that, got the t-shirt, wrote the books, I'm out, but I'll have a conversation.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: Always have a conversation.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: So Hal said, Let's have a conversation.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: We hopped on the phone, and by the end of the phone call, he just said, You know, I think you're the person I've been looking for.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know more about this than I do.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd love if we just started, you know, we we did this project together.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, you know, let me have a contract drawn up.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Good fences make good neighbors.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I called my attorney and I said, Let's, you know, let's put this in writing.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that was our Original contract.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Our original contract has been extended to all of the books that we've done.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: The Miracle Morning for Teachers was number 14.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then that the flagship books, the main books, and then we've done some ancillary products as well, like companion planners and companion guides and those sorts of things.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: But we've done 14 main books together.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing that it all started with just one simple review online.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's really cool.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Give away what you want more of and having that right that moment of and I think it's a bigger life lesson, right?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's it it has blessed me in so many ways because I thought I want I want something, right?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's all about me.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: But what if it isn't?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I first heard you talk about this principle of give away the thing that you want.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: This I now this is gonna sound weird, but you were giving a TED talk to a group of women.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think I don't remember what the event was called or what the title of your talk was called, but I remember you talking about that specifically and telling the story.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the reason I was watching that talk was because I'd seen you do a sit-down with Pat Flynn talking about books and writing.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a year or two ago, and somehow I was like, hey, I really like what she's saying, so I'm gonna, I was like YouTubing, um YouTubeing like I was trying to find your talks and stuff.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it it was it was really good, and that's that really made an impact on me.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just that one principle.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been far more intentional about doing the same thing.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for life.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: It works.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's the the the cool thing about that particular principal or tenant or whatever, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's part of my person, my honor raise code of conduct.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: I call it my my SOS, my success operating system.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: I like that, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Is that when you whatever you put out comes back to you multiplied.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't doing it from the place of, well, I'm gonna give a review and I'm gonna get a review.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't looking tit for tat, because that's scorekeeping, right?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I love Adam Grant's book, Givers and Takers.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I just like why keep score, who cares?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I but I I stumbled upon the, but if you do give something, if you believe in the law of tenfold return, if you believe what you put out comes back to you, if you believe in karma, right, then logically something good is going to happen.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times it's going to be so much greater than the thing that you did in the first place.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's going out and creating or or gaining speed, gaining velocity, and coming back to you multiplied.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's just very cool.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And a big part of that also is that it it just changes your own attitude and your own heart whenever you do something for someone else without expecting something in return.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you if we get nothing else from this process, I mean, that in itself is reason enough to do it.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, sometimes the reward, sorry to interrupt, sometimes the reward is just doing the thing.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: The person's coffee.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Look, you drive away, you're never gonna it it it it you're never gonna be thanked by the person that you blessed.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: But the universe is paying attention.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna come back to you, whatever you're putting out.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: So just do do more putting out of the good things.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do more good do more good things.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Do more of the good things.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now let me ask you about your your business strategy that concerns kind of the what every author since seems to be uh not every author, but many authors seems to be seem to be obsessed with this question of self-publishing versus traditional publishing.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that you self-publish your books, or at least have you self-published all of your books, or have you done traditional ones as well?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the traditional books that I've done have been the foreign translations, because I don't have a line of sight to those foreign publishers.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: So that I have a foreign translation firm that handles those deals, but I have not done US American traditional publishing.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that that you're a very strategic person.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you obviously have a strategy, a business strategy, among probably other things for self-publishing your own stuff, or I I prefer the term independent publishing.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Versus traditional publishing.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: What is your thinking behind that process?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because there is there's a huge debate among different circles about which should you go and which is better, but it really depends on the reason.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm curious to peek into your thinking and your mindset with that a little bit.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think each of those indie publishing, hybrid publishing, or traditional publishing is the perfect fit for a person.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: So for for some people, indie publishing is a great fit.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: For some people, hybrid is a great fit, and for some people, traditional is a great fit.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: I chose indie publishing uh so open from an open kimono perspective.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: I chose indie publishing because nobody'd ever heard of me.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: I never went to college, I didn't have a big following.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: It never occurred to me that I was worthy of going the traditional publishing route.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: Never even occurred to me.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just went indie publishing because I thought that that was my only path for publishing.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until I started to meet other people who were publishing who would say, Boy, you're so smart to be doing indie publishing because you have creative control, content control, timing control, money control.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's very smart of me.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, indeed.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was all intentional.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, indeed, it was all intentional.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was all brilliant.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no, I didn't, I didn't even call myself an author until I had published seven books.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: When people would ask me what I would do, I would say, I'm a business and executive coach and a speaker and a trainer.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I was with my o at the time at a networking event, and she piped up and said, She's an author.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the person said, You're an author?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: What do you write?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, yeah, I've written a, you know, I've written a few books.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: But in my mind, I used to say I'm a I'm a lowercase W writer, whereas traditionally published authors are capital W writers.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I then made friends with people who are now good friends with me, who were traditionally published writers and authors.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: And they would say, um, hello, you're a capital W writer.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: You make 10 times what I make.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: You publish more books than I publish.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, sit down and shut up, and you're an author.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And but I had to have that external validation before I really believed it for myself.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I think, so back to your original question no one's ever called me and said, hey, we want to give you a million dollars and we're gonna publish your book for you.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I haven't had to say no to that.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: However, I have done a lot of due diligence because I get this question a lot from people who I work with.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: So my clients that I work with are people that take my course.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: They want to know why is indie better?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Why have I chosen indie?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Why in my mind is it better and who is it better for?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so I have talked to a number of people and I've flushed out that people do best in for different routes for different reasons.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you have a large platform and you have more, you know, money than time, and you're a very busy career person and you're not a writer or or or any variation of those, perhaps having a publisher that hires a ghostwriter and handles all of the things for you is very helpful.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because then you end up with a professionally published book and you don't have to worry about the copywriting and the interior formatting and the cover design and keywords and categories and those sorts of things.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: But if you are scrappy like me and you're building a brand and a platform and you're willing to learn things, then you can teach yourself to do things and have all of that control and publish for a reasonable amount of money.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if you have, you know, kind of a sweet spot in the middle, publishers like Morgan James might come a calling, or you might be able to get a work a deal with them where they publish you.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that there's no right answer for every single prospective writer.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: When I'm asking all the questions and I'm saying, okay, so what's your outcome from a strategy perspective perspective, which is where I always start, right?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: What's what's in it for you?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want from the book?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want the reader to do?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: What's your outcome?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: Where are we going with this book that's just in our imagination right now?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: I look from a strategy perspective, and then I help them to decide what the best path is for them.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because some people want to publish on Amazon and go global.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: And some people are in the 37203 or the 90210 or the 10017, right?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you're geographically limited limited, then you don't care about doing a launch online and getting certain aspects of algorithms on Amazon correct.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Totally, totally.
• 31:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: There does seem to be a little bit of a of a thing where, you know, let's say you're you're a consultant or you have a business or something, and you work really, really hard to put together this awesome book proposal.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you hire somebody to help with that.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: You pitch it to a publisher, you have an agent, you go through that whole process, and you you sync everything you have into one book over like a two to three year period, then you have a massive launch versus the person who maybe writes uh writes a shorter book every uh every few months they put out something.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: They'll try something in this category or this category, you know, or try a bunch of different things.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess it's two different approaches.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I I worry a little bit about myself in the sense of man, I I've got all these ideas for for things I could be writing about, but should I just focus on like one big launch book that I'm gonna pitch to a publisher or that kind of thing?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess it just it does just depend on what your goals are and what you want out of the process.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: It depends on what the longer term vision is.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Some you know, it's like I have one child.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: Childbirth is hard, raising a child is expensive, right?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have a girlfriend with five children.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I have the one book with multi-year in that particular category, right?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, I have five, I might have six, I might have two more, right?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: You just don't know.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Our goals are different, right?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: I want a vacation.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: She wants to have lots of children.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it does seem like we're not on the same path, right?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and it's okay.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: It really would depend.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Before I would hire a consultant and do a book proposal and pitch a publisher, I would make sure that the chances of success in the way that I define success were probable.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know a lot of people who do that, even not through traditional publishing, they hire a done for you service.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then the book, they don't understand the pre-questions that must be asked before they write the book so that the book is optimized so that the book organically sells and reaches their outcomes long term.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: There's a whole lot that should go into or can go into the making of a book.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you're an entrepreneur as well.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: So do you would you say that you're you're probably already wired toward wanting to have more control over your product rather than just giving everything over to a publisher and like, well, I have no control now, so I'm just kind of posed, you know, which is where some authors do find themselves after a while.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, they yes, and also too, they I have talked to a lot of people who thought that getting a book deal and having a traditional publisher meant that they automatically would have a best-selling book, meaning they would make money from their book.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: And when they got down to the brass tacks when push came to shove, they realized that the only person that can market their book is them.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, but the publisher said that they're gonna do this and that and the other thing.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I will point them always to the today show.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, Why are you sending me to the today show?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, when Julia Roberts comes out with a new movie, Julia Roberts goes to the Today Show to talk about her movie.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: The only person that can promote a book or a movie or an album is guess who?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: The author.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: And there's no substitute for that.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Even when I'm talking about social media, I talk about the fact that there's the social and the media, and they are intertwined, but they are not the same thing.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: And there is no substitute for that.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: You can hire someone to do the media piece of it, but you cannot hire someone to do the social piece of it.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: And the social piece of it, the connecting, the who's your favorite author?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I would do anything to meet my favorite author.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wait, I'm somebody's favorite author.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm teaching, right?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Is that someday you are gonna be someone's favorite author?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: They are gonna come up to you and go, you are my favorite author of all time.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: And as long as it's not, you know, am I on candid camera?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right, is this a real thing?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's a real thing.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you are the only person that they want to meet.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: They don't care about any of the other things.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: They want to be connected to the author.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the there is no publisher that's going to make that happen.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: Publishers can sometimes have access to things, although it is much more limited than people might understand.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: I spoke at a writer's conference not long ago.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of traditionally published folks there or traditional people in traditionally published.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, okay, so why?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: What's the difference?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Why does someone want to go with a traditional publisher?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, we have salespeople.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, talk to me about that.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, we have salespeople that will go and sell your book in our catalog.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, is it just the one author in a catalog?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, no, it's our whole catalog of books that have come out.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, so you've got a salesperson that's gonna go to bookstores and sell all the books in your category catalog, and this is your differentiator.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not distribution anymore.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, let's let I mean, if we're gonna just talk about it from a business strategy, because I have no dog in the fight with your listeners, right?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm just from my perspective.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: You can produce something that is independently published, meaning you're an indie author, self-published author, but it looks, reads, and feels like a traditionally published book.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you get to remain in control of all of the things, including the money.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you know that you have to market the book and you can get distribution through Ingram.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so you can be in every library, every airport bookstore, every bookstore, then why would you not indie publish?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you just have more time than money, then you would want to find someone who could handle that process for you while you still retain all of the rights.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it is kind of funny because you know, when you're in the writing and content creation community, these are discussions that we have a lot.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but sometimes I forget that the average reader doesn't really care about that stuff.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: All they care about is having a good book.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, sometimes we're so concerned about what's on the spine of the book, what's the publisher and what's this and what's that.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the reader's like, well, I don't, I don't know, and I don't care.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care who the publisher is.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just want a book that speaks to me, that entertains me or gives me some kind of life-changing direction or information or whatever it is.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: They don't care who published it.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: They don't really don't.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: They don't know what they're looking at.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: And when I teach my class, I hold up books and I walk people through here's what you're looking for.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: You want a publishing company logo on the spine and you want the text to be full justified, and you I mean, they're just elements that are are proven professional indicators.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: And as long as you meet those professional indicators, as long as you check those boxes, as long as it doesn't read written and published in a weekend or in a rush, right?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was guilty when I wrote my first version of Tallet Order, it had a different title.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not gonna tell you what it is.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: I published of like 500 copies of it, spent a fortune.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: My friend, who was a lighting guy slash graphic designer, so not his full-time job, designed my cover, did my interior file for me, and I quoted Jeffrey Gettimer.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I met Jeffrey Gettimer and I was so excited, I handed him a copy of the book.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting there and I'm waiting.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I finally discovered three minutes, something that's longer than three minutes on the treadmill.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's three minutes of someone you admire reading your book and you don't know what they think.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he looked at me and he said, Henre, you're a good writer.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: You're a solid writer.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is good writing.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, but this book is shit.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like the cover is awful, the formatting is awful.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: You need this book edited.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna help you.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm gonna put you in touch with the right people.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: But pardon my French if this is a G-rated podcast.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was just doing a direct quote.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: I would never say that word.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's a lie.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I would you would never put profanity in your book title.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: I would never put profanity in a book title except that one time.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait a minute.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: I put that on my Kindle.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's near swearing.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's not swearing.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: Amazon calls it near swearing.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: There is an asterisk in there.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's an asterisk in it.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, there is.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's near swearing.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: In any event, um, that's what he said to me.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: So the person who doesn't know why they don't like your book because it isn't professionally published doesn't know why they don't like it.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: They just don't like it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: It totally makes sense.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: You just you don't know what it is, but you just don't like it.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: But if your book meets all the criteria, they're gonna read it and they're gonna assume it's traditionally published and well done, and it's gonna solve their problem or entertain them and they won't care.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is that nowadays, if that if that's important to you to have, you know, such and such publisher on on the spine of your book, well, just set up your own publishing company.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just take five minutes and go online and I actually do recommend that I recommend that to every author that I work with that they have a publishing company and they have a logo design and it goes on the spine.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's great advice.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's really great advice.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because then it looks like every other book in the bookstore, every other book that they would pick up, it looks just as good.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: Then you won't have someone dis uh uh uh dismiss it because of how it looks.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's funny though, like um one of my favorite authors that talks about writing a lot is uh James Scott Bell and Dean Wesley Smith.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: They both both talk about a lot of fiction stuff.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And some of their books are really short, like 60 or 70 pages.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so funny because you know, again, in the writing community, so often we're concerned about how a book looks, but when you get their book from Amazon, there is nothing on the spine because the spine is the book is not thick enough to warrant something being on the spine.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because as a reader, I just go, well, I don't care about that.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just care about what's actually in the book.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: And with and with some of those guys, you know, like the formatting is all off and it's the fonts way too big.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: And oh my, you're hurting me.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, did somebody not format this correctly?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like these guys are ultra successful, but but I also at the same time find I just don't care because I love what they're saying and how you you have your respect for their knowledge.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I could care less about the format.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: But if I don't know, here's the thing though, and my advice to them is the same that would, if they were asking, would be the same as to anyone is if you don't know those names, then you're gonna make a judgment about it.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: Then you're gonna make a judgment based on how it looks.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: I met with someone and she handed me a copy of her book, and she's like, How bad is it?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, How honest do you want me to be?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was so bad that I am using it now from now on in my course to show people what I do.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like it meets every box for what not to do.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I walked her through it and I said, Here's how I know your book is self-published.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you if I had just found this on a bus at a bus stop on a bench, waiting for the bus, going downtown, I would have been like, This is self-published, and here's why.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I didn't even know what I didn't know.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I just pointed out five simple things.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: Here are five simple things that that tell me that this book is self-published.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: And since I don't know you, I assume that everything about you is as crappy as this book.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, but to look at you, you're a supermod.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: To read your bio, you're a superstar.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: You're someone I should listen to.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're someone I should talk to.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: You're someone I should know.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: So for a little bit of an investment and a little bit of patience, you can turn this lipstick on a pig situation into the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as we start to wind this down, I've got one more question I want to want to throw out there.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: I am curious about your your new endeavor into writing fiction and where this has come from and and where this is going because I'm super intrigued by this.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what do you want to know?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: Where it came from?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um That's a good question, you know.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't really thought this question out anything beyond that.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you've written a lot of nonfiction books, very well known for that, very successful with that.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what has prompted this um little bit of a turn where now you're working on fiction?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: I have always secretly, well, I've always been a reader.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let's start there.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: I have been a voracious reader of Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I watch 2020 and Dateline to the point where my husband asks if he should be concerned about his welfare or anyone's welfare.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've always been interested in in like serial killers like Ted Bundy and things like that.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always fascinated about how the brain works and why people do things that they do.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: All of those things combined, um adding to that that a lot of my friends are successful fiction authors, and they've all said you should write fiction.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh no, no, I can't write fiction.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: I can write nonfiction.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't you write fiction?
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I just can't write fiction.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: But then I started to have ideas for writing books, and I just have very good friends who write fiction who encourage me to write fiction.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I've secretly wanted to write fiction, I just didn't think that I could.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I also had no business writing nonfiction either.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I've written a lot of nonfiction, and that seems to have worked out okay.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'd say so.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought yeah, I've run out of topics for a really long time.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: I had a running list of books, and I could say at the beginning of the year, these are the six, eight, ten books that I'm gonna write this year.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: This is what I'm working on, this is what's in my queue.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I had this daily morning practice, 6 to 7 a.m.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: every day I would write, sit down and just write and write and write.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then I ran out of books.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote the book with the naughty word in the title.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um, as an aside, one of my favorite military political fiction writers, CG Cooper, we had lunch at last week.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: And before we had lunch, he said, Before I see you, I want you to tell me which one of your books I should read that's most like you.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I texted him that book.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: And when I sat down, he said, I try to read the books of the of my friends who will say, Well, this is the book that most represents me.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Without question, this is the book that represents you.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: This is absolutely you in the pages, but it was the last book.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was the last book that I felt compelled to write.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's fascinating.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: When I was done with that book, I had been working on the miracle morning for teachers, but I had no other like this is my opinion, this is how I my perspective, this is how I do things kind of book to write.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so I decided, well, I'm just gonna write fiction.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: So now I have downshifted into fiction and I have a book, I have books one, two, and three.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I know the the story arcs of the books, and I have a detective consultant.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is cool.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not excited, but I'm excited if that makes sense.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to see it.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: Although I kind of feel like I've been to the morgue because I watch a lot of NCIS.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, um, I'm just having a really good time with it.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if you write fiction, it's a totally different level of fun.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't I wouldn't say that writing nonfiction was fun, I would say it was satisfying.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: Writing fiction is actually fun, which is different.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when can we expect the release of book one in this series?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the summer.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: The summer, very cool.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm on your email list for that.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think whatever email list you have, I'm I'm pretty sure I'm on them, whatever exists out there.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you're so cool.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so I'm excited about uh it's been fun to kind of follow your journey with that.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited about that.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: I there I have a few people that are excited, and the last thing I want to do is disappoint them.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I, you know what?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: I am just couching it with I'm just having a lot of fun and we'll see what happens.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to write like page turning the the book that you would say, oh, I'm just gonna read a chapter before I go to sleep, and the next thing you know, it oh whoops.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what did you do to prepare for this?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did you go through some kind of a course or did you like break down some of your favorite books as far as the character arcs and plot and structure and all that stuff?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, all of the I did all of the things, and then I had someone say, Why are you doing that?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need to do that.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: They said you're aware of it.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, but but here's the thing is I was overthinking it.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't overthink nonfiction.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a logical person.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was able to just sit down and write nonfiction.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: And by the time I figured out that you're not supposed to sell books, right?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: All the things that I hear that I think are not true about writing and publishing.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I have debunked those when someone goes, Well, you can't make money from your books.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, actually, that's not true.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: You can't sell books.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, that's not true.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can't monetize your book.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: Again, not true.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: You can't publish as professionally as traditional publishing.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Still not true, still wrong.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I wanted to make sure I was doing it somehow right.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: And but then when I sat down with several of my seven-figure author friends, so I have a number of friends who make seven figures a year.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: They do very well in fiction.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say, What is your process?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: Did you snowflake it?
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: Did you story grid it?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: And they were like, No.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: I read a lot and I sat down and I wrote my book.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: I went, Oh.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I snowflaked it and I story grid.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: I did this and I did that and I read a lot of fiction.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then I just decided that I was just gonna get the words on the paper.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: Every day I was just gonna sit down and see where the story took me because I know the where the story's going, but I don't always know exactly where the story is.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't do a scene by scene.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: I understand that there are some authors that do several pages of handwritten scene by scene by scene, and then they go and write all the things.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't do that.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: I just sit down and I'm writing.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll see what happens.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: It could be terrible.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: I could owe you your nine sense back.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost a thing where you're you're just almost trusting your subconscious to guide you as opposed to like when you're writing a nonfiction book where you're you're thinking, okay, what's the outline of this chapter?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: What where am I going to?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of thing.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: So yes.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: I have a scene.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: I I know where what's happening.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know who the protagonist is and I know what that means.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I know who the antagonist is and I know what that means finally.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I know uh the characters and how long they're gonna stick around.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it makes total sense.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: But and whether they're gonna stick around for the whole series or they're just gonna stick around for long enough to be useful.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like an ex-husband is gonna stick around for a couple of books, but then we're gonna get rid of him.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I I figure out those, and then I've done character Bibles.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's like what's in your pocket, what's in your wallet?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: What you know, are you where are you politically?
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: Are you conservative or liberal?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right, like I with my detective, I sat down and went through all of those things with him, and that's helped.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I envision my characters, I know a lot about my characters, and I pick an actor or actress, although they're all actors, according to my friend, who's an actor who's a female.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're all actors.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: My apologies.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: Your honor.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I I go and I find that person who I would like to play them in the movie, so that they're in my mind as that person, if that makes sense.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of want them.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of just let them run amok.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of fun.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really fascinated by this.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and by the way, I've taken up far more of your time than I intended to.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's okay, we're good.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's good.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: I always want to be respectful.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was wondering because we were still talking.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, we're still talking.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that's a lot of people.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, it's I'm I mean, I could talk for you for hours.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that like one of my filters for podcast guests is I always try to pick people who I'm like, even if I haven't had a conversation with them, I I know them pretty well through either their writing or something, you know.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's very rare that I have someone on just blindly that I really don't know anything about.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I one of my things in my filter that I run people through mentally is could I have a conversation with this person for a long time?
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, are they interesting enough?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm fascinated by this blend, you know, that we've had the past couple decades in business books, particularly of parables, of blending teaching elements with stories.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just really fascinated by this.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the storytelling aspect is such a huge uh element of our human psyche and yes, yeah, it's how we relate.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: I have a I have a a secret pen name.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: I've written a series, a nonfiction series.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you when we're not recording um what it is if you'd like to know.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I have a parable that I've started writing um for that series.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: Nice that'll be that'll be somewhere in there because I I have my my first series that I'm working on right now, but the detective that I'm consulting, I like him so much.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: He's an actual person.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I was introduced to a 33-year detective on Metro Nashville PD, and he's a character in the book, but I actually want to spin off and do a series for him because he's a cold case detective and he's been around forever, and he's super cool and interesting.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I haven't told him yet that I'm gonna do a series based on him.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: That is cool.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I have a lot of fiction books to write.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm back where I used to be with the I'm gonna write about this, I'm gonna write about this, I'm gonna write about this.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: I have I have that list of of books and folders in my in my on my computer.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so now I'm just working my way through.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll see what happens.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll hit stop on the recording here in just a second.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: But before I do that, where can our readers get in touch with you and um what what are some of the cool things that they could expect to find when they do that?
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, course courses books, all kinds of stuff.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: So if you go to honorequarter.com on that front page, you can get a free copy of You Must Write a Book.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you join the Prosperous Writer Mastermind on Facebook, where I am Honore on Facebook.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: But if you join the Prosperous Writer Mastermind on Facebook, I give away a copy of the Nifty 15, which is how to write your book in 15 minutes a day.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I wrote that with Brian Meeks.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: So then I was the nonfiction only writer and he was the fiction only writer.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: He has sent writ written, he has sent written fiction books or non-fiction books, and now I'm writing fiction.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: So we're hybrid.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: But you can get a free copies of each of those books.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I do have a course based on You Must Write a Book.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: It is being retitled Indie Author University.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: It has been titled You Must Write a Book Live Coaching Course, but it is a PhD in indie publishing.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I walk people through all of the stages of writing through long-term marketing and how to monetize the book.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: So there's that course.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: I have a course called Building a Million Dollar Book Business.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have a nonfiction book and you are then an expert in your field, I have a course that it outlines the 13 six and seven figure streams of income that I've created throughout my career, which was really fun and it's all video.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: I had a finish that made me do it.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, you're gonna do this course and I'm gonna help you.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that was really fun.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_02: I launched that earlier this year.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I wrote a book called Prosperity for Writers, and I actually, the the inspiration for that book was attending a writer's conference, and half the writers were making money, and half the writers weren't.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the common denominator between the writers that weren't making money was their psychology.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I wrote a book called Prosperity for Writers and how to think about yourself and about writing and making money as a writer.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so Prosperity for Writers is the first book in that series, and the Nifty 15 is the second book, incidentally.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love Prosperity for Writers, by the way.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh, one of the things that I didn't get to, um, I always overprepare for podcast interviews.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where what was the quote?
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote down a quote.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh where you in in uh prosperity for writers, you said money is just an outward presentation of your beliefs, which I loved.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that that book is just like filled with tweetable quotes.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you ever decide to quit all your publishing stuff and just become a writer on Twitter, you would do really well with that because you you write in tweets.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: I write it, I'm a tweetable, I'm tweetable.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very much.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and what I mean by that, it's succinct, it's memorable, it has uh uh resonance and memorability to it.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: So some people just have that gift.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I did a course on prosperity for writers.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: I did the pros the prosperity for writers course before I wrote the book because I felt so compelled.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: I show up at this conference and I've written my single mom book series.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: I've written several other books at this point, and there are people that are like, I just don't believe I can make a living from my writing.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Of course you can make a living from your writing.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we're gonna do a course.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I did a course, and I think it was$200 to do the live course.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think now it's like$47 or something, the recorded course.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's 50% off if you get the book.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it's hardly anything to change your mindset.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I was so compelled to go, wait a minute.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you can make a living from your writing.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't matter what writing you do, poetry, screenwriting, songwriting, fiction, nonfiction, whatever.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: If anyone can do it, then you can do it.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: If someone can do it, then you can do it, right?
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's no the people who make money from their writing aren't special.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: They just believe different things about money than you might believe.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, and that is so refreshing because so many times we think, well, they must be more talented.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: They have some business strategy, they have some secret thing that they've learned through some secret thing.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that book was so refreshing because it was like, oh, you mean this is just an issue of belief, and I can actually change that.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's so refreshing.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, and all of the yes.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for doing this show.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is really good stuff.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is really, really good stuff.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is like 10 podcast episodes worth of goodness packed into one.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: You are so kind.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad that we got a chance to connect in this way.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's been really fun.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Honore.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: Here are my three biggest takeaways from our conversation.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh number one, a successful book is not an accident.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest takeaways from her book, You Must Write a Book, is that you can plan to have a successful book.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an accident.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime you see a bestseller or a book that does well, it's because there was planning involved in the writing, publishing, and the marketing of the book.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very purposeful process.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I would recommend getting her book as a great way to get started in the process of not just writing your book, but planning it and marketing it as well.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, if you want something, give it away.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I actually mentioned in the conversation, if you want book reviews, then leave book reviews for other people.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's how she got connected with Hal Elrod in the first place.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: Since hearing Honore talk about this a while back in another context, I've actually started to leave way more book reviews and podcast reviews for people.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: People genuinely do appreciate it.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like you're doing something small and almost insignificant, and maybe it feels like you're doing something that doesn't really matter.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I promise, as an author and as a podcaster, I read those reviews and I love those reviews and I appreciate it whenever somebody leaves them.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and do that.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you want something, give it away.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you give, eventually you're going to get that back.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then finally, takeaway number three: own your intellectual property.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the cool thing about Honoree is that not only is she a very prolific and very gifted author, she's also a business wizard.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what sets apart successful authors in the business sense from the unsuccessful authors.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know there's a lot of debate about self-publishing versus traditional publishing and all that.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we talk about that topic frequently on this podcast, if you've heard any number of episodes.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to go into all that right now.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: But all things being equal, there's a lot of good reasons to own your own content as opposed to giving it away to a publisher.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that whenever you sign with a traditional publisher, you do not own that content that doesn't belong to you.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they're giving you money, because now they own the content.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why Honori suggests having your own publishing company.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of authors who go traditional for strategic reasons.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: They they submit their books to an agent and they get a traditional publisher, and they're very successful, and all that is great.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if your goal is to build a business around your writing and your books, there's also a really great argument that you should consider around owning your own assets and owning your own intellectual property.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's a topic that's going to come up in conversations regularly on this podcast.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's not necessarily a matter of right versus wrong.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a matter of what's going to help you meet your own goals.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to be a self-published author, uh to be a successful self-published author, and you want to have the most amount of freedom possible to do with your content whatever you want, then self-publishing is going to be a really great option for that.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this has been a ton of fun.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give a massive thanks to Anna Recorder for taking time out of her really busy schedule to be on the show.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: And also I want to say thanks to you for listening to the show.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't take that for granted, and I'm so grateful that you've taken time out of your life and schedule to listen to this episode.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: As always, remember that you can find lots more resources for writers and creative stuff at Kentstanders.net.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the next episode.