It seems like everyone has writing a book on their bucket list. In this #fireandearthpodcast episode we discuss the options available for those of you that dream of writing a book, and some questions you should ask yourself before you head down that path.
Since Kathy and Jason have both written several books, both traditional and self published, you will hear practical advice on how to do it either way you choose.
Listen in at: http://www.jasonmefford.com/fireandearthpodcast/
#writingabook #author
Transcript
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Jason Mefford: Welcome to another episode of the fire and earth podcast, I’m your co host Jason Medford
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kathygruver: And I’m Kathy river and we are so excited to be back with you for another amazing episode. Today we are going to be talking about getting your book written and out there.
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kathygruver: Excited. I got a couple books, Jason. I got a few books you read a
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kathygruver: couple books, between the two of us. We got some books and I went, both the route of traditional publishing and self publishing and and so we are going to have a really good discussion about how to get your book written and how to get it out there. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: Well, and it’s funny you know in maybe just before we dive into a lot of the detail stuff because what I’ve found is several people that I coached
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Jason Mefford: They would say, I want to write a book. And I’m like, Okay, just a minute timeout. Right.
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Jason Mefford: Why do you want to write a book because I think that is
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Jason Mefford: That’s a big answer or big question that you have to ask yourself, and really answer before you just jump in because I don’t know what the numbers are. But it’s it’s some
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Jason Mefford: Crazy number like 80% of the people want to write a book right that’s on their bucket list. Well, you know, first off, think about why you want to write the book because it’s a lot of work.
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kathygruver: Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: And there are other ways to accomplish some of the same things.
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Jason Mefford: If maybe the book is just a vanity thing that you’re putting up there. So make sure that you that you answer that question first, because that’s a lot of work, because we’re going to start talking about and it
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Jason Mefford: It’s a long ride you know it’s it’s not like oh 30 days from now, I’m going to have a book published and can work that was
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Jason Mefford: A benchmark that way.
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Jason Mefford: So anyway, I just wanted to kind of preface with that. So, but, again, if you’ve kind of decided. No, I do want to write a book. Let’s go through now and kind of talk about
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Jason Mefford: Some of the different ways because like you said you’ve done traditional and self published I’ve kind of done the same thing and it. They’re both different routes. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: So, and again there’s there’s reasons to write a book reasons not to write a book.
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Jason Mefford: Don’t, don’t think you’re going to become Stephen King and a multimillionaire from it.
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kathygruver: Well, and not surprising. I couldn’t agree more.
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kathygruver: Because if you know why you’re reading the book and let’s say yes you do decide to write it. The y is going to determine which path you take for publishing
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kathygruver: If it’s a vanity project if you’re going to use it as a giveaway. If you want to give it to your clients if it’s going to act as a business card self publish it.
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kathygruver: No publisher is going to want to mess with that.
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kathygruver: If you’ve got multiple ideas if it’s better for a mass market if you’ve got marketing and name and stuff behind you, then by all means, try to do the traditional but know that that’s not an easy path that traditional publishing is
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kathygruver: Really difficult to do. And it’s time consuming 12 to 24 months how long it takes for a book to get published.
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kathygruver: That’s after you find the publisher sometimes publishers require that you have an agent. So they, you know, get an agent. First, an agent isn’t going to talk to you. If you only have one book. So it’s this whole complicated thing and
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Jason Mefford: They’re not going to talk to you. If you have no book.
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kathygruver: Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
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kathygruver: Yeah, so it’s, um, yeah. So how did you start, what was the idea behind you started with your books, Jason.
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Jason Mefford: So the first one I did actually was. It was self published and and the reason for it was you know I had is a technical book on risk based internal auditing. Okay. It was
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Jason Mefford: It was a concept that you know people had been talking about in our profession for a long time, but nobody was actually really doing it the way it was intended
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Jason Mefford: For when we started talking about this 2530 years ago and I could only find one other book that really talked about it the way that I believed it was intended to be
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Jason Mefford: And so, you know, I was teaching a course on this. I helped to develop a certification around it. And I thought, you know what I need to put down in words on paper.
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Jason Mefford: Right.
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Jason Mefford: What I’m talking about. And so I actually came up with kind of a whole methodology and a framework around how to do that.
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Jason Mefford: And decided to put it down in a book. Now again, it was the first time I self published a poetry book before that.
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Jason Mefford: But that’s more kind of
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Jason Mefford: The kind of thing, right, just because
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Jason Mefford: I for a while there I was writing a lot of poetry and I looked down and I went, holy crap I have over 100 poems I should actually
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Jason Mefford: Said, You didn’t know that about me.
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Jason Mefford: So it goes. It goes painting and poetry go in
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Jason Mefford: Veins for me and it seems to be about every 10 years as I look at the the dates on some of my paintings, it’s like, Oh, that one was 2009. Oh, this one was 2019
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kathygruver: year cycle.
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Jason Mefford: I’m on a 10 year cycle. But, um, but no, because I just wanted to be able to get it down on paper and and and kind of use it as, as you know, an additional revenue stream for some of the trainings that I taught
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Jason Mefford: You know, to be able to give it away as a giveaway or use it.
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Jason Mefford: As a lead magnet into doing the training with me and corporations. So that was that was why I kind of did it that way, you know, the idea to give it away and to sell it for you know $40 on my website and it’s still out there because that was back in
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Jason Mefford: I think 1414 when I finally actually got it published. But even still, you know, it’s, it’s a smaller book. I don’t know 120 hundred and 50 pages.
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Jason Mefford: But it still took a lot of time to be able to even come up with that you know you you’re realizing you look at the amount of time and then you look at your work product and you’re like, holy crap.
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Jason Mefford: You know, a lot of editing a lot of, you know, other stuff. And then when you go the self publishing route. You’ve got to do all the editing. You know, I used create space.
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kathygruver: I think it
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Jason Mefford: I think it was even before Amazon bottom or right around the
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Jason Mefford: Time. So I use that platform to be able to distribute it
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Yes.
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Jason Mefford: And well, actually. Actually, no, hold it. I did the poetry book on create space. I did the risk based audit one through book, baby.
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Jason Mefford: Which is kind of a hybrid model. So they it’s still self publishing, you’re still the publisher of the book.
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Jason Mefford: But they I set it up so that it would just be an E book really I ordered some books because they do have a printing deal so I ordered a couple of boxes of books, but their thing was, you know, they helped with the cover art.
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Jason Mefford: With, you know, putting it all together, getting it in the the different the Mobi PDF and let’s see other format because
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Jason Mefford: Anyway, there’s there’s different there’s two two main ebook formats as well, but they got that together and then they actually publish it to the different services.
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Jason Mefford: Right, so I worked through them.
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Jason Mefford: And then they actually put it out on Scribd and Kindle and Nook can all the different places. So my book is out there on Apple, and I don’t know, there’s a whole bunch of different things. Every time I get my royalty checks. I like, oh, I didn’t realize that was a book.
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Jason Mefford: Company, but anyway.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, I didn’t know I had it there, but I got some money from it. So there you go. Right. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: And then for me because I did that they actually handle all the royalties for me. So when when people buy it on you know Apple or Kindle, then each month.
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Jason Mefford: You know, I get a little I get some money that comes through that his my account. So they handle all of that side of it. Now, I had to pay them for that.
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Jason Mefford: So that’s, again, you know, it’s like somebody is paying for putting everything together. And depending on the model that you’re using depends on how much you’re going to pay when you pay it, things like that as well. Right.
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kathygruver: Exactly. I it’s funny because I once I get our live parallel I sort of did the same thing I did my first book I think in 2009 so it was quite a while back.
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kathygruver: I told somebody that I wanted to be a speaker.
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kathygruver: And they said, Oh, well, you have a book. Right. Oh my god, I want to be a speaker.
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Jason Mefford: Well, you have a book, right, because you have to have a book to be a speaker.
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kathygruver: Right, that’s what he told me, and I went, shit. I don’t really want to write a book like I never
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kathygruver: I had written. I’d written a book of short stories, which I self published so there’s that. But I was like, I don’t really want to write a book. And they’re like, Oh, no, no. You have to, like, Oh, crap. So I have a massage DVD. They’re like, that’s great. You need to write a book.
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kathygruver: So I sat down to write a book and I had all these ideas and I was going to do this like
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kathygruver: Surgical medical kind of alternative thing that i mean i had this great idea. And so I pulled all these books off the shelf and they were stacked in my living room. That’s what goes to hell reviews gonna sit here. I’m like, I don’t know.
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kathygruver: And then one day I was working on a client and it popped into my head. You just finished your training. I just finished my PhD at that point I had all these exercises I had to do all these papers. I had to write. I was doing tons of articles and so I thought you have your content.
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kathygruver: Like why are you trying to, you know, so I pulled every article, I’d ever ever written. I pulled all the exercises I had to do for school.
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kathygruver: All the case studies. I had to do. And I came up with the alternative medicine cabinet, which was then turned into a TV show, which I’ve been
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kathygruver: It’s pretty much out of print. Now, I haven’t even renewed it’s it’s so old. I would, by the time I updated it would be a whole new book.
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kathygruver: But I put together everything I had already written and I realized is hard as that was and I may because I’m a visual kinesthetic, I went and got note cards.
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kathygruver: And I put the different chapters on a note card and I spread them all out on the floor because at that point it was about intelligently organizing chapters.
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kathygruver: I didn’t have to rewrite much I did add a couple chapters into to round some stuff out.
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kathygruver: But at that point, it became, how can I organize this in a way that makes sense. So I remember it’s like standing on a chair and looking at all of these, these cards spread out on the floor to help me organize this book, I went with
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kathygruver: Self publishing. I went through a company called infinity, which I think still exists. It’s changed hands, a couple of times and I don’t want to disparage any company, but it, it seemed to kind of get a little. I don’t know that they use them again.
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kathygruver: You pay like 400 500 bucks.
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kathygruver: To set everything up and then you have to buy your copies, but they automatically put it on Amazon. They automatically send it out to different distributors and that sort of thing. So that was my first book experience was again the self published thing.
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kathygruver: And I remember working with a PR guy.
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kathygruver: He did this mass email blast and I had about 60 requests for radio and TV interviews book reviews all this stuff. And he goes, Okay, now when you send out the book. Make sure you include this sheet with it. And I went, what
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kathygruver: And he goes away when you send out the book and I wait wait wait, what
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kathygruver: What do you mean, when I send out the book, I can’t send out 60 books. And he goes, Why you have to, how are they going to review it. How are they want to see the book. And I was like,
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kathygruver: A. And he goes, let me let me guess. This is your first book. And I said, Yeah. And he goes, Okay, you’re gonna realize that that’s the best business card, you have
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kathygruver: And that you’re going to be giving this book away now. I was horrified. Right. I had just poured all this time and money at that point. That was a lot of money all this time and energy and money into this book and he’s telling me I can give it away.
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kathygruver: And now, of course, I’m like, Here, have a book, you know, it’s like it’s become a business card.
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kathygruver: But he was so right and I thought he was just this arrogant, you know, like you’d be giving it away like no I do now, you know, again, that one’s out of print, but
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kathygruver: But it’s, it is. It’s true. It’s it became one of the best business cards. And I don’t know if you found this to be true as well. The second you had a book.
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kathygruver: Did everyone just think you were more important than you were before you had the book which is ridiculous because I knew nothing more before the book that after the, you know, after the book than before the book.
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kathygruver: And then when you have more than one book. They’re like, You’re a genius like
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kathygruver: No, I just wrote
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Jason Mefford: No it’s, it’s the same thing there is and that’s why you know in the speaking industry or other places like that people push so hard for you to have a book.
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Jason Mefford: I remember Brian Tracy told me one time to he said that he he calls it BB and a, b, and like BC, AD.
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Jason Mefford: It’s like there was my career before book, there was my career after book right and this guy’s written. I don’t know. He’s like 70 or 80 books. Now it’s not
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kathygruver: even sure how that happened.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, well, I know, but
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Jason Mefford: We will talk about, but the anyway the
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Jason Mefford: So there’s yeah there’s kind of the different route. So again, if you’re going to go the self published way again realize you’re going to make an investment right so
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Jason Mefford: Again, I haven’t self published a book in that way in a while.
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Jason Mefford: So if you’re interested in that research, find out which companies are out there. Which ones are still doing it.
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Jason Mefford: Like I said, I think, but maybe it’s still doing it because they’re still paying me
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, but there’s other options. And I don’t know what what those other options are, but do your research. But realize if you’re going to self publish a book, you’re going to probably invest anywhere from 500 to maybe $2,000
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Jason Mefford: In cash cost, right, to be able to get it set up, do the cover, get it ready for publishing, if you’re going to buy hard copies of your books.
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Jason Mefford: But realize that’s going to be an investment that you’re going to make. Now another another way that a lot of people are doing self published books. Now, is there a book coaches.
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Jason Mefford: That actually pretty much kind of walk you through the whole process. They do all of the backend stuff for you, you’re still paying for that.
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Jason Mefford: And I think that I think the going rate on those is somewhere between 10 to
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Jason Mefford: $15,000 yeah yeah but what they do is, most of the people if if they’re good at what they do, they get you to
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Jason Mefford: Best selling status. OK, so there’s a lot of companies out there that do the best selling status. So just be careful.
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Jason Mefford: But realize what it is they know kind of how the algorithms and everything work and they publish your book on a particular day, they do some other stuff to drive more traffic to it. And so for a few days. Your book does very well and then nobody knows about it. Right.
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kathygruver: Can I tell you how much I hate that.
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Jason Mefford: And I just really express. For those of you who aren’t watching this
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kathygruver: I my eyes were rolled back so far. I thought I was gonna have to press my tongue down stop a senior, I hate that so much in every cell of my being, because you’re not a best seller you sold it for a nickel for a day on Amazon and
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kathygruver: You’ve got a sticker that drives me batch it. I hate that it is
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kathygruver: And anybody that knows looks at that sticker and goes, I know what you did. You gave your book. Oh, that is not bet you’re not a best seller.
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kathygruver: If you do that,
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kathygruver: I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sure I’m insulting somebody, but that is not make your best it drives me crazy. That is gaming the system. And I don’t like it.
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Jason Mefford: So just be aware
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Jason Mefford: That there’s a lot of people that are out there. So, but just realize what you’re getting into. For some people,
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Jason Mefford: That might work. Right. I mean, but just realize, again, somebody pays for all the work that has to be done.
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Jason Mefford: Yes, the difference between you paying like 500 to $2,000 is you’re doing most of the work right if you hire a coach or another company like that they’re doing more of the work for you. So obviously you have to pay them for their time and effort as well.
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kathygruver: Right. That seems like a lot. And the last two books. I did. I didn’t take to my publisher, because they were little.
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kathygruver: It was conquered your stress at work and workplace wellness. They were maybe 60 pages. My publishers not going to touch that.
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kathygruver: So I went through create space which is now Katie up on Amazon. So easy.
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kathygruver: If you’re going to self publish, please, please, please, please, please get an editor. Don’t get crazy Uncle Joe to do it unless crazy Uncle Joe is an editor.
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kathygruver: Don’t get a friend, unless unless they’re an English major and they know what they’re doing. I have read so many self published books that
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kathygruver: desperately need editing. There’s typos and their spelling errors and there was a sentence. It takes up an entire page. Please, please, please have it professionally edited.
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kathygruver: Make sure you choose a good cover.
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kathygruver: Not, I mean it is important.
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kathygruver: It’s not going to be on a shelf somewhere probably because when you self publish it’s incredibly difficult to get into bookstores, so if you dream of having your book in a brick and mortar store.
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kathygruver: Unless you go to individual bookstores like we have one in here in town called Chaucer’s
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kathygruver: If you are a local author or a self published author, you can take your book to them. They do a 6040 split, which sounds great, except when you realize you purchase your book for 50%. So you’re basically getting like a buck per book.
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kathygruver: It’s not a way to make a lot of money. And I think people assume that because I’ve written books. I kind of, I shouldn’t hold that I record my podcast I play with my cat my guinea pig and I just raking in the dough.
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Jason Mefford: Just rolls and then
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kathygruver: I got my, my last my last royalty from Katie P was a buck 39 for a couple audiobooks, you know if this is not a big moneymaker, you’re not going to be the next
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kathygruver: Stephen King or JK Rowling or, you know, it just, it happens for very few people but books do serve another great purpose, Jason, what does that
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Jason Mefford: Books.
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Jason Mefford: Well, I like to read them.
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kathygruver: Okay, so
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Jason Mefford: They give you credibility.
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kathygruver: Right, that’s what I. Yep.
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Jason Mefford: That’s that’s the main thing is it gives it gives you credibility and it allows it allows it, like, like we were talking about before it’s it’s a glorified business card.
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Jason Mefford: Or kind of a lead magnet. So if you’re in the online space, a book can often act as a great lead magnet. Just to get people
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Jason Mefford: Used to you and some of your concepts and things like that. Right, it’s it’s it’s a way for them, you know, if they go out and they pay you know three bucks five bucks 50 bucks for your book. It gives them an opportunity for a low price point to get to know you. Right.
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Jason Mefford: But yeah, you know, the. And that’s why, again, we started off with. Why do you want to write a book. If you think you’re going to be a millionaire sitting at home in the lap of luxury ain’t gonna happen folks.
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Jason Mefford: But, but your book can serve you in the end warming up, people are being able to use it for a way to go to other higher ticket things right. So it’s the same thing. Like with speaking
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Jason Mefford: You know, if you’re charging 20 505,010 25,000 for a speech, right. That’s where your book ends up, you don’t make money on the book you make money on the other services that you provide your book is just a way to help give you credibility. Yeah.
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kathygruver: Though, I have to say, the way I sell most copies of my book or back of the room after I talk
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kathygruver: Because everybody’s jazzed everybody wants a piece of view.
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kathygruver: And I remember speaking at a women’s luncheon in Dallas. I have never seen so many beautiful well put together women in my life. The hair the makeup, the purses. Everybody was just so
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kathygruver: Beautiful the shoes like nobody missed a beat on this and I was speaking to. I think maybe 150 women.
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kathygruver: We had a blast. We laughed the entire time. It was rowdy, it was fun. And I brought a bunch of books with me. And at the end of the line was through the restaurant where they had the luncheon.
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kathygruver: Waiting to get my books and I would have people because at that point. I think I brought five of them and they go boop boop boop boop boop. I’ll take all of them.
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kathygruver: And I sold
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kathygruver: So, and I said to one woman like well, those who are pretty simple. She’s like, I don’t care. I’ve had people say, I’m never going to read these but you’re amazing and I want your books like okay, you know, so
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kathygruver: If you’re going to sell the book if you want to sell the books. That’s the way I sell, most of them barely any on Amazon, because how are you found on Amazon, you know,
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kathygruver: It’s really hard to be found online. And I think what was the stat that I read the majority of self published books don’t sell more than 200 copies
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Jason Mefford: It’s probably about right.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, yeah. I mean, cuz because normally and another number same low, but if you if you sell 3000 books. That’s pretty. That’s pretty good. That’s really good. Right.
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Jason Mefford: So yeah, I think it. Think about how you’re using it, you know. And so we’ve talked a little bit about the the self published thing. So we probably should.
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Jason Mefford: transition a little bit into
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Jason Mefford: Into the traditional experience and then maybe talk about
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Jason Mefford: How you can actually get started because we’ve already mentioned a couple of those things. But we’ll come back to that. Here at the end so traditional is a totally different route. Right. Yeah.
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kathygruver: Yeah, so, um, when I was looking for traditional publishers, most of them will not take unsolicited manuscripts.
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kathygruver: So you can’t just get ahold of Simon and Schuster, and be like, I got a Bach, they’re gonna throw it away. They don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to talk to you.
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kathygruver: If you want to get to a medium to bigger size publisher, you have to go through an agent getting an agent is just as hard as getting a publisher, because again you have to have a track record.
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kathygruver: If you have a self published book already that sold really well. And they’re talking over four or five steps and coffee if it looks like that’s a lot of self published books to sell you might get an agent. There are
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kathygruver: In the days that we could actually be in person, they would have these giant almost like speed dating things where you could talk to different agents and publishers. There’s a big one. Every year in New York.
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kathygruver: Very expensive to go to. But if you get your agent or your publisher out of it. It’s worth it when you go to a traditional publisher.
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kathygruver: If they take manuscripts, they want to they don’t want to see the whole manuscript right off. They want a cover letter. They want a 30 to 50 page.
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kathygruver: What your book looks at what you know a summary of the book. They want to know possible titles. They want to know how you’re going to market it. They want to know five other books in that industry that are competition.
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kathygruver: They want to know your social media marketing plan. They want to know your mailing list. They want to because they are not going to sell this book for you. You still have to do the work. And I’ve heard so many people say, I’m going to get a big advance
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Jason Mefford: Not anymore.
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kathygruver: Not anymore. And remember, even if you do, let’s say they give you a $5,000 advance
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kathygruver: It’s an advance you have to pay that back. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: You earned it out of your future royalties.
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kathygruver: It comes out of your future royalties and royalties typically come only a year. Sorry, falling out there.
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kathygruver: Only come a year after you sell the book. So anything you sell the first quarter of the year, you’re probably not going to see till fall
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kathygruver: And you’ve got to now pay that 5000 back off those royalties. So you might not see royalties for five or six years, depending on the book. So it’s not an easy path.
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kathygruver: I was very lucky and finding my publisher very, very lucky I hit just at the right time and they actually republished some of my self published books which is also unheard of that rarely if ever happens. So I really lucked out with that. So what was and I know you did the tradition.
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kathygruver: Yeah, well, so
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I was gonna say, cuz kind of from what you just talked about to one of the important points that people probably skipped over is
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Jason Mefford: Even if you go with a traditional publisher, you still have to sell your book. They’re going to market. They’re going to publish it, they’re going to put it out in different places.
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Jason Mefford: But if you’re not doing things to market your book just because it’s sitting on a shelf in Barnes and Noble doesn’t mean anybody’s going to buy it right
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Jason Mefford: And so, you know, you still have to do the book tours, the different whatever marketing, you’re going to do to be able to help push that book. Right. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: As well.
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kathygruver: And again, you’re it’s still not a guarantee that you’re going to sell a lot of copies. Yeah, and royalties are very low. Um, I know.
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kathygruver: My ex wrote multiple books and a lot of them came from a traditional publisher and I remember reading the contracts and
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kathygruver: thinking, Wow, this is all book contracts that I’ve ever seen in my attorney told me this when I was when I showed her my book contract. She’s like there. I’ve never seen a book contract that benefits the author, it’s
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kathygruver: All it’s
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kathygruver: All about the publisher. I mean, they’ll give you, they’ll give you five author copies and you’re like,
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kathygruver: That’s Mom That’s my, that’s one for me that’s like, give me 20 author copies and they’re so low to do that for you.
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kathygruver: For things like promotions, so you’re probably gonna have to buy your own books to give them to the PR people, it’s, it’s a, why do we do this.
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Jason Mefford: Well, that’s why I started off with. Why do you really want to buy a book.
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Jason Mefford: A book right
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kathygruver: Exactly. I’m working on my eighth and now I’m going to do this anymore. I want to
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, so with me. One of the other routes that I went, it was a little bit different traditional publisher, but it was a textbook.
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Jason Mefford: Kind of an idea right so it’s it’s there was a there’s a internal auditing, there’s a there’s a book called Sawyer’s internal auditing.
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Jason Mefford: Written many, many years ago, but it’s gone through different revisions and versions. And so I was asked to help contribute to the seventh edition of that book.
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Jason Mefford: And so it was effectively you know there were, I don’t know 10 or 15 of us that you know the the book was broken up into different chapters.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, and and we kind of worked on different parts of the book that were topic related to our, our area of expertise.
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Jason Mefford: Alright, cool.
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Jason Mefford: OK. And then, but again, traditional publisher. So there was the whole you know book outline. There was somebody who was really kind of the editor and the subject matter expert trying to pull you know heard all of our cats, all of us cats together.
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Jason Mefford: Yep, and make the book flow but but you know with that. There’s a lot of back and forth and back and forth and even on that, you know, I expressed
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Jason Mefford: A lot of concern that what I felt like I needed to say was going to be watered down in the editing. So I almost didn’t even do the book.
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Jason Mefford: But got some assurances and knew a couple of people that would be editing it at the end of the day, it wasn’t
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Jason Mefford: It was 90% of what I had hoped for, which was good. Now, that was one where, because of the nature of the book, the publisher was really paying us a flat fee up front.
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Jason Mefford: And we were giving them effectively the IP so that they can make the money on the back end. So I got a little I got some money up front for it.
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Jason Mefford: Economically, it wasn’t worth the time that I put in, but because of the prominence of that book in my industry. I wanted my name in the list of authors.
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Jason Mefford: Yep. So I went ahead and did I didn’t do it for the money.
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Jason Mefford: I did it for the industry credibility.
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kathygruver: Yeah, that’s, that’s an amazing. That’s really cool. I think I probably would have done it as well. I want to go back to something you said that you were concerned about having your stuff watered down in the editing and
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kathygruver: You lose so much control when you go with a traditional publisher and I remember being at one of my first conferences. I was just there as an attendee
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kathygruver: And there was a woman sitting next to me and she had the stack of books. And I said, oh, did you did you buy these here. Is there a place to buy books. And she goes, Oh no, I wrote these
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kathygruver: And I went, Whoa. So smartest thing ever. Everybody that walked by stopped and asked her about those books she sold every single book she brought
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kathygruver: So I looked at her books and she had two that were traditionally published by big publishers
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kathygruver: And to that were self published and this is before I wrote any of my books. I was so green. I didn’t know anything
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kathygruver: And I said, oh, so can I ask you about the publishing of this because, absolutely. I said, so I’m assuming you wrote the self published ones and then later. You got a publisher. She goes, absolutely. The other way.
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kathygruver: I said, Really, why would you give up a big traditional publisher to self publish books. So that seems really weird to me and she said, Cathy
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kathygruver: The third book. I wanted to do it was going to be 30 months out from publication.
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kathygruver: They wanted to change the title. They wanted to change the headshot, they wouldn’t let me do footnotes. She said it was no longer my book and I pulled out of the contract.
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kathygruver: She said I self published it in six weeks with my title with my book. It was my book, she said, I am a control freak. I’m time sensitive. I was not going to wait 30 months to get barely paid for a shitty book that wasn’t even mind anymore. And I was like,
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kathygruver: Oh,
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kathygruver: Yeah, and Michael dealt with that too, with a cover that was so hard. I mean, they, they made choices.
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kathygruver: And then got mad that he wanted to argue with the choices you know me knows this. So I’ve heard horror stories about working with publishers
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, so if you want more control go the self publishing route.
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Jason Mefford: The other thing too, you know, is, is kind of that cautionary tale is if you’re going to go with a traditional publisher, make sure you actually review the contract because sometimes you’re effectively, you know, signing over and they are buying the IP from you.
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Jason Mefford: Yep. And so you don’t really have any control about doing anything with that in the future.
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kathygruver: Yeah, right. Yeah.
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kathygruver: Have an attorney, look it over. I got a literary attorney. I think she charged me 500 bucks, which might have been more than I ever made in royalties.
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kathygruver: But it is she fixed. I mean, there were parts or she’s like, this isn’t right. And you got to fix that. And, you know, please have someone look it over that knows what they’re doing. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: Well, so then if we transition a little bit into kind of how to write it. And we’ve already kind of told you this, and you don’t even really hardly realize it right but
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Jason Mefford: You know, there’s different ways to write it. But just like what Kathy did say look at what you already have. Right. So a lot of books are written based on people’s blogs
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Jason Mefford: Well, if you’ve been a blogger for if you’ve
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Jason Mefford: Been a blogger for a while. You’ve got a lot of content, you know, Kathy, you had all your stuff from your PhD program.
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Jason Mefford: My that risk based on a book that was based on a five day training that I had already developed. Okay, so I pretty much already had the outline
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Jason Mefford: I just had to explain in tax. What I was normally explaining in a five day training session. So you already kind of have the outline so
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Jason Mefford: So look at what there is that you already have. And then, like you said, you know, you can put them on.
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Jason Mefford: You know note cards or whatever lay them all out and you’ve already got kind of the outline for what it is that you’re going to do another way that that people do it as well as you can just kind of journal, a little bit every day.
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Jason Mefford: So, so one of the
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Jason Mefford: books that I’m reading right now, just from the reading from the, from the writing style and the way the book is actually set up. I could tell that it’s it’s kind of three parts to it.
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Jason Mefford: They’re very small chapters and what it appears, is he probably sat down and wrote for half an hour or an hour each day.
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Jason Mefford: And because a lot of it was was kind of experiential it was what he was going through what he was feeling the experiences that were going on.
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Jason Mefford: And so that’s another way that you can kind of sit down and start writing something to very similar to blog posts, but you’re just kind of journaling or or getting a little bit out each day. Right.
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Jason Mefford: That’s and that’s the thing is
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Jason Mefford: If you’re, if you’re going to do this, you know, a lot of people talk about writing retreats, which are great. You can do that.
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Jason Mefford: But it depends on kind of your writing style as well.
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Jason Mefford: But showing up and doing a little bit each day is better than thinking, oh, I’m just going to cram everything into a week.
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Jason Mefford: Usually usually doesn’t happen if you try to cram and that’s why the Stephen. Press, press field or pressman press. I think it’s press field. The, the, the war of art.
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Jason Mefford: Is a great book to read about this and his one of his points in there is. It’s like, look, you know, creating art and writing a book is art.
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Jason Mefford: You’ve got to be willing to show up and actually do something because he says, you know, the muse. A lot of people sit around and go all I have writer’s block. I have to wait for the muse to show up. Right.
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Jason Mefford: But in his book he’s like every time I sit my butt down in the chair at 9am the muse shows up right because he he does that consistently and
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Jason Mefford: A lot of other writers of the same way Hemingway, and I was the same way he he put his button. The chair every day at a certain time and he wrote like it was his job because it was. Yeah.
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kathygruver: Exactly. No, I love so much of what you’re saying about you know you. I think we have to find a style that works for us. I tend to dictate. So my books sound.
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kathygruver: And I get I love this compliment. It sounds like you’re reading it to me. Good. Because I dictated it I’m not one to sit down as fast as I type
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kathygruver: My brain and mouth works faster than typing. So I tend to dictate I wrote my last book driving to and from LA to go to trapeze because I click on the recorder and I would translate stuff. I mean, you can use something like Tammy. I actually use the notes feature on the phone.
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kathygruver: Which is good until it goes ping and then you realize it stopped me mid sentence and you don’t remember what you were saying.
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kathygruver: So there’s a lot of great ways you can dictate it I’ve suggested that to so many people and they love that idea.
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kathygruver: I am not a sudden my button. The chair every day at the same time to write and it happens. I don’t work that way. I get the urge to write and I’ll sit down. I’ll tear out an hour to
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kathygruver: And then maybe won’t happen for other day, a couple days. The only time I had to force myself to write was when I was doing my dissertation and I hated every second of it.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: I’m crunch. Yeah.
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kathygruver: Oh, I had a time and I hated it. I remember sitting there typing and typing and going
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kathygruver: I can’t write anymore.
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kathygruver: My code behind me was hands on me. He goes,
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kathygruver: I think you have to. And I’m like, I know. And he’d had me wide. And I’m like,
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kathygruver: Okay.
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kathygruver: I actually thanked. Why did it on the intro to my dissertation, because it like it got me through. It’s like I had to write and I hated it.
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kathygruver: And I hated the style of that it was so stilted and you couldn’t say I and you couldn’t say, I mean it the right the way you enjoy writing
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kathygruver: I write, I have a little asides, and I’m slightly Reverend I swear, a little bit. And because I’m dictating. It sounds very natural, like I’m talking, that is, to me as my writing style.
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kathygruver: Find your own voice. And this is one of the reasons I’m not a huge fan of ghost writing to me it’s like if you have something to say, then just put it down and say it in your words and your tone.
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kathygruver: I don’t quite get the idea of someone else writing your stuff then because you didn’t write it, but that’s a whole nother thing, um,
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Jason Mefford: Well, and like you said, there’s a lot of different options now because we can actually dictate
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Jason Mefford: There’s a lot of technology that can do that. You can transcribe anything. So, you know, the same thing even like with with podcasts or
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Jason Mefford: Videos that you’re doing, you can actually get those transcribed. You know, there’s several different services like I know Tammy has one I use rev calm.
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Jason Mefford: You know where you can either for 10 cents per minute. I think it is. It’s something like 10 cents a minute. If you have the computer do it or $1 a minute if you actually have a human, go back and kind of added it. Yeah.
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kathygruver: 1010 is much cheaper.
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Jason Mefford: It’s to me to even cheaper than 10 spots.
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kathygruver: promo yeah
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kathygruver: Okay, yeah.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, so you can get it most of the time is run through a computer. So there is going to be some editing this you’re going to have to do by
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, it’s, it’s still pretty accurate it’s 90 plus percent accurate, it may get some of the context things wrong or stuff like that. But it’s still pretty good and easy. At least then if you’re if you’re more of a talker than a taper. Then there’s another option for you to do it.
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kathygruver: Exactly. I was dictated because I also use. I’ve got a Mac. And so I hit Command twice I can dictate anything into my computer and it changes it into words. And you know I do my mini meditation, which is inhale, I am exhale at peace. And that’s what I was dictating
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kathygruver: And repeat. I am at peace.
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kathygruver: I think that’s a whole different meditation piece in hand, I was going to be something about a piece or something.
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kathygruver: No.
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kathygruver: I am asked me, like, oh ok so
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kathygruver: Anyway, we’ve like this is now like but a 45 minute show so we should probably stop talking.
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Jason Mefford: All right, but yeah hopefully again for anybody that you know if you’re interested in writing a book and I know most people are, you know, ask yourself, why, why do you want to do the book, you know, realize what what the more likely outcomes will be from doing it.
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Jason Mefford: You know, get rid of some of the beliefs of, oh, I’m just going to be a millionaire and sit on the beach. You know, when I write my my blockbuster. It happens to very few people
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Jason Mefford: It could happen to you that might be in your in your, you know, karma, but it’s for for most of us. Books are a way to just add credibility to what you already do.
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Jason Mefford: And use that as a way to leverage the other products and services that you’re actually offering
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kathygruver: And to share knowledge and help people. I mean, let’s not forget that part of the reason. The other reason I wanted to write books is to reach more people and share what I know about stress reduction and I know you wrote to help them get through this. The the
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kathygruver: Audit stuff that you do so, you know, there. We don’t want to gloss over this whole helping people. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: The whole helping part
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, no.
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Jason Mefford: No.
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kathygruver: Well, I should say. And when you know the why that helps inform whether you’re going to do traditional or
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kathygruver: Or self published. So that’s it.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, or even at the end because I was gonna throw into that I forgot before is, you know, I went back and looked at that book that I wrote back in 2014 I thought, you know, I probably should update that
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Jason Mefford: But then again, I had to. I looked at the why. What am I trying to do. I’m trying to help people. I’m trying to get content out to them faster.
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Jason Mefford: And so for me, instead of, you know, doing a revision on that book. I actually created a 30 hour course.
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Jason Mefford: Online Course instead. Right. So, so I chose to do to go that route to provide the information to people in a video format online course instead of a book.
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Jason Mefford: Because I could do that quicker. Right. And I felt like, you know, again, it was a better learning environment for people and you know I could charge a lot more for that than I could for the book, too.
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kathygruver: I agree.
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Jason Mefford: And so there’s there’s other options like that as well. So don’t feel like you have to do the book. There’s, there are some other options out there as well.
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kathygruver: That’s absolutely true. And we can have an entire segment on doing online courses because I have one and it’s failed miserably.
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kathygruver: And I don’t know why.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, it’s a hard business.
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kathygruver: Yeah, I know. I think, I think I did too late. Anyway, you know, timing is everything.
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kathygruver: Anyway, oh my god, this has been so fun.
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kathygruver: But here’s the other thing. Don’t think about it is reading a book that’s really intimidating write a sentence that turned into a paragraph that turns into a chapter and then you have a whole book.
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kathygruver: You know, it’s the whole eating the elephant. We have to bring the elephant back and eating the elephant one spoonful at a time so
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Jason Mefford: Don’t have an animal, and every episode.
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kathygruver: Yeah, little
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kathygruver: Okay, so this was great. Go out, write your book, let us know how it goes. Let us know if you have any questions, we could both help you through this
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kathygruver: I’m Kathy Gruber. I can be reached at Kathy group com
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Jason Mefford: And I’m Jason method I can be reached at Jason method calm, so go out and we’ll see you on next week’s fire and earth podcasts. Have a great week.
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kathygruver: Yeah.
