Top Marketing Tips For Book Launches
Jane Anderson is an author and expert on Leadership and Communications. With over 20 years’ experience in Personal Branding, she has worked with over 50,000 people on building more trust and influence in their businesses and brands. Her clients include Virgin Australia, Lego, Ikea, Rio Tinto, and Origin Energy and she is on the faculty in Thought Leaders Business School, mentoring some of Australia’s leading experts in their field. Jane's blog was recently voted in the top 10 branding blogs in Australia and in the top 30 branding gurus globally. Jane is the author of five books including her latest “EXPERT to INFLUENCER: 12 Key Skills to Attract New Clients, Increase Sales and Leverage your Personal Brand to Become an Industry Leader.
James Taylor Interviews Jane Anderson and they talked about top marketing tips for book launches
In this episode, we cover:
- Choosing the style of your first book
- Hiring the right writing coach
- Top marketing tips for book launches
Resources:
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Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript
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James Taylor
Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted to be joined by Jane Anderson. Jean Anderson is an author and expert on leadership and communications with over 20 years experience in personal branding. She has worked with over 50,000 people on building more trust and influence in their businesses and brands. Her clients include Virgin Australia, Lego IKEA, Rio, Tinto and origin energy, and she is on faculty in thought leaders Business School mentoring some of Australia's leading experts in their field. Jane's blog was recently voted in the top 10 branding blogs in Australia and the top 30 branding gurus globally. Jane is the author of five books, including her latest expert to influencer 12 key skills to attract new clients, increase sales, and leverage your personal brand to become an industry leader. It's my great pleasure to have Jean with us today. So welcome, Jane,
Jane Anderson
I thank you. It's so exciting to work with you again. I feel like you're like my long was buddy and I thought we could play again. I'm getting this. I thank you for having
James Taylor
we're on the opposite ends of the world. You're in your winter. I'm in my summer here just now. But I always love catching up because you have so I love the energy that you put into everything that you do as well. So I have to ask, first of all, what's going on in your world? What are you currently working on?
Jane Anderson
Yeah, thank you so. So I've just come off a quarter, it's kind of interesting. I have a program that I run this quarter, I do a lot of work on influence and persuasion and help people in this quarter I've just been working with doctors to get onto specialist training programs. So if they're wanting to get on to, you know, become a dermatologist or a surgeon, a vascular surgeon. You do like obstetrics and gynecology. So we have really extremely difficult processes to go through in that. So I've come off a quarter of seven days a week coaching doctors pretty much. So normally this time I'm hidden in a hotel and just in the fetal position going. Okay, so But, but few times I know it's all right. So I normally am recovering in a hotel at the beach for a few days. But no, I said no. That the James James wants to catch up with you out there, of course. Absolutely.
James Taylor
Well, that's so that's okay. I was just reading your book last week. And as you recommended someone last week did the one that you wrote on LinkedIn using LinkedIn? I think that's such an underused platform. I mean, it gets none of the glamour of Facebook and Instagram. Yet when I look at it, so you know, our business, where does the social networks really bring in the business of bringing sales is like number one of the networks? So why why is it the Why is it the ugly? Baby, the ugly sister of the of the social networks
Jane Anderson
buy meat and potatoes, isn't it? And so yeah, it's it's a funny kind of way I think it is more common in some ways was that thing? I suppose basic. It is also a little bit more complex than some of the other sides. It's a very closed network. Whereas if you look like look at something like say Instagram, Instagram is a very open network as in, if I was trying to find something, or someone like you, like if I was typing in, you know, book writing coach in Instagram, I'll just get millions of people turn up in that search. Whereas in LinkedIn, if I was looking for someone like that the only people who are going to turn up are people I'm connected to. So it's a different kind of approach. And I think my experience has been I think, I love LinkedIn. I think Everyone's probably got a bit of a love hate relationship with it. You know, they love it because they think they can see all this opportunity in there. But then they go to try and work it out and I get ours, it's hard. I can't work, how to make this work. So I think in some ways, I had the good fortune of going visiting LinkedIn, Ted office in San Francisco a few weeks ago. And you know, they really are incredible now that Microsoft have taken over, I think they've become more commercial. But I think there's still a lot of opportunity to simplify it even more to help people understand, well, you know, your profile needs to be a marketing document, not an obituary. Some of those things, I think there's still still a little way to go in helping people to put their best foot forward and realize that it's actually a marketing document that is available 24 seven that can stand out and help you. As opposed to most people will say to me, oh, well, I've set up my profile, and I haven't got anything from it. I will. Have you actually initiated a conversation? Have you started anything? Oh, no, I'm just waiting for everyone to turn up and want my help.
James Taylor
But it's such a great one. I was thinking, looking at your book last week, actually, I was thinking for an author who isn't that process of trying to find in an agent or literary agent or something about who might be the right publisher for the for what they were doing, or when they're actually kind of getting ready to actually go out and market and put and promote the book as well. Is is a really untapped? I think, by you know, by that group. Because it's, you don't hear so many older you hear more maybe business nonfiction authors, but authors more generally, you don't hear them talking about LinkedIn so much as a platform?
Jane Anderson
No, no, there's some and, you know, there's so much opportunity with it. And it's not it, people think it's noisy, but it's actually not very noisy. So, you know, turn my business around, my story was I lost about 80% of my business overnight, here in Queensland, the state that I mean, in, in Australia, we have a volatile government in the state that I'm in and that they changed, change premiers, like they change their underwear, and that has an impact on businesses. And I lost about 80% of my my business. And so LinkedIn was the tool that helped me to shift from being so susceptible to local market challenges to becoming more global. So you know, without it, you know, it, there's, there's no way I would have been able to get where I got today. And I did it as a result of Actually, I lost about $30,000 in AdWords and SEO and because I just really didn't know what I was doing. But LinkedIn, I was writing profiles for job seekers and, and get helping them get jobs. And at the time, I thought, well, surely I can help people, maybe if I'm helping all these people, they're getting their jobs, they're getting in front of all these people maybe or use it for sales and see how that works. And and it worked. So it wasn't that I consciously did it was actually just by pure need to get my business back on track.
James Taylor
Now. That's one of your books. And if you haven't, you have a number of books and including this, this leads to an expert influencer, who, as you were kind of moving into believing you can speak and you want to move into the kind of author getting your books, your writing out there. Who were those mentors, or maybe the people, either you personally, you had a relationship with personally, or people you looked at from afar and said, that's the kind of author that I want to become that's that's maybe something about their style, or how the, you know, or how they they can have formats of their book. Who were those people?
Jane Anderson
Yes. Yeah, I think it's probably been a few things I Well, when a big turning point in my life was joining thought leaders business school, and I know you've had spoken with Peter Cook in the past. And so Peter Cook is the CEO of thought leaders Business School. And, you know, what I learned from working with them was that my, my ability that I did have some good ideas and good like, hey, it was just a matter of really being taught how to do it. So that was probably the first first part was I remember, actually, I remember one day that I was working with Matt and, and Pedro and, and Matt said, Well, hold on, why don't you go and have a look, you've written all these blogs, go and have a look at your blogs and come back and tell me what your word count is if you put all those into a document. So off I went, and that night, I pulled it together. And I remember going and seeing him the next day, we're on a training course. And I said, Matt, I've got 8000 words. I can't believe that simile guy actually done a lot of the work. It's a you know, you've actually now just got to stop look at how you package this up. And it had never even occurred to me. I thought you had to write blogs and Okay, now you got to write a book. And so I was already doing the work. I just hadn't seen it through the lens of using it for a book. So I think that was the first part then. But there's always been writers that I've always really admired and but one of the books that I really like is is Ryan Holiday holidays. perennial seller.
James Taylor
Yeah, that's a great.
Jane Anderson
It's such a great book. And I go back and read it so many times, you know, particularly the work, you know, it's working with people like Robert Greene and creating power. And, you know, they're just iconic books. And you just go well. So I think my experience has been working, creating a book that's commercially smart, that will help me to work with the programs and what I'm trying to deliver to help people. And then you look, I'm always inspired, though, by those iconic books, like, the ones that, you know, they, they've worked with authors to create, and I've got that, you know, think once, but just use it forever.
James Taylor
Yeah. And I think that that's actually quite a hard thing to do to get, you know, to get that, right. That classic, you know, create that classic book, but also because you're you're using as a party as a vehicle to get on stages and speak and, and that where were those audiences often want real? They want real relevance? What's happening now? How is this being played now? So have you found a way to, to kind of have those things coexist? Or do you really write the book saying, okay, the examples, I'm going to use the, I wouldn't need them to be around forever? Or I'd use it. Okay. I'm just going to do this. every couple of years. I know, in the back of my head, I'm gonna have to update.
Jane Anderson
Yeah, it's funny you say that, because the LinkedIn book that I wrote Connect, which is, um, I don't know if it's helpful for that this one. So this one, it was out of date, pretty much the day I wrote, it went to the publisher. I, oh, they don't do that anymore. I go, I've written a chapter on that. And so I, the bulk of it is, you know, 99.9% of it is still relevant. But But yes, so I know that that needs to be updated. But then there's others that I give an expert to implement to this, it might it probably will need some tweaks. Like you said, I might have to do some updating in a couple of years. But I deliberately, you know, learnt that lesson a little bit with Kinect Kinect is still really good, still super relevant. But there's, you know, just the screen grabs look a little bit different, but the principles is still the same. But the next bit to influencer? Yeah, I was far more mindful, after reading the perennial seller to say, actually, if I'm running a course, or a coaching program, that's when I can tweak what I'm saying. But the content that goes in that book, I need to make sure that that's relevant for a long time.
James Taylor
Now you work with this idea of experts to influence taking people with all this knowledge, whatever their field is, whether it's the doctors, or whether they're their marketing specialists, whatever the topic is, and helping them become influenced. And so when it comes to the writing, helping them become authors and kind of get their message out that way. I'm imagining a difficult one for them as they have so much information in their head. It's like, what is the first book? What is the topic of the first book? How do I decide because they could write probably 10 different books? You know, any any ideas in terms of how you can identify what is that lead Domino? What is the first one you're going to write?
Jane Anderson
It's a great question. So what I do is I look at, I look at them with their, with their practice, or their business of what do they actually selling at the moment? What do they know that is working? So because it's risky to write a book, based on something new that you don't have any evidence of it, you know, that of the market wanting something like that. So, so one of the things I look at, typically look at two types of books, a book that is relevant for their business or their practice overall. So for example, let's say they're a resilience expert, then we'll say, okay, there's a book called, let's say, you as the, you know, rock your resilience or whatever it might be. And that that's a book that can take you to any stage any audience, but it but it's not narrow on market. So it might be the 10 things to help you to become more resilient in life. Now that can go to sales teams, you can speak at a change management conference, you can speak on leadership, you can apply that to so many things. And that's a it's a book for your entire business. But sometimes, there's something in their business that's really unique. So, for example, like with the we were talking a bit about doctors, so I have a doctor's program, which is where I coach doctors to get on a specialist program. So I've written a much thinner book. So this is a thin book, it's called confidence, how to sell yourself in medical interviews, get on to your chosen specialty program, have your preparation time and double your impact. So now something like that is I haven't had to go. It's that's not what my entire business is about. But that was a commercially smart book to write because that particular program I was I'd been delivering for 10 years. And I just hadn't actually written a book on it. And that book then essentially doubled the revenue that came in with that program, just simply and it's only 25,000 Words, were something like that is 45,000 words,
James Taylor
that's a really smart one, because then that means it let's say, as a speaker or as a trainer, you can then go to that this in the medical industry and say, you know, I wrote the book on me how you know that it's we've had another guest, we're just talking about how often you get into dominance in an area because you're you're good at something one area and good at another. And it's the crossover of those two, those two things, and where no one else is going for and gives you a USP. So that's an really interesting USP, because you obviously know, from the marketing positioning side, but then you also understand what the challenges are for those people that can have going for those types of roles.
Jane Anderson
Absolutely. And there's only 150 people in that market every year. So I know that out of those 150 people, it's likely that I get about 90, who I talked to, and then ultimately ended up working with about 20. So, so it's a really small market, but a highly commercial one, as well as they they're in a lot of pain, I need a lot of help, but they are not a doctor. I trust doctors, I don't trust a lot of people. So I had to put something to show, you know, I can help you. I know I'm not a doctor, I haven't got a PhD or anything. But I recognize I can help you get on to your program. So it was really a positioning tool to say, you know, here's what, here's what she talks about. I had an orthopedic surgeon contact me last year, actually a very, very large shoe because he'd spent three years trying to apply and he just wasn't getting on highly stressed and very anxious because he couldn't get on to orthopedics. This year, I worked with him. So these people that booked in for this program, I work with them they book in a year in advance for me to work with him. And because it's so competitive, and I have there's only one of me. And in his case, I have him in, I had probably five coaching sessions with him to help him hit by the end of every session, he was so emotional, and in tears. This is an orthopedic surgeon. They're not exactly the most emotional people usually. But in his case, he just said I cannot thank you enough. If you didn't write this book, I would have no idea that this is what I was meant to be doing. No one tells you this. So he you know, he always says to me, you're on like he says, When you come to my city, can you can you please ring me Can you please like you have to come meet my family. And you know, it's a it's life changing. If you can create something like that, where there's no education out there on it, there's no one who can translate what the problems are and what they might be experiencing. It don't don't have to have a massive market.
James Taylor
Yeah, but I'm guessing as well, that model works really well when it comes to independent publishing and also self publishing, because a publisher would if you went to a publisher and say, you know, the total market for this book is 150 people, unless it's an academic book where that's maybe considered okay. Most publishers are going to say I'm sorry, but you can do that you can write those those relatively thin volumes, I really targeted that audience. And it works. Because you know, that is the tip of the spear, you're going to bring in so much other business on the back end.
Jane Anderson
That's exactly right. Even a friend of mine, Colin Ellis wrote a book on how to recruit a project manager. But that's, you know, but there's not that many people in that in mind. There's a lot of project managers or people who recruit project managers. That's a real, it's a really commercially smart book to write. It's actually I think it's about half the size of that. So it's not a very big book, but it's a way to be able to put a stake in the ground and say, Well, I understand I can help you. And it's commercially smart. We're not looking to put it on a shelf in bookstores or anything like that. It's not going to be a New York Times bestseller, that's for sure. But it is something that's commercially smart for him to do. And I
James Taylor
think I've heard I can't remember the name of the author now. But there is another author I've heard of who he wrote his, his main book is Kiss me, which is 220 page version, let's say on his main topic, he speaks on relatively broad, you know, pretty broad and examples he gave. And then he essentially said, he, every year he kind of took the he wrote the same book for a particular industry. So I can what his topic was now, but let's see if it was innovation. You know, it was innovation for marketers innovation, and that was that you just go off to all the conferences and be able to comment and say, Hey, I wrote the book on innovation for marketing. Would you like me to come speak at your marketing conference? And he said, It was such a powerful way, because the you've obviously taken the time to really understand what the challenges were in that in that industry, you've gone to writing the book for it. And he said, Actually, it's not that much harder work, because it's, it's kind of this a lot of the key strategies were the same. It was just in terms of the application. We had to talk about what was going to be different.
Jane Anderson
Yes. Yeah, exactly. There's so much leverage one have written a book, you know, it's in those specific markets. And, you know, for self publishing, you can even tailor that for, you know, there's so much quick turnaround on things. And to tailor something, you know, you can do it just for an organization, but they brand on it do the foreword from the CEO, you know, like, there's so many options now, if you've just got if you've got a great book like that it's you're spot on is how can we just tweak it maybe for that particular market? And, you know, it's got the same content, it's just highly leveraged, but change some of the examples, it's still super relevant. So you really put a good stake in the ground, then for sure. So can you talk us through with some strategies for confer writing and completing a commercially smart book in in less than 90 days, because, because the thing I always amazes me about you, is lots of people that can talk, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, but you execute and you make stuff happen, and relatively quickly. So can you talk about like the strategies that you go through to kind of writing those books again, there's books out there. Yeah. So I have a confession to make James. So you know, the first book, The first book I wrote was this one, which was called impact, which was around how to build your personal brand. And I've never written a book before. And so I decided to get a writing coach. Now the problem was, was that my writing coach really liked writing? And I don't. So I reckon one of the first things that that you want to do, is you want to know, are you a speaker? Who writes or are you a writer who speaks? And so in my case, I'm a I'm a speaker, who writes, I'm not a fast writer, I can speak much faster than I can write. Some people have got so so beautiful, eloquent, eloquent writing, and that's just not me, I have to speak and then I forget it out. So I, so impact took me nine months to write. Because I was like, Oh, my God, this is so every other book I've written since took 90 days, because I went through the pain of that I was like, This is never happening again, in with this code. And go does it make you got some hacks or something like I'm a bit of a productivity guru, like, I've just spent five years as a productivity expert in, and consultants. So I've got a bit of obsession around that. I was like, this is really painful. So there were a couple of things that, that I, I've found that I've been really useful to, to do that number one, or probably three things, number one, was that little bit of planning, like, you know, deciding what is the book actually designed to sell and writing around that purpose. And the next thing was I created an app, I might have told, mentioned it in the in the speaker somebody did, but an app called memo mailer. So memo mailer is an app I've created, and it's on Google Play, and it's on iTunes. And it, the idea behind it, because I don't know about you, but you find when you're writing, you think of good ideas or things that could go in chapters in the lead up to building and planning the book. And I've found with experts and people who are, you know, writing books is they have great ideas, but they just come along at really bad times. And so yeah, so idea with memo mailer, if you go on, you'll see the tapes of reviews from speakers, but you just hold down a button on it and say, Oh, I need to do a chapter on blah, or if you think of a story or whatever. And it just sends yourself all the information in the content of what you're thinking it goes straight to your inbox. So I do a lot of memo mail type work. So it's, it's capturing the recording of me saying it. So if you've got stories, you're finding research, the idea is to make sure you've got homes and start to capture all those things on the run. And so send them to yourself and then file them. So that's the first thing so that when it comes to writing,
James Taylor
and that's that's important, especially if you send them screen, being a speaker who writes or a writer who speaks, if you're a speaker, you're an adjunct I'm going to is more generally into performer because I think also applies to performance as well as I know, performance is they're much more comfortable in doing something like that hitting that record, just speaking into their phone or singing it into the phone as a song. And doing it that way rather than sitting down and writing out. And, you know, and because our brains work that way, if you're if you're more of a performer, Speaker type of person.
Jane Anderson
Yes, absolutely. So if you can, the first thing I do is make sure I've got home set up for like I'm thinking about writing this book and have a home in my inbox. So in my inbox in my emails, is I'll have the folder set up for that book. And so as I think of things will come across things that I'm capturing in memo mailer, or emailing them to myself is to set up a file so that all those things are going in there. Without a home for things everything kind of goes a bit messy. So the one is capturing ideas Then what from that was was planning the book and starting to capture? Okay, well, what are what are the stories? What are the points? What's the research that goes with each of these pieces. And then what I do is I go and hide in a hotel room for four days. And it's usually winter at the beach. Yeah, so enough, it's too cold for me to go out for a swim. So I have to sit and look at the beach. I can't get distracted, I can watch the waves. And it's a beautiful view. But I'm not tempted to go out and go and swim, which is what I want to do, but I can't, it's too cold. So it forces me to sit down and, and, but what I do is in the hotel room, I take off all the artwork off the walls. And I think the cleaners come in, what is this woman done this room. And what I do is I then start to map the books, I take blue tack, and and you know, so each of those pieces of IP, or each of the chapters, and then sub chapters based on whatever that research and study and story that goes with each of those. I've mapped them and put them across the entire walls of the hotel. And then I go back and grab my phone, and I grab rev.com I'm sure lots of people, you're in red for any of those apps. So I just stand there with my phone and read out every single one of those those documents. And so if I've done all the planning, right, I can get it, I can get the book back in, you know, four days, like I'll have Sorry, I can have all the content out, then that comes back through rave and then I'll just send it to the copy editor. And then I cleaned it all up so I actually don't even touch it.
James Taylor
Wow, that's a really injured like speaker isn't you can speak to right. Yeah, I love and actually what you said about the going to the hotel, and people would think I have some man idea. But actually, my wife and I met also JK Rowling recently and event of Harry Potter digital, the Harry Potter movies, books. And she does the same thing. And she she goes and books into hotels called the Balmoral hotel, which is in Edinburgh and the main fee. And she will, she doesn't do the that particular stage in terms of mapping. But there's a period of time, which is very, very important for just to get stuff done. Otherwise other things can crowd out. And she just goes to, you know, probably doesn't pick up the phone, nothing distraction and go shopping website. She just like, spends that week there getting that stuff done. And it's just like everything else is secondary.
Jane Anderson
Yeah, that's an old phones are off. Everything's off no distractions, no phone calls, like, you know, I might have one call into maybe my partner mark at home. But that'll be bad. So yeah, it's the way to go. That's for sure. But it takes a little bit of planning to make the most of it so that you're not leaving the hotel room. Six months later, I've been going home.
James Taylor
So you see, you've got that you've done the copy editing that's come back, you've obviously you're working with your you know, designers and when you kind of go to that next stage, are you putting out directly through Amazon? You're working directly with Amazon to kind of put it out or do you go through a third party in terms of distribution?
Jane Anderson
So yeah, I go to so it'll come back from the copy editor, proofreader, like if it's all done, types it everything, then I have a great support person who I've connected with, she's actually a do self publishing. And I don't touch any of the Amazon or you know, the CreateSpace or Ingram spark or whatever, she's the guru of all that I gave up trying to work out all the all the formatting and I feel like it's surely there's somebody who understands this better than me. So, so yeah, she's been wonderful. So she's in Melbourne. And so I just send the files to her and she just load everything up sorts out Amazon sorts out everything. And so I don't I don't actually even touch very much of the book at all.
James Taylor
Is that is that so is that when it comes out until they see an Amazon? Is it come out under under their publishing company? Or does it come out into something you've you've named
Jane Anderson
it it comes under self publishing so it'll say that they've done the publishing but I but yeah, so it's so essentially self published but it's got her her branding to say that they've done the printing but that's about it.
James Taylor
She's also got like a hybrid like a hybrid of of this the self publishing and the more traditional publishing where you'll have someone that is taking care of doing doing the whole thing.
Jane Anderson
Yeah, that's right. So I do everything she just really hits print and loads it into Amazon. And that's it. And then
James Taylor
so you've you've got your book, you're ready to rock and roll get it out to the world start talking to people about it. What is what is the what is it marketing campaign for when you're releasing a book, like and after Having done a number of books now, what is that that one thing that you have found just works is just like the it's just you, you must have this as part of your marketing campaign.
Jane Anderson
Okay, this is my biggest secret you can't tell anyone, James, okay.
James Taylor
It's just me, you and a couple of 10s of thousand people, that's all.
Jane Anderson
This is by far, the number one thing that changed my my world changed, you know, just the way they work with books and what I do with all my clients. So the first thing I say is get your book cover. Not so I work off a 90 day project. Like I'll say a book is a 90 day project. And I'll say that we do the cover first. And so even if you have to change it at the last minute is fine. But do the cover first. And then put that cover everywhere. So put on the website, say that it's coming. You know, it's put it in your newsletters, have it in all your social media have it in your presentations, it scares the hell out of you For starters, so it makes you write it. The second thing is, is that it generates positioning and it generates the conversation. So particularly if your book now everybody's a bit different, like you say like some people actually, my intention is not necessarily to sell books, my intention is to sell my programs, my books are the way that show people that I can help them and understand their challenges. So if you're coming from that space, is that the book cover suddenly creates the positioning and a visual artifact that even though the book isn't written, it opens up a conversation with people that Oh, wow. And then suddenly you're known for that. So with Connect, when I wrote Connect, I put the cover up 90 days before the impact. I didn't do it until very last minute and then it like suddenly you've got this book and I Oh, wow. Now I have to go out and have these conversations. With Connect. When I wrote connect the budget that I had planned on income for the year, I put the cover out and I'd sold that entire budget within three months. And I didn't even have the book back yet.
James Taylor
That's that's an that's a really interesting, this idea of doing the book cover First, we actually had another guest Ron Kaufman who's speaking from based in Singapore. And Ron, he does exactly the same thing. He said, He's a very visual person, he said that I need to have that book to see what it feels like, you know, mentally and, and then one of our other guests, David Allen wrote getting things done, he actually rates the reviews, like almost like he doesn't erase the reviews first, including who the review is what the publication is, he says I need to have that visual thing going ahead and kind of set the setting it up in that way. So So I love this idea. I love this idea of kind of getting, you're kind of using from a marketing standpoint, because you say your book is not if you sell that copies, great of a book, but actually it's not your primary revenue stream that comes in it's like it's a positioning statement is showing that you're you are the expert in the market as well. And when you come to like doing book design, because that's a huge area in its own, do you go with like a 19 designs? Or do you have someone that you tend to you like working with,
Jane Anderson
so I have the copy editor I work with is also a graphic designer. So sometimes just depending on if I might get her to do a design, and I'll see what it looks like. And then maybe I might go back over to 99 designs and maybe see what comes through there. And so I don't get a blank to not get too hung up or too prescriptive on what I think the covers gonna look like I'm very open to other people's creativity and ideas because people think of stuff I would never think of. So, so I like I really like 99 designs, I think they they're fantastic. And the ideas people have are just great. So they're a good investment, I do tend to even for clients I'm working with, I encourage them to get the more expensive option in 99 designs, I think it's worth 1300 dollars Australian or something like that, particularly if they've got a book that's, you know, these say, Well, this is the return on this cover is going to be possibly, you know, million dollar plus. So 1300 dollars is not that much different than $900. It's like compared to the second option. So I go invest as much as you can to get as many options as you can and you want it to be an absolutely cracking cover. Because it's not about a piece of paper on top of a book. Yeah, it's actually about what you're doing with the book and what it's designed to position you for. So we're going to cover is the best investment if you can spend the money on that it's worth it.
James Taylor
No, no, because you went back to the thought leaders Business School. You talk about this idea of clusters and doing 90 day projects is very much a part of that as well. So when you're when you're doing your book is are you trying to like kind of Ida write publish the book all within 90 days, or do you like say 90 days for the writing part. And then you have another 90 days period for the for the marketing and the promotion?
Jane Anderson
Yeah, book in hand, by the end of 90 days, marketing will. So if you said, Okay, we've got three quarters here on the side, I'll go left to right from your side, I'll be on the stage. So I'm a new speaker, we picked me up on that. But I'm on stage left. And so if you said sequentially, so if you're working like you've got a quarter, there's one quarter here, one quarter here one quarter. So this quarter would be get the cover out and just get it moving. Like just just get it visible everywhere. So that's that quarter. And then, in this quarter, start writing. So you I mean, you'll be percolating ideas, and you'll be okay, I think I'm on the Trekkie, but in this quarter is getting write it all down. And by the stage of cover should be out floating around anyway. But 90 days to get in and get it done. And then the following 90 days is okay, who does that book now need to go out to, to work to do the programs? Because if it's being used for training programs, work, all that good stuff, then then marketing campaign, that marketing campaign for the programs you're selling, not necessarily to sell books? Yeah,
James Taylor
if that makes sense. It's kind of getting out into into the hands of prospective clients, you know, and and using it for the pillars purposes and media opportunities, podcasts, those kind of things. That's it. Yep. Spot on. Very cool. Very cool. And as you've been writing all these books, has it been a key aha moment, a lightbulb moment? A time when you go? Okay, this is, this is maybe the direction I want to go with my writing, or this is what writing I want writing to do for me and publishing to do for me?
Jane Anderson
That's a really good question. It's been an interest. I think, it's really been interesting, because it's, it's one of those things, I don't know if you found this, but when you when you're writing is that each book leads to sort of the next activity. So when I say that you talked a little bit before about categories of people. So you put people in if there's a category of a speaker or writer, and then you bring in this other category in the intersection of those two things, create a dominant, and in that sort of positioning, so what I learned that's been a surprise is sorry, right, impact first, and then sort of people kind of got what I was doing, like they said, Yeah, okay, so you do personal branding, and I kind of get this impact thing. And already Oh, then when I work Connect, then they went on now we get what you do. So they really started to connect it with our so you work at the intersection of positioning marketing as well as digital. Yeah, yeah. I. So that was probably if there was a surprise, and something I didn't expect, but was was interesting and, and worked well, was now the intersection of all my books, but particularly those two was when I went, oh, wow, people now really get me. So that was kind of interesting.
James Taylor
You talked about that process of going going to hotel for days, and how you you're capturing ideas all the time as well. But you're also publishing blog posts, you're publishing things on LinkedIn as well. So what is your general ritual when it comes to to writing?
Jane Anderson
Yeah, number one is capturing ideas like without that. So that was why I made that up. Then the second thing is time allocated as a habit and routine in the calendar as per David Allen. And so I typically have a Friday morning, where I'll have, you know, maybe a couple of hours where I will go back to those ideas, and then start to catalogue them, and then decide which one that I'm going to work with. So create that piece of IP. So for example, the one that I did recently was how to increase the open rates in your newsletters. So that was an idea that as a result of working with a client, and so I captured the idea but I knew I had time allocated next Friday or the you know, the following Friday to sit down and, and capture that and write it out and get the idea out from that, then having that then that piece of content, then also then moves over into my book folder. So then, okay, where does that belong? So and I might not know just yet but I make sure I get that piece of contents going out in a newsletter, but then we go essentially copy paste. Okay, that now goes into the book folder as well to make sure that that's gone into a book. I may not know what the next book is going to be just yet, but at least I've got a folder. And I know what I also have a spreadsheet of all the pieces of IP that I've got, they're all catalogued and numbered. And so on the spreadsheet, we have a columns that run across. So has it gone on a blog? Has it gone in a newsletter? Has it gone on a podcast? Has it gone on LinkedIn? You know, all those and then one of the columns is book, and has that piece of IP gone in a book. And so in which case, we'll label it will say what book it has gone in? And then, then I know then I can go back and anything that hasn't gone in a book, is there anything I can use here in this new book I'm planning to write
James Taylor
I think one of the other really, on that note on this, but I love the idea of the spreadsheets, we have something similar that we do as well, because we quickly figured out we would, we would create some piece of intellectual property, and we'd only use it in one thing like a blog post, like why are we not repurposing this because this is going to be seen by such a small number of people, if you have this idea, and you do like a tweet type thing about it, like a minuscule number of people gonna be able to see it. So no, it totally does. Business School, you you're talking about this idea, and Matt and Pete to this idea of Pink Sheets. And but we're just kind of finding ways to kind of get all those ideas out of your head into into intellectual, some kind of intellectual property that you can have sitting in front of you, once you get into say, Okay, how do I want to get this out into the world and that actually, I think that's a, it's a, it's something I've told loads of people about this idea. And I've recommended thought leaders business school to a whole bunch of different people. And I think if the if the if the only thing you get from growing somebody is, you talked about Pink Sheets is also the green sheet. So you to talk about as well, that's all the because it's just it's such a powerful, but simple, simple concept in terms of getting these ideas out in your head. And then they can use them for a book, you know, podcast episodes, blog posts, whatever they use as our unit one.
Jane Anderson
Oh, and absolutely. So when I was talking about the hotel before, you know, the pieces of paper that I put on the wall are all Pink Sheets. So I just end there and read out my Pink Sheets. And the other thing is also for those, you know, if you've got some support team members, is to teaching support staff. So I coach a lot of experts in their business managers or their support staff, their API's, on how to fill out that IP, or how to chase up parts of that IP, so that they can just keep going and creating it. So though they might have, I don't know what the story is, can you find me a story that's related to how to do blah,
James Taylor
yeah, or so part of it is, when you're at a point, if you're at a point where you've got support team is, then the next step is to how do I start to build the capability of my support team to help them so that if I'm capturing the ideas as we're going, then that speeds the process up even faster is so when I when I train the support teams, that's when we really start to see some traction, that's pretty incredible. And I think I've seen that with CO writers writing on books together where they didn't have, they wouldn't call it Pink Sheets, but they'll they'll do something where one person is going out, walkers is very good at coming up with the kind of original ideas around something, they're probably very good at coming up with the metaphors that relate to that idea and how to relate that just to common usage. But maybe they're not so good at the researching, finding the stories to support the idea of finding the research underneath it to support the idea. So the other person is tasked with doing that, because that's the key skill so you can divide and conquer. When can I come up with this? And I love the idea of using your support team to go out and find those stories or fill in the blanks there.
Jane Anderson
Yes. Yeah. You know, there's often you don't have to always carry so much of the load yourself. If you have got those people around you. But you know, there's so many things like air Tasker and Upwork. Like there's so many people around now that can help you with some of these things. So, you know, you don't have to battle alone. There's people out there are really good at it and who can make and help and make it all come together. Now, you
James Taylor
mentioned the memo Mila, are there any tool, other tools that you use to help you in your your writing,
Jane Anderson
I have these Scrivener and things like that before and I'm sure you probably had a few people talk to that I didn't start on Scrivener. And but since I've been using rev and because they come back in Word documents, I've since moved over to that distance. I found I haven't had to use Scrivener as such, but it is a good place to start. And it's it's motivating because you see the numbers go up. Like oh, good, you know, five words. So I think between between those two things, particularly those I think, yeah, definitely memo mail or rev.com. And you know, getting the like pink sheets for sure if you can learn how to do Pink Sheets and if you look at the thought leaders book, there's some information in in how we get IP out and how we get it out fast. I think also having a good copy editor, proofreader who you work well with like Lauren, who helps me She just understands how I work so i'm i'm super hands off on voice on but hands off. So So I can read through, I can update I've got great proofreaders and people around me who have those skills and are much faster at it than me. So yeah, if you can get someone like that is really good. And if you could recommend one
James Taylor
book to someone that's watching listening to this just now it could be on the craft of writing or it could be on the business of writing or how did you know generally how all this stuff fits together some some of the ideas we'll be speaking about today, not one of your own books, but someone else's. But what what would that book be?
Jane Anderson
So latest business skills? how to how to the latest practice? Definitely, it what there's life before Pink Sheets and life after Pink Sheets. That's a loss changing Nyah if there was anything to say, you know, you there's so many other great books around for sure. Like Julie Cameron's work on
James Taylor
the car yet?
Jane Anderson
Yeah, this way. And, you know, there's all those other fantastic creativity books in the in the, what is it, the War of Art, and all those, they're all all fantastic. But if you had to say what's been the things life changing, it's Yeah, the the work that Matt's done on the latest practice, for sure
James Taylor
is great, because it's a great book. So I want you to final question for you, I want you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, and you had to start from scratch as an author. So I'm gonna scrub all your LinkedIn profiles, no one knows who you are, you have no connections, you your your contacts list is disappeared. But you know, you want to get that first book out there or get a book out there. What would you do? How would you restart things as an author?
Jane Anderson
How would I restart? That's a great question. I would restart, I would always start with water. What is the purpose of what what do you use? What are you selling? But what if what if you want to sell something? What do you want to deliver? What do you want to work with? What do you want to sell to? Or? Like? Is it a coaching program? is a mentoring program? Is it a keynote? And then deciding from there? What is it that you do best? What do you love doing that's commercially smart that people will pay for? And write that book? And I would, I would definitely start, start there. I think I got that some clients, sometimes it's, you know, you can write a book, but it's not necessarily. It's a book based on your past, not your future. So it's knowing that your book is going to create your future. So you might know a lot about spreadsheets, but maybe they don't float your boat, maybe what floats your boat is that is actually about, you know, inspiring people using new sushi cooking techniques. I don't know.
James Taylor
That's good. I like that.
Jane Anderson
So, you know, just be mindful that whatever you're going to write about is that's going to create your future. So if you don't particularly enjoy something, then you know, or it's not commercially smart. That's what you're going to be doing for the next period of time. So it's just taking the time to really think about what do I want my future to look like? Because the book will create the future.
James Taylor
And if people want to learn about you more generally reach out to you maybe directly, what's the best way for them to do that?
Jane Anderson
Yeah. Welcome to I'm always on my platform. So I'm on LinkedIn, and Instagram and Facebook. And so wherever you look around on on social media, you'll find me. So I'm more than happy to connect and answer any questions if people want to reach out. That's fine.
James Taylor
Well, Jane is, as always, as always a pleasure speaking to you learning about what you're up to. And thank you so much for sharing your insights in terms of writing and being an author. And I look forward to hopefully we'll be sharing the stage at some point together in the future.
Jane Anderson
Yeah, I hope so. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
James Taylor
If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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