The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson
Jennifer is a multifaceted entrepreneur while also actively involved in her community. She owns True Fashionistas (Florida’s largest lifestyle resale store), CooiesCookies, Pink Farmhouse (online store), and Confident Entrepreneur, which encompasses her podcast, blog, motivational speaking, and coaching business for women entrepreneurs. Jennifer is an inspiration to other women business owners - showing it's possible to be successful in business while also making a difference and giving back to her community. Jennifer lives in Naples FL with her husband and twins.
The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson
How Publishing a Book Can Boost Your Business with April O'Leary
Unlock the secrets to establishing your expertise and boosting your brand with the guidance of April O'Leary, founder of O'Leary Publishing. As we chat with this seasoned author and entrepreneur, you'll discover how penning a book can catapult your professional credibility to new heights and delve into the expansive potential a book holds as a cornerstone for personal branding and as a beacon for recognition in your field. April spills the beans on how authorship isn't just for the literary elite—anyone with unique insights can make their mark. She shares success stories of authors who have transformed their businesses and careers by sharing their knowledge through the written word.
If the thought of publishing has ever piqued your interest, this episode could be the catalyst you've been waiting for—complete with actionable steps to connect with April and embark on your author adventure.
Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!
Today, we welcome into the studio April O'Leary. She's the founder of O'Leary Publishing and the author of six books. She's committed to creating books that exceed the industry standards for her aspiring authors, and she's a board member of the Florida Authors and Publishers Association and also on the Membership Benefits Committee with the Independent Book Publishers Association. That's a lot to say, and she's also the host of the I'm Booked podcast. Welcome into the studio. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me, jennifer, absolutely. I know we've had you in before and we've had you on, and we've talked about publishing books, and I'm really, really wanting to educate our listeners today as to what publishing a book can do for them, because I know that there's a lot of benefits, right.
Speaker 1:There are yes, so what are they? What are some of the benefits?
Speaker 2:Well, I love that we're here talking about writing books, because I think that the mystery of writing books is do I have to be an excellent writer? Do I have to have a literary background or a degree from a certain college? Or maybe I'm not smart enough? But we all have our expertise. We all have our zone of interest that we've poured ourselves into for decades probably, interests that we've poured ourselves into for decades probably, and that it's become so familiar to us that we forget that we know a lot of things that other people don't know, and so writing a book can simply be sharing that knowledge that we've gained over those decades to other people who might be where we were 10, 20, 30 years ago. And, fortunately, a lot of times, that's in the business sector where you gain a lot of your expertise.
Speaker 2:And so what better way to position yourself as an expert and educate other people than to write a book and share with them the things that you've gained and help them to maybe expedite the process of getting where you are now?
Speaker 1:You know. It's interesting that you said you spend your life in a career or an industry and you know what you're doing, and I had once heard that to be an expert in your field you really just need to know 10% more than somebody else. Right, that may not be in that field and that qualifies you to actually talk about it because you've lived and breathed it for so long.
Speaker 2:Well, I like to say to my kids, who sometimes feel like I don't know enough or I'm not expert enough especially I have two kids in college and that will be entering the workforce soon I said you have to learn just because you've gained some experience or you've internshipped or some classes in college. There's a lot of life experience ahead, and so I feel as though those of us who have been out in the world working for a while, we get that experience and then we get to share with others. But I can certainly say that as a book publisher, there are plenty of people who are way more experienced than me, and there's other people who have no experience at all, and I fall somewhere in the middle. So I think it's a good practice to feel like there's always more to learn, but also you know more than you did five years ago, you know more than you did 10 years ago, and there are people that are still entering your industry who don't have that experience yet.
Speaker 1:That's a great way to look at it for sure. So how can writing a book help a business owner, an entrepreneur, position themselves in their industry as a thought leader?
Speaker 2:This is a really interesting question because in the past book publishing wasn't as accessible as it is now. So let's think about in the 1980s there was no internet, there was no way to really gain the interest of a publisher unless you worked through a literary agent and you pitched them and then they would take you on as an aspiring author. I'll say they might offer you some sort of a contract up front, but outside of that there really wasn't this concept of I'm going to elevate my business with the book.
Speaker 2:That's sort of a new concept, and now, with the invention of the internet, and the availability whoever wants to claim inventing it that's up for debate and the availability of independent publishing houses who can help business owners to get their message out there. The benefit is, you get to become the expert. You get to become more visible on places like LinkedIn, on stages in your local community or at conferences that come to your area, or even pitching other conferences. A lot of times, having that book becomes the calling card to make you the expert, and it's a very interesting phenomenon. The first book I wrote in 2012,. I did it because I was life coaching at the time and I was working with my clients a lot of them on very similar time. And I was working with my clients a lot of them on very similar topics and I thought, well, if I can write a book, then I can reach more people and I can open the door to being on podcasts or I ran a few conferences and those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And the doors that opened were surprising to me, because I didn't necessarily feel any more confident or that I oh, isn't that funny, Right Right, it didn't flip some switch in my brain where all of a sudden I was like now I'm the expert, yeah, now I got this, Now I got this. But it was almost like other people perceived me in a different way. I can see that. So it was just a very interesting experience. It almost was like for a little while you have that imposter syndrome, Like is this all a lie? But it's not because I only shared from my heart. I shared from my experience. I wasn't plagiarizing someone else's work. I wasn't trying to make things up that I didn't know about. I was just sharing the things that I knew, but for some reason putting it into a book, and especially when it's in a high-quality format when you have great editorial.
Speaker 2:When you have a book that represents you in a really polished way, people notice.
Speaker 1:I can see that completely, because when I hear author I'm like oh wow, you pay more attention to somebody because it does carry its weight, because to me that says expert.
Speaker 2:It was funny Just this morning at this experience. I was Googling something and a Harvard Business Review article came up. I was reading it and it was like seven mistakes people make in business, something like that I don't know. And I scrolled, I read the whole article. I thought it was really good and the byline was so-and-so who is author of such and such? And so I clicked through to their Amazon book. I put it on my wishlist. I was like that's interesting, so this person don't know them. But all of a sudden this article had more weight because they're the author of the subject in which they are authoring and subconsciously, we're doing this every day, all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1:So look what that can do for your business.
Speaker 2:So for O'Leary Publishing. I can speak for this as a publishing company. We have a few books. One's called the Influencer's.
Speaker 1:Path to.
Speaker 2:Successful Publishing, which really just explains about the publishing industry, because most people don't know what's available. And then Heather DeRocher, our head editor, wrote a book called Manuscript Magic, which is seven steps on how to write a book, and so we're able to give those books out. I don't even care about selling those books, but we give them out. It's an educational tool.
Speaker 2:Then people understand publishing, they understand how to write a book and then they oftentimes become a client Right. So the book is working on our behalf to educate our prospective client, and books can do that as well. And that's why I think that it's so important to have a book, because you then can have some tool, some token of you that's representing you when you're not there.
Speaker 1:And that makes complete sense. But going into it, I'm sure people are like I don't know how to write. That's not like I know, I you know, but you have people to help with that as well.
Speaker 2:Correct. So I always like to think that you're not the first person to write a book. It's like when I was pregnant with my first daughter and you look at your stomach and you're like how is this thing coming out? There is no possible way. And you're like but for millions of years, this is the process, this is how the human population proliferates itself. So I am not unique or special. This is happening and there's no way it's not happening, basically. And so I like to think with a book, it's this very same thing. It seems like a big, insurmountable task, but you're not going off into a cave by yourself and saying come out with a book. You're enlisting the help of people who have already.
Speaker 2:Like a doula, maybe I should call this book doula You're like ushering the birth of the book, and that's what it is. It's like you enlist the birth of the book, you know, and that's what it is. It's like you enlist the help of people that you trust to help you with the parts that are hard for you.
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Speaker 1:All right, Welcome back, friends. We are in the studio today with April O'Leary of O'Leary Publishing and we are talking about publishing a book to grow your brand right, and I find it interesting because we were just talking about how it makes people think that you're the expert. It puts you in that light and I mean I'm assuming people come back to you after they've written the book and went, oh my gosh, this has really helped my sales or it's really helped my positioning right Is that they've come back and said that I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a lot of people. I'll give you a few examples. Which is so interesting. I like to ask our authors, before their book is published, to write on a blank piece of paper all of the things you hope might happen over the next 12 months based on publishing your book. Is that usually how long it takes, about a year. Well, after the book is out, oh, after it's out. So, after the book is out, because we always have ideas like visions, like I want to be a public speaker, I want to be on a podcast.
Speaker 2:So just brainstorm every good thing you think could possibly happen from publishing your book After Okay, sort of like visioning and envisioning what might happen, and inevitably things you never would have expected or put on that list will happen. So one of the authors that we have published, roberta and Paige Campbell they're a mother-daughter duo and they wrote a book on traumatic brain injury. The daughter was hit by a car and it really turned their lives upside down and they just got to ask to speak at a university in Ohio to a bunch of brain surgeons and doctors about traumatic brain injury because of their book. And they're not medical professionals, they're people who have lived experience of what it's like to go through that, and so that was a really big honor for them. That's huge To be able to do that. Yes, one of our very first authors, lauren Kolb, wrote a book that launched him into a political campaign, so that was never, part of his plan.
Speaker 2:He was very passionate about his topic. He got out every weekend. And I say, just like any business, when you publish a book, you have created a little business for yourself and the first product is your book. And so if you don't market your book, if you don't get out there and show your book off, it's not going to sell and it's not going to work for you. And so he was out there every weekend promoting his book. He also worked full-time as a police officer, so it wasn't like he gave up his job and worked to do that and then doors just started opening because people resonated with his message and he went from driving his truck around to regional events to flying on a private plane by someone who sponsored him across his state to run for governor of a state.
Speaker 2:Wow, Within 12 months. That's crazy. I love that story. It's an amazing story. So that's like I'll say, disclaimer. That's not typical.
Speaker 1:Not typical results. I feel like I need to have one of those really fast talking voices.
Speaker 2:But the truth is that when you're passionate about your message and when you're passionate about helping people, then doors will open for you, and I think that's the most encouraging thing is that it's not like okay, I'm going to look at this limited view of how many book sales can I get in 12 months. That's part of it, but it's. Do you want to gain income from speakers platform? Do you want to gain income from podcasting or from gaining a new exposure to new clients who could be? You know, if you gain three new clients, let's say, and you were a realtor and you're getting a royalty Well, royalty, I'm speaking in book terms you call that a commission.
Speaker 1:So a royalty is something that you get if you sell books and you get a certain dollar amount back.
Speaker 2:Correct, that's like your sales commission.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:Right, your sales commission on your books. But yeah, if you're a realtor and you sell a house and your commission is $30,000, let's say, and you wrote a book about how to stage your house for sale, and all of a sudden now you're meeting new potential, new clients. So you're distinguishing yourself, because how many realtors have books? Right, but how many realtors do you know, right, exactly?
Speaker 1:A lot.
Speaker 2:So I can't wait to publish my first realtor. So if someone in Naples is a realtor listening, you could differentiate yourself.
Speaker 1:Or anywhere.
Speaker 2:Or anywhere. Differentiating yourself is really, I think, what a book does. It becomes oh, you're the expert, oh, you're the one who I can trust, because not many people will have the courage to put that out there.
Speaker 1:I love that. And there's something else that I want to talk about because you had mentioned it you have to market your book to get your book to actually work for you. Do you feel like that's a step that a lot of people kind of forget about when they're doing a book? Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:I have to do that. I think it can be a difficult part if you tend to be a more creative entrepreneur or if you have never been an entrepreneur. So taking off the creative hat of writing and picking your book cover and your interior and then thinking, oh, I got to put on the marketing hat of an entrepreneur. It's a totally different skill set, and so sometimes when people write and publish a book and then all of a sudden they realize, oh, now I have to learn how to market, everyone comes to the table, so to say, with a different set of skills. So the more proficient you are in marketing prior to doing your book, the more effectively you'll probably be able to market your book. And I think that the mistake most people make is if I publish a book, somehow magically it's just going to.
Speaker 1:It's like the New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my biggest red flag, I have to say. When someone calls me or schedules a publishing consultation, I say what's your goal with the book? I want to be a New York Times bestseller. And I say okay, well, how many followers do you have on social media? How many, well, do you have on social media? How many, well, I don't have social media, yeah, yeah. So it's like it's knowing the disconnect and really the truth is, the sad truth is that a lot of those lists you can buy to be on them.
Speaker 1:Isn't that crazy? It's like you know, reality shows are really not reality shows it's not.
Speaker 2:So there's a certain credibility that people attach to being a USA Today bestseller, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, a New York Times bestseller. And I just spoke with a company recently because we focus on getting our authors from idea to publish book, but we don't really provide a lot of marketing help after the launch because we feel like there are other people who do a much better job. So we try to have partnerships and steer people and all of our authors have different goals. Some really want to market it, Some are happy to get it out and that's the end of it for them. And I talked to a company recently and I won't name who they are, they're not local here and basically I was talking to them about how their campaigns to get on the bestseller list and they're like well, it's 60,000 to get on the USA Today bestseller list.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:They said, and for people who want to be on the New York Times bestseller with certain credentials. We'll only accept certain people because they have to have a platform, but we can do it for 250,000. Oh ouch yeah. So I was like I always sort of had an inkling that it was that way, and I'm not saying that anyone on the New York Times bestseller is doing that.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying there's plenty of people who have the resources and want that credibility and will spend to get on. But you know those longstanding books that are always online, you know they're not doing that. The they're always online, you know they're not doing that. The people who have their following, they have their readership.
Speaker 1:They've been publishing for years, that's legit, but every once in a while I will see something. I'll be like I have never heard of this person. I don't. This is kind of weird. That may be why. Probably it's like well, I need to get on the New York Times bestseller list, so this is so. You said that people can use it to create speaking engagements, and all of that, but what about wanting to write a book to leave a legacy?
Speaker 2:I love that Some of my favorite authors do that. So there's a whole world of people who have amazing stories and they could be your next door neighbor. They could be your next door neighbor's mother. And they're not somebody who is going to have their name in big lights. They're not someone who's going to go travel and be on a book tour. They're not at that point in their life. But they're at the point in their life where they realize that the only thing that you can leave behind is money and your legacy.
Speaker 2:So what is your legacy? How are people going to know your story? And so we published a book called Under Cloud of Sales for one of our authors, wynne Williams, and I heard him speak at an event here and afterwards it was like gosh, this guy's got to have his book, he's got to write a book and he had already written previously for National Geographic. He was a photographer, so I know he had a writing experience and I talked to him afterwards and I said I really feel like you should publish a book about your story. It's amazing, it's sailed around the world and I mean it's a crazy story recovering from alcoholism and I mean it was like a total adventure story. And he said to me and he was in his 80s oh, I already wrote it, I have it, it's on my shelf, it's in a nursing home, it's 70,000 words and I tried to get it published 10 years ago but all the publishers rejected it. Why they rejected it is he's not a known person. So if you're not like a Michelle Obama, or an.
Speaker 2:Ellen DeGeneres, or a person who, just by name of curiosity, like, oh, I want to read their story. Right, you're not going to be able to sell a legacy story. And so we were able to publish that book for him. And then COVID came, and then he never got out of his nursing home and he passed before. All the vaccines and everything reopened it up, and his four kids, who are adult children out in California, they're so grateful to have this book. They came out here. I hosted the memorial service for him.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I was like now I'm playing pastor too, wow, and it was just really something that, to me, made publishing so worthwhile. It's not because he sold a thousand copies. He didn't sell even a thousand copies, but his kids have that book now and they didn't know his story. That's beautiful. That's your why?
Speaker 1:Yes, it is. That's your, why this has been such an insightful conversation. Thank you. How can our listeners get ahold of you if they're interested and want more information as to you know? Could this help me, my business or my family? I want to do this. How can they?
Speaker 2:reach you. I love that. You can go to o'learypublishingcom. We have an author adventure quiz. We always think that publishing a book is an adventure, just like you take an adventure around the world. So you're going to take this adventure to get your story out there, to help your business or share your life with your family. You'll take that quiz and then you can schedule a publishing consultation. I'd be happy to speak with you and see if we're the right fit for you and even if not, I generally have a referral on what might be your next best step. Fabulous that is wonderful.
