EP# 134 - Elevating Your Legacy and Personal Brand with Danielle Mendoza's Book Publishing Mastery
Apr 22, 2024Season 1Episode 134
"Cabo" Jim Schaller
Ever wonder how a book can transform your personal brand and leave a legacy that outlives the digital noise? That's precisely what Danielle Mendoza from Confident Concept unpacks with us, drawing from her wealth of experience transitioning from ghostwriter to the pioneer of a thriving book agency. She opens up about the pivotal moments that not only shaped her career but also instilled a deeper purpose in her work, driving her to help others immortalize their stories. Our conversation navigates through the murky waters of the publishing industry and demystifies the process, offering a beacon of transparency for budding authors seeking to make their indelible mark with authenticity.
Embracing the entrepreneurial heartbeat of Southwest Florida, this episode goes beyond the written word to explore the myths of quick success with AI-generated books and the unreplicable value of human touch in storytelling. We share our journey of finding freedom and building community in the face of adversity while exchanging anecdotes of local flavors that make our new home a foodie's delight. For those itching to pen their own tale, we extend an invitation to join this literary expedition; because here, we believe every journey is worth the binding. So, tune in for an episode that promises not just guidance but inspiration to craft a story that's uniquely yours—and make it count.
Ever wonder how a book can transform your personal brand and leave a legacy that outlives the digital noise? That's precisely what Danielle Mendoza from Confident Concept unpacks with us, drawing from her wealth of experience transitioning from ghostwriter to the pioneer of a thriving book agency. She opens up about the pivotal moments that not only shaped her career but also instilled a deeper purpose in her work, driving her to help others immortalize their stories. Our conversation navigates through the murky waters of the publishing industry and demystifies the process, offering a beacon of transparency for budding authors seeking to make their indelible mark with authenticity.
Embracing the entrepreneurial heartbeat of Southwest Florida, this episode goes beyond the written word to explore the myths of quick success with AI-generated books and the unreplicable value of human touch in storytelling. We share our journey of finding freedom and building community in the face of adversity while exchanging anecdotes of local flavors that make our new home a foodie's delight. For those itching to pen their own tale, we extend an invitation to join this literary expedition; because here, we believe every journey is worth the binding. So, tune in for an episode that promises not just guidance but inspiration to craft a story that's uniquely yours—and make it count.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.
Speaker 2:
Welcome Good Neighbors. Episode number 134 of the Good Neighbor Podcast Estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Danielle Mendoza from Confident Concept. Danielle welcome.
Speaker 3:
Hi Cabo Jim, so nice to be here with you today. welcome, hi Cabo Jim, so nice to be here with you today.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I'm excited to learn a little bit more about what you do at Confident Concept, so why don't we jump right in? Why don't you start off by sharing a little bit?
Speaker 3:
Absolutely so. Confident Concept is a book development agency, and what our agency does is we work with business owners and entrepreneurs who are ready to elevate their personal brand, to write a book, take it to bestseller and learn how to leverage it properly so they can start speaking on stages, being featured in the media and just expand their overall impact and client base.
Speaker 2:
God, I love that. A lot of people probably need that help right that help right Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
It's a confusing industry, you know, and there's so much conflicting advice. If you go online and Google like how do I write a book, how do I get that book to bestseller, how do I publish? There are a hundred different avenues and, you know, not every avenue is the right one for a business owner who's looking to leverage their nonfiction expertise.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. Yeah, you can Google anything, but sometimes you get a hundred different answers and you're just more confused than even when you started. So Exactly. So how did you get involved in this industry?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so about I don't know, I guess, it was like 10, 11 years ago now.
Speaker 3:
I was at home with my tiny children as a stay-at-home mom and, quite frankly, I was super duper bored so I decided I needed to go back to school for something. I'd always been an entrepreneur, so I decided to study business management and marketing and after that I started as a ghostwriter, so helping people copyright for websites and ghostwrite blogs and things of that nature. Then, in 2020, I was published in a multi-author book and really loved the experience and decided to do a solo author book in 2021. And after that, as I was functioning as a business strategist and consultant, I had people asking me hey, I know this isn't what you do, but you know, and once enough people ask you that you're like okay, this is a thing that I do.
Speaker 3:
So I started the book agency and the rest is kind of history.
Speaker 2:
That is awesome. Yes, yes, I know that by fact. People will come up to you and say hey can you do this for me, or how do I do this? And you know it's a great position to be in because you've gained that expertise. Now we've all had some type of I want to say challenge or obstacle on our journey that we can maybe look back at now and say you know what, because I went through that, I'm in a better place now. Is there something that happened along your journey?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely so. When I was about four months pregnant with my son, I found out I had basal cell skin cancer and it really freaked me out. I mean, it's a curable type of skin cancer, it's not anything that you need to panic over, but that was my moment of like.
Speaker 3:
Oh, I am a mortal you know like things could come to an end at any moment, and it made me question what am I really doing here? How do I want to be known if the time were to come, and I should say when the time comes that I'm no longer here.
Speaker 3:
what do I want people to say about me? What do I want that story, that legacy of myself to look like? And so I started leaning into this idea of just crafting a far more intentional life. And you know, that started internally with myself and then with my family, and then grew as I started my business and now I outreach to other people, and so I'm just trying to live my own purpose, one day at a time.
Speaker 2:
And that is awesome, because there's a lot of people that go through life never really knowing their purpose but never realizing that they could. They'll position themselves in a place where they can maybe reach you know what they're looking for. So are there any myths or maybe misconceptions regarding what you do that we can maybe clear up for our listeners?
Speaker 3:
So many.
Speaker 3:
I would say especially, the publishing industry is a very veiled industry. For a long time it was really limited to, you know, the big publishing houses, and even now, when people work with them, they don't fully understand the process that their book went through. And that's what I hope to bring to the industry is more of that transparency. So a lot of people think that they'll just write their book and hand it over to me and that'll be it until publishing day, and that's really not true. I engage all of my authors fully in the process, so their decision making all along the way about you know things like their cover design and their interior design, how is their book going to be presented to the market. I want to bring them in in every step of the process so that they could turn around and do this process on their own if they wanted to. I want them to fully understand it, and so that's something that our agency does a little bit differently, and sometimes that's super welcomed.
Speaker 3:
And then sometimes that can be a little overwhelming and the authors are like I didn't know I was going to have to make so many decisions and look at so many different things and that's why I'm here to kind of handhold and guide them through the process, because it can be overwhelming, but it is so important to fully understand exactly what it is this whole journey looks like of bringing a book to life.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely Now. Do you see anything trending in the industry?
Speaker 3:
concept that you can, you know, churn a book out from AI in four hours and get it posted on the internet and make $30,000 a month from your little four hour book selling over and over. And that's not really true. You know. There's a lot that's left out of that conversation. Number one more and more sites like Amazon are starting to scan books for AI content and you have to actually now, when you upload your book, tell them did I use AI to write this book or not? Because they want to prioritize things that are written by humans for humans and for good reason. And also, when you're looking at selling a quick little e-book and trying to make $15,000, $30,000 a month off of that e-book, they often leave out the tens of thousands of dollars in ads that they're spending to make that book sell at such a high rate. It can be a negative income journey for many people and it's just like that new fad thing that's out there like get rich quick, it's so easy.
Speaker 2:
Just do this.
Speaker 3:
You don't really have to do any work and the next thing you know, you've got tons of money in your pocket and you know, you and I both know that's just not quite how business works.
Speaker 2:
Not exactly. No, it's that social media craze. You see it all over there now, where you know people. I think they're making money on selling the idea to people and the idea really doesn't work, but it just yeah and then they want to sell you the marketing and the ads.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. They want to show you how yeah.
Speaker 2:
Right, absolutely so. Are you from Southwest Florida originally.
Speaker 3:
Not originally. No, I am one of the rare Los Angeles natives. So I was born and raised in LA for 35 years before I moved out here. We did a. I say we did a 3000 mile West coast to West coast move and we did that in the fall of 2021. And it's been amazing to settle into the community here and find our place as a family and it has not disappointed by any means. We love it here and we're here to stay.
Speaker 2:
We love it as well. So what brought you over here?
Speaker 3:
Freedom, watching my kids sit on the couch for almost two years, and one thing when you're an adult to say, hey, we're going to get through this thing and move on with our lives. But when LA decided they needed to move into a second lockdown 18 months into that whole era, we knew that we had to do something different for our kids. We homeschool and we work from home, so they're outside the house. Social interaction is really, really important, and they just weren't getting any of that, and so we decided to take our lives into our own hands because that's what we can do.
Speaker 3:
And we moved across and landed here and it's just been phenomenal. Our kids have found lots of friends, we found a great church community. My husband and I have grown so much in business since moving here and we always laugh because it's like Florida is the entrepreneur's state, I mean it's like if you want to be in business, Florida is an amazing place to be as a business owner.
Speaker 2:
Well, welcome to Southwest Florida. It's absolutely. We love it down here. It's just a great place to live and grow and raise a family as well. So, outside of work, what do you enjoy doing now that you live in Southwest Florida?
Speaker 3:
Well, I love trying new restaurants and you know I spent many years trying all the restaurants around LA and Orange County and San Francisco, and so now that we're here, we have like a whole new list of restaurants to try, and so I love going to like locally owned small individual business restaurants and checking them out and searching for a Michelin star and James Beard finalists, and it's been phenomenal.
Speaker 2:
I bet that's where you find some of the best. So is there one thing that you wish our listeners knew about what you do that maybe they're not familiar with?
Speaker 3:
I really just wish everyone knew that they have a book in them, that their book is good enough. I think that's the biggest misconception that I see is well, I don't know if my idea is good enough. You know, I've had this idea for a few years, but I'm not sure it's really worthy of being written or that anyone would want to read it. And it's like everyone wants to hear your story. That is just the human nature in us. You see it in soap operas, you see it in reality TV, like those. There's nothing special about those stories, but there and yet we want to tune in, we want to hear about what's going on in the life of someone else and we want to learn from that. So nonfiction is a great place to share your decades of experience and your expertise, and it is always a good idea.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. How would our listeners go about contacting you if they wanted to learn more?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so you can find me on my website, confidentconcept. com, or email me. Hello@c onfidentconcept. com. I'm also on LinkedIn, so you can find me there and connect. And I'm also on LinkedIn, so you can find me there and connect, and I'm always happy to chat, have a coffee chat and learn about each other.
Speaker 2:
Danielle, it's been wonderful getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor. Welcome to Southwest Florida and I look forward to seeing you on the community here soon.
Speaker 3:
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPEsterocom. That's GNPEsterocom, or call 239-296-2621.