Ep 144: What I'd Tell You About Book Writing (If I Wasn't Afraid You'd Block Me)

Ever felt like everyone else has the secret playbook for publishing while you’re just winging it? Same.

In this episode, I spill everything I'd tell you as the author of six books (and having published 50+ for others) if I wasn't afraid you'd unfollow or outright block me. 

I'll get real about the financial side of authorship—the thin margins, the myth of “making it” with one viral post, and the practical ways nonfiction authors can pair their books with courses, workshops, or speaking to create lasting impact.

And because no creative path is linear, I also dive into the human stuff: editors who disagree, 3 a.m. regrets, friends who vanish at launch. The fix for all of it? A simple but powerful rule: adopt a no-panic zone mindset.

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✍️ You've Been Thinking About This Book Forever. So let's start writing (for real this time).
 
No incense, inspirational playlists, or fancy mantras. Just a clear, doable plan to get your nonfiction or memoir draft written in 33 days. 

👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook/writethebook

Chapters

• 0:00 Mic Mishap And Warm-Up
• 3:09 Shoutout: Joanna’s New Parenting Book
• 6:07 No One Right Way To Write
• 10:09 Money Myths And Real Revenue
• 14:01 Who Actually Does The Marketing
• 16:57 Prediction Myths And Industry Uncertainty
• 20:51 Editing Is Subjective And Human
• 24:11 Launch Day Isn’t Everything
• 26:57 Friends’ Support And Delayed Buys
• 30:01 Typos Happen And How To Handle Them

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:11

Hi, everybody. Welcome back and happy day. As proof that things can always go wrong, I just recorded this entire podcast with my mic turned off. So I was today years old when I learned that you can have your mic plugged in and it can light up blue, like seemingly like it's working. But if you don't push this little lever, you'll record an entire podcast with no sound. So luckily for me, this is just a me day. And I was, I'm not interviewing anyone today. So I don't have to go back to them because, oh my God, I can't even imagine and say, can we start over? Um, okay. Today is Wednesday, October 22nd. And first, before I even launch into this, I want to say congratulations to my friend Joanna Hardis. She has now released her second book. It came out yesterday. It's titled Just Do Nothing for Parents, not meaning do nothing for your parents, meaning just do nothing. It's the guide for parents. And the tagline or the subtitle is How to Parent Better by Doing Less. Have you just run to add it to your cart? Yes. And you should, because it's so good. Working with Joanna on the past. So first we did her first book, Just Do Nothing, a Paradoxical Guide to Getting Out of Your Way. And then I can't remember if it was her idea. I'm going to give her full credit, but to do the one for parents. And the only reason I would say I can't, I'm not sure if it was her or mine, is Joanna is notorious for being like, I don't really have anything to say. And then slowly but surely we get her to 60,000 words. So I was delighted when she either came up with the idea or agreed to write this book for parents specifically. And I've had people say, well, if I read just do nothing, will I still like just do nothing for parents, or can I benefit from it? Also, if I, in order to read just do nothing for parents, should I read the first one? You probably need both. If you're considering whether or not you need one or the other and you're a parent, you probably need both. I've read a lot of books. And there aren't many books that as a parent and as a human being have impacted me as much as Joanna's, and in terms of her philosophy for how to get comfortable with discomfort, which I experience all day, every day. So I worry about what will happen. I worry about what did happen. And then when it comes to my kids, I worry about whether or not I'm a good parent and whether I should be a better parent. And oh my God, there's five of them, and they're all completely different from one another. And so did I parent this one well, but this one not well? And how do I contort myself? Like I'm a like a chameleon because I have to get in just the right brain space to like I don't ask the question right for this one, but then for this one, I'm not supposed to ask the question at all. And it just leaves me in a constant state of angst. And Joanna's scientifically backed words, I mean, she's been a therapist for more than 30 years. Words of wisdom and her insights have helped me more than I can ever say. So while it would be a stretch to say that this book is for every single parent on the market, as you know, I am not a fan of saying anything is for everyone, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the vast majority or many, many, many parents will enjoy and benefit from at least a chapter, if not four, of this book. It's truly, it's just incredible. So um, it's available everywhere books are sold and available. And if it sounds like something that would be up your alley, then I encourage you to grab it. And more than anything else, I'm just so impressed with and in admiration of Joanna for just continuing to put all of herself into her books. And even when she thinks she has nothing left to say, she's open and willing for me to help her figure out that she actually does. So today, what I thought I would do, I made a post on Instagram a few days ago. And it was like the hook on it is something like as a six-time author, these are the things I would tell you if I didn't want you to unfollow or block me. Clearly, that was a good hook because the post is done quite like well. I won't use the word viral, but it's it's done well. It's gotten good, good reaction and engagement. And so I thought, well, I'll go over those points for anyone who maybe isn't on those platforms or didn't see it, because most people who follow me don't see my stuff anyway, and um, or certainly not all of it. And then I thought I would add a couple as well, because this got me thinking about things that I didn't even think about the first time. So let's dive in. Okay. The first thing I would tell you is that there are no magic bullets for getting your book written, and every author's process is different, and every author's process is right. And so if you're feeling like I don't know the right way to do this, there is no right way. I have a boot camp, a 33-day book writing boot camp. And in the very beginning, one of my like trainings is choosing the right writing software. And spoiler alert, the whole point of the training is to say there isn't one. Like I'm not even gonna, I used to do a walkthrough of Scrivener and Evernote and things like that. That is all that is is a distraction. Just pick the software, whether it's Microsoft Word or Google Docs or Pages or pen and paper, like whatever works for you, and that's what you use. And as far as a process, some people get up at 4 a.m., some people write at 10 p.m. Some people write every other day, some people write every three days, some people write for seven minutes at a time, some people write for eight hours at a time, some people go out into the middle of the woods, some people try to make it work right in the heart of their family room. Having talked to so many authors on this on this show and in at events and out in the wild, like everyone has their process. And it's one of my favorite questions to ask authors who come on this podcast is what like what is your process? A, I'm always curious for something new that I might try. And B, I'm trying to reassure anyone who's listening that you can do it that way. Like you can write your way from beginning to end in 72 hours and then spend six years honing that. You can also spend six years thinking about your story or your book or how you want to tell your story or, you know, whatever, whether it's fiction or not. And then because you've been thinking about it for six years, you can spend just three months getting a very solid first draft out. There's and everything in between. So everyone has a different process. Processes shape and morph from one book to the next. If you're someone who's going to do a second book, like this is all completely normal. Point number two. There, there is no get rich quick in this space. If you're, if you're looking to get rich at all, I actually recommend that you stay pretty far away from book publishing. Here's the the thing is, of course, there are people who do well financially in the book space. There are people who do well like in every space. There was a guy one year, like a decade ago, who was selling potatoes with using a Sharpie and writing things on the potatoes for$10 a potato. Like he did pretty well for whatever his 17 minutes of fame were there. The people who are doing the most well with air quotes around that, depending on how you define that, by the way, because everyone's definition of that differs. They're either in the top 1%, they've been doing this for a really long time, they have a lot of books under their belt, or they had a big debut and they've done really well, they got a big advance, some such thing. Or they, if they're indie, they've again been at this for a long time. They sell a lot of books because they have a long backlist. Or if they're a business person and they've written a book that speaks to their expertise, they have courses or workshops or whatever on the back end of that. So write the damn book already, which was my sixth book. I don't make millions of, I don't make millions of dollars, period, but I don't make millions of dollars off the sale of that book. I where my where my income really comes from from that book is when people read it and then they enroll in one of my courses or my workshops or whatever. And that's, by the way, not certainly not even close to everyone who buys the book. It's a very small percentage of people. So there are a lot of different ways. Most authors I've spoken with, even traditionally published, even New York Times or USA Today bestsellers, are not making a full-time income from book sales. Book sales, books have an incredibly small profit margin. So if you're an indie author, for example, and you're running meta ads to your books, you've got to be able to acquire a paying customer for under$2. And even then, you're only maybe making a dollar, maybe, um, per book. So you've got to be doing a huge amount of volume. I mean, they're this isn't meant to be negative. A lot of people who write books, the bottom line is they have another job. They have another full-time job, or they have a partner who's helping with the bills, or they've set aside money for six months to a year to be able to pursue this thing only. And then depending on how it goes, they might extend that, or they might have to hop back into having a full-time job or a side job. So the idea that this is you're not successful in this space if you're not paying every single one of your bills through book sales is a huge myth. And it keeps a lot of people, I think, from number one, pursuing it. And then number two, when they do pursue it, feeling like they're not feeling like they're failing because they're not turning a magnificent profit within, well, sometimes even years. Okay. Uh, number three, regardless of how you publish, you're going to be doing the vast majority of your marketing. Marketing dollars at the traditional houses are typically reserved for the big names who they feel fairly confident are as close to a sure thing as is humanly possible. And then also for their debut authors. So traditional publishing houses, and I'm speaking generally, I'm not this is a generalization, are banking literally on the fact and the hope that one of their big names, so Emily Henry, Colleen Hoover, James Patterson, will release a book in a given fiscal year or a quarter, or that a debut author who's just kind of coming out of the woodwork will get a big, very grand reception to their book. And the book will unexpectedly sell very, very well. So sometimes they're willing to put a few more marketing dollars toward those debut authors. The number of traditionally published authors I've spoken with who have either, well, who do the majority of their marketing and or have funded help with their marketing through an independent publicist is large. And those independent publicists are not inexpensive. So, in many cases, the funding for that is coming out of the author's advance. This idea that an author is getting a five-figure or a six-figure deal, and then that money just goes into their bank account and pays all their bills is like wildly simplified and also incorrect. So it's paid out over a period of time. You've got your agent fees, and then you've got all your other things that you're needing to pay for as an author. It's a it's a very large misconception. And when authors say, well, I would like to go traditional because I want them to sell the book for me and do my marketing, that's either they accept through talking to not just me, but a lot of other authors, and I'm not traditionally published, but traditionally published authors, they either accept that that's not how it goes down, or they learn once the book comes out that, oh God, I'm gonna have to take, like get comfortable being uncomfortable, just grab Joanna's book, um, with this, or you're kind of gonna stall out. It's just, it's the nature of the beast, it's what it is. Next point, there's not a single person, I firmly believe this, on the planet who can tell you up front whether or not your book will do well, however, you define well. So everybody defines like, oh, my book did well differently. For some people, it's selling one copy. For some people, it's not until you've sold three million copies. If your last book sold two million, and now the expectation is that you sell more than that. Whoever is out there making those kinds of predictions, it's it's important that they acknowledge that everyone's gambling. The agents are gambling when they take on a book that they feel like, oh my gosh, I'm excited about this and I want to represent it. The acquisitions editors are gambling when they buy it. Nobody knows how something is going to be received. There are things that feel safer. There are books that feel safer than others in terms of how well they'll do. I don't think that anyone is particularly surprised when a big name author releases a book and it does fairly well. There's always the chance that it won't. There's things that could go on in the world that drastically impact book sales. Somebody could decide that an author is canceled three days before their book launch. And all of these things have happened and will continue to happen. So if anyone is a big red flag, is anyone who portends to be in the industry saying, oh my gosh, this is a sure thing. Like this is gonna do so well. No one who's actually immersed in the industry and knows what they're doing and knows what they're talking about would ever say that. So it's uh a red flag if someone approaches you and says, this is a sure thing, and oh, and by the way, therefore you can pay us$50,000 to publish it because you're absolutely gonna get that return on investment. Nobody, nobody knows. And I think one of the things that I've learned through this podcast, through talking to so many multi-published authors, is that once you've published one book or two or five, it doesn't make it easier necessarily. In some ways it does, but to publish the next one because you never know. Like you could have had a big hit release two years ago, and now you release this book and you're crossing your fingers, but you don't know. You don't know what the receptivity is going to be. And the more readers and eyeballs you have, the more opportunity there is for people to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and decide this sucks and that they need to be very vocal about it. So just know if you're out looking for that level of validation, that it's totally normal to be looking for that. It's totally normal to want to feel a sense of safety about releasing your book. And there's no one who can give that to you. Really, not even yourself. You just have to be willing to put it out there and know that you put all you're all into it and you're gonna do the best you can and you're gonna ride the wave that you're presented. So when it comes to editing, which you know I'm very passionate about, you could take three or five or 10 of the air quote, best editors in the world, the most experienced editors in the world, the ones who have worked on the best-selling books of all time, and you could put them in a room together and give each of them your manuscript, and they're all gonna come back with different feedback. And in almost all cases, their all of their feedback, while different, is gonna be correct. And in almost all cases, some of their feedback is not gonna be right. Like it's gonna, it, it would not either make a difference or it will make the wrong difference. So editors are human and we're editing as editors who understand book structure and flow, but we're also editing as readers. And so something that takes time for an editor to do is learn how to have both those hats on at the same time and know when your opinions are coming from a place of this is my opinion as a reader, versus, okay, structurally, like the vast majority of readers are going to be confused here, or there's a huge hole here. And if you're talking about fiction, that can even get more interesting because now you really have, again, you have the technicalities of editing in terms of flow and character arc, and am I getting to know your care, all those things. But the editor might also have a really good idea, much like you might have when you're watching anything on Netflix or Hulu or anywhere else, and you think, oh, it would have been cool if they had made this person do this or they had had this thing happen. And that's all just creative license. So when we're talking about creative license, it's hard to say what's right and what's wrong. And everyone is just working together, meaning you and your editor are just working together for the ultimate good of the book so that it is as well tied together as it can be, regardless of which direction you've chosen to take it. So please know there's no magic, this is the right edit, or this is this will ruin the book. Like there, that doesn't, that's not really a thing. Okay. Next, there's no perfect launch day. Like, I don't recommend Saturdays or Sundays. I don't recommend the week before any major holiday. Like December is tough. The end of November is tough. People are very distracted. Doesn't mean it's wrong. It just can be harder to get people to stop baking sourdough long enough to go buy your book. Any week when Taylor Swift launches anything is usually challenging, although we don't always know when that's going to be because those are like they just happen seemingly. So please know, even I have a lot of people I've worked with who go to like their astrologers or an astrologer and they want the most auspicious day to launch their book. And I think that's fine and fun, and that's great. There is no perfect day. So it's important to be prepared. Today is um Tuesday. Yesterday, the whole Amazon Web Services went down. So if that had happened today instead of yesterday, I imagine that would have impacted some things. I'm not entirely sure how or what it would have impacted, but things happen. So a book launches, the day a book launches, Instagram goes down, or your own whi, just your Wi-Fi in your house goes down. Somebody cuts a line or something. Like there's no perfect thing. And launch day is just that, it's just that. It's one day, it's just the beginning. And and it's there's nothing that has to happen necessarily on that day in order to deem your book good or successful. So don't give too much stress to that. Let's talk about people, my favorite topic. So, everyone who asked you all these questions in the beginning, like, are you going on book tour? Will you be on the Today Show? Did you get a huge advance? How did you celebrate your advance? Like, did you go on a world tour? Did you take all of your friends and family to Bora Bora? Like, you know, all these that they're all these assumptions, like now you've made it. They will go dark the minute that your book actually comes out and you need them to care about these questions and you want them to post on social media and have the same level of enthusiasm they had when they found out that you had gotten a book deal or that you were publishing a book if you're if you went the indie route. They will go dark. Further, all of the people who are like, I cannot wait to buy it. I am first in line. I want an autographed copy. How do I get this? They are also mysteriously dark the day or the week or the year that your book launches. This is not their fault. If you think about your own life and think about someone in your life who has a big event, even just a birthday, to them, it's the most important day. Their launch day, let's talk about books. Their launch day is the most important day to them. So when you launch, it's a very big day deal and big day for you, as it should be, and it deserves to be celebrated. Other people are still living their life. So we don't know what happened to them on that day. Maybe it just for one reason or another, it wasn't a great day for them. They got busy, a dog was barking, a kid was screaming, you know, Taylor Swift launched an album. Like something could have happened and they forgot. So it might take them a week or two weeks or a year and a half to get their copy of your book. And if you ordered a bunch of books and you've signed them and now you're just sitting there waiting for people to come and buy them, I mean, they might show up in two years. Like just let it, let it be. And know that it's it's truly, in almost all cases, not personal. Everyone is just busy and there's a lot of noise. So it's it's normal to feel like, oh my God, does anyone care? Yes, people care. And it won't be as many as probably you hoped or envisioned that it would be, and that's completely normal. Okay, so a few updates or additions from when I did this in my Instagram. You will find a typo. It will happen. You or someone else will, and they'll be kind enough to message you and not say like I loved the book, but they'll start with, hey, I just wanted to let you know on page 27, like there's a typo. And you won't be able to sleep possibly ever again. And you could blame it on perimenopause, or you could blame it on the typo. I pick one of those two things with frequency. Now, I don't know if this is a true statistic, so it's anecdotal, but I've heard many times that in the traditional publishing world, even there's a margin of error of plus or minus 5% within books because the ultimate proofreaders are also human. And even if you were to get AI to do it, AI doesn't always understand context. So things get missed. I when by the time that a book that I've worked on goes live, I've looked at it like a hundred times, possibly more. And the author most certainly has. So things that should be on the page aren't, things that shouldn't be on the page are. It's just what it is. Now, if you're indie published, a good thing about this is if it's really driving you insane, by the way, most people won't even notice unless it's egregious or it's constant, which it shouldn't be if you've had the book proofread, which I would argue you should do. But if it's really bothering you, the good news as an indie author is you can fix it and re-upload it. And then every book that's sold from that point forward will have the fix in it. If you're traditionally published, you don't have that option, or if you've done a big offset print run, you don't have that option. But as someone who's done that, I did a big offset print run for my third book, You Cannot Be Serious. That's the title of the book. Also, you cannot be serious if this actually happened. It has a typo in it, which was called to my attention. I didn't even notice it. It was called to my attention by someone else, but now I can't unsee it. And I have thousands of copies of that book under my stairway. It just is what it is. So you're gonna freak out and think that this is you're you, well, I don't want to tell you what you're gonna do, but it's normal if you freak out and you think this is gonna ruin me. I look uncredible, I look like I don't have attention to detail, someone's gonna write a review, and and they might. It will not ruin you. It's okay. I I don't think there's a book out there that I've read that doesn't have one, either an actual typo or a situation where I go, there should absolutely not be a semicolon there. Or the whole book they use, you know, the Oxford comma, but then in this chapter, there's no Oxford comma. The people who notice that is like weirdos like me. The vast majority of people won't notice it. It's fine. Also, you will be driving down the road or finally lying awake at, well, not finally, but lying awake at 3 a.m. And you will think, oh my God, I really should have told that story. Or why the hell did I tell that story? Or if you've written fiction, like, why didn't I have them have this experience? Like the Monday morning quarterbacking of books is real. And so when that happens to you, just know this is like this is normal. This happens to almost every author. We don't release it and then it's like, oh my God, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change a thing. I mean, we can say that, but we usually don't mean it because afterward we'll think of something that we absolutely could have, or in our opinion, should have included and we didn't, and then we'll re we'll we'll overthink that. But don't. You're fine. It's totally normal. All of this is just to say all of this is totally normal. And the final thing I'm gonna say that I have absolutely learned is I cannot think of a reason to panic, like ever. And I am the most panic-stricken person you've possibly ever met. I can go from zero to a hundred so fast. It should be studied, which is exactly why I was so grateful when Joanna Hardis wrote both of her books about just doing nothing and getting uncomfortable with discomfort and just letting it be, because I immediately think I have to fix everything that is incorrect. There is very little in this industry and in this space that either has to be fixed or is certainly going to ruin you. Like it, it's just not most things are not that big of a deal and they're not that deep. And they will be to you, or they might be to you, because you panic and you're like, you want everything to be perfect. But most things that aren't right are fixable. And if they're not fixable, it's probably not like I haven't come across anything that's truly a reason to full on panic and think that things are gonna go in a direction from which you cannot recover. So I like to operate a very no-panic zone. Even though I'm a paniker, I like to create a no-panic zone for authors with whom I work. And I like to do my best to find people who can be around me when I'm launching a book who can remind me to be in a no-panic zone. So if just remember that. Like no panic zone. It's it's all gonna be fine. All of this having been said, yes, this industry in this space can be competitive and it can be cutthroat. It is the most kind, supportive, collaborative community I've ever been a part of. I wouldn't trade it or leave it for anything. I've met so many incredible fellow authors, many of whom have become friends. They've offered to beta read for me, they've offered to be critique partners and I for them. They've celebrated my book launches, even on the days when my book launched, the same day as theirs. Like, of course, there is competition in every space, you'll find it. But I encourage you to find the people with whom you love to do this thing because it makes it so much more fun, so much more relaxing. And they're there. I promise they're there. I I have been just truly amazed and so grateful for that aspect of this industry, probably more than any other. In summary, just keep writing. Anything you're experiencing, you're probably completely normal. So just keep writing, and I will see you again here next week.