Speaker 1

[inaudible]

Speaker 2

come back to the Jasmine star show. I'm incredibly happy you're here. My guest today is Tucker max, the co founder of scribe media and this is a company that helps people write, publish and market their books. He has written four New York times bestsellers and is only the third writer to ever have three books on the New York times bestseller list at one time. So boo , if you're interested in writing a book one day and or maybe self publishing it, Tucker is definitely the guy to tell you how in this interview Tucker completely schools us like homeboy took me to school with a note pad and a pen paper and a ruler. You know what? I also had a protractor. That's how far I went back into school. He schools us on the reality of getting a book deal, how to decide which type of book you should write, the RISD steps to self publishing and the biggest mistakes people make when they're writing their first book and so much more. I love how straightforward and actionable this interview is in . I can't wait for you to hear it too. I am so happy you are here. And Tucker , I'm going to start this conversation by something I read on Instagram lesson. I've learned maybe the lesson I resisted the longest but have finally come to accept is this one, we only let ourselves have what we believe we deserve. This lesson has many, many hard realizations. Tell me what has been some of the hard realizations for you

Speaker 3

starting with the light question.

Speaker 4

You know, you know, I'm just telling you like I'm telling you, I show up for my people. I want to make sure that we're out here getting to the real meat of this because listen, I know your time is valuable, you know, so let's dive in.

Speaker 3

No, I'm with you. It's funny cause to cause uh , on the pre uh , view or the pre, pre show part, I was like, Oh , I've been doing me at 15 years. You can't hurt .

Speaker 4

[inaudible] that's

Speaker 3

a great question. So , um, once I realized that was true, that we only let ourselves have what we deserve, then , um , I started really looking at my life and I realized that several points in my life, there are two big things that played out for me. One is that , um, there were a lot of people in my life who loved me and cared about me and wanted to help me and be there for me and love me even more. And I wouldn't let them, I pushed them away. Um, whether it's, I can think of a few women specifically that like, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm married to an amazing woman now, but like, I could have married a different, amazing woman way earlier and it takes nothing away from my wife at all. It's just like, there were situations like that and then , uh, romantically friendships, things like that. Um, uh, I realized , um, that I had denied myself that right. And , uh, and then in business too, there were, so there've been opportunities that I've had that , um, at the time I did not realize I was doing this, but I realized like, Oh my God, like I didn't take that opportunity because a part of me didn't, I don't know, it didn't feel like I was worthy or it didn't feel like I could do it or didn't feel like I would measure up. And so I pushed it off to somebody else or I pushed it down or I pushed it away or I just ignored it. And , um, it's painful. It's painful to realize that, that like, that I could have had a lot more or a lot of the things I haven't had in my life that I could have . I didn't because I wouldn't let myself.

Speaker 2

Oh , okay. So you are a big proponent. And the reason we're having this conversation as we're talking about self publishing, but like let's, let's kind of tap here for a second because there are many people who are listening who want to, they have a message and they think that a book would be a really great way to get that out. How then do you T tell somebody how then did you say learn from what I have because I want to make sure that we let everybody know that you're one of four people who is ever had three books on the New York times bestseller list at one time. So it's kind of like the audiences coming into your world like you have and have done something that's so unique. So how do you describe that experience, but then how do you route it in the fact that like some people don't believe that they can have what they believe they deserve,

Speaker 3

right? So they won't let them, they won't let themselves have what they don't believe they deserve. So they, a lot of people we have to, it's funny, Jasmine , when I started this company five years ago and we've done it at this point, 1600 books and like some really big ones like David Goggins book can't hurt me. And Tiffany Haddish his book and , and a bunch of other big best sellers . And , um, when I first started this, I had been writing professionally at that point for like, whatever, 15 ish years, 12 to 15 years. And I'd almost forgotten what it was like to , uh, to be a new writer, to , you know, to not be an author. And so like, I knew the process, our process of how to write a book has really not changed much in five years because it is what it is and , and it's improved a little at the margins. But what I'll tell you, our company has changed drastically in the process, has changed drastically because of exactly what you identified. Um, I would say 75% of what we teach and what we do and the work we do with authors is not around either teaching them how to write a book or, or sometimes we do the writing for them or with them, right? Uh , it's not the technical writing parts. That part is actually fairly easy. It is the emotional parts that come with writing a book, right? Because so many people have books in them. Great. Whether it's a memoir, like it's their story or it's a knowledge share book. Like they have things that can teach the world or both. And they're afraid to put them out because they're afraid they're going to be judged. They're afraid they're going to look bad. They're afraid they're not good enough. They're afraid. Uh, any , any of those fears just, I mean, you can name them forever. And so what they do is that, and the underlying belief is, I don't deserve this, right? I'm not good enough for this. And so a Hugh , we have had to become like world experts at helping high-achieving , smart, accomplished people work through their fears. It's crazy. I never in a million years thought I'd be starting a psychology like a therapy.

Speaker 2

I know.

Speaker 3

Well we did. No seriously because like I can't tell you how many amazing people we have that come to our company and like I want to do a book and blah blah blah. And then it's like, man, the book, the book's not the problem. Jasmine right now we have probably two dozen people who aren't fully paid. Their books are done and I mean everything, cover , uh , layout, print it , it's done. They, they , all they have to do is proverbially press publish and they won't do it. Like they've ghosted on us. Like some of them I sort of got to change their phone numbers. No , we keep like hitting them up and be like, you ready to put your book out? And they're so afraid to put their book out and embarrassed and ashamed that they're afraid they won't even talk to us. And , and these are, these are good books. Some of them, one or two are people. I bet you know their names. I think one of them you've had on your show, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure, and so I'm not going to call them out.

Speaker 2

We got the spill the tea?

Speaker 3

No , no, no, no, no. That's not my, that's not my job and it won't help. But so a big part of , uh , so anyway, what I just did was kind of like empathize, right? And tell you, okay, yeah, this is a big deal. And a lot of people have the problem. That's where we start with most people is you're not alone. Everyone has this problem. And then for a lot of, a lot of , uh, uh, the coaching programs, like I'm the one who lead those and I'll tell the people in there my story and like, I had almost forgotten what it was like. And then, so one day I did a video about this, about like, okay . Um, and it's on our YouTube channel, on scribe book school , uh , YouTube channel. Uh, what was it like for me to write my first book?

Speaker 2

Okay . Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I feel like, I feel like I'm a born storyteller. So what you're going to get me too is the transformation. But what I need to walk our listeners through is the hero's journey, right? So I'm coming back, I'm like, Whoa, you're about to drop dime. And I want to save that till the very end. So people can say, wow, like, so this right here is so powerful because we hit the ground running. Because what I did not want to do is have somebody say, well you see I'm not ready to, that's not, I don't have enough of a following. I don't have something to say because you're arguing the opposite. You're saying that there's a book or a story and so many people, they give themselves the permission to believe that. And I know you're a big advocate for self publishing. So my question before we get into your journey was why would somebody choose to self publish their book rather than applying for a book deal with a major publisher

Speaker 3

because they're not going to get a book deal.

Speaker 2

Ooh , Oh yes. I'll just show you. Okay.

Speaker 3

It's just not even in the cards. Like, I don't mean that like as anything other than , uh, so Mike , we've done , um, we've done about 20 traditional book deals. So we do both. Like Tiffany Haddish , uh , went through Simon and Schuster, right? Like we can write a proposal and the manuscript and we can get, we get people book deals all the time, but traditional publishers only work with people who have big audiences waiting to buy their books because traditional publishers have no money. They don't invest in marketing, they don't know how to sell the readers. They have no idea how to do any of that. So like, if you have, you know, 150,000 person email list, you can almost certainly get a deal. If you don't, then , uh , or you know, if you don't have that are a million people on Instagram who are, you know, like love every post that you put up, et cetera. You're not getting a deal. It's just not, it's just not going to happen.

Speaker 2

Okay, so let's bring everybody, cause what we just did was like a one, two punch, but with like a machine gun over here. So if you're listening and you feel like you have a message to say, you feel like there's a book inside you and you're listening to this conversation and you're ready to bet on yourself. We have Tucker saying, listen booboo, you probably have that. You're not in the position for a traditional big house publisher. What's is saying is self publishing is a way for you to bet on you. So how does somebody know when they're ready to self publish a book? Like what are three steps that somebody could take to get repaired ? Because this podcast is all about action. Like the minute we finished this, what somebody's like, Oh dang. Like what does that process look like for writing and editing? Like what would you say? Hey, three things. This will prep you.

Speaker 3

Okay, well, so we've got to differentiate the , it depends what kind of book they're writing, right? So if you want to write a children's book or a cookbook , um, I don't, I have no idea. Those, those, those are totally different universes. And unless you have an audience, you're just understand it's a vanity project and you're not going to sell any period. Um , unless you have an audience, right? Like , uh , like , uh , you know , I'm sure if you wrote a children's book, you'd sell something to your audience, right? Uh, but like most people don't. So it's just not, it's not going to happen. Uh , same as basically true with novels. They're a little different. But if you, if you decide, you know what, I'm going to commit to being a novelist and I have a 10 year plan where I'm going to write in my spare time and I'm going to go through all the things of becoming a novelist and do you know , five, 10, 15 novels and probably genre novels. Okay, fine. And there's people who teach that, Sean Platt, he wrote a book called the fish fiction formula. Go pick up that book, read that book. He walks you through exactly how to do that. Right? So the reason you me on is to talk about nonfiction and , right . And so there's two paths in nonfiction. There's memoir, which is like you telling your story. And then there's a prescriptive non nonfiction or like knowledge share, like you teach someone how to do something or how to get this transformation right. And so , um, that's why the first question you'd ask yourself is why are you writing a book? Because if you're running a book for yourself, like, you know what I want to tell my story, which is totally cool and totally valid and I'm a big believer in that. I believe every person on earth should tell their story, right? Uh , at least at some point in their life. Then you then, if that's your goal, then you need to write a memoir. And the only people who are getting , uh , the only way it's getting published is self publishing. And that's totally fine. And honestly, you may not even want to publish it. You may, you may decide, you know what, I'm writing this for myself. Maybe I'm going to share it with my family and friends and that's it. And that's good enough for me. And God knows I would pay any amount of money to have my great grandmother's story. And like, you know, she was Jewish. She changed her name anglicized to such a name became Catholic. We didn't know until we took 23 me tests like a long after she was dead and all this crazy stuff. Right? And so like I would pay anything for her story, although most people probably wouldn't care. I want to hear a story, right? But like, so if you want to write a book for that reason and then maybe listen, maybe your story is super interesting. Maybe a bunch of people, you write it well and a bunch of people become engaged and it does something else and sells copies. That's cool. And that's a bonus then , uh, then that's a , there's a way to write a memoir, right? But if you, if you're using a book because you say, you know what, I want to, I have a business or I want to start a business or I want to share my knowledge or I want to, you know, anything like that, then you're writing a knowledge share nonfiction book. And so that's a whole different thing. And then you can teach through your story. Like, for example, I wrote a book on how to write a book called the [inaudible] method. And I tell some of my stories in there, but only the stories that are relevant to the point of the book, which is teaching how to write nonfiction right there in service of the thing. And so the decision for you is what do you want to use it for? If it's for a business or practical or uh, S , uh, something like that. Any personal development, self-help business book, that's a certain way. If you're just want to tell your story, it's a different way. So you've got to , that's the first question you gotta ask is what am I trying to get out of this?

Speaker 2

So for the sake of this conversation, people who are listening and you are in the position to say, you know what, I think this book, I think I have something to say that is a knowledge share. That's where we're going to focus mostly in this conversation. If that's cool with you, awesome . The majority of our clients, okay. So then once somebody answers that question and decides, I have a knowledge base book that I want to write, what then do they do?

Speaker 3

So there's three questions. Uh, we already kind of covered the first one. What am I trying to accomplish? Right? So let's say, let's just take , um, let's say I am a , uh, uh, like what's a really good example? Let's say I'm a consultant, right? And let's say I teach , uh , I teach people, I, let's say I did , we just have this woman go through workshops . She's fantastic. Let's say I teach women how to be really good salespeople without being pushy or salesy or acting like a man. You know, like that there's a way women can sell and be just as good, if not better than men, but almost all sales books teach sales techniques, kind of from a masculine, masculine, assertive, dominant perspective, right? And she's this ball or sales woman, and she's like, she's like you. She's very feminine. Uh , you know , very sweet, very nice, very empathic, but a killer sales salesman , right? And so, so her book is going to be like that. Right? And so, which I think is a brilliant idea. And what she wants to do, she does it a little bit, but she wants to become like carve out a niche as the trainer for female salespeople and which makes total sense. So the book is going to be basically how to, how to uh , sell how to feel like woman but sell like a man is her working title. Right? Uh, but that probably won't be the end title , but the basic idea is, is what I just said. So, so she's going to write the book . She's in our coaching program right now. She's going to finish that book when it comes out. Then she's going to use that book in any number of different way . Okay. So the first question is what do you want? She wants to be a coach and consultant for women who are learning how to sell. So then the second question is who's your audience? So for this, it's obvious there's tons of women out there. They want to be in sales or they want to be better at sales, but they don't want to do it in an authentic way. And so, so she's like, I don't know any other women talking to women like that about sales, right? So , so there's those women exist. They don't have no one speaking to them, or if they are, they're not doing a good job. Then the third question is, what do you have to say that matters to that audience? And in this case, it's really clear, right? What she can do is teach women how to be feminine , uh , eh , but still be very effective at sales, right? So, which makes sense. If I'm a woman, I'm in a sales department and it's like me and maybe two other women and 30 dudes, and I feel like I have to act like them and I have to be pushy and salesy and I hate it. This is a problem in my life and she now has a solution for me. I'm all in. I'm told I'm buying the book. I'm probably going to be in her coaching program. I'm going to be on an email list. I'm going to be all that kind of stuff. Right? And so the book is the thing that not only makes her the anchor, like the V authority VP, it's the anchor for authority for the market. But then also it's the thing. So probably hit you up to be on your podcast in a year, right? And be like, Oh Jasmine, I want to talk about how women can sell in a way that's authentic and feminine but still effective. And she'll be on 30 other podcasts and she'll use it probably as a lead or funnel to get people to sign up for her list or she'll build a course off of it so she can become not only , uh , not only a sales person, but she coaches women and she has , uh , courses, all that kind of stuff, like a whole info business. She can build off of it. That's just one example off the three questions. What do you want? Who's your audience and why do they care?

Speaker 2

Yeah , love that. Okay. So if somebody is listening and listening to this and says, okay, I can answer those three questions, but Tucker, I don't have money. When somebody says I don't have money. Like, how much do you tell them costs to self publish a book? And if somebody says, well, I don't have that, what do you say?

Speaker 3

It's free basically. And so it's, so we just put up on our website. So like we wrote a book, I'm a big believer in if you are in , in , in information business, which almost all of us are now, unless you own like a factory making a in 95 masks, you're in an information business, right? And so we wrote a book called the scribe method, which just details our entire process. It's 500 pages, which is ridiculously of noxious, long. The point, the reason we did it is because we have 500 pages of meat and like the pro , it's hard to write a book and we go into deep detail. Uh , and the reason is because most of our clients are paying us 15 to $100,000. They want to know before they start working with us that we know what we're talking about. And a lot of our clients, if they don't read the whole book, they read enough to realize that we're experts. Right? And so what we did earlier this month, I'm going to answer your question, I promise, but we did really this month is that we came around and uh , you know, coronavirus hit , uh , our sales fell off a cliff in March like most people did where it's bouncing back now, but no one bought anything from anybody in March. Uh, and so we, I, I said, all right, let's, let's go online and let's teach our entire method , uh , on a , on a webinar. And then let's put all the videos up for free, which we did. It's on scribed book school.com right now. So you can learn, either you can get the book for free there and you can watch all the videos of me walking you through the entire book. Plus all the templates, like the actual outline templates that we use with our authors, everything we use is on there. So there is never, don't pay for any of this information ever again because it's there for free. And so, and not just the writing, but also the publishing. So like all the steps you have to do, how do you lay out a book, how do you format it? How do you do a book cover? How do you do all like every step? And there's so many steps to doing a well published book. Uh, we'd like all of the now. Okay. So if you have the time, the cost is zero. Now for most people, I would recommend spending about two to 3000 to make sure you get a really good cover design done by a professional, a really good layout, et cetera. And like if you really manage the process and you really look around, you can do it for his cheapest, let's say three grand, right? Which is, it's going to take you a lot of time and effort and difficult difficulty to do that. And then the more you spend, the less time you have to spend on it, right? Uh, and, and, but it's possible to do a fantastic self published book for three grand and it is absolutely possible to do a solid self published book for nothing. You just got to do all the work yourself.

Speaker 2

Okay. So I've heard that. Or like the common Hallybay leaf is that you can't get publicity for your book when you self publish number one. Do you agree? And number two, are there any other like myths about self publishing that you wish people would just know the truth about?

Speaker 3

Yeah, so um, here's the thing. It used to be true that if your book was self-published , you weren't going to get any attention. The reason is because early on self published books looked self published.

Speaker 2

Yeah .

Speaker 3

Whenever someone asks me that question, my question to them is always, have you heard of David Goggins book? And they're like, Oh my God, I love it. He's the best. I'm like, that book was self published. And they're like, Oh, I mean he did everything through us. Uh , so granted he hired a services from us, but it's a self published book. The point is you can now hire the very best cover designers, the very best layout people. You can hire all the professionals necessary to make your book look as good as David Goggins or any other book in any bookstore. It's just they're just a set of skills that you can hire, right? And if you, if you have money and no time and you just want a company to take care of it and you come hire us. If you don't have a lot of money, time , money, but you have a lot of time, then you can actually go to, like a lot of the people we use are freelancers. You can find those people on their own and they'll charge you way less than we would. But because we're doing everything for you, right? And so go find those people. Um, there's sites, reedsy.com Upwork, there's a bunch of sites where you can find really good freelancers, especially now they're looking for work. You can negotiate great deals and you can get super high quality work for not all that much money. Definitely if you're a smart person, you work hard. Five grand is the absolute max you would need to spend to have a really solid self published book that doesn't look self published. And so that means you're going to get all the, all the media want. They don't give it to publish your book. What they care about is they don't want you to embarrass them. Like, you know, if you Jasmine, if I like sounded like an idiot, you wouldn't want me on your podcast, right? It's not about whether I'm good looking or smart or not. It's whether I embarrass you or make you look good, right? Same thing is true with the book. The media will put anyone on who has a good book that that will help their audience. And if your book looks good and you're smart and what you have to say is interesting, their audience, they're going to put you on.

Speaker 2

So do you think that the book brings publicity or you need publicity to get your book sold? Like people get stuck of like if I spend $3,500 to get my book out there and I'm smart and the cover looks great, then what? Like, how do people actually sell their books ?

Speaker 3

Yeah. So these are, I'm going to be a little harsh, but then I'm going to explain why

Speaker 2

no Brit deal it to a straight , like we're all, like, we're all like tough.

Speaker 3

Okay, cool. The people who say that are small minded, scarcity minded people who don't understand what investing is and that's why they're small time and don't have any money.

Speaker 2

Dang . Okay. Okay.

Speaker 3

Like for real, like , uh , so let me walk you through, think about this for a second. So if I'm, if I'm starting off new right now and I'm just whatever, a consultant, like kind of like the girl we talked about before about sales, but it doesn't matter. I'm a coach of any sort or consultant of any sort. Um, if I'm like, well, it costs money to do this and it costs money to do that, it's like, well, okay then if I don't have any money, that probably means I have a lot of time. So then I need to go hustle and do the work, which is what I did when I was, I had no money. You know, I used to be poor and I had a lot of time, so then I use my time to hustle and do the work and make money so I could pay a people do the things that I wasn't good at or didn't like doing right? That's how it works and so like here's the other thing too . The other mindset, this is also a scarcity based mindset. Your , your goal for a book is not to sell copies. Hear me again, I'm being, I'm not making a mistake. You're a goal for a nonfiction book is not to sell copies. If you say , if you do sell a bunch of copies, cool cash a check, that's just a bonus, but your book is a marketing tool that you use to market your you or your business. You don't want to be in the business and marketing books as a terrible business. These things, who wants to sell copies of dead trees at not good margins, that's not a good business. But if you look at the book as a tool, a marketing tool, then all of a sudden it ha , it's this thing that has all , how much marketing do do people have that can make you money? This is marketing that can make you money by itself as a product. It can, you can sell your marketing and get money or you can give it away or you can send it to people , uh , or you can use it in funnels or you can use it to get media. It is a multipurpose marketing tool, not the thing that you market. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2

Ooh . So much sense. Yes. Okay. So then now that we have that, this is like you , I feel like you just could drop the mic because what you just said is people will pay you for your marketing material. Kaboom. Like heck yes. Okay. Okay. So now that we've finally, we've , we've squashed any opposition or any like, I'm not quite sure. So let's get into some tactical stuff before we loop it back around to your origin story and how you started writing your books. Let's break it down quickly. About like when people were like, yeah, but my grammar is not great. Is it okay to change things up? How much artistic do I have? Like how much Liberty does somebody need as an actual writer?

Speaker 3

Um, well, okay , let's , let's take those in turn . If you have bad grammar, then welcome to the club . So do I.

Speaker 2

Okay .

Speaker 3

And you know what I do? I pay a copy editor and they improve it. Like a monkey can learn how to copy at it . The copy editing is like a 10th of a cent per word or something, or 1 cent a word or something. It's, it's not useless. It's important. Yes. But it is a fungible skill that , uh, that a lot of people have. No one gives a damn. Yes. If you're running a business book, you need to have good grammar, et cetera. So I'm not like, yes, someone to do it. Right? Like that's not it . It's so funny. It's like people say, I'll give you a really good example. So I've sold about four and a half million copies of my books. Right. Uh, and , uh, when I first started writing, people were like, especially people who were in books and writing were like, this is the worst stuff I've ever read. This isn't even English. You can't write like this. It's not professional, blah, blah, blah. All this sort of stuff. And I'm like, dude, you make 60 grand a year and you sit behind a desk and you wish you were a writer. I'm not listening to you. I'm not taking advice from you about writing because if you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't be in your position. Right? Instead I went out and wrote stuff that worked and conventional wisdom about what works is almost never actually what works. Because if the conventional wisdom worked, all those people saying it would be rich and famous. So don't listen to those people. They don't know what they're talking about, their , their schlubs who are jealous that you're actually an envious, that you're actually trying to do something like you would, who you want to listen to or the people who've actually , uh , succeeded in the field. And if you actually go look at what they've done, almost all of them now , if you're like, look at who succeeded at being an executive at a big corporation, okay. Then that's just a suit who followed the rules. So that's, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about creation. Like if you're trying to create something new and something novel, and this is true for any art at all on a book is definitely art. The worst thing you can do is be like everybody else.

Speaker 2

Hmm .

Speaker 3

By a book called the sky is blue. We all know that. Tell me something. I don't know.

Speaker 2

I'm really disappointed because that was the title of my future book. You just crushed my dreams real quick. Okay. No, but for real, this is so powerful because all of this comes back down to understanding your self worth and what you've been put on this world to do and sharing your message. So now that we finally got people to this point, looking back on your long career, Mmm . What are mistakes? What are the common mistakes that people make when they first started on their journey of self publishing?

Speaker 3

Oh my God, I literally just wrote a blog post about this, a deck for it. This is such a great, there are so many. All right , so we've already covered a couple. So the big , the big one, one of the big ones is focusing too much on book sales instead of what the book gets you. Right. That's a big one. The differences . If you, if you, if you want to be a professional writer and say, my job is to sell copies of books, then you can focus on book sales. That makes sense because that's literally your job. But everyone else, you should be focusing on what the book gets you. Okay . Um, that's a big one. Another one is not understanding why you're writing the book. Like what are you going to get out of the book that's super important. Um, let's see. Let me look. Oh yeah. Okay. So a big one , uh , making the book all about you. Unless you're writing a memoir. If you're writing a memoir, make it about you, of course. But a lot of people will say, Hey, I want to write a book on how to teach people how to do something. And really all they want to do is talk about themselves. I don't , I don't want to read a book. If I'm picking up a book that's teaching me how to build a house, I don't care about the guy's life. I care about how to build a house, right? Cause that's why I bought that book. But if I want to read a memoir and he has an interesting life, then I'll buy a different book about his life. They're different things. So don't confuse the two. Right? And then the other mistake, the other side of that mistake is some people writing a book about how to do something will not put any of their story in which like if there's stories relevant to how they learn how to do this, then you should put some of it. And it helps. Like in my book, like that's a big way I help people open up and get over their fears as I share mine with them. And then they realize, Oh wow, this guy's super successful. He's done all the things I want to do. But he used to be where I am and helps them feel , um , like they can do it right. So you can either put too much or not enough depending. Right. Um, what's another one? Uh, trying to be perfect. Oh dude. Perfectionism is a huge problem, especially with amateur writers is they think that, you know, cause if you're, if you're not writer and you're writing your first book, every book you've ever read is a finished product. So in your mind that's what books are. But like if you saw my rough drafts, you would think I was no seriously, like writing all books. The only point of writing is to get something down. No matter how bad it is, so that you can edit it into being good. All books are, are made in editing, not in writing, but amateurs think that the writing has to be perfect and that's why they can never progress. Right. Um, another one, putting too much pressure on your book to do things that can't do. We get people coming all the time like, yeah, I'm going to write my book and then my dad would love me and it's like w what ? You know? Or like I'm going to write this book and then I'll be famous and I'll be an Oprah and I'll sell a million copies. And it's like, no, no, no, no. And then that's when you get all this sort of like success stuff and they put too much pressure and then they didn't, they don't let go and relax. Right. Or they play it too safe. They're like, all right , I can't say anything that anyone will disagree with. And then I'll go , why write the book? No one cares. Like if you're not telling me something that isn't widely known, then it's not worth writing down. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense?

Speaker 2

Absolutely.

Speaker 3

I can keep going. There's a few more, but that's all I can think.

Speaker 2

I feel like this is, I feel like that alone is an order. Is, is a great way for us to digest things to stay away from. And it really is like are those big blaring ones? And so if we're talking about this and we see a really amazing entrepreneurs completely owning their book debuts, right? Like so we got to the point to where you wrote it, you're out there and then they're launching massive marketing campaigns and tours. Hi . My question is, is that really what it takes to get your book on the top New York times bestseller list? Like is it impossible to have a bestseller based on your content alone? And I think this is where I would love for you to insert your journey. Like how did you get here and what is your experience been to shape your answer?

Speaker 3

Okay, so there's a lot of questions unpack there . So , so first of all , like I won't go on too much of a rant about bestseller lists. Uh, but the reality is bestseller list. So total book that like literally the New York times bestseller list is a curated editorial product is not a list of bestselling books. And, and this is not, I'm not like making up some conspiracy theory. A long, long story short and a writer sold 10 million copies of a novel in a year and that the times didn't put his book on the list and he sued them. And the New York times one, because in case in court they said, this is not a list of, of best selling books. It's just an edited product and we're just making it up. And so like, no, seriously. So like, it's not like that's, it's they've, they've said this on public record, they've admitted this. So , uh , and there's plenty of books like , uh , the iconic example recently that your listeners were probably know Jordan Peterson's book, the 12 rules of life has probably sold 4 million copies and will never once appear to the New York times list because they hate his guts. And so they won't put his book on the list at all anywhere. And so like , uh, understand that the, that, and I'm saying this is a dude who claims that he's written four New York times bestsellers . And I have, but it's like, yeah, it's a status symbol I guess, but it's kind of a bullshit sat assemble. And it just is like, even though I've done it and like I'm still telling you it's not a big deal and it's not the measure of success. That being said , uh , if you want to do that, then yeah, you need to, you need to pack at least 10,000 sales from the right places into the first week of release. That's how it works. And so that's why Gary Vaynerchuk can do it because he has a huge audience and so either you can build a huge audience, which I highly recommend most people don't do because it's exhausting and not really relevant to most people's business. Or you can actually buy your way on through the list as well. There's companies that for anywhere from a quarter to a half million dollars will buy up copies of your book from all around the country and these different stores and all the lists that report the New York times. And then you can basically fake your way on the list for a week and then it falls off and then that's it. Which plenty of people have done. Like, I would say in any given week, there's a least 10 to 20% of the books that bought their way on some shit. So like if you , if you look at the list and you see some random book you've never heard of, probably it bought us. Right. And there's only once . Um, but uh, yeah, I honestly think those things just don't matter very much and that those are ego plays for people. And so that's why you see all these big people spend so much money because they're spending money to tell the world that they are important, not because of any other actual reason with content. So to answer your question, come back around. Yes, your book can absolutely hit the list based on content. That's what mine did. I never spent a dime on marketing. Um, uh, my books, they hit the, my books first book came out in 2006. It hit the list for two weeks. And the only reason is because I got no press coverage. Zero. Um, the only reason is because , um, I had an email list at the time and this is like back before he went, understood any of this stuff. And I just happen to have an email capture on my site and I had like 50,000 people on it. And so I was like , uh, okay, let's , uh, like I'll, I mailed it all out and I sold 5,000 copies the first week and 35 is a hundred second week. And , uh, hold on. And uh , um , uh, sorry my , when I love my kids but they can be loud . Um , and so , uh, I sold 5,000 3,500 was on for two weeks and then it fell off. Uh, but it kind of went down, down, down, and then a word of mouth kind of took over and started going up, up, up. And then in mid 2007, it hit the list again and then it stayed on for the next six consecutive years because the content was good. And because people told difference. So if you want to write a book that has an impact, that's what you do. Write a book that people love to talk about to their friends and then it'll happen.

Speaker 2

Hmm . Well, hot dang. Like I could not think of a better way. Just give like this rousing call to action and I'm going to, you know, I started the conversation by reading something I read on Instagram and I'm going to end it this way too. So you said less than I've learned taking full responsibility for my life without blaming anyone else is like a super power . It forces me to set boundaries and frames my life as something I create, not something that happens to me. This changed everything for me. So for somebody who's listening right now and someone's, it says , mm , I don't want things to happen to me. What advice would you give somebody to say it's happening for you and you can go out and do it? Taking full responsibility.

Speaker 3

I wouldn't give them advice. I would ask them what they're going to do next.

Speaker 2

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3

We'll know when they're got what they need to do. They're just afraid to do it. I'd ask them what they're going to do and then I'd ask them why they aren't doing it yet.

Speaker 2

Mm , Tucker max, how can people, so if you're listening and you got to this point in the interview, he just asked you a question. Friends, could you just hit him up on Instagram and can you tell him what you're going to do next? This is accountability because if you can't tell a stranger you just heard on a podcast what you're going to do next, you're probably not going to do it. So first call to action, drop him and I align on Instagram. How can we go find you on your Instagram and on your website?

Speaker 3

Instagram is real soccer max website is Tucker, max.com.

Speaker 2

This my friend is a straight call to action. Let him know how he's impacted your life and I am looking forward to you writing your story or a book that will empower others and showcase your expertise. Tucker , thank you for spending time with us. Thank you for sharing your brilliance. Thank you for making free content, rich content, powerful life changing content. How on the interwebs, what goes out is going to come back to you tenfold. Sir. You are amazing. Thank you. Thank you Jasmine. Friend. I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. I mean I just about dropped my mic when Tucker said the goal of writing a book as a business owner is to use it as a marketing tool, not necessarily to sell copies. Wow. I mean I love this conversation feeling inspired and you know, maybe one day there is a book in me like maybe if you love this conversation, please write a review for the Jasmine star show on iTunes. I ate too proud to beg. Okay. Because reviews really do help me get other incredible guests like Tucker max on the podcast. It gives me some street cred, if you know what I'm saying. Now I'm not saying just for street head alone one, it helps me get to know you. I read each one and I want to make sure that I shout out a few people in each episode. So let's dive in right about now to Nikki Aziz . She writes , listening to her podcast, reading everything she writes, following her on social media and watching her live stream helped me more than the $2,000 workshops I was paying before. I am telling you, following step-by-step everything she teaches and I am doing better for my kids and for myself. Your breath. Thank you for leaving that comment. I totally appreciated that review and that comment and speaking of writing books, why don't we give a shout out to an author five star review from David Freeman. Jasmine is a blessing. Is that too much? Jasmine is a giving spirit. She is a resource from which entrepreneurs can learn valuable lessons and in each episode of her podcast, Jasmine pushes through inspirational and becomes a compassionate teacher. Hey, thank you so much David, and to Creswick 78 every episode he give us something we could do right now to be better. You're real in your approach and it makes me feel less intimidated to put myself out there. Yes, go on friend. You just put yourself out there with the review. You're going to put yourself out there with content. You're going to put yourself out there. If you decide to write a book, write an Instagram post, write a script for YouTube, whatever it is that you do, please friend, continue to speak up and share your voice with the world. We need to hear from you, and even if your voice shakes, please use it. We are waiting. Thank you so much for listening to the Desmond star show today. Until next time, friend on

Speaker 1

[inaudible] .