Why Every Entrepreneur Should Publish a Book [Josh Steimle Interview]

If you want to yield influence in digital and social media you need to become a content creator. Not all content has the same longevity or impact, but if you wanted to make the biggest bang for your buck and create the most impactful content that can help drive your business, a book is the answer.  You'll find out why in this interview with published author, speaker, and entrepreneur Josh Steimle who will share with you the why as well as how to get started, how to keep going and not burn out, and how to leverage your book to grow your business.

Episodes mentioned in the show and related spisodes:

179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting

175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts

149: How to Become a Published Author [Lee Constantine from Publishizer Interview]

Key Highlights

[03:31] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Josh Steimle

[05:06] How Josh Started Marketing and His Writing Career

[07:10] Why Books Are the Best Way to Influence Business Audience and Leaders

[12:00] Getting Access to CMOs

[13:33] The Networking Power in Content Creation Process

[14:34] How Can You Get Started in Writing A Book?

[16:43] How to Find People to Work With Your Book?

[19:41] The Process of Putting Pen to Paper

[20:30] Ways You Can Get Content Out Other Than Writing

[22:06] Should You Hire A Ghostwriter?

[24:51] Josh's Advice on How to Avoid Getting Burned Out Midway Through Writing Process

[29:28] Self Publishing VS Publishers

[34:13] How to Leverage Book to Grow Your Business

[35:07] Ways You Can Market Your Book

[39:55] Connect with Josh

Notable Quotes

• Social media, it's great. It's got its place. But it's temporary. Whereas a book, it's kind of forever.
• For those people listening, hopefully, you see the power of having a book and the very even if you don't sell many copies, there's so much value in not only in writing it and what can happen, but in the process itself.
• The first step is to look at your identity, who you are, what your role is, what you're trying to accomplish and create some sort of vision from that.
• Getting very clear on what that vision is, and the purpose or the why behind your book is really the first step because that dictates everything that you do after that. 
• Everybody's got a book in them, but not everybody necessarily should write that book themselves.
• One of the key tools to combat burnout or writer's block when you're writing a book is to have an outline that you created the beginning a clear outline, Josh Bernoff calls it a fat outline an outline with a lot of detail in it.
• Having that strong purpose. Having that why is another way to keep from burnout.

Contact Josh Steimle

Published Author Program: https://www.publishedauthor.com/

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Transcript

Neal Schaffer: 0:00

Are you an entrepreneur looking to make the biggest impact in maximizing your social influence on a business audience? If so, you'll want to tune in to this week's episode of the maximize your social influence podcast where Welcome to the maximize your social influence podcast with Neal Schaffer, where I help marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners grow their businesses using innovative marketing techniques, leveraging the concept of digital influence throughout digital and social media. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer here, hope you're enjoying your day, wherever you are in the world. It's been continuous crazy times here at PDCA. Social as I talk to so many people, actually outside of the digital marketing industry, we really are in one of the industries if you are in digital marketing, one of the few industries that is well, for lack of a better word, it still continues to thrive, despite the pandemic, but, you know, we've all had our scares. I had a personal scare, which just happened actually, this last Saturday night, for the first time in my life. I found myself in the emergency room at the hospital, don't freak out. I'm totally okay. But as I was watching my Lakers, make it into the finals of the NBA Playoffs. I started feeling this burning sensation, like on the side of my face, which or I should say, my cheek which led into my eye, my left eye. And then slowly I felt my right I began to burn it maybe was a half an hour process. And by the end of it over the course of you know, an hour, I'd literally it hurt me. My eyes were burning so much it hurt me to close my eyes. And yet, I couldn't keep my eyes open. either. I told my wife, I gotta go to er, I gotta because it's, you know, 10pm on a Saturday night, nothing is open. No, no clinics, urgent care. So there I am an ER, obviously, you know, we're all messed up. They're doing all the tests, what have you. So it turns out, there must have been, I thought maybe it was an allergic reaction, there was some chemicals in my eye. But boy, there's nothing like doing to five minute Eyewashes. And then doing or I should say putting on something called the Morgan eye lens, or the Morgan eye wash. And if you're curious as to what they did, putting these silicone contact lenses in my eye and squirting saline solution and other liquids into my eye for 45 minutes, do a YouTube search for that. But anyway, I was still my eyes were still burning when I got home, which was like two in the morning that night. But thankfully, Sunday, my eyes are fine. And Monday, I am able to wear my contact lenses again and do normal work. But what's amazing is that even if I was in the hospital, I had one of the most amazing things that continue to work for me. And that's my my digital presence and beyond the digital presence. It's the fact that I have books that I have a fairly recent book in the age of influence. Like I said, I'm not going to call it a new book anymore. But I have these things working for me that actually scale. And even if I had to be in the hospital for a week, I know that those things are still going to be vehicles that are going to continue to deliver for my business for your for my brand. And that's one of the reasons why today I am bringing on a good friend and also one of the absolute thought leaders in marketing, Josh Stein Lee on to the podcast. So we're going to be talking about and he's very passionate about the subject design, and he's going to share his own experience about how writing a book really changed his professional career. But we're gonna be talking about why every entrepreneur should publish a book, you're going to learn the why the how, and hopefully, whether you end up working with someone like Josh or doing it yourself, I do hope that you'll continue the process because I do believe that writing a book, especially if you're trying to reach a business audience is the most impactful way to maximize your social influence. Alrighty, I'd like to welcome Josh Stein Lee to the maximize your social influence podcast. Josh, welcome. Thanks,

Josh Steimle: 4:21

now. It's great to be on.

Neal Schaffer: 4:23

Yeah, so Josh and I have known each other for a few years. I do a lot of business in Japan. Josh does a lot in China. And Josh is a well, I guess he's a lot like myself, and probably a lot of you listening to this podcast, a marketing, author, speaker, entrepreneur, actually, I first met Josh, when he did this great speech. I'm trying to remember was it the content marketing conference in Boston, I want to say when you did a speech on how to attract free PR, and it was just this great speech full of great hacks. I mean, we're not going to talk about that today. And maybe that's a subject of another episode. But that was a really Great speech. But Josh, that's my introduction. I'm going to give you the floor to introduce yourself to the audience.

Josh Steimle: 5:06

Thank you now. Yeah, so my short story is I started a marketing agency back in 1999. And we failed our way forward for about 13 years. So it was successful enough that it kept me engaged, but not successful enough that it could be called a success. And in 2013, all that changed because I got the opportunity to write for Forbes magazine and writing for Forbes opened all these doors for me, I ended up writing more than 300 articles for over two dozen business publications. So I got into why being an entrepreneur and fortune and all these places a speech right there. Yep. Yeah. And then that led to speaking engagements, and it led to a book deal. And at one point, I ended up on Richard Branson's Island hanging out with Richard Branson, and all these marketers, and I was like, how did I get here? What how did this happened? And it was all about the influence in the authority that this content created. And the reason I was on Richard Branson's Island, which lends itself to the topic we're talking about today was because I wrote this book, chief marketing officers at work. So I published this book. And one day, I got this email from somebody saying, Hey, you want to hang out with Richard Branson on his island as like, spam? I'm going to delete this. And then I took a second look at the email. I was like, Wait a second. I mean, they mentioned my book by name, like spammers don't do that. And I took a look at it. And I was like, this looks legit. But there's got to be some catch, like a cost $50,000 or something, you know. And so I emailed them back, and I'm like, well, what's the catch? And they're like, no catch, we're gonna pay for everything. We want you to come out and be part of this group. Because I'm reading your book. I was like, Wow, this book thing, this is great. And so now I help other entrepreneurs to write their book, publish their book and leverage it the way I've leveraged it to grow my business.

Neal Schaffer: 6:54

Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that obviously, this is a podcast, and we talk about influence, and everyone wants to build more influence. And everybody just immediately looks at the next big shiny thing, you know, tick tock, or Instagram reels and, and they forget, I mean, it really depends on who you want to influence. And I can't think of a better way to influence a business audience and business leaders, who are probably the most active consumers of books than books, right?

Josh Steimle: 7:22

Yeah. And I mean, a social media posts last for how long I mean, I was looking at Twitter this morning. There's some guy I can't remember his handle. It's like 420 dogs, something, it's kind of this gangster looking guy. And he he lip syncs to popular songs on Tik Tok, and hit this video of his went super viral. And it's up to like 23 million views in the last two days or something. But it's like, that'll be gone in a couple days. And then he has to make a new video. Whereas you look at Gary Vaynerchuk, he wrote this book, crush it 10 years ago, and he's still selling tons of copies of that. And that's still building his business. So social media, it's great. It's got its place. But it's temporary. Whereas a book, it's kind of forever.

Neal Schaffer: 8:06

Yeah, and I've been talking a lot about the longevity of content and looking at things like podcasts and YouTube videos and blogs that live for several years, but a book, especially when you consider second editions. Third editions, they might just have the longest lifespan of them all. So I am a big fan of encouraging it, you know, as we grow up, it's like, man, you must have a great story to tell, you should write a book. And it's something even you know, before business, we're sort of told, and I do believe that everybody has a great book, whatever their objective is. Now, when I wrote my first book, and maybe you can start with the process of when you wrote your first book, it was actually and those who listen to this podcast, or have heard me and other podcasts might know the story back in 2008 2009, when I first started to use LinkedIn, I launched a blog, just as a networking vehicle, you know, in transition really hard time to find a job. And I was back in the United States instead of being in a job. So it was even harder for me. And my wife said, you know, you should write a book, and I looked at all my blog content. It's like, wow, like, you know, 25% of my book is written in my blog. I mean, fortunately, you yourself was also a writer. But I'm just curious when, you know, when you got started on writing your first book, where was the aha moment? Or what was the what was the impetus? What was the drive? Right? What what what did that process look like?

Josh Steimle: 9:21

Well, the process was that I was desperate to find new clients for my marketing agents. And it's like, I got to do something, I got to try something new. And I thought, well, I've never written a book, maybe I should write a book. And so it was purely to grow the business. It was a marketing tool, but it was also something I looked at, I thought, I've always wanted to write a book, and this would be fun, and it'd be good experience. But it really went back to my identity as I'm an entrepreneur, I have a business and I need marketing content, and maybe a book would be a good idea.

Neal Schaffer: 9:52

Right? And therefore you started from scratch. So this is before you did all the guest articles on Forbes and those business publication, it was

Josh Steimle: 10:01

after all that, but the book was different than what I had been writing before. Because I had this experience that pointed me in a certain direction, which was, I was over in Hong Kong, and we had this business deal that was almost signed. I mean, we were literally going to the office to sign this deal with the contract in hand. And we had our stamp and everything, you know, in Asia, you guys stamp stuff. And so we had our stamp to get it signed and stamped and get the payment, get started on everything. And we walk into this room. And we know everybody there except for this one woman that we've never seen before. And we're kind of thinking yeah, oh, and so we say, Okay, any final questions before we sign this deal, and then she speaks up, and she's like, Hey, my name is Hope Frank, and I'm the new cmo here, I just got hired two days ago. And we're not signing any new deals for any marketing stuff until I do a full audit and figure out what's going on. And we left that day, and we didn't have the deal. We had been working on this deal for weeks. And I thought, hang it man, CMOs, they can just squash our deals. And I thought, well, if they can squash our deals, they can also make our deals. So maybe I should write a book for CMOS, like digital marketing for the CMO or something like that. And that was the original idea, hey, I should write this book. But then it turned into well, I don't know anything about CMOS, so I need to research them. And so I went searching for a book on CMOS, that really helped me understand what it was like to be a CMO. And there's just nothing out there. There aren't many cmo focused books. Yeah. And so then I thought, maybe I should go interview a ton of CMOS, and then I'll learn what it's really like. And then I'll have the knowledge, I need to go write this digital marketing for the CMO book. So I ended up writing that first book, chief marketing officers at work, I never got around to the second book, because I wrote chief marketing officers at work. And then I was like, You know what, this actually kind of does the job. So I'm good to check that one off?

Neal Schaffer: 12:00

How did you end up getting access to all those CMOS? Did you work with them? Were they in your network, or where you, you know, reaching out to people you've never met?

Josh Steimle: 12:10

There were a few that were in within my network. But I really wanted to branch out. And I wanted to get big names from big companies. So I was trying to figure out how do I get the CMO from GE, how do I get the CMO from Pay Pal or Spotify. And so I started reaching out, like I knew the director of Spotify for all of Asia. So I reached out to her and said, Hey, can you connect me with a CMO global CMO of Spotify. And she did, she gave me an intro. And so that's how I got him on Seth Farben. But the funny thing is, the vast majority of the 30 CMOS that I got on, I got on through LinkedIn. I mean, I was emailing I was calling, I was talking to gatekeepers. And finally I was like, I'm just gonna send out a bunch of emails, and I send out sent out a bunch of emails on LinkedIn. And I think I got 15 or 16 of the 30 through those emails, including some really big names. So I was, it's really kind of a testimonial for LinkedIn, like, those emails really do work.

Neal Schaffer: 13:07

That is awesome. So and for those of you listening, last week, I published an episode on podcasting. And there are a lot of podcasters that are content creators that want to feel more influenced by accessing the influence of others of using a podcast as a networking vehicle. And it sounds like with your book, there was a similar focus, part of it was writing the book, but part of it was also getting access to these people and being able to tap into their wisdom and learn from them. Right. And I think that's something that we we forget, that can be an important part of that content creation process for a book or podcast or anything, not just the more influence that we yield, but the networking power in the education you can get from that exercise, right?

Josh Steimle: 13:46

Yep. And also interviewing people as an easy way to write a book. I mean, it's still a ton of work, no matter how you write a book, it's a lot of work to get a book done. But I was kind of scared to just write a book on my own and share what I thought and I thought, Well, hey, if I interview these 30 people, then it's their thoughts. And I'm just the guy facilitating things. So it was kind of an easier way to get in with my first book and feel more comfortable with that process.

Neal Schaffer: 14:11

So that was several years ago, fast forward to in my first book, which was back in 2009. So fast forward to 2020. For those people listening, hopefully, you see the power of having a book and the very even if you don't sell many copies, there's so much value in not only in writing it and what can happen, but in the process itself. So for those listening that are like, Well, where do I start? How do you recommend they get started on their journey?

Josh Steimle: 14:41

Well, the first step is to look at your identity, who you are, what your role is, what you're trying to accomplish and create some sort of vision from that. So for me, it was I'm an entrepreneur, I've got a business I need to grow my business. And so that directed the type of book that I was going to write or the objective behind writing the book. And so others listening to this, you might own a business, you might be a working professional. And so you might say, well, I want to get a better job, or I want to grow my business. Or I want to impact a certain audience out there, because I have this message that I think could really help people. But getting very clear on what that vision is, and the purpose or the why behind your book is really the first step because that dictates everything that you do after that. Some people do jump in and just say, I just want to write a book, I just think it'd be fun, I think it'd be great. But they don't really know why they're doing it. And that makes it so hard to write the book, because you're trying to figure out like, Wait, now what am I doing here? I mean, I've got a story over here. And I got some information here and some experience. But how do I put this together? Well, when you have a very clear why behind your book, a very clear purpose, it makes it a lot easier to get all that content out know what should go in, and what should it

Neal Schaffer: 15:53

very similar to people who are like, I want to become a social media influencer, but they have no strategy. And they just start doing something because I think it's popular. And I think one of the key things is that if you're not passionate about doing what you're doing, so if you have that strategy and objective, and and it taps into that, why and your identity, as you said, you're gonna have that passion. And that's, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that one of the key things that keeps you going through the process? Because it is a long process?

Josh Steimle: 16:18

Yes, it's a long process. And it's a hard process, and you'll get in the middle of it. And if you don't have a strong purpose, you're gonna say, What in the world? Am I knocking myself out doing this for? But if you have that reason, you'll say, Well, I know I'm doing this I've, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I just got to get there.

Neal Schaffer: 16:34

So do you find, because I know that you work with a lot of entrepreneurs. And you'll you'll introduce us at the end of your program. I know you work with a lot of entrepreneurs that are writing books. So do you find that most of them are writing for that business objective thinking of who their target customer is? What story would resonate with them? And then generate demand? Is that a majority of what you see? Or do you see other aspects or other reasons why entrepreneurs are writing books,

Josh Steimle: 17:00

because of the way that I attract my audience, that's who gets attracted to me, because my program is all about helping entrepreneurs who want to grow their business. So they're coming to me, because they already have that in mind, what I do see is that a lot of them aren't clear on how that books going to grow their business, they know they want to grow a business, their business, they know a book might be a good idea, but they're not sure how to connect those, they're not sure what book is going to grow their business the best. In in my case, with chief marketing officers at work, I thought that would be a good book. But it wasn't the best book, if I were going back and doing it again, maybe I would have done it. But I would have seen it all the way through and written that digital marketing for the CMO book, because that's the book that would have connected more to my business, my marketing agency to tell CMOS, this guy runs a digital marketing agency, and he understands what CMOS need to know about digital marketing, that would have been a stronger message from my book, then this guy interviewed a bunch of CMOS, and he really understands CMOS, that was still good, that was beneficial. But it wasn't as powerful as a message for my goals. And for my objectives.

Neal Schaffer: 18:10

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So there's the more practical up to the more esoteric or thought leader, you need to do things completely different, I guess, depending on who you are. And your goals and your experiences that all maps into that perfect formula for this is the book that you should write, to get the biggest bang for your time.

Josh Steimle: 18:31

Yeah, a lot of people are directed just by what they know, and what they've experienced. And they think, Well, if I put all of this into a book on consultants, I'll just tell a bunch of consulting stories, but they don't think through well, who is really my ideal audience? And what's going to trigger them and what are they looking for? And how does this connect to my business? And is this going to attract the people I really want to work with, to contact me about hiring me for the specific services I want to provide. And so they end up kind of going in all these different directions. And a lot of people end up writing a memoir or something and just saying, Well, I'm just gonna write kind of a biography type thing. And the thing is, people don't hire you because of your memoir. I mean, you can point to cases where that's the exception rather than the rule. But those are the exceptions, the ones that you hear about,

Neal Schaffer: 19:20

right? Yeah, I always say the book should really be the business card and the reason why people would want to hire you so but you need to make it that way. Right with with intention. And when you plan the book, and you write it. So writing, not every entrepreneur is a blogger, not every entrepreneurs a writer. So how do they so we've gone through the process, they have the idea, how do they start putting pen to paper?

Josh Steimle: 19:43

This is absolutely true. Not everybody. I mean, I, like you say everybody's got a book in them, but not everybody necessarily should write that book themselves. They might need some help to get it out onto paper, because writing is a craft and not all of us have practiced that craft. And so for me, I love writing, it's what I do, I'm better at writing than I am at speaking or talking to people. I mean, I love being holed up in my, I mean, this whole COVID thing is like a blessing for me because I'm like, Yes, I don't have to go outside. I can embrace my anti social nature and just write books all day. So I'm loving this. But not everybody is that way. I have a business partner, and he loves talking to people. And he writes me these emails. And I'm like, man, yeah, you need help with your writing, like, so not everybody's born to write. But if you don't write well, you can still get that content out in other ways. One way is to just record yourself, so you can record yourself using free software. And then you can use a service like 10 years or something to transcribe it for 25 cents a minute. And if that's easier for you, then that's great. And people have been writing this way since any, since you could record your voice. So there are a lot of people who write books by speaking the book out and then they go back and they edit it later. Another way is you can get somebody to interview you. If that's easier than just speaking into a recorder, set up a bunch of interviews with one of your employees or a business partner or a friend or spouse or somebody and say here, all these questions, I need you to interview me like we're having a normal conversation. And that can be an easier way for people to get that content out as well. So you can write it out yourself. You can speak it out to somebody else, or you can go hire a ghostwriter. Now ghostwriter is kind of like having somebody interview you because that's what they're going to do. They're going to sit down with you for a couple of hours a week probably. And they know how to draw that content out of you. But then they go in, they actually write it up and make it sound good. And a lot of the books that you've read are ghostwritten books. I just finished reading Shoe Dog by Phil Knight who was the founder of Nike. And that was a ghostwritten book and a lot of the other biographies out there ghostwritten books as well. But even other business books, Gary Vaynerchuk has a ghostwriter that writes all of his books. Now it's his ideas. He's sitting down with a ghostwriter and saying, Hey, this is what I want to talk about this and that. But it's the ghostwriter who actually sits down and crafts the words that go on the page.

Neal Schaffer: 22:06

Yeah. And I think that there's this negative connotation towards ghost writing. And this whole, you know, authenticity, crisis, what have you, but I just want to say it's funny, because I was just looking at the stat yesterday of b2b companies, and you know, content budgets, and do they have in house teams? Or do they outsource and the bigger the company size, you find the big companies are outsourcing, like 80 to 90% of content creation, those that can afford it understand they they can scale? I mean, you have to have the right writers. And it has to be your ideas and thoughts. And I think that's what people misunderstand about ghostwrite, you're in full control. You tell them what to write, they are then basically just putting your thoughts into words. And then you're going to be edited in any way, right? I do this with a lot of blog posts. I'll have people do some research for those blog posts, but I voiced them, and I tell them, what, where I want them to research what sort of data and at the end of the day I own it, but it helps tremendously, help you save time in the actual writing process. So I'm a big fan of it. And I And if you've never thought about doing it, I highly recommend you think about doing it, because it can definitely help you scale. That book writing process. And I assume you agree, right, Josh?

Josh Steimle: 23:24

Yeah. And I mean, a lot of people are doing this out there. This isn't a rare thing. In fact, I would say most of the famous people who have books out there anybody who's famous almost it was highly likely that book was ghostwritten. But again, that it's not like a ghostwriter comes in and says, Oh, yeah, I know Richard Branson. Yeah, I'm just gonna whip up a book for him. And then I'll show it to him. And he can say, oh, yeah, it's great. It's not like that. There's a lot of back and forth. Because it does need to be your ideas. It's your thoughts. It's your stuff. The ghostwriter is just really good at writing in helping you get those thoughts on paper.

Neal Schaffer: 23:59

They're artists. And I remember going to an author marketing conference. And I think the stat was like 70% of best selling books are ghostwritten. I know of someone and executive at a big company. And when I met his good friend, and we were out drinking, and he's like, What do you think about that guy's blogs, and like, they're brilliant. He goes, he didn't write any of them. They were all written by staff. So there's a lot that that doesn't meet the eye. But once again, at the end of the day, it's your content, your ideas, your name, and you should take advantage of that. So if you're not a good writer, or I should say, even if you're not a good writer, there's no excuse. So let's say we pick one of those three processes, right? And we have our strategy, we have our idea, we have our why, or identity. We've figured out the process. You know, book writing is not trivial. It's this long term process. So how do you recommend the entrepreneurs listening keep going without burning out midway through, I've burned out on books I have a book on Twitter, that's halfway written, right that I never completed. So I'm one of those people. But what is your advice here?

Josh Steimle: 25:06

So the interesting thing about burnout is that we tend to think that burnout is caused by having a lot of work to do. And that's not what causes burnout. Usually, what usually causes burnout is not knowing what we're going to do next what the next step is. And one of the key tools to combat burnout or writer's block when you're writing a book is to have an outline that you created the beginning a clear outline, Josh Bernoff calls it a fat outline an outline with a lot of detail in it. If you create that outline at the beginning, before you start writing dialog or anything else in your book, then that's a plan. And that plan shows you where you're starting from where you're ending up at and everything in between. And then it's just a matter of filling it in, it becomes very easy. And every day, when you wake up and you're working on your book, you can just go to that manuscript and the outline there and say, Alright, where do I need to fill stuff in? Where do I feel like filling in the blanks here, and then you get to work. If you do that, it becomes very easy to write any, if you're writing a huge book, you might still get overwhelmed with some of it. But generally speaking, that's going to keep you on track. And that's going to make it pretty easy to get to the end of your project. What makes it hard is when you're halfway through the book, and you say, Man, I don't know what should come next, like what should I write? That's when you get burned out?

Neal Schaffer: 26:20

Yeah, so chapter titles or ideas, bullet points, right? And just flush them out over time.

Josh Steimle: 26:25

Yeah, exactly. We talked about this earlier, having that strong purpose. Having that why is another way to keep from the burnout. And if you want to structure the writing process, so that you have lots of little why's, this isn't something I do so much. But I know a lot of people who will give themselves rewards during the writing process. So they might say, hey, every 1000 words that I write, I'm going to give myself, I don't know, some m&ms, or I'm going to read a book or something. They're giving themselves some sort of reward at different milestones throughout the book. And it's just a little bit of an extra incentive to say, okay, yeah, I'm going to do this today, because I want to get that incentive.

Neal Schaffer: 27:04

Yeah, you know, it was that outline process. It really helped me I mentioned my first book, when I did that outline and the bullet points, I realized that for a lot of the bullet points, I already had a blog post. So for those of you that have been blogging, that is how you fit your blog into the book, don't try to make a book from the blog, because you should follow Josh's advice with the strategy and everything like that. But once you have, you know, forget about what you've written, once you have that outline, then look at what you already have, that you might be able to repurpose, right.

Josh Steimle: 27:31

Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it fits better if you do the book first, and then do the blog posts from the book, or you have the book outline, and then you're writing the blog posts as part of filling in the book. But that way, it's great, because your content is aligned, you're putting your content out there before the book, you're attracting that audience that's going to buy the book. And you're also getting feedback, and you see how people respond to it. And then when you actually get the book out there, it's a better book because of testing it out in the real world on your blog, and you already have this audience that's all set up to buy that book,

Neal Schaffer: 28:04

I saw John janss Duct Tape marketing speak many moons ago when he was here in Orange County. And he was promoting the Referral Engine about referral marketing in a book he had just written in. And he was very open. He said, I I blogged this entire book, if you've been, you know, watching all of my blog posts, you will have seen the book evolve. I mean, very few people are that, you know, are that tied to to everybody's blogs, because there's just so many blogs, so much content, but it's totally okay to blog, your book. And that might be a way of of success, right of keeping to a system and making sure that content gets out there as well.

Josh Steimle: 28:34

And if blogging is too overwhelming for you, you can do social media posts, too. So I have a book that's just about ready to come out called 60 days to LinkedIn mastery. And it was just a series of posts, I just, I figured out some things on LinkedIn. So I started posting tips on LinkedIn. And I started the series called this daily LinkedIn Tip series. And I got up to 60 days. And then I realized, gee, I've basically got a book here, I just need to expand each of these with a little more detail and some case studies. And so that's what I did. I took my 60 social media posts. And each of those became a chapter in this book. I thought,

Neal Schaffer: 29:11

well, we'll have to have you on again, once you publish that book. But let's get back to now we've, we've thought through our book, we're writing it we get down to the publishing. So maybe we should talk a little bit about the publishing options that exist because that can be a little bit confusing for first time authors. How would you recommend, especially entrepreneurs navigate that the self publishing versus publishers and what have you?

Josh Steimle: 29:35

Well, everybody at a minimum, I believe, should publish a Kindle book, a paperback book and an audio book. At a minimum, those three formats and if it makes sense, also, hardcopy, but the to do the Kindle, the paperback and the audio version. You can do all of that through Amazon self publishing, and So the Kindle and the paperbacks very easy to do through Amazon, and it's all on demand. So it's not like the old days where if you published a book or self published a book, you had to go buy two or 3000 copies, and then you ended up with them sitting in your garage, because then you didn't want to sell them. It's not that way anymore. You go on Amazon, you upload your stuff in making it sound a little bit easier than it really is. But essentially, you just upload your manuscript to Amazon, and then your books there on demand. And when people order it, then they print it, and they ship it to those people. And of course, with Kindle, it's already just there. And if you do the audio version, then that's just sitting there as well. But those are the three versions you want to do, a lot of people will leave off the audio version, maybe because they're not really into audio books. And they feel like it's a really small niche audience. But audio books are the fastest growing segment of book sales right now. And if you don't do an audio book, you're missing out, I sell more copies of the audio version of my first book than the Kindle or the printed versions by a longshot. And so and this has been years that it's been that way. So if you do those three versions, it's really easy, Amazon makes it super easy for you to get your book up there. However, this is kind of a blessing and a curse. They make it so easy, that it's easy to do it badly because anybody can do it. And I still highly recommend that you hire a book cover designer that you hire a narrator to do your voiceover, that you hire an editor to edit your manuscript, because it might seem like a big cost right now. But it's relatively small compared to the benefit that you're going to get if you do those things the right way.

Neal Schaffer: 31:34

Yeah, you know, my first book back in 2009, was self published. And I am so jealous of just the resources that are available today, to authors in terms of hiring editors, book cover design, you know, voiceovers a Kindle formatting, you know, if you don't know anybody, you can go to an Upwork, you can go to a fiber, you can go to people per hour, what you whatever, you know, pick a platform, there's so many people out there that are really experienced that can help you. And over time, the quality gets better. And it actually becomes, you know, a little bit less expensive, probably the editing, I'm assuming, is where you, you end up spending a lot of money, because that really takes a lot of time. And you really want to have a professional right? Yeah, the

Josh Steimle: 32:13

editing to say more time, because that hasn't changed too much in the last 200 years, you still have to have a human being sit down and go through that it needs to be somebody skilled, but the cover design and typesetting things, I mean, this stuff is so much more affordable than it used to be in the old days, it was really hard to get a publisher to take on your book, because they had to spend 50 $100,000, to set up your book and get it all ready for printing. Whereas today, you can go find a pretty good cover designer to do your cover for 800 bucks or something which, again, if I mean, for some people, that sounds like a lot of money, but compared to what it used to be, where you would pay five or $10,000. To go through that process. It's it's so cheap today for pretty good work compared to what it used to be.

Neal Schaffer: 33:01

And I think people also need to understand that this is something that is an investment in your business. And all it takes is for a CEO of a large company, to somehow be exposed your book, read it, and say we need to hire this person. And that's exactly what has happened to me since publishing the age of influence. And just in a very, very short amount of time, I have by far recouped any of these expenses that I've had. And I think that's the mindset that however much you spend, if you pick up one client, I mean, it depends on your industry and the product and service. But that's the mindset to have like, and if you can control the expenses or invest to the point where one customer makes it up. It's a very, very small investment to make.

Josh Steimle: 33:45

Yeah, it's like they say a book is a business card on steroids. And you don't have to have a best seller to make it worth it for you. You might only sell 50 copies of your book. But if those 50 copies end up in the right hands, yeah, then it can be well worth. I mean, heck, five books in the right hands might be well worth all the time and expense and hassle of doing it. Absolutely. So

Neal Schaffer: 34:07

we've sort of gone through the process. But now we have the fact that we've come out with our book. So how do now we leverage this book to grow our business? Well, how do we improve the chances that we get the books in the right hands as well as just proactively do what we can to utilize it as a as a tool to help us grow our business?

Josh Steimle: 34:27

Sure, well, I'll tell you what doesn't work. And you probably know this as well as I do. Now, you probably don't know this because you're smarter than me. But if you just publish your book and stick it on Amazon, that doesn't work. Nothing happens. Nothing happens. Amazon does not sell your book for you, or at least they don't do a very good job of it. So if you're publishing your book and you're putting it out there, you need to invest in marketing you need to do something to drive traffic to that Amazon page or get your book into the right hands. And again, your book doesn't need to be a best seller for it to be well worth it. But If you don't do any marketing, then nobody's going to see it. And then you're getting no value out of it. So there are a lot of lots of things that you can do as the author of your book to market it. One, which is my favorite, which goes back to the PR side of things is getting it into publications like Forbes and entrepreneur and Inc, which isn't as hard as you might think one way to do it is to use a service like Help a Reporter comm or Haro. This is a system where they have journalists on one side, and magazines and you've got sources on the other side. And if you're an author listening to this, then you are a source. So you go sign up as a source. And then you look through all the opportunities that these journalists are putting out there, because they're sending out emails every single day, three times a day saying, hey, I need somebody for this story, or this story or that story. Most of them will not match you. But every once in a while one does. And you say, hey, I can speak to that. And then they might interview you are they'll ask you to contribute an answer to their article. And you get in there and it says your name, and you're the author of such and such book, and they might even link to your book. And that's how you get into these publications, which then you can also use in your marketing later to say, hey, my book, as seen in Forbes type of thing. And that gives you more even more credibility as you go. And this is a completely free service, you don't have to pay anything for this, it just takes a little bit of your time. You can also pitch the media directly, which is a little bit harder. But you can do that by reaching out to journalists that are in your niche. And ask them this is my trick. Instead of saying I wrote this book, would you like to write an article about me, which nobody will respond to that pitch? Instead of doing that, you contact the journalists that you think might be interested in what you've gotten, you say? What articles are you working on right now that I might be able to help you out with, either with information or data, or I can connect you with other sources. And then they tell you, Hey, I've got these five articles I'm working on. And if there's not a fit, try to find somebody else who is just trying to be helpful. But if there is a fit, which sometimes there will be, then you can say, hey, you know what you're writing this article, I just wrote a book on this same topic. And let me send you a copy of it. And then you send your copy to them. And you can get into these publications that way.

Neal Schaffer: 37:13

That's awesome advice. And just the book becomes, in this way, you know, I had this conversation with someone that's pretty famous in the social media world. And he was saying, No, you don't need to read another book. Because there's, there are people that are able to become influential without writing a book. But I'll tell you, when you have a book, it gives you the excuse to reach out to the Forbes of the world to the inks of the world to the journalists or to those podcasters of the world that podcast you want to be interviewed on or whatever it is, it gives you an excuse. And it gives you something fresh to talk about. Right. And I think that's a really powerful thing that a lot of people forget about books.

Josh Steimle: 37:49

Yeah. And almost nobody will turn down a book if you offer to send it to them if you offer in the right way. Now, if you offer if you go to a journalist and you say, hey, I want to send you my book. And here's a big paragraph about what it's about. And would you write an article about me, once you get it, you won't get a response to that email. But if you just send a short email, and you say I just wrote this book such and such, I'd love to send you a copy, what address Can I send it to you? That kind of email will get a response. And almost nobody will say no to that, because you're not asking for anything, you're not demanding favors or anything like that. People like getting books, they like putting them on their shelves and stuff. So that kind of email you can get in with the right people. And then you can send them the book, and then you tuck a note in there saying, Hey, I, I can answer any questions that you might have about this or anything. That's your chance. Most people mess up the pitch, though, and then they never get a response. But if you do the pitch the right way, then almost everybody will accept that in then you're getting your book in the hands of the right people, in a lot of people think of books success as book sales. But think of your book as a piece of marketing that you're sending out to people proactively. I have a friend who used to work for a group that a consulting group that does between 10 and 14 million a year in consulting fees. And their main marketing tool is a book. And he said, You know, it's funny, if I send out a pamphlet, to these people are a one page mailer to our prospective customers, they'll throw it in the trash. But if I send them a 200 page book, they'll read the whole thing. And then they'll call me up and say, This is great. We want to hire you. And this company has done business with NASA and other people. They're signing million dollar contracts. So start looking at your book as a 200 page marketing tool that people will actually read versus the direct mail and other stuff that you send out that goes straight in the trash. I mean, it's it's kind of a miracle.

Neal Schaffer: 39:42

Yeah. And once you know what to do with it, it becomes the miracle. And that's something that, you know, without that experience, people just don't know. So Josh, this has been really great information. I know that some people listening may be going you know what, maybe I should write the book. So can you tell us a little bit about this program that you have right now as well as how people can find you on the internet.

Josh Steimle: 40:01

Sure. So I run a program called published author. And I help entrepreneurs to self publish a nonfiction book, like a how to book or a business book. And then we build a thought leadership system around that book so they can leverage it to grow their business. So we're helping them set up their email newsletter, and blog the right way and use social media the right way. And we walk them through a bunch of steps so that they're writing the right book. And by that it's a 12 month program. And by the time they're done with those 12 months, they've got the book, they've got this whole system, that's all around it with lead magnets, and people subscribing to emails and everything, and they're growing their business. And it's not that you start the program. And then after 12 months, you start getting business, we focus on leveraging that book from day one. Sometimes even before the person knows what the book is, because you can still go out there on social media and say, Hey, I'm writing a book, anybody want to guess what it's about? You might not even know what it's about. But you might get some interesting feedback from your audience. And then people know that you're reading a book, and that's on their radar. And then you can go post and say, Alright, here's the title of my book. And here's the topic. And here's what I'm focusing on. And that way, you're already promoting your book. And you might even attract clients or business. Well, in advance of the book being published that way.

Neal Schaffer: 41:15

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I did that exact same thing with the age of influence and unintended Lee, but that's great that you have that program. So what's the URL that people can go to to learn, you know, more,

Josh Steimle: 41:27

published author.com.

Neal Schaffer: 41:29

Easy peasy, Josh, thank you so much for you know, sharing all of your experiences and wisdom with the world. And I hope that people will check out published author.com, if that's the route that you want to take. And hey, thanks again for being on the podcast. I hope we can see each other soon when this pandemic nonsense is over.

Josh Steimle: 41:46

Likewise, thanks so much now. Alright, everybody,

Neal Schaffer: 41:49

I hope you enjoyed that episode with Josh timely, hopefully, if you've ever thought about writing a book, there is no better time to write one than now. So I hope you'll join me in that challenge. And I also want to tell you about a really cool online event before you go, I haven't really published a lot about this and Social, I'm gonna start doing it now. But I want you to know that I am actually going to be keynoting what is called the Social Media Festival. This is being put on by meltwater, one of the absolute leaders in enterprise social listening, social media management, and what have you, this is going to be October 6, and 13th. I am creating all new content for this, which I've been working on for quite some time now. And the content is really all about looking at social media in an entirely new way. The topic is called it's time to reset how you measure social media ROI. So I hope that you'll join me, I will have a link to sign up it is absolutely free. Other people like Ann Handley, hopefully you've heard of her, one of the top three or four thought leaders in content marketing, she's going to be speaking one of the bloggers that used to contribute to my blog, Jen Herman, who is another absolute thought leader in Instagram marketing is going to be speaking, as well as several others. So I hope you'll take the opportunity to sign up and check out those virtual presentations. And, well, if you've listened this far, I always appreciate any review that you might be able to leave this podcast on Apple podcasts or really everywhere where you might be listening to the podcast reviews really do make the difference in the algorithms and just helping this podcast reach more people I have been noticing that as of lately, this podcast continues to top or go up the charts. I'm not gonna say top the chart does not number one by any means. But you know, become a top 100 marketing podcast on a lot of charts throughout the world. So I want to thank you for that. And really, every time you're able to review the podcast that just helps it get exposed and hopefully when people listen, they like it and they they want to hear more. So also don't forget to hit the subscribe button. We have a lot of great interviews coming up actually doing a recording a batch of them as we speak, really excited about all the various advice that you're hopefully going to be able to glean from this podcast. But that's it for today. Everybody, wherever you're on the world, make it a great virtual social Day. Bye Bye and CYO nada