6 Mistakes Authors Make {NEW PODCAST EPISODE}

Welcome to the very first episode of Season 2 of the Page Up podcast. In this season, I’m going to be sharing with you what’s working now in the world of books. Almost every industry has seen dramatic changes in 2020, and publishing is no different. So I thought it was the perfect time to bring back Page Up Podcast.

 

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Podcast: Download (27:19, 39.4MB)

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Learn how to make $10k with your book at PageUpPodcast.com

 

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In this episode you will learn:

• 1:28 -6 big mistakes business owners make
• 3:38- Will your idea sell?
• 6:22- How do you own your message?
• 9:35- Is your book topic too broad?
• 14:12- Is your brain holding you back?
• 18:20- Can your idea make money before you write your book?
• 22:30- Will you make money from book sales?

 

Full Episode Transcript:

 

EPISODE 1 OF SEASON 2 ON PAGE UP!

 

THE PODCAST HOSTED BY ME, DR. ANGELA LAURIA, FOUNDER OF THE AUTHOR INCUBATOR AND CREATOR OF THE DIFFERENCE PROCESS FOR WRITING A BOOK THAT MATTERS

 

Over the last seven years, I’ve helped over 1000 people get their books written, published promoted, and got their books out there in the world making a difference.

 

In this season, I’m going to be sharing with you what’s working now in the world of books. Almost every industry has seen dramatic changes in 2020, and publishing is no different. So I thought it was the perfect time to bring back Page UpPodcast.

 

It’s been a while. But in this season we’re going to dig into specifically:

-What is working now in the world of books

-How nonfiction authors are growing their businesses with a book

-How you can use a book to find people who need your help—RIGHT NOW

-How you can use your book to raise your credibility and build a leadership platform

 

I hope you are prepared to dig into a new period in marketing history, a period of time where solving problems is more important than ever—and communicating your message, your relevancy, and your ability to make an impact for people, is what’s going to determine the difference between you and one of your competitors getting a business.

We will talk about how business owners can use a book in 2020 to grow their business and protect their revenue and the clients.

In this episode I specifically want to look at the mistakes that I’m seeing people make out there. So many people have decided now is the time to write a book, but they’re falling prey to some common mistakes authors make, and it’s more important than ever that you don’t waste your time or resources writing the wrong book.

 

Here are the six mistakes that business owners make when they’re trying to write a book to

grow their business.

 

MISTAKE #1

This is the biggest mistake that I see so many business owners that want to write a book are:
-Thinking about what knowledge THEY have

-What THEY want to share

-What THEY’RE most interested in

-What THEY think people need to know.

 

They will maybe go for a walk, go for a drive, get a bunch of ideas. They even can’t wait to share it with anyone and often the person that they share it with is MUAH!

More than ever in the last couple months I have been brain dumped on by people who want to share their book ideas. And so often these ideas have one thing in common—nd it is an Achilles heel, that will kill your book project in its tracks. And that is that the idea is about what YOU want to share, and not about what PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR, or what people are HUNGRY FOR.

 

One of the things we spend the most time with, with our clients, here at The Author Incubator is identifying the intersection between the current market – what’s happening in the market NOW, and your mission, or your message.

 

Most people writing a book on their own are focused on what THEY want to share, the message, the movement THEY care about, what THEY’RE most interested in. And they’re not as focused on what the market is hungry for right now—there is a cross section, but it’s up to you to identify that cross section before you start even thinking about getting specific about your book. One of the things that’s hard about this mistake is what you can get most easily excited about is the book—you want to write. BUT, WILL THERE BE ANYONE TO READ IT?

 

Now, the most powerful book in the world, the best-written book, the book that has the most important message—THAT book cannot make a difference if it doesn’t get into people’s hands, into their hearts, and change their lives or businesses. So, no matter how good your message is and how excited you are about it. We want to start first by understanding the marketplace and where we can weasel your message in there.

 

If you’re making this mistake, check yourself before you wreck yourself. This one is a deal killer.

 

MISTAKE #2

 

This also has to do with mindset. And this one is a mistake that I see over and over again, especially in women. So, ladies, are y’all paying attention?  Guys don’t do this as much and I’m not sure why, but so often I will meet a woman who is so excited about her book that the first thing she does, is asks everyone else what they think about it.

 

OH MY GOD, these people are not book experts. Your job as the leader of your movement and   your job as the author of your forthcoming book is to OWN YOUR MESSAGE! When you go out there and randomly survey people, and actually care about their opinion, you will get thrown off.

 

Let me spoil the surprise here… you will not please everyone. Your goal is to only please the people who your book is written for, so don’t ask the wrong people for their advice on your book

People NOT to ask are: your old college roommate, your mother, your friends from your life coach training program. The people TO ask, are the people you want to serve.

The way that you ask your prospects is by simply asking them BEFORE you even write your book to buy it. Yep. I know it’s crazy, but the best way to find out if you have a good idea is to actually offer it and see who takes it. Come up with a book topic that you want to write on. Offer a free training, it could be a free Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube Live, it could be a free webinar, could be a free class. Offer something free by the name that you want to give your book. If you can’t get anybody to sign up for your free thing, it’s going to be hard to sell a book.

 

So remember, even the juiciest peach will not be delicious to someone who does not like peaches. You are not everybody’s fruit. So, don’t ask for the wrong people for advice.

 

MISTAKE #3

 

Bad authors who want to write a book, very often think broadly… and I’m going to date myself here and I’m probably going to date you, too. But the reason we make this mistake is, if you are over 40, particularly you grew up in market before the internet, where there was a limited amount of shelf space, because in a bookstore, most bookstores would hold maybe 250,000 books. There was a limited number of books, and so the books we grew up reading were very generic—they were very broad topic books. That’s because we didn’t have the internet.

 

What’s changed in the last 20 years, and what has been dramatically expedited as we see the closing down of bookstores, almost completely, is that specific books now sell 10 to 1 of what generic books sell.

 

The impact you can make as a new author by solving a small and specific problem is 10 times the impact you can make by solving a big generic problem. I’m going to give you a very specific example from one of our authors.

 

One of our authors came to me and she said, “Now more than ever I feel like moms need to focus on self-care. They have to put the oxygen mask over their own nose and mouth first. They need to put themselves on their own priority list.”

It’s a big generic topic—self-care for moms. It’s really hard to find a market for that topic. Unless you’re running billboards in Times Square, which, most of us—let’s face it—don’t have the marketing budget for that. So what we focused on with her instead, were moms of special needs kids who wanted to start a business because they needed to stay home with their kids.

Wow—we just took this generic idea of self-care for moms, and we’re focusing now on moms have special needs kids who are starting a business. Now, self-care is still an important part of her message, but by focusing on mothers of special needs kids, suddenly, we know what to write, and more importantly, how to get that book into people’s hands. Why? Because moms with special needs kids have groups that they’re members of on social media, sites they participate in, and organizations that they are connected to that we can partner with. It’s now easy to get that book into people’s hands. When you’re writing generically you’re going to write a much bigger book, trying to fit it into a bunch of slots. But you can write a smaller book and smaller books sell better now. People have shorter attention spans.

 

The average nonfiction book used to be 120,000 words 20 years ago. It’s now 30,000 words. A smaller, more concise book that is specific rather than general is going to find its audience 10 times faster. Don’t make the mistake of writing a generic book just because those were the books that we read growing up. All right, Boomers? Let’s fix this one.

 

MISTAKE #4

 

What I want to share has to do with your brain, and how your brain works. Most people naturally want to write their book and edit as they go. They want to write a chapter, write a paragraph, read the paragraph, edit the paragraph, write another paragraph, read that paragraph, go back read the first paragraph, read those first two paragraphs. And they added so much, they never finished their manuscript.

 

I want to tell you the SECRET to how our authors get their books written in just 24 to 48 hours consistently. We’ve had over 1000 authors who have written their book in just 24 to 48 hours. And here’s the secret and here is how your brain works.

 

When you’re writing you’re in, ideally, a flow state—you’re more focused on the right side of your brain, you’re creative, ideas are coming, you’re typing, and if you’re not sure what this feels like I have an example that I like to share.

 

If you were writing your best friend a birthday card and you were telling your best friend how much you love her and how much she means to you., how that would just come out of your fingertips, how easy it would be to write that message because it’s coming from this place of love. That is much more right brain feminine artistic in that state of flow. When you’re editing, you’re in that school brain, that left side of your brain—that logical, that analytical part of your brain. You’re looking at it… you’re saying, “does that make sense, is that very good, I don’t know…” You’re judging and you’re critiquing. These are all wonderful parts of your brain that we want to keep, but when we cross pattern between your left and right hemisphere of your brain… We actually slow down or clamp your creative side. So the biggest mistake that I see authors make when it comes to writing, is that they’re editing as they go. You want to hack into your flow by writing your book, all the way through.

 

The mantra that we use with our authors here at The Author Incubator is, “KEEP WRITING FORWARD.” When you get to the end of your book there will be plenty of time to edit. But for now, keep writing forward.

 

 

MISTAKE #5

 

Most people write their book, and then market. It’s the “Home Alone” mistake. You do not want to be caught home alone with your book—we have to start making money from your book, ideally before you even put a word on the page.

 

Well, what!? How do you do that?

 

The key is to start selling before you write. You’ll remember that, with Mistake number two… people often ask the wrong people for advice. You know what’s better than advice? GETTING CASH.

 

The way you do that is by simply sharing. “I’m thinking about writing a book on how to make $10,000 from your book. I want to test this out by doing a quick webinar—if you’d be interested in participating in a class on how to make $10,000 from your book, let me know.” Offer them the opportunity to get something for free on the topic you are writing your book on.

Then you’ll actually run that class that webinar, you’ll teach that topic, and at the end of it, you can invite people to actually study with you. Either as a consultant, a coaching client or maybe just get on the phone with you for some of the products and services you offer now.

If you use the same book title and hooks that you’re thinking of using in your book, offer something for free, get leads, and then sell them something so that you can actually use your book to start making money before you write a word.

As you write each chapter you can share that chapter, and the problem that chapter solves that leads to more clients.

 

Here is a fun story of how I did this once when I took a cruise down the Danube River from Vienna to Belgrade. On the cruise there were seven days and seven stops. At each stop along the cruise I wrote another step in my “Make ‘Em Beg To Publish Your Book” process.

With each step, I shared what stop I was in and shared what that chapter was about (maybe that chapter was about how to get an agent for your book) and I said,”Hey while I’m at the paprika farm, if you’re interested in getting an agent, send me a message and I’ll send you this chapter early.”

Every day I would go off on this cruise, see another thing, and when I would come home from whatever that day’s activity was, I’d have a drink and look at all the leads I’d gotten that day.

Sure enough, every day on that cruise, I got a new client and in seven days I made $45,000 from a book that I hadn’t even written yet.

 

Make money from your book by marketing it before you write it and while you’re writing it.

 

 

MISTAKE #6

 

This one’s a BUZZ KILL!

 

I’m sorry… You’re not going to make money from book sales! People used to—it used to work that way. But really, unless you’re Michelle Obama, you just gotta give up that dream. The way that you will make money from your book is by using the book to get leads for other products and services you offer.

Start first by identifying one product or service that you want to sell from this one book. Most people try and write a big book on every topic because they want to make money from book sales.

Not going to happen. No way, not how it works!

 

What IS working now is having one aspect of your business you want to promote with a book and then write a book just to promote that particular service.

Fill the book with case studies and lessons and experience and give everything away. This is what’s going to make people want to work with you. This is how people make money from a book.

 

Now, I’m going to share with you one of the inside circle secrets that I only share with my authors, but now I’m going to share it with you.

Each and every dollar you make from book sales—and when you write a book you will make SOME money from book sales—should be spent on the very important task of buying shoes. Ask any of my authors and they will tell you, the purpose of money from book sales is to buy shoes.

If you remember that rule then when you get money from your book you’ll be so excited to go shoe shopping. But if you’re thinking it’s going fund your business, pay your mortgage, get you set up for your retirement, you are likely to be sadly mistaken.

If you think of book sales money as shoe money, you’re going to be happy like all of my authors are.

 

I see people out there making these mistakes, and they are costing people time and money. I wanted to reboot Page Up Podcastso that you don’t make these mistakes too.

 

In Season 2 of Page up we’re going to be talking about what’s working NOW. I’m going to introduce you to some of my most successful six- and seven-figure authors and the way that they are thriving in the new normal. You’ll meet some of our authors who are out there crushing it and making the world a better place at the same time.

I’m also going to dig up from the archive some of my most potent teaching. This is stuff I’ve always reserved to teach live and I’m making it available on the podcast.

I believe right now we need to help each other more than ever to keep our businesses safe and keep our clients safe to grow our businesses through all the chaos and turmoil that’s out there.,

 

We might not be able to control the world, but we can control the difference we are making it. That is why our focus is changing the world, one book at a time!