Go From No Book to Published Author in as Little as 6 Months with Kevin Anderson: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire! Brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Gold Digger Podcast. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to go from no book to publish author in as little as six months. To drop these value bombs, I brought Kevin Anderson into EO Fire Studios. Kevin is the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Kevin Anderson and Associates, the industry leader in providing ghostwriting and editing services to publishers, literary agencies, and authors, including hundreds of national bestsellers.

0:38In today's FIRE Nation, we'll talk about how hiring the right team can save you a lot of headache. Writing the book is just a first part FIRE Nation. There's so many more goals afterwards. Every day, every month, or year you don't write a book is one that you're not reaping the rewards of having that book and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Kevin and our sponsors. Nudge, hosted by Phil Agnew, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Ever notice how the smallest changes can have the biggest impact?

1:07On Nudge, you learn simple evidence-backed tips to help you kick bad habits, get a raise, and grow a business. Oh, and it's the UK's Fast-Growing Business Podcast. A recent episode on how to win any argument shares decade-long research into persuasion from a world-leading neuroscientist. Listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts. Kevin, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful. that most people disagree with? Thanks, John. If there's one thing I could say would be to prioritize action over deliberation because if you keep deliberating over doing something, it'll never get done and just goes in that one day pile instead of the today pile.

1:49I mean, one thing that I see all the time, Fire Nation, are people thinking they need to see the whole path laid out in front of them. But that Martin Luther King quote is so true. You don't have to see the whole staircase to take that first step. So make action your priority. Deliberation, lame, don't do it. Now, as I kind of mentioned at the top of the episode, we're talking about going from no book, I mean, zero book, I mean, maybe not even an idea for a book, to a published author in as little as six months. And we're gonna be talking to a person, Kevin, who has helped so many. We're talking hundreds of thousands of people do just this.

2:28So first off, let's just get down to the meat and potatoes, Kevin, why? Why should I write a book? For a business owner, a book is one of the most single effective ways to draw attention to your business and establish you as a real authority in your space. The ROI isn't usually in book sales for most entrepreneurs, but when you're looking at the overall impact of getting visibility for your business, the publicity that can come with publishing a book, as well as just really being that authority in your space and setting yourself apart from the crowd, the value in a book is immense. And it's something that lasts years, three, four, five years down the road, when a client is deliberating between picking you or another company that's similar, and they see that you have a book, that you've written a book about the topic, that really differentiates you from the competition.

3:24I literally love when people can say, you know what, I wrote the book on this. Like I wrote a book on podcasting, or I wrote a book on Twitter. I wrote a book on fill in the blank. I mean, there's so many long-term benefits. I mean, it gives you this authority, Fire Nation. It gives you this potential ROI down the road, return on investment that you've done one time. But now this is like your calling card. This is like your business card. So talk more about the authority, the sales, the media. What have you seen? Anytime you're coming out with a book, it's considered an event. So when you're publishing a book and, you know, you'll notice, you know, if you if you listen to a lot of podcasts, which I'm sure you do, a lot of times you'll see at the very end of the podcast.

4:03So if someone is promoting a book and they'll say, you know, they'll announce the book and you can discover it on Amazon or buy it wherever books are sold. And this is because when when an author comes out with a book media, you know, they want they want to have experts on said topic to to provide commentary on on on that topic. So you're going to see a wide range of media and podcasts and other places that are going to want to promote you as an author because you recently wrote a book on the topic. Let's talk a little bit about the sales. Let's talk about the media. Let's talk about the ROI. For most entrepreneurs, the book sales is not really where you're going to get your ROI, but it's more in caliber of client that you're going to get that's going to come your way instead of going in another direction, as well as just the general visibility that that media is going to provide for you and your business.

4:57And also SEO value. If someone looks you up online, that book is going to rank really high in an SEO and they're going to see you in that book and know that you're a real authority in that space. Now, what if you're one of 99.9 % of people who just feel like they have no time? I'm so busy, John. My life is so full. I have so many things to do. Nothing ever gets done. Wow. Sitting down to write a book, that whole process seems so beyond overwhelming and time consuming. I can't even think about it. So what do you say to those people that think they don't have time or potentially even the expertise to write a book?

5:37Some time commitment that goes into writing a book, obviously, especially if you really want the message to be true to you. However, it doesn't take as much time as many people think, or at least it doesn't have to. You can hire writers, you can hire a whole team to help you write that book. And it can happen in a lot less time than many people realize. Even as few as eight hours of time dedicated to the project with the right team that you're leveraging to do interviews with your company, with your colleagues, doing research. and all these other things for you, really leveraging those skills, you're able to put a relatively small amount of time into this project and get a really great product as a result.

6:27And I tell clients all the time, every day and month and year that you don't have a book is another month, day or year that you're not reaping all those benefits of having that book. Because once that book is out there, those benefits, um, you know, they, they happened, uh, for, for, for a long duration. So the earlier you get your book out there, the, the, the more, more time you're going to have, um, to really experience those benefits. Now you've worked with a lot of clients and you know, there's some people who you can mention, some people who, um, you cannot mention, but like, what would be like a really short and anonymous example of somebody that you've worked with in the past?

7:03Like, what does that actually look like in a real world example of someone who maybe came to you, said, you know what, I don't really have the time. I may not even have the specific expertise right now on this thing, but this is the book that I want to write, or this is a book that I want to be out in the world with my name and my picture and my face on it. What did that process look like? We've had a number of clients who they want to write a book on the topic. They have limited time and they don't really, they want to make sure they have the book. They're not really sure exactly how they want to write it.

7:29And so we'll often do a deep dive into the marketplace and really see what kind of book is really selling and what kind of book is going to make the most impact. And so a lot of the time that we'll spend for the client on their behalf is really figuring out the marketplace and exactly what kind of book is going to really resonate with their target audience and with the type of clients that they may want to attract. And sometimes the client is just coming to us with a concept, a basic concept. They have their website. They have whatever other materials that we can review. And a short interview with them, maybe a couple three to four hour long interviews at the most, or we meet with them in person to kind of get a real sense for them, a one or two day activity.

8:19And from there, we can really flesh out the outlines, flesh out the structure, get the voice down, make sure that it sounds great to the client and that it really matches their style. and really if we can flesh out the book from there, maybe only another couple of rounds of review to make sure that everything is looking good and we can put a whole book together. So I published my book on March 23rd of 2021, The Common Path to Uncommon Success. And it was a process. It was all inclusive. It was all consuming. It was eight months in a row of waking up every single morning and the first two hours of my calendar were dedicated to writing this book.

9:02It was 480 total writing hours I spent, not to mention the editing time and all the other jazz that went into it. And frankly, most people don't have that time, Fire Nation. And frankly, I wasn't sure that I was able and willing to commit that kind of time. So I actually talked to Kevin and I really, really came close to working with him and his team because I was like, you know, this is probably gonna be the best use of my time. It's gonna produce the best book possible. but at the end, like I did look at my schedule and I was like, you know what, this is like a hurdle that I do want to overcome that I want to jump over myself.

9:35And there are many times, many times that I regretted it. And I was like, Kevin, please help me. But you know, I'd already started down that path. It was too late. And, but I do want to make very clear to you, Fire Nation, that like, I strongly, strongly consider going down this path and have a lot of friends, peers in my industry who did and who are very, very happy with it. And they have a great final result. So let's talk about the why. Why should somebody hire someone else to help write their book? Let's talk about that. You know, to be clear too, you know, there's different levels of involvement that one can have in writing a book, right?

10:13I mean, you can hire a team to handle it, you know, in the way that I just mentioned, where, you know, you're only spending a couple of hours on the front end, and then they're really doing the rest of the work. However, that doesn't work for everybody. But what you do need is help in some way or another. Every professional writer works with an editor. And whether you want to hire out the entire process or whether you want to write it yourself and just work alongside an editor or a book coach to help you make sure that you're doing everything in the best way and most sufficient way possible, it's really important for most authors to hire somebody to help them write their book in one way or another.

10:57And as an entrepreneur, I mean, you should be used to this, right? I mean, I hope you don't do your own payroll or your own taxes. You might be a part of that process, of course, but you're hiring professionals to handle all of that because it's a complicated world and you want to make sure that you're doing it the right way and that someone's, And you also want to, you know, you want to guard your time, make sure you're focusing on your business and doing what you do best. So when you're hiring, the reason why you hire a writer or writing team to help you is to make sure that you're not wasting time and to make sure that your book is actually really great and that you're not working in an echo chamber.

11:31that can also save you a lot of heartache on the publishing side when it comes to just guiding you through the whole process to make sure that from the very beginning to the very end of this process that you're doing things the right way and that you're actually going to get a result in the end that's of value to you and that's going to serve your professional or personal goals. It's such a valid point, Fire Nation, when you look at it the right way, which is, listen, you obviously hire an accountant to your taxes. You obviously hire a marketer to run your ads. I mean, you want to scale and leverage your time.

12:02You can't do everything. In fact, you shouldn't be doing everything. And that's why a lot of my peers who have written some of them, New York Times bestselling books have done it this way because they know that their skillset is not sitting down and writing. You know, someone who's actually very public about this is Gary Vaynerchuk. Like he's a terrible writer, but he has great content. He just needs some help writing the actual book and making it incredibly well received and very readable and very enjoyable. And actually, I was featured in his book in 2018, Crushing It. I was chapter 14, and I worked with the team that he hired to essentially write his book.

12:34And it was a very enjoyable process, and it came out absolutely fantastic. And we have so much more awesomeness coming up, Fire Nation, when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship. More things added to your to-do list every day and less time to accomplish the things that matter most. Add to all that the number of tools it takes to run your coaching programs, online courses, growing team, and your physical product sales, and you've really got your hands full. Doing business has never felt harder. But what if there was a way to simplify everything, a way to manage your entire business with a single platform?

13:07Sounds like you'll need a miracle to make it happen, doesn't it? Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't need a miracle to hit your goals. You just need HubSpot. HubSpot's all-on-one customer platform can make growing your business infinitely easier Imagine this, a platform that gives you high quality leads, helps you close deals faster, and one that promotes customer loyalty and happiness. And if you're looking for record-breaking quarters, those are just ahead too. It's not a miracle, it's HubSpot. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today. Entrepreneurs on Fire is sponsored by BetterHelp. As entrepreneurs, the comparison game is real, and we've all experienced it to some degree.

13:47whether it's comparing your recent launch to someone else's or second-guessing your team setup because another business owner said having more employees is better, there's one truth. Comparison is the thief of joy. Not sure how to get out of the cycle of comparing your business to others? Well, therapy can help you focus on how you want to run your business versus how others say you should be doing it. Therapy can actually be helpful in a number of ways. It can help you learn positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, and help empower you to start being the best version of yourself. And all of these skills are so important when it comes to running a business.

14:20So if you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's convenient, flexible, and all online. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash fire today to get 10 % off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash fire. So Kevin, I think a question a lot of people ask, and fairly so, because we just don't really know that much. In fact, I didn't really know that much about this side of the book writing industry before I got into it myself and had great conversations with you and your team, et cetera.

14:59But if somebody else writes or actually even just helps you write your book, is it really still yours? Absolutely. It's 100 % yours. You are always going to be the author of your book. The ideas, the concept, all of that is going to come from you. And you really, you're just hiring a sophisticated pen that helps you to get those amazing ideas onto the paper. And so it's always going to, you're the author of the book. All that content is yours. But just like, you know, not everybody is a writer. There's so many great entrepreneurs, so many great business leaders who have incredible wisdom to share.

15:41but their skill set is not to write, isn't in actual writing. So hiring someone to just make sure that that's done well and that your message is being delivered in an articulate way is a really common thing to do for a lot of celebrities, major public figures, and of course, business leaders. And Fire Nation, one thing I would just kind of hark back to is how are you best utilizing your time? What are the 80-20 of your business? What's the 20 % of things that you need and can and should be doing? And then what's the other things that you can hire out, that you can outsource? And again, it's not an all or nothing.

16:23There's different parts of it. You can have somebody be assisting you with that process, coming up with maybe a table of contents or an outline or a structure, or maybe it's going to be the whole kinkaboodle. It can really be something from all to none to anywhere in the middle. And that's when you talk to companies like Kevin's and you discuss what you're looking for and then they come up with a customized strategy for you. Now, one area that I, again, had firsthand experience with that's so difficult is that you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into this book. You know, for me, it was a decade of interviewing over 3 ,000 of the world's most inspiring entrepreneurs, gathering their genius into the 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment.

17:03But now I want to get it out to the world. And I didn't really have that much experience. and really coming up with a publishing strategy for the book to really focus on maximizing that ROI, maximizing that reach, maximizing the sales, everything involved. And of course, when you work Fire Nation with somebody who's been doing this for years and it's had a lot of success, they know the best types of publishing strategies to get you the best ROI for everything you're doing, financially, reach, et cetera. So let's talk about that. The type of publishing strategies that right now are best for ROI, that return on investment?

17:41Writing a book is only the first part of it, right? There's the whole publishing strategy and also just making sure that you're achieving the goals that you have for your book. You can write a great book, but if you're not able to publish it in a way that actually fulfills your goals for your business or your professional life, then all that writing could be wasted. Now, there's a lot of different ways to publish a book. And, you know, it's important to have a sense for this very early on and figure out the path that's going to work best for you based on your budget and your existing platform.

18:17And by thinking through exactly what your goals are for the book and what's feasible, that's going to change the kind of publishing strategy that you're going to take. So, obviously, there's self-publishing, which has been very popular the last 10, 15 years, especially. The classic self-publishing model, I don't recommend it in particular just because I feel like then you're getting into that process of having to hire a designer, hire an editor, hire all these different pieces and parts and do it all yourself or do it all yourself, which is going to lead to inefficiencies and not a great final product.

18:55A lot of limitations, too, when you're doing a self-publishing release. A popular publishing model that's risen up in the last couple of years is the hybrid publishers or professional publishers. These can be really great for authors that are looking to publish their book in a relatively quick time frame. Some of these outfits can get books out within even three months. They could have your book published. Some of them even have distribution to retail channels and will even work to sell and market your book, and some of them do it quite well. But the hybrid model, it is a pay-to-play model. So there are costs involved.

19:38You're basically financing their costs to make sure that they're able to do this. And, you know, it's not quite as it's not quite as prestigious as a traditional publisher because the fact is that they they do pretty much publish anything that, you know, as long as an author can pay for it, you know, they're most likely going to publish it. I mean, there are some standards, some are better than others, but for the most part, it is a play to pay type of an arrangement. But it can be a really great it can be really great value for a lot of authors. And it's a way to also make sure that you can get that book out there.

20:10So that's an option for basically any entrepreneur can write a book and get it published through a hybrid or professional publisher. And then, of course, there's the route that you went through, which is the traditional publishing avenue. And this is an avenue, a lot of clients come to us for this specifically because of our relationships within the traditional publishing industry. And this is often sought by authors who have a big platform, who already have a lot of visibility. and publishers are really looking for that. They want to know that they're going to sell a lot of books and make back their investment.

20:46So if you have a big platform and you're okay with waiting a year or a year and a half for your book to come out, this can be a really great option. The publisher is going to pay you an advance to publish the book. In general, the quality of the editorial teams at a traditional publisher is much greater than a non-traditional publisher. They also have a lot of connections. When you compare, if you just go look at a website and you look at the books that have been published by any given non-traditional publisher, and then you go to a traditional publisher, you're going to see a real dramatic difference in just the caliber of author that they're publishing.

21:28And a lot of times they have connections to those authors that can help you with promoting your book as well. And then it's a lot easier to get publicity when you're with a traditional publisher. It is a little bit of a, you know, a lot of publicists use that as a filter, a quality filter. If it's, you know, with the big house, they know that it must be at a certain standard. So they're going to be, they're going to vet it a lot less, they're going to vet it a lot more loosely than if you were with a non-traditional publisher. So that can make a big difference in terms of the type of media that you can get.

22:05and just your ability to really promote that book and get it in front of readers. And one thing about the traditional route, there are those horror stories that I'm sure everyone's heard that as soon as they sold their book to the publisher, they completely redid it and it was no longer their book and they lost all control. But that really doesn't happen. Publishers are looking for, they're mostly looking for turnkey solutions. if they offer you a deal for your book, it's because they want your book, not a different book that they're going to then make on their own. So you do sell the rights, but you're going to be a part of that process all the way through.

22:45You're going to have say in what the book cover looks like. You're going to say in the title. You're going to have say on every edit that goes into that book. So that's not really a fear that most authors should worry about. You can just see, Fire Nation, the wealth of knowledge that Kevin possesses. So this is why you tune into these episodes so you can learn from the experts in the industry. I know that in my conversation with him that I had when I was kind of going through this process in my mind of learning and gathering intel, that the conversation I had with Kevin was absolutely amazing.

23:16So I really want to end with a bang, Kevin. I want to talk about KAA. That's Kevin Anderson and Associates. This is your company. This is what you've been doing for a long time now. You have been an industry leader providing ghostwriting and editing services to publishers, literary agencies, authors, and we're even talking hundreds of national bestsellers. So what do you do differently for authors? Break this down. Well, I think one of the biggest differences with our firm is that we just occupy unique space within the industry. And we because we do work directly with publishers. They hire us to write books for their authors.

23:58You know, like HarperCollins, we've done about 25 books with them in the last couple of years alone. We work with a lot of literary agents doing the same. We write proposals for them as well as write books for their for their clients. And then also hybrid publishers. We also work with hybrid publishers doing the same. And similarly, we feed authors into all of these different avenues. We feed them to agents, to traditional publishers. We do agenting directly to all the major publishers. And we feed a lot of our authors into really great hybrid publishers as well. So the fact that we're in this space where we're not actually a publisher, we don't do marketing or publicity here either, but it puts us in this position where we can really recommend the best possible path for our authors.

24:54And because we've done, we've literally done thousands of books and we've worked with all kinds of different publicists and marketers and hybrid publishers and traditional publishers and agents. You know, we just are in a position where we really know who's really great for which author and what path is really going to be ideal for them. And then we can make all the make that all happen for them, get them the right introductions, put the right plan together. And then we help manage and implement that plan and really become the author's advocate throughout the whole process. So that way, it's not just hiring a writer, you're really hiring a navigator to help you figure out your plan, figure out what's really reasonable within your budget and within your platform, what you want from the timeline, what you want from your book, your professional goals.

25:40And then we'll just, we'll be holding their hand all the way through, all the way through publication and then even beyond. So one thing I do kind of want to end on is talking a little bit about the timeline, because sometimes you can get the info that you need from a potential author in just eight hours and then published in as few as six months. I mean, obviously, timelines will vary based on a lot of things, but just share some of those details. If that's really important to your professional goals is to dedicate as little time as possible, then that is a reasonable expectation. um so you know right we've written we've written full-length books in as as little as as as four weeks um you know it's it's and even three months if we really make sure that the author has you know i mean obviously you're going to want to have time to review the drafts um and you're going to need to give some time to the planning phase which is the most important part of the whole process um you know there is a path where we can have a full-time team writing that book uh in as little list three months.