How to Go From Blank Page to Published Author in 90 Days with Chandler Bolt: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Science of Scaling. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how to go from blank page to published author in 90 days. To drop these value bombs, I are brought to Chandler Bolt and the EO Fire Studios. Chandler is an investor, advisor, and CEO of Self Publishing School and SelfPublishing.com and the author of six best-selling books, including his most recent book titled Published.

0:37And today, Foundation, we'll talk about the steps to start writing your book, to narrow down the idea which you will choose first, and how to finish, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chandler and our sponsors. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work. A recent episode on whether vulnerability is a superpower in business is a must listen.

1:08Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Chandler, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? I'm excited to be here. I've got two, you know, it's hard to choose, so I've got two. One is my favorite quote, which is don't take advice from someone you wouldn't gladly switch places with. And I think there's a lot of people who take advice from people they wouldn't want to switch places with. And so I think the takeaway there is contextualize the advice that you're getting.

1:46And the second is this, everyone's looking for a mentor. And I don't know if this is something people necessarily wouldn't agree with, but maybe just a different take. But a lot of books are$15 mentors. And so kind of this concept that you can get the smartest, most successful people on the planet to mentor you for 15 bucks in a few hours of your time by reading that book. And so just like people are doing with your new book. I love both of those things. I'm glad you didn't choose one. I think they're both critical for Fire Nation to consume, to understand, to learn from, and yes, everything Fire Nation.

2:25And we're going to be talking today about how to go from blank page to published author in 90 days. And let's just dive right in because my audience is going to be like, okay, that all sounds cool, but why, why should Fire Nation write a book? Well, I believe that books change lives, right? So, you know, books change the life of the reader when they read the book, just like all the people who are going to read your book. And then books change the lives of the author in the process of writing the book. So it's not about It's not about the book. It's about who you become in the process. But beyond that, there's another concept I talk about.

2:59I call it leveraged impact. And so the ability to do work once and then impact people for long after you're off this earth. So whether it's hundreds of people, thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, millions of people, I believe that a book is the best way to make a long lasting impact, but then also to actually grow your income and to grow your business. So if you do it strategically, you can use a book to generate more leads, to generate more referrals, and generate more sales for your business. So lead sales and referrals, that's what I look at from a business perspective, and you've got the impact perspective.

3:37Man, Fire Nation, I just got to say, listen, there's some upfront work you can do in certain things that can continue to pay dividends for years, decades, and sometimes even lifetimes to come. I mean, literally, I just got an email from somebody that said, Hey, John, I just listened to episode 147. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for interviewing that individual. And I looked back, I recorded that episode back in 2012. And here in 2021, they're enjoying that content that I created way back in the day. Just think about you taking 90 days of your life, sitting down and writing a book with your thoughts, your understandings, your expertise, your passions, and then two years from now, 10 years from now, maybe 200 years now, somebody picks up that book and they read it and they get value from that.

4:20I mean, I've read 200-year-old books. I've read 2 ,000-year-old books. I mean, this is the thing, Fire Nation, that you just never know who you're going to impact, how you're going to impact them. But a question and a concern that I have for you, Chandler, because I see this all the time with my audiences, they have lots of ideas, lots and lots of ideas. How can we choose which one of the ideas that we have to write about if we just are so overwhelmed with all these potential concepts? Either they have no idea, they have some idea, or they have way too many ideas. And sometimes having way too many ideas can be worse than not having an idea at all because you're trying to figure out which one to write first.

5:01And so I only have two rules when I'm working with people. And rule number one is that you can't edit while you write. It's super important. We all know someone who has five perfectly written chapters in their unfinished book. But then rule number two is you can't write more than one book at a time. So some people will think, why choose when I can just write multiple at the same time? Because I'm different. The rules don't apply to me. But it's no. If you try to chase two rabbits, you'll end up catching neither. So you've got to narrow in on one idea first. I asked three questions to narrow in on that idea.

5:34So question number one is, which one can you finish the fastest? So you have the most content or life experience on this topic. So you can get started, you can get going. Then secondly, which one are you most likely to finish? So you can actually take this thing to the finish line. And then thirdly, which one's going to make you happy? Or if you have a business, which one's going to generate revenue for that business? So those are the kind of the three questions I use to focus in on an idea. Fire Nation, let's go through these real quick. I mean, number one, which one can you finish the fastest?

6:08I mean, I just like how Chandler thinks. I mean, I'm the same way when it comes to people saying, hey, I have all these ideas for a podcast. Like, what should I do? I'm like, well, which one can you get out the door first? Like, which one can you launch? Like, not just like maybe even today or tomorrow, but like the fastest because you've got to put in the reps. You've got to get that thing out to the world. You got to see how people react to it. And then the one that I'll jump to as well is, you know, let's just be honest, happier. Like, look in your heart, look in your soul, look in your gut.

6:31Like, really listen to yourself. I mean, there is a reason why I created Entrepreneurs on Fire because I love talking to people like Chandler, like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tim Ferriss, like all the other 3 ,000 plus successful entrepreneurs I make. I really find joy in that. And what's going to bring you joy, Fire Nation, in your life? Now, Chandler, we are all busy people. So how the heck can we write not just a good book, but a great book in a short amount of time? How I approach this is it starts with first, you know, people talk about coming up with an avatar, which I think is a helpful exercise in a lot of cases.

7:08But actually, I would encourage I would encourage your listeners to come up with one person who you're writing the book to and then write the book as if it's a letter to that person. So dear JLD, right, if you're if you're the target avatar or person for that book and then write it as if it's a letter. And so that's like kind of a frame of thinking that helps everything else become easier because people always get tripped up over. Do I write in, you know, should I be serious or should I be funny? Should I include stories or should I not? All those questions now are answered of how would I speak to this specific person?

7:44All right. And then with that in mind, you go to the three step writing process that I teach. We call this 24 hour book outline challenge. But it starts with so it starts with mind mapping. So creating a mind map of all the ideas you have around this topic, that's step one. Step number two is to turn that mind map into an outline. So you'll take 15 minutes and you can do this as soon as this podcast interview is over, right? Get a blank sheet of paper, spend 15 minutes mind mapping everything you can think of on that topic. Then moving into step two, turn that mind map into an outline. You're going to start to group common groups of ideas into groups or sections.

8:23You'll come up with about five sections. And so now you've got about five sections. You order those in order that you want to cover them in the book. Drill in about three chapters per section. So now all of a sudden you've got about a 15-chapter outline that you can use to write your book. And that moves into step number three, which is to write the book one chapter at a time. Now this kind of becomes – it's kind of fun. So this becomes a choose-your-own-adventure. So if you write better than you speak, do that. So you'll start with chapter number one, spend 10 minutes mind mapping the chapter, 10 minutes turning that mind map into an outline, and then 45 minutes to an hour and a half actually writing that chapter.

9:01And you'll repeat that process chapter by chapter by chapter. But then on the flip side, if you speak better than you write, maybe you're also a podcaster, right? Well, then speak it and do the same exact thing. So chapter one, 10 minutes, my map, 10 minutes outline, but then 10 minutes, speak the chapter and repeat that process chapter by chapter by chapter. And so either way, that's the process that we use where you can get a draft done in a handful of days. And then once you get the draft done, that's like, that's the most important thing. That's where you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

9:36Fire Nation, I love how Chandler's mind thinks again. And like, I just really have tried to, you know, kind of approach podcasting in a lot of these similar ways, because there's a certain reason it's like, if you're getting your voice, your message, your mission out to the world, it's very similar to getting like your written thoughts, your voice, your message, your mission out to the world. I mean, this is what we're looking to do when we have that problem that we can solve with knowledge that we have, with passion that we have, with skills, with expertise. And we have a lot of awesome value bombs all around this topic coming up.

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10:50I know what you're thinking. Sales Hub must cost a fortune. Nope, it's free to get started and will grow with your business as it scales. And with more than 1 ,300 integrations and a ton of valuable add-ons, you can customize it to your exact needs. With Sales Hub, closing deals is no big deal. Head to HubSpot.com slash sales to try it for free. Chandler, we are back and let's just be honest with Fire Nation. Launches are important, but tough. And I mean tough. I'm in the middle one right now. So once we've written this gosh darn book, how can we successfully launch it? I've got a copy of your newest book that you're launching right now, Common Path to Uncommon Success.

11:32Open up to page one and it's literally one of my favorite quotes of all time. when you do the common things in life in an uncommon way you will command the attention of the world world of course uh george washington carver and when it comes to launching a book it's exactly that right it's it's doing the common things in an uncommon way and and specifically i think about it in a few things so first off marketing starts before you even write the book and and that's in how you position it what's the hook uh and that will inform your title subtitle cover all those things like those are unbelievably important when it comes to book sales you don't have to determine that all up front but i think about the we call this the four p's of a converting offer in this case a a good selling book is person pain promise price so who's the person that i'm writing this to we already talked about that right what's the pain that they have that they know that they have not just that i know that they have but they know that they have?

12:30And then what's the promise that I'm making them through this book? And then obviously the prices will be set based on the format. So I'm thinking with that in mind first, that makes everything else easier and necessary. And then though, when we get to the actual launch, there's a few things we do that work really well. So first and foremost is creating a launch team. If you do nothing else, just do this. So this could be five, 15, 50 people, maybe even more, depending on the size of your audience. These folks are going to read your book ahead of time and leave a review on day one. So now all of a sudden you've got five, 15, 50 reviews and an army of people that are going out and helping support your book launch.

13:12So that's the launch team. It's unbelievably important and extremely effective. And so that works really well. And then there's a lot of things like John's doing. And we talked about this on the Self-Publishing School podcasts is, you know, he's doing a podcast tour, super smart, bulk purchases. And so there's a lot of like levels of degrees of advanced promotion stuff, which you're definitely operating in a lot of advanced stuff and doing an unbelievable job with that. And so that's where it comes into play. But then even I'll go a step further and say, I'm a big fan of, I call this the Toyota Camry versus is the sports car approach to book launches.

13:52A lot of people, they take the sports car approach, which if you know anything about sports cars, shoo, gone in a flash, and they use up a lot of fuel. They're really sexy. Everyone looks at them, and then they're like, hold up, it's gone though, and it used up all this fuel and energy. Whereas I like to look at books like a Toyota Camry, where, okay, yes, I'm gonna focus on the launch, but more than that, I'm gonna create systems. I'm gonna create process. I'm gonna create assets that will continue to promote this book long after launch week and so that it just keeps going and going and going and going.

14:24And so those are the types of things that I look at. Amazon ads, building the email list, building reviews, multiple formats, like all those things kind of post-initial launch that really help you sell books over a long period of time. Person, pain, promise, price, Fire Nation, the four Ps, get them down pat. Now Chandler, this isn't your first rodeo brother. You know Fire Nation, and you know Fire Nation is all about business. How can we use books to grow our business? This is my favorite stuff to talk about because this is exactly what we do at Self-Publishing School. And so I look at it in three ways.

15:06And so how can I use a book to generate more leads, more sales, and referrals for my business, right? Leads, sales, referrals. Those are the three buckets. So when I say leads, it's how do I get more people into my ecosystem that wouldn't have heard about me without my book, right? If you think of Russell Bronson as an example, right? A lot of people hadn't heard of ClickFunnels until they, Traffic Secrets, Expert Secrets, one of his books, right? So more people that now know about me because of the book. Then secondly, more sales. So this is using the book as a conversion mechanism, whether it's in tandem with speaking gigs, with webinars, with anything that you do and anything in the sales process, give away a book as part of that sales process and watch your conversion rates go up, your show up rates go up, all those things, your close rate, whatever the mechanism of sales.

16:00So that's more people who know about you that are doing business with you now because the book is in that process and it's differentiating you. And then thirdly, how do I use a book to get more referrals. So there's two things that we do here or that I recommend. And so, and this is even easier if you have a brick and mortar store, but just give one or two copies to every new customer. And then it's one for them and one for a friend who needs help with XYZ, right? Whatever the thing is that you help people with. And so for me, it's, hey, here's a copy of my book and give it to someone you know, who's thinking about writing and publishing a book or who needs help with this process, right?

16:41And now all of a sudden I've turned customers into active referrers. And so they're not going to go out handing out my business cards, but they will hook a friend up with the book, right? And so they'll give people that book. And now all of a sudden that brings back customers. People read the book. They book a call with the team at self-publishing school. A lot of them decide to do business with us, right? And one other small way that we do there is we have a link that we give all of our customers at self-publishingschool.com forward slash friend. And so we use that as like a referral tool where we say, hey, send your friend.

17:18If you have a friend that's thinking about signing up for self-publishing school, send them this link and then they can just go there and they don't even have to pay shipping and handling. They can just fill out their information. We'll ship them a book on your behalf. And so we're enabling our customers to say, hey, we're going to make you look good and hook your friend up with a book. and then that helps drive more referrals. So kind of at the big picture level, that's how I look at it. For me, I mean, that's how my book published generates hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in revenue for self-publishing school is using it to drive lead sales referrals.

17:51Well, listen, you and I, again, are on the same page. I mean, business and the business of growing your business around books is definitely something that I've been focused on with my journals, with my first traditionally published book, This Common Path to Uncommon Success. Because listen, Fire Nation, when you're able to have all these things working at the same time, like in conjunction with each other, then everybody wins more because you're able to invest more in yourself and your team to get the message out there and even in a bigger way and to impact more people. Of course, it starts with writing a great book, with a great message, with a great solution to a great problem.

18:27But once you've done that, now you need to move onto these steps that we've been talking about so you can get this message out to the world. So you've been dropping some fantastic advice on this episode. What is your parting advice for Fire Nation who wants to write a book? Probably heard the quote, the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now. I feel the same way for books. A lot of people think maybe one day, maybe someday, maybe next year, and maybe next year becomes maybe never and they don't do it, right? And so there's no, I mean, you've seen this happen with all the work that's come in with, with your recent book, right?

19:06It's like there wasn't a perfect time and there never will be a perfect time. You're probably going to have to get started before you're ready. And it's, it's one of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes. He says, if you wait for all the lights to turn green before leaving home, you'll never get started on your journey to the top. Right. And so my parting piece of advice would be don't wait for all the lights to turn green to get started on your book. You're probably going to have to get started before you're ready. Fire Nation, you have to get started before you're ready. But you know what? It's nice to have a roadmap.

19:37It's nice to have guidance. It's nice to have people who have been there and done that. So Chandler, how can we connect with you? How can we connect with your business? How can Fire Nation get excited and get involved about going from a blank page to a published book in 90 days? Two main places you can find us, self-publishingschool.com or selfpublishing.com. We've got two kind of two main resources that might be helpful. So we've got a kind of an in-depth post on how to write a book. It's on the self-publishing school site. There's a free copy of my book published. There's a webinar there. There's training.

20:14There's like kind of all in one hub. So if you're looking for some free training, that'll be super helpful. And then if you want to book a call with our team and say, hey, let's chat about what it looked like to actually work with us, we'd be happy to help you and talk through options. That's self-publishingschool.com forward slash apply. Fire Nation, apply. Get a call with Chandler's team. I'm telling you, it will be worth it. I've actually had some interactions with them. They sent me out a starter kit box, which I was like blown away with. I'm like, oh man, there's some awesome stuff in this box.

20:43There's like maps, there's this, there's that. There's all these cool things. And I'm like, this is actually getting me fired up to write another book. And I thought I would never write another book. So you definitely want to take action on this. Go to his website. You know, the book published, you get for free. It's a fantastic book. I read it cover to cover a couple of years ago. And it is a very, very helpful book. And you get it for free. Plus that post that he was talking about. All this jazz. You can apply to have a call with their team. If you're the right fit, they'll jump on a call. And you can definitely get some great information.

21:14And I just want to say that Fire Nation, you know this. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with CB and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And if you head over to eofire.com, type Chandler in the search bar. This episode will pop up with the show notes page, links to everything that we just mentioned, all of his websites, all that jazz. Plus the past episodes I've done with Chandler are awesome as well. You can listen to those. Chandler, thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today.

21:47For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. JLD, you're the man. Thank you for having me. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Chandler and Fire Nation. Over the past decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs. And hello, I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk and Neil Patel and Erica Mandy and Dori Clark. The common path to uncommon success is a step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve your lifestyle freedom, your financial freedom.

22:28Fire Nation, visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. UncommonSuccessBook.com to learn more and order your copy today and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flippity flip side. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work. A recent episode on whether vulnerability is a superpower and business is a must listen. Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts.