1538 – Don’t Wait to Share Everything with Visionary Literary’s John Feldman

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0:58with us right now john feldman you are the ceo of visionary literary you're found on the web at visionary literary.com john thank you for joining us josh thank you for having me you've had many great guests and i'm excited to be in the hot seat today yeah excellent excellent well listen you're a neighbor too you're just on the road in uh in cape canaveral area i'm over in orlando So good to make your acquaintance on the show. But give us an overview of what you do at Visionary Literary. Yeah, so we, at the end of each of your episodes, you say that, you know, everyone has a message to share that can positively impact the world.

1:36We love that message. We're on the same trajectory there. And we are a book publishing company, one of the many. We're kind of like gas stations on the internet. You can find us on every corner. But we're targeting a different clientele. So while most book publishing companies, hybrid publishers are looking for that, the thought leader who is at the pinnacle of their career to put together an all-encompassing book of their 30 years of business experience, the publishing model has changed. And there's really no need to wait until you've hit the pinnacle of your career to share everything in a book.

2:12So we're really targeting the small business owner, the public speaker, coach, consultant, who is just starting out and maybe they're in year two or three or four, and they've learned so much to this point already. There's no need to wait 20 more years to put everything together. So the marketing budget is smaller in some of the programs that we're offering. So again, it's not that 40, 50,$60 ,000 marketing budget. It's much lower than that. It's a fraction, but we're still able to help just shorter, more impactful books that are much more targeted. And it allows some of the earlier entrepreneurs to get their name out there in the writing world.

2:56Yeah. So just because you, I'm so excited to talk about this. How is AI impacting this world? And I see that that's something that you embrace. Oh, yes. Oh, we absolutely love it. And so always trying to be, you know, visionary is in our title and we're always trying to be on the forefront of everything. You know, books inside the metaverse is one thing we're looking into. But when it comes to chat GPT and AI, there's no way that we can ignore this. So any writer, whether you're a fiction writer, nonfiction, ghost writer, you write yourself, it's such a polarizing subject. Whether you really disagree with it or you're all for it and we are all for it.

3:38we just think that it is the future. And we don't think that anyone should write their book fully using some AI tool because there's not a human component to it. But the most belaboring process where most aspiring authors get caught up is in that first draft writing. That takes so much time. Like outlining is one thing that's fun. You're kind of structuring, putting together the pieces, but then you have to sit down and write. And that can take weeks. It can take months. It can take years for some people. But if you can use AI and knock out that task that takes a few months and do it in a few hours, that's just absolutely incredible.

4:17And then from there, you just edit and you make it your own. Yeah. Well, what, and talk about like how you work with folks. And so like, for example, when I click on, so I'm on visionaryliterary.com, full service book writing options, and you've got a human led version, and you've got an AI-led version. How on earth does that work? Yeah. So we have a few different options. Obviously, there are people who are a good fit for that full service, traditional hybrid publishing process, which is a larger marketing budget. It's about nine to 18 months to put the whole thing together to get you out there to be that thought leader, to have that normal size or larger book.

5:01And that, again, we have freelancers in all different pools that we just choose from. you have your own team. The AI-led component is, so it's a mixture of AI and humans creating your whole entire project and your process, reaching out to you, keeping you on track throughout the process, and then doing the writing as well. So the AI-led component is that we, a human, helps walk you through the process of how to have AI write the first draft of your book, how to have AI help you outline the book based on your notes. Or in your instance, you have many videos, things that you can pull from that we can feed into the AI machine, whichever software you choose, to spit back some ideas for outlines and then to write as well.

5:51So it really depends on, again, we're in this major transition here, especially with GPT-4 just came out. So many different things coming out that are very exciting. But the human-led component is something that is still, it will be there for a very long time. Yeah. And how, what is, like if someone were to have, well, I'll just talk about this for a second. You know, the whole kind of conversation around self-publishing versus working with a traditional publisher. What are the pros and cons of each? So the pros are, if you are someone looking to be, if you are someone in the pinnacle of your career, you want to be a thought leader, you don't have the time and you don't know anyone in the industry, you, if you have a large following, and you know that you will immediately sell some of your products, just reach out to a literary agent or traditional publisher and say, hi, my name is John Smith, founder of XYZ Company, and I want to write a book and I want to put together a book proposal.

6:55If you can sell, that traditional publisher will pick you up and they'll go through the traditional process. It could take two to three years. Their process is totally different. Whereas self-publishing, there's not as much money needed up front, but there's also a lot more work up front. If you want to do the legwork, But if you want to have complete creative control, if you want to control what your cover looks like, what your title is, the contents of your book, all of that is very, very important for self-publishing, which is why self-publishing and hybrid publishing is so important for nonfiction authors, for business people who want to make sure that everything inside the book is their voice and their content and their IP.

7:38Yeah. And how did you get into this world? So I wanted to be a Hollywood screenwriter about 17 years ago when I was in college, made no money there. So I turned to fiction, made no money there. And then I found ghostwriting, nonfiction ghostwriting. And one of my first clients was a billionaire banker, a business partner of Sam Zell. And the words just sitting in his kitchen and learning some of the things that he was saying. I was awestruck. But then after a few meetings with him, he was just a person like me. And I fell in love with it. And I fell in love with the message that he was sharing.

8:17I started reading nonfiction and just, again, absolutely fell head over heels for it. Was never a person that liked school, learning in a school setting. But I cannot read enough books now that I'm older and I've found a passion for it. And what is your typical day-to-day? Like, what do you do with visionary literary? So typically, I spend a lot of time on Zoom calls just like this because I, whether one of our, you know, someone on our team reaches out to a prospective client or we meet them in some other avenue, I love having calls like this for two reasons. One, it personalizes the approach, right?

8:58Because like I said earlier, hybrid publishing companies are like the gas stations of the internet. We're everywhere. And there are salespeople constantly asking. Anyone who's on LinkedIn knows if you have a C-level or VP-level title, you are being asked through a LinkedIn in-mail if you want to write a book. So if I can just bring the human component to it, right? Just show that I'm not trying to be salesy. I'm trying to help you. Let's see if this is an actual good fit. I'm the founder of the company. I started this company for a reason. And we just have a talk. If traditional publishing is a better option, I will happily, I'll send you in the right direction, the place that you want to go.

9:37But if not, then I'll talk to you a little bit more about us and our company. So really just talking to people and trying to spread the message that you don't need to be in the pinnacle of your career and you don't need a$50 ,000 marketing budget to write your book. Yeah. Are books, what would be kind of like your little mini TED talk on why books are relevant today? I just think, so everyone thinks of book as being like, it puts you on the stage and it puts you as a thought leader and you as someone who people can look up to. But I think of it the other way. I think of the books that I've read, right?

10:16Think of it from a reader's perspective. So if you're a business person in the first year or two of your business, and you're trying to learn everything you can, you didn't go to college, or maybe you didn't pay attention in college like I did, but that you, you want to learn and just the, the, the information that you have in your mind, it will help one person. It will absolutely help at least one person. Even if 100 % of your book doesn't help, if 10 % of your book helps, you're helping someone to, you're carving a path for them that they can walk down. And then once they're able to more quickly walk down that path, they can find some other area that they need to work on.

10:54And then when they find, when they learn, you know, maybe in year one to two, they learn something new and then they write a book to help someone who is, who's behind them on that path. So I just, I love books. And I think that books are important for the people, for the readers, not necessarily for you getting you on stages or viewed as a thought leader. Yeah. And then of course, you know, there's the idea of like, you know, can I make money with my book? And what would you say, like the easiest connect the dots? Listen, here's how you're going to use your book to generate revenue. Yeah. So, I mean, you can go those traditional paths, obviously.

11:34getting on stages or having coaching, consulting, selling your services, using your book as a lead gen. So this book that I have behind me, we give away for free. It's our complete 100 % roadmap, everything we do for a$39 ,000 client all put into this book. And that it just demonstrates that we know what we're talking about. Because again, this is a flooded market. And I want to prove in my conversations that I have with prospects and through this book and through some of our courses that we have. Like, I want to prove that, that you are coming into this with clarity and with confidence. I want to make sure that you're confident that you're not making the wrong choice.

12:10So we give away some of our books. You can give away your book as a lead generation tool. You can, you know, get on stages. There are many different ways that you can go about traditionally, you know, going about ROI for your book. Book sales is probably not one of them as any hybrid publisher will tell you, but yeah. Yeah. So there, there are many different ways that you can see an ROI. And for some of like, we're targeting the zero to two year, uh, you know, $2 million a year AR and under that's, that's our target audience because they still are a person who has a message and the products that we offer are either$900 or$1 ,300.

12:48And we have payment plans for those that go as low as 52 a month. So we're not looking for the person who's coming to us with a$40 ,000 budget. We want to help those people that are starting out really plant their foot in the industry with a book without taking away all their marketing budget just for one component of their business. Yeah. So really, it's like, you know, I'm on your page right now. So I clicked on self-service options. Listen, in order to find this listing right now, if you can act as your own project manager, you can do this. It is possible. And I know you talked just a bit about AI, but very tactically, how might that look?

13:35Can I log into ChatGPT? Can I say, listen, I don't know, how does it actually look? Yeah. So you can, as of right now, you can log into ChatGPT. It's free for right now. They just started a premium, a pro version. It's not going to be free forever once everything is solidified. So I just got off of a conversation where Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, I think, are working together to try to slow down the speed of AI because there are just so many things that are about to go awry. But at some point in the near future, ChatGPT will be a paid service. And there are many other AI writing services out there that are paid a monthly fee.

14:21But for now, the process would be that you take what you have. Obviously, you have to have some sort of notes, even though if you don't, ChatGPT can provide you an outline of a book if you just ask it for the title of the book or something. But just bring your notes with you and just speak to it. So ChatGPT learns as you speak to it. So have a conversation with it, just like a chat bot. Have a conversation, ask it for some information, build upon outlines or ask for a good structure for the ideas that you have. There are so many different things. If you just play around with it for 30 minutes, you will have such a better understanding.

14:56And inside of those guided author programs that we have, there are videos and walkthroughs and explainers to kind of show you, guide you where to go. So if you can be your own project manager with the assistance of AI, of course, because we have some AI tools built in there to keep you on track, that guided author program is something that I'm so excited about because I know that when I first started my business and we had no marketing budget, I would have loved for something to come along the lines of that. Crazy. Good stuff. John Sullivan, again, CEO of Visionary Literary, your website, visionaryliterary.com.

15:37These are exciting times we're in. They sure are. So Josh, if anyone wants to get started for free, they can go to visionaryliterary.com backslash free book. And this book right behind me, again, it's our whole entire process. So feel free to go. I truly do hope it helps. And again, Josh, thank you for having me. If anyone has any follow-up questions, feel free to reach me on LinkedIn, Twitter, wherever you can find me. Awesome. John Feldman, visionaryliterary.com. John, thank you so much. Thanks, Josh.

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