Episode 18 - Everett O'Keefe

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Publish to Impact podcast. I'm here with Everett O'Keefe, who is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and international number one best selling author. His most recent book is The Power of Published and he speaks across the United States on how a book can be your greatest asset.

[00:00:17] He's the founder of Ignite Press, a hybrid publishing company that specializes in helping entrepreneurs in their business by becoming best selling authors. Everett, glad to have you on. Hey, great to see you, Blake. Thanks so much for having me on. We're on a pretty crazy time difference. Hey, thanks for taking the time out.

[00:00:36] No problem, man. You scheduled it at a time convenient for me and I appreciate that. All good. Now today, if it's okay with you, I want to talk about the publishing industry as a whole because we both know that coaches and entrepreneurs have the ability to use their book as a powerful tool. So tell us about Ignite Press and what your company does.

[00:00:57] Yeah, sure. We're a hybrid publishing company, which sits basically places us right in between traditional and self publishing. You know, traditional publishing has some challenges to it that I'm sure we're going to talk about and self publishing though amazing requires also that you do everything.

[00:01:12] So we are a done for you service. We primarily work with business professionals, medical professionals, speakers, coaches, consultants. To create their nonfiction book to help build their authority and exposure for the benefit of their business, their brand et cetera. And we're we've done 150 plus books so far, and we keep we keep plugging away.

[00:01:37] We're in the middle of a book launch today, actually. Yes. I love it. And so I guess in your experience, what are the misconceptions that people have about the publishing industry? Well, I think the biggest is that people think that if they go the traditional publishing route, that they're going to get everything they need from the publisher.

[00:01:58] I think the expectation is that they're going to sign with the publisher. They're going to get a big fat check from the publisher, and The publisher's gonna take care of everything and then arrange media appearances and book signings and appearances on, you know, all over the place. And then they find that that's just not true.

[00:02:19] Many people who go the traditional publishing route come back very, as you know, very disappointed because they didn't receive the marketing that they thought was going to come with the publishing. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also just the rejections that you, you, and I know that they both face is rejection letter after rejection letter and, and then you finally get that, traditional publishing deal.

[00:02:40] But it's not all you might have hoped for. No, and that's, that's the sad part, right, is you first you have to find an agent. That specializes in your content that hopefully has a relationship with publishers that specialize in your content, then you've got to get landed. And then what a lot of people don't understand is that they are selling their intellectual property to the publisher, the publisher then owns that.

[00:03:04] And then you, as the author, don't have the same freedoms that you think you have to present your own material. Or to create a derivative work like a workbook or an audio book or a course or you know, these types of things. And I think also what people need to understand is that the publisher has in mind the publisher's best outcome, not the author's best outcome.

[00:03:29] So the author has an idea of how they'll use their book for their brand, how they're going to use it within their business. And that may not actually play nicely with the publisher's limitations. Yeah. And I guess how I sort of see it too, is traditional publishers would tend to seek out the people that they want cause it's in the benefit of themselves.

[00:03:49] So if they can find somebody to reach out to and offer them a deal, that would usually take that over the process of going through the agents yeah. I mean, it's a great point. We, we. You know, what a lot of people don't understand is a lot of traditional publishers want you to have, you know, 70, 000, you know, subscribers proven track record, huge following.

[00:04:10] We joke around that it's, they're like banks, you know, had banks are happy to loan you money if you don't need it. And traditional publishers are happy to take you on if you really don't need them. Yeah. Now on the topic of traditional publishing, there's, So one of those three major publishing pathways, I would say is, you know, your traditional self publishing and hybrid.

[00:04:31] Are you able to explain the difference between the three? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty easy, you know, traditional publishing. I think we've got a. We, you know, kind of covered that a little bit self publishing. I love, I think self publishing is fantastic. You've done it, Blake. I've done it. And it's fantastic because you have complete creative control.

[00:04:51] You, you receive all the royalties, you get your books at cost. You know, you own your intellectual property. But the challenge is you also have to do everything or manage everything. And if you do any one thing wrong, then the whole project can be a disappointment. You know, case in point, you could have the most amazing words in your book, but if they're poorly edited, then the readers can have a bad experience.

[00:05:17] Or maybe they're perfectly edited, but the layout's not professional. Then again, you know, they're just, there are a lot of ways to To kind of mess up sadly. So in, in the hybrid space, we kind of embraced the best of both worlds where you have many of the benefits of self publishing because we set everything up in accounts for clients on so that they receive all their royalties and get their books at cost.

[00:05:41] They own all the IP, but they don't have to do everything. We're providing professional project management. Professional editing and layout and art services, arranging the publication and distribution, et cetera. So that's, so we, it's really in some ways it's done for you self publishing and you know, and that's perfect for the person who does not have the time or inclination to manage those other pieces.

[00:06:08] Yeah. And you generally put coaches and entrepreneurs and professionals inside that as well? I, you know, yes and no. Like some are like, you know, when I did my first book, I decided I was gonna learn everything I needed to learn and go do it, you know? Yeah. In a very ready, fire, aim, fashion you know, as some of us entrepreneurs do.

[00:06:28] Right. And then but yeah, very often people would rather spend their time in their core business in the things that they know make them money. Yeah, and I think that's the thing that has been missing in the publishing industry that I think starting to catch up now where there are services for business owners to get their books written so they can actually still be able to work in their business and still maintain their time and energy as well.

[00:06:56] And, and have a completely professional product and professional, you know, experience, right? Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about the the changes over the years that you've seen in the publishing industry that really makes it possible for people with expertise who can write and publish their books. What's, what are the changes?

[00:07:16] Because obviously there's plenty. We're seeing the democratization of publishing and it's fantastic. You know, it used to be that In order to get your book published, you could, you had to go through a traditional publisher or pay oodles and oodles of money to, to see your book, see the the light of day.

[00:07:36] But the invention of some online platforms and particularly print on demand publishing make that you know, really a thing of the past, and I'm sure your listeners have heard about print on demand publishing, but. I can cover it very briefly, you know, for people to understand print on demand publishing is your best friend, right?

[00:07:58] What it means is that Amazon doesn't, for instance, inventory or warehouse your books, they just hold your files. And tomorrow morning when someone orders your book, tomorrow morning Amazon prints and ships that one copy. It's crazy. And then of course that's available for speakers to get or anyone else to get bulk copies at cost often around three or four dollars a book.

[00:08:23] Any quantity. So I tell people that really gone are the days where you had to order a palette of books in order to get your books at a low enough unit cost. And then I don't visit your house 10 years later and find that you still have half a palette of books in your garage, but now they've been water damaged or eaten by bugs or, or, you know, or whatever.

[00:08:46] And so we really have seen a huge change because now we can move forward with our books. I talk a lot about the red light of traditional publishing and about all the different authors that have been rejected over and over and over by traditional publishers. You know, it's like we wouldn't have the Harry Potter series.

[00:09:12] You know, if. If the author hadn't really persevered because she was rejected and was told to keep her day job, you know We we wouldn't have little women. We wouldn't have peter rabbit We wouldn't have a lot of books If traditional publishers initial rejections were listened to and so a lot of great books have never seen the light of day Because they were rejected over and over and over heck, there was this book when I was growing up called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

[00:09:47] Yeah. That was extremely popular. That was, that book, he was rejected 121 times and still, still kept going. Yeah. Most of us don't have the time or inclination or stomach. Patience. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And when it comes to, I guess, so that's with print on demand, it is awesome because what you can also do is order one proof copy before your book's published.

[00:10:15] So you can see what it's going to look like when it's published. And again, you get that at print costs. You don't have to buy a whole heap. You can just do that once on Amazon, have a look, share it with a couple of friends. And that's also a great part of it too, but I wanted to move. Into Kindle as well, because print on demand is awesome.

[00:10:31] And I think Kindle eBooks are really powerful for coaches when it comes to lead generations and, and using their book as a tool to, to generate leads. online as well. Are you able to talk to us about that? Yeah, you know Kindle's amazing. And of course, when it first came out, the people were talking about it was going to be the death of Brent.

[00:10:54] It's not turned out to be that way. And I, and I don't think at least in the next five, 10 years that it will be, but Kindle's fantastic because right. Anybody can pick up your book anywhere. And read it and that doesn't you know with print well, so for instance, let's say Someone's on vacation in malaysia, you know, and they want to order a book Well, how are they going to get it?

[00:11:19] Is it going to get there in time? Oh wait, I can pull it up on kindle Oh wait, I already have it in my kindle library. I have You know here on my phone. I have access to millions of books You know, maybe I spend five or ten dollars on one, but I have access to millions of books Yeah and so that's terrific and at the same time that you're developing your book for kindle you can be You know creating a version of that to use as a lead magnet on your website and yeah, I think I think honestly kindle's fantastic and then of course That would also lead us into audio Yep.

[00:11:55] Right. So Kindle was taking over market share. Now Kindle is giving up market share to audiobooks. More and more people are reading audio. Audio has been seeing a double digit year over year. I think this is the ninth year of double digit gains as far as the growth in the industry. And that is something also that is now available to authors that before you could, you know, the cost to create an audiobook and to get it published and think about it, making cassette tapes or CDs of it and all of that.

[00:12:31] Has now become a fully digital process which again, as part of this democratization of publishing. And I want to just transition now, cause I know that it's not talked about enough, but writing and publishing a book really brings out the resilience in yourself and to use that resilience into your business as such as well.

[00:12:54] Talk to us from your experience, how that's impacted from you, from writing a book and, and into Ignite Press. Yeah, I actually, you know, I'm glad you brought that up because this is something that people don't talk about enough, quite frankly. I, in sort of one of my books is called The Power of the Published and there's a chapter in there that really deals with this incredibly This unexpected benefit that occurred when I wrote my first book, my first book, I'm going to tell you, it was not a great book.

[00:13:24] I sat down, I myself and my business partner dictated the content in a couple hours time. It was poorly edited by this guy. It was poorly laid out by this guy. And we published it, but because we were using the proper strategy, it became a number one bestseller in a number of categories.

[00:13:44] And the book did everything we wanted it to do for our business, even though it's not a great book. And yet I have to tell you this, what came about was a very unexpected internal benefit. My internal posture changed because I was now an author. In fact, I know you've experienced this too, Blake, but The first time I saw my book on Amazon, I was like, whoa, the heck here I am.

[00:14:13] My book's listed on the number one, you know, the largest online bookstore in the world, what the heck? Then as the launch happened, I started seeing it on the same page with my favorite authors, you know it's on there with John Maxwell and Malcolm Gladwell and a bunch of other famous authors. And like, this is amazing.

[00:14:32] And pretty soon I'm seeing my book above all of their books, and that really had an unexpected internal impact that that made me realize that I did actually know what I was talking about. And that. I had something that I could offer to other people, and quite frankly, something that people would pay a substantial amount of money to get because it was of such great value to them.

[00:15:01] This is one of the things that people don't talk about or don't think about when they're looking to publish a book, but that the people who've published a book have some understanding of. And that's the power of published, right? It's one of the many powers of the published. That's exactly right. And I a hundred percent agree.

[00:15:20] I mean, with my coaching book, coaching programs, I align it with growth and also publishing a book. So I kind of relate those two together because I think people need to do realize how powerful writing a book can be. I mean, you know, you can turn it into a podcast like I have with mine, turn it into courses, workshops, anything like that.

[00:15:41] Right. Did you, do you remember, and, and I'll probably get this wrong, but it was you know, is it, is it vampires that you, you kill with a silver bullet or, or any, anyway, in, in marketing terms, people are always looking for the silver bullet, the one thing, right? The one thing that will solve all of their problems.

[00:16:02] And the truth is there is no silver bullet, right? Because, because that would speak great to one audience does not speak great to another audience or it speaks great to them today. But not tomorrow or it's in the wrong medium or it's, you know, whatever it is. There's it's never perfect But the book is the closest thing you will ever come to a silver bullet It creates new clients.

[00:16:28] It converts clients faster It gives access to a higher level of clientele. It provides access and opportunities that no other tool will provide. And it's the most durable tool you can ever create for your business. What other tool can you create for your business that will serve you the rest of your life?

[00:16:51] There isn't one, right? There's no killer app, no killer video, no killer blog posts. That's going to serve you 30 or 40 years from now, but a book books are just incredible. They just have so many benefits. And that's why I, I, I call it the closest thing you'll ever get to this. And it can also be a physical and a digital asset as well.

[00:17:14] Right? So you're getting the best of both in essence to, to build your leads and generate new clients. That's right. And think about this, and you, you understand this as an author, but that, you know, I think of it like if you're reading a book. Your mind fills in the blanks of things. So you think of the, like the Lord of the Rings.

[00:17:35] I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. When I read the Lord of the Rings, my mind fills in the blanks. It paints the picture for me. And I loved the movies, but they still didn't add up to what was in my mind because, because as I read a book, I'm a co creator with the author. And that's true. So as you are writing a book and as, as someone's reading your book, they are co creating in their mind.

[00:18:00] With you it's almost like those thoughts are there those thoughts that you're putting on paper become their thoughts as well That's incredibly powerful Not to mention a book gives you long form long term access To somebody instead of oh, they're going to give you 60 seconds to watch a video you've created They're giving you six hours perhaps to pour into their brain Many times in their most vulnerable moments right before they go to bed because they're reading, you know The book on the nightstand or maybe they're sitting on the toilet or they're reading it on vacation, but you know, what other thing can you create that will give you?

[00:18:41] multiple hours of influence on your clients You Nothing. There's nothing that'll do that except a book. No, because if you have a someone who's giving away a checklist or a, or a PDF and someone who's giving away a book, you take the book because that's really one of those connection things as well.

[00:18:58] You get to actually, you feel like, you know, somebody after reading a book. Yeah. That's very true. Yeah. Deep connection. You're not likely to get in any other way. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about the the biggest challenges that business owners, professionals, what they face when it comes to writing a book.

[00:19:17] Well, it's kind of a truism or an axiom of publishing that if you decide to write a book, life will intervene. Right, there will be something that comes up and part of that's just because of the length of time It takes most people to write a book like you'd indicated like your first book took you a few years to write and your next two books took you six months Yeah, right And I think that's one of the secrets to writing a book is you do need to ripe it write it relatively rapidly If if you're going to take three years, you're probably going to take six You know, and if you're going to take six, it's probably never.

[00:19:55] And whereas if you can write that book over the period of three or six months, now you've got something. I think the other thing that most business owners need to understand is that they are not writing the book. They are writing a book. This book does not need to be their opus. It doesn't need to be their legacy, though there's certainly a place for the, these books.

[00:20:20] It is ultimately. an incredibly powerful marketing piece. And so that helps to limit the scope of it. You don't have to feel like you have to tell your whole story or put every piece of wisdom into the book. You know a good coach of mine said, we need to write the minimum viable product at the MVP.

[00:20:41] And that was really appropriate when it comes to a book. And I think that makes it so much easier for the for the author. If they just go, wait, you know, I'm probably going to write another book down the road. And this is my, this is a marketing piece. Let's, let's get busy. Let's make it happen. And by the way, I think they also would benefit greatly from the accountability that comes with book coaching.

[00:21:05] Doing it on your own is it's tough doing it with the accountability and advice of someone like you, Blake, is incredibly valuable. And probably, Increases the likelihood of them completing the book. Tenfold. I don't think that's a, I don't think that's an exaggeration at all. And like you said, life does get in the way as well.

[00:21:26] So it's the accountability. I think is one of the biggest factors because if people want to get their book written, they need that accountability, especially when there's other, you know, aspects inside their business that they need to, I mean, if there's got family and. There's always something and that, that something is always more urgent than the book, right?

[00:21:44] Because the book is, I'm not going to finish that for months. So I'll set that aside today, which becomes setting aside for a month or a year. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always hear from people about them trying to write their book. It's more perfectionism of trying to Like you said, get that best book. And my advice is always to never edit as you go.

[00:22:06] And I think that's one of the keys to getting a book written. How did you go in, you, when you wrote the Power to Publish? Did you write that in a quicker timeframe or how did you Yeah, I did. Well, not as quick as the first book because like I said, first one I dictated over a couple hours. The, when I wrote the Power of the published, I started writing down all the benefits of a book, all the different powers.

[00:22:29] of a book. And then I realized, wow, this is getting boring. And I went, I need some stories here. And so I started to look to my clients and to my associates to find stories that supported each of those. And once I did that, honestly, that made it so much easier to write. I also find I write in chunks and I'm sure your authors do as well.

[00:22:52] I found that if I sat down to Usually I'm gonna knock out 1500 words, something along those lines. Maybe a thousand to 2000 words. So making sure I scheduled my chunks was really, was really very helpful. And if you think you're gonna write a 25 to 40,000 word book, it doesn't take that many sittings to write it down.

[00:23:14] If you're knocking chunks out at a thousand or 2000 words. And that's exactly right. I mean, if you don't have to be the best writer either. And that's how I say is you don't have to be the best writer. You just have to commit to an hour, hour a day, five days a week. And you can get that draft written essentially in a month as well on on the basis of a 40, 000, 45, 000 word book.

[00:23:36] I mean, that's it. The majority of people aren't writing novels if they're, you know, wanting to use their book for for their business inside their business. So you just want, you know, the length is always up to you, but it's more so you want to make it impactful rather than long winded. Well, and there you go.

[00:23:54] A lot of people, that's another sticking point is they don't really know how long a book is and what, how much they need to write. And sometimes by the time they come to us, they've written three books. You know so the target we met, we, we target is usually 25 to 40, 000 words and it can be a little north or south of that.

[00:24:14] And what we say is that's long enough to get your message across, thick enough to be a real book, have credibility, and short enough to read on a cross country flight. And if you're north, if you're like 50, 000 words, that's okay. You're going north of 50, 000 words, your completion rate of people actually finishing as you know, drops off precipitously.

[00:24:39] So I think this is like, let's give authors permission to write that 25 to 40 or 50, 000 word book and not have to write war and peace. You know people aren't going to read war and peace these days, but they will read a short you know, think of how to win friends and influence people. That's not a very long book and think of the impact it's had.

[00:25:04] All right. Awesome. Now, before we wrap up soon, I just want to ask you one last question. What advice would you give entrepreneurs out there who would dream of becoming an author and they're getting and getting their book published? What advice would you give them? First, you just got to start, you just got to start, and even if you don't know what ultimately the book's going to be or how you're going to use it, get started.

[00:25:27] The, the silly part is we, we so obsessed about what's in our books, but in a business setting, the truth is most of the people that will be influenced by your book will never read it. Yeah, and may never open it. So I talked about in the power of the published, I talked about the power of the unread book.

[00:25:47] So there's all these people in the world that are going to come into contact with you and your book, and they may say, They may only see the name of the book and go, Oh, he's an author and he's got a book on this. They're going to assume that you're an expert on that topic because you have a book, even if they never read it, if they see it, they're going to say, wow, that's a beautiful book.

[00:26:07] And, you know, and it's just going to scream your expertise in that topic. Right. If they open it and look at the table of contents, then, oh, that's great. But if they, you know, So many people are just going to be influenced never having read the book, but just know that you're an expert on the topic that is going to elevate you above any competition just by that.

[00:26:30] So don't fret you. Yes. Yes. Write a good book, but there's no such thing as a perfect book. And the more time you spend chasing a perfect book, Frankly, it's the last time that book could be working for you. Because if you can put out a book in the next three to six months, that, that means that book is working for you in the next three to six months.

[00:26:52] You're not waiting two or three years to put it to work for you. And that's also the thing, right, is when we talk about lead generation, giving away published paperback and someone takes that published paperback, they'll generally put that in their office or at home and start working on their business, but you're inside their office, right?

[00:27:10] They're almost always reminded of you. And that's really powerful too. I, you know, you're sitting on their desk, you're sitting on their nightstand, you know, and that book is constantly reinforcing your expertise. Which there's nothing else that does that. No, no, exactly. All right. Well, on that note, thanks so much for joining me, Everett.

[00:27:34] Hey Blake, this has been a joy. Thank you. No worries. And for everyone listening, if you're looking for a hybrid publisher, especially if you're based in the U S I'd love for you to check out Ignite Press. Everett, where can people find you? Yeah. So if you go to ignitepress. us. IgnitePress. us. There's a button there.

[00:27:52] You can actually schedule a consultation directly with me and happy to have that conversation. Right. And I'll have Everett's details and his book, The Power of the Published available in show notes. Feel free to find out more what IgnitePress offers and how they can help bring your book to market.

[00:28:08] Everett, thanks so much for joining me and thanks for listening. Until next time, get your book written.