Why YOU Should Write a Book | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

SERIES: This podcast episode is part of a book-writing series with Amy Lynch on the Stories With Traction Podcast.

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3rd EPISODE SUMMARY: In this episode, Amy Lynch and Matt Zaun discuss why you should write a book and some common objections people might have. 

AMY LYNCH BIO: Amy is the founder and a writer at Fernling Creative, a premium writing agency that generates exceptional content in your voice because words sell everything.

For more info, check out Amy HERE.

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE.

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun 

I appreciate your time and the last two episodes were very intriguing to me. So we have talked about your journey getting into book writing.

We talked a lot about. systems about how to get in a creative mindset, and all of that was really good.

gave me a lot to think about and I've actually changed a lot of things based on what we went through, based on what we processed.

But I want to talk about why someone would want to actually write a book other than it being a lifelong dream.

So there's a lot of people listening to this episode. They've always wanted to write a book. There's it's always been somewhere inside them, but it's they've been pushing it off to the future.

One day I want to write a book, 20 years from now, 10 years from now, whatever it is, but they keep pushing it, pushing it out.

So other than achieving a lifelong dream, what are some other reasons why someone would want to write a book?

 

Amy Lynch

Yeah, that's such a great question. And obviously fundamental to my work and my, my business, the friendly creative. So you, you've hit the nail on the head as far as a starting place, the foundation, the basement of why people write a book.

book. And, you know, when people find out that I'm a writer and that I'm a book writer, I'll hear a statement just like this.

I really think that I have a book in me, like they use the term in me. And so I do think that, at some level, a book springs from the heart of a person, in their heart, to write a book.

But that's, you've kind of covered that one. So we're moving beyond having a book in your heart to write it and a desire to do that.

So I'll just throw out the main reasons that I write books with people, high level professionals. What, why are we doing this over and over?

So really typically, people write a book for increased influence in their field and in their industry. They, they want the credibility that comes from having a book.

So, this can come in the form of being a consultant, a very respected and credible consultant. Having a book means you literally wrote the book on something, and so therefore that gives instant credibility, and when you say, this is my consulting fee, people don't shake their head and run because you wrote the book on that topic.

So, credibility would be a huge, huge factor, and reason behind why people write books. And credibility and influence have locked arms on this.

Being an influencer in your field, in your industry, is also really powerful, and the ways that that comes out in a person's career, the overflow of that.

that influence and credibility is in consulting A, and also speaking engagements and professional development and workshops, keynotes, TED Talks, a person who has written a book, is viewed as a person, a leader, a thought leader, in that field or that industry, who is credible to give a talk, to lead another group of professionals, to teach through professional development, and to influence others in that field and industry.

So, influence and credibility, go hand in hand, and those would be top, top reasons. Really related, closely related topics and reasons would be marketing and just getting your name out there.

So, maybe a person doesn't want to go on the speaking. circuit, but they just want more business, you know, for what they already do, like if they're, if they're a CFO, like the kind that is fractional.

So if they're a fractional CFO and they just want to do that, they don't really want to teach others about it at all.

They just want more people to know about what they do. Then writing a book serves so many, so many purposes, because A, you have a book in tow and attached to your name and therefore your services become more valuable and more respected.

But also that book, typically what I do is I go book to blog to social media content. So I take a person's book, let's say it's an eight chapter book.

It's really typical, 50,000 words and eight chapters is just, you know, the sweet spot today in 2024 for trade books.

And by trade books, I mean books for late people. people. The books that we all read are called trade books versus like academic kind of work and other things.

trade books can be broken into blogs that a person puts on their website as a CEO blog, if that's what you are, or the CFO from the desk of the CFO.

Those things turn into all kinds of content like blogs, which then of course has a tremendous influence on SEO.

Also they get turned into LinkedIn posts. So a book I'm writing right now, 50,000 word, a chapter book. I rewrote it in real time.

So the author, the client doesn't have to do anything. They can just keep on doing what they're great at.

This person I'm talking about is a doctor. She can keep doctoring and I wrote two years of her CEO blog for her website and hundreds

and hundreds and hundreds of LinkedIn posts that are in a variety of forms. There's long posts, one to 400 words, there's very short posts of 20 to 40 words and everything in between and I just deliver them and sometimes I even post them for the person but two years minimally of really on-brand content from a book and so it just keeps on going.

It's like a snowball that grows and grows and grows. A book has so much value and just keeps on adding to the person's personal brand and growing their brand whether they want to consult or speak or just keep on doing what they do best.

those would be the main reasons. couple other reasons that come up pretty often are desire to share a person's professional experience.

experience, but usually it's a real mixture of professional and personal experience. So if a person has 40 years of experience in a field, they want to share that, but that's their career, it's personal, it's what they've learned in a lifetime of professional work, and they want to share that, and it's a mixture of professional information and content with what it's been as a person to work in that industry and field, and what they've found out and what has been pain points and growth points and important lessons along the way, and they want to share that in the book form, and they want to share it in a way that helps their industry and helps the younger people in their field, but just generally helps others.

So it solves problems, it solves, failures, and the mistakes that they themselves feel that they've made so that people don't reinvent the wheel.

So that category of sharing experience, helping others, solving problems, and sharing experience and expertise together is a motivating factor.

And I think of one book that I wrote earlier this year where when we were nailing down the target audience, which we talked about in the last podcast, he said to me, he runs a large medical policy group, he said, if three people read this book, my three sons, I will have felt it was all worth it.

And, you know, so that's just kind of speaking to this last category of people who are wanting to share their professional lives, their whole lives, holistically with another group of people, and in this CEO's case with three people in particular.

 

Matt Zaun

Oh, that's a lot to answer your question. But I like how you started with the heart, right? It has to start in the heart.

And it's almost like it goes from heart to logical. So I really appreciate that you have the desire. You have the need, almost like someone saying, I want to run a marathon.

So they have that, that pull, that, that heart, if you will, that emotional time behind it, I want to run a marathon.

then it transitions into the logical piece on your get discipline from maybe getting up early to, to start jogging.

And then from there, there's different benefits physically. And then all these logical things fall into place. And you'd mentioned increased influence, credibility.

know, you wrote the book on something. So like you wrote the book on blank. It definitely positions you as that expert speaking engagements, being a thought leader, and then obviously the marketing piece.

And I think it really ties into dripping out content. I think this is so important because years and years ago, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking, you know, to.

decades ago, they've been really good for someone to write a book, so spend a lot of time, write the book.

are elevated as that thought leader, they're elevated as that expert, and then they build a following. And I feel like today, that has been turned on its head, where you can drip content out.

You mentioned different blogs, you mentioned SEO, LinkedIn posts, all these different things. So you're actually building the audience as you're writing and dripping the content of the book out.

just think it's a much better way to get the book in the world, and I appreciate you mentioning that.

But I want to go back to the marathon strategy, know, someone running a marathon. If you ask someone on, let's say, mile 19, right, so they're running, they obviously they're so close to completing it.

you ask someone on mile 19, are you happy you started running? They might say no, right? They might. I'd say like, I hate my life.

I should have never ran because that's a really tough spot to get into regarding a marathon. It's probably not the time to ask them, are you excited that you are running your first marathon?

So I'm saying that because they're going to be different roadblocks or going to be different things that come along the way through the writing process that are going to frustrate people, even if they have this incredible big wife, and logical.

What are some of the things that they can do to overcome that? What are some of the objections that you people give you toward the end of the project?

What would be some of those things that you would say, hey, these are some things to look for.

 

Amy Lynch

Here's how you overcome them. So it's a great question, and I have a very clear answer. If you have me on your team, there's no obstacles to overcome.

Because I know that sounds like a big statement. However, as a ghost writer, it's really personal, the relationship is personal, I'm like living in a person's head, and I notice things.

So if I notice that someone is running out of gas, I respond and give them the support that they need.

So here's an example, I'm writing a book with a wonderful client, a brilliant person, and she is a very busy dashing literally around the globe, doing big things.

And I'm under a non-disclosure map, so I'm not able to say a lot of those things, but a very busy, highly accomplished person.

And we were writing an eight chapter book, and we got four done, and she began to wobble. She was dashing to South Africa, and then she was in London, and she wanted to do her part, which just really meant voice.

recording a list of questions that I gave her. was not that difficult, but she was having a hard time just focusing and sitting down in her office and just voice recording it.

So typically what she would do is I would send her a number of questions for the chapter that we were working on and all she had to do was hit record and go down through the questions and answer them and send me the voice recording.

So even that was becoming very difficult for her. So I just said to her, hey I'm coming down there.

I had to fly to Texas, said I'll be there. Let's pick a day and we will knock out the rest of this book your contribution to the rest of this book in one day and then you can be utterly relieved of the stress and the pressure of this and it'll be done.

It's going to get done. So I was responsive in that way and said she really wants to do this but she's wobbling so that's

As of her son, I've done that way and it was just so helpful to her. We went there, we went out for margaritas, we sat down in a room and I had it all prepared so all she had to do was show up and we got the raw content that we needed for the 50% of the book and then I gave her a hug and I came back to Philadelphia and I wrote the rest of the book and she can keep on doing what she's doing.

So that's an example of when you have a ghostwriter and a book coach, sometimes I'm just one, I might just be a book coach or a ghostwriter or a combination.

Then I act responsibly to a person's needs and we've never, I've never not finished a book, no one has ever run out of gas because we change our approach to get the job done with a high level of value.

excellence, whatever, whatever that means. So, even if it's a book in a day, we can do it.

 

Matt Zaun 

What about if someone has a fear of rejection? what if the publisher rejects my work?

 

Amy Lynch

Well, that's not really a thing anymore, Matt. Since 2007, that whole deal has changed. Up until 2007, that was a valid question.

However, the landscape has utterly changed with the onset of social media. So, before then, then yes, you had to submit your work.

Before it got to a publisher, it had to go through a literary agent. There was no other way. There was one path to book publication, and it was through obtaining a literary agent who then shopped your book to the publishers who would accept or reject it.

The bigger question is getting an agent because because an agent will only take on a book if they really believe they can get a publisher to sign on, so that is how it used to be.

But with the advent of social media, there is no more guessing involved. A person who has 300,000 followers can absolutely sell enough books to pay for itself, so all the guessing went out.

However, big publishers, which then through conglomerates, have changed to five. There's only five US major publishers now, and they don't work with anybody who doesn't already have social proof, so you can't approach a publisher through a lit agent unless you more or less can prove that you in nonfiction, only speaking nonfiction, fiction writers, it's a the game is different, but we're not talking about that here.

So nonfiction writers have social proof or they don't approach the big five publishers. So, then what do they do?

They self-publish, which used to be a dirty word, and today is very affirming and very respected, or they hybrid publish.

When they get a small publisher who believes in their word, who will give them the editorial team and support that they need to publish, so it's one step removed, lots of very famous authors are self-publishing because of all the rights that are involved and the artistic control.

But if they need the assistance of an editorial team, then a hybrid publisher like mine, Fernling Press, is an example of that, we do all the heavy lifting to make sure that your book is top shelf quality.

And I only work with non-fiction books by high level professionals that are premium quality. That's the only field. So, that's my little shtit.

and everything that I choose to publish fits that mold and will be successful for what the goals are for that offer.

So if we covered it, Matt, what was this original question?

 

Matt Zaun 

But if people are concerned about not being able to publish it, so what if a publisher rejects my work?

 

Amy Lynch

Yeah, so they will, if you don't, you'll never get to a publisher if you don't have the social proof on social media in the nonfiction world.

But the answer is that self-publishing and hybrid publishing has become totally respectable. As a result, people who are geniuses in their fields self-publish or hybrid publish, and these are phenomenal books that are very well received, but they haven't bothered many times with social media enough to swing them over to the big publishers.

Now, if the hybrid publish... and sell, start selling thousands of copies, then they very likely might get picked up by a large publisher.

then why do that when your book is selling already and give up 85% of your profits rather than 2% that you have to pay to a company like KDP Amazon.

 

Matt Zaun

Would you say that the overwhelming majority of books put out in the world now are not with one of the five big US publishers?

It's with another publishing agency.

 

Amy Lynch

Absolutely. And the quality is remarkable in hybrid and self publishing. People just realize they don't need to go there.

big five, Random House Penguin, cetera, they have become celebrity publishers. So when someone already is a celebrity on social media, then they get an audience in nonfiction.

Then they get an audience with a big five publisher. and off they go. So if you're not a celebrity to begin with, hybrid and self-publishing is very respectable and that is the majority for sure.

 

Matt Zaun 

All right, so let's go to another category which all right so we have the publishing thing taken care of but what about the fear of failure?

So what if what if someone has this massive why of the intention behind putting the book in the world and then they don't even come close to hitting their why?

How would you help them overcome that fear?

 

Amy Lynch

Well so we said in a previous podcast mat that the clients that I work with everybody knows now are high level professionals with experience in their field and I was saying when I was talking about my my my normal client my typical client they arrived to me with half of one chapter written so they've already experienced failure like I wanted to write a book

enough to where I actually sat down and began doing it, got overwhelmed, couldn't find my way, lost my path, and put it down.

And that was eight years ago, I still have a chapter, and then I heard about you, Amy, so here I am today to talk it over, can we pick up the baton and move forward.

So most of the people have already failed that test. And then we pick it up, and we finish it with excellence every single time.

It will not fail. If we're working together, you've got someone on your team who knows how to get the job done with excellence.

And I've never had a book project that didn't come to fruition with premium quality because we're a team. If you have friendly creative and friendly press with you,

You have a book coach, have a collaborative writer, then you have a developmental editor, you've got a line editor, you've got a proofreader, you've got a layout and design expert, a graphic designer to do a beautiful and premium cover and back cover, and you've got to lay out an interior layout expert who makes the inside of your book with phenomenal.

If you want to, I have, you know, a professional audio engineer who will help you turn into audio book, then I have a Spanish translator if you need it to be prepared for a Spanish speaking audience.

So everything happens in order and everything gets accomplished for a phenomenal book every time. So that is why people work with me because they did experience that failure.

Like I had it in my book, but I, I found that I couldn't on my own. And then you get, you, you link arms with a team who knows exactly what

exactly how to get the job done in your voice and it happens every time.

 

Matt Zaun 

So we talked about toward the end of the marathon or toward the end of the book project. Let's focus on the start or even before someone starts.

So what about the AI technology piece? So a lot of like everyone's talking about AI. feel like it's the number one.

Number one talk of a town right now or the globe. So what if someone just says I'll just utilize AI technology to write the book for me.

What would your response be to that?

 

Amy Lynch

Right. So I'll take you to a funeral that I went to three weeks ago. So I went to a funeral.

It was the parent of a good friend. So I actually didn't know the person who had passed. I was really there to support a close friend.

So I sat down and the the minister gave a talk for about 25 minutes and in about 30 seconds in I leaned over and said to the person.

first next to me. AI wrote this. I recognize it immediately. then I just sat there and looked around as all the people around me fell asleep.

Now they were generally older, so maybe they would have anyway, but probably not. AI is a wonderful tool if you really, really know how to use it.

If you are not an AI expert, which is actually happening already, people who use AI. If you use it in a general rule, like, help me write this book, you will get a product that nobody wants to read and that everybody goes to sleep to because the training of AI speaks in generalities.

An AI has been fed tons and tons of content. It's been fed transcripts and newspapers and magazines and movie scripts, so it's

It's all turned into soup, wonderful soup in AI that's extremely general, and so when you pump something out of AI, just as it is, you have a product that is the opposite of premium.

You have generally been reduced to a general, a generality because that's what AI does. It takes a thousand sources and finds the most common patterns and then generates new content with that best practice, so to speak.

So it has no heart at all because it can't and it has no soul, there's no individuality or no sparkle, and so that's why you'll get a very, product using the AI.

will get a product. So AI has a thousand wonderful uses, I use it constantly, but in the manner you're describing, we'll give you a very low quality product that nobody wants to read, because it has no heart and no soul.

 

Matt Zaun 

So for individuals that want to work with you to write a book, so they want to be an active participant, giving you elements of content, maybe they write a few articles and provide that to you, so you're working back and forth, there's still an element of a dedication of time.

What if during the start of the process or the start of that marathon, they recognize that it's it's a little bit more time-consuming than they originally signed up for?

 

Amy Lynch

What do you do to help in that way? Right. ghostwriting and book coaching and collaborating works on a continuum map.

So there are people that I work with that are really invested in the process. They really want to write this book and I am in full support of that.

So that person who is like on our continuum is pinned over on the right side of it. They want to write every chapter out and send it to me.

So before we get to that, every client and I sit down and we lay out the book because we need that GPS that we talked about in previous podcasts.

They need a hub, we need a central idea that everything is tied to very tightly, otherwise people become uninterested.

They get lost. They don't know where the book is going. So I work with the client to lay out a book that's engaging and interesting and powerful and will bring out all of the expertise and experience of that author.

And then and we follow that plan all the way through it. So following the plan is the stage you're talking about, a person's involvement.

So some people want to take my plan and I give them a very clear writing plan. So all they got to do is open up what I sent them a page and then they got to follow the instructions and if they want to write the chapter themselves they do that and I don't care how crappy the writing is, just get it down and send me what you got.

And then there's people on the other end who want it to be their work but they really don't enjoy the writing process.

They really don't want the labor of writing it out or typing it. So we use voice, voice transcription software like otters is my go to.

There's lots of them out there but otter I find works really well. I'll give them the same document and they just speak it out.

We have stories, everything built in, so all they got to do is hit record and then go through the sheet that I've provided and talk it out in sections.

And the software will transcribe it and they just send me the transcription, so it's very fast and easy and almost everyone is successful in that method.

The example that I gave a few minutes ago, the person was started out, got half the book done that way, and then began to wobble there, which is when I flew over there, and we did it in one sitting.

She said, let's come across this thing. So we come across it, and it was done in one sitting, and then I'm off of her case, and I take it and run with it from there.

So we're working on a continuum, and everyone can be successful somewhere on the continuum.

 

Matt Zaun 

Do you went through a lot of different objections overcoming these objections or for at the end of the marathon when the beginning of the marathon?

I want to wrap it back to the why based on what you just spelled out for us process wise.

So as people are doing this, I'm sure there are learning different things about themselves. Obviously, especially if they're working with you, they're learning more about their story.

They're definitely more in touch with different elements of specific moments in their past. They've done some processing. They've learned how to organize their thoughts based on what you're doing.

So to tie it back to the why, do you start to see other positive things in people as they're working on the book?

So maybe they finally figure out what they should be focusing on branding wise or maybe they focus on here are the messages that I should be sharing or if they're a leader of leaders where maybe they run a large organization.

Here are certain things. that we should focus on, maybe from certain chapters that they're working on with you. So, there other areas of someone's life that are improved outside of them being engaged in the book writing process that you've picked up on over the years?

 

Amy Lynch

Well, I'll take that question and just spin the dial a tiny bit to what my experience has been. A lot of times, we're writing a book together.

And what happens is, you know, we start out writing on seven topics, let's say, they say, I really feel like I want to address these seven topics based on my life experience.

And off we go. And then at the end of it, they'll say, and this has happened again and again, what happens is, I generally keep the chapters more or less the same length, same ballpark.

But all of a sudden, I look and say, hmm, three of these chapters are 9,000 words. And four of these chapters are 3,000 words.

A, that's a problem that needs to be fixed, but B, it says something about that person's heart and their message and where they really feel passionate.

So I'll say, hey, let's say the client is John. I say, hey, John, it seems like you have a ton to say about public service and these two other topics.

And they say, yeah, when was doing, I couldn't wait to write those chapters and when I did, or voice recorded them or whatever, I just felt like I just wanted to go on all day.

had so much and so many stories came to mind, so many examples. So then we'll say, you know, that's really interesting.

What if we do a keynote speech that is really focused on one or those three topics? And that's what you do in the future.

So a particular client, this is exactly what happened. It's happened to two this year where we thought we were talking on six to eight topics, three emerged as the heart and soul of the passion of that person, that author.

And then at the end of the process, these authors said, you know, this is where this is the direction I'm going in.

I really want to teach speak, public speak, keynote speak, TED talk, and do professional workshops and professional development on these three things.

So then we develop the branding for their consulting and public speaking around those three topics. And those are the ones that go on their websites, where someone goes on there looking for a keynote speaker or a workshop leader, they'll say, it'll say on the website, I am willing to come and speak on these three things.

And then we take all that content and put it on there, and people can see what their message is on those topics.

So yes, Matt, it's become direction. know, in that people learn things about themselves. That was your question. But then it, it changes their, their trajectory into where they're heading after the book project.

 

Matt Zaun 

Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. And thank you for your time today. And thank you for your time with the entire series that we put together.

I know a lot of people are getting a lot of value out of it, for sure. There's three specific things that I'm going to remember from our conversation today.

One of them is you mentioning that it starts with the heart. I think that's really important. People have a heart for, they, they, they once read a book, there's an emotional tie.

And then it needs to change to more logical as well. So there's a heart reasoning and a logic reason for writing a book.

And then you took us through all the different logical pieces from increased influence credibility. You know, you wrote the book on something speaking, thought leadership, marketing, all the different things that you broke down regarding why someone would want to write a book.

Second piece is just understanding all the different objections that could come up during that marathon process, that book writing process, and how people can get over that.

I appreciate you sharing that. But the third and final piece that I'm going to take away is, I appreciate you mentioning that AI does not have a heart or soul.

And I thought it was really interesting that while you were at that funeral during that eulogy, you actually could pick up that it was written by AI.

And I think that's really important that as more and more people are utilizing AI, and they're utilizing the the heartless soulless aspect of that communication, so to speak, people are starting to pick up on this for sure.

So I appreciate those three points. Again, I really appreciate the conversation today and the entire series. If someone wants to reach out to Amy where they want to get information on what you do, they want to reach out to you to help with a book.

 

Amy Lynch

Where's the best place that they can go to get that information? Yeah, just hop on my website from the creative.com all inward and just there's a contact tab at the top just shoot me a message reach out and we'll get together and talk it over perfect I'll include all that in the show notes people just click and go from there but Amy thank you again for your time today I really appreciate it it's been a pleasure Matt