And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite Hebdomadal podcast. We’ve got co listeners of the week, Cheryl mccormick and Zach Gamber at Athens Area Humane Society in Athens, Georgia. Cheryl is the CEO and one of our longest standing listeners. She’s been with us for many years and she was in my first planned giving Accelerator class and by the way, she is crushing, planned giving with $7 million in commitments since the class. So I visited her two weeks ago at their incredible facility in Athens. Uh and I met Zach and we talked about his work there and he has sworn to start listening. So, one of our longest running listeners brought in our newest listener. I love that. Congratulations, Cheryl and Zach at Athens Area Humane Society for bringing nonprofit radios listeners of the week. And Zach welcome. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be hit with amelogenesis imperfecta if I had to chew on the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s up this week. Hey, Tony and congratulations to Cheryl and Zach. Welcome. We have published your book, thought leader. Thought leadership can be valuable to you. Your nonprofit or both. Publishing. A nonfiction book is one way to become a thought leader or expand your credentials from outlining and writing to publishing and marketing. Stephanie Chandler shares her personal experiences and professional wisdom. She is CEO of the nonfiction Authors Association and the nonfiction Writers Conference on Tonys. Take two, please review who are sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org here is, publish your book, Thought Leader. It’s a pleasure to welcome Stephanie Chandler to nonprofit radio. She’s the author of several books, including the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan and the nonfiction book publishing plan. She’s CEO of the nonfiction Authors Association, a vibrant community for writers and the nonfiction writers conference. A live event conducted entirely online since 2010. She knows a little bit about writing nonfiction. I’d say you’ll find Stephanie on linkedin, Stephanie Chandler. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Hey, Tony, great to be with you today. I’m glad you can be. This is a topic we have never covered and I think it’s, I think it’s interesting and it’s timely thought, leadership, thought leadership and, and book publishing to support your thought leadership. Uh, and you’re the perfect person. Obviously you’ve got no, the, the nonfiction appears like four or five times in your, in the little bio that I read. So, uh, you’re, you’re well entrenched in nonfiction, uh, writing and publishing. Tell us about thought leadership. Why, why is it valuable to be a thought leader? You know, I think, especially from the perspective of business, right? You want to be known for what your expertise is in and in the nonprofit space. I mean, it’s great to be known for your expertise related to your nonprofit. So there’s a ton of value in that. I always say, I don’t feel like thought leadership is a title we should claim, but it’s a title that we earn through various forms of content, marketing. And that includes writing books, speaking, sharing content on a blog, a podcast. Like you have things like that. I like the idea of letting other folks decide that you are a thought leader versus you claiming yourself. I, I feel the same way about expert, expert. I, I never used to say I, I do planned giving fundraising and I never say I’m an expert in plan giving fundraising. I let other people decide that I’ll say, you know, I know a little about planned giving. I’ve been doing it for 27 years. You know, I know a thing or two like, you know, a thing or two about nonfiction, publishing and writing. But, you know, I don’t like to, I like folks to draw those conclusions on their own. I mean, I’ll give you the facts and then you decide, you decide whether I’m a thought leader or expert or if someone is or, you know, whatever II I admire that part. Um Alright, so writing a book, uh you mentioned a few things that can be valuable thought leadership. Um It sounds terrifying. Uh It sounds like something that I think a lot of people feel is beyond them. Like they don’t have 30 or 40,000 words to write a book, they struggle with a 250 word, you know, article that they have to do for a newsletter or an annual report. How could I possibly do many tens of thousands of words for a book? I’m terrified. Uh help us overcome those misconceptions. Yeah, I love this because it doesn’t have to be as hard as it sounds. And so what I usually recommend to writers is we call it the old storyboard method, right? So when I write a new book, I sit down with a stack of three by five cards and I write every topic I wanna cover in this book on an individual card and I usually end up with, you know, 30 or 40 maybe even 50 cards. And then I will literally lay them out on the floor in front of me. And I will start to put them in order and this becomes your chapter outline. And you can see, oh, this topic’s heavy. Maybe I need to divide it into two chapters. This topic is light. I need to add more stories here. Right? So when I’m talking about brainstorming the topics you want to talk about that includes case studies and telling real world stories because that’s a part of writing a really interesting book. So we lay it out, transfer that to an outline and then I challenge writers. You know, 1000 words is about three typed pages. And if you sat down and wrote three pages a day, 1000 words for 50 or 60 days, you would have a beefy manuscript. If you did it for 30 days, you’d have a nice light book. So 1000 words a day, I feel like even with my hectic schedule is doable. And also if you’re already blogging or producing any kind of content, you can pull that in. And I also recommend the flip side. So you have your outline and you’re starting to write content for your book. Start putting that up on your blog and building readership around the content. All right, this sounds too easy now. Um OK, we’re gonna break this down. What about uh what about just researching the topic? Like, should you be concerned whether other people have already covered your topic? And you know, maybe you don’t have anything new to contribute. Yes, I hear this a lot. So, you know, we call it competitive analysis, right? Go look at the similar books in your space, assess them and figure out how is your book going to be different or better than what’s already there? Because you do want to be able to have your book stand out. I recommend in the nonfiction space in particular that authors niche down as much as possible. You know, there are thousands of leadership books out there. Is there a leadership for nonprofits? Is there a leadership for tech companies? Right? So the narrower that you can, you can focus, it will help your book stand out and you want to see what other books are in that space. If you’re going to pitch a publisher, they expect you to do a competitive analysis. They want to see five or six or 10 similar titles to know how well they’ve done and how your book is different. Ok. Uh And yeah, in the nonprofit space, you know, you could, you could pick um marketing communications and then it could be, you know, within that, that’s even still broad, you know, developing your marketing plan or, you know, I mean, a multi community, it’s maybe it’s deal and maybe it’s focused on digital fundraising, communications versus digital uh leadership communications or internal, internal communications, you know, for your, for your employee teams. Um you know, in fundraising, there, there’s probably a dozen different topics whether it’s events or annual or recurring giving or plan giving, major gifts, there’s relationships, you know, relationship building in those, right? You wanna drew down to a niche? Um And then how can you be confident that, that even, you know, you, you know, you said you, you, you want to put your, you didn’t say spin on it but you’re, you know, you wanna make your influence known within, within your niche. But, I mean, you have to uh is, it is as deep as reading all the books that are closely aligned to yours to, to your space so that, you know, what already has been said? No, not necessarily because I think that we’re all attracted to different types of books, different types of authors. And in fact, I don’t want to read my competitors book before I sit down to write because I don’t want it to influence anything I say. So I’m more likely to look at the table of contents, um read some of the reviews to see what people liked about the book or what was, what they said was missing from the book. And so I really feel it’s just, it’s the same in business, right? I always feel like there’s plenty of business to go around. I don’t have competitors, right? I have peers and I try to work together and same thing in publishing. I mean, they’re like I said, there’s 1,000,000 ends of leadership books and just because others exist, doesn’t mean that you don’t have your own unique perspective to put on your own book that’s maybe similar to what’s already there. But you want to carve out something that makes it different or special. You had suggested, uh, 1000 words a day. Can I take twice as long and just write 500 words a day? I can? Ok. So, whatever is doable for us. Absolutely. And even if you, you know, it’s hard for all of us who are busy to carve out day time in a day. But you know, if you could carve out two hours twice a week and aim to get it done in three months, you know, give yourself time. But I will say I feel like writing gets easier, the more you do it, it’s like that muscle that you exercise. And another thing Tony to, to feel confident in your content is editing. You know, I’m not an editor myself. I value editing tremendously. And there’s different types of editing, there’s developmental editing where an editor comes in and kind of perform surgery on a manuscript. There’s copy editing where they’re looking line by line and they might say, you know, this is confusing. You need to explain better here or you talked about this in a previous chapter and then there’s um proofreading, right? So I always put my books through you. Typically two rounds of copy editing at a minimum and two rounds of proofreading because it’s also a human function and different sets of eyeballs can help. But for somebody who’s maybe never written before, developmental editing can help you feel really confident that you’re producing, you know, a book to be proud of this kind of leads to something else. I want to ask about getting help for the, for the writing. Um I mean, so you have to be disciplined yourself. I mean, I’ve heard writers say that, you know, they like to write very early or they have a special time, they like to write. So I’ve heard writers say they like to write very early. There’s no interruptions. It’s, it’s something they can wake up and do and they want to, they want to get it done, kind of know that they’ve accomplished their, whatever their hours of writing or, you know, whatever it is. Um So there’s a personal discipline you’re saying, you know, 500 day or day, 500 words a day or a couple of times a week or, you know, but you, you do have to be diligent about it. It’s gonna take some personal discipline. It does. And some people address that with working with a book coach. There’s lots of people out there who help writers have that accountability and kind of talk them through the writing process. And so there’s book coaches out there. This is the reason why people join writers groups to connect with other writers. You know, there’s these um, be quiet and write events where people go sit in a cafe and just sit down and write. Some people are doing this on Zoom now. So if you need accountability, there’s lots of ways to get it. Oh, that’s interesting. People are going on Zoom or going to a cafe and not talking to each other and they just say hello and then they sit down and this is their first time to write. Ok. All right, we’re gonna go on Zoom but I’m not gonna talk to you. But you have to keep your, I imagine you have to keep your camera on for full accountability. You need to see that you’re, you’re not, you know, you’re, you’re not feeding the Children or doing anything else. I mean, I would think you gotta keep the camera on. You do. And I, I personally, I think I’d find it weird and a little distracting but some people really love it. Yeah, I don’t think I would but, but I could say, you know, if, if, if you need that, you use what, OK, use what it takes for you to be disciplined and accountable. Ok. But then, then the help of others. So you’ve mentioned different types of uh, editors, uh, a book coach. Um, so we may need, you know, we’re gonna have to spend some money as well as time. Um All right. So different, like, I guess a book coach would be the first is that somebody, that somebody helps you, helps keep you accountable or what, what, what would you expect from a book coach? Instead of, instead of me guessing, maybe you should just tell us, I’m sure I just keep guessing. Let me get Susan. You tell me which one is, right? Which one is right? We’ll do a game show. Yeah. So book coaches often help with the outline and, you know, setting goals for what you’re going to get written this week. A lot of nonfiction isn’t written from beginning to end, you might hop around, right. So if you’ve got an outline and es especially with non fiction, I mean, you can tackle it like you’re writing many articles. I find that um an easier way to attack it, but it’s also great for reading, right? As a reader, you don’t want to read a, a giant tome these especially these days, you know, we can thank Seth Godin for creating this trend of shorter smaller books and we are in a short attention span society. So writing things succinctly in short order can really help your reader and also help you as a writer. So you’re not having to, I think we all suffer from the overthinking, right? So, and if you go and you take AAA creative writing class, they would tell you just get it out on paper. That’s an Anne LaMotte Bird by Bird. Don’t edit as you go, don’t stop to look up a fact, right? So a trick for me when I’m writing is I’ll make a note in my manuscript if I put an XXX, meaning I need to come back to this and look up a stat or find a case study or just something I want to reference later so that I can keep my writing flow going. Um So book coaches can help you with tips like that and, you know, you might meet weekly to say, did you get your 1000 words written this week or your 1500 words? And it’s a great relationship for people and they might be reading it and also doing some level of editing. So every coach is different. Ok. Ok. By the way, I love your index card approach. You start with index card, it reminds me of high school writing thesis. We just write a thesis papers and then you had to have your, your opening paragraphs would lead to your thesis and then you had to explain, justify your thesis. But each card would become a paragraph, I think. And then you move the cards around and then that was your, you know, like a four page thesis you had to write. Reminds me of the, so I like, I like the idea of laying it all out in front of you on the, on the floor. It’s a really popular method in Hollywood too. They storyboard movies. And so it’s used for lots of things I do. It when I create a presentation, right? So anything that has got to have a lot of content and I really want to think it through carefully. It helps me get my thoughts organized. How about these other folks? WW uh You mentioned proof proof editors, copy editors. Uh what other, what, what other support might we but we need, yeah, for the writing part, I think editing, editing tends to be, by the way, one of the biggest expenses in publishing because it is a human function and you’re going to pay the most for a developmental editor. That’s somebody who’s really going in and kind of reworking your manuscript for you. Oh OK. Yeah. So it’s kind of a back and forth, but they’re kind of performing surgery on it and going giving it back to you ideally in better order than how they received it. And then the copy editing is more of a line by line review. So at a minimum, I think every book, every manuscript needs copy editing. At least one round. Like I said, I typically like to do uh one or two with my book, my own books and then at least two rounds of proofreading. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in-person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets, no team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box like kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024 visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to publish your book, Thought Leader. Now one of your own books was uh was very deeply personal to you. Tell us, tell us that story. Yeah. So in the nonprofit space, I’ve been involved with the Sacramento area, nonprofit called Friends For Survival had been on the board. This nonprofit was started, I believe about 30 years ago for families who’ve lost a loved one to suicide. So I lost my husband in 2013 and I started attending meetings there and then I joined the board and I thought, you know, I wish that someone had handed me a guide on how to deal with this. And so they said, why don’t you write the guide? And I did that. And so it’s um it’s called When Someone You Love Dies by Suicide. It’s a short, it’s really a short guide, small book that they had bound in a like a three by six size. And the idea was to get it in the hands of first responders to give to families when they’re delivering that news, right? I was given nothing, no guidance. Just that, of course, Chaplin showed up whatever. But um, so, and, and since then, and we give them away for free, but it’s driven donations, right. So you put these out, make it available to order copies on the website and we’ve shipped thousands of copies all over the US and I believe two or three other countries as well. So it feels really good to take a, a big uh personal lesson and be able to help other people in some small way. And it becomes kind of a fundraiser without being a blatant fundraiser for the organization. And you were in that situation where you were informed of your husband’s suicide by a stranger by a police officer. Yeah. And it’s awful and they, they don’t know what to say other than, you know, we regret to inform you, we’re sorry to say that kind of thing. And then, and then you go, well, now, what, what do I do? Right? I was in my early forties at the time and um, so, and I had a son, so it just talks and suicide in particular has a lot of complexity in the grief process as far as guilt. A lot of families feel guilt. Um So it addresses some of those challenges and also points people to resources because I didn’t know where to go. But one of my first thoughts was I can’t do this alone. I need to find some sort of support with other people who’ve been through this So that was kind of the mission of the mini book we created. Thank you for sharing that personal story. Uh And it aligns perfectly with your, with your work. You know, that was your, that was an outlet for you. Maybe it was a little cathartic too. Always, it’s always cathartic to tell your story. And, um you know, maybe you’ve got listeners that want to write a memoir or something like that, it can be a really healing process because you’re also, you know, coming from a place of wanting to help others. And so for me, that feels better than anything. That’s what our listeners do. They’re, they’re all helping others or causes that are the moving, moving to them. Um, and Tony can I just piggyback on that because that’s also a perspective when writing a book, right? This is why I fell in love with nonfiction because nonfiction helps people, right? If you’re going through a divorce and you read somebody’s divorce memoir, you feel a little less alone or you’ve just been diagnosed with an illness and, and you read somebody’s book about how to deal with that illness or you’re, you’re starting a nonprofit and you have no idea what to do. Books are what help us, you know, achieve goals, heal all kinds of things. So it’s exactly what I love about nonfiction and from the perspective of a nonprofit telling stories of the members, you know, things that lessons learned, there’s just so many ways to turn that into something that helps people. Should we know before we start writing, how we’re gonna publish this book, whether it’s gonna be, we’re gonna try for traditional publisher or a hybrid or self publishing strictly or there are publishing coaches. Should we know this in advance? How, how we hope to get, get this book distributed? I mean, it’s nice to know or to at least have some plans. Um I will say, I think traditional publishing has gotten less appealing over the years, I’m traditionally published as and chose to leave traditional publishing because of the lack of control over my own work. And it’s kind of this myth that traditional publishers are going to do all the marketing. They want authors that are going to do the marketing, that have a platform that have um an audience essentially. So having a podcast is a great platform. Having um a large email list is a great platform, having a large social media following. Those are things publishers look for. But here’s the reality. Tony publishers pay authors an average of $1 per book sold. So even if you’re given an advance and advances have gotten much smaller, I I mean, 5 to $10,000 is pretty typical for a first time author, you will not see another dime until you earn that advance back $1 at a time. So it’s a, it’s almost like AAA low that you have to earn back from those book sales. And what really bothered me about traditional publishing was that um they, I had my book titles changed. I had covers design that I didn’t like and they didn’t care that I didn’t like them. Uh One publisher called me right before we went to press and said, we want you to cut a chapter. We don’t care which one we just want to save on costs. Now, I had delivered within my word count. I, I mean, and I thought I am never letting this happen again. So, and also by the way, bookstores, brick and mortar is not where we’re buying our books anymore. There’s some estimates that Amazon is selling 70% of all books. We don’t know for sure because Amazon doesn’t really tell us in detail. But the fact is I love a bookstore. I used to own one, but it’s not where I get my books anymore. Right. So, and it used to be traditional publishing. The big goal was to get on a bookstore shelf. But if you have a niche topic, like something for the nonprofit community, people aren’t going to bookstores looking for that. They’re looking for that online. So self publishing gives you more control. You do spend some money upfront, but you will earn much more on the back end of your book sales. I’m talking, you know, 510 $15 a copy depending on, on how you’re selling your books and you, you maintain all that control. It’s not easy. It’s a, you know, there are a lot of steps in producing a high quality book. Um And that’s why a lot of people go to hybrid publishing, which is basically a publisher that does all the heavy lifting. But you’re paying for that service for them to produce a high quality book for you. And a lot of busy people like us, that’s what we want to do. We want to hire that out. I don’t want to go and find my own book designers and editors and distribution and all that stuff. So there’s lots of choices today. Do you need to know for sure when you sit down to write your manuscript? No, but it’s good to, to be aware of what your options are. The um travails of traditional publishing is something I’m just scratching the surface of because there’s a large well known publisher that’s considering a proposal that I’ve uh edited for them and now so submitted a second time. Um And I’ve talked to a lot of authors of this uh same publisher who have said uh essentially right down the line. What, what you said, there’s the old uh idea that they help with the marketing. They do very little. Uh They, they may, they may help you on the Amazon page. Like some, they, they may be a little more sophisticated on the your Amazon book page perhaps than you would be on your own something having to do with video or something. But it, it’s, it’s not, uh, let, let’s take it as true that Amazon sells 70% of all books. Let’s just, let’s just assume it’s true. Uh You’re in the industry, I’m sure it’s closed, but let’s just assume it is. But even then, you know, they’re not, it’s not like they’re being dogged about, uh, Amazon lifting your book. It’s just, there was this one thing in on your Amazon book page that it seemed like a, a traditional publisher was able to help you with more than you would be able to on your own. I thought it had to do with video on the page or something, something like that. But overall, the the marketing help is is minimal. They, they are looking for the author to come with a platform. In fact, that’s there was a section in my proposals, the author’s platform, the A me the, the author’s platform, here’s what I have. Um And I’ll even say in the first round when I submitted the initial proposal, all the questions that came back were related to how many books I could sell. There wasn’t a single, I’m not exaggerating. There wasn’t a single comment or question about the substance of the book plan to giving or, or my my experience uh and why I’m the right person to write it. Not a single question about either of those two topics. It was all about how much can you sell? What’s your consulting? Like I teach an online course. How many people are in that online course? Is that, uh, uh, how much speaking do you, do you know it, it was all of all the feedback was about sales. Ok. And now you’re saying they changed, they changed your title, you got titles. You didn’t, like they told you to cut a chapter even though you came within your word count. I mean, you did what your contract calls for. And then they, they just, they, they changed the contract term. They have all the control. That’s the challenge. They, they um they, they can and you know, I hear horror stories all the time. So let’s say you do get a deal, by the way, I have a book with the publisher you’re talking to. So let’s say you do get a deal. It’s typically going to take them a year to get the book out. And there’s, I’ve heard stories about publishers signing an agreement and then they decide, oh, we’re going to sit on that where we’ve got other titles we’re going to release. I worked with one author. Her book was released. Um It went two years before they got around to releasing it. So you just lose all this control. And I don’t know about you, Tony. I am type a, that’s why I run my own business and do it on my own because I don’t want other people telling me how to do things. And I just found it incredibly frustrating, um especially when I’m already doing all the work, right? I’m building my own audience. I’m, I’m engaging with my audience. So it was really empowering to take that the control back. It’s time for Tony’s take to thank you, Kate. I beseech you once again. This is gonna, so this is the first beseech, of course, it’s gonna be a second beseech uh later on naturally, but I’m beseeching you. Uh second row, 2nd, 2nd time in a row to rate and review. I would be grateful if you would rate and review the show, whatever platform you listen on Apple uh Amazon now, Amazon music, we’re on Amazon music now, by the way, um you know, Spotify, et cetera, wherever you listen, wherever fine podcasts are heard. I would be grateful for your five star review and a rating. If you can’t do the rating part, the narrative, I’d be grateful for the five star review. We could do some recent reviews though too. So, uh I do beseech you. I’d be grateful. Please rate and review and that is Tony’s take two, that nifty little rhyme again, Kate, please rate us and review us and you know, give us like five stars. Thank you. Absolutely. We’ve got Buku but loads more time. So let’s return to publish your book, Thought Leader with Stephanie Chandler. The other options are strictly self publishing and, and the hybrid. Those are the three, those are the three ways of getting a book published. Correct. Those are the three primary ways, um, is, is the, is the hybrid, essentially a publishing coach. Aren’t there publishing coaches who will do some of the lifting for you also? Correct. Yeah, they’re definitely book coaches. Um, book Doulas. They, you know, they have different do. Oh, that’s a good one. Book Doulas do. Yeah, because it really is a like giving birth. But, um, yeah, so you can have somebody coach you through the self publishing process. But a hybrid publisher typically comes with some sort of name recognition, right? And they’re, they’re going to do all that heavy lifting, but you still own the rights to your content. So you’re basically paying them a fee up front for them to handle the whole process for you and then you’re approving the cover design, you’re approving the interior layout, you’re, you’re reviewing the edits and, and they’re helping you get the book out into the world. What else? Uh, what else? Haven’t we talked about that? Uh, well, le let’s talk, let’s talk. I, I got, I got one before the launch, the launch. You’re supposed to, you’re supposed to be preparing your book launch. I don’t know, six months in advance or a year in advance or something, conferences, uh, podcast opportunities. I don’t know, op EDS, you know, tell us about the preparation and the launch the public, which is the publishing date. Right. Correct. Yeah, this is so important and it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see authors make is that they wait until the book is about to come out and then they go, uh, oh, what do I do? Right. So you do want to start building your marketing plan in advance. And, you know, as podcasts are one of my favorite strategies for authors go get on podcasts and a lot of podcasts are booked months ahead. So if you want it to coincide with your book launch, you need to start pitching three or four months in advance. And the same thing with industry book reviews, you want to get the um advanced review copies out. Um Today we have Amazon ads, which I think is fantastic opportunity for non fiction in particular. They are pay per click based ads. So when you’re shopping on Amazon for a book, there’s always or any product really, there’s always sponsored products below the book you’re or the product you’re looking at, those are done through paper click ads and those clicks could be as little as 20 cents. They could be $2 or more depending on how much competition is in that space. This is why it’s, I think a lot easier for non fiction, especially if you have a niche because you’re coming up with keywords that your target readers are looking for and maybe you’re paying 30 40 50 cents a click, but you only pay one, the ad is clicked. And if you’ve done a good job with your book, it’s going to convert into a sale. Right. So, as long as your clicks are converting into sales, you’re coming out ahead. So I’m a huge proponent of Amazon ads and Amazon is incentivized to make those ads work because they’re making money on both ends. Right. They’re, they’re making money on the ad spend. And then they’re also getting a piece of every sale that you make. So I’ve seen these ads perform really well. In fact, I worked with a memoir writer. He’s just about to cross the 50,000 book threshold. He sold 50,000 copies of a memoir, which is really hard to do if you’re not a celebrity and you’re not on a reality show. And he has zero platform, Tony. He’s a real estate investor and he said I’m going all in on Amazon ads and sure enough, it’s worked incredibly well for him. Ok. He’s got that niche. Yes. Yeah. His niche, by the way was a memoir about betting on a horse to win the Kentucky Derby. A long shot and, and the, the Philly ends up winning and he has to go collect his seven figure prize and he didn’t realize he had bet with the Mexican drug cartel. This was back in the eighties. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a fun read. It reads like a novel and it appeals to different audiences and that’s something to think about too horse lovers, people who gamble, right. He’s got different sectors of audiences that are interested in that book. All right. And one of your whole books is about, uh is the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan. So, all right, clearly, clearly. And uh you mentioned podcasts booking several months, 34 months in advance conferences, if you wanna bring books to a conference and maybe they give some away for free and maybe you have a table where you’re signing and you’re hopefully selling books there. I mean, that, that could be easily nine months and 89 months in advance. Yeah. And I’ll say speakers sell books and publishers love to hear that an author speaks and reaches thousands of people every year. Speakers sell books. But also, and let’s say if we flip it back to the self publishing conversation and you, you tie that in with nonprofits, you can get sponsors to, to give books away to a conference attendees, right? So I have a friend who teaches tech companies how to grow their businesses and he gets software companies to sponsor his books. He’ll put their logo on the cover, let them do an introduction page. He charges them several grand to set it up and then they’ll buy copies to give out at their, you know, trade events or conferences. So it can actually become a revenue stream. But your traditional publisher won’t have the capability to do that. So if you want to turn the book into a sellable asset that makes money, that’s one way to go about it. Now, I, I assume all these ideas are in your uh, non, non fiction, book, marketing and launch plan book, right? The Amazon ads, the sponsorships. Ok. Ok. So I wrote the book as a companion to the six week course that I teach and people kept ordering copies for their clients. I had book coaches in my courses and things like that. So it’s really a very step by step process of figuring out who’s your target audience, by the way, we didn’t talk about that. But that’s so important when you’re writing a book, who are you writing for? What do they want to leave your book having gained? What, what are their struggles and challenges that you can address in your book? And that also becomes part of your marketing messaging, right? If you read this book, here’s what you’ll do. If you read my book, marketing book, you’re going to be equipped to set up your own book launch and marketing plan. So you want to have that in mind when you’re producing your book and when you’re setting up your marketing plans and one really important um tactic that I recommend Tony is your community of influence. Who do you know that can help support your book in some way, who can bring you in as a speaker who do you know that has a podcast that can interview you? Who do you know that could um get their company to buy 500 copies of your book or do a sponsored printing of the book? So I do this exercise myself every time I, I release a book, I literally spend an afternoon making a spreadsheet. Who do I know? What is my ask? And your ask might be as simple as who’s going to write a review on Amazon, right? Or who do I want to give early access to my manuscript so that they’re ready to promote it when it comes out too. Um But I have found this exercise of who do you know your community of influence is oftentimes your, your community is bigger than you realize, right. So my book has only been out since January and I have this wonderful several dozen peers in my, in this industry that were out there putting it on their blog, interviewing me for their podcast, putting it out on social media, recommending it to their readers. One trade association called me and said, we’re going to build a mastermind group around this book. So they’re all buying copies, right? So reach out to your peers. That’s a huge, huge part of the process that very few marketers talk about. Who do you know? And what is your ask? It’s, it’s actually parallel to uh fundraising in nonprofits who are our, who are our donors who are our potential donors? Who are our volunteers and what are we gonna ask of them? Right. Um Anything more about the target audience? Um I think that you really just want to feel like what problems are you solving for them? II, I say to authors, what questions do you find yourself answering over and over again? That’s a clue that they want to know that. Um If you’re not sure, survey the audience, what do they care about? What are they struggling with? What solutions can you bring to them? If your nonprofit does consulting, you know, what are the common issues that you’re addressing in your consulting or in the courses that you teach? Because these are good indicators of what your target audience is looking for. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools you need to create more responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact, virtuous.org. Now back to publish your book, Thought Leader. Definitely, I see in your, your office background, you’ve, you’ve got a bunch of nostalgia. Uh you got three typewriters. You have an old microphone, uh old tabletop microphone looks like it goes back to the 19 fifties or something. Are you a nostalgic person or just a collector of old, old, old stuff related to communications or what, uh, related to communications? Especially? Right. I’ve always wanted to write and quite frankly, Tony, I set out to write fiction after I left my soul sucking Silicon Valley job 20 years ago. And I opened a bookstore in Sacramento and thought I would write novels in the back office and I was a terrible fiction writer and I thought, oh, no. Now what, because I’d always wanted to write and it was just a, a lucky turn to realize, oh, I can write nonfiction and leverage teaching, which is also I had set out to be an English teacher and did this kind of, you know, U turn and ended up in the Silicon Valley. But, um, yeah, so I love all things, word related and speaking related, all of those topics. It’s, it’s a great way for us to help make the world a better place. II, I was in a sort of a collectibles store, uh, over the weekend and I saw old, they, they had an old Remington typewriter. So brother is the one that I knew because I, I got for, I think for my high school graduation, I got a brother typewriter. Um, that was 1980. Yeah, 1980. Um, but Remington goes even further back. Those are the beautiful ones with the, with the ribbon, the, the metal spools with ribbon on them. And it’s when you used to put a little piece of correcting tape in the backspace for people under uh I guess for people under 50 or so you, you, you type, make a mistake, you had to hit the backspace key. Then you had a little piece of uh erasing paper, eraser paper which, which would put white powder. It was, it was coated with white powder on one side. So you put the powder side towards your page, you would retype your mistake and then it would, it would put powder in that. It would fill in the, the, the black ink space on your white paper with the white powder and then your mistake is corrected and then you would type the correct letter and you continue on until you made your next mistake. Do you remember? Do you remember that? I absolutely do that tape correction paper like that, right? You put that thing in my son thinks I’m crazy. Right? He’s 17 and he’s like, what do you do? Typewriters? I mean, what do you? Well, yeah, I am. Yeah, I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t know, you were thousands of years old, right? All right. Um What else? What else do you want to talk about around this, uh thought leadership, book publishing topic? You know, so books are a great tool for um reaching people, right? So you can leverage a book to get speaking engagements. I mean, if you’re talking to the speaking industry, they will tell you every speaker needs a book, it helps build that credibility. So, and I would say in nonprofits, you know, friends who survival, who I’ve volunteered with for a number of years now has a variety of books. They’ve acquired books from writers in the, the suicide space as a way to help the members. So I think that there’s other ways to think of books as a tool for reaching more people for um impressing donors for, you know, maybe you give out a book to every new member and you get a corporation to sponsor that investment. So it can actually be a powerful fundraising tool and also establish that thought leadership. And I, I’m working with another nonprofit. It’s um but it’s more of an association and the ceo of this gigantic association wants to establish that leadership in that space. A book is one of the best ways to do that. So that it’s really important to think about the power of how you will use that book. I mean, very few writers make money on books, but you can make money on all the things you can build around that book, your author with the 50,000 copy memoir that he’s, he’s an outlier he’s doing, he’s doing very well with his book, but it’s not, yeah, don’t expect to make a lot of money uh with your book. But your point is all the, all the ancillary things you might build your own Mastermind se series. Perhaps it might lead to online courses, uh might lead to a follow up book. Uh and, and all the things you mentioned, speaking gigs, et cetera and it can raise awareness for an organization, you know, and there’s different formats of books, right? It could be a workbook, it could be something that uh a journaling journal prompts book. There’s just so many ways to produce content that’s valuable to your target audience if you know what they care about. Well, and one of the purposes of the book could be education like your, like your mini book on how to deal with the suicide of a, of a loved one. It doesn’t have to be something that is your own personal thought, leadership venture. Uh Certain, that’s certainly right, but it doesn’t have to be that it could be your organization producing a book, writing a book for education on your, on, on your work for the community. That’s right. And fill a hole, right? What’s not there? So when you do that, competitive analysis oftentimes there’s holes in niche niches you know, I set out to work solely with nonfiction authors and I couldn’t believe I couldn’t, nobody else was, had an organization for this. Nobody had an online conference back in 2010. Nobody was doing this stuff. And I was speaking at writers conferences and I was like, why is the name would be talking to those of us who write nonfiction. It’s very fiction centric in the writers world and children’s books and maybe a little bit of memoir. But nobody’s talking to those of us who write business books. Um, you know, and science and history and, and prescriptive how to type books. So I saw a need and I filled it and for those of your listeners, what need needs to be filled, whether it’s with a book or other type of content, of course, uh, you know, speaking topic, all those things are ways to engage your audience, your community, your members and deliver value that helps keep them loyal for a very long time. That’s cool. All right. Uh, I feel like that’s a good place to end. How do you feel? I love it. This is really fun. Oh, I’m glad. My pleasure, Stephanie Chandler, uh, a couple of her books, the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan and the nonfiction book publishing plan. She’s CEO of the Nonfiction Authors Association and also the nonfiction Writers Conference. You’ll find Stephanie on linkedin, Stephanie, what’s the website for the Nonfiction Authors Association? It’s just nonfiction authors. Association.com and same thing for the conference, which is coming up in May. Oh, they’re both aptly named. Ok. Ok. Um, and you’re in Folsom? You’re in Folsom, California, right? You’ve mentioned Sacramento a couple of times. You’re Sacramento area in Folsom. That’s right. Just 10 minutes, 10 minutes out of Sacramento. North Cal, sunny weather. It’s, we’re very spoiled here. Does everybody ask you about Folsom Prison? Yes, I do. I, I have Johnny Cash’s album. Uh Folsom live from Folsom prison. As do I and we have, you do too. Oh, I absolutely do. And we have walking trails named after him. And ironically we’re the safest city in all of the Sacramento metro area, even though we have this giant prison tucked way out in the hills and, and the prison is all due. It’s for 18, 1880 I think I saw or 86. It opened eight, late 18 hundreds. It’s really old. It’s very historic and it’s very active. I mean, that’s, it’s a large facility and, but for the most part we forget it’s even there. All right. Well, Long Live Folsom Prison. Well, uh maybe not prison. Long lived Johnny Cash, immortalizing Folsom prison. So that, that’s a great album, Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison. Stephanie Chandler. Thank you very much. Real pleasure. Thank you, Tony. My pleasure as well. Next week, the generational divide. If you missed any part of this weeks show I beseech you second time today. Find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supports, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyer Hall. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez Clar Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.