Anna David's Blog, page 15

Web 3 Special: Selling Your Book as a Series of NFTs with Elle Griffin

 

Elle Griffin is the Editor-of-Chief of Utah Business and a freelance journalist and co-founder of Cryptopia, a web3 festival that debuted in 2022.

But I most wanted to talk to her about how she's brought her books into the Web 3 world. See, she's not only crowdfunded a novel using crypto but she's publishing her next novel as an NFT series on Twitter.

I first became aware of her through Jane Friedman and began subscribing to her Substack. Then I came across this story in Hacker Noon about how she was selling chapters of her book as NFT's. I wanted to know more. And so I reached out to interview her and now my brain is on fire with ways writers can enter the Web 3 world. Yours will be too once you listen to this.

RELATED EPISODES:

Making an NFT Out of Your Book with Lee Richter

Brian Meeks on How NFTs Fit Into the Writing World

TRANSCRIPT:

Anna David:  Thank you all so much for being here.

 

Elle:   Thank you so much for having me. And it's nice to meet you.

 

Anna David:   Nice to meet you, too. I discovered you I believe the first time I discovered you is through Jane Friedman, possibly. I discovered many things when I subscribed to your newsletter and started reading it. I believe it was also Jane Friedman that wrote about how you were minting your new novel as NFTs. And there's this amazing article that I read on Hacker noon. That's all about that. And I have just been fascinated by it. So I would love to talk to you about your process, how you got into this web three world, and what it's like as a writer to do this. So how did it start?

 

Elle:   Well, I've been following the web three world a little bit, just because it's been really incredible what it's done for creatives. So if you've seen anything about NFT's anywhere, I mean, those are artists that are creating pieces of art. And now because it's this tech centric product, where the artist gets to retain ownership of their work, and people can invest in it like they're investing in a stock. It's added all of this investment to the art world that just wasn't there previously, like, I mean, not even since the Renaissance, have people been investing in art in this way. It's been really crazy. So I've been really curious to see, okay, we've seen this play out for graphic artists, anything visual, really. And I've been curious if it was going to play out at all in the publishing world. So artists that are written in the written word. And there have started to be some players in this space. And I kind of watched them emerge.

 

I think the first one was the Mirror platform. And that was based on the Ethereum blockchain. And that actually allows writers to, you could write a blog on Mirror, but if it's connected to your crypto wallet, you can you know, once you publish it, the article lives on the blockchain. And you can choose to, you know, press a little button and minted as an NFT. And then you can sell that NFT. And you can do crowdfunding there. And so there's been some really interesting things there. So I was just curious if there would be a possibility to kind of fund a novel that way. And there is one girl who did it already, Emily Seagulls, she said she was going to write a YA novel. And she was gonna crowdfund it using Mirror. And she did, I think she raised 25 Ethe, which is like, I mean, ranges vary, like, but like around $80,000, essentially, in advance to write her book.

 

And then when she's done, and she sells it, she's retaining 20% ownership of the work, and everybody who invested in it can earn royalties. And it just seems like, well, this is a better deal than traditional publishing. So I launched my novel as an experiment, I didn't want to crowdfund an entire book, because I was like, Well, who knows? There's still not a way to successfully publish the novel, you can, like, fundraise the novel, but then it's like, well, you're going to publish it in the traditional way. So I was like, Alright, why don't I just say, for every point to five Ethe I raise, I'll write another chapter. And you can even buy a chapter outright. And I'll mention it as an NFT. And give it to you, if you'd like. So, I did that. And I ended up just writing five chapters, because I felt like it was the perfectly contained thing. And then I shut down the crowdfund. And now I'm trying to sell it to an animation studio.

 

So I think there's just so much potential here, because in my circumstance, it was like a very limited use case, it was really just so that I could write a newsletter for my newsletter, about how web three could work for writers in the future. So it wasn't really like a real thing. It was like an experiment, kind of like performance art for my newsletter. But I thought it was an interesting use case. Because here now we've got, I think, I ended up with five people who funded the project, and own chapters of it. And now it's a complete thing. And they all want it to be successful. So if I sell it to an animation studio, let's say, I, as the writer, retain 20% ownership, they will all earn on that sale, depending on what their stake in it is. And I just think that's such a fascinating model. Like, you're essentially buying a stake in somebody's art. And then you want it to be successful. So you're contributing to the success of that project. It's just, like, very fascinating.

 

Anna David:  It's so cool. So yeah, if you look at your page on Mirror, it says the funding goal was just point two, five Ethe. So one chapter. Yeah. And then it's always so lovely when you see a number like this that you know that you raise the dwarfs the initial, it's so sad when you see the number of the goal. And it's tiny compared anyway, just the opposite of that. And so you put it out there, and I've read that you just said yeah, it was as easy as pressing a button, which I will say I am now exploring and you know, even connecting, do you have your dot Ethe name? Do you have your name? Doing that I found challenging, I had to get help. It's, quote, easy. I'm a generic sir. It's not so easy. Just going to be honest.

 

Elle:   I think doing all that connection stuff is not easy. Like once you're on Nerium publishing on it is very easy. But it is very clunky to do anything on any kind of blockchain right now. So I mean, I've definitely had people write to me since that article being like, “Okay, I started my Mirror campaign. Now, what do I do?” And I'm like, “Well, unfortunately, I still face the problem of traditional publishing, in that getting somebody to read your writing is still very challenging. And getting somebody to know about your project, like any kind of discovery, is still very challenging.” I think what the web three world has, that's interesting is the model of a creator maintaining ownership of their work. But still, discovery is a long way off, I think ease of use is a long way off. How people are going to actually read this content is a long way off. So there's still a lot to be figured out.

 

Anna David:    Well, what's interesting about it, and really Substack, which you are super involved in, really, really made this clear. We delete newsletters, often that we don't pay for perhaps the same information written and we've invested in it. We've paid $5 a month, and we do read it, which is fascinating. And this idea that like, yeah, of course, we all support each other. But this idea that you have support that's financial, so that they're benefiting is just fascinating to me, because, you know, as the web has grown, and as everybody's a writer, there's just all this stuff out there. And who's got time? How do we each find our readers and placing value on it ourselves is how we do that. It's just fascinating,

 

Elle:   I think there are some. And I think we're still trying to figure out how this is gonna work for writers. But there are some very interesting use cases, one of the things that I think could be really beneficial is in the fan fiction world. Because right now, if you write fan fiction, say you were a Twilight fan fiction, you can't monetize that as the author. You can have 20 million people reading your Twilight fan fiction, but because of copyright and permissions and everything, you can't sell that work, or you can't sell merch, or you can't do anything, you know, any way to monetize that because it's somebody else's creation. Well, with a web three world, one of the use cases I think is entirely fascinating is the original author of Twilight could come out with an Edward NFT and Abella NFT and a Jacob NFT. And then I could buy those characters and then use them in my own work. And then I could sell my own work. And the original author could get a kick out of that, because I'm using their characters. And so it like links back to the original author and kind of gets rid of the thing that authors hate about fanfiction is like, you're taking my work and running with it, you're like, Okay, well, what if they take your work and run with it, and you still get all the credit, and you still even get a kickback on it? It seems like it kind of solves that problem.

 

Anna David:   It has to be an author that didn't publish traditionally, because they have to own it otherwise, you know, HarperCollins, or whatever? Do you know if Quentin Tarantino is getting very involved, you know, of writers who are getting very involved in and, you know, big writers, the Twilight type who are?

 

Elle:   I mean, their stuff. I don't know individual writers who are doing it, but I know writing platforms that are integrating it. So like, I think Wattpad is going to be a big player in this space. I think that I'll be curious to see if Al three and a Railroad get involved in this space just because they do operate in fanfiction and have similar kind of built in models for their authors where the authors do own their work. So any kind of platform where the writer already or substack, some of the substack team members have talked about integrating web three eventually, for the same reason and I know you can even purchase a few Crypt of the crypto subsets with crypto. So I think there are starting to be use cases where the platforms that writers write on will be able to be monetizable using web three technologies.

 

Anna David:    So okay, when exactly did you start your Mirror Story?

 

Elle: December of 2021.

 

Anna David:    December, and how did you do it? Did you announce it before? What was the actual process?

 

Elle:    So, what's interesting is it kind of started as a dare. Because I mentioned wanting to maybe write a biography of this tech guy in Utah. And I was talking to another tech guy in Utah, who was like, “wait, no, write a biography about me.” And I was like, “I don't know.” And he was like, “why don't you just write it as a fictional biography of me and you can put it on the it'll be a bit about me in the metaverse.” And then I was like, Oh, that's such a funny idea. And so I was like, Okay, what if I, what if I actually write this fictional novel about you in the metaverse and like, we'll just see what happens. And he was really gung ho. And this worked out to my advantage, because he is a huge Web three investor. In fact, he owns one of the largest angel investment firms in Utah and invests in Web three technologies, and startups. So by centering him as the main character in my book, I was targeting the web three world inherently because anything about him like he's like a character, he goes around dressed in Jesus robes and like a hot pink wig and like is given out Bitcoin to people at conferences.

 

So by putting him as the central character that automatically drew in a tech crowd that is already in the Web three and already follows this guy. So I just wrote a little prologue as a kind of joke, and I was like, “Alright, here it is, what do you think?” And he was like, “Oh, my God, I love this. Let's do it.” So I pressed publish on Mirror and launched the crowdfund. And then he actually funded the first chapter himself. And then that's when it started, and then he promoted it on his LinkedIn or something. And then people started coming in. So the story is like a fictional story of Scott Paul battling the forces of Mormonism and the metaverse. So it's like a very NFTy subject, I don't think you can write just like a regular book and crowdfunded this way. I think you kind of have to write for the world. And so by centering the book there, that's what kind of drew the attention and got people to invest and get excited about it.

 

Anna david:    Well, that's what I was gonna ask you because most of the listeners are not writing and NFTs Metaverse stuff. Maybe they are, they haven't told me. So for now, do you think so? So let's say somebody is writing a memoir? Do you think it makes sense to just put it on Mirror to start that way?

 

Elle:   No, I think you should start a Substack. I think you have to. I mean, here's the thing, though, I do think that writers should write for the platform they want to publish on because I think too many writers right now just think, Oh, I'm gonna write a book. But books have such a limited market. And I mean, it was like in 2020, only 268 books sold more than 100,000 copies and 100,000 was like so small. I mean, you think about the video world and how many movies see millions of views compared to one book that got a million sales in 2020. So it's just that I think it's important for writers to think about before they start writing something. Is this a book? Should I publish this on Mirror? Should I publish this on Substack? Should I publish this on Tik Tok or Twitter, should I think about the medium in mind and then write to that medium? I think you'll have a lot more success. And I think things like a memoir, they do really well on Substack. I mean, there's people you could, you can spend three years writing your memoir, and sell it as a novel to HarperCollins or Penguin Publishing house and sell 1000 copies of it tops. Or you can have 1000 people following your Substack. And you debut a new chapter every week of your own personal story. And if they pay you for it, then you'll earn $100,000 a year as opposed to like the, you know, $2 you'd get from the book sales. So I just think it's important to think about what mediums would be most read, most monetizable.

 

Anna David:   When you're right, that's I have the counter argument to Substack, which is I pay for a few. And, you know, I come from the generation where we could write for magazines, and we could get up to $4 a word. And it was really, the Huffington Post suddenly disappeared, and suddenly people were writing for free and suddenly, like you're begging for $1 word, then you're begging for 25 cents a word. Then you're paying the way people are forced to write. So it just, it just changed. And so I really adjusted my thinking about it. And so that's why what I'm always preaching to listeners, know this, is have a business that supports you, but you will never make any money. So for example, I have this business where we publish books for entrepreneurs who write and publish them. So I write books that will bring in those clients. And so when I'm reading these brilliant authors, and I'm paying them $5 A month, like these people who are sometimes writing like, every day, or three times a week, and, and it feels wrong, it doesn't feel wrong enough that I insist on paying them more, but there's something about it that I'm, they they're worth more than 100 grand a year. And if they had a business, they would make that I don't know, where do you stand on that?

 

Elle:   I think that it depends on what you want to write. I mean, there are subject writers making a million dollars a year from their work, and I think it's you definitely, if you're going to have a sub stack and you want it to be financially successful, you definitely have to think about it. Like you're saying, like a business, you're not just gonna write about some super niche thing and just accidentally make a living doing it, because you're on Substack, you have to actually think. I'm definitely approaching my Substack from the standpoint of like, Could this earn a living? Could I one day, just write a Substack, and that D My whole job, like, that's my, that's my dream. And so And fortunately, there are a bunch of people that are doing that on Substack. And I was recently part of the Substack fellowship program, and my mentor was making, I know, more than $300,000 a year from her Substack. And all she does is write one article a week. And I was just like, okay, so I think that there's a way to do it, and I think there is kind of a, okay, so $5 a month doesn't seem like that much to you to get four posts a month, or maybe six.

 

But if there's 1000 of you doing that, over 2000 of you doing that, or 10,000 of you doing that, then that's like a really good living for the author. And, and there are, I guess it is like, if you think about that as an ongoing cycle, it can be exhausting. Like, oh, as an author, I have to write an article every single week to make my living, but a lot of authors have built in breaks and are treating it like seasons with like, all of December off and all of July off and the readers don't mind. So I think that there's definitely a play there. And it's a play that I'm working on. But I think that it's just you have to treat it like a business like you are with your writing.

 

Anna David: Yeah, so Substack. And I actually don't know the answer to this. Anybody could start one because at first it wasn't that way. Correct? You have to be invited.

 

Elle:   Yeah, I think it was only two years ago that they got insane funding and have now been investing intensely in it and have really attracted a huge following. So in the last year, it has really come to prominence and gotten just humongous. And anybody can get on and write for free. I mean, completely free, Substack doesn't even pay, take any money until you're earning money. So it's like if you think about the early days of writing a WordPress blog, and having a MailChimp newsletter, you were paying $60 a month just for your MailChimp newsletter plus, like web hosting, and your blog and your WordPress theme. And that's just like, all part of the Substack stack. So it's like the easiest time has ever been to write as a writer.

 

Anna David:   Love that. No. So let me ask your advice as someone like me, who's got everything on Kajabi? You know, Kajabi with you know, Oh, it's kind of awesome. If you want to do everything, such as courses, email, you know, my businesses run on it. Do you think so? I send a newsletter every Thursday, which I hope you'll subscribe to. Do you think it would make more sense to do a Substack like for someone like me?

 

Elle:    So what do you charge for your courses?

 

Anna David:  It depends everywhere from like, $97 to 997 depending on what the course is.

 

Elle:   So you have a lot of different tiers, and you're essentially monetizing your courses?

 

Anna David:   Yeah, I'll be honest, not nearly enough. I dream of a passive income and it's really active from our clients. I haven't quite found the way to f so many amazing courses haven't quite found the way to monetize them. I mean, a little bit.

 

Elle: I think it depends on what you want to monetize. Like if it's, I know that now with Substack you have three Content Options You can do a newsletter or a podcast or a video. And I know that you can choose to like, podcasts are only for paid subscribers or videos are only for paid subscribers. So you could have video courses that come out and are published to your paid subscribers on Substack, which could be really cool. But there's only two tiers. So you can only pay, like however much you are charged for monthly. And then there's like a founding Level tier. So like, for example, I charge $10 A month or $50 a year to subscribe to my newsletter and my newsletter paid options are that you get access to my writer resources and my interviews, which are both written content. And then I have a $200 tier that's for everybody who wants to receive an annual print magazine and the print copies of my books when they're done. And so, but you couldn't do more than that. I know that they do it that way for a reason. Because they're like they're like to tiers is the best you can, you know, I don't know the best it'll perform on the market, I guess. But so I think you could do that. If you wanted to do it that way. It's just like, how do you want to publish your content?

 

Anna David:    Well, why don't you have a course? And maybe you are developing it on how to do this. Like, I mean, you need to be the person who creates a course on what to write you on how to set things up on, you know, Mirror, how you should have the dot Ethe address, like that just talk about this process of how you did it. And you, I just feel like courses are so competitive, which is one of the reasons I don't sell that well, because there are so many courses about how to write a book and how to publish a book. But there aren't these courses yet. It doesn't even exist how a writer can work in the metaverse?

 

Elle:   Well, that's the thing is, it's not working at all right now. Like not no writer is earning a living from Web three right now.

 

Anna David: But you're earning money.

 

Elle:    Yes, earning money. But it's very experimental right now. And I think it'll continue to be experimental until we have one platform that becomes the de rigueur thing. And honestly, I think it's not going to be a Web three platform, I think it's going to be a traditional platform that adds Web three features like Substack, or Wattpad, or Medium turning, like turning that on for their writers. And so it's just like a matter of who's going to do it first, and who's gonna do it really well. And that's where everyone will go.

 

Anna David: But guess who's gonna be at the front of the line? The people who understand it like you. And the people who take your course that you should create. And so until I want to ask a practical question about Mirror, so you put it out there, it gets funding, how quickly did you write your chapter?

 

Elle:    I wrote one every week. So my goal was to put one out every Wednesday. So if my chapter was funded by Friday, I had a new chapter by Wednesday. It wasn't that hard, because my chapters are very short. They're designed for this world, and people don't have long reading spans. So it worked out. But I know that like the other girl that founded or crowdfunded her novel and Les Segal, she funded the whole thing up front and now it's been probably a year or so and her books are still not out because she's writing a full book. So it's gonna take a while to see kind of how that comes to fruition.

 

Anna David:    Okay, so as of today and looking at it, you have 2000, you know, equivalent to $2,097. Have you gotten any of that money in your bank account? Like for people who don't understand how this totally works like me? How does that work?

 

Elle:   The second you close your crowdfund you get access to that money. So the second I closed my crowdfund all of that. Ethereum went straight into my crypto wallet, which I just use Coinbase.

 

Anna David:    And so now you've got these, sorry, it's five chapters. And so what is your next move in terms of figuring out what to do?  Animation, can you explain that to me, like what do you mean animation studio?

 

Elle:    So for example, you know, my novel or I guess it's a short story. But Scott Hall Battles the Forces of Mormonism in the Metaverse, I kind of thought it's like such a weird concept and it's very, like, you know, he's shooting up into a planet and a pink bubble and the angel Maura Nye is like blowing bubbles and like ashen creatures there on the moon like and this is like weird stuffs happening. So I just felt like first that has To be animation and second of all, who's into Metaverse, animation and Mormonism I was like this should be a South Park episode. You know, like, I just kind of thought you can think of shows that would do really well with it. So I just thought, okay, that'd be really fun. And I'll just see what I can get. And it'd be so interesting to fund a television show that way, like to, so I don't know if anything will ever come of it. But it's an interesting model. And I'm going to replicate it soon. I purchased an NFT. That was part of loot project, which was one of the only tech space NFT's that has ever been produced. And basically what the project was, is they debut like four words or five words.

 

And they might be like demon crowns, or grimoires, or some sword. It's like all these kinds of loot items, you might get in like a video game or like a fantasy video game. And so I bought one that has like, very, very unique attributes in it. And then I wrote a story around those, like using those items in the story. And so I'm going to debut that one shortly. I'm trying to figure out the best way to publish it because my thinking was, okay, I've written this story about this mage queen who has these grimoires and this crown, and she has these powers. And I can say, Okay, here's the story. Now, I need 12 people to step up and go on this quest. And so that opens it up for any writer to then go purchase their own loot, and go on one of the quests with those items and can kind of like create this, I basically created the world. And now anybody can go right in it with their own NFT items. And so that's what I want to debut next. And I'm curious to see what will happen, then, maybe after the project is over, I can then sell my original NFT that I purchase for more money, because now it's part of the story. So I think there's a lot of interesting things that could happen. And I'll definitely be exploring more.

 

Anna David:   How many NFT's do you personally have of other people's?

 

Elle:  Not very many, I think I have, I am looking at my crypto wallet right now. Probably five.

 

Anna David:   Have you resold anything yet?

 

Elle: No, I don't know how to do that.

 

Anna David:   Yeah, me neither.

 

Elle: Even sitting my phone on my little crypto wallet, but I don't really know what I can do with them from there.

 

Anna David:  Yeah, it's, you know, I highly recommend the person that I told you and listeners know this. I'm doing a series, I'm doing a series of three on how writers can get involved in this world. And so the previous woman that I interviewed, she talked about a couple things she said, if you want to get into the NFT world, first explore as a buyer, set up your open, see, buy something, then explore as a personal thing. And then professional because you want to do your research that way. And one thing that she suggested I'm curious about your take on this, she suggested writing a book that you're planning to publish, published traditionally, but have something in the beginning. That's just you, you sell us an NFT. So you're kind of combining the two worlds. What do you think of that idea?

 

Elle: Well, if you're publishing it traditionally, then it's going to be owned by your publisher.

 

Anna David:   No, I'm sorry. I meant like putting out a paperback copy yourself.

 

Elle:   Okay. Yeah, like if you self-publish, you can for sure do that. And I think personally, I think this would be very interesting for Royal Road because authors that write on Royal Road are all writing lit RPG genre stuff, which is like, you know, players are kind of in a video game world. And it uses like, video game terminology in the stories where you like, suddenly the main character, like finds a sword, and it has this power, these powers and that like contributes to the storyline. Why not make that an act an actual NFT that people can like, buy that sword? It's similar to buying merch. If you buy merch now from an author like a fairy Harry Potter wand or something? Or like, if you would, were actually in a video game you might buy things to get more power. Why not bring that into the publishing world?

 

Anna David:   What is a lit RPG?

 

Elle:   Literary role playing games is what it stands for.

 

Anna David: Well, this is fantastic. That was one other question that I was going to ask you that I already forgot. And maybe it will come back to me as I say these words, but it hasn't. I'm what so Oh, I know what it is. So let's say this memoir writer, is there anywhere if it's not Mirror, where would where would they start if they wanted to explore this world?

 

Elle:   And so I think if it's a memoir as it's in your personal story, Substack. If it's a cookbook Substack, if it's a lit RPG, Railroad. If it's a YA novel, Wattpad. If it's a romance novel, Kindle Unlimited.

 

Anna David:   But Substack is not, you can't mint anything as an NFT on Substack. But if they want to get into this world…

 

Elle:   Because who are your readers? Like, if you're writing a memoir, the people that are going to be your readers are probably people that are interested in you, not necessarily people that are familiar with Web three, unless you are like a Web three personality. In which case, maybe that works, but I feel like you have to think about who your readers are. And your readers are not like a tech, a techy audience and like the web three world probably isn't right just yet.

 

Anna David:   Unless you're going to be the one that introduces them to the Web three world.

 

Elle:   Yeah, but even in my, I have 4000 newsletter subscribers on Substack. And none of them invested in my NFT novel. Instead of five people donating like $1,000 each who are like really techie web three people that found me on Twitter. So it's just different worlds.

 

Anna David:   Yeah, I mean, I think you're doing a favor for anybody who kind of goes, Wait, I don't understand this world. It's time to get in it. Get in when you're an early adopter. And so you're offering them an opportunity, but opportunities are scary and weird. So I get you know, I'm right at the cusp of entering this world, so I get it. But hey, anyone listening? Well, it's too late, your funding closed. But for your next one, go invest you guys just put get a Coinbase wallet, buy some of this stuff. I'm not a financial Web three advisor, but I just highly recommend educating yourself about it. And this is the way to do it by getting involved.

 

Elle:   Yeah, you have to learn by doing in this realm.

 

Anna David:   So thank you so much Elle. If people want to find you, where should they go?

 

Elle:   Yeah, follow my Substack, Elle Griffin.substack.com.

 

Anna David:   And you're on Twitter?

 

Elle:   Yes, I am. But mostly on Substack. I might get back to Twitter eventually.

 

Anna David:    I'm getting back into Twitter. I'm deciding it's back.

 

Elle: I’m getting hot and cold with it. So I feel you.

 

Anna David:   Okay. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. I will talk to you next week.

 

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Web 3 Special: Making an NFT Out of Your Book With Lee Richter

 

Lee Richter is a business, leader, visionary and entrepreneur since the 1990’s who has built and sold several multi-million dollar companies. Lately she's been schooling me on the whole Web 3.0 space—in particular how authors can get into the NFT world.

And that's exactly what we talked about in this episode. She broke down different tactics authors can take—whether it's writing special intros to certain copies of the book, sending physical copies of the book to your NFT buyer, including a free speaking gig along with the digital asset or anything else.

Perhaps more important while it's still only one percent of the population that's engaging in the Web 3.0 world: she tells you how to dip your foot in the water. (Hint: first you approach it as a buyer and then as a personal seller before even trying to mint an NFT for your professional life.) And if you're going "WTF, I don't even know what Web 3.0 MEANS," good news: she defines it at the top of the episode.

To learn more about Lee and the NFT world, go to Go Ask Lee or Global Leaders Collective.

RELATED EPISODE:

Brian Meeks on How NFTs Fit Into the Writing World

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Creating the Biggest Audience Possible with Becky Robinson

 

Becky Robinson and I have a LOT in common (in addition to assisting authors with book launches, we graduated from college the same year, both majored in creative writing and both host all our stuff on Kajabi).

So who is this marvel? Well, she's the Founder and CEO of Weaving Influence, a full-service marketing agency that specializes in digital and integrated marketing services and public relations for authors, business leaders, coaches, trainers, speakers and thought leaders. 

Since launching nearly a decade ago, the firm has provided a wide range of services to help clients launch more than 150 books, enabling authors to build their brands, acquire more business customers and increase book sales.

In short, she's all about helping authors leave a lasting impact with their books.

And that's what her just-launched book, Reach: Create the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, is all about. Listen in on our conversation about how to keep your book's message alive for decades, why to focus on spreading your message every quarter and the importance of advanced reader teams, among so many other topics.

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What Book Would Help Build This Entrepreneur's Business?

 

Tim Westbrook is the owner of Camelback Recovery and the host of the I Love Being Sober podcast. Sober since 2011, he actively works a 12-step program and has helped countless people get and stay sober. As his business expands, he needs to attract even more people to his mission—and rehab. So why doesn't he have a book yet? And what should his book even be? 

That's what I confronted Tim about in this episode. Call it a "booktervention." Listen in on our chat and come away convinced that you need How to Live a Kick Ass Sober Life by Tim Westbrook on your bookshelf.

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Turning Online Readers Into Book Readers with Zara Barrie and Dayna Troisi

 

I literally don't have the words to describe the experience of recording this episode but suffice it to say that it was the most fun interview I've ever done.

Back story: Zara Barrie and I knew each other online (I find her incredibly glam and we're mutual fans of one another to the point that I recommended her book, Girl Stop Passing Out in Your Makeup, on KATU). She told me that she and her podcast co-host slash work wife Dayna Troisi were going to be in LA (they're NYC ladies, natch). We decided to do a podcast swap, they rented a studio and the rest is history. If history involved me becoming obsessed with these two hilarious and brilliant lesbians who, in addition to co-hosting their podcast GirlZ Interrupted, also, between them, regularly write articles that go viral, are university professors (one of them, anyway), produce an audio series (the other of them) and do so many other things that it would be impossible to summarize.

We recorded this right after they recorded their interview with me so were already BFFs by the time this particular recording started. This means that, in addition to covering our main topic—how to turn an online audience, once you've gone viral, into an audience that buys and reads your book—we had many delightful diversions (swag, whether or not your friends support your book, if you should be on your book cover and more).

Listen and you'll become as obsessed with them as I am. Speaking of, you'll want to stalk them in all the following places:

Socials:

Zara on IG

Dayna on IG

Zara on Facebook

Podcasts:

GirlZ Interrupted

Girls on Jane

Websites:

GirlZInterrupted

Dayna Troisi

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Finding the People Who "Get" Your Message with Veronica Valli

 

Veronica Valli has 20 years of experience as a recovery coach and psychotherapist and is the author of Soberful: Uncover a Sustainable, Fulfilling Life Free of Alcohol. The co-host of the Soberful Podcast, Veronica has helped thousands of women not only recover from alcohol but also transform their lives.

In this episode, we discuss listening to that inner voice that tells you that you need to write a book, getting help from the experts and finding the journalists and bookers who "get" your message.

We also discussed how much we love each other and our delightful bike ride around Tahoe. There were some other non-sequiturs. Ever wondered what having a red microphone can do for you? Listen for that but also an array of tips on having a longterm vision for how your book can build your business.

Free Facebook group: Soberful

Instagram: @veronicajvalli

Website: Soberful.com

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How Authors Can Get Media Attention with Kristin Marquet

 

Kristin Marquet is the owner and creative director of Marquet Media, LLC, where she executes client campaigns, develops partnerships with leading brands and entrepreneurs (like me!) and gets her clients media attention everywhere from Inc and Forbes to Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur and so many more.

With an academic background and advanced studies in data science, business, and public relations, Kristin has attended Boston University, New York University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kristin is also a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council.

In this episode, we discussed how authors can get booked on TV and featured in interviews, the secret websites that showcase what sources journalists are looking for and why it's crucial to figure out your angle.

Want links to those secret websites? Here they are:

HARO
SourceBottle.com
QWOTED.com
JournoRequests

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How Authors Can Improve Their Google Footprint with Josh Greene

 

Josh Greene is the CMO for The Mather Group, a digital agency that helps companies manage how they’re found online—through Wikipedia and Search Engine Optimization—and drives targeted high-value leads for B2B companies.

In other words, he's the guy to contact if you want a presence on Google—before or after launching your book. He tends to help founders who are already "out there" improve their visibility but he's also full of tips on how anyone can control their own Google narrative.

In this episode, we discussed how challenging it can be to get a Wikipedia page if you don't already have one, ways to improve your chances of getting one and the three steps you should take right now if you want to control what people find when they Google you.

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Talking About Your Book on TV and Podcasts with Media Coach Susan Harrow

 

Susan Harrow is a world-renowned media coach, marketing strategist and author of the best-selling book, Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul (HarperCollins).

We met in a cave in Mexico, which isn't untrue but also just makes a better story than the literal truth. And that way of explaining our relationship is highly relevant in this case because our conversation was all about how to tell your story in the media in a way that's compelling—and gets viewers interested in your book. My big takeaway from the interview was, after doing media for over a decade, I had a lot more control over how I was presented than I realized.

For over 32 years, Susan has helped thousands of CEOs, entrepreneurs and thought leaders shine on Oprah, 60 Minutes, Today, Good Morning America, Fresh Air, Marketplace, NPR and CNN—without selling their soul. Her course, The Zen of Fame: Your Genius Gone Viral™, shows people how to promote themselves with integrity and spirit. 

FIND SUSAN

PR Secrets

Susan on LinkedIn

Susan on YouTube

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How Authors Can Get Booked to Speak with Topher Morrison

 

Topher Morrison has tips aplenty when it comes to authors getting booked to speak and it makes sense: he is, after all, the founder of Personofi, a firm that specializes in brand messaging for small business owners. He is the author of four best-selling books and was voted one of the top 10 business speakers in Tampa Bay. His extensive speaking career, spanning over the past 30 years, has earned him a global reputation as an expert in mass communication and influence. He has spoken for top execs with American Express, Microsoft and Google, just to name a few.

In this episode, he shared so many gems I'd never heard before—including where authors who have never spoken before can get experience for a reel, the importance of a one-sheet, how to make a book into a speech by using the vignettes in it, why the opening of the speech should not be the same as your first chapter and how to sell your book while speaking without sounding like a douche.

It's all in there!

For more about Topher, go to Topher Morrison. To pick up one of his books, click here. And to see some of his educational videos about how to kill it as a speaker, click here.

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Anna:

Okay Topher, thank you so much for coming to chat with me today.

Topher:

I am stoked. It's been first off way too long since we've chatted anyway. When did we meet each other, 10 years ago, maybe longer?

Anna:

Hold on. It wasn't quite 10 years ago, but this is sort of an awesome thing. I was thinking about it because there's a comedian that I used to know pretty well and I haven't seen him since then. I think it was John Heffernan, right?

Topher:

John Heffernan. We are still good buds. Yes. That's how I met you.

Anna:

But I think what happened is I saw him tweet about you. Or he told me directly. He said, "I know this guy, I work with this guy who's the best speaking coach." And I reach out to you and you were so sweet. And you said, "I'm going to be in LA. I'll just work with you." Or maybe you even said, "I'll come to LA."

Topher:

I can't remember.

Anna:

And I remember because I had this office at WeWork and you worked with me and you really helped me restructure a talk that I had and deliver it. And you are just such a sweet, sweet person and so good at what you do.

Topher:

Thanks.

Anna:

I'm really happy that you're here to talk about something I've never talked about on the podcast and my listeners are very much interested in, which is how do you convert a book into a talk? And how do you use the fact that you're an author to get booked as a speaker? So let's actually do it backward. Because as I always say, if there are two people that a booker is considering, and they're equal, but one has a book, they're always going to book the author. Tell me about that.

Topher:

Every single time they will pick the published author over the unpublished author even if the other speaker is a better speaker and has a better demo reel and is more entertaining. They will almost always, I guess I should probably preserve that, not be so hyperbolic, but they will almost always pick the author. Because there is this perceived notion in society that authors are experts. And that's probably rightly earned as well. At least if it's a good book, they probably are an expert in it and they took a long time, you know, you've written a book, it ain't easy. It's hard. So by the time somebody's gone through all that process, they are probably an expert. But it's a false assumption, but it is a societal assumption that the authors are the experts. Yeah.

Anna:

Yes. It's why we do what we do. Because a lot of our clients are experts, but nobody knows that because they've sort of been working towards their expertise, doing their 10,000 hours of work, and they need that book to show the world.

Topher:

Yeah, they're working on their craft. They're the world's best-kept secret because they're an expert in it and they are bonafide phenomenal and they don't have the book. And there's just no social proof. In fact, the scary part is that, especially in today's society, because publishing has become such a mainstream thing, nowadays the question people get is, "Have you written a book?" And you know, if somebody ever asked you, "Well, do you have any books? Have you written any book on it?" you know you're six months or a year behind if people are asking if you have a book and you don't. You definitely want to have one, no doubt about it. And the only anything better than having one is having two or three or four.

Anna:

Or eight like me, right.

Topher:

Yeah. Ooh.

Anna:

And, oftentimes bookers are quite excited to have a signing. So I think that that's... And/or a lot of speakers will gift their book or they'll say basically, "Hey, if you buy 200 copies, you don't have to pay me." Tell me a little bit about how that works.

Topher:

Yeah. So there are several different packages that you can offer as a speaker when you have a book, which is just what you just said. You have your speaking fee and then you will gift a certain number of books. Or you could have bought my book and I will speak for free. And something people might say, "Well, why is that important?" Because the monies to buy the books come out of a different account than the money to pay the speakers in large corporations. So they may have already blown their budget on their conference for their speakers, but yet they still have money in their budget for swag bags. And by the way, that's a great way to say, "We'll get the books in time for you to put them in your swag bags," and they love that as well. So it comes out of a different purse. And so, while you may have a budget that you have to stay within the speaker fees, the book fees could be added. And it's just a great way for you to have more flexibility and still get maximum dollars from that event.

Anna:

That's so interesting. I've never thought about that. And then, of course, if you have a business and let's say you one client is worth anywhere from a thousand dollars to a hundred thousand dollars, it is well worth the investment in the $3 a book or whatever it's going to cost for you to gift that.

Topher:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Although, definitely don't gift it first, sell it first. And then if they don't buy, then go down to hard costs. And then if they don't buy, then you can gift. Start off with the price that makes you the most amount of money, obviously. Because like I said, sometimes these big corporations don't bat an eye. Remember this, the one thing I love to tell people when they're thinking about charging their speaking fees and like, "Oh, how much is the right fee and blah, blah, blah, blah," remember that the bar tab at a conference for a large corporation will outweigh your speaking fee by at least five times, at least five times. Just keep that in mind. It may seem like a big fee for us when we charge it. It is a drop in the bucket for these large corporations that are hosting and spending $300,000, a half million, $2 million, $10 million on their annual conferences. A $10,000 or a $20,000 speaking fee is nothing for these companies.

Anna:

Let's say I'm a first-time author. And my book, maybe I feel, because I hear people say this, not qualified to be an expert, even though I have all this hard-earned personal experience, but I don't have a master's degree or I don't have whatever, and I go, "Okay, I want to be a speaker." How do I start?

Topher:

Okay. And you don't have a book or you do have a book?

Anna:

You do have a book. You have your first book and you're like, "Okay, here we go with speaking. What do I do?"

Topher:

Perfect. Well, at the risk of sounding self-promotional, hire a speaking coach for one, because you could have the best information in the world and if you don't know how to present it in a palatable way, they're never going to book you back. So you absolutely want to do that. And by the way, you should probably get a media coach as well, because you're going to be asked to speak on TV or on the radio. And if you've never been in front of a camera or you've never had a microphone shoved in front of your face, it can be quite intimidating. Anna, you know this. You've done this for years. So for you, it's second nature. But if you can recall back to that first time you were on the bright lights in the camera, it's unnerving, right? And so you could have all the... The natural law of memory, it is inhibited when you are relaxed. It is enhanced when you're relaxed, it's inhibited when you're stressed. And nothing can cause more stress to a new time author than is the first time they're on a show. You could forget your damn name when you're on TV. So hire a media coach for sure or a speech coach.

Topher:

But beyond that, and I'm not trying to push my services either, I'm really not. What I'm saying, though, is that the delivery is as important as the knowledge. And that's the point that I want to make. Absolutely. Yeah. So you want to make sure you have that. Then once you do that, so the question is you're a new time... You want to break into the speaking gig, you need to have a one-sheet. It is the most important marketing piece for a speaker. It's more important than a sizzle reel, by the way, is the one sheet. The one-sheet is exactly what it sounds like. It's one piece of paper. It probably has your picture. It has your brief bio. It has a highlight of what you are going to learn in the keynote or one of the takeaways that the audience will get. And it probably has some quotes from people that are impressed by you that have some name notoriety that people if they were to see those quotes who go, "Well, if this person's saying they're good, they must be amazing." That's really all it is.

Topher:

And oftentimes, the one-sheet will make a bigger impact than the sizzle reel. Because the sizzle reel requires a computer to watch. And keep in mind, sometimes these board meetings where you've got the planner and you've got the board and they're all sitting around, they don't have time to sit there and watch 15 different speaker reels. So you're lucky if they'll watch it. They probably won't. What they're going to do is they're going to refer to the person who found you, who's [inaudible 00:09:02] and saying, "Hey, this is a great speaker. Here's their one sheet." And they look at it and they go, "Yeah, they look like they're smart. I like the photo. It was a professional headshot. It doesn't look like it's a stupid selfie." By the way, also be sure that you're investing in a good professional one sheet. And it just gives a quick highlight. That's oftentimes all they make the decision. They don't need to see the sizzle reel.

Anna:

I'm curious, so they'll book speakers without seeing how they speak.

Topher:

Yeah, absolutely. It depends. If you were referred to them, almost always they don't need to see the sizzle reel. If you're the one knocking on their door, doing the Oliver Twist, "Please sir, may I have a cup of porridge," then yeah, you might need to get them to watch the sizzle reel to know that you're good. But for the most part, you want to get your message out to as many people as possible so people who are on those committees hear about you and then they come to the committee and they go, "Oh my God, I saw this person on YouTube," or, "I saw this person on a podcast," or, "I heard this person on a podcast. They were amazing. I think they'd be great for our presentation." It can literally boil down to that. And they're like, "Yeah, good. Let's get them booked."

Anna:

Okay, but so then, and I remember how I solved this, here's the problem, you go, "Okay, I want to get booked. I don't have a sizzle reel because I've never spoken." So how do you get around that?

Topher:

Okay. Well, there are a couple of things. Nowadays, at the risk of aging myself, back in my day, it was hard to get video production. But nowadays, for crying out loud, you've got a 4k camera on your phone. You can set something up. It doesn't have to matter. Have a small event at your house if you have to, invite some people over. If you don't have a nice house, go to your friend's house who's got a nice house, I don't care. And do a quick presentation. Have it set up. The only thing that I'd recommend is that if you're going to set up an iPhone or a smartphone, don't use the microphone. As powerful as phones are in their high definition, 4k recording quality, they still suck when it comes to the recording of audio. So go get one... Nowadays, by the way, it used to be like an $800 lapel mic you'd have to get, nowadays, you can get it for 50 bucks, you can get these wireless lapel mics that plug right into your phone, you clip them, and the sound is just impeccable. It's beautiful. And just do something like that just so they know that when you get up in front of people, you're not going to stumble and fall and make a fool of yourself. It can literally be something as unofficial as that.

Topher:

But also, it's not that hard to get booked to speak nowadays. There are so many organizations from One Million Cups up to your chambers of commerce, all of the animal clubs, the Elks, the Moose, the Eagles, whatever. Those people are starving for speakers to come in. And just reach out to all of the local chapters, all of the local organizations that are in some level of professionalism and just say, "Hey, you know what? I've just published my first book. It's on this topic. And I think that your audience might benefit from it. I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm just trying to get some exposure and some experience speaking in front of the stage. I would love to come out to your group and give them a 20 minute or a 30 minute or a 15-minute presentation," whatever it is that your keynote is, "And there's no catch. There's no sales pitch. I just want permission to record it so I can improve and do better later." And honestly, you could book yourself up a month straight with local chapters for organizations that are just looking for people to come out and speak to their audiences.

Anna:

That's an amazing, amazing tip. So let's say I have my book. How do I make my book into a speech?

Topher:

Okay. Remind me, by the way, before we get off this call, to share with your listeners some techniques on how to sell the hell out of their books when they speak without being a salesy, douche-baggy guy. So remind me to do that.

Anna:

Love it.

Topher:

So what your question was, how do you turn the book into a speech? So let's first break down what a speech comprises. A speech, the best analogy that I can give, and I'm going to roll credits to this, by the way, to a gentleman by the name of Bill Gove. Now, I did not learn directly from Bill. I learned from his mentee, which is a guy named Steve Seebold, and he's a good friend of mine. And Bill Gove by the way, is kind of like the grandfather of motivational speaking. He is the guy who started it all. All of the great speakers that we admire love today, most of them are trained by this guy named Bill Gove, 30, 40 years ago. And he had it so well. He said, "A keynote speech is nothing but..." I'm paraphrasing his statements here, "A keynote speech is nothing but a concert in spoken word." So you want to have, just like if you were to go to a concert, you want to have your songs rehearsed. You want to be able to know in what order those songs are going to be played. And you want to have practiced those songs so well that if something were to happen on stage, it wouldn't throw your game off. In fact, you could even improvise and play around with that a little bit and make it look like it's effortless.

Topher:

So think of your speech as a concert in spoken word. And your concert is broken down into short little songs. Yours are vignettes. And a great speech is made up of short little vignettes, no more than five minutes apiece, as short as 30 seconds apiece. And they are stacked together one after another, in whatever order makes the most sense for the flow and the feel of the concert, just like a concert. You want to start off with something dynamic, but not your best hit. You want to start off with something that just kind of warms up the crowd. And then you want to build up. And then at some point in time, you need to slow down and you need to relax and you got to put the ballad on. Because you can't have a concert that's just loud, nonstop. And then after the slow, then you got to build it back up again. And presentations have that same flow. I call it the charisma pattern, by the way, which is that there is a cadence to a presentation, which is you start off at a medium pace, you work up into a louder, faster pace, and then as you get louder and faster, then you drop it down to something slow and soft.

Anna:

It's interesting because a book, the best, the most effective way to do a memoir is to have your first two chapters be the bottom, the most dramatic, and then you move into childhood so that doesn't... And then you start going chronologically. And then around chapter eight, you catch up to whatever that first chapter was. And that's not what you do with speaking.

Topher:

No. Yeah. So interestingly enough, the same strategies and skills that make a great book a great book, do not translate into what makes a great presentation. Nor do great strategies and skills as a speaker in a live audience translate to being a great speaker on camera as well. There are differences between all of those things. But there are different environments. I'm glad that you brought that up. It makes a big difference. With the presentation, you don't want to start off with your best. You want to just kind of warm up the crowd a little bit. Because let's face it, they're still sussing you out. If they bought your book, at some level, they're kind of convinced. But remember, buying a book is this person has something I need and I want to hear it. But in a presentation and a keynote, it's completely the opposite. It's, "Who is this yahoo, and why do I have to sit here and listen to them speak?" Totally different market. So you kind of got to win them over. And if you go in too hard, too fast, you're like that guy at the bar who's just hitting on the girls a little bit too fast and too hard. Slow your roll, cowboy. Just bring it down a notch or two. Be cool.

Anna:

Yeah. You don't walk up and propose.

Topher:

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe you don't even walk up. Maybe you just sit there and just let them come to you. You got to know your game, right?

Anna:

Look at that. And so how do you know, do you need 10 anecdotes? How many do you need? Let's say this is a 10-minute speech. Do you need 10 anecdotes?

Topher:

Sure. Fantastic. Yeah. Listen, if you could do 10, I'll call them vignettes, because that's my language, but an anecdote is the same thing, yep, 10 anecdotes, 10 vignettes in 10 minutes would be an unbelievably awesome speech. Most people are not that well-rehearsed. They could maybe get two to three vignettes out in a 10-minute speech. Only a pro could do 10 in 10 minutes. And I always think back to, and I'm sure you've heard this quote, I believe it was Mark Twain, who said, "I apologize for not writing a shorter speech. I didn't have time." Or something to that effect. I'm sorry it was so long. I didn't have time to write a shorter one, or something like that.

Anna:

It's been attributed to so many people. Allegedly, it was a note to his wife, and who knows who he is. And it said, "I wanted to write you a short note. I wanted to..." Oh, you know. Yeah. That basically it's harder to do short than it is long is the point.

Topher:

Yeah, yeah. You get the idea. Same thing with the presentation. If I just wanted to tell some ideas and I didn't have them rehearsed, I would ramble on and on, I would get derailed, I would come back and I would be disheveled. And I would be like, "La, la, la, la." But on a keynote, you cannot do that. You have to have everything you're going to say rehearsed and prepared so you know how to do it. Now, the question is how many vignettes do I need for an amount of time? What I would say to that is this, it's not so much how many vignettes for a certain amount of time, it's just that do you know how much time each vignette takes?

Topher:

So create a vignette book with all the different stories that you have. And by the way, go into your book. This is back to your original question, how do you convert a book into a keynote? You take the best stories in your book. You bring them out of the book and you say, "Okay, what are the lessons or the big takeaways that this story in my book reveals?" And by the way, you could twist your stories just slightly to focus on something just slightly different. And one story you could have 10 or 15 different takeaways that you would use depending upon the audience that you're speaking with. So for example, oftentimes you'll hear keynote speakers, they'll say something like, "And we will customize the presentation to your audience." They don't. The good ones don't anyway. But what they do is they customize the takeaways to the audience, but the stories are always the same. And they're repeated the exact same way every single time with the right inflection because it's a song in spoken word. You got to practice it. But you do want to know what those takeaways and those lessons are.

Topher:

And then what I do is when somebody books me, I say, "Okay, well what are the current challenges that your company's dealing with? What are the things, what are the takeaways that your audience wants?" And then when they give those to me, then I go, "Okay, now what stories do I have that would fit into that category?" And then I'll apply that story to that takeaway. And then I just simply go, "All right, well, this is the number of takeaways," and I add up, this is a three-minute speech, this is a five-minute speech, this is a 30-second speech. And I add them all together and then I've got my presentation length. Now, sometimes though, your committees, your speaking committees, will go, "We just want them motivated. We just want them to be grateful that they're here at the conference. That's fine. We just want them having fun." "Okay, good. Then leave it up to me and I'll do my thing. How much time do you want me to speak?' And they'll say 45 minutes. And then you go, "Great." And then you go through and you put your song list together of all your different vignettes that add up to 45 minutes.

Topher:

Now, here's the cool thing about breaking a speech down into little bite-size vignettes. I have never in the history of speaking professionally in over 30 years, I have never, ever shown up for a keynote presentation where they have said, "Remember the agreed-upon time we asked you, that's exactly how much time we want you to speak." It has never ever, ever gone that way. This is always what happens. Once again, I'm speaking a little hyperbolic. I'm sure that I had one or two, but I just don't remember them.

Topher:

This is what normally will happen when somebody books you to speak. They'll come up to you backstage, usually five minutes before you're ready to go on, and they'll say something like this, they'll go, "Our next speaker is stuck at the airport. They're not going to be here. I know this is really last minute. I'm so sorry to ask this. I know we only asked you to speak for 45 minutes, but could you speak for 55 minutes?" or, "Could you speak for an hour and 15 minutes? If we have to pay you more, we will." By the way, they will say that too. But if they don't offer, by the way, that's fine. Just be cool. And they'll go, "Can you stretch it out to an hour and 15 minutes?" And then you go, "Absolutely. No problem. Because you know you've got a bank of other stories that didn't make the cut and you're just going to add a couple more of them in, not a big deal.

Topher:

Most commonly, though, that's not what's going to happen. Most commonly, they're going to come to you five minutes before your presentation and go, "Hey, I know we asked you to speak for 45 minutes, but the vice president just showed up and he's on a tight deadline. He's got to get on a plane. He wants to get on stage a little bit of earlier. I hate to do this to you. I know we asked you to speak for 45 minutes. Could you cut your presentation down to 30 minutes?" That happens, I'm going to say that probably happens, and I'm not exaggerating 90-plus percent of the time that's what will happen. And then you smile and you go, "Absolutely, no problem." You don't throw a fit because now you just know, "I'm going to cut a few songs out of my playlist and I'm going to get it down to 30." Whereas if you design a 45-minute presentation that has a beginning and a middle, and then I'm going to tell them what I'm going to tell them, I'm going to tell them and I'm going to tell them what I'm told them, the old Dale Carnegie speech stuff, which is just dead and done now, that doesn't work. Because now what do you? Do you tell the promoter, "No, I'm sorry. My presentation is 45 minutes. I have to do 45."

Topher:

No, what'll end up happening is you go, "Okay," and then you're like, "How do I speak really fast to get it done?" And then you end up going over and you piss off the promoter and they never bring you back. So yeah, take your best stories out of your book, make a list of all the different lessons or takeaways that could come from them. Create your vignette book, which is all a different story. And by the way, you might have five different stories for one point. That's okay too because you know what? They might have loved that point so much you need to drive it home again, and then you have another story as well. But that's the most time-consuming and professional way to build a speech from a book. Take your best stories, pull out the takeaways, build it based upon the takeaways and the time.

Anna:

And is it have a 10-minute, a 20-minute, and a 40-minute version? Do you think that's-

Topher:

No. I think you should just have 30-second to five-minute vignettes. And then when somebody books you, you go, "Oh, I got a 15-minute speech? I'm going to pull out my three best five-minute vignettes," or, "I'm going to pull out my four best three and a half-minute vignettes." And then you just add them up that way. Yeah. If you do it that way, you'll be golden. But that takes practice. It takes preparation. And unfortunately, most people... And by the way, this is just the mark between a professional speaker and a professional who speaks, there's a difference there. The professional who speaks is working on their slide presentation the night before. The professional speaker doesn't even deal with slides because he knows that they're a hassle and is going to entertain the audience with their stories anyway.

Topher:

So a couple of other things. The biggest misconception that I think people make that aren't professional speakers that have been asked to speak and it's their first keynote presentation and they're nervous about it, they think that they need to wow the audience with all of this great information and you're going to change their minds and their hearts and their lives with this dialogue. I think getting in perspective what it is that the keynote speaker does is very helpful. Your job, in my opinion, and I think if you were to talk to most professional speakers, people who run the circuit and they do this for a living, I think that most would probably agree, your job is not to change their lives in 45 minutes. Your job is to entertain the crap out of them for 45 minutes. Get them to laugh, get them to cry, get them to feel, get them to emote. Entertain them for 45 minutes. Don't try to change their lives.

Topher:

Which means you don't need a bunch of slides. You don't need a bunch of bullet points. You're not teaching them strategies and techniques and steps and processes. You're simply telling them stories and entertaining them. And if you do that, think about entertainment, emotion, don't worry about the content, don't worry about having them walk away with three successful strategies. Most people aren't taking notes anyway. Remember, they didn't even know who you were five minutes before you got on stage. So don't think that they're sitting there with baited breath and a pen and paper going, "Entertain me with your amazing words." They're just not going to be there. And I will say this, these smartphones have become the world's best feedback tool for speakers, because you will know exactly how good you are as a speaker based upon how many blue lights you see, glowing faces from the audience. Because they'll be on their phone. If you can see phones lighting up, you know you've lost them. Because they're, "Ah, screw this guy. I'm going to check my text messages now." And so they start-

Anna:

That's the worst.

Topher:

It is the worst. Yeah.

Anna:

But, speaking of the phone, I will say what I do to prep is I do it into my phone, then I listen, then I do practice again, then I listen again, then I practice again, then I listen again. I find listening when I'm practicing really, really as helpful as the practice.

Topher:

Yeah, absolutely. Now I will tell you this, by the way, technology has made our job so much easier as well. There's a difference between... By the way, as an author, everybody knows this, the typed word is different than the spoken word. If you just transcribe audio into a book, it's an average book. I hope I don't offend some of your readers, your listers.

Anna:

Yeah, they know that.

Topher:

Yeah. Don't transcribe your work. It just doesn't sound... It doesn't translate. Well, guess what? It doesn't translate the other way as well. You don't want to sit there and recite or memorize your book because that's not human speech as well. But I do believe that there is a need for a script when you're starting your presentation in your rehearsal. So one of the best strategies right now is to use otter.ai, I think is that software. Holy heck, that thing is incredibly good. So just hit record, start telling your stories and talking, and then it'll transcribe for you. And then you go through. And the strategy that I like is to take three highlighters, a green highlighter, a yellow highlighter, and a red highlighter.

Topher:

And I go through the script after it's been transcribed, and I read through and I highlight red, yellow, green, red is unnecessary dribble, yellow is, "I like it if I have time," and green is, "This is so good I have to keep it in the presentation." And go through the entire speech and just highlight it red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green. And if you're like me and you're being honest, you'll have mostly red, a lot of yellow, and just a few greens. When you're just talking a story out, it'll take 20 minutes sometimes. And you can edit that down to a two-minute story if you give it the time and the attention that it needs, for sure.

Anna:

So great. We have to get close to wrapping up. So how do you sell that book from the stage without sounding douchey?

Topher:

Yeah. Okay. I learned this technique from a guy named Tom Antion. He is one of the few people that when he sends me spam email, I read it because the man just generally makes me laugh. His sales copy is just hilarious. And this was his technique. In fact, I think he had a presentation called How to Sell from the Stage Without Being a Douchebag, I think is what it was called. I was like, "I love this guy already." Here's the technique. You have on stage your book, but you're not going to hold it up and say it's for sale or anything like that. All you do is you take one small piece from your book which is a really golden gem, and you just pick it up and you go, "Let me just read something for you real quick." And then you open it and you just read 2, 3, 4 lines, that's it. And just read it, and you set it down. You can say, "I just want to read something from my book." You can say that. But you just read it.

Topher:

But you're not saying it's for sale. You're not saying it's $29.95, but today you can buy a copy for $10. You don't say any of that stuff. You just read one paragraph out of your book and then you set it down, respectfully, it's a nice piece of art. Set it down. Yep. Don't just throw it off to the side. Set it down. And then you continue with your presentation. That's it. That's all you do. You just read one small... And what happens is people get obsessed. They're like, "I loved what he just read," and they make this assumption, "The rest of the book must be just as good." And they want to buy it. Yeah. And I will tell you, literally, I saw my book sales, I'm not exaggerating, they probably jumped 60%, maybe more. I remember calling Tom going, "Tom, you are a genius. I tried that." And every person I've told that to, they do this technique and they're like, "People were running into the back to buy my book." I'm like, "Yeah, I can't even really explain it other than I think they feel that was so profound, the rest of the book must be just as profound."

Anna:

And you're doing that thing where you're closing the loop, like how marketing people will talk about how you sort of give the first part so that people are psychologically very invested in whatever the ending is.

Topher:

Yeah. Well actually, let's talk about that. Because once again, going back to the biggest mistake people make because they want to give, give, give, give, give, just give so much value, so much content, so much information, if you have 10 steps to transforming your life, don't try to talk about all 10 steps. But here's what you could do. You could say something like this. You could say something to the effect of, "For the past 25 years, I've been trying to narrow down what it takes to succeed in speaking into the most succinct, small, and easy to get patterns. And I've discovered that there are five things, that if every speaker does these five things, they will hands down get standing ovations, sell books at the back of the room without having to sell it. And out of those five, here's the one that I want to talk about today."

Anna:

Oh, that's so good.

Topher:

Right. And now, you didn't say, "But we don't have time to go through all," or you say, "Here's five, but I'm only going to give you one today. But if you want to buy the others, you can." No, you just say, "There are five things. And here's the one that I think is the most relevant today." You make it like, "I picked this one just for you guys." And what a beautiful open loop. They want to know what the other ones are. And by the way, maybe that chapter one, that's that good thing, the big, whatever your 10 steps are, that's the one you... Be the good one.

Anna:

Well, Topher, this has been absolutely fantastic. Tell people how they can reach you. And this is reaching you for help converting their book into a speech as well as help training.

Topher:

Yeah, sure. They can go to tophermorrison.com. That's probably the easiest way to do it. Tophermorrison.com. Yeah. And I have a book on public speaking. It's called The Book on Public Speaking. I get to say I wrote the book on public speaking. Not being self-aggrandizing, it's just the name of the book. It's called The Book on Public Speaking. So they can go to their Amazon and get that if they want to as well. Yeah. But listen, I've got tons of YouTube videos for free. Listen, they don't have to buy anything. They can get a lot of my stuff for free. They just go to YouTube and search for my name.

Anna:

Except of course, by giving out these gems, you were doing exactly what you advise people to do in a speech, which is giving the gem so that they go, "Well, God, booking him and reading that book must just be even better." 

Topher:

Listen, hey, I'm a squirrel trying to get a nut just like everybody else. So I'd be honored if somebody feels so inspired and they would like to do business with me. I would love that. But believe me, I'm just here because I think the world of you. I remember meeting you so many years ago and had such a blast with you. For you to reach back out to me so many years, I was just like, "Oh, this just made my day." I was just thrilled that you reached out. You made my day.

Anna:

You're the best. Thank you so much for doing this. And you know, you listeners, thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you next week.

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