Welcome to the Books, Brands, and Business podcast with your host, Chris O’Byrne, from JETLAUNCH.net.
My guest today is Robin Colucci, the author of How to Write a Book That Sells You: Increase Your Credibility, Income, and Impact.
Robin is also a sought-after book writing coach who has helped several authors write books that have hit the New York Times bestseller list plus many other bestseller lists. She provides a ton of useful information and tips in this interview, and I’m excited to share it with you.
Chris: Hi, Robin. Thank you so much for being on the podcast with me and being willing to talk to the authors and everybody who listens to this. Could you just give a brief background or description of what it is you do as it relates to books?
Robin: Certainly. So what I do is I work with leading experts in their field, and that might be across a variety of fields, from personal development to science to environmental to business tech—all different fields like that. And I help them to take their highly specialized information that often, their peers know about, right, their coworkers, people they do projects with, their clients. Because I also work with coaches and consultants as well who serve other experts, right, and help them further their aims. And so my job is really to take the value of the insight that they have and help them to translate that into a book so that they can share this value, not just with the people that they’re already working with and directly connected to, but they can share it on a broader, bigger scale and have a bigger impact in the world.
Chris: So you’ve been doing this quite a while, and there are… so most authors, I mean, they might do one book, and so they come to you, and they’re, really, this is a brand-new process for them, yet you’ve seen hundreds of authors. What do you see as some of the biggest mistakes that people make as they come into this?
Robin: Yeah. I think one of the biggest mistakes and one of the most common is that people get an idea for a book, and then they start trying to write the book. And I know that sounds like a very good idea, right? Because if you’re being proactive and you get an idea to do something, and you start taking action on it, that seems logical to do. But the problem with that is, and I see this happen a lot in the self-publishing community, primarily because there are often not those stops where you have to get your idea past certain gatekeepers, right? Like there is with traditional publishing. And so, unfortunately, for a lot of self-publishers, if they continue forward with just getting this idea for a book in their mind and they start writing right away, what happens generally is they get confused, so they’re not sure exactly where to take the book after they write to a certain point, so they stop.
Robin: Or in some cases, in some ways, you could say the worst-case scenario is that they come out with a book that, as soon as it comes off the press and they get their first box of first order of books, and they look at it, and they have no idea what to do with it, they don’t understand who the book is for or how they’re going to promote it or how they’re even going to use it. And so all they have is the ability to say they authored the book. And that’s a lot of work to go through and a lot of expense to go through without having anything more than that. And I’ve literally talked with hundreds of authors, but I actually conducted a little mini-study, and I called about 300 authors on my email list, and I interviewed them about their experience.
Robin: And that was what I heard over and over again for self-published authors, in particular, was that they had a book out and they were really disappointed in the results because they hadn’t really seen the sales that they were hoping for and they didn’t really see it transform their business.
Robin: And so the shame of that is the problem wasn’t the self-publishing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with self-publishing. It can be a huge benefit. I mostly work with authors who are traditionally publishing, but I often recommend self-publishing to about 30% of my clientele because it’s just more strategically appropriate for what they’re trying to do. So the problem isn’t self-publishing. The problem is approaching the process in the wrong way. And so when you get an idea for a book, and you sit down and start writing, you’ve skipped over a very important piece, which I call phase one, right? Writing is phase two. And phase one is coming up with a clear saleable concept for the book. And this is so vital to the success of the book because of the process of figuring out the clear saleable concept, which I will define for you in a couple of minutes.
Robin: But basically, it’s an inquiry where you get to ask and answer a series of questions that will help you clarify before you start to write why you’re writing the book, who the book is for, why they’re going to read it, and for people in the business space, for people who are coaches, consultants who are hoping to write a book to grow their brand and their business, one of the most important questions to ask before you start to write before you even think of an outline for the book is what do you want your reader to do with you after they’ve read your book, or at least after they have your book. And so when you start to ask these kinds of questions of yourself to get really clear on your own intention, then you can make sure the book is aligned with you and who you are and how you want to be known and the direction that you want to go in your career. Not only where you’ve been, but the book can actually become a powerful engine to pull you towards what you want to do next.
Robin: And so the first criteria of the clear saleable concept is it must be aligned with you and all those things I just mentioned, your goals, your values and how you want people to see you.
Robin: And then the next series of questions is really about your reader, right? Who is this person? Who’s the ideal reader for you? If you are a coach or a consultant, your ideal reader is also your ideal client, I hope, unless you’re writing a book for your grandkids, in which case, we’re out of my wheelhouse. So. But. So who are you writing the book for? And even more importantly, why are they going to read it? So it’s getting really clear on what is keeping your ideal clients up at night, what are they losing sleep over, what has them anxious, or what has really sparked their desire or their longing that they just can’t seem to cross that gap and get to what they want. Because you want to focus… a clear saleable concept, obviously, has to, the keyword being saleable, has to connect with your ideal reader. And so taking a close look at not just, not really the demographics aren’t what matters so much. It doesn’t matter as much how they identify gender-wise, it doesn’t matter so much how much money they make necessarily, or what kind of job they’re in.
Robin: I always advise my readers to look from the more aspirational side, what is it that they want and why do they think they don’t have it, and what do they value in life? Because what I found to be true is whether somebody is 26 or 66 or they’re making $20,000 a year, $2 million a year, they’re just at different points in the process. But if they want your solution, they’re going to share similar values and feelings. And so that’s where you want to be thinking in terms of targeting the message of your book.
Robin: And then the next criteria, and the one that freaks people out for the clear saleable concept, is that it’s unique in the marketplace. And this usually freaks people out because of what I call the fraud factor, and I write about this in my book, where no matter how accomplished you are, no matter how much experience you have, everyone has that little bit of like, oh my gosh, there are so many great experts out there, and this topic’s been written about so much and who am I to write a book? And what I find, so it’s a natural feeling, but it’s not a feeling that we wanted to allow to rule you because that will eventually make you stop writing if you continue to indulge that. So this process of figuring out, looking at the other books in your topic area, if there are New York Times bestsellers in your topic area, then take a really close look. That’s actually good news because that means people are interested in your topic area. So that’s good news.
Robin: But what you want to do is look at the books that are the closest to what you’re envisioning for yours and get super clear about what do these books have that’s good. Okay, fine. But more importantly, what are they missing? What are these authors not saying that you know is important for people to know, especially, more specifically, your ideal reader to know? Because it’s inside of that, that you’re going to find that thing, that special sauce that makes your book not only unique but necessary and an important part of the conversation. And so that’s the third criterion of a clear saleable concept is that it’s unique in the marketplace.
Robin: And so once you have gone through that process, coming up with an outline for the book becomes very fast and natural because it becomes very clear which talking points you need to focus on because you have to be aligned with you, a match for what your ideal reader already knows they want and unique in the marketplace. So it really narrows down the field of what you’re going to talk about, right, to a very specific wheelhouse. And then, you can formulate the outline based on that clarity. And then when you start to write, it’s so much, not only is it easier to get the book done, but then when you have the book, you have a great deal of clarity on what to do with it. So that’s the remedy for the biggest mistake.
Chris: That was so incredibly useful. Seriously. I just, I’m very impressed. And it’s true so much because I see people all the time who want to write a book and they just sit down, and they write something. They don’t think about any of these things. And especially with self-publishers because there’s a little bit of that anti-disestablishment thinking. I want to do it my way, and I don’t have to follow the rules.
Robin: I want full creative control.
Chris: Yes.
Robin: Full creative control. And it’s great to want creative control. You don’t give up as much of it in traditional publishing as some people would lead you to believe. I think that the one handicap that self-publishers have is that if they’re not… it doesn’t have to be a handicap because… but what I would say is this, if you’re going to self-publish, you need professional help. Not to talk you out of it, that’s not what I mean. Not psychology.
You really need somebody who can guide you who knows what they’re doing, who’s done way more. Because like you said, most self-publishers are doing their first and last book. So there’s a lot of things you actually don’t need to be great at, but you need to have someone in your life who is. And clarifying that concept is one, getting a great design, a great cover design, a great interior design is another. I mean, one of the things that I am very clear with my self-published clients as well as my… actually, not as well as because that’s more obvious, but with my self-published clients, I make it very clear to them that the goal is that they should have a book where no one could tell the difference unless they knew enough about the publishing industry to know who the traditional publishers are, that everything else about the book should be identical in quality, professionalism, accuracy, excellence. There’s no excuse. Self-publishing is not an excuse to write a crappy book, period.
Chris: Amen to that.
Robin: Right? And so, and here’s the thing, the ugliest books I’ve ever seen have been self-published, and I know it’s not because it’s usually not because of the cover designer. It’s because the client insisted on having it their way. And I’m going to tell you, need a professional who’s done a lot of successful cover designs and knows what a good cover looks like, and then you need to work with them to come up with something that not only you can be proud of, but the cover designer can be proud of. Well, thank me for that.
Chris: Yes, yes. And we see that all the time. Whenever we have a cover that looks terrible is because the author thought they knew better than the cover designer.
Robin: Exactly. And you know what? If you’re going to do that, then save your money and don’t even hire a cover designer. Just get out your crayons at home and draw something up and take a picture of it.
Chris: Yes, exactly.
Robin: Really, it screams self-published. It says, “Look at me, I was homemade.” And if that’s what you want, then override the cover designer’s advice and do it your way. If you want a book that looks professional, listen, I am a huge believer in hiring experts. And when I hire experts, I trust that, of course, I want to give my input, but I don’t tell them how to do it, right? So I don’t go to my hairdresser and tell him how to cut my hair to get the curls just right. That’s his job, right? I might say, “I want it a little shorter than last time, or I want you to leave a little bit more length,” or whatever, but don’t tell him how to do his job. And so it’s important. Creative control shouldn’t mean controlling the creative.
Chris: I love that.
Robin: I just thought of that. I kind of like that too.
Chris: I’m going to tell my cover designer that line.
Robin: Yeah. I mean, it’s a special skill. And if you’re lucky enough to have someone in your corner who has it, then let them do their thing.
Chris: Yeah, absolutely. So when it comes to the actual writing process, so I love everything that you’ve given us about how to get up to that point. When you get to that point where you’re ready to start writing, what are some practical tips or suggestions for the writing process? Sometimes, you hear recorded and send it in to be transcribed or schedule a certain time every day, or there are all sorts of little things. What are some of the tips you would give that you see as being the most effective or helpful in actually writing a book?
Robin: Yeah, I mean, all of those things that you mentioned help and are valid. But I guess the first thing I would say is you probably are going to have to experiment a little bit, especially if this is your first book, and figure out what works for you. Because I, for example, I totally get the idea of writing two hours a day and just having that discipline. Because of the nature of being self-employed and singing in a rock band, that’s my hobby, and so my schedule can be very fluid, right? And so writing at the same time every day isn’t necessarily realistic. And also, for me, I prefer to sit down once or twice a week and just firehose information that’s been collecting in my brain for several days, right, or I’ll just jot down notes or something like that in between. So that’s how I wrote my book, and that’s just how I do it.
Robin: So you might want to experiment and see what works for you in your temperament and your schedule. But at the same time, you want to have that commitment to write. That’s the key. You’ve got to write. So whether you set a target of a certain number of pages every week or a certain number of hours you put in, you want to have a budget for how much time you’re going to put in and how much focus. The other thing I would say is, I mostly work with nonfiction, I almost never do anything with fiction. If I do, it’s like a business fable or something like that. So with nonfiction, you have clear talking points. When you make the outline, you want to make it detailed, you want to put a lot of bullet points because then, you can just sit down and write what you have to say about that bullet point and move on to the next bullet point. And then I’d say if you’re smart, you will then hire an excellent editor who can help you put in the connective tissue, right, to flow those ideas because it takes practice.
Robin: Writing a book is an odd kind of mindset that you have to have because when you’re writing a chapter or a subheading of a chapter, you have to be completely focused on what you’re writing and you have to have the split awareness because you’re focused on what you’re writing, and at the same time, you’re thinking about the big picture of what the book as a whole is, and this is the thing that we don’t have to do when we’re writing a blog post, right? But you want to keep that big picture in mind, and you want to have that outline in front of you because if you don’t, you’re going to end up repeating yourself, you’re going to write something that you already have in a previous chapter, and that’s very bad form when the book comes out in print, it looks terrible, or you’re going to skip something that you believe that you wrote and you didn’t.
Robin: One of the things that I could say is probably the most important is to have a detailed outline with bullet points of what you absolutely want to cover. And when you’ve covered it, check it off on your outline so that you know where you have it and that it’s there so you don’t do it again. Because that’s something I’ve seen, when people are left to their own devices, that’s a mistake I’ve seen people make quite a bit. And the real thing is to write and have a really, really good editor, somebody who will really critique your work, somebody who will poke at something you said and say, “You know what? I’m not quite convinced in the way you presented this argument. Can you be more specific here, or can you explain this in a little bit more detail?” Because it’s very, very difficult. I would even go the length to say it’s impossible to judge your work objectively. And what I find when people are writing, they tend sometimes to be overly harsh and sometimes be overly forgiving and usually in the wrong places.
Robin: And so it’s just hard to be the judge of your own work. And then the worst thing about trying to judge your own work or edit your own material thoroughly is what happens is in your mind, let’s say you wrote a sentence with a partial thought, right? Your mind, you know what you wanted to say. So guess what? Your mind is going to fill in the blanks and believe that you said it clearly every single time you read it. You could read it a hundred times, and you will not know it’s not clear unless someone else reads it, who’s not in your mind, it’s not in your head but is in the reader’s head, which is the beginner mind. Right? And so I would say, write the first draft of a chapter as quickly as you can and then send it to your editor. And don’t try to make it perfect, just get it off your plate and start writing the next chapter while your editor’s reading the chapter you just wrote.
Robin: Don’t wait until the book is written to get editorial help because you will probably end up having to do a lot of rewrites, if not rewriting the whole thing. Never really good editor.
Chris: That right there is hugely valuable. I mean, everything so far is hugely valuable. That’s a point that I have not heard someone say before, and it totally makes so much sense. Now when you wrote your book, which I want to talk about in just a little bit, did you go through this entire, I mean, did you go through this same process? Was there anything you did differently because you’re an expert in the field?
Robin: Actually, I did go through the whole process. And I had an editor, and I sent her chapters when I finished them. You can’t be too good of a writer not to have an editor. Everyone says Hemingway’s writing went downhill after his… he had the same editor for years, and in the literary world, everyone knows that his books weren’t as good after his editor died.
Chris: And that’s good to know. That’s so good to know that even somebody with as much experience and knowledge, still, this same, really, really, relatively basic process to go through for writing your book. Now…
Robin: Yeah. Or how excellent of a writer you are, you can’t see the blind spots.
Robin: You can’t tell if your tone is off because it sounds fine in your head, right? You can’t tell if you missed some huge point that connects two other points together because, in your mind, they’re already connected. And so that’s where… it doesn’t matter how great of a writer you are. You’re writing a 200-page work. You’re going not to see things. You’re going to have things you don’t see, and you need help.
Chris: Our brains are incredible filters and good at making shortcuts.
Robin: Yes.
Chris: But sometimes, that works against us.
Robin: Exactly.
Chris: Now, your book is How to Write a Book That Sells You: Increase Your credibility, Income, and Impact. Can you tell us a little more about that book and why you wrote it?
Robin: Yeah. Oh, that’s great. Absolutely, yes. Because I wrote my book, if you’re an expert and you’re writing a book to grow your brand or your business, you should be writing your book for three reasons and three reasons only. And that’s to improve your marketing power, increase your ability to sell your products and services, hopefully at higher rates, and to support delivery of service. And out of those three, one of them should be your primary objective. And so my primary objective in writing my book was to increase my ability to deliver my services more impactfully and more efficiently. And the reason I knew I needed to write the book is I heard myself saying the same things over and over to my clients. And I realized I needed a piece to orient them to the process I was about to lead them through so that when we got on a coaching call together, they wouldn’t be getting all this for the first time.
Robin: So we could start the conversation a little farther down the road because it’s like an indoctrination piece, right? Okay, you want to write a book, here’s how we’re going to do it. Right? And then, they can understand, why is she asking me these weird questions about what I want and what my vision for my life is? I just want to write a book, right? Because I’ve already explained to them in my book why we’re asking these questions and why it matters and why it’s going to make a better book. And so we can just move through the questions. Now when you do that as a service provider, what you’ve automatically done is you’ve actually raised the value of what you’re offering. Because now, once my book came out, instead of spending maybe the first half of every hour coaching call explaining the fundamentals, I could spend the entire hour on my client’s specific needs and concerns. Well, that makes that time way more valuable to the client. And as a result, I think it’d be safe to say my rates have increased probably at least 600 times since my book came out 600X.
Chris: Wow. That’s a huge increase.
Robin: Yeah. And that’s conservative. And really, having the book was a big piece of what enabled that. And obviously, a book coach who hasn’t written a book I don’t think is very credible.
Chris: That’s a good point.
Robin: Yeah. So I realized, probably would be good to have a book for that, for the credibility piece. Right? And for marketing purposes, I’ve had clients send, gift a copy of my book to people they want to refer to me. Well, that’s nice because then, they come to the conversation kind of already bought in. I’ve had people read my book and then email me and say, “I’ve read your book. I would really love to work with you. What’s it going to take?” That’s a really great kind of sales conversation to have, much, much nicer than here’s why you should hire me. And here’s the thing, and I want to make… and I think this is so important, especially for people like me, if you’re selling high end, high value, low volume services, then you don’t really need necessarily to be a bestseller, right? Because what you need to do is get your book into the hands of a highly curated, targeted group of people, namely the people that you’d be most excited to work with.
Robin: And so one of the things, and this goes back to, and this is how I thought about my book, I didn’t do a big launch, I could’ve had an Amazon bestseller. I didn’t give a crap, so I didn’t do it because it wasn’t relevant. And so it’s about, again, you go back to your goals, why are you writing the book? What do you need the book to be for you to reach your goals? Now I’ve helped clients who write books that became New York Times bestsellers. I just had one come out last spring that became a New York Times bestseller. So I’m not against it, but this author, that’s exactly what he needed, right? Because his book was called Eat to Beat Disease, and it was about what he wanted to get. He wants to get the message out that if you change your eating, you can prevent most of the diseases that will kill you and a lot of the ones that would make life unpleasant, and you can even reverse some of these diseases. And so that’s the message that needs to be shared with millions of people.
Robin: My message, frankly, does not need to be shared necessarily with the same, not with 300 million, maybe a million or so. I don’t know. Right? And even then, not really, because I don’t have room for a million people in my client base, it would kill me. So, you’ve got to think… that’s not the vision I want for my life. I don’t want to run an organization that serves a million people, not directly. I get to serve millions of people by helping other people who have bigger platforms get their message out. And I feel very privileged to be able to contribute in that way. So that’s why it’s so important getting clear on what role do you want to play and making the difference in making your impact and design every aspect of your book to support you in that role. And I’ve forgotten the question, darling, but I hope I answered it.
Chris: You absolutely did. But you brought up another one, which is, how did you then go about getting your book in front of your ideal client?
Robin: Yeah. So I do some speaking, and I don’t do very much because it’s a lot of time. There’s travel involved, and sometimes, you have to get on airplanes and things. And so if I do go speak, I like it to be in front of my ideal audience. And it’s a very specific group, type of person. And so, but when I do, I obviously talk about my book, or I sometimes will send a copy of my book to somebody very specific, or I will give a copy of my book to somebody very specific. But like I said, I don’t even know how many books I’ve sold. It’s probably not that many, but I’ve taken my business from making less than $50,000 a year, and now, I make more than 10 times that.
Chris: That is a huge difference.
Robin: … closer to, yeah, in the multiple six figures, right? And so, would my book, did my book do it, like I could sit back and say, “Oh, now I have a book, and I’m going to sit and visualize clients, and they’re going to magically fall down my chimney and land in my lap?” No, that’s not what I did, and that’s not how books work. But I put myself in situations where I’m surrounded by the people that I know, have an important message to share, want to do it in a book, and have the means to be able to engage me. And so it’s not that I don’t have to go to many places, but I do make sure I put myself in the right circles. And then of course, over the years, you develop a reputation, I get a lot of referrals. And like I said, some of my clients send my book as a gift. Actually, I just had a client order my book for one of his friends that he wants to work with me.
Robin: So I think that the important thing too, but this does bring up something that’s important to think about too, is my book came out in 2012, and it’s still working for me. Oh, I’m sorry. I take that back. It came out in 2013. I was writing it in 2012. But it’s still working for me. And so I think, if I could give one piece of advice on utilizing your book is, first of all, don’t write any book unless you want to be talking about that subject for at least five years and leading the conversation in that topic for at least five years. And then the other thing is don’t give up on your book in three months like a publisher would because of the dividends, right? I have a feeling you have something to add to that.
Chris: No, not specifically. But, I mean, in general, I see so many authors just put their book on Amazon and think they’re done. They don’t do anything. So when you say not to give up on your book, are you talking about specifically just continuing to promote it, to do marketing activities, or even just to… go ahead.
Robin: Yeah. Don’t put the book before the business. What you want to think about, people have it backward. Putting tons of time, money, and effort into selling books is the lowest paying, least rewarding job you could ever give yourself. What I would advise, and what I advise my clients to think about is how you can use your book to increase your sales in the areas that actually make you money? So do you have a course, a companion course that you want to teach? Do you have a coaching program that you offer? Do you have an experience that you want to create, like a workcation kind of situation? But that’s where the ROI comes from. Book sales should never be more anywhere near 10% of your overall revenue of what you’re able to achieve as the result of having the book. And if you make book sales the main thing, you’re going to be poor and tired, period.
Chris: Absolutely agree with that. I’ve seen it over and over again.
Robin: And you’re going to be angry, and then you’re going to hate your book. And that’s sad.
Chris: So this all really comes from just having the right perspective from the beginning. You’re not…
Robin: Exactly.
Chris: Yeah.
Robin: Yeah. And yes. Yes, some people win the lottery, and some people put a book on Amazon, and for some reason that no one can figure out because it’s often a poorly written book, for some reason, it catches fire, and it’s like a sensation. And I won’t mention any names, but I’m sure we all know some of these books.
Chris: Yes.
Robin: And who knows why, but here’s the thing, it’s a good bet it’s not going to be your book. And this idea, this fantasy, we all have it, indulge it, let yourself have it for a minute. You’re going to put your book on Amazon. It’s going to be discovered, and you’re going to sell 100,000 copies. Okay. It’s a fantasy. Allow yourself a fleeting fantasy and then get serious and think about, okay, but if I really want this book… see, the book should never be the main thing. The book is a tool to support you in the main thing.
Chris: Yeah, absolutely.
Robin: And then, it’s a power tool. If you’re really clear about that and you start to think, okay, so what I really have is I have this coaching thing. What I really have is I want to, I have this online following, and I want to monetize it. Okay, cool. So then you get to say, okay, how can I use the books in order to increase my revenue, in order to onboard more people into my program, in order to orient the people I already have so that I don’t have to waste as much time saying the same stuff over and over? Then you will love your book forever. It might be hard to get yourself to write another one. I keep thinking I should write a second book, it’s been seven years, but this one’s still working so well for me. It’s hard to get myself to focus.
Chris: Right. Speaking of that, what might your next book would be about? Because it’s going to be something that you want to be the expert on for the next five years.
Robin: Okay, this is going to be the first place that this is shared, but I actually—and this is kind of sad because I almost forgot about it—but I’m actually launching a new book. But it’s a booklet. It’s a mini book and so it’s not the same thing but it’s going to be called High-Profit Book Blueprint. And actually, it’s four people who are just getting started as like in a coach or consulting practice and everybody’s been telling them that what they need to do is write a book but the problem is they don’t necessarily have a lot of expertise behind them yet and they don’t have a client base and they probably don’t have a whole lot of income or maybe they’ve been at it for a while, but they haven’t really figured out how to make it profitable. I mean, we have to remember that most coaches are only, I think the average earnings of a coach, a life coach kind of or business coach, the average earnings is only like $25,000 a year. So there’s a lot of people out there who fit this category.
Robin: And I wrote this book and came up with this idea of guiding people as to like, well, how can you get something done that quickly that you can use as a credibility piece, and you can use as a marketing piece, and you can even use as an indoctrination piece for your clients without it having to take several months and tens of thousands of dollars to get it done? And so I put together this book called High-Profit Book Blueprint and it will probably, or I think we’re going to be launching it in February or March. I just got the proofs back from my person. So there you go.
Chris: Breaking news.
Robin: Breaking news. Yeah. And so that, but that’s a smaller project. I was thinking in terms of a big book project, I don’t know. It’ll probably be a little while.
Chris: And how are you going to get that booklet out there? Are you going to do like a free plus shipping funnel?
Robin: Yep, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do a free plus shipping funnel.
Chris: Perfect.
Robin: And then that’s going to lead to an online course, and then that’s going to lead to a DFY offer, a Done For You offer.
Chris: Yes. Perfect. Oh, that’s a model I love. Well, when you’re ready to launch it, let me know what the website is.
Robin: Oh yeah, definitely.
Chris: And then, one, I’ll help promote because I love doing that, but I’ll also add it to the page. I’ll add it to my page on my website where this blog is posted because I put up a transcript, and I’ll make sure that link gets added so everybody else will then find it as well.
Robin: Oh, that’s very kind of you, and I appreciate that so much. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, I mean, I’m excited about it because I created this because I had a lot of people come to me. As a matter of fact, most of the people who come to me aren’t actually ready to hire me for private work. And the people who find me, right, the people who find me online or maybe whatever, and I would have a conversation with them, and I’d end up saying, “You know what? I just don’t think you’re ready to do this full-length book deal. And I can’t in good conscience have you hire me to do this because you really need to be focused on getting clients, getting some income, getting some real experience where you can have some case studies to write about and stuff like that. And so go away and do that. And then, if you’re ready in a couple of years, come back.” And every time I hung up from one of those conversations, I felt like that was so lame. What a terrible, terrible answer.
Robin: But like you said, you can’t be objective with yourself. You can’t see the forest for the trees.
Robin: And so then one day, one of my former clients, for whom I did help write his book, and he’s also a very successful online marketer suggested this to me. He said, “Well, why don’t you do this?” And I was like, “I don’t know.” And I thought about it for a little while. And then it just hit me, just like a light bulb over the head after it penetrated all my assumptions. I sometimes need a little osmosis of it. It has to penetrate the membrane of I already knew. And so it finally penetrated that, and then I saw it, and I was like, yes. And I feel so relieved now that I don’t have to send people away with that lane answer anymore. And I can say, “You know what? I’ve got just the thing. Do this.
Chris: Ah, I love that.
Chris: So, for people that want to know more about you, I’m going to include all of the links I have for your email, your website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and your book. Is there anything else that you want to either say about people who want to connect with you or to add or to parting words of wisdom?
Robin: Yeah. I guess I will just add with something encouraging and with something encouraging because I really do believe that if you feel the urge to write a book, it’s probably a persistent one, you’ve probably felt it for a long time, and I actually am a believer in we have to pay attention to those kinds of urges, right? We all get fleeting ideas, right? They pop in, it’s like, “Yeah, I’m going to go skiing down the Alps.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t really like the cold that much. I think I’m probably not going to do that.” Right? And that’s gone. That’s not what I’m talking about. But when you have… when it’s a true desire, when it keeps coming up, when you keep getting that little whisper, “You know you should write a book, you know you should write a book,” then it’s important. And I can’t speak specifically to the timing, but it’s definitely important to write something, get something in print, and then use that as a basis to grow because that’s your inner wisdom talking to you.
Robin: And even if you are afraid that there are other people who know more than you or something, that you think that everything that you have to say has been said, that’s not true. You just haven’t looked closely enough. And so I would just say, when you have that inner urging, when you get those whispers, trust them and take the next step, whether it’s reading my book or whether it’s getting on the phone with Chris, whatever that is, trust that inner urging and move to the next step because it’s trying to help you have your dreams come true. It’s trying to help you have the impact that you want to have, that you know on some level that you can have on this world and make it a better place for everybody.
Chris: I love that. Thank you.
Robin: Thank you for the opportunity. This has been really enjoyable.
Chris: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Robin: My pleasure.
Thanks for coming along for the ride. If you want to be part of a tight-knit community of people learning how to make money with their books, join my FB group at jetlaunch.link/group. That’s the best place to ask me questions and get fast answers.
For all show notes, links, and transcriptions, just head over to jetlaunch.net/podcast.
More about Robin Colucci
Robin Colucci helps consultants, coaches, and CEO Founders write and publish books that grow their business and further their cause. By integrating sound business strategy into every aspect of the process, she has helped clients double or triple their incomes within a few weeks of beginning work together, long before the book is out. Her clients have been published by major houses such as Random House, Doubleday, J. Wiley & Sons, Hay House, etc., and others have self-published. Robin is also Managing Director of eWomen Network’s New Haven/Shoreline East Chapter. She has two kids in college and lives in Old Lyme, CT with her pug.
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How to Write a Book That Sells You: Increase Your Credibility, Income, and Impact
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High Profit Book Blueprint