File: Why_You_Should_Write_an_E-book___PoP_240
Duration: 0:09:48

Introductory speech: Something big is coming in September.

[MUSIC]

This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 240.

[MUSIC]

[INTRODUCTION]
I am Joe Sanok, you host. Welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. I am so glad that you are here. What an awesome time of year, you know, August and late August in Traverse City. It’s beautiful. The kids are going to be going back to school soon. Many of your kids may already be back at school. But it’s also kind of bitter sweet where it’s like summer is over and, man, the snow is going to be coming here in Northern Michigan. But I am so super excited. I have this special episode for you today on the 31st of August, a little surprise episode. And it’s all about writing an e-book. And I want to just talk a little bit about some of the structure of an e-book, about why an e-book is important and kind of some of the value that comes out of it.

[SUBJECT SUMMARY]
So one of the very first things an e-book does… let me back up. So, what’s an e-book – for those of you who don’t know. So an e-book is just a book that’s online. It’s digital. So most often, it will be on Amazon or other e-reader sites. It can also be a PDF that you give out to your clients or that is available if someone opts into your e-mail list. E-books – they can be 10 pages, they can be 30 pages, they can be 400 pages. It can be whatever you want it to be. And so an e-book adds a bunch of value. And I want to talk about the value of an e-book and then I am going to talk a little bit about some of the struggles and then some of the nuts and bolts of it.

[THE VALUE OF AN E-BOOK]
And so let’s talk about some of the value. So there is a bunch of different things that an e-book will give you, but it’ll also give your clients. And so first, it informs. It helps you really look at what you believe as a clinician and how you articulate that and it helps people understand that value that you give. As well, if you design it well so if it looks good, it’s going to have some sensory appeal that people are going to look at it. They are going to see your brand. They are going to have a sense of your brand before they even go to your website. They are going to feel like they understand who you are. As well, it’s going to give some quality where people then are going to say, well, I didn’t know that about depression or I didn’t know that about eating disorders. You know, over the long term, it should also simplify. It should take really complex issues that people have a hard time understanding and simplify it for them that you as the expert are saying here is the simple approach to whatever your specialty area is. Also, it should reduce your clients’ efforts, so that your clients really can say, “You know what, this really makes it easy to understand. It’s going to save me time.” It simplifies things, the effort to really approach my depression or to approach parenting or to approach non-monogamous relationships. Whatever your specialty area is, it’s going to take some of that effort out. As well, it’s going to help them hopefully organize their life differently, that you can have different resources in there, that you can help them understand how to be organized around whatever mental health issues that you talk about. Those are all kind of like the functional side of an e-book. And what about the emotional side? So that would be, it helps people kind of have less anxiety and stress. They feel like an expert saying here is some things that are going to help you, that’s going to help your wellness, that’s going to help you kind of grow in a number of areas. And of course, it’s going to give therapeutic value. It’s going to teach people what they really need in regards to growing in a specific area. One thing that you definitely want to incorporate is stories and interesting things. And so it should be fun, it should be exciting, it should be approachable. It should be attractive because we want this to be something that genuinely helps people’s lives. As well, what else it’s going to do? It’s going to provide access to you in a way that maybe other people don’t have access if they don’t come into counseling. And so if you kind of show them here’s what access to me looks like, you are going to get more clients from them. If we then kind of look at, kind of some life changes, look at what it does to people, we definitely want an e-book to be motivating and to help people, feeling, wow, I can do it, like I can really overcome this and that kind of goes back to the simplification and reducing effort. When we feel that something is approachable and easy, we will say, okay, I can get that in world, what’s the thing I need to focusing on. It also could provide kind of a sense of belonging if you have a Facebook community that comes with it, if you have a sense of kind of next steps beyond just scheduling an appointment with you. There may be some sort of a belonging. When you think of Brene Brown or other people that have become certified within her work, there’s a sense of a community there. As well, your e-book can provide some hope, maybe some self-actualization, some ways to think kind of beyond the current situation.

[STRUGGLES WRITING AN E-BOOK]
So those are a lot of values that an e-book can bring. But what about the struggles? So I think most people that I worked with when they realize that they would like to do an e-book, they struggle with. Well, how is it that I structure just the writing because I was in grad school and I wrote a certain way in grad school. And I don’t want to write that way or I don’t think people want to read that way more than that. And so really thinking about, well, how do I structure in a way that’s functional and helpful and simplifies things, reduces efforts, all of that, while also making it approachable. And so what I recommend is really starting to chunk out your book and so starting to say, oh, what are kind of the big five questions I get around this topic or what are the three big questions I get. And then if I also drill into to each of those, what would be the three to five main points under each of them, then under each of those is just more less. I heard from an author a while ago that books are just lists of lists – you know, unless you are writing a fiction. The non-fiction really, it’s you know a list of lists of lists that each one kind of drills into the next little area. And so when you think about it that way, it’s easy to start to kind of bullet point your main points. I think another struggle people have that is okay, so I write this book. Going ahead, what do I do with it now. And so how do you put it on Amazon, how do you format it so that on Amazon it kind of changes based on what’s being read on. If it’s being read on an iPhone versus being read on a tablet, you want it to not have four pages of white space because you hit enter 12 times, because on your computer it looked that way. You want to make sure that you format it correctly. And then once you launch it and it’s out there, what you do with it? Is it a give-away? Is it just something that you give to clients? Is it something you sell on Amazon? How do you best get the most out of it and get people to read it? And there’s plenty more struggles. I’m sure you have other struggles in your head too. But let me tell you what we are going to do.

[WHAT’S COMING UP?]
So, September, starting tomorrow, the next world changers challenge kicks off and we have already around 500 people that have signed up for this. So the world changers challenge – the first challenge that I did was back in June, and back in June what we did is we all took our big idea and we took a week to work on it, and I did a Facebook live in the group every day, and then ended with a capstone webinar. And you know what we are actually going to do, for this one it’s a month-long challenge, and so people are going to be writing an e-book in a month. We are going to take on each week where I am going to do a Facebook live in the group on Tuesdays, answer questions. We are going to say, here’s what the goal is for the week. We are going to have cool prizes. We are going to have just some amazing things that are part of the world changers challenge with the idea that we have a lot to share with the world. And if we write e-books in community, then we can do a ton of things. When we launch on Amazon, we can try to have 500 reviews within a couple of weeks. We can have all sorts of other things where we have provided the e-book to these people on the group. Maybe a bunch of us could be ranking in Amazon really quickly. And so who knows what your big idea is, but this is going to be a free community. If you are a part of the world changers challenge community, it’s totally free. It’s just a way that I take what I am learning and what I have kind of experienced, and you know, kind of put it together in the form of a challenge to write an e-book in a month. That maybe a 10-page e-book for you, maybe a 50-page or 200-page, but I want this to be motivating for you to get some stuff done and to engage with the Practice of the Practice Community more than maybe you have in the past.

[USEFUL LINKS/ CONCLUSION]
So you could sign up at www.praticeofthepractice.com/challenge [inaudible 00:09:05.07] weekly Facebook live within that group, where you could ask questions live, where you can share your steps. Each week, there’s going to be a kind of a milestone that you are going to hit and the people that have hit that milestone are going to win certain things like free consulting with me. I have got some other prizes as well that I am going to be giving away. And just really kind of exciting stuff that we are going to be doing.

So again, head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/challenge, black out time in your week to work on your e-book, and we are going to be doing this in community together.

Thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain, have an awesome day, hope to see you in the Facebook community tomorrow. Sign up, again, www.practiceofthepractice.com/challenge.