Here is a transcript generated by Otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with VeraContent’s Shaheen Samavati and Kyler Canastra, about the power of writing a book as a content marketing tool:

Shaheen Samavati 0:04
Hi, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. I’m Shaheen Samavati, co host of the content mix podcast which is brought to you by multilingual content marketing agency very contents. My co host Skylar isn’t joining us today. But I’m here with a very special guest, Stacy Ennis. Stacy is a best selling author success and book coach and speaker on a mission to help leaders use the power of writing to uncover their unique stories so they can scale their impact. She’s also the founder of nonfiction book School, where she guides aspiring authors through the transformative process of writing a book, her team of ghost writers, and coaches also help business leaders write their books and share their ideas and stories with the world. Thank

Unknown Speaker 0:41
you so much for having me looking forward to this conversation.

Shaheen Samavati 0:48
Me too, I it’s a topic that I’m really interested in, as we’re going to be talking about book writing. And I was also going to mention that we both met because we’re members of the Entrepreneurs Organization. And we both happen, like we learned by being in this organization together that we both happen to be Americans living abroad. In the same area, I’m in Malaga, Stacy’s just a few hours away in Lagos, Portugal. So yeah, maybe you could start by just telling us a little bit about your personal story and how you ended up doing what you’re doing.

Unknown Speaker 1:18
So I’ll try to just tell an abridged version and then we can dig in more where needed. But the short version is my husband and I moved abroad after we I graduated from my Bachelor’s, and he graduated with his master’s degree. We ended up I was a teacher for a couple of years, we lived in the Dominican Republic. We lived in Vietnam. Then I went to graduate school at the University of Cincinnati. And we ended up back in Idaho where I was running as Executive Editor Sam’s clubs magazine, Healthy Living made simple. So at 26, we had 11 million readers for that publication, and that like I was in charge of it, it felt like a pretty amazing opportunity. I was still actually finishing my graduate degree at the time. And then shortly after that, I ghostwrote for a Nobel Prize winner in medicine for four years. And through that journey, got into writing books and ended up ghostwriting. Really since then, and eventually niched in business and leadership, I spent a long time in science and medical as a niche. And then today, we work with my team. And I mostly work with business and leadership, books and content, and also still Science and Medical writing. But after that, we moved to Thailand as a family. So I had kids, and now we’re in Portugal. And this is where I run my business with most of my team and subcontractors in the US. One person here and yeah, it’s great. As you mentioned, we’re about four and a half hours away from each other. So we’re both in this in the south where it’s sunny and beaches. And yeah, it’s it’s a good life.

Shaheen Samavati 3:01
Each Yeah, definitely. Um, so And you’ve also written several of your own books. I was wondering if you could tell us about, well, which came first, the ghost writing, I imagine and then writing your own book. And could you tell us a bit about your first book and how you got into? Right, yeah, so

Unknown Speaker 3:18
my first book came out in 2013. And it’s called the editor’s eye. So it was very meta. It’s a book on book editing, book writing and editing. But actually, around the time that I got that opportunity, I also I had kind of also accidentally taken on a ghost writing project. So I was kind of writing two books, not quite simultaneously, they both had different stages. And I was pregnant. So my daughter was born in February, my first child to February of 2013. My book came out in May of 2013. The other books that I go stroke came out that same year, so there was a lot of big things. Interestingly, I was, well, I would say, unfortunately, I really didn’t do much to like, celebrate the release of my book, because I had a baby a brand new baby. But that was, yeah, those were the kind of two things that kicked me off in that direction. And, you know, it’s interesting over the over these years. One thing that I, I think that people don’t understand about writing a book is that it is a skill, like it’s a separate skill than writing and that it’s a learnable skill as well. And so once I develop that skill, and then continued honing it over many more books, so to date, I’ve ghostwritten or authored 17 And then written 1000s of other pieces of content. It just is something I believe that it’s learnable for everyone, and it’s something that you can develop over time. But I think where a lot of people get stuck is they think Like, Oh, I can’t do this, but they actually don’t treat it like a separate skill set. It’s like, we think that just because we can write, or we’re developing our writing that we should be able to write a book. And that’s just not how it works. Now, I actually think that’s a really a hopeful message. And it wasn’t something that I really realized fully until, I mean, I thought I realized it. But until I actually experienced, you know, writing it, that I kind of realized that this is a separate skill set. Oh, and I’m developing this skill set. That’s pretty cool. And I can get better at it.

Shaheen Samavati 5:33
Absolutely, that’s something I’ve definitely, like, my background is in journalism. And I have a lot of experience writing, like very formulaic journalistic type content. And then, of course, in my career, I’ve gotten into marketing and done a lot of like, ad copy and stuff like that. But I think like the skill set that that I have, as a writer is very different. For example, when I went to a creative writing group trying to like, come up with adjectives and create a scene and all in a narrative, it’s like a very, there’s so many different types of writing that required very different skills and ways of thinking that it’s not just being like being a writer qualifies you for any type of writing. But like you said, they’re always

Unknown Speaker 6:16
interesting to just to your point, I think so a lot of the people that I and my team coach, they have, they have a lot of roadblocks when it comes to writing, they, they usually it’s kind of centers from a negative writing experience that they had as a kid. But as you just pointed out, like, just because maybe you had a negative experience with this particular writing experience. That doesn’t mean that that’s a broad sweep that you can never write anything meaningful and valuable. Case in point I had. my bachelor’s and master’s are in writing. So I took a wider range of wide range of classes from poetry to memoir to, you know, really nonfiction, the nonfiction classes. And I had a Saturday poetry class that I went to that I was really excited about was intermediate poetry. And we workshopped. So that was the core focus of the class. And one day I got back a workshop from one of the students in the class. And she just wrote at the top of it, this poem sucks, like, that’s what she had written at the top of my page. And it was like, Oh, it was such a like, dagger to the heart, because I’d never gotten that kind of criticism before. But thankfully, I was able to kind of, no, it wasn’t constructive, I was able to construct, you know, recognize that, just because that particular situation, I did not get like the nurturing encouragement that I needed. That that didn’t, that didn’t mean that I was a bad writer. But so many of us, I think, take that, that kind of feedback to heart, and we just shut down and we don’t allow ourselves to be open to other writing opportunities or other ways to express ourselves.

Shaheen Samavati 8:05
Yeah, so absolutely. I wanted to go into the topic of like using a book as a marketing tool. This is something that I’m really interested in, it’s something I’ve, I’m a business owner, myself, also former journalists, I’d be someone who would be in a great position to do something like that. And it’s always been on the kind of like, maybe someday list. And, of course, like writing a full length book seems like a really daunting project. So do you have any, like, advice for just like, Getting Started are making? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 8:38
so I think, you know, when we’re thinking about a book as a marketing tool, there, it can be also easy to fall into this mindset of, oh, it’s just a marketing tool. So I’m just gonna get something done really quickly and get it to market. And it’s and I don’t really care about, like, what this book actually turns out to be, because it’s going to drive is on my brand. That is a really bad strategy, just for anyone listening, I’m just going to be really straight up about this. It’s a really bad strategy. It’s a bad strategy for a couple of reasons. One is that if your book is bad, or not great, that actually is a reflection on your company on your brand. And so then that’s often, you know, the point of a book as a marketing tool. Part of it is, it’s a first meeting, right? So first time that somebody interacts with your brand. And so you want it to be really excellent. So that’s one piece of it. But the other piece of it is if you don’t write the best book and produce the best book, you can, then it has a short shelf life. So your ROI on that book is going to be have a shorter lifespan, than if you create a really excellent shelf stable like meaning it can really stand the test of time and really make its way into readers hearts for a long period of time. So that’s one piece I just want to say right up because I think a lot of people think of book marketing tool business card book, let’s get it done. Let’s get it done quickly. And to market. So, if we have that understood, then The way that I like to approach a book and thinking about it as a marketing tool is to first define what your big vision is for the business, the company, what are we trying to achieve? What does that look like for us? And then also, what are the different things that we’re growing? What are the revenue streams that we’re planning to grow? What is the impact that we want to have on the world and really deeply think about that vision that you have. And then ask yourself, “how will this book be a catalyst to help me achieve that impact, grow my brand awareness, and impact my readers lives?” That also forces you to create a meaningful book, right? Not just a business card book. Because you also have to think about, you know, when you write a book, you don’t want it to just be plugging your company the whole time, it has to be an entity in and of itself that brings value to the reader and really does something for them – whether it’s entertaining, informing or transforming, it needs to be its own entity. So that’s why I like to start with vision. And I, and then I kind of asked, what is that? Like? What is that? How is that book a catalyst for that thing. And that helps me kind of think through, if this is the thing I want to achieve. And this is this is the book that’s going to help like, kind of be that catalyst and trigger this other thing, then it helps me start to think about, okay, what book does that need to be? What is that? What is the big idea of that book, or the how to of that book, or the story of that book? And I always think about as I’m working through ideation and outlining, how is that book like fertile soil from which to grow all kinds of other things. So the revenue streams that we talked about, potentially if the founder or other people in the company, want to do keynotes and really get on stages to further the awareness of the company. So we’re always thinking through that element of it of that being a really, like, fertile ground from which to grow those other things.

Shaheen Samavati 12:10
And when it comes to repurposing, like, which, I mean, which way do you think makes more sense, like writing the book first, and then repurposing content from it, or taking content that you’ve done in the past and turning it into a

Unknown Speaker 12:24
book. So it’s funny, because back when I got into publishing, you know, in the early 2010s, like, I got, I started my business in 2009. So, and I actually was already in the publishing world before that, this like blog to book concept was really popular, where people would, like write these blog posts, and eventually, they, their goal would be to put it into a book. And I was never a big fan of that strategy. I didn’t think it was a very intentional way to write a book. And it turned out that many of those books were not very interesting. Not always there, actually, some of them turned out, okay. But I think in general, it’s just, it’s a different format didn’t end up working very well. A lot of times I get potential, you know, clients or students that come to me, and they say, Oh, I have all this content. And I’m just gonna, like, package that together in a book. And it sounds so easy, right? Like, it sounds like, Oh, I just need to organize it. And it’s gonna become a book because it’s 50,000 words already of content. And it’s not about the length of a book. And can’t we just like add a few sentences here. And there. Actually, it turns out, that’s a harder strategy in many ways than starting from scratch and writing the book. Or, oftentimes, what I’ll recommend is you kind of start from scratch with ideation, you build a full outline, and then you go to your existing content, and really mindfully ask what fits because chances are not as much actually will fit into the book as you think it will. Once you really do the due diligence of outlining the book, as far as repurposing, I would say, now, let me just say also, some people are starting from that place. And so I would, I would say you probably be able to utilize some a lot of that, but just don’t think that all of that’s going to just magically become a book because that’s not how it works. Now for people listening that aren’t in that place, and they’re thinking about how do I create like a content machine? Our process with ghostwriting, and I think anybody could kind of capture a similar, similar process for themselves. We use transcripts and we interview so when people come out of working with us, they have several 100 pages of transcripts, which we utilize to write their books, but they then have to use for content. It’s like gold for marketing. And so that’s something that you can you can completely repurpose that content. I’m a huge believer in at least four times for every piece of content it should be I mean, minimum probably a lot more but like minimum minimum As an example, I have on my social media, we pull quotes from my co authored book growing influence on a regular basis, just a sentence. And we have the same template and we share, you know, quotes regularly from that rule pull excerpts. So there’s Yeah, it can be a goldmine. And then the other thing I would say, if you want, if you have a lot of content, and you’re trying to both utilize it for a book, and repurpose it, you want to, like create more of a content machine is that as you’re pulling that content together, to drop into, you know, to know, so that you can utilize it when writing different chapters, develop a tracking system, so that you start, you know, knowing like, where, where can I find, if I want to do something on leadership, these are the, you know, here are the links to all the posts that I’ve done on that, that we can pull content from that also, if you’re gonna do the work anyway, of sorting through everything, why not create a system so that it’s much easier to find those things as you’re, as you’re building the book?

Shaheen Samavati 16:07
Yeah, I mean, I mentioned the repurposing like works better with for some types of books than others when it comes to like turning a blog into a book, for example, or taking some key blog posts and using them as the basis maybe for some of the chapters. Like there’s definitely some examples I’ve seen of that, like, famous example is like The Four Hour Workweek, that’s clearly like just enough version of a bunch of stuff that that Tim Ferriss had done. But it’s like, a lot of it was so detailed and valuable. And he added a lot more to it in the book that it made it this obviously phenomenal. bestseller, but like, and I’ve definitely seen, especially in my industry and content marketing, a lot of people who take things from their blogs and turn them into books. And it’s because they have so much content already. So it kind of I guess makes makes sense to expand from that. But I can also totally see the advantage of focusing more like it would be a better book, if it was if it was planned and had like a clear vision. And actually, the going back to that what you were saying about, like finding your vision, because that actually just sounds like the most daunting part of it all, because it’s just like, how do you get the right idea for the book in the first place? Because I think, like, I don’t know, there’s a lot of things you can write about that might be relevant to your industry, but what are you going to say that’s different or bring a new perspective to it. And also, like, it has to be something that you’re like passionate about, and have a lot to say obviously. So is there like exercise, you can do?

Unknown Speaker 17:43
A provisioning guide on my website, that’s a free resource, you can go to Stacy anis.com/resources, I have, I think at least five other free guides on there on writing your professional story, like a great bio, and how to come up with a great book idea, a number of things on there. But I do personally, I’ve visioning work every year, I sit down and I think through, you know, what is one year, five years and 10 years outlook for me look like for me, like where am I living? What am I spending my time doing? How much of my traveling, these are personal, right? It’s a little bit different from the business. But I start there. And then you know, if this is a founder listening, that’s or CEO that’s shaping the direction of the business, that they are leading the company, then that also helps you think about like, Okay, well, how does that fit in into where I want the company to go, as well. So if you get my visioning guide, you could then take those same questions and apply it to the company and or to your department or, you know, to your impact within the company. So I think that’s a good way to think about it. But just Answering from a strategic perspective, a lot of what I will see companies that are looking or talking about writing a book as part of content marketing strategy, it’s like kind of that engine and it’s going to be something that feeds a lot of content marketing in the future. You can think about if your company had a big idea that it was sharing with the world, which I would say every company should have something that they can express that is their big idea that kind of drives everything that they do, what is that? And then what’s the practical way that you would teach that idea to somebody else, and in what sequence? What that becomes is essentially a framework for teaching your idea. And for many people, especially if you’re working in professional services, or you have something that leads you know, you have programs or you have other things that have a human touch to it, but you’ll essentially be writing about is your kind of philosophy around that, the way that you teach that and also in what sequence guide people through that idea that you’re sharing. But then also you want a practical element to it. What’s nice about that kind of approach, it’s kind of a blend between a big idea book and a how to book, it’s marrying those two things and that is really fertile ground to grow more stuff. So to grow programs or other revenue streams or speaking engagements or other opportunities for you as the author and also for the company.

Shaheen Samavati 20:30
Yeah, that’s a great way to think about it. I was curious if you have any examples you could share of people who’ve had success, using

Unknown Speaker 20:39
Sure, I mean, I can think of a number I have one client that I often think about. Now, he was a more of a solopreneur. So it’s not within a company. But I can I can give another example in a second. But for this person, he was able to develop a really clear framework around his ideas so that he could teach that in a really clear way through keynotes and workshops, corporate workshops, and other things that he was doing. And right away, he got a huge Keno opportunity that completely paid for all of the investment that he made in that, you know, in that project, and it has fueled his business ever since. And this was a while back. Another another thing I can think of I worked with a C level executive A while back, and the feedback that this person gave me was that not only did the book help her shape her ideas and kind of get clarity around her, you know, the vision for the company and, and what they wanted to accomplish in the world what she wanted to accomplish. But also, this is the piece that I’d love to talk about a little more to the journey of going through the ghostwriting process, and also developing the discipline of of thinking as part of that process, ended up completely transforming how she works on a day to day basis, because she has shifted her schedule to make time for for discretionary time, which is just simply space for for thinking for creativity that’s protected on her calendar. And as I’m sure any executive or any person, at any level, in a company listening to this can attest to having time to think completely changes everything. So there’s that other element to it that I think is really important, and can be a huge revenue driver. And then last example, I have a client, I love this quote, who said to me one time, he’s a multi published author, that a book is worth a million dollars in revenue, and he had done some digging kind of within his own. His own book, his own books, not like book isn’t a one that you published with accounting books. And he he who felt really confident that was like a quantifiable number in his business.

Shaheen Samavati 23:16
Interesting. Yeah, it was, maybe I’m going to answer my own question, but because just when you were saying that it made me think, I guess going through the process of writing a book is valuable in itself, because you’re gonna learn a lot about, like, you’re gonna reflect a lot on your business and your ideas and put things kind of in order in your mind. But do you ever come across people who regret having written a book because it was a, it didn’t end up being a productive project, I

Unknown Speaker 23:43
have people who I think went about it the wrong way. No judgment on them. Nobody knows what they’re doing when they start writing a book. That’s why I built my program, nonfiction book school, because it’s like, you get into this new thing, you have no idea what you’re doing. Right. So I’ve definitely met probably hundreds of people that have regretted the kind of process that they went about with their books and how they, how they kind of introduced it to the world, and many of them will end up kind of pulling them and revising them and republishing them. And I think the the I would say they don’t regret it. It’s just they feel disappointed is a better way to say I would say nobody I’ve met has regretted publishing a book or going through it. But I think when they when they realize the aspects of the journey and the potential ROI that they missed out on because they didn’t understand the steps to effectively write and publish and launch a book. The regret probably lives in like I think this is a really good book and it didn’t really reach that many readers. So that’s that other piece that I don’t know that we’ll get time to dig into today. But the marketing the launch of your book is also really really important so that you reach people

Shaheen Samavati 25:01
Do you recommend self publishing which is popular now or are pitching a publisher,

Unknown Speaker 25:07
I’m a fan of self publishing. But I would say that most of my clients and students end up going what’s known as hybrid, the hybrid route. And it’s kind of an in between between self and traditional publishing, where you work with a established publisher, but you are paying, right you’re paying them to publish your book. But it’s very different than self publishing, where you’re managing many moving parts. i My first book was traditionally published with a small press. And then as often happens, because they were a small press, they went under a few years later. And I worked with somebody on my team to republish just the ebook version of my first book. And even though I wasn’t handling most of it, it was just like the worst, I will never go through that again. So if you’re self publishing, like for the love of everything, hire a self publishing project manager, you need it, just just chalk up the like, just say, Okay, I recognize it’s a small investment, but it actually will save you 1000s of dollars and at least a dozen headaches having somebody that knows what they’re doing.

Shaheen Samavati 26:12
Yeah. And then I wanted to ask you about like, for, for those who aren’t full time writers, and maybe don’t have a lot of experience writing, how can they get into a habit find this flow steady state for writing? Or like you mentioned, maybe for some people, it makes sense to go with the Ghost Writer option? When does it make sense to write yourself versus?

Unknown Speaker 26:33
Yeah, so I would say 99 995 probably percent of the people that maybe more I mean, higher of the people that we’ve worked with are really busy. I mean, really busy people often traveling, when I was ghost doing most of the ghost training myself through the company, I was traveling internationally every six to eight weeks, and I was writing two and a half books a year. So I know what it’s like to be, like busy and trying to write. I actually have a short a five day like super efficient course called Best Seller writing habits. And it just teaches you how to work writing into a busy life without like blowing up everything. The core of it is as much as you can sit down at the same time every day. And actually, not every day, I’d say three to four, three to five days a week is excellent. And just make sure that it’s the same time and and that actually less time more often is through neuroscience has been proven to be more effective to help you get into the flow, than if you try to sit down for five hours on Saturday, you know, versus 30 minutes, four days, that week, you’ll actually probably get more done in those 30 minutes, four times that week, then you will sitting down for five hours on Saturday, just just because of how our brains work. So that’s really my number one tip. The other tip that I would say love just talking about ghostwriting is that, remember what I said at the top that book writing is a skill. And so for many of the people that we have the deep honor of partnership partnering with, for them, it just doesn’t make sense to devote their time and energy to learn how to write a book because they’re out doing things in their industry and in the world. And the other thing that I often find is that big thinkers, business leaders, other you know, inspiring people, they are so in their own head that they really benefit from the collaboration. So it’s, you know, that opportunity to marry your ideas, expertise and story with somebody else’s. In like, in my case, and the core writer on my team, Robin Bethells case, we spent our whole lives developing that craft. So, you know, being able to, like marry those together is magic. It’s pure magic. It’s pretty amazing. And a really cool process. So don’t think about it as like, Oh, I’m farming out my book. No, it’s still 100% your book. It’s just that you are marrying things and creating something that’s bigger than what you could have created on your own.

Shaheen Samavati 29:16
Absolutely, because like you said, it’s such a it’s like a collaboration where you’re interviewing and getting Yes, content from from the other person. They’re the ones with the ideas. You’re just exactly like organizing it for them. Yeah. Well, so we’re reaching the end of our interview. I just wanted to ask you, how can people get

Unknown Speaker 29:36
Sure so I’m at Stacyennis.com. My book reading program is nonfiction book school.com. I’m on Instagram at Stacey Ennis. I’m on LinkedIn at Stacey. And so those are the two places I hang out the most. And anybody who’s in the content, mix ecosystem, please feel free to drop me a note at any point. I’d love to connect and support you on your are

Shaheen Samavati 30:00
on your journey. Well, thank you so much. Thanks

Unknown Speaker 30:05
so much for having me. This is a lot of fun.

Shaheen Samavati 30:11
Yeah, it’s a lot of fun for me too. And thanks everybody for listening in. For more perspectives on global content marketing, be sure to check out their content.com/mcs and if you’d like to get in touch with us, or if you have any interesting topic for an upcoming episode, feel free to reach out at MCs at very concept.com and keep tuning into the podcast for more perspectives on topics related to global content creation. See you next time.

Unknown Speaker 30:32
Bye

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