HER EMPIRE BUILDER PODCAST

HELPING YOU TO SHARE YOUR GIFTS WITH THE WORLD

Join business coach Tina Tower as she explore's how to build your empire by packaging your expertise into online courses, speaking, content, podcasting and credibility.

Tina has over 14 years of experience in starting, building and selling companies, she's a speaker, teacher, mumma and traveller. She's unapologetic about living an intentionally big life and if you want too, this show is designed to show you many different options to help you gain clarity over YOUR version of awesome.

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Show Transcription: 

Ep167 How to Write a Business Book

Hi friend, and welcome to episode 167 of Her Empire Builder.

Ah, do you want to write a book? Or, have you already written a book and you're ready to write another one? Well, if that is you, I've got you covered. I get asked questions all the time [laughs] about how to write a book, what sort of book, how to put it into an ascension model, self publishing verse publishing, how to market it, how to get it on the bestseller list, like, everything in between, and I thought there were too many things to put in one episode about books. So, I love a good theme [laughs], so the next four episodes of the podcast are going to be devoted to book writing.

So, in this episode, I'm going to be running you through the actual how to write a business book; why you should write a book, why everyone needs to have a book, and then, like, how to choose your title, how to actually get it done, and self publishing verse publishing. Then, next episode, I am bringing you Jasmine Womack, who is an absolute legend, and that is her job. Like, that's what she does for a living is help people, especially course creators, to package their expertise into a book to add to their commercial ecosystem. So that's a really great interview for you, and then, my favourite, is the third one in our book series, marketing for a best selling book. You know, you guys know, I'm obsessed with marketing, and so I'm going to run you through everything that I did with my second book, Million Dollar Micro Business, and kind of the mistakes that I made with One Life, my first book, and obviously learnt from those [laughs]. 

So that one's coming up, and then I'm going to finish off and wrap it all up with the fourth book episode, which will be about creating a commercial ecosystem with your book. So, how to actually use it as a springboard to create other things and to grow your business and put it into your ascension model and how you can really, like, a book is such a mammoth effort that I want you to be able to capitalise on that effort and really have your book be the gift that keeps on giving for you. So that is the next four episodes. So, let's get into the first one, How to Write a Business Book.

Hi, friend. I'm Tina Tower, Business Strategist and digital online empire builder. I've been in business since I was 20 years old and I have since built and sold four businesses. I started in the world of online courses in 2017, and grew to a seven figure annual turnover in just under two years. To say I love the game of business is an understatement. I'm a world traveller, a mama, a wife, a best selling author, and I love the freedom that we have to create the business and life that we want to live. It takes courage to break the rules and shake things up and do it your way. Through Her Empire Builder, I share my experience and bring you lessons from some of the world's best to help you dream big, plan well and take massive action. It is absolutely possible to run a thriving, growing business that positively impacts the world and have a beautiful personal life without hustling and working yourself into exhaustion. I want that for you. Let's enjoy the journey my friend.

My love affair with books started long, long ago [laughs]. I loved, loved books as a child and to me when I first started to get into this wonderful world of personal development and business, I learnt most of what I knew at the beginning through books. It still blows my mind that you can get all of these incredible, smart people and learn their best stuff for $20. I mean, it is so incredibly awesome, and so while I think everyone has a book in them that can contribute, I do also know [laughs] that writing a book is one of the hardest things that we can do. So I think that if you're going, you know what? I know, I have a book in me. I know I want to get it out there, to actually bring that to fruition, you’ve got to really want it [laughs] because otherwise it's one of those projects that are going to get started and then put on the back burner and be this thing, like, hanging over your head, that’s going, yes, I've got to get to that. Yes, I've got to write that. Yes, I know, I'm getting there but you'll never actually finish it. To me, like having unfinished projects is just, like, one of the most frustrating things in the world.

So, what I want to talk to you about first is why. Why you should write a business book. So the first thing is, you have to be committed. You really have to decide, now is the time, this is why it's important to me and put it above so many other things because, you know, a book is hard, because it's, it's disciplined. We're out of practice with creating content that way as well. I mean, I know, I used to write really long form blog posts, like back, I started my business in 2004. For probably, I don’t know, 5, 10 years, I wrote a long form blog post every week. Now like, the closest thing I get to writing is Instagram captions [laughs]. Not much practice honing of my writing skills anymore, so it takes a really significant discipline and practice to be able to do that. So, I'm going to talk about, like, how I actually got mine done so you can take inspiration from that as well, but first is going, like, why is it important to you? Like, does your soul actually need it?

So, when I wrote One Life, One Life was my first book, and it was a very different book to Million Dollar Micro Business. One Life was the book that my soul needed to write. It didn't necessarily fit into my commercial ecosystem at all, which is something I'm going to be talking about, like, in a few episodes time. Million Dollar Micro Business was completely a commercial book but One Life was something that I was, like, my soul needs this, and, you know, I wasn't, you know, the next question I asked myself was, does the world need this, because, let's be honest, the world has enough things in it [laughs], that I'm going, can I bring something that is not already there? Can I add a different perspective? Can I add a different time? Can I add a different generation? Can I do something that is going to be able to help another human.

So, once you've got that figured out, and you'll really know in your heart of hearts that it's important to you, it's then going, alright, let's kick that into action because the fear can be debilitating, because books are so permanent. So, you know, like, we do a podcast episode like this one that I'm doing right now, I don't have too much trouble doing these because I know that, you know, yes, thousands and thousands of people are going to listen to it and I try not to think about that too much, but it's also, it's a lot more casual. You know, I can, I do all my podcast episodes, this podcast episode, I have about eight dot points in front of me. I know what I want to say, for each of them, I have to think about it first, and I meditate for 10 minutes before I hit record, then I go, but I know that if something comes out less than perfect, you will forgive me because it's a podcast. However, when it's written in a printed book, whoah. I mean, one typo in there, you're going to get people emailing you [laughs]. Or if something changes, which it does so quickly, it's out of date so fast. So you know, there's the permanence of it in there as well.

So once you decide, yes, I'm going to write that book you go through, you choose your title. I think choosing the title is one of the most important things at the beginning. So, if you could just hear that, that's my dog like flapping her ears next to me [laughs], but you choose your title at the start. Now the reason that I like to do that is so that it has a name. So that it becomes an actual thing, and not just “the book”. It’s something that's there that you're thinking about, that you, you know, are going, how can I bring this to life and it becomes really important to you.

Now how to actually get the book done. Oh my gosh, my dog, hang on. I'm gonna take her out. Poor Holly, she's out now. She's making too much noise but see, this is an example of podcasting [laughs], going hold on, going to get the dog outside. Okay, so how to actually get it done. People have a lot of different theories around this, and I'm going to tell you what mine is because…I think that…it is difficult to get it done. The easiest way to get it done is batching for it. So a lot of things when I was starting to write my book, I would read and, you know, they'd say, just before you start your day, before you turn your computer on or, like, not your computer on because you're writing on your computer, before you open your emails or social media, do a half an hour or an hour of writing every day, and then eventually you'll have yourself a book.

Now if I had tried to do that, I, like, the way my brain works, I could not actually think of anything more frustrating [laughs]. I'm a, like, when it’s, when it's time to go, I'm an all in kind of girl and I'm like, okay, this is the mode I'm in, I'm in book writing mode, let's get this done. I like having our focus for each month, and having our projects and getting that done and going, okay. Right now, in my business, I'm focussing everything on our retreat. You know, we've got our big conference of the year for our members for Her Empire Builder, and everything goes into that. Like, I actually don't think of anything else [laughs]. All roads are leading to that and then once that is on, then I complete that. Then I go to the next project, and then the next project, and on and on we go. I find that so much easier for the way that I work and I have such better results than trying to do 10 different things at once. Especially when it comes to a book that really requires a different level of thinking than most of our everyday things.

For me, it was going, well, if I'm just starting to write a book and you know, the kids come in, and they're like, hey mom, and I want to say hi, and I want to do that, then you go back and be like, hang on, where was I? Like, oh, skewers in eyeballs, like, that is hard. So I knew that the whole dipping in dipping out method would not work for me. So what I did was I took myself away. So when I wrote my first book, One Life, it was pre COVID. I wrote it in 2019 and I had worked out because, you know, I'm systems orientated [laughs], so I had worked out how many words I can type in an hour. I knew that if I averaged a thousand words an hour, which is far less than what I can type, but, you know, you need thinking time, so if I averaged a thousand words an hour, then it was going to take me around 60 to 70 hours to write the book. So I worked that out and went alright, so if I can map it all out, then I know how much time it's going to take me. I know in a week, I can have this entire book written if I literally do nothing else other than eat, sleep, write, repeat.

So I went to this gorgeous island called Matangi Island in Fiji, which is an adult's only island that just had 12 bungalows, and was filled with honeymooners and people celebrating anniversaries, and they were all lovebirds and me with my laptop [laughs]. But, I took myself away and I got in the flow of that. Like, I had no distractions. I had nothing else, I could just sit on the verandah looking out at the beautiful Fijian ocean, just typing away. You know, if you've read One Life, you know, I go quite personal in that as well with my story, and so I just could type and just tears streaming down my eyes and the beautiful Fijians walking past going, are you okay? But it allowed me to get that done, and I know that if I had tried to do that in my normal home environment, it would not have been the book that it was because I would have been not going as deep into that because I would have been protecting myself because I would have been around my family. I would have been knowing that in an hour, I've got to go and do something else life orientated. So for me taking myself away worked so incredibly well.

For Million Dollar Micro Business, I tried to do the same thing but we were in COVID so I couldn't go overseas. I tried to go into country where I live in New South Wales, the state that I live in, and I got there and this is the thing. I'd booked a place for the whole week and I arrived and I set everything up and mapped out all my chapter outlines. So the way that I do it is I get like a page, an A4 page, super old school I know, but an A4 page and I blue tack it to the wall for every chapter and I write the name of the chapter on top. Then any idea I can think about for the whole book, I put it into the right chapter and then any stories that I can think to support each of those concepts, I then put that onto each page as well. So then, I can sit there and look at it all and kind of just stare at it and figure out what bits are missing, do I want to move something around, so that works really well for me.

Anyway, I went out to write Million Dollar Micro Business and just, the juju was off. The energy wasn't right, I wasn’t feeling it, and yeah, I gave it 24 hours and was like, no, this isn't it. So I came home, but I locked myself away. So I was, I was at home, but still away, and because we were in, like, semi lockdown, no one really bothered me because we had so much of each other [laughs] in the lead up to it as well.

So that would be my recommendation and if I ever go to write a third book, which, you know, I thought I never would write a third book because I actually find the book writing process really hard. For me, it's very confronting in terms of any sort of self loathing [laughs], or any sort of, like, second guessing. Self doubt comes up constantly for me when it comes to a book, I think because I love books so much and I respect authors so much, that it brings up a lot of stuff for me in trying to get that done. The second book was no easier than the first and, so, I actually recorded a video to myself when I finished the second book in going, like, watch this, if you ever think of writing a third book, so you're not going in, like, blind, but you're going in knowing how difficult I'm probably going to find this. I know that that's a really bad attitude to go into it with, but I also know that when I'm up to, like, 25,000 words, and I'm only a quarter of the way through that I'll be going, this is shit, why did I ever decide to do this? Oh my God [laughs]. So I want be mentally prepared.

But, I mean, yesterday, I bought the domain name for what I think would be a really cool third book. So, you know, never say never, but what I would recommend, and what I would definitely do, if I go again, is to do what I did for the first book. To take myself away, to go all in. Do nothing else. Get in a really beautiful surrounds because it's important what you, what surroundings you're putting yourself in, because the energy of the place that you're writing in, and I mean, we've been shown that through history, right? Like, so many of the world's great authors took themselves off to castles and countryside and wherever they felt most inspired. For me, I love, I love Fiji. I love blue sky. I love beautiful water. I love the blues, and I love the palm trees. So that was very inspirational to me to be a part of. That's what I'd recommend is find somewhere that kind of sets your heart on fire, and go and book the week away, because it's worth it. This book is going to be around forever. It's your legacy. It's one of the most amazing things that you will create in your life so it is definitely worth the time to put in and get it as right as you possibly can so that you can get in the flow. So that’s, that's one of the big tips.

The other thing I would say is be conscious of your, your energy, which kind of comes through location but also through timing in going, when you're going to write the book, making sure that you're going into it with the right energy, because it's going to affect that finished results so much. So, looking at anything that's going on in your personal life. Looking at anything that's going on in your business life. Making sure that the week that you do book to go and write your book that it isn’t, like, just after doing a massive sprint in your business and you're not exhausted, but you're filled with energy, and you're filled with hope and inspiration and all of the things that you're hoping to get across in your book; you've pre-prepared yourself for that. So, you know, getting healthy, getting in as good shape as you can, so that you're feeling all fired up and ready to go.

So then I also want to talk about self publishing verse publishing because my first book I self published, and the second one, I went with a publisher. It's very simple, the reasons why I loved both options, and you're like, that's not helpful Tina [laughs], but I'll tell you why. So self publishing, I actually loved doing that for the first book because it taught me a lot about the book industry in itself. I went for self publishing because I'm a control freak and I wanted utmost control over, like, cover design and internal design and the audio book and the way that was presented and the marketing and every single thing in between. So I did the self publishing process myself and I had a book coordinator, Linda Diggle, who was exceptional. If you are in Australia, and you're looking for a book coordinator, I don't think you'd ever find anybody better than her. She's just the Shizzle-Mcdizzle and I wouldn't have been able to do half as well with my book without her help. So while I self published, I still had a book coordinator, a cover designer, an editor, a graphic designer, like, all of the different people helping me, but I was able to make the final say on all of that.

Now, the downside of self publishing, I love everything about the self publishing process except the distribution. So as a self published author, you're not taken anywhere near as seriously as when you're with a traditional publisher, which is just crap, because, you know, the publishing world is a little bit behind the times. So self publishing gave a lot of control to be able to do a lot of things and move really fast that the publishing world just does not do, but you can't get the distribution and that is why, with Million Dollar Micro Business, I went with the publisher was because distribution wise, I tried everything when I published One Life, and we got it into major bookstores, but we didn't get it into airports. We didn't get it, like, in every bookstore, we had to go to, like, individual stores and I definitely had no chance of getting it published internationally. Whereas when I published with Wiley, my publisher for Million Dollar Micro Business, we launched and launched into all of the bookstores.

So we were still in pandemic. So, you know [laughs], it was a bit of a bummer going, hey, it's in the bookstore. So came out in, when did it come out? 1st July 20….20, oh, my gosh, I just forgot what year we're in, 2021 because we're 2022 now [laughs]. Didn't the pandemic just, like, give us this weird time abyss, but 2021 it came out and we were in lockdown for another three months, four months, after the book came out, so I didn't actually see my book in a store until October, which was just insane. So, you know, that was a downside when the book came out but also the upside was, it was how to create online courses out of everything that you know, and obviously, that was a really good book to have come out when you're in a pandemic. So I think there was downsides to the timing, there was also significant upsides, and because the book did so well in Australia, they were able to, to publish it in the US as well.

So we launched in the US at the start of 2022 and it is still, so, coming May now, it is still in the top 50 business books in America, which, it just blows my mind, and that wouldn't have happened without a traditional publisher, and so hopefully that helps you, with the, with the two. Try and get a publisher deal. So my motivation would be, if you are doing it to make no money but part of your commercial ecosystem, and you are looking for exposure and you're looking for impact, then going with a publisher is going to beat anything else hands down. If you are looking to make money from it, you know, I made more money from my first book, my first book sold 2000 copies in its first few months, Million Dollar Micro Business, I actually don't know, but it's up over 10,000 copies now, and I still made more money from the first book. That is because it's like a flip of the commission and the way that you're paid that, however, of course, the second book was a lot better performing when you look at the long term benefits of that in there as well. So that is where I'm going to wrap that up now. So with how to write a business book, and then next week, I'm going to release the episode of my interview with Jasmine Womack. Then the next episode, we're going to talk about marketing for a best selling book, and then your ascension model, including like your online courses, how to get that all working together, and then the commercial ecosystem that can surround the book so it becomes like this incredible component of your business. I hope this has helped you get all excited about writing your business book, and if you have an idea for your business book, what I'd love you to do is share this episode on Instagram and tag me @tina_tower, and let me know the title of your book that's coming. Have the best day.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Her Empire Builder. If you loved it, please share it on Instagram for your friends and be sure to tag me @tina_tower so I can say thank you, and if you really want to deliver me smiles, you can pop on review on Apple podcast. I would love to hear from you so if you have any questions at all, email me at [email protected] and if you would like to work with me further, all of the free resources and my courses can be found at www.tinatower.com. Now, I truly hope this podcast gives you so much value and you can use it to dream big, plan well and take massive action in building your very own empire that's just for you. Have the greatest day.