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Download this episode to your computer Seth Hanes - Leveraging His Book to Create Authority Seth Hanes is the author of the book, Break into the Scene: A Musician's Guide to Making Connections, Creating Opportunities, and Launching a Career Seth is a classically trained musician who graduated from the Music School of Philadelphia. Today, he shares with us his thought process behind writing his book, his goal for writing a book, and how he leveraged his book to get more opportunities and help more people in the process. [03:35] Why Write a Book Seth has long been thinking about starting a book while at music school. His biggest issue with the music world is the tremendous lack of practical training for musicians, specifically how they can monetize their skill sets. Like many creative types, schools teach students a hyper-specific way of doing things and how to approach their craft. But they're taught little to nothing about how to go out into the world and turn that into a career. His book, Break into the Scene came out when he was trying to solve his own problems. Having read some books as well as some online courses and worked with business coaches, he tried to figure out how to go about turning his skill set into a money-making machine. And he found the striking lack of good resources on this topic out there. Hence, he decided to create something he wished he had access to when he was getting started. It practically took him four years from when this idea was conceived until he finally at down to write it. He knew that if he had to be successful at this, he had to take the time and invest his time, energy, and resources to make it happen. [07:10] Finding the Right Angle for the Niche Seth explains the book was written to be a how-to guide for people, specifically for musicians. The goal is to give them a quick result through equipping them with tools they need to be successful after reading it. What he found intimidating with other similar books is that they're mostly written by university professors. But he felt they lack the rawness of their own story. So he wanted to take a different approach with this. This said, he did have some share of the impostor's syndrome where he doubted himself, which he had to deal with for years and which he considers to be the biggest hangup. But what actually helped him grow his confidence was when he started a blog. He wanted something in a how-to format, presenting really raw, tactical advice musicians could use in specific situations they may find themselves in. He was like creating a little playground for himself where he could test out these ideas - see what works, see what didn't and what was resonating with people. And this was how he approached the ideation of the book, which was a long process to figure things out. By writing his blog to overcome his impostor's syndrome, he saw how his audience was reading it and people were getting results. Then he knew he was ready to write a book and all he needed now was to get a game plan to do it. [10:45] The Impostor's Syndrome and How It Impacts Your Confidence Azul fo