In this jam-packed 65th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with author and ghostwriter Laura Hanly about book writing and publishing. We met Laura a few months ago and after grilling her over breakfast, knew she’d be a great addition to the show. In this discussion we cover:

•  how she became a book writer and publishing consultant

•  what you need to think about before you write your book

•  Laura’s thoughts on who exactly needs to have a book—if you are in a commodified service business, the answer is “yes”

•  who needs to be on your book writing team and who should be your early readers

•  what a realistic timeline for writing a book looks like

•  price ranges and what she does to charge $40,000 per book project

•  what you need to do to promote your book

•  common mistakes writers make when they write their book

•  the differences between self publishing and traditional publishing

•  how to publish with Amazon Create Space and KDP

•  the design options to consider when you’re ready to publish your book

•  how to find clients as a ghost writer of books

•  whether you should get a byline with the books you ghost write

•  the mistakes she sees over and over on book projects

We also asked about the rates she charged when she first started out (they were way too low), the mistakes businesses make when they “do” content marketing, who is doing content well today, and what to keep in mind when promoting your content. Ready for this? Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

 

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Telling Your Brand Story (Rob’s book)

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (Mark Manson’s rudely titled book)

The Martian (Andy Weir’s book)

Gary V

Ramit Sethi

Digital Marketer

CreateSpace

99designs

Laurahanly.com

Content that Converts

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

Full Transcript:

Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 65 as we chat with author and book consultant Laura Hanly about the process of writing a good book, how to choose between self-publishing and a formal publisher, what it takes to write a bestseller, and the tactics, strategies, and systems for promoting your content.

Kira: Welcome, Laura!

Rob: Welcome!

Laura: Thank you so much! Very exciting to chat with you guys.

Rob: I want to jump in and just say that we met at a mastermind event, and you and I, I think, had the opportunity to sit down at breakfast and for about 45 minutes or so, you sort of walked me through a lot of the process of writing a book and as we were chatting, it was one of those things where like, “Laura, we got to have you on the podcast!” Because there are a lot of people who listen to us that need to know the things that you know! So we are really excited to have you here.

Laura: Yeah, I think it’s a big opportunity for a lot of people at the moment so I’m excited to talk about it.

Rob: Cool! Well, why don’t we start with your story? Where did you come from; how did you start doing what you’re doing?

Laura: So, I grew up in Sydney in Australia. I studied writing and publishing at university and worked at a big publishing house there in Australia for a few years. And I think about 2011, the industry really started downsizing and they weren’t kind of learning the lessons that we had all seen go down in the music industry in terms of, you know, adapting to the new technologies that were becoming available, and I thought, mmmm, I really need to get myself organized and become a bit more independent.

So I moved online,