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The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Building A Business Ecosystem Around Non-Fiction Books With Michael Bungay Stanier
00:52:41
How can you build a scalable business around non-fiction books? How can you turn a book into multiple streams of income? How can you delegate in order to scale? Michael Bungay Stanier shares his thoughts. In the intro,
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- [00:01]
Joanna Penn
Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show Hello Creatives, I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 784 of the podcast and it is Sunday 8th December 2024 as I record this and there is a winter storm raging outside as I shelter in here in the warm in today's show I talk to Michael Bungay Stanier about building a business ecosystem around non fiction books. So how can you build a scalable business around non fiction books? How can you turn a book into multiple streams of income and how can you delegate in order to scale? Now I love this interview as Michael is open about how his business model works with books as the basis, but then opening up into other streams of income including a membership, subscription, community, an IP licensing company, professional speaking and courses. And he's also identified what he's good at and what he needs to hire others for. Plus he gives us some questions to think about as we head into 2025. So I found this an incredibly useful and valuable interview and I hope you will too. So that's coming up in the Interview section in Writing and Publishing Things, Book Funnel Introduces Truly Universal Book Links now many of us use Books to read links. It has been frustrating as it doesn't allow for shopify stores and some of the direct sales options, but Book Funnel now solves that problem. You can choose a primary link as well as add the usual other stores in multiple formats. And you can see an example for my second edition of how to Write Nonfiction. The example is@thecreativepen.com writenonfiction2 thecreativepen.com writenOnFiction2 and I'll put the link to the Book Funnel blog post in the show notes in AI Things, the ALCs released the results from the survey of writers on AI remuneration, transparency and choice. So the ALCS is the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society here in the UK and it helps us get paid for things like library borrows and photocopying, among other things. It is a 40 page document so I'll just pick a couple of things from it links in the Show Notes as ever, there were 13,574 respondents, which I think is a really good number and I was one of those in the forward they set out their position. It is our belief that licensing offers the best solution for ensuring authors are recognised and fairly compensated for the use of their work in AI systems, if that is what they choose to do. There are lots of revealing comments and quotes in the text. Many people very unhappy with AI as ever, some wanting the model models banned, which is not going to happen at this point. But overall I thought this was interesting. So there was lots of very unhappy people, but overall 96% said they'd want to receive remuneration if their works were used to train AI, even if it meant they weren't credited and 81% would want to be part of a collective licensing solution if ALCS was able to secure compensation for such usage and where case by case, licensing was not a viable option. So I think that's positive and as I've said several times, and I'm going to keep harping on about this because I feel like there will be a right SCRAB happening. There will just be clauses added to publishing contracts around AI licensing and I think that's fine as long as they are non exclusive. So I think you should be able to license your books for AI models if you want to. You should also be able to opt out. But if you do license them it should be non exclusive so you can license in multiple ways for your work. So just remember that the next time you get a publishing contract. Also a great article from Mark Williams on the new publishing standard which goes into the possibilities with AI translation and AI audio. Mark lives in the Gambia in Africa, a very small West African country, so he always has an international perspective which I appreciate. The article is called Adapt and Thrive. AI translation is the game changer's game changer. He says even in the rich west, adult illiteracy is at worrying levels and by definition these people are not buying books. But being unable to read is no obstacle to listening to audiobooks. And while being unable to read likely means lower earnings potential affordable subscription based audiobooks levels the playing field for audiobook buyers. But it is in the less developed world where illiteracy is a way of life for so many, that audio really comes into its own as a game changer for global publishing and he goes into various aspects of the importance of audio. It's a great article. I really like Mark's blog. He says for us in the rich west that take books for granted, it's easy to forget our oral storytelling traditions. We easily forget that Shakespeare wrote plays to be performed in public, not read, and least of all in classrooms, we forget that Dickens made his name not so much by being a great author, but by being a great orator, reading his books out loud to eager audiences. But in the less developed world, where books are harder to come by, oral traditions still hold sway. And the potential for AI assisted audio to bring to life narratives in literally any and every language available to anyone with a smartphone is simply staggering. Which is why AI assisted translation is set to become the game changer's game changer. He quotes from a newsletter from a translation industry. AI isn't the death knell for translators, it's a call to adapt and thrive. Translators are becoming curators, not just creators. The barriers to translation are falling, enabling businesses of all sizes to adopt multilingual strategies. This surge in demand means more work, not less for skilled professionals who can navigate AI assisted workflows. And of course, you know, this is what I think for us too. More work, not less for skilled professionals who can navigate AI assisted workflows. And of course, I have described myself as an AI assisted artisan author and this is how I believe we should work together with these tools. But this translation professional says, yes, AI is transforming translation, but it's not the end, it's a beginning where translators step up as indispensable partners in a multilingual, AI driven world. Those who adapt will not just survive, they'll lead the way. Which, as ever, I obviously get excited about. Mark also ends with this reminder, and this is a great reminder to those of us who get obsessed with the basic, basic languages. He says multilingual does not mean English and maybe Spanish and German, French and Dutch. Multilingual means English and French and German and Dutch and Spanish and Hindi and Mandarin and Arabic and Albanian and Lithuanian and Wolof and Mandinka and isi, Zulu and Issi, Swahili and Yoruba and Hausa and Punjabi and Pashto and Bangla and Thai and Assamese and on and on and on. And I actually, I even love reading that sentence. It sounds almost like a spell. He says there are literally thousands of active languages around the world, many that are not spoken by enough people to be commercially viable as audio or even text in the traditional publishing world. And some that literally have no written form. But in every instance, AI translation in combination with AI audio will soon be able to infuse these languages and their speakers and authors and stories with new life and new possibilities that will make the present day audio market look like a sideshow. So, yes, interesting times indeed, that is on the new publishingstandard.com links in the show notes but oh so many things coming with AI translation audio in 2025. So in personal news, I have been doing the formatting for how to Write Non Fiction, the second edition and that now includes memoir as well. And the pre orders are up for the ebook and the audiobook and the bundles and they will be available on my store including the paperback, the special hardback and some other things. Large Print on sale well they're on sale now, they're on pre sale but they will be available on 1st January 2025 if you buy direct and on the main stores for 31st January 2025 and you can find all the links at thecreativepen.com write nonfiction 2 the print pre orders I'm doing all of those, getting those ordered. I'm also now recording, editing and mastering the audiobook. Yes, I am narrating that. I'll also be releasing tickets for my one day workshop. Yes, I'm doing a one day workshop here in Bath on 16th February 2025 on how to write non fiction. We'll cover craft stuff and business stuff and I will let patrons know first and then if you're on my email list you'll be notified and I will also announce on the podcast. So thanks for all your emails and comments and photos this week. A bumper crop. It was great, so I won't read them all, but here's just a few Sunni says As a fellow South African author, I can confirm the struggle is real. Kudos to Aisling last week for finding creative ways to get her books into the hands of readers and school children. I'm inspired now to try new ways of marketing to local readers through physical events rather than despairing about the lack of print on demand services. Oh that's so great to hear. And I love encouraging all of us encouraging each other with these different ideas. Nikki Morrock said on X I'm listening to today's episode and had to laugh at your calendar note not to schedule anything in December. That is a brilliant and good gift from past you. I'm going to steal that idea because after October's Halloween presentations I'm always exhausted. Yes, absolutely. I think some people do have winter energy, but I don't. And clearly you don't either, Nikki. So yes, although it's funny again, I'm I am still doing quite a lot of work. It's not like I'm resting. I'm just trying not to schedule too much stuff. Kasper sent a lovely smiley picture of him with his art and he said, I love listening to the show as I work on the paintings for my novel at my very cluttered art computer table. Hearing about other writers stories helps motivate me to finish my own. That's great. Mark sent a funny selfie. Here's an attempt to capture my surprise and joy when I heard you announce next week's guest during my pre sunrise walk. It was very funny. Love MBS Michael who's on the show today. Such a great person. And finally Tiana said this was I thought this was great. Thank you for the podcast. It's the most informative one out there for indie authors. It's helped my help me take my career career to the next level. Even the ads are useful. Yours is the only podcast where I actually listen to the sponsored ads and I thought I'd read that because that really helps me with getting sponsorship for the show. Say thanks Tiana. Okay, so please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel. Message me on X at the Creative Pen or email me Send me pictures of where you're listening. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation so today's show is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, Kobo's free, fast and easy self publishing platform favoured by independent authors all over the world. KWL was built by authors for authors and their mission is to help you reach digital readers wherever they are, however they want to read or listen. Are you an indie author looking to reach readers around the world? With Kobo Writing Life, global distribution is at your fingertips. The platform allows you to publish ebooks and make them available in over 190 countries, whether your readers are in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, anywhere else. Kobo Writing Life ensures your stories are accessible to a truly global audience. So yes, I'm also thrilled that I have sold books in 180 of those 190 countries, which is always very cool to see. And I thought this was a good ad to pair with Mark's stuff earlier around thinking internationally because Kobo has a lot bigger reach into markets where some other vendors may not bother. Plus back into the ad. Plus with the easy to use dashboard in kwl, you can track your international sales and see where your books are making an impact, Expand your reach and grow your readership with Kobo Writing Life today. And I now have a special link thecreativepenn.com kwl that's thecreativepenn.com KWL and there you will find my books on Kobo. If you'd like to buy fiction or non fiction plus links to join Kobo Writing Life or listen to their podcast. So this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com TheCreativePen thanks to the five new patrons who've joined this week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community you get access to everything, all the backlist on creativity and writing, AI mindset, business and my patron only Q and A solo episodes. Last week I did live office hours and I demoed Claude Stiles OpenAI's Zero1 model and gave some tips for planning in 2025 what game are you going to play? Because you can't play them all. The replay is out now for patrons in video and audio, the Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. And you get access to everything, all the backlist content. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePenn Right, let's get into the interview. Michael Bungay Stanya is the best selling author of five books with a million copies sold, including the Coaching Habit, how to Begin and how to Work With Almost Anyone. He's also the founder of training and development company Box of Crayons, a podcaster, speaker and coach. So welcome to the show, Michael Joe.
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Michael Bungay Stanier
I'm so happy to be here. You know, it was earlier this year that you and I were hanging out in a field together and this was warmer and less damp, amongst other things.
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Joanna Penn
Yes, indeed. And yes, we were at the Doo Lectures in Wales, which we're going to come back to. But first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.
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Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, the seed was planted by having a grandmother who was a writer. So my dad's mum lived in Oxford, England and she wrote columns for the local newspaper, kind of gossip columns. Her pen name was Culex, which is Latin for mosquito, which I love, but she wrote kids books and memoirs and plays and radio scripts. She was a really prolific writer and I think that was probably the early seed, along with my dad being a great storyteller. He would tell stories at night of Sir Michael, me, Sir Nigel, Sir Angus, my two brothers. And we'd head off and have adventures. So this idea of loving stories and loving writing, I think was planted pretty early on and I found in university. And in my first careers after university, I would inevitably end up writing the newsletter. In university I was part of the law newspaper and the English department newspaper. And so writing and writing and writing has just been part of the practice for a long time, which, as you know, is all part of putting in your 10,000 hours, finding your voice, learning how to write a sentence, learning, starting off, copying other people's styles and then trying to find your own style emerging from that. The first time an actual book idea showed up in my head, it was actually the very. And this turned into an actual book that I published called Get Unstuck and Get Going. I had this idea that I thought coaching, which was the profession I just started in, I was like, you know, there's a way of doing this that can be more efficient than actually having a coach. And I had this idea the kids flip books where you have like a ballerina's head and a scuba diver's body and a soccer player's legs and you kind of combine them into these kind of different combinations. I had this idea that you could create a book with different questions. So you'd bring a problem to the book and you'd open it and randomly generate some questions and voila, you'd have a kind of self directed coaching practice and had this idea and wrote some stuff up and went and made some prototypes and then honestly just couldn't figure out how to publish it because no publisher wanted this and self publishing felt impossible. So I kind of put it in a drawer until my cousin Robert went, you know that book you were telling me about, this kind of self coaching book, I noticed you're not doing it. And I was telling my boss about it and he thought his company could do it. I was like, wait, no, What? Ah. So that was kind of the catalyst to me getting a first book published. And after that I just realized that writing books and producing books and getting them out in the world is one of the, the best expressions of the way I try and serve the world.
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Joanna Penn
I love that and it's a really interesting story, but just give us a sense of the timeline because you said there self publishing would be difficult. I mean, self publishing, that kind of book would be difficult. But you've got five books now with I presume, different publishers or self publishing or tell us a bit about that publishing journey and the timeline, yeah.
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Michael Bungay Stanier
So let's see. Beginning, stuck and going would have been around about 2006, so before Amazon and others kind of made self publishing, certainly a regular book, self publishing, kind of normal. Then I self published another book called Find you'd Great Work and did a print run of like a couple of thousand copies. I was super excited about it. And a friend of mine went, oh, this is good. And he sent it to his editor at Workman, which is a New York publishing house, and they came back and said, we'd like to publish this. I was like, well, I've already published 2,000. They're like, well, as soon as those are done, we'll redo this book for you. So in 2010, I think I self published, I published a book with Workman. So regular publishing experience. Then 2011, I partnered with Seth Godin, who is a marketing blogger, author, general, kind of guru guy. He had a year where he partnered with Amazon and produced a book a year through them, only created through Amazon. And I created an anthology called End Malaria. It's pretty exciting actually. We had like 60 people. They all wrote articles around how to do more great work. All the money raised from that book, not just the profit, but all the money, all the revenue went to Malaria no more. We raised $400,000. We hit number two overall on Amazon.com with that.
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Joanna Penn
I should just say on that, I think. Well, one, I'm a fan of Seth Godin and I've talked about him a lot on the show, so my listeners know of him. But also that's how I think I first heard of you for the first time. And I bought that book and, you know, lots of people bought that book regardless. But to support that as a charitable work.
- [21:27]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, it was a really. It was a project I'm very proud of because I was like, oh, this is using what I can do, which is write books, which I know a bit about, and connect with people, which I know a bit about. And having the partnership with Seth, I'm like, maybe we can make something cool happen here. So the next book wasn't until 2016, but it was my big breakthrough book. It was called the Coaching Habit. And it was because I spent four years trying to pitch this book to workmen who published Do More Great Work as it became called. And they kept turning me down. I kept writing the book and designing the book and writing proposal. I went through probably six or seven iterations of the book. I did a lot of writing. And they kept saying, ah, no, it's not quite Right, we don't like it. Go back and have another go. And at a certain point, Jo, I went, okay, this is it, this is the book. Take it or leave it. Pretty sure that they would take it because by this stage Do More great work had so sold maybe 70,000 copies. So that's a pretty good performance. And I was thinking they would bet on the author, but they didn't. They turned me down. I was affronted and depressed. But at a certain point I was like, there is something here in this book. And so I explored what I thought was going to be self publishing, emerged into kind of hybrid publishing. I work with a company called Page two and they have this hybrid publishing model which we can dig into. And that came out February 29, 2016. So February 29, because I could pick my pub date and I'm like, if this book doesn't sell very many copies, I can say on its first birthday it sold X number of copies. Even though that's a four year stretch. So, you know, that's great.
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Joanna Penn
Love it.
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Michael Bungay Stanier
Always thinking. And that book just took off. So it sold almost 200,000 copies in its first year. It's sold now probably a million and a half copies. Maybe not quite that much, but kind of getting close to that number. Four years later I published a sister book to that called the Advice Trap, which is a kind of deeper dive into how do you tame your advice monster. And now I was on a roll. I'm like, I've got this thing. So a book that followed that is called how to Begin, which is about what you do when you hit midlife and you're trying to figure out what you do next. It's how do you find a worthy goal? And then my most recent book is called how to Work With Almost Anyone, which came out. I've lost track now, but maybe a year ago, a bit over a year ago. And somewhere in there there was one other little book that I published which was like a daily provocation, you know, it's one of those books, books, 366 pages, each page is a date and a question or a provocation in there.
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Joanna Penn
I love that because you've done so many different ways of publishing. Have you done all of them? The rest of them, the recent ones, with this. With the hybrid publish?
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Michael Bungay Stanier
I have, yeah, Ever since the coaching habit, I've just loved this partnership with hybrid publishing. It's a really good model, particularly if there's more to your business than selling books. If your book is often a doorway into other stuff that you Do. They're a particularly powerful partnership because you and I both make a good living through selling books, Joe. But we're in the minority. True. Yeah. Most people don't make a living selling books, so it has to be a book plus. And what that business model does is give me much more control over my book without me needing to worry about all the minutiae, detail stuff that I'm not good at and not interested in and gives me freedom to distribute my books out in the world in a way that can generate bigger returns through my speaking or through my training or through other stuff that I do well.
- [25:07]
Joanna Penn
I think this is a really important point. I mean you mentioned there the sort of the business beyond the book. So give people a sort of clue as to the other ways that you may money, but also that you have made money because you're like a multi passionate creative. You do things that then maybe they're kind of project based and then you move on. Which I think is really interesting because a lot of people say, well, you just start doing one thing and that's it. But you seem to pivot quite often.
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Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, some would say multi passionate creator, other people would say easily distracted. But we'll go. So I started a training company called Box of Crayons. You mentioned that in the introduction. It sells, sells and licenses the IP that's from the Coaching Habit book and the advice trap to big companies. So their clients are people like Microsoft and Salesforce and Gucci, kind of these big name brands. And it's trying to get thousands of people to change their behavior so that when they're leading people they can be more coach, like ask better questions. So I started that company, I still own it with my wife, but luckily I don't run it anymore. Four or five years ago, one of the team stepped up to become the CEO. She's so much better at being a CEO than I am. I'm a terrible, terrible CEO. But that's a multimillion dollar a year company, like $5 million or $6 million in revenue. And the profit of that company gets shared a bit with me, a bit with the people in the company and a bit reinvested back into the company. How to Begin, which is the book on setting a worthy goal. A goal that's thrilling, important and daunting. There's a business model at the back of that, which is an online training course for about 50 bucks I think, or 100 bucks. A way of kind of a deeper dive into that work. But the real economic engine behind there is A membership group called the Conspiracy. So the Conspiracy is where people come together to do the work and actually make progress on their worthy goal. Because many of us feel that call to do something bigger and braver and bolder than ourselves, but it can be pretty daunting to do it by yourself. And so this is a community and encouragement and some structure to keep making progress. And that's mostly run by a small team of kind of one full time person and a couple of part time people. There's a theme here, Jo, which is like, I try and start things and then I try and get out of the way. Because if I'm running a business, we're in trouble. If other people are running businesses, we've got a chance. I give speeches. So sometimes webinars from my office, but sometimes I get on a plane and I fly different places to give a speech. And the success of the Coaching Habit book means that I am ridiculously well paid for doing that. Keynote speaking is, if you can crack it, is ridiculously lucrative. If you're Brene Brown, you're charging a quarter of a million dollars to give a talk.
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Joanna Penn
Wow.
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Michael Bungay Stanier
Exactly. If you're me, I charge. I mean, my rack rate, as we call it, is $50,000 to give a speech. Now, now that's an enormous number and it's partly there. To have most people go, that's ridiculous. Why would we pay you that much money? Because it means that I can stay focused on the stuff that I really want to do, which is to create and to write and to build new stuff rather than be on the road giving speeches. So partly it's to try and make myself inaccessible, but let's say I give about 10 to 15 speeches a year and definitely not everybody pays that sort of amount of money, but it's kind of, that's the start of the conversation around that. Then there's book sales. And working through the hybrid model, you can expect somewhere in the kind of 30 to 40% royalty rate. It's not really a royalty, but it's in terms of money generated for a book sold 30 to 40%, which is roughly three to four times more than you would on a traditional publishing deal where your royalty rate is more likely to be in and around 10%, but less than if you just did a straight publishing, you know, uploaded a PDF to the Amazon enterprise and kind of sold ebooks through them.
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Joanna Penn
I love this. This is so useful for people, for me and for people listening. Because like we've said, it's about building an ecosystem around your personal Brand, which is basically what you have built. And your name is the thing that is, I want to say famous. Your name is what people recognize. And then there's all these other things. But there's a couple of follow up questions. So one is, did you, way back when did you design this? Like coming out the gate, did you go, I am going to design this ecosystem business around a personal brand, or was it just you took opportunities, followed ideas and there was no potential planning around it?
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Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, ironically, the planning that was there was trying not to build a personal brand.
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Joanna Penn
That's really funny.
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Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, the thing is, I would say that I am. My name is largely unknown, as much as it might be. I mean, for a book that sold a million and a half copies, lots of people who've got their hands on that don't know or haven't really registered the name Michael Bungay Stanier. Not in the way that like a Dan Pink or a Susan Cain or a Brene Brown or any of these folks are known. And in part that's because when I was building Box of Crayons and that's the business I spent most of my time building, I spent 17 years working in that business. Directly, I was like, the business is called Box of Crayons. It's not called Michael's training business. Because I wanted to make myself redundant as fast as possible. And the reason for this, Joe, is kind of a philosophical one and a practical one. The philosophical one is at the heart of the work I do. It's to invite people to step into the best version of themselves, to kind of take responsibility for their own freedom, to unlock their greatness. And part of the act of doing that is for me to create space for them to do that. And as somebody who got dealt lots of the great cards, straight, white, over educated, English speaking man, blah, blah, blah. I've got a lot to give away. And my job is to get out of the spotlight as much as possible so that other people have an opportunity to step into that space. And practically I want to do that because I'm a fundamentally lazy person. It's like things work better when I'm not involved. And I'm trying to build a life where I'm doing the stuff that I'm best at. And I love most. Some version of podcasting, some version of creating, some version of writing. All of those projects get me most excited. So partly this is trying to find other people to do the work.
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Joanna Penn
This is also interesting to me because there are a lot of us who are independent authors who are doers. We like doing the work as such. And so you used the word lazy there. I know other people who use that word. But actually what you are good at is delegating and trusting other people and helping other people be the best they can to run your business for you or to be your publisher or whatever. And I. I actually think this is a real trick. So how can people who are overly doing, and I include myself in that, how can we delegate more and better so that we really focus on the things that we are. Are best at or should be best at doing?
- [32:48]
Michael Bungay Stanier
A wonderful question. And honestly, I wish I was a much better delegator than I am. I'm still too much of a meddler. But you're right. I've been practicing for quite a long time to try and make myself better at that. And partly is that I'm lucky enough to have a wiring that has me kind of wired to think about what the next thing is, rather than kind of obsessing about what's happening at the moment. So I'm kind of wired to be able to let some stuff go, which helps for sure. When I stepped aside from being the CEO at Box of Crayons, and Shannon was coming in to take on that role, honestly, she was totally freaking out about it. I was freaking out a little bit, but not really like she was. And she was freaking out because I had hired her from behind the bar of my local pizzeria four years earlier. This is her first job. Now she's. It's her first job, but I hired her as she was in the tail end of her completing her PhD in literature. She's incredibly smart. And I just went, you have a ton of potential. And really quickly, it just became obvious to me and the person who was coaching me that maybe this person could be a CEO. So we're like, okay, how do we set you up? We hired somebody for two years to help us in this transition. A year leading up to Shannon becoming the CEO and a year, year after it. And that was very helpful because that just helped somebody look at the two of us and make sure that we didn't kind of collude in our own destruction, which can definitely happen because founders are terrible at handing over control for the most part. But the other thing we did, Joe, which was really helpful, is we used a tool that comes from Susan Scott's book called Fierce Conversations. And it's based on a tree metaphor, and it sets out four different levels of decision making. Twig, branch, trunk, and root. And Shannon and I went back and forth to figure out what the decisions were for box of crayons. Now, twig decisions are decisions that I will never hear of, just never know about. It's just not in my future life will I ever come across what that conversation was about. Branch decisions are ones that probably get. I hear about afterwards, either in a conversation with Shannon or maybe her monthly update to the company, which I'm part of. Those are those decisions nothing to do with me, but I'll find out about them. Trunk decisions, and this is where it starts getting interesting, are decisions for Shannon to make, but for her to talk to me before she makes them. And root decisions are decisions that I get to make, make as the owner of the company. And those are categories that are useful for whenever you're looking to delegate, to figure out where does the power rest in this decision making. Now, for box of crayons, where we got to pretty quickly was to realize that actually I only had two decisions, two root decisions that I could make. One is, do I sell the company or not? And the other was do I fire Shannon or no? Because in this instance, I wanted this to be Shannon's company that she was running that I happened to be a shareholder in, not Michael's company that Shannon was managing on my behalf. And it just meant that we came up with a hierarchy around what those decisions are. So that's one tool that helped. The second tool that helps, and I kind of touch on this actually quite a lot in the book how to Work with Almost any Anyone is with most of the people with whom I work. We have a conversation about how we work best together so that we get what we want. And that doesn't normally happen. You think it would. But most of the time when you start working with somebody, you plunge into the what of the work, the doing of it, you know, the stuff that needs to get done, the stuff that needs to get delegated. Here's why we're having the meeting, blah, blah, blah. And. And what I do with the people with whom I work is I'm like, let me tell you the best experience I've had when I'm working with somebody like you. And kind of the role you have. Why don't you tell me the best experience you've had when you're working with somebody in my position, in my role, and what's the worst experience that we've had? And what will we do when things get broken? Because they will get broken. Everything gets broken in time. The fabric always rips. And setting up those Conversations allows us to get a little clearer about how we best work together, which means that both they and I are more comfortable about what's being delegated.
- [37:29]
Joanna Penn
Yeah, that's. That's super useful. I think often the conversations and authors, writers, you know, many of us are far more comfortable writing. So, I mean, people can do a sort of first draft of that in writing, I guess, get the ideas down and then talk about it. But as you say, a lot of this is relationships, and that always involves a little bit of having to talk to people.
- [37:49]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Right, Exactly. And you also have to understand what your standards are. And most of us don't know what good enough looks like, and most of us don't know what excellent looks like. And if you don't know it, how on earth can somebody who you're delegating to find the right level on which to perform? So it's doing your own work to kind of go, look, this is what I mean by getting this done. This is what it looks like. This is what it doesn't look like. And it's taken me a long time to learn this, Jo, but I've just found that the sooner I can make minor adjustments, kind of lightly tap the tiller, the easier it is for everybody. So I have an assistant, Claudine. And when something isn't quite as I want it to be with Claudine, I don't hoard it. I don't linger over it. I just ping her a quick note going, this. I prefer it to be A, not B, be. And she's like, cool, got it. And she builds it into her process.
- [38:53]
Joanna Penn
Yeah, that's great. So I wanted to return to your book projects because you have a premium do something that matters journal coming in 2025. Now, many of us people listening, we do premium print editions of our books and sprayed edges and foil and all this. And we can do. We can do anything now. Like, pretty much as independence or hybrid as you are, we can do anything. But I know that a journal is tough. So tell us about this journal. Why do. And what have been some of the challenges?
- [39:22]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, doing a journal is tough. You know, when I talk to my page two folks, the hybrid folks, they're like, who? There's a journal mafia out there? I mean, it's relatively easy to create a journal. At least it feels easy compared to writing a proper book in inverted commas. So it can be really tempting to all of us to go look a journal. How hard is it? It's like, throw down a few questions, have a lot of Blank pages, add a ribbon, maybe a bit of an elastic thingy to it, shut, and you're signaling journal. And if you go onto any of the online retailers, there's a gazillion journals for sale, most of them cheap, shoddy, nasty, underwhelming. So I was like, why am I, why on earth would I do a journal? So with almost every single book I create, I get to a place where I'm like, screw it. It doesn't matter if this doesn't sell. This just needs to be created by me so I get kind of clear on what success is. And sometimes it's like, you know, it doesn't have to sell that many. It just, I want to get this thing out in the world and I want to, I want it to be created. And so too with this journal, which is like, do I want to do this journal? I've got this idea, I think I know how it might work. And I've got a way of where it connects. It connects to the how to begin book. So it's part of that ecosystem. So this comes down to understanding what your business and your business ecosystem is. So I'm like, okay, I've got a little marketing machine that is about trying to find people in midlife, trying to figure out what to do. And I can sell them the how to begin book. I can sell them the do something that matters journal. I can sell them the how to begin course. I can sell them the conspiracy. And there's different ways of bringing people into this ecosystem through these different products that I've created. Created. But it's a whole different price point. It's more expensive to create something like this because you're using nicer paper than you would on a regular print book. You've got ribbons, you've got, I've got a cloth bound journal with an indented title. So it's all kind of fancy and lovely. So what made me go, yes is first of all, I use. This is a, an outcome from my actual journaling practice. And I spent 20 years trying to figure out a journaling practice. And this turned out to be helpful for me, and these questions turned out to be helpful for me. Secondly, it kind of builds on some brand awareness around me, which is like, I'm kind of known for asking good questions. And this journal not only has regular daily questions that repeat, but it has unique weekly questions that are different over the 18 weeks of this particular journal. So first of all, it's like, okay, it'll enhance my brand. It's something I will use. So even if I don't sell any of these, I've got a lifetime supply of journals, so that'll be fine. But thirdly, we did a smaller print run than I would normally do. For me, I would normally do an initial print run of a book of around about 20,000 books because I've got. Because I've got the coaching habit that continues to sell really well. It sells a couple of thousand copies per week. It means that I can bet that the kind of the rising tide effect will mean that over a lifetime I should be able to sell 20,000 copies of most of my books. That's the rule of thumb I have. But with this journal, our first print run is 8,000 copies. And I'd be delighted if I can sell. If I just sell out this first print run, that would be a success for me. Otherwise it'll be Christmas gifts to everybody I know for the rest of my life.
- [43:13]
Joanna Penn
Can I just ask on the product side, one of the things I. Because I've looked at this is the lie flat. So does it lie flat? And this is the thing that costs the money, basically. One of the things.
- [43:24]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah. So mine. Yeah. I don't. Does it lie flat? I don't totally know.
- [43:30]
Joanna Penn
As in do you have to like break the spine to lie it flat? Or is it like the Luke term or the moleskin where you can you just open it and it lies flat? Basically.
- [43:38]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Basically it has a like. I don't know what the fancy terms are, but it's a hardback. And so it has a kind of. The spine is a hard ridge.
- [43:47]
Joanna Penn
It's more like a book book.
- [43:48]
Michael Bungay Stanier
It's more like a book book. But when you open it, you don't have to do anything fancy to be able to write on both sides of the book.
- [43:56]
Joanna Penn
Okay. Yeah. And I think this is the. The interesting thing because different journal, different people like different journals. Right. So I could see. For example, I might buy one of those because I want just to see your products and to questions. But I may not journal in it. For example, I journal in a sort of just a plain other notebook. I use a loop term. So I think it's the word. Yeah, I love them too. But the word journal is even in itself an interesting word. Right?
- [44:25]
Michael Bungay Stanier
That's right. Because there's the. The Luke term ones where the. Where you plane. And that's the ones I've. I've used for 10 years. So now moving away from them now with this new journal or using them differently, at least then you have. Have kind of the planner style journal, which is write down what you're doing today. Write down your top three things, write down your intentions. I mean, it's kind of a more how do I actually hold my universe together? Then there are the ones like mine, which is like, here are ways of checking in with yourself. So a little more structured than Julia Cameron's morning pages where you'll just write for three pages or three minutes or something. Free flow. And so I'm like, well, this is what's worked for me. And it's got the discipline to check in on a daily basis because getting clear every day on what matters most and what you're grateful for and what you're present to really helps. And you check in on a weekly basis to kind of help you learn and grow and evolve and kind of see the bigger picture.
- [45:30]
Joanna Penn
Yeah. And so on that is that again through page two. And also where can people get that?
- [45:36]
Michael Bungay Stanier
It's through page two. So this is my hybrid publisher. As you can tell. I love page two. I love the expertise around publishing that they bring and I love that they understand authors who have a back end. And I love that I get to be in control and make the final decisions on the look and the feel of all the stuff I create. Because that matters to me.
- [45:58]
Joanna Penn
I do think it is on Amazon for pre order. I think that is how I found it.
- [46:02]
Michael Bungay Stanier
It is on Amazon. It's the Do Something journal.
- [46:05]
Joanna Penn
Fantastic. Okay, so we're almost out of time, but as.
- [46:09]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Sorry, that's me talking too much. I apologize.
- [46:12]
Joanna Penn
No, this is Great.
- [46:13]
Michael Bungay Stanier
We've covered 4% of your questions so far, so.
- [46:16]
Joanna Penn
Oh, no, no. Everyone's very interested in your business model and I particularly am. But I want to just return to the DO lectures in Wales, which I'll link to in the show notes. It was very interesting. Let's call it a festival, but it was mostly a festival of ideas and it was full of people looking for a new direction or the next pitch pivot. And you and I were there for different reasons and I was feeling a need for a pivot and there were lots of people wanting to reinvent themselves. Now this is going to come out towards the end of 2024, people moving into 2025. We've got lots of changes in the political things in AI and there's so much going on. So if people listening are feeling like a new direction or a new pivot in the new year, what are some of your tips for people? People?
- [47:02]
Michael Bungay Stanier
I have three suggestions. The first is a really great question to Try and answer every single morning for a period of time is what do I want? It's such a hard question. Oh man, it's like it's. I mean, it is actually one of the three morning checking questions that I use as part of this new journal. But you don't need to buy the journal to just use this question. So sitting down with what do I want? Because often when people are at that kind of restlessness, what's becoming clear is what they don't want. I need something to be different. But they haven't yet kind of got a clearer reading or even started picking up some faint signals around what they do want. So sitting with that, what do I want? What do I want? What do I want? What do I really want? It is hard, but the more you can spend time with that, that the greater you're going to find solid earth underneath your feet that will enable you to move and act. The second question that I think can be really powerful is if I'm going to say yes to this, what must I say no to? Because most of us, and I include me in this for sure, we underestimate just how powerful the status quo is. Is it has a really heavy gravity. And shrugging off the status quo is always harder than you think it is. Because when you say no to something, you're actually saying no most of the time to someone. Whatever you're thinking as your reinvention, somebody's going to be a bit disappointed in you. Like, oh, I was hoping for more of the same. And so trying to figure out what you're going to say yes to and therefore what you have to say no to. Because so much of this reinvention process we add yeses, but we're not brave enough to say no. And your yeses mean nothing unless they come with a no. And the third thing I might suggest is find some people to perhaps do this with, have this conversation with, walk this path with. You know, it can be a coach, it can be an informal gathering of people. I mean, tomorrow I'm going to a day long G of a brand new mastermind that we're starting up with me and four other people to support each other as we figure out who do we want to be when we grow up. So you don't have to fork out money for this, you can just find your people. But this is an existential question. It's hard to wrestle with existential questions just by yourself. So go find somebody else to walk the path with.
- [49:45]
Joanna Penn
That's great advice and I'm definitely thinking about all those things too. So where can people find you and your books and everything you do online?
- [49:54]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, the best place to go is probably NBS works. That is the kind of the umbrella website points you to social media if you're into that sort of stuff. It points you to all of the books. All of the books have free stuff associated with it. So you can get in there and pillage the free stuff from the books if you'd like to do that as well. If you have a multimillion dollar budget for corporate training, then you should also go and look@boxofcrowns.com but I suspect there aren't that many of those people listening in here.
- [50:24]
Joanna Penn
No, but certainly some people might buy your journal. So that's more the level of us.
- [50:28]
Michael Bungay Stanier
And I would be thrilled. I mean as an author and everybody who's listening knows this already, which is it's nothing but a treat when somebody has the generosity to buy a copy of your book. I just got I saw a thing on maybe LinkedIn, I think somebody going the Coaching Habit is my most dog eared book and I'm like oh my God, that is just the best compliment an author can get.
- [50:53]
Joanna Penn
Oh brilliant. Well thanks so much for your time Michael. That was fantastic.
- [50:57]
Michael Bungay Stanier
My pleasure. Thanks for having me Jo.
- [51:03]
Joanna Penn
So I hope you found the discussion with Michael interesting and that it gave you some ideas around developing an ecosystem approach to your book business if that is something you even want want. And also if you are a journal nut like me, maybe consider getting Michael's journal. I have pre ordered it as I am always interested in seeing what people do with premium print products. As ever, I love to hear your thoughts about the interview or about anything I talk about in the introduction. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel. Message me on X at the Creative Pen or email me joannathecreativepenn. Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next week I'm talking with Pulitzer Prize winning writer Charles Duhigg about his book Super Communicators and he gives some amazing insight into his book proposal and his writing process which I found fascinating. So in the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes@creativepen.com podcast and you can get your free author blueprint@thecreativepen.com blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the Creative Pen. Or on Instagram and Facebook. Fpenauthor. Happy writing. And I'll see you next time.