Episode 906: You Have a Book Idea. Now What?

Summary

The Official BNI Podcast: Episode 906 – "You Have a Book Idea. Now What?"

Release Date: April 16, 2025
Host: Dr. Ivan Misner
Guest: Dr. Heidi Scott Justo

Dr. Ivan Misner, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, hosts Episode 906 of The Official BNI Podcast, featuring Dr. Heidi Scott Justo, a seasoned writer, editor, and communications consultant. In this engaging episode, Ivan and Heidi delve into the critical steps and considerations for professionals contemplating writing a book. The conversation is rich with actionable insights, practical advice, and motivational anecdotes aimed at guiding BNI members and aspiring authors through the book-writing journey.

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1. Establishing a Clear Purpose: The Business Case for Your Book

Heidi emphasizes the importance of being pragmatic from the outset. Before embarking on the writing process, authors must define the business case for their book. This involves understanding how the book will serve their professional goals and contribute to their legacy.

"You really need to have a purpose and clear reason for writing it because rarely are you going to make a significant amount of money from the book itself."
— Dr. Heidi Scott Justo [02:52]

Heidi advises authors to consider whether the book will act as a comprehensive brochure for their business, enhance their reputation, or serve as part of a larger legacy project, as seen in her collaboration on "Infinite Legacy."

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2. Identifying and Understanding Your Target Audience

A recurring theme in the discussion is the necessity of pinpointing the target audience before writing begins. This focus ensures that the content resonates with readers and meets their specific needs.

"Identify the target audience before you start writing. And you want to keep that reader in mind the entire writing and revising process."
— Dr. Heidi Scott Justo [04:56]

Ivan adds that while a book can cater to multiple related audiences, maintaining a unifying theme is crucial to avoid diluting the message.

"I would say you can [have more than one target audience], but they're still going to be related... Even a self-help book can be for a very broad audience, but there's still some unifying theme."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [05:24]

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3. Navigating Publishing Options: Traditional, Hybrid, and Self-Publishing

The trio explores various publishing avenues, highlighting the pros and cons of each to help authors make informed decisions.

Traditional Publishing

Traditional publishing involves partnering with established publishing houses like Simon and Schuster. While it offers professional distribution and marketing, it often requires patience and perseverance due to high rejection rates.

"If you're going to go traditional publishing hybrids a little quicker and a little easier, but it takes a lot of money and self-publishing is pretty inexpensive through Amazon."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [08:20]

Heidi cautions that publishers rarely accept books that have been self-published unless they achieve extraordinary success, citing examples like Harry Potter and The Martian.

"They became such hits and I want to say the Harry Potter series may have been as well. They became such huge hits that then the publisher came on... they're really the outlier."
— Dr. Heidi Scott Justo [07:48]

Hybrid Publishing

Hybrid publishing is a blend where authors invest financially in their book's production while benefiting from the publisher’s distribution networks. Ivan notes that this route requires significant upfront costs but offers better royalty rates compared to traditional publishing.

"Hybrid is you're basically paying for the book and they're doing all the distribution and you get a larger percentage, but you also have to pony up a fair amount of money."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [08:02]

Self-Publishing

Self-publishing, particularly through platforms like Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), is presented as the most accessible and cost-effective option. However, Heidi underscores the necessity of having a robust marketing plan and an established audience to succeed.

"The best approach for self-publishing is Amazon's KDP. If you're going to self-publish, that's a great place to do it."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [08:20]

"You have to have a marketing plan and your audience already in place really for any of these. But especially with the self-publishing route as well."
— Dr. Heidi Scott Justo [10:29]

Ivan further highlights that achieving bestseller status is significantly easier with a large social media following, implying that self-published authors should focus on building their online presence.

"If you have a good social media following, you can push a book to a best sellers list... You've got probably a better chance of winning the lottery than pushing a book to the bestseller without a group of followers."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [10:40]

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4. Overcoming Common Roadblocks: Time Management and Perseverance

The conversation shifts to the practical challenges authors face, particularly among busy professionals who constitute much of the BNI membership.

Finding Time to Write

Heidi stresses the importance of dedicating specific blocks of time exclusively for writing, treating these commitments with the same seriousness as client or medical appointments.

"If you're serious about writing a book, then you need to diligently block time in your calendar, like your weekly calendar... treat it like a doctor's appointment or a client appointment that you'd never just not show up to."
— Dr. Heidi Scott Justo [11:35]

Ivan shares his personal strategy of reserving Wednesdays as writing days, minimizing interruptions to maintain consistency.

"My Wednesdays are writing days and I try not to let anything interfere with that... Otherwise it's time for me to write or research."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [12:40]

Perseverance Through Rejections

Drawing from personal experiences and literary legends, Heidi and Ivan encourage authors to persevere despite setbacks. They cite Dr. Seuss and Jack Canfield as examples of authors who faced numerous rejections before achieving monumental success.

"I think wasn't it Dr. Seuss who got rejected maybe close to 50 times?"
— Dr. Heidi Scott Justo [10:08]

"Dr. Seuss and Jack Canfield with Chicken Soup for the Soul got rejected many, many, many times... the series has sold three quarters of a billion."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [10:14]

Heidi advises against deprioritizing the book project, especially when nearing completion, to avoid indefinite delays.

"Writing a book is a marathon. Don't give up on mile 25. Don't deprioritize it... because I've seen a lot of people, they're so close and then they deprioritize it."
— Dr. Heidi Scott Justo [13:15]

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5. Final Thoughts and Encouragement

As the episode nears its conclusion, Heidi shares a poignant reminder about the long-term commitment required to finish and publish a book. Ivan provides practical resources, promoting Heidi's consulting firm for listeners seeking assistance with their writing projects.

"And having it done professionally really makes a difference. No doubt."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [15:00]

The episode wraps up with Heidi encouraging authors to persist and prioritize their writing goals, while Ivan teases future collaborations and projects.

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Key Takeaways

1. Define Your Purpose: Understand the business case and how your book aligns with your professional objectives.
2. Know Your Audience: Clearly identify and keep your target readers in mind throughout the writing process.
3. Choose the Right Publishing Path: Weigh the pros and cons of traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing to determine the best fit for your goals.
4. Manage Your Time Effectively: Allocate dedicated time slots for writing to ensure steady progress.
5. Stay Persistent: Overcome rejections and setbacks by maintaining unwavering commitment to your book project.

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For more insights and resources on writing and publishing, visit Career Path Writing Solutions and stay tuned for upcoming episodes of The Official BNI Podcast.

Transcript

[Priscilla Rice]

Episode number 906. You have a book idea. Now what?

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

You're listening to the official BI podcast with BI founder and chief visionary officer Dr. Ivan Meisner. Stay tuned for networking and referral marketing tips from the man who's been called the father of modern networking, along with suggestions and insights into getting the most from your membership in the world's largest networking organization, bni.

[Priscilla Rice]

Hello everybody and welcome back to the official BNI Podcast. I'm Priscilla Rice and I'm coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I'm joined on the phone today by the founder and the Chief visionary officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Meisner. Hello, Ivan, how are you and where are you?

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

I am at home in Austin, Texas today and I have a guest who I've known for quite a few years. We haven't actually talked about how many years, but it's been a long time. Her name is Dr. Heidi Scott Justo and you're going to look at the spelling and go, what? It can't be it. But that's it. That's how it's pronounced. And Heidi has helped me edit, I don't know, quite a few books over the years and was the co author of one of my books. Heidi is a writer, editor, communications consultant. She owns Career Path Writing Solutions, which is a consulting firm that helps people communicate when it matters most. She collaborates with clients from diverse professional backgrounds and has a specialty in working on business leadership and self help books. She earned her PhD from Duke University and recently was a co author with me and Dawa Phillips on the Third Paradigm, which I've done a couple of podcasts on that third paradigm. Heidi helped with and is working on a future book with us. Us being Graham Weimiller, the, the past CEO of BNI and, and Heidi and myself. Heidi, welcome to the B and I podcast.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Thank you so much for having me. I am thrilled to be here and to talk about this topic.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah, it's a, it's a great topic and if you've looked at any of the podcasts, you, you know this in record speed, about 10 minutes. But let's see if we can tackle all of the things that, that you want to talk about. What, what are the cons? So let's say somebody decides they want to write a book, which I think is like the best way to create a brochure for your business. What's, what are the considerations after you have a book idea for any of the B and I members listening?

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yeah, so I think of three as you know, there'd be, there's a long list of these. But my top three considerations, number one is being really pragmatic right from the get go because sometimes people will say things like, oh, so and so said I should write a book. And I would always ask, is there a business case for your book? You really need to have a purpose and clear reason for writing it because rarely are you going to make a significant amount of money, you know, from the book itself self. So you want to get clear on how the book's going to serve your business and goals and, and really, you know, why. Maybe writing a book, you know, you and I worked on a book called Infinite Legacy. Maybe it's part of your legacy project. Then you want to acknowledge that and then determine, you know, who do you want to have access to the book and what ideas. But just those really pragmatic considerations first. I think people should consider before they get, before they really dive in.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah, you, you make a good point that you're not going to make a lot of money in writing a book. Look, some, some people's books sell millions of copies and they make a lot of money. But the average business book, the last time I checked, and maybe you have more current information, but the last time I checked, the average business book sells about 7,000 copies. That's average.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yeah. And that, and I don't have those numbers right at the top, off the top of my head, but that's even a little more than I would have expected.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah, it was, it was. It's an old statistic. And with people publishing books so much online now, that may be a high number, but it counts all of the, you know, huge, big best sellers along with the ones that sell, you know, 100 copies like I think my first book did. So. Yeah, you have to have a business case. That's the first one. What's your second point?

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

The audience. Identify the target audience before you start writing. And you want to keep that reader in mind the entire writing and revising process, even as you consider the format. You know, do you want a traditional book? Maybe you want a workbook? Always think what will be most helpful and beneficial to that intended reader and work backward from that.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah. And can you have more than one target audience? I know we're talking about having a couple of target audiences with our next book.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

I think you, I'd say you can, but they're, they're still going to be related. Right? The book can't be for everybody, so.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Well, you know, sometimes a self help book can Be for a very broad audience.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

That's true. But I would say even then you are keeping in mind someone reading this has bought into the idea that I can like improve myself or help, you know, so even that there's still some unifying theme around who you're writing for.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah, fair enough, Fair enough. And you have a third point.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yes. And you might be able to speak more to this even than I can, but publishing. So publishing is a mystery for so many people. So when, even when you have that idea, you've established your business case, you've identified your audience, you want to learn the basics of the differences between traditional self publishing in hybrid publishing. I have had authors contact me about how to publish their book with a traditional publisher and they've done so after they wrote and self published the book on Amazon. And those con. Yeah, those conversations often end up in disappointment for that author because I am the one having to tell them that only very rarely is a publisher going to pick up a book that has already been published. Like some of the more well known ones are like the Tale of Peter Rabbit, a classic, and more recently like the 50 shades of gray series and the Martian. But those are very rare.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

So those were self published first and then went to a primary publisher.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yeah, they became such hits and I want to say the Harry Potter series may have been as well. They became such huge hits that then the publisher came on. But, and I think sometimes those get more attention and so people don't realize that they are really the outlier. They're not the norm.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

So yeah, I would say an extreme outlier. It's very rare that a publisher is going to pick up a book that's been self published already.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yeah. And so that is just, it's just an unfortunate situation all around because you have people who put all this effort into it and they didn't realize that, you know, they have the process. They, they are uninformed or misinformed of what a typical process is. If you want to go that route of traditional publishing.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah, now you mentioned traditional publishing and hybrid. For those of you who don't understand the difference, traditional publisher is a publisher that like Simon and Schuster Entrepreneur Press published the third paradigm. They're, they, they're a traditional publishing house, a hybrid. And more and more traditional publishing houses are also doing hybrid. A hybrid is you're basically paying for the book and they're doing all the distribution and you get a larger percentage, but you also have to pony up a, a fair amount of money in a hybrid book. The third option is total self publishing. And the best, I believe the best approach for self publishing is Amazon's kdp. If you're going to self publish, that's a great place to do it. So those are the three that are out there. And if you're going to go with a traditional publisher, be patient. I had 40 rejections. Over 40 or zero. And it was funny because a few years ago I found the sheet of paper, it was before Excel, and I literally drew out on a graphic sheet of paper a graph, every publisher I sent it to and when I got the rejection letter and I had over 40 rejections before I was finally able to publish the world's best known marketing secret, which is now sold a couple hundred thousand copies and been translated into maybe a dozen languages. But so be patient. If you're going traditional publishing hybrids a little quicker and a little easier, but it takes a lot of money and self publishing is pretty inexpensive through Amazon.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yeah, but you have to have a marketing plan and your audience already in place really for any of these. But especially with the self publishing route as well. And you, you mentioned. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

No, no, go ahead, go ahead.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

I was going to say, I think, wasn't it Dr. Seuss who got rejected maybe close to 50 times?

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah, yeah. Dr. Seuss and Jack Canfield with Chicken Soup for the Soul got rejected many, many, many times. And that series has sold three quarters of a billion. That's a billion with a B. Three quarters of a billion copies now the series has.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yeah, yeah. So just be, persevere. Right. You can't, you know, it might not happen in the first, first try or even the first couple dozen tries.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

Yeah, yeah. If you're going to go self, it's never, it's never been easier though to publish a book through something like Amazon and kdp, even hybrid is, is easy, but it does, it does take money. People ask me, how do I get almost all of my books to the bestsellers list? And my answer is it's easy. What's hard is getting a half a million followers on your social media.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Ah.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

So if you have a good social media following, you can push a book to a best sellers list. If you don't, don't expect it to be a bestseller. That's really, really rare. You've got probably a better chance of winning the lottery than pushing a book to the bestseller without a group of followers who are there to show interest in what you're doing. We're almost out of time. What are some of the real common roadblocks that an author faces.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Speaking of running out of time, finding time. So everyone probably who's listening to this podcast right now would probably classify themselves within the category of busy professional. So if you're serious about writing a book, then you need to diligently block time in your calendar, like your weekly calendar. Treat it as sacred. Treat it like a doctor's appointment or a client appointment that you, you'd never just not show up to a doctor or for client meeting. So you have to show up for that block time and. Or engage in writing retreats, which would be longer blocks of time for the writing. Some people will sequester themselves away for a few days or a week and do a lot of drafting in that really like sprint time. You have to get rid of the idea that you're never like, you won't find the right time. You really have to make it.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

I totally agree. My Wednesdays are writing days and I try not to let anything interfere with that other than maybe a, an interview, a media interview. Otherwise it's time for me to write or research. Yeah, we've done the, you know, the writing retreat a couple of times now, and I find those writing retreats, especially with co authors, a great opportunity to, to share ideas and to come up with some new concepts for the book. Well, listen, we're. We're way out of time. Do you have any last thought before we wrap up?

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

I would just say if you get to the point where you're almost there, writing a book is a marathon. Don't give up on mile 25. Don't deprioritize it. Because I've seen a lot of people, they're so close and then they deprioritize it in. The book either never gets published or it gets published, you know, three years later. And you know, that's just not an ideal situation for many reasons.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

So just keep having book edited, which is something obviously you do.

[Priscilla Rice]

What?

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yes.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

In some of your notes to me, you said one person had a great manuscript script almost ready to go in the 20 years you've been editing.

[Dr. Heidi Scott Justo]

Yeah, well, it's. Yeah. And it's in. Yeah. It's still, to my knowledge, isn't finished. And it's a great book. It is a great book. There's a, it's, there's a good case for it, but life gets in the way sometimes and you got to try to avoid that.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

I'm going to shut our microphone off here in a second. So let me give your website out, Heidi. It's careerpathwritingsolutions.com that's careerpathwritingsolutions.com Heidi, thank you for everything you have done to help my books be better. And I look forward to doing the next book with you, which is garage to global. And everyone will hear more about that over time. Over to you, Priscilla.

[Priscilla Rice]

Okay, I just have one little thing to say, which is that my studio, Live Oak Studio, we specialize now in recording audiobooks. That's what we do exclusively. So if you have any of those great authors out there that are thinking of another way to promote themselves, think about an audiobook.

[Dr. Ivan Meisner]

What a great idea. And having it done professionally really makes a difference. No doubt.

[Priscilla Rice]

Yes, definitely. I just wanted to throw that in there. And meanwhile, I'd like to say this podcast is sponsored by MeisnerAudioPrograms.com these audio programs will provide you with the tools and the inspiration to powerfully enhance your B and I experience. So check. Check out the great material that's available to [e-mail] and then use the promo code IVAN5O for 50% off of everything. All of the proceeds go to the B and I Foundation. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another exciting episode of the official BNI podcast.