1424: Elite Online Publishing: Publish Smarter, Sell More, and Build Your Brand with Speaker, Podcaster and Best Selling Author Melanie Johnson

Robert Plank 0:01 She went from running two $100 million TV stations to helping over 3000 entrepreneurs become best selling authors. It's Miss Melanie Johnson from elite online publishing. And Melanie knows how to turn your story into authority, visibility and massive opportunities. We're here to talk about AI, here to talk about books and entrepreneurism and so much more. So Miss Melanie Johnson, wonderful seeing you and speaking with you.

Melanie Johnson 0:30 Thanks, Robert, thanks for having me on the show. It's good to see you. I mean, you know my business partner, Jen, so it's nice that I finally get to meet you,

Robert Plank 0:37 right? And then I followed the YouTube channel, and that's how it works sometimes, right? We kind of are interested in something, and we do that search on Google or YouTube or social media, and then the way the algorithms work, they always have all these little factors in so sometimes you search something on YouTube, and then two weeks later, it kind of discreetly does the same search, and you're like, oh, this thing on the front page of my YouTube page, I was just looking about how to publish an audio book and how to become a best seller. Next thing you know, you see a Jen foster you see a Melanie Johnson. Next thing you know, you subscribe. You're watching videos, and then you're buying their book. You're reading their podcast. So there's a little crack as far as you let a little bit of the sunlight in, and you kind of dig through someone's content. Next thing you know, they're everywhere. And that's what we want to be, right? You want to be someone who's known for things. And it's my understanding, is you're the person to help us do that, right? You get some books published and some books sold,

Melanie Johnson 1:33 yeah? And, you know, that's a really good point, if you want to get known like you found us. I mean, we're a book publisher. We believe in books 1,000%

Melanie Johnson 1:40 but you also have to have that footprint everywhere else, where people can find you and get to know you. And that's why I really believe a book can be the cornerstone of the content. So when you start with that book, you have all of this content. Like, you're like, What am I going to talk about this week? Or what am I going to make my podcast about? Well, if you start with the book first, and you create all of this content, you break down the chapters, you break down your expertise, you break down your process. Then guess what? You've got all that. You can just put all of that into AI and it can create 1000s of pieces of content for you. So that's why, why I'm such a firm believer in creating that book. And so do you say create the book first before everything else? Or, like, where does that work? In the timeline. You know, you can do it either way, like, let's say you're going to create the book first, I love doing a VIP day with our clients, where we really break down who their avatar is, their ideal client, and then really speak to that person and decide what is the topic you should be talking about. What is the thing that you want to be known as an expert, as we had Stephanie Chung, and she had like six ideas of what she wanted to talk about. She was the president of a private jet company, and then we honed it all in up to the type of leadership book that she should make. And her book has just exploded because of that, because she really honed in, excuse me, and had a great message to begin with. So you can start that way, if you're reinventing yourself, or you can go, gosh, you know, I know my message. I have all of these blog posts. I've done a podcast like you, and repurposed the content into a book. So I love repurposing content. If you already have a ton of content, you can use that as well. Jen and I are coming out with a book called be recognized, and we took a bunch of content that we had, that we talked about AI and different things, and we threw it all into AI to give us some ideas of what we should be. Our title should be for our chapters and different things. So you can take all that and regurgitate it and rework it and come up with the book. Oprah Winfrey was talking to a gentleman who was writing an, I think, a column in New York Times, and she said, you know, it'd be great, is if you took all of those columns and you put them into a book in one place, so everybody could have them in one place, so not a lot of extra work. He'd already written all those columns and now put them all together, you have the minimalist, right? The minimalist. They were people who had blog posts, turned it into a book, and then the book became a movie. So I think you can do it either way. Is great, depending on where you are in your journey. I like it so many paths and a lot of what you're talking about here, it sounds like it involves other people, right? Because I can imagine there's so many unwritten books out there. There's people that say, Okay, well, I'll make my book 200 pages. I've written half a page one only 199

Robert Plank 4:26 and a half pages to go, and we've all been there, right? We had to write a term paper in school, and we just said, Oh, well, I forgot. I only got so many pages left. And what I always find fun and interesting talking to like someone that like a book coach or a publisher like you, is when they say, well, here are the paths, right? Here are the building blocks. Here are the people that we want to target and speak to. And then you work your way backwards and kind of figure out your best material and have some amount of like judgment, right? And you say, Well, you've got all the stuff that you could say.

Robert Plank 4:59 But if you just mash it all together in a random order, it wouldn't make sense. No one would like it. But if you said, Hey, like, you know, this is some great material of yours, but doesn't really fit, or put this before that, and so how much do you have to say? Just about like, that thought process, because I don't know why, but it's really interesting, right, to think about like the person, and then what fits and doesn't fit, and what ordered and what shouldn't be enlarged and shrunk. So like, tell me about the magic of how the master plan comes together.

Melanie Johnson 5:29 Yeah, you really have to have a couple of things. You have to have a theme that runs through your book, whether it's you know, a leadership theme, whether it's you know, your process, but there should be a theme that you bring back to in each chapter. So all the chapters go together. They're cohesive. It's kind of like when you're decorating a house, if anyone's got creative and you walk into a house and you're like, Wow, it's so beautiful. Well, there's a color, or the colors are running through the whole house, right? So it seems like it's cohesive, and it all goes together. So it's the same thing with a book. You want to have that theme that's going through that, then each chapter should have a structure to it. And if you keep the same structure throughout each chapter, then it seems like it makes more sense to the reader, and they want to read the next chapter because it makes sense. So we always like starting with a story, right? Start with a story, start with the then from the story, go to, well, what did that story mean, right? And then what are the things you can do to replicate what we just did? As the example, I would say it's kind of like when, if anyone's been to church or listen to a minister, they say, you know, turn your Bible to a certain chapter and a certain verse, and then they tell you the story of what that means to illustrate it, and then how to apply it to your own life. And it's the same thing for the chapters of the book. I always like to do, like, if it's a non fiction book, to do, like, a little summary of the chapter and action items afterwards. So then if they are even after they read the book, then they can go from chapter to chapter and go, oh yeah, this is what I was supposed to do. Then I've got, like, the crypt notes right in the book for each chapter. So it's keeping that theme that runs through the whole book, so you're not talking about sales and one thing that doesn't go together and talking about something else, like, if it's a sales book, then it's a sales book, right? Keep that theme that's going through it, and then make sure each chapter has the same structure of how you're writing it. And you know, I want to jump in here about, like, DYI versus working with experts. So a lot of times people, I had an author the other day, she's like, Well, I think I'm just going to, you know, self publish. Well, self publishing is, is that the definition? I think it should be really called DYI publishing versus self publishing, because you hire someone like us to do the self publishing for you. So it's kind of like, or are you going to learn how to load the book up? What should the keywords? You're going to watch a ton of videos to figure out how to publish the book. And then you're going to hit these roadblocks, like Amazon will come back and say, Hey, we didn't accept your book. That's happened to us a number of times for whatever reason that might have happened to you, Robert, because you've published so many different books yourself. So I always say it's like, okay, if you're building a house, right, are you building the house? Are you the one that's going to be the plumber and the electrician, and you're out there with the hammer and the wood and framing it up and, you know, pouring the concrete, or are you hiring people to do that that really know what they're doing, and that's what they do every single day. And I think that's the difference. If you want to have a truly successful book, you need to work with people who have done things for years and years, and they understand the success rate. You know, they understand what you need to do to make a successful book and to do it right the first time versus, you know, if you have more time than you do money, I can understand that then you've got the time to learn and figure out how to do it yourself and save the money. But if your time is more valuable, then hire the experts. Make sure it's done right, because this represents your business, and you want it to represent the best you that you can and have it be done the right way. That makes a lot of sense, that if you were wanted to like the perfect house, would you learn every aspect of the house and build it? And I can see why people have these reasons, why they do what they do, right? They want to save a little money. Or you hear about the really bad stories of like, if you, if you luck out and get landed with a really huge publisher, then they'll kind of own your book, right? You won't even really own your book. So I understand all of these hesitations of doing it, but you're saying that the value is that it's not the first time that that you're installing a toilet, right? It's not the first time that you're hammering the stairs, not the first time you're hanging drywall. There's all these people that they know, all this stuff they love to do what they want to help you. This might be their 200th book they've helped you out with, and they've seen all the do's and don'ts. So they can, they can really get your book to be what it can and should be, versus, if you're doing it yourself, you get stuck in one little spot, right? Get stuck with the cover the ISBN their approval. You might just stop right there for years and never pick back up, which is sort of scary, right?

Melanie Johnson 10:00 Yeah, and you know, we've had people who have done, like, like, I'll say, subcontracted the workout themselves, and then like, Oh my gosh. I had these people do the cover, and it was so bad. And then I had to get another person. So then they pay twice or three times for different work that they wanted done, for the formatting. So as much as you think, you know, it's going to be easy for your first book, and you're going to find all these people. It really is a lot of work, and it's disappointing when things don't work out the way that you think you want them to right.

Robert Plank 10:28 So we want to do it right, and we want to have that blend of what we have, like the proven plan when it comes to like building the pieces and writing the book and editing it, but also have room for your own creativity and magic. And I love the structure that you pointed out there. You said, Well, you have the theme, and then you have the different chapters, and it almost sounds like music, right? How music has like the the rhymes and the chorus, and it goes back to it. And this, this idea of you have a chapter of your book. You throw someone into a story, so that way it's entertaining right off the bat, even though it doesn't all really make sense, because you're kind of in the middle of the story, but then when you explain it, and then you reference back to it, and you have the action items, it's like, okay, now you've kind of tricked me in a good way of getting the information more than once through different angles, and now I really get it, and now I'm transitioning into the next chapter, and so that again, a lot of these, this advice you're giving sounds fun, right? It sounds exciting to like, get the writing out and get the book out, but then what I'm sure you've seen is that many people, they spend all these months, or maybe years, coming up with the book and writing, and they say, Okay, it's written. I'm done. Now I can take a nap. And then, well, it's like, no, now it's time to sell some books and get it out there. And it seems like that's where a lot of people like, Miss and fail, right? You go, and you can almost tell you look on their Amazon page and there's no reviews. There's maybe, like, two star ratings. The ranking looks real low, and you're like, it's, it's so sad. Who knows how much time they put into it, and they don't really post it on social months. So what can be done, as far as getting the book out there, selling it consistently, making it worth all this effort it took to write it?

Melanie Johnson 12:14 You know, that is such a true statement, Robert, I love how you put it. It's like, oh, the book is done. Now I can just sit back and relax, but it's really you've created a product. It's another business or an arm of your business. So I look at the book two ways. It's a product that you can sell and make revenue with book sales, right? But we tell most authors, hey, you're not going to get rich by book sales. It just doesn't happen. Most authors sell only 250 copies. But that being said, we just had an author who with less than, I guess, two months, he sold 3000 copies to a bulk order. So there's that. But then you've also got to use the book as an advertising and marketing tool. So now it's become the secret weapon for you to use, and then you can also use it in social media to create all this content, to bring people into your ecosystem as well. So the book has like these three layers to it. The most important layer out of all of them is to use it to bring in business and position it to get new clients for whatever your business is. They were talking strictly non fiction books here, right? So write it for your business. And how many times you're on a sales call and you only get 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and you can't tell your whole story. You can't explain everything that you are. But if you leave this book behind, or you send it in the mail to a prospective client with a note, they're not going to throw it away. I mean, we get things in the mail of those little flyers, you know, the little cardboard things that you get. I don't even look at them. I just grab bunch them together and throw them in the mail or throw them in the trash. So I think that's the most important way, is to leverage your book to get new clients and get new business in, and use it for that credibility piece, whether it's for speaking or, you know, getting new revenue coming in. The other thing is, you know, let's talk about book sales for a little bit. So how do you get book sales. So again, kind of leveraging it, if you're a speaker, then leverage the book to use that as part of your speaking fee, or trade it out for travel fees and make sure that you're selling two, 300 500 books when you're going to a speaking event. Put that into, incorporate it into the event and into when you're speaking. You know, that's one way, another way that I think authors forget, they're thinking, Oh, I just gotta sell one book at a time on Amazon. So someone may have a terrible ranking or even not that many reviews on Amazon, but they've reached out to people to do joint ventures that they're selling, like our author, who just sold 3000 books, right? So, I mean, that's huge. So if you can do those group sales to people who are, you know, non competitive people like your strategic partners. Hey, give your strategic partners 500 books to give away to their clients, who could be your clients, right? So there's that part of giving the book away to use it to bring new clients in as well, and then using it for a PR piece, you can get media out of it. You know.

Melanie Johnson 14:59 You can do podcast interviews. Someone has a new book out. They want to promote it. We did Shawnee Henderson's book. She's Shaquille O'Neal's former wife, and you know, she was on the Today Show, and we helped boost her to best seller. She worked with the traditional publisher, but, you know, I mean, she was doing the whole media circuit because her book was out. And you'll see that all the time, either stars are Hawking a book or they're Hawking a movie, but it's another way to get your face in front of people and use that as an advantage. And then how many clients are you going to get from that? How many new people are going to see your face like you were saying earlier? Gosh, I saw you on YouTube. So someone may see me on your podcast and hear me on your podcast, and then next thing you know, they might be hiring me to do their book for them, right?

Robert Plank 15:44 You never know where the people find you. You never know where those paths are. And so you mentioned about this idea of like you use your book as a business card, but then your book can also lead to other things, and you can come up with creative ways of selling it. And I sometimes like psych myself out, because I know, like, you know, we all have these the self awareness of where our weaknesses are. And like, I feel like, when I when I have a book, I'm never really sure, like, how to, to redirect people off the book and where and how much right, because you figure, like you have a book, and maybe you have your URL at the beginning and the end, and you mentioned throughout, but like, you hear in theory about, like, Okay, well, on your book. Like, send them to this webinar, send them this landing page, send them this coaching page. But like, what have you seen, or what do you recommend, as far as, like, how promotional to have the book and like, how often to work it in. Because I just, I'm like, am I self promoting too much or not enough in my own book?

Melanie Johnson 16:43 Yeah, that's a great question, because I did read one author's book. It wasn't done by us, and it was a friend of mine who wrote it. He's also in the publishing business. But then it was just, I felt like it had too much self promotion in it, like every chapter was almost on every other page. So I felt like it was too salesy. So I think you've gotta just gently put things in there. I always like, if someone says, Well, my clients, when I work with my clients, you know that? You know that, hey, this was the result. This is the story of one of my clients. You know, that's kind of a subtle way. The other thing is, so you want to be, you know, elegant with it, I would say is the best word. Don't be like, Hey, I'm in your face with this. The other thing I think is great, as you said, like in the beginning of the book, not just your URL, give them something of value in the beginning of the book, like they're going to go to a landing page, but they're going to get something that they really want for it. So you can capture those names and emails, because Amazon doesn't tell you who bought your book. So if you give something of value in the beginning, and the reason we say in the beginning, not at the end, everyone's like, Oh, I'd rather put that at the end of the book. Like it seems too much out there. But there's a strategy, because Amazon lets you preview the book, and if you can have that giveaway in the beginning of the book, some people may go to that before they even buy your book, or not even buy your book, and just go to the landing page, get the goody thing, and then next thing, you know, they want more from you. So that's a great way. Another thing I've noticed we were talking about like, you know, do people really want books are is it worth the value? Alex ramose just did a huge, giant, giant, giant book launch. I don't know if you watched any of his stuff a little bit. So, so he pushed out, you know, sold, like, 300,000 books right away. Pre order, is what he did. But then he did a webinar, and then he sold something during the webinar. But guess what he sold, which I thought was so interesting, because everyone's, you know, you're thinking, Oh, it's digital, it's a digital list. It's usually what somebody gives. He is giving, I think it's 12 physical books, 12 more physical books. So you're getting a library of his stuff. He didn't give them to you, digital, only, physical. You're going to get them in a binder of all these different books that you're going to go through. And then he's going to do a workshop, like a class, like old school, like you're in at university, and they're going through the books, and they're teaching you, and he's going to do a class when you buy this. And he sold that for $6,000

Melanie Johnson 19:09 so he had a couple other bonuses in there. But think about that he sold. You're getting 12 books, 12 books for $6,000 plus the webinar, plus whatever else. I mean, that's people are seeing value. I know 1000s of people bought that. Matter of fact, one of my son's business partners bought the package. So, I mean, it just goes to show you, when you take that content and condense it and put the written word down, people see value to that. They know that they have it. And you've taken your brain and dumped it out into this, into these books. The other thing I think is interesting, which is trending right now as well, with AI. We haven't really jumped into AI, but he did. He cloned himself, so it's Alex's brain. Like, ask Alex anything, so all the content from the books, anything else that he.

Speaker 1 20:00 Got in there, so you can go in, and he's got virtual Alex that you can ask him things. I'm part of an AI mastermind, and they've done kind of a similar thing where it has all that information from all the playbooks and everything that's in the mastermind. And you can ask the mass, ask the Ask Me Anything bot in there, and it will pull it from instead of me like having to look through all the pages to find it, it'll pull it up and give me the answer to my question, right there. So, I mean, the future is changing, but I think there still is that market for those physical books and condensing all your information, right? There's the blend of the old and the new, and why not both? Right? You don't have to discount one and throw it one and have the other. And you can have the chat bot with all your information. And also, as you've said before, like use AI to generate a book like you and Jen have and go through and, you know, edit it and make it better and use it as your buddy. And it can all be a tool that helps other people and helps you. And so, as you said, there's so much that's happening that's exciting in the world of books and publishing and AI, and there's no way to fit it all into a podcast, but I've had such a blast with you, and in these last few minutes, I want to make sure that we focus on what you think maybe is missing in our conversation because we've only just met. And I'm sure there's a great question that I could ask you if I knew you better, but, but, you know, I don't know what that would be. So in this conversation we're having, what's the missing question? What should I be asking you? I just don't know what to ask you.

Unknown Speaker 21:29 You know, I think

Melanie Johnson 21:31 one of the things is the why are people afraid to publish? What stops people the most is it time? Is it money? Is it resources? And it's confidence the thing that stops most people are, can I write this book? I've worked with presidents of large corporations. I've worked with presidents of NFL teams, and they're like, I just don't know if my book's gonna suck. Like, I don't know if I should do it. Because you're so vulnerable when you put yourself out there, right, that you're putting your mind up. People gonna like it, even though I'm successful, it's this new way. So it's just taking that leap of faith, just like you did, even being on a podcast and starting these podcasts, it's jumping through the fear to do it and just create it and move forward and do it, and you'll be so glad that you did. That's what they say, courage is doing it despite the fear. And I imagine that if someone says, I've got all these excuses, and under the surface is the real hesitation, but, you know, I'm fearful, but, oh, but I'm not sure about the cover. I'm not sure about all these other things. When someone has a team, such as yours, then you can have that, those extra brains, right? You could have those extra reassurance. Alex harmony wasn't there doing the launch all by himself. He had a team of people helping him out. And so I can imagine if someone says, you know, my own limited thinking and actions, and these freelancers I'm dabbling with, or the friends and family that are great for the funk the purpose that they serve. But as far as new experiences, getting out of my comfort zone publishing a book, friends and family aren't experienced with that. They can't help me with that. And so it's logical that someone should say, if I'm looking into this new opportunity, which is publishing a book and using it for my speaking and getting clients, then it's makes sense that someone should go to a team of experts who's done this and can help you push through some of those insecurities, which maybe they're really holding you back now, but it once you push past them, then it makes life a lot easier. So how can someone reach out to you? And what's the value in having a team to help with the book creation and the book launch.

Melanie Johnson 23:43 Hey, the value of having a team is you can breathe easy, you'll have confidence in it, and you don't have all that responsibility. It's like you can just do the fun part and help with the creation of the cover and just watch it come to fruition and get excited, versus having all that stress of trying to figure it out doing yourself. And if you want to reach out to us, of course, our website, eliteonline publishing.com but jump over to our Instagram, which is also elite online publishing, and go over there, and we've got some free resources. We have a book called strategic writing system there that you can get for free, and it'll help you get started writing your book with a lot of our systems, so you can get a jump start and get ahead and get that book out there.

Robert Plank 24:27 Yes, it's time to do it. Time to stop pontificating and thinking, Oh, maybe this year will be the year I finally do it. Like if you don't have a plan to drive from Los Angeles to New York, you say, Oh, I'll get to New York eventually. Somehow it won't happen, right? You have to get in the car, fill up the gas tank, figure out the directions, take the right turn here. You have to do it. You have to make some progress. And you're saying that Instagram is elite online publishing.com

Robert Plank 24:55 and you can find out about that strategic writing process. But.

Robert Plank 25:00 The website where we really want you to go to is elite online publishing.com you'll go there. You can join their community. You can get a free social media calendar for authors, and you can find out and get educated about what you need to know, even the things that you don't know you don't know, right? Like, if you were studying to be a doctor, you'd have to learn about all these different facets. And yet people say, oh, I'll just publish a book. I'll figure it out as I go along. Well, writing is only the beginning. You have to put all this thought into your branding and building your list and your prospecting, and if you were to just kind of dabble and work at it, years later, you say, Oh, I wish I'd done steps three and four. So why not have a experienced team to help you out at elite online publishing.com you can go there. They have published over 300 books. Every single author they've worked with has achieved best sell best seller status. That's a tongue twister, and they guarantee that your book will become a best seller on Amazon, or they will rerun the marketing campaign again for free. So that is elite online publishing.com

Speaker 1 26:11 you get 100% ownership of the publishing rights, best in class book marketing campaigns. If you thought about a book, if you flirted with the idea, but you said, you know, practically I can't do it. Get the extra help. Elite online publishing.com you can go there and talk to a publishing expert and just get the help that you need. So that way a book becomes this bucket list item that you check off that builds your business, builds your brand. Get you those coaching clients that Melanie talked to you about. And before I let you go. Miss Melanie, it's time for the scary part of the podcast where I try to stump you. I try to put you on the spot by asking about a fun quote or lesson that has served you. So what comes to mind as far as a fun quote or lesson? You know?

Melanie Johnson 26:54 The lesson is, I just talked about this yesterday. In business, there's ups and downs. In writing a book, there's ups and downs, right? And I say it's like a Rubik's Cube. You know, if something's not working out, you got to just keep moving around to get those colors lined up. So don't give up. Just keep moving and just keep moving those Rubic cube colors around till it gets back in line.

Robert Plank 27:15 I like it. Figure out a way solve the puzzle, and the first step for you solving that puzzle is by going to elite online publishing.com they're here to help you put your self published book out into the world, to grow and give you a foundation of credibility, powerful marketing appeal, new contacts and business, plus extra income on top of it all. So go there right now. You'll be glad you did elite online publishing.com, Miss Melanie Johnson, wonderful. Meeting with you, speaking with you, I had a lot of fun. I hope you did too.

Melanie Johnson 27:47 You too, Robert, thanks so much.

Robert Plank 27:52 All right.