203: Write a Book, Become a Bestseller, and Iterate Your Way to Kindle Publishing Success with Tom Corson-Knowles

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert plank Show Episode 203, write a book become a best seller and iterate your way to Kindle publishing success with Tom Corson Knowles. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Robert plank show. We talked about making money and building an online business. We're joined today by Tom Corson Knowles and he's the International Best Selling Author of the Kindle publishing Bible and 26 other books, and he's the founder of ebook publishing school.com, which is a free self publishing training course for authors and TKC, our TCK publishing and independent book publisher that specializes in publishing and marketing ebooks, print books, and audio books online. Mr. Tom, welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker 0:44 Thanks for having me, Robert. It's good to be here.

Robert Plank 0:45 I'm glad that you're here. And so, so. So Kindle publishing? I mean, can you tell us about what it is? And what sort of stuff that you published about it? And sort of what excites you the most about this whole Amazon Kindle publishing thing?

Speaker 2 1:00 Yeah, definitely. So you know, I wrote my first book, like 10 years ago, it was like way before Kindle even existed, you know, back then, if you wanted to self publish a book. I mean, you had to spend $25,000, you had to get 5000 physical books shipped to your garage, you had to have a climate controlled environment and make sure they actually stayed Okay, and didn't, didn't get moldy or messed up or wrinkled. And then every time you want to make a sale, I mean, you had to go out there to find the customer, you had to make that sale, you had to collect the cash from the customer, then you had to go get an envelope, got to put the book in the envelope. Yeah, look, the standard, I put the address on, you guys send it out, they're going to make sure they get it. And that, to me, it just seemed like this ridiculous business model. Like why like, why would anybody do that? You know, and so I pretty much kind of gave up my dream of becoming an author, because I couldn't go that self publishing route, it just didn't make sense. And I couldn't get a traditional book publishing deal from a traditional publisher. And so, you know, I just gave up on that dream until like, five years ago, someone said, you know, why don't you just self publish your book on Kindle, and I just, you know, I had no idea was even possible. So I did all my research, you know, published my first book on Kindle. And I remember Robert, and I logged into my account A month later, and I hadn't told anyone what I'd done. Like, I was so embarrassed to self publish my book that I didn't tell anyone what I'd actually done. But I log back in. And in my account, within 30 days, I had sold 11 copies of my book, and I was like, you know, that for me was lightbulb moment, I was jumping up and down, I was like, so excited, cuz I knew immediate look, if I can sell 11 books without telling anyone what I done. Imagine what I could do, if I treat this, like a business, you know, because I was like, over $20 in royalties in a month without doing anything, right. And I had been blogging for years. And, you know, it took me three years to make my first $20 on my blog. So you know, and that will took a lot of work and effort to get there, right, versus just publishing a book on a Kindle. And it was just so fast and so easy. And so I immediately saw the opportunity there, to really take my message, take my story, take my ideas, and help reach a lot of people. So I treat it like a business. Everyday, I was working on writing my next book and marketing a building my platform. And within 10 months, I had my first $12,000 month, just from ebook wrote his loan on Amazon Kindle only.

Robert Plank 2:53 Geez. And, and that's crazy. And I really like like, the way that you look at it. I really like your attitude about it, because a lot of what I hear from people who maybe are struggling with with Kindle or struggling with this whole self publishing, because I hear a lot of people saying, why only get 99 cents out of this, I only get $1.99 out of this. And from what what I'm hearing from you like, Okay, well, maybe you know, a lot of books are priced, like cheaply, but the way that you just described like the old way of doing it back in the Dark Ages, when you had this huge investment, you didn't even know if your books were going to sell. And when you did want to sell a book, it was just this moving physical copies around. And so I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Because I mean, it sounds it sounds like from what I hear from you, like, it's, it's, there's the lower of the price, there's like the race to the bottom. But that's okay. Because there's all these opportunities for these accidental sales, like what happened to you?

Speaker 2 3:45 I mean, absolutely, I think, you know, business has never been easier than it is today. Like, it's like, there's never been any time in the history of humanity, when it's been easier to start a business, to make money to publish books to write books, you know, anything you want to do, it's never been easier before the news today. And I think, you know, it's kind of crazy complain about it. But that's like part of human nature, right, like part of human nature is that, you know, we look at the world and we look at obstacles outside of us. And we have, we have a choice. Like, we have a simple choice, Robert, either we can say, you know, these external situations, you know, the markets saturated on Kindle, you know, the price is too cheap, there's no way to make money, like we can have all these excuses. Or we can actually go to work and really do our research and really study to figure out okay, what is the real problem here? Right? What can I do today to improve my situation to improve my business to improve my income. And you know, you need to focus on what you can control in life, you can focus on what you can't control. And so yeah, for people who focus on things that they can't control, there are so many reasons not to publish your book, not to write a book not to start a business, right? But for people who focus on what they can control the real entrepreneurs are really they're making a difference in want to make a difference in wanna follow their dreams. You know, it's a simple process of just finding out okay, what's the next step for me? You know, what can I do today to improve my to improve my situation? What can I do to you know, create a great book that's going to help people with gonna make a difference, it's going to make an impact. And that's how you build a real business, you build a real business by providing services, products that make a difference that help people solve problems that make the world better. So you can either focus on that, or you can focus on your excuses, it's really up to you. Right. And that's

Robert Plank 5:13 a really good attitude. And that's, and that's very like, like, entrepreneurial, to think in that way. And, and, you know, I, you know, I also come across periods of time when, you know, I'm having that doubt, or I'm having the struggle, or I'm having those frustrations when I can't really, you know, finish a book that I started, or I can't figure out, like some kind of website sort of thing. But then what I sort of tell myself in there is that, well, a lot of my competitors are coming across the same exact obstacles, and a ton of them are giving up. So if I just push maybe five or 10%, further than then I can actually get to where I want to go. And so you mentioned that you did a book launch wit that made you $12,000. So could you kind of tell us about that? Can you tell us about sort of what this book was and what kind of problem you were solving with it?

Speaker 2 5:58 Actually, so it was, it was several books. So at that time, I was 10 I think I had like eight books published on Amazon at that point. And so the thing was, like I had, you know, had written like, 12 books, throughout my life that were, you know, some were finished somewhere half finished somewhere, just a couple paragraphs. But because, you know, I, the self publishing route didn't make sense, because I couldn't get a traditional book deal, I never really pursued it, I never, there wasn't really any avenue, any reason, any motivation for me to really finish those books. But as soon as I saw those 11 sales that first month, I was like, this is this is real, this is a huge opportunity here. And so I went to work everyday publishing books, I had, you know, seven or eight books out of that time. So it wasn't just one book. But I think, you know, what, really, what really made a difference for me was just focusing on okay, like, what am I readers really want? Like, what is the big problem? What is the big pain point? My readers really want right now. And so the, you know, super easy way to do that, Robert, is to just go to Amazon and type in the keywords related to the books or that topics you're thinking about writing about, right. So if you're thinking about writing about, you know, Facebook marketing, right, you type in Facebook marketing, and then what you can do is you can, you can see all the best selling books out there. And you can find the best selling books in your in your field. And you can read the reviews, the positive reviews, the negative views, and the readers will tell you, we're just telling you everyday on Amazon, what they want and what they don't want, right, what they like about these books, what they hate about these books, and you can see where the gaps are in the market, like you can see where these niches are, where people haven't written a book on the topic, or they haven't done it in a way that fulfills the needs of a certain audience. And that's how you create a book that's going to be a best seller that's going to continue to sell for year after year after year, is by creating something unique, right? It's got to be different, you know, writing just another meet to book is not gonna make a difference. You know, a great example of this is Russell Brunson. He's got a book called.com secrets, right. And it's kind of like the Holy Grail for internet marketers. You know, when he wrote that book, he published that book, you know, there's like, 10,000, maybe 100,000 books on Internet Marketing on Amazon already. And but this guy came out with, you know, a unique message, a unique way of doing it some real value in that book, it's different than everything else out there, right, you can buy all the 10,000 200,000 books on internet marketing, when you compare them to that book, and it's just different. It's unique. And so I think that's the secret to success, to lasting success is to create something uniquely valuable. And to do that, it takes research, it takes effort takes energy, you know, it's not just hiring someone in the Philippines for 50 bucks and slapping it on Amazon calling it today.

Robert Plank 8:23 Okay, and I think that I hadn't even thought of that I hadn't I mean, I thought about you know, as far as like, looking at reviews, like looking at reviews for maybe the books I'd put out there, but I'd never had a thought of, of doing that research and looking at my my future competitors, and whatever sort of subject I'm looking at the good reviews to see what should be in there and the bad reviews to see sort of where the those gaps in the marketplace were. And so, I mean, so So what's the rest of your process? So like, if you were like, let's say that you were going to make a book on on Facebook marketing, is this research thing? You're saying? Is that the first thing that you do? Or is that is that in the middle? Or where is that in there?

Speaker 2 9:02 Yes. So the first step I take with every author is like first let's just get a big list of ideas. Let's just brainstorm next. I think a problem with a lot of creative people have is like you have so many ideas. And you know, you get like halfway through a project and the shiny Penny pops up, you say, Oh, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to Instagram marketing. Now I'm gonna go do Pinterest marketing now like you just follow all these different avenues and different courses and stuff. And you never really finished what you started. So I think a key way to avoid that trap is to just have everything written down and have it organized. So anytime you get this great idea for a next business plan or next book or next project, just write it down somewhere, have a notebook have a Evernote file, you keep track of all your great ideas, and that way you You never feel like you're gonna lose, you're not gonna you're not gonna miss out if you don't follow that shiny Penny, right? So once you've got that list of 20 3040 book ideas, whatever it is, that's when you narrow it down to the top few and the way I do is I just asked myself questions like, you know, what am I passionate about right now? You know, if I had 30 days left to live I can only one book behind You know, which of these topics would it be about? Right? What do I want to leave a legacy on, like, find out what you're really passionate, really excited about doing. Because if you don't have that passion and excitement for what you're doing, you know, your readers aren't gonna be passionate excited about it either, right? You know, so you have to kind of bring something to the table, some energy, some excitement to really make a project successful. So once you've got that, maybe you got two or three or four narrowed down. That's when you go do that research process on Amazon, and you start looking for where are the gaps in the market? Right? Where can I add something uniquely valuable? And also testing out the market size, right? So you can see exactly, you know, how many sales and how many sales any book on Amazon's getting right now, and actually does have a free tool for you that does that. So basically, just copy and paste the Amazon Kindle sales rank or physical books, the, you know, the physical book sales rank on Amazon, and just type it in the calculator, it tells you exactly how many sales there are. So that free tools that TCK publishing comm slash calculator. And so with that, now you know the market size, you've done that research with the keywords, or with the book reviews, then you've got a better idea of okay, how big is the market? And where are the gaps in that market. And then that's when you want to kind of create your hook for your book, right? So this is where you create that one thing that makes your book unique. And I think a big mistake a lot of authors make a lot of marketers make, you know, is you might have this training course, this book, this project, product or service that does lots of things, right, you know, you know, one book is not just gonna have one idea in it, it's gonna have lots of ideas and lots of tools, lots of resources, right? And so the key though, with marketing with branding, is that you have to find out what makes you different. And you have to tell your customers immediately what makes you different, what is the one thing that stands out? Right, like basic copywriting rules, like you want to have a headline that actually attracts people to what you do. Right. And so you create that headline by by first of all, doing your market research, you know, any good copywriter is not just going to open up a page and start writing, they're going to do their market research first, right? And then they're going to find out what's unique about this product and service? What what is the pain points of my audience? You know, how can I make this unique and make this stand out and make them actually want it? Right. And so that's all about, you know, finding out market research, understanding your brand and creating that clear message. So that then you can go about the whole process from there. Because if you don't go through this branding and market research phase, what happens is you, you know, you just design a random book cover, you come up with a random book title, you come up with a random book description, you come up with a random marketing campaign. And if everything you're doing is random, you know, maybe you'll get lucky, really successful, but most times, you're gonna fail, right? And so if you really want to be successful strategically, you've got to step back and think strategically about your whole branding process in your market research.

Robert Plank 12:36 And that makes perfect sense. And it sounds like if people skip over that step, then they'll they might, you know, write 10, bad books, and then one good, good one, and it makes more sense to write one good book after another. And so I'm looking at at some of your books, and you have this, this Facebook for business owners book on here. And what sort of jumps out for me is that I tell about getting 500 new fans every month. So is that the hook for that particular book, the 500 fans for a month? Or was it something else?

Speaker 2 13:06 Yeah, exactly. I want to just create like a simple book that would tell like beginning visit people like here's, here's what, here's how you can actually start making money start getting a real audience on Facebook. Right. And so, you know, I wrote that book years ago, and definitely the markets changed a lot since then I've had to update the book, like so many times. But yeah, that was the basic premise was like, Hey, you don't have to know anything about Facebook marketing, to get 500 fans a month if you just follow the system.

Robert Plank 13:27 Awesome. And so as far as like this particular book, I mean, how long have it? How long? Is it? And I mean, what, how long did it take you to make all of it?

Speaker 2 13:38 So that book is about 100 pages long? I mean, first draft, I don't remember maybe like 30 days or so to write the first draft, and then, you know, editing and revisions. And I you know, since then, you know, Facebook has seen so many changes, I've updated the book probably 1015 times. So a lot of definitely revisions have gone into it. Um, I would say one of the lessons I learned from that book is that I don't like short term markets, right? So like the social media marketing, Facebook marketing. It's a really short term market, right? Because every time Facebook makes an update, you have to go back, you have to edit that book, you have to update that content. It's a huge pain in the butt. And, you know, no one wants to buy a book on Facebook for business owners. That's like, you know, I think the book is what, three years old now? Right? It's like, you know, they want the newest they want the latest, right? That's the problem with that market, right? Where other markets are not like that all like if you're buying a self help book, a personal development book, a book on weight loss, you know, a romance novel, thriller novel, like you don't care when it was written like it, either it's relevant to you or not, it's an evergreen product. And so what I've learned from publishing hundreds and hundreds of books on Amazon, is that, you know, the books that do well, year after year after year after year, are the books that have long term markets and technology is not a long term market and so I don't like that market anymore. And it's not a market I would recommend most people go into.

Robert Plank 14:56 Okay, fair enough. And so that was sort of the the past for you So these days, I mean, first of all, like, can you give me an example of maybe something that you published recently? And the other thing about that is, are the books you put out these days? Are they still 100 pages? Or is it a different length? And is it still take your 30 days? Or is that a different length of time as well.

Speaker 2 15:17 So actually, nowadays, I focus most of my time on hosting company. So I help other authors write and publish the books. So I still write myself, but I haven't done my own book launch a couple months. But you know, we're all constantly launching books for clients in all different markets. And, you know, in terms of like, page count, it's different for everyone, it's different for every market is different for every book, I think, you know, the book should be as long as it needs to be to get the message across and give the reader all the resources tools they need to be successful. You know, and so you don't want to fill up with fluff, what a lot of people were like, Oh, my books only a page anymore, I need more stuff. So they just add more fluff in there. And no one wants that, right? It's not, it's not helping anyone, it's not helping the reader and it's not going to get a better experience. So you're not going to make more money doing that. Right? So, you know, I've published books anywhere from like, 30 pages to like, 700, it really just depends on the market and the author on the message.

Robert Plank 16:09 Okay, fair enough. And so, so when you write the books that you write, or you help your clients write the books, I mean, do you have a specific process for going from that hook, and you have a certain way of fleshing out the chapters and of creating the contents of the book?

Speaker 2 16:24 Definitely. So once you've, you know, clarify the the market research the hook for the book, that's when you want to just start brainstorming again, and you're gonna certain this time, instead of brainstorming book ideas, you can brainstorm the ideas to conclude in that one book, you've just left it, right. So you know, if you're writing a book on branding, right, like you ask yourself, like, Okay, what is, what am I? What is my target reader? What was my ideal reader need to know about this topic? Right? And so this is when you want to get crystal clear on again, who is your ideal reader? Right? So are they a beginner? Are they experienced? Do they know a lot about this topic already? Do you want to be applicable to both beginners and experienced people? You really have to understand your market? Is it your targeting women or men or both? Right? And so with that in mind, you clicked on this customer avatar, right? And when you have that, then you can get really clear on okay, I'm reading this book for John, right. And John is like a 20 year old guy trying to figure out internet marketing, right. And he's just a pure beginner. Right? And so then everything in your book from there follows with, is this gonna be helpful for gunner? No, because it was not helpful for John, you shouldn't put it in the book. Right? Right. And so you go through this process of just asking yourself, what is all the information John needs to succeed? Right? What is the promise of my book, so if your book is on branding, and you're gonna have this great personal brand that's going to be able to grow from zero to, you know, seven figures? or more? Then you need to take John through this whole process? How is he going to get those results? Right? And what are you gonna provide in that book to get them those results, and I really encourage people to think about in this stage, you know, more than just the chapters more than just chapter one, chapter two, think about additional resources, additional tools you can provide, right? So, you know, for a lot of books, we'll have people do like video courses, like there'll be like a free video course, when you get the book, right, because if something technical like building, you know, setting up any marketing campaign, I mean, that's really technical. And if someone's brand new, and you've got a book for beginners, the why not be able to follow along with every single step in a book. But if you take them a screen share video presentation, and you get it for free with a book and you walk them through every step, and you say, hey, all you have to do is just follow the screen and click right click and do what I do. And the problem solved. That's a lot easier for that reader, right? If that helps John a whole lot more actually achieve his goals. So that's really the process you want to go through is what what can I include in my book and think about videos, think about checklists, think about other resources, you can provide beyond the book, right? Because that's what's going to take your book from just something that happens to be sold on Amazon, to a brand to something that makes a difference or something that can be bought year after year after year. And it's going to provide maximum value to your reader.

Robert Plank 18:55 And having said all that, how do you keep yourself from just going crazy and getting bogged down in the details? Like if you say, Well, you know, I could make videos about this, or I could make videos or checklist about that. How do you stop yourself? Or how do you stop someone from just going out of control and overdoing it on the planning stages.

Speaker 2 19:14 So when I do it, like it's really fast, and I tell my clients like Look, don't spend more than an hour on outlining, don't do more than hour on brainstorming ideas. Because after that, you're pretty much spinning your wheels, right? And so you can take a break and come back the next day if you want to brainstorm more, but really, most people can do it an hour if they're really focused easily. And so it's really just about getting the main ideas down and you can always you knowing that you can always add more as you go you can always change the planets together the point of brainstorming the point of outlining your book is not to know exactly what's gonna happen every step of the way. It's just to get you started to get you that big pictures to get you that kind of general roadmap. You know, there's this great quote in the military is like, you know, no battle plan survives, like the first minute in battle, right? You know, the real world is is different. So you can't just plan everything out and planning out perfectly, you just have to come up with a good plan, as fast as you can start implementing that plan you learn along the way, like everything in business is an iterative process. That basically just means you take one step, and you take the next step, you take the next step, and every step you take, you have a different viewpoint, it's like you're climbing a mountain of higher up, you get that mountain, then bigger vantage point, you have to see more out there. And you'll see more opportunities and more problems and more more things to change. And so, you know, don't get bogged down at the bottom of mountain thinking, Oh, it's gonna be so hard. You know, just take that next app, get it get a good plan, you know, like a, was it like a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. I mean, it's so true, you can't get bogged down in like analysis paralysis, because it's gonna kill your career.

Robert Plank 20:39 Right. And I can completely relate to that. And that it like any kind of project, right, any kind of series of tasks that are in front of me, if I, if I look too much at all, this huge list of things I'd have to do, I probably would never finish. But if I kind of have a rough idea, and I make some progress, and I can look back and say, well look at all the stuff that I already did, pretty easy to keep on going. And so sort of along those lines. So what are your thoughts on actually getting the book written? I mean, so like you, you thought of a list of ideas, you went in and researched things, research other books to figure out the gaps, you figure out the hook of your own book, you fleshed out the you brainstorming, like the some of the chapters, or some of these resources and things like that. So then, how do you get yourself to follow through and actually write the dang thing?

Speaker 2 21:26 So yeah, great question. I mean, there's several ways to write a book. So the most common way is, you're gonna sit down your computer, you're gonna type it on Microsoft Word, or some kind of processor. I think for about 2030 30% of people. It's better for them to speak the book, right. And so there's lots of ways that you can just, you know, there's apps on the iPhone or any kind of smartphone for free, you can record there's free apps and the computer used to record audio, and you just start talking your book. So if you're like a public speaker, you know, you've already done presentations, or workshops and stuff, and you'd love to speak and don't like to read, that can be a great way to get started. And then what you can do is, once you spoken that, and you have these like audio files, in about four hours of speaking, you can speak for about 9000 words in an hour. So if you do it for four hours, that's about you know, 36,000 words, which is about 100 150 page book. So that's a good sized nonfiction book in just four hours of speaking, right. And so once you've spoken that you got the files, you just send it to a transcriptionist. And you can get great transcription has worked done for like, you know, $30 per finish hours, and maybe like $120 per four hours of spoken content. So like you've got your first draft of your book, then with basically four hours of your time, plus $120, for transcriptionist. And then you got all your content there. And that's just the first draft. So that's when like the real work starts with the editing the revision, and going from there. So there's writing the book yourself. There's the audio way. And the other way is like hiring a ghostwriter. And so the ghostwriter probably gonna interview you, and then they're just gonna give you like a finished book. And that's usually gonna cost, you know, 5000 to $40,000 to get a ghostwriter. So I think most folks is like, either you're gonna route yourself, or you're going to do the audio route. And so you know, whichever route you go, you're gonna have to invest some time in that process. And so what the method I've used in this method I recommend for people is like, just schedule time in your calendar. You know, if you've got an appointment for the doctor for 9:30am, next Tuesday, like you're gonna show up, like, we're going to be at 930. And next Tuesday, you're going to be a doctor's appointment, right? You're not going to miss it, because it's in your calendar. And I think a lot of us, we say, Oh, I'm going to write a book, someday, I'm going to create that video course, I'm going to start a business and never get around to it. But if you put in your calendar, you're gonna, you're gonna get it done. And that's what I recommend people do is like everyday schedule, that time to work on your book, to work on your project to work on what's really important to you, and get that done first, before you go, you know, checking email and watching TV and just, you know, falling into old habits.

Robert Plank 23:47 Okay, and that's really good advice. And I mean, lots of ways for someone to, to crank up the book, depending on what they're used to based on what their personality is. And so one thing that really has me curious, is I've written some, like nonfiction stuff. And for me that that seems pretty simple. Because I can say, well, I know where I want it to end. And I know what sort of things I want to teach them to figure out the order, but along the lines of like fiction and things like that, I've never even tried any sort of fiction. So I mean, do you have any advice in that category? And I mean, is it the same process? Is it possible to to speak out fiction? Because that's if that seems like that would be sort of difficult.

Speaker 2 24:23 Yeah, absolute? It's a great question. So actually, it's totally possible. I know several bestselling authors who are doing six figures or even seven figures, we speak their books, and find that they speak it a lot faster. So I think it definitely takes a certain level of skill to speak out a novel. Because you have to kind of have good visualization of the structure, right? You have to kind of know in your head, like how dialogue works and how scenes work and right. So there's, there's some knowledge you have to have, but you can build that knowledge. It's not that difficult. The actual process if you actually look at just the big picture, overall process of writing a nonfiction book versus a fiction book, it's the exact same process Right. And I think there's a lot of fiction novels out there say, Oh, it's nothing at all like writing nonfiction. Well, if you look at the process, it actually is exactly the same, right? First you're going to, you know, this is the same process we just talked about, like you're going to find out, you know, what, what stories got you most inspired by what out of all your different story ideas, which ones you're most excited about. And then you're going to do market research, you're going to find out where the real market is, where the gap in the market is, and what readers are actually buying. So you write something that's actually popular, right? And then once you've got that, that's when you come up with your brainstorming session. So instead of brainstorm all the ideas, like in a nonfiction book, you're going to brainstorm all the different scenes, right? So if you know the story, like you got some, you know, I'm not gonna go into story. But basically, if you know what the story is, then you can draw out the scene. So instead of outlining like a nonfiction book, you're going to plot you're going to plot your book, like what is Scene one, what scene to what scene three, all the way to the end of the book, the end of the story, right? And then once you've got that, that's when you actually sit down, you do that writing process, whether you read it or speak it, it's the same process. You're just getting the story on paper. So So yeah, I mean, I hope that answers the question. Yeah,

Robert Plank 26:03 it doesn't make a lot of sense. And, and that's really reassuring. And I like how, you know, as everything that we've talked about today is how every it sounds like the way that you think and the way that you get these books out there is just one step at a time, right? Not I'm not planning 10 books at once not having a bunch of books done in parallel, it sounds like you just look at these milestones that are in front of you. And you say, Okay, well, I need to narrow down the ideas or do the research or figure out the hook, or brainstorm or speak the book or edit it. It's just all of these sort of milestones along the way. And so with the books that you've created, and the books that you've helped create with your clients, do you see any sort of common number one mistake that's happening with everyone publishing on Kindle?

Speaker 2 26:46 Ah, that's a great question. I mean, there's lots of mistakes people make, I think, I think the biggest mistake people make is like a mindset thing. And they don't understand what actually makes books sell. And what I mean by that is, there's a lot of factors that go into it. Right? So just giving an example. Um, what's the book title? There's the subtitle, there's the book cover, there's the description on Amazon, there's the reviews you have, there's the keywords you choose, there's the links that you build, right? There's the branding behind it, right? All these different aspects? Is the market research, how big is that market, right? All these different aspects of your book, impact your sales, right. And so if you mess up, one thing is probably a combination lock. If you ever had a combination lock, like you have to get all the numbers, right, or the locks not gonna open, you know, there's four numbers, and the combination, you only have three is not going to open doesn't matter if you three things perfect, you have to get all imperfect, for the lock to open and good results to come. Right. And it's the same way with a book. So I see a lot of people that publish a book on Amazon, they don't get the sales they want. And this they just give up say, Oh, it didn't work for me is this whole Kindle thing is a scam doesn't work. It's not real. But you know, the Kindle market went from zero to $4 billion in five years. And now it's only grown since there's like over $6 billion now just in the US. So there's a lot of money being made out there. And I think this is an excuse to to, you know, it's just an excuse that people will make because they'll know better. But if you understand that, that you need all the numbers in the lock to be right, to get that success. That's when you can go back to your book and say, Okay, well, what can I improve here? And kind of prove the title, the cover the description, the keywords, the reviews, the links, the branding, the messaging? You know, what, what about your process? can you improve to make it more attractive to readers. And if that's what you focus on, you will be successful, but you have to get everything right. And it's this kind of big trial and error process. Now I've, I've got a step by step training course that walks you through writing your book to publishing it and marketing it. But it's not going to work for you. If you think that you can just follow every step in the process, and not actually do your own thinking and not actually do your own work, not actually go back to your book and make improvements because that's what makes you successful. Right? You know, if the iPhone today had the same features and the same functionality as the original iPhone, no one would ever use an iPhone, like there would be no one who had an iPhone today, because it would be worthless, because it wouldn't change, there would be this old out of date technology that wouldn't have caught up and stayed relevant with the modern world. Right? The world has changed a lot, just the past couple of years. And so it's kind of the same way in business. Like if you got a product, you have to constantly be making sure that you're doing everything right to provide the best quality value to your readers, and to get the most exposure, right, because you don't have your right keywords on Amazon. No one's gonna go to find your book in the first place. And all these things work together.

Robert Plank 29:28 I mean, it sounds like it. And I think that that's a pretty cool way of looking at it in that well. Like, it's it's tough to fail. And even if I do fail, then there are things that I can adjust from that. And and even if I do succeed, I have to sort of stay on my game to keep things rolling because otherwise someone else is going to catch up to me or I'll become out of date or not relevant and it sounds like everything that you've been talking about today. It sounds like it's a there's a very much of like a scientific process in that. Well. If the Kindle book isn't selling, I'm not going to give up but I can sort of take some guesses or try some Different things on how to how to correct it. And then I'm also hearing that there's a lot of a mindset component involved where even even as you're describing things, you're using your, your imagination, and you're sorta making me use my imagination talking about climbing a mountain, or having a combination, like all these cool ways of just sort of making the gears in my brain going. And you mentioned that you have a training course about publishing a book, and you also have a service where you help people publish a book. So can you sort of tell us about those things a little bit?

Speaker 2 30:30 Yeah, definitely. So yeah, I have a free training course that walks you through the process of, you know, formatting your your book for for Amazon Kindle, publishing on Amazon Kindle, and then actually launching your book like a pro. And I said ebook publishing school.com. And if he goes to that free training course, you learn about my advanced program where it's like, you know, 20 hours of content, or just walk you through everything from writing the book, to publishing it, to building your, your platform to six figures and beyond. And then with a publishing company, I created that just because my students said, Hey, a lot of my students said, Hey, I like I love everything you teach, but I don't want to do, you know, finding editors and cover designers and formatters and all the technical stuff, and, you know, building my email list, like, Can you just help me do all that stuff? So that's why I started the publishing company called TCK publishing intervention that and if it'll be a good fit, and just go to TCK publishing comm and click submission guidelines at the top and you can see you know, what kind of books we accept and if it's going to be a good fit, and just shoot us an email and we'll go from there.

Robert Plank 31:23 Awesome. So ebook publishing school comm to get that that free course and then TCK publishing.com to have it done for you or to work with Tom to get your book out there. So I mean, thanks for stopping by the show Tom. And I really appreciate your your outlook on all this and your, your sort of step by step process in addition to your entrepreneurial mindset to make sure that the step by step process works. So I really appreciate you I appreciate the content that you shared, and thanks for stopping by the show.

Unknown Speaker 31:50 Thanks so much, Robert. Really appreciate you.

Robert Plank 31:52 Subscribe to us right now, while it's still fresh on your mind at Robert plank.com/itunes or just search Robert plank in your iTunes App.