SNM140: Machine Gun Books

speaker 0:   0:00
machine gun books had a crank out books like a machine gun on today's episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Convert Kit To find out how Conferred Kid can help you grow your business, save money and increase your relationship with your email list. Head over to serve no master dot com Backslash Convert Kit Right now, Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now then you've come to the right place. Welcome to serve no master podcast where you learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host. Today I want to talk about something really special, which is acceleration. Many of you have now created release or are close to publishing that first book. But the question I get asked a lot, especially when people have been authors for a little while or in the fiction space. How do I go from Ah book a year to a book a month. And how do we go from a book A month to a book a week? And I want to take you through the process of becoming a book machine gunner, someone who can pound out books as fast as I D'oh and I would take you through a couple of cool things today. I'm actually just in the final edit of 20 K Day. So hopefully, by the time you're listening to this episode, my book about riding fast will be released. But I don't want You have to wait for that. You don't need to read the entire book. It's really long. I want to share with you a couple of key principles for structuring book design, and I want you to think about a factory or a conveyor belt. Most of us were one man band. I am pretty much a one man operation when it comes to my Kindle books, and if I try to build an entire book than the next booked in the next book, it's very slow. So the process is coming up with the idea. Writing the outline, riding the rough draft, editing the rough draft, creating the final draft running it through Graham early, sending it to an editor creating the cover of loading to Kindle, creating the paperback formatted version, creating the paperback cover uploaded to create space. Putting the book on a C X to find an audio book reader to find a voice for my book, approving that reader, sending them the version that I want them to read, waiting for that process, going through all of that. So if I do, each of those steps linearly sounds like a lot. Takes a really long time. The way to get faster and go from that slow, musket style book creation is to become more efficient and to find places in your creation process where you could bring in outside help or you can become more efficient. For example, the very first Phase is choosing a book title for nonfiction or choosing your category. I have already planned out 10 books in the serve. No Master Siri's already have nine more outlines finished in the habit of success. Siri's and I have over 100 titles for books that I plan on releasing during my flight back from America 16 hour flight from Los Angeles to China. I wrote every single book title I could think of to fit the area I'm targeting. I had some really great conversations with other successful authors while I was in California. Had a nice lunch meeting with about 15 other authors were all doing amazing things, and I took all my best ideas and I began implementing them. So my research phase is covered for the next two years. Instead of just researching planning out one book which a lot of people do right, you're doing that first research phase and you just try to find that first book you should write about. You really want to dial into a least 10 to 20 ideas. When I wrote Serving a Master last summer, I had the next nine rough ideas for books written down. I eventually pivoted. Breaking orbit was not what I plan to write. Second, it was actually the Book of Plunder and third or fourth, 28 days of book and plan to writing a limit later. But as I dug into what people are responding to, I began pivoting and pivoting and of course, control. Your fate is going to look for that. Siri's and I still have the promo where you can choose a different cover for the book. I'm still working on that. I've been traveling, Haven't finalized the cover. Even we've been through a couple of rounds of voting. What I've learned through my experience is that each different phase, it's okay to get ahead of schedule. So once you have 10 books, you can have those. 10. 80 is ready. Now you're not locked in. It's not written in stone. You can change ideas. You could pivot after the next book, but it gives you an idea of trajectory, so it helps you kind of think about the future. And in all of my books, I mentioned what's coming next. All I have for control. Your fate is half of an outline right now, but I'm already talking about him already and covered in phase. Certain phases don't require much of my time, so I like to outsource those as much as possible. Get them done early. When I'm doing a fiction, Siri's and I know what all 10 books are going to be called. I'm kind of locked into the titles because they go in a row as opposed to doing research and pivoting with nonfiction. I get all the covers down in advance. I have an entire romance series of books where the covers were done and having written Book one. I just Have the idea and the title. Seven. A type to work on the book. That's how far in advance you could get. No book title book cover cost me $5 a cover and even those more expensive people that want 10 or 15. If you order 10 covers, they'll do my five bucks a pop so you can get a whole bunch of covers done at once, and then you're done there. So as I go through idea and titles, once I lock in my titles, I'm always ahead of schedule. Getting covers don't always want to have the next three or four covers finished, and sometimes you'd make a change. So a couple of the books I'm releasing in the habit of success category that Siri's were originally give you written under pending. But I decided I could rewrite them and change the direction a little bit, and they'd be really good fit for under my own name, So I had to go back into each of those covers and change the name on the cover. And I did that myself, changing one little sections. Not too hard. I can change just the name section that's inside my ability set. When you get a little bit ahead, it gives you a trajectory, and it's easier to start getting faster and faster. If you're constantly waiting for other people, they become the bottleneck. It takes three weeks or so for me to get the perfect cover for a book. If I'm waiting and not writing during that three weeks, that's lost time. I don't want that to happen, or I don't want that to be freezing me. So I begin to layer the part of the process. Any part that's not me. They send out to someone else's quickly as possible. So the cover design. Once you have the title done, you could start to cover design and then you can begin work down the outline. Now you might not be a very good researcher. It might be your area of weakness. If that's the case, you can hire someone to write the outlines for you to do the research phase for you, and that's absolutely fine I have an assistant who helps me put together outlines. I give her a bunch of my ideas. I sent her a bunch of books I want her to read. I sent her to some training videos. I put the other whole package of stuff and I say Go through all this material, find the best stuff and help me write that First Hill contents based on that and she'll write it outline, and then she'll write a deeper outline based on my feedback and material so I don't do a lot of my own outlining anymore. Now what happens is that her outline ends up being probably 40% of the final outline. But that's still a big help to me. She gives me a structure in shape for the book, and then I go on and go. Okay, this is a really good structure. Here's what I want to add. Here's the Here's the Jonathan Magic. Here's the sections I want to add to the book. Here's how I wanted to make it and sometimes she'll have entire sections that I just delete it. I don't like him at all or they don't fit my brand or they're things that I don't agree with, and that's okay. She's doing pure research so she doesn't know my boy. She just knows the research. That means that while I'm writing 20 k Day, she could be researching control your fate as soon as that's done, she could be researching killed sniper. So she researches books and products. I'm creating having someone to help you in a different phases. Really good. Now I outlines and created a whole lot of books before I brought someone in. But having someone to do that one spot, which is pure research, which doesn't require creativity. More people are able to do that. Most people who go to college, most people graduate college, you've ever done a dissertation or a thesis or any of that stuff. They know to do research really, really well, and it's not expensive compared to hiring Ghost Rider, paying someone to write for use expensive, paying someone research. It's not nearly as expensive. It's probably 1/5 the price because it's a much more common skill for every person who could write their five or 10 people who can. Research is really what I have to do is just read books and write bullet points and say, Oh, this is an interesting topic. The other advantage of having someone do this is ensure that you never actually plagiarize. So everything she takes, what she's read. She just writes bullet points and kind of highlights or turns that book into outline chooses her favorite section, sends them to me. And then I take her notes and I right, totally new stuff based on just her ideas. So it also ensures that were finding structure and ideas but not actually content from other books. It's a little firewall that I'd like to have in place, and it also helps me be faster so we can have someone working on the covers at the same time with someone else. Happened with the outlines and you can even have a family. We're a child can have a kid in high school. They could do outlining pretty well, helped put together ideas so you can start to outsource or get help with the different phases. And even if you don't do that, what you can d'oh is once you have your next 10 book titles, create your 10 table contents. So doing what? Once Because you're in table contents, mind you don't have to outsource. You could do it this way. And this is what I've also done in the past. Before I brought on this assistant, I would have the mind maps for 10 or 15 books and products done so that I could just get that phase out of the way. See, each face kind of activates a different part of your mind. There's a part of mind or you're researching and thinking of title. There's a part of your mind we're researching. Choosing category. There's a part of mind where you're creating a table of contents. Then there's the party in mind. We're doing deeper researching kind of created a deeper table of contents and create that final structure. Before you start writing each of those phases, you can do a bunch of books and roads actually way faster, so that way you have your 10 outlines done. You can start writing Book one while you're writing Book one in your Siri's. The cover comes back and it's done, and they have the cover and the outline the table contents for Book it and your writing and why you're writing it in the table of contents and cover done of her book to before you finish Book one. This means that as soon as you finish writing book when you publish it and you could really start the next day writing book, too. Now, what about the editing process? Great question. I like to, if I'm editing myself, work on something in between finishing, writing the book and beginning the editing process. A really big mistake is to finish writing a book before lunch and right after lunch. Start editing it. You can't do that. It requires a very different mindset and requires fresh eyes. One of the mistakes that I make a lot if I try to read it too soon is that I can't remember where sections are. I goaded already talked about this earlier in the book, or do I talk about it later? And I'm remembering writing it rather than ending it. One of my big problems that sometimes I want to write or talk about the same thing for five times in a book. I'll forget that I talked about it and I'll re talk about too many times, so I have to watch out for that And that happens especially when my editing and writing are too close together. If you're having friends, review the book, which I really recommend. You can send out copies of the first draft of five or 10 people and just have them looking structure, especially if you're in fiction. You go. Hey, does this story sound interesting? Are there big plot points that are messed up? Are you compelled to follow the character before you dig into structure of paragraphs where you dig into conversations? Is the dialogue good? You start off. Just say, Hey, there's look at the big picture. Is this story interesting? Is there any part of story where you got confused? And while they're doing that while they're reading it, which could make take week, you could begin working on a book to you could begin working on something else, which is what I always do now for me. Sometimes I'll finish a book and I'll start working on a block post. I'll start working on a bunch of podcast stuff. I'm way behind on some podcast stuff right now because I've been travelling. You kind of doing the whole bunch of stuff. I have a lot of work I need to do on my blogging website today. So in between finishing a book and editing, I can do that kind of stuff I'm still writing, but I'm working on other areas of the business now. If you're not doing a block and that's fine, obviously I recommend doing a block. You don't have to. I like running a block post to cleanse the palate because it's writing about something different. And usually I can start to finish a block post in a single day. So my block poster really long My reviews or 8000 words. They take a whole morning. That's okay. He's just working on that takes all my tension and helps me to reset how we think about the book. So it's really valuable to use that time efficiently. If you're doing one book at a time, is a single unit. Well, then this. The time between finishing the book and editing is wasted. Time have nothing to d'oh! You're not in production. This is why we wanna have different parts of the project going into place. Now, if you have an editor, you're working with your friends. You're sending the book to Then you can send it out and things are happening while you work on something else. No, I go back and forth like today, right now, give you a snapshot of my life. I've just finished the final edit through grammar Lee of the first, I think four large sections of 20 k Dad just did them yesterday. So that's done. And I'm also halfway through writing influence of persuasion, the next book book to inhabit of Success. So I can either added or right I can go back and forth, depending on what I do. I'm also working on writing a sales letter for a customer for client and work with. I'm really excited about so I could work on that. So three writing projects that are all big that are all different, and by jumping between them, I can cleanse the palate. Now, what I don't do is do 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes. What I'll do is added a couple of sections of 20 K day and then when I kind of feel tired of doing that, I'll jump in and really dig into the self letter. And whenever I need to cleanse the palate. I can work on influence and persuasion. That's really shorter project. That's something I could finish in a day or two. But it's like the lead. It's the lowest priority on the tree, so that's why it's at the bottom and mixed in where it comes a block post. Or where comes a podcast stuff writing podcast descriptions. So have all these things that I could work on because I have multiple things and development. If I get tired of one, or if I hit a brick wall in one. Sometimes when I'm riding a sales letter all ago, I hate this where I'm stuck right don't like this section, and I hit a little bit of like, emotional writer's block like I'm not loving the story, and what I need to do is put it down and where cunts of the Because when I come back and I'm refreshed, I'll see it the correct way. So oftentimes space is an important part of my writing process. In fact, there was something I hated about the sales letter last week, and I was talking to my copyrighting assistant of mine is that I hate this section. This is garbage. I came back two days later. Go. Actually, it's really good. So sometimes we just need a little space because we get caught up in the moment and we started to self doubt or question. We're looking at something too long. If you read the same paragraph five times in a row, you look at it very differently than the first time. So having multiple projects on the go is a good way as a writer to increase your efficiency. That's how you become book machine gunner. Now this is different than shiny objects syndrome. Because this is systemized. I'm constantly finishing projects. I just released procrastination book, I think just yet just over two weeks ago, and I've been travelling otherwise. I probably put out another book in between then and now, but having a bunch of books systemized having books coming out like a factory floor means that I could be far more profitable. But one of the guys are hung out with and met a couple of days ago. Last week I had lunch with him, I think nine days ago, time flies when you jumped time zones. He has a really great author. He's very interesting guy because he just has. Ah, huge number of books on Amazon is over 50 books. It's a real expert in the time efficiency space. I forget the specific name for it, but he writes about getting things done and being efficient, using different software to be fast and a bunch of other stuff as well inhabits it, happen creation and had to be healthy. He has over 50 books. He's doing really, really, really well is making a huge amount of money. In fact, he was the inspiration for me to write the procrastination book. I'd seen his stuff on Amazon about two weeks earlier. Before I met him, I saw that I go. This guy's doing something right. I'm gonna start doing the same thing. I need to have more books on Amazon and write some shorter books as well as my longer books, to increase the size of my catalog and teach this all the time. Bigger catalog is always better for business, and so he inspired me and then actually met him in person. We chatted and we're actually chatting on Facebook this week as well, because I saw something and it motivated me. He's doing the same thing. He creates a serious of books. He creates machine gun books. So he has a really deep catalog. Now he has 50 books and it took him for five years to get there. And I want to get to 50 books in less than a year, so I'm faster. But he's also doing a lot of things, right. Okay, I'm really impressed with that any of his business. So there are other areas of my business what I'm doing better. But I can admit when I see someone doing something really good and it inspires me. The deeper your catalog, the more successful you could be. An Amazon speed to book, equal speed profits. I talked about this, a lot of my courses. I realized I got behind schedule with 20 k a day because I dictated the whole book and I kind of ran into some different challenges that I've since overcome. But I just got behind schedule because I also written five big products since then and we're done about 15 client projects. But what I learned and what I reminded myself of as I was going through, adding 20 k, I you know, I always talk about how important is to have a deep catalog, and I'm not moving fast enough. So that's why I pivoted and made some ships in my business to be faster. My original plan was to release a servant master book every two months, but I'm already four months behind schedule on 20 K Day, if that's the calendar I'm on. So that's why I'm realizing I need to do big books and small books because I want that deep catalog, and that's what you need. When you have 10 books in a series in each book is to 99 you make $2 a sale. That's about the commission from Amazon. So if you have someone come into your serious, they buy all to 10 books to make $20. We only have one book. You only make $2. It's 10 times more profitable now, not everyone. I'll tell you this right now. Not every right Reed serve. No master reads breaking orbit because only a small subset of the people who follow me, I really want to become authors. That's not everyone's passion. It's okay. I learned that, and that's why I'm pivoting so I've already before. I really learned that lesson. I had already started 20 a day, and I think 20 K Day is actually really valuable, even if you don't want the authors just such a valuable skill. But that's why the next book is called Control Your Fate, because I realized most of my audience what likes a wider book special on Amazon. So I'm reacting to my audience. I'm reacting to my sales on Amazon. I pay attention to what people emailed me about. It's okay to have a plan and then adapt like the classic quote from the Prussian general. No plan survives. First contact with the enemy and no books strategy survives that first launch. Once you go through your first lodge, you'll pivot and make changes, and then you'll do it again with each book. Your release. And that's okay, because when you have a machine gun book strategy, you always have another book in the chamber, and you come very profitable very, very fast. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe, so you never miss another episode. We'll be back tomorrow with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race. Head over to serve no master dot com forward slash podcasts Now for your chance to win a free coffee of Jonathan's bestseller Serve No, master. All you have to do is leave a five star review of this podcast. See you tomorrow. You've just listened to another amazing episode of the serve. No master podcast. Make sure to subscribe, and we're back tomorrow with another amazing episode.