Bonus: Get Clarity and Nail Your Book's Topic
Today, we’re in a 3-part bonus episode series that focuses on helping you finally self-publish your non-fiction book. I know that many online course creators have a book idea in the back of their mind and you know that a book can be a powerful lead generation machine. Let’s face it…if you can launch an online course, you can also write and self-publish your book.
Just recently, I’ve been working on my nonfiction book and will self-publish on Amazon by the summer. Part of this series will simply be walking you through my journey and describing how I used content I had already created in my business to write the manuscript.
During this series, I have Dr. Emee Vida Estacio as my special co-host. Emee is a 3x #1 Best-Selling Author, Psychologist and Founder of Self-Publishing Made Simple. She helps successful entrepreneurs, coaches, and visionaries expand their reach by writing and publishing their books on the world’s largest online book retailer – Amazon! Through her online programs and signature 12-Week Get It Done Challenge, she guides her students through a proven self-publishing process to successfully launch a book on Amazon, even without a publicist.
Listen in to hear how you can get clarify and nail your book’s topic.
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Course Creator's MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destini Copp. And in this podcast, we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. And today we're in a three part bonus episode series that focuses on helping you finally self publish your non-fiction book. I know that many online course creators have a book idea in the back of their mind, and you know, that a book can be a powerful lead generation machine. So let's face it. If you can launch an online course, you can also write and self-publish a book. Just recently, I've also been working on my non-fiction book and will self publish on Amazon by the summer. So by the time you're listening to this, it may already be out there. Part of this series will simply be walking you through my journey and describing how I use content I had already created in my business to write the manuscript.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So now let's talk about how you can maximize this amazing business changing tool. And during this series, I have Dr. Emee Estacio with me, Emee is a three times number one, best-selling author, psychologist, and founder of self-publishing made simple. She helps successful entrepreneurs, coaches, and visionaries expand their reach by writing and publishing their book on the world's largest online book retailer, which is Amazon through her online programs and signature 12 week Get it done challenge. She guides her students through a proven self publishing process to successfully launch a book on Amazon, even without a publicist. Recently, Emee was also a guest on my podcast on episode 49. So if you want to learn more about Emee and her journey as an online course, creator, definitely check out that episode. Emee, thank you so much for joining me. I know we're going to have so much fun in this episode series.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh, wonderful. I'm so glad to be here Destini. And I can't wait to share all these goodies to your audience.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Well, as you know, I love what you do. I'm going through this process myself and really just wanted to share this with everybody else. Because one thing I've realized as I was going through this journey to write my own book and my own manuscript, I was like, this is so easy for online course creators, because number one, online courses and books kind of go hand in hand and course creators love, generally, they you know, they love writing. They love helping people. And a lot of times they already have all of this content already built that they can just use for their book.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Oh yes, totally. I mean, for, for course, creators, this would be such an easy, peasy lemon squeezy, but I have to say destiny, what they found with some of my students who have, who are course creators. One of the biggest struggles that, that they experienced is that they find it so difficult to condense their material into just one book. You know, they get so excited. They have so many ideas and they struggle to find their focus on their first book. So I, I think that this is probably the first thing that, that we need to explore, especially if you are a course creator and thinking about transforming your, your course into a book, or maybe even just starting a book from scratch and use that as a way to lead your potential students into your, into your course, then, you know, this is the best starting point for us.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
And that's a great segue because really one, it really, what I wanted to talk about in this particular episode was how to find that focus because you need that focus for, you know, the focus of your book and what you're going to be focusing on and nail your book's topic. So, you know, you talked about is difficult, right? For kind of these authors and these online course creators to stick to that one topic, what are some ways that they can figure out exactly what, especially for nonfiction, right? We're, we're creating a nonfiction book. W how do we know what to focus on? Because we have so much content, like you mentioned.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, of course. So, especially for people who are, heart-centered so much expertise and so much enthusiasm out there, they, they want to do thrive as much as they can and in serve their audience. But the problem is what I've noticed with some of these aspiring authors is that they jump from one topic to another, and they ended up with half written books, you know, that don't get finished, you know, they don't get published. And with all these projects just hanging because they're jumping from one topic to another, their readers are still waiting for even just one book to get finished. So really the best way to get clarity and to find your books focus is first of all, to clarify your purpose, I'm sure that your listeners, as course creators they know about finding your niche, needing your niche, and really understanding who you are serving and what are their pain points.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
What, what are, what are the, what are the main areas of need that they have their fears, their hopes and frustrations. So the very first thing that you have to do is to clarify your purpose, understand why you are writing this book, whether it is for personal reasons, whether it is to, to grow your business, to link it to your course, as a lead magnet, whatever you really need to clarify your purpose first and foremost, because when you ground yourself in your purpose, and when you go through the process of writing and self publishing your book, when you anchor yourself in your purpose, it's quite easy to do, just keep going instead of getting this traction distracted by the next shiny object. So clarify your purpose. And I said, mentioned earlier, you know, get to know your audience as course creators. We do our market research.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
But with, with book writing, you also need to do your keyword research and with keyword research, it's really understanding what people are putting on the search bar on Amazon. So you can actually identify very specific topics that you can write about and focus on your book. When you do your keyword research. Well, you will find that there are specific problem areas that people are looking for when they go on Amazon to look for books and you get the confidence that there is a demand for it. It stops you from jumping from one topic to another, knowing that there are thousands of people out there typing these very specific you, or these very specific questions when they go to look for books on Amazon. So to find your clarity and focus first, clarify your purpose. While you're writing this book, get to know your audience, do your market research, do your keyword research.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And finally, you really need to get into the mindset of serving your audience. You don't necessarily have to dump all of your knowledge and expertise in one book when you have this intention to serve. And when you know your audience, well, you can really focus on that particular problem area on that particular aim and only serve your audience with the practical and specific information that they need right now that they can apply in their business or in their lives right now, or whatever it is, depending on what, what your book is aiming to do. When you have that purpose, that intention to serve, you can really clarify what to focus on, and you can just go for it with your audience in mind.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So I want to go back to a couple of things that you said there, you talked about clarifying your purpose, and you mentioned, you know, one of the reasons might be personal reasons. One one of the reasons that you're writing your book might be you know, a lead magnet, right. A lead generation. What do you typically see with non-fiction authors? What, what is generally their goal with their book?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Of course, well, for many of my students, particularly for those who are course creators and coaches and online entrepreneurs, the main purpose of them writing their book is to generate awareness about their brand and establish themselves as an expert in their field. So when you are able to write a book you're actually setting and letting the world know that you know about your stuff, that you are a real person, you can share, your, you can share your voice. So it's a really great way to establish your brand, to generate warm leads into your business. And particularly if you do this well, and if you launch your book strategically on Amazon, it's a really great way to grow your mailing list, especially if you have a lead magnet inside your book. So it's almost a safe you can use your book as a way to have a taster, you know, let people know what you are about. Let them know what your, what your expertise is all about. Get them to know like, and trust you. But at the same time also build your mailing list, generate warm leads into your business and nurture them, knowing that they've already read your book, they've already connected with you in, in some level. And all you have to do is to leverage that and nurture them and, and build your brand. As a result of you writing your, your own book on Amazon,
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Very good, Emily. And I want to kind of also touch upon what you mentioned just a second ago about the, you know, doing the market research, doing the keyword research on Amazon. And you know, I want to understand this a little bit more, you know, for myself also. So let's just say that I'm a productivity coach. I'll just throw something out there. And I want to go to Amazon and do a little bit more research there because I want to do a, you know, a nonfiction book related to productivity. What would I, how would I start?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Right. So if you are writing a book about productivity, think about what, what your readers will put on the keywords. You know, what sort of uncertain terms they would put when they go on Amazon to look for a book on productivity. So let's say for example they will put something like how to make the most of my time, how not to get distracted on social media, how to do more and w with less stress. So you have to be really specific. And if you want to even dive into your particular niche. So for example, you put a productivity for working moms or productivity for HR heads or whatever it may be, depending on how specific your niche is. You can actually search using the tools that I recommend to my students to, to look for the keyword search volume on, on Amazon to see what people are typing in exactly on Amazon, when they look for books there.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So keyword research is really important because when you identify what people are putting in on Amazon to look for books, you, you will have the confidence. It's almost like testing your ideas. You know, we do this with course creation as well. We validate our ideas. You know, we test the market and keyword research is a really great way to get the, of the market, you know, to get a sense of, of what people are typing in on the search word. So even before you create your outline, even before you, you, you write the first word of your book, you have the confidence that people are actually looking for a book like yours, and it would be easier for you to focus on that topic because you know that there are people out there waiting, searching, hoping that someone like you will deliver a book that you're writing at that point. So keyword research really important. It validates your ideas. It gives you the confidence that there are people out there looking for your book. And when you identify those high traffic, low competition keywords, you can really nail that niche and dominate that niche on Amazon.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Very good. Emee and thank you so much for that information. Any last minute comments on how to find your focus and nail your book's topic before we close out here today?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Oh, sure. Well, basically we all know about this shiny object syndrome. You really need to have the discipline and the boy getting distracted by that. And the very important thing is you need to really clarify your purpose, set the clear aim. If you have to write it down, you know, pin it somewhere, you can see. So that would be your motivation. That would be your focus. Remember that there are readers waiting for you to write your book. And if you keep jumping from one topic to another really it's, it's, you're, you're wasting your time. You are essentially procrastinating writing and publishing your book because you're getting some things written, but not really finishing anything. So if there are other ideas popping in your head, write it down and maybe put it in the save for later pile, maybe consider writing a book series, because again, you know, that's something that we can talk about later on, but that's another great way to build your brand on Amazon. So for your first book, if this is going to be your first book, make sure that you clarify your purpose, get to know your audience, set a clear aim, write that down. If you have to pin it somewhere that you can see to remind yourself what exactly you're doing for that book. And if there are any other ideas that are popping, as you write your book, write them down, put them in the safe for later and consider writing a series in the future.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And Emee, as you were talking there, it was just, I was just going through my mind, how close and how similar creating an online course and writing your book is,
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Oh, yes, absolutely. And it really goes hand in hand where we're essentially helping our students, whether it's in the course format or a book format, you know, the book is a, an addition. It could be an additional resource to a course. And of course it's like a more in depth way of, you know, going into the topics that you cover in your books. So it really goes hand in hand and certainly some of my best students are in the self publishing needs, simple community. They are course creators because they have this intention to share their knowledge, to share their expertise. And they have a really great way of organizing information into, into something that can be used. And they ingested by readers and, and by, by their course users. So, yeah, you're totally right, destiny. You know, we have very similar processes and, you know, if we can combine course creation and writing and publishing books together, I think it's win-win for everyone.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
And Emee thank you so much for your insight here, course creators. Before we close, I want to let everybody know that we have a special training scheduled for you. If you are interested in writing your nonfiction book, please join us in a live training where you'll learn how to turn your existing content into a number one best-selling book and generate warm leads for your online course. I will have the link for that training in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us today. And I hope you enjoy this episode with Emee. Join us for episode two tomorrow and have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.