[Susan Friedmann]
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books.
Today, my special guest is known as the Business Book strategist. Cathy Fyock works with thought leaders and professionals who want to write a book as a business growth strategy.
Since 2014, she's helped more than 200 professionals become published authors. And National Susan Friedmannssociation colleague and friend Cathy, what a pleasure it is to welcome you back to the show. Thank you again for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
[Cathy Fyock]
Thank you, Susan. It's great to be here.
[Susan Friedmann]
We had so much fun the last time and you have so much wisdom that you have to share. It was too much to fill up one episode, so we had to have you back.
[Cathy Fyock]
I love it. Great.
[Susan Friedmann]
Cathy, I know that one of your special talents is helping people write books that sell other business. Talk to us more about that. What does that mean exactly?
[Cathy Fyock]
Well, it means that your book can be a wonderful calling card, and I think we've all heard that before. But specifically, your book can lead to you selling high-value coaching, consulting, speaking other services as well. But you have to write the book the right way. There'd be a disconnect between the content of the book and what's in your book and what you do. So you have to show throughout your book the relationship of what you do.
And the best way to do that is by sharing client examples. So if you've helped your clients overcome a problem or deal with an issue, then your book should be full of examples of showing you doing just that, so that as your reader is reading your book, they can say, oh my gosh, maybe she can help me with my problem. That's exactly what you want to have happen.
[Susan Friedmann]
That's fabulous. So adding these case studies or whatever you call them, just examples of what done so the problem solution and being able to show that you have the expertise to solve people's challenges, their issues, their pains, whatever they call them.
[Cathy Fyock]
Absolutely, yes. Showing that your clients have had those problems, you've helped them solve it here the fabulous results that have come about after your work that is hugely important. But another piece that is just as important as the real estate that is prime for you positioning yourself, and that is about the author.
[Susan Friedmann]
Let's talk more about that because I think that's probably one of the hardest things for an author to write. I know. I remember when I was in PR and my first job with the agency, my boss said, write a press release about yourself joining the company. And I was like, okay. It took me a long time to write that press release.
[Cathy Fyock]
It is hard. And the good news is, once you have something written, authors can use it not only for their about the author, but they can use it on their author one-sheets. They can use it on their websites. They can use it in countless places. But you're right, getting it crafted with just the right words is super hard. But I've come up with sort of a formula for putting it together. I'd love to share that with you if I could.
[Susan Friedmann]
Oh, my goodness. Anything that's a formula, it's going to make this easy for our authors. Cathy, go right ahead.
[Cathy Fyock]
Yes. Think of "About the Author" as having three major parts. The first part is the credential about you that is most important to your reader. Now think about that. It's not the thing that you are most proud of. It's not maybe your degree or some certification. It's the credential that makes the most sense for your reader. So you'll need to do a little bit of thinking about that.
What is it?
Is it just a fact to say that for myself?
Is it the fact that I am a fellow author? Is that perhaps even more important than I've been a book coach? That's something you need to think about. But think about first all of your credentials, but then go through and cross out the ones that your reader doesn't care anything about. Circle the ones or star the ones that wow, that is a real keeper. That's something you know, based on the business that you have been able to book with readers who have become clients, that is a keeper. That's something that's important to them. So that's part one is a credential.
And here's the other big mistake. As you don't want to have a whole laundry list of credentials, one or two credentials is enough. Don't overwhelm your reader because what you want to do with your reader is to say, we are colleagues. We can work together. You don't want to create such a gap or chasm between you and your reader that you are unapproachable. You don't want to laden that you're about the author with tons and tons of credentialing and what you've accomplished. You want to make yourself very human. So your most important credential or two. So that's part one.
The second part is about how you serve your readers. How do you serve your clients? What problem is it that you solve and how do you do that? Do you do that through speaking engagements? Do you do workshops? Do you do seminars or keynotes? What is it that you specifically do if you're a speaker or if you're not a speaker, if you're a coach, how do you offer your coaching services? Is it one on one as a group? What is that? What does that look like? How do you serve your readers?
And then the third part is this is the tricky part. This is the hardest part, probably, is to think about a connection point that you can have with your readers. Now, it could be a hobby that you have. It could be something fun that you love to do. It could be a passion. It could also be a value that you possess. But think about what it is that might connect you with your readers. For example, I'll tell you what I've discovered is my value point of connection is I help authors change the world one word at a time. And so many times, that's what my authors really value. They want to make the world a better place. That's what I love about the work that I do as a book coach. I'm helping authors make the world a better place. So I almost always include that in my about the author piece to kind of summarize three parts, the credential that's important to your reader.
How do you serve your reader client, and how can you connect? What's the point of connection? And it could be like I say, your value. Or it could be a hobby, or it could be the fact that you love your grandchildren or your pets or whatever it might be, but something that helps you connect with your readers. So that's my magic formula.
[Susan Friedmann]
I love it. I think the first bit, the credentials, is what you said, you don't want to overload people with unnecessary information. It reminded me I hadn't thought about this, but my husband applied for a job, and he has a Ph.D. And he put that down. What he didn't realize was that he made it out as if he was an academic. When they didn't want somebody who was an academic, they wanted somebody who would be more people-oriented, and that didn't come over. Therefore, he didn't get the job. It's really interesting that you say that, because we think, oh, we've got to put our masters, our PhDs, all our credentials. I've got this certificate. I'm licensed in this. They don't care. They don't care.
[Cathy Fyock]
It's so true. So be careful that you don't write about the author for you as opposed to your reader.
[Susan Friedmann]
Exactly. It's really, really important. And then how you serve the reader. I love that last part of making the connection, your hobbies. I enjoy yoga. I enjoy kayaking or quilting or, as you said, being with my grandkids, just saying a couple of things like that. Or you enjoy traveling. People can make that connection.
[Cathy Fyock]
I learned this, Susan, as a speaker. I started putting into my introduction a couple of fun facts about me. One of the fun facts is that I have gained and lost weight so many times, I can't even tell you. But at the time that I wrote this introduction, I had just lost £50. So I put that in my introduction. I can't tell you how many people came up to me at the end of the presentation, and they said, oh, I have trouble with my way, too. What's your secret? What have you done? And I instantly connected with about half of the audience. And it really tickled me that something just as vulnerable as my weight is an ongoing roller coaster that provided this great connection with my audience.
[Susan Friedmann]
Absolutely. Or something fun. I often say I've been chased by an elephant and I've been rescued by the National Guard. And people are like, It's not exactly what you expect somebody to say, but it sort of creates that curiosity. And people want to know, well, how did you do that? Or what happened? Yes, you mentioned mistakes. Cathy and I know our listeners love to hear about mistakes that authors make, whether they do it deliberately or not. Even most of the time, obviously, they don't realize that they're doing it. What are some of the common mistakes that you see that we could potentially avoid?
[Cathy Fyock]
If you haven't written your book yet, just be sure that you're providing lots of those great examples and great stories. I don't think that there is an instance where you can tell too many stories in your books. So while you're writing your book, look for those opportunities once you've read the book. I think one of the big mistakes that people make is thinking that they have to sell their book in order to make money on their book. Let me explain. I know several of my authors who have done a gifting campaign immediately following their launch, and there's a lot of people to think people who were beta readers or editorial board members or who were on your launch team or what have you.
Just recently, one of my authors was thinking about thanking her launch team and those who had helped her, and she ordered a beautiful book. She put a personal note inside of each one. She wrapped it beautifully with colors, coordinating with her book cover and so forth, and sent out the books as a thank you. Now, she did it purely as a thank you, but she ended up, I think she's right now at 14 speaking engagements as a result of gifting the book. She is a paid professional speaker, so she is going to be making lots and lots of money on the fact that she gifted those early books. Don't think that you have to sell books in order to make money on your book. It could be that gifting your book is the best strategy.
[Susan Friedmann]
That's really interesting. My daughter just sent me something that she saw recently at a library where a library foundation had purchased a certain number of an author's book. They had a whole bookshelf filled with the author's book and it said, Take one and pass it on.
[Cathy Fyock]
How's that idea?
[Susan Friedmann]
Isn't that incredibly it's a dynamite idea. Obviously, you've got to find somebody who's going to buy, let's say, 100 books, but to have a library do that and say, hey, here, feel free, take it, keep it, and then read it and pass it onto somebody else, I think that's lovely. That was a brand new idea. I was like, that is really good because libraries now are becoming more and more important to our authors. They're not the old-fashioned libraries that we think about. They're really trying to get with it and get with the times, do novel things, and that was one of them. What are mistakes you see authors make?
[Cathy Fyock]
I think that authors sometimes fail to rely on their readers and engage with their readers. Sometimes we, as the author, feel like we have to have all the answers or to be positioned as the thought leader or the expert, when really I think we can better serve our readers and position our books more effectively by facilitating the tribe, if you will, of coordinating a group of people that come together to discuss and discover and learn without necessarily having all the answers. So sometimes I'm finding when I am leading webinars or learning programs, I used to think that I had to have all the answers. Instead, I think that authors need to ask really great questions that position your expertise and create a conversation around your expertise.
[Susan Friedmann]
That's so true. I remember feeling the exact same way. And maybe this is a novice mistake that you feel that you have to have all the answers, where in fact, actually you don't at all. It's asking the right questions and people sort of giving you those answers. And sometimes when I'm in a room and somebody asks the question and I said before I answer that, let me see who in the audience would have an answer? Or how would you answer that and let them tell you? Because, well, I'm thinking, what would my answer be? And I can either contradict that or I can say, yes, that's exactly what I thought. Little tricks of the trade.
[Cathy Fyock]
Yes. The other thing I was thinking about in terms of big mistakes is your launch is not just a day or it's not just a week or even a month. Your launch is an ongoing series of activities that you are helping introduce new readers to your book, and your thought leadership. So it's a process that takes place over time. It is not a moment in time, I think, to think about it that way and to be thinking about the long game of your book promotions. I think too many authors invest a lot of thinking and a lot of planning in what happens that first day or that first week. And not enough are spending time thinking about what happens in the next three months in the next six months because those are the authors that are really going to find that their books will bring them so many benefits.
[Susan Friedmann]
That's so true. I get questions often, how long should I keep marketing my book? And then my answer is, well, how long do you want to keep selling your book?
[Cathy Fyock]
That's exactly the right question. And there are always lots of ways that you can take your book and the content in that book and repurpose that content in a number of different ways. Just because you have created the book doesn't mean that you still can't generate lots of different content iterations from that book. So you can have a workbook, you can have a manual, you can have a train, the trainer, you can have all sorts of derivative products and services that you can create based on the content from that first book.
[Susan Friedmann]
Yes, I love this. Cutting, dicing, and slicing in as many different ways. I created checklists, I created tip sheets, I created training courses, all based on the material in one book. Yes.
[Cathy Fyock]
The two things I've done recently, I just created a workbook that was released on the first of the year called "My New Book." And I love "My New Book" because it is really some of the principles in my first book "Writing on Your Mark: From First Word to First Draft in Six Weeks." But it puts it all in workbook fashion and it's using all of the exercises that I find to be most helpful when I'm working with new clients. That has become a wonderful tool. I'm going to be speaking for some groups of speakers and authors in the next month and we're going to be taking the book and giving the book to everybody there and we'll use it as our workbook for our time together. That's one example.
And then the other thing I just created is sort of like a little inspirational book. It's something that you can sit on your desk and you can open up and each page has some little highlights and snippets. And actually, these all pull quotes from "Writing on Your Mark" that are there to inspire and motivate authors to get their books done. That's a new product that I have developed. Again, all from the same content. So don't think that it's one and done with your book. It's a matter of looking for the next possible iteration of that chunk of content.
[Susan Friedmann]
Oh, what came to me, as you said, that was visualizing a calendar, how you have those little desk calendars, those blocks, and each day is a different quote. Yes, you have to still come up with 365. I don't know if you have that.
[Cathy Fyock]
Many, but yeah, but if you do, that's great. But to be thinking about all the different ways I was just at a meeting of the National Speakers Association in Central Florida and Barry Banter, who is the past president of NSA was the speaker. And oh my gosh, he was so wonderful. And he reminded us again that you take your content and you can sell it, promote it, and get it out there in so many different forms and fashions. But your book is, I think, the central piece. It's the one document that really has most gravitas than a speech or an article. Those things are somewhat transitory, where your book is so permanent and so valued by readers. So I'm excited about the notion that once you create this body of knowledge that you put into your book, you can then use it for so many other purposes.
[Susan Friedmann]
An author who becomes a speaker then is in a situation, let's say, where they want to sell their book from the stage in some way. How could you do that? So it doesn't say, I've got my books for sale at the back of the room. Go get one. Go buy one. Yes.
[Cathy Fyock]
Well, I have some great tips for this. First of all, if you can pre-sell books to the meeting planner, I love it when you can say something like, would it make sense for everyone in the audience to have a copy of the book? So it would reinforce the learning, and the learning would go on well beyond my presentation. I love that. So having an opportunity to position pre-sales of the book, bulk sales of the book, that's number one. But let's say they said, no, you can have a table at the back of the room.
First of all, in your introduction, ask your introducer to mention that you have the book table. That way it won't seem so salesy coming from you. It will come from your introducer. And then what I always do is bring an extra copy of my book for my introducer so that they can even hold it up and say, Cathy gave me this book, and she's going to be selling it at the back of the room. So she hopes you'll join her there or wherever the book sale might be.
The other thing is, be sure you have a copy of your book and you hold it and you talk about your book. You can just say something that's in your book. You don't have to be selling your book, if you see what I mean. So what I like to do is say, I have a wonderful checklist in my book on page 62, and let me just read a couple of the things from that checklist on page 62. And then you read a couple of those things, and people are saying, oh my gosh, if that checklist is in the book, I must go back and get a copy because I need that checklist, holding the book, reading from the book, having the title of your presentation, be the same as the title of your book.
That way everybody can see, oh, well, I loved what she talked about. I want more of that. I want to go more in-depth. I want to get this book. So having the book be the same title as your presentation or a derivative of your book title be the title of your presentation, those are all little tiny things that you can do that absolutely will sell books.
[Susan Friedmann]
Yes. and even if somebody volunteers to do something, you introduce them or you have them as part of your talk, and then you can give them a copy of the book for volunteering or helping you with something.
[Cathy Fyock]
Yes.
[Susan Friedmann]
That's also a cute way of somebody having one copy and somebody saying, oh, I want one too.
[Cathy Fyock]
Yes. But here's a mistake, Susan. I just saw a speaker make. She was talking about her book and she was actually rewarding someone who volunteered to give they raise their hand and gave some information and she gave them a copy of her book, but she just said, here's a copy of my book. Thank you. And she didn't say she didn't hold it up. She didn't say, and the title of my book is Author. So there could have been some things that she could have done as she's giving that book away.
Just little things that she can do that have people say, oh, that's what it looks like as she's holding it up. That's the name of it. I heard her say it clearly and distinctly. That's another thing I think authors often do. We say the titles of our books far too quickly so that those people who are trying to catch it can't quite get it, say it slowly and clearly so that listeners can hear what you're saying and can get their copy.
[Susan Friedmann]
Yeah. Sometimes I feel that authors are almost like, embarrassed by their own book. Yes. Oh, well, here's my book. And that actually lowers the value of not only the book, but really it's the information that's inside the book that is so important. It's not the book. I mean, the book is just the vehicle. It's just what's inside it. As I said, I've got this checklist on page 62 that if you're interested in this, you should refer to it.
[Cathy Fyock]
Absolutely, Cathy.
[Susan Friedmann]
I know listeners want to know how they can get in touch with you. Find out more. I know you've got a retreat coming up shortly. Talk to us more about all these different things.
[Cathy Fyock]
Well, you can check out all the details of all my services, retreats, and so forth on my website. That's CathyFyock.com. So if you can remember my name, you can remember how to find me. So Kathyfyock.com. But I am having a writing retreat coming up on October 13th, 14th, and 15th, right outside of Louisville, Kentucky. It is a beautiful retreat center. It will be amazing writing.
I have done writing retreats before, and I have had clients who came without a book title and left with the first draft of their manuscript. Now, I have to say that it's not common, but that is possible. We have all sorts of ways to get you ready to really make the best use of your time. So if you're finding it's hard to get your book written in the course of being busy with everything else, then coming to our writing retreat can be a great way to do that. Come visit my website cathyfyock.com, look under services and retreat and you'll get all the information and you can even register online.
[Susan Friedmann]
Perfect. I will put that link in the show notes so that people know how to spell it too because I know you and I went through how do you exactly pronounce it.
[Cathy Fyock]
Because it's yes, I have a tricky name, that's for sure.
[Susan Friedmann]
Freedman isn't much easier, especially it's spelt the German way. And it looks like Friday and it's got two "Ns".
Cathy, if you were to leave our listeners with a golden nugget, what would that be?
[Cathy Fyock]
First, let me just say, anyone who would like to have a strategy session with me, any listener of this program, feel free to reach out to me at cathyfyock.com. Just send me an email. [email protected] but let me just say this. I think that a book is the most powerful tool you can have in your arsenal of tools to help grow your business. If you are thinking about a book, I really want to encourage you to write your book. Only you can write your book. So make your mark.
[Susan Friedmann]
Yes, without any shadow of a doubt. And even if you've got one book doesn't mean you have to stop there. In fact, people, if they like you enough because they like your material, they want more. Be prepared.
If you've got one book, how about a second? Or a third? Or, I don't know, the sky is the limit. So, yes, Cathy is a great person to help you with that listeners, I will put all that information, her email and her website in the show notes so that you can check Cathy out. It's been an absolute pleasure having you with us.
Thank you. You delivered like I knew you would. Great stuff. And thank you all for taking time out of your precious day to listen to this interview and I sincerely hope that it sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Here's how to find out more about Cathy's Writing Retreat "From First Word to First Draft"
Email: [email protected]
