DIY Book Publishing: Mastering the Process Without Breaking the Bank

Larry Roberts [00:00:09]:

What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:00:11]:

And I'm Sara Lohse. And this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

Larry Roberts [00:00:15]:

And on this episode of the podcast, we thought we'd take a little bit of a deeper dive into writing a book.

Sara Lohse [00:00:23]:

Yeah, we talked about a couple weeks ago about starting the writing process and how Larry and I both are writing a book, and now we're going to go a little deeper and how we really make it happen and the different tools that y'all can use. And I want to point out for people who are not watching but listening, that we're changing it up. And Larry has foregone his red hat and is now wearing a pink hat because brand is pink. And it makes my heart so happy.

Larry Roberts [00:00:53]:

That is too funny. And, you know, honestly, I mean, this is an opportunity to officially announce the fact that Branded is actually an LLC now. So we is.

Sara Lohse [00:01:02]:

We went into business together. It's official.

Larry Roberts [00:01:06]:

Yeah. So it's. And we're going to actually talk about that in an upcoming episode. Not necessarily about how Branded became a company, but how you juggle your brand when you own multiple companies. Because I have Red Hat Media, and now I have Branded as well, and Sara has favorite daughter Media, and now she has Branded as well. So how do we keep our uniqueness within our own brands while at the same time doing justice to our co brand? So it's an interesting journey for sure, but we're going to dig into that a little bit deeper in a upcoming episode for sure.

Sara Lohse [00:01:39]:

But back to books. So your book came out a couple weeks ago. Yours is official, you're an author. It's amazing. And just this morning, on the day we're recording this, my illustrator got me back the first draft of the illustrated version of my book. And, God, I'm so obsessed with her. She is so amazing. It's Jasmine Designs out of Australia.

Sara Lohse [00:02:02]:

And it kind of like, gets me thinking about all the steps that went into this. So when I think, like, we talked a lot about starting that process and kind of figuring out what your book's going to be about and, like, why we're going to write a book. But when you started with your book, how did you actually get started? Like, how did you figure out the. I guess, the template or the outline? Like, what did you use? I feel like I know the answer, and it's probably chatgpt.

Larry Roberts [00:02:33]:

Spoiler alert. It was chatgpt man. Because, you know, and I don't recall, honestly if I told the story on the previous episode of the show. But in case You're a new listener. I. I had to have a book, and it's because I, I really. I got exposed. You know, I.

Larry Roberts [00:02:50]:

I flew out to San Diego, did a talk for entrepreneurs organization, and the talk was on AI, and it went really well. And after I came off stage, a lot of the members were coming up saying, hey, thanks for coming out, blah, blah, blah, would love to buy your book. Problem was, yeah, yeah, there's no book. So I was super, super exposed in that moment and knew I couldn't get, you know, I couldn't be exposed like that again. So I went home and immediately thought, well, I. I just did a talk on using AI for content creation, and I'd spent the whole year, last year talking about it, so kind of made sense for me to try to figure out how to write a book with Chad GPT. And that's what I did, man. You know, I sat down and did some.

Larry Roberts [00:03:35]:

Some Persona modeling of myself within Chad GPT and thought that I would mix it up because, you know, there's a couple things that I love to talk about. Well, there's a few. There's podcasting, there's branding, and then there's AI. So I thought I would leverage AI to write a book about branding. And in that book about branding, of course, we talk about podcasting. So using Chad GPT, I was able to wrap up all three, the. The trifecta of what I focus on, and it worked out extremely well.

Sara Lohse [00:04:03]:

Yeah, I. I used ChatGPT a little. I actually discovered a different tool called Chapterly, which is an AI tool specifically for writing a book. And what I really liked about it was it would break it up into chapters for you, but not create the chapters, not create the content, but just give you a template that's just section one, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. And that was really helpful for me because if I just looked at the blank document, I would have not written the book right. And then it gives you the option to then have it help you write it, which I didn't really use. I just used it for the template. And the thing that I found was that I could not get my thoughts together enough that it took me probably four attempts to even come up with the concept of my book.

Sara Lohse [00:04:49]:

I just kept changing it because it's like. Like you had said, you have the things that you were really talking about. You ended up hitting that trifecta. I tried to shove everything into this book, and then I had to just keep taking things out because it was getting so messy. I had an Entire section about branding. I thought the book was going to be about branding. It is not about branding. I leave that out completely now.

Sara Lohse [00:05:12]:

And, like, it took a lot of basically trial and error for me to figure out what is the actual concept of this book.

Larry Roberts [00:05:20]:

Well, I think that's. It's. It's that way with everything because, I mean, I did the same thing just using ChatGPT. I started writing the book within Chad GPT, but I wanted to use the red hat as the analogy for branding, and I wanted to make sure that that red hat was the theme throughout the entire book. So in feeding that information to Chad GPT, it was then able to give me an outline of each chapter, and before I knew it, I had 12 chapters for the book and an entire outline, each of which were referencing the red hat as an analogy for your brand and was able to flesh that out. So the approach was somewhat similar because it was an iterative process, but yours was more iterative from a creative and mine was more iterative from a. I don't know, I guess we could say a technical perspective.

Sara Lohse [00:06:06]:

Yeah. And like, I used ChatGPT, too, like, a lot throughout the process. So just be like your book. It was meant to be mostly AI created because that was the point. Mine, I did write it, but that doesn't mean I didn't use ChatGPT. Like, we. I think as a writer, there's kind of a. I don't know, I feel like there's kind of a dichotomy between, like, are you using it? Are you not? What are you using it for? But I did use it, and I would write a chapter and then just put it in ChatGPT and say, like, did I miss anything? Because my book is about storytelling.

Sara Lohse [00:06:48]:

So I would explain all these different storytelling concepts through my own stories. But the first time around I had. It was so. So much story and not enough information.

Larry Roberts [00:06:58]:

Right.

Sara Lohse [00:06:59]:

And so I would put. I put the whole book in ChatGPT and I'm like, how can we make this have more educational content? And took some ideas that it gave me and then wrote that out. So it doesn't have to be a I use it or I don't. It's not. There's. There's no. Just. Either it's completely written by ChatGPT or you didn't touch Chat GPT.

Sara Lohse [00:07:19]:

Like, there's ways that you can incorporate it and do it. I mean, it's there for a reason. It's there to help you. And I'm very confident that the book I'm putting out now is going to be more impactful for readers than it would have if I did it the first version. So like it did nothing but help. But it didn't write my book.

Larry Roberts [00:07:40]:

Well, it didn't write all of my book either. I'd say it probably wrote 80 to. Well, 80, 87.3% rounded, of course, but it wrote a bunch of it. But I still went back through and added my own anecdotes and my own stories and my own insights into each and every chapter. And that's something that we have to keep in mind. You know, people don't. It's funny because this is actually the second book that I've written. The first book I wrote was about podcasting and it was so bad I recently pulled it off of Amazon.

Larry Roberts [00:08:11]:

Not even out there anymore. But you know, that book was. I wrote it completely from scratch and I kind of went through a similar process to what you went through, except when I wrote it, Chad GPT wasn't around. But when I started writing that book, I got about. I don't know, it was. I signed up for a 30 day project to write a book and become an Amazon number one bestseller, which this book did become a multi category Amazon number one bestseller. But in that 30 days we started writing in about, I don't know, day 10, 11 or something like that, I start looking at the book and it's more of a autobiography than anything because it was about podcasting and it really didn't have a lot to do with podcasting. I had just started writing and next thing you knew, I.

Larry Roberts [00:08:54]:

I had written basically a journal of, of my life. And I look back and I go, this is not what this is supposed to be at all. This is ridiculous. So I mean, I literally had to scrap that, that, that phase of the project and go back and start completely from scratch. So having versions of your book is just something that you can expect.

Sara Lohse [00:09:14]:

Yeah, I think the first time I sat down was like, I'm gonna write this book. It was the same thing. It was like almost like a therapy session for myself. And I did not publish a single word of it. It would have been horrible if I did because it was just all of these things that I hadn't said out loud that I just put on paper and I'm like, this isn't even relevant. This is nonsense. Like this is just I things I guess I just had to say and I did. And then we moved on and they did.

Sara Lohse [00:09:44]:

It did not make it into the book. But I don't. I Was talking to someone at PodFest and she is about to start her own writing process. And I think, like she was considering paying one of those companies to help her self publish and it was going to be a lot of money, like four to five figures for the process.

Larry Roberts [00:10:06]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:10:07]:

And it, like, I try to talk her out of it just because the process of self publishing seems to be so gatekeeped. Gatekept, gatekeepered. I don't know, whatever it is, like the people who do actually work in the self publishing world, they try to make it seem like it's way more difficult than it is.

Larry Roberts [00:10:28]:

Oh, they do that.

Sara Lohse [00:10:29]:

They can charge people like an arm and a leg.

Larry Roberts [00:10:32]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:10:33]:

To help with their book. So I guess kind of what we're just trying to say in all of this is that it's not that hard. Like you can do it yourself. We did it. Our. I did have help. I did pay a company, but it was a very reasonable price. And it's just.

Sara Lohse [00:10:49]:

There's nothing that they can do that you can't.

Larry Roberts [00:10:53]:

No. 100%. And, you know, it does feel good, though, sometimes. Not sometimes, but all the time. It feels good to have a coach. Oh, 100% feels good to have somebody there to help you overcome. I just spoke at a conference yesterday here in Dallas, and one of the questions that came from the audience was, how do you overcome imposter syndrome? And, you know, there's not a real straightforward answer as to how you overcome imposter syndrome other than to just do it and know that maybe this first draft isn't going to be your best work, but it's your work and that's more important than anything. And whether you have a coach or whether you do it on your own, just doing it is what's absolutely critical.

Larry Roberts [00:11:32]:

And you know, in writing my book, I mean, it took me a couple weeks, you know, a couple, three weeks to actually do the entire book. And since then I've. I've run through a couple of other proofs of concept for the book process and I can get it done in about a week. Now, just because I've outlined the tools that I used, I have a process now. I've documented the process and can replicate it over and over again for anybody on any topic, for any kind of book. But at the same time, is it going to be as heartfelt as maybe someone that sits down and spends a couple months writing a book or a year writing their book? You know, it took you a while to write your book, but you wrote it and you rewrote it and then probably even rewrote it again. But it is something that you're emotionally attached to, something that you're taking a tremendous amount of pride in. And I take pride in my book as well.

Larry Roberts [00:12:19]:

And I gotta tell you, feels pretty doggone good to sign your little name inside the front cover of that book and hand it to somebody that's like, oh my gosh, I got your book lair. And it's really, really co. But at the same time, my book was written to serve a different purpose. And while I do have a personal, emotionally driven book in me, if I take that, if I do ever write that book, I'll take a different approach. You know what I mean? I'll actually sit down and I will actually write every chapter. But whether I use chat GPT or whether I take the actual, you know, straight from the brain to the pen approach, uh, it. It's still not that difficult to do.

Sara Lohse [00:12:57]:

There's value in coaches a hundred percent and in accountability partners. But I think if someone is trying to make it seem like you can't do it without them, you can't do it by yourself. It's called self publishing for a reason, because people do it for themselves. Like, it's not. I don't. If you're offering your services as a. Like, I'll make it easier for you or I'll help you through the process. Like, that's different.

Sara Lohse [00:13:23]:

But I feel like some of them are just, you need me to do this for you and you don't. It's not rocket science. None of this is brain surgery. When I was having that conversation, I think what I said was, do as much as you can by yourself and then see where you actually need support. Like, don't pay the. I think it was like $6,000 up front before you've even started. Because you don't know what you need.

Larry Roberts [00:13:46]:

Right?

Sara Lohse [00:13:47]:

It's the same thing. I talk about this on the financial coaching side. When you're like planning a wedding, put the money towards the things that are going to be the most important for you, which is usually like the photographer, the video and the food. The rest is not that important. So have someone professionally proofread it. Have someone professional that's going to edit it. If you don't know how to do the layout yourself, you can either have someone lay out your book for you for printing or you can use a tool like Atticus is the one that you used. I've used chapterly does that as well.

Sara Lohse [00:14:16]:

Like there are tools to do that. I'm having my book fully illustrated. And with that I'm actually doing it on a barter system. I'm going to help her with her podcast. But I 100%. I told her you are not allowed to do this for free for me because she had offered to do my cover for free. And that is something I 100% would have paid for because I just, I can't do that. I don't have that skill.

Sara Lohse [00:14:39]:

So pick out the things that you know you can't do yourself. And that's what you hire someone to do. You don't need to hire someone for the entire process before you've even started the process.

Larry Roberts [00:14:52]:

100%. And you know, if I think about it too, I only used a handful of tools to write my book.

Sara Lohse [00:14:57]:

Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:14:58]:

And if you look at the tools and what the cost of those tools are, the cost was, was fairly minimal. I'm actually trying to think of the actual. All the tools I use ChatGPT, which runs me what, 20 bucks a month.

Sara Lohse [00:15:09]:

But you would have had that anyway.

Larry Roberts [00:15:11]:

I have it regardless. You know, I can't go a day without talking to Chad GPT. So I use Chat GPT. I used Canva to design my cover.

Sara Lohse [00:15:20]:

Which you would have paid for anyway.

Larry Roberts [00:15:22]:

I pay for that regardless. I already have that. I did buy Atticus, which I think was. I think it's 100 and a half, like 149 or something for like a lifetime subscription to Atticus so I can write infinite books for $149.

Sara Lohse [00:15:37]:

I so played in that for my book as well. So I made nothing for that because you had already paid for it. Thank you.

Larry Roberts [00:15:43]:

So. So now we're up to what, say 150, 20 bucks a month, I guess for Canva. I don't even know. I think it's about 20 bucks for the pro.

Sara Lohse [00:15:50]:

But you would have been paying for it anyway.

Larry Roberts [00:15:51]:

20 bucks a month. Yeah. I'm still sub $200 for the three tools that I use to actually design my book. Now I will say that I did take after I kind of figured out the. The book cover in Canva, I did take it over to Photoshop, so I also have a subscription to Adobe. I would have that anyways. Again, as a content creator, I already had that too, but I think that's another 20 bucks a month. So now we're just a little over 200 bucks in product and subscriptions that I used and that's it.

Larry Roberts [00:16:18]:

I mean, I don't think I used anything else other than you, you know, going back and forth a little bit as well. So again, it's good.

Sara Lohse [00:16:26]:

And I am priceless.

Larry Roberts [00:16:28]:

She's priceless. I'm paying the price right now with this pink hat on my head. So that's. That's what I get. So. But my point there is, is. And then publishing. Publishing is completely free.

Larry Roberts [00:16:39]:

Yeah, you gotta.

Sara Lohse [00:16:41]:

Which is new, actually, because if you use IngramSpark, which is what I'm using, so that my book can be in places other than just Amazon. Because if you just go through kdp, it'll only be on Amazon. They used to actually charge you like 50 bucks or something to put your book like up on their platform. They don't do that anymore. They've taken away that fee. So even publishing is free. I used, I use chapterly and that is like you get two weeks free and then it's ten bucks a month. So I paid for it for a couple of months and then canceled it.

Sara Lohse [00:17:12]:

And so, I don't know, I spent maybe like 30, 40 bucks on chapterly. I wrote my book in Google Docs.

Larry Roberts [00:17:18]:

Oh, yeah, I forgot about Google Docs. Yeah. Which is free Google Docs. I took it out of Chat GPT and stuck it in Google Docs for the formatting and chapterizing, I guess is that word.

Sara Lohse [00:17:29]:

But I'm an author.

Larry Roberts [00:17:30]:

I can, I can use that.

Sara Lohse [00:17:31]:

But, But I did, like, I did pay a company and so I worked with a publisher and he did the stuff that I couldn't do myself. He handled the editing and the proofreading and he is helping me with some of the more technical pieces of the actual, like getting it into Amazon and making sure that Barnes and Noble will have access to it and things like that. So he's helping me with the stuff that I don't fully understand that brings.

Larry Roberts [00:17:58]:

Up like the ISBN number and the barcode. Yeah, we did buy the. You actually bought ISBN numbers and I don't know if you bought barcodes or not, but you definitely bought the ISBN.

Sara Lohse [00:18:07]:

I. I bought 10 ISBN numbers for like 300 bucks.

Larry Roberts [00:18:11]:

Yeah. Yeah. And then I somehow screwed mine up that you gave me.

Sara Lohse [00:18:15]:

So I ended up his Chris. One of his Christmas presents was supposed to be a free ISBN number because I bought them in bulk. And then he's like, yeah, I tried it. I ruined it. It's not usable anymore. I bought a new one.

Larry Roberts [00:18:26]:

Yeah, I totally blitzed that son of a gun. But I ended up using the free ISBN number from Amazon because here's the thing too, and this goes back to some differences in our approach is I don't care if it's only on Amazon, because my whole thing is I want to be able to walk up to a networking conference or go to a speaking engagement. And I want a box of my books with me when I'm at these conferences. And I don't care if they're only available on Amazon. I don't really have these delusions of my. From my perspective, only delusions of author grandeur, of being in these nooks, bookstores or Barnes and Noble. I don't care. Because for me personally, that's not the purpose of this book.

Larry Roberts [00:19:04]:

It doesn't fulfill that. That desire. Now, if I ever write that real book, and I'm using the term real in quotes because what I have is a real book. But if I actually write that, that, that heartfelt memoir of mine, then, yeah, I'll want to take that approach. So it really just depends on what your goals are for your book and what you're looking to accomplish.

Sara Lohse [00:19:22]:

Something I also learned that was really interesting because I was one of my biggest things. I mean, like, I did have the delusions of I actually want my book in stores, and that's perfect and even. But I. Even if it meant I sneak into a store and put my book on a shelf, like my book was going to end up in stores, sure. But I didn't realize that you can get your book in a store just by kind of asking nicely, like, it's not that hard. I want. So a couple. If you go to like a local bookstore that's like an independent bookstore in your area, a lot of them will have a consignment program.

Sara Lohse [00:19:59]:

So you actually just buy like a case of your, your book from author copies, which you can usually buy for about three bucks a copy. And you just give them to the store. They'll sell them in their store and then give you a percentage of the profit. And so I'm doing that at a couple stores, but I went to a Barnes and Noble, there's two near me. I went to one, and I had asked if they do like a consignment program or if there's any way I could do some kind of book launch book signing event. And she's like, well, we don't do a consignment program because that's a lot of paperwork. But just send us the ISBN number when it comes available and we'll just order it. I'm like, so you'll just sell my book in your store? In the same store that sells, like, all of these authors that are famous and successful that I grew up reading.

Sara Lohse [00:20:45]:

Like, you'll sell my book, the one with my name on it? And she's like, yeah, just give me the ISBN number. And I almost started crying.

Larry Roberts [00:20:57]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:20:57]:

I'm like, I can, I can actually have my book on the shelves in Barnes and Noble. All I had to do was just ask you. And she said that she can't do a signing because they stopped that specific source. Stopped them after Covid. But she's like, yeah, if you go down the street to the like next closest Barnes and Noble, they'll probably do it. So I went to that store and she's like, yeah, just send me the ISBN number. And I'm like, I don't understand what's happening right now.

Larry Roberts [00:21:26]:

Yeah, it seems like all I had.

Sara Lohse [00:21:27]:

To do is ask.

Larry Roberts [00:21:28]:

Exactly. And it seems so far fetched and so out of reach for so many people. Yeah. But honestly, you're, you're putting in a lot of footwork. You're putting a lot of effort, you're asking questions, but that's all it takes is to put a little time in after you write your book. Reach out to people. I mean, even my little chat GPT book, it's in a public library in West Virginia. Because someone know that.

Larry Roberts [00:21:50]:

Yeah, yeah. J.R. sparrow. Who he actually, he reached out to me. Random goes, hey bro, I'm on the committee for the West Virginia Public Library or something. Love to get your book in there for you. Sent me a little form. I filled it out.

Sara Lohse [00:22:03]:

So now under the red sent me that form.

Larry Roberts [00:22:08]:

It's in a, it's in a West Virginia public library. So if you want to do the legwork, you know, I would imagine that I could get it in other libraries to just put in the effort and the time to, to, to go ask.

Sara Lohse [00:22:20]:

Honestly, the hardest part about it is just like getting over the imposter syndrome piece of it. Because I'm just like, I feel so silly. Yeah, like, like, hey guys, I'm going to do a book signing. Like, who would act? Who would care? Like, why would anyone kind of. I know. I felt so silly to the point that I actually first texted everyone I know that lives in the area saying if I did a book signing, would you go so that I'm not there by myself? Like, I just need to pretend people are there. I even was like, I'll venmo you back the cost of the book. I don't care.

Sara Lohse [00:22:54]:

I considered going on like Tinder and setting up like 20 dates at the time and place of my book signing. So all of these people just show up. I posted in a Facebook group, like, would anyone be willing to do this? And, like, so many people were like, oh, my God, tell me when. I would love to support you.

Larry Roberts [00:23:12]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:23:13]:

Like, I was so scared. Like, I felt so silly. But then I was talking to the. His name is Vince that I did pay to help me with the book publishing process. He's like, oh, no, you need to do it. Like, go have people take your pictures. Like, write press releases. Do as much as you can.

Sara Lohse [00:23:28]:

Like, I don't. There's no reason that your book is not as real as, like, any book that's written by a, like, already published author or already successful author. So the hardest part, honestly, is just giving yourself permission to do it and to take it seriously.

Larry Roberts [00:23:47]:

Yeah. Yeah, It's. It's the coolest thing ever, man. I'm sitting here, actually. I've got an envelope right here. Ironically enough, it's kind of a mauve, purple, pink color. But one of my books is.

Sara Lohse [00:23:57]:

I'm changing him slowly. Every day, I am changing him.

Larry Roberts [00:24:01]:

But there's a copy of my book in here because somebody hit me up and goes, goes, hey, man, I still need my signed copy. So what did I do this morning? I sat down, I autographed about 25 copies of my book because we're going to Colorado next week. Of course, I want my signature in each of those as well. And I gotta tell you, man, you. You want a great way to start a Sunday morning. Crack open a nice fat monster, grab a stack of your book, get you this nice Sharpie, pop that pen off and give it a sniff. That's a delicious.

Sara Lohse [00:24:27]:

Don't sniff too hard. You're gonna fall off a chair.

Larry Roberts [00:24:31]:

And then you start autographing your books. It is the coolest effing feeling in the world.

Sara Lohse [00:24:37]:

I even ordered a giant stack of, like, autographed by the author stickers. And I. I wanted. I've been seeing on TikTok all of these authors that I follow, and they go in, they're like, I'm going to sign every copy of my book in this Target. And they just go into Target to start signing their books. And I'm like, can I do that? So I asked Vince, I'm like, am I allowed to just, like, walk into. Once Barnes and Noble orders my book, just walk in and just start signing my books. And he's like, yeah, just ask them.

Sara Lohse [00:25:07]:

And then I felt really dumb because asking for permission to do that never even crossed my mind. I was like, I was just fully planning to just, like, break in during business hours when they're open and just start signing my book. He's like, if they say no, then maybe you can go stealth mission if you really want to. But it didn't even cross my mind to be like, excuse me, These, I wrote these. Here's my ID with the name that's on the COVID Can I autograph them and add my little autograph by the author sticker because it's technically adding value. Because in my mind, that's still destruction of property. Like, it doesn't make sense to me that my name on something would actually add value to it. But I guess since I'm the author, it does.

Sara Lohse [00:25:49]:

So they're supposed to let you 100% it does.

Larry Roberts [00:25:52]:

Guaranteed. So, speaking of value, hopefully you got some value out of this episode today. And hopefully we've inspired you a little bit to just take the step. Just do it. You've probably already got the tools at your disposal to do everything you need to do to write your book and build your brand and become a more ingrained thought leader in your space. So do us a favor, if you did find some value, go ahead, hit that subscribe button. So we can continue to bring you these episodes each and every week. Each and every week right here on Brandon.

Larry Roberts [00:26:23]:

Yeah, I don't know how I got. That was so smooth, too. And then I got got tongue tied at the end. Anyways, I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:26:28]:

And I'm Sara Lohse. We'll talk to you next week.