The UnNoticed Book Author could be you, for much less than you think it may cost to self publish.

Have you ever thought about compiling all of those thoughts and conversations into a book that could be used to position you or your company as an authority in the field? Well, if you have, then that's great news because this episode may well help you along that journey.

I talk about how I am curating 75 articles into a book of 50 from my podcast guests, experimenting with Dabblewriter for collaboration with my virtual assistance, layout via the Ukrainian freelancer I sourced on Upwork,  Kindle Direct Publishing and getting an ISBN from Nielsen. All in should be under US$500 to publish my first book. 

Transcript

Jim James: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the UnNoticed show. Today. I'd like to ask whether you want to write a book. Have you ever thought about compiling all of those thoughts and conversations into a book that could be used to position you or your company as an authority in the field? if you have, then that's great news because this episode may well help you along that journey. I'm sharing because I'm midway of getting my book together. So on this show, want to just share with you just briefly some of the learnings and some of the tools that I found to help me do that. Now, first of all, this book is going to be a compilation of interviews that I've done on this podcast. And I've interviewed over 70 people in the unnoticed series. And what I'm trying to do is to showcase all these conversations that I've had with these brilliant people from around the world. But what I'm also trying to do for the reader is to structure them within the framework of what I call the speak PR methodology, which is Storify personalize, engage amplify. And to know now I think that's important because when we lay out the book, we have to bear in mind. Really where we're going to go with it in terms of the structure. And if we don't do that, then it can drift. And I've been taking a book writing course, and it's fantastic. One of the things that it really talks about is the need to determine the structure of the book. I guess much like building the foundations of a house. You need to have a plan first. Otherwise you just stop building and then you can find yourself with walls in the wrong place. So the second thing I've done is to look at the content I've got and look at the audience. Now, of course, the audience is the same as this podcast is for those people out there for you. That is trying to get noticed, but doesn't necessarily have the resources to hire an agency or the time to hire an agency. So this book really is a compilation of those interviews that I've done. Now, the problem is that something, those interviews have not conformed to this strict five stage methodology because conversations I've been having with people happy within a framework. And I've been trying to introduce people to the show that might answer one area story effication or personalization or engagement. Of content or amplification or quantification, but of course people will spill across. And I also have both entrepreneurs and experts on the show. So I've got different perspectives around the same narrative. So what I've needed to do is to go through the articles that I've got compiled and try and sort them. And I spent quite a lot of time today trying to determine. Where is the best place within the book framework to lay out each of these articles. What I've also done then with my virtual assistant in the Philippines is to make a spread. And in the spreadsheet, we have the link and then we have the article word length, and we've got a headline. So the organizing of the content is one of the biggest headaches for me anyway, because I'm not an administrator, but lucky Alex, the virtual assistant in the Philippines has helped me with this. What we had done for each interview was to actually take the transcript, which was taking place in Otter and give them that to a journalist in the Philippines to right up off to each episode. As a result, I've got some 75 articles between 900 and 1800 words that have all been written. Consistently over the last 12 months now we did very well with one writer for the first nine months, and then they dropped off and then we have a replacement writer. So we have a slight difference in styles. So we're going to have to go back and Polish the. the episodes that we're in the transition phase so that we can try and have the same narrative. Now, one of the ways that I've worked to structure the positioning of the book is to say that this is a book of articles curated by me. And I think that's important because if I claim to be the author. Of all of these articles, I've got a couple of issues. One is that they've all been transcripts of interviews. And those interviews have obviously been with different people, different nationalities, different skillsets and so on. So if I claimed to be the author. I would be somehow needing to take their words and be recraft and re crafting them. And to some degree denying their personality and a big part of this whole project has been to engage other people and to share other people's expertise, not just my own. When you're creating a book, which is a compendium of articles, curated by me. And actually that's also quite liberating because if I was to have writer's block, which I think, we all suffer from one of the hard things is what I'm writing. Good enough. Actually, I don't have to worry about that because I'm not writing I'm curating. So I see this first book. As if you're like a practice project, a pilot, if you like a pilot book where I could learn some of the process skills that are required for writing and developing a book without the need to be the author as well. When one thinks about it, writing and self publishing, a book has actually got a lot of obstacles. Each one. Could pull you down. There's the think of the structure? There's the think of the tone? There's the think of the content? There's the writing of the content. There's the editing it for length and for pace, for choosing the tone of voice and so on by curating articles from interviews that I've conducted, I've reduced some of the pressure points. Some of the pressure points that otherwise I would crave myself. So what have I been doing that I've been looking at collating over 75 articles and making them into five sections and then starting to get those all organized with the photographs of the individuals that I interview. And their bios and the links, because I want to engage each of the people that were on the show with me to help me also to promote the book as it comes. I've been looking at tools for writing. And this is obviously important because whilst we can use word or pages on the Mac, it's no use to try and collate an extended number of articles into one of these word processing documents. I was trialing Ulysses, which is a really nice application and very good for long form documentation. The issue with Ulysses is that it is Mac only. And one of the lessons that I've learned from using descript, the video and audio editing software is it's very useful. To be able to have collaboration with my VA and with other people, including the people going to do the book layout. I found a software called dabble writer.com and this allows shared writing. And one basically downloads the app works in Mac and also PC. And what you write in your desktop environment than automatically is sent up to your cloud. Now I just use last pass and share the login with my VA, but you can actually also upgrade to have teams to collaborate. Just the basic version is$5 per month. The standard is$10 and the premium is 15 and the$15 version has, for example, a grammar checker included. And that's the price if you pay monthly, but if you pay annually, you get quite a significant discount. So dabble writer seems pretty good. We have found that the platform doesn't allow one to add any images. For example. So it really is a text, only a writer, but it does make it very quick and seamless to cut and paste content from articles that are on the internet, into dabble writer. So we're finding compiling this book, using dabble writer to be actually quite efficient. I've created a book cover using Canva and everybody knows Canva. I'm sure. By now there's also obviously Visme is the other platform for doing design. And what I've done is two versions of this. And I put this on to my LinkedIn to get views. One book cover is white with red text, and the other is red with white text, with the unnoticed banner in red and black as per the post, as the, as per the policy cost, I've had nearly 2000 views in 48 hours. Cover and some 49 comments because I asked people which they thought was best. Interestingly enough, the opinion to split almost exactly down the middle 50 50 people liking the white text on the red and people liking the red text on the white cover. Interestingly enough, these split seems to be both by gender and by geography, doesn't seem to be a preference. For example, amongst women for one or the other, nor amongst Asian or American for one or the other. So that creates an interesting conundrum. If you ask lots of people for their opinion, and you don't get the same opinion, it's one you take as I'm going to do IE publishing. I may even just make two versions. One with the red cover one with the white cover. Why not? There's no reason why I can't do two versions of the same. So I mentioned now about getting the book organized in terms of the page layout. Now, the VA, Alex, and I, we're not going to try and format what will be a 60,000 word hundred and 20 page approximately book because the type setting, the kerning pagination. It'll take a long time. It's a different skillset. So I've been on Upwork and posted the project along with the front cover of the one that I've chosen. And we'll see which one we finally go for. but I've chosen to upload one of the two covers to Upwork and posted that for the proposals for the land. Now within six hours, I have 14 proposals on Upwork. I put a fixed fee of 100 pounds with a note in the description to say that it was negotiable and I've had prices come back between 90 to 200 and a one person has come back with 650. Dollars from India. I've actually reached out to a designer in the Ukraine because I found that the people in Ukraine have great English skills. well-educated but also a very good with technology, but tend to work Frank. For very affordable cost. Catarina Zed has replied and Catarina has earned over$30,000. On Upwork doing layout. And she's saying that she's charging$20 an hour. She has 96% job success and she's top rated by Upwork. In fact, she's done 30 jobs similar to mine, and she's quoted me$200. So I've selected where they need to share with me. A cover letter and some portfolios, and I can see her work history. She just did a project for a medical practice and earned$4,475 for that. And that looked to be a six-month project. She's been earning anywhere between 190 to 200 to$300. Per project. So she also has her book layout portfolio here, and she's asked me if I want a fluid publication or an EA publication. So I've got. Learning to do from her. And that's another benefit of course, of working with freelance is of the kind you can find on Upwork. They know the answers to some of the questions that I don't now Catarina has graduated from the national aerospace university and the cocky aviation Institute. And before. Has a BA in print graphic design. So great. Really how Upwork brings the world. In fact, to our iPad, I'm sitting in the car, recording this whilst my daughter has her ballet lesson and I can continue working. So I've got my 65 articles that I'm working to reduce down to 50. Because I don't want the book to be too long for people to need to read. That's why I made the podcast 20 minutes and then I have my front cover with two options. I have my designer who's made cost me some$200 to lay this out. And what about how to get it published? this is where we're looking at the Kindle self publishing. Now it's called K D P. So Kindle direct publishing it's kdp.amazon.com. And here you can self publish eBooks and paperbacks for free, and you can go to millions of readers on Amazon, and it says that you can actually get your book online within 24 to 48 hours. And we can earn up to 70% royalty on the books and we can also then keep control. What I also read is that we need to get an ISBN number. So to get international standard book number, which is a 13 digit code, I'm going to need to go to the Nielsen UK ISB N agency. I don't believe that's very expensive, but I just have to fill out a form and email it to them. And then I should get one fairly quickly. I think. So with an ISBN, a number I can then get my book registered and this is going to be quite nice because on the Amazon, I plan on having a price for the book. Not because I think it's going to be massively valid. But it needs to have some sort of a price in order to be of value. But also then of course, I can give a code and promotion code to give value. If I was to say it was for free, then of course I got no way of demonstrating that there's value to the book. So I decided to issue a book and I'm obviously. Aware that this is not going to be the world's best seller. But what I also want to do is to get started and everything one reads about publishing books is that most people stall, just because they're hoping it's going to be the perfect book or the one book that they ever published. I think a bit like going to the gym or going for a run to expect to. Have the ultimate workout or the ultimate time in a marathon on the first outing is probably a little bit ambitious. So I've determined to make a compilation curated by me, which then supports my podcast, which then recognizes the contributions of my guests to the podcast. I'm going to include the contact details of the. Guests that I have featured in the book so that they can collaborate with me and share the book and work with freelancers in the Ukraine to help me to make it look professional. And there are some great pieces of advice over 50 experts with their strategies on how a person or a company can get noticed for free. On storification, personalization, engagement, amplification, and knowing the numbers. So I'm really hoping that this will be another piece of the overall package that I can offer to you and to people in the world that want to know how to get noticed for free to share the value that they've got, which they don't know how to do. So publishing a book hopefully, this is something that you might think about yourself and maybe today's podcast gives you some idea of some easy and simple. If you like hacks and tools. The overall budget for the book will have been no more than$500 by the time I've paid for all the editing and the layout, the publication and the distribution. I should use it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. I shall reach out to podcast hosts and use the book as well. Reason to be on their podcast, to explain the book, to explain my methodology and to gain some authority. Because as we know, the word authority comes from the word author, and this is my first book. I'm hoping it's not my last book. In fact, I've already got some other books planned, but by learning some of the basic steps and sharing them here, I hope that I've demonstrated. Book publishing is within reach of us all. So I look forward to hearing what book you are planning on publishing, and if you've got any questions, do, please reach out to me on jim@eastwestpr.com. I'm more than happy to answer your questions about book publishing or any other issues that you've got on getting noticed. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the unnoticed show..