0:37

You should be telling your ghostwriter stories

0:39

that are not in the book because it gives them context

0:41

of who you are , how you handle situations

0:43

, all of that . You should get vulnerable with

0:46

your ghostwriter . Make

0:56

sure that everything has an accurate story

0:59

so everything feels narrative . Make sure that

1:01

, regardless of whether the customer

1:03

in the book is the character or the person

1:05

telling the story is the character , there's enough of

1:07

an arc there that when somebody is

1:10

done reading it , they feel emotionally

1:12

connected enough to share that book with somebody

1:14

else , right ?

1:21

Hey , chandler Bolt . Here and joining me today

1:23

is the man , the myth , the legend , mr

1:26

sean platt . If you're in

1:28

the self-publishing world , you've almost definitely

1:30

heard of this guy . Uh , for a

1:32

really long time now you say what I

1:34

said , sorry , for

1:38

a long time now . So , sean , if you don't know him , he's

1:40

written hundreds of novels um , over

1:42

400 books is probably more than that

1:44

at this point over 80 bestsellers

1:46

. He's got acclaimed fiction titles

1:49

like Yesterday's Gone and Invasion

1:51

. So his fiction has done incredibly

1:53

well . You may have heard him talk about it through

1:56

a company that he founded is called Sterling

1:58

and Stone . They're an IP incubator

2:00

. He's also got a ghostwriting

2:02

company called Invisible Inc

2:04

Media and has an in-house

2:07

writing team of dozens of writers . So

2:09

I mean today we're going to talk a lot about ghostwriting

2:11

Now . Well , actually , first , welcome to

2:13

the show , sean .

2:14

Thank you , it's great to be here .

2:17

So we'll kind of tee it up this way . We're

2:19

going to talk about all things ghostwriting today

2:21

. I

2:26

can't think of anyone who is more qualified to talk about this . He's done , he's ghostwritten

2:28

a bunch of books himself . He's managed teams of dozens of writers . They

2:30

have ghostwritten fiction , nonfiction , all

2:33

kinds of stuff . So I mean , it just runs the

2:35

gamut . So if we want to learn about it , he's

2:37

the guy . Now we could also , though , spend

2:39

a whole episode on fiction , fiction

2:41

series , read through rate . How do

2:43

you maximize all that ? And and I'm probably

2:46

going to hear from Rami on our team

2:48

, who runs the fiction side of things he's

2:50

probably going to be like dude , you idiot

2:52

, there's

2:55

too much for for one episode . So

2:57

, yeah , we'll probably have to bring you back . Guys

2:59

, if you want to hear Sean come back and

3:02

talk fiction , comment on

3:04

the YouTube video or let us know in the

3:06

reviews on Spotify

3:09

or Apple Podcasts or wherever , and if there's

3:11

enough demand , we'll bring him back . But

3:13

today we're going to talk ghostwriting , so I guess , first

3:15

things first , sean . I mean , there's a bajillion

3:17

questions I can ask about this . I'll start from

3:19

kind of the ground up . Seems like a dumb question

3:22

, but what is ghostwriting ? And

3:26

yeah , what is ghostwriting , and then I'll kind of

3:28

maybe do a two-parter . Actually , let's just

3:30

start there .

3:31

So ghostwriting is basically just

3:33

when you're writing someone and you give them the

3:35

credit in exchange for money . So it's

3:38

a win-win situation for the ghostwriter

3:40

. Because a ghostwriter especially

3:42

if they're not , like ego bound or

3:44

, you know , like really it is just about creating

3:47

a service or a product , then it's

3:49

great because you get paid a lot more . Basically

3:51

, if you're willing to shut up and take no credit

3:53

, it's worth more money . And that's worth

3:56

more money too to somebody who you

3:58

know wants to have a business book . This

4:00

is especially true with business . Actually

4:03

, that's not even true , it's true with fiction too

4:05

. If somebody wants to put a product out there and

4:07

claim credit for it and build a brand around

4:10

it , then a co-author can

4:12

be seriously in the way and so it's

4:15

basically hush money . You know

4:17

, it's like don't tell anybody

4:19

that you had anything to do with this and

4:21

your fee is worth a lot more . And

4:24

I love win-win situations . And

4:27

as long as you have the right client and the client understands

4:29

the relationship and the ghostwriter's relationship

4:32

, then yeah , it can be one of the best relationships

4:34

you've had .

4:35

That's good , and you know we talk

4:37

about this framework all the time . Depending on where you're at in your life

4:39

, you've either got more time or you've

4:41

got more money . You get more time than you have money

4:43

or money than you have time , and so ghostwriting

4:45

is perfect for the person who wants to spend time to save

4:47

money and there's someone who's on they

4:50

don't have time to write a book and

4:52

they , you know they want to pay someone

4:55

who does this all the time to write a great book . Now

4:57

, I guess I would . I would consider

5:00

myself , sean , like a ghostwriting skeptic , I

5:02

think for years I've kind of pushed it away

5:04

, um , for a couple reasons , I mean . I think

5:06

. Number one when I write , when I

5:08

read something that I wrote , um

5:11

, which I'm nowhere near as good a writer as you

5:13

, but like when I read it , I'm like , was I

5:15

drunk when I wrote this ? Like this sucks

5:17

. Now , imagine if I paid someone 50 grand

5:19

to write something for me . It's just like it feels

5:22

like a hard model to have happy customers

5:24

where there's just such a high bar

5:26

, but then on the flip side , a lot of times it's

5:28

like that meme of like the clients

5:31

, it's the horse and it's the client's

5:33

budget , client expectations , and it's

5:35

like they got a stick figure budget

5:37

but they want a 3D image of a horse

5:39

, right . So I think a lot of times people with

5:41

ghostwriting they'll say , okay , cool

5:44

, well , I want an incredibly quality

5:46

ghostwritten book , and can you do it for like five

5:48

or 10 grand ? And so then there's just

5:50

almost like this juggle between they're not willing to pay

5:53

what it takes to hire a great ghostwriter , but

5:55

they also have high expectations

5:57

. So I think for so long and sorry

5:59

for this kind of long monologue to you of this question

6:01

, but I think for so long I've just kind of pushed it away

6:03

and said , hey , yeah , it'd be way faster to grow

6:05

the business if we're charging 50 grand a

6:08

pop , but it's harder to

6:10

create happy customers . So I guess

6:12

the question I would say , or that I

6:14

would ask , is how does an author know

6:16

if they should ghostwrite or write

6:18

the book themselves ? Like what do

6:21

you think is kind of the determination there at

6:23

the start ?

6:24

Man . There are so many ways to answer

6:26

that question . So let me

6:28

back up a bit and say I think the biggest

6:30

question to ask before you even start

6:32

here is why do I want a book ? Because

6:35

there's a spectrum of reasons for that , right , you're

6:37

talking about like all the way at the top , so

6:40

we do focus on the top end just because

6:42

we have a lot of experience . It's

6:46

more of a harpoon than a net . We're deciding who

6:48

to work with and what clients we have time for

6:50

, so we're automatically going to

6:52

start at the top . We have a lot

6:54

of relationships in Hollywood because of the IP

6:56

side , so we're focused on celebrity memoirs

6:59

, thought leader books , stuff like that . So if you

7:01

take a celebrity memoir , their reasons

7:03

are obvious and their budget is obviously

7:05

large . Right , they want to be seen

7:07

in a different light than whatever the entertainment

7:10

industry has cast upon them so far . They

7:12

want to give context to their personality . A

7:14

thought leader wants to build a business around

7:17

their book , right . So even if they

7:19

can write a book , they know that

7:21

working with somebody

7:23

who can tease out the best from

7:25

them is worth the money , because

7:28

if they get 20 grand for stepping

7:30

on stage every time , then they only need to do that

7:32

five times to pay for a $100,000

7:34

book . But at that level there's

7:36

a lot that goes into that book , because you really

7:39

have to to your point , you have to sound

7:41

like this person , so you have to absorb

7:43

enough of them and like

7:45

really understand their stories . And for us we

7:47

have a whole team that is pulling the story

7:50

out of it , because there's a spectrum of how

7:52

ghost written books are like , compiled

7:54

too , so a lot of transcription

7:57

, you know where they're doing a lot of interviews

8:00

, and then they take the transcripts and kind of piece

8:02

them together and that can work , certainly

8:04

, but it comes off as a little more

8:07

anecdotal , where we're really trying to find

8:09

the core story . That's like beginning

8:11

and the middle and the end . That makes it really feel

8:13

more like not like fiction

8:15

, but using all the fiction tricks and all the

8:17

copywriting tricks that keep people on a page

8:19

and turn . But not everybody needs

8:21

that level of book . Sometimes you

8:24

just need a book that is like this is my business

8:26

card , this is proof of my authority and

8:28

I'm still going to get the results . So I think you kind of

8:30

have to work backwards on , like , what do you

8:32

want this end product to do

8:34

for you , and then that determines how

8:36

much you can spend on it , what you expect

8:38

your ROI to be , and so , yeah

8:41

, you can get a $10,000 book , you

8:43

know , working with someone on Upwork but it's never

8:45

going to be better than a very

8:47

basic business card book Like

8:49

, yes , it exists and it will open

8:52

these three or four more doors for

8:54

me all the way at the other end of the spectrum

8:56

where , okay , now you have an international passport

8:58

, you can go anywhere because you have actual

9:01

book . That's a perennial seller . That doesn't just

9:03

exist on Amazon with , you know , phone

9:05

book sales rankings , but you know ticks

9:07

along . People are constantly buying

9:09

it and therefore it's constantly building

9:11

your business .

9:12

That's good . So it sounds like begin with the end

9:14

in mind . Hey , what's the purpose of this and

9:16

what's the ROI case for this ? Is

9:18

it clients ? What's the path

9:21

? And then it sounds like for

9:23

some people , if you've got such crazy high expectations

9:25

and this is like your magnum opus , your

9:27

life book , it might make more sense

9:30

to write it yourself or be willing

9:32

to pay a lot of money for a really good

9:34

ghostwriter . Because I think that's where the clash

9:36

often is is it's that shoestring

9:39

budget with crazy high expectations

9:42

, just because I don't want to do the work Right

9:44

, and so I think that

9:46

might be a little bit of a delineation . But this

9:49

next question might also just roll

9:51

some people out as well . So I want to go

9:53

price , then process . So

9:55

what is the price range

9:57

that it costs to

9:59

hire a good ghost , to

10:01

hire a ghostwriter in general ? And

10:03

yeah , let's start there .

10:05

I would say , if you are looking to

10:07

have something that is more than just a

10:09

business card book , you really are talking about $50,000

10:12

or more because it's not about

10:14

the writing . So for us , like , writing

10:16

is not difficult not to diminish what

10:18

it is , but it's just not that big

10:20

a deal . Difficult

10:23

not to diminish what it is , but it's just not that big a deal . So in the intro you said I think

10:25

you credit me with 400 plus books

10:27

. So our publishing company has 400

10:29

books written somewhere between two

10:31

and 300 , including things I've ghosted . I

10:33

don't really know my number . I stopped tracking

10:36

a long time ago . I just don't know . It's been

10:38

at least 200 . I'm sure I haven't written more than 300

10:40

. But , regardless , if I have a really

10:43

quality outline in front of me which

10:45

, like I do , I never write anything

10:47

without an outline in it , right , and so , like

10:49

, if I'm , if I'm really have a good outline

10:51

, nothing's going to take me longer than a month

10:53

or so , and so that's not really

10:55

where the money goes . The money is

10:58

paid for all of this pre-production work

11:00

. You know , it's all like it's really figuring

11:02

out the story . You know , like one

11:04

of the last clients we worked with , they

11:06

flew into town and were here for a few days

11:08

and like just getting that story . And

11:11

that time is very expensive , you

11:13

know , because we only have so much time

11:16

and if we're not doing a ghosting project

11:18

over here , then we're creating IP that you

11:20

know we can . We'll become a movie someday . So

11:22

, it's really about like , how , like

11:24

you want that win-win you

11:29

want it to be good for the ghostwriter and you want it to be good for the client , because

11:31

that's where there's real synergy and that's where magic happens . And to your

11:34

point , with that disconnect , that in

11:36

our experience , it's the it

11:38

is the people with the lowest budget

11:40

who have the highest expectation

11:42

. Wow . You know , somebody

11:45

comes to us and they're they're willing

11:47

to spend a hundred thousand dollars on this

11:49

product . They're used to charging a

11:51

lot for their services , so they understand

11:53

what it means to be a good client .

11:55

And they they .

11:56

They come to us with a lot of trust and

11:58

it also helps that we just founded

12:01

the actual company , invisible

12:03

Inc . Earlier this year and for

12:05

a decade before that we just

12:07

did ghosting by word of mouth . People just knew it

12:09

was what we did . So everything was referral

12:11

, which changes the conversation to begin

12:13

with . But if you're coming into it

12:15

with those sky-high

12:17

expectations , that's really hard

12:20

because it's never , ever going to be

12:22

good . It's like there's always going to be friction

12:24

from the very beginning . So I think that

12:26

deciding whether you should do it yourself

12:28

, it's like do you have the skillset as a writer

12:31

? And maybe the best path is not to have

12:33

somebody else do all the work but to pay for a coach

12:35

you know , to have like guiding the process

12:38

, because and it also depends on

12:40

what you're writing for again , going back to the why

12:42

, so if this is your legacy piece , right

12:44

, if it's like a memoir , then maybe you

12:46

should have a more active hand in it and

12:48

also acknowledge that you know what ? If

12:51

you're just writing a memoir like , your

12:53

family may read it , your friends may read it , but

12:55

if you're not already a celebrity or

12:57

a name , your memoir is probably not going

12:59

to be read by that many more people . So you

13:01

don't really need the $100,000

13:03

version . You can have the coached version

13:05

of your own story , because you've

13:07

been telling versions of those stories all your

13:09

life . Otherwise , you have enough material

13:12

for a memoir . So you already have some basic

13:14

foundational experience

13:16

with every story that you're going to tell in the memoir . So

13:19

working with a coach in that situation is

13:21

a lot more economical and , honestly

13:23

, will probably give that memoir author more

13:26

of what they're looking for , which is being in touch with

13:28

their own legacy , and if they actually spend the time

13:30

on the page , they're going to be more in touch with their

13:32

legacy , Got it ?

13:33

That makes sense . So it sounds like price range . You

13:35

said hey , if you , if you want it to be more than a business

13:37

card , 50,000 plus up

13:39

to what ? 100 , 150 , like what's

13:41

kind of the high end ghostwriting .

13:43

Like I've actually never heard a ceiling

13:45

. It just depends . There's people who , on

13:47

both sides nonfiction and fiction who

13:49

like just at the top of their game , they

13:51

know how to create New York Times bestsellers and

13:54

they could charge a million dollars . I

13:57

know somebody who charges $300,000 for memoirs

14:00

very consistently . I know somebody who charges

14:02

$300,000 for memoirs very consistently

14:04

. So it depends . Because if you're talking about like this is how much this is

14:06

, it's what will the market pay

14:08

? Right ? Right , if you talk about a

14:10

ghostwriter who is in so demand , they can only

14:12

do X number of books a year , but there's

14:15

more than that number of people who

14:17

actually want them to be doing the book

14:19

, well , they can charge whatever they want .

14:20

Supply and demand yeah for sure , and then

14:22

the low end on the business card is

14:25

where the high end starts yeah , that makes sense . And

14:27

then low end on the like okay , I

14:29

care about quality , but it doesn't

14:31

need to be an incredible book , it just

14:34

needs to be a very solid business card

14:36

. What's like the absolute lowest that

14:38

somebody can get that done for Okay , absolute lowest that somebody can

14:40

get that done for .

14:41

Okay , this is a harder question , but I'm going to say

14:43

the real differentiator

14:45

is how much time are you willing to invest

14:47

to find the right person ?

14:48

Because there are like .

14:50

I'll take myself as a good example

14:52

. The first book I ever ghost wrote was $5,000

14:55

. This was 15 years ago , but I

14:57

wrote a book for $5,000 . I still check

14:59

in on that book every once in a while . It still sells

15:01

. It's still a good seller . It is

15:03

a perennial seller . I'm

15:06

a gifted writer . I know what to do and

15:08

I knew what to do it really early . But a long

15:10

time ago , 15 years ago , there's no way

15:12

I could have charged $100,000 for a book . People

15:15

would have laughed in my face . What do you

15:17

think Ray Romano looking asshole ? There's

15:19

no way you could like

15:24

. What do you think Ray Romano looking asshole ? There's no way . And so there's just no universe

15:26

where I could have done that . Right , but back then , and not only

15:28

that , but the book , that would take me a

15:30

month now and I could charge that

15:33

back then . It would have taken me three months

15:35

, right . So it's just a totally

15:37

different scale . But if somebody and

15:39

somebody did , somebody took the work to

15:41

find me back

15:44

then , right , they read my blog , they're like maybe

15:46

they can do this , and so you can find

15:48

quality people on Upwork . You can find

15:50

a writer who's worth , you know , $100,000

15:53

and pay them 10 , but it's hard

15:56

, it's a lot of time . So if you

15:58

want to go that route , the best thing I could suggest

16:00

is come up with like basically what you want your

16:02

first chapter to look like and

16:04

hire 10 writers to write chapter one

16:06

and then use that person

16:09

to the whole rest of the book , because

16:11

I don't think you can find cheap . It's a crapshoot

16:14

. You know you can pull the arm at the

16:16

slot machine all day and occasionally

16:18

it jingles , but you're going to spend a lot of time and

16:20

money to get there .

16:26

It's a great analogy and I mean I think in some ways it defeats the purpose of hiring a ghostwriter

16:28

, because if you're spending all this time , okay , now you're spending time to save money

16:31

, which is the antithesis of hiring

16:33

. You could actually just be working on your mind map your

16:35

outline , going through the process , actually

16:37

writing the book . But it's

16:40

a natural thing trap to

16:42

fall into , right , I'll put myself in that bucket

16:44

. Obviously my time is worth a very

16:47

large amount and when I do that calculation

16:49

every time it shocks me . But also

16:51

I came from like a blue collar family where

16:54

my parents met working night

16:56

shift at a factory and so we clipped

16:58

coupons and all this stuff . So I'm always searching for the deal

17:00

right . So it's hard not to

17:02

fall into that trap of okay , let me just find

17:04

the cheapest , best ghostwriter and

17:07

go down that path . But then that's a good reminder

17:09

that , hey , maybe that's just a futile pursuit

17:11

because you're wasting the thing that

17:13

you tried to save in the beginning and in the

17:15

first place , which is time .

17:17

Absolutely . I would add , though , that that's

17:19

where word of mouth really really helps

17:21

. So if you , if that 10,000

17:23

person you know , like somebody gives

17:25

you a referral for them , like that's

17:27

huge right , they're saying , hey , I vetted

17:29

this person , they did the job , it was

17:31

great , it's worth every penny of $10,000

17:34

. Then you feel , oh , that's awesome , right . But

17:36

but if you have to hire 10 people

17:38

on Upwork and vet each

17:40

one of those and have all those 10 conversations

17:43

, well , how much did you actually just spend

17:45

in your growth capital Right ?

17:47

That's smart . So I guess a follow-up question on that

17:50

is how to find a good ghostwriter , and

17:52

it sounds like from what you kind of already said referrals

17:54

, but any other tips for folks who are looking

17:56

for ghostwriters how to find a good one

17:58

and how do you even know if they're good ?

18:00

Yeah . So I think that referrals are

18:02

great and the way you can frame that is

18:04

because a lot of people again

18:07

, they're paying for discretion , right

18:09

. So that's hard on both sides

18:12

. Like for us , our biggest , most

18:14

successful titles , we can't say

18:16

anything about them . We have NDAs , like they're

18:18

just , they're there , right . And for the person

18:20

looking like , how do you find out whose book

18:22

was ghostwritten ? Right . But if

18:24

you have somebody who has

18:27

a great book , for example , and

18:29

it looks like , maybe pick

18:31

10 people like this out there who have like

18:33

really high quality business books

18:35

where you can think , well , you're

18:37

not an author first , so possibly

18:40

you had help with this , even if it was just a coach

18:42

, and reach out to them and say I really

18:44

admire your book , like your book is really

18:46

meaningful , I'm looking to do

18:49

a book like that myself . Would you have

18:51

any suggestions on places to point

18:53

me for coaching or ghostwriting or anything

18:55

like that ? You're not accusing the person of being a

18:57

ghostwriter , you're saying this is a really great

18:59

book . I

19:06

want to achieve that level and I would like some help . And that's a great way to like get some of those

19:08

referrals because and you'll probably get a spectrum back and then shop

19:10

accordingly to your budget , cool .

19:12

That's great . I hope you're loving this episode

19:15

so far . So if you're serious about

19:17

writing and publishing your book , we

19:19

would love to chat with you and help create

19:21

a custom plan . All right , so all you need to do

19:23

right now is go to selfpublishingcom

19:25

forward slash schedule , schedule

19:27

a 45 minute consultation with

19:29

one of the experts on my team . All right

19:32

, let's implement what you're learning in this episode

19:34

and let's see how we can help with your book . Go

19:36

to selfpublishingcom forward slash

19:39

schedule . And so let's talk about

19:41

the process now and the process

19:43

of what it looks like to work with a ghostwriter , how

19:45

long it takes , all that stuff , and I guess I'll give the context

19:47

here . I forgot to mention this at the top . So

19:49

Sean is working with us at selfpublishingcom

19:51

behind the scenes with our team to kind of start to

19:53

build out our framework to offer ghostwriting

19:56

in the future . So this is something we've been incubating for months now

19:58

. So this is something we've been incubating for months now and

20:01

just we want to make sure that we do it right

20:03

and not just roll out

20:05

a slapped together crappy

20:07

solution . And so I think the thing that and

20:10

I know you've already been talking with the team about this

20:12

is quality at scale

20:14

profitably . Right

20:19

, it's almost like this Venn diagram of like , and so that's where my mind just keeps going . Going is

20:21

like okay , how do we predictably produce quality books at

20:24

scale ? Because , which I felt like is probably maybe the hard

20:26

part , because so many ghost writer

20:28

kind of services or companies or whatever

20:30

are pretty mom and pop but also

20:34

doing it profitably . So that's like kind of the real that

20:36

we're trying to solve , but I guess in the lens of

20:38

the customer or in the lens of , I

20:40

would say , author . But they're , I guess they're they're

20:43

, they're the author , not the writer . What's

20:45

the process look like and how long

20:47

does it typically take to work with a

20:49

ghostwriter ?

20:51

Yeah Well , first just a compliment to

20:53

your team , because whatever you're drilling

20:55

into them , like , it's always been

20:57

about satisfied customers

20:59

and over-delivering , and that's

21:01

great . And a lot of the conversations

21:04

that we've had around scale

21:06

are like , well , you

21:08

kind of have to charge more , like you just

21:10

can't have . And this

21:13

all started for those folks at home

21:15

. This all started because

21:17

Chandler wanted to offer

21:19

ghosting . It just makes sense . It makes sense with

21:21

the company , like there's unlimited

21:23

leads . People will always want to write books . Books

21:26

will never , ever stop being an authority

21:28

piece , ever . And

21:31

it makes sense to want to answer

21:33

that need . But , like you said at

21:35

the top of the call , well , I'm a bit of a ghostwriting

21:37

skeptic , right , it was both as

21:39

a consumer and as a fulfillment

21:42

, right , and that was the question when we

21:44

first had dinner . That was the question . It was like how

21:46

do I do a quality job of this

21:48

? And I saw the conflict

21:51

. I saw the conflict in you , where you're like

21:53

I want to really over deliver and

21:56

have something that people are really , really proud

21:58

of , but I also don't want to charge

22:00

a lot , and that's probably your blue collar . Same

22:04

with me , dude , same with me . We had a family business and

22:06

we were always scrapping by and like

22:08

, I totally get that and I've had

22:10

the same conflict my entire time in business . So

22:13

one of the things that had

22:15

us , you know , basically price

22:17

out at the top is because it's

22:19

limited , we can't grow so

22:21

much . It's not our only

22:24

business , it's a very curated

22:26

part of our business . So it only made sense

22:28

to focus on the top

22:30

. And also because I'm in a lot of masterminds

22:32

that's my network I know people

22:34

who want the books . So it made

22:36

sense . And for you , I was

22:38

looking at the problem more like . So , growing

22:41

up we had a flower shop and

22:44

my father and I had kind of a falling

22:47

out around . This is actually

22:49

why I left the business is because a

22:51

Trader Joe's moved in right next to us

22:53

and we

22:55

opened the store in 1980

22:57

. And in 1980 , you didn't

22:59

buy flowers at grocery stores , that wasn't a thing

23:02

, and we were the first

23:04

business in all of Long Beach that

23:06

did this . My dad would go to the flower market

23:08

and

23:10

so my dad dropped out of high school like I did

23:12

Like we're generationally fucked up , I

23:14

guess , but like we're very

23:16

, very entrepreneurial , and

23:22

the only reason we ever had a flower shop was because he saw an empty flower

23:24

shop him and my mom when they were out to dinner , and the cooler

23:26

was there . But the people had lost their lease . And I'm like

23:28

we could figure this out . They didn't know anything

23:31

about the flower business , same as , like me

23:33

, I didn't know anything about the publishing business when I started

23:35

, which is why I rocked it so hard , because I didn't

23:37

have to unlearn shit , right . So

23:39

they had this flower shop and lost

23:42

my train of thought dude , oh , pricing

23:45

, yeah . So he would go to . He would go to the flower

23:47

market and buy just a bunch of flowers and

23:49

only market up a tiny bit for the

23:51

bundles . So , instead of arrangements , it was people

23:53

buying flowers for themselves , and our

23:55

whole entire identity was inexpensive

23:57

flowers for yourselves . Well , that's

24:00

what Trader Joe's came in , and

24:04

Trader Joe's could sell stuff for less than it costs us wholesale , because they

24:06

actually just wanted people to buy the wine . So

24:08

my dad constantly

24:10

wanted to compete on price and I'm

24:12

like , dude , we'll never , ever

24:15

win that Like we've already

24:17

lost . There's no way we can win that war

24:19

. So let's just be , let's

24:21

go the opposite way and become Long Beach's

24:24

most prestigious design shop . And

24:26

it was a . It was just as

24:28

much of a idea clash as you

24:30

could get and the business went out of business three

24:33

years later . But it happened , and

24:36

ever since then I've had that conflict

24:38

still , because I do hedge on charging on

24:40

price . But once we had to really anchor

24:42

it in the ghosting space , we wanted

24:44

that . And when you're like

24:46

, trying to find this perfect thing for selfpublishingcom

24:49

, that is like the highest price

24:51

, you know that I

24:54

guess the lowest price that allows

24:56

you to scale and protects everybody . It

24:58

protects the clients and the

25:00

end product . I think you're handling

25:03

it really well and that does come down to

25:05

process , and so that just basically

25:07

means what are the guarantees that we

25:09

can make around this ? So , like , make

25:11

sure that everything has an accurate story

25:13

, so everything feels narrative . Make sure

25:15

that , like , regardless of whether the customer

25:18

in the book is the character or

25:20

the person telling the story is the character , there's

25:22

enough of an arc there that when somebody

25:25

is done reading it , they feel emotionally

25:27

connected enough to share that book with somebody

25:29

else . Right , like there are things that you

25:31

can do to make the product better and then

25:33

filter for your customer and just say like

25:36

, look , we're really sorry if

25:38

this price is too high for a ghostwriting

25:40

or ghostwritten book , but , good news

25:43

, we have coaches available and we have these other

25:45

programs available . Yeah , so I think

25:47

that seeing ghosting as something that's for

25:49

everybody is the mistake . If you're trying

25:51

to scale , you're always going to have enough

25:53

customers to scale at the product

25:56

that you build like you just will

25:58

like . There's always these people who need books . So

26:00

the focus that we've had when

26:02

talking about process is how to make

26:05

the best promise possible that

26:07

, to your point , is always going to have happy

26:09

customers that feel like self-publishing

26:11

over deliverable .

26:12

Cool , that's great . So let's , um

26:15

, let's look at the process as a whole and I want

26:17

to say just hey , uh , whether the

26:19

people are working with us or working with a ghostwriter

26:21

in general , what do you believe is the ideal process

26:24

? And so let's imagine like hey , we've got

26:26

a whiteboard here , we're doing boxes . There's

26:28

let's call it , five steps

26:30

, maybe seven or whatever . What are the key

26:32

things that need to happen for

26:35

a ghostwriter and a

26:37

client to work together successfully to create

26:39

a great book , okay .

26:40

So that's a great question . So you

26:43

guys have a few more steps in

26:45

the process than we do and we're figuring

26:47

that out right now , to like iron that out , like

26:49

what is cause , we're a little more minimalist

26:52

, but then our buckets

26:54

take longer . So we have three

26:56

essential buckets and this works

26:58

really well . For us , it's basically

27:01

pre-production and discovery , and in

27:03

that time it's a lot of interviews

27:05

, it's a lot of questions , it's a lot of getting

27:07

to know the person and for

27:09

us , in this part , we often actually

27:12

find that the , the author

27:14

, has a different book in mind than

27:16

what we actually end up with . So they come

27:18

with a preconceived idea of oh , here's

27:20

the story I want to tell , here's what I think we

27:22

needed to do , and we're like wait , wait , wait For the

27:24

brand that you're actually trying to build , for

27:27

the message that you're actually trying to convey . Have

27:29

you thought about this story ? And

27:31

that's where it's really important

27:33

to have like and this

27:35

is another thing that makes the price worth

27:37

it so

27:41

a basic ghostwriter who can get your story told is different than a team who is coming

27:43

up with the best possible title , the

27:46

best possible logline and hook some

27:48

of the marketing and conversion elements that are gonna

27:50

make it a perennial seller over time . So

27:52

we spent a lot of like the first phase

27:54

doing that . Then the second phase is getting

27:56

all of that into a usable

27:58

outline . Like we had a thousand

28:01

pages of transcripts recently to go over

28:03

. Okay , now we have to take all

28:05

of this discovery and turn it into

28:08

an outline . And that's where

28:10

some of our fiction chops come in , because

28:12

we don't always go like beginning end and

28:14

our stuff isn't really prescriptive . And then the

28:16

third phase is writing . But

28:18

each of those like so the

28:21

commitment on the client's part reduces over

28:23

time . So up front it's a lot

28:25

Like most of our clients have

28:28

weekly meetings until we don't need them anymore

28:30

, and you

28:32

know , then when we're in phase two , they have

28:34

to respond to the outlines and like , fill

28:36

out questions and like oh , I don't like this . Oh

28:39

no , I know I told you that story

28:41

, but I don't want it in the book . Right , you get a lot

28:43

of that , right

28:45

? Oh , you know what ? Can we please change so-and-so's

28:47

name to so-and-so ? And then

28:50

, once you have an outline that's really clear , then

28:52

it goes into phase three , which

28:54

is actually writing it . But then even after that

28:56

there's you know , you want to send it back to them and

28:59

make sure that it's there and going

29:01

to the actual like how do you scale this ? That's

29:04

a lot of the questions that we're asking right now , like

29:06

how many times does a client get to pass

29:08

it back ? You know , because you , you

29:10

, you can't scale something . If

29:12

a client can send it back seven times

29:14

, like that's not , it's not reasonable and

29:16

also that's just the client

29:18

not trusting the process , because there's no

29:20

way that if you guys are that dialed

29:23

in and and for everyone listening

29:25

dude , the team is dialed in , they

29:27

all come from Trad Publishing , they all have like

29:29

excellent vocabulary around every

29:31

single part of this process . So it's really

29:34

like , how do we get the process in a way

29:36

where you know the client trusts

29:38

us ? And it is hard , there is

29:40

a disconnect and this goes all the way back to the things

29:42

you were saying at the very beginning about , like

29:45

the sky high expectations and

29:47

, like you know , the stick figure budget , and

29:49

you see that over and over again , where

29:51

the person with the stick figure budget is

29:53

the person who has the most opinions on

29:55

every part of the process and we'll send

29:58

it back seven times because they

30:00

want to get their money's worth . They feel like they're

30:02

not getting their money's worth unless they're really pushing

30:04

back and also they don't really understand

30:06

enough about the craft or the process or the end

30:08

product . It's just about how it emotionally

30:11

makes them feel . And that's another reason

30:13

that you know the filter is good because

30:15

, like $50,000 , you're

30:18

going to get clients who can see okay , if I

30:20

spent $50,000 on this , I'm going

30:22

to get at least $100,000 back and

30:24

I'm going to trust the experts to create

30:27

that product and experience for me instead

30:29

of second guessing everything that they do . That's

30:31

good .

30:32

I like that overview . So it sounds like the

30:34

process that you guys do is pre-production and discovery

30:36

. That's the most time intensive part on

30:38

the author . So there's interviews , there's

30:40

pulling kind of all this stuff out , then moving into

30:43

bucket two , which is creating the usable outline

30:45

. So that's kind of sifting and distilling and

30:47

, as we both know , the better the outline

30:49

, the better the book and the faster the book . And

30:52

then bucket three , writing the

30:54

book . And so this is kind of like I would

30:56

say it fits-ish into

30:58

. So we've got our eight milestones which if people

31:01

are watching on the YouTube channel , you can see this

31:03

, or if you just pull up my book

31:05

, it's called Published on Amazon . The image

31:07

is right there on the page . But there's eight milestones

31:09

to go from blank page to published . The first

31:11

four is what we call the more writing method . So it's

31:13

mind map , outline , rough draft

31:15

and editing and kind of pretty

31:17

closely mirrors and it's

31:20

oftentimes whether people are writing the book themselves

31:22

or working with a ghostwriter

31:24

. You know , we've obviously got a lot more experience coaching

31:26

people through the writing themselves about

31:29

thousands of books published that way . But

31:32

we see that if they skip

31:34

that step , which is very tempting , hey

31:36

, let me just skip this and start writing . Then

31:38

they end up meandering and the book isn't

31:41

as good . So it's fun to see those kind of crossovers

31:43

. I want to ask a couple of final

31:46

follow-up questions and we're

31:48

running out of time so I'll kind of lightning round

31:50

. But in that process that you just listed

31:52

, what's the hardest part and what

31:54

authors or people who are

31:56

hiring a ghostwriter , what do they need to be

31:59

aware of and to

32:02

kind of grease the wheels of the hardest parts of the process

32:04

?

32:04

I think the hardest part is

32:07

being open as an

32:09

author , be open to the experience

32:12

, be open to being vulnerable

32:14

. So I just made a joke about like , oh

32:17

, I told you that story , but I don't want it in a book

32:19

. That's actually not a joke , that should

32:21

be a part of every book . You should be telling your ghostwriter stories that are not in the book , because

32:24

it gives them context of who you are , how you handle situations , all of that . You should be telling

32:26

your ghostwriter stories that are not in the book , because it gives them context

32:28

of who you are , how you handle situations

32:30

, all of that . You should get vulnerable with

32:32

your ghostwriter . You should not treat them as

32:35

an employee , you should treat them as a collaborator

32:37

in this project . Because if

32:40

you open yourself to that relationship

32:42

, then the hard parts aren't really hard

32:44

, because you really develop this rapport

32:48

where it's all about candor and manners . Anything

32:50

can be said , as long as it's said

32:52

, you know , appropriately , and that

32:54

allows the gross writer to ask some very

32:57

hard questions . Because if we're , if

32:59

we're able to ask the more difficult

33:01

questions , then we get a better product . But

33:03

if we have that like client

33:06

, you know , provider relationship

33:08

, it's different . It's like well , I don't want to upset the

33:10

client . I don't want to ask that and

33:12

that's that's not . That's not great for anybody

33:15

. You really want to have rapport .

33:17

Cool , that's great . And then I

33:19

guess a couple , a couple part

33:22

questions . So we got one question from a listener

33:24

. Sarah says how do you deal with the

33:26

emotional aspect of not being publicly recognized

33:28

for your work , especially when a book that you ghost

33:30

wrote becomes highly successful ?

33:33

Yeah , honestly , you guys , I just don't care

33:35

. So I'm super , super

33:37

collaborative . It's just , it's my

33:39

nature . So I never like

33:41

I wanted to become a ghostwriter originally

33:44

because I needed to save my house . That

33:46

was it . So , like you

33:49

know , I was getting paid . This is 15 years

33:51

ago . I was getting paid a penny a word for SEO

33:53

articles and so I'm like , how do I make a dollar

33:55

a word ? Oh well , there's two ways copywriting

33:58

or ghost writing . That's it right . So

34:00

I got really good at both of those things . And

34:02

then , as I built a story studio

34:05

, like we do a lot of fiction

34:07

publishing and that requires

34:09

I used to just want to write everything under my name

34:11

because hell , that's the story I told . But

34:13

like , okay , here's this like vampire

34:15

story and here's this like detective story

34:17

and readers aren't like that . Readers are very genre

34:20

specific . So over time we had

34:22

to come up with a bunch of pending . I'm not getting credit

34:24

for it anyway , like . And then I'm working

34:26

with this author and this author and I

34:28

just don't . Maybe

34:31

it's because I have 200 plus books

34:33

. I get credit for plenty

34:35

. I don't need credit for it and a

34:37

lot of times there's actually a lot of joy

34:39

. So , very recently , a project that we

34:41

had to do or got to do

34:43

I didn't get any credit for

34:45

it . It was a very , very

34:49

successful book . But if I had got credit credit for it , it would have been a subtraction

34:51

for the author and for the project and , like

34:53

, all I want is for the author to

34:55

get everything and more like , just

34:58

like you , dude , you're like I just want like

35:00

customers that are beyond thrill . That's how

35:02

I feel and whether

35:04

you know , like , a lot of the

35:06

stuff I don't get credit for isn't even

35:08

client work , it's just people I'm collaborating

35:11

with , but then this project becomes something

35:13

really cool . That's all I need . I need the successful

35:15

project , not the credit .

35:17

That's a great way to go about it . Well , guys

35:19

, if you want your questions answered on a future

35:22

episode , leave a comment on this

35:24

video on the YouTube channel or leave

35:26

it in a review on the podcast

35:29

. Couple of final things , as we

35:31

wrap One real

35:33

soon we will be opening up the beta and

35:36

accepting our first five authors for

35:39

ghostwriting with us . So if you want to be considered

35:41

as one of those first five authors , book

35:44

a call with the team at selfpublishingcom forward , slash talk and we'll see

35:46

if it makes sense . We'll see if it's a fit . So selfpublishingcom forward , slash talk and we'll see

35:48

if it makes sense . We'll see if it's a fit . So selfpublishingcom

35:50

forward , slash talk . Booka call with the team

35:53

. We'll cap it at five to start

35:55

. We're going to get

35:57

things going and then we'll obviously scale it from there

35:59

. But if you're early on in the process

36:02

you get the most handholding , the most help

36:04

. All that because we

36:06

want to make sure that you're a raving

36:08

fan at the end of that process . So if that's

36:10

you , let us know . Book a call with the team . And

36:13

then for you , sean , what

36:15

would be your parting piece of advice , knowing what

36:17

you know now , kind of being a ghostwriter

36:19

doing it a bunch of times , managing

36:21

ghostwriters like . You've just got such a unique look

36:24

from being on all sides of the table . What

36:26

would be your parting piece of advice for someone

36:28

who's thinking about working

36:30

with a ghostwriter for their book ?

36:32

Definitely know your why . I think that's the

36:34

most important thing . Know what you want to

36:37

accomplish . Ask yourself the question hey

36:39

, this book published . It's a year

36:41

after it's published and I'm holding a party

36:43

and everyone's toasting to the success

36:46

of this book . What are we actually

36:48

toasting ? That's a really good question to ask

36:50

because it gives you direction . And

36:52

also don't do it before you're ready , Like , if you

36:55

know you need a book , great , Build

37:00

a business enough to justify getting the book , Instead of like , okay , a book's going to cost

37:02

me $50,000 . I'm going to look for the

37:04

$20,000 version . Dude , don't

37:06

do that . Make

37:11

thousand dollars .

37:11

I'm going to look for the twenty thousand dollar version . Dude , don't do that . Make thirty thousand extra

37:13

dollars this year by focusing on your business and get the book next year . Love it , Sean . Where

37:15

can people go to find out more about you , your business , your books ? Where's the best

37:17

place for people to go ?

37:19

These days I've been hanging out on LinkedIn for

37:21

some weird reason . Like I just started

37:24

a couple of months ago , I'm there every day , so

37:26

you can find me on LinkedIn . Other

37:29

than that , my two babies other

37:32

than my real babies in real life are

37:34

sterlingandstonenet and invisiblencmedia

37:37

.

37:37

Cool Guys , give it up for Sean

37:39

. Just such a legend I

37:41

was telling him right before this . A beacon

37:43

of positivity . It's infectious and

37:46

we've had a lot of fun just getting to do some work behind

37:48

the scenes with him and a lot

37:50

of big things ahead . So , Sean , you're the man . Thank

37:52

you .

37:53

Adios .

37:53

Thank you so much for watching , or

37:55

listening to , this episode of

37:58

the Self-Publishing School Podcast . I know there's so many

38:00

places that you can be spending your time . There's other podcasts

38:02

that you can be listening to , youtube channels that you can

38:04

be watching , so thank you so much . It

38:10

means the world . Now I want you to do three things right now . If you found this episode helpful

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are on the YouTube channel . So , number one subscribe

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to this podcast wherever , whether this is Spotify

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to this podcast right now so you don't miss a

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future episode . And then , number three , this is probably

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right reviews are super important and help this podcast get discovered by other people

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. Thank you so much . I'll see you in the

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next episode .