Chandler Bolt: Practical Strategies You Should Implement For Publishing Your Own Book

Chandler Bolt

Want to drive quality attention to your marketplace or eCommerce business?

Chandler Bolt, author of seven best-selling books – recommends writing and publishing your own book.

But you need to do it right.

The number of people publishing their own books has skyrocketed in the past few years.

And if you are investing your top dollars into it, make sure you do it right.

Adam had an insightful conversation with Chandler Bolt – who shares his powerful strategies that you can implement as well to achieve ground-breaking results.

More about Chandler:

Chandler Bolt is the CEO of Self-Publishing School and SelfPublishing.com, the author of seven best selling books, and Forbes 30 Under 30.

Key Takeaways:

  • Chandler gives a rundown about himself and his self-publishing business.
  • Chandler’s explains how he appeared in the Forbes 30 Under 30.
  • Who should seriously consider writing books? Are there any specific set of people for whom writing a book is crucial?
  • Are people using books just to promote their products or services rather than delivering value?
  • Chandler quote, “My recommendation for people is if you if you if you give away all your best stuff for free, people will pay you to tell it to them again.”
  • How did Chandler end up in the book publishing business?
  • Chandler’s focus on delivering actual value to their customers – how they coach their client for the best possible results
  • What was Chandler’s approach like during the initial phase of his business?
  • What guidance did Chandler occur during the initial phase of his business? And how has his foundation impacting the current state of his business?
  • Can you turn your episodic workshops or webinars into books?
  • Are there any hooks or things Chandler and his team take into consideration while coming up with the title or topic to attract attention?
    • What points do they focus on the most?

Conclusion

Publishing your own book will help you build a rock-solid personal brand, but only if you do it right. Your book shouldn’t be focused on sales – instead should really deliver value.

That’s the only way to achieve success.

Learn More About Chandler Bolt – https://self-publishingschool.com/

Book a call to chat with Adam at:  https://studio.changecreator.com

Subscribe HERE:

Episode Transcript (Unedited):

Adam G. Force  0:00 

How do social entrepreneurs and small businesses create an authentic brand people love so they can get the edge they need to stand out, create Predictable Revenue and compete against the big guys. That’s what we’re here to discuss. I’m Adam forest, the founder of change creator, and this is the authentic brand mastery podcast.

What’s up everybody, welcome back to the show. This is your host, Adam force. We have been going through a whirlwind over here. So between the business just kind of really picking up, you know, we’ve been hiring, we’ve just hired several more people. And I also had my second baby. So I had a seven, I had a two month old in the house and things have been a little bit all over the place. And so yes, sorry, if the shows have been a little inconsistent, but we’ll get back on track very soon. And as we get more hands on deck and all that kind of good stuff. Okay. So you know, if you missed the last episode, we talked to Scott Turman, he is somebody we spoke to about the self publishing space, I was tapping into this, and I’m bringing in one more today, Chandler bolts, like we’re gonna get into more on the topic of self publishing. I mean, the idea of self publishing is great. So whether you’re ecommerce, your coach or services, when you’re CEO, you’re an owner, there’s value here, because this opens, the doors give you something to talk about, right, you want to do a podcast roadshow, you want to get different kinds of PR. It’s valuable from that regard. It also brings people into your world builds up your expertise, your credibility, so this personal brand, right, as more people connect with you and learn about it, that way, they’re more inclined to buy your product. So again, this goes for the range of business categories. So really cool stuff. And I wanted to go a little further and get some a second set of perspective here, set of perspective, a second perspective here. And that’s what we’re going to talk to today with Chandler. Now. If you guys are looking, we are taking on some new business. So right now, if you have an E commerce business, and you want to scale, I mean, we have clients with 12% Plus conversion rates. Guys, you just don’t get that from your standard website, we focus on conversions and sales and just really bringing your brand to a place that it needs to be. So just reach out, stop by change creator.com Go to our services, send in an application and we will chat. Let’s get into it with Okay, show me the heat. No, you gotta do it. Hey, what’s up, Chandler Welcome to the show. How you doing today, man?

Chandler Bolt  2:47 

Adam, I’m great. Great to be here.

Adam G. Force  2:49 

Awesome. So, you know, you’re you got a lot going on, you know, your background and stuff, I’m gonna let you give your, your quick overview. And we’re gonna get into some of the stuff that, you know, the self publishing, you know, expertise that you have, I think it’s becoming a more popular topic, honestly, you’re, you’re not the first person to come on here with that topic to share. And so I feel like it’s, I’m seeing it more. And I think there’s more demand, maybe for getting books out there and building the personal brands. So give them a little bit of a rundown about yourselves, people know where you’re coming from?

Chandler Bolt  3:25 

Cool. Yeah, I run a company called self publishing school. We’ve published about 6000 books in the last seven years or so. So we publish about two to three books a day, where the business of changing lives through books, we believe that books change lives, they change the lives of authors, and they change the lives of readers. Right. And so that’s, that’s our goal is to help people publish books that change the lives of readers, but also that grow their business, which I think that’ll be most relevant to this crew, either in that six, phase six, figure seven figure range, looking to use a book to grow your business. And so that’s kind of my I’m a college dropout. And a sea level English student who ended up writing books and, and, you know, doing it in an ADHD friendly way. And so there’s a lot to unpack,

Adam G. Force  4:13 

pop popping some Vyvanse

Chandler Bolt  4:16 

not anymore. I used to be prescribed Adderall. But you know, it’s, I mean, this is maybe a side road, but I think, I think it’s very helpful for people who have ADHD. And I think it’s very helpful to have done it, and then to not consistently take the medicine for me personally. This is not medical advice. I have ADHD, ADHD, but it’s something I taught my brain was capable. And I think there’s not a lot of long term studies about the impact of Adderall and Vyvanse and all this stuff. And so yeah, I think it was really helpful but for a temporary time, but I’m I’m very much glad that I’m not on it anymore.

Adam G. Force  4:56 

Yeah, yeah. You know, I used to work on those brands. Vyvanse is intuitive, and stuff like that back in my WebMD days, and I was the marketing guy in that world.

Chandler Bolt  5:06 

Yeah. I mean, do you want to be very clear here though, for entrepreneurs and really, for leaders for anyone, I think ADHD is a superpower. And I think some in some ways that I think is a huge blessing and a major gift that that allows you to be creative. It allows, you know, sometimes it’s, you can just, you can be fanatical about certain things, and there’s all these beautiful benefits, I think we as entrepreneurs can actually channel for our benefit. And so in some ways, I think those medications kind of limit that, like they suppress. I know, for me, it personally, it suppress my creativity is suppressed by wanting to talk to and interact with other people because it didn’t feel productive. It’s like, oh, no, I can’t I can’t talk to that person. Like, if I do, then this is like, I’m not gonna get this stuff done. And so it’s just like this ultra productive robot. And ultimately, I didn’t like who I was becoming on that journey. So that’s why I decided to switch off of it. unexpected turn at the beginning of

Adam G. Force  6:06 

low right here. So, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. Well, I can go on and on on that topic. So let’s get back on track. So, you, if I remember correctly from the info I got you were on the Forbes 30 under 30. Is that right? Yes, sir. Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. How does that work? I’d be curious. And how, how does that happen?

Chandler Bolt  6:33 

Yeah, it’s I mean, it’s meant to be the, the top 30 to 30. People in different categories, making an impact, making an impact, making a difference, and I guess, being successful, by whatever arbitrary success metric.

Adam G. Force  6:49 

I see it all the time. I’m like, yeah.

Chandler Bolt  6:54 

Yeah, I mean, there’s an application process, and people have to nominate you and stuff like that. So I found out random. I mean, I went through the application process. And then they asked me questions and stuff like that. But then I didn’t know I got it until someone messaged me and said, Hey, congrats on Forbes. And so it was cool. I mean, it’s really an external, external validation. On Internet work. And your personal brand. That’s cool. Yeah, for sure.

Adam G. Force  7:21 

I mean, and that’s what you know, like, so I guess, you know, you got 6000 books now. People coming from all walks of life, I assume? Is there a specific customer that you typically see with the biggest need for writing books?

Chandler Bolt  7:40 

I mean, I’m using entrepreneurs. It’s, there’s entrepreneurs. And I mean, I think it’s, there’s, we kind of have a few different buckets, right? There’s someone who wants to make an impact. There’s someone who wants to grow their business. And there’s someone who says, Hey, I’ve always wanted to write this book. And this is maybe a one time thing that I’m going to do. And so but I think the ones that can make the biggest impact are for entrepreneurs, specifically, if you strategically write a book that grows, that builds, that brings in more leads more sales and more referrals. And so that’s the way that I think about it is how do you write a book that generates more leads sales and referrals for your business?

Adam G. Force  8:19 

Yeah, I mean, you notice, because I listened to a lot of audio books, okay. And I noticed more and more books, some of them great, others losing substance, and they focus on making it like a sales funnel process, by the way, stopped by our link, get the resources by the way, step, right. And then at the end, it’s like, here’s a special offer. And you just feel like you just went through a very big sales pitch. And I’m all about sales pitches in my world. I mean, I love selling I appreciate when people sell when they have something of value, right? Something that I’m interested in, so I’m okay with those kinds of things. But there’s books out there like atomic habits, right, James clear is good example. He does promote links and stuff. But the book is absolutely freakin packed with, you know, good insights, and inspiration and all that kind of stuff. Others I’ve read where I’m like, I got nothing out of this. I just ended up with a pitch. All right, do you see some of that stuff happening in your world?

Chandler Bolt  9:20 

Oh, absolutely. I agree with you. I think it’s a big mistake. My recommendation for people is if you if you if you give away all your best stuff for free, people will pay you to tell it to them again. Right? And so people always ask, they say, Okay, should I give every if I’m using this to grow a business? Should I tell everything? Should I hold some things back? Should I? What’s kind of the line and I think there is no line? Or maybe the line is that you just you give away everything and you teach all of your best stuff. And then people will say this is so helpful. Thank you, Adam Chandler, whoever the author is right and now I want to do business with you further. So this is what I tried to do with my new book published It’s I mean, you’ll notice, I mean, it’s kind of what you said, you know, there’s there’s definitely calls to action. But I try to make sure that it’s a resource that furthers the inference makes it easier to implement what’s in that chapter, right? But the line is, I think, is that it shouldn’t feel like that was essential information that should have been in the book. So that’s where I think you can see like a bait and switch as a reader is it’s like, is if like you said, if every single chapter is go here, go here, go here. Or if it feels like, Oh, you’re telling me to go to your website to give you my information for something that you really should have put in the book? I think it does it, then I think it actually inhibits the reader experience. Yeah, the goal is to make sure hey, this book is the best book on the subject for that thing, that they’re they’re they’re buying to, you know, to read about. And I make it easy for my best readers to become subscribers or paying customers.

Adam G. Force  10:50 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s yeah, just how you approach it, right. And I because I know when I read books, tease while ago, like clockwork, which was about processes for your business and sentences, they have worksheets, where they’re going through all these things, and org charts and all that stuff. I’m like, Oh, how are they setting that up? And they’re like, oh, by the way, we have this worksheet, you can grab it that I’m like, yeah, like, I went to the website and got it, you know, so didn’t have to recreate the wheel. So to your point, that’s not something they can put in a book, but they can share it with you as an additional value.

Chandler Bolt  11:23 

100%. And I definitely agree.

Adam G. Force  11:27 

Yeah. So what got you into this anyway?

Chandler Bolt  11:31 

Yeah, so it’s kind of, uh, you know, I wrote and I was dropping out of school, I kind of discovered that I was learning how to run a business from professors who have never ran businesses. That didn’t make sense. So I decided to drop out. And I was, had been, you know, running businesses that were I was learning a lot, and they were doing pretty well. And then, you know, I wrote and published a couple books, they did pretty well. Then people started asking, Hey, how are you doing this book thing, and I dropped out. And I was working on a business at the time that was just failing. I mean, it was just not doing well. And I just remember, people kept asking you about the book stuff, like, how are you doing this? How are you doing this, and, and I get on the phone with them for an hour. And, you know, tell them everything I knew for free, just to be a nice person and say, Hey, do this, do this, do this. And then it’s kind of one of those things where somebody can only smack you in the face so many times for you turn on look. And I looked and there was this whole line of people that wanted to help with this thing. So that spurred us to launch the beta version of what ultimately became self publishing school, we had a lot of success with those cohorts of authors. And so then for me, I said, Oh, I believe in this. And I can sell this because I’ve seen it work for other people. And it’s, I can’t really sell things that I don’t believe in and, and so but so that was validation, this works. And I think the lesson here for entrepreneurs, and this is something I think is so important, is sell then build. Okay, so it you know, some people call this a minimum viable product. Some some people call this you know, idea validation, or whatever. But until you have sales, you don’t have a business, you have a business idea. And even within, you know, successful businesses, like I know, a lot of successful entrepreneurs are listening to this, right? You maybe you’ve got a 678 figure company, well, this goes with new product lines, too. Because just because you’ve successfully created a thriving company doesn’t mean that you know what your customers want, have your customers tell them tell you what they want, vote with their wallets, and then build a better product that solves their needs, because they’ll tell you exactly what they want. And so that was the big lesson I learned in all that is sell then build. And I think it’s a lesson that it’s helpful for people starting out but also experienced entrepreneurs is certainly do to this day, is we don’t launch a product until we first done a beta version of that product. Yeah. And then we sell the beta and then fulfill the beta. And so it’s it’s better for everyone, and it leads to better products that sell better and all that stuff.

Adam G. Force  14:00 

Yeah, I mean, I think there’s good points there. I mean, I have spoken to people who are like, Oh, well, I’m gonna be a coach and, and help other people thrive in their business. And they have not done it themselves, but they’re like, I’ve listened to every course and Guru and I’m just regurgitating what they say. They’re little, but I haven’t I’ve had a couple of wins before. And I’m like, so in my mind, you have to live it, live it right and prove it out to your point and make the sales and then to just like your story, like, your story is attached to the business. There’s a reason why so if someone learns about your business and brand, it’s it makes sense, right? It’s like, oh, okay, so you were in school, you dropped out. You wrote some books, people kept asking you, it’s related. It’s not like you just picked up how to be a gardener and read a couple books and you’re trying to teach it.

Chandler Bolt  14:56 

Oh, 100% You gotta see What’s you know?

Adam G. Force  15:01 

gotta teach what you know? Yeah. I see it all the time. So interesting. So tell me a little bit about, you know, you came out what were you sharing with people for that hour on the phone? Tell me a little bit about it.

Chandler Bolt  15:16 

It’s I mean, it’s a funny segue. It’s exactly what I did. I’m a big I mean, it’s a core value mine, personally is teach what you’ve done. And I, and it’s in the ethos of what we do is self publishing schools, we teach things that we’ve actually done. And so I think it’s so important. And so that was what I was doing. As I said, I’ve published two books, here’s exactly what worked for me do this, do this, do this, try this, you should maybe consider this and that sort of thing. And so that ultimately, you know, that was kind of back of the napkin, just trying to be helpful. But then that’s the beautiful thing is when you sell them build, well, I, you know, we sold out the beta of self publishing school. And then I said, Hey, can you tell me exactly what you want to know, and exactly what you want to learn. And then we built the curriculum based on that. And we drifted out one week at a time, specific to what people needed. And then my highest level clients, they got one on one coaching with me. And then I told them, I said, Hey, if you ever need, if you ever need any training or anything, just let me know. And I’ll create a training video around it. And what was kind of cool is those people were used, typically two to three weeks ahead of everyone else. Yeah. And so I take what I was coaching them on, and what they were requesting, and that became the curriculum for the rest of the class, you know, and then the next week, or the next two weeks, or whatever, so that helped build better curriculum that helped get better results for all of our customers. And then ultimately, that became the curriculum or the, you know, the curriculum for the program as a whole. And then the structure for my book, right. And that’s, you know, that’s that was the first edition of published and now there’s a second edition of published that, that would be my recommendation for anyone who’s got a training program or anything like that is you’ve already created the book. You just didn’t know it yet. Yeah, it’s in the curriculum and the frameworks and outlines evaporated.

Adam G. Force  17:12 

Okay, so what were what was some of the, I guess, pointers you gave in the that’s what I was trying to get at in that conversation? Like, you know, we’d have to go in crazy detail. Yeah. Just kind of like, what was the guidance? Like, maybe there’s guidance you gave, then obviously, things changed, as you’ve probably really fleshed out the business and processes and all the curriculums and stuff like you just mentioned, I’m curious if there was some that held true that were from those early day, one hour conversations, the steps you told people to take? Did any of that roll over to what’s going on now?

Chandler Bolt  17:42 

Yeah, a lot of it. I mean, that became the foundation, and then you get better at, you get better frameworks and making them catchy, and sticky and memorable and all that. But really, a lot of the core components, the core shell stayed the same. Now getting super practical. There’s, I call this the more writing method. Now, it wasn’t that catchy when I first came up with. But it’s, I know, probably nobody can see this. But we can kind of, if you go to the book page of my book published, you can see it on the book page on Amazon, or you can just flip to page 17 in the book. But basically, there’s eight milestones to writing and publishing a book, right? So there’s the first four are what I call the more writing method. So there’s my map, outline, rough draft, and editing, right, and specifically, self editing. And then you move into professional editing, cover design, formatting, and launch, right. And so those eight milestones, I mean, they weren’t articulated that clearly. But but that that we kind of synthesized down from that, right, but a lot of that was the core of the early curriculum. And so for someone who’s thinking about writing a book, just to get super practical, is, I would say, take the sake, the idea that you’re thinking about writing about, as soon as you finish listening to this podcast, grab a blank sheet of paper, put a circle in the middle, put your idea in the middle, set a timer for 15 minutes on your phone, and write out everything you can think of on that topic. This is an M and more writing method. It’s the mind map, right? And so the stories that you have the lessons that you’ve learned the broken record conversations, maybe that you have over and over and over again, with new clients or new prospects that will form the Mind Map. And for a lot of people, they do that process, they realize they’ve got way more than they can. And then they kind of jumpstart the process.

Adam G. Force  19:27 

Yeah. It’s funny, because I always thought about, like, you know, we can create workshops, webinars, all these. They’re informational talk tracks, just like a chapter in a book. Yes. And I’ve always felt like, and for some reason, I never do it. But like, you could sit here and you can do Facebook Lives. Like let’s say you make a list, like you said, a mind map or whatever, and you break down in order like I gotta if I’m going to teach someone this topic, I gotta go through these 10 things. Those 10 topics you talk 30 to 30 minutes to an hour on each one. That’s a book right there.

Chandler Bolt  19:57 

Yes, yes. So if you Running a workshop, if you are facilitating, if you’re coaching, if you are teaching in any capacity, you can do exactly what you just said, Adam, that’s I interviewed Ryan Deiss, founder of Digital Marketer on my podcast. And he, that’s how he wrote his book. As he said, Now, what’s really important is you don’t skip the first couple of steps, the mind map an outline, because that might not been outlined in forums, those five to 10, webinars or talks or whatever, whatever the mechanism is, and then you break it down 30 minutes to an hour at a time. And those are either chapters or sections, depending on the length of, you know, whether you’re teaching for an hour or teaching for 15 minutes, or Yep, that sort of thing. Those are chapters or sections, and then you do enough of those, a handful of them. You’ve now written, aka spoke, and you can get transcribed a rough, rough draft of your book now, is that going to be need to be edited and improved? And I still have no doubt, no doubt. But you’ve at least gotten words on the page. And so it can be a whole lot less intimidating to getting your rough draft.

Adam G. Force  21:03 

Yeah, you got a nice starting point right there. I mean, it just seems like such a simple thing to do. And most people just don’t do it. Now, I’d be curious to know, if you have found, are there any types of considerations? Right, so great, you have all this content. But when we’re ideating, a topic, it’s going to be hopefully based on something you know, people are interested in, because you’re maybe selling a service or product, or it’s a category that people already show interest. So, you know, when you’re thinking of the title or the topic that will attract attention, or when you’re writing the book, is there a certain Have you noticed certain hooks or things to include, you know, perspectives, angles and how we do something? I like how you said, you mentioned something before now I lost my mind buttons? Yeah. Yeah. Like the broken record conversations like those, you may not think of that in your mind mapping, but stuff like that is a good perspective to get juicy info.

Chandler Bolt  22:01 

Yes. So I would go topic over title, your title doesn’t matter until the end of the process. Okay, now, the topic matters a lot. And I think, you know, I talked about this in my new book, the four P’s of a best selling book. So there’s person pain, promise and price. So the person is who are you writing to. And I recommend that people think of one person that they actually know. So this is what I would call your ideal reader. It’s not an avatar, this is not some fictional character, this is someone you actually know, is really, really important. And you write to them. And that makes the book way better and easier to write. And then there’s the pain. So what’s the pain they have? They know that they have? Yeah, and then what’s the promise that you want to make with this book now that in there’s the price, which that’s pretty self explanatory for books. But so that is a starting point. Now you’re gonna focus that arrow kind of on the area that like on a topic that if you’re writing for your business, it’s one of the biggest objections that keep people from doing business with you, what are the trigger events that cause people to reach out for help on the thing that you solve, or like I said earlier, the broken record conversations that you or your sales team, or your customer success team is just having over and over and over again, with with clients or prospects, that’s the best book to write, because that’s going to directly lead to sales leads and referrals for your business. And so that’s how I look at it. And that’s how I focus the the topic of the book in a way that will help you generate more revenue for the business. Yeah.

Adam G. Force  23:36 

And I think it’s a good point to write to one person that you can identify and like have a picture on your wall, that person or something like, You know what I mean? Like, that’s a sales copy less than I’m a sales guy, marketing guy. So for me, that’s the lesson I’ve learned when it comes to writing any kind of copy for your landing page, or your ads, like always write to one person. People forget that, you know, in their, in their eagerness to appeal to many, you know, so. Alright, we got just a couple of minutes. And I want to give a chance where people can learn more about you, where do they find? Let’s say they want to write a book, where do they go learn more about your whole process and get some info?

Chandler Bolt  24:15 

Yeah, so I’d say the best place to start. So there’s kind of two paths. So number one, if you’re interested in my new book, it’s called published the proven path from blank page to 10,000 copies sold, you can get it on Amazon, you can get the audio book on Audible, I narrate it, which is kind of fun. So, you know, if you’re listening to a podcast, you probably like audio. So I mean, check out the audio book, but also, I’d love to give away 50 free copies to the first 50 listeners on his podcast who go here. So I created a link it’s published book.com forward slash atom. So that’s published book like I published a book.com forward slash atom and the first 50 people that go to that link, you’ll get a free physical copy. Have this book okay, so this is no strings attached. There’s no cost. There’s no shipping and handling. There’s no nothing, literally hundreds of dollars of books that I will pay to pack and ship.

Adam G. Force  25:10 

It’s good marketing man. I think you guys take advantage if you made it this far in the show, I had a free book, you want to learn how to write a book and get I mean, the thing about it is you got somebody like yourself who’s been down this road many times, and you only know the little tricks and nuances if you do it like a lot, right? So it helps to get those that’ll accelerate your process and give you a lot more clarity. So it’s definitely worth it guys, I would check out the book, grab a copy if you’re hearing this. And Chandler appreciate you just jumping on and all the cool work you’re doing and the success you’ve had and just kind of sharing some of those good practical tips with everybody. Adam, you’re the man Thanks for having thanks for tuning into the authentic brand mastery podcast. Don’t forget to stop by change creator.com For more information, fresh articles content and our services if you’re looking to build a brand that people love, and please stop by iTunes, leave us a five star review. We appreciate your support

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