Michelle Vandepas, our guest for this episode, shares insights on who should reconsider writing a book. It's not about writing ability but a genuine internal calling. If there's no passion or desire, the process may be overwhelming. Writing involves exploration, time, money, and internal growth.

Who Shouldn't Write a Book?

• Michelle emphasizes that being a bad writer is not a reason not to write a book.
• Discuss the importance of feeling a calling or nudge to write a book.
• Michelle shares examples of individuals who initially focused on external stories but later found the heart of their books in internal transformations.
• Importance of personal exploration and internal calling to write a book.

Getting Started with Writing:

• Hosts ask Michelle about the process of getting started with writing a book.
• Michelle advises against immediately diving into a structured outline and encourages journaling first.
• The importance of exploring emotions and finding the underlying message before outlining the book.

Writing Challenges:

• Hosts discuss the challenges faced by those who hate writing.
• Michelle encourages those who dislike writing to explore the reasons behind their aversion.
• Various writing hacks and strategies, including transcribing podcasts or having someone interview you.
• Michelle emphasizes overcoming self-limiting beliefs and fears associated with writing.

Working with Editors and Ghostwriters:

• Hosts inquire about working with editors and ghostwriters.
• Michelle explains the role of ghostwriters in crafting a story in the author's voice.
• Overview of different types of editors, including developmental and copy editors.
• Emphasis on the collaborative process between authors and editors.

When to Approach a Publisher:

• Hosts inquire about the ideal time for an author to approach a publisher.
• Michelle discusses different publisher programs and how authors can enter at various stages.
• Highlight the flexibility offered by GP Publishing in assisting authors throughout the book-writing process.

Michelle's Generous Offer:

• Michelle shares a special offer for the audience, providing a 25% discount on a program to help authors write their books.
• Details on how to access the offer, including the website link and coupon code (sixFIG).
• Hosts express gratitude for the generous offer.

Closing:

• Hosts express appreciation for Michelle's insights, wisdom, and the generous offer.
• Remind listeners to check the show notes for the offer details and links.
• Thank Michelle for joining the podcast and look forward to future collaborations.

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Welcome to the six figure business mastery podcast, where every week,

Kirsten and Jeannie dive into the essential topics to fuel your business

growth from copywriting to course creation, mindset to video marketing.

They've got you covered tune in for expert guest interviews on all things.

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

We're really grateful that you chose to spend a little time with us today.

And I'm excited to introduce you to our amazing guest.

Her name is Michelle Vandepas.

She is from GP publishing.

She's an author, a TEDx speaker, a business coach.

She's also the co founder of Grace Point Publishing, who are

innovators and collaborative.

Partnership publishing to help you get your book actually published.

That's what they do.

So today we're going to talk about who shouldn't write a book.

So Michelle, we're so grateful to have you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

It's so good to be here.

I'm really curious if you get your point of view on who

really shouldn't write a book.

Yeah.

So it's not if you're a terrible writer, that's not what it is.

So most of us have a nudge, a calling, something in our heart, something

that says, Oh, I should write a book.

If you don't have that.

Don't do it.

Right?

It's like, I give an example of I have no nudge calling a desire

to jump out of an airplane.

Right?

So I don't need to do it.

It's not part of my life's path.

It's not part of my mission.

It's not on my heart.

If you don't and I've talked with people who are like, yeah, I've

never really wanted to write a book.

People tell me I should, but I've never really don't.

Right?

It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of internal exploration.

It takes time.

It takes money.

It takes editing.

It takes personal up leveling and internal fighting with yourself, right?

So it's an exploration.

And if you're not called to do it, there's no reason to do it.

You don't have to do it.

It's not like one of those things you must do to be in business

or to have a successful life.

But I do think there are a lot of experts out there and gurus

saying you have to write a book.

Right.

If you want to get on stages, you have to write a book.

If you want to build a big audience, you have to write a book.

So I do feel like that a lot of those people, a lot of people

are being told that right.

I like the fact that you're going to follow your natural instinct.

Right.

It's not true.

There are plenty of big time coaches, successful entrepreneurs

who have not written a book.

Now, eventually, you may change your mind, right?

Eventually, you may say, okay, now, I think I'm ready to write a book,

or now I want to write a book.

There are plenty of successful entrepreneurs that sell all kinds of

things from Tires to have restaurants, all kinds of things who don't have a book.

Right?

And there are restauranteurs and chefs who do have a book.

So it's totally up to you and your internal calling, but being

a bad writer is not 1 of the reasons to not write a book.

Perfect.

So if people are thinking, hang on a minute, I should write a book.

Yeah.

And I'd like to, I feel like it's in my bones, it's in there

and it's ready to come out.

How would I start?

Where do I go about?

Yeah, so the mistakes isn't quite the question, but I'm going to say the mistake

most people make is they think they have to dive in with a table of contents and

an outline and a structure and all that.

And I suggest we take a step back before you do all of that.

And just journal for a while, a while might be an hour, a week, a month, a

year, we don't know, you will know though I trust everybody's internal guidance

system to know what's right for them.

Because when you journal.

And you're just mind dumping, you're going to get to something

underneath that's really valuable.

So if everyone's told you, you should write a book about your weight loss

system, you'll start journaling about that being like, yeah, I could

write about a weight loss system.

But then really, maybe what's underneath all that is how.

Exploring your emotions helped you actually lose weight or maybe

what's underneath was when I finally found my personal style.

I didn't need to lose weight or want to lose weight anymore.

I just wanted to look good.

Right?

So sometimes if you just journal, you get underneath what the

real subject is not saying.

You shouldn't write a book about losing weight if that's what

you want to write a book about.

But sometimes there's something underneath what other people are telling

you you should write the book about.

So when you get to that, that's where the magic starts to happen, and that's

when you can start outlining your book.

But you've got to get to what your real expertise is, where your real

voice is, what it is you really want to say that's going to be from your

heart that makes you stand out from every other person out there who

might have something similar to say.

Do you have any examples?

Because I know you've worked with lots and lots of clients.

Do you have any examples of people that you've worked with?

They just knew their book was about this, but then when you guys started working

together, it really, they found out it was like something completely different.

Absolutely.

The most famous book, maybe that we published 1 of the most

famous is about a woman who.

Uh, broke her boyfriend out of prison, and her story was all over America's

Most Wanted and CNN, and she's been all over the news, and she brought us

her manuscript, which was her story, but when we started really digging in

together, and she's talked about this, so I'm not outing her, right, but when

we really started digging in together, we realized that what she really wanted

to write about was not her story that everybody already knew, but her internal

transformation, and what she went through, and what led her to that decision to

actually become a criminal, right?

She'd been like, stay at home mom.

And what was that process internally?

And when she really leaned into that, the story just took off

and it totally changed direction.

I have another woman who wrote a book about Having a stroke and it

was started out about all of the medical stuff and what was going on.

But again, it turned out to be her transformation and what happened

years after she had the stroke and how her life changed and what

she learned from that experience.

So it's not that the book will change subjects, necessarily, but the motivation.

And the heart part might come out, we hope will come out more.

So does that happen to the writer?

Or does that happen in discussions with like you, the publisher,

or can it happen in both places?

Yeah, it can happen in both places.

And that's a great question.

Very often we get manuscripts and we read them and they're dry and

it's not because of the writing.

It's just there's not enough heart in them.

It's very difficult for a writer to give us a manuscript to start

with and be open to feedback.

And then when we say we'd like more of your heart, we'd like

some more personal stories in it.

Sometimes you're like, oh, I can't do that.

But that's where the transformation comes both for the writer and for the reader.

I would think that would be scary because you're opening yourself

up to criticism and to show your warts and all to the world.

That's usually the, what happens is something horrible happened,

or you made a bad decision.

And so that's why I like people to journal first, if they can, um, but

if they didn't do that part, and they wrote an outline, or they wrote a

manuscript, or they have 10, 000 words, or whatever it is, we'll evaluate it.

We'll work with them.

We'll help them.

And I would guess that journaling people, I don't want people to

get bogged down in the tactics.

You can do it in a Google Drive file, you can handwrite it, you

can, don't get too wild and crazy about where am I going to journal.

And the reason I like to call it journaling is because it takes away

the pressure of thinking someone else is going to read it and it

allows you to just self explore.

Like I said, it may just be an hour, it may be a year.

We don't know that piece.

If you get lots of clarity and excitement in an hour after

journaling, that's amazing.

And I would guess that's your individual portal to opening up that inspiration.

So keep journaling every day and start your writing.

Like I said, I would be a terrible writer, but what about

someone who really hates writing?

They just don't see themselves as a writer.

They don't enjoy writing.

Can we still write a book and should they still write a book?

Yeah.

If you're called to write a book, you should write the book.

So if it's in your heart, if it's something that you're a little bit scared

of, you should probably write a book.

If it's something like, I don't want to do this.

Oh, but I know I have to do it.

Then you should probably write the book.

Right.

I don't love to write.

And that's one of the things I like to talk about because as a book publisher

and someone who's helped so many writers, I think it helps identify with the other.

Portion of the population that also doesn't really like to write so much,

but I know it's important for me to write for my own personal journey for me to

explore what I want to say and also to be an example and also to lead the way.

So there's some tricks and some hacks and some things.

Often I'll take bits of podcasts that I do.

And rewrite them or get bullet points from it.

If I think, oh, I want to write about that.

I'll go back and listen and transcribe some of it.

You can audio text yourself.

You can have someone interview you.

These are all.

Things that we use all the time.

They still need to be rewritten though.

You can't take a conversation and publish it.

It doesn't read well, but they're hacks to get you started.

Sometimes I'll just take one subject, I hate writing, and I'll just write

about that for 15 minutes and just see what comes out and not worry

about editing or anything yet.

And then maybe I'll do exactly the same thing tomorrow on exactly the same bullet

point, and I may get the same writing but I may get something different.

And if you set a timer for 15 minutes, it's not so bad.

All of us can write for 15 minutes, even though we may not like it.

And so part of it is getting over yourself of the belief that you hate writing.

Because if you're called to write, it's probably a belief, a fear, a

procrastination, scared you're not going to write the right stuff, afraid that

someone's going to judge you for it.

It's probably not that you hate writing so much.

There's something else usually there.

But there's all kinds of hacks and tricks and outline programs and so forth.

So, I write exactly like I speak, which is obviously a problem.

So I guess my question would be that for someone like me, who would definitely

write exactly the way I speak, is there like a editor or a ghostwriter or someone

else who could come and take that?

And that's something they read.

Like, I don't really understand like what a ghostwriter does.

What do they do?

Do they write the book all by themselves?

Do you give them all the points when they write it?

Like, I don't understand any of that.

So, a ghostwriter will interview you.

Maybe once a day, once a week, depends what your contract

says, and then write your story.

So you're not writing anything, they're writing your story.

You may have the opportunity to go read it and give feedback about points

of the story that you don't like, but you're not going to write it, you're

not going to have any chance to edit it other than the point of the story.

They will try to do it in your voice, and they'll get to know your voice, and you're

going to pay for that anywhere between.

Probably 20, 000 to 100, 000 for a really well ghostwritten story.

And we have ghostwriters that will do that for you.

And we've worked with ghostwriters.

And lots of people use ghostwriters, especially for business books,

because you'll get that money back if you get a consulting fee

or speaking fee or something.

But what you're talking about isn't ghostwriting.

What you're talking about is you write in your voice.

That's great.

You get stuff written.

That's perfect.

You get it down on paper, on the computer, things in your head, it's out.

That's absolutely perfect.

Then it becomes an editor that you're going to work with.

And the next step would be to have a developmental editor look at

it, or a manuscript review editor look at it, just to see if it's

in the right order, if it flows.

If you should move the order of like chapter two and chapter three and

flip them if there's big holes in it like someone who does not know you

just to read it just for content.

This makes sense.

Then the next step after you get that feedback.

The next step is then have.

Copy editor go through and clean it up.

So every sentence doesn't start with I, but you don't speak like that.

So this is not anything to you because you don't speak like that,

but just to go through and make sure that it can still be conversational.

So you're very conversational, and your writing is probably full of stories.

So we're not taking any of that up.

We're just tightening it up a little bit.

And that's what the copy editor will do.

Yeah, sometimes, even if we're writing a blog post, because often as business

partners, we say we, and then it might switch to I, so we have to watch

that throughout things that we write.

Is it coming from me or I?

Yeah, and that editors do that all day, every day.

That's just part of what an editor does.

Make sure that all your tenses are consistent.

Make sure that you're if you're in 1st person or not, it's

consistent all the way out.

Those are things that editors do.

They're really good at it.

Thank goodness.

I would think that I think my biggest issue would be remembering everything or

remembering some of the details because I know sometimes the stories, the best

stories have the really tiny details that were important to know, or that grab

people and brought them into the story.

Absolutely.

And as you write it, you will remember details and you can have

someone interview you about a specific story and you're writing

it so you get to make it up as well.

You do, you get to make it up.

It's your story you get.

And when people are giving stories of real life examples, I usually encourage them

to take two or three different stories and merge them so nobody can recognize

themselves if they're reading the book, unless you have very specific permission.

Right.

Yeah, that's a good point.

So we're always embellishing and changing the facts a little bit.

Anyway, because if you're writing something, you're not doing like an

autobiography or a biography where all the facts have to be exactly right.

You're telling stories to illustrate a point.

At what point should someone come to a publisher?

Should it be when they have an outline or when they feel like it's almost done

and they need an editor or any of those?

Yeah, any of those.

Every single publisher works differently.

We have a program to help you get your book written.

We have a program to help you publish your book.

We have a program to help you market your book and become known.

Based on your book, right?

Some publishers only work on that publishing piece.

So it depends on the publisher, but we have 3 programs and you

can come in wherever you are.

I think that's amazing.

And I think it's perfect timing because I think with everyone getting ready to

go into 2024 or 2024 has just started.

It's going to be a great time to think about is this the

year I'm going to write a book.

And if it's in your heart, if it's in your mind, my team and I help you.

Perfect.

Thank you so much for joining us here again today.

You always bring such wisdom to our podcast.

We're so thrilled that you are here.

We appreciate you and we appreciate all the insights that you bring, and

for aspiring authors out there, be sure to go check out your website.

Thanks for listening to the six Figure Business Mastery Podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode and you are ready to leverage video

marketing on all online platforms, or maybe even start your own video

podcast, then you need to check out the Done for You and Done with You program

at the marketing va advantage.com and take your business to the next level.