In this episode of One Small Change, Yvonne McCoy is joined by book marketing expert Kathy Kaye, who shares her transformative journey from being the behind-the-scenes business builder to an advocate for author visibility. Kathy reveals how making the small but impactful change of hiring a coach revolutionized her business and mindset, empowering her to embrace visibility and authenticity. She dives into the powerful advantages of publishing a non-fiction book as a marketing tool, breaking down common myths about book writing, and offering actionable steps for entrepreneurs and coaches ready to amplify their credibility, attract clients, and open new revenue streams. Whether you’re at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey or looking to level up, Kathy’s wisdom around strategic authorship and personal transformation will inspire you to take that next small change with big impact.

Guest Bio:

Kathy Kaye is a seasoned book strategist who has helped over 600 individuals become bestselling authors since 2009. Specializing in guiding coaches and entrepreneurs through the publishing process, Kathy excels at turning powerful stories into bestselling books that build authority and expand business opportunities. With a background in online business development and a passion for leveraging books as marketing assets, she empowers clients to get visible, embrace their unique voice, and monetize their expertise.

Chapters:

00:00 "The Power of Coaching Questions"

04:48 Embrace Authenticity and Personal Growth

07:04 Book Success & Growth in 2015

12:16 Simplifying Book Writing with AI

14:49 Books as Business Leverage

18:11 Business Reflections and Disappointments

22:36 Reverse Engineering Ideal Clients

23:42 "Rethinking Books and Personal Growth"

27:30 "Stay Fresh: Embrace New Changes"

Quote:

“Someone is waiting on you. Someone is waiting on your message. And in the absence of water, people will drink the sand. So they're going to find a solution, and it really should have been you.” — Kathy Kaye

Link:

AI Powered Best Seller Formula: Write one chapter a day, one hour a day, having AI interview you! Save time, reduce stress, and create a bestselling book faster than ever—your message, your voice, powered by AI. https://bonusforauthors.com/

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the One Small Change. I am thrilled

as always that you've taken the time to embark on a journey of, you know,

exploration and transformation with me. I'm your host. I'm

Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost thirty years of entrepreneurial

experience. And I have a passion for discovering

what kind of growth you can get from seemingly small

changes. And I wanna thank you for taking this time

to share your entrepreneurial journey with me, and, hopefully, it's a it's a

journey of exploration and inspiration. And this week, we

have the amazing Kathy Kaye, and she's gonna

share some unexpected change or some insight that's gonna

help you to grow your business and whether it's personal or

professional. Kathy, thank you for joining us.

Tell us about yourself, what you do, and what was a small change that

helped you to do it better? Oh my goodness. Well, I'm

Kathy Kaye. I make best selling authors. I've been helping

people share their story and make best selling books since

02/2009. I have over 600 best selling authors

and, to share a change.

So it was a somewhat small move to a major

change in comparison of how major the change was, and that's

coaching. For me in my business, it was coaching.

And then I have to add to that now it's AI.

But without the coaching, I wouldn't be ready

for AI. Like, it just I was

resistant to coaching for maybe fifteen years. I started out in

online business in 1997, and I

really didn't catch on to needing a

coach, hiring a coach, getting help until probably about

fifteen years into business. So I knew my business well, but

there were things I was missing and a lot of it was around

limiting beliefs and what was even possible.

So for me, the biggest change came from hiring a coach

and I won't ever look back again, hire a coach for everything I need in

my life. I have to say that one of the things when I went into

coaching, my first coach, when I was talking to

her, she said, when somebody says when you're

talking to them about coaching and they say to you, do you have

a coach? And you say no. Why are

they why do they why are they gonna think they need a coach? And I

was like, oh my god. That is so true. Yeah. So coaching could

I I I went into coaching because

I like the idea that I didn't have to have the answer.

I could the that the power was in the question, not necessarily

in the answer. So so tell us more about that. You talked about, you know,

that you, you know, went for fifteen years. And I think the

important part about that is that you knew what

you were doing, and so often we don't know what

we don't know. We have blind spots. Right. And and that's

to me, that is one of the values of of coaching. That

and having somebody that you can actually

that's dedicated to you, that you can actually say

what you wanna say. You don't have to sugarcoat it necessarily.

Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I really

I love the coaching industry now more than ever. And I don't really consider

myself a coach. Although I do teach authors, I support

authors. But I always have

coaches in my life, and my primary clients

tend to be coaches because they're trying to share, like that one

amazing thing that they want to be known for in the world. And,

my first major coaching experience was with Lisa Nichols,

and it profoundly impacted my business. As you mentioned,

yes, I had fifteen years of experience and I knew

what I was doing as far as, like, online business development and all that. But

I was like, my social media, I would

build my clients' social media. I would create

funnels for them and drive traffic to those funnels and build their businesses and

stuff. That's what I started out in. But my social media

was a flower. The picture was a flower. I wouldn't be seen online

because of my size and because I felt like I'm not a professional. I'm not

trained in this. I'm just I'm a behind the scenes kinda girl. Right?

The first thing that Lisa Nichols did for me was made me

get visible, vulnerable, and authentic. In other words, get in front of the

camera. Get in front of the camera, talk to people, reach people,

let them know what the heck you do. And I'll tell you that first year

in coaching with her, my business increased by

800%. Eight hundred %.

And and and I agree with you. I think that is probably, to me, one

of the biggest mistakes is not getting in front

of people, you know, and being who you are. And I share that same

for those of you that don't know me, for those of you who do, you've

heard it for the umpteenth time. At one point, I weighed four hundred and forty

pounds And, you know, lost almost 200, kept off

over a 50. But I was like, I did not want to be

seen. Do you know? Only to find out that

that probably is one of the best the best

stories in the arsenal. Do you know? Because it's like I

had a lot of ups and downs. It took me fifteen to twenty years to

lose it. It didn't happen overnight. I mean, I didn't you know, I lost some.

I gained some. I lost some more. I stayed stat you know? I mean,

the whole journey in itself is kind of the way your business grows. You know?

It doesn't grow linearly. It goes kind of you you know, you get you

make some headway, then you kinda go back, then you make a little bit more,

then you stay where you are. So but getting seen, I think, is probably

one of the best ways. So tell us how you got

from that limiting belief and, you know,

became visible. How did that translate into doing books?

So I actually published my first best selling book in 02/2009, and it was

my own. And that's when I found out that having a best selling

book is absolutely fire in marketing. And so I turned to all my

clients who I, you know, business development online for. And I'm like,

do you have a book? We need to make it a bestseller. Do you have

a book? We need to make it a bestseller. And they all said the same

thing. Well, I've been meaning to. I haven't gotten around to it yet.

So I used whatever means necessary, blog posts,

interviews, keynote speeches to get content from

them to publish into a book and make it a best seller

to use for their marketing. Now I started

doing books, adding books to my arsenal in,

02/2009. But in 2015, in coaching with

Lisa, she's like, you're doing too much. I was burnt out. I was doing it

all. I was building businesses for people and using their

book to leverage it for marketing and driving traffic. And she's

like, the number one most impactful thing they can do in their business is the

book. You need to help people get their books done. So in

2015, I went to just doing books alone, and that's

when I did a 56 books and best selling books in one

year. Just started reaching more people,

and things just took off like crazy. It was easier for me

to manage, and, I had more time doing the

parts of my business that I love, you know, helping authors and

making best sellers. And, it was just it was a

phenomenal change spending that time with Lisa. She could

see because she was at a farther level ahead of me. She

could see for me what I couldn't see. And she's like, if you

just do this, this, and this. And I did, and

my business increased by a % in one year. So I have to say you

hit on really what I've built been building my business

around. One is you've got you've got

most of the skill. You've got the expertise, so you don't need to be

fixed. If your clients actually like you when you have a client,

client delivery is not your issue. Client attraction is. You're

doing too much. If you focus on one thing, they can find

you easier. You're easier to find, and it

can be much more profitable and lot less time

consuming, when you're focusing on one thing. It is

probably the most the biggest productivity tool that I can think

of. You know, what do I what is it that I love to do that

I would do for nothing, you know, if I could? Let

me find the niche where I can actually get paid to do what I love.

Mhmm. Mhmm. And so for you, you know, what I see

is, you know, the the helping the

area that you like working in is with coaches. The

expertise, the overlap is where you get them to write their

best selling book. Mhmm. Yep. Right? Give them the expertise that they

don't have so they can get their message out. And that that is the perfect

it seems to me, the perfect way to run a business. Yes. Because you're not

you're not well, I should say to you, what is the

benefit of of of running your business this way?

Well, I'm not burnt out. That was a big one

at the time that, I started working with Lisa. It was

like, I felt like, I

wasn't making the money I should be making for

as exhausted as I was. And trying to do

marketing and get new clients was difficult because I did so

many things that it was difficult to explain what I did.

Online business development. It's essentially the whole business.

It's the website, the sales funnel, the CRM,

the marketing, the driving traffic, the best

selling book to use as a tool to do all that. And to explain that

to anyone, they're just, like, instantly overwhelmed.

So horrible marketing.

And like you said, like, if you just have that one thing

that one thing is made everything in my work life

so much easier, and I I'm not burned out. And I just enjoy it,

and it's my favorite thing. Right. And when you you know, I

always say when you do your favorite thing and you do it with the right

client, your client gets so much more from you because you

can't help yourself. Yeah. You know, you're enjoying it so much that you give them

everything. You know? You get the best of what you've got.

So let me ask you this. I think many

people have never thought about doing a book for

a lot of reasons. One is, obviously, I'm not ready

yet. Right? Two is, what would I talk

about? Three is,

I don't know how to do this. And and I'm sure you've got a

list of other things. So help me debunk

some of those, please. Absolutely. So the first one that you mentioned

was, not right now. I don't have

time They kinda put it off. Right? But the truth is is that

it's very it can be very simple to get your book

done. And every day that passes that you don't have

book is a missed opportunity and money.

Because if you want to stand out in the crowd and be seen as an

expert, the quickest, easiest way to do that is have a best

selling book. Like Seth Godin once said, I'd rather

hire a plumber who wrote the book on it than just a regular plumber.

That's true for real estate. It's true for coaches.

It's true for anyone in an industry if they want to stand

out. And it has now become a

minimum standard for some stages in podcasts. They don't

accept anything less than a best selling author. Because

them having experts on makes them look

good, and they can charge more for their admission for events and things

like that. So many of them, it's become a minimum

standard at that level where you wanna be seen as an

expert. Not to mention, it's a no brainer to take your

book, turn into an online course based on your

best selling book. I mean, you've done the heavy lift once the once the book

is done. So the I don't know how to do it

is easier than ever because I have a formula

to actually pull the book out of you, and we can

even leverage AI to interview you. So if you don't

love the art of creative writing or if English isn't your first

language, you can actually speak your

stories and all of your experiences and all of your teachings

and answer the questions in a format of a table of

contents for your book. And AI will type it faster

than any assistant ever could. So we've come a

long way with that. And the what to do, what to write

a book about is simply, what do you wanna be known for for the next

six months to a year? What do you want to be seen as an expert

in? Because you can pivot after that. It doesn't have to

be everything, you know, it just has to be that

thing you want to be known for for the next six months to a year.

It's the beginning of the conversation. It leads them

to you. It leads them to something. It's the next

step. Because it used to be, like, back

in the eighties and before, you know, when we didn't really have

access to the Internet, we didn't have access to people so easily.

You know, you had to put everything in the book, and then we didn't

have access to those authors. The game has

changed. It is much different now. People are consuming books more than ever,

but they like short reads. It's the beginning of the

conversation. And if they really like you, they're going to come connect

with you. So that's the whole point is to be seen as an

expert and have them come connect with you. And it's it

really is the best return on investment. Great for

marketing. Turn it into an online course. I help my clients

generate a hundred thousand dollars in their first year using their

book and then turn it into an online course and then a

sales funnel. So So I

think one of the one of the myths or one of the misconceptions

even though you're writing a book and you want it to be a best seller,

you're not writing a book.

I don't know how to say this. Okay. So a fiction author

Mhmm. Writes a book to generate income and royalties,

and and the and the the book is the profit

generating thing. We're not writing a

book for that purpose. That is not the main purpose of the book.

Am I correct? You're right. That's absolutely correct. So,

I mean, you absolutely will make, book royalties and

things like that, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what you can

leverage the book to do. It's so

much easier, in my opinion, with nonfiction books, and my

specialty is coaches. So helping people grow their

online business, like, be able to speak on stage, have books

in the back of the room, and then have them go and enroll in your

course. It's it's just a it's a three part no

brainer. So if you look

at people like Lisa Nichols, Susie Carter, people who have

multiple books and are best selling authors and quite famous

their books, they'll, they'll tell you that their business comes from leveraging

their books, but it's only about 1% of their income

because they leverage those books and the fact that they're a best selling author,

but it's really the speaking and coaching that

makes the most amount of money. Okay. So let me ask you this. I mean,

I know there are lots of lots of, things around

where you can do a compilation book. Mhmm. What are the pros

and cons of that?

The biggest pros for doing a a compilation book

is you don't have to go it alone. The burden

isn't completely on you. So if you're timid about getting your message out

there or anything like that, it's a much

shorter contribution.

And you are a best selling author, so you

can leverage that. It is better

if you have your own book as an expert.

If you're a little timid and you're just getting started,

being a part of a compilation book is okay. But ultimately you're

going to want your own book. And depending

on if you do it yourself, because I have a course where I teach you

how to do everything and I guide you through it, or if

you, you know, hire me or someone else to do it for

you, makes a big difference. When you're looking at doing it

yourself, it's really about the same cost as doing a

compilation. Well, let I'll tell you my

compilation nightmare. Oh, no.

Which which happened a really long time ago, and many, many things

have changed since then. You know, I agreed to do this

compilation book, and it was called something like extraordinary business successes

or something like that. Mhmm. And, we had a year to get

our chapter together. And, of course, like, one month before it was due, I was

still struggling with what I was gonna write because, at that

time, my purpose was to make it my lasting

work. Right? So, of course, that's enough to freeze you in

your you know? Right. So I finally came up with something that I really

liked. But because it was, like, kind of a late I mean, I got it

in on time, but the way that it showed up in the book was

really awful, you know, because I had a chart in there and it didn't

come formatted correctly. So I was actually embarrassed to show

anybody the book because it it wasn't really up

to my standards. And I had 3,000 of them. I

don't know. I still have

2,900 and probably 49 Mhmm.

That are holding up my printer. But, anyway, so that was

the first thing. I then used that when I spoke to talk about

you can make mistakes. You can use your mistakes to show people

how you grow and how they can grow. So I I did bring it

in because it was available and stuff like that. Then I

decided that, okay, Few years later, I've got all these

books, and I'm like, what if we I you know, I reached out to

everybody in the book to see whether or not what they were doing

and possibly us all put a push in to sell these books.

Right? And to my great dismay, I think there

was only out of the 10 people in the book, I think there were only,

like, three of us that were still in business, which is really

horrible if you're saying that you're an extraordinary business. So that was the end of

that. So I would I would agree with you that

I think you have a lot more control, and it it is more

you. And you can do it the way you want it.

Goofy or not, you can, you know, you can put as much humor in it.

You can do, you know, what what shines a light

on what your unique power is

if you do your own book. So having had that experience, that

was the realization that I came to.

So tell me, I'm an entrepreneur.

I may be in my second year of business, you know, and I'm

still trying to figure out who my client is, the ideal client. I call it

the right client. Tell me what I should think

about if I'm thinking if if I'm looking at, should I do a

book? What are the questions I should ask myself or contact you

and ask you? Yeah. So

I love this because it's most ideal if

people write the book when they're beginning in business, because

everything can come from that. It gives you

your identity. It gives you your branding. It gives

you your marketing for a year. You can repurpose the marketing over

and over again. It gives you your online course to make money from.

It gives you your credibility instantly. I had a doctor,

doctor Ali Griffith, who said, the credentials of being a best selling

author did more for me than the credentials of being a doctor ever did.

So it's that credibility from the get go. Like,

especially if you're transitioning from I've had fifteen, twenty

years in a a job where I'm the boss.

Like, I I run this place. I know what I'm doing. And then

now you wanna get into coaching, and you really do have

an expertise, but you're new to this online platform world.

This is an easy way to do it is having that book.

And when working with me, because I have that in mind,

most people, when they look at a book, it's like, oh, I just wanna have

a book. And that's the end of the conversation. For me, I'm looking

at three things that we need to be able to answer before you

start your book. Who is your ideal client?

What result do you want them to get from the book? And what do you

wanna leverage the book to do? And often, we

really need to start with what do you wanna leverage the book to do? Because

if you want to leverage the book to turn into an online course

and generate money and speak on stages,

then we need to figure out who is your ideal

person in that course. So then that becomes the ideal client that you're

speaking to. Now if you know that they're gonna go into the course, we

need to have the result of the book be to get them to move

just enough to wanna get into that course, to give

them just a needle point move that says, yes. I

need more of her. I need more of this. It's the

introduction. It's the I see possibility. I

have hope. I'm enjoying what's next. So if we

have that in mind because different people have different goals. I've I've

helped people excel in incorporation and things like

that as well. But mostly I work with with coaches

who are either in the midst of growing their business and need

this credibility and stability, or they're just for starting

out and they need the credibility and stability. But when

you have those three things in mind, it's easy to come up with a

table of contents. And once you have the table of contents, you really just

go in and fill in the blank. I have to tell you that,

first of all, you you've broken a myth for me,

you know, which was I'm not the I'm not ready because I really thought it

was you know, you've been in business for a little bit, and you're telling me

that it's better to do the the beginning, which I understand.

You're also kinda reverse engineering the process. And one of the things that I say

to people all the time is, you know, you get

stuck on who my ideal client

is. Right? And

sometimes that's where people stay. It's like, you know, they keep

throwing spaghetti on the wall trying to figure out that thing. But if you know

what you're gonna use the book for, you know the kind of results that they're

gonna get, you're basically reverse engineering and, you

know, going back to who that right client is, which is what I teach in

my course. You know, start with the ones you've had that you've

enjoyed working with. What is it what is it that they

expected to get from you? What is it that they got that they didn't expect?

That's your unique power, what they didn't expect that delighted

them. You have really made me think about this in a totally different

way. I hope those of you who are listening to that will

will take that into mind, that a book is

not just something that goes on your shelf. It's really an inter a much

deeper introduction to you. Right? And

the I like the way that you've got the strategy that that's gonna help you,

you know, get on stages. That's gonna help you to build a course,

that kind of thing so that the system and stuff is there.

And with the foundation in place, then you can you you're free to be

yourself and really, you know, touch on the things that are

that are near and dear to you. Okay. So before we run out of

time, because you and I could probably go much deeper

into any one of those three steps that you laid out. So so

so the thing that I would say to people is the three questions that that

Kathy gave you, you need to ask about everything that you're doing in

marketing, marketing, not just the book, but everything. I mean, this is

this is one of those things that is an all

purpose set of three questions, I think.

Right. That's how And that's that's absolutely key because

when you can answer those and and I go into this, like, we have worksheets.

They get time with me. Like, I have to go into this with them because

they need to be clear on this. And once they are, you can answer

everything else. What story to share, how to share it, and

then being able to leverage the book because so many people will write the book

and go, oh, I wish I woulda. But if you know what you're gonna be

doing with it and we plan for that, it's like a beacon

for your ideal client to come to you. And it is

the thing that makes you stand out in the crowd as the expert, and

it's easy to then monetize as, of course,

based on your best selling book. And I think the

other thing is once you do the first one, the first one doesn't

doesn't necessarily have to be where you are. I think it's people may

have missed the part where you said it it only has to be what you're

doing for the next six months to a year. Yes. And so if

you if you you know? So that makes the second book so much easier, you

know, as you start I mean, we all change our focus in our business.

You know? We either we're niching down or we're doing something

else. So the first book doesn't have to be the book

that will last you your entire lifetime. I I often say we're moving at

a at a at a at a we're shooting at a moving target. And if

you wait until you get it perfect for when you first

started thinking about something Mhmm. And it takes you five years

to get it out, it is no longer perfect Mhmm. Because everything

else has changed. And so I I think that's that's one

of the things I think that paralyzes us and and keeps us from having

success. Do you know? I tell my students

better done than none. Yes. Yes. And they only have ninety

days. We get our books done in ninety days because every day that passes is

a day of lost revenue. Okay.

Alright. So here's here's the here's the here's the the question. When

was the last time you did something new for the first time?

I wish it was more exciting than this. I mean, it's pretty exciting to me,

but not as exciting as, like, skydiving or something. But last month,

I went to a, music bingo night at

a local pub, and it just sounded it sounded so

cheesy, but it ended up being a ton of fun. You get your

bingo cards and they play music, and then you have to find the

the song on on your bingo card before it changes. And it was just a

fun night out. So Fun is a good thing to have whenever

it happens. So Yes. You know, it just the

idea I think be doing new things keeps you fresh and keeps you

relevant Yeah. And interesting. So,

unfortunately, our time is up. And so I just I

wanna say to everybody who's here, make sure

that, please, that you subscribe and share this and

engage on social media. The reason I did this is

it was a way for me to kinda give back to community,

and to help you to have a community that you go go

to fuel your, you know, your quest for impact and

growth and have a chance to experience a lot of different experts,

that you might not normally come across. And so I hope you will

join me for the one small change on a regular basis as you go through

your entrepreneurial journey and see how the tiny shifts can

yield, you know, monumental transformations. And if you haven't listened

to the first episode, go back and see why I started it,

and I probably should listen to it again and see see how it's

changed. But but, I've

enjoyed having you here. Kathy, I've enjoyed so much talking to

you. You really made me think about things in a different way.

So what would be your last word? You said a wonderful quote before.

Do you have another one or give us that one again?

I have many quotes, but I would say someone is waiting on you.

Someone is waiting on your message. And in the

absence of water, people will drink the sand. So they're

going to find a solution, and it really should have been you.

So get your dang book done, stand out in the crowd,

and make real money with your book.

Those are words to live by. So that is wonderful.

This this has really got my wheels turning a little bit. So, guys,

this is the end of our episode for today. But remember,

change may seem simple, but it's not always easy. But if you were to do

a book with Kathy, it would be easy. It requires

some courage, some resilience, and a and a willingness to step out of

your comfort zone. So continue to join me for the one small

change as we keep embarking on our journey.

I hope your vision is getting bolder. I hope you're coming up with innovative

possibilities. And until the next time, stay curious.

Kathy, thank you so much.