SHOW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is automatically generated by Descript.  Any errors or omissions are unintentional.

[00:00:00] Jeff Sieh: Welcome to Creator News Live. I’m Jeff C and you’re not.

[00:00:03] Conor Brown: I am Connor Brown, and this is the show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of the creator economy and so much more.

[00:00:10] Jeff Sieh: Have you ever wondered whether writing a book is still worth it? In a world where content is everywhere and AI can generate pages in seconds, maybe you’ve thought about how a book could fit into your creator business or whether it’s even necessary anymore. If that sounds familiar, you are in the right place.

[00:00:26] Conor Brown: Today we’re excited to welcome Lauren Vassallo, content and community manager@lulu.com and co-host of the Publish and Prosper podcast. Lauren spends her days talking with authors and creators about publishing growth and what actually works when it comes to building authority with a book. She’s a lifelong book nerd and professional yapper, and when the mic’s off, she’s usually listening to Taylor Swift reading romance novels or planning her next Disney trip.

[00:00:55] Conor Brown: That’s also usually what Jeff is doing, but today she’s here to share what [00:01:00] she’s seen right now where creators get stuck, and how tools like AI can help or quietly cause problems. While writing your book, if you’re not careful.

[00:01:11] Jeff Sieh: So sit back, clear your schedule. Clear your mind to get ready for this week’s episode of Creator News Live. There you go. Your own theme song. Lord, thank you so much for joining us today. This is gonna be a fun show. I wanna do a quick shout out to the sponsors of our show, ECA M. They are amazing. They’re well. Allow me to put music and fun stuff and moving backgrounds and camera angles. You can find out more about them at Ecamm dot com slash jeff.

[00:01:38] Jeff Sieh: You could say 15% by using code Jeff. 15. On your first purchase. And we appreciate them once again for being the sponsor of this show. But this is all about today, about publishing why writing a book still matters. and this is a fascinating conversation because I know for a lot of people in our audience, this is something that they have talked about, they’ve thought about.

[00:01:59] Jeff Sieh: [00:02:00] And you know, a lot of times it’s a life dream for some people. But I wanna ask the audience, wherever you guys are, are watching from, if you wrote a book tomorrow, what would it actually be for? Would it be for authority? Would it be for leads for your business, or would it be just for like personal fulfillment?

[00:02:14] Jeff Sieh: So authority leads or personal fulfillment, whatever the answer is, drop it down wherever you’re watching from down below. And we’d love to know and bring that up on screen a little bit later. But we’re talking about why a book still matters for creators. and Lauren, I wanted to ask you first, right off the bat, like from what you see at lulu, The help that you give people, where does it come from? Is it, do they need it credibility? Do they need it for their confidence or is it clarity of their ideas? So what do you see, when you’re at Lulu, what are they looking for?

[00:02:41] Lauren Vassallo: You know, I think that that a lot of times people don’t really know what they’re looking for when they’re first coming. I, I think a lot of people have kind of reached the idea. These days of like, they understand why a book would be like an interesting tool for them to have for their business, but they’re not exactly sure [00:03:00] like what specifically it’s going to help them with.

[00:03:03] Lauren Vassallo: And I actually think that like those specific examples that you gave the answer is all three of them. because I think they’re all the same. they’re all connected to each other in a certain way because coming to understand like a better clarity of your ideas and what it is that you’re talking about or the content that you’re creating is going to inherently make you more confident when you are creating that content or talking about it, which is going to give you more credibility.

[00:03:32] Lauren Vassallo: So I think they’re all kind of connected and it’s just a matter of figuring out how a book can best help you do all three of those things.

[00:03:39] Jeff Sieh: So I hear a lot of creators say like this, and it’s been going around forever. Like they’re saying a book is the new business card. And I always thought, well, you know, that’s a lot of work for a business card. And what do you tell people who say that? Because I mean, like, it’s more than a business card.

[00:03:52] Jeff Sieh: I don’t want, just like something I can hand out and like people forget about. I want it to like make a difference.

[00:03:58] Lauren Vassallo: It’s absolutely more than a business card. [00:04:00] And it’s also, I’m not gonna pretend that it’s not a lot of work. It’s definitely more work than a business card. but it is also something that is giving a lot more value right off the bat than of business card. It’s, it’s something that kind of is subconsciously setting the tone and the expectation for you as a, a business owner or an entrepreneur or a creator, whatever it is, it’s immediately kind of establishing to who, whoever you hand that book to, like, oh, I, I know what I’m talking about.

[00:04:31] Lauren Vassallo: I literally wrote the book on it. Or at the very least, I am invested enough in what I am talking about that I put effort into writing a book about it. I didn’t just spend 10 minutes on Canva designing a business card and then ordered it for 10 bucks. Like this took time and effort. So I’m clearly personally invested in this, so you should invest in me.

[00:04:54] Jeff Sieh: Got it.

[00:04:54] Conor Brown: I think that whole thing with the time and effort is probably the biggest roadblock that people tell [00:05:00] themselves is the reason that they haven’t started yet. ’cause they know all the intangibles that come with, creating a book. Right. The, the stuff we already talked about, about why you would write your own book.

[00:05:10] Conor Brown: But Lauren, why do you think so many creators feel like, you know what? I’m not ready to write a book even when they’re clearly an expert and they should write a book. What’s holding them back? What’s that? They’re not ready feeling.

[00:05:24] Lauren Vassallo: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a good question. because it is something that we’re seeing a lot more lately. I’ve been at Lulu for, it’s gonna be seven years next month. and there’s, there’s been a, a real change in the trajectory over time. In the beginning when I was there, there were still a lot of people asking like, why do I need a book?

[00:05:42] Lauren Vassallo: Why do I need a book? now these days, it’s definitely the, okay, here are my roadblocks to it. And not just like, I know I need it, I just have too many roadblocks. And the number one answer to that, the number one excuse, and I’m gonna say excuse that I get from people is, I know it would be a good idea for me to have a book.

[00:05:59] Lauren Vassallo: I [00:06:00] know it would be great for my business, but I’m not a writer.

[00:06:03] Jeff Sieh: Hmm.

[00:06:03] Lauren Vassallo: And I, I mean, sure that’s fair. But I, I think that a lot of people still operate under the misconception that writing a book means that you have to. Write an 80,000 word novel or or memoir or something. You have to be like really seriously crafting your writing.

[00:06:24] Lauren Vassallo: You have to go to grad school and get an MFA in creative writing in order to do all these things. And you don’t. You absolutely don’t. Not because of things like AI or anything like that, but because there are so many different ways to write a book that don’t involve sitting down and writing 80,000 words about the next great American business model.

[00:06:46] Jeff Sieh: so is there a standard like size or word count that you like? When people say, Hey, I wanna write a book. I have no idea how to start. Is there like a, a goal that you have ’em shoot for when you talk about like length of a book?

[00:06:58] Lauren Vassallo: No, I think that’s [00:07:00] actually, that’s a really good question, but I think that that is actually probably one of the things that people get stuck on is that assumption that it is, and, no, not at all, because it depends very much on what kind of book you’re writing or creating and what kind of content you’re putting in there.

[00:07:17] Lauren Vassallo: We see people all the time that will create what we call low or no content books, which are books like notebooks or planners or guided journals, even workbooks that, you know, if you’ve got 50 words on a page, that’s a, that’s a page with a lot of words on it. Some of those books have no words in them, but.

[00:07:35] Lauren Vassallo: You know, it’s still a book, it’s still

[00:07:38] Lauren Vassallo: something that is gonna support your business or support your customers or your fans or whatever in some way or another. So there really isn’t any particular word count that you should be trying to reach, or page numbers that you’re trying to reach. Books come in all different shapes and sizes.

[00:07:54] Lauren Vassallo: one of our, one of our fellow momentum attendees, Steven has this book [00:08:00] that is literally a four by six, like tiny little pocket guy. This is, I’m, so, I’m like Steven’s number

[00:08:06] Jeff Sieh: Hype man. Yeah. You’re the

[00:08:08] Lauren Vassallo: these days, I’m pretty sure. but that is a book that is quite literally a pocket size.

[00:08:12] Lauren Vassallo: It’s the size of a photograph and a hundred pages, and, and that absolutely counts as, as a book as much as Stephen King’s thousand page novels do.

[00:08:23] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. That’s very, very cool. Yes. And I think it’s great to show the different, like, even the stuff at Momentum, we print out a huge like workbook and I know you guys did that one and it looks fabulous. And there’s so much value in that and so much takeaways. Like I have ’em from like my, the last five years I’ve been to Momentum, I keep ’em all because there’s still valuable and there’s still have a lot of, you know, info in there that’s still kind of evergreen.

[00:08:45] Jeff Sieh: And one of the things I wanted to talk about is, and you’ve talked about this on Publish and Prosper, by the way, which is an amazing podcast and it’s got the, one of the best titles I know, publish and Prosper. So guys, go check that out on, uh, whatever you get your podcast. But you talk about how books are not just, [00:09:00] you know that books are an ecosystem builders not just a standalone Product. So how should creators think about a book fitting into what they already do?

[00:09:08] Lauren Vassallo: that’s a really, really good question, which I, I do wanna be clear that if you are listening to this or watching this and you’re like, but I do actually want my book to be a revenue tool, like, I, that’s fine. Your books absolutely can be products. No one’s saying that that’s not an option.

[00:09:25] Lauren Vassallo: but there are a lot of other ways that it can fit into your business model or into your ecosystem and. The short answer to that is that you have to kind of figure out what your goals for your, your business are in general. because you, you really have to know what that is in order to be able to understand how a book can support those goals.

[00:09:44] Lauren Vassallo: So, you know, if your, if your goal is to, figure out new ways to provide your content to your existing audience, then you’re gonna want to take, like a product idea that is turning your existing content into a book. If you’re looking for ways to, expand your [00:10:00] reach this year by creating new earned promo opportunities.

[00:10:03] Lauren Vassallo: So you want. To increase your odds of getting booked for speaking engagements, or you wanna have a reason to reach out to people and say, Hey, I’d love to be on your podcast. A book is a great way to do that, but you might create a different type of book for that goal than you would for the delivering your content to your audience in a new goal.

[00:10:23] Lauren Vassallo: so I think there are a lot of different ways that you can kind of use a book to support your existing ecosystem or to help you pivot or to help you give you new entry points into your existing ecosystem, which are all things that I’ve, I’ve seen other creators do. But it’s, it’s kind of gonna depend on what your long-term and even short-term goals are.

[00:10:44] Lauren Vassallo: So you have to answer that question first.

[00:10:46] Jeff Sieh: Got it.

[00:10:47] Conor Brown: So even if, you know, a creator has those plans in place and, and you know, understands their expectations and stuff, I think a lot of the times people, you know, they’re saying, oh, I’m gonna write a business. When in reality there’s [00:11:00] so much, there’s a machine behind that that’s, that’s pushing that out where you can have a book and it’s not just all about the sales, right?

[00:11:07] Conor Brown: Like you’re saying, Lauren, it’s, it can get your foot in the door, places to speak, it can show your expertise. It can be a repurposing of content you already have that’s opening you to a different audience than you have right now. So, if a creator only ever sells like a few hundred copies of a book or maybe even a hundred copies of a book, how can that still be a massive win?

[00:11:31] Conor Brown: Like, how do you tell creators like, no, that’s still a big win, selling even that amount.

[00:11:36] Lauren Vassallo: Well, if your goal is just to make money from your book sales, okay, not, not, maybe not a big win. but if that’s not your goal, if any of your other goals are your main goal there, then. Then there’s absolutely so many things. 10 copies of your book can help support that goal. If you, if you get one, like really high level VIP client because they bought or [00:12:00] read your book, that’s worth more than a thousand book sales.

[00:12:03] Lauren Vassallo: If you book yourself one really cool speaking gig and at that speaking gig, you meet five new people that are gonna about to become your long-term masterclass or mastermind group, like that’s, that’s a big win. That’s a big way to support your brand. That has nothing to do with how many copies of your book you sold, but has much more to do with connecting you with new people or new audiences or new opportunities.

[00:12:27] Jeff Sieh: Very, very cool. I want to, so I wanna get in now to actually, what it takes to write a book. Like, you know, it, we, we, everybody can say, oh, I’d love to, and then we, when you start diving into like what it actually means, it can be a little, uh, you know, overwhelming when people start thinking about it.

[00:12:44] Jeff Sieh: Okay, what all I have to do to, to get this thing out to birth this baby? As some people said, I wanna ask the audience, if writing a book was a fitness goal, where are you right now? Are you warming up? Are you mid workout? Are you still on the couch with me? Uh, an extra credit if you use [00:13:00] emojis in the, wherever you’re looking at this.

[00:13:01] Jeff Sieh: So,anyway, one of the things that I wanted to talk about with the, the writing process is I know you’ve, you’ve mentioned before, and I think you even mentioned it at Momentum, you’ve seen a lot of creators stall out.

[00:13:12] Jeff Sieh: Mid book, like, so what usually causes that drop off and what can we do about it?

[00:13:18] Lauren Vassallo: Two things that kind of go hand in hand with each other, and it’s not having a routine and not having a plan. So I am very type A and also very A DHD, so I understand how difficult both of those things can be, but. I think they are absolutely essential for creating any kind of long form content, but especially something as long form as a book because you really can’t just wing it.

[00:13:47] Lauren Vassallo: You really can’t just say, especially if you are like a small business owner or a content creator, or somebody who spends a lot of their time working on different elements of your business. You have to be able to carve [00:14:00] that time out. You can’t just say, I’m gonna write when I’m in the mood too, or I am going to just sit down and see what comes out today.

[00:14:09] Lauren Vassallo: And maybe like, you know, I don’t know what’s gonna, what, what the next chapter of this book is going to be, but we’ll just see, we’ll see what feels right when I get to the end of this chapter. And that’s a very fanciful approach and a very whimsical approach. And unless you’re writing fiction, which even then I would argue that you still need an outline for writing fiction, it’s just not, you’re gonna wind up stalling out, hitting major roadblocks and writer’s block and ultimately just like realizing that it’s not worth it.

[00:14:39] Lauren Vassallo: And even if you do, even if you do somehow manage to get all the way to the end without a plan or without an outline, you’re gonna wind up trashing half of what you wrote when you go back and revise it. So I guess congrats on the amount of time that you wasted doing that.

[00:14:53] Jeff Sieh: Got it.

[00:14:53] Conor Brown: We got some good comments here, Jeff, too, that I think we can, we can bring up to start. John says, I like the idea [00:15:00] of the book leading you into other venues, and no one’s really gonna know how much you sold anyway. Right? Yeah, that’s a good point. But you’re still an author And then Amy says, I turned my most popular lead magnet into a printed version.

[00:15:13] Conor Brown: Lulu makes it so easy. You can send the check to, uh, Amy there, Lauren. I have a few more things to do to get the marketing selling part of it worked out. so I think that that’s a great thing to, to look at it too, right? Like a repurposing of things like taking a content that you already have and turning it into a printed version.

[00:15:32] Conor Brown: And then you have a book and we’re talking about this and we’re, we’re started the show by saying, you know. You don’t have to be a writer to write a book for people that want to be an author and want to create a book. the writing part is probably super daunting, especially if they don’t consider themselves a writer.

[00:15:52] Conor Brown: it can feel soul crushing even because you we’re our biggest self critics and, and we’re analyzing everything we’re writing. [00:16:00] But Lauren, how do you think creators can kind of reframe writing a book so that doesn’t feel like this massive soul sucking project when they start?

[00:16:11] Lauren Vassallo: Yeah, absolutely. is, I don’t know a single person that, that doesn’t feel that way, including people. I did go to grad school to get a master’s in creative writing and everybody in my cohort, myself included, who consider ourselves writers are still sitting here going like. This is, this is a huge project.

[00:16:30] Lauren Vassallo: This is a huge, massive project, and it’s impossible to just look at the big picture all at once and say, I’m gonna get this done. I mean, people do it all the time, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have a job. But it, it is absolutely something that you have to approach in stages. And I think that that’s probably, and that’s, that’s where I say like, you have to have a, a plan and a routine.

[00:16:53] Lauren Vassallo: You have to have a plan, not just in terms of having an outline for your book, but you also have to have a plan of like. this is [00:17:00] kind of the, the deadline that I want it done by. Okay, what do I have to do in order to get it done by then? What can I, like, how can I break this down? Can I break this down into I look, I’m looking at my outline.

[00:17:12] Lauren Vassallo: My outline has six sections in it, and I wanna get this book done in six months. So can I do two sections per month and break it down that way, and then maybe even break it down even further and say, I am gonna do one section in two weeks. Can you set yourself daily writing goals that you’re gonna say, I’m gonna write for an hour every day, although I don’t really encourage time-based writing goals.

[00:17:36] Lauren Vassallo: but like, you know, can I get through a chapter every day or can I get through, if you’re using your existing content, I, I have this list of content that I’m gonna revise and repurpose for my book. Can I get through three blog posts this week and then maybe next week I’ll get through four or, or whatever.

[00:17:54] Lauren Vassallo: I think that breaking it down into like much more manageable pieces. This is again, the A [00:18:00] DHD talking. This is how if anybody who’s listening is neurodivergent in any way, this is how you approach any kind of task or to-do list. But I think it works especially well when it comes to something as large as a book because it’s, it’s giving you that like.

[00:18:16] Lauren Vassallo: I can break it down into much more manageable pieces kind of way. And then even worst case scenario, if you do find yourself in a situation where you’re like, oh, I got started on this thing and now I’m feeling stuck and I’m not sure where to go from here, or like something popped up. Because life happens, whether it’s personal life or professional life, life happens.

[00:18:35] Lauren Vassallo: You get interrupted, you get derailed from whatever plans you’re working on. And if you have a plan and you’re working through this like strategically and with a plan, if you get interrupted, you can still pick up where you left off. And just even if it is further down the timeline than you hoped, you can still keep approaching it that way.

[00:18:53] Lauren Vassallo: And you didn’t lose all that work that you started with.

[00:18:55] Jeff Sieh: So I was trying to think of like what my big hangup with, ’cause I’ve said for [00:19:00] years I need to write one, and people have told me I need to write one and, and O’Connor’s had the same thing happen to him. But one of the things I think creators struggle with the most is like they’re scared that it’s not evergreen enough.

[00:19:10] Jeff Sieh: They’re gonna write a book and then it’s gonna be, you know, it’s not gonna be worth the page it’s printed on. Right. Like, you know. So, ‘ cause a lot of content creators I know, like, especially in the tech space or, or stuff like that, we do in marketing, things are changing ai. Oh my gosh. If you write an AI book, like it’s gonna be published and it’ll be outta date.

[00:19:27] Jeff Sieh: So what do you tell creators who struggle specifically with that? Like, what is there a process is, are you just saying, don’t worry about it, just write it? Like, what are, what do you tell people who are hung up with? Like, I’m scared it’s not gonna be worth it when I’m done.

[00:19:40] Lauren Vassallo: It’s a great question. Well, first of all, you know, not to, not to plug Lulu, but, when you are self-publishing, when you’re using a print on demand model, it’s a lot, quicker to market. It’s really easy to make those updates on the fly as opposed to traditional publishing where if you wanted to update the content [00:20:00] of a book. Okay. Maybe next year it’ll get out. so, you know, it is actually a lot easier to make those updates on the fly if you’re using a print on demand model. So that’s, that’s super helpful. But I also think that even, even outdated content still has value in, like, in

[00:20:20] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:21] Lauren Vassallo: Even the process of putting the book together is helping you because like you are getting to know your content better.

[00:20:27] Lauren Vassallo: You’re getting to know like everything that you are doing with that content better, and you can still talk about it better. You know what those updates are and people that are buying your content from you, they, they know that risk, especially if they know what, what you’re putting together. And I think that there are a lot of like. There are a lot of people that are willing to accept that risk because they see the value in your content. Even if it isn’t 100% evergreen, there are still things in there that are always gonna be

[00:20:59] Lauren Vassallo: [00:21:00] relevant. Or even just knowing what they used to be like. Knowing what, like this is what the older version of this situation was, and I have this as a reference point while I’m reading your updated blog post on your blog.

[00:21:13] Lauren Vassallo: That has value. I think there’s a lot of different ways that you can kind of

[00:21:16] Lauren Vassallo: I mean, there’s nothing is evergreen anymore,

[00:21:19] Jeff Sieh: right, right. That’s a good point. So. Well, so one of the, the things that I’ve been thinking about, because I, you know, I do an inter interview based show. I have some great interviews, and our friend, Lou Mongello, what he did is he went back through his, catalog and pulled interviews and actually published those as a book, which I thought was an easy lift.

[00:21:38] Jeff Sieh: Now of course, he’s interviewing people like, you know, the original Mary Poppins and like, big time, imagineers at Disney. So there’s a lot of like interest in that. is that a viable option, but for, like maybe not Disney creators, but maybe people who do interview based shows, is that something pulling from your existing content?

[00:21:55] Jeff Sieh: ’cause you mentioned blog posts before. Is that a great way to get your first book [00:22:00] out?

[00:22:00] Lauren Vassallo: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I would highly encourage that if that is something that you want to just experiment with, like the process. If you want to like, you know, do a trial run. I’m somebody who learns by doing, like I, you can explain it to me until I’m like.

[00:22:16] Lauren Vassallo: Not listening anymore. I, I learned by doing.

[00:22:19] Lauren Vassallo: So if you wanna just experiment with the process of like, okay, what is it? Like, you can literally just download your episode transcripts and turn that into a, into a printed book. And, and no one ever has to see it, but you, you’re just doing it for the funsies of it. But it’s, it’s still something that you can do.

[00:22:37] Lauren Vassallo: But I also think that you can turn of your content into a book for a product type or as a lead gen tool or as whatever it is. We see people do that all the time and we see people do that, whether it’s just taking, quite literally publishing an annual here’s a printed out copy of every newsletter that I sent this year in chronological [00:23:00] order.

[00:23:00] Lauren Vassallo: I’ve made no changes to it. Here is literally just like a print version of every email that I sent this year. And then we’ll also see people that will do things like. you know, because you do like, I mean, obviously this, this show has like a content theme. Like you’re not just out, out there talking about whatever, but you do have different types of guests and different types of themes within that.

[00:23:24] Lauren Vassallo: So if you wanted to go through it and say, I’m gonna take 10 interviews from people that we’re talking about social media specifically, and turn that into a book, and maybe you don’t want the, the straight up transcripts, but you wanna put that in some kind of cohesive order, or you wanna turn the transcripts into paragraphs or whatever, you can take that content, still revise it a little bit, cut it down, make it fit together in some kind of chronological or logical way and publish that.

[00:23:55] Lauren Vassallo: But it is still, you’re not writing from scratch. You’re still using your existing content [00:24:00] to outline and inform that, like final product.

[00:24:03] Jeff Sieh: So I’m gonna, ’cause once again, free consulting. Connor, I’m gonna jump in, um, So I could take, so we, we talk a lot about podcasting here. We talk about a bunch about live video. So I could have actually a little book about all podcasting. Like, here’s all these experts I’ve interviewed, here’s the things they say, and I have a little podcasting book and I can do the same thing with live video.

[00:24:21] Jeff Sieh: ’cause we have a lot of guests talking about live video. So is that what you’re suggesting for content creators to go back and look at kind of those silos that they might be able to pull and put a book into?

[00:24:29] Lauren Vassallo: Yes. Absolutely. And I think that’s a great way to, if you are looking for a reason to create multiple different products, whether it’s because you want to have different, different types of lead gen tools or because you wanna have different product types as as a revenue generator, that’s how you take like 10 different books outta the same content.

[00:24:50] Jeff Sieh: Very, very cool. Got it.

[00:24:51] Lauren Vassallo: Yeah.

[00:24:52] Conor Brown: Especially with something like as big as as writing a book. I think we talk about how you go through a lot of different journeys with it, right? [00:25:00] Like it’s a different time and moment as you’re writing it and as you start to develop it, you might start to realize, oh. You know what? I should focus a little bit more on this.

[00:25:10] Conor Brown: In the book authors, they talk about it all the time about how they had the concept of a novel halfway through writing. They’re like, this doesn’t make any sense. They scrapped it. They reworked it. How often, Lauren, do you see that happening with,authors today? The authors that, that you talk to?

[00:25:26] Conor Brown: Especially when it’s something like, we talk about how writing really helps you, content that you have better. So maybe you start out with a topic and then you start writing and you realize halfway through, you know what, this is the real message. This is what I have to focus on. How often do you find creators,discovering their real message?

[00:25:47] Conor Brown: Like halfway through writing the book?

[00:25:49] Lauren Vassallo: I don’t think I know a single person that has written an entire book without realizing that the book that they finished is not the same book that they started. Like I think a hundred percent of the [00:26:00] time people like, absolutely. I think that’s why it’s such a valuable process. Like worst case scenario, you go through the writing exercise of it all or the, or the content organization of it all.

[00:26:12] Lauren Vassallo: Even if at the end of the day you decide you’re never gonna publish this, no one’s ever gonna see it. You still learned something really valuable about yourself and about your content?

[00:26:22] Conor Brown: So when something like that changes and you do realize, hey, you know what, this is what the book’s gonna be about. I’m a person that, of course, like perfectionist, right? recovery perfectionist. that if that happens, all I start thinking about is. Damn, the first part of this book isn’t gonna make any sense at all.

[00:26:41] Conor Brown: And I gotta go back and I gotta redo all of it. And now I’m at that roadblock of, well, I might as well just, just not continue with it, right? Because I found the message and everything, all my hard work is, is null and void now. So when that does happen, Lauren, how do you suggest people go about, like either reworking it in [00:27:00] or I, you know, starting from scratch or, or what is it like, like what do they do with that?

[00:27:05] Lauren Vassallo: I think it depends on how far. the, discovery has deviated from the original book that you were writing or the original content that you were putting together, or whatever it is. But I would always say, first of all, don’t delete anything. my Google Drive folders are absolutely full of draft 1.0, draft 1.0 0.1, draft, 1.0, 0.1 asterisk, whatever, you know, because I, I never wanna delete anything just in case it, it turns around and becomes relevant later. But I, I think if it’s still like, if, if it’s within the content where you just realize that you’re, narrowing your focus a little bit more. Like you started out writing something broad and then you realized halfway through like, oh, I actually need to, to. Niche down. It’s niche, but it’s fine.

[00:27:57] Lauren Vassallo: Um,sorry.

[00:27:58] Jeff Sieh: Now we’re gonna get the internet [00:28:00] mad at us right now, but go ahead.

[00:28:01] Lauren Vassallo: this is a fight that I’ve been fighting for two years. It’s fine. but yeah, like I think keeping that original content, that that original higher level content is still valuable to look back on because it can still be useful later. You still might wanna come back to it later.

[00:28:16] Lauren Vassallo: Whether it’s back to it when you’re still working on this book or maybe working on a different book. Maybe you discover that there’s a different book in there. I interviewed, Austin L. Church. Last year at CEX and we were talking about his, his process of writing his book. And he was saying that he realized by the end of it that his original outline was three different books.

[00:28:38] Lauren Vassallo: And even then he only wrote like half of the one book that he was intending to write, which I think is something that a lot of people experience over the course of that. so I think that that is still useful content or it’s still useful information for you one way or another, but don’t hesitate to shift.

[00:28:57] Lauren Vassallo: That’s what editing’s for, that’s what the editing process is for, which [00:29:00] is more fun than writing.

[00:29:02] Jeff Sieh: Right. And, and I think that, you know, you’re getting content, like even if you have to, it doesn’t fit in something else, you’ve still got content you can use somewhere else. Con Okay. Yeah. What were you gonna say?

[00:29:11] Conor Brown: No, I wasn’t gonna say anything.

[00:29:13] Jeff Sieh: Okay. Okay.this is a thing that I’ve seen a lot and I’ve seen a lot of authors do, and a lot of big authors do, but they’re, they’re, they’ve started doing this, like writing in public kind of thing.

[00:29:24] Jeff Sieh: Like, they’ll post a chapter on x or an Instagram or, or a link to something somewhere. And from a community standpoint, how powerful is it when. Creators share that process, of writing instead of waiting for that perfect launch. You know, all the, there’s whole systems that you first supposed to do for launching a book and whatever, and getting on these bestseller lists and yada, yada, yada.

[00:29:44] Jeff Sieh: But I, to be honest, the people I follow are the ones who are writing in public. And I’m like, okay, that’s interesting. And they’re almost kind of crowdsourcing even some of the content. So do you recommend that for a first time author or is that something you wanna do for your second book? [00:30:00] What are your thoughts on kind of creating in public like that?

[00:30:02] Lauren Vassallo: Okay, well, I have a lot of thoughts on that, but you derailed me a little bit with the first time author. I, so we’re gonna come back

[00:30:07] Jeff Sieh: Okay. Okay.

[00:30:07] Lauren Vassallo: question. but I absolutely think that that can be a really, really valuable community building tool. which is obviously something that a lot of creators are focusing on right now, and a lot of creators are, are really looking for ways to connect more with their community or build community.

[00:30:27] Lauren Vassallo: and, and it’s, it’s giving people a reason to care about your book, which, you know, in theory, they should care about your book anyway. If you’ve done a good job of building yourself up as somebody who like has actual relationships with your fans or your customers or whoever, but especially if you’re, if you’re going out on a limb a little bit with your book, or if you are, Trying to, trying to give people a reason for why they should buy it, why they should care about it. Being public with that process, getting your [00:31:00] audience involved with that process makes them feel invested in it. It makes them feel like they’re a part of the experience and it gives them a reason to care about it.

[00:31:08] Lauren Vassallo: and it’s giving people a reason to, connect with you further. Whether that’s about the book or about the things you’re talking about in the book or about just your, your process and experience writing it.

[00:31:18] Lauren Vassallo: I think there’s a lot of different ways that you can, foster communication and community with your audience by just being transparent about that.

[00:31:27] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I, I like it. ’cause I mean, one, they’re good authors, but I’ve always been really hesitant. And you said you were gonna go back to the first time thing, so, so kind of finish that thought with, is this a good idea for somebody who’s doing it for the first time?

[00:31:38] Lauren Vassallo: Yeah, I think, I think then it might be a little bit of a different goal or approach in that case. And in that case, I would say, just maybe start doing it publicly a little further down the line, because there’s also, you know, as, also a perfectionist, not a recovering perfectionist. So Connor, I’d like to share some tips, on your recovery [00:32:00] efforts.

[00:32:00] Lauren Vassallo: there is that, there is that fear. A little bit of like, what if I get really public and, and say I’m doing this and then I burn out halfway through and I never finish it. And now I am embarrassed because I told a bunch of people that I was like very publicly writing a book and I never finished it.

[00:32:15] Lauren Vassallo: so I think that if this is your first time doing it, I would wait until you’re a little bit further down the road. Like maybe you’ve got draft one done and now you’re working on, like, you’re talking about your editing process, you’re talking about your cover design process You’re talking about like I, I’m looking for beta readers for, for my book.

[00:32:35] Lauren Vassallo: Now that it’s further down the line, I don’t think I would go out there on like day one of writing draft one. Let’s go. This book is gonna be done in a month.

[00:32:45] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, that is, that’s probably the best advice I think so far. ’cause I mean, I, I, I think, I think getting ahead and then not looking like a doofus, uh, to your audience, you know? ’cause I was like, oh, I’ll just send it out to my email list. And then I’m like, okay, those people actually read stuff. Like [00:33:00] I’ll be, you know, that’ll be, if you don’t finish, they’ll let you know.

[00:33:03] Jeff Sieh: So.

[00:33:03] Conor Brown: Yeah, but you already, you already look like a doofus,

[00:33:08] Jeff Sieh: Thank you.

[00:33:09] Jeff Sieh: and Connor’s, uh, this is Connor’s last show, folks.

[00:33:11] Conor Brown: No, I’m just saying I think like that, that can be exciting or it can be nerve wracking or, or whatever. But you have to be truthful to yourself about what’s gonna push me forward, right? What’s gonna make me actually finish this? Is it public humiliation that’s gonna make me finish it, or is that going to be an impediment?

[00:33:31] Conor Brown: Right? Is that gonna start, you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna break down. I’m like, I can’t let these people down and it’s gonna be even worse. Amy comments? I love that idea about writing in public. Steven, who Lauren brought up his pocket guide, he did a great job doing that while he was writing his pocket guide.

[00:33:48] Conor Brown: Now I think that was Steven’s first book, but Steven’s also running marathons. He’s, you know, working out every day. The dude is disciplined to a t right? So I, I think, [00:34:00] know thyself when it, when it comes to, to going with that for, for your first book.

[00:34:04] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:34:05] Lauren Vassallo: Yes, absolutely. If that is the kind of accountability that is going to keep you on track, absolutely. Then if that’s what it takes.

[00:34:13] Jeff Sieh: Do it.

[00:34:14] Lauren Vassallo: Go for it. Do it for sure. It is also a great, Jeff, you had mentioned this in passing a little bit ago, that it’s a great way to, reuse the, the process as content. So, you know, especially if you are using your existing content to publish a book, but let’s say that you’re going through it and you’re saying, Hmm, there’s, there’s some gaps in the content here.

[00:34:37] Lauren Vassallo: Like, I’ve got, I’m using these blog posts, or I’m using transcripts from videos that I’ve done, but I’ve actually, I’m just realizing I’ve never done a blog post on this step that falls in the middle of the process. Great. Now you know what your next blog post is, and when you’re done writing it, you just slide it into your book outline.

[00:34:55] Lauren Vassallo: So

[00:34:56] Lauren Vassallo: maybe that’s your version of writing in public. If you’re [00:35:00] not quite. Open to the idea of like fully being like I am literally out here writing in LinkedIn, and then I’m gonna copy the LinkedIn post and put that in a Google Doc. You know, you can still, you can still use that content publicly while you’re in the process of putting the book together and maybe just not call it what it is.

[00:35:18] Jeff Sieh: Right. And I wanna circle back to what you said earlier about and, and Connor mentioned Steven’s really disciplined. You know, I never thought I even could write a book until I start, until I started journaling every day. Now that’s not gonna be, you know, a book content, but it, and so I have an unbroken streak of like 2,500 days that I’ve done in a row of journal, even if it’s just a paragraph.

[00:35:39] Jeff Sieh: But that has given me enough confidence like, oh man, you know what? I can maybe do this. Like I can. Sit down and write every day. And I think maybe somebody to start could do like maybe like you mentioned the blog post and do a blog post and that can kind of do it in little, like those little baby steps to kind of get your confidence out there.

[00:35:57] Jeff Sieh: And then maybe you wanna do the thing in public, you [00:36:00] know, like, Hey, I’m gonna do this. You guys have been reading me for this long. Let’s do a book together kind of thing,

[00:36:04] Lauren Vassallo: Yeah, and I think that’s when I said in the beginning that I, I challenge the idea that I’m not a writer, especially when content creators tell me I’m not a writer. Did you, did you write an outline for your podcast episode or for your blog post or for your YouTube video? Did, did you just manifest the words from your brain onto the, the paper?

[00:36:26] Lauren Vassallo: Like, no, you, you wrote that Just because you’re not thinking of it as writing a, a novel or writing a book, like you’re still a writer, you still know how to like coherently put your words in some kind of order and, and put that content out into the world. So it’s just a matter of like how you frame it and how you think about it.

[00:36:47] Jeff Sieh: I think that is so true and such great advice. what else is really true is our sponsors, they are awesome and amazing. They’re Ecamm. You find out more about them at Ecamm dot com slash Jeff. By the way, they’re awesome for creating content. Like that’s what we’re doing here. We talked [00:37:00] about ways to grab content, to write a book.

[00:37:01] Jeff Sieh: Well, a live video or a podcast or whatever you could use Ecamm m for would be a great way to do that. By the way, they’re doing an amazing thing in, in April. Through the 23rd, through the 24th in the United Kingdom. That’s right. They’re having a creator Camp uk. You could find out more about that by going to two Fest co do UK slash creator dash camp.

[00:37:21] Jeff Sieh: Their camps are always awesome. Connor has been, I have been a couple times. This one in the UK is gonna be amazing as well. So make sure you guys go and check that out for friends over at Ecamm. So now Lauren, this is gonna be uh, I’m sure, a lot of ideas and thoughts about AI and writing a book. I wanna know from the audience, where do you personally draw the line with ai?

[00:37:44] Jeff Sieh: Like do you just use it for brainstorming? Do you use it for drafting? Do you use it for editing or just like I am swearing off ai. It is the devil. I am not going to use it at all. I wanna know where you guys think about, AI and how you’re using it to create content. ’cause I think this is really, really [00:38:00] fascinating.

[00:38:00] Jeff Sieh: So. Lauren, where do you think AI is actually helpful, actually helpful for creators in writing a book, especially early on.

[00:38:09] Lauren Vassallo: I think it’s a great, sounding board for ideas. I think it’s a great way to, to kind of talk your ideas out loud to somebody when you’re still trying to figure out how to formulate them or how to organize them. like I think a lot of people, maybe, maybe less in the nonfiction creation space, I think a lot of people are, are hesitant to talk about their ideas when they’re still in that ideation stage.

[00:38:36] Lauren Vassallo: Whether it’s because they’re afraid of, like, not articulating it well or, or afraid of being told that it’s stupid or afraid of somebody else stealing that idea and publishing it first, whatever it is. I think people are, are hesitant in those like early stages. So I think that AI can be really helpful in that way of just like either getting that validation or putting that idea out there, to something [00:39:00] and, and getting feedback on it. I, I talk about this all the time where it’s, if you’re, when you’re torn between two things, it’s the, the coin toss, you know, what you want the coin to land on when it’s up in the air. You know what you’re hoping for it to land on when you, when you say heads or tails, and I think that that having something like ai, if you’re not ready to talk to a human about it, if it says to you like, yeah, that’s a great idea, and you were looking for it to say like, no, that’s actually pretty stupid, then you know in your heart that you have to actually like cut that idea or reframe that idea

[00:39:34] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, that’s got it.

[00:39:36] Conor Brown: We got some great comments from people too, sharing what they use it for. like Sean, but mostly Disney. He likes AI for, grunt work or to have a little fun and for things I cannot do myself, like writing a big band theme song. That’s right. AI is great for that. so Lauren, we talked about what AI is really helpful for, especially when just starting out on, [00:40:00] on something.

[00:40:00] Conor Brown: What about the opposite? Where do you see AI actively hurting books, even when the author has good intentions, when they start that chat with, with the bot?

[00:40:10] Lauren Vassallo: Yeah, I, I think that, I think there’s a lot of answers to this, honestly. because especially in, in the publishing industry, there’s a lot of division about AI and the use of AI in general and also in the writing process. and I think that AI as a writing tool can be very useful, but it is not a replacement for actually writing.

[00:40:35] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:40:36] Lauren Vassallo: For, for a lot of reasons, whether it’s because of, of quality or legality. You know, we’re still in that gray area of, we’re not sure entirely who owns the copyright to anything that was written with ai. So, you know, you might just wanna be avoiding it for that reason, or, you know, not putting yourself in a position of later down the line, you’re, you’re gonna [00:41:00] find yourself in some kind of like, I no longer own the copyright to my own content because I admitted that I copy and pasted paragraphs directly out of chat GPT and into my book, which I would never, ever, ever recommend doing.

[00:41:13] Lauren Vassallo: so I think that it is something that is a really good assistant tool, but I think that if you rely too heavily on it for the actual creation process, you’re going to find a few different. Where you’re going, you’re going find yourself in way too deep, and that

[00:41:31] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:41:31] Lauren Vassallo: probably bite you later down the road.

[00:41:34] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I think that’s a, a great, a great caveat to using ai. And this is a, and Mark has a great comment. He goes, he uses it for brainstorming, editing, and checking continuity and AI can step in for the beginning. It steps in and then has the final steps, like with the editing and stuff.

[00:41:50] Jeff Sieh: But the main part, the middle step, it has to be done by a human. I thought that was a, a really great, way to say it. And, and, you know, Lauren, [00:42:00] you and Matt talk a lot about, using AI as an assistant, not a decision maker. So how should creators, especially when they’re first starting out, because I see it a lot on just even social posts and even o and other things, even podcasts now that they’re clicking the easy button and you can tell they’re doing exactly what you said not to do, where they’re copy and pasting what ChatGPT says or whatever.

[00:42:24] Jeff Sieh: and I really want to, to kind of dive in a little bit how you and Matt, you know, you’ve discussed it before on, on your show. It it’s that assistant, not a decision maker. But the problem is a lot of times, especially with like open AI and some of the newer models, it agrees with everything you say. And so you may have this book that’s not really, it’s just mush, it’s just garbage, it’s just, there’s nothing controversial about it.

[00:42:45] Jeff Sieh: There’s no hard hunting tips or any of that kind of stuff. So how do you use it as that assistant? Like give us some practical ways.

[00:42:52] Lauren Vassallo: well, definitely what Mark just said there. I also use it as an editing tool as I’m writing. love [00:43:00] writing, not so great at the grammar part of it. So if I’m sitting there and I’m like, oh, I’m not sure if there’s supposed to be a comma in this sentence, or, I can’t think of the word, the word is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t think of what it is that, that I wanna use here.

[00:43:14] Lauren Vassallo: That is sometimes that can be a, a very small thing that creates a big roadblock in your writing process, especially if you’re trying to write in a finite amount of time during the day. And so I have like a, a running thread on Chad GPT that I is my grammar gut check. And I just go in there and I’ll copy and paste a sentence in there.

[00:43:35] Lauren Vassallo: And I try not to, I try not to give it like leading questions. Like I’ll put something, I’ll put a sentence in there and say, Hey, is there anything incorrect about this sentence? And kind of let it give me like, yes, it’s missing a comma here. Like I won’t ask it the question of should this comma be here? Because it does tend to agree with you if you, if you influence the question. So I will use it that way. And, It [00:44:00] definitely speeds up the writing process, and I’m not gonna then take the, the suggested edits and here’s, here’s a rewrite of the sentence. I’m not gonna copy and paste that into my document, but I am going take what it just explained to me and modify my sentence and then keep moving on.

[00:44:17] Lauren Vassallo: But now I’m not gonna use AI to edit my full manuscript later. I’m using it as an editing tool while I’m writing, and then I’m gonna hire a professional human being editor when it’s time to actually edit the whole book.

[00:44:30] Jeff Sieh: it.

[00:44:31] Conor Brown: I like that. I like that distinction. So like if, if we wanna use it ethically and responsibly while writing a book, what would you tell creators, Lauren? What guardrail should they put on from the get from day one so that AI can help them, but they can still do it in an ethical and or responsible way.

[00:44:49] Lauren Vassallo: I, I think, I mean, the number one is. Don’t copy and paste anything verbatim out of AI and put it in your content. I also won’t use it for, [00:45:00] creative decisions or whatever. The, the number one for me though would be, don’t copy and paste anything directly out of there, but just kind of in general, I think that I would, I would write down, I would actually make a list of, these are my guidelines, whatever makes the most sense to you, whatever you want them to be.

[00:45:17] Lauren Vassallo: These are my guidelines, these are my rules. Put ’em in your, in your style guide or your brand guide or, or whatever. Just your like single source of truth is for anything else that you’re creating content wise. And just stick to that. Make sure that you stick to that and define them as something that you will feel comfortable later on down the road.

[00:45:37] Lauren Vassallo: If somebody who is. Either very anti AI or on the fence about how they feel about ai. Says to you, how did you use, or did you use AI at all in the writing of this book? And if so, how? You will feel comfortable and confident in the answer that you give them.

[00:45:54] Jeff Sieh: Mm. That is a great ’cause. They, ’cause nowadays, if you’re an author, they’re gonna ask that question if you have a book and they’re gonna [00:46:00] like, okay, did you write this? Or is this like chat? Bt. Right. I mean, that’s a, that’s a question every author’s gonna get and him and Han around the, the answer isn’t gonna look good for you if you’re doing that.

[00:46:12] Jeff Sieh: and so we, we even have our pal, Mr. Fred, saying, human in the loop remains key. That is very, very true. So, Lauren, I wanted to ask this, and this wasn’t in our, our any of our questions I sent earlier, but, I wanted to ask you, so I’m gonna put you on the spot. let’s say somebody watched this and they’re like, okay, I, I, Lawrence convinced me, I’ve got a book in me.

[00:46:32] Jeff Sieh: I need to do this, self-publishing with Lulu, like how much do they need to budget? Like, I mean, I know it’s depends on how big the book is and that kinda stuff, but kind of give people like, who maybe have this dream and they think, okay, this is actually. Something that I could maybe do, like how much do they need to budget?

[00:46:48] Jeff Sieh: How much time budget do they need to do? Like kinda, I know I’m asking you really for a, a broad sense of things, but can you kinda give us a framework of what people need to maybe think about that’s gonna cost [00:47:00] time-wise and financially?

[00:47:01] Lauren Vassallo: You are not gonna like my answer because,

[00:47:04] Jeff Sieh: I know it’s, yeah.

[00:47:05] Lauren Vassallo: yeah. The answer is very much gonna be that it, it can vary dramatically, depending on what kind of book you’re creating and. like how much work you wanna put into it, I guess. I mean, realistically you could pay somebody to do every step of the book for you.

[00:47:24] Lauren Vassallo: You could, write a single draft of a book and then hire editors to whip it into shape and then formatters to format the interior and then a cover designer to do that. You could hire people to do the marketing for you and whatever. You could pay as much as you want to have somebody. And there are hybrid publishers out there that you can work with that it is, it’s not traditional publishing, it is still more to self publishing, but you are paying a team to, to provide some or all of those services for you.

[00:47:54] Lauren Vassallo: But you can also technically do every single one of those things on your own if you [00:48:00] really wanted to, if you were really, really determined to get a book out there. you could do every step of that process. And the only cost it’s gonna cost is the print and shipping of the book.

[00:48:10] Jeff Sieh: Got it.

[00:48:11] Lauren Vassallo: you know, it depends, it depends entirely on what your personal expertise is, what resources you have available to you.

[00:48:19] Lauren Vassallo: If you wanted to prioritize, like, you know, I, I have friends that I think will do the editing for me, but none of us are very good at graphic design. So I’m going to spend money on a cover designer, but the editing and formatting, I’m gonna have somebody else, or I’m gonna like, work with people that are gonna do like a fair exchange in some way instead.

[00:48:40] Jeff Sieh: But that is good ’cause some people like to bootstrap everything themselves. ’cause that’s where they’re at. They have, you know, there’s that, that equation. Where do you have more of time or money? Some people are more in the middle where like, okay, I can do the, a lot of the heavy lifting, but I need somebody to edit ’cause I stink.

[00:48:54] Jeff Sieh: It’s spelling and grammarly. It’s not cutting it. Right. And so I think, like you were saying, but. What is really cool is [00:49:00] that it’s opened up publishing to so many people. can you tell us really quick, and I mean, one, tell us about your podcast, that you do for Lulu and then like what Lulu actually offers, like, because I think a lot of people don’t even know, they hear self-publishing and they’re like, so I just ship ’em a Word document.

[00:49:15] Jeff Sieh: I mean, and they print it so kind of talk, talk a little bit about what Lulu offers as well.

[00:49:19] Lauren Vassallo: Sure. So Lulu is a print on demand book publishing company. So you can come to us with, a print ready PDF file. So I guess part of this is that you, what we don’t do is editing or formatting or design or anything like that. You come to Lulu when you have your print ready book files and you upload them, and you can design that in any of the different formats and sizes that we have.

[00:49:50] Lauren Vassallo: I think there’s like 3000 possible combinations, whether it comes to book size and binding type and interior colors and all of [00:50:00] that. You create whatever you want, you use those files to upload that to Lulu and order one copy, 10 copies, a thousand copies, you can sell them. we have a variety of different ways that you can sell your book, whether it’s through third party retailers, through Lulu or selling direct from your own website.

[00:50:20] Lauren Vassallo: We have e-commerce solutions for that. and it’s, it’s really just like we’re, we’re kind of here to be your print and fulfillment provider for the book. That is pretty much whatever you can imagine your book to be.

[00:50:34] Jeff Sieh: Awesome. And talk about your, your podcast. And it’s a, it’s a, it’s a video and a podcast, so it’s a video podcast as well. So talk about that, where you can find all that.

[00:50:44] Lauren Vassallo: Yeah. it is a video and audio podcast, publish and Prosper. We are on everywhere that you can get podcasts, including YouTube, and it is a weekly podcast where my boss and co-host Matt Brill, and [00:51:00] I talk about publishing and we talk about all different, Elements of publishing. We, we talk about it, we try to cover like a pretty wide base of, you know, we, we talk to authors, we talk to creators, we talk to publishers, we talk to small business owners.

[00:51:17] Lauren Vassallo: We do, a variety of different like episode topics. We’re always open to, if anyone has questions about anything and, and you want us to dive deep into an episode, we would love to do that. I am always looking for new ideas for episode topics, otherwise I’m just gonna wind up getting up there. And, uh, Matt is also a huge Disney nerd, so the two of us will just inevitably default to, to talking about Disney.

[00:51:41] Lauren Vassallo: but yeah, you know, pretty much anything that you can think of that, that you have questions about the, the publishing process or the marketing process or different ways that you can use a book to support your business. That’s, that’s what we’re up there talking about once a week.

[00:51:56] Jeff Sieh: there’s a lot of stuff on there about,e-commerce as well, like how a book plays [00:52:00] into e-commerce and the best way to sell it online, all stuff stuff. So it’s really fascinating. So you can find out all about uh, prosper podcast.com. That’ll take you right to the page where you can download it, sign up, whatever, Spotify, wherever you wanna get your podcast from.

[00:52:12] Jeff Sieh: So publish prosper podcast.com. Lauren, this has been amazing. You answered a lot of my questions, and now I think we all need to go out and write a book. and Connor Brown, what would your book be about? Tell us what’s going on in the world of, vacation Kingdoms, my friend.

[00:52:27] Conor Brown: So much going on in the world of vacation kingdoms. Follow me at Vacation Kingdoms. I’ll be on board the Disney Destiny next week. So there’ll be plenty of stuff there. I have a ton of ideas for books, but Jeff, I will say I for one, would love a book with all of your journal entries, and I hope I

[00:52:47] Jeff Sieh: I’m, I’m sure you would. And they’re all about you my friend. It’s like Connor

[00:52:51] Jeff Sieh: screwed up at the show again. Yeah, so this has been great. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you Lauren, for being here. Make sure you guys go check out [00:53:00] lulu.com and her podcast Publishing Prosper because it is really, uh, if you’re interested in any sort of self-publishing, you need to guys go check that out.

[00:53:07] Jeff Sieh: Go to their YouTube channel. They’ve got tons of different videos you can watch and check out as well. but thank you to Mark and Mr. Fred, but mostly Disney. Amy Keys, everybody who showed up today and left some great comments. Caleb, uh, hill was here as well, so thank you so much for that. And with that, we’ll see you guys next time.

[00:53:23] Jeff Sieh: Thanks for watching. Bye everybody.