How Do Most Nonfiction Authors Write and Why?

The Empowered Author Podcast transcript

How Do Most Nonfiction Authors Write, and Why 

with guest Anne Janzer

Boni:

Hello and welcome. I'm Boni Wagner-Stafford from Ingenium Books for another one of our weekly Empowered Author sessions. With me today, I'm thrilled to welcome Anne Janzer. Anne is an award-winning author. I mean, just listen to this list of accolades: award-winning author, a nonfiction author coach. She's also a marketing practitioner and a blogger. So Anne, thanks so much for taking the time out to chat with us today.

Anne:

Thanks for having me here, Boni. I'm delighted to talk about writing with writers.

Boni:

Excellent. Now, is there anything else about you and about your background that you wanted me to let folks know before we carry on into the meat of what we're talking about today?

Anne:

Yes. So my books I've just published my fifth book and four of the five are all about writing. So I'm a very meta, very introspective writer. I like to look at the science and the process of writing, so that's kind of my geekiness there.

Boni:

That's great. And I'm just going to post a link to your book that just published last week, which is full of - well, I don't know how full; I haven't read it yet, of course, 'cause it's just out - but it's called "Get the Word Out" and you used - at least for some of the material - the results of a survey of nonfiction authors and that was what really caught my eye. You know, a little while ago on Twitter, I was like, "Oh, who's this Anne Janzer woman and what is this nonfiction author survey? I must find out more about that." So that's what we're going to talk about today. Maybe I can get you to start by telling me: what was your reason for going out with the survey? Was it linked to helping you with this book or did the book idea come after you saw the results?

Anne:

Oh, no, I was well underway with the book. I have been interviewing a bunch of authors because, you know, I want to not just write about my own experience, but do a lot of research, right? And what better research than to talk to a bunch of nonfiction authors about their experiences? I quickly realized interviewing wasn't terribly scalable because I spent hours preparing for reading the books, you know, it's great. And I love the interviews, but I needed a more scalable way to get more information. So I created the survey of nonfiction authors. And I ended up with about 435 responses, which - which was great. I mean, this was a good pocket of data to look at.

Boni:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we can figure out: usually people say, "This is a survey of this many people and your results are accurate point," whatever, but that's not really what this was about. But so 435 responses: I've got a printout of the survey here. And the makeup of those: 267 had published a book; 168 as yet unpublished. So I think that's an important thing to talk about too, is when we talk about nonfiction authors, we are not only talking about the people who have already gone through the process, but the pool of people who are in the midst of it.

Anne:

Exactly. And I asked different, slightly - some overlapping questions, but had some different questions of each group, because we had different things to learn from each of them.

Boni:

Right. Why do you think it's important to listen to what the two groups have to say and look at what's different about it?

Anne:

Well, so the published author certainly can tell you the story of their experiences - and many generously shared advice for the unpublished ones, right? But I think it's good for the - the unpublished authors, we learned where they were in the process, what they got stuck on, if they got stuck. And what were their objectives? What was it that they were hoping to do? So I think it was, it was interesting. Most of the unpublished authors were either in the middle of drafting - some were in the publication process and things, or they were in the idea phase. So they were in that still, like, "I'm wanting and working on it. I want to do a book, but I haven't, you know, moved on to the next step." So ... Yeah.

Boni:

Right. So the, one of the first questions you asked was about what kind of nonfiction books either that the author has written or that they hope to write. I was interested in the mix. The, you know, overwhelming checkbox, if you like, was in the business and career advice area, and then self-help, memoir kind of third, "other" is an interesting thing. But do you think that that speaks to the audience that you have that was attracted to the survey or do you think that represents the mix of the volume in each category?

Anne:

Yeah, I think a little bit of the mix of the volume but I think in reality, probably the memoir should be larger. I think there's probably more memoir writers out there. I think it's how - so the tricky part about a survey: one is that it's tricky to write surveys so that you get meaningful data and two is it's tricky to get people to take the survey, right? So, so that is an artifact of my audience and the people who helped me spread the word about it, many of whom were themselves business authors.

Boni:

Yeah.

Anne:

So I think so like 200 of my 400 responses had written a business or a career advice book.

Boni:

Okay, cool. The next thing I'd like to chat about is what you learned about the reasons people either write or pursue the writing and publishing of a book. And I liked this because in our business at Ingenium Books, this is the first place we spent quite a bit of time, even before we decide whether we're going to work with an author to publish. But tell me what your thoughts were about what you've learned in these responses.

Anne:

So this was fascinating to me. I mean, I know that we have many reasons for writing a book, right? And actually I wrote - I asked the question twice: I asked people first to list, you know, pick from a checklist of all of their reasons or just type in their own. And then I said, "Pick your primary one." And this is important because this is kind of what we actually have to do as authors. We have all these reasons that bring us to the table, but we need to pick one to focus on that's going to be our main one, because one of the, you know, certain reasons have more staying power and they're going to influence our decisions. If you're in it to be rich and famous, you're going to make different kinds of decisions than if you're in it to, you know, share your advice with the world. And what I found was that in both of those cases, overwhelmingly the "winning" - the most popular - reason was, "I want to serve others. I have a purpose beyond myself. I want to serve others with what I know." And this is - now remember: almost half of my respondents were business authors but their - for many of them, their primary reason was not career or business purposes; it was, "I want to serve others," which I think is wonderful.

Boni:

That is wonderful. And it's, you know, it just speaks to - you know, one of your other titles that I was looking at, "The Servant Authorship": it speaks to, you know, the goodness that we get to spread around just by taking that stance of doing it for, it's not a self-motivated reason. It is a servant motivated reason which helps to make the world a better place.

Anne:

It does. And, but interestingly enough, Boni - and I'm sure you've seen this in the clients that you work with: it rebounds on you in the sense that it makes - it gets you through. It simplifies your decisions. It makes everything better. So it does serve you indirectly.

Boni:

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Now unpublished writers: what did you find out and learn about where the unpublished authors that responded to the survey were in their process?

Anne:

Yeah, so a lot of them were in the writing. A lot of them were in the idea generation and I think from that idea generation is where we can kind of get ourselves stuck. You know, my advice to people - and I'm sure you do something similar - is like, even if you have a nub of the concept, go ahead and start writing about it. It doesn't have to be your draft. But free write. Directed free writing. Start getting into it and burying yourself in it because that's when you learn things and figure out what your book really is going to be. A lot of books emerge over time as you're working in them. But, and when you ask where they got stuck: the two biggest places people got stuck was, not surprisingly, finding the time to write and getting motivated to write. Those were the two biggest things that people identified as issues.

Boni:

Yeah. And I really, you know - this underscores the reality you and I know and every published author knows: how big a project it is. It is a big undertaking. And it really - you know, in our experience, it almost doesn't matter whether you're writing a real quick, 20,000-word booklet or a 75, 80, a hundred thousand words, you know, not textbook but, you know, something more weighty. It is a big project with lots of moving parts and it just takes time.

Anne:

It does, it does. Yeah. And people need to - one of the ... You know, at the very end, I ask people for their advice and, you know, people said, you know, "Give yourself - I wish I'd given myself more time. I wish I'd started earlier. I wish I'd done this years before." You know, it's just the time is always something that we're, you know, surprised by. Actually, there was a question later on for the published authors: "Did this take as much time or more time than you thought?"

New Speaker:

Right. Yeah.

Anne:

Almost universally, it took more time than they thought.

Boni:

Yeah. The other thing I think is interesting, buried in this answer, connects this at the - this question and answer that we're talking about - is, you know, what's getting in the way if you're stuck, to the previous question about, you know, "What are your reasons for writing?" So getting motivated to write: I think there's an interesting connection there between losing your motivation and remembering what was motivating you to write in the first place.

Anne:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what I get at with this idea of purpose or servant authorship: is that if you say, "Okay, I have a lot of reasons for writing a book but I'm going to make this my guiding star. I'm going to make serving others, serving this community with this idea," because then when you're low on motivation, that is something that pulls you forward, that keeps you going and increases the chance that you're going to finish with a product that actually makes a difference.

Boni:

Yeah. Next kind of in the list - actually, I'm going to go out of order from the way your survey was structured. And let's talk about writing process. We've already addressed the question of "Did it take more time?" But you also dug into the question of - you know, and I was just actually listening to another podcast from a friend of mine and - another author podcast - and she was saying, "Oh, you know, outlining is really not the be-all and the end-end all." And of course we, when we work with our authors, we start with outlining because we find that it really helps to have some structure in there. But the outline you start with is not necessarily the outline you finish with. So tell me about the responses and what that told you about that part of the process.

Anne:

Yeah. So, you know, this is something I experienced in my own life all the time is like, I get - I know. This is - I just published my fifth book. I get halfway through the rough draft and I'm like, "Oh, this outline doesn't work. Oh, I have to fix it and redo it." And it took me a couple of books to say, "Oh, this is actually just part of my process." Now I look for it. And I welcome it because I know the book's going to be better once that has happened, right? But for people, this idea - you know, I asked how many people stuck exactly to their outline. And it was something like 6% of the published authors. I mean, the number was really, really, really low, which is great because I think sometimes people feel the sense that writing a book is this linear thing - you know, step one: research. Step two: outline. Step three: draft. And it's like, it is, but it isn't, you know. Yeah.

Boni:

Yeah. A little bit more of a circular recurring ...

Anne:

Yes.

New Speaker:

Kind of a journey. And the important thing about that, that - you know, you've hit the nail on the head - but is that for perhaps a first-time author that is just going through the process for the first time and they were like, "Okay, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to outline, you know, research, and then I'm supposed to outline, and then I'm going to start writing," and they're going to get stuck. And they might think that there's something wrong with them or that they can't actually write, but it's that they need to recognize there's no rigidity in that outline.

Anne:

Yes, yes. This is really validating. I mean, I'm one of those people, like a quarter of the people who just do a major revision of the outline - or close to 30% - major revision part way through, and there's nothing wrong with it. Especially the people who - and maybe a first-time author who's got a book proposal and they submitted the outline; they sold their proposal with an outline in it, they sometimes feel like, but this is the outline they bought and it's like, now the publisher wants the best book you're going to produce. So if you need to tinker with it, tinker, you know. It's good. It's good when the draft outgrows its outline. It's usually a really healthy sign.

Boni:

Yeah. And, you know, keep soldiering on and let it kind of unfold a little bit. Talk about research for a moment: what you learned and what your experience is on where research fits into the writing of a nonfiction book. I guess even fiction: especially fiction, probably. Well, either. We're not going to go down that road.

Anne:

Yeah, a lot of fiction as well. So research is, you know, I think it's a really important part of a nonfiction book. I think that as authors writing nonfiction, we expand our authority by the research. We deepen our expertise through research. However, there's a point at which research becomes procrastination. Now, it's, it's a really - because, you know, you are really busy: "I'm working on the book. Look at me, I'm doing all of this research. I can, you know ..."

Boni:

"Look at how many websites I've visited today alone."

Anne:

"I read this many articles." I mean, you can feel really good about all the stuff you got done, but, you know, at the end of the day, or at the end of the month or the quarter, if you're no closer to getting a draft done, then you know, you may be at this point of - so you have to put boundaries around it and then you also have to recognize that you don't wait to finish it to start working. Because actually, again, as with the outline, when you're in the draft, you may discover, "Oh, you know, what would be great? To have a little bit of supporting research for this." Or, you know, "I wonder about that and would that be an interesting ..." So often in the writing itself, you discover that you need a little bit more research. And that's what the people in the survey found. I don't know if I have the - it's just, you know, people, only about 16% researched and then stopped and then wrote. A lot of people were doing both and about a quarter of the authors thought that they were done researching until they started writing and then went back and got more research. So again, this is supposed to be validating and empowering. Go ahead, work on your book. Don't try to check all the boxes off in a linear order.

Boni:

Yeah, yeah. Just won't work that way. Okay. Path to publish: quite a bit to talk about here. And quite a - you know, the industry has changed so dramatically in the last 10, 15 - probably longer than that - years, but on the positive side, authors have so many more choices today than they used to. And on the negative side, authors have so many more choices today than they used to, right?

Anne:

Exactly. That's precisely it, yeah. Yeah. This is not your mother's publishing. And this is not your father's publishing. This is not even, you know, your friend who published 10 years ago, this is not their publishing environment. We have so many more options but that means it's incumbent on you to understand those options. And so I have a whole chapter in my new book about exploring those because, you know, this is where I put back on my marketing hat. I think a traditional book publisher versus say an indie - let's take the two ends of the extreme: entirely different business models. And people don't think through that business model thing. And since this is essentially a business in which you're participating, you need to understand that. If you're an indie author, you take the risk, you reap the rewards, you are in charge of the decisions. You're the head of that business. If you were signing with a traditional author, many good things happen, but essentially you were part of their supply chain, right? You're, you're a part of their supply chain. Let's just call it as it is. So you need to understand that's how you fit. And then, so you need to understand what they're doing.

Anne:

And then - and so the questions about publication were really fascinating. So we asked the published authors how they had been published and close to half of my respondents - the published authors - have been published traditionally either with a major publisher or with a academic or a small press, right? And then another bunch had done indie publishing and then a small number had done - a small but growing number - had done hybrid press. And I think that that is something people need to pay attention to: is that there's emerging wonderful options that give you sort of some of what you get from traditional publishing in terms of help and support with all of the bits and pieces but keep you more in the driver's seat or more partners with you. So it's a third business model with more of a partnership.

Boni:

Yeah, yeah. No, very interesting. And that's where we are - have evolved. You know, we started out to - when we first set up Ingenium Books as a services provider for indie authors explicitly and found, you know, other gaps. So we are one of those hybrid publishers. And, you know, speaking to that, the Independent Book Publishers Association - or the IBPA - a couple of years ago now came out with the first guidelines for hybrid publishers. So that indie authors can take a look at that list and really, you know: this is the things to watch for, for ethical, you know, all of those things. It touches on business model. But it also is interesting for me to note that many of those topics that they address - and I, you know, here I'm going into it and I don't have it in front of me, so I can't be specific about it - but it is logical and it is practical. And it's interesting that it takes somebody like the IBPA to put it out for us to go, "Oh yeah, that's what I should do. That's what we should be doing." Anyway, I would encourage anyone to, you know, take a look for that, if you're interested in that criteria, but ...

Anne:

Definitely.

Boni:

But so the, the decision about path to publish can also be - and I wondered if you had specifics from the survey responses - can it be one of those things that catches an author up and might get in the way of them getting done?

Anne:

Yeah. So two things: one is that in the survey of, as yet unpublished authors, right - the ones who were in the process - a large number - what was it? 30% - didn't know how they were going to publish. They just don't know. Another, you know, a big chunk of them were planning to try traditional and go indie. I just see this huge amount of uncertainty around it. And on the - so that was the unpublished authors. When it came to the published authors, I asked them about their biggest surprises and what they would do differently. And again, publishing was one of the questions that came up, you know. That there's a bit of this sense that, you know, the saying, "The grass is greener on the other side of the fence," there's a little bit of that with publishing. It's like, "Oh, well, next time I'm gonna go with a bigger publisher. Next time I'm gonna go with a smaller publisher. Next time I'm going to go indie. Next time I'm not going to go indie." I mean, it's just, it's fascinating all of the sort of discontent. But people were often surprised by what their publishers did not do when they were working with a major ... They were - they still had the 10, 15, 20-year-ago sense of what publishing was without having noticed that the publishers have laid off most of their publicists, half their design - you know, it's like, you gotta be - if you're going into that business model, you've got to find out what it's doing today. 'Cause that's the key thing. Yeah.

Boni:

Yeah, exactly. And I find it interesting that we still have the hangover - the emotional hangover - from that traditional publishing experience of 20, 50 years ago where it's like, "Oh, I'm not a real author. And my book isn't real, unless I'm with a traditional publisher," but we need to remember that we are a supply chain feed - one of many - into someone else's business model. It's like, "Oh, I've just become a freelance writer. And I'm actually not getting paid very much. Yes. I have a traditional publishing contract. But ... " So it's about recognizing, I think, what is more important for each author at which stage, which ties back to the purpose and goals again, right?

Anne:

Yes. Yeah. Right. If you start with that purpose, it helps inform everything. Even those decisions about how to be published, right? It's, well, what are you trying to do? Who are you trying to reach? Is a traditional publisher going to be the best way to do it? And then sometimes that is the case. So I don't think there's any one right answer. As you sure would agree.

Boni:

I would totally agree. And you know, the concept of the grass is always greener. I just heard - in fact, it was on one of the Facebook groups for writers - but you know, "The grass is greener where you water it."

Anne:

That's precisely it. No, I do have to say one thing: that there's always going to be people and one of them - bless her heart - is my mom who just thinks books are not real books because they're not. So bless her. And so you, you know, you - there's some battles not worth fighting. But if you have always had this lifetime dream of publishing, you probably have that one that you read about or saw in the movies from, you know, years ago. And that is just - it's now, it's movie script. It's not reality.

Boni:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. We need to talk about marketing - and I have several things I still want to get into - but what did your survey ask and what were the responses with respect to marketing? And we touched on this earlier about it, the marketing. No, maybe we didn't; maybe I just read between the lines. But people are surprised what publishers do and don't do, in particular on the traditional side. But we see it a little bit in the hybrid space too. And marketing is one of those areas where it used to be, you'd get your traditional publishing deal and then you'd just, you know, you wrote the book and that was it. And you sat back and watched the dollar signs roll in and the publisher did everything and next ... That also doesn't happen.

Anne:

Yup. Wave to the adoring fans, sign books. Yeah. That's, that's how it works, right? I don't know, that's my life. I don't know. Yeah, no, that. And so the interesting thing about marketing was I didn't ask any questions explicitly about it. I had some open-ended questions at the end about, "What was your biggest and what would you do differently?" And woo! Marketing was right up there at the top of both of those things. People were like, "I am surprised by how much marketing. I'm surprised my publisher - they just published the book; they left it to me to market." "And what would you do differently?" is, "I would have a better marketing plan. I would start earlier. I would research. I would do more marketing. I had to make a marketing plan," you know? So it's - this is what takes people by surprise. It is in many ways that the - I'm not going to say it's the hardest part; I think we have the wrong mindset when it comes to marketing.

Boni:

I would agree with that, yeah.

Anne:

What I want to say is marketing is not about, you know, "Buy my book! Buy my book!" It's about fulfilling the purpose of the book, right? The book hasn't fulfilled its purpose until it's in the hands of the person that is going to find value from it. So that's what marketing is, is doing that last gap. It's trying to actually achieve your purpose. When you look at it that way, it's like, it's just easier to handle. And it's a long-term investment that happens after you write the book.

Boni:

Yeah. And there's a huge difference in results, I would say, both from a satisfaction perspective and an actual sales results perspective, when an author continues to invest with regularity into the marketing activities post-publish, as opposed to the one that goes, "Okay, I'm done. I hate marketing. So it's just out there." You know, and we've worked with both kinds of authors and everybody has their reasons and their tolerance level for the continued investment of time and effort. But it really does make a big difference. And this is something, as you said, it doesn't matter what publishing model it is. This is true today.

Anne:

It's true of everybody. It's true. And in fact, you know, I think - my personal bias: I'm an indie author and I - this would be true of hybrids, is that you have more options to find that marketing groove that you can sustain, that you find fulfilling and enjoyable if you were indie because you've got more control over things and you've got more things you can experiment with than things - than if you're traditionally published, where you're again, just part of the supply chain and you're going to have to buy your author copies beyond a certain point or something. Yeah.

Boni:

Yeah. So we just have a comment from one of our recently published authors, Charlotte Gibbs: "Marketing is about keeping with fulfilling your goals." Well, said. So Charlotte is one of - bless her - one of the authors where she's actually got a separate workbook. She's a teacher, former teacher. So she has a book all set up with organizing all her marketing activities and, you know, so that is the kind of thing we need. And another one here from another one of our authors, Yvonne Caputo. And Yvonne is in the first camp that I talked about where she's, you know, weekly, she says, "I'm doing this many things for marketing my book. I don't care how I feel. I don't care what's going on. I'm, you know, taking this on." So it really is, you know, we can talk for ever about marketing. But yeah, so let's move on to the other really fascinating aspect of the survey that I found, was about the goals and expectations; not just what they were at the beginning. Tell me about this.

Anne:

So, well, we asked about, you know, "How well did writing this book meet both your personal goals and your professional goals?" Now, remember I had a lot of business authors, so I figured professional goals were, you know, clearly a big reason for writing a business book. And it was really interesting that - do I have the data in front of me? You probably do. But generally, it did for like 82% or something, it met their business goals or it met or exceeded. And for almost ...

Boni:

83%. 83.

Anne:

I have a pretty good memory. 83. And for almost everyone, it met or exceeded their personal goals. And the "exceeded the goals" chart is kind of, you know, off to the right. I have people that go on a scale of one to five kind of answer. And I think that that's fascinating. And again, but so be careful about the goals you pick, you know. That person who signed up, "Well, I want to be a New York Times bestseller and sell a million copies," they're probably didn't meet and exceed their goals. They might but, you know, chances are good or not. But it's a powerful thing. And the thing I often find in talking to authors is that it exceeds their goals in the sense of, it - in unexpected ways, that the benefits of it are not always the ones that they envisioned, but they are wonderful.

Boni:

Yeah. And I have just a correction here. I was looking at the summary of the career and business goals at 83%, but it's 89% that chose positive meeting or exceeding personal goals, 89% and only 11% were just disappointed in their personal goals.

Anne:

That's some pretty good odds, you know. That's some pretty good odds, right?

Boni:

Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, there's a sense of accomplishment. There's a, you know, in a couple of - you know, we just heard from Ms. Gibbs and Ms. Caputo, both of whom wrote memoirs that had, I think in both cases, different types of highly satisfying personal results related to the subject matter of the memoir, but also in terms of that accomplishment piece. So, you know, I think that's really interesting. So what about the open-ended questions? What did you find? And I've, you know, I was fascinated by some of the the actual excerpts that you shared in the survey about words of wisdom and stuff - but the open-ended stuff. And I guess this is where you, the marketing came up. But what else did you learn? Was there anything surprising in there for you or was it as expected?

Anne:

You know, it was what I expected because it was what I experienced. You know, people talk about, you know, there's still magic in being a published author. The - but they realize many of the rewards are internal. Someone who said this: "I realize many of the rewards are internal. My confidence has changed," right? I thought that was fascinating. People do talk about the effect on their business: "It's, you know, opened my platform to new opportunities that I had no idea; I would never have thought of." So there's that. So the kind of responses - people are really generous. We, you give a bunch of writers and open-ended question, you're going to get [indiscernible]. It's like, "Whoa!" So every now and then I just dip back in and start reading those responses 'cause they're so wonderful. So ...

Boni:

Yeah.

Anne:

Yeah. It's - it was really delightful to read just how positive the, you know, and how encouraging most of those responses were and the unexpected and wonderful things that people had experienced through writing their books.

Boni:

"Publishing is a marathon, not a sprint." I think they stole that out of my playbook. I say that all the time to our authors. It's, you know, it's - "There's no finish line and so be careful about burning yourself out." "Writing and publishing the book was very emotionally satisfying, which was unexpected." "Everyone who wants to write should just know that you have to fan your own flames a lot." And, "Finishing is a huge triumph." I thought that was brilliant. And, "There's still magic in being a published author. Now I realized that many of the roads are internal." We just said that. And there was one here - where did I, where did the one go? The comment in the other ...? Oh, one author was surprised by how much smarter people think you are because you're published."

Anne:

I know. That's true. That's true.

Boni:

Yeah. Yeah.

Anne:

I love that one.

Boni:

Yeah. So just before we wrap up, would you tell us a little bit more about the book that published last week? "Get the Word Out"? I, you know, we know a bit about what's in here and I did post the link earlier. I'm just going to grab that again and post it again. I will encourage anybody to take a look. But tell me a little bit more about that: what you hope to accomplish with that and how it aligns with what you've learned in the survey.

Anne:

Sure. So what the book does is it talks about essentially using a sense of purpose to guide you from - on the whole thing: from idea generation, if that's where you are, through the publishing decisions, to writing, to the long stuff that people don't talk about, that happens after the book, right? How can you get out in the world beyond the book? And so I propose this idea of servant authorship, which is a riffing on the idea of servant leadership, right? In which a certain leadership - as the leaders they're there to serve the community and the people. In a way, if you think of yourself as a servant author, you're there to serve a specific community or readers or set of people. So how do you choose your area, your angle, your - how do you present your authority? How do you go through this whole process? And I did this specifically to, first of all, try to, again, guide authors who were maybe on the fence, to focus on that purpose while they go forward. And also just to encourage it. I know so many people who would write really wonderful books, but they just don't feel quite enough, right? And it's like, you are enough. And in the process of going through this, you will grow and you will become more than you are today, too. So this is a real encouraging, validating, motivating, go-go-go kind of book. Or that's what I'm trying to do with it. I hope that's how it lands with people.

Boni:

Well, I will be picking up my own copy and it will be next on my reading list. And I'll just encourage - because we always do. The link is in the comments too, to the book: get the word out. When you get it, when you read it, please return and leave a review. Reviews are so important for all authors today and in particular indies - and hybrid. It's really, you know, there is really no distinction. But it is also a service to other readers that helps them determine whether a book is going to be appropriate for them. So it's not just for the author; it is also for other readers. So that is a gift that we will always encourage readers to do, is leave reviews for people. Okay. one last thing I'm going to post in here, which is the link to you - I meant to do this earlier; I always forget something - a link to your site. And so if anybody wants to learn a little bit more about you, what you do, there, I've put the link in there. It's the link to the "About" page but you'll be able to navigate around and see your work and see your blog and lots of really, really valuable and interesting stuff there. So I appreciate that. And with that, I'm going to say thank you for your time and for your insights and for everything you're doing for the author community. It's fantastic. Definitely an example of servant authorship.

Anne:

Oh, thank you. Thanks. I enjoyed the conversation. I'm always here to encourage and, you know, talk about this with people. So thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Boni:

Excellent. Thank you so much. And we'll sign off for now.