221: 7 Reasons to Write a Book and How to Finally Make it Happen (PT. 2)

Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand at thinkmasterclass.com. On the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy. We use it think media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your growth. This class is 100% free and you can watch it now on demand at thinkmasterclass.com. Now let's jump into today's show. Writing a book helps you meet more people, but it also gives you an opportunity to interview amazing people. You don't have to be super smart or super talented. People with less talent and less wisdom and less expertise than you have gotten their book to market. I think it just takes a commitment. It takes making the decision and then there are some helpful tools and we'll share those with you in a second. Welcome back to the think media podcast. We're talking all about reasons to write a book as a YouTube content creator or digital entrepreneur and how to finally make it happen. This is part two of a two part series. So I highly recommend checking out wherever you consume the podcast in our archives in the library, part one. We covered five reasons why every YouTube creator should write a book and we are talking about a little bit of the lessons I've learned writing YouTube secrets with my friend Benji. That's now in the second edition, over 100,000 copies sold, over 3,122 reviews, over 350,000 dollars generated just from self-publishing a book and millions of dollars of revenue generated because of the brand lift and the awareness and the benefits of packaging what you know into a book. I would argue for those that are objecting but who reads books anymore? Well, clearly 100,000 people who you would think while they're watching YouTube, they're on the internet. Nobody's reading books. If any book proves that people are still reading books is YouTube secrets because we're talking about digital and social media and so this isn't even one of the reasons but I think one of the reasons actually to why every YouTube creator should write a book is because you're going to tap into a market that reads books and you're going to expand your brand wider than you could ever imagine and so more people are reading books than ever by the way. There's book talk on TikTok and Barnes & Noble is actually opening stores and so some people are like books are on the way out. It's not true and some of the reasons are going to clarify even more about the power books. That's where these lessons are coming from and so we're going to get into seven lessons in this episode and check out part one for the others but number six technically and I'm going to go one through seven in my number ring but it's out of a total of 12. So number one, it gives you more influence and credibility. So writing a book gives you more influence and credibility. You'll be seen as a thought leader or an expert. It'll accelerate no like and trust. Now if you want people to ever do business with you or buy your stuff, you need people to first know you. We learned in the last episode that Amazon is a search engine. You could actually get discovered by essentially cold traffic meaning people don't just buy your book because they discovered your YouTube channel. They can to discover just your book on Amazon. If it's position well, if it's clear, if you make it about the right topic, you have a few positive reviews. People who buy your book and that's the way they meet you. Well, they get to know you. Now if they already know you though, but they want them to get to know you. Man, reading a book is no greater. It's the deepest way I think of growing and getting to know somebody. Listening to an audio book, my gosh, someone spends three, four, five hours with you listening to audio. Man, talk about the depth of someone getting to know you. Then it's their choice to determine if they like you or not and that's going to be key because then eventually they trust you so they can do business with you. And what's interesting about also just getting more influence and credibility though is even if people don't read the book, this is a dirty secret of writing books. Lean in for this one. Even if people don't read the book, you'll have more influence and credibility. I predict and I guess that there is books on your shelf that you haven't read. I'm guessing even if you are a fan of Think Media that you might have purchased YouTube secrets, but you didn't read it. Is that true? Am I calling anyone out? But let me ask you, especially if you listen to the Think Media podcast on YouTube, did you think I had any more influence and credibility simply because of the book, even if you didn't read it, did you think, oh, yeah, I mean, it's a book. I read the first chapter. Yeah, I mean, it's just so I think we all understand that it's hard as it is, like hopefully people read it, but even if they don't, it'll give you more influence and credibility. And influence and credibility in today's world can be translated into profitability into more income for you and your business. Number seven. Number two, sorry. So I mean, we're going through the seven points. How should I number them? We're in the podcast together. Number two, gives you the opportunity to clarify your unique way of doing things. So this is powerful for educational channels, coaches. If you ever want to create an online course, if you ever want to bring about some kind of transformation in people's lives, there's two concepts I will watch if you've never heard about these before. I want to encourage you to consider frameworks and a proprietary process. So for anybody who's teaching something on YouTube, you're going to be 100 times stronger if you've created a framework than somebody who has not. What does that mean? A framework is a repeatable process that people can follow that is clear, hopefully simple. And my examples of frameworks are the seven C's of YouTube success. Those are, that's the framework inside of the book. It's part one of YouTube secrets. We have the seven R's that's inside a video raking academy. In one sense, at Think Media, YouTube secrets, seven C's of YouTube success is kind of like how to get started. It's kind of a beginner framework, getting you from just no YouTube channel to started. And then VRA, while many people also start with VRA, it is more advanced. It goes really deep. So technically, there's two frameworks in our business as of right now. There's the seven C's and the seven R's. The punchline is though, if you study great business books, great personal development books, historically great transformational books, they have frameworks. So seven habits of highly effective people, there's like a framework. You can Google it and look it up. The advantage by Patrick Liancioni, there's a framework. I was reading a book about like missionary work for churches. And there was like a framework of how to reach a city. So great leaders build frameworks. And that's an episode for its on its own. But this gives you the opportunity to clarify your unique way of doing things into a framework. Now, the second term is a proprietary process. What's powerful about that is the word proprietary, your unique way of doing things. So nobody else has the seven C's of YouTube success. Nobody else has the seven R's. And so this becomes a thought leadership where where somebody else is like, I have a list of things for you to do. Okay. Think about that compared to a proprietary process. Somebody else says, I don't know, I kind of just gathered some chapters together, put them in a book, compare that to an unbreakable framework. And so this lets you create your own system or your own way of doing things. And what's very cool about it. And let me know if you whether you want to leave a review on Apple, that's where I could hear from you there. Or especially on YouTube. If you would ever like deeper trainings on this, I could cover this in future episodes because I want to keep it moving. But one of the cool things about creating a framework is I could extemporaneously, meaning I could go speak on stage about the seven C's. And with no notes, walk through a process of starting a YouTube channel. Because back to episode one, it forced me to learn my material more, organize my thoughts. And the seven C's of YouTube success is a repeatable process. Now, here's what I want to encourage you. It was not easy to do this. But now that I've done this, I'm so grateful that I've got this repeatable process and same thing with the seven R's. Give me a whiteboard and a pen, give me a podcast, and I could walk through what they are, what they mean. And then, you know, if you join our video ranking academy program, you could see that the seven R's are 55 hours of content as well. So the cool thing about a framework is you could list it off, go around the cycle at a 101 level, 201 level, 301 level, 401 level. You create a framework, you could teach it in one hour. You could teach it actually in five minutes, one hour, half a day, one day, a three day workshop. Because there's different levels of depth to it. But as kind of a separate note for just knowledge workers high levels of thought leadership in general, frameworks and proprietary processes are not essential to writing a book. But this gives you the opportunity to lean into that. And as a result on the other side, you will powerfully position yourself your knowledge and your way of doing things to transform more lives to be easier to understand and to help your book and your overall business in the process. And so in this episode, we're going through seven more things. I'm just going to list one through seven the first five or in first episode. So number one, it gives you more influence and credibility. Number two, gives you the opportunity to clarify your unique way of doing things. Number three, you can reach more people with an audio book. I would argue that one of the main reasons to write a book this year is just for the audio book. I think that some of these points could just stand alone. But I think the audio book is such a powerful tool that if that's all you did or that's the only thing that really made an impact, it would be worth doing all the other work. Because writing down the words or capturing them and letting AI synthesize them or whatever, because there's a lot of cool things you could do. But once you have that final manuscript, your voice on the microphone, on audible, on people's phones better than a podcast because it's more organized. It's been refined. It's been tweaked. It's been polished and it can provide an experience. It could provide transformation. It could provide impact to the listener in an intimate way, just like podcasts are intimate. I put a lot of effort into these, but nowhere near as much polish as an audio book. And if you've ever listened to the YouTube Secrets Audio Book, we paid for a professional studio, very good investment. But if you just had your USB mic and a setup like I'm on right now, also very possible to create an audio book. And now you're impacting people at a whole nother level. And once you have a book, one of the cool things you can do has another way of making money is say, Hey, do you want my book for free? Just go to audible, sign up for an account and use your free credit for my book. You get a commission. I think it's $5 or $10, depending on like what happens next. Just for people signing up for a trial, even if they don't stick with it. So if you go to tubesecretsaudio.com and you don't have audible, I can promote that. I'll say, Hey, go to tubesecretsaudio.com, grab my book for free. Now if somebody already has audible, they can go use a credit for it or purchase it and net net. That's why we made $50,000 so far from audible, whatever it's called in the back end like ACX or something. And again, though, more than the money is the intimacy. And I think audiobooks are the most practical way of consuming books for most people. So you might not, you might be like, I don't read books, but I listen to audiobooks. So getting the work done of writing your book is to get your book on audio. So now you can go on road trips with people, right? You can do chores with people. And following especially like great promotion principles and having getting help and getting mentorship and writing your book, audible can be its own platform of discovery. Separate from Amazon, it's a place of getting discovered, ranked and recommended, just like the YouTube algorithm. Think about people who listen to this also listen to this. Like you want to be in that suggested section of audiobooks, of books. And so going through the whole process of not just writing a book and getting it out on physical and ebook, but also audiobook. Man, that's one of the reasons why every YouTube creator should write a book. And it's easier than it's ever been before. Number four, this allows you to make a positive impact on others. You get to share your wisdom and your expertise with more people when you write a book. Number five, leave a lasting legacy for future generations. They do say I think they surveyed Americans and like almost everybody wants to write a book. Not everybody wants to write a business book, of course. But think about the opportunity of your lessons, your wisdom, your expertise, your mistakes, your stories, just being put into a book. For many, that is enough motivation to want to do what it takes to get the book out. And I think that legacy, similar to why we want to help you grow on YouTube, build a channel you're proud of, make money go full time. One of the reasons to create YouTube content, depending on the content you're creating, is legacy, history, capturing, like I would love, you know, my grandfather, low-read has passed away. And we got to have some fun memories together. But I think back now, and I'm like, man, if I could have seen videos of him sharing his wisdom, lessons he's learned in his life, capturing some of those things, or just any kind of content, just seeing and remembering that. And so we're living in an incredible era where we can create history and legacy on YouTube. The same is true, writing a book. It can help you leave a lasting legacy for future generation. Number six, it helps you expand your network of contacts. Writing a book helps you meet more people, opens more doors, but it also gives you an opportunity to interview amazing people. Not everyone's book will include that, but one of the things we did for video influencers, which was our YouTube channel at the time, and then the book YouTube secrets, was we interviewed by the time the book was out. First edition, we had interviewed over a hundred people. Second edition, we interviewed over 200 people. Now think about compounding all the lessons we've learned. I grew because of those interviews. I learned more things because of those interviews. I became a better creator because of those interviews. I have a network of creators in my phone and cell phone numbers. Not like everybody gave me their cell phone numbers, but like I've made friends and run into people multiple years, you know, in a row and built relationships because of those interviews. You may have a YouTube channel or a podcast, which is a great place to do those because why not to conduct those interviews in public, but sometimes people do them, hey, I'm writing a book. Would you be open to an interview and that can expand your network of contacts? Think about how valuable that is in terms of what it is you want to build over the next one, two, three, four years. And then number seven, and finally, and I'm going to recap all 12 points. There was five in the first one, seven in the second one, 12 total, and we'll get all the numbers in a row in just a second. But the final point is it's now easier and more affordable than ever before. And so the cool thing is you can write a book. I think it's accepting the fact you can do this. It is something that's possible for you. You don't have to be super smart or super talented. People with less talent and less wisdom and less expertise than you have gotten their book to market. I think it just takes a commitment. It takes having making a decision. And then there are some helpful tools and we'll share those with you in a second. But I want to encourage you that it's easier than and more affordable than ever before. Close to free. I think it's smart, though, to think about, yes, you could pay someone to help you format it. And there's could be fees related to that. Yes, it's smart to get a good cover and good. We've all seen books that are formatted like DIY compared to proper formatting. And so while what's cool is you can do it like I did get get noticed out by yourself. That was my first book, my little ebook. We talked about an episode one. Terrible. But it came out cover, ebook, Amazon uploaded it like a word doc. It was pretty janky. But at least it was a step forward. YouTube for churches, my second book, much better. I bought some software. I paid for some education and some coaching. I think I paid in a gift card, Rachel Sneed from our church who helped me edit. So at least I had somebody who knew how to spell and edit. I went over and over and over again. It still had mistakes, but it was pretty good. It was pretty polished. I myself was a designer. So I designed the cover. But if you're not a designer, yeah, you should probably get help. You know, there is AI in things these days, but you should probably have, you know, it could be very affordable to think about the cover. Of course, as you think about the book, getting the layout, cover, spine, back cover, you know, interior sections, like it can be kind of overwhelmed. That's actually why the smartest move if you're serious is to connect with somebody who can just streamline the entire process. And you know, my that's when my friend Chandler Bolt does at self publishing school. And there's a class that we're co-hosting with him at startyourbook.live. And I'll tell you a little bit more about that in a second. But ultimately, it's easier and more affordable than ever before. So the key is making the decision to do it and stick with it. And as a result, I really believe you can experience these 12 things. And here's the recap. So I believe everybody should write a book. That's a YouTube creator, a knowledge worker that desires to build a personal brand, be a thought leader. Because number one, it helps you organize your thoughts better. Number two, it helps you learn and grow. Number three, it's a great way to earn money. Number four, it opens up more chances for success. Number five, it makes your personal brand stronger. Number six, it gives you more influence and credibility. Number seven, it gives you the opportunity to clarify your unique way of doing things. Number eight, you can reach more people with an audio book. Number nine, it allows you to make a positive impact on others. Number 10, it leaves the lasting legacy for future generations. Number 11, it helps you expand your network of contacts. And number 12, it's now easier and more affordable than ever before. And in this two part series, you can listen for expanded thoughts on the first five points, as well as a little bit more of the backstory and details of the four books, essentially, that I've written. But of course, on the Think Media Podcast, we always introduce you to the experts who are true specialists when it comes to things that are outside of our domain. You subscribe here because it's YouTube. You want to start, grow, monetize a YouTube channel, learn about all things video, video marketing, then definitely be subscribed to the Think Media Podcast. But if, after all this, you would say, I want to think about writing a book, see how that could be possible for you, and see how you could finally make it happen with the help of Chandler's information. He's hosting a free class. We're going to be hosting it together. You can register at startyourbook.live, not.com, it's startyourbook.live. And it's all about how to write and publish your book and how to add six figures and revenue to your business this year by publishing a book, using a book to double your lead sales and referrals. How to guarantee your book will actually make money from day one. There's a particular way you want to set it up. How to write your book in a weekend without even writing a single word. I believe that's some new stuff. I've done this with Chandler before, but I can't wait to learn from Chandler because I'm going to write more books after YouTube Secret Second Edition. Be the game is changing. So that's why I follow Chandler because there's new tools, there's faster tools, there's ways like what's really cool about technology, AI, YouTube, software is yes, things like competition arising, but also tools that help you go faster, coaching and mentors that streamline the process and those who invest in the best mentors and the best tools and the best coaching and the best information are going to have the advantage. And so it is pretty wild. And so I'm going to be taking notes just like you on the class on how to write a book in a weekend without writing a single word, how to successfully launch your book and create a six figure book funnel and so much more. Chandler, I believe, is giving away a copy of his book, Published for free, just for attending the class. And then of course he's got products and services as he will let you know about if you want to go to the next level. But whether those are right for you or not, this free class will 100% be worth your time. If you would say, Sean, I see that I do want to write a book, I see the benefits. I think it's something I want to tackle. Then just go to startyourbook.live. There's a link in the show notes as well to check that out. This is the Think Media podcast. And if you benefit from this show, it would mean the world to me if you shared it with somebody. Is there somebody in your life that's thinking about starting or growing a YouTube channel? Somebody who the subject matter of this episode would resonate with them. Would you consider hitting that little share button, grabbing the URL or the share link using your mobile device from a podcast audio listening place, shooting them a text and being like, hey, this was some fire content. Check this out. That'd mean the world to me. And then if you can rate and review the podcast wherever you consume it, that would be incredible as well. We've got some powerful episodes coming up soon. And so I want to thank you for being a part of our community. Send you massive love and respect today and absolutely committed to helping you grow on YouTube but also helping you develop mastery in your subject matter because especially on YouTube, content is king. So you're going to make your content stronger than ultimately organizing your thoughts better, creating better content, becoming an even deeper subject matter expert yourself. We're committed here at the Think Media podcast to continuing to hopefully iron sharpens iron, helping you level up and helping you get results with YouTube and in your business overall. So definitely subscribe if you're not subscribed and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. Take care.