How To Get Book Reviews

James Taylor interviews Stephanie Chandler, and they talked about how to get book reviews.

In this episode, we cover:

• Building your beta reader list
• Standing out in a competitive market
• Ways to generate book reviews

Resources:

• Recommended Book: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
• Recommended Tools: Index Cards, Microsoft Word, Evernote
• Official Website
• Nonfiction Writers Conference

For More of Creative Life Podcast By James Taylor

Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript

Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.

James Taylor
Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.

Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey, there is James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Stephanie Chandler. Stephanie is the author of several books, including the nonfiction book marketing plan, and the new the nonfiction publishing plan. She is also founder and CEO of the nonfiction authors Association, a vibrant educational community for experienced and aspiring writers, and the nonfiction writers conference, an amazing annual event conducted entirely online. It's my great pleasure to have Stephanie with us today. So welcome, Stephanie. Hey, James,

Stephanie Chandler
thanks for inviting me.

James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.

Stephanie Chandler
Oh my gosh. So I have a brand new book launching as this summit is going live. It's called the nonfiction book publishing plan. It's a follow up to the nonfiction book marketing plan, which I released in 2013. It's been I can't believe five years since I have launched a book. But I'm just incredibly excited. The beta reviewers have given me some wonderful feedback. It's a it's really fun time.

James Taylor
So now you you're a couple of books in doesn't get any easier in the process.

Stephanie Chandler
Yeah. Actually, I think this is my 10th book. And because it's been so long, since I personally launched a book there, I've been finding all the frustrations like editing, we went through four rounds of complete 100% professional editing, and we're still finding, you know, things that needed to be fixed. So so you know, it's hard for everybody, no matter how long you've been doing this,

James Taylor
even in between the time you'd be publishing a lot, but publishing a lot of incredible resources that you have. I was looking earlier today, at the the nonfiction authors Association, you have some incredible handbooks and resources there is that you that basically puts those together and writes those,

Stephanie Chandler
I do create the majority of our content, it's my favorite thing to do. So I make time for that we do have a little bit of help. But most of the content is mine. We and we have a ton of content. We do weekly checklists and worksheets, we send out marketing homework to our members. We release a special report every month we do webinars, we do online courses. I mean, it goes on and on and on. But it's that's my favorite thing to do. It's a ton of fun. So where did it all begin for you? How

James Taylor
did you get started into this world of writing?

Stephanie Chandler
You know, in 2003, I quit my soul sucking Silicon Valley job and I opened a 2800 square foot brick and mortar bookstore here in Sacramento, California where I live, I thought it was gonna sit in the back office and write novels. And as it turned out, it was a terrible fiction writer. It was also not nearly as romantic as it sounds to own a bookstore. It was some a lot of headaches. We were robbed. We had cockroaches coming in from the restaurant next door. I mean, it was just we were in terrible location. You couldn't see us from the street. I kind of had to learn marketing and you know, under fire. And in that whole process, I decided that I really had always loved nonfiction. I wrote my first book, it was a business startup guide. My next book was called a from entrepreneur to infopreneur. And I sold that to Wiley and then I signed with an agent we sold a couple more books. So I kind of launched this whole career I hadn't planned on and then I eventually sold that that store and became a book publisher. And I was out speaking at these writers conferences and realizing nobody was really paying attention to nonfiction writers. And we tend to have different goals and and just different processes than the fiction writers. So that launched the nonfiction writers conference. We held our first event in 2010. And that's Attendees from that event kept saying, how do we even touch when this event is over? So in 2013, the nonfiction authors association was born. And you know, I like to say my path found me. I never expected to be here. But what an incredible ride. I mean, we have such a thriving, exciting community full of really smart people. And I love what I do every day.

James Taylor
And you've had some incredible guests on that. I know, like conference. I mean, I think I've seen you've had Seth Godin Gretchen Rubin on there as well. I mean, mention some of the names you've had, because because I was looking earlier, it was like some phenomenal lineup of guests you've had,

Stephanie Chandler
yeah, obviously, Seth was really, really exciting to get him. Gretchen Rubin we just had this year 2018. We had Julia Cameron, he wrote the artists way right book I call a stocky Dan Millman and the way of the Peaceful Warrior. I mean, it goes on and on. So it's, it's incredibly exciting the speakers that we've attracted, and, you know, every year, it's a challenge to try to beat the previous year, and, you know, couldn't be having more fun.

James Taylor
So who would Who is your mentor, as you were making that transition from the world of writing fiction into the world of writing nonfiction? As you know, as you said, different goals is different styles. Well, who were the authors that are the mentors that you either had a relationship with, were able to kind of coach you and help you along the way? Or you just looked at their work from a fine. You said, that's the type of writer that I want to be like,

Stephanie Chandler
I love this question. I'm not somebody who tends to hire coaches, even though I do a lot of consulting myself. I'm a reader. And I'll tell you the book that totally changed my life was called Damn, why didn't I write that by Mark McCutcheon, and it was about the wonders of writing nonfiction. And it completely opened my eyes to these new possibilities. You know, as a kid, I've always wanted to be a teacher and a writer. And I set out to be an English teacher and kind of took this detour into the Silicon Valley and rode the.com wave. So I still always had that burning desire to be a teacher. And what I learned from that book was that nonfiction allows me to teach and help people, you know, reach their own potential. And so that became really rewarding. So that was one of many books that I read. I loved Stephen King's on writing memoir, Julia Cameron. So you know, I'm just a total avid reader and and the writers that I read, I've really influenced my journey.

James Taylor
Now the area that you're writing with this, this new book that's coming out nonfiction publishing plan, that's a very competitive area, I'm guessing in terms of industry. So how do you go about? I mean, you you know your area, so well, but how do you also go go about standing out in a relatively crowded market? Great

Stephanie Chandler
question. There are a ton of books on how to publish very few about how to specifically publish nonfiction. And the subtitle of the book is the professional guide to profitable self publishing. So profitable profit is the key here, very few authors make a living from their books. And so with nonfiction, the the earnings potential are unlimited, not only from bulk book sales, and serial books and things of that nature, but from the things you build around the book, like, like you're a professional speaker, you know, speaking is a very lucrative career. And there's digital products, and I wrote the book on that back in Oh, six on, you know, on how to sell digital products. So there's all these revenue streams, you can build around your book, and use your book as a tool to really build a thriving lifestyle business, that, you know, you get to decide what your day looks like every day. And so that's really my main focus is helping authors realize their greater potential around their books.

James Taylor
It's been interesting, as I've been going through this process of interviewing all these different guests, and obviously, we've had a lot of professional speakers and some of them have kind of divided themselves into they can't be say, I'm a speaker who writes all the writers who speak and, and this is like, this teachers who write or write to, to teach, I guess, in terms of the online side, as well. So it sounds like very much, you've always been that that writer and then the other things have been wasted to get your message and to add, you know, add new revenue streams around that core of your writing

Stephanie Chandler
totally. And I love that comparison, because I know many speakers who write and many writers who speak, I speak because I started being invited to speak I never really particularly aimed it to be a speaker. But it's something I do a lot. I'm at a conference this weekend. So you know, I think your heart is in one place or the other. If I had to choose, they'd always rather be sitting behind my desk, living my introverted life and typing up my stories rather than standing on a stage and telling them but I'll do them both.

James Taylor
And some of you've written bet before is because we now have the big beast is Amazon, India. And that's the algorithm is so driven by reviews. And we've written before about different ways that you can encourage your readers to leave reviews because it's As you come, there's more and more. So one of the first things obviously cover title. And then you immediately Look how many reviews it has had, what kind of reviews that any tips, any just like Quick Tips just now for someone who maybe that they have a book out already, or they're just getting ready to launch their book in terms of getting those reviews happening,

Stephanie Chandler
my number one favorite way to do reviews right now is to build a team of beta readers. You know, I'm in the middle of pre sells, that'll be live at the time, this airs, but I put out a call for beta readers and enlisted 300 people. And I'm and I'll be, I would gladly take as many as applied because the more people you have talking about your book, the better. And this also means that coming out of the gate will have reviews for the book. So you know, number one is just give that book away when Seth Godin spoke for us. He said Your problem is not piracy. Your problem is obscurity. And it has to be one of my favorite quotes. Because history is give your content away for free, give your books away for free. In my new book, I have a section in them that says, Please give this to your friends. I don't care if this is in PDF format, email it to everybody you know, because guess what, every new reader whether they paid for the book or not, as a potential fan, there are potentially someone who sign up for your mailing list and invest in your courses and buy your next book. So you know, give it away ask for those reviews. Sometimes all people need to do is ask and you we forget to do that.

James Taylor
So building those those beta readers, I mean, what are you asking that that exchange, you say, I'm gonna send you a copy of the book or, you know, PDF of the book? What you asking for them at that stage? And then how do you ensure that you can follow up to in order to get feedback and obviously, and get those reviews happening?

Stephanie Chandler
So for my beta readers, and first of all, you can't provide incentive for reviews according to Amazon's terms and conditions. So my beta reader program was not dependent on you must write a review, I would never say that. But it's about building word of mouth and buzz. And so benefits for the beta readers are they get early access to the book, in my situation, they're interested in the content of the book as it applies to their own careers. So a lot of them wanted to see the process of building a beta launch team. We joined a private Facebook group for everybody. I've been sending emails, I mean, email updates, just this morning, I posted on our Facebook group saying, you know, ask me anything I want to give back, let me help you. And so we've had some fun discussion threads going on. But you know, it's not a one way transaction. It's a two way transaction. And I'm getting to know people who've apparently been, you know, around for years, and I never knew them, until they became part of my beta team. It's a really cool process. And I think

James Taylor
I guess, I think but any type of creative person, you're always interested in the creative process or another creative if you like, so how are they doing? What are they doing? Is it is it just me that sits down and there's like nothing in my head? Or is there the struggling you're kind of letting him in you're you're you're kind of letting them into the behind the scenes of your process, including the mounting process, obviously, some people talk about the the writing process, but you're actually talking them through the mounting process as well,

Stephanie Chandler
totally, I created a list of ways you can help you know if with ideas, like write about it on your blog, share it on social media, you know, tell your friends about it, host a giveaway, I'll donate books, you know, so I'm making it easier for them to participate. Some of them came back to me and said, Hey, can I get a guest blog post? And so, you know, we're contributing that. And it's, it's just a great way. And now I'll get thanked on our website. And, and, you know, I'm trying to make it mutually beneficial for everybody that's involved.

James Taylor
So tell us a little bit about the nonfiction Writers Association. That's when I was going to going round looking to get involved in writing myself as well. That was one of the first things that kind of popped up. So how does how does membership of this this work? What's you know, what can a community have you been able to build that association?

Stephanie Chandler
Yeah, our community is amazing. Um, you know, I launched the association back in 2013, in May. And then in October, my husband died unexpectedly. So five months after the association launched, my world imploded, I became a single mom, I kind of checked out for a year and despite the fact that I kind of had, you know, one toe in the water, the association was growing. And so today, we're up to I think we're close to 18,000 members. There are multiple membership levels, there's a free level, and our basic annual level is $190. We've got a VIP level that that's 490. That includes access to both of our nonfiction writers conference events each year. And then we have what we call a thought leader level that includes some one on one consulting. So it's really all about educating our members. I don't know of another association that provides so much educational content and resources. We have a private Facebook group, we have a private LinkedIn group. We've got chapter meetings happening all over the country. We Launched in the UK a few months back. So you know, the community is just powerful and amazing. And it's full of smart people, you know, these are people, the people who write nonfiction want to make a difference in the world. That's one of the things I love most about them. So it's fun to see them all building their careers and reaching bigger audiences as a result.

James Taylor
One, I'm gonna we're gonna have some links here to the association, we will be checked out as well, in your journey as a as an author. Was there a key aha moment? a lightbulb moment a time when you went? This is the direction I want to go with my writing. This is what writing means for me.

Stephanie Chandler
Wow, great question. And when when the first book came out, it was a business startup guide, I wrote it because my Silicon Valley friends were caravanning up to Sacramento to see my bookstore, they couldn't believe I quit a six figure job to sell, you know, $4 paperbacks. And the feeling when that book came out of how I could potentially teach and inspire other people was completely overwhelming. It had nothing to do with getting media coverage or being asked to speak, it was the fulfillment of feeling like I was doing something purposeful. And that's kind of when everything changed. For me, that's when I decided that I was going to be a nonfiction writer forever,

James Taylor
I would be the worst bookstore owner in the world, because all I would do is I would have this book with lots of antiquarian books, I would, I wouldn't really want anyone to come to the bookstore. And I've just made lots of cups of tea and sit and read all the books, I'd be the worst book bookstore. So this is probably that's probably not going to be on my cup my cards because and then if any, what bookstore owners are watching this just now then all credit to you. Because I know that that is a difficult job, especially in today's today's climate as well. And I'm interested in what tools and apps you use in terms of being able to do your writing and other other things you find very useful in the process of writing,

Stephanie Chandler
you know, in the process of writing, I'm a, I'm a total fan of the old storyboard method, where basically you sit down with a stack of index cards, and you dump out every single minute topic you want to cover in your book. And each topic goes on an individual card. And then you know, when you're done with the brain dump, you kind of spread them out in front of you and you and you start to form your chapters and build an outline from there. That works really well for me, I strongly recommend it. I'm not big on technology. As far as the writing part goes. You know, I'm I use word I am. I'm a fast writer, I'm pretty lucky in that regard. I mean, it's a miracle. I don't put out more books because I really do write pretty fast. But I will say one of my favorite tools is Evernote. Evernote is a cool app, you can clip things from the internet, save your notes there. And you know, my heavy iPad users my favorite toys. So if I read an article I want to reference later, I clip it to Evernote. And that includes business, personal everything, and then I can access it from my desktop, my phone wherever I am. It's very cool.

James Taylor
What did you What are your daily writing ritual? I mean, you say you don't publish more, obviously, you're publishing all these credible resources and ebooks and things for the the association. So how are you getting this work done? What's your writing ritual look

Stephanie Chandler
like? Yeah, I in fact, I'm about to publish a report on time management for writers because I will say that, you know, I have to make it a priority. It's also my favorite thing to do, you know, I'd love to shut off my phone and just write for four days a week. But my process mostly is don't look at email. You know, I don't touch email first thing in the morning, it distracts me it kind of throws me off my flow for the day. So usually, when I first sit at my desk, that's the creative time for writing, developing new content, writing reports, things like that. I love to block out big chunks of time for writing and I lose track of time when I'm writing. So it's definitely something that has to be scheduled. And as it turns out, the world doesn't come to an end when you stop checking your email 50 times. I check it once or twice a day. Sometimes I go every other day. And guess what it can wait,

James Taylor
the world is still with the world is still turning order. And you mentioned Julia Cameron, obviously she's been she's been a big influence on both of us as well. She talks about the morning pages doing your morning pages is that something that you have that you have ever done you've ever get kind of worked with.

Stephanie Chandler
I love the morning pages concept. And for those who don't know it just means that you sit down in the morning and you just basically write you dump all your thoughts out of your head into a journal. I think it's a great strategy to kind of get your going in the morning. I tend to be more of a nighttime journal err. So at the end of the day, I love to do my morning pages. And that also I'm a chronic Insomniac so it helps me sleep if I get all this stuff out of my head and onto paper.

James Taylor
It's fine because it when I go and speak around the world and I was speaking in Singapore recently and and i actually what part of it if I'm speaking about a creative process, improving your creative process in a large organization. I say every single one of you should have a journal and be doing morning pages. They describe what Julia Cameron describes about morning pages and is consistently one of the Things I hear back, you know, months or years later people say to me, I do that I do that every morning, I do that every evening. And it's had a huge impact in terms of just getting all these things out of my head, and just getting them out onto a page and, and just helping me just just not holding all this stuff in my mental ram all the time, and just being able to get it out on a page, and then structure my thoughts and actually just find creative lines that I want to go. And that could be in terms of something I'm really with my family or something and we're gonna do the business or something completely on work related. So it's a fantastic tool. So thank you, Julia, if you're watching as you get great, you'll get a great thing to the world, there will be a book if you recommend one book, not one of your own books, a book you'd recommend it could be on the the writing process, or it could be on marketing or publishing. What would that book be?

Stephanie Chandler
Oh, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is the ultimate guide. I think for writers that you know, for anyone who feels stuck writing that will help you through that process. It's

James Taylor
just phenomenal. That is a wonderful, I just read it recently, another guest recommend I'd never read it before. It had me laughing a lot of the way through the book. She's a very funny, funny, funny writer. So we're gonna put that link here as well. people haven't adjusted read that one yet. I want you to imagine. Now, Stephanie, you wake up tomorrow morning. And you have to start from scratch. So you've got all the skills or the knowledge you've acquired over the years, but no one knows you, you know, no one, you have to begin again. What would you do? How would you restart things content

Stephanie Chandler
content content, I build a website, I magazine style website. This is where a lot of authors Miss big opportunities. If you create just a basic author website, you're not going to drive traffic. One of the things Google hates is an idle website. So if you want to drive traffic, it's all about content. My suggestion, especially for nonfiction writers, is choose your subject matter expertise, and build a site like a magazine style site around that. So if you're an expert on living with diabetes, you could have a website full of content on managing diabetes and tools for diabetes and resources for diabetes. So that's exactly what I would do is I would start a new site, I loaded up with content, written content, video content. Today, you know, podcasts are really hot. So that's what I do.

James Taylor
And if people want to reach out to you and learn more about the Association and the conference, where's the best place to go and do that

Stephanie Chandler
nonfiction authors. association.com is the main conference site. We also have our fall nonfiction writers conference, coming up on November 8, and ninth, ninth and 10th. And it's nonfiction writers conference, calm our theme for the fall conference, is how to be a profitable author. So we're gonna have a lot of fun there.

James Taylor
Wonderful. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for coming on. I congratulate you for all the great work that you've been doing and helping all these authors all around the world with it, your association with your conference, and I wish you all the best with the new book that's coming out. Thank

Stephanie Chandler
you so much, James, what a fun interview. Appreciate it.

James Taylor
If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.

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