In this episode, inspired by a listener’s questions, AJ and Mike dive into ways authors can use their book to create engaging content. From social media posts to video, the duo share what is easy to repurpose and how to keep it reader-focused. From newsletters to videos to programs and even to new books, they’ll cover it!
Be sure to visit https://dwtbpodcast.com for more information and add your name to start receiving their newsletter. If you’d like to support this show, rate, subscribe and leave a review on your podcast app.
Books/Resources Mentioned:
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Dale Carnegie
The Art of Nonconformity, by Chris Guillebeau
A Brief Guide to World Domination, by Chris Guillebeau
Connect with AJ & Mike:
AJ Harper, website
AJ’s Socials:
Mike Michalowicz, website
Mike’s Socials:
“Creating Content Based on Your Book”
Mike Michalowicz (00:01):
Welcome back to the Don't Write That Book podcast where you can learn how to write your bestseller and own your authorship. Follow along with us as we give you an insider's view of the book industry. Now, here are your hosts. Myself, Mike Michalowicz and AJ Harper.
Mike Michalowicz (00:16):
Now I'm officially recording it and I wish I caught that. You're like, "And go!"
AJ Harper (00:29):
No guest.
Mike Michalowicz (00:31):
Did I say our guest? Meaning the audience.
AJ Harper (00:34):
Oh, guest. It sounded like you said, I'd like to welcome our guest to the show.
Mike Michalowicz (00:39):
Oh. No. I mean, our guests.
AJ Harper (00:40):
We don't, we don't have any guests guest. It's just us.
Mike Michalowicz (00:42):
We're guests and I think it's working pretty well.
AJ Harper (00:44):
It is, but it could, what if it didn't? And then we would just be these two people like
Mike Michalowicz (00:50):
AJ Harper (00:53):
Which one?
Mike Michalowicz (00:54):
The one where,
AJ Harper (00:55):
Oh, is it the two? And they're, um, talking about sweaty balls?
Mike Michalowicz (01:00):
Yes. Schweaty balls.
AJ Harper (01:00):
Schweaty balls. Yeah. I love that one.
Mike Michalowicz (01:02):
That's one of the best ever.
AJ Harper (01:04):
It reminds me of what NPR like where I grew up, because I grew up in Minnesota, which is famous for a bunch of NPR shows. Like The Splendid Table. Um, Garrison Keeler, Prairie Home Companion.
Mike Michalowicz (01:18):
Wasn't there something about motorcycle repair?
AJ Harper (01:20):
Um, Car Guys?
Mike Michalowicz (01:21):
I mean, it was Car Guys?
AJ Harper (01:22):
Car Guys. I don't think that's a Minnesota show. Okay. I could be wrong. I don't know. Very different tone. But it's this sort of NPR tone, which is, um, that Minnesota, very Minnesota friendly. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (01:34):
There is a specific NPR tone. NPR won me over, I was listening actually, there was two. It's so funny that the stuff they'll do. So I one about beekeeping and the journalist gets stung while recording and he puts that part in. So he's like, "I'm looking at... GAH!"
AJ Harper (01:51):
Mike Michalowicz (01:51):
He goes, "Damn it!" And he's here running and you hear him like, drop the microphone. I was like, that's great. Radio. They perfected that. The other one was called Butt Crack Fairies.
AJ Harper (02:02):
What?
Mike Michalowicz (02:03):
And my son and I were driving back. He was 12 years old and it was the hardest laugh I've ever had with him in my life. We're driving back and they're talking about, um, kind of magical things that you've experienced in life. And this one person said, every time I'm taking, take a shower, change would start dropping from the sky.
AJ Harper (02:28):
Stop it.
Mike Michalowicz (02:29):
Yeah. And it was, he would roll around his own coins that were left in his bed. Like it was a hoarder. It was taking a shower.
AJ Harper (02:35):
Come on.
Mike Michalowicz (02:35):
Yeah. And they called him the butt crack fairy. Is that awesome?
AJ Harper (02:40):
The guy, wait, the guy who was found the coins? He thought they were raining from the sky? (Yes.) But they were not raining from any upward area.
Mike Michalowicz (02:50):
No. It was just stuck to different parts of his body.
AJ Harper (02:53):
Oh my God.
Mike Michalowicz (02:54):
And uh, so he called in to, to report this because--
AJ Harper (02:57):
He didn't know?
Mike Michalowicz (02:59):
No, no. He did know. He did know. But he, because people were calling in with their magical things. He goes, I have something that's so magical, it's gonna blow your mind,
AJ Harper (03:09):
That is your sense of humor.
Mike Michalowicz (03:11):
It was hysterical. And instead he said, it took like a month to
AJ Harper (03:20):
Maybe you need to clean your bed.
Mike Michalowicz (03:22):
Right. That's what I was thinking. Like,
AJ Harper (03:23):
I'm scared now about the bed. Oh, I could not, I could not.
Mike Michalowicz (03:30):
Let me introduce you to our, our guests. Um, you have a remarkable network. I think about that yesterday when we were talking with Vicki Lanthier?
AJ Harper (03:40):
Lan-tee-aye and I might not even be saying it. Right. I realized when we were in the interview that I'm relying on, I need to ask her directly if I've been saying it wrong. She's too polite to tell me otherwise because she's Canadian. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (03:51):
Is she French Canadian? Must be.
AJ Harper (03:53):
Well, hence the last name. I had six years of French, man.
Mike Michalowicz (03:56):
Did you?
AJ Harper (03:57):
Six years. And I went to Lac du Bois, Language, Concordia Language Village, also six years.
Mike Michalowicz (04:03):
Do you carry some fluency today?
AJ Harper (04:06):
Mike Michalowicz (04:11):
Do you think you could say butt crack fairy in French?
AJ Harper (04:13):
I think I would like a lunatic because I'm sitting next to my wife and we're watching she, she loved the Olympics so much.
Mike Michalowicz (04:18):
Me too. Best year ever, in my opinion.
AJ Harper (04:19):
I, it was great. And I'm sad because I was actually on, away for a bunch of it. And when we're on Madeleine Island, we don't watch TV at all.
Mike Michalowicz (04:28):
Do you even have a television?
AJ Harper (04:29):
Yeah. It was just completely black the whole time. We're just having a great time. So we missed a bunch of the Olympics. And I'm sad because, you know, it was amazing. We had to watch some of the replays, but I mean, listening to French and say, you know, oh, I know that word.
Mike Michalowicz (04:50):
Yeah. At certain point, like,
AJ Harper (04:52):
Okay. Yeah. She loves, my wife loves the diving. So she watched--
Mike Michalowicz (04:56):
Synchronized?
AJ Harper (04:57):
Any diving. Yeah. Any diving. She watched all of it. It's remarkable. And she's talking, she's like, oh, you know, she make these little, oh, that was bad. And I don't even know what she's talking about.
Mike Michalowicz (05:08):
All I know is the splash. If there's a splash, I'm like, ah. But
AJ Harper (05:11):
Yeah. Well, she was on swim team, so she had--
Mike Michalowicz (05:13):
Oh. Okay. So she knows all the particulars.
AJ Harper (05:14):
All I, all I know is that, um, it was magnificent and--
Mike Michalowicz (05:19):
It was magnificent.
AJ Harper (05:20):
And I, and I don't remember all my French, but Vicki Lanthier.
Mike Michalowicz (05:24):
So that's what I wanted to highlight is that you have a extraordinary network. Maybe
AJ Harper (05:28):
It's--
Mike Michalowicz (05:29):
Could be.
AJ Harper (05:29):
I've gotta ask her. She's gonna hear this episode because she listens and she's gonna be really polite to me and she'll say, any way you pronounce this--
Mike Michalowicz (05:34):
Is appropriate.
AJ Harper (05:36):
Okay. Go.
Mike Michalowicz (05:37):
So that's what I wanted to acknowledge in you. You, you bring in a swath of, of people with an extraordinary variety of backgrounds. And that's wonderful. And I appreciate that in you. Selfishly, it's an asset for us. When we're writing books and stuff, you're like, oh, I know someone. you always say that. I, I know someone. So thank you.
AJ Harper (05:57):
That's, that's amazing, because I'm such an introvert.
Mike Michalowicz (06:03):
Well, it's, it's phenomenal.
AJ Harper (06:05):
Thanks.
Mike Michalowicz (06:05):
You're welcome.
AJ Harper (06:06):
You got a pretty good network too. And you know, you do that by creating things. And I think that's how we both have networks. You do it by creating the opportunity.
Mike Michalowicz (06:14):
Yeah. And they're just, there are different networks, which is nice. Like, I don't know many people that, you know, like, we don't run into a name and say, oh, we both know this person.
AJ Harper (06:22):
A little bit.
Mike Michalowicz (06:23):
A little bit. But probably more on my side. Because they're more author slanted. Yours are just experts in general. Well, I've got--
AJ Harper (06:29):
They're authors. Vicky's an author.
Mike Michalowicz (06:31):
She's an author. Well, yeah,
AJ Harper (06:32):
She's working on an amazing book.
Mike Michalowicz (06:35):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. All right, let's get into the show because our listeners, uh, they're all excited about the Olympics now.
AJ Harper (06:41):
They don't wanna hear about coins or butt cracks. I know. Or the Olympics, or if, if I can pronounce French.
Mike Michalowicz (06:48):
Right. But they wanna hear about is how to create content based on your book. And specifically the slant is more toward marketing. I think there's other uses of it too, educational purposes and so forth. But when you create something, um, for the first time, it's not the only time. I wanna start off with a little discovery I had yesterday. Have you heard of this thing called Descript? It's an online app.
AJ Harper (07:10):
No.
Mike Michalowicz (07:11):
Okay. I mean, there's a million of them. So it's AI-based. You can record a video, you can put it into script. It then transcribes that video within second. It is so fast. It transcribes it. And then you can start splicing it. So one thing I did is with my speeches, um, I'll do a speech on stage. I have one tomorrow in New York City. It'll be recorded. I'm getting paid for it. The video will get back. We request the host, that's part of the contract to get the video. We'll then put into script, we'll get all of the texts from it and it'll become a blog post. But, but not the, not, we don't just copy and paste it in. We pick out segments and say, you know, where does Mike? Because then you can put it into Chat GPT or something and say, where am I talking about, um, the confusion points people have around implementing Clockwork?
Mike Michalowicz (08:01):
And it'll say, oh, here's the six elements. And now it has like six pieces. And we'll say, make a blog post out of that. Keep Mike's voice because it is my voice. And then it makes the blog post. And then we'll say there's another app called Ruby.ai, which is basically, it's an amalgamation of different AIs, but has voice emulation. And we'll say, have Mike read this and now can be inserted into a podcast. For example. My my point is, there's what only ways of splicing and dicing what you do, but it can be done so efficiently.
AJ Harper (08:32):
So wait a minute, can you also put audio in? Or is it just video?
Mike Michalowicz (08:36):
Oh, yeah, yeah. You can definitely put audio in.
AJ Harper (08:38):
So does it charge you for the transcription?
Mike Michalowicz (08:41):
No. I mean, it, it's a one time subscription and then it's unlimited. And I don't know what the cost is.
AJ Harper (08:46):
So what you're saying is we could put the interviews in there.
Mike Michalowicz (08:49):
Uh, yeah. You know what, I'll do it with Vicki's.
AJ Harper (08:52):
Because, you know, when I, I use, I use a transcription service, which I won't say now what it is, but it costs me money.
Mike Michalowicz (09:01):
Not only that, it'll say AJ said this. You know, the whole thing. Yeah. Give it to me. I'll show you. It's unbelievable.
AJ Harper (09:09):
But is it using the content to train AI? Meaning, is that--
Mike Michalowicz (09:13):
No, it's, it's an independent, it's not a public domain one. This is a, a private subscription.
AJ Harper (09:18):
Okay!
Mike Michalowicz (09:19):
And the funny thing is, we've been using this for a year at the office. I just found it yesterday because I had a situation, I wanted to try this out. I'm like, Hey Kelsey, do you know if any software exists? She goes, oh yeah, we've been using this for the last year. We love it. And she's like, oh, and we use Canva and Midjourney to make our graphics and we use this. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
AJ Harper (09:38):
They surpassed you.
Mike Michalowicz (09:39):
Yeah. Which is I think, the definition of a business that's operating properly. (Yes.) You know, you shouldn't have your finger on all the things. You should have on the pulse, but not on everything. Yeah.
AJ Harper (09:50):
Okay. Okay. So we're talking about con I do wanna point out that this idea for this episode came from a listener.
Mike Michalowicz (09:56):
Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. So why don't we start off with the, the purposes we talked about marketing. What are your purposes for splicing and dicing content? Or, or repurposing is the more common word.
AJ Harper (10:12):
Um, what do you mean what they--
Mike Michalowicz (10:14):
Well, so I use it for, I'll tell you why I use it. I'm, I'm, maybe you can add to it. I use it for marketing purposes. Yeah. To give little vignettes or exposure to something that can then be sold or introduce a book or something. I use it for educational purposes. And I think a lot of people don't consider this, um, which is a little bit different than marketing. It could be you sign up for a program, it could be a supplement. So if I teach a, a class, I do work Profit First workshops.
AJ Harper (10:37):
Oh, sure. Uh huh
Mike Michalowicz (10:38):
They'll want supplemental educational, they'll want a workbook. Something like that. Oh sure. I use that content. Recreate it.
AJ Harper (10:44):
Yes.
Mike Michalowicz (10:45):
I will give you the hack of the century for any listener right now that is an author or aspiring author. And does speaking. I learned this from a guy named Jack Dailey. And forgive me if I've shared this story before. I know I haven't shared in the show. We were in Quebec, French Canada at, uh, Frontenac. What's that? That famous hotel in Quebec City.
AJ Harper (11:05):
I don't remember the name, but I can see it.
Mike Michalowicz (11:07):
Yeah. That be that beautiful hotel. We, he and I keynote. If there's anyone you don't want to keynote after or before, it's Frank, it's Jack Daley. He's so good. But I help my own, we're going back and he's a, a type personality. We're, we're in the, we share a cab going back to the airport. He's just looking out the window. There's silence. And then all of a sudden he, the silence is broken by him saying, "Why didn't you have a worksheet?"
AJ Harper (11:31):
Mike Michalowicz (11:33):
And I, I'm like, looking around, I'm like, oh, I think I saw a bird, Jack
AJ Harper (11:57):
Oh yeah. I assume, yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (11:58):
Mm-Hmm.
AJ Harper (11:59):
And it'll be 10 or 15 reading comprehension? And, and you, you use that to cement the, um, takeaways?
Mike Michalowicz (12:04):
Correct. Yeah. So he'll do a presentation, he'll say on your worksheet, fill out number two, this is the fill in the blank. And then he broke down. Why he does it. When someone fill writes down notes, they're more likely to retain them. If you give them, here's the cliff notes, they're actually more likely to discard it. So you want people taking action.
Mike Michalowicz (12:22):
You want to channel the notes they want to take. You wanna make sure they write down the key takeaways. So because you have to fill in the blanks, you identify the key takeaways, then you have your marketing information on there.. So I have these worksheets and, uh, if you want one, you're listening to the show, just reach out to us at Hello at Don't Write That or dwtb podcast.com and say, can you give me an example of Mike's notes for private first, for example, on there we have a QR code to get more notes, uh, which is, uh, uh, uh, what we're talking about here. We've broken down these, uh, the presentation into pieces so they can get more content, uh, to get the book to sign up. So it, it's the marketing piece, but the retention rate is extraordinary because they filled out the worksheet.
Mike Michalowicz (13:06):
Here's the ultimate irony. At the very bottom of the worksheet, we have the answers to fill in the blank answers for above. Because when presenting, you may skip a spot and people don't like empty spots. Or you may go too quickly and they misunderstand or don't hear something. So we have the answers at the bottom. They're in small text upside down. It is unbelievable. When I keynote, I would say less than 1% of the audience ever sees that. They think it's a disclaimer. They just ignore it. So the big joke at the end of my presentation, say, Hey, all the notes, all the answers ready on your worksheet. If you didn't see it, you didn't have to be here. You didn't have to see me speak. Ha ha ha ha. And they have the answers, but the retention rate is amazing. Everyone walks away with their worksheet. So there's the mind blowing tip.
AJ Harper (13:47):
Yeah. That old reading comprehension trick after you read something can work for listening. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (13:53):
Yeah. Hey, why do you think creating content based on your book, these pieces is generally a helpful thing? I shared education, marketing, other thoughts?
AJ Harper (14:02):
Making money.
Mike Michalowicz (14:06):
So you can monetize it.
AJ Harper (14:07):
Yeah. We talked, we had a whole show. We had two shows on monetization, all of which depends on rep repurposing content from your book. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (14:18):
I do want to share, when you repurpose content, I think the fear I had originally was my listener is gonna be exhausted of hearing the same thing over, over again. Here's what I found out. People learn in different ways. So the same content presented in a video versus audio versus text is consumed differently and is not consumed by the same person necessarily. So it does expose you to different people. They get your message one way because that's the way they consume it. They don't get another way. The second thing is, a good message needs to be repeated over and over for people to consume it. So it's a win-win. I've never seen someone say, can you stop saying to take your profit first, Mike?
AJ Harper (14:56):
No. You know, I have a, um, one of my alums from Top Three Book Workshop, which incidentally, Mike, starts on Monday. It's my annual thing. So it's like super back to school time for me. So I'm really excited.
Mike Michalowicz (15:08):
And you, you filled up that class pretty quickly, I think.
AJ Harper (15:10):
I think, um, I feel I I got almost to the, it's full. Okay. Yeah. Um, there's always sort of at the end, a couple, right.
Mike Michalowicz (15:20):
The last minute folks, like, I don't know.
AJ Harper (15:21):
Yeah. But I have a student, her name is Mara Yale, and she's, you know, Mara, I think you've seen..? Yeah. And she has, I don't remember the year she, I think she has started in the Covid year. So it's been about four years. I could be wrong. She'll correct me when I see her next, which will be later today. Um, because she's also part of my Author Collective, which is alum, an alum membership group. And we have live edits every Thursdays. But anyway, Mara comes to every incarnation of my class because I allow all my alums to audit all future workshops. And she will tell me, "I get something new. Even when, every time. Even though you've said it before."
AJ Harper (16:07):
Yeah. And I, I think that's another point. Even if someone has heard it all the ways, and in her case, I'm gonna guess 10 times maybe? Yeah. She'll correct me. Um, she's still, I know I will see her in workshop, if not Monday, another day in, in the coming weeks. And, uh, she'll be hearing the, some of the same content. I mean, obviously I switch it up a little bit. I find better, better ways to say things, or I really work hard to make sure that it lands with people. So sometimes I'll tweak. But you know, her, she really opened my eyes to, I wanna hear it again and again, because I know I'm gonna get more out of it. And then also I think when you start to practice something, so if you talk about Profit First, you get it initially, then you go do it, then you hear the same thing again. But it lands differently because now you have experience. So I think we, it's when an author is worried about sharing too much, too often, I think they're just sick of it themselves.
Mike Michalowicz (17:15):
It could be.
AJ Harper (17:15):
You know, and then there's that deep worry of I'm too, there's always this deep undercurrent not to get too therapy right now, but it is. It's like, I'm too much. I shouldn't be too much. So don't talk about this again and again. And I don't know, maybe someone told us. Right? Shh. Be quiet.
Mike Michalowicz (17:34):
Yeah. Children are here to be seen not heard. That was the line.
AJ Harper (17:37):
Yeah. And I've already... Right? And we've all had that person at a party who goes on and on and on, and they won't leave. And often they have a guitar and then they wanna sing songs.
Mike Michalowicz (17:55):
And I wonder if the differentiation is one is self-serving, the other one is outward serving. You know? Uh, this is not an aside, but it may sound this way. Favorite movie of all time?
AJ Harper (18:06):
I don't have a favorite, favorite movie, but I would say, I usually say, uh, either Moonstruck.
Mike Michalowicz (18:14):
Okay. Moonstruck.
AJ Harper (18:15):
Philadelphia Story. Have you ever, I'm gonna see if you've ever even heard of it.
Mike Michalowicz (18:18):
Philadelphia, I'm thinking Tom Hanks. But the Philadelphia story is different to me, so no, no, I've not seen it.
AJ Harper (18:22):
Okay. It's Kate Hepburn. Jimmy Stewart.
Mike Michalowicz (18:25):
Oh, Jimmy. Yeah.
AJ Harper (18:27):
Mike Michalowicz (18:32):
Oh, with, uh, Whoopi Goldberg?
AJ Harper (18:35):
Yes. I love that movie so much.
Mike Michalowicz (18:37):
Moonstruck, uh, Philadelphia Story. How many times have you seen, say, Moonstruck, for example?
AJ Harper (18:42):
Oh. I don't even know.
Mike Michalowicz (18:43):
Okay.
AJ Harper (18:43):
200 times?
Mike Michalowicz (18:44):
Okay. And this is the point I wanna make.
AJ Harper (18:46):
I can quote the whole thing.
Mike Michalowicz (18:48):
This is the point I wanna make. I suspect every time you see Moonstruck, there's certain parts that you're like, oh, I, I didn't remember that. Or it's new, even though you've seen it two or three, 200 times. So I bet you discovered new things, a little elements. Secondly, I bet you memorized certain lines and they bring about a certain emotion.
AJ Harper (19:05):
It's that familiarity. Oh, you're gonna do your greatest hits. We go to see, we, that's why you always hear people at a concert play this song. Play that song. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (19:14):
Yes! And I bet you the same thing. It is. We could do with a book, your favorite book. I've read my favorite book dozens of times. And so the point here is--
AJ Harper (19:23):
What's your favorite book?
Mike Michalowicz (19:24):
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.
AJ Harper (19:26):
Really?
Mike Michalowicz (19:27):
It was the-- Yeah. That book Transformed my Life. Transformed my life. It's the first self-help book I ever read. Dale Carnegie's book. And it's like, my God, this is magic. So hit
AJ Harper (19:38):
You at the right time.
Mike Michalowicz (19:39):
Yeah. I was 23 years old and I was a stress, a mess. But the, the point I'm making is the, the content you put put out there, there is a, a demand for it to be repeated. Is your best performance. So that's
AJ Harper (19:54):
Greatest hits man.
Mike Michalowicz (19:55):
Greatest hits, man. So, um, what are ways to decide what from your book may be used as appropriate content?
AJ Harper (20:01):
Yeah, I think that's maybe what our listener was going for, right? Is so we, we put together some, some ideas. Um, I think anytime you have something in your book that defies conventional wisdom, so, uh, that's gonna be interesting to share an idea that you just, you know, to show the juxtaposition. People say this, I say that. Most people try this approach. This is what I'm recommending, so that you can show the difference wherever you have that in the book where you're saying, Hey, this isn't working, or I don't agree with this. I think that's, you should automatically be sharing that content because why are we sharing the content, if not for it to be, to resonate with people, number one, but also so that it, they'll wanna share it with others. So we don't wanna just pick boring stuff. Not that you have boring stuff in your book, but we all have tactical things in the or. Well, actually tactical can be pretty exciting, but, you know, don't share the stuff that's, um, don't share the backstory. Don't share the lead up. You know?
Mike Michalowicz (21:06):
Just get right to the meat, man.
AJ Harper (21:07):
Get to get to the juice of the stuff that's really exciting. The things you stand for.
Mike Michalowicz (21:12):
On YouTube, there's a thing like how to pronounce names. So Vicky's last name? You, we can go in and type in, I don't remember the spelling, but the spelling of her last name, and then a pronunciation key comes up. What is frustrating is the voice that says it. He goes, welcome to pronounce names, and we're about to pronounce a name of French derivative and blah, blah. And they, there's this 30 seconds before they say the pronunciation, just give me the meat, man.
AJ Harper (21:38):
Just say it.
Mike Michalowicz (21:39):
And so--
AJ Harper (21:40):
It's the same with the recipes, right? The recipe, is it, um, 5,000 years of history of my family, before you tell the ingredients.
Mike Michalowicz (21:48):
They made Thanksgiving's a nightmare now at our house, because of that.
AJ Harper (21:56):
Yeah. Yeah. Another, another one, yeah. I'll tell you is whenever you have heard through feedback from readers, or just whenever you're, you're sharing that content in other forms, say in a class or a speech, and someone says, Hey, can you tell me more about that? Then, you know, oh, there's interest in this. You can then share that thing. And also you can tell them more. Yes. So maybe in your book, you couldn't go as deep, so that's a good way for you to use content, use the content in your book as a jumping off place to go deeper with maybe an article or whatever.
Mike Michalowicz (22:36):
It's a great way to test the audience. I mean, I, I think I'm just affirming what you're saying, but you, you hear what they're, they're loving. We are working on a personal finance book. I got a call, uh, yesterday or day before of someone say, you mentioned something about Legos. So that's my little tease. That was amazing. I need to know more. It exactly happened. So I'm like, oh, the Lego story is in the book now.
AJ Harper (22:58):
Yeah, exactly. What's resonating? Just double down. Double down on what's resonating. You'll see politicians do it all the time. Not that, not that we're dealing with that at all right now.
Mike Michalowicz (23:10):
How, what do you mean? How's the--
AJ Harper (23:16):
They're on a, they do a stu speech. Yeah. And you can tell from the audience what's, what are people going? Yeah. You know? And they're gonna just double down. Yeah. Yeah. Um, also something that you absolutely are certain moves the needle for people. So if you know, in your work with clients or in conversation with people, or however, again, could be a speech or where a person says, oh, that was the thing. So not just, I loved that, but I tried that thing. Or once I understood that everything changed kind of thing. Right. So what's, when, when, you know, things click for people or when you know something worked for someone.
Mike Michalowicz (23:55):
And how would you know that from the book? Is, is it similar? You people
AJ Harper (23:58):
Have to hear from people. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (23:59):
So it's to tell me more.
AJ Harper (24:00):
No, it's, you'd have to hear from people who said, I tried this thing and then this is the result I got. Or, I heard you say that. And then that clicked for me, and then I was able to change XY behavior.
Mike Michalowicz (24:13):
Understood. It's almost like a testimonial. Effectively.
AJ Harper (24:16):
Results oriented. Yeah. So if you know for sure it works, you know,
Mike Michalowicz (24:22):
Really like that. Yeah. Anything else,
AJ Harper (24:24):
Framework or methodology? I think people are, are really afraid to share it. Oh my God. They wanna leave it in the book and not share it anywhere else. And then what happens is other people aren't afraid to share it. Your book comes out, somebody decides to talk about it. Um, sometimes it's totally cool the way they do talk about it and not infringing on your copyright at all. And sometimes it's not. And then you didn't plant your flag so in advance.
Mike Michalowicz (24:54):
So they don't know the source. Yeah. They can't find
AJ Harper (24:56):
It. I mean, I don't think you should be, look, if your framework is helpful, share it. Don't be stingy.
Mike Michalowicz (25:02):
There is a popular name or big name that's using Profit First. Gives no attribution to profit first, but teaches it. Um, and we send a person to their actual live course. And sure enough, now this individual is not just teaching Profit First, it's tons of other stuff. So
AJ Harper (25:19):
It's just like a one day of theft.
Mike Michalowicz (25:21):
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's all tons of stuff and gives no attribution to anybody. Does not position themselves as the creator. Just the teacher saying, here's a technique, do this, do that.
AJ Harper (25:30):
Nasty.
Mike Michalowicz (25:31):
Gives a new name. And they're very successful. But I also wonder at a certain point if people are gonna catch on and say, wow, this person create all of these things. And
AJ Harper (25:39):
I, I don't think people think that hard about it.
Mike Michalowicz (25:41):
Maybe not.
AJ Harper (25:42):
I think they're there to solve their problem. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (25:44):
That's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah. Okay. Their choice. Uh, anything else on this subject, on that, on that category? Yeah.
AJ Harper (25:50):
Something you didn't get a chance to talk about that you maybe, again, was only a brief mention. So you just really wanted to go deep on something.
Mike Michalowicz (25:59):
Does this all require that you have the book done or..?
AJ Harper (26:03):
No. In fact, the, the lead up to marketing your book, you can be releasing some of these things as you go. People are terrified to do this.
Mike Michalowicz (26:13):
Now, you don't have to go this alone. At this alone. We talked about some technology Descript we're using and so forth. Ruby AI. Um, but you also have a, a marketing team member.
AJ Harper (26:24):
I actually have the best person on the planet who joined my team. Yeah. Sadé Amherd. I feel like my whole world opened up
Mike Michalowicz (27:52):
That's smart. Say, come to like in person the zoom things or--
AJ Harper (27:55):
Come to the workshop. So she's gonna be in class that starts on Monday. Yeah. She's, we're starting to do editing retreats on my property, and she's coming. So I'm not, I don't have, because she's so brilliant. I'm not, I don't have to say take notes. Get the highlights. What are the main takeaways? She's paying very close attention. I think a hack is, we sometimes separate the marketing person from the events and the things that we do. We think of them as the lead up to it or after. But we need to just, and-- They need to be totally enmeshed in your culture and what you're doing. And then let them be brilliant and do the things they do.
Mike Michalowicz (28:37):
That's so smart. Have your assistant be your student effectively.
AJ Harper (28:41):
Yeah. Because, uh, I'm astonished at how quickly she's, uh, and then the other benefit is they, it just from a purely branding standpoint is they know you then so well, you don't have to send a branding brief. They're literally in the soup with you.
Mike Michalowicz (28:59):
Yeah. And it, but it doesn't require,
AJ Harper (29:01):
They're not literally, that's an inappropriate use of the word. Literally.
Mike Michalowicz (29:03):
It was figuratively.
AJ Harper (29:05):
No, they're figuratively in the soup.
Mike Michalowicz (29:06):
I wanna challenge that. The governing body has redefined literally to be--
AJ Harper (29:11):
I know, but it's bad.
Mike Michalowicz (29:12):
It's bad. But, but you can use the word literally to be an emphasis of figuratively. It's such bull.
AJ Harper (29:17):
I know. It's what I did. And it's not good.
Mike Michalowicz (29:19):
No, but you, you followed the protocol. You're very modern. You're very modern!
AJ Harper (29:22):
Okay. So I just have to apologize to my best friends, Zoe Bird, who probably doesn't agree with that right now.
Mike Michalowicz (29:29):
I disagree with it, too. It's frustrating, but whatever. Um, that's how language develops.
AJ Harper (29:34):
It is, it evolves.
Mike Michalowicz (29:36):
Sadé is a special talent. Oh, she has special talents that have been applied perfectly. Laura Stone has special talents that have been applied perfectly in different areas. And you have this team, Zoe.
AJ Harper (29:46):
I have two brilliant people.
Mike Michalowicz (29:48):
And I think that's the key is that not if, if someone you bring on board to, to help you kind of splice and dice your content, and it's not their failing to do it doesn't mean you don't have spliceable content. It's not their talent necessarily.
AJ Harper (30:01):
Yes, exactly.
Mike Michalowicz (30:02):
I just want people to be aware of that.
AJ Harper (30:03):
Yeah. And I would say, can I just add, I mean, to have a te I have a team that's so abs-- The way that I've in grow and, enmeshed Laura Stone into my she's in everything means that I have no concerns about her creating something, making something advocating. She knows how to answer. She knows exactly where we stand. I just think we can't keep our team separate from the work that we do if we want them to be totally in alignment. We can't just give them a list of things.
Mike Michalowicz (30:41):
Absolutely not. And, and that is the definition of how entrepreneurship evolves. And, and as an author, I would argue we're an entrepreneur and the team has to be integral. Uh, otherwise you control every component. You cannot scale.
AJ Harper (30:55):
Yeah. So anyway, I, I think you can make this easier to create content from your book by involving the people who are on your team in ways that you hadn't thought about.
Mike Michalowicz (31:03):
Let, let's go over the formats or ways to distribute the technology that we, we cr-- the technology. Listen to me, the, the stuff that we splice up here, what, what are the formats for distributing?
AJ Harper (31:14):
So we've already talked about a bunch. I mean, you talked about speeches. There's articles, columns, um, of course what we've talked about before on monetization episodes, teaching webinar classes. Programs. Then for marketing, you could be pulling anecdotes, teaching points. You can pull simple frameworks and turn them into graphics. Let me back up on that. On the teaching points. If you just, I mean, if you
Mike Michalowicz (32:17):
Okay.
AJ Harper (32:17):
There's also, you know, those doodle videos?
Mike Michalowicz (32:20):
Yeah. Where the little drawings. Yeah.
AJ Harper (32:21):
Yeah. Take make one of those or something like it. Do something that's, uh, fun with your framework or helping people understand your defiance of conventional wisdom. Ha something that can be go viral and be shareable.
Mike Michalowicz (32:40):
Yeah. And if you don't like to be on video, people don't appreciate that you can create video that way.
AJ Harper (32:46):
Yeah. And then there's workbooks and journals, and we talked about that in monetization. Yep. You can pull stuff out. Uh, you could even just do tip sheets. There's so much you can do. Just expanding on what's already in your book.
Mike Michalowicz (32:59):
Uh, a couple add-ons. I have, I just insert in our notes here. Newsletters. Um, but Amazon pages. So you can do some design work on your Amazon or other--
AJ Harper (33:09):
That's, that's A Plus Content.
Mike Michalowicz (33:11):
Is that what it's called, A Plus? So, but you can insert taglines or you can reference your book or whatever. Pick the best stuff and put it there. Your own website should be emphasizing these different elements.
AJ Harper (33:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Michalowicz (33:24):
Um, and how do you make it shareable or shareworthy?
AJ Harper (33:28):
So first of all, you wanna make it shareworthy like you, like we've been talking about. It has to be something that, what's the thing that really wakes people up? What's, again, it's that tell me more content. So not all content is worthy of this. And then you wanna make it shareable in terms of ease of sharing. So if you just put it on your website it's not shareable. If you created a YouTube video, super shareable. You see what I'm going with this? So you have to really think about, okay, is it gonna be easy for somebody to hit retweet, repost, reblog? Yeah. Right. So that's, you know, uh, that's a factor. Um, I was thinking of, uh, and I can never pronou, you know, him personally. Chris Yeah. Pronounce the last name for me.
Mike Michalowicz (34:17):
Guillebeau.
AJ Harper (34:18):
Guillebeau.
Mike Michalowicz (34:18):
Wait, so we're only doing French names on this episode.
AJ Harper (34:20):
That's all we do.
Mike Michalowicz (34:21):
AJ Harper (34:22):
But that's not how you would pronounce it. If. That's gotta be an Americanized, I think
Mike Michalowicz (34:26):
It's a New Orleans French, you know, Cajun. Gal-uh-bo, the BEAU in his last name.
AJ Harper (34:32):
I know, but I I feel like it should be geel.
Mike Michalowicz (34:35):
No, he, he pronounces Gel-uh-bo.
AJ Harper (34:37):
Well, I know what he's pronouncing. Oh, I'm just saying. Sometimes we people, Americanize their names.
Mike Michalowicz (34:43):
We have about 10 minutes dedicated to friendship names. Oh
AJ Harper (34:46):
My God. All right. I, but okay, so here's the thing that's interesting. Way before he wrote his first book, the Art of Nonconformity, I was following him. And he had this, um, it's a, it's in a PDF format. It's all beautifully designed. And I would say it's probably 10,000 words, although I could be off, but not by much. And he, it's called a Brief Guide to World Domination. And he had it out years and years and years ago. And he put it on his blog, but in a way that you could share it and in a way that people could leave comments. So it was constantly alive. And so it was very easy for people to spread it around and share it to other people. And actually within that are a lot of the concepts that I think are just classic Chris, that lead to this vibe of the Art of Nonconformity. And I think, you know, we'll put it in the show notes where you can go take a look. I actually had, I went to his website before this and it used to be really easy to find, but I actually had to Google it because I couldn't actually find it anymore. Oh, buried. Because he's way beyond it. But I think it's such an excellent example. It's actually been downloaded more than a hundred thousand times.
Mike Michalowicz (35:59):
It's a PDF?
AJ Harper (36:00):
Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (36:01):
I'll give you a--
AJ Harper (36:02):
But it's a PDF that's embedded in a, not embedded, it's, you can download it directly from a blog post. So you can share there at the, I think once upon a time you might have been able to share the blog post, although I'm not entirely sure, but I bet that a hundred thousand is way off now because I bet he's not updating that.
Mike Michalowicz (36:22):
Yeah. I, um, give you, I'll give you a little hack. We shared Profit First, I think the first three chapters in a PDF. But we made it an editable PDF on the first page. And it had like a gift tag on the cover in the PDF and you could put in your name. So it said a, uh, the Gift of Profitability from AJ Harper. And you could put in your name. And that became very shareable.
AJ Harper (36:45):
Really? Did you, did you, do you know how many people shared it or--
Mike Michalowicz (36:47):
No, no, we just know it was downloaded over and over. And then you, I'd see it circulating on the internet. Someone's like, oh, I got your book. It was emailed to me the first chapter. I loved it. And they would include it sometimes. And I'd say, oh, this was gifted from whomever.
AJ Harper (37:00):
What a good idea.
Mike Michalowicz (37:02):
Yeah. We all wanna see our name. Our own name. Right.
AJ Harper (37:04):
Yeah. So when that A brief Guide to World Domination is a manifesto. And I think that's, uh, I think people should write them more. I think people should be writing manifestos all the time. What do you stand for? What do you believe in? What's your philosophy of life? And you've got some of that in your book where you talk about your mission and the reason why you wrote it. Yeah. What you care about. If you were gonna write a manifesto about All In, our last book, I would love to see it where you would write about I passionately, I mean, the whole book is basically a manifesto. But I passionately believe that we are short changing ourselves when and every and the world when we refuse to see the potential in all people.
Mike Michalowicz (37:50):
Google just came out with a, one of the leaders at Google, they're getting their butts handed them by chat GPT and other resources is people are abandoning Google for it. And they're claiming the reason is that Google went to a remote workforce and "work when you want." And these other companies are working harder and longer. And I call Bull on that.
AJ Harper (38:13):
That's crap.
Mike Michalowicz (38:14):
It's such crap. What these other companies are is they're simply more innovative. They didn't get stuck in the monetization. You know, Google is making money off a search and Google is dependent upon that. It's, it's classic lethargy of a... Lethargy.
AJ Harper (38:26):
Lethargy.
Mike Michalowicz (38:27):
Lethargy of a, uh, large corporation. That's the problem. But they're blaming the workforce for not grinding it out enough. So that's part of my manifesto.
AJ Harper (38:36):
I think we talked about also very clearly, uh, explaining your frameworks. You could put that into a PDF that was shareable. Um, it you really, your best tips, your reference guides, those are all really great. And then think about the content that, um, that has helped move books forward. That's the entire framework. Like Five Love Languages. That's a quiz.
Mike Michalowicz (39:00):
The quiz. That's one of the best ways to splice up your content. Yeah.
AJ Harper (39:04):
Also, um, Don Miller has, um, the same stuff on his,
Mike Michalowicz (39:08):
He's got a StoryBrand framework you can go through, fill in the blanks. Go through it. Um, but,
AJ Harper (39:12):
But the quiz for Five Love languages. I mean, it's all there.
Mike Michalowicz (39:17):
Yeah. We, we, we all love to put ourselves in categories. We love assigning labels to ourselves.
AJ Harper (39:20):
But, but my point is the whole thing is there in the quiz. Yeah. But you still buy the book, so please--
Mike Michalowicz (39:26):
Yeah, it's a good point.
AJ Harper (39:27):
Please don't worry about it. The same with, um, in my workshops, I, I use an example of StoryBrand. I actually have an old, a screenshot from his old website. You can't get this picture anymore 'cause he's changed it. I point out that he, you know, who's, he's got his whole method in the book then he is got the whole method on the website and you can walk through it in this, all these different ways that he's made free and available sometimes in exchange for an email address, but still free. And then I took a screenshot of this promo page he once had for workshops, I think before he built his place. And it's this packed room, like, here are people paying a lot of money to do the workshop. Which despite the fact that it's not only in the book, but free everywhere. And so my point is just share your style. Just, just make this content and make it available.
Mike Michalowicz (40:23):
I asked Don, so he invited me to speak actually on, at his event on the stage a few times. And I asked him, I can't remember if it was on stage. I said, why are-- The room had hundreds if not a thousand people in it? I'm like, why is everyone here? Because they have access to it for free. He says, people wanna make sure they're doing it right. And he goes, that's it. Just wanna make sure they're doing it right. So even if everything's shared, they'll want to continue if they, if they resonate with it to learn more deeply about it. All right. Anything else we got for today?
AJ Harper (40:54):
Yeah. The ultimate content offshoot. The very most successful book we ever did is technically content based off of a book. Yeah. Because it was one section in Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.
Mike Michalowicz (41:09):
Yeah.
AJ Harper (41:12):
I'm just saying it started out okay, this is a perfect example. It was this little bit in--
Mike Michalowicz (41:18):
I think it's two sentences in Toilet Paper Entrepreneurs.
AJ Harper (41:20):
It's not a whole--
Mike Michalowicz (41:22):
It's not a section.
AJ Harper (41:23):
Are you sure?
Mike Michalowicz (41:23):
Well I gotta be careful about saying that.
AJ Harper (41:26):
I'm gonna go home and look because I put it on. I had it on my desk. Yeah. I, no, I just put it, I just put it on the shelf. I'll pull it down the shelf. I'm gonna look regardless. Then it became a Wall Street Journal article.
Mike Michalowicz (41:39):
Literally.
AJ Harper (41:40):
Right. That got a lot of play. So content from the book. Yeah. Expanded, just as we've said into an article was in the Wall Street Journal, lot of play. You also noticed people talking about it, right? Jose and, uh, Jorge and others. And then that is sort of how you began to see, and you knew you had results. You knew that it moved the needle. So it had all the elements and then it became a book and the most successful book.
Mike Michalowicz (42:17):
Yeah. And a company.
AJ Harper (42:19):
And so don't be afraid to pull one little concept from your book, expand it and see what happens. You might be surprised how the book that you thought was gonna take off had a piece of it that would then take off.
Mike Michalowicz (42:34):
That's right. That's right. And it continues. New content continues to come out from Profit First, including something that I was just sharing with you. It's confidential. Uh, I'll share it in the next month or two, uh, once we get to that point. But there's always new ways to innovate on content. Deploy in new ways.
AJ Harper (42:50):
Yes. Maybe even the project we're currently working on
Mike Michalowicz (42:55):
Totally. Yeah. Totally. So I wanna talk to you about this.
AJ Harper (42:57):
The gift that keeps on giving.
Mike Michalowicz (42:58):
It's true. All right. Uh, next week we're gonna talk about addressing your doubts. Or, I'm sorry. No. Addressing the reader doubts and criticisms and how to stop them from giving up on your book. Yeah, yeah. Which is,
AJ Harper (43:12):
It's how to stop them from throwing it across the room.
Mike Michalowicz (43:14):
Which Yeah. Which happens. And it was interesting. I've seen people throw a book across the room for two reasons. One is it's not resonating, it's, it sucks. The second reason is it's confronting an established internal belief and they don't want to make the shift, but they know it's right. I've had people say, I started reading Get Different and I got so angry I threw across the room because I know it's right. I was like, Hmm.
AJ Harper (43:37):
That's not exactly what I'm talking about.
Mike Michalowicz (43:39):
I know. But I'm saying there's a couple reasons people throw across the room and give up and give up. They said--
AJ Harper (43:45):
That's doubt in themselves.
Mike Michalowicz (43:47):
Totally.
AJ Harper (43:47):
Which we're gonna get into.
Mike Michalowicz (43:48):
Okay. Totally. Um, alright, I think we're done for today's episode. Hope you learned some French during the, uh, during our journey together.
AJ Harper (43:56):
I don't think you did. But maybe you can tell us how we should learn French.
Mike Michalowicz (44:00):
Yeah.
AJ Harper (44:24):
No, that just, that starts Monday. So it doesn't start again until next year.
Mike Michalowicz (44:28):
But you do it twice a year or once
AJ Harper (44:29):
A year. Yes. The next time I'll do it will be the end of August, 2025.
Mike Michalowicz (44:33):
AJ Harper (44:36):
But I will say, since you're mentioning Yeah. Can I interrupt you? Of course. So, uh, in October, I will open up, sign up for my editing retreats that are going to be next summer. Four of them. And I only have eight slots for per
Mike Michalowicz (44:55):
Retreat. You say your personal home on the island. Yeah. Um, this may be broadcast around October, this episode.
AJ Harper (45:02):
I'm not sure you and I don't know. I don't know. We don't know.
Mike Michalowicz (45:04):
We don't know. That's why Sadé is helping us. Um, but when you hear this do sign up. I promise you'll be--it will be more than transformative. It's, it's going to set a new course for your entire life.
AJ Harper (45:15):
I'm really excited.
Mike Michalowicz (45:15):
Yeah. And she also has a great book Write a Must-Read. Check that out. Uh, if you're also interested in, in getting published, uh, and getting representation and support in your journey, uh, we have an organization called Penned With Purpose from my office that maybe could help you out. Okay. Thanks for joining us today. As you have with every episode, please do binge on this. I do invite you to subscribe. Honestly, that supports us tremendously and I think it'll support you too, so you don't miss a single episode. Looking forward to you next week as a reminder, don't write that book. Write the greatest book you can.