Relaunching Your Way to Publishing Success

Hilary DeCesare: 00:00:04

You're listening to the ReLaunch podcast and I'm your host, Hilary DeCesare, best selling author, speaker and transformational coach widely recognized in the worlds of neuro psychology and business launches, which cultivated the one and only three HQ method, helping midlife women. Yep, that's me to rebuild a life of purpose, possibility and inspiring business ventures. Each week, we'll be diving into the stories that brought upon the most inspirational relaunches while sharing the methods and the secrets that they learned along the way, so that you too, can have not just an ordinary relaunch, but an extraordinary relaunch.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:00:54

Welcome to a nother round of the relaunch podcast, this show, I'm telling you, everyone sit down, get on that treadmill, do whatever you're going to do, but plan to be energized plan to take it to that next level, because this guy is going to deliver and for all of you, aspiring authors out there, or for those that are thinking about their next book, we're gonna hit everything you need to know and the person I am talking about. He is the infamous Michael D. Butler. And here's the greatest part. People have often referred to him as the Simon Cowell of the authoring space of this book publishing. And he has it not only just you know, it's not just us, we're talking global book publisher. He's got authors in 63 countries, and I'm sure growing, and he did you say 1000 books that are now out there, Michael,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:02:06

Michael D. Butler: almost 1000 words 794. Now we'll get our 1000 next year.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:02:12

You know what I am like doing my like energetic, big hug to you. I am so excited to have you on the show. Because I really think that this is becoming it's almost like your calling card. It's who you are. It's what you know, people will say, Well, do you have a book? Do you have a book, and everyone has a book inside of them, everybody. But there are a lot. There's a lot of fear out there around starting the process. And before I go into all of that, I always like to take people back to what was the significant relaunch in your past that kind of brought you full circle to where you are today.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:02:55

Michael D. Butler: Great to be here, Hilary. I've heard a lot of great things. I've been following you for a good while and love what you're doing with relaunch. I think as humans, we always want to be recalibrating, reassessing or relaunching and I read recently that our cells regenerate every seven years. Well, our mind should be generating very rapidly as well, right? Our soul, our spirit, we should constantly be reading and feeding. You know, and a lot of people thought the internet killed publishing, but quite the opposite it true readership is up globally, book consumption is up globally. And just like the printing press brought us out of the dark ages and brought us the Renaissance, this internet explosion with knowledge knowledge is being doubled in many industries on a monthly basis. And so, you know, people say, Well, you know, yeah, everybody tells me I should publish a book. But you know, here's the thing, there's 4 million new books published in the US alone, which is about 10 million globally. So

Hilary DeCesare: 00:03:57

Michael, before you move on, when you say 4 million books published, is that annually? What is that? Yeah,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:04:04

Michael D. Butler: that's in the US. Every year, this year, in 2023, there were about 4 million books that were self published, traditionally published or published to a hybrid publisher, fiction and nonfiction all together. Think about that, and yet readership is up globally, people are consuming content. That's why I'm so excited to be here with you today. The number one reason people write a book is for credibility, to get credibility as an author to go best seller. You know, I mean, it makes sense if you're doing nonfiction and you're a coach or consultant in insurance, or, you know, you have a services business to get your name out there. Right. But what about that fiction author who's who's writing their first second or third book? Why why is it advantageous for them to get a book out?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:04:50

But you know, it's interesting because a lot of people might be like 4 million. Oh, how am I ever going to get through the clutter of 4 million what was it five years ago or What was it even three years ago? Has the pandemic kind of changed people and now more people are writing books. What was it before? You're saying there's gonna be 4 million this year?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:05:09

Michael D. Butler: Yeah, exponentially I think of if memory serves me correct. Four years ago, it was just a million in the US. So we pretty much have quadrupled in about four years. And yeah, the pandemic spite, not only binge consumption of streaming movies, but also books.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:05:26

I love that people are reading more these days, because I am an avid reader, if I could spend hours upon hours during the day reading, I would, I love it that much. And I go, I go between the audible and actually the paperback, I love flipping over the pages, writing myself notes, I have this whole technique where I write them on a certain beginning of the front flip. So I can always go back to what was the main I really wanted to take away from this book. But I gotta take you back again. You weren't just all of a sudden, the Simon Cowell a book publishing. There's a story here that got you to where you are today in 63 countries. And I do want to share that with our listeners. Well,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:06:10

Michael D. Butler: you know, I think going way back, you know, I'm 55 now, but I was an 11 year old kid that stuttered and my librarian saw me struggling. And she was she was led to give me this book that was written by an 11 year old kid, when I was 11. I don't remember the name of the book, I don't remember the name of the author. I just remember there was a picture of a sailboat on the front of this book. And it fascinated me that this kid and so I'm sitting there on the farm, Hillary looking up at the sky, and daydreaming and getting a bigger picture, a bigger vision for my life. And I see these planes flying over on the farm, and there's my dog, there's the cows and my brother, and I'm telling everybody that will listen one day, I'm gonna fly around the world on these planes and speak to 1000s of people. And so we've been to 30 nations now supporting our authors and seeing that happen. I love Empower underestimate the power of the book, this. Yeah,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:07:07

this is an impact impact moment, that actually really solidifies that. You you had a dream, and we talked about manifestation and law of attraction. You didn't even know what you were doing. But the base of what really inspired you was this 11 year old author who wrote this book, your teacher, you had the you had the stuttering probe library and, and how like, what did you do to get over the stuttering first, because in our family, we have, you know, several, one of my kids had a stuttering when they were little. And fortunately, there was this incredible teacher that helped her right away, get over it. And my cousin and I mean, lots of kids have this. I know President Biden has a stuttering app. But you know, what, what, what is the way that people can that you handled it that people could learn from your your, you know, kind of your accomplishment here because you've taken it so far? Well,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:08:10

Michael D. Butler: for me, Hillary it was we were on a 30 acre farm in Oklahoma, just my brother and I with our dog, and my parents and I started producing movies. That's the vision I saw. And I think I think reading this book sparked it, I began producing movies as an 11 year old on the farm, in my mind, in my imagination with my cows, and my dog, Joe and my brother, and we would set these movies up and cut to commercial, and then we would sell the products on the commercial. So it helped me get over stuttering by stepping into this role play in this imagination of being a movie producer.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:08:48

Okay, that is so you are going into the future identity that you I'm ashamed.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:08:54

Michael D. Butler: And that's what words do they put you in a time machine where you can go back or you can go into the future? Oh,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:09:00

I Okay. This is so great. So then you started to do these, you know, movies and your you know, your everything right? You're doing it all? You're the director, you're the star, you're the producer, and you're doing everything. And when did you actually write your first book?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:09:16

Michael D. Butler: So my first book was the single dad Survival Guide. I wrote it in 2015. And I wrote it because a few years before I had gone through a divorce, four young sons 10, eight, six and four. And I began to look on the internet and realize, hey, there's a lot of resources out here for single moms and there's not much for single dads. And I was all set to launch my first book book idea. The best seller in 30 days, which is done really well been an international phenomenon helped 1000s of people write their first book. But one of my authors who's also a psychologist from Poland suggested that I published the single dads Survival Guide first because it would help fill that need for men. Now here's the interesting thing about that book always does really good Around Father's Day and Christmas, but you know, men don't buy books. Women buy and read 90% of the books in the world, man just go to their cave, or talk to their friends, they don't really buy books and do research. So the way we packaged that single dad Survival Guide was as a gift book that you could buy for the man in your life going through a divorce. So realize, as you're writing your book, the person you're writing to might not even be the actual person that's going to buy it. So you got to figure out how you're going to appeal to that person that's going to buy the book for the friend and their life.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:10:32

That it goes back to your you know, early days and 11 where you're doing commercials midway between and trying to figure out who are you targeting that is so true, you have to really be aware relaunch and I you know, I have a book relaunch spark your heart to ignite your life, and relaunches people have all the time. But when are they willing to actually like I now need to focus on it now year end, beginning of the year, and kind of like around end of quarters beginning of quarter, right? There's that I got to do some summer? Summer is a big one, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what I want to talk to you about is and you briefly just, you know, touched on it was this concept around, you've got self publishing, hybrid publishing, traditional publishing, which one is the best?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:11:25

Michael D. Butler: That's the question, we get a lot. And in fact, there's, there's no right answer that applies to everybody. It's different for everybody. And so, but I'll just give you a quick rundown on each of them. So your listeners can kind of be aware, and make a decision be informed and make the proper decision. It used to be in the 70s and 80s, all we had was traditional publishing. And you if you wanted to get a book deal, you went to a New York City publisher, you signed the rights away to them. That was the downside is you signed away the rights, but the upside was they gave you global distribution. But the other downside was they only pay you about seven to 15%. And so you can never repurpose the content on your own on your blog or anywhere else because they purchased the content. If you got optioned for a movie deal, you were cut out of the deal.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:12:15

So let me ask you is that you said that was in the 70s and 80s? Is that still the case that you would end up with 7% of the of the net profit or 10%? Or 12%? of the 15? Maybe what did you say seven to seven

Hilary DeCesare: 00:12:30

Michael D. Butler: to 15. So

Hilary DeCesare: 00:12:30

that doesn't give me a teen?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:12:32

Michael D. Butler: Is that still your model today. So that's still the model. Now, with a traditional publisher, you're not out of pocket, any investment as the author to do any of the editing, cover design, or setup of the book and get it globally distributed. But at the same time, it takes them about three years to get somebody queued up. So unless you're Joel Osteen or Oprah Winfrey, it's probably not going to happen. Nor would you want it to happen, because you're, you're not getting the bang for the buck. And you're also not able to repurpose the content. But the other thing is, they kind of own you because you got to go around to all the speaking gigs in the bookstore, signings that they tell you you've got to show up for. And then if you do get an advance, it's just a payday loan against your future royalties. And that's what a lot of authors need to understand. So that's traditional publishing. Let's talk about self publishing. That's where you do everything yourself. And that became popular with Amazon and KDP. Have, oh, now I can get my book up. I don't need a publisher. And it's true. Anybody can publish your book on Amazon. The downside to that is Amazon is only 50% of the world's book sale. Okay. Really?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:13:45

Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting there.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:13:47

Michael D. Butler: Okay. I'll go more into that in a second and tell you why that is. It's the average, the average self published author never sells more than 200 copies. Because Amazon is not an aggressive sales channel. It's a, it's a retail shop that started with books. But now it has everything. So they are selling in 15 countries, but they're still only 50% of the world's book sales.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:14:12

That is super interesting. I did not know about the 15 countries either. And did not know about 50% of the book sales worldwide super interesting because I actually have a hybrid book, I went through a hybrid publisher, and you're gonna get into the details of that. And I found the whole process so interesting, but I want you to keep going with Okay, so then there's self publishing, you own all the rights. You got. Yeah,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:14:38

Michael D. Butler: that's so that's the upside on self publishing, you own all the rights you make 100% of the royalties, but if your books not selling, you know, you know, it's it's, it's really not a win win. So you want to say what is best for me, where self publishing would be wise would be, say a full time speaker that's traveling the world. But I think even then, because it's so hard to get a self published book Get into bookstores and libraries. And libraries are the number one buyers of books. And so would you self publish, it's nearly impossible to get in in the bookstores and libraries. And the other thing, okay, we've gone so global since the pandemic is people are buying books in 190 nations now. And you need global distribution beyond Amazon. So for example, Amazon's not in South Africa, they're not in other countries. And so if you're speaking on a webinar, you want people to be able to buy your book in Brazil to be able to buy your book in South Africa to be able to buy your book all over Europe, not just in England and Germany. And so hybrid is a solution, Michael, I

Hilary DeCesare: 00:15:39

have to tell you a funny thing. So when I, when I travel, and I do a lot of global travel, I bring a few copies of my book, and I literally place them in different places along my vacation, or if I'm speaking somewhere, and I'll leave that and then I'll say, Well, we are in South Africa, because I was there. And there are three books in South Africa. That's great. Okay. And that was really interesting. I have to say, I'm gonna go back to the 200 is the average of the amount of books that usual self published authors sell. That's the average.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:16:15

Michael D. Butler: Right? Right, right. Whereas hybrid author is going to average more like 1000 to 5000 books. And so the thing Hillary to consider is, when you're self publishing, you're still you're paying for your editing, you're hiring a cover designer, you're paying for the interior design, you're trying to figure out how to do the EPUB conversion, you're trying to figure out how to make it number one on Amazon. So you're watching a lot of YouTube videos, and you're spending a lot of money. And it's like doing your own plumbing, you can do that. Or do you just want to make a phone call?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:16:50

Okay, so I know where you're going. I'm clearly seeing the writing on the wall. Haha. That we like that. Yeah. So you really are a big proponent of hybrid. You know,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:17:03

Michael D. Butler: book publishing started in the caves. It was hieroglyphics speaking of writing on the wall. That's how they passed down to his old traditions around the campfire. And it was the history told on the paintings on the wall. But yeah, hybrid publishing is hot for a lot of people. And one reason it's grown so much in the last few years, is because the little guy can get global distribution. Now you don't have to be with a New York, Simon and Schuster, you can be somebody that's not a celebrity, but you've got a powerful message. And you can get into the same channels, hundreds of outlets, including Barnes and Noble, Barnes and noble.com walmart.com target.com, of course, Amazon, but chapters up in Canada, they're the big retailer, they're the Barnes and Noble of Canada. And if you self publish, you're not in chapters. And so it's so important if you want to do a book signing and call a bookstore, if you're self publishing, you're never going to get in. But if you're with a hybrid publisher that's enabled your book for global distribution. I've got a client flying in tomorrow from Sydney, Australia, we called A New York bookshop bookstore, she's coming in to do a book signing next week it was that literally that easy. And

Hilary DeCesare: 00:18:18

the authors that you work with in this hybrid approach, how much of the sales do they get versus the seven to 15%?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:18:27

Michael D. Butler: That's a great question. This is something you really want to look at in your contract, because it's going to be spelled out in black and white. Our authors get 100% of the books they personally sell in 50% of the books that we sell for them through all of our channels globally. That

Hilary DeCesare: 00:18:43

is incredible. So if somebody has a book that they've already self published, is it possible to come to somebody like you and say, I have this book, I now want to do a hybrid publisher on it because they've self published? Yeah,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:19:01

Michael D. Butler: yeah. And we get that a lot. And so we do help them all day long. The way that we're able to help them is to get them in broader global distribution, what we normally recommend is a second edition to their book, where we update the ISBN in the Library of Congress so that they're recognized by the Library of Congress, we actually send a copy of everybody's book to Washington, DC Library of Congress so they can get into libraries. And then also, with that second edition of the book, we come out with a hardcover if they haven't done a hardcover yet if they haven't received an Amazon bestseller and bestseller status, we make that app and because it's important a lot of people say is that hokey? All my friends are going Amazon bestseller. It is important to juice the algorithms, okay? It's important to get that working for you. Plus, you get to be an Amazon Best Selling Author for life. And so those are good questions. That's why we do

Hilary DeCesare: 00:19:55

when when I was trying to make this very important decision around my book One, I really wanted to own the asset. Right, I wanted to make sure that I was a part of like, if I wanted to go teach at a on stage, I didn't want to have to reach out to the traditional publisher and say, Hey, can I can I borrow your content, even though it's my content. And so that was a big one. And also, as you said, it can be up to three years. I mean, you know, things are so instant, is the relevancy of your book going to be relevant in three years, I needed it to happen. But I do have a funny manifestation story around this. I do this all the time. And I have a process called Three HQ headquarters of yourself head heart, highest self. And I put myself through this when I was deciding on you know, the book and everything. And I said, I really want to learn how to actually write a book, I want to understand the processes, I want to get, you know, into every detail. Well, the universe delivered. And I ended up in a very, very detailed course on how to learn to write a book, it took a year, it was I mean, I had to do all the research and the sighting. And there was one point in my book, I was talking about law of attraction. My editor said, Okay, what is the law of attraction? I said, what? I mean, everyone knows what that is. No, I don't know what that is where cite who, you know, where did this law come from? who developed it who was so funny, because I'm like, but I did during the process. I did learn a lot about book writing, book publishing. And there are different hybrid companies out there. Can you share with us your because you've obviously done this, you're very successful, as you said, you know, you're going to be reaching 1000. Here come the New Year. What is so special about your process?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:21:50

Michael D. Butler: Well, we've ghostwritten about 247 books in the last seven years, and about half of the books that we go straight for clients. And these are billionaires, bankers, coaches, and insurance agents and real estate moms and network marketing moms and startups that have gotten off the TED stage, but they don't have a book yet. And so a lot of times, we will go straight them a fiction book, so it can be optioned for film, and they can get on stage and talk about anything. They're not trying to be the next Napoleon Hill, and compete with everybody else's how to book they're actually doing something really cool. That can be optioned for a movie. So our process, we actually have a writing course it's interesting, you mentioned that. It's called write your book in one hour. And I teach this, it's an all in

Hilary DeCesare: 00:22:36

one year. This sounds good already.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:22:39

Michael D. Butler: Well, pre pandemic, I used to teach the course write your book in 60 days, and then we just we collapsed it because it's really a decision. I'll never forget my first marathon, I realized, Hey, I was gonna run a marathon. By the time I'm 40. I wake up one day, I'm 39 and a half, I'm overweight, I'm on the couch and put on my jogging shoes, I go out, run a block, and I'm out of breath. The next day, I go out, run a block and two mailboxes, I can't breathe. And I go to Google, and I type in running shoes. And I see an ad for running group. I joined the running group six months later, because I put it on social media. And because I joined a group and held myself accountable, I got it done. So when it comes to writing your book, you can literally write the book in an hour. And we teach that all the time at beyond webinar.com.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:23:19

Okay, this are using a lot of AI these days.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:23:23

Michael D. Butler: No, we're not using any AI. That's all human. Ah, wow,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:23:27

I need to hear more about that. But what I really want to understand then is for the people out there that have a story in their in their in their head and they're trying to figure out really hot, you know, why do you believe an entrepreneur today? Absolutely must be writing a book.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:23:47

Michael D. Butler: Well, it's really the credibility piece because speaker's bureau say that, if you're a speaker, you're 68% more likely to get the media interview and the speaking gig against the others that do not have a book. So that's 68%. And the mic

Hilary DeCesare: 00:24:04

will go up when you have a second book, a third book. I know Joe Vitali said the other day, he's kind of like almost 100 or something.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:24:12

Michael D. Butler: Absolutely. Hall of Fame speaker Jim Cathcart. We just published his 24th book. He's spoken in China 30 plus times. And so every time he comes out with a new book, he's in the top speakers of the world. And I

Hilary DeCesare: 00:24:24

had him on the show. He's absolutely for everyone out there. Go listen to the episode. It was fantastic. The information he gave on speaking on stages. Wonderful.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:24:33

Michael D. Butler: So he comes out with two books a year at least. And he is very prolific. He's at this stage in his life, where he's mentoring and he's even started a publishing house where we're running the backend of the publishing company for him. We do that for a lot of people. And he's been so much fun to work with. But to answer your question, yes, the second third, fourth, fifth book, it's just put you in Rockstar status at that point. So

Hilary DeCesare: 00:24:58

it really does help to You elevate you? What does the process of working with you look like in terms of if you're not going to be? Well, we could talk about ghost writing versus writing yourself? And do you recommend one versus the other? There's so much hype out there about authenticity. And, you know, the stories and I look at the blood, sweat and tears that I had writing this book and the weekends and the late nights, sometimes all nighters that I pulled on my book, and when do you recommend a ghost writer versus writing it on your own? There's

Hilary DeCesare: 00:25:35

Michael D. Butler: no right answer on that. It depends on every every circumstance is different. A lot of CEOs that we work with are very busy, they just don't have time to do it. Nobody knows it's ghost written, but it is, it is a growth process for the author either way, and they're still called the author. And, you know, you still own the content, because it's your idea and you hired a ghostwriter that you're working with, so it doesn't, it doesn't minimize the process at all. You're still involved in that process.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:26:02

Okay, I got to ask Mike, how many books out there are ghost written? Do you think person walk

Hilary DeCesare: 00:26:07

Michael D. Butler: into a bookstore? 90% of those books are ghostwritten What,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:26:12

dad is crazy. Oh my gosh, I gotta get on the bandwagon.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:26:20

Michael D. Butler: It was written books sell more effectively, because when when the the mind trust of the publishing house, see, we don't just use one ghostwriter per project, we have about six to eight ghost writers that touch every project. And so when you have that many people collaborating on a project, it becomes more of a mastermind. And you're beginning with you're writing the book backwards. You're figuring out who is the reader, what action do we want the reader to take. And so we're beginning with that in mind. process. If you brought me a vomit draft today, we would have you up in pre selling within two weeks, and we'd have your book delivered within a month. But now for ghostwriting, we would have your book cover up and pre selling within two weeks, and we'd have your book delivered and going live within 90 days.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:27:09

So what's really interesting is I'm in the process of writing the very detailed outline of my next book. And, you know, it takes taking me a really long time, because even though they always say your second book is much easier than your first. It you all see you also get to be, I'm more critical now. Like I know what I know. And so it's so interesting to hear you say this, I do want to ask you, one of your one of your many specialties is how can you actually build a business around a book? There's a lot of people out there that are like, once I have the book, what can I really do with the book?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:27:48

Michael D. Butler: That's a great question. President Abraham Lincoln said, If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first four sharpening the axe and nothing sharpen your axe more than the writing process. Because it really is a personal growth journey for us, you probably found, but what the book does, it becomes the anchor tenant to your real estate portfolio called intellectual property, it becomes that anchor tenant that you build everything around the mastermind, the coaching program, it becomes your lead magnet, it becomes your client, it becomes your referral partner because even if some somebody never read your book, and let's face it, the average book buyer and reader never reads past page nine, but they never throw your book away either. And the fact that your book is on their bookshelf or their desks, it is so important. I have one of my clients Seth Green recently, he's doing his ninth book. And he gave away his seventh or eighth book to a client, he picked up a $200 million financial portfolio client as a result of giving away a $20 book. I said, Seth, are you going to keep giving away books he says I stopped giving away books. I'm

Hilary DeCesare: 00:28:56

so my heart sank when you said most people don't read pass the ninth page. I, I at least I'm gonna get the one big story I think I have within the first nine pages, but I'm like, Oh, God, three,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:29:10

Michael D. Butler: here's the flip side. Those that do read those that do read to the end, right? Those that do reach to the in the array to spend $20,000 with you. So if you're pitching an offer in your book and you're missing out because those that get to the end their family, they'll go to the ends of the earth wiki and they're just wanting to buy everything you have. Ah

Hilary DeCesare: 00:29:30

okay, so I know people are like, okay, the basic costs associated with this hybrid approach what what can people be thinking about from a cost if I want to do this in 2024? What am I looking at? Oh,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:29:47

Michael D. Butler: sure. So our basic publishing is 4997 $4,997 People can jump on my calendar and ask me questions. I will give a free consult to your viewers to your listeners, and get published up beyond publishing dotnet. Just jump on the calendar, it's a, it's a 30 minute free book, consult data $500. And I'll give you feedback on your cover your title, what you're wanting to do with your book, run some ideas by me. And that'd be a lot of fun to explore what you're gonna do with your book, because everybody's goal is different. Some people just want to mark, mark it off their bucket list and say, Hey, I wrote my book, it was my memoirs, and they don't really want to sell any books. Some people really want to create a movement with their book and sell. That's a different conversation. Michael,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:30:33

that is such a generous offer, we'll definitely put it in the show notes as well. And if you're talking ghost writing, what can you be looking at out there?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:30:42

Michael D. Butler: Yeah, if you price ghost writing, it's anywhere between 40 and $50,000. And can take up to a year to ghost write a book. Our ghost writing starts at $15,000. And typically, we're done. ghostwriting, a book that the author is proud of within 90 to 120 days, depending on how quickly the author gets back to us on their their edits and their feedback. So we're talking weekly to the author, we're getting feedback, we're providing content, the main thing, once we figure out who the reader is, and what action we want them to take, we give you the synopsis within two weeks, once the synopsis is approved, we come up with a cover design, begin pre selling Once you approve the cover, and then it's just a matter of communicating every week and adding stories and tweaking the stories to make it work. Because we've already got the structure. It's just putting the stories together. And

Hilary DeCesare: 00:31:32

then after you've written the book, you take it this is where you were saying is your differentiator. You take it and you help get it into all of the different locations, not just Amazon. And so do you. Is there a different package for that? I'm just trying to give people an idea of what to expect?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:31:53

Michael D. Butler: Oh, sure, sure. So we take all of our authors that we put into our global catalog, we take your book to all the major book shows of the world, we market you and promote you on our social media or websites or national press releases. We give you your first media interview at no cost. And then we push you out through our podcast network. We just had a lady in her early 70s, who's a faith author from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, she's never been in the media. And we pushed her through our podcast network. she set up her profile like we told her she got 18 media interviews within three weeks Hillary incredible. That

Hilary DeCesare: 00:32:28

is amazing. Okay, so we are we're at you know, 1111 What a brilliant way to wrap this up right now. So if you were to give somebody out there who is feeling a little stuck with writing their book, besides giving you a call with your generous offer for a 30 minute, you know, console, what would you say they should be doing to kind of move forward. Realize

Hilary DeCesare: 00:32:54

Michael D. Butler: the world needs your book and realize that it's a personal journey that even if you don't publish it for the next year or two, it will take you on a spiritual journey and a path that will transform your life and your friends and family will notice the difference. Just in the introspection that you've done, you can actually go to credibility book dot live and check out my course it is the how to write your book in one hour that's wrapped in credibility book dot live and it will help you discover who you are as a person. It'll help you figure out which here's the thing, Hillary, I planted a garden in Texas at my house this year, because when I was a kid, we had a one acre farm and dad took my brother and I just shovel horse manure and I'm like, why are we shoveling horse manure. I'm seven years old. And he's it's because everybody enjoys the watermelon and the cantaloupe and the strawberries but nobody wants to shovel horse manure. And as you're writing your book, you're gonna move a lot of horse manure.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:33:49

That is so true. When I

Hilary DeCesare: 00:33:51

Michael D. Butler: was in South Africa, pre COVID, we did a book launch on a Saturday morning, there were 2000 women came out in Pretoria, South Africa, and they were there for five hours. These women are so hungry for transformation. And being a blessing in each other's life. Nobody wanted to leave. And the point I wanted to make with that is you're going to shovel a lot of horse manure but the South Africans taught me something when I was there and they said, listen, we're famous for our diamond mines, but we have to move 200 tons of dirt to get one ounce of diamond is there so much diamonds. There's so much greatness on the inside of you. And once you get past the pain and the trauma that you've been through in your life, those things that are buried deep inside of you, God's going to bring them out and bring them to the world. 90% of what you journaled about during your pain of coming out of your trauma 90% of that won't be in the book and it won't need to be because listen, once it sprouts up and gets the sunshine and the water it starts to bear fruit. And that's the purpose of the book is to get You out of your pain out of your trauma and into your purpose so you can start bearing fruit and sharing that delicious story with the world.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:35:08

Michael D. Butler. Okay, let's do one more. How can people find you?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:35:14

Michael D. Butler: Well, the best way is jump on my calendar, you can put it in the show notes, it's get published dot beyond publishing dotnet I'll give you a free 30 minute consult, I'll give you feedback. You know, there's a time to publish the pain. And there's a time to tell a story, a parable, a fiction story about the pain. And sometimes you just go straight for the platform and start speaking about it. And depending on if you're a therapist, or if you're a coach, or whatever you want to do, let's figure out what you want to do build a business behind the book around the book. And a lot of times, you'll create a workbook or you'll create a mastermind that will really change people's lives. And one of my clients recently was speaking to 30 people and I said, I said, Did you sell some books? He said, I didn't sell any books. And he said, I did make $30,000 though, so he enrolled everybody in his coaching program. Everybody got a free book,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:36:05

and then they got a free book. I like that. Well listen, Michael D Butler, thank you for being on the relaunch podcast and this was so valuable. I am sure so many people out there are like you know what, take that first step and everybody remember when you're new you live now you love now, relaunch is also about taking what you have inside me inside of you the true story and creating creating something that can impact others and your story will it will impact so make sure you give Michael D Butler a you know get on his schedule and make it happen make that one of your crazy I call him skeezy goals in this next year. Scary and crazy. Just do it. Anyway, thank you again, Michael D Butler for being here.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:36:59

Michael D. Butler: Thank you Hillary It was a blast and keep up the great work love relaunching with you.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:37:04

Thank you.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:37:08

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