Today on the Book More Show I'm talking with Betsey about an issue that's come up a lot recently, people underestimating how much time and effort is involved with doing the production work of creating a book yourself.

Getting your words onto a page is something everyone has some experience of. We all write emails, documents, letters, reports, so it's easy to think that laying out a book falls into this same category.

The reality is the level of detail required to satisfy your ideas, as well as the technical print and production requirements, can be a challenge to the most skilled Word-smith, let alone trying to do it yourself.

We often find that people come back and talk to us months or even years later, having wanted to take the DIY route, but running into the production details that can slow down the most well-intentioned author.

So, in this episode, we're hitting two main points: The 'Who Not How' approach of concentrating on the most valuable assets, your knowledge and time, and for those who only have resources for the DIY approach, we'll go through some tips for making it as painless as possible.

There is something for everyone here and some encouragement that there are quicker ways of getting your idea out there.

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Don't forget, you can see how your book idea stacks up against the Book Blueprint by going to BookBlueprintScore.com and, if you want to be a guest on the show to plan your successful book, just head over to 90MinuteBooks.com/guest

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Extra Credit Listening: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com 

Transcript: Book More Show 097

Stuart Bell:
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Book More show, it's Stuart Bell here, and today I'm talking with Betsy Vaughn, about an issue that's come up a couple of times, recently, this idea of people underestimating how much time and effort doing the work yourself takes. So, creating words on a page, not rocket science. Everyone imagines that it's something that they can do themselves, but the reality is, the level of detail in production, and the annoyance of dealing with Word documents and printers, and designers, and outsource people, just the commitment that it takes to do yourself, we often find that people come back to us months or even years later, and then are wanting to start a book, where we'd had the conversation originally, but they'd wanted to do it themselves, and it hadn't gone anywhere.

So, super frustrating for them, super frustrating for us as well, because we know how quickly we can ... the alternative is. So, today we're talking about some of those warning signs, some things to watch out for, and if it is something that you're adamant, or you need to do yourself, then we've got a couple of pointers here to make that process a little bit easier. So, a little bit of detail, a little bit of production in this one, hopefully something for everyone. A little bit of encouragement that there are quicker ways of doing it, so a lot for everyone. And we will catch you on the other side.

Stuart Bell:
Betsy Vaughn.

Betsy Vaughn:
Stuart Bell, how are you?

Stuart Bell:
Good thank you, how's it going over there?

Betsy Vaughn:
Good, good. Very good. It's a nice Friday, a little chilly here. This is one of the few times that you and I are in the same state recording a podcast.

Stuart Bell:
I know. Do you know, it doesn't happen that often, considering I'm down here every month. It always seems to be, well, we seem to be elsewhere.

Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah.

Stuart Bell:
Yeah. It's a nice time of year to be down here, it's not too crazy hot.



Stuart Bell:
I would say avoiding the snow and the bad weather, but Philadelphia is suffering from climate change and ...

Betsy Vaughn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Stuart Bell:
... it's all kind of ... it's a bit like the UK, it's a little bit wetter than I'd like it to be, and a little bit damper, but hey, very pleasant down here.

Betsy Vaughn:
Spring has sprung in Philadelphia. There you go.

Stuart Bell:
Yeah. I saw Alicia posted a picture of some, the blossom coming out on the flowers, so ...

Betsy Vaughn:
Oh, yeah.

Stuart Bell:
That usually is an indication of some harsh weather to come, because the-

Betsy Vaughn:
I was just-

Stuart Bell:
Yeah. Tricked out on the trees, and then they come out, and then the storm blows through, and clears everything out.

Betsy Vaughn:
That just ... yeah. That's awful. Grayson, my almost 25 year old, lives in Denver, and yeah, I tend to watch the weather a lot, so he's had some 75, 78 degree weather, and then within 24 hours, it's down to 30 degrees.

Stuart Bell:
No way.

Betsy Vaughn:
And then, 48 hours, it could be eight degrees. And so, that's hard. That's a hard pill to swallow.

Stuart Bell:
It is.

Betsy Vaughn:
That's a constant, you never know what you're getting, and-

Stuart Bell:
Catching a cold, or other viruses that might be-

Betsy Vaughn:
That's what I'm thinking. You know? So yeah, I'll stick to what we have here, so ... a little chilly, this morning. So, that's good. So yeah, what are we going to talk about today?

Stuart Bell:
Cool. So ... I think today, we're going to talk about the very exciting subject of production, and actually-

Betsy Vaughn:
Oh.

Stuart Bell:
... getting a book created. And I say very excited, slightly tongue in cheek, because, I think it's one of those things that people assume is the easy part of the process. Everyone kind of knows how to speak, knows how to type, can spell. They've used Word before, so how difficult can it possibly be? So I thought we'd dive a little bit deeper into that.

Betsy Vaughn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Let's do it. This is a conversation I have with people a lot, and I'll share the outcome with you, as we dig into this conversation. So ...

Stuart Bell:
I think we both kind of are going into this with some specific examples in mind, so it will be-

Betsy Vaughn:
Uh-huh. (affirmative).

Stuart Bell:
... useful to share.

Betsy Vaughn:
Definitely.

Stuart Bell:
The one that started off, and we'll kind of not include the names to protect the innocent. Because I think people genuinely are innocent. I don't think people go into this, or have an expectation of how much work or how little work it will take. I don't think they do it intentionally, knowing that it can be a horrible job, and it takes a lot of time. But they're trying to kind of cheat the system, or pull the wool over on anyone's eyes, or not be ... not appreciate the work involved. But I think it genuinely is going in knowing that I've typed a document before, how difficult can it be to get words on the page?

But genuinely, undervaluing, or underestimating how much time and effort that is. So, the two sides that we see it from are both when we're doing the job ourselves, and there's maybe a mismatch in expectations about either A, how much something would cost, or how long it will take. But B, on the other side, and I think you can talk to this more, is people assuming that, "I don't need to get anyone else to do it, I can do it myself," and not understanding what they're potentially and often opening themselves up to.

So, the one that has it front and center in my mind, is the first example. So this is a job that we were doing for someone, the scope originally was, "I've got a book already, I just need some of the images changing." So, that's obviously something that we can do, our production team are doing this day in and day out, so we can definitely add to that. But then the scope creep of the work kind of highlights the problem. Now, when we're doing it, it just means that we have to go back and kind of redefine the scope, and say to someone, "Hey, this is fine, we've got to the extent of what we originally talked about, but now there's more work to do. So if you want us to do that, it's fine, we can do it, but obviously we need to charge for it, because people need to get paid. If you want to do it yourself, then that's fine as well. We're not protective of this, we'll give you all of the stuff, and here's the things that we think need to be done from this point, and go forward and do it."

But that job probably went from that initial conversation, where the expectation, it was probably six or seven hours work, I guess, to do that initial job. By the time we've got the document, taken a look at it, fixed one or two things that are often wrong, so we kind of assume that there was going to be a little bit of that work, but then just go through and replace slides which is just ... replace images, rather, which is just time consuming. It's not difficult as such, it's just attention to detail type work, and it's just takes a minute to two minutes for every single one you need to do. It's just a multiplication exercise. But that quickly went from that, into all of these other elements. So, some of the scope creep on this particular project was the document that was sent in the first place wasn't actually the original Word document, but it was a Word document that was converted from a PDF.

Okay, so all of the words are there, but all of the formatting is broken, so there are no styles in the document, all of the margins are off, there's a lack of ... you can't be 100% certain that the conversion captured all the text, so you need to compare it to an earlier version. In this particular example, some of the text was in images, so where the conversion tries to strip out the text from the images, all of that gets broken, effectively. All of the images that were in there, which was the original scope of the job to replace those, none of those are in tables, they're all just dropped into the content, anchored to text that the conversion tool tried to do.

The book itself was 200 something pages long, when all of the images were in there, it went up to a multi-gigabyte file, so then even on fast machines that we're working from, every time you touch it, it spins for three seconds while it's thinking about it, just because it's that big a file to deal with. So, all of this multiplication of what seems like, "Hey, I can see words on the page, why is this so difficult?" It's that level of detail underneath, that really leads to either scope and cost creep if you're getting someone else to do it, so just if you're in that situation, thinking, "I've got something that's quick and easy to update." Just be mindful that it might not be that quick and easy. And then B, and this is probably more damaging, if you're going to do it yourself, this can very quickly turn into a job.

Even with our guys, who are, I would say, in the top two percent of Word professionals in the world, because of the level of detail that we're going in, considering that much of the world are using it, at a relatively basic level. Our guys are up there, in the top group of people who can do stuff. But just the size and the detail and the level of effort that needs to be put into it, that really can escalate away, and if you're trying to do that yourself, if you then multiply that by having lesser skills, because it's not your discipline, it's not something that you're in doing day in, day out.

If you're not looking out for things like page breaks versus section breaks, versus paragraph formatting that's breaking a document, all of those things can just mean that this quick project that you're hoping to do doesn't get done. And that, by far, is the worst thing, because it means that you're frustrated, the time it takes, the expectation that you had to get-

Betsy Vaughn:
The time alone, that if it's not ... we all are good at something, our job. But if your job is not writing and putting, and laying out a book, then it is, it's going to take that time, and that it what I hear. Because people will say, "Oh, I think I can do this myself," after we have that initial call with potential clients. "Maybe I'm just going to do this myself." There's probably seven or eight people who have come back, and I need to go through and really like, kind of remember those, the ones who said, "I'm going to try it," and it's just like, January, February or March, that I hear this.

Stuart Bell:
Right.

Betsy Vaughn:
"I think I'll do it myself." And I'm happy to say, "Find people here, do this, don't forget about this. Don't ..." You need somebody to do that cover. I will happily give you that information. By October, they haven't touched that book since May, and now they want to come onboard and just do our process. Because they've found that it is ... it is a job. When you said that, that's exactly it. It becomes a full time, almost nightmare, for someone who isn't disciplined. And we've had some great individuals write some books on their own and we've done all the mechanical stuff for them. The cover, and all that. And we enjoy some of those projects, you know?

Mike Mac just did one on his own, after his second book with us, he did that. So I've had some good ... we're doing one right now, that I'm thrilled with. Like, it was done professionally. But it was an ebook, you know? And he wanted to turn it into a hard book. And I use ebook in quotes, but you didn't see that, because there's no camera on me. But, so he just had a digital version, so that is ... I think you have to be ... A, you have to like to write, you know, and you have to have that discipline, and the time to sit down and do this. Is it worth taking away from family time, or potential time that you could be making money in your business, to do it?

Stuart Bell:
It's the opportunity cost of the other things that you're not doing.

Betsy Vaughn:
Right.

Stuart Bell:
Let alone the actual cost of it getting done, that's really kind of ... focusing on your specialty, the knowledge that you've got in your head, and just getting that out, and not having to worry about all of the other bits, which, unless you're doing it day in, day out, are, and can be very time consuming. That's the thing that people skip over, and don't think about those elements, when they think about just the cost versus the ... just think about the price rather, rather than the cost of-

Betsy Vaughn:
That's right. Right.

Stuart Bell:
... doing this with someone else. A couple of pointers for people who are still saying, "This is no choice, I don't have the cash to do it, therefore, the only thing that I've got to do is invest my time and money ..." Time and money. "The only thing I've got without the money is to invest my time." Then I don't want to dissuade people from doing it, but just go into it with your eyes wide open. So, a couple of things to make it easier is kind of the beneficial constraints element of the book blueprint scorecard that we've got. So, this idea of putting constraints around what you're going to do, and being diligent, and sticking to those, is a way of making sure that there's an end of the process.

Now, whether you later revisit it, once the initial version is out there, by all means, revisit something later, and add some additional scope to it. But that initial scope, having that quite strictly constrained, is the only way that you're going to get through this, because otherwise, there's no hard end. Why stop? Why not tweak a little bit more? Because no one's actually now telling you that it's a bad idea. So, a couple of things that are very worthwhile doing, if you are definitely going to do this yourself, is start with the end in mind. So, think about which platform it's going onto. If you're pushing it onto Amazon, as a physical book, then Create Space has template downloads, where you can download a blank document and you can type into that. If you're copying and pasting text into that, then be mindful of where it's coming from, and the fact that you can carry bad formats from the other document.

So, if you can write in plain text, so that there's no formatting on it, and then paste into the Create Space document in plain text, and then format it from there, that's going to be, for most cases, an easier solution than trying to format it elsewhere, and then drop it into the template. If you don't want to put it on Amazon, then you can't use Create Space, because from ... I keep saying Create Space, but actually Create Space doesn't exist anymore.

Betsy Vaughn:
Yes.

Stuart Bell:
It's the KDP, Kindle platform, that's Amazon's way of publishing books via the KDP platform, and then there's also the Kindle version on KDP, and there's the print version on KDP. So, if you don't want it to go on Amazon and be available in the store, then you can't use KDP to print, because it has to be available on Amazon. So therefore, you're now looking for a different print solution. And there's a number of companies out there. We use Lightning Source, as we've said before. Lightning Source have an individual publisher platform called Ingram Spark, so again, Ingram have got templates that you can download, so that ... and the template is important, because you need the document in a format that they print. So, the real important things there are the margins, where the binding happens. Each printer has a slightly different requirement for that, so you need to have a document in the format that the printer can actually print on the page.

So again, all of these details, this is the type of headache that you get into, if this is the first time you're doing it. I always remember, I imported, when I was living in the UK, I imported a Mitsubishi FTO, like a little sports car, like a little Miata sized car? So, Mitsubishi FTO, imported into the UK. As part of the import process, so I had a friend who had imported a few vehicles before, so the actual shipping was no real problem, because I'd leveraged his expertise. But then when it landed, there's a whole testing procedure, like a licensing process that each vehicle has to go through. So, it's like a road suitability type test, an SVA, it's called, or it was called.

Going through that, I sent this car for an SVA about six times, because ... and down to the last time that it went, it was because the fog light on the rear of the vehicle, I only had one fog light, which is fine. But the fog light has to be on the outside edge, outside half of the car. So, the side of the car that's on the ... into adjoining traffic. So, for American cars, that would be on the left hand side, because we drive on the right. Anyway, where I had this fog light positioned, which was cut into the rear bumper of the car, was very slightly on the ... sorry, it was on the opposite, it was on the wrong side of the license plate. So, I could have put it on either side. It didn't make any difference to me, as far as I knew. But I put it on the wrong side.

So that means that it had to come out, but it in for another SVA test afterwards, cut another hole in the bumper, put a second fog light in, which I didn't really want to do, because you very rarely use them anyway, order the other fog light from Ebay, or wherever I got it from, and all of this thing, all of this just because I didn't know. When I got to the end of that process, I'm never going to import another car again. I don't even live in the UK anymore. So all of that time and effort, and trial and error going through getting it through the process, which again, none of these individual steps are rocket science, but it's just the overhead that builds up when you don't know what you don't know. Anyway-

Betsy Vaughn:
Right.

Stuart Bell:
... that's how I compare people saying, "Oh, that's fine. I'll just do it myself. How hard can it be?"

Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah, that's a great comparison. I mean, that-

Stuart Bell:
Yeah, yeah.

Betsy Vaughn:
... essentially is what it comes down to. Yeah.

Stuart Bell:
Yeah. And all of that time, I mean, my own hours of doing that, if I'd have had to pay someone 500 pounds, $1000, to just do that for me, if I was actually really billing for my own time, then I was negative on that equation.

Betsy Vaughn:
Oh yeah, sure.

Stuart Bell:
Because of all of the wasted effort.

Betsy Vaughn:
Well, I think that ... I was just, I had my notepad out here, and I remembered I had a call with somebody yesterday who we're doing a book with, and initially he said, "Oh," he said, "I started my book five years ago," and I'm like, "Well, where are you?"

Stuart Bell:
Right.

Betsy Vaughn:
He's like, "Well, I have like, a chapter." And I'm like, "Okay, you spent five years writing one chapter?" Like, dude, that should tell you, this is not your gift. This is not where your talent lies. That you should be doing something ... and here he is, his book is now with his compliance department, and we did that in a short amount of time. But to think, you were just sitting on something, and looking at something, that feeling of being completely overwhelmed, by ... that's how I would feel with anything to do with a car, I would completely overwhelmed, and it would be like, every single dime to pay somebody to do it.

But just like, I mean, and I don't even know that money was the object with him-

Stuart Bell:
Right.

Betsy Vaughn:
... was the problem with him. I think it was, he just thinks that, "Oh, I can do this," and attempted, and had all the great ideas, like, when we discussed it, had all the great ideas. But just couldn't make it work, couldn't find the time, couldn't do ... and here he put a $3000 investment and he's getting ready to have a book. In two weeks, his book will be finished, and he'll be using it. He could have been doing that for five years.

Stuart Bell:
And that's the opportunity cost that's missed, is ...

Betsy Vaughn:
Yes, yes.

Stuart Bell:
I mean, if you even imagine that the book related to one client a year, which obviously, that would be ... you'd hope it would, using the book, you'd hope it would be much, much more. But even if it was one a year, over that five year period, adding up all of the lifetime relationship with those clients, I mean, just purely from that math, it just doesn't make sense. I think it's because it's the kind of e-myth type entrepreneur's dilemma, of we're all experts in what we do.

We've set up businesses, very often that means starting from scratch and getting everything in place, and really bootstrapping it from the start. You really do get lulled into a false sense of security, or a false sense of capacity, maybe, of, "Well, I can do this. It's not difficult, it's not rocket science. There's no reason why I can't do it." But that's very different from, "But actually, I probably won't do it, because of all of the other things, there isn't someone standing over my shoulder, there are other fires burning that need that kind of urgent versus important matrix." Writing a book is probably, in the overall business plan, an important thing to do, but it's not that urgent, compared with other things which are more urgent and pressing. So yeah, it really is a trap that's easy to fall into.

Betsy Vaughn:
Yes.

Stuart Bell:
A lot of people listening, obviously tuned in with the More Cheese, Less Whiskers and the Joy of Procrastination, and the whole strategic coach world, this idea of who not how, and that being such a game changer for people understand that it's not the what should be done, but the who can do it? And the answer is never you should do it yourself, this really is an example of that. Just to get it done. I did want to make sure that we cover some points for people here who are insistent on doing it themselves.

Betsy Vaughn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Stuart Bell:
So, obviously, we're talking slightly more about the production side of it here, rather than the ideation, or the kind of above the line ideas to generate, so this is more the execution and getting it done, so ... having the easiest thing to do, I think, for anyone that wants to do it themselves, it's really, go through the book blueprint scorecard process, head over to bookblueprintscore.com and complete the scorecard there. Not only will it help you identify which areas you are weaker in and if you're doing it yourself, need more attention paying to. But also, it highlights those eight mindsets, separately. So, it helps you differentiate and separate those out, so that's a great resource, if you are doing it yourself.

This idea of recording the content rather than just writing it, is a huge time saver. So, spend the time writing the outline, so you have the questions to ask yourself. If possible, record with someone else asking you the questions, because it's very difficult to talk into a dead mic, even when you do know your subject. It's much easier if you've got someone there, or on the other end of the phone, who's just responding to what you're saying, and that will help you pull out some more details from that text.

As I say, getting it into the book, getting the transcript transcribed, sorry, getting the recording transcribed, there are many services out there. I think everyone knows that we use Rev, our opinion is that they're the best out there. Getting the transcript edited. This is a heavy lift. There is, again, I don't think people realize how much time and effort is put into that. But from just the raw transcript coming back, to having an initial version of something that reads more easily than just reading the words that are said literally, as a raw transcript, that is a lot of heavy lifting, and trying to do it yourself is a little bit difficult.

Because A, if it's not something that you enjoy doing, it just seems like such a slog, because what you're actually doing is tweaking maybe 15% of the content. You're not actually changing the message at all, really. You're just changing the structure of the language, so it's almost like a grammar exercise, in high school. It really is quite a slog. But unless you do that, it's then very difficult to go to the next stage, which is a further round of editing. Which is really to look at, "Okay, what words are on the page now, and what do I need to do to change the message slightly, or change the tone slightly, or make it slightly more ... The sentence structure didn't quite flow in the way that I spoke it as I anticipated it would." So, those two rounds, absolutely important that both of them are done. They're both very different jobs.

If you're going to do it yourself, I would psychologically separate them, and make sure that you've got the discipline to just do the first one as a grammatical exercise, and then do the second one as a content exercise, and then potentially, you might want to edit further than that, but those two steps are definitely required. Any editing after that is optional and depends how much you want to tweak it. But if you are going to start tweaking it, then again, look at the constraints exercise in the book blueprint scorecard, and really give yourself a hard deadline, so you don't get drawn into that too much.

Once you've got the raw words, then they then need to end up on a page, and we talked before about Lightning Source and/or Ingram Spark, and KDP, both having templates that you can put things into. And the printers themselves, both KDP and Ingram Spark, and the others, will give you their own guidelines on what you need in order to create a cover. Sorry, in order to create the content in the way that they want it. I was jumping ahead then, in my mind, because I was thinking, then you've also got the cover exercise. So, covers, there's a whole host of options out there for cover design, going from the relatively inexpensive templated to hiring an individual designer out there. There are a number of template tools, and I think KDP has a template tool that you can use? It's pretty much drag and drop on images and text, and things like that-

Betsy Vaughn:
Right, right.

Stuart Bell:
But I think they've got a template builder. Obviously, we don't use it, because we've got our own designers, but if you want to put a bit more one on one effort into it, then services like 99 Designs and some of the other design platforms will allow you to create book templates, and again-

Betsy Vaughn:
I would say, my two cents, on the design, and that's not my talent, by any means. But I have such an appreciation for what Glenn, our design team, what they are capable of doing, because I have no way to make that happen.

Stuart Bell:
Right, right.

Betsy Vaughn:
I mean, I think that is so important. You can have typos on the interior, content can just be 70% there, it doesn't have to be great. But that cover is so important, because that's the first thing, that is that first thing they're looking at.

Stuart Bell:
Right.

Betsy Vaughn:
They get that first impression. I would say, don't skimp on the cover, don't try to do it yourself, don't try to buy some images and put them in there. I just think that is where you want it to just be, "Wow, this is good. This is great." The interior, it can be good, and still have the same message and value, and get the same outcome, but that cover, I think really needs-

Stuart Bell:
Yeah.

Betsy Vaughn:
... that's where I would spend time and money, if I was going to do it on my own.

Stuart Bell:
I think as well, the cover is the one page in the whole book that's read by 100% of people, because it's-

Betsy Vaughn:
Yes.

Stuart Bell:
... even if we're not talking about this from a physical book perspective, most of the time, we're mostly ... most of the mental capital that we put into this is thinking about it in a opt in context of using this as an opportunity to collect name and email addresses, so people are probably seeing a digital version of the cover, rather than a physical version of the cover. Obviously, they're identical, but it's not so much that this is stopping people walking past on a bookshelf, this is stopping people scrolling through on a Facebook feed, or some other direct mail piece that you've given to them. So, it's 100%, that's the reason why more people ... that's 100% the reason why the interior is less important from a completionist point of view, if that makes sense? Because fewer people complete the reading exercise, whereas everyone completes the seeing it and deciding that I want it exercise.

That's why, in the scorecard, we've got a title and a subheading, and a call to action on the back, after you've chosen your single target markets, they're mindsets two, three and four, that's before you get even thinking about the content, or what's in the book, or how it's ... the production steps of it. So, yeah. That's absolutely important. The only caveat that, or the only balance on constraint that I'd put on that, is that it's not worth thousands of dollars worth of effort.

Betsy Vaughn:
Right.

Stuart Bell:
It's maybe worth hundreds of dollars worth of effort. So, there's a ... this kind of 80% rule of getting it from zero to 80 is absolutely worthwhile, so a bad looking cover that covers 40%, or does the job 40% well, you should definitely put in the extra time and effort to get it to 80%. How much additional time and effort and money you put into taking it from 80 to 100, that's where it starts getting ... you start getting diminishing returns. But absolutely, don't use clip art that you've just downloaded from-

Betsy Vaughn:
Clip art, no, no.

Stuart Bell:
... some website. Don't steal images off of Google search that you found, that rubbishy resolution. Definitely put the additional time and effort into making it look as nice as it can. That doesn't mean you have to spend thousands, and there's definitely a lot of resources out there, where the dollar signs start adding up very, very, very quickly. Which, actually, I guess that's a good ... because we wanted to touch on that, briefly before we wrapped up today. But this idea of people burning a lot, a lot of money and not necessarily ending up with something that they're happy with, is something to touch on.

So, this idea came up, because ... I'm going to use the example of someone who wrote with us first, and then went away and did something else, and then came back. But we've had a couple of conversations with people who have taken the first version of the book, have used it for a period of time, have decided, "This is working great, but now I want to put some effort into expanding it," and have spent two, three times the cost of the original book, to end up with something that actually didn't make the boat go any faster. It didn't do anything else as far as opt in to lead generation, or progressing the conversation.

They were hiring people at an expensive hourly rate, who were executing on tasks, and executing on tasks ... I mean, there's one example I can think, but they executed on it pretty poorly, so that's just a bad example. But oftentimes, people have executed on tasks well, but they're not bringing it any additional strategy or outcome to what they're doing. They're charging 75, $80 an hour, to do a job of work.

But that job of work is disconnected from the outcome. So, we see it sometimes, at the beginning of the process, where people said, "I was working with someone for a year, I've spent $7000, I've got this document of 20 000 words, but now nothing's happened with it," or "It's not gone anywhere," or "It doesn't really do ... it doesn't serve any purpose, so what can we do with the process, to turn that into something useful? And unfortunately, it's often the case that it's the same as people saying, "Okay, I've got a presentation, a slideshow, how can I use this in a book?"

Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah.

Stuart Bell:
It's often the case that we can't do anything with that document that you've got. Those 20 000 words in that document is not going to ... the time and effort that it would take to manipulate that into something that would turn into a book, is way more than the two or three thousand dollars that it would cost for us just to record from scratch and begin again. Which is sometimes a bitter pill for people to swallow. It's definitely the case that that work isn't wasted. All of the mental exercise that you've gone through, to create all of that content in the first place, is still in there. It's not like you've got to flush all of that from your mind. All of that will help create the eventual book. But, just that particular asset, as it stands, is not valuable and it would be an expensive retrofit to try and squeeze it into something that's not fit for purpose.

The benefit, of course, is exactly the same with slideshows and presentations, or videos that people want to turn into a book, is not turn it into a book, but use it as supporting additional material, after someone's opted in to the book, to really keep the conversation going, and continue to add value until they're ready to take that action step with you, to take that conversion step, to start doing some work with you. So, not that it's wasted in its entirety, it's just not fit for purpose in the exercise that we're trying to achieve.

Betsy Vaughn:
That's so true. I'm actually, I think I've had a couple of these conversations, recently, about the whole ... someone has a webinar, they call it a class presentation, and then actually, I just got an email, just as I was sitting here, about someone else who was interested in doing something like that. But this particular person doesn't want to veer from that. Like, I just ... some people don't speak the way they need to for a book to do ... for us to take the recording, and then when I ask to see the information, just to get an idea, to try to give a better reason why we shouldn't use it-

Stuart Bell:
Right.

Betsy Vaughn:
And people are always, "Oh yeah, listen to this," or "Do this," or whatever, she won't give me ... she doesn't want me to see it, and I said, "Well, there's no way to know what we're getting. It could be anything I'm dealing with. So I don't want to commit to us doing something, without knowing exactly what we're doing." And there is class participation in this conversation.

Stuart Bell:
And how-

Betsy Vaughn:
So you've got not just the person, too, but you've got random people in the audience speaking, in the classroom setting. And so, it really ... and I said, just based on, without even hearing anything, that's a lot of work, to pull out these conversations, and that's what her expectation is, to pull out these people. And I said, "Well then, you're going to have to pull out most of what you've said too, because you've said something-"

Stuart Bell:
Because it's out of context.

Betsy Vaughn:
"... to get to that point."

Stuart Bell:
Yeah.

Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah. It's totally out of context, and so she just really couldn't get that. I was hoping she would send me something, because I was interested, just to really have this as a great example, so I could be very specific and say, "She said this, this person said this, but if you took all this out of there, it doesn't make a bit of sense." So ...

Stuart Bell:
Yeah.

Betsy Vaughn:
But she wouldn't send it to me.

Stuart Bell:
It's such an interesting ... being on the inside of this, and knowing how well the system works, when the system works, it's always difficult to understand why people are reluctant just to record another hour's worth of stuff. Because-

Betsy Vaughn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Stuart Bell:
... it's not a huge leap to imagine that, okay, this process takes 90 minutes of outlining and recording. So it's not too much of a leap to think, I can imagine 90 minutes evaporating just in the back and forth of someone asking me, "Should this be involved, should that be involved?" So, it always surprises me that people aren't willing to make that additional commitment for what is, overall, the shorter period of time, the shorter commitment to get the thing completed. The idea that I can kind of understand that people think, although it's not true, but I can kind of understand that people think that what they said in that previously recorded environment is the best version of their words. So, I can understand how people get connected with that even though, the reality is, it isn't, because the context is wrong.

And then the last point, I can almost understand. But then, if someone paused for a second to think about it, I can almost understand, but not so, apparently, I can almost understand that people don't appreciate how much work it takes to take that content and then turn it into something narrative, and effectively rewrite all of that content into something that doesn't rely on the back and forth in the conversation, which kind of loops back to how this whole conversation started in people, it's easy to underestimate how much effort that takes.

So, I can understand why people wouldn't initially think about that. But as soon as you're in a conversation saying, "Okay, well, if we were to take that, that would mean that someone would have to listen to it from start to finish, would then need to internalize and understand what's being said, would then need to have to decide what's relevant and what's not relevant. Would then need to have to have enough knowledge in order to plug the gaps in a coherent way, and additionally, have enough knowledge to add more content in, to make up for all the stuff that's taken out."

As soon as that conversation starts, that's difficult to be sympathetic towards people who say, "Oh no, it'll be fine. Why don't you just do that?" Because even just at the quickest glance, it's obviously not something that's straightforward and easy to do.

Betsy Vaughn:
Right, right.

Stuart Bell:
And that then links back in with, as I say, A, the first thing that we started talking about, but B, the second thing of people, and it's heartbreaking, sometimes, people will come back having spent thousands of dollars, to end up with something that isn't fit for purpose, and isn't out there. Just as you mentioned, the cases of people that we've talked to who have taken content, have tried to get it rewritten, and have tried to use the thing in the same format that it originally was, but just in a different context, and that hasn't worked, and it's led to huge delays on the project, that they still haven't got anything out there.

They're still in a situation now, where they have to start again from scratch. But all of that time and opportunity that was lost, from not having it out there, different customers that have passed by, that will never come back again. And unfortunately, you don't know what business is missed because of the opportunity cost, so ...

Betsy Vaughn:
Right, absolutely.

Stuart Bell:
Yeah. Time has gone fast, I know we've got-

Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah.

Stuart Bell:
... another call to jump on in five minutes, so we'll wrap up at that point. And we've kind of ... I think we've made the point-

Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah, I think-

Stuart Bell:
... beating a dead horse. Hopefully, within that, there was a bit of a mix of, if you are definitely cash constrained so that you absolutely need to do it yourself, and you do have the time to, you can invest your time, if not the money, then we've given some pointers of how to keep some scope around it, and the steps that you need to take. So, hopefully there was some value there, even if it was something that you're doing yourself. But the underlying message is really, there are very, very few examples, where this will cost less, doing it with someone else, and obviously we'd suggest doing it with us, versus trying to do it yourself, and definitely a lot less headache. So ... yeah. With that, is there-

Betsy Vaughn:
Sure.

Stuart Bell:
... anything that you were thinking about, or that we've kind of missed or skipped over?

Betsy Vaughn:
No, I think we've got it all, there. Yeah.

Stuart Bell:
Perfect.

Betsy Vaughn:
I love the challenge when someone sends me, I really just personally, I love when someone is adamant about doing it themselves, and then I keep a mental note, and then, it's interesting when people come back and say, "Okay, you were right." You know?. "Yeah, okay. Great, I'm glad."

Stuart Bell:
So, the closing note, if you listen to this and you've previously spoken to Betsy, saying that "I'm going to do it myself," then don't feel bad, she actually loves those conversations, so-

Betsy Vaughn:
I love those conversations. You know what I love, is that someone's ... I mean, I hate that someone's wasted like, six, seven, eight, five years, on not doing anything, and they could have been using this for their business, and making money, and putting themselves out there. That's what I love, and when people come back and say, "Okay, you were right, and this is great, and I'm so glad."

Stuart Bell:
Yeah, and like you say, it's not that we like that they've wasted a lot of time, but we really like the fact that they're now on board, and we can get them moving, and have something for them in a couple of months. Yeah, for sure.

Betsy Vaughn:
Right, right. And yeah, so that's it. So that was good stuff.

Stuart Bell:
All righty, well, thank you for your time, Betsy, as always, thanks to you, everyone listening, and we will catch you in the next one.

Betsy Vaughn:
Right. Check in.

Stuart Bell:
And there we have it, another great episode, it's really good to dive into the details, every now and then. My personality is a little bit more detailed oriented than some other people's, so it's good to be able to let that vent, sometimes. Hopefully, from that, we really wanted to give two things. One, this idea that if there is something that you need to do yourself, then that's obviously absolutely fine, there are definitely people in that situation, so there were some specific pointers in there. Definitely head over to bookblueprintscore.com, and complete the scorecard, because that will give you a good reminder of the eight mindsets you need to pay attention to. There are a couple of resources that we particularly mentioned in there, like the KDP, Lightning Source, and Rev connections that we made.

The real thing that I wanted to get across though, is this idea that it's much faster, much quicker, and for 90% of the situations, much more cost effective, just to have us do it for you, and as always, you can get started by heading to 90minutebooks.com, and follow get started links, and we'll be here, waiting to help.

In the meantime, if you do have any questions, you're having problems with production, you want to ask us about a particular project that you've got, then just reach out to us at hello@90minutebooks, and we can either jump on a call and answer some one on one questions, or if you've got a question for the podcast, and you just want a more general answer, then again, drop us a note, and we'll answer that in a future show. So, with that, thanks for listening, and look forward to catching you next time.