[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors. I'm Joanne Morel, children's and young adult fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for authors. Thanks for joining me for the hybrid author podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as a hybrid author, both independently and traditionally publishing your book. You can get the show notes for each episode and sign up for your free author pass over at the hybrid author website to discover your writing process, get tips on how to publish productively, and get comfortable promoting your book at www.hybridauthor.com au. Let's crack on with the episode.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Hello authors. I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to the podcast in. Today's interview is with creator, head coach, and CEO of the author Launchpad, Chris Trammell, and we chat about Chris's author Launchpad program, his vision for mission driven authors and their nonfiction books, Million Dollar M Ms Life work, generative AI tools, and predictions on what the future looks like for authors with these new technology tools, and much more.
So in my author adventure this week, I have been busy focusing on my business plan, which is part of business coaching kind of course that I'm doing. And yeah, the business plan is really in depth and covers a lot of stuff. So marketing, there's obviously marketing plan makes up a business plan, operations plan makes up a business plan, and these are the things that I'm working through at the moment. Financial plan, there's all sorts of stuff in it. So I'm really grateful to be having the guidance of someone to help me through this. So if you're an avid listener of the podcast, you might hear me mention a couple of episodes back about these courses online. The online courses that I've sort of done for this business plan. And one of them was about marketing. And so I've really honed in to fill out the business plan this week about target marketing. Thinking about my nonfiction books in general. Just thinking about my nonfiction books, actually. Yeah, there's like two target market audiences I feel that my books reach, and that is myself as a target market. It's like a younger age bracket and an older age bracket, and they're quite different from each other. One obviously being the younger age bracket, 25 to say 45. You're looking at your probably day job, working full time, part time, raising a family, busy commitments, life commitments, not a lot of time to consume stuff or when they do consume, it's downtime. So just trying to fit in things here and there. Busy wants to consume quickly. Everything, yeah, just fast paced and then on the other scale is the sort of over 55s chires people with a bit more slower pace and a bit more time on their hands, looking to learn the craft of writing, looking to venture out into publishing and just this industry as a general, and have a bit more time and depth to be able to consume bigger stuff fast. Well, not faster, but slower. So, yeah, it was interesting to identify these two demographics and then apply them to places around me, suburbs where they reside, in which areas, and just starting to really do my homework, basically on my target market. And it was really interesting, the statistics around these age groups and where, as I said, where they live and, yeah, so if you haven't yet, if you've written a book, or even if you're in the middle of writing one, or you haven't yet written a book, but you've got an idea starting from, if you've not written the book, if you've got an idea, you can have a general idea of who the book is going to be for. So obviously picture book, it's going to be for kids of a certain age, but mainly parents are also the buyers of that book. Things like that. If you're writing a book, you can start to form an idea of who you think would enjoy your story, who would benefit from it the most, or obviously, if you've written a book, then you've got a better, more clearer understanding of the themes and where your book will fit into the market. So, yeah, I urge you to consider more than just age on your target market.
Sit down and actually figure out everything about them. And especially when it comes to target market, people always say, when you're writing a work, oh, think of your audience, think of your reader. But I have to say, a lot of the stuff that I write and the things that have come out of me were from times in my life, and I was definitely that target audience. I was going through those things.
Those were the things I was experiencing at that time. So I feel that I was the target market. I was the target audience at that time. I'm not saying it's different now, but there's obviously different demographics to different things. But knowing even just doing research on this, I've had a rough idea, obviously, who my target market is, but I haven't gone to the depths of what I have done this week in terms of searching up different things about them and the area that they live in, which gives you a sort of clue as to how they live, how they consume, how they want to, the things that they might want to read or enjoy or stuff like that. And that helps massively with the way that you're going to market yourself and your business and your books and so forth going forward. So yeah, busy. Been doing that this week and yeah, last week, as I said, it all comes at once. Nothing at all, and then all comes at once with book events. I went to book launch and that was at the State Library on last Saturday, and then I met up with a bunch of other authors on this Sunday and it was just so nice. It was a very creative catch up y weekend and I just really enjoyed it. The book launch I went to was Molly Fernandez, the call of the Boudier. Molly has been on the podcast before. It evades me what episode she was on, but definitely we were talking about writing metaphor and she's very knowledgeable teacher in our trade. So definitely check out that episode and her book. It was a great launch by writing WA. And it was interesting that obviously people from Perth, if you are a writing Wa member, not sure what tier they actually do, they host book launches for you. So that was a really interesting thing to I met Mr. William Yemen, who is a journalist and head of writing Wa, and we have sort of liked each other's things on LinkedIn for quite a while now and then.
Yeah, it was just nice to meet him in person. So, yeah, we have the Perth Writers festival next, kicking off next weekend, and that has been curated by writing wa. I will be going, there's squibby, catch up on the Sunday and I'll probably go to a couple of events. And yeah, so lots of more things happening in the book sphere, which is great. And I just wanted to touch upon in personal news that the intro to the podcast, obviously I was born here, but I grew up in Scotland, hence the accent and the way that I introduced the podcast by saying, hello, authors. I just want to pay tribute to a dear old pal of mine who has recently passed away at the ripe old age of 70. He was Mr. Ian Nimmel, and he was the dad of a very dear friend of ours who has also passed away, unfortunately just shy of 40, which is very sad. But Ian was Scottish through and through. He was born in Glasgow and we attended his funeral only yesterday and learned a lot more about his least fruitful life. And yeah, every time I used to see him because we were both Scottish and he would say, instead of just saying hello, he'd say hello. So it's a tribute to him because obviously of his passing. But that just has come out of me when I've been doing the podcast, and it is because of him. So thank you, Mr. Nimo, and wherever you may be, we wish you well. God bless.
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[00:08:48] Speaker C: Chris Tremell is the creator, head coach, and CEO of the author Launchpad, a program where he helps authors, speakers, and experts make life changing reoccurring income and a fulfilling impact using his proven three phase system. Chris has been a performance coach for over three decades, curriculum writer and course developer for the Los Angeles Zoo High School. He is a two time Iron Man Arizona finisher where he raised thousands of dollars for the John Wayne Cancer foundation. Welcome to the Hybrid Author podcast, Chris.
[00:09:22] Speaker D: Thank you so much, Joanne. It is a pleasure to be here. We are crossing time zones. We're crossing Pacific Ocean. I'm in Long beach. You are? Perth, Australia.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: That's right. Yep.
[00:09:36] Speaker D: Very cool. Very super cool. Thank you for having.
[00:09:39] Speaker C: Yeah. So thanks for coming on. We're absolutely thrilled and honored to have you. You have, from your bio, obviously achieved quite a number of things in your life, and we're excited to hear all about them. But can you tell us how you got into helping authors of nonfiction make income from their books?
[00:09:55] Speaker D: Thank you for that question. Okay. The shortest version, the shortest possible version is called a pandemic hit. Everybody had to come up with a new hustle because the world shifted on us. And if you didn't package your knowledge and your expertise newly, I think you potentially got left behind. So that's the short answer. The full answer is, I was a high school science teacher for the Los Angeles Zoo high School. So you described that beautifully. Thank you so much. I would read very intense, very heady, very dense science books, and then it was my job to take those books and to deliver that content to my students in such a way that they would be able to use it to move forward into their collegiate careers, to go on to become conservationists, veterinarians, physiologists, whatever it's going to be. But one of the things that I did to make science engaging is I would teach the students about the life of the researcher, the life of the theorist, as that theorist was developing the principle, the theory, the laws that they were later going to put out, and that we would study in books. So I really humanized a lot of my lectures, so the students got to start to understand that. Now, I just did that because I enjoyed learning about city named in Australia called Darwin, one of my favorite people, right? And so it became a tool that I would use to engage students. Then I was a track and field coach for 25 years almost. And so I learned performance. I learned practice, repetition, build the muscles, build the mechanics. And then the last part, two last parts, is I went on to do the sales for Nike and Under Armour when my son started high school. I developed the track and field brand here in southern California in different schools and different colleges. So I went learned sales and marketing that way. And then when the pandemic hit, I said, okay, what can I do? I know sales and marketing. I know how to write and condense information and turn it into courses and curriculum. And I also have this skill set that allows me to develop people to perform. And I've done transformational work for about 17 years from Tony Robbins. I was trained within the Tony Robbins coaching Academy. I've done work with landmark education. I do work with Brendan Burchard, even still. So I brought all of that together.
And really the winning piece, the honest truth winning piece, Joanne, was I had an extraordinary pastor who married my wife about me and my wife six years ago. And I used to tell him, pastor, let's take that conversation. No, no, Chris, I really like the way things are. Everybody shows up on Sundays. He was totally against social media, and he'd deliver a really great talk again. And I'm like, pastor, let's move you. No, no, Chris, I like the way things are. The pandemic hits. Chris, what do I need to do to move? I'm like, I got you now. So he spoke and used words like life, work, my calling, my mission. And more of his colleagues started to come to me. And I created my first program called Pastor 2.0, successfully taking your gifts and talents online. And they all use this word called calling purpose, mission, life, work. So, Joanne, they were giving me the calculus. They were giving me the tip of that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, of self actualization, self efficacy, and really seeing that this is who I'm meant to be. But that's like the calculus for most of us to be. The Oprah's, the Richard Branson's, the Brendan Burchards, the Gabby Bernstein's. And I had to figure out the same way I taught my students. If this is where they graduate at, then what is that starting place? When they start secondary school or high school, how do I begin it? And that's why I created the author launch pad, because most authors, as much as they want to be seen out in the world and make that impact and have that influence and generate income, they do not have a book business in place. And I'm like, that's what's needed. They need to develop a book business. So all of those things went into this container, this cauldron, that ultimately allowed me to create a recipe that became the author launchpad. That's the long version.
[00:14:37] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great version. Definitely connected with a lot of things you said there. And I think authors, when they write a book, certainly their first book, it's not thought of as a business at all. And I'm not sure I can speak for myself that in the beginning. Yeah. People don't treat it like a business. And it might take years later, obviously, when they're starting to earn an income, and I think that's maybe when they have a product and they're actually selling it, whichever way they decide to publish and put it out there, and maybe they start to make some money that they, you know, and I need this. I need to set up a business there. So, no, that's good that you've gone into that arena also. Some of the people that you named, that you'd worked with as well. Big Tony Robbins fan. I actually signed up. I think he's just at a summit last weekend.
He did.
I was on the mailing list, but I didn't actually get to it. I hadn't put it in my calendar, but I think I might have the replay or something. But, yeah, I do. Like, it's funny Robbins stuff, but I do think, as well, with nonfiction books and having a couple myself, it is really like you're saying the message that you want to share with people, the mission that you're talking about, and I think about my writing and my author career, definitely as a calling. I've never put so much effort, time, energy, and myself into something before. So, no, that really resonates, which is really cool that you got the pastor online, as well.
I like that.
[00:16:04] Speaker D: Thank you very much for acknowledging that. And you mentioned, I think you're a mom of three or of two. Refresh me again.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Yeah, two.
[00:16:13] Speaker D: So, the other part about the book business is, I tell authors, very much to the chagrin of publishers and publishing houses, raise your book. It's the same way as you giving birth, gestating for months, doing the work, carrying this development that would become your child, and then all of a sudden saying, okay, well, that one's born. Let me move on to the next one, I tell my authors, look, that first book is where you put the blood, the sweat, the tears. You put the family on hold. You spent money. You didn't know what you were doing is the most authentic, closest to that really deep you, that raw you. That is what people engage with. As you get better in your writing, you get better in your craft. We try and become a little bit more smarter. We try and get a little bit craftier, and it moves us away for sometimes that just authentic rawness. Now, I'm not saying do not have the integrity of a well written book, but I'm saying to focus on that one book and raise it, raise it, raise it, raise it. And the same way you would do with your children, you're going to raise those children and watch them grow and watch them flourish, and they're going to go through different stages. And I think when authors do that, nonfiction authors specifically, I've yet to meet the Lucas Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Jared Tolkien, George Lucas, J. K. Rowling, those types of fiction writers that have deep lessons in their books. I would love to write courses for them, but most of the time, I haven't been able to find those types of lessons in most fiction books. So that's where I say, I work with nonfiction, and I really want them to raise that first book that they gave birth to, because I know I could find the nuances and the golden thread that's closest to what they really wanted to see themselves do in the world.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's really good. Really well put. And I think, especially with self published authors, there's a sort of notion that you do write that first book, and then you just move on to the next one, and you keep going and going and going, and they maybe don't give each book the time and the effort it deserves. Like you're saying, to raise it because you need this backlist that's kind of, like, drilled into you, that you need all these books to make an income and stuff like that. So, no, that's a good way to put it. And also, what comes to mind, too, I don't know. It feels like with my nonfiction books, it feels like they've been around for ages in terms of in my life, because obviously they came from lived experience, and then they turned into a book, and it was quite a long process for me to get them out there, and then they're here. And because I jump between, in the past, I have anyway jumped between nonfiction and fiction projects. It felt like they get picked up and they get put down. And I definitely, last year, didn't feel like I had given them enough time. But how long do you're saying raise the book up like you would a child? So that's quite a long time. It feels like. I don't know. Do you feel like books can be ongoing rather than sort of dated? I guess.
[00:19:38] Speaker D: Well, how many people are on earth now, Joanne?
[00:19:41] Speaker C: Oh, goodness knows. Lots more than I could say.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: Yeah. And lots more than our earth maybe wants. But I think we crossed the 8 billion mark, right. So, to our smaller little s selves, we think I've said this already. No one else wants to hear this. There are 8 billion people on this planet. If we did our darndest to hit 10% of them with our message getting better each time we deliver it, it would take us decades to be able to deliver our work to 10% of this planet. Most people never stop to think, is my message that important that I get it out to the world like you as a mom, being a mompreneur, solopreneur probably could talk to so many other moms that are sitting there thinking, how do I break free of this job I have? How do I spend more time with my kids? What do I got to do? Maybe they're divorced. Maybe for whatever reason, they've ended up alone. You have story to tell, and it's not just story to tell. I kind of get a little rubbed when someone says, oh, tell your story. No, don't tell me your story, because you might emote. Craft a story that I get to learn from. Craft a story that touch, moves and inspires me into action. I don't want to just hear a story now. That's a little bit further. So, in terms of how long can you deliver a nonfiction book? Well, how many lives do you want to touch?
[00:21:15] Speaker C: Yeah, that's really well put. I have not thought about it that way at all, really. It just kind of feels like you as an author, you go on and on and on about your book, but I guess you're thinking of a book as a product rather than what you're saying. The message, the benefits that are going to help people. And like you said, you need to maybe keep thinking, how many more people can I reach with that? So, no, I love that mindset. That's really cool. So, you've told us with the author launch pad why you've created the program, but can you tell us a bit more about it, what's involved?
[00:21:45] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. And I would say how I might have described how I created the program the why is I grew up going to catholic school. My parents sent me to catholic school. Most of the time, we send our kids, if we can, to the local private school because we believe the education is going to be better. Maybe it's a safer environment, whatever it is. And I thoroughly enjoyed dinosaurs growing up. I loved them. But anytime in catholic school, right out of the gates, they would start talking about this story of creation. I would often raise my hand and I would say, sister, sister, where are the dinosaurs at? And they would just look past me. They would ignore the short, little chubby kid sitting in the third row because they knew if they called on me, it was going to be the kid talking about dinosaurs and Adam and Eve. And ultimately this happened enough times to where my mom finally said, stop harassing the nuns about dinosaurs. Find a different book. I was like, okay, fine. So then I ended up going back that little line of kids that goes out of the classroom, walks to the library, grabs a little book, checks it out, and the next book that I found was King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable by Sir Thomas Mallory. I loved it. I fell in love with heroes, and I am a proud gen xer. So that means from the had Indiana Jones, I had Rocky, I had Luke Skywalker, Obiwan Kenobi, all the accessible heroes on the big screen. So there was something about heroes that spoke to me early on. And at the same time, I always appreciated the story of this jewish carpenter who went around saying, do good, be good, love others, be kind. If you see someone having a hard time, reach out to them. If you see somebody who could need in need, take care of them, because you don't got to just praise me, do it to the people that look like me, do it to the people that need it. So I always remembered that part of the light, don't hide your light. Later on in life, I go on to study evolutionary biology, and my grandmother ends up going into the hospital, and I do what was natural. I go to a church and I start to pray. Here I am studying as an evolutionary biologist. So I realized there's something about our human psyche that wants to connect with our highest purpose, as that connects us to whatever we call the divine, whether that's source, infinite intelligence, God, Allah, the divine, ohm. And when we have access to knowing ourselves as different makers, delivering from our highest purpose, that's that real again. Going back to that Maslow self actualization with the big s, the highest purpose self. So why I created the author, Launchpad, is I know that people want to make a difference. They want to be able to say, I did this, and to see it in the faces and in the lives of others. That is the core purpose of why I do it, because in me, I believe everybody has a light to shine. And when their light shines, they light up other communities, other countries, wherever they get to shine their light industries. So at the core of what I do, there's this message. Whether it's the light of Christ, it's the Krishna light, it's the light of consciousness. It just connects us to our bigger purpose. And again, I'm an evolutionary biologist by study and trade. I love my science. I could argue science all day long. And I know that there's something that our senses don't measure that calls us to be bigger and better and to continue to make our work be known in the world.
[00:25:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that's amazing. And just, I guess, what comes from that. So do you envision your authors and their books to, like you just said, make a difference in the world, shine their light, shine the light of others, and just change sort of one book at a time?
[00:26:04] Speaker D: Absolutely. My ultimate program, my crown jewel, is a program called launch your life's work. So, again, going back to how do we create the Gabby Bernstein's, the Tony Robbins, the Richard Branson's? And you don't even got to be that big. But I know people want to be on that trajectory, but it's really like, what is your life work about? We've left the space of life work balance. Those are the old days where we used to overwork ourselves, and the companies knew that they could work us to the bone.
We've left life work balance. And now, post pandemic, people are more aware of this congruency, this alignment, this who am I and what am I to do? So I call that life work. So, my creme de la creme crown jewel premium program is called launch your life's work because it asks not only how much money can you make using the different programs we're going to design, but how big, how bold, how generous of a philanthropist can you be because of the work you do? I'm really creating philanthropists in the world. It just happens to be that they're authors, speakers, and experts along the way.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: No? Amazing. And the programs, are they delivered like video, or how do you package and share?
[00:27:32] Speaker D: Very good. So I teach everything on Zoom online. If they're located in the Los Angeles area, then I will meet with them. My goal this year in 2024, as we're recording this is to be able to show up to as many nonfiction writer conferences that I can to really have people get what the opportunity is of the author launch pad as access to their life work. So where I could deliver it in person through workshops, I'll deliver it in person. I'll be going down to Florida in February to deliver the author launchpad there for a number of health and wellness coaches who are part of an anthology book called Healthopedia. And I'm going to be the one that gets to write their master classes, their signature group coaching programs, their workshops, and then ultimately, I say, the online course comes later. Anytime someone says, oh, you wrote a book, you should create an online course. Don't you dare. I say that because you haven't done the work. You haven't road tested it yet. You don't know if anybody's going to like it. You always got to do the beta work before you create something that you're going to make somewhat permanent.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. And then with the book, like with that statement there, how can you tell? Is it just if the book is successful, then you think that you should create the courses through it? Or does that make sense?
[00:29:06] Speaker D: Yeah. How do you know when on the speaking about courses, the online courses? Right. Someone buys your course for the cost of it. I would say this, Joanne, again, I'm going to use you as a great example. So the hybrid author in 2024 shows up at a number of different workshops. You have someone like myself that's in the back of the room watching and listening for when the crowd really perks up and what they come up and ask you about. And then from there, that's what we design the course around. We design it for what people really want and what they need, not what we think they want to hear based off our books. When we create things in a silo, the other word after silo with the s is they tend to suck.
[00:29:54] Speaker C: No, fair enough. Yeah, that makes sense. So the program is effectively a course, but it's more like a personalized in person. You run live workshops, live events, and people have like, a personalized coaching with yourself to work out how they want to launch themselves in their work.
[00:30:13] Speaker D: Well, almost. We collapsed it there a little bit. So I was describing how someone should create a course if they're going to create a course is only after road testing the programs. That is very much later on in the journey with me. So going back to what the author launchpad is, you said it perfectly at the beginning. It is a three phase, 90 day program where I'm going to help authors, speakers and experts be able to first package their expertise, their million dollar statement, who their ideal client audience is. The second phase is now we move into the marketing phase. How are we going to market it? Most authors are not tech geeks. They're not tech savvy. So my team does done with you, and if needed, I'll do done for you. Your VSL page, your video sales landing page, what a lead magnet page looks like. Most importantly, the done for you part that I create, and I think I sent you a copy, is of what the actual roadmap is. I write the nine step, three phase, revenue roadmap myself for each and every author in my program. So they know exactly. Just like cooking your favorite batch of cookies or your favorite recipe, you could do it over and over and over and over until you get good. You deliver it, we refine it, we edit it, we engage with it again, and then we repeat the like. Imagine that, Joanne, if someone gave you and said, look, if you follow these nine steps over and over and over, six figures will start to be the Norm, because your confidence goes up, your competence goes up, and your conviction that what you said makes a difference actually starts to reflect back at you in the lives of others. That's when we really start to say, I got it, and I'm delivering it. Well, then you add the automations, then you add all the other things. But prior to that point, there's the rubber meets the road, where we need to deliver what we have. And then that third phase is ultimately where we have the opportunity to monetize our expertise, whether it's one to one. I always say start with one to one. So you could listen to your clients. Then one to many, we create the workshops, and then you start to look at how do I grow my workshops so I could start to see the process towards scale. I'm really process driven because process equals profits, not pontification, not standing up there with just passion, but a process behind your passion equals profits.
[00:33:01] Speaker C: Well, that sounds good to me.
Yeah, I think writing can be very passion driven. And yeah, I think a lot of authors fall short on how they can profit once they've written out their passions as well. So sounds like that's where you come in and help them out.
So you mentioned, obviously, with the materials that you sent over to me about a million dollar m Ms. Can you tell us what is this you speak about? What's that?
[00:33:34] Speaker D: Yeah, the million dollar m Ms. They are the Willy Wonka gold chocolate bars or the gold chocolate and m Ms. The million dollar m. Ms. Playfully. I describe that as first, what is your marketing going to be like? Because I don't want people to be the best kept secret. And that's often what the little voice says to ourselves, oh, no one wants my book. No one wants to hear what I have to say. No, it's usually that your marketing is anemic or your marketing is, I sold it to my friends, I sold it to my family, and I put it on my facebook page and it's not doing anything that's not marketing. In this day and age, we are so globally connected. So the first thing that we got to look at, what is your marketing like? But more importantly, actually, they're twins. They're happening simultaneously is what are we monetizing? What is the main single tip of the arrow message that we're going to bring forward first, that we're able to then put the marketing behind. So it's monetization and marketing. Those are your million dollar M and Ms. You got to know what you're going to monetize and how you're going to market and those alone. If you just answer that and do that over and over and over and over and over and over for the next six months, I promise you, naturally, done correctly, you'll get to six figures. But most of us don't give it the deliberate attention that that needs. We don't organize ourselves, we don't discipline ourselves to stay behind one monetized message and market the heck out of it.
[00:35:24] Speaker C: Well, yeah, no, that makes absolutely sense. And yeah, marketing is something that I'm in the thrones of at the moment. So, yeah, definitely taking all that on board.
The other big question that I would like to talk to you about is obviously the future of your business, my business, everybody's business. In the author industry, the landscape feels like it. Well, it's not. Feels like it. It is changing with AI generative tools that have already hit the market, that have already are being implemented, and there's conversations for and against. I actually did a podcast, I think it was last week on, it was a solo episode, and asked the question, will you or won't you, AI? Because I've been watching these conversations all last year and I've heard people's worries, authors, their worries about these tools and then authors who are really excited about them and they're using them in their business and everything like that. So, I mean, with AI, what do you predict the future looks like for authors, the author industry with all this going on and your business as well.
[00:36:35] Speaker D: Yeah. Very good. Thank you. The long and the short is, unless authors actively, deliberately deliver and disseminate their content, their expertise, they are going to end up in the wasteland of all of this AI produced content.
They will not be able to differentiate themselves against the bots. Because when you and I could go in, and I know you do a lot of children's books under Jay Z Morel. I know you don't do Jay Z the way Jay Z, the global rap star, is.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. I did think about that. That's actually my middle name.
[00:37:24] Speaker D: Very cool. Okay. So you and I, we could say, okay, let's write a children's fiction book in the style of C. S. Lewis, using the rats. This is one of my favorite cartoons of the secret of Nim and have them slay a dragon. Please give me the ten chapter outline. Here's the name of a couple of characters. So with that little detail, the AI is going to give us a children's book. And so now we have this children's book that we're competing against authors who have actually taken the time to write a book. But if I have better marketing because I type into the AI, tell me five ways now to go promote this book, and it says, do this, do this, do this, and I do those things, the AI becomes a tool that the slow moving, in this case, the slow moving, I call them pandas. Pandas are very cute. We want to build ecosystems. We want to save them. As evolutionary biologists, they're an evolutionary dead end. The author who does not take advantage of delivering their own work against the bots, because the bots will never have the passion, the bots will never have the backstory. The bots will never be able to stand up and deliver it and give people goosebumps because it's always just going to be the content. So you have to be the person, you've got to be the tip of the arrow for your own content to have a chance against AI and then use AI as the tool that it is. Take the lessons of those five marketing strategies, come up with a little bit of fun chapters that you get to put out there and sprinkle for your marketing. But if we just allow AI to do what it's doing and it's going to continue to get better every day, and we don't position ourselves as the passion driven, difference making authors that we are, we'll absolutely lose hand over fists every single day.
[00:39:36] Speaker C: So this is saying when you started your author launch pad, it was during the pandemic sort of online sphere when we were all kind of locked away, sort of now kind of saying with AI, because we could be authors that are doing in person events, because that's something AI can't do. Yeah, more putting yourself out there, being human, I suppose, emotions showing more of that, maybe finding what AI can't do and then what you can do as a human, connecting it there with the audience and your passion and going that way.
[00:40:12] Speaker D: Is that what you, you know, I think one of the AI platforms is called Picasso. There's so many of them now that create generative images. So you and I, if we hunkered down for a weekend, by Monday morning, we could have a children's book with some amazing illustrations, put it on Amazon and put it up for sale, and then start putting some money behind that, and we would start selling our children's book that we spent little time to really invest our personal self in. So it's the author that's going to now show up live and read bits and pieces of it, or show themselves talking to an illustrator, why that book was written, or talk to parents, create a message for the parents. Like, I think this book is valuable for your child because it's going to teach them x, Y and Z. Or the journey of our hero character is really going to show your child this. The bots aren't going to do that right now. They might someday as we start creating talking heads. Right. But it's up to us to deliver the humanity of our work, of our art, of our creativity. And if we don't do that, what is that naturally gifted talent that we have, which is to be human to human, then shame on us if we lose out to AI.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that absolutely makes sense. And from that episode I put out last week, I'd played around with it just so I could talk about my experiences and stuff. And I had typed into that chat GBT, having played around with images.
Write a thousand word book on. So one of my nonfiction books is author fears and how to overcome them. Write a thousand word book on author fears. And, yeah, I was like, oh, my goodness. What it came up with, it was quite generic, but it was all right.
It got to the point of the author fears and stuff, whereas mines has come from lived experience. And I have put a lot of what I actually had a review recently. It's like the author uses her insecurities to share what author tips are and stuff, which is perfectly true because a lot of the fears is anxieties and worries that have arisen from putting myself out there as an author. And so that seems to be where the direction I'm going into is talking about roadblocks in writing and these feelings that come up within us as humans. So, yeah, AI didn't have that so in your face, AI.
But, yeah, I guess that was what.
[00:42:41] Speaker D: You mean, and that's really good. If we were to just take that and let me craft with you right now, how I would create a course, or not even a course, a quick master class around it, what would you say are the leading three?
If we got to distill down Joanne's core principles on what stops or the fears? What are the big three fears that you say most authors encounter?
[00:43:06] Speaker C: Well, for me, it's kind of like there's three categories, really. I think there's three. There's sort of the outer world, the inner world, and I think there's, like, another one as well, like your craft kind of world. So I guess for the outer world, it's your network around you. So one of the fears in the book is, like, I call it physical fears, but it's unsupportive people.
Some people have people in their lives, especially, and I've had a couple, whereas it takes time to craft a book. And sometimes people, especially, if they're not creative and they don't really understand what you're doing and you're spending a lot of time doing this, you're away from your family and whatnot. And at the end, sometimes if they can't see an income coming from it or something physical in their hands, they don't sort of understand it, so they can kind of put pressure on you in the end.
So that's sort of something that comes up. Maybe fear is not the word for that. And then the other one that obviously everybody goes through, or it's like a rite of passage for writers, is the self doubt or the fear of being judged by others, that little voice that comes up. And then also I've got sort of genre fears, specific genres that you write in for fears that arise in terms of historical fiction to do with your facts and things like that.
So all different stuff like that, then.
[00:44:38] Speaker D: Okay, perfect. That was fantastic. So I got that. The one area of fears is the environment. How people, how we think we're going to be seen by others, how we perceive what may happen, right? That fear of the future, that hasn't happened, but yet in our head, the limbic system, the reptile brain has already said, you better not do that because this might happen to you. Then you'll be ostracized. You won't be a social part of the group anymore. And being a social animal that's no longer part of the group is death. So don't do that. The next one I heard is the inner world, which is that Joseph Campbell, the dragon. Right. What's the dragon? That we all either need to befriend or we need to slay one of the two in the process. That inner world. And then the third one is the genre, you know, right there alone. Joanne, if you, I imagine, now have at least two to three solutions or practices from each one of those, you can now fill a 1 hour master class on getting over your fears to start your author journey. And that's what I do. That's what I be like. Okay, Joanne, this is perfect. The first five minutes, you're going to introduce yourself. You're going to ask people where they're coming in from the next few minutes after that, you're going to let people know this is designed exactly for them to be able to have these breakthroughs. And then you talk about, okay, these are the three areas we're going to be working on today. And then you dive into section one, that's about seven minutes. The next theme, there's another seven minutes. Then your third theme, that's another seven minutes. So now you've filled up plus Q and a about 30 minutes. And then at the end, you start to ask people, what are some of the breakthroughs you're starting to experience? What is it? If you've got to break through all three of these, that would become available to you at the end of this workshop, and you let people start to self generate. That's where true transformation happens. It gets so under my skin when people use the word transformation, because giving people a solution means you solved the problem. You didn't necessarily transform. And you're talking about transformation by overcoming fear. That is truly in the zone of transformation. But when you just give people solutions, it kind of goes back to wherever you go. There you are still right. You've changed the environment, but you haven't changed the operating system and the person. I think you have a beautiful master class right there, and I hope that more people get to experience how you're helping them break through these fears and these challenges, because I want them on the other side of that fence delivering their work. So I could teach them to talk from the stage. I could say, hey, Joanne, tell me about some of the stuff they went through when they were with you, because that's what people want to know, have you been through scary swamp? Have you been through fearful forest? Show me how to get through it, because I'm on this side of it and I need someone like you who's done it to walk me through. That's really what we ask for when we're going to spend our money with somebody is, can I trust you? Do I like you and have you done this already? And are you going to lock arms with me until this is complete? And that's what I do in my program, is I make sure that people know I'm going to be with you until you get this done, unless you choose to check out. And even then, I'm going to be calling you and bugging you. And that's what most coaches don't do. Yeah, you got a great program there.
[00:48:08] Speaker C: Thank you. That's really well said and blushing, but, yeah, it's something that I definitely have to put more thought into it or give more time. And, yeah, I just think with the AI tools, obviously, do you think that they'll start to create their own courses? Obviously, if they're doing all these books and someone could type in, please create a course on author fears and how to overcome them.
[00:48:33] Speaker D: All right. So I use two very powerful programs. One is on Kajabi. So I use Kajabi to build for all of my allows. It's the most all in one location that I found where you could have your email marketing, your course, your community, your website. So I like to use kajabi because it does everything. You don't have to have all these disconnected platforms. I build it all on Kajabi for people inside of Kajabi. It now has an AI feature where if you give it the main themes, the skeleton, if you will, and then ask the AI to flesh it out, it will do that. So AI will create the courses. Another program that I use has now also come out with an AI feature that will write your course for you. But here's the part about that, Joanne. It's like, could AI, will you name one of your children for me, please, if that's okay?
[00:49:36] Speaker C: Sarah.
[00:49:37] Speaker D: Sarah. Okay. How old is Sarah right now?
[00:49:40] Speaker C: Nine.
[00:49:40] Speaker D: Nine? Okay. AI, please tell me about Sarah at age 18. This is what she likes. This is what she does.
These are the things that I think she's good at. Tell me her story. 18 years from now, AI has to fill in a lot of the spaces that may or may not have happened. And as the minute it starts to do that, we know in our own mirror neurons, we know in our own biology, that what we are now speaking is not authentic. We could sell it for $7. We could sell it for $21. You could sell something for $49 on this 18 year old's life called Sarah. And this is how she became who she became by the time she graduated, getting ready for college. But, you know, it's made up. So it lacks the energetics that allows us to really lean in with our expertise to allow us to really lean in that the audience will engage with. So can AI do it? Yes. But does our energy stand behind it out of competence, out of conviction, and out of certainty? No, it doesn't. So we will always be that special sauce. When people think the special sauce exists outside of them, which they believe the AI is going to solve, they go further down the rabbit hole and further away. That what all the great spiritual sages have been trying to get us to understand. It's you. It's all about you. It's your word. Creates the world. It's how much you're going to own, your expertise. It's who you're going to be for others. So, hey, AI, knock yourself out, but it's always going to be you.
[00:51:21] Speaker C: No, well said there. I love that. It's like you do you, and that's what's going to see you through at the end of the day. So, yeah, be authentic and stick with your own message and things. That's great.
[00:51:31] Speaker D: Yeah. And thank you for playing with me that you could understand. Oh, yeah, it will make stuff up, but in the made up world, it doesn't have the gravitas that experience does, that passion does that a well crafted story does.
[00:51:50] Speaker C: No, absolutely no. Well said there. Thank you, Chris. And thank you for all of your expertise. You've absolutely shared so much with us. It's been really eye opening, inspiring and all of the above chatting to you today, your evening as well. So can you please tell our listeners where can they discover the author, Launchpad, anything you've got going on offline online.
[00:52:13] Speaker D: Thank you so much. I don't know when this is going to air, so I'm going to offer something that will have lasting power. You just got to say that you came from the hybrid author, or tell me that Joanne sent you and I will give you whatever it is that I currently have as a special for my vip. So first, go to www. Dot the authorlaunchpad.com. So that's the URL where you could always find me and you could find out what programs are coming up. The next part about that is I recently did an outstanding five day live launch and I actually had a bonus day, a 6th day for a health and wellness publisher who is now going to be launching their own publishing platform. And I'm going to be writing the courses, the master classes, the workshops, the signature group coaching program for all these anthology authors so they can monetize that chapter. I'm going to put that workshop, those six days behind a paywall because I'm going to include the highlights. I'm going to include the summaries. I'm going to include exactly what you should do based on what this person said you should do. And before I put it behind the paywall, if any of your followers listeners, reach out to CT at Chris Trammel Tramel lcoaching.com so one more time,
[email protected] that will go directly to me and say, joanne sent me, the hybrid author sent me. I will go ahead and send you the code so that you get all of the replays, all of the highlight sheets and the workbook that came with it for free. So no matter if I started at seven, my goal is to get it up to $49 because I'm also going to be teaching around it for your guests that do that, I will go ahead and give them the 100% off coupon for that replay and those highlight sheets.
[00:54:21] Speaker C: Wow, that's amazing, Chris, thank you so much. And I'm sure many of the listeners will take you up on that. Sounds like a fantastic deal. Well, thank you again for all of the info you shared and for everything you do. And we look forward to watching your space.
[00:54:35] Speaker D: I really appreciate it. And Joanne, one of the things that I love about people I resonate with. And my number one, Clifton strength is individualization. I have the ability to speak to people and just create that red carpet conversation, if you will. At the beginning of this, before we went live, you said, yeah, we'll be on for about 30 minutes.
I bend time like this and we've just done an hour getting connected. And that's the power. When we deliver authentically how people will connect with us. And that's really how you make your profits, is you bring your passion, you bring your person, and you trust the process, and that's where profits are.
[00:55:16] Speaker C: Yeah, that's absolutely true, Chris, though, thank you. Thanks again.
[00:55:19] Speaker D: My pleasure. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.
[00:55:29] Speaker B: So there you have it, folks. The truly awe inspiring, super knowledgeable, amazing guy in his field, Chris Trammell. So please go and check out all Chris does has to offer follow his links. And yeah, I'll include those in the show notes next time on the hybrid author podcast, we have award winning children's author and academic Nadia L. King on chairing a panel, which is quite a fitting topic, seeing as it's the Perth like I mentioned, the Perth Writers Festival and lots of panels will be happening here and there. But this is actually tips and tricks on you chairing one yourself. I wish you well in your author adventure this next week. That's it from me. Bye for now.
[00:56:09] Speaker C: That's the end for now, authors.
[00:56:10] Speaker A: I hope you are further forward in your author adventure after listening, and I hope you'll listen next.
[00:56:14] Speaker C: Next time.
[00:56:15] Speaker A: Remember to head on over to the hybrid author website at www.hybridauthor.com dot au to get your free author pass. It's bye for now.
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