December 18, 2020 • 52 mins
On this Feature Friday episode of the ROI Online Podcast, Steve talks with Richard G. Lowe, Jr. a.k.a. The Writing King, about the importance of producing great content—whether you write it or not. Richard explains what a ghostwriter is, how to write better books, blogs, and articles, and why all that makes a difference for your business.
Richard Lowe Jr. was an IT manager at Trader Joe’s before he decided to shift careers and pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a professional author, ghostwriter, blogger, and copywriter. Now, he’s the owner and senior writer for The Writing King, a platform helping inform future authors about what ghostwriting is and how to use it to bring their book into the world.
He has ghostwritten 40+ books, written over 300 LinkedIn profiles, published several hundred articles and blogs, and has published 63 books of his own— all available on Amazon. One of his books sold over 10,000 copies and reached Amazon bestseller status. Whether you write the content or have someone else do it for you, you should put content into the world every day—on whatever platform hosts your audience.
Richard and Steve discuss:
- How writing a book can elevate your business and your reputation far above the rest of the pack
- Why someone would use a ghostwriter, what The Writing King and ghostwriting is, and how content can move the needle for your business
- Finding your voice in your writing, why it matters, and how Richard brings that out of his clients
- How to use social media to host your content, why it’s important to share something every day, and how to fit it into your busy schedule
- How to improve your writing and the best advice Richard has to offer newer or inexperienced writers
- How to promote your book, get your book written, and why it can make a difference in your business
You can learn more about Richard here:
https://www.thewritingking.com/
Follow Richard on LinkedIn
Follow Richard on Twitter
Follow Richard on Facebook
Send Richard an Email
Read the books mentioned in this podcast:
Focus on LinkedIn by Richard Lowe
The Golden Toilet by Steve Brown
Enroll in the QuickStart Academy today to learn how to develop and implement a proven growth strategy that grows your ROI, your business, and your confidence. Learn more HERE.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Richard Lowe (00:04):
I believe that we all create boxes that we live in
through our lives, most of theusual boxes, the American dream,
or I got to have a job box, or Ifeel safe living at home box.
And the only reason there's abox around you is you made the
box. Get rid of it. You don'tneed the box, or create a new
box if you want. But there'sbooks on get outside the box,
(00:27):
why do you even need a box inthe first place? That's kind of
my philosophy, just eliminateit. And that's kind of what I
did. And when you think aboutit, I quit my six figure job and
jump, jumped off the cliff andmoved to Florida and started
over at age 53. And wassuccessful. Until now I'm making
more money now than I was makingat that six figure job just by
(00:50):
ghostwriting, and I'm havingfun, and I have no stress. But
back then there was a stretch.
And going out and meetingclients was, it was a matter of
I have to do this becauseotherwise, I don't know what I'm
gonna do.
Steve Brown (01:07):
Hi everybody, welcome to the ROI online
podcast where we believe you.
The courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is a place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:30):
learn together.
Richard LoweJr. Welcome to theROI, online podcast.
Richard Lowe (01:43):
Well, thank you for having me. This will be fun.
Steve Brown (01:45):
Yeah, so folks that are listening to this and
marketing directors, story brandguides, business professionals,
entrepreneurs. But moreimportantly, they're wondering
why in the world, they need topay attention to this episode.
And so the question we need toanswer right away is, why are
you called the Writing King?
Richard Lowe (02:06):
I'm called the Writing King because I'm a great
ghostwriter, and writer. I writebooks and blogs for people, and
articles and anything else theywant really, including LinkedIn
stuff. And I do a good job forthem. A lot of technical stuff,
and a lot of other things aswell.
Steve Brown (02:25):
That's a lot of hard work to try to bring out
someone's voice out of someonewho may not be totally settled
into their voice. How do you dothat?
Richard Lowe (02:34):
I interview them, make sure that I understand who
they are and what their messageis and who their audiences. And
then we write a few, write a fewpages, and we go back and forth
on it until we got it right.
Basically, work it until it'sright.
Steve Brown (02:49):
Well it seems like if you're like busy helping
everyone else write books seemslike you might write a book or
two, tell us about that.
Richard Lowe (02:57):
Well, I've got one science fiction book in progress
plus two books that I'mcollaborating with two different
authors on two different books.
So that's a total of three booksof my own. All of them are kind
of science fictiony. And I havea goal and then I have to write
one book in each of 12 genres,before too much longer. So I
want to write a mystery in ascience fiction and romance and
(03:20):
so forth.
Steve Brown (03:23):
You've written a book on LinkedIn, correct?
Richard Lowe (03:25):
Yes, I have called focus on LinkedIn.
Steve Brown (03:26):
And so where did that come from? Where, you know,
a lot of people are listening tothis. They're trying to figure
out how to take advantage ofLinkedIn. It's this platform
that's kind of businessy, butyou know, what rules do you
follow? How do you takeadvantage it and more
importantly, how do you get, getit to help you grow your
business or your sales?
Richard Lowe (03:47):
Well, one of the first things I did once I left
Trader Joe's was, I startedworking for a company called
LinkedIn makeover. And I didabout 300, LinkedIn profiles for
them for CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, Clevel people, down to directors,
a few ambassadors, somegovernment people. And I really
learned from one of the best,Donna Serdula, how to do a
(04:11):
profile, and what to do with it,and then how to use LinkedIn to
your advantage. In fact, I getprobably 75% of my business off
of LinkedIn. So it's, itdefinitely works when you know
how to use it, you have toleverage it, you have to have a
good profile, a good picture andso forth.
Steve Brown (04:31):
Well, let's talk about the specifics or the must
dues on our LinkedIn profile. Iseems like the right place to
start, right?
Richard Lowe (04:38):
Mm hmm. Yep.
Probably, well, let me when Ilook at somebody's profile, I
look for certain mistakes thatthey've made. The first mistake
is not having a good picture.
People, the book, the cover ofthe book sells the book. That's
a truism with LinkedIn profiles.
So if the picture is awful, thenpeople aren't going to look at
(05:00):
your your profile, your picturehas to reference, has to resolve
or relate to your brand. So ifyour brand is a circus
performer, then it's probablyokay to wear a clown suit
otherwise, probably not. If, ifyou're dressed in casual things,
and that's part of your brand,like me, I'm a writer and I'm
casual, then that fits thebrand. If you're going to be a
(05:22):
banker, probably this type ofattire would not be appropriate.
And you don't know how manyprofile pictures I see where
people have, say they're,they're just clip, they've
clipped a picture of somebodyelse, they've just hand sitting
in from somebody else over theshoulders, it's awful. I had one
who had a cemetery in thebackground. Yeah, others who had
beer bottles top, all over theplace and room, you got to watch
(05:47):
the background. The advice isget a professional picture. Even
if you go to JC Penney's, orsome supermarket mall
photographer and get a goodquality professional photo, well
dressed, even makeup to cleanyou up, then and then maybe even
retouch the photo a little bit.
(06:08):
Make that photo as professionalas possible without being, you
know, obviously, professionally,without being too obvious about
it, if that makes sense.
Steve Brown (06:19):
All right so picture, real important is
number one. What's number twomistake people make?
Richard Lowe (06:25):
Headline, their headline would say something
goofy. Usually, they put in mostpeople put in their title, their
title is probably the leastimportant thing they need to be
promoting. What they want topromote is what they do and what
they deliver. So what do you do?
I'm a ghostwriter. What do Ideliver? I deliver quality books
to people, I'm just off the cuffthing. What's the, what's the
deliverable that your businessor your job is? And it needs to
(06:50):
be kind of keyword driven. Sothink find some keywords on
Google, because it's going to bereferenced in Google that that
makes sense. Obviously, mine'sghostwriting and ghostwriter. So
that's how you'll be found. Ifyou're, if you're a banker, then
you want to have some bankingrelated keywords in there. And
you want it to really portrayyour, your call to action, you
(07:13):
know, also at the end. And youprobably don't want to put
things like looking for work,because that immediate, then a
lot of people do that. I've seenit a lot after the pandemic. And
that probably is not what youwant to do. You don't need to
hide that you're looking forwork, but you probably don't
want to put it out there on onthe headline, because that's
going to be on the front page,that's gonna be in all search
(07:33):
engines, you want somethingthat's going to search well, and
it's very important. And this issame thing with all of the
headlines on each one of yourexperiences, you can put in more
keywords there too. And you wantto make sure that all of those
keywords and experiences align,and that they give you
additional room for phrases andthings and you only need to put
them in once. You only need tosay ghostwriter once, Google and
(07:55):
LinkedIn are smart enough tofigure it out from there, you
don't need to have it sprinkledall over the place and stuff
keywords and things. It's notgonna like that.
Steve Brown (08:04):
All right. And then number three mistake that people
usually make on their LinkedInprofile.
Richard Lowe (08:10):
Their about page is their resume. And they use
they just cut and paste theirresume in and it's in third
person, your LinkedIn profileand your about page should be in
first person, I, me rather thanthird person or past tense. What
do you do now? What are youdoing now? I do this, I deliver
(08:30):
this product, I deliver thisservice. And here are my
statistics. That's what you wantto say in your LinkedIn about
page. You don't want to saythese are my responsibilities.
Nobody cares what yourresponsibilities are or where,
what they care about is what areyou going to deliver for me?
What have you, how can you backthat up? I you know, I increased
ROI by 5% over a period of ayear, or something like that,
(08:54):
or, and sometimes you got to becareful with numbers. A lot of
banks don't allow numbers to beon LinkedIn, I found out the
hard way. Don't do that. So becareful with numbers sometimes,
especially if you're publiclyowned. But make sure that "about
thing" is in present tense andmake sure it's about you, not
your company, not your business,but it's about you and then your
(09:17):
business. And because when I seethe LinkedIn profile for Tom,
Sully, I want to see what TomSully does. And what is it about
Tom, Sully and how, what he cando for me, why am I interested
in looking at him, why he candeliver me this. That's what you
want to have in there.
Steve Brown (09:34):
Okay, so we get our profiles squared away, and we
get that upgraded. Like, who doI connect to? What do I do next?
Richard Lowe (09:44):
Well, then the next thing you want to do on
your profile is have yourexperiences also, and it should
tell us coherent story. So itshould starting from your
education, work forward. And ifyou're an engineer now, but in
the past you were say, an automechanic. How does Auto being an
auto mechanic help you be anengineer? And just think about
that and maybe write it in therea little bit. Connecting with
(10:06):
people, connect with as manypeople as you can. But use some
caution about connecting withthem quickly. LinkedIn, like all
social media has spam filters.
So be sure that you're not like,okay, connect, connect, connect,
connect, connect, connect,connect group, you're locked
out, and it will lock you out,connect to people on through the
day, and as you meet them, andas you find them in, in groups
(10:29):
and things. And as you run intothem online and as you go
through stuff, link with connectwith them, says it looks more
natural, and you want it to bemore natural than just bang,
bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
Facebook's the same way, if you,if you connect with too many
people, or friend too manypeople on Facebook too quickly,
it will lock your account out.
So just be careful about that.
(10:53):
But don't hesitate aboutconnecting with people. And if
you don't know them write alittle introduction, like, Hi I
know, I read your book. I dothat a lot you know, I read your
book, I got interested in you orI see you're interested in AI
and I'm a writer about AI, how'dyou like to talk? Stuff like
that, something to make itpersonal. And don't sell. You
obviously, I'm a writer and Iread about AI, you want to talk
(11:15):
about it, it's just a little bitof selling. But it's more of an
introduction. But if you sendout a sales message, first of
all, if you send it to me, I'mgonna block you, if that's the
first thing you send me, I'mliterally gonna block you so I
never hear from you again. And,that's gonna happen a lot. So
that message needs to besustained and needs to be at
(11:36):
least semi targeted and notappear robotic. And do a lot of
connecting, you need to have alot of connections, you should
be able to build up 1000connections in six months, easy.
I've got almost 9000 now andlike I keep building them up
every single day. And make surethat your audience, that's super
(11:58):
important, it's important when Iwrite books for people, is
important when I write blogs forpeople, who are you talking to?
What are you looking for onLinkedIn? That's super
important, your, if you'relooking for people from India
who sell ink cartridges, thenthat's the people you should be
connecting with. If you're not,then don't be connecting with
(12:19):
those people. Not that there'sanything wrong with that. Just
just if your target is bankers,then connect to bankers, and
target your LinkedIn towardsbankers. So it's super important
to understand who you're talkingto, and who you want to attract,
you cannot attract everybody. Soattract the audience that you
want. That's very, veryimportant.
Steve Brown (12:42):
A lot of the etiquette, and the protocol that
you follow on LinkedIn isdifferent than the other social
media platforms, it's moreprofessional, more respectful.
So once you start building outthese connections, then I think
the dilemma is what in the worlddo I post on in how often and
(13:03):
there's just seems to be a lotof confusion around that
Richard Lowe (13:07):
Post every single day. Even if it's just 100
words, post something, somethingabout, you know, a success
you've had, or something youlearned or a class you attended,
or an article you read, orsomething, you want people to
begin to notice those, LinkedInwill notice that you're posting
a lot. But here's the secret toall social media, is the word
(13:30):
social. Social media wants youto be social. And the way to be
social is to post a lot, and tocomment on other people's and
share other people's posts.
Link, liking doesn't matter. TheLinkedIn and all the social
media doesn't really care aboutlikes and things. But you want
to comment on other people'sposts and other people's things.
(13:50):
And then LinkedIn, or Facebook,or YouTube or whatever, it goes,
Oh, this person's playing thegame that I want to play. Good,
I'm gonna reward him by sendinghim more people. And especially
about the subject of which he'scommented on. So if the subject
you commented on is politics,you're going to start receiving
a lot of politics posts. If thesubject is AI, which tends to be
(14:11):
me, then you're going to startreceiving more and more
artificial intelligence posts.
And, but that's the key to sortof, to succeeding on social
media, any social media, playthe game that it wants you to
play. If you don't play thatgame, you're not going to get
the views and the likes and thecomments and things and you're
(14:32):
not going to get people noticingyou.
Steve Brown (14:34):
That's interesting, because a lot of people are,
they really, they're stymied bywhat they should post. But what
you're communicating is, youdon't have to really worry about
that right now. Go and be socialand comment on other people's
posts is just as advantageous?
Richard Lowe (14:52):
It's just as advantageous is probably even
more advantageous, but you wantto do both. But as you're
commenting on other people'sposts, your brain will say Oh, I
could write a few 100 wordsabout that, maybe I'll post
about that. Or, maybe I havesomething similar to that that I
can post about. So you'll getsome ideas. And you can even use
(15:12):
the Add sign to reference theperson that you borrowed the
idea from and say, Hey, youknow, I got I got this from you,
and he's gonna come and look atyour thing, and he might start
sending it out to people. Andthat's even more social. When
you start doing stuff like that.
LinkedIn loves that kind ofstuff.
Steve Brown (15:27):
Wow. So then, time, you would think that, people's,
their objection would be I don'thave all this time to spend on
social media every day. But howdo you answer that question?
Richard Lowe (15:43):
15 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day tops, set a
time. Do it while you're eatingbreakfast, or when you have some
downtime or something. Set atime every single day when
you're going to do this. And doit every single day, five days a
week, whatever your work daysare, I tend to sprinkle it on
different times of the day, so Ilike to do a little bit in the
morning a little bit at noon,then a little bit at night,
(16:04):
maybe 15 minutes at a time. Itdoesn't take a lot. You just go
through your feed, do somecommenting, do a couple shares.
Write a quick post, maybe once aweek, spend an extra hour
writing an article or even oncea month, you can always hire a
ghostwriter to write thosearticles for you. And I have a
(16:24):
lot of clients who do that. Theyhave me write their LinkedIn
articles for them, and then theypost them. And that's, that's
very common. Just make sure youget a good ghostwriter. And not
something, somebody who's notprofessional. The idea is to be
professional and to get toappear professional.
Steve Brown (16:44):
So writing, obviously, is a something that
is rewarded, good writing, orgood thoughtful writing, give us
some ideas or things that maybewe haven't considered that would
help us become better.
Richard Lowe (17:01):
Well, first of all, again, think of who your
audience is. Who are you writingit to? That's number one. What's
the theme? Who are you writingthis article to? And why am I
writing it? So if I'm writing anarticle about artificial
intelligence, is that aimed atmanagers? Is that aimed at
technical people? Is that aimedat people who want to hire me?
Who's it aimed at? Let's sayit's aimed at directors level
(17:23):
people, well director levelpeople maybe aren't interested
in the bits and bytes and stuff,they just want to know what it
does. So write an article atthat level. And then, what's the
theme? The theme is artificialintelligence can help the
consumer because it controlstheir house for them makes their
alarm system safer, whatever. Sothat's the theme. And then just
(17:44):
write it around the theme andwrite it to the audience. And
keep those two things in mind.
And you're gonna do fine. Andbreak it down into just headers
and sub headers, use head usethe heading a lot, so that it
has some logical flow, and putin pictures and videos. If
you've got them. Pictures andvideos do great. Be careful with
with just hunting around onGoogle for pictures, because
(18:07):
you're gonna run into copyrightissues. And you could get sued.
Make sure you use stock photo,you can get free ones from
Pixabay or use your smartphoneand take some pictures yourself.
If you're writing an articleabout the factory and you happen
to work in a factory, go out inthe shop floor and take some
pictures of those machines,assuming your company allows
that. If you're working in abank, take pictures of what,
(18:30):
some teller stuff or some moneyflowing, or something taking
yourself, they don't have toworry about copyright and it's
unique. And Google loves unique.
And the more you do that, thebetter you're going to be. And
videos are great too. LinkedInhas has been slowly rolling out
LinkedIn live, which is the sameas Facebook Live, but you can
post videos all the time fromwhatever source you want from
(18:52):
your camera or smartphone and dothat a lot.
Steve Brown (18:56):
What are some best practices as far as video? The
length of time, you know I don'tknow what right question is that
there.
Richard Lowe (19:04):
Short and sweet, 30 seconds to 60 seconds is a
good length. A minute, fiveminutes even is probably okay
once in a while. People'sattention spans are very short.
So, and funny if you can make itfunny, funny is good. Keep it
high level and make itinspirational is another thing
(19:26):
you can do. Just a straightMatter of fact videos probably
not going to get a lot of hits.
But a funny video will get a lotof hits. So if you're writing
about HR think of a way to makeHR funny, maybe some of those
horror stories that some ofyour, you've got come in over
the years of people saying theydid this, or they did that, or
you caught people doing thiswouldn't it, as long as you
(19:46):
change the names, of coursewould probably make great
videos, stories. But video iskind of tough, because a lot of
people are kind of introverted.
So they don't do well on video.
And if you don't do well onvideo, don't do it. If you like
video, do it. If you likepodcasts, do it. If you don't,
then don't do it. That's myrecommendation for everybody is,
(20:08):
pick the social media type thatworks for you. I happen to like
podcasts and I like LinkedIn.
And two channels, two differentthings are probably about as
much as most people can processand that's as much as I can do.
So I tend to not use Facebook asmuch. Because it's not really my
(20:28):
market. But if you likeFacebook, and you can get sales
on Facebook or sell yourservices or sell yourself, then
use Facebook. Pick the one thatworks if you're if you're an
extrovert, maybe video is greatfor you. For me, I'm not a video
person. I don't mind video, butthat's not where I come across
really well. I tend to do goodon podcasts. And that's just,
(20:50):
and LinkedIn Of course, I prettymuch got wired.
Steve Brown (20:55):
So when we, you keep mentioning artificial
intelligence. Where did youstart to get interested in that
and why?
Richard Lowe (21:04):
Well, I've been interested in that, since I
found out about it many, manyyears ago. And it I'm fascinated
by the subject of AI, artificialintelligence, augmented reality,
virtual reality, machinelearning and big data and things
like that. I'm a techie, that'swhere my background is
technical. So those things kindof, kind of, I just kind of fell
(21:26):
into those. And I startedwriting books on it, because I
could talk the talk and alsokind of walk the walk a bit. And
it just became more and more ofan area where I'm really good at
writing about, because I'velearned a lot about it. But at a
management level, not in thetechie level, I don't tend to
write down in the weeds articlesabout how the technology works
(21:50):
at low level, that's really notmy forte, I'll tend to write at
the higher level like trying tosell a certain kind of AI to
managers, or how does ouraugmented reality help a
warehouse? That's the gogglesthat yes, you can get see
things, those are really cool.
So I'm kind of fascinated bythat. And I'm fascinated by how
that will change the world, andhow it is changing the world.
Steve Brown (22:11):
So you've written several books for, you know, the
way I see that I can add valueis by helping business owners
understand why this particulartechnology could be advantageous
not in the weeds, like you'retalking about, but you know,
applied application of that.
That's what I'm understandingthat your your books are?
Richard Lowe (22:34):
Well, most of my books are written by people who
want to enhance their career. Sothey use the book as kind of
this is my credibility, this ismy expertise, this is my story.
This is about me, and about howI can help others and educate
others. So they write the bookis kind of their, their way in
their their additional powerover everybody else. Gives them
(22:58):
a step up. So when they walkinto a job interview this I
wrote the book on AI, when theywant to get press, they send the
press the book, their book, whenthey want to give speeches, they
use the book, and a lot of myclients go into the speech
route. And keynote speeches,five grand a pop at least so you
(23:19):
can go in and get us keynotespeech at a conference, you've
got a made if you can startdoing that. And that's what a
lot of them do with the books, Ihelp them write.
Steve Brown (23:27):
So where are they in their career, there's a life
cycle that a lot of people,there's probably a common
pattern that you see businessowners kind of raise their head
up and go, Hmm, I think I shouldwrite a book.
Richard Lowe (23:39):
Usually they're at a point where they feel like
they want to advance, but theysee some barriers to that. The
barrier on one of my clients wasthat he, he was in a fortune 50
company, and he was kind ofstuck at a senior VP level of a
division. And he wanted to getup to the major player and be a
(24:02):
major player. And he justcouldn't quite get out of that,
that rut, so to speak. And hehired me to help him write a
book, which was interestingenough, was one of my first
books. And he specifically hadthe goal of getting the notice
of the CEO of the Fortune 50company, the whole thing. And
when he was done the CEO roundupwriting the foreword to the
(24:24):
book. So he achieved that, hegets keynote speeches before the
pandemic anyway, for $10,000 apop, he gets paid for the book.
And he gets its textbook andclassrooms over in where he
lives and it also sells onAmazon. So he's, and he donates
all the money from that tocharity because he doesn't care.
(24:46):
That's not what he wrote it for.
And most of my clients don'tcare about Amazon book sales.
That's it's an extra thing. Whatthey care about is they can show
that book to somebody say Iwrote the book on this subject
that makes me an expert. Andthen for blogs, it's usually
somebody who wants to, is alittle bit lower level, maybe VP
level or director level whowants to build their image up so
they can continue pursuing thatcareer.
Steve Brown (25:10):
So this fits into the LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a
perfect place for you to startto maybe introduce your book or
promote your book. What are somegood strategies for the authors
that are listening?
Richard Lowe (25:23):
To promote their books? First of all, they have
to find out which social mediaplatform works for them. That
takes experimenting, I would sayto back up a minute, they have
to be willing to experiment onthe promotion. In the backup
even more from that they have tobe willing to promote. Most
writers, as in many technicalpeople, and I'll just make this
(25:46):
generality, please don't killme, are introverted. They start
writing because it's easier towrite to a piece of paper than
it is to talk to people. Thatwas me anyway, a long time ago.
I'm kind of grown out of that.
And, thus, having to promotemeans "Oh, no, I got to come out
of my shell and I got to go talkto people" Some writers find
that exhilarating. And they theyactually figured out how to
(26:09):
promote and others. They neverget through that wall of
promotion. It's like a wall offire, they can never get through
it. And they get discouraged.
And they never read a bookagain, because they hit that
wall. They didn't think aboutit. So you have to be willing to
promote and then you have to bewilling to experiment. And you
have to be willing to fail.
Because you're going to tryFacebook and it might work or
not fails. Well, what you dowrong, and what you know, I
(26:33):
tried Facebook ads Didn't work.
Okay, move on, you know spentseveral $100 lost, gone waste
paper, move on to the next thingLinkedIn ad, didn't work. Okay,
pretty soon I got the idea thatthe ads don't work, not for me.
And it's just a training thing.
I'm not an expert in that. Sothen the answer is do I want to
(26:55):
hire somebody to do it or wantto move on to something else?
Then I tried YouTube. Thatdidn't work for me, just because
I'm not a video person. And I'dtried podcasts. And then I
started getting people callingin from podcast saying, "We
heard you on a podcast, we wantto buy one of your books" One of
my hardcover books or you knowsomething, or actually buy my
(27:16):
services, I've had several$10,000 contracts come off of
podcasts, that was very useful.
I've also had quite a few booksales. So you need to find out
what works for you, and youexperiment, and don't spend real
money. I mean, you know, don'tspend billions of dollars or
1000s of 1000s of dollars, justspend a little bit. Amazon
(27:40):
marketing ads tend to work verywell for a short time. So maybe
spend a 20 bucks on that in amonth and see what happens or 30
bucks or whatever it costs.
They're paid, remember their payper click, they're not pay per
sale. So you got to be realcareful, those things can really
suck the money out of you, fast.
Google ads, or, for me, theymean, it's the money just like a
(28:05):
vacuum cleaner, and you got tobe really careful with them. So
find that for me, the channelthat works best is LinkedIn. And
that's because I'm making I'm mycontracts are fairly large, I
only need a dozen of them a yearto make a living, a good living.
So I can go out there and I talkto people get in a conversation
and then before long, they wantto use my services. So that's,
(28:28):
that's good for me, for booksprobably Facebook is especially
consumer books, fiction books, Iwould say Facebook's probably a
better place because you'regoing to find people who want to
buy books. If you've got abusiness book, LinkedIn might be
better. If you got a politicalbook, Twitter might be better.
Just off the cuff things. Ihaven't done any research into
(28:49):
any of those. So don't don'ttake my word for it. YouTube is
virtually always a good place tobe. If you can make videos that
people want that grab people,podcast, SoundCloud, things like
that work well if you're if youlike to talk. And don't forget
about seminars and conventions,even though convinces virtual
(29:11):
now, you can get a lot fromconventions, and things like
that. I had a friend who, wewere doing the marketing thing
together. She was promotingother marketing, other people's
books and things and she wasgetting real discouraged and I
said, Bonnie, why don't youwrite your own book, you're a
great marketer by your own book.
She's written three now that wasa year ago, she's written three,
and they're moving up in sales.
(29:34):
She's learning how to marketeven though she's a marketer,
books are different and she'slearning how to market those
books. And she's been in contactwith several major science
fiction and fantasy authors andthey're helping her promote her
book. That's called influencermarketing. By the way, you get
an influencer somebody ofinfluence and have them help
you. By posting their socialmedia and things, that really
(29:55):
works well. That's the ideabehind podcasts is, I interview
you, you've got a following yourwhole following will come to
listen to the podcast, andthey'll also come to see me.
That's how podcasts work. Ifyou've got somebody who's an
influencer. So be willing toexperiment, be willing to try
don't spend a lot of money. Andbefore you go out there and buy
(30:19):
packages, there's lots of peoplewho will sell you a promotion,
and they can cost anywhere fromalmost nothing to everything you
own. Make sure you know whatyou're doing first, before you
buy somebody, pay somebody moneyto do Google ads for you. Make
sure you understand how GoogleAds work. So that you can take a
class, take two classes so thatyou can judge whether or not
(30:41):
you're getting that $5,000you're going to spend for the
promotion is going to come backor not. I've wasted a ton of
money on promotion that I didn'tunderstand. So if your arguing
with somebody else he'llunderstand. Didn't turn out,
so...
Steve Brown (30:58):
I want to pause here just for a moment and talk
to you about a program that wehave just released called ROI.
quickstart Academy for authors.
Every day, I talk to businessowners just like you who
struggle with quickly gettingtheir fundamentals in place. We
want to create a greatfoundation and we want to grow
(31:19):
our business. But the thingsthat are in our way, our lack of
knowledge about the specifics,we should put in place, what
kind of technology what kind ofmessaging and what kind of
campaigns and that problemexists for authors as well. And
we just chill so good withauthors because, well, I'm an
author, and I understandeverything that you struggle
(31:41):
with, you have a great idea youhave a great book, but what do
you want to do, you want to getyour book in front of more
people, you want to make it easyfor them to find you learn how
they can schedule a time to talkwith you hire you for a
conference, or maybe sign up forthe services that your book
promotes. So what is theQuickstart Academy for authors?
Imagine working with a smallgroup of like minded authors,
(32:05):
and the experts from the ROIquickstart team, it's a great
way to get your messaging clearto be confident with the
technology in your marketingautomation, and how to run a
strategic campaign to get youmore of what you want from the
investment of your book. Tolearn more about the Quickstart
(32:25):
Academy for authors, you canvisit ROI online.com or click in
the link in the show notesbelow. And now, back to this
episode.
So the, you know, you youstarted writing books for other
people at where, where do youget that idea? Where do you get
(32:49):
the courage to go, Hey, I thinkI can pull your voice out of you
and help you represent yourselfbetter?
Richard Lowe (32:57):
Well, um, when I got started, I actually quit my
job and moved to Florida andstarted all over, I was decided
I was going to be a writer. Andat first I was going to be a
fiction writer. Then I ran intoa ghostwriter. And I started
writing for him. And the firstbook I wrote, for him was and
first of all, I was taking overfrom a ghostwriter who failed
(33:17):
and who left horrible notes. Theguy was from Afghanistan barely
spoke English. I didn't knowanything about Muslim culture.
And I didn't know anything aboutAfghani culture, they're
different. And I had to learnall of that. Plus, he was in a
hurry because he wanted to goback to Afghanistan. So I had to
do a full set of interviews. Ina day.
Steve Brown (33:39):
Oh my gosh.
Richard Lowe (33:40):
Yeah, sitting there and barely understanding
every fifth word that he said,his wife trying desperately
trying to translate for me. Andwe're into all kinds of
interesting things. We neverfinished the book because he
went to Afghanistan and lostinterest. But I learned a lot
about overcoming fear. At thatpoint in that book, I did a
couple more for him and then Istruck out on my own, and never
(34:03):
looked back. You just, it reallyis just a matter of, I believe
that we all create boxes that welive in through our lives, most
of the usual boxes, the Americandream, or I got to have a job
box, or I feel safe living athome box. And the only reason
(34:23):
there's a box around you is youmade the box. Get rid of it. You
don't need the box, or create anew box if you want. But there's
books on get outside the box,why do you even need a box in
the first place? That's kind ofmy philosophy, just eliminate
it. And that's kind of what Idid. And when you think about
it, I quit my six figure job andjump, jumped off the cliff and
(34:45):
moved to Florida and startedover at age 53. And was
successful. Until now I'm makingmore money now than I was making
at that six figure job just byghostwriting, and I'm having
fun, and I have no stress. Butback then there was a stretch.
And going out and meetingclients was, it was a matter of
(35:09):
I have to do this becauseotherwise, I don't know what I'm
gonna do. You know? I'm in my,in my 50s and and don't have a
degree and who's gonna hire mefor a six figure job, ran into
that problem. People thinkthere's a big prejudice against
this or that or another thing,the prejudice against old
people, older people is evenbigger. Because you try get a
(35:32):
job. Try, you know, there arepeople without a degree, and
there's a big, big biases outthere. Okay, you know, you just
overcome it, you just do it. Imean, I managed to live this
far, I can do something. Andit's just a matter of doing it.
Steve Brown (35:49):
So what are some of the common themes that you know,
you've been a ghostwriter forthis time, and you've worked
with a variety of authors. ButI'm sure there's a theme of they
think they have a book in them,but there's a process to pull
that book out of them. What aresome of the hurdles that you
help them get past to reallyidentify that that book? Yeah.
Richard Lowe (36:14):
Well, I just basically talk it through with
them. And I, they lean on me alot. And that's, that's part of
my purpose is sometimes theythey barely know what they want
to write about. And sometimesthey know exactly what they want
to write about. And sometimesthey want to help me write the
book, that first book Imentioned with the the guy
wanted to the CEO, meet the CEO.
That was a collaboration, weactually wrote the book
(36:38):
together. I mean, every singleday, we spent an hour on the
phone writing. So that was kindof that was tough on the old
back. And then there's anotherclient that I have now who
basically said, I want the bookabout this, write the book, have
fun, call me when you're done.
That's, that's a book onartificial intelligence. And so
(36:59):
I have to go out and write itevery once in a while sending a
chapter and he kind of glancesat it says, Yep, looks good.
Those are a little bit morescary, because obviously, he
hasn't reviewed it heavily yet.
So I want to make, but theprocess basically is decide what
we want to write, decide who theaudience is, go through the
outline. And then we write achapter at a time. So read the
first chapter, review it, I'mgetting better with your voice,
(37:23):
second chapter, review it, thirdchapter, review it each time,
and it's getting more and moreand more closer to what you
want. By the time we're on athird chapter, I pretty much,
we're in sync. And thenbasically, we follow that
process to the end of the book.
The main idea I have is to avoidhaving a revision phase at the
end of the book. What we want todo is revise as we go. And then
(37:46):
by the time we're done with thebook, we've got a polished
manuscript that's ready for aneditor. I always recommend that
go to an editor after they'redone with me. And the editors
are not very expensive incomparison to a ghostwriter.
And, just give a read throughthe book and make sure that it's
polished and that there's no,no, nothing sticks. I mean,
(38:07):
remember, we write the book overa period of six months to a
year. So there's going to besome inconsistencies and some
things that the editor is goingto fix. And that's what they do.
And editing is a different thingthan writing they're two
different parts of the brain.
Steve Brown (38:23):
So do you help them write their title, the book
title? That seems like that'sthe most important piece of a
book.
Richard Lowe (38:30):
The book title usually becomes apparent about
halfway through the book.
Sometimes they have it in mindat the beginning, and then it
changes. But it usually becomesapparent to them. But halfway
through the book, what Irecommend is they do research
and maybe even work with amarketing person to figure out
what that title will be. Becausethe title is something that will
help sell the book. And a titlethat sounds really clever, may
(38:50):
not be the one that sells thebook. So you've got to, you've
got to work on the, the title,but from a marketing point of
view, not from a it sounds goodpoint of view. And it can change
multiple times. But the point atwhich you can't change it is
when the paperback is published,you cannot change the title on a
(39:13):
paperback. You can change thetitle on a Kindle, but not on a
paperback.
Steve Brown (39:20):
Because?
Richard Lowe (39:21):
It's not allowed.
The Amazon and the ISPN'sservice do not allow it to
change, you have to create a newbook.
Steve Brown (39:28):
Oh really?
Richard Lowe (39:29):
Yeah, you loose all your reviews and everything
when you create the new book.
Steve Brown (39:33):
So what's your expertise as far as the Kindle
Direct Publishing, the Amazonsystem, audible? What's your
experience in that area?
Richard Lowe (39:45):
Well, I've published 60 books of my own,
plus 42 books that have beenghostwritten most of those books
for the ghostwritten side areself published all but one, the
one went traditional, with atraditional publisher, and then
on my books, 27 of them arenonfiction, and all 27 have
(40:05):
audiobooks, paperback,hardcover, and Kindle. And, you
want to hit all those formats,you can because the only cost
involved in all of that, for theplatform is $50 for the
hardcover. The paperback, Amazondoesn't charge you for the
audiobook, you can do theroyalty split with a performer,
(40:26):
or you can do the performanceyourself. A lot of people do it
themselves. Or, and the Kindleis also they don't charge for
the, what I do as part of myservice is just I charge an
hourly fee. And I can helppeople publish, I've done it a
bazillion times, over 100 timesnow. So I can help them publish
(40:46):
and all of those things, and Ijust do a pitch charge by the
hour and do it for them. Andthat works really well. They'll
also need a book cover and, aneditor and proofreader and stuff
and I help line up those things.
I don't take a commission on anyof those. When I refer, I
believe commissions introduceconflicts of interest. So I
don't take commissions. When Irefer, I just refer.
Steve Brown (41:07):
Seems like that, just like LinkedIn or you'd like
you said in social media, socialmedia has the game, they want
you to play a particular game,that exists in the Kindle Direct
Publishing and the Amazon systemas well, correct?
Richard Lowe (41:21):
Yes, yeah, I'm in Amazon, you've got categories,
which will help. So a categoryis a type of book. So let's say
you have a category of, ofartificial intelligence, and
then a type of artificialintelligence, what you want to
do is search out thosecategories to find one that has
(41:41):
sales, but not so many salesthat you can't get on the first
or second page, you want to geton the first page if you can. So
if you go look at that category,and all 20 books in the top of
that category of the first page,have 60,000 sales each a month,
you don't want that category,because you're never going to
break that they're gettingpromoted by the big publishers
and things. That's that's howthey get those sales. So what
(42:04):
you want to find is a categorythat has say, a couple 1000
sales in the first few books,and then it starts dropping off
to 50 and on 10. And now you'vegot a category that you can
break into, because you can seethat it's getting sales, but
it's not so competitive thatyou're never going to get there.
That's trick. So that's one ofthe games you've got to play.
(42:25):
Then there's keywords, you'vegot to have keyword phrases and
things in there. And Amazonkeywords are different than
Google keywords. Amazon keywordsare like, keywords were 20 years
ago on the internet. They'rejust keywords then there's, they
don't, Amazon doesn't have allthe special web bells and
whistles that Google does.
Google actually tries to figureout context and tries to figure
(42:46):
out what your article is aboutand he uses AI to do that.
Amazon doesn't care. It justknows that you have the keyword
geology in there. And then Okay,I got a book about geology.
Whoo, thanks. So you just got towork with that. And there's all
kinds of other games that youcan play. If your books not
selling. I'll just mention that.
So you put the book out thereand it's not selling. It's a bad
(43:10):
cover, or it's not gettingpromoted. Two things and, if the
cover is bad the first thing youdo is get a new cover. Second
thing you do is how are peoplegetting your odds of being
promoted is key, is the indexright? Is the category right? Is
the code keywords right? Ifthose two things are wrong, your
(43:30):
book is never gonna sell. And ifyou fix those two things, ahead
of everything else, buy a 100times, then your book will, will
probably sell. Then you look atthe other things like the look
inside the title, reviews, andthings like that, come down from
that. But if they never even getto your page, never gonna see
(43:50):
reviews. And if they hate yourcover, they're never gonna see
your reviews.
Steve Brown (43:55):
So what's a good resource for the promotion to
make sure that you're doing thepromotion aspect correctly?
Richard Lowe (44:01):
There are several websites or people out there
that do that. They chargeanywhere from I think, Bookbaby,
charges $1,000, or something,I'm not sure for a package where
they, they do the cover andpublish the book for me and
format it and, and promote it,you just got to look around and
(44:22):
find somebody you trust, andprobably fail a few times before
you find a good one or learn ityourself. There is no
accreditation out there, there'sno way to know if somebody is
good or not, other than by theirtestimonials, and what they say,
get referrals. And, try and golow before you go big. What I
(44:44):
recommend authors do is ratherthan write a big old novel that
takes them a year, and theyspend a lot of time promoting
and waste a lot of money a lotof time and then get frustrated,
publish a short Kindle ebook,5000-6000 words, say a short
story or a novelette, you knowthat novelettes usually run
about 10,000-20,000 words, writeone of those first because you
(45:07):
can write them fast, you canpolish them, and then you can
prime promote them. And you canexperiment and you're not
wasting the time, you're notwasting the money. If you write
a big old novel, and it doesn'tsell, that's a big hit of time,
and money, and resources, andthings, and pride and so forth
but a short story. Now, Kindleebooks, short Kindle ebooks tend
to sell very, very well if youpromote them, right. So you
(45:31):
could put out a 20 page ebook.
And you could probably if youreally promote it, right, and
it's got the right categoriesand title, and cover and stuff.
I've seen people sell 20,000copies and $2.99 each, just
because and they only spent, youknow, a day or two writing that
I've even seen people who'vewritten one page, short Kindle
ebooks in an hour, send it outthere and sell 1000 copies for
(45:54):
$0.99 each. So that's what Imean by getting out of the box,
get out of the box. And, Ialways recommend try something
small before you try the bigthing. You can write a lot of
Kindle, short Kindle ebooksbefore you finish that novel.
And then go the novel. It'llalso help you tune your writing
skills. So you can you canadjust those, I've got a few out
(46:17):
there and they were fun towrite. And they're just short
and sweet. And I learned a lotabout what to do what not to do.
And they're fun.
Steve Brown (46:26):
So who are the kind of, the best fit or the audience
that you work with when you sitin and help someone ghostwrite a
book? What's the, like theperfect client for you?
Richard Lowe (46:38):
Well, I'm looking for clients who are that that
level of management that Imentioned, director to C level,
who. But beyond that, I'mlooking for people, obviously,
who have the money to afford me,who have, easy to work with.
That's something that Idiscovered right away, mostly
from watching other ghostwritersis they'll take anything,
(47:02):
because they need the money. Andthey get clients who are kind of
snarky or difficult to work withor don't pay, or you go to
ghostwriting group and you'llfind lots of complaints about
people not paying on time orproblems with getting
information, I look for clientswho are easy to work with,
(47:23):
because I'm easy to work with. Ideliver. My job is to deliver
quality content on time onbudget, and give you something
that will do what you want it todo. And I do that. I'm not late,
I used to manage projects for aliving. So I know how to get
things done on time. I deliverquality. And I expect my clients
(47:46):
to, to be easy to work withbecause I left the corporate
world to get rid of the stressnot to get more. And of course
things like the pandemichappened, lost a few clients
during when it started, most ofthem came back. And
interestingly, the pandemicactually doubled my business.
Because people started, they hadtime to write books, I guess.
(48:10):
And yeah, so the ideal clientis, that now I also do fiction
ghostwriting and that's a wholedifferent kind of client. And
usually the fiction, the fictionclients want to work very, very
closely with me, they want to beright on top of it, because it's
their baby and they're kind ofnervous about giving up their
baby to a ghostwriter. And bythe time a couple chapters in
(48:33):
we're definitely cohesive as ateam and having a good time.
And, again, I want to, I want asuccessful relationship for both
of us, I want us both to feelgood about it, I want us both to
feel relaxed about it. And Idon't want us to have to worry
about it. And that's the bestkind.
Steve Brown (48:51):
So what are like, the biggest mistake you made
working with a client? Maybe youwent through the book, but you
there was something that youreally overlooked and would
never do again.
Richard Lowe (49:11):
I'm a believer of getting out of my box. But that
first ever book that I wrotewith the Afghani was way out of
my league. I mean, it was myfirst book. And it had two
ghostwriters, that failed on himbefore. And it should have been
a clue. And all the other thingsI mentioned. I mean, it was a it
(49:32):
was a fun book, the guy was apolitician in Afghanistan before
the Soviets invaded. So it wasbefore the American invasion
before the Soviet invasion. Andwhen they, there was a coup, and
when it happened, he had toleave the country or get shot.
All you know, huge story,wonderful story, sounded so
sexy, sounded so wonderful, andit's kinda I, I totally believe
(49:57):
you should do things that youdon't know how to do, just
because you can learn. Butthere's a point at which it's so
far beyond your reach that maybeyou should think twice about it.
And then there's also the price.
Maybe if you're going to, youneed to make sure your price is
is valid. This is a mistake thatmany ghostwriters or freelancers
make, is they price themselvestoo low. You can also price
yourself too high. But if youprice yourself too low, that
(50:22):
screams amateur, you need toprice yourself at a high enough
level where it says I am aprofessional. And if you want a
professional, these are therates you pay. So you do some
research to find out whatprofessionals are charging, it's
usually in the middle betweenthe highest and the lowest. And
that's what you charge. And youdon't negotiate that away, at
(50:42):
least not a lot. You, if you'recharging, you know $100 an hour
if that's what you think ofprofessional should get, then
that's what you should chargeand you should get business.
Obviously, if you can't getbusiness at $100 an hour, maybe
you should adjust your rate, ormaybe you should adjust your
marketing. But don't drop downto $5 an hour because you don't
(51:03):
think you're good enough. Chargewhat you think charges for the
value, be professional. I thinkthat's one sign of
professionals. They're chargingprofessional rates. And at least
in my experience.
Steve Brown (51:19):
So one of 60 books focus on LinkedIn create a
personal brand on LinkedIn tomake more money generate leads
and find employment, part of thebusiness professional series in
book seven. Richard, where canpeople connect with you
obviously on LinkedIn is one,where some other locations?
Richard Lowe (51:41):
Well, you can go to thewritingking.com. And
there's a, just take a look atthe website, there's a contact
form there and you can send fromthere, there's also a direct
scheduling link there. If you goto thewritingking.youcanbook.me
you can actually schedule timeto see me, then we can talk
(52:02):
about anything you know aboutyour project or whatever. That's
also on the writing Kingwebsite. You can send a message
to Rich at thewritingking.comAnd, or you can just find me on
LinkedIn @Richard Lowe Jr. orFacebook. And I'll be happy to
(52:22):
talk to you.
Steve Brown (52:23):
All right, Richard, thanks so much for being an
excellent guest on the ROIonline podcast.
Richard Lowe (52:29):
Thank you. There's a lot of fun. Thank you for
having me.
Steve Brown (52:32):
All right and that's a wrap.
Thanks for listening to anotherfun episode of the ROI online
podcast. For more, be sure tocheck out the show notes of this
episode. And feel free toconnect with me on LinkedIn
where we can chat, and I canhelp direct you to the resources
you're searching for. To learnmore about how you can grow your
business better. Be sure to pickup your copy of my book, The
(52:56):
Golden toilet at surprise thatgolden toilet.com I'm Steve
Brown, and we'll see you nextweek on another fun episode of
the ROI online podcast.
I believe that we all create boxes that we live in
through our lives, most of theusual boxes, the American dream,
or I got to have a job box, or Ifeel safe living at home box.
And the only reason there's abox around you is you made the
box. Get rid of it. You don'tneed the box, or create a new
box if you want. But there'sbooks on get outside the box,
(00:27):
why do you even need a box inthe first place? That's kind of
my philosophy, just eliminateit. And that's kind of what I
did. And when you think aboutit, I quit my six figure job and
jump, jumped off the cliff andmoved to Florida and started
over at age 53. And wassuccessful. Until now I'm making
more money now than I was makingat that six figure job just by
(00:50):
ghostwriting, and I'm havingfun, and I have no stress. But
back then there was a stretch.
And going out and meetingclients was, it was a matter of
I have to do this becauseotherwise, I don't know what I'm
gonna do.
Steve Brown (01:07):
Hi everybody, welcome to the ROI online
podcast where we believe you.
The courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is a place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:30):
learn together.
Richard LoweJr. Welcome to theROI, online podcast.
Richard Lowe (01:43):
Well, thank you for having me. This will be fun.
Steve Brown (01:45):
Yeah, so folks that are listening to this and
marketing directors, story brandguides, business professionals,
entrepreneurs. But moreimportantly, they're wondering
why in the world, they need topay attention to this episode.
And so the question we need toanswer right away is, why are
you called the Writing King?
Richard Lowe (02:06):
I'm called the Writing King because I'm a great
ghostwriter, and writer. I writebooks and blogs for people, and
articles and anything else theywant really, including LinkedIn
stuff. And I do a good job forthem. A lot of technical stuff,
and a lot of other things aswell.
Steve Brown (02:25):
That's a lot of hard work to try to bring out
someone's voice out of someonewho may not be totally settled
into their voice. How do you dothat?
Richard Lowe (02:34):
I interview them, make sure that I understand who
they are and what their messageis and who their audiences. And
then we write a few, write a fewpages, and we go back and forth
on it until we got it right.
Basically, work it until it'sright.
Steve Brown (02:49):
Well it seems like if you're like busy helping
everyone else write books seemslike you might write a book or
two, tell us about that.
Richard Lowe (02:57):
Well, I've got one science fiction book in progress
plus two books that I'mcollaborating with two different
authors on two different books.
So that's a total of three booksof my own. All of them are kind
of science fictiony. And I havea goal and then I have to write
one book in each of 12 genres,before too much longer. So I
want to write a mystery in ascience fiction and romance and
(03:20):
so forth.
Steve Brown (03:23):
You've written a book on LinkedIn, correct?
Richard Lowe (03:25):
Yes, I have called focus on LinkedIn.
Steve Brown (03:26):
And so where did that come from? Where, you know,
a lot of people are listening tothis. They're trying to figure
out how to take advantage ofLinkedIn. It's this platform
that's kind of businessy, butyou know, what rules do you
follow? How do you takeadvantage it and more
importantly, how do you get, getit to help you grow your
business or your sales?
Richard Lowe (03:47):
Well, one of the first things I did once I left
Trader Joe's was, I startedworking for a company called
LinkedIn makeover. And I didabout 300, LinkedIn profiles for
them for CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, Clevel people, down to directors,
a few ambassadors, somegovernment people. And I really
learned from one of the best,Donna Serdula, how to do a
(04:11):
profile, and what to do with it,and then how to use LinkedIn to
your advantage. In fact, I getprobably 75% of my business off
of LinkedIn. So it's, itdefinitely works when you know
how to use it, you have toleverage it, you have to have a
good profile, a good picture andso forth.
Steve Brown (04:31):
Well, let's talk about the specifics or the must
dues on our LinkedIn profile. Iseems like the right place to
start, right?
Richard Lowe (04:38):
Mm hmm. Yep.
Probably, well, let me when Ilook at somebody's profile, I
look for certain mistakes thatthey've made. The first mistake
is not having a good picture.
People, the book, the cover ofthe book sells the book. That's
a truism with LinkedIn profiles.
So if the picture is awful, thenpeople aren't going to look at
(05:00):
your your profile, your picturehas to reference, has to resolve
or relate to your brand. So ifyour brand is a circus
performer, then it's probablyokay to wear a clown suit
otherwise, probably not. If, ifyou're dressed in casual things,
and that's part of your brand,like me, I'm a writer and I'm
casual, then that fits thebrand. If you're going to be a
(05:22):
banker, probably this type ofattire would not be appropriate.
And you don't know how manyprofile pictures I see where
people have, say they're,they're just clip, they've
clipped a picture of somebodyelse, they've just hand sitting
in from somebody else over theshoulders, it's awful. I had one
who had a cemetery in thebackground. Yeah, others who had
beer bottles top, all over theplace and room, you got to watch
(05:47):
the background. The advice isget a professional picture. Even
if you go to JC Penney's, orsome supermarket mall
photographer and get a goodquality professional photo, well
dressed, even makeup to cleanyou up, then and then maybe even
retouch the photo a little bit.
(06:08):
Make that photo as professionalas possible without being, you
know, obviously, professionally,without being too obvious about
it, if that makes sense.
Steve Brown (06:19):
All right so picture, real important is
number one. What's number twomistake people make?
Richard Lowe (06:25):
Headline, their headline would say something
goofy. Usually, they put in mostpeople put in their title, their
title is probably the leastimportant thing they need to be
promoting. What they want topromote is what they do and what
they deliver. So what do you do?
I'm a ghostwriter. What do Ideliver? I deliver quality books
to people, I'm just off the cuffthing. What's the, what's the
deliverable that your businessor your job is? And it needs to
(06:50):
be kind of keyword driven. Sothink find some keywords on
Google, because it's going to bereferenced in Google that that
makes sense. Obviously, mine'sghostwriting and ghostwriter. So
that's how you'll be found. Ifyou're, if you're a banker, then
you want to have some bankingrelated keywords in there. And
you want it to really portrayyour, your call to action, you
(07:13):
know, also at the end. And youprobably don't want to put
things like looking for work,because that immediate, then a
lot of people do that. I've seenit a lot after the pandemic. And
that probably is not what youwant to do. You don't need to
hide that you're looking forwork, but you probably don't
want to put it out there on onthe headline, because that's
going to be on the front page,that's gonna be in all search
(07:33):
engines, you want somethingthat's going to search well, and
it's very important. And this issame thing with all of the
headlines on each one of yourexperiences, you can put in more
keywords there too. And you wantto make sure that all of those
keywords and experiences align,and that they give you
additional room for phrases andthings and you only need to put
them in once. You only need tosay ghostwriter once, Google and
(07:55):
LinkedIn are smart enough tofigure it out from there, you
don't need to have it sprinkledall over the place and stuff
keywords and things. It's notgonna like that.
Steve Brown (08:04):
All right. And then number three mistake that people
usually make on their LinkedInprofile.
Richard Lowe (08:10):
Their about page is their resume. And they use
they just cut and paste theirresume in and it's in third
person, your LinkedIn profileand your about page should be in
first person, I, me rather thanthird person or past tense. What
do you do now? What are youdoing now? I do this, I deliver
(08:30):
this product, I deliver thisservice. And here are my
statistics. That's what you wantto say in your LinkedIn about
page. You don't want to saythese are my responsibilities.
Nobody cares what yourresponsibilities are or where,
what they care about is what areyou going to deliver for me?
What have you, how can you backthat up? I you know, I increased
ROI by 5% over a period of ayear, or something like that,
(08:54):
or, and sometimes you got to becareful with numbers. A lot of
banks don't allow numbers to beon LinkedIn, I found out the
hard way. Don't do that. So becareful with numbers sometimes,
especially if you're publiclyowned. But make sure that "about
thing" is in present tense andmake sure it's about you, not
your company, not your business,but it's about you and then your
(09:17):
business. And because when I seethe LinkedIn profile for Tom,
Sully, I want to see what TomSully does. And what is it about
Tom, Sully and how, what he cando for me, why am I interested
in looking at him, why he candeliver me this. That's what you
want to have in there.
Steve Brown (09:34):
Okay, so we get our profiles squared away, and we
get that upgraded. Like, who doI connect to? What do I do next?
Richard Lowe (09:44):
Well, then the next thing you want to do on
your profile is have yourexperiences also, and it should
tell us coherent story. So itshould starting from your
education, work forward. And ifyou're an engineer now, but in
the past you were say, an automechanic. How does Auto being an
auto mechanic help you be anengineer? And just think about
that and maybe write it in therea little bit. Connecting with
(10:06):
people, connect with as manypeople as you can. But use some
caution about connecting withthem quickly. LinkedIn, like all
social media has spam filters.
So be sure that you're not like,okay, connect, connect, connect,
connect, connect, connect,connect group, you're locked
out, and it will lock you out,connect to people on through the
day, and as you meet them, andas you find them in, in groups
(10:29):
and things. And as you run intothem online and as you go
through stuff, link with connectwith them, says it looks more
natural, and you want it to bemore natural than just bang,
bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
Facebook's the same way, if you,if you connect with too many
people, or friend too manypeople on Facebook too quickly,
it will lock your account out.
So just be careful about that.
(10:53):
But don't hesitate aboutconnecting with people. And if
you don't know them write alittle introduction, like, Hi I
know, I read your book. I dothat a lot you know, I read your
book, I got interested in you orI see you're interested in AI
and I'm a writer about AI, how'dyou like to talk? Stuff like
that, something to make itpersonal. And don't sell. You
obviously, I'm a writer and Iread about AI, you want to talk
(11:15):
about it, it's just a little bitof selling. But it's more of an
introduction. But if you sendout a sales message, first of
all, if you send it to me, I'mgonna block you, if that's the
first thing you send me, I'mliterally gonna block you so I
never hear from you again. And,that's gonna happen a lot. So
that message needs to besustained and needs to be at
(11:36):
least semi targeted and notappear robotic. And do a lot of
connecting, you need to have alot of connections, you should
be able to build up 1000connections in six months, easy.
I've got almost 9000 now andlike I keep building them up
every single day. And make surethat your audience, that's super
(11:58):
important, it's important when Iwrite books for people, is
important when I write blogs forpeople, who are you talking to?
What are you looking for onLinkedIn? That's super
important, your, if you'relooking for people from India
who sell ink cartridges, thenthat's the people you should be
connecting with. If you're not,then don't be connecting with
(12:19):
those people. Not that there'sanything wrong with that. Just
just if your target is bankers,then connect to bankers, and
target your LinkedIn towardsbankers. So it's super important
to understand who you're talkingto, and who you want to attract,
you cannot attract everybody. Soattract the audience that you
want. That's very, veryimportant.
Steve Brown (12:42):
A lot of the etiquette, and the protocol that
you follow on LinkedIn isdifferent than the other social
media platforms, it's moreprofessional, more respectful.
So once you start building outthese connections, then I think
the dilemma is what in the worlddo I post on in how often and
(13:03):
there's just seems to be a lotof confusion around that
Richard Lowe (13:07):
Post every single day. Even if it's just 100
words, post something, somethingabout, you know, a success
you've had, or something youlearned or a class you attended,
or an article you read, orsomething, you want people to
begin to notice those, LinkedInwill notice that you're posting
a lot. But here's the secret toall social media, is the word
(13:30):
social. Social media wants youto be social. And the way to be
social is to post a lot, and tocomment on other people's and
share other people's posts.
Link, liking doesn't matter. TheLinkedIn and all the social
media doesn't really care aboutlikes and things. But you want
to comment on other people'sposts and other people's things.
(13:50):
And then LinkedIn, or Facebook,or YouTube or whatever, it goes,
Oh, this person's playing thegame that I want to play. Good,
I'm gonna reward him by sendinghim more people. And especially
about the subject of which he'scommented on. So if the subject
you commented on is politics,you're going to start receiving
a lot of politics posts. If thesubject is AI, which tends to be
(14:11):
me, then you're going to startreceiving more and more
artificial intelligence posts.
And, but that's the key to sortof, to succeeding on social
media, any social media, playthe game that it wants you to
play. If you don't play thatgame, you're not going to get
the views and the likes and thecomments and things and you're
(14:32):
not going to get people noticingyou.
Steve Brown (14:34):
That's interesting, because a lot of people are,
they really, they're stymied bywhat they should post. But what
you're communicating is, youdon't have to really worry about
that right now. Go and be socialand comment on other people's
posts is just as advantageous?
Richard Lowe (14:52):
It's just as advantageous is probably even
more advantageous, but you wantto do both. But as you're
commenting on other people'sposts, your brain will say Oh, I
could write a few 100 wordsabout that, maybe I'll post
about that. Or, maybe I havesomething similar to that that I
can post about. So you'll getsome ideas. And you can even use
(15:12):
the Add sign to reference theperson that you borrowed the
idea from and say, Hey, youknow, I got I got this from you,
and he's gonna come and look atyour thing, and he might start
sending it out to people. Andthat's even more social. When
you start doing stuff like that.
LinkedIn loves that kind ofstuff.
Steve Brown (15:27):
Wow. So then, time, you would think that, people's,
their objection would be I don'thave all this time to spend on
social media every day. But howdo you answer that question?
Richard Lowe (15:43):
15 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day tops, set a
time. Do it while you're eatingbreakfast, or when you have some
downtime or something. Set atime every single day when
you're going to do this. And doit every single day, five days a
week, whatever your work daysare, I tend to sprinkle it on
different times of the day, so Ilike to do a little bit in the
morning a little bit at noon,then a little bit at night,
(16:04):
maybe 15 minutes at a time. Itdoesn't take a lot. You just go
through your feed, do somecommenting, do a couple shares.
Write a quick post, maybe once aweek, spend an extra hour
writing an article or even oncea month, you can always hire a
ghostwriter to write thosearticles for you. And I have a
(16:24):
lot of clients who do that. Theyhave me write their LinkedIn
articles for them, and then theypost them. And that's, that's
very common. Just make sure youget a good ghostwriter. And not
something, somebody who's notprofessional. The idea is to be
professional and to get toappear professional.
Steve Brown (16:44):
So writing, obviously, is a something that
is rewarded, good writing, orgood thoughtful writing, give us
some ideas or things that maybewe haven't considered that would
help us become better.
Richard Lowe (17:01):
Well, first of all, again, think of who your
audience is. Who are you writingit to? That's number one. What's
the theme? Who are you writingthis article to? And why am I
writing it? So if I'm writing anarticle about artificial
intelligence, is that aimed atmanagers? Is that aimed at
technical people? Is that aimedat people who want to hire me?
Who's it aimed at? Let's sayit's aimed at directors level
(17:23):
people, well director levelpeople maybe aren't interested
in the bits and bytes and stuff,they just want to know what it
does. So write an article atthat level. And then, what's the
theme? The theme is artificialintelligence can help the
consumer because it controlstheir house for them makes their
alarm system safer, whatever. Sothat's the theme. And then just
(17:44):
write it around the theme andwrite it to the audience. And
keep those two things in mind.
And you're gonna do fine. Andbreak it down into just headers
and sub headers, use head usethe heading a lot, so that it
has some logical flow, and putin pictures and videos. If
you've got them. Pictures andvideos do great. Be careful with
with just hunting around onGoogle for pictures, because
(18:07):
you're gonna run into copyrightissues. And you could get sued.
Make sure you use stock photo,you can get free ones from
Pixabay or use your smartphoneand take some pictures yourself.
If you're writing an articleabout the factory and you happen
to work in a factory, go out inthe shop floor and take some
pictures of those machines,assuming your company allows
that. If you're working in abank, take pictures of what,
(18:30):
some teller stuff or some moneyflowing, or something taking
yourself, they don't have toworry about copyright and it's
unique. And Google loves unique.
And the more you do that, thebetter you're going to be. And
videos are great too. LinkedInhas has been slowly rolling out
LinkedIn live, which is the sameas Facebook Live, but you can
post videos all the time fromwhatever source you want from
(18:52):
your camera or smartphone and dothat a lot.
Steve Brown (18:56):
What are some best practices as far as video? The
length of time, you know I don'tknow what right question is that
there.
Richard Lowe (19:04):
Short and sweet, 30 seconds to 60 seconds is a
good length. A minute, fiveminutes even is probably okay
once in a while. People'sattention spans are very short.
So, and funny if you can make itfunny, funny is good. Keep it
high level and make itinspirational is another thing
(19:26):
you can do. Just a straightMatter of fact videos probably
not going to get a lot of hits.
But a funny video will get a lotof hits. So if you're writing
about HR think of a way to makeHR funny, maybe some of those
horror stories that some ofyour, you've got come in over
the years of people saying theydid this, or they did that, or
you caught people doing thiswouldn't it, as long as you
(19:46):
change the names, of coursewould probably make great
videos, stories. But video iskind of tough, because a lot of
people are kind of introverted.
So they don't do well on video.
And if you don't do well onvideo, don't do it. If you like
video, do it. If you likepodcasts, do it. If you don't,
then don't do it. That's myrecommendation for everybody is,
(20:08):
pick the social media type thatworks for you. I happen to like
podcasts and I like LinkedIn.
And two channels, two differentthings are probably about as
much as most people can processand that's as much as I can do.
So I tend to not use Facebook asmuch. Because it's not really my
(20:28):
market. But if you likeFacebook, and you can get sales
on Facebook or sell yourservices or sell yourself, then
use Facebook. Pick the one thatworks if you're if you're an
extrovert, maybe video is greatfor you. For me, I'm not a video
person. I don't mind video, butthat's not where I come across
really well. I tend to do goodon podcasts. And that's just,
(20:50):
and LinkedIn Of course, I prettymuch got wired.
Steve Brown (20:55):
So when we, you keep mentioning artificial
intelligence. Where did youstart to get interested in that
and why?
Richard Lowe (21:04):
Well, I've been interested in that, since I
found out about it many, manyyears ago. And it I'm fascinated
by the subject of AI, artificialintelligence, augmented reality,
virtual reality, machinelearning and big data and things
like that. I'm a techie, that'swhere my background is
technical. So those things kindof, kind of, I just kind of fell
(21:26):
into those. And I startedwriting books on it, because I
could talk the talk and alsokind of walk the walk a bit. And
it just became more and more ofan area where I'm really good at
writing about, because I'velearned a lot about it. But at a
management level, not in thetechie level, I don't tend to
write down in the weeds articlesabout how the technology works
(21:50):
at low level, that's really notmy forte, I'll tend to write at
the higher level like trying tosell a certain kind of AI to
managers, or how does ouraugmented reality help a
warehouse? That's the gogglesthat yes, you can get see
things, those are really cool.
So I'm kind of fascinated bythat. And I'm fascinated by how
that will change the world, andhow it is changing the world.
Steve Brown (22:11):
So you've written several books for, you know, the
way I see that I can add valueis by helping business owners
understand why this particulartechnology could be advantageous
not in the weeds, like you'retalking about, but you know,
applied application of that.
That's what I'm understandingthat your your books are?
Richard Lowe (22:34):
Well, most of my books are written by people who
want to enhance their career. Sothey use the book as kind of
this is my credibility, this ismy expertise, this is my story.
This is about me, and about howI can help others and educate
others. So they write the bookis kind of their, their way in
their their additional powerover everybody else. Gives them
(22:58):
a step up. So when they walkinto a job interview this I
wrote the book on AI, when theywant to get press, they send the
press the book, their book, whenthey want to give speeches, they
use the book, and a lot of myclients go into the speech
route. And keynote speeches,five grand a pop at least so you
(23:19):
can go in and get us keynotespeech at a conference, you've
got a made if you can startdoing that. And that's what a
lot of them do with the books, Ihelp them write.
Steve Brown (23:27):
So where are they in their career, there's a life
cycle that a lot of people,there's probably a common
pattern that you see businessowners kind of raise their head
up and go, Hmm, I think I shouldwrite a book.
Richard Lowe (23:39):
Usually they're at a point where they feel like
they want to advance, but theysee some barriers to that. The
barrier on one of my clients wasthat he, he was in a fortune 50
company, and he was kind ofstuck at a senior VP level of a
division. And he wanted to getup to the major player and be a
(24:02):
major player. And he justcouldn't quite get out of that,
that rut, so to speak. And hehired me to help him write a
book, which was interestingenough, was one of my first
books. And he specifically hadthe goal of getting the notice
of the CEO of the Fortune 50company, the whole thing. And
when he was done the CEO roundupwriting the foreword to the
(24:24):
book. So he achieved that, hegets keynote speeches before the
pandemic anyway, for $10,000 apop, he gets paid for the book.
And he gets its textbook andclassrooms over in where he
lives and it also sells onAmazon. So he's, and he donates
all the money from that tocharity because he doesn't care.
(24:46):
That's not what he wrote it for.
And most of my clients don'tcare about Amazon book sales.
That's it's an extra thing. Whatthey care about is they can show
that book to somebody say Iwrote the book on this subject
that makes me an expert. Andthen for blogs, it's usually
somebody who wants to, is alittle bit lower level, maybe VP
level or director level whowants to build their image up so
they can continue pursuing thatcareer.
Steve Brown (25:10):
So this fits into the LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a
perfect place for you to startto maybe introduce your book or
promote your book. What are somegood strategies for the authors
that are listening?
Richard Lowe (25:23):
To promote their books? First of all, they have
to find out which social mediaplatform works for them. That
takes experimenting, I would sayto back up a minute, they have
to be willing to experiment onthe promotion. In the backup
even more from that they have tobe willing to promote. Most
writers, as in many technicalpeople, and I'll just make this
(25:46):
generality, please don't killme, are introverted. They start
writing because it's easier towrite to a piece of paper than
it is to talk to people. Thatwas me anyway, a long time ago.
I'm kind of grown out of that.
And, thus, having to promotemeans "Oh, no, I got to come out
of my shell and I got to go talkto people" Some writers find
that exhilarating. And they theyactually figured out how to
(26:09):
promote and others. They neverget through that wall of
promotion. It's like a wall offire, they can never get through
it. And they get discouraged.
And they never read a bookagain, because they hit that
wall. They didn't think aboutit. So you have to be willing to
promote and then you have to bewilling to experiment. And you
have to be willing to fail.
Because you're going to tryFacebook and it might work or
not fails. Well, what you dowrong, and what you know, I
(26:33):
tried Facebook ads Didn't work.
Okay, move on, you know spentseveral $100 lost, gone waste
paper, move on to the next thingLinkedIn ad, didn't work. Okay,
pretty soon I got the idea thatthe ads don't work, not for me.
And it's just a training thing.
I'm not an expert in that. Sothen the answer is do I want to
(26:55):
hire somebody to do it or wantto move on to something else?
Then I tried YouTube. Thatdidn't work for me, just because
I'm not a video person. And I'dtried podcasts. And then I
started getting people callingin from podcast saying, "We
heard you on a podcast, we wantto buy one of your books" One of
my hardcover books or you knowsomething, or actually buy my
(27:16):
services, I've had several$10,000 contracts come off of
podcasts, that was very useful.
I've also had quite a few booksales. So you need to find out
what works for you, and youexperiment, and don't spend real
money. I mean, you know, don'tspend billions of dollars or
1000s of 1000s of dollars, justspend a little bit. Amazon
(27:40):
marketing ads tend to work verywell for a short time. So maybe
spend a 20 bucks on that in amonth and see what happens or 30
bucks or whatever it costs.
They're paid, remember their payper click, they're not pay per
sale. So you got to be realcareful, those things can really
suck the money out of you, fast.
Google ads, or, for me, theymean, it's the money just like a
(28:05):
vacuum cleaner, and you got tobe really careful with them. So
find that for me, the channelthat works best is LinkedIn. And
that's because I'm making I'm mycontracts are fairly large, I
only need a dozen of them a yearto make a living, a good living.
So I can go out there and I talkto people get in a conversation
and then before long, they wantto use my services. So that's,
(28:28):
that's good for me, for booksprobably Facebook is especially
consumer books, fiction books, Iwould say Facebook's probably a
better place because you'regoing to find people who want to
buy books. If you've got abusiness book, LinkedIn might be
better. If you got a politicalbook, Twitter might be better.
Just off the cuff things. Ihaven't done any research into
(28:49):
any of those. So don't don'ttake my word for it. YouTube is
virtually always a good place tobe. If you can make videos that
people want that grab people,podcast, SoundCloud, things like
that work well if you're if youlike to talk. And don't forget
about seminars and conventions,even though convinces virtual
(29:11):
now, you can get a lot fromconventions, and things like
that. I had a friend who, wewere doing the marketing thing
together. She was promotingother marketing, other people's
books and things and she wasgetting real discouraged and I
said, Bonnie, why don't youwrite your own book, you're a
great marketer by your own book.
She's written three now that wasa year ago, she's written three,
and they're moving up in sales.
(29:34):
She's learning how to marketeven though she's a marketer,
books are different and she'slearning how to market those
books. And she's been in contactwith several major science
fiction and fantasy authors andthey're helping her promote her
book. That's called influencermarketing. By the way, you get
an influencer somebody ofinfluence and have them help
you. By posting their socialmedia and things, that really
(29:55):
works well. That's the ideabehind podcasts is, I interview
you, you've got a following yourwhole following will come to
listen to the podcast, andthey'll also come to see me.
That's how podcasts work. Ifyou've got somebody who's an
influencer. So be willing toexperiment, be willing to try
don't spend a lot of money. Andbefore you go out there and buy
(30:19):
packages, there's lots of peoplewho will sell you a promotion,
and they can cost anywhere fromalmost nothing to everything you
own. Make sure you know whatyou're doing first, before you
buy somebody, pay somebody moneyto do Google ads for you. Make
sure you understand how GoogleAds work. So that you can take a
class, take two classes so thatyou can judge whether or not
(30:41):
you're getting that $5,000you're going to spend for the
promotion is going to come backor not. I've wasted a ton of
money on promotion that I didn'tunderstand. So if your arguing
with somebody else he'llunderstand. Didn't turn out,
so...
Steve Brown (30:58):
I want to pause here just for a moment and talk
to you about a program that wehave just released called ROI.
quickstart Academy for authors.
Every day, I talk to businessowners just like you who
struggle with quickly gettingtheir fundamentals in place. We
want to create a greatfoundation and we want to grow
(31:19):
our business. But the thingsthat are in our way, our lack of
knowledge about the specifics,we should put in place, what
kind of technology what kind ofmessaging and what kind of
campaigns and that problemexists for authors as well. And
we just chill so good withauthors because, well, I'm an
author, and I understandeverything that you struggle
(31:41):
with, you have a great idea youhave a great book, but what do
you want to do, you want to getyour book in front of more
people, you want to make it easyfor them to find you learn how
they can schedule a time to talkwith you hire you for a
conference, or maybe sign up forthe services that your book
promotes. So what is theQuickstart Academy for authors?
Imagine working with a smallgroup of like minded authors,
(32:05):
and the experts from the ROIquickstart team, it's a great
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investment of your book. Tolearn more about the Quickstart
(32:25):
Academy for authors, you canvisit ROI online.com or click in
the link in the show notesbelow. And now, back to this
episode.
So the, you know, you youstarted writing books for other
people at where, where do youget that idea? Where do you get
(32:49):
the courage to go, Hey, I thinkI can pull your voice out of you
and help you represent yourselfbetter?
Richard Lowe (32:57):
Well, um, when I got started, I actually quit my
job and moved to Florida andstarted all over, I was decided
I was going to be a writer. Andat first I was going to be a
fiction writer. Then I ran intoa ghostwriter. And I started
writing for him. And the firstbook I wrote, for him was and
first of all, I was taking overfrom a ghostwriter who failed
(33:17):
and who left horrible notes. Theguy was from Afghanistan barely
spoke English. I didn't knowanything about Muslim culture.
And I didn't know anything aboutAfghani culture, they're
different. And I had to learnall of that. Plus, he was in a
hurry because he wanted to goback to Afghanistan. So I had to
do a full set of interviews. Ina day.
Steve Brown (33:39):
Oh my gosh.
Richard Lowe (33:40):
Yeah, sitting there and barely understanding
every fifth word that he said,his wife trying desperately
trying to translate for me. Andwe're into all kinds of
interesting things. We neverfinished the book because he
went to Afghanistan and lostinterest. But I learned a lot
about overcoming fear. At thatpoint in that book, I did a
couple more for him and then Istruck out on my own, and never
(34:03):
looked back. You just, it reallyis just a matter of, I believe
that we all create boxes that welive in through our lives, most
of the usual boxes, the Americandream, or I got to have a job
box, or I feel safe living athome box. And the only reason
(34:23):
there's a box around you is youmade the box. Get rid of it. You
don't need the box, or create anew box if you want. But there's
books on get outside the box,why do you even need a box in
the first place? That's kind ofmy philosophy, just eliminate
it. And that's kind of what Idid. And when you think about
it, I quit my six figure job andjump, jumped off the cliff and
(34:45):
moved to Florida and startedover at age 53. And was
successful. Until now I'm makingmore money now than I was making
at that six figure job just byghostwriting, and I'm having
fun, and I have no stress. Butback then there was a stretch.
And going out and meetingclients was, it was a matter of
(35:09):
I have to do this becauseotherwise, I don't know what I'm
gonna do. You know? I'm in my,in my 50s and and don't have a
degree and who's gonna hire mefor a six figure job, ran into
that problem. People thinkthere's a big prejudice against
this or that or another thing,the prejudice against old
people, older people is evenbigger. Because you try get a
(35:32):
job. Try, you know, there arepeople without a degree, and
there's a big, big biases outthere. Okay, you know, you just
overcome it, you just do it. Imean, I managed to live this
far, I can do something. Andit's just a matter of doing it.
Steve Brown (35:49):
So what are some of the common themes that you know,
you've been a ghostwriter forthis time, and you've worked
with a variety of authors. ButI'm sure there's a theme of they
think they have a book in them,but there's a process to pull
that book out of them. What aresome of the hurdles that you
help them get past to reallyidentify that that book? Yeah.
Richard Lowe (36:14):
Well, I just basically talk it through with
them. And I, they lean on me alot. And that's, that's part of
my purpose is sometimes theythey barely know what they want
to write about. And sometimesthey know exactly what they want
to write about. And sometimesthey want to help me write the
book, that first book Imentioned with the the guy
wanted to the CEO, meet the CEO.
That was a collaboration, weactually wrote the book
(36:38):
together. I mean, every singleday, we spent an hour on the
phone writing. So that was kindof that was tough on the old
back. And then there's anotherclient that I have now who
basically said, I want the bookabout this, write the book, have
fun, call me when you're done.
That's, that's a book onartificial intelligence. And so
(36:59):
I have to go out and write itevery once in a while sending a
chapter and he kind of glancesat it says, Yep, looks good.
Those are a little bit morescary, because obviously, he
hasn't reviewed it heavily yet.
So I want to make, but theprocess basically is decide what
we want to write, decide who theaudience is, go through the
outline. And then we write achapter at a time. So read the
first chapter, review it, I'mgetting better with your voice,
(37:23):
second chapter, review it, thirdchapter, review it each time,
and it's getting more and moreand more closer to what you
want. By the time we're on athird chapter, I pretty much,
we're in sync. And thenbasically, we follow that
process to the end of the book.
The main idea I have is to avoidhaving a revision phase at the
end of the book. What we want todo is revise as we go. And then
(37:46):
by the time we're done with thebook, we've got a polished
manuscript that's ready for aneditor. I always recommend that
go to an editor after they'redone with me. And the editors
are not very expensive incomparison to a ghostwriter.
And, just give a read throughthe book and make sure that it's
polished and that there's no,no, nothing sticks. I mean,
(38:07):
remember, we write the book overa period of six months to a
year. So there's going to besome inconsistencies and some
things that the editor is goingto fix. And that's what they do.
And editing is a different thingthan writing they're two
different parts of the brain.
Steve Brown (38:23):
So do you help them write their title, the book
title? That seems like that'sthe most important piece of a
book.
Richard Lowe (38:30):
The book title usually becomes apparent about
halfway through the book.
Sometimes they have it in mindat the beginning, and then it
changes. But it usually becomesapparent to them. But halfway
through the book, what Irecommend is they do research
and maybe even work with amarketing person to figure out
what that title will be. Becausethe title is something that will
help sell the book. And a titlethat sounds really clever, may
(38:50):
not be the one that sells thebook. So you've got to, you've
got to work on the, the title,but from a marketing point of
view, not from a it sounds goodpoint of view. And it can change
multiple times. But the point atwhich you can't change it is
when the paperback is published,you cannot change the title on a
(39:13):
paperback. You can change thetitle on a Kindle, but not on a
paperback.
Steve Brown (39:20):
Because?
Richard Lowe (39:21):
It's not allowed.
The Amazon and the ISPN'sservice do not allow it to
change, you have to create a newbook.
Steve Brown (39:28):
Oh really?
Richard Lowe (39:29):
Yeah, you loose all your reviews and everything
when you create the new book.
Steve Brown (39:33):
So what's your expertise as far as the Kindle
Direct Publishing, the Amazonsystem, audible? What's your
experience in that area?
Richard Lowe (39:45):
Well, I've published 60 books of my own,
plus 42 books that have beenghostwritten most of those books
for the ghostwritten side areself published all but one, the
one went traditional, with atraditional publisher, and then
on my books, 27 of them arenonfiction, and all 27 have
(40:05):
audiobooks, paperback,hardcover, and Kindle. And, you
want to hit all those formats,you can because the only cost
involved in all of that, for theplatform is $50 for the
hardcover. The paperback, Amazondoesn't charge you for the
audiobook, you can do theroyalty split with a performer,
(40:26):
or you can do the performanceyourself. A lot of people do it
themselves. Or, and the Kindleis also they don't charge for
the, what I do as part of myservice is just I charge an
hourly fee. And I can helppeople publish, I've done it a
bazillion times, over 100 timesnow. So I can help them publish
(40:46):
and all of those things, and Ijust do a pitch charge by the
hour and do it for them. Andthat works really well. They'll
also need a book cover and, aneditor and proofreader and stuff
and I help line up those things.
I don't take a commission on anyof those. When I refer, I
believe commissions introduceconflicts of interest. So I
don't take commissions. When Irefer, I just refer.
Steve Brown (41:07):
Seems like that, just like LinkedIn or you'd like
you said in social media, socialmedia has the game, they want
you to play a particular game,that exists in the Kindle Direct
Publishing and the Amazon systemas well, correct?
Richard Lowe (41:21):
Yes, yeah, I'm in Amazon, you've got categories,
which will help. So a categoryis a type of book. So let's say
you have a category of, ofartificial intelligence, and
then a type of artificialintelligence, what you want to
do is search out thosecategories to find one that has
(41:41):
sales, but not so many salesthat you can't get on the first
or second page, you want to geton the first page if you can. So
if you go look at that category,and all 20 books in the top of
that category of the first page,have 60,000 sales each a month,
you don't want that category,because you're never going to
break that they're gettingpromoted by the big publishers
and things. That's that's howthey get those sales. So what
(42:04):
you want to find is a categorythat has say, a couple 1000
sales in the first few books,and then it starts dropping off
to 50 and on 10. And now you'vegot a category that you can
break into, because you can seethat it's getting sales, but
it's not so competitive thatyou're never going to get there.
That's trick. So that's one ofthe games you've got to play.
(42:25):
Then there's keywords, you'vegot to have keyword phrases and
things in there. And Amazonkeywords are different than
Google keywords. Amazon keywordsare like, keywords were 20 years
ago on the internet. They'rejust keywords then there's, they
don't, Amazon doesn't have allthe special web bells and
whistles that Google does.
Google actually tries to figureout context and tries to figure
(42:46):
out what your article is aboutand he uses AI to do that.
Amazon doesn't care. It justknows that you have the keyword
geology in there. And then Okay,I got a book about geology.
Whoo, thanks. So you just got towork with that. And there's all
kinds of other games that youcan play. If your books not
selling. I'll just mention that.
So you put the book out thereand it's not selling. It's a bad
(43:10):
cover, or it's not gettingpromoted. Two things and, if the
cover is bad the first thing youdo is get a new cover. Second
thing you do is how are peoplegetting your odds of being
promoted is key, is the indexright? Is the category right? Is
the code keywords right? Ifthose two things are wrong, your
(43:30):
book is never gonna sell. And ifyou fix those two things, ahead
of everything else, buy a 100times, then your book will, will
probably sell. Then you look atthe other things like the look
inside the title, reviews, andthings like that, come down from
that. But if they never even getto your page, never gonna see
(43:50):
reviews. And if they hate yourcover, they're never gonna see
your reviews.
Steve Brown (43:55):
So what's a good resource for the promotion to
make sure that you're doing thepromotion aspect correctly?
Richard Lowe (44:01):
There are several websites or people out there
that do that. They chargeanywhere from I think, Bookbaby,
charges $1,000, or something,I'm not sure for a package where
they, they do the cover andpublish the book for me and
format it and, and promote it,you just got to look around and
(44:22):
find somebody you trust, andprobably fail a few times before
you find a good one or learn ityourself. There is no
accreditation out there, there'sno way to know if somebody is
good or not, other than by theirtestimonials, and what they say,
get referrals. And, try and golow before you go big. What I
(44:44):
recommend authors do is ratherthan write a big old novel that
takes them a year, and theyspend a lot of time promoting
and waste a lot of money a lotof time and then get frustrated,
publish a short Kindle ebook,5000-6000 words, say a short
story or a novelette, you knowthat novelettes usually run
about 10,000-20,000 words, writeone of those first because you
(45:07):
can write them fast, you canpolish them, and then you can
prime promote them. And you canexperiment and you're not
wasting the time, you're notwasting the money. If you write
a big old novel, and it doesn'tsell, that's a big hit of time,
and money, and resources, andthings, and pride and so forth
but a short story. Now, Kindleebooks, short Kindle ebooks tend
to sell very, very well if youpromote them, right. So you
(45:31):
could put out a 20 page ebook.
And you could probably if youreally promote it, right, and
it's got the right categoriesand title, and cover and stuff.
I've seen people sell 20,000copies and $2.99 each, just
because and they only spent, youknow, a day or two writing that
I've even seen people who'vewritten one page, short Kindle
ebooks in an hour, send it outthere and sell 1000 copies for
(45:54):
$0.99 each. So that's what Imean by getting out of the box,
get out of the box. And, Ialways recommend try something
small before you try the bigthing. You can write a lot of
Kindle, short Kindle ebooksbefore you finish that novel.
And then go the novel. It'llalso help you tune your writing
skills. So you can you canadjust those, I've got a few out
(46:17):
there and they were fun towrite. And they're just short
and sweet. And I learned a lotabout what to do what not to do.
And they're fun.
Steve Brown (46:26):
So who are the kind of, the best fit or the audience
that you work with when you sitin and help someone ghostwrite a
book? What's the, like theperfect client for you?
Richard Lowe (46:38):
Well, I'm looking for clients who are that that
level of management that Imentioned, director to C level,
who. But beyond that, I'mlooking for people, obviously,
who have the money to afford me,who have, easy to work with.
That's something that Idiscovered right away, mostly
from watching other ghostwritersis they'll take anything,
(47:02):
because they need the money. Andthey get clients who are kind of
snarky or difficult to work withor don't pay, or you go to
ghostwriting group and you'llfind lots of complaints about
people not paying on time orproblems with getting
information, I look for clientswho are easy to work with,
(47:23):
because I'm easy to work with. Ideliver. My job is to deliver
quality content on time onbudget, and give you something
that will do what you want it todo. And I do that. I'm not late,
I used to manage projects for aliving. So I know how to get
things done on time. I deliverquality. And I expect my clients
(47:46):
to, to be easy to work withbecause I left the corporate
world to get rid of the stressnot to get more. And of course
things like the pandemichappened, lost a few clients
during when it started, most ofthem came back. And
interestingly, the pandemicactually doubled my business.
Because people started, they hadtime to write books, I guess.
(48:10):
And yeah, so the ideal clientis, that now I also do fiction
ghostwriting and that's a wholedifferent kind of client. And
usually the fiction, the fictionclients want to work very, very
closely with me, they want to beright on top of it, because it's
their baby and they're kind ofnervous about giving up their
baby to a ghostwriter. And bythe time a couple chapters in
(48:33):
we're definitely cohesive as ateam and having a good time.
And, again, I want to, I want asuccessful relationship for both
of us, I want us both to feelgood about it, I want us both to
feel relaxed about it. And Idon't want us to have to worry
about it. And that's the bestkind.
Steve Brown (48:51):
So what are like, the biggest mistake you made
working with a client? Maybe youwent through the book, but you
there was something that youreally overlooked and would
never do again.
Richard Lowe (49:11):
I'm a believer of getting out of my box. But that
first ever book that I wrotewith the Afghani was way out of
my league. I mean, it was myfirst book. And it had two
ghostwriters, that failed on himbefore. And it should have been
a clue. And all the other thingsI mentioned. I mean, it was a it
(49:32):
was a fun book, the guy was apolitician in Afghanistan before
the Soviets invaded. So it wasbefore the American invasion
before the Soviet invasion. Andwhen they, there was a coup, and
when it happened, he had toleave the country or get shot.
All you know, huge story,wonderful story, sounded so
sexy, sounded so wonderful, andit's kinda I, I totally believe
(49:57):
you should do things that youdon't know how to do, just
because you can learn. Butthere's a point at which it's so
far beyond your reach that maybeyou should think twice about it.
And then there's also the price.
Maybe if you're going to, youneed to make sure your price is
is valid. This is a mistake thatmany ghostwriters or freelancers
make, is they price themselvestoo low. You can also price
yourself too high. But if youprice yourself too low, that
(50:22):
screams amateur, you need toprice yourself at a high enough
level where it says I am aprofessional. And if you want a
professional, these are therates you pay. So you do some
research to find out whatprofessionals are charging, it's
usually in the middle betweenthe highest and the lowest. And
that's what you charge. And youdon't negotiate that away, at
(50:42):
least not a lot. You, if you'recharging, you know $100 an hour
if that's what you think ofprofessional should get, then
that's what you should chargeand you should get business.
Obviously, if you can't getbusiness at $100 an hour, maybe
you should adjust your rate, ormaybe you should adjust your
marketing. But don't drop downto $5 an hour because you don't
(51:03):
think you're good enough. Chargewhat you think charges for the
value, be professional. I thinkthat's one sign of
professionals. They're chargingprofessional rates. And at least
in my experience.
Steve Brown (51:19):
So one of 60 books focus on LinkedIn create a
personal brand on LinkedIn tomake more money generate leads
and find employment, part of thebusiness professional series in
book seven. Richard, where canpeople connect with you
obviously on LinkedIn is one,where some other locations?
Richard Lowe (51:41):
Well, you can go to thewritingking.com. And
there's a, just take a look atthe website, there's a contact
form there and you can send fromthere, there's also a direct
scheduling link there. If you goto thewritingking.youcanbook.me
you can actually schedule timeto see me, then we can talk
(52:02):
about anything you know aboutyour project or whatever. That's
also on the writing Kingwebsite. You can send a message
to Rich at thewritingking.comAnd, or you can just find me on
LinkedIn @Richard Lowe Jr. orFacebook. And I'll be happy to
(52:22):
talk to you.
Steve Brown (52:23):
All right, Richard, thanks so much for being an
excellent guest on the ROIonline podcast.
Richard Lowe (52:29):
Thank you. There's a lot of fun. Thank you for
having me.
Steve Brown (52:32):
All right and that's a wrap.
Thanks for listening to anotherfun episode of the ROI online
podcast. For more, be sure tocheck out the show notes of this
episode. And feel free toconnect with me on LinkedIn
where we can chat, and I canhelp direct you to the resources
you're searching for. To learnmore about how you can grow your
business better. Be sure to pickup your copy of my book, The
(52:56):
Golden toilet at surprise thatgolden toilet.com I'm Steve
Brown, and we'll see you nextweek on another fun episode of
the ROI online podcast.
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