Founder's Story - The Journey to Becoming a Bestselling Author: Insights from Mei Mei Fox | S2: E39

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

This is brought to you by BiOptimizers, whom I LOVE their MAGNESIUM BREAKTHROUGH product has helped me sleep better, stay focused, and feel all-around healthier.Check out their products at http://bioptimizers.com/danrobbins use promo code FOUNDERS for 10% off any order.In a recent episode of “Founder’s Story,” we were joined by Mei Mei Fox, CEO of Your Bestselling Book and a two-time New York Times bestselling author. Mei Mei shared invaluable insights into the writing and publishing process, emphasizing the importance of consistency and starting small. She highlighted that the most successful genre is prescriptive nonfiction, which offers readers actionable advice to improve their lives. Mei Mei also discussed the advantages of hybrid and self-publishing, noting that traditional publishers often leave the marketing up to the authors. With her wealth of experience, Mei Mei provides aspiring authors with practical guidance to navigate the complex world of book publishing. Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founders Story. Something that I want to accomplish in the next year, or maybe even in this year, is writing a book. Getting a book deal, writing a book, making it happen. Being a New York Times bestselling author would be a dream of mine since I was a kid. So we brought in Maymay Fox, who is the CEO of your bestselling book. She's a Forbes contributor, a two-time, not one, but two-time New York Times bestselling author. And she's doing a ton in this space. And we're going to dive in. But Maymay, I'm excited to have you all the way from France today. Thank you so much for having me, Daniel. I'm thrilled to be here. So let's dive into being an author. How do you even get started? So let's say me, I want to write the memoir of my life.

I want to talk about it. Where do I start? You start with writing. So people are always asking me like, how do I even write a book? I like well how about you write it seems kind of obvious and yet you would be amazed but it's not so obvious to everyone and i'm a huge follower of james clear and atomic habits and what i have found in my 25 years in the publishing industry is that it works way better to set yourself the goal of five minutes a day every day than some big, hairy, audacious goal like, I'm going to write a book in three months, or even I'm going to set aside six hours every Friday to write a book. If you can keep up a consistent habit of just writing a little bit a day, it's less intimidating and it will really keep you on track that by the end of a year,

if you wrote five minutes a day every day, could have 30 hours of writing and that's actually a significant amount of writing wow that's amazing i didn't even think about that just start small i think in my head i'm like i need to write five chapters today and then so what do i do i write nothing right so i think i like the baby steps of of getting up but so if somebody came to you and said i want to write a book about me how do they know exactly like what to write about is it all about them is it a fiction based on them what do you think on that oh i have strong feelings on that based on what sells in the marketplace so if you want to know the number one best-selling genre is prescriptive nonfiction. So this is nonfiction that gives people a plan or a program or a workbook or an outline for how to improve their life in some way, right? So you're either like you're overcoming addiction or you are losing weight or you're improving your health or you're

building a business or you are, you know, creating a family and finding true love, whatever it is. So you have some kind of objective, you have a pain point that you are helping your reader solve and you are giving them a program to help them get that end goal that they want. That is the number one bestselling genre. Number two is you could do memoir. If you do a memoir, some memoirs take off and do really well, but I would still have a prescriptive element to it. I would still have some kind of takeaways that you're trying to give people, ideally. And fiction sells way less. So I'm sorry to all the artists out there. My husband's one of them. He's a fiction writer. It's brutal. It's like already brutal being an author, but at least stick with

nonfiction and memoir. If something you can always start with nonfiction and memoir, build a following, become a respected author, and then do your fiction after that. No, I appreciate that. I wrote fiction books when I was in elementary school and I found them recently. I mean, they were horrible books, but I did have to laugh that at that time, that's what I really wanted. But I don't read fiction books very much. I read like these prescriptive books that you had just said. So let's say I have the book. I got the idea. I'm ready to go. I need to find a publisher. What is that process like and any tips there? We will return to our show shortly. But first, let's talk about today's sponsor,

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want to get a publisher. And there are so many options out there. It's like the wild west in publishing right now. So you do have to be careful because unfortunately, as I've spoken with people, I know there are con artists and scammers out there who are just ready to pounce the scent when they scent blood of like, here's an aspiring author. And so you have to know people to trust and who are really legit. But traditional publisher, everybody, that's the dream, right? Everybody thinks like, I want one of the big five New York publishers. That's what I need. Okay. Well, let me tell you something. They're going to take 90% of the money. They're going to control the IP and they are going to take a minimum of a year and a half to two years for your book to hit the shelves. And there is a whole other world out there, which is hybrid publishing or self-publishing. Hybrid publisher is where you work with a company and you pay them

money, but they help you produce a really high quality book. It looks every bit as good as a book that you buy in the bookstore. It is beautifully designed. It sells on Amazon, which is where 90% of books sells. They can even get physical distribution with IngramSpark into bookstores. Or you can completely self-publish. You could literally go on Amazon tomorrow. You could upload your document to Kindle Direct Publishing and you could be selling your book tomorrow. So you have to think about what your goals are and what your timeline is.

And it may not make sense for you to even pursue a traditional publishing deal. I have to laugh because I wrote a really short book. I don't know if you PDF or something. And I put it on Amazon. And a few months ago, somebody talked about it. This is like five years ago. And I had to laugh that somebody's like, Hey, I saw you wrote this book. I don't know if anyone bought it. They might be the only one. But I do I can appreciate appreciate the hybrid, the self, where you have more control over something in the IP and you're not really, there's not a traditional publisher telling you what to do, when to do it. I have heard that many people, when they go traditional route, they're still

supposed to do the marketing. So it seems like, you know, whether you do traditional or not, you still have to do a lot of the marketing and sales of the book. Thank you for bringing that up. That is another huge misconception. It's like people think if they get a traditional publishing deal and they're paying me in advance, that means they're going to market the book for me. Uh-uh.

No way. They do nothing to help you market the book. Nothing. Zero. Zippo. That is all on you. They are looking at you. If they pay you in advance, they told the last author that I worked with, I co-authored a book with someone who got a huge advance. Okay. This is over half a million dollar advance. That's like practically unheard of, but I read a damn good book proposal. No. They also had the right kind of qualifications and the right kind of resume and all of that. So you would think, okay, this is a business, right? If I've invested half a million dollars in your business, am I not going to help you promote it? No. They actually said

to him, you better take that advance and go hire a really great pr agency so that's what they're expecting you to do they're expecting you to hire a pr agency or even more common in this day and age they're not even buying books unless you have a platform and you can prove to them i can sell books and that means they're going to be looking at your social media numbers 100%. They're going to be evaluating what you're following, what's your email newsletter list, what kind of PR can you get yourself? Do you have connections? If you can say, hey, I can get on the Stephen Colbert show or something like that, then

they're more likely to buy your book. They're very unlikely to buy a book right now. Any traditional publisher from an unknown author who doesn't have a following. I'm glad you say that. I was reading yesterday that somebody who had a bestselling book a while ago was trying to get another book out and the traditional publisher was telling them, you don't really have a following even though you have a proven track record, but it was many years ago. So I'm glad you say saying that. And I think a lot of people run into that. And that's why we've been preaching here about building your personal brand and

building up all of these things along the way and not waiting to the moment when you want to come out with a book. So I'm glad that you bring this up. I know you have a six-week course coming up as well. Can you explain that? Oh, thanks for asking. So I have a video on demand course that's available anytime. It's a six hours worth of masterclass seminars taught by me and my 25 years of experience in the publishing industry and eight hours of expert interviews,

including two with really renowned literary agents in New York and established authors and book marketers. So that's the video on demand portion that's available anytime at your bestselling book. And then in addition, we run a live cohort, which is so magical. So we bring together a maximum of 10 people at a time in a workshop with me. We meet for six weeks every week. Plus there's open office hours where you can drop in and ask questions and we workshop your material. And we really develop a community because part of the journey of authoring a book is that it's very lonely. You know, you're all by yourself. I'm sure you've been encountering that, Daniel. And it like you lose your steam. I guarantee you

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beautiful experience. So yeah, we're starting again September 16 with the live cohort portion, which is so magical. I am always losing my steam. So I am always a big proponent of having the support staff, having the community, the people around you can be critical to the success of anything that you're doing. So I can appreciate that. What is the website again, if people want to sign up or learn more information? It's so easy. It's writeyourbestsellingbook.com. I love that URL, writeyourbestsellingbook.com. That's it. Simple. May, May, I'm so excited that you're here today to share with us because this is something I know I want to do. And we get asked this a lot. I think it's one of the most asked topics from entrepreneurs and leaders that we have on the show, watching the show. So

thank you. And we got to have you on again, maybe before September to go through some more things because I have a lot more questions. But Mei Mei, thank you again for joining us today on Founders Story. Thank you so much for having me. It was a delight. Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming,

and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys.