How to Go from Blogger to Author with Beth Brombosz
Episode 089: Show Notes
Today on the podcast, we have Dr. Beth Brombosz. Beth is an author, copywriter, content creator, and the host of the Blogger to Author Podcast. In 2015, she turned some of her own blog posts into a book titled Yoga for Runners, which is now available on Amazon. Beth’s book has helped her build a platform as an expert in her field. She is passionate about helping fellow bloggers turn their content into books so they can build authority in their niche, share their passion with the world, and earn passive income.
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In this episode, you’re going to hear all about that process. From repurposing your content to creating a book, to self-publishing, pricing, layout and sales, Beth really breaks it down into an easy step-by-step process. She self-published her book in just 30 days! She proves that it’s totally doable, with no publishing experience needed. If you’ve never written a book in your life, but are thinking about it, then today’s podcast is for you.
Why Beth Decided to Turn Her Blog into a Book
Beth started off as a fitness blogger. After running her blog for three or four years she decided that she wanted to turn blogging into a career, so started thinking up ways in which she could monetize it. Beth wound up taking a subset of the blog posts she had written, repurposing them and turning them into a book which she now sells digitally on her blog and on Amazon. This has been an amazing tool for her, not only because it deposits money into her bank account every month, but because it has also helped her elevate herself as an authority in her niche and bring new people to her blog, business and brand. The most amazing thing is that Beth put the book together herself and self-published, all in less than 30 days! It’s now her passion to show other bloggers that publishing a book is so much easier than it seems.
How Beth Created and Published a Book in Just 30 Days
Beth knew that she just needed to sit down and focus on this book to get it out the door. To help her get moving, she put together a sales page for it and started taking preorders. The book was initially just a PDF download, which was a great way for her to test her idea. She posted about the book on social media to gauge interest before she started putting huge amounts of time into a book that might not sell! Once the book gathered interest, Beth put together an outline for it. She went through her WordPress blog, looked at the categories she had made, wrote the post titles on good, old-fashioned sticky notes and began structuring her book. Beth was able to get that done in 30 days because she was repurposing all of the content she had already created and compiling it into one, convenient space.
The Process of Self-Publishing and Using Amazon as a Search Engine
Self-publishing in the past may have been looked down upon, but times are changing. There are more tools available out there for writers and there are even some bestselling books that have been self-published! Beth started digitally but then a few weeks later, decided to go through and self-publish on Amazon’s CreateSpace. Beth encourages all of her clients to seriously consider self-publishing through CreateSpace, where you keep a greater portion of the royalties and save yourself a heck of a lot of time. When it came to pricing her book, Beth began searching on Amazon for similar books to the one she’d written; looking at how they were pricing things, the length of their books and their covers and titles. This helped Beth determine what made her book unique and different from the other books on the same topic. Using Amazon as a search engine to monitor your niche audience as well as your competition is a great tip!
The Benefits of a Book for Business
You might be wondering if publishing a book is really going to be worth it for your business. Well, the truth is, if you’re wanting to set yourself apart from other bloggers in your niche, a book is definitely one way in which you can do that! According to Beth, she has definitely seen more revenue because of her book. She has had more signups for her programs and people are starting to see her as an expert in her field as opposed to somebody who’s just writing blog posts. A book gives added legitimacy and audiences are more willing to sign up for her email list (which grew substantially around the time her book came out) because of this. Beth has also been approached for many guest blogging opportunities, where other bloggers see her as the expert in that niche as well. Bloggers have also started sending people to her, people who later become clients and purchasers of her programs.
Lessons Learned From Writing The First Book
Writing your first book is a huge learning curve. Beth is currently working on her second book and there are definitely a few things she admits she will be doing differently this time around! She says that her lack of research and just doing it “by the seat of her pants” was her biggest mistake. So for her second book, Beth is planning a better launch strategy and starting way ahead of time. For anybody who’s thinking about writing a book, Beth’s key nugget of advice is to have a good idea of where you are going with it, as well as a good idea of how you’re going to get it into other people’s hands. She advises getting a launch team together to help promote the book better and ultimately, to plan! Beth was very focused on getting her first book out there, fast. But if you want it to be successful, it’s going to be a lot easier to get everything lined up for your launch from the get-go.
Practical Steps for Laying Out Your Book
One of the biggest things that scares writers is the layout of the book. How do you practically put the thing together? Well, Beth did it all herself and has some great resources and tips on how you can do it too. If your book is just text and not a lot of pictures, Amazon, for example, offers a service for a few hundred dollars where you can give them your manuscript and they’ll format it for you. Really, what it comes down to is making sure that you have the right margins, the right page sizes and an idea of what fonts and titles you want etc. You can download Microsoft Word templates for free or from Amazon.
So from CreateSpace to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, they actually make the template for you. You just download it, open it in Microsoft Word and then essentially copy and paste your manuscript into it. Alternatively, if you are going to have a very image-intensive book or if you want it to look very fancy on the inside, you might consider hiring a freelance designer or using a service like Blurb which is a little more expensive. If you’re a photographer, you can also format in programs like Lightroom. There are many do-it-yourself resources available out there, so don’t be overwhelmed and just give them a shot!
Quote This
How are you going to set yourself apart? A book can be a great way to do that.
—Beth Brombosz
Highlights
Why Beth decided to turn her blog into a book and what the process was like for her. [0:03:36.5]
How Beth created and published a book in a mere 30 days. [0:06:10.9]
The process of self-publishing and using Amazon as a search engine. [0:09:58.6]
The benefits of having a book for your business, to set yourself apart in the industry. [0:17:14.9]
The lessons Beth learned from writing her first book, and the mistakes that you should avoid. [0:25:19.1]
Practical steps to take when laying out your book, and how to put everything together. [0:40:53.0]
#TalkStrategyToMe [0:45:19.3]
Create a reader avatar.
Find people who resemble your reader avatar.
Test your book idea.
Find out if people would buy it.
Plan! Plan! Plan!
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Dr. Beth Brombosz
Sublimely Fit | Instagram | Facebook
Dr. Beth Brombosz is an author, copywriter, and content creator, and the host of the Blogger to Author Podcast. In 2015, she turned some of her own blog posts into the book "Yoga for Runners", which is now available on Amazon. Publishing a book has helped her build her platform as an expert on yoga for runners. She's passionate about helping fellow bloggers turn their content into books so they can build authority in their niche, share their passion with the world, and earn passive income.
KEY TOPICS
Turning your blog into a book, Steps to self-publishing. Benefits of a book for business, Lessons from the writing process, Amazon’s self-publishing resources, Creating a book layout
