Episode 442: How I feel about the second book coming out next week!
In this episode, Fiona reflects on the emotional journey of launching her second book. Sharing her personal experiences and the deep feelings that come with putting a piece of her heart into the world. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
The personal and emotional process of writing and publishing a book
The timeline and effort involved in traditional publishing
The significance of community support in book success
Five main emotions during the book launch
The impact of feedback, both positive and negative
The role of family and friends in supporting the book-writing journey
The legacy aspect of publishing a book
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You have to bring it back to what am I trying to do here? What is my aim? What is my objective? My objective with this book is to help people who are out there, who have a business, who think it could be bigger, not necessarily financially or territory-wise, but in terms of having a bigger impact. And it's showing them how to do that.
Welcome to episode 442 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is going to be a personal session. And I'm like, “Do I want to do this?” But I am going to do it. I'm going to do it. Before we get stuck into that coaching episode, I want to of course acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of these beautiful lands that I'm so lucky to live on and work from and meet my clients and raise my family and and write my book, which is part of what I'm going to be talking about today. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that How to Get Your Book Published, a course that goes through everything you need to know to land a deal with a traditional book publisher and market your book. Figure out what you're writing, and write the book. All of that starts in October. If you're keen to be part of that. It's so exciting. We had a group go through for the first time recently and we've already had one of those people pitch her book to a publisher and it's just so exciting. It's so exciting to see that happening. In addition to that course, we also have an accountability group that goes for a year afterwards and we are kicking that off next week. Super exciting.
If you are reading this, if you have followed me and thought, I'd love to write a book like she does and I'd like to get it traditionally published, not self-published, then definitely check out the course. It is incredible. It's everything I wish I had known. I've also studied a post-grad in editing and book publishing, so there's so much knowledge that comes with it as well as obviously my knowledge having now written two books and recorded two audio books. That will be a new part of this course because I hadn't done that last time. If you're interested in getting your book out there in audio format, also check it out. You can do that at mydailybusiness.com/courses. Let's get into today's coaching episode.
Today I'm going to talk you through how I'm feeling at this exact point when my second book is literally about to come out into the world. And even if you have never thought about writing a book or you're like, I can't relate to that, there will be something in your business at some point, whether you've just done it, whether you're about to do it, whether you think maybe that's a couple of years off where it is big, it is a big thing that you are doing and you're putting yourself out there, you're putting your ideas out there in a non-digital format so they can't be edited quickly. And it's scary. It's also very exciting. But today I thought I would just talk you through how I'm feeling, how I'm feeling with the book coming out in literally days.
If you're not aware, I wrote a book in 2020 called Passion Purpose Profit, sidestep the Hustle and Build a Business You Love. That book has gone on to sell I think 14 or 15,000 copies, which is amazing. And by standards bystanders, any book that sells 5,000 copies is a bestseller. The majority of books will never sell that many. And this is all the stuff that we talk about in the How to Get Your Book Published as well. Because there's this idea out there that you see these people on the New York Times bestsellers and you see all these different authors and then their books get into made into movies. And it's very few people that happen to, a majority of writers will write their book and they will never earn out their advance if they got an advance because they've never sold the number of copies that the Advance was for.
Many will sell a couple of hundred copies and that's it, maybe a thousand. And most won't sell more than that. For that book to have sold 14, 15,000 copies, whatever it's up to now, is huge. And I want to say a massive thank you to anyone who's reading who has that book, bought that book, shared the book, borrowed it from their library, all of that. Because I think the power of that book was through the community. The community of small business owners who shared it, who bought it for friends, who lent it to each other. It's just incredible. Thank you. Off the back of that book, I was offered a book deal again with my same publisher, Hardie Grant Publishing to write a second business book. Now this is just a bit of context because you see things on social media, I've seen things that other people people have done on social media and you don't see the time that's involved in things and you see them launching something or presenting a retreat or a new book or a new course or a new collection, or they've done a collaboration with somebody and you don't see all the hard work behind the scenes.
Just to give you some context in terms of timeline, the publishing deal from Hardie Grant was confirmed in October 2022. And I remember that clearly because I had covid, I've never had Covid before or since, but I had Covid then and my publisher Alice at Hardie Grant, sent me an email saying this should help with covid the challenges of Covid or something like that. And it was the deal, it was an offer saying, we would like to offer your second book deal. And they run through like the advance the print run, the world writes. That's October, 2022. Now I'm recording this at the very end of August 2024. Almost two years later. That is pretty much the same as what happened with Passion Purpose Profit. People don't understand that with traditional publishers, especially a book like mine, which is full colour.
I'm so proud to have a full-colour book because they are more expensive to print. But I think it looks a lot better than so many business books that are so boring. And this one has been designed again by Andy Warren who's an award-winning designer. The printing of that book takes about nine months. If you think, the book's launched in September 2024, it went to print in January, and it then had to be edited for months and months. You are chasing up permissions, you're chasing up, you're checking facts, you're doing all the things. The deadline for the manuscript was the 1st of August last year. And then it goes through a series of editors and copy editors and proofreaders and goes back and forth. And then you have the design that comes into play. The book started being written around April or May 2023.
There's a long time between things kicking off and then writing the book and then it just is a long process. I guess that brings me to now, which is this period when you think you think you've got so much time and you think, this will be done before the book ends, or it's like a pregnancy. Anyone who's ever been pregnant thinks that nine months is such a long time and it feels like it, especially that first trimester, it feels like it. You're so tired, you're not telling everyone necessarily that you're pregnant and then it just seems to fly by and suddenly you're about to give birth and it's like, am I ready? And there's somewhat to that, not necessarily to the same degree, but there's somewhat of that feeling right now when this book is about to come out and all these people and all of this work have gone into it, not just obviously for myself, but at least eight or nine people at the publisher, the designer, the proofreader, the freelance copywriter, the printers, the print checkers, the typesetters, the people that work in the warehouse, the people that deal with selling to all of the stockers, all of the booksellers.
Many people are involved in a book, even though it's just the author's name that is on the cover. I'm sitting here feeling similar, like, it's going to be out in the world. In this particular book, I think with Passion Purpose Profit, I had already written a lot of that content in terms of other things that I had done in my business. Whereas this one, I've done a lot of this work. I've done brand strategy workshops for decades, but I hadn't pulled it all together in one format. Pulling it all together and putting my ideas, my beliefs, and my values out on a printed page for somebody to critique is scary. It is scary, but it's also exciting. And I guess that brings me to today, which is I'm going to read through or just talk through, not read through, because I've written five words on a page that says the bulk of the reading.
But I'm just going to go through the five main emotions that I'm feeling right now. And maybe if you are in a similar boat, it could be in your personal life or your business life, you may well resonate with these. And I hope that by sharing this, whenever you are faced with a similar situation, you know that it's completely natural to be feeling all the feelings on that as well. If you are listening and you are a bookseller or you have a bookshop or a gift store, please get in touch with me or get in touch with your rep at Hardie Grant or Chronicle if you're in the US because I would love to get the book into as many stores as possible so that it can get out there and the things that I'm talking about, the lessons, the case studies, all of it can be felt and utilised and help small business owners around the world.
These are not in order of how I'm feeling them, but I guess they're just the five most common emotions That have come up the whole way through this whole book writing and book creation process, particularly now when the book is coming out next week. The first is fear. And I think that goes hand in hand with any time that you are putting yourself out on the line to be judged. I have had hundreds, if not thousands of DMs about this book. As I said before, I think the reason that it's sold so well and has done so well in terms of numbers is because of the community that shared it talked about it lent it to friends, and gifted it to people. Just thank you. I hope that you feel the same way about the second book, but a book is printed, it's not a social media post that you can tap the three dots and edit.
It's not something that you can just archive, it's not something you can delete once it's out there, it is out there. I tend to be quite personal in the way that I run my business. Coaching is personal. You are talking to people about their deepest desires, pains, pleasures, and everything else. Even working in marketing, a lot of that is putting yourself deeply into the thought space and mindset of the people that you're trying to help through your products services experiences or all three. This book is very personal, it's got very personal stories in it. I'm sharing more of myself than I have in the first book for sure. I'm also saying what I think about brands and the way that people look at business the way that they create their companies and what I hope for the future.
There's a lot of me in it. And that's scary. It's scary when you're putting yourself out there in a way that, yes, hopefully, people will love it, but there's always going to be somebody who tells you that they do not like it. I remember reading a review of my first book, and as I said, I've got hundreds if not thousands of positive DMS and reviews of the book and just the fact that it's sold so many also goes to show that people have enjoyed it and recommended it and referred people to it. But I remember this one particular person's review that stung and they said something like, Fiona thinks her life is perfect and the whole book is just her telling you how perfect her life is. And I thought, are you serious? I've gone through a miscarriage, I lost both of my parents in my thirties.
I lost my best friend at 21 in a car accident. Everyone's got their stuff, but everyone has their stuff to bear. And I'm not saying, poor me, but this person, obviously that's what they took from it. And I was surprised. And then you have people that will say things like, you can just Google all of this. And yes, of course, you can Google anything, you could listen to and read the most incredible book from anyone. And if it's nonfiction, chances are you could Google pretty much most of what's in most books, it's going to take you a lot more time and you're going to maybe not get it in in one cohesive medium to read. But some of these things really sting. There's an element of fear for sure with this book coming out. In particular, I think this book sits with people who have had a lot of experience in advertising agencies or it's not written for those people, but my fear is like, people coming out and saying X, Y, Z about the book.
I hope that doesn't happen and I have to focus on the positive and focus. And this is for anyone who's going through this, you have to bring it back to what am I trying to do here? What is my aim? What is my objective? My objective with this book is to help people who are out there, who have a business who think it could be bigger, not necessarily financially or territory-wise, but in terms of having a bigger impact. And it's showing them how to do that. That is what I've gotta focus on and not focus on, I don't know some stranger out there who doesn't know me, who's going to make a judgment call. I'm being honest here, and maybe I'll regret saying all of this later, but that's one of the five emotions.
That's one of them, but it is not the biggest. The second one is overtaking things, which is good. It should, and that second one at this stage is excitement. It's excitement. You've worked hard, you've put a lot of effort into things. I'm excited about the brands that I have profiled. I'm excited for them to reach new audiences for people who've never heard of them, to come across them in the book and then connect with them and be part of their communities. I'm excited for that. I've picked every single brand in the book because of their impact, because of the meaning behind what they do, the purpose behind their brands, and also the fact that they've been able to create these brands that are financially viable and that are doing well and also making a huge impact.
You often think those two things are mutually exclusive when they're not. And I wanted to show people in this book that you can start, you can start a little business initially and it turns into this incredible brand that has more impact, more influence than you ever thought possible when you started it. I love that. I'm genuinely so excited for people to pick up the book and learn about these other brands and connect with them, buy from them, support them, and in doing so further the impact that they have in the world. That excitement is there. I'm also excited to just have some good friends who have helped me with this book, see the book, and see the efforts that they have also put in through lots and lots of chats with me. Some of them reviewed the design, some of them reviewed the actual proofreading, some just gave me feedback, and some just encouraged me when I was like, what am I going to do?
I can't finish it. I'm excited to be like, thank you for helping me. Also included in there is my family, especially my husband. I'm excited for my children, particularly my eldest child and for him to, at some point, if nature has its way, I will die before him. I know that with my parents who passed away in their thirties, I devoured everything that I could that I have left of them. My mom used to write letters a lot to her parents, so she gave me those when I moved overseas. And they're incredible and I can feel her in that writing. And I think that it's lovely to have a book in terms of that, leaving that with somebody like your kids and for them to also, like, I'm in my forties now, I wish to God, I could talk to my parents about what life was like in their forties and what they went through and how they felt being a parent and what ideas they had around the world.
Yes, I know some of that stuff, but you realise as you get older how much your parents have gone through and you want to talk to them. And if you are like me and they're no longer here, then you don't get that opportunity. I'm excited for the book to be there and to be there forever, so that when my kids get to my age, they'll be like, okay, this is what she thought was important. These are the memories that she wanted to share with people. These are the brands that she thought were incredible. Just to get to know each other on a deeper level. I'm excited about that and I'm just excited for small business owners to see in this some frameworks or exercises that bring them clarity. We have so much feedback from the first book, from people from all sorts of places, franchise stores, through to independent contractors through to people who are running like multinational, huge companies.
They're like, that particular exercise, I've never done it before and it changed this or that, or we talked about it as a couple in the business and we're going to do this, or all sorts of things. I can't wait to hear how people are growing their business, and their brand through the book. That's the second one. Excitement. The third is relief. It's relief that we got to this point because believe me, and if anyone's listening to this and you have had anything like this where it's, it's a couple of years a project, there are times when you think, I'm just going to throw in the towel, this is too hard. It's too much work. I have to shout out Alice, but also Talia Edison, who's my other publisher at Hardie Grant and who took on this book about a quarter of the way through.
She had to deal with me going back and forth on things or, I mean, she's been so supportive, so incredible. But we had discussions about the cover, we had discussions about certain sections, should we leave in, should we not? And sometimes they were difficult conversations to have. She is a publisher, she knows her stuff, she knows what sells. She is incredibly understanding and experienced at that. And I, on the other hand, am like, it's my book and it's my stuff that I want to get out. I just want to say she's a massive incredible support throughout the whole way through this book. But there's been moments whether with her, whether with people that I wanted to profile in the book that initially said no and then said yes, and then said no, and then we couldn't figure out a time to get the interviews to work and it just felt so hard at times.
The idea that I'm looking at a box of books in front of me and that it's here and it's physical and it's going to be on the shelf soon and people are going to be reading it, there's a big sense of relief that, we did it, we got here, we're okay. That's the third big emotion. The fourth is curiosity. I'm intensely curious by nature. I have always been this way. My parents used to tell me that I used to always just talk to the people at the checkout at the supermarket. I remember asking one when I was quite young, and I think my mom, didn't reprimand me, but she was like Fiona, I asked them if they liked their job and what they liked about it. I am quite a curious person.
My husband, we've been together for, gosh 20 years next year and he used to always be like, Fiona, you can't ask people that. You just go deep so quickly with people and some people aren't used to that. And it's like, I don't want to stand around making small talk. I can make small talk. I have worked in lots of positions where I have to make small talk, but I'd much rather know the deep stuff about you. I'm a curious person and I am feeling incredibly curious as to which parts of the book people will resonate with. I mean, to this point, we have had myself and Talia and Eleena the editor and we've had a couple of freelance people me other people at, I think a couple of other people at Hardie Grant read the book.
But otherwise, we've had Simran Kaur who wonderfully from Girls that Invest, she's just incredible, agreed to read the book before we sent it off to print. She gave a beautiful testimonial that we've got on the cover, but there's been a handful of people who have read it. Not even my husband has read it, I didn't let him read it. He's excited, he's going to read it. He's finishing the book at the moment and he said, the next one I'm reading is yours. It's a strange thing when you create something, and I found this as well with courses and workshops. You create something and you think that you think that that part will resonate, but something else does. Or people are like, that was the thing that stood out to me. I mean, it's like a film.
I have a wonderful friend who's a documentary filmmaker, Genevieve Bailey, who's also been an incredible help throughout this book. And I know that with documentaries, I mean they can take seven years or longer to make, and then you screen it and people will take all sorts of things away from it. Some people might like to start, some people might like this particular interview, and some people might like something else. I'm deeply curious as to how it will be perceived, but also what will be most helpful for people. That's the fourth one. We're up to the last one, which is probably the most powerful emotion that I have at this exact point in time. And that is hope. My father was somebody who used to say a lot that you can never give up hope, because once you give that up, what's the point of anything?
He used to constantly tell us that the world is full of good people just trying to do good things. And my father is who I have dedicated this book to because of his positive outlook on life. We used to jokingly be like Dad's the optimist forever, and Mom's the pessimist. And my mom would be like, I'm not a pessimist, I'm just real, I'm just the realist. She was also incredibly uplifting and supportive and hopeful and all of that. But this idea of hope, this is what's driving me to continue to do the work that I do and to I know people are like, you're such a dreamer thinking that like the world can be a better place and all of that. But I genuinely do think that. I know it might seem naive and I know particularly right now when there's just so much heartache and horrible stuff going on around the world right here in Australia as well.
I mean it's just, that it can feel relentless and never-ending and hopeless. Hopeless for sure with this book. I do think, I genuinely at my heart of hearts, in my deepest possible core, do believe that brands can be a force for good, that they can be a vehicle for changing perspective, for changing the narrative, for changing communities, for changing governments. One of the brands that is in the book, Clothing the Gaps an Australian brand. If you have not heard of them or you're listening from outside of Australia, which I know many people do, thank you, go and check them out. Clothing the Gaps. That was started by Laura Thompson and Sarah Sheridan two women who were working together at a different company and decided to start a business and were initially doing it to change behaviour and get people healthy.
Then in return for getting healthy, they would get a T-shirt, like get it, get some merch at the end of it. You do your exercise or your project together, your challenges, and then you get this T-shirt. The T-shirt symbolizes that you have gone through this behavioural change and then it became clothing, the gaps, which if you live in Australia, I mean it has done more than pretty much any political party ever has in terms of opening up the dialogue around First Nations challenges, inequities between First Nations and non-First Nations people in this country. And particularly for enabling so many conversations to happen in homes, at barbecues, and in family get-togethers by wearing a T-shirt. People are expressing a message and supporting a value and then talking about that with people who then go on to change their ideas and in doing so, potentially change the whole way that this country is run. It's not all naive thinking to think that we can all make a change in Australia, small business employees are around half of the workforce. And it makes up around 97% of all businesses.
You think about we're employing half the workforce, so those people come to work and if conversations are brought up, if culturally they're able to feel safe to express themselves if they feel included, if they feel like they belong, if they feel a sense of trust of where they work if they are interested in and passionate about the mission of that company, I mean, we can change the world. A lot of businesses and brands have far more followers on social media than any politician has. It's just incredible the power that we have. And yet I think sometimes people forget that. The biggest thing that I'm feeling at the moment is hope that by utilising this book, people will feel a sense of, I can do that too.
What am I going to do? What am I going to change about the way I run my business? What am I going to do to build a brand that has impact and meaning and people at its core, not just profit? And yes, absolutely you need to have profit. That's why I wrote Passion Purpose Profit, which was the name of the first book. You can't just have passion and purpose, you have to have a profit to have any impact. And the same goes with this Business to Brand. But the tagline for this is moving from transaction to transformation. And that is my hope. That is my deep hope that by working with a company, buying from a brand, getting involved in a community, that transformation is happening, that transformation which may look like a change in perspective, behaviour change. Another brand that's in the book is KeepCup and that changed the behaviour of the way that coffee shops and cafes and people who frequent them were using wasteful single-use disposable cups.
There's so much that can be done when we look at what are the problems in the world that we would like to be part of the solution for, and then how can we use our businesses and create brands that are about transforming people and transforming lives and transforming communities. Those are the five big emotions that I'm feeling at the moment. Fear, excitement, relief, curiosity and hope. I hope that you are somewhat curious about this book now. And as I said at the start, if you have a bookshop, if you own any store that sells books, please get in touch. We would love to get as many stockers as possible for this. If you work in a library or you attend a library, make sure that they've got it ordered. In Australia, at least every library has to order the books that you request.
The more people that can request it. If you happen to be going through an airport, please talk to the airport bookshop and ask them if they're getting business to brand in, because a lot of books are sold in airports. It's one of the biggest ways to get your book out there. Again, something I mentioned in my How to Get Your Book Published course, and if you would like to buy it from us, you can as well. We are just waiting for some more stock to arrive because we sold out so quickly of the first 100 books. There are so many ways to buy it, borrow it. If you are stuck for cash at the moment, maybe go in with three friends and all buy it together or go in with four friends and buy it together and it will cost you well in Australia.
I think the RRP is 39.95, so it'll cost you less than $10 to go in together. I hope that the lessons the frameworks the thoughts and the stories within it help you. Thank you for listening to this. We are having an online book launch in November, and that's going to be part workshop, part party. If you would like to be part of that, make sure you go on over to mydailybusiness.com/booklaunch and you can put your details in and that will be sometime in November. We're just trying to figure it out. It'll be online and it'll be at a time that is most suitable for the world. Not sure exactly when that will be, but probably in the evening, just so that we can hit up Europe and the US and we have people all over the world that listen to this.
You can tune in to that book launch from anywhere as long as you've got an internet connection. Thank you so much for reading. Thank you for being part of this community of small business owners who I know are trying to do more with their business than simply just making money. Again, if you want to get the show notes for this, you can find them at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/442. That'll also have the links to everything we talked about, including the How to Get Your Book Published course, which is starting in October, and your book Launch Link and everything else that we've mentioned including how to buy the book. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you next time. Bye.
