2018 TAE Playbook

The Transformational Author’s Playbook 2018
Experts’ Secrets for Writing, Publishing and Promoting Your Book
by Christine Kloser
with Dorit Sasson
1st Edition
@2018 Christine Kloser Companies LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
prior written permission from the publisher or the author.
Christine Kloser Companies LLC

211 Pauline Drive #513 ~ York, PA 17402
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Got Questions about Writing or Publishing Your Book?
Call (800) 930-3713 or Email info@christinekloser.com
Can you land a publishing contract before you write a single word of your book?
(Many bestselling authors, including first-timers, have done so.)
Do you know the 250 most important words you must write for your book?
Have you considered that there’s no such thing as writer’s block?

(It’s possible to write with ease and speed all the time!)

~
Welcome to The Transformational Author’s Playbook 2018. I’m so excited you’re
here. What you’re holding in your hands (or reading on your monitor or tablet) is
something extremely special.

For over six seasons now I’ve hosted the Transformational Author Experience®. In
that time I’ve conducted more than 120 interviews with New York Times bestselling
authors, top literary agents, publishers, editors, top marketers and more... all
sharing their best tips for writing, publishing and promoting your transformational
book. And as you can imagine, this has created a lot of content. If I were to transcribe
all 120+ interviews, we’d be looking at 2,540 pages of writing tips, tactics and tools
– that’s a lot!


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While in Los Angeles earlier this year, my team came up with a brilliant idea: Why
don’t we take the “best of” tips, tools and strategies from each interview and put them
together into a book? So instead of 2,540 pages, each interview would be condensed
into a few pages with their best tips? I fell in love with the idea right away. And I
wanted to have it ready before Season 7 of the Transformational Author Experience,
but that was too ambitious a goal. So what you have in your hands right now is the
“beta” of this idea. Instead of all 120+ interviews, you’re getting a dozen of my carefully
handpicked ones that I think will help you the most. It’s a great mix of interviews
from bestselling authors, storytelling coaches and publishing insiders.

I’m thrilled I can get this first draft into your hands so you can get these invaluable
tips before anyone else. But I’m also super-eager to hear back from you about them.
It’s one thing to think something is a brilliant idea... and another to hear back from
readers who agree, disagree, or are willing to provide constructive feedback!

So here’s what I’d like you to do: Please read (or even skim over) this playbook, and
as you do, highlight at least one tip from each expert that you can use immediately. I
mean it! Don’t highlight anything you can’t implement right away. Use the tips you
highlighted, and then write to me at info@christinekloser.com and tell me how The
Transformational Author’s Playbook 2018 helped you on your author’s journey. And tell
me if you’d like to see the other TAE interviews condensed in this same manner in
a physical book. This will help me decide whether or not a complete version of The
Transformational Author’s Playbook is a good idea.

I’d love to hear from you! Until then, enjoy this shorter version, highlight it, take
notes and write down your ideas. I really look forward to hearing about your insights,
“aha!” moments and successes!
As you review this playbook, you’ll notice that the contributors don’t always agree
– and that’s okay! That’s the beauty of learning from many different people – you
discover what’s right for you! And given all these great ideas, I’m positive you’ll find
a strategy that fits you.

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Obviously, simply reading these tips will not magically cause your book to be written,
published and bestselling. You can read a million books about writing, publishing
and marketing, but if you don’t take action on what you learn, your book will never
get done. It’s been said that 80 percent of people feel they have a book inside them,
yet the majority of them struggle alone and never get it written. And taking action
on your part – like sitting down to write – isn’t even enough! You often read in the
acknowledgments of books that “writing a book takes a village.” It’s true. Writing a
book is not meant to be a solo endeavor.
I encourage you to join a community of like-minded people and finding the right coach
and the right fellow authors to share your journey with, which is why I’m encouraging
you to get a Platinum or Diamond pass to Season 7 of the Transformational Author
Experience. These passes are packed with resources, trainings, Q & A sessions, virtual
writing retreats, live author events… and of course our 2018 Transformational Author
Writing Contest with $100,000+ in prizes for authors. In short, you get tons of support
for the journey ahead! Don’t miss out. Learn more here:
www.TAEpass.com
…But before you dive in, I want to thank you. Not only because you trust me to
provide you with coaching and guidance, but more important because of your desire
to author a transformational book. It might sound odd to thank you for writing your
book, but contemplate that for a minute… You intend to write a book that will make a
difference in people’s lives; that’s what a transformational book is. That’s huge. And I
want to thank you for this because, well, we simply need more authors like you in the
universe – authors who write books with the intention to help, change and transform
other people’s lives.
To your writing success,
Christine
Transformational Author Coach
Bestselling and Award-Winning Author
Creator, Transformational Author Experience

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PREVIEW
Here’s a quick preview of what you’ll find in this playbook. You’re going to hear from...
Me, Christine Kloser, transformational author coach, who reveals the most
important things to do before you write a single word of your book.
SARK, New York Times bestselling author, luminary and “beacon of hope,” who
tells you about a clever way to get rid of your inner critic by giving it another job.
Geoff Affleck, bestselling author, who tells you how to build a platform and
partner with top leaders and influencers – even if you’re just starting out – using
short, 10,000-word ebooks.
Marc Allen, President and publisher of New World Library, who shares the writing
strategy that finally worked for Eckhart Tolle, and how trusting your inner voice
pays off.
Dr. Gay Hendricks, President of the Hendricks Institute, who declares, “There’s
no such thing as writer’s block,” explains why, and tells you how to never get it.
Bo Eason, ex-NFL player and acclaimed Broadway playwright and actor (yes, you
read that right), who reveals why your personal story is your biggest moneymaker,
and how to tell it.

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Danielle LaPorte, inspirational speaker, who tells you her best tips for building
momentum, feeling alive and kicking ass even when everyone around you
questions your dreams.
Jonathan Fields, serial entrepreneur and A-list blogger, who talks about why
getting to #1 on Amazon can actually be a bad thing, and why writing your book
is not about thought-leadership.
Arielle Ford, publicist behind the Chicken Soup series and a bestselling author
herself, who shares her most powerful marketing tool.
Lisa Nichols, motivational speaker, who tells you her four favorite questions to
ask yourself when discovering your true, authentic voice.
Wendy Keller, literary agent to seventeen New York Times bestselling authors,
who tells you how anyone can start working on their book deal today, even if they
haven’t written a single word yet.
Marianne Williamson, New York Times bestselling author of A Return to Love, who
shares the power of making the shift from ambition to inspiration; from intention
“to do” to intention “to be of service.”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Christine Kloser — Building a Rock-Solid Foundation for Your Book.....................................9
SARK — How to Put an End to Your “Inner Critic”.................................................................14
Geoff Affleck —Expand Your Message with an Ebook.............................................................17
Marc Allen —The Art of Writing a Transformational Book.....................................................20
Dr. Gay Hendricks —There’s No Such Thing as Writer’s Block..............................................24
Bo Eason —How Your Personal Story Can Make You Money.................................................26
Danielle LaPorte —How to Kick Ass When Everyone Questions Your Dreams ..................29
Jonathan Fields —The Truth about Book-Marketing Campaigns...........................................32
Arielle Ford —Monetizing Your Platform...................................................................................37
Lisa Nichols — The Power of Your Authentic Voice.................................................................40
Wendy Keller — How to Start Working on Your Book Deal Today.......................................44
Marianne Williamson —Authorship as an Act of Service.........................................................47
What’s Next? — Transformational Author Resources...............................................................49
About the Author............................................................................................................................53

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CHRISTINE KLOSER
Building a Rock-Solid Foundation for Your Book
About Christine
Transformational Author Coach
Bestselling and Award-Winning Author
Creator, Transformational Author Experience
Connecting with Your Readers

Foundational Piece #1: Connect with That One Reader
If you want to be a transformational author, you can’t isolate yourself and write with
your blinders on. One of the biggest breakthroughs you can possibly experience is in
learning how to connect with your reader.
“Sonia Choquette suggests writing your book as if it were a letter to just one person.
It’s that intimate. Writing your book is an intimate experience. The way you touch
many, many people is by one person, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a million
times over.”
Working this way helps you avoid the “cast your net too wide” syndrome, which
causes writers to miss opportunities to connect with their readers because they want
their book to appeal to everyone.

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THE T R A N F S O R M AT I O N A L AUTHOR’S P L AY B O O K
“For someone who is having difficulty, your book is the solution to their problem, so
you want to address them directly.”
Using words like you, I, yours and mine creates a deeper, more intimate reading
experience than using we, us and our.
Foundational Piece #2: Write from a Deep Place of Conviction

“You want to stand so firmly in your own convictions, your own beliefs, that there
are people out there who practically drop to their knees in gratitude for what you’ve
shared and what you’ve written and how you’ve shared it, because you’re changing
their lives.”
What strong conviction are you standing on? Can you excavate it and put it into
words?
“If you’re too ‘vanilla’ and not forward enough and get worried about readers who
may not like your book, you are going to do a disservice to those who you are really
meant to serve.”
Foundational Piece #3: Solve Your Reader’s Problem

Write this question down: “What does my book promise my readers?” Or, “What
problem am I the solution for?”
Your answer should be no more than a few sentences. Here’s an example of a starter
statement:
My book helps (WHO) ____________ do (WHAT) ________________ so they
can experience (WHAT KIND OF RESULT)__________________________.
“If you can’t clearly communicate what that promise is, the readers who need your
message aren’t going to be able to get it because it’s in that vanilla zone.”

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Christine Kloser
Foundational Piece #4: Firm Up Your Strategy

One of the most important foundational pieces is strategizing how your book fits into
your overall vision, plans for your business, and how you serve people.
“At a workshop in San Diego, a woman came up to me and said, ‘I put a ton of effort
into writing my book, and it’s just not doing what I wanted it to do. It doesn’t position
me. It doesn’t brand me. It doesn’t teach what I really want to be teaching.’ That just
broke my heart.”
Some of you reading this might be asking, “What’s the point of strategizing my
business vision when all I want to do is just write?” If you can allow yourself to be a
little patient and take the time to have some fun and play a bit with the purpose of
your book, you might find your book has the power to connect people beyond the
written word. For example, you might want your book to get people to pick up the
phone for a free consultation, or you might develop your book in a way that can help
multiply the number of people who come to your workshops.
“What end result is it that you want, and how does your book fit into making that end
result a reality?”
Foundational Piece #5: “What Are the Critical Questions Your Book Will Answer?
“This is kind of similar to ‘What problem is your book the solution for?’ But what
I have found in working with my clients over the years is that asking it in this
different way questions what your book needs to answer for your readers. That
there’s a little something else, and just a slight shift in the angle, extracts different
wisdom from you.”
“If you have been working with people, like doing coaching calls with clients, just go
back and think, ‘What are the questions people ask me all the time about my topic?’
Once you start rolling, those questions will just keep coming in. You can also think
about a time when maybe you gave a speech and people asked, ‘What about this?’
‘What about that?’ That’s going to help you develop and create and expand on the
content of your book from a perspective that is reader-focused.”

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“If you’re already well into writing your book and haven’t established some of this
foundational work, maybe take a pause from writing and go through some of the
foundational work before you continue with your writing.”
The Most Important 250 Words You’ll Ever Write:

The Five Components of Your Back Cover
After the book title and front cover, the back cover is the next thing readers look at
when deciding whether to pull out their credit card and buy your book. This is also
the book description copy that will appear on Amazon.
Component #1: Headline

The first thing you want people to see on your back cover is a strong, bold and
engaging headline – a concise and powerful statement, twelve to twenty-four words,
that is attention-getting and quickly captures the interest of your potential reader.
Component #2: Descriptive Paragraphs

Next you’ll want to write two or three short, descriptive paragraphs that powerfully
describe your book and the benefits readers are going to receive from it. This copy
should be engaging, interesting and written from a marketing angle rather than like
the prose in your book.
Component #3: Bullet Points

The third component of your back cover copy is to write three to five benefit-laden
bullet points that very quickly and clearly show exactly what readers will learn if they
read your book. Begin your bullet-point statement with action words like discover,
learn, understand, launch, accept, create, etc.
Component #4: Endorsements

Once you know your topic and message, you can begin to think about who you’d like
to write endorsements for your book. You can even take it one step further and write
up a few dream endorsements. Ask yourself, “What would I want Oprah (or whoever

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Christine Kloser
your dreams endorsers are) to say about my book?” You’ll gain even more clarity
about your book when you imagine what you want others to say about it.
It’s a great idea to put one endorsement on the back cover of your book if you have
one. If you have more than one you can put them on the first page of your book.
Component #5: Bio

The final component on your back cover copy is your author bio. This is a fifty- to
seventy-five-word version of your bio that highlights a few key points that illustrate
why you’re qualified to write the book and why your readers should pay attention to
you as an expert on the topic.
Write It! The Final Step of Getting Clarity about Your Book
Schedule time to write like you are scheduling an appointment on your calendar,
and honor it as if it were a date with the most amazing, phenomenal person. You can
schedule either short daily writing sessions, a few chunks of time a week, or perhaps
two full days a month. Find what works for you and stick to it!
Questions to ask yourself about writing:

• When am I the most creative?
• Am I a work-on-it-for-a-week-nonstop person or a twenty-minutes-a-day person?

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SARK
(SUSAN ARIEL RAINBOW KENNEDY)
How to Put an End to Your “Inner Critic”
About SARK
Bestselling author and artist
Sixteen titles in print
Two million books sold
On the Miracle of Sharing Your Writing

“To escape the abuse in the family and neighborhood, I made friends with a man in
the neighborhood named Mr. Bogs who was eighty years old, and I was ten. One day
he got really sick and went into the hospital. For a month, I wrote something every
day and sent it to him. When he finally got out he said, ‘I think you saved my life. No
one else called and wrote, and I had to get out to see you.’”
On Cat Coincidences
Sometimes a concurrence of events or circumstances leads you to the exact place you
need to be.
“The only reason why my poster ‘How to Be an Artist’ ever became known and went
on to sell two-and-a-half million copies was because of my cat, Jupiter, who would
get up on his tiny legs and peel this poster off the wall. It would land on the floor

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SARK (Susan Ariel Ra i n b o w Kennedy)
and wake me up in the morning. For five days this went on, and finally I said, ‘Well,
maybe I’m supposed to do something with this thing.’”
The Truth about Stepping Out as a Writer/Author

Giving yourself permission to create is the key to overcoming fear and self-doubt.
“I did not publish a book until I was thirty-five years old. For twenty-five years I
thought of all the books that I would write, and I procrastinated. I was afraid. There
was also a lot of incredible life being lived, self-destructive behavior, and dreams.
When the day came to finally write that first book, I wrote it in two weeks.”
On Inner Critics and Egg Factories

“My inner critic is a very active Perfectionist. I have given my Perfectionist an imaginary
job, who happens to work at an egg factory checking for eggs that are cracked. This
job was actually not big enough so she’s recently been promoted to supervisor of
world egg factories. All the factories in the world that produce chicken eggs are being
supervised by my Perfectionist.” When your Perfectionist has something else to focus
on it makes it much easier for you to write with speed and ease.
Learn How to Separate the Voices of Your Inner Critic with this Three-Step Process:
1. Identify the negative voice inside your head, and separate from that energy by
standing up and making a chopping motion with one of your hands coming
down, while saying the word no with great emphasis.
2. Reassign these critics to other jobs. Critics need to work. If you don’t redirect
them, they will work in your life in ways that don’t serve you.
3. Activate your inner wise self to dialogue and communicate with your inner critic.
Your inner wise self knows exactly how to calm the inner critic.
On Writing Love Notes to Yourself

Writing love notes to yourself is key to activating and empowering your connection
with your inner wise self, which is what leads to true self-love. When SARK wrote love

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notes during a long period of childhood abuse, she actually saved herself emotionally.
“Writing a love note to yourself is not just a one-time thing. When you build this kind
of connection over time of activating and empowering your inner wise self, it goes
everywhere with you. Your inner wise self will deliver wisdom to you that you need
in those moments.”
Paving the Way to Author Transformation

When you’re willing to walk a transformational path on which you’re engaged with
your powerful inner wise self, your words are going to be richer, deeper, juicier and
more insightful.
“Your connection to your inner wise self needs to be stronger and stronger. Nothing
can seize the inner wise self. It’s pure unconditional love and wisdom.”
“It’s got to be that passion in your gut if you really want to land in the heart, the gut,
the soul of your reader.”

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GEOFF AFFLECK
Expand Your Message with an Ebook
About Geoff
Co-author, Enlightened Bestseller
Launched books to New York Times bestsellers
Creator of eBook Bestseller Bootcamp
If You’re Just Starting Out as a Transformational Author,

Create an Ebook
Geoff espouses that it’s possible to build a credible platform even when you are just
starting out as a transformational author. When he decided to invest in himself, the
universe met him with his level of commitment and began to provide the right people,
connections, relationships and mentors to help him share his words of wisdom about
building a credible marketing platform from publishing just one ebook.
He recommends using an ebook as a valuable list-building tool that can ultimately

be leveraged to create income from your products, programs, workshops and
speaking engagements. This ultimately creates demand for your physical book
when it’s published.
“An ebook doesn’t have to be very long. Our ebook Enlightened Bestseller is 10,000
words roughly and of course, if you were to print that out as a PDF version, it’s about

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forty pages. So we’re finding ebooks in the 10,000- to 20,000-word range to be just fine.
People can digest them within an hour or so. It doesn’t have to be a full book.”
If You Don’t Want to Generate Completely New Content,

Consider Geoff’s Strategy
“One of the great strategies that we’ve found is, let’s say you’re writing a
transformational self-help book and you’ve got a seven-step process for moving from
pain to happiness, or whatever it might be; you can just take one of those nuggets,
or maybe one or two or three of your points, and create an ebook from that slice of
content without having to write the whole book. And now you’re a published author.
That can help you leverage speaking, give you a way to build your list, and so on.”
Other Strategies
• Convert your blog posts into an ebook
• Convert webinar transcripts into an ebook
• Convert interviews into an ebook
A Tip for Putting Your Content Together

When the time comes to put your ebook together, consider keyword research as a
valuable tool. You can use it for your book title, back cover copy/description, website
copy, etc. Not only will it make the book title appealing to the buying audience, but
it will make it appealing to the search engines too, including Google, Yahoo, Amazon
and YouTube.
Get Your Future Readers Involved Early

People love to be involved in helping a book come to life. So consider getting your
future readers involved even before your book is written. Here are three ways to
do that:

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Geoff A f f l e ck
1. Start by surveying some of the people who are your friends on Facebook or those
on your email list who fit your ideal reader.
2. Ask, “What’s the number one question about…?” Or “What’s the number one
problem you have when it comes to…?” Their responses can become your chapter
outline – these different topics about which people say, “These are the questions
I have,” and “This is the problem I have.”
3. Ask for their feedback at each stage of the process: title, cover design, back cover
copy, etc.
The Techie Stuff You Need to Know to Publish an Ebook on

the Kindle Platform on Amazon
Getting an ebook on the Kindle platform through Amazon is the cheapest and easiest
way to get your content in the hands of readers. People who don’t have Kindle devices
can still read books through the Kindle app, so publishing on the Kindle platform is
the way to go.
Consider Signing up for the KDP Select Program. KDP Select requires a ninety-day
exclusive commitment to Amazon/Kindle as the only platform where your book will
be available. The upside is that you can give your ebook away for free on Kindle for
five days out of every ninety days before it’s available through retail channels. This is
a surefire way to get your book into the hands of more people, get more reviews and
build momentum for your book after the free promotion ends.

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MARC ALLEN
The Art of Writing a Transformational Book
About Marc
President and publisher of New World Library
Author of nine books
Publishes authors like Deepak Chopra, Shakti Gawain and Eckhart Tolle
Creativity and Originality

Everyone has the ability to write from a place of stillness and creativity without
judgment. Stepping into that creative zone requires “letting that inner critic go for a
while. Don’t start criticizing as soon as you write. Let your visionary self, your inner
dreamer, your inner writer shine. Try to be as original as you can be.” Later you can
summon the inner critic to do the detail work for you, but for now, getting to the good
stuff requires your creative energy, calmness and originality.
Why Stillness Matters

Separate from the noise daily so you can, in fact, write from your best self. Although
stillness is becoming a foreign word in today’s digital age, it’s the key to creativity and
originality.

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Marc Allen
Behind the Scenes of Waiting

Sometimes waiting isn’t a sign of procrastination. Rather, waiting allows one to
write with deep clarity and courage. Case in point: After several writing attempts in
England and on the West Coast, Eckhart Tolle ended up completing his New York Times
bestselling The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment in Canada. “He waited
to write every sentence until it came from presence. He waited until he was totally
quiet and his mind had ceased thinking. He waited until he was aware of his internal
being and his words arose from a great stillness and depth.” That might explain why
his book sold millions of copies.
The Art of Being Original

In today’s digital world, so many writers and authors are trying so hard to be like
Eckhart Tolle and Napoleon Hill. Being as original as you can takes you so much
further. “In this transformational world, there is nothing new under the sun. It’s the
same old wisdom we’re recycling, but we say it new for every generation. We say it
with new language. Find your own unique voice. You’re not Eckhart Tolle. You’re not
Napoleon Hill. You’re not the Bhagavad Gita. You’re you. You have something fresh
to share.”
On Writing a Strong Non-Fiction Book

Otherwise known as prescriptive non-fiction, this genre helps people do something
to improve their lives. A strong non-fiction book lives up to these four core elements:
• What have you learned?

• What tools have you developed?
• What made the shift?
• How can you teach other people to use those tools?

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“Authors gain credibility from experience, not only formal education. Readers know
what you’re teaching works because it worked for you, the author, when you applied
the strategy, tip, tool or tactic in your own life at a time when you were facing the
challenge you’re writing about.”
On Writing the Back Cover Copy First

When it comes to acquiring new non-fiction titles, acquisition editors want their
books to benefit the reader. Both Marc and Christine Kloser suggest writing the
back cover copy first. “People in a bookstore spend three seconds on the cover,
then they flip it over, and they’ll give twenty to thirty seconds reading the bulleted
list of benefits to the reader on the back cover. It’s great advice and really helps
keep your books focused.”
Ask yourself, “If I could write my dream back cover, what would it say?” Then
write that!
How Long Does it Take to Write a Book?

If your goal is to write a full-fledged manuscript, how many hours per week can you
realistically devote to it? Writing doesn’t have to take seven or eight hours a day. “If
you average a page or two a day, you’ve got a book-length project within six months
or a year.”
Not everyone can write like Eckhart Tolle. The key is to find your own rhythm. For
example, Marc does everything in little bursts, including writing, without sticking to
a fixed schedule. “If the ideas keep bugging me then I write the contents page, and
the ones that catch fire are the ones that wake me up at three o’clock in the morning,
which is my subconscious telling me, ‘Okay, you’ve got to do this. This is a good
project to do.’”

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Marc Allen
By definition, a writer is someone who writes. But you don’t need to validate yourself
with a book. Writing a blog defines you as a writer as well.
Simplicity: The Key to Teaching a Topic

“Assume you are an authority on your topic. Explain that topic very clearly to
somebody. The simpler the vocabulary, the better. Try to teach as clearly as you can.
Imagine this person is very open to it all and really likes you and wants to learn this
stuff, but doesn’t know a thing, doesn’t know your vocabulary. Carefully instruct
them.”
What Turns Marc Off; Author Etiquette 101

• Sob story memoirs: Marc suggests you ask yourself, “So what did I learn and how
can I help others with my material?”
• Being rude or extremely uptight: “We’ve had to drop a couple of projects because
the authors wanted to micromanage everything.” Mark quips, “You want to do
everything anyway, so you should self-publish.”
• Cluelessness about the kind of topic or content a publisher is looking for.
• An author’s overwhelming ego illustrates a lack of sophistication: An attitude
that says, “You’ve got to publish this book. The world needs this. This is the next
stage in human evolution. I’m going beyond The Power of Now. I’m going beyond
Conscious Evolution.” This type of attitude is a definite turn-off for publishers across
the board.

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DR. GAY HENDRICKS
There’s No Such Thing as Writer’s Block
About Gay
President of the Hendricks Institute
Bestselling author of Conscious Loving, Five Wishes, and The Big Leap
Appeared on CNN, CNBC, 48 Hours and The Oprah Winfrey Show
On Writing from the Heart

“It’s one thing to write a book, but if you’ve written a book that really comes from your
heart, it’s almost like you have an obligation to share it with the world in the form of
seminars, classes and things like that. But if you sit on your genius and creativity and
don’t share them with the world, they can really eat you up inside.”
“A lot comes through to the page from listening to you, getting into a more intimate
relationship with yourself. Everybody has that creative flow built in. It comes wired
in us from the universe. The best thing is to just keep tuning in, listening, finding out
what you most love to be and what you most love to contribute, and staying in the
sweet spot of the flow of that. How can you both tune in to what you most love to do
and be looking for ways to serve other people through your writing?”

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Dr. G ay H e n d r i ck s
The Sweet Spot of Writing: Ask Yourself…

• What is it that I most love to write about?
• What has meant the most in my life that I feel a burning passion to share with
others?
• Does it have the potential of really changing somebody else’s life?
On Building a Meditation Practice as a Writing Ritual

“I started meditating in 1973. I meditate every day early in the morning for twenty
minutes or so. And so my mind is kind of clear and sharp and my body is humming
and feeling a flow. I don’t feel I can honorably sit down and communicate with the
computer or my audience unless I am feeling in that sweet space myself. But if I’m
feeling offset or something like that, I don’t really try to do any writing. I don’t usually
try to do a lot of writing unless I have that crystal-clear space going on early in the
morning.”
There Is No Such Thing as Writer’s Block

“This is actually the name of an article I wrote thirty years ago, and the main idea is
that when the creativity is not coming out, there’s something that needs to be tuned in
to. You need to learn something deeper about yourself. As you learn more and more
deeply about yourself, that creative flow just has to come out, so if it’s not coming out
that way, ask yourself, “What is it in myself that most needs to be loved?”
Feel the Way to Your Reader

“When Katie and I wrote our book Conscious Loving, which was my first big relationship
book in the early nineties, I remember standing in front of bookshelves saying, ‘Okay,
if I’m here looking for a relationship book or help on my relationships, what is it I’m
actually feeling?’ And we would kind of begin to tune in to feeling that in ourselves.
As we got clearer and clearer on that, it became clearer to us how to write in a way
that impacted the reader because we had done that homework in ourselves by feeling
that in ourselves.”

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BO EASON
How Your Personal Story Can Make You Money
About Bo
Former NFL standout
Acclaimed Broadway playwright of and performer in Runt of the Litter
Creator, Personal Story Power
On Connecting with Your Target Audience from the Stage

“As soon as you start telling that one person and connecting to that one person through
your story, they have to reciprocate and send energy back to you. As soon as that
happens you move to the next person. You connect. You make it land. The energy
comes back to you, and then you move to the next person. Because when you’re
writing a book or when you’re speaking on stage, if you try to please them all in one
shot it’s going to be too general. It’s going to be too unspecific and blurry. You’ve got
to land your message on one person. And as soon as you have them you move to the
next person. You connect with them directly and then move on to the next and so on.
Doing this allows every person in the room to feel a personal connection to you.”
“If you have a strong intention to connect like this, people will not move and they will
not take their eyes off you. They just know they have to be aware and attentive to you
because they’re dealing with something that’s alive, present and engaged on stage in
front of them.” People crave this and it is what your stories can do.

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Bo Ea s o n
On the Power of Owning Your Story

“To transform other people, to transform your audience, you have to transform
yourself right in front of them so that they get permission to do the same with all those
they want to impact. The best way to transform yourself is to share your personal story
because no story in itself has ever been told that didn’t go through a transformation.
That’s why every great movie, every great book, every great story starts at the bottom
and takes people on a journey.”
“Your specific personal story is your biggest money maker, your biggest influence
you can have on this world. And it distinguishes you like nothing else.”
On Underestimating Your Lowest Story Moment

“That lowest moment that you’ve got – that moment when it looked like there were no
answers – you start there. And usually there was a decision that was made right after
that event happened. And that decision was made either like this: you said, “Okay,
I quit. I will not participate with humanity anymore,” and you basically die; or you
decide to fight and you decide your message is more important than the way you feel,
and you go forward.”
“That story started at your lowest point and it ended with where you are today and
forms who you are today. If you have the ability to tell that story with emotion, then
you’ll transform right in front of their eyes and they’ll have to transform with you and
then you can take them anywhere you want to. They’ll go anywhere with you. But
you’ve got to go personal. You’ve got to go specific to you. That’s the most generous
act you have. That’s the most courageous thing you can do.”
On Vulnerability as the New Leadership

“Vulnerability is the new power. People used to seek power by seeking power. No
longer. Doesn’t work. What makes you vulnerable is sharing your authentic self. Your
personal story makes you vulnerable. You’ve got to let go of the control. Most of us,

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when we’re in front of people, want to control how people view us. Well, you’ve got
to give that up. They’re going to make their own decisions about you.”
“If you put your story out, then you’ve got to make yourself vulnerable. You’ve got
to show and share your pain and your transformation. That’s going forward in this
world. Those are going to be the leaders of this new coming age.”

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DANIELLE LAPORTE
How to Kick Ass When Everyone Questions Your Dreams
About Danielle
Bestselling author
Co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan
Invited member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100
How Fire Starter Sessions Became Her Book Journey

“I do this improvisation in the form of a Q and A. People shout words at me from the
audience, things like ‘patience,’ ‘integrity,’ ‘fire,’ ‘deadlines,’ ‘creativity,’ and then I
respond. The genesis of it was that I was doing one-on-one jam sessions about how
to rock their businesses, mostly entrepreneurs, and it was mostly women who were
showing up, and I extended that into groups. I did sixteen cities, sixteen different
groups in a year, and I had a lot of conversations and I saw a lot of themes, and that,
essentially, became the content for the book.
“I didn’t want to be hemmed in to an eighteen-month production cycle with a

publisher. I wanted to own my own copyright. I wanted to make three times the
amount of money. So I did a digital program. I told everybody I was launching it on
a certain date. I didn’t even have it written. I gave myself three months. I said it was
going to be multimedia. I didn’t even know how to work iMovie, and I did it.

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“So the digital version of The Fire Starter Sessions did very well and that caught the
attention of an agent and then we did an exclusive pitch to Crown and that was a love
match and Random House Crown did The Fire Starter Sessions.”
Why Being True to Yourself as a Creative Is So Important

• Because it’s really painful to not be yourself
• Because you’re not going to sleep as well
• Because the imposter complex is a very heavy thing to carry around
• Because it’s not full living
“There’s always an occasion to push back and just not buy into other peoples’
expectations of you. Don’t buy it. Don’t fall for it if you can’t do it the way you want
to do it. Sometimes those choices will be hard not because you have to push back and
have tough conversations, but because you’re always going to worry about whether
you’re liked or not. Remember, you can’t please everybody. It’s so much more fun
to be yourself. You will get more creative the more you bend systems to your pure
desires.”
Honor Your Content Personality

“You don’t have to do video unless you really love doing video. If you pick one
modality of marketing that you just love, and that’s all you do, I believe you’ll have
much more success doing one thing that you love consistently than doing ten things
that you really don’t like haphazardly.”
On Setting Feeling Intentions

“When you get really clear on how you want to feel, it creates momentum to go after
what you want. So when you’re clear that you want to feel, say, connected, creative,
energized, courageous or love, you’ll do what it takes to feel that way. And getting
your work out into the world is directly related to your core desired feelings.”

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Da n i e l l e La P o r t e
On Feeling Alive
“When people get pushed back, they get doubts and the painful lack of support from
the people around them, and they jump to the conclusion that it must mean that they’re
not doing the right thing. They question themselves because they’re being questioned
externally. And being questioned externally is inevitable. It ends up, as aggravating as
it can be, actually being really useful because it pushes you to really take a stand for
what you want. It pushes you in a positive way to question what you’re doing, and
you should always be questioning what you’re doing, not necessarily from a doubtful
lens, but just ‘Am I on path? Is this in synch with my most desired feelings? Is this
making me feel alive?’”
“Another layer is guilt, which is part of creativity and becoming more conscious. Every
mother who has a book to write and needs to get a sitter feels guilty for that.”
“The third layer to this is ‘Screw them.’ Hang out with people who are cheerleading
you.”
“The fourth layer is to go out and get the support you need. Get someone who’s going
to help you with accountability, illumination and encouragement. Sometimes you
have to pay to be encouraged.”
On What It Means to Write

“If you want to be a writer, write. Write anything and write anywhere and write
anytime.”

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JONATHAN FIELDS
The Truth about Book-Marketing Campaigns
About Jonathan
Serial entrepreneur, speaker, innovation catalyst, bestselling author
Executive producer and host of Good Life Project
Featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, USA Today,
People, CNBC, Inc.com, Entrepreneur
The Truth about Book-Marketing Campaigns

“The bigger thing that bothered me was the promises that were being made around
those campaigns, which were, ‘You’ll hit number one in your category for an hour on
Amazon and all the morning TV shows are going to want you on there. You’re going
to get booked for $20,000 speaking gigs and all that.’ The truth is the only person who
cares that you hit the number one position in your category on Amazon for an hour
is you! And maybe your mom, dad and your three friends. And generally, the cost of
those marketing campaigns is such a huge multiple of any income that you get from a
book, whether you’re self-publishing or being traditionally published, that financially
it’s not even worth the effort.”

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J o n at h a n Fields
The Power of a Book-Based Business

The all-in author model is making your entire living writing books – whether you
are traditionally published with royalties and advances or self-published – just from
straight-up book sales. And there’s so much more a book can do for you if it’s an
integral part of your business. “You can have a bigger business – maybe it’s consulting,
maybe it’s coaching; and maybe you have a company that sells products or solutions
or services. And this book is being positioned as a really strong lead magnet – as
basically a big business card for your business that establishes thought-leadership
and credibility and moves people into a really intelligent marketing funnel where
they will very likely buy your services or products for substantially more money.
So if you’re making a $2.50 royalty on a book and you’re selling a service that would
generate thousands of dollars from each person on a yearly basis, in your mind you
can spend a lot more money on the campaign because you’re not looking to make it
all back on the book sales alone. The investment and leverage you can get with your
book-based business is almost impossible to get as an ‘all-in author’ who only writes
books as a traditionally published author.”
Embrace Your Blogging Voice

Be strong. Be bold. Create unique content that will appeal to your niche. You need to
give people something powerful to say yes or no to. Create a really big, provocative,
strongly positioned flagship piece of content that is shareable. Post that piece on your
blog and then write and repeat this process on a regular basis.
You’re Blog: The Place to Test Stuff

“As a blogger, you can pepper your blog with key ideas and principles and concepts
and see how people are responding to them before you ever release your book, so you
can incorporate all that phenomenal feedback into your book so it really changes the
psychology of creation while you’re actually writing. For fiction writers, your readers
are absolutely fascinated by you as a person and your process as a writer. How do you
come up with your ideas, your characters, and your world? How do you write? These
are the types of things fiction authors can write about on their blogs.”

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Facebook: The Backstage Pass

“The more people you engage on your Facebook page or group, the more people see
it. And it has a viral distribution potential that’s phenomenal. You want to be sharing
your content, be asking questions. The idea is to engage with people out there. It’s less
about establishing thought-leadership; it’s about engaging with people and getting
your ideas shared through this really powerful distribution community.”
The After Party of Twitter

“You can find a lot of influencers on Twitter. Follow them. Take some time to really
understand what conversations they’re having. And then it’s like a water cooler, but
the difference is if you know where to find the conversation, you’re automatically
invited on Twitter; whereas at work, if you’re not invited into the conversation and
you jump in, people think that you’re some sort of really not cool person. You can also,
like Facebook, use Twitter as a tremendous vehicle to distribute your own content,
share other people’s content, and build up credibility and reciprocity in other people’s
eyes.”
Launching Your Book on Social Media

“The big thing across all social media platforms is that you always lead with value, you
always give and share and promote other people ten times more than you promote
yourself.”
“It is very possible as you build your relationships and your network over time, to
allow that to keep driving more and more book sales over time. There are a lot of
books that have never hit the bestseller list that do really well on sustained sales.”
Greenlighting Your Book

“Two months before Career Renegade launched and we were seeing what was
happening with the economy in 2008, we were all freaking out trying to figure out a
way to drive a ton of preorders two months out before the book launched. I wanted to
change the conversation because the world was talking about doom and gloom and
I saw opportunity, but I also wanted a ton of preorders to support a strong launch.”

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J o n at h a n Fields
“So I created a manifesto – a ten-page manifesto I called the Firefly Manifesto, and I
put it up on a website and I launched a little mini website for the book. I said, ‘I don’t
want your email. Just download the manifesto and share it with everyone you know
because the conversation needs to change.’
“At the back page of that manifesto was a call to action that said, ‘If you’ve enjoyed
this, and you want something to do now, then give me your email and preorder the
book. I will give you admission to a private community, which will then offer you
something called Flight School,’ which was a sixteen-hour training that I created in
a matter of weeks. The value of that probably would have been around a thousand
dollars.”
When it comes time to launch your book, think outside the box. Don’t let any external
circumstance take the wind out of your sails. Get creative. Get strategic. Get more
passionate about your topic and share that passion any way you can.
Time Your Book Launch with Powerful, Viral-Worthy Content

• Three to four weeks before your book comes out, create and distribute strong,
provocative content that will condition the market so they’re just lined up waiting
for your book to come out.
• As a second step, let your peeps know that when they preorder they will also get
access to a tremendous training program or some other type of valuable bonus
they couldn’t get otherwise.
Create a Value Proposition for Potential Peeps

Approach bloggers to let them know that you have an idea that would be very
valuable for their readers. “You want to try and appear on as many blogs and
websites as you can in a compressed period of time because this builds buzz.”
Offer the possibility to do an interview or to create content for that person’s outlet
based on the idea. Once your content is out there, throw in a byline or something
with a link to you and the book.
You can find the right bloggers by starting out with the keywords you would search
for if you were searching for the type of content you write about. There are also

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some blog-based search engines like Google that actually have their own blog search
engines. Just type in that keyword and then “blog” or “top blogs,” and very often
you’ll pull up a list of the bigger blogs that talk about your topic.
Get Your Peeps Involved in Your Creation Tribe

Share what’s happening behind the scenes with people in your “creation tribe” in
a way that you haven’t shared it with anybody else. You can show them things like
early copies of the cover and title concepts, and get their input. “When it comes time
to actually launch the book, you’ve got this private creation tribe of people who are
much more vested and much more connected and really feel a sense of ownership in
the book because they’ve really helped you put the whole thing together.”

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ARIELLE FORD
Monetizing Your Platform
About Arielle
International bestselling author of eleven books
Former publicist for top-selling authors
Helped launched careers of people like Deepak Chopra, Neale Donald Walsch and
Wayne Dyer
On the Joys of Embracing the Author Journey

You often see authors focusing on Amazon sales or how to become a bestselling author,
but those are external outcomes. Embracing the journey is part of the responsibility
of becoming an author. “Be willing to have fun, because you’re not going to know if
you’re going to be successful. Some books find a life; some don’t. It’s so rewarding
to see that people’s lives are being changed and touched by something you created.”
Platform-Building Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Getting the word out about your book requires engaging with your audience – your
platform. “You have to build the platform” and “you want people who are your true
followers, your fans, to be engaged with you. That’s really what platform is.”

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Quantifying your platform is necessary for a book proposal, but at the end of the
day, strong numbers mean high engagement. Focus on engaging your peeps through
“your e-mail list; your social media followers on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn;
and whatever else you’re doing including your speaking engagements, both free and
paid; your publicity; participation in teleseminars, webinars, and online events; and
interviews that you do in print and on television and radio.”
How Arielle Grew Her Platform for Soulmate Secret

“When I was building the platform for Soulmate Secret, I sent my first newsletter to a
couple thousand people. That’s all I had, and I basically said to them, ‘I’m never going
to do this to you again, but I’m starting this newsletter and if you’d like to be on my
newsletter list, click here.’ I gave them something for free and then I started sending
out a newsletter each week. At the end of the newsletter I said, ‘If you got anything
valuable out of this, please forward to a friend.’”
“When my book came out, I put ‘feelingizations’ in almost every chapter. They’re
audio processes. I said, ‘If you would like to listen to the audio of this for free, go to
my website.’ And of course, every time they went to my website they had to opt in
for my newsletter. Most times, when somebody bought my book, I then got them
on my newsletter. And I got to see how book sales were going based on how the
list was growing every week. Fast does not exist in this world, but slow growth
does. Platform-building, relationship-building and building your visibility in the
marketplace haven’t sped up like the book and publishing world.”
The Importance of Email Marketing

If you are just starting to build a platform, Arielle suggests getting started on growing
your email list. There are certain things that resonate better with a potential buyer via
email than on Facebook or Twitter. “In an email you can write longer content, which
warms up the traffic. On Facebook and Twitter, you can’t.”
To get good traffic from Facebook nowadays, many big name brands, entrepreneurs
and authors are paying for Facebook ads, making it easier to send potential customers

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Arielle Ford
to their websites to grow their email lists. But the success of this depends on how well
you market and set up the ad itself. If done well, you can grow your list by thousands.
If done poorly, you can needlessly spend thousands. So learn this strategy from an
expert or hire a reputable ad specialist to help you use ads to grow your list.
Understanding Book Sales and Publicity

“Publicity is an important part of getting a book out, but it’s not the most important
anymore. Today, if you want to launch a book, especially as a traditionally published
author, you have to understand how book sales happen.” Essentially, 40 percent of
book sales still comes from brick and mortar bookstores and about 60 percent comes
from online (based on 2016 research in the category of traditional published adult
fiction and non-fiction). Ebook sales growth has levelled off in the past few years.
But still, to be what we call a real bestselling author, you need to either have books in
stores or have an incredibly strong platform and online following.
Here’s how bookstore sales work: “When books get to the stores, there’s an ‘on sale’
date, and that’s when the clock starts ticking. If you don’t sell out of your books in the
first twenty-one days, whatever books are remaining get returned and you don’t ever
get back on the bookstore shelf. Game over. This is why you see so many authors doing
major publicity tours around the time of their book launch. They want to make sure
people know about their book and that it moves off the bookstore shelves quickly. So
having a game plan to get your books moving from day one is very, very critical.”
What Makes an A-Lister

“The A-listers are all coming from a place of mission and purpose – that they would
be doing what they’re doing whether or not they were making a ton of money or being
famous doing it. That is not what motivates them. They are so driven and passionate
to share their information. They’re going out there with their hearts open. And it just
turns into this huge magical career for them.”

39
LISA NICHOLS
The Power of Your Authentic Voice
About Lisa
CEO of Motivating the Masses
New York Times bestselling author
Appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Extra, Larry King Live and many more
When Did You Discover the Power of Your Authentic Voice?

“In school I learned very early that I was supposed to motivate people. I was a
cheerleader. I knew early on that I had a voice. Twenty years ago I began to tap into
it, and in 2003 when I began to write my story for the Chicken Soup for the Soul book,
it really got agitated. In 2005, when Rhonda Byrne asked me to be in her movie The
Secret, I really didn’t understand the law of attraction. I grew up in a Baptist church.
We didn’t study the law of attraction, and I embraced it, but just wasn’t aware of it.
When I did the interview, I just spoke my truth and it was a great fit for the movie and
I became one of the featured teachers. Over and over again, I just kept experiencing
that every time I was authentic, greater things happened than when I shut down or
when I tried to protect my image, brand, reputation or the fact that I was called an
expert, and withheld a piece of my natural truth. The energy didn’t flow the way it
did when I was authentic, so I continued to uncover and use my authentic voice.”

40
Lisa Nichols
“When you tell your authentic truth, you liberate not only yourself, but those around
you. The beauty of finding your authentic voice, then sharing it, is a decision that only
starts with you, but it’s so contagious that you set a pathway. You put energy out into
the universe that permeates people, that catches someone in their darkest hour and
helps them rise to the light and divinity. So your authenticity is actually less about
you than it is about serving the planet.”
How Do You Calm Voices of Fear so

You Can Step into Your Truth?
“I started doing this little game with myself where I just keep asking questions for the
worst case scenario. When I said, ‘People won’t listen to me because I’m an African-
American woman,’ I asked, ‘How do I know?’ and the answer was, ‘I don’t know.’
Then I asked, ‘What if they don’t listen to me?’ The answer was, ‘There are some
who will.’ The question was, ‘What if there are some who will – then what?’ And the
answer was, ‘I’ll speak to them.’”
“Keep questioning your fear until it dissipates into the true nothingness that it is.”
On Self-Love
“When you fall madly in love with yourself in a way that allows you to honor you,
then you can love yourself enough to be authentic to the world and say, ‘It’s my job to
give you the true me, and it’s your job to do whatever you choose with that.’”
Four Questions for Discovering Your Authentic Voice:

1. What pain or problem are you the solution for?
2. What joy does your message bring to the world?
3. How is the world a better place because of your message?
4. If you don’t speak, how will the world suffer?

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On Becoming a Confident Speaker

“I used to stand in front of my bathroom mirror imagining I was speaking to 5,000
people. So you want to stand in front of those people hypothetically, in your imagination,
and you want to speak to them. That’s how to begin becoming a confident speaker.”
“Then I recommend allowing people in your community to support you. Get two
people to come sit and listen to you, and then picture those two people to be 200.
You’re not going to get over the fear just thinking about it, or waiting on getting over
the fear. So you go from zero people in the room to imaging that it’s 200, and you
deliver the entire speech. I’ve cried real tears because I was delivering a speech to two
people. I didn’t do an act. I delivered the speech with full-on energy.”
“There are places right now that are ready to receive you as the speaker. You just have
to notice them. I practiced for four-and-a-half years in places no one wanted to go, but
I wanted to go there because I got better as a speaker every time I presented in front
of a live audience.”
If You Want to Grow, Stretch Your Comfort Zone

“I always say, ‘Find someone who makes you uncomfortable and hang around them
as much as possible.’ Now they need to make you uncomfortable in a way that they
stretch you. I used to hang around men, businessmen, entrepreneurs and speakers
who talked about this $15,000 fee and this $10,000 fee and that in the back of the
room they generated $250,000 in three hours. It was a foreign language to me. I was
making $40,000 a year as a speaker, and I’m eating beanies and weenies with my son. I
hung around them because they talked the language that I wanted to learn. They also
talked about serving the globe and serving the planet. They also talked about having
a spiritual awareness. All that was foreign to me, but I stayed and I learned. And now
I pay it forward by sharing my success with others so I can help them get out of their
comfort zone too.”

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Lisa Nichols
Serve Others from Your Overflow

“Before you can serve others, you have to serve yourself, because when you serve
yourself and fill your own tank, you’re serving others from your overflow. When you
serve from the saucer, not the cup, you’re giving people all that stuff you didn’t even
need anyway, so you’re serving them from a place of abundance.”
“How do you get there? You get there by asking yourself, ‘What areas in my life do I
need to pay attention to, and how do I move that particular area of my life from where
it is to where I want it to be?’”
“When there’s a lack of value, you’re not valuing yourself – there’s a lack of something,
lack of self-attention; lack of self-love; lack of being born into your spirituality; lack of
loving, fulfilling relationships; lack of being in financial integrity. You want to create
more of a flow. As a matter of fact, you want to speed up your flow. You go to those
areas that are occupying energy in your life – things that you are just tolerating. When
you unlock those, you value that area of your life and you become more full inside.
And this is what empowers you to serve others from the overflow. That’s what I’m
talking about.”
Selling Is a Dignified Conversation

“Selling your products and services is a dignified conversation that opens up such a
sense of possibility in people. When you offer yourself as a coach, consultant, speaker,
etc. you’re igniting the possibility in someone that they can grow from what you say.
So understand that when you give a fee, that’s a dignified conversation that doesn’t
have anything to do with your self-worth. We’re afraid to put a value to our offerings
because if someone says no we think they are saying no to us, that they don’t value us
that way. No – who you are is who you are. Take the emotion around your value out,
but keep the emotion in when it comes to sharing your message and serving others.”

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WENDY KELLER
How to Start Working on Your Book Deal Today
About Wendy
Literary agent behind seventeen New York Times bestsellers
Sold 1,500+ rights deals worldwide
Author of forty-two published books
Chief Talent Launcher at Keller Media
Don’t Wait for a Book Deal; Start Now

“Building that platform before, during and after the book is published is the entire
secret. If you imagine 400,000+ books published every year in the United States, how
are you going to stand out? You’ve got to help yourself out, and platform is the name
of the game. It gives you a shot at major publishers and it also gives you a shot at your
book actually reaching and benefitting and serving your intended population.”
Why Building a Platform Matters

“No matter how your book gets to publication, the reality is if that book doesn’t move
once it’s published – I mean the day it’s published; if it doesn’t start selling because you
don’t have a platform that’s growing and already the foundation is there so you can

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Wendy Keller
build on it; if you don’t sell that book in sixty or ninety days, your Amazon numbers
are going to plummet and your sales figures are going to stay flat.” It’s easier to create
and maintain book-sales momentum around the time of your launch than to launch
your book and then try to grow a platform to build sales momentum after the fact.”
On Building a Platform Fast with a Low to No Budget

1. Ask, “What is the single greatest thing that someone is going to get as a benefit
from reading my book? What’s the heart of the book? What’s the heart of the
benefit?”
2. Capture those best pieces of advice in digital content. “Take the heart out of your
book and write it down as an ebook [for example] and give that book away as a
‘freemium’ to people who give you their emails and names when they come into
your platform.”
3. Share valuable content online. Create four short, engaging and valuable videos.
Then, when you distribute them online, add a link to your ebook so people can
opt in to get it and join your email list. Once they get your ebook, “People will
buy your print book because you’ve given them something valuable, and they’re
going to want more from you in the future.”
“These three strategies are an incredible way to do three things: It builds your platform.
It builds your list. It also gives you a chance to start to understand how the world is
responding to your content.”
Banana Peel Collages to Build Your Platform and List

“Create a metatag for one of your YouTube videos that’s completely crazy and unique,
something that nobody else is likely to have. Like ‘banana peel collages’ or just some
crazy term. Metatags are keywords that relate to your content. They are also how the
internet searches for those videos.
“When someone is searching for mindfulness [as your keyword, for example] and they
get to your video, the algorithm will work out that mindfulness [your keyword] plus
banana peel collages and make all the other videos also show up as recommendations.
And so now the consumer who’s viewing your first video will be shown your other

45
three videos and will therefore be more likely to trust you with their name and email
address in return for your free ebook.”
Go Gold with Just One Media Source

“It’s not rocket science to get media attention for you and your book. We’re not talking
about going to Oprah or MSNBC or some big national show. Even just some attention
in your region like in The Philadelphia Enquirer or the Chicago Sun Times or something
like that can make a huge difference for your career. Media is a really critical and
valuable component of building your platform, and it’s much easier to get local or
regional coverage.”
Platform-Building Is Not Just about Getting You Out There as

an Author; It’s Learning to Listen
“You will gain more fans by learning to listen to what they’re asking for and what
they’re responding to than you ever will by trying to force them to get excited about
what you’re excited about. Meet them where they are and they’ll be fans for life.”

46
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
Authorship as an Act of Service
About Marianne
Internationally acclaimed author and lecturer
Author of twelve books including four New York Times number-one bestsellers
Popular guest on television programs such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live,
and Good Morning America
Learning to Embrace Authorship as an Act of Service

“There weren’t people who stood up and talked about spirituality and transformation
and got paid for it, so there was no reason to believe this would ever be a career. It was
simply something that I loved do.”
In 1982 Gerald Jampolsky, the first well-known authority to popularize the ideas in
the Foundation for Inner Peace’s A Course in Miracles, encouraged Marianne to write
A Return to Love, but she didn’t yet have the courage to follow through. However, that
moment brought her in touch with the concept of service.
“In my books I talk about making the shift from ambition to inspiration, from an
intention to do this or do that to an intention to be of service, and how, as soon as you
do that, you align yourself with the cosmic self-organizing principle of the universe.”

47
The “Use Me” Prayer

“Nobody really has a special message. We’re all giving the same message, but we’re
giving it in a way that is unique to us. I remember when I first saw A Course in Miracles,
and I sat down at the table where I was living, and I remember my prayer to God:
‘Please use me.’ People hear you on the level you speak from and when you are within
yourself in this real place of humility.”
On The Law of Divine Compensation

“The universe does not program your life by what you did or what somebody else did
to you, but rather by who you are and where you stand in this moment.”
“The idea of the law of divine compensation is that even if and when there is
diminishment or lack on the material plane, out of the infinite substance of spirit there
is the movement to compensate for that lack.”
The Three-Step Process of Transforming Yourself

You can’t be of service to others if you don’t transform yourself first.
1. Forgive everyone you haven’t forgiven, because where you are withholding love,
you are deflecting a miracle. Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love, so
whenever you’re thinking without love, you’re putting a block in front of the
miracle that would otherwise happen.
2. Be conscious at any given moment. You’re not living based on the past unless you
choose to bring the past into the present. Every moment is a new beginning of
possibility if you’re willing to accept that it is.
3. Know that in every moment you’re totally responsible for the choices you make,
not the choices other people make. The real question when you wake up in
the morning is “Who am I going to be today?” Who you decide to be is what
determines what happens tomorrow.

48
WHAT’S NEXT?
Transformational Author Resources
I want to thank you once again for trusting me to be your guide on your author’s
journey. But as I mentioned in my “Welcome,” these amazing tips and tools are only
effective if you put them to use, test them, try them on, and see what fits and works
for you.
Please look over the tips you highlighted again and organize them. Which ones will
you act on in the next twenty-four hours? Which ones over the next week? The next
month? Write them down below:
In the next twenty-four hours I’m going to...

__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
In the next week I’m going to...

__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
In the next month I’m going to...

__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Great! I have one final author’s tool for you before you go. One of the best ways to ensure you
check off the action items you’ve just put together is to get additional training, coaching and
outside interaction. And that’s why I highly encourage you to upgrade your Transformational
Author Experience pass to the Platinum or Diamond level (if you haven’t already).

49
Here are four reasons why you’ll want to do this:
1. You’ll be eligible to enter the Transformational Author Writing Contest, for
which you’ll put together a book proposal. There are over $100,000 in prizes
including getting your book proposal in front of literary agents and a publisher...
but that’s not the real reason you want to do this. You want to enter this contest
because it’s a great catalyst for focusing your attention on writing your book
proposal. As you know, a book proposal is essentially a summary of what your
book is about. By entering this contest and doing this exercise (which includes
two Q&A calls, a guide and a template), you’ll be light years ahead on writing
your book.
2. You’ll get lifetime access to all twenty-nine TAE trainings, including recordings,
audios and transcripts. You just spent the last hour or so going through this
playbook and highlighting the best tips so you can put them into action. How
powerful was that? You got a ton of value, right? Now imagine doing the same
with all the TAE trainings? Instead of writing notes in a haphazard manner during
the broadcasts and replays, why not have the recordings and transcripts available
whenever you need them? Maybe as you’re writing your book you remember Mr.
X saying something, but you forget what it was exactly. You pull up the transcript
and CTRL-F the relevant keyword and voilà! You have it.
3. You get three ninety-minute trainings with me during which you can ask
questions. As you were going through this playbook and highlighting the tips you
found useful, I bet you had some additional questions about writing, publishing
and promoting your book. You might even have questions about how to turn your
future book into a full-time business with live training, online courses, workshops
and seminars. Well, you’re going to get almost five hours of my time to ask those
questions when you upgrade to Platinum or Diamond, because included with
those passes are a special group training on writing your book, another one on
how to build your business, and one more on how to create super-compelling
training you can charge $500 to $5,000 for per student.

50
W h at ’ s Next?
4. You get one FREE ticket to Breakthrough LIVE, our annual October three-day
event in York, Pennsylvania. Every year I invite a group of people to my hometown
of York where we talk, share stories and get grounded on what it means to be a
transformational author. It is at these events that I confide openly my thoughts on
the state of the industry and the publishing game, and help authors find their unique
paths to success. Many of my past clients show up to share their wisdom, too. It
is unlike any other event you’ve been to. It’s highly interactive and each and every
attendee walks away with something unique to their personal author’s journey.
And that just covers the bonus training, resources and coaching you’ll get at the
Platinum Pass level! The Diamond level includes year-long group coaching, one-on-
one consulting and my flagship writing course! You can upgrade to either level here:
www.TAEpass.com
go here

51
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christine Kloser’s philosophy as “The Transformational

Author Coach” can be crystallized into one simple
teaching: It’s the human being – the person behind the
book – that matters. Nothing works unless it comes from
the inside… out. She began doing this “inside out” work
in 1997 as a transformational event facilitator, and to
date has trained more than 70,000 entrepreneurs, leaders
and authors to write their books through this one core
teaching.
She coined the term “transformational author” and

debuted it at her first Transformational Author
Experience in 2011. The concept came about when she
experienced a major setback in her business when she
was straddling two different industries and found herself lost in the chasm between
them. Grateful to have found an authentic and aligned way to blend the best of these
two worlds and serve her community bigger and better than ever, her first class of
TAE students numbered over 10,000, and she hasn’t looked back.
Many of her clients have gone on to become bestselling authors, sign traditional publishing
contracts, speak around the world and appear in major media including CNBC, CBS,
Time, Business Week, CNN, ABC, The New York Times, Fox & Friends, and TEDx.
In addition to coaching, Christine has written and co-authored twenty books and has
been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, FOX News, Forbes.
com, Huffington Post and Entrepreneur.com, and is a regular columnist for the award-
winning PUBLISHED Magazine.
To this day Transformational Authors have launched book-based businesses using her
popular programs Get Your Book Done®, the Transformational Author Experience®,
Breakthrough LIVE, and the My Time to Write® mentorship program.

52

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The Transformational Author’s Playbook 2018

Experts’ Secrets for Writing, Publishing and Promoting Your Book

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Have you considered that there’s no such thing as writer’s block?

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Christine Kloser — Building a Rock-Solid Foundation for Your Book.....................................9

SARK — How to Put an End to Your “Inner Critic”.................................................................14

Geoff Affleck —Expand Your Message with an Ebook.............................................................17

Marc Allen —The Art of Writing a Transformational Book.....................................................20

Dr. Gay Hendricks —There’s No Such Thing as Writer’s Block..............................................24

Bo Eason —How Your Personal Story Can Make You Money.................................................26

Jonathan Fields —The Truth about Book-Marketing Campaigns...........................................32

Arielle Ford —Monetizing Your Platform...................................................................................37

Lisa Nichols — The Power of Your Authentic Voice.................................................................40

Wendy Keller — How to Start Working on Your Book Deal Today.......................................44

Marianne Williamson —Authorship as an Act of Service.........................................................47

What’s Next? — Transformational Author Resources...............................................................49

About the Author............................................................................................................................53

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Connecting with Your Readers

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Foundational Piece #2: Write from a Deep Place of Conviction

Foundational Piece #3: Solve Your Reader’s Problem

My book helps (WHO) ____________ do (WHAT) ________________ so they

can experience (WHAT KIND OF RESULT)__________________________.

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Foundational Piece #4: Firm Up Your Strategy

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

The Most Important 250 Words You’ll Ever Write:

Component #1: Headline

Component #2: Descriptive Paragraphs

Component #3: Bullet Points

Component #4: Endorsements

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Component #5: Bio

Questions to ask yourself about writing:

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

On the Miracle of Sharing Your Writing

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

The Truth about Stepping Out as a Writer/Author

On Inner Critics and Egg Factories

On Writing Love Notes to Yourself

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Paving the Way to Author Transformation

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

If You’re Just Starting Out as a Transformational Author,

He recommends using an ebook as a valuable list-building tool that can ultimately

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

If You Don’t Want to Generate Completely New Content,

A Tip for Putting Your Content Together

Get Your Future Readers Involved Early

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

The Techie Stuff You Need to Know to Publish an Ebook on

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Creativity and Originality

Why Stillness Matters

Christine Kloser Companies LLC

Behind the Scenes of Waiting

The Art of Being Original

My book helps (WHO) do (WHAT) ____ so they