Brian Tracy talked about "Before Book" vs. "After Book" (B.B. vs A.B.): Doubling your Income by Writing your First Book".
For those of you who've never heard of Brian - believe me, I was one of them -, he specializes in training of individuals and organizations, and is a top-selling author of over 45 books. He is a bibliophile and addicted to reading. [What a great addiction to have! :-) ]
How did the idea for the first book come about? After he'd sold almost a million audio programs, a literary agent approached him and said that he could make him a star if he turned his audio programs into books. And that's how Maximum Achievement, his first and most famous book, came to be published. First in hard cover, then in paperback. This was back in 1978-79. Many consider it Brian's best book. It's translated in 38 languages and used all over the world. At a certain point of the webinar he added a curious detail: some of his best markets are Russia, China and Iran. [How interesting!]
When Chandler asked Brian how he got the ideas for his books, he said that he reads a lot (2-3 hours a day) and is always researching topics that interest him. When he reaches what he feels is "critical mass", he knows that "now I know a lot to write about this subject". [I love this! I'm insisting on this part about ideas, because I found it fascinating.]
He wrote a book about thinking styles because of a study on upper socioeconomic mobility that he read by Dr Edward Banfield of Harvard University. He himself had already been studying and teaching strategic planning for companies and goal setting for individuals, so this study got him thinking even more about the subject and ways of thinking. And he came up with 10 different, contrasted ways of thinking. That's what he wrote about.
The focus of Brian's books has always been on helping people get better and faster results with greater efficiency. So whenever he comes across a subject that he thinks will really help people in some way, he thinks about it and researches it until he's satisfied with the results. He then sits down and writes everything he can think of or learned about the subject. And then he expands these ideas into chapters. He said that Jack Canfield says that he's the king of content. He added that in his life he's been enormously helped by coming across great ideas that he's been able to use and have really helped him.
His books are mainly marketed by his publishers, but he also promotes them in his website through his mailing lists, videos with links and videos he records about the benefits and values of reading the book he's marketing.
On self-publishing Brian recommended: Once your book is self-published, get behind it and really push to make it successful. And keep pushing and pushing and pushing all the time.
The BB & AB he includes in the title has a story behind it. As a young man he was reading about training and success as a result of book writing and he discovered a little expression - "BB & AB": before book and after book - that refers to how people's careers BB and AB change completely in terms of income. For the better, of course!
Brian also mentioned something Chandler referred to in a previous webinar and that is that 82% of adults in the world want to write a book, because they believe they have a book in them whether on a given subject or on themselves, but only 1% ever do it. Why? Because the huge majority doesn't know the processes, the recipes, the "proven success formulas". They may have all the ingredients but no recipe, so they never really accomplish anything. If you want to write a book on a subject, research, underline, take notes...
And the key to book selling is "pass on", people telling other people to read the book. It's word of mouth.
Brian's parting tip for a first-time writer: Learn how to do it! Learn the recipe!
Though he's mostly a traditionally published author, he says that the fastest way to get started in publishing is self-publishing an e-book. And then he repeated: AB & BB changes everything.
Thank you, Brian, for a wonderful webinar, all the stories and the know-how you shared!