Marcia Layton Turner | How To Market Your Book

The publishing for profit podcast is brought to you by ghostwriters and code earned more money by publishing better content and learn how do we increase your thought leadership so you can build your brand head over to ghost writers and code.com for more information. That’s ghost writers and co.com and now your host, Joel Mark Harris. Joel: Hello and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. This is your host, Joel Mark Harris. Today we talked to Marsha Leighton Turner. She’s a successful ghost writer with over 50 books under her belt. She’s written for countless magazines, including Forbes and inc. We talked to her about what it takes to become a successful ghost writer or writing process, and my, one of my favorites topics, which is content marketing and thought leadership. So hopefully you enjoy this episode. Hi, Marcia, and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. How are you today? Good, thanks. Thanks for having me, Joel. You’re very, very welcome. It’s not often. I. Interview a writer that I’m so impressed with, you know, you’ve written, I think it’s like 50 books. You have like probably thousands of articles. so I think that’s very impressive. But you started off in a very business setting. You got your MBA, and then you turned to writing. Why did you, why did you go that path? What, you know, what. Was the reason behind first going, you know, through like a very, long, I guess studious process of getting your MBA, having a successful, corporate career and then going out on your own, basically as a writer. Marcia: I’ll try not to make this too long and boring, but, for anybody who thinks that, to be a writer, you have to have been thinking about this since you’re your youth. I, I’m here to tell you that’s not, it doesn’t have to be the case. So I, went to college and I didn’t really think of myself as a writer at all. In fact, I. I probably thought it was my weakest skill, but I went to Wellesley college in, just outside of Boston, and we, for every class had the option to either take a final exam or write a paper. And because I like control, I always wrote the paper. So after seven semesters of. Writing papers, writing papers, writing papers. I had actually gotten pretty good at it, but I didn’t know this at the time. I was very interested in business, and so I went immediately to the university of Michigan to get my MBA. I was just fascinated with this whole concept, and it was there at Michigan, you know, my first semester as they started assigning papers and I was getting A’s and a pluses, and I was astonished because I didn’t. Think of myself as a writer. I didn’t know I had that capability or that I had developed it. And, so I earned my MBA, went to work at Kodak in marketing communications where I learned about marketing tools like articles and press releases and case studies and the things that ghost writers today. Right. Or writers, right. I left Kodak and started my own marketing agency, did marketing, planning and PR, and it was there that I realized I don’t really like the media placement side of thing. Like I just want to write. And, again, you know, 10, 15 years before, I would never have thought of that as a potential career. But I had written a book for my dad who was a fine artist. It’s called successful find out marketing. And so I knew that I could write. and so I started pursuing opportunities to work directly with clients. And then publisher, a publisher actually sought me out to work on a book. A book doctor is kind of what they called it. It was a manuscript that had been turned in that just wasn’t in the. The shake that they wanted it to be. And so I went through and rewrote a lot of it. And they really appreciated my work cause I started getting book contracts from there. And once I’ve written a few books, I thought, you know, Hey, maybe I’ll write some articles. Like these editors are just going to be so thrilled to find me. Someone who’s written books. And as you can tell, by the way I’m explaining this, they could not have cared less cause I hadn’t written articles. But they wanted somebody who was familiar with magazine article writing. And so it didn’t take me very long to realize Marsha, like, stop, you’ve got to learn this. Just like you figured out how to, how to do everything else, you gotta stop and study the process of writing for magazines. And so I did that. I learned how to pitch, I learned how to, write articles, just how to, how to package them. And so. Then I started landing some magazine article assignments, and so since then, for the past like 15 or so years to maybe 20 I’ve combined writing books, ghost writing and writing articles and now blog posts and content. So I really long answer, but again, key messages. You can do anything you want if you’re willing to put in the time. Joel: So did you always want to be a writer at the back? It sounds like you, you, it was never a. I guess a path that you had ever really considered, because I know a lot of writers that are like, Oh, I want to be a writer, but I don’t think I can make any money. And so they go off to do the traditional career, but always in the back of their mind, they’ve always wanted to be a writer. Was that you or was you were, did you have no idea that this was a possibility? Marcia: No. A few years ago I started thinking back to, did I ever have any aspirations to be a writer. And I do remember when I was around 10 writing up some like princess stories for my family and illustrating them since my dad was an artist, I was really into more of the drawing pictures and the illustration part of it than the writing the stories. But I do remember that. but I must have sort of pushed that aside because. Through high school. English was was hard. It was, I mean, it wasn’t quite torture, but like when you’re asked to compare and contrast the Pearl and Lord of the flies, I did not enjoy that. And so I think because I didn’t enjoy it, and I could get B, B plus pretty, you know. Regularly. So I wasn’t a bad writer, but it was not something that I ever thought I could be good at and whatever I did, I wanted to be good at it. So I kind of, I never saw myself as a writer. And again, then through Wellesley learning the skills, figuring out how to put arguments together, how to string sentences together, but it wasn’t until grad school that I, I realized that I had developed that skill and then I thought I could do it. Joel: Interesting. Did you, have you always enjoyed the marketing, I guess, communications side of it sounds like, you know, you’re heavy into that, so is that something that you’ve always enjoyed. Marcia: Yes, I think because my dad was sort of an entrepreneur in his own right. He was an artist, independent worker, so he had to go out and find the clients and do the work and collect the payment just like we do as writers. So I was sort of familiar with that model of working and. Wanted to learn how I could I, I didn’t think I was good enough to be an artist, but I thought, how can I do this for myself? So I think in many ways I, I saw myself as a freelancer or as a consultant from an early age rather than a writer. And I just so happened to apply that business model to writing. But yes, when I went to Michigan, I studied marketing and corporate strategy. Just wanting to know how, how do we package products? How do we come up with products now? What does that process and yeah, and what sort of art did your dad do. He was mainly a painter or oil and watercolor. if you, I don’t know if you’re at all familiar with Andrew Wyeth. No. He was a painter. He was a painter. Who did is his probably most famous painting is one of Christina’s world. It’s a woman on a Hill and she’s like climbing up the Hill to the house. so he and my dad were best friends. My dad studied under him, so his, his works are landscape seascape. realist paintings, and he worked very slowly, but his work was really good, very slow. So, He kind of taught me that you don’t have to fill your days with a hundred writing projects that, you know, just kind of cherry pick the ones that are going to be a good fit for you and, and do a good job for them, I’m assuming. Exactly. And then you’ll have repeat clients. You had a lot of repeat clients. Okay. Okay. So switching a little bit, so fast forwarding, you are doing a lot of ghost writing. Why should. A business and entrepreneur hire a ghost writer, and what’s the value in that? Sure. Well, let me tell a quick story about my, my first official job. Let’s try the project. an author had a contract for their book and they were seven months behind and delivering it. The publisher knew that they were going to just, they had so many pre-orders for it. So the, they paired me with this author. Or all their notes and their outline, and we work together over a period of, I think it was like two months to get this book. And so at the end of it, I had my pant and he had a book that they might’ve hit bestseller status because there were so many. He was sort of a celebrity in his industry. so I think the advantage to him is probably the advantage to most, you know, hiring a ghost writer makes a lot of, for aspiring authors who don’t have the time, the skill or the interest, really to devote. Weeks or months of their days to writing a book that most of my clients are very, very intelligent people, but they work quickly. They want stuff done like tomorrow. Exactly. And they don’t want to shut down their business or put their business on hold for a few months while they. Write a book. So by hiring a ghost writer, they can continue to do what they’re experts in, and yet at the end of the process, have this product that they can use to market themselves and market their company or establish themselves as experts in their field. So it’s really, if I, and many of my clients could do it, like they have the skill to at least put a draft together. But they, they just don’t want too many people don’t like writing. And so a ghost writer, once they know that we exist, I think it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a very exciting time cause they realize, Oh I can get a book and I don’t have to slave over it. That’s kind of, yeah. So most of my clients feel a great sense of relief when we start working together cause they realize we could spend like an hour or two. Weak, and then they can get back to what they love and I go away and draft their chapters. Perfect. so you were mentioning that your first client had a lot of presales, and you know, could have gone on or did go on as a bestseller. Do you see that happening? as much today where, a lot of books are pre-sold or is that a lot more difficult with, I guess, I guess Amazon and Kindle and all this, you know, so many books are being published. They’re all being self published. So is that, is that still, you know, selling those or pre-selling those rights and selling those copies? Is that still a thing these days? I definitely think it’s a possibility did, but it really depends on the size of your list or your followers. If you were a first time author who’s been blogging or has a great Instagram follower list, or you know, a company that’s been around forever and has an established customer base, I think it’s. Much easier to sell to that crowd because they already want to hear from you. And so if you announced that you’re going to be publishing a book and maybe send people to a landing page to be notified when the book is available, yes, you can do a lot of preorders I think. I think it’s easier today to set up that preorder sort of funnel for people. I think it is harder for first time authors if they don’t have that built in customer base though. If someone suddenly had an idea to write a book and they aspire to be on the New York times bestseller list. I don’t want to say that it’s an impossibility, but there really needs to be a whole bunch of marketing done. I think even before you’ve finished the book, to establish yourself as an expert in your field, to start to attract, attracting your audience to you so that when the book comes out, they’re excited to hear whatever you have to say on the topic. So w if somebody has a, I guess, a list already, they have customers, would you recommend that they do a traditional publishing route or can they skip that and just go straight to Amazon? That is a good question. It kind of depends on, on why they’re writing the book. I think. Hmm. Some clients want to book as a marketing tool for themselves or for their company, and so they’re not really expecting to make money from the actual sale of the book, but they don’t want to lose money necessarily, but they’re using it as a way to attract clients to their company. So yeah. Yeah, so they’re gonna make money from that additional business. The traditional contracts generally are not today. That is, they have very small advances. Like, I mean, I’m hearing like four to $5,000 is pretty typical for a first, first time author advance, and then they’re going to earn about a dollar a book. Primordial royalties. the advances is, is an advance against royalties. So if you’re given $5,000 as an advance until you earn that $5,000 from the sale of your first 5,000 books, you don’t get any more money. But once that $5,000 is earned out, then you’ll get a dollar per book as long as the book is in print. for people who. Who want to make money from the book. You really do have to have an audience because selling 10,000 copies of a book, that’s kind of the goal that most publishing houses have. They want to make sure you could sell at least 10,000 if you have no list whatsoever, it’s going to be really hard to do and it’s going to be really hard to interest a traditional publisher in working with you. But if you self publish, then you can make a lot more than a dollar per book, and there is the possibility to actually earn an income from it. So it sounds like the key really is to build that audience before you start writing that book, or before you hire a ghost writer or during the process. So basically, I guess as early as possible. Can you give me some, takeaways, some, things that somebody can do who hasn’t started that process and what can they do to build that audience. Sure. When I start working with clients who are working on their first book, I always recommend that if they’re not already blogging to start blogging. So if they’re, now, most of my clients are entrepreneurs, business owners and CEOs, so they have control of their company’s kind of marketing activities. So I make sure that they have a website for themselves and for their company. Start blogging because it’s very simple to add a blog to a website and it’s free to do, or you can hand that off to a ghost writer as well. Just come up with the topics that you want to. Did you want to talk about whether you think your audience is interested in? I would set up a landing page. Once you have the book idea pretty well fleshed out, if you can get a covered on, put a landing page up with the title of your book as the URL and provide some, some information and ask. For people’s email addresses so that you can get back in touch when the book is available. I try to get on podcasts, try to write guest blog posts, you know, look for those kinds of opportunities. If you could do public speaking, that’s great. And in every case, when you’re making contact with your potential audience mentioned, I have a forthcoming book, or my book is due out in the fall of 2020 if you know the title mentioned that too. So just start. Kind of educating your market that you have this book coming out, and if you write a newsletter, the newsletter, start mentioning it there. there are a lot of things you can do, very low cost just to start spreading the word that’s, that’s what you want to do. So it sounds like you have to do a lot of content marketing, for, I guess even before you start your like, I guess selling your book or, or presales, how, like, is there, I guess, part from, apart from what you just mentioned, is there any other sort of content marketing? I guess things that you would recommend to your clients. and how do you think, maybe this is a two part question, but like how do you think that somebody should go about thinking about content marketing? Hmm. Okay. So the first part of the question is how, how to start. Yeah. well I think content marketing though, it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to be part of your marketing plan for your book. It, it makes the most sense because there’s such demand right now for content, for information, whether it’s in the form of videos, which are just, everybody’s watching videos or blog posts or articles or white papers or case studies. You know, people want this information, so if you can provide it, you’re going to be on a regular basis. You’re going to be top of mind and you’re gonna be more likely to interest people in your book down the line. And the more, the more you grow your list, or you established this list of people who are interested in you, the easier it’s going to be to convert them into sales. It’s sort of a gotta find who they are, communicate with them. And then if they like you, then when you tell them about about your book, they’re going to be more likely to spend the money. the best way to get started with that is really to create, an editorial. thinking about how often you’re going to be blogging, let’s say, cause that’s kind of the easiest thing. Are you going to be blogging weekly, which is probably the minimum frequency that I would they is is useful if you’re not gonna be able to do it weekly, then. It’s going to be difficult for you to stay top of mind because you’re going to, you’re going to provide something and people are going to be excited to read it, and then you’re going to go away and after two or three weeks, they’re going to forget that they ever read this initial piece of content from you. So come up with a weekly schedule of all the topics that you think your audience is interested in. Break it down into five to 800 word blog post topics. So you may have one topic that could result in three different blog posts. For example. But have your plan. I like to write several blog posts at once. it just, so that you’re not constantly have to think about it. If you’re somebody who doesn’t like to write, then it is better to just, you know, do a whole month at a time. It’ll take you less time. if I can ask, get kind of really deep on this because this is really interesting to me, but, so how would you plan out the content calendar? Would you use something like Google docs or is there a better tool that you can actually see where the content is and what. With somebody who is, I guess thinking about starting, what sort of topics maybe can they start out with? Well, I don’t think that you need a really complex structure for your editorial calendar. You can set up a spreadsheet. I love Excel cause I think it just makes things so neat and you know, all the little columns and things. So you could set up. A Google spreadsheet or just your own Excel spreadsheet, and one column is the dates, you know, decide what date you’re going to be sharing your posts and you can preschedule them. I would recommend between Tuesday and Thursday as the date that you’re going to be blogging. So I’d have your dates down on the left hand side of the page, and then I’d have, the topics that you think may be of interest. If you are hoping to involve other people in and get some guest blog posts, you can also identify maybe another column for guest experts that are going to provide that content. That’s a great idea because then you’re tapping into their audiences. You know, they, they write for you. They’re probably going to share it with their audience. So if you write three blog posts a month and have a guest, that’s a great way to really spread your message beyond just your audience. But yeah, simple Excel spreadsheet, identify date topic, who’s writing it? If you want to keep track of where it is in the process, you could have a column for like drafted where you just check like, yes, I’ve dropped it. That, maybe final edit. you could have a column for the image that you’re going to use with it. And so if you do a little image research. On Pexels or Pixabay Bay, which is where I usually go. You could then have a link to that to remind yourself, Oh, I’ve already thought about this. I already have my image. Right. And go. and then once you have all that done, you can go in to WordPress and preschedule it. Like I said, you could do a month at a time. Nice. For people who want to start ghost writing and who, I’m just not sure where to start. What would you recommend they do. Well, I think if you are interested in ghost writing, you really. You need to advance before you jump into this. I would never recommend that somebody say coming right out of journalism school or who’s making a career change from accounting that they suddenly jump into ghost writing as their first step. It’s almost impossible to do. I won’t say it is impossible, but it’s really, really more difficult. So the first thing you should do is get writing, experience, writing, the kinds of things that you want to write for other people. So if you want to be a ghost blogger. Start blogging for yourself and then get some clients. If you want to write magazine articles, some clients hire ghost writers to write trade magazine articles, for example. So go out and get that experience. And then once you have your own body of work, and if it, if you want to be ghost writing books. At least write a book for yourself so you can show that you can write at that length. And then the next step is to get experience writing in someone else’s voice. Because for me, that’s the difference between being an author and being a ghost writer. A lot of people can write books in their area of expertise, but they can’t necessarily translate that to somebody else’s voice. And so you need to demonstrate that you can do that. and there are online websites like. Upwork has very low budget projects, I think, but you could get ghost writing experience that way. And for anybody who’s starting out in ghost writing, who wants to write books, I always recommend that you discount your first project in order to get it. That may sound like bad advice or some of my colleagues may be getting mad at me for suggesting that you accept less because I always want everybody to make as much money as possible. But the reality is that that first book project is your barrier to entry. If you set your your rates too high, you’re never going to get over that barrier. So be willing to do that first one for last, just to have it. Because once you have that first book and you’ve demonstrated that you can write at that length a book length of work in somebody else’s voice and style and have it be publishable. Like now you can show other potential clients, yes, I’ve done this, I know how to do this. So yeah, we’d be willing to. Negotiate for that first project? Yes. I think for me the most difficult part is getting the voice and tone of somebody else. how, is there any tips that you could recommend, that somebody can do to practice that and writing in different yet, like somebody else’s style? Yeah. No, you’re right. That’s, that’s really the hardest thing. And that’s why not everybody has the skills to be a ghost writer. If it could be an excellent writer, but if they only write in their voice and their style, then, unless your client also wants their book written in that style, it’s, it’s hard to make the transition. I can only tell you what I do when I’m writing for a client. I, try and gather. Many writing samples. If they’d been doing their own writing, let’s say, you know what articles have they written? If they have books that they’ve written, read those blog posts, any, any samples to see. What are the words that they use, you know, what sort of sentence structure do they prefer? Are they, do they have lots of run on sentences, for example, or do they have very short, crisp sentences, or do they mix it up? do they start a lot of paragraphs with questions and then answer them, you know, what’s, what does that look like? And then I also try and watch videos to see if they make presentations or have done any kind of. Talks to see it. How do they speak? Cause typically the way someone speaks is related to how they write. That’s not always, as I discovered with one client who wanted to sound different than. They actually did it usually. Was that a conscious choice on their behalf? Yes, and I only discovered it after, so we had watched a lot of videos. I had, I had read his work and had written things that I thought sounded exactly like him and he didn’t really like it. And so I oppressed to understand. Tell me exactly like what. Where does it not sound like you? And he had to admit that, well, it sounded like me, but I don’t really like it. I want to sound more like this, you know, sort of like interesting option options. See that I could not have I imagined. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t a bad thing. It was just, more scholarly and, that wasn’t how he sounded. In video or on prints and, and so we, we figured it out, but that’s like the only time where there wasn’t this link between existing materials and what they wanted their voice to be. Okay. So can you tell me a little bit about your writing process? Like when do you like to write? When do you feel the most creative. I think there’s this notion that writers are suddenly hit by these like this lightning bolt and suddenly they’re super powered and they can write and it just, it doesn’t happen for me. I find that my own sort of bio rhythms dictate when I’m, I’m best able to write or when I’m able to focus. And, And it comes more easily, and that for me is like late morning into the afternoon. So I try and protect that time for just the, the harder work, the more cerebral work where I have to really think about what is my client trying to say, how am I going to make this transition? but. I don’t just sit here waiting for the lightning bolt to strike. I start writing and if I have trouble, I really like to get the first sentence, like the lead, the setup for the chapter or for the article or whatever. I’d like to really get to a point where I’m happy with it. And sometimes I get stuck when I can’t get the perfect lead and I’ve had to force myself to just go ahead and it’s just, okay, Marsha, skip it and just move on to the rest of whatever you’re working on it and we’ll circle back to that. And usually when I do, then I can, I figure it out later. But you can’t just sit there waiting to be inspired. You have to force yourself to put sentences together and then accept the fact that you’re going to have to go back and edit it later. I tend to edit as I work. Sometimes I just, you know, you have a deadline. The client’s waiting for the project. You have to make progress. That’s it. I think that’s the Mark of the true professional. Right. That person who pushes through that and doesn’t just wait for the muse to strike you. Yeah. I don’t think you can unless you’re. Novelist working on their own, like pet project. If you have clients waiting for work, yeah, you gotta get it done. so do you, do you have a dedicated writing space? Do you have a desk and office? How do, how do you like to work the most. I have a home office with a fireplace that is awesome. From like August to June, cause here Rochester, it’s called, I face out into my lawn. So I have a nice view of. Animals strolling by. I can close my doors that I have quiet space. I have a very big monitor and I am most productive when I’m sitting at my desk. I know colleagues who go to coffee shops or they’ll move to somewhere else in their house to work and for whatever reason, I, I just, I need to be sitting in front of my desktop to work. Alright. So I’m going to move on from writing to thought leadership. I think that a lot of what ghost writers provide, is assistance in helping that entrepreneur, that business person with their thought leadership. Why, why is that important and how should entrepreneurs think about thought leadership. Well, I think thought leadership here in the 21st century is really the equivalent of being seen as an expert. That’s what everybody used to want to be, is the expert. The person who wrote the book on whatever the topic was. So if you are the thought leader or the expert, you are at the top of your profession. Typically or one of the leaders of your profession, you are shaping how other people think about whatever your topic area is. one of the best ways to do that then is to create content that shapes how people think. I mean, that’s really through conversation, through speeches, through articles and books. That’s how someone. Demonstrates that they are a thought leader by sharing content that is, that hasn’t been seen before, that hasn’t been read before. That affects how someone thinks about something. That’s, that’s really what a thought leader is, and I think people want to be thought leaders because you can generally charge more for your products and services if you are the leader. If you were the person who is synonymous with. Some industry or idea, then clients typically will pay more for access to you, whether that’s through a presentation you make or consulting work that you do with them or project that you work on with them. If you are the person that’s, they pay a premium for that. And one of the things I always think about, and maybe, maybe this is just me, I don’t know, but, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll put this nugget out there is, Everything. Almost everything can be outsourced, right? It can be outsourced to different countries, different people. And so I think of thought leader as, you know, it gives you that kind of unique selling proposition, right? Where, Those, those strategies, those, those, that way of thinking can’t be, duplicated. Right. And so do you, do you ever advocate that for your clients and too, do your clients ever think about it in that way? Maybe think about, positioning themselves as a thought. I totally agree with you that thought leadership is a way to sort of create a competitive competitive advantage for yourself. I think most of my clients, no, I understand that, that being seen as the leader is going to be advantageous to their business. a few of my clients. I don’t want to say they’re not outsourcing, but although companies outsource a lot of tasks, I think sometimes individuals don’t realize the extent to which they can outsource things like writing. so I, I think they’re, they’re not as aware of the services that they could be relying on. Hmm. So you don’t need to, to pitch them that thought leadership is something that they should be, seeking. They, they realize the value of being seen as a leader. And, they. They understand that. I guess that’s why they engage you, right? Exactly. Yeah. The people who come to me, like I said, they’re the CEOs, the consultants, entrepreneurs, business owners, they, they understand that they want to be thought leaders, and I think they in some cases, have been trying to find a way to do that without having to invest. 80 hours a week of their own time to hit that level and so on. So once they discover that, Oh, there’s someone who can do kind of the hard work, I had this idea and I had this person that I can then turn over my ideas and my thoughts and they’ll package it in a really effective way. You know, they’re sold. I, I really don’t have to explain the advantage cause they come understanding that. Do your, do your clients, have to be, have to be sold on the concept of thought leadership? Some of them, some of them do, I think, but I think you’re right. Most of them are. They’re aware of the bandage. They’re just not sure how to go about it, I think, you know. Yeah. how often do you. I guess strategize with your clients because you have such this amazing background and in marketing and you know, all this, MBA. And so do you, how often do you bring that to the table and work with the clients to form a message? And how much of it is it just like they know what they want to say, they just give it to you over to you, and then you communicate that. Well, I think a lot of the initial conversations that I have with clients have a marketing component. You know, we’ll be talking about what their book might look like, and they typically come with an idea of what they want to say and, and, and why. You know, that they want to market their business, for example, and who they’re talking to. So they know that. But we’ll start talking about, because of the things that you’ve already asked about, you know, what, what can I do today to start marketing myself. Cause I’m an unknown. And, by the time my book comes out, I want to be pretty well known or associated with this topic. So we’ll brainstorm during those initial conversations about setting up the blog and looking for podcast opportunities and things like that. And so that’s sort of a parallel process that they can get started on while I’m working on putting together their book. So we have it early on. I’ll check in with them as we’re writing to make sure, you know, Hey, you have your cover done. Have you put that up on the landing page yet? So I offer ideas, but I am typically not responsible for that cause I’m, I’m really focused on the book. Like I, I could, I think most ghost writers could also be writing blog posts and articles for clients. And I suspect many are. Just typically with the people I’m working with, they have a team for that, like a PR team that could be doing the article writing and stuff. So I’m just working on the book, but I’m throwing out ideas from my marketing experience. And I think for me, that’s probably why some of my clients choose me because I have that marketing background. Just just a guess. And I like using it like, like getting value from my MBA. I worked so hard on, so I’m excited to just throw out ideas here and there. I’m sure that you have a lot of interesting stories as a ghost writer, probably a lot that you can’t repeat, but is there something that particularly sticks out in your mind during your ghost writing career. Hmm. I, I, I love what I do because it gives me the chance to just learn from experts in the field on a regular basis. So I’m always learning something new. I don’t really have any horror stories. That’s good. That’s a good thing. Yeah. I kind of try and nip that in the bud. I had one kind of funny project. Well. Not funny. It was. It was a very interesting project about probably five years ago and started working with the client who was super friendly, super nice, very articulate. It was like the dream project. Those are the kinds of clients I like, and we started working together. We figured out the outline and we began talking through chapter one and the client was. Trying to secure someone to write the foreword for the book. And so within the first couple of weeks, we kind of were working slowly because they were trying to get this person lined up, so they got the person lined up for the forward, and that’s kind of when things went awry. So, let’s say the book was going to be about marketing and the person right in the forward. Had a lot of say in the direction that the book was taken. Interesting. Okay. I’m not exactly sure why, but within a couple of weeks, the book had pivoted from being a book about marketing to a book about, let’s say. Baseball. So, Joel, you probably don’t know this about me, but I’m not really a sports fanatic and I know nothing about baseball. So I had to back away quickly from that one. And I did. And it was not like there wasn’t any problem, but that was the first time, really, the only time I think where I’ve started down one path with a client and it totally went off in another direction. And. You know, I backed away and remove myself from the project because I was not the best fit. And that’s something that I think ghostwriters are pretty good about, you know, knowing about themselves, like what, what are their strong suits and what are the weaknesses and sports. That’s my weakness. So I would never take on a sports book, for that reason. So that’s one that was memorable just because it was kind of odd. Yeah. Most of my projects are with just great people, and I always feel good at the end about the product, and Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good, that’s a good thing. I think, you know, I’m sure you meet a lot of interesting, very successful people and I’m sure, yeah, it must be very, fascinating and satisfying to, to work close and see kind of like what’s made them successful and, and what. I guess it drives them. So exactly. Now when I work with clients, I don’t know about you, but I work virtually. So I work with clients, you know, all around the world, and we meet generally by phone or by video, and we talk through. All the material that way, so I’m not actually sitting next to someone and working on the book. Some people do that, and I think that’s probably a good way to work if you’re writing. I’m a very sensitive memoir, for example, but for business books, I’m really not an issue too, so most of my clients I never meet is kind of what I’m getting to. I don’t, I don’t actually get once in a while. but not, not usually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about pitching? obviously you’ve, I mean, just your website, you, you’ve written for basically all the top magazines and, and, you know, a lot of articles w what goes into a successful pitch to a pitch to land, like a magazine assignment. Yeah. Hmm. I think part, well, that answer depends on what the magazine wants. the reason I say that is that some magazines want. Almost the article prewritten they want to know who you’re going to interview, what the angle is on the topic, how long it’s going to be. how many different anecdotes, like they really want a fully fleshed out. Pitch. Others just want the general gist of things, and some of that depends on whether you’ve worked with the editor before. I have some editors where I’ll say, Hey, I just saw this. What do you think about an article on that? And that’s enough. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah. Give me a thousand words. Okay, great. But if you had a worked with someone before, which kind of think back when I pitched woman’s day magazine, for example, I did not have any national consumer magazine credits to my name. But I had heard that the editor at the time was open to pitches from writers if they had a really timely idea. And I thought, well, you know, can’t hurt, so I. Know, found the correct person addressed her by name, which is important. If you’re sending a pitch into just an editor@bignamemagazine.com. It’s less likely that you’re going to be given serious consideration because most professional writers have contacts and they have a person’s name and email address, so you’ll kind of set yourself apart if you use that information or uncover that information, which is so easy to do these days with LinkedIn, with social media, it’s really, it shouldn’t be an issue these days, but yeah. Right. But it is easy. I agree with you, but some people don’t take that step, and if you don’t, it just shows that your research skills are. I don’t want to say lacking, but you were willing to go to take that extra step to find the contact information. So have that, hit them with a very strong lead, whether it’s, what I did was I wrote the first couple of paragraphs of the article as I wanted it to run so they could get a sense of how were you going to approach it? What’s the title that you’re proposing? That’s an important thing to include and how long is it going to be. How many experts are you going to include? So generally a solid pitch, I would say is like five to six paragraphs long. The last thing in there is why you’re the person to write this article. again, I would never pitch an article on baseball or sports because I have no credibility whatsoever on the topic, but if I were pitching something, in the case of woman’s day, it was about saving money at the grocery store. I, Have been an extreme couponer. I’m not an extreme couponer now, but at a time, at one time I was really good at finding the deals, and so I played that out. You know, I’ve been to the grocery store and bought $200 worth of food for $5 or something. So that I think caught the editors. I that I proved that I knew what I was talking about. I had written for other publications at the time, just not on a national level, and so she gave me a shot. So I think that’s, and I don’t think I’m that unusual, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that anyone start at the national level start as I did at the local level. I wrote for a local business journal, then went up to regional business journals, and then I went to regional consumer publications. I wrote for, I think it was new England bride. So then finally I had kind of a crossover into the consumer, and then I just kind of kept moving up until I got to the national level, which is sort of have to show that you can write for, publications in your industry. If you’re trying to get into a big business publication, you might try pitching, trade journals, national trade journals, and get some clips that way. Because most editors want to see them. I got very, very lucky that woman’s day was willing to give me a shot. That’s, that’s kind of unusual. All right. I’m going to ask this, cause I asked this question to all my guests and I know you were a little bit hesitant, but I think I’m going to ask it and. And I think that, you, you have a good answer. So here it goes. I’m bracing for it. Okay. So, books obviously, you know, this podcast is about publishing. It’s about content marketing. but I’m always curious to know what books people read and, and what influences they have. And how they make their choices. So is there a book that you have read that really inspired you or maybe just pushed you in a different direction? What is there? Is there a book that you would go back to and reread. yes. I mean, I read a lot of books. I read a lot of nonfiction, really just trying to take away, you know, one, one thing, one new idea, one approach, one source, whatever it is. so when. You told me you were going to ask you this question? I was initially worried because so many ideas kind of blend together in my brain. but then I thought back to early in my career when I was working at Kodak and thinking of going out of my own and not really sure that, that I could do it. I was just nervous. And so I read a book called making a living without a job. I, Barbara winter. This was, this was probably 20 years ago. but it is still in print. And it really inspired me to think differently about my career. And I had gone from MBA training into a corporate job, nine to five or eight to five. And, I knew that I didn’t really want to keep doing that, but I wasn’t sure what was possible. So this book talked about how Barbara. Sort of strung together several different income streams, and I can tell you exactly what they were, because to me it was just the concept that I don’t have to have an eight to five job. I could have, Income coming from writing income, coming from mystery shopping income coming from, you know, a part time job somewhere. But just the idea that you don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket and find one job that’s going to give you a hundred percent of your income. You could find three jobs or. Or gigs or assignments or things like that. And so it really changed the way I approached my career and I think gave me just the sense that I could do it. And I’ve since sent it to a few people that I know who are thinking about the next stage of their careers and wondering what’s next for me. And I’m like, don’t worry, you don’t have to get a full time job. Read this book. I think now with the covert 19 that where if you have a single income, you will, it’s very dangerous, right? So I think that now’s a perfect time to think about those multiple streams of income to think about, you know, the content in that book for sure. So I think it’s, it’s probably very timely to be sending that out to more people. Right about now. Yeah, well, and I remember when I left my job, people were so nervous for me, you know, Oh, aren’t you worried? Isn’t it risky? And, I don’t know if you all know what happened to Kodak, but their communications department shifted. It had 330 people when I was there. And I think it got down to like 10. Well, those 10 people were doing the work of 330 like, that’s risky. So really. It’s not risky to have five income streams versus one. If one goes away, you’ve only lost 20%. If you have one job and you lose it, yeah, that’s in trouble. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think, I see, that’s, that’s a good example for sure, because I’m sure it seems risky at the time, but now looking back at it, it was definitely a very smart, smart move to go out on your own for sure. I think, yeah, I think that is it. Is there? Oh yeah, there was. so you, you re, you read and write a lot of business books. Is there any other business books that you would recommend or, or even little chunks of business books that you would recommend. When I was starting out, Paul and Sarah Edwards were big names in working from home, and this was when it was. Kind of unusual, and I read a number of their books and found them really helpful for people who are just starting out to, how to think about working from home and being productive and establishing a routine and becoming disciplined and marketing on a budget. Like they have a number of books that were really helpful for that. So I enjoyed those. And Jay Conrad Levinson, who. Really coined the phrase guerrilla marketing. He has some great books on grassroots marketing that I think are really helpful for, for anyone, really, writers, ghost writers, anyone out in the business world. I think they’re just some, some ideas that are still useful today. And they were written pre-internet, so, but a lot of the concepts are still there and I think really helpful. So that’s what I like. I just, I like reading. And then. Taking an idea and thinking, how can I apply that today? But that’s a really old idea, or an idea from a different industry. I’m just just trying to think how, how might I use this? Joel: All right, Marcia, I think we will leave it there. Thank you so much for being on the show and for taking the time for people. So people who want to reach out to you, who want to hire you, or maybe just want to learn a little bit more about you, where can they find you. I have a website that is my name, Marsha latent, turner.com and for ghost writers who want to learn more, or clients who are looking for a ghostwriter. You can also go to association of ghost writers.org we have a form there that will help you connect with a potential ghost writer who’s a good fit. All right. Thank you so much, Marcia. Thank you. Bye for now. Thank you for listening to publishing for profits. Please like it. Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.