How To Write a Best-Selling Book with Best Selling Author Corey Gladwell

Key Takeaways

hey Corey awesome to have you here thanks so much for being a guest on today's show yeah thanks for having me man I appreciate it oh no I'm absolutely excited I mean I've been listening to some of your work hearing some of you speak to uh to a couple mutual friends of ours with AJ and that saw your last uh performance there on AJ's live stream which was fantastic to see you guys had a bit of a technical thing but recovered absolutely flawlessly which was amazing to watch so very seamless looked like looked like pros there yeah nice yeah we had a little bit of Hiccup in the beginning but it we made work so yeah well it's it's funny it's often the recovery that sort of sets the sets the tone and really allows people to shine like you know when you get to I forget the exact expression but it's like sort of you don't see what someone's really made of until sort of put under pressure until something goes wrong so yeah you guys handled it just absolutely awesome so it went well thanks man I appreciate that cool so I'm really excited to have you on the show today and get to share with some of the listeners and the subscribers there about not only your story but about some of your expertise which is just phenomenal I mean always been really interested in how someone can build up their expertise and their Authority in the marketplace and I think you've just done an excellent job of this got some really good stories so why don't you dive in give us a little bit about who you are for those that don't know you and a little bit about what you do and how you got here yeah so um yeah my name is Cy Gladwell and I I am I'm currently a two-time bestselling author and entrepreneur and um you know a marketing officer for quite a few different companies and initially you know I grew up very poor on Section 8 welfare I didn't really have much to my name uh growing up that kind of drove me to want to be an entrepreneur to want to get into business to want to change my life by the age of 23 um I owned a nightclub a restaurant a vodka brand and had all these different you know kind of brick and mortar businesses um which did great but it was very unfulfilling on the inside so I eventually crashed and burned um you know didn't have anything by the age of 25 and um you know I I lost it all I went inward had a spiritual experience that connected me to the Oneness of all life and just kind of shifted um everything in my perspective so the last five years you know I've been writing books and and and been a coach and been an author and and helping people um you know change their lives in business and in in their personal life and um that's really what's Driven me is to to truly make a difference for people and get a result for them versus just you know selling them alcohol or food yeah no kidding as great as those things can be yeah yeah in in moderation obviously so well that's fantastic I mean 23 what what do you think was what what sort of drove you to that point how are you able to achieve I mean that's a number of different businesses right like that's that's a lot of success for someone to have at 23 so how do you think you got there and why do you think it sort of wasn't all that you thought it would be which is a pretty uh a pretty standard story in our in our entrepreneurial world right yeah I I think I I got there because um you know I just was I was so you know dissatisfied with my childhood growing up you know it was it was very hard it was you know lots of struggle lots of negativity um you know be on Section 8 welfare and all that was was very hard and there wasn't a lot of happiness in the home you know as a young child and so um to me I mean there's probably other reasons that equated to that but to me it was always equated to not having enough and that that that amount of scarcity caused a ripple effect of other problems so I kind of made it my mission as a child to to become successful and so I worked every day and tried to do everything I could you know I got into real estate when I was 18 and you know did that I I've done a ton of different stuff um but I think that's what drove me to be more successful and then you know when I got there and I had the seven figure businesses the restaurant the nightclub um you know it was it was a lot more time involved than I I had imagined so I think you know that's that's the big part for me why I think it didn't work out I didn't know how to systemize I didn't know how to hire I didn't know how to do a lot of things in that business because I had no mentors so I think had I known that I would have been able to do a lot better um in those situations I mean it's very impressive that I did what I did you know given what I knew and how I was raised but um I had no like I said I had no Mentor I had no one to guide me to teach me how to do those things so um you know I'm grateful things worked out how they worked out because I love what I do now but I definitely think um you know knowing what to do or having someone to follow is definitely a much easier process yeah no kidding yeah absolutely I mean you can learn a ton of lessons yourself right but you can just cut that learning curve in half as soon as you got someone to model it after or or someone that you can even bounce some ideas off so yeah absolutely cuts that down so that takes you to like 23 then you sold the businesses you put them on the back burner and you moved on what happened from there so yeah so at 20 it was 25 I sold everything and I was I was kind of like you know down and out and and depressed kind of because I didn't have anything you know going and and uh and and all my hopes and dreams were kind of not what I thought they were going to be and um so I turned inward I started meditating and um and that's when I had a spiritual experience you know similar to like art toi and Byron Katie and um you know connected to the Oneness of all life and felt this unconditional love pour out of me and um that lasted for like three weeks it's the state of Enlightenment for like three weeks and then I just went into meditation and I've meditated now for for 1500 hours um and just been writing books and I I had my third book almost done um two best sellers already and and you know tons of more books on the way and doing speaking at masterminds and coaching people through through business and um you know I to me I I see business and spirituality kind of connected so it's a lot easier for me to do marketing and branding and be the chief marketing officer because I see a lot of solutions and problems that people can't get around um so it's benefited me a lot in in when it comes to marketing and branding and all that so excellent excellent yeah it's sort of I guess like a more holistic approach to to marketing well meditation that's the topic for another day I'm a uh I'm like the 5 to 10 minute day 5 to 10 minute a day kind of guy I think I've racked up maybe a few hours and they've been they've been a struggle but we'll save that we'll save that absolutely a crucial part though of clearing your mind Hey and and finding that finding that Clarity and that balance and sort of the ability to push harder in other areas so yeah absolutely valuable so obviously one of the things that that you're most well known for is being a two-time best-selling author so that's really kind of what I want to dive into next is can you tell me a little bit about that and and tell some of the listeners here about sort of the process for that to happen like were you always a really gifted writer was this something that you sort of yeah you know you know where I'm going with this like was this something that came naturally or or how did you do it and what has been the impact on your business moving forward like how much of a pivotal role has this played for you yeah so for me it was it was not no it was I was definitely not gifted with with being a writer you know I'd never written before um my first book took me four years to write because I had no idea what I was doing I had no no guidance in that either and um you know I just kind of fumbled through putting things together and trying to figure it out and um and then it just kind of came out and and eventually I figured out a system I figured out a process of being able to to deliver content without having to spend every day writing or trying to get in the Crea a flow state or whatever to just be able to get it out and so um to me it's benefited me a lot because now that I'm a two-time best sign author you know I've been featured on Fox News and ABC and podcasts and um you know speaking at masterminds and all these different things and I I equate that because of being an author and being a bestselling author and um and being able to have that kind of credibility and Authority your market and so I always suggest everyone that's part of why I create author Alliance to teach other entrepreneurs how to be bestselling authors and how to write their own book because that to me creates that Authority creates that that you know that uh credibility in your market and you become the the go-to person to to discuss and talk to so absolutely no that's fantastic I mean we've heard like everybody's sort of a coach or everybody's a consultant so you need that sort of level of differentiation but when it comes to writing a book when it comes to being an author I mean that's just such like we hold them on such a high pedestal authors bestselling authors because it's such an incredible amount of work like anybody that's ever tried to type a sales email or a sales uh page for their website or I mean even a few hundred words of copy it's a lot of work so maybe you can tell us a little bit more about your process and how someone that maybe doesn't consider themselves a good writer or maybe just there's no way they're going to be able to find the time I mean it does seem like a pretty Monumental task and then for the second part how do you take this book and then turn it into a bestseller yeah so the the one thing I I'll answer the second question first so I I always like to tell people to instead of trying to find a a message that resonates to the audience find write a book that you would want to read right write a book that you would love because I've tend to find through coaching people in business that the person they want to be is the person they've always needed so like the clients are going to help are a previous version of them right so you kind have to become the person that you want that you need the most right that that's going to help you the most and that's who you attract these people that are looking for for that in their life um and so that's kind of the first thing so write a book that you would want to read and then the second thing I would say is um you know I I don't even do a lot of writing nowadays I actually record everything myself and then transcribe it it makes it much easier to dump the content out get it out and then you can edit it and flow it down and and um and get it down to uh to an actual book format so like every video I make every piece of content I put out I always transcribe and get it into actual um you know work words and then I can edit it and flow it together interesting so what you're saying is you don't necessarily have to sit down at the computer at 6:00 in the morning and just start typing out multiple thousand words but you can sort of just carry around a recorder and sort of transcribe your thoughts yeah yeah interesting excellent well I mean the beauty there also right is you're able to sort of repurpose all this content that you create over the time so what's these what's sort of your process how do you go about this do you have like a schedule that you use every day do you just kind of comb through and and go for it yeah so I make daily videos for YouTube and for Facebook and and you know and Twitter and everything and I I share those everywhere and I send them to my email list and then I transcribe all those videos then I also you know usually once a week I review different books that I'm writing and I outline different parts of it I I I create questions and answers and all kinds of stuff and record certain sections and um and just create content and I have I have little files everywhere where I just stuff content content content content and then as I get more and more content I decide where these pieces are going to flow together and how this is going to connect together and and you may not know right now but I think so many of us want to know this end in mind we want to know what's the title of the book we want to know the subtitle we want to know the meaning the purpose but I I suggest more so just create as much content as you can and you'll find that you'll you'll create a book out of that and you know I have in author Alliance I have the process of how to do it you know systematically but if you're not you know trying to do it right away you can just create content create content and then eventually you'll have some some things put together and you can create more you know more content out of that so I think that's genius I mean I absolutely love that approach I think that's that's pure gold cuz I couldn't even begin to tell you how long I've stared at this elusive title of a book where nothing is getting done because I've got a title I maybe have some chapter headings but I mean like it's just it is just not happening whereas tons and tons of content so the ability to sort of go and put that together and piece it and see how it fits now do you do this all on your own do you've got a team that can help or or how do you advise like once someone's got this sort of pile of content if they've been recording and transcribing or maybe they have a blog or maybe they've got a podcast or whatever it is but how do they go and take this content and sort of start to structure it together or get it edited um you know I would personally hire an editor that's what I would do I I would put together and hire an editor um and and find someone to organize it for you you can go to Fiverr or all these different places Outsource whatever and find an editor or find you know someone just to kind of piece everything together and then rewrite it for you then you can edit it yourself and rewrite some more in there and um but just create as much content as you can at first and then you can turn it into blog posts you can turn it into videos you can turn it into you know whatever you want um and and then you can compile that all into a book and now all of a sudden you have you know three three or four or five different versions of the same thing uh from that content so excellent no it's genius that's perfect so okay so let's say they've done that they've got everything edited they've got some they've got a transcript I guess for their book what's the next step what do they got to do so next step um they'd want to go to publishing and so I teach that about about how to publish and everything and how to launch and and um and so um you know once you get it published you can either get a you know get an agent and be able to you know hire AG a big big publishing deal or you just self-publish yourself you know through Amazon and get it on there and then you just want to launch it you know you want to get it out in front of as many people as you can and make sure your mom your brother your cousin like everyone you know every client you have um that they're out there you know giving as much content as they can and really and really offering to buy the book and help you out and and get as many people involved in as as a launch and sharing it and liking it and commenting and and getting it out there so perfect so I guess that that leads us nicely then that's a good segue into part two which is how do you take this book and then turn it into a bestseller obviously you can rely on your friends and your family but what if someone say has a small email list or no email list at all or uh they're they're not as experienced with that what are some of the promotion strategies that they can use to sort of take this book and really elevate it and get it out there to the market so I would use I would use as many free resources as you can if you don't have an email list or you don't have you know I would use your family and friends obviously but I would use you know like Facebook groups Google Hangouts like any kind of free forum you can find to get help obviously you know no one's going to help you if you haven't helped them so you know if you're planning writing a book I would I would ask you know I would offer as much help as I can in those groups leading up to it so when you ask for something they're going to be more willing to help you but but yeah reach out there's tons of free people online that that can help and just click and buy and do whatever but you have to add value first I think with anyone it has to be a good product if it's not a good product you know no one's going to buy it no one's going to review it no one's going to help you with it so yeah that's awesome I think there yeah two really good points there the first of which is obviously that feeling of reciprocity whereas if you can go out there and uh and help some people first they're going to be a lot more inclined to to sort of uh mirror that back and yeah the second is obviously that um the value of it yeah the more value that you can give away I guess three parts then because obviously you're going to need a good product you can't go there and uh and shlep a bunch of garbage to the marketplace products yeah that's it exactly okay excellent well Cory that sounds fantastic I mean if you're if someone's able to go out there I think the biggest hurdle here is that a lot of people just don't consider themselves good writers so the fact that you're able to transcribe and go out there and sort of just talk and get it all written that's fantastic uh the fact that you're able to take content without sort of the structure right from the beginning I just I mean I absolutely love that approach because sort of the structure has what has certainly stopped me in the past from creating any form of of sort of long copy book and then yeah the ability to go out there and just sort of network and interact and provide value to to help sell it all f fantastic so I guess here's the next question then is what have I not asked you that I totally should have yeah so so I think the only other thing that I would suggest people that I that I've done a lot of training on for people with branding branding and marketing is before you begin making your you know your business cards and your logos and you're taking your pictures and you're you know doing all this stuff out there and spending all this money you know building websites and you know we get caught up in all the things we feel like you know we we should do to be somebody um before you do any of that and you spend a dollar any of that I would ask every client you have and every friend and every family member you have what are the three words that come to mind when they think of you um and I would ask that because because who you think you are and this this person you think you're portraying may be completely opposite from how the world perceives you and why your clients buy from you and why people actually like you so I would find out what the world perceives you as first with those three words from your clients and friends and family and then I would build your branding around that because that's what what's attracting people to you that's what's driving people to you and building your business um not who you think you're supposed to be or who you think this person is that you are it's what they're actually seeing you as excellent so like a real true deep sense of authenticity yeah yeah so you can be congruent with who you are and represent the market correctly and then drive your customers to you as well so excellent perfect great advice great advice oh man so such good advice such good advice here I'm gonna have to go back and start looking through all my old stuff start compiling you've you've given me a laundry list of tasks now I'm going to have to have to look at which is all I mean just so incredibly valuable right because I absolutely understand and I I know the listeners here absolutely understand the value of having that book out there being able to use it in place of a business card or in place of a resume I mean it's just such a powerful tool to have so where can people learn more about you and where can they connect with you so yeah so if anyone wants to become a bestselling author themselves and write write publish and launch their own bestselling book in 60 days they can go to author alliance. um and I have a a trained in there and then um if they want to reach out to me personally to to you know for coaching or speaking or just get a hold of me at all they can go to Corey Gladwell docomo radwell.com and uh and reach out to me on there wonderful make sure to link both the author Alliance and Corey Gladwell decom in the show notes so anybody who yeah wants to reach out to Corey highly suggest that you do Cory's an awesome guy and uh yeah send him a note we'll be able to find all of the contact details in the show notes below and in this episode and also at modern marketing podcast.com so Corey awesome man I really appreciate you spending your time with us here today and sharing some of your wisdom and some of your stories means a lot and uh all the best for your future successes there definitely man thank you so much absolutely we'll talk to you soon bye