The Lucrative Combination Of Books And Speaking Gigs
Entrepreneur Jeff Butler launched a successful speaking career and then wrote two books - "The Authentic Workplace" and "The Key to The New You" – to enhance his credibility as a speaker and grow his income.
Most entrepreneur-authors write a book and then begin speaking. Jeff did things in reverse. And while this approach might not work for everyone, it was the key to Jeff’s success.
He fell in love with speaking after finding his career as a computer scientist in Silicon Valley limiting.
“The problem was I wanted more control,” explains Jeff. “And on top of that control aspect, I also wanted to do something that was going to push me to the brink . . . let's see what I can really squeeze out of this thing called life.”
Jeff soon found his passion. He gave a few talks and, despite his initial fear, got a massive buzz from the experience.
“I realized I wanted this for the next 10 to 20 years of my life. It hit me . . . The ability to convey an idea in a high-risk situation really appealed to me,” he says.
But there was one big problem. Jeff wasn’t a great speaker. But with help from Toastmasters, he worked hard and honed his skill, to the point where he gave impressive and persuasive talks, easily holding the attention of an audience. Today, Jeff’s entire business is built around speaking.
TOP TAKEAWAY: SPEAKING AND BOOKS ARE A LUCRATIVE COMBINATION
Jeff decided to write a book when he realized that by becoming an author he would increase both his credibility and income. As an entrepreneur with a book, he knew he could land more speaking gigs and grow his business.
“I went into the corporate world, and I realized that I didn’t have a book that really encompassed what I was talking about on stage. And I thought it could be an easy way of, let’s say, mutual sell, where they book me, and they can also buy books as well. And that’s when I wrote The Authentic Workplace”.
While most authors need to spend time building an audience, Jeff already had a following from the dozens of talks he’d delivered over the years. With his books readily available at events, he realized strong book sales. And at corporate events, a dozen or more or his books would be bought in advance for execs and managers.
Jeff chose the self-publishing route after weighing out the pros and cons of the traditional route. He used a consultant to help him publish on Createspace, now Amazon KDP.
His combination of books and speaking has led to phenomenal success, to the point where he was actually contacted by Wiley Publishing to write a book with them. Wiley had researched Jeff’s performance as a speaker and were impressed with the number of people he spoke to in 2019. As excited as Jeff was about this opportunity, he calculated he’d be on the losing end of this deal and could earn more by self-publishing, and so in the end turned it down.
In this episode with host Josh Steimle, Jeff also goes into detail about how he develops his bullet-point book outlines and why the outlines mean he never has writer’s block. He also explores the tools that help his creativity, and how he’s been busy with other ventures since the pandemic hit.
LINKS
Jeff Butler’s books: The Authentic Workplace and The Key To the New You
Also mentioned in this episode: Desde el Exilio: A Collection of Poems from the Exile (Spanish Edition), by Arcaniam/Marianna Guédez Forgiarini
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the Published Author podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. Today, our guest is Jeff Butler, my buddy. Welcome, Jeff.
Jeff Butler
Appreciate it Josh.
Josh Steimle
So I met Jeff because he's a public speaker and our friend Ryan, our mutual friend, Ryan hooked us up. So the official bio on his website is that Jeff's a public speaker, and he helps bridge generational gaps between millennials and companies looking for their talent and patronage. I would say his specialty as he helps old people get along with young people in the workplace, that's the way I would put it. He's done over 125 keynotes at lots of industry events, as well as corporate speaking gigs at places like Google Amazon, LinkedIn, Wells Fargo, he's presented at TEDx twice. And he's the author of two books, The Authentic Workplace and The Key To the New You . And he's also authored over 100 articles on workplace dynamics. He's been featured in Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Fast Company, HR news, and more. And before Jeff founded his workplace consulting company, he spent almost a decade in Silicon Valley working as a software engineer. But now he lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his family. So we're going to talk to Jeff about the books he's written and how those have helped him with his speaking career and his business. But I got a few other things I want to talk to Jeff about, first of all, is on his website. And I saw that he trained for the 2012 Olympics, under three times Olympian Torrey Gustafson, and he was only 15 pounds away from breaking the world record and pull ups. So I want to know about these feats of strength. So first things first. Tell me about this, Jeff?
Jeff Butler
Yeah, you wouldn't expect those when you first see me. I mean, I'm 6'3", 230lbs, But I don't really stand out as a world record breaker. But yeah, so college, I went to UC Berkeley, and my, it turns out, my family chiropractor was a three time Olympian. Who would have thought, you know, Olympians need to make money too. And in track and field, you don't make that much money. So I paired up with him, and he thought I had some decent level of talent. So I started working underneath him for a while. And with his help, I end up going to state with my first year on track as my last year in high school, and I got picked up by COWL on there. And so I started training for the Olympics at that time, but computer science paid more than contract from Nike. So yeah, I mean, that's, you can't have both when you take Computer Science from a COWL, because they're like, ranked number two next to Stanford. And then MIT is number one, so it's like, what are you gonna do? Yeah, I'm not a genius. I gotta study actually.
Josh Steimle
Well, it's, it's pretty some it's pretty interesting stuff to put in your resume. Right?
Jeff Butler
Yeah, just a little fun fact. There.
Josh Steimle
All right. Now the other thing that we were starting to talk about before we started recording, and we're like, you know, we we should start recording before we talk about this is that Jeff has a career as a public speaker, like this is his thing. And we're living through COVID right now, when people can't travel and all this stuff's been shaken up. So catch me up, Jeff, like, how is your business been hit by COVID? And what are you doing to adjust?
Jeff Butler
It was interesting, because as a speaker, so when we first talked, I was 100%. My revenue was through speaking. That's it. And I would I traveled so my team is located all over the world. And so at the end of the year, I flew everyone out to an island, and I met with them and they said, Hey, you got to do this for other people. Right. That was right when we started working together. Yeah, there and I still haven't really figured it out that point like, okay and appointment setter. So appointments, I know, it was like, slow. There's one or two that were really interested in to you. But it wasn't enough to really justify a service. It was good, but it wasn't like, Okay, this is amazing. Right now. It's kind of like where our working relationship was there.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, I was when I was like your first guinea pig, right?
Jeff Butler
Yeah, I'll see the first person actually started trying out for me started booking you appointments. And you got a little bit of traction here and there. But
Josh Steimle
yeah, we were both trying to figure it out what we were doing.
Jeff Butler
And so during that time, they said you have to do this for other people. So grapevine ended up getting back to me and some people started asking for the service. I reached out and I used some LinkedIn techniques that you showed me, landed some clients who are paying me good amount of money and start providing for other people. Because of that, yes, we are able to bring in revenue through speaking but the consulting started to expand on there. And what was interesting is that the speaking world right March hit for everyone and third week of March, I probably lost you know, several like five figures. Just from everything that fell through massive contracts, like gone, or re-book, it was horrible. Yeah. And fortunately, I had the the client base, and I had to really tune in and how to actually, you know, book other speakers and make that happen. And so now what started to take place. So I had these couple clients that are working from there. What I'm doing actually is appointment setting, its standard outsource appointment setting. And what happened was a large corporate insurance company who the CEO is actually a client of mine said, you have to do this internally. And right, what I presented to their whole C suite, and they love the idea, and we've signed the contract recently, I realized, okay, this is like, I got something going here that's bigger than speaking. And now we're launching the trainee fix brand on there. And yeah, we're gonna make it happen. And it's like, because price point for speakers, you can't really afford that much. But like, let's say you have a larger company and their deal size is $20,000 - $30,000. If you provide a service of this, and you booked them a certain number of appointments, they're getting a much higher ROI. And then then say, a speaker, who would, you know, it's a long sales cycle for us, right, you have to be, you know, nine, six months for a complete, you know, booking cycle on there. And the deal size, right, let's just say on average of seven and a half $5,000 for their cars, you get a 10 grand, and it's a free gig. So it's very, versus say, you're selling a SaaS product, right? You're looking at least like $30,000 for each one. And sometimes that's recurring. Right? So it's different levels. So it's just same service, put it somewhere else, and make it happen. So
Josh Steimle
You've moved from Silicon Valley programming, to being a public speaker, to helping other people become public speakers to now appointment setting,
Jeff Butler
Well, appointment setting. But the thing is, I use the degree and I actually built a complete like a I have basically automated machine that goes out and is able to pull this data. This is what I was coding turn COVID. I was like, got some time. Let's code now. But as I actually added the layoffs of employees, so I had to figure out how do I actually find the leads now. So I literally wrote all this code. And now I can just say, industry, finance, and it basically goes out, grabs all these different finance leads, and gives it to the appointments team.
Josh Steimle
Interesting.
Jeff Butler
Yeah, that's the computer science thing helped out with, but that's the same thing for any other industry, right? Like, even your space, you have to know certain people that you reach out to or maybe your insurance place, you need to reach out to controllers. Same exact formula.
Josh Steimle
Mm hmm. Wow. So in a way, I mean, COVID forced you to pivot and now you've got an entirely new business in a way, right?
Jeff Butler
I guess so man. Yeah. But it wasn't my ideas, my employees. Yeah, clients told me to do it and sit down and say, Oh, I want to do this. It's like, I want to do speaking. But I figured out the system side to the point where it works. And it's gonna give you a juxtaposition. When we were working together. I think it was booking you like what, like, one or two appointments a week? Correct?
Josh Steimle
Yeah, something like that.
Jeff Butler
So for our clients, right now, they're around, like, an A month like 18 to 20.
Josh Steimle
Mm hmm.
Jeff Butler
right with that, just to kind of give you like, if I had a really improvement, but took months, man wasn't like this overnight thing of Eureka. I
Josh Steimle
t's interesting. Now the coding stuff keeps coming back. I mean, once you learn how to code, you see the world through that lens. And so you get confronted with a problem. You're like, Hey, I can code my way out of this.
Jeff Butler
That's true. Yeah, my girlfriend's getting a master's degree. And they had regex. So it's like this regular expression matching. And I had to do her homework for her because her and her figure it out. So I keeps coming back.
Josh Steimle
Yep. That's a valuable skill. Well, cool. Well, this will be interesting, because we're going to talk with you about your books, which were written a few years ago. So it was in a different paradigm. I mean, you didn't know you would be doing today, what you were doing back then when you wrote the books, but it'll be interesting to explore this and see how those books helped. And maybe where you're going to go with writing in the future. So before we jump into the book, specifically, tell us a little bit more about your background. Where were you born, where you raised? Where do you come from? What's your background, like,
Jeff Butler
Come from my mom. I hope so. Um, I was told. Silicon Valley, and I was just south of San Francisco by an hour in a small town called Los Gatos. That's where I was born. And I my parents are both software entrepreneurs. So they build and sold companies. They recently had their second ones book acquired by Frontdoor, not next door, but Frontdoor, the company so they acquire them and now my mom's a director over there. And so I got to see at a young age, how companies work, how to outsource how to, you know, build certain things, but I didn't really pick up on until later of why that's important. went to UC Berkeley, as I mentioned before, so you computer science did track there for a bit. Then I worked in Silicon Valley at that time software engineer, you know, but the kind of lead into what your questions on there as well, I was first.
Josh Steimle
I mean, you make a lot of money working as a software engineer in Silicon Valley and your family's there. So I want to know, like, why are you not still in the Bay Area?
Jeff Butler
Yeah. So there's a few parts of that story. The first part is why I left a six-figure job six figure, meaning I was I was graduating I had like $105,000 base, it doesn't include bonuses as a software engineer, like
Josh Steimle
You can almost pay the rent with that in Silicon Valley. Right?
Jeff Butler
You know what? My rent was? $1700 because I had this 350 square foot studio that did not have a dishwasher. And I guess stove though, which was nice. But it was like, literally this big,
Josh Steimle
Postage stamp.
Jeff Butler
Yes, super small man, girls loved it. When I'm like, Hey, here's why I live by you know, it wasn't. But fortunately, my girlfriend stuck with me even through that. But point being is so had that job. And what hit me was, I was sitting next to someone who was a like a, let's just say senior engineer. Right? That's all you need to know. They were there for probably 10 more years in the space of engineering 10 to 15. And they were earning $170,000. And I sat back and I thought, Okay, well, I know about taxes, and about personal finance, like my take home right now in this position, you know, because I'm paying taxes is like 50 to 100. And his position that I'm going up to maybe 7000, maybe seven and a half? Am I really gonna wait 10 or 15 years to increase my take home income $2,000.
Josh Steimle
Put it that way. It doesn't sound that appealing.
Jeff Butler
Right? Most people are like, wow, $170,000. It's like, yeah, tax bracket is sick. Yeah, it's like, people forget about that, like, Sure, it's nice. But the problem is I wanted more control. And on top of that control aspect, I also wanted to do something that was going to push me to the brink, just because I have this obsession of like, okay, let's, let's see what I can really squeeze out of this thing called life. And as a software engineer, you can only read so many books and in that cubicle, so people really enjoy that style. For me, I liked it, but not enough to devote my heart to it. Because when I was in the computer science field, during the lunch breaks, I was reading books, like from Warren Buffett or certain business books on how to market certain things like I had this business fascination, which was different. So that's what I sought out to build my first company.
Josh Steimle
Cool. So you built some businesses before you became a public speaker? Right. Tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial activity there.
Jeff Butler
Yeah. So I built my first company was a tech company called HDD data provider. And what we did is we provide hazard disclosure data to people who are buying commercial real estate properties. Really, it sounds really interesting. I know. And that's the reason why I'm not doing it.
Josh Steimle
So did you sell that business?
Jeff Butler
Uh, yeah. So I left after, probably like 18 months or so was making some money, but it wasn't for me. So I let I gave the shares to the other partners that I just left and that's where I stumble into speaking.
Josh Steimle
Gotcha. So tell us about that. How did you stumble into speaking,
Jeff Butler
Literally stumbling as in I went down my bucket list because I didn't have a job. I didn't have the company at a time. So I literally hated that stuff so much as a full time because I left my day job worked on that. Went down my bucket list and like number like 14 on there was public speaking. So I went to a Toastmaster, a Toastmaster meeting that was literally a quarter mile away in a classroom. Right? That's how close I was the campus like literally walked up not stumbling. I wasn't drunk, but I just walked in there when to the Toastmasters event, talked for like, there's a one to two minutes section where you have to be asked a question you have to answer whatever that question is an impromptu speech. I spoke for, like 52 seconds. I didn't make it to one minute. That's how scared I was. And I sat back down after that talk or impromptu speech. And I realized I wanted this for the next 10 to 20 years of my life. Hit me.
Josh Steimle
You were hooked.
Jeff Butler
Yeah, that mean the level of like, adrenaline and but the ability to convey an idea in a ? situation really appealed to me.
Josh Steimle
Mm hmm. Like you said, you want to be pushed to the edge and that pushed you to the edge and you felt that and you're like, I like this.
Jeff Butler
As like, Hey, where's that meth? No. Give me more.
Josh Steimle
No, it is it is kind of a drug it is addictive. So So how did you go from that to actually getting paid to speak?
Jeff Butler
Good question. So after that meeting, I sat down, I said, I want to be on TEDx. And within four months, I got on there. And that was just through a lot of hustle and applying to a bunch of places. Applied to 20 places, 18 rejected me to accept it. From there, it was hard to go paid because I thought people cared about smartphones, but they really don't, as much as they take up time. So I literally tried to make this failing smartphone seminar, f***ing laugh, sigh you could censor. But this is messed up idea that just there was no money behind it. And the way where I was able to make it an actual business is that I paired up with a friend of mine who set a sales record at his company. I told you this before Josh, but for the listeners, basically, I had a friend who worked for a software company set the record, they're working full time. But on the off hours, he had a six figure ebook business under a fake author name that had 30 employees. And no one online knew who the actual author was. And he had all these assistants and I said, "Dude, if I can get like, those assistants, or just something of that nature, in my speaking business, I can build something". Gave him percentage of my revenue. And he started coaching me on this long friend, Ben, he grew up in the same town as me. In fact, his parents live half a mile away from mine. So I knew him for a long time. I pivoted from technology, smartphone, whatever stuff to millennials, because large market and I was millennials, people said you should talk about generational things fine. First year, we broke six figures. And it's because we pivoted to the market. But then more importantly, we solve the main problem, which is "You will make more money doing something If you are talking to more prospective buyers." You increase that equation, you get more, you decrease that you don't, right. It's just like consultants, you want more clients, you have to talk with more prospective people. If you want to double that down, have less of those meetings. That's literally what it is. And it's we tweaked it to really solve that problem.
Josh Steimle
And when you're doing public speaking, you're in front of a lot of people, right?
Jeff Butler
Yeah. And you're you're talking to more people.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. Cool. So what was the inspiration then to say, "I need to go write a book?" You're doing speaking, you're getting paid for this? What inspired you to say I need to write a book,
Jeff Butler
Credibility, and there's the credibility factor, but there's also just the, you know, let's do something that no one else in my family did. Like, let's let's really see if I can do this, because I wasn't really an academic growing up, even though I have a decent degree. And it was something that, you know, only the smart people could do. I was like, Hey, you know, like, what if, right?
Josh Steimle
So how'd you get started? What was your first step?
Jeff Butler
First step was figuring out what the heck I was gonna write about. And once I decided that I was speaking to the youth market, right, this is, I think, take a long story, make it really short. But before I went to technology, speaking, I thought I could speak to high school students bad idea, or very tough. They don't care. They're tougher them executives, I wrote a book for high school students on tools that can help them basically help them become the person they want to be. And it took a lot of the principles I knew in psychotherapy, and really broke it down into simple things that they could apply in their everyday life on there. The process of going about it, I sat down, looked at what the market had decided what I knew from an overlap, and then devised an outline. And that outline, I took out each chapter, and I wrote out just titles, right? And just decided, Okay, here's the flow of the book that I wanted to be. From there,I broke it down one level deeper. And then each one each chapter, I would maybe have one page that would have all the bullet points for that chapter. So maybe subheaders on that, for lack of a better word.
Josh Steimle
And were you Were you following any guide or reading any books? Did you have any instruction or were you just doing this?
Jeff Butler
Heck no. I was like, What the hell am I supposed to do? Well, I guess the books may well, I read a ton, so I kind of knew how books are formatted.
Josh Steimle
Mm hmm.
Jeff Butler
So I, yeah, literally, I would take a piece of paper like this. And I would just write out like bullet points of the chapter, right? And literally on paper, and then once I had all the chapters built out, which then I had about like 14 pieces of paper. I then put that on word doc. And from there I woke I was actually working at that time when I was first starting to write. I wake up, I think two hours earlier, before I went to the gym before I would go to work and I would write 1500 words 1500 to 2000 words. So within a month, I already finished writing it, and then the editing process kicked in.
Josh Steimle
So then when it came time to publish, what did you do there? If you're flying blind, were you looking at all the options? You're just like, Man, what do I do?
Jeff Butler
Why, like I was somewhat resourceful. So I actually, when I hired an editor, they knew about self-publishing, I just asked him, so what do I do now? And he's like, Oh, you should go on CreateSpace and publish it there. I said, Okay. You know how to do that? Yeah. Oh, can I pay to do that? Sure. That's what happened, and he helped me design it too, because they always seem new.
Josh Steimle
And for listeners, CreateSpace is now today known as Amazon KDP. They absorbed CreateSpace A few years ago, but CreateSpace used to be the primary self-publishing platform to get your book up on Amazon. So you went on CreateSpace. And your editor helped you step through the process.
Jeff Butler
Yeah, but that editing process was actually I don't think he knew about this. But before I actually hired someone, I paid, I got a bunch of my friends who I thought were smart. And I added them to the Google Doc. And I said, Can you help me edit my book, like, I'll buy you dinner or something like, this is literally what I was doing
Josh Steimle
You crowdsource to the editing.
Jeff Butler
Yeah. And so there's a girl who really liked me. So she was very helpful on the editing. But I realized that she wasn't the best editor. But I didn't realize that's like a little better at writing. That's more in retrospect, I noticed before it was like anything I wrote down it. Someone gives me feedback on I have to change that. I don't know what I'm doing. That was the initial writer's mindset. And then I had a friend who was actually applying for a PhD and now works at Amazon. And he was very, he actually went through the whole thing. And actually, I think I paid him a little money too, and I mentioned them in the foreword, because I mean, good gym friends, I worked out with decent writer, and yet he actually went through the whole book and my sister too added her in. So whole group effort, crowdsourced editing.
Josh Steimle
Yep. So once you got the book done, this is your first book, you said you wanted to write it because you wanted more credibility? Did it give you the credibility you were looking for?
Jeff Butler
I think permission-based yeah. Like, now I can kind of give myself permission to feel like I have somewhat of an idea of what I'm talking about. But in the eyes of say an event planner, who might be booking me. It was okay. But then when I realized that a lot of people have books, while people have fake ghostwritten books, you know, you don't you don't know. And I think a lot of it to answer your question. Yes. And no. I mean, in some respects, it's like, great. You have a book, but it wasn't like, Oh, you don't have a book? You don't know what you're doing? You know, I mean,
Josh Steimle
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a given that you're going to have a book if you're a speaker, maybe, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee the sale.
Jeff Butler
Exactly.
Josh Steimle
So was that part of the motivation for writing a second book that you wanted to write something better? Or what was the story behind writing the second book?
Jeff Butler
I went into the corporate world, and I realized that I didn't have necessarily a book that really encompassed what I was talking about on stage. And I thought it could be an easy way of, let's say, mutual sell, where they book me, they can also buy books as well, which actually did that did does happen quite a bit. And that's when I wrote The Authentic Workplace on there.
Josh Steimle
Gotcha. So tell us a bit about writing that book and what the process was like, with everything that you learn from the first book, how did that flow into making the second book better,
Jeff Butler
I actually had the same guy put it through CreateSpace. That was just before they ended. So got that guy covered. He also helped me with that typography in there, which I didn't know was a big deal. But it's actually a really annoying thing when you have a book is the typography face, but like all the editing of all the formats and all that, but that's different conversation. How I did it differently. I knew the format, I knew the formula, I was like, bang, bang, bang, my knockout time was probably half the time for that book on there. And I, when you start when you're like halfway through the book, you start building some serious momentum. And I guess might be from the way that I broke it out which I had the bullet bullet points of, here's what I want to attack, attack. And if that's written ahead of time, you don't have to impromptu you know, decide which direction you want to go. And that's only works for nonfiction. If it's fiction, it's a little bit more difficult to kind of do that, because I know the characters, you know, interact differently once you flesh them out more that really might take the story in a different direction.
Josh Steimle
Right. Now, when you were writing these books, was this just coming out of your head or were you doing research? Were you interviewing people? Were you looking at all sorts of other sources? Where did you get the material for these books?
Jeff Butler
A lot of it from the speaking that I was In the research I did there. So like, let's say how to go into and speak to garbage collectors or something right? I would read an interesting case study about that support a certain point, remember the case study, I would document it, and then the book, I would like, Oh, that's a great place for that particular case study. And you add it in there. So it's kind of like I took all that research I was doing during speaking, it was able to apply it in the book.
Josh Steimle
There's a an author, Nancy Duarte, she writes about how when she writes a book, she actually creates a PowerPoint presentation first, and that's her outline. That's how she outlines a book is by doing a presentation. As a speaker, it sounds like there was a little bit of that going on, as well for you, and that you looked at these presentations, and you're like, Hey, I can take this and I can put this into the book. Did you ever use that as an actual tool, though, to outline the book or to organize your thoughts? Yeah,slide decks.
Jeff Butler
The reason why is that, when you are trying to be creative, I don't want to deal with some sort of tool that's going to restrict that freedom. Right. And the interface of PowerPoint might not be as quick as I need it. Right? Like, let's say you have a quick thought. And it's like, Okay, let me get the line thing, should I have an arrow, it's like, you have to go through all these things, which on a piece of paper, you can just draw it, which is why I prefer pen and paper. And once I've really emotionally and also intellectually, logically committed to whatever's on the paper, then I would go more and do the PowerPoint. This is actually how I write presentations, paper first, that out of the PowerPoint, now I'm going to the PowerPoint, it actually changes again, because then I realized the flow is not the best in certain places. But I wouldn't start at PowerPoint, cuz I feel like that's really constrictive.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. Now, you've written a lot of articles as well, for different publications, right?
Jeff Butler
That's correct.
Josh Steimle
Were you able to reuse some of that content for your books?
Jeff Butler
I wrote a lot of those after that first book. But the content does echo in there. But yeah, I was able to use similar content from those.
Josh Steimle
Now, when the books came out, what did you do in terms of marketing? Or was marketing really a focus? Or was it more like, Hey, I do speaking, by the way, here's my book, or was it something where you were trying to promote these books and really get them out there?
Jeff Butler
Here's my speaking. I'm speaking. Here's my book. Yeah. And for me, it wasn't. I knew this wasn't my best, like New York Times bestselling book.
Josh Steimle
Mm hmm.
Jeff Butler
So didn't really want to invest a lot of money. On the marketing side, it was more just a tool for if I want to stage, here's more information on there. Maybe later on 2021. I try and go after the New York Times bestseller list. I have the team for it and give it a shot. But doubt take a slightly different approach, because then you have to look at the all different avenues of marketing a book.
Josh Steimle
Right? So that might be a good segue into what does the future look like in terms of being an author? Do you have ideas for books that you want to write in the future?
Jeff Butler
Yeah, there were a few that I had. That it really kind of depends on the brand itself, because it's because you sort of want them to be aligned on there. And there's things I used to have called neurological warfare. And it was looking at how technology's like cracking the code for our minds. That's not really on brand anymore. I love the write it I love to do the research on what's really happening behind the walls of Google and Facebook on there. Not a really good point. I had another idea which was called machine breaker and that was something like machine breaker or something. And I was looking at similar to what what's his name had growth hacking? The guy who
Josh Steimle
Ryan Holiday?
Jeff Butler
Yeah, the guy who's like, I feel like he's just super super believes a lot himself. Ryan Holiday. Yeah. And he, it's similar to growth hacking on there. But looking at how you can actually exploit certain systems, whether that's in like marketing, or sales and whatnot, like what we did is in terms of, instead of doing say, you know, 20 emails to get event planners on the phone, it's like, why you just turn the dialogue on like one little part of the system, and you officially, like break the system, because you don't do it. Same thing with TEDx. I'm like, I don't apply to three. Let me just put a 20. And it turns out that works. So it's a lot of like, that sign, that could be an option, but their ideas, but the thing is the next one, the winner, right? I'm going to make sure I do a lot of research beforehand. So I understand the market and say, Okay, I can't say for sure if this is going to work, but what I can do is understand the market need, like if I publish a book right now on remote work, it will get some hits because everyone's thinking about work. If I talk about say, you know, let's try something like generations, right? I had I didn't tell you this, then about Wiley Publishers, and they approached me.
Josh Steimle
No, tell us about that.
Jeff Butler
Okay, so I had traditional publisher approached me. And you know, this is like every authors like starting dream. Oh my gosh, you know, a big name because their top 10 right biggest publishers out there and pretty big. Yeah. And I was so excited. I'm like this hoax, you know, I looked up the domain is the actual sideline, okay. It's not from India or someplace trying to scam me.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, cuz most of the time, you have to write like a proposal letter and process and you have 30 times. So for a publisher to approach you, it's like, Wait, what?
Jeff Butler
Yeah, like, what's the catch? And I found the catch, but I'll get into that in a bit. So I talked with the guy and I was like, Oh, my gosh, you know why they publisher mechanic because I had all these books in my bookshelf. It's like why they publish it?
Josh Steimle
Yeah.
Jeff Butler
Well, the interesting thing was I got I talked to them on the phone. And it wasn't they weren't interested in me, because I had 7000 visitors to my blog. Every site didn't care about that. They were like, Oh, you did? 56 engagements last year, right? Yeah. And there's like 100 people in those crowds each one. Oh, yeah. Well, what if we, like published a book with you? And you could sell your book at age one? Can you do that? Like, maybe Yeah. Why? Well, you know, if we're going to work together, I think that would be a really good approach. Okay, and so I sat down, and I rose right now. Okay, so the split they offered right was actually quite high, they weren't gonna offer me a advance for obvious reasons. An advance. I don't know if you cover this much. But basically, if you are really good author, and you have a good following, they'll pay you some money upfront. So you can write the book. But then once you publish the book, you have to sell as many copies on there, and you won't earn any money until you cover that, I guess. So it's kind of like a weird loan.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, a lot of people who are new to the publishing world, they hear about an advance and they think, Oh, that's great. I get like a down payment and a bunch of money. And then I get book royalties, too. And it's like, no, if you don't earn back that advance, you can actually end up in trouble. I mean, depending on how the contract is worded, they might give you an advance if you only earn half the advance back, you have to pay back the other half or something. One of my friends, Ben Hardy, he got a $220,000 advance from Hachette for his first book. And I was like, Man, that would be an interesting contract to read through to see what their expectations were about how he would perform on that, because like, that's a huge commitment to take.
Jeff Butler
That is huge. Yeah.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. So they offered you a split, though.
Jeff Butler
Compared to industry was actually pretty good. They said 20% 80%, I say about 20%. But oh, my gosh, that'd be amazing. 80% 20% May, at a certain point, in the beginning, it was about 15/85 on there, and I sat down and I said, you know, what, if I just self-publish these books, right? And I looked at how much money you can make per book. And like, if you put on Amazon for one book to be shipped out, it's like, 350, right? You charged $15 for it from the event planner, or someone or maybe 20 bucks, you can earn a $15 profit, let's say $10 profit on each book, right? If you do Wiley on there, let's say they sell the book for $20, you're only getting $4. Yeah. Right. So I said, Well, if I'm going to sell maybe 20,000 books, right? That's 20,000 times the four on there as $80,000. And let's try it at 10 times a 20,000. That's $200,000. Mike, and no, like, yeah, I told him like, I didn't say no, but I was like, hey, maybe at a later time. So I build up my consulting company right now. So if I want to go back and just have a Wiley publishing name? Sure. I don't know what that would really do, though, for my brand, because I haven't had a traditional publisher.
Josh Steimle
Right. It's, it's interesting, because when I talk to people who have been only traditionally published, it means a lot to them. But when I talk to people who have only self-published, they're like, why would I want a traditional publisher? And the only reason I've been able to get out of people as to why they go with traditional publishers is the advance if they get an advance in distribution, because there is a distribution factor of getting in airports or bookstores. But in your case, you'd be selling all the books yourself, they'd be doing nothing. Yeah, why would you give them 80%? That's,
Jeff Butler
And they were like, well, we provide, you know, a copywriter and like a designer for the book cover, and I'm like, you don't think I've done this before? Like, I had to pay plus one like, you don't think I know the numbers? Yeah. Like, I know how much it costs to do that. And, yeah,
Josh Steimle
I mean, there is something to be said for that. Then providing those services and such if you can't go pay for it yourself. And I know Ryan Holiday he says one of the reasons he works with a publisher is because they hold him accountable. And so it's like he knows he has to to get the book done, because he's made that commitment. But if you can make and keep your own commitments, if you can go hire your own people, and you know how to do it, you eliminate a lot of those things immediately. So it's interesting that you went through that process and actually turned down a major publisher. But good on ya.
Jeff Butler
I know you probably weren't expecting that. Let's call it that title.
Josh Steimle
I love that you were able to bring up that story. That's great. But you were also smart that you didn't burn the bridge, because
Jeff Butler
so cuz like, what is the consulting company goes well? I got this extra money coming in. It's not as big of a deal. I may want, I probably want a traditional publisher on my name, just to be like, Hey, I have this mark, because I have a buddy, Adam Smiley, who's a speaker on the same subject, and he doesn't do any outbound marketing. He gets booked, like 23 times a year. And their big name companies like you just spoke at Verizon, like it's hard for me to get and a lot of it's attested to he has some Penguin Publishing House, right. They offered him a $60,000 advance because he wrote the book, The Quarterlife Crisis sold, like 30,000 copies, they gave him the advance on their Hey, when put under a pile when fine, they did it. And a lot of those distribution channels really started getting booked on there. And he had a TED Talk that has over 1 million views right now. So guys doing something right there. So I don't think I have everything figured out at this point. But I think in the future, maybe when I have the time, or like a ton of money that's like, Hey, you know what, I don't have to worry about this as much. Why not?
Josh Steimle
Yeah. Cool. I love that you're able to throw that story in there. So now you do a fair bit of reading as well, right?
Jeff Butler
That's true,I would say well,
Josh Steimle
how important would you say is reading to the quality of writing, you've been able to put out?
Jeff Butler
Huge, huge. When I just graduated college, I wouldn't read much at all. But right when I cut up made that switch in my career where I can have that moment with a software engineer next to me and realize I want to make this change. I started reading two to three was like two books a week was really crazy level. And my reading comprehension was absolutely awful growing up partly because dyslexia hidden. But as I started to read more, my ability to understand more difficult concepts grew. And I didn't expect this, but it's kind of like I think the channel you're going down my writing improved as well, because I started seeing how authors are putting together sentences and phrases. And then when I was looking at my own brand, I'm like, Oh, I need to change this. on there. And that started to grow. And I think we're the Yeah, so that's, I can accredit a lot of that and the quality of your reading, like, let's say, if you're just reading easy books, like, I love Brian Tracy, but Brian Tracy has written for audiences that are relatively easy. It's gonna you're not gonna challenge yourself as much as say, you pull up Steven Pinker. Right? And then you're like, in a dictionary is next to you the whole time, you're looking at, you know, a different word every, you know, page, right. So it's challenging in different ways. Y
Josh Steimle
Yep. What are some of your favorite books that you've read recently? Fiction, nonfiction? Anything?
Jeff Butler
Um, gosh, it's gonna be super political. I'll say. Because of the times, I found myself reading Thomas Sowell basic economics.
Josh Steimle
Yes. I love Sowell.
Jeff Butler
Yeah. So it turns out at that job, I told you about the guy who sat next to me, who was earning a bunch of money. The person on the other side, who was my buddy gave me that book. Back in like, 2014. I never opened it until, like recently, I read it. And I was it was such a great overview of economics, and different concepts, like rent control on apartments, and what does that really do to the impacts of the economics of the surroundings? I thought it was just absolutely fascinating read, and he's quite the established thinker of today. And it's sad, because I feel like he's one of the few right now that are really like, like strong in the academic sector, who has like a lot of published books behind that.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. Which book exactly did you read?
Jeff Butler
Basic Economics.
Josh Steimle
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowll. Yeah. It's great stuff. It's not. It's not the hardest stuff to read. But it's not the easiest stuff to read, either.
Jeff Butler
He's, he writes very well. Yeah. Explain a very complex subject in a very simplified manner.
Josh Steimle
But they're big books is but
Jeff Butler
yeah, that one was, I think, 700 or 600 pages. I got to get through.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. And most people would say, Man, the last thing I want to do is read a 700 page book on economics, but it is such interesting stuff because he is a talented writer. He knows how to make it interesting.
Jeff Butler
Yeah. There's him I don't know how you want me to. I can go for a long time on this.
Josh Steimle
What about fiction? What's one of your favorite fiction books?
Jeff Butler
So I see a lot out of fiction but I think one of the more recent ones I've read. I mean, I did the whole, you know, 1984, Brave New World, that whole thing that was a while ago. Fiction. I mean, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead was pretty good. I don't really exactly agree with all of her philosophy, but it's pretty good. Um, one of my favorite classics, Fahrenheit 451. Right. Yeah. I love that. It's just such a great idea. He's a story worth sharing. Man. That's an amazing story of a guy who do you know about his upbringing?
Josh Steimle
You know, I don't do Is there like a biography? Ray Bradbury?
Jeff Butler
Or is this I find this absolutely fascinating. He didn't get a college education. In fact, what he did is he spent most of his time in a library, literally, that's what he did. And he wanted to become a writer. So what he would do is he would consistently write these short stories again and again and again, because he knew that the amount of quantity will improve his quality over time. So he has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of short stories. And it wasn't until he really put in that volume, like it was deliberate practice volume, that then he started publishing or getting actual attention for it.
Josh Steimle
I got to learn more about this. Where did you learn this? Is there like a book or article or how did I forget?
Jeff Butler
You can check it on YouTube on there, but I think I read it in one of the back of his books or something that was like that, after you're finished with the book, and then just a little bit about him.
Josh Steimle
Cool. I'm going to explore this because I I love Ray Bradbury I love for Fahrenheit 451 he has a book called The Halloween tree. That's one of my favorite books that he wrote. It's just a short book. But yeah, amazing author.
Jeff Butler
Yeah,
Josh Steimle
Cool. Man, we have more intersecting interests than I realized before we started this conversation. Cool. What do you think is the role? Or do you think that reading fiction is helpful for writing non-fiction?
Jeff Butler
Yes. I think that in fiction, non-fiction, what you have to do is, if you're going to portray a certain point, a case study, you can really see someone who writes fiction well, because they know how to break down into a story, or a particular instance, because the words they use and the engagement effect. And I absolutely hate reading fiction, but for my girlfriend one time, I actually wrote a short story for her birthday and narrated it and had all recorded for her. And the level of detail that you have to put in there. Understand the actual characters takes an enormous level of skill and attention to detail that's often missed in fiction or non-fiction writing. Vor instance, when you're going over a page, and you're saying, well, this percentage of people do x, that's boring as hell. And if you think that you're going to actually engage readers you need to get you need to stop writing completely. How do you actually show that in a animated colorful format? That's where fiction becomes helpful that they can take a very simple topic and color and spin it in ways that you would have never thought before. And I think it's if you really are serious about becoming a great writer. Yeah, you need to read a lot of the great fictional pieces on there, because they'll give you an idea. How do you convey logic in an emotional way?
Josh Steimle
Are there any books that you've read about the craft of writing that have helped you as a writer?
Jeff Butler
I wish I could, like flip you around in my other room because I have a whole bookcase right here. Yeah, quite a few.
Josh Steimle
What are some of your favorites?
Jeff Butler
So I read a whole bunch of books on comedy. Because my courting my girlfriend, my presentation weren't funny. And I saw like the best presenters could be like, say, really interesting thing laugh, really interesting thing laugh. And so I want to understand that. And I forget the actual names that come to mind. But I know if you go to the Toastmasters website, and you look up, say, books on comedy, you'll find some of them and they're really good reads. But I read about comedy. I have not read about writing fiction. I have read a bit about doing research and data, like I'm reading through like a discrete mathematics and probability book right now. Just for fun doing math problems.
Josh Steimle
Is that what you do on weekends, you read books?
Jeff Butler
My girlfriend likes that she wants me to watch like the Haunted Hill House and stuff like that. Like I'm not a huge movie person, but she makes you more things.
Josh Steimle
And you're like, I want to go in the other room and do some math problems. I love this. Well, are there any questions that I should have asked you, Jeff, that I haven't asked you because I feel like you've brought up so many things that I wasn't expecting to have in this conversation. Now, I'm just like, what should we be talking about that we haven't talked about yet?
Jeff Butler
Well, I don't know, if it's, it really depends on what someone is tuned in to listen for. Because each person on their path of writing is looking for something different on there. And hopefully, like, let's say a bit further along the path, and they're choosing between self published or traditional, hopefully turned down the path of if it's their first book, just self-publish. And if you publish enough books, then you'll get the traditional publisher, who would be like, yes, we want our name on the ground. But I think if you sell enough copies, you're not going to want a traditional publisher. Yeah, taking those that's kind of like the being at the Ying Yang, but the the Catch 22, which is also interesting book. And I think when you're first starting out, there is a pragmatic process. I know you help people with that. Being able to write that out. And for some people like me, who are a little bit crazy, you'll just do it do it a ton and whether it's right or wrong. But I know the framework, you probably provide people's free solid in that respect of how you actually break it apart. Isthat correct?
Josh Steimle
Well, I hope so. But you didn't make me think of one more question, which is when you were writing your books, did you ever get stuck? Did you ever get writer's block? And if so, how did you push through that?
Jeff Butler
I don't really get writer's block. And this is the weird thing. I, I have such like a low perception of myself that I just think like, you know, it's it's okay, the way it is, I just keep going. But I think the times when someone might articulate a writer's block would occur is if you haven't thought through what you're going to say next. Because if you approach someone and you know, you're working with someone on a book, and they have three chapters that right, if they have not blocked out anything in those chapters, they will get writer's block in the beginning, because they're trying to articulate what that is. Because you notice what I did for my initial writing, I started very high level. And then I would take swings at it and go deeper and deeper each time. And each time I'll go through, it's exponentially longer. First time, it's maybe 15 minutes next time, more detail. It's two hours where I'm writing out all the points, then from there even a nother more detail outline on those, I have basically a full scope of where I want to go on there. And I think that's how I avoid a lot of writer's block is that I don't I set a goal, right? This many, and I have a pre-planned thing of what I have to cover. So where am I going to get writer's block? It's already said before me.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, yeah, I mean, two things stand out there. First of all, that you're doing an outline, which, surprisingly, a lot of people skip, even though everybody knows they're supposed to do an outline. But a lot of people don't do it. They're like, I'm just gonna sit down, I'll just start writing and then they get writer's block, you did an outline. The second thing that stands out is like you said, you said, you have a low estimation of yourself. But what you're really saying is that you didn't care too much about what you were putting out in your first draft. It sounds like you're just like, you know, I'm just gonna get this all out. Tucker max calls it a vomit draft. I'm just gonna get all this stuff out there. And then I can go back and clean it up. No big deal.
Jeff Butler
Yeah, you cannot, cannot cannot for the first time that you're actually writing some material down judge it, just write it and don't look back on there. Because when I write those 1500 words, I'm not editing through it. I'm just going through and if I spell something wrong, I might just do a little Grammarly. Click check. I'm not trying to look up for words on there that fit. I'm just going through can't find the right attitude. So what what the first thing that comes to my mind, Apple's boom, go? I'll come back later, and I'll get to it. But the problem is, most people and I noticed this with my girlfriend because she's she recently published a book, and she's a valedictorian. She was top of her class or university, she just got into what is it? Middlebury, right, and she full back scholarship. She's like, ranked number one right now. Couldn't write and I was like, the writer's block came up. And the problem was is and I this might be helpful, but people would write, say, a paragraph, but then go back to the beginning of the paragraph and say, No, it's not perfect.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. before they get it all out before they get all their ideas.
Jeff Butler
And over and over. They won't even get anywhere. It's like, Look, you're supposed to it's called rough. There's a reason why it's called rough draft. Draft is not perfection draft. It's rough. edges. Don't worry about it and go.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, this whole idea that your first draft has to be perfect. Of course, that's going to stop you. I mean, I struggle with this when I'm writing. I do edit as I go along. And I try not to but it's hard. It's hard to not go back and be like, Oh, wait, no, I want to do it this way. Now I want to word it this way. But if you're a perfectionist, it just gets that much harder. Yeah,
Jeff Butler
Yeah.
Josh Steimle
Cool. Well, what's the book that she wrote?
Jeff Butler
Um, it's called Desde el Exilio and you can look it up. It's from in Spanish Desde el Exilio. Baby.
Marianna G.F.
Yeah.
Jeff Butler
What's your book called? Desde el Exilio. How do you pronounce?
Marianna G.F.
Desde el Exilio
Jeff Butler
Desde el Exilio
Marianna G.F.
So, From the Exile.
Jeff Butler
From the Exile. That's the English translation. So it's both Spanish and English. And it's written in poetry.
Josh Steimle
Gotcha. Cool.
Jeff Butler
That's up for impromptu ha for a podcast to do that. I don't think anyone's ever done that during the past.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, it's a what will give her a link in the show notes to her book as well. So
Jeff Butler
Yeah, it's I think it's she's gotten way more Amazon reviews than me. And we'll leave this as a funny note on here. We can wrap this up on that. So she hasn't done much public speaking. And she just published her book. And I'm like, because we finally got it done. She's got a whole bunch of copies, like 20 of them. And I said, Oh, you should start speaking go ahead and speak at a Rotary Club. I spoke at one recently as an impromptu because I didn't have a speaker I've spoken. I said, Oh, you saw my girlfriend come. cc on an email. They love her. They bring her in. She brings all her books. She tells her story. She gets in a room of like fit, you know, Rotary Club, like not known for like big stages. It's like 15 old ladies in a room. She finishes her 20-minute speech, they give her a standing ovation. And they buy all the copies and they pay her more dollars for each book. And I'm sitting there like, I have never gotten a standing ovation of professional speaker. How dare you get a standing ovation on the first time you get up and speak. But I was on for that day because she said I had to pull her in there. And that was a difficult one. But yeah, it's
Josh Steimle
Maybe your next book should be poetry. Maybe you can get a standing ovation too.
Jeff Butler
How to get salvation on your first time on stage. I should not be I should not write that one because I don't know what to do in that case.
Josh Steimle
Well, thank you so much, Jeff, for being a guest here on the show and putting up with all these questions. appreciate it so much. where's the best place for people to find you?
Jeff Butler
My site at Jeffjbutler.com. That's my speaking site. And trendy fix is the consulting side.
Josh Steimle
Awesome. Thanks so much. We'll put all the links in the show notes and all that stuff. Thanks for helping us out here on the Published Author Podcast today.
Jeff Butler
Sure thing Josh pleasures mine.