Dr. Nanette Miner has gone the traditional publishing and self-publishing routes, and after navigating both, she’s a strong advocate of self-publishing.

Nanette is the author of eight business books, including her most recent one, Future-Proofing Your Organization by Teaching Thinking Skills. Nanette also authored 101 Media & Marketing Tips For The Sole Proprietor, and there’s a fascinating story behind this book’s origins, which you can discover in this episode.

The ease of self-publishing in the digital age is the deciding factor for Nanette, founder of The Training Doctor; a consulting firm focused on organizational leadership. 

Nanette began writing in the 90s, before the Internet existed, and when she self-published back then she even had to start her own publishing company to publish and distribute her books. 

This extensive experience means Nanette has an impressive depth of knowledge about writing, publishing, and distribution. 

TOP TAKEAWAY: SELF-PUBLISHING IS EASY IN THE DIGITAL AGE 

She tells show host Josh Steimle: “Just being available on Amazon makes self-publishing the choice. 

“If you use your keywords correctly, and people have a need for what you're writing on, then they just find you by default, which they would never do in a bookstore, they would never do by just getting on the internet and hoping that they found a book. When people have a need for a book they know to go to Amazon.”

Nanette’s primary concern about traditional publishers is the lack of marketing of books. “They don't really market your book for you and everything that any author has ever said is true: It’s that writing up the book is the easy part. It's the marketing that's the hard part.”

For Nanette the writing is the part that she loves, and the marketing not so much. “Once I understood how self-publishing worked, it was much easier to just replicate that process with different topics.”

She got around the marketing issue by writing on specific topics and working with either partners or professional associations to get a book out to an audience. And, of course, she has a significant following, which makes marketing a book easier.

MORE CONTROL WITH SELF-PUBLISHING

Nanette also appreciates having more control over her work, including book titles, although sometimes this can occasionally provoke controversy. 

The response to her most recent book, Future-Proofing Your Organization by Teaching Thinking Skills, was that people thought she was insulting them with the title.

Explains Nanette: “People were like ‘You're insulting us with this title, Increase Thinking Skills . . .you’re saying we can’t think’.

“And then I had a meeting with a mentor, and she said ‘But really, what you're saying is you want people to be better leaders. So why don't you change it to how to increase leadership skills’.”

Ultimately, Nanette left the subtitle but now just refers to the book as simply Future Proofing Your Organization, and she’s able to capture people’s attention this way.

However, she does feel strongly about improving thinking skills in the education system. “Truly, in my opinion, it comes down to fill-in-the-blank tests, because what we taught kids to do was look for only one right answer, because you can only choose from A, B, C, or D so that we can put it through a scan machine and give your test score and to determine if you're a smart or not.”

But, she says, that's not how the real world operates. There's multiple right answers, and you have to have the thinking ability to critically choose the best, and it may not be the best, but you at least put some thought into it. So that's the part (of the book) that actually grabs people because they realize ‘You're right’.”

This explains why Nanette is such a big fan of reading. She tells Josh: “If you are able to read in different interest areas, you become a more critical thinker, because you're like, “Oh, man, this economy thing is not matching up with this finance thing, which is not matching up with this historical thing . . . You start to see connections. 

“So that's really what I'm trying to get people to realize. It's the education process that created this learner, this learning process. And we have to clip it in corporate America, or we're just going to have a bunch of people who don't have enough critical thinking skills to run business.”

BE REGIMENTED

Nanette’s advice to entrepreneurs wanting to write a book is to:  “Just do it. With Amazon the risk for you is so low, so just do it, get it out there as a credential, and and you can update it as you feel fitt . . . it’s a blessing to have the technology to do that.”

She also recommends that writers be regimented about their writing. In her case, she made sure she wrote 1,000 words a day. “It doesn't matter if it's drivel, I just go back and edit it later. The important part is to get the thoughts. 

Nanette narrates her books and articles, partly because she is more verbose when she’s talking than when I'm writing. So she tends to speak her articles or chapters first, and then, thanks to rev.com, she doesn’t even have to retype them.

LINKS

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

• Facebook

• TheTrainingDoctor.com

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. I'm your host, Josh Stein. Today, our guest is Nanette Miner. Dr. Nanette Miner is the founder of The Training Doctor, a consulting firm focused on organizational leadership. She's also the author of eight business books, including your most recent one, Future Proofing Your Organization By Teaching Thinking Skills. Some of her books have been traditionally published, some self-publish, and she even started her own publishing company. So she's got a wealth of information to share with us today. And also, she rides a Harley, she plays the drums, and while a college student she spent a summer as the personal assistant to Ronald McDonald. Nanette, welcome to the show.

Dr Nanette Miner

I did indeed. Thank you, Josh. I'm happy to be here.

Josh Steimle

All right, before we jump into talking about your books and your experience publishing them, tell us a little bit about this work you did with Ronald McDonald. I've got to get this story.

Dr Nanette Miner

It is a unique resume item, isn't it? I was actually working for a local McDonald's in my town, and apparently recognized as a I don't know, leader of others. And back in the day, a lot of parents would have their birthday parties, their kids birthday parties at McDonald's. And I worked for a franchisee actually, and they operated in three states in the northeast. And they went to the extreme measure of having their own Ronald, having an RV tour bus and, having a whole stage that folded out of the back of the RV. And so this young college student would drive the RV to the very so. So we traveled around the three states, every weekend, we were in a different store in one of three states, we never went together, because I was not supposed to know that the young man driving the RV was also Ronald McDonald. So I would be in the store. And I'd be getting the kids all excited and everything. And then he would come in and he tapped me on the shoulder. He said Ronald is here, they'll be ready in 30 minutes. And I'd say okay, and then he would leave the store and in 30 minutes, I show all the kids out to get them aligned behind the RV and out he would come and we would do you know fun things like getting the grimace suit and fill it with as many balloons as you can. And you know other fun things that Ronald would have would do with the kids. And so basically, my job was to help get the kids up on the stage like a magician's assistant except I was Ronald's assistant. But the funny thing was, is it was just one guy who would tell me Ronald was here and then don't come up for 30 minutes. And we're never allowed to travel together. Because they're only that was part of the mystique.

Josh Steimle

Wow, what an experience. Yeah, you are the first person I've met who has this on their resume, like you said.

Dr Nanette Miner

I don't know anybody else who's done it.

Josh Steimle

So tell us a little bit about your business, The Training Doctor, what exactly do you do there? Who do you work with?

Dr Nanette Miner

Okay, um, I've been in business for 30 years starting in 2021. So the company as most companies do has, has morphed and pivoted a few times over the years, I started as a stand-up trainer in the classroom, I realized very quickly that there were a lot of good stand-up trainers, but not a lot of people who could design good training. So for the next 20, something years, I solely concentrated on designing curriculum for corporate America, I worked with mostly Tortune 500 companies. So you would think that they will be the best of the best, you know, they had the resources, and they had the wherewithal to do the best. And I realized slowly, that there's two things that corporate America does poorly with training, and I was part of the problem. One is that they train in silos. So if you enter a company, as a person in finance, and you're lucky enough to get professional development, it will probably only be in finance, and they don't make business people, they make specialists. And the second thing is that they really don't do a good job of leadership training. They wait until people get promoted to leadership, and then start applying leadership training, which is asking somebody to change their behavior after 15 or 20 years. So after 20 something years of designing training, that fit into those categories, I finally took a step back and said, we have a big problem coming when you know, 2030 all the boomers are supposed to be leaving the workforce which has not been greatly accelerated because of the pandemic. I thought there's just not enough up and coming leaders who are prepared to step into leadership roles. So about five years ago, I just did a complete pivot and said no more instructional design. I'm going to help companies to get their leaders prepared. And and the thing that's very different about leadership development is that it's really not a curriculum is not a class. It's an experiential thing. So I'm still doing design work, but it's an entirely different approach. It's not designing for classroom learning, it's not stepped, it's really individualized. But if you want somebody to be A good leader of others. It's a process that needs to be planned for most companies don't do that.

Josh Steimle

So you've published eight books was your first book was inspired by your business? Or what's the story behind why you became an author.

Dr Nanette Miner

That is the only this is a this is a story. Nobody knows. That is the only book that is not inspired by my business. So when I was getting my doctorate, we had a project to do, which was supposed to be done internally, at your organization. Well, I didn't have an organization. And somehow, simultaneous, I had an instructor who really liked me a lot, for some reason, and gave me lots of leeway as to what my assignment was going to be. Simultaneously, my best friend declared to me that she'd been having an affair with a fellow for three years. And she and I talked on the phone every day, we worked out at the gym together every day, and I did not know this for three years. So she said to me, I want to write a book and tell other women not to do this, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done. And I'm not a writer you are. So will you help me? And I said, Well, you know, that's nice. But that's your sad little story, nobody's really going to care about your little story, we have to turn this into a research project. And so I was actually allowed to use it as my project for one of my classes, my doctoral program, because I turned it into a research project.

Josh Steimle

So that sounds like a unique research project too.

Dr Nanette Miner

Very. My professor was so like, on board with it, it was it was wonderful. Um, so from that we then I then self-published, because once she helped me do all the research and everything, she stepped away and said, I really don't want to be associated with this. And I said, Well, this is an incredible topic. And Josh, I got to tell you, that is still being sold on Amazon. And that was published in 1995.

Josh Steimle

Wow, interesting.

Dr Nanette Miner

It's a classic topic. Sadly, I didn't I hate to laugh at that. But that's a classic topic. So I self-published, which was in 1995, Amazon wasn't around, there was no ebooks whatsoever, it was

Josh Steimle

Self-publishing was an entirely different process back then.

Dr Nanette Miner

Which is why I had to start the publishing company, because there was no other way to do it, you couldn't get an ISDN number if you didn't have a publishing company. So I had to have inventory. And you'll have people say, oh, I've got 20,000 boxes. my garage truly was like that I was doing my own fulfillment, I was going to bookstores and selling on consignment. And it was going like that, because it's it's very interesting, I thought it wouldn't sell at a bookstore, because who would want to walk up to the counter with a book that clearly says, you know, you've got a problem, but it would sell out, like I would stock on Saturdays in the stores would call me on Tuesday and say, okay, the books gone, bring us some more, as soon as you possibly can. Then Amazon came along and changed my life, because then I just had to ship to Amazon once a week. And, you know, they handled all my fulfillment. And then the book really took off. And I finally I did a couple of other topics, withdrawal now business topics. But once I understood how self-publishing worked, that was much easier to just replicate that process with different topics. And then finally, I shut the publishing business down, because you're just not what I do. You know, you can, you can have a side gig for only so long. And then you're like, Okay, this is actually taking way more of my time than that what I love to do, which is professional development. But because Amazon is now there, I just turned all the books into ebooks. And so now, you know, I still collect income every month, I just don't have to do any fulfillment.

Josh Steimle

Oh, isn't that nice?

Dr Nanette Miner

Interesting. I mean, technology's amazing. Our lives have changed so much. But what an interesting trajectory over 20 - 25 years.

Josh Steimle

It's funny, because we look at the self-publishing process today, those of us who are first-time authors, we're just getting into it, we think, Oh, this is so complicated. There's so much to do. But look at what you used to have to do used to have to actually go get the book printed somewhere and figure out how to do that. And there was no internet back in '91. So even just finding a printer, right? It's been tricky to find the printer who could actually print a book and do a good enough job, right?

Dr Nanette Miner

It doesn't mean you're getting the best numbers, because you're just working with you who's in your local Yellow Pages, right? You can't go to a printer 1000s of miles away, because you don't even know that they exist. Yeah. But yeah, you had I had to get little ESPN stickers. That was a whole different industry company that you had to deal with to get your numbers and your stickers.

Josh Steimle

Yep. So when you understand a little bit about the history and what it used to be like, you can really be grateful for the improvements that have been made today and how much easier it is, I still get people coming in saying, Do I have to buy 1000s of copies of my book? And I say no, that's the great thing about Amazon, you upload it and then they'll just print it whenever somebody orders it. It's print on demand. It's a wonderful thing. And your story is a perfect example of that.

Dr Nanette Miner

So my most recent book, I will say I did get printed copies because it is a good old card. It's a good way to get entree to an executive, which is my which is my market. So I did have probably 150 or 200 printed copies done but like you said the rest are just fulfillment from Amazon.

Josh Steimle

So then I'm curious about the next books, then how did you come about writing all these books, and maybe you don't have to tell us the story behind every single one. But tell us what you want to tell us about the next seven books that you wrote and why you wrote them and how things evolved as you went from one to another?

Dr Nanette Miner

Well, so my next book was called 101 Media & Marketing Tips for The Sole Proprietor. And that came about and I will tell you this story, because it's a good model that came about because people kept saying to me, you are such a good marketer, as an independent consultant, you know, can you help me with my business, he helped my brother with his photography business. And so people kept calling me and I would spend hours on the phone, giving people ideas for free, which again, was not in my wheelhouse at all. But when I went to publish that first book, I belong to professional association, there was a fellow who self published his own book. And I went to him for advice. And he said, go buy Dan Poynter, Self-Publishing whatever his book was called at the time, I forget. And once you've read that, if you still have questions, come back to me. And so I adopted his strategy, because that was brilliant. And I thought, instead of having these one on one conversations with people, I should just put this all down in a book. And when they call me, I'll say, buy my book. And then if you still have questions, call me afterwards. And nobody ever called. And then one day, I was doing something with the book, I don't know if I was editing or what, but I was in the chair of my hairdresser, and he said, Oh, hairdressers need this book, because they're all artists, they're not business people. And they'll go out of business in three years. And I said, Well, I don't know anything about the salon industry. And he said, I'll help you realize it. So I took him to lunch, one day, we had a bottle of wine, every single tip that you know, when that was in the original book, we just went through and modified so it has applied to a salon owner. And I had the number one salon narketing book on Amazon for like five years. Because it was the only one. And all I did was model it on the first one. So like I had said earlier, once I figured out self publishing, I was able to replicate it once I had a model for that next book, then I was able to replicate that. And then my third book, I think came about because I was teaching a continuing ed class for a local college on how to start a business. So I actually wrote a seven chapter book on it. And it forced me to write that book, because I would hand it out each week and asked him to proofread it and give it back to me, but then we would talk about all the concepts in that. So it's mostly it's just based on what's happening in my life right now. And what do I feel passionate about, which is why I last book, Future proofing organization through teaching thinking skills came about because a lot of leadership is critical thinking and we're just not, we're not helping people to become more critical thinkers.

Josh Steimle

So it sounds like you enjoy writing. Is that right?

Dr Nanette Miner

Yes. Writing love writing. Yeah. If I could do nothing else I would write.

Josh Steimle

So was there a point when you realized you're a writer? I mean, Was this something that you grew up doing when you were a kid that you love to write? Or was it something you fell into when you're older and you realized, you know, I'm good at this, I like doing this. How did that come about?

Dr Nanette Miner

I would say, I've always been a writer, not like I never wrote like score stories, or poetry or anything like that, as a kid, I just have an affinity for it. But I do remember when I was in college, once writing a paper for a new officer, who made me bring in all of my books from the library to prove my sources, because he didn't think I had written. So yeah, it's just a thing. It's something I have. My mom was a teacher. So that probably, you know, ingrained in me from the time I was four or something.

Josh Steimle

My mom was a teacher as well. She's the one who taught me to love reading. What do you think is the connection between reading and writing?

Dr Nanette Miner

I think it's probably a huge, it's a good point that you bring up because if you're a voracious reader, you have a very expansive mind, you can see possibilities you can see into the future, you can make connections, which I think a lot of, you know, people who don't read just don't make connections. So I mean, we were just on vacation a few weeks ago, and I was reading a business book, and my husband's friend was like, we're on vacation with his friends. And he's like, I'm reading like a mystery novel, like, no, this is what I do for fun. Business books is what makes me happy.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, me too. So tell us a bit about your latest book, then because you've learned a lot along the way. You've had a lot of experience as an author, how did that help you with your latest book that you just got out?

Dr Nanette Miner

Well, it was more, it was a bigger tome than the previous I will say not as a way to pat myself on the back. But I will say that once you write a doctoral dissertation, you can write anything because that's an exercise in torture. So everything after that seems pretty easy. And and I do have a personal philosophy that which came from the first book that when people are in pain, they want answers, they don't need to read a bunch of filler. And you did mention in my intro that I have written books with publishers as well two different books for two different publishers. So when I write for myself and I self-publish for myself, they are smaller books. They're under a 100 pages because I just get right to the point, I'm a very succinct writer, it's feedback I have always gotten from professors is like you don't add enough detail. And like, it's all there. I don't know what you're talking about. I said everything there is to say. So the that the last book teaching, thinking skills was a process that was a daily process. And I set a goal for when I would have it written by I did not meet that goal, but just keep moving forward. What I did realize is that I'm, I'm a better thinker in the morning. And so it was the first thing I did, when I walked into the office, every day, I gave myself two hours every day, I didn't give myself a word count or a page count, it was just spend two hours writing. And if that's one paragraph, that's fine, it's just you put in the time, um, because I wanted this to be more of a research based book than my others, which were kind of just off the top of my head, or a very first book, which is research based. But I do have a researcher on staff, she's a contractor, but she does all my research for me. And so I would send her like the chapter outline in advance and say, Here's points that I'm trying to make, find me the data that backs that up. So for every chapter, I would probably have to read 150 pages myself to get the concepts and then reiterate it in my own my own voice.

Josh Steimle

That's great. So this brings up the this point of doing research, because some authors feel like, well, I've just got all this knowledge in my head, and I can just write it all down. And that's going to be great. Where do you see the importance of research fitting in with writing a business book?

Dr Nanette Miner

Honestly, I think your research is more important for marketing your book, because people want to know that there's credibility in what you've written. And the hardest part is to get somebody to purchase it. So once they've got it, you don't care, right? They made the purchase, but you have to entice them to purchase it. And if you're not a well known person, you're not a celebrity, it's too hard of uphill battle to try to convince somebody that even if you are brilliant, that's the most brilliant thing they've ever written. So it's, it's better to have that research that you can fall back on your LinkedIn posts, or your ads or whatever that says, you know, 86% of employees say blah, blah, blah, find out in my book, how you can overcome that, and then have like, Oh, no, I need to have that. So then you can, you can put your own wisdom into the book itself. But I think you need that credibility springboard to get people to buy the book in the first place.

Josh Steimle

When people think about credibility with publishing, they often think about traditional publishers. And you mentioned, you've self-published a bunch of books, but you've also worked with traditional publishers. Tell us a bit about your experience going from self-publishing to traditional publishing. And then you were telling me before we started recording that, you then went back to self-publishing?

Dr Nanette Miner

Yes. So my first publisher came to me, it was a referral, but I didn't do a proposal or anything. She came to me. And the reason that she asked me to write for their house was because my first book, the affiar book was number 3000, on Amazon, on all the books. And she's like, if you can do that, for a self-published book, imagine what you can do for us? Well, the problem with publishers, in my opinion, is, they don't really market your book for you and everything, everything that any author has ever said is true is that writing up the book is the easy part. It's the marketing, that's the hard part. And for me, the writing is the part that I love. And the marketing is not the part that I love. So I thought this is going to be awesome, I'm going to have a big name, it was in my field, it was in the training and development field there basically the only publisher in that field, it's going to sell itself and it did not sell itself. And then I my second book I wrote for my professional association, who has a publishing arm. And so you think that's a captive audience, they got 40,000 people who belong to this association, they're just going to sell that book like crazy. And again, it was in my field. And they did adopted actually, for a certification that they offered, they did make our book part of that package, I co-authored that one. I have thoughts on co-authoring too. But my my disenchantment with publishers are truly mine are not mainstream, they were both very niche publishers, but but huge in the amount of publications they put out in a year, and the amount of reach that they have is one there. They are more concerned with page count than anything else. And I am a succinct writer. So it was very hard for me to meet their requirements of you know, this has to be 130 page or 190 page book, because I'm like what I already said at all. Um, and and I know that you've all read books to where you get, you know, halfway through and you're like, this is just fluff. Why am I reading this fluff? And I have a real thing against fluff.

Josh Steimle

And after working with a traditional publisher, you know where that fluff came from, I guess.

Dr Nanette Miner

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And then and then the other thing is that they really don't work at it. You know, they, I mean, it could just be miscommunication, but the publisher who brings you in and and edits helps you edit is not in the marketing department at all. So they promise you, all these wonderful things are going to happen in terms of marketing, but they, but they don't, in my experience. So if I'm going to put all that effort into making that book sell, then I will reap all the rewards for that as well. And I knew that my last book, which I've actually been told by people is has an insulting title. And I'm like, that's okay, it's your attention, like, are you implying, we can't think I'm like, Yes, I am implying that because people are not critical thinkers. And if you want your business to be successful, more long run, you have to ultimate that in your organization. So my book, my last book has fluff in it in that I have a whole chapter on activities that you can build, you can do that build thinking skills, I have a whole chapter on case studies, but those are all practical implementation. So it made a did fill pages, but to me, it's also credibility. It's not like I'm saying, hey, you should do this, I'm not telling you how I'm saying you should do this. And you can use this case study to, to do it as well. And here's the, here's how you set it up. And here's the debrief questions. And here's the outcomes you should expect from this activity. And you can, you know, alternate it by or change it up by doing something a little bit differently this way. And so it's, it's a, in my mind, a very how to book as well as a inspirational book about how you need to change professional development inside organizations.

Josh Steimle

Was there any plus side that you experienced working with a traditional author or traditional publisher?

Dr Nanette Miner

No. I have to say, No, they have they have incredible, you know, deadlines. So that to me, again, makes me go Oh, no, I've lost my mojo, you know, and I have the ability to, to speak freely and create freely. It's just, it's better work, in my opinion. And so meeting their deadlines and meeting their their page counts, is it was difficult for me. I will say, even if you're going to self-publish, though, you need to hire an editor, because you don't see what you don't see. I will tell you to so my first book that will work with a major publisher, you can tell that I annoyed the editor that they hired me because in the beginning, that person would write well, you say this, but I could interpret it this way. Or I can interpret it that way. So you need to be more clear. Oh, yeah, I can see I can see why you're saying that. And then by like the 10th chapter, he's like, I don't get this. Give me no direction.

Josh Steimle

He just say I don't get this, you need to rewrite this.

Dr Nanette Miner

Right? Yeah. I don't know what you're trying to say here. Okay.

Josh Steimle

Have you worked with the same editor throughout your books? Or have you switched around for each one? Or what do you look for in a good editor?

Dr Nanette Miner

My first editor I actually hired when I was doing my doctoral dissertation, because my philosophy was, I am not paying tuition to learn the Chicago Manual of Style. So I'm going to hire somebody who already knows that to save me the time and the effort. And that did honestly speed my dissertation have a lot of everything. I don't know how this works, but there's chapters and you only submit one chapter and until that's approved, you can't submit your next chapter. So it's just a lengthy process. And my always got approved on the first submission, which a lot of my friends who are in the same program with me told me it would take them took them much longer. So I know that she edited my first couple of books as well. Um, and then I think I probably just went to friends who I know are illiterate, for for the last few books. And then there was that one class that I taught where I just gave my students the book and said, Here, edit this for crowdsource learning. Yeah.

Josh Steimle

So you said you've got opinions on co authors as well tell us about your experience working with a co-author, pros and cons.

Dr Nanette Miner

So I've only co-authored well, the first book was co authored with my friend who had the affair, but I did all the writing, she did all the research, so we split duties. The second the other other time that I co authored was for a professional association. And we were both experts in our field and they put us together to co-author a book and we got along swimmingly through the whole process for the most part, but then we like basically hate each other by the end of the process. I am a perfectionist, and I'm very regimented, like I said to you, when I started to write the last book, it was two hours every day, I never missed that I'm very regimented person. And my co-author was a person who felt like they would write when the mood inspired them. And so we didn't have a good give and take it was always when when she was ready than I had to jump because now she was participating. And when it came to the end, when they edit when the publisher edited it, and then give it back to us for final edits. That became all of my job. Somehow, I don't remember how, but I just feel like I remember feeling like I did more of the work here and not splitting royalties. And you know, when you're unpublished when you're working with a publishing house, your royalties are pretty small, you can. So if you're self-publishing, you're taking all the risk. Like we said earlier, if you're working with Amazon, there's not that much risk anymore. And, you know, if you're working with a publisher, they're taking all the risk. So you have to appreciate them for that. But you would think they would do a better job at marketing, since they took such such a risk in giving you the platform.

Josh Steimle

You would think so. But your story is consistent with virtually every other author I've ever talked to, I don't think I've ever talked to an author that said, Oh, my publisher did a terrific job marketing my book, they just had all these clever ideas. I've never heard that story. It's always Yeah, they sent out a press release. And that was it.

Dr Nanette Miner

Right? So apparently, marketers within publishing firms, and meteorologists are the only two people who can do their jobs consistently, poorly, and still keep their jobs.

Josh Steimle

So what are some of the things that if you could go back in time to yourself, when you were writing that first book, or the second book, what's some of the advice that you would give to yourself about, hey, here's how to be a better author, here's what you should do differently.

Dr Nanette Miner

I don't know that I would give advice to myself, because I'm pretty happy with how mine came about. But advice I would give to others is just be regimented about it. And you've heard other authors say, you know, I made sure I wrote 1000 words a day, and then it doesn't matter if it's dribble, I just go back and you know, edit it later. The important part is to get the thoughts in the stream of consciousness. That's not how I work. Um, one thing I do do very regularly more for writing articles than I do for writing books, although for the last one, I did this process as well as I am much more verbose when I'm talking when I'm writing, for some reason, I become very constricted when I'm writing. So I tend to speak my articles or my chapters first, and then and now, thanks to rev.com, I don't even have to retype them, I used to have to type them myself. Now, you could just send your audio file and an hour later, you have it all back. And I find that my writing is much more personable, and, and has a lot more stories in it, which is very attractive to the reader. And prior to adopting that process. I would just sit here and type and it would be very academic, because I tend to be more of an academic bullet point kind of writer, but I don't speak like that. So I'm a better writer, if I speak

Josh Steimle

How did your academic experience make you a better writer. I mean, you touched on this already. But tell us a little bit more about that. Because the training you get in academia, getting a PhD, is not what most authors have. But I know there's some valuable things that you get out of that.

Dr Nanette Miner

Honestly, I don't think so. People say but but people say to me, I think I'm getting a doctorate, I was like, don't do that. No, I mean, I said to you earlier that I think my mother trained me to be a good writer and a good reader. And those two go hand in hand. So I really never had a problem with writing. In fact, my doctoral dissertation advisor said to me once you're the best writer, you're just an excellent writer. I said to her at this point in my education, isn't everybody an excellent writer? And she said, No, you'd be surprised. So I will not say that that groomed me. The only thing that really made me do more was think, in depth, how did we get? Because what I tend to do is say so here's the answer, and not give you the thought process or the actual process to arriving at it so that somebody could replicate it. And that's all in the doctoral dissertation is the point of that is, but somebody take this research and replicate your whole research project. And so therefore, you have to be very, very, very detailed. Like if you're doing a survey, you have to say it's a phone survey, and there were 15 people, and they were called between seven and 9pm. And we had a 73% response rate, like you have to give all the details where I would just say, so here's what we learned from our survey. So I did learn to be much more detailed and give more background so that people could follow along better as opposed to go as opposed to saying, here it is, just take the answer and run with it.

Josh Steimle

So the last few books that you wrote was the primary motivation I'm writing this that I can grow my business or were you thinking something else while you're writing it?

Dr Nanette Miner

The last book definitely was I'm writing this so I could grow my business. The first 101 Media & Marketing Tips was written so that I could stop the phone from ringing and wasting my time talking to people about industries that didn't have anything to do with me. And that was just fortuitous. That really was just notice and then the fact that my hairdresser said let's rewrite. It was fortuitous plus, but the last book was really because my philosophy on how professional development is done in corporate America is counter to how everyone else's everyone's currently doing it. And I do believe at some point I'll be vindicated and I'll be right. But for me to verbalize that over and over gets me very excited and just riles my my blood. So I realized after about a year or so I really need to put this into a written form so that people can appreciate the genius. And and better than then we have a better conversation. So it's kind of based on the first 101 Media & Marketing Tips, like read the book first, and then we'll have a better conversation if if you still need to have that. So it was really used as a sales tool. My last book was to say, here is the new philosophy about professional development and in companies. And if you if you agree with what I say here, let's have a further conversation.

Josh Steimle

And how has it been received so far? Is it working as a client for your business?

Dr Nanette Miner

So as I said, immediately, people like you're insulting us with this title, you increase thinking skills. And then I had a meeting with a mentor, counselor person? And she said, but really, what you're saying is you want people to be better leaders. So why don't you change it to how to increase leadership skills. So I saw it basically, I now just refer to the book as future proofing your organization. And I leave off subtitle about teaching thinking skills all together, so at least I can capture people's people's attention. But the folks who have have bought in buy in wholeheartedly because again, it is based in research, and how we've just bungled things, it starts, the beginning of the book starts with an analysis of why people cannot think anymore. And truly, in my opinion, it comes down to fill in the blank bubble tests, because what we taught kids to do was look for only one right answer, because you can only choose from A, B, C, or D. So that we can put it through that scan product machine and give you the your test score and to determine if you're a smart or not. And that's not how the real world operates. There's multiple, right answers, and you have to have the thinking ability to critically choose the best, and it may not be the best, but that but you at least put some thought into it. So that's the part that actually grabs people because they realize you're right. I mean, that was the education that I had education that most people have. And only some people who I think, again, people who are readers and realize, wait a minute, this isn't how everything works. You know, if you have interest in in different if you if you are able to read in different interest areas, you become a more critical thinker, because you're like, oh, man, this economy thing is not matching up with this finance thing, which is not matching up with this historical thing, you start to see connections. And so that's really what I'm trying to get people to realize is that it's the education process that created this learner, this learning process, and we have to have to clip it in corporate America, or we're just going to have a bunch of people who don't have enough critical thinking skills to run business.

Josh Steimle

So you've got a lot of ideas you clearly know how to write, I'm assuming that this is probably not the last book you're going to write?

Dr Nanette Miner

I think it is. Because it's exhausting. It really is. But you know, what's funny is like, sometimes I just pick up the book, and I read it again and go, Wow, this is so good. So maybe, but but there's more platforms for writing short form now the other Medium, there's LinkedIn, there's my own blog, so I don't feel like I really need to write a book anymore. Once you've captured the audience, you can keep them engaged by sending out shorter form, and, and new discoveries all the time. But one of the problems with writing a book for a publisher is you can't go back and edit it. Like I've already found things with the thinking skills book that next time, I'm ready to get more hard copies, I'm going to update some of the things which you wouldn't be able to do with a traditional publisher. Because with a traditional publisher, your book has to be 30% new for it to be a second edition. So that's a lot of editions, where I might just update a chart or some statistics to bring it from 2017 when I wrote it to 2020. So it's another plus for publishing yourself, because you can mold that every year if you want to.

Josh Steimle

With your self-publishing. Do you just go through Amazon KDP? Or do you use Ingram spark? are you how are you actually getting the book produced?

Dr Nanette Miner

Amazon KDP, but honestly, I couldn't tell you much about that, because I hired a company to do it for me.

Josh Steimle

Okay. So we might have to wait a while for your next book for the inspiration to strike. But who knows? And tell us a little bit more about the publishing that you're doing on medium and other outlets? Do you have an audience that you've built up from your books that is following you? How do you stay in touch with the people who like your information? How do you make sure that you can get that out to them? Do you have an email list or how have you built your tribe?

Dr Nanette Miner

Yes, and so I would say I'm not using Medium all that extensively. I've probably only put four or five articles out there and those tend to be more personal or opinion Things like I know I wrote one recently that said, My first job taught me so much about this, that and the other thing. And you know, I interviewed a few friends who I asked the same question like, what are you still doing today that you learned in your first job. And it's actually part of my spiel for teaching leadership is that if you teach it early in someone's career, and you don't have to correct behaviors, 15 - 20 years down the road, because that's the only way they know how to do something, right? Because you taught them that from from the get go. So I write more personal things, like I wrote an article for medium that was I don't want to be a yoga instructor. I do yoga, consistently, and have been doing it for 20 years. And I was approached by my Yogi to be an instructor and I said, I don't know, totally do not want to do that. And she was surprised. And the more I thought about it, I thought, there's just there's a whole different perspective, like now I'm responsible for other people. And I have to think ahead, and I've lost the flow, and it's not for me anymore. So I wrote a whole article on that, which again, aligns with what I do is like, some people want to be leaders, and some don't want to be leaders. And that's perfectly fine. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't have the skills, I'm still a better person, because I do yoga, even though I don't want to lead yoga, right. And so they all still have some kind of association with what I do professionally. But I don't feel like they're a professional example. So those go on Medium. I do write on my blog, a long form post once a month. And then I promoted on LinkedIn to get people to come back to the blog. And then things that are more training and development opinionated, I'll put out on LinkedIn itself. Um, so I actually have like three different delivery mediums based on what I want to express.

Josh Steimle

And you have an email list where people sign up and can follow you and get updates.

Dr Nanette Miner

Yeah, so I have a couple of freebies on my website, and then we collect their email address, I would say that my actual target market is on LinkedIn more so than my email address, because my email list because my email list tends to be people who are in the field of training and development and my LinkedIn followers, I have a company page and followers to my company page, those tend to be more the executives and CEOs that are my target market.

Josh Steimle

Is there any one form of marketing or getting the word out there about yourself or about your books that has worked better than everything else?

Dr Nanette Miner

Just being available on Amazon, honestly, because if people if you use your keywords correctly, and people have a need for what you're writing on, then they just find you by default, which they would never do in a bookstore, which they would never do by just getting on the internet and hoping that they found a book. I mean, they people have a need for a book they know to go to Amazon. which is less than

Josh Steimle

Perfect. Well, Nanette, thank you so much for being with us here today. Do you have any parting words of wisdom before we wrap things up here?

Dr Nanette Miner

Just do it. You know, as we said earlier, I mean with Amazon the risk for you is so low just do it, get it out there as a credential and and you can update it as you feel fit. If it wasn't my best work, just go and update it, which is just a blessing to have the technology to do that.

Josh Steimle

Perfect and where's the best place for people to find you?

Dr Nanette Miner

On LinkedIn, my full name Nanette Miner, or you can go to trainingdr.com

Josh Steimle

Perfect. Thank you so much for being with us here today, Nanette.

Dr Nanette Miner

I loved it Josh, thank you.

Josh Steimle

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