Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

 

 

Show Notes

Connect With Maggie Mills:

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 ⁠https://takemaggieswordforit.com⁠ 

 

Transcript

 

Are you ready to go?

I'm ready to go.

I have a little introduction to give.

I'm going to introduce you.

My guest today is Maggie Mills.

She's the most published author you've never heard of.

What is called a ghost writer in the book publishing industry.

Maggie helps people get the book out of their heads and onto the page anonymously.

Yes, many of the books you read, including some best sellers, were not written by the name of the author on the book cover, rather by a ghost writer like Maggie.

Her clients include lawyers, preachers, bikers, educators, athletes, entrepreneurs, cybersecurity sleuths, Wall Street wizards, throw in an actor to one psychic, a politician here and there, and Maggie has collaborated with thousands of authors.

If you are one of those thinking, Someday I'm going to write my book.

Life keeps getting in the way, but the dream doesn't fade.

Maggie can help you.

She's also an editor and a coach.

You can either do the talking with Maggie doing the writing, or she can help you develop the book you're writing to make it stronger and more marketable.

Welcome to my show, Maggie.

Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

It's a pleasure to be here and have the opportunity to share information with your followers, listeners.

Awesome.

So start by telling people what a ghostwriter is, more of what a ghostwriter is and what you do.

From my perspective, a ghostwriter is a cheerleader and a coach, no matter how much writing or editing we do.

I love to encourage my authors, and whether they're writing the book themselves or we're speaking the book, I consider them authors because the ideas are theirs, the story is theirs.

So they're the author, and I'm a collaborator or a facilitator.

Maggie's being too kind to herself.

The fact is, I didn't know this until I'd written a couple of books, and it's challenging, and you're writing them and then you go find an editor, and I never realized even some of the biggest names.

There was a rumor even Tony Robbins, the life coach, his first book, Awaken the Giant.

I heard a rumor that that was ghost written, which if you look at the book, it's thick, the print's small.

It's not small print, but they're not trying to make it look like there's more stuff in there than there is.

It's well written.

He's a busy guy.

He's got the content, the ideas.

He's a speaker.

He could probably just record himself and go, here, Maggie, here, turn this into a book.

But I had no idea he didn't write it.

And then who did?

And that you would even do something like that.

Because as a writer, you would want your name on the cover, at least.

And that's right, Maggie, why sometimes you'll see the book author, you know, so-and-so wrote it with, right?

Because the with is usually the person like Maggie, the not quite ghost writing her names on the book.

And it makes it sound like it's collaboration, and it is, but really the with part wrote the book more than the first person, right?

Yeah.

I can't speak to other collaborations, but I think in part that's true.

And it varies the percentage with each book, how much is my contribution and how much is the author's but I've never felt the desire to have my name on the book.

Every now and then I get a surprise and I get a little thank you and the acknowledgments, but you don't need to tell people who I am or what I did.

I, it's sort of like watching parents send their children out into the world.

Yes, I contributed to, I gave birth to you and I kept you fed and alive for a number of years, but you're on your own now and I'm happy for your success.

Kind of like the big record producer like Mutt Lang and T'Nai Twain for years, people didn't know who he was that he produced albums before that.

He just didn't want his picture out there so he could just live a normal life and not take the, you don't want to be in the spotlight so much.

And I'm finding it's a spiritual practice in some sense, because we're all having conversations daily with our egos, and they can get in the way.

Egos are there to help us.

And when you know you're not getting any credit for something, what is that due to your thought processes?

It lets you focus on the writing probably, instead of how good you're going to look.

Exactly.

It concentrates on facts.

And when working with authors, a lot of the focus is trying to project their voice on the page.

It's very important that the book sounds like them.

Well, that's a good point.

A lot of people, especially since AI came out, they're using it to write short notes.

They don't understand.

I learned this when I was writing books.

I would write them.

And nowadays, when I'm writing another book, I'll use AI and I'll go, oh no, put that back.

Because as Maggie will tell us, it's really important as an author, it sounds like you're telling a story in your voice.

Right, Maggie?

Exactly.

And although, and I don't want to knock any tools because in the right hands, they're wonderful and anything can be misused.

So I'm not totally anti-AI, and we've all seen the silly dangers of sounding like the theme.

But there are other considerations.

When you really believe in your message, you want people to receive it, understand it, and absorb it.

And we learn better through stories than we do textbooks.

I can attest to falling asleep while trying to read textbooks.

And when I want to learn about a topic, I look for autobiographies of people who were involved with it or learning it or following that path, and then I'm riveted.

So there's that consideration.

If you really care about your message, people will absorb it better when it's your own voice.

And they want to know you.

We're living in this time of being real, which sometimes can get carried too far.

I don't need to hear all those details to identify with you.

For example, the first book I put out, I was trying to make it so that somebody in grade school could understand a more complicated concept, and the critical review on Amazon, the first one, Go Figure, was, It sounds like it's written for a third grader.

And I'm kind of like, yeah, and plus that's how I explain things to people in a simple voice.

And then when I later on when I was doing AI, I would correct that kind of voice that I normally use, and I'd go back and read it, and I'm like, wow, this is just too verbatim, verb like a robot sounding.

It's not how I talk, right?

That's what you're getting at here, right?

Yes.

And there's something to take into consideration, that we want to sound smart, we want to sound knowledgeable, we want to sound like we know our industry well.

But what is the purpose in our writing?

To sound good to our peers or to spread that information?

So you've had the absolute right approach.

And sometimes for very smart people, it's difficult for them to understand not everyone else is as smart as they are.

And to make it more as making your material accessible.

Right.

And you were also in the marketing advertising part of the book industry for a while.

So you know what's gonna sell a book and what's not in regard to this kind of, the speaking voice that you're working with, right?

That you're helping flush out of people and put on the page you wanna.

You know what's gonna actually sell also, right?

Yes.

And like so many things, that also is a trend.

But a good story has no short shelf life.

A good story is always going to appeal to people.

One of the things that authors worry about is, but someone else wrote a book about this.

Oh, my goodness.

How many books have been written about Shakespeare and are released every year?

How many books are written about visualization every year?

It is important to have many books on the same topic.

Because think about what we do when we're interested in something and we want to study.

Whether it's looking for a book or looking for YouTubes, we don't go to just one.

We go to many sources on that topic because some are going to resonate with us.

Everyone explains things differently.

And then there's a need for it.

So how do you know when your book is going to sell well versus just being another book like that book, or it's a different book that's really special and unique?

I don't want to disappoint to anyone, but you really don't know if it will sell well.

And there's so many moving pieces.

And I know you understand this as an author yourself.

A lot of it has to do with the energy the author puts into the book before, during, and after the process.

A lot of people are not outgoing.

They don't want to get on podcasts and YouTubes and be interviewed and do events and book signings.

That's their personality.

But those things help make their books successful.

You can write the most brilliant thing in the world, and if no one knows about it, it's not helping anyone.

And success, as we know, is measured different by everyone.

It could be book sales, those dollar signs.

And when authors go through a doubtful period, I'll ask them this question, because many people are writing from a place of recovery.

I have had this experience, you know, sometimes, you know, it was a health incident or they're victims of crime, just all sorts of things.

I lived through this, and I want to encourage other people to live through this.

And I will ask them, clearly, you've already spent a lot of time.

There's a lot of effort involved in this.

We can't make guarantees of how many books you're going to sell.

But if you knew for a fact, one person's life would be changed for the better, because of reading your story, would it have been worth all this effort?

Every single author has said yes, absolutely.

I would have gone through this if just one person could be helped.

Nice.

And a lot of first-time authors don't realize that the same Tony Robbins, the people, unless you're Stephen King and you're selling tens of millions of books, the fact is most people don't realize that books are just business cards for most authors.

They're not how you make your most of your money.

They make it all by, you go to a Tony Robbins seminar, you go online and you buy one of their online courses, you go to a seminar.

It's just like a business card anyhow, right?

It is.

And I applaud that.

It is so helpful to people.

And again, no authors ever said to me, and the ones who are writing strictly from a business perspective, they want to launch speaking careers.

A book is a great way to do that.

It gives them credibility.

And not one author has ever regretted doing it.

The book provides so many other streams of income, like you just messaged.

And think of the book as your content catalog, because that's the long form.

You can take all the work, all the content from that book, and divide it into smaller portions.

They can become blog posts, there you can use, you can tweet them out.

Now that they're X, do they say X them out?

Because that sounds like you're deleted.

We also do the reverse, right?

What's a lot of times I see people who are stuck, they don't know how to write a book.

They found out I wrote one, so they go, how do you write a book?

And I say, I've just, it's a collection of notes on my computer for the last couple of years.

And every time I have a thought, or I do something, I put it in a special folder, and then I go organize all this stuff.

Right?

And there you have your book.

You just need to reorganize it, and then you get someone like Maggie to help you turn into words and a story that flows right.

Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up because writing a whole book, an entire book is daunting.

People picture a two-inch spine on a shelf.

You can't do that.

And then they Google the word count that they need for it to go on the shelf and they panic and they use AI to fill in the gaps because they don't have enough content and all this other stuff, and it goes awry completely like it's not going to be your best book.

Oh, we can all recognize.

Don't we?

We see that.

Oh, they stuffed this.

They've gone off.

And actually, there was a little thing on Amazon for a while to get the word count up.

People were just cramming all kinds of things in there that had nothing to do with the book, and Amazon caught on to that very quickly.

And the other trick is you make your book smaller, make the words bigger, put the space between the words, a slightly bigger space, the fonts and stuff like that.

And you got to wonder then if that's really what you want to put out in the world.

It's not your best work, right?

No, it's not.

And people do have the right ideas.

They do have good information, and they don't need to resort to padding their word count.

And that's where editing comes in.

The first round of writing is getting it down on the page or getting it up on the screen.

And I like to remind people, you will spend more time in the editing process than the writing process.

Because I've seen in many cases, the majority of cases, I haven't actually counted, but usually when you go back through the editing process, and certainly when we go through the coaching process, that word count expands.

Because one of the things we do on a call, whether I'm writing or editing, we go deeper into the details, and that expands your story.

It makes it more interesting to the reader.

It gives them more useful information.

And I'll give you an example.

Things are so much more vivid in our brain than they are when we try to tell someone.

Because we're automatically editing, we have this tendency to think, I need to say this quickly and succinctly before I lose their attention, because maybe they don't care about what I'm saying.

So for instance, an author will say something like, I loved going to my grandmother's house in the summer.

And then we'll come back on a call and I'll say, okay, tell me about your grandmother's house.

Why did you love it?

Where did you live?

How far did you have to travel to get there?

When you walked into the house, what did it smell like?

Cousins there, all these types of things.

And that gets people to thinking.

And the story becomes more vivid in their mind.

And almost every call I do with an author, they go, oh my gosh, that reminds me, this thing happened.

And I used to love, I forgot all about this other thing.

So instead of stuffing that word.

You have too many words.

Yeah.

Every now and then, we do go back and remove things or move them around.

And a lot of times we'll look at the work and say, okay, you really have enough here for two books.

And in one case with my author, she's up to five books.

She was trying to publish everything in one book, and now it's five books.

So that kind of process.

It sounds like you're also a book doctor, which is another term I didn't realize existed until my first book.

I had a publishing contract.

They even put the cover on Amazon before the book was written, before I even sent the manuscript to my publisher to be edited.

Oh, my gosh.

When I sent the manuscript and they gave me a quick call, Daniel, we've had two editors working on this for a day.

They don't know what to do with it.

And we're canceling your contract.

That's terrible.

Right.

I mean, and isn't there something we can do?

And I'm like, no.

So then I went off on my own and I found an editor who actually didn't realize they were more of a book coach than an editor.

They were a bad editor, by the way.

I would get the book back in the mail highlighted with all this spelling and grammar errors.

And who did this?

But what they were great.

And this is when I discovered Jack Canfield, for example.

The same thing happened.

This is the guy who had a billion books sold with Chicken Soup For The Soul.

He goes out on his own, his own gig, speaking gig.

He writes his own book, The Success Principles.

And I read in there, Jack actually mentioned it somewhere, that he did his publisher, like, Jack, we can't print this.

It's not your best.

It's not good.

And that's, I think, where I saw the word Book Doctor.

So he got a Book Doctor.

And if he can do it, if he needed to do it, I can do it.

And it was awesome.

The second version is classic.

It's well-organized, like you mentioned earlier.

It's where they took it and they organized it into sections.

And this doesn't belong in this book.

That's why the publisher like this is too much.

I get it.

It's too much.

That is you're right.

We can make that into three books.

And so it sounds like Maggie, you're doing everything under one roof as you need to, to make the book the best it needs to be.

Well, you brought up a really interesting point about the publisher.

Because I work with several publishers.

Authors will come to me directly, or sometimes publishers will send authors to me.

And one of the beautiful things is publishing is changing in such a wonderful way in the last few years and continues to change constantly.

There's boutique publishers, traditional publishing has to change to keep up with that.

So lots and lots of publishers, more than there ever were more options for authors.

Each publishing house has their style, their personality, their requirements and their offerings.

So when an author comes to me directly, I have them shop around.

I give them names of different publishers because some publishers have very specific niches.

What I'm seeing is there are publishers who will take everything that's submitted to them, and they'll make sure it's proofread and professional-looking, and they stay out of the content.

That's your thing.

And I've also seen publishers who have a lot of emotional ownership over the content.

It needs to reflect them and their reputation.

And I've seen them be very harsh with content and with people.

And we don't need to be that way.

It's because they're endorsing you, more or less.

Yes.

And I've had them say to me, this is a reflection on me, and this has to look a certain way.

And this is it.

To which bring, let's talk about self-publishing, because then this is what happened to me.

They dropped my contract, and instead of fighting it, I decided you could battle that, or you could get your book out there and make it better.

And I'm like, my goal is, I'm going to sell so many books that one day that publisher is going to go, we should have kept that guy.

Yes, right?

Yes.

So the advantage is, a lot of people think, I want a big publisher because then I'll be famous, I'll make a lot of money.

That's not necessarily true, because unless you do the marketing, like Maggie mentioned earlier, and worse, if your book, if it goes to this publisher, and they decide, oh, we have a celebrity, we're going to put all our marketing advertising time towards.

And now you could be with the biggest publisher and they go, well, you know what, we're just going to not put any time, money, or effort into selling this book, to promoting it, to editing any further.

You're still locked into that contract, right?

And then you have, what can you do?

You don't have as much control over it, right?

Yes.

And again, every publisher is different.

Every contract is different.

Oh, please, please, please, if you sign with any size publisher, it's worth the money to send that contract to an intellectual property attorney to read it over for you, because it will save hard down the road.

Every publisher is going to offer something different.

Some of them will offer a lot of marketing services, and it's up to you if you feel those are valuable.

They also want something different in exchange.

They might say, all the royalties are yours, but then there's a big price tag up front.

There are publishers who say, we guarantee an international New York Times bestseller.

Well, there's our sign attached to that, and it's in the six figures.

By that, you mean it comes out of your wallet?

Yes.

Kind of like a record deal.

The record company is recording the album, but the band actually has to pay them back the money to record the album.

Yes.

There are a lot of parallels there.

I didn't know that.

I didn't know that about the publishing industry.

I do know one thing, and correct me if I'm wrong for listeners.

You should never, because a lot of people, they get emails, they get real excited.

We want to publish your book, only $5,000.

Most of that stuff is spam, right, Maggie?

You should never pay, unless you're working with somebody like Maggie, who's going to help you write your book, you should never pay to get it published.

Is that right thinking?

The sad thing is there's some sincere publishers out there, and then there's a lot of scammers out there.

And with anything, you really need to do your homework.

Ask the publisher, you know, look at who else the publisher has produced.

You can seek out other people, join online writers' groups.

Those are wonderful for exchanging information.

You know, I've had a very good experience with this publisher, but not that publisher.

Definitely get involved with the community.

Don't necessarily listen to them when they tell you how to write, but listen to them when they're talking about their experience with any type of vendor, whether it's a PR firm, a marketing firm, illustrators.

There's a lot of people information out there.

How did you get to be a ghostwriter?

And I fell into it backwards, like my entire career.

Like, okay, I can do that.

I was, I've always written and did not consider that my primary objective.

It was just always something I did.

I wrote my first TV script when I was about five years old, and the major networks picked it up.

But my mother made a cardboard television set, and we made storyboards and put them on a reel and rolled them through.

And that's how my story got produced.

But in my career, I studied journalism and I started working in advertising and marketing because I had this thing called a mortgage.

I wanted to pay that.

And everywhere I went, I was always doing the writing.

And I started doing more and more writing.

And when I was working for one of the publishers, my boss said to me, we really need a book to explain marketing techniques to all of our partners.

Can you go off and write this for us?

You can work from home for a week.

And this was long before COVID, I assume.

Yes, yes, it was.

So it's a rare thing, you're not in the office in those times.

Oh my gosh.

Now, of course, keep up with all of your regular responsibilities while you're home writing this book.

And I said, sure.

And so that was the first book I wrote in its entirety.

But I had been helping to write portions of books for ages and doing such heavy editing.

It was basically a whole book rewrite.

And one of my publishers said to me one day, I've been working with her for quite a while, and she just called up and she goes, Oh, can you just ghost write this book?

And I said, yes.

I didn't say I've never ghost written a book before.

And you knew what ghost writing was already.

You'd already seen or heard of it?

Yes.

Yes, I had.

And but when you think about it, I had been writing without any credit for decades in small.

Because the office wasn't paying you, wasn't putting your name on.

Oh, you work for hire.

When we're talking about intellectual property.

It's another topic, but intellectual property owns copyright.

If you work like a school teacher, they don't actually own their study plans.

The school does.

And so even if they write the greatest book about how to do something, technically, if you employed, you may have something in your employment contract that says everything you do is a work for hire.

And then they own it and they don't have to put your name on it.

You wrote it for them, right?

That kind of thing.

Even sometimes depending on the contract, if you wrote it at home after hours.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Much the same with any type of invention, if you're employed by a company.

The things I was doing in the process of writing for other people, and I loved doing this.

Is making them look and sound better than the way they presented themselves.

Because so many people tend to be too modest about when it comes time to talking about their accomplishments or how much they know.

And I think a classic example, I was writing some marketing content.

I knew these people personally.

And it was a husband wife team, both very accomplished people, and you know, when you do marketing content, there's a little bio about everyone.

And the wife submitted her bio to me.

I've known her for years, and she does brilliant work.

And her bio basically said, oh, I go and get coffee for people, and I arrange, you know, this, that, and the other.

I completely rewrote it and sent it to her because I knew her information.

And I think that was a turning point for me.

I said, girl, you are brilliant, and we are telling the world about it.

There's no more of this.

I go out and get lunch for people.

Stop it.

Cool.

And then you went off and did your own thing, it sounds like.

Yes.

I go back and forth, but over the last decade, I guess, I've been self-employed on and off.

I'll be self-employed for a while, and I'll go work someplace for a while.

And I've been digital nomad-ing it since the days.

I had one of the first laptops that weighed about 40 pounds.

And I've been doing this since the time when I had to drive around and hold my laptop out the window to get a signal.

Or battery power.

There's a time when your battery would only last two or three hours on the laptop.

So what's the process of somebody working with you or another ghostwriter?

For starters, what do they have to have ready or need to know when they're writing a book or they want to before they even are ready to approach a ghostwriter?

Or should they maybe start from the beginning so you can help them start from scratch and so they don't waste so much of their time, you can make their time more productive?

Well, one of the things that helps people not waste their time is doing something like this on a podcast, sharing all the information ahead of time.

And I've worked with authors who have manuscripts and boxes and boxes of notes and cassette tapes they've been collecting for 20 years to people.

The idea is in their head and maybe they've scribbled some things on a cocktail napkin.

So we can start any point.

So what you're saying is a lot of those notes are kind of like just the starting point.

It's kind of like Whitney Houston in the studio.

She's got a demo tape and the producer goes, now let me hear you really sing it.

Let me hear what you really got to say.

Oh, I like that.

Yes.

If an author can start at any point, if you have the idea and you have the desire, I encourage you to do it.

If that dream is in your heart, there's a way to make it happen.

Don't let your fears about your own ability stop you.

So many people think, well, I need an English degree or I need to spend another 10 years in the business to write about this book.

Well, there's two things.

First of all, let's talk about maybe you live in a house and you want to do some work to it.

It needs an addition or the bathroom needs fixing.

You don't have to go out and learn how to be a plumber and how to install drywall.

You hire people to help you with that.

Unless you're a total DIYer, which is cool.

That also has its place in book publishing.

And the other thing is, so there's people to help you with every aspect of getting your book out there.

And the other thing is don't think you need to accumulate a lot more experience.

If that fire is in your heart, if you really want to share your message, you know more than somebody else already.

If you've only been in the business for a year, you want to talk about that, you can talk to people who are just considering moving into that field.

What's it like to be a newcomer?

What do I need to know before?

And who do I need to know?

And what was the first day like when I tried this?

And that doesn't just have to be a work experience.

It could be anything.

What is the name of the trail?

The Camino in Spain?

There's so many things.

It's slipping out of my mind right now.

And it's come to me.

So I think what I'm getting out of this is, if I'm driving in my car and I have this idea or I'm listening to this podcast and I go, you know, I've always wanted to write a book about my trip to Spain.

And why, why did it in the spiritual journey and what I got out of it?

I'm just going to call Maggie, pick up the phone, send an email and start to process.

Yes, because when you think about it, by the, if they've just taken one step on that trip, day one, what did it take to get them there?

There's a story there.

You know, did you tell your family?

Did you sublet your apartment?

What equipment did you buy?

What research did you do?

People who've never been on that trip want to know.

You're not writing for the people who've done that trip three times.

So there's always an audience and you always have a presentation.

And you, I don't like to use the word success and failure, but it's kind of a quick way to get to the point.

The things you might have done differently.

How about that?

Like I went out and I spent $200 on these supposed to be great hiking shoes and they were so painful.

I gave them away on day three and bought flip-flops.

And this is the kind of stuff you would flesh out on the call with them, right?

Where they didn't even think that that's the story.

It's not, it's not, we bought a plane ticket in LA and we flew the plane to here and then we rented a car and they went here.

And that's just a timeline.

You flesh out the story, it sounds like.

Oh my God.

That's the next step, the next step.

No, really captured it right there.

Timeline.

Because a lot of people, they're thinking is, I'm just recording the facts in the order that they happened.

No, what, who did you meet?

How did you feel?

Were you absolutely devastated when, and this just happened to a friend of mine recently, he lands somewhere in Switzerland and gets really, really sick and he misses a whole day out of his trip.

That was really disappointing to him, but because he's an experienced traveler, he took it in stride.

So that story can help someone else.

Exactly.

And the person who's experiencing the story, if they're an expert traveler, they don't get that.

That's like, that's your message to people.

You're completely overlooking it because you thought you were supposed to just be this big world traveler and write about special things that were really, really unique and special.

And it's the small stuff because that's how people relate to you.

You inspire them.

Like I could go on that trip too now because if he got through that, this is what he did.

So now I know.

And if you got through it, I can.

And he had a good time.

Anyhow, something came out of it.

Yes.

That's how you inspire people with your story and make it a bestseller that their friends, they're like to their friends, you have to read this book.

You'll want to go to Spain.

You'll want to do this.

And if this happens, don't worry, it's still going to be a blast or you'll do this instead.

That's the fun stuff, right?

You bring up so many wonderful points that I love to riff off of.

How many books or other people's stories?

You know, you could have seen them on YouTube somewhere, have inspired you to take action in your life.

Whose story made you take that trip, try yoga, try new types of food?

How many of those inspirations came from a book?

How did the trajectory of your life change by that one book?

The things you're reading at night in your bedroom, in your bed, don't you?

Not the stuff you go into the movies to see.

The more, it's the more personal, a book's kind of personal, right?

In my view, books are magical.

You go on amazing journeys, you learn what you want, what you want to avoid.

It's just, I feel so fortunate, blessed, lucky that I've fallen in to this book world.

It's a beautiful place to be.

And I really, I do feel like a cheerleader.

I love to encourage other people because there's endless stories out there to share.

And the process of sharing them helps people as well.

We've talked about the people who are helped by the story, but authors are transformed in the process in a beautiful way.

Yep.

So let's say you get part of the story down.

You got the Spain, using the Spain trip, for example, talk about the packing, the time before they left, why they're leaving, and then the Spain trip itself, and then what happens afterwards.

You've got an outline.

What's the next step then?

Do you go off on your own without the person who hired you and try to write a story and then bring it back to them and see what they think?

What's the next step?

We work in little segments, a chapter at a time.

We will get together on a call, on a Zoom call, and we discuss it.

And I transcribe the call because that's the way I absorb information.

I like to see it in writing and then I can-

There are words in a book, you got to see them on paper, right?

Yes.

So I take the notes from the call and I go off and I write the first draft of the chapter.

And two things are happening by using as many of the author's exact words as possible, that helps capture their voice.

Oh, and the transcript.

Right.

So, and the way we speak, although that's real, doesn't always transfer to the written page very well, because we all do things like um and uh, and excuse me, and part, oh, and then there was this, so we, we condense it a little bit while still holding the voice.

And then many times there's research that needs to be done to back up the story, add some statistics.

I do that, or the author will mention something, and then I'll go research that spot, so that it's in my mind and I can share some of those details.

You are like a book editor, as well as an editor and a ghostwriter.

I, I try to add some, some background to that.

For instance, in the past week, and it's falling down a rabbit hole, I've had to research how ninjas train and the difference between ninjas and samurai, Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism.

I study crime statistics.

I put all these things in to, to help with the background.

So we have a phone call and I go off, I do some writing, I send it to the author.

We get back on the call and say, this works, this doesn't, I like that, add this and then we start talking the next chapter.

So it's through conversation.

One, in songwriting, I tell people, I learned it.

I had a great instructor, Donovan.

Oh my God.

I want to hear more about that one.

So he gives me his challenge to write a song about something.

And we come back to rehearsal, he's like, how's the song going, Daniel?

And I play it for him.

And so he's got some feedback.

But the first thing is that I took away from my experience with him.

And he is, by the way, really gentle, kind spirit.

So he's very kind in the way he says, again, Daniel, again.

Kind of like the samurai or the karate kid.

Anyway, what he hammered into me is, before we go to second verse, we're going to keep doing the first verse over and over and over until it's perfect.

Because if we go to second verse and the first is not perfect, it's going to lead us someplace even more deluded and not as perfect or the best we can be.

So it turns out this is a great strategy because every time since then when I wrote a song, if the first verse is good, yeah, songwriters will tell you, you got to come up with new stuff now, go in the second is more challenging, but you're more likely to have a hit song and probably hit book.

If your first chapter is not good and people are reading your first chapter in your book, they're not going to keep reading.

If it's great, they're going to keep reading.

If the second chapter isn't as good, they're going to keep reading because the first chapter was amazing.

And then you can come back to it.

And so I like that, Maggie, first chapter, if you're not off to a good start, why keep going with it?

Yes.

So we do spend more time on the first chapter.

And one of the things we try to avoid is telling your whole story in the first chapter.

No, that's why we have a bunch of other chapters.

But look at the first chapter as a movie trailer.

It's a bit of a teaser.

You want to create expectations for your reader.

What can they expect?

What can they learn?

But don't tell them everything.

Like find out what happens.

What happened when they got back from the trip?

What happened when they met that person?

So you're dropping these teasing little seeds.

And you can also do that at the end of the chapter, talking about, you know, in the next chapter, I woke up in a hotel in Tokyo and had no idea how I got there.

Nice.

I love the way you be good writers like you do that in the last sentence or two.

Like, oh, yeah, I got to keep reading.

I was going to stop at the end of this chapter, but now I've got to go to the next chapter.

I'm going to be up all night.

So I read this book all the way through.

I don't get any sleep.

I spend the whole night binge reading.

Right?

Oh, my gosh.

We've all done that, haven't we?

Yeah.

Well, that's what it takes, though.

This little teasers, closing and then get you in the next chapter.

So you send me the first chapter.

And if I don't like it, we work on it.

If I love it, then you and your client go to the next chapter and repeat the process like the verses in a song.

Yes, we repeat the process.

And when we feel like we've completed it, and first of all, the outline is a guideline, is a living document.

Things may change.

And it's so fun for me to talk to someone who's written a book, and you understand this so well.

We get all the chapters together.

I start accumulating them in a master document as we work.

So we have the whole thing together.

And then deeper editing begins.

You may find that, you know what?

Chapter seven really works better in chapter two, because I think people might need that information first.

Or I've repeated myself.

Sometimes that's intentionally, if you're trying to teach, you need to repeat the concept more than once, and maybe phrase it differently.

And sometimes we're just telling the same stories again.

I'm guilty of that.

Did I tell you when that happened?

We all do.

You forget.

You forget if it's a thick book.

Yes.

So we pull some things out, we rearrange things, and we read it for flow.

Does it make sense?

Did I understand what you were talking about when you brought it up?

Oh, you know what?

We need to go back and add something ahead of this, so you know why I couldn't stand Aunt Gloria.

And was so upset she showed up on my doorstep.

Oh, so I have a question.

Oh, go ahead.

This is what I do with my books.

And what you just mentioned reminds me of how I notice that there's an issue like you just described.

Like, oh, we need to talk, we need to develop that character better.

I put the book away.

It's hard to do because you want to get the book done.

But you're busy, you got other things to do, at least a week, if not a month.

And then I read people, people question me about this.

You reread the whole thing?

Like, yes.

In a frame of mind where I've kind of forgotten everything, and I'm starting from scratch, I try to intentionally give myself amnesia.

And I read the whole thing like I'm reading the first time, and as soon as I go, Oh, what?

Then I go, Oh, that needs work like that, right?

Daniel, that is so brilliant that you do that.

And it works so well.

Oh, my goodness.

Yes.

And going back to read it, it's important.

I belong to a writers group and they had a guest speaker one day, very, very published, you know, dozens of books, and he talked about his most recent book.

And he said, it went through 27 rounds of editing.

I don't want to scare people with that.

You don't necessarily.

Well, actually, I think it's helpful.

I was going to say, remember this, people, that you're not alone and that the more it gets rewritten and you go through this, it's painful.

I just want to put it out there.

The more you stick with that, the better book you're going to have, the one you're going to be proud of, and you're not going to want to change something when it comes out.

It's going to be out there forever once you put it out there, unless you do a second edition.

And why would you do that?

So the more you go through this, that's when you know it's going to be good.

Yes.

And another method, and everyone has a different learning style and communication style.

So choose the one that works best for you.

Another method is reading it out loud.

Oh, my goodness, you catch so much by reading it out loud.

So there's a fine line between doing it until it's right and falling victim to perfectionism.

That's very easy to do.

Yes.

And when you get to that point, it's great to have a coach or writer like Maggie to bounce it off of.

Somebody who's professional, not your best friend or one of your family members, never a family member.

Oh, gosh, no, because they want to be close.

They're too critical, they're too close to you.

You want a professional to give you feedback, just like in any kind of endeavor.

If you're trying to be the best basketball player, you don't ask your buddy who plays golf, can you help me with my basketball?

And what do you think of my swing or my hooping?

The reason is you'll get good feedback that's really valuable.

So if you don't, here's what's happened to me.

I go through a lot of rounds with a professional editor like yourself, and then I give it to some friends, and the feedback they give me makes me want to change it.

They're friends, they're not professionals.

You have to be very careful about what you do with that feedback.

So I went in this backwards loop.

I made all the changes, took it back to my editor, and look, what happened?

Look, well, I gave it to six people.

Who'd you give it to?

Oh, this friend, that friend, you know, family member, here family?

No, Daniel.

And everyone has an opinion, a different opinion, and you're getting opinions, you're not getting a real professional look at the flow and how the chapters flow together and the things we've been talking about.

Yes, getting that other perspective, which is why when I work with authors, we keep pushing through all the chapters, then we read it all at once, because I've seen people become consumed with grammar and punctuation, which is important, but do that at the end.

That's what your proofreaders are for.

The content is the most important, the logic, the flow, that's the kind of thing you want to keep coming back to.

Other people, and sometimes I see people do this because it's a stalling tactic.

Like if I change the punctuation 15 times, I don't have to think about the next chapter.

Some of the things people write are very personal, emotional, and painful.

And we have occasionally put off a chapter, even though it may come chronologically, because they need to be ready to talk about it.

They always are.

They give themselves some time to think about it.

Speaking of the editing, a huge amount of first-time authors don't understand when you say editor.

Maggie just mentioned proofreading.

There's two different types of editors.

There's the type like Maggie who's helping you write it, and then there's proofreading.

And most editors you shop for are proofreading editors, who are not the type that are going to help you break the book down like Maggie would in the content and the flow.

And you're not ready for a proofreader until you get a good book on paper, right?

That's a wonderful point.

And don't stick just with a dictionary definition of this type of editor, that type of editor, a proofreader.

You know, there's line editors and content and ask for exactly what they do.

Ask for a sample.

I've always given a sample of my work so people can tell exactly what I will do to it.

So any professional will be happy to return a small portion.

This is what I will do for your book.

And different publishers, different people will use those terms in a different way.

So I always ask what exactly do you do or what exactly do you expect?

And then the last step is you probably tell someone, hey, it's ready.

Quit with the punctuation.

Now we'll send it to either I'll do it or you can send it to a proof reader, which means literally just look for commas and periods.

Nothing else.

You pay for that and nothing else, which by the way, you want to find somebody who is really good at that and nothing else.

There's a lot of editors.

They are definitely that great at doing the spelling, the looking for the periods in the commas.

And then you put a cover on it and put it out to the world, it sounds like.

Yes.

And step away from the perfectionism.

No matter how many times something is proofread, something is edited.

Once it's in print, there might be 90,000 words.

Don't freak out because someone online says that should have been a semicolon because those will live to pick out mistakes.

And is it true?

I heard this when I was writing a few of my first books, that even the biggest publishers, they'll get the letters in the mail and they'll go back and re-read the book themselves and they'll find stuff the editor missed, what you're talking about.

It happens.

Just part of any book.

It's, yes.

And whenever I hear about something going on with a book, it's a kick in the chest to be like, do I miss something?

What happened?

But I have to let it go.

I have no control over what happens, what the author decides, what the publisher decides.

So I don't follow up.

Occasionally things will cross my path.

It is not mine.

It is not my child.

You all are on your own.

Well, what I ask people is, okay, so I missed a period.

How did you feel reading the book?

Exactly.

How did you feel?

That's all that matters.

Did it inspire you to go to Spain and climb that mountain or do that journey?

Who cares about the period?

It doesn't matter unless you're an English major and you enjoy doing that, which is fine.

Some people live for that.

Yeah, I found the mistake.

Something to bear in mind, I'm facing my bookshelf here.

There are many different style guides, and someone might beat you up about a comma because they are using AP style or APA style or Chicago.

Everyone is different.

I know what you're talking about, but most people who aren't writers don't.

Explain how technically there is a manual, a standard for these technical different styles of writing, where to put the period, where to put the comma.

Okay.

In publishing, the standard is the Chicago manual of style.

In news writing, it's the AP, that's the Associated Press.

Styles differ.

Universities sometimes, and publishing companies will have their own style manuals.

So if someone is picking on you for doing it wrong, don't pay any attention to them.

Just don't.

Thank you.

Get the story right first.

Yes.

Get the story right and quit worrying about that.

And then you can have the copyright editor go, you know what, we need to move the period because your publisher uses this style manual.

Yes.

But you've got a great story.

And it varies from country to country.

British spelling and British punctuation is different.

I just recently worked with a book where we decided to keep that.

We used US punctuation but British spelling because that is a reflection of the author's life and their voice, and that was an intentional decision.

So somebody's going to come back and say, theater is not spelled R-E.

Well, it is if you live in London.

So we're on the Zoom call, and I can see your face, but I can't see your bookshelf.

And for a moment, I was like, I wonder who she has been a ghostwriter for, and if she turned her camera, and I could see on her bookshelf, on all the books, these thousands of authors, you probably don't have a thousand books on your shelf, but probably some of the best, the biggest ones, what they would look like.

I don't have very many books.

One time when I was applying for an editing job, the person asked me to send her some of the books, actual books, that I had edited.

And I said, I don't live in a warehouse.

I can't keep these books.

So I will keep the ones that have a personal description.

Nice.

The authors send you back after the books published, signed copy or something like that?

Yes, they'll send me a signed copy.

And one author happened, she reached out to me and she said, I happen to be coming to the town where you are living right now, and I would love to meet in person.

My work is done virtually.

And I was so excited to meet her.

We'd been working virtually for over a year.

And the minute we met, we hugged, like we've known each other for years.

You know her story.

Yeah, that was very touching.

And it brings up a point.

I work with people, and I do this intentionally, who have very different philosophies than mine.

And again, that goes back to ego.

Can you be open?

Can you represent someone who believes something you don't?

It helps us all learn about each other, and it develops compassion.

Because if we stick to people who are just like us, we don't learn anything.

We don't learn to love other people.

So I do that intentionally.

Nice.

Anything else you want to add to the listeners who are thinking about writing a book, and are stuck, and dragging their feet?

Besides, call me.

Call Maggie.

Which is fine.

It sounds like that's okay too.

Any other words of wisdom you think we left out?

I think we've covered so much.

Again, not one author has ever said to me, I'm sorry I wrote that book.

If anything, I really should have started it 10 years ago when I first got the idea.

I would have had four books out by now.

And by writing the book, get it out of your head, and you can move on with your life and say, I've done that.

Oh my gosh.

The feeling is wonderful, isn't it, to get that book out there?

I want to thank you for the opportunity to share these messages with people and to share your experience.

You're doing a wonderful thing by encouraging people.

So kudos to you.

I know putting on a podcast is so much work.

So I honor that.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for being on the show, Maggie.

Every time I pick up a book now, Barnes and Noble, I'm going to wonder if you wrote it and your name's not on the cover, or you helped the author that did.

If you really like the book, credit me.

Have a good day.

You too.

Thank you so much.