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I heard a shocking stat the other day that said that ghostwritten books are more successful than non-ghostwritten books.
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Now that really surprised me.
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I didn't expect that.
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Now when I dove into the data, I found it was kind of crazy.
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There are two distinct classes of ghostwritten books.
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There's this small sliver that are wildly successful.
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And then there's the vast majority that totally flop.
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Right?
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So the ultra successful, you're thinking shoe dog, you're thinking open, you're thinking there's a bunch of books that you've read that you thought the author wrote that they didn't actually write.
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And those books went on to be create massive outcomes for the author or the business.
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But why do all the other ones fail?
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Well, there's nine specific reasons that most ghost written books flop.
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The first one is that there's no job.
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They don't give the book a job.
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If you miss this step, none of the rest of this matters.
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Sure, you could probably fail in a bunch other ways.
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But the first failure is the lack of a job for the book.
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So that's why what you should do instead is you should kind of reverse engineer what is the outcome that the book is going to create for you.
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Is it, hey, it's going to get me booked for speaking gigs?
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It's going to fill my calendar with sales calls.
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It's going to close a deal before the meeting starts.
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It's going to sell this massive high-ticket program.
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Whatever the thing is, the book needs a job.
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Because if the book has a job, that can create a six-figure income stream, a seven-figure business, a seven-figure channel inside of your business.
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This book has brought in over seven million dollars in the last 12 months because the book has a job and we put it to work.
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We put it to work all the time.
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So the fix here is you got to define what success looks like for the book before you start and give the book a job.
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Then there's the second failure, the second mistake.
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I see so many authors make this mistake, or so really it's so many wannabe authors make this mistake, is they shortcut the upfront work.
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Now, this is really counterintuitive because a lot of times people think, well, yeah, I hired a ghostwriter so that they could write the book because I don't have time to write the book.
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And so they say, Hey, I don't even don't talk to me, don't interview me.
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I don't want to be bothered with any of this upfront work.
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They try to save time, but they end up wasting a ton of it.
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Again, very counterintuitive.
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But what they miss here is they don't define the outline, they don't get clear on their voice, they don't get clear on the positioning, they don't get clear on how this book is going to connect with ideal customers and thus fulfill the job, right?
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Drive a bunch of revenue with their book for their business.
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And so the result is a few months later, they get a draft that sucks.
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This is like entrepreneurial ghostwriting therapy.
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I've taken plenty of these calls from people who said, Yeah, a year ago I hired a ghostwriter.
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I got the draft.
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The draft totally sucked.
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It doesn't sound like me, it's not my concepts.
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We had to scrap the whole thing, and then I had to write it.
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That's because they skipped the prep.
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So the fix here is don't start the ghostwriting process without two things, your outline and your voice.
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And I would say maybe even a third thing, which is the stories that you want to tell.
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So you got to have the outline, you got to get clear on that with your ghostwriter, you got to get clear on your voice, and then hopefully bonus points if you've got stories to sprinkle throughout.
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Now you can do both of those things, and if you skip the third step, honestly, you're screwed.
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The third big mistake, they hire the cheapest ghostwriter they can find.
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A cheap ghostwriter is often the most expensive choice you can make because you just say, oh, I'm gonna just use AI, or oh, you know, I've got some overseas ghostwriter that they're gonna do a great job.
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You get what you pay for.
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If you're a business owner, you're successful, you know that.
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You spend money for quality.
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And so the fix here is you need to price the book against what it's supposed to earn you and then justify the upfront cost to create a great book.
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Now that might be one client, that might be one speaking gig, that might be one deal that pays for the whole thing.
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Load full transcript
You get what you pay for.
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So invest in a great ghostwriter up front.
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Hire the best.
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I would argue that you should have a process over a person, but we'll talk about that later.
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The fourth mistake no sample chapter.
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So I think a lot of times people get into the ghostwriting process, and again, they just think, hey, show up in a few months with 60,000 words and I'll review your work and we'll be good to go.
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That doesn't happen most of the time.
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Okay.
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Voice mismatch, that's the number one reason that drafts get thrown out and that processes get abandoned.
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And the tragedy here is that it's detectable in the first 10 pages.
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And most people don't just either don't know to do the work or they work with someone who doesn't have a good process.
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And so they just skip the feedback loop to until they're at 60,000 words, and then the author's upset, the writer's defensive, and the only options are to start over or to choose somebody else.
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So the fix here is you need to have an approval process early on.
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I would argue you need to get clear on the outline, you need to approve the outline.
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Then you need to approve the first chapter.
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That's kind of and that's where you can give some really good feedback.
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Hey, this doesn't sound like me.
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Whoa, this is totally off base or this is really close.
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Do more of that.
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And then you're gonna improve the process with your ghostwriter.
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Then they're gonna bring back the first three chapters.
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And you say, okay, cool, this is really going in the right direction.
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And then you can decide whether you go from there to the full draft, or maybe it's the you know, 10 chapters and then 15 chapters, whatever.
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But you need to have checkpoints along the way to align on voice, messaging, and where the book is going.
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Hey, quick interruption: if what you're hearing right now is making you think about your own book, don't let that feeling pass.
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We've helped thousands of authors turn that exact feeling into a published book that builds their authority in their business.
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If you want to be next, come find us on Instagram at selfpublishing.com and send us a DM with the word ready.
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Our team will reach out, we'll learn about your book, we'll map out exactly the path forward and what it looks like for you.
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We'll create a custom plan, DM us ready, find us on Instagram, and let's get back into the episode.
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Here's the fifth mistake this is the polish this turd trap.
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Especially in today's world.
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Hey, you prompted AI.
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You've got 50,000 AI slop words and an AI slop draft that has no plot, that has no structure, and you think this is gonna be helpful.
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It's not, right?
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Giving a ghostwriter a really crappy draft is actually just gonna waste their time and they're trying to polish and look for and all this stuff.
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It's not gonna save time.
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It's just not, right?
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They can't edit their way or polish their way into making this turd a good book.
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So the fix here is that AI is really good in the beginning and the end of the process and not in the middle.
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What do I mean by that?
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Well, it's not good in the beginning if you use it to write a crappy draft, right?
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So, what I mean by that is it's good to help distill key concepts, stories, outline, all that stuff.
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And maybe that will help, but you gotta get really clear on that.
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And then you need to work with a ghostwriter or a ghostwriting team, ghostwriting process to do the hard work of the middle.
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That's you know, distilling it, making it in your voice, the key concepts, all that stuff.
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The structure and stories that comes from the human who has likely interviewed you, distilled your work, all that stuff.
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So don't just hand them an AI slop draft.
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Mistake number six, I've been alluding to this the whole time, is relying on a person and not a team or not a process.
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So if you just hire a singular person to ghostwrite your book, that's a horrible decision.
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They might suck.
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They might not know your voice, they might have only done three or four books, they're flaky, they can't write in your voice, they're slow, maybe they've got other projects that are more important than you.
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The list goes on maybe they get sick, maybe they have a baby, maybe there's all these things that can keep them from getting your book done in a quality way and on time.
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So instead, the fix here is you need to hire a team with a process.
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Okay.
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And that process, you know, they need to know about these
landmines that I already talked about.
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Hey, we're gonna interview you, we're gonna still this into an outline, we're gonna then have you approve this.
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Like they need to have a process and have done it at the highest level.
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And then they've got multiple people that can work with you.
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Like it just all the landmines that you might hit three months in, six months in.
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This helps to mitigate those.
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It's still not perfect, but that is at least mitigates those and help you be more likely to succeed in the process.
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Mistake number seven, the author disappears after writing the check.
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They treat ghostwriting like ordering a product instead of running a process.
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So, sure, they they show up for the first couple interviews, then it's just radio silence for months, and then they're shocked at the draft.
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And they they want to be totally hands-off, which I get it.
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It's smart and I'm a business owner, and so I like that too.
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But just the littlest touch points early on, it's like think about it like front loading work.
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So then on the back half of that, you can be way less involved.
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And so don't just uh, you know, spray and pray or just you know, pay and disappear.
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Be involved up front.
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The stories that make the book worth reading, the failures, the numbers, the specific stuff.
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That's what makes the book good.
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And so give that input up front.
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Your writer is gonna love you.
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Your future self is gonna love you because the book's gonna be way better.
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Don't skip the interviews, don't skip that early input.
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Budget the hours, whether it's weekly, whether it's bi-weekly, whether it's a big chunk up front, do that.
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The whole rest of the process is gonna be easier.
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Mistake number eight, they spend the entire budget on the writing and nothing on launch.
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This is huge.
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So you could dodge all of these landmines, and I see so many authors take the ghostwritten path and then they stop right here, and then they wonder why their book did nothing for their business.
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A finished manuscript, I know it feels like the finish line, but it's really about the halfway point to a book that sells and to a book that grows your business.
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Positioning, cover, categories, keywords, launch team, reviews, promos, the one-year launch, not the one-week launch.
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All of these things are really important.
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And so you might spend 50 grand, you might spend 100 grand to get right here.
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And then if you used your whole budget and you don't think about time, money, and energy into the launch, you've just got an expensive PDF.
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Amazon doesn't care how good the book is if nobody buys it when it comes out.
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And if you want this to be an asset for your business, well, you need to spend time, money, and energy into the launch of the book.
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So the fix here is two things.
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Number one, you got to reserve a real budget for the launch process.
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You got to have a plan for the launch process.
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And then you need to work with someone who knows how to do this.
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Who, not how, right?
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So if you find the who, well then they know the how.
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A good ghostwriting company helps with the launch.
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If you just have a good ghostwriter and they're like, yeah, I don't really do anything with the launch, that's not gonna work.
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It's called best-selling author, not best written author.
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So they can write you the best book in the world, but if they don't understand and plan for the launch and the launch being successful, your book's not gonna do well.
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So that leads me into mistake number nine, which is thinking that publishing is the finish line.
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The mega hits that you see, there it's not because they're better written.
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Sure, they're good books.
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They're better sold and they're better marketed for years.
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And behind those big hits is an author who treats launch day as day one.
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They keep talking about the book on podcast, they run ads, they integrate it in their business, they make sure that they get reviews.
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Again, I know that the launch feels like the finish line.
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It's not the the whole flop pile of all these ghostwritten books, it's full of good books whose authors quit on launch day.
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They give up and then they wonder why it's not driving revenue in their business.
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This book right here I published five years ago, six years ago.
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It brought in seven million dollars over the last 12 months because I keep talking about it, I keep marketing it, I integrate it into my business.
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So the fix is you need to follow the one-year launch, not the one-week launch.
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If you want to avoid these mistakes, I've got two things that'll be helpful for you.
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First off, watch this video.
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You've got a video, it's a secret training on our ghostwriting process, how to create a seven-figure asset from a book, and how we can help you.
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So, watch that video next.
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Secondly, if you're an overachiever, if you're serious about this, click the link in the description, book a call with my team.
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This is not for everyone, spots are extremely limited, so it may or may not be a fit for you.
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But on that call, we can map out a plan, we can help you create a plan to avoid a bunch of these mistakes.
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And if it's a fit and if we have spots available, we can see what it looks like to work together.
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So click the link, book a call.
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I hope you enjoyed this video.
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Comment below what was your biggest takeaway or what mistakes have you made in the ghostwriting process.
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Subscribe to the channel, the channel's growing like crazy right now.
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We just passed 100,000 subscribers.
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So thank you guys for watching, engaging, and I'm glad that you're enjoying these videos.
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I will see you in the next one.