The 99 Authors Project – Season 5 – Episode 6 with Leisa Reid25 min read

Bryan Hyde
Welcome to the Janine Bolon show, where we share tips from around the globe. As we guide practical people with their finances using money tips, increase their incomes through side businesses, and maintain their sanity by staying in their creative zone.

Janine Bolon
Hello, Janine Bolon here and welcome to today’s show where we bring you a high quality content on saving your time and saving your money. And how about staying sane during these continually changing phases of life, you know? The Janine Bolon Show is a syndicated program of four podcast programs that were combined in October of 2021. We had Three Minute Money Tips, The Thriving Solopreneur, The Writers Hour Creative Conversations and The Practical Mystic Show. These were the programs that we’re running since 2017, we’ve produced over 300 episodes, we’ve interviewed over 221 guests, and today we will be spotlighting one of our authors that is contributing to the 99 Authors Project. Her name is Leisa Reid, author of the book, Get Speaking Gigs Now. You’ve probably heard that public speaking is a powerful way to build your business and attract your clients. But even if you have a desire to be a speaker, you might not know what to talk about, where to find those gigs or how to offer your services from the stage without sounding salesy. It’s a good thing we have Leisa with us today because as founder of the Get Speaking Gigs Now, she mentors professionals who want to use speaking to grow their business, clients who work closely with her get their talk, ready to rock and they build their speaking skills and confidence through her Speakers Training Academy. As a speaker herself, Leisa has booked and delivered over 600 speaking engagements. And she teaches her clients all of the strategies she uses to get booked, stay booked and monetize their talks. So in today’s session, Leisa will be sharing some expert strategies that you need to know not only how to build your speaking business, but also that fun thing for our beautiful debut authors how to go about marketing your book. So welcome to the show, Leisa.

Leisa Reid
Thank you, Janine excited to be here.

Janine Bolon
I’m thrilled that you’re with us today. So I always enjoy being able to ask authors so what’s the story behind your story? I mean, why on earth talk about Get Speaking Gigs Now? Why build the book?

Leisa Reid
Well, it was actually this particular book is not my first book. But it’s the one I now use the most in my business and the one I’m most known for. And I had hired a friend of mine, who he became a friend. He was a new friend at the time to help me with my website. And he said, you know, you need a book. And I said, well, yeah, that’s on the top, you know, essentially, you know, give us what are the projects on the thing ya know, most entrepreneurs know, there’s always something. And I went to sleep. And he’s one of those people who works throughout the evening, all into the hours, and I wake up to my book cover in my inbox. Looks exactly like it does. Now I changed one like grammar thing on it like one period. I think we added a period or took a period off. Other than that, it looks exactly the same. Like he nailed it. And we didn’t even have a conversation. I didn’t even agree to write the book yet.

Janine Bolon
But there you were.

Leisa Reid
Yes, we’re writing a book. And he said, yeah, we need you need to do it. And I and this was like, late December of 2019. And it came out January 2020. So we had the quickest turnaround. And I’ll share a couple secrets later as we go into our interview of how that happened. But I gotta tell you, Janine once I knew what I wanted to talk about, and how to format to follow. And it just flowed. It was really, really easy to pop it in that way. And so, and of course, it helped that I’d written a couple other books. So it does help. Interesting story.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, it does help to have a little a few under your belt. So what was the first book you ever wrote?

Leisa Reid
Oh my gosh, I had been a speaker for a couple years and people kept asking me when I would go speak, they say, oh, well, would you like a table for your books? And I would say, oh, I don’t have a book. And I got really tired of saying that. And so I thought, Lisa, you know, you had this conversation with yourself. Lisa, we’re gonna have a book. All of us here, in my mind are going to have a book. And I thought, well, that’s got to be hard. You know, I don’t know how to do that. And had all those oh, I’m gonna have to come up with something, you know, all the doubts that one would have when we haven’t done something the first time. And I said, oh, well, you know what, I don’t have to do this by myself. What if I just found someone who was looking for authors and I could be in their book, and they do all the hard work and I just contribute a chapter and skip along down the primrose path after that? I swear Janine. Two days later, I’m leading my OC Speakers Network, which is a networking group I still have we meet virtually now but this was in person. This woman walks in, never met her before. Never come to the meeting. She literally stands up introduces herself. She says, I’m looking for authors who want to write a chapter in my book, it’s this much money to be in it which I have, you know, X amount of spots left. Would you like to be in one? I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I was like, Are you?

Janine Bolon
Are you for real? Are you for real?

Leisa Reid
Like, yes, please put me down for whatever. And I did. And she handled the whole thing. And all of a sudden I was author on the title. And I thought, perfect. So that’s the first time I became an author.

Janine Bolon
That’s fabulous. Well, out of curiosity, did you have a marketing background before you wrote your first book?

Leisa Reid
Like Ferris Bueller never had one lesson. But I am street smart marketing, educated. Yes.

Janine Bolon
That’s most of the authors that I interview by the way, most of them are like, no clue, I had to figure it out as I went. And so talk to us a little bit about what most surprised you about the book marketing process as you were publishing?

Leisa Reid
I don’t know if it’s the marketing process. But I think about publishing my book, the most surprising thing was how many times I had to read what I wrote. And I was not interested in reading it one more time. Oh, my gosh, please, no, please. No.

Janine Bolon
Can I see anything? Anything, read anything but this book?

Leisa Reid
Yes. And I, one of the one of my greatest gifts is my impatience. You know, I want to get it done. I want it now. I want it all. I want it yesterday, all those things. And so I have learned to increase my level of patience with the book writing process, realize it’s not, that’s just part of it, you know, getting the words out the first time is the rough draft. And then there’s going to be the other drafts and so forth and so on. And then there’s going to be the, and then yeah, and then there’s the marketing. You’re like, oh, wait, what I wrote, like, I’m done. No, no, no, no, you’re not done. So it’s like looking at it as that bigger project, I think would have been really helpful if someone had said, listen, the writing is just the first part, then it all starts after that. And I will say, so I don’t want to be all doom and gloom. Totally worth it. Because guess what, even though I wrote all those books so long ago, and I wrote this one a couple years ago, I still have it. So all that hard work totally pays off. Because you can reap the benefits for years and years and years to come.

Janine Bolon
It’s true. My first book I wrote in 2005, and I still am selling it because content is still viable today. So I understand what you’re saying. So what would you change if you started marketing your book today? You alluded to a few of the things about you would have started earlier. But do you have some specific points that you’d like to mention?

Leisa Reid
I think I probably would have because I never did do this, I would have probably hired someone to create a best seller campaign and handle it all for me. Just so that it’s done. And it’s okay. It’s got the sticker and such like that. I am on, I am an author in several bestselling books, because somebody else did it. But they’re ones where I did the chapter. I didn’t do that for my own book. And, you know, that’s, is it that important? I don’t know how important it is. But it’s nice. It’s a nice thing to have.

Janine Bolon
It depends on the personality, and what you’re wanting to do with the book. For me, it was never important that I’d be on the bestselling list. But then when I first started doing the self-publishing route, that wasn’t even a viable option on Amazon. So when it did come out, and I started seeing all these bestselling authors, I was like, wow, they really contributed, they really invested in their own success. And that is true. So what worked best for you and how did you sell the most books? What was something that worked well for you?

Leisa Reid
Now that I speak mostly virtual versus in person, when I spoke in person, I would always bring them but I will confess selling my book is not my main source of income nor is that my goal. So as much as people are like, I want to sell my books. I’m like, well, I actually would love people to join my Speakers Training Academy program because that’s a little bit more money coming in, than my book prices.

Janine Bolon
Right, exactly.

Leisa Reid
But I digress. And so I sell it mostly on my website, and people will ask me, oh, you have a book? Oh, cool. Oh, I went and bought your book. So we’ll have it there. And you could they could just go right to link to Amazon.

Janine Bolon
But when you were selling your books did you sell what program? Or what was it that you did where you noticed you were able to sell quite a bit a few more books than what you were used to selling? Did you ever have a project or a program that did that for you?

Leisa Reid
No, I did not know because it wasn’t my main. My main reason for having the book wasn’t book sales. It was a credibility and things like that. Yeah. So.

Janine Bolon
You were helping build your authority platform at that point. I know I understand. Everybody has a different reason. But sometimes we stumble upon an author who has a really good idea. So that’s what I was like trying to dig out. Right? So okay, well, and then I also like doing the flip side, what is it that you may have done or a program or a project you may have participated in, where it was an epic failure at selling your books?

Leisa Reid
I don’t. Yeah, it’s funny, I’m probably gonna say similar to what I had said before. But I don’t know if I made this mistake. But I guess what I’ve seen other people do as a mistake when it comes to being an author or is really focusing on the book sales at smaller events, rather than offering like a high ticket item, like people will spend 1,000s of dollars on your coaching program. And, of course, that’s gonna give them the real transformation and help you in your business and you’re gonna be helping them versus worrying about selling 10 bucks at an event, you know, or 20 bucks or even 100 bucks, it’s like, you’re so to me, the biggest mistake is kind of missing, missing the point, if you’re an entrepreneur with your book. Now, I do have other clients who are more keynote speakers and sell their books at a bulk rate in keynote fashion. And then you know, that is a big moneymaker for them. So it really depends, I guess, on where you are on the spectrum of all that. But if you’re like a newer entrepreneur or a new coach, and you’re like, oh, I should write my book, so then I can sell my books. I think that’s a mistake.

Janine Bolon
It is a perspective that does not serve you well, in the long haul, because the profit margin is so low relative to other things that you can do that has a very high profit margin, or ROI, as we like to say, right? So tell us a story about yourself that gets the most laughs from your target audience.

Leisa Reid
Oh, my gosh. So I saw I knew you were going to ask me this question. And here’s the thing, Janine, I’m a very funny person, but I am not a planned funny person. Like, I am not one of those people who can remember the joke, I’ll usually forget the punchline or mess it up. But I have been told many, many times, oh, my gosh, you should be a stand-up comedian. So I thought, well, I’ll share a couple of metaphors that I use that I think are fun. And I love bringing fun into what my speaking and into when I’m teaching lessons. And oftentimes, I’ll use food as a metaphor like peanut butter and jelly. Barbie dream houses, stuff like that. So I will or slip and slides, you know, things that were fun from our childhood, because you kind of have happy memories when you think of slipping slides and Barbie dream houses and peanut butter and jelly. So for example, peanut butter and jelly will be a way I’ll say you want to attract your ideal clients or speaking you can use two different approaches you can do the peanut butter approach, or the jelly approach or the peanut butter jelly approach. And because you want to be sticky to people, you want people to go, oh, I remember her oh, she stuck to me. Right? So peanut butter would be oh, how do you solve problems for people? Like, for me, if someone is an entrepreneur who has a calling to speak, but they don’t have their talk done? That’s a problem. So I’ll solve that problem for them like, well, let’s get your talk ready.

Leisa Reid
Now, jelly is sharing the story like about that. So I might say, oh, I had a client. She’s super confident she really strong, really smart, very confident in speaking but just didn’t have confidence in how to put all her thoughts together, she knows so much how to she dial it down to 30 minutes. So then we worked on getting her talk ready to rock. And then she was able to speak in front of 100 people, and so on and so forth. So that’s the jelly approach. So you see how like there could kind of be separate, they could be together. And people like that.

Janine Bolon
And that’s one of the beautiful things to do when you are speaking. Use metaphors. So people understand what you’re saying. Because as much as we would like to think the English language is the same, it’s not, depending on whether you’re on the East Coast, the West Coast, the South, or the North. It is amazing how those definitions will change depending upon your region. So metaphor, metaphor, metaphor, very important. So let’s go on to the next question. What’s the biggest change that you’ve seen in yourself since you started marketing your book, Get Speaking Gigs Now? Because that was such a whirlwind project for you and it was dumped in your lap like handed to you by somebody. I know Right? So it was such a different and unique thing. I’d love to hear how it’s changed you.

Leisa Reid
It was, well I was voluntold.

Janine Bolon
That’s true.

Leisa Reid
I think for me, it’s more of an emotional change. I don’t worry about getting my book done. In fact, I just got off a call right before this interview with a brand-new client and she says, so do I have to write a book now? And I just said, oh my gosh, no, you don’t have to do anything. Or should I write a book? I said, no, you don’t. You don’t. But if you want to then yeah, let’s talk about it. If you if you’d like to if you if you have a desire or you feel like you, you know are called to then yeah, let’s talk about it. But you don’t have to do it. And so for me, but I’m so grateful that I did it. I no longer worry about getting it done. I may write another book or another, you know, in the future. I may not I don’t know. But I did just record my Audible audiobook of that. So I went and read my book, and I’m gonna launch it that way. That’s kind of fun a different way to launch your book.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, it is. It’s a whole different process when you do it that way. So for our debut authors who are just getting their teeth wet, or, you know, just biting into that publishing industry, what are the top five tips that you would give authors that are selling their books now?

Leisa Reid
Oh, my gosh. So this one’s from one of my friends, Jill Lubin, I don’t know if you to know Jill. But I’m going to demonstrate it on video, some of you are going to see this video, but I’ll explain it for those of you who are just hearing the audio, you always want to handle your book with care. And so say you’re imagine you’re in front of an audience and you’re holding up your book, you’re going to hold it up to your face, you’re not going to cover the cover with your hands or your fingers kind of like think like Vanna White, you know, like you’re on the Price Is Right. And you’re going to hold it up there for what might seem like a really uncomfortably long amount of time. And you’re going to hold it right next to your face so people can see it. And they’re not staring at weird parts of your body, right? And you’re just gonna let people take it in and look at it. And as I’m doing this, you just got to imagine I’m holding up the book, I’m still holding up the book, right? Poor Janine is like, I got it, I can see it. But if you can’t see it, and you don’t want to, like throw it down on the table, you want to just handle it, like it’s a valuable piece of, you know, like it’s a vase or something and you gently can put it down on the on the table, you see you’re treating it with care. And I think I see so many people flip and flop in their books around and tossing them around and holding up really quick and saying the title really quick. Like no, give it a minute. It’s like a piece of art. So that was probably like seven tips in one tip, but that’s my first.

Janine Bolon
I think that is very important because it’s one of those things that I was taught when I was living in Japan that you would always gift somebody something you always gave it with two hands. And so I was so used to holding things. And when I gave them to somebody very carefully, it was natural for me to do that with my book. However, I did not know the hold it up for in an ordinate long time. So I just learned something new. Thank you very much.

Leisa Reid
You’re welcome. Number two always have them on hand. I’ve been guilty of this where someone’s like, oh, I’d love to have your book do you have a copy? And I’m like, do I? I don’ t know. So now I kinda out usually have them in like I’m not when I go to the grocery store, necessarily. But if I’m at a networking event, or some kind of professional event, I will usually have them on hand. I always oh, which cheek? Hold on another tip coming. But third tip know the title of your book by heart. So mine’s kind of easy because it’s the name of my company. I did that on purpose.

Janine Bolon
Sparing my brain.

Leisa Reid
Yes, yes. Get Speaking Gigs Now. And if you can I learned this tip from someone else. He said, if you can name your program, your book and your talk, your book, sorry, your website, your book and your talk the same title. That’s a nice trifecta. Now my talk is not called Get Speaking Gigs Now but it was in the beginning. So that’s another little bonus tip. Number four, have your book on display or books on display in your real or virtual background. Now that we’re all on Zoom, why not? I’ve gotten I even just leave this up for even personal. This is the setup. And you know, you’re just listening. No, I do have a I do have a real physical copy of my book in the background took me a minute to figure out how was I going to do this because you think something’s gonna be easy, but virtual backgrounds aren’t. So it did take me a little while; I finally figured it out. And then number five, update your social media links to list your book and add that author as a title. Different programs like LinkedIn or Facebook will allow for you know oh, an event that you just did could be authoring your book. So make sure to fill that in. Like you know how when you say like you go from single to married on Facebook, you can go from, you know, no event, and then all of a sudden, everyone knows you’re an author. So sort of an easy, free way to announce to the world that you’re an author and LinkedIn, you can do a similar thing.

Janine Bolon
Well, thank you so much for those five tips, especially the bonus rounds that you gave us through each one. That was lovely. Absolutely lovely. So what is the one thing that you most misunderstood about being an author?

Leisa Reid
I think it was the amount of energy it would take to edit that first book. I mean, I’m not gonna lie. You’re on your show. To be really transparent. I cried. I cried, Janine. It was my first book I wrote on my own. It was about management. And my mom was my editor, which probably allowed me to be a little more vulnerable. And she is actually a, she was an editor for the LA Times. And so she’s literally a professional copy editor. So it’s more than like I just said, hey, mom. She was actually like, probably a stronger editor than most. And she was like, can we just change that? Let’s just change the titles of the chapters. And I just burst out into tears, well, was she right? Yes, she was right. And it made it so much better. And once I had my little pity party,

Janine Bolon
I’m only laughing because we’ve all been there. I’m laughing, because I understand the pain you’re going through Leisa. So that’s why I’m laughing. Yeah.

Leisa Reid
And anyway, so that was along the lines of having to read the book again.

Janine Bolon
And I remember the first time that we were talking about how many times we read our first book versus how many times you read her seventh or eighth book. And it does get shorter. The more you do it, but that first book, that is your trial by fire. I was talking to this one lady, and she goes, I had read my book 18 times, and we heard this exasperated sigh in the back, 18, it was 27 for me, I was so sick of my own words, by the time I was done. So everybody has that experience that is very similar. As far as the crying not all of us are that vulnerable. But there are times where in my case, it wasn’t tears, it was anger, beating my head literally across my keyboard, because the words would not come out of my head. So I can definitely, definitely have a lot of compassion for you, Leisa.

Leisa Reid
Yeah I’ll tell people, I’ll say if it was easy, everybody would do it. You know? It does get easier. Each time you do something like this last week, like I said, it, it flowed it was easy. I mean, it was intense. But it was short. And we got it done. And it’s still paying dividends to this day. So it doesn’t have to be you know, Moby Dick. It doesn’t have to be this big. We’re not curing cancer here. We’re just gonna but then let’s, let’s go, let’s go.

Janine Bolon
And so with that being said, what is the primary thing that was your biggest reward at being an author?

Leisa Reid
I would say definitely the credibility and once you’re an author, that title can’t be taken away. You are. And that is powerful.

Janine Bolon
It is very powerful. I agree very much so. Once you become an author, I don’t care if it’s one book, or 28. You’re in the same league doesn’t matter. Yep. Well said, any last thoughts you want to give us before we close up today?

Leisa Reid
I guess just if you’re listening and you’re thinking about becoming an author, you probably will become one because it wouldn’t have occurred to you if you didn’t have something to say.

Janine Bolon
I agree. Thank you so much for your time today, Lisa.

Leisa Reid
You’re welcome.

Janine Bolon
And that’s it. Lisa has answered our questions. And then we got more information in store for you with her latest work which you can be found on her website. Go ahead and share it with us.

Leisa Reid
Oh, it’s at Getspeakinggigsnow.com That’s gigs with an s because of course you want more than one right? You want to getgigsnow.com And you could get five top tips to get more speaking gigs now there.

Janine Bolon
Wonderful. And so that’s Leisa Reid and thank you so much for being our spotlighted author. If you are an author or you know of an author that you would like us to spotlight, please visit our website at AuthorPodcasting.com where you will find the 99 Author Project listed. We talk to all authors all walks of life as we build out book number 12 which is Advice from Authors to Authors, which is due out to be published in 2023. And this is Janine Bolon signing off with you today and all of us here at the 8 Gates that produces The Janine Bolon Show. We wish you a wonderful week and we encourage you to get your message, get your story, get your knowledge out into the world and make it a better place just like these authors are doing that we’re interviewing this year. And we’ll see you again next week. And until then, keep sharing what you know with others, keep shining that light that is you and don’t forget to go out today and do something for yourself that’s just plain fun. We’ll see you next week.

Bryan Hyde
Thank you for listening to the Janine Bolon show. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, where you’ll find additional resources as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive our program in your email each week. Be sure to visit our sponsor at www.the8gates.com.