Honoree Corder: Episode 14

Transcript

[0:00:28] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with my good friend Honoree Corder. Author of The Prosperous Writer’s Guide to Finding Readers. Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to make a living as a self-published author? Well Honoree has, she sold over 800,000 copies of her self-published business books. In fact, her very first book sold 11,000 copies before anyone had even read it. In this episode, Honoree shares some simple tips that any writer can use to sell 10, a hundred or even a thousand copies of their book at a time. Now, here is our conversation with Honoree Corder. All right, Honoree, what is the number one take away from The Prosperous Writer’s Guide to Finding Readers?

[0:01:40] Honoree Corder: Is that there are plenty of readers and with enough strategic and creative thinking, you can put your book in the hands of lots of people who are going to thoroughly enjoy if your book is for entertainment or greatly be improved by, motivated, inspired by your book, if you have a nonfiction book.

[0:02:04] Charlie Hoehn: Like in terms of something actionable, what kind of creative thinking am I going to have to do in order to reach my readers.

[0:02:13] Honoree Corder: Well, you have to get into the mode of the 10 ideas a day where you’re building that idea muscle. Like Claudia Altucher rewrote and become an idea machine, like 10 ideas a day for making money or 10 ideas a day, in this case, for finding new readers for your book, you have a creativity muscle, you used it to write your book but it’s like going to cross fit, if all you’ve been doing is running on a treadmill. All of a sudden you feel like my gosh, all these other muscles that I haven’t been working out, I have to work out. You got to turn on that part of your brain where you’re looking for opportunities.

[0:02:51] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, is that your process then primarily just every day for how many years have you been an author now?

[0:02:59] Honoree Corder: Since 2004. So 13?

[0:03:02] Charlie Hoehn: Okay, 13 years. Every day for 13 years, you make the 10 ideas of how I can market my book a part of your process?

[0:03:11] Honoree Corder: I don’t, I don’t have nine million ideas.

[0:03:15] Charlie Hoehn: Well yeah, of course.

[0:03:16] Honoree Corder: I do however know that there are the tried and true things that everyone talks about “build your list, be a guest on podcasts” and I also know that if everybody’s doing the same thing, then that water becomes polluted. There’s a great book called Blue Ocean Strategy and it’s about going out into the part of the ocean where there’s nobody and planting your flag and saying, “Here’s how I’m going to find readers” and thinking about new ways of — and this is my perspective of genuinely connecting with a perspective reader, hopefully they read and love your books. There’s the X factor. Because I got a one star review for one of my books the other day and it was sandwiched in between five star reviews. Here we have three people who had different opinions about the same exact book, I’m not going to make everybody happy. But if they read and love your book, then they could become a fan and with any luck, by luck I mean, preparation meeting opportunity right? Some fourth on and some effort on your part, that person could become a super fan.

[0:04:20] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. How do you get somebody who is a stranger to become a super fan who loves your book, reviews it and shares it with their friends?

[0:04:31] Honoree Corder: Well I write them a thank you note if I can figure out who the heck they are. That’s my first thing. And then one of my fans, I guess she would be called a super fan, actually gave me a hashtag “The cult of Honoree” and she had her own mug made with the #cultofhonoree on it and she posted a picture on Instagram.

[0:04:53] Charlie Hoehn: What did you give that woman to make her that big of a fan? What were the ideas in your book or what was your conversation with her that made her such a passionate fan that she created a hashtag.

[0:05:09] Honoree Corder: I believe that this person is not unlike any other person, this is a real strong recipe right. If you want to make bread, you need flour. This is the flour. It is that when you have the opportunity to give someone your time and attention and you and I have talked about how there’s a finite amount of time and attention that we have but in the moment that I met this person. She said, “May I ask you a question?” and I said “Of course.” Then I thoughtfully answered the question and then I thought to follow up with her and answer her follow up questions or to check in on her and see how it was going. Then she took it upon herself to go and read others of my books and review others of my books. As she did that, then I said, “I have an advanced reader team, would you like to join the advanced reader team?” And she said “Absolutely.” Then she did a mug. So then my assistant, I thought this was insane, my assistant had a dozen Cult of Honoreee mugs and sent out an email to my list and said, “Who wants a Cult of Honoree mug?” and I was like, “Oh great, now we spent this money on Cult of Honoree mugs and now I’m going to have a dozen Cult of Honoree mugs like a big loser in my cabinet.” Much to my surprise, I immediately within a couple of hours was at the post office with these priority mail boxes, sending them all over the country. And now I’ve sent them to six countries because people want their Cult of Honoree mugs so then they take a picture and they put it on social media which I just get the biggest kick out of it. I think it’s so funny.

[0:06:40] Charlie Hoehn: When you send them the Cult of Honoree mug, are they required to drink coo laid from it or…

[0:06:48] Honoree Corder: Coffee is – if I were to write a Bible, there are all these scriptures in the Bible, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” and so my new one is “I can do things through coffee. All things through coffee.”

[0:07:03] Charlie Hoehn: Rewriting the Bible.

[0:07:04] Honoree Corder: Yeah, rewriting the Bible one scripture at a time.

[0:07:08] Charlie Hoehn: You are the most prolific author I know truly, you now have that honor.

[0:07:13] Honoree Corder: Dear.

[0:07:15] Charlie Hoehn: Getting back to your book, what has been the reception of the book so far? Because I know it just came out but what have been some of the top things that your readers have been most excited about in the book?

[0:07:27] Honoree Corder: Well one of the things that I started doing which I wasn’t even going to write about. I co-wrote this book with Brian Meeks who writes these wonderful snarky fiction books.

[0:07:37] Charlie Hoehn: You got to introduce Brian’s background because he’s got a crazy story.

[0:07:42] Honoree Corder: Yeah, Brian was a data analyst at GEICO so he just loves math and data. He started writing fiction.

[0:07:51] Charlie Hoehn: To the point, he loved data so much that he literally was brought in by Microsoft’s Excel team to teach them how to use Excel.

[0:08:01] Honoree Corder: Right, yes. He’s got an incredible math for mind. He’s also very funny and he’s one of the most lovely humans on the planet and he’s my co-author for some of the books in the Prosperous Writer Series. I had told him, we were talking about marketing ideas but long before we decided to write books together and we were talking about, what are the different creative ways that you’ve marketed your book. I would reverse market my books in bookstores. He’s like, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well I will take my books into bookstores and put them in there.”

[0:08:32] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:08:33] Honoree Corder: Then when people will try to buy it, the book seller would be confused and hold on to the book and then call the phone number in the back of the book and say, “We can’t find a record of your book anywhere but somebody brought it to the counter and they want to buy it, what should we do?” and I was like, “Well give them the book, sell them the book, do whatever you’re going to do.” Then they would say, “Well how do we get more of these books? It was like reverse marketing into the book stores. The most received piece of information from the book is people literally messaging me. Now, the book’s been out for eight days and I’ve gotten 10 or 15 private messages, text messages and emails from people saying, “I just listened to your interview on this podcast and I just finished your book and I am heading out to the book store now to leave my books in the book stores.” It was just – I am a self-published author, not a traditionally published author, it never occurred to me that I could A, publish traditionally or B, be in a book store. That’s like for real people. I just decided to figure out, it’s a real thing, you know that and I just decided to figure out ways to help people discover my books and they go to bookstores looking for books. A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, I got to feed my kid.

[0:09:51] Charlie Hoehn: How many of those calls have you gotten from bookstores.

[0:09:55] Honoree Corder: 25 or 30.

[0:09:56] Charlie Hoehn: Wow.

[0:09:59] Honoree Corder: I go all over. I mean, when I travel, I’m in two airports so…

[0:10:03] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. You know, it’s surprising to me that they actually take the time to call you because how many of those have you planted? Probably over a hundred I would guess if you’ve gotten 30.

[0:10:13] Honoree Corder: Hundreds and hundreds so yes, the number is incalculable and I kind of don’t care because how someone finds you is inconsequential, it’s that they found you.

[0:10:25] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, here’s the craziest thing to me right? You sold 800,000 copies of your self-published books. Now, the advice of okay, go do some gorilla marketing and play Johnny Appleseed with your book in some book stores. Do you think, how much of the puzzle is with clever stuff like that versus your stuff being in demand by customers who order in bulk or can you break down like the 80/20 of where your sales are coming from?

[0:11:04] Honoree Corder: Wow, no, I’ve not ever done that data analysis so now I’m going to be in trouble with Brian. I know for sure that when I have a super fan, they will say to me, “I told my reading group about your book or I told my manager about your book and so we’re ordering books and you might get a call or they might just order them from Amazon.” I find honestly that people are very kind and they say, “Well we’ll love to order them from you at a discounted price but we know you don’t get credit. We’re going to order it on Amazon. I think it’s word of mouth. I think I’m just — persistent and consistent enough, maybe I just wear people down, I’m not sure.

[0:11:48] Charlie Hoehn: Well, here’s a question about that right? A lot of authors have books, maybe even business books but they never hear the conversation, “Hey, I shared your book with my manager, we’re going to be ordering in bulk.” Do you plant that seed in their mind in the book by having it – mentioning the companies, buy your book in bulk or stuff like that?

[0:12:09] Honoree Corder: Sure, there are sales pages in some of my books about bulk orders or Book Honoree to Speak or Get Honoree’s Hundred day Coaching Program and here’s your discount code for it. In every book, there is an opportunity for someone to come a little bit closer to do a little bit more. Join my community on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn. Join my You Must Write a Book Group on Linked in. I have different places where people are welcome to connect with me and given the idea that they might not think on their own.

[0:12:49] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering because I think that’s a really smart thing to do and authors just can’t bank on somebody putting those pieces together right? That just doesn’t happen unless they love your book and they’re like, I have to get this in the hands of everybody in the company because this is a transformational book. You really have to explicitly lay out that that is a possibility. I think that’s smart that you do that.

[0:13:14] Honoree Corder: Also too, give them the idea like you can give this books away if you really — give this book away if you like this book, please leave an honest five star review on Amazon or big reads or both. All of those. People need to be told to do not because they’re not intelligent but because we all have finite time.

[0:13:35] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. You have a million other things going on.

[0:13:38] Honoree Corder: Million other things to do. This morning, I got an email from someone on whose advanced reader team I sit and delighted to do so, read the book and today was the day. Today’s launch day and I need your help, click this link and leave the review, bam. If she hadn’t reminded me, I didn’t put a reminder on my calendar, I’m a bad reader.

[0:14:00] Charlie Hoehn: So am I.

[0:14:01] Honoree Corder: I’m a naughty reader, right? I got the free book and then I promptly thought, “That was great,” and implemented some of the ideas and then forgot my end of the bargain. You have to have a system in place to be in touch with your readers, to remind them gently and consistently, I’m still here, I still have this book or this books and this information and I provide this other things in case you like them.

[0:14:25] Charlie Hoehn: Right. Do you have a systematic email sequence that reminds people to buy or review your book or give it away to people they care about?

[0:14:35] Honoree Corder: Yup, absolutely. I have a new flutter for all of my verticals. The verticals are absurd.

[0:14:43] Charlie Hoehn: yeah. I bet.

[0:14:47] Honoree Corder: For the prosperous writer book series, I have a vertical because that’s a book series for writers of all kinds so from copywriters to screen writers to free-lance writers to novel writers to nonfiction writers right? But then there’s the, you must write a book vertical. Which is strictly the business book or list. You must write a book and I must write a book are in their own lane. Sometimes the topics converge and I can repurpose that content but most of the time I don’t. In every newsletter, my goal is to make your life better because you took three to five minutes to read the information, provide you with resources and inspiration and also lets you know, what else is happening in case you care.

[0:15:30] Charlie Hoehn: I have like a million nerdy book marketing questions for you but before I dive in to more of those. Let’s talk a little bit about your transformation like your personal story about becoming an author because you, writing your first book and selling it is an incredible story. Can you tell us the story about how you arrived at becoming an author and what happened?

[0:15:57] Honoree Corder: Sure, I was living in Las Vegas at the time, I was a single mom, I had gone to a personal growth seminar and Mark Victor Hanson, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series was a speaker and I was in the back of the room at the only table, the back row was all tables and I was literally in the back row of this room with 400 people that’s sitting all by myself with my computer taking notes. Because that’s where the nerd said, thank you very much.

[0:16:25] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, that’s true.

[0:16:27] Honoree Corder: I’m sitting in the back with my computer and I’m typing notes to the speaker, Mark Victor Hanson comes over and he sits down next to me and says, “Who are you?” and I said “I’m Honoree” and he said, “What do you do?” and I’m so proud of myself. I said, “I’m a business coach and I’m a speaker” and he just looked at me and he goes, “Everybody’s a business coach and a speaker honey.” I was like,” Oh!” he said, “You must write a book.”

[0:16:51] Charlie Hoehn: You knew who this guy was?

[0:16:52] Honoree Corder: I did, of course. I read Chicken Soup for the Soul and loved it and had read the other books and “you must write a book” and I thought, I have a very snarky and sarcastic sense of humor and my first thought was, “Well how hard can that be?” I started asking him questions and part of the advice that he gave me was, if I – he asked if I had a presentation that I had given multiple times that audiences liked. In other words there were people in the audience who had requested me to go elsewhere and give the same presentation and I said “Yes” and he said, “Write that book down. That’s your book. Write that presentation down, sit down at your computer and type the presentation as though you were giving it.” The presentation that took 45 minutes to an hour to speak took me three days to type.

[0:17:38] Charlie Hoehn: That’s pretty fast still.

[0:17:40] Honoree Corder: It’s pretty fast still. I type probably a 120, 130 words a minute so thank you seventh grade typing test, typing class. Yeah. I learned on one of those old ones where you had to do the manual return. Yes, it was a big deal like on typing test day, if you were a good enough student, you could use this electric with the auto correct. It was a big deal, yes. Back in the old days Charlie.

[0:18:10] Charlie Hoehn: If anybody understands exactly what she’s talking about and actually used that typewriter send us an email and we’ll give you a free copy of her book.

[0:18:20] Honoree Corder: In other words, there’s no one that’s this old. Thank you Charlie, that’s awesome. All right. I have a suggestion about your Rumba for later. Okay. Anyway.

[0:18:31] Charlie Hoehn: Just had to make a quick tease there.

[0:18:34] Honoree Corder: Wow, that hurt over here. Wow, all right. You want me to continue the story now?

[0:18:41] Charlie Hoehn: yeah, I’ll tell the editors to edit out my cruelty.

[0:18:44] Honoree Corder: No, I like it, leave that in there, that’s actually really funny because it would be funny to see if anyone actually emailed you.

[0:18:50] Charlie Hoehn: I’m genuinely interested because I was thinking, I was trying to remember the brands of typewriters because I used to play around on one when I was a kid but it was just….

[0:19:00] Honoree Corder: IBM’s Electric baby. That was the mac daddy of communication devices back in the day. Yeah. Okay. I write the book in three days and then I’m tired of typing, I just don’t even want to see the book again but I’m on a mission to do this because Mark Victor Hanson was kind of the personal idol of mine. I’m going to publish that book.

[0:19:25] Charlie Hoehn: Can you imagine by the way if it had been any other author who had said that to you? You might be in a totally different place. That guy’s one of the most prolific authors in the world. He set the tone.

[0:19:39] Honoree Corder: Yes he did. He said five words to me that changed my life without question. I wrote, the original book was called Master Strategies for Explosive Business Growth because that was the title of my talk. I had an equally awful cover to go with it.

[0:19:57] Charlie Hoehn: Did you design it?

[0:19:59] Honoree Corder: No, but my then boyfriend who was a “graphic designer” designed it. Yeah, it gets better. I didn’t have it edited because I took English so I knew…

[0:20:10] Charlie Hoehn: It’s perfect.

[0:20:11] Honoree Corder: It’s got to be perfect and I don’t even know what the copywriting, the back cover page said, it probably said, “Honoree’s an idiot for producing this book the way she’s produced it. Please use it in your next fire.”

[0:20:29] Charlie Hoehn: Ah man.

[0:20:30] Honoree Corder: I have this book and I’m proud of it and I meet Jeffrey Gitomer who wrote The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales answers and I had quoted him in the book so I’m introduced to him and I said “Oh my gosh, I just got my book and I’m so excited and here, you’re on page 47 or whatever.” He sits there Charlie and he’s paging through the book and he’s reading and he’s being really thoughtful and I’m thinking. “This is great. He didn’t do what I think anybody would do, is like kind of look at it for a second and go yeah, here you go.” He actually says to me, “Your writing is actually really good. You’re a good writer he says. But this book, this is shit.”

[0:21:08] Charlie Hoehn: Really?

[0:21:11] Honoree Corder: He said, “This production, the production quality, this cover, just awful, the title, honey, what are you doing?” I mean, it was just – I am a weevil right? Weevils wobble but they don’t fall down. Another age old reference, thank you very much. Somebody will have to Google that. Anyway. I am very careful what I say to people, I am acutely aware that you could say that to someone and they could take, this is bad as you are bad when my book is something I created but I’m not my creation. It’s not a reflection of my deservability or worthiness as a person. I didn’t take this as bad as you know, game over, hit the showers. Over and out. He was very kind and he said, “Let me introduce you to my graphic designer and let me” – he’ll lay out the inside of the book and make it look lovely after someone who has more than just you know, a 12th grade English education.

[0:22:12] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:22:12] Honoree Corder: Can put the fine point on the writing. I’ve republished the book, different size, we’re a little more strategic, my market at the time and reason for the book was as a business coach, the 99% of my clients for about 10 years were professional men between the ages of 35 and 55. Also, ironically is people who don’t read but that’s another conversation. But they would take the book and fit it in their suit jacket pocket. When I had the book size designed, I chose the size that when they would hand them the book, they weren’t carrying a purse or a bag or a briefcase, they would be able to stick it in there in their breast pocket of their jacket.

[0:22:51] Charlie Hoehn: Smart. Author Hour is sponsored by Book in a Box. For anyone who has a great idea for a book but doesn’t have the time or patience to sit down and type it out, book in a box has created a new way to help you painlessly publish your book. Instead of sitting at a computer and typing for a year, hoping everything works out, book in a box takes you through a structured interview process that gets your ideas out of your head and into a book in just a few months. To learn more, head over to bookinabox.com and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. Don’t let another year go by where you put off writing your book.

[0:23:43] Honoree Corder: That book, while that book was at the printers being published, I sold 11,000 copies, hard copies of that book in three weeks.

[0:23:55] Charlie Hoehn: While it was still being printed, yeah, that’s insane. Tell us how that happened?

[0:24:00] Honoree Corder: Again, with the Mark Victor Hanson, in his presentation at that seminar that I was attending, he said something to the effect of “Jack Canfield and I made a commitment to do seven things every day to market our book.” I read about this a little bit in finding readers. I thought well, if it’s good enough for Mark and Jack, it’s good enough for me. I’m going to do seven things every day to market my book. Back then, It wasn’t Facebook, twitter, Instagram and build your email list, although the email list thing was there, I just wasn’t aware of it yet. For me it was, I want to get featured in Las Vegas magazines so I did, I wanted to get featured in the community neighborhood magazine that I lived in Las Vegas. I wanted to get on the local television shows. I landed a spot on FOX5. I was on FOX5 for two years. I did three minutes every Tuesday. But to sell those 11,000…

[0:24:53] Charlie Hoehn: What did you do on FOX5?

[0:24:56] Honoree Corder: I just would go on every week and talk about something to do with how to behave yourself basically. Yeah, in business, like how to make an introduction or how to get connected to someone or how to dress appropriately or how to show appreciation, how to write a thank you note. Three lines, three minutes, within three days. Things like that. I did that every – at first they gave me my topics and then after a while, they just said, just show up and we’ll put a mic on you and give us your talking points kind of thing. Back to the 11,000 books. One of the things that he said was “We made a list of everyone we could think of who would possibly be willing to buy one, 10 or 100 copies of our book. We called them and we asked them the question, would you like to buy between 10 and a hundred copies of our book?” I did that too. I just went through my rolodex and all these ancient references for all the older experienced folks.

[0:25:57] Charlie Hoehn: I got that one on ray. I got it.

[0:26:00] Honoree Corder: All right, I wanted to make sure you could reach high enough for that Charlie.

[0:26:04] Charlie Hoehn: For anybody who still owns a rolodex, please email us and we’ll send you a free copy of Honoree’s book.

[0:26:12] Honoree Corder: Please post a photo of your Rolodex on Instagram and tag.

[0:26:16] Charlie Hoehn: No, please take a snapshot with your polaroid camera and mail it to us. PO Box.

[0:26:26] Honoree Corder: Polaroids are making a comeback, Oy my gosh. Anyway. I just made this list, I went through my Rolodex and I made a list of anyone who I thought would buy a between 10 and a hundred copies and I had one client who said, “Oh well we’re having our annual gathering and so I’ll take 3,000 copies if you won’t mind if I put a gold foil sticker on it that says, a gift from the company.” I said, “No, I wouldn’t mind that at all” and then I had a couple of other, three other clients order a thousand copies and I basically forced a lot of my friends to buy between 10 and a hundred copies. And so by the time the first 5,000 came, I’ve already ordered another 5,000 and then another 5,000 copies.

[0:27:09] Charlie Hoehn: This is amazing, so this is the ding-ding-ding point I think in the episode. I think that any author who listens to this has to see that that is – you can do that with any book. You can do that in anything that you are working on. Can you walk us through what those calls sounded? Like word for word, what were you saying? Because to a lot of people that’s a very intimidating ask, right? It seems like artists have all these narratives in their head about coming across this huge self-promotional or they don’t want to make it about them. They just want people to be attracted to the work on its own merit, blah-blah-blah. So can you break down how you actually did this?

[0:27:54] Honoree Corder: Yes, let me back up just a little bit and do a little bit of psychology/coaching and just say that if you put all the time, money and energy into writing a book and you believe that you have a good solid message and that people would benefit from your message then get over your damn self and be ready to ask the question and no doesn’t mean that you suck. No just means no, I don’t need it right now or I don’t ever need it. It’s not the right thing, whatever. So if I were to call you, we could do a little role play. I would say, “Hey Charlie, how’s it going?”

[0:28:22] Charlie Hoehn: “Hey Honoree, it’s good to hear your voice. Are you still using rolodexes and all the same acquitted technology? “

[0:28:28] Honoree Corder: “My Rumba ate my rolodex and I’m really sad. Yeah, I’m really sad.”

[0:28:32] Charlie Hoehn: “Why, did you upgrade it? “

[0:28:33] Honoree Corder: “Yeah, thanks, yeah so has your wife had that baby yet?”

[0:28:36] Charlie Hoehn: “She’s getting close, a matter of days.”

[0:28:38] Honoree Corder: “I’m going to send you some good cream to rub her feet. So I have a question. I mean we’re on the clock here Charlie, so I have a question. I know you’re working for Book in a Box and I know you work, you guys serve authors and I just wrote this what I think is a really great book for authors and it’s number four in the Prosperous Writer’s Book Series, The Prosperous Writer’s Guide to Finding Readers and I really with a 110 ways that your authors could find new readers for their books. So I was wondering if you would talk to Zach or maybe to Tucker and see if there was a way that you might want to do a bulk order. I could sign books to each of your authors. It could be something you give them when their books come out. You could send them to previous authors and see if they want to write a new book. What do you think?”

[0:29:28] Charlie Hoehn: “I love that, yeah.” Honestly I was going to give you a goofy answer in return but I was like, “Oh yeah, it actually makes total sense” and to give as a gift to our authors it makes complete sense to do that and yeah, I have heard you tell this stories before Honoree and actually when I introduced you to Tucker Max, when he heard the strategy you used to give these companies a win-win, basically he was like, “Oh that’s so smart” and I know I am getting a little bit ahead of myself. Because you modified the strategy for a later book to make even bigger bulk orders happen. So that was great. Now can you break down what this eventually turned into to sell not just 10 to a hundred copies of the book at a time but thousands of copies of books?

[0:30:23] Honoree Corder: Sure, so I have a single mom books series, it’s The Successful Single Mom Books Series, there is six books in the series. I started realizing that divorce attorneys and therapist were using the book to get clients. So they don’t have their own book and so they were taking my books and putting their business card in the books and one guy was leaving the book at Starbucks, one divorce attorney in plain old Texas and he met my then chief operating officer. And he said, “Oh my god I have to meet her” and so I went to Dallas and we sat down and he said, “What I’d like to do is to take the back cover of the book and make it about my law firm so I can stop leaving my business card in the book”. He’s like, “I have this big conundrum, do I use a paper clip, do I not use a paper clip, just screw it”. He was like, “If I bought enough books, if I bought a thousand books or 5,000 books, would you let me make a custom cover and put my information on the back?” And I said, “Absolutely, that would be no problem” so what I was able to do is turn the back cover into an advertisement for law firms, certified divorce financial advisers, therapists, divorce attorneys that are collaborative so it’s a different vertical so that they could give the books out. So that was one option, that’s one of the things that I still do to this day. I still do custom orders for divorce attorneys and people who are going through divorce.

[0:31:56] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, when you set out to write a book now, do you talk with organizations first and see if there might be an easy way for them to order thousands of copies of your book before you start writing it or while you’re writing it?

[0:32:15] Honoree Corder: I don’t. I don’t take my own advice that I would give someone because I know that there is always going to be another book. Like I started a book on Tuesday and as soon as we’re done, I’m going to finish it. It’s four days later so I crank out a book fairly quickly and so I am not worried that I need to be so strategic with my books but a good idea is to think about what a good book could be and test the market. I could give you an example of one of my books. So when Amazon invited me to come to New York with four other well-known authors, so four other well-known authors and me.

[0:32:53] Charlie Hoehn: And they invited you, what did they invite you for?

[0:32:57] Honoree Corder: To attend a media breakfast, so major big time media so Forbes, Fortune, New York Times, New York Post, bloggers, well positioned bloggers. So I asked the question “Why are we having this breakfast, what do you want from the breakfast?” And they said, “Because we have this incredible publishing platform and we would like more people to write and publish books on our platform” and so I said, “Would it be helpful if I wrote and published a book about why everyone should write and publish a book (on your platform)?” and they said, “Sure”. That’s “You Must Write a Book” which sold really well because I thought –

[0:33:39] Charlie Hoehn: They promoted that I’m guessing.

[0:33:41] Honoree Corder: Yeah, they’ve been there. They’ve been more than generous and helpful with that book for sure. So yes, it is entirely within the scope of possibility that you have information that someone who is a strategic partner of yours would benefit from sharing with their audience and if they don’t have their own book, then you – let’s do a scenario. So if you’re a financial adviser who works with high net worth individuals, high net worth individuals logically have bankers. Investment bankers, insurance providers, a whole host of high end real estate agents. They have a whole host of professionals that serve them and you could give them your book to give to their clients as a present. So the client wins because they get this valuable information in the form of a book. The real estate agent or investment banker wins because they pass on this valuable information to their clients so they got a present and then you win because your book is used as good will both with your strategic partner and with this perspective client.

[0:34:54] Charlie Hoehn: I love it.

[0:34:56] Honoree Corder: All sorts of directions you can go in with that.

[0:34:58] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, so at this point I’m thinking Honoree this is all awesome material. This is all stuff I want to use as an author. I’m curious at this point in your career, why haven’t you gone with a traditional publisher? Has that ever been a temptation or have you just wanted to go your own path?

[0:35:21] Honoree Corder: They haven’t called me.

[0:35:23] Charlie Hoehn: Really? That is so revealing.

[0:35:26] Honoree Corder: They have never, I mean I am so under the radar as you say that I have not ever been asked and honestly, I have people very close to me who have toyed with traditional publishing. I just spoke to a multiple time New York Times bestselling author the other day and he got what I would consider an insulting advance on a book that he has to write that will not come out until 18 months from when he delivers the book. So he will use every bit of his advance to market the book and make 12%.

[0:35:57] Charlie Hoehn: When you say insulting advance, when you say insulting like under 20 grand or what?

[0:36:04] Honoree Corder: Under a hundred.

[0:36:05] Charlie Hoehn: Okay, yeah. When you divide those advances up by the number of months it’s going to take you and the cost of marketing, a lot of authors don’t – it’s not a great deal for a lot of authors. For some, it could be an amazing deal.

[0:36:23] Honoree Corder: Well absolutely, it’s just that overtime, if you have that cache, if you’ve been a New York Times bestselling author, then it should be a six figure advance, a mid-six figured advance, perhaps an almost seven figure advance although I know that they don’t tend to rule those out as they used to and then when you are only making 10% or 12%, you have to sell a ton of books to earn of that advance before you ever even get into the black. And there is this fine amount of time that – I mean The Successful Single Mom was published in 2009. I still sold tons of those books every month. I didn’t give it the last quarter of 2009 to be successful or be pulled. It wasn’t last quarter’s book and it didn’t quite make the mark. It took two or three years for that book to really gain momentum enough for me to say, “Oh I can go write more”.

[0:37:19] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:37:20] Honoree Corder: I think there is something here. So with traditional publishing you have a very short period of time and I am not saying it’s not for anyone. My advice for someone is if you’re a unicorn, if you’re someone who has a big following and you’re a celebrity and you have lots of money then go for it.

[0:37:35] Charlie Hoehn: Do a traditional, yeah go for it.

[0:37:37] Honoree Corder: Yeah, rock out right? Get it going but if you’re a scrappy farm girl from Ohio with no college education like me then I’m going to say go self-publishing and just crush it.

[0:37:49] Charlie Hoehn: Right, yeah I mean that’s the irony. I think self-publishing has so heavily swung in everyone else’s favor. You actually have a profitable business, you’re making a living off of your books and for anybody who’s a prolific writer or even somebody who can afford to get their ideas transcribed or their stories transcribed like our friend, Sean Platt, that’s how he goes about writing his books. He speaks into a microphone and records his ideas, gets them transcribed and edited. He’s published how many books? Like an insane number, he does 10,000 words a day. To anybody who’s a prolific content creator of the written word, you can crush in self-publishing. You don’t have to do traditional.

[0:38:45] Honoree Corder: Or you can have one book. One book that gives you the title author and you can make more for your speaking. You can sell more of anything that you’re selling, products or services because an author is still a big deal.

[0:39:00] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, it is. So one quick note, there is a blogger named Mark Manson. He’s very, very popular, he’d self-published some books before and from my understanding they’ve done reasonably well. He just went with a traditional publisher for his latest book, The Subtle Art of not giving an F and it is –

[0:39:23] Honoree Corder: It is crushing it.

[0:39:24] Charlie Hoehn: He’s dominating. He is the number one most read and most sold, I want to say maybe at the time of this podcast, maybe not but on Amazon overall.

[0:39:34] Honoree Corder: I’ve read it. It’s fantastic.

[0:39:36] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, he’s a fantastic writer but I think he made a great move there with going with a traditional publishing because previously his book was – you know I am not coming on these conclusions on my own. Zach Oberman and I talked about this recently but his other book, it was called Models and it was sort of in the realm of pickup, dating and he was just like every other pickup artist online where he’s like, “Okay you have written a book so what?” To go with a traditional publisher in his case lent him a lot of credibility. It separated him in his writing and I don’t know how well his book would have done if he’d released this book self-published and everything but the cover is great. There is certainly a lot of benefits with going with a traditional publisher but most people are never going to get those great deals. So if you really want to write a book, you can still do it and do quite well following the exact things that Honoree is talking about.

[0:40:49] Honoree Corder: Exactly, what you said. Well I listen to that book on the Chard Mill, it was great. I laughed out loud, it was wonderful.

[0:40:59] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, so I’m curious, at what point – I mean you basically established yourself as a successful author right out the gate with your first book before it was even printed. Was at that point that you knew you could make this a living?

[0:41:15] Honoree Corder: No, not at all. I was writing a book because I wanted more coaching clients and more speaking gigs.

[0:41:22] Charlie Hoehn: How much did the book affect those two areas of your business?

[0:41:27] Honoree Corder: Well I doubled my coaching fee so I can have less clients and make the same amount of money. I was a single mom at the time so that was a strategic move. Selling the 11,000 books privately was a huge financial benefit. It gave me some additional cushion so I felt I could quote my new fee and if someone said yes or no I didn’t care. I wasn’t like, “Oh I have to price it low enough so that they’ll say yes” because I have reserve. So I didn’t start out a speaker, I started out as a speaker who was speaking to market my coaching fees and then someone called and said, “We only have $3,500 to pay our keynote speaker but we would love to have you come and deliver your keynote. Is that enough? Would you consider doing it for $3,500” and I was like “It’s more than anyone else has ever paid me so yes” and so that began my speaking career. So as soon as I publish then my coach said you have to increase what you are charging.

[0:42:32] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:42:33] Honoree Corder: Yes, for sure.

[0:42:34] Charlie Hoehn: So I’m curious, can you tell us about your readers like some of their transformations that they’ve had either as you have written a fair number of topics but maybe talk first about the authors who’ve read your books, the writers who’ve read your books and have been able to transform their careers in some way.

[0:42:59] Honoree Corder: Sure, so I was at a writer’s conference when I got the idea to write Prosperity for Writers because there is that starving artist, starving writer thing. I don’t even know what it is, a cliché? Whereas, “I’m a writer therefore – “ I just watched the movie, shoot I’m going to forget, anyway it opens with the actor saying, “Look at this guy, yeah he’s a writer. He looks like he’s homeless” right? Limitless, the movie Limitless. So that’s the opening of the movie. Where before he takes the drugs and becomes the super writer, he looks like he hasn’t showered because he hasn’t for weeks and so that was the perception and so there were people at the writer’s conference who were making a fair living as a writer and then there were people at the writer’s conference who were genuinely frustrated and have lost heart and have lost hoped because they just weren’t sure why isn’t it happening. It wasn’t happening, why wasn’t it happening and they were perfectly good writers and so I’ve put into my production schedule, Prosperity for Writers because I think prosperity, making money as a writer starts as a mindset but I am more of a practical person like as you pray and move your feet kind of gal. So I believe you have to look for what you want to find so first be on the lookout for people who are making money as a writer but then you also have to write the words. Sit down, have a daily word count. Okay let’s get practical so I put Prosperity for Writers on my production schedule and I did a class and a course, before a course of course I did a course and worked with a few people to see if it would even take hold and everyone who took the class transformed their businesses and started making money as writers and everyone in the class now is a full time writer making money from their writers and they are my super fans. They are the people that come up to me and wanted to take a picture and then they tell me the latest cool thing that they’ve done as a writer and they went to this conference and they took this vacation and they were able to buy “you know I have my first new car in 20 years. This car doesn’t have duct tape anywhere on it” right? These are amazing –

[0:45:11] Charlie Hoehn: So can you tell and individual specific story?

[0:45:15] Honoree Corder: Gosh.

[0:45:16] Charlie Hoehn: You don’t have to give away their full name or anything like that.

[0:45:17] Honoree Corder: Yeah, so there is actually a gal here in Austin who had written several books just couldn’t connect the financial dots and so I helped her come up with her “I am statement” so part of the process was to say, “I am a full time writer, I write teenage dystopian fiction” or whatever it is and “I make an abundant living from my writing” so the first thing is you have to change yourself talks that that belief goes into your subconscious and your subconscious is your super computer. So that’s the first thing and then to have her look for, she started looking for other people who are making money from their writing and I was like, “Go and sit down with people and have them walk you through the process of where do they start and what are they doing” what are the things that they are actually doing because no one just thinks about making money from their writing and has the direct deposit come in. There are actually some things that happen in between the “I would like to make money” and “I make money”. So go study successful writers and figure out what they’re doing because it’s not just to your being but that is an important piece, it’s also what you’re doing or not doing. So what do you need to say no to, what do you need to say yes to? What are you saying when you talk to yourself? What are you looking for? What are you expecting and so she is literary a full time writer. She just got a brand new car, she bought a house, she couldn’t be happier or more successful in her mind and she’s still writing books. She gives me all the credit and I didn’t do anything. I just put on my bossy pants and gave some suggestions and she took what I said and followed it. So she gets all the credit in my head. She is a fine example of I would say a few hundred different people that have read one of the books in The Prosperous Writers book in the series or one the single mom book series and has taken the advice and run with it and transformed their lives.

[0:47:11] Charlie Hoehn: That’s awesome. That has to feel so good.

[0:47:14] Honoree Corder: It’s overwhelming and humbling and it’s not for me, right? I know that it comes through me, it’s not from me. It’s through me otherwise I won’t know what I would say. Does that make sense?

[0:47:26] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, a hundred percent. So what is the rest of this year look like for you Honoree? You have written a ton of books, are books where you’re going to stay as an author forever or do you – I mean Mark Zuckerberg says 2020, basically all of our Facebook feed is going to be video. Do you plan on exploring other mediums? I know you do podcasts and stuff, what’s your game plan going forward?

[0:47:56] Honoree Corder: You know what? I started in network marketing in my 20’s and then I started coaching in my late 20’s and early 30’s and then I did coaching and speaking in my 30’s and then I retired from speaking because someone said, “You’d better get a good nanny” and I was a single mom which is a queue that I needed to retire. Now my kid is going to be a senior in a few minutes and so I’m speaking again. I’ve got some gigs on the calendar and I am writing more books. And the answer is I actually don’t know the answer and I’m totally fine with that. I’m open to suggestions and watching where things are going, I know that my advice to myself, my husband, my daughter, my clients, my friends is do the thing that makes you happy because life is short and so right now I am really happy. I love what I do, I love who I talk to, present company included and I love how I spend my days, weekends, evenings, holidays. Every day is the same. Every day is Friday, every day is Saturday for me, they’re all the same, all really good happy days for me. I don’t feel like I work. I feel like I play and I get paid to play which is really fun. So at some point I will probably see that everybody’s got video and I need a video and I will get a video done, it will be fun. We’ll see.

[0:49:21] Charlie Hoehn: I love it. That’s a good place to wrap, how can our listeners connect with you and follow you?

[0:49:28] Honoree Corder: Sure, so honoreecorder.com is my home base. I’m @honoree at every social media platform known to God and man so far except I don’t have Snapchat. I’m going to draw the line at Snapchat.

[0:49:44] Charlie Hoehn: Oh. I’m with you there.

[0:49:46] Honoree Corder: I’m drawing the line. I’m not doing Snapchat.

[0:49:49] Charlie Hoehn: I have started and stopped on Snapchat half a dozen times.

[0:49:52] Honoree Corder: I got it.

[0:49:52] Charlie Hoehn: And every time I’m like, “Yep still don’t get it”.

[0:49:55] Honoree Corder: Still don’t like it. Yeah, my daughter totally loves it and she’s 17. So I think there’s that rolodex again. Anyway so yeah @honoree on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, I have a great community for people writing books and asking questions. That’s just brand new and getting started so anywhere someone hangs out I am probably hanging out there too.

[0:50:17] Charlie Hoehn: Excellent. Honoree, thank you so much. This was great.

[0:50:20] Honoree Corder: Oh, it’s always a real pleasure to talk with you Charlie. Thank you for having me.

[0:50:23] Charlie Hoehn: Yes, likewise. Many thanks to Honoree Corder for being on the show. You can buy her book, The Prosperous Writer’s Guide to Finding Readers, on Amazon.com. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about book with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.