Ep463: David Walter – Start Marketing Your Book Before You Write It

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning in our community we know that to win in investing you must take risks but to win big you've got to reduce it join our community and claim your podcast listener discount on my valuation masterclass boot camp, where students learn how to value companies like a pro and advance their career go to my worst investment ever.com to join for free. Fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast hosts Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy and I'm here with featured guest, David Wolter. David, are you ready to rock?

David Walter 00:40
I'm ready to rock.

Andrew Stotz 00:42
Oh, yeah. You know, in the story of our of this episode is we had a little false start. In fact, you know, I always say that, I've really never had a problem, all of my episodes of recording, I use zoom, and it's worked flawlessly. But you and I had a our first meeting, and it just like, things just didn't work on that day. So I appreciate your patience and your willingness to come back. And luckily, we didn't spend a whole time and find out it didn't work. We figured it out kind of partially through. So I appreciate your patience.

David Walter 01:15
And,

Andrew Stotz 01:16
you know,

David Walter 01:18
I'm with the greats, Neil Patel, and john Lee Dumas on this show. So of course, I might be patient for it.

Andrew Stotz 01:26
You know, amongst greatness, let me tell you, and you are bringing your greatness because you brought me into your world. And I've really enjoyed and learned a lot of lessons about particularly about LinkedIn, you know, I, I'm okay on LinkedIn, but after following you, getting to know you seeing what you do. I'm inspired. And so I recommend all the listeners out there, you know, go to david Walter, and go, you know, search him on LinkedIn, I'll put this link in the show notes, and start following him. And what you'll see is you'll learn a lot about how to market on LinkedIn.

David Walter 02:04
More calling business entrepreneurship. That's exactly. I love your title of your show. And I had to think about it. That's what that is good to let people know about the worst investments so they don't make the same mistake.

Andrew Stotz 02:19
Exactly. We're trying to save a generation. Hopefully they're listening. Well, let me introduce you to the audience. David Walters, an author, speaker and sales trainer. His claim to fame came from a cold calling hot streak, during which he said 15 appointments a day for six months straight. Imagine how that would change your life. Ladies and gentlemen. He later ran a prospecting call center, helping companies make millions. He's a contributing writer to Entrepreneur Magazine, and his book million dollar rebuttal is a number one bestseller on Amazon. David, take a minute in Philly for the tidbits about your life

David Walter 02:58
by the book after heard

Andrew Stotz 02:59
that, absolutely.

David Walter 03:03
You're an announcer and you didn't even know it.

Andrew Stotz 03:07
I'm learning and ladies and gentlemen, all you got to do is go to million dollar rebuttal.com slash free dash book and you are going to be able to see a great video of David talking about what he's talking about in the book, you know, and he's got a great video of him holding the book and telling you valuable stuff. So check it out again.

David Walter 03:28
Offer your book offer calm. Okay, got it. Point book, offer.com butyl. fury, the free in the hyphen can get people confused.

Andrew Stotz 03:38
Got it. And we'll have all that in the show notes, ladies and gentlemen. So check it out. So David, tell us just a little bit about your life.

David Walter 03:47
Well, let's see. I was born in orange, Texas. And I'm just kidding. Like, most people have gone through ups and downs. And, you know, my father, he had an air conditioning business the whole time. And when I got old enough after going to college I worked for and helped them make a million dollars and then the whole thing fell apart. And that's how I ended up at this place where I did cold calling. And doing all these amazing things that I talked about what the segue into what we're talking about. I always I always wanted to be an author. From an early age, I even when I was right out of high school, I wrote a children's I wrote a children's book and researched about how to get books published and mail it off to publishers. I got letters back one wanting me to self publish, which you know, 30 years ago was an affiliate thing right? Now it's self publishing is big, big, big, big, big, big. Yeah, but I had that dream and I always want to be an author. And there are some wolf like companies that prey on people's desires. Because out in the audience right now. I'm sure there's people that want Be an author podcaster author, and they dream up and like I dreamed of. And you may see them advertising, you know, didn't have to do. What? We're amazing. Sometimes they may even have a picture with somebody famous. Right? What I've learned is, that person may not actually know them. That may just be a little quick, I bump up against you and hold up a selfie. And you know, like, I took a picture with Grant Cardone. But Greg Cardo doesn't really know me. Yes, you know, I don't put that up there on my website and be like, Ah, great card. Oh. Let's do Yeah, exactly. It's fake. You got to look up the fakers, the wolf's in sheep's clothing, and the prey and I there was a company I started following out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, that had love these, you know, these fake episodes, they pay to be on Fox News, right? But it only shows up in the middle of night. And never air on TV. You know what I'm talking about? The fake stuff. You know, you don't know it's fake until you get into the marketing world. Like I mean, you have been you know, for years now, we start knowing from the insider's club, kind of how to spot the fake ones, and who's real, who's fake. But you fall for these people. And a telltale sign of it is almost always we do it all. a one stop shop for everything, any book cover design, we have editors edit your book, well marketed and will make you famous. And you know, people can be a master of one thing, but usually they're not masters of it all. Yeah,

Andrew Stotz 06:41
it sounds like we are ready for you to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment, thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to an Intel us your story.

David Walter 06:54
I put all my faith and hope. Right, I just saw these posts over and over again. You know, he was on Fox News. And he's got these pitches with famous people. And he talked about marketing a book and all this stuff. And I thought these guys were going to help me. And boy, I saved up my money. 10 grand, invested just knowing that I was on my way to fame and fortune being an author. And boy, it I still had that dream, even a couple months into it and things start to fall apart. fall apart, the wheels started coming off the wagon, you know, the they weren't editing the book, the book cover came back was terrible. No edits, the book was terrible. And then I started seeing signs on the news and stuff of things. This company was being indicted for fraud. They ended up in court, my manuscript was held up because I signed the rights of a manuscript over to this company. My book, The million dollar rebuttal was in this criminals hands. And people were trying to sue them, they started trying to all what happened is they started off showing everything to India. So people who didn't know what they were doing, and then take in more clients, and they could, you know, getting greedy, taking more than they could deliver and have a shoddy work done. And then the whole thing started falling apart. And they were stealing people's money and not delivering what they promised not even close. They barely edited my document. They gave me a terrible book design. And that was it. Never any marketing. Not none of the things they promised me.

Andrew Stotz 08:32
No. And how did it end up? I mean, that's such a, that's such a downer when you're so excited about you know, finally taking the

David Walter 08:41
last time, I had to debate because there was a class action lawsuit. And they finally sent me a letter and said, If I released them, they can't sue them. But they will release my manuscript. And I thought, you know what, I really like to have my 10 grand back, but I really want my book. Yeah, I want to start marketing now. And so I released them and I got my license back to my book. And, you know, had to learn how to market my book on my own, which is really what people should do. That's the most important thing to be an author, but you've got to know how to market your book. If you don't know how to market the book, you can make anything. The world does not beat a path to your door.

Andrew Stotz 09:20
Right? So tell me, how would you describe the lessons you learn from that experience, but also maybe also from what you learned about self marketing? Well,

David Walter 09:31
I mean, just go check the BBB rating of anybody that you're going to buy, believe it or not nine times out of 10 they have a bad bad BBB rating.

Andrew Stotz 09:39
And for the International listeners out there, that's the Better Business Bureau Bureau. Yeah. Which is a rating system. Now we have more rating systems that are on social media and things like that, you know, let's say Google or whatever, but the traditional one in America has always been better business bureau.

David Walter 09:56
Yep, it's a good place to check. And lo and behold, you'll have some bad news. views there. Now everybody can have a couple but when they have a lot and none of them are replied to and they don't care, then that's a good sign that they have but I guess my big lessons were a specialization. If you want a book cover design do go with somebody who specializes in book covers because your cover if you're on Kindle or you're on Amazon, your cover is gonna be small and it better be really good to capture people's interest and that's if people judge a book by its cover I recommend Oh 99 designs Yep, yeah, it's a great to have people go out and bid on your book like compete and then turn in a bunch of designs and you pick them so that's that's one place I learned and then book butchers. The main thing is you need a good editor for the book. Well, it's the main thing I want these people to do. They all in jail. These guys out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but book butchers is my best investment. What about them, they, I found them in another investment and they do a fantastic job of editing the book, I get compliments on my the way my book was written in all this stuff, they do a good job. And they can help redo a whole manuscript just to slight editing. Wherever you feel you need, how much editing you need. And every great author needs a great editor. I recommend those guys incredible I work I've been working with them now. I have the met at my article entrepreneur to make sure it's all all good. Looks good. You got to go put your best foot

Andrew Stotz 11:38
forward and how do you charge

David Walter 11:41
um, that's just it's economical based on what you need done, you know, it's more books and you can have them do articles and review those but I really recommend I have ADHD and I'm dyslexic. So I can read something and then not even see the mistakes that I'm making. Right? And the last thing you would do is get out there put something out in the world because there are those people, those eggheads that go look for a misspelled word and track you down and lets you know you got a misspelled word and you know I can happen to the best stuff is there's I don't think there's any documents perfect. Yeah, but you try to get as close to perfect and book butchers is the company I recommend. But really the main lesson was don't look for a panacea at all, yeah. And of course I found Click Funnels to help you market your book as a great way to market. Yep, book Russell Brunson and then promoting your book. I really like that. Publish, promote and profit rub cost Berg. I like him. I don't know if you've heard of him know. Tyler Wagner. Authors unite. helps you get PR and can get you on podcast. No, no helps you with PR, right? Hello, Jeremy Ryan, slate command, your brand can help you with PR, I mean, podcasting, right. podcasting, podcasting, podcasting. And then Colin, who's new to my group, I don't remember his name, but he also has the podcast. But just look for great resources. Now you got to find somebody who's really good. Those are great resources that I recommend authors unite. They're awesome. But butchers, that's going to be your go to, I recommend them editing your book. And I'm telling you now if you're an author, having a good warm, fuzzy feeling knowing you have an editor and you're going to admit it and you trust them, and it's gonna come back done well, that's the feeling you're gonna write your second book and your third once you have that I'm already halfway through my second book. And I already know, I've got book butchers to make me look good.

Andrew Stotz 13:47
Yeah, that's exciting. Maybe I'll share some my takeaways from your story. You know, the first thing is, we are all vulnerable at times, when we're trying to do something for our own business or for ourselves, that we're overworked, you know, we're busy, we can do it all. And it's just such a natural feeling to try to fall for somebody that says I can do it all for you. we so desperately want that at that moment. And you know, there, I'm sure there are some people out there that can do it all. It's probably a very small number. And they're probably so expensive that you know, working with them is very hard. But generally, when you're really vulnerable. It's so easy to turn over everything like you know, I can do all of your social media marketing, I can do all of your paid advertising, I can do all of your

David Walter 14:45
LinkedIn. I can do all what each one has its own unique world, and that you have to understand, I get you and

Andrew Stotz 14:55
the second part of this too is that nobody knows You and your content like you. And that's the other challenge is that you know, when you want to hand something over to someone in hopes that they're going to be able to take care of it all, and just give it to them. So many times, that also just fails. Not necessarily because the person is not necessarily competent in their area of expertise, but just because nobody can express you, like you.

David Walter 15:26
Or they don't care as much about it. Exactly. You're stuck on their desk. Yep. Right. When you're going to be the one that's passionate about what you're doing.

Andrew Stotz 15:35
Yeah. So so. So anyways, what my main takeaway is this, you know, understand, ladies and gentlemen, when you are vulnerable, understand when you're desperate, understand when you think this is the right way to go, this is what everybody does. And take this lesson from David, and slow down, and take it step by step. So let me ask you, David, based upon what you learn from this story, and what you continue to learn, I would like you to think about a young man or woman out there who is in the process of wanting to write their first book and all that one action, would you recommend that they take to avoid suffering the same fate?

David Walter 16:19
The one action, that's always hard to get it to one, but I mean, the biggest thing if you're going to write is you got to know how you're going to get your book. That's, that's number one, you got to have that. But really, you need to be thinking about your marketing before you even ever write your book. How are you gonna get that book out to the world. And I think people think of that, I thought of it last. I thought of it magically, I thought of, well, if I read this book, The whole world is gonna love me and want to read my book. And you're just one of the billions of books out there. So I do want to caution people about about audio books. Try to avoid Amazon's audio book program where they find the editor. They set your price however they want to, I have not yet done one of my own. So that's one thing I'm going to be looking at is my next book, I want to get Oh, I gotta do it myself to have all the rights to it. And we'll set the price because your podcast is your audio book should be your most expensive thing. And they'll price it cheap. So they can put it on their watch or go with their services where they people can get but their server themselves. They can get a bunch of cheap audio books, and boy, I want to rail against that. I'd like to get a lot of authors out there to get mad about it. They price the book based on the number of pages. And you believe that not the number of pages judge a book.

Andrew Stotz 17:50
No, in fact, I when I look at an audio book, and I see one that's four hours and I see one that's 14 I always go with the four hour one because I'm like a thank you author for reducing this down to a manageable amount for me, thank you very much. I don't want to hear 19 hours

David Walter 18:08
to get away that I don't know how to get away with it. Because it seems cockamamie logic to me. And I thought how would Why would they have such cockamamie logic? And you know, I would have met I would met the target price audio book, but just trying to size it down to one size fits all and we just looked at how many pages it seems to me a little self serving when they can turn around and put it out on their site. What's their site for? Yeah, Audible, they could put it on their site. So yeah, I just had to rail against that for a minute guy. Yeah. Marketing down. Yeah, look at the there's a few funnels out there. I like Click Funnels, but there's a few out there, look at the different funnels and start to understand the world of funnels for creating a funnel. I that's my first step. That's what I would do is look at the world. And think about the last thing would be what's your endgame? You're not going to make money in your book most likely. Until like Grant Cardone says until What is his fourth or fifth book he ruined became famous. You're not going to likely make a lot of money just writing one book. Yeah. So what's your How are you gonna make money on that? And I had an author that took me under his wing, who the guy that wrote Instagram secrets. He lives in San Antonio, and he took his wing and he we met he said, he said, How you gonna make money with your book and he said, You need unique, generally speaking, to have video training and some kind of a system you're going to sell to train people. And that's part of your funnel. And most likely you're going to need giveaways, and like bonuses and stuff. So when you're writing your book you should already be thinking about, maybe don't put this in a book, maybe this could be a booklet, maybe this could be a chart. This could be I can get a little sub book that I'll be able to give away. And boy, you will be so far ahead of the game. If you think about your marketing first, and realize you're going to need, I just talked to an author today, somebody in our group, his eyes weren't lit up when he realized that he should be reaching towards having a bunch of testimonials, video content, that that's what he's going to sell when he makes his book number one. I would say make your book try to figure out how to make your book number one, a best seller. And I recommend a site called bookbub. There's a big secret I've given away There it is. That's how I got my book to be number one. But you got to listen to this podcast. And if you listen long enough to get that secret. Oh, yeah. And I got that one from Rosberg. So that's a read as many books from authors and associate with authors and authors like you know, you see an author that's going to be interviewed on a podcast Listen, like me, they're going to drop some nuggets. Get into immerse yourself into that world associated with those people. And you'll, you'll be way ahead of the curve, you'll avoid all the scams, you'll get the Straight Dope from the people like me who already been there, and we paid all the scammers.

Andrew Stotz 21:24
And now we get your advice for free. And I wish that I had gotten that advice. I've written five books now. And I would say it's been a challenge. And I like you, I kind of thought just writing it was enough. I didn't realize the marketing and I can just for the listeners out there, I just can really confirm that what David is saying is so true. When I was young, I was in university at Cal State Long Beach, and we had a seven storey library full of books, it was full, you know, it's amazing. And I went there every day to study and, and every floor was just rows and rows of stacks to the ceiling of books. And I say I always say that, you know, when I published my first book, I was so proud of it. And it was just like I walked into that library, I went up to the fourth floor to the 15th row of books to the third shelf. And two books over I put my book there. And now as an author. When I put my book there, not one damn person knew in there. Yeah. And that was me thinking that, just putting it on the show. And that's it. And so what you're saying I totally, you know, agree with you.

David Walter 22:38
It took me a while actually podcasting. What's a podcast? Yeah, I don't need no podcast. I want to be on real media. I want to be on the radio. That's all media. start figuring out your podcast strategy from

Andrew Stotz 22:56
day one. and align it with your book. Perfect. Yeah.

David Walter 22:59
You got to get your podcast strategy going.

Andrew Stotz 23:02
Great style.

David Walter 23:03
So you got to be Russell Brunson says Get your dream 100 your dream 100 podcasts yet on john Lee Dumas says your avatar, your perfect, right, who's your perfect person who's going to buy your book? And then as he says, Russell Brunson says where do they hang out what sites they go to? What podcasts they listen to, and be making a list of those podcasts? Boy, I wish I could go back in time, though.

Andrew Stotz 23:28
Yeah. Ladies, Gentlemen, you get all of that advice from David, right now today, so you don't have to make those mistakes. Last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

David Walter 23:40
My number one goal is a secret. But I can't tell you that. I want to get on a lot of podcasting. I want to do a lot of podcasting and I'm creating my own podcast. So like you I'll be joining podcast paradise. Yep. I'm with john Lee Dumas and Entrepreneur on Fire. Yep. Yeah, we get a lot of but I have one podcast in mind. That's the biggest one I could think of and I want to get there. I just my last goal was to be an Entrepreneur Magazine. So I never recommend people jump through hoops to jump through hoops hoops, you want to level up, right? Become a number one best seller, try to do things and once you've leveled up and you've got some titles, go after old media and actually having entrepreneur you can apply to be an entrepreneur, contributor. Right? There's some other ways that you can apply. You just might get accepted my friend. I told him to apply. He just got accepted. We just weren't high fiving each other this morning. You know God, so don't be shy. Don't be afraid. You've got to believe in yourself. And your message is the world needs to hear.

Andrew Stotz 24:49
Level up. Episode 330. Eric Sue, who works with together with Neil Patel. He wrote a book called leveling up and you remind me Yeah, so check it out what? leveling up, leveling up. Yep. But the idea that you're telling us is just take step by step and move on. I love it. Well, listeners there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you mind listener, reduce risk and increase return in your life. To achieve this I've created our community at my worst investment ever.com and when you join you get a special discount on my valuation masterclass boot camp. As we conclude, David, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a stance Academy I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. You didn't know that. You have any parting words for our audience?

David Walter 25:51
who graduated? You did it?

Andrew Stotz 25:54
What are your parting words?

David Walter 25:56
Um, I just I think you can do it. If you believe in yourself. That's more than anything you want to make a lot of appointments cold calling, you want to write a book, you have got to believe your author, look in the mirror and see yourself as an author staring back at you and then associate with the people who are in that world. That's the key hang out. They always say right, judge you by your friends. Yeah. hang out with people who hang out with people who have made it already and let them rub off on you. And by the way, watching podcasts like this I consider hanging out with people get better have made it and they're important. Yep.

Andrew Stotz 26:34
Fantastic. That's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.