EP40 – How to Become Successful As An Author

Matthew J. Brownstein hosts Kim O’Hara in this special episode of Illuminated Mind®. Kim O’Hara is Book Coach to Best Sellers. She is a creative collaborator, editor, and business strategist for books. Kim O’Hara has guided over 40-plus coach leader executive women clients through the daunting journey of book inception to publishing through her exclusive brand.

Welcome, everyone to the illuminated mind podcast. My name is Matthew Brownstein. I’m the founder and lead instructor of the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy. I happen to be an author and it happened to be here with someone who helps to create authors. So I’m here with Kim O’Hara, and we’re gonna talk about book publishing. So welcome, Kim,
thank you so much for having me. It’s wonderful to be here with your community.
Yeah, thank you for being here. Let me read your bio, and then we’ll tell the audience why we’re talking today. So Kim is a book coach to best sellers. That’s her trademark, Kim O’Hara has guided over a 40 plus coach leader executive women clients through the daunting journey of book inception to publishing through her exclusive brand, she coaches authors to find the why reader avatar and hook up their book, so they can illuminate and inspire their core audience, called a book Sherpa and Guardian Angel by her clients. Kim is a creative collaborator, editor and business strategist for books, you can find her at Kim O’Hara dot com. So we have an upcoming workshop with you a free introductory class to a larger workshop that’s occurring on February this 23rd 7pm Eastern time called Introduction to writing and publishing a book. So just have I noticed, that’s why we’re doing the interview. Yeah, I’ve been working with you as a book coach, and you’ve been awesome, wonderfully honest and direct. Before we go into anything, why don’t you tell us about your background, tell us about you and your passion for books and publishing.
Absolutely. And you’ve been a very, very willing but client willing to dive in and take a look at what you had before when we first met. And and and just completely do a renovation on your book. And I think that’s one of the best attributes of a successful author is that willingness to transcend what you thought was the best book, and if you bring on a coach utilize the skills of a coach to actually make a better book, right. So you’ve been extremely open to that, and very self aware, that’s been wonderful. I have spent most of my life working with writers, as a writer, as an editor in the entertainment industry. And then eight years ago, I became a book coach and entered the world of coaching. And I have not looked back, I’ve absolutely love coaching people through books. I’m also an author, myself, and I have a book coming out the same month that we’re going to do the introductory class called no longer denying sexual abuse, making the choices that can change your life. And I’m very passionate about this book for anybody that’s experienced any kind of abuse and has been in denial about it. Because that’s really the final frontier that I see. Like once you get over that hump, and you’re like, I, yes, I was abused, and you don’t feel like you’re trying to be a victim about it. Or you’re trying to be a martyr about it, you’re trying to hide it, then your whole life opens up in my life has been an example of that. For the last eight years, I’ve experienced a lot of success. And I attribute a lot of it to the work that I did in that book.
Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. I enjoy talking to you about that. And know in the field of hypnotherapy, I was shocked when I encountered that. How many women had been sexually abused? On the topic of women nearby or had mentioned helping women to publish? Do you also work? Well, obviously, you work with men. Just in case we have some men listening, and especially with the topic you just mentioned. Can you affirm you also work with men to help them get published as well?
I have my core group of amazing man who are just like the loves of my life, I mean, including you I mean, I just working with men is very different than women. It’s a lot less emotional. I’m just it’s just a fact. And you know, they’re very, you know, manner can be very task oriented, which I love so can women but men in a different way and I’ve had my other I’ve had two other male clients and they both done a credibly well with their books incredibly well. So yes, I love my male clients.
Okay, good. So we know anybody listening with your any gender, any race, anything can work with you.
If you go by they, if you go by they You can be my client as well. I have no bias.
Good. Okay, so we’re fully open and inclusive here. What does it take to become a successful author?
You know, what you read in that bio of it’s, it’s, it’s the essence of everything when you start to write a book, and many people will jump over these three aspects, the why of the book, who you’re writing for, and what is the hook that makes you unique, that’s going to have your book stand out. If there’s a ton of books about hypnotherapy, or there’s a ton of books about interpersonal they’re like, What is your special sauce and who is who is it that you’re reaching and why are you reaching them and why are you reaching them? out. And that’s really important to remember, because a book is only 200 Plus pages long, you cannot promise the moon in 200 pages, you’re just attacking one pain point that you’re going to offer some kind of relief or solution to. And people will come into books and they’ll try to throw their whole life story, every modality they’ve ever known, and they overwhelm the reader, and they lose whatever audience they could have gained. And they wonder why their book doesn’t sell any copies. So I see those three fundamental pieces is something I do with clients on a vision basis, before I even have them go into an outline for the rigor of writing every week.
Hmm, gotcha. Yeah, I’ve seen working with you How valuable is if somebody like you, like, I can just sit down and type, but what do I do? Why am I typing it? So it’s been super valuable working with you to get that type of clarity? Does everybody have a book inside of them, I know, my students may very well feel like, that’d be great to be published. But do I even have anything to write?
It’s this way, okay. If you keep thinking you want to write a book, that feeling is not gonna go away, I hate to break it to you. But that calling is gonna get louder and louder and louder. And the more that you push it down and question it and doubt it, you will then give energy to your Saboteurs, which are going to try and take you away from the book, because they’re kind of like latched on to that insecurity. So you’re almost going away from just the fundaments of writing a book. And now you’re starting to go into like a mindset thing. And like, you know, neuro neuro, like our neuro Pat, like it gets all like scientific in our brain. So we say to people, once the calling starts, it’s really sort of when you want to jump on it, because the longer you go, the harder it’s going to be, to to contemplate that finish line. There are people who will never write a book. They’re perfectly happy never writing a book. I meet them often, oh, you should write a book about that. No. They’re perfectly clear. They’re not interested, they have 10 of the things they want to do. And a book is not one of them. And I just don’t push those people because we can’t all right. Everybody can’t write a book. I mean, really, we just don’t have the marketplace for it.
Nice. I appreciate that answer. I kind of expected. Everybody’s got it inside of them. But it’s really honest. And you’ve been radically honest working with you is one of the qualities I love that. You’re like, I don’t like that cover. I don’t like what you’re really thinner. I’m like, thank you. Nobody else would say that to me. So that’s great. Can you give us an example of a successful client, somebody who had a book inside of them, and you helped to pull that out and bring it to being published?
Yes, I just had a recent wonderful success. It’s a very touching success. My client, Andrea DeWitt, she came to me she was in her late 50s. And she had always dreamed of writing a book, but she was from academia. And so she had this like, as she called it, like the cloak of education on so everything had to be like paper, like a paper, you know. And I had to sort of beat that out of her a little bit and force her to get vulnerable and creative in a different way of writing this book. And she completely rose to the task. And we came up with this book, and then she trademarked name, claim and reframe. She’s a life coach. And so she has this very simple, you know, strategy that you could do in your life to turn any situation around. And you know, she had no net she had no platform. She wasn’t like famous. It was a self help book. You know, she’s a coach, and she found a publisher who was a small press without even having an agent that was distributed by Penguin. So we thought that was the when we were like, This is amazing, right? Like, you got to like, girl, you got the prize, only to find out this month, that today’s show, picked her book for the January motivational book of the month. And it was seen on national television in front of millions and millions of people. And the only feedback she got of how it happened was the woman on the Today Show said to her, you wrote a good
book. Wow, beautiful. And you helped her to get there.
helped her every step of the way for a whole year plus,
yeah, I’m hoping that one of my students has gone through our school or something. Here’s this interview says, oh my god I’ve had this book inside gets to work with you gets to bring that publication, we say to you inclusive your work with anybody yet who would be an ideal client for you what’s like a really good match for somebody you want to be working with.
You have to really want it. You know, it’s a rigorous process. Like as you know, I am expecting people to write every single week. When there’s delays, we lose the energy we lose the emphasis and then those saboteur voices, the imposters, they start to come in and they convince us there’s a million other things we should be doing, instead of reading the book and then the books great emphasis that it had in the beginning as a launching point to so much then loses its Oh So it has to be someone that’s in for the full ride. Generally, I do work in smaller groups, sometimes for like a first draft. But even then, or even someone comes to me for like a one day outline session, you have to be willing to be all in and say, like, I’m doing this, like, this is something that I’ve committed to, I believe in myself, I’m scared. But I believe in myself, right. And also realize that writing is a community, just like you have a great community with your, you know, whole setup over there, like you have so many different pockets of people that you know, that can lean on each other and learn from each other. That’s something important that I have. And so wanting to be part of a community is really important. You can’t get a community from online writing modules. You just can’t.
Nice, yeah. mozzie when your newsletters come out, it’s always based on community. And so I’m hearing that that’s an ideal client for you or somebody who would actually work within community.
Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Really important, really important.
And let’s say somebody’s having those inner saboteurs. wherever they’re at in their writing process, maybe we just call that writer’s block. How do you overcome that? And maybe you can go a little deeper into like, the why of that block? And how do we resolve it?
Sure. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I actually have I have a podcast called you should write a book about that. And one of my first guests, like, episode two, was a TV writer, and he had written for Ozark the first season. And we had met. And, and I said, Please come on my podcast. And I asked him that question. And he was just vehement, you know, he was like, there is no such thing as writer’s block. It’s just, it’s just an excuse that writers use to not write and he said, you can work if you really want it, you can do it. And so where I can take that and extrapolate from that, for anyone that’s listening today, or anyone that’s been my client, the farthest distance, and the hardest distance to writing is from 10 feet from your desk, to your desk. That’s the only writer’s block that exists. Because once you sit down, and you make a decision for your book, and you activate your writing muse, and you have an outline, and you have notes, and you have the tools, there really isn’t anything that should be holding you back. Now, you might have a moment where you’re like, nothing’s coming out like you were you were just sharing this with me, like, you’re so close to the end of your book that we’ve worked on. And now there’s been a delay, I’m sorry, I’m calling you out. But now there’s been a delay and you’re like, I’m sitting down, and I’m not feeling it, that writers think that’s a problem. That’s not a problem. Now, if that if you’re following a schedule and writing every week, that’ll happen less and less and less. But if you’re not writing very often, it feels so daunting, because the one time you’ve sat down and the whole month you can’t write you’re like, oh my god, I’m not feeling it, it becomes epic. But really, part of the writing journey is some days we sit in front of the computer, and some days we sit down, we’re like on fire. None of it’s writing blog. It’s all process. It’s all process.
Hmm. Yeah, I appreciate you calling me out. I know my experience with you. Yeah, we’re really moving on. Again, I’ve written these books before. So when he reached out to me actually, like, hey, you know, I think I think you’re further with this. Like, I’m like, so busy with everything else. So anyway, we don’t have to go too into my story. But I appreciate you saying there really is no writer’s block, and the importance of consistency. Because that’s like, so much on my plate, it was hard to to stay consistent with writing and writing and writing. But anyway, we’re mostly here to promote you and my students do it. But as listening to know, there’s an opportunity here to get published. Alright, so what types of books do you enjoy helping to get published? So if somebody’s sick and working with you, is there something that you’d love to say, Oh, I like a certain Yeah, certain type of book you love to work with?
That’s a really good question. I was when I was in the movie business. I did fiction. That’s all I did. So for 20 years, it was creating characters creating plot lines, scenes, I mean, it was intensive fiction writing. So when I got into book coaching and moved to the nonfiction narrative, I am so I’m such a student of it still, like, I’ve only been in nonfiction. I mean, I’m excellent at what I do with my clients, but I’m so fresh and curious about it that I love all nonfiction, right. So like, if you have a how to book that’s gonna solve something, and we can like create a hook with that and you’re gonna, like cover a pain point that we can 10x out in the world. I’m excited, right? If you have a self help book, and you’ve got a solution, like some of my clients, they’re solving like women keep secrets and they’ve got a system that’s going to get you to stop keeping secrets or another client that’s going to teach you how to like, get break away from some paradigm that’s been created by your family and live the life you want to live. It’s all very exciting to me. So there’s really it’s not a it’s not a Type A book. It’s a idea and concept that we can tease out of the person that can be like say, take your students, right, they might want to write memoirs. And they might think, Well, how is the memoir going to serve my business? Well, that memoir is going to touch a majority of the people that are going to come to them to get the healing that they’re going to give through their therapy. And might have a similar story, right? Or they might want to do a self help book where a portion of it is YOUR Story dabbled through, but a lot of it is exercises and tools. And I love being I love seeing authors, like realize how much they have to share and like what they know. And like the abundance of that. So there really aren’t any books or don’t do children’s books. I have people approached me about that I just, I’ve read a millions children’s books to my kids, I can tell you what is a great children’s book. But you know, for the duration of time that I work with a client, I wouldn’t know how to do a children’s book, particularly with someone. And I don’t work with illustrations and all that. So I tend to farm those out cookbooks, I don’t tend to do cookbooks, although I have I have a dream that someone’s gonna do like a memoir cookbook that I can be a part of, because I think that would be like, so cool. And I’m sure it’s been done. But I have not worked with anyone like that. I find foods, so healing. And so somebody stories with food. So, you know, it’s really like, in the nonfiction space, I’m really, really open. I don’t you know, like your book that you’re writing is so vividly evocative in terms of like, the exercises you’re doing and how you’re teaching a student to become a great practitioner, I’ve told you many times, I find it incredibly fascinating. I’ve done the money work that you’ve written about in the book. And I think that that’s of such high value around the world for people, because if we don’t believe in ourselves financially, and we don’t think we have worth than what are we really going to do? And so there really isn’t, there isn’t really any book that I don’t think is worthy of writing, or me being a part of if it’s got that passion behind it. I know it’s a very long answer. But yeah,
it’s a great answer, especially if somebody’s writing a children’s book or a cookbook, that’s not a memoir, probably don’t attend this upcoming workshop. kind words in my new revision of my book. It’s coming along. And yes, we’ll get it finished on reasonable timeframe for sure. Thank you and that, let’s talk more about what’s upcoming. So there’s the introduction to writing and publishing a book workshop on Thursday, February the 23rd 2023. Eastern time. What could anybody expect from attending that? And then what would happen after that if they want to keep working with you?
Absolutely, I believe we’ve designed that class to talk about, you know, the benefits of writing a book, for anybody that’s building a business, or feels like they want to do something cathartic in their life that could open themselves up to different directions, they hadn’t thought of books, tell us so much about ourselves. And go through some of the fundamentals of preparing yourself if you want to write a book, and then I’m going to touch a bit on the publishing industry, I want people to know what they’re looking at when they start to head into writing a book. One benefit my clients have of working with me as a coach and as a publishing consultant is that there are a lot of companies out there that want to charge you. So jaw dropping amounts of money 55,000 $60,000, just to put your book, in print, telling you that they have the magic pill to get your book in airports and Barnes and Noble, I’m going to tell you right now that you should not have to pay very much money at all, to publish your book. Either someone’s going to pick it up and be a partner with you. And you’re going to pay for a bunch of editing to go to the final finish line, you’re going to Self Publish and use a service provider that is very inexpensive, and you’re going to put a lot of your money into marketing. Or you’re going to go out and look for a traditional publisher or an agent. And with that you need a book proposal, which I help clients do. And so I want to talk a little bit about that. Because there’s a reason why my one year program is at the price point it’s at, I not only help you get your book, that’s nothing to that initial stage where you realize it is something and then I help you write for 3640 weeks Coaching, editing all that. But when you get to the end of it, you have that like, oh my god, like I’ve done this book now what do I do? I’m still there. So I’m still there to kind of explain Oh, don’t do that. No, no, no, wait, what? I’ve had clients send me proposals and and here’s the thing is a lot of these companies feed on the fear that an author doesn’t know. So they’re assuming an author’s off, gone off to a cabin, they’ve written a book completely on their own, which is what most people do. And then these companies, they call a couple of these companies, they see them on a Google ad. And they call them and these companies convince them, they need to pay like $5,000 for a book cover $4,500 for an Amazon, you know, best seller campaign, and I go through these lines on these invoices. And I’m like, you can do a nice cover for 1000. They should just be doing a best seller campaign. Don’t they want to? Doesn’t this company isn’t? Are they taking a percentage? What? Why are you paying for them to make sales? I don’t understand. And so I think that I help clients move away from some of those really big ticket. Lers.
Awesome. And during this introductory workshop, we shouldn’t be question answer time if there’s potential sellers who have questions about this type of theme. So that sounds great. So offering that at no charge for people just to show up and no charge from you pick your brain here how they can work with you or just get some questions answered. Awesome. So once again, that’s the introduction to writing and publishing a book Thursday, February 23 7pm. And how can Well, we said people can sign up for your inner circle column on your website, they’ll get a zoom link there, or in our newsletter, they’ll be finding out how to join this class. So they can go to Kim O’Hara dot com, but want to tell us more about how to reach out to you. How does anybody get in touch with you?
I mean, I am everywhere. I am on Kim O’Hara coach on Instagram, I’m on Kim O’Hara books on Instagram, I’m on Facebook. You know, like Matthew said, if you go to my website, the very bottom, you sign up for my column called inner circle, which comes out every week, there’ll be links to this class starting probably mid February posted there for you to have them. You know, this class, this, if you have any desire to write a book, even like a nudge, like like a holy nudge to write a book, you got to ask yourself, if you’re not willing to come spend an hour to sit and hear no charge, no charge, to sit and hear what it would be like to write a book, you have to ask yourself, Are you are you really committed to even doing this because you don’t want to be like half measures availed us nothing, right? You’re either in or you’re out. So if you’re in at least come with like an open heart and an open mind, to see what comes up for you, and I and I am a very interactive person. So an hour is almost not enough, because I’m going to want to chat with people and open the forum so that we can have conversations an hour is a small amount of time, but I you know, I do want to hear people from people that are on the fence.
We’re definitely an help to get the word out there. Because I think it’s so valuable for somebody as a graduate of mine, or going through our school and a hypnotherapist or there’s like you mentioned life coaches, like love getting their message out there. If there’s a book inside of you, and you want to in and out and yeah, Kim, you’re the only person I know that I feel like, so good to help to bring a person to fruition for such an endeavor. So yeah, thank you for your time with me here today. Any closing words for our listening guests?
I you know, I think you know, through you, I have learned about a world that I knew nothing, nothing about nothing. And I had these like, very surface level ideas about hypnosis. And I have just been opened up as someone who is attracted to self help personally, and it’s done a lot of different healing methods for myself, you know, somatic healing and other kind of stuff. What I read about what you do, and how quickly people can get help, I just feel like there’s barely even the surface has been scratched on the books that needed to talk about this for people that need to rise up out of there that you know that that like child inside of them that still traumatized and step up as adults so that we can go out and be of service service to the world.
Yeah, thank you for the talking about hypnotherapy and a plug in hypnotherapy. I’ve been on a few podcasts lately. and people are asking like, you know, I really don’t know about hypnotherapy. Why isn’t it more popular? And it’s a really long story. We won’t go into here. But yeah, yeah, I dedicate my whole life to it because of how powerful it is. And yeah, having written five books, it’s, it’s humbling to actually rewriting my book with you. But again, I will say to anybody who’s thinking of working with Kim, I think the term we came up with was snarky. Images, like wonderfully direct, she’ll call you out. I’m like, Nope, that’s not gonna work. This you need to do. And it’s been super helpful. So yeah, this hopefully isn’t going to let it inspire me to finish the project. You and I started together. And then definitely to invite anybody who’s listening to attend a workshop with Kim. She’s been wonderful in this process. And yeah, we have longer term plans together for you growing with us. So I’m sure this is just the beginning of some great collaborative work to get your your message out there. So thank you so much for joining me. And you ever had to reach out Kim O’Hara dot com. All right, great. Thanks.
Thank you. Bye