0:05

For me personally , I love

0:07

independent publishing just because you

0:10

know you have a lot more freedom , you have a lot

0:12

more creative control , you have a lot more opportunity

0:17

, all these things . But that's just

0:19

me . Some people go no way . Traditional

0:21

publishing is the only way , and that's fine too . There's

0:23

no right or wrong .

0:30

Hi friends , this is Read

0:32

and Write with Natasha podcast

0:34

. My name is Natasha

0:36

Tynes and I'm an author and

0:38

a journalist . In this channel I

0:40

talk about the writing life , review

0:43

books and interview authors . Hope

0:51

you enjoy the journey . Hi

0:58

everyone , and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha . Today

1:00

I have with me Hussain Al-Bayati , who is the author of the Art of Resilience , the

1:02

Refugee State of Mind . Hossain

1:05

is also the founder of the writing community

1:07

Rising Authors , and he's a marketing

1:09

expert for authors . So

1:12

, hossain , nice to meet you

1:14

and nice to see

1:17

you again , because we've been

1:19

connecting online for a while

1:21

and I'm a big fan of

1:23

your work and I'm so happy

1:26

that you accepted my invitation to come

1:28

to the podcast and I'm really

1:30

looking forward to learning from you today

1:32

. So welcome to the podcast

1:34

, hussain .

1:35

Yeah , thank you for having me , Natasha . It's been

1:37

a pleasure just getting to know you in the past few

1:39

months and being able to work

1:41

together and learn from each other . It's

1:43

a privilege of mine to come on your show .

1:45

Thank you , appreciate it All right . So

1:48

, hussein , I think the first thing

1:50

I want to ask you about is

1:52

your writing community

1:54

, which is the Rising Authors , which

1:56

I'm a member of , and

2:00

if you can tell the viewers

2:02

or the listeners about building community

2:04

and the importance of building community

2:07

. So , just if you can

2:09

tell me about your community and why do

2:11

we need to be part of a community or why

2:13

do we need to build

2:15

our own community ?

2:16

Yeah , I think you know I'm a believer

2:18

personally . I just I love people

2:21

. I think no matter what business you're in

2:23

, no matter what , whatever it is you're

2:25

doing , it's a people game . So

2:27

a lot of people think , oh , you're in the publishing industry . I say no

2:29

, you're in the people industry . If

2:32

you are in the selling car industry , you're

2:34

in the people community . Like everything

2:36

is really comes down to people and how

2:38

we interact with one another , and hasn't changed

2:40

for since the beginning of time . Whether you call

2:42

it tribes and hasn't changed since the beginning of time , whether

2:44

you call it tribes , community neighborhoods , yelp

2:48

, facebook , myspace

2:50

, linkedin , whatever you call it , it's

2:52

really about gathering people with familiar

2:55

state of minds . And

2:58

so I used to think about building community . But

3:01

I think now it's more like really it

3:03

. It's like how can you lead

3:05

a community ? How can you ? I

3:07

mean because the community exists right , like it's not

3:09

like I'm building writers . There's

3:11

already writers , there's already authors and

3:14

there's already experts and there's already designers

3:16

and there's already this industry of publishing

3:18

already exists . So

3:21

then I say , like what can I contribute

3:24

to this already existing

3:26

community ? And then I

3:28

would invite them to this space

3:31

If I were to think about my rising author

3:33

community as a party . It's an

3:35

invite to this party that you

3:38

can meet and mingle and figure

3:41

out new ways to dance and all these kinds of things

3:43

right . So I look at it as like , what

3:45

can I offer people that

3:47

are like-minded in this space

3:49

and that would make me different

3:51

, and then I would have the ability

3:53

to be able to connect people

3:56

right ? So a lot of people think you need to lead the

3:58

community . I said no , be a connector in your

4:00

community , and so what that means for

4:02

me , you know I learned a lot

4:04

of these things from my father and the

4:07

way we grew up , you know , as

4:09

Muslim Arabs in America . Whatever

4:12

you know , it could be just Arabs , not necessarily Muslims

4:14

, right , but we're very community

4:16

oriented in general , like we love our

4:19

gatherings , we love our , you know , eids

4:21

and the Ramadan , you know all of these things and I just

4:24

I love that about my culture and I I

4:26

feel like that was kind of missing when I grew up

4:28

in America . Was that like anything was

4:30

? It was always sport related or bar

4:32

related or something like that , and

4:34

I just , you know , for me personally , when

4:37

I started Rising Authors , it was

4:39

actually after I got laid off and

4:41

I knew there was just this missing element

4:43

of it felt like

4:45

there was competition between a bunch of

4:47

different , you know , people in the industry

4:49

, and then all these people who needed help

4:51

, who didn't care about the competition . So

4:54

I figured , look , if you don't care about the competition and want to

4:56

collaborate , and then make room

4:58

for each other to work together because

5:00

there's something I'm good at that someone else is not good at , and then vice

5:02

versa , because there's something I'm good at that someone else is not good at , and then vice

5:04

versa . So I said , you know what ? Let's put

5:06

everyone together . So this

5:08

community has authors , business

5:15

authors and nonfiction authors and some fiction authors as well , and then experts who

5:17

can help those authors , so designers , whatever you know . So it's kind of like a , if you will

5:19

, a miniature version of

5:21

Upwork , but just for

5:23

authors , right , it's more specified

5:26

, and so people can go on there , and I'm sure

5:28

you've seen this too . On the community , we

5:30

can share about our books . We can share things

5:33

that do work and don't work . We can share

5:35

that we need help with something specific , and

5:37

when we share those things , then other people

5:40

in that community don't like oh , I know exactly what

5:42

you're struggling with . Here's how I did it right

5:49

, or here's how I can help you , and this is how much I charge . And everybody in that community

5:51

is obviously taking their craft very serious , right ? They're obviously

5:53

experts in their own field , and

5:55

so it's not like you have to go around the

5:57

internet to go look for someone that

6:00

has you know that is validated . You come

6:02

to this community and you get the support

6:04

and build the trust , and

6:06

then you can ask that person for help . You can ask

6:08

that person for work or whatever it may be . So

6:11

that's really what I wanted to build a community

6:13

for , and , of course , I get the benefit out

6:15

of it , right ? I get the benefit of being able to connect

6:17

people , which is what I love . I love being a

6:19

connector , facilitator , and then , if work

6:21

comes my way for marketing or anything like that

6:23

, fantastic . But I build trust

6:26

first and I give first and then I

6:28

try to reap the benefits later .

6:30

You know , whatever they are , so

6:32

what are the themes that they mostly discuss

6:34

in your community ?

6:36

Yeah , we discuss all kinds of things . You know everything

6:38

from editing a book to marketing

6:40

a book or marketing an author , or

6:44

you know how to structure your

6:46

book layouts , all these kinds of things

6:48

. We've invited guests that have talked about

6:50

a variety of different things . There's guests

6:52

who help ghostwriters and editors

6:54

. There's guests who help authors with specific

6:57

things . So it really ranges , which

6:59

is kind of cool because there's not one

7:01

space that I felt that I found on

7:04

the internet . There are communities on LinkedIn

7:06

, but it's predominantly just writing and

7:09

it's just people promoting their service or

7:11

product , but here is really more

7:13

like collaborative and informative

7:16

and creating resources . So

7:18

there's a whole resource area where , oh

7:20

, you know , I use this email template . You guys should use

7:22

it too , I use . You know what I'm saying . So it's like

7:24

sometimes it's about you know

7:26

, talking about LinkedIn and how to optimize your

7:28

, your LinkedIn profile . Sometimes

7:30

it's about how to post on LinkedIn

7:33

and how you know , for authors who don't have

7:36

they don't have time to go , look for this

7:38

kind of stuff everywhere . They want to

7:40

come to one place and learn from experts

7:42

. And you

7:44

know again , whether we invite experts , whether we have

7:47

podcast episodes , whether we have

7:49

whatever . You know , this is something that

7:51

I want to really start encouraging authors

7:53

and experts like yourself , like there's a lot of

7:55

people who have a podcast show and

7:59

I'm like post it to the community . Let us all learn from this opportunity

8:01

, right , it's for everyone

8:04

, it's not just for me , it's not just for me , it's not just for

8:06

experts , it's not just for authors . But

8:08

if we can kind of pool our resources , we

8:10

can all learn from each other and you will

8:12

stand out as an expert . So when

8:14

something does come up , I can contact

8:17

you . I can easily contact you , connect with

8:19

you and reach out to you . That's my whole . Thing

8:21

is like people will go where the money is and

8:24

I always tell people like you know , if you are

8:26

, you know , sharing your expertise

8:28

, there's trust , and trust

8:30

can lead to an opportunity

8:32

where you can earn so much .

8:34

So how many members do you have in this community

8:36

?

8:37

We have roughly like 250 .

8:39

Wow , that's , I mean , that's a lot . And

8:42

how did you get these

8:44

members ? It's really not easy

8:46

to you know , make people commit

8:49

to an online community , especially when there's

8:51

a lot of other distractions . How

8:53

you know , how did you convince

8:55

them ? I guess ?

8:57

Yeah , I'll be honest with you . There's about half of

8:59

them are authors of . The other half are experts

9:01

, the other the other thing

9:03

is how do you convince them ? I didn't need to convince

9:05

them , right ? So I had said like when I

9:07

, when the whole situation with my

9:09

old job dissolved

9:12

, I was already sort of known doing a lot

9:14

of podcasts with a lot of different authors

9:17

in the expert community . Now a lot of

9:19

them lost their jobs and I said you know what , let's

9:21

come together . I just sent an invite and

9:23

I said , if you know someone that wants to join

9:25

this community who needs help and support , send

9:27

them the invite . And it was free , and

9:30

it still is , and and really I just I

9:32

started a Patreon . I said , hey , if you're in the community

9:34

and you want to support the podcast , you want to support

9:37

the community , you can sign up to the Patreon

9:39

, but you don't have to . Um , and that's kind

9:41

of what made it attractive was that like I

9:43

wasn't after people's money , I was more really just like

9:46

here's a place to connect and if there's money exchange

9:48

, great . But I don't . You know , it's not

9:50

the purpose of this . The purpose of this is to

9:52

get the information you need to publish your

9:54

book or edit your book or whatever . It is

9:56

Right . So why is it ? Why

9:58

was it so attractive ? It

10:01

was attractive because at the time and

10:03

still today , really there isn't anything like it

10:05

. Right Is that most

10:07

organizations , companies

10:09

, most in

10:11

the hybrid publishing companies , things like

10:13

that they kind of

10:15

put a barrier between the author and

10:17

their work and their expertise so

10:19

that , like , they can charge whatever they

10:22

can say . Right , there's all these reasons

10:24

, right , but for me I remove the veil and

10:26

to some people that's very attractive because that

10:28

creates transparency . Right , I

10:30

can choose who I want to work with . I can choose

10:33

the designer , the publisher , whatever it is

10:35

, and choose it for me . And so for some

10:37

people that's attractive and for some people it's

10:39

not , and that's fine . And there's still people that

10:41

need some handholding and there's still people that want

10:43

to do everything on their own . So

10:45

it's just another option if

10:47

you will . And

10:52

so you know how is it attractive ? I think it's attractive because it gets passed on , if

10:54

people find value in it , which people have . But , like

10:56

the idea of it is , if this

10:58

is valuable enough for you and

11:01

it's basically costing you nothing , and

11:03

if you want to support , great then

11:06

, and I'm getting enough value that

11:08

I think it's valuable enough to share with a friend

11:10

. That's how it spreads . So

11:13

when we first built the community , like

11:15

overnight , over a hundred people joined and

11:17

then since then , which has been about a year this

11:19

is very difficult for about a year

11:21

We've been we built the next 150

11:24

. And I think in the next year , two years

11:26

, three years , it's probably going to grow to , let's

11:28

say , it'll just compound . You know , that's the hope

11:30

, right , because more people will come back

11:32

and write more books and want to be introduced to more

11:34

people and so on . So you

11:36

know , I think it's also longevity . I

11:38

don't I'm not going anywhere , I'm building

11:40

this community . I'm offering something

11:43

of value to a community . I don't want to say

11:45

I'm building a community and if it's valuable

11:47

enough , people will show up and

11:49

I'm not going to stress about it .

11:50

Valuable enough people will show up , and I'm not going to stress

11:53

about it , you know . So

12:01

, in addition to the forums where people can discuss issues , I also saw that you provide

12:03

weekly calls correct With experts . If you could

12:05

also give us an idea of how

12:08

do you find these experts ? How do you

12:10

organize this ?

12:12

organize this yeah , they're all in

12:14

the community , right ? Um , they're

12:16

already there , it's . I don't have to go go

12:18

too far outside of what's already

12:20

in my realm . I find me somebody interesting

12:23

if I say , hey , man , I think you would make an

12:25

awesome , you know , interview for

12:27

my podcast , or I think you would make a great if

12:29

. Do you have a class ? Do you have a deck ? Do you have a thing

12:31

you want to teach ? Come

12:33

to the weekly call and honestly , in the

12:35

last few months there hasn't been too many

12:37

of that . But , like I've been doing what I call Q

12:39

and A calls , or master , micro masterclasses

12:42

, right , and they're all recorded . A

12:44

lot of people can't show up , but a lot of people watch

12:46

the watch the recordings right

12:49

as support . So they just

12:51

like to have a community where they can share . We

12:54

all sometimes don't want

12:56

to help all the time , but we want

12:58

it when it's the right time for us and

13:01

I go to I don't know about

13:04

you I always like to call my friend

13:06

or something and say , hey , who's a plumber

13:08

you have , I'm struggling with something

13:10

, or who's an electrician you have , because

13:13

we want to base it on trust and

13:15

if they did something good for someone else , they might

13:17

do something good for us based

13:19

on that person . So that's

13:22

how I view the community . It's like

13:25

, hey , I need help publishing

13:27

and getting my stuff on Amazon . I say , well , there's

13:30

four people . They say who do you recommend

13:32

? Well , I recommend this person and this person

13:34

, but go see who's busy , go

13:36

see who's not busy and maybe they

13:38

can help you out .

13:39

Well , okay , so

13:42

you're also a marketing expert

13:44

for authors . What does that mean

13:46

? How do you help authors

13:48

and what kind of services

13:50

do you provide for them ?

13:52

Yeah , I think what I do is very simple . I

13:54

tell people marketing is not social

13:56

media , marketing is not your website

13:58

, marketing is not advertising

14:01

. It's none of those things . Actually

14:04

, all marketing is is clear communication

14:06

.

14:06

Okay .

14:07

And consistently putting it out into the world . So putting

14:09

it out into the world can come in various different ways . Right , okay , and consistently

14:11

putting it out into the world . So putting it out into the world can come in various different ways

14:13

right Okay . But if you're not clear about what you want

14:16

and who it's for , you don't have

14:18

a marketing plan period and

14:21

most authors want to

14:23

do one thing I want

14:25

to share my book with the world . That's

14:28

not clear . That's not

14:30

true . Old

14:34

that's not clear . That's not true . What they're actually saying

14:36

is I want to sell as many books as I can so that I can earn passive income

14:38

in my sleep .

14:39

Okay .

14:40

Right , that's what they're actually saying . So to

14:43

me , I think it's all bogus with this idea

14:45

of , like , I want to help as many people as I can

14:47

. That's great . I know you want to

14:49

help people , right , but you can help

14:51

people in a variety of different ways . Getting

14:54

people to read a book and expecting

14:56

them to change is a high

14:58

standard , right

15:00

, and it's a high expectation . In

15:02

fact , it's a lot of pressure on

15:04

a book . However , most

15:07

books that you and I have read have been given

15:09

to us or have been suggested to

15:12

us , or we took it out of a book

15:14

that we're currently reading . Yeah , and

15:17

it's based on reputation and

15:21

based on you know . That's why , like all these number one bestsellers

15:23

, all the games , all the games are rigged , right

15:25

, so all the number one bestseller lists , all the different things

15:27

, they're all technically rigged . So what

15:29

that means is you can buy them , okay . So

15:31

if that's the case , it doesn't matter

15:34

if it's a good book or bad . It's only good . If

15:36

I'm reading a book because somebody else told

15:38

me it's good , that

15:44

means I trust their word , yeah , so then it becomes about who's trustworthy word am I trusting

15:46

? So I take a step back and I say , well , what are you actually

15:48

trying to get out of your book ? Like , really , be

15:50

honest , I'm very brutal , like

15:53

brutally honest , because I don't want to work with someone

15:55

that says I want to sell a million books and I'm like it's

15:57

not going to happen . I'm sorry If you , especially

15:59

if you don't have a huge following , it's just not going

16:02

to happen , right , unless you have , you know , a

16:04

million dollars to put into the marketing

16:06

, which is like getting it in front

16:08

of people . Right and clearly

16:10

, community , like that's why people want big

16:12

publishing deals , which don't really happen anymore

16:15

. Yeah , because that's what the publishing

16:17

industry used to have . They used to be the gatekeepers

16:20

, right , and then they will tell you

16:22

what book to read and then disseminate

16:24

that right . So , like , really , only 20% , maybe

16:26

15% , of America reads

16:28

on a regular basis . Yeah , so

16:33

all of us authors , everybody is like betting on this 20% to read

16:35

our book , right , yeah

16:37

, what we should actually be , um

16:40

, what we should actually be doing , is

16:42

trying to get the 80% to

16:44

read , um , so that's

16:46

, you know , I feel like that's kind of a problem we have . Right

16:48

Is right , it's figuring out exactly what

16:50

an author wants to do , and

16:53

in my case , it's like , if you want consulting

16:55

, coaching , speaking opportunities

16:58

, then we have to figure out ways

17:00

to market you and clearly

17:02

articulate that through

17:04

these different things , such as

17:06

a website , such as LinkedIn profile

17:09

, whatever it is . But if you don't

17:11

have that first thing locked , which

17:13

is alignment with what you want , then

17:15

we can't go forward .

17:17

So you're saying that authors

17:19

are not being honest on what

17:21

they want from their books . They

17:24

think they're not being honest , that their

17:26

main goal is passive income and they're

17:29

not saying it because they're

17:31

afraid of judgment .

17:32

Yes , 100% Right . Why ? Because

17:34

I was , I'm an author . What do

17:36

I want ? I want to sell more books , of course , right

17:39

. But when I got real with myself , I said you

17:41

know , if this book can bring me more speaking

17:43

opportunities , right Cause my speaking

17:46

is between seven to $10,000

17:48

for an opportunity seven to $10,000 for an opportunity Okay

17:50

, then I'll bring you free books . Then

17:53

it became about my book is a

17:55

gift . I'm going to share it

17:57

with who wants to read

17:59

it , who

18:05

I think can read it and who I think can bring me an opportunity . So I started thinking

18:07

about my book to market me , not me marketing my book , right

18:10

, and that's that twist

18:12

. That's the twist . And because I got clear

18:14

about what I want and I got real

18:16

about what I want , then I said

18:18

, okay , the best way to spread

18:20

that , because at a speaking event there's 150

18:23

, 200 people , yeah , I'll give you

18:25

my $5 book . Those 200

18:27

people , only 20% of them are actually going to

18:29

read the book . I know that , right

18:31

. And then they're going to spread it . I can't

18:33

tell you how many people reach out to me email

18:35

, whatever and they say , oh my God , random

18:37

people . Oh my God , I just read your book , I got it from

18:39

so-and-so . It's helped me so

18:42

much through this thing or whatever , right

18:44

, and that's great . And it was given

18:46

to them for free , that's fine . The

18:48

ultimately , what I want is five

18:50

speaking engagements a year , right

18:58

, like I'm very clear about what I want from it and to help me with my credibility to work with authors

19:00

. Okay , right , because I know how to get the speaking engagements . I've

19:02

rejected speaking engagements , so if I'm

19:04

able to do that , then I can teach someone

19:06

else , right .

19:07

So , since you're like a book

19:09

expert and a book marketing

19:12

expert expert and you've been in the publishing

19:14

field

19:17

or the book marketing field for a while

19:19

, what are

19:21

the trends now when

19:23

it comes to book publishing

19:26

versus because you mentioned the big

19:28

publishers versus the small publishers

19:30

, versus the self-publishing ? Where

19:32

are we headed when

19:34

it comes to publishing and selling books

19:37

?

19:37

Yeah , the number one thing I would say is , if

19:39

you have an audience as you

19:41

grow an audience , and an audience is

19:44

built around something

19:46

they want , so like , for example

19:48

, there's a lot of people interested

19:50

in many different topics , in

19:52

many different genres . Right , look

19:55

at Orion Holiday , for example . He just chose stoicism

19:57

and he writes and preaches and all he talks

20:00

about is stoicism . Right . The

20:02

same thing can do about Islam , buddhism

20:04

, whatever . You can literally do the same thing about any kind of genre . Right , the same thing can do about Islam , buddhism , whatever . You can literally do the same thing about any

20:06

kind of genre . Right . But

20:09

if you do enough content

20:11

, right , which content ? You're putting out

20:14

this content about this topic

20:16

, and it just so happens to be

20:18

that you write about this , that you have a sub

20:20

stack about it , that your LinkedIn profile

20:22

is all about it and it's really what people are

20:24

interested in , and you will garner

20:26

an audience as you grow an audience . The

20:29

publishing industry the old traditional will

20:31

take notice . So if I have millions of people

20:33

following me on YouTube , I promise

20:36

you the traditional publishers will come

20:38

to me and say , hey , do you want to publish a book

20:40

with us or a series of books with us

20:42

. We'll give you this kind of money , we'll

20:44

do this for you , we'll do that for you and you'll write a

20:46

book Great . What they're betting

20:48

on actually is not me . They're betting on

20:50

my audience . That will pay for it . Right

20:53

, so they have already pre-existent

20:55

buyers . So traditional publishing

20:58

is really all about book sales . Like

21:01

, even the spine of a book used

21:03

to be bigger . Right , the spine of a

21:05

book used to be bigger and books used to be

21:07

filled with fluff . This is because

21:09

it was how it looks on

21:11

a shelf and does it stand out on

21:13

a shelf , right ? So , like that

21:15

was part of marketing . Today , the

21:18

face of the book matters more . Right , because

21:20

where do we see books Online ?

21:22

Online .

21:22

yeah , we see them from people is where

21:25

do we see books Online ? Online , yeah , we see them

21:27

from people . It's very , I would

21:29

say , granular

21:34

, community-based , niche-based , right , and the best books do really well , based on if the book

21:36

is good , if it's really good , it will get passed on . But then it's backed

21:39

up by content , supportive content

21:41

and everything like that . It's one

21:43

piece of media . It's not all of

21:45

media , right . Today

21:47

, video is king . It used

21:50

to be that books are king , because that's how

21:52

we digested information . Today

21:54

, we don't digest information just through books

21:56

. We digest it through TikTok

21:58

, instagram , youtube

22:00

, linkedin . Right , we

22:03

get bite-sized content . That

22:05

will lead me to the bigger piece

22:07

of content , which is your book , your

22:09

website , your blog , your sub

22:12

stack . Right , so I tell people

22:14

all the time , before

22:16

you do any of that what do you want

22:18

? That's the key , right

22:20

? So now it's like okay

22:23

, I want to sell a million books . That's fantastic

22:26

, that's a good goal , that's not like bad or anything

22:28

, right , great , you're going to have to build a

22:30

huge community . You're going to have to gather

22:32

these people and get them interested in this topic

22:34

, and so people like James Clear

22:37

, whatever , they do it through newsletters

22:39

, they do it through blogs , they do

22:41

it through different YouTube videos . Like

22:43

, ali Abdaal built a whole

22:45

YouTube channel right , and

22:47

then he was offered a big deal to write

22:49

a book right . Why

22:51

? Because they knew people were going to buy it , right

22:54

.

22:55

I bought it Exactly . I

22:57

bought it .

22:59

Exactly . But what did it tell you ? Oh

23:01

, it says every like all

23:03

these . They're not necessarily writers

23:06

, right ? They're like they are communicating

23:08

an idea . It's just so that

23:10

writing is the way to get

23:12

it there . So he was communicating an idea through

23:14

video , gained enough popularity

23:17

. Now he's communicating the same idea through

23:19

a book , and then he does the same idea

23:21

through his courses . It's

23:23

the same thing , it's the same formula , but

23:25

it just kind of depends on where you start . James

23:28

Clear did it through a blog , the

23:32

other I forget his name now

23:34

. Anyways , you see , what I'm trying to say Is that , like

23:36

, it's basically the same formula . It's just where

23:38

you want to start in the formula , but you're going to have to

23:40

fill out the rest of the formula before

23:42

you get that big deal traditionally . Or you

23:45

can go and write a book , publish

23:47

a book , like I did , without any community

23:49

, and then sort of build a community from there

23:51

, around this idea of resilience , around

23:54

this idea of how to take

23:56

something from nothing and build it into something

23:58

.

23:59

Okay , so where

24:02

do you stand in terms of self-publishing

24:05

versus traditional publishing ?

24:07

You know , I think I personally

24:09

I don't think either of them matter

24:11

. I think if you can get a traditional publishing

24:13

deal and it works for you , great . But

24:16

you're probably not . Like you know , it's great and it works

24:18

for you , that's awesome . If you want to do

24:20

hybrid publishing

24:23

or just independent publishing and that's what

24:25

works for you , great . But it

24:27

just comes back to your goals , like what

24:29

do you want to do ? You know ultimately

24:32

what it is that you're going to take

24:34

to build XYZ

24:37

community that can sustain

24:40

what you want ultimately . And

24:42

so you know , some people just want to write a book

24:44

and get their story out and they don't care if 10

24:46

people read it , right ? Some people

24:48

do it for ego , some people do it for money

24:51

, some people do it for opportunities

24:53

. Everybody has different values and

24:55

different things that they want to do , and they're all fine . You

24:58

know , for me personally , I love

25:00

independent publishing just because you

25:03

know you have a lot more freedom , you have a lot

25:05

more creative control , you have a lot more opportunity

25:10

, all these things . But that's just

25:12

me . Some people go no way . Traditional

25:14

publishing is the only way , and that's fine too . There's

25:16

no right or wrong , there's really . It's

25:18

all about what you want For me . I wanted to own

25:20

my story . I don't want to give

25:23

any of the piece of the pie . You can

25:25

call me selfish , you can call me whatever , but

25:27

in 10 years , if I do a good job

25:29

of promoting myself and marketing

25:32

myself and becoming an expert

25:34

and all these things , that book will sell

25:36

more and people will come back

25:38

to it . Because look at the alchemist , look

25:41

at all your favorite books were written 10 , 15

25:43

, 20 , if not 500 years ago . Right

25:45

, and those books are still doing really

25:48

well . Why ? Why ? Because

25:50

classic things are actually built on

25:52

the backs of authors . Right

25:55

, we read Ryan Holiday , because we

25:57

see Ryan Holiday everywhere and

25:59

I want a piece of his knowledge and I want to associate

26:01

with his knowledge . Therefore , I read his books

26:04

and consume his content

26:06

, but content , that's all it is . A book

26:08

is a piece of content . Your videos are a piece

26:10

of content , all that . So , where I

26:12

stand is , honestly , it doesn't matter where

26:14

I stand . I stand on what

26:16

makes sense for you and for me , it makes sense

26:18

to do something independently , uh

26:21

, and build it around what I want . However

26:25

, you know , if , if a , uh , if a publisher

26:27

came to me with a great deal in the future . It's

26:30

not like I would refuse that . I would never say never , right

26:32

. So that's the thing . It's like

26:34

I'm open to both , but I'm also

26:37

very reliant on myself and know

26:39

that I'm an author marketer

26:41

, not a book marketer .

26:43

Okay , all right . So now

26:46

we talked about the community

26:48

, we talked about the

26:50

marketing . There is one

26:53

platform that authors

26:56

have to be on , and they only have

26:58

the capacity to be on one platform

27:00

. Where do you think they should be

27:03

?

27:03

Yeah , that's a good question If

27:05

there was one platform . I mean , again , it

27:07

depends on what kind of author are you . For

27:10

me , specifically , I work with business authors

27:12

. Business authors means you

27:14

know they're building a personal brand around coaching

27:17

, consulting , speaking , some

27:19

sort of business that they have , and a book

27:21

can help them attract those

27:23

opportunities . The

27:26

number one place I would start is LinkedIn . The

27:28

second place is YouTube , if anything

27:30

. If you like more video than writing

27:33

, then I would switch them , put them on YouTube

27:35

and then put them on LinkedIn , and

27:37

the reason for that is simple you

27:40

just reach more people . You

27:42

reach more B2B business

27:45

to business people . I

27:47

would absolutely delete and get

27:50

rid of Facebook , instagram , everything off

27:52

of my phone , because none of

27:54

those things unless

27:56

you're actually building a legit brand on them

27:58

great , but you're

28:00

not going to get $100,000 consulting

28:02

opportunity from Instagram . I mean , maybe

28:05

you could there's a few people that have and

28:07

have done that but that's

28:09

if you have a huge . You have to have an enormous

28:11

following for that to be trustworthy

28:14

Because , like I said , every game is

28:16

rigged . Everybody could buy subscribers

28:19

, followers , whatever . But

28:21

where you can shine and

28:23

be different on LinkedIn is that

28:25

this is a place not very many people

28:28

go to because it's still a very

28:30

professional network . Right

28:32

, it's still very like the

28:34

BS will not fly there . Right , you

28:36

will get unfollowed , you get whatever , especially if it doesn't

28:38

matter . So yeah sharing

28:40

your expertise , because a lot of these people are

28:42

experts with people and

28:45

attracting people and connecting with people and engaging

28:47

with people on LinkedIn is very powerful . And

28:49

then YouTube is video kingdom

28:51

, right . It's like if you can

28:53

do videos , you can do podcasts , you can do

28:56

shows , you can do that kind of stuff , then

28:58

it will resonate with somebody . So

29:01

those are the two areas that I would put people

29:03

in . But yeah , I would say , because

29:05

it's worked for me , that's what

29:07

I would share . Is that LinkedIn ? So I'm not going to BS

29:09

you , I'm on LinkedIn every day . I

29:12

get business from LinkedIn every day , so

29:14

I teach that and

29:16

yeah , I don't care .

29:19

I found you on LinkedIn there you go ?

29:21

You found me on LinkedIn .

29:22

Our connection , yeah , yeah , yeah

29:24

yeah , this has been

29:26

great Hussein . So how

29:29

can people connect with you ? Where can they find

29:31

you ? How can they reach you ? How can they buy

29:34

your book , which is about resilience

29:37

? We didn't have enough time to discuss

29:39

it , but how

29:42

can they reach you ?

29:44

LinkedIn Okay Hussein Al reach you LinkedIn . Okay

29:46

Hussein Al-Bayati on LinkedIn

29:49

. They can reach me there . Or they can reach

29:51

me through my website , which is rising-authorscom

29:55

. You can reach out to me if

29:58

you need like an assessment for your online presence

30:00

. I'm happy to do one , anything

30:02

like that . Or if you just have questions or whatever

30:05

, you can reach out to me via email .

30:07

I'm happy to do one Anything like that , or if you just have questions

30:09

or whatever , you can reach out to me via email . I'm happy

30:11

to connect . Sounds great . Thank you very much for joining me today . As

30:13

always , I always learn a lot from you and

30:16

this was very inspiring and

30:20

an interview filled

30:22

with very useful information . So

30:24

thank you again and , for

30:26

anyone who's listening or

30:28

watching , thank you for joining us for

30:30

another episode of Read

30:33

and Write with Natasha , and until

30:35

we meet again .

30:37

Thank you , Natasha .

30:41

Thank you for tuning in to Read

30:43

and Write with Natasha . I'm

30:48

your host , natasha Tynes . If today's episode inspired you in

30:50

any way , please take

30:52

the time to review the podcast

30:55

. Remember to subscribe and

30:57

share this podcast with fellow

30:59

book lovers . Until next

31:02

time . Happy reading , happy

31:05

writing .