John Rhodes Shares His Secrets to Publishing Over 200 Books

Full video transcript

Hey guys, how’s it going? Thank you so much for taking the time to connect with us here. I was just taking a look at some of the other books you’ve written. You’ve written quite a few, I guess. Is the same-day author system what you use for all of the different books?

No, no. The reality is that I’m much more of an entrepreneur than I am an author. Now, that being said, I’ve published at this point over 140 books.

So prolific. Now, what that means is that I have not personally written 140 books. I’ve used three or four different techniques. I’ve done everything from writing books from scratch, like most authors sitting at the keyboard and typing, I’ve had people edit for me, I’ve had people write for me. To make that work, I’ve had people do designs for me for the books, for the book content, so that gives you a flavor there. I’ve dictated books, we’ll talk about this if you’d like, but I’ve done nothing but speak the book.

So you understand, wait a minute, so this guy writes books, he speaks books, he uses spreadsheets, I use mind maps, I outsource, I’m like a machine that creates machines. The real deal is, hey look, you can use one, or all 50 or 100 of the lessons that you find in the book, and get your head in the right place so that you can literally create a book in one day. Reimagine what that means for your highest value, what your best days, what makes sense for you, what resources you have available, how much you want to invest in terms of dollars versus time. If you want to do these things, then you indeed can create a book in 24 hours or less.

Another thing that I’ve done is I’ve licensed the rights, right, so I publish the book, it’s under my name or it’s under pseudonyms, and I do that for a variety of reasons, that pseudonym lines up with what people think they would expect to see, a barbecue recipe book from Bubba Smith, not John Rhodes. In any event, that’s a lot of stuff that we could unpack any piece or part of. That gives you a flavor for how an entrepreneur thinks about providing value to the market, how I approach my book creation, how I make more money as an author than most authors do in most cases, but there’s a lot we can unpack there.

One thing that stuck out was your reason why for these books, that you mentioned when we’re going out writing any storm of these books, do you have criteria or qualifiers for getting this, like how do you define whether it’s even worth your time to write it?

My thinking depends on what part of my business we’re talking about. Some of it’s just, I’ll call it like a legacy or feel-good thing, or something that I want to do just because I’m scratching an itch or I want to maybe tweak and test and tune something up. So I’ve written, and I’ve actually written three or four children’s books where I wrote them out, and in one case I wrote the book specifically so I could show my children what it is I do and how I do it. I did that for the sake of how do I explain things to my kids, and just something that they would have 10, 20, 30 years from now, like oh my dad, he wrote a book that I did.

That work was for their sake, but I also did it to prove out some designers, to test some cartoonists. I wanted to use them for other purposes, I did it as a test, like hey, can you draw this, line drawing sketches, how could I drive the price down, could I get someone from Fiverr, how do I outsource this, do I use these other resources to get these things done? So it gave me a playground, it gave me a space to operate where I was free to do what I wanted to, but at the same time I’m also testing the resources that matter to me for the other books that I’m going to really monetize. It was never meant to sell very well, and it was never meant to be a bestseller in any way, because there are some books that I’ve literally just written for the sake of taking over a particular niche or market.

Why would I really go down some rabbit hole and target some small little market or niche? Well, I do that because then I can teach and train other people how to do the same thing. If I can do it, now this is another book, if I can do it in this weird little tiny niche, in this little market, if I can write a book and do it fast and do it well and do it smart and I’ve got all the pieces and parts, then what I’m able to do is, for the sake of showing that I can do what I say, I do books. Books are information products. Books are information products, they are informative, they are products, they are information products, and I say that again and again to people and they say oh, I get it, I see a light bulb in your head, I get it Darby, it’s like yes, yes, I get it. So you and I get it, you and I get it Zechariah, it’s the same thing, it’s like we get it. But the average author, the normal author, they don’t get that, they don’t think of it that way. It’s like their hopes and their dreams, if they’re writing fiction, or their creativity letting that loose, okay fine, this is great, but as soon as you start to look at your book as more than a work of art, and you think about it as an information product, boom, everything changes.

The other reason is, now that I have this information product, I have people ask me all the time, you guys probably wonder this as well, it’s like, god this guy’s got so much energy, he’s already spelled out like 30 secrets, what’s going on, how does he do this? A big part of what I do and how I do it is because literally of my morning routine. I’m jacked up, I’m ready to go, I’m organized, I’ve got my calendar set, I know what needs to get done, what’s worth value, what produces, who I need to, it’s all been pre-programmed.

Something that’s great John, that I know you talked about as well, kind of going into the meat of the challenge people actually face to write the book, was how you use dictation and talking through the book. How do you speak an entire book, are there ways that you go about it that actually structure it, like using Google Voice, we’re playing with some AI stuff, what’s kind of your process when it comes to that?

I personally am a fan of some kind of outline. Now when I say outline, this is where things get very interesting to me. So you have the outline in a sort of a table of contents sense, and here it doesn’t matter in my opinion whether we’re talking about a fiction or a non-fiction book, it doesn’t really matter, but having that outline, having that structure in sort of a table of contents format, is useful. It’s as if you’re going through a PowerPoint presentation. And if you think about the audience the right way, you take that avatar and you are speaking to the avatar. Now this is especially powerful if you’re a non-fiction writer, because you’re producing for the sake of the other person understanding. You can even kind of think about it as a dialogue that you would have with that avatar.

I’ve gone as far a few times, literally, where I will take a picture of my avatar, it’ll be like some old white guy with a beard, some young pretty girl, whatever, I’ll take that as an avatar and I will have my bullet points available, very much like a table of contents, and I’ll go through and I will almost lecture, I’ll teach. In other cases I’ll think about a business environment and I’ll think about myself, and I’ll even dress up, I know that’s crazy but I’ll do it, I will literally put a shirt and tie on so I am in the right frame of mind, and then I’m speaking to the outline just like I would if I was professionally presenting up on stage or in a room one-to-one. So that’s with the table of contents approach.

Now, I’ve also done things, I mentioned the spreadsheet because I think that’s such a weird crazy example, I’ve also done that as well, and I’m not saying like cell C7, I’m not saying that, but I can kind of walk down through almost like a table of contents and sort of structurally walk through things. So here are two other techniques that are very powerful that I’ve used in the past, similar. One is post-it notes, I’ll take the central idea or the concept and I’ll literally just keep post-it noting until I have some space that’s full, and then I’ll start rearranging. In some cases I will actually discuss out loud, I’ve done this a few times, it’s very interesting, I’ll talk about moving these things around, and the reason I’m doing that is because I’m talking to the content, but I’m also talking to the structure of the content, because the structure isn’t there yet. But post-it notes are unstructured to begin with, because I’ll have my 8, 10, 15, 20 post-it notes and I will go, oh that’s the one I have to cover first, I’m like okay well we’re first going to cover this, I’m going to come back to this and this and these other points, but this is the one we’re going to start with, and then I start describing what’s on that post-it note. I’ll describe the concept, the idea, the key insight, example.

So that’s one of the two, the other example is, and this is actually how I did the same-day book, is I had the ideas that I wanted to cover, I already knew what the ideas were, and I had 10 big ideas, and then what I did is I took the 10 big ideas and I started to put them into a mind map. I had 10 branches coming off in 10 nodes, and then in the mind map I decided up front, this is just what I do, I decided that each node was going to have three branches off of it. I knew that, I decided it, I gave myself constraints. When you give yourself constraints, you actually blow the doors wide open for creativity. If you know that you have the constraints, then it actually forces a creative person to be even more creative, yet capture the greatest amount of content in the least amount of time.

That means, in this case with same day book as the example, I had 10 chapters and then I knew in every chapter I had three main ideas that I had to get across, and I also thought, well if I’m covering the three main ideas, I know that’s how I start the chapter, we’re gonna cover this, this and this, then I described it in detail, and then I closed the end of it with the other piece of bread in the sandwich, okay I covered these three things, don’t, don’t, don’t, and I closed out the chapters. So I had, I knew the three ideas, started off, described everything, explained everything, here’s idea one, two and three, and then I closed out the chapter one, two, three. It’s like what’s the right tool for the job, for you, and the tool of course is your mind, the tool is your mind, it’s the content, but it’s also the environment, and the environment again is who’s the avatar, where are you at, what are you trying to convey, in what period of time, and on and on.

Can you create the cover of your book? Can you write the back matter? Can you write the description that shows up on Amazon? Can you write that right now? Because in fact you should be able to do that about 80 percent of the way right now, before writing the book, and if that avatar wouldn’t buy that book based on that cover and those bullet points and that description and maybe the price point and some other things as well, if that avatar isn’t going to buy via that marketing, then you failed. Why write the book? So you should actually know that the book will sell based on what you’ve put together. You don’t have to have the title perfect, you don’t have to have the cover perfect or the description perfect, but if you do the sanity check of the avatar that you’ve got, if the avatar isn’t well defined, you’re probably going, I don’t know if they’re going to buy, I can’t even conceive of that person buying that. You should be able to go, yeah, she’s going to buy that because, and you should get a feel for it, you should have some data if you can, and some of the data by the way that’s useful is looking at the other books that avatar is buying.

I’m sure you guys have talked about that, like the color of a niche, the color of a niche, if you’re talking to someone who’s into natural organic whatever, it’s the light soft easy colors, you probably have the tans and the browns and greens. Now I know I’ve effectively married up my avatar with my marketing in the right way, and okay, now I know what kind of book this is going to look like. People do judge the book by the cover, they do judge the book based on things like reviews, but we don’t have the reviews yet, but we do have the cover, or an idea, and we do have a description in mind. See, the other thing that’s important here is that you’re also getting confidence. Think about it, if you have confidence, you’re going to write stronger, you’re going to write with more authority, and you’re going to write faster.

Amazing, and to kind of bring things back to the theme that I’ve been seeing across this entire thing, is how you’re leveraging systems and things that you’re creating right now to create more things, but it all comes down to, like you said, the mindset, but really the tools that you’re using to enhance the work that you’re doing and being smart and particular about those tools. We haven’t even gone into how you hire an editor or a designer and do that, but you’re using your experiences, like your children’s book that you used earlier, to build the next products that you have in mind. So everything is done with purpose and it’s done with intention, and because of that you’re able to grow and tack on and stack on each experience, compounding now, right, it’s why people pay you now instead of reading your book, so that they can start to compound from the experience that you’ve learned and level up their life. So this is just amazing, I’m really trying to soak it all in, this is a lot of good stuff.

I sort of think about the difference between an author and an entrepreneur this way, as I try to help authors, and I say look, you should be doing what you love to do, because then you have the energy that helps you get out of bed and you have the right attention and sort of the right focus. So you do, as an author in that role, you do need to have some level of passion, by the way it could be sales of the book and making money, but you still need to have a certain level of appreciation for what you’re doing, if it’s not love, if it’s not like, hey I really want to do this, I have to get this out in the world.

The second of three pieces is you need to have some skill, whatever the skill is, maybe you’re a fast writer, maybe you’re a great thinker, maybe you’re creative, maybe you’re analytical, but there’s got to be some kind of skill that you can hang your head on. If you don’t have some skill, then you’ll fall apart. If you can combine that skill with what you love, the topic, the audience, it can be something that you love about the book, the production, and you can combine with a skill, you can get that book created. What’s the highest value you can provide to the market? What’s the very highest value, is it the storytelling, is it the proliferation, right, good quality books, lots of them, and I’m not saying crap, I’m not saying just churn stuff out, I’m saying look, if it’s 80, 90 percent of the way there, and that’s what your audience needs to solve a problem, that’s perfectly fine. In other cases it needs to be like perfect, you really need to take the time, because that’s what the market values. But ultimately, your value as an author, for the most part, as an author not an entrepreneur, as an author, is the value you provide to the market. Okay, so that’s the author, those are the three things, love what you do, have the skill, and then value, value in the market, know your market. So when I talk about avatar, by the way, when I talk about avatar, you better damn well know what avatar means, because I’m talking about possibly one person, it could be a million, got to know your avatar.

Now an entrepreneur, it’s focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, I say focus, focus. The reason for that is that you’re going to maximize your value, it’s not just the Pareto principle, it’s the Pareto of the Pareto. When I say Pareto of the Pareto, do you guys know what that means, maybe, maybe not, I’ll tell you. Look, if you take the Pareto of the Pareto, it’s 80/20, what’s the 80/20 of the 80/20? It’s four percent, four percent, right, where should you spend your time, should you do the Pareto principle and do 80/20? Hell no, do the Pareto of the Pareto. What’s the four percent of your day? I’ve got a to-do list, only one thing on there means anything, for high, high, high value, one thing I’ve got, one thing on there, it’s four percent of my day, if I look at it, it’s four percent of my days where almost all my money comes from, by the way, the Pareto of the Pareto, where it’s 80/20 and then 80/20 again, four percent accounts for fifty percent of the value.

If I said the four percent of your body that was most important, that’s different than four percent of your body, if I rip out your heart, right, if we talk about Indiana Jones where the guy reaches in and grabs the beating heart, that four percent’s probably a big deal, right, the four percent that comprises the mind, if I reach in and grab your mind or rip your mind out of your head, that four percent is pretty vital. If I rip off your hand, do you give a damn? Yeah, but you know, can you go on, uh-huh, how about your foot, how about one of your kidneys, it’s bad, I lost a kidney, but you can go on. So there’s the vital few, you need to know what’s absolutely vital, and if it’s not in that four percent, what’s vital has to be in that four percent because it literally is vital, if you don’t have it, you die.

That’s why I focus on systems, why, because I can’t do the rest of that stuff and generate the level of value that I’ve got, where I focused down to almost nothing. I’m only, and this is the truth, it’s the absolute truth, I’m only good at somewhere between three and five things that generate income and money, I mean like world class, I’m good three, four, five things, they’re relatively general purpose things, but it’s only three or four or five things. I’m terrible at most things and I acknowledge that, I’m like, I’m not good at these things, I am just not good, but I’m good at this stuff, and so where do I spend my time, do I make my weaknesses better? Well if I have to survive and get by, I make my weaknesses, I bring them up to par, otherwise I relentlessly focus on the vital few, on that four percent, I focus in on those two, three, four, five things, and then guess what I do, everything else, I spend money on it, I spend time to get rid of that time that I’m not good at, and I focus my time and my energy and lots and lots of money on those things that I’m good at, or not so good at, I only focus my time on those things where I can help it, I only focus my time on those things where I’m great, because that’s the vital few, that’s the four percent, and that’s what gives me the bang for the buck over and over and over again. Four percent of the day is a morning routine, half an hour to an hour maximum, that’s great.

That’s awesome, so good, very good.

Yeah, keep me in the loop on what you guys are doing, I appreciate it, thanks for reaching out Darby, Zechariah, it’s been a pleasure, and we’ll stay in touch, take care.

All righty, thank you John, chat soon, take care guys.