- Hey author.
Are you struggling to get your book done?
Well if you are,
the Worley way might just be the thing you need.
Don't know what that is?
Stick around,
this author spotlight is for you.
(upbeat music)
Hey there, I'm Julie, the book broad, from Book Launchers.
We're your professional self publishing team,
helping you write, publish, and promote a non-fiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on your readers
and done right, will also help you grow your brand,
build your business, and make you money.
The best part, you, yes you, keep all rights and royalties.
Today, I am so incredibly excited for you to meet
Mr. Ron Worley, author of Ditches to Riches,
how to survive your F-ed up life
and create a kick ass business.
Ron is an absolute pleasure to work with
and we've had a lot of fun
pulling this video together for you.
His book is an amazing read.
Homeless, addicted, alone, Ron hit rock bottom,
but then he climbed his way back up
and into money, a successful business,
and the feeling of fulfillment
and now he helps others do the same.
Besides sharing his powerful story in his book,
he covers the 10 values in his Worley way
inside those pages
and he provides a really awesome foundation
for anyone struggling to get out of their own way
and because so many authors
are struggling to get their book done,
I thought I'd ask Ron what his advice was
for you to get out of your own way and get that book done.
Please meet Ron Worley.
Take it away, Ron.
- Let's say they want to write a book.
Oh my gosh, I want to write a book.
Sounds easy, I'll just sit down and start typing.
Sounds really easy, I can do it, right?
To get from there over to success, it's not a straight line,
you have to go through this area here
and a lot of people, they start to find out that
there's a lot of work involved
and generally,
once they start to see a lot of work's involved,
they start to want to quit.
They don't have the time, they make excuses,
it's just too hard,
maybe they don't even know how to write a book,
so they tend to just peter out, they quit.
At some point, they're going to get to a point
where they say, I can't do it
and most people,
most non-entrepreneurial people live in that space.
Oh, that looks easy, I can't do it.
Oh, that looks easy, I can't do it
and they spend a lifetime of going back and forth.
Let's, let's call it the book for instance.
If you want to write a book, make a set time every week
to sit down and write on your book.
For me, it was a half hour a week to start.
I could only furnish enough time to do a half hour.
So I hired somebody to coach me along in the process
and he came along and showed me how to make a plot,
design the book from front to back,
each chapter in between, what the topics were going to be.
He helped me format the book
so that I could sit down and type for a half hour a week.
'Cause when you say I can't,
it's to just be in the do's of the process.
So rather than thinking of the success of a book,
think about bringing it all the way back down
to this half hour.
I have to schedule a half hour a week to do this, okay?
Anybody can do a half hour.
So now what do I gotta do every day
to make this book happen?
Do I have to schedule myself
so that I can make this half hour free?
Do I have to hire somebody?
What do I have to do today to make this successful?
- Ultimately that focus on one thing a day,
or even one or two hours a week that Ron's talking about
and just doing that over and over again,
gets you into that, I can, zone and create massive success.
It's all about creating momentum
and his Worley way values build on that in his book.
He speaks to his values and straight from his book,
he actually says this about hard work.
"I will make my story one of success
because I shaped my life the way I choose
through relentless effort and hard work.
What I lack in talent and smarts,
I will make up for with wisdom and hard work."
Hard work is vital to the success of your book
and so is getting the right help, which he also did
by working with an author friend in the early phases
and then hiring Book Launchers
and because he's had early success with his book already,
I asked him to share with you what worked well for him
and he shared this.
- I went out and got a book army put together.
I think I only had 150 people in my book army list
and those, I had roughly 600 on my Facebook book army,
but out of that, I maybe got six or eight reviews
right off the bat, maybe.
I did hand out a hundred free books through Good Reads
and Book Launchers helped me do that
and I believe I'll get some reviews out of that,
but really what's been my main focus is social media.
That's where I've sold the most books.
Book Launchers helped me get
some stuff put together for that,
but really it was the small circle of friends
on Facebook and Instagram that sold the first few.
Something else that worked is I keep them in my office,
I keep them in my truck,
I talked to all my clients
and all the people I meet throughout the day about my book.
I find a way to bring it up
and that allows me to sign the book as well,
so hopefully once it's signed, they'll read it.
Something that Book Launchers has been doing
that's been working well,
I think I'm up to 10 or 11 podcasts now.
Those are time consuming and stressful at times
and wear me out.
They have been fun.
A lot of the podcast hosts are freaking awesome
and they are a lot of fun to talk to
and it gives you a chance to sell your book
by telling them a little bit about what's in it
and what your methodology is in writing the book,
which has really been helpful to me.
- Book launching with Book Launchers is a team sport
and we don't create success alone,
so his work to activate and engage his book army
is so important,
but I really wanted to highlight that point
because I also think a lot of people get lost
in thinking that they need a ton of people following them
in order to achieve a good book launch.
He had a relatively small book army that,
combined with our early efforts to get him exposure,
has led him to be edging well past 700 sales
and we're only a few months post-launch.
That's pretty awesome.
Now this is a funny,
as in rather odd question, that I really wanted to ask Ron,
but part of what we always talk about
is getting a publishing company name
to help make you look more like a
traditionally published author
and of course, a lot of you ask questions
about how to choose your publishing imprint name
and I'll actually put a video about publishing imprints
at the end of this video for you,
but I just want to share Ron's story
because it doesn't have to be this perfectly polished name
and in fact, if a wacky sort of name fits with your brand,
then this one would work for you.
Well, not his, he's already taken it,
but Ron, tell us about your publishing imprint name please.
- So the, my publishing company's name
is Jalapeno Meat Stick
and it's not even really a funny story,
but I do a little disc golfing with my buddies
and one of them had a jalapeno meat stick
that she carried with her during while we were golfing,
so if she got hungry, she could eat it
and I asked her what it was
and she said it was a jalapeno meat stick
and I thought,
wow, that's a clever name to have for my golf name.
When I go disc golfing,
that's the name I use, jalapeno meat stick.
- Now, I'm a vegetarian,
so maybe mine would have to be purple carrot press.
It may not be a fit for you and your business
to be a little out there with yours,
but you don't have to spend hundreds of hours
figuring out the perfect name.
Now, the question you have all asked for
is what has been your experience working with Book Launchers
and do you have advice
for authors considering working with us,
or a similar type service?
Let's hear what Ron has to say when I ask him that question.
- I've had a very good experience with Book Launchers.
It's like drinking from a 55 gallon drum
when you first start the process with them.
There's a lot of information.
There's a lot of different people that you work with,
but they're very communicative,
they're willing to ask, answer any questions you may have
and the process is way easier than doing it yourself.
I have a friend who is just self publishing
and he sold maybe 10 or 15 books.
Now, it's because
he didn't have all the insight on what to do.
In fact, he's asking me for help
and I really don't know
because Book Launchers did it for me.
They take great pride in the books that they publish
and therefore they're trying to make the best book
that you can have out on the shelf.
- Okay truthfully,
he said a whole bunch of other really nice things,
so thank you, Ron
and he also shared that Sarah,
our book marketing manager and her team are crushing it
in landing him podcast interviews
and summit appearance via Zoom, of course.
So he's really excited to be working with us
and continue working with us,
but I kept it to the key points
so you guys wouldn't have to see me blushing
excessively with pride over here,
but I can't say this enough,
we only succeed when our authors are working alongside us
to create success together.
It's a team sport and Ron is a fantastic team member.
He works hard and he does his part
to make sure his book is known by all in his network.
Now, my personal favorite question is,
what has been the favorite thing that's happened to you
since you became an author?
Are you curious what he says?
I love this answer.
- I didn't plan on people actually taking notes,
calling me, asking questions, follow up calls, emails,
people wanting to listen to it as if it's a gold standard
and it's not.
I've always claimed it's, you know,
I wrote this book as a non-expert.
This is just the story of my life
and how I got from where I was completely homeless
to successful and, but it's touching people's lives
and it's motivating people and that to me was a surprise
and anytime somebody asks me to sign a book,
that's a total surprise.
I can't figure out why anybody would want my signature,
but it's totally cool.
I've been, I've learned how to write notes in the front page
to make them personal and that's been a lot of fun.
- Oh, the first few times I was asked to sign a book,
I felt so awkward.
Like what pen do you use?
What do you write?
You actually want me to write on your pages?
It is a little bit of a weird feeling,
so I liked that he brought that up.
He has one more really cool share
that I could not leave out.
His wife did not read the book before it was out.
He wanted it to be raw and real
and didn't want to feel like he was going to censor anything
for her to read, so he did it without her reading it,
but now that it's out, he's reading it to her,
so let's hear what he has to say about that.
- But I've been reading chapters to her
when we get some alone time
and just to see her connection to me
based off of me reading to her my story
and some of the things, I mean, we've, we've cried together
'cause this is bringing up a lot of things for me,
we've laughed together
and it's just made us stronger in general
and I appreciate that.
That's been something I didn't see coming.
- How freaking cool is that?
That gave me all the feels.
Thank you, Ron.
You are such a wonderful part of the Book Launchers family.
Please join me in giving Ron a huge thank you
for sharing his book process and experience with you.
Smash that thumbs up.
(stammering)
Yep.
(laughter)
Smash that thumbs up button,
go ahead and try it, it feels so good
and let's chat about what you learned in this video
in the comments below
and when you comment the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win some sweet
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We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday.
Make sure you catch every one by subscribing to the channel
and turning those notifications on.
You are a delight to hang out with.
Would you like to hang out a little bit more?
That's great
'cause I have two really, really fantastic videos
that I think you really want to see.
This one right here is on publishing imprints,
so if you're wondering how to get your own version
of jalapeno meat stick publishing company, click here
and if you want to learn about activating your book army,
that's this video right here.
So go ahead, click on the one that you want to watch.
I'm waiting for you.
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