How and WHY I Wrote My First Book

1. WHY? In school I was praised for my writing skills. I wrote poetry and book reports that left my readers wanting more. I became a business executive at an early age and received many books from suppliers of services or people I knew who were authors. What a treat getting a book from the author themself. So why did I take over 50 years of my life to decide to write a book? FEAR! Fear of the unknown. I kept talking myself out of writing a book because of fear and most importantly I had no WHY.
2. FINDING WHY: Get a mentor and work with them to define WHY you should write a book. My mentor was a man in Holland Michigan who helped me take the wisdom out of my head and turn it into my business KRE-AT which is a people development company. I took thirty years of wisdom and life experience out of my head and developed my company. Jon told me as I left his office, "you gotta write a book because it will be the calling card for your brand and business." Wow! All the way home on that airplane ride I kept thinking about the book. I had no idea what to do next. However I discovered a burning desire to write a book and become a thought leader. Jon gave me his book about thought leadership. I had met many thought leaders who were people known for their unique expertise. When I came home I used my favourite social media tool LinkedIn to do something creative. I searched the keyword "author" and a list of ten people came up. I connected to a local woman author and met her for coffee. She had a personal life story that I related to and I was fascinated at how she wrote her story. We met at Starbucks one afternoon and at the end of our amazing coffee she said, "you must write your story because it has purpose to help so many people". BAM! I just discovered my WHY! My new job as an author is to "INSPIRE, EDUCATE and COMMUNICATE" and I tell everyone I see with pride that I have a job to do!
3. MY WHY IS MY PASSION: It was incredible when I realized how simple this was. I had spent three decades as a top executive leader and also had a lifetime of personal experiences. I found my passion was helping other people by telling my story. How could this become a book? I decided that if I wrote a book that enabled a reader to associate with something in that book and take action to find a different pathway to success and happiness in their life, my book would be a best seller. I knew that living in service to others was the pathway to my own happiness. I had this passion to help people and when my book became that passion, the FEAR of writing went away.
4. MY BOOK POSSE: To all my readers I am grateful. the Way of the Quiet Warrior book page has everything you need to know about my book and at the bottom of that page is a BOOK MEDIA KIT that can help you know my book without reading it. I decided to write my book as a hybrid business book/fable. I did this because throughout my life I have found business books hard to read and somewhat lifeless. I remembered a book I had read by Patrick Lencione that was a business book written as a story and I breezed through it in one sitting. I wanted a book format like no other to fit my unique brand and this format just made sense. As a career CEO I knew that surrounding myself with people smarter than me was my formula for success. Through a few phone calls I found my book posse! My team included people with expertise in fictional writing, editing, distribution and publishing. I decided on MORGAN JAMES PUBLISHING out of New York because my book posse had that connection and this publisher had a distribution reach internationally. I learned that the publishing industry has self and traditional publishing models but also knew many author horror stories doing it these ways. Don't get me wrong though, the industry has some good players but my publisher developed a hybrid model to fix the flaws known in the industry. In fact on their website is the branding "The Future of Publishing". I had found a publisher that had me in the drivers seat from day one.
5. LESS IS MORE: Despite popular opinion, lengthy books don't sell. My market was business people and many of them don't have time to read a long book. I learned from my book posse that a book of about 210 pages with a read time of a few hours or less was a great book format. To begin my posse and I framed 12 chapters and named them. From there I began to collaborate and wrote the book one chapter at a time over the summer of 2016. The saying "eat an elephant one bite at a time" made the book easier to write versus trying to think about the end in mind from the beginning. Each chapter started with a mastermind call. My posse and I had 6 one hour calls and based on the specific chapter topic, I just talked and talked while I was recorded. Stuff just poured out of me. That was transcribed into a transcript which became the basis from which we wrote and edited. I found after Chapter 1 I got smart and starting journalling thoughts on a white board under the title of each chapter. It wasn't pretty but it was enough information to have me talk for an hour at a time!
6. TITLE: The title was already decided before I began the project to write. It came to me at a dinner with my mentor Jon in Holland Michigan that night before our time together. Jon asked me what I do and I told him my life story which included growing up in a toxic childhood then climbing the corporate ladder of success. My experiences I told Jon enabled me to quietly go on my way and find people that I seemed to be able to help whether it was in business or just life. Jon said, "almost like a Quiet Warrior" and BAM!, let it be written, let it be done! The wordmark the Way of the Quiet Warrior is the 6 phase coaching program that I developed and after registering the IP, it became the backbone of the book. Six chapters of business process and six chapters in between of fictional stories based on real life experiences and people that I had met. The reader would go on a heroic journey and be in the story following the characters, waiting to find out what happened next, and navigating through the coaching blueprint that was the formula I developed that transformed my life from a business leader to a teacher of others. The tag line of the book, "90 days to the life you desire" said it all.
7. THE COVER: I worked with my mentor Jon and his team to develop the branding for my company KRE-AT and on my HOW PAGE you will see the beautiful graphic for my coaching formula. When we developed the book cover with my book posse, all I did was provide the graphic design images that were in place for my business and the book cover came to life. My advice is to tie in branding for a business book to the business because the end goal is to develop a consistent omnipresent brand that people will tie back to the business. In other words my book is part of my business and vice versa. It just worked so well. Everywhere my book will be, online and offline, my business will be! Now you'll notice my picture on the cover. This was an exception the publisher allowed because they said that my "badass" picture as we nicknamed it, looked like they had met me before and it was powerful to the brand of the book. However, they told me they usually advise not to put a personal image on any first book because in their experience most authors didn't submit good quality pictures. Mine was done professionally in a studio session. In fact my wife Anna and I spent a half day in studio and around Vancouver BC Canada doing a lifestyle shoot for the business and book launch. You can see some awesome lifestyle pictures on our WHO PAGE under our biographies and headshot photos. In hindsight the cover has become iconic and made TV and print media internationally. My publisher's book covers look and feel like velvet.
8. PUBLISHING DATE AND GUERILLA MARKETING: July 4, 2017 was the climax or as it is known in the book industry, pub date. I can write a book about my learnings over the last year however I'll provide a few key learnings. I read that President Bill Clinton's book didn't sell and he self admitted that he never marketed it. Between November 2016 and July 4, 2017, I did a lot of Guerilla Marketing. Being a new author I was flying blindly but did have my marketing advisor available at my publisher. I held an early release event at the Terminal City Club in Vancouver and showed the book cover on screen to 100 executives; took my 100 author advance copies and gave them away to get people to post reviews about the book online. You can see some of them at my AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE where I had a goal of 25 reviews posted before publishing date. It's not quite a year yet and I have over 75 average 5 STAR reviews posted online between Canada and USA and I am thrilled! My goal is 100 by end of 2018. Each time I achieved something I posted a press release on my KRE-AT MEDIA PAGE which was such a great tool to point people to. I did a couple in store book signings and wherever I did my coaching and training work I bundled my book as a service offering for my clients. In the book itself are 20 testimonials which I gathered leading up to publishing date for the book itself. My lesson here is to always value your network because I was able to pull in some amazing people to endorse my book. Marketing my book was taking my thoughts and just doing it. I was also told to develop my voice so my readers could know me. That led to launching my EPIC radio show THE QUIET WARRIOR SHOW where I developed a unique show format alternating guests and my own talks related to the book itself. Check out the press release and access the show episodes which are life changing.
9. GO FOR BEST SELLER: It changed my life. I never forget Mr. TC Bradley telling me "you are a #1 International Best Seller" and "your life will never be the same". I had no idea how to do this so I found an expert to join my posse. The strategy of hitting #1 on Amazon in any given day was a purposeful strategy to raise the book and my author profile. We ran in tough business categories and beat out big names like Tony Robbins, Daymond John, Gary Vaynerchuk...three heavy hitter authors and thought leaders. Now I can have the #1 Best Selling Author starburst on my book and humbly use my fame to get opportunities on stage for public speaking, training, media and more. You can find the press release and screen shots of the best seller campaign results on my MEDIA PAGE. Within days after hitting this milestone Executive Producer of William Shatner's MOVING AMERICA FORWARD show called. Within weeks we were off to Hollywood to shoot a TV Show, win an award for the book and our business model. The production we own and use it to showcase my work. You can find the TV Show which was aired across $45 million households and millions of social media feeds and internet channels in North America in this MAF PRESS RELEASE AND TV SHOW VIDEO. Soon after BUSINESS INNOVATORS MAGAZINE published my business story and the flood gates were opening. All from the "thought" of writing a book.
10. REMEMBER THOSE WHO SUPPORTED YOU AND GO FOR BOOK 2: In my book I honoured my parents and family for their support of my journey doing my book. It was an emotional time and I think some days I must have been on another planet deep in thought versus present at the dinner table! And I made a commitment when I started my book to do two more books. Readers look to thought leaders for more and will support your body of work in honour of your passion to INSPIRE EDUCATE AND COMMUNICATE with them. My book is available in paperback, hard cover, digital and soon to be released as an Audiobook which is going to be EPIC!!

The world needs more thought leaders so find your WHY and just do it!

Tom Dutta is Founder and CEO of KRE-AT, #1 International Best Selling Author, Speaker, SUCCESS Coach for CEO's, Executives, Managers, Host and Executive Producer of The Quiet Warrior Radio Show.

Follow Tom on TWITTER LINKEDIN FACEBOOK or access his BODY OF WORK listed at the bottom of his BOOK MEDIA KIT.