Did you know that reading more books is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions, but what about writing? Of the individuals who make that resolution, did you further know that most would prefer non-fiction? Move over Brene Brown, but the point I’m trying to make is– what if it was your name on the cover of that book?
In today’s episode, Emily is talking to Lanette Pottle, an author and book coach for female entrepreneurs. “It’s like magic,” Lanette says, “writing your book boosts your authority.”
This makes sense, right? If you invest enough time to write an actual book about a particular subject, you must know a lot about it. You may not know it now, but you have a story to tell. Not only do you have a story to tell, but girl– it is *worth* telling. Your story can be a bridge that connects you to your audience on the most intimate level. Authors cannot help but be vulnerable with what they write. By telling your story, you are honoring your journey and creating a solid foundation of trust for your audience.
Writing With Lanette
Book Coach & Publishing Mentor, Lanette Pottle, teaches female speakers, coaches, and entrepreneurs how to turn their wisdom into authority-building, impact-making books.
Lanette is creator of the She Gets Published brand and hosts a podcast by the same name. She is a multi-book, Amazon International Best-Selling Author and founder of Positivity Lady Press. She is publisher of the International Best-Sellling LIGHTbeamers Book Series elevating the voices of women to inspire, empower, and influence change.
In addition to sharing her expertise at places like Hay House Radio, Authority Magazine, Next Advisor (in partnership with TIME), and The Maine Women’s Conference, she was recently featured in Woman’s Day magazine. Lanette has been a guest on many podcasts, is a TEDx speaker and has shared the stage with New York Times #1 best-selling author Jack Canfield.
Find Lanette online in these places:
Website Instagram LinkedIn Facebook
Honor Your Journey by Writing Your Story- Interview with Lanette Pottle Episode 31 – No Mercy Business Podcast with Emily A Woodruff
Transcript
Emily:
thanks so much for being here. recording in progress. Well, hello, everyone, and thank you so much for being here for another week of the No Mercy business podcast. I am your host, Emily Woodruff. And I’m super excited to have Lynette Patil here with us today. Lynette Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself and give our listeners a little bit of an idea of what you do? Yes, well,
Lanette 2:00
first of all, thank you for making space for me to be here and to connect with your audience. I’m super grateful for that. And a little bit about what I do. I wear a lot of hats, but I’m a book coach, publishing mentor and an indie publisher. And I work primarily with female entrepreneurs, speakers and coaches. To help them move their wisdom Into an Impact making book and to help them to be able to do that and months instead of years. So often, I’m talking to women, that and brilliant women I might add, that have so many things they could be writing about but they get stuck and don’t actually get their work. out into the world in this new way. So I’m excited for our conversation today to share a little bit about hopefully to help people move the needle and get closer to publication.
Emily 2:52
I love it. And I’ll be honest, I have never really heard of a book coach. So when I was going through and reviewing everything, I started to think about that and thought about how it’s something that I’m really unfamiliar with. So I thought it would be neat to kind of share that with with my group. And I know that I have writers in my audience and have close friends that are writers so I knew that it would be beneficial to at least a handful of them. So excited to talk about that a little bit.
Lanette 3:21
Yeah, me too. Because the other thing is, you know, sometimes we can and I’ll raise my hand here. We can get caught in our heads about telling ourselves all the reasons why we’re not writers, or we’re not essential enough, even though we’re experts in our field. We’re not credentialed enough for all the reasons that we can’t write in. A book coach, or particularly my style of book coaching is less about the technical parts of writing because here’s the thing, editors are magnificent editors, like they can put the finesse to your words and the shine to your words, but you’re the only person that has that intellectual property. You’re the person who needs the processes. And so what I help people do a book coaching is to start to create some organization and structure and to get clarity even about what is the purpose what is it that you want your audience to take away? Not necessarily, what is it that you want to talk about? Because that’s great, we can talk all day, but we need to think about how is that serving the audience? What is the problem they’re trying to solve? And then how can we take and package up your wisdom in a way that they can receive it, and then do good work with that? So it’s really about helping to detangle all those ideas. One of the things that happens a lot is like oh my gosh, because like I mentioned I work with brilliant women and we know we have so many life experiences. Yeah, so much that we can offer. It’s like, like, what, what do I include in the book and a mistake often is that people try to put too much in one book and less really is more so part of my process and book coaching is also lovingly stripping away what is kind of clouding you know, making that the message a little muddy so people can’t receive it, and just to give them in its purest form, because that book is the first step in their relationship with you.
Emily 5:18
Okay, that’s great. So I’m assuming that since you were a book coach, you have written your own books.
Lanette 5:26
I have I’ve written published a couple so one of the things that happened for me is it was a long time it took in full disclosure, it was seven years and 56 days from my head a book idea till I actually published that first book. And it was seven of those years was all the garbage that I was telling myself like, who was I to write a book? I didn’t know anybody that was an author at the time. I didn’t have the resources I thought it would cost too much money. So like the Inner Mean Girl, right? Yeah, like that, though. All right. So for seven years that kept me from doing anything to move things forward. And then one day, one fateful day, I was on a mastermind call with a group of women and the leader of that group, she was encouraging. There was another woman that was really she had been working on a book idea, and, and the leader of the group said to her, you can get this book written in 30 days, and now I’m a cheerleader by nature. Like I encourage support uplift, that’s just who I am and my bones. So I’m cheering her on and all of that. And then the unexpected happened because then the leader turned to me and I hadn’t been talking about a book. That’s not why I was part of the mastermind. And she looked at me and she said, and you can too Lynette honest to God, I don’t remember another thing really, that happened to that call because I just disconnected. I was like, oh, what’s going on in my life and like I was arguing my limitations. Hard, hard, hard, and like Che to turn the tables. But the thing is, like that thought while it stirred me up in the moment, it was the catalyst because I couldn’t stop thinking about it all night. I went to bed with it. It planted the seed in my subconscious. I woke up in the morning. My thought process went from like, I can’t do this and how dare she to okay, maybe I can’t write the book that I’ve been thinking about. But what could I do in 30 days and I had been I had a whole really kind of manuscripts to speak of I had done a year long segment and my local newspaper where I put in weekly tips around creating positivity in your life. Yes, like I had all of this and I originally had wanted to put it into a book but again, set it aside. It was on an old laptop that like the blue screen of death, I had to buy a laptop. Yeah, all of this unraveled this thought process and long story short, I was able to retrieve that. And while it was more than 30 days, within 56 days, I went from having to like remember a password to an old laptop, finding that hiring an editor hiring a book designer, which by the way, both lived in the county that I live in, and I live in. Oh, cool, very, very small town, Maine. So that was one of my limiting beliefs is like, I don’t know anybody. But you know what I did the editor that I worked with, she had worked with the top five publishing companies. The book designer had lived in Nepal and had recently moved to the area and she had done other book design. So it was like all of this was just waiting to unfold and waiting for me to say, Okay, I’ll move forward. It might not look exactly like I thought it would but there’s ways for me to become a published author.
Emily 9:09
That’s so neat. And I think that that is probably really encouraging and probably a kick in the pants for a couple of our listeners because I know a couple of them that I’ve spoken with they they have that Inner Mean Girl, as you say, and Mm hmm. And there’s all of these, all of these things that even if you take 10 steps forward, well she comes back and kicks you five back and it makes you just feel like the can getting kicked further and further down the road and that you can’t do it and that it’s there’s just so many obstacles, and it’s just really encouraging to hear that. I’m sure that’s a good thing for them. So thanks for sharing that. Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure that when they said and you too are not that probably just your eyes just opened and, you know, Angel started singing.
Lanette 9:55
Well, no, the angels weren’t thinking to begin with. So really, it was that feeling of like, How dare you put me on the spot. You know, it was yeah, it was. And so it took that time and I think that’s one of the things that I’ve learned as well about myself and like a decade’s worth of personal development work is to take that time and to recognize when is it that you are arguing your own limitations? Where is it that we’re putting up blocks thinking that somehow we’re keeping ourselves safe when really all we’re doing is denying ourselves the opportunity to fulfill dreams but bigger than that to serve the world and a much bigger purpose?
Emily 10:36
Yeah, that’s great. So that kind of ties into the next question of how, how do you work with aspiring writers and how do you coach them through the process of writing their book or writing their whatever it is they’re trying to get published?
Lanette 10:50
Yeah, one of the things that’s really important to me is that the way I work with people is not cookie cutter, because I think every book idea while there are similarities and the process every person is unique. Every book idea is unique in its own, it has its own, you know, twist to it. And so I really like to honor where people are at. And so we start with, kind of what is the vision that you hold? Why do you want to write the book to start with, right we get really clear there’s a lot of clarity stuff is going on. Your goals for the book, why you want to write a book, but then also back to that purpose of the book from the reader standpoint. Sure. And then taking that and it is creating a really good book. And it’s the business strategy. So previous to doing this as as full time work in the book coaching and publishing mentoring. I was a life and business strategist. So I have that kind of perspective and edge that I bring to it. So what was speakers and coaches and entrepreneurs? It’s also crafting this in such a way that you’re thinking about, how do you how will you position this to support your business, right? So we do all those kinds of things and it’s a process like I have a 90 day jumpstart program, which is really helping people get from this. Oh my gosh, which idea do I even pick and where do I get started to getting to having a completed first draft and by the way, you know, I think this this artistic show that 81% of Americans say they want to write a book, and only 3% Do, wow, getting over this first hurdle of having a completed first draft, which, by the way, is always whether you’re like a John Grisham or you know, some big writer or whether it’s you and your first book, everyone’s first draft is crappy. That’s yeah, that’s the nature of it. What makes a good first draft is that it’s complete to the best of your ability at that time, you know, not self editing as you go. I have this little Bonterra you know, it’s like, editing as you go, makes you slow like that. Sometimes what gets in our way of stopping that stops us up is, you know, we might write a chapter and we edit that chapter 45 times instead of moving on to the next thing so it’s really laying out a plan. And then a big piece of the work that I do in book coaching is, you know, that follow up with accountability calls and we do mindset work because there is a mindset of an author, you know, yeah. Aiming that Inner Mean Girl and learning how to acknowledge her without having her push you in the corner, you know? So that’s, that’s a lot of the things that I do.
Emily 13:59
That’s great. I really liked that a lot. And, um, gosh, I just had something and now it’s gone. So nevermind, we’ll
Lanette 14:06
move on. You’ll show up if it was, yeah,
Emily 14:09
yeah. Yeah. No, it’s good. Um, oh, talking about getting it, your first draft just being done. It’s starting to become a recurring theme with all of these different entrepreneurs that I speak with and and that’s a huge message that I think more people need to hear is that getting something out there and started is way more important than getting it perfect. And I think one thing that’s so many people stumble with is that, obviously, you’re not going to just put out your very first draft. You’re gonna take time and tweak it, you’re gonna go through and reread it a couple times. Whether that’s your blog post or your book or your whatever it is, you’re going to take time and edit it, but it’s never going to be perfect.
Lanette 14:56
The only thing the only thing that’s perfect is like done that when you publish it and and here’s the other thing people don’t think about either. And I am when I, when I talk with people about the publishing side. Yeah, I do. I’m a big advocate for self publishing, but not just any self publishing, like professionally self publishing, so you work with professional editors, and book designer. So the truly when you hold up something that came from random house or something that you published yourself, if you’re working with a professional team, you won’t be able to tell the difference, right? And so, it goes back to like trusting to know that you’re going to work with someone to help you finesse this, that’s gonna give you feedback. But until you get the bones of it down and out of your head and onto paper, they can’t support you, right? It’s just getting like, step by step.
Emily 15:49
And it’s, yeah, yeah, and it’s something too that’s like, so like John Maxwell, he’s a huge leadership, you know, author and speaker and presenter, yada yada. My company just did a training with with him or with his company not too long ago. And he speaks about, you know, he has all of these rereleases. And at first he was really kind of against them. But he’s like, I speak better than I did. 20 years ago when I wrote this. When I read this book, it feels like the principles. They’re still true, but I can elaborate on them more I can speak to them I can change the tone of my book I can make it more applicable today. He’s like, it’s so funny when I go through my sheets and sheets of paper because he writes his books on yellow notepads. I love that. Yes, yeah. He wrote Yeah, he writes everything on his yellow notepad. So he’s like, when I go back through them, I have to tell myself like John, what were you thinking? You know, and it’s just so funny to hear somebody like him. Somebody who is so prominent, not only in the authoring world, but oops, I just bumped something. But in so many different leadership roles in spaces to hear him admit something like that. It’s just really reassuring for me in my small little things that I’m like, Oh, please don’t talk to me about the first blog post I ever wrote. Because it’s horrible. And it’s you know, but I keep it on my website because it has value. It’s great as these ones you know, and I
Lanette 17:24
think what I really love about that, and what I believe is it has value in the content but even beyond that, it has value to empower people to know that. You know what, you don’t have to be perfect to start and look at shows your trajectory, we all have that trajectory. Your first book is not going to be the most, you know, exquisite thing that’s ever been published, you know, this literary work, but you can like you said you can do rereleases down the road. You can do that second edition third edition. But it’s the same thing of not getting caught up in like, oh my gosh, I’ve just gotta keep refining this refining this. It’s like what comes next? And then what’s the time and growth and perspective going back and determining you know what, now that I have four books maybe I’d like to have cover designs that this this is a series and maybe the cover designs are different. You have the ability to do all of those things. So yeah, that’s the the takeaway is that it’s not like a book is forever and it feels scary, but it’s like, you can work with it still just because it’s published. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever make changes,
Emily 18:36
right? That version of that book is the same, but you can make a new version of it. Yeah. We could talk about that for a while I think. Yeah. So what kind of advice would you share with with listeners today who are on the brink of taking that leap and publishing their own book or getting started in the in the authoring process?
Lanette 18:55
Yeah, I would say first and foremost, stop waiting. Stop waiting. And to know that yes, like, it might feel big and scary. Even for you know, impostor syndrome is what shows up and it shows up and in brilliant women accomplished women. People that are doing really big things in the world still experienced impostor syndrome and to know that you’re in good company that shows up for everyone. It means that you care and that it matters. And that taking even if it means you have to take small steps that Oh, small steps will build a runway. Right? But inaction creates nothing. That’s great. The only way that we get better is by like, take one step. Take the next step. Maybe you course correct you refine but you’re there’s some things you just don’t know until you’re in action. That’s that’s anything like I’m sure your audience can appreciate. Entrepreneurship is all about. Yeah, Action course correct. Keep going get feedback. What do I tweak? What do I change and where do I pivot? These things are no different and writing a book
looks great. So you have a couple of different offers that you you are going to share with my group. Why don’t you talk about those couple of freebies you have? Yes, absolutely.
Emily 20:18
So I have really two questions that you know how you have these common themes that show up and the words might be slightly different, but the message is always the same, the the underlying belief and so one thing is like I have so many ideas, I don’t know where to start, like how do I pick the best idea and that will stop people up. It’s it’s really, it’s kind of an excuse. It’s a protection device, but we’ll just say you really don’t know. One of the tools that I have is a book idea selection tool where you can get to the core of your best idea in five minutes or less. Like Coach remove that barrier. Super simple. My one of my mantras in life is it doesn’t have to be complicated to work. And so I’m always stripping things back to their simplest forms. You’ll see that in this tool. The other is a brand brand new tool to help people it’s like the CliffsNotes version of like the answer to the question of like, where do I start? Okay, my idea but where do I start? So I talked about the five steps to to really jumpstart that process. The worst advice in the world that I hear. For first time authors is the people that say oh writers write just start writing. That is such horrible advice. As you can write forever and never create a book. It’s really about getting intentional and purposeful about what what are your goals around that book and intention. So these five steps put you in a really good position, not only to be intentional, but to finish that first draft and 90 days or less. So those are the two tools that I have available that I would love to offer up as just kind of that springboard to say, Okay, I’m gonna get started. And then, you know, advice is take that. Hopefully you can run with that and if you still feel like you need support, whether it’s connecting with me or someone else in the writing and publishing world, get a coach that work with a mentor. You’re like your bigger purpose. Your message deserves to be out in the world and to open new doors for you and your business and the way that people look at you as an expert. It really elevates your authority when you have a book. I don’t know. It’s like magic, though. I don’t know why, but it’s the truth. Yeah, you deserve that and take the steps that you need to make it happen. 2023 can absolutely be your year. For writing and launching your impact making revenue generating book.
Emily 22:51
I love that so much. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Why don’t you share where our listeners can connect with you at?
Lanette 22:59
Yeah, so I’m most active on Instagram. I do a lot of reels. Not the crazy I’m not a dancer type. So if you’re looking just for purely entertainment probably that’s not gonna be the best place but I provide a lot of value really actionable advice, and then the occasional fun thing but it’s really actionable so on Instagram you can find me at she gets published is my handle and then also that is the name of my website. If you go to she gets published.com You can find information there as well.
Emily 23:31
Awesome. And I was gonna mention to the freebies that you just talked about those if you’re an email subscriber on my website, you will receive direct links to those. You should have gotten them in your email today. If this was published today. Perfect. You should get those in your email and have access to them right away. So thank you so much for your time. It’s been great.
Lanette 23:53
I have loved our conversation. Thanks so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
