Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode today we have Mike Capuzzi, Mike welcome. Thomas, thank you very much. I appreciate this. It is my pleasure. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do. Sure, As I’m a seasoned marketing veteran, I’ve been running my own marketing consulting company since 1998. Um Before that I was in a software company that was very small, got very big and before that I was in an engineering company because that’s what my college degree is in is an engineering. But for the last 20, some odd years Thomas, I’ve been helping initially large companies, but over the last 15 years or so smaller, more local, small and medium sized businesses with marketing. And specifically what we do now is we help business owners, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders ceo, et cetera.
Um really distinguished themselves in their business by publishing a nonfiction business book. And we have a very unique format, which I’m sure we’ll talk about today. It’s not just your traditional book. Um but it makes it a lot easier to read a lot easier to write and that’s what we do today. So we’re helping a lot of people become uh you know, authors thank you for the introduction. There’s a lot to ask you about there. So, um of all the things that I could ask you about, what would you say you enjoy speaking about or perhaps is your your passion. My passion Thomas is really helping business owners. So, again, business owners, corporate leaders, anyone that’s associated with business which you and I both know in this day and age, you have to be distinguished, you have to be different, You have to stand out in some way because if you don’t you sort of blend in with everybody else. So it’s whether you’re a local dentist or the ceo of a billion dollar company, it’s all about, you know, how are we different? How do we serve our clients customers whatever uniquely And what a passion of mine Thomas is really helping business owners uncover those unique advantages and then describe them and articulate them in short, helpful books.
So um you know, there’s a ton of marketing media out there, everything from business cards to elaborate video production in in my belief books, printed books, digital books to a secondary degree are a very valuable asset, not only for consumers because they’re looking for information, but also for the person creating them. Because obviously not a lot of people even this day and age still aren’t making the effort to write a book. So right away it puts that person in a different category. It is um I mean what I was gonna say was it seems like that’s becoming more um should we say there’s more demand for your types of services because more and more people are becoming authors, would you say that? That’s true? I think, you know, over the last decade or so Thomas um technology has lowered the barrier to get into, you know, writing a book um no longer do you need a agent, no longer do you need to go through a traditional publishing house.
I mean, obviously they exist for certain types of folks who want a certain type of goal. But, you know, if you’re just someone who has a message to share, you have a story to share. Yeah, without a doubt, you know, obviously amazon dot com has made book publishing a lot easier. And nowadays there’s a lot of folks like myself that are able to help and coach folks to do it. Um So yeah, yeah, I would say, you know, it’s definitely gotten to a point, but still overall it’s still a very small percentage, at least in my world, business owners, corporate leaders who make that effort and for those who are considering it, or perhaps maybe they haven’t considered it and they maybe they should. What what are the benefits in your view of producing a book when you’re a business owner? Well, I always like the first shine the light Thomas on the intended reader, the targeted reader. Right? So I always approach things from a helping before selling mentality.
So it’s about, okay, we know there’s somebody who needs content information on a specific topic, they’re out there and if this book doesn’t get produced, they’re not going to be helped by it because it doesn’t exist. So I always like to first think who can we help then for the author, the man or woman who is writing the book, it really comes down to a couple big benefits. I mean, right away, you know, even in this day and age, authors are still typically held in higher esteem for a lot of folks, It definitely distinguishes them. So business owner, one business owner to business owner, one has written a book on, let’s say he’s a dentist. He’s written a book on how to keep your teeth for life Dennis. You know, number two, you have the slick, glossy brochure maybe, uh, and their marketing as such. You know, uh, there’s there’s a difference, you know, people are gonna look at the author, the gentleman who wrote that book a bit differently so that, you know, they, interestingly enough is a cliche, but the word Authority, you know, starts with being an author, right?
Starts with the word author. And that’s a real value Thomas. I mean, you know, again in this day and age, people still are perceived as a, you know, a different, higher level. And there’s a lot of other benefits Thomas we can talk about. It becomes a very valuable marketing asset. There’s a lot of ways you can leverage it. Um, there’s a lot of things you can do, such as podcast guesting. So, you know, it’s it’s I would encourage anybody who thinks they have either a story to share or some very helpful information to think about writing a book. So let’s say in a way it’s a credential, but it also adds some other, shall we say, some some more potential of you said leverage, what are the ways that you can leverage a book. Yeah, well let me think about it. Right? So we’re again, we’re talking, you know, holding one up, but we’re talking real books. So we primarily produced real books. We have digital format Kindle versions. So someone sends you a copy of their book. Typically it’s not getting thrown away. If I send you my brochure, there’s a high chance it’s ending up in the recycle bin. But books typically don’t get thrown away at minimum.
They may get passed to somebody else. A family member or colleague. Hey, this might be of interest to you. So that by their very nature, they are looked upon as something different than other traditional marketing media. So again, just leveraging it as a centerpiece, I call it a book centric marketing strategy. Um, you know, people put value on books. We’re used to, as a culture, you know, wherever you are in the world to buying books. Now, maybe they’re not as expensive as they once were, but you’re still used to buying books, you typically don’t buy brochures. You typically don’t buy youtube videos that are typically, you know, those kind of marketing. So, you know, you know, that distinction is important as far as leveraging Thomas offline and online, we work with a lot of local business owners, dentists, lawyers, doctors, etcetera, insurance folks, um, there’s some very powerful strategies we can dive into. But just the ability to be able to display a book in your office, give out copies, give out to other business owners in your community so they can give them out to their customers.
Uh Is a smart strategy online. Obviously if your books on amazon or if you want to create a book funnel, we can talk about that. But there’s a ton of ways Thomas that you can leverage either a printed book or a digital book to really again help before you sell, get that information out there to the target readers, but then also helping you grow your business, the funnel that you touched on. Um Would you like to go into that? Yeah, I mean a funnel is you know, you know, just a name for a marketing website and the architecture behind that website essentially. So it it typically typically starts with a landing page of some sort offering the book. And if you’re familiar with these you’ve seen them, you know you get maybe it’s a free book, what they call a free book marketing funnel. So I’m willing to send you my book just pay for shipping. Um So you know someone is getting value right on the front end. And then typically Thomas there are a series of up sells and down sells and and the main reason for doing that is to increase the transaction amount.
You’re not making any money on the on the shipping. Um But then increase the transaction value so that you can cover your marketing cost. So that’s really in a quick nutshell, the value of the book funnel. But it gives consumers an opportunity to say, hey, is that book for me? They can get it for free, just pay shipping typically. And then if they want the other add ons, if they’re behind their, they can go for those. But it’s a very specific type of strategy. And then as far as the advertising of it, facebook, social media, print advertising, we work with a lot of lawyers who are doing, believe it or not, Thomas, a lot of news in this day and age, still doing newspaper advertising. They advertise their book, showing a little picture of it in a newspaper. Ad driving newspaper folks to either go online or call the office and it works very effectively. Well you said you had marketing expertise at the beginning, where would you, what’s your experience there from a, you know, more specific than marketing examples? Yeah, Well thank you. Um Started out in what I would call corporate marketing years, you know, 25 years ago.
So I worked again in the company that was small, got very large was worldwide. I traveled around the world. I think it was in the UK several times. I loved it. Uh, miss it. Um you know, and that’s a certain style of marketing tends to be very brand oriented, tends to be very, my time is very fancy and glitzy. About 15, 16 years ago I transitioned again to helping more local business owners, smaller medium and the style of marketing that I really started applying something known as direct response marketing and what that means. It’s a bit different. But what it means is everything you do in marketing is tied to driving response, some sort of result that can be measured, which is different than a lot of marketing. Right? So it’s always about direct response. How what does this book, how does this book drive a response? How does this email driver response? How does this facebook ad driver response? And because it drives a response typically to some sort of online system where you can track it now, you can measure the results of your marketing and that’s the kind of marketing we do.
It’s the kind of marketing we apply to our book author clients. I’ve, I’ve talked about the branding versus direct response many times. So it’s interesting that you bring it up and presumably the um, the move to direct response is in relation to the type of client that you work with. So for smaller businesses, they’re gonna need more of a response from their money. Um, is that purposeful? Yeah. Yeah. It is. I mean, listen, you know, I don’t think a big companies, a matter of fact, I have it right here, a big company here in the States. One of my clients just send it to me. I can grab it for you. Very slick brochure for their product very slick. It’s gorgeous. It looks like a coffee table thing, you know, book, hey, I can’t read because the font so small be, there’s no, it doesn’t drive business. It’s like a feel good piece. It made me, you know, like that kind of marketing. That’s, I mean, I don’t care what budgets you have. It’s okay, but if I am potential customer, I’m not sure how that moves me along to further, you know, becoming a customer.
So yeah, typically, um, I would say a lot of smarter marketers are using direct response. I’m not saying that brand advertising doesn’t have its place. I’m not saying that, But yeah, I mean if you, if you’re spending money on marketing, you want to know what the results are and your, your general experience was in was in branding. What do you think about that? No, no, no, no, it wasn’t. Um, I mean, I started off my career in a company where it was definitely more agency style marketing. Um, uh, so again, Just slicker type marketing. But then I left that company to start my own, my own company in 1998. Um, and, and really that’s where I started making the transition to studying because if you really, you know, direct response marketing is something you have to study. Um, you don’t go to college for direct response marketing. They surely aren’t teaching the fundamental. I mean, maybe the fundamentals and university, but um it’s something that you have to study the greats from the 20th century, who really developed at the David Ogilvy’s, you know, one of your fellow UK orders um just, you know, there’s a lot of people have done some amazing things in the past that I studied well, then I had someone come on the podcast and and said that branding is coming back into fashion as a result of, let’s say, the consumer being more aware of what’s happening.
So you use the example of The book giveaway um and obviously free book giveaway is brilliant unless you’ve seen it like, I don’t know 10 or 15 times with other different things and people become savvy to that and therefore people are going back into branding. What do you think about that opinion? Well, I guess it really depends on how you define branding. Okay. Um you know, in my world, I still think brand is important. So for example, I’ve run a podcast for the last 2.5 years and I just went through a lot of consternation about rebranding it. Um I knew over the last 2.5 years I needed, I know I needed a different quote brand um and I pulled the trigger, I kept concentrating. Should I shouldn’t I? Um should I just put it to bed, started anyway. Long story short, I decided to rebrand it. So I see the value of that kind of branding. Um I guess the distinction I would make, I mean brands are important.
Again, it’s part of being that distinguish what distinguishes you your business, whether you’re solo preneurs or the head of a, you know, a billion dollar company. So I’m not saying that, I guess what I would suggest is, you know, relook at your marketing and this is something that’s unique about the book format that we create for our clients. Like we can talk about sort of the big mistake a lot of nonfiction business authors make. But look at your marketing. And are you giving people who are looking at your marking whether it’s a television ad, a magazine, ad social media add whatever it might be. Are you giving them those that are interested because that’s who you’re meant to be, you know, engaging with in your product or service? Are you giving them away to respond? Are you giving them a way to get more information from you and if you’re not, I think that’s a big mistake. So that’s that’s what I mean when I say the difference between big corporate marketing versus direct response.
Okay, and the the book um be interested to know about how you’ve marketed your own book? So would you mind sharing about what your own book is and then how you went about promoting it. Yeah, well I’ve got about, I think we’re up to about 15 now that I’ve published um and I’ve done not bragging actually cause there’s a lot of like learning lessons there. Um a lot of things that I think I could have done better. I know I could have done better. All of them are self published. Okay, so I have never worked with an agent, I just came up with an idea and said, hey, I want to publish a book. Um Interestingly enough Thomas, my first book was in 2007 Labor Day here in the States, which is typically it’s in September so on Labor Day, which is a holiday, um I was sitting on the beach and I had an idea so I, I need, I need to do a book and at the time I was running a local business owner group, people would come once a month. I rented out at uh, at the time I was running at a hotel room and I was bringing in business owners and I was teaching them direct response marketing.
Like how do you know? So I had, you know, they remember they were paying to come to these meetings and I knew at the time I said, you know, if I have a book about, I’m in philadelphia, so I’m in the philadelphia pennsylvania area. I knew if I had other a book about successful Philadelphia entrepreneurs that could help me. So on Labour Day 2007 I came up with this idea, I’m gonna put a book together By December just three months later I had a book with 32 myself being the 30 seconds, so 31 other successful entrepreneurs in philadelphia and uh it’s it’s actually behind me, but regardless I didn’t write it per se, I came up with this idea and each, we interviewed each one and uh each entrepreneur and they essentially wrote a chapter in the book And that book Thomas I was on TV because of it. Um I started marketing it, you know, getting it out there and because there was 31 other off sub authors or co authors, they were all marketing it.
So I had this exponential effect which was very cool. I was on TV, I was on radio um investors Business daily, which is a big newspaper, I was interviewed for that. My point is, you know, that’s sort of you know, one of the benefits if you do some things now, as far as the level of marketing I did for that book in hindsight, I didn’t do that much, I couldn’t, I should have done a lot more. Um my next several books, I sort of just put up on amazon and did the publishing pray method. So I published it now, I pray someone’s gonna find it, which doesn’t work. Typically they met a few um and then the last couple since then my email list is much bigger. Um I have joint venture partners meaning I get people to promote it for me, You know, share because I’m writing about business books so they they’re willing to do that. Um And now we also leverage and you know, amazon advertising. So we’re paying for ads on amazon and yeah, you know, I’m never worried about book sales, that number per se.
I’m not worried about making money selling my book, my books. Um I’m trying to get him out there as much as possible because my books will ultimately, you know, a small percentage becomes they become clients and that’s what I’m trying to do. So a little challenge for you. Are you ready? Yes. Can you name your 15 books? I could be a lot of times you really want me to. The first one was the first one was called Dreaming I. N. C. For Dream Incorporated. You know, it was about 32 stories of you know how I became an entrepreneur, why I started a business. Um My most recent one is the 100 page book. Um So uh there’s there there the two bookends. Well based on your reaction, I think you could have, you know that that was hardly a challenge. I said it was a challenge, but I don’t, it didn’t look like, Hey listen, I’m in my 50s, it could be a challenge. So what’s your what’s your favorite book that I wrote or that I read that I’ve read that you that you wrote yourself. Um I would say um either gosh, I mean there’s a couple that I really think have made a huge impact and you can see the impact if you go to amazon and read the reviews.
So the 100 page book is the most recent. Um there’s over 200 reviews. Most of them are good and I love that. Like it’s really cool to see. I have invited people in my podcast because they left a review and I was able to track him down. I hired 11 woman left a very nice review. She’s a copywriter. She now works with us on our team because she’s like, and I just said it was a neat review we got on a zoom call. We liked each other. Um, so I would say the 100 page book has had the 100 page book and the magic of short books which precedes it, um have had the biggest impact. They’ve helped. We’ve we’ve sold thousands and thousands of copies. I only say that because it’s helped a lot of people. They’ve helped? A lot of congratulations. I think I think you’d be in the vast minority of people in terms of that, that number of sales. Absolutely. What’s what’s the book about the book? Yeah. So the kind of book that we produce for our clients are books that are designed to be read in about an hour, like a one hour personal conversations.
So this podcast is a conversation with you and me imagine a book format of this. So it’s not meant these aren’t these these short helpful books we call them shook, that’s the name I came up with, that’s my brand. She cooks short helpful books. Um my special sauce if you will. And again meant to be read in about an hour and they’re very focused. They’re not meant to be the A to Z encyclopedia, They’re not meant to be a textbook, There are about 100 pages hence the 100 page book. Um and they are direct response books Thomas every shook that we create for myself or a client is about helping before selling. But also if you’re interested when I shared in this book, here’s the next step go do this and we give two different pathways in each shook for readers. Um so it’s very well thought out. Um but yeah, the 100 page book in in the magic of short books. Or a matter of fact, at the end of this conversation, I’m going to give away for your listeners.
They can actually read 100 page book for free or what tell me what’s it about. So it’s about our format, how to why the business owner’s guide to self publishing, a short customer attraction book. So the idea behind it is a lot of people think they want to write a book, Most people will say, I don’t know how to, I don’t have the time to and those are very real realities. Um Writing I just, I just interviewed a gentleman from my podcast interesting enough from Tasmania, our first Tasmanian podcast guest. It took him seven years, 7 years to write his book. one book. And I get that he consternation. He wasn’t sure Those and it’s a 300 page book. It’s a you know like and then listen well I should talk about that too. But a lot of readers these days like and appreciate short bite sized information. I love reading. I’ve been a voracious reader since I was a young kid. I don’t know how many books I’ve started and stopped because I just can’t get through them. And that’s not what they shook is about.
It’s about, hey sit down an hour later, you’re done. But anyway, um you know this, this thought of really just trying to make it easier for people to write that book. You have a message to share. You have a story to share. You have, you help people Don’t worry about writing a 300 page book. That might be 100,000 words are books are anywhere from 10 to 15,000 words. So a lot less. Our typical author takes about 8-12 weeks. So it’s measured in months. Actually measured in weeks, not years. Um, so that’s what the 100 page book is all about. It’s about showing. And I give people the literal formula, the little recipe we use here to go write their own shook. You’ve got favorite chapter, let’s see here that I have to look up. Oh, you know, I do actually, well there’s a couple but I’m a I’m a I’m a I’m a marketing geek. And I actually go back in there and talk about the history of um book centric marketing, I’m sure here actually, you know what, it’s not in 100 pages and the magic of short books.
Um I don’t know if you know this, but this is kind of cool and again if you’re marketing geek, it’s it’s it’s this is cool. The use of a book and specifically a free book. So I wrote another book called The Magic of Free Books and it’s about, You know, giving away as many books as you can. Well, the use of a free book Thomas goes back into the 1800s. I have ads that I have found interesting enough for a mattress company here in the United States, a mattress company that offered a free book as a way for consumers to learn about the unique aspects of their mattresses. Um That’s pretty cool. So this is not something that I came up with book funnels aren’t something I came up with. There’s no one alive today that can say they came up with a book funnel, you know, it’s been around for over 100 years. So there’s a chapter, It’s in the magic short books, which is the red one behind me um where I actually go into the history of book centric marketing, which I think is kind of cool. Well, um I think it’s Claude Hopkins is a person that’s spoken about in direct response.
Is that are you aware of Claude? Yes, Absolutely. Yeah. So you said you’re a marketing geek, um what would you say, the main misconceptions about marketing and the best lesson that you can give? That’s a good question. That’s a really good question. How much time do you have? Here’s That’s A Good one. Um The biggest misconception is I’m not a marketer, just like a lot of people say I’m not a salesperson. Well if you’re a business owner, you’re a salesperson, you know, ultimately? Well, if you’re a business owner now, maybe if you’re in corporate, you might not be a marketer per se, but if you’re a business, if you run a business in charge of a business, own a business, you are a marketer and you may never have thought of yourself that way, You know, you may say, let’s go back to, you know, my dentist, for example, my dentist example, he went to school for years, he comes out of school now. I don’t know if they’re doing that this much of these days because they’re probably a little more savvy, but you know, he comes out of school and he’s like, okay, I’m a dentist. I’m gonna open a dentist office up uh and that’s what I’m worried about.
Like I want to get patients the mindset that I’ve always tried to educate. So when I used to run that group and I ran it for a number of years, that local group and I would get dentists and doctors. You know, everyone, you can imagine local business owners and online business owners, but I would always try to get them to understand they are in the marketing business. You’re not a dentist. Don’t think of yourself as a dentist per se. Think of yourself as the marketer of a dental practice. And that is a mind shift that means you’re thinking marketing first. That’s why direct responses so powerful. You’re thinking about response first. So it’s not just, you know, whatever you create, whatever message you put out whatever products or services you put together. You look at it from a marketer’s angle. Is this what people want? Yes or no. Not because I want it. Is this what my potential patients want or consumers want? Um And then how do they want it? What should it look like? What should it include? What should the price be? So I think when you look at things from a marketing viewpoint it changes.
And over the years, I’ve I’ve worked with a ton of people and gotten them to sort of see the light if you will. Well yeah, the one I like is um if you if you’re trying to be as helpful as possible meaning you’re trying to help the other person out as much as you possibly can. You know give them as much information and make the purchases as should we say valuable as possible to them. You end up with a bunch of stuff that looks like a direct response um template if you will because that’s already been thought out and you don’t necessarily have to be have a marketing education to think that way. So as you said everyone can be a marketer providing. You think about the fact that what’s the most beneficial thing I can do for the person who’s potentially going to be my customer. Yeah. Um Maybe it isn’t 100 page books now you catch me like it’s this is two years old but I think I wrote it I think it’s in this one. Um Did I just pull something out of your book there?
Yeah. Well no I call it in you’ll you’ll like this. I think I called I think it’s in there if not it’s in the other one. But I call it the nana strategy N. A. N. A. So my my my mom’s mother was my nana and she was the one that got me hooked on books when I was a little kid. I used to I had to go travel two hours to her house. She had a big library. She would always buy me books and she was the one that instilled the love of reading. She was also a local, her husband, my grandfather was a pharmacist, a local pharmacist, he had a local pharmacy which was his dad’s and then his she worked in the pharmacy. So they were local business owners plus this love of books. And um I always I came up with a strategy to pay homage to her and I you know, I loved her dearly and I called it my nana strategy because I would want other business owners. She’s obviously she’s no longer with us, but I would want business owners to treat her with the utmost respect.
So she was going to buy a car if she was going to go buy furniture or whatever. My hope and my hope would be she would be treated with respect. People would want to help before selling. They would just, you know the way we all want to be treated right? So I call it the nana strategy. I wrote about it one of my books and I just thought you know, it’s exactly what you just said, right, you you you want to treat people, I want other business owners to treat people like they would treat my grandmother. So yes, I just had to share that. I love the nana strategy. I think I’ve I’ve referred to it as like the family friend. So um you know, if your nana strategy I think is brilliant coming back to your to your book for a second and your marketing expertise if there was if there was one thing that because you listed a whole bunch of things that people can do to sell their book. And what I find with most people is that if you give them like five or six strategies to sell their but most likely they won’t do any. So of all the things that you would recommend as a marketing medium for selling a book, what what would you recommend?
Well again remember for most of our clients, if not all of them I don’t want them to sell their book. Okay so this is again not yes if there if it’s up on amazon but you can put a free ebook on amazon too. So I’m not worried about selling books. There are people, there are reasons why people write a book to earn a couple of dollars selling it. That’s not who our clients are. So I’ll just rephrase it a little bit. So let’s just say how do we get the book out there as much as possible selling it or giving away. Um And it really is different Thomas whether they’re an online primarily business owner or if they’re a bricks and mortar business owner, a local business owner. You know so one of the smartest things, let’s start with the local business owner first. Let’s go back to my dentist friend. One of the smartest things and I’ve actually had clients do this very effectively in the dental space, believe it or not, um is he writes the book and then he gives out copies.
So I I don’t know how many people will see the actual video here, but I’m a big fan of displaying books. I always encourage my clients to display their books in their office in their place of business, but also find other come businesses in your community. So for our dentist friend, so I’ll give you an example. One dentist unfortunately is a client who’s a client for years became a shook author and then unfortunately passed away not too long ago unexpectedly. Um, he wrote a book about a very unique book because his approach, dentistry was very holistic, very um they did, it was, he did not use mercury most, I won’t go into the details, but a lot of dentists use mercury, which is dangerous. His whole approach was, you don’t use mercury. And if you have mercury, which are the silver fillings in your teeth, you got to get them taken out there. They’re bad for you. That’s a very unique type of dentistry. So we encouraged him to find other businesses in his area that would, you would find an audience that was very concerned about their health because that’s the kind of person who’s going to spend the money to take amalgams out.
You know, they’re worried about their health. So he put his book, he went out to his community, he found yoga studios, natural food stores, certain types of physicians and chiropractors. So anyone where had an audience that was health oriented and he displayed his book much like you can see behind me with a little note free book, take a copy, you know, blah blah blah. I remember him telling me this is a couple years now, within the 1st 30 days of doing that Thomas, he got three new patients that were worth several $1000 each to him, ultimately. Um and he was he was beside himself because he would not have had gotten those patients if they hadn’t seen his shook in the natural food store or the chiropractor’s office. So for the local business owner displaying, giving your books out to other businesses that align with you that have your audience. And in their place of business is very smart, very smart strategy online book funnels very smart um email marketing, letting you know, joint ventures, letting you know people who might have an audience that’s similar to your intended audience know about the book.
Um giving out special bonuses, podcast. Guesting is a very smart strategy for book authors. Um So yeah, there’s the magic of free books. I list 50 you I know you’re right, you give too many options. I list 51 ways to leverage a free book. Um either offline or online. Now, I think it sounds very valuable and if someone’s serious they’ll do it right. So um mike what are your goals, what are my goals, Which one personal professional, it’s open to whatever you want to lead with. Gosh, there’s so many, but I I think I just believe I interviewed a gentleman thomas on my podcast. So my on my podcast, I only interviewed nonfiction business authors who are using a book for in their business or whatever. So it’s the kind of people we serve. I just interviewed a gentleman, matter of fact, he, his episode went live this week on our podcast and it was the coolest story because it’s going to answer your question.
He wrote a book years ago on Change How to change yourself, how to how to incorporate change in your life. But it went beyond that. And this is the big benefit of book writing and book publishing, unbeknownst to him and he didn’t intend this. Initially his book became a useful device, a useful tool in prisons. So think about it, prisoners who are trying to be redeemed, who are trying to enter society again, a book about change and how to change yourself. And I get chills talking about it because he said you can hear him talk about this, he’s like I never thought about that, but it happened. And now his book is now used as a part of like a curriculum for prisoners in the United States, had he never wrote in that book, he would never have been able to help those people. So my goal is to answer your question. My goal would be for anyone listening to this who said, you know what, you know, I’ve always wanted to write a book because a lot of people say that or you know what, I never thought about writing a book, but maybe I should I have a story to share.
I helped people a specific way. Just do it. It sounds like a cliche, but just do it. Um read 100 page book, you could see the kind that, you know, the kind of book I would encourage you to write. Um but just do it because again, thomas if it doesn’t get written, if it doesn’t get out there, it’s not going to help people and you never really know how that experience will benefit benefit you as well. Right, Well, you mean me, the author of the person, the potential readers. Well, if you write a book, if you do just do it, um then you’ll be better for it. That’s that’s for sure. Um providing you don’t blow a load of advertising budget or something. But if you go to do your next book, whatever that might be, you you will create a significantly better book by doing the first just through having the experience, Right? Yes. You know, we I will also encourage anyone listening. I mean, I could give you all the little sound bites I use, but one of you actually write about that. Absolutely right about that. Um so yeah, if you don’t get that first one done.
I also, I always say thomas there’s no such thing as the perfect book. So don’t let anyone ever tell you there’s no way you’ll always want to change something or find something, just live with it. The other thing I think it’s more important is I say strive for personality, not for perfection. Again, so many people get stuck never writing a book because I think it has to be perfect. They think they have to be the next Hemingway. They think they have to write perfectly. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Okay, we’re talking about a conversation that’s in a book format. So strive for personality. People want to, you know, understand, you know, your readers want to get to know like and trust you, they want to, you know, learn more about you, strive for bringing that personality. So if you read any of my shocks, you know, my personality comes through. Um so strive for personality, not perfection. Is there anything that I should have asked you about today? You know, the the only other thing that might, I mean, no, very great, great interview. Um The only thing that maybe just deeper thought is because I I I asked this on my podcast, like why a book, like aren’t people choosing, you know, twitter tweets and short video, like who who reads and I would say, you know to that question, who reads, there’s a lot of people that still read and they do appreciate books and there’s a the demographic of book readers depending on your target market and your business.
But there is a, you know, most book readers, you know, they’re seeking out information, they tend to be more educated, they tend to be more selective and how they buy. They tend to be appreciative of helpful information, They tend to be focused on research. So that kind of person oftentimes Thomas makes for a better type of customer or client, they’re informed, they’re educated. So I would say, you know, maybe the only question would be like our books really still of media that’s important today. And the answer is yes, in my opinion, you certainly agree with that, but you do, you did raise the question for me in terms of you know, how many decades are left for books because well, I was going to say was you know, maybe a lot of the younger demographic may not be, may not be doing that. Have you got any thoughts there? Well, my daughter, I have two daughters, my daughter in her senior year of high school going into her senior year, published a book. I encouraged her to publish a book. It was about dog rescues. So rescuing dogs.
She raised $6,000 to give away. We gave away all that money to dog rescues. She was in all over the local newspaper, local magazines. She didn’t even try, we just, you know, we put one press release out when it came time to apply for colleges. She got into every college, got all these scholarship offers interesting enough, the college she chose didn’t offer anything, but You know, so you know, again if if a 18 year old can do it, anybody can do it. But you know, to your point of the younger generation now, I mean listen people have been hypothesizing and philosophizing about that for decades. It’s never gonna end. Um I think the written word will always be a powerful medium and you know, I don’t think books are going anyway, you know, maybe the way they consume them. There’s hope sometimes for thousands of years. Yeah, sometimes I ask about closing thoughts, but I think there’s hope is probably a good closing thoughts.
So for people who want to know more, where do they find you? Well, um a couple of places. Um first of all, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to give your listeners a gift actually two gifts. So um the 100 page book, they can read it online for free, so you can see one of those digital formats and then um and I would encourage anyone to read it. It’s who’s thinking about, you know, a nonfiction book. Um and then I also have a a second book I’m gonna give you, which is why I call it the quick start. It just distills down the recipe we use for our shook in a very small book. So if you go to my main website is mike Scapuzzi dot com. Um And um there’s a hidden page there that hidden pages, Michael Capuzzi dot com forward slash gifts. G I F T S. If you go there Thomas or your listeners go there, you can get the 100 page book and the quick start guide for free. Bite sized books is our publishing company.
Um and then my podcast, the new rebrand, you’re one of the first to hear about it is called the author factor and it’s at author factor dot com. Well congrats on the rebrand, I will check it out and thank you for for the gifts and the offer And thank you for your contribution of 15 books out in the world and also for being a being a great guest. So Mike, thank you very much. Thomas. Thank you.