 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad that you're here and we are really glad to have Anne McCauley Lopez back. She has been joining us as a thought leader and she truly is. She's got some great content to share. You can go back and watch her previous episodes that we've done with her as a thought leader episode throughout this year. And today she brings with us a topic that I am so excited to turn the page on. Right? Like all kind of intended. Does your NPO need a book project? So we're going to talk to you and about that here in just a little bit. But before we jump into conversation, we want to remind all of you, our amazing viewers and listeners, if we haven't met you yet, Julia Patrick. Hello, Julia Patrick is here. She's the CEO of the American nonprofit academy. We have her to thank for this beautiful platform. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. Honored to serve alongside you, Julia, as a co-host day in and day out with the committed support of our amazing presenting sponsors that allow us these opportunities. So a shout out of gratitude goes to our friends over at Blimmering American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University. Also thank you to nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Check out these companies, not now, but in about 28 minutes. It's a good time to check them out because they are truly here in your corner on your team, part of your roster. They want to help you do more good for your mission. So if you missed any of our previous episodes, including those thought leader episodes that Ms. Ann Macaulay Lopez was part of, you can go ahead and find them on these three platforms. So thank you, Banna White. She's patiently waiting, wiggling her phone. You can download the app by scanning that QR code. You can also still find us on podcast and broadcast platforms. So wherever you stream your entertainment, wherever you consume your entertainment, you can also find the nonprofit show right there. Ann, we are thrilled to have you back for those that might not have met you before. I want to just reintroduce you Ann Macaulay Lopez, SEO content writer at Agency Content Writer. Welcome back. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I, as you know, I was in Arizona for many years. So this changing time, you know, fall back is new-ish to me. And yesterday was a weird day, I have to say. Fall back, what time? I bet like two, it was one. So yes, I feel it. Yeah, I bet it is. Go ahead, Julie. No, it's wacky and we live in a state that doesn't change, except for two tribes, tribal nations. And then we're always messed up. I feel like for a little bit. I know it's harder on Jared. It's easier on me. So I take the win this time of year because it means an extra hour of sleep for me. So I'm all about that. But Anne McCauley-Lopez, you know, I love your energy. I love what you have to say. I love your work. And this is a really interesting topic that we have never really, well, we haven't talked about this at all. We've had a lot of authors that come on. I'll be really candid. We get pitched by a lot of authors. Can we get on the show? Can we get on the show? And we say no a lot, not just to the authors, but to everyone. We only have, you know, 300 and so many shows a year. But literally this concept of publishing a book about your nonprofit hair on fire moment, both of you ladies have published books. Let's see them. Hold them up, sisters. Oh, thanks. Yeah, mine's been a while. I love it. They're not very long. Mine's 100 pages. People tell me they read it in an afternoon. You could put it in your pocket and take it on a plane. At a speaking engagement. Yeah, it really was, it's a really neat process. It's great to say, you know, hey, I'm an author. And I think for nonprofits, it's something that you can give to your donors. You can give to folks who come to your events. There's all different reasons to do it. If you're a small organization and you're the founder and you've got a small board or a small team working with you, you know, it's a great opportunity to let people know what your passion is. Jared, we were in the green room. What was it you were saying about speaking engagements? Yeah, you know, I'm seeing more and more conferences bringing in founders of nonprofit as the keynote speaker. And so I'm hearing from these founders saying, well, I personally shouldn't take this money. It needs to go to the organization. And then also, how else do we continue to leverage, right, those connections? And what better way than to have, you know, a book to sell? Exactly, exactly. I really, I really think the same thing. The thing too, is you can tie in your why. Do we talk about that there's a book? Is it Simon Sinek? What's your why? And I think whether you're getting started or you're established on profit, everybody has a why. And my tagline for my business is everybody has a store or every business has a story. Yours just needs to be told. And I think it applies to nonprofits as well. And founders, we want to know what, why are you serving women, school kids, whoever it is that you're serving? How did it get started? And just talking to you as the founder, it's a great way to get that ball rolling. I don't know, is that a saying? Yeah, so talk to us about that because I think we call those storylines. And how, you know, somebody that's like, oh my gosh, I don't have anything to say. I mean, what would I talk about? Or there's too much to talk about. How do I narrow it down? I mean, two different directions. So talk to us about what storylines might exist for a nonprofit. Yeah, I think to Jared's point, founders who are doing speaking engagements, you go in with your business card and your branded pens. But what if you could go in with a book? What if you could say, listen, this book is selling at this event for $10. $5 of every sale goes to the organization or all the proceeds, whatever it is, whatever makes the most sense for your organization to do that and to have that opening with folks and have the opportunity to speak and then be able to say, here's the rest of the story. Right? Or here's the detailed story in my book. You know, the origin story, how did the organization get started? I know there's a founder of a small organization in Phoenix and she serves the homeless because she has a son who has mental illness and he actually was living on the street and she said, I never want anybody else, any other mother to experience that for their child. I don't want any other child, you know, adult child, but a child to experience that and have their parents have to kind of pick them up. So I want to help however I can where there's the most need. That's the origin story. Why does this organization serve who they serve and also how did it get started, especially if you're new and you want to get the word out about what you're doing and who you're serving? There's also, Julia, this was a great point we were talking about in the green room is a milestone. What if it's a 10th anniversary, a 15th, a 20th, all the fives, let's put a book out and commemorate all that you've done in a time that you've been operating and serving in the communities and growing. You know, what's the impact? We started out with one soup kitchen and now we have five across the metropolitan area or whatever it is that you're doing, you know, Habitat for Humanity. I went into the bookshelves into my bookshelves and there are books that I keep for a long time and I found the, I think these might be among the first two, they're literally 40 year old books. These are the founder of Habitat for Humanity and it really is the origin story. It's the start of the milestones. It's the start of the impacts. I went to Google and said Habitat for Humanity books and now there are children's books. You know, why do I live here? There's books for people who want to learn more about getting a house, partnering with Habitat for Home and it really speaks to their full audience and I'm sure they were released on this anniversary and that anniversary. We all create content. We all want something to share on social media too or content for your website. I just love talking about that. I could go on for hours but you could take pieces of chapters from your, and put them on your blog. You know, I love a good blog post ladies or you started that way. For the founders and small organizations, I'm working with one and we're taking what we've done with her blog posts. We're expanding them into a book now and partnered with my editor of my book, Christine and we're now partnered to help our collective clients and I was her client. So I've walked through the process and I'll tell you, when you work with the right team and what is the right team? It's who fits you. You know, did you say Britney Spears had three different ghost writers? Four, four. You know, maybe she didn't have that right conversation at the beginning and ask all the questions you wanted to ask and you'll learn along the way but when you've got the right team working with you and they have a process, I think that's so important. You know, in all of my episodes about blogging, I think, you know, there's a process to this. It's not hard and I think when we're writing a book we can expand that process. We say, okay, we'll talk about it and now we're not just talking about what are we writing in November and December to close out the year? We're talking about what are we writing for this book or the first few chapters or what piece of the story are we telling? And yeah. There's so much greatness, I think, in what you're sharing. I love that you're calling out, every organization has an origin story. Truly, every single organization, regardless of how long they've been around, but then I love seeing the evolution of it and I can also foresee and maybe you've seen this before but we're an organization, maybe they're celebrating their 25th anniversary and they have 25 success stories of the individuals that they've served. Well, now you've got these little vignettes of 25 individuals, 25 families, 25 impacts. Think of so many ways you can use to leverage. We always talk about telling your story for the organization, but how can this also help to leverage our marketing? Yeah. I think it's a great way to leverage your marketing because we're celebrating the 25 years. You can pull the stories. I mean, don't recreate the wheel either. If you're creating content, like I always think of a habitat for humanity, you get the newsletter and it says, here's the project we're working on or in different cities, there's all these different projects that people are working on and houses and families that are being helped. And we take those from the newsletters, don't reinvent the wheel, from your newsletter, from your blog, from stories that people tell you that you scratch down on a piece of paper or on your phone, and we put those together in a book. It doesn't have to be pulling teeth. Then once we've got it, we can put it out on the website. We can put pieces of it on the blog. We can take it with us to those speaking engagements. We can give it out to volunteers. We can, I don't know, raffle it when you do your quarter mania, put a book in a basket with some other book-related items, a notebook and some pens or branded things. You go to your supply closet of things. I know all you non-profits have that. I used to go into the one at Leukemia Lymphoma Society in Arizona and go, what is all this great stuff doing in here? Let's throw it in some bags. I got to see it and I know they're like, make a basket and put your book in it. And it's a great way to kind of clean the closet too, but it's also, you're sharing your story and then you can take that book and you can, if it's about the founder, the founder then has, there's a pitch then, right, to go out and say, Julia, I'd love to be on your podcast. I would like to talk about, this is what my book is about if there's ever an opportunity for this specific story. I think that's where PR and maybe having somebody who does public relations or has a knowledge of it or if you've got a volunteer who's a PR professional or knows somebody, it's all networking, right? We can really take that and make a story out of the book of stories. I love the idea of an impact book and I think it's just, not that it's simple, it's still a book and it's still a project, but to pull from all that content that you have and the knowledge of the people that you know. Your volunteers talk to the people that you serve all the time. There've got to be stories. Well, let's get into that a little bit more because you can, I think a lot of people are overwhelmed by the concept of like, oh my God, I don't have enough time in the day to do this, but let's really explore ghost writing and how this works, how you have seen success with clients and what the ecosystem is of getting a book project started, crafted and finished. It's a pretty big deal. Yeah, it really is and it's really a pat yourself on the back in the weeds. If I were in the weeds of a book right now, I'd probably be crying and be like, it's too much, Julia. Oh my gosh, why are we doing this? At the end, you've got this book, right? Right, Jared? I mean, it's great and you can share it with people and leave it places and go to the library and say, I've got this book. Can we put it in the cart gall along kind of thing? I think the first thing is, maybe it's the, I've got to find that interview of Britney Spears or the ghost writers saying that she had four ghost writers. I think there's some questions you can ask the folks that you would like to work with. I think in my experience, personal experience has been, you don't necessarily want to work with the first person who says, I can help you write that book. I figured out that some of the early folks that I was talking to about writing a book were kind of scammy and spammy. That wasn't right for me. I said, can you send me a couple of your books or some samples of books that have been edited and there was still a large amount of editing that needed to be done. So they didn't have the right editor. I bring my editor in and she has a beautiful process where we really sit with you and have a conversation 30 minutes to an hour depending on what it takes to say, listen, this is what we do. This is how we work and essentially we interview you and we can do it in a very compact way. I flew out to Arizona. Nobody knows this. I flew out to Arizona in July and we did an intensive for two days and it was basically 10 chapters and it was 10 short speeches that our client gave us. It was like Toastmasters, 10 podcast interviews. It was a lot, but we got a ton of information and the client said, well, I'm going to go back into my journals and my notes and I'm going to fill some stories in but let's get started with this content. So now we're in the process of adding some other stories that she's found along the way or where I as the ghost writer say, hey, I think there's an opportunity for a story here. You know, like, let's show them what we mean by this. Let's tell them how to do this. Whatever makes sense, right? So it's a big red on my version of the book and now we're going back and we're going through that and it's as much time as, you know, the timeline is kind of the client. So you as the client really dictate the timeline. I got, I've walked through the process and I got stuck and it was the funniest thing. We were calling it chapters and I'm a blogger. So Christine, our editor came to me and she said, what's the difference? And I was like, there is no difference. I was a long blog post. She goes, well, why don't we just call them blog posts? She tricked me in my brain and I don't know if we talked about it here, but it worked. And I banged out the rest of the book in two weeks because it was this like mindset shift. So instead of working to write a story about the organization, let's start with you. Let's start with you as the founder, your story. Let's start with your first client or your first person that you served, whatever they're called, patients, clients. I don't know what the verbiage is. It might depend on the organization. We understand what I'm saying. And let's just start with their story. Let's start with A and then we go to B. And I think doing that is like, okay. And we take notes along the way and we weave those notes in just like we do here and say, okay, here's what we have. And the wild thing, because I've done it, is all of a sudden you end up with a book and it's almost like, how did that happen? So let me stop you. I have to ask, sorry, Julia. I have to ask because I feel like for anyone, it is such a huge undertaking, right? So where do we start? So if we choose to bring in a ghost writer, how do we honor our tone, our voice? And so that that doesn't go to the team yourself, Christine, whomever that's editing it. Like we want to honor that authentic voice of the author, the person. So how does that take place? Can you tell us an example in that space? Of course, sure. It's really a same process that I use with my blogging clients. A lot of times I'll interview them, whether it's a person-to-person like this or through email. I think it obviously helps to have some face-to-face or video conversations. So you understand their personality and their tone. That way we literally have your voice in the book. And really what I'm doing as your ghost writer, I'm really kind of ghost editing. And putting in some question marks. I'm not sure how you word this. Are they patients? Are they clients? Things that are your voice. And I think that's definitely, it's a great point. And I think as you're looking for that ghost writer, that's an important question to ask. Like what is your process and how do you get my voice onto the page? Jarrett and I have worked together on smaller projects, right? And I know Jarrett, because we're kind of soulmates. Like we kind of have similar, but there are something that's different in how we speak or how we address things. Like non-profit nerd and different things. So I know I might make a note or I might say, you might come back and say, oh, I'd rather say it this way. And that's great because it's yours. I'm not writing, it's not my content. I don't own it. The writer doesn't own it. I'm just kind of crafting it. And so really it's more of an edit, I would say. That makes sense. For me, we're not writing a novel. If we're ghostwriting a novel, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'd have to call some people. So let me ask you along those lines, what is a timeframe? I know timeframes differ for all different things, but I mean, are we saying, okay, this is a three month project, six month, 12 month, I mean, what's a realistic thing? If you're an organization, for example, I'm thinking of an organization I work with who now it's getting so old that, I should say mature, that the folks that knew the founder and worked with the founder are, if you will, aging out. They've aged out of service to the organization. They've passed away. The founder passed away a long time ago, like 50 years. There's nobody left to remember the founder who holds the name, the organization holds her name. And so a book was created just to introduce the history of this founder. What does that journey look like? Because there's gotta be a lot of collection of material and information. How do you plan for that, I guess? Yeah, I think that could be more research for the writer to go in and say, here's the physical archive. I mean, a lot of things aren't scanned anymore. Yeah. Or they weren't scanned back then and maybe they're not because they're just old information. You may have to do that. And manpower wise, does it make sense to have somebody scan it and then send it to the writer? Do you want somebody to come in and do an intensive over and over days? Yeah, so instead of an interview, it's more of a research project. I would say, and the writer maybe has access to be able to scan what they might need that they think is pertinent. You could do it that way. In terms of how long, I think the shortest timeline we've got, Christine and I have is a three month project. And that's doing that intensive and then doing the back and forth. I think the biggest challenge with that is availability of the most important people that are contributing to the book. So if it's maybe a history of the organization and you've got the research piece, but then you want to write about the current state of affairs, if you will, then that's interviewing the current executive director or current board members, folks like that. And maybe they have some knowledge, then you have to go back. So maybe that's more of a six month or a 12 month project. What we would do is in that initial conversation, have an idea of how we could scope out the project by the end of the conversation and say, listen, we're going to propose some options. This is what, you know, Christine, the editor's role is this with a ghost writer slash researcher's role is, and this is what we see. But again, we can work within your timelines or within your availability. So a three month project might end up being a little bit longer. The majority of it was done, is done on the front end for the project that I'm finishing. But then it gets, I mean, everybody's got other projects. I feel like when we say, oh, a book project, nonprofit leaders are going, oh, another project. I don't want to scare people. This is really, think of it as a marketing initiative. And this is what we're doing this quarter. I wonder if, you know, people also think, because I remember watching the movies back in the day, and you would go on a writer's retreat and you're like, hold up on a ranch or this beautiful place for like six months, right? Like no one, no one that I know has time to pause their life and escape for a writer's retreat. Not even a full week. No, it sounds amazing. I'm not going to lie. Like that sounds amazing. But at the same time, I think there's just so much education that goes into it. You mentioned the blogs. I'm thinking too, podcast, right? Like there's so many tools that are already produced. How do we take what's already out there, especially for nonprofit leaders, what have you already contributed by way of articles, blogs, interviews, things like that? And how do we extrapolate, if you will, that content to really flush it out into chapters? Is that? I love projects like that. Yeah. It sounds so overwhelming. I think that's my analytic mind. The old data mind I had when I was in corporate America is that, yeah, you could hire a consultant to come in and say, here we have all of this. We were on TV. We have podcasts. It's so easy to transcribe. There's so many tools out there that are affordable, free, affordable, whatever, that you can transcribe and have that written content. That's a great point. So instead of the interviews on the front end, maybe it's can you look through all our stuff and just give us some proposals of ideas or themes? And then we can start to pick through. There might be something that maybe isn't book ready yet that we say, this is a topic that's not quite book ready, but let's put this on blogging. Like let's get the book down and let's have this on tap for content ideas for the future for podcast blogs. You know, I always say blogs, but podcasts, whatever it is, topics that we can speak on for that public relations piece. For the news people, you've got your news producer that you can pick up the phone and call or you've got your PR person. And you pitch that idea and say, we'd love to run with this idea about our organization or this initiative. You know, we're writing a book because it is 25 years and here's the book, you know, whatever that strategy is to work with your marketing department. Well, speaking of blogs, you know, I want to make sure that we recognize that you have a really robust blog. It's completely free. You can go to agencycontentwriter.com and there's so many different articles that really talk about all aspects of communication and content and what that looks like. And I think when I look at your blog posts and I love the multipurpose aspect that you champion and how it something shouldn't be so overwhelming because you're going to do it once, but you're going to use it maybe up to five plus times. Right. And so I love how you structure this. So check out agencycontentwriter.com and you'll find these amazing gems that will help you succeed with your nonprofit. You've written a book. We don't always get to ring the bell. My CML story. Really, you held that up. It's a super cool, super moving story, a personal journey. And it's a wonderful, wonderful example of taking your mission, your experience and really communicating and sharing that out. And so we want to make sure we don't get to ring the bell by Anne McCauley Lopez. Anne McCauley Lopez, you're one of the great minds. Jared and I love it when we get you on for a nonprofit thought leader. Again, check out annagencycontentwriter.com and you can find her genius on her website because it's just an amazing thing. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Been joined by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we have amazing presenting sponsors. They include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part-Time Controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Anne, you always inspire me. You always get me going, sister. When we write in the book, Julia. You know, yes, we might have to chat about that. I think so, yes. Like that fire, Anne. It is definitely something we're ready for. I am ready. Jared, Julia, let's do this. You know, it's really an amazing thing. I think Jared and I talk about this a lot, probably more off-camera than we do on camera, but I think it is the stories and the passion in this industry, in this sector that inspires us every day. And we've done more than 900 episodes of the Nonprofit Show. And yet every day seems fresh and different. It's because people like you, Anne, they come on, they have a passion, and they have a story to tell. And it's really powerful. So we are so grateful that you would join us and spend time with us today. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. A lot of fun. Hey, Jared, take us out today, will you? Yeah. Well, just like every day, again, I really am inspired, Anne. And I'm like, okay, I, you know, I shared my book, which was published many years ago, but I'm like, might be time for a second edition. But there's a lot going on in our world, which is why this mantra is so very important. We say it every day, and every day it rings a little different. But we want to remind you and encourage you to please stay well so you can do well. Thank you so much, Anne.