Creative Journeys: Story | Sound | Success

08 Part 3 - How Writing a Book Can Transform Your Business

• Jo Day / Lucy Rennie • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Hey up, folks! Thanks for joining us on another episode of Creative Journeys with me, Jo Day, and my fabulous co-host, Lucy Rennie. We’ve been promising to dive into our book writing journeys and how it’s impacted our creative and business lives, well, today’s the day!

Episode Summary:
In this episode, Lucy and I share our experiences of writing and publishing books while running businesses both online and in the bricks-and-mortar world. We’ll talk about what motivated us to put pen to paper (or voice to text!), how we overcame challenges, and what impact our books have had on our businesses. Whether you’re considering writing a book or just curious about the process, this episode is packed with honest insights and useful tips.

Key Takeaways:

  • How writing a book can boost your credibility and open new doors for your business.
  • The different publishing routes—self-publishing, traditional publishing, and hybrid options.
  • Overcoming writer’s block and finding creative ways to get your words down.
  • Why having a publishing deadline (and accountability!) is crucial.
  • How to use your book as a marketing tool and authority builder.
  • The importance of mindset and overcoming self-doubt when putting your work out there.

Resources and Links Mentioned:

  • Jo Day’s books: heyupfolks.com
  • Lucy Rennie’s book Clarity, Communication, Connection: Available on Amazon
  • Amazon KDP for self-publishing: KDP.com
  • Future Proof Club: Iamlucyrennie.com
  • Connect with us and ask questions via the “Send us a message” link in the show notes.
  • If you are thinking about writing a book this year and need some accountability, let us know! We’d love to support you and hold you accountable to your publishing goals.

Next Episode:
Join us next week as Lucy shares her podcasting journey - why she started, what challenges she faced, and the behind-the-scenes process at Audio & Co. Don't miss it!

Thanks for listening, and remember to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. See you next time! 

We would love to hear from you, send us a text!

Subscribe to our Youtube channel: @heyupfolks

Connect with Jo Day:

Connect with Lucy Rennie:

[00:00:00] Jo Day: Hey up folks, how are we all? Thank you so much for joining us again on another episode of Creative Journeys. Now, as promised, we've been threatening it ever since we started that we would talk about the book writing and podcast journey as part of being creatives in this online world and in business because we don't just work in business in the online space.

[00:00:25] Jo Day: Both myself and Lucy do work in bricks and mortar businesses and I also own a bricks and mortar business as well. But today we're both going to touch on our experience in writing books. So, I have in front of me, just as kind of an evidence. So, this is in my married name. I got divorced last year. But this is my . Autobiography, Strength and Power, and you can get a copy of this on Amazon, or if you go to heyupfolks.

[00:00:53] Jo Day: com, all of my books that I've actually written and published are available on there. So, this is my number one best selling book that was number one in 15 categories on Amazon. for weeks and weeks and weeks and then after a period of about four or five months I did some promotion and pushed it back up the charts so it went to number one twice in the amazon charts and I'm sure if I did something with it again it would go there again.

[00:01:19] Jo Day: So that's Strength and Power. I co authored this book She Who Dares with 26 other women so I've got a chapter in this book She Who Dares. Also then went on to co author this book called Her Mission to Do Life and Business Your Way. There's a theme here. Yeah, I've published this one as well. I've also published this one from The Ashes She is Ignited.

[00:01:46] Jo Day: This was a collaboration with Louisa with a load of another amazing women in this book. And then My latest book that I published in December, no, November 2022, I think it was, with the foreword for this one is written by Katie Hopkins. She was really kind enough to write the foreword for me.

[00:02:07] Jo Day: Katie was one of our audio clients, so we recorded the audio book Help! for Katie Hopkins a couple of years ago 

[00:02:17] Jo Day: on that note though, that is the, one of the best, it's like, yeah. This book. Yeah. This book, how this came about was I had an event happen in my marriage that led me to planning my divorce and I couldn't sleep one night.

[00:02:37] Jo Day: So, because of knowing that I had to, Get out of this marriage one way or another, but it wasn't just get out the marriage it was Get the ex husband off the island and lots of us so there was a big plot twist in it But anyway, just to keep my mind occupied whilst I was doing all of that I decided to write this book called what the fuck and it's a satirical book Take on life.

[00:02:58] Jo Day: Of all of those things in life that make you think or say out loud, what the fuck. And it involves supermarkets. Don't give it away. Go and get the book. All sorts of things, but that's the book anyway. It's un audible. It's un audible, but it's a good laugh. And I've got another couple of books that are about to be published.

[00:03:18] Jo Day: One, one of, well, I think perhaps both of them are going to be out, but definitely one of them is a children's book. It will be published on the 13th of January and it's a surprise for my eight year old grandson's eighth birthday. So we need some help with that, don't we, as well? We do need some help with that.

[00:03:36] Jo Day: So I'll be sharing all of the links, but I really want to get him to be a best selling author for his eighth birthday. So the background is me and Finn have written this book together. We've been writing it for a number of months together now through bedtime stories. I've been capturing it and pulling it all together with the graphics and everything and I'm publishing it as a book for his eighth birthday.

[00:04:02] Jo Day: So that's the story behind that. I've written recently is for Brunchi Shop and it's all about the history of wine making in Lanzarote and beer, so it shares all of the 29 bodegas that are on the island, a little bit about every bodega, all the wines that are produced and the different types of wine, but also it then goes into spirit making in the Canary Islands and also the beer making, craft beer and it's just a free download from the website once it's been Published.

[00:04:34] Jo Day: So that's it's all about Lanzarote and Flying Spirits. So that's to accompany Brunchi Shop that I've got in Lanzarote. But anyway, enough about that, Luce. Show our viewers your book and tell us a little bit about how you came to becoming a best selling author, publishing your book, self publishing your book and why.

[00:04:58] Jo Day: What, what led you to actually becoming an author? 

[00:05:01] Lucy Rennie: Do you know? Yeah, there it is. Yeah. It makes me smile that I can do this and actually have this conversation because yeah, it's taken a long time to be able to do that. But yeah, thanks Jo. Just before I do though, like it's amazing how many, how many books then did you show?

[00:05:17] Lucy Rennie: Five. That's incredible, isn't it? Just wanted to put that out there for you because you just think you're an inspiration, but like there's just always something else that you're doing or it's just brilliant. So Going back to your question, why did I write a book? Is that, was that the question? 

[00:05:31] Jo Day: Yeah, so we've talked about in the last two episodes about you leaving your corporate career and setting up LR comms and what led you to make that decision and how we transition on this.

[00:05:43] Jo Day: What feels like an enormously long, slow journey, step by step, one slice of the gateau at the time, technology changes, how people engage change, how marketing's done changes, all of these things, how your network changes, and then COVID happens. And, Things had to change because we were locked down and we couldn't get out and see people.

[00:06:06] Jo Day: So a lot of people were pushed onto the online world. Well, it changed things. It would never shrink back to what it was. The boundaries were stretched so far that now, like the world is your oyster and everybody discovered that you're accessible around the world during COVID through the online space.

[00:06:26] Jo Day: And it changed the way a lot of people do business. And it also changed the way people engage. Engage with communities and potential and new clients. So tell us, we know you created the community, but how did the book come about, what was your line of thinking, I need, to write a book? 

[00:06:46] Lucy Rennie: So I think, like you just said, COVID was pivotal for me.

[00:06:50] Lucy Rennie: So up until COVID, I built, so for the, it was whatever 2020 wasn't it. So I'd been going five years. So I built a, you know, a six figure successful business that was an agent, a communications agency that we worked with SMEs, predominantly engineering, steel, you know, I did have some other clients like the brilliant Puddle Duck swimming or, you know, but actually it was all people who, who got it, who had values and wanted to do it in the right way.

[00:07:19] Lucy Rennie: So we'd literally go in, write the strategy, and then I had a team of people. And we, we, we deliver it. We were like an outsourced comms marketing. And then COVID happened and obviously I started this community and it was really kind of something clicked inside.

[00:07:35] Lucy Rennie: Because I just saw all these passionate people who, you know, they weren't 20 year olds starting out. There were people who'd got backgrounds for, you know, similar to me, maybe they'd done all these different things and they had these businesses that that it was so precious and it was so, I think it was such an, we forget just how scary it was.

[00:07:56] Lucy Rennie: And I could see that and that we create these relations and I realized just the value in helping these and the joy I was getting from, I suppose, supporting business owners, small business owners who wanted to do something brilliant, but didn't necessarily have the skills of the other bits. They had their expertise and they had, you know, the drive, but they didn't know how to communicate or market or do, you know, and so I, I kind of, I I remember actually, I took, I think it must've been, I don't know when it was, but I'd said to Paul, my husband, I was like, right, I'm going to take a couple of days, I'm just going to put my out of office on because I need to get my head straight and think about where I'm going because I'd sort of got this community going, I had all my big clients still who were there because suddenly, you know, communication, you don't stop doing it.

[00:08:45] Lucy Rennie: In times of crisis, that's when you need to be doing it more. So I was full on busy. But at the same time, I was working from home, I'd shut my office because, well, I hadn't shut it, but I couldn't get to it my team were all working remotely. I was enjoying myself in, in the garden or with the kids or with the, you know, like just homeschooling.

[00:09:08] Lucy Rennie: And it was just the whole shift of what am I doing? And it just made me think, do you know what? There's more to this than just be, I'd built what I, my corporate life almost. So I was literally, I was working from six in the morning every day till seven, eight o'clock at night. I wasn't there on the school run.

[00:09:24] Lucy Rennie: You know, I, I, I wasn't present. I was just, and, It really, really, for me, covid was off another job. Yeah, I was, I was a prisoner almost in this machine that I'd built. And because I had either staff or partners I had like strategic partnerships, so I'd have people who would work for me under the LR comms banner that I was paying pretty, you know, they weren't necessarily employees, but it was kind of for different contracts and stuff.

[00:09:55] Lucy Rennie: Cause. Yeah, there was a business, and I still agree with that business model today of bringing in the right experts when you need it. But what it meant was it was huge weight on my shoulders. Whether it was for the client, because I wasn't just doing the strategy, I was also delivering it. So there'd be like Christmas Eve's where I'd be up till three o'clock in the morning, trying to get the Facebook ads ready for going because Boxing Day was a big, you know, I never switched off and I was always carrying the response because I care.

[00:10:23] Lucy Rennie: I had it all here and then the team and everything else. And then I had my daughter, I was homeschooled, you know, there was just a whole shift and it really made me stop a genuinely for me COVID in this sense was a, was a real, it was a positive experience was it really made me stop and go what I'm doing and, and really.

[00:10:44] Lucy Rennie: Took some time out to kind of look at everything and, and, and sort of reevaluate what I was doing. And, and, you know, I didn't want to go back to the office. I was enjoying working from home, you know, it was all those different things. Like what am I, and again, financially, I think that's the thing a lot of people didn't see was there was a lot of help out there for businesses, sole traders, people, but if you have a limited business and you're a director, you didn't get anything, you know, like there was no support whatsoever.

[00:11:15] Lucy Rennie: For me, I couldn't furlough myself. You know, it was all Paul was going in every day cause he was in industry. All my clients, cause they were manufacturing engineering anyway, they were still going cause they needed to keep Britain moving and all, you know, so it was just the most bizarre thing, but I thrived as a business cause It was doing it, but it really made me stop and think.

[00:11:36] Lucy Rennie: And so I took a couple of days out and it was then that I realized, you know what? The value in what I'm adding isn't in the doing the value. When I looked at all my clients and who they were and, you know, I even got new clients in COVID that I hadn't met. That we worked on strategy and, you know, in Newcastle or places because we called, but they were coming to me because of the strategic side of it and the experience side.

[00:12:01] Lucy Rennie: And it was only then really, I kind of realized that they weren't coming to me because I could make a Facebook post and, you know, whatever they were coming because I could go, actually, this is where you need to be looking or the bigger picture vision or the, you know, why are they doing it? And where's it going?

[00:12:17] Lucy Rennie: And that was what I was offering really. But it was all getting clouded or noisy because then at the same time we were doing all the stuff as well and it was busy and, and so the value wasn't necessarily, I don't think people saw necessarily, or I didn't anyway, see. Where that was. And so taking that time to go, do you know what actually, and, and because I think I'd got this group where we'd started this community, but also the new customers were coming through word of mouth to me for the strategy, because it was crisis situation, it helped me see.

[00:12:52] Lucy Rennie: And so that's when I made the decision. I think it was 2021 to pivot, like you were saying before, from having an agency where we were doing the implementation. I'm busy to actually move in a way. So I did a coaching and mentoring qualification. And my goal was to move away from implementation to just purely be doing the strategic side of things.

[00:13:16] Lucy Rennie: So going in and auditing SMEs and then helping them to develop a strategy. And then. Where I wanted to bring it in was actually, I realized as well, and I still believe in this now, is it's much more beneficial, I believe, for a business to do in house the comms, the marketing and build the brand than it is to outsource because the majority of what I said, I think that's where we were good was because we got under the skin of the business, but you have to really invest time to do that.

[00:13:44] Lucy Rennie: And that's, that's an investment where it was actually. If you've got someone who can come and do the strategy, then you can then invest in maybe a less experienced person or team to implement, but who are going to train and develop and eventually future proof themselves and be self sustainable and grow the business.

[00:14:01] Lucy Rennie: And so that was the kind of the shift that I was moving towards was this kind of strategic And then mentoring business model with a sort of a non exec kind of role in that. But the mentoring of the team, because from this community, I found this passion for mentoring and training and educating, helping and so championing.

[00:14:23] Lucy Rennie: So why the book? How, like, So coming, so that was where we're shifting. And then it was like, well, how can I reach? Because these people in this community that I've got, there were small business owners who, some of them, you know, they weren't making 10K, 5K, 2K months. They were surviving on, you know, and a lot of the time.

[00:14:44] Lucy Rennie: They'd started businesses going, Oh, I need to do all these things and spending all this money. And the majority of the time that I, what I was doing on those zoom calls was taking them right back to what are you doing? Why are you doing it? What are your values? What's your USP? What's your you know, what's the brand, what's the pillars, what's your content, what's the strategy, what are you thinking, the foundations, connecting with real people and how to create collaborations and just the, for me, It's common sense because I've just done it forever.

[00:15:13] Lucy Rennie: It's stakeholder engagement. All of 

[00:15:14] Jo Day: the thought process and the questions that you need to ask yourself and the the motion you need to go through, you've captured all of that in your book. And that was the thing. Yeah, so how did you sort of go about the book writing process? How did you? 

[00:15:31] Lucy Rennie: So I wanted to make it accessible to people.

[00:15:33] Lucy Rennie: So I knew that I needed to find something that was not a big ticket investment. That somebody, it would be accessible, but also in a way that wasn't condescending and kind of, Or scary textbook kind of blah blah blah. This is marketing all come, you know, and all that. I wanted it to be, it always reminds me of Grease.

[00:15:56] Lucy Rennie: Is it Grease? Where is it Johnny gives it? Who is it? Oh, it's just come to me. Where it gives him a book and he's, oh no, it's not Grease. It's Dirty Dancing. It's Dirty Dancing and Robbie. Gives baby a book and he says I want it back because there's notes in the margin, right? Okay. Anyway, sorry That's a good thing But my point was I wanted to create a book that people would have that wasn't a you know It wasn't a coffee table book It was a I wanted them to scribble to have it as a like a best mate in the pocket That would help them so they could call in and they could be like refer back to it or, but also to show them that it wasn't rocket science and that it was just actually by doing it and sharing and, and so.

[00:16:40] Lucy Rennie: I have a question for you. 

[00:16:42] Jo Day: So that was the why, what you wanted. Yeah. Which I find absolutely, cause I, I've worked with a lot of people writing books, probably 500 plus, maybe 600 people now on, on, in collaborations and solo authors. And one of the questions, when I used to do the, like, the Zoom call with them before the book was going to be launched in two weeks time, The question, the main question is how much money am I going to make?

[00:17:10] Jo Day: What price should I put the book at? Blah, blah, blah, right? And I find it interesting that some people will make money from writing a book if you've got a massive audience and you sell thousands of copies, but for me when I wrote my book it wasn't about how many copies it was going to sell or anything like that.

[00:17:30] Jo Day: It was to sort of show that This is my book and it's a reference point, something that I can just give people as almost a loss leader, a low entry thing that they've got and they're not likely to throw away because it's a physical book. Do you know what I mean? And I can tell you with this, when I wrote Strength and Power, my autobiography, I didn't write it for any other reason than supporting the testing process.

[00:17:58] Jo Day: We were testing the process, testing the book cover process, testing the formatting process, testing how to get it through Amazon. I'll just write a book 

[00:18:06] Lucy Rennie: because I want to test it. 

[00:18:07] Jo Day: That's why I wrote the book. We were testing the whole process for a brand new company. I did that, but then it became, hang on a minute, it works, I'm a best selling author in 15 categories, and these lovely reviews started landing, so I didn't just write a book on old, any old crap, it's a good book, it's a bloody good book, you should go and read it.

[00:18:30] Jo Day: Right, and people started commenting, and then complete strangers started getting in touch with me, and I can tell you, this book in terms of number of copies sold. Hasn't run into hundreds of thousands or whatever. It's probably sold a couple of thousand copies now.

[00:18:47] Jo Day: It's not huge numbers, right? It's been out since 2018 and it's probably now only sold a couple of thousand copies. But what happened the weekend of it launching was something quite phenomenal. Because my intent was never to make money from this book, right? I didn't think I'd ever make money as it, as it was being sold.

[00:19:05] Jo Day: It was never going to be a New York bestseller. Do you know what I mean? I'm not, I'm not a well known person. But I made 48, 000 in 48 hours because of this book. Do 

[00:19:17] Lucy Rennie: you want me to tell you why? I know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I bet I've done the same thing but I'd go on and tell because this is the thing, isn't it?

[00:19:24] Lucy Rennie: This is the key. Because 

[00:19:25] Jo Day: I had just moved, I was in the process of moving to Lanzarote. I'd packed up my life and I was moving to Lanzarote And I trained, I'd done a lot of NLP stuff in my corporate career. I'd done all, I was NLP'd up to my eyeballs. But I'd just spent 18 months training in mindfulness and meditation, hypnosis, coaching.

[00:19:47] Jo Day: So I'd done all of that because New Life and Lanzarote, I was going to just help people. So it was off the back of Launching a brand new coaching business and all of a sudden people read my book couldn't put it down I owe people one night's sleep because they weren't going to bed till 3 4 in the morning because they literally wouldn't put the book down Those were a lot of the messages that I got but complete strangers messaging me And then people booking in for discovery calls because they wanted me to be their coach.

[00:20:20] Jo Day: And I sold 48, 000 worth of coaching packages that weekend off the back of this book. So it's not about the book, it's about it positions you as the absolute expert in what you do. But this one just basically is about me. It's my autobiography I wrote this in 2020, 2018. It's now 2025, so blimey. Seven years ago, and this book has made me a shit ton of money. Because people read it, it's still being read now. Every single month, I get a statement from KDP and from ACX, Amazon, because it's the audio.

[00:21:01] Jo Day: And here's my statement of the earnings from this book. But the main thing I get earnings from is people contacting me saying, I've read your book, or such and such body recommended your book. I've read it and I wanted to have a chat to see what we can, whether we can work together. That's it. So, there you go.

[00:21:18] Jo Day: But anyway, back to your book. So, it wasn't about the 

[00:21:22] Lucy Rennie: number of copies. Yeah so, I, it was me, I, I, I've always wanted to write a book. I think that's really important to say, is I was brought up on books. Mum and Dad are teachers, or were teachers.

[00:21:35] Lucy Rennie: And it was like, I don't know, just that's part of it. Why are you whispering? But, they were, they brought, I loved, I loved, I do love books and it's one thing I'm really grateful to my parents for is instilling that passion of reading to me. Reading and shoes. I had a star chart. So basically once I read a book, I got a star.

[00:21:56] Lucy Rennie: And once I got 10 stars, I could have a pair of shoes. So. Yeah, it explains a lot, I think, doesn't it? But but I love books and now I'm interested, I'm going to, I'm going to share an anecdote, but yesterday we've been poorly over Christmas, which you'll have known because you've watched the episode. And I was saying to Paul yesterday, because it's obviously we're filming this, it's the, What is it?

[00:22:17] Lucy Rennie: 3rd of January is your birthday! I'm not ever going to forget that again now. What an awful friend. Actually, I could say there's some more on its way to you because it won't get there till next year anyway, will it? The state of how to get stuff to Lanzarote. Anyway what was I saying? I've lost my train of thought.

[00:22:32] Lucy Rennie: Yeah, last night I was talking to Paul and I was, I've got, every Christmas, I love Christmas holidays because it's the one time of year when all the clients stop as well so you can actually stop. And relax and this year, cause, and so I normally I'll have one or two hard, like proper printed books and I'll sit on the sofa and I'll probably just like, that's my self indulgent, enjoying time.

[00:22:54] Lucy Rennie: And this year I was like, support, you know what? I've got my two books and I haven't read them because we've. We literally had COVID and just, Christmas is just a blur. We've not even enjoyed that downtime. So I was saying to him, I'm going to make some time this weekend to read. I was missing it. But normally that's what I'm trying to say is reading a book is a treat.

[00:23:13] Lucy Rennie: I'm always reading. I've got about 10 on the go on audio and audible and whatever. I've noticed that you've got different ones on the go. Oh yeah. Cause it depends what mood I'm in or, you know, I'll have a podcast and I'll drop in and da da da. But I love reading and I've always wanted to write books. And.

[00:23:30] Lucy Rennie: I was going to, in my head, it was, I was going to do a bit of like a sex in the city one, but a steel girl in France was kind of my thing. Anyway, it never happened because it's actually like most people, you dream of it and then you never bring it to reality, do you? Cause life's busy and actually sit down and write it.

[00:23:47] Lucy Rennie: is a different, again, it's that taking the action, isn't it? It's the moment that you 

[00:23:52] Jo Day: decided, I'm doing it. I'm going to write a book. Like what was the big gulp moment of, Oh my God, I've signed up to do this now. I'm committing to it. 

[00:24:01] Lucy Rennie: Yeah. It was the end of 2021. And I'd But after COVID, so COVID was going on, I don't know where we were up to in all of that, but I kind of decided on pivoting.

[00:24:10] Lucy Rennie: That's why that was important. I just decided I was going to, and I knew it was going to take a few years to get there because I had clients, I'm not suddenly going to drop them. So I had to kind of help them to make that move and do, but in my head, I was like, right, 2022 is going to be that transition year and I'm going to make the shift from.

[00:24:28] Lucy Rennie: The hands on implementation machine to more strategic coaching, mentoring. I wanted to be that person where I could, you know, I was helping as many people as, as I could, and I'd never worked with one man band, small business owners. It was all big SMEs. And it was like, yeah. And it's like, yeah. And so, you know 

[00:24:50] Jo Day: why?

[00:24:50] Jo Day: Cause I've gone from this big corporate machine. Getting under the bonnet of a big corporate machine to now getting under the bonnet of a little business and my logical brain when people work with me is I really get to know business as if it's my own. Like if you're working with me, your business becomes my business and it's like I'm that involved because if you do well, I do well.

[00:25:19] Lucy Rennie: Yeah, and that's why we get on, isn't it? It's that, I think that's, we share that same passion, don't we? It's not about the money. Like you said, it's not about the money. It's, you give a shit and you care and you want them to, ugh. So yeah, so I'd made this decision. And so these SMEs that I was working with, it was going to be more strategic.

[00:25:38] Lucy Rennie: But again, brilliant business owners and people who, again, they needed that support. They didn't have the, the know how of these. So actually I knew, and this was the process I've always done with them anyway, was taking them back to basics, building the framework, building the foundation. So it's not like I've not made it all.

[00:25:54] Lucy Rennie: This is what I was doing. And I wanted to kind of give that. Yeah. Access to these one man band people, these soul traders, these smaller businesses, because I knew that they'd move forward and that's the thing. You can add, we can make such a big difference to them. Can't we, as they're starting and helping.

[00:26:13] Lucy Rennie: So I decided in my head, right. It's when you. 21 had been all what it was, 2022 was going to be that year of transition. And I knew I wanted to develop like 80 percent of my time was the SMEs, but I really wanted to focus the rest of the time on adding value to the smaller businesses. And so that's when, yeah, I decided, right, I'm going to go for it.

[00:26:33] Lucy Rennie: I'm going to create the Future Proof Club. I'm going to write a book and I'm going to launch a podcast. That was, Like 2022 was going to be the year. 

[00:26:41] Jo Day: For anybody watching or listening, how did you, how did you go about, where did you start? How did you know how to even structure the book, what you're going to write about?

[00:26:56] Jo Day: How long did it take you to, I've got so many questions. I know what I went through, but, and I know what the process was, but whether you stuck to the process or not, and I know you didn't, Lucy. So, yeah. 

[00:27:07] Lucy Rennie: That's no, there's no way. And I know why I didn't now, because that's part of who I am. Again, it goes back to me being me and going, right, I'm going to do that thing.

[00:27:15] Lucy Rennie: And so I've always done that. Whenever I've put my hand up and said, I'll do something. Like, it's like a weird thing inside me. I can't not do it. Yeah, 

[00:27:24] Jo Day: so there was a financial commitment because you 

[00:27:26] Lucy Rennie: were financial commitment, but it was more, it wasn't really the financial commitment. It was more, so I'd used just, I'll share, I'll be dead transparent with this.

[00:27:35] Lucy Rennie: I used, I got a bounce back loan. That was the only support we got from the government. And it wasn't the government. Whereas we got we could access a loan in COVID that was at like a really, really reduced interest rate. So it was like 2 percent or something. And so I'd taken out a big chunk. I didn't need it.

[00:27:57] Lucy Rennie: I didn't actually touch any of it, but it was just a security blanket. More to protect because A lot of loan 

[00:28:03] Jo Day: company people did during that time. 100%. You could have up to 50, 000, couldn't you? And you didn't have to pay any of it back for, was it six months, a year or something like that? 

[00:28:13] Lucy Rennie: It was 

[00:28:14] Jo Day: the lowest rate of borrowing for a limited company and it was pretty easy to get.

[00:28:18] Jo Day: Yeah, 

[00:28:18] Lucy Rennie: you just made the, you know, you obviously had to have the turnover and, you know, you didn't, they didn't give it to you if you'd just started out or whatever. But for me, I'm quite I don't normally do. Borrow, you know, that kind of, if I don't need to, I'd rather earn it and do it. But it was more because actually it was more about family.

[00:28:36] Lucy Rennie: And it was a buffer that I was like, do you know what? Worst case scenario, if, if nobody wants to work with me anymore tomorrow, because COVID was going on and everything, I had that buffer to pay the mortgage or to pay for the kids or, you know, just that was a security plan because, because of, I was a director of a limited company.

[00:28:52] Lucy Rennie: I didn't get any support. So that was my, in my head, look, protecting if I needed it. And so COVID. We kind of came back out and obviously I was doing really, I think I'd, one of the best years was 2021 for me. And I was like, do you know what, actually as a, as an investment money, you know, the return I could get on that because I was paying such a low interest.

[00:29:13] Lucy Rennie: How can I invest that back into the business and use it rather than it just sitting there in a bank now that I knew I was okay. So I was like, I'm going to use some of it to invest in that. So that's where I kind of like, right. Part of it was to slow down a little bit, to give me some time, you know, not maybe constantly trying to You know, bringing new clients, but actually give myself the time to think about what I was doing.

[00:29:36] Lucy Rennie: Investing kind of like the structure of the Future Proof Club and what that meant in time and energy. But then also in the book and thinking about the podcast. Cause I knew I'm not, you know, that's kind of what I do is I knew, like you've just said, yes, it was about helping people, but it's also about authority and visibility and getting myself out there to in front of that kind of audience.

[00:30:01] Lucy Rennie: In a way of adding value, not in spamming, you know, whatever. I wanted to do it in a way that was real and was that was helping people. So I knew there was a big thing about that. I was also in my head thinking, yeah, so I can, it'll be dead easy. I'll be able to create a podcast or write the book and then repurpose it.

[00:30:20] Lucy Rennie: And then have it on the socials, do the podcast, blah, blah, blah, dead easy. And I'll just have one thing and it'll just be a machine that will flow. And so in my head, it was like, it's not going to be a load of work. I just need to write the book and then it will all flow and blah, blah, blah. 

[00:30:34] Jo Day: So you went through so there's three different types of publishing.

[00:30:39] Jo Day: For anybody that's thinking about becoming an author, I think everybody's got a book in them and accessible now by using Amazon. So. You can self publish or you can go via the traditional publishing route that Unless you've got a huge influencer audience, generally you're not going to get published.

[00:31:01] Jo Day: It's got to be, you know, you've got to be a known person with a big audience. Or there's now that there's quite a few hybrid publishing companies that have come up now where you still get the quality of a traditional publishing house. So you get support with the interior, the formatting. The, the actual editing process, you get support with that, the book cover design, they'll help to pull it all together, and then the end piece as well, they'll help you with actually getting it loaded onto KDP, which is Amazon's publishing site, so, I'll put all of the links for the, the site, it's kdp.

[00:31:37] Jo Day: com, and it's basically the same sign in. information as your Amazon account, and that's where you load your print and kindle files. There are some other sites that you can do it on as well, but I'll share all of those links in the notes. But you went down the hybrid route so that you had an editorial, an editorial process like Basically, you got some beta readers, but you also had an editing process as well, where it was proofread and edited for you.

[00:32:06] Jo Day: You had help with book formatting, so the interior design and styling of the book, because I did that for you, that was me, and a professional book cover that was designed for you. And then I loaded the book, the very end of the process, I loaded that book for you on Amazon. Ranked it for put in all the categories it needed to be in and did all the keywords and all of that type of thing.

[00:32:30] Jo Day: So for anybody that wants to do this, it's a pretty straightforward process in KDP. You go on, you load your book, you load your book cover. And then, you know, it's, it's a process that you need to learn or you can pay somebody to do it for you. It's why I'm 

[00:32:47] Lucy Rennie: smiling because it goes back to like bookkeeping and finance and analytics.

[00:32:50] Lucy Rennie: It's, yeah. That was me. It was like, why? You don't want to learn it. You just want, you needed it. I didn't have time. I don't have, you know, for me, it was big enough to, thankfully, I made that decision to write the book anyway. And it's, it's like my podcast, you know, I could go make my, we'll just come on to that again as well.

[00:33:07] Lucy Rennie: But I could go and do it and spend the time and I'm not stupid. I could learn how to do it and it, you know, but it would take me hours and it, I'd probably, you know, it'd take me longer and cost me more money in the long run in terms of my hourly, you know. what I could be doing with time. I'm just gonna, you know, and I want to do it right.

[00:33:25] Lucy Rennie: Yeah. So, because I'll mess it up if I do it. So, absolutely for me, it was a no brainer to go and pay the professionals to do it and have somebody help me because I didn't know how to do it. I didn't even know you could do it yourself, 

[00:33:37] Jo Day: you know. You're now writing a book and I'm Let's just say, for argument's sake, you're on a six month project plan of writing this book, you've got the outline of the book, so you would have had a call that basically helped you to structure what the book, because you've got to take the reader on a journey, essentially.

[00:33:57] Jo Day: So, you would have had a call. An initia an initial call helping to blueprint what your book actually looked like from the introduction, the preface, to right the way through to the conclusion at the end of the book. Yeah. You're taking them on a logical journey of where to start, right the way through.

[00:34:18] Jo Day: Yeah, so now you've got to sit down and start writing. Let's say you've got a six month window before you know, we've got a target date for publishing. Talk me through that six months, Luce. What did that look like for you? 

[00:34:33] Lucy Rennie: I feel like I'm coming out now. 

[00:34:35] Jo Day: Well, I want to just be real for 

[00:34:40] Lucy Rennie: people. Yeah, it's really important.

[00:34:42] Lucy Rennie: Yeah. So I think, I think the key thing you said there, though, was target date. Yeah. I had a publishing date. There was a date in the diary and I, I think it was actually August or July, I feel like, 'cause we, I actually moved it to October, when was my date? October the fifth, I think it was. Yeah, 2022. So I sat down, me being me.

[00:35:06] Lucy Rennie: Right. Got it. Da. And I think we have to say, I had a concept, so I wasn't. I think it's very different maybe if you're writing a fiction or you're starting a book and you don't really know what you're going to write. I kind of knew I wanted to share the process that I do every day and blah de blah. So yeah, I had this call where they kind of gave you a structure and talked you through it and sort of, I can't remember what it's called, but they encourage you to kind of write like the blueprint, like you say, which is sort of the mapping it out.

[00:35:38] Lucy Rennie: So you've got a bit like when you're at school and they teach you how to write an essay. It's that kind of. Framework. And then just, just 

[00:35:45] Jo Day: quickly then so this would be mine. It's basically your table of contents. That's the blueprint. So mine was based on, if you can see, Here, I'll show it on the screen, there's 10 chapters, so there's an acknowledgement, and then there's 10 chapters.

[00:36:00] Jo Day: Within the 10 chapters, there's four sub chapters. So, mine was broken up into 40 segments, which was manageable. So, as long as I was writing one segment, a day or every other day, I would hit the deadline of the target publishing date and get the book off to editing when it needed editing, get this, you know, get it to formatting when it needed formatting.

[00:36:24] Jo Day: So 10 chapters broken down into small manageable chunks of sub chapters. You don't get this overwhelmed. Yeah. So yours was done in part. So clarity, communication, production, and then you've got, so how I went about writing my book was I'd start at chapter one in the beginning, right, so no, chapter one, but then I found the first chapter really difficult to write.

[00:36:53] Jo Day: It was, it really, when they say writing's a cathartic process, especially if you're writing your autobiography, it brought up some memories for me that buried real deep and they were still painful. And my first chapter is about my dad dying of cancer when I was 11. And it goes through this childhood trauma of losing a young, like losing a parent when I was, and there was no support for grief at that point.

[00:37:19] Jo Day: And it took you through this whole thing. So I found that chapter really difficult to write. So how I dealt with it was I voice clipped it to myself. I voice memoed. Then, I sat my phone next to Microsoft, open Microsoft Word, open Dictator on Microsoft Word, press play, and I watched the book write itself using the Dictator, because it was just listening.

[00:37:47] Jo Day: And then I went and edited. I did the same. Edited the same after that. So I didn't write my book, I voice clipped my book and then translated the voice clips into transcripts and then, yeah. How did, how did you go about 

[00:38:04] Lucy Rennie: writing the book? I, I had so like my chapters, like you say, so I had my part, I had like a, And I, I'd said to myself, right, I'm going to do one a week and I'll get to the time and it'll be fine.

[00:38:17] Lucy Rennie: And the first couple of weeks I sat there in the, in the lounge on my lap, cause I love writing. You know, I sat with my, I'm in my element where I'm, you know, in front of the log burner and I'm typing away and I'm getting it all down. I'm telling a story as well through the book. 'cause it's also, I'm sharing my stuff and I'll be dead honest.

[00:38:35] Lucy Rennie: It was brilliant. I put it out there and I was like, right, I've done the first bit. And I was, 'cause I knew as well in my head if I didn't share that I was doing it, you know, I needed that accountability. 'cause now I've put it out there. I bloody had to do it again. It's huge. I knew, you know, that was the biggest thing for me.

[00:38:51] Lucy Rennie: If I'm saying I'm gonna do it, I'm do it. You know, I'm not gonna not do it. It's just, it was, yeah, that was just unthinkable. But then life gets in the way. You know, you're running a business anyway. Not, that's not, your book is just a thing, it's like a hob, you know, it's a thing on the top, isn't it? You, you, as a mum.

[00:39:09] Lucy Rennie: It's important 

[00:39:10] Jo Day: to say now at this point, it's not procrastination thing that stops you from writing and sticking to the deadline. No. This is a priority thing, and when you've got paying clients, you're delivering for them. They're the number one priority. When you've got family, they're the number one priority.

[00:39:27] Jo Day: And your book just keeps going further and further down the pile. 

[00:39:31] Lucy Rennie: Yeah, exactly that. Exactly that. And it gets to the, you know, a month's gone by, two months gone by, and then I don't know, just life was really, really busy. There was lots going on. And also I'm pivoting my business as well at the same time.

[00:39:48] Lucy Rennie: So, you know, there's, there's lots going on. What's the, what did it do? So I, again, I thought I was going to follow it. Chapter by chapter. And actually it doesn't work for me that in my brain. No, think I wrote the last chapter before 

[00:40:03] Jo Day: I wrote the second or third. Yeah. 

[00:40:06] Lucy Rennie: So I jumped in and I think the first thing I did was I kind of went through all the chapters and just sort of dumped what I kind of wanted to say in them.

[00:40:13] Lucy Rennie: Sort of the main lines and stuff. But like I said, time went by really quickly and I realized that there's no way I was going to get to be. Done because you had to kind of put in a first edition, like two months before the publish, I can't remember what it was exactly, but a good, probably two months before the actual published date, because then it had to go to what editing and format, all those things you've just talked about.

[00:40:36] Lucy Rennie: And so luckily they were lovely. Then they, they helped me, they let me move the date backs to October, but that kind of, I realized then that, right, otherwise it was going to be the next year. And I'd already said to everybody and to myself, I'm publishing a book this year. So that was then like that thing that kicked in.

[00:40:56] Lucy Rennie: Managed to convince my husband to let me have a week by the sea or by myself. So I went and booked a cottage and we went for the weekend and then he left with the kids and I stayed with the dog and I was like, right, I've got five days, five days to get this book written. And I did, pretty much.

[00:41:13] Jo Day: That's phenomenal, that kind of achievement, to write a book. Let's say you've spent no more than ten days writing this book. Yeah, not even that. 

[00:41:22] Lucy Rennie: I probably spent not even ten hours, Jo, writing it. There was nothing, really. I spent five 

[00:41:29] Jo Day: weeks writing my book.

[00:41:33] Jo Day: It was the strangest five weeks of my life. Like, some days it'd be three, four in the afternoon and I was still wearing a Batman onesie and I'm like, oh my god, I've not even showered, I've not eaten today. I only moved off the sofa to go and I'd go the bathroom or make myself a coffee and then I'd come straight back to writing.

[00:41:56] Jo Day: And during my book writing process, I actually broke both of my scaphoids in my hands and tore ligaments in my wrist, tore this bicep off its muscle, and I broke my collarbone. So, that was a dog walking accident. So, about six weeks before the book was due to publish, I still hadn't finished writing the last couple of chapters, and I literally did have to dictate and edit my book using the Microsoft Word Dictator to get the book finished.

[00:42:29] Jo Day: It would have been so easy just to say. Now I'm, like, I need to push the deadline. But I found a way, another creative way of actually getting this book finished. 

[00:42:40] Lucy Rennie: Yeah, definitely. And I think that's the thing, it's kind of, yeah, even though I had then that week, I got there and I remember that I had a lovely weekend.

[00:42:50] Lucy Rennie: I found this gorgeous little cottage that we go back to now all the time. It was always, that was meant to see the sea, because I love the sea. So, I knew I needed to be by the sea to get this. Creative space, but I also knew I needed headspace. I couldn't, if I was going to write, I needed the time to be able to do it.

[00:43:05] Lucy Rennie: So I put all my clients on, you know, managed, looked after them and I had this whole week of like, right. But then they went and it was like, shit, I've got five days to what I've done. You know, and then it's like, Oh, and you almost get that, not procrastination, but that's where it goes. Oh, what am I? It doesn't come because you've got the pressure of it all.

[00:43:25] Lucy Rennie: And Elia, daughter, she'd got an, she'd come home and she'd put an easel at home and she'd put word count.

[00:43:32] Jo Day: I remember this, she shared this. She was doing your earplugs every day. Every night, yeah. I think you fibbed on one of them, didn't you? And then you have to catch up. Yeah, I remember you saying to me.

[00:43:42] Jo Day: Yeah, because, 

[00:43:42] Lucy Rennie: yeah, they'd come home. They wouldn't, you know, even get pressure to anybody else, but, like, I remember we

[00:43:49] Jo Day: were 

[00:43:49] Lucy Rennie: having a 

[00:43:50] Jo Day: call. Yeah, we had a call, and you were being monitored on your word count, and you'd not quite done what, like, you'd got writer's block. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the words weren't coming, so you'd walk Kylo instead.

[00:44:05] Jo Day: Right, but you've, the thing is, you got there, you got yourself published, you've now got a book. And I think, the book, writing the book and getting it published is the easy bit. 

[00:44:15] Lucy Rennie: I loved it! I loved it, I made it a game. I need to say that, I made a spreadsheet of all those chapters, and then as I finished one, Ticks it off, you know, so it became a game that dopamine hit of like, right, I'm doing it.

[00:44:29] Lucy Rennie: I'm on it yeah, and I used a dictaphone as well when there was moments when I just couldn't get the words out properly in my head Because I'm a perfectionist. I just speak And say what I wanted to say as in kind of the thing and then at least I had something that was dictated and I could play around and I'd got the, the outline of it.

[00:44:47] Lucy Rennie: So yeah, being creative in how, another thing was I put out, I think I'd written an email to everybody, my list, like my audience, my people, my community going, Oh, I don't know how to do this. And so many people the next day messaged me back going, it's fine, you can do this. I want, you know, I know you can.

[00:45:03] Lucy Rennie: And it was just, that was, that pushed by you. 

[00:45:06] Lucy Rennie: It was amazing 

[00:45:07] Lucy Rennie: though. 

[00:45:08] Jo Day: Everybody was holding you and saying, come on, borrow our belief. Yeah. To get you across the finish line. Okay, so now you've got your book, you're holding your book in your hand. How have you used it since? So it's been two years. How have you been using it since it was published?

[00:45:25] Jo Day: You know what? 

[00:45:25] Lucy Rennie: I'm embarrassed, not embarrassed, because I'm owning it today, but I haven't used it as much as I should have because of this, because it was, I loved writing it, I loved it, but actually, you know, I had a little part and that was lovely after it and the launch of it, but I felt, honestly, I was so nervous and so yeah, scared, I think, of what people would think and what they would say.

[00:45:53] Lucy Rennie: And, and, you know, I can remember my dad reading it. It was the first person and he rang, he rang me and he sent me a message saying, Oh, it's, it's, What did he say? Something like it's really friendly or it's basically, he was telling me it's written. Academic paper. Yeah. And my dad's quite, he like, you know, he's quite an academic person and it was like, oh, he doesn't, he doesn't think it's good enough.

[00:46:18] Lucy Rennie: And he didn't mean that at all. It was just, but I, I intentionally wrote it in that, you know, easy to read thing because 

[00:46:28] Jo Day: I loved it. I've read it 

[00:46:29] Lucy Rennie: and, and there's, you know, there's a workbook and it's, so, yeah, I haven't, I'll be dead honest, I haven't used it as much as I should have. However, when I have, it's the fact that I'm an author.

[00:46:43] Lucy Rennie: First of all, I was a bestselling author. I got. I came number one next to Alex, Hormosey was number two, my snapshot on that day on that was brilliant. But actually what I've used it for, or where it's helped me is authority. It's about people getting in touch about it, people getting in touch because they've read it.

[00:47:01] Lucy Rennie: I've had clients through it who'd never heard of me and then they've been given a copy of my book and have reached out. I sell, you know, I sell every month, not a lot, cause I'm not talking about it enough, but yeah. It's, you know, it's not making me rich like you were saying, but it's the ripple effect of it.

[00:47:19] Lucy Rennie: It's the credibility that comes from conversation. 

[00:47:23] Jo Day: These for me, it's almost like a little, it's a talking point when, when you're meeting people, like the amount of people that come the shop and one way or another end up finding out that I've written a book and then end up downloading my audio book right there and then, or they download my autobiography.

[00:47:44] Jo Day: And they're just like, Why haven't you got some copies of the book in the shop? We need some copies so we can buy them here. And it's like, when I first wrote this book, my autobiography. I speak about it quite a lot and then I just stopped talking about it. It's almost like it served its purpose, it's there, random people get in touch with me now and again.

[00:48:08] Jo Day: To write one book is amazing, I've written five, well I've written two solo, contributed to three others and now I've just written another, co authored the children's book, but now also written another book. About wine, of all things, you know what I mean? So, it, it is, it, it, it's that, it's positioning.

[00:48:28] Jo Day: When you say to somebody, because not everybody in the world will write a book. I don't know what the actual percentage of population is. Less than 1%. 

[00:48:36] Lucy Rennie: It's really worth looking at, because it's like 1 or 2%, I think, of people. Yeah. If you want to write a book, actually do it. Actually do it, yeah. Which is huge.

[00:48:44] Lucy Rennie: Like, well, it's not, but, and I think that's the thing. It's like now, like, you're not going to, I'm not going to shut up about it this year. Do you know, it's because actually it's, I've done it and yeah, it, I know it helps. 

[00:49:00] Jo Day: This, this blows my mind. When I die, this book will still be on Amazon. Blows me mind. I don't know how long for it will be on Amazon, but once you've written it, that's it.

[00:49:12] Jo Day: And it's an, once you get it in the British library. registered as a book. It's there forever. Like, this book will outlive me. 

[00:49:23] Lucy Rennie: Yeah, no, it's huge. Yeah, it is. And I think, again, though, it comes back to that mindset. I loved the writing, you know, I needed that dopamine in the deadline, but that was the easy bit.

[00:49:35] Lucy Rennie: The hard bit is, you know, Is sharing it and saying, you've done it and put it out there. But I think talking about how it's helped. So in the book, because I wanted to make it accessible there's a whole section where there's complimentary resources. So what it. Because I was thinking about it, because this is how I work, I'm thinking, why am I doing it?

[00:49:56] Lucy Rennie: What do I want to get out of it? I just wanted to help. So there's a downloadable work. So you can basically, for people who buy the book, they can go onto the website, download like a PDF that actually then contains all the exercises and stuff from the book. So it's a real guide. If you want a printed copy, you can just Get in touch, but you also get a month free in the Future Proof Club.

[00:50:17] Lucy Rennie: So it worked or it works as a, as a marketing funnel as well, really. Cause it's, it's people yeah, it's a hook. A lot of the time I'll go to an event or I'll give it to clients. So I'm quite happy to give them for free. You know, we, I'm sure you'll share how you can buy author copies.

[00:50:34] Lucy Rennie: Can't you? So you've only pay in there. Just the other thing I think is important to say with Amazon is you're not printing. You, it prints on demand, so you don't have to invest in a whole like batch of printed copies. That's an investment personally. It just prints, doesn't it? When, when you need it. So if you want to buy author copies, you can access them at wholesale price.

[00:50:55] Lucy Rennie: So I use them to give events or 

[00:50:58] Jo Day: A lot of people that haven't been able to afford To pay for hybrid publishing. So they have gone down the 100 percent self published route. And it's, you know, they've written their, written their manuscript out in Word or Google Docs or however. They've then created, they've even paid somebody a small fee on something like Upworks or Fiverr to get the book cover done for them.

[00:51:24] Jo Day: They're not brilliant, they're not perfect, but solid seven. 

[00:51:29] Lucy Rennie: Yeah, definitely. 

[00:51:31] Jo Day: The thing is getting it out there and becoming a published author. It doesn't matter how you do it. The reason why platforms like Amazon exist is so that the majority of people that are not seen by traditional published houses can have their audience and can have their say. So my message would be self publishing is not as hard as what people would have you believe that it is. There's lots of free resources on KDP. There's lots of free resources on YouTube of how to do all of this stuff. Get your book written. Ask friends and family to proofread it for you.

[00:52:09] Lucy Rennie: That's the thing though, yeah, it's, it's 

[00:52:11] Lucy Rennie: being brave to do that. Yeah. And, and sharing it and letting people in on the journey. You know, I think if I was going to do it again, I'd write from the start, be vulnerable about it and let people read it to give me the feed, you know, and I'll probably, you know what, I'll probably do that again and do a second edit now cause I'm, I'm ready to do that.

[00:52:30] Lucy Rennie: Yeah. But I, I think it all is mindset. It's, it says, yeah, value comes then from being able to share it and do it. And, and, but then also it's also a tool for like the Kindle. You can go in and you can, you know, I've got a load of content now that it's valuable content I can share. There's a masterclass that goes with it.

[00:52:49] Lucy Rennie: You know, there's, there's, it's just the same, like even the guy came to take my old car, so I changed my car the other day and. I was at that retreat, I was at my witchy retreat, but the guy came and he had to check it was all right, took it away and he's talking to Paul and talking about like he does this other business and blah blah blah.

[00:53:07] Lucy Rennie: Paul runs upstairs, says to Ali, go and get one of mummy's books. So Paul gave him one of my books and this guy's now part of the Future Proof Club. you know, or the local MP came knocking on the door in the election. He was like, here have this, duh, duh, duh. And I was like, hold on a second. Here have this.

[00:53:22] Lucy Rennie: It's like this where you can, you know? And it is. It's just, yeah. But it's also, it's useful. I genuinely now I'm owning it because actually. Go and do that. It's going to save you a lot. Go and do that. As in, go and follow the guide and you can dip in and out, but go and do it because it's going to save you so much time and energy and help you get there quicker and do it in a more solid, sustainable way.

[00:53:48] Lucy Rennie: Grow your business because you've got the foundations in place. And Works for, yes, it's written in, you know, a friendly, nice way and it's telling my story, but no matter what size of business, this is my approach that I do. The Future Proof Framework with big organizations and little ones. It's the same thing.

[00:54:05] Lucy Rennie: It's just the way that you do it. And, you know, so you do it with teamwork, 

[00:54:09] Jo Day: I think. Two messages here. One is go and buy Lucy's book Clarity Communication Connection. Read the book, get the free download. There's a ton of free stuff available. So get the book and get in touch if you need support.

[00:54:24] Jo Day: So the links in the show notes anyway, but the, that's the first thing. Go and get Lucy's book. But the second thing, Lucy, what would you say to people who are thinking about writing a book for their business?

[00:54:37] Lucy Rennie: I think it's one of the best things you can do because it really does define, I mean, this is now, this is, I'm known for this. This is my framework. This is who I am. This is what I do. So it's the best way for people to decide whether they like you or not, whether they like, you know, give people a taste of it and try it.

[00:54:57] Jo Day: And I'm known for this.

[00:55:00] Lucy Rennie: And, and that's the thing. It's such a great way to be able to say to somebody without having to go in hard sell or anything, just go here, just go, this is what I do. Go and see whether you like it. And because it's written, like people will say to me, it's like, I can hear you. You know, it's your voice. It's who you are.

[00:55:18] Lucy Rennie: And that's exactly, for me, that's. It's my, that's my ethos is that it's, I don't want to work with people who don't want to work with me. And it's, so it's the, it's a brilliant way of giving a taste of who you are and how you work and what you do. And, and yeah, there's all the authority and the credibility it comes with being a published author and all those things.

[00:55:37] Lucy Rennie: But it's all, I actually think it's more about what the value is. You can offer and share and do in that sense of it as well. Again, goes back to your 48 grand that you made that day was you got people going, yeah, I do want to work with her. She does know her stuff. She is, you know, 

[00:55:53] Jo Day: that was just hours over that weekend.

[00:55:57] Jo Day: There was a lot more that came after this. This book here has made me a hell of a lot of money, a lot of money because coaching clients, people who resonated. I share a lot of personal stuff in here. The book is all about overcoming adversity. So it says adversity makes life interesting. Overcoming it makes it meaningful.

[00:56:21] Jo Day: I share a hell of a lot of stuff in this book. And it was people that were going, Oh my God, So this is where she was, to this is where she is now. If she can do that, I can do that, but I want to work with her because she's got the lived experience. I had the business acumen, I had the business experience, but I also have the lived experience of Many, many things.

[00:56:47] Jo Day: I don't want to spoil it in case you want to read the book, but many, many things that I share in that book and I need to do a follow up because this book's been out for seven years and adversity continued to happen in my life that I have touched on in the collaboration books, but it just keeps on coming.

[00:57:05] Jo Day: Life always throws you curveballs. It's how you deal with those curveballs that's interesting for me now. So, because I have equipped myself through self development to deal with things differently. That's why I can continue moving forward and continue making progress on this journey of mine, this creative journey.

[00:57:27] Jo Day: Right, Lucy, I'm going to wrap it up there because we've gone over an hour. We've been waffling for an hour. We could talk all day. But yeah, next week podcast host. That's off the back of publishing the book. This is how me and Lucy met. She was already in the book writing process, but we hadn't actually met.

[00:57:49] Jo Day: We'd never met before and then Lucy contacted me about actually producing a podcast. Yeah, so not only were you pivoting your business, writing a book, you thought what the heck, I'll just do a podcast as well. 

[00:58:03] Lucy Rennie: Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

[00:58:04] Jo Day: Yeah, so join us next week where I'm going to be grilling Lucy on her podcast journey.

[00:58:10] Jo Day: And I'll also be sharing some of the behind the scenes of what we do at Audio Co in terms of podcast creation, management, and the software and the tech that you need to get going. 

[00:58:21] Jo Day: All right. 

[00:58:21] Lucy Rennie: And I think if anyone, if anyone is interested or has any questions or maybe from that we've talked about, if there's anything that they're like, Oh, what do you mean by that?

[00:58:30] Lucy Rennie: Or da da, cause I think sometimes we probably use in jargon, aren't we? Or we're talking about stuff. Please reach out cause we can share. 

[00:58:37] Jo Day: Yeah, pop, pop the questions 

[00:58:39] Jo Day: in the comments on the video or on, if you're on a podcast platform at the top of the show notes, it, there's a send us a text message function.

[00:58:50] Jo Day: Just click on that. If you send the text message, it will email the show and me and Lucy will be able to see your email. It'll email us directly. So if you're on YouTube, put the question in the comments below so that we can answer it publicly. to help more people. 

[00:59:06] Lucy Rennie: The thing is, if you are thinking about it and you want accountability this year, let us know and we'll hold you accountable to when you're going to publish it or, you know, what date is or make sure you, you know, hold you accountable. That's the key. It's putting your hand up and saying you're going to do it, isn't it?

[00:59:22] Lucy Rennie: So. 

[00:59:23] Jo Day: Absolutely. All right. So we'll see you next time. Thanks for watching. Bye for now. Bye. Bye.

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