Today Publish Your Purpose: A Step-By-Step Guide To Write, Publish, and Grow Your Big Idea launched! Get the ebook for $2.99 on Amazon.

Today is my book launch, which I am quite excited about. And the book is called publish your purpose. It is a step by step guide to write, publish and grow your big idea, which might be the first time I have said the title and subtitle succinctly without botching it. So I'm impressed its launch day, here we are.

So I'm excited about this conversation today. Because instead of just having this be a kind of me going on and on about my new book, and how excited I am with my new book, I am bringing in a bunch of other authors who have worked on their books for quite some time, in some cases, where, you know, some of us painfully moved through the publishing process, the the writing process and the publishing process. And some of us just kind of crank it out fast. And everyone's kind of a, in a different place in a different journey. And so, for me, this book started on July 9, of 2020. And so it was kind of a, I started it, I put it down, I started it, I put it down, it's kind of a lot of this back and forth.

And so I'm finally here and having it published, which feels like a monumental effort. And it is also it is October 11, which is also also National Coming Out Day. So it was intentional that I included that on here as well, even though this book has nothing to do with coming out, other than maybe coming out as an author, which I think can be as scary at times for folks. And the thing I have is an ask for for folks today is I have discounted the book on Amazon for the ebook to 299. So if anyone just kind of wants to get access to it at a reduced price, it is there today for 299. If you do that my request is leaving a review. So I'm not really focused on hey, go buy the book. So we can get bestseller status, I'm focused on making sure that this book gets into the hands of the people who need it. And that means getting it into the hands of libraries. So that way the book is accessible for people in in whatever economic situation they themselves might be in.

So my goal is to get reviews. And so with reviews, comes more exposure in the algorithms in primarily Amazon. Unfortunately, Amazon is kind of still the, the place where people at least, are at least doing the research around around books. So that's my goal. So if you do if you've already bought the book, which I had a lot of pre orders, and I have made my local post office very angry lately, making many trips with a lot of books. But if you've already, if you've already bought the book, please take a moment to leave a review today. If you don't mind, that would be my my number one goal. Okay, so just a little bit about the book, it's a step by step guide to write, publish and grow your big idea. So it does kind of anchor into three separate pieces of this process. It is the writing, it is the publishing and then it's kind of like what you do with the books. So there's a lot of marketing in this book as well.

And my intention with this book was to kind of demonstrate for folks, what's possible, because I think sometimes when we look at books we think of we think of them in a certain way. Even if I asked you the question of like, what is it like when you think of a book, what are you thinking? Are you thinking of a coffee table book? Are you thinking of a novel? Are you thinking of a nonfiction book that's heavy with graphics, everyone kind of has their own vision for it. And so for this book, it is very graphically heavy, it is full color, it is designed in a way to be as accessible as possible. My goal was to write a book that was 35,000 words, it is 68,000 words. So it's just a just a little bit more than my intention was.

Today’s Invisible Stories guest is Publish Your Purpose Press’s own Brandi Lai. Brandi is a contributor and the mastermind behind the creation of the anticipated The Real Lives Of Transgender and NonBinary Humans, the first anthology from PYP. Brandi also recently started her own business, Best-Laid Pens, and she specializes in ghost writing and development editing. Brandi is passionate about helping other people share their stories and making a platform for other people to amplify their voices.

In this podcast, Brandi and I discuss what it was like for her to be working on this new PYP project, and being the person spearheading this anthology. Brandi was passionate from the start about this project, and put her heart and soul into getting this book to happen. Brandi tells us a bit more about 

• The emotional and cathartic experience of working with the contributors, and relating to their stories on a personal level. 
• How as the collector of these contributors’ stories, she had to put herself into their story to capture their voice, and how that triggered her own emotions from her past. She had to learn how to cope with her own emotions and reflect back on her own experiences, while still making sure the contributors’ words were authentic and meaningful. 
• The ultimate goal of this anthology, which is to reach those trans and nonbinary people who are struggling or going through similar experiences, and give them hope for their own future. This book may also help cisgender people learn more about the lives and experiences of transgender and nonbinary individuals, and to act as a guide for those who love trans and NB people about how to support and relate to those people in their lives. 
• The ways this process of collecting these stories has empowered her to share her own story, and to become an entrepreneur herself much like the contributors to the anthology have done. 

Today’s Invisible Stories guest is author, podcaster, and speaker Nicolle Merrill. Nicolle has written for Four Seasons and National Geographic private jet tours, taught digital communication skills to global executives, and sold adventure travel programs in New Zealand. As the former Associate Director of the Career Development office at Yale School of Management, she coached hundreds of MBA students and professionals through all phases of their career transitions. Nicolle’s book, Punch Doubt in the Face: How to Upskill, Change Careers, and Beat the Robots, has been published by PYP. This book upgrades career advice for the future of work. In the book, Nicolle translates the headlines about robots taking all the jobs into a guide to help career changers navigate the new world of work. Nicolle’s human-centered approach to career changes, combined with a relentless curiosity about emerging career trends, has led to speaking engagements across the US, as well as in Canada and Ireland.

In this podcast, Nicolle and I delve into her life as a self-described job-hopper, and how she used her adaptability and Liberal Arts background to try out different career paths and guide others looking to do the same. Nicolle talks about

• How she took her experiences in different jobs and combined them into her book, to offer others insight into what their career path may look like. She emphasizes that career changes are not linear, and that they take different shapes depending on who you are and your journey may not be like somebody else's journey.
• How her attention-grabbing book title came to be, and how it is a larger message of learning to push away doubts and insecurities and be confident in your skill sets. 
• Her tone in her book, and how it really sets the stage for her speaking engagements and other branding elements. From the first few pages of her book, you know who she is and what she is about, and she is just like that in person. There is a congruence that just works. 
• The way she overcame her procrastination tendencies and carved out time each day where she would write whatever came to mind, without stopping to self-edit.