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Successful Licensing with David Moldawer

Now we have david here with us. He's gonna come and talk to us about nice tio. Hi, everybody. We're gonna sit because my feet hurt please um so I've been sort of talking you up all day okay david is actually the channel head for the money and life channel here at creative life so he's sort of the gatekeeper for all of the courses that are sort of related to business and like money in life right okay so tell us a little bit about what you did before you did this sure before I was here I was a book editor in new york I'm still in new york based out of new york but I was a book editor at a number of different book publishers mostly doing nonfiction so that's that's intellectual property that's the kinds of authors I worked with people like rachel who had expertise and they would write books and and then I would publish them awesome my background so so you're the gatekeeper I've been a gatekeeper for a long time way want to know what the gatekeeper wants okay, so one thing I want to make c...

lear though is that you know clearly the intellectual property that entrepreneurs are creating is highly valuable to publishing into other large companies right? Sure absolutely any of your experience running a business is of value to other people running a business and that goes for any kind of expertise if you have experience in an area they're people who going to want to know that they don't have to make the same mistakes that you've already made in one form or another. And that goes not just for traditional book publishing, but all kinds of content, publishing and self publishing. I worked at amazon, which, obviously, is where a lot of the self publishing gets done. Nowadays. So there's there's a lot of different opportunities, depending on what your expertise is and who the potential audiences. So I just wanted to make sure that you know that it has a lot of value because you know, I think a lot of times entrepreneurs can feel like especially if you're starting out or if you haven't like you know if you're not internet famous you know it makes you feel like we'll still pharma creating is not that valuable and I just want them to know that that's actually not true it's important to have that confidence because that will make you take the steps to first of all protect your intellectual property but then also take steps to approach folks like david who might be interested in licensing your work or taking your work and putting it on a platform that they have access to write talking to experts like me who select are gatekeepers is very useful but I think it's also important to just look at what else is working because who you are is much less important than the expertise you could bring to the table nowadays because people are just googling these things they're searching for them on amazon and I have had experience number of times where I'm looking for something a topic that seems very important and relevant to our creative artists sort of business people and the first thing that pops up is a self published book by someone who has no audience of their own and it could have three hundred four and a half, you know, average stars people are clearly buying large numbers of it because that's the book on that topic and if that's the only book on that topic especially if it's an initial area you know where it's like that's hey you're you're that one guy you know it's like how tow do quick books for filmmakers you that one day you know who's going to address that specific need then people will buy your book they don't really care who you are if you could give him the answers to their questions so if you feel like you have the answers to some questions that people are asking even a small group of people then it just also becomes about you know what's the appropriate price you know if it's a very very niche expertise and you're the one of the few people who actually has it you can just charge more you don't have to reach ten thousand people for ten dollars you can reach a thousand people for one hundred dollars to make the same money so that's really good to know there's a big party I wouldn't have thought of it that way I would have almost thought that if you're more needs that you charge less no quite the opposite because the people are desperate for that information when you really need that specific expertise even a small difference to the outside world between different areas of one industry can sometimes be huge, you know so if you're a freelancer something's air going toe address all freelancers but some things are going be specific to an illustrator and not all freelancers so figuring out you know how narrow you can go and then what that market can afford to pay for your expertise whatever it is they're out there you're not the only one doing what you do uh there might be ten other people but those kind of people are gonna wanna know what you have to say. It was probably a hell of a lot more than ten people who want to do what you want to do so all right, so what are you looking for so let's start with creative lives sure if you are, you know, looking for first will tell us about your process do you just kind of get approached by instructors all the time and then sort him out whether you want to you know, do that that that course or not or do you go seeking them for like, maybe holes where you feel like in the creative life catalog theirs something that I feel like our customers need that we haven't addressed? Yes, absolutely it's a mixture of all of those strategies and more people come in, people are referred often instructors who have a great experience experience teaching on creative live tell their friends because people are very much right, very much interconnected spaces and once you get into the world of education for creative freelancers which is primarily what were what we're talking about a money in life it's not how to run your corporation it's it's how to be a freelancer but I have a small business and creative area so those people are they know each other there are a lot of conferences there's a sort of professional circuit and that's how a lot of it happens but I also look for particular topics and then sometimes people just come out of the blue and really impressed me maybe they've taught classes for some of our competitors and that was successful but they're looking to do something that's a little bit more you know I don't say anything about our competitors are doing very nice job here on is a different experience so maybe it's time tio try a different approach and then they'll reach out and say wow you did a good job you know with an iphone on your desk maybe we could do something special with some of these nice folks so in the pretty lighting it's a eso tell me about then how do you actually select them so they come to you in a lot of different ways what makes you decide that somebody is a good you know sort of licensee or creative live instructor well creative lives a visit a visual platform first and foremost so I need to see them teaching visually and that you're one of the greatest expert in the world but maybe they start their shoes if you want to become a better public speaker michael ported a class for us called heroic public speaking that's several we did but that's that's a great class but you know that's that's number one can you stand front of an audience and teach a class I certainly can't so the first thing I could do is brush them teaching if I'm impressed by the video of someone because it's a pretty special skill to be able to get in front of an audience and talk and answer questions and be comfortable if you have that I will move heaven and earth to make the rest of it if I have to hear I'll teach you something to teach you know which is usually not an issue it's where that you have someone who's gone to the effort of learning how to teach a class but he doesn't know anything that's a weird combination they should just be actors no offense against any actors audience but yeah so that's the kind of thing I looked for the instructor for a second obviously if they're already doing stuff if they already putting content out there and I think you're going to find with gatekeepers in general which are less and less important but it's still very it is still a critical factor in getting your I p out there gatekeepers look at what you're already doing so every time you start in one area you know you start blocking you do that for a few months or a few years build up an audience that's going to count in every other channel because they see that you are able tto come up with ideas and execute on them and work with your audience and adjust your message and if you've got nothing going on you're really starting from scratch so so start in the areas that you can control generate your own content and then you have somethingto leverage in other areas I love it great advice all right. So now we want to know about publishing give us the nitty gritty so so tell us about you know if you know somebody who's interested in, you know, getting their book published what's step one I mean, you sort of talked about it and just just a minute go starting a blogger creating a following but then how do you sort of get that tow happen? How do you make that deal happen? Of course the very first thing you need to do and this is true of all these areas of content is look at what's out there. You know, the one thing that shocked me the most about non agent id material that I saw was that people walked into this and it going to be effort of sometimes writing an entire book which is your talking at least fifty thousand words, usually a lot more without clearly without looking at the competition and naming some massive bestseller by someone who was already a celebrity as asuka parrot of title normally when you write a book proposal if you look in a book on writing a book proposal they'll say you know talk about other books that are like this book so we know where to put you and they'll say oh well malcolm gladwell did this book in minus similar it's kind of like there were a few differences between you and I well do you write for the new yorker let's start there eso getting awareness find people who are kind of in your zone who are doing books they're there I promise they're not all celebrities plenty of people published books without an existing celebrity or fame or our audience they just haven't expertise that people are curious about and they make it work with the right title with the right packaging with the right marketing campaign but start with where did someone like me with expertise kind of like this it doesn't have to be the same topic but it's the reaching the same audience you know if that person if you're if you're trying to talk to photographers who else wrote a book for photographers and in this area this kind of photographer so get a specific as you can and just go to the bookstore you know, forget amazon just go to the bookstore and see what's actually on the shelf because I find that a lot more useful and look at the publisher's look in the acknowledgments section who agent id those books or did they have an agent you know, some kinds of books technical books for example or dummies guys you really most people don't go through an agent for those things you start to develop a knowledge about how these things make their way to publication and which also changes every day so you have to do the research now I can't give you the answer like for your book right now in that particular category that picture changes every day and it may make more sense to self publish what may make more sense to go to an agent or may make more sense to submit directly which a lot of the places like wiley that do the dummy's guides you know that they have that kind of process so it is different for every category different for every kind of expertise and it's not necessarily one right way to do it also so don't be too hard on yourselves you can try a couple of different approaches but self publishing is increasingly viable I've seen people with no platform whatsoever with a great title sell a lot of books and beauty of self publishing to is you don't have to charge nine ninety nine or eleven ninety nine which is what a traditional publisher will charge you can charge one dollars and for your book and that will that will people are very price conscious on amazon with with books and if they're looking for the expertise and they're choosing between the traditionally published one there's no difference in the real story they might look a self published book in seo look at the flimsy binding this is self published but on amazon they don't care how long it is they're not holding a physical object they don't care what the cover art looks like cause it's this big they just want to know that the title describes the an appealing solution for their problem and then this one's a dollar this one's eleven dollars that's a pretty easy decision to make so that's a that's a great option if you have a particular expertise and just wantto get it out there and you can sell thousands if not tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of books s o one dollar ad you know or two dollars or four dollars and then you start looking around while the other self published up from the space what they charge for it you know this is this is out there this is none of this secret is just a question of looking and I think sometimes there's a fear involved you know you don't you kind of don't want to look you just want to do your thing and then you know hope it turns out and then when it doesn't turn out like I didn't know everyone else charged five dollars and I charged six dollars look I know it's uncomfortable but you'll be happy you did cause some usually it's not a scary as you think it's going to be yeah this is gold right here awesome I'm really thrilled about this and I have a little story too about similar type of situation when I was creating small business body art so I wanted to create a legal guy that I could refer my clients too but they're also boring you know they're super dry and then just like long and it's like legalese written by a lawyer who's really talking to other lawyers instead of talking to entrepreneurs who don't look didn't go to law school and so there was no book that I would recommend to my clients and so I decided to create it myself and the first thing I wanted to do was make it hilarious you know what I mean and then where are my competitors there are none okay because there is no other legal guy that is freaking hilarious you know and so that's an easy way free to differentiate yourself like if you just look at what's out there and that's exactly what I did I looked at what's out there cause I was actually looking for a solution to refer people too who couldn't afford to work with me I didn't I hated saying like alright go off and screw things up on your own you know some like I want to be able to say all right well you can't work with me at least read this book you know that will help you but there was no really like fun book that I could send my clients too and that's why I decided to create small business bodyguard and you know I've actually talked to a couple of publishers about it and they tell me like you're never going to make much money as you're making with small business bodyguard through publishing so just keep doing what you're doing you know well let's talk about another book maybe you know s o so sometimes self publishing is a way better deal because you know I wouldn't be a small business bodyguard goes for five, ninety five you know and it saves you ten thousand dollars in legal fees so that makes it highly valuable totally worth the five ninety five but I couldn't sell it has a book on the shelves at barnes noble for five ninety five you know um so just in an example of how you can just take make a small tweak so like what everybody else is doing out there and that just creates ah completely different like source knish for you that no one else has absolutely just talking to customers you know obviously rachel works with people who are looking for this information so she has that direct connection so you have to ask yourself who would read this book do I know anyone connect connect with someone through a friend on facebook who is this kind of person who is a professional in this area and ask them like what how would you learn this you know I I was helping my wife was a an illustrator with her with business parts and I was looking for a book about the business of being a freelancer and in the book world is extremely thin or it was a few years ago when I was looking and I couldn't believe it I couldn't believe it there was just nothing there and and that there's two possibilities there either great opportunity write a book or those people don't look for a book for the answers to those questions they don't have the time this is not how they learn whatever and so so its data I can go from there and figure out howto build a product maybe they like this kind of thing a little bit better and right they are visual exactly that's that's exactly it but just it's just a question of research of just looking around and you'll find the answers to these questions and it's not as complicated as it seems when you make it up in your head yes yes all right so tell us like if we were going to submit a book proposal to a traditional publisher what would make you say yes I want to publish this book well if I was we're even an agent you know depending on you know maybe maybe it's really the agent that's more of a gatekeeper that gets access to you I mean I think there's two layers to it absolutely and going to an agent is your best bet if you truly believe that there is a market in the traditional marketplace for your book and so that means you've looked around had gone to the store you looked at the spines and you figured out the kinds of publishers who are actively publishing this kind of book the year counts look at the copyright page is that book eleven years old is at the fifth edition of something because publishing is always changing and barnes noble you know you go to the business book section there's not a lot of thought given to what's in there so you're not necessarily seeing an accurate representation of let's say the last two years of book publishing some of that stuff could be just one of those classics that sitting there forever there's not it's not necessarily represented that this is a successful book just cause it's sitting there but you want to think about like let's look at the last couple of years on amazon let's look at this category what's selling who's publishing it did they have agents and if you want to go to an agent or a book publisher you're going with the same general format there are any I mean just google book proposal of the elements of a book proposal are very simple and the fact is they will be very specific with you to do this and do that it's not that there's no way I don't go to any school when I was a book editor look for these things in a book proposal it's just get to the point and typically the letter says everything I need to see everything else is just sort of backup material letter says here's who I am here's what I want to talk about here's who cares here's why I'm the person to do it just the simple five w's other five w six w's in h is tell me what the book's about and who's going to buy it and why you should be the one to write it right and why we need this book you know are there five other books just like it? You know what's your spin I mean these air it seems like common sense but if you don't sit back and say take the the audience perspective of like well what if I was going to pick a book what would convince me to buy the book you have toe you have to kind of have that that audience mind not just what you think is exciting about it, but what would the average person because the editor is the average person they're not the expert there not the professional you have to convince them that someone else is going to be interested the editors perhaps he's interested probably not interested because he's a book editor or not a photographer or an illustrator or whoever you're targeting your right here's your book towards you have to say here's this market give them numbers say this industry association has x number of members say they buy x amount of dollars of professional training products each year that kind of data is everywhere online there are all kinds of studies and demographic numbers that can pluck out don't make him up just that that kind of stuff is available elsewhere it's not the it's not the hardest in the world to find evidence of the size of your industry and how much they buy books and those sorts of things or say look at these five bestsellers that all targeted the same audience I'm trying to reach just convince them that there's a big audience it is that simple and who don't feel like you can make a coherent argument that there is a big audience for your book prove it self publish your book because if you start telling a ton of copies you can take that to the book publisher and they would be happy to publish a book traditionally or to an agent very happy that happens all the time fifty shades of grey happens all the time that's the best proof it's like hey, I'm already selling this do you want to just put a nicer cover on it and put it in barnes 00:18:03.748 --> 00:18:07. noble that's imp doesn't take a lot of effort the 00:18:07.47 --> 00:18:09. real trick the hard part of all of this is to have 00:18:09.6 --> 00:18:13. the right idea have the expertise so obviously if 00:18:13.25 --> 00:18:15. you don't have intellectual property you can't sell 00:18:15.16 --> 00:18:17. it but once you've got it there is an audience for 00:18:17.5 --> 00:18:19. there's a huge market out there there's a lot of people 00:18:19.94 --> 00:18:21. and you can reach them with the internet so it's a 00:18:21.4 --> 00:18:23. very exciting time for people who have some expertise 00:18:23.36 --> 00:18:26. in some ideas yes I love it this is awesome and what 00:18:26.58 --> 00:18:28. I hear you saying largely is that you have to sell 00:18:28.96 --> 00:18:32. yourself you know so this can help you do that actually 00:18:32.32 --> 00:18:35. this process that we're going through today the process 00:18:35.2 --> 00:18:37. of mining your business and seeing what you have there 00:18:37.42 --> 00:18:40. because you may forget about areas of expertise that 00:18:40.59 --> 00:18:43. you have that you know maybe you got from a previous 00:18:43.51 --> 00:18:47. job or you know if you take like kate right we were 00:18:47.37 --> 00:18:50. talking earlier about how you know they're starting 00:18:50.74 --> 00:18:52. a vineyard and then she's also photographer and I'm 00:18:52.85 --> 00:18:54. like oh my god you could do photography workshops 00:18:54.76 --> 00:18:57. in a vineyard that would be amazing you know s o you 00:18:57.46 --> 00:19:00. know we're just coming up with all kinds of ideas 00:19:00.07 --> 00:19:03. like just taking sort of almost disparity you know 00:19:04.24 --> 00:19:06. pieces of information that you have knowledge that 00:19:06.86 --> 00:19:09. you have and just slapping it together, you know like 00:19:09.18 --> 00:19:12. me taking my traditional legal education and knowledge 00:19:12.47 --> 00:19:15. and practice and adding it to my completely irreverent 00:19:15.62 --> 00:19:19. and edgy and you know like you know cursing too much 00:19:19.19 --> 00:19:21. personality and then that makes it something unique 00:19:21.9 --> 00:19:24. and interesting you know so that's you know all you 00:19:24.82 --> 00:19:27. have to do and I think doing this mining process really 00:19:27.2 --> 00:19:29. is all about like I've said several times throughout 00:19:29.21 --> 00:19:32. the course confidence building your confidence up 00:19:32.41 --> 00:19:34. so that you realize all right I know my stuff you 00:19:34.85 --> 00:19:37. know and then you can go and sell yourself you know 00:19:37.13 --> 00:19:40. which is what your centrally doing my friend tim girl 00:19:40.15 --> 00:19:42. was actually the one that introduced me to david and 00:19:42.47 --> 00:19:45. I said to him ice called him and said hey I saw you 00:19:45.18 --> 00:19:47. did creative life I want to do it tell me about it 00:19:47.58 --> 00:19:49. you know so you told me about and I said yeah that 00:19:49.88 --> 00:19:51. sounds interesting I want to do that and say he said 00:19:51.97 --> 00:19:54. I'll introduce you to my friend david and so then 00:19:54.24 --> 00:19:56. I talked to david and had to sell myself I had to 00:19:56.5 --> 00:19:59. say all right hey ask me what are you going to teach 00:19:59.19 --> 00:20:03. you know why? Who cares you know and so you have to 00:20:03.15 --> 00:20:06. be able to say, hey, well, I work with all of these 00:20:06.07 --> 00:20:08. these types of entrepreneurs and these are the issues 00:20:08.13 --> 00:20:09. that we're dealing with and I think this is really 00:20:09.82 --> 00:20:11. important and I think they need to know it and I think 00:20:11.61 --> 00:20:14. creative live is the perfect platform to deliver it 00:20:14.12 --> 00:20:16. you know you gotta be willing to sell yourself on 00:20:16.86 --> 00:20:18. dh then you know you can create arrangements like 00:20:18.84 --> 00:20:22. that and there's a lot of benefits to expanding you 00:20:22.03 --> 00:20:24. know your I p right you expand your reach now there's 00:20:24.32 --> 00:20:26. a whole audience that you didn't have access to that 00:20:26.33 --> 00:20:29. you now have access to if you do like traditional 00:20:29.27 --> 00:20:31. publishing or something like creative live or anything 00:20:31.25 --> 00:20:33. like that where you're doing a licensing deal with 00:20:33.07 --> 00:20:37. maybe a larger company so you also have another revenue 00:20:37.65 --> 00:20:42. source potentially and you know it also is not a ton 00:20:42.23 --> 00:20:44. of time I mean it did take some time to create this 00:20:44.58 --> 00:20:47. course but a lot of it was just taking stuff I've 00:20:47.0 --> 00:20:50. already got and repackaging it rework right that's 00:20:50.13 --> 00:20:53. the stuff that we're on step three so it's just like 00:20:53.12 --> 00:20:54. hey, you've already got all this stuff and it's just 00:20:54.92 --> 00:20:56. like taking this piece and that piece and that piece 00:20:56.71 --> 00:20:58. over there and putting it together in a certain order 00:20:58.71 --> 00:21:01. and boom there you go the one thing that might be 00:21:01.38 --> 00:21:03. helpful if you're trying to come up with a book or 00:21:03.34 --> 00:21:05. or a substantial amount of content is to have someone 00:21:05.31 --> 00:21:07. interview you because I find that people don't even 00:21:07.55 --> 00:21:09. realize how much they know until someone ask them 00:21:09.81 --> 00:21:12. some questions and it could be a simple is sitting 00:21:12.02 --> 00:21:13. down with a friend or sitting down with preferably 00:21:13.79 --> 00:21:16. someone who was actually your your target audience 00:21:16.26 --> 00:21:18. and having them interview you with a tape recorder 00:21:18.8 --> 00:21:23. your iphone sorry well aunt and just sit there for 00:21:23.6 --> 00:21:25. a couple of hours and answer questions and you can 00:21:25.77 --> 00:21:27. you can actually take a very small amount of money 00:21:27.57 --> 00:21:30. to get that transcribe andan you could just look at 00:21:30.29 --> 00:21:32. that and say well there's a lot of stuff here what's 00:21:32.78 --> 00:21:35. juicy you know what wouldn't if I was ten years ago 00:21:35.75 --> 00:21:37. looking for this kind of information on which this 00:21:37.42 --> 00:21:39. would appeal to me is someone not knowing what I know 00:21:39.78 --> 00:21:41. today you know which would I gravitate towards you 00:21:41.75 --> 00:21:43. know think in terms of the person just starting out 00:21:43.92 --> 00:21:47. who is very intimidated by your particular area and 00:21:47.85 --> 00:21:50. how confusing it was when you got started in your 00:21:50.27 --> 00:21:52. area when you didn't know where to start where the 00:21:52.57 --> 00:21:55. mistakes of potential pitfalls were tohave those kinds 00:21:55.29 --> 00:21:58. of answers is endlessly valuable and people will pay 00:21:58.01 --> 00:22:01. for it so an interview yourself and also look around 00:22:01.18 --> 00:22:03. of what your colleagues and competitors aire doing 00:22:04.0 --> 00:22:07. and clip it you know saving but I'd never know just as an ideal file like oh he's doing it online class you know what what program did he use to create that you know and what techniques did you use what is it that the emails that you get sent from all these different companies trying to sell you this kind of content look at the language that he was just clip it and copy it and just swap out some nam's announcing verbs you know there's a it's very mechanical copy writing and often the best way to learn it is to just grab some like that selling copy worked on me I love that I'm just going to take that and just change it to the name of my thing well change it enough so that it's not copyright infringement david you're gonna get in trouble way we're talking about very simple things where the noun goes yeah how you address if the person in the subject line what was it about that subject line that you like make a file of subject lines for your emails I mean this is just let's just look around as opposed to making it up yourself because people have figured this out and question for damon we only have a few minutes with you so I wanna make sure ask you before you leave um can you please address being an expert with I p to sell when you suffer from imposter syndrome so not to be confused with lack of confidence rather that you just don't know enough about the single topic itself yes don't have imposters and I have worked with a lot of authors at at every level all the way and I don't see a huge difference in where they've gotten in the world and their expertise I don't think and everyone I've ever met who's really worried about imposter syndrome those are usually the last people who should be worried and the impostors are not worried at all so if you are saying they're saying I want to tell people my expertise but I haven't had this sense that I don't really deserve to be here I'm not special or something you're fine the imposter is the one who's just talking I'm not worried about it I love that absolutely that was a really good question too yeah and I have to say to that like I had that experience as well because I started my practice right out of law school and I didn't focus on intellectual property at almost cool went to a law school that specialized in I p and took not one class of ninety because I was just like I'm not interested in that I want to help people so I'm gonna do like family law criminal or whatever and not realizing that there's all these small businesses that are made up of humans you know and that they need help to and so I became attracted to that industry and decided to join and you know dig in there and start working with entrepreneurs and I definitely have that experience where I was like I'm an impossible I know what I'm doing and then I talked to other lawyers and they would say listen none of us know what we're doing okay what we know how to do is find the answers. We know how to do the research, how to do the legal research and how to find the answers to those questions. You don't have to know the answer ahead of time. All you have to do is have a license to practice law, find a client with a question and then go to the research and find the answer. So, you know, if you think of yourself as an impostor, just realized that in that case we're all impostor, so who cares? Yeah, I think that's the best therapy. Just look for the answer. I mean, that's right there, it's one thing to feel like an impostor in general. But if you don't know the answer to something, if you really have no idea what you're doing, go figure it out it's that simple, and then you'll feel less like an imposter. You get the answer solved, but there's no badge. You know it's, not like the wizard of oz, giving you the heart hanging around your neck diploma.