Guest Blog by Catherine Molloy, author of The Million Dollar Handshake
Back in 2015, I was a professional speaker and owner of a registered sales training company who’d never written a book. I know the importance of good training and Alex’s book writing workshop came highly recommended, so I signed up. It was fun and I met some amazing women that I’m still friends with today. More importantly, though, I left the workshop with a clear strategic understanding of exactly what each chapter of my book would contain. I was also impressed enough with Alex’s expertise that I hired her as my one-to-one book coach to help me through the process of writing my book.
Due to other work priorities, I decided that rather than publishing The Million Dollar Handshake I would convert all the book content into workbooks for my training bootcamps. In the first year alone, those bootcamps brought in more than $150,000 in extra business, far outstripping my initial investment with Alex.
Three years later, I’d just given my Million Dollar Handshake signature speech in Sydney and received a phone call from a representative from Hachette – the second largest publisher in the world – who had become aware of my work. I’d recently missed out on a couple of speaking gigs because the client had specifically wanted an author/speaker, so this seemed like a sign from the Universe.
Two months later, I had a contract with Hachette and a cheque in hand. Before long, my book was entered in the London Book Festival and nominated for The Orion Publishing Group Business Book of the Year.
The initial work in mapping out and writing the material for my book as an indie author opened up the doors to traditional publishing for me. The steps taken to create the material and use it successfully in my business ensured I was in a position to be noticed by a traditional publisher and achieve the success I have today.
You never know where your writing will take you, but if you never get started, you’ll never find out!
