Elevating Visibility with Book Publishing and PR

Need to elevate your visibility as a topic expert or industry leader? In this episode Leonie from Article Writers Australia speaks with Shoma Mittra, ghostwriter, self-publishing assistant, and DIY PR trainer. Shoma shares her insights into the process of writing, publishing, and marketing a business book, and into how small and medium businesses can learn to find their own opportunities for media exposure.

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Elevating visibility with book publishing and PR: a conversation with Shoma Mittra

LEONIE: Welcome to episode six of Content with Humans. If you're a topic expert or a business executive who needs to increase your visibility and recognition as an industry expert, you're in for a treat today. I'll be speaking with Shoma Mittra.

Although our services are different, we're both in the business of helping our clients to create content that highlights their expertise and increases their visibility and recognition. As a content agency, Article Writers Australia most often does that with articles, white papers, and case studies. Shoma Mittra does it by helping her clients to write and publish business books and by helping businesses to identify and target PR opportunities for themselves.

She also offers a ghost-writing service for professionals who have the expertise but don't have time to write a book. Shoma is based in Perth, Western Australia, but regularly travels across Australia and internationally to speak and run workshops. And she also hosts exclusive business book writing retreats in various locations.

Shoma, welcome to Content with Humans. 

SHOMA: Hi Leonie, lovely to be here. And thank you for inviting me to have a chat with you about the topic of writing.

We're both in that writing content creation space. So, thank you. 

Get to Know Shoma

LEONIE: So, I've got a random personal question to start off with. What is the most interesting or unusual place you’ve visited in the world? And why on earth did you go there? 

SHOMA: This is an easy one. My favourite place, I don't know whether it's very unusual, but I love Africa. And the Masai Mara and the Serengeti, which is this vast, vast grassland.

We've been there a few times. I've been there about three or four times now. I just love that.

And the reason I love it is because it takes you away from the modern frantic life that we live. Wake up and then it's just go, go, go till you feel, fall exhausted in bed. Somewhere… when I go to Africa and there's just, it's just mostly holidays, but time seems to stand still.

You can do what you want. You can have time to think and ponder. And that's why, and Africa has a life of its own.

I don't know why. I've been to many places around the world but yeah, that's one of my favourites. 

LEONIE: Spiritual.

SHOMA: It is, it is spiritual. And it has special significance because what I do today, I'm a collector of stories. That's all I am really. Whether it’s business stories, memoirs and because I believe that stories if we don't capture them then they're lost and they're lost forever. And Africa really set me up on this journey because I was visiting a Maasai camp. So, the Maasai are warrior people in Kenya and they're beautiful, tall, you know, elegant people.

And I met a Maasai village headman. I'm going to cut a long story short. It's something he said to me that put me on this journey.

So, he asked me in Swahili, there was someone interpreting, and he asked me, what do you do? And I said, I'm a journalist. Like I could only, you know, use my hands and say I'm a journalist, I write. And he said to me, we have a saying in our village, and he said, whenever an elder dies a library burns to the ground.

And that just, you know, it still makes the hair on my hands rise because I just thought all I'd been doing my life was collecting stories and he just put it together in such an elegant way. If we don't collect the stories, they're going to be lost forever. So that's why I do what I do.

LEONIE: Very true. 

Shoma’s Background

LEONIE: I have so many questions for you, but I'd really like to start by hearing about your background in journalism and professional writing and the journey that's brought you to what you're doing now. 

SHOMA: All right, so this journey is, it wasn't planned.  I was, there's nothing strategic about it. I've just kind of organically grown into it because in my uni days, I was doing English language and literature and doing, you know, your degree and postgraduate and all of that. And then I'd always been interested in writing.

So, I landed a job in a newspaper office as a reporter. This is way back when I was like, I don't know, 19 or 20. In those days, this was in India, and we didn't have any journalism degrees as such.

So, nothing, you know, no curriculum that said journalism. You just got a job, and you learned on the job, which is what I did. So, I got in as like a cub reporter or whatever it was in those days.

And I learned on the job in a newspaper office. Then I went on, so that was just more my training not a real job as such, more an internship. Then I went on to Murdoch Media and I worked in television with Rupert Murdoch's Star TV, which is huge in Asia.

I did that for a few years. Then I transitioned to print media, and I worked in a large newspaper syndication for 16-17 years, during which time I also wrote a lot of books. I also worked with the British Council as a children's writer and editor, but mainly as a human-interest features writer and editor with this syndication. So, my job was to go out and interview personalities and then write it up and it would go into national newspapers, magazines, all that sort of thing. So that's where my background comes from, the media and journalism. 

LEONIE: Okay, and how did that lead to what you're doing now? 

SHOMA: So, in that time, when I was a human-interest journalist, I was interviewing personalities, right? So, most of them, many of them, not most, were high net worth individuals, politicians, sportsmen, film personalities.

And three, no, sorry, five of them over the course of a few years asked me to help them write their books. And that's where I became a ghost writer. I'd been writing my own books.

I was usually a commissioned writer. So, people would commission me to write their books, usually not-for-profit organisations or some business house who would say, we're bringing out a, you know, whatever, a book and can you do it, write it for us? But these personalities wanted their own stories out, but obviously they didn't have the time or the inclination or the, you know, the knowledge, how to put the expertise, how to put a book together. So those were my first few ghost-writing opportunities.

And obviously I can't name the books, they're all out there. We had to sign an NDA on the ghost writing. That's where, but that stopped for a while.

And then we came to Perth in 2005/2006, but I didn't get into journalism or my writing things straight away. I worked in the health industry, and you'll hear a little bit more about it later on. So, I worked in the liver transplant unit at a large tertiary teaching hospital for eight years, but I also went on to the boards of a few health not-for-profits where I learned a lot.

I worked in the Aboriginal Western Australia deep desert, working in the Aboriginal community, helping women and children. It was a project on FASD, so foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. And I also worked with the prisons with hepatitis C and all of that.

So, it gave me a lot of insight into human beings, how they are and how different cultures function and all of that. And during that time, because people came to know that I was a writer and an editor, I just started getting these requests for, can you edit my thesis? Can you edit my, this book? Or can you help me write this? And so that's how it started, organically. I hadn't really meant it as a business.

Come COVID, we were all sitting at home. Actually, at that time, I was running a medical conferencing company. So, we were accredited medical, accredited, what's it called? Education providers for doctors, surgeons, rural and remote Australia and New Zealand.

And that was a very successful business. But when COVID hit, we were shut down in just that one day. There was a circular from Medicines Australia, and they said, you can no longer run.

So suddenly my staff were gone, nothing to do. And that's when I got online and just, I think it was on Facebook or LinkedIn or somewhere. And I put out a post saying, we're all stuck at home. Would you like to come and write with me? And the program was called Write With Me. And I started getting people. So, first lot, 10 people came in and then 20. And then we had about 40 people in one. Again, it dropped down. So, over the two years, I was just helping people write books or stories or just journaling.

So different programs had different angles. And out of that, books, published books started coming out. So, we were putting anthologies together because people had written them, and they wanted them published.

And it just blew up from there. At one point, I'd done a program with Tony Robbins and one of their, someone from the admin team or marketing team approached me and said, would you like to come on as a storytelling coach for one of our programs? So that was incredible. And I learned a lot. I definitely got more than I gave because we were trained by the big man himself and a lot of other well-known entrepreneurs backstage. 

And it was an incredible experience. I've only just stopped doing it in the last five or six months because the timings are crazy with America and Australia and I'm getting busier. But yeah, that was the most incredible experience. So, I do books now and I also help with media outreach, but you'll hear about that later. 

Current Projects

LEONIE: So, what does a week in the life of Shoma Mittra look like? So, can you share some of the types of projects that you're working on this week and what activities you're busy planning? 

SHOMA: Yeah, very, very busy. So, most of my time and what I enjoy the most is the actual writing. I also enjoy teaching. So, most of my days are divided between my own writing time which might be writing for my clients, that is ghost writing.

So, I've got two ghost writing projects on at the moment. Editing time, which is the people have written, the clients have written the thing and I'm putting it together. I do have a team of editors. I'm a developmental editor but I also primarily work on the manuscripts. And the third is media outreach. So, I help small businesses who can't afford to go and hire expensive PR firms.

I show them how to do it themselves. As a journalist, I take them behind the scenes into the newsroom and show them how it is and how it all works. Show them how to write a media release, how to pitch, how to follow up with a journalist, everything that it takes. And the hope is that they become self-sufficient in that. 

Once they learn the process, attend a course or two, work with me, then they don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to a PR agent. They can if they want to, if they've got the budget but most businesses don't. And what they don't understand is journalists are always, always, always looking for stories. And it doesn't have to be the ABC headlines or the Sydney Morning Herald front page. There are hundreds of publications out there that are hungry for stories, only if you knew how to reach them.

LEONIE: And a lot of industry-specific publications as well. 

SHOMA: Yeah, trade magazines. I've been on radio and TV and on newspapers lots and lots of times because I'm kind of on the other side of journalism now. Although I am still associated with the AAP and all of that, I'm not an active journalist anymore. 

Elevating Visibility as a Topic Expert

LEONIE: So, we both often speak with people who want to elevate their visibility as topic experts. Something that I find a little bit paradoxical is that you think it would be much harder to achieve than it was decades ago because you've got all the additional competition now and all of the online noise. But at the same time, it actually seems easier than ever because if someone has the genuine expertise and they're willing to put in the effort into increasing their visibility, they're already ahead because most people simply won't put in that effort. What's your perspective on how easy or hard it is to become a highly visible topic expert? 

SHOMA: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Leonie. I mean, we have much more opportunity today than we had, say, when I was working 25-30 years ago. And I'm a traditionally published author. So had I been self-published then, I would never have been able to get the book out to the masses. But the traditional publishers did that for me.

I'm now also a self-published author and I help a lot of entrepreneurs or memoirs or whatever, self-publish. And it is easier now because you've got so many tools in your hand, like there's social media, there's AI, there's all these things that you can use. The thing is, it's hard in the sense because you have to rise above the noise.

Just as we have the tools in our hands, so does everybody else. So how are you going to rise above that noise and be visible where you want to be in your space and be a cut above the rest? And I think to me, honestly, that comes from two things. One is your pursuit of knowledge, knowledge in your own field.

So, everyone has some knowledge, some expertise in what they do, but to continuously update themselves on what's out there, what's coming next, to be a step ahead, that's one thing that puts you apart. And you have to have a passion for that. I mean, it'd be great to say I've been a journalist for 16 years and just stick with that, or I know how to write a book, but there are so many things constantly evolving.

And the second thing is passion. If you're passionate about what you do, you will have that thirst for knowledge, you will be out there, you will be doing exactly what you do. Like I see you looking out there, what's new? And getting that knowledge for yourself and then teaching others, disseminating it, sharing that knowledge. It's not knowledge for us to keep, it's knowledge for us to share. And I think if you can be open-hearted and generous about that, people can see that you're genuine and you start attracting, you don't have to reach out to the market, the market reaches out to you. 

Business Books & ROI

LEONIE: So, let's talk about business books. When a novelist writes a fictional novel, they hope to gain recognition as a writer, and they hope to make money with book sales. So where does the value come in for the author of a business book? 

SHOMA: So, with a business book, it's very interesting because a business book will probably bring in way more ROI, unless you're a J.K. Rowling or a John Grisham or something. Because when people are writing business books, yes, they're putting effort in it and it's got to be good writing, well-edited, well-published, whatever. But in the end, it's a tool. You're using a business book as a tool. So, when clients come to me and say, okay, I'm spending X amount of dollars on writing and publishing this book, what am I getting in return? 

Because most self-published, most entrepreneurs, they don't want to wait for the long run that it takes for a traditional publisher. They want to do it just now, today, tomorrow, yesterday. And so, what I tell them is, look, I don't know how much book sales you're going to make because that's entirely up to you and how much you're out there, flogging that book, getting people to buy. And what is it going to sell for? $20, $25, $30? Not much more, right? 

But look at it this way. Your book is about your expertise, your leadership, your passion, and that is what you're selling. So, if that book, that one $10, $20 book gets you a client, how much is that client worth? Someone who reads that book and finds it interesting comes, no matter how short or long the book is, if it's got substance in it and they benefit from it, then they come to you. So, it's, people will call it a lead magnet. I don't like the term. I think it's getting inside who you really are. No matter how many social media posts you do and how many, what's it called? Those Instagram videos and all of that. A book gives you the capability of putting in a lot more substance and thought into it. 

So, a person really gets to know you and then they can come to you and become a client. So, if that client is worth $10,000 or $20,000 or whatever, whatever amount it is, look at it that way. So, if one book can get you 10 clients or 20 clients, how much are you making? 

LEONIE: Yeah, I don't really like the term lead magnet either, but books are a lead magnet if they're used properly. And I've heard quite a few business book authors say that they give away more copies than they ever sell, but they give them away at events and that type of thing. So, it's still, they're still marketing themselves and using the book as a tool to connect with people.

SHOMA: Yeah, I mean, you can definitely give them away I generally don't because a book has value. It takes a lot of effort to write and publish a book, a great deal, unless, even if you're getting a ghostwriter and I ghostwrite a lot of books, but there's a lot of thought involved even in that, even though the person may not be writing the actual book, but they have to sit with me hour upon hour where I'm interviewing them, getting, extracting the matter from inside their heads and putting it in. So, they are putting in effort.

And yes, you can give them away for free, but I value my own work. And even if it's, I'm selling it for $10 and author signed copy, I would do that. And people respect that more, I think, even if they've given that $10, $20.

Writing a Business Book

LEONIE: So, writing a book's quite a process, even for skilled professional writers who know how to go about it. What are the challenges encountered by topic experts or business owners who decide that they want to write a business book? 

SHOMA: One is the biggest problem I find is ego. They have to step away from themselves if you're writing a book. It's all very well to be a topic expert and you know what you're doing, you're really good at it, but it's really, a book is transferring knowledge. It's not about you. It's about the knowledge and expertise that you possess and that you're willing to share with someone else. So, the first thing is move away from the I. Yes, you're good at it, step aside and look at it. 

The second thing they, and it's not their fault, they don't often understand is how a book works. How does the hook story close? How does the formula work? What makes one book eminently readable, and you want to push through the pages and then you're on a flight or whatever and get to the end.

And another book you take up and you read a couple of pages and then it's like, oh yeah, I'll pick it up another day because it just drags. So, what is it? They don't know that. Everyone can write, right? We're all literate, we can all put words together. But making those words work, that's what I think a good writer and author can do. We understand the principles that make the words move people. So, we use the words to emote, to help people feel even if it's a business book.

And another thing I keep wanting to tell people is that a business book can be just as interesting as a crime thriller. You have to know how to do that. So, and it's not something that you can teach in a day. We've been through university and you, and I both know that like about the principles of writing and this and that and bringing conflict and plot, character and all that. All of those also apply to a business book. The narrative, how do you get the narrative going? But I think that that's where entrepreneurs struggle because they're good at what they do, but they don't have the expertise of putting it in a book.

Advice from Shoma

LEONIE: So, what advice would you give them on how they can break through those challenges? 

SHOMA: One is read a lot. You cannot be a writer without being a reader, especially in your niche. So, if you are wanting to write a book about, I don't know, moving from the world of mum and pop shops to digitisation and AI, then go and read up more books on that topic.

Read the New York Times bestseller or the Wall Street Journal bestsellers. When you're reading, study them. How have they started the book? Have they used a hook to start? Have they just started with an alarming statistic? Have they used, where have they set the scene? How have they used complications in the book to bring them? And how have they used resolutions to bring, let the reader understand where they're going? So, all those techniques, they can either be learned through courses. There’s hundreds of courses out there, including mine, but I really think it's the reading and absorbing of how others do it. And if you read a Seth Godin book on marketing, it flies past, you can read it in a couple of hours because it's so quick, so clear. There's a lot of clarity and he doesn't waffle around and talk about things that are not pertinent to the book.

And that's another thing I have to keep telling my readers when I'm editing there, writers when I'm editing, is what they call ‘kill your darlings’ in our part of the world, is just write what's necessary for the book. You don't need to write long drawn, war and peace novels, not in today's day and age because people's…their…, what do you call that… attention span is so little. Unless you're writing a beautiful memoir or a fiction piece where you really got hold over your words and your thoughts, that's different. But usually business books, sharp, short, succinct and immense value. 

LEONIE: That's it, we want them to get to the point quickly, don't we?

SHOMA: Yeah, yeah. 

Business Book Writing Retreats

LEONIE: So, tell me more about your business book writing retreats. How do they fit into the picture? 

SHOMA: They’re beautiful. So we've been running, the retreats actually came from my experience with the medical conference management where I was, for 11 years, I was taking doctors away either into a conference venue or somewhere over here in Western Australia, down South, or we've even done in Sydney and Brisbane, where we've taken them to a nice venue somewhere side for two days or two and a half days over the weekend. And I got to see how relaxed they were away from their surgery and constant patient flow and all of that sort of thing. And how much together they came to think as a team. 

And when that business went down and I was doing my book things, I thought we could do the same thing for writers and entrepreneurs. Because when you do write business books, these people are businesspeople who are running from five in the morning till they fall exhausted in bed at whatever, 11, 12 at night. And they don't really have the time to think. 

When you write a book, you need time to think. You need to give yourself that space. You can't just get on the computer and keep typing away dot one. This is not a white paper or a case study report or whatever. Taking them out on a retreat, we did one in Bali last year. We did another one in Scotland. We're planning another one next year again. They are few are far between, usually one a year until I can get away and do more retreats.

I'd love to do them. What we do is we take them away for five days. A week really, because people get to come, it's two days of travelling when you leave on the day.

So, in five days of work, some of it is teaching in the morning, but most of the day is just relaxing, doing your own writing, your thinking. And it's not just a book, because in five days, you're not going to be able to finish a book, but you will get the real masala, the real substance for the book down. 

But what also happens is they get time to interact with the others who are in that same leadership place or the same entrepreneurial place. And they kick off ideas between each other. And what emerges from there are wonderful, wonderful, because they can get to sit back and look at their business. They're forced to do that. What are we doing? And I think they're writing their book, they're thinking. So, I think that is a huge benefit of any retreat. 

Our book writing retreat in Scotland brought in publishers, literary agents, local and international publishers. So that was a huge boost for our writers because they could actually pitch their stories. People who wanted traditional publishing could pitch their stories to these literary agents. And so that was hugely beneficial to them, like from the feedback that we got.

The Value of a Good Editor

LEONIE: So professional writers often work with an editor, and they understand how valuable it is to have that editorial support and advice, despite them being very competent writers. Do you encounter many topic experts who have happily completed their own book drafts and then come to you just for editing services? 

SHOMA: Yes, yes, quite a few actually, quite, quite a few. Because they kind of, they've done their own chapter structure. They kind of think they know everything, and they come to us. And some are good, some are not so good. And so, I have to take them back. So, you do need in every field, just as I can read up endless books about surgery or read up the, what's it called…Grey's Anatomy or something. I'm not going to become a doctor. It's the same. Like editors are also skilled people with words. They'll do surgery with words. They'll take out the words that are not needed.

So, and we need, and people think they need just one edit. There are four, as you know better than anyone else, there are four levels of editing. There's the developmental editor, there's the copy editor, the line editor, the proofreader. And sometimes one person will combine two or three of these skills, but you definitely, definitely need them. Otherwise, you are doing a disservice to your clients or to your readers…if you think just because you have the ability to publish on Amazon with one click or two clicks, that you're a published author. You don't want people to open your book and find trash in it. And there are so many books out there that I find, oh my God, it's just…

LEONIE: It's awful, isn't it? On Kindle, and it's just horrible. 

SHOMA: It's horrible. Look, self-publishing is free. I think the only place where you need to spend some thought, and some money is your editor and your cover design. I really do think.

Book Success Stories

LEONIE: You've helped over 250 people to progress their book ideas to publication. Can you mention some of the most successful ones? 

SHOMA: Oh, my goodness, yes. Some really good ones. I actually wrote them down in case I forgot to mention them. So, we've done some really iconic books, and this is what I love. And I'll be honest, even more than business books, I like memoirs because they really capture the essence of the person. And you could have both, a self-help or business book can have a little bit of their personal story. So, one of my best ones was, it was called Underdog. And it was the story of Western Australia's first undercover cop. And it's his story. He was dealing with the NARC and the big, big drug lords and how he was trained in Sydney. And some of the stories are incredible.

So that's one. Second one was…there's plenty. I'll only mention a few. The Biscuit Factory. So, we all in Australia, we all go to Coles and Woolies, and we see the Arnott's biscuits. So, Arnott's bought over the company. It was run by the Mills and Ware family here in Western Australia. They were the first biscuit company in Australia really. They set up the company here.

They were in Melbourne then they virtually walked across to Western Australia and set up this company. And the great-grandniece had all the documents and the papers. And she was sitting with them for 16 years before she found me through a newspaper article in the West. And she approached me, and we brought that book out together, which was amazing. A terrific book, iconic, the history museums and the history libraries and the councils and everyone keeps the books. 

LEONIE: What about any business books? 

SHOMA: Business books, drones, it's coming out.

LEONIE: Oh, beautiful. 

SHOMA: End of this, yes. The author is Mahmood Hussain. We're putting together a fabulous book. The first of probably many books and he started his business again during COVID when the pilots were out of work and he's an engineer himself. So, he started this business of drones and it's grown to be one of the biggest companies in Australia in these few years. 

He's terrific on media. He is the go-to expert for anything to do with drones. And his clients are large mining companies, agricultural, every sector, photography. And he's a trainer. So, he trains them. He's got a whole, he's won hundreds of awards. Like it's just every other week on LinkedIn I see he's winning an award. That's a terrific business book. 

The other one is…what have I written?  Oh, she's a lady, she's in Canada. She won, after the age of 50, she won a bodybuilding championship. She's the world's something, I can't remember, but Helen Fong is her name. It's a tiny, short book, very impactful about how women can, you don't have to become a bodybuilder, but you can still eat well, and you can keep, and her body is like, it's called Toned at 50. And she's really toned. She could beat a 16-year-old. 

There's another book on horse training, which is coming up. There's one which I've already done, which is about using horses as emotional, what do you call… I can't remember the exact word. There's a term for it. So, the horse helps people heal. 

LEONIE: Yeah.  

SHOMA: Trainers there, there's an equestrian, something, there's an, I can't remember the name. The other one coming up is about a horse jockey. She's passed away, Margaret Charleston in Western Australia. She actually bought the turf club and all of that, and she raised it. So, she's going into the hall of fame this year in October. And I'm doing her book. So, there's another business. And there's hundreds of other business books, like generally entrepreneurs doing this and that and others, but these are the outstanding ones.

Niche Areas of Interest

LEONIE: You've dealt with quite a range of topic experts. So, what are the professions or areas of expertise of some of the clients that you have worked with? 

SHOMA: Doctors, surgeons and doctors. Like I said, businesspeople who are in IT or in various kinds of businesses. There's one lady I'm doing a book with. She's in business process management. And she's trying to, without dumbing it down, tell people what is business process management, which is very interesting because she's doing it through human stories. That'll be really good. Then we've done, of course, the drones one I told you; I have to look at 250 books. I can't remember all of them. 

LEONIE: That's okay, that's okay. 

SHOMA: One businessperson, he's in India. He did a book on; he's got a huge business. So, he keeps growing his network and it's called Business Alchemy. And he's just noting down the main principles of business. It's a really good handbook for someone starting out in business. What else? I can't, I’d have to go back and look at my website. 

LEONIE: That's okay.

SHOMA: A lot of children's books as well, by the way. 

Marketing a Book

LEONIE: Getting to the point of publishing a book feels like a finish line. But when it comes to getting a return on investment, the publishing point is just the beginning of the exercise.

What people have created is really just an opportunity. And once published, how can business book authors maximise that opportunity to ensure that they do get a return on their investment? 

SHOMA: So, one of the biggest is, it's really the beginning of the end because your next journey starts now. I'd say that writing and publishing is almost the easier part compared to the marketing, the branding and the visibility.

One of my clients is doing it really well and she's doing it with a book on poetry. She's winning awards everywhere. She's out there. She's doing book launches at every café, library, every precinct that she can. She's done book launches in New York and all through sheer visibility. She's just out there. And in farmers market, she goes to farmers markets and does book launches. She goes to business coffee shops and does book launches. So, the main thing is visibility. And as she's doing them, she's just reading out her poetry. 

What I tell businesspeople to do is go out there. Don't just put up a few posts on social media and expect people to. Do the human connection. Go to libraries and tell them. They'll do book launches. They're geared for that. Go to councils, tell them that this is a book I've got. They're funded to do it. You know, tell them you want to speak especially for entrepreneurs. Tell them you want to speak about your topic.

For example, Article Writers Australia. Now, if you bring out an ebook and you go to your local council and you tell them, you know, I'll help you teach your clients about content management that sells. I'm just making it up. They'll be more than happy to have you because one, they're always looking for speakers. Two, they're funded to do it. So, people really need to be visible. It's not just, you can do Amazon ads, or you can do Google ads and that's fine. That's the online thing. But I think that person to person connection.

Go to different client companies and do free sessions for them. And in the process, give out your book, whether you're selling it or giving it out. You know, in that case, you can give it out to them. Go to large firms, law firms, or whatever the topic of your book is. So relevant firms, agencies, mining companies, whatever, and make that effort to connect with people. Because remember, social media is all very fine. You'll see it and you'll browse through. But if you make a connection with a person, the person may buy your book. If they like it, they're going to tell 10 others. And suddenly you'll see your thing going through the roof. 

So yeah, there's a lot of work to do once… The marketing is a huge thing. Book launches, you know, all of that counts. There's a whole marketing strategy we put together for our clients. And one of that, apart from all of this that I've told you is get it reviewed in relevant magazines, newspapers, yes. Because you do one media release and it's out there everywhere. You can do radio talk shows. A lot of my clients have gone on ABC, SBS, local radio stations, community newspapers. The West over here, some in the East Coast, they've gone on to, like, I've got a whole folder of media releases that people have been published in. So go out there. Because when a journalist says you're good, the world will say you're good. So, you can really get out there. And they give out your, you know, business URL. Get on people's podcasts, just like I'm doing with you. Piggyback on other people's audiences. 

LEONIE: Yeah. Oh, and there's plenty of podcasts now, isn't there? 

Thoughts on Self-Publishing

LEONIE: So, book publishing has changed a lot over the years and self-publishing has become easier than ever. People can now load their own books up onto Amazon. What are your thoughts on self-publishing versus attempting to find a recognised publisher? 

SHOMA: So, I'm still old school. And so, I might be a bit, I don't know, controversial, or, you know, people may like me or not dislike me for this, it doesn't matter. If you can get your book through a traditional publisher, the big ones, or even small independent presses, that's a really good way to go. 

The only problem is it's difficult. You have to give it time. You have to…almost 80% only take through literary agents. So, you have to do your homework. You have to find the literary agents in your genre, which publications they're after. You have to do a lot of research to see whether your book fits their criteria, then pitch to them, do your query, your synopsis, all of that, it all takes time. And you could be looking at, you know, three or four years, two if it's very quick. But the thing is, once you get in through a traditional publisher, one, there are no costs, you get the royalties.

If it's a non-fiction book and they give you an advance, say you go to Simon & Schuster or Wiley or one of those, they'll probably give you an advance. So, you don't even have to write the whole book. You can write three chapters and, you know, pitch to them.

And if they pick it up, then you might get an advance, and you can sit and write your book. The other thing is these people are geared for publishing. So, they've got an entire backup of editors, a few editors on the team, proofreaders, cover designers, all of that.

And they have distribution outlets, which a self-publisher doesn't have. You can put it up on IngramSpark, but you have no control who's buying the book. But the traditional publishers have distributors on there. They're not going to ask you for a cent, except beware of vanity publishers because vanity publishers pose as traditional publishers. So, you have to, you know, read between the lines and look at all their contracts and stuff. So don't go for vanity publishers.

But going through a traditional publisher, even now, to me is still the way to go. Having said that, not everybody is going to wait four years, right? Now we have the means to do it with self-publishing, with AI and whatnot. So, although I'm not a fan of writing, and I know you, I'm sure you'll have that question, you know, what do you do with AI? But self-publishing, yes, fine, good. There's lots of people. I myself have also self-published. Provided you put in the time and effort to make it a good book, then go self-publish, definitely 100%. Because you've got full control. 

LEONIE: If it takes so long to get through a traditional publisher, if you have a technical topic or technology related, by the time you get to the publisher, you'd have to rewrite the book. 

SHOMA: You might do, even for fiction, you might rewrite. Because remember, the traditional publisher, they have their own commercial... they've got to make the book sell, right? Because they're not taking any upfront money from you. Instead, they're going to give you royalty. So, they will have, so even if I write a fiction book or say a book on, I don't know, whatever, technical topic, they might have their own take on it. So, their acquisitions editor, so you pitch it to the literary agent, the literary agent sees it and thinks, yes, it's worth their time to go and pitch to a publisher. The acquisitions editor and the publishing team looks at it and says, yeah, it might do well, but if we looked at this angle, it might do better. She then, she or he, then pitches it to their marketing team. The marketing team, there's a big marketing team sitting there looking at which books will do well for their business, right? So again, they might find that the fundamental idea is really good, but it might need tweaks to fit into the market. So, they might say, and if you're writing on AI in this space, maybe you need…

So yes, as a writer, you definitely have the right to say no and just walk away, but these people are professionals. They know what they're doing. They probably know what will make your book sell.

So, give them some thought and yeah, take it, the agent will also advise you. Whereas in self-publishing, you really don't have that expertise unless you come to people like me who are running businesses. I don't call myself a publisher. I'm just a self-publishing assistant or self-publishing expert. I will help you on, you know, through steps, but I don't take any royalty fees from any client. I will take a service fee for helping them do certain things like the editing or the book cover design or whatever. And that's it. 

Pursuing Book Sales

LEONIE: So, should self-published book authors be actively pursuing sales? And if they want to go that way, what are some of the key activities involved in book marketing when it's a self-published book? 

SHOMA: Oh, absolutely. There's no way. If you, I mean, you could write a hundred books or the greatest book on the universe, but if no one knows it exists, then what's the point? So, there's a lot of marketing. Marketing is really, you know, it's something, it's non-negotiable. If you want your book to be out, lots of people will publish a book and then never say a word about it to anyone. And it'll languish there on the shelves forever, which is fine if that's how you want it. 

If you really want to get known and want to, you know, get your book out there, then definitely social media. I would say really start with an author website, not your own company website, start an author website, which we do for clients at nominal costs. Like we don't charge thousands of dollars, but we do do it in a way where they can sell merchandise on their website. So apart from, okay, let me go back a bit…

When you do an author website, it's not just the book you're selling. You can sell bookmarks, hats, caps, mugs, things to do with, you know, journals. We're doing this currently for three clients now. And it's a great way to bring in additional income other than your book. Oftentimes you'll find that people love your pens and hats and key rings and, you know, journals so much that they keep buying these. They buy your book once and then they keep buying these. And you can run promotional offers and all of that.

Secondly is book launches. Keep doing those book launches, not just one, but keep doing them. Do the face-to-face one with the, you know, the usual wine and cheese evenings and do the virtual ones as well. Get on speaker circuits. This is huge, you know, piggybacking on other people's audience. So, audiences who want your book, obviously, you know, you're not going to go to a romantic author's conference and pitch your business book.

Do courses. A book can be turned into a course. A course can be turned into a book. And I've got an entire course on this, which shows you how to do either way. See, you've already done a course, turn it into a book. You've already done a book, turn it into a course.

And do that and get it out there. Get on podcasts like yours. There's a zillion, zillion things, but when we do marketing for our clients, we are strategic. Like, what is the end goal that they're seeking? Is it just to give out their book? Is it to get in business? Is it to network? Is it to become the leader in their field? What is it? What is their goal? And then we devise a strategy that we’ll take them through. And the strategy is usually six to nine months or even up to a year, because you can't come to me and say, I just want to do this in the next 30 days and…none. I can't get you much. I can get you a one book launch or one something somewhere, but it takes time and work and infiltrating. You know how when you're seeing Instagram posts or reels or whatever, some reels keep coming back up and up again. And you keep them and they kind of get into your head. So that's what you've got to get into people's heads. 

Repurposing Book Content

LEONIE: Now, I often suggest that people make the most of the content they create by looking at how they can repurpose each piece. And you just mentioned before turning the book into a course or a course into a book. What are some of the other ways that book authors can make the most of the content that they've created? 

SHOMA: Huge - blogs, articles, white papers. This is all your area. White papers, case studies, video blogs, LinkedIn posts, endless Facebook posts. Like people say, you know, Facebook is useless. Many, many, many of my clients come from Facebook just from putting up posts. So, there's a hundred ways you can repurpose your articles, YouTube, create a YouTube channel and start talking about. If you've got 20 chapters in your book, each chapter can be a post. You can do the YouTube shorts and then you can do the long ones and post them. The reason is because each of these audiences are different.

This TikTok, book talk on TikTok is huge. And you don't have to do silly dances and things like that. Just come with your book and you. And people like when I published a tiny, tiny book somewhere here, it's on how to write a book. And I went on TikTok, which I'm a social media dinosaur. So, I have a team that does that. So, all of this thing that you're hearing about how we do marketing, I'm just the ideas person and I give it to the team, and they do all of that. When we did that in, I think within a week, we had 633 people buy the book just from TikTok. Which is ridiculous. I wasn't expecting one thing. All I did was, here's this book, how to write a book. And I was flipping the pages, and I gave the link.

That's all it was. 

LEONIE: That's a huge result. 

SHOMA: Huge, huge. Even last week, I think on a meeting I showed you, I just put up a post on Facebook and we've got, now we've got close to 200 people who are coming on that media. It's a free session. But it's just getting the word out there.

They'll come on the media thing. I'll teach them, then I'll promote that into a free, maybe a small course, like $97 or something like that and give them more value and they'll latch onto that. And then you give them some more genuine value you give people. People want to learn, right? Whatever it is, whatever's the topic. And for businesspeople, I think a book is a huge tool that they can do this. 

Generative AI 

LEONIE: I'm almost reluctant to ask, but I have to. How do you feel about people using generative AI tools to create book drafts? 

SHOMA: Look, it's good and it's bad. So let me tell you a personal story. My first cousin, he's professor, he was a professor at MIT. He's a professor in, he's come back to India now and he's a professor, dean at Indian Institute of Management. And he was doing AI in the 80s when we hadn't even heard of it. So, we'd heard, we used to hear, what does he work in? Artificial intelligence.

We had no clue what it was. It was way back, early 80s. Today, of course, everybody knows it, right? My daughter who's, she does, she's a lawyer, but she works in AI and blockchain and all of that. There's nothing wrong with AI. Things will change and everybody will use AI. Right now, it's still very nascent and it's still developing.

I mean, what we saw two years ago or 18 months ago, it's changed hugely, whether it's, you know, Sam Altman's ChatGPT or Anthropic or Claude AI or whatever, all of those. It's great for generating ideas. You know, this is, we already had Hemingway, and we already had pro-writing aid, and we already had all those other AI tools. Even Canva uses AI. We've already had them for a while. We just didn't categorise them as AI. 

They're helpful in generating ideas or if, say, for example, I'm editing someone's book and the language is very convoluted and I've been trying, you know, breaking my head, trying to simplify the language and still retain the authors. There are times when I will take that paragraph or that thing and put it into AI and say, rewrite for clarity. And it'll spit out, right? It can spit out two, three versions if I want. Then I can take that and then rework it. And that's fine. 

But on the other hand, there are many people, I've had clients who have done their first book with me and then they said, oh, there's AI now. I don't need her. I'll do it on my own. And I've gone in and bought those books because I can see them on Amazon. And what you get from, it's a language model. It's predictive text. They've taken everything that's already out there and they're putting it together. All you're getting is repetitions. I can recognise AI now from, you know, miles away. You know what it's like, the same phrases, the same things, the same stylistic, you know. 

LEONIE: In the ever-changing landscape of…

SHOMA: Yeah. And you hear some of these words, I should have noted them down. They're just - I just go... 

So, what I would say my advice is, yes, use AI. Use AI for marketing, it's great. Like if I say, you know, give me 10 social media prompts or give me a marketing strategy or create a plan for this, absolutely fantastic. 

If you're writing your own book and your own story, I suggest leave AI, write it on your own. It would be, it will be rough. Every first draft is horrible. You know, it was Hemingway's first draft was horrible and everyone else's is. And that's the way it is. But it's the rawness of that. And that's the beauty in it because you're writing from your soul. You're practically leaving yourself on the page when you write a story.

LEONIE: I think we're all becoming a bit like AI detectors now, you do recognise it. And for me, if I read an article and it's got AI just all over it, I immediately question whether the author has any expertise because anybody can get on to an AI tool and produce something, trying to make themselves sound like an expert. So, if you don't sense that individual in the article and their opinions and their insights, then I kind of mentally write it off as, you know, completely useless.

SHOMA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you and I get so many articles and, you know, things to edit and stuff like that. We can spot it a mile away. The individuality is gone. Your creativity is gone. 

 Media Exposure Opportunities

LEONIE: So, let's talk about PR. Big brands often engage expensive PR agencies to manage their media presence and seek out good publicity opportunities. How can the small to medium businesses get in on the action without spending a fortune? 

SHOMA: Absolutely. So almost, one of the first things I see when I run these media workshops is that you spend 100 hours a week or whatever it is…I don't know how many hours a week on social media, on generating hundreds, and you've probably got a marketing department and a graphic designer who's sitting and, you know, pumping out post after post for social media. How much ROI are you getting from that? 

Maybe a few brands do, but most small businesses, either they're not doing it at all or they're not seeing any return from those posts. Whether it's time investment or money investment, because it's hard on social media. There's so much on there, so much going on. People are just scrolling. 

However, if you put that same amount of effort into getting your company visibility, you know, your story on a media website, so whether it's radio, television, or print media, suddenly it's a third party saying, saying that you're good at something. So, for example, the drones person who is forever on media, he's great, but if he did a thousand social media ads of drones flying across this and that, how many clients would he get? 

When the journalist comes in and says he's the go-to expert, suddenly there are mining companies and there are other big, large companies lining up to do business with him because somebody in the media who is respected, a respected journalist has said he's good. 

So, what I always advise is why not spend that time? Every business has a story angle. You have to find that angle, right? No matter, you know, it could be a labour hire business, it could be, you know, anything, a cleaning business, whatever it, I'm sure there is an angle there. There is the timing of the release. So, you know, just don't get out a release in April saying it's Christmas, it's not going to work. So, the timing of that release, if there are things happening or about to happen and your business is associated with that, get onto the media because the media are looking for it. 

So, there are lots of things the media are looking for, you just have to know how and when to get to the media and make sure that you are aligned with the publication and the kind of articles they're publishing. Again, you know this better than anyone else, like different magazines will have different styles, different views. So, listen to the content and then pitch your article the way the journalist makes it, make it easier for the journalist. 

Having said that, there's also the caveat that if there is breaking news happening, then you can be sure that even if they've said your article is going to go on the, you know, first page, last column or whatever, it may get wiped out and either come on later or not come on at all, depending on what's happening in the world. So that's a caveat for all, you know, media.

LEONIE: An element of luck involved, luck and timing. 

SHOMA: Most of the time, if you do it right, you can get, and you will get way more bang for your buck if the media features you. And so the thing is, what I'm trying to teach through these media workshops, I'm not saying PR agencies are bad, they're good and they do their work and you know, things like crisis management, which I don't do, I don't teach crisis management because I'm not an expert in that. 

What I teach is what happens behind the newsroom. How is it, how do journalists, you know, select story A and not story B? What is it that they have to, you know, produce before their chief editor and the producer? What are those producers looking at? What kind of stories? How can you pitch your story in that way so that it's, you know, they want to pick it up? How do you become the go-to expert for that media outlet? So, you become, just make it, make the journalist's life easier. So, each time they want a chiropractor, they think of you and not someone else. Those are the things that I teach, and small businesses can do this by themselves. Once they go through my three courses, so there's a free course, there's a low paid course where I do an intensive, but then there's another, it's slightly higher paid, but I look at each individual business one-on-one.

And once they do those three, or at least two of those, then they can go out and they don't need to come back to me. They'll know how to write a press release. They'll know how to pitch. They know. And the other service I provide is because I'm, you know, obviously journalist, I've got the whole entire database. So, I'm with one of the journalists, you know, the PR, what are they called? The news wires. I can obviously send out on behalf of clients. They don't have to pay thousands of dollars to do that. They can send it out through me, for a small fee.

Desired Topic Experts

LEONIE: I think one of the great things about what we both do is that we get to talk to some very interesting people. So, thinking of both books and PR, let's put it out there. What sort of professional or topic expert would you like to help because you'd find it fascinating and one that you haven't encountered yet? 

SHOMA: Okay. Well, there's some morbid ones here. So mostly for my books, not so much for media, but one media I would like to find is something called a failure analyst. I don't know whether you've heard of it. These are people who specialise, you know, like in HR, you get specialists who are there to throw people out. I don't know there's a term for it. There's this new breed of people who, and it's not just about employees. It's about anything, any project. And they're almost like a risk, what are they called? Risk something expert.

LEONIE: A risk management… 

SHOMA: Risk management experts, but they look at the potential for failure and they see it from a distance, and they point it out. So, I'd love to see someone who's doing that, you know, in a forensic way and digging, looking at, seeing the potential of failure and success. One is that.

The other one is a war veteran. Again, these are more to do with books rather than… War veterans. I've already done two. I'm looking for more. 

LEONIE: Okay, there you go. If there are any failure analysts out there or war veterans who are looking at a book. You know who to come to. 

For us, we really enjoy working with clients in the renewables and energy space. But what I'd really love is a client in the robotics space. And I think, I don't think my team will be annoyed with me saying that because they like to delve into anything to do with the latest developments in any area because it's challenging and fascinating at the same time. 

SHOMA: Absolutely. The other one I'd really love, if anyone is listening to this, it comes from my health, you know, health side of things. It is xenotransplantation specialist. So, you know what xenotransplantation is? It's using, because I was in the transplant area as well, is using animal organs to transplant into humans. That sort of thing.

The other one I'm really interested in, I want to put it out there, I'm looking for a story from a mortician. Sounds very morbid, I know. 

LEONIE: Oh, I just might be able to point you in the right direction for that.

SHOMA: A battlefield surgeon and a prison warden. So, they're all very morbid topics, but there's a reason I'm looking for to interview these people. They want to do books, fine, but mostly to interview them.

LEONIE: Okay. 

Workshops and Services

LEONIE: Well, let's give listeners some more detail about your workshops and services. What have you got coming up for books and PR? 

SHOMA: Yeah, so for books, I usually do two workshops a year. One is business books, and that's called the Captivation Code, because I use four steps in that Captivation Code. And it's just through using those four steps, it's called Create, Capture, Captivate, and Connect. And I'm not going deep into that. And that happens once a year, it'll start in September, late August to September. And people who want to write business books by themselves, it's a 12-week course. By the end of it, their first draft should have been done. And again, it depends on them on whether they go with the course and finish that first draft. Then we take over, my team does the editing, cover design, all of that, and we help them publish. So, over the next six months, the book will be out.

That's a business book one. 

The other one is the memoir one, which I will probably start middle of September or end, which is people who want to write memoirs. And it's a 12-week course, and they can't write the first draft. A memoir can't be written in six weeks unless you're a really terrific writer, but they will get all the basics, the fundamentals, and then they go back and write the book, come back to me whenever they're ready and we'll take it forward. 

And the one I'm really excited about is happening with media on the 16th of August. So that's not this Friday, the Friday after. And I'm taking people through, it's called Media Mastery. And it's a 90-minute session just on Zoom on how to pitch your business to the media, how to write a release, and how to follow up and all of that with the journalist. Once they do that, then they will graduate to the next one, which will be a closed-door intensive with 10 or 12 people. 

LEONIE: And how often do you run the Media Mastery courses? 

SHOMA: Media Mastery runs every month. Once a month, if there's a huge lineup of people, sometimes there are, I'll run it twice a month, but usually once a month. And then that graduates to the intensive and then that graduates to the one-on-one.

LEONIE: Okay. 

Contact Shoma

LEONIE: And if someone wants to have a direct conversation with you about helping them with a business book or a memoir, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you? 

SHOMA: One is just pick up the phone and call me. I'm always available. If I don't pick up then, if I'm in a meeting, I'll always call back and I'll give you, my number. You have my number; you can put it on. And the other way is just email me or connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, wherever.

LEONIE: And what's your website address? 

SHOMA: It's shomamittra.com. So S-H-O-M-A-M-I-T-T-R-A.com. And it'll be redirected to my company name website, which is writeclick.net.au. And you can find all the information there. 

LEONIE: Fabulous. So, listeners, if you have it in mind to write a business book or memoir and you're currently getting in your own way, it's time to call Shoma and have a chat.

Shoma, thank you so much for being a guest on Content with Humans and generously sharing your expertise. 

SHOMA: I loved it. Thank you, Leonie. Thank you for having me.