E102: Using AI to Scale Your Content Creation Efforts with Author and Publisher Jenn T. Grace

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Hello, everyone.

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Welcome to this scaling expertise podcast.

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You may know me from the hourly to exit podcast.

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This is the first interview under the new rebrand, but we're still talking to

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experts about decoupling their income from their time, using their expertise

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to create assets that can scale.

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And so I'm very happy to have my first guest today, Jen T. Grace, and

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I need to ask you about that tea.

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Is that because there's so many Jen Graces?

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I will say that on LinkedIn, I call myself I'm so cool.

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Aaron Austin, because I've been on LinkedIn so long, but now there are so

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many Aaron back in the day, there was like the only air and Austin on the internet.

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And now there's lots and lots of us, but it's wild.

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It's all branding, right?

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Going to figure it out.

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Exactly.

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Well, welcome Jen.

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So tell us who you are and who you help.

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I am an author and I'm also a publisher.

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So I am the author of seven books, which include my memoir, House on

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Fire, and my nonfiction book, which is called Publisher Purpose, which is

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also my company name, How to Write, Publish, and Grow Your Big Idea.

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So my way that I show up in the world, at least in this current iteration

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of myself for the last ten years, is helping aspiring authors either figure

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out how to write their story, or to actually publish their book for them.

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And it just kind of depends on a number of different variables,

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kind of where people are.

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But, the publishing landscape is pretty big and pretty complex.

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And so I really spent a lot of time educating first time authors on all

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the nuances about how to actually get their book out into the world.

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Tell us, what exactly is a hybrid publisher?

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and distinguish it from traditional and self publishing.

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Yeah, I'll give you the abridged version I have.

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Lord knows I got plenty of information on my website if anyone wants more.

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But it is basically if we look at how publishing has always been, we

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think of traditional publishing, we think of Simon and Schuster, we think

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of Penguin Random House, like the big New York City publishing houses.

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That is traditional publishing.

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And with traditional and They only serve a very small percentage of

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authors because of how their business model works and how, they're looking

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for authors that have big platforms and, can really sell a lot of books.

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Then, we have the other side, which is self publishing, which is wonderful

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and there's a lot of people who do it really well, but there's a lot

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of people who don't do it well.

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And self publishing can be overwhelming, it's time consuming, it can be

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expensive, so there's all kind of that.

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Hybrid publishing sits directly in the middle of both of those extremes,

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where you get the quality, the service, the expertise of what you'd expect

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from a New York City house, but also have that control and ownership and

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the IP of being able to own all of that as if you were self publishing.

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And do you help people source like all of the vendors that are required

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to publish and distribute a book?

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Yes, since we are a publisher ourselves, we are the source of all of that.

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So that's kind of one of those benefits of a hybrid.

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So if you're self publishing, you need to start to kind of figure out, all right,

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how am I going to find a cover designer?

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How am I going to find an editor?

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All of those kind of big, I don't know what I'm doing when

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you're working with a hybrid.

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All of those exist under one roof.

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Got it.

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Awesome.

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And so how long have you been doing it?

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And how'd you get into it?

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Well, I, I wrote my first book in 2012, published it in 2013, published another

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one in 2014, and another one in 2015.

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So I had three books in three years that all came out.

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And everyone in my network was like, how did you know how to write a book?

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well, I don't know, I just figured it out.

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And they're like, well, how did you know how to publish a book?

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I'm like, I don't know.

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I just figured it out.

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Were those books great?

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No, they were not.

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They are, especially now having been doing this for as long as I have,

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those first few books were the typical self published books that were not

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ideal, but I had a lot of people in my network who were enthusiastic about

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wanting to write their own books.

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And I was doing consulting at the time and I had my own business.

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So I was able to kind of like start to dabble in All right What does

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it look like if I were to help?

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Writers figure out how to either write or publish their books.

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And so I started a program in february of 2015 So it's almost 10 years exact

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on the writing side Where the first group of people went through my program

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in the beginning of february and I was like I over 14 weeks to show you how To

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get your book published and I did that a couple of times in 2015 and I had

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a couple of students say Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah.

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I love that.

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you're helping show me how to do it, but I just want to pay you to do it for me And

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I was like what i'm like, what is this?

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I didn't even know hybrid publishing was a thing at the time and I was like,

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well, Let me look into that and then when the time the person said that to

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the time that I was like I need to do this It was four days where I like really

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sat with it and I was like Ooh, I think this is the thing that is scalable that

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will allow me to have a team to kind of do the things rather than being a

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solo kind of independent consultant and also kind of feed that brain of mine

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that is incredibly curious and wants to know everything about everything.

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it kind of satisfies the personal needs and professional needs.

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And so at that point I'm like, well, I guess I'm going all in on this.

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So I closed my consulting business down in 2017 and I've

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been doing it full time since.

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That is amazing.

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Well, you use the magic word scalable.

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And so lots of this audience will be solo consultants who haven't quite

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cracked not selling their time.

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And so when you were looking at like what could be scalable what things were you

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thinking about and how did you get there.

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Well, the funny part is what I was thinking and then what ended up happening

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or not the same, but why was thinking.

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Because I was the solo independent consultant and I had a really

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successful like mid six figure business that did everything I needed to do.

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I had a lot less stress than I currently have and I was doing

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a lot of keynote speaking.

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So I was tired of getting on a stage and saying the same thing

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and people not taking the action to actually see the results.

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So I was kind of getting fatigued by having those conversations.

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So when I started that group writing program and group publishing program, I

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was like, This is my ticket to scaling.

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I'm now not just me, I'm bringing in groups of people, and then I

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can bring in a facilitator who can then run the groups of people.

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And in that program still exists.

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It's called getting started for authors.

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It's a six month writing intensive and 10 years later exists in its phenomenal

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and it is completely self contained.

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We have facilitators.

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It's incredible, but my goal was like just that, like at the time,

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like 10 years ago, my goal was like, how do I just do with this?

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Because that's going to be the thing that I can scale.

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And then the reality is that I ended up starting a very labor intensive

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staff, heavy business and stuff.

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but obviously there's scaling in that, but I was thinking more of just

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kind of scaling my time is really what my, Objective was back in 2015.

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Yeah.

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I people forget employees are absolutely scaling.

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You know, it's like, as the founder owner, you are the most

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expensive resource in your business.

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And anytime you can carve off part of what you do to another resource that can

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still provide the value to your clients, that is successful scaling right there.

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And so it's not just about, Courses and things like that, that people who hear

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about, but also just however you are able to, more efficiently deliver value

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to your clients, which is fantastic.

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And so we're going to talk first about because you mentioned AI and

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how it's working and publishing.

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Let's talk about AI.

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You know, I love to talk about that.

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But then I do want to circle back around to.

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you know, the fact that you're B Corp and some of the other

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good works that you do as well.

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But let's talk about AI and publishing.

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I love talking about AI and publishing.

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And I think AI, it's honestly the thing that I think every

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business has to pay attention to.

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And I also think is, A little piece of a secret for scaling, because I

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remember just a couple of years ago where we were paying 20, 000 plus a

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year for copywriters to do a whole bunch of things now AI is doing for us.

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And it's obviously taken a long time to like really make sure that AI has a lot

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of inputs from uh, Our content and because I'm on podcast, I have my own podcast.

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I've written books.

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It's very easy for it to capture my voice because it has

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a lot of inputs to work with.

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Whereas I think folks that might not have that might be a little bit

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harder, but it's not impossible.

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And so I think from a scaling standpoint and just growth standpoint from a content

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alone, not even publishing specific, which is content in general, think that's

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like the easiest, easiest way to do it because we could take this recording,

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throw it into AI and say, Hey, create a blog post about this or create a

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linkedin article about this conversation I had with this really awesome person

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Aaron and it will do that for us.

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And so I think from that standpoint, it's fantastic From a book specific standpoint.

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There's a lot of a lot of trickiness happening right now because there's

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intellectual property problems There's copyright problems.

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And so what we want to be mindful and intentional of is In my case,

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we have a very flat policy that is we will not accept a manuscript

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that has been generated by AI.

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It is just an absolute no because there's too many unknowns, and

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I'm not getting sued because someone was taking a shortcut.

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Can a book be assisted?

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So there's AI generated and there's AI assisted.

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Assisted, sure, because if you're like, hey, I'm trying to write a

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book, and I'm trying to figure out, Here's all the things I talk about

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like, is there a way that you can help me figure out a table of contents?

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Like those are all like really good ways of using it, but actually just copying

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and pasting and dropping in whatever chat GPT told you to is a very dangerous way

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to get yourself in trouble very quickly.

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Yeah.

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I mean, there's so many things wrong with that.

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one of which, I mean, like actually there's this quote of yours that I love,

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which is I passionately believe The more raw and real we can be, the deeper the

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connections we can experience, that is not happening with AI generated content.

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But from a purely legal perspective, yeah, I mean, who knows what the sources,

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and the chat GPTs of the world don't make any reps and warranties about.

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The materials that are coming out of there, who knows if it's accurate,

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depending on, what you're writing about where you absolutely need to have,

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up to date and accurate information.

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I'm losing track now, was it two years ago, I think that.

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I first discovered chat GPT and it was by accident because I am avowed, Luddite.

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I I'm like that.

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I get this done is a miracle.

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And I had to do continuing legal education and I'm like, okay, what's.

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Available.

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And there was this thing about chat GBT.

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I'm like, Oh, okay.

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I guess I'll look at it.

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And so I'm kind of half listening to it, and doing some work and

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they're talking about what it can do.

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And I'm like, and I just kind of open up a, browser and put it in there

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and start playing around with it.

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I'm like, Oh my God.

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I mean, I really just to me, AI was like blockchain.

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Like it was that there's no need for me to ever know what this is.

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I'll never know what this is.

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And then I'm like, Oh my God, and it obviously changed, not

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just changed my life, but changed the world, obviously, as well.

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but the first thing that I tried after I got off that call, off that I had a

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client agreement that I was working on where I needed to reference the law of

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a different state that was like, okay, this law in this state covers this issue.

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I need that.

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similar law in this other state.

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And I just asked it that, and it came up with this citation, everything.

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Oh, great.

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And I'm like, let me just check it.

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And it made it up, made it up completely.

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It's like, didn't even exist.

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And I'm like, okay, it was a very good first lesson about the limitations of

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And while I will absolutely say that the voice of AI has gotten a lot better in

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those two years, the fact that it can.

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hallucinate.

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I mean, that's just a function of being generative.

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I mean, it's not, just Google.

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It is making assumptions.

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That's what it does.

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And so,

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there's all kinds of bias coded into the programming of it, which is

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also problematic in a lot of ways.

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So it's an infancy, but I do think it's one of those Things that like, as

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business owners, we can't ignore it.

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You know what I mean?

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I think it's one of those things, as much as you might want to be like,

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uh, I'll come back to it later.

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Your competitors are going to be using it and they're going to

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be going 10 X faster than you.

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And so I think that that's like the thing of trying to find that

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balance for folks, especially for those who are Luddites, right.

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Where it's like, Oh, this is the last thing I want to do, but like, no offense

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to my aunt, I have an aunt in her sixties who is, she's basically my mother.

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And she and I were chatting about AI the other day.

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Because she's like, I'm using it for grant writing, I'm using it

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to do fundraising emails, because she's a director of development.

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And I was like, oh my god, it brings me such joy knowing, because can

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barely use her phone on a good day.

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And so like to see her like thriving with AI, I really think this is going

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to help me extend my career well into my late 60s, which wasn't her original plan.

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So it's kind of cool to see these positive sides of it.

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Even if it's in its very clunky, messy early stages, it's only going

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to improve from here, we hope.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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and speaking of, the efficiencies that you get from it, I have clients that,

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their, employees are very eager to use it.

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Because there's, whatever the issue is, there is an AI driven solution,

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period, like whatever it is.

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And so they're all like, oh, I found this thing.

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But you have to balance some of the downsides.

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And, you know, certainly, Is it secure?

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are you disclosing confidential information when you're using it?

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obviously the quality of the outputs as well.

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there are, some risk management that's required.

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Definitely use it, but just be mindful of its limitations and

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making sure you're, Watching that.

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Yeah.

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So now you are a B Corp. And how does that feed into what you

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do like on a day to day basis.

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Yeah, I love that question because I am so passionate about the B Corp community.

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And so a B Corp really this case there's benefit corporations which are

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legal designations, and then there are certified B Corps, which is a voluntarily,

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certification that you can go for that basically says that you as a business

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meet the gold standard of sustainable business practices, environmentally

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friendly practices, diverse practices.

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Like there's a whole litany of things that it really kind of drives.

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You to have to be better and do better.

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And so when you see that, be in a circle on packaging, it really means

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that that company has a deep commitment to equity to, you know, and every

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everyone has a little bit different.

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So like in our case, like we have a strong focus on diversity.

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And so we have a really, really strong, diverse supply chain because

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that's something that I can control.

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And it's something I was already doing before the B Corp thing.

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I even knew it existed.

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So there's really kind of cool things around what the B Corp

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kind of that logo does for you.

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And there are consumers who are.

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Attuned to wanting to buy eco conscious materials and goods and things like that.

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And so they see the B and they're like, I don't care what the price is.

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It's a B Corp. I'm buying it.

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Like I'm absolutely that person.

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So even like there's alcohol brands that are B Corp.

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So I'm like, is maker's mark my favorite whiskey?

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No, but am I going to drink it?

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Yes.

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Because they're a B Corp. Right.

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So it's like one of those things.

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And so what I love about it is it really is a market differentiator for businesses.

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So in the publishing space, it's a really busy space in general.

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It's a very crowded space.

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Hybrid publishing is also getting really crowded.

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And so I'm able to kind of have that seal of approval that says to someone who

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is more focused on eco friendly side of things to say, Oh, that means this company

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is doing things differently and operating differently because the B Corp mantra

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is people and planet before profits.

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and it's not to say you cannot run a profitable business because

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that is absolutely not the case.

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It is just saying that your focus is on the stakeholders of who you're

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serving over your bottom line.

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so that's how I look at it from a decision making process of, can

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we make a decision here that is going to put who we're serving?

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and also make us money.

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But if it's only going to make us money and it's not putting who we serve ahead,

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then the answer is going to be no.

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So it's a nice way from a day to day basis to gauge, how to make,

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how to make decisions that feel aligned with what we're up to.

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Yeah.

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I will say there's no more timely.

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Well, we need to have this conversation for a long time in the

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past, but we are where we are today.

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We, have very public.

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Case in the news regarding profits well over people and people are

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really rethinking, the role that businesses play in our lives and that.

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Is there a way for them to make our lives better instead of just

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extracting, extracting, extracting.

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And the answer is yes.

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You would think so.

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And I think so.

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But it is a tough one.

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also I want to talk about of the organizations that

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you mentioned, diversebooks.

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org, who, well, you tell us about it and then we'll talk

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about like how it can play into.

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Yeah, so if we look at publishing broadly, it has been very exclusive.

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In many, many ways for a very, very long time, and it's just

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not how the world works anymore.

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It does not reflect what the world looks like.

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At least, you know, I'm thinking like publishing US

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based publishing specifically.

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And so when we look at, there's a lot of independent organizations

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that are out there that are doing really strong work to say, Hey,

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wait a minute, there's not enough representation In this type of book.

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And so we need diverse books has been a partner of ours, if you will, for a number

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of years, because instead of going back to the B Corp decision making, right,

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instead of sending our authors some BS plastic thing with our name on it for

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the holidays, we will make a donation in their name to this organization.

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This year, we actually changed it to a different organization, but same

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concept where we're The intention is if I'm going to spend 10 on some

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nonsense gift, I'd rather give it to a nonprofit who's doing really good work.

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And so like with, we need diverse books.

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their mission is largely based on showing kids representation

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within children's books.

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We don't publish children's books.

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We are specifically business books, leadership, self help.

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That's kind of our jam, but at the same time.

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Like I don't need to be giving money to another organization that's

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doing the work that we're doing.

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I'd rather give it to a non profit who's going to help at least kids

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see themselves reflected back at work and it's reflection of all different

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types of Elements of diversity.

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It's not just the diversity that you can see it's a lot of different other

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areas And so, you know, it's one of those things that I think we need

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diverse books does a really tremendous job and they're obviously always looking

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for money and now when we look at just the amount of book like book banning

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has been around for forever, right?

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It's just always been a thing It's just becoming more prevalent and more common

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that books that were long held staples In institutions are now like suddenly

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on banned lists And so there's a lot of that that's happening and it's really

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I think impacting Children's ability to see themselves reflected back in

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books that are being held in school.

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So we have really cool organizations that are doing all that work.

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I like to know what they're up to.

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I like to support them when we can.

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And I just, I love that that kind of mission exists because, if

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you can see it, you can be it.

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It's such a cliche statement, but it's really true.

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And it starts with kids books.

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speaking of banned books, it does seem that if you look at the list

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of the most recently banned books.

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Diverse voices seem to be really on the hit list.

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Honestly, sure.

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very sad.

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So let's circle back to the work that you do.

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So you work with, thought leaders, pretty general term, like who is your

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best client and what can they expect?

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Like, what is reasonable to expect from having a hybrid, published book?

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Yeah.

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So I would say the best.

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Thought leader, if you will, is someone who's motivated to do

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something bigger with their book.

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Because there's a lot of very inexpensive avenues.

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Doesn't mean that it's gonna look the best or be edited well or things like

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this, but like, if you wanna just get a cheap book out quickly, just

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to say that you wrote a book, there's plenty of paths that you can do that.

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Mm-hmm . Will do.

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I think it's gonna damage your brand potentially.

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Yes.

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But at the same time, it's an available path.

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It is.

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For someone who's really focused on I am.

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elevating myself as a thought leader.

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I have been, either a business leader or sometimes it's corporate professionals who

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are kind of coming out of corporate and now they're going solo and want to be an

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independent consultant, but want to have some kind of credentialing behind them.

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Being an author is such a great way to make that happen.

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But the authors that thrive.

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With us are the ones that see the book as the in road to other opportunities,

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whether it's to be a guest on someone's podcast, whether it's to go speak to an

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organization to get new clients, because if someone's coming to me and says, I

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need to sell a hundred thousand copies of my book the month that it comes out

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and they have no mailing list, they have no platform, they have no nothing.

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it's a really wildly unachievable goal, but I'll say like, hey,

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what's your motivation level?

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Like, what are you planning on doing to do this?

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And they're like, oh, What's just gonna happen?

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That is not how books sell like that's just flat out.

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kind of a myth.

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So it's a matter of like if someone's motivated to say, I'm gonna do

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whatever it takes to make sure that my message not the book specifically,

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but my message gets into the hands of as many people as possible because

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it's going to transform lives.

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It's going to impact people.

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That's the type of person that we're looking for.

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The book is really just a very, very small piece of a much, much bigger

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ecosystem that where plugging into like our expertise is the book, but

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we also know how the ecosystem works.

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So we can provide really strategic guidance and advice to say, Hey, know,

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if you want to do podcasting here, go talk to this person here, go talk to this

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person for social media, whatever other things that might accompany it, is really

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kind of our core focus is really that motivated person who just wants to make

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a difference, but is business minded.

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So then there, I want to make a difference and then has.

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Like fairytale ideas of what that might look like,

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yeah,

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yeah, I think people are generally, surprised by how hard it is to

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sell a book and to get attention.

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I think whenever we look at the numbers for like the New York Times

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bestseller, we think that's like a million copies, but what is it,

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it's like some, it's celebrity.

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Yeah, yeah.

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so thank you.

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That's very helpful.

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Well, it has been an absolute joy to have you on the podcast, Jen.

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Thank you so much for being the inaugural guest on scaling expertise.

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And so please tell everyone where they can find you.

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And if there's anything that you're offering right now you wanted to.

Speaker: 00:21:38

Push.

Speaker: 00:21:39

It's great.

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Otherwise, just tell us where we can find you and connect with you.

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Awesome.

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Thanks, Erin.

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I love being the first.

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this is so great.

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I had no idea how fun.

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so the best way to find me is publish your purpose.

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com.

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My focus really is on empowering and educating first time authors.

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So we have a lot of.

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free resources that are readily available.

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There's no hard sell.

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It's just like, here's what to think about.

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Here's what to consider.

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so that's the easiest way.

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If you want to connect with me personally, LinkedIn is where I like to spend my time.

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I'm on all the other platforms at Gen T Grace.

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However, LinkedIn is where you will absolutely, find your way

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to actually connecting with me.

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Fantastic.

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And we will have all of those links in the show notes as well as DiverseBrooks.

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org, great organization to support.

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And thank you again, Jen.

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It's been a pleasure.

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Thanks, Erin.

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Appreciate it.