Podcast to Book Deal: How to Turn Your Passion Into Profit

Do you host a podcast or write a blog?

Want to know what it takes to get a book deal?

To discover how to turn your content into a book deal, I interview Lewis Howes.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Lewis Howes, co-author of LinkedWorking (a book focused on LinkedIn) and Ultimate Webinar Marketing Guide. His podcast is called The School of Greatness (a top 100 podcast in iTunes). He also has a brand-new book by the same title: The School of Greatness.

Lewis will explore how he went from podcasting to a book deal.

You'll discover how Lewis pivoted the focus of his business into something he loves.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Podcast to Book Deal
Lewis's journey

Lewis says when he thinks of musicians or performers, the ones who are really successful endure for decades by reinventing themselves every three to five years. They do this by following their own dreams and desires, while staying in tune with their audience.

Lewis relates this to his own experience with building a couple of different businesses. While one of those businesses served him and other people for a while, Lewis explains there came a time when he was no longer inspired by teaching people about how to maximize LinkedIn.

Lewis shares why he transitioned into webinars and ultimately began The School of Greatness podcast three years ago.

Lewis explains that a lot of people connected with The School of Greatness podcast. They started asking for more programs, online courses, coaching, events and now a book.

Listen to the show to discover how Lewis and I met, and what he said to me.

When and why Lewis started a podcast

In 2012, Lewis asked Pat Flynn and Derek Halpern what was working in their businesses to drive traffic, get leads and build their audience. Both of them said their podcast. Find out why he was surprised by their answers.

In January 2013, Lewis started podcasting once a week. At the three-and-a-half- to four-month mark, he got an email from iTunes saying they loved what he was doing (the inspiration and guests) and wanted to feature him on their home page.

This exposed Lewis to a whole new audience beyond the online marketing audience he'd been building. Now he was reaching people from all over the world who wanted to live a better life.

Lewis shares how The School of Greatness started as an interview show and turned into a mixture of interviews and solo episodes.

Listen to the show to hear how Lewis came up with the title for his podcast.

Lewis's podcast audience and guests

Lewis thought his audience was going to be young entrepreneurs, men and women, probably mid 20s to late 30s. He since discovered it serves a much broader audience range: college kids, moms who play it for their kids in the car, the 50-year-old guy who wants to leave his corporate job to build a business, world-class athletes, former athletes and people from all walks of life.

Lewis shares how he chooses guests for his podcast and how his delivery has evolved from one podcast a week to two shows a week (Monday and Wednesday), plus a 5-minute inspirational segment on Friday.

Lewis also talks about the three things he believes factored into his success: getting featured on iTunes, interviewing Tony Robbins and having people share the first episode he did on video.

httpv://youtu.be/kSoO2KjVVG4

Listen to the show to discover how many downloads The School of Greatness gets each month.

The book deal

In 2007, Lewis read The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.