How To Establish Authority Using Your Book With Anna David

Anna David is the Founder of Legacy Launch Pad Publishing, a company that publishes books for seven-figure entrepreneurs. She is an eight-time New York Times best-selling author who’s been writing and publishing books for decades and hosts the On Good Authority Podcast. Anna has done TED Talks and has been on Good Morning America, Today, The Talk, and dozens of other programs. She has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time, Playboy, and The Huffington Post, among many other publications.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Anna David talks about her books and favorite guests on her podcast
• Anna’s journey as an author — and the inspiration to write Party Girl
• How do you deal with rejection?
• Anna explains why you don’t have to sell the most books to be successful
• The specific path to building authority with a book
• Traditional versus non-traditional publishing
• The mistakes people make when publishing books
• Tips for book launches: from parties to publicists to reviews
• The process of coming up with a title
• Anna’s ideal clients and her customer success stories

In this episode…

Want to establish yourself as an authority in your industry? Have you considered doing so by writing and publishing a book?

According to Anna David, you can build your business with a book. One key point to note is that the various challenges of book publishing often require help from experts — especially if you’ve never published a book before. However, many publishing companies promise the world but fail to deliver, leaving authors with subpar books and a sense of regret — as was the case for Anna. After decades in the traditional publishing world, she created a publishing company to help brilliant business owners write and launch authority-establishing books that leave a legacy.

Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz as he welcomes Anna David, the Founder of Legacy Launch Pad Publishing. Anna shares her journey as an author and how she helps entrepreneurs build authority through books. She also explains the path to book publication, common mistakes people make, and tips for launching your book and creating a lasting legacy.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Legacy Launch Pad Publishing
• Anna David on LinkedIn
• Anna David’s website 
• Legacy Launch Pad Publishing X Rise25 Special Bonus
• Anna David’s books
• On Good Authority Podcast

Special Mention(s):

• BookFunnel
• Joe Polish
• Dane Maxwell on LinkedIn

Book(s) Mentioned: 

• On Good Authority: 7 Steps To Prepare, Promote, and Profit From A How-To Book That Makes You The Go-To Expert by Anna David
• Party Girl by Anna David
• Bought by Anna David
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
• Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
• Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform and Out-Earn the Competition by Jay Abraham
• Aiming High: How a Prominent Sports and Celebrity Agent Hit Bottom at the Top by Darren Prince, Kristen McGuiness, and Earvin “Magic” Johnson
• The Millionairess Mentality: A Professional Woman’s Guide to Building Wealth Through Real Estate by Tamar Hermes

Related episode(s):

• “[One Question] Hostage Negotiator Loses The Hostage with Chris Voss of Black Swan Ltd”
• “Leading with Passion with Gino Wickman Founder of EOS Worldwide”
• “[One Question] Awakening the Entrepreneur Within featuring Michael Gerber Founder of Michael E. Gerber Companies”
• “[One Question] Keeping Your One Thing During Tough Times with Jay Papasan Co-Author of The 1 Thing”
• “TheFoundation: What is holding you back in life or business? It may not be what you think -with Andy Drish & Dane Maxwell [Overcome Big Challenges]”

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22 

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I have Anna David, I’m going to formally introduce in a second and I always like to mention other episodes people should check out of the podcasts and I have had authors like never split the difference with Chris Voss and you have also had him on your podcast as people check that out. I Gino Wickman of Traction, the E-Myth with Michael Gerber, who wrote something very nice about your latest book On Good Authority. And the one thing Jay Papasan, among others. So you should also check out Anna’s podcast, she talks about books, and launching books and everything around books. So check that out. This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships and how do we do that we actually help you run your podcast, we are an easy button for a company to launch or on their podcast, we do the execution, we do the accountability and the strategy. And for me, Anna, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way to do that in the profile the people and companies I most admire and profile them and what they’re working on so everyone else can understand and share with the world what they are working on in their business and life. So if you have thought about starting a podcast, you should if you have questions go to rise25.com both John Corcoran, my business partner and I have been doing it for over a decade and it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe besides books, right Anna, but we’ll talk about that in a second. So today we have Anna David. She’s a New York Times bestselling author of eight books and the founder of Legacy Launch Pad Publishing. She has been published in the New York Times LA Times Vanity Fair Vice Cosmo, The Huffington Post, and many, many, many more. She’s appeared repeatedly on The Today, The Talk, Good Morning America and numerous other programs and she hosts a podcast she’s featured, like we mentioned, Chris Voss, Robert Greene and many others. And you could check her out at legacylaunchpadpub.com and also with one of our books ongoodauthoritybook.com. Anna, thanks for joining me.

Anna David 2:36 

That was a very inspirational intro. You’ve given me a bunch of ideas for how I should be introducing my podcasts so you know of what you speak.

Jeremy Weisz 2:44 

What are some of your favorite guests on your show? I mentioned Chris Voss, I mentioned Robert Greene, who are some of your favorites?

Anna David 2:52 

And you did mention my two favorites that are the only episodes I have actually rerun. I was so thrilled Chris Voss is a friend so he had no choice but to come on. Robert Greene, it was just a thrill to get him and he was just so humble, and really went there and also complimented me a lot which I got to say that does make for a favorite guest call me shallow and they have.

Jeremy Weisz 3:20 

Who do you want on as a guest that you haven’t?

Anna David 3:23 

When you said Gino Wickman I was like, oh, I wonder if he’s do my show. I’m sure any of your listeners know that what a Bible Traction is. I’m just doing nothing but name-dropping. But Lena Dunham is men never seem to know who she is. But she’s a number one New York Times bestselling author. And she created a show called Girls that all of us were obsessed with. And when I say all of us, I mean women of a certain age. And I talked to her about coming on the show. Because again, she notched a number one New York Times bestselling book, but I really, business books are my passion at this point, because I’ve seen what they can do for the authors.

Jeremy Weisz 4:11 

Yeah, and I love to hear some of your favorite business books. You have an amazing, I want to encourage people to check out, it’s going to be probably at some point I legacylaunchpadpub.com. But on annadavid.com. It was amazing, we were talking about before we hit record, the page were kind of just, it’s a Start Here part and it maps out from 1977 to the current and it’s pretty awesome what you share in there, and we’ll talk about some of the experiences you had because you’ve worked at a number of publishers you’ve been traditionally published. But sort of what are your favorite business books? What do you like?

Anna David 4:52 

Well, it’s interesting because the reason that I’m so obsessed with publishing books a certain way is I like to sort of do the bees war, it’s sort of if a business book in a memoir had a baby, because I find a lot of business books, kind of dry and boring. And I find a lot of memoirs, incredibly fascinating, but they don’t leave me with a lot of takeaways. So I actually have a thing where I read memoirs, the hard copies, and I read business books on my fire, because that way I can underline the takeaways and email them to myself and actually implement them. But am I entertained? Would I call any of them a favorite book? No. I’ve taken a lot from Alan Weiss’s books. And I had Jay Abraham as a guest as well. And he’s got this book, Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got something like that. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Yeah, and I love Never Split The Difference. Also.

Jeremy Weisz 5:57 

Let’s talk about we’ll get to On Good Authority, but take me back in the past to the first book, and then the sequentially what was the first book and then the next books after that.

Anna David 6:11 

So my first book was Party Girl, which came out in 2007, and was acquired by HarperCollins. Back when there was no such thing as custom publishing or self-publishing with your weird uncle, who had like the manuscript in his car, and you’re like, what is this is so sad. And I will say, for many years, when people would say to me, oh, I published a book, I’d say, oh, self, and sort of raise an eyebrow, and I had no respect for them. I had it all backwards. Basically, I wrote six books for HarperCollins. I wrote Party Girl, I wrote a book, another novel called Bought, then those ones that you’re showing, okay, these are actually interesting. So I did six for HarperCollins. Each one was more frustrating than the next I will say, Party Girl was acquired by the top publisher. It was this dream scenario, there was a bidding war over the movie rights to all seem so dreamy, and then that publisher was fired. And it was a crazy experience. That happened, because she was Judith Regan, she was the most profitable part of HarperCollins. But there was a scandal. And the division was dissolved in a day. And so even though there had been so much press and so much hype, and it was paid a good advance the books sold horribly, because there was no one there to work on it and the movie fell apart. And it was this tragic heartbreak because that’s the best thing I’ve ever written. And the beautiful full-circle story is that I was able to get the rights back two years ago, and publish it under my own imprint the way I wanted it published. And now the movie is tentatively scheduled to be shot this year at I wrote the script. So it’s definitely a lesson in having the long-term vision.

Jeremy Weisz 8:05 

Talk about the movie for a second.