Everett O’Keefe is an International #1 Bestselling Author, having authored six Amazon #1 bestselling books. The Power of the Published is his most recent work. He has also helped create and launch more than 50 bestselling books for his clients. Everett speaks across the nation on the power of publishing. He is the founder of Ignite Press, a hybrid publishing company that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, as well as business and medical professionals, ignite their businesses by becoming bestselling authors. Everett is the co-founder of the Business Accelerator Group, a high-level mastermind group composed of international marketers and publishers. He also founded the Mastermind Retreat and hosts international mastermind events. In 2019, Everett founded The Book Publishers Network, a group of publishers, publishing consultants, book coaches, and other book professionals. In 2020, he founded The Publishers Mastermind in order to help support publishing professionals from around the world. Everett is sought out as a speaker, coach, and consultant by authors and marketing experts worldwide. With a passion for entrepreneurialism, Everett helps his clients become recognized experts in their fields through speaking and authorship while allowing his clients to focus on their own areas of giftedness. More info on www.ignitepress.us.
Welcome everybody, welcome to Spiritual Biz Chat for Spiritual Biz Magazine, and today we have joining us Everett O’Keefe, an international bestselling author and publisher. Welcome, Everett, thank you for being with us, how are you doing today?
EVERETT O’KEEFE: Kimberly, I am doing fantastic. It really is an honor to be interviewed by you. To be honest, it has been an honor to work with you on projects in the past, and I am very excited about what you are creating here.
It’s a pleasure to have you here, Everett! Could you share the story behind your personal journey down the path to your current life’s purpose and work?
EVERETT: I was brought up in a household where we were taught that we should always do the right thing, no matter the cost. My father was a veteran who always honored our country and always honored others. He was generous with his time and never hesitated to volunteer himself, or us, to help people with projects. I was a pretty lazy kid, though, and I was slow to come around to the idea that helping others really is our life calling. Nonetheless, when it finally took root, it found a place to anchor in my professional life. My first real job was that of a vocational rehabilitation counselor, where I helped injured workers get back to work. I learned a ton about marketing myself while promoting the business. When the industry took a hit because of legislative changes, it was a no-brainer to take what I had learned about marketing and put this knowledge to use for others. Instead of helping injured workers get back to work, I found myself helping businesses acquire more clients.
Along the way, I learned some very important lessons. One lesson I learned is that we cannot enter into the business of helping others and attempt to do it alone. We must do it with partners and team members. Any effort that we can make on our own, no matter how powerful, is likely to be short-lived. But if we can bring in team members or strategic partners, or build key relationships, we can multiply our efforts and create something that is not just powerful but durable. For this reason, I am a firm believer in strategic partnerships and mastermind groups. Both have the ability to transform businesses and lives.
The second lesson that I learned on my journey was that of authority and specifically the ability to create authority through authorship. Our marketing company was struggling, attempting to create a foothold in a crowded and often confusing space. It wasn’t until I wrote my first book, The Video Tractor Beam, that our business really took off. The authority and credibility created by that book helped launch our company. It attracted new clients and, more importantly, better clients. In fact, it allowed us to change the nature of our company; with the added authority and credibility from our book, we were able to step away from trying to provide a product useful to all companies and instead create a product that was appropriate for only the best companies. This made our business much more efficient and much more profitable. To be honest, before we published the book, I woke up at three in the morning literally every single night, consumed with anxiety about how we were going to pay our bills and provide for our families. After publishing the book, and after seeing its fruits, this was no longer the case.
How inspiring! What was the turning point in taking the steps to make your passion a business? And how have you managed to turn that into a business?
EVERETT: Our first publishing efforts were focused completely on ourselves. While publishing the book, we also tested an Amazon bestseller launch strategy that we had learned. The book became a #1 bestseller on Amazon, passing up some of my favorite authors, like Malcolm Gladwell, John Maxwell, and others. Seeing my book on Amazon and particularly seeing my book above all of these authors had a profound effect on me. Quite unexpectedly, it changed my internal posture and therefore change the way I carried myself with our clients. While the accomplishment of the book had an impact on how prospects and clients perceived us, it also had this internal impact that created positive results for our business.
Our success in publishing, and the unexpected additional benefits, caused us to make publishing one of the offerings of our business. We went on to publish a client’s book, The Way of Wealth, and watched the impact it had in the lives of the author and his business. What’s better, we were able to see the impact that the book was having in the lives of the author’s clients and other readers. It was at that time that we realized that publishing really should be our focus. By publishing books, we could help multiply the impact of others. We could help spread their message not only to build their business but also to change lives.
This was a watershed moment in my life because it showed me a way that I could help others, serve others. At the same time, it allowed me to provide for my family while developing the resources to support ministries and other organizations. That is both how and why Ignite Press was founded.
And we have been busy since then! At present, we just completed our 75th Amazon bestseller launch. In fact, this month we also conducted our first launch targeting the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Our book, called Authority, actually landed on the bestseller list for both papers! On the way, it also became an international #1 bestseller on Amazon and was, for a time, the #1 nonfiction book on Amazon. We are extremely excited about the accomplishment because this opens the door for other book launches of this magnitude.
More importantly, publishing continues to be a way for me to help others. I absolutely love helping others build their businesses. I find it both challenging and rewarding, and it’s something I plan to do until the day I die. My wife jokes around that I will probably never retire, and I’m sure that she is correct in some sense. I can see myself always helping to build others’ businesses and, by doing so, impacting lives.
Everett, as the founder of such a successful publishing company, what is your number one principle that you go by while selecting what authors you wish to work with? What do you believe to be the secret of what makes a book a bestseller?
EVERETT: This is a bit of a tough question. Frankly, the traditional publishing world is draconian in the way it looks at subjects and particularly in the way that it puts up stop signs for people that would share their messages with the world. Did you know that J.K. Rowling was told not to “quit her day job”? The truth is traditional publishers will only publish books if they meet a very narrow set of interests or if the author has such a huge following that the author really doesn’t even need traditional publishing. For this reason, I approach book submissions through a very different lens. If someone has taken the time to write a book and wishes to bring this message to the world, why shouldn’t they be able to? Over the last several years, we have experienced democratization in media. At this point in time, anybody can start their own TV station and broadcast through social media, YouTube, etc. It is also possible for anyone to take their book to the world through publishing, either through self-publishing, hybrid publishing (which is what Ignite Press does), or traditional publishing.
At the same time, we won’t publish just anything. We do look at manuscripts and determine if the content is something that we can get behind and support. We won’t take on every project simply because we do not believe that we are the best fit for every project and every message. There are some messages that would be better supported by companies more aligned with the content. This just makes sense. And in circumstances where we must turn down a project, we will typically connect the author with a more appropriate publisher.
As for what makes a bestseller, it is important to remember that there can be bestsellers in almost any space. On Amazon, there is a #1 bestseller in real estate just like there are #1 bestsellers in finance, nonprofit organizations, coaching, spirituality, consulting, etc. In its purest sense, the journey to bestseller requires that the book be a bestseller in its category for a period of time. This can be short or long. And even though that ranking may not last forever, there is this adage: “once a bestseller, always a bestseller.” The good news and the bad news is that the bestseller accomplishment does not depend upon whether or not the book is excellent. I know this can be a bit disconcerting to consider, but we see it all the time; it really is a matter of promotion and marketing rather than content, at least at the initial stages. Frankly, you and I have both seen many books that became bestsellers before anyone had a chance to read them. Tony Robbins published a finance book a few years ago that was over 600 pages long. As publishers, we know that the page count alone would dictate that very few people will ever finish the book. And yet it became a bestseller long before anyone could have waded through all 600 pages. The truth is that it became a bestseller not because it was a great book, though perhaps it is, but because of promotion. Now, this also can be encouraging because it also means that other books can become bestsellers along the way even if the content is not earth-shattering or even novel. This takes a lot of pressure off would-be authors, and particularly those business owners and entrepreneurs who wish to employ authorship for the benefit of their business. They do not have to create the next great American masterpiece in order to be successful. They need only create an effective book for it to have an incredible impact in their business.
What kind of advice can you give to someone who’s about to write a book, wants to write a book, or has just written a book? What should be they aware of but not afraid of?
EVERETT: This is easy. Stop hesitating and get it out there. I have seen far too many people spend far too much time trying to create the perfect book. They will never create the perfect book. But what they can create is a book that has a perfect impact. For example, my first book was, to be honest, horrible. It was overly brief and overly simple. On the other hand, my first book was perfect because it had the perfect outcome. It positioned me as an expert in my field, attracted new clients, and enabled me to engage with higher-value clients in a way that I could have never accomplished before. So this overly brief, overly simple book had exactly the outcome that I desired.
A book is absolutely the most effective tool that anyone can develop for their marketing. There is no other medium that allows you to connect so deeply with so many people. There is also no other medium that is more durable. I would encourage people to pick up The Power of the Published, a book I wrote and published last year. This book goes through all the different ways that a book can be leveraged and all the ways that a book can impact a business or a brand. What’s more, it contains a ton of valuable information about publishing opportunities, publishing methods, and the things authors need to know on this journey. I mention this because a book is the nearest thing to a silver bullet for any business. It is effective at so many levels and in so many ways that it really is impossible to overstate its value.
Let’s face it. We revere authors. Even in this time when authorship is easier to accomplish than ever, we still give a special place of honor to authors. This is one reason that having a book is such a powerful way to expand and improve a business.
And this is why I say get it done and get it out there. Don’t spend the next year trying to make it perfect. Instead, get it out into the marketplace so it can start working for you right now or in the months ahead. When we take on projects, it usually takes 90-120 days to complete editing, layout, cover design, and an Amazon bestseller launch. This means that you could take a manuscript that you have now or prepare in the near future, and you could have a book working for you next quarter! That’s crazy when you think about it. What’s even crazier is to realize that your book will be an effective, enduring tool for you to use for the rest of your life. It will also be a piece of legacy that you can leave to those that follow. But none of this will happen if you simply sit on a manuscript or rewrite and rewrite and rewrite some more. Get it out there!
Oh! Don’t worry about whether or not you are qualified to be the “expert” on some given subject. I get this all the time, where people are insecure about their qualifications or the value of the message that they want to share. The truth is that you are uniquely qualified to communicate your message to somebody. The unique set of experiences that you have amassed, and your unique knowledge, and the unique way in which you communicate mean that you truly are the only person on the planet with this combination. There are people out there whose ears and hearts are specifically tuned to get this message from you. And these people may never get this message if you don’t put it out there. Remember these two questions: if not you, then who? And if not now, then when?
What is your ultimate goal with your work? What is your mission? Your dream? What are some projects that are on your mind and that you are currently working on?
EVERETT: Some people will resonate with this message and others will not. That’s fine. There’s a moment in Exodus where the Israelites are fighting another army, and as long as Moses holds the Staff of God up high, the Israelites prevail. But as the day gets long, his arms get tired, and he lowers the staff. The Israelites start to lose. And then two people, Aaron and Her, come alongside Moses, and the each grabs an arm and lifts it up so the staff is held high. The Israelites ultimately have victory.
I bring this up because I see Ignite Press as Aaron and Her. We don’t want to be in the spotlight. We don’t want to be the person on stage or the center of attention. What we want to do is to be able to hold up the arms of those people who have a message to carry to the world. It is not important to us that we be the “personality” or celebrity. We would rather stand behind others and hold their arms up so they can share their message.
Lastly, the name, Ignite Press, means something. There’s a song I learned as a kid. The lyric says “it only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around are warmed up in its glowing.” That’s the nature of what we do. We help create that spark to help ignite people’s businesses through publishing. If we can light that spark to then create a fire, then soon there is a blaze that impacts everyone. That’s the goal of Ignite Press.
Is there a final message you want to let our readers know? Or just any last little words that you have for them?
EVERETT: Get it done, do it now, and don’t do it alone. I would go back to the lessons I learned earlier in my business. We can only do so much by ourselves. We can accomplish much more with the assistance of others, and we can create something that is durable, something that outlasts us, something that impacts the lives of others in a way that we ultimately cannot anticipate or plan. But none of this happens if we don’t get it out there, get the message out to the world. So that’s why I say get it done, do it now, and don’t do it alone.
And leave your perfectionist self behind. Nothing you will create will ever be perfect. The more time you spend trying to create perfection, the less time you will have to impact the lives of others. Of course, quality is important, but it is not the most important thing. Efforts at perfection will only serve to delay execution. And delays in execution mean delayed, and ultimately decreased, impact.
Thank you, Everett, very much! It has been such a pleasure chatting with you today!
EVERETT: Thank you for inviting me for this interview Kimberly. Keep impacting the lives of others. And keep helping them impact the lives of others around them!
