Transcription
Hey Chandler Bolt here, and joining me today is Phil Rosenkrantz. Uh, Dr. Phil Rosenkrantz. He's a devoted educator with a passion for lifelong learning and promoting student success. Uh, it's something we have in common. Uh, different forms of education, but definitely a similar purpose, uh, and passion. Uh, he's the author of a book called Letters to Uncle Dave. It's a World War II, um, biography/slash mentor, sorry, memoir. He's also a, a student of Self-Publishing School, and it's just been a blast being part of Phil's journey with this book over the last, however long it's been, and seeing him on group coaching calls, CM, and then Author Advantage Live, uh, all, all kinds of stuff. It's just been really cool to follow the journey, and, uh, the best is yet to come. So, Phil, great to have you here.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, so, um, I guess first things first, why did you decide, uh, to write this book? It's a, you know, as we were talking about before the interview, it's kind of a different, different genre, um, than a lot of people write in traditional nonfiction. So, why this book? What's the why behind it, um, and, and kind of why this, this type of look or this genre?
Okay, that's, that's a great first question because if you don't understand this, nothing, many, none of the rest of what I say will make sense. So, um, I was, I was born in 1949, after World War II, and I grew up in the '50s knowing I had an uncle who was a paratrooper and he was missing in action. Never came home. The family never knew what happened to him, where he died, how he died. My grandmother, and this is a key part of the story, my grandmother refused to believe that he was dead and was convinced he would come home. And she died in 1960. So that was 15 years after he was missing. And by then, people weren't talking about my uncle anymore because my grandmother wouldn't have it. And so I call those the denial years, but it affected our family that they were never allowed to have proper closure.
Then from there, '60 to 1998, I call those the silent years. Nobody was talking about my uncle anymore. And in '98, I saw the movie Saving Private Ryan, very famous World War II movie, featured Matt Damon as Private Ryan, and he was lost. He was a paratrooper lost in Europe, and Tom Hanks, Captain Miller, was sent in to find him. So, watch the movie and I'm going, oh, there's parallels here. My uncle was a paratrooper, and then Private Ryan had three brothers in the war. My uncle had three brothers, three of my other uncles in the war, and there were other parallels. I won't bother to mention. But I said, you know what, um, we have search engines now. I wonder what I could find out. And I thought I might, with a little luck, find out where he died and how he died, what battle he died in, or something like that. I never dreamed that I would find out what I did.
And so I just started surfing, um, the internet. You know, I found a website that listed his, um, uh, how he died, and, and it said that it was, he was missing in action in the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden, and his name was on the Wall of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery. Well, now I had something to go on, and I knew how to make web pages. So I made a website. I started telling my cousins that what I was trying to do. Chandler, I had zero artifacts about my uncle when I started this. I didn't even have a picture of him. My, but he was the middle child of 11 children. My cousins had stuff, and they said, oh, we'll give you all our stuff. I got 56 letters, I got medals that were sent home, photo albums, uh, I got newspaper clipping albums because he was, he was famous in some battles. And then I made a website. And then I also asked the webmaster of that first website, do you have any email addresses? And Chandler, this is the unbelievable part. He sends me 10 email addresses. This is the early days of the internet. He said, I don't know who these people are, but they've sent me something. These are the email addresses. He sent me ten. Three weeks later, one of them emails me and says, how did you find me? I've been looking for a relative of your uncle's for ten years. For five years. Oh, wow. I said, what?
And so it turns out his father, who was still alive, was a veteran who was one of my uncle's best friends. I talked to him, and he said, here's the phone number of another veteran who's still alive who was an eyewitness to what happened to your uncle. So I called that guy. He told me exactly what happened and gave me more phone numbers of other veterans who knew my uncle, and one who was writing a book. I called that guy, and he says, oh, I'm working on the section about your uncle right now. So one thing led to another, and, um, to make the long story short, shorter. So over the next 20 years, I've been to the Netherlands four times. I visited the place where my uncle was killed. Wow. I've met two Dutch researchers that have been looking for my uncle. One of them started when he was 15 years old. Wow. And he is the one, it took him 35 years. He's an amazing guy. 35 years, but he's the one that figured out where my uncle was. Oh, wow. So that's, that's part of the book. But a big part of the book is also the story of the lack of closure. And so me being able to get most of the closure I was looking for and get it in the book was one of my true joys. And, um, and so, yeah, that's awesome. And writing the book and all that other stuff is more of the story.
So let me, let me jump in there. I mean, this, this almost sounds like investigative journalism, uh, and, and this, this long journey to uncover the story. At what point did you find Self-Publishing School in that journey, and then why did you decide to work with us, um, to help with this book?
That's, that's the great second question. So I told myself about 10 years into this journey, so many amazing things that happened, I said, if we ever find my uncle, I'm going to write. I'm going to drop what I'm doing and write a book. And so in 2018, I get the message. They had identified his remains. They brought him back to LAX, you know, you know how they come out of the cargo hold in the coffin with the flag draped over it. We had all the publicity. And then four days later, we had a burial at Riverside National Cemetery, where incidentally, he ended up having four brothers in World War II, including my father, and they're all buried together there. So I started writing the book, um, and it didn't take me very long to write my first draft. Chandler, and this is part of the interesting, I think this is going to help some people. My first draft had 28,000 words. That's a reasonably, you know, below average book, average book, whatever. And I, I bought your book, Published. So I'm following, Published, your first edition of it. Yes. I'm following it to the letter on the writing. I'm, I'm getting beta readers, asking people, what do you, you know, three words that describe me? I'm doing all this stuff that was out of your book. And, um, I got a copy editor and I got a developmental editor. Well, the developmental editor, for those that don't want that, is that's a person that reads your book and from the story standpoint, from your target audience point of view, from your genre point of view. So this woman was a World War II researcher, writer, editor. She was the right person. She gives me 10 pages back, Chandler, of good stuff and says, you need to add a lot of stuff to your book. She said, you're writing to people that want back matter. You know, fiction wants front matter, nonfiction wants back matter. She says, you must find the difference. For people who don't understand, the back matter is at the back of the book. So she said, you need references, endnotes, you need a timeline, you need an index, you need all that stuff that a researcher would want because some of your genre are interested in that. The front matter is where you put in testimonials and stuff like that, stuff to psych people up. But, uh, so she said, and you have to add the letters that he wrote. Those letters, you have to put those in the book. Um, so I used an idea. I used 49 of the 56 letters I had in the book. And when I had, by the time I added all the rest of the stuff, the book was 83,000 words. Wow. But, um, it was worth it. It, it's what made it, uh, real. And the, the letters in the book, and if you don't mind me plugging Author Advantage Live here. Sure. Uh, Rami did us, did a, a session, an add-on session about fiction, uh, and one of the Author Advantage Lives, I can't remember which one. And, um, he was talking about the importance of getting, for fiction, but it really applies to nonfiction, Chandler. The importance of getting your audience interested in the main character early on, otherwise, why do they want to rescue your body? Those letters got people to like my uncle because his letters were funny. Uh, he was self-deprecating, he, he told cute stories, he, he was a dru, he was an artist. He would draw pictures in the letters. He would send sketches with them. Yeah, some of which I had, some of which were lost. Yeah. That's great. He had good exchanges with his siblings. Uh, one of his brothers worked in Hollywood with famous actors, and so he would get photos and things sent to him, which was a big hit with the other bear. Yeah. So it got people to like my uncle. And if you read the reviews, some people said, he's my Uncle Dave. Oh, wow. That's great. So, uh, this, that, so my thing now is for my next books, I've, how am I telling my story right to get people? It's not just facts and, and a timeline. It's the story. That's an important takeaway for people who are thinking about writing a biography, memoir, um, or even fiction, like you said, that was the original intention for Rami's advice.
So I'll jump in here with one thing, um, and then we can, then I want to ask a bunch more questions. So, um, for those who haven't heard, um, Author Advantage Live is an event that we host, um, every single year. Um, it is virtual this year, hopefully for one last year. If you want to get a ticket, grab a ticket at authorvantagelive.com. If you're seeing this right about the time that this episode comes out, um, grab a ticket for this year's event before ticket prices go up. And if you're seeing this, uh, after the fact, um, then grab a ticket for next year. Um, it's an awesome event. You'll love it if you want to sell more books and, and learn more about that. So, Phil, at what point, you said you, you said you read a copy of the book, um, of my book, Published, the first edition, not the second edition, right? At what point did you decide to join the SPS and, and why?
Okay, so, um, my copy editor was also my formatter, and she did a whole bunch of other things. She coordinated getting the index, but then, and, and then she even put together a, a cover design. So then I'm, I'm, I'm stuck because now it's time to publish, and she didn't know all the answers. I didn't know all the answers. And so I joined Self-Publishing School. Cool. Because those coaching calls, having an individual coaching sessions, all the lessons that were available, being able to jump on and ask a question, because the technology and the steps and Amazon and IngramSpark, all that stuff, you need to talk to somebody. You need to have, yeah, you just can't get it all by Googling or reading a book. Yeah, that makes sense. I was stalled. And then after I joined Self-Publishing School, put together the launch and all that, uh, I published three months later. Wow. That's awesome. That's awesome.
I want, Phil, I want to talk about the launch and marketing and all that stuff here in just a bit. Before I do that, I want to go back, back maybe to the writing. I think this would be helpful for people. Um, what was the toughest part of the writing process for you? And I guess, what would be your specific tips, knowing what you know now about the writing piece, for other people who are maybe writing a biography or memoir, if they want to write a better book?
The writing was the easy part, so to speak. But what the hard part was, was making sure that my, it would read good with my audience. And you, in the book, Published, you recommended getting beta readers. So I had six beta readers, and some of them came across with really good suggestions, things that, you know, I was blind to. And, and then I, they also became actually good bird dogs to find more, you know, experts and stuff like that. So what really helped me was my concept map. I'm not an outlining person. I'm an educator. I tell my students, I hate outlines. Here's what you do instead. You know, I teach note-taking. There's no outline. But, so my concept map, I carried it around, folded up in my pocket. I have it right here, which of course the podcasters can't see, but it's got, of course, you can't either. But then I would, to be honest, what I do is I would think about something, I'd pull out the concept map, and then whatever that balloon was, I would use my cell phone and I would send an email to myself with my my thoughts about that item. Cool. I would narrate it, and then I had a way of coding it, this subject. And then whenever I got around to it, I would collect all those, download them, tweak them, edit them, and then put them in the proper place. So my book was written not linearly at all. It was all over the place. I see.
Yeah. Do you recommend that, or would you, if you were to go back, would you, would you do that differently?
That's the way I wrote the rough draft for my second book too. Cool. And so, I, that that works for me. Um, and, uh, because if I just sit down and start typing for cold, it's not as spontaneous for me. Yeah, because I'm used to when I, when I teach, you know, I, I don't read anything. I just have a bullet list of what I want to say, and then I say it. And so, um, that, that helped me a lot. And, um, uh, like I said, the editors helped me a lot. And, and we had, we had a professional cover design. Yeah. I, you, you may not remember this, when I put up my first cover, you and Sean were mortified, and you were very polite. You were very polite, but it was pretty much saying, nah, that cover ain't gonna do it. And, and, um, and so I hired 100 Covers. Cool. They did a great job for me. I don't know how they're doing today. I knew things, but, uh, they did an awesome job for me. And the cover, uh, has been a real good thing. You guys talk about better, you have to have a good title. Yes. You have to have a good cover. Um, and then the, the book description. So I followed the SPS book description formula, and I think it got me in the ballpark. And then I finally ended up had Brian Cohen's people write me one, and that, that I think I noticed an improvement in my sales just from having, cool, having that. That's great.
Yeah, let's talk about launch for a sec. How did you launch this book successfully, um, and what were the two or three things that you've seen, um, sell the most copies?
Okay, I did, I did the stealth launch first. And, um, I set it up to where I was giving free ebooks to my launch team and to people that said they would buy a copy. Of course, they were getting it for free, hoping, you know, because I was looking for reviews. Um, and I, I could have done, I had a couple hundred names on my email list, and 750 people downloaded my free ebook, but they didn't produce as many reviews as I wanted. Definitely. Yeah. And so I kept pushing for reviews, and I'll have to say, you know, when I finally got to 100 reviews, I think that's when it's easier to sell on Amazon because people, yeah, they're shopping for a book. Yeah, they look at the reviews and they look at the stars, but they also look at the number. And I think that hundred is that first kind of, you know, milestone as far as reviews. I agree. I agree. And so, um, what I didn't do was, um, book promotions at the time. And so I'm going to be doing a, a relaunch of my book, and that's going to be a smart part of it. That's smart.
Awesome. Um, let's talk, so I love that you mentioned, um, reviews and relaunches. Obviously, for those who haven't heard yet, my new book, Published, there's a specific chapter on how to get your first one or your next 100 reviews for your book, right? Um, Phil, how did you do it? I was looking, um, it looks like you've got about 134 reviews at the time of recording this interview, 134 reviews on your book. How'd you do it? What worked well in terms of getting reviews?
Um, well, I asked people whenever I could. I would, I made a, I made a mistake. Uh, this was a mistake I made during the launch. People were telling me, Phil, my reviews aren't showing up. I made the mistake of contacting Amazon. That's a no-no. What business does the author have having anything to do with the reviews? So, um, but I would ask people, you know, if you're, if you feel up to it, please submit an honest review. And that's all I would do. I didn't pressure them or anything. Yeah. So I just did a lot of that, just one-on-one follow-up, mostly. Yeah, just, just casual follow-up, because I wanted to leave some integrity in the system, you know? And, uh, some of my best reviews are from people I have no idea who they are or what they, that's cool. That's got to be a great feeling. Yeah. And the ones I really like are when they, when they say, oh, I feel like he's my Uncle Dave. I mentioned that earlier. Yeah. Anything done a lot of podcasts and, uh, zoom presentations. So during COVID, I couldn't do book signings. So that's pretty much what I did. Cool.
So this might be one of those things, but anything else that you've seen or noticed that's that's, uh, moved the copies of books since the launch?
Um, well, I've started to contact bookstores, specifically gift shops at military bases. Oh, that's really smart. Yeah. How's that going so far? And anyway, so far, so far, I've only, uh, I've, I've actually physically done it once at a base that was over in North Carolina in April, and I walked in and, and, uh, before I got out, she said, how many books can you give me to put on my shelf? You know, and so, and sign them. So those were signed copies. Cool. Um, and then I've been to my library here, and my library, I have a home in Arizona also. Yeah. But libraries, you're not selling books, you're just giving them one that they, they loan out. Yeah. But, um, telling the story, uh, has been a rich experience. And, um, and when I do a podcast or or zoom, um, I would say maybe five or ten percent of those people will will go and buy the book. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Um, and with a story-based book, like what you've written, I feel like it's, it's helpful to get out and tell a story on these podcasts, um, and because then you get people interested in the story. And I'm finding myself this way in our conversation, right? And, and but I'm sure even people listening to, so like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I want to hear about Uncle Dave, uh, and, and I want to read this, which is cool.
Um, a couple final questions I have for you, Phil. What was, you, you mentioned this earlier, but what was, um, a little bit, but what was the most helpful part about working with Self-Publishing School in your book?
It was the group coaching calls. Uh, being able to talk to people, getting help from the coaches, but also the other people in the room. Um, and my, oh, my coach, Scott Allen, has been amazing. He's been helping me a lot with my strategy because I've been, that's been one of my things is, you know, what direction am I going? What's my brand? And all that. Yeah. And, um, but Elaine's an amazing coach, Rachel, you know, others, they're, they're all really helpful. And like I said, if, if they don't necessarily know a specific answer, there's, there's some pretty sharp people in the room. Yeah. And, um, uh, one of the nice things about about being in Self-Publishing School is, you know, I, I usually every weekend end up buying one or two books at least, yeah, you know, from the mastermind group, yeah, thing. And there are a lot of really great books being published, yeah, that I enjoy reading and writing a lot of reviews. That's awesome. Not as many as I promised, but yeah.
Well, hey, if you're listening to this, yourself, a Self-Publishing School student, and you've read Phil's book, leave this man a review. He's been such an awesome, uh, just supporter. And like I said, at the top of this, it's been really fun, um, seeing you on group coaching calls and learning and implementing and week by week, things getting better. And even just a simple thing like you said, it's the cover of seeing a first iteration to now seeing, uh, the cover on Amazon that's really good. I think it's, it's been awesome to see. Um, so last couple questions I have for you, Phil. Any advice for people who are thinking about coming to Author Advantage Live? And what did you, you mentioned you've been to, I think at least a couple of our Author Advantage Live conferences. What were your biggest takeaways from those conferences? And any advice for for people thinking about going?
Well, they were, the two I've been to were great. The last one knocked it out of the park. John Maxwell, was he, I'm a fan of John Maxwell, but he was really great. And then Bella's talk about how to scale your book to others, well, that's been very helpful to me for my future thoughts because I didn't know where to go after my first book. And, and then, um, all the presentations were good quality. And then it's really, I really enjoy meeting other people too, when, when we have the, you know, the mixer part. And, uh, so I really enjoy that. So I've got my VIP ticket, I'm ready to go for the next one. And that's awesome. We're excited to have you, Phil. It's going to be a blast. We've got to try to, uh, raise the bar from last year's hit the high part. Yeah, the bar may be too high. I'm like, how are we going to, how are we going to exceed expectations this year? Um, but guys, if you haven't already grabbed a ticket, um, grab a ticket, um, at authorvantagelive.com. We'd love to see you there. Um, Phil would love to see you there, and we can get in the room together and kind of, as you alluded to, Phil, it's one of my favorite quotes, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. I think there's a lot of smart people in that room, and in the rooms of Self-Publishing School as a whole. And my goal is always to be the dumbest person in the room, um, uh, which I definitely am every time I've gotta show up to Author Advantage Live. Uh, so it's a, it's a lot of fun.
So last question for you, Phil. Would be, knowing what you know now, you know, you're, you're at the, it's been a, a multi-decade journey to to to gathering the information that ultimately crystallized in the publishing of this book. Knowing what you know now, what would your advice be to the previous Phil, or all the other Phils out there who are thinking about writing their first book?
Well, I, I found the, like you've heard this before, the writing of the book was the easy part. The marketing, and I think I would have started to try and learn both the technology and the details of marketing a lot earlier, rather than all of a sudden saying, oh, I'm supposed to launch. How do I do that? Um, the technology part, you know, so I mean, I've been involved with technology as an educator for many years, but now you're into, you know, having a, you know, MailerLite, and then you've got to have your website, your lead magnets, and, you know, all those different, and then formatting, and learning about images, and just, there's just all these things. I just wish that I had started spending a little time ahead on that, so there wouldn't have been as much of a surprise, but or hardship.
That's great. Phil, you're inspiring. It's so cool to see your journey and to be a small part of it. Um, thank you for being here. Thank you for coming on and doing this interview, uh, and inspiring other people. Um, uh, books change lives. They've changed your life in the process, and now you're changing other people's lives, both through your uncle's story and through sharing your story of how you did it on this show. So I think it's awesome. Where can people go, uh, to grab a copy of your book? As a reminder, what's the title of the book? Where can they go to buy it and find it? And anywhere else they can go to find out more about you and what you're up to?
Okay, the full title of the book is Letters to Uncle Dave, then the subtitle is The 73-Year Journey to Find a Missing in Action World War II Paratrooper. So there's no doubt about what the book's about. Um, so if you just search for Letters to Uncle Dave, it will take you to Amazon, and you can, you can order from Amazon. And I also sell it through IngramSpark, but Amazon is, um, there. And so you, right now, I have the ebook, softcover, and the hardcover book is full color, 106 color images. So that's my coffee table book. Wow. That was awesome. Yeah, that, that was, I had my family in mind for that one. Yeah, that's cool. Such a great example, Phil, of writing a book that uncovers the legacy. I know a lot of people listening right now are probably thinking about, hey, there's someone in my family that I want to go on that similar journey and write about them. But then also, of just this, this, this journey, uh, to writing and, and publishing a great book. I mean, so just, I feel like so many inspiring, uh, lessons, uh, in your journey and, and how you've approached this. And so I appreciate you being here, uh, and best of luck with the next book and the books beyond that.
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure being here.
All right, Phil. I'll see you at Author Advantage Live.
Yes.