The Ultimate Guide to Self-Publishing: 5 Steps to Real Estate Author Fame

John Harcar (00:00.896)
Okay. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Pharice Brown, and we’re going to talk a little bit about her journey in business, but also why you need to have a book and how it can only help your business. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business. It’s tools and resources that help grow the business you want to grow, which in turn helps live the life you’ve always dreamed of.

Faris, welcome to our show.

Pharice Brown (00:31.977)
Thank you for having me.

John Harcar (00:33.644)
Yeah, I’m excited to talk about why I need a book. But before we do that, let’s kind of get our audience introduced to you. Tell us about your experience in business, any real estate experience you have, and kind of what brought you to today.

Pharice Brown (00:47.476)
Well, my journey started years ago in business. No, I’m just joking. I’m actually in publishing. I’ve been in business for quite some time. I started off in marketing and small business development. And from there, I ventured into publishing. And we’re publishing right now with Pain the Prosperity Publishing. And we’re a small boutique publishing house. And we’re dedicated to transforming powerful and professional stories into industry-defined books. And from that,

Let me just say it became an interesting journey for me when I started my real estate. I started off in an HOA and I found out just how much people did not understand about the HOA process. Even though you purchase a home and you come in and they say, these are all of the things that are required from you under the HOA. They didn’t understand it. So I was looking at it from that perspective, like if somebody wrote something down, this would be so helpful. Moving from that into the home buying process, confused.

online looking at information wasn’t sure what was right, confused. If somebody had a book, here I am. So I figured when I saw you that I would be the perfect person to talk to you for you to talk to me about the real estate investment and how we can help you all become professional and be those thought leaders in this environment.

John Harcar (02:04.246)
Okay, what decided to get you into publishing? What was the main trigger, maybe main need that you felt and saw that said, hey, I need to start getting into publishing books.

Pharice Brown (02:17.648)
started off writing as a child all through my life. So it just gradually came. It is what it is. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. So telling stories was how I started out. But then because I have a business background, I realized that every time I needed something, what did they say? this is a good book reference. This is a good book. So everybody was always referring books to me and you know, like Les Brown and people like that. Everybody had a book.

So in order to be taken seriously in the business industry, you have to have a book. So it was just a natural thing. I don’t understand this industry. Let me go and look for a book. So.

John Harcar (02:55.566)
True. you think that, you know, with all the information online, mean, heck, can, you know, I can go with chat GPT and they can basically cite from every single book that’s ever been created. Do you think that maybe that whole AI process, all that stuff might be interfering with traditional books?

Pharice Brown (03:14.995)
That’s too much information. AI is like drinking water through a fire hose. It’s so much information and trying to narrow it down to make it specific to your target audience is where a lot of people seem to not be able to navigate as well. It’s so broad and it’s so general. Everybody wants to be everything to everybody instead of being that one thing to those few people. So cutting it down into a niche, think across the market has been what I’ve seen to be an issue even with

marketing and publishing books and even just marketing small businesses in general.

John Harcar (03:50.83)
Got it. Okay. And that makes sense. And I have a lot of guys I, you know, I interview with a lot of folks that come onto my show that have written books. So I’m not, you know, I’m not discounting the book idea. I’m just curious if from your perspective, obviously being in the publishing, if a lot of this online stuff and to reference your…

statement of like, you you need to know something, there’s too much on the internet, maybe go find a book, right? Just wondering if that kind of interfered with that. So what do you, do you do like digital books, hard books, any specific topics in the industries or was it just wide open?

Pharice Brown (04:27.082)
No, we’re niching down. We’re definitely not going to start off wide open. We will add as we go along, but we definitely have targeted marginalized voices. So that’s where we are right now. So that could be a black woman, that could be a black man, that could be a Spanish man. It’s BIPOC. So we are definitely taking genres from that specific categories of individuals.

because they have a genre all their own and then they have business books, have English books, they have how-to. We have one lady that submitted information to us who’s coming to us with a coloring book. So it just really depends on what they have decided to create.

John Harcar (05:10.048)
Okay, so there’s really anybody who wants to publish a book and just come to you and you’ll publish it. Well, meeting some criteria or meeting some specific requirements you have, but if I wrote a book and I wanted to have it published, could I bring it to you if it’s on real estate?

Pharice Brown (05:15.75)
wouldn’t say that.

Pharice Brown (05:28.005)
You could, but I’m going tell you what sets us apart from other publishing houses. Everybody on the publishing side is familiar with hybrid publishing, traditional publishing, and things of that nature. just speaking in those terms, how we’re different is we have what we call an author success pod. So we bring an author in, so you come to me with a real estate book. So I’ll say, hey, John, let’s take this book and I’m going to put you in this author pod with a project manager, an administrative assistant, an editor, and then it would be yourself.

So since you already have a product that’s in development, a book that’s already in the works, that manuscript will be worked on by the editor while you all are going through the process. We in the background will develop a marketing plan for you directly. And it’s not just, we’re going to go on TikTok and make a video. This is, it’s niche down specifically to your book. Like we will go through with you, with your book and put a vision together. So you and the project manager will work together on that. start building out your social media platform day one.

that you have a place to sell your book before your book is done. You don’t want to be on the back end trying to figure out where your market is. So we’re building you a market as you go along. So the administrative assistant is the backup for you. They help you with the fact check in. If you need somebody to assist you with typing or maybe you have an idea but you’re not really sure how to work it out. You have a team that’s there with you to be able to help you through the process. So once you’re done with that, we move you out.

six months out, we still work with you hand in hand with the market. And so we’re teaching you the business. We don’t want you to just do the book. We want you to become a brand. And by becoming a brand, you become a thought leader and you become different. You stand out in the industry. You’re standing on stage and you’re talking about real estate, but you have your book being sold in the back of the room. How much more professional could you be than that other than saying, well, I wrote this blog online. There’s nothing wrong with a blog, but when you actually want to talk about legacy,

It’s a book. It’s always been a book.

John Harcar (07:29.454)
Interesting. How many books have you guys published?

Pharice Brown (07:33.433)
We’re working on our third. We just started in January, so we’re moving. We’re moving. We have a couple that we’re sitting in the pods now. We have, well, I want to say three or four manuscripts that we just got in this morning. So we’re looking for editors for those. So we’re looking for editors. We’re always looking for authors, literary agents, if they have anybody, any authors that are absolutely ready to go, we’re here and available.

John Harcar (07:35.943)
okay, you’re brand new.

John Harcar (07:57.602)
Okay, what are some of the struggles you’re running into as you’re starting this business?

Pharice Brown (08:01.816)
We’re small, we’re small, getting your name out there and just being able to get people to see how we’re different than the traditional publishing. We’re not going to browbeat you and make you feel bad because it’s not the way that we want you to do it. We’re not like that. We help guide you through the process of the vision that you have for your book, but we teach you the business. So if you never worked with us again, you understand the process now, you understand what you need and where to go and how to get it. It’s all written down for you.

So we don’t hide anything from you. We wanna be as transparent as a partnership. If you trust us with your book, we should be able to give you everything that we have so that you will be successful.

John Harcar (08:30.99)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (08:41.806)
Okay, is there anything specific someone needs when they come to you about publishing a Besides a manuscript?

Pharice Brown (08:46.606)
manuscript idea. You have to have an idea because we have ghost writers and then like I said we have editors and we have project managers they can sit with you and help you flush out your ideas. We also have online self-driven self-paced courses so maybe you don’t want to talk to us yet you’re not that comfortable you’re not ready yet you can go online you can get the downloadable book and you can go through it at your own pace and it’s pretty much the exact same information.

minus the hand holding, but we will get you there.

John Harcar (09:17.112)
Got it. Got it, got it, that makes sense. So, I mean, what advice do you give to someone that’s…

Pharice Brown (09:26.187)
Do it. Do it. It doesn’t matter. It’s a million people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody says it the way you say it. Nobody does it the way you do it. That’s why we’re able to keep reproducing the same things a few different times because it’s always gonna be different.

John Harcar (09:45.038)
How big are you looking to grow your publishing company? mean, what’s your goal here in the next, let’s say, 12 months?

Pharice Brown (09:52.373)
I don’t know for the next 12 months, but we want to be one of the big five. We want to replace or be one of the big five. That’s the only goal that I can see right now. And I know you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time, but you you still have to be able to see the big picture so you know where you’re going.

John Harcar (09:58.177)
I love it.

John Harcar (10:13.1)
What do you think are some of the mistakes people are making writing books in nowadays or trying to publish books or anything like

Pharice Brown (10:22.186)
The biggest thing that I’ve seen is they think that the publisher does everything. They think that because they wrote the book that people are just going to buy it. They don’t understand that marketing is a whole separate animal. A publisher takes care of the book. They don’t read the contract. The publishing doesn’t take care of the marketing. The marketing is up to the author. It’s two separate things that you’re looking for. And I think that a lot of times the authors are confused with the process and how things go and who’s responsible for what.

John Harcar (10:40.216)
Right.

Pharice Brown (10:51.446)
parts of the process and it makes it confusing but then in steps self-publishing you have it all to control and now it’s way too much and there’s so much you’re not really sure what to do so I think the information is all over the place and finding information that’s reasonable where you can actually trust what you’re hearing there’s so so many seminars so many work so many coaches

John Harcar (11:00.214)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (11:14.638)
Mm-hmm.

Pharice Brown (11:16.757)
But you have to find an individual that resonates with you and gives you the process that you can actually execute. I’m not going to say anybody’s process is better or worse than anybody else’s, but you have to know what works best for you.

John Harcar (11:30.514)
And I heard you mention over there, you know, mentioned Ghost Riders, you mentioned all these other people. Is this all like your staff? Are these people that you that are like they’re outsourced or how do you how does that all work? What does your team look like?

Pharice Brown (11:41.654)
We do have some in-house and my in-house would be my admin staff. Everyone else is freelance and we make sure that we compensate them well so that we get the best. So what happens is the editors that come to us as the books sell well, the editors get a residual royalty on the back end for the work that they’ve done to help the process.

John Harcar (12:04.75)
Awesome. And how do you find, I mean, how do you find these freelance people? Are you going on like a Upwork or things like that?

Pharice Brown (12:10.503)
So far has been LinkedIn and Indeed.

John Harcar (12:13.058)
LinkedIn and Indeed. Okay, very cool. Very cool. As you’re growing and as you’ve been in business throughout your life, what do you think have been the keys to your success? Things that have kind of kept you on the track to growth?

Pharice Brown (12:28.158)
Being coachable. I don’t know everything. Even though this is a new environment for me, I’ve been in business for over 20 years, so I understand business, but being in business is not being in this industry. And because this is something new for me, I need to be coachable. But at the same time, I still need to be able to stay on top of the trends and be able to stay on top of business on the other side where I do my marketing and my special strategies. But

I think really the hardest thing has been reading so many books. They’ve been so good lately. So many of the marketing books have been so good lately, but there are a few that I’m kind of hooked on that’s not really marketing. But have you seen Chris Voss’s book?

John Harcar (13:02.69)
Right? Right?

John Harcar (13:11.438)
No, I have not.

Pharice Brown (13:14.439)
Yeah, you have to check him out. Let me see.

John Harcar (13:15.854)
Yeah, I’ll check it out. I’ll get my W. That could be my next read.

Pharice Brown (13:19.783)
Yeah, you absolutely have to. There’s quite a few that you would definitely want to take a look at. But I don’t know. It’s just so much going on in the industry right now that it’s kind of hard to put down one or two ideas. But I think in general for me, just being able to be malleable, still learning, still getting out in public.

John Harcar (13:36.706)
Yeah. Are you being coached by, are you being coached by somebody? Do you have a mentor? Okay. Okay.

Pharice Brown (13:40.943)
absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. but the thing about it is, is even though I’m being coached, I’m still looking for other coaches. Everybody has different information and different techniques. So I’m able to pass that information along to kind of, you know, close the gap. So when most people come to me and when I say, well, would you like to write a book? The first thing I don’t have time, I don’t have time. The first secret that I tell everybody, you have time, you have Gmail.

Open your Gmail on your phone like you’re going to send an email. Hit the little mic. Say whatever you want to say, period, comma, exclamation point, new prep, save as, save as. And then when you get done, cut and paste it into a Word document. And then from there, can find there, I can teach you 50 different ways to publish your book for less than $100. So if money is an issue, I got an idea for you. Bootstrapping, I’m,

John Harcar (14:19.085)
to Tex.

Pharice Brown (14:34.941)
I’m here for the marketing. I’m more interested in how can we sell your book to the audience as well as the book that’s being sold to the audience.

John Harcar (14:40.748)
Right.

Right, now got it, love it. What advice do you have for somebody that might be looking to write a book?

Pharice Brown (14:52.819)
go to a writing class and start to meet people and become confident in what you write. The more you’re around other people who are doing the same thing that you are, you become motivated. You stay motivated. You get engaged. You stay engaged because they’re going to keep you accountable. That’s the one thing that we’re all afraid of. We don’t like the word accountability, but we love it when we hold other people accountable. So

It will work for you to your advantage to have somebody say, Hey, you know, how’s that book coming along? How’s your manuscript coming along? And they’ll be your biggest cheerleaders. then too, you’re talking about marketing. They can help you. They have a platform that you don’t, they know people that you don’t. So now you have somebody that you could work with and not necessarily competition. So it helps build out your network.

John Harcar (15:41.058)
Got it. Awesome. If there’s people out that are listening right now and they want to write a book and they want you to publish it, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you? How do they find you?

Pharice Brown (15:51.525)
We’re on all social media platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and it’s pain. The number two prosperity publishing.com is our website.

John Harcar (16:02.766)
And I have all your socials down here that you send over on your bio. So we’ll put that information in the show notes. We’ll put all the other information in the show notes that you just gave as well. But I appreciate you coming on here and sharing that. I’ve thought about writing a book, but I’ve never just done it. Yeah, my wife too. My wife’s really bad at it, but she’s actually started. But I appreciate you sharing all this. Guys, I hope you at home enjoyed this.

If you guys are looking to write a book, man, reach out to Faris. Let her help you. Let her publish it. Let me ask her questions on how to or whatever. She’s a great resource. Thank you again, Faris, for your time. And we’ll see you guys on the next one. Cheers.

Pharice Brown (16:42.567)
Thank you.