The Publishing Performance Show

Hassan Osman - Why Your Book Should Be a Business Card on Steroids (Not a Money Maker)

• Teddy Smith • Episode 108

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 45:05

Hassan Osman is an Amazon bestselling author and the founder of Sidegig Hacks and Writer on the Side. While maintaining a demanding corporate career, Hassan has published over 20 books with 9 Amazon bestsellers reaching over 120,000 readers, plus 17 courses with 430,000+ unique students. His expertise lies in creating short, focused books (10,000-12,000 words) for busy managers and corporate leaders, covering soft skills and leadership development. Hassan advocates for treating books as "business cards on steroids" - tools that generate more revenue from opportunities they create than from direct sales. His systematic approach emphasizes the 80-20 principle, focusing on content repurposing across multiple platforms including Amazon, Udemy, and Gumroad.

In this episode:

  • Why books are "business cards on steroids" that open bigger opportunities
  • The four-circle method for choosing profitable book topics
  • Writing 10,000-word books that people actually finish reading
  • How promotion starts before the book is completed
  • Content repurposing strategies across books, courses, podcasts, and social media
  • Using popular highlights from Kindle to create Twitter content
  • Publishing under multiple pen names for different genres
  • Udemy course creation: turning $600 books into $35,000 courses
  • Gumroad strategies for packaging books with additional bonuses
  • Custom ChatGPT creation for writing in your own voice
  • The Four Week Write Your Book system and course
  • Building sustainable creator workflows while working full-time


Resources mentioned:


Book Recommendations:

  • Write Your Book on the Side by Hassan Osman (free): https://course.writerontheside.com/
  • Better Online Meetings by Hassan Osman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FPB2Y6K?&linkCode=ll1&tag=pubperf-20&linkId=400c65572fa1761b41f901ed6233057c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl


Connect with Hassan Osman:


Connect with Teddy Smith:

Support the show

Discover More with Our Curated Starter Packs: https://teddyagsmith.com/starter-packs/



[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Welcome to the Publishing Performance Show, the podcast that helps self-publish authors turn their passion into a profit. Now, I'm your host Teddy Smith, and if you're serious about building a sustainable business, then you're in the right place. Every week I sit down with successful authors, industry experts, and publishing professionals who share their exact strategies they use right now to how they grown their business, grow their readership, increase their book sales, and essentially to make a bit more money.

[00:00:29] Now, whether you're just starting out or you're looking to scale your existing publishing business, you'll walk away from every episode with actual insights you can implement immediately. Now, if you are new here, it would really, really help me out. If you could subscribe either on Apple or Spotify or YouTube or wherever you are, just simply hit the subscribe button.

[00:00:45] It really helps to show to get more reach, which means we can get better guests for you and we can help you out in in more ways. Alright, let's dive into this episode. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Hassan Osman, who is an Amazon bestselling author, and also the founder of Side Gig Hacks and Writer on the side.

[00:01:04] So thanks for joining the show, Hassan. 

[00:01:07] Hassan Osman: Thank you, Teddy. I'm super excited to be talking to you today. 

[00:01:10] Teddy Smith: Well, you've got quite a varied background, so usually I try and ask a question that. It gets to the bottom of where people are. But I think actually with you, it'd be easiest for you to give us a bit of a background into like how you got started with and how you got to the point where you are today.

[00:01:24] Hassan Osman: Yeah, sure. Happy to give a quick overview honestly, this is a question that's always hard to answer, but I'll try my best. So I'm a creator on the side, so for many, many years I had a full-time demanding job in the corporate world. I'm based out of the US. And, I remember since starting my first job, I've always had something that I've created on the side.

[00:01:45] mainly I've published books. So I've published over 20 books so far. Nine of them are Amazon Besters, over 120,000 readers. And I've also published courses about different topics, which, which we'll talk about here in a second. But over 17 courses, 430,000 plus unique students, and then multiple different, types of digital products as well on the side.

[00:02:07] you know, just give context to your listeners about what those topics are about. I mainly publish, short books and short courses for busy managers. Like that's my core. sort of creation bucket. and it really helps corporate leaders, managers, executives in Fortune 500 organizations become

[00:02:25] more effective, leaders and managers, sort of understand the different soft skills needed lead their teams. and I've always loved creating more than marketing, so I don't really enjoy talking a lot about my books or trying to sell them. and so I rely heavily on, existing platforms.

[00:02:41] So with Amazon or so with books, I should say it's Amazon. And then with courses, it's Udemy. So really kind of rely on the. Underlying engine, of their sort of built in search capabilities to get folks to organically find those books and courses and purchase them. so that's sort of me in a nutshell.

[00:02:59] and I've tried to kind of master the 80 20 on everything, like what are the 20% of actions that gave me 80% of the results, whether it's book creation or courses or other digital products as well. 

[00:03:10] Teddy Smith: Yeah, the, the reason I got in touch with you in the first place was because I've been following you through Twitter and I think I found something that I found interesting and then followed you.

[00:03:19] And the story really resonated me about this being a creator on the side. 'cause one of the things we talk about the most in this podcast is about how writers can turn their writing. Writing basically into more of a business. You know, a lot of authors, yeah, want to write their books, but I think a lot of the stuff you focus on is how you can expand that business from not just being a book into being something like a lead magnet or actually a way of making money in itself, like a course, which was why I found it so interesting.

[00:03:46] And one of the first things you said with your book. on your website was writing a book is a bit like having a business card on steroids. So why don't you tell me a bit about what you meant by that? 

[00:03:56] Hassan Osman: Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm a big fan of that, that phrase, I, I use it all the time.

[00:04:01] Yeah. Don't write a book, write a business card on steroids. And what I mean by that is, there's a lot of. I don't want to call it like a section of the internet, maybe, different types of creators who are heavily focused on the money making aspect. So, in some cases you see a lot of, creators saying, you don't even need to know how to write, you don't need to know how to, market books.

[00:04:21] You just. Sort of hack the system, understand Amazon's algorithm and start pumping out, different types of books. There's something called low content books, or no content books, or even books that they don't write, but they outsource previously before chat. PT and AI was outsourcing it to like countries like the Philippines or India and, have people write a full book for like 20 bucks and then just publish that.

[00:04:44] So there's a huge section off the internet that talks about that. I don't judge it, but that's not for me. It's not what I teach, it's not what I like to talk about. I think a book is really more of a business card on steroids, which means that, the money's great. Like it's good to get an income stream.

[00:05:01] we all need money to survive. We all need it to, to be able to, fund our business and our, our hobbies, but at the same time. you can, if you look at a book as an asset, you can make more money because of your book than from your book. And what I mean by from is through direct royalties, like meaning, actual sales.

[00:05:21] But then because is when you use your book to upsell other. consulting, coaching services, other products that you have, which are higher ticket items. build a brand that people, would invite you to kind of speak about a particular topic or, share your thought leadership on, in, in some of the most prestigious, news outlets out there.

[00:05:43] Right? Like, that to me is the purpose, of writing a book. It's, it's, again, a business card that opens up a lot more opportunities for you, that makes more. Potential revenue from, because of your book, then from your book. That's sort of my entire philosophy, Teddy. And that's, what I like to focus on.

[00:05:59] It's, it's not just creating a book for the sake of creating it and making a couple of books. 

[00:06:03] Teddy Smith: Yeah. A lot of people I speak to, kind of feel a bit funny about this, these alternative revenue streams from their book because they think I'm a writer, I wanna focus on writing these books. But if you think about some of the more famous authors, you know, like Michael Mike Kvi from who wrote Profits First, he's made loads more money from just selling his book, as he has from training Accountants to becoming Profit First professionals off the back of writing that book in the first place.

[00:06:28] So. If people like these big names are doing that as well, there's no reason why you should be doing that too. 

[00:06:33] Hassan Osman: I mean, look, again, I just don't want people to get me wrong. Like, I would love to sell a million copies of my book. Right? Yeah. Like that's, I mean, it's not like I'm not gonna take it.

[00:06:42] but it's sort of what are your prioritizing, right? Like are, if you're just focused on the. You know, money making aspect of that being that product, then I think you're leaving a lot of other potential opportunities and money on the table, right? Like you can really gain a lot from having a book out there that can help you out a lot.

[00:06:59] And I'm happy to give multiple examples 'cause that has helped me in the past quite a bit. 

[00:07:04] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I mean, so, well for example, in talking about that, how do you choose the topic that you want to write about if you are feeling a bit stuck? 

[00:07:10] Hassan Osman: Yeah. So. I have a very formulaic approach to picking topics, and this applies by the way, to books or courses or any other product, right?

[00:07:18] Yeah. So I like to think about three, actually, four intersecting circles. So think of a Venn diagram and each circle has a different label, and I'll go through them. So the first circle is what I call interest, meaning you want to choose a topic that you are interested in. And now interested doesn't necessarily mean you have to be absolutely in love with a topic, right?

[00:07:38] But you have to have some level of passion towards it. Because what happens is if your book becomes very successful, you're gonna be doing a lot of. Talking and speaking about it, like coming on your podcast, for example, to talk about the content of the book. And if you're not interested in that topic, it's gonna fizzle out.

[00:07:54] It's gonna show, people can easily smell that, right? Even in your writing, people can tell if you're not sort of passionate about what you're writing, again, I, you may be passionate is not the right word. It's just at some level of interest, deep interest in that. So that's, that's the first circle. The second is experience.

[00:08:11] and what I mean by that is you have to have some level of experience with with a topic that you're writing about. Now, when I say experience many people feel like that is confused with being an expert on a topic. Those are two separate things, right? You can be, you know, you can have some experience in a topic, but not necessarily an expert.

[00:08:29] and as a matter of fact, you know, being an expert sometimes could work against you. you know, because of this concept called the curse of knowledge. So I'll take a sidebar here and just kind of talk about this because I think it's important and it'll open up people who are listening to this, to, to, you know, maybe get encouraged to write a book.

[00:08:44] So you can, let's say be a PhD in nuclear engineering and you've worked for 20 years in that field, and then you're asked to teach, high school students a physics 1 0 1 class, right? in that particular case, because of this concept called the curse of knowledge, you as a PhD in nuclear engineering and worked in, you know, a nuclear power plant for 20 years might forget what it's like to be a high school student.

[00:09:09] To go back to the basics, right? Because you're trained or your mo your mind is sort of used to talking to people who are, already take things for granted. So. That knowledge that you have, that advanced knowledge curses you from being able to explain concepts simply. Whereas if you take someone who just graduated high school, right, and they've maybe even worked as a teaching assistant, helping other students, understand physics concepts, you are probably more qualified to teach those high school students because you think at their level, but you're a couple of steps ahead, right?

[00:09:41] So. That might give you an advantage, like you as a high school graduate could be more qualified to write a book about teaching physics than a nuclear physicist. Right? So that's what I mean by experience and, and you don't need to kind of worry about having, a deep level, level of. Expertise in that. So that's the second circle.

[00:09:59] So first was, interest and then second is, experience. The third is market. And what I mean by that is having some sort of active buy sell market for the topic or the general topic of your book, right? an easy way to check this is just go on Amazon, look for books that are similar in, in, style to what you wanna write, write about.

[00:10:18] And if you don't find anything. That's usually, usually not always a red flag, right? Like that just signifies that maybe there's not enough interest to justify for it, justify writing a book for it. Whereas if you do find some sort of activity, on, on books, that people are actually buying those books, and you can tell if people are buying them by the number of reviews.

[00:10:40] So if they, you have like 10 different books and they have zero reviews on all of them, that doesn't. I'll give you a good indication. My, general rule of thumb is look for like at least five books with 15 to 20 reviews each, right? Like if you see that, then maybe it's a good sign. So that's the third bucket market and then the fourth.

[00:11:00] Is job related or business related? And what I mean by that is you wanna write about a topic that is similar to the career you're in, whether you're an entrepreneur, you're a coach, you're a full-time employee. Let's say you're an accountant at a big company writing a book about. Accounting or that field is going to pay dividends later on because of that business card and steroids effect, right?

[00:11:22] Because it's gonna, you know, if you wanna apply for a different job, you, and there's a couple of candidates, the candidate that's written a book about this is probably, you know, will be seen as more qualified in the eyes of the, recruiter than someone who has it. So it gives you a little bit of an edge and really the intersection of those four circles.

[00:11:40] So interest, experience, market, and, job related or career related, is that sweet spot? If you can find the topic that, matches all four, then you are on the right track and you're probably gonna, you know, publish a book that's gonna help you tremendously later on. So that's how I think about it. 

[00:11:57] Teddy Smith: Do you think when you are finding those, topics and you're trying to understand exactly what it is you want to write about.

[00:12:04] Do you find it's better to try and stick to quite broad topics? So say for example, you're writing about your career, would you want to talk about something that's quite broad about your career or do you try and keep it niche? 'cause I know your books are quite small, so they're very like specific topics.

[00:12:17] But is there a better way to approach it? 

[00:12:19] Hassan Osman: Definitely keep it, niche or niche. I know I keep, forgetting how they pronounce word, sorry, word, different pronunciations. But yeah, I like to narrow it down as much as possible. you know, broad topics in general. you know, there the saying that if you're right to everybody, you're writing to nobody, right?

[00:12:34] So, I, I'm a big fan of taking a general topic and then narrowing it down and you narrow, a topic down by focusing on two things. The first is you narrow down the audience. and then the second is you narrow down the outcome and when you're thinking about the audience. So instead of writing to, let's say, a general topic as personal finance, right?

[00:12:56] You, you've got some financial experience. If you write a book called Personal Finance, that to me is very, very broad. a better sort of, you know, sub outcome. you know, target would be maybe to get out of debt, right? Like that sort of, a better. Outcome than just know, learning about personal finance.

[00:13:16] And then from a, from an audience standpoint, you can also say, you know, personal finance for people in the US That to me is still very, very broad. Hundreds of millions of people. whereas if you on, you know, people living in the US making less than $70,000 a year. and working a full-time job right now, you have a, an avatar you can focus on and you can speak their language and, and use that as the, sort of foundation to write a title and subtitle that has a narrow fo focus, right?

[00:13:49] so that's, that's how I always like to think about it. Going more niche, going more narrow is gonna help you, more than just being very broad where you, you target everyone. 

[00:13:59] Teddy Smith: Yeah. So some of those topics will end up becoming quite niche. And I know a lot of your books, you even say on your website, these are like very short books.

[00:14:06] Yes. How many words are we looking at with like your books as like actual examples? 

[00:14:10] Hassan Osman: Yeah. So 10,000 to 12,000 words is my target. target word count. Oh, right. Really short. Yeah. Yeah, really short. I like short because they're easier to write, they're easier to edit, they're easier to proofread, easier to ship.

[00:14:22] Teddy Smith: Yep. 

[00:14:22] Hassan Osman: but it's also from a customer standpoint. It's easier to read than digest and, and finish, right? Like most, you know, I think the statistic is most people, stop reading a 400 page book after like page 70. So I learned early on like, why don't I just write 70 pages? Right? Like that's, it's like now you get people to actually, you know, complete the book and apply what they, what they already learned.

[00:14:47] Yeah. and so, and, and those are the types of books that I like to read, to be honest. Study like I, you know, I don't wanna read the 700 page manual, on, on a certain topic. I just wanna get to the meat, get to learn, what I need to, to apply and just, just take it from there. 

[00:15:00] Teddy Smith: E, even fiction writers use that same approach where they keep their books as short as possible until they've built up that fan base.

[00:15:07] 'cause no one wants to just pick up a 700 page book and read about characters they've never heard about before. And I think the exact same concept is gonna work for. As well, because you are, you know, no one knows you and the concepts are quite small, so you don't need to be writing 700 pages. 

[00:15:21] Hassan Osman: Exactly.

[00:15:22] Exactly. I mean, just, it lowers the friction for someone to say, yeah, I can read, you know, 40 pages about this, this story, and if I like it, I'll end up, you know, going with the second, third, and fourth book in the series. Um, just to clarify, I don't know much about fiction writing. Like my focus has always been on nonfiction, but I know it absolutely works in the fiction world and people have been, leveraging that.

[00:15:42] Strategy. 

[00:15:42] Teddy Smith: Yeah. That's really interesting. Now, one, one of the things you said before is that promotion starts before the book is actually completed. So why is that so important? 

[00:15:52] Hassan Osman: Yeah, I think promotion is everything. So, you know, when, when I kind of, you know, coach about book writing, I. I tell people like marketing isn't a step in the process.

[00:16:03] Marketing cuts across every single step. It literally starts day one. And, you know, in terms of thinking about the topic and in terms of doing your research with, with everything, and then it goes all throughout. Publishing, launching your book, and even after publishing your book, right? Like there's a, a huge amount of effort that goes after you publish it.

[00:16:22] How do you continuously market it? How do you talk about it? How do you come up with creative ways to, to, to sell it? Right. So, you know, marketing's everything obviously with, with, with books and whether it's relying on systems and platforms like Amazon or relying on how you position it. If you don't believe in it, if you don't.

[00:16:40] Um, you know, think about selling it, even if it, you know, it's not, we're not talking about being slimy or sleazy with, with, you know, pushing it on people, but just kind of talking about it casually, even, you know, on this podcast, for example, just to kind of plant that seed in people's minds that, you know, there's something that you might be interested in and, and provide value for you.

[00:16:59] So yeah, marketing is everything for sure. Yeah, 

[00:17:02] Teddy Smith: that, I think that was one of the things I liked about you the most and what got me to get in touch was, I think you make quite a big distinction between just being a writer and being a creator. And, and I think that, you know, your whole project's called being a creator on the side or side gig, hacks.

[00:17:15] And it's all about, creating and I think your flow of content is. Really valuable to people. And I've got really inspired by looking at it and thinking, okay, all of the posts, you go out, go out at the same time and they're in the exact same format. but how, how important do you think that is and.

[00:17:30] What tips can you give to people for how they can create that content flow that looks like what you create? 

[00:17:36] Hassan Osman: Thank you. I mean, look, I'm a big believer in repurposing content too, right? Like you put in the hard work once. so you know, I really. Pour my heart into writing a book that I'm proud of, even though sometimes it doesn't do well.

[00:17:50] And, you know, I, I do get sometimes negative reviews, but I'm at least satisfied or happy with the effort and, and researching the book and writing it and refining it to the best, that I could. and so when you put in that much effort into a book, there are, instead of kind of constantly being under stress, to think about what type of content you want to create, whether to market the book or market yourself.

[00:18:14] you already have an asset that you can use to continuously talk about the stuff that you took you a long time to create. Right? So, so my content flow, I mean, I don't have a very sort of systematic way of saying every time I publish a book, this is what I'm gonna do. It's, it's a little bit more. chaotic if you may.

[00:18:32] but like things are ideas about how I, I think about it. Like I walk, I'll walk you through at a high level, just a sort of a structured approach, even though that's not what I always follow, but it's just an idea. Yeah. So when I wrote one book, which, which is one of my bestselling books called Write Your Book on the Side, by the way, it's free now on Amazon and on Gumroad and on my, side Gig Hacks newsletter.

[00:18:51] But that book, when I launched it, it did really well. It was, it was a paid version of the book. And then when I saw that the ebook did well, I was like, I already have the content. Let's create paperback copy and an audiobook version of it. So I created those, you know, low lift, 'cause it's the same content, but then you have to just format it correctly.

[00:19:09] And then after. Those did well. I was like, all right, what do I need to do now? People are asking me a lot of questions. I'm just gonna start the podcast to talk about this. And so I created a podcast called Writer on the Side, and literally the first, maybe 10 episodes of the episode of the of the podcast was me reading.

[00:19:28] Chapters of the book. People didn't know that, but I was just like, you know, I just said that this is the title of the book because I was too lazy. And I was like, I have the content. Let me just start with that. and it got some, you know, an audience that I never, was able to get through my book.

[00:19:40] 'cause some people love to listen more than they love to, you know, to read. So that, that helped. And then I created a blog that went along with it. And then the first maybe 10 or 15 blog posts were literally repurposing my. first few chapters off the book. Right. and then I did a webinar, which was again, like a free webinar.

[00:19:58] Just told people to come in and I'll, I'll answer questions. And I did that as well. and then I were like, I'm gonna create the Twitter account. The one that we just talked about. How we connected Yeah. Literally started based on the content of the book, and it was like, I need to be a little bit more interactive with, with the public.

[00:20:12] The first maybe a hundred tweets were portions of the book, where on Kindle there's something called Popular Highlights. So I can download my own book and I'll see what people highlighted in the book as things that they saw were, you know, were insightful. And so I took those highlights and I just repurposed them into tweets as well.

[00:20:31] Right. Like that was, that was sort of creating more content overall. And then after a while I decided I'm just gonna public, you know, put the book out for free on Amazon and Gumroad, and I decided I'm gonna do a, a newsletter. so now you can, if you go to side gig hacks.com, you get a free copy of my book and, you know, and now I use it as a lead magnet, right?

[00:20:52] So, so if, you know, look at that journey, it's not just repurposing content. Growing a, you know, podcast, growing a Twitter account, now having newsletter and using that as a freebie. and by the way, if you download the book on Amazon, like, because on Amazon is someone who's probably never heard of me in the Amazon, sort of link.

[00:21:11] Like there's a link inside the book where if you click on it, I give you another sort of freebie and. You know, have you sign up to my newsletter as well, so you get something else in addition to signing up to my newsletter. it's sort of like a full closed system or flow. And it all started from just putting in the effort to write one single book, right.

[00:21:28] And then kind of create multiple different, pieces of content based on it. 

[00:21:32] Teddy Smith: That's an amazing nugget that that's the thing about taking your book and repurposing it for Twitter, because I. One of the things I always tell people, I, students I speak to, if you've written your book, you've already got 30,000 odd words of content.

[00:21:45] Why don't you take some of that content? You've got 10 chapters, make three blog posts from each chapter, use the exact same content. You've then already got 30 blog posts, which then turns into basically six months of newsletters, which you can then send out. So without that much extra effort, you've, you are already starting to create a content system that takes what you've already written and repurposing it Exactly.

[00:22:05] But I haven't heard it been used for Twitter before, so that's really interesting. 'cause Twitter's always a platform I've struggled to get a lot of traction with. So how, or X we should probably call it now. But how, so when you're repurposing the content from your book, what did that look like in terms of turning it into tweets?

[00:22:20] How did you do that? 

[00:22:22] Hassan Osman: Yeah, so a couple of ways. One is, as I mentioned, like I looked at the popular highlights. So, those are like, you know, let's say 600 people highlighted this paragraph. It just meant that, you know, there's something there. So I would take that and then I'll make it a little bit more contextual on Twitter.

[00:22:36] So, you know, if I just copy paste it, if it makes sense on its own. Then I'll just post it on its, you know, as it stands. But if not, I'll just add like a little bit of maybe an intro, like a one line intro and then an, you know, like a conclusion sentence just to make it a little bit more catchy on Twitter.

[00:22:52] but then, you know, in terms of other ways I repurposed the book, you know, this isn't maybe directly from the book, but it's sort of questions that I get, like, you know, when you get questions maybe via email or your newsletter. if someone asks you a question, there's a high chance that other people have that question as well, and so you can answer it on Twitter, but that's someone asking you, like, literally just take, you know, like for example, someone the other day emailed me saying, Hey, I wanna write in under different pen names.

[00:23:22] Like, I don't wanna use my. You know, like real name Amazon lets, you do that without an issue. Like you don't need to use your real name, you have to sign up with your real name just to get paid. Right? in the US there's a social security number or EIN. You have to provide that. Yeah. But then you can have up to three different pen names.

[00:23:38] Actually it might be even up to 10 now, but you have to email them for that. That you can use under different pseudonyms and you can, the cool thing is you can now, which is what I do, publish, using different pen names, different genres of books, right? So I use my full name Hasan Osman for my management books, the short books for busy managers.

[00:23:57] But then just for fun, I write a book travel, and you know, traveling with my family and all that, I don't wanna be a travel blogger, but I created a separate, it's, I think. H Osmond, pen name where I publish all those travel books too. and that way I keep those separate. I just, you know, kind of like that.

[00:24:14] And I've done this with children's books as well, that sort of thing. So, long story to, just to say, I ended up telling people and. How to do that on Twitter without really being asked. And that got some, you know, likes and shares and retweets and, and that sort of thing. So that's also a way in which you can repurpose content regardless of the topic, topic that you write about.

[00:24:33] If you get questions, start creating content that, you know, that, that leverages that. 

[00:24:38] Teddy Smith: Yeah, that's, that's amazing. have to, I have to try some of those tips 'cause Twitter's a platform that I've sort of struggled to real get traction with. I end up, you know, getting distracted looking at politics and stuff like that.

[00:24:51] Now one of the things we mentioned at the beginning was the other income sources that you talk about, in your program. And one of them especially is, I think you've mentioned two big ones say, which I dunno too much about one's Udemy and the other one is Gum Road. Why don't we start with Udemy? How does that work for creating content and how do you make money from that as well?

[00:25:10] Hassan Osman: Yeah. So, I, speaking of repurposing, what we didn't talk about in the example is that nearly every single book I publish, ends up being a course on Udemy. Mm-hmm. and the reason why I do that is because, again, I've put in the hard work on the book. and I just provided in a different format for, people to consume.

[00:25:27] So, so some people just love watching videos and listening, versus opening up a book and reading it. So why not make those books, turn into courses? And I, and by the way, I do it the other way at end. Like, for example, I just published a course on Udemy AI Change Management. I don't have a book about that yet, but I'm repurposing the course into a book.

[00:25:47] The way Udemy works is it's great because it's a marketplace. It's like. YouTube for, course learners. Yeah. and it's, primarily for paid courses, right? Unlike YouTube where people expect that they're, watching for free with Udemi, it's like you're going there on that platform similar to Amazon for books where, people are not going on Amazon looking for free books.

[00:26:06] They're looking to, buy something, whether it's books or other products with Udemy. Same thing. People are searching for courses that are paid and they're willing to pay to learn. So, I just love repurposing, my books into courses because they add a revenue stream that in some cases is unexpected.

[00:26:24] Like, I'll give you an example. I wrote a book once called Better Online Meetings. I wrote this in COVID, didn't do really well. Like it, it sold maybe total lifetime royalties is around 600 bucks. but then. I repurposed that into a course on Udemy. it has a similar title, honestly, I forgot 'cause I've published 17 courses in Udemy.

[00:26:42] I think it's, more effective meetings or better virtual meetings or something like that. but that course. Same content, it's just slides with me talking over it. The lifetime royalties for that course so far are around $35,000. Wow. So you go from the exact same content in a book that doesn't do so well, but repurpose it into a course and end up making, five figures in royalties.

[00:27:06] So again, people consume things differently, different platforms market things differently, and I'm just, a big fan of that platform as well. and I'm constantly creating courses on there as well as books on Amazon. 

[00:27:17] Teddy Smith: How does it work in the same way where you can promote your courses to get them a bit more visibility?

[00:27:22] Hassan Osman: Oh yeah, absolutely. Like I can, I used to have like a full course on Udemi, like a full four hour course. I can talk a lot about this. I pulled it off the market 'cause I'm probably gonna be launching a cohort based course about it soon. But, yeah, there just the short answer is yes, I rely. 97% of the sales I get, and again, I got like over 430,000 unique students on that platform.

[00:27:44] Uh, I rely 97%, if not even 99% on the platform. Like I barely do any self, like I do self-promotion, but they barely get any sales. Like I can track all of that, right? Like I've got email lists, I send them links. It, it is nothing compared to the monster of an engine and the built in. Search engine optimization function off Udemy.

[00:28:07] And just as a quick side note here, for your listeners, there's something called Udemy for business now. It's called Udemy Business, where if you are a big company, you pay like, I don't know, a 10, 15 bucks per month per one of your users or your employees, and they get access to ude. A certain selection, of course, is on Udemy.

[00:28:25] So, my courses are a part of that Udemy business program because they are focused on business leaders. And so I also get paid based on consumption, not just selling the course, but if someone signs up to my course for free based on their corporate, account, I get paid based on minutes consumed. And that has been very fruitful for me too, because then it's like corporate training is, is huge.

[00:28:48] so it's like kind or 

[00:28:48] Teddy Smith: limited, but for business. 

[00:28:50] Hassan Osman: Yes. It's sort of like unlimited. Exactly, exactly. Sort of unlimited, but they still pay a fee like 10 or 15 bucks. I, I can't remember honestly, like that's a, I don't think it's even published. but I, I heard that it's like a fairly low amount for, for users.

[00:29:04] So there's like another. stream that I, that I kind of rely on just based on Udemy business, employees, signing up to my courses. 

[00:29:13] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. And so that's Udemy and the other one you've used, which I think is something I've heard of, but it's gonna look very new to a lot of authors.

[00:29:20] And that's Gumroad now. Yeah. Gumroad is, again, it's a bit like a marketplace, a bit like Udemy, but it works in a slightly different way to, to how Udemy works. So why don't you tell me a bit about how Gumroad works for you? 

[00:29:31] Hassan Osman: Yeah, so Gumroad is a fantastic company. I should always, you know, caveat this by saying I'm also an investor in Gumroad.

[00:29:37] So, you know, proud of the work that they've been doing. The CEO Sahil is just phenomenal. And look, Gumroad is a way to be able to sell anything, fairly quickly and very easily. Like it's, it's sort of like the easiest way to go out there and start selling something. You can literally have an idea now and then sell it or be ready to sell it within like an hour.

[00:29:59] it's so simple to use. you can find it on gumroad.com. all one word. And, yes, it does have a marketplace, but you know, it's not as powerful as like Amazon or Udemy, right? Like it's, you know, people will usually find out about your products on Gumroad by following you, and you have to promote it.

[00:30:16] Like, that's the main difference between Gumroad and like selling on Amazon or Udemy is where Amazon, Udemy is more organic. People find that people are searching and then they pop. your, your course pops up or your book pops up and they buy it. With Gumroad, it's more like, here's the link to buy my my thing, right?

[00:30:32] Like, buy my book or buy my course. Now you make a bigger portion of the sale, so, you know, they take less, fees, Gumroad that is compared to, Amazon or, or Udemy. but then the, the marketing and promotion is on you, so you have to constantly kind of promote your stuff there. The cool thing though about Gumroad and how I leverage it is.

[00:30:53] I don't like, I try not to sell the same thing that I sell on Amazon. So like for example, if I have a book on Amazon, I just, I don't just take that book and put it on Gumroad and sell it because I'm not taking advantage of the, like the package features of Gumroad. So what I do instead is I would take the book that I published in Amazon, but then add some additional.

[00:31:16] you know, freebie add-ons or bonuses, like for example, I could include audio files. I could include maybe a 30 minute consultation fee, or service with, with the book. maybe I can include a couple of exclusive video bonuses that are not available there. So instead of selling a $7 book on Amazon, now I can prepackage it and sell it for 130 bucks on, on Gumroad, where they get all those additional.

[00:31:42] services and it's again, super simple to use. You can have multimedia, like you can have videos, audio files, PDFs, links to other products. Like you can have really cool sorts of things. You can, you can do with Gumroad. I can also talk for hours on this 'cause I've used it quite a bit, but, but yeah, it's, you know, happy to answer any questions you might have on, on that as well.

[00:32:03] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Is, is it, in your program, the, the write your book in four weeks program, is this one of the tactics you talk about to start promoting your, your book and making more money on the side? 

[00:32:12] Hassan Osman: Yeah. So maybe, thanks for mentioning that. So I'm, I'm actually just launching a new program.

[00:32:18] I'm rebranding it actually. gave this as a four week, live cohort based course, but it's called the four Week. Write your book on the site system. And it is a, a course about how to write a book quickly using AI tools, but to write it in your own voice. A lot of the, you know, negative feedback about AI is like you're producing just generic chat, GPT output.

[00:32:38] I'm not a big fan of that. I am a fan of using ai, but using it the right way in a tasteful way, and then loading it using some AI techniques with your own content or the style that you write, like to write about. and so this course, like there's a couple of packages. One is like a prerecorded course.

[00:32:54] You can take it, at your own pace and it's. You know, weekly content. But then there is also a couple of coaching packages where we work together in addition to the course. to answer your question directly, because this is a four week course, and you get a book published in four weeks, we focus exclusively on Amazon.

[00:33:10] So even if you don't know what to write about, you don't have an audience, you don't have a lot of time. You wanna understand how this whole thing works. This course will show you how to get a book to market that you can use as a business card on steroids. Again, it's not about the making money part, but it's about that.

[00:33:26] So Gumroad is not part of the program. Udemy is not part of the program, like all the repurposing. there are some bonuses at the end of the course that you get, which kind of talk about how to repurpose, how to think about those other platforms. But really the focus is exclusively on Amazon because again, it is the largest.

[00:33:44] Book Marketplace. so far periods, like I know people who sell their books on their websites, they sell them on other platforms like iBooks and Nook and Cobo and all of them. Amazon is still the behemoth, like it is. It is just insane. Like 80, 90% of their sales still come from that platform. So again, focusing on that and then focusing.

[00:34:05] On the 80 20, like meaning just the 20% of things you need to do to get 80% of results. It's not about building a, a two year project to write your book out there. so yeah, it focuses on KDP specifically and how to understand what people are searching for and then selling with that, a following. 

[00:34:20] Teddy Smith: Yeah.

[00:34:22] When I looked through that, you had some quite impressive names of people who have been through the course or who have like, you know, found your content helpful. Have you had got any good case studies of students you've worked with and some of the success they've had with going through your program? 

[00:34:34] Hassan Osman: Oh yeah.

[00:34:34] Many, many actually. I mean, you can, you know, definitely check out if you go to writer on the side.com I'm sure I'm gonna have the link to courts. Yeah. it's actually, I know we're recording this a little bit early, but I, I think when it gets, when it gets. Published, my course will be out there.

[00:34:47] But yeah, I've got multiple case studies. one that comes to mind is Michael von Feld. He, literally had no idea about how to write a book and never wrote a book and went through the program, followed it step by step, and he, within four weeks, got his first book published. And not only that, but it hit the Amazon bestseller list in four different categories.

[00:35:07] And he's doing it right 'cause he's, he is got, a course that he sells. It's really about, you know, he's got, he teaches lawyers how to pass a particular exam in Germany and so the book is called From Zero to Exam. It's written in German and it's just been a great way for him to even get more clients as well.

[00:35:23] Look, this is an intense intensive program like four weeks. Not everyone can do it in four weeks. But the cool thing is, is that you learn a system like whether it takes you four weeks or 10 weeks or 12 or 17, you're still faster than most other authors out there. And then it's repeatable. Like the first time it might take you three months, but then the second is two, and then the third is one.

[00:35:42] And like I've written books in a week and you know, even four, four hours at once just for fun. So it is doable, but you know, I don't recommend it. Just for the first time. It, it might take you a little bit longer, but again, once you get bug of writing books, it's just, you can't stop. It's, it's so much fun.

[00:35:59] Teddy Smith: Yeah. One of the things you mentioned just now was creating custom GBTs, to make the writing sound like it's in your own voice. yeah. What, what, what does that mean? Because I, I've used chat GBC projects, for example, to. Create things like my newsletter and stuff like that, but how does it work to create content in your own voice?

[00:36:17] Hassan Osman: Yes. So for people who don't know, what this is, chat, GPT has a feature or you know, a a, a way in which you can create what's called custom GPTs. And custom gpt are basically. Customized versions of chat, GPT that you can direct to give you specific type of outcome based on predefined requirements.

[00:36:39] I know this might sound a little bit technical for folks, and by the way, just sort of a self, self plug here. Like I walk through all of that in the course, like I explained it to you even if you don't understand any technical aspects to it. But really the, the high level sort of. idea is, you basically, and by the way, you need to be a paid user for this.

[00:36:56] Like you can't use the free version. You have to be on PA chat, GPT plus, which is like 20 bucks a month now. you create a GPT or a custom GPT where you can say, you give it instructions to say, I want you to write in my own style. Here's the style that I write in. And not only that, but then you preload it with.

[00:37:14] Prior, content that you've published, whether it's blog posts, whether it's other books that you've written, whether it's pieces that you've even talked about, like it could be a transcript of something that you lectured on like a webinar. And then, the GPT will take all of that and starts producing output based on your own style.

[00:37:33] So the way I use it is for my management books, I have a, what's called a right, like me, GPT. Where I literally preloaded it with three of my previous management books that I really like, as a style and instead of always using just the generic form of chat, GPT, which could produce different, chaotic results, I use that right like me, GPT, which mimics the tone, the style, the formatting of those prior books, and it helps me create content in my own voice.

[00:38:01] Now it's not perfect. There's always tweaks you need to do, you have to iterate on it, but it is a huge time saver. And I, you know, I do minimal editing sometimes, like, it sometimes produces like a paragraph, which is perfect. Other times I have to do some tweaking and, and iterating on it. But it is just phenomenal because you can give it additional context and it's, it just mimics all of that for you.

[00:38:22] So, super, super helpful. And that's what I mean by tasteful ai. Like you're using it to mimic your style and not just come up with, generic stuff that anyone can create. 

[00:38:31] Teddy Smith: Oh, that's in, that's incredible. I, I might be able to take the transcripts from my podcast episodes to get it, to understand the way I speak and things like that.

[00:38:38] Hassan Osman: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It is like there's, there's so many different use cases. You can apply this to creating different content. Even like, you can take the transcripts and have the GPT create Twitter threads for you as well, like based on your style. So That's amazing. Yeah, it's it's really cool. 

[00:38:53] Teddy Smith: That's really clever.

[00:38:54] I mean, there's been so many things to go through there. you know, your call sounds incredible. You, it basically breaks it down step by step and also goes through exactly how you can, promote it, like, and get it all out into the world. And, I think it just gives you a really good system that you can follow.

[00:39:07] So, I'm. Really looking forward to reading a bit more about it. thank you. If people wanna hear a bit more about it, where's the best place for 'em to go? 

[00:39:12] Hassan Osman: Yeah, so the default is just go to writer on the side.com. that is the, the sort of the blog slash podcast. publication for me, but then there's gonna be links in there that I'm gonna have, you know, the, the four week write your book on the side system.

[00:39:25] As a side note, I've also, I also own the domain book on the side.com that will redirect you directly to the sort of, the page that describes the offer and gives all the information that you need. Yeah, definitely. 

[00:39:37] Teddy Smith: Everyone should sign up to your newsletter. I've found it super helpful. I signed up about three weeks ago and the first they've been absolute bang is everyone that's come through.

[00:39:45] So yeah, definitely go and sign up for that. So si side gig hacks.com, 

[00:39:49] Hassan Osman: correct? Yes, that's side gig hacks.com and the link is on writer on the side. Like if you go on writer on the side.com, you'll find the link to side gig hacks there too. It's all sorts of by, you know, that kind of reinforces what we were talking about earlier, right?

[00:40:00] Like a full system and a flow. so it's available there as well. 

[00:40:04] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. And what's the, the next book you've got coming out? Give it, let's, hear a bit more about what the plan is. 

[00:40:08] Hassan Osman: Yeah, so I'm, I'm writing a couple of new books. The first is, as I mentioned earlier, I've published a course about AI change management, so how business leaders can implement AI within their organization.

[00:40:19] That's really been my focus for the past couple of years. so I'm writing a book about that. And then another book that's also in parallel is about, communicating properly. and really it's, it's about how to answer questions in teams. I know it's very specific. But it's like been a big frustration of mine.

[00:40:36] Like someone asks you a question in the team setting and then you go off on this tangent and never get to the actual answer. So the, the question is really explaining how to improve communication in team settings by answering questions directly. so excited about that one. 

[00:40:50] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I love that. That's super niche.

[00:40:52] Um, yes, 

[00:40:53] Hassan Osman: super, super niche. Exactly. 

[00:40:55] Teddy Smith: Yeah. It, it might not be a bestseller, but everyone who used it is gonna be really impressed and find it really useful. I think it's, uh, let's hope 

[00:41:01] Hassan Osman: so. I'm excited about writing it, like this has been on the docket for like five years. I just kept pushing it out, but now I'm finally, sitting down to write.

[00:41:10] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. Well, looking forward to seeing that. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Hassan. It's been great chatting to you. yeah, looking forward to seeing more about what's comes out. I'm looking forward to seeing the, some more of your courses. But thanks for joining. We'll speak again soon. 

[00:41:20] Hassan Osman: Yeah, thank you, Teddy.

[00:41:21] This has been a pleasure. 

[00:41:23] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for tuning this publishing Informant show. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I absolutely love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now, just before we wrap up, I want to tell you about our publishing form at Starter Packs.

[00:41:35] These are curated episodes and collections organized by topic that makes it super easy to find the exact content you're looking for. So whether you're wanting to deep dive into marketing strategies, explore productivity techniques, or focus on any specific area of publishing, we've organized our episodes into tugs playlists just for you.

[00:41:51] And you can find these all@teddyagsmith.com. And also, whilst we're here, let me tell you about publishing performance. It's the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but aren't really sure where to start. Now this show is all about helping you to sell more books, and if you're looking to boost your publishing game and to maximize your books central on Amazon and publishing, formants is designed to help authors just like you, to grow your readership and to reach a much wider audience.

[00:42:14] Now, I know that Amazon ads can be slightly complicated, which is why publishing Formants is like having a personalized ad account manager to create your ad campaigns for you to choose your best keywords and to make adjustments in real time and to optimize them over time, to save you money and to make more sales.

[00:42:28] Now, if you are investing in ads. You really want to make sure your investment is being used effectively and publishing format does just that aims to make your budget go further, improve your organic rank, and target keywords more effectively. You can get started with Amazon ads for free for 30 days@publishingforms.com, and there's a link in the show notes to get that three 30 

[00:42:48] days trial.