Katrina Owens (00:00.686)
hello, my famous friends. Welcome to Fame Ready, the podcast to show you that anything is possible. Yes, including fame. I'm your host Katrina Owens. If I'm looking particularly gorgeous, it's because I am hot off the VIP brunch I just hosted for big brand energy sessions, my October event series. I have just gotten home.

I obviously changed back into my sweats. We've got a bit of a day ahead of me between recording this episode and taking Dexter to the vet because his allergies are flaring up. And then tonight I fly to Toronto for a nice girl funeral, which is an event that I'm speaking at. So it is a whirlwind. This is what I would call...

a life I dreamed about not that long ago. So it feels really amazing to be here in this moment, recording this podcast, reflecting on everything that's just happened and carrying incredible energy into the weekend ahead. I mean, it's only Wednesday, but it feels like a weekend for me of so much magic that I'm sure I haven't even scratched the surface on yet. So welcome.

This episode is really special because I'm sharing a very, very big surprise secret thing that I had been holding on to. And that is I'm writing a book. Yeah, I know. I really can't believe it either. And I keep saying that out loud to make it sound more real. But yeah.

It's a decision that I made. You know, actually, let's take it back for a sec. This is something that I had really, I knew I was gonna write a book eventually, okay? And this whole year I've spent meeting different book coaches, talking to different people that write books, a lot of my clients write books, and the timing just like never felt like totally right.

Katrina Owens (02:12.238)
And back in August, I was at the Rich Girl Co-Conference in New York City where I was speaking and also absorbing all of the other amazing sessions that happened during that two-day event. And one of them was a presentation by Matthew from selfpublishing.com. Matthew really was an integral part in helping me believe that this was something that I was in fact ready for. And it wasn't just through his

talk alone. Like when I saw his talk, I was actually like, huh, Matthew, I think we've got some like synergy between our brands. think, you know, self publishing and learning to do your own PR, like those two things really go hand in hand because if you end up being traditionally published one day, typically your traditional book publishers going to help you with a lot of those promotions, more and more entrepreneurs now than ever before and people in general, but

we're entrepreneurs mostly that are listening to this, more and more of us are opting to self publish our books because it can end up being far more lucrative. We can use that book as a product that we sell, but we can also use it in our speaking engagements when we're onboarding new clients. And there's just so much more profit and success to be made when we take the risk on ourselves. And isn't that so true about...

so many things, but it was through seeing Matthew talk about self-publishing that I was like, okay, this makes a lot of sense. And then I still wasn't entirely convinced, right? When him and I got on our publishing strategy call, I was still not 100 % certain that I would be writing a book when that call ended, but it was...

Amazing to be able to just like sit down talk it all out and I have to tell you one of the biggest things that was holding me back from even writing a book or considering it a possibility right now is because I kept saying like I feel like the climax or the ending of this book hasn't happened yet and That was really like the excuse I was using I'm sure if there are like book coaches that have been in my circle or following the Arab spoken to me and you're listening to this podcast

Katrina Owens (04:36.11)
I'm sure you have heard me say that at some point where I was like, you know I'm still like kind of in the like book development process like I'm not entirely sure what the ending is gonna be or like I feel like there's like this big moment that's coming that like needs to be included and I said all of that to Matthew in our call and He looked at me and he said Katrina, I think

you are kind of under the impression that there's going to be an ending to all of this success and growth that you've like just achieved in the three years that you've been running your business. But this just going to keep evolving. You're just going to keep growing and getting better and more things are going to happen. So like now it's the perfect time to like take this chapter, this era of your life and really like write about it, lock it in, tell people how you got from this point to this point. And that's where we are.

We are writing this damn book. So I committed to this process at the end of August beginning of September. So I am on the journey now. I have written about four chapters so far. And let me tell you a little bit about what that looks like because I was under the impression, you guys. even as I say it, I'm like, I can't believe that's how I felt. But I thought writing a book was going to be easy.

And let me tell you why. I really enjoy writing. I mean, I write my own captions, my emails. from, as long as I can remember, people have told me, like, I'm a strong writer. I've always gotten, like, great feedback on my writing abilities. And so, knowing that, I think I'm holding myself to a pretty high standard. And as I go to, like, write this rough draft, like, the first chapter was very hard. And so was like...

starting to write the first chapter and I kept going back and trying to edit what I've written because I wanted it to sound like all of these books that I read on a daily basis. It took me a long time to write that first chapter. I didn't even finish it. And then I went to my book coach. So this is the really amazing thing about working with self-publishing.com. So once you enroll, you will have your own book coach who is holding you accountable through the process. So my coach's name is Brett and shout out Brett. Honestly, I...

Katrina Owens (07:00.716)
kind of came to him on our first call feeling like a bit of a hot mess, a little bit out of my depth. I started just by showing him the outline that I had actually written for the book. Because by the way, like this is like you got to start with the outline. I just wanted to like dive into the chapters. But there was an amazing book called Published, which is by the founder of selfpublishing.com Chandler.

And you can read that book. So I was kind of reading that book while I was going through the process. I, in this book, it will tell you, need to do a mind map. And that's how you start the writing processes by mind mapping your book. And it's kind of just like a way to brain dump. And I was thinking to myself as I was reading this chapter, was like, okay, this totally doesn't apply to me. Like, I don't need to do this mind map part, blah, blah. Got to the end of the chapter.

And this is where.

Katrina Owens (08:00.27)
Heather, just cut that. Got to the end of the chapter and that is when I realized that in this book published, it literally says, by the way, don't skip this step. Doesn't matter how ready you think you are to write your outline, do not skip the mind map. So I felt like that was speaking directly to me. So I didn't skip the mind map. I mind mapped it out.

made one outline, like I took a Sunday morning and just like brain dumped my entire outline and I was really, really proud of it. And then I had the first actual call with my book coach and I realized on that call that my outline wasn't quite it. It was a great starting place, but I was missing like a certain structure for my book. And you know what's interesting? Like as I record this episode, I'm like, how much of my book do I like really want to?

giveaway, but I think it's really powerful to build in public. So I'm hoping as I share this journey with you over the next 12 months, I will probably do multiple episodes on what this writing journey looks like with the help of the selfpublishing.com team. And I hope that by the end of these 12 months, you're not sick of hearing about it and you'll really want to read it. But I think

I would be doing you all a disservice if I held back different parts of this process, endless journey, because I want to keep things a secret. I'm pretty secretive when I've got big things going on. mean, there are so many things. Even this partnership with selfpublishing.com was a secret for a while. Writing a book was a secret for a while. And then there's a time and a place for secrets and for building up hype around a launch. There totally is no doubt about that.

I think now that this is out in the open, now that you all know that this is something that I'm working on, my mission is to show you just how easy, easy slash not easy, because writing a book actually is challenging. I want to show you what the process is, but I also want to empower you to go on this own journey yourself, because a couple of months ago,

Katrina Owens (10:21.278)
I was like, hey, I'm not ready to write a book. And then I went from not ready to fucking let's go and here we are writing a book. And that's how fast it can happen. And when you get the call or when the opportunity presents itself, you got to answer that call, babe. You got to be ready. So that's what I want to get out of this. Heather, I've got to do a quick text break.

Katrina Owens (11:57.326)
Apologies Heather, I am.

Katrina Owens (12:04.952)
That's probably a great blooper to keep for something. Okay, back to the book. So.

Katrina Owens (12:13.678)
thought.

Katrina Owens (12:30.274)
This is the text message I just sent. We're talking about these forms from our strata that he wanted me to fill out.

I am just supposed to sign them, but he left two pages of me for me to fill out when he could have. And I was like, you could have filled it out too. And he's like, yeah, that's why I'm gonna have to do it now. And I said, yes, please. You printed it off and then played video games for an entire day. So.

That's life right now. my gosh. Okay. And we're back. Okay. So.

Katrina Owens (13:14.776)
talking about building in public. what I think, okay, so back to building this book in public, I'm not gonna shy away from it because I think this is going to just make the idea of writing your own book even so much more accessible. And I do have an opportunity for you to do this at the end of the episode. So please wait till the end because if you're as fired up as I am about just like my entire personal brand and business right now and you're like,

Katrina, I need to write my own book. I've got something for you, but you've got to wait till the end. my book, so here's the thing. I spent a whole gorgeous Sunday morning back in September writing out my outline. And I was like, this book is going to crush. Like this outline feels so good. I basically just outlined like the story of my life for the past couple of years. And then I took it to my book coach, Brett, and

I immediately knew that something was missing. It just wasn't like I had kind of like written the story of my life a little bit and not even like the story of like how I've grown this personal brand so quickly really is the premise. And so I had written that all out. But I there's a lot of education that I can provide on the topic and that's what was missing.

So Brett told me that for books like this, and I'm sure as soon as I say it, you're all gonna kind of know or be able to think of a book that's like this, is typically there's a formula. So I might tell a story and then in that story, there's a lesson and then there's a call to action. So for me to like really use my life story, but also teach through it and when that...

vehicle is the personal branding and PR component, like it's all going to kind of flow together. So in my first outline, I'd really just gone through like the story of my life and neglected like the actual learning lessons. So then here I was thinking I was ahead of the curve. was not. So I went back to the drawing board and completely rewrote my outline. So took it all the way back down to zero, basically, obviously like

Katrina Owens (15:34.094)
I still used a lot of the anecdotes that I had originally put in the first outline, but not everything's still applied and new ideas came to me and all of that. So then that outline was done, had another call with Brett to show him. He was like, yep, now we write. So that's where am right now. I have written about four chapters and the idea is that you just like really get this rough draft done because once you have a rough draft done, you can work with it.

you can figure out like what needs to be added in, what needs to be lengthened, what needs to be changed, what needs to be removed. But if you don't have a rough draft, you're kind of F'd. And you have nothing to work from. So I, it is mid October right now. My goal is to have my rough draft done by mid November, which feels very close. And I've got a lot of writing still to do. To be totally honest, you guys, it probably takes me about

three to four hours uninterrupted to write a chapter. And so that's me going to coffee shops. I've been writing on airplanes. If I'm gonna write at home, it needs to like not be at my desk. over the weekend, I did write while I was at home for the first time. I like just sat on my couch, like no TV on, no distractions, phone on, do not disturb, but like had the sunbeam coming in and like Dexter was chilling with me. Just been doing so much traveling lately that I was like, I don't wanna leave the house.

So I had to figure out a way to like write it in the house without distractions. So yeah, so that's kind of what that's looked like so far. And what I really love about the selfpublishing.com team, I mean, I'm about to be working so closely with them for the next year. And they really have not even just like all the resources that you need to self publish a book, write it and promote it because...

at the end of writing this book, like, now you've got to sell it and launch it and get it into the hands of people so people can read it. That's a whole separate phase. So I'm really excited because I'm working with a team on both those phases. And I'm just so excited to share this entire journey with you. A book for me just makes so much sense because as I start to build a bigger and bigger speaking career,

Katrina Owens (17:52.938)
as I really move into the next era of my personal brand where we have this podcast, we have my group programs, my community, my one-on-one coaching, my speaking, my whatever else comes next. They all kind of like tie together in such a neat little personal brand portfolio. And the book's really gonna anchor that. And I can't wait because when that book comes out, I'm aiming for it to come out like this time next year. So buckle the fuck up.

It's really gonna be a great way for you to get to know more about me. The stories that I'm telling in it are, some of them are stories I've told before. Some of them have been really interesting. Like this weekend when I was writing, some of the memories that came up as I was writing this chapter all about like when I realized that people need to do their own PR. Like there was a very specific moment when I was like.

I don't want to do done for you PR. I don't want to run a PR agency anymore. I want to teach people how to do this themselves. There was a very clear moment when that landed and I was working on that chapter this weekend because I was like, ooh, I never talked about this. I've never shared like the actual like incidents or like situations leading up to

me making this major decision for my agency. So that was pretty powerful. It was like bringing up some uncomfortable feelings though, just because it's the whole thing's been a journey. So I was kind of like, Ooh, I remembered like a certain meeting, like there was this one day, two years ago that was like so uncomfortable and really hard to sit through. And I was putting myself back through that day. And that was a bit of a tough one, but such as life.

you guys are gonna get it all. And I'm so excited to be able to share that with you. So let me take things back a little bit because obviously the selfpublishing.com team is a really big part of the reason why I'm writing this book. And as I kind of alluded to earlier in this episode, it's not like I went from like no book on my radar to like, yes, I'm writing a book. Like I've come across many book coaches over the last 12 months of running my business.

Katrina Owens (20:13.016)
talked a lot about my potential book. even like, I do this thing where I kind of like narrate chapters in my head. And so I was doing that. And I was meeting these different book coaches and like, please take no offense if you're one of those coaches and you're listening to this right now. I was just feeling like I wasn't ready. And I guess

One of the things that is very, very clear and true about me is I'm an overachiever. Everything I do has got to be awesome. And the kind of key differentiator for selfpublishing.com is the fact that they help entrepreneurs, business owners become bestselling authors. Okay. Because if I'm going to be an author, I don't just want to be an author who has a book.

I wanna be Katrina Owens bestselling author and the team at selfpublishing.com has helped thousands of people actually do this. And there is a method, there is a formula. Yes, I am the PR queen. Yes, I know how to build a press ready personal brand. could secure my own PR all day long. Yes to all of that. But I knew that I had to, writing a book,

and launching a book, like I don't know everything about that process, okay? And I'm not gonna say that I do. And so if I was really gonna do this, I needed to work with a team that I could trust who was gonna help me make this thing a bestseller. And that was obviously selfpublishing.com. So I can't wait. By this time next year, I'm gonna be recording an episode called, I'm a Best Selling Author.

that'd be so cool. And then Heather can clip this episode with that one and do timestamps and everything. Isn't that so fun how life works? Honestly, it was so powerful because today I had my VIP brunch for Big Brand Energy Sessions. And we all went around the table claiming these big dreams and big goals out loud. And the most beautiful part about all of that was because, sorry, the most beautiful part of all of that

Katrina Owens (22:27.098)
was, I'm starting to lose track of my words. Honestly, it's been a long day that's just gonna keep getting longer. I just love hearing other people claim their big dream out loud. It's fucking powerful to sit in a room where everyone can just say very plainly, this is what I'm striving for, this is what I want, and to have no judgment. Everyone just being like, yeah.

You got this. It's so cool. And I'm very proud to have created a space like that because I was someone who had very big dreams. My heart ached to feel famous for so long. I felt like I couldn't tell anybody. And now I have a community where I can just celebrate that shit. So that's so cool. I just know like as this book comes to fruition too, that's just going to get more and more powerful. Okay. So that's my big secret.

I mean, one of many, honestly. And I am so excited to be working with selfpublishing.com on this particular journey. And so I do have something for all of you. If you're listening to this episode and you are like, it is time for me to write my book, Katrina, I love this journey that you're on. I got to know how to do it. I have the perfect thing. I am actually doing an online webinar with the

Okay, Heather, let me do a better intro. I'm actually running an online webinar with the self-publishing.com team. We are going to bring the big brand energy session that all the women in the room get to experience live. If you cannot make it to Abbotsford, British Columbia on October 22nd, I mean, if you're listening to this and well, when you listen to this, you're gonna be like, that was last week, because it was. You missed it.

You missed the amazing selfpublishing.com presentation that literally shows you how this is possible for you. And it's the one that literally like showed me what was possible for myself just two months ago. You are in luck. Wherever you are in the world, I have the opportunity for you to learn from the selfpublishing.com team on how to bring your own book to life. So Matthew, who is the man that made this all possible for me. Yes, he's coming to Abbotsford next week, but then he's also going to run this webinar with me.

Katrina Owens (24:56.246)
So we can really like bring that energy to all of you who, you know, couldn't make it in person to the event, but are here to learn more and want to do that and can log on to a webinar to find out. So I will drop the link to register in the show notes. So please hop in. If you can't make it live, it is going to be on Tuesday, November 4th at 11 a.m. Pacific time. If you cannot make it live, that's totally fine. You can feel free to.

Sign up at the link anyways, because you'll get the replay and you will still have access to the selfpublishing.com team if this is something you really want to put into action. And just know you can set up a call with Matthew from selfpublishing.com and it's no obligation. Like this is just a chance for you to set up a call one-on-one to talk about a concept for a book, to even just like see if it is something you're ready for, to spit out ideas.

Last thing I'll say before I go you guys I cried On my call with Matthew, I wonder if he remembers that it was my call with him and I was just off the heels of speaking in New York seeing my face on a billboard in Times Square and just feeling very much like I had entered this new level and I Was describing all of this to Matthew on the call and I

cried, which tracks for me. I love a good sob story. So that's how powerful the this work is. That is why I wanted to make sure I gave you guys the opportunity to connect with the team to see if this is a journey that you should be going on right now. I hope it is. Like I said, I'm here to tell you everything that you need to know about my experience. My door is always open if this is something that you are really considering for yourself.

Dexter has just joined us. This is cute. Hello, my love. If this is something you're considering for yourself, but you have questions and you want to send me a DM and ask about my experience and what it's been, my DMs are always, always open. So you can find me at Katrina Owens PR. Please follow this podcast on Instagram at Get Fame Ready. Like I said, the link to join the live webinar on November 4th is in the show notes. If you...

Katrina Owens (27:19.338)
want to catch the replay and you're listening to this even like, you know, months or weeks after this has all happened, please head on to the link in bio. The link in bio, the link in the show notes because you can still sign up, catch the replay and you'll still get all of those goodies and all of the intel from the selfpublishing.com team. So that's that you guys. Thank you. Thank you for spending the time. Thank you for celebrating this new era for me. Thank you for being on this journey as I become a bestselling author. I hope you will all read the book.

when it comes out next year. And I guess this is my way of holding myself accountable to this too, right? Because I've just said it out loud. I've just told you all that by next October, we're gonna have book in hand and a big launch party to match. Obviously, I wouldn't do it any other way. That's the type of thing that makes me feel so freaking famous. Till next time, you guys, I cannot wait to hear from you all about you and your book, the book that's on your heart.

Please keep in touch with me. Please rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Please just hit me up. I am in just such a like giving and receiving mood right now. I just want to hear from all of the entrepreneurs that are working on their biggest dreams. So if that's you, please reach out directly and I'd love to hear what that looks like for you. Okay, you guys, that is it from me. I've got to rest this voice more on what I'm going to be doing with my voice.

in the weeks to come. Gotta take Dexter to the vet and then I'm getting on a plane to go speak to another very large room of very inspiring women this weekend. So I'll catch you all on the flip side. Okay, this is Fame Ready, toodles.