Ep 248: Self-Publishing Success: A Practical Guide for Aspiring Authors with Dr Rhonda Lawson

SHOWNOTES

“If you want to write a book in five minutes, I’m not the coach for you.”

That bold declaration from Dr. Rhonda Lawson sets the tone for an enlightening and refreshingly honest conversation about authorship. In this episode, Rhonda shares what it truly takes to write, publish, and promote a successful book. From navigating self-publishing to leveraging AI responsibly, this discussion offers practical insights and inspiration for anyone ready to turn their ideas into impact.

Dr. Rhonda Lawson is a literary strategist, author, and founder of Meet the World Image Solutions. With a background as an Army journalist and public affairs professional, she combines storytelling, marketing expertise, and modern technology to help writers publish and promote their work. She has authored multiple novels and anthologies, empowering aspiring authors to bring their stories to life.

WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT

• The differences between traditional publishing and self-publishing—and how to choose the right path.
• Why writing a book is only half the journey and marketing is essential for success.
• Practical strategies for promoting a book through events, social media, and targeted outreach.
• How to plan successful book signings that attract the right audience.
• The importance of identifying and understanding your ideal readers.
• Designing professional book covers and formatting for a polished final product.
• The role of AI in organizing ideas, editing manuscripts, and enhancing productivity.
• Why authenticity and human creativity remain essential in the writing process.
• Tools and platforms that help authors streamline content creation and promotion.
• How storytelling can build credibility and support business growth.

Enjoyed this episode? Tune in to hear Dr. Rhonda Lawson share expert insights on writing, publishing, and marketing your book. Subscribe to the Online Business Launchpad Podcast so you never miss an episode.

Get regular access to tips, techniques and advice from experts about growing your business:
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RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Meet the World Image Solutions: https://mtwimagesolutions.com 
• Canva: https://www.canva.com
• Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP): https://kdp.amazon.com
• Find great podcast guests: PodMatch (affiliate link) 
• Content 360 (social media scheduling platform) – https://get.content360.io/ 
• Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Substack

My newsletter is for people who need a way to make money from home so they can build a better life for themselves and their families:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Dr Rhonda Lawson: [00:00:00] If you want to learn how to write a book in five minutes, I’m not the coach for you.

Trudy Rankin: That bold statement from today’s guest perfectly captures her passion for authentic storytelling and doing things the right way. In this episode, we look at what it really takes to write, publish, and successfully market a book from navigating self-publishing versus traditional publishing to promoting your work, hosting book signings, and leveraging AI as a creative assistant. This conversation is really packed full of practical advice for aspiring and established authors alike. Joining me today is Dr. Rhonda Lawson, a literary strategist, author, and founder of Meet the World Image Solutions. And with a background as an army journalist and public affairs professional, she blends storytelling, marketing expertise, and modern technology to help writers bring their books to life and into the hands of readers around the world.

[00:01:00] 

Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m Trudy Rankin and I help people who need a flexible work from home option start and grow their business so they can earn more stress less, and have greater freedom in how they live.

And today I have a guest with me that I was really excited when they said yes they would be on the podcast because Dr. Rhonda Lawson is a literary strategist. She’s the founder of Meet the World Image Solutions, which she’ll talk about later, but she actually helps writers blend strong writing with smart marketing and modern tech, including AI, to help get their books out into the world. And I know that a lot of people listening, they’ve either got a secret book hidden and they would love to write a book at some stage. Or maybe, as a listener, you might’ve already written a book and you’ve kind of gone, now what do I do with it?

And so I asked Dr. Rhonda [00:02:00] if she would come on and just share a little bit about her journey of getting to what she does now. And she has actually written quite a few books herself, but also how she helps people with not just writing a book, but getting that book out into the world. So thank you so much, Rhonda, for coming onto the podcast.

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Well, thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here. 

Trudy Rankin: Oh, that’s good. Well, I found you on Pod Match and I’ve talked about Pod Match before because I use Pod Match to help me find guests for the podcast and I get most of my gifts from Pod Match. It’s just really, really helpful. But I noticed that you have got just that expertise, that area of expertise around not just helping people get a book out of themselves, but how do you, you know, basically helping them share that book with the world and because there are a lot of people who would like to do that, it would be really, really, really good to talk about that. But one of the things that caught my eye was the fact that you had actually been in the military and I’ve got family members who have been in the military [00:03:00] or are in the military and I know that it’s kind of a different way of getting to places.

It’s been surprising to me how much opportunity it actually offers to you when you’ve actually been down that road. So if you could just share with us just a little bit about what it is that you are working with now, how you are working with people now and how you kind of got to this place.

Dr Rhonda Lawson: First of all, I’ll tell you that the Army actually helped me to become a better writer. I actually went to college for writing. That helped me to establish my foundation. But believe it or not, I joined the Army and became an army journalist. And I was the editor of the base newspaper.

I had a public affairs background, so I was doing media relations, doing actual journalism, um, editing the newspaper, doing photography [00:04:00] doing interviews, writing stories. My last job in the military was actually being a station manager for American Forces Network in Belgium.

So, editing and interviewing, that was my thing. But one thing that I always took to heart was telling the soldier’s story. I always wanted people to know that the person behind the uniform was a real person. I wanted to tell that person’s story. So, that was like true to my heart.

Just wanting people to know this was somebody’s mother. This was somebody’s father. This was somebody’s son, daughter, brother, sister. And so I love telling that story, but what I really loved doing was telling stories in general. I’ve told journalistic stories, but I also love to write fiction.

Whenever I took off the uniform and put on my sweats like I’m wearing now, because I love my hoodies as I’m wearing right now. I love my [00:05:00] hoodies. That’s the way I get comfortable. I would go home and I would just write stories. When I was growing up, I used to love to lose myself in a make-believe world.

So I would make up stories. When I was 12 years old, I used to write my own stories and I would pass them around to my friends. And they used to actually like them. And then my mother noticed that I had a knack for writing, and so she poured into that. She saw that I had an interest, I had a talent for this, and she encouraged it.

And so this is something that I tell parents all the time. If you notice that your child has an interest in the arts. It may not be the sexiest job. It’s not a doctor, it’s not a lawyer, or, you know, something that you think is going to make six figures, but it’s something that they have an interest in, pour into it because you never know what’s going to become of it.

My daughter had an interest in acting [00:06:00] and I recognized that this is something that she loved and I poured into it and that’s what motivated her to get through school. That’s what motivated her to go to college, and that’s what motivated her to get through college. And she majored in theater arts and she graduated cum laude from Clark Atlanta University.

Had I not encouraged her, I don’t know. I’m not saying that she wouldn’t have gone to college, but I’m not sure if that’s what, I’m not sure what her motivating factor would’ve been to go through high school and get to college. To this day, she’s not in acting anymore, but it was her motivating factor to get to college.

So you just never know what your child’s motivating factor is going to be. So that’s just an aside that I wanted to throw out there. You never know what your child’s talent is. Pour into it because you never know where it’s going to take them. For me it was writing and it wound up driving my career.

I [00:07:00] became a journalist. I became a publicist, a public affairs officer, and today I am an author. And it’s because my mother poured into something that she recognized when I was 12 years old. 

Trudy Rankin: I a hundred percent agree with you. It is so important and even if you end up not doing a specific career with that thing, you will end up using whatever it is you learned later on.

There’ll be aspects of it that you end up using. So you became a journalist in the military and I don’t know why I never thought about that as being a career. It obviously makes sense that they… 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: A lot of people don’t think about it. They think we’re all running around with rifles going kill and they don’t think about the other jobs that are in, there are a lot of support jobs in the military. Everything we, you know, we wear uniforms and we still have our basic combat skills, but there are other jobs in the military and for me, I was Army Public Affairs. So, like I said, we had our [00:08:00] own newspapers, we had our own radio stations, we had our own cameras.

You know, we did all of these things because we told the soldier’s story and it was something I absolutely loved. I spent 23 years doing it, and even after I retired and got a federal job, as a civilian, I still tell the federal story. I still work in public affairs and it’s a wonderful job. I love what I do.

And it fed into my love for continuing to write fiction and, I still write. And this is actually my latest book, Surprise Swipe Right 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. So, for people who are listening and not seeing the video, Rhonda’s just held up a book that’s got a really cool cover on it. And say the title of it again?

Dr Rhonda Lawson: My latest book is actually my what, seventh full length novel. I have 17 anthologies as well. It’s called Surprise Swipe Right. And it’s actually about what I like to call later daters. There’s been [00:09:00] a big push ever since there was a special that came on Netflix about people over 50 who were getting back into the dating pool.

And it was actually produced by Michelle Obama where people over 50 were getting back into dating. They were being matched by a dating expert and going on dates again. And, um, it was actually called Later Daters. And so I wrote a book about a lady who was in her seventies. She was a widow.

And her daughter wanted her to get back into the dating scene. And she’s like, I don’t want to date. And her daughter’s like, I think she needs to start dating again. So she secretly puts her on a dating app so she can find her a date for New Year’s Eve. And when she starts to match, she tells her on Thanksgiving, mom, I have something to tell you. I secretly put you on a dating app and you have some matches. She was like, you did what? [00:10:00] And so, that’s where all of the craziness starts and she finally agrees to start going on some dates. And she meets some characters, but as comedic romances goes, she does actually match up with somebody and she meets somebody.

And it’s a really funny book. It’s a fun book, but as, romances go, of course she does meet her happily ever after. But I can’t tell you which one it is because then I’ll give away the story. 

Trudy Rankin: You’ll give away the story. It sounds like a fun book. It also sounds like it would’ve been fun to write, and I know that you basically help people who are writing books to finish their books.

So one of the things I’m curious about is, and because you’ve done a number of books and you will have had this process down sort of pat, how did you go about that whole process of publishing your book? Did you publish it yourself? Did somebody else publish it for you? Just talk us through that [00:11:00] process that you’ve used for yourself and that you all will be using for the people that you help.

Dr Rhonda Lawson: I started off with a print on demand type company. And then later on I did become traditionally published. I later on decided that being self-published worked for me. And people often ask me, what’s better? Is it better to be traditionally published or to be self-published? And I always tell people that it really depends on you.

What are your needs? And what I mean by that is if you’re the type of person who you’re okay with a very strict schedule, you don’t mind waiting your turn, you don’t mind waiting. You don’t mind giving up some control. Then maybe being traditionally published is right for you. But if you are a person who you want to have the book [00:12:00] published when you want to have it published or you don’t have time for, um, you don’t really have time for strict schedules.

For me, knowing my knowing that I have a full-time job, a full-time day job, and I have clients that I have to take care of and I’m writing books. I don’t really have time to have a traditional publisher because if my traditional publisher says that I need your book to be done by July 31st, i’m probably not going to be able to stick to that schedule.

I’m probably going to blow through that deadline like nobody’s business. I’m not going to have time to do it. So for me, it works better for me to work on my book as I can. And when I’m done with it, then I can set my own schedule. Or at the same time I know that I want to write another book and I want my book to be done in time for when I go to the Indiana [00:13:00] Black Expo in July. I know I have to put myself on a very strict writing schedule so I can have the book done and edited and formatted and published so I can present the book at the Indiana Black Expo in July. I can’t do that if I have a traditional publisher because they’re not going to stick to that same schedule.

So for me, I need to be self-published. For somebody else that may not be the case. So being traditionally published may work for them. I can do that because that’s my schedule. So you have to ask yourself, what works for you and how does your schedule fit into your needs?

And if your needs fit your schedule and your schedule fits being traditionally published, then go for it. But don’t ask for something because you want the sexiness and the prestige, or the perceived prestige of being [00:14:00] traditionally published, and you can’t stick with that.

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. So I’m curious because, this is an area that I’m interested in, this sort of, the whole, the KDP side of things or even self-publishing, because a lot of people that I’ve talked to have chosen to go down the self-publishing route and for some of the reasons that you’ve mentioned, but also for other reasons.

Partly because it can be really, really, really hard to even get recognition from traditional publishers that your book’s good enough or whatever. So when you started out and you went down the KDP or the Kindle Direct Publishing route, how did you go about actually letting people know or making sure people knew that you had this book that was available?

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Very good question. That’s something else. Some people think that when they’re traditionally published that all of a sudden their book is just going to be out there. They don’t, they can just sit back and wait for the royalty checks to come in.

And that’s not the case. Even if you’re traditionally [00:15:00] published, you still have to promote your book. Just like you would even if you’re not traditionally published. But as a self-published author, your book is not going to be in as many stores, so you’re going to have to tell people about your book.

Writing a book is a very solitary activity. You’re going to be by yourself a lot. You are going to be holed up in your room, holed up in the corner of a coffee shop or at the library or what have you. But when it’s time to promote your book, you have to get out there. It’s okay to do a lot of things on social media, but just because you put it on your Facebook page doesn’t mean that everybody saw it.

You’re going to have to do a few other things with it. Just before we got on this podcast, I was posting things to Substack. I was posting items to Pinterest. I was just about to post some things [00:16:00] to Facebook and Instagram. But I can’t just stop there because all of those different sites have different audiences.

But just because I posted one time does not mean that all. 15,000 of my followers on Instagram saw it. Only a small percentage of my followers on Instagram saw it. So I have to post it maybe a few more times to maybe, hopefully some more people will get to see it, but that’s only a piece of it. Now, I’m also going to have to make sure that I post things to my Google business page because I need to make sure that I’m bringing traffic to my website. Just because you put it on your website does not necessarily mean that people are going to your website and that they’re going to see it. And then just because you’ve written a book does not mean that everybody’s going to flock to the bookstore to get [00:17:00] it.

There are so many different ways that you have to do things to put your digital footprint out there so people will see your book. You’re also going to have to make sure that you’re doing book signings. You’re also going to have to make sure that you are doing certain things to make sure that people are seeing your book. So that means that you’re actually going to have to start showing your face a little bit.

Trudy Rankin: You know, and a lot of people find that really quite scary. So just out of sheer curiosity and I have no idea whether it scared you to start with or not, but how did you sort of ease yourself into that whole, you know, showing your face and making sure people knew that you were the author and who you were as an author?

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Start with your family. My first couple of book signings. My family supported me. They actually showed up at my book signings. They helped me, but I couldn’t just depend on that. Because I’ll tell you, my first couple book signings, I thought I was doing something because my family came out.

They were telling everybody, “Hey, come to this book signing, Hey, [00:18:00] get my sister’s book, or get my friend’s book.” And they were out there doing this. And I was selling a lot of books because my family was helping me. They weren’t going to be at my book signing every time I had a book signing. They had lives too.

So then I was slowly but surely, I was at my book signings by myself. They weren’t always going to be there. And so, pretty soon I had to learn how to get the word out by myself. So I had to start learning how to do press releases to let people know where I was going to be or I had to start doing flyers.

So now for instance, I had an event in New Orleans and I had to start, you know, I would get flyers and I would pass out flyers to let people know that I would be at this event. Now, the trick about flyers is you have to pass out flyers where you know your target audience is going to be. You don’t want to just pass [00:19:00] out flyers where you know people don’t care about your book.

So if you’re passing out flyers where you know people aren’t going to where your target audience is, that’s a waste of money and it’s a waste of time. But if you are passing out flyers where your core audience might be, there’s a better chance those people are going to show up at your book signing.

So, passing out flyers, actually talking to people, word of mouth. You might have to, maybe invest some money in some ads, some Facebook ads, or maybe not Facebook ads, maybe Pinterest ads. You have to think about where your audience is because think about the age. Because TikTok has a certain age.

Instagram has a certain age. Facebook has a certain age. So if your core audience is on Facebook, why would you buy TikTok ads? Or if [00:20:00] your core audience is on TikTok, why would you buy Facebook ads? You have to think about who is your audience? How old are they?

What do they do? Write down what does your core audience look like? Where do they work? How much do they make? And when you think about what they look like, how much do they make? Are they married? Do they have kids?

And when you think about that. That’s who you target. 

Trudy Rankin: Mm-hmm. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: And, um, when you target them, and then that’s who you go after, you have a better chance of getting that person to come to your book signing. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So I’ve got a couple of questions and they’re in completely different directions.

So let me start with a book signing first. So if somebody has got a book that’s just, it’s the first time they’ve ever written a book, it’s ready, it’s there. What do they have to know [00:21:00] about book signings? And you’ve already talked a little bit about, you know, how you get people there and you make sure you’ve got your family supporting you.

What else do they need to know about a book signing for it to be successful? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: What time of day do you want to have your book signing? If you’re trying to do your book signing in the middle of the day on a Thursday, your core audience might be at work. That’s another reason why you have to think about your core audience.

Is your core audience at work or is your core audience, maybe housewives? Because your housewives, who may not work, they might be at home. So maybe a middle of the day book signing won’t be a problem. But if your core audience is at work, because your core audience is working professionals, they’re at work.

It probably doesn’t make sense to do something in the middle of the day. 

Trudy Rankin: Hmm. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Maybe a happy hour or something, where you do it after work. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. Yeah. That might make sense. And [00:22:00] for me, I’ve seen book signings. I’ve been to book signings and everything, and everyone I’ve ever seen has always been at a bookshop.

So, have you ever done a book signing somewhere else besides a bookshop? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Yeah. Yeah. And but you make a very good point. It doesn’t always have to be, at a bookstore. It could be at a coffee shop, it could be at a winery. I’ve done a book signing at a winery before. I’ve done it at a coffee shop.

Let’s see, where else have I done? Um, I’ve done it at festivals. Think about where your core audience is. 

Trudy Rankin: Yep. No, that makes a lot of sense. Quite a lot of sense. Now I’m curious, when you do your books, you write the book yourself, do you also create the cover page?

Do you also create your own ads and run your own ads? How much of that whole process [00:23:00] do you do yourself? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: You were asking about, you had mentioned the cover for this book. 

Trudy Rankin: Mm-hmm. Yep. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: I created this cover. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s pretty cool. Well, that looks pretty good. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Thank you. I also created this cover.

I created this cover on Canva. 

Trudy Rankin: Oh, right. Wow. 

And for people who are listening, the thing to know is that they’re very professional looking book covers. Like they’re grab your attention kind of book covers, which is what you want when you’re, when you want to people to notice them.

Dr Rhonda Lawson: And a very, very good point. I always tell my clients, even if you are self-publishing I offer a done for you self-publishing service. Because there are people who may want to publish their own books, but they don’t know how to do it. And you don’t have to start your own publishing company just to say you want to publish your own book.

Sometimes you just want to publish your own book. And so I started a done for you publishing [00:24:00] service, which means I’ll do all the work for you. Then I’ll turn the book over to you. I will collect no royalties. All I do is charge you one flat fee to do all the work for you, and then I turn it over to you.

That is not a vanity publishing company. That is a done for you publishing service. One flat fee. I do all the work. Turn it over to you. It’s your book. 

Trudy Rankin: And I think, oh, sorry. I think I was just going to say, I think the thing that people need to know is that there’s a lot more to writing a book than just writing the words, because you’ve gotta make sure that it’s formatted properly, that it looks good inside the book, as well as outside the book.

The covers have to look good. The inside of the covers have to look good. And then there’s all the other stuff, the PR and things. So just quickly, I was asking about the ads. Do you do ads yourself? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Yeah. And that’s what I was going to get at is that with the done for you publishing service, I want to make sure that when you pick up any [00:25:00] self-published book, my self-published book, or anybody’s self-published book, that it looks the same as a traditionally published book.

You don’t want anybody to pick up your self-published book and say, “Oh, this is obviously self-published.” You want to be able to stand up next to any traditionally published book. In my case, I do all my own ads. I do my own book covers. I would say I do my own editing, but I still like to get somebody to do, I do my own editing, but I still want somebody to come behind me.

I still need somebody to come behind me because I catch a lot of stuff. I edit other people’s work, but I still need somebody to come behind me and catch what I may have missed. So, don’t try to edit your own stuff, people, it’s hard to edit your own stuff. 

Trudy Rankin: You get so used to seeing what’s there on the page. Your eyes to skim right over the top of it. It’s impossible. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Yes. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, so, I have to say, that’s pretty impressive [00:26:00] because I write, I do a lot of writing and I write articles and blog posts and all lots of newsletters and stuff.

Never written a book someday, maybe. But the thing that I’m impressed, really impressed with is seriously the quality of the cover. Because I know from me trying to do visual stuff, I know that it’s not something that I’m good at. And so I think you might have a little bit of a, of an unfair advantage in that regard, because people who’ve got a real eye for the creative, making creative things look good, visually creative, I’m talking about, because there’s so many different types of creativity.

People who can make stuff look good really do have an advantage, I think. And if you don’t have that, hire somebody because it’s… 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: I do hire people. There have been times where I’m like, I know I have something in mind and I know I can’t do it.

There’s some things that I can do, but there are some other times I’m like, okay, I know I know what I want, but I can’t do it. I will hire somebody to do it for me. Or I just don’t have time to [00:27:00] do it. I’ll hire somebody to do it for me. 

Trudy Rankin: No, that, that makes a lot of sense. I’ve got more questions, lots more questions, but I noticed that we’re starting to run out of time.

We could talk about this for a long time, but I do want to get into just briefly, the whole subject of tools that you use with this whole process, the writing process, the publishing process, the marketing process, and all of that. And one of the things that I noticed is that you do talk a little bit about in when in pod match, in your profile there, you do talk a little bit about AI tools. Can you just share with our listeners how you use AI tools in what you do, in the work that you do for yourself and the work that you do for your clients? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Yes. Um, first of all, I’m very transparent with my use of AI. I know that there are probably some people out there who are very sneaky with how they use AI.

I’m very transparent with my clients. I tell them straight up that I use AI. [00:28:00] However with that I tell them exactly the way I use it. I use AI for my covers. But I still put a lot of human element in everything that I do. When it comes to my editing, I edit by hand however, I like to still, like for instance, when I was working on a project, I edited everything by hand, and then when I finished, I ran it through and I asked AI, are there any typos that I missed or are there any hard returns that I missed? That’s the type of AI that I use. I also use AI when I want to organize my thoughts. For the book that I said I want to have done in July, I’ve had this book in my head for a couple of months. So I’ve been kind of going back and forth with AI to organize my thoughts. So when I get ready to start writing, I already have my [00:29:00] thoughts in place. I don’t want AI to write the book for me. I want to write the book. But I do want my thoughts to be organized.

So I’ve been going back and forth, okay, I want to write about this, I want to write about that. Okay, I want to make this point, I want to make that point so that way when I get ready to start writing, everything is in place. When I was getting ready to write this book, I used AI to help me to do my character profiles.

So I knew exactly the personalities of each of the characters, so that way when I got ready to write, I was able to flow with it. I didn’t have as much writer’s block when I was writing this book because I knew where exactly where I wanted to go. There were a couple times where I got stuck and I would just ask AI, “Okay, why would Miss Loretta, that was my main character, why would Miss Loretta need to have a handyman come over to help her to set up for a [00:30:00] New Year’s Eve party?” And AI would say, “Well, maybe she needed help moving furniture around her. Maybe she needed help doing this or this or this.”

I’m like, “Hey, that’s a good idea.” And I would start writing again, but, um, no, I did not want it to write the chapters for me. Because I did try that one time. I said, okay, AI, go ahead and write this chapter for me. And it wrote it and I was like, Oh, that sucked.

Trudy Rankin: Yes. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Yeah, I cannot have that in my book. So I went ahead and wrote the chapter myself. So I say all of that to say, I’m very close to my writing. I take my writing very personally. I don’t believe that a computer will ever write better than me. But that’s because I take my writing personally.

I know there are a lot of services out there talking about you can write your entire book in five minutes and I’ll show you how. Maybe that’s nice for people who want to hurry up and get a book out there. Or maybe [00:31:00] that’s nice for people who want to hurry up and get some passive income, but that’s not for actual authors.

If you want to be an actual author and you want to learn the actual process, I’m the coach for you. If you want to learn how to write a book in five minutes, I’m not the coach for you. I can’t help you with that. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. And goodness maybe because if you try to write a book in five minutes, you’re going to get rubbish.

You’re just going to get rubbish. Yeah. It’s just not, it’s not good. It’s not good. So, and I’m somebody who uses AI a lot, and I like the way that you use it. It’s there for support. It’s there to help spark ideas. It’s not there to actually do the work for you. That the critical thinking and the work for you, you’ve gotta do that for yourself.

I think that’s really important. Look, Rhonda, it’s been so great talking with you. We could talk about this stuff for a long, long time. It’s an area that I’m really interested in. We have. Pardon? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: We’ll have to do a part two. [00:32:00] 

Trudy Rankin: Do a part two. Yeah. Yeah. So if people were interested, in learning more about you or they wanted to get your help with things or they even wanted to find your books, where would they go?

Where’s the best place to go? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Well, you can always go to my website. I have all of my services there as well as my books, www.mtwimagesolutions.com. And you can also find all of my social media there. I’m on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Pinterest. I’m on all of the things. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay. I have to ask because that’s crazy.

I have to say. That’s crazy. You’re on all the things. How do you do that? 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Because I have learned how to take, first of all, AI helps me out with that as well because I’m able to create the content, the caption on AI and I’m able [00:33:00] to make a reel and then I can post it to Instagram and it’ll share to my Facebook.

But then I also was able to find, it’s a platform called Content 360, where I’m able to post it, post the content onto Content 360, and it’s able to post onto all of my platforms at one time. 

Trudy Rankin: Aha. That’s the secret because I did an experiment recently where I was posting to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, and I tell you it was a truckload of work and it’s just, that was diabolical.

So Content 360 you said. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: It’s called Content 360. And so I’m able to post the video or the image, whatever it is I’m posting. I just have to make sure that the caption is a certain amount of characters and I’m able to post it on all of my, even my Google Business page. I’m able to post it on all of my [00:34:00] platforms at one time.

Trudy Rankin: That sounds really good. So I’ll put a link in the show notes to that so people can go and check it out if they’re interested in it. But Rhonda, it’s been great talking to you. Thank you so much. It’s been really, really interesting and insightful. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

This has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. 

Trudy Rankin: Oh, I’m glad. I enjoyed it as well. 

Dr Rhonda Lawson: Thank you. 

Trudy Rankin: That was a really interesting conversation. I hope you’re feeling inspired and ready to finally write or publish or promote that book that you’ve been dreaming about. And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an insight that could help you grow your online business.

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