How to Write a Book in 2020 An Interview with American Author, Deirdre Breakenridge

Welcome to the Marketing Growth podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker, and my guest today is Deidre Breakenridge, CEO and founder of Pure Performance Communications. She’s a marketing veteran who has written over 10 books on PR and social media. In today’s episode, I’m going to talk to her about her book writing process and get tips on how to get started with writing a book. We’ll also talk about her career journey as an author. So let’s start this thing off.

So just so I can kind of set the foundation for the podcast, give us a little bit—like, where did you grow up? And like, your family—give us a little bit. I mean, are you always on the East Coast?

So you were a big—did you have stocks in Aqua Net or anything like that? Or was that just…?

I was— I know you look familiar. I was like, “Wait a second, I think I remember her from…” No, I was always a West Coast boy, and I did go a little bit, but I do actually like the big hair we had back on the West Coast too. And it was—I just know my own style from, I don’t know, 30 years ago. Now, maybe four years ago. It’s just crazy, like the amount of prep that would take. Because I do understand that the struggle is real.

Prep is serious. I do get that now with mine. I know you’re looking at mine and thinking it might take three or four hours. I know a lot of people go, “God, you look amazing… what do you do with your hair, Shane?” And I go, “Well, thank you so much, because there’s not a lot left, and we’re just trying to hold on to what we have left.” So that’s kind of the goal there.

So, all right, you grew up in the Jersey area, right? How big of a family did you have?

Yeah, no, absolutely. It’s always nice because the protection side of things is great, but then they also treat you like a guy—probably when it comes to wrestling and stuff like that—which has its values down the road. Like, if you have to get in a wrestling match or you’re fighting, sure, or something like that, you’re a big wrestler. We’ll bring that up a little later because I know that was kind of a side fact. But speaking of side facts, is there any interesting fact that the audience wouldn’t know about you growing up? Is there anything you’re like, “I haven’t told anybody this, but I used to professionally do something,” or anything like that?

So it really is. It’s actually a historical monument or something where people would go through, “Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. Tarred and feathered.” Now, who knew that? That’s exciting. Do they still do that? Does your brother still do that with any of the family members at Christmas or no?

That’s good.

And that’s what Christmas is all about, right? And wrestling, obviously. That’s exciting. So What college did you go? Did you stay in in New Jersey to go to college? Or did you break outside of New Jersey?

I feel like 100 million is a pretty good reason to get your name on a school.

And I think that’s good, obviously. I think it’s awesome when people you know, obviously, if you make that kind of money, and then you’ll be able to give back, and it obviously helps the community. I think that kind of stuff. And I think a lot of times, you know, a lot of those donation things that kind of the Hey, thanks for doing this, is the fact they will put a monument, you know, I guess depends on how much you donate, but you probably gonna get a college name…

You own everything—yeah, that’s all you gotta do. All it takes is 100 million dollars, folks; that’s right, be able to rename a college, which this was when? Do you know when this happened? About the 100 million—this is probably a little while ago, huh?

Yeah, gosh, that’s crazy—100 million dollars. I can’t. I plan on donating to my college. I’m actually going to donate, I think, $1,000 and see what I can do with that—maybe a rock or something like that. I’ll say, maybe not even “Shane,” I’ll probably put “SB” or something on the front. It’ll be by a tree or something, just to have gold. Hey, there you go. We got to start small, folks. I mean, we’ll start with the small rock, and then eventually we’ll have…

We got to start somewhere, right? I mean, that’s really what it comes down to—small rocks, folks, that’s where we’re at. Well, cool. So tell us a little bit. Okay, so your college—you’re literally a Jersey girl, right? So you grew up in Jersey, a Bruce Springsteen fan by chance? Yeah. How to be—yeah, I mean, how are you not? Like, I wasn’t a Bruce Springsteen fan…

Yeah, I was gonna say, I can say it’s almost like dangerous, didn’t I? Weren’t you part of his gang? Didn’t he have, like, a gang there in Jersey, I think, kind of where I think the whole city, right? Everybody was, I can only imagine, Bruce was, like, the man. He’s still a man. I mean, he was born in the USA.

Yeah. I would not want to go to Jersey and be like, “You know what? I’m not a Bruce Springsteen fan.” I think that wouldn’t end well for you or anyone—but yeah, not me. It would suck for me. And are you currently in Jersey as well? Like, right now?

Yeah, I think that’s I think in it for me, I’m the same way, like in the beginning it was like, I want to be in the city. I want to be in the mix of everything. And every day when you hear the honking and this, and then you get, I think, when you get older, and then it’s like, I just want some a little quieter. I don’t necessarily need a farm. I need to be close to it, like, you know.

I like that. Be able to disconnect a little bit. So what was your career path after you graduated from college? How did you get to where you are now? I mean, there’s honestly 50 things we could talk about regarding all the accolades you’ve achieved. I’m really interested in hearing that journey—after you graduated, this is what you did. You’ve written books, you’re a speaker, and you even taught as a professor at the university. So give me a little rundown of how it all played out.

“Wait a second, I’m already doing it. It’s just in somebody else’s name.” That’s awesome.

Ah, gotcha. So that’s the transition, and now today, you do…you’re heavy on consulting.

And that is the fun part, right? I think when you get to a point where you’ve done a lot of this really cool stuff, and it sounds like your journey has been pretty kind of…you knew where you were going to go—like all you did was talk to a guidance counselor, and they probably said to take on PR, not to take over PR. You heard “take over PR,” and then you went ahead and did what you did. So tell me a little bit—so you also have a book, The Answers for the Modern Communicators. I’m assuming this ties directly in with your consulting business, right? Like, “Hey, here’s how we get the word out from a PR perspective, personal branding, stuff like that.” Tell me a little bit about your book.

I think that’s awesome. I was going to ask you because obviously you’ve written a lot of books—and I think I’ve talked about this and even whined about it a little bit. I have a book I’m working on, and I’ve only been working on it for 40 years now, right? I feel like it’s gonna come out in 2096, somewhere around the corner. So I’m super excited about that. But someone like you is pumping out a book every three hours. I’m just a little envious because your main thing is writing. But I love the idea that you grabbed all the pressing questions people asked you, answered them, and then brought in other experts. For me, that’s something I could put together, and I think it’s an awesome idea. Tell me about some of your other books. I’m sure each one of them has been a little different. How do you… ainly, this is like me not even caring about anybody that’s listening. This is literally, I actually did this so that instead of hiring you as a consultant, I could ask you these questions on the podcast. I was like, “What is the cheapest way that I can get to one of the best PR people in the world?” I knew I’d have her on the podcast—I’m happy to share this. Anybody else would probably want to hire her as a consultant, but if you have her on the podcast, you can ask her all the questions. That’s my snippet of information for the day. So, I mean, how do you do that? How do you put together six different books? Obviously, it looks like some of them you kind of start, and then you have others that take precedence—ones that are more exciting. You have at least six under your belt. So give me a little intel, some insight on that.

Well, I think that’s such a valuable point because it’s so funny—when you say it, it sounds so easy. You just have to listen a little more, right? I feel like my wife, right next to me, is saying, “You just need to listen a little more.” And I’m like, “What did you just say?” When you say it, it just makes sense. Obviously, there’s a need. So what happens with entrepreneurs is they see an issue—they say, “Oh, there’s no solution for this.” And I seem to have this problem, right? So maybe now I can start a business that will take care of that problem. And for you, you had enough people asking these types of questions, and you said, “You know what? Instead of sending responses to 50 people, why don’t I write a book about it?” Because there’s a need there, so you’ll go ahead and answer those questions. And I think this is another thing we do in regards to content—once again, what are the pain points, right? What are the pain points of your potential clients? So what we look at is kind of the same thing: if you can answer these questions in blog posts, then you put it into a book, and now people are buying it, and you’re a thought leader in the space because of that. I love that. I said, “The book thing is, you know, something I will come out with one day.” But I love the fact of talking with people about how they come up with it and how they put their books together, because everybody’s process is a little different. The underlying message—and I’m saying this out loud just for myself—is just to do it, right? It’s just to get it.

Then we’d both be competing for that same year, which would suck because I wouldn’t come up, and you’re pretty famous last time I checked, so that would really suck for me. So if you could do it a year before, that would be awesome. So yeah, structure helps too. I think that’s the thing—structure is probably the key. A starting point is like, “Hey, let me see what this is going to look like.” Of course, it will continue to evolve and change, but it’s interesting to me. I’m… I think I just need to talk to three more people on the podcast. And I actually have Andy Crestadino, who told me, “Next time we talk, you better have pieces of this already put together.” He kind of threatened me in a nice way, which is unfortunate because now I can never talk to Andy again—then he’s gonna call me on my stuff, right? So it’s like, I just can’t be held accountable or anything like that; I gotta make sure to avoid him. But yeah, that’s awesome. I’m going to think about that. I think that’s the way you came up with it, which naturally makes sense—just listening.

I am actually. So it’s funny that you talk about Evernote—I love Evernote just because you can do audio, write notes, and it’s connected to everything. I’m pretty in tune with the Evernote thing. For me, it’s not like I don’t have the content; it’s literally just one of those things—I just need to start getting it going. I have ADHD, right? So I’d say a good amount of my listeners—probably half my listeners—are probably off the podcast right now because they’re looking for a tiny penny or something like that. But all the people that have stayed on—older folks who aren’t heavily medicated, you know, they’re still here. For me, it’s really just about doing it. I have some of the outlines together and all that kind of stuff, and I have the collateral and curriculum, because a lot of the stuff I want to talk about is influencer marketing and how to be influential. I teach a class at UCLA on personal branding and how to be an influencer, so it’s not like I don’t have the material. It’s just one of those things—sitting down between my workshops and all the other fun stuff for me, it’s focusing on this one thing for however many hours I need to do it. Because I’m like, “Oh, look, a shiny penny. Oh, look, I just got an email.” I literally have to shut everything down, which is difficult for me. It’s hard to shut everything off when you’re so connected.

But over the years, I’ve been able to become more disconnected—or at least to disconnect from work and stuff like we talked about earlier. I’m getting to the point where it’s really just about sitting down on a Sunday and saying, “Hey, let me spend two hours on this each week,” and I can do it. Here’s the thing: I’ll do it here soon so I can talk to Andy again, look you in the eyes, and tell you that we’ve pushed that date back to 2094 or something like that, and now we’re hot on the trail to get this thing going. I hope I can incorporate all the tips you’ve shared to accelerate the work on my book. I know there’s a ton more to learn from you. We’ll continue this conversation at length and talk about your publications in the next episode.