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This week we dive into an exciting conversation with two experts in their field. When Clark and Sonya decided to write a nonfiction business book, they didn’t know what they didn’t know. Join us to hear about their journey as co-authors as they tackled not only their topic, but also structure and storytelling.
🍁 Get their book, out now: Your Move to Canada (Amazon US)(Amazon CA)🍁
Sonya Dolguina Manager, Tax Consulting, Raymond James Financial Planning Ltd. (Canada)
Educates and advises clients on tax-effective wealth management to help them meet their unique goals.
Specialized in cross-border taxation, with years of experience advising on complex Canadian and U.S. tax matters.
Sonya is a licensed CPA in both Canada and the US (Illinois) and is currently completing the rigorous 3-year Canadian in-depth Tax program.
Clark Linton: Clark began his career in the investment industry in 1998 working as an advisor at a small, boutique investment management firm. In 2005 he transitioned his business to Raymond James and works with higher net worth clients and their families through Raymond James’ Private Investment Management Group.
Clark earned a Bachelor of Business Degree (Finance Concentration) and Minor in Economics from Simon Fraser University in 1992. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder, earning this distinction in 2002. The CFA designation is regarded by most to be the key certification for investment professionals, especially in the areas of research and portfolio management.
Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
72. Cowriting a Business Book Transcript
- Cowriting a Business Book
[00:00:00]
Suzy Vadori: Welcome to Show, don’t Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step. We’re gonna explore writing techniques. I’m gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers’ careers that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
And I’m also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re drafting your first book, you’re editing, or you’re currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show’s gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn’t even know you needed, but you definitely do.
I’m so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, [00:01:00] and you’re gonna also have some fun doing it. Let’s dive in. Today we welcome to the show Sonya del Gina and Clark Linton, who have written a book on repatriating to Canada or moving to Canada for the United States.
And it’s a book on tax strategy. And before you tune out and say, what are you talking about, Suzy, why are they on this show? The reason is because it’s actually been a really fascinating process to work with Sonya and Clark on this. Book because they have taken their day jobs and something that they are incredibly passionate about and turned it into this other thing.
And so if you are somebody who has a really particular skill or is interested in writing a nonfiction book, we lay it all out in this episode, how to take your knowledge and to create a book that’s not only engaging but has a journey from beginning to end. And Sonja and Clark are amazing writers, and they just needed, when they came to me and wanted a developmental edit, they just needed a few of those building blocks to [00:02:00] sort of see how does their skillset or their knowledge actually translate and how.
Will that work for the reader? And so take a listen to this episode if you’ve ever considered writing a non-fiction book, because I share a lot of tips and tricks, and Sonja and Clark share how they had to think a little bit differently about this thing that they do day in and day out, and how it actually translates into this really smart book that is going to be a huge resource for many people moving to Canada.
So Sonya is a manager for tax Consulting with Raymond James financial planning in Canada. She educates and advises clients on tax effective wealth management to help them meet their unique goals. She specializes in cross-border taxation with years of experience advising on complex Canadian and US tax matters.
She’s a licensed CPA in both Canada and the US and Illinois, and is currently completing the rigorous three-year Canadian in-depth tax program. And Clark Clinton began his career in the investment industry in 1998, [00:03:00] working as an advisor at a small boutique investment management firm. In 2005, he transitioned his business to Raymond James, and he works with higher net worth clients and their families through Raymond James’s private investment management group.
Clark earned a bachelor business degree in a finance concentration and a minor in economics from Simon Frazier University in 1992. He’s a CFA charter holder earning this distinction in 2002, and the CFA designation is regarded by most to be the key certification for investment professionals, especially in the areas of research and portfolio management.
Please welcome to the show, this Dynamic duo and their amazing book, and this is the Behind the Scenes. Welcome to the podcast, Clark and Sonya. So good to have you both. Thank you for having us. Thank you. All right, so we’re here to talk about your move to Canada, the book. How did this all come about?
Clark L.: Well, as as professionals that focus after a bit on the cross border space, Suzy, uh, both Sonya and I are often contacted by.[00:04:00]
Clients or prospective clients that you know are proactively planning a move to Canada, but they find out very quickly that getting the information that’s required to navigate all the nuances, the financial aspects of a move, the tax aspects of a move, which are quite unique for people moving from the US to Canada.
We find it very difficult to find all this information in one place or find professionals that can guide them from a holistic perspective dealing with all the different pillars of such a move and getting that advice all in one place. So where this all came about was, you know, we, we really see a need for a resource that that does put all this information all into one place.
Sonya D.: Yeah. And Clark and I both work together and that’s how we kind of came. Together is, uh, I’m a tax consultant and I work alongside him. And yeah, we essentially like working together and he came to me for tax guidance for his clients. And then effectively we enjoyed working together, so we thought maybe a good idea to write a book [00:05:00] since our, our respective professions compliment each other, essentially.
Yeah. I think it’s a, it’s a great partnership. And Sonya, what did you think? Clark comes to you, he is like, all right, we already do this thing. We can write a book. What, what did you think of that? At first, I was really, really excited because I actually do love writing, but as a tax professional and doing tax consulting, I don’t get to do as much writing as I’d like.
So I thought it was very exciting and it’ll be a good way to, yeah, get to enjoy the passion of writing that I don’t get to do as much as I’d like to. That’s amazing. Amazing. So you guys were both really excited as we are. I mean, when we get called to write a book, if you’re not excited about it, please don’t do it.
Especially when you’re writing something about your passion topic or your perfection, right? Like these are things that you guys talk about every single day. And so a love of love that you recognize that you wanted to come together and give all this information in one place because there isn’t a book out there.
Is that right? Clark, you found, you found that there wasn’t a book [00:06:00] out there already that was serving this need.
Clark L.: Yeah, no, exactly, Suzy, I think there, there are other resources out there, but you know, in our view there wasn’t a resource that was as encompassing as this, you know, all the information out there, whether it is books or whether it’s, you know, written information on websites misses a lot.
And again, a lot of these pieces have to work well together. And, you know, going back to what, uh, Sonya was just mentioning about, you know, me coming to her in a sense is that I did. Initially, you know, a few years ago, think about this project and thought that it would be something I would tackle on my own.
I’m not a tax professional, although I, I know enough about tax to be dangerous as they say. I quickly found, as I started planning this book that a lot of a move from the US to Canada has a lot of these tax issues with it and. Quickly found that I, it was outside of my space or outside of my knowledge, you know, how much information was required from a tax side.
And as, uh, Sonya mentioned, we work together, we work well together, she’s the tax [00:07:00] professional. And that was my reason for engaging Sonya in this idea, and it’s worked out extremely well.
Sonya D.: So did you actually tackle some of that writing clerk on your own first and then you’re like, wait a minute, I need some help here.
Is that, was that what happened? Or, or when you were planning it?
Clark L.: No, I didn’t even attempt to, uh, tackle some of the tax, uh, issues. I initially started to put together an outline for the book, you know it a loose table of contents per se, and quickly identified that probably more than half of the planning for a move does surround tax issues.
Sonya D.: Awesome. So for both of you then, what was exciting about a book? ’cause I know that you’ve written articles before and you’ve done other things, and you work one-on-one with clients. So why would you give all this information away? And what did you hope that a book will accomplish versus something else?
Because this is something that people in all different professions have to think about, right? You work one-on-one, you consult with clients. What is it about a book that you know that your clients need this. I could take this [00:08:00] one. I think it becomes very clear very quickly when you’re planning to move to Canada that there is a lot involved and we can write articles about one topic one way or another, but at the end of the day, there’s just so much to consider and there’s so many different nuances, and a book was just the great medium to do that.
And again, because Clark can write about things that are wealth management related. I could talk about things that are tax related, but a book about this topic, we’ll just be able to marry those two ideas together because there is just so much to consider and it really ultimately is more of a holistic guide, and that’s what.
People need as they’re planning a move, is they need to not just be concerned about a few articles about this topic here and there, like their IRAs or selling their property, but they need to look at everything. And hopefully what this book tried to accomplish is tackle, you know, a vast majority, or most, if not all of the [00:09:00] issues that people who are moving to Canada from the US will have to deal with.
Clark L.: Just to add to what Sonya said about, you know, the reason to do this as a book is a move from the United States to Canada. Those that do it well, they plan a move to Canada and it becomes a process, almost like a timeline. You know, people start two years before gathering the information they need.
There’s certain things they need to do six months before. Certain things they need to do upon their move and using a book format allows somebody to have this book as a reference that they can refer back to all in one place as they plan this move, which is over a period of time.
Sonya D.: Yeah, and I, I love how specific this topic is because oftentimes when we’re planning a book by a professional, we have to make these decisions around, well, at what point in time does somebody need to read your book, and what are you gonna cover?
And yours is so clear. Before you move to Canada, you need [00:10:00] this book to understand. And then you’ve put together the table of contents, which has all the laundry list. We’ll talk about that in a minute, how you ended up organizing it. But the laundry list of all the things that they need. So how did it go when you came up with the topics?
Did you guys have to pick and choose? How did you decide what was in the book and what was out of scope? I think that, at least for the topics that I came up with, the tax topics, a lot of it was just me putting in writing how I talked to clients. And what we talk about when I have client consultations with people who are moving from the US to Canada.
So what are the things that we cover during those discussions? So we kind of start with the beginning with things like moving to Canada, becoming a resident, and then going over all of their various accounts and then the natural progression of their life, which goes into, well, once you’re in Canada, how are you gonna report income?
And with estate planning and things like that. But you know, after the editing process, which you helped us with, you helped us realize that. It’s not all about necessarily the progression [00:11:00] of a given situation and lumping, you know, all investment accounts together as one topic, but more of like a progression of their move in itself and sorting out topics that way.
Yeah, absolutely. And I was gonna bring this up later. I know initially that’s what you guys did is, is put together all those topics and then wrote about them. And then when we looked at it as the developmental editing phase together, we had to flip it a little bit and say, well, what did they need at what?
Point in time and what makes sense in terms of your reader’s journey, your your topic’s kind of unique because we wanna tell them what they don’t know. So when we approach a book, right, sometimes it’s really difficult ’cause people say, I got this, I’m gonna do it. And you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I want you to be aware of all the things that you might need to know.
Now, not everybody’s gonna need every single thing. It’s not going to apply depending on what your family situation is and your finances and what you’re bringing into the move. But yeah, that was how we ended up having to kind of. Take what you’d written, which was great, and [00:12:00] put it into this format where people could kind of pick and choose what it is that they need, but also see all of the topics, right, and and be like, oh my gosh, I had no idea.
And that’s the beauty of a book like this. Like if you pick it up, you’re like, wow, I had no idea that I even had to think about that. Like that. I still have to file taxes in the United States if I’m an American citizen, even when I live in Canada, right? Like there’s some things there that are unique that they might not have thought of.
Clark L.: Well, I think Suzy, you hit it on the head and you said a minute or two ago you used the phrase, they don’t know what they don’t know. And Sonya and I run into this a lot in our practice that not only do people that are potentially moving from the United States to Canada don’t know what they don’t know, but a lot of professionals they may deal with in the United States currently, they’re in a position to not know what they don’t know when it comes to how things look in Canada.
So I think you’re absolutely correct as we laid out. A table of content. It’s really a timeline, but it’s also something that is, is meant really to identify these issues that people are not [00:13:00] currently aware of.
Sonya D.: Absolutely. And I’d love, you know, I, I think as many people, I mean, it’s no different from when people start to write a book when I’m like, yes, but you don’t know, right?
Like, you don’t know. You don’t know that maybe you wanted to lay out the table of contents differently until it’s too late, not too late. ’cause we manage through that. But, you know, there’s lots of those things. And so I love that you guys can flag it right off the bat because it must make you so frustrated when people make this move.
And there were things that they could have done to prepare for it differently. And people, you know, potentially it cost them. Lots of money or time, or just creates this huge headache. So I love that you’re putting it all together. Okay, so you came to one another, you’re like, yes, this is a great idea.
We’re gonna be writers. We’re gonna do this thing. How did you get going? Like, I, I’m fascinated and actually really wanna talk about the aspect of co-writing. Something like, how did it go? How did you start, how did the writing actually happen? So I think what we started with is we essentially came up with a list of topics.
I came up with my list of topics. Clark came up with his list of topics, [00:14:00] essentially what was our initial, uh, table of content, so to speak. And we effectively just highlighted who’s gonna write about what. And then we, you know, effectively color coded. Put little notes on there and said, okay, Clark writes about these topics.
I’ll write about these topics. And we tried to put it in a logical order, which ended up changing, of course, for the better. But that’s kind of how we got started. We luckily have a lot of experience with guiding people moving to Canada from the US so we know what the topics are that we wanna write about.
We just started writing. We just said, okay, well, we have say 20 topics each in this very initial draft document. By next week, let’s try to each get three. And then we were really good at keeping each other accountable, just making sure that we’re actually getting through this and continuing to write and not just leaving on the side burner Clark.
I don’t think
Clark L.: I can make it even simpler is that, you know, if you think about the topics in the book, it was really Sonya Tax and Clark non-tax [00:15:00] issues in a sense, just given our areas of expertise. So as we tackled each of the subjects, it was, uh, that simple in a sense. Right.
Sonya D.: Yeah, absolutely. But how did it go?
Like you sat down, you’re like, okay, we’re gonna write this book, because I work with a lot of writers and I didn’t have the opportunity to work with you guys until you already had a draft that was in pretty good shape. But sometimes we sit down and we think it’s gonna be one thing, and it turns out being another thing.
Was it easy to write? Like it sounds like it was pretty easy. Was it?
Clark L.: I think putting pen to paper, uh, this is the first time that I’ve done this. Writing a book, putting pen to paper was a little bit more difficult than I thought. It’s a lot easier sitting in an office speaking with a family that’s moving from the states to Canada, just having an ongoing back and forth conversation than it is trying to take your thoughts and put it on paper.
Once we got started, I think that process became a lot easier, you know, taking the knowledge that we have and, and putting it in book form.
Sonya D.: Yeah, and you guys really have the benefit of so many years of this client interaction, and I think, you know, if you’re out there and you’re listening to this podcast and you’re thinking of writing a book on your [00:16:00] topic, the more interactions that you have with your clients, the more times that you talk about the same thing, the more.
You understand what it is that they need, not just the book smart piece of it. What do people actually need and how does it resonate? I know you had some examples there. You use some case studies in the book. You use all those things and I think it helps so much when you’re doing that. But conversely, when I have writers that are newer to their careers, writing the book sometimes is harder because they have to figure all that out.
But they come back to me and they say. Now when I talk to clients about it, it’s so clear in my brain. Right. So it’s kind of this interesting thing. Did you find that putting it all down made it easier? Or were you guys already at that point where talking with your clients was kind of second nature about these topics?
Yeah, I think for me, talking to clients was second nature, but that’s a, that’s a really good point. All of our years of having experience talking to clients about these issues did make the process a lot easier because a lot of these topics, wealth [00:17:00] management, especially tax, can be very technical, very granular, heavy topics.
So we have the benefit of being able to actually talk to people about this and try to write a book in a similar fashion of how we would talk to a client. So I’m not gonna talk to a client and, you know, tell them all the different paragraphs of the Income Tax Act and the Canadian tax code to support why they should do what they should do.
But, you know, put it in a easy to understand format that hopefully will lead them to be comfortable and not be too overwhelmed with the topic. Yeah. No, I love that because a lot of times when we go to sit down and write, even though you may be a professional who has developed this rapport with clients and you explain it in a unique way and you know that they get it, and then we sit down to write and we all of a sudden try to write an article for the New York Times and, or the, you know, the tax code or whatever, we, we wanna be quote unquote professional and we wanna make it sound all, you know, fancy.
And you didn’t do that, which is really, [00:18:00] really smart because a lot of times a book. It needs to be approachable because yes, they need this information, but we could also download the tax code and read that, and that’s not gonna be easy to digest. So that really came through in the book. Okay. So we met, after you’d had this first draft, you’d both come together, you’d put your stuff together, you’d kind of done some editing, some grammar checks and things like that.
And your, your grammar’s super strong. You’re both strong writers. So this is when we met. And then I did a developmental edit. But what were the biggest aha moments? We’ve already kind of alluded to, oh my gosh, we kind of have this order that’s like a reference manual and we didn’t really think about the journey, which I think was, you know, something that we had to reorder.
But what else did you get out of that feedback in terms of aha moments that you could share with other listeners who might be interested in writing a book on their topic?
Clark L.: The first aha moment I had was maybe we should have approached you before undertaking the project. Uh, it may have been a little bit easier than going back and making some structural changes, uh, to the book.
And I think part of that, really the [00:19:00] other, you know, aha moment, uh, per se was, you know, my writing style, which initially was to take these topics and write. Almost like a novel, just a lot of paragraphs and things like that. The suggestions you made, kind of breaking that down, you know, using more of a dialogue or a conversation, you know, point forms, things like that was really an epiphany to me because I wouldn’t have originally approached it that way, nor had I.
Sonya D.: Yeah, and I’ll, sorry, so I’ll let you address it in a second, but I just wanna speak to that because I wanna say, if you’re out there listening, it depends on the topic, right? Because they have such a dense and very technical topic for readers to be able to digest it. They needed some white space and some things.
And so what Clark was doing in writing in p. Format and novel format is not necessarily incorrect. It depends on the topic. Right. But I love, I love that you recognize, ’cause it’s really hard for us. I mean, lay people here to understand that topic that you’ve spent your entire careers in education and dedicated yourself to learning, to [00:20:00] be able to make it accessible is part of the trick to it, right?
Part of that. Advantage that your, your reader is gonna get from getting it from you. Sorry, Sonya. What aha moments did you wanna contribute or, yeah, so I think when I was first thinking about this book, I said, you know, this book is gonna be great for the actual people moving to Canada. The, um, Americans moving to Canada, Canadians are repatriating.
It’s also gonna be great for people in the wealth management space. So financial advisors, financial planners, and it’s gonna be great for tax accountants who wanna understand the cross-border tax needs. So the way that I wrote, I. Clearly understood that I didn’t really hone in on exactly who I was writing to.
And I think Suzy, you gave some really excellent advice that you can write a book that’s directed specifically to the American who’s moving to Canada, and you can write to them from that perspective. But that doesn’t make it any less valuable of a resource to maybe tax accountants who wanna read the book or financial [00:21:00] advisors.
So I think that was the big aha moment, and it ended up really changing a lot of. The language that we used to really direct it to the individual who’s making the move as opposed to trying to write in a way that is pleasing everyone and every potential audience. I guarantee that your colleagues and your competitors, that everybody else, when your book is so accessible and become such an important resource for those that are moving, they’re gonna read it too.
’cause they’re gonna wanna know, how are you explaining this? You know, what’s included, all those things. But yes, in the, in the draft that I read, there was some of that like trying to say, if you’re this, you know, if you’re a tax professional, pay attention to this. If you’re this and it doesn’t really fit right.
If we, there’s that old adage, it’s like if you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to, no one. And it really comes true. We, we gotta really stay honed in on who’s reading this book, who is it for? And then it will kind of find its audience, those big crossovers. Even if you’re writing fiction, those, everybody [00:22:00] that says, oh, I wanna do this crossover novel that’s from 10 to 99 or whatever.
You know what? That’s the dream. But really we write. For an audience. JK Rowling originally wrote Harry Potter for a middle grade audience, and then it found all these other people, right? And it became an older series as it as it went, and it grew and changed, but it was very focused in the beginning. The other thing that sort of came up here was structure, because in a non-fiction book, the biggest choice that you can make, I mean content great, like topics.
Cool. I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but the structure of that book and how you put it together and how usable it is, you literally have dozens of choices in terms of what you would do. And so, as Clark was saying, not that you guys got the book done, that’s a big part of book coaching, but you’re right, it would’ve saved a little bit of pain, but you kind of managed it after the fact and you were open to it.
But if you’re not careful and you don’t choose a structure in nonfiction upfront, you can end up with a lot of pieces that don’t end up [00:23:00] being usable or accessible to your audience. That’s where that planning phase comes in. And it can be helpful, much like, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know.
For a tax professional, if you’re writing a book for the first time, speak to somebody who’s done it before, uh, and see what you can get out of that. Awesome. Okay, so then after all those aha moments, and you guys are like, woo, it’s a little bit more maybe than we bargain for Suzy, and then there’s been revisions and you’re, you’re just finishing up that we’re recording a little bit early, but this is gonna come out when the book is ready for people to buy.
So how is that revision process going? How did you divvy up that work? First we tackled our own revision, so we obviously came together and decided on a approach that, you know, in terms of putting things into bullet form and more white spaces, and kind of agreed to a common theme for all of our sections, and otherwise it’s been pretty consistent.
We were able to put the final book and the writing style and the. Presentation style is overall consistent. We were able to do the [00:24:00] revisions to our own sections that we wrote, and then after that, once we made our own revisions, me and Clark are now reading. Uh, you know, of course we read each other’s.
Parts before, but now we’re doing, you know, more of a deeper dive into each other’s sections, really going in line by line, making sure everything looks good, and adding in suggestions. Again, making sure that everything is consistent throughout the book. ’cause that’s always a, a little bit of a challenge, right?
When you have two people writing one book is, are we being consistent when we’re using our case studies and we’re using our examples? Are we telling the same story, which we’ve done a good job of making sure. Awesome. Yeah. And then part of what we discussed during that developmental edit, and it sounds like this is what you guys are working on now, is Yes, the overall structure, but also the structure within the chapters.
What can readers expect? How does it lay out, you know, are we using a story, are we using example? Where is the information? Are there exercises? Like all of those things, how does that lay together? And it sounds like, you know, just having that chapter [00:25:00] template. Allows you to make it a little bit more uniform and feel like it all belongs in the same book.
Is that fair?
Clark L.: Yeah. And that’s where a large part of the value you added, uh, Suzy, was exactly that. When you took, uh, a read of the initial draft of the book and you notice potentially there, there wasn’t that degree of structure within each of the chapters. That’s where, with your suggestion, Sonya and I have worked together in now editing the book ourself.
Again, I. In coming up with a consistent, uh, chapter structure. Yeah, absolutely. Now, absolute. The other thing is that given the nature of the topics, as I mentioned earlier, it was really Sonya Tax and Clark, the non-tax issues generally that just given the nature of, of tax being a lot more technical, there was, you know, my style of writing, which was dealing with different topics and Sonya’s, which just by nature being taxed is more technical.
Try to make all that flow as well, which is where we’ve been spending a lot of our effort recently to get to a final version of the book.
Sonya D.: Oh my goodness. When you guys talk about how much [00:26:00] effort this is, uh, writing a book is always, takes a lot more time than you think when you’re first excited about it.
And that doesn’t surprise me. How much time, I mean, you’re busy professionals both inside and outside of work. How much time are you spending per week on this and working together and individually on your book? Do you know? That’s a good question. So this, this, we first started working on this in the summer of 2024, so it’s been over a year in the making and I, I would say on average, you know, some weeks are more than others, but I think on average probably five hours a week.
But then there’s been some weekends, especially after the developmental edits that I would be spending, you know, 15 hours. On the weekends and or 10 hours weekends. So I would say it’s a fantastic experience, but I would say that it’s, it’s definitely more time consuming than I initially thought, just because for writing a book that’s, you know, 400 pages and it needs to really be [00:27:00] perfect.
So it, and then you, every time you read it over, you see something else that you wanna change. So that was my end. It’ll never, it will never be perfect, Sonya. It will never be perfect, but I love it. CL Clark, would you agree that that’s sort of between five and 15 hours a week? Is that what you’re doing as well or is it different?
Yeah. On,
Clark L.: on average, I would, uh, I would fit into that, uh, timeframe as well, or time range. Yeah. And this has been a, a fair bit of work and probably more than what I originally anticipated it would be, but it’s been highly enjoyable to spend that time doing this.
Sonya D.: It’s such a process and I, I like to say, I know that this book is going to be successful.
It’s a very niche market that you are having, right? It’s not something that every single person in the world is going to read. So you have that, but regardless of how far it reaches, it will change the way that you in. Just the process of doing this, it’s amazing to me how people’s lives and professions and careers change based on putting in this [00:28:00] effort, and I am excited to see, I have no idea what direction it’s gonna lead you, but it’s gonna be really fun, I promise.
And when we write your next book, I wish you could see their faces. They’re not like thumbs upping on the next book yet, but when we write your next book, putting a little bit of time up front, it is always faster. It’s faster both because you learn, but also because you spend less time wondering like, do I really need to do all this work?
’cause you know that you do and you know that it will be worth it, right? But we will also plan out that. Overall reader journey, as well as the chapter templates in advance so that you don’t have all this rework that you’re going through now. Okay, so you looked at options and you decided to publish independently.
What factors went into that versus traditionally published, which is one of the options that you were looking at initially? What factors went into deciding that? I
Clark L.: think a couple things, Suzy. I think the topic of our book is timely. We’ve seen in our practice an increasing number of Americans reaching out that are [00:29:00] planning moves from the US to Canada, and there’s various reasons for that.
But we think, again, the topic is very timely. So rather than waiting maybe 12 to 18 months to go through a process that we use, a publisher, self-publishing. It gives us a little bit, a bit more time efficiency in, in getting this book to market. That’s the first thing. I think. Second thing is the book, because a lot of it is related to tax.
Tax can change, tax rates can change, tax laws can change. You know, things that are going on between the US and Canada can change as well. Self-publishing does give us the ability to make quick revisions to the book.
Sonya D.: And I, I totally am on board with that. I think, and this was a discussion that we had in the beginning because publishing is, I mean, it’s amazing to work with a traditional publisher.
It’s also amazing to independently publish, and people often wanna know the differences, but you’re right, the time factor is huge in terms of, I mean, it’s gonna take you more time because you have to do all this work yourself, but publishing is still a very, very slow business and [00:30:00] it, it isn’t. Fast and it’s amazing.
Like when, when I say how long it takes people to write a book is often surprising because it is this whole process. It’s like your whole mind and your whole body and your whole soul being pour into it and you’re thinking about it 24 7. So it’s a big thing. And then publishing is like that too, where in traditional publishing people are often shocked, but things take a long time and there’s many, many professionals in that industry who are also putting their mind and body and.
Soul into a lot of different books, and sometimes it takes time. And so it can be a very frustrating process, but because of your topic, I think it’s been a really smart choice to publish independently. Because I mean, if this book came out in 18 months, like you said, it might be totally different. And now you can sort of reiterate, revise, and provide those newer additions on the fly all within your control.
Okay, so you guys ready? Here’s my favorite part of the podcast, which is the quick fire questions, and we’ve got two writers [00:31:00] here, so I’m gonna let you both answer if it makes sense. But we’re gonna go through these questions quick so that writers can actually learn from your experience. Okay. So how long, I think you mentioned this already, so from idea to publishing, you started the project in 2024, but Clark it was your idea First, when did this idea of writing a book like this first come to you?
Clark L.: Four years ago, I, yeah. Thought that I would tackle the idea of writing this book on my own for various reasons, whether it was time, whether it was finding out that a lot of the tax stuff was beyond my direct expertise. I put it kind of on the shelf, per se, for a few years when I took it back off the shelf.
Uh, the idea last summer, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, I quickly learned that it would be far better if I included Sonya in, in that process. So. About a year ago, I think it was last August that Sonya and I first met about this, and we are pretty much close to publishing a year later.
Sonya D.: And I mean four years.
Your initial answer from [00:32:00] idea that’s really typical, like writing it in a year. I would’ve been very surprised if it was like you thought of it and then you did it. It takes a long time for that to percolate, but I love that you got Sonya on board and then it was rocking after that, right? Like congrats on that.
Okay, so what was your first big break? And I’ll let you each answer that. See if maybe you have different answers or if you agree. When did you believe it was gonna happen or it was real? Was there anything that happened along the way where you were like, okay, this is really gonna happen? I think working with you, to be honest, engaging.
Oh, you guys are so sweet. Yeah. No, but really muted. I’m not paying though, I promise. No, no, no. But really it’s the fact that we engaged a professional and we got so many, so much good feedback from you and knowing that Okay. What we thought was gonna be a book in our initial draft is gonna need to be changed for the better.
And then it really did feel real knowing that, okay, we have someone on board who, uh, is helping guide us to make the, to making this a [00:33:00] fantastic resource for people. And that, oh, that’s so sweet. That was my answer. And I like to. I like, I just wanna qual qualify that for a second to say, yes, there were things to work on, but I always make sure that I show you exactly where and why and how to work on it.
Like not just, Hey, this book needs to get rewritten, but hey, you know this, this part with this structure would make it easier for people to digest. That sort of thing. I dunno. Clark, what do you think? It’s hard to top that
Clark L.: well. I share Sonya’s view on that, but maybe I have a, had a little bit more or earlier confidence in, uh, seeing that this would actually be a successful project.
I think first of all, it was when Sonya agreed to write this book with me, that’s when I actually thought that we would get this accomplished. Second was tackling that first chapter that I wrote when it was finished, I. I had faith in myself that we could actually complete this. It was despite me saying that this is a lot more work than it was.
Seeing that first chapter being written [00:34:00] gave me a, a thought that this could be completed quite easily
Sonya D.: and I bet it was amazing because you probably realized just how much you had to share, if that makes sense or, or how well developed because you’ve been a professional in the industry for so long.
When you start to write it all down, you’re like, wow. Actually know a lot. Does that resonate?
Clark L.: Definitely does. I
Sonya D.: love that. I love that. Okay, so what is your best advice for business folks wanting to write a book on whatever it is that they do? I think for us, I guess we have a good niche, so finding a niche would be important.
Like there are a lot of business books out there all already, so it helps being able to have a unique topic and then ultimately being able to. Write in a manner that is understandable to people and write to your audience and give them information that they’re actually gonna need. And think about how you talk to clients on a day-to-day basis.
When do your clients have their aha moments and say, thank you so much. This was so helpful. And [00:35:00] kind of translate how you interact with clients that way, but into a book. Yeah. And narrow that down. I love that. Clark, what do you think? I
Clark L.: think something we’ve already talked about a couple times, the phrase that I often use, which is, uh, knowing what you don’t know.
And in this case, that was again, the reason why I included Sonya with writing this book. But I think any professional writing a book has to recognize that and use external resources. You know, whether it is collaboration with somebody else, as I’ve done with Sonya, whether it’s reaching out to you, Suzy, for what you assisted with or other professionals as Sonya, you and I did with some other professionals, uh, assisting with some sections in the book, giving their views on it.
I, I think that’s very important, is that accomplishing a, a project like this on your own, I think is very difficult. So, so again, recognizing where you do need assistance and those areas that you don’t know what you don’t know.
Sonya D.: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, beyond the technical aspects of pulling a book together, which absolutely a book coach, an editor like you can [00:36:00] learn a ton.
But beyond that, we often think that if we write everything ourselves, it makes us sound smart and will have more credibility. But it studies have found that if you actually reference other people in your field, it builds your credibility. Doesn’t take away from it, right? So the fact that. You can bring in other resources.
So whether there are resources to help you write the book, whether they’re resources in your own life or whether they’re resources in your industry, to even be able to quote other pieces of information or use facts from other resources actually makes you more credible as a writer and gives you, gives you more power in the reader’s mind.
So yeah, I love that advice. Okay. I’m gonna ask Clark first so that he doesn’t have to come up with something new. What is your best advice for writers wanting to co-write a book with someone else? Is there anything that you did that you love doing that you do again? Is there anything you maybe wish you’d done a little bit differently?
I
Clark L.: think initially writing a chapter together before you [00:37:00] tackle the rest of the book. And you know, going back to my comment about that sense of accomplishment after writing the first chapter, you know, had Sonya and I, rather than just independently writing sections that were topics that we were each dealing with independently, it would’ve given us the opportunity to maybe.
Earlier than we did come up with chapter structures, style of writing, uh, a little bit more common, and I think that would’ve made writing the book a little bit easier with a coauthor.
Suzy V.: Yeah. Fair. Sonya, anything to add to that?
Sonya D.: I, I completely agree to that, with that sentiment. Otherwise, co-authoring a book, I think it’s just keeping each other accountable.
Make sure you’re writing a book with someone who is gonna be able to do it. And yeah, I think that ultimately it’s, it’s hard when you’re taking on such a big project and you’re relying. Someone else to actually move things forward. So when you’re deciding to write a book with someone, make sure you choose someone who you trust to actually go forward with [00:38:00] the process.
’cause the worst thing would be, well, I’ve done all of my work and you know, you haven’t. But luckily Clark and I, I think it’s been great. We’ve been working really, really well together. We’ve both keep each other accountable and we’re always on time, essentially with our, our own deadlines. Awesome. So last word here in the Quick Fire, what do you hope that your readers are gonna take away from this book?
Clark L.: I think a big message that we relay on our book a fair bit and we relay with clients is the importance of proactively planning a move such as this, and our hope through the book is that this book does become a resource for people to do exactly that.
Sonya D.: Yeah. It’s all about proactive planning. A lot of good opportunities are in this book that you can only do if you haven’t come to Canada yet.
But at the end of the day, there’s also lots of good information, even if you’re already in Canada. Other takeaways is. To not do it alone. A lot of, uh, individuals are hesitant [00:39:00] to engage professionals. You know, a common concern, which is understandable is cost. You know, a cross border accountant, for example, can be potentially expensive, but it’s important to know that.
Again, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? So if when people try to tackle some of these big tasks on their own, it could come with significant costs or missed opportunities. So just knowing that, uh, it’s important to engage the proper professionals, especially when the stakes are high, with things like investments, tax, and immigration.
There’s a lot of potential penalties involved or extra taxes that could have been avoided. So yeah, that comes with proper planning and just knowing, uh. When to let others help out. Awesome. And okay, where can we find you and your book for those who are maybe potentially moving to Canada? We’d love to have you up here and or if you know somebody moving to Canada, go pick it up as a gift for them.
Be super supportive. It’s a great read. It’s super approachable. Where are we gonna find it? [00:40:00] You’ll be able to find the book on, uh, Amazon. We all also should be having the book in an ebook format in, uh, all places where you can find eBooks and it should also be in audiobook format as well. Otherwise, where you could find us, you could look us up on LinkedIn as well for Clark Lin, Sonya Delena, you’ll be able to see our names and you could always follow us and connect with us there.
Awesome, and all those links will be in the show notes, so you can go and grab them there. Thank you so much, Clark and Sonya for sharing your experience, co-writing your business book together. Wish you all the success and can’t wait to see how this all turns out.
Clark L.: Thanks for having us today, Suzy.
Suzy V.: Thanks for tuning Thanks for tuning in to show. Don’t Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vori, I’ll me continue to bring [00:41:00] you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening. Also, visit suzy Vadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you’ll stay inspired and be the.
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