By Mary O'Donohue, Media Coach for Women Nonfiction Authors
Why are so many authors struggling with getting the publicity they deserve?
I recently spoke to a nonfiction author who had a compelling topic, but she was very frustrated that she wasn’t getting any book publicity. Once we chatted and I had looked her up online, I quickly found the 5 reasons she wasn’t getting booked.
And I wasn’t surprised, because I see these same media marketing mistakes quite often. The sad thing is, they’re costing authors valuable national publicity.
I don’t want that to happen to you, so I’m sharing these common marketing mistakes – and how you can avoid them. Knowing these strategies will boost your chances of getting valuable publicity and doing media interviews that move the needle on book sales.
Mistake #1: Your bio reads like a resume.
Challenge: Surprised that your bio is costing you book publicity? It’s true! A resume-style bio is effective for HR folks, but it doesn’t speak to producers, columnists, and journalists who aren’t looking to hire you! So, listing out the 7 book awards you’ve won is impressive, but “award-winning author” says it better and faster. Media folks want an expert who knows how to convey their expertise succinctly and strategically.
Plus, a TV interview for example, often only runs about 5 minutes long, so if the host is stating your bio and it’s filled with lots of details about your work history, accomplishments, and awards, that will simply take up too much time. Ideally, for a short TV or radio interview, your Media Bio should be no more than 15 seconds when read aloud. If it’s longer than that, the person interviewing you usually won’t read the entire thing out loud. Instead, it will get edited, which is not ideal because it makes more work for them (not good) and they’re likely to take out key details that you’d rather keep in (not strategic.)
Solution: When your bio is media-savvy it becomes your brand ambassador, attracting the media rather than overwhelming them. So, your Media Bio should include the key elements like your name, title of your book, your unique expertise, and who exactly your reader is. It should clearly convey to the media and their audience that you’re the right person to be interviewed on this specific topic.
Action Step: Use this fictional example as inspiration to write your own Media Bio.
Kayla Suchandsuch is the author of the new book, Traveling With Toddlers: From Diapers to Denmark. Her year long experience globetrotting with her husband and 3-year-old twin daughters has transformed her into the go-to expert for adventurers who don’t want to give up traveling after becoming parents.
Mistake #2: You’re targeting an audience in media that is too broad.
Challenge: When you try to appeal to an audience that’s as wide as possible, you water down your appeal to the media. Think about it, when was the last time you listened to a podcast episode or radio program that appealed to everyone? It’s just not that common these days. That’s because we as individuals are interested in specific niches like book marketing podcasts, or radio shows about raising teenagers, or magazines specifically about pickleball (which totally exists, by the way.) You search out content based on your specific needs and interests, and your audience does the same thing.
Solution: Think about the specific audience who benefits from your book. If you want to get more readers and you focus on media outlets with as broad an audience as possible (or a completely different audience because you want to get your message out to the masses) you’re just going to confuse and alienate the people who need your wisdom, insights, and guidance.
But when you confidently target your book publicity to your true audience, it’s strategic and much more likely to move the needle on book sales. So, it’s worth your own time and effort, plus it benefits both the media outlet and their audience. That’s a win-win-win!
Action Step: After reading this entire article, take 5 minutes to do an internet search on your subject matter using this formula: your key words + “article” or your key words + “TV interviews,” etc… and you’ll quickly uncover the media outlets that are already serving your target audience. Make a list of these magazines, columnists, podcasts, etc… because they’re already interested in your subject matter.
Mistake #3: Your messaging lacks clarity.
Challenge: When I ask an author to tell me what her message is and she starts to explain, I know she’ll have a hard time getting book publicity. Why? Well, do you remember the old marketing adage, “A confused mind never buys?” My version is, “A confused producer never books.” If a media person doesn’t understand what you do or whom you serve, how can they know if you’d be a good fit for their audience?
Solution: These days our attention is spread really thin with so many messages coming at us in social media, ads, and about a gazillion websites. So, it’s more essential than ever to have a clear and concise core message that conveys your value to the media and potential readers. They need to know exactly:
What you do
Whom you do it for
The problem you solve
Your specific solution
When you do this effectively, you become memorable and much more bookable. For example, years ago I met a woman at a networking event whose message was so clear I still remember it. She said her company sold reversable infant clothing – pink on one side, blue on the other – for parents who didn’t want to know the gender of their child in advance. I wasn’t a media coach back then, but I told her that her message was “high concept” which meant a media person could immediately picture her product which helped make it extremely bookable. Producers love clarity. And that clarity helped her products to be featured on The Today Show 3 weeks later. Clarity is a powerful asset!
Action Step: Use this example of a clear and concise core message as a jumping off point for writing yours. Let’s say an author is an expert on solving sleep issues in toddlers. Her core message could be:
I provide effective bedtime routines for toddlers so they – and their sleepy parents – can get consistent sleep every night.
Mistake #4: You’re pitching from a point of need.
Challenge: When I worked for The Oprah Winfrey Show, I often received pitches from authors and experts. I was a post producer, so not only were those pitches sent to the wrong person because I worked on shows that were already taped, but the emails almost always started with a variation of these 7 words: “I was hoping you could help me.”
I call that “The 7 Word Pitch That Costs You Publicity” because when I received those emails, I always deleted them after reading just those 7 words. Why? Because media folks are not in the business of helping random strangers get publicity. Sorry. I know that was harsh. But as someone who has worked in high profile television for more than 30 years, I want you to know the truth so it will help you avoid the pitfalls that ruin your chances of getting coveted national media interviews. (Plus, to be fair, we often work 16- hour days and we eat lunch at our desks, if we’re lucky enough to have time. Or desks. So, random strangers asking for help are not our priority.)
The truth is, people who work in media like producers, columnists, and journalists are in the business of serving a specific audience. When you help us do that, you make yourself more bookable. But when you ask for help, you immediately convey that you think you have nothing to offer that media outlet. So, your pitch gets deleted, and you never hear back.
Solution: The truth is nonfiction authors like you are highly bookable media guests who can – and do – get publicity because of the value you bring to the audience of national media outlets. Producers are busy, so they’re looking for experts like you who can make their jobs easier. Experts who pitch with confidence and relevant content have a massive advantage when getting booked!
So, embrace your specific expertise. Own it. Know that you have something unique and important to bring to media audiences. Pitch from a position of service rather than promoting your book. The nonfiction authors I work with get book sales because they bring value to the listeners, viewers, and readers of a particular media outlet.
Action Step: Your specific topics are hidden in plain sight in your own content! Look through your manuscript or published book for 5 potential interview topics that would be of service to your audience in the media they consume. Start with chapter names if you have them. Write them down. That’s your starting point for pitching with purpose!
Mistake #5: You want national publicity, but you don’t have proof of “media viability.”
Challenge: You have your eye on a Good Morning America appearance. You know you can bring value to their audience of millions, and your topic has national relevance, but you’ve been pitching for months and you’re just hearing crickets.
I know one big reason why. Let’s take a peek behind-the-scenes of a national morning show. I used to work on The Today Show in Washington D.C. and just about every day we had live guests appearing on the show from our studios. So, I know first-hand that a national producer will be hesitant to book you if there is no proof that you’ve done local television interviews, or in a pinch, some kind of on-camera appearance. (FYI, even if you have experience giving prepared speeches, that’s not necessarily proof to a producer that you can do live TV.)
A TV newsroom is a hierarchy. A producer who books an inexperienced guest who freezes on live TV is a producer who may be looking for a new job. That’s how consequential your interview may be for their career. If you demonstrate that you can convey your message with confidence and can handle unexpected questions with ease in local TV interviews, bringing that level of skill to a national interview may just help the producer who booked you get a promotion. I’ve spent decades in control rooms and have seen careers change after a single interview.
So, when you pitch a national producer but don’t have the experience to back it up, your chances of being booked go down. Do producers take risks when the guest is THE expert on the topic, and they need to confirm the booking ASAP? Yes. Do they get burned for that decision if the guest doesn’t deliver? Absolutely.
Solution: If your aspirations are national, start local. Get experience. Use the tips in this article to get clarity on who you are, your core message, and to get ideas for what to pitch.
Action Step: If you want to be on a national talk show, start watching local or regional talk shows in your area. Chances are they’re recorded and edited so that producer will be less concerned if you haven’t done live TV appearances because a post producer like me will work with editors to refine and streamline your interview. If your goal is to get on a national morning show, those shows are in the news divisions of their networks, so focus on watching your local news.
So often, nonfiction authors are only focused on getting publicity. But the preparation you do in advance of your media appearances will make all the difference in how effective and successful your media marketing will be. Taking the time to create a media marketing strategy with intention will set you up for publicity that helps you sell books, grow your audience, and make the kind of impact only you can make.
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
More About Mary O'Donohue
Mary O’Donohue is a media coach for women nonfiction authors, #1 bestselling parenting author, and former post producer for The Oprah Winfrey Show. She has worked in high profile TV for decades, including years on The Today Show and NBC Nightly News. Mary’s mission is to teach women nonfiction authors how to get national publicity and confidently do media interviews that sell books, grow their impact, and change the world. Her unique coaching framework, The Media I.M.P.A.C.T. Method™ has consistently led to author success in national Media with her clients reaching audiences of more than a billion. So far. She can be reached through her website maryodonohue.com or by email at mary@maryodonohue.com
Selling books in bulk through securing corporate sales and sponsorship is the goal of many authors, but the HOW (to do this) gets in the way. When authors understand the sponsorship process, how to position corporate book sales with buyers, and how to step into action, the results (and book sales) can be off the charts!
Corporate book sales and sponsorship can provide powerful and effective opportunities that help authors sell more books. These sales also assist authors in making a bigger impact with their message and reaching more people.
In reality though, authors put so much time, energy, passion, and resources into writing their book that, often, they’re not ready for the next phase of hard work, which is the marketing and selling of the book. As an 11x best-selling author, I know first-hand how much effort goes into bringing a book to life and keeping sales alive on a regular basis. Your writing will reach more readers when you treat your book like a business. With that in mind, your book needs a business plan to ensure its ongoing success.
When you think about your book as a business, you will find you are more creative and more focused in your marketing and sales strategies. Part of this same shift in thinking involves considering corporate sales, bulk buys, and sponsorship. Let’s dive into this a little deeper.
Bulk Book Sales with BOGOs
What does it mean to sell books in bulk? Bulk sales can be a bundled set of books (e.g., if you have more than one published title or selling anywhere from 5 – 500 quantities of the same book).
You can dip your toe in the “bulk” pool by using our Raise a Dream BOGO (Buy One, GIFT One) method where you encourage attendees at book signing events to purchase two books (you do not have to discount the price). The purchaser takes one purchased copy of the book home to read while the second purchased copy is donated by them to a charity that you have preselected.
Having a basket to put those donated books in is a powerful visual. It is great to have a charity representative onsite / present at the book signing to accept the donated books. This strategy provides an effective way to “start small” selling books in bulk. From our experience, implementing this strategy increased our book sales by at least 80% at live events.
A quick note of advice: Always discuss the arrangements with the bookstore first. Most stores are more than fine with the strategy as they see the potential to sell more books (without discounting the price), while also doing good for the community.
Now let’s turn the page to look at selling by the box, increasing the number of books in a sale.
Selling Books by the Box
Taking bulk sales of books to a higher level, consider how you can sell books by the box. In selling by the box, one strategy is to identify what schools, charities, groups, and organizations would benefit from having copies of your book for their staff, clients, or events. Who is a fit for your book?
Here are some ideas on how to sell books by the box:
Partner with service clubs (such as Rotary, Lions, or Optimist Clubs) to purchase a box of books to donate to:
a) local libraries,
b) local organizations,
or c) to hand out at their service club events.
Approach past clients to purchase a box of books to provide to their staff or their own clients as gifts. You can also encourage them to buy books that could be donated to the charities that they support.
Approach businesses you deal with to purchase a box of books to sell at their location. The owners can either keep the money or donate it to their favorite charity.
Note: My first attempt at this was with my hairstylist and clothing store I shop at. One box of books led to more and more throughout the year. Then my optometrist purchased a box of books (a book for children) to hand out to his clients who were parents with young children.
Be creative. Ask trusted colleagues and friends for their ideas.
Corporate Book Sales
Would your book be appropriate for attendees at a conference you are attending, exhibiting at, or speaking at?
If yes, what about approaching potential sponsors (who have an interest in the audience that is attending the event) to sponsor books for everyone in the audience or for the first 25 or 50 people who register or show up at the event?
Take Action
The key to selling books in bulk is to first be creative and think outside the box and beyond the bookstore, then:
Create a strategy.
Identify those businesses (and individuals) that you will be approaching.
Step into action.
Repeat the processes that are successful all year long.
Corporate sales and bulk sales are one of the best ways to make a bigger impact with your message and book (and create more sales in the process). If you’d like to learn how to sell more books without leaving home, discover how to create a sharing circle that spreads your marketing messages, and receive tips for marketing your book on social media in a way that gets traction, register for this complimentary video, 5 Ways to Sell More Books in the Next 90 Days.
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
More About Charmaine Hammond
Charmaine Hammond, CSP, has been in the business of changing lives and raising dreams for more than 25 years through teaching the principles of collaboration, partnership, and sponsorship. As a Certified Speaking Professional and best-selling author, Charmaine shares her unmatched speaking, sponsorship, and entrepreneurial experiences with business owners, nonprofits, authors, and speakers looking to expand the funding and reach of their projects. She is also the Founder and CEO of Raise a Dream, which provides the training and support needed for you to take your idea from big vision to global brand.
You’ve worked incredibly hard on your book, and you’re finally ready to get it out into the world for others to learn from, appreciate, and enjoy. One of the first decisions you’ll have to make is about how to do that. If you choose to work with a book marketing firm (which, of course, we highly suggest), there are several things you should consider before hiring one.
Book marketing campaigns often move at a fast and furious pace, so preparing your platform, materials, schedule, and expectations prior to kicking off your campaign will ensure that you are ready to hit the ground running from day one. While finding the right team can feel like an overwhelming process, taking the time to do so will set you up for maximum book marketing success. Here are some things to know before hiring your PR firm:
Prep your platform
Before bringing a book marketing agency on board, you’ll want to make sure you have a solid foundation for your author platform. What exactly is an author platform and why is it important? Your author platform consists of the various places you “house” your author information and get yourself out there, and having an active and cohesive platform ultimately helps to build your brand. Now, you can make the most of your time once your campaign begins.
Though your publicist can help guide you on how to grow the various pieces of your author platform as part of your book marketing campaign, having most of the pieces in place in advance will benefit you greatly. You’ll want to be sure you have a professional website with information about your book that includes clear instructions on where and how to purchase, an “about” page for you as the author, a page for media coverage, and a page for contacting you. If you’re working with a publicist, you can put their contact information for the duration of your campaign. Make sure your social media pages are linked, as well.
Speaking of social media pages, they certainly constitute an important part of your author platform. Though it’s not necessary to be active on every social media platform, having at least one or two pages that are updated frequently and consistently adds legitimacy to your brand, facilitates connection with potential readers on a more personal level, and simply helps you get the word out about your book. Having these pages up and running before your book marketing campaign begins will give you an advantage for two major reasons. Once pitching begins, the media may search you to see what kind of online presence you already have established. Also, you will be able to share any media coverage you receive on your social media pages which will amplify the number of eyes on your project.
Communicate your schedule and availability
Simply put, the most collaborative book marketing campaigns are the most successful. Your PR team knows you have a life outside your book; however, if you’re committing to marketing your book, you will get the best results if you can dedicate proper time to media opportunities as they arise. For instance, you may receive a request to write a guest article, an invitation to appear on a podcast, or be tapped (often last minute, due to the nature of the media) to offer expert commentary. If you’ve anticipated the possibility of these extra projects and made room in your schedule for them, you’ll be able to get the very most out of your campaign.
Before your book publicity campaign begins, make sure you’ve assessed your schedule for the time the campaign will be taking place and have communicated any “black out dates,” or dates you absolutely won’t be available for interviews and/or other opportunities to your publicist. It’s also helpful to communicate openly with your team, family, and friends so they are aware that, during the time of your campaign, your schedule may look different as you are in the midst of a publicity push for your book.
Get clear on your goals
A good book marketing firm will ask you what your goals for your campaign are before you sign on. This may seem like an obvious question and an even more obvious answer; however, there are many different goals an author can have for their campaign. Whether your goal is to sell books, to grow your brand, to bring in new business, to raise awareness for an important issue or cause, or to become established as an author… it’s important that you and your publicist are on the same page. Your book publicity campaign will be designed to achieve—and build a strong foundation to continue to achieve—the agreed-upon goals of you and your team.
Having a strong sense of what your goals are and why before hiring your PR firm will help you go into your book marketing campaign with a sense of clarity, and will help your PR team design a campaign that is customized to go after the types of opportunities that will ultimately help you achieve your goals.
Keep in mind that the more realistic your goals are, the more likely you are to achieve them. Creating your goals based on what will really move the needle for your particular project, instead of what you think looks or sounds most impressive, can fast-track the success you see. Which brings us to…
Set your expectations
Before hiring your book marketing team, it’s helpful to know that coverage is very rarely guaranteed—especially in the timeframe of your campaign. This doesn’t mean you won’t get any coverage or even see fantastic results during your campaign and afterward, but sometimes authors go into the process expecting to become a New York Times best-seller within weeks of kicking off. The truth is, with nearly 2 million books published globally each year, there’s fierce competition. Though your publicist will work their absolute hardest to make sure you stand apart, setting your expectations from the get-go will ensure that you’re going after the right opportunities.
It's also important to note that before you’re in the thick of your campaign, not all coverage will occur within the timeframe of your book marketing campaign. Your PR team is working to set you up for continued success, meaning you may likely see coverage come through days, weeks, months, and even years after your active campaign has concluded.
Rally your network
Finally, before hiring professionals to get the word out about your book, don’t forget to make announcements to your own personal and professional networks. In moving down the checklist of who to contact once their book is ready to be publicized, many authors forget to add their nearest and dearest to the list when, of course, they are your built-in and biggest fans.
Rallying your team, clients, LinkedIn connections, friends, family, and community in support of your book will give you a head start in terms of building your following.
Each individual who spreads the word to their own network offers endless possibilities for organically growing your readership. After all, the power of word of mouth recommendations and support should never be underestimated.
The time period after finishing your book but before officially launching is a sacred one. How you use this time to prepare you for what’s to come can make all the difference.
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
More About Jennifer Tucker
Jennifer Tucker is the Marketing Manager at Smith Publicity, and before that worked as a book publicist at the firm for nearly a decade. While there, she secured top national media placements for her authors including Good Morning America, People Magazine, Nightline, Fox & Friends, Family Circle, NPR, and The Los Angeles Times. For questions about services, please reach out to info@smithpublicity.com.
So many writers dream of publishing their books, but if you don’t know where to start, the process of actually publishing a book can seem daunting! The process of publishing a book can seem like it’s shrouded in secrecy.
In particular, writers who have never published a book before often are filled with questions about how to publish, what their publishing options are, when to contact a publisher, what marketing will look like, and much more.
Here’s some good news: even though you might be overwhelmed, you can publish a book—even if you’ve never published anything before! There are so many amazing first-time authors whose stories have changed readers’ lives, and your story deserves to be told, too!
To make the concept of publishing a little more approachable, we’re going to share five things writers who want to publish their first book should know about the world of publishing!
1. There are a variety of ways you can publish your book.
When writers think about publishing their books, they often think about one of two things: working with big-name publishers (also known as traditional publishing) or self-publishing. And while these are both options, there’s a third option as well—working with a hybrid publisher.
Let’s break down the three most common ways books are published:
Traditional publishing: you typically submit your manuscript or pitch your manuscript to a publisher, often through an agent; the publisher in these cases often has more control of your manuscript, the layout of the book, etc., and the royalties you receive can vary from publisher to publisher.
Hybrid publishing: this is sometimes considered an option that’s in between traditional publishing and self-publishing. You still maintain a good amount of control over your book, but you’ll also work with editors and publishers who can do much of the technical work that’s involved in publishing a book (such as ensuring your book makes it to wholesalers, formatting your book, etc.).
Self-publishing: you have ultimate control over your book, and while you have the potential to keep more of the money you make, you also have to pay for editors, illustrators, marketing, etc., directly, and you will need to research the ins and outs of what’s needed to publish your book on particular platforms (obtaining your ISBN, creating and formatting your documents, etc.).
So, what’s the best option for you? It depends on your timeline, budget, patience, and goals. If you want to publish and retain total control over the process, want to keep the bulk of what you make off your book, are okay with doing some research, and you’re willing to independently hire editors and/or illustrators, self-publishing might be a good option. Hybrid publishing is a great option for writers who want to maintain control over their books but need some help with formatting, editing, and other behind-the-scenes things involved in publishing. Traditional publishing can be time-consuming, especially for first-time authors who don’t have an agent, but pitching your manuscript to a traditional publisher can lead to your book being picked up in some cases (though it’s not always guaranteed, of course).
Ultimately, none of these options are “better” or “worse” than the others—it all depends on what you want!
2. You can contact a publisher before your book is complete.
If you want to work with a traditional or hybrid publisher, you don’t have to wait until your book is complete to reach out. In fact, it can be useful to start working with a publisher well before you plan to publish your book!
Though every book will vary (and some publishers will have a preference as to when you submit your manuscript), manuscripts often go through several iterations. After a first draft is written, editors who work with your publisher (if you choose to work with a hybrid publisher or traditional publisher) will review your manuscript to look for any grammatical, technical, or developmental issues that may need to be corrected.
For authors who want to self-publish, it’s often a good idea to contact an editor (or several editors, depending on the length of your manuscript and the genre you’re writing in) soon after you’ve finished your first draft. Being open to revisions and suggestions from experts can help you create a more polished book, which translates to giving readers a better reading experience.
3. You don't worry too much about formatting if you're using a hybrid publisher or a traditional publisher.
Often, people worry about making their manuscript look a particular way before sending it off to a publisher, and while you do want your work to be legible, the format you send your book in is likely not the way your book will ultimately look if you work with a traditional or hybrid publisher!
That doesn't mean you want your formatting to be a total mess, of course—after all, being organized as you write will make the process of publishing less time-consuming!—but you don't necessarily have to spend hours or lots of money on trying to format your book yourself.
Most publishers are familiar with taking manuscripts written in Google Docs or Microsoft Word and formatting them as needed. Formatting is a part of the publishing process that publishers often take care of, so you don't need to buy pricey software that may not be needed on your end, to begin with.
If you're self-publishing, depending on the platform(s) you're using, you still likely won't have to spend too much on formatting; many platforms, such as Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), offer templates that can be used for formatting.
Of course, if you're self-publishing and are struggling to get your format to look just right, don't hesitate to reach out to an expert who can help! You can find experienced individuals willing to help you format your book on sites like Upwork or Fiverr, for example.
4. It’s never too soon to start marketing.
Regardless of what method you choose to use when publishing your book, it’s never too early to begin your marketing efforts.
When working with a hybrid or traditional publisher, some (if not most, in some cases) of the marketing efforts will be done for you. With a hybrid publisher, you may be offered marketing packages that you can use when marketing your book, or you can choose to go solo if you’re a marketing whiz.
And when you self-publish, you’ll be the one who’s responsible for your marketing; in some cases, you might want to hire a professional, but some authors prefer to do the marketing on their own.
There are several great ways to market yourself and your book well before it’s published, including by creating a mailing list, talking about the publishing and writing processes on a blog or social media platform, creating a website for your book, paying for ads, appearing on podcasts…the list goes on!
By marketing your book before it’s published, you can build up an audience. An audience that knows you (aka a warm market) is generally more likely to purchase something of yours than an audience that doesn’t know you (aka a cold market). Plus, building an audience early ensures you can continue to share about future projects beyond your first book!
Of course, you can also market your book well after it’s been published, too, especially if your book is coming out in new formats, such as an audiobook, after the first printed edition of your book has been published.
5. You define what success looks like when it comes to your book!
Every writer has a different reason for publishing their book. Some writers want to entertain readers, some want to educate and advocate for a particular group of individuals, and others just want to share a story that’s important to them.
If you’re working with a hybrid or traditional publisher, spend some time talking to them about what your expectations are for your book. They can help you figure out what’s realistic and manageable, and what steps you need to take to meet your goals.
And if you choose to go the self-publishing route, it’s still important to clearly define your goals for your book—and do a bit of research to learn the best ways to meet them. You don’t have to wait until you’ve finished your book to start this process!
Just because you’ve never published a book before doesn’t mean the process has to be overly complex or difficult!
Whether you choose to self-publish, work with a hybrid publisher, or work with a traditional publisher, you can create and share your story with the world—it just takes some time, patience, and a willingness to learn and accept some outside help when needed.
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
More About Kim Eley
Specializing in personal development books and thoughtful children's books is the mission of Kim Wells Eley’s company, KWE Publishing; the common thread of both is to help people see what's possible and shift to a more enjoyable, fulfilled life. she says. As a writing coach and publishing consultant, Kim gives clients six steps to make their books a reality.
Kim is happily married to her BFF and has been for over 20 years. She’s a speaker; an author; a resident of Prince George, Virginia; a cat lover; a collector of orchids; and she gets all of her news from comedy shows.
Tune in to episode 111 of The Creative Impostor podcast, hosted by Andrea Klunder. We will show you how to amplify your message(Podcast on The Creative Impostor, August 9, 2020)
Episode 111. “In this phase of growth, it feels weird. It feels nebulous. It feels like this molting bird… Sometimes it takes as long as it takes, you know, it's not the enlightenment Olympics.” ~Tina Dietz
This episode is for the birds. Or rather, about birds. More accurately, how much creative humans have in common with molting parrots.
Hang with me; this episode isn't wall-to-wall ornithology talk. I recorded my conversation with Vocal Leadership Expert and Podcast Host Tina Dietz way back in the before-times. Still, her message about self-acceptance and faith in our creative evolution rings doubly true at a time when putting our trust in anything is a struggle.
She just happens to equate this transition with shedding feathers.
As founder and CEO of Twin Flames Studios, Tina molds (not molts) experts into influencers, teaching clients how to amplify their message. Whether it's through their own podcasts, as guests of other shows, or as in-demand speakers, Tina's vocal leadership expertise goes beyond the simple correction of speech mechanics.
Transitions rarely come without challenges. There's the macro level, global shifts taking place right now, and then there are the awkward personal doubts and missteps.
You're not wrong for feeling vulnerable. Massive life changes force us to question our personal and professional identities.
Here are five steps you, as a content generator, can take to find your book inside your blog (and inside your other content, too.)
“We all have a book inside us,” as Dana Micheli, fellow ghostwriter points out. I agree with her, but I also believe that content generators, who are practically manifesting material in their sleep, already have a book outside of them. They just don’t know it…yet.
I consider a content generator a business owner or entrepreneur with an abundant blog, LinkedIn articles for days, keynote addresses and speeches filling up digital file folders, transcripts of every interview they’ve ever done (podcast or otherwise), and copies of any free eBook, presentation, or article they’ve ever written. Whether they’ve generated all this content themselves, or benefited from the support and talent from content writers, copywriters, and/or ghostwriters, the fact is this: They are sitting on a content gold mine, each piece a precious gem, and part of a book just waiting to be produced.
I’m fortunate to work with clients who believe in the power of content and who leverage me to help grow and nurture their mines. Most of them want to produce their first book (or next) but struggle with repurposing their content or searching for the parts and pieces to produce a book—a book that is focused, well-written, showcases their expertise, offers value to their audience, and boosts their business credibility and brand.
Here are five steps a content generator can take to find a book inside their blog (and any of their other content, too).
STEP 1: Identify Topical or Thematic Threads and Trends
List all the places where content exists and visit these locations. Review headings (and subheadings) and scan your content. Note keywords and other recurring ideas that you notice.
Rank your discovered themes/topics and choose the one that speaks to you the most, or aligns with your brand and vision for your business. By going through this process, you’ve found the focus of your book. (You’ll also likely find the most precious gems: the stuff you once wrote that really shined above the rest. Hopefully, those pieces make it into your final work.)
STEP 2: Define Your Reader and Relevance
Now that you’ve identified your topic, pull together copies of each piece of related content. Scan the content and ask yourself: who is my ideal audience? Why is this topic relevant to them? What will they get in reading this information? How is it different and new from what already exists? To take this one step further, envision all this content in its final version (a beautiful book with your name on it) and reflect on what your intended goals / hopes / outcomes are for this book.
STEP 3: Outline Your Table of Contents
Determine where you believe you want your reader to begin and to end. Mark the beginning as A on a piece of paper, and write B on the other side. You’ll fill in the outline of A to B as you read your content again, and this will become your table of contents. Now, this time, you’re not going to just look at content online. Print everything relevant to your topic. Read each piece then set it aside (temporarily). Yes, this may take you some time. You’re mining for the gold here. What are the relevant pieces that really stand out? How do you see these pieces creating an arc of the work? Organize your content based on how to get the reader from point A to B. List the titles of each individual piece in your outline according to how you think they should be ordered.
STEP 4: Investigate Gaps and Goodness
Pinpoint what’s missing and what’s already kicking butt. Read your content from start to finish in the order you outlined. Record what is working (‘goodness’) about what isn’t (‘gaps’). Make a plan for addressing the gaps. This may mean reading it out loud to yourself, taking some time away from the draft, running it through spell check, asking a friend to proofread, etc.
STEP 5: Polish Before Your Publish
Polish your work so it’s crystal clear and shines like a diamond. It’s time to fine-tune things before you publish—no matter what publication route you go. When you’ve finished addressing the gaps, read the full manuscript for clarity, cohesion, and flow. Mark the text where adjustments need to be made. Proofread with an eye for spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc., and review for formatting and styling consistency. Solicit the feedback of others you trust to give you a professional and critical eye, and assess if you achieved your goals.
You have now finished mining a book out of your voluminous mountain of content.
If you need some extra support with these five steps, you can snatch up my free gift, Finding Your Book Inside Your Blog: A Content Master’s Scavenger Hunt & Field Guide to Find the Pieces to Produce Your Book.
Alyssa Berthiaume is a native Vermonter, professional (and creative) writer, practicing feminist, recovering middle child, wannabe superhero, and a mom who’s pretty sure she’s “winging it” most of the time. She’s the leading Lady (Boss) and ghostwriter at The Write Place, Right Time – her virtual boutique of writing services for badass coaches, trainers, and speakers, and other badass entrepreneurs who don't “do words” but know they need them. To know more about how she can “do words” for you, visit her website.
Alyssa Berthiaume– Copywriting, Ghostwriting, Lady Boss and Owner of The Write Place, Right Time
How would you know if it’s the right time for you to start publishing a book? Tune in to this Pod to Publish Book and Audiobook Masterclass and find the answers.(Masterclass on Free Your Brand Podcast, July, 2020)
For many reasons, podcasters are uniquely suited to publish books and audiobooks about topics that are of interest to their existing audiences. Not the least among these is that they already have an audience in place—it’s just a matter of channeling them to another medium. Not every podcaster is cut out for this, however. How would you know if it’s the right time for you to start publishing a book? In this masterclass, Tracy Hazzard is joined by Juliet Clark, the Founder of Super Brand Publishing, who gives tips on writing a book as a podcaster; and Tina Dietz, the CEO of Twin Flames Studios, who follows up with some of the basics of audiobook production and publishing. Each an expert in their own spheres, these powerful women are partnering up on a venture that seeks to put creative power back in the hands of creators. Listen in and let them help you amplify your message even further.
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Watch the episode here:
Listen to the podcast here:
Pod to Publish Book and Audiobook Masterclass for Authors and Podcasters with Juliet Clark And Tina Dietz
I’ve got Tina and Juliet here. Our subject on this episode is Pod to Publish. I want to cover a couple of things first for you. First, why Pod to Publish? Podcasters have a distinct advantage that published authors don’t—speakers and authors have the same problem I’ve come to find over time. We sustain our audience over here. We do week after week. We’re in the ear of our audience and that has a powerful effect. We want to use that to our advantage. That’s the angle of how we’re going to talk about going from Pod to Publish and what you can take from your show to create a wonderful, bestselling book and an audiobook, because there’s a match in our audience there.
When you command your brand and your audience, you get that audience focus and attention week after week. You also see the topics that are of interest, the ones that increase engagement, the ones that are controversial, people are highly interested in and want to learn more about. You can see that because you're supposed to see that and how your episodes are ranking, but you can also see that in the engagement that they’re getting on social after you air them. If we pair that with our website—we’re driving traffic back to our website—we have a distinct advantage over authors and speakers who don’t own their audience.
When you go out there and speak, you’re speaking in front of somebody else’s audience. They own the audience and very few of them share their audience with you. Very few events give you the email list of everybody who’s there. You have to pull, grab and try and get everyone in that audience to connect with you, but that’s not the case on your own show. Your own show, that audience belongs to you or they wouldn’t be subscribed. You still have to get them off of there and that’s why I talk about the website strategy because if we add in our website strategy, we’ve got a place to capture emails to get people.
We've got to get them off of Amazon if we’re already on there as an author. We have a lot more command over that audience connection so we know what to write about. We know what interests people, and we also know how to engage them and get them further through the process. For most of you putting out a book has a business purpose, and that’s what Juliet Clark is going to talk about. Making sure that we write the right book. I’m going to be honest with you: The very first one is completely the wrong book. I followed one of those models, hired one of those companies doing “speak to book.”
It felt all wrong the whole time I was doing it. It felt like totally introspective. It felt like all it was about me. I was like, “Is this what people want to read about? Are they going to be interested in this?” The questions were going through my mind the whole time that we were doing it, the whole time that we were recording this book. Plus, I didn’t love the whole record-to-book process because it felt contrived. It didn’t feel like it flowed, it didn’t feel organic for me. It didn’t feel like it was, “let’s explore these different topics and then assemble it together.” That was my process.
It didn’t work for me—I never published that. That has been sitting on my credenza for years. Of course, I didn’t need it, because I had a show and I was given an Inc. column. I was asked to write an Inc. column almost within 6 or 7 months of having my show. I thought, “I should be an author because I have a column. I should go out there. I’m a writer so there should be a connection between my audience who wants to read something—I should have a book.” Hence book number two, which got as far as getting a cover. It’s pretty edited and it has all of the relevant articles. I was starting to hit onto something that was working for me. It has all of the articles that were highly ranked and trafficked within my Inc. articles. There were lots of great connections and things going on here. The problem is that the longer it took me to do this, because of the way the writing happens? There’d be new articles and I felt like the book was constantly out of date.
Instead, I just started a second show on this and that’s how Product Launch Hazzards come about. That was my fast way of doing that, and also because it didn’t have a good business strategy. That was the number one reason I didn’t launch that book. I could have still launched that book, which would have been a great lead generator for audiences to my show, but I didn’t want to run a business. I wasn’t operating a business model that did anything but want to attract audiences. I didn’t want to sell them anything. I didn’t want to do any services. For us, it was an older business model. We were sharing our information to give it away and make sure people had it. That book didn’t make a lot of sense for me to put money into something that didn’t have a business purpose for me at the end of the day when the articles and all the other things were already out there. If it was my primary goal, this would have been the ideal book to write. It just wasn’t for me in terms of business purposes.
I’m onto my third book. This one is on its way to being published. I already paid Juliet for it—we’re on our way to doing that, and it is going to be our book for podcasters—for new and aspiring podcasters, not for existing ones. That’s going to be a whole other book that will come out and that will be the second book that we’re working on. We’re working on that from my show, The Binge Factor. These are the kinds of things—I’ve done it wrong, but lucky for me, I didn’t spend all the money. I stopped when I realized how hard it was going to be to market or that the business plan wasn’t there because I have a bigger view of the marketing programs. Also, the business plans, the things that we want to do, the flow and the lead generation that goes through my business and what’s happening here. I stopped myself before I spent the money to find out that the book did nothing for me and it wasn’t going to do anything for me.
I had great advisors and two of them are here. That’s where we’re going to lead into having Juliet Clark, who is an expert in profitable book launching. She’s a bestselling author herself. She knows what it takes. She advises authors, speakers, and experts who have a business, who want to promote, profit, and publish—which happens to be your podcast name—their book. They want to profit before they publish. They want to make sure they have a platform. They want to make sure they have an audience. She’s the Founder of Super Brand Publishing. She’s going to cover why you should or shouldn’t be a published author.
Following Juliet is going to be Tina Dietz, who is an audiobooks expert. She has a full-service audiobook recording studio called Twin Flames Studios. She’s going to talk about the audiobook opportunity and the match to us as podcasters. I love this. The thing about Juliet and Tina, and the reason they are both here on our Masterclass, is because like us here, we all believe in retaining your rights and doing the things that have a business return on investment. Returning new leads, returning your business, ultimately returning your profits. That’s why I’ve asked them to do a masterclass with you. First up is going to be Juliet. Let’s go on and have you give us your first segment on authors.
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Juliet:
I’m going to talk a little bit about authority books, but I’m going to talk about first, why you need to have authority before you write this book. We’re going to be pulling the curtain back on, are books still relevant? For the most part, a lot of us think they aren’t. What are the big book mistakes we’ve seen and why podcasters are great people to put books together, especially audiobooks. It’s about repurposing content with meaning, and having a plan to monetize all of this.
Books do matter. They are still relevant, but only when they’re done right. The one thing that Tina and I talked and laughed about all the time are all the bad books out there and that’s because people have written them for the wrong reasons. They didn’t have a plan, and they didn’t move forward in a way that was profitable for anybody. The first question you need to ask is, “to book or not to book?” This is where I proved to you that I’m the worst salesman on the planet because not everyone should write a book. We don’t take every book that’s brought to us.
There has to be a plan and a reason behind it, and I’m going to talk about some of those things we see that are reasons to not write a book because I want you to identify yourself in this. One of the things that happened for me on my journey to book writing— for those of you who don’t know, I wrote my first book in 2010, it was a mystery novel. I killed my ex-husband in it. I was going through a divorce. It was not only a fun and cathartic experience, but it was also the wakeup call—I had been in traditional publishing—to how bad the self-publishing model was, and how they were ripping people off. Those types of companies will take your book no questions asked, but that’s not always a good thing. Here are some of the things we’ve seen throughout the years of self-publishing.
We’ve seen a lot of life stories and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but for most of you, your life is not exciting enough to write a life story. You want to leave a legacy book for your family—that’s fantastic—but most of you, it’s just not worthy. Poorly written books—there are a lot of people out there that we have encountered that have not written great books. Not just grammar and all of those types of things, but the way the book is structured, it doesn’t make sense, it ends up being what I call a “barfa book.”
Some of the big mistakes we’ve seen throughout the years are experts who were writing books to make themselves experts. These are people who went to a business “ra-ra,” they indicated that they were online, marketers, their products and services weren’t selling and the guru in the room saw a moneymaking opportunity and said, “You need a book. You need to be the person that wrote a book on this topic.” That book, if you don’t have an author platform built—that meaning an audience—it’s going to be another failed product. We’ve seen a lot of that going on out there, and just writing it doesn’t make you an expert.
Another one we’ve seen a lot of is what I call the Life Story, but it’s people who wanted to talk about their journey, and instead of talking about their journey, they put out a “barfa book.” It wasn’t interesting. It had things in there that were too much information. Especially if you have a business, you don’t want people to know every little thing about you. These didn’t sell either. They were poorly written, and it wasn’t enough substance about the expert, and it was too much about the individual who was writing the book. I always call these “big ego books” too.
The other mistake we saw was: no structure, focus, or professional input. You started writing a book on your own one day and the structure was not where it should be. You didn’t have endorsements. You didn’t have an intro written by somebody who could help you sell the book. We see a lot of that. Probably the biggest mistake I see is someone who comes in with a book and when I ask who edited it, they’ll say, “My Aunt Peggy is an English teacher.” That’s not a professional editor. If you want to bust out in a professional way, your book has to look like a book that a traditional publisher would have taken on. Another big mistake is experts that are in search of an audience. Anytime you have a product, service, or book where you wrote it without feedback from your audience, you’re going to fail with that product. That’s what’s happened with a lot of these experts that are in search of an audience. You need to have that audience first.
I know all of you are podcasters—you’ve already done that. That’s what makes you an excellent prospect for this, because you have a built-in audience. Another big mistake is people who write books too soon. If your business is brand new or you haven’t monetized yet, it's too soon to write a book. That’s the perfect kind of book that we like to send on its way.
Back in 2015, I had a woman who came to us, who wrote a book. She worked with our writing coach on a “six figures to six months” book. When she got to chapter eight, which was Joint Ventures, she just got stuck. The writing coach came to me and said, “I don’t understand why she stopped.” I picked up the phone and called her and said, “What’s going on with this chapter? I met you at a joint venture event.” She admitted that she had never actually done joint ventures. She was writing this book without tried and true products and services that she had tried herself and been successful with. If you’re not successful with what you’re monetizing yet, it’s too soon to write a book.
The result of all this is that most independent authors will sell less than 100 copies of their book. You’re not going to get the ROI you’re looking for at all. The other result of this has been a lot of publishing on Amazon and if you only knew what the backside of Amazon provided you, you wouldn’t spend the $200 to do it. Amazon does not have true publishing services that are legitimate in the worldwide distribution or worldwide royalty capture. There’s a lot going on back there that because you don’t know what you’re doing as a first time or second-time author, you don’t understand what you’re getting into. The result is also what I like to call The Invisible Author. You write the book, you get it out there and guess what? People still don’t know who you are because you didn’t build that audience in advance. Why is this such a great platform for podcasters? First of all, you’re experts. You have episodes out there. You’re talking about what you do. Most of you have this monetized in some way. Your show is not your only monetization point. You have multiple streams of income through your company you are in a perfect position to drive traffic from your podcast into the book, and into other products and services.
Also, because you’re bingeable. It’s easy to take a thematic group of episodes and make them into a book that’ll be bingeable. Sometimes people don’t have the time to listen to every single podcast on a particular topic, but you can group a topic together and make it into a how-to guide. You can make it into an informational piece about, to give you an example, Seven Ways To Capture Expert And Expert Audience. You can put this all together in a thematic book that is helpful. Because you have the audience you need, you’ve already built what I would call an author platform through your expert podcasting. This also is because you have content. If you’re like me, I’m about to hit my 100th episode. I have more content than I ever envisioned I would have in my life. I can write a ton of books and be happy about it. You also have the credibility at this point. People already are listening. They understand that you are the go-to person in the area that they’re looking for help in. Also, you can create, easily, a thematic help book.
Another thing that a lot of people don’t think about is the learning styles. There are three different kinds of learning styles out there. The visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. With your podcast, you have the auditory covered and for most of you, if you’re using the Hazzards, you have your YouTube channel, you have the video. There are people who learn and enjoy content kinesthetically. The book provides that for people. They like to hold the book in their hands. I hear all the time that many people don’t look at it. They don’t use Kindle because they liked the feel of the pages and the book and Tracy’s one of those. She tells me that all the time because I tell her to do more Kindle and audio. You can reach a little bit different audience with that actual physical book.
This also adds to your brand. You’re bringing brand awareness. You’re expanding the awareness of your brand, not only from the show, but a lot of times we will use the free book funnels in conjunction with our book products. That brings you into a place where you can communicate with your actual audience that wants that book. You can send out the free book, you can upgrade them or have them pay for an additional product or service to get to know you a little bit better. If you have big programs like I do, sometimes people don’t know you, like you and trust you enough to take that big bite right off the bat. You’re able to give them small pieces that build trust. Also, clarity about what you teach. I know when we have 100 episodes or I know some of you out there I’m seeing some people that are on here, some of you have 500, 600 episodes.
Narrowing that down into those thematic books about what you teach, and driving your audience into a thematic workshop—also, why books? Books are a low-barrier product to get into your funnels. When you go out and you have a $20 book, that’s a low barrier product that people can hold in their hand and they can understand who you are and what you do. It doesn’t cost $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 to buy a book and find out more about you. The free shipping book funnels that lead into workshops, that lead into those bigger products you sell. This is the way to do it and have a direct connection with your audience. You not only have their email address, but they’ve been willing to pull out a credit card and buy something. That’s always a good sign.
I’m going to segue into what Tina’s doing here. Why audiobooks? Audiobooks have become the top way that people consume books. We are in a busy world. I know myself, I use audiobooks when I’m out running and I’m an avid runner. I consume easily 10 to 15 hours of audiobooks every week, car time as well. Audiobooks are becoming the new way to consume books.
People are used to hearing your voice already, but of course, you need that book to get to the audiobook. They’re more professional. One of the things that happen when you are with a traditional publisher is many of them will automatically sign into an audiobook contract. There are pros and cons with that. One of the cons is that they can choose the talent. When you write a book and you self-publish it and then go on to produce an audiobook, it’s in your own voice that your audience is already used to hearing. When you’re on Audible, people don’t think of you as a self-published author because you’ve taken that extra step to go into a prestige product like the traditional publishers would. Okay! Tina, I’m going to let you go.
Tina:
Let’s dive in a little bit deeper to the audiobook experience. As Tracy mentioned, I’m the CEO of Twin Flame Studios but I’ve been building businesses internationally much longer than I’ve been in the audio world. An opportunity like this excites me to see the different worlds coming together in this entrepreneurial milange that is super exciting. I got into audiobooks and I became a podcaster because books and podcasting are low hanging fruit for people to start to change their lives. That’s what gets me up in the morning and had me deciding to expand my company out in the directions that it did. It’s specifically talking about audiobooks.
The audiobook opportunity is threefold. It is imagination, it is intimacy and it is income. I’d be willing to bet if I turn this back over to Tracy, she would agree with me that podcasting is also very much those three things, and that’s one of the things we have to delve into. How do podcasting and audiobooks fit together as an opportunity while you as podcasters have a much better advantage than somebody starting from scratch?
Let’s do a little history lesson first. There has been an audiobook renaissance. Audiobooks have been around since about 1930. They were produced during the depression on albums and records. I believe the very first audiobook was a series of Christmas stories. They’re a familiar format for people and that is one of the major reasons why they are incredibly popular. If you’re like me, and you remember growing up with audiobooks—maybe you had an album when you were a kid where it was when Tinkerbell rings her little bell, it’s time to turn the page, or maybe you had books on tape. I remember my first one was Deepak Chopra’s Magical Mind, Magical Body and there were fifteen cassette tapes that you had to manage. Later on, there were 5 or 6 CDs that you had to manage. They were always freaking expensive. When audiobooks went digital and in particular, when Audible and Amazon became under the same umbrella, there was a massive explosion.
Back in the day when we first started having the iPod and we could have a thousand songs in your pocket, which was the slogan, then you could have a thousand books in your pocket with the Kindle and now you can have a thousand audiobooks in your pocket with apps like Audible. We have this library that we carry around with us that feeds and nurtures who we are, and we get to be a part of that, feeding and nurturing other people.
What happened in conjunction with audiobooks going digital was that it lowered the production cost. No more jewel cases, no more pressing of tapes or CDs, none of that. With the advent of home studios, that lowered the cost of production even more. Unlike most things on the planet, in the last ten years the cost of producing audiobooks has dropped about 50%. Therefore, it makes it much more accessible for people on the retail side of things to consume audiobooks. It used to be $30 to $50 to buy an audiobook. Now it’s pretty much a flat $12 to $18 to get an audiobook, depending on the length of the book. Sometimes it’s longer.
But it’s available now to everybody. You don’t have to go to a store. You don’t have to have a lot of money to buy and the reach is much bigger. As a result, audiobooks are a $4 billion industry. Year-on-year for the last six years, the audiobook industry has experienced double-digit growth every single year, sometimes as high as up into the 20%, 25%. In one year, it hit 30% growth. Those numbers are outrageous when you think about how businesses tend to grow, 3% to 5% growth for a large industry is more average, not 15% to 25%. However, there is and has been for many years, an issue with the industry. Juliet mentioned the issues with the self-publishing industry. I would say even we take it a step further and say the publishing industry, in general, is a broken model. Taking your rights, taking your royalties for traditional publishing, the predatory practices, self-publishing houses, or experts—all of these things, you have to think about, what is your goal? What’s going to benefit you the most?
Years ago, when I was looking into audio, it was because I’d been building businesses for decades and I’d worked with more than twenty different industries, 9, 10 different countries and at the time I was doing some paid hobby. I’m an entrepreneur. We can’t have a hobby. We have to monetize our hobbies. That’s what we do, and I was voice acting. I was taking some masterclasses by one of the premier audiobook trainers in the world because I was thinking, “It’s a side hustle. This might be cool.” Pat Fraley, who is still teaching and an amazing man, introduced me and the other people in my course, not only to the narration side of audiobooks but to the industry. That all of a sudden created what I call my chocolate and peanut butter moment, which was, “Why aren’t all of the authors I know, all my clients, all of my colleagues, who are doing bestseller campaigns, why not with audiobooks?” That curiosity led me to discover that nobody knew that audiobooks were even an issue and that the audiobook industry was broken. I secret shopped 30 different audiobook publishers, and all of them did the same thing: They took away your control creatively, they made you pay for it, and they controlled your files and your intellectual property at the end. Being a creator myself, I got incredibly offended and said, “We can do this better.” That’s why we started doing what we were doing to make sure that we are advocates for our authors to have a high-quality product, to get out there and do what we need to do to reach a bigger audience.
That brings me to the connection between podcasts and audiobooks. How Tracy and I met was actually, we were both shared some similar podcasting stages. She has Podfest and some other ones; I speak to a podcast audience as well and I’m a podcaster myself. I love the medium and I love the pairing of podcasts and audiobooks together—because you’re already recording. You already have an audio setup. You already clearly, at least in some form or fashion, can handle the sound of your own voice—which a lot of people can’t—and you are in a situation where you’re producing regular content as Tracy and Juliet mentioned. Now what? There’s the opportunity to get out there and create upon your creation.
You create the book from your podcast and then you create the audiobook from your book and this is what we call media matching from marketing. People who listen to podcast are more likely to be audiobook listeners because they’re already audio learners. They already have a leaning in that direction. They like audio and it becomes very fluid and interesting to be able to medium match and be able to market your audiobook, which we’re going to talk about on your show. Market your podcast through your audiobook and use both your audiobook and your podcast as assets to gain you more loyal followers, more leads, get your voice out to a bigger audience. When we create an audiobook, the other beautiful thing about it is that all of your formats on Amazon, in particular, show up on the same page. When you go to Amazon and you go to your book page, you can see the Kindle version, the paperback, the hardcover, and the audio version and this creates what I like to call “might-as-well-itis.”
A lot of times what we find is that people will download the Kindle, particularly if you’re running a free Kindle campaign or a 99¢ campaign. They’ll see the audiobook version and they’ll say, “I have Audible credits. I want to download that book as my first book on Audible.” Why not? Might as well. They get both versions of the book. Your audiobook is never going to hurt your sales on your other versions of your book. It’s always going to be on top of it. Particularly with nonfiction books, what we find is that folks want to have either a Kindle version or a hard copy to make notes. To get the book done, to read it all the way through, they listen to the audio because audio, as podcasters is the most portable, easy to access form of media. That’s why we do it. We can reach more people. Dovetailing your audiobook marketing with podcasting, and this gets very exciting. When you create an audiobook, you create what’s called a Five-Minute Retail Sample. That five-minute retail sample is a little a taster of your audiobook. You can use up to fifteen minutes of your audiobook in your marketing. Fifteen minutes of audio is a pretty long chunk of time. Guess how many different ways you can slice and dice that audio? You can turn it into a video book trailer. You can turn it into audiograms, and you may already be using audiograms as a podcaster.
They're those little video snippets that you can share on social media that are closed captioned. Maybe they have a little sound wave on them. It entices people who are on the video side of things who are just looking for a little snippet of information, “Maybe I need to go listen to more of that.” You can pair the marketing you’re already hopefully doing with your podcast, with your audiobook, to share on social media. Audiobooks also come with two lovely features when you publish them, and these are bounties and gift codes. When you publish through Audible’s self-publishing platform called ACX, you will get 100 gift codes. They give them to you in batches of about 20, 25 at a time. You can use those to promote your audiobook. You can use them as giveaways. You can print them onto a postcard and sell them as upgrades to your physical book if you’re in a live event.
You can also use them to give to trusted colleagues and friends, or clients to give yourself—as review copies. You don’t get galley copies of your audiobook necessarily, but you can give away gift codes for your audiobook that will allow people to leave you reviews on Audible. Because unlike on Amazon, in order to leave a review for Audible, you have to have that specific audiobook in your audiobook library. If you want to gain additional reviews—which of course reviews are always great—you can use the gift codes to help you do that, and you get a hundred of those. It’s a lot to work with.
The other program that Audible has is called the Bounty Program. This is a bonus for you finding Audible a new customer. How this works is that you get special URLs for the US, the UK, France, and Germany. You use those URLs to share your audiobook. Post them in your newsletters, send it out in emails, use it in social media. If that person downloads your book as the first book that they do on Audible, they’re a new audible customer.
They’ll get your audiobook for free. However, if they stay an audiobook customer with Audible for two months, then Audible rewards you for your sacrifice on your royalties by giving you $75 for finding them a new customer and that, of course, is way more than you’d get on the royalty of a book. I know authors who push those bounty codes on the chance that people are not yet an Audible customer because they’re out there even though it’s a popular format. That is a little bit about bounties, gift codes and audiobook marketing in general and how that’s going to dovetail with your podcast.
What do we do at Twin Flames? We are advocates for our authors. We want to make this easy for you, because the definition of an entrepreneur or somebody who podcasts for business, is somebody who won’t work 40 hours for somebody else, but you’ll work 80 hours a week for yourself. I know that—I’m the same way. What we all need are people who are going to take good care of us, the way we want to take care of other people. That’s why I’m partnering with Tracy and Juliet because we are all likeminded in how we work with the people that we make a difference with. We are here to care and advocate for people and create quality so that your message can get out into the world in a way that’s powerful in multiple ways. We need to be reaching more people to make this world a better place and make a great living doing it at the same time. It’s doing well, and doing good.
We don’t take your royalties and rights. You retain creative control and we make sure that your audiobook is both a marketing asset and an income stream for you. It needs to be both of these things, and much like Juliet mentioned before, we don’t take all the books that come to us. Some of them simply aren’t going to work. We also don’t let everybody narrate their own book because narrating an audiobook is not the same thing as recording a podcast. I will say that there is a 95% chance that because you’re an experienced podcaster and you’ve got some audio setup already going in, and you already have been working with your voice, you will be able to narrate your own audiobook, but we will let you know if it’s not feasible for you to do that and work another way through it.
A lot of our authors do narrate their own audiobooks, but a number of them don’t and they opt for other reasons to have a professional narrator do their audiobook. If you’re curious about that, please reach out and I’ll explain to you the process and the difference. For most podcasters, narrating your own audiobook isn’t an option. It is different than recording your podcast. I would never narrate an audiobook speaking this quickly. I would never use the type of breathing that I’m using and I certainly wouldn’t have my audio set up this way. It is a different animal and it is a different form and feel. This is why we do it the way we do it. We offer our author narrators the option of not having to go into a studio, not having to learn any technology or equipment. What we do is we have professional audiobook directors who are narrators and sound engineers themselves and we remote into your audio setup.
We make sure that your audio is perfect for audiobooks and then we live-direct and record you doing your book. You don’t have to hit a button except to get on the recording. You don’t have to worry about editing, stopping, or starting. You don’t have to worry about, do you sound okay? Are you breathing? Are you making any mistakes? We fully live direct you and record through the entire process, and if any of you out there are familiar with any kind of voice acting—we do what’s called punch and roll recording, which is the industry standard for recording an audiobook. This ensures that your audiobook does not sound like somebody who just sat down and read their book into a microphone. It’s going to be high quality audio. It’s going to be performance quality, and then we can make sure that it’s edited, proofed, mastered—perfect—before anything goes to publishing and distribution.
There are a tremendous number of technical details that go into an audiobook that you’ve got a lot more wiggle room with podcasting than you do with audiobooks. You get to tick off all of those particular details. If you want your audiobook to pass the quality control process to get onto Audible or other platforms. We make sure that all of that gets handled for you and you have all the information you need to maximize your audiobook experience and your audiobook as a process—as an asset—for everything that you do. I am super excited about this entire program that we’re all doing together. I’m going to bring Tracy back in and she can share with you and we can all talk together and make sure that we have enough time to go through our Q&A together.
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Thanks much, Tina and Juliet. I appreciate you guys coming and sharing with us. What I want to do is just wrap up with a little thought on how you might structure this. Now that you’re thinking, “This audiobook thing sounds pretty cool. I could write the right book. I have some ideas. I’m getting some traction with my podcast already. I’ve got some great guest interviews, great people who would be associated with my book if I had stories about them.” As you’re starting to think about that, what does that book look like? What does that audiobook sound like? As you’re starting to think about this, I’ve got a couple of strategies I’m going to throw out to you, just for you to think about and see if this might be something that would interest you.
Let’s say you have a show that has a lot of guest interviews. It’s similar to the model I did with my Inc. articles. I was writing out great brands, great companies, great entrepreneurs and I’ve got all that going. I do the same thing on my show. If I’ve got a lot of great guest interviews—or that’s the only thing that I have in my show—it doesn’t make for the best book. Juliet will tell you that because there’s a lot of those out there where it’s like all the different chapters in that and all the different things are all these different stories from all the different people. It does help promote and market the book, because you’ve got all these people who are willing to share your book because they’re featured in it. It’s a great strategy from a marketing and outreach standpoint, like the same thing that you do on your show, where you invite these great guests on, and then they share your show because they were on it. You want the same thing to go on with your book. However, what we found over time is that we want to frame it just like we like you to frame your guest interviews and we likd you to frame your show with some content that’s about what you’re teaching, what your business is about. Giving it context and giving it transition. That’s always a good idea.
Here are a couple of ideas of things that we’ve helped build for people we’ve done for ourselves and we worked through these processes and we know that they turn out great books that are easy to read, but well-written in the same process because they are structured.
One of the things you can do is frame all of the interviews by theme. Let’s say you have different themes that you talk about. Maybe you’re doing health and wellness and you have a fitness theme, a food theme, and you want to frame them by themes so you could organize the best interviews that you’ve done based on those themes. You could also do it based on topics. I have a show that is the Five Things That Make You Bingeable, it’s on The Binge Factor. We talk about those five things and it’s one is get great guests. The other thing is, it increases your audiences, produce professionally. If I could take each one of those and create sections of some of the best tips, the best stories, the best information out based on those topics and subjects where I know those five topics are already of great interest because we receive a lot of engagement back and people are very interested in that already. I know that those topics are playing on my show, to begin with.
The other processes similar to what I did with Product Launch Hazzards: I have a seven-step process for how we design and develop products. What I did was I grouped and did my seven-step process and then built the stories that reinforced some great practices in each one of the different steps. Sometimes you don’t have those seven steps outlined out or on their own, or you just mention it casually on some shows—you may not need to go back in and fill in the gaps. When I’ve got all these great guest interviews and I’ve got some of the topics but I don’t have all of them, you may need to go back and rerecord or record some new ones and fill in the gaps of those. From there, I like to use a ghostwriter. That’s my personal viewpoint on how to do it—someone who’s more suited to writing in a style that is best for a book. I think I’m more suited to that casual online writing model, so I like to use someone to help me. While I record it, all of it is in my voice, I like to have someone write that concise chapter, that transition, that set up for the section of all the interviews.
You might want to write it yourself, but at least you’ve got the audio that you recorded in the transcript to start from. You can start from there. That’s one of the ways that you can go about doing it. You can do transitional intros to each of the guest interviews that you’ve done. You do new introductions, not the ones that were originally on your podcast, but you’re transitioning from one story to the next or one interview to the next.
My next recommendation to you is heavily edit it. No one wants to read your entire transcript, or the entire thing of your interview with the guests. They want the best three questions and answers. Heavily edit those interview sections down to the heart and the meat of it. Also, make sure you do a proper introduction for the person. You’ve got a proper bio going on there and all of that. Make sure that that’s in there. These are some strategies and some thoughts.
If you’re at the stage where you’re thinking about strategically, “How do I want to write a book?” I want you to contact Juliet first and I want you to have Juliet walk you through and talk to you about what this book looks like, from your podcast—how you might structure it. Is your podcast ready yet? Is it too soon? If you already have a book that doesn’t have an audiobook yet, I want you to go first to Tina. If you are sitting back going, “I wish I restructured my show. I wish I recorded my podcast with this in mind,” you can talk to Juliet, but you can also book a call with Tom at Podetize. He’d be happy to help you coach you through how you might restructure your show so you can prep it for doing a great book model in the future.
Irene says, “I have a book but no podcast yet in the works. I do need to put it in as an audiobook.” The $4 billion industry is just calling to all of us podcasters here. On Facebook, we’ve got Dorsey and she says, “I’ve coauthored three books and want to do my own.” Dorsey, it’s time. Do your own thing. It’s time for you. Ladies, I thank you much for bringing much great information on. I appreciate that. Another question is, “Juliet, what did you mean by paying $200 for Amazon publishing? I have a Kindle and paperback and did not pay anything.”
Juliet:
I don’t think you have to pay now, but you used to have to pay for that paperback to upload it. There are some problems with Kindle but the actual paperback publishing with Amazon has a lot of drawbacks, and I don’t know if you noticed, if you went for international royalties, you lost a chunk and there was no reason for you to lose a chunk of it. There are a lot of things that happen with Amazon that don’t truly make it a legitimate publishing company. The self-publishing and the hybrid and the others out there.
Barrett Matthew says, “What type of podcasts that should not be books?” I think the ones that are a little bit infomercially, those books aren’t doing well. If your podcast is infomercially, it’s not teaching something, it’s not educating in some way, or the interviews are like, phone in the same thing again and again. If you’re doing interviews where you ask the same five questions every time, and they’re the same thing over and over again and they’re too generic. When I do my five questions on how you get great audience increases, how you get great guests and increased audiences, it’s a tiny segment in my show. The rest of the show we’re exploring, what makes their show bingeable? Why they started it? There’s still story there and people still want story. They want something interesting in their books. That’s the kind that don’t lend itself well. Juliet and Tina, your thoughts?
Tina:
We’re wired for stories and what we want is stories. When I was the lead interviewer for a documentary called The Messengers, which was about independent podcasting, I interviewed about 40 different podcasters—all different topics. None of them knew each other for the most part, and what came up in every single interview was the word intimacy. Podcasting provides tremendous intimacy and building your book, your platform, and your audiobook on the back of intimacy is always going to serve you better. We create intimacy through the human experience and that is where we share stories.
Thank you so much for making that clear, Tina, and I think when you’re speaking, it’s even more important to be in that storytelling mode. That’s where the audiobooks can come in handy to have that. If you’re doing where you do wrap in some of these interviews in there, you’re likely not to use the audio from your original interview. You’re going to use some like a supplement. They’re going to be the supplementary chapter. It will be you speaking the audiobook throughout the whole thing. If you’re narrating it or you’re a narrator, and those things will become the supplementary and they’ll go to the whole podcast. Where your book when it’s written out, it has a question, answer and it’s in a different style. The audiobook will be structured differently. Keep that in mind and that’s where you’re going to have to have some good storytelling, good transition, and good information in there, or it’s not going to be worth it to pull it all the way through that process as well.
Paul mentions, “No audience.” Here’s the thing. That’s a very common thing with authors—a lot of times they don’t have an audience. That’s the number one thing that Juliet highlighted at the beginning. They’re going to publish a book thinking it’s going to drive an audience. It doesn’t work like that. There are cases where your guests are your audience. We had that happen very frequently where many of our clients have a guesting strategy, which is that they don’t care how many audiences they have. It’s about making those guests feel important, making them feel highlighted, making them feel special in the process. In doing that through a book and through all of that, you’re creating a richer authority value for them. While it’s an expense for you, it’s in building up those guests as important to you and bringing them out to the world.
It’s not necessarily going to drive more listens to your audiobook, more traffic to downloading the book on Amazon or wherever you might be selling it. That can be a strategy. Don’t worry about that. That’s one where you want to talk to Juliet and let’s make sure though you have a good book at the end of the day so it doesn’t feel like an embarrassment to put it out. Especially if its purpose is to drive an authority. Paul, if you don’t have a podcast yet, maybe this is time to think about one. Think about how you want to write your book and then structure a podcast so it supports it too. It always can go strategically every way.
Melanie Parish says, “I have a book, no audiobook yet. I used a hybrid publisher who told me audiobooks are expensive to produce.” I think you should have a chat with Tina because that may not be the case. You’d be surprised at the return on investment for that.
Tina:
I spent a surprising amount of time educating publishers on audiobooks. It’s just not in their expertise, It’s not in your wheelhouse. Juliet knows more about publishing than I will ever know. I like it that way. I like getting into the weeds and being a deep expert in one area and then having colleagues that I can share back and forth with because your brain explodes after a while. Before you believe anything a publisher or anybody else in the book industry tells you about audiobooks, confirm that bias in the actual audiobook industry. I can promise you, they’ve had one, maybe two experiences, and they don’t know the actual industry.
This is true that many of those publishers and whatever their model is, whether it’s a hybrid or a traditional publisher, all that they know is their own model of how they operate. They don’t have a broad industry experience in it. That’s where someone like Juliet and Tina who seek people who come from all different publishers and who come from all different models of book creation, programs and other things out there. They have a broader view on what’s working and what’s not working.
Juliet:
I took on a client who’s publishing with a hybrid because she wants to get her book into institutions. The publisher she’s using doesn’t use the free shipping model. There are a lot of things that a hybrid publisher is not great at. They’re good at getting things in bookstores, the shelf life is three weeks. That’s a tough one too. They’re good in some particular areas, but not great in other ones. If you’re an entrepreneur, you need to explore some other avenues. The great part about hybrid is that most of the time you own your own rights with it; you’re free to go to someone else to do the audiobook. You’re free to do the free book funnel as well.
Anytime if you have any questions, Melanie Parish is asking you to reach out to her, Tina, and I’ll connect the two of you on Facebook you can make sure that that happens. Juliet, I connected you up with Dorsey on Facebook, you guys should be connecting there. Also I wanted to remind you, Juliet and Tina have a podcast. You can also follow because you’ll learn a lot from us talking about these things and how people are utilizing them and what’s working successfully for authors, what’s working successfully for entrepreneurs—so you’ll be able to catch and follow us there in case you’re just not ready yet, this is a little thought in the back of your mind.
We invite you to connect up with all of us and find out more and decide if this is right for you. One of the things and the reasons why I partnered up with Juliet and Tina to bring them here to you is because I know they won’t take someone who’s not ready yet and that’s an important thing for us. They will turn away people before they will sell them when you’re not ready yet.
We don’t have a fully formalized offer here. There is nothing because we know it might not be right for all of you and there may be only portions that are right, like doing just the audiobook with Tina or taking a pre-strategy session with Juliet. Making this occur over your podcast over time. We want to give you an open-ended opportunity to be able to discuss what this looks like for you. Reach out to any one of the three of us. Thank you for joining us. It will also be posted in the Podetize resource area. We’re getting a brand-new dashboard. You can go to Podetize.com/masterclasses, and you’ll be able to access all of them at any given time. You’ll be getting an email reminder on all of that for those of you who are looking for the past episodes. That’s also another place in which you can find them at any given time. You’re like, “I can’t find it on Facebook. It was months ago, but now I’m ready.” Thank you all.
Hi. I’m Juliet Dillon Clark, Founder of Super Brand Publishing.
Over the years I brought my expertise to corporate clients like Mattel, Nissan, Price Stern Sloan Publishing, and HP Books. While I enjoyed the work, and was good at it, I felt like something was missing. I realized that what I really wanted to be doing was helping individuals, not corporations, further their success and find fulfillment.
Since then, I have helped more than 600 entrepreneurs and authors share their work with the world and have published more than 60 books, turning more than 190 authors/entrepreneurs into best-selling experts! Let’s cut through the clutter and get your message across so that you can cultivate your fan base, increase sales, and reach a level of success beyond what you thought possible.
About Tina Dietz
Tina Dietz is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and influence marketing expert who has been featured on media outlets including ABC, Inc.com, Huffington Post and Forbes. Tina’s first podcast, The StartSomething Show, was named by INC magazine as one of the top 35 podcasts for entrepreneurs.
In 2016, Tina was the recipient of the Evolutionary Business Council MORE award and in 2017 she received the award for Outstanding Audio Company from The Winner’s Circle. She is also a member of the EBC leadership body and a founding member of the Forbes Coaches Council. Tina was also the lead interviewer in the podcasting documentary “The Messengers” and featured in the film.
Tina splits her time between the US and Costa Rica where she’s part of the leadership team building a community of conscious leaders called Vista Mundo.
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You might have a book inside you, waiting to be written, yet lack the time, desire or discipline to sit down and put pen to page. Dana Micheli explains that’s where a ghostwriter comes in.
There is a saying that everyone has at least one book in them; however, not everyone has the time, desire or discipline to sit down and write it. That’s where a ghostwriter comes in. Here are some tips for finding the right person to get that story out of your head and onto the page.
As with any investment, you want to engage in some due diligence before beginning your search for a ghostwriter. Research the average length of the sort of book you want to write, typical ghostwriting rates, and what is included (for example, additional research or a book proposal). You should learn enough to prepare a list of questions before meeting with someone to discuss your project.
Choosing a writer
Ghostwriting is a highly collaborative process, one that requires trust and compatibility. You’ll likely be providing this person with deeply personal or proprietary information, so you want to make sure you have a rapport with them. Healthy communication is key. You always have final say over what goes into your book and what’s “off the record”; this means that while a good ghostwriter will offer you their opinion, they should never push you into including something you’re not comfortable with. Also keep in mind that some details may be problematic from a legal standpoint. A ghostwriter is not a lawyer and should not be relied upon as such; however, they should be able to point out red flags with regard to certain names or facts and advise you to exclude them, change them, or consult an attorney.
Some things to discuss when interviewing a ghostwriter
What does their process look like? I interview someone at least twice at the beginning so I can get enough information to create the book outline and, more importantly, get a sense of their voice. Once the outline has been finalized, I let the client decide whether they would like to deliver the rest of the content/messaging through interviews, material they have written, or audio files they record on their iPhone when they feel inspired. They must also be available to answer any questions I have about the subject matter, and review the material as I send it. Asking about the process will give you a good idea of your time commitment to the project.
Writing samples and references: While it certainly makes sense to ask for writing samples, it’s important to understand that they may not be on point with your subject matter. This is okay. What you really need to know is whether the person can write in an engaging, intelligent fashion, as well as in different voices and for various audiences.
Does their contract have clear terms? This includes things like confidentiality, copyright ownership, whether they receive credit of authorship (some ghostwriters do and some do not), the payment schedule, and overall timeframe for the project.
The manuscript is complete. Now what?
Actually, I like to have this discussion before the writing begins. Authors have a few different options with regard to publishing – for example, they can self-publish, engage a small publishing house, or seek a literary agent who will pitch the manuscript for them. There are pros and cons to each, and your choice will depend on several factors such as budget and marketing goals. You'll also want to consider different formats such as e-books and audiobooks. You don’t have to have all the answers from the outset, but it is prudent to get all the facts so that by the time the book is finished you have a clear plan on how to get it to market.
It can be challenging to find the right ghostwriter, but the rewards – a highly productive partnership and a top quality book – are well worth it!
Dana Micheli is a ghostwriter, copy editor, book doctor, and owner of Writers In The Sky (WITS). She has written and edited numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including novels, memoirs, and news articles, as well as résumés and business/marketing documents. While she works with a wide variety of genres, she most often takes projects of a spiritual nature, including books by and about mediums, Reiki masters, empaths, lightworkers and starseeds.
Before pursuing her writing career full-time, Dana worked as a Systems Advocate for the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, where she lobbied state and federal politicians on behalf of victims of abuse. She also served as the Manager of PR/Communications for The New York Women's Foundation, where she was responsible for writing press releases and articles for the website, organizing events, and liaising with the media. In addition, she has worked for several media outlets, writing and researching legal, political and human interest stories for print, online and television. In late 2010, she began working for WITS founder Yvonne Perry.
Dana has a B.A. in English from Southern Connecticut State University and a Juris Doctor from New York Law School. She lives in New York City.
Dana Micheli– Ghostwriter, Copy Editor, Book Doctor, and Owner of Writers In The Sky
We are ready to help you through the audiobook process
Wondering how to safely promote your book? Simple! Do a virtual book tour. Check out this article where Jackie Lapin shows you how to launch yours
If you are an author or leader with a mission or message, then the pandemic may have actually handed you an unexpectedly positive gift!
While the number of podcasts has been growing exponentially all on its own (now reaching more than 1 million), the number of listeners for podcasts AND radio shows during this shelter-at-home period has skyrocketed.
Even when people begin returning to work, many will still maintain their new “podcast habits” because of their allegiance to new hosts and the vital information they offer. A whole new world has opened up for the listener.
Now, couple that with a figure I just saw that book sales are up 777% since the shut-in began!
While this is a misfortune for so many, for the book marketer it is a perfect storm. And you can stay home and be safe, while still reaching millions of ears.
Virtual Book Tours are supplanting the old notion of a physical in-person book tour…and with the fact that fewer and fewer people are actually buying in brick-and-mortar bookstores, a radio/podcast tour is an ideal opportunity to reach people not only across state lines, but internationally as well.
A Virtual Book Tour is best launched once your book is available for readers to purchase online, and podcast and radio hosts can be sent a physical copy of the book. Believe it or not, in this era of everything digital, show hosts want a real, old fashioned book to read. They don’t want to read it online or on a digital device.
This isn’t a good strategy for pre-orders, as hosts can get annoyed if their listeners are stuck waiting a month or two to get the book they ordered during or after the show.
But that doesn’t mean you should wait till the last minute to execute. You need to be planning well in advance, selecting the dates you want to be on the air, and then reverse engineer. Figure that if you want the hosts to read the book before interviewing you, you must allow one week for the book to arrive in the mail (preferably using the lower cost “media mail”) and then allow the host two weeks to read the book. So start soliciting the hosts at least a month or so before you want to be doing the interviews.
Now many hosts will be booking for months ahead, as they have already filled up the interviews closer in time. Assume that your interviews can be scattered out as far as five months in advance—which actually gives you plenty of time to work them into your schedule without being overwhelmed. Unlike the “old days,” when everything was crammed into the first 90 days because bookstores would start returning books to the publisher if they didn’t see sales movement, today a book campaign is a marathon, not a sprint. And the radio/podcast shows welcome self-published authors, not just the traditionally published. Only national TV shows and the biggest NPR shows will snub self-published authors today.
To get booked on your Virtual Book Tour you should have three things ready to go:
A compelling pitch letter that answers the host’s question of “Why you?”—What are you bringing to the table that is distinctive, helpful, newsworthy or unique?
A comprehensive media kit with a release on the book, your extended bio, a short on-air introduction, the 20 questions you want to be asked (20 because most interviews are now one hour), your website and your social media links
And, if your book is a gateway to other products and services, a free offer that you can also promote on the show that gets people to give you their email. This should have a simple and easy to remember URL. Buy a domain that is memorable to make this easy for folks to remember and for you to deliver.
So don’t lament that the virus crashed your original book tour plans. This is a great opportunity to build momentum without leaving your home. A Virtual Book Tour is a great way to launch a book, revitalize an older book, continue to sell your products using your book as the hook for the interview, or build your movement.
Jackie Lapin is a leader in helping entrepreneurs, authors, practitioners, speakers, leaders and messengers connect with their next followers around the globe. For the past 10 years, her internationally acclaimed Conscious Media Relations has been providing radio/podcast tours and speaking engagements to support leaders and authors. Conscious Media Relations offers authors to 9000 podcasts and radio shows, guaranteeing 30 interviews. Learn more at Conscious Media Relations and Speaker Tunity Cities
Jackie Lapin– founder of Conscious Media Relations, and accomplished Book Marketing Coach to help emerging authors navigate the marketing of their books
Listen to this episode of “Get Your Book Done with Christine Kloser” where I talk about how I use the power of audiobooks to help transformational authors tap into the fastest growing sector in publishing today(Podcast on Get Your Book Done with Christine Kloser, February, 2020)
When an entrepreneurial mindset meets a desire to empower authors by using their voice to share their message, you can reach a lot more people with your message. Listen in to see how Tina Dietz helps transformational authors create audiobooks to tap into the fastest growing sector in publishing today.
In this episode, Christine and Tina discuss:
The incredible rise in audiobook consumption and how to get your message in front of this growing audience.
The “intimacy factor” that only audiobooks can deliver to your listeners and why it has a huge impact.
The key differentiators between audiobook 1) production, 2) publishing and 3) distribution.
Understanding royalties across audiobook publishing platforms.
