The Publishing Profits Podcast Show | Writing | Marketing | Books | eBooks | Audiobooks | Authors | Entrepreneurs

Regina Calcaterra is the New York Times best-selling author of Etched in Sand. It’s a true story memoir about five siblings who survived an unspeakable childhood on Long Island. Why She Wrote a Memoir Regina was inspired to write her own memoir in part because she read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls when it was published in 2005. It was the first memoir Regina had read about someone wrote about a horrible tragedy without being a victim. Etched in Sand is Jeannette’s memoir about growing up in poverty with parents who are mentally ill. It tells the story of how she and her siblings coped and grew up in that environment. Jeannette’s memoir can be difficult to read because of what happens to her and her family. It struck Regina that Jeanette’s memoir was written without pity or victimization. How She Got a Memoir Published Once Regina had the idea to write her memoir it always stayed with her. She decided to take the plunge years later, and she signed up for a workshop put on by The Gotham Writers in New York. She took three classes on how to write a memoir. Over those three classes, she wrote the first four chapters of her book Etched in Sand. During the classes, she bonded with a group of writers who decided to meet every week at whole foods in Manhattan, keep writing and critique each other’s work. Critiquing the writing of her peers and getting critiques from them was the most important part of Regina’s learning process. Regina worked on the first four chapters of her book for years. In July 2011 a friend of hers set up a breakfast for her and three other women at Michael’s, a place in New York City where a lot of people in the world of traditional publishing go to eat. One of the women at that breakfast was Lisa Sharkey, the VP of strategic development for HarperCollins. Another lady at that breakfast was a book agent. During that breakfast, they went around the table and each woman told a little bit of her life story. The book agent told Regina that she wouldn’t be able to sell her story because she didn’t have a platform. The book agent didn’t believe Regina’s story would go anywhere. Lisa Sharkey told Regina to ignore the advice of the book agent. Lisa said that Regina had an important story that needed to be told. They set up a meeting to review Regina’s materials. Regina asked Lisa if it was okay if they meet in September of that year. The weeks from July to September to research the publishing industry and make the best first impression she could. In her research, Regina discovered the book How to Write a Book Proposal: The Insider’s Step-By-Step Guide to Proposals That Get You Published by Jody Rein and Michael Larsen. She read the book and spent two months of writing the best book proposal she could. How to Sell Your Author Platform Regina crafted a book proposal based on Michael Larsen’s book. She spent a lot of time describing her platform in her book proposal. Regina was well known in the New York area, and she’s done a number of cable news shows as a commentator. She really spent a lot of time thinking about every single constituency she could put into her book proposal. To describe your author platform in detail you have to know three things: The different groups of people who might be interested in your book. The size of the different groups of people who might be interested in your book. Why different groups of people might be interested in your book. When you can clearly and concisely describe those three elements, you’ll have a good handle on your platform. Marketing Tip: Find Comparable Books Another area Regina focused on when putting together her book proposal was her comparable books. Traditional publishers want a list of comparable books that did well, and they want to know why your book is going to do as well or better. “There are so many people out there who have a good story they want to write, but it really has to do with the marketability of the book. These are publicly traded companies. They’re responsible to their shareholders. So, if they’re going to put out any money, whether it’s to give you an advance or to have their staff spend time editing this and publishing your book. They want to make sure they get a return on the investment” – Regina Calcaterra Regina sees selling a book to a traditional publisher like being a contestant on Shark Tank. You have to be able to prove the value of the product you want to put on the market. You have to be able to show traditional publishers why they should give you money. After Regina detailed out her platform in her book proposal, she included the four chapters in the book she’d already written and an outline of the rest of the book. Lisa Sharkey was impressed with Regina’s book proposal but she was unable to win over the HarperCollins publishing committee at first. Lisa invited Regina to a meeting at HarperCollins offices to meet with one of their top publicists. When Regina told the publicist her story the publicist began to cry. Armed with an ally, Lisa was able to convince the HarperCollins publishing committee to give Regina a book deal. HarperCollins offered Regina a very tiny advance on her book because she was an unknown quantity in the traditional publishing world. She briefly thought about trying to sell her book to another publisher, but in the end, she decided to stay with the people who believed in her. Lisa Sharkey wanted someone to work with Regina through the editing process. Regina ended up spending most of her advance on her editor because she felt it was an investment in her future. Regina finalized her book deal in April 2012. The book was due to the publisher by October. She worked full time as the chief deputy to the Suffolk County administrator while she was writing her memoir. She only had four chapters written when she signed her publishing deal, and she turned in one chapter a month between April 2012 and September 2012. She ended up getting an extension on turning in her book because of hurricane Sandy. When Etched in Sand was published in 2013, it became a New York Times bestseller three weeks later. It has been featured on a number of national broadcasts including CBS Sunday Morning and Inside Edition. The New York Post, People Magazine, and Newsday have all published articles about the book. High schools and colleges across the United States are using Etched in Sand as part of their curriculum because it has so many messages in it. Regina’s Life: A Story of Survival Regina is one of five siblings. Her mother was a mentally ill woman who dealt with her mental illness by self-medicating with alcohol and drugs. Regina’s mother had five children by five different fathers. None of those men stuck around after the children were born. Regina and her siblings grew up on the fringes of society. Her mother would find the children a place to live and abandon them for weeks at a time. Periodically Regina’s mother would return and register Regina and her siblings for school. That never lasted long because Regina’s mother usually had several warrants out for her arrest, and she was afraid that the police would find her through her children. Regina’s childhood education was divided between public schools and public libraries. Regina and her siblings became very close. They always tried to make where they were living a happy and positive place. They always tried to shield their younger siblings from the harsh reality of their lives and the abuse that was taking place. Regina survived her childhood and chose to do the work necessary to be successful in life. She graduated high school and college and went to law school at night. How Regina Deals with Life’s Challenges One of the benefits of Regina’s childhood is the unique perspective on pain, suffering, and hardship it has given her. She experiences setbacks and heartbreaks like the rest of us, but she never spends more than two days feeling sorry for herself. She always remembers where she came from and how far she’s come. When she was going to college in the 1980s, 2% of the children who grew up in foster care were successfully graduating college. Today 3% of children in foster care go on to graduate college. Regina has always beaten the odds. Regina is a successful lawyer with a good job. She owns a house, and she never goes hungry. Most importantly, she has 12 nieces and nephews who were raised in loving homes by her siblings who also broke the cycle of abuse. How to Break up Negative Cycles and Patterns Throughout her childhood, Regina was being told by adults that she was going to grow up to be a drug and alcohol addicted mother who was in and out of jail. Adults were convinced she was going to repeat the pattern because that’s what children in foster care usually do. Other children were always told to stay away from her because their parents knew she was homeless. The only way to break that kind of negative cycle or any other behavior pattern is to make conscious choices that lead to different results. “The most important message I wanted etched in sand to deliver is a message of perseverance, resilience, and optimism. The overall message is how we can all positively affect the life of a child in need. And that’s why the book is received so well, because people start to think about other kids in their neighborhood that maybe they weren’t paying attention to.” – Regina Calcaterra Even though Regina never had a consistent parent or adult in real life to look out for her and encourage her, she had many positive role models in her life from teachers, to librarians, to parents of friends who invited her into their home. All of those positive role models gave Regina an idea of what her life could be like. That’s why she wanted Etched in Sand to have a positive message for society. She wanted her audience to read it and understand that it is possible to be successful after surviving such a difficult childhood. Etched in Sand gives its audience perspective on their lif

Ricardo Fayet is a cofounder of Reedsy, an online marketplace that connects authors with everything you need to succeed, from free educational courses, to a platform to help you find the best cover artists, book designers, and publishing support. Ricardo and a friend got the idea for Reedsy in business school. They approached developing Reedsy from a reader perspective. The Birth of Reedsy Ricardo and his friend were among the first early adopters of the Kindle device. They began thinking about how the device was changing the publishing industry for publishers and authors. They asked themselves several questions: What does it change for authors and publishers? How does it change how readers read books? Will there be more ebooks produced than paper books? After asking these questions, Ricardo began learning about self-publishing. At first, self-publishing was a fascinating market space. As Ricardo looked into self-publishing more deeply, he realized that there’s a lot that goes into publishing a book beyond simply hitting publish. You have to: Edit the book. Do cover design for the book. Market the book. That’s when Ricardo and his partners decided to create a marketplace for authors who were self-publishing, as well as the people who were leaving traditional publishing companies. When self-publishing started to take off, in the period from 2010 to 2011, a lot of people who had worked for traditional publishers decided to do freelance work instead. They like the freedom and flexibility of working as a freelance provider, and they also like the access to self-published authors. “It’s really a misnomer to call it self-publishing. No one does it by themselves. You have to have cover designers, book designers to do the layout, and usually marketing support and help. So there’s a big team that any self-published author needs to create in order to make a project really successful.” – Tom Corson Knowles How to Create the Best Team to Support Your Book “The most common advice out there is to ask your peers and other authors in your genre. On the one hand, I think it’s great advice, because obviously what worked for one author might work for you. But on the other hand, it depends a lot on your genre, for both cover design and editing. Editing depends a lot on your personality and writing style.” – Ricardo Fayet The most important factor that affects cover design is your genre or category. If you ask authors in your specific genre or category for advice on cover designers, that advice will probably work for you. The most important factor that affects your relationship with your editor is your personality and writing style. Because every writer is different, it’s less likely that one author’s advice about a good editor will translate into a good working experience for another author. When looking for an editor, it’s best to look for an editor who specializes in your genre. On Reedsy, the editors in the marketplace specialize in certain genres. As an editor: It’s simple to specialize in a genre. Simply choose to edit the books you like to read. Once you get some clients and do good work for them, they will recommend you to other authors who write in their genre. Then you can begin to build a portfolio as an editor. As an author: When you’re looking for an editor, reach out to three or four and see how they work. Send them a small sample of your work, about 3,000 words. This allows you to get a feel for the relationship before you commit to working together on the larger project. When you’re looking for a developmental editor, you definitely want someone who specializes in editing your genre. Ricardo recommends asking for a sample feedback letter that they wrote for another author. You can’t really ask them to look at a sample of your work because they need to see the whole book in order to give you good feedback. But by asking for a sample letter, you can get an idea of how they give feedback to authors. Some editors are very blunt. Some editors like to sugarcoat their feedback. By looking at an editor’s sample feedback letter, you can get a sense of the type of feedback you’re likely to receive from that editor, and you can decide whether or not that feedback will help you write a better book. When you hire an editor, it’s all about developing the right kind of relationship. That’s why it is important to reach out to several people, get several quotes, and get an idea of what type of feedback each editor will give you. Reedsy only accepts 3% of the freelancers who apply to be listed in the marketplace. They are very selective about the professionals they choose to offer to authors. Reedsy has never seen any freelancer abuse their access to the creative work of authors. A lot of the freelancers on Reedsy come from traditional publishing. They’re not going to compromise their good working relationship on Reedsy in order to publish some author’s idea under their own name. In many cases, they aren’t even authors themselves. A lot of the best editors on Reedsy make between $10,000 and $15,000 a month. They’re not going to risk their reputation to publish an author’s work themselves. The biggest problem Reedsy has run into as a platform is editors and authors not getting along. That’s why Ricardo recommends that you get several samples from copy editors and a sample feedback letter from a developmental editor. The best way to make sure you’re going to have a good relationship with an editor is to try out numerous applicants until you find a good fit. The editor/author collaboration is a real partnership and you have to make sure your personalities match as much as possible before you agree to working on a larger project together. If you use a freelancing marketplace like Reedsy and you make sure you’re going to have a good personality match with the editor, you’re never going to be unhappy with your results. When an editor quotes you a price on Reedsy, Reedsy will add a 10% service charge to the price. That’s how they make money. So, if an editor quotes you a price of $1,000, your final bill as the client will be $1,100. Of that, $100 will go to Reedsy and the agreed-upon $1,000 will go to the editor. The Hiring Process on Reedsy You can use Reedsy to hire a variety of professionals to help with your manuscript. Hiring an Editor Let’s say you’re hiring a developmental editor through Reedsy. Reedsy is going to give you a form that asks a lot of questions. They’re going to want you to send a sample of your manuscript, as well as describe the characters in your story. They’ll also want to know when you want to publish your book and when you want the editor to get back to you. After the editor receives your submission, they’ll likely have additional questions. Typically, after an editor responds to you, a natural conversation takes place. If, after you send initial information to an editor, that conversation doesn’t take place, you should look for another professional. Communication is always key. If you start a project with a $500 budget and you find a cover designer who says they’ll design you a cover without asking questions, that’s a warning sign. You haven’t said what genre your book is, or whether your cover design is for a print book or an ebook. Those are very basic questions that any good cover designer would ask. There’s a lot of information that freelancers need before giving you a quote for the service. Most likely, you’re not going to think of all the information they need. You should expect to get questions back when you put a project on Reedsy. If you don’t get questions back, you should look for another professional who will give your project the kind of attention it deserves. Hiring a Cover Designer It’s always good when you’re working with a cover designer to send them inspiration. Find two or three covers on Amazon in the genre of your book that you really like. When you send those to the cover designer, that’s going to give them an idea of what appeals to you, and then they’ll most likely begin a conversation with you about the specifics of your cover. Experienced freelancers are going to ask the most questions up front because they know the process, and they know all of the issues that might pop up during their work. So they want to have as many answers for those potential problems as possible before they put in the time and effort to do the project. It’s important that you hire a cover designer who has experience with book cover design, especially if you don’t. If you are an experienced indie author, you can take on an inexperienced cover designer because you’ve been through it before. But if this is your first project, you want someone who knows the ins and outs of cover design. You’ll want someone who: Knows the type of images that will work for your genre cover. Knows the kind of typography that will work for your genre cover. Knows how to lay out your cover so that it looks right. Has experience with the types of problems that can occur when designing a cover. What to Do If the Project Isn’t Working Out the Way You Want When a project starts going wrong, it’s important that you manage the expectations of the freelancer. It’s also important that you be honest and upfront from the very beginning. The biggest problems on Reedsy’s platform happen because authors don’t make freelancers aware that they’re unhappy until very far along in the process. If you’re honest and upfront at the beginning, the freelancer can either adjust direction, or you can part ways without wasting any more of each other’s time. When you’re not honest about a problem at the beginning of the process, it leads to miscommunication, hurt feelings, and bad relationships throughout the entire process. This means a loss of time and money for both you and the freelancer. The longer you wait to let your freelancer know there’s a problem with your project, the more likely it is that you won’t be able to publish your project on time. Whe

Josh is the author of four books, including Writing Without Bullshit. He is frequently quoted in major publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He’s also given keynote speeches at major conferences on television, music, marketing, and technology all over the world. Josh spent his whole life focusing on his two talents, math and writing. He wanted to make good money, so he put most of his emphasis on his math talents. But he was always interested in writing. When he became an analyst at Forrester Research about 20 years ago, he was able to combine his two talents. Then, 10 years ago, he convinced the CEO of Forrester Research to allow him to write a book on social media, Groundswell. Following the success of that book, Josh has defined himself as an author. For the last two and a half years, he has worked with indie authors and corporations on how to communicate clearly and powerfully. Clear Writing Principles After Josh washed out of the PhD program at MIT, he learned some critical skills that helped him become a successful and powerful communicator and writer. Write in the active voice. Avoid the passive voice whenever possible. Write as directly as possible. Use bulleted lists to break up the flow of your copy so that it’s easier to digest. State your arguments clearly. Break up your text with headings and subheadings. Be brief. Josh’s Top Communication Principles “You must treat the reader’s time as more important than your own. That sounds like something everyone would agree with, but every time we write an email, a memo, or a book chapter, people tend to do what’s easiest for them instead of thinking about what’s easiest for the reader.” – Josh Bernoff The #1 thing you can do to improve your writing is to be brief. Don’t spend a lot of time warming up. Just say what you need to say as clearly as possible. Eliminate any duplication. Next, you want to frontload your writing with the things your readers need to know. Often, people will warm up before they get to their point. They write emails with the idea that people will keep reading past the first two paragraphs. That’s not how it works. When you write an email, your subject line and the first two paragraphs you write need to be about what the reader needs to know. People will often give up on reading a longer email. 3 Elements of Toxic Prose 1. The Passive Voice When you write in the passive voice it hides what’s going on from the reader. 2. Weasel Words These are intensifiers and qualifiers that don’t mean anything. Some popular examples that Josh sees appearing everywhere right now include: huge, incredible, and insane. 3. Jargon Using jargon creates writing that only you can understand and no one else can make sense of. If you avoid these toxic prose elements, write as briefly as you can, and frontload your information so people are getting what they need to know at the beginning of your writing, you will communicate far more clearly and powerfully in a world where everyone reads on a screen all the time. How Josh Edits for Clients When Josh works with a client, he helps them organize their thoughts so that they can present them more clearly and usefully. Here’s how: Do an Idea Audit The first thing Josh does is an idea audit. He’ll ask the client to tell him their idea. He’ll usually say something like, “That’s boring,” or “that’s complicated,” or “I don’t understand.” By pushing on the idea like this, you have to explain it more and think more deeply about it. It’s difficult to defend your idea and go deeper, but when you do, you finally get to something that’s big, new and powerful. Something that people will read and take notice of. Once you have the idea right, you can structure the material that comes after that. Make Sure Your Ideas Flow Logically When Josh edits a particular passage for a client, the first thing he’ll do is look at the structure of the chapter that the passage is in. He wants to make sure that he has a clear idea of the beginning, middle, and end of the thought he’s currently reading. Do the ideas flow logically and make sense to readers? Cut Weasel Words and Repeated Ideas After the flow of ideas make sense, the next step is to delete things that don’t matter. People will often take one or two paragraphs to get warmed up to their subject. You’ll often find that the first paragraph of actual content is a perfect way to start your writing. Delete weasel words. Those words don’t matter and they don’t add to the knowledge of the reader. Delete repeated sentences or ideas, too. Make your point clearly the first time and you don’t need to repeat it again and again. The Benefits of Editing The benefits of this type of editing is that it goes beyond the qualitative. You’re not just deleting words—you are making your written communication clear and easy to understand. 3 Qualities of a Good Idea 1. The idea has to be new. You can’t write what other people have written. You’ll come off as a copycat. 2. The idea has to be big. Josh would rather read something huge and sweeping about the future of politics in America than some small piece about the healthcare world. 3. The idea has to be right. Of the three elements, this is the hardest to achieve, because you can’t be absolutely sure an idea is right if you’re tackling a new idea. It’s important to have evidence that supports your new idea so that people can follow your chain of logic. It turns out that the intersection of ideas that are big, new, and right is very hard to come by. These are the questions Josh asks himself as he’s critiquing other people’s ideas: Is it a big idea or small idea? If it’s a small idea, can I make it bigger? Is it a new idea, or is it an idea I’ve heard from countless others? Is the idea right? Is there evidence to support the idea? These elements of a good idea pull in opposite directions. The easiest way to have an idea that is right and has evidence behind it, is to write about something that’s already been discussed. It’s in the intersection of an idea that is big, new, and right where you’re creating an idea that’s interesting enough that people want to read about it. How to Come Up with an Idea “Great research or creativity consists of noticing the obvious before anyone else.” – Unknown The secret to coming up with a good idea is looking at what everyone else has looked at, and seeing what no one else has seen. The interesting thing about that is you can’t do that sitting in your room, looking at the internet. Let’s say you read something and it sparks an idea. You need to put that idea out into the world and see if anyone else has had that idea before. You need to seek out people who will disagree with you, so you can test your idea, and find evidence to deal with their objections. In the internet age, you have many channels where you can put your ideas out into the world for other people to scrutinize. “One of the great misconceptions people have is if you have a great idea, you should hide it so no one will steal it. No. The best thing you can do is get it out there, so you can test and modify it so it resonates with the largest number of people possible.” – Josh Bernoff Why Share Your Ideas? There are two major pitfalls to hiding your ideas for too long. When you finally publish your idea in the marketplace, you’ll find that many people disagree with you and that your idea is fundamentally flawed. Often, people think they need to hide their idea way too long, and someone else publishes the idea before them. For every idea, there comes a moment where people are ready to hear it. If you’re coming to a conclusion, chances are someone else is coming to the same conclusion at around the same time. You need to get your idea out there in a timely fashion, so people know it’s your idea. How to Deal with Fear Back in 1995, Josh was given an assignment by his manager at Forrester Research to write a report about how content creators were going to make money on the internet. After interviewing a number of thought leaders about the internet, Josh came to the conclusion that content was going to be supported by advertising or subscriptions. His editor challenged him to pick one of those two revenue models and write a report on it. Josh wasn’t quite sure which model was going to win out, but he chose one and wrote the report. “If you say something you’re worried about timidly and with a lot of qualifications, or if you state it boldly and clearly, the penalty for being wrong is exactly the same. So you might as well state it boldly and clearly, because if you’re wrong, you’re going to be wrong.” – Josh Bernoff The way to put fear aside is to ask yourself, “What do I believe?” Write what you believe to be true clearly and powerfully, and don’t let the fear of being wrong prevent you from using your voice. One of the interesting things that happened when Josh wrote his article in 1995 was that a lot of people disagreed with him. His first instinct was to apologize to them. Their response wasn’t what he expected. They told him they appreciated his argument and how he challenged their thinking. They told him they’d be watching to see if he ended up being right or not. “In the society we have now, people don’t do enough of actually looking at the arguments of people who disagree with them and saying, ‘Ah well, I’m going to have to keep an eye on that, even if I don’t actually agree with what the person said.’”  – Josh Bernoff State Your Conclusion First This is the easiest way to improve the power and clarity of your writing, and it flies in the face of what we have been taught in school. In grade school, middle school, and high school, we are taught to develop arguments first, and state conclusions at the end of our essays. When you’re writing a blog post, or an article for the internet, the best thing to do is state your conclusions, and then follow it up with evidence. Josh writes a blog post every day. He always puts the point of

If you’ve ever been to a theme park like Disney World, chances are you’ve seen Steve Alcorn’s work. Steve is the CEO of Alcorn McBride, a company that designs products used in nearly all the world’s theme parks. He’s also the author of many books. He’s written historical fiction, romance, and young adult novels. He’s also written several nonfiction books, including, Build a Better Mouse, Theme Park Design, and How to Fix Your Novel. Steve fell into the field of theme park engineering because his wife always wanted to be a Disney Imagineer. Steve and his wife were in engineering school together, and when she graduated, she applied for exactly one job and got it. She became a Disney Imagineer and began working on the preliminary designs for Epcot Center. When it became clear that she was going to be in Florida for quite some time working on the installation of Epcot Center, Steve followed her into that industry and worked on the American Adventure at Epcot. After he was done working on American Adventure, Steve started a company that makes the types of things he wished he had when designing American Adventure. When he was working on that attraction, Steve and his team had to design everything from scratch. Alcorn and McBride makes products that theme parks can buy off the shelf to help them design and build their rides. If you’ve been to any of the Disney parks or Universal Studios, you’ve likely experienced some of Steve’s work. His products work behind the scenes to make sure the synchronized audio and video are running smoothly. Theme park design is a really fun field to be in because you get the inside scoop on attractions way before they open, and you get to help solve really sticky technical problems. Steve has always been interested in writing, and he’s always been interested in creative enterprises. That’s one of the reasons he became an engineer in a creative field. Steve is also a sculptor. In this interview, we talk about the importance of having a plan for your novel. We also talk about how to plan your novel, the three-act structure, and the scene/sequel method of building a novel. This is a great interview packed with information about how to think about planning your novel. How the Writing Academy Came to Be Steve decided to write his first novel when his daughter was little. They enjoyed reading together and he wanted to write something special for her. His first novel was based on his experiences growing up in a summer camp near Sequoia National Park. That turned into the novel A Matter of Justice. The novel ended up having a protagonist a lot like his daughter at the time. Through that process, and when researching a subsequent novel about the St. Francis dam, Steve met the screenwriter Doran William Cannon. Doran wrote for a lot of popular hits in the 1980s, including Dynasty and parts of The Godfather films. Steve and Doran really hit it off. Doran had an online class called Write Like a Pro and he suggested that Steve do a course on writing mysteries, because he wasn’t writing mysteries and didn’t have a class on it. So Steve developed a class on writing mysteries. In 2000, he teamed up with Doran to launch the online writing school Writing Academy. They have classes in novel writing, nonfiction writing, and writing your own memoir, among others. Steve has taught more than 30,000 aspiring writers how to structure their novels. In his house, he has an entire library filled with the signed novels of his students. Why Steve Decided to Teach Writing Steve has always wanted to help people. When he started his company, Alcorn and McCabe, he helped a lot of his clients use the products he created to build their theme park attractions. As the business grew, Steve assembled a large, competent engineering team around him, and they all encouraged him to go find something else to do with his time. He always loved writing, and he’s read just about every book there is on the craft. When he came across Doran’s work, it really connected with him. He became an evangelist for Doran’s teachings. They did several seminars together. At one point, Doran even said that Steve understood his techniques better than he did. The Difference between Plot and Story The first thing that writers need to understand is the distinction between plot and story. If you read a book that doesn’t feel quite right, it’s probably because the writer didn’t understand the distinction between story and plot. The plot consists of the events of the story. It’s everything that happens external to the viewpoint character. When we talk about story, we’re talking about everything that happens inside the protagonist’s head. We’re talking about the protagonist’s emotional journey. Those two things are very distinct. Even if you’re working on a screenplay or television production, you need both elements. Even though the camera is an inherently visual medium and is showing what is happening—the plot—the actor is portraying the emotional journey of the character, the story. If you’re a screenwriter, you can often use the dialogue to help you tell story. If you’re a novelist, you have it easy because you can dive right into the mind of the protagonist. You can really delve into that character’s thoughts and express their emotions. Every novel has to pay equal attention to the plot (the external events of the novel) and the story (the emotional journey of the protagonist through the novel). You should set up your novel so that it is composed of a plot event (action) followed by an internal emotional reaction that leads to another plot event. Good novels are made up of an action/reaction pattern. How to Structure a Character’s Reaction A proper reaction has three parts: The point-of-view character feels something about what just happened. Then they think about what just happened and their feelings about it. Then they make a decision about what to do next and trigger the next plot event. “A lot of novelists—and action novelists are a prime example of this—sort of leave out that story part, and so when you read these really exciting bang-up stories [with] cops and robbers, chases, dinosaurs, and so on. But you get into this sort of fatigue after a while if you never get to know the characters.” – Steve Alcorn You also want to avoid having too much story and not enough plot. This happens most often in romance novels where the reader is stuck inside the protagonist’s head with no plot events to move the story forward. “You want to have the balance between the physical and the emotional. That’s the core of successful novel writing.” – Steve Alcorn Your Protagonist Must Change “Novels are about a character changing. They’re not just arbitrary collections of random things happening.” – Steve Alcorn A story is about a protagonist who has a flaw. They have to work against their flaw and overcome it to solve a problem. If you figure out what your character’s flaw is before you start writing your novel, actually writing it becomes a much easier exercise. There are only a handful of commonly used flaws that protagonists have in novels. The most commonly used flaw for a protagonist is lack of self-confidence. If you think about most movies, they are almost invariably about the protagonist overcoming a lack of self-confidence to solve a problem that has arisen. That makes it sound like every story in the world would be the same. The truth is, it’s the plot details that make every story unique and different. The Three-Act Structure You can use the classic three-act structure to help keep your plot moving and allow you room to explore your story and your character’s flaws. The First Act In the first act, the protagonist is flawed and they don’t know it. The first turning point is when something happens that shows them what their flaw is. At the first act turning point, the audience sees the protagonist being overcome by their flaw. The Second Act The second act is the longest act of any story. It’s a big, long struggle because the protagonist hasn’t yet changed. They’re fighting against their flaw. At the end of this act, the protagonist realizes their flaw, and they realize they need to change. Now that the character realizes they need to do something differently, they can make a plan to change and solve their problem. Act Three Act Three is usually the shortest. It’s also the most action-packed because this is when the character puts into motion their plan to change and solve their problem. The three-act structure is universal to all types of stories. It’s what needs to be there for a story to be exciting and satisfying. Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope: A Case Study Star Wars is the story of Luke Skywalker. The theme of that movie is about the Force and believing in yourself. Act One Luke Skywalker lives on Tatooine, a desert planet on the outskirts of the galaxy. Because we’re in a movie, there are things that happen that are outside Luke’s viewpoint, but the story really begins when Luke finds his home destroyed, and that propels him to the first act of the story. Luke is really in a crisis, overwhelmed by a lack of self-confidence because he doesn’t know what is happening around him. Act Two He becomes involved with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo, and all these setbacks occur as the plot evolves. This is the struggle of Act Two, and all these exciting things are happening. But Luke isn’t effective yet because he hasn’t overcome his basic flaw, lack of self-confidence. Even though he’s gone through training, he still doesn’t yet understand that he has to believe in himself and the Force. Act Three Star Wars has a very short act three. The Act Two turning point is very easy to identify. It’s when Luke is in his X-wing and he hears the voice of Obi Wan Kenobi, and realizes that he has to trust himself and the Force to make this impossible shot, and not the technology of his ship. Every event leading up to that is still part of Act Two. Once Luke realizes the tru

Emma Sumner is the author of The Fairies of Waterfall Island. She published the book in 2016 at the age of only eight years old. Today she’s 10 years old and just finishing up her second book, which is a prequel to the first. She was inspired to write her first book when she saw her dad publishing his second book on Amazon. Her dad told her that if she could write 150 words in her story that day, he would help her publish the book when it was complete. She began immediately outlining the book in a new notebook she’d recently gotten. When she showed the notebook to her father that night, Emma had 172 words in it, and he began helping her from there. In this podcast, we talked about what inspired Emma to write a book, Autism Speaks, and the importance of starting your novel. Emma has a unique story and a message the whole world needs to hear. How Emma Decided to Write a Book about Fairies Emma likes books about fairies. She’s a particular fan of Rainbow Magic and The Never Girls. She also likes mysteries; she enjoyed The Magic Treehouse. There was never any question in her mind what type of book she’d write. Emma’s Writing Process Emma is definitely a plotter, not a pantser. After Emma finished her outline, she began writing the rough draft. She would have a writing session every Saturday at Panera and post an update on Facebook about what she was doing. After Emma was done with her rough draft, she and her father hired an editor to go over the manuscript. The editor helped a lot because she found mistakes that Emma and her father missed. Emma revised the rough draft based on her editor’s suggestions, and then published the book. What Emma Learned from Working with an Editor There are a lot of lessons you can learn by working with skilled professionals who are able to give you a different perspective on your work. Emma learned that you can make your book better by focusing on the details. Before the editor helped Emma revise her work, there weren’t a lot of details about the world. She says it was really fun working out how fairy magic works. That kind of nuance adds depth to your fictional world and makes it easier for readers to fall in love with your story. How Emma Markets Her Book Emma’s aunt has been tremendously helpful in marketing her book. She helped Emma get several television interviews because of the unique story about how the book was created. Notably, Emma has been on Good Morning Sacramento and Fox 40. She’s also done interviews for magazines and newspapers. Emma recently started using Amazon ads to market her books. She targets books similar to hers on Amazon; her book is displayed every time someone looks at those product pages. Emma also made sure that her book was available in as many formats as possible. You can buy a Kindle version, a print version, or the audiobook version. What It’s Like to Be on Local TV Once you agree to do a television interview, you and the producer decide on a day and time. Then you go to the TV station and do the interview. Emma has had to miss school a couple of times for TV interviews. The experience was well worth the missed class time. Emma’s Spelling Bee Success Emma has traveled all the way to the National Spelling Bee two years in a row, when she was in the third and fourth grades. She’s also talented in math and science. She competed in the district math bowl in the first grade. Readings in Classrooms Teachers read Emma’s book in classrooms. She attends some of these readings and talks about the process of writing her book. There’s a lot of ways to get your book known if you simply look at opportunities within your own community. The Message of Emma’s Book “Part of the reason I wrote my book is that I wanted to teach kids of all ages that anything is possible. If I wrote my book at age 7, you can do it at any age, if you really want to.” – Emma Sumner The moral of the story is persistence is the key to success. You can’t just give up if things aren’t working for you the first time you try something. You have to make sure you work the process, and just keep going until you’ve accomplished what you set out to. The process of writing the book mirrored the story itself. There were times while Emma was writing her story that she couldn’t think of anything to write. But the message Emma wanted to put out in the world inspired her to continue writing until the book was done. “The best way to get over writer’s block is just write anything that comes into your mind.” – Emma Sumner The Importance of a Good Support Team Emma had a lot of people helping her during the book production process. Her dad was a constant source of inspiration and support. Her editor really helped bring her book to another level, and her aunt connected her to people who helped Emma promote her book. When Emma started her Facebook page to talk about and promote the book, almost 300 people signed up before the book was published. That was a huge surprise to her. Emma didn’t think anyone would sign up for her Facebook page. To have that support during the production phase of the process was amazing. Her entire family was incredibly supportive. They became true evangelists for the book. They helped and inspired her throughout the production process, and they really helped spread the word about her book when it was published. How Emma Used a Launch Team to Catapult Her Book to Success Emma gathered her launch team using Facebook. She had a signup form linked to her Facebook page. Close to 300 people signed up to be part of her launch team. Having a launch team that large really helped word of mouth spread about the book quickly when it was live on Amazon. The Self-Publishing School Emma learned a lot from The Self-Publishing School. Her father is a teacher there. The most important thing she learned at The Self-Publishing School was the importance of the details in your story. Autism Speaks Emma thought it would be cool if she was able to raise some money for charity. So for the first three months that her book was live on Amazon, 100% of her royalties went to Autism Speaks. Emma chose Autism Speaks because of the personal connection she has with the disease. Before she moved to her current house, she was friends with a neighbor on the autism spectrum. So, when she was deciding what charity to donate to, Autism Speaks was the natural choice. Autism Speaks is a charity that helps people with autism deal with their condition. They offer speech therapy, as well as a number of other therapies and services to help autistic people deal with the world. Emma Inspires Others Emma’s success with The Fairies of Waterfall Island: The Search for the Missing Crystal has inspired her friends to write their own books. Emma’s best friend Annabelle is in the middle of writing her own book. Annabelle loves Diary of a Wimpy Kid, so her book is written in that style. Emma’s cousin is working on a comic book with his friends. Emma’s Second Book Emma’s second book is a prequel to The Fairies of Waterfall Island: The Search for the Missing Crystal. In The Fairies of Waterfall Island, Julia is the wisest fairy in all the land. The prequel explores Julia’s character and tells the story of how she got her powers. Final Words of Advice “If you want to write a book, start writing. The hardest part of writing a book is starting.” – Emma Sumner Once you start writing your book, it becomes a lot easier. Writing can be fun if you let it be. You don’t get anywhere by questioning yourself.   Links and Resources Mentioned in this Interview The Fairies of Waterfall Island: The Search for the Missing Crystal by Emma Sumner http://emmalovesbooks.com/ – Emma’s website Emma Sumner’s Amazon author page https://self-publishingschool.com/ – Emma learned a lot about self-publishing from this program. Her father is a teacher there. https://www.autismspeaks.org/ – Autism Speaks is a charity organization dedicated to promoting solutions, across the spectrum and throughout the lifespan, for the needs of individuals with autism and their families through advocacy and support; increasing understanding and acceptance of people with autism spectrum disorder; and advancing research into causes and better interventions for autism spectrum disorder and related conditions.   The post 175: Lessons from a 10-Year-Old Published Author with Emma Sumner appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Steven Spatz is a writer, marketer, and president of BookBaby, a distributor of ebooks and print books. He started his writing career at age 13 and worked for several major newspapers after graduating from university. Steven got a job as a sportswriter when he was 13. His journalistic heroes were Walter Cronkite and Howard Cosell. He did that for a little while and then went back to the family business, where he learned direct marketing. Steven’s family had a food catalog they grew to be one of the largest in the United States. Through that experience, he really learned about direct marketing, and bringing the right products and services to the right people at the right time. That’s what Steven has done with most of his career. He’s worked for Mattel and Hasbro Collectibles. About 15 years ago, Steven became interested in the music business. His parent company, CDBaby, still manufactures custom-made CDs and DVDs. Yes, there’s still a market for that! They also work in digital music. BookBaby started seven years ago. BookBaby’s mission is to help authors get their work out into the marketplace. The BookBaby motto is “We make the little guy look big.” Steven is using his talent for writing and his knowledge of direct marketing to help indie authors be successful in the marketplace. In this interview, we talked about the factors every indie author needs to consider, how BookBaby can help you achieve your goals, how the marketplace has changed in the last eight years, and the benefits of using BookBaby to help launch you onto the world stage. Starting Up BookBaby BookBaby grew out of CDBaby, which still sends a lot of music to iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify. Through these existing partnership, Steven had a great opportunity: when Apple created the iPad, they were looking for companies that could make ebooks. They knew CDBaby already created music files for them, so Apple asked if they could make ebooks. The people at CDBaby had to quickly learn how to make ebook files that would work on the iPad. Since then, the business has exploded. They added ebook distribution to Amazon, and now they’re in 59 other digital retail stores around the world. BookBaby quickly realized that if authors were going to succeed, they would need to give their readers the book in the format the reader wanted. That’s why they started offering print distribution. They began by partnering with a printer they knew. Two years ago, they started printing some books in house as a test, and now they print all their books in house. At this point, BookBaby is a one-stop shop for everything an indie author needs. They provide: Editing Ebook production Cover design Book formatting Print distribution Electronic distribution “Our goal has been to help authors not have to make many decisions. Authors need to spend time writing, and then hand over all the details about their books to experts. You used to have to go to many different places to get all of the services authors really need; now you can just come to BookBaby.” – Steven Spatz Five Things You Need to Consider as an Indie Author BookBaby offers a simple five-step guide to self-publishing. There are five decisions you need to make before you publish your book. 1. You have to decide the book is finished. You have to decide that you’re happy with your finished product, and that the book is the best you can make it right now. Understand that even though your book is as good as you can make it, it’s not going to be perfect. No book is perfect. You have to decide when it’s time to let go. Steven still talks to authors every month who have been working on their books for years. It’s important to do the best job you can with your book, and then get it out there. 2. You have to have your book edited. BookBaby runs an ad in industry magazines that says, “The only page that doesn’t need editing is blank.” It’s true. Even the best authors need a good editor. You put yourself at a real disadvantage if you don’t have a professional editor. (Hint: a pro editor does not mean your English teacher, or your mother-in-law who thinks she knows a few things about commas and semicolons.)   3. You have to decide what kind of physical product you’re going to introduce to your readers. Yes, books are a product—and that means you have to decide what formats and products matter to you and your readers. Are you going to produce an ebook? Are you going to produce only an ebook? Do you need help formatting the book? Are you going to format the ebook yourself or do you want help doing that? Are you going to produce printed books as well? What size and color will your book be? What is the trim size of the book going to be? 4. You have to decide what kind of distribution you need. Your book needs to get into readers’ hands—and that involves some knowledge of where they shop, and what benefits you can gain from being in different marketplaces. Are you happy just putting your book on Amazon? Do you want a Print on Demand book? Do you want to distribute to other countries? Amazon isn’t dominant everywhere. Amazon is big in the United States and England. In Europe, they’re the second or third biggest distributor. In Asia, Amazon is almost nonexistent as a competitor. Thinking outside the Amazon ecosystem is important for indie authors, especially if they want to reach their maximum audience. 5. You need to decide how to market your book. Marketing is an activity a lot of authors don’t like to do. But it’s one activity that no one else is going to do for you. There are millions of books available on Amazon and other online retailers. You have to decide how you’re going to make your book stand out in the marketplace. Book Marketing Help There are several services you can pay for that may help your book break through the noise. But there are no guarantees when it comes to advertising. There are also services you can pay for where you learn how to do the marketing process yourself. You should use every marketing strategy as best you can. Use social media to get the word out about your book. Get as many Amazon reviews as you can. Use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to maximize your Amazon ranking.   If you follow that script in order, that’s a good starting point for any indie author. How BookBaby Handles Distribution Getting your book into readers’ hands requires a different approach for different channels and formats. For eBooks If you just want to be on Amazon, it’s relatively easy to upload the book yourself and go to CreateSpace for your print book. That’s what Steven recommends for those folks who only want Amazon exposure. If you want to reach fans all over the world, you can go to BookBaby and they will help you format your book so that it works on every single e-reading device in the world. They create both epub files and Mobi files. It’s entirely possible for you to create your own epub and Mobi files, but sometimes you just want a professional hand to make sure that everything looks and works the way it’s supposed to. After the conversion process is complete, BookBaby asks you where you want to be distributed. If you go for full worldwide distribution, BookBaby will distribute your book through several channels, including: Amazon Apple iBooks Google Play Hoopla – a new player in the ebook industry which has exploded in the last few months Versa – a company that puts your book in a lot of European and Asian stores   If you go with BookBaby, your book can be purchased in 60 stores all around the world. What really sets BookBaby worldwide distribution apart is that your book is distributed through all of the local bookselling powerhouses in their respective countries. You’re not just limited to Amazon outlets in foreign countries. Plus, when BookBaby adds a new store, they ask you if you’d like to be distributed there. If you opt in to being distributed to that store, expanding your distribution is effortless on your part. BookBaby collects their money through fees charged up front. That means you keep 100% of the royalties you earn by being distributed worldwide. For example, on average, Amazon pays authors about 90 days after their book is sold. If you go through BookBaby, you’ll get your royalty check about one week after they receive it from the online bookstore. For Print Books Distributing print books is where BookBaby gives indie authors some real advantages: Your book is guaranteed to be in stock 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. BookBaby can do that because they’re the printer. Over the Christmas holiday, quite a few Print on Demand books on Amazon were out of stock. BookBaby experienced that problem to a much lesser degree, but they were able to solve the problem faster because they own the printing machines. When you distribute your print book through BookBaby, it’s available to all brick and mortar bookstores through their normal distribution channels. BookBaby offers a direct-to-reader website for print distribution that doesn’t cost the author anything to set up. BookBaby pays a 50% commission for every print book you sell through your BookBaby website. On top of that, you get paid much faster than with other online retailers. If somebody buys a book from your BookBaby storefront on Wednesday, you’ll get paid the following Monday, because it’s baked into BookBaby’s payment engine. How Print-on-Demand Works at BookBaby The nice thing about print-on-demand (POD) at BookBaby is you don’t have to have an inventory of books available. BookBaby charges an up-front POD fee to have your file available on their press. They’ll print a few test copies to make sure everything looks right. After that, it’s all done automatically as orders come in. Here’s how the ordering process works: Your customer orders a print version of your book from Amazon (or your BookBaby storefront. The order goes directly to BookBaby. They print the book. They package the book. They ship the book. After uploading the file to B

Ethan Jones is the bestselling author of more than 20 books, including the best-selling Justin Hall Spy Thriller Series. Ethan always wanted to be a writer. He started writing novels seriously in 2008, but ever since he was a kid, Ethan would watch TV shows and movies and imagine future adventures for the heroes he loved. He doesn’t have a favorite spy movie, although Salt, The Bourne Identity, and the James Bond films rank fairly high with him. In 2008, he began carving out extra time to schedule to write his own stories. He always loved TV shows and movies that had to do with spies, so he figured that writing spy thrillers would be right up his alley. It turns out his audience agrees with him. In this episode, we talked about Ethan’s author journey, his writing process, and the importance of treating your writing like a business. We also talked about Ethan’s marketing strategies, his daily routine, and some mistakes Ethan made early in his career you can learn from. This was a fast-paced interview jam-packed with information. Ethan’s Turning Point Ethan decided to write his first novel after he read a spy novel that wasn’t very good. He thought for sure that he could write something at least as good as the book he’d just finished reading. That was the beginning of his writing adventure. It took Ethan one year to write his first book. The first book is always the hardest to finish. He wanted to write something a little different than the standard spy story. So the story takes place in Canada and his hero is a member of the Canadian special forces. Usually in spy fiction, the hero is a member of some sort of US government agency, whether that be the CIA or FBI or another alphabet soup agency. How Ethan Developed His Writing Process Ethan developed his writing process by writing books. He wrote his first book completely by the seat of his pants. There were one or two places where he wrote himself into a corner, and he had to spend a few days figuring out how the story was going to work out. These days, Ethan has an idea of where the story is going to end. He doesn’t have a detailed outline, but he has some idea of what the major plot points are and roughly where they occur. He’s not so tied to his outline that he won’t let the story change as he writes it. He allows his characters the flexibility to discover the story as they’re living through it. Having an ending firmly in mind has been helpful for Ethan when writing his books, even if the ending might change as he produces the manuscript. Why Pantsing Works for Ethan Ethan tried to plot a couple of his novels in detail. He found it was difficult for him to force the story on to the path he wanted it to take. It broke his creative flow. Ethan is much more productive with a loose idea of where the story is going and the flexibility to allow his characters to react naturally. Most of his stories are about spying and spycraft. So his characters have a lot of trust issues, and it’s very easy for him to manipulate the mood of a character to make them more suspicious, then gently nudge the story where he wants it to go. Writing mostly by the seat of his pants just works best for Ethan. How Ethan Comes up with His Story Ideas To develop his stories, Ethan does a lot of research. He pays attention to international news, and specifically news about the region where he’s going to set his next book. Recently, Ethan decided to write a book where ISIS featured prominently. He watched a lot of documentaries by journalists about the group. For Ethan, research is essential in coming up with his ideas and making sure his book seems like something that might actually happen. Write in a Genre You’re Passionate about Some time ago, Ethan tried his hand at romantic suspense. There was less research involved, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Those books took much longer to write because he wasn’t as passionate about the genre. “Writing good spy thrillers does involve a lot of research, but when you’re doing something you really enjoy, it doesn’t sound like work.” – Ethan Jones Ethan’s Publishing Journey Ethan wrote Arctic Wargame: A Justin Hall Spy Thriller back in 2008. At first, he tried to get a traditional publishing deal. Self-publishing wasn’t as popular back then as it is now, and a traditional publishing deal seemed like the way to go. In Canada, the book market is smaller, so you don’t necessarily need an agent to have your book traditionally published. Ethan tried submitting his book to agents and publishers. Some of the people he submitted to requested a partial manuscript, and he got good feedback from them, but he couldn’t secure a book deal. In 2011, a friend suggested that he self-publish his manuscript. Before diving in, he took some time figuring out how self-publishing works. He was able to publish the first book in the Justin Hall Spy Series in 2012, shortly after finishing the manuscript for the second book in the series. He published the second and third books in 2014 and hasn’t slowed down since. Back in 2012, you didn’t need to do a lot to promote a self-published book. Just the fact that was in the marketplace at a price lower than traditionally published books was enough for you to make a few hundred dollars a month, as long as the story was decent. The market was less crowded in 2012, and it was a lot easier to make money as a new author in the marketplace. Today, it takes more work—and more books. Ethan has three series out right now, and he plans to add another series in March 2018. Lessons Ethan Has Learned about Writing and Publishing in the Last 10 Years Things change in the self-publishing marketplace quickly. Things are often different just month to month! It’s important to adapt to changes as they occur. Don’t expect things to stay the same. Ethan suggests that all indie authors should consider wide distribution. There’s value in not having all your eggs in one basket, or all your books in one distribution system. Having your books available at different bookstores creates multiple income streams. That way, if one website’s sales slow down for you, the other booksellers might be able to pick up the slack. Ethan tried Kindle Unlimited as recently as early 2017, and his books didn’t stick in Amazon’s ecosystem. He’s had much better luck going wide. He’s done particularly well with his books in Kobo. Kobo also gives you opportunities to promote your work. Think about physical products. Sony televisions are available in a number of different stores and chains. They aren’t exclusive to Wal-Mart or any other chain of stores. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but always focus on collecting data that gives you information going forward. Ethan’s Strategy for Launching a New Book Ethan didn’t do any active promoting of his books until early 2017. His promotional strategy for his early books was to: Tell his mailing list that a new book was available. Be active on social media. Write Facebook posts and tweet about the fact that a new book is available. Write a blog post on his website announcing that a new book was available. Ethan’s Paid Promotion Strategy, Starting Early 2017 Ethan has been experimenting with Amazon marketing ads since early 2017. He’s also been experimenting with boosting his Facebook posts. Ethan’s Free Promotion Strategy Starting Early 2017 On the free side of things, Ethan has been building his network of authors in his genre and cross-promoting with them. The authors Ethan has teamed up with tell their mailing lists when he has a new book out. He returns the favor when they have a new book out, or when they have a deal going on. “Cross-promoting with authors in your genre is the best marketing you can do, because that audience is already hot for books like yours. Also, you’re not an unknown person to them, because you’re coming with a recommendation from the author that is writing to them.” – Ethan Jones Depending on how involved the author recommending you wants to get, they can say they read the book and enjoyed it and their subscribers might enjoy it as well, or they can simply say that you have a new book out and it looks good. It’s very important to be honest and aboveboard with your email list at all times. You shouldn’t lie to your readers to drive up book sales. You might get some short-term benefit, but it will cause you headaches in the long run. Cross-promoting with other authors is kind of like dating. Working with some authors might get you a lot of book sales. Working with other authors might not get you many sales at all. You’ll never know which partnerships will work best for you until you dive in and give it a try. It’s best to network with authors who write in your genre, because they have readers on their list who will probably like the books you’re writing. Ethan’s Daily Routine Ethan has a full-time job and has to carve out writing time wherever he can. He takes the bus to work every day, and that commute takes about an hour. He writes every morning as he commutes to work. There are times when he wishes the bus would take longer because he has to stop at a point where things are going really well for him. Sometimes Ethan wakes up earlier in the morning to do his writing. He has to get on the bus at 7 a.m., so he’ll get up at 4 or 5 a.m. to start his writing day. “I used to think writing was only to be done when you could have four or five uninterrupted hours on a Saturday. But realistically, that’s difficult to do when you have a family and other obligations. So even if I can spend 15 minutes and write it’s possible to get 100 words down in that period of time. So even if you only spend 15 minutes a day, by the end of the month, if you’re consistent you can get a few pages down for sure.” – Ethan Jones Mistakes You Can Learn From Ethan has made many mistakes in his author journey. Here are some of the bigger ones: Ethan’s biggest mistake was not having a mailing list from the beginning. Ethan wrote his books

Dorie Clark is an adjunct professor at the Duke University School of Business. She’s the author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and Stand Out (named the #1 leadership book of 2015 by Inc. magazine). She’s a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and she regularly consults and speaks for clients such as Microsoft, Google, and The World Bank. Dorie’s first job out of graduate school was as a political reporter. When she was laid off from that job, she began the process of reinventing herself. She tried a lot of different things, not all of which worked out. She worked in two unsuccessful political campaigns and then turned her talents to running a nonprofit. After two years of doing that, Dorie realized that running a nonprofit is exactly like running your own business. So…Dorie decided to start running her own business. For the past 11 years, she’s run her own marketing and consulting company. She’s done all kinds of activities to help build her brand and the brands of her clients, including: Writing books Giving speeches Doing executive coaching Launching online courses In this interview, we talked about what a personal brand is and how to build yours. We took a deep dive into social networking, how to do it, and why it’s essential to building your personal brand. Why Dorie Decided to Start Her Own Business Dorie was the head of a small nonprofit for two years. She decided to start her own business because running the nonprofit and being responsible for the livelihood of three other employees was super stressful. Also, she didn’t get paid very much. Working for herself and being responsible only for her own income and needs seemed like a move toward a more stable, less stressful life. Dorie’s time as the head of that nonprofit was an incredibly valuable learning experience. Running the nonprofit taught her what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be a jack of all trades, because you’re responsible for everything that happens in your business. “You have complete independence. Yeah, you might have to solve problems yourself, but you don’t have to answer to anyone, you don’t have to answer to a boss, nobody’s telling you what to do. Everything is more fulfilling because you are making the choice to do it.” – Dorie Clark Why Dorie Decided to Write Her First Book Dorie made a New Year’s resolution in 2009 to publish a book that year. She’d always wanted to write a book. She thought it would be cool, and she also thought it would raise her company’s profile and demonstrate thought leadership in her field. All of that turned out to be true. What Dorie didn’t count on is how difficult it would be to actually publish her first book. In the first six months of 2009, Dorie wrote three book proposals. They were all turned down because she didn’t have a big enough author platform. So she went back to the drawing board and figured out how to build that essential author platform. She was able to do it primarily through blogging. Dorie signed her first book deal with Harvard Review Press in 2011 and her first book came out in 2013. Why Dorie Chose Blogging to Build Her Author Platform Blogging was a natural choice for Dorie because of her experience as a print journalist. Also, audio and video were much more expensive and complicated to jump into back in 2009. Audio and video are much more accessible to new people now than they were back then. How to Become a Recognized Expert in Your Field Becoming a recognized expert involves three key components. 1. Creating Quality Content Content creation is the linchpin of becoming a recognized expert. You can’t be known for your ideas unless you share your ideas publicly. You have to share your ideas, and you have to share your ideas a lot to break through the noise today. The biggest mistake Dorie sees in the marketplace today is people not creating enough content. So many bloggers think that posting one blog post a month is enough. The truth is, Dorie spent three years posting 50 to 100 blog posts a year before she saw any measurable uptick in inquiries about her work. “You have to do a lot more than you might otherwise suspect you have to do, that’s the truth. The good news is most people won’t last that long. Most people will not keep it up, and if you do, you are far more likely to succeed, because the field has thinned.” – Dorie Clark 2. Social Proof Social proof is your credibility. What is it about you that is going to get people to take you seriously? How can you demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about and that your suggestions will work? 3. Your Network Your network is who you surround yourself with. The world judges you by your associations. Your network can also be the early ambassadors for your ideas. How to Create Multiple Revenue Streams without Spreading Yourself Too Thin Dorie has several income streams that feed into her business. She developed them over the last seven years. Her income streams are: Consulting—this is how her business started Executive coaching Writing books Business school teaching Giving keynote speeches Affiliate income from online marketing Online courses Dorie has developed Live events That may seem like a lot of spinning plates, and it is. But they aren’t burdensome, because Dorie developed each income stream independently and systematized it before moving on to another income stream. Dorie recommends that you focus on building one income stream per year. Once you have that income stream systematized and automated, you can build another income stream without sacrificing the first. As you build new income streams, they should relate in some way to the other income streams that you have previously built. If you build income streams that target wildly different audiences, you could very easily be pulled in too many different directions. In contrast, if you build income streams that support each other, each income stream you build will make the others stronger. As you build new income streams, opportunities will appear that you never expected. Dorie didn’t plan to organize live events. She started to organize do so after her customers asked if they could be part of live events. What Is a Personal Brand? “Basically, ‘personal brand’ is a modern colloquialism for your reputation. That is something that has existed from the beginning of time.” – Dorie Clark If your reputation isn’t what you want it to be, it’s probably worth your time to think about how to change it. If you’re not reaching people in the right way, if you want to be understood in the world, then you have to understand what your reputation is, and make sure it’s congruent with how you see yourself. Reframing the question of your “personal brand” that way allows you to see that authenticity is a vital part of your personal brand. In fact, if your personal brand is inauthentic, audiences and customers will realize that, and they will steer clear of you. One of the problems that entrepreneurs face when they first start out in business is that we feel like we have to project this image that we have it all figured out. One of the first iterations of Dorie’s website had a background image of skyscrapers, as if that represented her power in the marketplace. The truth is, that type of stuff is silly. People really respect you if you have something interesting to say and you say it in your own unique voice. That’s what makes you stand out in this crowded world. “The ultimate source of strength is not pretending to be anything other than what you are. Some people are going to be like, ‘whatever.’ Some people aren’t going to like your message. But for those who resonate with your message, it is such a breath of fresh air to have somebody say it the way they’ve never heard it before. There’s a huge amount of power in that.” – Dorie Clark How to Build Your Personal Brand to Increase Your Influence and Get More Clients One thing you can do to build your brand is to make a concerted effort to write for “name brand” publications like Forbes. There are two benefits of writing for well-known media outlets like this: You get exposed to new audiences who have never heard of you. You build your reputation and personal brand because you’re associated with respected publications. Creating content that allows you to associate with blue-chip brands that people have already heard of creates a social proof that’s valuable, as you’re beginning to establish your personal brand in the marketplace. How to Start Writing for Blue-Chip Brands If you’re starting from scratch, what you want to do is develop a portfolio of “writing clips” that show you can write an article like your target publication. One of the best places to showcase your writing ability/style is on your personal blog. You can also publish your article on LinkedIn or Medium where there is no barrier to entry. From there, you want to start writing for more and more prestigious brands to raise your own reputation. You can figure out the best publications to read in your industry by simply having conversations with people and asking them what they read. Ask them where they get their information from. Target those publications. More Ways to Get Social Proof Social proof is all about making the public aware of connections that enhance your credibility and stature. Think about who you’re connected to that would make people think better of you. Think about your: Clients Former or current employer (Many former Google employees have become bestsellers, for example.) Educational affiliations. Did you go to an Ivy League school? Or a well-respected school in your field? Professional associations. If you take on a leadership role in a locally or nationally recognized professional association, that can be great social proof. Social proof is all about networking. Interviewing as a Form of Social Networking Doing interviews is a great way to meet people and network with th

Jeff Goins is the bestselling author of five books, including Real Artists Don’t Starve. His blog, goinswriter.com, is one of the most-read blogs for writers and creative folks. Jeff has always been a creative person who likes to make things. As a kid, he drew his own Garfield fan comics with a friend. Jeff’s dad taught him how to play guitar when he got older. He was in a number of bands that played really bad songs. It was in high school that Jeff started to write stories for fun. He also acted in plays during his high school career. Jeff gained more experience with writing as a writing tutor. After he graduated college, he toured with the band for a year. The most fun Jeff had during that year was writing weekly blog posts about the touring experience. After a year, he quit the band and moved to Nashville, where he was hired as a copywriter by a nonprofit. He eventually became their director of marketing, and learned quite a bit about traditional and online marketing. That’s when Jeff had the idea to use the brand-building strategies he learned at the nonprofit to build his own personal brand as a writer. Today, goinswriter.com is Jeff’s ninth blog. The first eight blogs he wrote for failed. goinswriter.com succeeded because Jeff took the right steps and didn’t quit. Jeff’s successful blog allowed him and his wife to quit their day jobs and do this full-time. Jeff’s Author Journey: Defining Moments and Small Steps Forward Jeff’s success has been made up of both huge defining moments and small, consistent steps forward. When Jeff was 27 years old, his boss enrolled him in a coaching program for professional development. Early on in those meetings, someone asked him what his dream was. Jeff had seen many of his friends quit their day jobs to pursue their dream—only to be back at a day job within six months. He didn’t think he had a dream. So he replied, “I don’t have a dream—I have a job, I have a family. I don’t need a dream.” Jeff’s coaching buddy replied, “That’s funny. I get the sense that your dream is to be a writer.” That resonated with Jeff and he said, “Yeah. I guess that is my dream, to be a writer someday. But that will never happen.” Jeff’s coaching buddy pointed out, “Jeff, you don’t have to wait to be a writer. You just have to write.” Jeff published a 500-word blog post the next day. Every day for a year, he published a blog post between 500 and 1,000 words long. Throughout that year, when he met new people and they asked him what he did, he told them, “I’m a writer.” This wasn’t a case of “faking it until he made it.” Jeff believed he was a writer. Then he took small consistent actions until he became a professional writer. “People won’t take you seriously until you do.” – Jeff Goins Jeff developed a system for creating daily blog content that allowed him to write and edit a post before publishing it to his blog. Want to learn from his experience? There’s a link to his three-bucket content system in the links section of the show notes. How to Deal with Fear “Fear is what happens to us when we hesitate to do the things we know we need to do. Fear is what happens when we wait. ” – Jeff Goins When you act quickly, there’s no time for fear to creep in. Children have very little fear. Fear is something we learn as a result of watching the consequences of certain actions. We think, “Oh, if I do this I will get hurt.” Because Jeff was producing daily content for his blog, he didn’t have much time to feel fear. He knew his content wasn’t necessarily that good. But this was his writing practice. He was just practicing in public. Jeff knew that if he wrote on his blog long enough, some people might notice. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to practice his art to improve his skill. There’s something interesting that happens when you put yourself into a daily practice: It doesn’t allow you a lot of time to feel afraid. Most people feel fear and stop what they’re doing. When Jeff studied other successful people, he came to realize successful people also feel fear. The difference is successful people feel fear and yet still do what they’re afraid of. “I began to see fear as a friendly reminder that I’m moving in the right direction.” – Jeff Goins From Blogger to Author Six months after Jeff started regularly blogging, he was approached by a traditional publisher who asked him if he was planning to write a book. He signed a deal for a small book contract. That gave Jeff the confidence to keep going. He also began to notice that readers of his blog were asking questions he couldn’t answer in a long blog post. “I don’t think you write a nonfiction book because you want to. I think you write a nonfiction book because it’s the most succinct way of saying what you have to say.” – Jeff Goins A lot of people have a blog post go viral and think they should write a book. Jeff doesn’t agree. He thinks you should only write a book if you need the length of a book to express your idea. If you’ve expressed all you need to express in a blog post, then move on to the next thing. The Message of Real Artists Don’t Starve Jeff writes books because: He’s serious about something. He has an experience with something. He has something unique to say about the topic. Real Artists Don’t Starve puts forth the bold argument that if you’re starving as an artist, that is your choice. Starving is not a necessary byproduct of being an artist. Jeff has met a lot of people doing great work and making a decent living who aren’t national celebrities. These people are thriving artists and creative entrepreneurs. They are making a living from their art and loving it. Jeff lives in Nashville, and he kept meeting people who said that making a living as an artist is impossible. He wrote the book Real Artists Don’t Starve to introduce these two groups of people to each other. “It is possible to do creative work, and make a full-time living off of that work, and now is the best time to do that. If you have a dream, a passion, a gift you want to share with the world, you have no excuse not to make a living from that, if that’s what you want to do.” – Jeff Goins How to Be a Thriving Artist The first thing you have to do to become a thriving artist is educate yourself. There are many ways for artists to get paid for their work today. There are many artists who are making a living by selling their art. The next thing you have to do is realize this isn’t a path to becoming Taylor Swift. This is simply a path that helps you earn an income from your creative work. Use the internet to find the people who need your art. You have to find your 1,000 true fans, as Kevin Kelly would say. That’s not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things, but it is enough people to build a platform that will support you financially as long as you nurture it. If you can find 1,000 people who resonate with your message and need your art, you can make a living from that kind of exposure. We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that you have to be famous, or that you need a big break in order to be a thriving, successful artist. You can find the people who need your work and connect with them directly to exchange value with them. How to Find Your True Fans Jeff has a few tips on how to find those 1,000 true fans. Mindset You have to think like a thriving artist. You have to see the value in your work so that you can market it effectively. You have to take your work seriously before anyone else will. You have to cultivate that mindset. You have to begin to think in terms of what’s actually possible. You have to dream a little bit. Michelangelo was the richest artist of his time. At the end of his life, he had the equivalent of $50 million to his name. Before Michelangelo, artists were working-class citizens. After Michelangelo broke the glass ceiling of what was possible for an artist, artists of the Renaissance became aristocrats or upper-crust people. Michelangelo was told his entire life that his ancestors were noble. His family believed it, and when he became an artist, he proceeded from the assumption that he was of noble birth. He got the wealthiest patrons to commission his work. He charged 10 times what contemporary artists were charging for the same type of work. In short, he did everything differently and got a different result than artists who came before him. The interesting thing about Michelangelo’s story is that he wasn’t actually descended from a noble line. He just believed that he was and proceeded from that assumption. His belief led him to act differently than his peers, which led to his amassing great wealth. If you believe you’re going to starve and struggle, that will come true for you. Conversely, if you believe the world needs your work and you just need to find a way to make that happen, eventually you will find a way to succeed. Market How do you get your work into the right people’s hands so they help you find more fans and spread your message? The best way to do that is to find a modern-day patron. Find an influencer who has an audience that can help spread your message faster than you can by yourself. Patrons didn’t just give money to artist in the Renaissance—they lent their influence to their artists. They became evangelists of their artist’s work. When Lorenzo de Medici became Michelangelo’s patron, he commissioned many statues. But more importantly, Lorenzo invited Michelangelo into his house and introduced him to the connections that would support him for the rest of his life. Michelangelo was building a network, which is really important if you’re going to support yourself using your creative work, and have your work spread. This still holds true today: Hank Willis Thomas, a successful photographer, says all of his success came from five people he met in art school. Money Never work for free. Always work for something of value. Don’t just work for the “opportunity.” Valuing your own work is how you teach others to value your

Mimika Cooney is an international award-winning photographer and the author of Photographing Newborns. She was nominated by the Huffington Post as one of the 50 women entrepreneurs to follow in 2017. Mimika is a multi-passionate creative. Born and raised in South Africa, Mimika and her husband left in 2000 and emigrated to England. In 2006, they immigrated to the US. She is currently based in Charlotte, North Carolina. She’s had a very interesting journey both creatively and in the realm of business and marketing. Photography was originally a hobby for Mimika. She’s had an entrepreneurial mindset since she was a child, and she always looks for ways to make money with anything she does. She loves the creative outlet of photography. Mimika started her photography business in England, and continued it when she moved to the United States. She decided to write her books about newborn photography to answer all the questions she was getting while speaking at photography conferences; writing was a natural progression for her because she’s been writing in journals since she was a child. Mimika is passionate about teaching people how she learned from her own mistakes in business. She credits that skill more than any other as the reason for her level of success today. Changes to the Writing World Mimika is taking an entirely different approach to writing her third book than she did with her first two. “I made the mistake of thinking after I wrote my first book, my job was done. It wasn’t.” – Mimika Cooney In today’s world, publishers expect you to do all the marketing for your own books. Writing is only the beginning of your author journey. What Has Changed in Online Marketing over the Last 20 Years Marketing has become so saturated, the number of offerings in the marketplace is overwhelming. There are a lot more platforms and apps available for business people to directly connect with customers. There are many more places to promote yourself. That’s a double-edged sword, because the internet and social media have led to information overload for almost everyone. Video marketing has become prevalent, when just two years ago very few people were doing it. Successful marketing tactics change about every six months. You can’t rely on one platform for all your marketing. The internet landscape changes so quickly, you have to focus on evergreen tactics that will bring customers into your business. When you’re an author, you are a business person. You have to pay attention to that reality, and spend the time, money, and effort needed to build your brand. One benefit of a market oversaturated with marketing channels is that it lowers the price of marketing yourself. When Mimika started her online TV show MimikaTV, it used to cost her $350 an episode to produce. Now she is able to produce it free using the YouTube platform. “It’s the easiest it’s ever been to start a business venture or project, but it’s also the most competitive.” – Mimika Cooney   Succeeding in business today is all about figuring out what marketing channels work for your audience and how you can put the pieces together to make your business successful. Video Marketing Is Evergreen “Video is the best way, other than meeting you in person, to get to know you. Reading your body language, hearing what you sound like, getting an idea what you sound like—it’s almost like meeting you in person.” – Mimika Cooney You can write blog posts and you can post on social media, but nothing translates better than a video to captivate your audience and get them to understand who you are and what you’re trying to do. Video is the easiest way for people to get to know, like, and trust you. How a Beginner Should Get Started in Video As writers, it can be hard to transition from writing behind a computer screen to going on camera. But it’s important you get over yourself. One thing you can do to get used to being recorded on video is to record yourself on your cell phone. Just get used to the actions necessary to go through the recording process. Put your phone in selfie mode, turn it around, and start talking to it like you’re talking to a friend. At the end of the day, all you have to do is take baby steps. You don’t have to jump in with both feet, guns blazing. The great thing about video is you can record and delete it if you really hate it. Learning to publish and distribute videos is very much like learning how to write. The first few times are going to be difficult. As you get more used to the mechanics of what you’re doing, things will come easier and you’ll have more fun doing video. When it comes to video marketing, starting is the biggest hurdle. After you’ve started, you want to keep your video marketing efforts consistent. Use Facebook to Launch Your Video Marketing Efforts The first thing beginner video marketers should do is a Facebook Live feed. Using Facebook Live is simple and easy to do, and it’s free. The biggest benefit of doing a Facebook live is that you’re pressured to actually complete a video. You’re doing it live, so it’s impossible to fail because of analysis paralysis. Get on Facebook Live and ask a question. Start a conversation. Give your audience something to interact with beyond passively watching you. Traditional publishers want new authors to have a platform to sell their books. Start building your platform before you publish your books by doing Facebook Live videos. If you’re going to be an author, you should have your own professional Facebook page. Facebook frowns on doing business promotion on your personal Facebook page. Once you have your business page set up, start posting your videos on that professional Facebook page. You can also make use of YouTube and build an audience between Facebook and YouTube. If you want to pay for traffic to your videos on Facebook, now is the time to jump in. You only have to pay pennies per view. Start Small with Video The key to getting started with video is just to do one thing at a time. Start small, learn from your failures, and build on your successes. Practicing video marketing is very much like writing drafts of your book. You know the final draft of your book is going to probably be very different from the first draft of the book. The major difference between publishing your book and practicing video marketing is that we are so conditioned to only put out what we think is perfection. The truth is, nothing is perfect. Anything you want to do, you have to be willing to do poorly at first. Doing something poorly is the only way you learn how to get better at a skill. The key to getting better at anything is consistent practice. If you do a video every day for 30 days, you’ll be much better at the end of 30 days than you are at the beginning, just by going through the steps of recording a video. How To Develop Content for Your Video Marketing Developing content for your video marketing efforts should be approached like any other content marketing endeavor. All you need to do is figure out the answer to these three questions, and you’ll have a content idea for your audience that will be helpful to them and engage them. 3 Key Content Marketing Questions Who is my audience? What can I share with them to add value to their lives? What do I want to talk about? What are some takeaway tips you can tell people about your book? You can always quote yourself and create a graphic to post on social media. That can start a conversation. If you are truly unsure of what types of content to share, try posting a Facebook poll asking your audience what they’re working on, or what they want to hear about. You can also join the Facebook groups of your target readers and conduct surveys within those groups. It’s best to become a part of the communities you join before you start conducting surveys within the group. If you listen to the conversations of your target readers, you can get content for your book and help them solve problems they’re having at the same time. Video Marketing Tools If you have the latest iPhone, the cameras on them are tremendous. Even a year ago, the cameras on iPhones weren’t nearly as good as they are today. Selfie sticks with tripods are inexpensive and really help boost the quality of your video by keeping your camera stable when you’re recording. Logitech 720p Webcam C510 – this is the webcam that Mimika uses when she’s video chatting. You can use your computer’s built-in webcam if you have a good one. Video quality is important. You should really look for an HD-quality camera that will give you video that doesn’t pixelate as you record it. Buying a quality external digital webcam allows you to have more control over the settings of your device so that you look your best. You want to pay particular attention to your video and lighting quality when you record your videos. Three Things to Consider When Planning a Video 1. Audio Quality If your audio quality isn’t good, people won’t watch your video because they can’t understand what you’re saying. 2. Video Quality The higher quality your video, the more things you can do with it. You want to have the highest quality video possible in your price range. The newest iPhones have excellent cameras in them. 3. Video Stability You don’t want your video to be constantly moving around or jumping—it looks very amateurish and can even make viewers a little motion sick! Getting a tripod for yourself a selfie stick is an inexpensive way to dramatically improve the quality of your video for your viewers. You really don’t need much software these days to produce a great video. Everything is mobile friendly. If you want to do a Facebook Live feed, all you have to do is push record when you’re on Facebook. Where to Promote Your Videos With video marketing, it’s little by little, and nothing’s going to happen overnight (unless you have a huge marketing budget and can pay for views). That’s why Facebook Live is such a powerful tool. It allows you to test out conte

AJ Cosmo is the bestselling author of The Monster that Ate My Socks and more than 20 other fun children’s picture books. His stories are crafted to help parents teach children lessons in a fun and engaging way. Six years ago, AJ was at his day job searching for ways to make money online. One of the ideas in a writer’s forum was to write books and put them up on Kindle because, as the poster said, “Kindle is a gold mine!” The group of writers AJ eventually joined were publishing two types of content: adult fiction, and children’s books. Some years ago, AJ moved out to Hollywood to try his hand at being a screenwriter. The first books he tried to publish and sell on Amazon were adapted from screenplays. When he got the suggestion to try publishing children’s books, it interested him because it was something he felt he had a talent for, because he’s able to draw and be a little goofy. AJ wasn’t interested in writing adult content. When AJ wrote his first children’s book, he didn’t know anything about the different grade levels or reader expectations. He just wanted to tell a funny story and do some illustrations. It took three or four books before AJ saw any kind of return on investment with his writing. His fourth book was The Monster that Ate My Socks. That book took off and allowed AJ to make a career from publishing children’s books on Kindle. It took off on its own, and ever since then AJ has been trying to reverse-engineer its success. Six years later, AJ has published more than 40 books. And he’s doing this full time to earn a living. The Success of The Monster that Ate My Socks AJ still doesn’t understand exactly why The Monster that Ate My Socks became such a huge success. One thing that contributed to its success, as far as AJ can tell, is that it’s short. The book is about 3,000 words, and 20 pages in print. The book has six illustrations. There isn’t a magic number when it comes to the number of illustrations in a children’s picture book—you use the number you need to get the story across. In fact, the book actually goes against the traditional wisdom regarding the number of images you need in a children’s picture book. The Monster that Ate My Socks is technically a chapter book, but it’s much lengthier than a typical chapter book for very young children…and yet the language is much simpler than books published for middle-grade readers. The book carved out its own little niche in the children’s book world. If AJ had known the rules of writing children’s books, he never would have written The Monster that Ate My Socks. Parents have told AJ that besides being entertaining and funny, the book actually solved the monster problem for them with their kids. It humanized monsters, and allowed children to relate to them so they were no longer afraid of turning off the bedroom light and going to sleep. Marketing Considerations for Children’s Books “Children’s books [like nonfiction books] can have meaning and purpose beyond just entertainment.” – AJ Cosmo “When you’re selling children’s books, you’re not actually selling to children—you’re selling to the avatars of children: their parents or their teachers. You have to communicate something to the parents, that your book is beyond mindless entertainment.” – AJ Cosmo Parents expect a children’s book to be entertaining by default. What they want to know is, beyond entertainment, what can this book do for them or their children? There are thousands of children’s books published every year. So in order to differentiate your children’s book from other books for children, you have to consider what lesson your book can teach your audience. You have to walk a fine line. If your lesson is too serious, your target audience will zone out and their parents won’t buy your next book. But if it’s got too little lesson in it, the parents won’t think it’s valuable enough to buy your next book, either. The lesson your book teaches is a marketing point. It’s something you have to consider, but always remember the age of the audience you’re aiming your book at. There’s nothing wrong with creating a book that’s entertaining. There’s nothing wrong with creating a book that specifically designed to make children laugh. AJ is currently working on The Giggle Game, a book designed to do exactly that. But even The Giggle Game has a point to it. The book is designed as a wind-down game for children before they go to bed. Giving your books a reason to exist beyond entertainment is a major selling point in the children’s book marketplace. What’s Your Book’s Purpose? This lesson can be extended to other genres of fiction. If you’re writing a romance novel, what is the extra that the audience is getting besides the romance? Are you showing them an exotic location? Are you showing them a situation they’ve never seen before? “What are all the aspects you can have to sell your book? How can you communicate that?” – AJ Cosmo How to Test a Children’s Book in the Market Testing ideas in the marketplace is smart, because it helps you see if your book has the potential to sell well. So how do you test a children’s book? You ask other parents. You get your book in front of children and get their reaction. If you want to be a children’s book author, it’s very important to actually read the books to children and gauge their reaction. Kids are the best critics in the world because they’re honest. If your book isn’t holding their attention, they will wander off and go find something to play with. Meanwhile, you want parents to like reading your book as much as children like it. AJ has heard of several books that parents hide from their children because they’re tired of reading the book to them so often. Children are learning pattern recognition. Their learning to predict things that will happen. That’s why they want books read to them multiple times. Ask other writers of children’s books. A lot of people think writing a children’s book is an easy thing to do. It’s really not. AJ has revised some of his children’s books more than he’s revised his novels. Don’t assume writing a children’s book is going to be easy. How to Do Illustrations for Your Children’s Book Illustration can make or break a book. You need to make sure your illustrations are of good quality. “Your illustration needs to be up to par based on the expectation of what a good illustration for children’s book is. That is a huge range.” – AJ Cosmo When you go to illustrate a book, figure out what your budget is to hire an artist, then see how many books you would have to sell in order to recoup that cost. It’s a simple business calculation, and you have to factor it in if you want to make writing children’s books a business. It’s important to live up to the expectations that the audience has. Tips for Collaborating with Your Illustrator It’s important to understand what you have, and what you want from the end product. Do you have comparable books? This is something every author should be checking out no matter what type of book they’re writing. Find books like yours and analyze them to see what elements you can incorporate into your books. Once you find comparable books, give those books to the artist so they have an idea of what type of illustrations you want. Give hard deadlines to your artist. Try not to micromanage your artist. Micromanaging will drive everyone crazy. Break up your payments to be delivered over the life of the project. Check on your artist. But give them enough freedom that they enjoy the process of helping you create your book. By giving the illustrator artistic freedom within guidelines, you’re going to get the best product possible, and possibly far below market rate. How Do You Publish a Children’s Book? Formatting is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to publishing children’s books, because you’re publishing to a split audience. Some people have original black-and-white Kindles, or the Kindle Oasis. Those devices don’t support rich formatting. They only support basic pages that allow for static images with text. Kindle Fire models, as well as the Kindle apps for iPads and smartphones, allow you to do much more dynamic formatting. On top of that, the aspect ratio for a children’s ebook is different than a print book. So you have to take that into consideration. You sometimes have to make multiple versions of the same image to make sure that your book works on multiple devices. You can make CreateSpace perfect-bound soft covers if you want to put your children’s book into print. The problem with that is, if your book is a short picture book, you end up publishing what looks like a pamphlet. You can do hardbound books with crisp full-color illustrations through Ingram Spark. The problem with Ingram Spark books is that you only make about $0.50 per book sold for a short, full-color children’s book. There are a lot of options when it comes to getting your children’s books out in the marketplace. The challenge for indie children’s book authors is that they have to create a different edition for each one of the distribution methods. It’s a lot more challenging to do a children’s book in terms of formatting than it is to write a novel. If you don’t know what you’re doing, definitely get professional help with the formatting. It’ll be worth your investment. Make sure whatever version of your book you’re working on works for whatever type of book you’re formatting for. How AJ Promotes His Children’s Books AJ has a fan club of readers within his email list, and he’ll send his book to them first. He’ll send a free copy of his book to his fans before the book is live on Amazon. He’ll also send a note asking them to please give their honest opinion of the book on release day, and if they wouldn’t mind posting about it on social media, that would also help. Having good word of mouth is the best thing you can do to boost your book sales, and having an early review crew is the best way to get early word of mouth goin

Jesper Schmidt is a fantasy novelist and the author of Twitter for Authors. He’s here to talk about his journey as an author, and how he used Twitter to gather an audience of raving fan readers from all over the world. Jesper always thought in the back of his mind that when he retired, he’d write a book. But on one of his annual family vacations to Finland, Jesper had an insight that changed his life. He asked himself: “Why do we have to wait to do the things we want to do?” The next morning, he began writing his first book. Jesper has always loved fantasy. There was never a question of what genre he would choose to publish in. He’s currently working on his third book in a fantasy trilogy now. “80% of people want to write a book and never do. Just do it if you want to do it!” — Jesper Schmidt Jesper’s Journey to Successful Novelist After Jesper’s flash of insight, he began writing his first book immediately—literally the next day. It took him six months to write 50,000 words. But in the end, he scrapped that novel because it made no sense. Jesper took the next 12 months to study what other successful writers were doing and incorporate that into his own process. After he began plotting, writing his next novel was much easier. Jesper was frustrated when he had to scrap his first attempt at writing a novel. He’s worked in project management most of his adult life, and the first thing he learned there was that you have to plan ahead. The fact that he didn’t apply what he knew about project management to writing his novel bothered him, but he just started over after learning his hard lesson. Plotting is what really made the difference for Jesper, and allowed him to successfully publish the books he’s written so far. He brings the same project management checklist mentality to systematically managing his Twitter account. Jesper started using Twitter in 2012 as a recreational tool, three years before he started writing. Twitter is a great platform to have fun on. But if you want to use it as a professional tool to grow your audience, you have to use it in a systematic way to attract and engage with the right types of followers. How Jesper Developed His Twitter System Jesper did a bunch of research into what other authors were doing to build their Twitter profiles. He took a bunch of notes, then tested everything. He used what worked and dumped what didn’t. He documented everything he did. Now he has a system of checklists that he goes through on a weekly basis to help him grow his Twitter audience and maintain his engagement level with his followers. Jesper documented his entire process in Twitter for Authors. Each chapter has action steps and checklists that allow you to easily adopt Jesper’s system. He also did a number of video tutorials to supplement the material in his book. Everybody who buys Twitter for Authors also gets access to those videos. Why Choose Twitter as a Marketing Platform? When Jesper decided to become a professional indie publisher, he took a very analytical approach to the marketing side of things. The first thing he did was decide on three social media platforms he would focus his marketing efforts on. Jesper knew he could manage three social media accounts and consistently update them with content to build strong connections with his fans. He decided on: Facebook: The advertising opportunities on Facebook for authors are tremendous. That was a no-brainer. YouTube: Doing videos was easier for him than writing blog posts. Jesper’s not a native English speaker, and he didn’t want to have to spend all of his time worrying about grammar when writing for his blog. Twitter: This turned out to be Jesper’s best medium for connecting with fans, because he enjoys it so much. “At the end of the day, you have to like Twitter as a social media platform; otherwise you’re wasting your time.” – Jesper Schmidt “Facebook ads are great, but it’s the kind of thing where every month, you have to be testing your ad copy, testing new images and testing new ads, changing your bids, and targeting. If you don’t love it, eventually you’re just going to burn out and stop doing it, and you won’t get the same great results with it.” – Tom Corson Knowles Major Changes with Twitter in 2017 In November 2017, Twitter did a major update to its terms of service and increased the character limit on tweets from 140 characters to 280 characters. A lot of Twitter users complained about the changes. Jesper believes all the complaints will calm down, and people will go back to using Twitter the way they always have. How Jesper Uses Twitter to Grow His Fan Base and Sell More Books If you want to use Twitter in your book marketing process, you have to think of it as a professional tool. That means you have to spend some time to build up your systems. “Most people are more excited about results than the actual work, but the thing is, you have to work a bit to get the results you want.” – Jesper Schmidt To leverage Twitter to its full extent, you’ll have to use some third-party software tools. If you tried to manage your Twitter account manually, you’d have to spend way too much time on the platform. Third-Party Tools You Can Use to Make Twitter Work for You Bitly – Use bit.ly to shorten your links for use on Twitter. You can also use bit.ly links to track clicks. Canva – Use Canva to help you make graphics to share on social media. You can also use Canva to make book covers for your books. It’s a free tool. Depending on the images you want to use, you might have to pay a small fee for usage rights. Crowdfire – Use Crowdfire to help you manage your Twitter followers. Crowdfire will help you find Twitter followers who will be interested in your work and engage with your tweets. It does this by analyzing your current network of followers and searching for followers who have similar behavior patterns. Crowdfire will also organize your followers based on when they followed you and how active they are in engaging with your Twitter account. This allows you to unfollow members of your audience who don’t engage with your account often. HootSuite – HootSuite is a platform that allows you to automate posting on Twitter and other social networks. You can sign up for a free plan to try them out, while their paid plans start at $19 a month. You can set up streams on HootSuite to automate posting on Twitter. Once you set up the stream on HootSuite, you can batch your tweeting activity and then have it drip on a consistent basis indefinitely. You can also start building a social footprint by engaging with people who retweet your tweets. The reason why scheduling tools like HootSuite are so valuable is that they allow you to batch your activities and remove the distraction of actually being on the social platform. If you have to actually log in and manually tweet 20 times a day, it will eat up a lot more time than you intend it to. Another benefit of HootSuite is that it saves you from having to think about something to tweet every single day. You can fill up your tweet streams on a consistent basis once a week, set it, and forget it. Social Oomph – Social Oomph is another tweet scheduling program that allows you to set up queues that are automatically tweeted on a regular basis. Social Oomph is a paid piece of software that is well worth it. Twitter Best Practices 2017 Whenever anyone replies to one of your tweets, you really do have to reply back to them, unless they are a troll. The key to being successful on social media is interacting with people. It’s best to be as social as you can on social media. Pro Tip: rather than just replying to someone who tweeted to you, retweet their tweet and add your reply in the retweet. You should always tweet someone within 24 hours of them tweeting at you. Using Twitter to interact with your followers is a much more direct and immediate experience than email. It’s also more of a community experience. You can build your fan base much faster by interacting with groups of people on Twitter. People buy from people they trust. If your Twitter feed is 100% sales tweets, that’s not going to get people to buy your book. You have to be social with them, and develop relationships. Only 10% of your tweets should be sales tweets. “If you take the time to build a relationship with people, eventually some of them will buy your books.” – Jesper Schmidt You want to establish a connection on Twitter and then funnel as many of those people over to your mailing list as you can. Email is where you can deepen and strengthen your relationship with your reader. The value of Twitter is that it’s a one-on-one connection powerhouse. Long-term success is about building long-term relationships. If you focus on building good, solid, long-term relationships, you will build a strong foundation for your future success. The Major Differences between Twitter and Facebook One of the cool things about Twitter is that you can see who is following the top authors in your genre. That’s something you can’t do with Facebook. Another difference is if you post something on Facebook, only about 10% of your followers will see it. Twitter puts no roadblocks in your way. You have greater visibility, and easier access to your target audience. Twitter is a really powerful tool for one-on-one connections for these reasons. The Twitter algorithm monitors what you like and share. It tries to show you tweets that it thinks you will like and interact with. In that sense, it’s like Facebook. But Twitter’s platform is much more open, with more opportunity to directly connect with people one-to-one than Facebook.   Links and Resources Mentioned in this Interview Jesper Schmidt’s Amazon author page Twitter for Authors by Jesper Schmidt https://www.jesperschmidt.com/ – Jesper’s website. Jesper’s article on thecreativepenn.com about using Twitter to grow your audience The post 168: How to Build Your Audience Using Twitter with Jesper Schmidt appeared first on TCK

James Blatch is a former BBC defense reporter. He reported on the UK military from Kuwait, the Arctic Circle, and during the Kosovo conflict in 1999, among many other crazy war zones and places. Today he is the director of The Self-Publishing Formula Course. He’s an online course provider for independent authors. He also cohosts the weekly SPF podcast. James took the lazy way into journalism. He did nothing to build a professional career until about the age of 25. He started by going into computers. In the late 80s, you didn’t need any qualifications to go into computers. But James realized quickly that he hated the field. Pursuing His Dream At some point in his 20s, he had a moment where he realized he wanted to achieve different things in life—he wanted to achieve his childhood dreams. One of those dreams was to work for the BBC. He started knocking on doors and eventually convinced someone to let him make tea for the sports coverage team on the weekends. Then he started reading the cricket results. From there he started covering other sports, like soccer and ice hockey. He got a staff job at the BBC after a year and a half of hard work. His regular BBC job started as a radio production job along with some on-air time. He slowly but surely wormed his way into the newsroom because the newsroom was a more exciting place to be. It’s always good in a newsroom to have a specialty, and having the defense beat made sense for James because he was always an aviation geek and he came from a military family. So he had some idea of how the military operated, which wasn’t the case for most of the people in the newsroom. James’s favorite part about being a reporter was being out in the field and doing stories. A lot of his colleagues wanted to be behind the desk reading news copy, and he never understood why that was more appealing to them. James got to do a lot of cool stuff as a reporter: He got to fly in fast jets. He got to travel to the Arctic Circle. He got to ride in Formula One race cars. As a member of the press, you are given unparalleled access because being covered is very valuable to people. James mostly covered the Royal Air Force. “The RAF generally fought their wars from four-star hotels about 1,000 miles away from the danger.” – James Blatch During the Kosovo conflict in 1998, James was with the RAF in Italy eating gourmet cuisine while friends of his were with the relief convoy on the ground near the border, set to go in after the violence ended. The most excitement James had as a military correspondent were the two times he was embedded on an aircraft carrier. James also enjoyed the travel associated with his journalism career, for the most part. Because he started his career 10 years later than everyone else, he was traveling quite a lot when he had little children at home. That’s when he decided to shift careers again. The moment in James’s 20s when he decided to be an action-taker has led him to change careers every 10 years or so. He worked for the BBC for about 10 years. In his mid-30s, he decided he wanted to be around his family more. He could’ve continued with the BBC at a desk job, but he decided he wanted to pursue another childhood obsession and become a film classifier. James was 10 when his father took him to see Star Wars in 1977. That was a real turning point in his life because it was the first time he was exposed to the idea that an ordinary person can be the hero of the story. From that point on, James always wanted to work for the BBFC. The entire job of the BBFC is to sit around and watch films and TV shows and give them ratings like PG-13, like the MPAA does in the United States. James began to target the BBFC in the same way he targeted the BBC 10 years before. The BBFC was a much harder organization to break his way into because of the limited number of slots available and the number of people who want to do that job. When James worked at the BBFC, he would go to work and watch 350 minutes of video a day. If he was unlucky, he would get something he wasn’t particularly interested in, like wrestling. Quite often, he would get to watch a series that he really liked. One of the problems he ran into with that job is he would often watch episodes of TV shows he was watching at home, before they were broadcast to the general public. Quite often, those shows would be spoiled for him. James worked at the BBFC from 2007 to 2013. It was during those six years that he met John Dyer and Mark Dawson, who were also working there. At the end of his tenure at the BBFC, James decided to join forces with John and start a video production business. James enjoyed video production. He enjoyed traveling the world again. The problem with his video production business is that it wasn’t scalable. That’s when John and James decided to start looking at other opportunities to make videos that they could sell multiple copies of, on an ongoing basis. They figured out that online courses were a scalable product. It was around this time that Mark Dawson called James and told him about the tremendous opportunities available in self-publishing, and they began to discuss the possibility of creating a course together to help teach new authors how to succeed in the indie publishing marketplace. How the Self-Publishing Formula Helps Authors Currently, the Self-Publishing Formula has two major courses for authors. Author 101 is for people who haven’t published their first book and want a foundation in self-publishing. Author 101 talks about the nuts and bolts of self-publishing, and the importance of cultivating the right attitude. It’s important that you treat your self-publishing business like any other business. You have to put out the best product you possibly can in order to compete in the self-publishing marketplace. Advertising for Authors is for authors who have written two or three books and are working on a series. The course teaches you how to find your readers on various social media advertising platforms. Advertising for Authors started out as Facebook Ads for Authors and has expanded to include Amazon ads and YouTube ads. It now has more than 40 hours of video content for students. The Biggest Challenges New Authors Face One of the biggest problems new authors face is being organized about how they approach advertising platforms. Implementing your marketing plan will require as much, if not more, attention than you put into writing your book. “If you’re going to be a self-published author, the word published is in there. You are effectively a one-person publishing house. And publishers market books.”  – James Blatch Successful indie authors spend a significant amount of their time marketing their books, especially in the beginning of their careers. You should plan to spend at least half of your time marketing your books if you want to build an audience quickly. The Biggest Mistakes New Authors Make One of the biggest mistakes new indie authors make is not putting enough time and attention into their cover. Books are judged by their covers. Your cover needs to look like it belongs in the category you placed it in. If your cover doesn’t look professional, it’s very unlikely new readers will give your book a try. It’s also important to spend the money you need to spend to get your book properly edited. At the end of the day, this product represents you in the marketplace. You want to put your best foot forward, and have the best book possible represent you. The Importance of Having an Email List The email list is the heart of every indie author’s business today. Having an email list of interested customers is vital for discoverability and success in the online marketplace. Things to Consider when Setting up a Facebook Ad Campaign Start small. If you spend $5 a day for two days, you should be able to get enough data to know if an ad campaign will be profitable for you. Split test everything you can. Try different images for your ad. Try different ad copy. Try targeting different audiences. Target other authors in your genre. Be sure to target yourself. Even if you are starting out small, some people will know who you are. It will help you build your audience to have people who know you realize you’re a self-published author. When you’re in the early stages of your career, target your ads at building your mailing list. It’s a mistake to target direct sales at the beginning of your author career. Facebook will take your money whether an ad is good or not. So it’s important to start small and only scale up when you see that an ad is performing well. How Facebook Ads Can Help Build an Author Business There are two things that determine your success as an indie author. They are: The size of your email list The number of books you have available for sale. In the beginning of your author career, your Facebook ads should point to a squeeze page. Once people sign up for your email list, you should have four or five automated emails that tell people who you are and what they can expect from you. That “onboarding” email sequence should get people excited for whatever book you are promoting. It can be used to help build your advance review team. Don’t be afraid to show people who you really are in your emails. This will help separate out the people who will like your work from those who won’t. How to Build an Advance Review Team James built his advance review team by asking people on his email list if they’d be interested in getting an advance review copy of his book. He specifically asked for people who knew or worked on the type of plane that is at the center of his first novel. Beyond simply asking people to join your advance review team, it’s important that you develop and maintain a relationship with the people on your email list. You do this by: Emailing them regularly. Having contests or sweepstakes. Being honest and genuine in your emails. Replying to everyone who contacts you. Being as accessible as pos

Jamie Davis is the author of more than a dozen novels including Accidental Thief. He’s also a registered nurse, a nationally recognized medical educator, and host of The Nursing Show. How Jamie Became a Fiction Writer Jamie got started as a novelist on a dare. He’s been a nurse and a medical educator for quite some time and has several nonfiction books available. In 2014, a friend of his dared him to write a novel for NaNoWriMo. He finished his novel during November and then it sat on the file for eight months. Writing that first fiction novel stoked a creative fire in Jamie. He’s always considered himself a very creative person, and writing fiction gave him a different creative outlet than his nonfiction books or his podcast business. He decided to release what would become the first book in his Extreme Medical Services series. It was very well received by listeners in Jamie’s podcast community, as well as fans of the urban fantasy genre. The Extreme Medical Services series started as an idea for an educational web series that Jamie turned into a novel. Jamie is involved with seven podcasts and he writes for several blogs. He’s always writing. And ever since NaNoWriMo 2014, Jamie has always had a fiction project in process. It never occurred to Jamie to go the traditional publishing route. He’s always been an entrepreneur. He was aware of self-publishing and the opportunities available to him to market to the audience of his choosing, rather than relying on an editor or publisher to decide where his book fit in the marketplace. How to Build an Audience as a Fiction Writer Jamie has several tips for how to build an author as an indie fiction writer. 1. Build an Email List Jamie enjoys the process of fiction writing. He also enjoys building a community and an audience that he can have conversations with. It’s really important for every author to have a platform and an email list. Being an indie author today is no different than running any other online business. “If you have any kind of business at all you need an email list, especially if you’re in an online setting.” – Jamie Davis For an author, having an email list is important because you need to have your readers be your readers, not Amazon’s readers, who they occasionally market your book to. You need to build a community separate from any of the online book sellers. You need to build an email list and communicate with it regularly. Remember: “regularly” can be every couple of weeks. You just want to keep yourself in the front of their mind. You want to keep your fans apprised of what you’re up to, and you always want to be asking them questions. You want to have a continuous conversation with your audience. This builds individual relationships with your audience members. You’ll gain invaluable insight into what they’re looking for in your fiction, and they’ll become invested in your success. 2. Do Newsletter Swaps with Authors in Your Genre Another tactic Jamie uses is to connect with authors in his genre on Facebook, look at what they’re currently working on, and ask them if they’d be interested in doing a newsletter swap. In a newsletter swap, Jamie offers to promote one of their books if they’ll promote one of his. Generally, he has them promote the first in one of his series. You can also sign up for a newsletter swap organized by TCK Publishing! 3. Use Book Marketing Sites Another way to build your email list is to use book marketing sites, with BookBub being the biggest of them all. There’s also FreeBooksy, Book Barbarian, and Kindle Nation Daily. Links are available in the resources section at the bottom of this page. The best way to get success with the different book promotion sites is to run promotions that overlap one another. How to Build an Email List as a Fiction Author When Jamie started writing fiction, he built his email list organically. The first thing you want to do as a new author is put a link to your email list in the back of every book you write. “If you’ve written a good book, your readers are going to want to hear from you when the next book comes out.” – Jamie Davis If you have more than one book out, you can do a number of things to entice people to sign up for your email list. If you’ve written a series, you can: Offer your readers the second book in the series for free and let them know when the third book will be available. Write a reader magnet, which is a side story to your main plot. How Newsletter Swaps Work for Authors When you want to set up a newsletter swap, the first thing to do is look at authors in your genre who have books that directly target the same audience. You’ll want to approach authors who are writing in the same genre as you, who have on their lists the same types of readers you want on your list. You want to become friends with 5 to 10 authors if you can. A newsletter swap is a simple arrangement where you promote a new book to your audience. Then, when your new book comes out, the author you promoted will promote your book to their audience. Don’t think of this as helping the competition. The truth is, you can’t possibly write books fast enough to satisfy your audience—and neither can any individual author. What you’re doing is showing your audience something they can read while they wait for your next book. It’s also important to be honest with your audience. You can promote a book without having read it by simply saying, “This is a book by an author friend of mine, check it out.” Of course, if you have time to read the book, you can actually recommend it. Jamie’s Writing Process The transition from nonfiction writer to fiction writer wasn’t as difficult as Jamie imagined it would be. Jamie doesn’t believe in writer’s block. What people call writer’s block happens when you’re not prepared for what you want to write next. Jamie has run into that when he has tried to write certain blog posts. Jamie isn’t a super planner when it comes to writing, but he does have at least a paragraph for every chapter about what’s going to happen in that chapter. Sometimes, chapters get added because new things occur to him when he’s writing. But he always has an idea of what’s going to happen next when he sits down to write fiction. He also gets up early and starts his day. He believes in the principles espoused in The Miracle Morning. Jamie begins writing by 5 a.m., when the rest of his family is still asleep. Jamie writes for at least two hours a day every day. He treats his writing like a business and allocates a certain number of hours per week to it. If he has a deadline because his book is on some editor’s schedule, Jamie will write whenever he needs to write to meet that deadline. Jamie started honing his writing skills from a very early age. His mother was a schoolteacher, and his father was a lawyer who got an English literature degree before going to law school. So from the start, Jamie did a lot of reading and writing. Reading as much as he did allowed him to develop an idea of what works and what doesn’t work when writing. Jamie also did a lot of writing in grade school, high school, and college. He attended a liberal arts college that required a lot of writing before deciding to go into the nursing field. He feels like his life experience gave him the practice required to be a productive professional writer. Read. Apply. Repeat. Jamie has read a number of books on the craft of writing. One book that didn’t really gel with his creative process was The Story Grid. He tried to apply the principles of the book after reading it and it led to a month of unproductive writing time. Jamie recommends that you only try to adopt the writing processes that appeal to you. Jamie has found the following authors to be helpful in developing his writing process: Chris Fox (particularly Write to Market) Scott King. Johnny B Truant, Sean Platt, and David Wright (particularly their book Publish. Repeat.) The Lessons of Write Publish Repeat “The best way to market your book is to write another book. Every new book you put out brings new readers to every other book you’ve ever written.” – Jamie Davis Write. Publish. Repeat. talks about: How to write The structure of how you set yourself up to be a writer The importance of writing regularly The supreme importance of writing your next book after you’re done with the one you’re writing now Writing continuously is one of the major reasons Jamie has been successful. About the LitRPG Genre The litRPG genre is either a high fantasy story with gamer elements or a sci-fi story with gamer elements. It just depends which end of the genre you’re writing in. People write about sci-fi roleplaying games as much as they do high fantasy roleplaying games. How to Do Market Research in a New Genre When you’re writing a new genre, the first thing you want to do is read at least 3 to 5 highly recommended books in that genre. The easiest way to get your list of highly recommended books is to join Facebook groups related to the genre and ask for recommendations of people’s favorite books in the genre. If you ask for simple recommendations, you’ll probably get between 20 and 30 depending on the number of groups you join. Look for the recommendations that repeat. You can also check out recommendation lists on Goodreads. After you have the list of 3 to 5 books in a particular category that people really like, read them. Then read the reviews. Pay particular attention to: The things people really liked about the books Things people didn’t like about the books Things people expected that they didn’t get in the books If you can identify reader expectations, you can write a book that most readers of your genre will like. Writing to market isn’t just chasing the current hot market. Writing to market is: Finding a genre you’re passionate about Figuring out what readers of that genre are looking for in the books they read Putting the elements that readers are looking for in the books you write If

Evan Marshall is a literary agent and owner of the Evan Marshall Agency. He’s also a multi-published novelist and a nonfiction author, and the creator of The Marshall Plan novel writing software. Evan was born in Massachusetts. His first job was with the Big Five publisher Houghton Mifflin in Boston. Then he moved to New York and worked with Signet Books and a small company called Everest House, which is no longer in business. He also worked for a very famous old company, Dodd Mead, known for publishing Agatha Christie. After working with these traditional publishers, Evan became a literary agent. He started working for another well-known agent, Sterling Lord. Evan started his own literary agency in 1987. What’s Changed in the Publishing Industry over the Last 30 Years When Evan started in the publishing industry, there were many more publishers than there are today. There were many small independent publishers that were actually considered major industry players, typically based in New York City. Over time, the small independent publishers engulfed and devoured each other so that now there are just the Big Five traditional publishers. Macmillan Penguin Random House HarperCollins Hachette Simon & Schuster Most of the publishing companies that existed when Evan started in the business are either now imprints of one of these five publishers or they don’t exist anymore. What this means for agents and traditionally published authors is that now there are fewer places to sell books. Very often, Evan will submit projects to different imprints within a publishing company, but when he does, he has to tell each of the editors that he’s already submitted to that company, because the individual imprints of the publishing company can’t bid against themselves. That’s very different than the old days, when Evan could submit to truly separate publishing houses, and get more and higher bids. Publishing is no longer a “gentleman’s business.” There are no more midlist authors. Midlist books were books that were bigger than so-called category books, but not “top of the list books” as they would say in the industry. Basically, a midlist book is a book that has the potential to perform solidly in the market, earning a good living for its author, but isn’t going to be a massive bestseller. These were the books authors built their careers on, putting out a reliable stream of books and getting a reliable, if not massive, income in return. Today there is no room for books like that. A book has to be a solid genre category, or has to be able to go out on its own in a big way. In the past, there used to be midlist thrillers that had modest sales projections. If the book hit those projections, that was great. In order for a thriller to be successful today, it really has to sell in big numbers or, more than likely, that author will be canceled. Publishing is a much more hard-nosed business today than it was 30 years ago. Another example of how the publishing industry has changed is that bookstores very rarely want to do signings anymore, unless you are a big brand-name author. There used to be signings practically every week at local Barnes & Nobles and Waldenbooks, all the brick-and-mortar bookstores that used to exist. Now, many brick-and-mortar stores say it’s not worth their time to have a book signing unless you’re a big brand-name author, like Oprah. Some small bookstores will hold signings for local authors, but these events often don’t sell many books. One positive development in the publishing industry are the new independent publishing companies like TCK Publishing. Small publishing companies like TCK Publishing make it possible for projects that don’t have a home with one of the Big Five traditional publishers to be put out in the marketplace, so they can find readers. Most editors have to play it safe. They’re looking for reasons to say no. They have to buy something they know will work because they know their jobs are on the line. Ironically, many times the Big Five publishers will try to swoop in and sign an author who has done well with a smaller publisher like TCK Publishing. And yet, when authors are asked if they want to switch to one of the Big Five publishers the answer is often no. What Are Traditional Publishers Afraid of? Basically, traditional publishers are afraid they’re going to buy a book that won’t sell very well, and then people higher up in the company will fire them. Every editor at one of the Big Five publishing companies has a cost-benefit analysis done of them as part of a regular review process. The publishing companies compare: What the editor bought Whether the projects they bought were profitable How profitable those projects were as compared to the editor’s salary If the books the editor bought don’t make more money (usually a lot more money) than the editor is paid by the publishing company, very often they are fired. That’s not to say that new things never come out of New York. But when New York tries something new, it does so in a very safe way. A few years ago, 50 Shades of Grey was an unexpected success, so now all of the big publishers want to publish S&M romance. That was a new development, but it was safe and new because the ground had already been broken. What Should Writers Do if They Want a Big Book Deal? One approach to getting a good book deal is to work backwards. You find out what the editors are looking for. You go to places like Publishers Marketplace or the deals page of Publishers Weekly. You read book reviews. You read the New York Times book review. You go to writing conferences where publishers’ staff appear and explain what they’re looking for. And if you think you would enjoy writing something in one of those areas, you read their guidelines and give them exactly what they want. Just remember: You have to look carefully at what they’re already publishing so you don’t give them something too close to what they already have. If, on the other hand, you’re an author who has an idea that’s a little different and doesn’t fit into what the traditional publishers want, there’s nothing wrong with indie publishing. Indie publishing used to be called vanity publishing, and it was an embarrassment to most people. Generally, it meant that your work wasn’t any good and you had to pay $5,000 or $10,000 to fill your garage with books that usually just got moldy, that you were never able to sell. Typically, the author just ended up giving them away to friends and family. Everything is different now. You can have your book on sale as an ebook and a print-on-demand paperback in a matter of weeks. Especially if the book you’re writing is in more of a niche genre or subgenre, it makes perfect sense to indie publish your book. Don’t waste any more time banging your head against the wall trying to sell to gatekeepers who aren’t interested. If your book does well enough, traditional publishers will come knocking at your door after your book has proven itself. You Can Get a Book Deal after You Self Publish Your Book It’s entirely possible to get a publishing deal after you’ve self-published a book. Today, self-publishing your book and getting a bunch of sales is a way to prove to traditional publishers that your book as a product, and you as an author, are a safe bet. Evan has many clients who got a traditional publishing deal after their book sold many copies in the marketplace as an indie published book. Evan has also successfully sold indie published books to the Big Five publishers after the book sold many copies online without a traditional publisher backing it. Often, a traditional publisher will rebrand the indie book they bought by giving it a new title and new cover. But remember—the book has to do really well first. On the whole, unless a self-published book has sold phenomenally well, agents aren’t going to be interested in taking it on to try and place it. – Evan Marshall If an indie book doesn’t sell well, publishers believe the book has “had its life.” For traditional publishers, an indie published book that’s selling phenomenally well is a book that selling hundreds of thousands of copies per year and continuing to do steady sales. Usually when an indie author is selling that many books, though, they aren’t interested in a traditional publishing contract. The money you can make as a phenomenally successful indie author is far more than you can make as a traditionally published author under contract who has the same level of success. There are examples of authors who began as indie published authors, got big advances for their next projects from traditional publishers, didn’t sell as many copies as they did with their indie published books, and now have returned to the indie publishing marketplace where they started. In general, publishers aren’t going to be interested with an indie published book. If you really want a traditional book deal, it’s better to offer them something fresh. How to Get a Traditional Book Deal in 2017 The process of getting a traditional agent and book deal begins with a query letter. A query letter is simply a professional business letter. One of the first things that professional business letter would say is if the author querying was referred to Evan by somebody that he knows. Then it would launch into a description of the book the author is trying to sell. The description would include: The genre The word count Any comparisons between the book being offered for sale and anything out in the marketplace now, or any book that has been out recently (either one or several projects) A brief description of the plot At the end of the query letter should be a brief list of any credits the author might have. You’ll want to include: Anything you’ve published Any honors you might have Any organizations you might belong to The initial query letter should really be no longer than one page. If Evan likes what he sees and the query looks promising, he asks to see

Rachel Starr Thomson is a bestselling author with more than 50 published books, including The Seventh World Trilogy. She is also a freelance editor, publishing consultant, and founder of Independent Publishing Solutions. From a very young age, Rachel spent her time sitting in nature and making up stories in her head. Rachel was homeschooled. Her parents encouraged a lot of reading and a lot of independent study. Rachel read hundreds of books growing up. Her dad had a library of thousands of books. She loved books and reading. That translated very easily into writing for her. She finished her first book, Theodore Pharris Saves the Universe, at the age of 13 and has been writing ever since. Prior to her first novel, Rachel was writing a bunch of Lord of the Rings knockoff-type stuff that she was never able to finish. She was able to finish Theodore Pharris Saves the Universe because it was funny and she was being quirky and writing with humor. As a teenager, Rachel dreamed of being a famous writer. As she grew up, her life took a different path. She was heavily involved in humanitarian work in her early 20s, when she realized that she could combine her love of writing with advancing the worldviews she believed in. That’s when she started working on her writing as a profession. How Rachel Found Her Writer Voice Rachel writes Christian sci-fi and fantasy novels. She has a Christian worldview, but her books aren’t preachy. (In fact, she’s gotten some negative customer feedback saying that her books aren’t Christian enough.) In the beginning of her author career, Rachel tried to appeal to a wider audience. It was only after she “embraced her weird” that her author career started taking off. She stopped trying to appeal to everyone and started looking for people that her fiction already appealed to, which was a much easier task. “If you really have no idea who you’re writing for, you can’t market to them effectively.” – Rachel Starr Thomson Rachel’s Marketing Strategies and Tips for Indie Authors Rachel uses email marketing along with Amazon and Facebook ads to market to her audience. Because Rachel’s niche is so small, just focusing on ranking on Amazon isn’t enough. Rachel could be number one in every category that applies to her and she wouldn’t be able to make a living as an indie author. As soon as Rachel got on Facebook and found there were a million people who wanted to read her books, that changed everything. How Rachel Uses Facebook Ads Rachel found authors who wrote books similar to hers. Then she advertised to their audiences on Facebook; she offered a free copy of the first book in one of her series to everyone who signed up to her email list from Facebook. From there, those customers were funneled into an autoresponder sequence that introduced Rachel and the kinds of books she writes. She ran the ads for about five months. On average, she was spending about $1 to get a subscriber. Towards the end of her Facebook advertising experiment, she spent $5,000 (Canadian) on Facebook ads. That may seem like a lot of money, but now she has an email list of around 30K subscribers, which allows her to write full time. Rachel credits really knowing her target audience as the main reason she was able to succeed with Facebook ads. Rachel made the difficult decision to shut down her Facebook ads because of cash flow issues. When you run a Facebook ad, you essentially pay for the ad the same day you run it. When you make a sale on Amazon, you get paid 60 to 90 days after the sale takes place. Rachel just got to a point where that cash flow situation was untenable. How Rachel Uses Her Email List as a Marketing Tool Now that Rachel has a sizable list, she does some sort of promotion for her list every two months. She either promotes her paperback books or her ebooks. Because her books deal with spirituality, Rachel has been able to successfully market courses and nonfiction books to her audience as well. Rachel has also done BookBub-style promotion emails on different book promotion sites, and she has a newsletter sign-up link in every ebook she publishes. Rachel’s primary online marketing channel is her email list, and the majority of her marketing efforts have been to build that email list. How to Serve Your List as a Fiction Author The key to serving your list as a fiction author is to develop personal connections with the people on your list. In Rachel’s case, because her fiction is about her faith, she uses her faith as a way to connect on a more personal level with each member of her audience. Rachel shares her own personal experiences and her own faith journey with her audience. She also invites them to share their journeys with her. One thing she does is invite her audience to send her prayer requests, and she prays for them. Prayer requests are something that will probably only work with a very religious audience, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find other ways to build a community around your fiction. Find things in common with your audience. Don’t make your emails all about selling your books. Instead, build connections with members of your audience and they will do more to support you because they know, like, and trust you You become more than just an author they buy from. You are a friend they want to see succeed. Building a Deeper Relationship with Your Audience through Your Email List Rachel has found that a lot of her audience is going through some sort of medical issue.  That means they spend a lot of time in bed and they read to pass the time. She found that out because she reached out to her audience through her email list and started conversations that helped her figure out who her audience was and what they need. You can do that no matter what niche or genre you write in. It’s all about seeing your customers as people rather than just numbers on a sales sheet. If you see your customer as a person, they’re more likely to see you as a person, your connection will be stronger, and they will be actively rooting for your success. If you want to genuinely connect with your audience: Be authentic. Be yourself. Share your strong points and your weak points. Don’t try to make yourself look amazing; everyone has flaws. People care that you’re a person. “I have people who email me and say, ‘I haven’t read any of your books yet, but I open all your emails because I love them.’ I think when you’re hearing that, you’re doing email marketing right.” – Rachel Starr Thomson The key to building a connection with your audience is being genuinely yourself. Rachel’s autoresponder sequence introduces her audience to her books. But she doesn’t write salesy emails. She usually writes about the writing process. She writes about the themes in the book and why she chose to write the story she wrote. Rachel writes about how the stories she tells connect to her life. That approach has been tremendously successful in building an audience of loyal fans. When you compose emails, ideally you want to write an email that’s encouraging, inspirational, or helpful in and of itself, regardless of whether your subscriber buys from you or not. How Rachel Promotes a New Novel The first thing Rachel does to promote a new release is send the new book to her lifetime readers club. There are about 200 people in that club. She’ll ask them to review the book when she launches it, which will help the book gain visibility. Rachel’s regular email list will already know the book is coming because she talks about books with her list as she’s writing them. When she launches the book, she will send out an email that talks about the themes of the book and how it connects to Rachel’s life, and the lives of the people in her audience. Then she’ll connect the themes to the bigger faith picture, which is the theme that ties her list together. In her next email, she’ll send a cover reveal. After that, she’ll likely send out some sample chapters. Finally, when it goes live on Amazon, she’ll tell her list that the new book is live and available for purchase. Usually, when she launches something on Amazon, she tries to give bonuses and free things to her list. When Rachel publishes her next book in December 2017, it will be the first time that she’s using her email list to promote a book. When she started building an email list, she had most of her 50 titles on Amazon already. The majority of her email marketing has been simply promoting her backlist. How Rachel Built Her List When Rachel started building her list in 2015, she had more than 30 books live on Amazon, bringing in about $100 a month. She knew logically that the audience for her work had to be there, so she started looking at what other authors were doing to promote their work. She started using book promotion sites and free giveaways to build her list. Her sales tripled in short order. She dipped her toe in the Facebook ads pond and started to see consistent growth from them. After seeing consistent growth in her email list through Facebook ads, Rachel decided to throw all caution to the wind and spend as much money as she could on Facebook ads. That’s how she grew her list from 2,500 people to 30,000 people in just over two months. How Rachel Handles Editing and Consulting on Top of Being an Indie Author If Rachel could simply be a full-time author, she would. She does editing and consulting when she needs extra cash flow. When she takes on editing and consulting jobs, Rachel likes to batch work and keep her writing days and freelance days separate. At the very least, Rachel tries to give any creative things she is working on a three-hour chunk of time, so she isn’t bouncing from one thing to another, because that isn’t an effective use of her time. When Rachel is working on more than one thing, she likes to set aside at least an hour a day to work on her own stuff before she starts working on freelance projects. When Rachel is working on her own creative projects alongside freelance projects, sh

Ricci Wolman is the founder and CEO of Written Word Media. You may not have heard of Written Word Media before, but I’m sure you’ve heard of some of their brands, including Free Booksy, Bargain Booksy, and Red Feather Romance, all of which are very popular book promotion websites. Ricci has more than 10 years of experience building online audiences using data-driven customer acquisition techniques, and she has an MBA from Harvard University. Ricci’s background is in online marketing, and specifically the part of online marketing that is data-driven. She is an expert at running ads and figuring out the ROI (Return on Investment) or figuring out how much it costs to acquire a customer, whether that’s getting a customer to give you their email address or getting them to buy something at your online store. Ricci actually got her start with The Body Shop, a natural beauty company, working with their e-commerce division at headquarters. After helping build their e-commerce division and working for a couple other companies, Ricci decided to start her own consulting firm. She specialized in helping medium-sized companies acquire new customers. When she started working in the online marketing space 11 years ago, everything was new. Facebook was new! Ricci remembers when Facebook came out with its first ad product, allowing people to pay for customers to like their Facebook page. She’s seen how sophisticated online marketing has become over the last decade, and she’s helped several businesses navigate the online marketing space. The Birth of FreeBooksy While she was running her consulting company, Edge on Marketing Group, Ricci’s mom published a book. Her mom asked for her help getting that book onto Amazon. Once it was live on Amazon, though, it didn’t sell any copies, and her mother was very disappointed. This was around the time that Amazon launched their exclusivity program, KDP Select. In the original incarnation of KDP Select, you could opt for exclusivity with Amazon and have the ability to give your book away for free for 5 days out of every 90-day period. Ricci convinced her mom to opt into KDP Select and offer the book for free. The book still didn’t sell any copies. Ricci was confused. She expected her mom to see at least some activity when the book was offered for free. So she dug into the data to figure out what went wrong. She discovered that on the days her mother’s book was free, so were 5,000 other books on Amazon. Her mom’s book had a real discoverability problem, both when the book was priced and when it was free. That’s when she decided to start FreeBooksy. Originally, FreeBooksy was a blog that picked 5 to 10 free books on Amazon every month and helped them gain exposure. Ricci also featured her mother’s book when it was free to try and give it some exposure. FreeBooksy: From Hobby to Side Project FreeBooksy started as a hobby and a way for Ricci to help her mom. It quickly became a side project because she used FreeBooksy as a sandbox to test out online marketing techniques for her consulting business. She used FreeBooksy to test all of the major social media ad platforms as they came out. Because Ricci spent the time testing ad platforms with the FreeBooksy brand, she began to build an audience. When the social media platforms first started running ads, they were very inexpensive. Facebook’s first ad platform allowed you to run ads for a penny apiece. So you could end up spending $10 in a day and literally get hundreds of likes. After Ricci built an audience, authors began to approach her, offering money to have their book featured on her Facebook Page and blog. That’s when FreeBooksy turned into a side business. Ricci decided to focus on FreeBooksy and build Written Word Media three-and-a-half years ago, after the business grew to the point where it became her primary focus. How Book Promotion Sites Actually Work FreeBooksy has two types of customers: readers and authors. How FreeBooksy Works for Readers FreeBooksy gives readers an easy way to discover new books. There are literally thousands of books free every day on Amazon and it’s really overwhelming for a reader to wade through all of that and discover something they might like. When a reader signs up for FreeBooksy, they give FreeBooksy two pieces of information: What genres the reader likes. What device the reader likes to read them on. With these two pieces of information, FreeBooksy is able to come up with a highly personalized experience for the reader. Every single day, FreeBooksy sends an email to its subscribers with a list of books that meet their criteria. FreeBooksy subscribers are highly engaged because the emails give them a unique customer experience tailored to each individual. FreeBooksy is able to help authors get their books in front of readers who will be interested in reading them. The fact that FreeBooksy’s reader audience is highly engaged means that it’s a very attractive opportunity for authors. Ricci and her team have 3 to 6 slots per daily email promotion. She and her team have found that depending on the genre, readers prefer having 3 to 6 choices. The email recommendations are a mix of paid advertisements and editorial selections. The paradox of choice: If you give your customer one choice and say “it’s this or nothing,” they generally become upset because of the lack of choice. If you give the same customer two choices, they become happier. If you give that same customer three choices, they become happier still. However, if you give that same customer 15 choices, they’ll be less happy than when they had two choices. Ricci and her team have found the best balance is to give readers 3 to 6 choices depending on the genre. How the Written Word Media Sites Work for Authors Here’s the process authors use to promote their book with one of Written Word Media’s book promotion sites. Choose your brand. The first thing you have to do as an author is choose which site you’re going to promote your book on. If your book is free, you’re going to use FreeBooksy. If your book is $4.99 or less, you’re going to use BargainBooksy, and if your book is a steamy contemporary romance, you’re probably going to use Red Feather Romance. Choose your timeline. Go to the appropriate website and check to see that the days you want are available. Occasionally the website(s) do sell out certain days. Submit your book. Once you’ve decided on available advertising days that work for you, you submit your book to the site; the team there will help you make sure your book cover and description will maximize book sales. Watch the sales happen. On the day your book is scheduled to go out via email blast, you will see a spike in sales. Ricci’s goal is that you make enough sales to cover the cost of the ad within 48 hours of the email blast. That’s why ads with Written Word Media sites range from $25-$100. The Top Strategies Ricci Uses to Build Her Reader Base Ricci uses a variety of techniques to make sure there’s an active, engaged reader audience for each of her sites and services. Paid Advertising Ricci uses some paid advertising. She advertises on all of the major social media platforms that support advertising. She runs Facebook ads to build an audience. She also runs ads on Pinterest and Twitter. Word of Mouth There’s a huge word-of-mouth component because the users of Ricci’s email service love the service, and they tell their friends about it. Authors should use the same mix of advertising strategies. Paid advertising gets traffic to your book page so that people know it exists. It’s vitally important that you write a good book, so that when people do find your book, they like it and tell other people about it. Building One Brand vs. Building Many Brands One of the choices for Ricci early on was whether or not to build up one brand, or to diversify and build different brands for different types of readers. BookBub is an example of a company that decided to invest all of its energy into building up one brand. Clearly, they have been successful. However, Ricci still prefers building out different plans for different readers, because it allows authors the opportunity to target readers more specifically. At the same time, it allows for a more individualized approach to the emails being sent. The one downside to building multiple brands is that every time you build a new brand, you’re starting from scratch. How Authors Can Promote Their Books There are quite a few techniques Ricci has learned that authors can use to maximize the potential of their books. How to Launch a New Title The first 30 to 60 days is the most critical time for launching your book and building an audience. This is especially true on Amazon because Amazon relies heavily on computer algorithms to generate visibility for new authors. As of November 2017, Amazon’s current algorithm favors new books. Amazon will give your book a bit of a boost when it’s first released because it’s new. If you can leverage that in the beginning and drive your target readers to your book within the first 30 days, Amazon will continue to promote your book for you going forward. “One mistake authors make is they release a book and send an email to everyone they know saying, ‘Please purchase my book.’ And that will definitely help your ranking, but what it can do is confuse the algorithms.” – Ricci Wolman What you want to do when you’re releasing a new book is define a target audience for Amazon’s algorithm. You want to promote your book to a group of readers who like the type of book you’ve written. It’s fine if you want friends and family to purchase your book, but what’s more important is that you have more of your target readers purchasing your book. Defining the target audience for Amazon’s algorithms is one of the most important things you can do that will lead to success. Using Book Promotion Sites to Promote a New Release You can use the various promotion sites to help you gather your ta

Tyler Basu is the content marketing genius at Thinkific, one of the fastest-growing online course platforms. In episode 48, we talked with Tyler Basu about how to create a lifestyle business and live your dream life. He had just launched Lifestyle Business Blueprint. Since then, Tyler has gotten on board with Thinkific as their content manager. Thinkific helps entrepreneurs easily create and distribute online courses to their audience. Why Is the Online Course Market Growing so Quickly? The online course market is growing quickly because online learning is so attractive. People want to learn specific skills outside traditional learning environments. They want to have the flexibility to learn at home, and to learn on their own schedule. Plus, there are a lot of topics that you can learn online that you don’t learn in school. That’s a huge part of it. The demand for online courses has gone up significantly in recent years, and in response to that, entrepreneurs are creating online courses to serve their customers. In 2017, the e-learning industry will reach $255 billion in total sales from people buying online courses. The traditional book industry is between $80 billion and $100 billion—which makes the e-learning industry 2.5 times the size of the book industry globally! The major reason for this is that the price point for online courses is much higher than for a book. The e-learning industry has a range of price points. There are online course marketplaces like Udemy where you can buy a course for as little as $10, and there are private courses hosted on entrepreneurs’ websites that can go for more than $1,000. Another factor in the growth of the e-learning industry is that the cost of attending a college or university has skyrocketed in the past few years, making taking courses online a much more affordable option for most people. On top of that, people are beginning to question the value of a traditional college degree. There are certainly specialized fields that require a traditional degree to enter, but there are a lot of professions, especially in business, where you don’t need the degree—you just need the skill set. Online courses are perfect for jobs like those. Online courses provide skills at a price point much lower than that of traditional education. The number-one value of online courses is that they can give you skill sets that you can use in your career. In the internet age, there’s information available on every topic you can imagine, whenever you want it. If you decide you wanted to design a logo, and you went to Google and typed in “how to design a logo,” you’d have no problem finding information that would help you in designing your logo. But the best online courses go beyond just giving you information. The instructors go a step further and make sure their students are implementing the information they are given to develop skill sets that make their students more valuable in the marketplace. That’s the difference a good online course can make. The value for the student of any online course is actually implementing the lessons that you learn. Design Your Course So Your Students Implement What They Are Learning Before you create a course with your information, and maybe even before you write a book about it, you should test out your system and approach to solving a particular problem with other people. Before you put it out in the marketplace, your system should work for more people than just yourself. Maybe put up a free video on your YouTube channel. Maybe offer to coach some clients for free. Before you put anything up in the marketplace, you need to be able to prove that it works for different kinds of people. You are not your audience. After you can prove that the information or system that you have is transferable to another person and that it worked for them, the next thing you have to consider is how to create a course that will cause your student to actually go through the material and implement it. Create Short Lessons The first thing you can do to increase engagement and implementation of your information is create short, actionable lessons. You want to create a lesson that doesn’t take a long time to consume. Give Your Students Action Steps After each lesson, you might want to give your students action steps they can do to implement what they’ve learned so far, immediately after learning it. The more your students get in the habit of taking action, the more likely they are to successfully implement your course’s lessons in the long run. Give Students Worksheets or Quizzes about Your Lessons Another good tactic to use involves giving your students a quiz about the lesson they just took, or a worksheet that helps them implement something they’ve been taught by guiding them through the train of thought that leads to action taking place. Allow your students to get quick wins. Don’t give them a ton of content without allowing them to experience the benefit of implementation. “If all you offered was video lessons, you’d be doing a disservice to your students because we all have different learning styles.” – Tyler Basu Pay Attention to Learning Styles People have a variety of different learning styles There are: Visual Learners Auditory Learners Kinesthetic Learners And many more! Some people learn best by watching videos. Some people learn best by listening. And some people learn best by actually doing the activity they’re learning about. Most people learn through a combination of all three methods. If you want your lesson to be accessible to all of your students, you should: Create a video of the lesson. Create a slideshow of the lesson with blanks that people can fill in. Record an audio presentation of the video lesson so that your students can listen to it. Have the audio of the lecture transcribed so your students have a document they can read. Create worksheets that students can use to help them internalize and implement what you’re teaching. Create different types of media and different ways of teaching that same lesson. Those are the best ways to approach creating content for your course that makes it accessible to all of your students, regardless of their dominant learning style. The Marketing Advantage Courses Have Over Books With books, reviews are practically everything when it comes to selling. Word of mouth is a huge factor in any bestselling effort for an author. Word of mouth is still the best way to sell anything. If you have a great course that delivers the result promised to the student, that course is going to do well over the long term. The major difference between an online course and a book is the price point. Because online courses are so much more expensive than books, the return on investment for advertisement is much greater when selling a course than when selling an ebook. Because you stand to make more money, you can afford to spend more money when promoting your courses. This makes it easier to initially get the word out about your course. Courses make it possible to have a sales funnel that allows you to extract the maximum amount of money from each customer that you get. Using Facebook ads to market a $3 ebook by itself is not usually a profitable endeavor. But if your book is the first product in a sales funnel, that makes each customer who buys your book potentially much more valuable to your business. As a nonfiction author in particular, it makes sense to have multiple ways for people to get information from you. If all you have is a book, you’re really leaving money on the table. How to Promote an Online Course So once you’ve created a valuable online course that offers plenty of ways for your students to access and implement the information you provide, how do you get those students? Stage 1: Create a Minimum Viable Product One mistake Tyler sees people making when they decide to create a course is that they lock themselves in their office and spend hours creating the course content. Then, when they come up for air, they suddenly decide that they need to learn about marketing. This almost never ends well for the course creator because they haven’t validated their course concept. They haven’t looked at the market to see if anyone is interested in what they have to teach. They didn’t involve anyone else in the creation of the course content. Your marketing should start as soon as your course creation does. If you are thinking of creating a course, and you have some people who’ve bought your book, or followers on social media, or an email list, you should engage with them and see what type of content they might like in your course. Contact the people in your personal network, whether they’re customers, family, or friends, and say, “I’m thinking about creating a course on this topic. Is that something you’d be interested in learning, and if so, what kind of questions do you have on the topic?” Then you begin to create the course with their input. You can then presell the course to them, and teach it via a weekly webinar. Next, you would improve that based on their feedback; create better, improved course content; and relaunch it at a higher price point. This would prevent you from creating a course that nobody wants. It would also help you create a more complete, robust, and helpful course that leads to the types of results that your ideal customer wants to achieve. When you create a course, you’re not trying to create something perfect from day one. You’re trying to create something that proves that people want it. From there, you improve it and add on to it based on feedback. That’s the way to ensure your success as a course creator. Stage 2: Promote Your Proven Product So let’s say you have a great course. You’re sure of its value. You implemented the suggestions of your first students, and you have testimonials from successful students. How do you go about promoting your proven product from there? This is where authors and course creators hav

In episode 7, we talked to Rob Archangel about audiobook publishing. In the last three years, Rob has built one of the most successful self-publishing services companies out there. I brought Rob back to talk about what he’s doing now and the lessons he’s learned over the last few years. Selling Books Directly from Your Website It’s helpful if you can think laterally about how you can use your book to grow your business. Not everybody wants to go the bestseller route. There are lots of ways to publish your book and make a profit without selling a ton of copies. The Kindle store is very competitive. It’s very difficult to stand out in the marketplace when there’s literally millions of books available. There is a big emphasis on price as a way to compete in the marketplace. If you pour your heart and soul into a book and work on it for years, it can be hard to turn around and sell that book at just $0.99 or even $2.99. But the entire Kindle business model is designed around encouraging authors to sell their books between $2.99 and $9.99. More and more people are selling their books directly on their websites so they can charge what the book is actually worth. Having a book on your topic of expertise establishes you as an expert in your field and gives you credibility. If you sell your book directly on your website, you have direct control over every aspect of your product and distribution. Selling your book directly from your website works really well when your book is on a small niche topic that doesn’t have wide market appeal. Again, you have the ability to price the book at its true value, and if you work on your website and search engine authorization properly, you can find a market for your very specialized book. You may have seen websites in high-end markets like investing and business selling specialized reports for $100 or $197. Depending on the report and what it can do for you, those price points make a lot of sense. In contrast, it doesn’t make sense to put those kind of reports on Amazon and lose 70% of the profit, because the market is so specific—you aren’t going to get many more customers on Amazon than you do just by selling on your own website, and you’ll make far less money. Rob has been in touch with an author who takes the “sell direct from your website” business model to an extreme. He sells his books for more than $1,000! Obviously, you’re probably not going to sell a million copies at the price point of $1,000. On the other hand, at that price, it doesn’t take so much to make a decent living selling to leads you’ve already cultivated through your network. Trade-Offs The trade-off of selling books directly from your website at very high price points is that you have to find an audience for your material. Finding the audience for whom the book is worth premium pricing is the real work of this business model. The benefit of selling your book on Amazon is that you have a potentially huge audience to market your book to. When you look at how to market your book, you have to look at how specific your market niche is, the actual value of the book that you’re offering, and its value to the audience you are gathering (or have already gathered). It’s best to think broadly when considering your marketing strategy. At Archangel Ink, Rob and his team can advise you on the best way to use your book to grow your brand and your business. Use Your Book as a Lead Generation Tool Jay Campbell is another client of Rob’s. Jay published the book, The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual: How to Optimize Your Testosterone for Lifelong Health and Happiness. It’s available on Amazon for $9.99 on Kindle and $15.36 in paperback. He also has it available on his website using a free plus shipping offer (where you give the customer the book for just the cost of shipping.) Jay offers the book for the cost of shipping so that he can build his email list. He has a bunch of ancillary offers that he makes money from, so the free plus shipping offer is a moneymaking proposition. One offer that is a particularly high-value item is Jay’s long-distance coaching. Jay also partners with a long-distance concierge medical practice. This service allows you to have in-home blood tests to determine your unique hormone levels, then lets you consult with doctors to figure out the best treatment for you. He also partners with a supplement company and emails his qualified list of leads their offers. That’s an additional income stream for him. Jay also has a podcast and YouTube channel. Jay estimates that he receives $100,000 more in sales per year thanks to publishing his book, and due to the authority status that book gives him as an expert in the industry. When Jay published his new book, Burn Fat with the Metabolic Blowtorch Diet: The Ultimate Guide for Optimizing Intermittent Fasting: Burn Fat, Preserve Muscle, Enhance Focus, and Transform Your Health, he had close to 200 reviews within 72 hours, selling the book at $8.95. Jay has a background in marketing and an extensive network of followers. This isn’t something you can set up over a weekend. But it is a good example of what’s possible if you have the right foundation in place. Use Your Book to Establish Credibility and Build Your Brand You can certainly use your book to build your voice in your industry. You can also use it to find leads and customers for your business and brand. Use Your Book to Build Relationships with Future Customers “One of the great benefits of writing a book is that if you are an expert in your field, it allows you a vehicle to share your knowledge with people.” – Tom Corson Knowles Writing a book makes it easier for potential customers to find you. It puts your expertise on display, and gives you a way to connect deeply with your audience. “Having a physical product to give people is really powerful.” – Rob Archangel Rob had another client, Lynda Goldman, who wrote the book, How to Make a Million-Dollar First Impression. She was invited to speak at a medical sales convention, and because she had physical copies of her book available, she was able to give out several copies of her book to the audience. Giving that book to members of the audience helped her build a network that launched her business. Having a physical copy of your book in hand helps people look at you differently. “Unless you’re in specific industries, like self-publishing, the likelihood that someone you know is actually a published author is probably quite low, so the market is quite open.” – Rob Archangel Giving people a physical copy of your book begins a conversation. It opens the door to the possibility of connection. Your book can act like a soft salesman to your prospect. It’s not a high-pressure sales tactic, but it still puts you in their mind as someone they might like to buy something from. Your audience can decide on their own how, when, and if they want to contact you. In many cases, someone who reads your book is presold. They already know, like, and trust you. How Alex Goldstein made $70,000 By Accident: A Case Study Alex Goldstein is another one of Rob’s clients. In his book Publish to Sell: Long-Term Income from Short-Term Effort, Alex tells the story of how he wrote his first book on seller-financed real estate deals, distributed it to a few dozen people, and forgot about it. This was right around the time of the financial meltdown of 2008. There was a hungry market for this sort of information. Since then, Alex estimates that he’s made around $70,000 from clients who have reached out to him after they’ve read his book. This money came in without him promoting the book in any significant way, beyond the first wave of self-distribution. His book established him as an expert in real estate. Clients who came to him from his book didn’t have a lot of price resistance, and they were eager to do what he said. People who came to him after reading his book wanted to work with him. Alex’s book sold him to his clients as someone to work with. There came a point where Alex actually got mad that the book he’d forgotten about was doing better than other sales methods he put a lot of time, effort, and energy into! “Imagine all the people you’re not serving if you’re not putting your knowledge out into the world.” – Tom Corson Knowles   “You never know what’s going to happen. In many cases, casting a wide net, trying different things, experimenting around and seeing what happens, and being open to that sort of market feedback can be really powerful, and might lead you to some novel insights you would not have otherwise come up with on your own.” – Rob Archangel The Process of Writing a Book Has Value in and of Itself “It’s never a waste of time to write a book and publish it. I have some books that only sell four copies a month. But going through the process of researching your book, writing it, clarifying your thoughts, and publishing it makes a huge impact on your life even if you don’t make money from it.” – Tom Corson Knowles You never know the opportunities that will come up after you publish your book. If you have something inside you telling you to write a book, don’t ignore that voice. Writing a book will change your life in ways you can’t imagine. Rob’s relationship with his business partner, Matt Stone, started with an email. He found Matt’s website and simply emailed Matt saying, “I like what you’re doing and I’ll be following you.” From that first email, an extremely profitable friendship and partnership formed. Writing a book as a business owner allows you to get clear on your own thought process and how you think about things. That’s incredibly valuable for future projects and productivity. When you’re an entrepreneur running your own business, you spend your days putting out fires, going from one problem to the next, and it doesn’t allow you to reflect on the way you do things. Writing a book gives you the space and time to reflect on what you do and how y

  Brian David Crane is a serial entrepreneur. He sold his first company at age 24. He has helped launch six different million-dollar brands, including Archives.com, which was bought for $100 million three years after launch. Brian has been a digital nomad since 2014 and he’s here to talk about the downsides of the digital nomad lifestyle, and why you might want to rethink selling everything you own and traveling around the world. Brian has had an entrepreneurial streak since he was a teenager. His first business was a lawnmowing company that he started at the age of 14. When he was 17, he started a recycling business with his mother that helped him pay his way through college. He sold that business after he graduated from college at 24. Brian decided to travel the world to find himself. He was supposed to see 25 different countries during his 25th year. He canceled the trip three countries in, because it had no purpose and it didn’t seem to be helping him much. He lost all his money in the financial crisis of 2008. Brian says that’s one of the best things that ever happened to him, because he was a little too big for his britches at that point. A friend got Brian a job out in Silicon Valley. Over the next three years, he learned how to build and launch digital brands and built up a number of e-commerce brands. Then he decided to strike out on his own and build the CallerSmart app, which helps you identify blocked and anonymous callers on your cell phone. What Is the Digital Nomad Lifestyle? Brian considers himself more of an expatriate than a digital nomad. He travels to a place, lives there for 3 to 5 months, and uses where he’s living as a base from which to explore. He has several bases around the world. He has lived in: Bali Hong Kong Vietnam Poland One of the major downsides to being a digital nomad is the fact that you move around all the time. People who are contemplating this lifestyle massively underestimate the time it takes to ramp up and ramp down from traveling. It undercuts your productivity quite a bit. It’s very hard to build consistent habits as a digital nomad. It’s nearly impossible to create a routine if you’re always moving around. Dealing with the Double-Edged Sword of Envy and Perception As a digital nomad, you want to show people your lifestyle. But if you’re too open on social media, your boss and the people your boss works for will see it, and they may begin to question your work product. There’s a real danger to your income if you’re too transparent about your lifestyle. The Digital Nomad Ponzi Scheme There are a lot of digital nomads who travel the world because they convince other people who want to live that lifestyle to hire them as a coach. Instead of providing value and great insights, they make their money and support their lifestyle by telling you how you can do the same. It’s a Ponzi scheme, plain and simple. How to Find a Quality Coach Who Will Actually Help You Improve Your Skills Starting about a year and a half ago, there were a lot of Facebook ads targeting people who wanted to be coaches. These coaches would coach people on how to coach coaches. If you’re searching for a coach to help you improve a skill set, the best thing to do is search for a coach who has achieved what you want to achieve in life. You want to look for a coach who is successful and makes their income from something other than just being your coach. The best coaches are people who are reluctant to take on new clients. They are busy, successful people who don’t need to make money from coaching clients. Stay Away from Gurus There are three levels of teaching. A teacher can teach a skill without being a master at it. There are plenty of teachers who teach physics who aren’t master physicists. A mentor is someone who has mastered the skill. Mentors are people you can model to achieve success. A guru is someone who has mastered the skill and uses their mastery in one area of their life to convince people to follow them in every area of their life. Gurus can be dangerous, because everyone is unique and gurus want everyone to follow their systems regardless of your individual strengths and personality. The Real Key to Success “Become so good in your field that they can’t ignore you. Become so good that the marketplace demands more of what you’re doing.” – Brian David Crane   The real key to success in anything you attempt is to become so good at what you’re doing that people can’t ignore you. You want the marketplace to demand more of what you’re selling. To develop that kind of expert skill level requires focus. You can’t be focused if you’re always traveling everywhere. When you’re constantly traveling, your brain is wired to always think about what’s happening next. If that’s all you’re thinking about, you can’t possibly live in the moment and plan to cause real, lasting change in the world. The Problem with Materialism in the 21st Century The problem with the lifestyle advocated by books like The Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris is that it creates an addiction to novelty. This type of lifestyle book advocates having experiences as being more valuable than owning things. While that may be true to some extent, there are extremes with every type of lifestyle. Becoming addicted to novelty doesn’t allow you to process your personal experiences deeply. Player Discipline and How It Relates to Online Business The Dominican Republic is really good at producing major-league baseball players. This is because they teach aspiring baseball players how to hit every pitch that’s thrown at them, whether it’s thrown at their head or at their ankles. The problem with this approach is when those players get to the major leagues, batting coaches don’t want them swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. The same can be said for online entrepreneurs. When you’re just starting out in business, you take every opportunity you can get; you hustle to get clients. The problem is, once you reach a certain level of success, it’s more important that you say no to certain opportunities that don’t work for you. The true key to success is focusing on what value you can offer to the marketplace by using your best talents. By saying yes to everything once you reach a certain point of success, you limit your effectiveness. How to Develop Your Discipline “I find for myself that if I have a sense of pushing a rock up a hill, if I listen to that, if I’m not stubborn and I pay attention to it, a lot of times that’s an indicator to me that I’m swinging at something outside my strike zone. Realizing that helps reinforce my discipline.”  – Brian David Crane   “Discipline for me is about cultivating the right habits. If you have the right habits in place, discipline becomes effortless.” – Tom Corson Knowles Brian’s Digital Nomad Habits Brian has a sound machine he uses to help him sleep. Before he goes to sleep, Brian puts his phone on airplane mode. Brian journals every night. He has for four years. Before he turns on his phone each morning, Brian does calisthenics and dancing. Brian drinks 2 liters of water every day. Brian has a set morning routine and a set nighttime routine that help him book-end the day in both directions, no matter where he’s at. At every one of his bases, Brian has a particular office setup. He uses a two-monitor display setup to do his work. Brian has found that having that stability dramatically increases his productivity. One of the keys to happiness in life is having a balance between certainty and uncertainty. You need enough certainty to be stable and develop habits. You need enough uncertainty to be stimulated and surprised by new experiences. Living a Great Life as a Digital Nomad One of the problems digital nomads have is that constantly traveling the world feels like a vacation, and yet in order to sustain your lifestyle, you have to work some of the time. So you’re never really on vacation, but you’re never focused completely on your work. It makes things muddled. That’s why Brian chooses to have a base to explore from. It gives him a place to do his work and the ability to shift mentally from work to play. Traveling while you work leads to incompatible long-term goals. And it siphons away your productivity. When considering adopting the lifestyle of the digital nomad, it’s important to know ahead of time what you’re going to sacrifice, and to know your limits. “You can have a lot of the things you want. You can’t necessarily have everything you want.” – Tom Corson Knowles   “You can have everything you want, just not all at once.” – Brian David Crane   When you want everything all at once, it leads to a great deal of pain because your expectations are out of line with reality, either consciously or subconsciously. Being a digital nomad can be lonely. Brian misses the experience of working in an office with coworkers. There’s a social aspect to working with people in an office that the digital nomad gurus don’t talk about when they’re selling the lifestyle. Another aspect to this is that as a digital nomad, all of your relationships are transitory because you’re moving around all the time. It can be healthy to have an office and coworkers you see on a regular basis. Spending time together is what allows people to build relationships. Developing and Maintaining Relationships as a Digital Nomad Maintaining relationships as a digital nomad can be difficult. One solution is to live with friends. Last year, Brian and two friends rented a ski villa outside of Vancouver, Canada. The villa had five bedrooms. So there was a core group of three people there, all of whom had online businesses, and a rotating group of friends who occupied the remaining two bedrooms. Again, the key to relationships is spending time together. Another key to building friendships as a digital nomad is to find people who are on the same trajectory, and who you’re going to see over and over again. It’s incredibly tiring to keep initiat