Latest / Substack Writers Salon / How to Sell Books Without an Algorithm

Transcript

How to Sell Books Without an Algorithm · Substack Writers Salon

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we are live.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: And welcome to another episode of the Substack Writers Salon.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so excited to have with me a publisher and author.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Jacobs.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Jacobs has authored 18 books and he published 450 articles.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: His Civil War book was featured on C-SPAN and he owns the JWC Publishing
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: where he works with best-selling and emerging authors
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: and he loves doing family history books.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Tim, thank you for joining me today.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to talk about publishing and,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know, the secrets of publishing and all of that.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, Tim, my first question for you is obviously about your publishing company.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so how did you start it?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: When did you start it?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And how is that going for you?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: First, thank you for reaching out, inviting me to have this conversation with you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I do appreciate that.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I just realized I need to update that.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You said 18 books.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, last month I had my 19th book done.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, congrats.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Which was, speaking of family history, it's a book on my website.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's my eighth or seventh generation grandfather who served in the American Revolution.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's his genealogy and story of what he did in the war.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But going back to how I got in publishing, it actually just grew out of a love of reading.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was the kid like, time for bed.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, can I read one more chapter, please?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or underneath the covers with the flashlight type of thing.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then in 1996...
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to write a book and it was about this opera house in Connecticut where I grew up.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when I'm trying to research the opera house, there was no such book.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I just started to do all this research.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then my friend said, hey,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: instead of doing this fictional ghost story that you want to do at the opera house,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know more about the opera house than anyone right now.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why not write the book you were looking for?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how I got into nonfiction.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that was 1996.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was also working at a publishing house to learn about editing and sales and graphic design.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm making friends with all of them to learn all that.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, fast forward to maybe...
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: In 2010 or so, I started to create JWC Publishing.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually originally Jacob's Writing Consultants and it was myself
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: and five editors and we did editing and proofreading and that just grew over
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: the years to be like,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: let's offer ghostwriting,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: let's connect with graphic designers,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: let's connect with marketers and So now it's kind of like we basically can kind
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: of do everything from A to Z.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we mainly concentrate on,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know, business owners looking to create that book to grow their business.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Your actually story is very similar to mine.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a big reader.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started writing, got into journalism and became an author.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then same thing with you, ghostwriter, book coach.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And now I run my my small publishing company.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: So for you, who do you accept when to publish?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Do people have to have an agent?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Do you reject manuscripts?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: How is the process for you?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I really wouldn't say we reject manuscripts because we're trying to come in and do
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: the writing for them,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: like have the ghost writer and or writing coach and work with them.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But of course,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: someone can submit a manuscript and we would work with them depending on what it is.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: As far as...
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: What will we pass on and who we would not work with?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I myself wouldn't want to do anything that is really legalese
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: or very academic medical just because I just don't have people that have
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: that background.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't want my publishing label and or their name being out there
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: with misinformation on police procedure or this is what happens in an OR
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: or something like that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of distribution, what do you use on publishing?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Our publishing manager mainly uses IngramSpark and that's just to get
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: into their channel system of distribution.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: But mainly the clients that we have and we help them do their book from A to Z,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: they have their own marketing plan.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: They know their audience.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: They already hang out with their audience.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: They're just looking in the most part just to give their book away.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just kind of getting clients from that.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're getting on the speaking stages,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: the podcast,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: just by kind of they've just leveled up their credibility as,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: not only do I know about XYZ, I wrote the book on XYZ and they go from there.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you publish on Amazon, KDP?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll put it on Amazon, KDP.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: We do IngramSpark and also Draft2Digital.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are some people who don't want all that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just like go to a printer and get me a thousand copies and we'll just do that
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: for them instead.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you actually print it for them and then mail it to them?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we would get if they want,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: we would get it printed and everything would be just shipped straight to them.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So for those who's watching who don't know the difference between Amazon,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: IngramSpark and Draft2Digital,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: can you just,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: let the audience know what are these platforms and what are the difference
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: between those three?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my publishing manager, she's the one that handles all of that.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not too familiar with Draft2Digital,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: but I do know IngramSpark is great for hardcover copies with the wraparound jacket
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: for books.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't guarantee they're going to,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: take your book and bring it into the store,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: but you're going to get their eyeballs on your book where Amazon doesn't offer that.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like Amazon doesn't offer returns.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's why bookstores will not go to Amazon and say, yeah,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: give us 20 copies of this because they can't return the 10 copies that don't sell.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Correct, yeah.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just things like that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Amazon and Ingram, they're similar, but they do have those little bit of differences.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just printed my last book and I went with Ingram because I wanted,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it's a family keepsake book.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted that,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have a nice hardcover, it's cloth, and then I have the wraparound cover on it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can't get that at Amazon.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And also Amazon, when it comes to hardcover...
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: For example, children's book, they won't do hardcover.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if IngramSpark would actually do children's book for hardcover.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: That I don't know.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Actually,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: that is something my wife would likely know because she runs an award program
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: for children's book authors, illustrators and publishers.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's her wheelhouse.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's nice.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so from your experience,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: when people publish books,
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: they also have these ideas that they come,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: what the book is going to do and how it's going to change their life, right?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So some people,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: they think they're going to become really rich from the book,
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: which probably might happen to few, but that's not usually the norm.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Other people think they're going to become really famous.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: People think that all their social media followers are going to buy their books.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the things that I personally learned by...
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just try and edit.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: So what are the publishing myths that you see authors fall into or the trap?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked to many people who still think if they get Simon & Schuster
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: or Random House or Penguin or whoever,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: one of the big five, they're going to pick up their book.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's going to be done for them.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Simon & Schuster is still going to want to know,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: what's your marketing plan to sell 30,000 copies?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's one of the first questions.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to ask about your platform.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: What platforms are you on?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's your following?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And how engaged is your following?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've seen people,
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know, they have 20,000 followers and they put a post out and they get two likes.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: But then I've seen people with just a thousand followers and,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know, they're getting like, you know, 200 likes and 300 comments.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you're absolutely right.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think I have 10,000 followers that I'm going to sell 10,000 copies.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like followers are not buyers.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're not your...
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're not going to really invest in your book, even though they like your content.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no guarantee that a follower is going to follow through and buy your book.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I always tell people,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: if you have a thousand followers,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: you're probably going to sell three to five copies.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if your followers do not buy your books,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: your social media people do not buy your books, who actually buy your books?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: That comes down to the client and what their marketing is, what their plan is.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: in most cases,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: they're going to a conference,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: whether they're a keynote speaker or just doing a breakout room or just renting
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: a table or booth at the conference.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: In most cases, they're giving their book away.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I gave away 100 books, but out of that 100, I got four clients.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably worth 10 times more than selling that 100 copies
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: of books they brought with them.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So for you, the strategy is they publish the book.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say I'm a ghostwriter.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: I publish a book about ghostwriting.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I go speak at a writing conference and then I give my ghostwriting book for free.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And from that, I can...
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Either sell my ghostwriting course or whatever.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do the marketing for the author or do you want the author to do the marketing themselves?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, it should be a joint effort.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I could give you just one quick example.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: About 10 years ago, we did a book for a real estate brokerage firm in Fort Myers, Florida.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Written their book.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: We had done the layout, the cover.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: We got them copies.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the matter of like six years, they printed 4,000 copies.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: They gave it away to all realtors,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: conferences they were going to anytime they were having an open house
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: or having any type of event.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And just from the book,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: they were able to bring realtors into their umbrella and And within their umbrella,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: they were trained,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: if they wanted to be, to start their own brokerage firm underneath their umbrella.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they're making money off all the transactions and that realtor would have to pay
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: a fee to create their own brokerage under their umbrella.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in that six years,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: they had told me just from the book,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: they made over $250,000 just from giving away their book.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And back then at the time, their book only cost them like 12 grand.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's think about it.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: If somebody comes to you and they tell you,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I only have time to do one marketing task, what would you tell them?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, I think you're frozen.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: It would depend on what their content is and who their audience is and what would be
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: the best way to reconnect with that audience.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I think you're frozen for a bit, if you can repeat that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I come to you and I tell you I only have time to do one marketing task.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: What would you tell me?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say it would depend on the author and what their content is,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: who and where their audience is and what's the best way to reach them.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then we would develop like kind of like maybe just a one shot to get to them,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: like one blast on a certain thing instead of trying to do five different things over
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: the course of time.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'd probably do something short and sweet instead of something that's a bit like longer.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say I wrote a memoir about like a family saga.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: What should I do?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: What would be one marketing advice you would give me?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing I would do is try to find groups that maybe have
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: that similar journey of leaving this one country,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: coming to another country, whatever countries those are.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing would be to lean into your family, to have them like, hey, here's an email.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Share this with all of your email contacts and kind of have your family kind
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: of do some of your promoting.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would try to find podcasts that...
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I even wrote a book that goes into a lot more detail about my journey to get here.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's been a lot of focus on authors going on podcasts these days and like
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: the podcast tours are kind of replacing the traditional book tours.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think you can actually sell books from podcasts or it's still hit or miss?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: but I think it's just a little bit longer than if you're in front of me at my table
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm just talking to you,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: telling you about my book and you buy my book,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: we shake hands, you go on to the next table.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's like an instant immediate transaction.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think with a podcast is more like You know, I'm on this podcast with you.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're speaking.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're having a conversation.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: If any of the viewers are interested, well, that's going to lead them to my profile.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then when they start to absorb my content,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: which could be over the course of a week,
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: a month, whatever, then they're like, wow, this guy knows what he's talking about.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I need to know more.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he has a book.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, you yourself wrote 19 books, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: What these books are about
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: and how can you manage your creative projects plus running a publishing company?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like for me personally,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: and maybe you can help me with that,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm having a really hard time managing the clients, the work.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: While at the same time making sure I meet my creative project
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm writing calendars,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: like doing all the stuff, but I'm still like not quite there.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have any advice of how you do that, I would be happy to hear from you.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: For me, the first thing is I'm an early morning person.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm up between four and five every morning.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: No alarm clock.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just I go to sleep.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I wake up and I'm also and my wife hates this.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wake up and I'm ready to go.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm energized.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm awake where she's kind of like need my coffee first.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't talk to me until then, you know,
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: like me.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we're kind
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: of different in that way.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I really kind of.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of strict with myself that I don't do work things until after eight in the morning.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when I wake up, it's about reading.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's about doing my own writing.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I do a crossword puzzle.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I do Wordle.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just kind of get my brain going by doing those little games.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm spending all of like 10 minutes doing those.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not like an hour doing games.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But especially the reading part and just doing my own writing, I just do a half hour a day.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I just started a book in July, my next family history book for my family.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I started in July and I'm already at like 20,000 words and I'm just doing 30 minutes a day.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm almost done with it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have one more book.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Bio to kind of add into it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: But so that's for me,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: some other people, hey, maybe that's late at night after the kids go to bed.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the husband's watching sports on TV or, you know, whatever.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the time that you have that quiet time to get things done.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I like the early morning hours when everything's just it's cooler temperature wise.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, the house is quiet and that's just kind of when I get those things done.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do you get enough sleep?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like what time do you go to bed if you wake up at four?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I go to bed usually probably any time between like 11 and 12, 11 and 1.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's late.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's late.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: So...
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: For your own books,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: when you published them,
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: when you started publishing your books,
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: did you start with your publishing company or how did you move to that from like
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: over the span of 18, 19 books?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my first book was, you know, 1996.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: There was email, but there wasn't quite internet yet.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: The big AOL boom that happened toward the later 90s wasn't there yet.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So my first book, I didn't know anything about networking.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there was no Facebook.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: There was no LinkedIn.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: There was no way to kind of share with the masses about,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: hey, I'm writing a book and now it's here.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So for me,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: it was just going from place to place,
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: asking stores if they wanted to carry my book for 50%.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was going to rotary clubs, friends of the library, asking them if they need a speaker.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you all the history of the Goodspeed Opera House as long as you allow me to.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I won't charge you a fee for me to speak if you let me sell my book.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, that's fine.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I would speak for free.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd sell 10 books.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm making $200.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably more than what they would have paid me to come speak.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: They probably would have gave me $30 or something.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just doing things like that.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: In the course of that summer, I released it in June, July.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of August,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: beginning of September,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had gone through 2,000 copies of my book, no social media at all.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: But how did you publish the book?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Did you self-publish it?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I self-published it.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I used to get Writer's Digest magazine,
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: and there would be classifieds in the back of people,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know, we print your book in 48 hours and things like that, and I did that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing I did was...
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would get newspapers because newspapers were everywhere still back then.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I would look at the out and about section and I would see like,
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: OK, Bob Smith is the one who covers this section.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they would always have their phone number underneath their name.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I would call Bob up and say, hey, Hey, Bob, I have a story idea for you.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: How would you like to interview and do a photo shoot with the gentleman who was
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: the first person to write the entire history of the Goodspeed Opera House?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to be up by the opera house at one o'clock today.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell him to look for you.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm already up there.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd be like, hey, are you Bob?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, hey, I'm Tim.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was told to meet you.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of paying for an ad in the newspaper,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would get either a full page or half page of a whole entire article
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: with my picture,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: a cover of the book,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: and then it would list like the,
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know, seven or eight locations where the book was available.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, I was doing book signings at all those places, too.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you've been hustling since the 90s.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there is these books that I've read.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: I interviewed once an author on my podcast and I've been reading a number of books.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: They called themselves the seven-figure fiction authors or the seven fiction authors.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea that they're using a mix of Amazon,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Shopify stores and others,
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: and they're actually making full-time seven-figure job authors.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or income just from selling books.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: How sustainable is that for an author to do?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've always heard the more books you have out there,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: obviously,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: the more chances you have of selling books because you have different content,
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: different points of view to come in for different things.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you could kind of please a bigger audience.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have the thing you just mentioned about the 100,000.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have not heard of that.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've recently been introduced to those people and I'm following their journey.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, actually, I might bring some of them here to talk about that.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you've been on Substack for how long?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is how we connected.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we connected on Substack and I think we then connected on LinkedIn.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've been on Substack,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I would say maybe less than a year,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: but the past- Maybe four months is when I've kind of gotten more focused about it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: In the morning, one of the first things I do is I'm doing about 45 minutes on Substack.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going through in likings.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm re-stacking, I'm making comments, I'm commenting on comments.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm done with that,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I post whatever my thought is and then I'll go into my activity and respond
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: to comments and anyone who follows me,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I follow back, things of that nature and I do all that.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I spend about 45 minutes on LinkedIn in the morning and then in the afternoon,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just might check in just to see just what might be there
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: if anything catches my interest.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So how has the experience been for you so far as a publisher on Substack?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's been good.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've been enjoying the conversations.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like this is a perfect example.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are connected.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then you came into my DM saying, hey, do you want to do a live Substack with me?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't me doing like a DM campaign of like, hey, I see you do live.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can I be your guest?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just shows that to me, it shows that I'm getting noticed.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You and I, as an example, because I like your stuff.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I comment on your stuff.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I might question while we're in a comment and,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know, you've been doing the same with me and that's what it's about.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like I don't want Natasha to know who my clients are and,
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know, we're in competition.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: If I have something that
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: might not fit me,
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: you're one of the people I'm going to reach out to saying,
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: here's the scope of a project.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is this something you do?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can introduce you.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the same with me.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: My motto in life is competition is for losers.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's like collaboration.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I always send clients to other book coaches or ghostwriters and the same with them.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm all for collaboration.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Did you manage to get clients through Substack?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not, not yet.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, I haven't really been doing that angle.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to kind of build up my subscription and my following and just kind
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: of make some relationships.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I haven't, I haven't asked for anything.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've definitely gotten a few clients from LinkedIn,
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: but most of,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: um, most of the clients I get are, are basically, I'd say 80% it's referrals.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Even on LinkedIn.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: For me, actually, I think of LinkedIn is the place where my clients come.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, it's not Substack.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Substack is, as you said, for building a community, collaboration, you know.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Have you activated the paid Substack?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have plans to do that or not yet?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: I do have plans to do that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still at a stage where I want to figure out what, you
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that someone would go from free to, you know, $5 a month or $80 a year or whatever it is.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: What am I going to offer them?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I also,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: me being me,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to know I have maybe five, six things in the pipeline ready to drop.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like, hey, I paid 80 bucks and this guy hasn't posted in three months.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: What have you learned from your Substack experience in terms
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: of are there still readers out there,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: the difference between Substack compared to others?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious because people say that Substack is for the serious readers and
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: the serious intellectuals compared to platforms like Instagram or TikTok
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: or Facebook even.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Have you experienced that as a publisher on Substack?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: I find that when I first started Substack,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of what I was getting was,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: taking my course on how to get 1000 subscribers in a week and you know,
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: it was just constantly that but as I started to find people
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: and build relationships now and I I log in and I start to do my morning scrawl.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's people who are working on their novels.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's people who are publishers, literary agents.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's that whole community is there now and I'm having conversations with them.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: What I like is knowing that there's people out there working on their books,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: they're writing their novel,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: they're doing their research,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: that if I'm connected with them and they see my profile,
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I might be something like, oh, let's save this for later.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I get to editing, maybe he can help me.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe when I want to do the next step, he's someone I should talk to.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping it will lead to that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, it's just about building all these conversations.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what I really like,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: say, compared to LinkedIn, I've never had a single pitch come into my DMs.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen,
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: other than people advertising how to excel on Substack,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen anyone selling their business or even really having an offer.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true actually.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: What I noticed is...
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Substack is not really for selling offers or for pitching.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's for building a community.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you would kind of stand out if you start selling your offers
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: on Substack, at least in the notes.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes I throw some offers or links to my books, but that's very rare.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: But...
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think what happens is behind the scenes,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: like when you build the relationship,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: eventually,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: as you said,
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: somebody might come and they've seen your work on Substack and they connected
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: and they started following you from platform.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: So for you,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: for your marketing efforts,
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: For your own books, what do you think has worked the best for you personally?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about the 90s,
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: but now in this kind of like,
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know, digital AI world, whatever you want to call it.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think is now has worked for you personally in terms of selling the books?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's having and people call it different things.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've mainly heard it called a street team.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just...
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Having those six or seven people that are going to be,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know, they're going to be the pillars to hold up the house.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be the foundation.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're the loud cheerleaders.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you get them and they're the ones that are saying, hey, did you see Tim has a new book out?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: I just got it this weekend.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: they're doing that instead of me,
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: the author, saying, you know, please, please buy my book.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: they're out there saying they've read it,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: they enjoyed it, and they're sharing it with their friends.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, with their audiences.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing I suggest to people to go through your
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's LinkedIn connections,
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Substack connections, you know, Facebook, whatever.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Who is the most engaged?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Who gets the most engagement?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Send them a personal message and say, hey, look, on such and such a day I'm releasing my book.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: I would love it if you just give me a shout out.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's an image of the cover.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not asking you to buy my book.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to give me a book review.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you, you know, to even put up a link, anything, just drop it into your audience.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: They'll find you.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: So this and this is how he becomes part of your street team.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have the same street team all the time that you go back to
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: or do you change based on the book?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: It would change based on the book.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously,
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: if I have like a fiction horror book coming out,
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to rely on the same people I used for here's the ABC
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: of publishing style book.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a total because they're going to have different audiences.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I like that.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think we don't talk much about the street team.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: People are more focused on social media and newsletter and podcasts,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: but the street team,
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: and this is actually how books mostly sell,
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: like through book clubs and word of mouth.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but okay.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: So how can people reach you before we conclude?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: How can they reach you?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: How can they reach out to you?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's the best place to connect with you?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone wants to learn from you, use your services, all of that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Since we're here on Substack, that's what I am currently focused on and growing.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: But you could definitely find me on LinkedIn.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're always welcome to send me an email.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at tjacobs at jacobswc.com.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, my website is jacobswc.com as well.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is great.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for your time.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're a very busy man, so I'm not going to take more of your time.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining me.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for all the people who joined us today.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just shout out to old Ben Kenobi, Susan, Virginia Allen, She's my friend.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Assemblywoman Deborah Kahini, Phyllis Cutler, Michael Conlon and Elias Independent Authors.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions, we can maybe have one minute to take them.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: But if not, we will see you around.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for joining us.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: And for anyone who is listening or watching,
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: thank you for joining us for another episode of the Substack Writer Salon.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And until we meet again, thank you very much, Tim.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: And best of luck.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Bye-bye.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.