Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Write Your Way to Riches? The Entrepreneur's Guide to Book Publishing & Promotion

Transcript

Write Your Way to Riches? The Entrepreneur's Guide to Book Publishing & Promotion · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Ayede.
• 0:04
  I solve sales and marketing challenges.
• 0:07
  I'm making today's podcast in my house, so expect to hear the
• 0:11
  usual audio interruptions. Now, the goal of the podcast is
• 0:14
  business education. So please spread the word by the
• 0:17
  time you're done. Tell your friends and your
• 0:19
  family, Nigerians, home and abroad so that they can benefit
• 0:23
  from the questions that we tackle.
• 0:25
  They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple or
• 0:29
  any player of their choice. And if you have any sales and
• 0:32
  marketing questions, bring them to me.
• 0:34
  You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140.
• 0:43
  Today on the show, I want to share some discussions that I've
• 0:47
  been having with one or two people.
• 0:49
  And well, there's someone I know, listener of the podcast,
• 0:54
  who has written a book. And of course there are people
• 0:57
  who reach out to me every now and then.
• 1:00
  You know how, oh boy, you've been doing this for a while, you
• 1:02
  should write a book. And someone says, I'm about to
• 1:04
  get into business. I want to write a book.
• 1:07
  And there are lots of people who want to get into business and
• 1:11
  who want to use the book as the primary means of growing the
• 1:15
  business, as a primary means of getting in sales.
• 1:18
  Let me repeat now, lots of people who want to get into
• 1:22
  business and they want to write a book.
• 1:24
  The main reason for writing the book is that they want to use
• 1:27
  that to grow the business. They want to use that to grow
• 1:31
  the sales. So today we're going to be
• 1:33
  freestyling on a number of things related to book writing.
• 1:37
  So the first question I want to consider is why should a
• 1:41
  business person publish a book or write a book?
• 1:47
  So there's some of you who are looking at things in the right
• 1:50
  direction because you know that if you publish a book, it's
• 1:53
  going to give you authority and it's going to give you
• 1:56
  credibility. It's going to give a certain
• 1:58
  measure of trust, and that is going to make it easier to now
• 2:02
  pull sales. Let me repeat, some of you are
• 2:06
  looking at it correct now. If I write a book, authority
• 2:10
  plus credibility equals people trust me.
• 2:13
  If people trust me, it'll be easier to get in sales.
• 2:18
  Some of you are also saying if I publish a book, there's brand
• 2:22
  visibility, there's recognition. These are the things that make
• 2:27
  it easier for me to sell. Some people even say you can use
• 2:32
  the book itself as a source of lead generation.
• 2:35
  Now remember that when we say leads on this podcast, we mean
• 2:40
  any single person who has done something to show that they
• 2:43
  might be interested in your product or service.
• 2:46
  So in other words, somebody who has bought a copy of your book,
• 2:49
  it might be a sign that the person is interested in your
• 2:52
  product or service and maybe it's time for you to now upsell
• 2:55
  them into coaching, consulting or whatever.
• 2:59
  There are some people who take it a step further.
• 3:01
  You know, they write their books.
• 3:03
  I've seen this done in the West. I haven't seen any Nigerian
• 3:06
  business author do this yet. But you write the book and
• 3:08
  within the book you put several calls to action so that when
• 3:12
  somebody takes that call to action, it's it's even a
• 3:14
  stronger sign to show that this person might be interested in
• 3:17
  your product or your service. So I don't know, let's say you
• 3:22
  write a book on the fundamentals of, OK, let's use industrial
• 3:25
  cleaning since I think the last case study we discussed on the
• 3:28
  product and the pro on the podcast, sorry, was from Anita
• 3:32
  who called in on my radio show in Abuja who wanted to know the,
• 3:36
  the lowdown on getting into the business of industrial cleaning.
• 3:39
  So let's say you publish a book on the, I don't know the
• 3:43
  fundamentals of industrial cleaning or whatever.
• 3:46
  And, and in one of the chapters you put there that if anybody's
• 3:50
  interested in learning about industrial cleaning, that you
• 3:53
  have created a certain website that all they have to do is go
• 3:55
  to www.whatever and put in the promo code.
• 4:02
  Put in the promo code. Yes, I can.
• 4:04
  And it will enable the person to join the WhatsApp community and
• 4:11
  get 50% off on the course or whatever.
• 4:14
  So you can see that by putting that call to action in specific
• 4:17
  chapter in the book, anybody who does that, it's a strong sign
• 4:21
  that, look, this person is interested.
• 4:23
  So there are ways that you can use books for lead generation.
• 4:30
  That is to get people to show that they might be interested in
• 4:32
  your product or your, your or ServiceNow books also lead to
• 4:37
  new business opportunities. People see your books, they're
• 4:40
  like, OK, this is the very guy, this guy shop, this baby shop,
• 4:43
  who knows? So all these sorts of things.
• 4:46
  And ultimately people who are some people who are thinking of
• 4:48
  publishing books also want to look at it as a diversified
• 4:51
  revenue stream. So consulting down is there, I'm
• 4:54
  making some money. Speaking, no one is there, I'm
• 4:57
  making some money. What else?
• 5:00
  You know, if you have a physical product, physical product you're
• 5:03
  selling, you're making some money.
• 5:04
  Then if you also collect one or two coins per book, now it's
• 5:08
  also won't be bad. But however, let me warn you
• 5:12
  guys, for those of you who think that there's money in making the
• 5:16
  book, I have had this one in America, I've had this in the UK
• 5:20
  and I've had this in Nigeria. Maybe it applies, It doesn't
• 5:24
  apply in a different country. But as of today in America, in
• 5:29
  the UK and in Nigeria, selling a book is not a good way to make
• 5:33
  money. The profit per book is not much
• 5:40
  to make correct bar when you sell books, you have to sell
• 5:44
  loads and loads of copies. And I know people who publish a
• 5:48
  book and maybe they sell 304 hundred, 500 copies.
• 5:53
  That is not the kind of that's not the kind of thing that you
• 5:56
  say you've, you've, you've collected, you've collected good
• 5:59
  money, especially since for most people the, the art of writing
• 6:04
  the book is going to be several months in the making.
• 6:05
  You know, three months, five months, you know, one year you
• 6:08
  write, editor will edit, you go back, you rewrite, publisher
• 6:12
  will give opinion, you will come back, you rewrite all that
• 6:16
  stress at the end of the day to sell 500 copies, you know, on
• 6:21
  top which you're making a few 100 naira on top one copy
• 6:24
  because of course you has to pay the printer and the publisher.
• 6:29
  So maybe there's some other country where the unit economics
• 6:32
  are different and you know, if you sell a bunch of books, you
• 6:36
  you make some correct money. But in Nigeria, other 2025 in
• 6:41
  America and in the UK, except if you're one of those blockbuster
• 6:46
  people, forget it, you're not going to make money from your
• 6:49
  book. So somebody like Obama, yeah,
• 6:52
  Obama and his wife, they made good money from their books, but
• 6:55
  that's because they already had notoriety and fame in other
• 6:59
  things and people are looking forward to it.
• 7:00
  So those kinds of people, they drop the book today, they really
• 7:03
  have like 1,000,000 people don't want to buy now it's different.
• 7:07
  So put it in Nigerian context, you're making a few few 100 per
• 7:11
  copy and if you drop today 1,000,000 people buy.
• 7:14
  Do the math. You can see that OK, the money
• 7:17
  is now beginning to make sense because even if it's only 6600
• 7:21
  seven 700, now you're making per copy 1,000,000 people buy it on
• 7:25
  the spot. Do the math.
• 7:27
  So a book as a revenue stream, as a W time author, I beg just
• 7:35
  close your eyes. It's not going to make sense.
• 7:37
  The other things would make sense, authority, credibility,
• 7:40
  brand recognition, networking, business opportunities, all
• 7:45
  those other things would make sense.
• 7:46
  But if it comes to the money, forget that thing Jerry.
• 7:49
  It's just academic. You have the money.
• 7:51
  You will see. There's not going to be pure
• 7:54
  like people say won't be correct money.
• 7:56
  Then I've heard and this one I agree because since I've been
• 8:01
  running a podcast now for over 5 years and over 1000 episodes, I
• 8:07
  can see that yes, if you're going to write a book, it will
• 8:09
  clarify your thinking and expertise.
• 8:12
  Because having to collect my thoughts every single time I'm
• 8:18
  about to make a podcast episode. Look, even if it's a podcast
• 8:24
  episode where I'm ranting, at least I have to calm down for
• 8:27
  like 5 minutes. And I think, OK, I want to rant,
• 8:29
  I want to insult somebody. You know, how am I going to
• 8:32
  package this insult? So if nothing else, you have to
• 8:35
  sit down and gather yourself. So the process of sitting down
• 8:39
  and gathering yourselves will clarify your thinking.
• 8:42
  And this thing will help you shape your shape, your expertise
• 8:46
  like you will help groom and grow, grow, grow you into the
• 8:54
  professional, into the authority that you will become.
• 8:57
  Because you can't just write a book and be writing anyhow.
• 9:00
  Anyhow, you write to the left, you right to the right.
• 9:02
  You got to sit down, organize yourself.
• 9:04
  What am I saying in this chapter?
• 9:06
  How am I going to lay out my thoughts?
• 9:08
  OK, I wrote the whole thing in 5000 words, the 5000 words too
• 9:12
  much. Will people read it?
• 9:13
  OK, let's edit it down. What did the publisher say?
• 9:16
  What did the editor say? OK, was I off point here?
• 9:19
  Was I correct here? So all of those things, I mean,
• 9:23
  they go into the equation. Then people, there's some people
• 9:26
  who want to write a book because I want to leave a legacy, but
• 9:29
  this one is not a business something now.
• 9:31
  So these are some of the reasons why you as a business person
• 9:35
  listen to this podcast right now.
• 9:36
  You might want to consider publishing a book, but for
• 9:42
  people who have approached me to say, guy, you have more than
• 9:45
  enough material to write a book. And actually it is true because
• 9:49
  as of today, this is like 1 thousand 1100 and something
• 9:54
  episodes. If you go and check the YouTube,
• 9:58
  you know, they're they're all there because if you're
• 10:01
  listening to this on Spotify, you won't see the number of
• 10:04
  published episodes. But if you go to YouTube and you
• 10:06
  check the channel, it's a tab pod that is TAVPOD.
• 10:11
  So if you go to YouTube tab pod, one word, you'll see there.
• 10:15
  It's almost 1200 audio resources that I have now.
• 10:19
  So yes, somehow, somehow there's enough for a book there, but I'm
• 10:25
  not going to publish a book because there is one thing that
• 10:29
  people do not consider and that is writing a book is one thing.
• 10:35
  Selling a book is an entirely different matter.
• 10:41
  Writing the book is easy. Somebody will say, how can I say
• 10:44
  writing a book is easy? Writing a book is blood, set and
• 10:46
  sweat and tears. I agree with you.
• 10:48
  It is blood, sweat and tears, but if you think writing the
• 10:51
  book is blood, sweat and tears, wait until you try and sell the
• 10:55
  book because a lot of us have things that we want to say we
• 11:00
  think is important with things at the back of our minds.
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  It does not necessarily mean that people want to sit down and
• 11:06
  read 400 pages or whatever it is of what we think is important.
• 11:12
  Selling a book is hard, to be honest, I don't know.
• 11:18
  I don't know if I want to go through that stress of selling a
• 11:20
  book. Writing a book is easy.
• 11:22
  Selling the book is hard. And if you think about it, some
• 11:25
  of you check in your families, you know people that have
• 11:27
  written books, published 500 copies, only sold 20.
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  The remaining 480 something where is it is inside the store
• 11:38
  or is inside your wife's wardrobe.
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  This thing happens all the time. Writing the book is easy.
• 11:43
  Selling the book is hard almost. I don't know if I'm ready for
• 11:46
  all that. And then plus, if these are the
• 11:48
  main reason why as a business person, This is why you want to
• 11:51
  publish a book. You think that publishing a book
• 11:53
  will help you grow your sales because of the authority and
• 11:56
  credibility that it gives you, because of the trust, because of
• 11:59
  the brand recognition that it will give you, because of lead
• 12:02
  generation opportunities. If these are the things you're
• 12:05
  looking for, in my own opinion, you can achieve those same aims
• 12:12
  by doing other things that require less effort.
• 12:16
  If you engage in public speaking, you will build
• 12:20
  authority, credibility, and trust.
• 12:22
  You will get some brand visibility and recognition.
• 12:25
  It will lead to business opportunities and you will get
• 12:28
  some lead generation from there. You will also get diversified
• 12:31
  revenue streams. Public speaking, I think it is
• 12:34
  easier to try and become a public speaker even if you're
• 12:37
  going to be a mediocre public speaker.
• 12:39
  It's easier to do that than to say you want to be an average
• 12:43
  author. So try public speaking first
• 12:51
  before you go to the whole book thing.
• 12:53
  Then if you also do long form digital content, you can become
• 12:57
  an authority, you can become a brand, and you can get lead
• 13:01
  generation. So people say that blogs are no
• 13:05
  longer working. By the way, it depends.
• 13:08
  Financial blogs. I've seen financial blogs and
• 13:10
  I've seen legal blogs that people follow.
• 13:12
  So on a popular level, people like you and me, yes, we're not
• 13:15
  reading blogs anymore. But in highly technical spaces,
• 13:20
  blogs still work. There are people who read
• 13:23
  engineering blogs. There are people who read
• 13:24
  medical blogs. There are people who lead legal
• 13:27
  blogs. The highly specialized
• 13:30
  industries, blogging is still working.
• 13:33
  So you're a baby lawyer. You're coming into this space
• 13:37
  one day you want to become an authority in oil and gas.
• 13:40
  It's OK to say that. You know what?
• 13:42
  Let me start blogging or let me start submitting articles for
• 13:46
  the MBA Journal. MBA is the Nigerian Bar
• 13:49
  Association, that's the body that all of we lawyers belong
• 13:52
  to. You can start sending in
• 13:54
  publications to the MBA. So articles that'll be published
• 13:58
  in MBA Journal, you know, stuff like that long form stuff,
• 14:02
  blogging articles or like in my own case the podcast.
• 14:06
  These things can lead to authority, credibility, brand
• 14:09
  recognition, and opportunities for new business.
• 14:13
  And I think these things are easier to do than writing a book
• 14:16
  or trying to sell the book. And there's some of you who are
• 14:20
  real master for that PR. You can use PR to the same ends.
• 14:24
  So in my own opinion, should a business person write a book,
• 14:28
  publish a book? Oh yes, by all means, especially
• 14:31
  if you're thinking of Naira and Kobo.
• 14:34
  If you're thinking about leaving a legacy, I don't know is that
• 14:38
  necessary? But that's just me thinking.
• 14:41
  But if you're thinking in terms of Nara and Kabul, Oh yeah,
• 14:43
  sure. Write the book, publish the
• 14:45
  book. Just know that writing the book
• 14:47
  will be the easy part. Selling the book is the hard
• 14:51
  part. And unfortunately, there are
• 14:53
  lots of you who get into business.
• 14:55
  You're not thinking this thing clear.
• 14:57
  And so you people are starting your business journey by writing
• 15:00
  the book. That is backwards.
• 15:03
  There are some of you who are starting your business journey
• 15:06
  by writing the book and hoping that the book will lead to other
• 15:09
  things. Even if you want to write the
• 15:12
  book, my honest recommendation is yeah, sure, write the book,
• 15:14
  but don't start off your business journey writing it.
• 15:17
  We're talking about authority, credibility, trust.
• 15:20
  In the early days, who knows you?
• 15:23
  I'm not saying you're useless, I'm just keeping it real here.
• 15:26
  In the early days you are a non entity.
• 15:29
  Nobody knows you yet. What book are you writing?
• 15:35
  What reason does somebody have to pick up your book and to and
• 15:40
  to know your thoughts? Nobody knows You remember the
• 15:43
  example I gave of Obama and his wife?
• 15:46
  It is Obama. If the guy drops the book my 100
• 15:49
  days in office or how me and Trump fought or whatever we're
• 15:55
  like oh is Obama they will buy the book.
• 16:00
  But for you, you are a non entity for now.
• 16:05
  Don't start with the book. Nobody cares who you are.
• 16:08
  Nobody knows who you are. Remember back in law school was
• 16:13
  one hard truth that one of our professors had teachers.
• 16:17
  One of my classmates was making arguments back and forth and
• 16:20
  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my professor for law of
• 16:25
  evidence, what he told him was, look, this is the position of
• 16:28
  the law. You will follow the position of
• 16:31
  the law. You will write the position of
• 16:33
  the law and the guy was like, but I think, but I think my
• 16:37
  professor told him nobody cares who you are.
• 16:41
  Know the law, learn the law, apply the law.
• 16:44
  When you become something professor so, so and so or Chief
• 16:47
  Justice so, so, so and so, people will now want to know
• 16:51
  what your point of view is. But for now, nobody cares who
• 16:55
  you are. Learn the law, know the law,
• 16:57
  apply the law. When you're somebody, your
• 16:59
  opinion will matter. It's harsh, but it's the truth.
• 17:04
  Starting your business journey by writing the book is a fool's
• 17:07
  errand. Nobody knows who you are.
• 17:09
  Nobody cares who you are. I mean, look at me.
• 17:14
  Yes. Over 1000 podcast episodes.
• 17:16
  You think that's impressive? Born on a grand scale in
• 17:19
  Nigeria, to be honest. Who knows me?
• 17:24
  You're listening. You've been listening for a
• 17:26
  while. There's some of you that really
• 17:28
  love and respect what I do. The people who reach out on
• 17:31
  average have been listening for over a year.
• 17:33
  I know someone who's been listening for about 3 years.
• 17:36
  But just try. Go and talk to Momsy, talk to
• 17:38
  Popsy, talk to your girlfriend, talk to somebody in the office
• 17:42
  or in church on a national scale who knows Me, myself, I'm a non
• 17:50
  entity. For me to write this book now,
• 17:53
  it is a fool's errand. How many copies do I hope I'm
• 17:56
  going to be able to sell anyway? So that's the first question.
• 18:04
  As a business person, why should you bother publishing a book?
• 18:10
  Now I'm going to move on and give some ideas about how to
• 18:14
  promote your book because unfortunately some of you, you
• 18:18
  didn't think this thing through. Somebody remember someone who
• 18:23
  listens to the podcast, she has already written the book.
• 18:25
  So the book is already there. So for me to be saying all these
• 18:28
  things now is a waste of time because she has already written
• 18:30
  the book. So some of you have already
• 18:32
  written the book, some of you are already in the process of
• 18:34
  writing the book. So now we have to look at the
• 18:36
  question how to promote your book, whether it's a fictional
• 18:39
  book or a business book. Because remember I said that
• 18:41
  writing the book is the easy part.
• 18:44
  Selling the book is the hard part.
• 18:47
  In fact, selling of anything is the hard part.
• 18:49
  But you who don't really, you are underestimating how hard it
• 18:54
  is to sell a book, the amount of work that goes into selling a
• 18:57
  book. So we're going to look at that,
• 19:00
  how to promote your book. But I just want to give a caveat
• 19:03
  because selling books literary, something that is not my
• 19:08
  specialty. All of you know my background,
• 19:12
  that my professional and academic background initially
• 19:15
  was in law, became a wedding photographer, done some stuff in
• 19:20
  the civil service, and I've done import and export with my
• 19:24
  brother. So I export with my brother in
• 19:29
  Agri business. And then through all this, this
• 19:33
  is where I picked up an interest and a specialty in sales because
• 19:37
  people are saying that oh boy, you're good at this thing.
• 19:39
  Come and teach my people. That's how we started.
• 19:43
  But selling books, I don't have a specialty there.
• 19:46
  I have been able to pick up one or two ideas because my cousin,
• 19:51
  Sue Edward Agema, he runs Savage Publishing and he has been at
• 19:55
  this game since 2012. They now have operations in
• 20:00
  Nigeria and in the UK. And in fact, it's because of the
• 20:03
  publishing thing that he was able to gain access to global
• 20:07
  talent status. So he has evaporated.
• 20:10
  His whole family, he and his family, everybody now is in the
• 20:13
  UK. You know, they've flown, they've
• 20:16
  gone, they looked at. The result wasn't say you can go
• 20:19
  and die in Niger. So so he has gone.
• 20:23
  So he runs Savage Publishing and they've done over 60 titles if I
• 20:30
  can remember. Those are books that they have
• 20:32
  published and have sold, some successfully, some not so
• 20:37
  successfully. They have a couple of
• 20:39
  international awards that they run things like that.
• 20:42
  But The thing is, at least he's been doing this thing OK enough
• 20:46
  that he was able to get UK global talent status and that is
• 20:50
  how they migrated. So for those of you who are
• 20:53
  thinking of Jackpot, that is also another Ave.
• 20:56
  If you're an accomplished book publisher, you're an
• 20:57
  accomplished poet, you're an accomplished musician, you're an
• 21:01
  accomplished. You know, there is a there are
• 21:05
  migration routes that are open to you.
• 21:11
  You don't have to Jack my like everybody does by, you know,
• 21:14
  raising 40 million naira and then you get to the UK and then
• 21:17
  you now become a cleaner. You'll not be cleaning the
• 21:20
  streets or be walking in Mortuary.
• 21:24
  Now everybody has to go that route.
• 21:27
  This UK global talent scheme thing is available.
• 21:30
  So if you're good at what you do, you put in the work, you
• 21:36
  have some Rep, you have some cred, you can give it a shot.
• 21:39
  You work for my cousin, it might work for you.
• 21:42
  So from hanging around my cousin now and some of the other people
• 21:46
  that he hangs around, I've been seeing one or two things.
• 21:50
  So that's why I'm getting some of my ideas.
• 21:52
  Then also there are some family members, well, not family
• 21:55
  members, friends or family who have published.
• 21:57
  One of them is Colonel Bello Fattily.
• 22:00
  He actually is a friend of my parents.
• 22:04
  I'll be, if I say a friend, I'll be acquaintance.
• 22:06
  And he used to be the paranoid head for the legal Army unit
• 22:10
  here in Nigeria. Now the reason why some of you
• 22:13
  might know him is because he was implicated in the Abacha coup,
• 22:17
  the phantom coup of 1995 and he was given the death sentence.
• 22:23
  But then when Abdul Salam Abubakar came in, in 99 was
• 22:27
  after the death of Abacha, he was he was left free and his
• 22:32
  death sentence was committed. I mean, he's already said
• 22:35
  commute and they reduced the death sentence and then the
• 22:39
  setting free. So General Abdul Salaam setting
• 22:41
  free. And then in 2025, Connor Hadley
• 22:44
  wrote a book. I can't remember the name, it's
• 22:47
  in my room. I was started reading it now
• 22:49
  anyway. And I was now looking at Connor
• 22:52
  Hadley, how he was selling this book because I'm curious because
• 22:57
  I know that writing a book is easy.
• 22:59
  Selling the book is really hard. So as Conor fatally was making
• 23:03
  moves as a small boy who has some back access, no matter how
• 23:10
  small, I was just looking and saying, OK was was on cool doing
• 23:14
  was on cool doing. Then also Bishop Cooker.
• 23:17
  My parents knew him from back when he was a seminarian.
• 23:20
  He ended up being the one who officiated at my parents
• 23:23
  wedding. And Bishop Hooker is publishing
• 23:26
  at this rate, it's almost like every two, two years he's
• 23:28
  publishing something. So whenever he releases a new
• 23:31
  book, me too, I'm always watching like, OK, what's Bishop
• 23:34
  doing? Although, you know, we, the
• 23:36
  kids, we just named as Father Cooker.
• 23:37
  So it's always have to remember to call him Bishop, you know,
• 23:41
  now that he's a Bishop. So we're always watching, OK,
• 23:45
  what's he doing? What's he doing?
• 23:45
  What's he doing? So for Conor Fadley, all the
• 23:49
  moves that he was doing public, you know, press interviews,
• 23:53
  things like that. Ultimately, they did the book
• 23:55
  launch where they ended up in Yaradua Center.
• 23:58
  That was this year in 2025. Therefore, Bishop Cooker, I've
• 24:02
  noticed that for him, since he already has a public persona for
• 24:06
  him, he usually builds it around public speaking, public
• 24:08
  lectures, media interviews. And then of course, he also does
• 24:13
  launches. And that's how he sells his
• 24:15
  books. And for him particularly, I've
• 24:18
  noticed that Bishop Cooker, he likes writing about strategic
• 24:21
  stuff or relevant stuff. So things that people are
• 24:24
  already talking about. So don't be surprised if after
• 24:29
  President Tinibu's term, whether he runs a second term or not,
• 24:33
  don't be surprised if Bishop Puka releases a series of
• 24:37
  memoirs about the about the, what's it called it renewed
• 24:44
  hope, about the renewed hope, whatever.
• 24:46
  What was the renewed hope agenda?
• 24:48
  How did the renewed hope agenda pan out, pan out?
• 24:52
  How did it affect civil society? How did it affect economic
• 24:58
  progress? You know, blah, blah, blah.
• 24:59
  So don't be surprised if he writes a book like that.
• 25:00
  So that's this thing. It also makes it easy to sell
• 25:05
  because he's writing about topic of things.
• 25:07
  So now with that in mind, telling you guys that look, I'm
• 25:12
  not a professional when it comes to book and literally something,
• 25:16
  it's just that because of the family that I come from, I'm
• 25:21
  related to one or two people and my parents know one or two
• 25:24
  people. So I've been seeing people do
• 25:27
  one or two things like my mom's from my boss shoe Banjo who runs
• 25:32
  Troika. Troika is the is the biggest
• 25:34
  because my mom was a marketing communications professional and
• 25:37
  then she worked for for Troika when she got to Lagos.
• 25:43
  That's back when I was a teenager and Troika is Troika
• 25:46
  Holdings comprises of what's it called marketing communications
• 25:52
  and advertising. That's MCA.
• 25:54
  That's one of the old advertising agencies in Lagos.
• 25:57
  Then which one again, the quarter company, that's the
• 25:59
  public relations. I can't remember what the third
• 26:01
  one is. So the boss show Banjo is
• 26:05
  regarded as a as a dawn when it comes to advertising, public
• 26:09
  relations, you know, stuff like that.
• 26:10
  And he publishes book, I can't remember how many years ago.
• 26:13
  So of course, you know me, I was always, I was also watching.
• 26:16
  Oh, OK, was also Banjo has dropped the book.
• 26:18
  OK, what did he do? Where is he speaking?
• 26:20
  How is he promoting? So this is what I'm getting some
• 26:22
  of my ideas for. But one thing that I want you
• 26:26
  guys to realize, those of you who have already written the
• 26:28
  book just realized that selling the book is a marathon.
• 26:33
  There's nobody that has sold the book one time.
• 26:38
  It doesn't happen that way. Even Obama and Obama's wife
• 26:42
  didn't sell the book one time. It was a marathon, a series of
• 26:48
  planned and coordinated activities over months,
• 26:51
  sometimes even close to a year, that helped to sell the book.
• 26:58
  I mean, repeat, selling a book is not a one time thing.
• 27:01
  It is a marathon. It's a series of coordinated
• 27:04
  events. And that is where some of you
• 27:06
  fall short. You go on, you write the book,
• 27:10
  you're excited, you publish 1000 copies, you do 1 launching at
• 27:14
  the launching, 20 people by and then you're disappointed.
• 27:18
  Like what did you expect? You only did one thing, you only
• 27:23
  did launching. I expect that people are going
• 27:26
  to buy 1000 copies of your book. Doesn't work that way.
• 27:30
  It's a multi faceted approach. Before you publish the book, you
• 27:35
  have to start building buzz. These people start talking about
• 27:39
  their book before the book drops.
• 27:41
  So whether it's kind of a delay or whether it's show banjo or
• 27:45
  whether it's the Obamas, you start giving small, small
• 27:48
  interviews. This is my view about this.
• 27:50
  This is my view about that. And oh, by the way, I have an
• 27:54
  upcoming book set to drop in. So, so, so and so why I have
• 27:57
  explored so, so and so issues, particularly in chapter this
• 28:00
  where we discussed that and that they start doing these things
• 28:05
  months ahead before the book drops.
• 28:10
  They're trying to build buzz. They're trying to show up in
• 28:13
  places where the audience, that suspected audience might be.
• 28:18
  So I talk about Father Cook and his old speaking things.
• 28:23
  You know, you show up at this foundation, this university,
• 28:26
  this public event, that public event, you start talking,
• 28:28
  talking, talking, talking. You're doing this for weeks and
• 28:32
  months before the book drops. Build buzz then if we step away
• 28:38
  from all these people that have called now and we look at things
• 28:40
  in the in the modern era, let's say all these people are old
• 28:46
  school. Let's say father Kuka is old
• 28:48
  school corner fatalize old school in the modern era now
• 28:52
  offer platform is absolutely essential author platform just
• 28:55
  means what stage do you have? What assets do you have you
• 28:59
  yourself as the author that is going to sell your own book.
• 29:02
  So for me, if I ever write a book eventually, the fact that I
• 29:06
  have this podcast, this podcast is my own platform.
• 29:09
  I can start toasting you guys one year in advance now.
• 29:12
  OK, the book is dropping on for me toasting you guys here.
• 29:16
  I'm priming and getting some buzz here.
• 29:18
  I might be able to sell a few 1000 copies.
• 29:23
  I might because overall downloads now on the podcast is
• 29:29
  close to 32,000 on podcasts. So on Spotify, I have close to
• 29:36
  3000 followers. I don't know about Apple and all
• 29:38
  the other places. So who knows.
• 29:40
  In 10 years, I want to write a book.
• 29:43
  This is my platform. I can start toasting you guys
• 29:47
  one year in advance, come up with some promo schemes, come up
• 29:49
  with some stuff. I might be able to sell a few
• 29:51
  1000 copies here through this podcast.
• 29:55
  So if you want to use your book for business purposes, you, the
• 30:01
  author, you guys to have a platform in, in, in, in, in.
• 30:05
  In today's day and age, what is your platform?
• 30:08
  Some authors are big on social media.
• 30:11
  Have you started building on social media presence?
• 30:15
  Some people have author sites, author blog.
• 30:18
  Have you started building your site, your blog?
• 30:22
  Although in America and in the UK, they're big on this whole
• 30:25
  e-mail list, as per the author himself already has e-mail list
• 30:28
  or the author herself, like Obama's wife, Mrs. Obama, what's
• 30:35
  her name? So I can't remember her name.
• 30:37
  Forgive me. She has her own e-mail list.
• 30:40
  So the next time she's writing another book, she already has
• 30:43
  the e-mail addresses of, you know, I don't know, hundreds of
• 30:46
  thousands of people and she can send them e-mail to say you like
• 30:49
  my last book. Guess what?
• 30:51
  New one dropping August 20. You know 2029 where we talk
• 30:57
  about this, this this my fight with Trump, My this, my dad, my
• 31:01
  dad, my dad. If you love it, click here to
• 31:04
  pre-order. Now.
• 31:05
  If you have a list of a few 1000 people you send that kind of
• 31:12
  e-mail out, you will get a few 100 or a few 1000 people
• 31:17
  clicking and pre ordering the book.
• 31:19
  Money has already started dropping into your account
• 31:21
  before you have even dropped the book.
• 31:24
  So you want to be an author nowadays, whether business book,
• 31:28
  whether fictional book, you got to start thinking about your
• 31:31
  platform. So I won't publish, but if I do
• 31:35
  well, at least I have one platform, which is the podcast.
• 31:38
  I don't have a website and I don't have an e-mail list.
• 31:42
  So if I decide to write a book, I will seriously consider all
• 31:45
  those sorts of things because selling a book is hard.
• 31:47
  And it will help if for weeks and months leading up to when I
• 31:51
  drop the book. There's places where I can be
• 31:53
  dropping messages saying two months to go.
• 31:58
  Click on this, get this discount or click on this.
• 32:04
  Not only will you get a copy of the book, you will have a chance
• 32:07
  to sit with me and do guest reading at Hilton Hotel in Abuja
• 32:13
  and Sheraton Hotel in Lagos. You know, come up with some
• 32:16
  marketing campaigns or something.
• 32:19
  I will start creating the platforms where I can start
• 32:21
  marketing this book and building bus before the book drops.
• 32:27
  Now, those of you who are writing the book or those of you
• 32:30
  who are, you've already written the book.
• 32:32
  Can you see the work that lies ahead of you?
• 32:36
  And remember I told you that if this thing is about the money,
• 32:39
  selling 500 copies will not give you good money.
• 32:45
  Selling 500 copies, selling 1000 copies, hell, selling 2000
• 32:49
  copies will not give you good money.
• 32:53
  You can see why I say it is hard.
• 32:55
  And that's why for some business people, I tell that, oh, this
• 32:58
  book thing, just channel all your attention into building
• 33:02
  your business first, the main business before you go on this
• 33:06
  book thing. It will pay you more to channel
• 33:09
  all this energy. OK, The example I gave was
• 33:12
  industrial cleaning. It will pay you, will profit you
• 33:14
  more in my own opinion, to take all this time and energy into
• 33:18
  building a wonderful industrial cleaning business than to say
• 33:22
  you want to make a killing by writing a book on industrial
• 33:26
  cleaning. That's my own primary advice.
• 33:29
  The book thing, OK, it makes sense, but China, your energy,
• 33:32
  build the business first. You will get some good paper
• 33:36
  coming through the business then investing in 3-4 years is
• 33:39
  getting a book and then you're only able to sell 1000 copies at
• 33:43
  the end of the day. Anyway, I'm stop talking, OK,
• 33:49
  Literary communities, OK, This one that I saw my cousins, my
• 33:52
  cousin do and that's why I know that is work.
• 33:54
  You have to engage in literary communities die as in you will
• 33:57
  travel online clubs, you have to be there, offline clubs, you
• 34:02
  have to be there Lagos Literary Meeting Association of these
• 34:07
  authors, whatever. You will travel up and down
• 34:10
  because before my cousin left for the UK or more, he was
• 34:12
  always on the road. Today Benway State, tomorrow
• 34:16
  Port Accord, then Lagos, then Enugu, then Abuja, then that.
• 34:22
  That's just the level of work that is involved.
• 34:25
  The people in the community, they need to know you, they need
• 34:28
  to see you and you're trying to build the buzz.
• 34:32
  You're trying to be on stage. Talk about this, your upcoming
• 34:34
  book or the upcoming project that you're working on.
• 34:36
  The people need to see you. You will travel die if you don't
• 34:42
  have money for flight. Think about it, Stop calculating
• 34:47
  the thing in your head. Now you live in Abuja, you went
• 34:51
  overnight bus to go to Lagos, how many hours is that?
• 34:57
  And then of course, on the online thing, literary blogs,
• 35:01
  you know, you should be showing up other people's blogs,
• 35:03
  contributing on their blogs, talking about your upcoming
• 35:05
  books on their blogs. For those who are able to get to
• 35:08
  media houses, it will help if you know somebody in Channels
• 35:11
  TV. It will help if you don't know
• 35:13
  somebody in Channels TV but in your state there's a local
• 35:18
  newspaper. Well, if you can get there, it
• 35:19
  might help. Then there's the publication and
• 35:25
  launch itself. There's some people who do
• 35:28
  self-publishing and who do print on demand.
• 35:30
  Print on demand just means I don't want to print 1000 copies
• 35:34
  and then I only sell 20. Print on demand just means if
• 35:37
  somebody wants the book, they will click the person, the
• 35:40
  publisher will print it and then send it to them.
• 35:42
  Now that option is available on Amazon and it's mostly a way
• 35:46
  that Nigerian authors reach people in diaspora.
• 35:49
  Not really here. You know, we haven't really.
• 35:53
  And I don't know why somebody who's in the book space will
• 35:55
  explain it one day, but mostly Nigerians in diaspora.
• 35:59
  So yeah, people who want your book, they will click and then a
• 36:02
  halfway house will just publish the thing, you know, print it,
• 36:05
  bind it and then send it to them specifically so that you don't
• 36:08
  have to publish 1000 books and the end of the day you only sell
• 36:12
  20. So self-publishing, printing on
• 36:14
  demand that's available on Amazon.
• 36:16
  Then I also hear that there's something called Okada Books in
• 36:19
  Nigeria that is an E platform that you can do that through.
• 36:22
  But please verify that is what I hear.
• 36:26
  Like I said, I hang around my cousin, I hang around a couple
• 36:29
  of people. So I have not gone on Okada
• 36:31
  Books and I have not used Okada Books, but I hear please want to
• 36:35
  verify that you can do self-publishing printing on
• 36:37
  demand through Okada Books. Then what else?
• 36:42
  If you're the old school type, you already printed 5000 copies
• 36:48
  of your book, then you have to work out physical distribution
• 36:51
  and this is where I said the travelling is going to happen.
• 36:55
  Abuja, we don't really have bookstores like that.
• 36:57
  Let me be honest with you, the big bookstores, they're in Lagos
• 37:01
  and then in the East. So you will have to travel.
• 37:04
  I don't know how, you only do e-mail and phone call and you're
• 37:07
  going to end up in local stores. I don't know how that's going to
• 37:10
  work, but you need to end up in local stores.
• 37:11
  You will have to travel. There are literary festivals
• 37:14
  that happened in the East that happened in Lagos.
• 37:19
  My cousin was able to organize with some other people in
• 37:23
  literary festival that has gone on like 5 or 6 editions now.
• 37:28
  In fact, he still flies back to attend that one.
• 37:32
  He flew back like 3-2 three months ago to attend the one
• 37:37
  that happened in Benue State. So these things happen.
• 37:42
  You, you've printed the books, you will have to be at these
• 37:45
  events. You go on bystand or you go on
• 37:48
  by stall. You have to figure out a way to
• 37:50
  do pop ups at different markets. Then there's also direct sales.
• 37:54
  Direct sales just means you hustle your own book whether you
• 37:59
  like it or not. For people who sell physical
• 38:01
  stuff, direct sales is something that they do.
• 38:03
  When I spoke about America, that's Magnisi who does
• 38:09
  exquisite leather bags in Nigeria, luxury letter bags
• 38:13
  based in Abuja for how that's how she started her and her
• 38:17
  husband caught. So join, do everything.
• 38:21
  You make 50 copies. You now go and put the 50 copies
• 38:23
  in your car and that's it. Begin the hustle direct sales.
• 38:29
  You drive to somebody's office, you want to sell one or two
• 38:32
  bags. If the person likes it, our Co
• 38:35
  workers are there. You try and sell again on the
• 38:38
  day you're tired. You tell your husband, oh honey,
• 38:40
  I've been able to make one or two orders.
• 38:43
  I tell the house girl, drop it in husband's car.
• 38:45
  Honey, during your break, please go and drop it at this place,
• 38:48
  this place, that place that is direct sales.
• 38:50
  You will have to hustle your book.
• 38:52
  You take a few copies, put it in the boot of your car because you
• 38:57
  never know, you'll be talking to somebody.
• 38:58
  Maybe they're interested. Oh, the book is here.
• 39:01
  It's not that expensive. It's just too far.
• 39:03
  For one, you can buy 10 copies right now.
• 39:07
  You will have to do direct sales then those of you who have
• 39:11
  really creative types, you I'm sure that ways you'll figure out
• 39:13
  partnerships and collaborations. But you can see now what I'm
• 39:18
  saying, you can see that level of hassle that is involved in
• 39:24
  selling the book, which is why I think you're better off just
• 39:27
  focusing on your business than on trying to go and use the book
• 39:31
  first to enter into business, then launch.
• 39:36
  Yeah, launch and events I have. So this was one that Connor
• 39:39
  fatally did well and he's even one that IBB Ibrahim by the most
• 39:43
  Babangida. He was military president from
• 39:48
  AT when I was a kid. He was president.
• 39:51
  I think he's cool. Came over.
• 39:53
  OK. No, it was Buhari that I think
• 39:57
  Buhari came in first. Buhari knocked off.
• 40:01
  There was a civilian president in 1980, one 1982, I can't
• 40:05
  remember his name, you know, as an embryo then.
• 40:07
  So I can't remember all these things.
• 40:09
  So Buhari school come first and then I think after that Baba
• 40:11
  Gida school and then Baba Gina ends up being president from
• 40:14
  like 85 on to until a Batcha. So IBB also released his own
• 40:22
  memoirs. That's not long after, kind of a
• 40:24
  delay. In fact, some people are saying
• 40:25
  that what's wrong with all these colonels and generals while all
• 40:28
  of them dropping books at the same time.
• 40:31
  So that's one strategy that they did very, very well.
• 40:34
  So corner fatalism was Yara Dua center invited everybody.
• 40:37
  IBB zone was the same thing. You know, presidents were there,
• 40:40
  governors were there, you know, correct balls on the media, you
• 40:44
  know, stuff like that. I had IBB even got involved in
• 40:48
  quarreling with people on Twitter.
• 40:50
  And of course that kind of thing helps if IBB is quarreling with
• 40:53
  people on Twitter is now wow, see, general is dragging people.
• 40:57
  Now. What did general say?
• 40:59
  In fact, let me go and buy the book.
• 41:01
  So launches and events, yes, that can be done if you're one
• 41:05
  of those types. Unfortunately, I don't know how
• 41:07
  to plan, Shishi. I can't plan gang.
• 41:09
  If you tell me to come organize event for you, I have no idea
• 41:12
  who to invite or how to invite or how to plan.
• 41:17
  Oh, and then there's all there's also targeted, targeted
• 41:22
  advertisements. You can advertise online.
• 41:26
  So to be honest, we've already done 40 minutes.
• 41:30
  And The thing is you can keep on going on and on and on and on
• 41:32
  and on about how you can sell a book.
• 41:38
  But the point I was just trying to make is selling a book is
• 41:41
  hard. Selling a book is a marathon.
• 41:44
  It's not a one day event. For those of you who tried, you
• 41:49
  try to organize the launch. You bring down 1000 copies.
• 41:52
  You only sold 20. Now you know what you did wrong.
• 41:55
  What you did wrong was you thought that this thing is a one
• 41:58
  time thing. You didn't realize there is a
• 42:00
  marathon that is a sequence of events.
• 42:02
  So go back, start again and start coordinating a sequence of
• 42:08
  events now lead up to you selling copies, moving units.
• 42:17
  It is because of this hassle at level of work that is involved
• 42:21
  that I tell a lot of people who come to me with this whole book
• 42:24
  thing. That's why I tell you don't
• 42:25
  write a book. The thing is not that I am
• 42:28
  jealous of you and I don't want you to progress.
• 42:30
  That's why I'm I'm saying don't write the book.
• 42:34
  In case that some of you who think, oh, I'm just trying to
• 42:36
  hold you down that me, I haven't written my own book.
• 42:38
  So if you ask me, I'm trying to let me try and keep you small.
• 42:43
  I'm just trying to tell you that look from a sales and business
• 42:45
  development perspective, I know how hard it is to sell a book
• 42:49
  and I know how hard it is to try and sell your product or
• 42:52
  service. It is easier to sell your
• 42:54
  product or service and to sell the book.
• 42:57
  So if you want to break into the industrial cleaning space, it
• 42:59
  will be easier for you to build a solid business in industrial
• 43:03
  cleaning first, then later on write the book than to say, I am
• 43:09
  entering into industrial cleaning, let me write to the
• 43:11
  book and use the book to lead my way into the whole thing.
• 43:15
  So please, some of you, you're thinking backwards.
• 43:18
  If you've already written the book, no problem.
• 43:20
  Use Google, use ChatGPT, talk to people who are in the industry
• 43:25
  and come up with a sequence of activities.
• 43:28
  This one is not just one thing. Remember when I spoke about the
• 43:33
  Obamas and the other people that spoken about, none of them did
• 43:36
  only one thing. Even Oprah Winfrey or all these
• 43:39
  other people who write books, they never do just one thing.
• 43:45
  Go and visit here, talk there beyond this blog, beyond this
• 43:48
  TV, beyond this interview. Have your own platform, send to
• 43:52
  your mailing list, talk on podcast.
• 43:54
  Look whichever one that is available to you.
• 43:57
  Shah, come up with a sequence of activities that you will
• 44:01
  coordinate for several weeks or several months before the book
• 44:05
  drops. And I think I've overstressed my
• 44:08
  point, so I'll stop here. That's all for today.
• 44:11
  Remember, if you have questions around sales and marketing,
• 44:15
  bring them to me. Call me, SMS me, send me a
• 44:18
  WhatsApp message 108064662140. Thank you very much for your
• 44:24
  time and attention. I'll catch you at the next
• 44:26
  episode.