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Cathy Davis: How Someone Decides to Buy Your Book · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer: creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers and teaching that helps us supply what we're learning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: For more, you can visit us at dailyriderlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it seems like such a simple question, but the answers are more profound than you realize.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: And here's the question: What is the thinking process a person goes through when they're deciding whether or not to buy your book?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm excited to have my friend Kathy Davis here on this episode to walk us through some answers.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: Kathy spent the bulk of her career as a designer and creative director at Bank of America's Trust Division, managing a team of 18 designers and print specialists.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: Then in January 2004, she founded Davis Creative LLC after some corporate downsizing.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: In what originally began as a boutique creative services agency is now known as Davis Creative Publishing Partners, a sought-after publishing industry leader providing concierge publishing services for authors around the corner and also around the world.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Books are in Kathy's DNA and have always played a big role in her life.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Kathy believes we all have a story to tell, and I totally agree with that.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it is through our stories that we are able to find our voice, share our wisdom, and make a difference in the lives of others.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: Wisdom not shared is wisdom lost forever.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: In this conversation, Kathy walks through the elements of a book that influence a buyer's purchasing decision.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about the importance of your title, your book cover, font choices, the table of contents, and a lot more stuff.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: This is one of the most illuminating and interesting conversations that I've had in a long time.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: And it's because I love books and I love the process that goes into creating books and all the fun little details that we need to be thinking about.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: Now, the cool thing is that Kathy and I are both based here in St.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: Louis.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly, it's kind of rare that I have podcast guests who are based in my own area because I talk to people from all around the world.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: So it was really, really fun to be able to talk to Kathy and explore her wisdom about books and all the things, as well as having somebody who is here from St.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: Louis.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: So let's get right into this conversation with the amazing Kathy Davis.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: Kathy, welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: It is a thrill and an honor to be talking to you.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: I've been looking forward to this for a while.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks for being on the show today.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for inviting me, Kent.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: So we are here to talk about marketing with books, particularly how does a buyer decide to buy your book.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: So after a book is all written, after we've gone to the trouble of writing the book and making sure it's the best that we can be, we also have to think about the marketing components.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: So walk us through, if you will, some of the things about the book, whether it's cover or marketing copy on the back, whatever those things are that help a reader to decide whether they're going to pick up the book and then of course buy the book.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of the conversations I always have with our authors is it's not about how well your book sells, it's how well your book sells you.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is a lot of authors will say, you know, I'm ready to publish my book.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get it on Amazon because I know I'm going to sell thousands of copies.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not necessarily the case.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a, it's a, as you mentioned, it's a package deal.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of behind-the-scenes subliminal conscious decisions that are made.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's an oxymoron, subliminal conscious, but yeah, it's there somewhere.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: Somewhere they get made.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that can include anything from the the format for the back cover copy to the placement of the title, the subtitle, uh, what colors are being used, what fonts are being used.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big proponent, I've always said fonts have feelings too.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So um you wouldn't necessarily use the same font on a mystery murder book as you would on, say, a memoir, memoir of you know, your grandmother and her family's immigration to the United States.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It would just be different.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You want a different feeling.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You want the title and the fonts used to evoke that feeling.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: The other fun thing is that we're all actually designing that front cover for that little one by two inch postage stamp on Amazon.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: High contrast helps to sell.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, easily read fonts helps to sell.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: There was also a study done, and I wish I could remember the university.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I keep wanting to say California, somewhere out there, within the last three or four years, where they actually put hidden cameras in a Barnes and Noble and videoed the uh potential buyers.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: They would pick up a book and what would they what would they do with it after that?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially, the typical buyer will pull a book off a shelf based on the cover.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they know they're in the right category because you know they've got all these lovely little signs and directional fiction, nonfiction cookbooks, etc., around the bookstore.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you you think that they're pretty much in the right category that they want to be.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: They pull out the book based on the cover, they look at the front cover.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: If they're still interested, they'll turn the book over and they look at the back cover.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you still have them interested and they're starting to think that, oh, maybe this book is for me, they then open up the book and look at the table of contents.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: What they then found was that they'll go if they're still considering buying the book and they're still looking, that means they're getting closer to buying that book, and they'll go and they'll look at the back of the book inside the cover to see.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is say a regular paperback, this doesn't include hardbacks that have lovely little dust jackets with extra writing on them.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is just your typical paperback.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is a methodology in actually buying the book and how they handle that book in their hands.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: The other fun thing is that a lot of the independently published books right now are either going to have the shiny cover or the matte cover, the matte finish.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: The study also found that women are more likely to buy a book that has a matte finish.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a very soft micro suede feel.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And whereas the men are more likely to buy the shiny cover.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So these are things just to keep in mind as you're designing your book.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is there a difference between the effectiveness of matte versus a shiny cover?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Is that the right term, shiny cover?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: Am I using the right term?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: Gloss.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that's what it is.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yes, I'm a professional ghostwriter and I have a writing podcast.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even know what this stuff's called.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I need to go back to school.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: We learn something new every day.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: So is there is there a level of effectiveness with different with those covers according to the genre?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like in other words, if you have personal development versus fiction, does glossy versus mat work better in one or one of those?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't work so well.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think it does.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it does.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, novels tend to lean towards the glossy because they're a fast read.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think a lot of people also, a lot of authors will select the glossy because they perceive it as being a tougher finish.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um your matte finished books, if you have a black cover with a matte finish, you'll get fingerprints on that book.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so you'll want to take that into consideration.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Longevity-wise, actually, I think the matte finish lasts longer because in actuality, that glossy finished book has a very thin, minutia, thin covering of like a cellophane that's adhered to the original paper back.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh over time, that will start to fray at the edges and start to peel back.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's a like a reader's guide or something, a reference book where someone wants to always go back and be able to access that book, you may not want to do a paperback.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: You may want to think about doing a case-bound okay, uh, case bound book, which is a hardback book without a dust jacket.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: What is your opinion on that?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm I'm currently working on a book of mine that'll come out next October.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's called The Daily Writer.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: Basically, daily meditations for writers.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: They're very, very short, just a page each.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm trying to uh this is a very rider thing.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really wrestling internally with should I do paperback?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Should I do a laminate?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: Should I do, you know, go to Ingram Spark and do, you know, a laminate with a dust jacket?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm wrestling with those options.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have any thoughts on what how how does somebody decide whether it's hardback or paperback or dust jacket, those kind of things?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: First, we would help them decide the size.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So is this a pocket guide?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a gift book?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a coffee table book?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is it a is a paperback that someone can carry in their their oversized bag or backpack onto an airplane?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you want lightweight if that's what you want people to do, is carry it on an airplane and read it on the go.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So your paperback is going to be more of a direction you want to go.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you want it to be have a longer lifespan and hang around as more of a gift book or a resource book on a shelf, then probably that case bound without a dust jacket would be good.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: What I find a lot of authors do is that for not a whole lot much more than what they're already paying on Ingram to upload their paperback, you can have your designer go ahead and create the cover for the case bound.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now now you can also do the case bound with a dust jacket.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which is cool.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you could do all three.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: The authors that we work with will also use that case bound.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So let's decide say you decide to have a book launch for your book.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your high profile or high priority or VIP guests to that event, you may want to give them a hand signed copy in a hardbound book.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of a gift, right?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It it it emotes a higher quality, a higher price point, which it is.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And for the the general guest, I've seen a couple of our authors where they'll give people the option of ordering whether and deciding whether the guest wants a paperback or a hardback.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Some of our authors have said when you buy the hardback, X percentage of that purchase will go to a named nonprofit.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if the book happens to be um like for yours, if it's daily meditations, perhaps a percentage of that profit could go to um a high profile nonprofit that promotes mental health and wellness and that kind of that's cool.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's really cool.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you do it for the book launch.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's or I mean you also have the choice to do it forever if you want, also, every time someone buys a hardback.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: That is a great idea.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'd never thought about doing a basically like donation or certain percentage of your profits that that go to somewhere else for the length of just the book launch.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's a really cool strategy.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'd never thought about that before.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a we had an art an artist do that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Who her book was, you know, find your freak, something, some find your freak artist, your inner freak artist, something like that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And she had both paperback and hardbacks available for her book signing.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you buy them in advance as a part of your ticket to get into the book signing.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so she knew in advance how many were getting which book.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so she could have them pre-ordered and have them signed and already at a table.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because the one thing we tell artists, especially with book signing, is don't sit yourself behind a table.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be out, you want to mingle, you want to talk, you want to get to know the people there and create rapport within the group.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're stuck behind a table, then you have all these strange people out in the, you know, having the party that don't really know each other.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas, you know, you can be doing the introductions and introducing people back and forth to each other.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of I see so many book signings, so many book signings for people get stuck behind that table.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the party just goes down from that point on.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: And and most of these things, we're talking about people who love books, so it's not like they're coming.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: This isn't like a rave party where people are always like these natural, super extroverted types and and so forth.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So they're they're your friends, your family, your neighbors, your colleagues, people that know you, people that maybe have taken a workshop with you.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they just like hanging out with you.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're stuck in a corner, you know, you're the common denominator.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And now they've they're quite typically introverted rather than the extroverts, as you mentioned.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're all just kind of standing around waiting for something to do.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's never a good scene.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody's on their phones.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: We had one person, um, it was a husband and wife.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: He was a Princeton graduate, and the name of their book was Breakfast in Princeton.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: They he's a former um McDonnell Douglas slash Boeing engineer.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in the summers, this just became a fun thing for them to do.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: They would pick a state that they had not visited yet, and it had to have the name a little town in it named Princeton.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time you know they're now retired, and how many other years of, you know, 30, let's say 30 years of traveling around the US to every state that had a little town named Princeton, and they would always take their picture, they'd find a local diner, and they would always take their picture in front of a diner or in front of, you know, the the city, the big green signs when you drive into a little Midwest town that say, you know, Princeton, population 117.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they would always take their picture in front of that, and they compile, we helped them compile this book, and a percentage of the proceeds went back to support scholarships at Princeton.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's cool.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there was a big tie-in there for them on that.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: What a cool story.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: I gotta check that out.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were a cool couple, yeah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: So is there a difference in terms of how people check out a book or decide to buy a book on Amazon?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I I know Amazon's not the only not the only place online to buy books, but let's just say Amazon for simplicity.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: Is there a difference between a person's decision process on Amazon versus going into a bookstore, or is it basically the same?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's just a digital version on Amazon.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think on Amazon there's some influence there because of their algorithms, which I am not an expert at that.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I only know enough to get myself in trouble.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: But their Amazon's Amazon.com has algorithms based upon how often people are Googling or searching for that genre of book that you're looking for.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then they also build in how many of those books have been selling lately.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then that may determine, and no one can ever prove this, that may determine when you type in, you know, um Asian cooking.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: The theory is that the Asian cooking books that are selling the most and making the most profit for Amazon are the ones that are appearing first in your feed.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you're influenced by the books that you find and that you can stumble upon on Amazon, which in turn may influence your actual purchase.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas when you walk into a bookstore, there's a couple ways to be influenced.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a display at the front of the store, it could be a display at the end rack of the cooking aisle, um, or it could be just based on whether they have access to purchase your to purchase your book and have it in the store.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that's when your cover comes into play.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that I think when you're I think you have more ability to choose the book you want or or find the book you want when you're in a bookstore than you do on Amazon.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: One one statistic in 2020, there was over 765 million books printed in the US, and those are paperbacks only.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that was up 35% from the year before.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So with the pandemic, 35% higher.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: With the pandemic, the there were a lot of how-to books that went up.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the self-help, a lot of the motivation, inspiration went up.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And surprisingly, well, maybe not so surprisingly, but um novels and children's books also went up.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: You got kids at home, you're trying to keep them busy.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a book, you know.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know, uh, I know I heard my daughter has a seven and a nine and a half, and the library became, you know, a big source.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't go in, but they could, you know, order books basically online, drop them off, and you know, drop off the ones that they had last week.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it became a ritual for a weekly ritual for them, something to do in a pandemic, you know.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: So if I understand right, let's focus on bookstores for a second.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: If you go into a bookstore, you're looking at books, the order of the decision process would be first front cover, back cover, table of contents, then somewhere inside the book.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Is that generally the progression that people have?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then they'll open it up and just kind of read a passage.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that has happened in the last, well, probably since the self-publishing era kind of started around 2008.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just kind of that's my labeling of when I noticed it really started taking off.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: That sounds very accurate.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the people got readers have gotten burned over the years in buying books where the author really cannot write a sentence.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so in a bookstore, one way to check that is open up the middle of the book and read a chapter or read a paragraph in the book.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: That will tell you if the author is legitimate, if they are a writer, they can put a sentence together and if that chapter is going to make sense when you read it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: On the Amazon side, what people are doing is that they're now buying ebooks.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the ebook is becoming a marketing tool for your paper book, whether it's paperback or hardback.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: People will buy the ebook first.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we always tell people price it lower.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know,$2.99 to$599 is a sweet spot right now because one at$2.99 you'll get a higher um royalty.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And people are buying the ebooks to check to see if you can actually write a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then if they like that, then quite often they go back and they'll buy the paper version of your book and finish.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I know it is it is a thing that people do sometimes where they will put the ebook version out one or two months before the print book.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something that that is common?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, quite often we will work with authors and do what we call our Amazon bestseller campaign.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So for 24, 48 hours, you can buy their ebook for$1.99.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we hire a vendor to do that for our authors.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they typically come out, every one of our authors has either been an Amazon bestseller or number one bestseller, either in US or international.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then they the author has a choice of whether they want that paperback.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So your paperback can't go live until after that campaign.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's just an Amazon thing.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then also you don't want any sales of the paperback to hinder the sales of your ebook because you're trying to write, raise the sales to get your best seller badge.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the the um paperback, quite often the authors will say, Well, I have people asking for the paperback.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people are not digital readers necessarily.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know when the paperback is coming out.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's best to go ahead and have your paperback come out immediately after.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So within 48 hours of your launch, then you want your paperback to be live.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: What we quite often hold back will be a hardback and the audio.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, three months later, your hardback's available.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Six months from the launch, then your audiobook is available.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what that does is it gives you the opportunity to create a social media buzz around each of those events.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you have your your ebook and your paperback are all kind of sharing the same buzz.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on, you have the hardback, and then later on you have the audiobook.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's genius.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's really, really genius.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It stretches it out.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it there's If you do a big dump, then your big buzz is over.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: That that makes a lot of sense.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: Is there is there a downside?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: So for example, the book that I'm working on, you know, it's gonna be close to 400 pages, probably.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: And my gut feeling is to just do a hardback version because it's I'm intending it for it to be something people would read every day.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it needs to be durable and sturdy and all that.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Is there a downside to putting out the hardback version first and then doing paperback?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of major publishers will do that.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of major publishers will do that.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: They do that quite often with any high-profile author because they they're gonna make more money on the hardback.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so they'll run that for six months to a year and not even make the paperback or ebook available.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then after whatever designated period they've decided upon for that hardback, then they come back and they throw out the ebook and the paperback.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: That totally makes sense.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're they're trying to pump all the sales out of that hardback because that they're gonna make more money on that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think about the laminate hardbacks?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like it has a nice matte matte finish, obviously.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: Do you like this?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can now do gloss or matte on those laminate uh through now.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: The the only downside with with Ingwin Spark is that there's only certain sizes they do for that.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, like if you wanted a six and a half by six and a half square gift size book for your daily meditations, you would only be able to get that in paperback.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if you take it up to eight and a half by eight and a half or more standard size, five by eight or six by nine, you could get those in.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of have to plan your design of the book around first what your end format is, which is whether it's hardback or paperback.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then check Ingram to see what they offer in that size.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've gotten we've had authors get caught in that before where oh, I want it six and a half by six and a half, but I want a hardback.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not available in hardback.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the I I really like the the case laminate.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Amazon has just started a beta test on doing a case laminate themselves.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we've actually just ordered a test.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've thrown a book at them that is not a hardback yet to say, okay, show us what this one would look like in a hardback.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now you mentioned you are you're thinking about 400 pages.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So typically there is a psychology to how deep your spine is, how thick is your spine when spines are based upon page count.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So typically you can get 150 pages inside your book for about a quarter of an inch.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So 300 pages is going to give you anywhere from you know 275 to 325, it's going to give you about a half an inch to a three-quarter inch.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: So then as you start getting closer to that 400, your book's going to get thicker.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's on a standard five and a half by eight and a half book.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you already know that you have a lot of content, make your book bigger so your spine is smaller.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because psychologically, people will buy more books that are a half inch or less in the depth of your spine because they think, oh, I can read that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a half inch or more, they're thinking, I'll never get through that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there's, you know, like you may want to consider a seven by ten or an eight by ten, um, another size, at least a six by nine kind of book.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then one of the one of the favorite sizes of mine is the eight and a half by eight and a half or eight by eight.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can get a lot of content in that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just do it in two columns per page.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's an easier read.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's interesting.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: I never thought about doing doing it that way.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: Fascinating.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's another, yeah.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's another psychology to font size and line length.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have, let's say you have an eight-inch wide piece of paper on the inside of your book.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your book is eight by eight.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your line length, if you have a, let me get my math right here.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm a right brain creative trying to do math.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Give me a second here.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there's if you have a you have an eight-inch page, you want a margin around that.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say you could go to a seven-inch length line length, but that's gonna be difficult to read.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a 12-point font in a seven-inch length line, um, the brain is gonna get tired trying to keep track of where it is.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the rule of thumb is if you have a 12-point font, you don't want your line length to be any wider than six.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a 14-point font, you could go to seven inches wide.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's 50% of your font size.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: I never knew that I never knew that.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you have a 10-point line, which is kind of tiny in a book, you don't want the line length to be more than five inches wide.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, just take half of that.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why immediately I just, you know, either make your inside gutter bigger so that your line length, you know, stays within um those types of parameters.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise your brain will get tired and your eyes will jump around and and have a hard time reading it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: Boy, that's this is a lot of stuff that oftentimes as writers we don't think very much about.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: Because we think I'm just gonna write a book and somehow it magically gets transferred into this really cool print book.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: But there's so many factors that come into this.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: Which especially if you're self-publishing, it's easy to overlook all this stuff.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's it's things that anybody who's not been in the industry or who has not um studied the pros and cons or found articles about it, they're not gonna know a lot of it, you know.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now, this might be a good opportunity to segue into can you share with us a bit about what your company does, how you help writers?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because if somebody's listening to this and they feel a little overwhelmed, uh, first of all, it's totally normal because there's a lot of decisions to make when you're publishing a book.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: How can you help authors with they want to write a book or they've written a book, then where do you come into the process and how can you help them?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I liken it to putting together a 10,000-piece puzzle.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you have a 10,000-piece puzzle and you love doing puzzles, then it's not so intimidating.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not a puzzle person, you want to find someone who can help you put the puzzle together and keep your sanity.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of what we do, no matter where someone is, where no matter where an author is on their journey, whether it's just an idea or whether they have a manuscript and need an editor, we can step in and help them get to the finish line.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not publishers, but we're we've been called ghost publishers, concierge publishers.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: We set up each of our authors as their own independent publishing company.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're doing is we're giving them the best of both worlds.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're giving them the best of traditional publishing because they get to keep 100% of their own royalties.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we give them the best of DIY because we know the insides and outs of how to get it done and get it done quick.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: Man, that is a highly, highly valuable service because there's so many decisions that you've got to make as a writer.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: So having experts coming alongside you can be so helpful.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so often we'll, you know, hear, have a conversation with an author, and they'll say, you know, it's I'm ready to get my book up on Amazon and make some sales.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much more to it than that.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you start, we want to have a conversation with that author in the very beginning about, you know, and I asked this every author, imagine that book is in your hand.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now what?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now what are you going to do with it?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they think the book is going to sell it themselves, and the book doesn't do that.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so you want to think about that before you have the book in hand so that every decision you make is moving you in the right direction.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: Kathy, thanks for being on the show today.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: This has been a blast.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: I've taken a bunch of notes and uh I'm looking forward to going back through these later and and just thinking how can I apply all this to my own writing uh as well as to the clients that I work with.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm excited about the work that you're doing.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I appreciate you taking time to be on the show and sharing your treasure trove of wisdom with us.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Call me anytime.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll make up more stuff.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that's kind of what we do, you know, as writers.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we do.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: Make up stuff.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thanks again.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: This has been a blast.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Kent.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kathy.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: Wasn't that fun?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: I learned so much in this conversation, and it was so much fun to be able to kind of geek out about all the fun details that goes into making an amazing book.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: I would say my biggest takeaway from this episode is that we have to pay attention to things like cover design, marketing copy on the backs of our books, and that goes in the book description on Amazon.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: We've got to pay attention to things like interior layout and our font choices and margins and all those kinds of things.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: It is really critical that we do that because if we don't, then we're going to wind up with a book that doesn't really look professional.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: And that's obviously not what we want.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: So make sure you're paying attention to all those things so that you can ensure that you produce a really, really excellent book.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, hey, before I wrap up this episode, I want to encourage you to check out Kathy's website, which is creativepublishingpartners.com.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: And also I want to make sure to encourage you to download her excellent free download, which is 100 Top Book Marketing Ideas.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_03: And this is again a free download that has a ton of ideas for book marketing.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, as you know, marketing is really, really critical.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: You can write a book and put it out there into the world, but unless you market it, it's going to have a very, very limited audience.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: So make sure and grab that free download.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: There will be a link in the show notes as well as links to all of the ways to get in touch with Kathy and find out about all the cool things that she is doing.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks so much, and I'll see you in the next episode.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: I want to take a moment to let you know about our Daily Writer membership community.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, one of the very best ways to develop better habits and impact more people's lives with your writing is to spend time around other successful writers.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're tired of feeling isolated and chasing success on your own, then I know you're gonna love the Daily Writer community.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: For years, I searched for the kind of writing community that I would want to join, but I can never find what I wanted, so I created my own.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: Some of the features include weekly writing sprints, monthly community calls, book discussions, calls with guest experts, and much more.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: For more info, you can visit dailywriterlife.comslash community.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.