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Build It And They Will Come? The Biggest Lie in Self-Publishing. · Substack Writers Salon

0:01
SPEAKER_00: and we are live hi hi everyone to another episode of the Substack Writers Salon
0:08
SPEAKER_00: and today I have with me Dale Roberts who I've been following for a long time
0:13
SPEAKER_00: on YouTube and I was telling him I feel like I'm talking to a celebrity now
0:20
SPEAKER_00: And Dale is a self-publishing advocate, best-selling author, and video creator.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: He's YouTube self-publishing with Dale Host.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: That's a channel that I advise everyone to follow if you're into publishing and self-publishing.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Publishing, and he's based in Columbus, Ohio.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: All right, we already have people joining us.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: We have Crystal, Jim, and Susan.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: You're in for a treat because Dale is the expert.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: All right, Dale, first, thank you for joining me.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: And Dale,
0:55
SPEAKER_00: as I said,
0:55
SPEAKER_00: I've been following your YouTube videos for a while,
0:58
SPEAKER_00: and I learned a lot from you, and you sort of gave me hope.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: in the sense that self-published authors can actually sell a lot of books
1:11
SPEAKER_00: if they use the right tactics.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And if you agree with the statement,
1:15
SPEAKER_00: what are the, like,
1:17
SPEAKER_00: let's say,
1:18
SPEAKER_00: top things that self-published authors need to do to sell books
1:23
SPEAKER_00: and sometimes even outsell trad publishers?
1:26
SPEAKER_00: So the floor is yours.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people would assume I'm going to say hey take a lot of money
1:32
SPEAKER_01: and just pour it into Amazon ads or Facebook ads but believe it or not I believe
1:36
SPEAKER_01: that it starts at the foundation and the foundation is going to be who is
1:40
SPEAKER_01: the audience that you're serving what do they want and how do you fulfill that need
1:44
SPEAKER_01: a lot of times there's some writers out there they just
1:47
SPEAKER_01: Write to scratch their creative itch and they're not really thinking about
1:51
SPEAKER_01: an audience beyond themselves or they think everybody's going to enjoy just as much
1:55
SPEAKER_01: as I have so it's understanding that audience because when I first got
1:59
SPEAKER_01: into this business that was one of the biggest mistakes that I made was I wrote
2:03
SPEAKER_01: a fitness book for everyone
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: And you're probably going, that's not possible, Dale.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: A friend brought it out of me.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: He says, who's this for?
2:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, everybody.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: He goes, okay.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Takes his glasses off.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: He looks at me and he says,
2:18
SPEAKER_01: very seriously,
2:19
SPEAKER_01: you mean to tell me you're going to give the same exercise advice to a teenager
2:24
SPEAKER_01: that you would give to an older adult?
2:26
SPEAKER_01: And I was like,
2:28
SPEAKER_01: You had me dead to rights on that one.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: So understand who your audience is before you set those expectations of I'm going
2:35
SPEAKER_01: to sell X amount of books.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: because if you don't know your audience and what they want nothing you're going
2:42
SPEAKER_01: to present to them is going to sell it all so understand
2:46
SPEAKER_01: that audience now there's other three other like core competencies that people need
2:51
SPEAKER_01: to follow along with uh three of those things two of them we're going
2:54
SPEAKER_01: to start it off right off is your cover your cover design needs to communicate
3:00
SPEAKER_01: the genre from what it from what it's in and it also needs to
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Grab the attention of that reader that you're trying to reach.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: A good cover doesn't necessarily mean,
3:13
SPEAKER_01: oh gosh, let's say for instance, I've got a great fitness book.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Actually, let me use a personal story here for you.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Back in 2015, 2016,
3:23
SPEAKER_01: when I was just getting into the business,
3:27
SPEAKER_01: I had a cover design done for one of my fitness books.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's what you would expect.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: There was a Jack Dude on the cover,
3:34
SPEAKER_01: you know, black cover, it's got green lettering, and it looked pretty nice.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: And it sold a lot.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: I only paid like five bucks for it over in Fiverr back in the day.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: But at any rate, it was selling really well, and it started just dropping off.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: And me, in my infinite wisdom back then, said, you know what?
3:54
SPEAKER_01: We got to change the cover.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: We got to change the cover, so I'm going to do that this time.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: because who better for this than anything?
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So I busted open GIMP.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: I spent several hours.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: When I mean several hours, we're talking like 12 hours plus, like working on this cover design.
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SPEAKER_01: Now the cover design, it looked like a comic book cover because I'm a big comic book nerd.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, oh, people are going to dig this.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: And even friends and family over Facebook, they were just like, that cover is really cool.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: You made that?
4:23
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, yeah, I did.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: And I published that cover.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: and sales went to nothing it went to zero and I let it ride for about a month
4:36
SPEAKER_01: and I probably got a smattering of sales here and there here's the funny thing
4:40
SPEAKER_01: when I realized I was like okay you're not a cover designer Dale stop it I put
4:46
SPEAKER_01: the original cover design back on shoot straight up and I'm like
4:53
SPEAKER_01: You got to be kidding me.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: I literally just shot myself in the foot.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: I could have just continued to have those same sales, even though it was a diminishing amount.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: It was way better than nothing.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: So know what your audience expects from your genre.
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SPEAKER_01: That's going to be the most important thing.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: Now, the other two aspects,
5:08
SPEAKER_01: and I'm sorry, Natasha, this is one of those questions I always love answering.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: The other thing is going to be your description.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: Your description needs to be so much more than a summary.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: It needs to be doing something that's called copywriting,
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SPEAKER_01: which is essentially the art of writing for the purposes of a sale.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sitting here thinking
5:26
SPEAKER_01: about my fiction book telling every last little person's name,
5:30
SPEAKER_01: first name, last name, their background, things like that.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: No.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Give us those pain points.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: What is going to attract me to come over and read your book,
5:39
SPEAKER_01: read your fiction book, read your nonfiction book,
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Because that's going to be the most important thing.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: This is something that a lot of people, I think, take very lightly.
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SPEAKER_01: You don't write your description the same way you wrote your inside of your book.
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SPEAKER_01: That's not the way you do it.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't know how to do proper copywriting,
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SPEAKER_01: copywriters,
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SPEAKER_01: good copywriters,
5:59
SPEAKER_01: you know, sure,
5:59
SPEAKER_01: they're going to cost a pretty penny,
6:01
SPEAKER_01: but you will most likely pick up some of the things that they do
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SPEAKER_01: in writing your first descriptions.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: And then you can go, oh, let me go ahead and capture this, this, this, and this.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: And let me see if I can duplicate it for this other book here.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: And that's something that had helped me out was because I kept going to copywriters
6:17
SPEAKER_01: and I'm like, here, could you write this up?
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: And then I would tweak and it would keep improving and improving.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: All right.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: So there is the cover we said.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: We said the description.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: And then last but not least is for discoverability, you need to have the exact words that
6:33
SPEAKER_01: that your audience is typing into search engine algorithms.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: And today as well, they're artificial intelligence.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: So you need to be putting in keyword phrases that your ideal reader is going
6:45
SPEAKER_01: to be typing in to discover you.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: And you're going to put those keywords into your title, subtitle, description, series name.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: You can put it into your editorial review section, any of those things.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Just
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Be tasteful about it.
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SPEAKER_01: Nobody likes to see an entire paragraph of nothing but keywords.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: Put them in tastefully, organically, make it like a conversation.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Unlike what I've been doing here, dominating most of the chat.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty much what I just try to tell people is you want to sell more books,
7:14
SPEAKER_01: look at your foundation.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Are you serving the right audience?
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SPEAKER_01: Do you have a good cover design?
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SPEAKER_01: What's your description like?
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SPEAKER_01: And do you have the right keywords to become more discoverable?
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's say I did all of that.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: So I built the foundation.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a self-published author.
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SPEAKER_00: What should I focus on?
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Amazon ads, community, social media, go on TikTok and do shoppable video.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And this is something I grapple with all the time.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: I just published my children's book.
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SPEAKER_00: and my first children's book and most of the sales have been coming from word
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SPEAKER_00: of mouth on social media and you know let's say I put it on Facebook
8:03
SPEAKER_00: so my immediate family and plus like social media as well from my followers
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SPEAKER_00: I experimented with Amazon ads for my previous books but I don't think I had
8:17
SPEAKER_00: the foundation correctly like the keywords and stuff
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SPEAKER_00: so maybe that's why I did not have the success that I wanted but let's do this as a
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SPEAKER_00: as like a case study live okay I have this children's book it's
8:30
SPEAKER_00: a multicultural theme for kids about healthy eating how can I sell it
8:35
SPEAKER_00: the foundation is solid what shall I do next
8:38
SPEAKER_01: To me, I feel like if you've got a children's book,
8:40
SPEAKER_00: you should be looking at your local community
8:42
SPEAKER_01: um that is going to be your local libraries you can look
8:45
SPEAKER_01: at your local schools there's going to be some um associations
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SPEAKER_01: that you can probably reach out to like the local YMCAs just try
8:53
SPEAKER_01: to figure out library would be the one place Natasha I would tell you
8:56
SPEAKER_01: to go first just because right now off the top
8:59
SPEAKER_01: of my head I am 1000% certain libraries are looking for authors that are going
9:05
SPEAKER_01: to run events like just go in there and be like hey I'm
9:08
SPEAKER_01: a children's book author I'd love to come on in here and host a read-along
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah I've got a book and I will donate those books to you after
9:13
SPEAKER_01: that someone says no good move on there's so many libraries in
9:16
SPEAKER_01: the world you can go ahead just tap into all of those things yeah yeah
9:19
SPEAKER_01: so yeah I would suggest for you definitely look at your local community
9:23
SPEAKER_01: and this could go just about anybody that's watching this whether you're
9:27
SPEAKER_01: a children's book author or a non-fiction author or the like um
9:31
SPEAKER_01: The local community can be the difference maker.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: But the reason why I point you towards that direction is
9:36
SPEAKER_01: because children's books are a little tougher to navigate.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: My normal advice of building an email list is a lot more difficult through
9:45
SPEAKER_01: a children's book because obviously people that are buying
9:49
SPEAKER_01: the children's book are probably parents and will want to market to the parents.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: But in a lot of instances,
9:56
SPEAKER_01: the parents probably just buy the book and hand it over to their kids.
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SPEAKER_01: So you don't want the kids to subscribe to your email newsletter.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, depends on your age group.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: But nonetheless,
10:05
SPEAKER_01: so it's just reaching out to that local community makes a huge, huge difference.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's going to seem real
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Tynes
10:27
SPEAKER_01: she has created so much buzz for her author name inside
10:31
SPEAKER_01: the community she's been featured in radio station interviews she's been featured
10:36
SPEAKER_01: in PBS interviews she's been featured in local meetups uh heck she even helped out
10:42
SPEAKER_01: a local cat cafe that you know served drinks and had cats there
10:47
SPEAKER_01: which is super cool um but um yeah she got out there and it didn't cost her a dime
10:51
SPEAKER_01: and I will tell you this Susan would be the first person
10:54
SPEAKER_01: to tell you she's introverted like
10:56
SPEAKER_01: That's not her game But she found that she really enjoyed it
10:59
SPEAKER_01: And she embraced those types of things
11:01
SPEAKER_01: So I would say just step outside your comfort zone Find something local Now,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: at what point do we say Should we start pouring money into things like Amazon ads?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Don't pour any money into it If you don't know what you're doing
11:15
SPEAKER_01: All right just to say that right now
11:17
SPEAKER_01: if you don't know what you're doing you just open up amazon ads for the first time
11:20
SPEAKER_01: or you open up facebook ads any type of paid promotion like that
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SPEAKER_01: where you're doing pay-per-click learn it first don't learn it as you go
11:29
SPEAKER_01: unless you got
11:29
SPEAKER_01: the discretionary expense i am very fortunate i've had discretionary expense over
11:33
SPEAKER_01: the last several years so i can be able to dabble and play around with that but
11:36
SPEAKER_01: for new authors that don't have
11:37
SPEAKER_01: the discretionary expense i would not recommend just throwing money
11:40
SPEAKER_01: in there amazon ads i would say
11:43
SPEAKER_01: They're very, very effective, but they can be very difficult to navigate.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Start with Amazon Advertising Academy.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: It's 100% free.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: You can get it through your dashboard on Amazon Advertising.
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SPEAKER_01: You look in the top right-hand corner, there's a question mark with a circle around it.
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SPEAKER_01: Click that.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: There'll be a dropdown that's going to show you all the different videos
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SPEAKER_01: and things like that they offer.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Or I think it's advertising.amazon.com slash academy.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't know I remember random sites like that but go through the academy they have
12:14
SPEAKER_01: a number of courses I would recommend start with sponsored product ads go
12:19
SPEAKER_01: through learn that I'm gonna tell you I've taken paid courses
12:25
SPEAKER_01: and I've done free courses Amazon Ad Advertisings Academy by far
12:30
SPEAKER_01: the best that's one it's free and two it's very comprehensive because
12:34
SPEAKER_01: when you don't understand one aspect chances are they're going
12:37
SPEAKER_01: to have another course that you can plug into and the beautiful part about this is
12:42
SPEAKER_01: when I went through a number of these courses that weren't even related
12:45
SPEAKER_01: to selling books I started understanding Amazon's ecosystem a lot better
12:49
SPEAKER_01: because it started to tell me things that are very beneficial to you things like
12:54
SPEAKER_01: for instance did you know that
12:56
SPEAKER_01: to be considered retail ready your product should have 15 reviews of
13:00
SPEAKER_01: an average star rating of three and a half stars or greater retail ready meaning
13:05
SPEAKER_01: until you have poured enough um got enough sales and enough reviews
13:10
SPEAKER_01: you probably shouldn't pour more money into the ads so get it up
13:13
SPEAKER_01: to retail ready that's what they recommend me personally I say just start you know
13:19
SPEAKER_01: but don't do it without first knowing what you're handling
13:23
SPEAKER_01: and start really low really low like even if you've got let's say a thousand dollars
13:29
SPEAKER_01: for the next month a buck a day start it out play around with it a lot
13:33
SPEAKER_01: of people go oh you put a buck a day what are you gonna make with
13:36
SPEAKER_01: that you're gonna learn
13:37
SPEAKER_01: You're going to get a lot of that data that's going to come back and you're going
13:40
SPEAKER_01: to start to study those things with the search terms,
13:43
SPEAKER_01: you're going to see the reports,
13:43
SPEAKER_01: you're going to see the return on ad spend,
13:47
SPEAKER_01: you're going to see so many things and it's going to help you understand
13:50
SPEAKER_01: a new language and that's essentially what it is,
13:52
SPEAKER_01: it's understanding this new language and trying to navigate this a little bit better
13:56
SPEAKER_01: and as you start to feel more comfortable then you can start to go okay
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Let's go ahead and put a zero behind that one.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do $10 per day and let's go ahead and see how that goes and just keep
14:05
SPEAKER_01: on stacking on those victories.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: But I would say is don't ever put money into a pay-per-click ad campaign,
14:12
SPEAKER_01: Amazon ads or Facebook ads or BookBub ads until you fully understand it
14:17
SPEAKER_01: because I've seen so many authors that have just come to me just completely wrecked
14:23
SPEAKER_01: because they're like, I had a mother-son duo that had poured
14:29
SPEAKER_01: They had put their daily budget at $1,000 per day.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Their cost per click was at $1.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: They had $3,000 that were burned through in three days.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Three days.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: They shut it off.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: They sold 12 books for $3,000.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: And by the way,
14:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if anybody knows out there,
14:50
SPEAKER_01: but yeah, that many books doesn't quite cover the $30,000.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: And the biggest mistake was they thought to themselves,
14:58
SPEAKER_01: let me watch a couple of videos and I'll figure it out on my own.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: Don't ever start at $1,000 per day.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: That's going to be my first thing.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Unless you have that kind of money to burn through, never spend that much.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay so there is and I read that many times that self and you talk
15:18
SPEAKER_00: about like self-published authors can if they do the right thing sell more
15:25
SPEAKER_00: than traditional authors what is so they figured out
15:30
SPEAKER_00: the foundation they figured out Amazon ads what is the things that they must do
15:35
SPEAKER_00: in order to reach that goal of
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Selling and maybe eventually like living off your books if that's even
15:42
SPEAKER_00: a thing what is like this okay we talked about children's book okay
15:47
SPEAKER_00: so I have other books let's say I have two fiction books okay and what is
15:53
SPEAKER_00: the number one thing that they should do to reach that target the common denominator
15:59
SPEAKER_01: that I see with a lot of successful authors and the ones that I have interviewed
16:02
SPEAKER_01: and interacted with over the years is an email list
16:05
SPEAKER_01: E-mail marketing is an absolute must.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: And this is something that, this is the hill I'll die on.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: You don't need a website.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: You don't need social media as long as you have an e-mail marketing plan
16:16
SPEAKER_01: of some sort,
16:17
SPEAKER_01: that you're having some type of a list that you're building and growing.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Because what you're doing is you're bringing in your audience and retaining them.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: You're taking them off of places like Amazon,
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Barnes & Noble, and Kobo and bring them into your ecosystem.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's not enough that you just build the e-mail list alone.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Now you need to start to work with other people within your niche
16:36
SPEAKER_01: because they're gonna have email lists.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: The rising tide raises all boats.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: Work with people within your niche.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's gonna seem unnerving, especially if you don't know anybody in your niche.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Find them because it's gonna make life a lot easier.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Instances like Story Origin or Book Funnel great services by
16:54
SPEAKER_01: the way highly recommend both of them they're fantastic they have two features
16:58
SPEAKER_01: in them that are called a newsletter swap and a group promo newsletter swap is
17:03
SPEAKER_01: where let's say for instance Natasha you
17:05
SPEAKER_01: and I let's pretend we're both fitness authors I've got my email list
17:08
SPEAKER_01: of you know fitness related subscribers and you've got yours and I've got
17:13
SPEAKER_01: a deal coming out on my book let's say next month but yours is next week
17:17
SPEAKER_01: I'll go ahead and share your deal for next week
17:19
SPEAKER_01: in my email newsletter my deal comes up next month you will share my deal at
17:24
SPEAKER_01: that time so that newsletter swap makes things easy you're not having
17:27
SPEAKER_01: to give away email addresses you're not doing any of that all you're doing it's kind
17:32
SPEAKER_01: of like
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Quid Pro Quo.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: And it really helps grow your list and increase sales as well
17:39
SPEAKER_01: because you're starting to overlap a lot of that audience and bring them
17:43
SPEAKER_01: into your area and start to grow even more.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: So I see a lot of just very successful authors that are really leaning
17:50
SPEAKER_01: into things like an email list and newsletter swaps.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: But there's the group promos that I briefly mentioned.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: And group promos are essentially like a newsletter swap on steroids.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: They get a bunch of authors that work together,
18:04
SPEAKER_01: collaborate on reaching all of their respective email lists for deals that they have
18:08
SPEAKER_01: on their books.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: And the rising tide, again, raises all boats.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: And it's called what again?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Book promo?
18:16
SPEAKER_01: So that is called a group promo.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: That's called a group promo.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And where would you find that?
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Where would you find these authors and where...
18:24
SPEAKER_01: You can arrange group promos on your own if you wanted to,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: but there's software, like for instance, Story Origin is one of them.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: The software, I think they're like $10 per month or $100 per year.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: It's called what, sorry?
18:35
SPEAKER_01: Story Origin.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: So like an origin of a story.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Story Origins fantastic love it I've been using them since day one they have
18:44
SPEAKER_01: a marketplace of authors that are always looking for newsletter swaps
18:48
SPEAKER_01: and group promos will you be a perfect fit for everybody probably not
18:52
SPEAKER_01: but you will find some gems that you could be able to connect with and that will
18:56
SPEAKER_01: at least get you started shout out to Tanisha she actually just dropped in
19:00
SPEAKER_01: the storyoriginapp.com yes big shout out to Evan Gao over
19:04
SPEAKER_01: at Story Origins fantastic guy
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm going to tell you about my failure because I love talking about failure.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I don't call it failure.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: I call it collecting data.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: That's my mindset.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: So, the other day, I have a newsletter of around 3,000 people.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I have...
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Substack and I have Kit Nice Substack I did not put that on Substack I put it on Kit
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want to like Annoy people So I decided I want
19:42
SPEAKER_00: to Advertise my children Right
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And I did not want to say buy my book, buy my book.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: All I said is what I learned from publishing my first children's book.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: So I talked about the importance of typesetting, for example.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, I tried to do typesetting myself.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: It was a disaster.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: I had to hire a typesetter, the importance of the hiring and illustrator, all of that.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, I put a plug at the end about my book.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And I sent it to the 3,000 people And then through kit after two days I resend to
20:17
SPEAKER_00: the people who I did not open How many books did I sell from that?
20:23
SPEAKER_01: Just based on the way you asked that?
20:25
SPEAKER_01: Zero!
20:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking zero Zero!
20:29
SPEAKER_00: So what in the world did I do wrong?
20:33
SPEAKER_01: unless i looked at the copy and approach that you did it's kind of hard to say
20:37
SPEAKER_01: and especially like the emails that were leading up to that email
20:40
SPEAKER_01: and the emails thats that followed up with that one
20:43
SPEAKER_01: um i am just this is my personal preference when it comes to email marketing
20:47
SPEAKER_01: if somebody doesn't open their email the first time i don't send it again
20:50
SPEAKER_01: that's just me i'm like you know open it too bad you missed it
20:53
SPEAKER_01: my thought is what i put out it's vip stuff
20:57
SPEAKER_01: if you don't have the time to open that up and read it fine but
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Personal opinion on this one because I'm sure there's going
21:05
SPEAKER_01: to be some email marketers that will be like, you are so wrong, Dale.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: That's my personal preference.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: They say like, no, people are too busy.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: If you send them a reminder, they won't even notice the first email, which is actually even me.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure like I'm subscribed to your newsletter.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I can barely keep up with anything.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have to be sure that I'm barely making it.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: so you okay so you think it might be the copy okay
21:34
SPEAKER_01: so it could be it could be there's I wish I could tell you
21:37
SPEAKER_01: that there's some magical way to do that but I don't know the relationship
21:40
SPEAKER_01: that you have built with your audience I know how I could back into it and for me
21:44
SPEAKER_01: if I'm looking for a sale of a specific book I would rather build out
21:47
SPEAKER_01: an automation sequence that would like value value value
21:53
SPEAKER_01: Pitch.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: So in other words,
21:54
SPEAKER_01: I've delivered so much value that when I go for that ask,
21:58
SPEAKER_01: they're going to be like, of course I'm going to buy this.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: This makes no sense why I wouldn't.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: One of my sequences,
22:05
SPEAKER_01: I do it exactly like that,
22:07
SPEAKER_01: where I teach, teach, teach,
22:11
SPEAKER_01: and then on the third one,
22:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, by the way, I've got a full workbook for something like this.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Boom Now does it convert every time?
22:18
SPEAKER_01: No But the beauty is It's a direct sale And I pocket most of that money So kind
22:24
SPEAKER_00: of like that Okay So Okay For you personally What was the best thing that you did
22:35
SPEAKER_00: That was the highest ROI That created the highest sales?
22:41
SPEAKER_01: Hmm
22:43
SPEAKER_01: I would be remiss and I would be dishonest if I didn't tell you Amazon advertising.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Amazon ads pulls in a fair amount of sales but if I were to think here outside
22:54
SPEAKER_01: of Amazon ads I mean I would say YouTube.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: YouTube would definitely be second because as soon as I can just publish a video
23:01
SPEAKER_01: that delivers again value around that specific publication and then when I go for
23:07
SPEAKER_01: the ask
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Real quick, in and out, and then boom, for whatever reason, does really well.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: So if I got a 10-minute video,
23:14
SPEAKER_01: let's say, I want to promote my book, reviews for books, we'll say.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: I want to promote that one.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to do a video like 25 Reasons Your Reviews Keep Getting Rejected.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Boom, some people are gonna, oh, I've had my reviews rejected, time to go take some notes.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: I would go into the video,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: deliver value maybe a couple minutes,
23:33
SPEAKER_01: two to three minutes in, and then I will take about 15 to 30 seconds real quick.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: And hey,
23:37
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
23:38
SPEAKER_01: if you guys are really enjoying what you're seeing right now,
23:40
SPEAKER_01: I put all this together in a book called Reviews for Books.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: I cover everything from XYZ, blah, blah, blah.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: For more information,
23:47
SPEAKER_01: you can go ahead and find my book at every major retailer in libraries,
23:51
SPEAKER_01: something like that.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the ask is in the video, not in the description?
23:58
SPEAKER_01: You can put it in the description as well.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I highly recommend it.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: You can do it in the description.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: You can,
24:03
SPEAKER_01: if you've been monetized on YouTube,
24:05
SPEAKER_01: you can also put it in your end screen,
24:06
SPEAKER_01: you can put it in your cards, and you can put it inside your pen comment.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: So there are so many opportunities that you can put it in there.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, this is something that's relatively new on YouTube.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: If you are fully monetized in the YouTube Partner Program, they now have an affiliate program.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: And if you are published wide,
24:21
SPEAKER_01: meaning that you've got your book everywhere possible,
24:24
SPEAKER_01: you'll be able to find the print books through places like Target,
24:27
SPEAKER_01: Walmart, and all those types of things, Barnes & Noble as well.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: And it will actually tag
24:32
SPEAKER_01: that inside the video so then people can actually buy your book from within
24:36
SPEAKER_00: the video itself but like so TikTok video now TikTok and I experimented
24:43
SPEAKER_00: with it once um how was it it was actually so what I did I'm gonna do this again
24:49
SPEAKER_00: with this but I'm gonna tell you maybe I'll actually know maybe I'll do
24:53
SPEAKER_00: a YouTube video about it because I'm trying to get monetized
24:57
SPEAKER_00: and it's another failure but it's okay I love talking
25:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about failures but so what I did with with the Karma Unleashed one
25:06
SPEAKER_00: of my books is I just read okay so I created a shop on Tik Tok and I put
25:14
SPEAKER_00: that book I need to put the other books but I was just playing around
25:18
SPEAKER_00: and I took the book and I read the first two paragraphs and I said oh by
25:22
SPEAKER_00: the way you can get that book from the video
25:25
SPEAKER_00: and somebody said I love it I just bought it
25:27
SPEAKER_00: and I was like what like my mind was blown and I was like what kind of sorcery was
25:35
SPEAKER_00: that you know like I it happened so quickly so fast
25:40
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I saw another YouTube video,
25:43
SPEAKER_00: maybe one of your competitors,
25:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
25:45
SPEAKER_00: I forgot his name,
25:46
SPEAKER_00: but what he mentioned is that TikTok now they have an affiliate program.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: So I went to all the book,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: some of the book talkers who are in the affiliate program,
25:57
SPEAKER_00: I mailed them a copy of my book and they actually
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Promoted it as a shoppable video Nice
26:03
SPEAKER_01: But it did not work They sold zero Exposure is exposure, right?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I thought maybe it's too niche, you know, whatever, but I thought
26:16
SPEAKER_00: I've had people get more excited about children's book honestly from my experience
26:20
SPEAKER_00: and I'm gonna try that with TikTok and I am going to report back
26:28
SPEAKER_00: but yeah it's interesting what you said
26:31
SPEAKER_00: about okay another thing you mentioned is being at bars and noble and blah blah blah
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I put my book on IngramSparks.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: That's like kind of the first,
26:44
SPEAKER_00: because it's like they're the,
26:45
SPEAKER_00: for people who don't know what IngramSpark is, I mean,
26:48
SPEAKER_00: correct me if I'm mistaken,
26:50
SPEAKER_00: I refer to them as the distributor for self-published authors.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're close.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: It's an aggregate publisher.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: They reach over 40,000 libraries, institutions, retailers, and whatnot throughout the world.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: They're one of the biggest distributors of book publications today,
27:05
SPEAKER_01: especially for indie authors.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I got, I go on Ingram's Park and I put it there and I have the link.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to do now?
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have my book on it.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Like what?
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Email, bars and nobles.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Hey, my book is on Ingram's Park.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do with Ingram's Park at this point.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the biggest issue and one of my biggest complaints about IngramSpark.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
27:27
SPEAKER_01: they're reaching that many different retailers and libraries and such like that,
27:31
SPEAKER_01: but they won't give you an itemized list.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: They will give you a basic list if you go on their website,
27:35
SPEAKER_01: where they'll show things like Walmart, Target, things like that.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: But you won't learn about any small indie bookstores.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: IngramSpark's great.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: I won't take anything away from them.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: I continue to use them and I love them.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: But what you're saying is, how do I market and promote this?
27:52
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking at a specific avenue,
27:54
SPEAKER_01: like say Barnes & Noble,
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Barnes & Noble actually has a frequently asked questions page.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: If you want to get your books into the stores, there's an actual contact.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: My apologies,
28:05
SPEAKER_01: you're going to have to probably Google this up
28:06
SPEAKER_01: because I just don't have this right off the top of my head.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: But you'll look up, it will probably be hosted by Barnes & Noble Press.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: And on Barnes & Noble Press' site, which is the direct publishing option for Barnes & Noble,
28:18
SPEAKER_01: Tynes
28:36
SPEAKER_01: or we can even work out a consignment deal of some sort.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: It's just going in and having just the guts to go right up to somebody and say,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: hey, I'm an indie author.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm local here.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: That's the important thing.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: Remember,
28:46
SPEAKER_01: if you're local,
28:47
SPEAKER_01: say you're a local indie author because they're going to run
28:49
SPEAKER_01: with somebody who's local versus somebody who's like,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, you're in Detroit and you're actually based out of Los Angeles.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: They're probably going to be, I don't know about this guy.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: but you're gonna need to speak to those individual stores but I started kind
29:03
SPEAKER_01: of going on this little rabbit trail here you were getting ready
29:07
SPEAKER_00: to ask something my apology well my question is IngramSpark is they're not gonna
29:11
SPEAKER_00: sell the book for you no they don't they're just gonna create a like a shop
29:18
SPEAKER_00: that people can come and buy from that shop and they get a cut
29:24
SPEAKER_00: and you put you put it there for free so
29:27
SPEAKER_00: How do I, like,
29:30
SPEAKER_00: I know they offer advertising or whatever,
29:32
SPEAKER_00: but you're saying to use IngramSpark effectively,
29:37
SPEAKER_00: I have still,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: in addition to uploading the book,
29:41
SPEAKER_00: I still have to go and contact all these people and they say,
29:44
SPEAKER_00: hey, you can buy it from here because they're not going to buy from Amazon.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: It's just a lot of work.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: It is.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: I wish there was a simple way of doing things.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: This is a conversation I've had numerous times over on my Discord community
29:56
SPEAKER_01: where there's some people that are like,
29:58
SPEAKER_01: they'll say, IngramSpark doesn't sell books anymore.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: They're no longer good for me.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, here's the deal.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: When you're going through platforms like KDP, IngramSpark, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple,
30:10
SPEAKER_01: It is not their responsibility to sell your books.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: All they're doing is providing you with that doorway to get into their website
30:18
SPEAKER_01: and put that stuff there.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: They will confidently get behind your book though should you bring enough of
30:24
SPEAKER_01: an audience to justify them recommending it to their actual audience themselves
30:28
SPEAKER_01: from their buyers on Amazon, on Apple, on these Kobo sites.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: So when someone says to me,
30:34
SPEAKER_01: I published my book through KDP or I've published my book through IngramSpark
30:38
SPEAKER_01: but they don't get me any sales.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: What would you do for promoting?
30:43
SPEAKER_01: I posted on social media.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: No!
30:47
SPEAKER_01: You can't just simply...
30:49
SPEAKER_01: This is like Field of Dreams.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: You can't just build it and they'll come.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: You have to be the biggest cheerleader of anybody for your brand.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: Because if you aren't, who is?
31:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, unless you've got an agent of some sort or you've got a publicist.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: but beyond that you're gonna need to put in those reps I know it's hard
31:08
SPEAKER_01: because there's some people that are just like I just want to publish it
31:10
SPEAKER_01: over here I saw back in 2010 to 2015 people were making money hand
31:15
SPEAKER_01: and fist that's right because ebooks were relatively new right around 2008 was
31:22
SPEAKER_01: when KDP had launched they had the Kindle they brought the KDP along with that
31:26
SPEAKER_01: and here we are but
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Now readers have expectations and they have increased so much more exponentially.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're not keeping up with those readers, guess what?
31:39
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be lost.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you can't just publish just about anything.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: And let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: AI.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: AI has just exploded over the last few years.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: I know, Captain Obvious here.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, that just raised competition up so much more.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: because now we're not just competing against authors writing content.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: We're competing against publishers putting out content that is AI generated.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not gonna say whether it's good or bad
32:07
SPEAKER_01: That's completely up to you
32:08
SPEAKER_01: but I am going to say from a neutral standpoint at this point
32:11
SPEAKER_01: AIs dominating the conversation
32:14
SPEAKER_01: People like Tim Ferriss is like
32:15
SPEAKER_01: ai has literally
32:17
SPEAKER_01: like cut his earnings in half this is a guy that was pulling in lots of sales I saw
32:22
SPEAKER_00: that yeah I saw that what was he like I skimmed through what he's saying
32:26
SPEAKER_00: that people are not buying books because they're getting material from AI is
32:30
SPEAKER_00: that what he's saying
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Essentially, a lot of nonfiction is getting gutted.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: This is his theory.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: A lot of nonfiction is getting gutted because of
32:38
SPEAKER_01: the information being freely accessible through things like ChatGPT or,
32:42
SPEAKER_01: you know, Claude or so on and so forth, any type of AI.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: That's not necessarily the belief that I hold, but here we are.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean I don't believe that because a reader is always a reader and if you're
32:54
SPEAKER_00: a reader you want to read it in a book you're not gonna just keep somebody
32:58
SPEAKER_00: who just wants like some information they're just gonna get it and move on
33:03
SPEAKER_00: but these people are not readers in the first place they're not gonna buy your book
33:07
SPEAKER_00: in the first place that's my theory because you're like you're a reader for life
33:14
SPEAKER_00: and I think these are the people that you want to target okay
33:18
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about an urban legend and tell me if that's
33:21
SPEAKER_00: an actual urban legend okay which is people can sustain themselves and their family
33:29
SPEAKER_00: by being self-published authors fully you know they might have like consulting here
33:36
SPEAKER_00: speaking engagement blah blah blah but is that reality or is that an urban legend
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately,
33:43
SPEAKER_01: a vast majority of the people
33:44
SPEAKER_01: that are self-published authors really don't make enough to make a part-time living.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: And I know if you're the type of person,
33:50
SPEAKER_01: you're watching this and you're going, Dale, I'm doing great.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: I am too.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: But kind of the exception to the rule,
33:58
SPEAKER_01: because there's a lot of authors out there that aren't pulling that in.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: And what I would recommend is don't do what Dale did.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: You're talking about your failures and setbacks.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: Let me go ahead and share mine.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: This is great because when I got into this business back in 2014,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: the year prior, I was just challenged by a corporate wellness coach.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: She's like, you love fitness so much, you should write a book.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I will.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: One year later, I wrote that book and I self-published it
34:20
SPEAKER_01: and I made $20 and some odd cents.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I literally thought I was like a shark and I could taste the blood.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah, all right, this is it.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: I literally put in my 30 day notice for my good job.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: Loved my job back then.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't miss it.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: This is great too.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: But I went ahead and said, I'm gonna become a full-time author.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna make a lot of money.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Two years ago.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: was just absolute worst.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: Worst.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: If I had to do it over again,
34:53
SPEAKER_01: I most likely would have stayed in my job and continued to ramp up that income
34:58
SPEAKER_01: so it could support me.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: But the vast majority of folks that are going to try
35:03
SPEAKER_01: to do something like what I did are going to probably have the same results
35:05
SPEAKER_01: that I had, maybe even worse.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: I've known of some authors that have been trying to break into this business for
35:11
SPEAKER_01: as long as I've been in, sometimes longer.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: It's like a decade or more.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: It's a sad situation.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: But what I would recommend,
35:21
SPEAKER_01: if you ever find yourself in that position, reach out to other authors.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: Talk.
35:27
SPEAKER_01: Indie authors, talk with each other.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Open up a conversation.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: We're not competitors.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: We're collaborators.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: Work with each other because you don't have to go through situations of like, well,
35:38
SPEAKER_01: All I've got is this self-publishing business to pay the bills.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: I hope it works.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: So are you saying that after you went,
35:47
SPEAKER_00: let's say,
35:48
SPEAKER_00: through hell for two years and you did not have like a recurring income,
35:55
SPEAKER_00: like maybe you just depended on savings or whatever,
35:58
SPEAKER_00: you reached a point where you actually survived from billing selling books
36:05
SPEAKER_00: and not only survival but you know like a decent lifestyle for you and your family
36:11
SPEAKER_00: because isn't that the end goal for all of us who I mean in addition
36:14
SPEAKER_00: to being creative but at the end of the day we have you know bills to pay family
36:18
SPEAKER_00: to feed whatever so are you saying they actually reach that point after like going
36:23
SPEAKER_00: through hell for for two for two years
36:26
SPEAKER_01: It's possible,
36:27
SPEAKER_01: but I don't want to mislead anybody to believing that my story is going
36:31
SPEAKER_01: to be their story.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: I think there's often a lot of times where... What is your story?
36:37
SPEAKER_00: If you tell the people who are watching quickly.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Just filled you in.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: I literally just told you the story the the fitness book that you know
36:46
SPEAKER_01: that I published and literally $20 and then for
36:49
SPEAKER_01: the first two years it just it was horrible it was terrible but then what happened
36:53
SPEAKER_00: after I like the story is what happened after those what happened okay so
36:56
SPEAKER_01: the breakthrough came around let's see here so I broke into the business early 2014
37:02
SPEAKER_01: and
37:06
SPEAKER_01: I would say it was December of 2015 that I was just at that turning point.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: I was working with a self-publishing coach I'd met through YouTube
37:16
SPEAKER_01: and he was fantastic, no longer in the business now.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: But he said, just do what I tell you to do.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: He's like, don't do any shortcuts and you'll get there.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: Six months.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: He's like, but you got to listen to me.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: You got to do everything.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: And I followed it to the T.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: It was everything from building the email list to putting up more publications,
37:37
SPEAKER_01: setting up some permafree books, things like that.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: He was right.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: January of 2016 was when things just went, it clicked.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: and it was so surprising for me
37:48
SPEAKER_01: because I was just like I kept working working working I wasn't seeing anything and
37:52
SPEAKER_01: then January I had just released a book somewhere before Christmas
37:58
SPEAKER_01: for whatever reason in January early January well it's fitness so people are going
38:02
SPEAKER_01: after their new year's resolutions and they end up buying that book and so a lot of
38:07
SPEAKER_01: the processes that he put into place
38:09
SPEAKER_01: Made it to where that book was much more discoverable and we sold so
38:12
SPEAKER_01: so much more right out the gate and were consistently selling and by the way
38:16
SPEAKER_01: that same book was the one that I did the cover experiment on and
38:20
SPEAKER_01: so I ended up screwing myself over but there was a lot
38:24
SPEAKER_01: of moving parts I would say I'd need to take almost an entire hour just talking
38:27
SPEAKER_01: about the whole strategy that I ended up doing that led up to that point
38:31
SPEAKER_01: because it was six months I will tell you of there were 12 to 16 hour work days
38:35
SPEAKER_01: where I was just all I was doing was writing
38:39
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh, time to...
38:41
SPEAKER_01: edit.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, morning, noon and night.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: And will I ever do that again?
38:46
SPEAKER_01: No.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the reasons why I say my story is very unique to me
38:50
SPEAKER_01: because someone else could have probably done it with way less,
38:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:55
SPEAKER_01: way less work or someone else probably would need more work than what I did.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I just I see so many videos out there of these.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: I made $30,000 by farting on a piece of paper and launching it on Amazon.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: you know there's a lot of people don't get swept up in the hype if you feel inspired
39:12
SPEAKER_01: by it if you feel motivated motivated by it run with that that's totally fine
39:17
SPEAKER_01: but you need to set realistic expectations
39:19
SPEAKER_01: that your story not just your book I'm talking your story your personal story is
39:25
SPEAKER_01: going to be way different than mine and it's going to be way different
39:28
SPEAKER_00: from Natasha's that's true are you still writing books
39:33
SPEAKER_01: I am yes actually I just officially stopped writing nonfiction last year I had
39:38
SPEAKER_01: finished up the full self-publishing the Dale series had launched it
39:42
SPEAKER_01: on Kickstarter I got fully backed super happy and those books the final three books
39:46
SPEAKER_01: that were funded by Kickstarter launch tomorrow so they're gonna be across all of
39:50
SPEAKER_01: the major online retailers and right now in the background I've been working
39:55
SPEAKER_01: on fiction
39:56
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to be pivoting hard into fiction
39:58
SPEAKER_01: because it's something I've always wanted to do since I was a boy.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I love writing.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: I love writing.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: I love reading.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: That's all I could do all day long.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: It's what I do.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: So what is the number one thing you're going to do for promoting these fiction books?
40:14
SPEAKER_01: Building email list.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: That actually is the top of my priorities.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: You already have an email list.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: Good point.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: But...
40:22
SPEAKER_01: different audience different expectations you don't want to just take this email list that
40:27
SPEAKER_01: you've built on people where they're saying oh dale's gonna tell me all
40:30
SPEAKER_01: the greatest self -publishing
40:31
SPEAKER_01: tips about writing editing and all that type of stuff and
40:34
SPEAKER_01: then magically i start going come check
40:36
SPEAKER_01: out my sci-fi horror book
40:38
SPEAKER_01: it's got a lot of blood and cursing in it yeah it's it's there's there's not
40:43
SPEAKER_01: a mismatch and so that's one thing I would say
40:45
SPEAKER_01: for multi-genre authors be very careful separate it
40:49
SPEAKER_01: if you are multi-genre build two different email lists for those genres because
40:54
SPEAKER_01: otherwise let's say if i were to use my self-publishing email list or my fitness
40:59
SPEAKER_01: list the problem is someone could probably be showing up for push-ups and pull-ups
41:04
SPEAKER_01: and here i am talking about how these creatures came down from outer space
41:09
SPEAKER_01: took over the world.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, it doesn't quite, you know, you're going to probably tick off a few subscribers.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm having to start from scratch.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that strategy is going to come down to,
41:19
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
41:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be right now,
41:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm working on the lead magnet,
41:22
SPEAKER_01: which is a,
41:24
SPEAKER_01: essentially a bribe that I bring people into my emails,
41:27
SPEAKER_01: a subscriber,
41:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to do some subscriber giveaways through places like written word media
41:31
SPEAKER_01: and crave books, just a heads up.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: going to set some expectations if anybody's listening to this and going I'm going
41:36
SPEAKER_01: to go try a subscriber giveaway today just to let you know there's a lot
41:40
SPEAKER_01: of churn there's a lot of drop off yeah so okay great uh
41:46
SPEAKER_00: so you're you're gonna build a different audience through a lead magnet for people
41:52
SPEAKER_00: who let's say like horror
41:54
SPEAKER_00: and you're gonna tag those people like let's say you're using kit
41:57
SPEAKER_00: or whatever you're gonna tag them
42:00
SPEAKER_00: and then you would send newsletter just to those tags.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: Boom.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure that you're segmenting that audience and separating them out
42:10
SPEAKER_01: so that way you're not creating fatigue with people who are expecting certain things
42:14
SPEAKER_01: from you.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Great I know we both have to go so I'm just gonna do a big shout out to
42:19
SPEAKER_00: the people here thank you everyone who participated Susan says hello
42:23
SPEAKER_00: from steamy Northwest Ohio Chris say I would suggest you focus
42:29
SPEAKER_00: on selling your programs I don't know what programs like
42:33
SPEAKER_00: like coaching and stuff and then Susan says I also write picture books
42:37
SPEAKER_00: and do well locally plus I write about local topics Chris get local
42:42
SPEAKER_00: with children's books read it host event invite to your program then I love to be
42:51
SPEAKER_00: in my cave Susan Chris saying without discretionary expense money without a program
42:59
SPEAKER_00: or offer that exists beyond that book
43:01
SPEAKER_00: Learning is earning, email marketing is a must.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of comments.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: You're very popular, Dale.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: Hey, all right.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Kevin Hall says, Dale,
43:14
SPEAKER_00: had you not quit your job back then,
43:17
SPEAKER_00: would you have put in that effort you needed to in order to be where you are now?
43:22
SPEAKER_01: That is so true.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: I know Kevin by now.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: It's a rhetorical question.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think you made the right decision.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
43:31
SPEAKER_01: there was a lot of desperation I'll tell you though Because there were some times
43:34
SPEAKER_01: where I was even afraid We wouldn't even have food for the day That's how bad it got
43:38
SPEAKER_00: yeah and then Tanisha said uh I forgot segmentation I fought segmentation for
43:43
SPEAKER_00: so long but it was amazing when I finally did it please do yourself a favor
43:48
SPEAKER_00: and segment great so Dale thank you so much this was amazing I feel like I just got
43:53
SPEAKER_00: a like a mastermind for free and everyone too so how can people reach out
43:58
SPEAKER_00: to you follow you this is your time for a shameless plug so go ahead
44:02
SPEAKER_01: We're already in Substack so it only makes sense we find it
44:05
SPEAKER_01: on Substack here selfpub.substack.com Think like self-publishing
44:09
SPEAKER_01: but selfpub.substack.com And you can always look up Dale L.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: Roberts over on YouTube you'll find over 2,000 videos That's not
44:16
SPEAKER_01: an exaggeration there's over 2,000 videos
44:18
SPEAKER_00: How is Substack working for you?
44:20
SPEAKER_01: Substack's been really good.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: In fact, actually, I started migrating some of my video courses over here for my paid members.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: And it's going really, really well.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: I didn't start taking it seriously until I'd say the last year.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: I freaking love it.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: And this is fantastic.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: This is the third live I've done, co-hosted along.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: So this is kind of cool.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: This is great.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for accepting my invitation.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure everyone...
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Benefited a great deal from this.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do a summary of this and send it as well to my subscribers.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's also a podcast, so it will go on a number of places, including YouTube.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: And if you tag me on YouTube, man, that would be...
45:05
SPEAKER_00: YouTube allows you to tag, right?
45:07
SPEAKER_01: You can send a collaboration.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: So go ahead and send it over to the Self Publishing with Dale podcast.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: So when you go in there, just hit that collaboration and I'll go ahead and accept.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: See, I already followed your advice.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: Collaboration.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: And I will see you on YouTube on Substack.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: And I wish you the best of luck.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to keep collaborating, you and me.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: I'll drop you an email and we continue the conversation.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: thank you so much
45:33
SPEAKER_00: for your time today Natasha thank you take care see you bye bye thanks for everyone
45:37
SPEAKER_00: who joined us bye bye