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Expert Book Marketing Strategies with Shelley Hitz · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Writer Starter Kit, visit DailyWriterLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been around the world of writers and authors any length of time, you've probably noticed that there are tons of books about book marketing and how to sell more books.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be careful though because a lot of those books are not written by people who have actually sold a lot of books and are marketing experts.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today I'm excited to have a guest who absolutely qualifies as a book marketing expert.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Shelly Hitz, and since 2008, Shelly and her husband CJ have written and published 70 books through their independent publishing company, Body and Soul Publishing.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they've actually sold books.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: They've sold, in fact, over half a million books and have given away over 700,000 books on Kindle alone.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: They've been mentoring writers since 2010 and now help Christian writers take the courageous step of writing, self-publishing, and marketing their books inside their membership, which is called Christian Book Academy.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So in today's conversation, Shelly gives a lot of great tips on book marketing that you can start putting into practice right away.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: She also shares about her upcoming Kingdom Writers Conference, Courageous Writers Edition, which is here to help you go from unknown author to consistent book sales by gaining the courage to step out, initiate purposeful relationships, and sell more books using the power of collaborations.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: This free five-day event is something that you definitely don't want to miss.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, I am thrilled to say that this year I am one of the speakers for the Kingdom Riders Conference.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn everything you need to know about the conference via the link in the show notes, but let me give you a quick overview before we get to the interview with Shelly.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: This online conference will run from September 12th through September 16th, and each day will be packed with amazing speakers ready to help you find new readers, develop relationships to grow your platform, and use collaborations to sell books without feeling salesy.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you can attend the conference absolutely free, but you can also choose to grab the All Access Pass, where you will not only get ongoing access to all the presentations, but you'll get some valuable bonus training from the speakers along the way.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a Christian writer who wants to sell more books and impact more lives, see the link in the show notes to register for free for the Kingdom Writers Conference Courageous Writer Edition.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So with all that said, I hope that you will check that out.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And let's get to my conversation with Shelly Hitts.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Shelly, welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is an absolute pleasure to have you on the show.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've been following your stuff for a few years now, and it's a pleasure to talk with you.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you so much, Ken.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so honored to be here.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that, and I think we mentioned this a while back when I when I first connected with you, I think this was earlier in the summer.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I knew you, but I didn't know you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we had connected about a whole different thing, and then I realized that I had bought uh one of your books.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a year or two ago.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, in fact, yeah, it's it's been a little as little as six months or a year ago.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's on my shelf here somewhere.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I forget the exact title of the one that I bought, but it was, I believe, a prayer journal.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound familiar?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think it might have been my one of my gratitude books.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it was.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was a gratitude journal book.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I bought that because I was specifically looking for examples of books that were kind of like a journal gratitude type of thing.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I remember getting your book in the mail.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is really, really cool.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I told my wife, this is so cool the way that she's put this together this together.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Little did I know that we'd be chatting.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you've done a great job on that as well as all your books.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So congrats.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I always say books are door openers, and you never know, like when someone gets one of your books, what's going to happen.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, it just planted that seed with you, and here we are.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd love to to chat about book marketing because you've been so successful with creating so many books, as well as series, and you have all kinds of really cool things going on, podcasts as well.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But walk us back a little bit on your journey of becoming an author.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: You've been doing this a while.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: How did you first get started with becoming an author and give us kind of the scoop behind all that and what led you to doing all this?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I always say I was a speaker before I was an author.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband and I were in ministry at the time, and he was talking to teens.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided, you know, just because of a transformation that happened in my life, I wanted to share with teen girls specifically on topics of body image and, you know, sexuality and relationships and all of these things.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so he would um approach it was Christian schools or even retreats, conferences, things like that.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he would take the guys, I would take the girls, and they would always come up to me because I just I shared my testimony and the power of what God had done in my life.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it was always like a line of girls coming up to talk to me afterwards.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted a resource for them to follow up that talk because I was there and then I was gone.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started a website in 2007.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then the very next year, one of our friends showed us a self-published book that he had published print on demand.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wow, this is really good.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it was before it was really wide known, you know, it was when it was still create space in 2008.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, man, I've been writing all these articles for this website.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think I could do this.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And within a month, I had taken um articles and things that I had been diligently writing over the last year.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I edited it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had, you know, some flows and some different things, but then we also put a Bible study guide in the back.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that became my first book in 2008.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest, I gave away more than I sold.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't really until 2012.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had quit my physical therapy job.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was a physical therapist full-time before that.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, in 2011, we quit.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I quit that job and we headed out in an RV.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: We thought we were gonna be traveling the country speaking and doing all of these things, and God had different plans for us.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I called the twists and turns of life.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: So all the speaking engagements suddenly just stopped.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we're sitting in the RV looking at each other, wondering how are we going to even put gas in the RV, let alone buy groceries and pay our bills.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when it just took off.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I took a Kindle publishing course.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was the month after KDP Select program launched, and we just started earning thousands of dollars in royalties with books.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a lot harder these days, you know, it was a different world in that time, but God provided for us and it really changed the whole trajectory of my career and what I do now today to help writers to write, publish, and market their books.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot to take in.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So really you just you started doing it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And were there any moments in those first years of doing this where you felt stuck or paralyzed or you felt like you couldn't move on because you didn't really know exactly what to do?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because this world, and I'd say it's still this way, this world of self-publishing and entrepreneurship and online business, there's always new stuff to learn.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are always things that we're figuring out and and that type of thing.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever feel paralyzed along that journey?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, how did you overcome that and keep making progress, even though you weren't exactly sure how it was going to turn out?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think because I had quit my full-time job and my husband and I were both in the business.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So our business was depending on um or our income, our livelihood.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this was everything.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had a very strong reason to move forward.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if I did not move forward, we did not pay our bills.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think my situation is different than a lot of writers.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have been mentoring writers now over 10 years, like 12 years now.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And most of them have another job.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Their husband has another job or their wife.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not, you're not depending on this full time.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's easy to put it to the back, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: To put it in the back burner.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: But my situation, it wasn't, it really wasn't even possible.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there's a lot more to the story, but God even had me let go of any type of um plan B, you know, I mean, it was just like this way or the highway, basically.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to keep moving forward.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: But also, if you've ever taken the strength finders test, I'm an activator achiever.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: So an activator takes action and then an achiever finishes.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a I'm kind of that unique personality that I start things, but I finish them too.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know that for me it was ever being paralyzed.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like my husband is more the typical writer.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I never dreamed of publishing books.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: My husband always did.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: He, you know, he went to a writer's conference when we first got married 24 years ago, and he was published in an anthology and like all of these things.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like he he's more the typical writer, and he could probably talk to you about being paralyzed a lot more.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, it's it was more of just trying to do too much all at once.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just tried to do everything.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then in tw 2014, I realized I hired my first business coach, and they were like, you know, Shelly, you're you're doing like seven different things, seven different businesses and basically streams of income.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, You really should focus on one.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I really prayed and and God really led me to focus on mentoring writers.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So what would you tell writers who feel they feel stuck in in that kind of cycle of not really sure if this is the direction they want to go or if they can do it?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they hear you talk about, you know, you're you're really an assertive person, you have a clear direction that you want to go.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: But but I think a lot of writers tend to be more of that analytical type of personality.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly relate to that where it's easy to get paralyzed and you're overcome by all these options.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: How does somebody overcome that if they are not kind of a natural-born, really assertive person?
• 10:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, my husband is more of that kind of person.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And for him, it works better for him if he just bites off small things at a time, you know, and just stays consistent.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I usually recommend that writers, you know, invest at least 15 minutes a day at the minimum.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can do more and really just set a timer.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a timer right here, but it's like it's the Pomodoro technique of just giving your brain a deadline.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you set the timer for 15 minutes, like this week, right now, inside my academy, Christian Book Academy, we have a 15-minute challenge going on.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it's you're writing marketing tasks or other tasks, we just encourage you to at least do 15 minutes a day.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it is amazing.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: People who have been stuck for a while, they'll say, even just setting that timer for 15 minutes, sitting down to write gets them in the flow.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: They might write for two hours.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, that's something that really has helped my husband as well, is staying consistent.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I usually say, you know, most people are either a consistent writer or a chunk writer, or you could be a combination.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I personally am more of a chunk writer.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want to, you know, carve out a chunk of time, just get it done.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I think most writers do best when they do something on a little more consistent basis and just set that timer for 15 minutes and see what happens.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So once you have some books written, once you develop that consistency and that routine, after all, this is a podcast about habits.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I need to dive into the habit part a little bit.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: But once you have that, then comes the marketing piece, or that's one of the pieces that has to come.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk a bit about some things that you did, particularly in the first few years where you were writing, that were really successful for you in terms of marketing?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because marketing is a piece that really scares a lot of writers or creative types in general.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: What are some things that you did when you were starting out, particularly that you felt were really effective?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've really been reflecting on this a lot lately.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and because as you know, I'm having a conference coming up all about marketing, and you're one of our speakers, and we'll share more about that later.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: But um I've been really thinking about it and I heard someone explain it and I've heard it explained in different ways that you know you have organic marketing, which is the free, you know, marketing on social media, you can be, you know, on YouTube, you know, different places.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: You have your paid marketing and then partner marketing.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Then I recently heard someone say you have your attract marketing.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the first thing that you need to attract people.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that typically is SEO.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So search engine optimization through a blog, YouTube or Pinterest, partner marketing, where you're doing podcast interviews or paid ads.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so for that attract marketing, social media isn't really the primary thing.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of authors think I have to be on social media.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, when I first published my very first book, I had gotten into websites first.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And back in the day, my first website in 2004, I was coding HTML and doing search engine optimization based on what are people typing into Google.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's how people found me.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I initially I created a whole website just for Teen Girls and optimized on all of these keywords.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's how a lot of people from all around the world began to find me.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: But then I began to move into social media and I would do a lot of the live videos.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time it was very, you know, it was very effective.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And yet more recently, I have found that partner marketing or um paid ads through Amazon are really how we're selling a majority of our books now.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I started off with the SEO and then transitioned into what we're doing today.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody was going to start writing today, would you recommend paid ads as a primary thing that they should look at?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or is SEO still something that really is a critical piece of any foundation that you would have in terms of book marketing?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's going to be different for every person.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when when you join my academy, I have you take a book marketing audit.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're a brand new author, you can go through this audit.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then what it does is it not only shows you like where is your audience and where are they hanging out or what are they listening to, or what are they doing?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because your audience may not even be listening to podcasts.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go on a podcast tour, it may fall flat.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then also what is it you enjoy?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: What are your strengths?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so this audit I have my members go through, it goes through a you know a number of things, and then you really get a good idea of like what is the best option for me?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna say like, oh, SEO is the only way, or paid ads are the only way, or you know, partner marketing is the only way.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: You can actually do all of them, but what is it that you really enjoy?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Where is your audience?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And where, you know, where are you gonna be able to connect with them the best?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, just what are the trends right now?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: What is really working?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's really important to pay attention to because trends come and go and things are constantly in flux.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I think is is really a challenge for again, I'm kind of pigeonholing writers as a whole, but based on based on the people that I talk to, and you talk to writers every day just like I do, a lot of a lot of us writers are kind of introverted.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this idea of getting engaged in all of the stuff that's constantly in flux, like social media or SEO or advertising, really it can be you have to kind of get used to a little bit of organized chaos, don't you?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: In some sort of way, because things are constantly changing.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And unless you enjoy that, it's gonna be kind of frustrating.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I would call it organized chaos necessarily, but I think you have to really realize that, you know, when you are publishing a book, whether you're traditionally published or self-published, you are launching into business, really.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's right, it's it's business.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think changing your mindset, I mean, I think I talk to writers all the time and they're just like, can someone else just do my marketing?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Can someone else just do it?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: But what if you find something that you really enjoy?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, what if the message of your book goes out in such a way that it accomplishes the goals that you really have?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think sometimes there's just this, there's so much resistance.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's, you know, basically, you know, it's like there's so much resistance, whether it's even to writing the book, but also marketing the book.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's we I think part of it's because it's so personal.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like our this is our work, these are our words.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when we put ourselves out there, whether it's on Amazon, we can get reviews, which we could get one or two star reviews, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if we put ourselves out on social media, we could get negative comments.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I do, you know.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure you do as well.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you put yourself out there, you're putting yourself out there for potentially, you know, somebody to say something.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And my audience in particular, the writers I work with are faith-based.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of the writers talk to me about I don't want someone else to see me marketing my book and think that I am prideful or greedy or that I am, you know, that they're a problem in the Christian community.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that they're judging me for my actions.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And people have actually said those things to me.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's like, you know, I just want to um, I just want you to know I've been praying for you that you wouldn't become prideful.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, what a backhanded kind of is that it I'm not even sure if that's a back-handed compliment.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's like a backhanded insult kind of thing.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it is.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: They were basically saying, I think that you're prideful, in my opinion.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: But, anyways, um, you know, I've had people say things to me, and when you have any measure of success and then you start talking about it, you know, you can definitely get people that form their opinions and start to judge you.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think one of the things we just have to realize is that is your message and your book, do you believe in that message so strongly that you're willing to overcome the resistance of other people's opinions or what people may say about you?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, for those of you that are faith-based, you know, there is a scripture in Matthew 5, 14 to 16, and it says, You are the light of the world.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: In the same way, let your light shine before men so they may see your good deeds and praise your father who is in heaven.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to share this because those of you that that may come from a faith-based background, and even if you don't, you know, it's like we we have a choice to either shine our light or to hide it.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in in this particular verse, it doesn't say that we're shining our light so people can say, Oh, isn't Kent such a great writer?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: He is amazing.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Shelly, she's a great marketer.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like we shine our light so that men may see your good deeds, yes, so they can see what we're doing, but then praise your father who is in heaven.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it is so that God gets the glory.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: If I shrink back, like the parable of the talents, and I hide that one talent in fear, you know, that's not what God has for us.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, He wants us to share our gifts and our abilities and the message in our books with other people.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Can we become prideful and greedy?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: 100% yes.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've had to battle that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've had to really work through that, you know, through the years.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: But marketing is primarily about relationships.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when we really put it more um about relationships and getting to know our audience versus about self-promotion, like it's not about self-promotion, it's about relationships.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like right now, those of you that are listening, you're getting to know Kent better, you're getting to know me better.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're building a little bit of a relationship.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can continue that relationship with us on our email lists, in our academy, reading our books, you know, all these things.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, I think when we just get focused that, oh, it's self-promotion, self-promotion, then we easily can shut down.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that's a whole conversation in itself.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's right.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just that thing of because I, you know, I come from the evangelical Christian world, been a part of it my whole life.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, there's really like um, there's kind of a weirdness there sometimes.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you decide that you want to start a business and if you have any sort of measure of success, that there's kind of an awkwardness sometimes because there's an assumption that, well, we should all sort of just be scraping by and you know, we should rely on God to provide for us and we shouldn't really aspire to anything beyond just kind of being.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just existing.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there's kind of that element of their sometimes.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I'm so glad that that you and your husband have the platform that you do and helping people to think differently and helping people to think like business people because that's what we are as writers.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it is hard.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have one of our Christian book academy members, she has just resisted it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like just even thinking about having a DBA, you know, doing business as, or even just like, you know, getting mindset shift, getting an ISBN, you know, all the things.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like she was just overwhelmed and stuck.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: But recently we have what's called war room prayer meetings every month for our academy members.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: People call my husband and I pastors for writers.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we really um incorporate our faith into our training.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of practical training.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: But, anyways, in that meeting, she's she was sharing a praise and she said, God really helped her to overcome that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, in the community and by getting answers to her questions, like she was able to move forward and she was able to make decisions.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, decision fatigue is a real thing, you know, absolutely when you're setting things up or even with marketing.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: So try to simplify.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're overwhelmed and paralyzed, just try to think what is the very next step that I need to do.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're in the process of writing your first draft, the very step, first step is getting that ugly, messy first draft out of your head onto paper.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Until you have that first draft, you don't have anything.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: No one needs to see the first draft, not even your editor, because you're gonna self-edit it.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're in marketing and you're stuck, say, okay, yeah, I have about a million different things I could do.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: But first look back and say, and this was this is part of our book marketing audit.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like what has worked for me in the past?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where are people responding to me?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the 20% of things that tend to bring the 80% of results.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, try to focus on that 20% or just try one thing, right?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, start with one thing.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Don't think you have to do everything.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually doing less social media than I did in the past because to be honest, it causes me anxiety sometimes.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm realizing that other things that I'm doing are really um the 20% that's bringing the 80% of results.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm focusing more on those things, like my podcast, my email list, my Amazon ads.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have plans with you version that we publish to promote our books.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: So things like that.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so focus, focus on one thing instead of feeling like you have to do everything.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's really, really good advice because it is so incredibly easy to get overwhelmed with social media and and the email lists and podcasts and ads, and you have so many things that you've got to juggle.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you've been doing this for a while and and you have systems for each of those things, but when you're starting out, you can't do everything.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to just pick something and then finish that and then grow from there.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that I would love to ask you about in terms of of marketing is the value of doing book series.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a number of book series, and anybody who searches for your name on Amazon is gonna find a whole big list of books that you have put out there, and many of those are in series.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious if you can give us any insights into how you develop book series, maybe how you market those, and and really just the value of doing a book series to begin with.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so when I had that um, you know, turning point moment back in 2012, I took a course on Kindle publishing.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where they I really first learned about it.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they recommended that I don't even remember who the person was that I took the course from, but they recommended, you know, um publishing books in a series.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And these books are no longer available for um purchase.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: But at that time, I decided to write and publish vegetarian cookbook series.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: At the time we were kind of we were eating vegetarian, we don't anymore.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I uh that's another that's another reason why I retired that brand, all those books.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: But and it was, you know, one of the seven things I was doing.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, I had a book on um desserts and one on salads.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end, I combined everything into one big print book.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my first dipping my toe into a series.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: But then after that, I really felt like God led me into my gratitude series.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was, I kind of stumbled into it because I never really planned on publishing my gratitude journal.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was just something that I did myself.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was going through a hard time, and it really helped me.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like God wanted me to share that with others.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did that first book.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it was initially called The 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the other thing, you're like, you can change your book titles later if you're self-published.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right, which is great.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: But and then I decided to do 21 prayers of gratitude.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, man, so I've done the 21-day challenge, the 21 prayers of gratitude.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then, partnering, I decided to do a 21 stories of gratitude.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was, I was already involved in some different author groups at the time.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing group promotions, I was organizing a lot of them.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was helping, and that was one of the seven things I was doing.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was selling advertising for writers and you know, all of that.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I thought, man, an anthology.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have all these people that I can pull from.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, that's how, you know, we have a series similar to that on faith.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then my husband did a series on generosity, the challenge, the prayers, and the stories.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and then the stories was the last one because then you get a group of people all marketing towards it.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then if people want the other books in the series, now they've been introduced to that one, they can get the other ones.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it just worked really well.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then I took the three books and put it into a bigger book: a life of gratitude, a life of faith, and a life of generosity.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is so cool.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I absolutely love what you've done with that.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I'm curious why the number 21, as opposed to 30 or 40 or other numbers.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is it because it's shorter, it's catchy, it probably feels more doable than 30 or 40.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, at the time, the research was showing it took 21 days to form a habit.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we were just helping them to form a habit of either praying or, you know, just being encouraged, or the challenge was a 21 day.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: But now, I don't know if you know of Dr.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Caroline Leaf and others, they've shown that it actually takes 63 days, like three times.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's discouraging.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know it takes three things of 21.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: But um, at you know, at the time that was the most recent research.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: But we have also found that people really like a quick win.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: So 21 days, it doesn't feel hard, like you know, some devotionals are 365 days.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Those are awesome, and some people love them, but I found that our audience, and and I think just the culture we live in, people like, you know, quick, easy, you know, and um, you know, that I still want to to get something out of this, but not feel like it's gonna take me forever to do it.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: I still think 30 days is is great.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes even 90 can be appropriate, but we just found that it seemed like the it was working too.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Those books were selling.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a in January, I have a book coming out based on this podcast called The Daily Writer, and it's 366 daily meditations on writing.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little, it's gonna be about 400 pages print.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a little worried people are gonna see that and be like, oh my gosh.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: But but it's just a short daily thing.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also gonna break that up into probably monthly books that are much, much shorter, maybe have some interviews or something like that.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I love how you have taken some of your books and you have created other books out of those that people can experience.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, they they can have the same content and experience in in whatever way that they want, which I love.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it it is really um just a the whole concept of repurposing.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I always thought of that like in business, you know, you have a blog post and then you can create a podcast or a video or whatever.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: But as writers, we have so much content.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: And for instance, my husband does a lot of devotional writing at this point, and I'm I'm doing more of the teaching and the writing for our curriculum and all of that.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: But um, he'll take uh, you know, a few of those devotionals out and he will um publish those as a Uversion plan.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're a partner with Uversion.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so we get um a lot of people through that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, he'll it'll be in the book, but then he'll also use some of the content for some of our podcasts because it's encouragement for writers and devotionals, you know, in that way.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or he'll he preaches at our local rescue mission.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: So he'll use some of his devotionals for content for when he's preaching.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, I just think sometimes we just get stuck in this thing, like this is just for my book.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, could you break up the book?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I had one book, it was called Forgiveness Formula.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: My husband and I wrote it together.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: There was a section in there I pulled out and published as a different book, Trusting God When Bad Things Happen.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And people who wouldn't buy the forgiveness formula might buy the trusting God when bad things happen because that topic specifically spoke to them.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you have, you know, little themes within your bigger book you could pull out for a smaller book.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And initially we were just publishing our smaller books as ebooks and we didn't have print books, but then we got people asking us for print books.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we found that yes, they're they're they're small, maybe, you know, 60, six pages to 100 pages, but people still buy them and they still like them.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so we actually have ended up publishing a majority of our small books as print books as well.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, there's so many ways that you can take the content you already have and even provide a different experience for different people that can really be an encouragement, a blessing, or entertain them, or whatever it is that your books are doing, and it can reach people right where they're at.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I'm gonna have to go back and re-listen to this interview because you're just dropping so many great bombs here uh in a good way.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have to come up with a different word than bombs.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but this has been really fantastic.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to um let us close this interview without asking you about the Kingdom Writers Conference, which is coming up.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a phenomenal resource.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about what that is and what people can expect and how they can participate in it.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this is our third Kingdom Writers Conference, and this is our courageous writer edition.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason we're calling this the Courageous Writer Edition is because it takes courage to market your book, right?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And especially through collaborations.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: But collaborations are free, and you can really see results faster, oftentimes, when you do take that step of courage.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a free event, five days to help you go from unknown author to consistent book sales by gaining the courage to step out, initiate purposeful partnerships, and sell more books using the power of collaboration.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you can sign up for free um at KingdomWriters Conference.com.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's September 12th through 16th, and we would love to have you.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Shelley, this has been an absolute blast.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: You are a fountain of wisdom with writing, publishing, marketing, all the things related to that.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I not just appreciate you being on the show today, I appreciate all the value that you're adding into the world through your books and through mentoring writers through the Christian Book Academy through the conference.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a lot of cool things that you're doing.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate that.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm grateful that you've taken time to be on the Daily the Daily Writer Podcast today.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm so glad we connected, Ken.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, those of you that are interested, Ken's gonna be one of our speakers at the conference.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely check it out.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be fun.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you again.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that conversation was a blast, wasn't it?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Shelly has so much experience both writing, self-publishing, and marketing books very, very successfully that I feel like every word she says is just this drop of wisdom that we can use to make ourselves and other people around us more successful as writers and as people who are doing marketing.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, my main takeaway for today's conversation is that we've got to start marketing our books better.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to fear, we don't need to be intimidated by all the things that we can do with marketing.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just pick two or three things that Shelly mentioned today and start putting those into practice because the world needs your message.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to sit back and be fearful of this.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: The world needs your books.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: They need your content, they need your wisdom and ideas and experiences.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: So take just two or three of these things and put them into practice so you can start seeing more success with your book marketing.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to thank Shelly for taking the time to be a guest on today's episode and also for the opportunity to be a guest for her conference that's coming up here very, very soon.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: There is a link in the show notes to register for the Kingdom Writers Conference Courageous Writer Edition, and I hope that you will take advantage of that.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you there, and I will also see you on the next episode.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.