Latest / The Daily Writer / BONUS: Tommy Breedlove on Book Marketing & Branding

Transcript

BONUS: Tommy Breedlove on Book Marketing & Branding · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this special bonus episode of the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to my previous episode with Tommy Breedlove, you know that on that episode we talked about a lot of kind of deep, heartfelt things like uh the need to love ourselves, to forgive others, and to take action in our lives.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a um a really, really fun episode, and I hope that you were moved by that if you listen to it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if not, I encourage you to go back and listen to that because you'll get a lot more of Tommy's story in that episode.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: On this special bonus episode, though, we're gonna go a totally different direction, and I wanted to pick Tommy's brain for a little bit about his amazing book called Legendary.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not only is it a really well-written and a very heartfelt book, I also love how the book is packaged, specifically the cover design.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to dive into uh his thoughts on how that cover design came about, as well as his thoughts on how he marketed the book.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I always love this stuff.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know that I really love kind of the strategic uh creative side of book marketing and book packaging and publishing and all that good stuff.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're really gonna enjoy this.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Tommy has a mind like nobody else's, so this was a lot of fun.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you enjoy it.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tommy, thanks for doing this bonus session here on the podcast.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to geek out for a moment about uh some aspects of your book marketing, book cover, and things like that.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's start with your book cover.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of a geek about book covers, and I really love the cover of a book.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I know when we talked a few weeks ago related to a different project that I'm working on, uh, I told you it looks really medieval.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And almost like somebody signed the book cover in blood.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering if you can give us any insights as to uh the the story of this cover and why why the cover is designed this specific way and emotionally what it's designed to do for people.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's designed to be medieval, to to exude even the color red was very strategic, even the grayed-out background and how legendary is said, it's it's to exude confidence and power.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, what I love about the word legendary is it sounds aspirational, it can seem overwhelming as well.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's meant to, hey, I want to pick this up and figure out what legendary means.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: What powerful legend are they talking about?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I love about the word legendary in general, and that's why we chose this particular cover of all the covers that were presented to us is that it exudes that medieval.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when you think about the medieval times, you think about the knights of the round table or or or you know, the the good versus evil.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a playbook of good fighting evil, but mostly within ourselves, around the forces around us.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we wanted to come through.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then you open the book and you realize that hey, the guy who wrote it doesn't think he's legendary, he is aspiring, and his community is aspiring to build and live a legendary life.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let me take and he walks this journey with me.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's no guru or sage on the stage.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we wanted the the powerful, we want it to catch the eye, we want it to be airport worthy.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I'm walking through the airport, I want it to stick out.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I believe this cover really does stick out.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's got the word legendary and big gothic gray, reds, you know, the power colors, and like let me pick this up and let me figure out how to be more powerful.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, you figure out how to be more powerful, but it's probably not the way that you thought it was going to be, which is pretty cool.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you were going through the process of having this cover designed, how much did the conversation about colors come up?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm fascinated with what different colors represent.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that I do in my in my day job is I teach uh college courses.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in many of the so I teach communications and arts and stuff like that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I am fascinated with what different colors represent.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So for you that that it sounds like it was a very intentional decision about red is blood, it's power, it's passion.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's designed to evoke this very um kind of emotional response from people who see it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: We narrowed it down to two, and and I'm so thankful we picked red.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the battle we have um is as this practice that I'm in grows is I don't want Tommy Breedlove to be the brand in perpetuity.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want building and living a legendary life to be the brand.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the Tommy now, the reason I'm saying this is the Tommy Breedlove brand where all this started, and think of Tommy as the actor in the legendary movie, and we want the movie to be bigger than the actor, and the actor eventually to go away.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: But the the my brand and still is is blue and black, very masculine.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: I deal with a lot of executive level men and ambitious men.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So very blue and black, and so the cover legendary was in blue, that dark blue, and in red.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've always been drawn to the color red, red is a power color.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's it exudes a lot of different emotions from love to uh fear to, you know, there's a lot of things red.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you look it up, it's kind of cool.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we finally saw it, and I'm so thankful for this because as we build and grow, not only the movement, the company, and the book itself, and the the movement behind the book, it has its own identity and its own color.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so my brand, which will eventually go away, um, the blue and black, will become the red, legendary, bold, gothic brand.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm very thankful for that.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it was going to be blue or red, and we were very, very intentional about that.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing for me, and I I would encourage everybody to do this is um don't go cheap on your cover because people do buy the cover and you want it to stick out, you want it to look different, you don't want it to seem overly simplified, or there was no intention behind it.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't have to be a gazillion dollar cover.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just get one of your local artist friends to help you with it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And whatever resonates with you is going to resonate with something else, but it's got to pow, it's got to pop, it's got to have soul.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe this cover really does have that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so thrilled that you mentioned that because so many writers they spend all this time and energy on their book, but they go cheap on their cover.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: They hire somebody from Fiverr with apologies to people who are listening who have hired somebody from Fiverr.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: No offense to Fiverr workers necessarily, but my goodness, don't go cheap on your cover because that is what sells the book right there.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's it and it shows who you are.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's like walking into an interview naked or walking into an interview with your shirt untucked and your tie on backwards.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could be the greatest salesman or architect or writer in the world.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're not going to hire you because you look like crap.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's the truth.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I'm not trying to be vain.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, don't go cheap on your cover.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Make it pop and hire an artist.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I am not an artist, I am a business person, I am a motivator, I'm a healer, but I am not an artist.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm an artist in my own writing way, but I can't create something like John Stapleton, who created this cover, can do himself.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew who I wanted because I've seen his work on, I've seen him in his work on beer cans, I've seen his work on Home Depot commercials, I've seen his work on other people's books.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, that's my guy.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, How much are you?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, You can't afford me.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Well, how about we uh how about I give you some coaching?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Well, I need some coaching.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we bartered my cover for coaching.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: True story.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Major advertising executive for the largest firms around.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So he found value in me, and I found value in him.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And what a great exchange.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have never been able to.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's done some of huge national branding, and he's just a great artist and he's got a great eye.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And when he was reading the book and he knew me from my so he said this though, here's important.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to coach me first so I can develop your flavor.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: How cool of a word is that on this cover?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Oh, yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the guy that you want right there.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: When he says flavor, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm in, brother.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got the book, you the book is done, you've got the cover.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any specific things that that you did to get the word out about the book?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Marketing, social media, any unique things that you did or things that you felt like, hey, this is a great transferable principle that other authors or or people who are releasing books can use for their own projects.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I burned the boats, brother.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh what I mean by that is I went all in.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I realized that I was very proud of this work, and I talked about this on our other show, is that it's very hard for me to say that because I'm a recovering perfectionist and very hard on myself.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I sent this book out, and I'm gonna get to the all the marketing that I did in just a second, um, summarize it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um, when I sent this book off to what I would call well-read business people, people who read self-development and business books and self-improvement books every day.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And five of the six came back, said it's in the top 10 I've ever read.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, we have something here.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I leveraged myself all the way out to the hilt.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I called everybody that I knew who's had a successful book and I said, What do you what did you do?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: What did not do?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: What worked, what didn't work.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of the things that didn't work for us at certain publishing firms and certain social media who didn't specialize in books.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So learned from all of our mistakes.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I went all in on my book launch party.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: I invited every single human being on earth that I knew.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: We had 370 people show up on March 7th, and the world closed down on March 17th.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a really divine timing there.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to this day, we're constantly tweaking and untweaking Facebook, Instagram.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: We don't do LinkedIn, it's way too expensive.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we've had a team look at search engine and optization.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we're constantly selling X amount of books per week via the social media channels.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: However, about every fifth or sixth post on LinkedIn is something about the book.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: We've sold a fortune of books on LinkedIn.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: We hired um an outside advertising agency who specializes in getting you on the Wall Street Journal USA Today, New York Times bestseller list.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the the thing is you actually have to sell the books.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot manipulate that list, which is I did a lot of background check on that because it seemed a little shady and too good to be true.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but just so you know, that is a significant, significant expense because you're paying for marketing, you're paying for PR, you're paying for mailing lists, and you're paying for someone to push it out.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you still got to sell it, so it's not guaranteed.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but at the end of the day, I was so proud of it.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted this to not just be a brochure and to get me on stages and to give me credibility.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I actually want this in people's hands and I want people to read the book.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And there's sad statistics is X amount of people buy the book, but only 20% actually read it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that crazy?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's nuts.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love the saying that people who don't read are no better than those who can't.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I want, you know, I have a goal of a million lives transformed from this book.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not joking about that.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: One other marketing uh thing you can do is in your community, advertise, advertise, advertise.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone likes an author in their community.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Leave it at every coffee shop, restaurant, leave it on flights, leave it in hotels, leave it, you know, anyone that'll take a breath and have a conversation with you, talk about it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so you kind of get known within your community as hey, there's the author of the community.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my goal this year is to give away 3,000.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm serious about giving them away.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Every time you're on a podcast, give that person, give it away.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anybody you talk to that's in the space that you're in, give it away.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to sell 30,000 and um give away 3,000 this year.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking to my right.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so market, market, market, and market some more.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got a lot of money, you can hire very, very powerful marketing people to get it out there for you.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: You'll never get the ROI on the book itself because eventually you can.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: It becomes in your second, third book.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're really, really, really into your book and you want it in people's hands, don't go shy on the spend money for it.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: But no, there are cheap options.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Facebook and Instagram being very powerful ones and very niched ones that for less than$100 a month, you can get your book in front of a lot of people.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of different ways.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you can go into traditional PR and traditional advertising, but um, you don't have to go expensive.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I chose to because I was so proud of it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, from a prior life, I had the means to do that.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so it helps from being a first-time unknown author.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll just I'll stop there because I could talk about marketing forever.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that you have mentioned investing in this process.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I've had a number of conversations over the past two or three months with people that have been that have been along the same lines where people say, Hey, I want to self-publish my book or I want to pitch it to a publisher or whatever, but they don't want to invest any money in it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they stop at that point and they're just kind of frustrated.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I always I always kind of want to beat my head against the wall because I'm like, yeah, but this if you really believe in this, why don't you do something to crowdfund it?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sell literally, I've told people this, I said, sell some stuff.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Go get a part-time job.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: A friend just crowdfunded a book and had 7,000 bucks.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, just like that to me tells me right there that you're not gonna be successful with this because you're not willing to be persistent and do whatever the heck you need to do to fund a well put together book.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not gonna, it's not gonna fly if you're not willing to do what it takes to to get to that level.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanna spend a hundred grand, it just means do something so you can hire a good cover designer at least, or something.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Five grand utilize the right way.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, you have an amazing book, epic.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the two things that I think people really screw up on is editing, yes, and um, and not just editing for words, because you know, if you've got five or six mistakes, no one's gonna read your book.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: They'll they will shred you um, the the critics out there.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I got a Kirkus review too, which scared me to death because they're really hard, especially on self-development.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: It ended up being really good.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: I paid them to beat up my book, man.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about a scary process, but I think editing and flow is where people go cheap on cover, they go cheap on, and marketing they go cheap on.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Don't write the book if you're gonna do that.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you want to write a book to read it yourself.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, which is fine, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Just to say you wrote a book.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I I want everybody listening to really pay attention to what Tommy's talking about here because that there are things that you can do to ensure a better quality book and to ensure that you're investing into your marketing.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I always kind of gauge writers by how much they're willing to put into the process.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're just gonna stop cold and and you just expect life to hand you everything that you need, it's not gonna work.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I agree, I agree, and that's what how you know all the all the greats, they just kept at it, kept at it, kept at it, kept at it, and pushed it, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just but there's also the why you wrote the book, and so that goes in a little bit into it as well.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Tommy, this has been great.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned a bunch of things here, and secretly, my whole purpose of doing a podcast is to interview great people and learn some stuff.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's kind of like coaching, you know, uh except everybody gets to hear my coaching sessions.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I get to talk to amazing people like yourself, and I then I put it out on a public forum.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I've learned a lot from this, and I know that our listeners have as well.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for doing this bonus session.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: This has been awesome, and uh, I can't wait to help get your book into the hands of more people.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you're very welcome, Kent.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: What an honor, brother.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, sending love and light your way, and you've been a you've been a blessing to members of my community a lot.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's amazing how many mutual connections we have.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks again.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a blast.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Tommy is just such a blast to talk to.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's such an inspiring guy, and uh he's one of those people where I feel like I could just talk to him literally for hours on end.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because he just constantly is dropping knowledge and wisdom all over the place.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I really love it.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I would say my one takeaway from this bonus episode is the need to have just a smoking good book cover.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh, book covers do cost money, they are not cheap to have a good cover really well designed, but man, it is so worth it.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is so incredibly worth it to go ahead and spend the money to invest the resources in having a killer book cover.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I love the book cover for Legendary.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can go on Amazon and uh take a look at that book cover, it's really, really cool.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, let's make sure we package our books well, my friends.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do any good to write a great book, but then have a cover that doesn't look very good.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that's my takeaway from this.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you in the next episode.