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The First Question Every Author Needs to Answer · If I'm Being Honest: Straight Talk About Book Publishing & Promotion

• 0:10
  Joel: Hey, everybody, my name is Joel Pitney.
• 0:13
  Sayde: And I'm Sayde Walker.
• 0:14
  Joel: And you are listening to or watching, If I'm Being Honest, Straight Talk About Book Publishing and Promotion.
• 0:22
  Joel: And today we are going to be talking about a very important conversation for all authors, which has to do with the question of why are you writing a book?
• 0:32
  Joel: Why are you publishing a book?
• 0:34
  Joel: So this is something that kind of occurred to me recently.
• 0:38
  Joel: Most people are familiar with Simon Sinek and his 2009 book, Start with Why.
• 0:43
  Joel: It's kind of started this big revolution.
• 0:46
  Joel: And you see variations on this question now, downstream of Simon Sinek's work, where people are always trying to get to the why.
• 0:54
  Joel: What's the why of my career?
• 0:56
  Joel: What's the why of my uh physical fitness journey?
• 1:00
  Joel: What's the why of my life?
• 1:01
  Joel: Right.
• 1:01
  Joel: You want to get to the why, figure out why you're doing something.
• 1:05
  Joel: And if you can figure out why you're doing something, it can be this guiding and organizing principle for the thing you're trying to do, right?
• 1:11
  Joel: It's kind of your North Star.
• 1:13
  Joel: And one thing that Sayde and I have have noticed working with authors, you know, for in my case now, it's been, it's been um 15 years, Sayde.
• 1:23
  Joel: You're what it's been maybe five or six for you.
• 1:25
  Joel: Is that a lot of people jump into the publishing journey, uh, whether they're going with a traditional publisher or they're self-publishing, or they haven't made up their mind yet about which way they want to go.
• 1:40
  Joel: They jump in, they kind of write the book, and they never really spend the time to think about why they're doing it.
• 1:45
  Joel: And a lot of people have a why that may be unconscious or only a little conscious that's kind of driving what they're doing, uh, but they've never really crystallized and clarified what that is.
• 2:01
  Joel: And what we found is that um when you do clarify what your why is, it can really help you make critical decisions along your publishing journey.
• 2:13
  Joel: Um and so it's worthwhile for everybody to do, even though it feels like, oh, that's obvious, or maybe that's a waste of time, or I know I know my why.
• 2:24
  Joel: But I we we kind of we kind of encourage everyone, where no matter where you are on the pathway, you might have already published the book to actually sit down and think about your why.
• 2:33
  Joel: So we wanted to unpack that on today's call.
• 2:35
  Joel: And we're gonna go through some of the um, it's not a call, it's a podcast, but um uh we're gonna go through some of the more common whys that people have, all of which are valid, by the way, and talk about some of those implications.
• 2:50
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Sayde: And I would just add as a precursor to that, just like you mentioned, Joel, it's never too early or too late to figure out what your why is.
• 2:58
  Sayde: So if you have written a first draft of a book or you're thinking about writing a book, or you've already written in a book and you've worked with an editor and you're like, oh, I'm really excited to get this published or to start pitching this to agents, actually sitting down and getting granular and writing down, like physically writing down why are you writing this book is going to help inform a lot of the decisions that you're gonna have to make no matter where you are in that journey.
• 3:25
  Joel: Amen.
• 3:26
  Joel: So I think I think the best thing for us to do is just dive in.
• 3:31
  Joel: We've made a list that is, I'm sure, not fully comprehensive, but we've made a list of some of the most common wise that uh the authors we've worked with um in all capacities marketing, writing, publishing, uh tend to tend to be driven by.
• 3:47
  Joel: And so I think the first one that I want to talk about is making money.
• 3:54
  Joel: And the reason I want to talk about this first is not because it's the most common why, but what it in my experience, making money tends to be sort of a a why that people think they should be doing.
• 4:14
  Sayde: Sure.
• 4:14
  Sayde: Or on the flip side of that, they I I think a lot of our authors will say, Oh, I'm I'm not worried about making money, or I'm not in this to make money, right?
• 4:22
  Sayde: So there's also this other side of this coin where authors will be like, well, I'm not in this to make money, but money is a deciding factor or a driving factor in why you might have written a book.
• 4:34
  Sayde: And certainly if you're going to independently publish your book or work with a hybrid publisher or vanity press, there's you're gonna have some upfront costs to producing that book.
• 4:44
  Sayde: And probably you're thinking a little bit in the back of your head, like, well, it would be nice to at least recoup my investment, right?
• 4:50
  Sayde: It would be nice to sell enough books to recoup my investment.
• 4:53
  Sayde: Or, you know, maybe you're coming at this with, yeah, absolutely I want to make money.
• 4:57
  Sayde: And we've also worked with, you know, those authors who are very upfront and honest about the fact that the reason they wrote a book is because they want to make money.
• 5:06
  Sayde: Right.
• 5:06
  Sayde: And that's great.
• 5:07
  Sayde: That's valid.
• 5:08
  Joel: That's I would say, and and I would say it's pretty, it's that tends to be very rare, right?
• 5:13
  Joel: Because very few people are like, you know what, what are the ways I could make money in my life?
• 5:16
  Joel: I think I'm gonna write a book.
• 5:18
  Joel: Right.
• 5:18
  Joel: That's that's usually not what someone's gonna do.
• 5:20
  Joel: Now, they might want to write a book in order to uh help promote their business, for instance, and help improve in increase their profit, which we're gonna get to later.
• 5:30
  Joel: But um, where the money issue comes up is that when people realize and they see the economics of publishing and writing, right?
• 5:39
  Joel: Whether you're going to the traditional publisher or you're self-publishing, you're gonna incur significant costs along the way.
• 5:45
  Joel: You know, whether that means working with a developmental editor or copy editor to make sure your manuscript is is in top form to be able to promote it to publishers, or investing the time and money to build a platform so that you can catch a publisher's eye.
• 5:59
  Sayde: Right.
• 6:00
  Joel: Or if you go the traditional or self-publishing route or hybrid/slash vanity publishing, which are that's the same thing, um, you would essentially be paying for all the cost of production as well.
• 6:10
  Joel: So there's all this money you're investing.
• 6:12
  Joel: And then people realize, oh my goodness, in order to, in order to make my money back on that, I'm gonna have to sell thousands, if thousands and thousands of copies of my book.
• 6:22
  Sayde: Right.
• 6:23
  Joel: Which would be a good thing.
• 6:24
  Sayde: Making only a few dollars per copy on that royalty.
• 6:26
  Sayde: And I don't, I don't know that we've recorded a podcast on this, but we definitely have articles on our website, launchmybook.com, about sort of this decision making, right?
• 6:34
  Sayde: Is this a business or is this a hobby?
• 6:37
  Sayde: Like when you're writing your book, are you are is it part of your business or you want to you want to be in the business of being a writer?
• 6:44
  Sayde: Or is this your hobby?
• 6:46
  Sayde: And when it's your hobby, you know, you might be okay losing money, spending money on a thing that you love, knowing that you're not actually financially going to recoup that.
• 6:56
  Sayde: Uh, but if you're but if it's a business or you want to make money at it, then you know, certainly that's gonna that's gonna affect how you how you market your book, what your publishing plan looks like, all of those, all of those decisions.
• 7:09
  Joel: That's right.
• 7:10
  Joel: And so it it often you often come to this point where you realize, oh, if I'm not gonna make money on this, or I'm not gonna make very much money, then why am I doing it?
• 7:19
  Joel: So it's often sort of like the first why that you kind of get past in order to get to the deeper why.
• 7:27
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 7:29
  Joel: Um, should we move on to the next one, Sayde?
• 7:31
  Sayde: Let's talk about the next one.
• 7:32
  Sayde: This one's one of my favorites.
• 7:34
  Sayde: This one's one of my favorites.
• 7:35
  Sayde: This is a this is when your why is because your book is a legacy project, right?
• 7:40
  Sayde: Like we all hear the phrase everyone has a book in them, and that may or may not be true, but there are lots of people who have lived incredible lives or have overcome all kinds of obstacles, or they just have a really unique family story that's fascinating and they want to preserve that for their kids.
• 7:57
  Sayde: You know, we've published books for literally just telling someone's love story of how they met and and where their life took them.
• 8:05
  Sayde: We've published memoirs for uh veterans of, you know, Vietnam War and World War II.
• 8:12
  Sayde: Um, and and so those legacy projects are are the ones where you are writing this story to preserve it for yourself, for your family, for your children, for your it's your legacy.
• 8:26
  Joel: That's right.
• 8:27
  Joel: And and in those cases, it it's it's interesting, you know, when you're writing that legacy book, that means you're probably only gonna write one.
• 8:34
  Joel: Right?
• 8:35
  Joel: That's usually it's you know, everybody's got a book in them, so it's it's probably only gonna be that one.
• 8:40
  Joel: And if you can get clear about that, that you're doing this for legacy, and it's totally okay.
• 8:46
  Joel: It's okay to be just publishing a book for your legacy.
• 8:49
  Joel: Um, you have to decide, well, what do you want to invest in that?
• 8:52
  Joel: Right?
• 8:53
  Joel: Do you want this to be just a beautiful, high quality product that will be sort of part of your legacy?
• 9:01
  Joel: Uh, do you just want to get it out?
• 9:04
  Joel: Right.
• 9:05
  Joel: And you're not really worried about it looking like it was published by Simon and Schuster or that you got all the editing and narrative perfect and the best it could be.
• 9:13
  Joel: Do you just want to get it out?
• 9:14
  Joel: Right.
• 9:15
  Joel: Um, you have to kind of decide how you want it to engage or influence your legacy.
• 9:21
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 9:21
  Joel: And that's gonna have an influence over how much you want to invest in the production side and the editing side.
• 9:27
  Joel: Um, do you care about marketing the book at all?
• 9:30
  Joel: Right?
• 9:31
  Joel: Is part of your legacy having this book reach other people so that they can hear about your legacy, so your legacy can grow and expand?
• 9:38
  Joel: Or is this just for that small network of 100 to 200 people that you know through your family and your friends and your colleagues?
• 9:47
  Sayde: Right.
• 9:47
  Sayde: And maybe it's it's a book that you want to get out in time for the holidays.
• 9:51
  Sayde: And, you know, this is what you're gifting to your family.
• 9:54
  Sayde: We've we've worked with authors in that situation.
• 9:56
  Sayde: And then they've also decided later down the road to make the book available for sale on Amazon and other online platforms so that family members, you know, across seas or or whatever have access, can have an easy way to just purchase that book and enjoy it.
• 10:10
  Sayde: And so, you know, definitely, like you said, Joel, legacy is a wonderful reason to write a book.
• 10:16
  Sayde: It probably means it's your only book.
• 10:18
  Sayde: And so, therefore, your publishing your production of that book and the marketing of that book is going to look very different.
• 10:26
  Sayde: And uh, and you want to and understanding that this is your legacy project will help you get clear about that.
• 10:32
  Joel: Yep.
• 10:33
  Joel: So um, before we move on to the next one, I want to just quick plug about our show, if I'm being honest.
• 10:38
  Joel: If you enjoy this, if you enjoy our episodes, please subscribe and rate us on whatever platform you like to listen to podcasts on or watch them on YouTube.
• 10:47
  Joel: It really helps us uh get our information out to a lot of people.
• 10:50
  Joel: That is the mission of this podcast.
• 10:52
  Joel: We have a company, obviously, and we like people to hear about our company, but the main thing we are doing this podcast for is to bring honesty and truth uh to the publishing industry, which is which is full of all kinds of misinformation.
• 11:04
  Joel: So by by subscribing to us and then rating and reviewing us and then sharing us with your friends or other people you think might be interested, it helps us accomplish that.
• 11:12
  Sayde: So um that note though, too, if you have a topic, if you're if you're thinking about self-publishing, you're thinking about marketing and you're out there and you're exploring things and you're you're curious or you don't, you would just like a little bit more understanding about a specific topic of any of any of this world, uh you you know, let us know and we'd be happy to offer our two cents.
• 11:30
  Sayde: There's you know, we we Joel and I talk about this stuff all the time, every day.
• 11:35
  Sayde: And um, and if it if a specific topic would be valuable to you, we would love to hear that so we can help you out.
• 11:42
  Joel: Awesome.
• 11:42
  Joel: All right.
• 11:43
  Joel: So uh the next point.
• 11:45
  Joel: So we talked about making money, we talked about legacy.
• 11:47
  Joel: Now, this next one is very is similar to legacy, but I think it's a little different.
• 11:51
  Joel: So uh I call this one ego, right?
• 11:55
  Joel: Uh often many people have this lifelong dream of being a published author.
• 12:02
  Joel: Right?
• 12:02
  Joel: There's a there's a there's an accolade that comes with, hey, I wrote a book.
• 12:07
  Joel: Look at my book, right?
• 12:08
  Joel: I've got that.
• 12:09
  Joel: I'm a ghostwriter, which means that my name isn't even on the books that I've written, but I get that satisfaction.
• 12:15
  Joel: I love to hold up a book that I've ghostwritten and tell my friends about it and show people, hey, look, I did this.
• 12:20
  Joel: I did this.
• 12:21
  Joel: And I think this can be a very delicate issue, uh, one that a lot of people don't really want to admit because it feels self-serving or you know, egotistical or narcissistic.
• 12:33
  Joel: Uh, but it's okay.
• 12:35
  Joel: It's okay to take pride in it.
• 12:37
  Joel: It's okay.
• 12:37
  Joel: I don't think there's anything wrong with one of your primary drivers for writing a book being that you want to be a published author.
• 12:45
  Joel: Sure.
• 12:45
  Joel: That you want to be acknowledged for the fact that you did it.
• 12:48
  Sayde: Right.
• 12:49
  Sayde: This is probably also why people run marathons, right?
• 12:52
  Sayde: You get to tell people, you get to wear the t-shirt, you get to put the bumper sticker on your car, like, you know, we're human and we enjoy uh sharing our accolades and our successes.
• 13:03
  Sayde: So I, you know, I think that that's that's very valuable.
• 13:06
  Sayde: And again, just getting to the root of that and recognizing, okay, I am writing this book because I want the recognition of writing a book, again, it's gonna drive a lot of the rest of the decisions that you have to make.
• 13:18
  Joel: Right.
• 13:18
  Joel: And and so you're gonna be thinking about, for instance, um, if you, if if this is for your ego, and again, it's not maybe not only.
• 13:27
  Joel: There's probably everybody's a mixture of all these whys, usually.
• 13:30
  Joel: So uh then do you how important would it be for you, for instance, to have a traditional publishing deal?
• 13:38
  Sayde: Right.
• 13:39
  Joel: Right?
• 13:39
  Joel: There are a lot of people who, even though you make you, you often have to give up a lot of the profit to go with the traditional publisher, and it's really hard to get one and it takes a lot of time and work.
• 13:49
  Joel: A lot of people, it really matters that they got that they made it through that gatekeeper, right?
• 13:54
  Joel: They they got that stamp of approval from uh, you know, a literary publisher who who rejects most of the books that are sent to them.
• 14:05
  Joel: Yeah, and they got accepted.
• 14:07
  Joel: So is that important to you?
• 14:10
  Joel: Right.
• 14:11
  Joel: Yes, no?
• 14:13
  Joel: If not, you know, then perhaps it's more just having something that you can say you did.
• 14:20
  Sayde: Right.
• 14:20
  Joel: Right.
• 14:21
  Sayde: And again, to you know, not to not to be too self-serving or but there's a great article that Joel wrote on our website called self-publishing dis or uh publishing decision making tree that goes through a lot of this and explain and you know, if that is your why, well, I I just really want that stamp of approval, then that shifts your publishing journey because now you're gonna start pitching agents.
• 14:45
  Sayde: You have to go and find agents who are accepting, you know, submissions and are they interested in your genre?
• 14:51
  Sayde: And and then, you know, you land an agent and then you start working on a publishing deal.
• 14:55
  Sayde: Um, and that takes years and it and it's hard work and not everyone is is necessarily cut out for it.
• 15:01
  Sayde: But if that's your why, then now you know where to start.
• 15:04
  Sayde: Now what the next step will be for you.
• 15:07
  Joel: Right.
• 15:08
  Joel: Then if you, you know, if you decide that you're gonna go the self-publishing route, that maybe the traditional publishing thing isn't necessarily important for this why, um, or maybe you're not able to get there, which is it happens.
• 15:21
  Joel: Right.
• 15:21
  Joel: It's happened to me, it's happened to a lot of people, great writers, good books.
• 15:26
  Joel: You don't, not everything, not everyone makes it.
• 15:28
  Joel: Um, and you want to self-publish, then then you have to ask questions like, well, what what quality do I want?
• 15:35
  Joel: Again, right?
• 15:35
  Joel: Is do you just want it, is is it just the idea of having published that matters to you, or do you want people to read your book and be impressed with it?
• 15:45
  Joel: Do you want that cover to look like it was published by Simon and Schuster because it's so high quality and beautiful?
• 15:51
  Joel: And will that does that get you, does that help that, you know, personal pride, that well-earned pride?
• 15:57
  Joel: Um, do you want people to read that book and then rave about it to their friends?
• 16:02
  Joel: Right.
• 16:02
  Joel: Is that is that gonna help you too?
• 16:04
  Joel: And so the it's important to think about that, and then it'll guide how much effort and investment you want to put into it in terms of time and money and creative creative energy.
• 16:13
  Joel: Absolutely.
• 16:14
  Joel: Um also I will say on this one, this is one of Sayde and I's favorite topics, which we're gonna do, we talk about a lot, and I don't want to go into too much detail, is this is why the whole vanity press industry has grown.
• 16:29
  Joel: Right?
• 16:30
  Joel: They call it vanity presses, uh, because they're they're actually they're they're they're hybrids.
• 16:35
  Joel: So a hybrid is basically a publishing house that you pay to publish your book.
• 16:40
  Joel: They don't they don't they come to you and get you to pay them to publish their book.
• 16:48
  Joel: It's it's not the opposite.
• 16:49
  Joel: You're not apply, you know, some of them have are somewhat selective, but they're not very selective.
• 16:53
  Joel: And you're you're paying them to publish the book under their name, and and a lot of that movement in the self, a lot of the re the reason that that person does that is they want to have a publisher publish their book, right?
• 17:10
  Joel: Even though it's not a traditional publisher that they actually had to sort of get through the gate gates to get.
• 17:17
  Sayde: Right.
• 17:17
  Sayde: It's a publisher that you are paying up front the cot all of the production costs to have them produce that book that then they publish under their, you know, publishing name, probably has the logo on the back cover, the spine, you know, their name is on the copyright page, it's on the Amazon page, and and yeah, that that can give you a sense of of pride and accomplishment for sure, which I think is where the the term vanity press stems from.
• 17:47
  Joel: Yep.
• 17:47
  Joel: And I know a lot of people who've done this, where you know, we talk to people every day who do this, where they they pay to have a publisher take their book because they want to have that stamp of approval.
• 17:56
  Joel: Um and it's not enough just to have a book published because you could do that on your own.
• 18:02
  Joel: Um, that you want to have the appearance of a publisher publishing your book.
• 18:06
  Joel: And that's okay too.
• 18:08
  Sayde: Totally.
• 18:08
  Joel: It is okay as long as you're clear about it and you're honest about it.
• 18:12
  Joel: Um so I'm gonna I want to add it, let's move on to the next one.
• 18:17
  Joel: I want to add one that's not on our list because I just thought about it.
• 18:19
  Joel: Um uh you want to make a difference.
• 18:22
  Joel: You know, and the these are these are we work with a lot of authors who who are doing this.
• 18:26
  Joel: You know, we we're working on a book right now uh where one of our authors uh he's published with us before and he wanted he wants to have an impact on on democracy.
• 18:37
  Joel: He wants to create um he wants to create a more empowered society.
• 18:41
  Joel: You know, it's a nonpartisan book.
• 18:43
  Joel: Um, he just wants to make sure that the that the government that we have is better representing the people.
• 18:49
  Joel: Um he's very successful in his other work.
• 18:52
  Joel: Uh he's published other books before, so he doesn't need this book for for money, he doesn't need it for legacy, he doesn't need it for ego.
• 18:58
  Joel: He's literally trying to make a difference with the book.
• 19:01
  Joel: And we work with a lot of authors, and there are a lot of authors out there for whom this is their primary why.
• 19:10
  Sayde: Yeah, for sure.
• 19:10
  Sayde: And as Joel mentioned earlier, you know, your why might not fall perfectly into any one of these categories that we're talking about.
• 19:19
  Sayde: It's probably going to be a little bit here, a little bit there, you know, because we talked about legacy, and we have a lot of legacy clients who also are trying to make a difference.
• 19:27
  Sayde: You know, they wrote a book about um uh the Vietnam War and their experience in the Vietnam War and coming back and really struggling with survivor guilt and and suicide attempts.
• 19:39
  Sayde: And and then they're writing their story in hopes of helping other veterans and other folks who struggle with some of those mental health issues, and to kind of like let them know like there is life on the other side and there's there's reasons to keep going.
• 19:54
  Sayde: And so your legacy project might also be, you know, I'd I'd love to help someone, I'd love to make a difference.
• 20:00
  Sayde: Um when your goal is to make a difference, it can be harder to measure the success of that because we don't always know who's reading those books and who's taking and who's kind of then taking that torch and and carrying it and saying, okay, we're gonna, you know, do X, Y, and Z.
• 20:17
  Sayde: Um, and so that that part can be tricky, but it's it's definitely probably one of our favorite clientele to work with are the people who are passionate about uh a subject or a cause, and they're writing this book in hopes of g bringing awareness to that cause and getting more people to to feel passionately about it and want to go out there and and take action.
• 20:42
  Joel: Yeah.
• 20:43
  Joel: Yeah.
• 20:44
  Joel: And and like Sayde said, if if that's your goal, you're gonna measure metrics, your metrics of success will be different and you're gonna go about it differently.
• 20:51
  Joel: You might I find that purpose-driven books, uh, authors often have uh they have a lot of resilience and perseverance because they're they're trying to take on such a big topic, they can just keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going.
• 21:06
  Joel: Um it often makes it really easy for you to build a bigger platform around your book because you're not just promoting yourself, you're trying to make a difference and you can partner with all kinds of other people and um it you're gonna approach everything, the marketing, the publishing differently if you know that that's your primary driver.
• 21:22
  Sayde: So absolutely.
• 21:24
  Joel: All right, should we move on to the next one?
• 21:25
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Sayde: Uh, so then our next one on the list is becoming a serial author.
• 21:31
  Sayde: So this is kind of interesting if your goal is to just keep writing books, right?
• 21:36
  Sayde: Um, I think that this tends to work best with fiction.
• 21:40
  Sayde: You know, we have we have sci-fi writers that we work with, we have mystery and suspense writers, romance writers.
• 21:46
  Sayde: Fiction readers tend to be very, you know, they they can read a lot of books.
• 21:52
  Sayde: Um, and so they're always looking for more books to read.
• 21:55
  Sayde: And so if your goal is that you have a lot of books that you want to write.
• 21:59
  Sayde: then, you know, that's that's a great goal.
• 22:02
  Sayde: And and that will definitely help you determine if self-publishing, if being an independent publisher is a good fit for you and how you're going to publish those books, you know, um, not to get too technical, but one of the things that I tend to nerd out on is we when we're working with an author, whether or not their book should be enrolled in KDP Select and should they, you know, be offering their ebook free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers, well, who are Kindle Unlimited readers and kind of figuring out what books are really moving on that platform and in that space will help you determine if that's a if that's a good fit for you.
• 22:36
  Sayde: And so if you know you're going to be writing more books or if you're writing a series and you know, you know, we're gonna launch book one and then in a couple months we're gonna have book two of this series, those kinds of knowing that is going to help, you know, I know I keep saying this, but it's gonna help inform your production plans, your publishing plans, how you market that book um everything, everything encasing that will, you know, if you're if you're if your plan is to write more books, which is which not everyone's that's not everyone's goal.
• 23:06
  Sayde: Some people have one book in them.
• 23:08
  Sayde: Some people have their make a difference book or their cause book or their legacy book.
• 23:12
  Sayde: But if you're a fiction writer, you probably have more than one more than one book in you.
• 23:17
  Sayde: There's probably a reason why you love writing in that genre and you know that's a great why.
• 23:23
  Joel: Yeah and that and that's a critical question.
• 23:25
  Joel: You know um knowing that you want to publish more books uh is really important and it's gonna affect everything.
• 23:31
  Joel: How you put your team together, you know, uh I tend to if you if if someone has chosen the self-publishing route I tend to I tend to think that if you're gonna be publishing multiple books, you want to do as much as you possibly can on your own as opposed to hiring a company to help you because uh you're gonna you you you put in all this work in the beginning to get your team together, get the right kind of people to edit and design and and do all that kind of stuff yourself.
• 23:59
  Joel: And then you're gonna have that in place to publish your next book and you're gonna save a lot of money as opposed to hiring a company where you'll pay a little bit more but they bring their expertise to the table.
• 24:09
  Joel: But if you're gonna be publishing three, four, five, six, seven books, learning all that yourself can be worth it.
• 24:15
  Sayde: Absolutely thinking about how are you gonna how are you gonna hold on to your readers, how are you gonna keep your readers, how are you going to let them know at the end of book one that book two is coming and when they can expect it if you're offering any sort of uh promos or free downloads or free excerpts of of other chapters or other um you know series what are they a prequel you know to this world or something like that.
• 24:38
  Sayde: Some sort of freebie that you can give your authors um so that they stick with you so that they keep you know reading through reading through the entire series those kinds of decisions have to be made during the production of the book whether or not you're adding a QR code to scan to go to your website to follow your social medias whatever the things are when you're writing in a series or you know you want to be a serial writer uh you'll have some decisions to make during production that you want to take advantage of because that will help you hold on to hold on to readers and get that read through.
• 25:09
  Joel: Yep.
• 25:10
  Joel: Awesome so yeah and again just to remind everybody we're not saying that everybody fits into one of these categories exclusively right there's gonna be someone who wants to be a serial author and it's been their lifelong dream to be a serial author and um they also want to make some money because it's going to keep paying to write books.
• 25:30
  Joel: So you know you're gonna have different answers uh multiple answers to the same question.
• 25:34
  Joel: All right so another one that's very common and this is usually in the nonfiction side is have having your book be a calling card for your business.
• 25:42
  Joel: You know, we were with a lot of people maybe you're a maybe you're a business consultant or an executive leadership coach or uh life coaching is exploding right um or maybe you're a meditation teacher um or you or you have a I don't know how to build an electrician's business locally company and you want to have a book that's going to be a calling card for your business almost like a lost leader right so um you want that you want to use the book to find your target customers who will then read the book fall in love with your intellectual property or your ideas or your strategy or approach and then move into a deeper engagement with you whether that's hiring you as a consultant or taking your online course or something like that.
• 26:33
  Joel: Right.
• 26:33
  Joel: It's very common books are a really great way to do that um and it's it's if that is your why it's critical to understand that right because um it's gonna it's really gonna inform your production your publishing pathway and your promotion.
• 26:55
  Sayde: Yeah for sure and it's really one of the great uh avenues for self-publishing you know when when authors come to us that this is their why uh you you know one example we had an author we worked with years ago who was a a doctor she specialized in uh female hormones and kind of women's health in general and she also had a line of supplements that she that that that was her main driver right was but she wrote this book about women's health and how to live healthier and how to um take care of your hypothalamus and what that even is because nobody had really heard of it at the time.
• 27:32
  Sayde: And then also you know she had this line of supplements that uh she was selling that you could take that would help you balance your hormones.
• 27:39
  Sayde: So her book was her, it was her calling card.
• 27:41
  Sayde: It was her lead-in to get speaking gigs and to sell her supplements and to get um clients and all the things and so she was self-publishing because that served her purpose perfectly she didn't need to go and get a traditional publisher she didn't need a vanity you know publisher putting their their logo on that she she was her own representation and she was the expert and so you know if when that's your why really exploring the advantages of self-publishing and what that process is and looks like for you can be a great option.
• 28:16
  Joel: Yeah that's a great example and we have so many more like that.
• 28:19
  Joel: We do one thing that I think is really interesting about one the this pathway is that you often can invest more which I think is very interesting.
• 28:28
  Joel: We one of our other podcast interviews we did with a guy named Steve Sarner who's the director of author success at um of at uh Shelflight and he used to run he used to be high up at Amazon on their in their book advertising uh side and their company runs Amazon ads and Facebook ads I believe um maybe it's just Amazon uh for nonfiction books basically and they will not work with anyone who doesn't have a really high end upsell from the book right so the book needs to be leading to something that's very valuable right because he was talking and he's very good at this their company's extremely good at this and I I highly recommend you listen to that podcast interview um but if they are if they are spending $15 to get someone to buy a book they are crushing it.
• 29:26
  Joel: And if you know about book economics I mean you're gonna get five to seven dollars of those dollars back if you're lucky.
• 29:33
  Joel: So you are you are losing money to get a reader.
• 29:37
  Sayde: Right.
• 29:37
  Joel: Right?
• 29:38
  Joel: And they won't even touch Amazon ads.
• 29:40
  Joel: I mean this is an expert company in Amazon ads they won't even run Amazon ads unless there's a way to monetize that because they know basically they want to work with people for whom a $15 lead is worth it.
• 29:54
  Sayde: Yes yeah because they have a different way a better way to monetize their business and it's not through book sales.
• 30:01
  Sayde: We had an author we worked with years ago we ran some promotions for his book it was a very niche book I I think it was called um I don't even remember the name of it but it was about how basically how to fix your factory.
• 30:13
  Sayde: You know he was a consultant for who would go in he lives in Ireland and he would go in and and do an assessment of factories and help you fix your factory.
• 30:21
  Sayde: I I hope I'm I'm remembering that correctly and so we run we ran a promotion for him on that book it was fairly expensive but he landed a client out of that promotion and uh and that that more than paid for what he paid us to to help promote his ebook which is what he that was his goal.
• 30:41
  Sayde: And he was very clear about that.
• 30:43
  Sayde: He knew his why he knew why he had written the book he knew who the book was for and he knew that well if I can get one if I can land one client out of this then it's worth it and he did.
• 30:53
  Joel: I love it.
• 30:54
  Joel: This is one of the most fruitful of all the whys.
• 30:57
  Sayde: Yes.
• 30:57
  Joel: Of course not everybody's in this position but if you are you're in a good spot.
• 31:00
  Joel: Um and just I want to put in another a plug for one other in uh podcast episode that we did recently which is with uh which is with a guy named Jared Meyer and they have a book called The Master Plan which was they basically turned a podcast a popular podcast into a book and they've been using it as a way to get their subscribers to move up the pathway and also as a way to get more subscribers to their platform.
• 31:27
  Sayde: And so there's that that that's another that's another way to it is it's a great example definitely go listen to that one uh turning a podcast into a book because they were really clear about their why they knew why they wanted to publish the book they knew who it was for they knew how they were going to use that to s to attract more subscribers and and they had a multitude of ways that they ended up using that book.
• 31:48
  Sayde: And so it was incredibly successful because from the beginning they knew they knew what they wanted to accomplish and then did their research and said okay self-publishing is the route to go for us.
• 32:00
  Sayde: This is this is going to work perfectly and that informed all of our decisions going forward everything every piece of that project in production and how we set up pre-orders and everything was informed by their why love it um so let's move on to the next one which is related to this one and but again it's a little different.
• 32:22
  Joel: So this is if your why is to publish a book so that you can add authority to your brand for professional gain, which is similar to being a calling card but it's slightly different, right?
• 32:34
  Joel: So an example would be um uh one of the first books I ghost wrote was for an executive leadership coach.
• 32:41
  Joel: Um and his business was based on his business was based on getting speaking gigs around the world and and then bringing his company in to be consult executive uh uh coaching cons clients with with in in large Fortune 500 companies and having a book was critical to that it allowed him to have more authority in the space to be recognized as the top coach that people should go after because he had a book um he got higher speaking fees it helped him land bigger clients and so we we he he was able to invest because of this he was able to invest in hiring a ghostwriter to make sure that that book was as good as it possibly could be and also you know some ghostwriters like myself can also help try to get traditional publishing deals so it was also helpful for him to have have a traditional publisher have their logo associated with his brand because that raised his authority right not it wasn't a calling card he wasn't like pulling people in it was more of a brand a stamp that would raise his right raise his authority in the space and that was critical we even ran a bestseller campaign we invested a lot of money to run a bestseller campaign because then having uh being and and we hit I forget which I think we hit the uh USA Today bestseller list on that one um having that USA Today bestseller logo associated with the publisher associated with the book associated with the brand again elevated everything and so and that that's a so that's a very important why yeah absolutely we also had another guy that this is related um his uh he he wrote a book that he published with us called Drafting a dream and he didn't feel like he needed a traditional publisher um he had come up with a really cool business concept basically a a pour your own beer business concept which is really interesting you and the book is great it's got a lot of really cool advice about entrepreneurship in general but particularly if you're in the in the in the restaurant industry and uh part of why he wanted to publish the book was to gain exposure for the concept so that he could sell the business right and he ended up I don't know how many copies of the book he sold I think he did okay um and was able but got some great press around it uh the the book was really well designed and really well written and he ended up selling the company and when we talked to him afterwards he he attributed he attributed the sale of the company in part to the fact that he had a great book.
• 35:15
  Joel: Yeah um so there's all kinds that that's an and he knew that from the very beginning that that's what he was after.
• 35:21
  Sayde: I mean there were other things too you know there was a legacy piece to it there may have been an ego piece to it and you know he that that was such an interesting project too because exactly there was a legacy piece there probably was a little bit of ego there was certainly an opportunity for him to to use it as a calling card and to build his brand but he he was really clear about why he was writing that book and and then it was you know it it did turn out to be successful.
• 35:44
  Sayde: And it also could have been and and who knows he could be marketing it still and and and running with it.
• 35:49
  Sayde: But like you said a lot of great information and guidance in there for just entrepreneurship in general particularly in restaurants but but I think anybody who's thinking about starting a business or purchasing a franchise would have found great value in that book would find great value in that book.
• 36:05
  Sayde: So he just had a he had a great product and uh and he was very clear with what he wanted to accomplish with it.
• 36:13
  Joel: Yeah that was a great success story.
• 36:15
  Joel: So go check that out drafting a dream by John Felico.
• 36:18
  Joel: Yep.
• 36:19
  Sayde: Um so yeah I so I I know for all you fiction writers out there I'm sorry we've been sort of on a nonfiction uh rabbit hole for a while so we're gonna land the plane here we're gonna end our our our show with a a more universal why which is the love of writing yeah loving the craft loving the process loving the actual uh pastime of writing yeah yeah and and I love this one because I love to write and this is what I particularly love about self-publishing is if writing is your art form and I've probably said this before on this podcast but I've certainly said it to authors that I've worked with and and folks in the industry when writing is your art form, there it that has it has been challenging to share writing with the world in a way that you can share other forms of art.
• 37:13
  Sayde: And you know in the summertime on the weekends I run a farmer's market here in my little coastal town in Oregon and you know we we will have photographers come and set up a booth and and they're selling prints of their photography and and painters who paint paintings and watercolor and and folks who who draw with pencil and make cards and we have all of this incredible art right that's very tangible that someone created and then they're selling it directly to a person.
• 37:37
  Sayde: But when writing is your art particularly writing books there wasn't a way to share that with the world for a really long time unless you got a traditional publishing deal.
• 37:47
  Sayde: And even you know back in the bygone days very few people were getting traditional publishing deals.
• 37:52
  Sayde: And so with self-publishing with print on demand, you know, now you have a really beautiful and professional way that you can share your writing with the world.
• 38:04
  Sayde: And so if you love to write and you love to write stories and you love to craft stories and that's your why, hell yeah, that's a great why and that's you because it's your art and you're not necessarily here to make money.
• 38:16
  Sayde: Maybe you are a little bit that you know those two can certainly coincide but if your why is I want to share my art with the world in a way that they will appreciate and enjoy and it'll you know be a very uh um beautiful experience of reading that book you know you're not handing them a pamphlet of papers that are stapled together you're actually handing them a book you know then that's that's a that's a fabulous why and um and I think more people should just kind of own that be like I'm I'm just here because I love to write that's awesome.
• 38:49
  Joel: Well so I think I think that's a great note to end on um before we sign off just a quick shout out again if you love this show or you find it interesting or educational please like us subscribe to us on whatever platform you're on it helps us ex uh grow our grow our audience and get this content to more people um but I want to kind of conclude our episode by just reinforcing how important it is to to get get to your why and I'm hoping that you know through some of the examples that we gave on the show today that you'll that everybody here will understand um a little bit more about the importance of maybe taking the time to think about it and maybe hopefully we've helped you clarify your why um a little bit by listening to this.
• 39:33
  Joel: By the way if we miss some whys uh that you think are worthwhile please let us know um you can email sadie or I uh Sayde at launchmybook.com sa y d e or joel at launchmybook.com um or you can leave a comment on uh whatever platform you're engaging with this this this episode