Latest / The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast / Not Just A Book: Publishing Strategy That Actually Works for Authors | Claire E. Jones

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Not Just A Book: Publishing Strategy That Actually Works for Authors | Claire E. Jones · The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast

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  People who already published, are just not seeing the results that they were expecting.
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  Depending on which bestseller list you're aiming for, it's a completely different strategy.
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  To do 10,000 orders in an in-person environment you probably need to reach about 50,000
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  But if you're doing online only, you need to reach 500,000 people in order to reach that conversion mark.
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  You have to handle your finances and operations on the back end.
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  It is really a business at the end of the day.
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  People don't realize that's what they're getting into.
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  Am I making profit or is this just a hobby that I'm contributing money to?
• 0:53
  Guys, welcome to another episode of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast.
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  My name is Rick Meekins.
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  I am your host, as usual.
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  And in our studio we have Claire E.
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  Jones.
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  How are you today, ma'am?
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  Doing so well.
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  How about yourself?
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  I'm doing absolutely fantastic.
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  Not as fantastic as you.
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  I mean the the the World Cup is not really here, but you know.
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  Yes, yes, it is wild over here.
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  I can only imagine.
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  I can only imagine.
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  I'm from like the Philadelphia area.
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  And so like the so my because I'm gonna date myself, you know, the Phillies won the pennant like back in the eighties, you know, and Philadelphia like exploded.
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  You know, so I kinda get it.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  We've been slowly taken over by different nationalities and waves.
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  So I'm having a blast.
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  that's fantastic.
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  Are they bringing their food?
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  Because that's that's what I heard on the news.
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  They were bringing their own food.
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  They're bringing dancing, they're bringing music, they're bringing chance, but they're enjoying our food.
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  there you go.
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  Good for them.
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  Good for them.
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  Folks, before we jump into it, I would be honored.
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  I'd be appreciative if you would like to subscribe and hit the bell so you can get updates every time we drop a new episode.
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  And without further ado, let's get to it.
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  So Claire, give us that rundown.
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  Who you are, what you do, and why you do what you do.
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  Yeah, so I'm Claire Jones.
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  I own a publishing company and so I write and publish my own novels, planners, journals, workbooks.
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  I do fiction and nonfiction.
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  And then I also support other writers who are trying to navigate to the publishing process.
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  So it's kind of like an a la carte creative agency framework sort of
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  What we'll catch you into that.
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  Well, I've been writing since I learned the English language.
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  And it didn't really occur to me to make it a career path until much later in life.
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  And I grew up with a mom who was an art teacher for 25 years.
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  And so I've always had a huge creative expression need.
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  It's kind of I joke that every bone in my body is a creative bone.
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  And writing has just been the there
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  through thread all throughout my life of how I prefer to express myself.
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  And I did a hard ride into entrepreneurship after graduating from college.
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  And all of those years spent building businesses, growing businesses, so on and so forth, prepared me with a foundational skill set that many writers and authors don't.
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  They may have the creative skills, but they don't have the business skills.
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  And so I joke that I speak both languages.
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  Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.
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  It's like how how'd you f how did you figure you could make money doing this?
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  I mean, there's lots of lots and lots and lots of writers and art starving artists out there, but you're you've made multiple businesses out of this, it sounds like, yeah.
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  In some ways, yes.
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  I started out in the retail space.
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  So my first business was a brick and mortar retail store.
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  And then I transitioned in yes, it was a huge, huge endeavor.
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  Don't recommend that for first businesses, honestly, but most of my career experience leading up until that point had been retail.
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  So I was very familiar with the space.
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  But it's a very expensive first business to do.
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  So I transitioned into coaching and consulting for other small businesses because I had learned so much during that process.
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  And I, because of my experience with art and writing and the creative analysis out there, research and stuff, I had a really key skill set in being able to absorb all of the
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  business advice out there and distill it into what actually matters and what doesn't matter at the end of the day.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  And I also tried to launch a sweatpants brand during the pandemic, as everyone else tried to do.
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  And at the end of the day, I realized that I prefer a business that can expand based on whatever products or services I choose to host under that umbrella.
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  And so publishing ended up being the perfect business model for me.
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  Mm.
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  I can produce products as in books and write about whatever I want to write about.
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  And I can also offer related services under that umbrella and I don't have to rebrand every time I introduce something new.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  You know, it's a it's a yeah, a pretty unique skill set.
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  I mean being being highly creative, but also being able to have that ability to to really take in a lot of information and simplify it.
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  You know, I mean you you essentially codified what you did, you know, and then you teach other people how to do it.
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  I mean that's that's that's unique.
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  I actually chalk it up to my degree is in art history.
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  And having to visually analyze and read a lot of material on artworks, I learned the skill set of not only analysis, but also identifying trends, identifying themes, and being able
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  to place pieces of information within.
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  predefined matrixes that may not have been connected before.
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  Mm, mm, mm, mm.
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  now that I'm absorbing and studying business and publishing, I have that underlying analysis skill set that was really formed through art history.
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  And I also started a lot of my public speaking and published writing during my art historical days because that was expected in that field too.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  I had an art history professor in college who was like, you need to submit your papers to peer-reviewed academic journals.
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  You need to do lectures at the local art museum.
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  You need to do all of these like brand building activities in the world of art history.
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  And so it's a very complementary skill set to publishing.
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  I get that.
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  I get that.
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  But I'm I mean you're the I think the difference that I'm hearing is like you you're demonstrating proficiency in it.
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  You know, there's a lot of people that can do a lot of different things, you know, wear a lot of different hats, but I mean you're you're rising to, you know, notable levels, like
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  in each area that you work in.
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  You know, if you look at your books, if you look at your you know, the different things that you've done, you've d you've done really, really well.
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  That what I see is atypical.
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  You know, I th I think about it.
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  One one of the areas that that's really applicable is is just in innovation in general, you know, which is, you know, essentially what you're doing.
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  You're literally taking skills and observations and analysis from one area and you're applying it to different areas and you're successful at it.
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  I mean, that's that's awesome.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, I think that's the crux of a liberal arts education in general is learning how to learn, not what to learn to, and being able to apply that skill set to multiple areas of
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  topics, you know.
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  but I I appreciate the compliments for how well I'm doing it, but you know, I can't take all the credit.
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  I I I know how that goes.
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  That's cool.
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  That's very cool.
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  so so you started out in retail, you moved into correct me if I'm wrong, you moved into more of a a writing a writing business, r writing publishing business, is that right?
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  Coaching consulting, I'm sorry, I missed that part.
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  for other small business owners for about five years.
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  that something you're still doing or is that just a was that just a stint?
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  I'm doing the same sort of consulting, but mostly for writers.
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  And so that we are focused on the publishing process.
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  Instead of growing any sort of business, it's growing writing businesses and author businesses.
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  Right, right.
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  That's interesting.
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  I've never heard of anyone talk about author businesses, writing businesses.
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  Tell tell me, tell educate us.
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  Yeah, it's sadly not thought about a lot by writers and you know the general public alike because you do have to build your own author brand.
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  You do have to build your own author business when you go into publishing.
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  Whether you're doing traditional publishing or self-publishing, you are automatically a public persona and You have to handle your finances and operations on the back end.
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  So it is a business structure.
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  And like most of the time people are going to go for sole proprietorships or LLCs when we're in this sort of business structure.
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  But you're the one that's responsible for telling the IRS how much your advances were.
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  You're the one that's responsible for telling the IRS how much you made in event sales if you're doing book conventions and book conferences and that kind of stuff.
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  Yeah.
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  you're also the marketer.
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  And if you're doing self-publishing, you're the team manager.
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  You have to hire your editors.
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  You have to hire your formatters, your freelancers, your cover designers.
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  And so It is really a business at the end of the day.
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  It's just People don't realize that's what they're getting into.
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  It it makes sense.
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  It it makes complete sense.
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  So you're saying like so if I were to write a book, I would create an entity around the book and then think about it like a business?
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  Yes.
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  If it's a book that's under a existing business structure, like you're writing a how-to manual and you're a coach and a consultant, you can keep it under that business structure.
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  But, you know, I'm sure you're aware if the IRS knows that you're making more than $600 a year in some sort of income-producing activity, they're going to automatically classify
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  you as a sole proprietorship under that income.
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  So you have to be aware of
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  What is the best way to be taxed for that income?
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  What is the best way to track that income?
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  You know, do you need separate bank accounts?
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  Do you need budgeting systems?
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  Do you need accounting systems?
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  And there's just questions that people don't think of.
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  We were talking about the the ten year gestation p process.
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  At what point do I need to start really thinking about this as a business?
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  It's when you start spending money, honestly.
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  If you're in self-publishing, your first expense is probably going to be paying an editor.
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  And it's probably going to be over $1,000, which is a significant expense for starting out.
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  And you can qualify startup expenses as startup expenses before you do the business registration process, but you need to start tracking your money somehow, somehow.
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  on the back end of being like, all right, I've put this much money into this project and I'm hoping to eventually make that money back.
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  So you need to be aware of like, Am I making profit or is this just a hobby that I'm contributing money to?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  So do we do do we do a financial model?
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  Do we sit down and say, Okay, you know, I'm gonna spend this amount of money, I need to sell this number of books in order to
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  If your goal is to make money, then yes.
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  You know, that's kind of the equation that you have to have a conversation with yourself about is how much money am I willing to spend?
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  And what is the realistic expectation of the money that I can earn from this?
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  To tell myself, is this a successful or could this be a successful endeavor for me?
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  Because the definition of success per author varies widely, but
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  Nine times out of the ten, it does have to deal with making money and hopefully some sort of net profit.
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  So I want to be an Amazon bestseller in my segment, and like a real segment, like marketing.
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  I mean what what what is the expectation of work that I need to do on the marketing side of things to really make that happen?
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  I guess it's work and money.
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  it is.
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  The bestseller lists are an interesting equation because Depending on which bestseller list you're aiming for, it's a completely different strategy.
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  So for example, using the Amazon bestseller list as our baseline, the way that they quantify that is the velocity of sales in a short amount of time.
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  So
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  When you're looking at your marketing strategies, it becomes a question of how can I get as many sales in a short amount of time as possible.
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  And so that informs your marketing schedule.
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  It informs when you send out the purchasing links, so on and so forth.
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  And part of that Amazon bestseller equation is also how you categorize your book data on the back end of the publishing platform.
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  Yeah.
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  Because that category that you get bestseller status in is a triang triangulated version of the metadata that you attach to that title.
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  So you have to be very specific with the metadata when you're setting up the title and you have to be very specific with the schedule timing of your marketing activities in order to
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  achieve that.
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  So so you you talked at the really, really smart level.
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  Can you can you bring that down for the rest of us?
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  You know.
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  So to use your marketing category as an example, that's a very big book category on Amazon.
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  And so the more books you have, the harder it's going to be to rank as a bestseller because there's more people in the pool, right?
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  So when you are listing your book files on your publishing platform, it's going to ask for like keywords associated that are search terms that your readers are going to use to find
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  that book.
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  And it's going to use those keywords, metadata search terms, to identify those categories that your book fits within on Amazon.
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  So what you want to do is to triangulate or like choose those keywords that are
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  smaller categories to give you a better chance of ranking as a bestseller in those categories because there's less I'm more familiar with the fiction categories.
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  So for example, there's like a sword and sorceries category on Amazon.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I would have a better chance of ranking as a bestseller in the Sword and Sorcery category because it's a smaller category compared to the general high fantasy category because of
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  the much larger.
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  So there's many more books involved in that category.
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  So it's kind of like a numbers game at that point.
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  So that's how you set up the book to Amazon and tell it, please put my book in the smaller categories.
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  Right.
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  the bigger categories, because I have a better chance of bestseller status in the smaller categories because I'm fighting against 300 books versus 300,000 books.
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  Right.
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  it and if I understand correctly, you said it's in for Amazon in particular, it's the sales of the most books over a specific amount of time, is that correct?
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  Yes, so Amazon bestseller looks at book rankings every 24 hours.
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  So it looks to see how many sales happened within that 24-hour period.
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  So the more sales that you can get in a 24-hour period, the higher your book is going to rank.
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  So you want to give your like pre-order link or your purchase link to your audiences in a very specific time frame.
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  to make sure that they only buy the book during that twenty four hours.
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  Because instead of having those sales sprinkled across multiple weeks or multiple months, you have them all concentrated into a small amount of time.
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  Got it, got it, got it.
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  I see people giving their books I actually got one today.
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  people giving their books away for free.
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  I understand it is is that part of that strategy?
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  It can be.
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  People mostly give books away for free in the hopes that they're going to get a publicly posted review in exchange.
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  So this is a tradition called ARC reading.
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  It's called an advanced reader copy.
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  And this typically happens before the book is publicly published.
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  So this is like the pre order period.
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  Because once the book hits public,
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  publication, readers are going to see all of those reviews that have already been generated.
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  And it will encourage them more to buy the book then, versus if it's a book with no reviews.
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  And so a lot of authors will send their books to influencers, public figures, people who have big audiences, in the hopes that they will read, review, and then talk about their
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  books on that public platform to then
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  not only give it credibility through the reviews, but give it visibility from their public blog.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  How does how does differ how does the distribution of different formats play into that overall model?
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  It's huge.
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  Distribution matters way more than people think it does.
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  so for example, with if you publish directly through Amazon, your book is only going to be available through Amazon.
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  But if you publish through, for example, Ingram, that is the world's largest wholesale distributor of books.
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  So libraries can buy your book, independent bookstores can buy your book, Barnes & Noble Target.
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  Walmart, university bookstores, they all have access to that wholesale catalog, but they don't have access to the Amazon catalog.
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  okay.
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  So you're going to have much broader distribution if you choose Ingram than if you choose Amazon.
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  Can you choose both?
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  You can't because Ingram automatically feeds to Amazon anyway.
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  But it's a matter of people choosing the easy and convenient route oftentimes when they just publish directly to Amazon.
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  Interesting.
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  So what what makes it easier to publish to Amazon versus Ingram?
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  it's faster turnaround service and people are just more used to the Amazon platform.
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  They don't want to learn another tool.
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  They don't want to learn another platform.
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  It's really like user experience at the end of the day.
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  Mm.
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  Mm.
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  Yeah, I hear I hear pre I hear self-publishers, and I've helped a couple of people with this, they talk about the the expense of publishing on Amazon.
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  You know, j you know, not just you know, not just the formatting, but you know, how much Amazon is taking out of every sale.
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  What what are your thoughts?
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  I mean, what what should authors really realistically think about that?
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  I mean, this goes back to the finance question that we were talking about earlier, because you have to think about net profit.
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  You have to think about how different platforms, because they're all going to take a certain percentage off the top of your sale, depending on which distribution methods,
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  which platforms you choose.
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  And so, for example, some people going back to the Amazon versus Ingram conversation will choose Amazon direct because they only get
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  Amazon taking off the percentage, they don't get Amazon and Ingram taking off the percentage.
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  But the highest net profit that you're going to see as an author selling books is going to be direct selling.
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  So you're not going through any third party to sell the book.
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  And so this can happen at you know in-person book fairs.
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  This can happen at speaking events.
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  It can even happen through your own website.
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  But
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  People have to be aware of what those distribution costs are when they are making that net profit equation on the back end.
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  I mean, I would I would say even with, you know, selling, you know, selling yourself, selling direct, selling at these these events.
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  I mean, you've got to print the books, you've got to, you know, sell us you know, and there's there's the time equation.
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  I mean, I would never I mean, me personally, I would never want to distribute my own book, you know, just because I have other things to do.
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  You know.
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  the decision you have to make with yourself.
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  Is like, am I willing to pay a higher percentage to these third-party retailers to save my time?
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  Or do I want to have a higher net profit and put in the time myself to do it?
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  So there's so many different
• 20:19
  compromises that you have to make in order to decide how you want to go about this process of selling your books.
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  I mean, as a as a as a strategist, how do you how do you work with people to help make those decisions?
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  And and I'm gonna I'm gonna caveat this with is you know, I I've done a lot of strategy work and I know that let's see, how do we say this nicely?
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  there's there's
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  opinion, you know, hey, I want to do this versus, you know, what's likely to work.
• 20:49
  You know what I'm saying?
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  How how when you're working with a client, I mean how do how do those how do you navigate that?
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  You know, so they're they're getting the success that they're looking for and you know, we have that conversation like, this is not gonna work.
• 21:02
  Might be fun, sounds fun, but no.
• 21:04
  I mean, the first conversation you always have to start with is what is your particular idea of what success looks like in this endeavor?
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  Because oftentimes people have ideas of what success looks like to other people in this industry, and then they adopt that for themselves.
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  And then they get very stressed trying to chase that version of success and then lose their
• 21:27
  Enthusiasm for the project.
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  And so we have to have that really grounded conversation of okay, so if you do want to become an Amazon bestseller or New York Times bestseller, these are the things that are
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  going to contribute to that.
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  And are you willing to do those things?
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  And having that conversation of yes, this is the goal, yes, these are the strategies to.
• 21:51
  achieve that goal and what do you actually want your day-to-day processes and lifestyle to look like as you pursue this because some people don't want to do book tours some people
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  don't want to do social media they just want someone to take their book and go do something with it but oftentimes in the world of traditional publishing these days you are
• 22:14
  still this primary marketer
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  for your books.
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  And so you still have to do some sort of visibility activity or market activity in order to get the book out there.
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  And so it's a real conversation you have to have of like, okay, what am I willing to do to pursue this?
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  Mm-hmm.
• 22:33
  I I wonder I want to come back and revisit that.
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  But I the the other side to that piece, and I don't know if you would advise someone on this, but I I feel like there's people, there are authors out there that just want to that
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  claim, you know, that they just want to get their book out there.
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  They just want to influence as many people as possible.
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  there's there's there's a conversation around that because there's still
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  you know, income and expense that's going to be related to to that book project.
• 22:59
  Do you help to guide people's thinking around that or how does how does that work for you?
• 23:03
  Yeah, I think you'd be surprised at the amount of times that I talk people out of writing books.
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  Because well, because it's a very expensive way to achieve impact.
• 23:14
  Okay.
• 23:15
  That's interesting.
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  Because there's so many different vehicles available to us these days to get a message out there.
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  You can do a YouTube channel, you can do a podcast, you can do speaking tours, you can, you know, do a variety of things to get your message and deliver it to a large audience,
• 23:33
  right?
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  So why is the book specifically the vehicle you want to use in order to do that?
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  Because it's a very expensive way.
• 23:43
  To do that.
• 23:44
  You can start a podcast for close to free.
• 23:47
  You can start a YouTube channel for close to free.
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  But in order to produce a book self-publishing, you're looking at at least five grand investment, if not 10 grand more.
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  So that's often a conversation I have with people.
• 24:01
  If impact is their goal, which is a very common goal that I come across, I'm like, okay, so why the book specifically?
• 24:10
  to be the vehicle for that impact.
• 24:12
  That's good thought.
• 24:13
  That's a very good thought.
• 24:14
  Wow.
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  And I guess again, I mean, we're not even talking about the cost of actually marketing, promoting the book.
• 24:20
  We're talking about just production, right?
• 24:23
  Yeah.
• 24:23
  Yeah.
• 24:24
  Yeah.
• 24:24
  usually minimum four to five grand just to produce the book, like a high quality book.
• 24:30
  Like we're not even going to talk about like the AI generated stuff and the like self-editing.
• 24:34
  But in order to create a well produced book that is going to capture the attention and keep the attention of readers, we're talking about five four to five grand.
• 24:44
  Mm mm mm yeah yeah.
• 24:46
  So if I I'm not I don't know, I'm I'm a sales guy.
• 24:49
  and I have a unique it can I can we talk in that in that okay so I'm a sales guy and I've got a process that I that I feel is unique and I want to invest that five grand to to
• 25:01
  build my book build my book
• 25:03
  What does what does the back end look like?
• 25:05
  And I'm saying when we're talking about actually selling the books, you know, you know, when I was growing up they call it, you know, getting the books on the shelves.
• 25:14
  You know, these days it's a little bit different from what I hear.
• 25:16
  You young whippersnappers.
• 25:17
  I mean, what what is what is it what does that look like?
• 25:20
  You know, we we would go to book signings, you know, if a famous author, you know, a reasonable author was in town or
• 25:26
  you know, whatever that is, what does it look like to really do a good job promoting your book?
• 25:33
  And you can't you can't use your big words and you can't use your your industry specific words.
• 25:37
  I mean the first question is always who your target audience is because you want to meet them where they are going for books.
• 25:46
  so for example, I have a dark romance client right now who's writing a dark romance novel.
• 25:53
  So for her, I'm going to advise much different distribution and selling strategies.
• 26:00
  than if I had a sales nonfiction writer as a client.
• 26:04
  So if it's a sales nonfiction writer, first we look at conversion rates.
• 26:09
  So typically when we're looking at conversion rates in person versus online, the online conversion rate of someone who is like goes to a product page and actually follows through
• 26:20
  with buying the product is 1 to 2%.
• 26:22
  If we're looking at in-person events, people who come by your book table and ask you about your book, the people who are then going to follow through and buying that book is 20 to
• 26:33
  40%.
• 26:33
  So ideally, we're going to focus our selling methods first and foremost on the in-person opportunities.
• 26:40
  And so when we're looking at in-person opportunities, then we are triangulating where your ideal client is going to be at in-person opportunities.
• 26:49
  So we're looking at like conventions, conferences, networks.
• 26:52
  sorry, my video just switched.
• 26:54
  that are topic aligned, value aligned, so on and so forth.
• 26:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:01
  So then, so we have that.
• 27:02
  I see a lot of you talked about like building the author brand as well, which sounds like it's a an endeavor in and of itself.
• 27:09
  You know, you talked about social media, I mean it's it sounds like there's a lot to a lot to that as well.
• 27:14
  Yeah, the I've been talking a lot about this concept called context marketing.
• 27:19
  And we've kind of touched on this so far in this talk of I look at it as a Venn diagram.
• 27:24
  You look at the contexts of your brand, your values, your belief systems, your likes, your dislikes, your experiences, your skill sets.
• 27:32
  We compare that to your audiences, likes, dislikes.
• 27:37
  Experiences, skill sets, and then we compare that to the marketing platform and like the contextual norms that exist on that marketing platform.
• 27:46
  So you're not going to post a long blog post to Instagram.
• 27:52
  If you want to do long blog post kind of content and your readers like long blog post blog post kind of content, you're going to go to Substack.
• 28:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:00
  Right.
• 28:01
  And so we're looking at where all of those bubbles overlap to see where your brand messaging, your author, your audience preferences and the marketing platform preferences
• 28:12
  come together to create that perfect marketing opportunity.
• 28:16
  So are we gonna focus more on building brand awareness for the book or for the author?
• 28:22
  It depends honestly.
• 28:24
  In nonfiction, you are probably going to be more author-focused than book focused because you are probably going to have speaking engagements attached to that.
• 28:35
  You are probably going to have some sort of other organizational or business need attached to that.
• 28:42
  But if we're talking about fiction, then I honestly recommend starting with book first.
• 28:47
  Because people are going to attach to the characters and the story more so than the author, but that's not always true.
• 28:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:57
  I I would think I would think, and you know, no no dig to her, but I I think with the with the Harry Potter series, you know, in particular, it's it's definitely the characters, you
• 29:06
  know, you know, more so than than the author.
• 29:08
  you know, when I think about that.
• 29:09
  And I think about, you know, other other fictions like that.
• 29:11
  That makes that makes total sense.
• 29:13
  That makes complete sense.
• 29:14
  Sounds like a lot of
• 29:15
  It's very strategic.
• 29:16
  You've got to take I'm I'm just muddling everything around in my brain, but I mean it's a very strategic approach to to doing this.
• 29:22
  This isn't something that is is is fly by night.
• 29:25
  Um, I wouldn't think.
• 29:27
  And you know, a lot of my clients are honestly People who already published, but are just not seeing the results that they were expecting.
• 29:35
  from it.
• 29:36
  And it's usually people who rush to publish directly through Amazon.
• 29:40
  And they may have seen some sales initially in that first month, that first week, maybe a few months after that, but then sales die out, visibility dies out, they don't continue
• 29:51
  with the visibility activities.
• 29:52
  and then they're like, well, maybe if I expand to other markets, maybe if I expand to university bookstores, maybe if I get the book into Target, maybe if I get to half price
• 30:01
  books or books a million, you know, one of those larger franchises, then I'll have a larger audio space to appeal to.
• 30:08
  But then they realize that they can't wholesale to those third-party retailers because they publish directly through Amazon.
• 30:15
  Tell tell me more about that.
• 30:20
  Yeah.
• 30:21
  isn't going to wholesale from Amazon.
• 30:23
  Target is going to wholesale from Ingram, which is the wholesale book database.
• 30:28
  Interesting.
• 30:29
  Interesting.
• 30:30
  That's that's not a thought I would've had.
• 30:31
  That's interesting.
• 30:32
  Very cool.
• 30:34
  I often work with people who have already published.
• 30:38
  I even worked with someone who had already spent fifteen thousand dollars on Google Ads for her book.
• 30:43
  And she had already gotten 11 sales.
• 30:46
  What?
• 30:47
  my god.
• 30:47
  Did she was she running her own campaign?
• 30:49
  No, she hired a brand an agency, a marketing agency that was doing Google ads for her, but she didn't really know what she was doing.
• 30:58
  And I there's a lot of bad actors out there in the industry as well who will just take advantage of your ignorance and they'll be like, Yeah, pay me $5,000 a month.
• 31:08
  We'll put up some Google ads.
• 31:09
  Whether those Google ads are actually converted or not is another conversation.
• 31:13
  And so
• 31:14
  I do hope to work with people before that happens, but if it's afterwards, then I'm like, all right, let's go back, let's talk about intent, let's talk about goals, let's talk
• 31:25
  about those habits, those lifestyles that we want to participate in.
• 31:29
  And usually that involves branding and some sort of more strategic financial plan.
• 31:35
  So when you talk about a strategic financial plan, we're looking, you know, realistically at you know what kind of return on investment we should get as authors.
• 31:44
  So if I come to you and I say, Hey, I want to publish this book and my goal is to, I don't know, sell 10,000 copies or something like that.
• 31:50
  I d I don't know, I don't even know.
• 31:51
  I don't I don't have the right language to to talk about this, but as a strategist, how do you help folks
• 31:57
  I don't know, perhaps like work backwards, you know, from that from that goal.
• 32:01
  You know, h first of all, you know, kind of say, Hey, is this a realistic goal?
• 32:06
  And then kind of work backwards in order to be able to actually achieve that goal.
• 32:10
  A lot of it boils down to that conversion rate data that I told you.
• 32:15
  Um, because if you want to do 10,000 orders, then we have to look at the conversion rate for those 10,000 orders.
• 32:21
  So do To do 10,000 orders in an in-person environment with the conversion rate of 20 to 40 percent, you probably need to reach about 50,000 people around that mark.
• 32:33
  But if you're doing online only, you need to reach 500,000 people in order to reach that conversion mark.
• 32:39
  So once we have that number of like the exposure that we need to reach that conversion, then we're like, all right, what marketing opportunities are going to provide us with
• 32:50
  audiences of that size?
• 32:53
  So typically that means like national news media.
• 32:57
  you know, big, big conferences or some sort of organizational collaboration sponsorship type of setup in order to reach those kinds of numbers.
• 33:10
  That makes sense.
• 33:10
  That makes sense.
• 33:11
  How do you how do you develop like a pricing strategy for for the books?
• 33:15
  It's all a la carte.
• 33:16
  So what I do when I work with a client is I read whatever manuscript or book that they have and I analyze it to see does it need more editing?
• 33:25
  Does it need more formatting?
• 33:27
  What if it has a cover, what does the cover look like, so on and so forth.
• 33:32
  And then I break it down per price of like, okay, it's going to cost this much to edit it, it's going to cost this much to format, it's going to cost this much to do a cover design.
• 33:40
  But then when we come to the marketing conversation, I can give them a base strategy for maybe a grand, but
• 33:48
  That doesn't include the amount of money that they are willing to invest into advertis advertising opportunities, any tour types of there's a lot of review sites out there where
• 34:00
  you can post your book for reviewers to find, but that costs money.
• 34:05
  Editorial reviews cost money.
• 34:07
  If you want to do
• 34:08
  book awards.
• 34:09
  There's a lot of different organizations that do awards, but you have to pay for your book to be considered.
• 34:15
  So that marketing conversation is really dependent on what they're willing to spend and what kind of budget they're working with.
• 34:23
  It's really interesting when it when I think about this from that perspective, you know, I I think about like all of the costs, you know, that are gonna go into the book, you know,
• 34:31
  you know, everything done.
• 34:32
  And so it brings me back to the price of the actual book, you know, and then of course how many books I can sell, you know, and and I know that's you know, part of it's competitive,
• 34:41
  you know, part of it is, you know, hey, I've gotta make my money back.
• 34:44
  I mean, how do you how do how do people arrive at that point?
• 34:48
  And and I and I'll say, you know, we've we've put books on Amazon and, you know, we're we're just looking at the category.
• 34:53
  You know, it's like the size of the book, you know, what category it's in, you know.
• 34:56
  but I mean, what what do you do?
• 34:57
  What's your what's your approach?
• 34:59
  The distribution method is a key piece of that for the net profit conversation.
• 35:04
  So you're obviously going to have a higher net profit with direct sales versus going through third-party retailers.
• 35:11
  So for an averagely priced paperback or hardback, you can generally expect to make around $6 in profit in net profit with each copy that's sold.
• 35:23
  And that's with books that are priced around.
• 35:26
  twenty dollars retail.
• 35:27
  And so then you have to be like, all right, so if I'm looking to make six thousand dollars in profit, I have to sell a thousand books.
• 35:35
  So you can either set your metric goal for like the 10,000 number that you used before.
• 35:41
  That's actually the metric for New York Times bestseller lists.
• 35:45
  If you can guarantee 10,000 pre-orders of a book, that reaches the ten the net.
• 35:52
  New York Times bestseller list status.
• 35:54
  And so is your metric that bestseller metric, or is your metric 6,000 in net profit?
• 36:01
  And that's a personal decision.
• 36:03
  Yeah.
• 36:04
  what you're willing to do.
• 36:05
  Like to do that New York Times bestseller, you're talking about national news, media, tours, so on and so forth.
• 36:12
  And is that activities that you want to do?
• 36:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:16
  the timeline is a key piece of that.
• 36:18
  Like do you wanna make six thousand net profit in six months?
• 36:21
  Do you wanna make it in two years?
• 36:23
  Yeah.
• 36:23
  Yeah.
• 36:24
  Yeah.
• 36:24
  That's interesting.
• 36:25
  I I think this is, you know, this conversation's real eye opener for for authors.
• 36:29
  but we didn't we did we didn't talk about like the the the most important piece is how do we get into writing a book?
• 36:35
  I mean if if you know, I hear the conversation, I hear people say, you know, hey, you you look like you have a book in you, you've got a book in you, you've been doing this for,
• 36:42
  you know, X number of years.
• 36:43
  I mean, where do where realistically, you know, would someone start?
• 36:48
  When you're gonna go down that road.
• 36:49
  Ideally you start with what your goal is for the book project.
• 36:56
  And that's from the business perspective or is that from the
• 36:59
  I think it's more from a personal perspective, honestly.
• 37:01
  Like what does success look like for you in this book project?
• 37:05
  for fiction writers, it often means like I want to make someone emotionally feel something.
• 37:11
  okay.
• 37:12
  Interesting.
• 37:13
  want them to feel angry.
• 37:15
  I want them to feel turned on.
• 37:17
  I want them to feel hopeful or I want to help them process grief, something along those lines.
• 37:26
  With nonfiction writers, it's usually like, I want to make sales for my business.
• 37:30
  I want it for it to be a client acquisition tool.
• 37:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:34
  or I want to teach the world about this particular methodology, or I want to impart the story to inspire people, because that goal is going to inform how you write the book too.
• 37:49
  It's going to inform the character arcs that you include.
• 37:53
  It's going to inform how you tell that story that you're telling in order to produce that result that you're looking to produce.
• 38:02
  Mm.
• 38:02
  That makes sense.
• 38:03
  That makes sense.
• 38:04
  So so we start with a goal, start with the end of mine, obviously.
• 38:07
  and where do we where do we go from there?
• 38:09
  What's that next what are what are the next steps?
• 38:11
  It's really a self-management and time management conversation at that point of being like, okay, so if you've written before, do you know how you best like to write?
• 38:23
  Are you a night writer?
• 38:25
  Are you a morning writer?
• 38:26
  Are you a middle of the day writer?
• 38:28
  And then you look at your schedule.
• 38:31
  Like, do I have time in the evening to write this book?
• 38:34
  Do I have time in the morning to write this book?
• 38:36
  Do I have time in the afternoon?
• 38:38
  And then
• 38:39
  trying to figure out where you can slot in that writing time in order to actually make it happen.
• 38:46
  Mm mm.
• 38:47
  I've I've heard people I've heard of people, I've I've heard it recommended a number of times, to create like a framework, whether that's gonna be your table of contents or your,
• 38:55
  you know, outline of some sort.
• 38:57
  Is is that what you recommend as well?
• 38:59
  There's a concept in the writing world called plotters versus panters.
• 39:03
  I don't know if you've ever come across those terms.
• 39:05
  So plotters are the people who outline everything in advance.
• 39:09
  They're like, this is gonna happen in this chapter, this is gonna happen in this chapter, this is gonna happen in this chapter before they start actually writing the book.
• 39:17
  Panthers, who are more likely to be on the fiction side of things, just fly by the seat of their pants.
• 39:23
  They just sit down, open a Word document, and see what happens.
• 39:28
  So different writers prefer different methods.
• 39:31
  It really depends on how you like to write.
• 39:33
  typically, a lot of people are going to do milestone tracking with word counts.
• 39:40
  So, word counts are really important in the world of publishing because that's how editors are priced and that's how formatters are priced.
• 39:48
  And typically, if you're doing traditional publishing too, agents are gonna want to know your word count, publishers are gonna wanna know your word count.
• 39:56
  Even readers typically want to know what your word count is because they want to know what they're in for when they pick up a book.
• 40:02
  Um, so a word count tracking system is a very easy milestone tracking system as you are writing the book.
• 40:11
  So most nonfiction books are around like 30 to 80,000.
• 40:17
  words.
• 40:18
  So you can be like, all right, so I'm going to aim for 60,000 words in this manuscript over 15 weeks.
• 40:24
  So that means I'm doing X amount of words per week.
• 40:29
  And so that's just an easy quantifiable tracking system that people use.
• 40:33
  Okay.
• 40:34
  Okay.
• 40:34
  So I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna do I'm gonna go through the writing exercise.
• 40:38
  I'm probably gonna me, I'm gonna be a combination of the two.
• 40:40
  I'm gonna create this magnificent plan because I overthink everything and then I'm gonna go off the rails.
• 40:45
  But we'll get to the end zone at some point.
• 40:47
  Um what is what is my what is my next I'm actually gonna get a writer who can like provide structure.
• 40:52
  um
• 40:57
  So so I finished I finished my manuscript and then it's gonna go to the editor and then the editor's gonna go through or
• 41:03
  Yeah, so the first stage of editing is called developmental editing.
• 41:06
  And so that's when you're looking at the overall book structure.
• 41:10
  You're looking at character development, you're looking at plot development, you're looking at how the story is told over time and making sure that the whole book is
• 41:21
  structured appropriately or in a way that makes sense.
• 41:25
  And so you're not looking at grammar.
• 41:27
  At this point, you're not looking at like where the period goes at this point, you're just looking at overall structure of the book.
• 41:34
  So sometimes writers do the developmental editing themselves in order to save money.
• 41:39
  I'm one of those writers, I do dev dev edits for myself.
• 41:42
  But some people aren't skilled at that big picture kind of thinking.
• 41:47
  And often when you're looking at a manuscript, you kind of need some distance from it because you've just stared at it for so long.
• 41:54
  Yeah.
• 41:55
  like you can't see your own nose, right?
• 41:57
  And so it's very common for writers to miss things of like, I didn't realize that I changed days in the middle of a scene, or I didn't realize that this character said
• 42:07
  something at the beginning of the book, and then they say something completely different at the end of the book, right?
• 42:14
  So that would be the first stage is developmental editing.
• 42:16
  The second stage is line editing.
• 42:18
  So that's when you look at every single sentence, every single period, every single comma, every single capitalization or lack thereof.
• 42:25
  and then finally comes proofreading.
• 42:27
  And so that's when you're just reading it as a whole to catch anything that may have been missed in those other stages.
• 42:34
  Wow, wow, wow.
• 42:35
  I mean that you know that that fee makes sense.
• 42:37
  That yeah, that sounds like a lot of work.
• 42:39
  cool, awesome.
• 42:40
  Well, this this has been amazing.
• 42:42
  This has been amazing.
• 42:43
  This has very been very informative.
• 42:44
  As I as I mentioned, you know, I've got two books that, you know, I'm I'm working on.
• 42:49
  so now I've got more things to think about.
• 42:51
  So I'm grateful for that.
• 42:53
  I do have a question that I ask all of my guests.
• 42:55
  And I would be delighted if you would give us an insightful answer on this.
• 42:59
  So the name of the show obviously is the relentless pursuit of winning.
• 43:01
  And we all define winning however we want to.
• 43:05
  The challenge sometimes is maintaining that relentless pursuit.
• 43:08
  Do you have any advice for our audience on how to maintain that relentless pursuit?
• 43:13
  Yeah, it's funny the word relentless because that often implies like a grind.
• 43:19
  And so I often recommend to people that rest is an important aspect of that because you really do need to be fulfilled yourself in order to produce at your best.
• 43:32
  So there's a
• 43:33
  Framework that I really like to point people to called the Healthy Mind Platter.
• 43:37
  It's developed by the Neuroleadership Institute.
• 43:39
  It's been developed by years and years of neuroscientific study and it shows how the brain best performs.
• 43:46
  And it has seven areas of activities to incorporate into your weekly schedules in order to make sure that your brain is as fulfilled as possible for that when you do sit down to
• 43:57
  write, you don't have writer's block.
• 43:58
  Or you don't like get distracted, you don't procrastinate, all of those things.
• 44:03
  You produce at a well streamed rate.
• 44:07
  And so I always kind of remind people to nourish yourself relentlessly as well.
• 44:12
  Yes, that's a that's a hard learned lesson.
• 44:14
  uh
• 44:16
  endeavors, you know.
• 44:17
  I always use the analogy of professional athletes.
• 44:21
  Like they spend so much time and energy tracking their macros, making sure they get enough sleep, making sure that they're doing their supplements, making sure that they're
• 44:30
  emotionally regulated.
• 44:32
  So, why does a professional writer have any less of an obligation to do that?
• 44:37
  We're still performing, we're still producing.
• 44:40
  So why are we driving ourselves into the ground in that process when professional athletes are not?
• 44:48
  You're you were so right.
• 44:49
  You were so right.
• 44:49
  I would have never considered that.
• 44:51
  But that is that's that's absolutely brilliant.
• 44:53
  I love that.
• 44:53
  I love that.
• 44:54
  Claire, this has been wonderful.
• 44:55
  Tell me something.
• 44:56
  If someone wants to get in touch with you, wants to work with you, what's the best way to to connect with you?
• 45:01
  Yeah, please do reach out to me.
• 45:02
  You can find me at claireejones.com or clairjoyance on all the major platforms.
• 45:08
  Fantastic, fantastic.
• 45:09
  Thank you so much for being on the show.
• 45:10
  Again, you know, I've enjoyed this conversation.
• 45:12
  I've learned a lot.
• 45:13
  You know, there are things that scare me, but you know what?
• 45:15
  I'm gonna push through.
• 45:16
  I mean, if you aren't scared then you aren't doing something big, right?
• 45:19
  Exactly.
• 45:20
  Exact.
• 45:21
  If people don't look at you kind of side eyes, like, you know
• 45:25
  We're shifting paradigms, man.
• 45:27
  Absolutely.
• 45:28
  Absolutely.
• 45:28
  Well again, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 45:30
  We really appreciate it.
• 45:32
  Absolutely.
• 45:32
  And folks, thank you so much for watching or listening to another episode of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast.
• 45:38
  We'll catch you next time.