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Navigating Heart-Led Publishing with Michele DeFilippo · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to the Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let's go.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:38
  Tom Jackobs: Ladies and gents, pop open the Prosecco because today's show is a primo page turner.
• 0:44
  Tom Jackobs: We're pursuing the publishing panorama with Michelle DeFilippo.
• 0:48
  Tom Jackobs: With half a century of chapter turning cred, her company, 1106 Design, is the stuff scribes dream of.
• 0:56
  Tom Jackobs: She's built a heart-led hub that helps authors avoid the pitfalls of publishing.
• 1:01
  Tom Jackobs: And bag more bank with every book.
• 1:04
  Tom Jackobs: So get ready to rock the realm of writing because today we're unlocking the captivating chat on this Heart-Led Business Show.
• 1:11
  Tom Jackobs: Welcome to the show, Michelle.
• 1:13
  Michele DeFilippo: Thanks so much, Tom.
• 1:14
  Michele DeFilippo: It's a pleasure to be here with you.
• 1:15
  Michele DeFilippo: I hope I can help your audience.
• 1:17
  Tom Jackobs: I know a lot of my audience has published books before and, or want to publish a book as well.
• 1:25
  Tom Jackobs: And, most of them are afraid.
• 1:26
  Tom Jackobs: I'm excited to get into this chat and unlock the ups and downs of publishing with you.
• 1:32
  Tom Jackobs: First question, which is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:38
  Michele DeFilippo: My definition is a business that does right by its customers, always provides a good product or a good service, whatever it is they happen to be selling, and always takes care of the customer first.
• 1:51
  Michele DeFilippo: In my opinion, you always get that back because customers recognize it and appreciate it and then they don't go out and tell bad stories about you.
• 1:59
  Michele DeFilippo: To me, it's strategy.
• 2:01
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, no, that's great.
• 2:03
  Tom Jackobs: And it's funny anytime that you start off with a really good onboarding process of a new client, even if there's little hiccups along the way, it's not a problem.
• 2:13
  Tom Jackobs: They got it.
• 2:13
  Tom Jackobs: But I tell you what, the opposite is tenfold worse because if you just have some, Main thing that goes wrong, then every little thing becomes a nitpicky thing with the client.
• 2:23
  Tom Jackobs: And it's so hard to undo that.
• 2:26
  Tom Jackobs: So I like that definition of just doing right by the client.
• 2:28
  Tom Jackobs: that's awesome.
• 2:30
  Tom Jackobs: So tell us a little bit about your business and what inspired you to have a heart-led business?
• 2:35
  Michele DeFilippo: We work for independent publishers, self publishers, but we're not a publishing company.
• 2:40
  Michele DeFilippo: And that's the distinction that I spend a lot of time describing.
• 2:45
  Michele DeFilippo: If authors work with a publisher or a self publishing company, they lose control of their book and they also lose a great deal of money on the back end every time they sell a book.
• 2:55
  Michele DeFilippo: So my narrative is for authors to understand that there's an alternative to that, and that is an author services company like ours.
• 3:05
  Michele DeFilippo: there are many where you pay for the services that you need to prepare a good book, but that you keep 100 percent of the revenue from sales.
• 3:14
  Michele DeFilippo: And so it's a remarkably difficult message to get across because these publishing companies dominate the search engines and authors are more likely to find them first.
• 3:24
  Tom Jackobs: Oh yeah.
• 3:25
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, definitely.
• 3:26
  Tom Jackobs: But isn't the process of going through a publishing house pretty difficult for authors or want to be authors?
• 3:33
  Michele DeFilippo: Back in the day, there was only traditional publishing and it still exists, right?
• 3:37
  Michele DeFilippo: Traditional publishers would pay all the expenses to produce the book, the author would pay nothing, and then the publisher would take control of the book, shape it according to their sensibilities, and keep most of the revenue from sales.
• 3:51
  Michele DeFilippo: in They would pay the author what they called a royalty, and it was just a tiny percentage of the cover price, maybe 10%.
• 3:59
  Michele DeFilippo: That model still exists.
• 4:01
  Michele DeFilippo: when Amazon came to be, It was an earthquake in the publishing industry because all of a sudden authors did not need to go to a publisher in order to obtain distribution to the public for their book.
• 4:13
  Michele DeFilippo: So that's when independent publishing was born.
• 4:18
  Michele DeFilippo: The original idea was that The author would be the publisher.
• 4:23
  Michele DeFilippo: The author would pay for the services to produce the book, and the author would keep all of the net revenue from sales.
• 4:29
  Michele DeFilippo: Great idea, right?
• 4:32
  Michele DeFilippo: In the last 20 years, everything's gotten very complicated.
• 4:35
  Michele DeFilippo: We now have self publishing companies, hybrid publishers.
• 4:39
  Michele DeFilippo: Now some companies are just calling themselves publishers, but they're really self publishing companies in disguise.
• 4:46
  Michele DeFilippo: And what they charge the author to produce the book, and they also take Most of the revenue from sales on the back end.
• 4:52
  Michele DeFilippo: And so with authors need to ask better questions, right?
• 4:55
  Michele DeFilippo: And that's why I'm here.
• 4:57
  Michele DeFilippo: So the bottom line is in many cases, the publishing company is making more for every copy sold than the author is.
• 5:03
  Michele DeFilippo: And that's just not right.
• 5:05
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 5:05
  Tom Jackobs: Especially the intellectual capacity to actually put together a book and get it shaped the way that, it takes a lot of time I don't know, my book it's only a hundred pages and it took eight months of just pre publishing to get it to at a point where I want to publish it.
• 5:21
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah, and your book is great.
• 5:23
  Michele DeFilippo: I love the compact way you provide your information in chapter by chapter.
• 5:28
  Michele DeFilippo: And I think that's a perfect size book for today's marketplace.
• 5:31
  Michele DeFilippo: Not too many people have the patience to read a long book anymore.
• 5:35
  Michele DeFilippo: Um, but yes, it is a lot of work and even the authors who come to us, we know that they've worked months or years to produce that manuscript.
• 5:44
  Michele DeFilippo: I'm working for an author right now who has written a 500 page poetry book, and on it for 40 years.
• 5:51
  Michele DeFilippo: yes, I know, I know authors put their heart and soul into a book.
• 5:55
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:56
  Tom Jackobs: So why did you go down this route of basically you're basically a consultant to authors to get it self published?
• 6:03
  Tom Jackobs: Is that characteristic?
• 6:05
  Michele DeFilippo: Not just the consultants, where you could think of us as project managers.
• 6:09
  Michele DeFilippo: I have the team in place.
• 6:11
  Michele DeFilippo: That can deliver all the services that are needed, editing, design, and so forth.
• 6:15
  Michele DeFilippo: And then we show the author how to open up their own print on demand accounts, and then at the end of the job, we upload the files we've created to the author's own print on demand accounts and in that way, they get all the sales reports.
• 6:31
  Michele DeFilippo: They get all the revenue to their bank account.
• 6:33
  Michele DeFilippo: We don't take a penny of it.
• 6:35
  Michele DeFilippo: So they're in charge.
• 6:36
  Michele DeFilippo: They remain in charge.
• 6:38
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's awesome.
• 6:39
  Tom Jackobs: So why did you go down that route versus the traditional publishing?
• 6:43
  Michele DeFilippo: I, my first job was at Crown Publishing in New York City in 1972.
• 6:48
  Michele DeFilippo: So I actually did start in traditional publishing, then my husband and I got the bright idea to move to Phoenix, where I found out I couldn't make more than minimum wage.
• 6:57
  Michele DeFilippo: Um, and So that's how I wound up opening my first business, which was a typesetting business.
• 7:03
  Michele DeFilippo: And that lasted for 13 years until Steve Jobs put every typesetting business in the world out of business.
• 7:09
  Tom Jackobs: Back when you were doing it, was it the pressing type setting or like on machines that you were doing?
• 7:15
  Michele DeFilippo: When I opened my business, computerized typesetting was first coming into being, but the machines were as big as a refrigerator and cost 35, 000 dollars which was as much as a house at that time.
• 7:26
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 7:27
  Tom Jackobs: Oh
• 7:28
  Michele DeFilippo: But that, that lasted for 13 years and it, that was great.
• 7:31
  Michele DeFilippo: We did magazines, we did books, we did car ads, we did annual reports for corporations.
• 7:38
  Michele DeFilippo: It was a blast.
• 7:39
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's really cool.
• 7:39
  Tom Jackobs: And then what transferred you into what you're doing now?
• 7:43
  Michele DeFilippo: Like I said, Steve Jobs put us out of business, so I went back to freelancing for a while.
• 7:49
  Michele DeFilippo: and then about four or five years after that is when indie publishing came into being.
• 7:53
  Michele DeFilippo: And I recognized that.
• 7:55
  Michele DeFilippo: Gosh, I know how to type.
• 7:56
  Michele DeFilippo: I know how to design.
• 7:57
  Michele DeFilippo: I can start taking advantage of this.
• 7:59
  Michele DeFilippo: And so I opened 1106 design.
• 8:02
  Tom Jackobs: And how did the name come about?
• 8:04
  Michele DeFilippo: By that time, that was 2001.
• 8:06
  Michele DeFilippo: There were no domain names left for graphics companies.
• 8:09
  Michele DeFilippo: So I used my birthday.
• 8:11
  Tom Jackobs: That's great.
• 8:12
  Tom Jackobs: That's a new way of finding a name And then you do the secretary of state named search, that name is registered.
• 8:20
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's funny.
• 8:21
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 8:22
  Tom Jackobs: How things have changed.
• 8:23
  Michele DeFilippo: It had an unintended consequence of listing me first in every database.
• 8:27
  Michele DeFilippo: I didn't know that was going to happen.
• 8:29
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, that's great.
• 8:31
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's awesome.
• 8:32
  Tom Jackobs: So what was the difference?
• 8:34
  Tom Jackobs: Let's go back to your typesetting business.
• 8:36
  Tom Jackobs: Would you consider that a heart-led business that you started?
• 8:40
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah, I can't say that I ever had one inspirational moment where I decided to run a heart-led business.
• 8:46
  Michele DeFilippo: I was just raised that way, that you should do the right thing.
• 8:49
  Michele DeFilippo: And that was also backed up in school, I went to Catholic school.
• 8:53
  Michele DeFilippo: So it was just natural to me that you're supposed to do the right thing.
• 8:58
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's great.
• 8:58
  Tom Jackobs: So even when, like, when you first had the job at Crown Publishing, what was that like versus now what you're doing in terms of the heart-led, working for a corporation versus working for yourself?
• 9:11
  Michele DeFilippo: only a crown for about a year and a half or so.
• 9:13
  Michele DeFilippo: And that was they were just a baby company then they were just getting started.
• 9:17
  Michele DeFilippo: So they weren't too well organized.
• 9:20
  Michele DeFilippo: But I think I realized even then that a corporation was not going to be the route for me because.
• 9:26
  Michele DeFilippo: It was just big and nobody really had anything to say about how things were operating.
• 9:30
  Michele DeFilippo: You just had to listen to whatever your immediate supervisor told you to do.
• 9:36
  Michele DeFilippo: So that was frustrating.
• 9:38
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 9:38
  Tom Jackobs: I can imagine.
• 9:40
  Tom Jackobs: And so now with your own businesses obviously there's been ups and downs with business that just is business in general.
• 9:46
  Tom Jackobs: So have there been moments where you're like, gosh, I want to do right by the customer, but I need to pay my bills.
• 9:52
  Tom Jackobs: And then what was the thought process that may have gone through your mind?
• 9:56
  Michele DeFilippo: Of course, every business has good times and slower times, but again, just because of my upbringing, I never cheat the customer and do less than we should.
• 10:05
  Michele DeFilippo: Sometimes that means in a down economy that I don't get the job because customers are looking for lower prices, but I will never cut corners and put out a bad book for anybody.
• 10:16
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, that's great.
• 10:17
  Tom Jackobs: And.
• 10:19
  Tom Jackobs: Even if so you were keeping your prices away that you were feeling good about the prices when in a down economy, and it was okay to lose a customer because on price for you.
• 10:30
  Michele DeFilippo: Creating a good book takes a lot of hours and I paid people who are talented and experienced and can do that.
• 10:35
  Michele DeFilippo: none of us want to do less than we're capable of doing.
• 10:40
  Michele DeFilippo: So sometimes, like maybe in the last year or two you get less business because you're not the cheapest.
• 10:46
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 10:46
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 10:47
  Tom Jackobs: But you're not willing, doesn't now he's, or sometimes means lesser than.
• 10:52
  Michele DeFilippo: lesser quality.
• 10:53
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah, I can't do that.
• 10:55
  Tom Jackobs: That's good because a lot of heart-led businesses that I speak to, they will still do the same amount of work, but then discount their business just to get the business.
• 11:04
  Michele DeFilippo: That, that's hard for me.
• 11:05
  Michele DeFilippo: We, I, I hire good people, so I don't have big margins.
• 11:10
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 11:10
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 11:11
  Michele DeFilippo: And I'm not gonna tell them I can't pay them what they're worth.
• 11:14
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 11:14
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 11:14
  Tom Jackobs: No, that makes sense.
• 11:16
  Michele DeFilippo: that's not being a very good businesswoman.
• 11:18
  Tom Jackobs: Actually it's been a very good business one because you're keeping your margins because that at the end of the day, it's only the margins that really matter.
• 11:25
  Michele DeFilippo: That's right.
• 11:26
  Tom Jackobs: And I had to learn that the hard way I was chasing after the gross revenue and the net revenue kept shrinking as I was approaching, a million dollars a year.
• 11:36
  Tom Jackobs: And like, why is this happening?
• 11:38
  Tom Jackobs: Like, why am I making this much money and nothing's left over at the end of the month?
• 11:42
  Michele DeFilippo: That's I did experience that the typesetting business.
• 11:44
  Michele DeFilippo: I couldn't believe that people would want to use a Macintosh for their typesetting.
• 11:48
  Michele DeFilippo: and so the typesetting business declined steadily, but I wasn't really watching enough until it got critical.
• 11:55
  Michele DeFilippo: And it's like, why is there no money in the checking account?
• 11:58
  Tom Jackobs: Oh,
• 11:58
  Michele DeFilippo: And then, and then of course I had to make the decision to close it.
• 12:01
  Tom Jackobs: What was that decision?
• 12:02
  Michele DeFilippo: Terrible.
• 12:03
  Michele DeFilippo: it was even worse when I had to take apart the typesetting machine and throw it in the dumpster because I was leasing it and the industry was dying.
• 12:13
  Michele DeFilippo: The leasing company didn't even want it back.
• 12:16
  Tom Jackobs: what are we going to do with it?
• 12:17
  Michele DeFilippo: there was no market for it.
• 12:19
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 12:20
  Michele DeFilippo: so that was interesting.
• 12:21
  Tom Jackobs: How long of a process was that for you to recognize that the business needed to close it ultimately closing?
• 12:29
  Michele DeFilippo: it was years, right?
• 12:30
  Michele DeFilippo: Because it's so easy to deny what's happening and oh it'll pick up.
• 12:34
  Michele DeFilippo: it's got to pick up.
• 12:35
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 12:35
  Michele DeFilippo: And then one by one, I would call customers that I hadn't heard from in a while.
• 12:39
  Michele DeFilippo: And I would say, how have you been?
• 12:41
  Michele DeFilippo: And they would say, I bought a Macintosh, so we won't be back.
• 12:45
  Tom Jackobs: Boy, it's so much easier now with this Mac.
• 12:47
  Tom Jackobs: I can do it myself.
• 12:49
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah.
• 12:49
  Michele DeFilippo: And yeah the savings for them were, significant, right?
• 12:52
  Michele DeFilippo: In those days, we used to pay 125 to buy one font
• 12:58
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, wow.
• 12:59
  Michele DeFilippo: it was all to the company.
• 13:02
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah.
• 13:02
  Michele DeFilippo: So we had a lot of expenses.
• 13:04
  Tom Jackobs: yeah, that's crazy.
• 13:07
  Tom Jackobs: Cool.
• 13:07
  Tom Jackobs: So let's shift to the business side of running a heart-led business.
• 13:11
  Tom Jackobs: Cause a lot of heart-led business owners that are listening to the show, they struggle with Being okay with making a profit and being heartled at the same time.
• 13:21
  Tom Jackobs: And like I said earlier, a lot of them like to give away their stuff.
• 13:24
  Tom Jackobs: What words of advice would you give to some burgeoning heart-led business owners out there?
• 13:30
  Michele DeFilippo: I would say that being heart-led is great.
• 13:33
  Michele DeFilippo: it's.
• 13:34
  Michele DeFilippo: a beautiful value, right?
• 13:35
  Michele DeFilippo: But you also have a responsibility to stay in business, to support yourself and your family.
• 13:41
  Michele DeFilippo: And if you price your product or service accordingly, then you will have extra money to donate to other heart-led businesses that you want to support.
• 13:49
  Michele DeFilippo: Don't cut off that process, because it really is a circle that you can complete by earning a good living.
• 13:56
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 13:56
  Tom Jackobs: And that's a great message to remind people of as well, is that the more you make, the more you can give as well.
• 14:03
  Michele DeFilippo: the more people you can serve, because if you're not there, you can't serve anybody.
• 14:07
  Tom Jackobs: yeah, I think that's probably the most important message too, is, as the flight attendants tell us, put our oxygen mask on first before.
• 14:14
  Tom Jackobs: Helping others and we can't help people.
• 14:17
  Tom Jackobs: Now, what kind of like really cool surprises have come up from being a heart-led business?
• 14:22
  Michele DeFilippo: we get lots of kudos from authors and I love that that just makes our day, to, for somebody to recognize that they were treated right and that they got a good book at the end of the process, that's always gratifying.
• 14:34
  Michele DeFilippo: And as it would be for any heart-led business, I think, because sometimes You're not sure that it's recognized and you're not sure if you're just being someone who's naive and idealistic.
• 14:44
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah.
• 14:45
  Michele DeFilippo: So the recognition is nice.
• 14:47
  Tom Jackobs: that's great.
• 14:48
  Tom Jackobs: And have you ever noticed like what happens to the books after you've helped the author?
• 14:53
  Tom Jackobs: Do you keep track of their bestsellers or like what goes on after the fact?
• 14:58
  Michele DeFilippo: No, I will say that this whole bestseller thing has become a scam that people are beginning to catch on to.
• 15:05
  Michele DeFilippo: Uh, it's usually someone who's tricking Amazon's computer.
• 15:09
  Michele DeFilippo: To put up a bestseller swatch when it's not really true.
• 15:12
  Michele DeFilippo: It's a bestseller for 45 minutes or and that's it.
• 15:15
  Michele DeFilippo: What was the question again?
• 15:17
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 15:17
  Tom Jackobs: If you keep track of your authors after they've published a book and see how their book does in
• 15:23
  Michele DeFilippo: No, only indirectly because we don't participate in their revenue.
• 15:27
  Michele DeFilippo: I have no idea.
• 15:29
  Michele DeFilippo: really, whether they're selling the books well or not.
• 15:31
  Michele DeFilippo: But I can tell you that people come back and they do another book.
• 15:34
  Michele DeFilippo: So that's indirect evidence that it must have worked well enough for them to do it again.
• 15:39
  Michele DeFilippo: And we get tons of referrals from people.
• 15:41
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, yeah.
• 15:42
  Tom Jackobs: That's always the best way of determining customer satisfaction as well.
• 15:47
  Tom Jackobs: Do you have any one author that kind of stands out as somebody that, was.
• 15:52
  Tom Jackobs: Really a joy to work with, but the book was great, and it was just a good partnership between you and your client.
• 15:57
  Michele DeFilippo: Oh, so many.
• 15:58
  Michele DeFilippo: We worked for a retired attorney here in Phoenix who wrote five Western novels
• 16:04
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, wow.
• 16:05
  Tom Jackobs: Really?
• 16:06
  Michele DeFilippo: yeah, and he was great to work with every step of the way.
• 16:09
  Michele DeFilippo: We worked for a dentist, did basically a dental textbook with 150 charts and graphs.
• 16:16
  Michele DeFilippo: It was his life's work that he wanted to.
• 16:19
  Michele DeFilippo: get out there and put in tangible form.
• 16:21
  Michele DeFilippo: We just finished a book about Winston Churchill, 850 pages and thousands of footnotes.
• 16:27
  Tom Jackobs: my gosh.
• 16:28
  Michele DeFilippo: So yeah, and all of, I really don't have trouble with authors for the most part.
• 16:33
  Michele DeFilippo: The serious authors are usually business people and professionals themselves who understand that professional help is necessary, and there's that civility, that back and forth civility, which is important.
• 16:48
  Tom Jackobs: So what does that process look like from when you get involved in the book process?
• 16:54
  Michele DeFilippo: We will get involved when the author has a completed manuscript that they think is done to the best of their ability.
• 17:01
  Michele DeFilippo: And we'll start with an editorial evaluation to determine what level of editing it might need.
• 17:07
  Michele DeFilippo: Then we'll move on to editing and cover design.
• 17:10
  Michele DeFilippo: Then we'll do interior page design and typesetting, which is another being forgotten now.
• 17:16
  Michele DeFilippo: When a major publisher produces a book, they design the pages first and then they typeset the pages.
• 17:21
  Michele DeFilippo: And it's a complicated process.
• 17:24
  Michele DeFilippo: It's not what you hear now online where you should format your book word and just throw it together.
• 17:29
  Michele DeFilippo: that's not how a real book is done.
• 17:31
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 17:31
  Tom Jackobs: I had to hire a designer to do the interior.
• 17:34
  Tom Jackobs: I was like, why?
• 17:34
  Tom Jackobs: I don't know.
• 17:35
  Tom Jackobs: I guess that makes sense.
• 17:37
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah.
• 17:37
  Michele DeFilippo: There's more to it than people think, but the reason for it, it's not just to spend money frivolously.
• 17:42
  Michele DeFilippo: It's because a well typeset book, people.
• 17:46
  Michele DeFilippo: access the information, they comprehend the information better because they're not distracted by poor spacing or poor line breaks or a hundred other things that typesetters think about.
• 17:58
  Tom Jackobs: Oh yeah.
• 17:59
  Michele DeFilippo: So then after that's done, we'll proofread to make sure we catch everything that everybody missed along the way.
• 18:05
  Michele DeFilippo: And there's always things to find.
• 18:07
  Tom Jackobs: How many different people do the proofreading?
• 18:10
  Michele DeFilippo: Just one after layout but the editor has also worked on the book before layout, and the author presumably has proofread many times.
• 18:17
  Michele DeFilippo: There's no such thing as too much proofreading.
• 18:20
  Michele DeFilippo: There's a joke in the publishing industry that when you open the first copy of your book, it will automatically open to the page with the typo.
• 18:28
  Tom Jackobs: Yes, exactly.
• 18:29
  Tom Jackobs: It did.
• 18:30
  Michele DeFilippo: It just happens.
• 18:31
  Michele DeFilippo: You can't be helped.
• 18:32
  Michele DeFilippo: But the great thing about print on demand now is you can just correct it and upload a new file.
• 18:36
  Tom Jackobs: Exactly.
• 18:37
  Tom Jackobs: I did have to do that.
• 18:40
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah, it's not uncommon because everybody's human.
• 18:43
  Michele DeFilippo: So after the proofreading and several, usually several rounds of revisions, we'll make the ebook and then we'll upload all of the files to two accounts for our clients, kdp.
• 18:54
  Michele DeFilippo: com and ingramspark.
• 18:56
  Michele DeFilippo: com.
• 18:57
  Michele DeFilippo: And by using those two platforms together, you can get the widest distribution at the lowest cost and make the most money.
• 19:04
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, okay.
• 19:05
  Tom Jackobs: So it's Ingram press.
• 19:08
  Michele DeFilippo: Ingram is the largest book wholesaler in the world, and they've been in business for a hundred years.
• 19:14
  Michele DeFilippo: And then they probably 15 years ago, 20 years ago, they opened up a print on demand division.
• 19:21
  Michele DeFilippo: And so they, Ingram will feed Books a million Barnes and Noble, libraries, other retailers and other distributors.
• 19:31
  Michele DeFilippo: That's about 20 percent of the market.
• 19:34
  Michele DeFilippo: Kdp.
• 19:34
  Michele DeFilippo: com is owned by Amazon.
• 19:36
  Michele DeFilippo: It's their print on demand division and they will feed all of the Amazon channels worldwide.
• 19:42
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 19:42
  Tom Jackobs: And that's 80%.
• 19:44
  Michele DeFilippo: That's 80%.
• 19:45
  Michele DeFilippo: 80 percent of books are sold on Amazon now.
• 19:48
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's crazy.
• 19:49
  Michele DeFilippo: Oh, I forgot to say Ingram also feeds the physical bookstores.
• 19:53
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 19:53
  Tom Jackobs: Oh yeah.
• 19:54
  Tom Jackobs: Both of them left.
• 19:56
  Tom Jackobs: That's so sad.
• 19:58
  Tom Jackobs: Do you ever get involved in the Audible creation?
• 20:01
  Michele DeFilippo: yes, we do audiobooks for authors who want them, and those are selling like hot kicks.
• 20:08
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 20:08
  Tom Jackobs: I've noticed I did an audio version of mine as well, and those sales are doing much better than the print version and
• 20:15
  Michele DeFilippo: Yeah,
• 20:15
  Tom Jackobs: version too.
• 20:16
  Michele DeFilippo: I love audiobooks even though I typeset print books, but I like them because I'm looking at a screen all day, and it's just nice to kick back and close my eyes and listen.
• 20:25
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:26
  Tom Jackobs: And you can be doing other things at the same time.
• 20:30
  Tom Jackobs: Now my book is like an hour and 30 minutes, maybe at 1.
• 20:35
  Tom Jackobs: 5.
• 20:35
  Tom Jackobs: So it's like really easy to just go through a workout or something like that and listen, a good short book.
• 20:41
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 20:42
  Tom Jackobs: Cool.
• 20:43
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 20:43
  Tom Jackobs: That's interesting.
• 20:44
  Tom Jackobs: Just the whole process.
• 20:46
  Tom Jackobs: And I like how you broke that down.
• 20:47
  Tom Jackobs: And cause I think a lot of authors don't really understand how much different things that they have to think about after writing the book.
• 20:56
  Michele DeFilippo: yes.
• 20:57
  Michele DeFilippo: And that's where we come in, because we can facilitate that whole process for them.
• 21:01
  Michele DeFilippo: They don't have to hire seven freelancers and, wonder whether the person's going to actually complete the job.
• 21:07
  Michele DeFilippo: We get calls every week from authors who say, my designer disappeared, or they gave me files that won't upload.
• 21:14
  Michele DeFilippo: There's a lot of pitfalls out there.
• 21:16
  Michele DeFilippo: Can be avoided if you hire the right people.
• 21:19
  Tom Jackobs: exactly.
• 21:19
  Tom Jackobs: You get what you pay for.
• 21:21
  Tom Jackobs: But cool.
• 21:21
  Tom Jackobs: Michelle, how can people learn a little bit more about you and your company?
• 21:25
  Michele DeFilippo: My website is 1106design.
• 21:27
  Michele DeFilippo: com and people can go there.
• 21:29
  Michele DeFilippo: I post all of my prices online.
• 21:31
  Michele DeFilippo: I believe in complete transparency in that regard.
• 21:34
  Michele DeFilippo: I have blog posts.
• 21:36
  Michele DeFilippo: I have design samples.
• 21:39
  Michele DeFilippo: You can click a button to request a consultation or you can use the little chat bot, uh, that's there.
• 21:46
  Michele DeFilippo: And I promise you that the way we work here is we will have a respectful conversation with you.
• 21:51
  Michele DeFilippo: If you want a consultation, I won't start sending you five emails a day to pressure you to do the next step.
• 21:58
  Michele DeFilippo: I just don't believe in doing business that way.
• 22:01
  Michele DeFilippo: If it's a good fit, we'll work together.
• 22:02
  Michele DeFilippo: And if it's not, we will wish you the best.
• 22:05
  Michele DeFilippo: And if you go to my website, you can download my free book called Published Like the Prose.
• 22:11
  Tom Jackobs: Yes.
• 22:11
  Michele DeFilippo: in PDF form, mine's only 88 pages, but it's a quick read.
• 22:15
  Michele DeFilippo: It will educate you on the steps to independently publishing the way it should be so you stay in control.
• 22:21
  Michele DeFilippo: And it'll even have the calculation in there so that you can figure out how much money you should be making every time you sell a book.
• 22:28
  Michele DeFilippo: And that way you can verify for yourself whether some publishing company is treating you right.
• 22:34
  Tom Jackobs: Cool.
• 22:35
  Tom Jackobs: Michelle, this was just a fascinating conversation today, and I'd love to pick your brain for hours, but we only have the 30 minutes for the show.
• 22:45
  Tom Jackobs: So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and sharing your heart-led business with our listeners.
• 22:50
  Michele DeFilippo: Thank you, Tom.
• 22:51
  Michele DeFilippo: heart-led businesses are the way to go.
• 22:53
  Tom Jackobs: They certainly are.
• 22:55
  Tom Jackobs: And thank you listeners for checking out the show today or watching the show, if you're on YouTube, I certainly do appreciate it.
• 23:02
  Tom Jackobs: I know Michelle appreciates it as well.
• 23:05
  Tom Jackobs: And everything that Michelle is doing, we've linked up into the show notes as well, so it'll be just easy to click on there and go to her website and definitely download that PDF that, I wish I would have had when I was writing my book it probably would have saved me hours of time Until next time, lead with your heart.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to the heart-led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.