6 Reasons You Should Write a Book (and a Few Reasons Not To)

                        

  

Writing a book is on many people’s bucket lists, but the complicated process of getting published usually deters people from ever achieving that dream. For people seeking a more streamlined alternative, self-publishing offers a promising way to get your words out there.

In this episode, self-published author Julie Broad talks about what it’s like publishing a book without the help of an agent. As the founder of self-publishing consultants Book Launchers, Julie leans on the experiences of her clients and details exactly what it takes to find success without an agent. Julie also gives six reasons why book writing is a lucrative idea and discusses how the self-publishing route can be an even better idea than going with legacy publishers.

Here’s a transcript of our interview:

 Jonathan: Well, happy holidays, everybody and welcome to the Write About Now Podcast. I hope you are having a wonderful time with your family and friends and pets and all the other people you might celebrate the holidays with. I hope you will consider this episode a gift to you, my gift to you for being such wonderful listeners over the years. I’m going to talk about a topic that I get a lot of questions about. And it all boils down to this: should you write a book. And we’re not talking about a novel here. That’s a whole different set of questions and a whole different podcast. We’re talking about non-fiction books here today. Be them memoirs or travel guides are academic texts, how-to, self-help books, guides, journalistic endeavors. And I have my own views on this topic. But I wanted to get a real expert on to talk you through the process of writing a non-fiction book and the questions you should ask yourself before you click that pen to paper because we all know that you write books on notepads.

My guest today is Julie Broad. And Julie is the founder of a self-publishing service, which is called Book Launchers. And that company helps non-fiction authors write and market books, from ideas all the way through to sales, sell our expertise a little bit better. And I totally agree with that. So, she’s very wisely targeted that market, but she doesn’t exclusively talk to podcasters. In fact, she has a huge array of clients, which include accountants and lawyers and business owners, and people just like you. So, on the podcast, she lays out six reasons that you should consider writing a book. And she also offers some reasons why you shouldn’t write a book. You know, not everybody should write a book. So, we have a very informative conversation here.

We talk about the pros, and the cons of self-publishing, versus working with a traditional publisher. We talk about whether you should publish an actual book-book like a tangible book you can hold your hand versus an ebook. We talk about how to come up with topics for your non-fiction book, we talk about the money behind writing a book, like how much money really is there in getting a book published. And we talk about the marketing you’ll have to do to get the message out there that you have a book, and that people should really buy it. So, there is lots to unwrap here. Consider it like a little gift under your tree or your menorah. And you just rip it open and there is hopefully something quite satisfying inside. So, without further ado, I bring you Julie Broad. Julie Broad, welcome to the Write About Now podcast.

Julie: Thank you.

Jonathan: So, great to see you again. And I’m really excited to talk to you about this topic. This is one that I think a lot of our listeners think about, it’s something that I think about a lot and that is: should you write a book? Do you have a book in you and sort of questions to ask yourself about whether you should write a book and then once you write that book, kind of what that is going to look like. But first, before we even get into all that, I want to get a little background on you. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you kind of got into this business and what you do?

Julie: Yeah, for sure. So, right now I am the founder of Book Launchers, which is a professional self-publishing services company. So, essentially, we act as a traditional publisher, but you’re actually the publisher. We just do -- We’re the service team behind you and you keep all rights and royalties. But I used to be a real estate investor and I had a real estate training and education company. And I still do have a real estate investment business. And that’s actually what led me to books. So, it’s always a funny story. People are like but your real estate. I know.

I wrote and self-published my very first book on real estate after I was rejected by publishers. The one rejection was quite strong, because Wiley, one of the major publishing houses, had essentially approached me. I had told them I had a book idea. They didn’t like that idea. But they said we like you and here’s an idea. And we built a proposal together. So, it’s very unusual. Like this is not normal. Normally, you go through an agent, you write a book proposal, and then you get shopped around. So, it was, I just assumed I was getting a book deal. And we worked on this proposal back and forth for three months. I hired people to help me with it. And they ended up saying the marketing department doesn’t think you have a strong enough platform to sell books. So, first my ideas sucked and now I suck.

So, it was a pretty devastating thing but once kind of recovered, which took months. I mean, totally honest. But I kind of went, you know what, I still really want to write a book and I also really believed in my original idea. So, I dove into self-publishing. And I learned everything I could about publishing and marketing a book. And I took that book to number one on Amazon ahead of Dan Brown, ahead of Game of Thrones.

Jonathan: What??

Julie: Yeah, number one in print books.

Jonathan: What was the name of the book?

Julie: More Than Cashflow, and it was in Canada, so slightly easier to be number one, but still not insignificant?

Jonathan: Yeah, I’ll take it.

Julie: And it opened the door and my mind to the world of self-publishing and writing a book and the power of writing a book for people in business and people building a brand and wanting to speak and all those things. So, it wasn’t a straight transition from that moment into running Book Launchers. But all of that moment really started to create the little things that happened along the next couple of years, which eventually made me go there needs to be a company that does this to help people, and that’s kind of the evolution and origin of Book Launchers.

Jonathan: So, you work with authors that are interested in getting books out there, self-publishing specifically, not writing books, and then trying to get them published by the major publishing companies. Is it almost 100% non-fiction books?

Julie: is 100% non-fiction. We work exclusively with business, memoir, self-help health kind of related. If you’re a subject matter expert, and you want to write about that subject, that’s kind of a good litmus test of whether you’re a good fit for working with us.

Jonathan: Great. And tell me how it works. Like if somebody is interested in writing a book, and they find you, what’s the process?

Julie: Yeah. First, it is kind of an application process just to really make sure that we’re a good fit. So, you fill out a form and then somebody on my team or myself has a call with you, and really discusses your book goals, make sure you have a clear audience. If you think your book is for everyone, we have a marketing problem, because everyone is really hard to market to. You might think you’re leaving your book open to opportunity, but you’re actually making it buried in the pile of millions of books. One of the early conversations is really just making sure that we’re going to have a marketable book at the end of this. If we agree to work together, then the decision is do you want help with the writing? Or do you want to be coached through the writing?

And so we’ll put you with a story expert in the beginning to make sure we’ve got a strong hook for your book, which is kind of the through line, the backbone of the book, the audience has a clear outcome from the outcome, not just a leadership book. It’s like, what is your particular brand of leader and what is it going to do when this reader becomes a better leader. So, that’s the kind of strength we need to have a marketing backbone to the book. And so we create a writing plan. And then once we have a writing plan, we can either pair you with a writer who will assist you through the writing, or we can pair you with a writing coach who will coach you through writing the book.

And then once we have a first draft, it goes to three different editors. We have the developmental editor, which is the higher-level look at your book. And then we go to the copy editor, which is your sentence structure, word choice grammar, then a proofreader who is looking for consistency, and commas and em dashes and all these little formatting things I didn’t even know existed before I started the company. Along the way, we start marketing process around your social media, your platform. We do market research around keywords, categories, competition, and pricing. And there’s a lot that goes into it before we’ve even put a cover on this thing. Yeah,

Jonathan: Well, I want to get into that whole process. But let’s say you’re listening to this, and you’re not sure whether you should write a book. I mean, you knew you want to write a book, right?

Julie: Yeah.

Jonathan: Why would anyone in their right mind want to write a book? I mean, it sounds fun. But let’s face it, it actually isn’t that fun to write a book. I don’t know too many people who have written books are like, I loved every minute of it. Like it’s really hard. Why would one want to write a book, a non-fiction book? We’re not talking about a novel here. That’s for another episode.

Julie: Yeah, it’s kind of like running a marathon. Like you kind of feel like why would anybody want to run a marathon. And it’s like that sense of achievement, and the high that you get when it’s done, books are a little bit the same way. Like there’s a lot that goes into it, a lot of similar timelines. But there are tremendous, long-lasting benefits. I think, unlike a marathon where you’re just sore the next day, your book will help you for years and years. One of the very first things is credibility. And I mean, it’s kind of obvious, but I think some people don’t even realize the power of a book. If you look around in your industry, everybody has the same credentials, almost everybody has the same credentials, right? Everybody has the same degree, just different years of experience.

A book is the thing that differentiates you. Your book is about a specific subject in your industry. Now you’re the person who wrote the book on that. And then in speaking opportunities, a lot of the speaking forums -- I mean, we submit our clients to have speaking opportunities, and it says on there, what books have you written? It doesn’t say, have you written a book. Like it is a pre -- Yeah, it’s like, they expect that you’ve written a book. And it also really solidifies your expertise in the minds of other people. So, that credibility, it’s really -- I always tell people, when you see somebody on the news, they don’t ever put on there -- I mean, they do if you have nothing else. But usually, it’s author of, right? They’ll put your degrees, they’ll put [inaudible 00:10:02] it’s author of X book. Book. So, it’s a socially accepted, yeah, standard

Jonathan: It is. And I mean, look at this show, like, I don’t have people on this show that have generally haven’t written a book. You know, I think a lot of podcasts even when I’m asking when people are pitching themselves to me like it’s usually, and of course, I’m called Write About Now. So, it would probably be helpful if you had written -- you’ve written something. But I mean, I have had people who haven’t written books. But I think that the point is that it gives you, yes, it sort of puts you in a different level. But I think that’s a question you have to ask yourself is like, do you want credibility just for your ego? Or is there kind of a professional reason? Or maybe it’s okay to just have credibility for ego? Maybe it’s just a vanity project? I don’t know if that works. So, is that a question that you should ask yourself before you even decide you want to write a book? Like, what kind of credibility am I really looking for? Like, where is that credibility going to get?

Julie: Yeah, I think you want to look at your goals, like what do you want this book to do for you when you’re done? And it’s one thing I always challenge people, you know, when thinking about people who want to write the book, somebody who says I just want to be a best seller. That’s all they care about is just being a best seller. If you define best sellers and Amazon best seller, it’s super easy to be a best seller. It’ll do nothing. It’ll sell almost no books. My situation where I was number one in print books was incredibly rare. So, many things happened that just, in some ways, lucky, and you know, some hard work and great network, but it’s not an easy thing to do. But number one in a category, it actually only usually takes like 20 to 30 sales in an hour or --

Jonathan: Right, because there’s a lot of categories too.

Julie: There’s so many categories, and it’s updated hourly. So, it’s really a game for people who focus on it. So, I usually say like, what do you think best seller is going to do for you, and kind of understand what you think that best seller is going to do. And then that really tells me if it’s a good fit for you to do a book, at least with us, because you’re going to invest a lot of energy, some decent financial resources into creating a high, high-quality book with us. And that ego play, most people are going to tire out before they get to the end because it’s a little shallow, right? If you’re just doing this to feel good about yourself, most people won’t get to the finish line with that being their primary objective.

Jonathan: Okay. So, credibility, a legitimate and good reason to write a book. Vanity project, not so much. I think a lot of people say it’s a bucket list thing. I hear that a lot. And that could be fine. I mean it’s your money. But again, you should go into it with clear eyes. Right?

Julie: Yeah. And I think even if it’s a bucket list, you want to expand it. Like we have one project right now, where the author has no intention of ever publishing his book. But he has complete clarity as to why he’s writing this book. He’s writing it for his family. And there’s very specific stories from his parents that he wants passed down from generation to generation, and he just feels like this needs to be put into a book. It’s actually an incredibly marketable book. So, I would love him to publish it, because I think it would help people. But he’s gone into it really with, like, complete clarity as to why he’s doing it. And it’s beyond himself, right? He’s telling his story, and he’s definitely doing it for a bit of legacy for himself. But it’s like this is for my children and their children.

And it’s clarity. And I think having that clarity, and having a reason beyond just yourself does help with the motivation piece. I mean legacy, that’s another good reason to write a book in that a lot of people feel better after it’s down on paper. And I had two different authors tell me, they’re not afraid of dying now. And it sounds funny, but at the same time, it’s like you’re leaving some of your story, your expertise behind for the people that you care about. And maybe they’re too young or don’t appreciate it right now. But when you’re gone, they have that, you know they have it. And so that legacy piece is real.

It’s also an asset that you’re leaving behind. And that kind of dovetails with the financial reason. But a lot of people don’t think of books as an asset, but it is the content of the book is an intellectual property asset. And so that gets passed on so your children could essentially republish, or do series based on your concept. You’ve seen this with some of the bigger names authors that have done this. I mean, Dr. Seuss is one of my favorite examples, partly because I have a four-year-old so we read a lot of Dr. Seuss. But he’s been gone for decades and there’s new Dr. Seuss books every year. So, it is -- the legacy piece is real. So, it can be really important for some people to have that thing that’s being left behind.

JonathanWhat are some other reasons that someone might want to write a book?

Julie: Money, financial and book sales. Yeah, book sales. There’s definitely money there. I mean, I enjoyed a pretty nice year, a couple years actually, after my first book came out because it was not passive income by any stretch, but there were months where I wasn’t promoting the book actively. And there was still a 5,000, 6,000, $7,000 check rolling in.

Jonathan: Is that like, every month? I mean, not to be too personal about your own finances, but in general, if somebody has a hit book …

Julie: No, no. I mean that year, the first pay was the biggest because they take a 60-day period and then pay you. So, the first one, I don’t remember how big it was, but it was nice. It was a five-figure one. And then after that for the kind of the six months after, they were all like more than $5,000. And then it started to drop from there.

Jonathan: That is nice.

Julie: But here we are, that was in 2013, and I’m still getting 300 to $500 a month from that book. And I’ve been out of real estate for years.

Jonathan: A gift that keeps on giving.

Julie: So, it still sells. It does. The other books, like I’ve written a second book on branding in the middle, it doesn’t sell. It was one of those books that I didn’t --As it came out, I actually switched in and launched Book Launchers. So, that was one of those books that I did almost nothing for, and [crosstalk] I gave it nothing, so it gave me almost nothing.

Jonathan: What do you think it was about that book that you wrote that has made it so successful? Like is it just -- it would be interesting to dive into what it was. Give me the name of the book again?

Julie: Yeah, it was called More Than Cashflow. And so I think there was a couple things. And so it was really written for Canadian real estate investors. So, one of the things was as a Canadian, most of the real estate content was from the US. And then we had to adapt it to our market. So, writing something specifically for the Canadian market, there was a couple of other authors out there who had done it, but there weren’t very many books. The other thing was the majority of content in the real estate space then was get rich. So, here’s how you get to be, you know, a multi-millionaire, here’s your yacht, here’s your Ferrari. Like, it was that kind of a concept. And my book came out and said, like real estate is pretty tough, you might not want to do it, here’s why it sucks sometimes. And the subtitle was the real risks and rewards of profitable real estate investing.

And I talked about, we had a property that got turned into a crack house by the property manager. We couldn’t sell it, it had been in the paper as a crack house. We got fined for fire code violations. We had another, in a different property, we had a property manager that robbed money from us. We had tenants pulling knives on each other. So, we had some really wild stories that I wanted people to know because they were preventable. It was decisions that we made that led to these situations even though they weren’t our fault, per se. It was choices. And so I talked a lot about that, which was very different at the time, nobody was telling people like, hey, you might not want to buy this.

And if you do, you might not want to buy that property. And what really drove the success was realtors and mortgage brokers loved the book. Because for the first time, they had a book that they could recommend to their clients that was going to be practical and give them strategies they could work with. Because all those get rich quick courses are just a nightmare for realtors and mortgage brokers because those are all strategies that are just horrible for them to execute on.

Jonathan: When we’re talking about making money, how many books do you really have to sell before you start seeing some significant money? Like what are the numbers here?

Julie: Well, if you’re traditionally published, you’re going to make under $1 per book, so you can do the math easily on that number.

Jonathan: Wow, that’s amazing. You sell 10,000 books, you’re going to make $10,000.

It’s not a lot of money. I mean, that’s a lot of money, but 10,000 books. What are the realistic numbers? On the average, how many books is somebody going to sell that, you know, just to give us some perspective here?

Julie: Statistically, there’s numbers out there that say the typical book sells under 250 copies in its lifetime. What we find is 500 is a pretty solid launch and then if you can keep that up with 100 sales a month, that’s really good. Like, you’re better than average. And that’s kind of where a lot of our clients fall is kind of in that 500 book launch, and 50 to 100 sales the months and marketing after. We only work with people for as long as they choose to post-launch. So, I don’t know, forever and ever. But it’s rare to see launches in the thousands and thousands of books in your launch month.

So, just to kind of give you a sense, if somebody has a large audience already, then usually, you’ll see that thousands and thousands of books in the launch. But they have to have a pretty substantial audience for that to happen. Otherwise, you’re building momentum. But when you self-publish, you have a lot of flexibility in the money that you make. I sell my book, the latest one, Self-Publish & Succeed, I sell it on a website that’s just Self-Publish&Succeed.com. And it’s set up through Shopify and Lulu, and I make, I don’t know, $12 per book sold there.

Jonathan: So, a lot more than $1.

Julie: Yes. And so -- but the whole purpose of that site is I can run ads to it, I can actually run ads, check the conversions. You know, you’ve got data and you’ve got numbers to work with. Versus when you run ads, and you sell your book on Amazon, you’re making probably $4 per book sold and now you’ve probably spent more on an ad than you did on the book. And you’ll never know which ad converted and you’ll never know who your buyer was. So, there’s trade-offs to everything, but you’ve got the control and the choice. But typically, you’re going to make four or $5 per book sold if you’re selling through retail outlets, which is still better than $1. So, your numbers start to look a lot better. If you sell 10,000 books or 1,000 bucks, even.

Jonathan: I guess you have to sort of take into consideration traditional versus self-publishing, how much your personal expenses you’re putting into the self-publishing equation. So, if it’s hiring an agent, a company like yours to help you and then having to put some money into marketing. So, do you think it balances out at the end? Or do you think really, no matter what, you’re probably going to make more money unless you have like some huge best-selling book, you’re probably going to make more money in the self-publishing track?

Julie: Yeah, I mean, for -- I believe that you will make more money in self-publishing, unless your book is a complete bomb, and you do nothing. But if you’re somebody who’s going to work it a little bit, then you’ll make more, especially if it ties back to your business, because not all the money you make is going to be directly from your book sales. And then there’s also rights, right? Like, some people license it off to foreign publishers for foreign rights, other languages. Some people will then create an audiobook, and a large print version, and a workbook and a course. And all of those things evolved from the book and can be very, very lucrative. So, those things will all help you make money. And you think, well, you could do that if you traditionally publish, but you can’t. Like, there’s a limitation on what you’re allowed to do because you don’t own the rights to that content.

And so anything you do goes through that traditional publisher, and they’re going to be negotiating those things and taking a cut. In many cases, they never produce an audiobook for the book, but they hold the rights so you can’t produce it yourself. So, you’re quite limited when you go traditional, but self-publishing, you have all the control and choices as to what you do. So, it can be one of those things that you make a lot of money on by doing a lot of different things with that content. And a lot of people end up doing consulting after, you know, pretty decent price consulting if you’ve written a specific book that helps companies or specific people with a specific problem. So, there’s all that stuff that comes out of your book. It can be very creative. And you know, you’re making more when you self-publish, and you have more control over what you do when you self-publish.

Jonathan: What would then be the argument for traditional publishing? I mean, other than, I don’t know, what do you think it would be?

Julie: Yeah, I think if you bring a lot to the table, then you’re going to get a better deal. So, you know, us typical normal people with decent followings, and a good message and a impact-driven concept, they’re not going to get a deal worth signing. But celebrities, they get a deal where they’re getting a substantial advance. The publisher is going to throw a lot behind the PR, and they’re going to make sure that you’ve got endcap displays in those bookstores, and they’re going to do all those things that as a self-published author, you don’t have the finances or the network or the ability to achieve those kinds of things. So, I think it’s one of those when you don’t need the deal, you’ll get it, but they know that so they’ll give you a good deal.

Jonathan: I know we’re only talking about non-fiction, I know non-fiction is your specialty. Do you have any thoughts just based on your experience on whether it makes sense to self-publish or try to go the traditional route with a fiction book?

Julie: I don’t really have enough experience there. But I was at an event recently that was called 20 Books to 50K, lots of fiction authors there. Some have traditionally published and then gone over to self-publish, and some have done both and they continue to do both. The answer that seems to come up consistently is in fiction, to make money, you’re going to write a lot of books. You’re going to write a lot of books, which is, I think, kind of the origin of the title, 20 Books to 50K. To make 50,000 in a year from your author business, you’re going to write 20 books.

Jonathan: Wow. That’s a lot of books. [crosstalk] I haven’t one yet. Well, at least for myself, I’ve written books for other people. I don’t know, it seems like there might be more money in the non-fiction space, or at least there might be more opportunity to do less and make more in the non-fiction space.

Julie: Yeah, I mean, if you get a fiction hit, those authors are doing really well. And it branches off into so many things like merchandise. Like, some of them get merchandise deals, even some get TV deals and things like that, which happens in non-fiction too. The fiction world, it’s kind of like if you can get yourself up to that high percentage of rare percentage, then there’s lots of incredible opportunities. But again, that’s the rare beast that gets there.

Jonathan: Yeah, it’s the unicorn.

Julie: Exactly.

Jonathan: All right. So, I’m keeping score here. I’ve got reasons to write a book, I’ve got legacy, money, credibility. What’s another reason someone might want to write a book?

Julie: I’ve got three more for you.

Jonathan: Oh, really?

Julie: Yes.

Jonathan: You’re so good.

Julie: Yeah, I prepped six.

Jonathan: You’re the best. No, we’re going to do seven. We’re doing seven, Julie.

Julie: But yeah, the fourth one I had was clarify your message. And this has benefits in so many ways, and a lot of people -- the hard work of writing a book is thinking. And it sounds funny because people think it’s the actual writing, but that’s not the painful part. It’s the thinking and making sure that you’re telling your stories and sharing your points and giving or advice in a way that is going to resonate with that reader. And when you do that, that’s now a message that you’re better able to communicate in whatever way you’re communicating. Whether it’s emails, or you’re talking to people, or you’re giving talks, you’ve now kind of come up with that five-point bullet, because you realize, as you look at the chapter, that this is a mess of a chapter and you got to organize it a better way. That hard work, it flows through in so many ways.

And we’ve had multiple clients that have service businesses that say they are finding their sales are substantially better long before their book comes out. And it’s because of the way they are now communicating, they found the best stories to share, and they’ve got examples. And they just got clarity, and the book thinking process is what gave them that. So, whether you’re writing it yourself or someone else’s writing it, it’s hard work to think through that stuff. And that has benefits throughout your business.

Jonathan: Yeah, there’s nothing like having to write something down in an organized way that is going to clarify your thoughts and your mind and your business. So, it really, in some ways, it’s almost like a therapy, a meditation, writing a book. You know, you can’t write a book about everything, it has to be about something. So, I think that’s really important. And also, you might find that you have a lot to say, and there’s four books in you once you start the book process. Right?

Julie: Exactly.

Jonathan: Give me an example of a book that you guys have published, or help publish, that has done well? Like just -- it would be interesting to understand that. And maybe we can talk a little bit -- We’ve talked about why your book did well. But I’m curious, is there one that comes to mind?

Julie: Yeah. I mean, I’m limited in what I’m allowed to disclose. So, but there is one story that I am able to tell, and I like it. It’s not about volume of book sales, but that’s almost better. We had an author named Robert Belle, who wrote a book called Blow the Lid Off. And he’s an accountant and this book is all about creativity. So, it’s kind of a funny, you know, juxtaposition [crosstalk] position, right. Yeah. And so through the promotion process, he ended up getting a TED talk, and it was a TEDGlobal Ideas talk. And I just looked yesterday, because I was doing something else, and it’s been watched just under 2 million. So, I think it was 1.75 million views on this, and it’s in 11 languages now.

And it’s just one of those really cool things that I always tell people that what he did really well was he stuck with the marketing. This was a little bit of an out-there topic for an accountant and his existing audience that he had in his business. But every month, he was consistent. He showed up for all of the marketing that we did, and he did some on his own. And month after month, what happened was, he got to hear what people resonated with when he was talking. And he kind of hitting on some of these points. And that’s where he realized there’s something interesting here. And when the TEDGlobal Ideas talk opportunity came up, he was like, I know, from all this book marketing, I’ve done that this is going to be an interesting topic, and they loved it. So, that’s one of my favorite stories, because the impact he’s had is cool.

Jonathan: Yeah, that’s awesome. What percentage would you say, for the success of a book is marketing versus just the content? I mean, we always say content is king and you’ve got to write an interesting book. Right? But there’s a lot that you have to do after the book comes out to make sure that it really succeeds. Do you think it’s like 60%, 40 content, 60% marketing? Or is it 50/50? Or like, what are we looking at here?

Julie: That’s a tough one because if, and we’ve had this happen a few times, if that content doesn’t have a strong marketing message match, it doesn’t matter what marketing you do, unless you’re famous. I mean, that’s what I tell people. Yes, you’re pointing to that book, but that person already had millions of people who knew who they were. There’s exceptions. And if they’re famous, you can’t look at that as an exception. But for the typical person, you really got to have that content dialed in so that there’s that clear audience and that clear outcome of an outcome. And then you’ve got a marketing plan. So, I don’t think there’s a percentage. I really think one does not work without the other, and the best content in the world doesn’t sell itself without marketing.

Jonathan: Yeah. Can we talk about when we’re talking about marketing, what we mean specifically, when it comes to nonfiction books?

Julie: There’s so many things and that’s another thing, is you got to be willing to try and not get discouraged when one thing doesn’t work. Because there’s not one thing that works for every author. You know, for us, we typically focus on things like podcasts and newsletters, live appearances, library, bookstore catalogs, Amazon ads. We do some social media, but if you don’t already have a social media platform, we don’t spend much time on social media, because it’s not going to do anything if you don’t already have people there. [crosstalk] So, we really focus on building your newsletter list and then getting you in front of other people’s audiences that are a good fit for your topic.

Jonathan: Yeah. What do you find is the most effective -- if you didn’t have a good social media, you mentioned newsletters. Good, I got one of those. Just looking and thinking of my own thing, how much more content is the writer going to have to write after they write the book? Like, are we talking about content marketing, where you’re writing a lot of blog posts and newsletters and stuff like that?

Julie: Well, you’ve got the content from your book so you can repurpose a lot of it. Like, my book, Self-Publish & Succeed was largely YouTube videos first, and then they became the book. And then the sections that didn’t have a video, they became a video after, right? So, it’s -- you can use the content that you’ve got. A lot of our authors are podcasters, they pull content from their solo episodes and use that and vice versa. If they haven’t done an episode on a chapter, then that becomes an episode. So, I don’t think you have to create a ton of new content, but there is a lot of time that goes into interviews and promotions and sometimes writing articles or like I did a [inaudible 00:30:22] article interview for authority magazine yesterday that took me almost two hours to write. It was long.

Jonathan: Yeah. Okay. Two more reasons you should write a book.

Julie: Oh, yeah. Long-lasting marketing. So, speaking of marketing, just a perfect example of how long your marketing lives on, I was in an event in Austin last week, and I’m walking down the hotel hallway and this guy stopped me. He goes, “Are you Julie from Canada?” I was like, “Maybe.” And he said, “Oh, I travel in some real estate circles in Toronto, and people always talk about your book. And I was like, “Oh, goodness, gracious. Yes, that’s me.”

Jonathan: Yeah, I will take that.

Julie: Yeah. And I mean, that’s -- I’ve lived in the States for almost five years now. I’ve been out of real estate for six. And that’s my book living on and my name living on. So, it’s long-lasting marketing. So, it’s better if you stay in the industry, so you can benefit from it. But --

Jonathan: Yeah. That’s long tail. So, it’s like, yeah, the book is forever.

Julie: Yes, it is. And it’s also monetized marketing, which is cool. You’re making a little money from every sale of the book, of people that are now getting to know you. And books are powerful in that, especially physical books, which you know, 70% of non-fiction books for most authors is going to sell in a physical book. People don’t throw them out, they pass them on. They donate them and they live on for a long time, which is really, really cool.

Jonathan: Oh, that’s so interesting that 70% number that you just put out there. Because I was wondering, in this day and age, how many people read books on Kindle versus hardcopy. But it sounds like a lot of your clients and a lot of people who sell-publish do do hardcopy.

Julie: Yeah. I strongly recommend it because of the numbers, right? With non- fiction, you’re giving up a lot of sales if you don’t have a print book because there’s a lot of people who don’t want to read it on an ebook version, they want that print book.

Jonathan: Why do you think that is?

Julie: I’m the same way. I have stacks of physical books.

Jonathan: Well, I mean, so do I, but I’m old school.

Julie: No, the younger generation is the same way, they read physical books. Fiction is different, fiction is a different thing. I think because it’s a consumable toss away. Whereas non-fiction is that thing that you think you’re going to reference again and again, so you want to have the physical copy.

Jonathan: Oh, that’s so interesting. Okay, number six.

Julie: Yeah, so number six, ultimately, this is negotiable. But I think that you should write a book if you’re driven to have an impact. I think it is one of the most powerful ways to have an impact on people. Help them whether they can afford your services, afford your product, doesn’t matter. You know, it gives you that opportunity to help a lot of people. And if you’re one of those people who’s just always driven to impact others, I think you really, really should write a book on the thing that you know you can help people with.

Jonathan: Yeah, it’s nice to go to bed at night, knowing that you might have helped somebody in a way that is not just putting your message out there. I think that’s a really great reason to have a book and not even all during your lifetime, after you die your book lives on.

Julie: Exactly. But that’s that legacy piece. And you think about almost everybody has a story of a book that changed the direction and the course of their life in some way. And so if you have one, I mean, you’re really just paying it forward by giving somebody else that with your book.

Jonathan: Yeah. Well, this has just been so enlightening. I love hearing all this. People want to find out more about Book Launchers, if they want to work with you, your team, what should they do?

Julie: Head to BookLaunchers.com/7Steps, and that will give you a downloadable worksheet to really think through the goals for your book, who your audience is. And so then that way, if you want to write a book, you’ve already done some of the hard thinking work. So, that’s a good download for you. And then visit me on BookLaunchers.TV, which is our YouTube channel. I’m there every Tuesday and Friday with a new video, and that’s kind of where I hang out for fun. So, you can ask questions and join in some of our live streams.

Jonathan: Oh, I might have to do that.

Julie: Yeah.

Jonathan: That actually does make me think of one thing before I let you go. And that’s this idea of like, I’ve heard people interviewed, who are in your line of work, who say, like they almost have like an algorithm that they look at, at Amazon to figure out like, what are some of the underserved topics that might be make for a good book. How much of your work do on that, where you’re sort of looking at the algorithm? Or the sort of, kind of like sneaky ways to get a hit book rather than just like or purely organic coming from the author?

Julie: Right. So, that’s a right-to-market strategy. We don’t tend to do that. What we tend to do is take the subject and then find the keywords to optimize that topic for the search engines and for Amazon’s algorithms that way, because most people come to us with an area of expertise. Now, we have uncovered a couple -- because we do a lot of personal finance books, we’ve uncovered a couple of areas where we tell the author, hey, listen, if you want to include a chapter on this subject we might be able to put your book into this category because there is an underserved -- there’s lots of search and not much competition. So, that’s about as close as we ever get. But it is a strategy out there for some.

Jonathan: Is there an example that you can give? I know that you’re limited in what -- of somebody whose book kind of hit like a very specific niche?

Julie: Yeah. Matthew Harmon wrote a book on, I’m trying to remember the exact title, but it’s all about hemp. So, it’s like it’s about investing in hemp. The Marijuana Hater’s Guide to Making a Billion Dollars in the Hemp Industry, I think is what it’s called. [crosstalk] Very specific topic and I can’t disclose numbers, but he’s done -- He’s been extremely busy. So, he has done very little marketing but just based on keywords, category, placements, lots of things like that, he’s done well with his book. And I think it’s because of that very -- the specific nature of his book, some good keywords and a catchy title.

Jonathan: He should come on my other podcast, The Green Entrepreneur podcast is all about making money off of hemp and cannabis.

Julie: There you go. Yeah.

Jonathan: See right there. Yeah, that’s interesting. All right. Well, Julie, I’m going to let you go. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. And I’m very excited. Hopefully, some people will reach out to you and continue their dreams. I think writing a book is something that is on my bucket list and will probably happen in the next year. And for me, it’s always a continuing saga of whether it should be traditional or non-traditional self-publishing. And every time I talk to somebody like you, I’m like, why do I even bother with book agents and all that?

Julie: Exactly. It’s such a pain.

Jonathan: I know. It’s such a pain, and it doesn’t even pay in the end. Thanks, Julie.

Julie: Thanks for having me.

Jonathan: Well, thank you so much for listening to the show. Hey, if you liked what you heard, please subscribe to Write About Now where you can find all podcasts. You can also find me at Instagram @WriteAboutNowPod. I’m also on Facebook at Write About Now Podcast. Follow me on Twitter @KidFinesse, and I’ve got a new newsletter. It’s called Small Talk. You can find it on Substack. It is free of charge and I give you bi-weekly tips on writing and stories to read and whatever is on my mind. Until we meet again, it’s Jon Small encouraging you to do the right thing.