Book Marketing: The Bottom Line

Many authors look at publishing traditionally because they don’t know how to market their book…but the truth is, even traditional publishers require you to be the number one marketer of your work. On this Writing Momentum podcast, Chris and Gena talk about book marketing for traditional and self-publishers, talking about who’s responsible for doing what…and what you can expect.

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Episode 38 Transcription:

[00:00:13].820] - Chris
Hey, and welcome to to the Writing Momentum podcast. I'm Christopher Maselli and here with my wife, Gena.

[00:00:19].020] - Chris
How are you doing, Gena?

[00:00:19].880] - Gena
I'm doing great.

[00:00:20].790] - Chris
All right. Hey, great. We're excited because we have been in planning sessions with Writing Momentum, right? And then talking about some of the great things that we can do. We've already started this Writing Moments where you can get together with us and you can write. Every week we write on Wednesdays at noon Central time. You can find out more about that at WritingMoments.com. We have training and then we have writing. It's been really fun. But that's just the beginning. We have some other cool things coming up, don't we?

[00:00:48].620] - Gena
We do. We have been planning, and we're not going to tell you what they all are right now, but we do it's a bit of a secret. We're going to be rolling some things out over the next few months. So we're really excited. We're really looking towards the new year and what's going to be happening in the new year and some programs and some opportunities and some options that we're going to have in the new year. And even between now and then, we're going to be putting some things in motion too. So definitely be on the lookout for that. In fact, I guess I could tell one thing that we're going to be doing over the next few weeks. Are you nervous? You have to know that Chris is a tech guy. And so any idea?

[00:01:29].330] - Chris
Commit 100% to make you sure that's.

[00:01:32].090] - Gena
The good thing is that it keeps us committed is that we are going to be rolling out the Writing Momentum Facebook page. And so the Facebook. Not Facebook, page. Facebook group. So be on the lookout in the next few weeks for the Writing Momentum Facebook Group. It's completely free. We want to just create a place for writers to get together and just to build some relationships not only with us, but also between one another. And so we're looking forward to seeing what happens with that.

[00:02:02].320] - Chris
Yeah. Plus, people have a lot of questions about writing, right? And then a lot of times they'll email us and we encourage you to do so. We love answering your questions, but we realize sometimes when we post answers out there that first of all, it's just from us. And we'd love to have other people contribute, but also, why not have those answers benefit multiple people? And so this will be a way that we can all interact together and.

[00:02:21].960] - Gena
That will be so good. Some of this we've kind of talked back and forth about a Facebook group for a while. But during WriterCon. Which we just had over Labor Day weekend in Oklahoma City. We had these roundtable discussions that were so positive. And we realized that what made the roundtables great was that it wasn't just one person speaking to the group. But that it was the group that was collaborating together. And that was such a beautiful moment that really stuck out to Chris, especially because I was otherwise occupied, so I wasn't able to be a part of them. But he just came back just kind of raving about these groups and about hearing from different writers.

[00:03:08].090] - Chris
Well, that brings us into today's topic, because while we were at WriterCon, several people talked to us about book marketing. This is something that a lot of us have on our minds because we know that it's so important not just to write our books, but then to sell them. Right. But there are some misconceptions out there about book marketing. And what we found is that a lot of people think, oh, I want to be traditionally published because then the publishing company will take care of a lot of the marketing. At least I have a plan of some sort. Right. But what we found over the years, especially in these more recent years of publishing, has changed so dramatically, is that we really need to be business minded and financially minded as authors to make sure that when we're publishing our book, that it's worthwhile for us to do that. Right. And there's a lot of reasons why people publish, and so it may be worthwhile for you for different reasons other than finances. For some people, it's purely financial. Right. They just want to publish because they need the money. Other people, it's more about that feeling of being published, be able to say, hey, I'm an author of my books out there.

[00:04:21].620] - Gena
It's kind of a bucket list.

[00:04:23].020] - Chris
Yeah.

[00:04:24].290] - Gena
I want to publish a book, and this is what I want to do. It's not something I see myself doing as another career. It's just something that's important to me for now.

[00:04:32].790] - Chris
Yeah. And another reason is just for legacy. Some people want to publish a book to have something to pass on to their children or grandchildren, whether it be their story or a children's story or something else. They want to have legacy. So there's a lot of different reasons we might publish, and so you want to keep that in mind. But often this idea of being an author gets in the way of us looking at the business side of writing. Right? Yeah. I think that's so important to consider because for some people, they may realize, you know what? If I'm not making money on this, maybe this isn't a thing I want to do.

[00:05:10].380] - Gena
Right. And I can speak to some of that a little bit on a personal level because I have been traditionally published. But with one of my books, especially that I had published, I had a co author. And by the time it was all said and done each book only profited me at 75 cents. Now, I got a little bit of an advance, but which is common when.

[00:05:38].200] - Chris
You publish, traditionally, you'll generally get 15% is what you get on the book. So in this case, if the book net sold for $10, then Gena and her co author were making a $1.50 or 75 cents each.

[00:05:51].030] - Gena
Right. So at $0.75 each. When it came time around to do some marketing and some promotion, I kind of had this idea of I wanted to put a marketing plan together. I wanted to do some things. And we had already done social media, so we had already done some of the free things, but I wanted to do some ads. And unfortunately, what I discovered is that the ads were going to cost me about $1.50 for each sale.

[00:06:18].690] - Chris
Yeah. So if you ever watch Shark Tank, right, they call that customer acquisition cost. Right. What's the cost to acquire a customer? So in this case, when we ran the numbers, we discovered it would cost us about a $1.50 in order to get enough people to see the ad, where someone clicks on through and actually buys the book. So to make a sale, it cost a $1.50. But then we were only making 75 cents a book, so we would actually be losing money. Right.

[00:06:45].730] - Gena
So we had to make some adjustments with that. And so that's just one example. I think there are other examples out there. I'm sure there are a lot of writers who can speak to this. What are you going to say?

[00:06:59].830] - Chris
Yeah, we recently had a friend who was published traditionally, and she's had a lot of success with it. It's been really good. And so she said, well, hey, what will you give me to market this book? And the publishing company said, we can't give you anything. It's not in the budget. And so she was having to market that book on her own dime. And fortunately, it's done very well. But that's, again, it's something you have to consider because being traditionally published no longer means that they're paying even for the gas to go to a book signing. Right. They're not paying for bookmarks or that sort of thing. You're having to put the bill on that usually yourself.

[00:07:35].320] - Gena
They're not even always paying for the books. So as an author, you will still have to buy those books at your author discount, which a lot of times it's about 40% discount off of the retail plus shipping. And you're paying for shipping and then you're taking it to maybe if you're doing a fair or you're doing some local signings, that kind of thing, you can sell it there. But it's just that there is a cost associated with it, is what the bottom line is. And so as a business person, you have to be aware of those costs and you have to be running those numbers.

[00:08:14].530] - Chris
That's right. This is exactly the reason why so many authors are turning to self publishing? Because when you self publish, you have more of an opportunity to go ahead and say, you know what, I am going to receive more money for my book. Right? I may not sell as many books, but especially if you are working in a niche market, you want to make sure that you make more money per book. So if, for instance, Gina had self published that book and she was making seven or $8 per book, then a $1.50 for customer acquisition is not so bad, right? Because you're still making $5 or $6 per book. And so you may not sell as many books, but because you're making more, you're actually coming out ahead.

[00:09:00].610] - Gena
Well, you are. But you do have to know that as an independent publisher or an independent author, you would also be responsible for all the initial production costs. You would be responsible for the editing, the cover design, the printing. You would be responsible for some of the now, with printing, KDP makes this.

[00:09:21].270] - Chris
You can publish one book and it costs you two and a half dollars, right?

[00:09:24].180] - Gena
So it's not like the days of old where you would have boxes and boxes of books sitting in your garage nowadays. So that publishing cost would be associated. It would be tacked on at the point of sale. But you still need to be thinking sales wise and business wise. Now, I will say, for an author who is being traditionally published, you might say, well, what's the point of being traditionally published? One, they do cover those initial costs. Two, they do have a pipeline for distribution and getting it out to their audiences. They do know their target markets and are very well aware of how to reach those targets and those readers. So those are all reasons. But also, for the friend of ours who just did this big tour and she was paying for it herself, she's looking further down the line and she's looking to build a relationship with this publisher with the idea that they're going to help her sell a lot more books because of their pipeline that they already have in place. So there is a trade off. We don't want to paint the picture that being independently published is the solo and only way to go.

[00:10:43].130] - Chris
Oh, no.

[00:10:43].610] - Gena
But you have to think through all of that. You have to think through, what can this publisher do for me that I can't do for myself? And it even could be there may be someone who's looking to have the book translated. That is another cost that is an independent publisher. You would have to take on yourself, where for the traditional publishing, they would take that on. They would take care of that, and they would also have a pipeline in that way. There's a trade off in all of these.

[00:11:14].290] - Chris
I recently talked to another author who she had a great idea for a book. And she said, you know what, I'm not going to write this yet. I want to actually know what the true cost of this book is, whether it's even going to sell. And so she decided to hire a company that would do a market survey for her and find out if the topic of the book was even viable. And I thought that was really clever. I have not met many authors who are willing to do a market survey because they have an idea. They just want to get it out there. But she wanted to make sure that it was actually worth her while. For all the months that it'll take to write the book, she was going to self publish the self publish it. The cost that she might incur with that, is it worth it? So she's doing a survey. So these are the kinds of things.

[00:11:56].410] - Chris
The bottom line is we really need.

[00:11:58].280] - Chris
To make sure that we're financially minded, that we're business minded when it comes to creating the book, because it comes down to us. Because, Gina, when you traditionally publish, what can you expect as far as marketing goes, who's responsible for it?

[00:12:13].870] - Gena
Me.

[00:12:14].380] - Chris
Yeah, when you self publish and you're going to get that book out there and it comes to marketing, who's responsible for it? Me again. So either way you look at it, you're going to be responsible for marketing. And that's something really to consider if you want to be a published author today, is that you also need to learn how to market. But don't let that scare you. There are creative ways to market. There are ways that we, as introverts can market that still is very comfortable. And that's why we have this podcast, is because we want to help people learn about those kinds of things.

[00:12:47].480] - Gena
Yeah, absolutely. We want to help you learn some of the things. But we want to start from a place of this foundation of being business minded with the way that we think about our writing, think about ourselves. And one thing that I would like to point out is that when you are thinking about writing, and this doesn't matter whether you are fiction or nonfiction, childrens, it just doesn't matter in any way, no matter the genre that you're writing for, you need to think about not your book as the brand, but as you as the brand. And that's one of our kind of keystone elements that we have learned over the years, is that you are the brand. Now, what does that mean? That means, one, you may be producing your first book in a line. You may have a whole line of books that you are producing. Books, videos, everything. You may have a blog that you are building up through social media and through your website, that then you are producing a book that supports that blog. So it may be that you may be a speaker who wants to have a book that you can sell when you go to speak.

[00:14:07].580] - Gena
And that's okay. But your book supports your brand. The brand, even if you are a fiction writer, you are the brand. People don't necessarily go in and look for well, they do look for a specific title. But once you've converted that person over to appreciating you as an author, they will be looking for you. They will be looking for books by you even more than they'll be looking for individual titles. They'll be saying, I love this book so much, what else does that person have?

[00:14:42].470] - Chris
Yeah, and this goes back to that idea. Do not forget this, that you are more than one book, right?

[00:14:48].470] - Gena
Yeah.

[00:14:49].160] - Chris
Don't just look at that single book idea you've got and think, okay, that's it, right? Your eggs are not all in that one basket. That is really, in my opinion, usually your book is just an entryway to so much more than you have to offer the world. So, yeah, just remember, hey, the book is just the starting.

[00:15:08].600] - Gena
It's just the starting.

[00:15:09].790] - Chris
But the bottom line is you're responsible for book marketing.

[00:15:12].490] - Gena
Yeah, think about your book marketing, but think about your writing, your book marketing as a business. This is part of your business. And so just be thinking about how do you want to brand your business, how do you want to position your business. Really be thinking through that. And I think as you work through that process of just thinking through that, you will come to see a broader picture. You will get your eyes not just on your book, but maybe that book then becomes there's an offshoot to that book that becomes your second book. Or maybe there's a theme or a course, there's a lot of different opportunities, a lot of different directions that you can go.

[00:15:57].260] - Chris
And if you find these podcasts and like this topic. If you find it interesting today and you said. Hey. That's something that I can keep in mind. Would you go ahead and let others know by going into your podcast app and clicking to leave a review and leave a written review of what you think of this podcast that helps other people find it and then just rate, review, subscribe. Subscribe. So you don't ever miss an episode. We have a new one that comes out every single Wednesday. We haven't missed one yet. Every single Wednesday we have a podcast that lands. And if you don't want to miss it, then go ahead and hit subscribe. Hit that subscribe button on your app and then share it with a friend because that's how other people can find this too. There's enough room in this for all of us and we thank you for listening. You guys mean so much to us. And if you want to hear about a certain topic, send us a question, send us an idea, and we'll be happy to record our thoughts on it just for you. Until next time, we thank you, and don't forget that together we have Writing Momentum.