2024 Holiday Extravaganza Deep Dive

We are. We haven't done.

Foreign.

Hello and happy holidays. Welcome. I see lots of people saying hello already. I see Aubry was first. First in the queue. Susan, Eric, Kevin, Christine, and Brent, great to see you here. And Scott as well. Financial epiphany. Joel is here. Darla, Bill, and SK Guard Blog. I don't know what we should call you. If you want us to call you Skate Guard Blog, we could do that. Coming from Nova Scotia, where I hope you're not freezing. And then Jack's in the house. And Stella and Bill. We've got two different bills. Bill Miller and Bill Holston. So welcome, everybody. Of course, if you have not joined us for a holiday extravaganza before, you're in for a lot of fun and, of course, prizes. And so everybody saying hello obviously knows the drill because they get entered to win right off the hop. Oh, and Angela's here now, so I will add her to stage as well. But before. Before we kind of dive into prizes and see what questions you guys have. I want to turn it over to my team, who has kindly shared some of their Saturday with us and with you. I want them to just take a moment to introduce themselves and tell you some of you may be familiar with some of them. I know we've got some clients here, so they really should know who Sarah and Shane and probably Angela are too. But for all of you who do not, I would love to. Well, I'll start with Sarah. We'll turn it over to Sarah to introduce herself and say hello. Welcome, Sarah.

Thank you. Hello, everybody. And I have to just shout out both Angela and Shane. Well, Julie, too. Your sweater is pretty phenomenal, but I really appreciate Shane's decorations. You did such a good job there.

I did it all myself. Thank you.

Holiday party ready? I love it, man. All I did was sport my book launchers thing and get standards left and right. Like, my God, no. It's very difficult. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to our holiday extravaganza. I am Sarah Bean. I'm marketing manager for book Launchers. I do have to admit, this is my favorite live that we do throughout the year. So I'm excited to be here, answer any questions that you have about marketing books, all sorts of nerdy things that I love to geek out on. So, yeah, happy to be here.

I'm hiding in the background now. Why don't you tell them.

Where'd everybody go?

Tell them a little bit about your, like, what you did before you came to book Launchers, how long you've been with Book Launchers. Give them a little, A little more.

Oh sure, sure, sure, sure. So as part of Book Launchers, my job is obviously working with all of our authors on their book launches and also just making sure that all those marketing opportunities are coming their way. I've been with Book Launchers for six years, one of the original the OG members. And prior to being at Book Launchers, I spent most of my career at a major booking agency, booking speakers on college circuit and some corporate association work. And then even before that I was a literary agent selling book properties to the traditional five, the big, the big five publishers. And you know, in addition to that, I did a little bit of everything, event production, like TEDx events. I managed New York Times, best selling authors manage their career and their startups. So I've had my hand in a little bit of everything, even entertainment journalism prior to my work here at Book Launchers. But what I love about this company and what I get to do is helping authors just get their stories out into the world. And that is probably my favorite thing. So love being able to do it every day.

Awesome. Thank you. And we've had some more people join in the fun here. Alan is here. He's 3am and he says he's rocking the Santa beard, which we know he is, but he also said he's rocking the Santa hat, which I believe he is.

I believe that too.

Yep.

At 3:00am yeah.

So thank you for staying up for us. And Efren's also here, so welcome Efren and Sherry. I think you probably say your name. Sherry from Wisconsin. And who else? I think that's everybody, so welcome. Oh, and then we've got Let fear bounce from PA, PA. Is that PA, the Canadian?

I'm saying Nuggets of hope. I like it.

Yeah.

That's so good. Amy is here too. So welcome everybody. All right, so Angela, if we can possibly turn it over to you to share a little bit about you and what you do and how long you've been here and all that fun stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. So hello everyone. You've probably seen my name around, heard my name around, maybe seen my face as well. I've also been here for several years, not quite as long as Sarah. She does have me beat just a little bit. But I have been here for over five years now, so for five and a half years. And I am the operations manager here. So I do a lot of things aside from this clearly right now. I do a lot of things behind the scenes and I'm helping Julie with a lot of the Fun, intricate details that go into, you know, keeping a company running. There's a lot that goes into it. A lot of maybe boring things. You never know what we're going to get some days. But it all helps keep the company running, which helps keep people like Shane and Sarah supported so that they can give the best results to our authors. I also, I'm just going to put this out there. I mean, aside from Shane's background, I might be one of the most favorite people here or even, even aside from Julie's energy and enthusiasm, because I am the keeper and the just the keeper and the guardian of the swag. And I gave Julie an extensive list of the swag. So I am so excited to share my wealth of swag with you today because I have a lot, a lot to give. So you guys will be hearing from me as far as what prizes we have. But yeah, so when you're on deep dives, YouTube lives and you comment, I'm going to be that person to send you some of our awesome swag.

So, and I apologize, I don't know.

If you guys can hear. I wore these yesterday. I sound like a cat.

But keeping them on, they're very festive.

Yeah. Actually, Angela, the list was far more extensive than I realized. Your closet has clearly become extraordinarily full. So we'll definitely, after Shane does an intro, we're going to clear out some of, some of your closets. I'm ready.

I'm ready.

All right, Shane, last but absolutely not least, turning it over to you.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the compliments on my background here. It's normally not this festive. I'm, I'm celebrating Christmas remote as well. So my family's on the other side of the country, so I'll be hopping on a zoom call with them later. So hopefully I'll get the same compliments from them. But I'm Shane, I am Book Launch is an online marketing specialist. I build all of our clients websites, do all of our clients Amazon ads, email marketing funnels. I build online courses and a couple other things, but I don't have to get into all the details. So I've been with book launchers for like three and a half years now. Before that I worked at a digital marketing agency just helping small businesses grow and expand their digital presences. And, and then before that I was, I was in school at Coastal Carolina. And yeah, I mean, I've been super happy with book launchers. It's an amazing place to work. We've built an amazing community here just from YouTube alone. And it's really inspiring to work with authors every single day and see what they're passionate about, see what they spent their life doing and what they're ready to share with the world with their book. So it's been a joy to work with. And this is the first time I've been on one of these holiday YouTube lives, so I'm happy to be.

Be here.

Fabulous. Thanks, Shane. When he says he does a few other things, he's, he's not joking. But they're not small things.

I was gonna say. I think both he and Angela, like, they held themselves short because without either of them, we would not function the.

Way that we do.

I know, right? Yeah. But anyways, we'll, we'll. We'll let them be humble for the moment.

I mean, I did say I might be the favorite, so I'm not sure where that humbleness was a compet competition.

I start listing some things.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, we do have a competition in, in, in the company too. We have meetings every day and we give a shout outs for who did things that are kind of in line with the company values or just really helped you out. And there is like legit competition going on with who gives the most shout outs. So Alyssa. Alyssa and I are currently battling. And Alyssa is celebrating her dad's birthday this weekend, so she's not here with us, but she and I have been battling and we were both away last month and. But I was.

And you both still dominated. I gotta step it up, man. I really gotta. I gotta start writing them all down the way you guys do.

I know it helps. All right, so folks, Dale's in the house. I think Dale's actually gonna physically appear with his face, not just his comments, a little bit later today. And we have a lot of Dale's books to give away today too. But I'm gonna start giving away prizes here in a second. But just so you know, we're here to answer your questions. So you've got some really phenomenal book marketing expertise and online platform building, direct sales, all of that fun stuff. You've got some experts here, so feel free to ask any questions about that. And I mean anything book related. Between the four of us, I think we can help you out. So please go ahead and. Sorry, Dale distracted me. He'll also be wearing his vintage hoodie, which we do not have any more of those. I'm afraid there's none of those right now. Where is it?

There is my favorite one. I wish we could get this one back. This one, I wear this non stop.

Yeah, I wish we could get that one back too. I'm still trying to find a new provider that can provide like that light hoodie. But, you know, it's still a hoodie but it's light and it's. Anyways, I. For all of you who can't have one, I don't need to describe how great it is because of all the swag Angela has in her closet, she does not have any of those. So. All right, so if you have questions, please go ahead and post them. But I'm going to head on over right now and show you that commenting and chatting and doing what you've been doing is going to get you prizes. Now first let's take a look at Angela's little list. You know what we might do? You know what I'm going to do, Angela, is I think I'm going to put the list of stuff in the spinner wheel because then I'm not choosing what we're giving away. I'm just, I'm going to spin the wheel. So give me one second here. I'm going to do.

Sarah might be jealous of some of this stuff too.

I was just going to say we don't even get first crack at a lot of this stuff.

Y' all should have a lot of it.

Not most everything that I listed.

I don't know. Every once in a while there's some things that pop up that I'm like, I didn't get that could use some more journals over here.

Well, that I'm sure she could send over and over your way. Okay, so let me attempt to share my screen. So. Oops, I got. I was loading the prize. Now there's the quantities there, but that's fine. Yeah. Okay, so let's go share screen. And there it is. Okay, so first we're going to choose. Let's go first. I'll choose the person and then we'll choose the prize. And if you are not in the US we will have to. We will have to choose a book for you. Sorry, my screen is going bananas. Okay, there we go. Okay, so first up, you, if you haven't already said hello, this is your cue. But also we need questions because we need questions to answer today. Okay, so here we go. Let's see who's here. There's 32 people entered. Let's see who our first prize winner is. I still wish I could add music to this.

That would be really good.

Alan. Alan is not in the United States just for funsies. Let's see what Alan would win. We're spinning around fleece blankets. You don't get two. That's just the quantity she has. Unfortunately, we can't mail you a fleece blanket, though. I'm sorry. But if you're coming back to the States sometime soon, we can definitely line it up. So let Angela know before I give away that fleece blanket to someone else. Okay, Alan, Otherwise we got a plethora of books. Just let us know what we can send you. Email Angela at Team T E AM Book Launchers, and she'll probably message you as well. All right, so now you see how this works. Let's see who's winning next, and then we'll do skill testing questions later. So we'll also have some skill testing questions. HL it's very nondescript, but congratulations, you are our next winner. And let's see what you get from our little prize spinner here. No boring books. Author shirt. So we have a few sizes left, it looks like. So hopefully one of these sizes will fit. If not, let Angela know and we can perhaps spin the wheel again. But you are a winner of a shirt, so congratulations. And so you got a message, I think, Angela, you can kind of put notes in there of what they should do. So.

Yeah, I was going to say, because this isn't Zoom, I can't DM them.

Right. I just realized that. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you want to email me@teamoklaunchers.com if you. If one of the prizes is a shirt and it's not a shirt size that fits you, then we can figure out another. I have a few different shirts, so there might be one that has a.

Size that fits you.

Okay. HL says medium, so I think you had a medium in there, so that's perfect.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I think Alan said he's gonna be back visiting family soon, so.

Oh.

Oh, great. There you go. So we can ship it off to the state north. At least I assume that's where you'll be, but. But yeah, okay, that's great. We'll take care of that. We just need to know the address where to ship it. Alan. So. So if you want to email Angela that, we will get you a fleece blanket. I'm actually kind of jealous because my son ripped my fleece blanket to shreds because it has a. It has this thing. I'm going to remove that for a second. It has an opening where I think you can put stuffies inside and. Or not stuffing, but like stuffing or a blanket or something inside. And my son kept crawling inside of the darn blanket and zipping him up inside, zipping himself up inside of the blanket. But little bit by bit, he ripped the darn thing, so it's completely shredded.

So glad my kids did not figure that one out.

Yeah, my blanket is no more. Yeah, we've been using it in the dog crate.

My cat is currently sleeping on it next to me.

That's so nice. All right, sorry, Angela, I think you put us a question on the screen.

I didn't mean to. I'm trying to start them. They're coming in so quickly. So what I'm doing, just as an FYI to the three of you guys, I am starring them, and then when we get to them, I can. I don't know if you guys can see this, but I can see the whole list of starred questions right now. We've already got at least 10.

Okay, well, let's do. Let. Let's do a couple questions right now then.

Okay, let me go back.

And there's some good questions coming in, too.

There's what?

There's some really good questions coming in.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So this one, we don't have this information yet as far as, like, the 2025 answer, but go ahead, Julie. I saw you.

I was just gonna say, but we've already scheduled our trends, probably our most popular deep dive session that covers this. That's happening in February, so. And if you aren't already a member of our school group, it's a free community kind of to supplement and bring all of you from YouTube together. We'll put the link in there, but it also has our calendar of events. I don't think we've loaded February in there yet, but we will soon, and it will have all the links, so it'll be really easy for you to find. But we're doing the COVID and interior trend session in February, so we'll have all that information for you then. And again, it is always our most popular, so I am certain. I know Eric's already been waiting. I think. I think he's asked twice now.

Eric is spamming about it.

He's excited.

Awesome. All right, so next question.

Okay, sorry, I'm just loading that link in there for school. So this is the free link. Yeah.

As you're loading. We've had quite a few book launchers, published authors hopping in here. We've got Cynthia, We've got Brett Pullman. Do you know, Alan's obviously here. Efren's here. I. I can't tell. Yeah. Oh, there's Cynthia's book. And I've got Alan. Well, it's back here, but I probably have. Oh, Alan's is at home because I.

Was displaying it in my latest video. I have Alan. Okay, so, Alan, if you haven't. I don't know if they've come out yet, if that round has come out yet. But you. You are displayed in the background of a couple of my latest videos. So, yeah, we can do a little book show and tell right now if.

All right, so we got Allen's. They Hang Me in Tokyo, which is great. And I will have you guys know both of these books, which launched just in October and November, had some of the best turnouts for giveaways that we have seen. People were really interested in these topics. So I. Both Alan and Cynthia, you guys should drop in the chat a little bit about what your book is about. But we're getting great responses on both, so very welcome. Brent, I'm not bringing yours up because. Because we are doing a really cool thing with Brent's book, and I don't want to spoil it, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna leave it, actually. I don't even know if I have a copy.

My copy is at home because he's also been featured at the back of the videos, too, so I don't have any kids.

There it is.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah, but look at it now, because pretty soon it's gonna change.

All right, what's. What's our next question? Have you had a chance to grab it? Angela? Okay, great. All right, Shane, question specifically for you. I love it. Were the two web service packages you flashed on the ABA Zoom Call available to only full time clients or also to ABA members? Oh, I love it. Thanks, David.

Hey, David. They're available to everybody. So we actually have specific packages that we offer for full time clients, but the ones you see on our website are for non clients for ABA attendees. So you, you can go ahead and, and purchase one of those if you're interested or if you want to know more about it and you want to just, you know, have some questions answered specifically about the packages. I'm happy to hop on a call with you as well. You can just fill out a contact form on our website and then we can set something up with you.

And you can drop. For anybody else wondering about the web packages, if somebody wants to drop the link from the site in the chat, that would be great. Thank you. All right, we're ready for the next One. All right, from Jack Microsoft Word has limitations to viewing and processing the editing phase of a large manuscript. What tools or systems can simplify this process and how can AI help? So I'm kind of wondering. So I. There's kind of two thoughts going through my head. I mean, Word is still my preferred for editing, but if you have a lot of images, it gets clunky and horrible. But I generally we would not want the images in there anyways because when you go to layout, the images all have to be placed. So we just usually have a location marked as to where the image is supposed to go and then a directory of those specific images and then you go back from there. I don't know if Efren is still here, but he probably can comment on his, on his process and what worked for him because he had images and a substantial book. So the combination. But there's not a lot of tools that will handle this, handle big, large manuscripts super well. You could use Scrivener because it breaks it up. And then I've tried Dibbly Create, I've tried Atticus, but they're, you know, they're cloud based and they do break up like, like Scrivener, but I find them a little clunky and they freeze up. And so, you know, I still think as, as glitchy as Word can be, I still think it's your best choice. And that's where all the editors, or the majority of editors want to end up anyways. So.

A couple notes here. So Cynthia did post what her book is about. And as questions are coming in, if you guys could do me a favor just to make sure that I don't miss people's questions, if you could put a capital Q at the beginning of your text that you're putting into the chat, that'll help me find it easier. I'll still try to read through all of them, but as we get going and more questions and comments come in, which we love, I want to make sure that I can, that we can answer as many questions that are put into the chat if possible. So if y' all could preface it with a capital Q, that would be great. Shane, that link, if you'll send it to me on Slack, I will post it in the chat for everyone. And then here, let me share Cynthia's comment about what her book is about. So her book Exit Strategies is about taking a brave and light, lighter hearted approach to talk about end of life issues. And yeah, Sarah's holding up the beautiful cover. End of Life is still part of life and deserves open conversations to avoid suffering. Oh, I love that. Great.

Yeah. And it's a. It's really great. Cynthia, your voice just comes through so well in this book and, and how you deal with your patients. And honestly, I've really enjoyed reading through this one and I've passed it to several people, so it's funny too.

It's got some good humor in it. So yeah, it's well done. And then, no, sorry, not Brent. Alan had posted his too. Is that what you're about to show here? There we go.

Yeah, awesome. So, yeah, I had missed that one. So Alan's book is about his 40 year experience trying to crack into and then working as a traditional Japanese painter in the closed nihonga. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Community in Japan.

And Alan has lived such a fascinating life. And honestly, one of my favorite parts of this book is you are going along with Alan on the journey as he, you know, became the artist that he is now. The challenges that he faced along the way and how he overcame them, determination and dedication were some of my favorite aspects of this. So Alan also really phenomenal job and you can kind of see he is got his sporting his beard.

That is exactly how Alan looks. He's never changed in all the years.

Fantastic. All right, so we'll do one more question and then we're gonna do some prizes again because Angela's closet is still full. All right, so Skateguard Blog says, do you recommend playing along and paying money for a Kirkus review? Or do you have any other tips or tricks to convince librarians to consider other editorial reviews? We'll turn that one over to Sarah.

Yeah, that's a great question. So you're going to find a lot of paid review opportunities out there. I do find Kirkus to be one of the credible ones that can actually give your book a little bit of a lift in terms of credibility and, you know, just who's going to pay attention to it. But it's a lot of money, it's not cheap. So some of the other places that you might want to take a look at and that are harder to get into. But there's Book List, which is. I forget. I think that's the ABA one. Then there's also Library Journal, which is another one librarians pay a lot of attention to. Midwest Book Review is also well respected within library communities and that one is free. And the, the interesting part about Midwest Book Review, they're a very old school site. I mean, when you go to that website, it looks like they haven't changed the interface since 2004, but very well respected. And they are one of the few ones that will actually look at books after publication. So in fact they say that they won't look at any reviews until the book is made available publicly. So that's one that you can go to if your book's already been out. That's a good one.

So.

Midwest Book Review. But honestly, what I tend to find with libraries is starting local and going into local libraries in your area. Presenting your book as a local author helps you drive that traffic quite a bit. The other thing that libraries are going to look at is who's asking for this book. So having your. Your readers, your fans, your friends, whomever go in and request those books from libraries is going to help them put it into their catalog. So that is. Can almost help you more than an endorsement or an editorial review. Because those editorial reviews, if you're relying just on those editorial reviews to get you into a library, libraries see hundreds of thousands. They see them all the time. So they need something that's going to stick out. So that grassroots going into a library, presenting yourself as a local author with your book, along with sending people to libraries is going to help you quite a bit more. Shane, are you drinking eggnog?

That would be awesome.

It looked like eggnog.

A couple people ask about that. I think Al here as well, but no, it's not. I think it's a bit too early for that at the moment.

Oh my gosh. Spike Dagno too? No. Okay, so our next prize winner for the day is. Oh, I didn't even see Andy in there. Self pub with Andy. Awesome to have you here. All right, let's see what you have. Wonderful.

Foreign.

Let's see. You probably already have this, but. And Dale's gonna be on soon and we'll get him to tell you about his whole series he has going on. But we have some really beautiful copies of his book, Self Publishing for new authors. So Andy, so if you have this already, you are welcome to gift it to somebody else that's here so you can be Santa. That's how. That's how we can roll with this. And. And congratulations. So just communicate with us in the chat or email Angela if you want to collect your book@teambooklaunchers.com and thanks for being here. All right, so let's draw one more while I'm in here and see what we've got. We can be glad we're not in Canada because Canada Has a postal strike. And we couldn't nail any of these prizes, Emily. Congratulations, Emily. All right, let's see what prize you get. This should be random prize picker, not random name. So we have, I think this is the hashtag. This isn't the seven year anniversary. So this is our standard hashtag. No boring books mug. Congratulations, Emily. So email angelaeamooklaunchers.com so she can get you your classic mug where I haven't said it in a while, but tea, coffee, and hot chocolate all taste better in that mug. So there you go. All right, let's go for a couple more questions, shall we?

We shall. Okay, so this is from Abby.

Okay. My book includes journal pages at the end. What are your thoughts on publishing a low content, expansive journal? This is definitely not our area of expertise. So you know what, let's hold that one for when Dale comes on. He's, I mean, he's maybe he's got a little bit more experience in the low content space than we do because we don't do. We're non fiction and we do workbooks that correspond to the nonfiction books, but we don't do journals.

So my only thought, if you don't mind me jumping in, is if you are going to take the time and invest in producing a low content journal to go along with the book as a supplement. Because, you know, we've done that. Renee Cavallari did it with hers. Think about how you want to use it. Is it something that you intend on doing retail or is it something you intend on offering as a resource, like a lead magnet to build up your email list or to drive traffic to your site? So however you're going to use it can help make that decision. Sometimes I find that the low content journals and Dale may have a totally different take on this. And I do welcome his. His thoughts on this, but I just tend to find that they get a little bit lost on Amazon unless they are directly connected to your book and like say a series. But yeah, I'm. I'd love to hear Dan Dale's response on this.

Great. We'll try and remember.

I did note it down. What I'm doing is I'm keeping all the questions starred, even if we've already answered them. But I did note this one down. But reminders are welcome, folks.

Awesome. Thank you. And I gotta, I gotta share. For those who haven't seen it, it's been funny about all the eggnog. Efren says early it has egg in it. And then Kevin said it's not early. Here's my eggnog is spiked. Okay. There's no eggnog. It's just Whiskey.

Kevin, you're 1:30.

I mean, it's after 12 on a Saturday, I think legit a lot of places. All right, let's. Let's get a couple more questions up there, please. Okay, Joel says, what have you found to be your best software to use to seamlessly as possible convert a.indd or a.PDF to a.tox doc?

So how do you take InDesign files and turn them into PDF or documents.

Or to a doc? Yeah, I mean, I just ask Alyssa.

I asked my designer to do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a website called ILovePDF.

There is. Yeah, there is. That's actually what I was just checking because I was like, okay, yeah, they've given me somewhere. I don't know if that does anything with the INDD file, with the InDesign file, but it will take a PDF into a DOC. So that is one option.

I guess my question is why wouldn't you do it within Adobe Photoshop? Adobe Photoshop turns things into those files, so why wouldn't you do it right where you were using the file? So maybe I'm missing some context on the question, but I would do it right in Photoshop if I could.

Yeah. Okay, next one.

This is also from one of our ABA members.

Hi, David. I'm not in Vegas. I would love to meet you face to face, but I'm not in Vegas. I'm actually in Michigan.

All right, so we can. We can. We can. Hi. We can carry on from there. Yeah. Okay. Bill says, how do you manage direct or selling direct from my author website for U.S. hard copy book buyers while offering pod to buyers outside the U.S. all right, that's not as hard as you think. But we have an expert here, so let's shine the spotlight on Shane.

Yeah, so manage selling direct from my author website for us hard copy book buyers while also offering print on demand to buyers outside the U.S. there is a service that we frequently work with called Book Vault. The URL is Book Vault app and they handle print on demand publishing. You can integrate it with your. If you have a WordPress website, you can integrate it on WooCommerce. Or what we do is we build it on Shopify. So it would be separate. It wouldn't be directly on your author website unless your author website just happens to be on Shopify. And they're really great. They. They have printing locations in both the UK and the US So for the most part you can ship it globally. I believe there's some countries that are excluded from that list, but they do hard copy, hard copy and paperback versions. And also they cover like if, if your book has a dust jacket as well, it'll do that as well. You just upload the files. You upload the design files for the COVID you upload the interior files like the PDF, make sure that it's all the right sizing. You give it all the specs of your book. It is a 1995 that that's how much it costs to load a book onto the software. And then it can be integrated with WooCommerce, it can be integrated with Payhip, it can be integrated with Shopify, like I mentioned. And then you can sell your books directly, kind of bypassing the need for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all the other big retailers. And you can sell it directly through there. So we actually have videos on our YouTube channel about this specifically and I do like a video walkthrough. We can probably link that in the chat as well. Angela, if you want to include that. It won't let me upload Lakes for some reason, I'm not sure. But go check out that video and. Or if you just want us to do it for you, we have a page on our website where you can purchase that package and I would actually set that up for you if you're interested. So hopefully that answers your question. But the solution is out there and.

There'S one other option. It's not my number one choice, but it works really easily and that is the share and sell link through Ingram. So if you are selling books through IngramSpark, like For your print on demand, for global print reach or whatever you're using, whatever you're using Ingram for, they have a share and sell link that is a very easy direct sale. Now why I say it's not my first choice is because while you'll make more money per book sold, you don't get the contact information of the buyer. So it's really simple to set up. It takes under two minutes and you'll be able to sell books and they'll ship them, they'll print and ship it for you so you don't have to deal with any of that stuff. But you are missing out on the contact information, which you know is one of the. To me, it's one of the great advantages of selling direct because now you get contact information and can build a longer term relationship with that buyer. But I did want to mention it because it is a super simple way to do it. And you do make more money per book sold through, through that link versus selling it on a bookstore or through Amazon.

What was. We have a few different videos about direct sales. Which one is the one that you're talking about, Shane?

So it would be, it would be. I'd have to look. Let me, let me look really quickly.

Or do you know, Julie?

It's, it's. I think it's the more recent one. It would say Book Vault in it. So okay.

About Book Vault and Shopify.

Okay. Yes. Yeah, that's the one.

And we also have a video about the, the Ingram.

Yeah, the share and sell. Yeah, there's also a video share, both of those. Yeah. And I mean, so the only thing that we've kind of run into issues with Book Vault is the slow. Like sometimes we find them rather slow. There's also this weird glitch where sometimes it defaults to ship from the uk. So it is a. It's not perfect.

I think, I think Book Vault is more, it's more hands on. It seems like a. More like, like a really robust tool. And if you want to, I mean, both of them have their advantages. But yeah, Book Vault we have had some issues with, but we still set up clients with it just because it seems to be the best option out.

There compared to it has the most.

Functionality for what we found. That does help solve the problem that a lot of authors are looking for, which is that print on demand publishing, you know, print on demand sales, direct through your website. It definitely has a lot of those. But you know, like any company, it's got some kinks and so we're working through those. But yeah, right now it's still a really good option.

Absolutely. All right, Angela's doing 5,000 things at once. But what's our next question?

My eyes are going everywhere.

Okay, so next up, I think this one's for Sarah.

All right. Skateguard blog. I am big on marketing to libraries, but I find a ton of them won't even give you the time of day unless you have a Kirkus editorial review. So we kind of touched on that. But yeah, yeah.

And this is from the same person asking the same question. So I mean, in that case then if libraries are a big part of your marketing strategy, that's a big piece of what, who you want to reach, then getting that Kirkus review would be a good investment. And that's how you look at it. This is an investment of, you know, however much it is. I think it's like 499, 500. And then the next time you walk into a library, they're not going to say no. I haven't, I personally haven't found libraries that say no because you don't have a Kirkus review. But you do have to consider that libraries are looking for trusted voices and they trust Kirkus and they don't know you. So that does help bridge that. But you know, like I mentioned the other ones, Library Journal, book list, even some of the traditional, if you can get your local area, there's newspapers, periodicals and things around there that do reviews that might also help.

Yeah, and I think I was going to kind of say the same thing you said, which is I have never run into a library who, who has said specifically like, you don't have a Kirkus review. So I won't consider it. There's a couple things though that you are overcoming when you self publish. And this is still the case in libraries. But it's been a couple years. When I gave the talk at the American Library association and I really had to smile because there was a bunch of librarians in the room and a few of them said, we don't carry self published books at our library, like full stop. That's what they said to me. And I said, really? I said, so you don't carry David Goggins book, you don't carry? And I started listing some, you know, very, very major books that are self published. And they said, well, of course we do. I said those are self published. And they didn't realize. And so what I always tell authors is the libraries, their number one priority is demand, right? Like they're serving their community. So if their community is demanding, they carry your book, they're going to carry your book. So what do you do? Rally your local community to go in and request your book from the local library. So they will request it. They're not going to look for Kirkus Review at that point. They're going, geez, everybody's asking us if we have this book. So you know, that's kind of the one thing. Whereas you can't rally your uncle and your mother and your child to go to go to write an Amazon review or you shouldn't. You can get them to go. And you know, if they have a library membership, hey, do you have this book? Do you have this book that can work?

The other thing that I want to add about libraries is if that's a big part of your strategy, you do need to make sure that you make it easy on the Library in terms of having fully researched metadata that is very present, make sure that your front matter is all, you know, set up properly so that they have the ability to go ahead and catalog that book. So if you're missing all of that information that is going to make it so that they can't stalk your book. So if you're taking a book into library, it's missing all of the metadata and the PCIP blocks and all of those pieces of information, then that might be a reason they're saying no. So make sure that whatever you do when you go into a library, that you've made it as easy as possible for them to catalog it.

Yeah, and I'll just quickly bring this up. I mean, Dale said he gets into libraries and that's the thing, like I've, I've never run into this need for a review. But you know, he said we don't take self published books with no following. I mean, they also don't take self published books that look self published, like full stop. You have to remember librarians are avid book lovers, right? Like they're, they're not in on the light. They're not working in the library for the money. They're there for the books and for the community. So, you know, that's where you really have to, if you're, if your approach is going to be to libraries, you really have to be professional and have a really fantastic looking book that's been well edited, well produced. We have one, one of our authors, Linda Magoon, she's become like a library darling. And it just started with one or two that I think, I think you.

Guys, we set her up for one that she actually got out of aba. We had taken her where she was on the floor or not. Aba, I'm sorry, ala The American Library. I know, I know. And she got a gig, one gig out of that. But the great thing about libraries, especially in certain areas, because she's up in New Hampshire, they all talk to each other. So she did one and then all of these others started coming in and she had the right materials to make it super easy, easy for them. She had all of the front matter. She had the book, you know, cataloged appropriately. She had cell sheets, which is something we create for authors that help give that information in a snap. She knew what she was going to go in and talk on. So it was really easy to put together programs. And I can't, I don't even know how many she's done now. 15, 20. We still get requests all the time. For libraries in her area. And her book came out in 2023. June 2023. So, yeah, if you make it easy for them, they're more than happy.

And she did not have a Kirkus review, so. That's right.

She did not.

She did not.

But she had a topic they were interested in her book specifically. Not only was it about overcoming trauma and it was a really interesting women led, you know, life story, but it also had to do with her local area and hiking the. I forgot what they're called the. The Grand Peaks, the 48 peaks that are in New Hampshire. So that automatically generated local interest. So that's something as well that you need to keep in mind. Yep, there it is.

Yeah. And you can see. Yeah, and you can see here, too. I think she still has the list here. Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Some of the book talks that she's given in the last, you know, few months. So, you know, in April and June. I don't. And she didn't even put all of the things here. She kind of ran out of steam because I know she had another one in November. And she also spoke. Was on the panel at Author Nation here in Las Vegas. So she has not. We should nudge her.

She's not kept it. I should tell her keep it up to date.

But just to kind of give you a sense of those. Of those things. And since I'm over here, we'll do a prize because I'm here. And let's see who's up next. And I know there's been some people popping in since we did the last prizes too, saying hello. So let's see who we get next. Oh, Suzanne. Oh, delightful. And thank you for joining us today. All right, let's see what you get. Let's see what your prize is. We have an abundance of SPS1, which is what we call self publish and succeed. But you probably have that one already and probably don't want it again. So feel free to gift it to somebody in there and. And maybe we'll get you another prize later on today so you can be Santa Claus today. You can see if anybody doesn't have it and gift it to someone. All right, so our next winner is going to be. Let's see the suspense. Oh, I thought Brent was going to win. Sarah. Sarah doesn't win.

I don't need a copy of SPS 1. I have 25 right here at the floor next to me.

There we go. But although she's probably going trot.

I want the.

I want the fleece blanket. Okay. So, Efren, let's see if we can get you something you don't have. This is gonna be challenging. Let's see, let's see, let's see.

I mean, there's some stuff from, like, the corners.

He.

There might be something.

I don't think he has.

I don't think he has a fleece blanket. So that. That's both. Fleece blankets are now spoken for because one's going to Allen and one is.

Going to go to Fattle Free.

I'm so happy.

All right, so make sure you guys email angelaeamaoklaunchers.com and Tony's in the house. Welcome, Tony. And KJ is here too, so hello. Fabulous. And Alan. Yes, Alan was also on the panel, and Efren was our moderator at the panel at Author Nation, so. So I'll try and dig up a picture for you all while somebody else is answering a question. I'll find the picture for you so you can check it out. All right, so what question do we have next?

Suzanne did say that we can redraw for summer.

Okay, we will do that. One moment. But somebody else has crashed our party. So let's say hello to Kate.

Hey, guys.

All right, so you are. You weren't here, Kate, but I'm gonna put the spotlight right on you to say hello and introduce yourself. All right, hold on. All right, cool.

I'm Kate. I'm an author concierge here at Book Launchers. I'm so excited to be here at our holiday extravaganza. So I'm part of the production team. If you don't know who I am in the support team here at Book.

Launchers, tell them a little bit about your author background because you have a pretty fabulous background as an author as well.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I've publishing since 2013 a bunch of fiction books and also nonfiction for authors. I talk about rights reversion for authors because I had to go through that process myself. And I also have a book about being a hybrid author, which is basically being a self published author and also a traditional published author. So, yeah, I love talking about books, like all points of my life.

Fabulous. Well, thanks for joining us today. All right, we're just in time for another question. So, Angela, what have we got?

I had it. Let me just scroll up. It's actually one from Dale, so it's.

A really good one.

Okay. This is something that pretty much any one of us could answer.

All right. What is one of the biggest challenges one of your clients has faced? And how did you Address the issue. All right, you guys, I'll, I'll, I'll send that over to Sarah first and then maybe Kate after.

I, you know, I don't want to single out a single author. As far as a challenge, I will say commonalities that we see with challenges. One of the biggest challenges I see authors always finding is how to find their voice out there in social media beyond the book itself. You know, they, they know that in order to sell a book they need to build that audience, but they just don't know how to start and that becomes paralyzing and therefore they don't do anything. And that is a big challenge for a lot of people because, you know, all the things that are out there. Either you don't enjoy social media or you don't, you know, you, maybe you're dealing with imposter syndrome. Maybe you're just not sure what it is you have to say beyond what you poured into that book. And some ways to get around this, I've, I've tried a few different things. One thing that does tend to work for our authors, it. Social media is just not their thing. They're not interested in building a book list, not interested in buying it, building an email list. And Julie has plenty to say on that. But if they don't want to do that, then what I always say back to them is if you're not going to find your readers online, you have to find them where they exist in the real world. So that could mean buying booth space at conferences, it could mean doing things at your local library, it could mean farmers markets where you're actually talking to your reader face to face. And for some reason that does tend to help people because that idea of face to face interaction can sometimes trump the, the social media interaction for others that are interested in building that online presence but just aren't sure how. I just gave this advice this week of, of don't assume you have to do all of the things all at once. Go on one channel where you know your target reader exists and then just be an observer for a little bit of time. Learn it, learn the rhythm. Learn what type of content you react to. Do you spend more of your time watching videos or do you read the long form articles or do you just like going around and reading comments? Once you've kind of understood how it works, then you can start to build your own presence there and start to contribute to the conversation. You know, I think the other challenge to it is it can be paralyzing because there's so Many options. Do I need to be on LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok and have an email list and have all these things? Start with the one thing that's really manageable and that could just be dedicating 20 minutes a day to spending time on that desired platform. Or maybe it's just sitting down one afternoon and writing out some blogs. But whatever those is, start small, take it one step at a time and then build like building blocks. Don't feel like you have to jump into the ocean at the very beginning.

I have a quick one too.

Yeah, please.

So in my portion of the company, I do all digital marketing, platform building and stuff. And this example is of a client who built an online course with us. She was struggling to get students into a brand new online course. She invested a lot of time into creating a really quality course that is going to be really helpful and be a great extension to her book offering. She just really wanted to get her message out there and help as many people as possible. And you know, there's probably not many more deflating things than like putting all this effort into something that you really love and are passionate about. And then nobody buys it, nobody enrolls, subscribes, whatever. But one of the problem that she was having was that she just couldn't get any students into her online course. So what she ended up doing was, you know, we recommended that she starts promoting her, her email list out there onto the, onto the great world Wide web on meta ads like using Facebook and Instagram advertising to expand her reach. And over a 12 month period, she accumulated like you know, 600 and then all the way up to like 900 email subscribers. And then through that she was able to retarget all of those subscribers to become students in her course. And last time I checked, she had a couple dozen students and you know, starting from absolutely zero and didn't have a really big audience. But as she had all of the elements set up properly in the background to drive new students to her course, you know, she had a great sales page, she had a funnel to, to sell the actual course itself. It was just a matter of getting the word out there. And I'd say, you know, that was her overcoming that challenge from just like, okay, nobody's signing up, but you know, just investing a little bit more money and time into running some ads and just getting the word out there really amplified her reach and got some students in the door. And now she's able to help a lot more people, hundreds of people actually.

So that's A great example. Yeah. Yeah, thanks.

A good one.

And I think I just want to put on that is a lot of people, especially with courses, but even with their books, they have a build it and they will come. Kind of like, this is such an awesome idea, such an awesome concept. And even the absolute most needed concept, you know, generally still needs you to put the word out. And, you know, if you can invest in ads, great. But, you know, otherwise it's put yourself in front of other people's audiences over and over and over again and build that email list, because that's where you will inevitably not only sell books, but have people join your courses and kind of do all the fun things after the fact. But. But yeah, it really isn't build it and they will come. I think, you know, we've. We've worked on. I mean, we've worked with more than 750 authors now and hundreds of books in the marketing phase, and I can only think of one that kind of sold itself. Like, the author literally did nothing. And Sarah probably knows exactly which one.

I know exactly who you're talking about.

The book sold like crazy. And. And, you know, it was. The author didn't do anything. So out of those hundreds of examples, we only have one book where the author didn't do anything.

The author didn't do anything. But the book sold itself because it was a topic that was timely, was happening right then, and it was something that a lot of people were interested in, and the author had a var. Specific perspective and experience with it. And that book still sells because people were interested in it.

So. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And, Kate, do you have anything to add? We also have a special visitor.

Yeah. Yes. He's very clingy. Yeah. So being on the support team at Book Launchers, like, I get a lot of questions and a lot of concerns, and I'd say, like, probably the biggest one is really, like, timeline of getting your book out there. You know, it's sort of demystifying the process for a lot of our clients, and it's a wonderful opportunity for me because I love to talk about books, to talk about, you know, the editing steps and things like that. So I think most of the time it's just having enough confidence to ask questions and to learn about the publication process, sort of be open to it. A lot of our authors really love understanding all of these things, and I love, you know, helping share that with them. So I'd say, you know, immerse yourself in the publication process where you can. And you can definitely learn A great deal. And then, you know, for your next book, it'll be even more exciting. So it's a majority of the questions that I get.

Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I put this on there. But who does not not have a copy of Self Publish and Succeed? Who's on here today? Let. Let us know, please. Okay. And I did find a picture of these fabulous folks. I think I have to stop and then represent. Let me see if I can actually make this work. So do you want to put another question up there while I'm fumbling with. With this picture?

Okay, so, yeah, this is from. Why am I blanking on? It's from Scott.

Yeah. Hey, Scott.

Could you talk about ideas for a physical book launch party?

There's Alan and Linda. There's Alan, there's Efren.

Yep, there we go. So that's them on the panel at Author Nation. So that's pretty fun. And then I think you guys can still see these. I was going to show you. Where is it?

Joel, you're brave to just show your library like that.

I mean, my life's not that exciting, you guys. Oh, I can't find the other picture. Oh, here was. Oh, this is Linda. This is one example. So this is Linda doing a book signing. So, you know, if anybody's interested in doing live events or selling books live in person, that's certainly something we could talk about too. But, you know, just kind of the setup, like, what do you need to do? So I was snapping. I was snapping pictures of everybody. There's Efren doing his thing. So anyways, I won't. I won't take you guys through my entire photo library, but. But that was at Author Nation, and it was really great to be there. And Kate was there, too, which was super fun.

Yeah. Okay, so I'll repost. And this goes with in person stuff. Scott's question about a physical book launch party. Any ideas?

Yeah, yeah, I can definitely. Julia, you want me to jump in on this one?

Yeah, go ahead. I mean, first I'll tell you, you can do just about anything. So I'll say, like, one of the things I've done, and then turn it over to Sarah to kind of probably tell you more appropriate for your world. But one of my. One of the things I did for my second book launch was I was really active in the CrossFit community where I lived at the time, and they volunteered to host a book launch party for my upcoming book launch. And so we decided to call it Burpees for Books Again. This is what I said. Most people probably would not do something like this, but we live streamed the event as well as local community came in. And for every book sale, I did three burpees. So I did a lot of burpees that day. And then we gave half the proceeds to a charity that was kind of integrated with the CrossFit community. And so it was lots and lots of fun. And we got a lot of support from the local community because a lot of the CrossFit members were, you know, owners of various businesses. So they all put up posters and, you know, we promoted it to our list as well so they could come to the live stream. And it was just a fun, you know, it wasn't super. It wasn't an event where I made a ton of money, but it was great because I got community exposure, we had some fun, and I burned some calories at the same time.

I would not be doing a burpee contest for my book launch party. But, you know, that's okay. So with. When it comes to book launch parties, obviously, you know, you can go the Tried and True and go to your local bookstore or local library and, you know, and talk to them about that. Bookstores do love doing that because that means that you're gonna be bringing people into their store. So they do love that. But I love it when authors get a little bit out of the box and find a way to have that book launch party that isn't a traditional bookstore. Not there's anything wrong with the bookstore. Ones are great too. But just not even just that long ago. I'm in the Ann Arbor region of Michigan, and there was a book launch party that was happening nearby, and it was the Choose Fi guys. Scott, I know your book is in personal finance and investing. You might be familiar with Choose Fi. When their book came out, they did an event not far from me here in Michigan that I got to go to. And they did it at a local. Like a. Like a debt relief company, but like one that more works with individuals on financial education and helping them manage debt. And so it was kind of a cool way to partner up with a local company that had a similar audience. And so he got to. They got to do the book launch party there. They had different people from the. The team there. And, you know, we got to go to this great panel. There was another one, if you're familiar with Joe Sal Sehi from Stacking Benjamin's. When his book Stacked came out, he did it at a local brewery where they just kind of. They had a brewery and then they did sort of like a money trivia night, which was really funny, like everything around personal finance. And he had several special guests that came in and they all kind of talked. Another one of our financial planning authors who's actually here, near, very close to me here in Ann Arbor. I just went to his book launch party in October, and he partnered up with people from blackrock, Fidelity, and a couple of other companies to come in and do mini presentations. But we did it all at a pickleball court. So we got to go to these cool presentations and listen about, you know, trends for 2025 when it comes to stock market. And then we got to play pickleball. So it really. The book launch party can be anything you want to make it, but it is really fun when you're able to bring in special guests that are similar to you or that your target reader are going to be really interested in hearing. Then you get to bring their networks in as well to help, you know, promote the book. And I do recommend just making it a little bit different than just, you know, hey, I'm going to read you a chapter of my book and then sign some, Sign some copies, make it interactive, make it fun, make it something where the readers are going to not only walk away with a copy of your book, but they're going to learn something. And maybe you've helped other people as well. So, you know, those are just a couple of the ideas. And just weirdly, all three of those all happen to be in Scott's category of personal finance. But I think that works really well.

They were much more appropriate for the average author than Burpees for books. But still, I wanted to share, but.

It was a brand for you, Julie. Like, it was creative and completely on brand for you, so it works great.

Exactly. All right, so we also have another special guest hiding in the wings, which I've alluded to for those of you who are here earlier. And I'm going to bring him on stage in just a moment. But before I do that, I wanted to give you guys my first holiday trivia question. And so the first person to answer this question in the chat is going to be our winner.

Can I request help to help me look at the chat to see who gets it right?

All the stuff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm watching.

And then also I wanted to acknowledge that Joel. And there was three people that don't have self publish and succeed that commented.

I've, I've starred them. We've got like, I think five.

Is there five? Okay. Well, let's just do the first three. So the first three people that don't have it, let's send them a copy of Self Publish and Succeed. So if you want to figure out who those first three were and then let. Then afterwards, you can tell them, you know, that they've won it, and then they can send you your address or send you their address as well. And I always have to remind people of that, because I can't tell you how many people write Angela and go, I won the book. Yay. Thank you.

Angela's like, I don't know where you live.

So. All right, so the first holiday trivia question, and they're all book related because this is, you know, a book. A booktacular celebration. Okay, so which. This should be an easy one. I'm starting you with easy ones, you guys. Which Dr. Seuss book features a grumpy character who tries to steal Christmas from the residents of Whoville? Okay, like I said, this would be an easy one. I'm giving you a softball. Which Dr. Seuss book features a grumpy character who tries to steal Christmas from the residents of Whoville? All right, Kevin, we got how the Grinch Stole Christmas. I don't see it.

Oh, well, we got Grinch. Grinch. And then Emily Romero with the full name, how the Grinch Gets Stolen.

Kevin said Grinch.

A. This is a book title, my friends. You got to get it.

That would be Emily. Emily. Who got the full one? Natalie got it second.

Great. Okay, and so let me pop in, and then you're coming on next, my friend. I know. I see you in the wings. Okay, so I have to share my screen again. We got to figure out what Emily wins. So let me pop back over here and figure out what Emily wins here. So. And there's no fleece blankets, so if that comes up again, we're not. Okay, we call it the Game of Thrones shirt because it's. It's a phrase from the Game of Thrones. It is. And I don't have it in front of me, but basically, I. I drink coffee and write books and know things I think is what the. The take is on it. So we have a wide variety of sizes, so I'm pretty sure we've got your size, Emily. So I just saw an email come in from somebody who forgot to give Angela her address. It happens all the time, so. So, Emily, please send your size choice and your address to Angela so she could get you the prize. All right? So without further ado. Oh, and he left. He ran Away. He disappeared. He's gone. I'm just about to. Oh, no. There he is. He is hiding underneath.

Yeah, I just bailed. I was like, I'm not waiting any longer. You know, I'm a superstar, by the way. It's great to be on the same screen as all the other book Launchers gang. So does that mean I'm hired or I'm official part of the team?

You've always been an honorary book launchers.

That's why I like being around you, Sarah. You're so awesome. I said that before. I think it was at 20 Books Vegas. I was like, you should be my hype man. I'm just gonna bring you around. Because she was like, oh, he's being modest. I was like, I kind of am.

Yes. I mean, that's the thing. Sarah is like our clients, they get Sarah as their hype man. So, you know, it's. It's an advantage of. Of being a book Launchers author, but. All right.

Hi. That's gonna be my new nickname.

That's right. So, Dale Roberts, welcome. Thank you for being here because you really are an honorary part of the book Launchers family community, all the things. But for anybody who does not know who you are, could you take a moment and introduce yourself? And then. And I'm also going to get you to talk about the two books because they're in that random prize spinner there. They just haven't come up yet, but you can hold them up and tell them what they could win too.

So, you know, I was thinking I was coming in like, I was coming in hot today, you know, nobody had a chance to really digest. They're like all of a sudden getting splashed with cold water in the face and they're going, who is this clown? I am Dale L. Roberts. I am an indie author. I've been in this business for over a decade now, and I've been here on YouTube for over eight years. Published over 1600 videos between two YouTube channels, all entirely about writing and publishing. I love this business. It's fantastic business. It's one I plan on staying around forever. The two things I enjoy in the most in the world, of course, beyond family things, would be, of course I love publishing. And I love publishing videos and books, most importantly. So, yeah, that's me in a nutshell. Now, as far as those two other books, I guess, what would you like me to share about it? It's the first two parts in the 12 part series. It's rolling out over the next year called self publishing with Dale And I'm essentially taking everything that's in my brain and putting it into an entire, like, book series. That way, if anybody ever wants to know, like, I want to know everything that Dale does, they'll just pick up copies of my book. And those first two books lay the foundation for everything that I know.

Awesome. When you first said that that took everything from your brain and put them in books, I'd be like, nobody wants everything that's in my brain.

Well, about the business, I should probably say no one needs to know about my experience in pro wrestling or being at a. In a heavy metal band or anything else like that. But, yeah, as far as the business goes, I've got all that stuff put in the books. I think that the rest of it's gonna have to go into some other thing.

Awesome. Well, that. I think that would make a great memoir someday. But anyways, we got lots of questions still to answer, so why don't you bring up another question? And we've got Dale here. We do have that low content question. Which Were you there for that? Do you have anything?

I.

You'll have to pop it back up again because I. I don't. I'm sorry. It's been about an hour now, and that was at the top of the hour. So, yeah, I was tuning out for a minute there, and I was like, oh, I'm supposed to be on.

Oh, it is Abby. It's from Abby.

This one.

This one. Here we go.

Yeah, there we go. Okay. So, yeah, the question was, my book includes journal pages at the end. What are your thoughts on publishing a low content, expansive journal?

I mean, it's not a bad idea. I just. You need to look at it as another asset. Just trying to put it up and expect passive results from it. It's not going to get you very far, I will say, from that. From firsthand experience, I had the 90 day home workout plan. Bestselling book. It sold thousands upon thousands over the years. And probably about a year or two into it being published, I was like, you know what? People really do need journal to kind of go along with this so that when they have the exercises, they can write down the reps, they can write all the information they need to it rather than having just like a notebook problem. Was I. I probably sold a handful of those things as opposed to the, you know, the tens of thousands of the 90 day home workout plan. Why is that? Was because I was terrible about marketing it. I didn't say anything within the book to let people know that that was an option. I didn't tell people much beyond maybe one email newsletter broadcast. But beyond that, if you don't plan on doing anything with it, then don't publish it. That's just my take on it. You don't ever want to half ass anything in this business expect, you know, whole ass results. My apologies if I'm cracking the family friendly code here on a Saturday.

I mean, Kate's cat is going to run and hide from that language, but yeah, my apologies.

Drinking boozy eggnog.

So I was gonna say we were.

Talking about boozy eggnogs, so.

All right, thanks for that, Dale. All right, what's our next question?

So we have had a couple questions. I don't know how you want to do this, Julie, that have come in for specifically Dale, or we just want to continue in order.

Yeah, no, we'll. While we've got him. Well, actually, let's go back. Let's do a couple more from our order so we don't lose those. We get those done. But then after we've answered two, we'll get turn it over to Dale again. And then we'll specifically draw for a couple of Dale's books to make sure that they find some great homes.

And before we move on, I do have those three people who are the first to say that they did not have copies of SPS 1 or self publish and succeed. So first up is Susan Montgomery. So you said that you have self promote and succeed, but you do not have self publish and succeed. So please email me. Next up, let Fear Bounce. Bounce. I am not sure who this is, but let Fear Bounce. Will you please also email me? And I do need your name and your mailing address. I can't send it to your YouTube handle. And then Joel Suggs, of course, as Julie had mentioned, you were actually number three. So if you will also email me your mailing address, I will get you. I will gladly send you a copy of the book. Okay, give me just a second. I don't remember where we. Oh yes, here we are. This is the next one. This is actually from Eric.

A quick what makes a good book giveaway. All right, who's got the 62nd version? Because I do not.

I can do it.

Okay, good.

Book giveaway is going to consist that whoever you're giving the book away, wherever you're hosting it, has your target reader in the audience. For example, I would not do a giveaway for an academic book on Goodreads because academics are not getting their books from Goodreads. Other things that make A giveaway, a little bit of that sense of urgency. You want them, you want them really wanting to get those, those entries in and making it easy for them to share. So you know, sharing the news that they entered this giveaway and that's usually through email and social media marketing, making, you know, ready to go posts for it. And then also some of the things that make a good giveaway. A little bit of bonus if you can partner up with another author, do a two for one or get swag from another person that also shares the target reader. So you know, you don't want to do a giveaway for a non fiction book and then give them fiction bookmarks. You write, you want to keep it all sort of in line and in branch with what you're doing. Is that 60 seconds enough?

I think so. I didn't start a timer, but that was dang close. Nicely done.

All right, thank you.

No pressure for the next person who attempts to answer a question.

Well, Julie knows that I tend to ramble on too, so I'm trying to refine my answers.

That was great.

The next question I think would actually be really great to ask with Dale here as well. This is from Bill Miller. So can you provide an update as to how Amazon KDP is handling AI assisted books? For example, copy editing, proofreading and even Dibly create or designer assisted books?

I mean, I mean as far as when you say handling, I mean we have to disclose that AI has assisted when you upload it. But and we're fighting the bots, even on the ones that aren't assisted. The bots are kicking us back, you know, kicking back books for all kinds of funky reasons these days and even when we have not used AI at all in them. But I don't know if you have anything else to add to that, Dale.

You know, I've spoken directly with the KDP team about AI generated books. There, there is a distinction between generated and assisted. Generated would be if we had the AI write the entire content for us. Assisted would be something like, I don't know, using pro writing aid or in some instances using certain aspects of dibly create. That isn't the content writer portion of things that it's, you know, maybe fact checking or you're, you know, trying to link out things like that that's going to be assisted. So just know that distinction right there. Now the one thing that they had mentioned when you are publishing your book through them, that it's. You're going to want to disclose it. They're just collecting data all right. It's not entrapping you, it's not getting you in trouble. In fact, I can say already that I've done an AI generated book. I did it over on YouTube just as full example of how it's done and I haven't had any issues whatsoever with it when. But you know, so what they will do with it in the long term, we're going to, you know, wait and see. But we already know Amazon has a very pro AI stance because it's just all throughout their website now. I think they have something called Rufus now that's like their version of AI on the website. So it's not that they're a anti AI, they just want you to disclose the use of it and of course how much you've used of it. Now that's going to be up to your discretion on how you mark those types of things. And if you find yourself lost and you're doing AI generated or you're not sure if you're doing AI generated or AI assisted contact support, just scroll on down to the very bottom of your dashboard, hit the contact us. Go through the full questionnaire. I would recommend if you can get phone support or live chat support. I found that email support has been largely unhelpful over the years. If you need basic answers, email support, you want good detailed answers that specific to you. Live chat support or even more importantly phone support if you can. Their phone support's exemplary. I've had nothing but good experiences. My apologies if anybody has had had, you know, otherwise.

Yeah, no, it's if you can get on the phone with them, that's much better. The chat, the chat's better than email, but emails almost all canned responses. So you're getting nothing but like the templated answer to whatever you've sent in. So it can be very frustrating.

Yeah, I've heard through and I'm sorry I can't give you guys any kind of credible sources. So unfortunately this is going to be anecdotal but I've heard that the folks that are in charge of doing the email support have like a multiple choice answer type selection to do. It's like you have A, B, C and D. They may not match any of those things but they find the thing that's closest to matching that and answer it with that. So that way it's that. So again, conspiracy theory, I don't have exact sources on that type of thing, but that would make sense. And I think that a lot of people have learned through the email support that it's Just kind of like, what are you. What are you doing? Did you just. You huff paint before you came in? And answer my question.

You did.

Like, it was like. They were like. Like, it's like, you know, what's your favorite color? Yes.

Yes.

That's not a color.

It's for laughing because it's true.

We're laughing because half the time you're like, did you read my question? Did you read why I reached out?

Yeah.

It's frustrating, for sure.

All right, so let's go. Oops. Where'd my little. Oh, there we go. I was gonna say, let's give some of Dale's books away. So, Angela, which one are we first?

Well, we have both of his books.

We've got.

Let me go to that list. So we've got the advanced. I apologize, Dale, I'm forgetting the name of it, but I've got them literally right beside me. So we've got advanced self publishing for authors and self publishing for new authors. Those are the two books of Dale's I have to give away.

Fabulous. Okay, so let's see who winner number one is.

And.

And these are special editions, too. They're. They have the.

I was gonna say, those are beautiful. They're fancy. Print Nation, right?

Is that shout out to Print Nation? Yeah, they. They. They did a great job.

Yeah, I love. I love the Print Nation books, too. We printed Alan's. Alan had some Print Nation books done for Author Nation here in Vegas, and they were stunning. All right, Dr. Douglas, F.C.

Heifer.

Congratulations. So we need you to email Angela so your mailing address, And. And then you can choose which book, so. Because we don't know whether you're a new author or you're ready for the advanced strategies, so you can choose. Let her know which of those two books you would like and your mailing address. And let's do this again.

I will put the titles into the chat if they're not already there, so that people can look at them.

Fabulous. And Cynthia. There you go. Congratulations, Cynthia. And probably send you the advanced because you're no longer a new author. I can show your book again because it's just sitting right here beside me. And I'm gonna do one more while we're here because it's on my screen and it's easy. And then I'm gonna give you guys another piece of trivia to get your little. Not your little, but get your brains thinking on the holiday boat books, so. And, Amy, congratulations, and thank you for being here. So you have won a copy of Dale's book. You can choose which book between the two that Angela has put in the chat. And let me. Oops, did I. I removed it. I'm gonna have to share it again. Okay. Darn it, I didn't mean to do that. Okay, so trivia. Here we go. So this one should be also a fairly easy one, but which famous Christmas story begins with the line Marley was dead to begin with? Marley was dead to begin with. All right, so first one to answer with the full proper name is going to win that one.

Wow. Emily's on it again.

Wow. Yes. All right, so, Emily, to be fair, we're going to give it to the second place person on that one, although you are crushing it. But that would be. Oops, it's coming in fast. Now. Everyone knows this one.

Yeah, there we go.

I was gonna say, I think it was the heart's way. My screen jumped on me really quickly. All right, congratulations. The heart's way. So let's go see, quickly. I say quickly for me, not for you, is which prize you get. And then we'll go back to the question specific for Dale while we have them here. So where was my. There it is. Okay, so let's see who is next. And if you're still lurking in the sidelines and you haven't said hello, please know you're not getting entered to win any of these things. So you do have to say hello. Otherwise the little giveaway tool doesn't know to put your name in there. So do say hello and have some fun in the chat so that you can be entered to win. And I just chose a person.

I was gonna win my own book.

Goodness gracious.

I've always wanted this.

Congratulations, Dale. No. So there's two things I just did there. This was supposed to be choosing your prize, and I went in there and chose a person. So don't worry, I will not forget the person. But first, the prize for. I think it was actually. Was it even the Harts way? Isn't that funny? Was it the same person that won the trivia? And see, you were meant to win, Let me tell you. So what did you win, though? That's the big question, right? What did you win? You won Rise of the Reader. So this. And Angela also has lots of this book. So Rise of the Reader. Well, actually, I'll turn it over to Sarah while I'm here, but Sarah can give you a quick overview on what Rise. Rise of the Reader is about.

Oh, yeah. Brights of the Reader is by Nick Hutchison, who, if you're not familiar. Nick runs the very popular book recommendation site Book Thinkers. Huge on Instagram and a bunch of other places. They've had podcasts. They have hundreds of authors that come through, and they have a fantastic audience. And one of the great things about Rise of the Reader is that Nick, being an avid reader who has, you know, sold, proclaimed, read over 400 personal development and professional development books, found that implementing the lessons from these books was harder than reading it. You read these great books, but how do you implement the lessons? How do you really take it away and really use them to change your life? And so he developed a great framework for doing this, including exercises, ways to think about it, how to prioritize your reading so that it's the most actionable. And that is Rise of the Reader, which has done very well. We're super happy for Nick.

Awesome. Thank you so much. All right.

I'm so happy you remember it so well.

Like, my goodness, Sarah. That's impressive. Superpower, man. It's why I'm the hype man. I remember this stuff.

I was gonna say, I never. I never have a fear when I throw a book over to Sarah that we've worked on because I've seen her in action live at our booth, and I'll be sitting there, like, going, what is this book about? I'll be, like, frantically, like, trying to look at it.

And Sarah's like, oh, you know what.

I love about this book? And she just dives right in. So I know I could throw any of them to her. And if we're safe.

I'm also very good at friends trivia. You know.

You want to throw some.

Of those my way.

Exactly. All right, so I'm going to turn it. I'm actually going to pop out for a quick moment. In case you didn't notice, I'm. I've emptied both of these, so you guys know I need a bathroom break. But I. I'm going to turn it over to you guys for questions, and if you want to pull up the couple of questions that were specific to Dale, you guys can tackle those. That'd be awesome.

Yeah, we're gonna do one or two questions for you, Dale, and then we're gonna do one that's coming for Shane because he does have to hop off in a few minutes as well. So first up for you, Dale, this one is from Eric. What is your buy order recommendation of your book books? And you have so many. Like, what order should people buy them in?

Yeah. Yeah. Because there's a good deep backlog And I wouldn't be surprised if you're brand new to the business. I say go into book one, self publishing for new authors. That one right there is just the foundational knowledge that you need. Now if you're looking for something like let's say you've already published a book, you're already bit experienced, maybe you've had a few books, you're kind of in the game for a little longer. You could look into book number two in the series that I've done recently, or any of my Amazon self publisher series, which includes Amazon keywords for books, which will give you an idea about more discoverability promotional strategies for books. And then there's Amazon reviews for books. So again, those four would be the next step. And then the other ones within my series would, you know, just pick and choose, see which ones make sense to you. Because with the audience that watches book launchers, primarily some nonfiction authors might be interested in the how to write a nonfiction book in 24 hours. So. So it's just going to depend on where you're at in your journey. But I would say brand new author, book one, self publishing for new authors is a good reason why it's already won two book awards and is now an entrant in the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.

That's awesome, Dale.

Thank you.

And what I'm going to do is because you do have so many, I'm going to drop your author page on Amazon into the chat. So that gives you a great look at all of the books that you have and reference them to what you do.

Just said.

Okay, let me go to the question for you, Shane, very quickly. Give me just a second. It was in regards to, obviously. Let's see. Oh, goodness. Give me two seconds. It was about direct sales. Here we go.

Okay, so about.

About safety with direct sales and how someone can make sure that it's a proper sighting.

Yes.

Which lets you download your ebook to them. When you do direct sales. All these major corps are getting their stuff hacked for credit cards. How do we make sure it's safe? To make sure it's safe, you just do it through a credible software. You would do it through Shopify has like, if you set up a direct sales store through them, they have an app that you can add to the store that does safe delivery and download of ebooks. And then also bookfunnel.com is a really great option as well. Well, you can upload your EPUB version, you can upload your PDF to it, and those all provide safe downloads as well. I would just to. To make sure that you know, things aren't getting hacked and just you just. The general rule of thumb is just go with a credible software. So I would recommend Book Funnel or Shopify. Shopify's 40 bucks a month. I think Book Funnel is cheaper. It's probably a simpler option as well. I'm not sure what the price is off. It might be like 10 or 15amonth or something. But it is cheaper. But if you're looking to do more direct sales of the print copies as well, I'd probably go Shopify. But if you're just doing the ebook, Book Funnel is a great option.

Yeah.

Hopefully that answers your question.

Awesome. And then Alan, I know that you also sent a question about website. I will make sure that we have a way to save all of these questions so that we can get that question for you answered. Because Shana, it was for you as well. But I know you have to hop off.

Off.

Or were you going to say something?

No, no, it's. Yeah, I, I do have to hop off. I'm sorry, I have to bring my brother to the airport. He's just visiting for Christmas. So I, I appreciate everybody being here and thank you for all the great questions and Merry Christmas to everybody. Thank you Dale for coming on and good to see everybody here on the Saturday. So hope you all enjoy here.

Shane with your fun background.

Bye Shane. Thanks for being here.

Yeah.

Okay, Dale, we've got another question for you.

Fantastic.

Do you have a video promoting your book into little neighborhood book libraries? Is there a website to find the local library websites?

Oh yeah, yeah. So they're making reference to the little free libraries series that I did. I did a two part series where I took a lot of indie author books. Because folks, I love the love. It's awesome. It's fantastic to get all your books and such. But I don't ever read them, like literally. I don't. I only read ebooks these days or I listen to audiobooks. I never touch any print books because it's just almost an inconvenience. So I thought instead of throwing these away or letting them rot on a shelf, I took them to the local little free libraries. Now how do we find those little, little free libraries? Literally, I think you can just go to little freelibrary.org and it will be able to give you all the information you need to and look inside the area. You know, you just put your zip code and it'll show you. I found the app to be super, super helpful. However, you will Discover from time to time as you're going from like say one location to the next, that there will sometimes be some random little free libraries that just pop up. Now if you don't know what I mean by little free libraries, it's not like an actual building, it's like just a small kiosk size bookshelf that people can take a book and leave a place book. So some of these really need the books. And so this is probably one of the best ways to kind of just get your book out there in front of more people. It makes more sense that it be in somebody else's bookshelf than your own. Because who's like, that's great, that's fantastic. Are you going to go and read your book over and over? No. So there's a good solution is getting into more readers hands and the there's a good strong likelihood that it's going to stay within circulation. With those little free libraries, someone's going to get finished reading that book, they're going to probably return it and so it's going to continue to go throughout your area. So is this a million dollar idea? No, but it's definitely going to give you something that is an alternative. And there's many ways that you can kind of approach this whole business that you can maybe put a bookmark with a QR code within it, thanking them. There are so many things you could potentially do that you could retain that reader. But I found that it was really encouraging that after I visited, oh gosh, it was a couple dozen different little free libraries in July, I'd returned to them and about 90% of the books were gone. Like they were completely picked up and moved. And the ones that were left, I just picked those up and I moved them to other high traffic areas. And I'm sure that if we visited here this month, they would probably be gone again. Did I lose the rest of the team?

No, not at all.

It was me trying to find the right button.

I was like, okay, I guess I'm in charge now.

Surprise.

It's a takeover.

Awesome.

Thank you. All right, let's go back in our list. Angela, go back to the, the top. I know Scott had said he'd left us a few questions he had to leave, but he said he'll watch the replay play to catch the questions.

So yeah, and I'm hoping there's a way that you're able to like pull comments from these. Is there, is there a way? Because I'm trying to copy and paste them and it's not working so well like it does in Zoom, but I think there is.

Yeah.

Fiddling with it. Okay. And by the way, while I look for this last question or the most recent question, I should say the website that you talked about, Dale. I did Google it and I put it in the chat because that was. Right. It is whatever I put in the chat. My brain can't multitask to that level at this moment.

Littlefreelibrary.org thank you, Sarah.

All right, while you're finding a question I'm going to give, I'm going to do one more piece of trivia, because this one I didn't know. So here we go. This one should be a little harder. Emily will probably still get it right off the hop, but it's a little harder. So which book first popularized the idea of Santa's sleigh being pulled by reindeer? So which book first popularized the idea of Santa's sleigh being pulled by a reindeer?

I guess on this one.

Yeah. And I was gonna say and the actual name. This was part of the thing that I was surprised by. The actual name of the book is not what you probably know it by. It has a more commonly known name. So I'm gonna see if anybody is getting it. At this point, people are probably frowning, frantically Googling it, trying to know.

I want to Google. I'm tempted to Google because I think.

I know what it is, but AI knows it. That's what I can't think my name would have been.

So a couple good guesses. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer was the answer I thought was right, but that's not the right one. And, oh, look at Alan West. I don't know if he's just the fastest Googler in town or in the. In the world, actually, given that that he's in Japan. But this is correct. And he even put the original. So a visit from Santa Claus. And we more commonly know it as Twas the Night Before Christmas. All right.

Really interesting because that is also where it popularized the idea that Santa had the big belly and the red cheeks. And it was where we get our characterization of Santa and his love for.

Cookies and milk and all the things.

Yeah, I didn't know the original name, so thanks for that, Ellen.

Oh, he says he used to recite this every Christmas Eve. So he was not frantically Googling it. He just legit knew it. So that's awesome. I'll. We'll go over and we'll figure out what your prize is next after this. But what's our. What's our next question, Angela.

It's from our very own Brent Pullman. It's for you, Julie.

Okay. My question is for Julie, what things stood out for you with writing your next books? I'm one third through writing my second book with your next books. I'm not exactly sure what's valuable to share for you there, because every time I kind of did a shift and the book that I want to work on next is just kind of just seeing gaps and things like, oh, now I want to. Now I want to talk about this piece. I mean, Dale's wrote a whole lot more books than me, so I almost want to give him the 60 second answer. But so, you know, for me, what I, what I kind of always do is it's one part kind of where I am and the goals I have coming up and what's a fit, but then also what is not said yet, like what's going to help my audience that I haven't covered yet or that I don't think has been covered in quite the same way that I'm about to cover it. That's kind of what goes through my head for that. But do you have a 60 second answer, Dale? Because you've written a whole lot more books than me.

I'm just going to echo those sentiments. It's. It really does. You will know in your gut the direction that you need to go and especially if you get it real excited about it. And for me, when I put together my 12 part series here more recently, it was because I was excited about it. And that's really what it comes down to is knowing what your audience wants and what's going to be the thing that fulfills you most. So just kind of stacking on what Julie said, because Julie just nailed it.

Awesome. Kate, I saw you nodding. You've written, you've written lots of books, too. So did anything stand out for you?

Yeah, I was agreeing with the both of you on that because I think it's important as you continue to write, you continue to learn. And I agree with Dale wholeheartedly about being excited about something, because when you are excited in the writing process, it really shows on the page and it'll connect with the reader a lot more. So the more you do it, the better you get. But the excitement is really helpful.

Awesome. Thank you. All right, Angela, what's next?

Are you gonna pick the prize for Alan?

I'll go back after. We'll do extra prizes then because, you know, I gotta fumble through all my button pushing. And while I have you guys here, we'll just.

I don't know that Julie can multitask with this.

That's why I have you.

Exactly.

That's my role. Jerry. This is probably a good question for you, Sarah. I mean, like, for. Actually for a lot of you. But we'll let you kick it off here. What's the first step? Oh, go ahead, Julie.

No, and I was going to say, and we'll try to do 60 second answers because we do have a ton of questions we haven't got to yet, so. And we have a lot of prizes to give away still, so we'll try to do 60 seconds. No pressure, though. I'm not starting a timer on you, Sarah.

I will.

What's the first step in starting an author platform?

I mean, you have to think about how you're going to categorize platform and the way that I categorize it. Other people may have a different one, but the way that I categorize it is it's everywhere that you're showing up in the market, marketplace as an author. So that's from your website to your social media, to events that you do, to engagements that you participate in. To start that, I like to say start local. Start by doing things that are in your local area and then slowly bringing in people and then spread from there. As we talked about, Linda Magoon, she had not much of a platform at all. She. We did build a website for her and she was kind of engaged in social media, but didn't really. But she started her platform by going local and then building from there. So to start, I would say who are the people in your area that will immediately benefit from your book and connecting with them and then building as you go? I would love to hear some of the other answers on this as well.

Nicely done. Yeah, I mean, that's. I love. I don't have anything to add to that, Dale.

No, I. Nope.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I'm not saying.

Yeah, you're doing all right. And Kevin over here, he's having a blast. I mean, I kind of wish we could. This is what I mean.

Kevin's party.

I know I missed this about Zoom because Zoom, we could see. We could see Alan with his hat and his beer, and we'd be able to see Kevin enjoying his chocolate coffee and now whiskey. He's having a good old time. So. Okay, so let's do another question and then we'll go over and give away the prize to Alan as well as a couple more.

Yeah. So for the questions for Scott, do we want to pin them and email him directly.

We'll put them up here quick. And because he said he'd watch the replay to get them. Okay, go ahead.

I was gonna say he had asked about physical events earlier for a physical book launch, but now he wants to know how to, to get folks to provide their email addresses at that event.

Okay, I can do the 62nd on that.

Yeah, yeah.

So I mean, usually that's going to depend on the event. So what event you're at. And if you're giving books away, then that's usually what I do. So. And then why I say what event you're at? Because if you're at an event like Author Nation, for example, where you're there to sell books, you're probably offering something else to get their email address. So by something else, it might be a checklist, a spreadsheet, or, you know, a video that you're going to email them. You know, something like that, you're probably offering something else. But if you're at an event, like, for example, we're going to be at all the National Speakers association events next year, I'll be giving out Self Publish and Succeed. So you'll get a copy of my book and in exchange for that, we're going to get an email address. So it's going to depend on where you're at and what your goal is for that particular event, what you're going to offer them. Two quick tidbits. A lot of people will tell you to use a QR code. I find QR codes at live events are terrible. People will put it on their screen and start talking, get distracted. They never actually sign up. Just go old school. Either get them, if you have an iPad, get them to fill out their name and address right there, or pen and paper. You'll be stunned at the number of people that are going to write their name and email address down on a piece of paper. Don't get too fancy with it.

Yeah, I agree with that. 100. We, we've tried. We've done QR codes, we've done the physical signups, and we have such a better reaction to the physical, like just writing it down. Now, you do have to then go and decipher everybody's handwriting afterwards. So there's that.

You lose a few. You definitely lose a few that way. Or take a business card, you know, but, you know, get them to confirm that you can put them on their email address, but take their business card. Okay, let's go do. Oh, you got another question? Yeah, put it up and then we'll do prizes after this one.

Yeah, go ahead. So this is. Does anyone have a particular social media platform they find to be more beneficial when marketing your books?

The one where your readers are?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wish there was, like. I mean, as much as publishing, the publishing industry tried to decipher how to tick Book Talk took off. And what that did for sales, frankly, they haven't been able to come up with a formula that works perfectly. What does work is that your books are being seen by your target reader. If your books for CEOs don't go to Facebook, if your books are for gardeners, maybe you want Instagram. You know, you. You just want to go where you're. Where your audience is.

Yeah, I wish. I wish there was that magical button that we all are looking for.

Trust me, so do the big five.

Yeah, yeah, very true. All right, so this first prize is for Alan for getting the trivia right, which he crushed. So let's see what else we're shipping to your mom. Looks like your mom's getting a mug, and if she wants to, she'll give it to you. All right, so hashtag Gilberry Books mug without the stapler and the blue blocker glasses is going to Alan. All right, so let's see if you haven't said hello yet, because I know I saw a handful of new people arrive. Now is your chance, because that's how you get entered into this particular prize bucket. And then I do have one more holiday trivia question for you all. Okay, Diana. All right. Congratulations, Diana. Now go. Let's. So let's see what prize you get. And again, if you're. If a fleece blanket comes up, they're gone, but I think we have everything else still. See, I knew it.

Oh, my God, I knew it.

It's the popular one today. I knew it was coming up. I got to delete it out. That's what I'll do after. Right after this one, I'll delete it out. So it can't be. There's a hoodie left.

It is one of those like. Like sweatshirt ones.

Like, not a zip up.

It's got the right. It's the one that goes over your head. So size medium. If that works for you, Diana, that is your rise that you can claim today. Mediums the size I take. So if that's helpful at all. I mean, you haven't seen me in real life, but. But virtually, you know, if that looks like it would fit. There you go. Okay, I am not going to. To click remove from screen this time or vanish like I said. Okay, so what else were we doing? I'll do holiday trivia in a question. In a minute. So I was just thinking, I wanted to make sure I don't forget my last holiday trivia. But let's see. Let's do two more questions.

Tools. This is from David. So I used Open Office to write six books. My personal editor complained that they were not in Word. Ought I to consider migrating all of these to Word? Or do reviewers or do reviewers typically accept PDF?

So by reviewer do you mean an editor? Because an editor can't work in a PDF.

That is what they what he means.

Yeah. So Word.

For an editor, you'll want Word. Yeah, absolutely. If you are submitting these for book reviews, then you want to use PDF or like a pub or something.

Yeah. Or use like Story Origin or Book Funnel or one of those. Those companies to distribute a secure. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Another one from Scott. How to interest readers to follow up with a review.

Ask them. I wish there was a complicated answer. No, there's a lot of strategies to try and get reviews once someone has read and some work and some don't. The biggest, biggest one that does work tends to be asking and not relenting. Some of the things that I like to tell authors to do is to share reviews that you have received on social media that can spurn others to go, oh yeah, I gotta go review that book. Plus they want to see their comment on your page. So that can help with it. You have to be very, very careful around the ideas of incentivizing for reviews. It's illegal on Amazon. It can break the terms and conditions. Yes, there are loopholes and ways around it comes to terminology and how you set up things on your own site. But really I would look at where do you want those reviews? Are you gunning for Amazon Goodreads, some other retailer platform that you're using and then you want to try and connect with people that are active there as well. Don't discount book bloggers. There's a lot of people that are out there that do reviews and they will post it to Amazon again, Goodreads on your behalf. And then there's some really good book review sites that are out there that can help you source for Amazon consumer reviews specifically. So you know, we use ones like Book Sirens. There's a couple of others that we've started just exploring recently to, to see how it works for authors. But the trend true is just to ask, keep asking and remind your audience that anyone that you're talking to. It's one of the best ways to. To support an author.

Yeah, I saw you nodding. Dale, anything to add?

No, I would say another thing is too. I do recognize that a lot of authors get really beat up when they get a one star or two star review. That sometimes is a blessing in disguise because one, it's going to be able to flush out the readers that you don't want to have and it will also identify the readers you do want to have. Because I promise you, if you've got a good few you readers that really love your content, you share one star. Hey, check out this review I got. It was one star of your what? I read that book. It was five star. Well, I gotta have to go ahead and counterbalance that and you're gonna find that your loyal readers are going to get you back. I think it is a big tick tocker. I had interviewed him a number of years ago. Brad Goss. He uses a lot of his one star reviews in a lot of his videos and it's for comedic effect since he's a comedian and it drives a lot of book sales. Believe it or not, a lot of people want to go over and see the ridiculousness of his one star reviews. And so in turn what they end up doing is buying one of his many hundreds of books.

That's awesome. That's a great way to do it. Absolutely.

Yeah. Efren said something similar to me about his one star review. He posted it on social media and kind of of used it as a marketing tool which I thought was great. Rather than, rather than wallowing in your own suffering over your one star review is put it out there and talk about it and you know that will make people curious.

So I like and Alan put a great comment in the chat that it helped to suggest a simple review. Just a few sentences is plenty. Absolutely. You just need to, you know, just have them just leave a couple of words on it. It does not need to be big and complicated. And I think that is the hang up a lot of times and someone's like, oh, I don't know what to put in a review. Like what do I need to write some of the things? Keep it simple. I always tell people to give a little bit of a framework on how to live. Leave a review like what did this book make me make you think about? Who do you think this reader this book is for? What are some of the things that you took away from it? All of those things are going to be helpful in a review and do not have to be complicated.

Awesome. All right, you guys ready for one last piece of. Of holiday trivia?

Yeah.

Okay, so this one is. Is cool. It's not a Christmas movie. It is in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, what Christmas gift does Harry receive? I'm just going to leave it at that, actually, because if I give any more, it's going to be a clue, so I'm just going to leave it at that. Yeah, there's. Yeah, there is two. That's the problem. But if I say the last part, everybody's going to know the answer. But in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, what Christmas gift does Harry receive? And then I'll fill in the last blank in a second. But, you know, we already got answers. Yeah, yeah, of course. Emily got it, I think is the first one. It was the invisibility that used to belong to his father was the piece I was leaving out, so. Yes, but Emily is already trivia queen for the day.

So every, like, trivia night, I'm going to get Emily. She's got. She's on my team from now on.

100. Okay, I got one more. I got one more. I got a backup one. So you can still answer Emily. But I gave everybody the answer. Okay, but maybe hold yourself back just for a minute, Emily. We already know you know the answer. Okay. Okay, let's see. This one is from. This one I did not know. I'm just throwing this one out to stump Emily. Okay. Little Women. So Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. What Christmas gift does Jo sell her prized possession to buy for her mother? All right.

I love that movie.

Do you know the answer?

Oh, yeah, of course I do.

I'm the classic one, though. Like, Winona ryder from, like, 92. That's.

That's my go to.

All right, we'll see if anybody gets that one.

And.

And if nobody answers in a minute, Emily, you could put your answer.

I think I know what it is.

Yeah. What Christmas gift does Jo sell her prized possession to buy for her mother? Okay, we'll. We'll give folks a second on that.

I see K.J. i see K.J. having it.

No, but that's what she sold.

What she sold, not what the gift was.

What's the gift?

Oh, I thought you said what she sold.

No, no, no, no, no. She sold this to get this gift for her mother. So we want to know the gift that she got for her mother, Eric. Yep, yep, yep, yep. That is not the right answer, though. Are you sure it was. Wasn't It a physical? I thought it. Well, so the thing I looked up said it was a physical item. It wasn't the trip, but you're right, the trip was something.

Yeah. I thought she sold her hair because they needed money quickly for her mother to get to Washington to tend to their father who had been injured in the war.

Was that the Christmas gift, though?

I don't know.

I don't know. We need Ena. We need Ena in the house. Where's our fact checker?

The piano was given to them by their neighbor for Beth.

Okay, so this one, I'm just going to tell you what I had and we'll need somebody to give us a verifying answer, but I have some slippers, so. I thought it was slippers. That's what I thought.

That's in the book and not the movies.

Yeah. This is book related. This is not movie related. This is from the book, so. Okay, well, we'll see if anybody Google it now. Okay, we got 10 minutes left. So we gonna do.

We.

We gonna do. Yes, we gonna. We're gonna do rapid fire the last, you know, five questions and then we'll do. Just do rapid fire prizes for the last couple minutes.

And I want one last question for Dale because I know he has to hop off. And Dale, I've only seen one other one come through for you, so it's perfect. This is from Abby, and I think it's a follow up about the journal pieces. KDP removed the Kindle version because of the workbook slash journal pages. Is this a standard KDP removal?

I don't know. Yeah, that's something you're going to have to run past their support. I don't know. There's so many things I'd have to ask you in order to get real clear. Clear on this. The best thing to do is go contact support. You get them on again on phone, get them on live chat support. That's going to be the best option for you to kind of get a clear answer. If you have blank books, you clearly don't want to put that as a Kindle version. That is violations of their terms and conditions. But if your workbook has substance to it and it can stand by itself, sure, you can do a Kindle version, but remove all doubt, go right to contacting support because some bald guy on the Internet is not going to be able to help you.

Awesome. Well, thanks for being here, Dale. It was such a pleasure to have you join our festivities.

It was a blast.

Great to have you, Dale.

Hey, thank you so much. Appreciate you guys having me on. And of course, Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy holidays.

I did run over to Google and Joe gave her mother army boots. Army shoes.

Okay.

But she did sell her hair. Not at Christmas. To get her mother a train ticket.

So she gave her that.

She gave her army boots or army shoes.

In the book.

In the book.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right, well, we'll. We'll call that one a draw because that was a hot mess.

So who's the winner? Who gets a fries?

Just. We'll just. Okay, you know what? We'll do one more. That's easy. Let me find an easy trivia. I had a big list here. Okay. What?

Well.

Oh, no, we already gave that. I mean, this is a different answer, but yes, it was a poem, which the answer was to us, Night Before Christmas. Okay, let's see. I think I have one more. Maybe I don't. Oh, yes, I do. Okay, which classic novel features a Christmas scene where as soon as I say the family name, people should know this. Where the Cratchit family gathers for dinner and Tiny Tim delivers his famous line, God bless us, everyone. All right, that one we've already. Anyways, whatever. I had a list. That's all I'll say. And I was going with the best ones first. So we'll see who wins that one. And let's do a couple rapid fire questions and then we'll do rapid fire prizes. Okay.

This one is a question from Emily about images. I couldn't generate images for content to save my life. Is it all right to use images I had AI generate eg chat GPT in my promotional social media posts?

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. The only time it's not okay to do that, I think, is if you're trying to sell that product. Like if you were going to say do that on Amazon, but I think even then you good.

Yeah.

You can absolutely use AI generated things for social media content.

Yep. And the answer was A Christmas Carol. And I think Ingrid was first on that. So once we confirm that Ingrid was first, then we'll. When we go in and do the last rapid fire prizes, we'll let you know what you want.

That's what I see as well, Ingrid.

Okay, cool. Congratulations. All right, we'll do a couple more. Couple more rapid fire and then. Okay. I'm working on a workbook for my self publishing workshop. What does a standard workbook look like? Preferred size, number of pages, etc.

Varies. I mean, a lot of times they're eight and a half by 11, like a sheet of paper. I Don't have Eric Brotman's anymore. But the one thing to keep in mind with workbooks is that you need to have enough content in there for the binding. So that we have run into this problem a few times where authors won't have enough content to actually print out those workbooks and have like a spine on it. So if you are going to do a workbook, figure out the content, how much content you want in there first, and then decide the design of it.

Yeah.

Awesome. Hold please. There we go.

Sarah, if not answered already, can we not do social media? I actually have a video, video coming out. It'll probably end up being early January. It's in the, it's in the queue, in the editing queue. But it's all about 10 ways to promote your book without social media. Because people have been asking and asking and asking, but the rapid fire answer is, yes, you can not do social media. The trade off is that it. It does give you some limitations. Right. So when you say if you're booking a speaking engagement or you're going on a podcast, often they're looking at whether you're going to be supporting their event with promotions. So if you don't have social media but somebody else does, that gives that person an edge because they're going to promote their appearance on those platforms. And that matters because they're all trying to get eyeballs and ears and butts and seats and all the things. But do you have to have social media?

No, no. You just have to find a way to reach your readers and then go where they are, not online.

Yeah. And then I just saw the last one and I'm just going to fly over to the prizes. But what's the best way to get podcast engagements? Just FYI these questions and like all this stuff around reviews, podcasts, you know, we didn't talk about it, but ebook sales, you know, either. That's what we do with our full service clients, but we also have our author business accelerator and we have full, like we have office hours where we can walk through these things, but we also have bull trading sessions. Sessions. And I'm doing one on podcasts, I think in January or early February. Sarah's doing one on ebook sales in January. Like full training sessions where you could get in and then go to office hours after and kind of brainstorm it with you. So we'll put the link in there. But yeah, because it's not a short answer on how to get podcast engagements.

I mean, honestly, if you were going to, if you're going to get a podcast engagements, you need to have a couple of pieces already. So have questions that you know you already are going to be able to answer. Create some kind of media kit or podcast sheet, have good equipment. If you want to have those engagements and you have never done it before, I would recommend using a service like Pod Match, which helps you match with potential hosts that are aligned with your message. So yeah, there are so many tools out there that can help you now. But the best way to start getting podcasts engagements is to, number one, listen to podcasts, know which podcast you want to be on and then almost all the time you can find that contact information and, and talk to them. So but you know, using a service like Pod Match or there's a new one out called Pod Pitch, both of those are very, very helpful.

Awesome. All right, so this is Ingrid's prize. Self publish and succeed. Or if you happen to have that one, one Angela can send you. Self promote and succeed. So email Angela.

That quantity is just abundance.

It's abundance.

We have many.

So I have.

If you count self promote and self publish, I have six boxes worth.

Oh, yeah, no, I've, I've got.

Yeah, you guys have more than me. Just FYI, I don't have.

I'm not surprised.

I don't even. I had actually he just walked by, but I was talking to somebody about our services that's in the office and I was like, I'll give you a copy of my book. And I actually don't have any left in this office, but I have some at home. All right, so I'm just doing rapid fire. We're going to do a couple last prizes here. So Christine, congratulations. You have also won a prize. So let's see what you have won. And you won Dale's book, Self publishing for new authors. So congratulations. So as always, email Angela@teamokcontrols.com and let her know your mailing address. But you'll be receiving Dale's fancy copy because these are have the gold foil on the COVID They're lovely. Of his Self publishing for new authors. And one more prize before we hit the top of the hour. And Natalie, Natalie Murphy. All right, congratulations. And. And see which prize you get. I can see a big day at the post office for you, Angela. All right, so it's a T shirt. If one of these sizes works for you, Natalie, then she'll send you that. Otherwise, I think we still have a size that, you know another size in the other shirt that, that I think we cover all the sizes there so email Angela@teamokonshers.com let her know your size and your mailing address, and she will get you a T shirt. All right. That's the top of the hour.

So fast.

I know.

Yeah, it went really fast. A lot of good comments and questions. I can't believe how many questions we have we didn't even get to.

I know. That's what I was gonna say. I think we should try to save them and use them in a future live stream so that we can cover them all.

But I was able to copy and paste them all, I think.

Thank you. Okay, well, thank you first. Thank you, Angela, Kate, and Sarah and Shane, who's not here now, and Dale for all being here and making this extra fun and special. And of course, to everyone who joined us today and, you know, just had so much fun in the chat, it was such a pleasure to celebrate our holiday extravaganza with you Tuesday. I'm back with a live stream talking about 2025 predictions. So hope to see you back here on YouTube at 2pm Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday. But thank you and happy holidays, everybody.

Have a great holiday, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Bye. Bye.