5 Questions to Hire the Right Company to Help Publish Your Book

Sometimes I have friends who ask me, how do you decide what kind of company to hire to help with publishing a book? It's not always easy to help someone navigate the choices, but today I have five questions to ask yourself and the service providers you're considering before you hire them to help you publish your book. So if you're considering getting help with publishing your book, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, author and founder of Book Launchers. Now, Book Launchers is a self publishing services company, so it's possible that we might be a company you're considering or should consider to hire for your book publishing. But we're not for everyone. And in fact, we actually turn away a lot of authors who come to us for service. We want you to be the perfect fit to help you so that you're happy and, and we're happy and your readers are really happy. So whether you're considering us or not, let me help you make the best decision for you and your book with these five questions. Question 1 what are your goals and your needs when publishing your book? This question is for you to answer yourself. Because if you're focused on writing a bunch of little ebooks versus you want to write a book that will catapult your speaking career, or you're creating a business around a children's book with figures and games and toys, those are all very different needs. Now, even when you get into the nonfiction book publishing world, which is where Book Launcher sits, we aren't the right fit for every author. Some authors are looking to be career authors, like all they do is write books and make money from the books. Those folks often want to get their hands dirty in the book business and make as much margin as they can. That author is probably not going to be as happy with a full service program like ours where we charge for the massive value that we provide because we're doing a lot of the work for you. We're a much better fit for an author like Monique Nugent, author of Prescription for Admission, which is a doctor's guide for navigating the hospital, advocating for yourself and having a better hospitalization. She's a practicing hospitalist and physician leader. She's got a family and a very, very busy career. She doesn't have time to do all the little things with a book. So she gets a full service team like ours to surround her and her book and support her through the entire process. Now we're out there while she's at work. We're pitching her for media, podcasts, newsletters, live appearances, running ads and doing other things so she can just show up and shine. And she. She has her book to use in her career and Beyond Question two what's most important to you in a service? The answer to this question could be difficult because you might be thinking, well, I want it fast, I want it cheap, and of course I want it really good quality. And I mean, we should all have goals. But I'm sure you know the old adage that you can have two of those three, but it's really tough to have all three. And that's really, really true. In publishing. You can do it on a budget and do it with decent quality if you have a lot of time and energy to invest in saving the money. You can do it fast and cheap if you don't care about making it great. So consider your resources. What is your time, energy and money like? Also, is there something coming up that you really need a book done for? Do you have to speed it up? Or is it just that you've had this book kicking around in your mind for a decade and now it is close to coming out and it feels urgent, but it could take a couple extra months to make it great? Beyond that, do you want someone to hold your hands through all the steps? Or are you more of a do it yourselfer? Or are you the kind of person who wants to learn? Or do you want experts that make the recommendations and make your decisions easier? Or are you the kind of person who says, just do as much of it for me as you can. Knowing these things before you start contacting companies or people that will help you helps you figure out who you should talk to and what questions you should be asking them. And if you are looking for that high quality and efficient service that does a lot of it for you. And of course you're writing nonfiction, definitely check us out@book launchers.com and you can even book a call possibly with me@book launchers.com application. Now question three there's also the consideration of Are you going to piece together a bunch of services or are you looking for it all under one roof? If you want to piece together things like editors and designers and all those things, you're probably using referrals and services like upwork, Reedsy, the Urban Writers to find the people you need. If you're looking for it all under one roof, you might be looking at companies like Book Launchers or Hybrid Publishers. If you don't know the difference between Book Launchers and Hybrid Publisher, I'll share a video at the end to help you with that. By the way, you don't have to wait till the end to hit that like button and subscribe to the channel. Click because subscribing and commenting the day a video comes out not only gets you entered to win some sweet noborrowingbooks swag, but it also gets you one step closer to joining an elite group of YouTube besties. So go ahead, look at the comments below this video and you'll find the fabulous Sean Hayes, Rachel Robertson, Quizmaster China the Word Weaver, Bruce Stiles and Scully's House of Thrillers all commenting thank you besties. Alright, question four what is my involvement with the service and does that align with what I want? If you want to be the CEO of your book and be the one that makes the decisions, you definitely want self publishing versus Hybrid or some other publishing deal. But then how much do you do and decide? You may not know the answer to this, so ask any service provider or company you're considering how they work with their authors and what their support is like. Feel that out for you and how you like to work at Book Launchers. Just as an example, we have two main levels of service. We have our Platinum level and our Platinum plus Platinum gets you a writing coach, the entire suite of editors, fact checkers, designers and marketers. But instead of intensive one on one marketing support, we have group training to support you in your platform building and some of the launch planning. We're still doing your media kit and pitching for you but but it's more of a done together approach. If you like to have a lot more control and be involved, that makes sense. It's also less cost. Then we have our Platinum plus where you have a writer, you get a concierge. We do a lot of the marketing pieces for you, including building a website and some email marketing. We build marketing plans for you and while you're consulted on everything, we're doing a lot more of it for you. It's the same professionals helping you on your book, but it's a different level of your involvement and a different level of support. So knowing what you want to be able to do and how you want to be supported will help you in choosing the right company and the right services for you. We aren't a great fit. Just as an example for people who are like I want to choose from a menu of services because I'm going to do this, this, this on my own and then I need you to do this, this and this because we're fully integrated. And while there's some flexibility in what we do, there's a lot of things that we won't detach from our process because we've integrated marketing and quality and a lot of really wise choices into what we do. And the fifth question, finally, what are the contract conditions you're being asked to sign? Are you giving up rights or royalties? Do you get access to the source files? Are you in control of the distribution accounts? How do you order your own copies of a book for your events and promotional efforts? What happens if you don't want the service anymore? What's that process look like? There's a lot of things to consider here, but the issue that I see arising with some authors at companies that, for example, go out of business or the service isn't what they'd hoped for, is that they don't have access or control. When I say access and control, it really comes down to having your source files, having the right to use those source files, and then having the ability to access all of the accounts where your book lives. Of course, you'll want to consider cost versus value and how important that value is for you and your goals and your needs. The company reputation, the types of books they've put out. Do you like most of their covers? Have their authors had success that's relevant or important to you? For example, are they winning awards? Are they getting speaking engagements? Are they selling books? Are they growing their brand? Whatever's important to you, is that company someone who's done that before? There's a lot to consider and of course we're here for you if it's a good fit. And if it's not, I'm still here for you. And I hope to see you again soon. Maybe even at one of these videos like this one I promised on hybrid publishers, or this one on an overview of the publishing process. Both are going to help you in your journey. And I'm always here cheering you on. And if you have questions here, you can comment. And I always reply, all right, now I'm over there waiting, so click on over.