Biggest Lessons from 5 Years in Publishing - Book Launchers 5 Year Celebration

Hello. Happy Tuesday. Happy Tuesday. First live after the summer break and I am very happy to be with you. Today is our five year celebration. So I just want to make sure we got good audio because I've got my AirPods today. I accidentally left my headphones at home. So before I go too far into this, I just want to make sure that you guys can hear me. But yeah, it's going to be a fun day. Today we're celebrating five years of Book Launchers. And to make that celebration, I'm going to share five tips that not even tips. The five biggest lessons that I have learned that I have seen happen in the publishing industry for the last five years. So I've kind of distilled it into the five big things for you today to celebrate five years of Book Launchers. So perfect. Thanks for letting me know that you can hear me, Angela. And I'm just going to dive in because there's lots of cool stuff to celebrate. So I was kind of laughing to myself as I was prepping this, thinking I would start off by saying, once upon a time there was a young girl that was born in rural Alberta, Canada, who dreamed of being an author. But I mean, that is my story, sort of. But that's not what we're going to talk about today. But in celebrating five years of Book Launchers, I kind of thought we would take it back a little bit to five years ago. Since then. Since the launch of Book Launchers, we've sold hundreds of thousands of books and we've had thousands of media wins for our clients. We did some math. Our new website, by the way, is launching tomorrow. So check out book launchers.com tomorrow. It's going to be a new, fresh look for you for our five year anniversary. But in looking at that, we were kind of pulling, pulling some metrics and we had in the last 13 months, like more than 1400 media wins for our authors. So that was a pretty cool number. I don't know exactly what the number is for the last five years, but it's going to be many thousands if that's what we have done in the last 13 months. And 40,000 subscribers on YouTube. We hit that milestone a couple of weeks ago. So thank you. But that's all in the rear view and we have so many great things ahead at Book Launchers and so we're very excited and it's one of those things where it's fun to look back, but I'm just as excited, if not more excited for what's ahead. But five years ago in August of 2017, just to kind of help set your mind for where that was in the world. Mark Manson's book the Subtle Art of Not Giving Up Bleep was still rocking the charts and come out, I think about 30 weeks prior to that. So. But it was still topping all the charts. This is also kind of right around the time, just a little bit before the Harvey Weinstein allegations and the hashtag me too movement, that summer there was a solar eclipse. So all of those things were five years ago when we swung open the virtual doors to Book launchers. And our kind of official launch, if you will, was when we attended Podcast Movement in Anaheim in it was either late August or early September of 2017. I think it was late August, funny enough. I'm heading to Dallas for podcast movement 2022 next week. So if you are going to be there, definitely come by the booth and say hello. Sarah Bean, our book marketing manager, and myself will be there. But we had 10 beta clients that we launched book launchers with and I had two team members that joined with me as employees and then we had contractors kind of helping us as well. But the first 10 beta clients, we were just figuring it out. We had a process, but, you know, not having gone through it from start to finish, we were figuring a lot of things out as we went. But Podcast Movement was kind of our official moment where I know myself, but I think also for my employees at the time where we went out and we were talking, we bought these cookies that were in the shape of a book and they actually turned your teeth funny because of the black icing on it. But we put up a sign, you know, have cookies with a book coach and you could book 15 or 20 minute sessions and chat about your book idea at Podcast Movement. And we walked out of Podcast Movement with six new clients. And so that was kind of the moment where we were like, okay, this is going to work. These are six people who didn't know about us before they met us at Podcast Movement and they signed up with us. And so that was kind of validating. And we hit repeat at Podfest and then Fincon and YouTube, the YouTube channel launched when officially launched. Like, I started posting content in August of 2017 as well. There was a little bit of old residual content on the channel because I had been planning the launch of the company and and had been filming some other stuff previously under my own name. So there's a little bit of older content there, but the bulk of the content is from August 2017 and beyond. So Little bit by bit, we have grown and it's. While it's been rocky and even this year has had some big tough lessons and things to learn, it's all part of growing and getting better and kind of pursuing our overall mission, which is to be the first choice in publishing, not the alternative when you don't get a traditional book deal. And today we're going to be talking about the five kind of big lessons that I have learned kind of about publishing and authors in these last five years. But we also have prizes, and I've got two kind of different prizes for you today besides our usual, you know, getting a copy of my book self Publish and Succeed, or our infamous hashtag, no boring books mug, which, by the way, this is going to be the classic version because this is our old logo. I don't know if you guys have noticed lately, but we have in fact updated our logo so we have a fresh new look for our five year anniversary. And it's going to be on our brand new website that comes out tomorrow as well. But we have our journals and our mug and Self Publish and Succeed is our traditional kind of swag. But today, for five years, what I'm going to give you is one person, one lucky participant today will get a copy of our author Branding kit. It's a PDF that walks you through building your author brand and kind of figuring it out. And there's some really core elements that are important to that author brand. And this is something we use with our clients. So we're going to be giving somebody today that's here a copy of that. And then the second prize that you could win today is a copy of our welcome box. But our welcome box is something we send to our clients. So I see Efren's in the house and Alan and Sean. Hello. So all of these guys, they know what our welcome box is, but they got the classic versions. That's what I'm going to call it. I'm not going to call it the old version. This is the classic. And so in September, we are going to have updated logos on everything. And so Angela will send one person a copy of our new swag box. But inside that swag box, our welcome kit that we send to our clients, you're going to get two special books. And these books are special because they're from two clients that are still with us to the to this day, that started with us either as a beta client or one of our inaugural clients in August of 2017. And one of them is Scott Bradley. I Say, Bradley, who wrote Screaming for Pleasure, we met him at podcast movement in 2017, and we are proud to still be marketing his book to this day. And Jill Phillips, who I have her book at my home office, not here at my office, but her book is called Lamblash street. And we have. She was one of our beta clients, and we're still working with her to this day as well. And so inside of that welcome box, you're going to get a copy of each of their books, as in celebration of our five years. So it's going to be fun. All right, so. And let's see who else is here. Bill Miller is in the house. Thank you for joining us. And Peggy, hello. Nice to see you. And Melody, great to have you folks here. It's so great to have you. And this the S. The Stay and Was show is that or Ste. How do I say that? S T, E and Woz show. Yeah. Oh, Scully's is here. So great to have you here as well. Okay, so. So that's the prize. And that one won't be hitting your in your mailbox probably until the end of September because we haven't. We had enough of a backlog of our classic logo swag that we haven't actually received the new logo yet. So you'll have to be a little patient, but it will be worth the right. All right, so I think that's all I wanted to say about that. Let's start with the lessons, and then we'll dive into some prizes. So the five biggest lessons for authors that I have learned in the last five years of being in this business. So lesson number one, the authors that rush the process almost always hit some sort of a snag. This as much as there's companies out there that sell you on the 90 days or the write a book in a weekend, you can write a book in a weekend, and you can write a book in 90 days. But publishing it, editing it, designing it, setting it up for marketing, that's a whole other ballgame. And the authors that have tried to rush the process over the years almost always hit a snag. And I have one video. I gave you the link for this one, Angela. So in the beginning, in the early years, we would try to please all of our clients in whatever way. So sometimes they would say, oh, well, do this for me instead of doing it the way that your process is. And one of those situations arose when one author was very insistent because of her schedule that we break the book up into pieces so she could work on one piece while the editor worked on another piece. And. And we. We argued against this because we. We didn't think this, you know, this isn't how our process worked. And in the end, though, because she was so insistent and so demanding, we did break it up. And I'm laughing. It really wasn't funny at the time. But what happened is what's called manuscript or draft confusion. The changes. Inevitably, as it got, you know, as it was broken into three different pieces and, you know, imagine three different pieces being edited at different times by different people trying to come together. A big chunk of the work that she had done got lost. And so she lost that time and effort that she'd put in and had to try to redo it. And of course, if you've ever lost work, it's almost. It just never comes out quite the same when you have to redo it. So, you know, that was one hard lesson. You know, we have a process for a reason, and that was one really good lesson for us, that we adamantly do not ever break up a manuscript, no matter how much an author tries to make us break our process. But also, you know, it was a lesson too, because, you know, here she was trying to rush it. She was like, she didn't want to wait. She didn't want to wait two weeks for an editor to have the time to go through her book. She wanted it on the weekend so she could work on it on the weekend instead of just waiting. But it ended up actually taking an additional month to fix after that. So that rush was very expensive on a time and energy basis. So, you know, a lot of people want to rush this in editing as well. They. Because editing takes most authors, you know, three, four, sometimes five months to get through, depending on how the developmental edits can be. I mean, honestly, some take even longer if the developmental edits come back. And there's a lot of work. And some authors just rush it. And we've seen this happen where they barely read it. Like, they just accept changes, they fly through, they turn and edit back to us in a weekend. And then inevitably, it doesn't happen every time, but it's happened quite a few times. And now we really slow down. We really push back. If somebody turns a book back in really fast, we go through it with a fine tooth comb and see what they did or didn't change and didn't address as far as editorial concerns, but inevitably they get their print book. And I'm not holding this up because this did not happen to Essay Bradley, but they get Their print copy, their print proof. And they go, what? I didn't. I didn't write this. Or, this isn't right. This wasn't supposed to be. Because they didn't actually read any of the edits. They just flew through it, trying to get through the process as fast as possible. And then the book ends up having mistakes. So it's so much better to take the time to make your book good and great even, and to take that extra time, because once your book is out there in the world, it's harder to fix it. But also, almost always when you rush the process somewhere or try to break the process, as some have tried to do with us, we're much more firm now. We don't let people break our process anymore because we end up paying the price at the end as much as, if not more than the author who got us to break the process does. But taking the time, especially in the editing phase, to make sure your book is as good as it possibly can be will allow the rest of the process to go smoothly and efficiently. We actually had one author as well who worked with a writer and kept approving. There's milestones in the writing. There's a voice check and then usually a first section and then the first half and then the final. And one of our authors approved everything to the end, was done, went off to content edits. And then they're like, wait a minute, this book doesn't sound like me. This isn't good. And we found out he actually hadn't read it. He just passed it off. He didn't have time. So he was like, oh, it's good. Just keep going. Just keep going. So don't rush the process, my friends. That's my number one lesson. Great books do take time, and you want to invest that time, and you will be rewarded in the end for that time. All right, let's see. Just seeing what you guys are talking about. Draft confusion. Yep. And yes. And Angela says we actually notice and try to understand what happened when we receive an author edit approval. Back too quickly on edits. Yeah, sometimes they actually did, like, they just were like, head down all weekend, and they actually did a great job on their edits. But yeah, we're a lot more mindful of people who turn things around too quickly or of people who don't give us any feedback, and they just say, yeah, it's good. We're like, did you actually read this? So we've learned. I mean, these are lessons I'm sharing with all of you. You know, if you're not working with us. You can take these lessons and apply it to your own projects. But these are some of the big lessons that we've learned that we're so much better and our process just gets tighter and stronger. And clients watching this will be like, oh, that's why they did what they did. So. Oh, Mommy abroad. Sad. I have to go to bed. This is really helpful, but I'll definitely come back to watch the replay. Oh, oh, yeah. I have sleeping. Sleeping Window. Windows with an infant. I totally understand. Fan exidma said. How about simultaneous online collaboration? Yeah, potentially. But there's dangers in that too. Like, I think there's a lot of times there's. That can work with a co author maybe, but with editing, editors have a process where they usually, depending on where you are in the editing phase, they'll read through the manuscript once and then they go back and they do their work. And. But when you're writing, what can happen? And I'm actually just going through the first draft of the next book that I'm launching, which is going to be on book marketing. And if somebody was trying to work at the same time as me, we could be creating duplicates or deleting. Like there's places where I'm like, oh, I've already said that paragraph and I'm deleting it. But what if we're doing that simultaneously and somebody's deleting the first. The first mention, whereas I might be deleting the second and now they're both gone. I just don't think it's worth it to have simultaneous in a co author collab. If you're writing it together, that might make sense. But when it comes to editing, I strongly recommend there be separation. It's also really good for you to have time away from your manuscript. You'll see it in a better light if you have time away. But collaboration on editing can be challenging. And then also if you are collaborating, chances are that means you're using something like Google Docs, maybe Dropbox with Word. But you want to be careful with Google Docs. We've talked about that before. It, it, when it goes to layout, it has to be stripped of all formatting because it has some funky coding that goes on in it. And it's a bit of, it's a bit of a pain in the patootie. But yeah, there's, there's good and bad, but I think especially when it comes to editing, there's really, there's really, really good value in just handing it to somebody for a couple of weeks, letting them do their job, and then you stepping in after and reviewing that from in its entirety. Okay, let's see. Next up, lesson two, covers. Oh my goodness. Book covers really, really do make or break a book in such a big way. We've seen it time and time again where a great book with a mediocre cover just doesn't sell anything once the author's platform has been reached and kind of leveraged. And great books with beautiful covers, but that cover doesn't fit the category. Also struggle to sell. Ads don't work. You know, it's just, it's just a challenge. And you know, we've seen it with a few, a few books. And usually in a couple of the cases, the one that really stands out in my mind was the COVID was dictated very particularly by the author. And we pushed back and we did our best to kind of revise it and get it to where it should have been. But that book never got traction. And it should have. There was a documentary that was out at the same time. There was a lot of like really good publicity that should have drove book sales. But I, I do believe it was the COVID that really, really held that book back. And it was very sad to see. But you know, the author was determined for personal reasons that the COVID be what it was. And you know, I think the book, ultimately the sales and the trajectory of that book really paid the price. We've seen it in other books in minor ways. Certainly covers that don't fit the genre or the category again, usually because the author has a particular reason or picture or something they want to put on the COVID and it just doesn't fit with that genre. And it is something that just, we have not been able to overcome. If the COVID doesn't work, it is almost impossible to sell, like I said, other than with the author's platform themselves. You know, ads, giveaways, all of the other kind of things that we like to do for marketing just don't seem to generate sales. So a book cover is really, really important. And also I think it's a willingness to try a different cover post launch. If a lot of things just kind of are pointing to the COVID not being, just not working no matter how much you love your cover. Because we have had that before where there's like a cover where we're like, I really like the COVID but you know, we change it and the book actually starts to perform. So, you know, that's a good thing about a cover versus a book title. It's more difficult to change a book title, but a book cover can be revised and updated and hopefully that will spark the sales and spark the interest for your book. But yeah, looking at your category, kind of identifying the elements in your category that make the book trusted, but finding things that will make it stand out is really, really important. And just getting a great cover design is worth, is worth its weight in gold. Let's see. Pipstone Publishing Welcome Bij Tom Binge Tom, do you review, edit and improve an already self published book? Yeah, sometimes. So sometimes it's one of those things. I mean everything we do is by fit. We do things at a very high standard. So not everything fits within our standards. But we do have some people who come to us with a finished book and they say, hey, this isn't selling or I'm about to launch and we will do an assessment and we'll look at it and if your goals are a good fit for how we can help you and you're open to some revisions because almost always we find ourselves going hey, like the metadata isn't quite right or the COVID could be better or something. If you're flexible and open and those kind of things, then sometimes we can roll you into our process and either relaunch or just kind of pick up where you were at and you know, market you. We have done that and we will do that, but it is definitely we want to make sure it's a great fit for you and for us if we are going to do that. Okay, so I'm going to go and do a couple prizes. So first we'll do our author branding kit prize and this is absolutely going to be a participation prize. So if you haven't already said hello, now is the time. You got a second to do that? Because I'll go over and I'll do my YouTube prizes right now. So if you don't know if you're new around here, every Tuesday and Friday we post a new video. We always take a break in July. So July there wasn't any new videos. But every Tuesday and Friday there's new videos. And if you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win our swag or a copy of Self Publish and Succeed. So the last I believe it was four videos I collected everybody who commented the day of and I put them into the Random Name Picker and it's spinning around. And our first winner is Rachel Robertson. I don't know if she's here, but she is definitely a YouTube bestie and also One of our beloved contractors who works on our books. So, Rachel, thank you for coming, commenting, liking and sharing our books, or sorry, on our videos. And you can choose your prize. Is she here? Let me just see. I don't think. I don't think I've seen her here today. So when you're watching the replay, because I know you always watch the replay, let us know what you don't have or what you need something else of. I know you've got Self Publish and succeed. Hey, Kate's in the house. Yeah. Welcome, Kate. So, Rachel, let me know if you don't have our mug or if you don't have our journal or if there's something else we can get you. And then write Angela and she'll hook you up. Okay? Okay. So the next prize winner is. Oops. Do us a favor and ask. Answer these three questions. No, I just want to click. I just want to click. Pick a random name, please. Okay. And our next winner today is. The Old Mountain Biker. So the Old Mountain Biker just. I think that was probably the first time there's been a comment from the old Mountain biker on my videos. So hopefully you're watching the replay and you can get in touch and let us know what you would like, because you can get a copy of Self publish and Succeed, our classic logo on our mug and. Or our journal. I think we still have journals, right, Angela? I know we had some supply problems with the journals. Okay, cool. So today is. What is the date today, my friends? 16th. So let's go 16 up from Angela's comment. We love Rachel. So, Angela, if you can count 16 up from your comment, we love Rachel. That will be our Author brand prize winner today. So the Author brand packet, it's a PDF. It's an interactive PDF. And if a client wins, then you'll get swag and we'll give it to somebody else. Because clients already get this, so. Okay. So sorry, I just. I know you're collecting questions, but I just happen to see. Again, I don't know how to say the ste and washo I'm gonna say is how you say it. Hi, guys. Not knowing what my book was about. What do you think of my book title, Bango 23? I mean, it doesn't mean anything to me, but I don't know if I'm your ideal reader, so. Because I don't know if Fango means something or if 23 means something or if that's a fiction book or a nonfiction book or anything about it. So maybe somebody watching and can comment and provide some context or be like, oh, yeah, that's cool. I know what that is. But for me, I don't know what that is. Okay, so I'm just waiting for our prize winner. Oh, isn't that funny? The ste and was so is our 16th comment. So you guys are the winner of or you are the winner of our Author Brand Packet. So what you'll need to do is email Angela@teamoklaunchers.com and let her, well, just give her your email and say that you won the Author Brand package. And she'll be writing that down too, so she'll know. But, yeah, get in touch with Angela and you can get your special PDF of our Author Brand packet, which is interactive. It'll help you kind of go through, you know, the words that will define your brand, you know, the core elements, like the visual elements. A brand is just kind of a feeling that you give to people and what you're kind of known for. But your brand needs visual representation so that people can identify it and, you know, kind of know when they're in your presence kind of thing. And so it talks about all those, but also your origin story and then how all of this ties back to your book and your reader. So it's a really detailed package that will help you kind of think through these. These elements. So congratulations. Okay, so I'm gonna go back to my tips for a moment. So lesson or lessons, I should say, not tips. So lesson number three. And this is. This was a hard one. It's still a hard one. I still don't like. I don't necessarily accept it, but it is the reality. Sometimes a book does well, and you really don't know why. You can't figure out what's working and why it's working. And the converse is also true. Sometimes a book sometimes does not well, and you can't figure out why it's not working and what's not working. These are outlier situations. The majority of books do kind of follow. Follow a procedure, if you will. You know, doing certain things produces certain results, and things go well if you consistently do certain. Certain steps and follow the process. However, we have seen it with the books that we have worked on, where there are a few that just consistently do really well. And it's a little hard to figure out why, Especially in one case, the author does not promote their book at all, and the book consistently does well. In other cases, you can be like, okay, well, the author's probably doing some things that are generating the results, because what we're doing, you know, may not be the reason why things are going well, and then vice versa. Like, sometimes we're doing everything and the author seems to be doing everything, and it just doesn't work. And that's the nature of it. But again, those are outliers. And, you know, it is. It's frustrating for me because I'm a problem solver and I like to kind of figure out what's working and try new things and be like, okay, but, yeah, and we don't give up on the ones that aren't working. And the. We have a few authors that are like, really, really, okay, well, that didn't work. Let's try something else. And that didn't work. Let's try something else. And I love that kind of spirit, but it is the nature of books. And also, I've seen it not necessarily with our clients, but I've seen it with some of my friends and some people I know that have written books. Nothing happens for years, and then all of a sudden something happens and the book gets major traction. And so it's funny that way. And I always tell people there's no guarantees when it comes to book publishing and book success. You know, most of the time, you know, getting aligned with your reader, delivering something that is high value to that audience and solves a problem, you know, supports them to get, you know, to something that's an aspiration or goal or avoids pain that you're experiencing, helps them through something. Most of the time, if you do that, if you do that with your book and you're consistent in your messaging and you're consistent, consistent in, you know, doing things to reach them, you will find yourself getting results. But every once in a while, you know, things don't necessarily work. So I always say at some point, you can decide to write a new book and kind of like the new, brand new. For me, I didn't give it a wholehearted effort because I pivoted and decided to launch Book Launchers. But it's there. And that book at some point will be a book that I rewrite for authors because it. I do believe it has tremendous information in it on branding yourself. And I wrote it at the time kind of in a. In a no man's land of an audience. Right. I was trying to move out of real estate, but I also. That's where all of my expertise and experience really was, in that space. So I should have wrote it for real estate investors at the time, but I tried to use it to bridge a gap and didn't have a clear audience. So that's why I know a lot of these lessons, by the way, because I have made some of these mistakes personally, so I can use those things to help you avoid those mistakes. But, but that book, I haven't, you know, I don't regret it. And it's, I still think it's a great book. And at some point I'm going to go back, I'm going to revise it and update it and turn it into a phenomenal book to help you guys brand yourselves as authors. So cool. Kind of took a tangent there. Lesson number four, what works for some books doesn't work for all books. And this is something that a lot of people, you know, they think I just need the secret sauce to market my book. Or they, they come to us and they're like, okay, my book's not selling, fix it. And it's not like one month of marketing won't fix a book. It is because not. There isn't a one size fits all marketing solution. And a perfect example of that is booksprout. And I just, I think I just put it out. I did a summary video on what worked to get reviews for Self Publish and Succeed. And in assessing it and kind of working through it, booksprout, I think we got four or five reviews using booksprout as a tool to kind of connect with reviewers. We've used it for other authors and more than half of the time we get no reviews. Sometimes we get a couple of reviews, but for whatever reason, with my book, Self Publish and Succeed, it got four or five reviews from that service. And so that's why it's a little frustrating, I know, because you want me to have the magic, the answers that work for everyone. But the reality is some things work for some books and some things don't. And that's why, you know, consistency, trying new things, you know, testing, seeing what works. If it's working, do more of it. If it's not working, try something else. Because the reality is there is no unless you're doing a gimmick, right? So these companies that can guarantee a bestseller can guarantee this. It's almost always some sort of a gimmick that you probably don't really want to be a part of. But book marketing really is testing, measuring, seeing what's working to get the results that matter to you. Which, by the way, for a lot of authors, sales is not the most important thing first. Right? Because reality is you're going to make four to six dollars per book sold. That's going to be far less important than getting a $10,000 speaking engagement or a client that's going to pay you $5,000 or selling a thousand dollar. Course that four to six dollars isn't going to be as important as those other things that you're using your book to get. So you want to be measuring the things that matter and doing more of the things that are getting you. The things that are getting you to where you want to go. Hopefully that makes sense. All that's to say, you have to try a lot of things and be willing to try and find things that aren't going to work and try something else. Because again, there is not one size fits all in the book world. Even in, even in the same category, in the same genre. For whatever reason, certain things will work and other things won't. I'm just looking at your guys's. Oh, IJ is in the house. Hello. And congratulations on the fifth anniversary. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, cool. So let's do the, the next prize, the welcome. The welcome box with the logo, the Book launchers 2.0 logo. Which again, if you weren't here at the beginning, this prize is going to be, this prize is going to be something you get later, probably by end of September because we haven't, we haven't got the new swag yet. But you'll also get a copy of Screaming for Pleasure and Jill Phillips book Lamb Last Street. So it's going to be a cool special five year anniversary box. So that one is going to go to. Let's see. Oh, let's see who was paying attention. So what was the event that we went to, the first event where we kind of were like, who? We got six clients. Book launches is going to be for real. We're good to go. So who was paying attention to that story that I told early on? You. The first person to get that answer right is going to be the welcome box winner. Ellen. Oh yeah. Angela just posted the video that I was talking about where I was recapping what worked for reviews. If that was the video that came out on Friday, Angela, then that's the right one. And Alan says, I love the fact that you look at how the book affects your work. That's a much bigger deal than just making money selling books. Yes. As something, a point I make a lot and it's actually how I'm starting the new book that I'm working on. The marketing book is I talk about the fact that book sales are one measure, but for a lot of authors it's not the important measure. It gives you. It's not the most important measure. It gives you data. Right? So it will tell you how some of your marketing efforts are working, more specifically, how ads are performing. And that can give you data about your book and what might need to. Might need to be improved. But for a lot. Like, for me, as far as self publish and succeed goes, people ask me how many copies I've sold. I legitimately don't know and don't really care. Because what really matters is that we're getting people who have read the book and they're going, hey, I've read your book. You know, I want to hire you guys. I'm getting companies who want to partner with us because they want to have copies of their book for their organization. I'm using the book. I've been invited to speak in January at a really cool conference. And I'm excited. And I'm like, they have opportunities to put books on all the seats. But the reason they reached out was because they were like, hey, we need a talk on how to self publish and succeed because they got a copy of my book. And they were like, this is perfect. We need this topic for our event. So the book is doing what I need it to do. Book sales are great. I love them, but it's not my first and most important thing. It's kind of the results and the impact that I want to have from the book. Okay. Oh, Shelly. Hello. Shelly's been watching since May. Welcome. And Slim just found you today. Oh, my goodness, Slim, so great to have you here. We do these live streams every two weeks, and every Tuesday and Friday, we post a new video. And if you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win some of our awesome swag. Okay, so my fifth and final lesson. Oh, by the way, I was just checking to see if anybody got the. Nobody. Nobody was paying attention to my story. The welcome box is still up for grabs, my friends. Nobody, nobody knows the answer of the conference that we were at where we got our first six clients that were non beta clients. So nobody guessed yet. So I'll give you guys a few more. A few more seconds to try while I talk about the fifth lesson from five years. So the fifth lesson is to never underestimate the power of enthusiasm for a project when it comes to pairing a person with that project skill. You know, hiring people who have skill and expertise to do the work you need to have done is important. But someone who is excited, passionate about your book project is going to go the extra mile to make sure the book is great, that it does what it needs to do. And this is something we have not always done consciously, but it's something we're doing very consciously now, is we will kind of circulate a book project and say, like, are you excited about this project? You know, when it comes to writers and writing coaches and editors and people on the team, even when we're pairing people with their concierge, who they're going to work with, it's like, if you know a subject is a passion point for them, you want to pair them with the project. So, you know, you want to hire for skill and expertise. Absolutely. But having someone care about your project and care about your reader, helping that reader and kind of helping you get where you want to go with your book is going to make a world of difference in you getting the book across the finish line. Because having people who are enthusiastic and will pick you up on those days when you're down, and who will go, hey, like, I've got this cool idea for you. And not just execute the. Okay, this is done right. Like, not just execute a copy edit, but care about that copy edit in a deeper way. You know, I know that's asking when you're hiring a contractor and you're not necessarily working with a company like Book Launchers, who can have a pool of people that they can circulate things to, that can be a little bit harder to do, But I have seen it over and over with our team and with clients, and just having somebody who cares either about you as a person or about your project and your reader will make a world of difference in just making your book that much better and helping you through the tough times. Because there are going to be some tough times as an author. You know, it makes. It makes a big difference. So if you can kind of gauge when you're looking for people to work on your book, their passion for either you and your mission or your book and its topic and its readers, I think you'll find yourself just getting a better book at the end and having an overall better experience of creating that book. So that's my five lessons for you. Let's see here. Nobody guessed. All right. Rhonda wasn't here when I told that. Oh, and Efren's asking for the question again. Okay, so I'm asking, and I'll give you guys a hint as well. So I was asked. I. And my question was, what was the conference that we went to in August of 2017? Where we got our first six clients. So we had 10 beta clients before then. But we call August of 2017 kind of our official launch, because it's when we went out into the world and we talked to people who didn't know me and didn't know book launchers, and we got six clients from that conference. And that was kind of our moment when we were like, okay, we're going to make a go at this. Which was great for me, but also for my two employees that had joined along and were like, okay, we're in this. We're in this with you at the time. And so that was kind of that moment. So that was the conference. And my hint is Efren's like, oh, I don't know. And my hint is that we're off to the 2022 version of this conference in Dallas next week. So, yeah, I'll leave it at that for a minute if nobody gets it. Yes, it was Pipstone Publishing. There you go. It was Podcast Movement Conference. Did you guess that up above? And we didn't see it. Oh, you did, Sorry. It was Podcast Movement. So, yeah, we'll give it to you. You got it. So you're going to get a welcome package. Make sure you email Angela@teamacantros.com and get her your mailing address so she knows where to ship the box when it's ready to go to you in September. So congratulations. And there. There you go, guys. That's a lesson to pay attention to my stories, because you never know when that might get you a prize. All right, what's the questions we have today, Angela? I mean, Efren, you've already got all the swag. You don't have the logo 2.0 swag yet, though, so you. You know, something to work towards. You too, Sean. You guys can work towards logo 2.0. All right, so just waiting for the questions to queue up. Oh, poetry from the heart. Great to have you here. Thank you. Okay, question one from Shelley about books around disability, autism in nonfiction with a social justice theme that could be controversial. There's a book out there, but they are only surface level. I don't know what the question is. I don't know if you're asking, is it a good idea or what to do. I mean, controversial books are like. They'll sell. That's the thing. Depending on what's what, how controversial, or where you go with them, you know, that can be the reason it sells, is that it's controversial. I always go back to that book and I Forget the name of it right now. It's like, I think fire was in the title, but it was a book about Trump and people bought it because they hated Trump and they wanted to read all these things and, you know, argue. I don't, I don't remember which side the book was on either, but it was like people who were for Trump and against Trump all bought the book for totally different reasons. So books that are very controversial can have huge markets. You have to be prepared as the author for if you want to call it blowback or feedback or whatever it is. Because if you're controversial, I mean, I recommend everybody have a stand. You don't want to be somebody that's saying all the things that don't ruffle feathers, because if you say things that everybody agrees with, nobody's going to care about what you have to say. So you do want to have things that are slightly edgy so that people will go, oh, what did he she just say? And so you want to have that so that people will pay attention. And at the same time, you know, I understand that you don't necessarily want to be, you know, really strongly in one way on a really heated topic, but there can be a market for the book. So it depends on what the question is there, how I would answer and what I would say. But we have, we have one book that's on a topic that is, I believe, going to be controversial to a point. It has very strong opinions for and against. And this book isn't necessarily in one way or the other. It's actually a fairly neutral book. But the topic itself is very heated. The author is choosing to be anonymous in this journey, you know, to protect their identity and all of those kind of things, because there's other considerations, you know, family, depending on what the subject is and how heated it can get. Some people, you know, can and face death threats and things like that. So there's other considerations in those topics too. But I'm kind of talking in circles because I don't actually know what the question is. Okay, question two, actually, I just saw Efren's comment. Truth is controversial. I mean, really, in the last two years, I, I have never, I don't know if I would have necessarily thought that as strongly as I believe that now. Heffern. But anyways, Q2 Mark Hill. How do you best get over self doubt on publishing? Go back to the reader. So normally self doubt comes back to the pressure you're putting on yourself, which makes you the product. And as soon as you're the product, it's very hard to put yourself out there because it becomes, and I just heard my Canadian accent really strongly when I said out, but sorry, distracted myself. So when you're the product, it, it all the fears, I call them your monsters. So the fear of judgment, the fear of failure, the fear of success, and that imposter syndrome, those things all rear their ugly, ugly heads when you focus on the reader. So even if you're, even if this is fiction, but I mean, all we do at Book Launchers is non fiction. If you focus on the reader experience they're going to get from your book, how they're going to benefit, how in nonfiction, you know, what's the outcome of the outcome that you're offering them? And you focus on that reader and how their life is going to be changed, better, different as a result of your book. And you make the book the product. You focus on making the book the best it possibly can be and getting it in the hands of readers so they can achieve the outcome of the outcome. That takes the pressure off of you. And for most of us, that drives motivation to get it done because you can see the impact it's going to have. The challenge in the publishing industry is a lot of people go, okay, I got to be a bestseller. I got to launch it and get that Amazon flag. I want to be on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. It's got to sell X number of copies. And all of those things put pressure on you. I want to be on the media. If I'm not on the news, it's not going to matter. That's you as the product. And that makes it very hard to take action. And it makes it very hard, hard because now you become the failure or the success versus pushing it down the line to the reader and staying focused on them. It's also why I often don't like people measuring book sales. Because if you have changed the lives of 1, 2, 10, 100 people as a result of your book, isn't that more important for most of us than selling a thousand, ten thousand books? I know for me, I would, you know, all day long if I only sold 100 books, but I helped 10 people write a phenomenal book that changed the lives of somebody else and helped and kind of passed it down the line. That's enormous for me personally, and that's where I would want to put my emphasis so much more. But anyways, again, I haven't done a live stream in a while, so I have a lot to say. I have a Lot of pent up wisdom and lessons to share with you all. Okay. Okay. Shelley explained Q1 to be curious about what to do. I mean, Shelly, I would start reading if you haven't read this, read self publish and succeed. Follow the process and the decisions ultimately, because you're going to focus on the reader, you're going to think about your marketing, you'll make decisions along the way to set your book up for success. And ultimately, you know, again with a controversial topic, I believe your decision will. I think the main decision you'll have is whether to do this under a pen name and if so, how deep do you want to bury your identity in that pen name and the trade offs when you choose to do that and the benefits. Like there's no wrong choice in. I mean there's, I don't think there's right and wrong choices in most things. You know, certainly like taking some things. Okay, there's right and wrong choices. But as far as like the decisions you make in publishing, there's consequences and there's a consequence for every choice you make. So there isn't necessarily a right or wrong way to do this. Right. So a pen name would protect you from blowback and protect your family from blowback, but a pen name does make it harder to market. And then how, how anonymous do you want to go? Like, do you want to keep your face and voice totally hidden? If so, you know, that makes marketing that much more complicated, but obviously gives you that much more protection. So hopefully that makes sense. See? Okay. Same tree, different leaves. I like that. No one is more hated than those who, than. Than he who speaks the truth. Plato. Humanity has not changed. Same tree, different leaves. I love that. Thanks, Efren. All right, so any other questions? Sharing some philosophy on a Tuesday afternoon. I love it. I actually just. It's funny that you mentioned Plato. I was reading a book with my son who's 5, and he got this book that is like the story of these kids that go in this magical tree house and the tree house changes into wherever they point in a storybook. And they ended up in ancient Greece with where the first Olympics were and they met Plato and, and they were finding out that this, they got this poem from this woman poet. But you know, women weren't allowed to go to school, go to the Olympics, write or write poetry. And so she said, you know, you'll just have to tell your people that this was written by Anonymous because she couldn't admit that a woman had written this. But anyways, that was all with Plato. Okay, I'm definitely going on tangents today. I don't think there's any other questions. So I think we'll call it that for the day. We'll be back here in two weeks, same time, same place, and more prizes. Also, our deep dives are coming back in September. I don't have the date. Angela might be able to get the date for you and post it here. I think it's the third Saturday in September. If you are in Dallas, I'll be at Podcast Movement next week and the first week of September, right after the Labor Day holiday, I will be in Orlando for fincon. So if anybody's attending either of those or you're nearby, come on by, say hello. Be great to say hello there. Oh, there's one question coming in from Jamal. Welcome. You got here just in time. I'll take one more question. And Angela says the deep dive is Saturday, September 24th. You will be able to register for that in September and also tomorrow, you guys book launchers.com head on over. New website. If it's. If you find anything broken or not working, please email Angela@teambooklaunchers.com Let her know I have to be out of the office tomorrow. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, it's for a memorial. But that sad, sad story aside, I am excited for the launch of the website. But if you do find any issues, which will be inevitable, I'm sure, please do let us know. We appreciate having. Having resolution to issues as quickly as possible. I'm just waiting for the Jamal's question, so don't mind me. Scully's House of Thrillers. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for all your comments. I missed you for a while there, Scully, so it's great to have you back. Shelly saying thank you. Thank you for being here and celebrating five years with us. And Alan says, I love your. I love your philosophy. Being an influence for, for good, that is the most beautiful aim in life. I think it's the most rewarding and fulfilling as well. So that's why, you know, whenever I feel down, and I've had some down moments in the last couple weeks, but whenever I feel down, that's where I go back to, is, okay, I'm going to get back up because I want to have a positive impact and I want to leave. You know, I want to help others, but also kind of leave, leave things in a better shape than I found them. So Marilyn says, what advice do you have for a new author of children books? I'm an avid consumer of children's Books, but I have zero experience. So I always recommend people check out Keith, Keith Wheeler books. He has a phenomenal channel. Him and self publishing with Dale. They've both done some great content on creating children's books. But you know, when your children's books is out and it's good for somebody who's well, five, but he likes to read chapter books with me. So if you got a book that's appropriate, you know, let me know and I'll buy it. And I'm happy to write a review, but I don't really have great advice for publishing children's books, but those guys do. And Jamal, I'm writing a cookbook for, for couples planning and don't know where to start with finding a publisher. Cookbooks are tricky and I don't have a lot of experience with cookbooks. I would say looking at agents, it's going to come down to your platform. So if you have a robust audience of people interested in your recipes already, you know, if you're a chef at a major restaurant or you have a blog that people are following that will help you sell a cookbook, otherwise you're probably going to want to look at companies like Lulu as a way to self publish. And then you want to get a layout person. First of all, you want to have phenomenal photos, so you probably want a great photographer, but you also want to look at getting a layout person who is familiar and experienced in doing cook cookbooks because that is a really tricky part of the process. But again, not our, not our forte. You want to talk business, book, self help memoir, that stuff we are awesome at. And I have a lot of experience. I can share with you on that. But. And your son has a great reader mother, great choice of books. Thanks, Alan. All right, thank you everyone. Make it a great, great rest of the week. And I've got a new video for you on Friday and I'll see you back here for a live stream in two weeks. All right, thank you. Thanks, Angela.