Book Writing Myths and Latest News in the Publishing World

Hello. Happy Tuesday. Lots is happening in the world of publishing. So even though today's live stream is going to be myth busting, I've got, I think four myths I'm going to talk about as far as book writing, book publishing go. But there's news, there's news happening in the publishing world. So I definitely want to share those tidbits to to get us rolling. And while we are giving folks a moment to join in, a couple of things to know. The first thing to know is self Publish and Succeed Live is happening on October 10th. It is a 12 week course where you can work with yours truly. We are going to position your book for marketing success. So whether you work with book launchers for the editing, design, publish and promote part after or not yet, you will be set up to have a book that is going to have readers be set up to achieve your goals and have a really strong hook, really clear reader. And over those 12 weeks we're going to work together to actually get that first draft done. So it is going to be a powerful 12 weeks and I cannot wait. So the link to join is selfpublishandsucceed.com liveclass and it starts October 10th today. If you're watching this live stream, the day it comes out is the last day to get a cover design included. And I gave away almost all of our books when I was at fincon. I cleared my shelves of all of our awesome client books. Otherwise I would be showing you some of our beautiful cover designs right now to say, wouldn't you like your cover to look like these and have your book positioned with a killer title, awesome chapter titles, the whole work. So it's going to be awesome. Selfpublishandsucceed.com LiveClass all right, so before I get into the myths, which is what we're talking about today, a couple of pieces of news that I wanted to take a moment to chat about. First, Spotify. We've all been waiting for the news after Spotify said they were buying Findaway Voices and they paid $119 million for Findaway Voices. So you know they're serious about audiobooks and the potential of audiobooks when they're putting that kind of into the purchase. And so we've been waiting since the deal closed in July, we've been waiting to see what was going to happen. And audiobooks are now live for purchase on Spotify. There's 300,000 audiobooks, which is not very many. So it's a pretty exciting time to be an independent self Published author. Because all you have to do to get your book on there is list it with findaway voices. I've got a video, a brand new video talking about it, showing you some cool things. It will be coming out Tuesday of next week, so check that out. But it is, it is very simple. My book was on there. It took a minute to find it. I didn't find the search feature on Spotify to be very good yet. They, they show you a selection of books, but if you're searching for specific titles, it was a little trickier to find them. It took a little bit of work to find my book and a few other titles that I wanted to see if they were on there. But it's exciting. I think that they have the potential to really give Audible some competition. It is, Audible has dominated in North America in particular and I think more competition is great for consumers. And I think this, this particular move is going to be really, really good for authors too. So that was the first piece of news. People are joining in. So. Hello, Scott, Welcome. From Coburg, Ontario, we've got Bill Miller coming from Bristol, Connecticut. Efren Delgado from wherever in the world he is currently. I know he previously was in Washington D.C. for a trip. Benny Volek. Hello, Bill. Found his book easily on Spotify. That's great. I'm so happy you found it. I found it a little tricky to, to use their search feature and pull up the books, but I did search the day after they announced it. So I would suspect they are improving things on a regular basis right now. All right, so the other news that I just wanted to share before we get into the myths is that Amazon has announced they are going to make some adjustments to their ebook returns. And this is good news again for self publishing authors because currently their ebook returns are 14 days and, and you can read the entire book and still get a return. And there's been no controls, nothing on it. And as you may or may not know, you know, Amazon can be so generous with their return policies because they don't pay the return you do as the author, as the publisher. So it's been a little bit of a point of frustration. And then, you know, in the last few months there's been a TikTok trend where one video in particular I think had like 17 million views, where it was, you know, encouraging people to use this little loophole to, you know, download so and so's book, read it and then return it, and then download so and so's book and read it and return it. And as Long as you did that within 14 days, you'd get your money back. Maybe the tiktokers don't realize that that hurts the authors and the publishers, not Amazon. But regardless, Amazon says there was no blip, there was no increase in returns. I don't believe them because how do you have a video with 17 million views and have that not impact returns? But regardless, they have now announced that by the end of the year they're going to have a limit on ebook returns. So. So that if somebody has read more than 10% of the book, they will not be able to make that return. So that is a positive move for authors. It's a step in the right direction. Authors Guild wanted them to only have a 48 hour return window. They could have done also something like what they've done with Audible where they maintained the one year return window, but they give publishers back or they don't charge publishers for the return after seven days. So they could have done something similar for the ebooks. But this is a step in the right direction. So positive news. Okay, Aubry is in the house too, so welcome. Okay, so myths, myths, my friends. I'm sure that you can all come up with some myths. And I think that will be our first question of the day, our participation question. What is something that you know is a myth, but many people believe when it comes to writing, publishing or self publishing a book? So go ahead, post your myth might be one of the four that I've selected for us to chat about today, but that will be our first participation question, first prize. That will be the participation. You know what I mean? All right. And while you're doing that, my, I mean there's lots of myths. Many people still believe they need a literary agent. I was just on a forum today, an entrepreneur group forum that I'm in, and somebody was asking for tips to get a literary agent because their book is written and they think that's the next step. They also, you know, other people also think that being an author means you have to be a good writer. So those are some myths we're going to talk about. I'm curious to see what myths you guys have. And of course, if you're watching the video on replay, you can still play along so you can post in the comments below. And anybody who comments the day a video is released get gets entered to win our hashtag. No boringbooks. Swag. And Angela, by the way, thanks for being here, Angela. I believe we still have a couple T shirts left. We have magnets and I think that's it for our what we're calling vintage book launcher swag, because all of our new swag that we're ordering, this is our old logo. So this is vintage. All of our new swag will have our new logo on it. And so we're clearing out all the old swag first. And of course, if you have not read self publish and succeed, that is a prize as well. Okay, so the first myth. Let's see. Oh, yeah, the first myth. I am not good enough to. I'm not a good enough writer to be an author. Sorry, I stumbled on my words there. I'm not an. Okay, this is where I would, you know, cut, and the video editor would put in my bloopers and go, okay, you can do it. You can do it on the third try. I am not a good enough writer to be an author. That is my first myth of the day. And the reality is, writing a great book has very little to do with being a great writer, especially when it comes to nonfiction. Nonfiction is more about the ability to see things in a slightly different way than everyone else. To explain the message, the steps, the perspective in a way that can connect with your reader has a lot more to do with hiring great editors than it does with being a great writer. So clarity of your message, clarity of vision for a project that is more important than actually being a good writer. So that's one of the myths that a lot of people feel like I am not a good enough writer. Well, if you can talk, if you can explain your experiences, your expertise, your message, and you've got got a way of explaining it that will connect with people, you can write a truly, truly great book. So that would be the first myth. Let's see what kind of myths you guys came up with. We have. Oh, Efren has only traditional publishing is legitimate. Good myth. I love that one. And Angela says we have T shirts left. And Gray. Hi, Gray. Welcome. Says you have to have some sort of degree or education level to write a book. Another really good myth. Thank you for sharing. And I think that's it. So go ahead, share your myths that you think in those comments. That's our first participation prize question today. So I'll give you guys a little bit more time to chime in. And the real deal says, my book will be out soon, and I learn about you after I found an editorial company. Hey, we're still here. We do book cover design, book layout, and most importantly, book marketing. So after your editor is done with it, you can still reach out. We might still be able to help you. Regardless, we're here to help with all of our our live streams and other materials, too. We also will have a book marketing course that's coming out later in the year, which will help you pitch your book to other people's audiences. So that might be of interest, too. But regardless, we're happy to have you here now. Okay. And Bill. Oh, good one. I like this one. Everyone has a book in them. Not really always true, but more than one might think that's true. I like that. And Scott Clancy says niche topics don't sell books. Oh, you know, that is not on my niche list today, but I think that that is an entire video I think that I should do in the future. Because, in fact, niche topics, maybe they aren't the multimillion copies kind of topics, but, you know, imagine you have a niche topic that there's an audience of 500,000 people, and as soon as they find out your book is, like, there, they're like that. I've been waiting all my life for this topic. And you can get a big chunk of that 500,000 audience. They say even 10% of that audience buys your book. You're still doing phenomenally well as an author. So I love niche books because if somebody can look at a book and go, oh, my gosh, that is for me, you've really nailed it. And when we're not celebrities, I think that is a really, really good first goal. So I love that myth, Scott. In fact, we still have other people chiming in, but that's going to be my prize. So, Scott, you won our first prize. Congratulations. So, because we have kind of a smorgasbord of prizes, Angela will send you a message, because we do have your email address, I believe, but you can also message Angela teamokers.com she'll give you the choices and confirm mailing address, and we will send you a prize for that today. Okay, so the next myth today is that authors don't make money, or people say this in other ways. I know my book isn't going to sell any copies, or I know authors don't make any money. And yes, there are plenty of nonfiction books that don't sell very many copies. And, you know, if you actually sell 250 copies or more, you're in a top percentage. I don't have the exact stats in front of me, but the vast majority of authors that we work with are selling more than 250 copies. Many of them, like, outsell that on launch month, and that's because they have done the things that must be done to sell books. What I find and there are exceptions, right? There are exceptions where authors do all the things and their book still doesn't sell for a long time. And there are exceptions where people do nothing and their books sell, but those are exceptions, okay? The vast majority of authors that do the things they need to DO will sell 250 copies and likely a lot more. But it is a matter of setting yourself up for success and mentally preparing. But to think and to go into it thinking, my book, you know, I'm not going to sell very many copies or authors don't make money. I feel like you get what you focus on, and if that's your belief, that's probably what's going to happen. But if you go in thinking, you know what, I'm going to have to work hard to find my readers, but I'm going to find them and I'm going to use my book to get X result in my life, my business, my brand, my whatever it is you're trying to achieve, you likely will get there over time. And I just, I shared in the deep dive on Saturday. Shel Phelps, who wrote the Big Bliss blueprint, she wrote she published it in May of 2020, I believe. So also, you know, all the people who said, you know, that was a terrible time to publish books. It was not great, right? The height of all things being shut down, and lots of the marketing avenues authors rely on were not available to them. But her book came out in May of 2020, and her goal was to, you know, do speaking engagements and have workshops. And she just posted and tagged me in a post announcing that she got her first paid international speaking gig. And she was, you know, really excited about this first international gig. And so she's just kept going. She I, I've been following what she's been doing after she left our service, and she's just kept working it. You know, she posts on a regular basis, she runs her own training sessions, she engages with other people with their training sessions, she's been on podcasts, she's done small gigs and worked her way up to this. And so when you go into it with this mindset that I'm going to use this book as the beautiful tool that it is to make money, sell copies and get out there, you're going to do a whole lot better than the majority of authors because there's a whole group of authors out there that either think they need a publisher because the publisher is going to do the marketing Work, which they don't, or they're just. They think that their book is so amazing that as soon as it gets on Amazon, people will find it. But the sad reality of that is that you have to teach Amazon who's going to buy your book? And make sure that people go to Amazon, buy the book, post reviews and all those things, and, you know, Amazon will help you sell a few books. But it's hardly going to be, you know, like I said, there's exceptions, but it's hardly going to be the thing that works. So, you know, if all that sounds like work, doing stuff every day, posting on a regular basis, going on podcasts, you know, building your audience, you know, getting people to sign up for regular updates and tips and strategies. Yeah. Creating success in anything is never an accident. Always takes work. So one of my friends, he's. He's working on, you know, his physique. He's like. He's like, this is something that is going to be. Nobody can take this away from me. Nobody can say I bought it. He's like, you know, to me, it's the ultimate. You know, this is his words. He's like, it's the ultimate status symbol to have muscles and to be fit. But it's. It's hard work, and he's working at it every day. But that's kind of his point. It's like, there's no luck involved in creating this ideal physique. It is regimented, disciplined, you know, consistent effort. That's doing it. And a lot of times, that's what success takes, my friends. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know you're looking for that magical button that is going to make everything happen easily. And, you know, there are people that seem like they've hit it. But I've often shared this, too. A lot of people ask me, okay, who's your most successful author? And I could say certain names. But to say that that person is my most successful author when the reason their book sold thousands of copies in the first few months is because they spent, you know, the last five years or the last 10 years building this massive audience, it's not really fair to say that that author is, you know, necessarily my most successful. When there's people like Shell who started with, you know, this was the. The book was going to grow her business, and she was starting with no audience and building from there. You know, I kind of think that's a phenomenal success. Personally or my, you know, one of the ones I talk about all the time now. Is Robert Bell getting the TED Global Ideas talk, and now he's coming out with another book. Those are pretty cool, cool successes in my mind because they started with, you know, an idea and built it from that idea. So, okay, I took a little tangent. I get excited about this. So that was my second myth, my third myth I alluded to when I kicked off this conversation, and that is that you need a literary agent to be published. Or like Efren said, I think it was Efren, that you need to be traditionally published for it to be legitimate. You know, in a lot of ways, that was one of the things I believed before. Before I self published my first book, I kind of had this feeling that, you know, self publishing wasn't legitimate because I had all these friends that got book deals and I got turned down. But then, you know, I wrote the book that I thought needed to be written and had it outperform all of my friends that got traditional book deals and got it in all the same places and got to do all the same things or even more than a lot of date, a lot of them did with their book. So, you know, ultimately what I realized was that with self publishing, you're in control, so you get to make the decisions and you are also the one that get to enjoy all the benefits. So if you do have a book that's selling thousands and thousands and thousands of copies, that money is going in your pocket. You're not sharing it with the publisher and watching them take 80% of the royalties while you're out there going city to city or doing whatever it is that you're doing to market your book. You know, you have the control over the content, you have all the rights, and you're keeping all the royalties. So, you know, that is a huge benefit. But you don't need, even if you get a traditional deal, you don't need a literary agent. It can be beneficial. I do recommend people going, pursuing foreign publishing. I do recommend you get a foreign rights agent because there's lots of nuances in different countries. And an agent will protect you and guide you and have the contacts that can help you. If you are an author that is, you know, getting, getting contacted by publishers in other countries, which can happen. We've had authors in that have sold a lot in Europe or in India and they've, they've pursued publishing deals or, or rights for those countries, the sale of those rights, I should say, in those countries. And I think a foreign rights agent can be invaluable in those situations. But if you're publishing in North America, you can self publish without an agent. And you can publish and if your book is something that's selling well, that's a topic that is in demand, it's possible that a publisher will publish you. We've had, we've had a handful of our clients get publishing deals that they were very happy with just by going down the road of creating a great book and it, you know, putting in front of the right people sometimes or having connections. But it took, you know, creating the book along the way for people to see the value in it. But that can be a way to do it too. You don't necessarily need an agent and in many cases you're going to waste a lot of time trying to get an agent. And then they, they spend time shopping you around for a deal at the end of the day that you may not even want to sign. And so you can lose a tremendous amount of time. So it's one way to do it. But for many authors it's not, it's definitely not the only way to do it. And it's actually not even a desirable way when you understand the options and opportunities out there for you. Okay, let's see, let's see. You work better only when you're inspired. That's a myth for sure. Thanks, Gray. You should always write even when you aren't inspired. You never know what you might come up with right. Until you surprise yourself. Oh, I like that. That's really, really cool. And that's true, I found, I mean, I actually rarely feel inspired to write. I like writing once I get going into a groove of it. But. But what I find is I have to schedule it and make myself sit there and I turn on a timer and I'm not allowed to do anything else until that timer goes off. And often I come up with really good ideas doing that by just forcing myself to do it. But yeah, if you wait to be inspired, some of us will never write because I'm always inspired to do something and it's often not writing. So okay, let's see. There's questions. I'm not actually sure. Well, Aubrey has a good one. If you write for everyone, you write for nobody. That's a great one. I'm not sure. There's a few questions about will you cover self publishing by ebook? And a few other things that might have been about when I'm talking about the marketing course or Self Publish and Succeed Live. Self Publish and Succeed Live is more going to be geared towards writing a book. We'll talk about positioning it. We will talk about editing, design, and other pieces that need to happen. But mostly we're going to focus on helping you create a really, really solid, well positioned first draft of a book. The marketing course that we will do later in the year is only really on pitching. We're not going to cover Amazon ads. It's really about getting your book in front of other people's audiences. So how to position yourself for bulk buys, corporate partnerships, you know, sell podcasts, media, that kind of thing. That's what that course will be on. So let's see. Efren says adversity is the catalyst for purpose. Ooh, it's like you guys are quote dropping today. That's fantastic. All right, so while I got my head up and out of the myths, I'm going to go into my random name picker, where I've entered in everybody who has commented on Tuesday and Friday for the last two weeks. And you're spinning around right now, and I'll let you know who comes up. Let's see. Oh, a YouTube bestie, Michael Cook. I don't know if he is here. Michael W. Cook. Did I see him here in the live stream today? Nope, but I know he'll be watching the replay. I don't know if he's actually won anything in a while, so I think we'll hold this prompt prize for him. So, Mike, go ahead and write angelaeam t e a m book launchers.com and connect with her to figure out what your prize will be. I'm pretty sure you've already got a copy of Self publish and succeed, so you won't need that so you can find out what else we have that's a good fit for you and she'll get that sent off to you. Okay, where's my random name picker? I'm going to do the other one right now too. Spinning away. And our winner is. It froze. Okay, here it comes. Book marketing with Brian Burney. Oh, awesome. This is funny. Sometimes when I see the name, I actually remember the comment. He was commenting on the video that I talked about two weeks ago on the ads. It was like tips for for running paid marketing for your book. And he has an agency or a service where he does book Bob and Facebook. And so, yeah, Congratulations, Brian. Email angelaeamooklaunchers.com and you can get yourself some book launcher swag. Yay. Okay, last myth is you need inspiration. We just talked about this. I forgot that was my fourth myth. You need inspiration or the right time to write. Was that Greg? Yeah. So, Greg, you and I were on the same wavelength today. Good one. I wrote these on the weekend. That's why I forgot what they were already, so. But it was a. It was a. I'll tell you guys a little story. A friend of mine was here in Vegas a couple weeks ago, and I love Texas hold'. Em. It's one of my. It's the only thing I ever play at the casinos is Texas hold'. Em. If I am ever good going to go and, you know, quote, unquote, gamble, you'll find me at a Texas hold' Em table or a tournament. And so he was here and we went to the Venetian, and he'd been playing all these other games and he lost. I think he said he was down almost $1,000 by the time we sat at the poker table, but within an hour of sitting down, he was already up twelve hundred dollars. So I told him that I was clearly his poker muse, that my cut was 25%. He didn't pay me. But, you know, it kind of felt like some authors, they feel like they need a muse. They feel like they need this inspiration or that there's good luck. Like, obviously my presence was not the reason that he was up $1200 in a very short period of time at the table. He. He just kept hitting. It was one of those days where the cards, the numbers were not always in his favor, but the cards kept hitting for him. And so he was really raking in the money. But it is a lot of authors kind of think like that. You know, it's like the poker players that all have these little charms or chips and things like that, that's their lucky thing. And as a writer, I find some people think that, too. They need that inspiration or they need that muse or that thing, but the reality is you just have to sit down and write. And this is something that we've already talked about today because Gray brought this subject up. And there is a downside of believing that you have to have this inspiration because, you know, you might have those moments where you feel so inspired and it just flows out of you. But if you believe that that's the only time you're going to write, you're going to miss out on the opportunities and situations that actually kind of force you to get curious or to just write. And like we've already talked about, you'll end up creating something great just by virtue of doing that work over and over again. Creativity, just like what's happening, you know, around you, it doesn't creativity doesn't get sparked by or can get sparked, but it's not something that resides outside of yourself. It is something that you can be taught or you can teach yourself to produce on a consistent basis. Basis. So you just have to set the time, sit down and get to work. And you will find that you are a lot more creative and inspired just by doing that in repetition. So. But if anybody does want to sit at the poker table and win and pay me 25%, I am totally fine with that. But yeah, okay, so that was my four myths of the day. What questions? As always, if you haven't been to a live stream, Angela, who is our operations manager at Book Launcher, she almost always joins me for these and she collects your questions along the way and posts them for me at the end. We also do one last participation prize, which is usually a just a number that I choose. And we choose from anybody who has commented. And today is September 27th. So we will do 27 comments backwards from Angela, who just posted question one. So, Angela, 27 people up from your question one. So, yeah, I think I answered that one of Gregory talking about. I think he was talking about one of the other courses. I'm not sure if it was something else, though. So, Gregory, if you want to clarify, you are welcome to do that. Let's see. Why do I always give the family gold away? I am here to serve and serve support you, Edward. So if there's any other gold that you're looking for, I am happy to share. Let me know how I can help, especially right now because I'm taking questions. Efren. Hey, you won. I don't know if there's anything that we have that you haven't won that we have left. If there is not, then you are welcome to choose a lucky winner. But if there is something you'd like, email angelaeamooklaunchers.com and she will hook you up. Congratulations and thank you as always for being here. Okay. Some of what we would consider mundane things are extraordinary to others. I like that, Scott. I like that. Thank you for sharing. I'm just seeing if Angela has any other questions. Otherwise, the other thing I'm looking for is new topics for our deep dives coming up. If anybody. For those of you who missed Saturday, we had a deep dive where we went into marketing strategy. It was, you know, a. I actually did a pretty, pretty intensive presentation talking about all the ways to think about your book and position it for marketing and then talking about what to do if your Book isn't selling, but I'm open to other deep dive ideas. One of the deep dives that I will not do that I do get asked for is, can you show me how to upload a book to Amazon or to Ingram? I don't know how to do that. I mean, I do, I've done it, but that's not something that I would do. Oh, dear. We need a moderator. Thank you. Angela was on that. Thank you very much. All right, Real Deal. Efren has given you the prize of the day. So thank you, Efren, and congratulations. The Real Deal. Okay, question two. The Real Deal. Need help with public speaking. Okay, awesome. So, I mean, everybody has a different idea. We had a live stream a few a few times ago where somebody talked about Toastmasters being a great way to go. So if you've got a local Toastmasters. I've never gone to Toastmasters personally, but that I know a lot of people who recommend it and find that as a great way to get comfortable public speaking. What I personally did and still recommend to clients is depending on what your topic is, I found local meetup groups. So, you know, when I started speaking, I was in real estate and I found a local real estate investing group, and I offered to give a little talk on a subject that was relevant to the local market and local investors. And I started to do that in other markets. And I also kind of ended up getting thrown onto a big stage, which was not necessarily the ideal way to go. But starting small is really good because you can pick a topic where you can stand up and deliver value. And what I find is, for me, anyways, if I am, if I'm focused on giving somebody amazing content or helping them with something, I'm not thinking about myself. I'm not thinking about how the audience is judging me. I'm focused on trying to help. And that helps me be more comfortable when I speak versus when I'm thinking about, okay, I want to be a speaker, I want to speak, I want to get in front of audiences. That's all about me. So that's just, you know, that's a couple of random tips. But I do find local groups. Whether, you know, you're in an association or you can find those meetup groups, it's great now because people are meeting again. And so it gives you that opportunity to kind of test the waters and start practicing. We also have an author, excuse me, Dan Fraser, who wrote a really great book called Kick Ass Presentations. Angela can probably drop an Amazon link for his book. He's a Canadian, but his book applies to anybody giving talks and his tips and approach are really, really useful. He also gave. We also did a deep dive with him and I posted it on the YouTube channel, I don't know, a couple months ago. But he gave some presentation tips and tactics as well, which I thought were really, really valuable. Okay. Hey, Mike. Hello, Em Lee. Great to have you here. And Mike's going to need the replay tonight. Well, that's good. It'll be there for you as always. And let's see, just seeing if there's any other questions here. And again, Angela, I mean, that was really fast reflexes as far as getting on top of that unwanted content that popped up there. So way to go. Okay, that was the last question. Oh, you guys are easy on me today. So if you do, if you're watching the replay or after we get turn off and you go, oh, I've got an idea for a future video or a deep dive training, go ahead and post it in the comments below because I am collecting. I'm starting to plan 2023 already. Kind of crazy to say that, but we are heading into the last quarter of the year, so I'm starting to look at content and ideas for that. And of course self Publish and succeed live happening October 10th. I would love, love, love, love to have a few of you join us and work with me because that's going to be me teaching that whole, whole course and working with you to draft your first hashtag no boring book. So self publishand succeed.com forward/live class. All right, thank you. Oh, the book. Oh, thank you. The. The Amazon link for Dan Fraser's book was too long. I'll try and get it and post it in the description as well afterwards so you guys can check it out. But highly recommend that book. That'll get you started as well. All right, everyone, make it a great rest of the day and we'll see you back here in two weeks. Bye.