Build an Author Brand that Opens the Doors to Book Sales and Big Opportunities with Melissa Henry

Foreign. Welcome. Thanks for joining us today. I am Sarah Bean. I am the marketing professional and expert here at Book Launchers and sorry to say Julie Broad couldn't be here today. But I am very excited because we are going to have a special guest that's coming with us to talk all about author branding, which is just such a huge topic. Honestly, we probably need like two or three lives to really cover it all. But I am currently waiting for our guests to log in who should be here shortly. In the meantime, I do encourage everybody to go ahead and put in the chat. Say hello, where are you coming from? You know, love to welcome some of our YouTube besties. I see quite a few. Hi Jack. I see Jack Brapple, one of our book launcher authors. Pamela Henry, Tony Jones, Kevin Hall. Hi Kevin. Nice to see everybody. So as we're waiting for Melissa to go ahead and enter the studio, I do want to go ahead and recognize a couple of our recent winners and unfortunately Angela Jones couldn't be here today either. But what I am going to do is she gave me lots of info and things to go through. So I'm going to recognize some of our YouTube Pro Prize winners for commenting the same day a video drops. So our first One is Ayanna Smith. 4238. Congratulations. Our next winner is and I apologize, I'm not going to be able to pronounce this, but it looks like Dhruv Hellslinga D R V H E S L I N G A so congratulations to both of you for being some of our commenters. I'm going to drop those in the chat in case one of those belongs to you. If you are one of our winners, congratulations. You are going to send an email to teamoklaunchers.com and you'll send a note to Angela with some of with what you choose as one of your prizes. And we have some great prizes today. In addition to Julie's books, I have some of our upcoming and more mo and our most recent new releases to give away today. So we've got quite a few. And you can see I've got my book launchers shelf here. Lots of great stuff in here but some of our more recent ones that I'm going to be giving away today. Whoops, I'm almost a little bit too far away. So we've got off food. Why do you trouble me so much? We've got the second hand playbook by Ed McClellan which is a really fantastic retirement income one. We've got definitely lots of Julie's books. And I have got some, including. Oh my gosh, you guys, I have so many. I'll have to grab some of these when Melissa comes on. And so I'm just going to check real quick to see where she is because she has not popped on yet. So in any case, what I would love for you guys to do is put some of your branding questions right into the chat. What are some of the questions that you have when it comes to author branding? Because I definitely want to make sure that those are addressed when our guest gets here.

Here.

And some of the things, I mean, when I talk to authors for the first time and I really put it into perspective for them that what they're doing when they're launching a book is creating a new brand. I get the deer in headlights look, right? It's just. What do you mean? I'm launching a brand. But in any case, when you are launching a book, you're launching a brand new business, right? You're releasing a product into the marketplace. And in order to do that, you need to have certain aspects put together foundationally that are going to help you.

So.

Okay, just one second.

Okay.

So Melissa just let me know that she's here but is not able to.

Huh?

There she is. Okay. All right. There's Melissa. Hi, Melissa.

Hey. I was like hanging out in the room and I'm like, what's going on? So I'm, I, I'm on my phone, like, watching your thing, and you're like, oh, this is not in the room yet. I'm like, I must have the wrong way.

Yes, no problem. Well, thank you so much for joining us, you guys.

Thanks for having me.

Excited to welcome Melissa here. And so I was just doing a little bit. If you heard me talking, I was just talking a little bit about the brown. The brand foundational stuff. I mean, right? Like, whenever I talk to a new author, they're always like, what do you mean I need a brand? What is that all about? So we're gonna get into that today. But first, before we get started, I am gonna give away a prize for those that are the first that were here, I'm gonna take Melissa. Pick a number between 1 and 10.

Let's say 8.

8. Okay, great. I'm gonna take the eighth person who commented today. 1, 2. I'm gonna skip my own. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Kevin Hall. Kevin Hall. Yay. Congratulations. You are gonna get a prize today. So we have some of Julie's books, if you don't have those already. I have the second Half Playbook, which is a really fine, fantastic retirement planning book. We have off Food why do you trouble me so much? By Todd Nyholm, which is a really holistic way to look at your eating and nutrition, the body, mind, health connection. Then I'm going to have some other books later on. But do me a favor, send a note to team at Book Launchers with your choice and we'll get that sent out to you and we'll do some prizes throughout. We'll take some breaks here and there. But now that we are here, I am going to give Melissa a little bit of an intro. So Melissa is the founder of hello a Brand and is an expert brand strategist. She has been doing this for over 16 years as a brand builder, creative strategist, and she's helped thousands, hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs get clarity around their business, their brand, and show up for themselves. So welcome Melissa. We're super excited to have you.

Thank you. I am super excited to be here.

Yeah. So, you know, dive into a little bit more about what it means to be a brand strategist. What does your work look like with any one particular entrepreneur or particularly authors, since a lot of our audience here are all authors.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for the question. I don't want to get too, too into it because I'm sure I'll just make everybody's eyes glaze over. But essentially what I really want to do for people is give them the kind of clarity that they need to not be like all like throwing things against the wall, hoping something will stick. You know, I think a lot of people who are authors and business owners, they kind of have a lot of things going on. They're like multi passionate. You know, they really want to make a bigger impact in the world and things like that. And they're not really, you know, you don't go into business to do marketing. Right. And it sort of ends up like, oh my God, that's all I ever feel like I'm. And so my goal is really to get people super clear, focused. We have a simplified structure. We have a cohesive brand and business and it looks good to the outside world and it communicates the right message. So that's the kind of work I'm doing with people. It's pretty intensive, I would say, when I do with my, my one with one to one clients. But it is, it's like key and foundational, particularly for people who are going off into the art, the author world and really wanting to make a splash with their book, but also build A business around it. Yeah, hopefully that was helpful.

No, that's super helpful. I mean, that's one of the things that I was saying is that when you're launching a book, you're launching a product, you're launching a business, whether you like it or not. And that business has to have an identity. It has to have something that people associate with you. So, I mean, here at Book Launchers, when we have authors that come in the door, one of the first steps is to have a branding call with me where we get very aligned on what are you trying to accomplish, who are you trying to help, what do you want to see happen and what are all the things that are happening around the book? Because the book is usually just one start, it's just one step on a much bigger ladder, right?

Yes, absolutely. It's a part of the puzzle, but it isn't the thing that's going to carry everything for you. Right.

It's not the whole puzzle, it's just a small piece of it. Yeah, absolutely. So, okay, well, I've got some starter questions here, if that's okay.

Yeah, yeah, let's go.

Yeah. So, you know, since we have a lot of first time authors here or a lot of people that are going from whatever that first chapter of their life is into that next chapter, I want to address a little bit about first timers. What are some of the mistakes you might see a first time author or expert entrepreneur make that's going to keep them from like really utilizing their book and turning it into big, big opportunities?

That is a great question because. And we kind of even just touched on it initially and that is thinking that the book is the thing that's going to open all the doors. Right, right. So it, as we said, it's a piece of a puzzle and all of that. But if you don't have a plan behind that, if you don't have some structure behind where that book fits in the, in the strategy, like whatever your goal really is, ultimately, then it really just gets put out there and then it, there's nothing else that happens from it. So people often get disappointed because they don't have that set up. They haven't really thought about what do they, what do they want to be known for, what do they want to be like standing out in the marketplace as. Right. So there's, there's even another thing I think too that people will do as well is that they're like, okay, well now I got to market the book. Right. I've gotta get so some, many of Them will know. I. I know I'm going to be responsible for marketing the book, but how am I going to do that? And I know you guys do set up some of that for people, which is amazing, but I think it's great to market the book. But ultimately, if what you're trying to do is make a bigger business out of it, or. And. Or if you're trying to make more money from it, you need to have that. That business idea or that, you know, some other way to monetize that book. Right. So you gotta have a way to take them from book and get them into your world. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So that's the thing, is once they've read the book, where do they go from there? They might have bought it, bought the book from you, but then what's the next step? Is it just gonna go on the shelf and they're never gonna think about you anymore? Right, right. We need to actually bring them down that path. Like, there has to be a place for them to go next. So you want to be thinking about that. Well, what is my platform, you know, out there in the world? What is the offer I'm going to have on the back end of that book? And what's really the larger plan on how I create that bigger business with the book as part of that strategy? Right. And I think I mentioned before, a lot of people will have those different tactics. They kind of throw stuff against the wall, but there's no path. And we want the path. Yeah. And I can just give you, like, a very quick example of that. There's some. Yeah. One of my climb. My clients was about ready to. And you know him. I'm not gonna say his name, but you know him, he was writing a book and he was expanding his influence in this space. And he has a lot of. He has a lot of balls in the air. He. He does a lot, you know, multiple things in his business. And he came to me and he's like, I don't know how to go out into the market and say who I am and what I do in a very concise way that everyone understands.

The book was part of it right there. Like, how can you get your message across in a way that's concise, that everybody can understand it, not just the people that are in your niche. Yeah.

Yes. And that's what he was. He was complaining about that because he said, well, I can talk to, like, the other practitioners who do what I do, and they know, but everybody else is like, I don't get it. So that's what we had to do. We had to create that sort of bigger plan. And then we had to say, well, where does the book fit in there? So the book was part of it. Absolutely. And we were so grateful that you guys already had that taken care of. We had to slap that into, okay, what does that lead to? And how does that connect with the other parts of your business? Right, right, right. So now he's got that. And we actually did end up creating a. We kind of helped him to create a course that will be a follow on to the book. And so now he can create that extra income that, you know, that actually it's not just about extra income. He really wants them, his. His audience to have the impact that he made. He created the book for.

Right. He wants to be able to help them.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And I think it's a really interesting point you make there about the fact that, you know, the book is not enough. It's usually a step. It could be an introduction to your content. Sometimes that first introduction might be on social media or, you know, maybe it's a video or an article or something you've created. But, you know, ideally, if someone is taking the time and the interest to Invest, you know, 1999 in your paperback book, you want to keep them in your ecosphere.

Right.

And so there's the book and then there's, where do we go from here?

Yeah, Yep, yep, for sure.

That's great. So, you know, it is interesting, you know, talking about social media a little bit. You know, some people think, okay, well, if I have a big platform, if I have, you know, certain number of followers, that's my brand. Or they might think, okay, well, I have a really pretty logo, or I've, you know, oh, I've. My. My cover matches my website because of these colors. That's my brand. But I think you and I both know that's not actually a brand. Can you explain a little bit about what personal branding is and what holds people back from being able to develop one fully?

Yeah, I. I think you kind of, you know, started to. To really kind of go into it there a little bit. It's definitely not your logo. It's definitely not your colors, your website, all of that. I often tell people that's the expression of the brand. So you can't express the brand until you figure the brand out. What is it? Right. So it's kind of the. The personal brand is really like the sum total of how everyone is perceiving you. So you're pulling out things like your, your values, your point of view, then the audience that you really want to reach. But like at a deeper level, not sort of surface, like, okay, I only, I talk to business owners. Well, then you're talking to everybody. Right. But like your niche audience, the messaging, you have, your authority in the space, your uniqueness, all of those things kind of come together to create that brand. And I think a lot of people, when you talk about like, what's going to hold them back, There's a few things, but what comes to mind for me really is some people think it's going to box them in, especially when I try to get them to niche. I get so many people pushing back on that and, and, and it's no matter what I do, they're like really like reluctant to go down the niching, you know, category. I know, but I want to work with everybody. It's like, but then you will work with no one. So.

Yeah, so that's that with your book too. Your book's not for everybody.

Your book is not for everybody. That's exactly right. I mean, it's kind of like I was talking to somebody recently, we were talking about this idea when it comes to, to writing a book and that is, she was saying she has a physician that is writing a book about cancer and how to, how to reverse it, but with non medical, you know, ways of doing things like, you know, just like healthy eating and healthy living and things like that. And he started, as he was writing and writing the book, he started to say, oh, but this is for everyone because it's about healthy living. And she was like, no, no, no, don't do that.

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah. And imagine if you went even deeper. What if it was specific kinds of cancer or what it was. What if it was specific, you know, age groups and cancer. If you went that deep, imagine how much more you'd be able to sell because it's so specific to those people.

Right, right.

Like yours is the only book on the shelf talking about pediatric cancer and, and reversing it through, you know, like eating right or I don't know, whatever that is. Right. That's the only book there. Imagine how much that would sell.

Oh my gosh. I have the perfect example of this. We have an author a number of years ago, Pat Watson, who is a lock picking expert. Right. And so the book itself was, yeah, it's a step by step guide on lock picking, but he niched it down so it was, it was really applicable to first responders, EMTs, firefighters, the paramedics, those that need to get on the scene and maybe need to get past locked doors in order to save a life.

Yeah. So now people who are trying to rob you off the shelves, right? Yeah. I was like, what they're gonna like be like in my house now? Let's go.

Well, think about it. Because if they don't, and let's say something, you know, God forbid something happens and you have a locked door and the EMTs get through, you know what they do? They knock that they, they break down your door, so then you have hundreds, even thousands of dollars worth of damage. And so the problem he was solving was how first responders, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics can use these lock picking skills in the case of emergency. It flew off the shelves. Every single media outlet I pitched that spoke to that audience, snapped him up. Yeah, he was getting webinars right and left. I mean, it was like two weeks into pitching and I of, I was like, oh my gosh, I've never seen this, you know, and it's because of that niche. It was that, that ability to go deep and service a really specific community that it went really well. And so, so to tie it back to branding, you know, so it sounds like the more niche you go, sometimes the better that brand can flourish.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, there is going to be a point at which maybe it's a little too niche and you just really have to kind of figure that out. But most people aren't willing to anyway, so I never have that problem. Like, it's always the opposite problem with people where they're just a little bit afraid. Like if I do that, then I, I'm not going to have the business. And I keep trying to tell you, actually that's the key to having more business. And it seems, I, it seems counterintuitive, but it's 100 true. The one other thing I also want to point out here, because this is a big one. If I just write a great book, the right people will read it. If it's just good, they'll just read it. Right. The same thing with if I just.

On Amazon, amongst the 6 million of.

Others, you know, yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll be known for being really good. And you know, there, the thing is, and it's, it may sound sad, but people don't buy what you do because you're better than everyone else. They absolutely don't. They buy what you do because they resonate with the message. And you have positioned yourself in a way that, that Puts you as the authority in this space. That's why. Right.

Yes.

And so we want you, if you are the best at what you do, we want you to be the one that's like that in that space and is elevated to that level. We don't want the other people who aren't good at what they do taking your place. Right.

Because if they're the ones out there putting out the content and making the noise in the marketplace, they're the one that's going to get att. Yeah.

Yep, yep. And I know we've all seen it. We've all looked around and seen these people, and you're like, oh, my God, I'm so much better than them. How come I'm not doing as well as they are? Yes. Like, yeah, well, they niched. They got the message. They, they. They created a brand that resonates, and that's why. That's why this is happening. It's not because they're better than you, I promise you.

Right. Yeah. No, it's not. You know, one of the first questions I always ask authors, like, right out of the gate, is, why are you the best one to write this, this book? What is it in your background, your history? What was that point in which you went, you know what? I really need to write a book on this because I'm the one that's going to help these people. Sometimes I get a lot of authors who are like, I don't know, and I'm like, okay, well, we gotta start there. Well, let's start as to why you're the best one. But then I get other authors who are very much like, oh, I can tell you exactly why. This is what I went through. This is where I'm coming from. And this is the. How I develop that perspective. And I'm like, boom, that's your brand. You figured it out, you know.

Absolutely. And I would even say, like, you know, why are you the best one? Maybe it's also. Or maybe a way for them to think about it, because it could be that they're getting a little hung up on the best. You know, like, there's imposter syndrome that might be coming to play there.

Sure.

But maybe it's more like, what about your experience? This is, this is how I do. Like the uniqueness for people. So positioning in the market. Right. So what is it about your experience, your. Your expertise, your point of view, you know, your personality? There's. There's parts of you that make you the right person to write this book.

Yeah.

So that they can go, oh, you know, there's a lot about, you know, experiences I've had in. In my lifetime that put me in a position that makes me really, like, the right person to write this book. And really, that's. That's the thing is we're all. We all have a pov, right? I'm gonna say pov, because my daughter's Gen Z, and it's all POV this and that. Right. But we all have a pov. Yeah. And so we. We want to. We want to talk about that. Like, we want to think about why is it my point of view, what.

Created the pov, what got me to that place where it shaped my. My perspective, my POV on it. Yeah, absolutely.

Yes.

Yeah. I think I have another good example of this. We had an author a few years ago who was sort of jumping genres like her. Her life's work was. She was a professor of sociology, but she was launching a book, which was sort of her side hustle hobby, which was around dog training. And one of the conversations we had was around, okay, who's gonna listen to you on your perspective on this? Because, you know, you're not coming from decades of dog experience. Although she. She did have a lot of dog experience. She just wasn't like a Cesar Milan. She wasn't. Had been a trainer for decades.

Right.

And one of the things that we honed in on is because of her education and training in sociology, she was able to look at dogs from a different perspective for how they work socially, how they work amongst people and the relationships between them. And I was like, that right there is. Makes you the right person because you have added a perspective to a conversation that's been done over and over and over, but you're adding a new voice and a new spin on it. That is your pov. That is your, you know, and so.

That's so good. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's really grown. Like, I'm really happy for her.

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. And I love that because that's taking. I think people often aren't really sure what to do with, you know, positioning. Right. And it's. It's an art and a science, but I would say definitely thinking about how you're connecting, maybe your expertise, like the thing you went to college for or what you've been doing for 20 years in your job or whatever, but connecting that, like, what are the little threads that actually connect you to the thing you really want to talk about? Because there's a reason why you really want to talk about that thing, right?

Yeah. You've got something in you that wants to get that message out and wants to reach as many people as possible. Yeah, absolutely. You know, speaking of that, I'm going to get into, we're going to get into one more topic and then I'll take a pause for another prize. But I do encourage everybody. Put your questions in the chat for Melissa. Ask your branding questions. Ask her what you want to know. Getting into wanting to get that message out and sometimes wanting to get that message out quickly. What are some of the things that people need to have in place to get that brand to get some traction quickly? Because we all know there's a lot of brands out there. It can get noisy. How can they gain some traction?

That's a great question. And I think, you know, most people listening might say, well, okay, I need a website, any landing page or a sales page or a funnel. And I'm gonna say that yes, there is a need for some tech. Absolutely. I. But you can't go down the road of setting up tech. Like, I don't even want you going to look for different platforms or anything yet until you know what's gonna go in it. So we talked already about a clear niche audience. Right. I've told you before that, you know, that's, that's going to be your key. If you've done this with your book, you can continue that with the brand if that makes sense for you. But you got to make the hard choice to pick that audience. And really, not only does that make everything clear, it also makes it easier and more effective when you do market things. So just know this will make everything else easier in your life, I promise. We talked a little bit about the positioning. So know how you're different from everyone else that's in your market and then not only how you're different, but you also have to connect it with why that's relevant to your audience. So just to give you a quick example of that, you know, if you know how to roller skate and play piano at the same time, that could make you different from someone else. But if it has nothing to do with what you're offering, then you don't even need to be considering it. So that's what I mean by relevant. Yeah, yeah. But there's a couple things I, I haven't really spoken probably in about enough or really at all. Well, I guess I spoke about this one thing a little bit, but you need a powerful message and I think people aren't 100 sure what messaging really means. And when I use that term, I mean, it's. It's messaging that makes people feel something. So how do you figure out what that is? You've got to get into what I call the kind of key psychographics of that audience that you're trying to connect with. So you have to get into kind of what's the event going on in their lives right now that you're helping them solve, and how does it feel to them? What's really happening inside? Are they feeling sad? Are they feeling frustrated? Are they feeling angry? Like, what are the feelings? And if you can kind of like make your message speak to the feelings and the things that are going on in their life right now that you can help them solve, they're going to be way more interested in leaning in to what you're saying and willing to go to the next step, whatever that is for you, like, for them. Like, what's the, you know, funnel or whatever we want to call that. I call it a client journey. But, you know, and that is the next thing they should. You should try and put into place, which is, what is that client journey? When we started off talking about where are you taking them after they read the book? So you want to make it easy to take the reader from, you know, buying your book all the way to maybe becoming a client in whatever capacity that is for you. Because it could be, you know, anything. I mean, it could be, you know, maybe you want to be a consultant, maybe you want to be a coach. Maybe you have a course that you want to offer. Maybe there's something else. I don't know what everyone's in here, but maybe it's getting bigger speaking gigs. So you really want to bring in event organizers or what are the pathway, the individual steps. And if you have those things in place, then creating that tech would be the next step. So having some way that some place for people to go that you can then start to bring them in and nurture them and give, get them to have more time with you and trust you and really want to work with you.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can't emphasize this enough is that idea of bringing people into your ecosphere and it, you know, and it can take a lot of forms. You know, maybe it is just a starting point with, you know, some content that caught their eye, and then you have the book, but those next steps and just, you know, sort of off the cuff. Could you give some examples of what that model might look like for an author? I know we have a mix of fiction and Nonfiction here, but let's say a nonfiction author. I think I know what a lot of these are, but I would love for you as the experts, you know, people should be considering that maybe they haven't yet when it comes to building, building out a full picture there.

Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I have clients who have done that route where they've set up a course that, that follows. It's a follow on from the book and not a course but more of. Well, I mean, you can do that, you can do courses, you can do like a coaching program and things like that where they, they come in and maybe what you've done is you have a landing page that you give them more value through. Then through that landing page you're capturing their, their email address and then you are, you know, sending them to, perhaps it's a workshop or a masterclass that's free. Then they get to dive deeper into this topic and then they get on a call with you or then they get a sales page that says, well, we really think that you're ready for this next step. And you know, coming into this community or this coaching program, you know what I mean? There's, there's so, I mean, I'm kind of giving a lot of examples there. But no, that's what I mean because.

I think it helps spurn some, some interest. You know, it's like it could be, you know, they read the book and then maybe they're ready to take the course and then maybe they're ready to take that next step, which might be hiring you as a coach. You in particular, the royal you hiring a coach or bringing you in as a consultant. You know, it could be, you know, and in some ways to think about this could be around that idea of like ticket prices. Right. Like the book is going to be a relatively low buy in. Maybe an intensive masterclass might be more of a buy in. Maybe really what you're aiming for is to be brought in as a consultant for companies where you're making those bigger pictures paydays. But you have to. No one of those things exists on its own. You have to be able to lead the audience to it and they have to be able to know and trust that you can deliver on what you're, you're putting there. So.

Yeah, and a couple things I want to throw out real quick if I can.

Yeah, please, absolutely.

One thing is. Yeah, I just, I want to make sure that people understand that, you know, people aren't going. Even if they've read your book, they may or may not be ready to buy right away. So you want to kind of figure out where that sweet spot is. They may be more like, since they've read the book, they're more likely to be. Want. Be trusting you at that point. So you could kind of bring them into maybe a smaller ticket offer, but just play with that a little bit. Like, how much extra time do they need to spend with me before they spend their money? Because people spend with their time first and then with their money second. And one last thing, I'll leave with you, which I think is a pretty fantastic idea. And I'm thinking about doing it at some point in the future. And that is if you are someone who is a consultant and you want to work with like, let's say bigger companies and things like that, why not create a funnel of sorts that is your book, like your book actually is sent directly to those people with an offer at the end for them to, you know, whatever that is. Maybe it's, I don't know, like a. A VIP for the. For them. That then leads into a larger consulting contract or something like that. So don't be afraid to actually directly send a book to somebody you really want to work with and tell them why you send it and what their next steps are. That could be really powerful for a lot of your nonfiction authors, depending on that's their. At their niche.

And that really hearkens back to what we were talking about, about knowing how you're different in the market. Because if you were to send a book pac like that, you're sending a book, kind of a cold outreach to an organization you know, would benefit from your message. You have to be able to sell it in that letter and in your media kit and in the positioning of the book as to why you're different than every other, whether it's a personal development, professional development, you know, whatever it might be, you have to be able to get across very quickly in that just how do I make everybody understand who I am and how I'm different in that one to two lines that ends up being sometimes more interesting to that end user than the book itself. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

They'll be like, oh, wow, I just got this book from this person, and they did this, this, and this. And here's the book that goes with it. But that's where you're selling really your brand. Not the pro, not the book. You're selling the brand.

Oh, yeah. So that's why you can see it's all like part of a master Plan.

It all goes together. I want to take a quick pause and answer a couple of the questions. We've got a few that have started here, but while I do that, I am going to give away another prize. This is going to be for and I don't have them within arm's reach, but for one of Julie's books, you have the choice between either self publish and succeed or self promote and succeed. To enter to win this one, I'd like you to put into the comments something you've picked up from what Melissa has talked about today. Some one just one key thing that has popped out at you as something or resonated with you in some way. I'll put these all into our giveaway tool, but drop those in the chat. And while we're doing that, I'm going to ask a couple of questions. So one of the questions that came up was from Tony Jones and Tony had asked, what if you were going to create a series, what are your thoughts on series? Melissa? I'm assuming he's referring to series of books. So let's see.

Yeah, I would think the same. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm not sure exactly what he means by what are my thoughts on it. I think it's a fantastic idea. I think you can take parts of your process and create like, you know, this is part one and it could be a series in that way. Like, you know, this is one section of how you will implement my signature methodology and, you know, kind of bring them through almost like a course, but like in a series way. So they have to go out and buy the next one and buy the next one and buy the next one to get the whole course. So you could definitely do that. I, I think that's a fantastic idea. I, I don't know if that's was the. Was your question. It was Tom, you said, or no, Tony. Tony.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love the idea. I think it's great.

I definitely do too. I mean, I think Sirius, in fact, this one right here, off Food. Why do you trouble me so much by Todd Nyholm. This is the first book that he did with us, but so far he's done three. We're on his fourth book now and each one covers a slightly different aspect of what he does as, as a somatic therapist. So this one's on food, the next one was on your body. The one of the most recent ones was on your brain, you know, and so it's different sections of what he works on, but it Works great as a series of books. So, yeah, that's super cool.

I love that. Yeah.

This next question, we'll give everybody one more minute or so to put their ideas down. From Pamela Henry, how do you distinguish a brand from the masses? And so we've, we've touched on this a little bit, but I wanted to bring this question up just a little bit in case you have some examples that people can take.

Let me think about that. I mean, how do you distinguish a branch of the masses? I guess the way that I'm going to interpret that is it's like, how do I personally stand out if everyone else is in my, my niche doing, you know, similar work to me? So I want to give you example from a current client. Maybe that will help. I have a client who is a life coach, and when she first came to me, she started like, we were talking about competition analysis. We're working on that for her. And she gave me some people in her field, and when I dove into their website, when I looked at their LinkedIn and I just kind of read through who it is that they were working with and really their messaging and like, how they were presenting themselves and all the things, I quite literally kept going back to her saying, this is not your competition. Right. I mean, it could have been because each was different. It could be because the approach was different many times, or it could be just, you know, the, the way that they, like the messaging or the, the tone, the tone of her brand versus the tone that they were expressing were very different. And the cool thing was through that entire process, number one, she got really confident about what she was doing. She was like, oh, my God, I am different. I kept thinking that these people were doing better than me. And oh, my God, they're, they're, you know, you're. They're going to get all my clients or, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

And she was looking at it, she's like, you're right. They are not like me. And out of that process, we actually created a her signature methodology because people were framing what they were doing, like how they were working with their clients as life coaches. And she was able to create something that was like, like we even named it, like, we used an acronym and named it and everything. And I told you should go, mark that. Like, that would be great.

Yeah, ye.

Exactly. That's, that's what I mean. Because then when you have something like that, you know, you have like a signature process.

Yeah.

And you're telling people about that and that's like your method and I will also say that none. There's nothing new in the world. Right. We've learned from others who have come before us, but we make everything. We learn our own in some way. So even if you're. If you're dealing in modalities, like a healer, healthcare practitioner or something like that, you still make the modality yours in some way so you can create that. But I would say, I don't know, Pamela, hopefully that's helpful. But I would look at it that way. Like, if you start looking at your competition, really get. Dig deep and see, like, well, what are they saying and what's their. What's their point of view? What's their voice? You know, you'll start to see big differences, and then you'll be able to know what makes you different and how you can stand out.

I love that. Yeah. I think there's so many opportunities there to really learn from others. But then also, you know, make it your own, which is what your brand is all about. It's yours. It's your personal brand. Do it the way you want to. Yeah, I'm gonna get one more question in here.

Okay.

And then what's that?

You know, you're gonna laugh at me, but I didn't plug my computer in. You want to give me just a pause so I can go do that?

Yeah, please, please. You know what, what I'm gonna do is bring up our random. Randomizer.

Awesome. Yeah, do that.

Yeah, I'm gonna bring in our randomizer for some of our responses. And actually, I'll bring these responses up while. While Melissa is plugging in some of the ones that came up. So, Medina, messaging needs to make people feel something. Need to address how you want to make them feel. It needs to lean into the emotion. Absolutely. I mean, think about the things that you react to the most when you see something online or on social media, it's generally going to be something that makes you feel. So that's definitely one Darla mentioned. Pov. Absolutely. Your perspective and your viewpoint is unique to you. It's been changed, shaped by your experiences. It's been shaped by your thoughts and how you were raised and what you encountered and how you were educated and all of those points. So those POVs are really valuable. Reba says here. There she is. I love the idea about sending your book out to a company you want to work with with funnel approach to further the end game. Absolutely. If you. If a major part of your plan is to work with organizations, that that's got to be an aspect of it. Let's see. We talked to Pamela. Okay. So I'm going to dive into the next question while I put things into our randomizer. So our question here from Kevin Hall. What would you recommend for branding for an author who has published books in different genres? How do I get specific? This is a good question.

Yeah, I mean, how do I get specific? So I guess the question I would have. Not knowing the specifics of what you've done, I think I would try and find out if there's a thread that connects everything. What is that? Like, why did you publish books in different genres? What was the. Like, why did you set out to do that? There has to be something there that you were interested in. Is there a way to kind of connect those things? If not, is there a genre or a topic that you are most passionate about that you want to lean into more? That would be. My advice, is to kind of look for those things, because that's what I would do. I would be trying to figure out, well, why, like, what's the thread that connects everything? You know?

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great topic. We. We have an author whose book came out in January. Now, by profession, she's an IT manager and sort of strategist consultant. But she wrote. I think it was fantasy novels or like. Like fiction novels, but all centered around emotional intelligence. And then her nonfiction was for IT professionals, again, around emotional intelligence. And so that. And emotional resilience, I should say. And that is definitely like the one unifiner. Unifier for her between the fiction and the nonfiction was emotional intelligence and resilience and. Yeah. And part of the brand identity from there.

Did she. Was she very, like, intentional about that, or did she just sort of gravitate to. To creating fiction that had that as a topic where, like, did she just set the set out to do that at the beginning or not? Because that's, you know, it's a great question.

I didn't work with her when she worked on her fiction. She had done the fiction first and then came for us. Came to us for nonfiction. It was when she and I were working on the strategy for the. The new book for the nonfiction book that she kind of pulled out, that she always makes sure that her characters have these traits. And it's something that really resonates with her. And it became something that resonated with her in her professional life was just trainings around emotional resilience and emotional intelligence. And so I. It's a chicken and the egg situation. I don't know if it came first. But it was definitely something that we used with her bios and her messaging and everything else was just that this concept can be, can be demonstrated both in fiction and non fiction.

That's so cool.

Yeah, it was definitely a cool one. So real quick, quick before we dive in, so I have everybody in the picker wheel and I'm going to spin here and I'm sorry I'm not showing it to you because I don't know how to screen share on stream yard. I apologize. Darla.

Darla.

And I've got music playing in my ear now. Darla, congratulations. You have a choice of one of Julie's books or if there is one of our books here that you're interested in, please send us a note@teambook launchers.com and let us know your selection. So Melissa, in the minutes that we have left, we still have some questions. So I'd actually kind of love to dive into those unless there's more that you want to go through specifically. But we've got some great questions here.

No, this would be great. Yeah.

So this question. Okay, that actually question was for Kevin hall was questions on if you're writing for the same audience or different, same problems and solutions. And we kind of touched on that one already. Okay, so this one is from Gary Anderson. Is quantity a help for a niche market or can it be making an over saturation of stuff quantity a help.

For a niche market? I don't know if I completely understand the question. A quantity of help.

I'm wondering if, if Gary and Gary, if you're here, feel free to drop in the chat if you have some, some clarifying points. But I would assume that quantity probably would refer to a number of books, like a lot of books on the, on the topic.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't think so. I, I don't really know if there. I think what you're saying is like different titles, like a whole bunch of different titles. Okay. I think if it were all kind of unloaded at the same time perhaps because then what you're doing is you're asking people to make a choice from a whole lot of different options. If it's something, if it's a library that's been built up over time where people have been kind of with you during that journey, I don't think that's an issue. But you have to be like, you have to be thinking, okay, well what is the point for me to issue this book right now? Like what am I trying to do with this again with the intentionality. You know, I, I think that's what I would look at first. I wish, I wish I could talk directly to you so I could understand a little bit more. But that's kind of where how I would be thinking about is, like, why do I want to put out all of these books at the same time? If that's what you're trying to do?

Yeah.

So think about it that way. Like, am I giving people too many options and therefore they won't buy? Because that's always. That can be a problem too.

So decision paralysis is absolutely. Yeah. I would also tack onto that a little bit that it's less about the quantity, more about the value you're presenting. If you're presenting, you know, different. If you have 10 books that you have come up with, but they all solve either a different problem or tackle a different aspect of an issue, then maybe they are really valuable. If those 10 books can probably be pared down into just two books, then maybe you've oversaturated yourself. It's about the value. I, I say this a lot, especially when it comes to email and social media marketing, because a lot of people think more is better. And actually, yeah, it's not necessarily true. It's, you know, you can have an email newsletter that goes out twice a week and get zero engagement because people have heard your message already and they're bored with it. And you could have better results if you only do once a week, you know, or once a month. It really, it comes across as value. What are you giving to the, you know, the general people? What is your brand presenting? That is going to help. So I think that that's more the question to ask over is too much. You know, how much is too much?

Yeah. And I think too, thinking about that in terms of the series that, you know, Tony had asked about earlier, I think that's, that's really like, that's a way of doing it that would make sense, like packaging each, each point of, or piece of value as it's. As its own thing.

Yeah, I mean, and I think in terms too of, you know, what is your audience reacting to the most? If you're putting out a product and you're getting no reaction from it, and you put out another product, another product, another product, and you're still not getting engagement, not getting any feedback, that's probably telling you that you're not employing the best strategy. Whereas in, if you release something and people are actively asking you for more, they're asking for different perspectives, they're asking for you to expand upon it, then. Yeah, get as much out there as you can, so.

Absolutely.

Okay, so this is an interesting one. This is from Medina. What about people who write about Rom Com? How can they brand themselves to being the one? I mean, the romance genre is just. Wow, that is. Talk about trying to make yourself. That is a hard one. I don't know, Melissa.

Yeah, I mean, it's. It. Listen, this is not. I don't have a different answer because there's always the formula. Let's put it, like, if it's a formula or a method to doing this really does have to do with who is the audience for it. I know you're probably going to say women. Okay, but what kind of women are we talking about? Young women, older women, moms? I don't know. Like, there could be just any. Like, you gotta get into that. Like, you could have romance novels, novels for teens. So it's. You got to figure those things out. So. So the niche is still important there, you know, why you're writing it. Like, what's your point of view? Are they, like, are these romances, like, set in a certain time period? Or is there some sort of, like, I don't know, like, alternate universe or, you know, there's. There's ways to kind of connect the dots there and then, like, really, why are you the. Right. Like, what makes you different in writing these things? In other words, what are you bringing to the table? And sometimes what's really interesting to me about fiction writers is that their personal lives can be. Can be part of this.

Like, so it means a part of the selling point. Absolutely.

Selling. Like, why? Like, what was their backstory? How did, like, I mean, you know, Harry Potter, that entire thing. So, you know, understanding the backstory of that author and how she struggled was part of why it became so big, you know, so there's a lot of ways to, like, to. To get at this, but I would say still the same thing applies. Like, figure out what your differences is. Are, and figure out who that niche audience is and you know, what you're bringing to the table. That's the advice I would give.

Oh, absolutely. I've already got my romance author bio written. I haven't written the book yet, but I've already got the bio written.

That's got all me. Tell us this.

I can't tell you. I can't tell you until I get the book written.

All right. All right.

Okay. So one other question. We. Oh, nope, I just did that one. Sorry, Medina. Okay, this is From Michelle Rosenthal. This is a follow up on positioning. What's your best advice for making the transition for what you're known for to what you'd rather be doing when it's an entirely different industry?

Yeah, I know that's, that's hard. You know what I came out of, I used to work for Fedgov as a contractor, and I was a, an accountant for many, many, many years doing that work at the end as the contractor. And I was shifting completely out of that and into photography. So what. That's crazy. How did I do that? Right. So there were a few things that happened at that time. So at the time I was doing maternity and newborn work. And so I was in, and I was in a stage of life where I wanted to have a child of my own. So I had a story around that. My story was that I want to, I want to photograph newborns because I'm. And I'll just be frank. I was having trouble. So this was, this was a passion of mine and I really loved babies and I wanted a baby. And so, you know, this was part of my story. And I can also even point to my 20 plus years of experience in the accounting industry because running a business and, you know, creating strategy and things like that, actually I can, I can look back on my experiences as an accountant and use that, that inside my business. Not just with the finances, but like ways of looking at things, problem solving, you know, like being able to take, take a, a look, like a holistic look at something and understand where I need to actually focus my efforts. All of that came from my experience. And so the same thing happens if, if what you're, you'd rather be doing is in a different industry. Go back and look at all the things that you've accomplished. I, yeah, I'm telling you, go make a list of everything that you've done that you are proud of, all of the credentials you've, you know, you've had, like all the things you've achieved, people you've helped, anything you can think of and write that list. And you're gonna find not only that, you're gonna be excited about it and you're gonna go, holy crap, I've done a lot in my life. Yeah, I'm way better than I thought, you know.

Yeah, but.

Yeah, right. But then, but then maybe you'll start to see why what you've done is actually relevant to where you want to go. Is that helpful, Michelle?

Oh, that's an absolutely wonderful answer. I think it's totally helpful. Little backstory on me. Before I started in the entertainment industry eons ago, my first career was as a teacher and I used to substitute in kindergarten teacher, like as a kindergarten teacher. And so I'd be in these classrooms with, you know, which, what do you have to have skills wise as a teacher? You have to have patience, you have to have understanding of classroom management, you have to be able to command attention, but you also have to be able to get to the root of problems. Well, when I switched over to the entertainment industry and I was working at a major booking agency, my fellow agents would come to me and ask me to write their emails for them, or ask me to help them with client problems, or ask me to help with inner, with internal problems. And I get asked all the time, like, how can you do that? I'm like, well, I used to be a kindergarten teacher. Wrangling children is not a problem for me, you know, and so, you know, I'm dealing with these like 60 year old, like you know, major white guys that have been in the industry for decades. And I was like, no, you're gonna go over here and you're gonna do this, you know, because I had that experience. And so, I mean, tangential story of course, but I love that. So we have a few more questions. I would hate to not answer these, but I also want to be cognizant of your time. A little bit of housekeeping before. Okay, we'll, we'll answer these questions if you don't mind sticking around for just a couple of. Sure. A little bit of housekeeping though, before we do wrap up. So a couple things is that Melissa has offered us a really cool tool for you guys. I'm going to drop the link in the chat for it. Melissa, can you tell us a little bit about your visibility factor assessment?

Yes, I can.

Yeah.

So what I, the reason I created this was, I mean, full transparency. I want you to come into my world because I want to help you. But the second thing is, is why I created this was because I think a lot of people, you guys are going to go out there and you're going to start creating your tech and you're going to be setting up these, you know, websites or sales funnels or landing pages, et cetera, and, or maybe you already have. And I want you to actually understand what could, like what, what you're doing that is helpful, that's actually bringing people to you or actually getting some traction for you and your brand and those things that might be holding you back. And so this is Kind of a self guided assessment and you can score it and you know you can be hard on yourself or easy on yourself. Like you get to do what you want to do but basically it's going to just kind of guide you through looking at certain aspects of what you already have out there to to be able to see the areas that maybe need a little bit of extra work. And on the back end of that, I do have pretty regular workshops that I do that are associated with this. So after you take the assessment or even if you just download and go, I don't want to do this myself. You want me to do it? You can always sign up to get me to assess your brand live during those workshops. But they're fairly regular. I'm trying to do them at least like at least twice a month but sometimes a little bit more often than that.

So that's an incredible offer to have someone like Melissa assess your brand in real time. I mean I want to do that.

You can.

Fantastic. We will. Yeah. So I dropped in the chat there you can get the visibility factor assessment from Melissa. I dropped the link there so please check that out. If you didn't have time to grab the link or whatever you can send me a note@Sarah book launchers.com and I'm happy to send that over to you. Or you can also email teamoklaunchers.com we'll get that over to you. So want to make sure sure that you have all of the resources that Melissa has to offer. Couple other little housekeeping things. Make sure you check out our deep dive on YouTube this weekend. That's going to be May 17th. It is at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern and we are diving into all things direct sales. It's going to be with Shane who is our digital marketing strategist. Shane is going to take you through all the things to consider when you want to bring your book direct to consumers. And so it's going to be a really fantastic presentation. Highly recommend that. And then lastly, you guys are some of the first to know about this that I am going to drop some knowledge on you. We have a virtual summit that is a book launchers virtual summit that is coming up in June and we are so excited. It's going to be a three day event digging into all things publishing, becoming an author, your author brand, all the things you need for marketing and Those dates are June 19th through June 21st. It's going to be a three day summit. It's going to have guest speakers, it's going to have Me, Shane, Julie, plus a number of other guest speakers highly recommend you check that out. If you are not currently on our book Launchers email list, now is a perfect time to see set to get on to that because we're going to be sending out registration dates soon. So don't forget our summit June 19th through 21st, dropping that in the chat so you can put it on your calendar. All right, so we are past our hour mark, but there are just two more questions that I want to make sure we, we do answer. I don't even know if they're still here, but we'll go through these pretty quickly if it's okay with you, Melissa.

Sure.

So our first one is from St. John Butler. If someone had some money to spend to expedite brand building, where do you think they get the biggest bang for their buck? Okay, that is a great question because we all know how expensive some of this stuff can be.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, if I think about this from your perspective, I know you're going to need actually a, a tech piece of this. So. But there are ways that you don't need to actually, you know, go out and hire someone. There's, there are, you know, mailing programs, like mailing list programs and things like that. I mean, the idea is that really kind of depends on what you're trying to do here. But if you wanted to keep this relatively cost efficient, then I would say, you know, get yourself a program where you're able to bring people into your world onto an email list. So definitely invest in that. You can create landing pages through that. You know, that's just a matter of like, you know, using Canva, you know, maybe even hiring a VA or something to help you when it starts to get a little bit overwhelming. But I would say that's one area. And then the other is I, I definitely would, would get someone to help at least if it's not a one to one thing, you know, I often or I'm actually building out things where I can help people do this on their own, like DIY kind of things. But find some way to get down to the root of these foundational issues because I guarantee you that will be the biggest bang for your buck long term because you will be able to use and reuse this. You will, you'll have so much more clarity on what you're saying out there. You'll understand what pillars, you know, you're going to be pillars like messaging topics that you can use, things like that. So I mean, whoever it is that you resonate with most. I mean, that's going to be the thing that shortens the time for you to make more money in your business. It's not the tactics that do that. It's the. It's the. It's your brand that does that.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, one last quick question. I mean, this isn't really in the form of a question, but it's definitely discussion point, so I wanted to bring it up. Lucky Fortune 8. I'm struggling to write my book Blur because my approach is so different to other parent educators. I don't want to emphasize the difference too much, I think. What do you say about that? I mean, I feel like we've covered this a couple times today, but, I mean, it always helps to reiterate.

Yeah, I would say. I would say that. One question I would ask is, why are you afraid?

Right.

What is it about being so different that is making you hold back? Are you trying to fit into what everyone else is doing? If that's the case, then that's not a brand. Whenever you're trying to be like other people, you are definitely not standing out. So I think there's very few situations in which leaning into this would be negative for you, but they would be situations we wouldn't even want to talk about right here. So I'm saying if you have a different approach, you know, I'd say test it out. I mean, yeah, you can always change.

You can always change a book blur, but if it's not resonating with people, I would say that difference is probably going to be your selling point.

Yep, 100.

Probably what you're going to sell on. So.

And I think most people are afraid. They're afraid for a variety of reasons. It could be they think the market's just going to be like, people are going to be mad or whatever. Like, there's people who, you know, they curse as part of their brand. And some people would be like, well, that's who I am, but I'm afraid to do that. And I'm like, well, if this is who you are and you want to show up authentically and this is part of how you work with people, you kind of want to weed out the people who don't like that, so why not just be honest about it and. And do it, you know, publicly? That's just one example.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that, Melissa. I mean, I feel like we just packed a lot of knowledge that normally with people would have to go to a conference to get. And so I am going to drop the link for the visibility factor assessment one more time, just in case you didn't grab it. Melissa, where can people find you? Where can they reach out if they want to, you know, chat with you or.

That would be great. Did I. Did I give you my LinkedIn? Because that's a great place to connect you probably.

Nope, you didn't.

I didn't. You want me to. Can I grab it? Is that gonna work?

Please grab it. Actually, I might be able to very.

Quickly if you're faster on the draw than me. That's good.

I am. Yes. I've got your. I've got it right here. So I've got your LinkedIn. I will drop this right in the chat.

Great.

Definitely encourage people to reach out, connect with Melissa. Learn more about how she works and how she helps people with building their brand. Not just authors, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, experts. And then when you're ready to write that book, come on over and talk to us here at Book Launchers. All right, everybody, thank you for the time today, especially those that stuck around past the hour. Mark, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Melissa. It was great to chat with you again.

Thank you, Sarah, for having me. It's been so much fun. Yeah.

All right, everybody, have a great afternoon, and we will talk soon. Bye.