This is a recorded interview (Blog Talk Radio podcast) with author and book-publication consultant Julie Broad. The host introduces Julie (accomplished author and entrepreneur who runs Blue Book Launchers) and they discuss how small business owners can publish books that sell on Amazon. Julie emphasizes narrowing competition to one’s niche/market (not all 8 million Amazon listings), publishing to meet business goals, and maintaining professional quality (editing, layout, cover design) so self-published books match traditionally published standards.
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Today we have such a guest. Today we are joined by Julie Broad. Julie is an Amazon overall number one best selling author, an International Book Award winner, and recipient of the Beverly Hills Book Award for best sales book. As an entrepreneur and successful real estate investor, she was also awarded the top 20 under 40 award. Her latest venture, Blue Book Launchers, helps entrepreneurs and professionals build their brand and boost their business by writing, publishing and selling a top quality book. In 2017, she also became a new mom and moved from Vancouver Island, Canada to Los Angeles, California. Thanks so much for joining me today, Julie.
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
I am excited to have you here and congratulations on being a new mom. How's that working out for you?
Well, other than constant sleep deprivation, it's pretty phenomenal.
Oh, I remember those days.
Yeah.
All right. Just remember your house doesn't have to be clean sleep when the baby.
Absolutely.
Well, that's wonderful. Congratulations and welcome to the States, officially.
Thank you. And thank you.
You're welcome. So this is really a great topic, this whole, you know, book publishing thing I mentioned to you before we actually went live. But I think this is something that a lot of small business owners are curious about. And I think part of the reason is because there are so many books out there, right? There's what, 8 million books on Amazon probably you know, going up every day that I think people wonder, you know, how do they write one that's actually going to sell?
Yeah, and it's a good question. And there's a couple, couple things to keep in mind. First of all, there are 8 million books on Amazon. But when you actually look at the numbers, less than 1% of the population is a published author. So what you really need to look at, especially if you're a small business owner, is, is you're not really looking at it as I'm competing with 8 million books. You're looking at it as I'm competing to stand out in my industry. I'm competing to stand out even in my city or whatever your market is for your business. That's where you're actually competing to stand out. Then look around how many of those people have published books. And if they have published them and it seems like everybody's published them, you probably need to publish one to compete with them so that you're not getting eliminated because you haven't. But the reality is most people probably in that niche in your market, they haven't published one. And so if you look at it as I have to compete with 8 million books it's overwhelming. But if you start to look at it as I'm going to fulfill a business goal with this book and now who is my competition, you can start to really narrow it down. And that's also a big important first step to figuring out how you're going to sell is figuring out who's your target market, what books, and who specifically are you actually competing with out there, and what are you going to do just that little bit different, which hopefully you've already done this for your business, so you know the answer that little bit different so you stand out. The second piece is that it's easier than ever to publish a book and put it on Amazon. And that's a good and a bad thing. It's a great thing because now all of us can actually share our expertise, put a message out there, and use what's essentially the biggest expert database out there to now be found. But it's also a bad thing because I think a lot of people put out a lot of crap. And so now when you're self published, you're competing with people who have self published and they're giving it a bad name because they can do it so easily that they skip on things like hiring a professional editor, having somebody professionally lay out your book and design a great cover so that, you know, really my goal is that you can't tell the difference between my book and a New York Times bestseller. They both have the same quality. Right. They're both as good as a traditionally published book. That I think really helps you stand out too.
Yeah, that's. It's so great. And it really is a problem. I am contacted a lot by people who wrote a book. As a matter of fact, recently I was contacted by a guy who said, you know, I noticed that you wrote a review on this book, so. And I wrote one in the same genre, whatever, you know, would you. And so I said, well, send it over, you know, I'll take a look. And it was poorly written, so I could not review it. I just thought, in good conscience, I cannot. And I told him that. I said, I can't do this.
