Holiday Extravaganza

All right, we've had some technical difficulties with our fun holiday extravaganza, and so I've had to create a whole new link. For some reason, it was saying that it had been deleted from YouTube, so I'm not sure what happened. But now I got to get all my fabulous hosts here. So thanks for finding us over here, Jack. And I am just going to go ahead and hopefully find my team. And here we go. Invite some guests. Okay, my team is just standing by waiting for the new link. So here we go. I'm going to bring them on in, and we'll kick it off. So if it is your first holiday extravaganza, it does not usually start with technical difficulties, although we've been doing the holiday extravaganza for eight years. And. And I can tell you there have been some exciting moments, like the time that our zoom was hijacked by some crazy things. But that is all behind us. So what's going to happen today? We're going to have a lot of fun for the next hour. My team is going to join us at this new link, and we are going to do quizzes, and you can ask questions, and we have a whole bunch of prizes. Now, Angela's not here this time because she has jury duty today, but she gave me her list of everything she wants to clear out of her closet. So we'll be sure to work hard doing that. While I give my team a second.

To join in, I'm going to go.

Ahead and kick it off. There's Sarah. Hello.

Hello.

Alyssa probably can't add herself to stage. There we go. And Alyssa's here. I'm going to start off with a quiz, so get yourselves ready. This is holiday. Holiday style quiz. Let's. It's festive. We're going to go with the festive style because nothing says holiday cheer like know realizing writers have been dealing with the same problems that we have been that we deal with today for, like, I don't know, 150 years. Just give you a hint as to how far back we're going to start. All right, so the first question. So to win, you just have to choose the letter and be the first one to put it in. So which classic holiday novel opens with the line Marley was dead to begin with? Was it A Little Women, B, A Christmas Carol, C, the Nutcracker, or D, It's a Wonderful Life? Okay, we're starting off easy. We're kicking things off real easy. All right. And we have our first winner. I won't tell you yet because I know some people are still answering, but. But we've got our first winner, and it was, of course, the Christmas Carol. And I love this example of a book because I think, you know, yes, it's fiction, but it's a great example of not easing into a book. There's no warming the reader up. Right.

This is.

There's no cozy buildup or. Let me explain the setting. It's. Well, he opens with a corpse, so that's a. That's a pretty good opening. So I thought that that was a good way to start. I do think it's kind of funny. Imagine the pitching, you know, going into your publisher and pitching this book and being like, okay, it's a heartwarming Christmas story. It starts with someone dead. I don't know. I wonder how that went. But regardless. So who did I see? Kevin, I think it was you. That was first. You got it right. Yes, Kevin was first. So, Kevin. I think so. Angela gave me. Did you win a toque already, by the way? For those of you who missed our summit? You may not know what a toque is. I'm not telling you.

You're going to know. You're going to look at it and go, oh, I know what that is, but I won't tell you what, exactly.

So if you didn't get a toot, Kevin, let us send you one. Otherwise, we do have a few other prizes. I know we have something you haven't won yet, so. And we're not redrawing. This is the holiday extravaganza. So you did not get a toque. Okay, great. So can somebody write these down for Angela, please? So she has her list. So, yes, Kevin, we will send you a toque, and just. We'll get you to email Angela as well, teamaconshers with your mailing address, and we will send that to you. He does want it, too. Great. Yay. You've almost spelled it right, Mike. You're getting close. That is still not how you spell it, but you're getting close. All right, next question. Let's see. Where's my question? There it is. Which author invented a Christmas tradition by sending the first commercial Christmas card? Was it A, Charles Dickens, B, Sir Henry Cole, C, Jane Austen, or D, Lewis Carroll?

Oh, this is a good one. I don't even know this one.

Well, I. The way I figured it out was kind of looking at the age and kind of understanding how long the tradition has been around, but it's still. I mean, I have a guess.

I have my guess, but.

Interesting.

That's a good one.

Oops. Let's see, let's see. Butler, Phil Hallmark, almost certainly. Let's see. My first winner. Jennifer Henry, I think it's you. Are you my first B? I think you are. All right. That is B. It was. Hold on, I lost my notes. It was Sir Henry Cole. He, he wasn't really a novelist. So instead of doing things, you know, by writing long like he wasn't, he was. He didn't write long holiday letters. He just sent them in a scalable way. He just created a Christmas card and copied it and sent it to everybody, basically. That's what I would argue.

He was a marketer.

That's how I would argue that he came up with this. But I also like this example in the story because I think that it's interesting to think about. How can I scale what I'm doing? How can you be more efficient with so your everyday tasks? And rather than sitting down and writing long letters to every single person at the holiday season, he just sent them all the same card and it took off. Now Hallmark makes a fortune and now.

Millennial moms all over deal with guilt when they don't have their cards ordered in time.

I don't send cards. I gave up, but I've just accepted it. All right, Jennifer. So the good news is I'm trying to find my list. We also have so you can choose between an oh so soft journal or our no Boringbooks mug or a toque. Again, Still, I'm not telling you what a tuke is. So you can go for the mystery prize or that. But you need to email Angela@teamooklaunchers.com and let her know. And if anybody wins a prize and they are not in the United States, we'll have to send you something, either a book or a digital prize.

And that was Jennifer Henry, right?

Correct. Yes.

Okay, so, Jennifer, I'm going to put this in the chat. Make sure you email teamoklaunchers.com, but I'm going to write it down as well.

Yes, great, thank you. I'm going to turn this over to my team after this quiz because in case you guys haven't figured it out, haven't heard it in my voice, I'm battling, I'm fighting, and I'm going to win very quickly, but I'm fighting a cold. All right, so next prize question. You guys ready? Which holiday themed book was originally self published after being rejected by publishers? A, the Polar Express, B, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, C, the Night Before Christmas or D, how The Grinch Stole Christmas.

Oh, I think I know this one. I know which one it's not, but I don't know which one. Interesting.

Okay, I'll give everybody a chance here.

Yeah.

Oh, this is a good one. It's too bad we didn't have these like flash up. We should have put them in the comments and flashed it.

Yeah, we could have done that. Yeah. This makes people listen and pay attention. You're practicing your listening skills today. All right, Stella, I do believe you are my first A. It was in fact the Polar Express and Chris Van Allsburg, I think is the name, could not get publishers excited about it. So he self published and then the book went on to sell millions of copies and become a permanent part of the holiday culture. You know, gatekeepers are human and they don't always know what is going to succeed and what is not. I always think as a rejection is just one opinion in a moment in time. And thankfully he thought that too and self published. And I think he's done very well with the Polar Express since then.

And it's fascinating because that's a really great example of a story that can then spurn other types of property.

Right?

Because I remember late 90s, early 2000s when I was working in bookstores, the biggest thing was like the beautiful collector's edition of the Polar Express with its own silver bell that came with it. That was like the gift to give kids. Plus it spurned the movies and all sorts of other stuff from that. So it just shows how one small little thing can turn into something huge.

Yeah, so true. So Stella, you're our winner. So email Angela@teamoklaunchers.com Let her know if you want to a toque, a mug or a journal. So thanks for playing everybody. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it over to my team so they can introduce themselves because we have Roy and Kate here and maybe you haven't seen Alyssa on these lives either. Sarah is more frequent on the lives, so you may or may not have met her before. But if each of you want to just take a moment and introduce yourselves, tell them a little bit about your background and what you do at Book Launchers.

Yeah.

Who wants to go first?

I'll go. Hi everybody, I'm Elissa. I am the head of books and Author impact here at Book Launch, which means I basically oversee the entirety of the client journey from the beginning of writing all the way through to post launch marketing. My background is in English, so these questions were A lot of fun for me. As someone who wrote my master's thesis on Lewis Carroll, I really appreciated his inclusion here toward the end. But yeah, my background is in English literature as well as I'm a self published fiction author and ghostwriter. But for Book Launchers, I very much enjoy focusing on the nonfiction side of things. And Roy and Kate are two of our awesome process experts who work directly with clients all the way through the process from beginning to end. So Kate, will you go next?

Sure thing. Hi everyone, my name is Kate. I've been with Book Launchers for a little over two years now. I'm also a fiction author myself and former ghostwriter and I just love books in general and I love Book Launchers. I've been a fan of Book Launchers for many years before joining the team. So I'm really excited to be here and hope everyone has a happy holidays.

Sarah, are you going to go?

Oh, I go.

I mean everybody. Roy, are you going to go?

Sure, I'll go. Hi everyone, I'm Roy. I'm also a process expert here at Book Launchers. I've been here almost five years now. Time is flying by. I have a background in project management, so helping every everyone through the process is kind of natural for me and I love working with you all and hope to see some of you in the new year.

All right, and then last but I'm Sarah Bean. I am our marketing professional here at Book Launchers and I've been with Book Launchers since pretty much the beginning, a little over seven years now, and have been working with all of our authors on their book launches, building their platform, and how to get those books in front of those target readers. My background coming from speaking and as a literary agent selling properties to the big five. So I'm sort of familiar with both sides of the coin. But yeah, I mean, being with Book Launchers has been one of the highlights of my career and I love getting to work with each of our authors on how to market, how to use the things that they already have in their arsenal and how to reach those readers.

So there you go.

Or Mama Bean is Mike. So affectionately.

I'll take it. And I see some discrepancy. Christy thinks she was the first A and Carrie thinks she was the first A. But on my screen, Stella was the first A. So I don't know if it comes in different on different people's screens, but I can take screenshots and show you guys all after.

On our side it does say Stella first.

Yeah, yeah. So sorry if you guys thought you were the first winner. All right, what's that?

Oh, yeah, we have lots more that you can win.

They're not all skill testing questions. So we'll put your names in and we'll spin them around and you'll win that way, too. So not to worry. Lots of shots at this. All right, so I do have two more quiz questions, but I'm kind of wondering. You guys don't have any questions at all, so if you guys have questions, now's a great time to ask them. Roy and Kate's title could also be said as per process expert. But, you know, they said they were process experts, so we'll, we'll go with that. Sometimes if I say it enough, you'll hear them say it. They'll still call it process. So I like to. Like to mess with them. And pretty soon everybody will call these. These things that you wear on your head toques.

I don't know if I'm going to go that far.

That's my mission. I'm going to. I got Angela saying it. She said, oh, yes, we have more toques. So it's going to happen. All right, so I guess I'll do the other quiz. Nobody has questions. And then we'll do a spinning. We'll do our spinning prizes. So everybody who has said hello, you'll be entered to win. But if you do have questions, now is a great time to hear perspectives that are not just mine.

Actually, right now is a perfect time to be asking those questions you have with you. Marketing background, editing background, writing background, process background. I mean, we can cover all sides of it. So this is the one time you're going to have all of us in one place.

Exactly. All right, so speaking of book launchers, what is one of our major focuses heading into the new year? We'll do multiple choice. A, helping authors sell more books only. B, helping authors build businesses from their book. C, chasing bestseller list. D, writing books and hoping someone notices that one's hopefully not. Nobody picks D, don't pick D. A is helping authors sell more books only. Or B, helping authors build business from their book. And C, chasing bestseller list at any cost. Or D, if you want to be a rebel writing books and hoping someone notices. All right, so this one should be easy, but it still matters. So I did it. And okay, I think. I think Stella won again. I love music. You can't go abcd. That doesn't count. We don't. We don't play that game. So, Stella, you won again. Would you like to Gift it. Would you like to play Santa and gift it to someone else? Lots of bees coming in. We could go with the second. Be Jennifer, who'd also won a prize today. So, Stella, Stella, you got to be Santa. You can win again later. But for now, gift it. Yeah, Pick somebody, Stella. Be Santa. You get to pick someone. Let's see. Mike says, please refresh my aging memory. If I say Kobo or if I use Kobo and get an ISBN through them, can I hop to say Lulu and get another and then Amazon? Are there restrictions, Alyssa?

Yes, you technically can do that. We don't consider it advisable. It would be better to have one ISBN across, you know, all the places that your paperback is available or all the places your ebook is available. But technically, yes, you can use the free ISBNs that are exclusive to that platform. Only on that platform. But if you put your ISBN on your cover, like on your barcode. That's the word I was looking for. If you put it there or other places, it means you have to have multiple versions of the same cover and things like that. So we, we recommend going with the paid kind. But yes, technically, you can use the free one at each location.

Yeah, great.

Thank you. And Stella gifted it to Amy. So, Amy, you are our other winner. And, and what you need to do is email angelaeamooklaunchers.com with your mailing address and your choice whether you would like a toque, a mug, or a journal. And still email her if you are outside the US because we do have digital prizes. Because I saw Jennifer that. It sounds like Jennifer's in England. So Jennifer, still email her. She'll. She'll make sure you get a prize.

Okay, so this is Amy, and I just want to make sure I write down the right name. This is Amy Hagerup. Okay, perfect.

All right. And Mary, you missed the start. That's okay. There's still lots of fun to be had. And Stella's trying to write to. This is funny. Oh, that's funny. All right, I'm gonna put this on the screen. Somebody else can read it, please.

I'd like to get to know how to get in touch with a celebrity type person. I went through their agents only to leave a message and I' messages on various social media and no responses. So, Kevin, Yes. You actually emailed me about this this morning, and I, I responded to you this afternoon with a few tips. So how do you get in touch with that celebrity when you don't have a direct in with them? So there's a Couple of ways to go about this. One is you're doing the right things, contacting the representation and reaching out to them via social media. If there's no response there. The next place that I usually would take a look at is that celebrities main website or if they even have a website. Forms that are on those websites are built to get responses so they usually will include that information so that they can email you back. The next place that I would try with specific celebrities is I would try some backdoor methods. Instead of the agent, you might want to try some of the rep, the representation that do more of the day to day for that celebrity. So that might be a manager, it might be a publicist. You can also try and look to see does that celebrity have any kind of businesses, philanthropies, foundations, their own production companies? A lot of celebrities will have more than one endeavor. Right. They're not just actors, they're also filmmakers, they're also, you know, philanthropists and things. So you can definitely try through foundations that that celebrity might be a member of or you can definitely try if they have their own production company, try those avenues after that. What I would be looking at is the six degrees of separation. Who are some of the people that might be able to introduce you to that person? Maybe you're not connected directly to the representation, but you may have, maybe you're a second or third connection on LinkedIn through other people. So I would be taking a look at that network to see if there are people that could introduce you to the right people to get to that person. It's not always going to be, it's not always going to work. It's not. You're not always going to get to that person unless you have a direct need and something that they would really be interested in listening to or taking a look at. But I would try some of those avenues and then from there I would keep going. Any kind of outreach for book promotion or otherwise is going to be a numbers game. You don't try just one, you keep trying for others. So I would exhaust all avenues there and then move on to the next one. Anyone else have some tips besides just me on that? Julian or. I know you're trying to not talk very much so I don't want to make you answer. Oh, you're muted, Julie.

Yep, there we go. Yeah, no, that was good. Thank you. So this was another question that came in. Jennifer was asking if we'll do a shortened version of our 12 week course. We have short, shorter courses inside of our author Lab in our free school community. But for an interactive course. This. The goal is at the end of 12 weeks, you've written your book. I don't know how many people can write a book, a good book, faster than 12 weeks. So, I mean, that's part of it is that each week we break up the class. Most of the weeks the class is about 45 minutes of content and 45 minutes of writing. And then there's some extra writing sessions and Q and A sessions along the 12 week course. So I don't foresee us ever really cutting it back that much just because there's a lot to cover to write a great book. Going through the hook and the outline and the reader takes us the first three, almost four weeks. And then after that we talk about beta readers and editing and publishing options and marketing positioning and a lot more. So. So yeah, no, I don't think so. But there's lots of support inside of our school community and there's a 30 minute course that kind of gives you a crash course into writing a book as well. I thought I saw another question here.

Yeah, there's one. I just started that one.

Yeah. Yep.

There you go.

Go ahead and read it, please.

Oh, you got it. Okay. So what is the protocol for asking someone to write a forward for you? Should I give them a gift for doing it other than a friend free book? I mean, I have my thoughts on this. I'd love to hear from Alyssa, who deals with a lot of our authors, on whether or not they're going to write a forward or get a forward for their book.

Yeah, I mean, my answer to this would really depend on your relationship to the person that you're having write this forward for you. Honestly, often a free book is what our clients do is, you know, give them a. Send them a signed book copy once the book has published. But if it's a, you know, if it's a very personal relationship, then I think you could do something that reflects that. But as far as like a set protocol that I'm not familiar with. Sarah, are you aware of just like a.

No, I don't think there is a set protocol. I mean, I think forwards very much come from someone of respect that is intimately familiar with your book. Right. You would rarely ask a forward from someone who's not familiar with you or your book's content or what your mission might be. So I think that's the thing to look at is who is that person? And then why are. Why would they want to write a forward for you or why would a forward from them be valuable? Those are the questions that I would ask first. A lot of authors choose to forgo forwards if it's not adding value. I've never heard of someone giving a gift for doing it other than a free book. Unless again, this is like a, you know, someone you have an intimate relationship with and there you want to give them a little bonus or something along those lines. But forwards I don't think you generally will pay for. It's generally going to be done because that person who's writing the forward wants.

To support you or the book. There. There are companies that will charge you as part of their package and their famous person that's associated with that company will write the forward for you. So that is something you can. There are services out there where you can have a paid forward. There's plenty. One thing I would say with forwards is just to be aware that it's ideal if they're really well known to your reader. So you want to make sure it's really in alignment with the reader that you're going after. And also it's ideal if they're an author because when it goes into Amazon and somebody searches for them that your book will come up because they've written the forward for you.

Yeah, yeah. So that reminds me, actually, we did have one client who might be an interesting example for this, who knew someone very well positioned in the genre that she was writing in, and she had been a student of theirs and a follower of theirs for some time. It still took a great deal of legwork to get directly connected with this person. But then I believe what she ended up doing was donating some books to something they were doing, but then also, I believe put an advertisement for their course or their book or something else in her book as well. So sometimes the. The person who's writing your forward, if they are someone who's a known name or well positioned in your genre, they may have a set thing that they ask for something that they typically are like, oh, well, if you want my name on it, if you want a blurb or you want to forward, here are the things that I would want in exchange. So they maybe take the lead on that in that case.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so another question that came up. Let's see, I'm just making sure I've got the right one here.

There we go.

My book is running around a hundred thousand words. First part is story and second part covers lessons and insights. Should I mark it as two separate books utilizing same title but different subtitles okay, so there's a lot to cover here, and I think some of it would depend on what the book is and who the audience is. 100,000 words is. Is pretty significant for a nonfiction. In fiction, yeah, you can get 100,000 words easily. Nonfiction, it's usually going to be about half of that. Instead of looking at it as marketing it as two separate books, I would look at the content itself and determine, is there a more natural breaking point to turn this into two books, then to market it two books as two separate titles that. I'm not really sure I understand that that idea. I would be looking at your hundred thousand words and deciding from an editing perspective. Can I incorporate lessons and insights along with the story and find a more natural break in the book's content before splitting it into it? I don't know. Melissa, what are your thoughts on this one?

I'll add one thing, and then Alyssa can. From a process perspective, 100,000 words is a pain. So that's what Alyssa and Roy and Kate are all sitting there thinking. Just the pain they've endured with some long books. But I think I would go back to the hook. So what is the hook of the book, and what do you need to put in this book to accomplish it? And what I am seeing from that is there's probably two separate books here because the hook of the story is probably very different than the hook of the lessons. But maybe not. What I would go back to is really, what's that outcome of the outcome for the reader and figure out what you can deliver that, because 100,000 is really large. What you may be able to do is turn this into a book with a companion workbook. And that may work really, really well, but I would go back to that hook and really figure. Really think deeply about that.

Yeah. And how it's written matters, too. So, you know, you say the first part is story. Does that mean it's like memoir? And if so, like. The actual structure and expectations that readers have from a memoir are very different from, say, a more prescriptive nonfiction book that also incorporates the author's story to establish who they are. So I think, yes, exactly what Julie said. Like what you're expecting, you know, your readers to be looking for and to be be. What's the promise you're making in the beginning that you want to fulfill by the end and making sure that the book you're writing is the book that you're intending to write? A lot of times we write the book wrong first and then write it Right. Especially if it's your, you know, your first big project like this. So I do think Julie's idea of a book plus a companion guide can be an absolutely excellent choice. Small note, from a process and publishing perspective, same main title but different subtitles can be problematic and confusing for people. What if you do a companion book? You can use the same main title, but then include, like workbook or companion guide in your main title to be sure that it's really clearly differentiated. But other than that, I think everything else is covered.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so next we have a question thoughts on including the foreword and the audio version of your book. I mean, I think it's a great idea, depending on how you're recording the audiobook, if you can get that person to read that and do that as part of your audiobook, I think it's a great idea. It kind of takes away a little bit of the power if it's coming from a different source, if it's not coming from that. That person who gave the foreword. Yeah, I don't know. Alyssa, what are your thoughts? Or actually, Kate and Roy, you guys can definitely jump in here with some insights as well.

For audiobook specifically, it's pretty common to include it in the audiobook, and it's very uncommon to be able to have the actual person who wrote the full word narrate it. Unfortunately, that'd be a great idea, but I think it's not uncommon to have it included, and it's not uncommon for it to be the same narrator as the rest of the audiobook, whether it's the author themselves or a paid professional.

Okay, so I think those are our current questions, but please, by all means, keep your questions coming for all of us about process, about the order we do things. Oh, this is a new one that pops up. I have a website with a landing page for the book I've written about my years in the entertainment industry. The website gets no traffic. The not yet published book has gotten me no emails. Now what? Okay, so I want to understand this a little bit better. You have a website.

But.

And the book is not currently bringing in emails because why would it. It's not yet published. So are you basically. I think basically what you're looking for here is how do I up my traffic to my website and get more emails on there? And to that, I would say content is going to be one of the biggest attractors. Okay. So putting out content not just on your website, but also out there into the sphere where your ideal readers are currently existing. So depending on whatever that platform is, whether it's Instagram or Substack or TikTok or LinkedIn, you want to be present where they are present. That is what's going to breadcrumb people back to your site and back to your email marketing list. Next thing I would take a look at is how you are positioning either if you have a reader magnet, lead magnet in some way, I'm guessing what you say, not yet published book. I'm assuming you're using that currently as a lead magnet to get an email.

It's.

I'm not quite certain. But the consistency in your messaging is what's going to help start bringing people in. They want to see what you were talking about on a regular basis and whether or not they respond to it. And so that's what's going to bring them back to the site. Julie, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean you hit most of the points. I would, I feel like that is a couple of tactics executed in isolation and they probably need an overall strategy. So I would take a. And I think that's kind of why you were floundering a little is you don't know the big picture, like what's the goals? Like what, what are we working with? What's the overall strategy? So I think it's a much bigger discussion to understand what, what we're trying to accomplish because collecting emails is different than selling books is different than traffic. So you're going to have different tactics that you're going to use for different things. So. Yeah, but yeah, I mean this is all stuff that bring it on over to our author lab, the free community that we have. And you know, we talk about that. There's this is stuff we're looking for in our premium group where we do trainings on a lot of these things too. So. So come on over if you're not already there.

Yeah. And in fact I'm doing a training just this week on how to get in front of new audiences beyond just using funnels. So we'll be talking about real world tactics to get new audience to your book. So definitely check that out if you're in our paid community.

Yeah, great. And I'm going to do some more draws, Roy and Kate, after I'm going to give you a chance to think about it while I do the draw because I want to make sure you guys get a chance to speak. So I'm going to ask you what is one of the common mistakes you see authors making in their process and their journey while you're working on. On these books. So one sec and I will share the giveaway tool. So if you haven't said hello yet, you have all of 30 seconds to do so to get yourself entered to win. There's our tool. So what we're going to do here. All right, now where is my. There we go. Oh, oh, great. Because we had. Let me try this again because we had to change our link. There we go. Now it should work. Okay, we'll see who our winner is. And I should have told you before, but if you are in the US this is for a Yeti mug. We have a. Oh, there you go. I LA Music. We have a Yeti mug hiding in Angela's closet that she is ready to send off to a new home. So I LA Music, you are the winner of a Yeti mug. Email angelaeam t e a m book launchers.com and let her know your mailing address and you can let her know you won the Yeti mug. But Sarah is making notes of these things as well. Yes. All right, I'm gonna do one more draw here. So let's see. And this is back to the toque. The mug or the journal. And Amy, you win. So I'm going to draw again because Amy's already a winner today. PGP N3E we couldn't get a more personal name, but congratulations, you have won. So email Angelaemooklaunchers.com and let her know if you'd like the two the oh soft journal or our hashtag noboringbooks mug. All right, Roy, Kate, who wants to go first? Tell everybody one of the most common mistakes you see authors making.

I can go.

I think overall a lot of frustration that I may hear is underestimating how long a lot of the publishing steps actually take. And I would say probably in the later part of the process, this hits a little more when we're uploading books and making sure that everything is really perfect for launch day, whether it comes to metadata, getting your print proofs, and just giving yourself that marketing time, that pre launch time as well, it's a really stressful time for authors and we're completely compassionate about that. But I think trusting the process, taking everything step by step so that when you do launch your book, it's spectacular and you don't have to feel frustrated about any part of the process because you've already done all of the steps up front. So I'd say that's the biggest mistake is just underestimating and not trusting the process as a whole to get that really fantastic book that you're excited to share with everyone and you don't have to worry about any small mistakes.

Yeah, I see that all the time, Kate. People come to me and they're like, it's written. I need to publish it next month. And I'm like, okay, cool. You can, you're going to miss a lot of the steps because there's so many people that need to touch that book to make it the best possible book that it can be. So thank you for that, Roy.

Mine's also time related, but it would be taking the time to actually do those steps. So in your content edit, make sure you're getting everything out of your head onto that page. Get those stories out during the copy edit. Make sure you're going through all those copy edits and reviewing the comments from your editors and things like that. Because oftentimes if you sort of shortcut it or just don't really go through it in too much detail, you get to the end and find a lot of stuff that you need to correct and you spend a lot of time making corrections and it really pushes out your timeline and there can be a lot of frustration there. So just make sure you take that time and each step to really go through the manuscript and you know, over and over again. I know it's repetitive and you're probably tired of it, but it really does make a difference in the end. So you can just enjoy your launch and telling people that the book is ready to go.

Yeah, I think if you. And this might be strong words, but I know many authors relate when I say this. I think if you hate your book, by the time you get to layout, you've done it. Right. I was gonna say that, yeah. It's funny because when I was doing the second edition of Self Publish and Succeed, I hadn't gone back over the book at all since we launched it years ago. And I remember writing Alyssa going, you know, this book's actually really good because I'd gone through it so many times. And yeah, it was a journey and I've been through this journey many times and I still get a little shocked by how much work it is. But anyways, thank you for that, you guys. Also, as a side note, if anybody has any rights questions about taking their rights back, Kate's a bit of an in house expert on that matter. She has her own book on the subject as well as has done talks on it. So if anybody has a book that they'd like to reclaim from their publisher or any questions on that you have an expert here to ask. All right. I'm definitely tired of reading my book, but Roy's been great to work with. Well, that's lovely. Thank you. All right, here we go. Oh, this question's loaded.

Oh, gosh. Oh, I have so many. Can I dive in?

Yeah, please.

Can I take it?

Okay.

All right.

This question.

Yeah, quite loaded because you have to. This question goes back to how are books discussed, discovered now in the marketplace?

Right.

It used to be 15, 20 years ago, you go to a bookstore and you learned about books based on what was there on the counter. As buying patterns shifted to online, metadata became immensely more important because it told retailers, libraries, Amazon, it tells them how to feature your book. So that metadata, which isn't just the ISBN or the, you know, the trim size, all of those details about the physical book are extremely important so that people can make sure that it's positioned properly. But the keyword research and the category research became so much more important because it really reflected what buyers were looking for. It's, you know, keywords. And we've dealt with this years and years and years. You work with an author and they're looking at the keywords and going, okay, how are these keywords going to help my book? And you have to look at it.

From.

An author, for example, might say, my book is really more about employee onboarding, not onboarding teammates. But yet all of the buyers are looking at onboarding teammates, so that those little distinctions became very, very important to make sure your book showed up for the people that were searching for it. The metadata is the language which retailers, libraries, online, catalog systems, that is the language they use to be able to sell your book. So it's incredibly important that it's accurate, it's up to date, and it's something that you don't just set and forget. Metadata needs to be updated just as buying patterns change, just as trends come around in buying. So you need to make sure that your metadata, you're taking a look at it throughout the year to ensure that those keywords that you're putting in still fit and are still things that people are searching for. So that's my short answer. I'm sure the team has some ideas as well.

Yeah.

The other thing to keep in mind is that, you know, like Amazon, for instance, visibility on Amazon is an important metric for a lot of people. And the Amazon search algorithm has just changed not so long ago. And it. One of the key things is helping out search algorithms that are going to be showing your book, deciding who to show your book to that they can tell exactly what your book is about. So it's not just like that one to one ratio that we used to be in terms of I put in these search phrases and now people can search for them and find them. It's also that with Amazon specifically that the algorithm is trying to figure out exactly what your book is about and who it's for. And they use your metadata along with like your sample and your book description to create this cohesive picture. And if they can't do that, then you can become really unfindable without wanting to be. So this consistency piece, the natural language piece, is becoming more and more important. So it's not just your individual phrases and categories and book description, but how they paint a picture together. That's becoming really important to findability online.

Yeah, absolutely. That's great. I'm just going to share this because we've been talking about our free community, the author Lab, and Mike is saying that it is a great place to hang out with like minded people and you'll see lots of these folks posting in there and it's a great place to connect. So definitely come on over. I'll post the link again. And then I saw, I thought this was a good question too. I saw Kevin's question on index, which I will let Alyssa take this question.

There are not hard and fast rules also. Hi Kevin. There are not hard and fast rules about including in the next. It really does come down to both author preference as well as target audience and the level of complexity of a book. So, Julie, perhaps you can tell us why you opted not to have one. But it's really. For a book like Julie's, the table of contents is really sufficient for you to be able to find what you're looking for quickly. Her chapters are broken down really clearly and it is not so technical a book that you might need more extensive help to find precisely what you're looking for. But Julie, that's me from the outside. How did you.

No, I think that's exactly it. I mean, there's also a bias here. I don't use indexes myself, except for if I'm looking at a cookbook. That is literally the only time I ever use an index. So there's my own personal bias. But I wrote the book to be read from start to finish. So you know, it's not a book I wrote thinking somebody's gonna go, okay, metadata. I need to look up metadata. Because I wrote it with stories and tried to get you engaged at the start of each section and chapter so that you get hooked into the words and keep reading. So that's why they're also a pain. That's the other reason. All right, we'll do some more prizes in a second, but there's a few more questions I want to put up here. This is a good one. I'm excited about this question. Go ahead, somebody read this for us, please.

I'll read it, but Alyssa can answer it. Amazon is changing ebook drm. What do you think about this? Allows people to Download ePub or PDF.

Thoughts?

I actually would love to hear Julie's thoughts on this one. I'm sorry to make you talk. This is one that I am personally still sort of sorting through what I think about it. My knee jerk response to it is I don't like it. And I have a feeling a lot of authors may feel that way initially. The truth is that DRM historically has not really been the protection that we were told it would be. If someone's going to pirate their book, they're going to pirate your book whether it has DRM on it or not. And all it did was keep people who wanted to use a tablet instead of a Kindle from being able to put their ebook on their other devices when they've purchased it from you legally. But this change feels different. But again, I feel like I'm having an emotional response to it and I haven't yet gotten to see trusted voices weigh in. And Julie and I haven't even talked about it yet. So what. What are your impressions of it, Julie?

First, do you want to tell everybody what the change is? Because they may not know yet.

Yes, absolutely. Well, it says it's sort of in the question. But now, if you opt out of drm, people who purchase your ebook on Amazon will have the option presented to them to download it as either an epub or a PDF, and they'll download it directly from Amazon. Whereas that was done not an option before. You could send it to your Kindle device or your Kindle app, but you couldn't download it.

Yeah, I mean, my stance hasn't changed too much. But I also haven't dug into the finer details on this and the applications and the ramifications. But ultimately, you know, I think people who are going to steal books are going to steal books. So whatever choice you make is not going to stop them. So make whatever choice feels right for you. For me, my choice is always whatever is going to get my books into the hands of more readers, full stop. And yes, some people may pirate my Books, they pirate my videos all the time. I'm constantly getting people to take down my videos that they have put on their channels and things like that. So for me, the, you know, I've written my book such that if somebody comes across it and they connect with it, they hopefully connect with me outside of the book. And I'm going to, you know, make more impact and income from people that way than I am from selling them the book anyways. So I'm not going to stress about that. But I understand why people feel concern over it.

I mean, my big question would be what prompted the change from Amazon? Amazon doesn't make changes just willy nilly. They do it for a reason. So that would go back to, I think, you know, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, it would be why did they make that change? And that's what I want to hear from, you know, some of the experts.

Yeah, it's a really interesting question because Amazon has always been very focused on keeping books within their own ecosystem, which is what DRM does for them. Keeps it within Kindle and Kindle only, whether that's the Kindle app on another device or the actual physical Kindle. So I think that's also why I wonder if my emotional response was the intended response rather than, you know, it actually not being that big of a deal. It is an interesting question and I do look forward to seeing what the bigger conversation becomes right. As people start, you know, talking about this more.

Yeah, I don't. This was starred.

Oh, I just thought we were. When we were talking about the metadata, this, this comment came in and I thought it was an interesting one to kind bring up in conversation is I think with the increase in AI and bots and crawlies, it might become important to optimize some of the language directly inside your book, meeting the point that not just metadata is what's going to be scanned, but some of the content directly within the book. And you know, and I think this is a fair point as we're finding that discoverability is going to be more based on natural content as opposed to just keyword stuffing. I think that you'll want to take a look at what's within inside your book and make sure that it's up to date. But I don't think that means you have to immediately start going and refreshing the language within your book every six months, the same way you do metadata. This might be something you take a look at as you are considering second editions or considering adaptations to your book. But I don't think you necessarily need to change the language inside your book every six months. I just think that you need to be cognizant of what readers are looking for, what the terminology they're using is, and how that relates back to what you're talking about.

I think the good news is, anybody who's been following what we talk about at Book Launchers, you're in good shape. Because we've always been reader focused. The read sample is likely what everyone says is being digested versus the whole book. Even with Amazon itself, the read sample is likely being used to make recommendations. So going back to what I have talked about since day one, which is, you know, what's in those first 20 pages of your book that matters so much. And it always has mattered. Because when you're selling the book, if you have a slow warmup, if you have an introduction that talks all about you and your journey to write this book versus, you know, hitting it with why the reader should care about this, that always mattered for the reader, but now it matters for the LLMs and the AI tools that are synthesizing it. So for us, our messaging hasn't really changed. But I think if you weren't thinking about it in those ways, it's more important than ever to think about it in that way. So what Julie's saying is drop the dead body early.

Yes.

Start with the dead body and open it with that dead body. I think that is a great example. Example. That's a great button. Good job. All right, we got a couple more prizes to do and then we're going to wrap all up here. So where's my prize screen? One moment. There it is. Okay, here we go. Now let's see. I'm going to go back to my prize list from Angela and see if I have anything else we haven't given. If there's a special one. Oh, okay. We do have our long sleeved Author Launch Kit shirt. We have a small, a medium, and a large. So that should cover a decent chunk of people. So this next one is going to be for an Author Launch Kit shirt. So let me hit the button.

It is one of my very favorite shirts that I would wear every day if I could.

Yes, I do like that one a lot.

Yeah, it's great.

It's light, but there we go.

Carrie.

Carrie.

See?

Congrats.

So for this one, we need to know which of the small, medium, and large size you would like for the Author Launch Kit shirt when you email angelaeamooklaunchers.com so she'll need your mailing address and she'll also need your size. And then I'll check my list here and then I'll see. We also have, I think that's it. Okay, so this we're back to the two the mug and the journal. Okay, so let's see our final prize of this holiday extravaganza. Congratulations. So email Angelaemclanchos.com and let her know your prize. So thank you everybody for being here. Thank you to Sarah and Alyssa and Roy and Kate for helping me out today. And I'm wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season. A couple things I am back here next week. We're going to talk about. There's so much going on right now with audiobooks that are talking back and summarizing themselves and the DRM change and just setting ourselves up for 2026. I'm excited. So I will be back here next week for a live and then we will be closed. Book launchers will close until January 2nd. So there'll be regular video content coming to you on Tuesdays and Fridays. But we won't be again until after the new year. Of course, if you haven't heard, we are doing our self published and succeed live class starting January 12th. It is a 12 week class where you'll work with myself and Chad mostly on our team. And then you'll see, I think Sarah at one point, you'll see Alyssa at another point in the class as well. And then finally we're doing a live event here in Las Vegas, Authors Empire Workshop. It will be mostly Sarah and I hosting it with a bunch of phenomenal speakers that are coming in from all over to help you build your business around your book. So hopefully see we have 50 seats. There's still some seats left. So we would love to see you here in Las Vegas in March. I will. Oh great. Somebody did it for me. You guys are on it. Love it. The link is there and I'll make sure it gets in the description below for those of you watching the replay. So thank you everybody and happy holidays.

Happy holidays everybody. Thanks for joining us. Have a wonderful new year.

It.