Julie Broad (Book Launchers) explains in a short YouTube video why her company works exclusively with nonfiction authors. She gives three main reasons: (1) the need for genre- and subgenre-specific experts (editors, coaches, designers, marketers), (2) her personal and organizational expertise is in nonfiction, and (3) the nonfiction business model better supports the company’s high-cost expert team. She also lists resources and referrals for fiction authors (Reedsy, Kindlepreneur, Keith Wheeler, Mandy Lynn, Joel Friedlander, Best Page Forward, SFWA Writer's Beware, Ali Watchdog) and closes with channel CTAs.
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Working on a fiction book and wondering why Book Launchers doesn't work on anything but nonfiction books. Well, since we get this question all the time, if you've wondered why we don't do fiction or where you should go for help if you're working on a fiction book, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie, the book broad from Book Launchers. We're your professional self publishing team helping you write, publish, and promote a nonfiction book that will impact your readers, grow your business, and make you money. Our superpower is caring more about you and your book than any other company. And your book is going to be as good or better than a traditionally published book when we're done with it. And the best part is you keep all rights and royalties and have full control. So awesome. First, let me say that I do feel your disappointment when you discover Book Launchers and you find out that we only help nonfiction authors. I get it. We have a really unique approach and we're different than any other publishing company out there. So I really wish that there was a company that's like us that does what we do for fiction that I could refer you to, but I just haven't found anyone that does it quite like us. But I do have some great recommendations and resources for you, and I'll share those in a minute. But first, please allow me to explain why Book Launchers is nonfiction only. There's really three main reasons why. And it's not that I hate fiction. I. I love fiction. And I read a lot of children's books too, by the way. Number one, you need genre specific experts. While we bring fictional elements into our nonfiction books to help our authors write books that are more interesting and engaging. Fiction is just. It's just different than nonfiction. And every genre has a sub genre, and every one of those suckers has formulas and approaches. And you're going to need book coaches, editors, cover designers, and marketers who are who understand your genre. Fantasy, science fiction, biographical fiction, drama, romance, mystery books. Those are all big genres. And then they each have sub genres. You really need someone who's not only an expert in the bigger genre, but someone who understands the sub genre nuances as well. Nonfiction has genres as well. When I tell people that we have more than 30 contractors plus a substantial team in house, they're often surprised. But the thing is, the same editor can't work on every single book. We need editors with expertise and experience editing different kinds of books, different styles, and having different backgrounds. It's not enough to be a great Cover designer or a great editor. You have to be great in that specific genre. So that's the first reason. The second reason is nonfiction is where I'm comfortable. Straight up, Book launchers is a nonfiction company because I've written nonfiction. I've read a few thousand nonfiction books in my life and I studied nonfiction, book business, book publishing and books book marketing relentlessly for almost eight years. The last fiction book I wrote was when I was in grade three. I love fiction. It's a great escape, but it's not where my expertise is. Maybe when book launchers is 10 times the size, we can hire someone who has deep fiction expertise to run the fiction department and build it out to be best in class at fiction. But right now we want to be best in class at non fiction books. Number three, the business model for nonfiction books is stronger for the prices that we need to charge for all the experts we work with. Every one of our books has at least three different editors, A book coach, a story expert, a project manager, a cover designer, an interior layout person, a and a team of marketing professionals working on that book. These are experienced experts and the vast majority are based in the United States. This is high value expertise. Now, our clients can recover that by selling roughly 1500 books via retail, or less than 1000 if they're selling direct. And that's a feasible number for the majority of our nonfiction authors to sell. Many sell many more. But it's not enough to make a book a huge moneymaker for someone with nonfiction. However, book sales are only one of the benefits of writing a book. In fact, book sales are often a tiny, tiny portion of where people actually make money. Books open doors to opportunities, act as a great funnel for business. Identify the author as an expert, which can lead to high paid consulting, speaking workshops or other cool partnerships for professionals like a real estate broker or a consultant. If the book leads to one or two paid clients, the book expense generates a profit really, really fast. And that's just not the same business model in fiction. You have to sell a lot of books. Generally you need to write a series, always be writing books and really build a great author platform. Of course you can sell merch and do other things to generate money as a fiction author, but it's just not the same kind of business model as nonfiction. So that's why we do nonfiction only. We love our fiction author besties and friends, but we are nonfiction only now. There are some wonderful resources for you as a fiction author. Visit Keith Wheeler books, Mandy Lynn's YouTube self publishing with Dale he's not specifically fiction, but a lot of his stuff is more geared towards it than we are. Kindlepreneur's YouTube and podcast. And speaking of Kindlepreneur, he has this great article for children's book authors which I will link to in the description below. If you're hiring folks and wanting experts for fiction, Reedsy is a great resource for hiring genre specific professionals for your book project. It's where we go when we need a very specific type of editor for a project. Book design templates from Joel Friedlander are really good for some. I'll link that one down below too. And Best Page Forward writes really really great book descriptions for fiction books. I always recommend everyone check out the Ali Watchdog list before you hire any service fiction or nonfiction to make sure you're not going to get scammed when you work with these companies. So I'll also link to their rating service. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers association also has a Writer's Beware section which I'll also link to below. There are some wonderful resources for you as a fict author and ultimately I love fiction and maybe someday book Launchers will serve authors of all genres. But for now we specialize in non fiction books written by a subject matter expert or professional who wants to have an impact and make an income from their book. We work with Self Help, How To Memoirs, Finance, Business, Spiritual and oh boy. There's actually a lot. Here's a selection of titles to give you a sense of our range. So if you want to write a business boosting, impact driven nonfiction book, let's chat. And if you're fiction, why don't you tell us about your book below? Or if you have a fiction based YouTube channel, shout it out loud in the comments below because we have some fabulous fiction authors in the house as YouTube besties. I mentioned a couple of them already. Keith wheeler books, Kevin McGuire, Mandy Lynn and I know there's so I think Studio 38 there's so many of you writing fiction. Brian K. Morris I think you're writing fiction too, but I'm not even sure. So let's talk about that down below and I'll add it to the Description resource page. And of course when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet book launcher swag like our noboringbooks mug and our oh so soft journal. New videos every Tuesday and Friday except in the summer when we take a break. So make sure you've subscribed and turned those notifications on so you know when a new video is coming out for you, it's been absolutely wonderful spending time with you. Would you like to hang out a little longer? I know I would. And I'm thinking you might really like the newest from the channel if you haven't seen it, but if you're up to date, perhaps it's this video right here selling to bookstores. Because that's gonna be good for you whether you're selling fiction or nonfiction. So check that out or that one, and I'll see you there.
