Publishing News You Can’t Ignore: AI, Audiobooks & Author Opportunities

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Hello. Happy Tuesday. We have a mishmash of things. I know, that's exciting, right? A mishmash of things to cover today because I'm covering kind of random publishing news and things that authors should be thinking about as we move into October of 2025. So the first thing we're going to talk about isn't specific to publishing news, but it's something that's impacting authors everywhere and that is the changing nature of search and discoverability. Then we're going to talk about Amazon's algorithms, because while that update happened in May and we've been touching on it repeatedly here at Book Launchers tv, there's some really good insights that I have been extracting from my team and an update from or a live from Dave Chessen and more. So I think it's time to talk about that in a little bit more detail. And then we're going to talk about some audiobook stuff, partly because it's on my mind as we're getting ready to release, self publish and succeed in a second edition here in November. So that's what's on deck for the day. I know Gary and Bill and Kevin are here and have already said hello, Mr. Gunpilot. And Gary says it's raining in the high desert, so, yeah, always fun when it rains in the desert. You have to be very aware. Then we have the Bat Cave of Oz is here from Arizona, so we got some desert people in the house. And then Bill from Maplewood. So. All right, let's dive right in. As always, we have. We'll take questions. Angela is here hiding behind the scenes, so she will help out with questions as they come in. We don't have. We have prizes for being here, so if you haven't already said hello, do say hello. But we don't have our prizes for commenting on the day a video is released, so keep on commenting. Val, who compiles all of that for us, she has been on holidays. She's back tomorrow. So our next live stream next week they'll be able to do the prizes and I say they because Sarah and Angela will be hosting a special guest expert next week. So. All right, well, let's dive right in. The web's lifeblood referral search traffic is drying up. There's been various stats that we've seen and a lot of this is coming. There's a couple sources of this that I'm pulling from, but the biggest one is that Shane on our team attended Growth Hacking Live last week in San Diego, which was a Three day event, lots of speakers, lots of my friends were speaking, which is always fun. I did not attend. I stayed home so I could get more work done. But Shane represented and he, you know, gave me some compiled notes and I got some of the presentation information from my friends that were speaking. So some of it's from that, some of this is from some, you know, web searches and, and articles that I've been reading and paying attention to. And also a podcast from Social Media Marketing World, which I think Angela has the link and so she'll post that there. Or if you're watching this later, we'll have it in the description below. But click through. Rates have dropped 30% year over year and people are getting the answers they need from those overviews. Right? And a lot of searches. Well, you know, ChatGPT has not replaced Google Search and neither has Gemini or Grok that the searches are shifting. Right. And so even, and this was an interesting discussion that Shane brought back from Growth Hacking Live, which was Google itself isn't even having Google as its default search. People who are buying Chromebooks right now, Gemini is actually the default search installed in that, in that hardware. So the interesting thing is that Google itself isn't even using Google. And Shane said, one of the speakers from stage said, my kids won't even know what Google is when they grow up because they're starting off with the Chromebook and has Gemini as their search platform where they ask all their questions and engage in conversation. So traffic is going down and there's been lots of lawsuits. One that I just read today, Rolling Stone and Billboard. Well, the company that owns them, Penske. Yeah, Penske I think is what it's called. They have sued Google because of declining search engine traffic. And ultimately they have a lot of pages on their site with affiliate links, so they get paid when people click on them. Right. Ad spaces and things like that. And you know, the potential and the discussion in this article was, you know, if this lawsuit will go anywhere because it may not be anything to do with Google, you know, with AI search taking over from Google. In that case, it may just be the fact that Google has devalued pages that have affiliate links. So very interesting. So the decline in traffic may actually be more, more akin or more of a. Related to the fact that there was affiliate links on that page. Which just goes to the whole kind of theme of the day, which is quality, quality content with trusted sources is really, really important. And that is what everybody is prioritizing. And you know, to me, the search engine Optimization of yesterday, because that is where it is now. It's as of yesterday is really being replaced by figuring out how can I get mentioned in an AI response. And it's not about. It's not about certain keywords. It's more about creating the context and the information that answers the questions that may have keywords in them. So you want to think about how you're structuring your content so that it can get found and then synthesized, and you can then be result. You can then be shown. And so one of the things that I thought was really interesting and I just played with this is I thought, okay, let me just see who Grok and hold on, I'm just going to share my page. I. Let's see. Is this here? Hold on. Can I share? Okay, here it is. Yeah. Okay. So. So what I did was I thought, okay, let's just. Let's just see what's coming up when I ask for somebody to help me with my nonfiction book. And so this search right here, you can see my question to Grok. And I said, okay, I'm looking for someone who's an expert in the nonfiction book publishing space. I think I want to. I didn't. Not very good English. I think I want you self publishing. And my goal is to use it to be known as a thought leader. Who should I talk to? Right. So I'm asking it for an expert in this space. And, you know, it gives me some context right here to establish yourself as a thought leader through self publishing. And you'll want to connect with experts who specialize in guiding authors through that process from idea refinement to writing to production, marketing, et cetera. And so then, based on the current recommendations from publishing resources, here are five standout experts or firms. And number one was Stephanie Chandler, which makes sense because I believe she is the one that runs the Nonfiction Authors Association. I'm pretty sure it doesn't say she's authored these books. So that's what flagged her. Oh, founder of the Nonfiction Authors Association. Yes. So it makes sense, right? She, you know, putting her number one completely makes sense. Look who's in number two. Yay. And then Lisa has book coaching for leaders, Translating ideas into nonfiction. And why Recommended. So it keeps going on from there. Funny. And I don't know why this is the case. I thought it was very interesting. They're all females. I don't know. Grok. Grok recommended the ladies here. There is no. There are no men in this. In this list, which is totally fine with me. But Just thought that was really interesting because there certainly are, there are male experts out there in the nonfiction space. But just, you know, and for me the next thing I do is I start digging into what are the sources that I use, right? So this is how I kind of go down rabbit holes with search and I do the same thing in Perplexity in chatgpt and Claude. I play this game all over, but just wanted to show you how you can be thinking about how people are going to find your book or find you as an expert in something and you know, start asking it, see who it's recommending right now and why and then start thinking about your search there because as you saw, this is synthesized and maybe that's going to answer my question, but I'm looking for an expert, so chances are I'm now going to start going through these websites and searching for these people. And it was also noted, and I'm pretty sure it was Shane, but it might have been somebody else that was at this event said that, you know, it was interesting because the click through rates, you know, the people clicking on Google links and going to their site is down. But cert like using Google to search is not down. Oh no, it was in that podcast in social media marketing world's podcast that isn't down overall. What's happening though is you get the synthesized result and then you're like, okay, now I'm going to go to Google and search for Julie Broad or I'm going to go to Google and search for book launchers if the website wasn't listed there. So this is an interesting world. And so some things that I'm thinking about and specific to authors. Number one again I kind of alluded to this as I showed you that example which is what are the sources that are being used when a book is being recommended in the AI result or the expert is being recommended. I mean we're seeing Wikipedia, Reddit, book review sites, author websites themselves on a very, very regular basis, point pulling from your author website, so making sure that you have some really, really rich con like content on your website that really speaks to the questions that people are asking. And there's answer the public looking at the questions that are being asked on Reddit, even asking ChatGPT or perplexity, what are the top 10 questions people are asking specific to my topic and start creating content that answers those questions. Which leads me to number two, which is what questions does your content answer? Are you framing yourself to answer it with sources and with authority? Those things are really really important. And then the third thing is, what does this change mean for authors and how we approach platform building? And this is a question, not necessarily something I have a specific answer for, but I think now more than ever we want to about making our content accessible to the LLMs, the large language models. And this means not behind a paywall. So, you know, a lot of people have built up content behind on their LinkedIn pages or on their substack, but that, you know, the, the LLMs, they're not going to create a username and email to access, you know, LinkedIn and they're not going to pay to be part of your substack. And so, you know, some of that content, you may still have a monetization strategy, it may still make a lot of sense for you in those places. But I think thinking about where you're posting your best content and making sure that it's accessible is something to seriously think about. The other thing, and again, I don't have an answer, so let's talk about it. But the old model of funnel building, as has already been changing, but I think that we're seeing it shift even more dramatically as in, you know, the, you know, reader magnet, email address, email conversion, that world is, is fading. You know, I still think there's value to have something of value to get an email address all day long. I also think there's tremendous value in thinking about, you know, being top of mind and staying there in other ways, which means there's more pressure to be found online. But you can do that through a lot of the strategies we always talk about. And in fact, we built Author Launch Kit to address a lot of these things. So, you know, I know, I know we've got some Author Launch Kit users in the house right now, Kevin and Gary. I think I saw Darla. So Author Launch Kit is built to help you get podcasts, get mentions from influencers, media attention, creating some good content around your book. And, and that is more important than ever because being talked about in a variety of places, having a lot of high quality content out there that can be synthesized and put into the summary results in these models is really important. But also the old days of, you know, starting the funnel here and having somebody drop out the bottom as a, you know, a reader or a customer, that is fading away and it's becoming more of a muddle. It's not a clear funnel and it's changed, it's been changing for a little while. But you know, one of the things that we built, kind of seeing this change coming was community. Right? So we have, you know, YouTube is certainly part of our community, but school is a robust part of our community now too. So if you're not already in our, in our community, go ahead and join@book launchers.com s k o o l. Angela will drop that in the comments and we'll put it in the description below for you after. But that's a free space where you guys can connect and chat with each other and post your wins. You know, Jeremy Shapiro has been on there posting about his book Wins as he's going through a launch right now and you know, connect with people, even get Support for your 4 year launch or ideas. If you're writing, you can get support for writing. And we're just getting started with that, but we're seeing that for authors too. Think about how can you bring your readers and your fans together and create this connection going forward. Okay. Whew. There's lots to talk about with that. I'm going to go on to Amazon next, but let's just see what you guys are talking about now. I see Lloyd just joined us from Jamaica. Hello. Dale Roberts, a friend of Book Launchers and a guest speaker here, had a fantastic Kickstarter kickoff today. You are right. I was catching a little bit of it on my drive in this morning. And Dale is a fantastic, fantastic author who's moving over. He's leaving his nonfiction world behind. This is kind of his final hurrah. But he did have a great Kickstarter. I don't have the link, so. Kevin, you won't be able to post the link, but you can put it, you know, can put the words in there and Angela can post it. But I would absolutely, I know, support Dale's Kickstarter. He has three great books for nonfiction authors that are part of this Kickstarter campaign that the final in his series. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Renee is. She's from a leaf peeping trip in Colorado. That sounds fun. Okay. Coming here for one of Julie's videos and hunting for the answer to is IngramSpark the only player in town? Okay, we'll talk about that at the end. We save all those questions for the end. I was just kind of curious what you guys were talking about about search the death of SEO if we want to be dramatic. All right. Okay, cool.

And.

School is fabulous. Okay, all good. Let's carry on to Amazon. So, I mean, anybody else seeing changes in how their book is performing on Amazon? Yeah, we've been talking about this here for a while. So if you're new, you might want to subscribe so that you're up to date on all of these things. But one of the things that we started talking about months ago was how launches don't look the same. What we had been seeing at Book Launchers was that when somebody launches, even though we know their book has had a lot more sales, it's showing a really poor number of sales on day one. It's not getting that bestseller flag. But as the week after launch progresses, the sales come in and the bestseller flags come in. So that was one big change that we were seeing. Of course there's been the little AI summaries and you know, a host of other things. Actually, Alyssa and I did a live a couple weeks ago that Angela can post in the comments and we'll put in the description after talking about a lot of changes with KDP that have happened in this year in general. But we talked a little bit about some of these algorithm changes. But Dave Chesson did a really good training a couple weeks ago that some people on my team attended on the A10 update. So that's their algorithm update that they did in May, which is when we started to see a lot of these changes. And you know, we've seen a lot of things changing. But I feel like we're now able to speak to what this actually means because of course Amazon doesn't say, hey, we changed these things and this is what it's going to mean for you authors, right? They told us of a couple things like the change in sales reporting, but they haven't given us like full transparency into their algorithm. So it takes a few months of seeing what's happening when you are running promotions, when you are launching a book, when you are doing Amazon ads to actually really understand what this update means for authors. So some key changes that we have seen and then Dave Cheson's training really confirmed. But there's also an article that from Penny Salverini, I can't think of her last name. Angela can also drop that in here too. That talks about more the 30 day window, but some other pieces too. And so what this change has really, really meant is sales velocity, keyword stuffing, even Amazon ads itself are not as valued on this platform. And what the platform is valuing more is customer experience. Conversion, organic, relevant. Sorry, conversion over time. So not any one conversion, conversion, consistent Conversion, organic, relevance and external traffic. So, so this is a big one that's newer. It used to be that you could succeed on Amazon by being an Amazon Master. In other words, you could get the keywords right, you could choose your categories right, run Amazon ads and you could sell a lot of books. And that is not the case anymore. With this A10 update. That kind of action has been devalued and it's really looking for to recommend and to support books that have overall strength. So they're not just an Amazon hit, they're popular from a variety of sources. And so you know, ppc, which is, you know, Amazon Ads that used to boost your rankings and you know, we still recommend you run Amazon ads, but Amazon ads on it on its own will not create success on the Amazon platform. You need to have organic sales, which means somebody needs to be searching for a book on how to write a nonfiction book or how to self publish a book. And they need to find my book, self publish and succeed. And that needs to translate into a sale in addition to running an ebook sale and running Amazon ads. And you know, probably people also need to search for Julie Broad and find my book that way. And so, and then also, you know, having an ebook sale where traffic is coming from different sources and having sources beyond just Amazon having from my newsletter as an example and sending consistently. And what really came out with this, a 10 is a 30 day window of importance. So what used to be the case? And there's still people that play the bestseller game, but Amazon's done a lot to make that bestseller game, you know, not, not what you should be doing. And I've been saying this for a long time, that playing that game, you know, has repercussions and it gets you that flag, but you know, at what price? And so really what, what we're seeing is really what we've been talking about forever, which is create a great launch plan and don't just go for that one day hit, you know, create a 30 day window of activity so that you are selling books for the entire month after your book launches. And, and really, you know, this I think is a really healthy thing for book publishing because it de emphasizes quick hacks. So no more like flood it for a discount and then be done. It's really rewarding, you know, multi channel authentic strategies that are feeding into the platform. Now this is bad news for those authors who thought they were just going to write a book and sell it on Amazon and never have to do any interviews, articles, social media posts or any of that. Because this does mean that if you want to sell books, you have to do the things that the rest of us have been doing for a While in order to get traction on Amazon and other platforms. Because visibility is not just about Amazon ads and ebook sales anymore. And that one day flurry, it's about building demand elsewhere and funneling it back to your book page. And you know, to me, and this is a complete side note to this, this is also the same argument I would use for building up your direct sales because Amazon is rewarding you for bringing buyers to their platform and they'll sell them probably more than just your book. Right. And so to me, why do I want to send Amazon more customers on a regular basis if I'm doing all this work to drive traffic? Unless I have a big Amazon strategy that I'm working into, I'm going to send you right on over to self publishand succeed.com or selfpromoteandsucceed.com or book launchers.com I'm going to send you to my website. But you know, that's part of understanding your strategy and what you're trying to accomplish as an author. So big impacts, you know, kind of in a summary bullet point. Number one, external traffic is a powerhouse signal. So you know, sending traffic from a variety of sources to Amazon is what's going to make Amazon say this book is something we want to show to more people. So Instagram reels your newsletter, you know, ebook sales, that is going to improve your search placement, especially for genre related queries. Number two, listing optimization is shifting to reader first design. And I've been saying this for a little while to my team. They were really ingrained in a specific keyword process that we'd spent years getting right. To my team's credit, they put a ton of time and research and effort into an SEO strategy with Google Keywords and Amazon Keywords. Before, we worked on a book title, worked on the book description, worked on the bio. But I've been saying for a little while that we need to revisit this. And so now we are, we are going deep into this and really focusing back on what I would say. Copywriting Basics is writing bios and book descriptions that, you know, consider keywords for sure. But it's not number one. Writing it with keywords in mind is not number one. It is writing clear, compelling, you know, descriptions that are great copy, they read with a great hook, they sell the book. And of course your cover needs to align with this because click through rates are what Amazon cares about, click through rates and conversions. So you want to have everything packaged up in a way that's going to sell your book number Three, ads still have value, but they're not the thing. They're supportive, they're not going to save your book. So you really have to have multiple sources of traffic and ads are not going to be the only way. And I think those were the main three points. I mean, the good news is again, this is a strategy we have been employing for a while. We built an entire software tool which is Author Launch Kit to help you with all of that. Just a quick Note on that 30 day launch window because I think a lot of people focus on launch day and I think we want to start changing our mindset to not think of it as launch day, but to think of it as launch month and post launch. Really it requires continuous momentum because you don't want to have a big sales day and then a huge dip because that's going to eject your book from recommendations and especially in competitive genres. So, you know, self help, very competitive genre. You want to have some consistent, consistent momentum. You also want to get as many reviews as you can in a short period of time because this feeds into some seller authority and influences, you know, where you're going to rank when you're showing up in searches. So plan a multi week campaign and try and get as many reviews as you can early on. And you know, this is fighting against that old model of being an Amazon bestseller which was all about that one day hit. It's really putting your effort into a month of launch activities and I celebrate it in a way because it favors quality over quantity and it also devalues the gamification which I was against. So it does demand more upfront investment of time, energy, effort to build a brand, to have an outreach strategy and really focus on external marketing. But you know, ultimately this focus is what we've been talking about, is the thing that has helped many of our authors succeed if they do all these things. So it's really just putting the emphasis where you need to have it in order to succeed as an author. So focus on driving external traffic. You know, optimize consistently. Always be checking your optimization on Amazon. You know, create that 30 day launch month plan and you know, just keep monitoring what's working and come back to it. So hopefully that's helpful. Now that we're kind of four months post update, three months and a bit post update, we can really start to see what's working and what has changed thanks to this update. All right, I want to talk audiobooks now, but I'm going to check on over to see what you guys are talking About. So Angela thinks she found the Kickstarter link. So thank you. I think that is the right link. It looks right. And then Kevin said, I've actually noticed an uptick in book sales over the last two months. My marketing approach remained the same. So, you know what, Kevin? You're being rewarded, I think, because I see you in a lot of forums. I see you active commenting, supporting other authors, posting on LinkedIn. You're consistent in your activities. And that to me probably means you're getting multiple hits from a variety of sources, which is why now you're starting to show up more than you used to. And again, this is where I get excited. It, you know, it can feel like a lot to authors who just wanted to write a book. Like, I'm sorry, the days of writing a book, putting it on Amazon and actually getting any sales without having to work, I mean, they haven't been here for a long time. Some people will say that, you know, they never were like that. But ultimately this is rewarding those of us who are putting out quality content consistently and driving traffic to Amazon and other places. And I suspect without knowing that, that is why you are seeing an uptick in sales without changing your strategy. Okay, cool. Let's talk audiobooks. And I'm curious for your input on this piece as well. So first I'm going to talk about some of the trends and some things that have changed in the audiobook world, and then I'm going to ask for your opinion. And frankly, I'm leaning towards two choices right now. And my decision will ultimately be made on Thursday when I have a meeting with this one company. But I'm still curious what you think. Okay, so audiobook Storytel came out just a couple days ago with upgrades. They now have a supercharged audiobook listening with Dolby Atmos Spatial audio. It's immersive sound, smarter search tools. I don't use Storytell at all, so I am not personally familiar with it, but in reading about it, it was 3D audio for vivid Memoirs, Quick Chapter and Self Help. And it's really geared towards catering to this, the big growing audiobook market. So again, I haven't played with it. But the point that I am paying attention to is interactive. And it's something I have been saying for a while is books are becoming interactive and that's where we are. I still question the. The 3D or the visual like inter. Interact, Interconnecting. I don't know, mixing visual with audio for audiobooks. Because part of the appeal of an audiobook is that you're listening to it on the go. For me, I'm. My audiobook consumption has gone up because I listen to the audiobook in the car, I listen to it at the gym, I listen to it when I'm walking. It's the same with podcasts. I'm not. I don't want even on airplanes when I'm tired. You know when you're after an event and you're like, I do not want to open my eyes. I don't want to watch a movie or I'm just going to listen. That's the other time. But it's because I don't want to use my eyes that I listen to audiobooks. And I think a lot of people are the same. So the interactive with the visual component, I'm not sold on that, but I am sold on the Interactive, which is the company that we talked about before and the one that I'm meeting with on Thursday. Interactive as in, hey, wait, cut that paragraph. Save that for later. Oh, can you say that again? What does that mean? Where you're interacting with the audiobook so you can have it back up. Hey, wait, repeat that. And you're verbally interacting with it. Now that is of interest because how many times have you been driving, listening to an audiobook and you've gone, dang, that's a good quote. Like, I want to save that. How do you save it? Right? You can't, but with some of these platforms that are coming out, you can go, okay, you know that last quote.

Let's.

Let's bookmark it. I want to save it. Put it to my notes. Like, there's. There's a way to talk to it and interact, which is. And now this is why I say I'm leaning towards this company for my second edition of Self publish and Succeed. And I'll talk about them more once I meet with them on Thursday and, you know, reaffirm that the things that they said they were building are now built and ready to rock, which they have said in email is the case. But I want to see it for myself anyways. All that's to say, like, I think interactive in that regard, I think that is really exciting. And that is, you know, for sure, you know, here and coming along. But some of the other trends and by the way, distribution in the audiobook world. I really tried to lay out your options in the video that I released on Friday. So I talked about Spotify for authors, voices by. In Audio and, you know, ACX as well as Find a way. Find A way. And the change from Find a way. Sorry, I was like, what does it have to do with Findaway? Find a way. It's no longer. So I laid all that out in Friday's video. So again, Angela will drop it and we'll put it in the description below. So I'm not going to talk about the distribution, but I do also want to talk about the fact that, you know, audio only is also here. And, you know, nonfiction is a hot growing segment for audiobooks. You know, is it is continues to be a high demand area. But audiobook first is another interesting trend. And I actually was very fortunate last week to get to spend some time at lunch and see him speak, which Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He's the author of 10x is greater than 2x. You know who not how the Be your future self now could go on and on. Science of scaling. He's written some of my favorite business books and so it was really interesting talking to him. And he has just released a book called Time as a Tool and he's doing it audio only. And so I was talking to him about this and first of all, he was really interested in what we do because he said, well, we're bringing he goes, we're not doing any more book deals with publishers. He goes, because we want to be able to give it away for free when we want to. And he said we're really leaning towards doing a lot of audiobook only kind of platforms because he said that's where they're seeing a lot of people. His market is entrepreneurs. And also he said there's way more flexibility with what they do. They can move faster, they can do what they want. They could give it away, which is really important for him and his business model. But Time as a tool is interesting because it's almost like he did podcast interviews and then turned it into a book. He's interviewing different people on how they've used time as a tool to scale their companies. And I haven't gotten through. He just released on Thursday. So I've only listened to the first chapter. But it's an interesting model that more and more authors are kind of leaning towards now. And we're seeing it more and more, even with some deals being audiobook first or audiobook only. The other thing to kind of pay attention to. And if you have read Self Publish and Succeed, you know that I'm a big fan of investing time, energy and effort in creating compelling chapter titles. And I think the argument has just grown more and more towards that as the option with platforms like Spotify to just listen to a chapter, you know, if you are a member, so you're not buying it a la carte, you have a certain number of hours of audiobook consumption that you get every month with your membership. And so you might not want to listen to a whole book, but you might go, okay, that chapter, that's the chapter I need. Right. So for example, Self Publish and Succeed has a chapter on audiobook distribution. So you may not care about writing the book or any of those other pieces. You may just be like, I want the answer on audiobook distribution. And so you're going to go to that. And so I think that that snackable listening is going to be more and more common. And you want to think about that when you're creating your audiobook, because you will. Right now you can't necessarily search by chapter title and be found. But you know, why not? Why wouldn't that be something that's going to happen? So I can see. Or even contextual search, I can see that coming too. So you know, somebody looking for a very specific answer will be directed to a chapter in a book as, as the answer on a platform like Spotify, it doesn't seem crazy to me that that would be something that would happen. So audiobook space and then I'll tell you about my thoughts and decisions here that I'm making around Self Publish and Succeed the second edition. So what I'm watching is that immersive interactive audio opportunities again, I don't see a lot of value in that Visual meets audio for audiobook personally, but, but I do love the idea of being able to interact with my audiobook to back it up, make it go faster, skip to the next part like I'm bored, I don't care about this. Or you know, to take notes for me so that I can have those notes later. I also think search driven discoverability is exciting and we're not there yet, but I can see a world where that's just right around the corner where, you know, somebody can find the very specific part of your book that they want to, to listen to. And if you've done a good job and you can hook them in. If you've treated every kind of subheading heading, new chapter as a hook, you could be hooking new readers in and just having them discover you and consuming more of your content. And of course the audiobook first and sometimes only publishing option. So those are kind of the trends and the news that I'm watching in the audiobook space now for My decision, I have self published and succeed the second edition coming out. It is enough of a revision that we need to record a new audiobook. The old audiobook is not going to be close enough to the current version. I don't have time this month to narrate the audiobook. And launch is November 12 or November 13. We have a summit that we're going to be hosting to correspond to the launch. Your ticket to come to the summit and all the replays will be simply a copy of the book. And we'll be releasing that as soon as Shane builds the page. So as soon as Shane on our team has the page built for you, you'll be able to grab your ticket and then we'll have applications for hot seats and lots of fun prizes and all the stuff. But my decision here is I don't have three days to dedicate to recording a new version of the audiobook myself. So my two choices that I am interested in pursuing is option A, which is my voice clone that I've already created in 11 labs. I will use that to produce the audiobook. I'll sell it on all the platforms except Audible because they won't take it. So it'll be on Spotify because Spotify does take 11 Labs. I'll sell it on 11 reader because 11 Labs has their own platform. And then I'll load it to Book Funnel and give it away to anybody that is, you know, getting my link. Right now you can get the original version@book launchers.com free audio and that is distributed through bookfinal. So that would be option A. Option B is potentially, and it might be not an either or, it might be A both. Is this company that I'm meeting with again on Thursday to see if their interactive audiobook platform is ready. And they said they already have some publishers on it. Assuming it is doing what I think it's going to do. It is a storefront itself, so you can only buy it through there. But I might just produce, self publish and succeed in an interactive capacity. So it'll be kind of like Julie the Book Bot, but it will just be the audiobook that you'd be interacting with. So I might do both, I might do one, I might do the other. We will see. But those are basically the only choices that I feel I have at the moment because I just can't carve out three days to go and narrate it. And then, you know, we need another month after that for the audiobook editors to edit, produce, master it. And that's just not in the cards right now. So if anybody wants the original in my voice, they can get it. But the updated version will be some sort of a digital choice that I will be making. And it won't be the. It won't be on Audible because Audible's only path is the Amazon digital voice. And it's fine, but I don't love it. I want it to be as close to my voice as possible, which is why I would do my own clone. So. But I'm curious what you guys think, what options you would choose in this boat knowing that you do not have the time. And I don't want a narrator. It's either going to be my voice cloned or me or some sort of cool technology that, like, if I can't have my voice, clone voice for this interactive version, that might be okay because it's going to be highly interactive. Right. So, all right, let's do some prizes while Angela collects my questions. And if you haven't already said hello, now's your chance. I'm going to go ahead and load up my screen and then Angela, if you'll come on and we can do Q A, that would be great. Where is my prizes? Here we are. Okay. All right. So right now we got 14 people in there, although one of those will be book launchers, so that won't count. And our prizes, while we're seeing who the winner is, we have our. Ooh, I think this is a new winner. Nikel Camco Camcole Films. Congratulations and thanks for being here. So your choices are if you're in the US we can send you a mug. Our hashtag no boringbooks mug. Or it might even be an author launch kit mug. Don't know what don't know what Angela has in her closet. Otherwise, if you are elsewhere, we can send you physical copies of Self publish and Succeed or Self Promote and Succeed. Or we might have journals as well. She can let us know and then we'll do one more while we're here and see who our final winner is. And then we'll do Q and A. Laura Lennox. Congratulations. Hey. So what you two winners need to do is email angelaeamooklaunchers.com and I can't find my mouse. There it is@teamoklaunchers.com let her know your prize choice, let her know your mailing address so she knows where to send it to. And thank you for being here and being live. It is always, it's always better to have a live stream when there's People. All right, there's Angela.

Hello, everyone. Happy Tuesday. I've only seen two questions so far, but before we dive into that, just to confirm, I did get some new swag in the mail last week, so I know some of you guys were waiting a little bit. Thank you for your patience. The email is Team T E A M at Book Launchers. So our two prize winners will need to send your mailing address and your prize of choice there. So just to confirm, we do have some new mugs that I could send out, as well as the Book Launchers Journal. It won't be the Author Launch Kit Journal. This will be the Book Launchers Journal. Of course, we do also have copies of Julie's book, Self Publish and Succeed. Self Promote and Succeed. So if you would like one of those instead, that's totally fine.

Just let me know in the email.

Okay, let me get these first questions. The first one was from our first winner, Nikhil, and.

All right, so from New Jersey, coming here from one of Julie's videos is IngramSpark, the only player in town for the widest possible potential distribution. All right, so this is a fun question. It hurts people's heads. So I'm going to say the way I recommend it and the way most people that we work with at Book Launchers will do this is we will set up IngramSpark for wide print distribution. Okay, so do not do ebook distribution through IngramSpark. There is a variety of reasons, but you're going to make way less money. Their distribution isn't that great. They charge you for revisions and for uploading the initial ebook. Like, there's a lot of reasons why we don't recommend IngramSpark for ebook wide distribution. However, I would not use Ingram for Amazon. So I would set up two accounts. I would have KDP for Amazon distribution, and then I would set up IngramSpark for print distribution everywhere else. And then I would use a service like Publish Drive or Draft2Digital. And we do have affiliate links for those. Booklaunchers.com D2D and booklaunchers.com Publishedrive. Angela will drop those in for you if you want to use affiliate links to support us. If you go with either of those, if you were only doing one book, I would use Publish Drive because you can do one ebook with them for free. And it is a great platform. It reaches all the libraries and other ebook platforms. Otherwise, Generally, I use Draft 2 Digital if somebody has multiple ebooks, but they're both really, really great platforms. And I don't really have A reason for leaning towards Draft two Digital. Just been using them longer and we have good relationships with some of the executives and teams at Draft two Digital. But I would end up with three accounts so that your ebook and your print book get the widest possible distribution and you're still making the most possible money. Oh, so your kdp, by the way, is Amazon for your print and your ebook through Kindle. Do not check off the Amazon global distribution box. You want to only use KDP for Amazon distribution. Cool.

Thank you. Thank you. Next question from Renee.

Renee, it's funny. So Renee is asking how did the YouTube version of your book do? So here's the funny part. I was just thinking about this the other day and I went and I checked and the playlist is still unlisted. So it did not so great because I only sent the. The only people who watched my YouTube book was the people who had the private links to the YouTube. So up one of these days here, pretty soon I'm going to turn it all to public and you can access it now. Part of the reason I think I didn't, you know, because this was a. This is thrown back a little bit. But the first few chapters were edited like a YouTube video and so it had sound effects and so I found that irritating. But I had published it. I put it on YouTube anyways because it was kind of a afterthought of, hey, I filmed myself while I was recording this, so I'll post it. The later chapters don't have the sound effects. And so I think part of me was thinking I would go back and get the editors to remove the sound effects and then I would re upload. But I never did. But so I think that that's why I left it unlisted the whole time. But all that's to say it didn't do as well as it probably would have.

That makes sense. Before I put up the next question, what was that other affiliate Link? Was it Draft 2 Digital?

Yeah, it's D2D. Okay.

Just wanted to make sure because I knew it was the published drive.

Yeah. So book launchers.com and it's D number two D, ma'.

Am, I'm posting that right now.

I'm pretty sure you can check our affiliate channel just in case. But I'm pretty sure that's exactly what.

I was doing because some of them are slightly different.

So yeah, I'm going off memory.

Okay, Last question is from Gary.

Does the reviewer carry more weight or is it just a number game? So I assume you're going back to the Amazon conversation about getting reviewers or are you talking about search engine LLM results where there's book review sites. So I do need clarification on what you're asking.

Yeah, Gary, let us know. He just posted that like three minutes ago. So I'm not sure what it's in reference to. But yeah, if you could let us know, I'll post that LLM results.

Okay. So I mean, this is where I don't have a definitive answer, but I am seeing that the higher quality the site, the more likely it's going to show in the search results. And so what I mean by that is like a search review site. I'm trying to think of an example that I saw for my own book. If that reviewer is somebody who is an entrepreneur as an example, and they review books for business growth, that is going to be contextually a higher ranking result for somebody like me searching for a book result on like a leadership book. And if your LLM knows you, it will factor that into its recommendations. And so having the review site be somebody that is exactly like your ideal reader can be really important. Also, again, this is where the Reddit and the Wikipedia and some of those other sites are really ranking higher than other sites. And so the book reviewer site Goodreads does show up too. So getting some people to comment, review and talk about your book in more than just Goodreads reviews also matters because Goodreads is showing up in the results too. And it, and it does. And this is coming up too. It also is pulling from YouTube transcripts. So those play a role too. So getting. And again, it's not just any reviewer, but if the LLM thinks that that person is a relevant source for you as who you are, they will recommend the video that talks about that book or the video. And so that is. And same with podcast transcripts. So podcast transcripts are also something that are being referenced? Not as much. I am seeing YouTube again, probably because it has a higher trust, a higher search value, if you will. But my recommendation is to play with a bunch of platforms and start asking them questions like, hey, I'm looking for a book on, you know, I'm just trying to think of some of our most recent books. Hey, I've got Jeff West. He's not one of our clients, but he sent me, he sent me. He sent me a book in the mail and it's called the Hidden Heist. So stop robbing yourself of lasting wealth. So let's just say I am. Let's see if I can figure out who is a reader for this readers to confront. There are many scripts. So let's just say I'm looking for a book on how to keep more of the money that I've made and I describe myself or the LLM knows who I am. Then you want to see which books are being recommended. And if I'm Jeff, I'm going to want to reverse engineer that and start to make sure my book is getting talk about in those sites that it's using to recommend a book like that.

Okay, well, I keep saying last question. Another one pops up. So we got one from Kevin.

There we go. Yeah, great question. Sorry, I was reading it. I was reading it in my head, not out loud. Sorry. Is there anything you'd recommend our ARC team can now be doing in order to get more recognizable by LL and beyond giving us reviews, Posting those reviews on Goodreads, posting them on Amazon, those things are important. A detailed review will help. Right. So if they say and giving it context. So if I'm posting a review, I might say as a busy mom who owns her own business. Right. This book was really great because it helped me solve this problem. Right. Or it answered this question for me. So getting your reviewer to leave some context as to who they are and and how this book helped them or the question that book answered, I mean that would be five stars for a review. That is really going to be something that is going to help your book. And then also if they have other places where they can talk about the book, that would be valuable too. So again, a Reddit thread, if you have readers who are super fans and they want to talk about you on Reddit, I mean Reddit is the place to get yourself mentioned. It is, it is in almost every single search result that I am seeing.

All right, well, that was actually the last question. Now no new ones.

All right, so a couple quick things, housekeeping wise, exciting upcoming things. So on October 7th, is that right? Yes, October 7th is our next live. Sarah and Angela will be here and then we have Nicole Johnson. Is that right? That's who's going to be. Yep. And they're going to be talking about marketing essentials. So what as an author, do you need to be thinking about? They're going to show you, you know, an example of our 18 to 22 page plan that we put together for our authors and show you what's in there. So as it's really, you know, it fits perfectly with what I was talking about today with thinking about that 30 day launch window. Our Marketing essentials. And the plan that we work with our authors to create is actually a 90 day plan. And so you know we're not just going for that one day hit. So I think this will be really cool. Follow up live from this. And then again, just make sure your calendars are marked for November 13th, 14th, 15th from 9am to 1pm Pacific Standard Time. We are going to be doing four hours a day for those three days on writing a book that is set up to sell as we celebrate the launch of Self Publish and succeeds and second edition and again we'll be posting on YouTube and our newsletter and all the places. And the ticket to Replays and Live admission where we'll have lots of prizes. If you haven't been to one of our celebration events and summits, we have lots of prizes. Angela's closet bursts and then she wants to make it not burst. So we give a lot of things away and we'll have really great content for those three days and your ticket will just be a single book purchase and that is it. And you will have access to everything. But we'll have more for you on that real soon. So they oh, it looks like Kevin. I talked along.

Kevin is making me eat my words today.

Okay. And due to all the changes happening, have you updated your roadmap you showed us? I don't know which roadmap I showed you. If it was the marketing essentials, we haven't updated it dramatically because it was more. The changes are affirming, not changing what we've been doing. In other words, we have been helping authors build thought leadership and build pieces that are working really, really well. Again, you saw when I pulled up Grok, I didn't queue it up in any way and it recommended me number two in there. So a lot of what we're doing is getting our authors recommended in the LLMs. Anyways, the only piece that we have conversations around right now, and we haven't changed it in the roadmap, but I think we will, is this funnel building piece which is right now our model is build a reader magnet and drive people to that reader magnet to build the newsletter list. I still think that has value. That hasn't gone away because when you're on a podcast interview, what are you going to offer that audience? Right? You still need something to offer the audience. I do think it's important for authors to think about the greater picture though of what they're building and how they're going to bring their audience together in some sort of community fashion. And be found in more places than just their website and, you know, podcast or YouTube, like, it's, it's an ecosystem. But that's what we've been talking about for a long time anyways, so long answer to say no. You said it was a Dropbox download. If that helps. I know. I don't know. We probably wouldn't have given you the full marketing roadmap. It might have been a branding kit that you had, which is still foundational to this, but I don't know, Kevin. Sorry. We'll talk. You can tell me next week after you watch Sarah's livestream. All right. Thank you so much. It was great to have everybody here and all your questions, and thanks for your support today. Angela and I won't be here with you next week, but do show up and ask Sarah and Nicole all your questions about marketing next week.

Bye, everyone.