Self-Publish and Succeed Book Launch Party | Livestream Replay

Hello. Welcome, everybody. I am so excited. Today is self Published and succeeds launch. Today is the day we are launching this. And now I'm just wondering if I made this stream public because sometimes I release it and it's private and unlisted and I'm kind of wondering if I did that, so. Oh, nope, somebody's here. There we are. Okay, great. I've done that before. I've made it unlisted and nobody knows it's going live. So Self Publish and Succeed is out today. So today is launch day. Mars. Thank you for being here. So welcome. Welcome, everybody. So here is our. Today is our regular live stream day, but it also happens to be launch day. So today's session is going to be some of the. Hey, Bill, Welcome. So today is going to be a little bit of the norm and a little bit of a celebration to celebrate the book. So today I'm going to kind of COVID some of the incentives that we are sharing for launch week. So I'll give you the details on those in case you're curious. And then I'm going to explain some of the things we're doing around the launch of the book. So kind of giving you guys a little look behind the scenes on my strategy, my approach, what I'm doing and why. And also, so of course we've got our regular prizes and then I've got some extra special book launch day prizes. So it should be a fun session. If you're here, say hello like Kevin already has and Bill and Efren and Tobias and Brian. So it's so great to have all of you here. Andy, poetry from the heart. Yay. So, yeah, it's wonderful to have all of you here. So many of my fabulous book launchers or YouTube besties, I should say, have joined. So, yeah, fantastic. It's great to have you here. I was just looking to see if Angela has joined. I don't. Oh, yeah, there she is. Great. Angela's in the house and Kevin McGuire. They're going to keep you in check, so you can't say anything bad. No. Angela is our operator over at Book Launchers and she'll be helping collect any questions that you may have so that I answer them for you today. Yeah. So awesome. Okay. McKenna, I think you say it. McKenna, welcome. I'm not sure if I've seen you here before. So great to have you here. Uh, okay, so just looking at my notes here. So first let's just touch on self publish and succeed. I wrote this to help every single person out there that's thinking of writing a nonfiction book, especially if you want to use that book to, to build something around. So build your business, build your brand, you know, really make money from this book. You know, become the authority. I wrote this book for, for you. And I believe nonfiction books shouldn't be boring Just because they're not fiction. Just because it's not make believe doesn't mean you can't make an interesting and entertaining and educational read. So that's part of this book, the philosophy behind the book, and ultimately book launchers. And also I really believe that self published books can sell as well or even better than traditionally published books. But you have to set it up right. And so this book helps you you to do all of that. So I'm really excited about that. And ultimately I wrote it, you know, with really three purposes in mind. But that was the most important was to help folks like you, folks that tune into book launchers tv. I really wrote it to help you with writing a great nonfiction book and setting it up to sell. As we've talked about so many times on this channel, a lot of what will help your book sell are things that you put into the book so much before you even start writing. And then in the writing process, it's one of the reasons we've really ultimately had challenges with folks who come to us with finished books and say, here, market my book. Because when we get into it, we're going, you've missed a lot of the important elements that would have set your book up for marketing success that you need to put in there earlier. So I hope my book helps all of you to set your book up for success. That's the first, first and most important reason. Number two, the second reason behind writing the book was for book launchers. So our company, which is a self publishing services firm, has been around for three and a half, coming up on four years, really in July. So we're really, you know, just over three and a half years old. And to date, YouTube has really been my focus. YouTube and referrals. That's really how we have grown the company to date. And it was time, you know, we've worked with hundreds of authors now on their books and, and it was time to really summarize all that we have learned, not just in the writing process, but as our company helps you. We have writers and writing coaches all the way through, with all the editors, the designers, all the way through to the end where we have a team of people that are out there helping you get book reviews, managing Amazon ads, pitching you for podcasts, looking for live appearances, B2B partnerships, all kinds of things. So we know what's working on the marketing side in a pretty intimate way. And we're able to bring that back into, into the beginning and we wanted to bring that all into one book. And so this really gives us another platform to expand our business and also to really explain what it is we do and how we do it at Book Launchers. And then the third reason, which to me is really the second most important reason for the book, besides helping the readers, is that it gives us something that we can test things with. We beta test a lot of different things with our clients books, but there's a limitation to what we can beta test with other people's books for a few reasons. One is that it's harder to see the results when you're not, when it's not your book. The other thing is there's a limit to how much money we can invest in a beta test for clients books. Whereas when it's this book, we can put it into the whole the overall company's marketing plan. It's a lot easier for us to spend $800 to test a catalog listing for this book than it is to spend $800 on a client client's book and have no results. So we kind of want to get a sense of things and use my book to do that. I'm also going to be testing a lot of YouTube ad strategies, so I'll kind of come into that in a minute and touch on some of those things. But those were the driving reasons behind the book. And it's really, really exciting for, for me, but for everyone in our company to have this book out. And I'm already thinking about the next book because this book, as much as I put a little bit of marketing into it, this book ends after the book is written. And as a lot of you, that's actually really when your journey as an author begins, is when the book is written. So yeah. So it's awesome. I'm going to dive right in and do YouTube prizes right off the hop and then I have some cool surprises for you guys. So, so the YouTube prizes, if you're new here, when you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win our famous hashtag no boring books mug where coffee, tea and hot chocolate have all been verified to taste better in this mug. And also you will be entered to win that or our oh so soft journal. So and so when you, when you comment the day a video is released you get entered to win that. And then every other Tuesday, we do a live stream like this. And I draw from the names. I'm going to do the both the draws right now because we have other stuff to do today, so other prizes, other draws. So I'm going to my little wheel of names. I put all your names in this random name picker. And. And let's click in the green start now button. And the green start now button was not the right one. There we go. Click to spin. There we go. You might even be able to hear it spinning. And today's first winner is. Kelly Tuttle. It even is as applause. I don't know if you guys can hear that. So, Kelly Tuttle, congratulations. You are today's winner of our hashtag no boring books mug or our oh so soft journal. So email us@teamoklaunchers.com and let us know what you want. Andy W. Says that mug is awesome. And my hot drinks really do taste better. And Michael Fakherty chimes in and says they stay hotter longer too. I know, it's magical. I swear. You're coffee legit, so stays warmer longer. I don't know why. Ellie Doodle, welcome. So great to have you here. And Angela said you could hear the pause. That's funny. Okay, so. And Doug just reviewed the book. Yay. Thank you so much. Okay. And bought the book today. Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate it. And Kimberly, I'm one of the reviewers and it's already helping me. Thank you so much. Okay. And then somebody said, great cover. So. Yeah, thank you. It's actually interesting. I'm gonna do a YouTube video on this cover really soon. So this was not my first pick of a cover. And. And it's not that I disliked this cover, but I had. There was other covers that came in our first kind of round that I was. That I found more appealing and kind of more in line with what I would have wanted. But we kind of. We looked at it and we looked at a couple of the other ones and we put them in a lineup of the top 10, I think it was in the business writing category. And when you do that, this one just jumped off the page. And when I saw that there was really no other option for the COVID than this, and we just did some fine tuning. So the video I'll do in the future is going to be video where I show you some of our initial mock ups and, you know, show you the couple of covers that I liked up against this one, and I'll put that top 10 and I'll show you how that process went and why I landed with this one. Now, the other thing, I was actually delightfully surprised when the book arrived in the mail. And you can't see it very well here. I don't know if you can see it, if I get it close, but there's some really nice detailing in the COVID which gives it kind of a texture when you hold it in your hands. And so I actually really, really do like the COVID I just had other covers that I was more drawn to, but it's not about. Again, this is one of the things that a lot of our clients struggle with is they get really hung up on the COVID being something they like. And, you know, there is an element of you want the COVID to be something you like. I mean, you don't want to be like, oh, that covers awful. But you really have to think about what's going to sell, what's going to draw somebody's eye in and what's going to appeal to them. And ultimately, you know, you want. I like the hybrid. I kind of go the 60, 40 split. You know, 60% of it is what's going to be marketable. Focus that. And 40% of it is making sure that it fits with your brand, you know, is a book that fits with you and you feel good about. So for me, this is really a 60, 40 split cover. I think the 60%, it's a very marketable cover. It stands out in the lineup. It looks professional, and 40% is that I'm happy with it. But one tip here, so you guys can see there's a reflection of the light. When this copy was sent to me, I got it with a glossy cover. If you're doing a lot of video, which I do, you may want to get some matte cover copies. So I've asked our production manager to send me some matte cover copies so that we don't have this reflection. Because there's going to be a lot of times where I'm doing videos and even, you know, interviews and things like that, where a glossy cover, while I think it looks better on the shelf, and often when you're reading it, it looks better too, that matte cover. And I don't know if I have an example. I don't have an example of a matte cover here, but the matte cover is stronger for that. It doesn't reflect so little. Detour. Didn't necessarily mean to talk about that, but we're talking all about the book today, so that's okay. So let me Finish up the YouTube we let me finish up the YouTube draw here and then we'll come back to all of that fun. Okay, so clicking the link again. You guys hear it spinning and. Oh, Tobias Balda. And I think this is your first live stream. Maybe I think, and I think I, hopefully I said your name right. I think this is your first live stream and you're already a winner, my friend. So thank you for your comments. They've paid off. So email us atteambook launchers.com and let us know if you want the mug or the journal. And make sure you include your mailing address, the number of folks that send us an email and don't include their mailing address. It's really hard for us to ship this out to you if you don't include your mailing address. So congratulations, Tobias. Thank you so much. It's great to have you here. Okay, so that was those pieces. If you guys have any questions about pretty much anything but ideally about the book launch, let me know. This is fairly free flowing but I do want to give a shout out. I mean my, my early reviewers, my many of you are here today. You guys have been incredible. You found some typos that were really, really great and a couple. There was one, I can't remember who sent it, but I was going in to record the final pickups. So when you record an audiobook, there is an audio version of the book coming out soon. Acx, which is Amazon's company that does audible, takes about four to five weeks once you upload the files to approve. So we're in that process right now. We're waiting for approval. So we're expecting probably second week of March that we will get the audiobook live. But when I was going into the studio, there was, somebody had caught that I had a book title wrong and it was just one word, but I had the title wrong and somehow the fact checker missed it, the proofreaders missed it and this one eagle eyed reader found it. And I was just going into the studio that day, so it was perfect timing. I was able to change that. We got the manuscript changed. So that was really awesome. You guys were so, so great. You spotted typos. Pretty much everybody that sent in a typo there, they were sending in a different typo. So everybody spotted something different, which was awesome. But also I have a shout out and just wanted to do a little prize today. So there were four, about as of 30 minutes ago, there were four people that had their reviews up already and some of you may have posted reviews, and they just haven't gone live yet. So in a way, this isn't fair, but we're going to have a reviewer party. So Once we have 50 reviews, we're going to have a reviewer party. So when you read the book and you post your review, send me an email with that review, because I'm going to put you on our reviewer list and you're going to be invited to our 50 review and our 100 review party. And I've just ordered more hoodies, so that tells you what one of the things I'm going to be giving away at this reviewer party is going to be more hoodies. So, because I want to celebrate and thank you. Reviews are the most challenging thing to get, and yet they are one of the most important things you can do as an author. So each and every person who writes a review, you have my eternal gratitude. I mean, truly, it. It means everything to an author, and in particular, an author who has written a book on selling books. I. I am so grateful for every review because they are going to be even more important for my book than for other books. So. So Benny Bullock, thank you. Mary Lynn Turner, thank you. Bill Miller, thank you. And Efren Delgado, thank you. Actually, there's five. Mike Heard also. Mike Heard couldn't get it on Amazon. He was having some trouble. But he did already have his review on Goodreads. So you five, thank you so much. And I'm Angela to put your name in a hat right now, those five names. And we're going to draw for a hoodie right now for you five early reviewers, because I'm so grateful for you. So, Angela, sorry, I'll. I'll give you those names again. Okay, so Benny, Mary Lynn, Bill, Efren, and Mike, put them in a hat, stir them around, and then let us know who won because one of them is gonna get a hoodie today. As a. As an extra, thank you for being early, early reviewers. And like I said, you can still post your reviews. Send me an email if you're on the launch letter. If you get the book launcher's email, you can just hit reply to that. Send me a copy of the review and I'll get to you in the reviewer party. Okay? Because we have a lot more hoodies and other things to give away. But really, truly, I'm so grateful for all of you and the book army. You guys were having an early celebrity. We'll be having a celebration in March as well, so everybody will be getting book launcher swag. I promise. Okay. Jason. He said, I just bought it. You gave me so much value on video videos. I feel like you earned it. I could not have published without you, Julie. Oh, that's wonderful. Thank you, Jason. That means a lot to me. Okay. And yay, reviewers. Yeah, it's so. You guys are so awesome. I'm so goody hoodies. Oh, I love it. A rhyme. You guys are fun. Do. Oh. Todd says, do you think we will ever see large book shows slash conventions again? 100 we will. I think they're going to look different for a long, long time. Like many years to come. And I. It may actually be the cool thing to come of this is there may always be a virtual live component. Like we may go on forever and have live plus virtual. But I have heard from a lot of people, and it's been my experience too, that the connections on online just aren't the same. It's harder to sell the books. It's harder to. Even when you're speaking, getting the results from the virtual just isn't the same as live. So there is still going to be live in the future. We will figure it out. I mean, that's the one thing I know about humans, is there's a problem, there's an obstacle. There are some of us that just can't stop staring at it and trying to figure out a way through it. So, yes, 2021, though, it's not looking good. But I am very, very optimistic. And I also know, like, it's just the. There are some things that got replaced by virtual that I think, you know, like in many office work environments, I don't see some businesses ever going back to having a fit. You know, everybody working out of an office. But many things just can't be replaced virtual. And a lot of those shows, those book conferences and those live shows, I think that's one of the ones that just can't be replaced by virtually completely. Okay. And Mike says the book was awesome. It over delivers on its promise. Thank you. Okay, so Angela's keeping track of any other questions and I'll take more in a minute. But I wanted to. I wanted to do two things. So I'm going to talk about the launch strategy around the book. So. And for all of you who've read the book and been around here, you already know I'm not really big on pushing to become an Amazon best seller. So that was not my goal. I didn't direct. So the incentives, which I'll talk about in a second, I'm not directing anybody to buy exclusively from Amazon. I am not really worried about it. I want Amazon, I want Amazon relevancy, I want the reviews. I know those things are really, really important. So I'm pushing, you know, the right people to buy the book, the right people to the book on Amazon, Goodreads and anywhere else. But ultimately I'm really not worried about whether I get to an Amazon bestseller. What my focus is on is really on getting the book out there as widely as possible and pushing for the reviews and pushing for the opportunity to reach people that we haven't been able to reach before with just YouTube. So what we've done is we've, we've paid for some things that we've never paid for before. Some books, some book reviewer services, we've gone that route. There's a really awesome company on Instagram and they've got a podcast called Book Thinkers, so we're partnering with them. They did a unboxing of my book on the weekend along with the other ones that they're reading and I'm going to be doing an interview with them. So there's some of these other strategies to reach new people that we haven't done before. And that's really my focus now and going forward. I also didn't push pre sales and I didn't do that for a few reasons. One of the reasons is, is really pre sales. There's value in pre sales and for us the pre sale period is really important. But the pre sale period for me wasn't as important for selling books as it was for getting everything organized and in order and getting early reviews. So we sent the book out to, you know, through ibpa, which is a indie publishing kind of associ. They have a catalog that goes out to libraries and bookstores. So we paid for a push with that and we had multiple requests already for that. So that's really good. We also paid a few review services. So Readers Favorite and Midwest Book Reviews were two of the main ones that we used. And you know, really awesomely the Midwest Book Review, it's coming out in March, but wrote a really great review and they're going to feature it in another newsletter too because they said, you know, they basically said it's the best book on self publishing that they have read ever. So that's a pretty huge compliment. But those are some of the things that we've done. And so that's just expanding our reach. And we had to, we use the pre sale time because a lot of these services want the book before it launches. And so that's a requirement. So that for me, pre sales was about the book army getting their copies of their book, being able to buy it on Kindle for 99 cents so it can be a verified review and then having three weeks to read the book so that they can post reviews. Like I said, the people who already have their reviews today, there's going to be more reviews this week. So it's all of those things that I use the pre sale period for now. Today's launch day and going forward for the next week, I'm really just driving sales volume. So what I'm doing right now, if you haven't seen it already, you can go to self publishand succeed.com forward/launchweek. Angela will drop that link in here and yeah, Kevin, I'm so sorry to hear about. I'm actually really thrilled you're here. I'm sorry to hear about you. You're. You hurting yourself. I saw your email today, so sending you hugs and best wishes for fast recovery and thank you for still showing up today. You're. You're awesome. Yeah. Anyways, so so today launch week. So self published and succeed.com forward/launch week. And, and that will show you the incentives for buying one copy, three copies and 10 copies. So anybody who buys one copy of the book, you can email one book launchers.com with your receipt and you're going to get our self publishing roadmap which kind of takes you through the whole journey of what to do when or what to. Yeah. What to do when in the process. And then you also will get our launch strategy menu. So we have four kind of core strategies that we use for launch with our clients and you'll see, you know, who it's best for, what it requires, what you need to do and that's on that strategy menu. And then you're also going to get a copy of my second book, the new brand. You'd now this book is really cool. I'm actually in the future what I might do is rework the book to be a branding for authors because you know, I researched this book intensely. I, you know, I think it's actually, it's a very badly named book as we've talked about before. Nobody ever gets the name right and so I would love to just repackage it all up in the future. But it is a really, really great book for building a brand. It is very, very well thought out and it lays out the strategy that really I used when I built book launchers quickly, you know, because we're three and a half years old. We have 50 week, 52 I think was the count today. There's 52 people on our team. We've worked with hundreds of authors. How do you get, how do you ramp up that fast? Well, you have a brand, a very strong brand. And you know, taking that from the past, you know, the lessons from the past that I used to raise money for real estate, you know, we were buying a house a month, raising millions and millions of dollars. So that strategy is what I wrote about the book, which is also what I used to build book launchers. So I really believe there's lots of value in this book. So you're going to get a free copy, a PDF version of that book. When you buy one book, that's it. All of that for buying one book. So you just have to email one@book launchers.com if you buy three books so you can think of two other people to give a copy to. You're going to also get invited to three private group coaching sessions where I'm going to bring some of the amazing people from our team onto some group coaching calls to walk you through writing strategies, publishing strategies, probably some Amazon research strategies, and then marketing strategies. So you'll not only hear from me, but you'll hear from the people who work deeply in these subjects each and every day. So that's for buying three copies and then 10 copies, you get all of those things. Plus we're going to build one of, we're going to produce one of our timelines for you. So you have a plan if you're, if you're not working with book launchers and you want to know who to hire when and all the pieces that would be happening that you might want to do for yourself, you'll get that plan with a launch date and you get something that I never, ever, ever sell. And that is a 30 minute call with me. So just to talk about your book idea, ask any questions that you want. It's a one on one call for 10 bucks and this is probably the only time I'll ever do this and I may regret doing it because my calendar is pretty full, but I've blocked off three days in March and two days in March and one I think at the start of April for these calls. So 10, 10 books, that's all you have to buy and you get all of that plus a call with me. So phew, that's what I'm doing this week. I'm really driving people to just buy copies, give copies to people who will benefit just getting the book out there. And then from that point forward, we're really going to use it for testing. We're going to be doing testing Bookbub. We're going to be diving deep into BookBub, trying to really master it so that it's something that we. We can say we're really expert at. We really worked on Amazon last year, in particular the ads, and now it's kind of moving to BookBub. So the book will be our. Our test case for a lot of things going forward. But that's, that's my, you know, kind of download on the strategy and what I've done. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions about it. Okay, let's see. What are you guys talking about? I saw something about tea and biscuits. Let's see. Goody hoodies. Okay, so who won? Angela, I missed. Who won Hoodie goody. Well done. I saw that. Congrats, Mike. Oh, Mike. Oh. So Mike was just saying, you sure you want to send me a signed copy of my book? Of your book? And I was like, well, you're a bestie. I got to send it to you. But it looks like you're getting a hoodie, too, so maybe we'll just send you the hoodie. We'll send you both. We'll figure it out. That's awesome. So congratulations. You got the goody hoodie. That's been newly named Hoodie Goody or a goody hoodie, I don't know. Awesome. Okay, so is it better for the author if the book is purchased as a paperback or a Kindle? Matt, it's a good question. I guess ultimately the answer. I feel like this is always my answer, but the answer is it depends what it. So it depends on what you are as the author are considering better. So previously. So when my first book went to number one overall, more than Cashflow, I only sold it in paperback in the launch week on Amazon, so you could only buy it as paperback. And I did that because if you're trying to drive towards an Amazon bestseller, and by the way, I had no idea that I would ever get my book to number one. It just worked out that way. But if you're trying to drive, you know, the sales, Amazon counts each format as a different product. That's why sometimes you'll go into a top 10 list and see the same book in there twice or sometimes even three times, because it's a top seller for its ebook, it's a top seller for its paperback, or it's hard buck hardcover and it's a top seller for its it's audiobook because each ISBN is a separate product. Okay, so if your number one strategy, and I actually don't recommend you do this, but if you're, if your focus is on getting as highly ranked as you possibly can on Amazon, then you may want to drive sales to one format. And I generally don't recommend that because you will limit things. So I don't recommend, I certainly don't recommend you release it only in one format because there's people that will only buy it in paperback and there's people that will only buy it in ebooks and that's why you're going to miss out. So you don't really want to do that when you're promoting and it's not there in the format they want. They don't. It's not like they save it for later and come back to see if you released it. You've lost those sales. So it's really. But you could have a strategy. So the incentives that I just walked you guys through and you can see them@self publishand succeed.com launchweek those incentives, I could say when you buy your book@Amazon.com in a paperback version, so that means I'm trying to, you know, drive sales to in that format. If you're going for a bestseller list, you probably are driving it for a specific version of the book as well. From a financial perspective, if you're exclusive with Amazon, you're going to be making more money probably on the ebook. If Jacqueline, I don't think Jacqueline's on today, but she'd be able to tell you which one you'd be making more. So maybe you would care more as to the version in terms of how much you make, but those are the only situations where I can see it really mattering. I have another bias towards paperback books because the beauty of it is, you know, this sits on your shelf, right? So now it's on the shelf. Somebody else might see it. It sits on your desk. Somebody else might see it. When you're done with it, you might give it away. With the Kindle, it kind of dies, right? It goes into your book and then into your phone. And if you're like me, I have a few that I save, but most of them, once I'm done reading them, I delete it from my device. So they kind of die. So I have another slight bias towards paperback because it does live on a little longer than a Kindle book typically does. Okay, so I just picked that question out randomly. If you're going, wait, I had a question before Matt's question. Angela's writing them down for, for me and I'm going to take them in a second. So I just want to do, I just want to do a prize for everyone who's joined us for our launch today. And, and we're going to stick with the standard fantastic prizes first. So we have the mug and the oh so soft journal and we're going to go because it's February 23rd, we're going to go to the 23rd person who commented today. So Angela, if you can do the 23rd person who commented today, that would be fantastic. And you guys are going to win a prize. And then after that, I have a book to give away, but it's not mine and I don't actually have a physical copy of the book here, but it's an excellent book that I wrote the foreword to and I want to make sure you have a copy of that. So I'll be giving that away in a second. But we'll find the winner. Let's see if there's any other questions here. KM Hemmons hello. Welcome. Thanks for joining in. Let's see. Ellie Doodle. If you write a book based on your real life, but change names and settings, is this still considered nonfiction? Yes, it is. I mean, there's a fine line though, and some people choose if you, oh, and speaking of Ellie Doodle, you are the winner. So congratulations. Email us@teamoklaunchers.com and let us know what your mailing address is and whether you would like the mug or the journal. Yay. So yeah, when you change the names and places, a lot of authors choose to publish something like that under fiction versus non fiction. Because if you, if you start making everything fictitious, you know, to cover up who it's about, what it's about, then you may want to do that. And it depends on the format of your book and what you're writing. So there's a lot of decisions in there, but there's no, there's no rule on that. If it is a true story, then you could write a book book based on true events, which could fall under a memoir, but could also fall under fiction. So it's going to depend and it's a little bit out of my without diving into it, it's a little bit out of where I can really, really give you good guidance on that. Darren Darum I don't know if I'm saying that right or darm. Thank You. Thank you very much. I appreciate your support. Okay, it's teamoklaunchers.com. angela will probably write it in there for you. Okay, so Angela, if you want to let me know a question, that would be great. And then I'm going to do. Let's see, what's a good skill testing question for today? Oh, I know what I said. There was three. Three kind of reasons I wrote the book. Can you give me. So the first person to give me two of the three reasons why I wrote the book I did cover. This will reward those of you who are A, paying attention and B, here when I was talking about the three reasons I wrote the book. So the first person to give me two of the three. We will give you a copy of Amazon for self publishers, which is written by Dale Roberts. And it is, I think the most comprehensive book out there on Amazon. It's really great book. I'm honored to have written the forward for it. But it's a great. I've been already people who have been writing with questions I've already been recommending, they grab my book and Dale's book. They go really, really well together. So. So yeah, we, we don't have the copies yet, so you will have to be a little patient. They're on their way to Angela, so you'll have to be a little patient on that one. But excuse me. Okay, so question while I wait for you guys to answer. McKenna, how do we write a good thriller? Oh, I'm not a fiction expert, so I'm sorry, I've never written fiction and we don't do fiction. I, I don't know. I rarely have to say I don't know. But I am not sure how to write a great thriller. We are nonfiction and I can help you with memoir and give you tips for starting a chapter in an interesting way. But when it comes to fiction, it's really a genre specific expertise that's required. And that's one of the many reasons we haven't gone down that path yet. Okay, Andy. Oh, Andy, I think you nailed it. Let's see. Yep. Andy, you're the first one. So we're gonna. Andy. So my question, my, my skill testing question for you guys to decide. Who won now, Andy, have you won everything already? Have you won the Journal? Have you won the. Oh, no, this is, this is Dale's book. Do you have Dale's book? You're behind on your reading, my friend. You're gonna have to start reading faster. Okay, so the question was, what were two of the Three reasons I wrote the book. And he said, number one, test things using your book. So, yes, test marketing strategies using the book. We are doing that. And two, share your experience after three and a half years of book launchers. And that is true. So it's experience from me, writing my previous two books and then working with all of our clients and our brilliant writers and writing coaches and all of the people in between, learning what sells. So, yes, you nailed it. Yay. And pasta. Pasta Tasha. I like that name. Said it was not to get on the bestseller. New York Times bestseller. And it was not to get on Amazon. Number one bestseller. That is correct. Also, I'm good for swag, though. Well, this is. This is for Andy. This is for. And you got Dale's book, too. Okay, so we're going to draw somebody else. Let's see who else put in there. Well, pasta. You. Wait. Darm Dharm. Looks like Increase your brand. And to increase your brand. Well, that was both. Testing marketing help. Testing marketing help. And to help write. People write books. Brian, you are the winner. And I don't think you have both yet, do you? Brian, mug journal. Do you have both? Oh, no, wait. It's for Dale's book. I keep getting confused. Sorry. You don't have Dale's book yet, do you, Brian? Because that's what the prize was for. Okay, sorry. Scrambled brain. Brian was second. Yes, Brian was second. Correction, correct. Let me see. Unless I missed that. Was that a question? Dale's the second best writing book I've read this year. Michael says yes, it's excellent book for publishing your book on Amazon and setting yourself up for ads. Okay, so Angela had a couple questions here. Another question I should say. Let's see. Question. Will I need to worry about writing if my niece is sleeping? Waking her up crying, and then I have to stop to feed her and sing to her. Yeah, I think we've talked about this before, Daniel. It's gonna be good. You're gonna be fine. Just write right when you can. I mean, I wrote my previous book I wrote when I was pregnant. This book I wrote in between growing the business. And my schedule is. Is as busy, if not busier, than taking care of a baby. So, yes, you'll be fine. I. I suggest practice practicing writing sprints. So writing sprints can be really, really Great. You'll have 12 minutes. Baby falls asleep. Set your timer. Write for 12 minutes or 20 minutes, whatever you can. And do your writing sprints. But you can do this. I know you can. Okay. Just got the book. Outstanding. Thanks. Scott. Yay. Brian wants the book for the Amazon book. So Angela, if you can make sure that Brian gets a copy of Dale's book once you get them on your doorstep, that would be great. Great. Okay, question. Why not upload to Find a Way Voices? You'll get a better royalty from Apple. Yeah, so. So this is with regards to my audiobook. Findaway. Voices is an aggregator and I have uploaded to ACX for distribution to Apple and also to Audible. And I wanted to do the. Because they just launched it, Kevin. They. They're doing the 90 day extension exclusive where you can previously. Oh, so previously when you uploaded to ACX to go to Audible you were, if you wanted exclusive, which gives you a better, a much better royalty rate. With Audible sales, you had to go exclusive for seven years. Now if you have done your own production and narration, they would release you from that after six months. But it didn't say that anywhere in writing. And they just came out with the option to be released from exclusivity after 90 days, which is in line with their KDP select program. And if you're sitting there going, I don't know what she's saying, it's okay. I do have a video out recently on, you know, should you record an audiobook? And it didn't actually, I didn't know this 90 day thing, but it's ultimately we're going to test the 90 day exclusive and then we're going to upload to Find a Way Voices afterwards. My first audiobook, which I did for the new brand, you. I actually used Authors Republic. I was in Canada at the time and I had done this audiobook without trying to figure out how I was going to distribute it. I kind of assumed I'd be able to distribute it, but at the time you couldn't upload direct to ACX from Canada and Find a Way Voices was not anywhere in the mix and. Or they couldn't, they couldn't take a Canadian upload either. So Authors Republic was the only one that could work with me. So I uploaded to them with my first book. But again, this is our test book so we're doing all kinds of things with it. So we're going to test the ACX 90 days, see what it does financially, what it looks like royalty wise and then upload to Find a Way after. There you go. We actually haven't found, in looking at the royalty reports for our clients, we haven't found that many sales through Apple. So that's been, you know, one of the reasons why we wanted to see what this looks like. We are finding, looking at the Find a Way voice report report for most of our clients, we are finding the majority of sales are through Audible for the most part. Depends on the book. If it has a more international appeal, then that might be a little more varied. But for the folks whose audiences are largely Americans, we're finding that Audible really is that channel for a lot of them. So you never know. And so that's why we like to test everything and see everything's really an experimentation when you're marketing. But. But yeah, there you go. So, yeah, I'm not happy with ACX really either. I find them very frustrating. And one of the most frustrating things about ACX is you upload. It takes four, four weeks, even longer sometimes for them to do the quality control on your book. And then if they kick it back, that whole process starts over again. So if for some reason you have an issue with your audiobook files and they're very, very picky, they'll kick it back and then that whole quality control process starts over again. So it's a royal pain in the patootie. Yeah, Mike heard it's complicated. Okay. Oh, yeah, that's the other thing, Kevin, because we are going exclusive with ACX on the uptick. We've heard that they tend to prioritize those over the ones that are going wide, so we'll see. Well, they've also changed their return policy, but it's still not fair there. So if you guys are following along with the comments over here, they're going, you know, the return policies, thievery. They used to have a one year long return policy and thanks to a glitch in their system, authors started to realize how this was really taking a massive chunk out of their returns because they wouldn't actually tell you how many returns you were getting. They gave you a net. So you didn't know you could have made a hundred dollars, but then $40 of that was returned just as an example for simple numbers. And so you're thinking you only sold $60 worth of AUD, but in fact you sold a hundred. But because they allowed customers to return for a full year, no questions asked, people could be listening to your book 15 times and then return it. And that was coming out of your pocket, not theirs. They've now limited that down to I, I think, is it seven days or it's 48 hours and they can't return? I don't know why I'm blanking on the number all of a sudden, but. And and they, they can't return if they've start, if they've within a 48 hour period, if they started listening to it. Maybe that's what it is. People still don't think it's quite fair, but it's substantially better than it used to be. So it's process, it's progress. Seven days. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe the 48 hours is after they've listened to it. I don't know. Did I make that one up? So many numbers in my head at the moment. Okay, another question, Pastatasha. I'm on my last chapter of my debut manuscript. What's the most secure way to send my novel to an editor to make sure the ideas and thoughts aren't stolen. It's funny, this comes up every once in a while and you know, if you're hiring an editor, just check the references, check the sources, make sure they're trustworthy. It's kind of like, you know, if you send something to Book Launchers, it does us no good for our long term business to take your book and publish it, you know, or do anything. And your book is copywritten the minute you write it. It. So you, you do have some copyright protection in this because you, you wrote it and then you can file for copyrights, you know, in the process too to further protect things in case you ever have to go to court to defend it. But ultimately I think you know, your, your best if you're hiring professionals that are highly rated, highly reviewed. The thing that makes me nervous and that I've heard things go wrong with is when people hire contractors who are somewhat anonymous on sites like, like Fiverr and even Upwork to a degree they're somewhat anonymous, so you don't know really who they are. You might see their ratings, but you know those ratings are done the minute the work's done and you don't know what's happened. So some of those things make me nervous and some of those things have resulted in some pretty, pretty crazy, interesting and scary ghost writing stories in particular come to mind where books come out and they all are kind of similar because they've been written by these anonymous contractors. So I think if you go through referrals, you get recommendations. People who make their living off doing this, they're not going to, they're not going to copy it. And really writing the book is part of the process, but marketing, it's the hardest. So unless, unless it's some, it's got a direct channel into distribution and movies and things like that, you know, it's it's just as much work to take it as it is to. As it is to. It's just as much work to market it, more work even than it was to write it. So there's a lot of things you can do, but there's no secure format they're going to need. If you want them to edit it, they're going to need it in Word. They're not going to be able to edit it if you're giving it to them securely in some way. So I don't know how else to help, but we function fully in Word and everything goes back and forth in Word documents, and we usually set up Dropbox accounts for our clients, and that's the, that's how we, you know, store and maintain and transfer files. Oh, interesting. So let's just see, following the message boards, people are listening and returning on the same. On the same day with Audible. Yeah, it's true, they do need to change their return policy, but it is better than it was, so that's good. Okay, sue, question. Efren says, I heard on another podcast that audiobooks are more profitable. Thoughts. So I don't know. I don't know whose podcast that was, so I don't know the context of that comment. I can tell you. I mean, I just did the numbers on that audiobook. I saw Angela post the link. I did. I. I was pretty clear on the numbers on that one. 1. If you're paying to produce your audiobook to a standard that ACX will accept, you're probably spending, you know, somewhere around 3000 to $5000. Depends on if you're narrating it yourself, if you're renting a studio, if you have home, studio equipment, all those pieces. So you're spending three to $5,000 to produce the audiobook, and you're probably making four to six dollars per. Per book sold. And keep in mind, Audible in particular doesn't let you set the price for your book, so you actually don't have control over how much you're making for every copy that gets sold out there. So again, another thing to kind of not like about them. Unfortunately, they do still have the widest distribution with Audible in the US in particular, and even in Canada. So you're selling, you know, that means you're selling what math on the spot, my friends. Not so good. Like 1500 copies of your audiobook to break even on audiobook alone. And what we see is if you have a book that's out in print and ebook and audiobook, you're maybe selling 20% of total volume in audiobooks. So it's one of those questions where people say, what's the ROI on it? Should I do it? And, you know, my answer is always yes, if you have the budget, because you're going to have a bigger reach. You're going to reach people that wouldn't, you know, wouldn't buy your book. There's not a big backlist on audiobooks. I am a huge fan of audiobooks and the number of people emailing me today saying, is it coming out in Audible? That's how I want to buy it, just reinforces that. So I'm a big fan. But I don't understand how somebody can say it's more profitable than a print or an ebook. I don't know. But if you're not paying those production costs, if you're suffering through the editing yourself, maybe there's a lot more money to be made because you don't have that, that high cost. But then, I mean, how much are you suffering to get that done? And is Audible publishing it? Are you publishing it somewhere else? So I got a lot more questions than I do answers. Sorry, are your editors in house? Tobias is actually asking. Confidentiality is my concern too. At Book Launchers, everybody on my team signs confidentiality and non disclosure. So the in house folks all have an employment agreement where they've signed, you know, an extensive piece of the puzzle around confidentiality. And then our contractors, which have an eight, I think it's 18 page agreement, one of those things is non disclosure. So we cover our basis this, I mean, we take this extremely seriously. We won't talk about the process of publishing your book without your permission at all. So anybody I give examples for that, I say their book came to us like this and we did this to the book. And now this is what it is. I have their permission. The only time we talk about your book when you work with us is when your book is out and we're marketing it. We kind of have to talk about it in order to help you market it. So for us, it's laid out in our terms and conditions. The confidentiality there. I can't speak to how other companies do it, but that's how we do it. Okay, that looks like. That looks like the majority of it. So let's do one more prize. I'm not giving away my book today because I want you guys to get out there and support it. However. However I do. Like I said, I had copies of Dale's book and we're gonna have A review party at 50 reviews and at 100 reviews. And poor Angela's house has become the storage facility for all things book launchers. Swag. She has backpacks, she has hoodies, she has mugs, she has journals, she has book, she has Dale's books. So we have a ton of things that we're going to be giving away to celebrate when we hit 50 reviews and 100 reviews. So thank you all for your support. I'm so, so grateful. So let's do one more prize. We're going to go from party at Angela's. Nobody would want to party at Angela's. Last week she was, she's in Texas. She had no power. Actually she had power. She had all of her family who had no power all in her place along with all the book launchers. Swag. Okay, so I, let's do. I'm just trying to look here. I was going to do a number one. So from Aaron Crawley. Hey, welcome. You made it. Let's go backwards to. Let's go backwards. What would be a good number? I'll give you guys a second to type in to get in on this. Right. Well I think I'm just coming up with a good little number here. Ah, 50. Sorry Angela, I'm gonna make you count high. 50 is our review goal. By the end of March we want to have 50 reviews. So going back from my card just threw in a number. Okay. So going back from Ellie Doodles. Hahaha. That just got posted. Go back 50 and let's choose a new one less prize winner for today. And so for those of you just joining in, today is launch day. Head to self publishandsucceed.com launchweek and check out the incentives we have. Prize, not prizes, gifts. Really cool, you know, things that will support you in your book writing and launching journey for buying 1, 3 and 10 books. So anybody who's ever asked if they can have a one on one call with me just to ask a bunch of questions about books. This is the only time I am giving away time in exchange for 10 books. I don't sell my time by the hour ever. So this is the one time. So you guys can go ahead and get that and and then also today at 4:15 Pacific. So it's currently just about 3 o'. Clock. I'm going live with Dale Roberts. So self publishing with Dale if you guys have some. If you guys are excited to spend a little more time with me, I know a few of you will be there. So thank you. But Dale's got some really great questions that he's planning on asking me as we continue this launch day celebration. So you can join us over there too. I'm just. Poor Angela. I made her count back 50, so it's just taking her a second. But yeah, so, and if. If you haven't written your review yet, all you have to do is go ahead and write that review when it goes live. Send me an email@julietbook launchers.com with the review and I'll get you on our review party list because we're going to celebrate. I'm gonna. I'm showing my gratitude in a huge way. Pretty much. If you show. If you are one of those 50 reviewers and you come to that reviewer party, we're going to make sure you have book launch swag. It's pretty much my promise to you. And Andy says he's going to be there. Yay. And Dharm or Darum. I'm sorry, I don't know how to say your name, but you are today's winner. So you can choose from Dale Roberts, Amazon Self Publisher Book, or the Mug or the Journal. So you have a choice of all three and you just have to email us@teambook launchers.com with your mailing address and your choice. And Kevin, I'm assuming that means you won't be there? Is that what you're saying? He said it'd be 3am there, so he might not be there when I joined Dale over on self publishing at Dale at 4:15 today. Or does that mean you will be there, Kevin? I think he might be there. All right, you guys, thank you so much. Thank you again to my book army for your early support, your reviews, everyone. Thank you so much for your support of this book. Post it on social media if you get a chance. But most importantly, please write your review after you've got your copy. I really, really appreciate it. Send me an email with that review. And thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you, Angela, for being here and coordinating everything for me. All right, you guys take care.