Selling Books in Bulk, Narrating an Audiobook, Making Great Presentations and More | Author Tips

All right. Hello and welcome, everyone, to our final deep dive before we take a summer break from the deep dives. Today is one of the fan favorites. I'll call it It's Back by Request. We've done it three times before now, I think, where we bring some of our authors on to be the folks that answer your questions and share their best tips and their best lessons. And. And I'm really excited about the folks that we have for you today. And I'm just going to actually turn it to each of them to do their own introduction, but I will put their website up on the screen while they're introducing themselves, so you'll have that to look at and you can check them out and make note of the website so you can visit it later as well. So sorry, more people are joining us. So welcome everyone. At any time, if you have questions, you can go ahead and post them in the chat. And if it's a big question, we will probably ask you to unmute and share there. All right, so one moment, I'm just going to bring up the first website and then that person will know to introduce themselves. And welcome. I see lots of familiar names here. Fitz, great to have you here. Virgie. Who else is here? Debbie, Clark, Marna. Yeah, lots of familiar names and faces. So that's great. Welcome, everyone. Okay, let me bring it up. Actually, here it is. The first one is already just waiting for you. So, Carol, yours is coming up first. So, Carol Sanford is our first author that I'd like to introduce you to today. Carol's been around the book launcher scene for a few years now, and she also, as you can see by her website, has many books, carolsanford.com, so, Carol, please take a moment to introduce yourself and share a little bit about your latest book with everyone that's here, please. Oh, I think you're still muted. Hold on.

I'm going to need permission to post a PowerPoint.

Oh, sure. Yeah. I didn't know you had a PowerPoint. That's fantastic. One moment. There you go. You should be able to now.

Okay, so I'll do what you said first. My most recent book is Indirect Work and it's on my webpage. I give some explanation about all my books and how they fit together. They are all for about change and particularly about the county. Excuse me. I got choked a while ago and I can't quite get over it. I have been an educator for a very long time. 50 years, basically. And I do that inside universities and inside corporations and organizations. Indirect Work is a book that really talks about what underlies all of my other books, and particularly about how change works. That's pretty radically different than what anyone else says. It's based on my work with my indigenous Mohawk grandfather, with the study inside of lineage traditions around the world, and with quantum science. So that's what the current book is. Let me put up the PowerPoint. I thought there may be things that would be easier for you to see and use if you can see them in writing. Yeah.

Oh, sorry, Carol, just one sec. So before I turn the PowerPoint over to you, I just want to introduce the other three folks here and then I'll turn it over to you and let you run with it for a bit. Is that okay?

Yes, of course.

Okay, fantastic.

Thank you.

So that's Carol. We also have Dan Fraser here. Are you able to see. Is your website up there now, Dan? Did it switch over?

Yeah, it sure is.

Awesome. Welcome, Dan.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Yeah, my name is Dan Fraser and this is my book, Kick Ass Presentations. I'm coming to the presentation space not through normal channels. So I was a police officer, retired about two years ago, and I spent a lot of time in our training academy and teaching, and that's really been one of my passions. And there's a great quote that I love from a guy named Roy Vaden who said that we are most powerfully positioned to help the person that we once were. And so I essentially wrote the book that I wished I had when, when I was a full time trainer and just have a lot of good lessons in there that walks people through how to do this. Because there's a lot of people who have to give presentations just kind of like what's happening today. And if you're a professional of any type, at some point somebody's going to tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, can you speak at this event? Can you talk to the new people? Can you deliver this present? And where do you begin? And so that is what my book addresses.

I love it. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for being here. Becca, you are up next.

Welcome. Awesome. Hello, folks. So I am the author of Harness your Inner CEO and that's my website. But I have been in the Fortune 500 sales space for a long time. I'm a sales executive in the tech industry. Yes, there's the book page. And my book is called Harness yous Inner CEO. And I wrote it really based upon pulling myself out of burnout. I know burnout's a really big topic right now. The tagline to the book is rise into passion, prosperity and empowerment. But I really realized that me, along with so many other working professionals, are kind of in this, like, hamster wheel of life, and that there is a much bigger, supportive, amazing life out there if we shift our perspectives. And so harness your inner co is how to do that. And I've had so much fun during the launch and I'll talk more about that, but it's been a great experience and I can't wait to share more.

Fabulous. Thank you so much. And Odile, I see you too. So welcome, Odile.

Hello, everyone. Lovely to be here. Thank you so much for having us. Julie? Yes. I'm Odile Remt. I'm one half of the REMT method. My husband Steve, who I think should be on the call by now, I'm not sure. We are mindset coaches specializing in helping adults to change the negative childhood memories that are supporting limiting beliefs like I'm not good enough, and all based on neuroscience. So our new book, thanks to book launches, is Change what happened to you? How to use neuroscience to get the life you want by changing your negative childhood memories. We are so excited to be working with book launches and very grateful that we came to them. So looking forward to sharing more later. Awesome.

Thank you. And I do see Steve. Steve, do you want to say hello as well?

I'll say hello, but I'm going to defer. I'm going to defer to Odile's gift, which is her accent and her beautiful way of putting everything.

That's awesome. You've actually alluded to one of the things my team said, which is you have to ask Odile about narrating her audiobook because everybody on my team says it is the most exquisite narration they've ever heard. So we'll definitely be talking audiobooks today as well. So welcome and thank you everyone for being here. I'm really excited. We have lots of great topics to ask all of these authors, but Carol is ready, she's prepared, she's got some great content. And one thing I did, and she's already put it up here, is I said to Carol, I said, one of the things I would love for you to share with everyone is how you are able to sell so many books in bulk. You know, Carol does a lot of things really, really well, but I think this is one area that a lot of people have a lot of questions about and we always share to people how to do it. But I think it's a great opportunity to hear from an author who is doing it really well. And has done it in many different ways. So, Carol, thank you. You're ready to take it away. I see. So I'll turn it over to you.

Thanks, Julie. As I said to Julie, I don't give tips. I give my life experience and tell you why I did things because I think it's dangerous to borrow other people's ideas and examine with your own life experience. I'm going to tell you stories about me briefly here at the beginning, so you can understand a bit of maybe how I have a door to do what I do. So I'm not a writer. I happen to be an author. I was not a great student at school, but I was pushed into writing because of my speaking and thinking. And I found a way to be able to take my great ideas and work with a writer who was already studying with me and had for several years and wanted to be with me in a deeper way. So five of my six books I worked with a developmental editor in a lot of detail. And I've sold over 50,000 books. We calculated last week, just for today, in 11 years with three different publishers. And I'll tell you and one of those is book launchers. Let me get my all right, so let's start with publishers. The first real publishing I did was writing a column for Bart Kohler, who invited me to write a book. And I might have stayed with him because of several things they offer, which was a community of regular meetings four times a year, bringing authors together, learning and discovering. And of course, that was for BE Online. But they wanted and many people I talked to wanted me to write in a way that they described, as you have most of the answer in the title. And certainly by the end of the first chapter, I wanted deeper books. So I was approached by Jesse Wiley of Wiley Publishing because of an article he had seen that I wrote. And I worked with him for quite a few years. I published two books with them. Both of those titles I requested to revert to me as author. They did in two formats. Book launchers helped me get them up and running and they're still selling well. I left them because they, I would say, treated me much like a supplier in their supply chain to be pressured into doing things and mostly fussing at me. And I thought, well, that's not very helpful. So I left him for about a year, was trying to figure out whether I wanted to keep seeking to publish, since I was being encouraged to do so by a lot of people I had met in that process. A woman who behaved as an agent, a broker Even an editor had her own small publishing company but she knew people at Nicholas Brealey and suggested that they talk with me. I was amazed because what really did is tons of marketing hand holding in the entire process treating me like the star talent which I didn't completely need. But it was sure a change from Wiley. And they also were up for me going back and forth between self publishing and working with them. And I was able to convince them to support what I was doing at Book Launchers very shortly thereafter, including me pay Book Launchers as a marketing team working with their marketing team so you can negotiate that kind of thing. I negotiated quite a bit including making sure I always had all three formats at work. Particularly I demanded that even Braley in one case get somebody different to re record the regenerative business. Because I got so many complaints from people and they did. They revoked effect. I went all the way to the president CEO of Hachette and they took based on their contract they were able to get a revoking of the person that they were selling or was recording and get a great new format. I obviously am not great at recording, although before I began to have some speaking problems I did record no more feedback and indirect work with my own production team and book launchers. One of the things I love is they'll pick up anywhere you are, fill in the holes, cover for you, can't think about or feel like you need help. And so I do love having all these options. I can go to Nicholas breathing and can say like I did with indirect work. I don't think this is a breathy book, a hatchet book. And my editor Ian said okay, I think you're right. And I said so I'm not leaving you. I'm still under contract with you, but I'm going to do this on my own through these. I have had bestsellers with all of them in different format. My most recent one you just saw, I had never done an Amazon bestseller, much less than number one. And I have loved Book Launchers teaching me how to do that and pulling it off. So we got six weeks and four categories. I've gotten bestsellers through independent bookstores. That was with Nicholas Bailey. They have a brilliant way when I sell in bulk which I'll share with you in just a second. They sell them all through an independent bookstore which builds the strength mostly in the northeast. Of those bookstores I sold my first two May bestseller status with 800 CEO read which is now called Portulight so that I could sell in large bulk which Again, I'll share in a second. And then I have gotten awards, 32 gold awards including. Many of them are fairly small scale new, but readers don't know that, they just know you're winning awards and they do mean something. And I've been a finalist in a couple of places which are fairly worth applying to. All right, let's look at bulk sales. All right, so the major thing I do with bulk sales is three kinds of things. One is I do a lot of giveaways for buying more than one book. I don't really go after single book sales except we did with the most recent Amazon number one bestseller and my book page, which Julie just showed you, if you go to the book page version of that, you'll see the seven bonuses that I did running right up to the day we launched. But I leave it running all the time and I still have people who reach out. I give even one book a self assessment and if they'll just go to five books, which is a big jump for most people and I tell them, they come back, go read the book, come back, you can come join me personally. So I did a lot of that and I do have a couple of very big names who do a lot of promoting and some of them do a lot of buying. So Tom Peters, who wrote In Search of Excellence, you can see his quote on my book page of he considers me in the top five thinkers of the world of business and he would follow me anywhere basically. And he promotes me a lot on all his channels. He's a really neat guy and he's going to write the foreword for my upcoming book in 2023. Julie, get ready. I did have the CEO. Well, I have CEOs. Big, big names write all the forwards in my book and I put their stories. I'm filled with people who can do bulk buys and they're all my clients. That's the way I get a lot. So let's go to the high value that really get a lot of books. I do something called Fishbowls which is working with people in the middle of a room, even an online room with all the people watching. And you have to buy 50 books to participate in those. So that's the way I go after individuals, but they're usually heads of groups or companies, small mid sized companies. Most of you been in workshops or communities with me for years. I create massive 50 page or 80 page workbooks that if people buy minimum of 100 books they can create their own book club. And I give them basically the way to Run it from beginning to end, including all the exercises. I am asked to do a lot of keynotes and I used to travel around the world to do those. And I'm asked to teach at universities or lecture in various places. I trade that keynote. Instead of paying me, I don't think I'm making money off books. I think of making doors open. With selling books and making books, they're a lot more than a business card, although I've heard that example. So where somebody might pay me 5 or 7,000 online for a keynote, I just have buy that number of books. We arrange it depending on which books they want or ask them to buy one for each audience member, whichever is higher. I have one very high value thing that people want from me because I've written about it so much and they know, including Google and dupont folks have said it makes them so much money and it's called an essence reveal which is understanding at the level of an individual or company what's at its essence. Not its strengths, not its personality, not any of those popular terms. But literally is there from the founding and knowing how to do it is a very sophisticated, very different process. And once you know it is so powerful that that you never lose your position in the marketplace. I have people who will pay $10,000 for a set of books in order to get that, especially small and mid sized companies. It's usually included in my contract with bigger folks. But I do have companies that just buy in huge lines up to $5,000. Like Google has bought a copy and one of their EVPs wrote the forward to book number three. And then of course we have a story, his story in that case. And in one book it's 60% women, CEOs and people of color and then men and men of color who are in the stories. And people buy those in very large lots. So I've sold well over 50,000 books. It's probably more than that because people buy books because they know me, I'm their client and they want something from me. And instead of charging them, I trade them. Universities where I teach, I trade to teach there. Instead of paying me, you spread my books. Now that sells books because those people who buy it then recommend it to others. So my primary audiences are. I still do use social media. I publish a lot of medium and building in a way that I begin to be paid for that, which is kind of nice. I have a fairly large newsletter following and I promote all of these bulk sale ideas that you will see on my website and every guest podcast. I'M on, I drive them to that page and I also give a special offer that they can do a drawing or whatever they want. I sell so many books in bulk because the senior executives I work with, I'm still working with all but one of them. After 51 years, I'm still connecting with every CEO, every EVP and head of a unit I've worked with. The one is because he's deceased. I build very long term relationships that are adding value to their life personally and supporting what they're doing. I produce a podcast, long term, very controversial contrarian podcast because one of the reasons I get to so many platforms is my voice, not the tone of it. But what I have to say is pretty disruptive. And being disruptive is a very good thing for people who want you on their stage, whether that's online or whether it's in person. I don't travel anymore, so now it's all online. So I really push people buying up to 25 books. But I've established these relationships where people say, let me know when your book gets out. We'll buy 5,000 for our company and we'll spread it. And then you get to come for free. Instead of charging us 10 or $12,000, you come and speak to us. And so that's a pretty good deal for me. Again, I said you could see the bonuses here on this page. All right, so that's kind of what I thought might be helpful. And then maybe Julie, you can figure out what I didn't say, you hoped I would say or questions.

Yeah, I only had one main question that I think and if you can stop share, that would get my cursor there and sorry, I just realized I had. I still had Odile and Steve or Steve actually spotlighted on that. So sorry. You guys feel free to message me when I'm messing up here. I'm solo today. I don't have Angela helping me. Okay. So sorry, I'm just going to remove the spotlight from there. And so the only thing Carol, that I wanted to ask was how did you. I know Tom Peters is a great example. Did you get his attention through Twitter or how did you get his attention in particular? And that's a good, I think, case study for. For others to hear about.

Right. Because he's not a client. He's one of the few that is not a client. I didn't go after him. It never occurred to me he'd be interested in on Twitter. I noticed someone copied me on something and I like Tom. I met him a Very long time ago. And he was talking about my book no more Feedback, which I did with book launchers. And it was so uplifting and demanding and said it was answering questions forever from him. Now, let me tell you, I built him into a close colleague who's now supporting me because he could have just continued to say and maybe retweet his one comment. But I asked my speakers agency if they would reach out who I'm not with anymore. Nobody can tell me to speak, nobody after 20 different folks, but I can anyway. I said, would you try and get a quote for him from him? And he's apparently said yes immediately and sent back someone you see on my website. So I then started copying him, reading his materials, what he was doing and commenting on him, including disagreeing and adding, I wasn't your I'm never your nice friendly here, I love you. I'll promote you because I want you to promote me. No, I won't do it without authenticity. And he later told me that was the only thing that got him to pay attention as I was still trying to build his capability. He eventually ended up quoting me in his most recent book and we ended up with a few phone conversations. And finally I said, would you. I think that my seventh book is going to give more answers to things you've been disturbed. And he and I almost share a birthday in number of years. I'm 80 years old right shortly. And so is he. But because I could speak and clearly knew his work wasn't chasing him, was respecting him and he could tell I was creating a real life conversation that was about making the world and business better, he then started now anything I tweet, he often retweets or asks a question.

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Carol. Thank you for all the effort you put into sharing today, everybody. There's lots of people saying thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And then there's one last question for you and then we're going to move over to Dan. Megan says, when did you get started writing books?

Well, only 20 years ago. I was 60 years old when I finally started writing and my first was published when I was 65, 15 years ago.

Wonderful.

Thank you. And Brenda said congratulations and happy birthday coming up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Carol. I really, really appreciate it. Dan, I didn't ask for a presentation, so no pressure. If you didn't do one, we're okay. Awesome. So Dan, I wanted to kind of kick it off with you and first ask kind of your biggest lesson or if you want to call it a tip, whatever it is kind of the thing you want to share with everybody else that you've taken away from your journey in becoming an author.

Wow. Didn't anticipate that question. You know what?

Start small.

That's okay. It has been a journey. And one of my big takeaways is that you can't do this alone. Or if you want to do it alone, it's going to be a lot more headache and probably a lot more time and money. I didn't know what I didn't know. I came to Book Launchers with a Word document. And as some of you may know, people ask. People have been asking me for, like, the four years that I've been writing this thing. Hey, how's the book coming? And I felt like a fraud because I have literally a Word document that I add to every now and again and didn't know the process. And so that was one of the big advantages to coming to Book Launchers was they go, okay, here's our system. We plug you into our pipeline, and away you go. And now I can talk about content editing versus fact checking and stuff. And I can sound like I know what I'm talking about. Well, my content editor, I just learned this stuff myself, so that's one of my biggest takeaways, is that you don't even know what you don't know and get some help from people who have actually been there before and know what they're talking about. Because there was so many steps, I thought, okay, you write a book, and then somebody waves a magic wand and it ends up on the shelf of bookstores or on Amazon. And little did I know that there wasn't five steps in between. There's 50 or 500 steps in between that you want to do well and in the right order and in the right way. So that's probably my biggest takeaway from. From my book experience.

That's fabulous. Thank you. And I think I haven't looked at our project plan for a while because actually, I stay out of all things detail because if I get in there, I make a mess of things. But it was 248 lines long last time I looked. And I know we've revised and added to it, and so. And that's the. That's our platinum level. Our platinum plus has more elements to it, so it's even more robust. So, yeah, there's a lot that goes into it, but that's great. Thank you. And I'm curious what is kind of the biggest surprise or kind of Coolest thing that's happened since you became an author.

Yeah, the coolest thing for me is the amount of awesome feedback that I've got from people who I consider sort of my heroes. And this is one of the. One of the things that, of course, Nicole had me do is like, you know, reach out to influencers and reach out to people who, you know, it would be a dream for me to have, you know, do a testimonial. And, yeah, what they said was correct. You know, you. If you reach out to 30 people, you're probably going to get 10 of those back. But I was so surprised at some of the 10 that I got back were really like, big names. Maybe not big names in the world, but to me, I know their work, and it's such an honor to get. To get feedback from people who I didn't. You know, I wouldn't expect them to even return an email from me. And here I've got even one of them. Well, this is my. This is a draft copy. But even on the back of my book, I've got. I've got a testimonial from somebody who I. A guy named Randy Watt, who is a former police chief and former Special Forces Command. Never in a million years would I think that he would get a hold of me and go, hey, this book is awesome, and here's why. And have a whole bunch of people do that. That's been really surprising and just constantly still surprising, where if I do a podcast or something, people get ahold of me and go, I read your book, and it's awesome. And that just. That fuels me for the next bit of this marathon that I'm on.

That's great. Thank you. And if anybody has questions for Dan, you can go ahead and type them in. And I am watching. But, of course, you're not getting away from all of us without giving some presentation tips.

Yeah, for sure. Whether you're doing virtual or not, so many people do presentations poorly. And this is part of the reason that I wrote this book, is that I've been that audience member just going, oh, my God, are you serious? So there's some really basic stuff out there that if you follow this, it doesn't take much to shine. And the first is treating your slides. If you're using slides like a document, right, it's very easy to go, where are we getting this content from? There's a bit from a policy manual, a bit from this. I'll just cut and paste and cut and paste. The next thing we know, we've got a slide full of bullet points and words. And probably the number one thing that audiences hate is, is when you read off the slides. And if your slides are full of text, it's just begging you to turn and look at that screen and start doing PowerPoint karaoke. And here's the thing, audiences can either listen or they can read. And when you put words on a screen, people just automatically start reading. So they have to now switch back and forth to what you're saying and what they're reading. And really, you are the presentation, not what's on your slides. So you need to know exactly what's up there. Have, you know, just some, some images, some stuff that reinforces your point, but that's glanceable, that people can look up there. Kind of like driving down the road, looking at a road sign and going, ah, I see that, I see where we're going. And now back to their eyes on the road, which means their eyes on you as the presenter. If people did that alone, that would be awesome. One of the things that, that we. It's a trap that we all fall into is that PowerPoint and it's, you know, it's really, it's probably the same for all of the other presentation software. They're begging you to be terrible. Like, when you open a new PowerPoint, what does it have? It says click to add title and then click to add text. When you click to add title, first of all, this slide is not for you. It's for your audience. They don't want a title of. Here's the subject that I'm talking about. They want your takeaway message. So that's what you need to be focusing on. And then it asks you to fill it with bullet points. It doesn't ask for pictures or anything else. And so it's so easy to be lured into, oh, well, this is. This must be what I need to do. And we start typing and filling it out, and the next thing we know, we've got a whole bunch of. We've got a document on there. And if people just stopped doing that, if they just went, what's my message here? What do I want people to think, feel, know, or do off of this slide? You can put some words, put your takeaway message on there, but have a nice image that backs it up. And just by that alone, it'll stop you from reading off the slides and turns it more into a conversation, because you're not talking to a group of people, you're having a conversation with a whole bunch of individuals.

That's fantastic. Lots of people are loving, loving your comments and your tips. And the PowerPoint karaoke got some good responses. There was a great question that I want to ask for, Megan. It said, I'm sure you had a lot of topics you could have covered given your life experiences. How or why did you choose this topic?

This is, again, this is something that was important to me. And when I left my full time training job in the academy, I was there for six years doing nothing but teaching. We had a bunch of teaching training, presentation training, but it really wasn't that good. And it was actually some of my fellow instructors who said, would you put together a course or something and come back and teach it and teach us how to actually teach? And I thought, okay, that's quite the endorsement. Obviously I'm doing something right and some of the things I know I'm doing right and other things I'm probably doing right and I don't even realize. So, yeah. And it really, it kind of sent my life on this journey where about a decade ago I started taking a deep dive into what makes a good presentation. And I was able to put together a workshop. I was actually able to go back and deliver that. And that's just been enhanced and enhanced. And then I had a good friend who's a, who's an author who said, you got to put this into a book. So that's what I did. And this book is really for. It's the book and it's the workshop that I wish I had. And I'm sorry, I'm probably off into the rhubarb here, Julie, and not really answering your question, but.

Sorry. I just had a flashback to my grandma's garden in Medicine Hat, Alberta that had rhubarb in it. Anyways, you don't hear rhubarb very often. That was awesome. Okay. That's okay. I do want to talk if it's okay. I didn't ask your permission about this in advance, but I'd love to talk about the, the evolution of your title subtitle and your cover design because you're. I mean, the reason I bring it up is because it's one of my favorites. I show it off. I always make sure when I'm at conferences I've got a couple of copies of your book and they're sitting here and here because I find that there's a handful of our, I mean, our book covers. Not to brag, but I think they're extraordinary. I love our book covers and they. People gravitate to them. But yours I find is incredibly eye catching. I'm going to bring up your website because it will show it. But yeah, if anything you want to say, because I didn't ask your permission in advance to talk about this process.

No, not at all. I think it's really important and I like that there's no assumptions made by your team that we're going to necessarily keep anything. And so I came with the, with the term kick ass presentations that I'd been using for a while. That alone I thought was, was sort of a little disruptive, a little attention grabbing. And then for the subtitle, I forget what I even had as my sort of working subtitle for a while. And what I didn't realize was all of the work that goes into identifying the keywords that are in this book so that this is going to be searchable and it's going to come up on Amazon, it's going to be part of search algorithms and stuff. So it's not just about having a subtitle that, you know, sounds good to you. And there was a lot of back and forth with your team and massaging what the title should be and stuff. And even, you know, should we call it wow audiences with PowerPoint or wow audiences with slides? Because we don't want to speak directly to, you know, one type of software, even though that's the most prolific one. And just that kind of stuff we came up with. Let's just take PowerPoint and slides that way we're covering both of those things. And really it's, I'm just, I'm so pleased with how the title selection process went. And then even the COVID you know, I said I want something colorful, I really like blue and I would like something to stand out. And other than that, I didn't have a whole lot of, you know, stuff that I really wanted. I liked the idea of like light or smoke or something with lots of color in it. And this is, this was one of the iterations that they came back with and that was such a fun process to go through and for me to go to sort of my people on my end of things who have been helping me with my book all the way along to go, what do you guys think? One, two or three and why and stuff and go back and forth and you know, even though I, I was feeling impatient and you just want that cover done, I was so glad that it, with how it turned out and I'm so glad that it's one that you even get to use as as a positive example.

That's awesome. Thank you. So if anybody has questions for Dan now or later, you're welcome to post them, and I will. Oh, and there's one question, and then I'm going to turn. Oh, and thank you, Virgie. Virgie said book launchers covers are the best. Thank you, Cassie. Cassie is our genius designer behind the scenes who is either working on all the covers or all the covers go through her before anybody sees them, if somebody else works on them. So, yeah, we're very grateful to Cassie and all her work. The question for Dan was, what are your tips for authentically connecting. Connecting with influencers? And then we're going to go to Becca next, just so she's ready.

Wow. I don't even know if I'm better at it than anybody else. I think just having something personal with them. So instead of just the boilerplate email of, hey, I'm writing this book. I'd really love your testimonial, et cetera. Put some stuff in there. The people that I was getting a hold of, I was legitimately a fan of. So I would say, hey, I've been listening to your podcast. Really loved when you had this guest on. I've been, you know, I subscribed to your newsletter. I've read your books, and kind of a bit of how that has affected you is going to go a lot farther than just kind of the generic email of, hey, I think you're awesome. I'd love a testimonial. And that's probably what worked the best for me.

Yeah, I mean, that goes back to kind of what Carol was saying. You know, she. She was saying she was an authentic fan. And, you know, it wasn't just like, everything you do is great. You know, she was almost critical. But that authenticity went a tremendously far way in building a relationship with the influencers that she's now, you know, she now calls friends and colleagues. So, yeah, that's awesome. Thank you very much. And thank you so much, Dan. I'm so thrilled to have you here. Thanks for being here.

All right, Becca, I'm here.

Switch the spotlight to you. This time. I'm getting the hang of it. I'm getting the hang of it. Here we go. All right, so my first question is the same. So now you've seen. Now you know, everybody else knows what's coming. Dan got hit with it. So what would you say is kind of the biggest lesson or the thing that you think is the most important thing to share with anybody else here?

Working on Books start marketing now. And I say that because it really helps you clarify your message, right? Like if, if you have your book in concept and it's not like you have to start marketing your book now, but start marketing your concept. Like there's been a lot of talk on here about disruption. And you know, when you start putting yourself out on social media, when you start podcasting, when you start showing up with your message to the public, you find out how, how you are disruptive or you find out what parts of your message are resonating with listeners, readers, stuff like that. So I definitely, when I wrote harness your inner CEO and another awesome cover right here, but when I wrote harness your inner CEO, I was very engaged in the process of writing it and getting it to the quality that I wanted. And book launchers was amazing from start to to finish. But what I didn't realize is how much marketing went into making it a bestseller. Like I hit number one, I've hit number one in personal success in business. These are Amazon number ones. But I've hit Amazon number one in personal success in business, Amazon number one in women and business, both in ebook and on regular book. And it really comes down. I know this is a longer answer, but I saw like authenticity too, like finding my authentic voice. And the more I was able to find my authentic voice, the better I was able to promote and show up with my book. And that was like one of the biggest lessons. Being a first time author. I really thought I had to have everything completed before I could start talking about it. And so now I'm working with book launchers and I'm going into book number two and I'm already, I already have a little ebook that I that's like eight pages long. That's a mirror title. Like it's an offshoot title of where I'm going with my second book. But I'm already starting to talk about that bad boy now and I'm trying to see how it lands with people so I can refine my messaging longer answer. But that, that whole part was like, wow, that's fantastic.

And I mean one of the things that you have done really well is audiobook sales. And I don't know if you've done anything in particular. This is me asking a question, not knowing where it's going to go. But you've sold a lot of audiobooks, so do you have any tips or thoughts on maybe why you've done so well in the audio space?

I do and it's a couple things. So one, my audience Typically is like one of my, the areas I talk about is work, life, success, right? So a lot of my people are working professionals and I know that they're heavy. Like if you think of their Persona, they're like high achieving, business driven people and so they're really busy. So an audiobook was really important to me because I knew my audience. And also as far as the actual sales go, I use LinkedIn. Yeah, I did my own narration which was a lot of fun. But I know my audience is on LinkedIn, so I do a lot of. I share, I actually use a company to break down the audiobook into sound bites and I use those sound bites on LinkedIn and then I have a link to my book. So a lot of, I have a lot of just organic marketing that I do. And then similar to Carol, what I've. I'm really big into presentations. Like I make majority of my money since post book, post release on speaking engagements. And a lot of my speaking engagements are corporate and I have a little bit different of a style. I have a PDF, the raw PDF. So like if I'm working a group of like 200 people or 100 people or 50, I'll set them up a portal 30 days in advance before I deliver that has a free copy of the PDF. It has a free copy of the self assessment. And what I found is like no one wants to read a 200, 300 page PDF, right? But the fact that they're getting the data on the front side, then on the post side of delivery of the keynote or workshop, if I'm in person, I'll have books there which contributes to books, you know, the bulk orders like Carol was sharing. But for me, I've done so much virtual that I'm able to direct them straight to like Amazon basically is what I do. And they have a tendency to purchase more audiobooks than paper because of their, you know, their Persona.

That's fantastic. I didn't even realize you were doing that with your audiobook. Breaking it down. So that's a really great tip. And now Odile and I'm sure everybody is wondering what company you're using to do the breakdown.

Yeah, I gave it to. So I'm using a podcast editing service and I can give it to you for like follow up notes if you, if you want. But basically I think any, any editing company that can break down podcasts into little sound bites can probably do that. But what I did was I asked Greg. So you know, you work with, if you do an audiobook, you'll go to a recording studio or they provide tips on how to do at home. But I went to a recording studio for the actual production and then they have you get a production manager, Greg. He's fantastic and he's been on. You probably have met Greg on other book launcher events. But I worked with Greg and we got it down into chapter bits and I asked for those raw files and I sent them over to my podcast production team and they, I said, can you listen to these? And I want, and I wanted someone else to listen. I'm blind to my own stuff. Like I sometimes am. Like, I don't know what's valuable. And it's so funny because I wrote the book, but I'm like, I don't know, like, which, which part should I pull out? So I paid someone else to listen to it and I said, hey, can you pull out two 2 minute clips per chapter? And they did that. And, and so now, like, if you follow me on social media, I'm about ready to. I'm starting a new run of them that haven't been released before. And so I have a run of 15 that are every Monday, I'll be sharing a new one. So next 15 weeks of content will be audio.

Fantastic. Well, make sure you drop your social links in the chat because I'm sure there are folks here who are going to want to follow along. That's great. And I have two other questions for you, but I'll go back to the, the question I asked Dan too, which is kind of what's been the best thing that's happened or the biggest surprise since your book came out?

The biggest surprise is how, how much it's resonating with people, I think. You know, I like to share. Like, yes, I've gotten booked. Like, I had someone reach out to me. I'm keynoting for a summit. So my keynote fees are ranging anywhere from 5,000 to $8,000 right now, which is really important to know because as you invest in this process, it's an investment. And you might think, man, if I only sell 500 books, which maybe if I sell 5,000, whatever that number is, you're like, am I going to make my money back? For me, I've made it tenfold because I'm speaking and I'm putting myself out there and building my business that way. But what I think has been the most awesome for me is changing lives. I mean, that's why I went vulnerable. That's why I shared my story. And I got a message on LinkedIn about probably about six weeks ago now. But a woman who read my book was getting poorly treated at work and felt stuck, like she wouldn't be able to move forward. And she read my book, she came back in contact with her worth and her value, and she said, hey, I just quit my. I was interviewing, I just got a job offer, I almost doubled my income and I just told my old boss to go F himself. Like, not so. That's what she said to me. But she's like, I didn't really do that in real life. But like, I quit my job and I got a new one making almost double. And like, it made me cry because I was like, okay, yes, I'm having all this fiscal success and I'm getting the speaking opportunities and it's. I love self expression. So it's the lifestyle and second career that I want to have, but it's changing lives.

I love that story. Thank you for sharing.

That's fantastic.

Yeah, I mean, part of. Somebody asked me the other day, like, my why behind book launchers? And I was like, there's two whys. Like, there's. For me, there's the why of helping everybody have impact and create these books. So you actually made me a little teary, but also like it for me, it's also the other side of that is the why is I wanted to create a company that people actually want to work at this company. And it was awesome because the other day in one of our meetings, I was telling Sarah that she had to take a day off because we're going to the American Library association and there's going to. We're going to work over the weekend. And I was like, you need to take a day off. Tell me which day you're taking. She's like, oh. I'm like, yes, I've created a company where people are frustrated when I make them take time off. That's so awesome though. So I love it. So, yeah, that was very meaningful to me. Okay, the last question I want to ask you is, and I'll preface this with saying, also, I haven't prepared you necessarily for this, but you, with this new book, you have started a different process.

Do you.

Are you comfortable talking about the proposal process?

I saw that in the notes. I was like, okay. She asked me about that.

Yes. Okay, cool.

So this interesting thing happened. So I. One of my writing coaches is. Her name's Nancy Levin. She is a hay house author and coach and all that stuff. But she had said to me, hey, if you come to the writing conference, there's an opportunity to submit a book proposal. It's a contest, but there's an opportunity to submit a book proposal for your next book. Like, maybe Hay House will pick you up. Maybe you could win. She's like, you have a book out, it's doing good in sales, and you have a good message, so let's. Let's just see. And I was like, well, I'm going to write it anyway. So then I reached out to Julie and I was like, this might sound a little odd, but it's still editing and book process nonetheless. I was like, would you guys help me write a book proposal? Like, I have the general framework, but I need it to be edited. I want it to be professional. I've never written one before. And Julie's answer was like, yeah, we'll help you with whatever you need. And I was just like, this is why I love Book launchers too. It's like they and Julie, just to compliment you and your team, I feel like they're my team. Like, I feel like they're my team. And I have an operations manager, Linnae, and like, we reach out to Nicole. Like, we're all one team. We laugh together. We have a great time. So I wasn't surprised to hear Julie say yes, but I was just like, of course she said yes. This is so great. And so then I got partnered with Dan, with somebody inside Book Launchers to work my proposal. And it came out absolutely stunning. It's beautiful. It's submitted. I won't know if I won the contest, but. And I don't even know if I want to get a publisher. Like Carol mentioned, Wiley. I had a soft offer offer for Wiley because now I have a book proposal, right? So now I can focus on getting a traditional publisher if I want. But they wanted so much, so much of my rights and so much of my royalties that I might not even go that route. But now that I've done a professional book proposal with Book Launchers, I'm much more clearer on all the actions that I need to take. So if I decide to stay self published, because that's the best choice for me right now, I feel like I'm going to have a really, really, really, really successful launch. So, Julie, I don't know if you want to ask me any more questions, but that's where my brain went with that one.

Oh, that's great. If anybody has any further questions on that, I'm open to it, but it isn't a formal service that we do, but Dan has done. Has done a lot of book proposals. He's worked for other companies that. That was the service they sold. So he's done them. And he's also got a book out himself now that he went through the whole book proposal service or book proposal process with to get his own book deal. So. So it was just something I was just like. I knew that he would be a great fit to help you, so I'm glad it worked out.

Yes. And I can show, like, I don't have to go into the detail of showing it, but I can just do a quick flip.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. That'd be awesome.

I'm sure people would see.

Yeah, you guys like to see it? Anybody want to see it? I don't want to bring people.

Dan's nodding. So we got. We got one.

We got one.

Oh, yeah. Other people are nodding.

Okay. Yes.

Yes.

So I made this image in Canva, but my next book is Break up with Burnout. It could end up in a completely different color scheme. I have no idea. I just needed an image. But. And then again, subtitle might change because we go through all the exercises, but this is where it's at now. But I thought that at least for a book proposal, like, they'll remember the match with the burnt head. It's like, it's a little morbid, but hey, it gets a point across. But, like, look how pretty this is. It's absolutely gorgeous. That's my cover letter. But the overview, I mean, it was like writing a book. Like, it has all the margins. You know, the opening about the author. We threw in images and survey data. And, you know, now this is getting in. I'm going to keep flying through. But you talk about your platform, you'll go through this if you write your own book. But I had to get really in front of it if you're trying to get traditionally published. And so most of my bulk orders. Bulk orders and money come from my speaking engagements because I'm highly networked in corporations. So we put that first because my social media is probably, like, the smallest. I'm at like 2500 and I podcast a lot. So it was just really cool. I've written some articles. Book Launchers has helped me get a few. Some media coverage too. But in all, again, I'm just kind of going through this. We arrange things in the orders that. That promote me the best. And then we go into, like, this is. I'll be working. Whether I get traditionally published or not. I will be remaining a book launcher's customer, and I will be Doing the all the post production with book launchers. So this is some of the plan and then we get into the actual book. So I had to write the outline, which you're familiar with if you've been through the process, sample chapters, all that stuff. But all in all, that's what the end product ended up looking like.

Awesome. Thank you for sharing and being so transparent. I really, really appreciate it and I'm sure everyone here appreciates it as well. Megan says it sounds like you already had an established business. What contributed to your choices to select book launchers to work with?

Oh, good question, good question. Because I actually didn't have an established business. I established everything in flight. I built the plane and move in movement. So that's why I was saying like if I in hindsight, like what did I learn? I learned that I should have been a little bit more in front of some of that stuff. But yeah, no, I work, I still work full time too. So I worked full time and just kind of. I let them lead me, I think is if you are in the process, our process, Julie.

Oh, thank you.

I let them be the experts. I have a business background. You know, I've been in business sales for 20 years, but I've never been in book production and I've never done book sales. And I think the one thing that I can say is what made me successful is I listened to and I didn't have a big ego in it. There are some things that I was like, no, I need to stay true to this. But Julie, as you know from the team, I mean, I was like, whatever you guys say, I'll do.

That's awesome. Thank you. And there is a correlation. I mean, there is a correlation to people who come in and they stay true to who they are because we make suggestions. Right. And ultimately our authors are the CEO of the book, which you did a brilliant job of being the CEO of your book and kind of making those final decisions because we're not in it with you like every day, but at the same time we're going to give you ideas. And so some of those ideas are going to fit and some aren't. But the authors who fight us, they often find themselves struggling at the end. But the authors that are like, okay, yeah, no, there's something here. Let's work with this. And they kind of, kind of like Dan said, like we went back and forth on subtitles. It wasn't like we handed them five subtitles and said, one of these subtitles is your final subtitle. It was like, hey, here's the five subtitles that we think are the best out of what we came up with. How does this feel? And it is a collaboration and a team and I just love how you explained it because that's where I see the people having the biggest success is when they collaborate and we're part of the team. And so that's awesome. Thank you so much. All right, so, ok, one more question and then we're going to turn it over to Odile. So did you come with a word document book already like Dan Fraser?

I did, yes, I did.

Awesome. Yeah. So you went into content editing, right?

Yeah.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. All right, so Odile, if you guys have questions for anyone, I think Carol had to leave. But if you have questions for Dan, Becca or Odile, as we're going through, you are welcome to ask them and I will bring it back to them after we hear from Odile. So let me bring the spotlight over to you and thank you, Becca. I really, really appreciate all that you shared. All right, Odile, now you know the surprise question. So what is kind of the big thing you want authors to know? The big lesson, however you want to word it. Your best tip. I'll turn that over to you for that one.

Yes, of course. It's been wonderful listening to the others, by the way. I've learned so much. So I think the biggest thing for us was the just how much is involved. So I had self published a couple of other books before, but I had literally just, you know, what's, what takes so long. You just write it and self publish it on Amazon. And so when we, you know, with this one, we did want to do it more professionally and I was just going to hire a professional editor and that's all because I thought, well, that's all we need. And then of course, when I found Book Launches, it was. So our book is a completely different level to what it would have been. There is so much more in it. And the benefit of that is that the reader is getting so much more. So it's not just, oh, it's, you know, it's a better book. It's that the information that's crucial for people to really get the best out of the information in it is just so much more and so much more accessible to people as well. So we worked. When we arrived at book launches, we had a manuscript, but we opted to work with the coach as well first before it went to editing. So our coach was Dan. He was, I think it was Dan. I think I Can't remember now. But anyway, whoever it was, he was amazing. He was. You know, again, it was a different book already from that process. And then of course through the editing and that. So it's worth taking the time.

Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much. A lot of people, I think, are surprised. I get this a lot actually. It's a conversation I have often because they're like, okay, my book is written so. And it'll be June and they'll go, okay, I want to launch it in September. And I'll just smile and I'll say, okay, now I break it down. Okay, editing alone is going to take two to three months, you know, and you start to break it down. But a lot of people think the way that you thought is that it's written right? Like it's written. So we're good. Like just needs a cover and a little polish and we're good to go. So it is a bigger process when you want to bring it to the best possible level. Like that's kind of the distinguish. You can publish a book quite fast. But if you are trying to create that high impact book that's set up for marketing success, there's more to it. So I already alluded to the fact that my team has said that your audio narration was really exquisite. So I'd love to kind of just stop here and talk a little bit about like the whole process and you know, what did you do? How did it go for you? Because I know a lot of people are curious about audiobooks. And also, side note, audiobooks in the last two years have had a real shift in the marketplace, especially in the business book category. But in the whole marketplace, we've been watching all of our authors. Previously I would have said about 20%. If you've got an audiobook, about 20% of your sales will be in audio. For some of our authors, we're now seeing 50% of their book sales in audio. And then it'll be print like 30, 35% and the rest in ebook, which is often the reverse of what people think. So I just wanted to emphasize that and say why I want to talk about audiobook a little bit. Because it has become a really important. I've always been a fan, but it's become a really important piece for a lot of authors now.

Yes, indeed. Well, we. Yeah. So first of all, I listen to. Steve and I both listen to a lot of audiobooks ourselves, self development audiobooks while working out or walking or doing other things. So we already had kind of ideas from other Authors and the way they read from a narrating point of view. The, the main tips that I have are reading the book out loud in full at least once before you record. So, you know, because there's a lot that sounds fantastic in your head and when you come to actually say it, you know, it's tricky. And then also as you're reading, reading to one person. So thinking from the listener's point of view and that will bring more warmth and talking kind of style rather than reading. So having in mind what this person's going to get from the book and how they're going to feel. So, you know, constantly trying to think from their point of view, how's it going to be listening to this book? And another thing is that you can hear a smile. So you know, smiling, obviously, unless you're talking about something serious, but you know, that needs a serious thing. But for the most part, smiling really does come across in warmth and planning for plenty of time. Like give yourself much more time than you think you need so that you're not rushed. And it tends to take longer than we expect. I was an actress, a professional actress before and I'd done radio and dubbing and that kind of thing. So I know that being in a studio it can take a lot longer than you expect. So we were prepared for that. Then plenty of sleep, lots of water and finding the fun in it because that's going to make a difference as well, because it can be tedious. But taking plenty of breaks and deliberately choosing to make it fun helps a lot as well. And finally working with the Book Launchers producer, we also worked with Greg, so same as Becca and he is just amazing. I was so grateful that we did that because as we went through. So we went to a studio as well and recorded it and the technician sent the files to Greg. And every day I was saying to Steve, I am so glad we did it with him because he was really amazing. He went above and beyond and we are so thrilled with the results.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And I mean, I've done it at home and in a studio. Dan, you did an audiobook too, didn't you?

Yeah, I sure did.

Did you do it in the studio?

I worked with?

Great.

Okay. No, well, my fancy studio, that was a walk in closet with blankets hanging down and stuff. So yeah, I was actually thinking I'm going to be in a studio like, you know, like they're recording for Pixar or something. And no, I'm sitting on a folding chair in a closet. But it actually turned out to be very handy because with COVID protocols and all this kind of stuff, it was just super easy to just do a couple hours and then step out and do something else and go back. And then when those, you know, when Greg comes back with these little pickups that. Oh, you just need to just. You flub this word or you mispronounce this. I didn't need to go back to a studio. I could just literally sit down at home, redo it and have it back to him right away, which was great.

Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you. And I've done it both ways. I've done it at home and I've done it in a studio. I prefer the studio because I found exact kind of just taking on what you just said, having the engineer sitting in the studio, he was the person I was entertaining or speaking to versus when I was at home alone. I got flat more because I was just trying to get it done. And I found having a human there a little bit easier. It was also faster doing it myself was. Was slower, but the convenience, like, you really can't beat the convenience of it. And I was able to do two or three sets, two or three hour sessions at home versus when I was in the studio. I went six hour. I think I did a seven hour, a seven hour and a four hour or something like that. It was something gross like, I don't recommend you do that. It was. It was unpleasant, but. But I did love the studio experience. So. Yeah. See if anybody had any questions. How do we enlist Greg's services? Well, Greg isn't exclusive to Book Launchers, but he does primarily work with Book Launchers. We send him enough of our fabulous clients that he's pretty darn busy. He is our audiobook. He goes through initially. And tell me if he did this with you. He might not have Odile, but does he go through and kind of make voice, like have you record something and then give you feedback after?

Yes, he did. Yes. So Steve and I each read a section and sent it to him and he gave us notes on feedback and notes and that. Which was fantastic.

Wonderful.

Thank you. And so I just forgotten the other question. Oh, yes. So where did I.

Social media.

Yes, thank you, please. I'm looking at my notes going, it's not there, but I know I had something. Something else. Thank you.

So I've got sort of three sections, two tips in each, one on a practical level. So practical tools that I use that make it. Excuse me. So much easier because I never used to Be consistent. And now I'm very consistent and it's made all the difference. So the first thing I use is a thing called Post Planner. There's lots of different options for that I just happen to use. It's postplanner.com if anyone wants it. But it's a shop scheduling system. So I what I do is on a Monday morning, I schedule all my posts for the week so that it's all done in one go, which means I'm in the right mindset at the time and I'm not constantly sort of trying to think of things just to do. So I. And Post Planner enables you to sort of create one post and put it out to all of the platforms with kind of in one go, but you can just separately as well. So I create one post and then I go sort of click on Instagram, for example, and add the tags for Instagram alone, that kind of thing. So it makes it much quicker. And the second thing is canva, which I think a lot of people are using. But what I do with Canva is. So I'll copy some text which comes from either something we already teach or a quote that I've already created, or excerpts from our book. And I copy that, paste it into Canva. So in Canva, I type in the templates, I type quote or quotes, and it seems to bring up slightly different results for singular and plural. So you can try both. And then I just scroll through there, look for something that looks appropriate and that the text would fit into easily select that, paste the text, and then if the photograph needs changing, change that. And it's so much quicker and easier than trying to design it from scratch. You know, you just plug it in, download that, and upload it into Post Planner. So doing all of that on a Monday morning for me works great because I don't work on the weekends and just schedule it for the week. The second sort of section of tips is for topics. So one of the challenges that a lot of people have is what to say or what to write about, especially after you've been doing it for a. A while. So some two ideas. The first is to make a note of any questions you get from anyone ever, so that you know to do with your. With your area and then turn those into posts. Either you can use the question and the answer or just use the answer. And the second one is Quora Q U O R A For anyone who doesn't know it already, it's a question website. If you go to CORA and look for search for questions in your field and you'll find things that people are already asking and then make those, you can answer those questions on Quora and make them into posts as well. And sometimes you can get several posts out of one person, out of your answer to one person's question. And then the third piece is, and this, I would say these are the key foundational pieces to all of that that determine whether those things work. And that's the mindset and the V. First of all, doing whatever it takes to get into a feel good state first before you sit down and do any social media. And the main reason for that is that whenever we're feeling any negative emotions, if you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed or rushed or worried or uncomfortable or self conscious, all negative emotions, the stress chemicals that cause those negative emotions also cause the blood to drain from the prefrontal cortex of the brain to the back the of of the brain. And that's where we do our cognitive thinking. So when you sit down to do, well, anything really. But in this case social media, not feeling good, you don't have that part of your brain, you don't have your cognitive thinking, your creative thinking, your communication, all of that is not online literally. So doing what it takes to feel good. So that means just, you know, listening to it doesn't take long. So listening to some music that you love, thinking of five things to be grateful for, doing a walk, listening to an uplifting audiobook, watching some of Julie's videos on YouTube because those always make you feel good. So doing it, you know, anything that that just changes shifts your emotional state. And then sit down to do it, you're going to be quicker and more effective and it's going to affect how your, your voice that you're using. And then the second thing, like with the narration speaking to just one person. And so before you start creating your posts, thinking about one person out there, just one, who needs to hear what you have to say. So what do they need to hear from you? What can you share? And very importantly, imagine how they'll feel when they see it. And that is key. So thinking from that point, person's point of view, imagining how is this going to affect how they feel when they see it or hear it or watch it, is going to make a difference again to what you post, how you post it and everything else. So I hope that's helpful.

That's great. You know, I don't think I've actually heard that tip in all of the social media tips I've ever heard. I don't think I've ever heard anybody ever say get in a good mood before you get ready to post on social media. I love that.

It's a huge difference. Yes, indeed.

It's kind of, you know, I do before I shoot the videos I always, I always do silly things and that's, you know, the. And then I kind of shut down. Angela's was laughing because she had to watch. I did a big course for the entrepreneur organization and she was watching the green screen stuff to help me create a workbook and she said it was the funniest thing because it's like I joke around and then it's like I kind of shut down and then I wait until the. Wait until it's time to go and then I like turn on. Right. But it's like energetically I'm conserving my energy so I get, I get in the right mood and then I'm like just waiting, conserving my energy and then I. It's like the lights comes on and she was laughing. She goes, I had no idea that's what behind the scenes look like. But I kind of unconsciously do what you're saying.

Exactly. Yeah. And it shows, I mean not the shutting down, but I mean, you know, the good mood. It absolutely shows. It comes across. It's so uplifting and wonderful to watch. It doesn't even matter what the topic is really just feel good watching you.

Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. Okay, last, last thing for you is kind of the biggest surprise or what's kind of the coolest thing that's happened since you came in offer. Well, I'm not there for another time.

Yes. So so far I think the, the best thing about having this book out is the feedback. We've had amazing feedback. So we've got some wonderful visuals, reviews out which is lovely but also the private feedback. So from people who are shy or you know, haven't got round to doing a review, just the amazing insight that has come across that we hadn't been able to do any other way other than in a deep dive book. And so there's that and this and second thing is that we, our reason for doing the book is to reach more people to get, to get this information out to more people which is happening. Including we got our first few, I think three or four one to one clients who found us directly. There's a spider coming down from the ceiling. Sorry. Who found us directly from the book. So one guy contacted us to book one to one sessions because he had listened to the audiobook and then bought the print version. And so a couple of those. And then finally the other very exciting thing is. And again, this came. It's because of the book, but it also came from book launches because you guys contacted us about an expo that's coming up next year in New Jersey, which we hadn't thought of doing an expo before. And now that we've got a book that makes sense. So we then started looking into further. So we're doing. We're going over to the UK in September, October. We booked ourselves into two expos there, one in Oxford, one in London, a huge one in London. So it's a little bit daunting, but very exciting as well. And we're going to do. We went to one in Chicago just a couple of weekends ago to see what it was like. And so it's a mind, body. These are mind, body, spirit expos. And so they have like psychics and card readers and that as well, doing their bit at the show. And we realized I can actually take people through 15 minutes, 20 minutes of changing negative childhood memories. Finding, you know, addressing one issue and getting a result in the room at the moment, at the time. And I'll also be speaking at these events. So anyway, there's a lot. So it's very. But we wouldn't have done any of that without a book.

That's. I didn't even know that. That's fantastic. I love that. I'm so excited.

Me too.

Oh, that's wonderful. Oh, and they're asking for a reminder of the title of your books.

Oh, thank you. It's called the. The one we've done with book launches. The most recent one, which is the best one, is Change what happened to you. And then the subtitle is how to use neuroscience to get the life you want by changing your negative childhood memories. Oh, there it is.

Because we have to see the COVID again.

And we love the COVID so much. I can't stop looking at it even now. And we've had a lot of compliments on the COVID as well.

It is beautiful. I think it's also on. And Becca's is on my banner as well, that I have. Can't see the whole. I was just looking at an excerpt of the banner. There's. Becca's is on part. Oh, you guys can't see it with this blur. I have the blur. So you don't see my messy house behind me.

But.

But yeah, Becca's is on there and I think your guys is on. On the banner that you can't see on the postcard version of my banner. But yeah, I love it. Thank you so much. All right, so folks, if you have questions, go ahead and post them. And also right now I'm going to turn it over to you because it's time for prize and I want to know what your biggest tip or take away the best thing that you've taken from the author so far today. So please go ahead and share it. And I don't have Angela here, so I will be randomly picking people because usually she goes through and picks, like, the most profound ones. And while we're waiting, it looks like. How did you select the topic for your book, Odile? From Megan.

Oh, great. Megan. The topic. Well, the topic is basically what we do. So we already have, have been running a business, helping people to do this work. And so Steve had been saying for ages, we need a book, we need a book, we need a book. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get to it, but let's do all of this other stuff first. And eventually I listened to him and I'm so glad I did. So we, we actually went away for a weekend to come up with kind of the schedule. So this is before we found book launches, come up with a, you know, the sort of structure of the book and the ideas and the chapters and all of that. And on our, I happened to find, I was doing a little bit of research and I found that Oprah Winfrey had just released a book called what Happened to you? Which is on the same topic as us, the foundation of it. In other words, the effects of childhood trauma on the adult. But we had the next stage, which is changing that. So that's what gave us our title change. What happened to you?

Fabulous. Thank you. And we have some great. We have people like just one. You can give us more than one. Mary Lynn all right, so Fifth said, offer up the audiobook for bulk buys. And then Susanna said information on doing podcasts. Michael said, it's about the audience, not about me. Quora.com was the source of subjects for blog posts. I also have recommended Quora as a way to get to know your reader. If you don't have in depth knowledge of who your reader is, because again, I'm always advocating for people to go deeper than, you know. My, my reader is women between the ages of 30 and 50. I'm always like, okay, let's find the problem that you need to solve. Let's get to know them a little bit more. What's Got them awake at night, you know, those kind of things. And Quora actually is a great source for seeing what people are thinking about. The authors reiterated that it's important to trust the process. Yes, absolutely. Thanks, Victoria. Rachel said you can hear a smile and she's getting ready to record, so. And using a service to schedule posts. Efren said being disruptive resonates and it's okay. That'll be important for you, Efren, with your book, Robette. Hopefully I'm saying that right. How you need to watch your mood before you record for audio. Change your emotions. You can hear a smile. So many good tips if you don't have all the answers. Oh, not to be defensive. If you don't have all the answers before contacting Book Launchers. Another one for Cora. Great tips. Thanks to all the authors. Oh, Jill, I didn't know you were here. Great to have you here. The best tip for me was to use the post planner to organize the social media posts.

Let's see.

Jalene said the best tip was to get in a good mood. We got that. Oh, that's so good, Quora. Another one for Quora. The information on bulk buys. Oh, you guys, this is awesome. So many great tips. All right, so I'm just going to go back up. Fitz was the first tip to come in. So, Fitz, you're my first prize winner because I have to go random here without Angela. And then I'm going to go the fifth one after that. So let's see. One. So one, two. Hold on. One, two, three. Brenda would be three. Victoria's four. And Rachel, you're five. So what you guys need to do is email team at Book Launchers, which is is how you will get to Angela and let them know your mailing address and your prizes today. If you would like any of the books that have been talked about today, we will be giving those away. So to remind you they are. Actually, can you guys do me a favor and type in the title of your book? So. And I'll type in Carol's because I know she's not here anymore. Indirect work from Carol. All right, so anybody else have any other questions for these authors? Any questions in general about the process? Because they can probably answer and I can always supplement if necessary. I mean, this was fantastic. I learned a lot from you guys today, which was really fun. I really, really appreciate it. And while I'm waiting, I think, Dan, I'll go back to you if it's okay. So inside of your book, what is kind of the number One lesson that you think or your favorite lesson that you want people to take away from your book. No pressure. I like throwing it on the spot.

Yeah, yeah, no pressure. Number one, master your content, know what you're talking about, so that you know it better than anybody else in the audience. So that when you get up there, you don't need to be thinking about, what am I going to say next? Oh, my God, what's on the next slide? Because when you do that now you. You're taking up so much of your mind. You can't think about eye contact and body language and what am I doing with my hands and all these other. All these other things. So that's, that's my. That's probably my biggest one is master your content.

Sorry, hold on. That's awesome. Thanks. Anne and Becca, same question over to you.

All right, can you repeat the question so it goes right into my brain?

Your favorite tip or the biggest tip or the most important takeaway you want people to take from your book?

Kind of building off Dan, I think that, that it's. Well, for my book specific, it's that you can be both a working professional and a good mom or a good parent. Like, there's this space where success and happiness can coexist. And that's the biggest tip from my book. But it took me to. I wanted to feed off what Dan said is it took me a while to get very clear on that through line and then once I did, it became a lot easier to talk about it.

That's fantastic. Thank you. And Odile, same question. Do you want me to repeat it? Are you good?

Oh, I think I've got it. Thank you. And so for me, it is. Just because you haven't done something yet or you haven't been able to do something yet, doesn't mean you never will. So there's always a way. And you know, from what we teach the things. In order to get to your goal, there's three pieces. If you think of your goal as a destination. Number one is learning to drive your vehicle, which is learning to control your brain and body chemistry, which controls your emotions and your ability to keep your cognitive thinking online. Second piece is changing the GPS coordinates to match that destination as opposed to where you've been before, which is changing the implicit negative childhood memories. And the third one is staying on the road, which is being able to keep driving through those storms instead of pulling over, getting out of the car and buying into the storm as an end destination.

That's great. Thank you. And EFREN I saw your question and I'm going to bring up Carol's website. It might be defined a little bit further. Efrain was asking, what is an essence, its reveal. And if you go. And this is a good page for people to check out anyways because it shows how she sells in bulk. So you can go down below down here. If you click on her book, indirect. Oh, that took me there. Hold on. She has a bulk chart here somewhere. Maybe if I go here. There we go. This is how she breaks down all of the options. And like she said, she basically drives people to buy in bulk. And it says Essence Reveal here, but it doesn't define it. It's a mystery. I'm not actually 100% sure what the Essence reveal is. Efren. It's something to do. It's for businesses. I mean, everything she does is for businesses. I suspect it has something to do with the corporate culture, but that's just a guess. So sorry, we didn't ask that when she was here. Anybody else? Questions? Let's see. Oh, Arun, if you would like to post a link to your book in the chat, you are more than welcome to go ahead and post a link to your book. I know it's a very important subject that and I'm glad to see it's doing so well. So thanks for being here and you're welcome to post a link so people can check it out. And let's see, I don't see any other questions. If you guys, have you seen anything I didn't ask. Oh, how long did it get taken to get the ball rolling on sales? That came from Rachel. So I'll just give you guys each a chance to speak to that. So Dan.

Or there I was just typing.

Did you catch the question?

Yeah, it was about how long did it take sales to get going? Yeah, it's pretty early for me. Like I'm less than three months since it's been published. So the biggest push was priority. It was a pre launch kind of thing to be able to get those in. Yeah. And then post launch it's kind of a flywheel. Like it's really, you know, it's continuously driving all of the marketing type stuff and yeah, it needs to be done because you can't just put a book on to Amazon and expect that people are just going to find it and, and just start buying it. So I just started about a month ago I started the word. It just fell out of my head. But the Amazon, where people can click on your Amazon, you pay per Click type of thing. Amazon ads. Amazon ads. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I started that. So I'm looking forward to seeing how that. How that goes. But, yeah, you know, initially, it's a lot of just. It's a lot of contacting people and going, hey, I've got a book coming out. I'd really love your support.

Yeah, thank you.

And it's. I always. I've been equating it these days to. Because a lot of people call it their book baby. And so what I've been telling people is, look, like, if you have a baby and then stop feeding it, it's going to die. And it is the same with your book. So this is how I've been explaining this to people now, because a lot of people think you launch your book, like, confetti comes down from the sky, all the good things happen, and it's like, boom, that's the event and everything is over. And I'm like, no, that is the beginning, my friends. And as long as you want that book to flourish, you need to be talking about it. You need to be using that book as the beautiful tool that it is. And so it is a journey. And I mean, for Dan and for everyone else. One of my favorite examples right now is Robert Bel, who wrote the book Blow the Lid Off. And he just kept doing things, like, every month. He was working with us for quite a while, but also he was getting podcasts on his own, he was finding speaking engagements on his own. And about a year after his book came out, he had listened to the feedback he's gotten, and he kind of had a piece that he kept hearing, was really resonating with people. And he had the opportunity to submit a proposal to TED Global Idea for a TED Talk on the Global Ideas platform. And he got it. And his presentation has now been viewed more than 2 million times on TED's main website, and then, I don't know, a few hundred thousand on Ted's YouTube channel as well. And it's just that it's that process, right? It was never like, boom, hundreds of thousands or even thousands of books selling. It was that journey. It was that sticking with it, doing stuff every day, trying to find new people to talk to about your idea. And I just. I love that because it was such a cool example of somebody who just kept going and kept feeding their baby and their baby grew up. So, yeah, we don't want. We don't want any dead babies. Sorry, I'm killing Becca over there. She's like, you're crazy. Julie. Thanks, Dan. I'll turn it over to you now, Becca.

Oh my God, you are killing me. That was so funny. All right, so for me, when did the sales begin? As soon as launch started, I could say, like when I went into like, I did a 90 day campaign up. And so we just started really gearing everyone up that, hey, we're going to be get ready for presale. And we did start the presale list, but I would say that like two weeks before the actual launch, me and my team went into like high gear and we're like, it's out here we go buy now. And we like, I had created a Facebook group that only had like a couple hundred people in it, but we literally messaged each person, every single person. And. And I launched with my launch day. I had like about 800 sales. And then to Julie's point, and it was my 90 day promotion. So I did Amazon exclusive for Kendall. And on the 90 day, we did a five day free. And we kind of got everyone really excited, like at least on social media, like, oh my gosh, this, this coming. And then I did like three posts a day for those five days and my first round was 3,000 orders. Granted, they were free, but it was like, that's huge. Like, it got me up into number one. And that was 90 days after my initial launch. So that was just some of the stuff that we did. I loved my baby after it was born.

Julie, thank you. And it was funny. As soon as I said it, I'm like, oh my goodness, we have an author. And I looked and I was like, she's even here. Who wrote a book called no Dead Babies. So. So I have to share this. I actually, in all seriousness, everyone should read this book. If you are buying things on Amazon, you should be buying this book and reading this book. And Rachel, I don't. I know you weren't expecting to talk, but do you. Are you able to unmute and share a couple, like just a short blurb about who this book is for and why you wrote it? Because it is powerful, incredible stuff. I would love for everyone to know about it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'm not sure if video will work because I haven't restarted my computer recently.

It's okay, we can hear you. So that's the good news.

Awesome. Awesome.

Yeah.

I worked at Amazon for eight years and five of that was in the product safety department and I have never worked with more dedicated people, people trying to do the right thing in the safety department and haven't worked with People quite as willing to do whatever it takes to hit their bottom line numbers with the retail department that we worked with. And the people that I wrote this for are basically any people who are consuming goods online, primarily Amazon, because that's the marketplace that I know. But if you're buying on Facebook or you're buying on Walmart.com it's the same thing. The way these companies set up their agreements with the sellers who are on the marketplace is that Amazon, Walmart, Facebook, whatever, they're all indemnified by the sellers. So you can't sue them. At least you couldn't sue Amazon until last year. And so there really hasn't been any sort of lawsuit activity around this. So the sellers are able to sell whatever they want. So if you are buying something from Aliexpress and it's literally going to break and kill your child, you can sell it. I've dealt with so many situations where it was either clients or when I was actually at Amazon, where people were skirting the rules, breaking the rules deliberately, maybe on accident. And the people who end up getting hurt are the customers. And so that's the reason why I wrote the book, is to get the word out there. You can't rely on a large corporation whose purpose is to maximize shareholder value to protect your kids. You have to do it.

Awesome. Thank you so much and I'm glad you're here. And yeah, it was kind of funny, inadvertent advertisement. As soon as I said it, I'm like, wait a minute, that's not my phrase. That belongs to one of our book titles and it's just fun that you happen to be here. So thank you so much for sharing because yeah, that is a book we want everyone to read because the stories that you've experienced are startling. Awesome. And now Odile, back to you about the sales question. So how long did it take to get sales going? What are you doing to get momentum?

Well, it took no time at all because again, thanks to bookings, launches, we were well prepared. So we had a lot of, you know, we had a huge influx of orders before we launched. So. And that's something else I wouldn't have done, you know, on my own. So we, we did that. We also, Nicole is fantastic with planning the, you know, the post launch activity. We're also doing like Dan, we're doing the Amazon ads, which I'm very excited about especially and we've had some great results from that already because I can't help sneaking in and having a look. We leave it up to them to do it. But I actually do look every day. And because we've got Oprah's book, which is of course part of our title, what Happened to you? We're coming up. We're targeting that. And yeah, so we're doing that. We've got. I've done a couple of interviews which were wonderful. Podcast interviews which were amazing. And yeah, continuing with the social media. The social media has, is huge because we've got YouTube as well. So we've been, you know, obviously putting links to our books on there as well.

Fabulous. Thank you. I don't think I see any other questions. So I think, I think we might be able to call it a day and let you guys get on with your Saturday. So thank you everybody for being here and thank you. I mean, Carol's gone, but thank you, Carol. And thank you, Odile, Dan and Becca for sharing today. I'm so grateful. And if you guys, I'll email you after. But if you guys are okay, I would love to post this replay this summer so other people can enjoy and share. I got the thumbs up from you guys. Okay, awesome. Thank you. So we'll be sharing it later. So if you guys want to watch again, you can tune in and get the tips. And then I think all of you posted your websites and books, so I do hope everybody checks it out, buys your book, shares, it tells other people and posts reviews. Nobody mentioned reviews, but that's certainly something we could all be talking about too, is asking for reviews. And so if you grab one of these fabulous folks books, please, please, please post a review for them. That is one of the hardest things to get as an author and still yet one of the most important. So, yeah, that would be wonderful. A great gift that you can give them for all showing up and sharing today. So thank you, everybody. Have a fantastic Saturday and we'll. This is our last deep dive until September, but I will be doing a YouTube live. I don't know. I don't know what day it is right now. It's not this Tuesday. It's the one after the 28th. I don't know. So it'll be in the, in the launch letter. I'll make sure you know, but it will be coming up. That will be the last live before we take our summer break as well. All right, thank you, everybody. Make it a great day. Bye.