From Hollywood to Hotel Nightstands: Jane Ubell-Meyer on Turning Books into Luxury Experiences

Welcome to Media Minds with your host David Wolf.

Joining us today is Jane Ubel Myers. She's the visionary founder of Bedside Reading, a company that's revolutionizing book promotion by placing titles in over 40 luxury hotels and creating national visibility for authors. With her background as a TV film producer for the likes of Good Morning America, Entertainment Tonight, and ABC, Jane has also produced award-winning films and led celebrity gifting ventures like Madison and Mulholland. Now splitting time between Connecticut and Palm Springs, Jane Yubel-Meyer continues to connect authors with readers in unique and impactful ways. Jane, welcome.

David, thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here with you today.

Well, it's great to be with you because so many of the folks that are watching, listening, and working with us are authors and/or podcasters, and so your insights are incredibly valuable to them, and, uh, I'm grateful. Um, you You did a lot of work in traditional media over the years. How is the work you did in film and television, how does that inform the work you're now doing for authors?

So what a great question, and thank you for asking, because I think it goes down to the core of who I am as a person or as an entrepreneur. So the thing that I learned at Good Morning America, Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Tonight, all the movies I did, all the TV shows I produced, was number one, my work ethic. And part of that is about paying attention to the details, following up. I'm old school. I still like to talk on the phone with people. I am a— I am ridiculous at following up with people because, you know, in the world of TV, you have a live show, and if a guest does not show up or something goes wrong, it's on your head. So we leave no stone unturned. We do the work, we focus, and we get it done. There's a different mentality today. So all the work that I— all the things that I learned growing up in TV really, in an essence, informed who I am as an entrepreneur and in essence, as a book marketer. I learned how to promote books because when you're working on a TV show, you— a lot of the guests have books. You have to learn how to, uh, create questions for them, write the segment, produce the segment. And then you learn that not all authors are equal and not all books are equal. And so you have to learn and twist and turn and figure out what is the story behind the book and what story will resonate with an audience. So beautiful. Now doing that, yeah, literally for 25 years. It's ingrained in me. It's like, you know what's weird? I always tell people that I have 3 superpowers. The first one is parking. I can park anywhere in New York City at any time, literally in the snow and the rain.

And so the spaces open up for you as you—

they really do.

It's just you visualize parking and it happens.

How cool. I kind of, I kind of do. Uh, the second superpower is weather. Wherever I go, the weather's perfect. Unless, you know, we always joke in my family, unless my mother's there, then it rains. But you know, my mother's great anyway and awesome. The third superpower I have is I can find and twist and learn and figure out what that story is, how to promote something. Because of all the years at Good Morning America and all the other TV shows, your brain is wired that way and it comes naturally to me that I could take anything and create a story out of it. I mean, an interesting, weird thing, and I wanna go back, TV is really crisis management. I mean, besides being creative and lovely and interesting, you're always figuring out if there's a problem, how to twist it and turn it and make it a solution, make it, create a solution. So when you have a book that needs promoting, the biggest problem that people— there are 3 big problems. The first one is the author goes, oh my God, I have no sales. What am I gonna do? The second thing is, which goes into sales, is how do I reach people that would resonate with their book? How do I do that? And People don't know how to do that. And the third thing is that people, authors do not understand, and I know you know this so well, is that being an author is a business. And if you do not have a plan for this business, who's gonna, you know, what, what do you wanna get outta the business? Who's gonna finance the business? What is the marketing plan for the business? How are you gonna acquire, uh, readers? How are you gonna acquire fans? Do you have a social media plan? Do you have a traditional media plan? Do you have a sales plan? If you have a sales team, blah, blah, blah. It's a business. And that is the biggest mistake that authors make.

You know, I know that you— rumor has it, Jane, that you are book cover obsessed. So I wanted to open up the COVID a little bit and talk to you and learn a little bit about How you think about this, what makes a great book cover, and what do so many authors miss when they're going into the design phase of their cover?

So I love this because, you know, I— this is— first of all, you know, I don't know if you know this, but I'm a painter.

I didn't know that. I know you're visual from the film stuff.

Well, I went to Colorado College. I majored in fine art, so I've got that sensibility. Then going into film and TV, it kind of honed those skills. But here's the thing, 70, another conflicting number. So some people say 90% of people buy books based on the book cover. So I'm gonna go with the high number because it works in my favor. Okay. If a book cover, and here's like a French word I would like to say, sucks.

Kidding.

If a book cover is terrible, then how is somebody— why would somebody even pick it up? And if an author is not 1000% proud of that book cover, then why do they have that book cover? And I don't buy the BS that my publisher made me do it, or they only gave me 3 options. Override them. Stand up for yourself.

Take control. It's your book kind of a thing. It's your book.

It's your vision. Just do it. And so we are, and I know that many authors are reluctant to hire a professional book cover designer, but you know what? It's the best money spent. I'd rather spend the money on a great book cover than on a publicist. Not to diminish publicity, because I think—

That's interesting. As you look at, yeah, if you had to spend the money one way or another, the COVID is so much.

It's not gonna make the difference if you have the best, uh, publicist in the world and nobody emotionally connects to a book cover. So what makes a great book cover? Number one, you have to emotionally connect. Are the colors vibrant? Are they bringing you in? Is the title and the subtitle of interest to you? Will it— and let's talk about nonfiction. Will it solve your problem? What does it speak to you? And on the fiction world, does it inspire you to think, wow, what a journey, where is this going? Is this a mystery or is this romance? And is it speaking to me emotionally? So there are many factors that are, are untangible, you know, so I would think that the book cover is, in my opinion, is the most important. Part of the— I mean, you've got to have a great book, let's face it. But if you're going to go out there with a crappy book cover, why?

Like, why?

I don't get it.

Right. It's the first customer-facing thing that happens.

And you know what? It's inexcusable. Just saying.

Okay. So the bar very high. Is there a method to the madness? I know you work with wonderful designers, but is I don't want to say is there a set of rules, but are there certain principles, design principles that seem to work better than others? Can you generalize or not?

Well, font is critical. I wrote a little book. I took— you know what? I love publishing, and I jumped into a course in publishing, and one of my assignments was to write a book in 7 days, which I did. I mean, I literally— I had something started years ago on my computer. I pulled it out.

I read through it.

I turned on my my microphone and my, and Word, and I started dictating the rest. You know, I did not use AI at all. And then I went, me, Jane Ubellmeyer, I went into Canva. Now I do not even recommend that to my clients, but—

Don't try this at home, right?

Don't try this at home, but I did. And I thought that I could do a great job and I started it and it just wasn't happening. And I actually gave it to a friend of ours, Claudine Mansour, who's an extraordinary book cover designer. And I said, what's wrong with this? She said, the font. Interesting. Oh, she—

Is this about, is it about the way it registers as it relates to the content? Or is it serif versus non-serif or certain size?

Whatever those design elements are, I didn't—

Yeah.

By the way, this woman has 30 years of training. I don't. I could just tell you this is a good book cover, this is a bad book cover. I'll tell you from a marketing perspective, Advantage. My advantage is that I've done, I've seen the thousands and thousands of covers. And I can tell you right off the bat if it's gonna work or not work. As a designer, she knew exactly what was wrong with it. And then she put in a pop of color. And let me just, excuse me one second. I'm just gonna grab my, my little book. So here's my little, like, here's my little book cover. So what I had, white. And white.

Yes.

Different font. So she put in a pop of color yellow and pop of color. Now I did this in Canva. This is only a small little 38-page book, but as you can see, weirdly enough, a little bit, a little shift in the font made all the difference in the world.

Mm-hmm. And it's not too many different design elements or fonts. It's not crowded. It's not busy. It pops.

Exactly.

That graphic is interesting 'cause it shows it's sort of abundance and expansive.

Well, I wanted it to be like a sunburst of excitement of, so my book really is about energy and it's about making things non-fricking negotiable when you, you know, if you wanna manifest a parking space, which I told you I can do anytime, you can ask my husband.

Yes, manifestation thing.

We always joke, even on Thanksgiving in New York City, my parents live on Central Park West, with the parade going by, Like after the parade, the barricades are up, boom, I'm there. And for some reason, my timing is great and I get a spot right in front of the building. So whatever. The point being, going back to the book cover, it's energy, it's color, it's font. And now, interestingly enough, the subtitle may not be the best. So in my next book, it's gonna be From Wanting to Having Love, From Wanting to Having Cash, From Wanting to Having Whatever. So I'm making it serious.

So it's all about manifestation of things that we desire. Is that true?

Yes, but what I was told was that this was not a great subtitle.

Interesting. What did they not, do you remember what the criticism was?

The criticism was that it was too small to read. It wasn't, it was—

Oh, visually.

Visually, it was too small to read. And I'm just gonna change it to From Wanting to Having Cash.

And even parking spaces, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's interesting, but I do love book covers. And look, here's a book cover that Claudine worked on, and this is just in its— we're editing now, but this is my dad's book. My dad is Nigerian, and it's a beautiful, beautiful— so this is just temporary. This just tells you not for sale. But, uh, this book is about an immigrant coming from Poland to America and building, uh, international business, multimillion-dollar international business, and having his children be part of that journey. So, and it all takes place in Manhattan. And ironically, and this is interesting, the, uh, Claudine did do the book cover. And what's interesting is that this building is the Empire State Building. What she did not know was that my dad's second career, which he started at age 61, um, his friend, uh, Roger gave him an office at the Empire State Building that started this multimillion-dollar business. Like, she had no idea that that was— and there it is.

Well, to be officing in that, that architectural icon of Manhattan, I mean, it in and of itself has such a story. Or Deco, the whole— yeah.

Yeah.

So, um, and my dad's 93, he's still writing, still working at it. Uh, yeah.

That's so beautiful.

You've been listening to Media Minds with your host, David Wolf. Media Minds is produced by Audavita Studios, a premier production company producing audiobooks and podcasts for clients worldwide. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about the team at Autovida Studios, visit autovida.com.

So this concept of bedside reading is so novel.

How—

what led you into this creative idea to do it this way? Because it's different than— nobody's doing what you're doing.

I know.

So we should explain to everyone. I know what you do, but let's make sure we unpack it for everybody.

Well, let's start from the very beginning. I was 22 years old. I had a share in a house on Fire Island, which is an island off of Long Island. And there were like 5 or 6 in the house. We all shared it. It was a wonderful summer. And I met a guy. Okay, I met a guy and I was crazy about him. 22 years old. And I worked at Good Morning America at the time and I just thought he was it. And we dated all summer long. And then in the end of the summer he goes, you know, Jane, if you learn how to scuba dive, I'll take you to St. Martin's in the Caribbean, scuba diving. I went, I'm in. So I went back. Luckily for me, the YMCA was around the corner from ABC. So I jumped into the pool at the YMCA, learned how to dive. And it was not easy. I did not enjoy it at all. It was disgusting. The open dive was in a quarry in New Jersey. It was October 31st. It was brown water, disgusting. Horrible. So, but we're gonna dive. December rolls around, we're going to St. Martin's. The flight was beautiful. We get to the hotel right before we go into the room. The guy says to me, you know, Jane, I really like you, but let's be friends. And I went, what? Like, I was 22. I'm crushed. Luckily for me, the night before I left, I went to say goodbye to my parents And my stepmother Marcia gave me this book to read called "Cry to Heaven," which is like 500 pages. And I, it's so heavy, you know, you try to pack light and you don't really wanna schlep anything. And I went, I'll take it. So I took the book. That book saved my entire 7-day trip because I did do scuba diving and it was fine. It wasn't my thing, but, and I learned because of the guy. But diving into that book really made the vacation fantastic because I was in, you know, it was set in Venice in the 15th century and it was murder and all this stuff. It was great. And I remembered years later, wherever I traveled, I always would take a book with me just in case a guy, you know, or whatever happened. So after Goodmore, after my TV career, my movie career, I started a company called Madison and Mulholland. We were the number one celebrity gifting company, did Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, all kinds of, uh, the winners, the nominees. It was big, very big. And then March 27th, 2017, my best friend passed away and I stopped my business. I didn't even sell it. I was so bereft. I just shut it down. And, um, I was, kept thinking and I was calling to Noreen who had passed. I said, Noreen, what should I do now? And all of a sudden I got this memory of taking a book with me to this hotel. And at the same time, like soon after, my husband and I had drinks with a, one of his colleagues that he was working with at the Mandarin Oriental New York, and he was the CFO. And I said, what do you think of this idea? Placing books by the bedsides in the hotel for the guests to take home for free? He goes, oh, I love it. So the Mandarin Oriental New York was my first hotel. Um, and we, I trademarked the phrase bedside reading and it really blossomed. We have like 50+ hotels. Hotels. Um, and the, the, and the way, the reason why it works is because when a sophisticated traveler, now let's, let's be blunt, they're having, they have the money to spend, you know, $500, $600, $700, $800, $1,500, $2,000 a night at these 5-star luxury hotels. They're readers. They, most of 'em are readers. They like books, they travel, they're sophisticated, and we want those kinds of people reading our books. Whether it's a fiction book or whether it's a business book, doesn't matter. We want that reader cuz we believe those are the true influencers. Because in today's world, when we see our friends, we ask them two questions. I do. What are you watching? Right? And what are you reading? So you, those are two things that I ask. And so now it's evolved into not only physical books, we have, an incredible, uh, digital audiobook and ebook library that's now in over 2 million hotel rooms around the country, North America. So the marketing, so let's, let's add layers. So if you look behind me, there's my layer cake of book marketing. So the first layer is placing a book in a luxury hotel. The second is The Hamptons. So I've been placing books in the Hamptons for 7 years. The reason why I call out the Hamptons, like Malibu, it's the place where everybody in New York and the celebrities, they all go to the Hamptons. And I have 9 hotels there. So we want those sophisticated, influential people in business, entertainment, media, and publishing reading and seeing. It's not just reading, but seeing what people are holding. What are they looking, reading at the pool? What are they, what's in, what's in their rooms? So we want that. Then we have the layer of the poolside hotel placements. So we actually place books literally at pools around the country, at the Aqualina, at the Hotel Yonfo in Napa Valley, at the Nautilus, at the, um, I don't know, we have all these hotels. Uh, we're reading it in Fort Worth, Texas, you know, from the Hamptons. And then we have, uh, guaranteed media. We go out. I am a contributing author to many different magazines, so I get full pages of what to read as an expert. I'm recommending books. And then we get earned media. We go out to local media and saying, here's what we recommend this summer. Then I have my own magazine that I create. So it's layer, layer, layer, layer. So book marketing is not one thing, it's 15 things. And there's a system. You do it over and over and over and over again. Because if you're building a business and you look, I have a business, so I bought into Constant Contact, right? That's a system of getting emails out. So somebody, some people buy programs with bedside reading, and it's a system of getting a multi-layered, 15-layered system of getting books out into the world, into the media, into the hands of influencers. We do book events. We do all kinds of things for that author. I love my authors so much that the joy of what I do is actually, I get high from speaking with them.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause they're a creative energy. They are creative. They are, they are creation right there. They're so creative that they wrote a fricking book. Not many people can do that. So we in the book marketing business can take that for granted, but my energetic level responds to their energetic level. And that's what makes me joyful in this season holiday. Christmas, Hanukkah, that's what makes me joyful. Do you know what I mean? It's not even, I send them all the stuff I do and they go, oh, Jane, you're great, blah, blah, blah, blah. People come back to me book after book after book, which I appreciate and I love. But the joy for me is selfish 'cause that's where I get high talking to my authors.

Yeah, yeah.

I do. I just, this is who I am.

No, I love that. That's who you are and it ends up, they feel that energy from you. So it creates this really positive feedback loop. Which is, is, uh, part of the connection that you have with them as you go on this— did you take this— them on this journey to get their book out? Does the bestseller, uh, program— does that fold into Bedside Reading in an interesting way?

Or—

I know you've got that program as well, we've talked about it.

Um, here's what I'm going to tell people. Imagine you write— you spend a year or two writing a book, you spend the money editing it, developmental editing, proofreading, all that other stuff, right? You, you have the manuscript, you've uploaded it to KDP or Ingram, or, or have you gone to even a traditional publisher? Wouldn't it be fantastic? Imagine, just imagine it's December 31st and your book is published. Boom. Done. Can you imagine within the first week you get over 1,000 sales and you guaranteed bestseller status?

That's what this is about.

We have a proprietary, um, I guess, system to do that. And it works. Um, weirdly enough, I did it with my own book. I did it not even— I mean, I did it using all the tools I know how to use.

Yeah. What's really cool about all you're doing everything you do in your ecosystem, whether it's the Bestsellers, the Bedside, the integration of all of these elements, is it answers the question that authors so often have: now what? I've got the book, it's done, it's printed, it's uploaded, but there's no business plan. And you're really coming to them with the business. As you said earlier, it is a business, and you're coming to them with a framework so that they understand how to take it to market, uh, in a very multidimensional, layered way, as you say.

So, you know, I don't want to sound presumptuous here, but one of the things that I like to say to people is, let me tell you what to do.

Yeah, right. And they listen. And they listen.

You know, you're not—

because they know you care.

But no, it's not like that. A lot of authors are authors. They have this beautiful creativity and they write, right?

Right.

Whether it's Nonfiction, fiction, children's, it doesn't matter.

Right, right.

What— so this is what I know how to do.

Yes, this is exactly leaning into your superpower. You don't do what they do and they don't do what you do, so it's like a beautiful match.

Right. I'll tell you something, it's so interesting, funny. So when I wrote my book, this is hilarious.

Yeah, yeah.

I went, oh my God, okay. I clicked the button on KDP, you know, set it up, and at launch I went, yeah, Uh-oh. And all of a sudden I was as neurotic as any author where they go into KDP to check how many sales did I get? How, what, what happens? Anybody buying it? Blah, blah, blah, blah. So having had that experience, I do this in August, made me so much better at my job.

Absolutely.

Empathy.

Yes.

What an author's going through because I'm also an author.

That's right. That's a beautiful way to talk about it. Your experience. You've experienced what they experience.

I know. And let me just say, the other day I went in and I saw there was like one that was returned. I went, how could somebody return a 38-page book? Like, what is— and it's $0.99. Like, literally, somebody returned it.

Right, right.

And they did.

And I did.

They just said, man, they returned it. I don't know who it is because they don't tell you who it is.

No, it is not.

How could they?

So I know, I know, I know. You see that on the audio side as well.

And I was laughing at myself, right, for being that sensitive in a way.

Usually you're outside of that, looking at it much more objectively. Now it's your baby, different experience. But it's good that you had it. I agree with you there. And, uh, it's really— I've said that about, you know, understanding. I started as a podcaster, understanding. Now I have some empathy and, uh, understanding of what it's like to be on the other side of the mic doing this every week.

And the other thing is that besides my authors being really creative, they're, they have their own magic and genius, is that they, a lot of authors come to me with, like, I have an author that just came to me this week with, she has 14 books in a series and they don't understand. And well, whether she does or not, I don't know, but I said to her, look, let's find the best of the 14 and get that one book out there to everybody. Because I love reading series. Like, I read all of Louise Penny's series. I like Michael Connelly's series. I love series. So if somebody gets hooked on an author, they will read everything in that series.

Yes. Yes.

So she didn't— I don't even know if she even thought about it.

She wasn't thinking of it that way. She was just into the output.

Right. And I can't read everything, but she did send me two books and I'm gonna be traveling soon, so I'm gonna be taking her books with me. So, and I'm excited about that actually.

Oh, that's very exciting. Is there anything that I didn't ask you or we didn't talk about that you'd like to share?

So what I think is that so many people have a fantasy that they are gonna write the next, you know, greatest book ever and then pitch it to an agent who will pitch it to the publishing industry. And that is a wonderful journey, way to go, but it's a long shot. And I think that there's so many great tools out there to publish your own book. And I think that people are frightened. Of that, of publishing their own book. And the good news is that there are a lot of tools out there. The bad news that you're now in competition with 4 other million people publishing their own book. So they have to figure out how do I take my book, get a kick-ass cover, and then really blow it out and stand out. I mean, if you look at a great example of Colleen Hoover, Colleen Hoover was a self-published book. She built an incredible fan base and then her, she was picked up by one of the major publishers and now movies are being made and, and it's been incredible journey for her. So a great way to test the market is to write your own book, publish it yourself, or join anybody else that has a publishing, it's a hybrid and Dive in and start the journey, but don't be— I think that holding out for a major publisher to pick you up with a major agent and then getting one of those book deals, it doesn't have— it's rare. It happens, but take control of your own destiny. That's what I tell people, you know, control your, control your, and this is a business. And be careful, be very careful who you work with. And I always recommend, you know, to do your due diligence, find out who they are, go and see if they're scammers, go and just don't throw away money. Money, you know, it is expensive for this journey because you're asking experts who've spent 30 years doing stuff to jump in and take care of your book like it's theirs. But do your due diligence, find out who you're working with. And enjoy the process. But remember, first and most important, your book is a business.

I'm so glad we could do this. Thank you. Your insights are so valuable to authors everywhere, and I'm grateful for you being here, Jane. Folks can reach out to you. Is it bedsidereading.com?

Yes.

Is that the best way?

Easy. And they can always send me an email, or if you go on my website, you can just apply. There's a little button to apply. We are very selective with who we take. I will, I refuse most, let me rephrase this. If your book is not a kick-ass wonderful book, I'll find you a book cover designer at different price points, but it's fair.

Right.

I do that all the time. I lose more business, by the way, by telling people to redo their book because I just cannot. You know, damage my brand.

Yeah, it's integrity for you and your brand, which translates to them and their brand if they're smart enough to listen to your advice and your insights.

But such good stuff. Thanks, Jane. Jane at Bedside Reading or bedside reading.com is fabulous.

We'll have it in the show notes as well. Yeah, great. Thanks for doing this. Have a great holiday. And we're going to release sometime Q1 or Q2 with this episode. But it's great to be with you. Thank you.

It's always a pleasure. Thank you.

You've been listening to Media Minds with your host, David Wolf. Media Minds is produced by Audivita Studios, a premier production company producing audiobooks and podcasts for clients worldwide. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about the team at Audivita Studios, visit audivita.com.