Marketing and Self Publishing: A Dialogue for Authors

Welcome to Media Minds with your host David Wolf.

Welcome to Media Minds. I'm your host David Wolf. Joel Pitney is a collaborative writer, former journalist, and the founder of Launch My Book Incorporated. As a collaborative writer, he's written a variety of nonfiction books published by Penwin, Wiley, and Public Affairs. In his company, Launch My Book helps authors publish and promote their books. Joining us on this segment is Joel Pitney. Joel, welcome to the program.

Thanks, David. It's great to be here.

Absolutely. So all things publishing. Um, tell us a little bit, I mean, we've got the current on you, but kind of how did you move into the publishing world? How did this, uh, evolve for you?

Well, it's kind of a long story, but I'll try to do the short version. Um, I started in, uh, I, I, I was, I was writing for a magazine. Um, that was kind of my first professional writing job many, many, many, many years ago. And, uh, we ended up the— it was a small operation and the editor-in-chief published a book. And I was sort of at that time, I was the young, young person on staff who had the experience with marketing and all that kind of stuff. And so everyone said, hey, can you figure out how to do the marketing side of this book? And so I worked with the publisher and a publicist and another marketing company. I learned all the ropes of kind of the book world.

Um, yeah, yeah.

And then I ended up, the publisher, the, the book did really well. And so the publisher started hiring me to do, to do, um, book launches for their other authors. Um, and so I kind of started a career doing all kinds of book things. Uh, book marketing was where I started and then eventually I got into ghostwriting or collaborative writing. And then as the self-publishing sort of industry exploded in the last 5 to 10 years, I learned how to do that as well and started a company that does pretty much everything.

That's brilliant. Yeah, so it's a top-to-bottom, front-to-back kind of publishing services company. Brilliant. And, you know, great pivot because it is evolving, and I know that one of the themes that we were going to talk about today is this sort of the divide, or the— well, the movement towards self-publishing and all of the things folks need to know about that. And then somewhat comparatively, I think reading between the lines from your notes before the show, sort of comparing these two worlds, the traditional versus self-publishing. So let's unpack this for those watching. Wherever you'd like to start, but I think it seems like the movement and the velocity of movement is in the self-publishing side, so maybe we start there. I don't know, what do you think?

Yeah, sure. I mean, just to get people sent to the terrain, traditional publishing is, you know, everybody recognizes big labels like Random House and Penguin and Simon Schuster, right? In that traditional publishing world, the model is pretty simple. Someone— a publisher buys the rights to publish a book from an author, and they take care of all the stuff you need to get a book published, some marketing, but these days, more and more is required— more and more is incumbent upon authors to do their own marketing. In fact, that's one of the big reasons why publishers will bring on an author in the first place is because they see an opportunity in that author's platform to do their own marketing.

Yes. I've observed the same. Yeah, absolutely.

It's still a big world. I advocate traditional publishing for a lot of people. Um, when I'm doing collaborative writing or ghostwriting projects, I'm primarily going after traditional publishing deals, uh, because they— you're able to open doors through traditional publishing that you just can't in self-publishing. There's that stamp of approval that can get you access to to media and certain podcasts and different promotional opportunities. Also, you get access to distribution in bookstores and libraries around the country, which you really don't get self-publishing. That's kind of traditional publishing, but then the winds have started to shift for a lot of reasons towards self-publishing. One reason is, just to be completely blunt, traditional publishing is hard. It's very selective. It's become more selective in many ways. Because there's been consolidation in the industry. At the same time, there's a lot of people who maybe don't have the patience to do what it takes to get a book traditionally published, either building a big enough platform to attract a publishing deal or go through the steps of writing a book proposal and pitching agents and then trying to get a deal. Then you also have on the other side, self-publishing is easier than ever. The thing in the self-publishing world, and this is where we work a lot now, is print-on-demand publishing, right? So when you used to do self-publishing, you'd have to find a printer, print out a bunch of books, put them in your warehouse, put them in your garage, or get a little storage space down the street. And then when people order the books or a bookseller order the books, you'd fulfill those orders. But now there's a new technology called print-on-demand technology, which has been around for, I think, 10 years. At least. Um, yeah. So when someone goes and buys a book, click, they click buy, a single copy is printed and shipped. There's no warehousing, there's no fulfillment. And a lot of that makes it easier for anybody who's able to deliver basically book files, which is a cover and an interior in the requisite format. You can set up and publish your own book.

Joel, are there opportunities for self-publishing to get it— self-published authors rather, to get into the retail environment, or is that really— something that's reserved for the traditional side?

Not really. I mean, there are people who are going to debate me on this, but it's few and far between. It's really hard. The thing is when you're trying to get big distribution, like, we've actually— my company launched my book. We've been trying to crack this nut for a couple of years. We've been developing. We've been trying to figure out, well, how can we start to get authors that were self-publishing books for into bookstores. And we've called up bookstores, we've called up librarians, we've talked to a lot of people, and what we found is that there's some significant barriers to entry. The first one is perception, right? So, uh, the thing about the— when you're, when you're a bookstore, you're a library, you're gonna trust that a book that's being published by a publisher is good, right? You're gonna, you're gonna trust that it's legitimate, that they've got— it's gone through all those those gateways to get into print. Self-publish, you have no idea. And so a lot of people just don't want to do that level of vetting themselves and they just say, okay, there's plenty of books being published by the big publishers. Uh, I go into the catalog, I make sure, and I can trust that these are all going to be high quality.

So yeah, it's, yeah, it's efficient. It's easy for them to get them into the stores and to make selections. They don't have to do a deep dive on every book that they're looking at., there's that vote of confidence from the traditional side.

Yeah. Not all self-published books are good. I mean, not all traditionally published books are good, right? But they, but at least they've gone through that vetting process in a way that a self-published book does not have to.

Is there also, Joel, a barrier in terms of, in the traditional world, this is sort of a different thing, but the traditional world, what I've observed from afar, and I may be totally wrong, you'll tell me. Is that the publisher, the traditional publishers, need to understand how are they going to position the book for distribution, and it has to fit inside what I'll call sort of a marketing box or a genre, a predetermined vertical for them. Is that a part of what's happening on the traditional side that makes it, well, just challenging? Whereas with self-publishing, it seems like the sky's the limit. You can create your own genre and hope for the best, right? How do you think about that?

Yeah, that is a little bit the case. You know, it's sort of— in the traditional publishing industry, they kind of know, "Hey, these are the kind of books that sell. These ones don't sell as well." So unless you can kind of turn your square peg into, you know, a round peg to fit in the round hole, then we don't really see an opportunity for it. So yeah, there's a little bit of that because, you know, they're looking for really, really, really big audiences for certain things. And, I've encountered that in some of the books that I've ghostwritten, going to a publisher with what we felt was an incredibly solid product and with a really big platform and everything and hearing from people, "Hey, these kind of books just don't sell very well." Right? And so, in that case, there's a temptation. We ended up getting a deal for that, which was great. We found the audience. But, in self-publishing— you know, it's kind of like self-publishing, not coincidentally, has risen alongside the rise of, you know, social media, the finding, being able to find your own tribe and build your own tribe in your own ways. Right. You can, you can find those niches out there and you can sell your books to them.

Yeah, that's cool. And there's also an economic consideration. I mean, we work in the self-publishing world most of the time because we're an audiobook production house. So in our world, the authors are often paying for the production of the book. Is that— that's true for all the versions, not just audio, right? On the self-publishing side.

Absolutely.

They are self-financing it, right? Where, as opposed to getting an advance or having it funded in part or in whole by a traditional— how do you think about— yeah, tell us about that, if you will.

Yeah, and that's— it's an often overlooked benefit of going with a traditional publisher because they will cover all the costs of production and often, you know, including audiobooks. So they'll do They'll do a developmental edit, they'll do a copy edit, and they'll do a proof for you. So they take care of all the editing, and depending on the length of your book, that's thousands of dollars in value. And then they do cover design, interior formatting, they set it up for all the formats. They'll, they'll often produce an audiobook by hiring a narrator for you or help you narrate your own. They'll do all that. That can be, you know, if you're doing good, if you're working with good people, we're talking, you know, that can be a $10,000 to $20,000 value. That's right. So they are assuming the risk right there. Now, are they paying that much? Not necessarily, but that's what you would have to pay to do good work if you're doing it yourself. So, right there, there's a value in traditional publishing because they can cover all that piece for you, and that's why they take the lion's share of the royalties.

Is it— how do you think about the marketing participation from traditional publishers? I've heard stories, you know, often we're talking to publishers Sorry, authors who had a previous experience with a traditional publisher, and they'll say some things like, oh, my publisher didn't do anything. You know, we hear a lot of that.

Yeah, that's what everyone says.

Okay. So they, so I'm not alone. So how do you think about that?

You know? So yeah.

Is this just, yeah.

So what you're saying is true. Uh, I, I would say traditional publishers are doing less and less to market and publicize their titles. Um, They— part of this, part of it is that they have a huge catalog, right? And they're gonna— and they have marketing and PR teams. They also have sales reps, right? Yeah, they have big infrastructures, and they're gonna focus on the titles that they think are gonna sell the best. So it's— I don't know the exact breakdown, but it's probably like 80% of their effort and energy when it comes to marketing and PR are being directed towards, you know, 10 to 15% of their titles. Because those are the ones that they see the biggest volume in. Now, you will still get it. I've got a book that I ghostwrote that's coming out in April, and we're working with a big publisher. And, you know, the PR team, they're doing things. They're getting some reviews. They're getting some podcasts. But what you end up getting if you're not one of their biggest books is you get a pretty templated generic service.

Okay.

And they're not gonna put quite as much effort into it. And if you only rely on them to market the book, it will not succeed. And I, I think that's the case for all but the tiniest minority of big-time authors.

And you, and you mentioned this earlier in the segment, oftentimes the traditional publishers are looking for an established audience and platform and fan base, you know, and, and that's a part of their decision about whether they want to engage, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, especially in nonfiction, but it's also true in fiction as well that the quality of the book is only maybe half the battle. You also need to be able to show that you've got some kind of a platform. Now, everybody's platform can look different. It doesn't mean that you have to have a million TikTok followers. I know people who get book deals because, especially in the business space, because they're speakers and they're doing talks and workshops around the country at a significant volume., and they can show them, hey, I'll be able to move a decent amount of books, you know, through my own efforts. So some kind of solid marketing plan slash platform is crucial to getting a traditional publishing deal.

I did want to ask you about the biggest mistakes people make. What do authors get wrong about which way to go and how to proceed, uh, in how they decide to pub— or, uh, how they decide they're going to publish their book? Yeah, there it is.

I, I think falling for gimmicks, uh, you know, like It's very interesting. I dabbled a little bit in kind of Hollywood doing some TV and film writing projects. Yeah. And I find the two industries to be very interesting, books, and they're very similar because people have these inflated expectations of what it might take. Right. And there's a lot of companies and then a lot of "experts" out there that prey on that. They make it sound like it's all going to be easy and if you just do these certain hacks and you just follow my formula. You're going to have quick and guaranteed success. And it's just not true. It's just like, it's like anything in life. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes failure, it takes it, you know, the whole thing is a marathon, not a sprint. So most of the mistakes that people make fall into that general umbrella of sort of like a fault of thinking it's going to be easier than it is. Yeah, you know, so the traditional versus self-publishing, it's a similar thing. It's like thinking that if you just write a good book, you'll get a traditional publishing deal. No, you've got to build a platform. You know, when you self-publish, you think, oh, okay, well, now, now if I self-publish, it'll be easy. I'll just go direct to readers. Well, you're going to have to build that platform anyway. If you want to sell books to readers and you're doing it on your own, you're still going to have to build a platform. Yeah, it's not just marketing. I'm just going to put your book on Amazon and put the right keywords in and everyone's going to magically find your book. It's not going to happen. There's no free lunch. There's no Right. Silver bullet. There's no shortcut to the top. It just doesn't, it's not real.

Yeah. You're echoing. Well, so just to summarize it to some extent, when you see these formulaic offers that promise to make, you know, you press the easy button and follow my method and magic will happen. Be very extremely cautious if not running the other direction. Um, so absolutely my takeaway based on what I just heard. Um, and then as far as the traditional versus the self-publishing, I guess, uh, that's a— well, we've unpacked a lot of that already in this segment, but anything to add to what we've said so far?

No, I mean, I just— no, I think— I just think— I think— I think everybody needs to think it— everybody's answer to that question is going to be different.

Yeah.

Some people are going to say, you know, I went to a conference in Las Vegas where everybody's self-published and they're just hardcore self-publishing advocates, and, and, and they're all like, never do traditional publishing. But I don't think that's necessarily true. I think And there's other people who say, why would you ever self-publish? It'll never succeed. You have to figure out for yourself and your goals and your budget and your, your wherewithal and your genre. All that stuff's going to matter. So you have to figure it out.

I appreciate that. Yeah. You kind of can hold both ideas and just make a decision. It's not an A or B. It's not a binary situation. It's not all bad or all good. It's just what's right for you. Absolutely. Let's pivot to the marketing piece. You've got a lot of experience, uh, marketing books and marketing at large. There's this idea you've written about where people tend to put on what you call marketing hats, sort of a facade, rather than being authentic. We run into this in podcasting, of course, as well. I'm probably guilty of it myself, but what is it about humanity that does this? Why do we do that, and how do you advise your authors when they're marketing to avoid falling into that trap, I guess.

Well, that's it. That's really— it's funny, I haven't thought about that for a while. I love that. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, I think that's— this is a very interesting psychological dynamic that I have observed in myself and also working with people to some degree in marketing for the last 15, 20 years in just different, different environments where we'll be working with people and, and they'll, you know, they'll say, alright, well, I've got to do my social and I've got to do my marketing, I've got to write my marketing copy and I've got to do all this kind of stuff. And when they're doing the marketing work, they, they start to act like they think marketing people should act, right? And so they'll be like, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to create a time-based offer. I've got to say, unless you sign up by Friday, you know, this, the price is going to get cut in half. Or, you know, or I've got to make, I've got to make it really sizzly, and I've got to, I've got to make big promises about how this thing is going to transform someone's life, right? And there's all these sort of best practices that everyone comes to when they put on their quote-unquote marketing hat, right? But those— most of those things do not appeal to the person themself when they take off their marketing hat at all, right? They make us run away. I mean, you know, I watch all my TV shows on, you know, YouTube TV, where I record them and I fast forward through the commercials because I don't want to be marketed to. I just want to be entertained and informed, right? And so everyone does this, this funny thing, and I just basically ignore all of it. I think good marketing is— it should be good storytelling and good communication. And, uh, and it should never be tricky, should just be honest. That's what I believe. Now look, I know some of those gimmicks work because People wouldn't do it if they didn't work. But I don't think any— I don't advise anyone go down that route. I think you should really focus on telling compelling stories, sharing honest advice, being transparent. I mean, this is the era of transparency, right? Actually communicating in a way that's clear and cogent and that you would resonate with yourself so that you can find the people who resonate with that as well.

So brilliant. And it's not easy to do, as you say. For some of us, it's a psychological mind shift where, I mean, even Sean, our producer, said, you know, when you read the intros for these podcasts, you sound like a different person. And then you go into the interview and it feels more natural. That's the phenomenon we're talking about here, where you kind of put on this, what you think it should be, rather than just being, you know, that existing thing. Great stuff, Joel. Thanks so much. I mean, it's a packed segment. Let's leave it there for now. www.launchmybook.com. Joel Pitney, thanks so much for, uh, for everything and for joining us on the program. Go ahead, please.

Yeah, well, just one thing, just a plug for us.

Please, absolutely.

We, we do all that— we help people to self-publish their books under their own name, which I think if you're paying to publish, you should do. Don't, don't hire one of those hybrid companies. Um, okay. And, and we also do different types of marketing support. The other thing about our website and our platform that I recommend people check out is that we, every time we learn how to do something, we like do a video or a article about it because I'm a big believer that people should do as much on their own as they can. And so there's a lot of educational resources there, um, that we have a lot of people who benefit from that and never hire us for anything. So, uh, if you want to learn about the kind of book writing, publishing, marketing space, it's a good, it's a good place for that.

Yeah. So you come to the proverbial market as a, with a, you're really giving back, starting from education, starting from helping people figure it out. And if they're attracted to that and they want to engage and work with you, it's not unlike when we go to a webinar. It's the same thing. We really show up as an educator and we're there to help people understand the process and the economics and the ecosystem and not necessarily try to be transactional in nature. Beautiful stuff, Joel. Great to know you. And thanks for doing this. LaunchMyBook.com, the website. We'll do it again.

Thank you, David. Thanks for having me. It was really nice.

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.