The Self-Publishing Revolution

Welcome to Media Minds with your host, David Wolf.

Welcome to Media Minds. I'm your host, David Wolf. And joining us on this segment is Leanne Jensen. She is a distinguished publishing specialist with deep roots and a passion for the evolving landscape in self-publishing. Much of our audience is self-publishing, and we want you to know everything you need to know about what you need to know about the publishing world. So Leanne, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. I'm really excited.

Absolutely. So before we get into the, the sort of nuts and bolts of what people should know, tell us a little bit about how you found your way into the publishing world.

Yeah, well, I have a background in kind of programming management and, and I worked really closely in the community pre-pandemic, and, uh, the pandemic gave me a good opportunity to just reevaluate everything I was doing. And, um, I was very fortunate to happen upon Friesen Press. And, uh, so I started working as a publishing specialist with Friesen Press in 2021, um, and quickly learned that I really love talking about it. I really love talking about publishing, learning what— learning things about it. I like clicking all the buttons and seeing what everything says all the time. So I was a publishing specialist and I would work one-on-one with authors. And last year I transitioned into the role I'm in now, which is a big chunk of the position I'm in now is coordinating and educating authors. So we work with writing organizations and professional organizations and we come in and we just talk about the publishing landscape and how it is today. And yeah, so let's, let's, let's do this.

So top down, what are you, you know, since you've entered the scene, what are you seeing in terms of, I'll call it trending, or what, what are you seeing in terms of the desire on the side of authors that are aspiring to publish? Give us the top-down market view from your— and you're located in Canada for the benefit of our audience, which may or may not be a distinction to point to, but maybe it is. So take us through what you're seeing market-wise.

Yeah, I mean, self-publishing, especially since the pandemic, has boomed. It has boomed. It used to be, um, and again, this number particularly, don't quote me on it because this is pre-pandemic, but it used to be probably about 20 to 30% of top lists and books were self-published. Coming out of the pandemic, coming into, you know, this year, I can tell you that last year for 2023, 50% of Kindle's top 400 ebooks sold were self-published titles. So self-publishing is— it has come so far in the last, I want to say decade, but really specifically in the last even 4 years. It's come really far and more and more authors are doing it. And what I love is that the landscape has started to shift in a way that writers can do both. There's a time, you know, depending on project it is and what maybe genre it is and if it's a passion project versus a professional, you know, contribution to your community, It— you can do both. And the stigma around self-publishing is really starting to— I don't want to say die out because there's always going to be those, you know, diehards that are only traditional all the way. But it's starting to lessen and lessen, and people are realizing that self-publishing is a really great opportunity for them, um, and it doesn't hinder their ability to other avenues either. So. Right, right.

It doesn't limit. When you say do both, you mean write the book and publish it. Is that what you mean when you say do both?

No, I'm sorry. Um, traditional and self-publishing.

Oh, you can do both. Okay. All right.

You can do both. I worked with an author in 2022 who successful, she was a successfully traditionally published author who sold millions of copies of her books. She was still getting residuals when I was working with her. Who had a project that didn't fit into her publisher's— it didn't fit into their dynamic for the year, into their box. Yeah, right. So she decided to self-publish and I worked with her one-on-one and we self-published one of her projects. But it didn't— it doesn't hinder. She still can go in and do those traditional.

Right, right, right. Got it. Because you do one doesn't mean you can't do the other. You know, there's no contract that binds you to doing it. One way or the other. That's interesting. This idea that because the traditional publishers have these boxes and verticals and places on the proverbial shelf, if they can't, if you don't fit there, that seems to be a trigger to look at self-publishing, isn't it?

It is. And what's really important that I, that I think it's important for people, writers to know is that if you're rejected from an agent or a, or a publisher or something like that, it doesn't mean that your, your material isn't good. It doesn't mean— it means that the trajectory that that agent or that publisher is working on that year just doesn't include what you submitted. So it doesn't mean that it's not worth getting out there, and it doesn't mean people aren't going to love it. It just means that it doesn't fit into that box for this year.

And I'm sure these are part of the conversations which you apparently enjoy. I can see why.

Yeah.

Really coaching them through this landscape, this ecosystem of decision-making around. Some of them may have self-esteem issues or sense that what they're doing, it doesn't have quality simply because the literary agent or the traditional publisher rejected them for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the work they're doing. So what percentage of your work would you say is fiction versus nonfiction in the world you work?

Oh, I would say I would say from my personal experience, I don't have the stats in front of me, but from my personal experience— Ballpark.

Ballpark.

In working with self-publishing authors, we do see a lot of nonfiction. We do see a lot of memoirs and life stories. On the flip side though, in recent months, I have seen a lot of authors come through with fiction. I think fiction is starting— yeah, I think fiction is starting to take off. Um, that new, new genre that everyone has kind of deemed Romantasy, so it's like a romance fantasy. Um, I think that a lot of authors right now who really got into writing that genre because right now it's so popular, um, in order to not kind of miss that that fad or popularity timeline, self-publishing timeline-wise is gonna help them get that book out there faster while it, you know, the topic and the genre and, and all of that is still pertinent and is still really top of people's minds and what people are enjoying instead of risking waiting 2, 3 years to hopefully get published by a traditional and then risking that. That the hype around it kind of starting to fizzle.

Yeah, missing the, the, the, missing the trend, the inflection. Yeah. The window to get the window's a good word. Yeah. That's great. And the, the psychology of a, what we've learned too, and see if you agree that the nonfiction authors oftentimes they're really promoting a brand or a business or some other agenda. The book is not the end. It's the means to the end. As you find it's a marketing tool. As opposed to the, uh, fiction author where that is the end product. Is that true from your perspective?

Yeah, I've worked with— I mean, and when we talk nonfiction, we talk memoir and we kind of talk, you know, professional development as well. So, you know, when we are talking memoirs, some people just want to write something to leave behind for their family. Some people want their face on the book and they want to build a brand for themselves. Um, but we work with public speakers who are writing about what their niche topics are, and that is a really great marketing tool for their business. They get to have that book in conjunction with their lectures and things like that. Um, so it's a great, it's a great professional development tool. We have one book in our bookstore, and it was just pure genius to me. Um, this, this, uh, professor wrote her own textbook for her course.

Oh my God.

And so this author sells hundreds of copies of her textbook a month because it's a requirement for her course.

So she's got a baked-in market.

Genius. Like, that's brilliant. So there's such great opportunity for things like that. And there is a lot of it's untapped still right now. But people are starting to really realize that they don't have to wait for, you know, for to fit into that box or to fit into that niche topic or they can just go for it.

Well, this is academic application as you're describing in terms of marketplace is not one I've ever heard. So that's fascinating. And for our listeners and viewers, yeah, just to think about, are you in a position where you could write a curriculum and actually drive sales because of the position you find yourself in, whether it's an institutional environment or—

Not only is she making money off of her course, but she is getting all of the royalties for selling her textbook.

That's right. That's right. Without a conflict of interest, it's just baked into her model.

Yep.

That is interesting. All right, let's pivot a little bit, LeeAnn. You're with Friesen Press. You guys take an author. Talk to us about the process. And it may vary, so there may be different entry points for different clients you're working with, but if you can shed a little light on what your process looks like.

Yeah, so it does. You're right. It does vary. We have a kind of a streamlined process, but it does vary from book to book depending again.

Yeah.

What the genre is like. If you, if you already did editing versus you need editing. But the first, the very first stop is my team. So my team is, I have a team of 8 consultants. We're the kind of, if you call in and you're like, hey, I've got a book and I'm interested in information, you're going to talk to my team. And so the first thing we do is we talk to you about your project. We find out where you're at, what you've done, if you've had it edited, if you're working with an illustrator, if it's a kid's book, for example, if you already have illustrations or if you need— we find out everything we can about your project. And then from there, we will do a manuscript evaluation. What's one thing that's really unique about us, and not to say specifically us, I know that other service providers also do this, but we read every manuscript, every single one. We have a professional editor read it, provide recommended metadata, and you— and they read it in its entirety, so they read the entire thing, and they will provide an editing recommendation. So normally we— they'll be able to tell if you've already had it professionally edited or not because their editors who are reading it, uh, but you know, they'll, they'll look at it and they'll say, here's, this is why your manuscript is great, here's where it can be fixed. So I'm going to use these examples to show you what, what type of editing will be beneficial for you. Then from there, again, we are self-publishing, so it still is, everything's still, you know, up to the author. So If they don't want to do editing, it's not mandatory, but we're always going to recommend what's going to be the best and give you those recommendations. Um, so usually— yeah, sorry, what?

I was just going to insert. So, so depending on the author, they will have final creative control in your world, but you'll make recommendations and they'll listen or they won't. And that's just, that's their discretion.

Yeah. And so, yeah. And so we'll always do, we'll always provide an editing recommendation, but it's up to the author if that's what they want to do. They might get their evaluation back and go, you know what, I really, the parts of the book that you're kind of feeling aren't important are really personally important to me, so I'm not going to take them out. Fine.

Cool. Fine. Yeah. You know, like, so there's a give and take here. Yeah, it's a give and take.

Yeah. So, so we will do editing if the author is doing editing. We have illustrators, so if there's a kids' book that we're doing, we can provide portfolios so that authors can choose what illustrators to work with. And we basically take, uh, and then you get a one-on-one person. So what I used to do, publishing, as a publishing specialist, you get to work with that person. They're going to take you through the process. They're gonna coordinate your cover design, coordinate your layout, um, support you with pricing your book. In whatever your mark, your genre is. The printers will set minimum list prices, of course, but, you know, we'll provide recommendations, we'll get your distribution set up with our distributors, and you have that one, that person basically will take you from a Word document all the way to holding a book in your hands.

Oh my gosh. And then the ebook and of course audio, which of course we have that partnership as well. So the digital versions are all a part of this. So it's a really a one-stop, solution for an author that wants to get out to market. That's—

Yes. Ebooks are included with all of our options. So regardless what, uh, you know, which direction you choose to go, ebooks are part of that. Audiobooks we also will do, um, as well. So we've got all of your bases covered.

You've been listening to Media Minds with your host David Wolf. Media Minds is produced by Autovida 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.

Are there things about the COVID that you have learned over time about? Some have said that the COVID is the hook in a market.

Sometimes, yeah.

Tell us a little bit about your perspective on the not only importance of the COVID But are there certain types of design principles that you feel are more effective than others in terms of driving sales?

I would say so. I'm not a graphic designer, so my design expertise is limited. But I am a reader. I am a consumer.

So, you can speak from that perspective and also being a publishing professional.

Yeah. And so, there is really a difference between working with a professional graphic designer versus, you know, using a program.

Oh yeah.

To create your book.

You—

yeah.

And there are lots of situations that you can look at a book and kind of say, that's a self-published project. Our goal at Friesen Press is to make sure that your book doesn't look like it's self-published. We want it to look traditionally published. We want you to have that, that ability in the market to go a little bit different. Um, so we do, again, creative control. So author's final say when it comes to those pieces. But, um, we like to make sure that one thing that's really important is we like to take out key things that are in a book. So we'll ask an author, what is something, maybe an item of importance in the book, or, you know, something, a particular theme throughout the book. We try to incorporate that into a cover as much as we can, as well as we really like the fonts to be cohesive with the interior. So yeah, whatever cover fonts we end up using, we like to use complementary fonts on the inside as well. So I think that it's important to, to work with a professional so that it doesn't hopefully doesn't look really specifically self-published. Authors are doing really interesting things these days with their covers too. We have authors who write, you know, those romance books that are a little bit maybe, you know, more spicy, and they will do two different covers. They'll do like a really romantic cover and then they'll do a really plain cover so that you're comfortable reading it on a train or on a bus or—

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, so people are reading really—

So this social thing comes into play.

Yeah. So people are doing really fun things with covers.

So when you market a book like that, do you actually give the consumer a choice?

Um, I don't think so.

Or this is more internal.

This is more just, you know, I've been— trends that I'm looking at and what I'm seeing. I know that we have the ability to, um, do different formats. So if somebody wanted that, we could do custom editions like that where, um, it would be you know, different ISBN numbers. It would be different online.

It's a different product. It would be a possibility, but that's not really the way you think about it out of the gate. Yeah, it's just a choice that the author has. Do you want people to be more comfortable in a public setting because of the spiciness, or should we just go for it and that'll drive sales? And that's more important to me than how people feel about what people think when they see me.

Yeah. And I would say if you look at covers from a professional dynamic, lots of professional writers, so maybe leadership or professional development books. There are situations— what you want to look at when you're looking at that is, are you the brand or is your book the brand?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. This is back to the fiction/nonfiction idea too, but that probably relates to that.

If you are the brand, it makes makes sense. Lots of, you know, professional authors want their picture on the front of the book, but there are professional situations where that doesn't make sense. Um, again, always up to the author, but we will let you know if, if, if we believe that that makes sense in your situation. Um, so that's one thing too, is to always think about your cover in terms of, of what your brand is going to be like too. If you have— if you come in and you already have a brand, and you know, say you write leadership books, or, and you do courses, and you do things like that,, and you already have your brand colors and your, you know, your brand fonts, you can provide that and we can, and we can work with that completely.

Yeah, right. Fold it in.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And do you, do you match designers and editors, uh, developmental editors to the clients? Do you have a sort of a, um, um, how should I say, uh, roster, staff where you're actually matching a certain designer to a certain author, for example, or a certain genre?

Yeah. So we have, um, for, we have an editorial and illustration illustrations coordinator who will specifically look at what the genre is, what the project's about, um, maybe what the age bracket is, and we match our authors to editors that love working on those projects and have lots of experience in those projects. We always try to match them as best as we can. We take whatever information the author has given us and try to make that match. I know I just had a book come through that I was supporting on, and it was very specific, this Romantasy, um, you know, genre that's taken the world by storm right now. Um, and it might— hopefully it's still taking the world by storm by the time this airs, but right now in December it's out there. Um, and so I put a really specific request into our coordinator to say we need to find an editor who loves these types of books and working on these types of projects because we don't, you know, we want to have somebody who's, who's going to be invested in making the material as good as it can be. So we always try to do that. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a wonderful collaboration for an author to experience. This is the benefit of working with a group like Friesen, right? First of all, you're vetting all of the suppliers. It's not up to the author to go out to market and try to piece together all the different resources they need to get the book completed. I sort of answered my own question. The question was, it's like Jeopardy, what are the advantages of working with Friesen or an organization like yours where you have this comprehensive set of resources? And I think I may have just answered the question, but if you can add anything, that's great. Sorry about that.

But I've got some stuff I can add.

You got more? Good, good, good. Perfect.

Yeah, you're right. It is. It's nice to come in. You know, some people have connections and the resources and the time to vet editors and businesses and illustrators. Some people, that's what they want to do. They have the time for that. Um, if you don't, then we're perfect because we have editors, illustrators, designers. We are, we have all those resources. We've pre-vetted all of those, um, people. We have a full staff. We have You know, we have people that are really well versed in distribution and setting it up and, and making sure your metadata is great to optimize your online listing and things like that. But I would say one of the really big advantages that I, that I am personally advocating for is that working with a service provider is really beneficial because We are in the industry and we are here every single day. So we see the changes as they're happening. So if you were to go, you know, the DIY route and source everything yourself and get— that's amazing. You would also have to be staying on top of all of the changes that distributors and retailers are making. To keep your listing correct. So for example, you know, there was a pretty big industry change earlier this year that in terms of online retailers starting to act more like brick-and-mortar stores. So it used to be pre-2024, it used to be that a returnable status with your distributor was really important if your goal was to be on physical bookshelves. Now we noticed very quickly that online retailers towards the beginning of this year have started to shift to have that as a requirement as well. And so there were Amazon listings and Barnes Noble and Chap— there was online listings everywhere. That we were seeing oddities in, and we were able to detect that trend really quickly and inform our authors and let them make the changes they needed to make sure that their listing stays current. That is something that if you're not in that industry every single day and you're not looking at those listings and you're not seeing those things, you're not going to pick up on. It could be months before you figure it out.

So this is a return policy. I want to make sure I understand.

Oh, yes.

So— For Elizabeth's benefit as well.

So with, with some distributors, we use Ingram as, um, one of our main distributors. With some distributors, um, a returnable status. So what that— a returnable status, what the— in with the distributor, what that means is that if a retailer orders 15 copies of your book and after 6 months only has sold 2, they have the ability to return those books to the printer.

Wow.

So you have to meet a certain sales threshold and, right? Am I reading this right?

No, it's just a status.

It's a status, returnable status.

Yeah, it's just like, it's just a status to say this book is returnable. So if you don't sell it, you can return it to the printer and get your money back. And so for brick and mortar stores, that used to be huge because brick and mortar stores do huge print runs and order huge print runs. And you, and with the print-on-demand model, which is most popular, it really wasn't something that you needed. But now because shopping has shifted so significantly since the pandemic, um, online retailers now are also wanting that returnable status so that if their online purchasers return a book, they're not on the hook for that.

I got it. So there's really, it's basically, it's eliminating some of their or all of their risk that a sale will happen.

Yeah.

As if it were in, even though it's virtual inventory.

Yeah.

Am I understanding this right?

It's virtual inventory and it's, you know, one is printed at a time, but if someone returns a book to an online retailer, right, up until this year, that online retailer was, oh, okay, well, shoot. And they would kind of take the hit. They'd either return the book or they'd replace it, whether you had that returnable status or not. And so now they're kind of saying, we want to be able to return it so that we're not taking the hit on that returned book anymore.

That's huge. And it puts more of the risk on the author's side again.

Yeah. And so, and that's something that happened really quickly. And, and we were able to kind of detect it and contact, you know, our distributor. And we came on to the change very quickly and we were able to notify our authors and give them that support and that advice. Whereas, you know, some authors— again, I'm way too into the online community, but some authors, you know, you could see it took them months to figure out why their listing was different and why all of a sudden, you know, this certain retailer didn't have them in stock anymore and things like that.

Yes. So the back to the point being the benefit of working with a Friesen Press like, or specifically with you, is that you'll have this intel, market intel, technological changes. We have this in the podcast side of our business as well. I understand exactly from where you, and this is a wonderful advantage to working with you. Is it true that Friesen Press was started 100 or so years ago as a printing company? Is that true?

So Friesens. So our parent corporation, yeah, so we're under the Friesens umbrella and Friesens Corporation is a printer in Altona, Manitoba, and they've been around for over 100 years. And Friesen Press was started, we just had our 15th anniversary and published our 10,000th title this year. So we've been—

that's wonderful—

we're here, we're strong, and it's really nice we have the Friesens Corporation. And that is something that's unique about working with us as well, because not only do we have the ability to have your book available for those print-on-demand avenues, but if you want to do, you know, a 250 or a 500 print run for yourself, we can utilize our printer to support you with that, which is really—

that's right, you're vertically integrated with the printing side. And But imagine with the printing, and this is not the part of the business I'm in, as you know, uh, you've got choices of paper and the tactile feel of the book and all of these things are a part of what you talk about, right? With authors. Is that true?

It is. Yeah. With print on demand, it's more limited because they're doing, they're printing one book at a time, right? So there is a little bit more limitation around, um, paperweight and things like that when you're looking at print on demand. But when you're looking at your own book orders, there's so much more flexibility with if there's a specific paperweight or if you want glossy versus, you know, like matte, or if you want to have embossed covers and, you know, things like that. We can do those kinds of customizations through, through Freezits.

It's so good to be with you. I learned so much today. I'm sure there's a lot I could ask you that I haven't asked you. Is there anything you want our viewers and listeners to know that I didn't ask before we sign off for today?

I mean, I don't know. I mean, you can always— I put a lot of my information out and I'm happy if anyone emails me. I'm always happy to.

Yeah, it'll be in the show notes as well, but it's FriesenPress.com, F-R-I-E-S-E-N-Press.com. And Leanne, you're at L. Jansen, J-A-N-Z-E-N, at FriesenPress.com. We'll have it in the show notes as well, of course. Yeah, what a delight to have you. We love working with you as well, as you know that our partnership means so much to us and a delight to have you. Thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

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 Autovida Studios, visit autovida.com.