Authors and Community | Jeremy Madsen | 474

Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today my guest is Jeremy Madsen, and Jeremy is the operations manager for BK Authors, a nonprofit organization supporting nonfiction authors and thought leaders. BK Authors was formed in 1998 as a network for several hundred authors published with Barrett Kohler. Jeremy's also involved in the Association for Religiously Affiliated Writers and Publishers, where he manages the production of an annual conference in Utah with over 400, uh, attendees. He's also an editor, writer, teacher, and father, and recently a newer father once again, uh, as in the last couple weeks we were just chatting about. So welcome aboard, Jeremy. How are you?

I'm good. I'm really glad to be here. Really happy to be with you, Peter Winick.

Yeah, so let me just dive in. So I've been a big admirer of BK for a long time, but without this being just a, you know, an infomercial for BK, I want to talk about the importance of authors supporting authors. And I think what, what I find surprising, and I'd love to hear your take, is first-time authors— the job of an author, the job of a writer is a pretty solitary job. And I think it's sort of eye-opening for a lot of particularly new authors to realize there's a universe, there's a community of other authors out there that are incredibly generous, that are incredibly supportive, that you need to sort of connect with to help them and have them help you. So any— what would you add to that?

Yeah, I think that was my experience. You know, going through high school, I was writing by myself. I had my siblings supporting me. I briefly tried to start up a writers club at the high school level. But it's always— if you do find people, it's people your peers, people who aren't published just like you, who have no idea what they're doing just like you. And it wasn't until college that I got involved in one of those organizations that I'm currently operations manager for called Latter-day Saints in Publishing, Media, and the Arts, that I started to— I joined this organization of the whole range. You had authors, beginning authors just like me, maybe working on their first manuscript, but you had authors who had published 10, 20 books. And then you also had publishers and editors in that organization at those events that you could just talk with and network with. And the— I have seen a big difference in maybe not so much my writing per se, because you can learn that from books, but definitely my awareness of the market and my awareness of the industry and how to navigate that industry successfully.

What I think what many authors don't realize early on is they think the writing is the hard part, and it is. It's not— that's not easy by any stretch of the imagination. But that's just one step. The other side, which is as hard, if not harder, is, you know, the marketing, the— all the things that the promotions, all the things that you need to do to get the book launched, to get it out there. And it doesn't necessarily mean, you know, having a— a New York Times bestseller per se, but there's lots of things that need to be done that are tactical, that are, you know, via social media or whatever to get a book out there. And what a better— there's no better way to learn than others that have been there before you. Can you give an example of a couple of ways that communities of authors have supported one another and things that you've seen?

Certainly. So first is just knowing that you're not alone. Knowing that, having that encouragement that there's others on your journey, being able to talk with them definitely is a big morale booster and can be a big motivator of, okay, you know, this person was where I'm at now 3 years ago, but look, they just got their manuscript accepted, and this person got their book published. You see people all along the train of publishing and you're like, okay, I can do this. Another way—

well, actually, stay, stay there for a minute because I think that's really important. And I've seen this as well where, you know, I've been at events where we've gotten bunches of authors together and having conversations, and people see each other like, oh, that was me 2 years ago. And then in the same room, they can see, oh, there's someone that's on their 4th book. That, I hope, will be me in 2 years. So what can I give to this person who's 6 months behind me? And what can I learn from this person who's 2 or 3 years ahead of me, right? And it's a very nice combination of generosity and reciprocity. That's what I've observed.

Those are two excellent terms. I see that all the time, that it's not just that the experts that are well established that are mentoring everyone else, but you're right. Anyone can find someone a little farther behind, not farther behind, but newer than they. So just the other day, I haven't published a book yet. But just the other day, yesterday, I was giving feedback on a friend of mine. She was working on a query letter for a publisher, and I thought, well, I have attended sessions about query letters. I know some resources about query letters, and I know she hadn't. And so I was able to send her those resources and just give some comments on her query letter, even though I myself, when I eventually go to write a query letter, I'm also going to need help.

Well, I like what you said about sort of the mentoring thing, because it's— it's— I think that everybody can help everybody. So you might be a newly minted author, but maybe you're more social media savvy than someone that's written 7 books. And when they came up the path, maybe the way to launch a book was to do a physical book tour, right? And there they might be, even though they're seasoned as an author, there are new strategies and tactics that come along that they might be novices in that you can support them because you have that experience from another domain in your life of, you know, being social media savvy or knowing how to use video or whatever the case may be.

Exactly, yeah. Another thing that I have seen in the two organizations I'm a part of, and this is not true about every author organization, but the two I'm a part of, they're very much— they've integrated the authors with the publishers. So Barrett Kohler Authors was formed by the Barrett Kohler Publishing Company, or the publishing company reaching out to some of its authors and saying, we want to help you form an author cooperative. To help support the authors who publish with our company. And there's always a member of the publishing company on the author board of directors. And then all the events that the author organization does, there's members of the publishing staff there presenting, working with the authors.

Sure.

And it's the same thing with the other organization I do where it's authors and publishers and editors and various other types of creators. That's a very big difference than some other forums I've seen where it's just authors, because sometimes if you just get authors together, you— they kind of talk in a way about the publishers as if the publishers, they're the adversary, they're the problem.

Yeah, right, right, right.

They don't understand us, they don't give us good royalties, they don't accept our manuscripts. But once you get the publishers involved, the publishers are like, we want to publish good books just like you. Let us talk to you about how together we can improve our manuscript, improve our marketing. And the publishers know the market a lot better than the authors. And so the publishers have to explain to the authors, you know, this is the current state of the market. We want you to succeed in the market, but you need to understand the current state.

Well, and I think some of it is about alignment and understanding. So it's not really helpful for a bunch of authors to get together and say, those dopey publishers, they, you know, they don't pay me a fair wage, they don't do this. And then the publishers just sit around going, geez, if those authors only did what we asked them to, like, that's not really helpful. So I think if it comes from a place of understanding, you can get that alignment in place. Because what I find the inherent disconnect from an industry standpoint is at the end of the day, any publisher only generates revenue by number of units sold times some sort of profit margin per book, less cost, right? That's it, full stop. From an author's perspective, most authors, the book, or even if there's many books, only make up a relatively small percentage of their direct income. And it's only at certain moments in time, it's almost like an eclipse, that the book is really a priority for them, typically around launch and all that other stuff. And then for the authors, they've got other ways to leverage, monetize, and scale the ideas that are in that book, whether it's speaking, consulting, advising, etc. And the publishers don't really get a bite of that apple. So you have to think about this and say, okay, at what moments in time are we aligned where we both really care a lot about selling books and we'll do whatever we need to do? And at what moments in time are we aware that, hey, you know what, if I published with a publisher 3 years ago, I'm less important to them than I might be if I was in the spring roster this year.

Yeah, that, that's really a key idea of alignment. I agree.

Great. If you're enjoying this episode of Thought Leadership Leverage, Leverage, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. Given you, you sort of straddle both worlds. If there's someone out there listening today, and I imagine that there are many, um, that are thinking about their first book and writing their first book, any words of advice, tips, things to do, things not to do as they get ready to sort of go down that road?

You have to be committed. You have to really want it. If you're doing it to make money, there's much easier ways to make money. Exactly. If you're doing it to get a message out there, then You have to do it well in order to reach a lot of people. If you don't do it well and you're not very committed, you're going to— you may as well just email your message out to all your friends and family and post on Facebook because you'd reach about as many people that way as you would trying to write and sell a book on your own without doing it very well. I would definitely recommend finding an author organization. If you publish nonfiction, any sort of self-help, business, definitely check out the BK Authors organization. That's bkauthors.org. But there's other organizations out there. There's just, just Google, Google, ask around, look for those organizations. There's organizations that have writing writers chapters, local chapters. I know I'm— I grew up in Utah. I know there's a League of Utah Writers, for example. I imagine most other states would have something similar. And then look for events. Look for author events, workshops. Not so much the, you know, one person online with a video series sort of thing, but if possible, an in-person event with other authors, with publishers, where you can start to form those connections, have those one-on-one conversations, and see what other authors are saying about the market and what they're doing to promote their books.

Got it. So, so, you know, you mentioned the commitment piece. I think that's really key where, you know, you can't do this halfway. It is a big commitment. One thing I'd like to also add to what you said is you mentioned, you know, finding groups and in-person events and all those things, and I think that's 100% correct. I also think that a lot of authors find it really surprising that when they actually read out— reach out to an author, even a highly regarded author that they admire, whose work has had an impact on them, and reach out to them, you'd be surprised at the level of receptivity. If you read someone that you've read all their books and you say, hey, I'm in the process of writing a book. You've had a great influence on my thinking over the years. Any advice? I mean, when you ask, it's amazing the doors that will open.

Definitely. What I've been amazed at is with both of the organizations I work with, the events we do, neither organization has the budget yet to pay our presenters. And so we're just asking presenters to present for free. And even our keynoters will come and do— this New York Times bestselling, multiple bestselling time author will come and do a free keynote presentation and then stay after for an hour talking with people and signing books and meeting people because they want to give back to the community. So yeah, that would be a great piece of advice. Find an author who publishes books similar to what you want to write. Find their website, find their contact form, email them and say, I really admire you. I really admire your work. I'm trying to do something similar. I would love a 20-minute conversation with you just to help you point me in the right direction. And then keep it to 20 minutes unless they—

Yeah. And I think you'd be surprised at how generous some many name brand folks are. I've always been amazed because I haven't seen it in too many other professions where if you called the head of sales at 5 organizations as a junior salesperson at a competitor, that they would be so likely to give you time. But I think many established authors have a soft spot for folks first coming into the game and are willing to give and those sorts of things. Last sort of couple of thoughts for you is I think that one other disconnect between the publishing world and the reality for authors is time. Meaning publishers have typically a fall catalog and a spring catalog. It doesn't always work in that way, but they've— and they've got resources allocated to get a book launched, and then they have to get onto the next thing. And I think it sets a tone that authors need to be mindful of that says your book is a seasonal item. And I am a strong believer that making that investment in your book, the writing, the energy, the opportunity cost, the money, and all that, you should be thinking of that on a 5- to 7-year amortization schedule as an individual author. And just because your book came out 2 years ago doesn't mean it's less valuable or less interesting than a book that comes out this week. Any thoughts or reactions on that, Jeremy?

That is in a way true where the publishers are putting the most effort in that 6-month production launch process, but a growing trend in publishing is the growth of backlist sales. So for those who don't understand the term, frontlist is any title published in the most recent year, and then after a year has passed, it's on the backlist, meaning all the titles the publishing company has published in the past. More and more sales, more and more publishing company revenue or book publishing revenue is from those backlist titles of hundreds of thousands of titles published before 2022 that are still selling, still selling on Amazon, still selling in bookstores. And I think publishers are seeing the value in that. And you do have the phenomenon, especially in nonfiction, where you can always come out with a second edition. And so if you as an author are keeping that momentum going of you have solid book sale figures 3, 4, 5 years later, you could reach out to your publishing company or they might reach out to you and say, "Hey, let's do a revised and expanded edition." Yep.

Well, I think that back catalog issue without getting too into the woods, I think a lot of authors don't realize that the data shows us that nonfiction business books tend to sell more year 2 than year 1. Why is that? Well, it's gotten out there. People are reading it. People are talking about it, organically permeated. Permeated. That first wave is marketing-driven and PR-driven. That second wave, year 2, is really a friend telling a friend, "I just read this book and I think you'd be interested in that, Jeremy." And that just takes time to go through. And the back catalog, publishers love back catalog, but as you said, most of their energy and effort needs to go into the current catalog.

Yeah, because there's not much they can do after they edit and publish and launch a book. There's ways they can keep trying to sustain sales, but that's going to be a fraction of the publisher's effort. You're right.

Yep. And I think when you think about some of your favorite books of all times, I know when I think about mine, when I give books away, and I do it all the time, the pub date means nothing to me. There are times I'll give a book away and go, "Wow, I didn't realize that book's 12 years old. I felt like I just read it last year." But to that person at this moment in time, based on what they're going through, I think it'd be a perfect thing for them to to read, right? So a pub date is this— not artificial, it's, it's a date publishers need to drive a schedule and a release and all that, but it doesn't mean that it's not an expiration date. It's not a quart of milk, I guess, is my point.

Yeah. And ideally, your, your ideas, or if you're writing fiction, your stories are timeless enough that it will still be useful 30, 40, 50 years later.

Yep, yep, yep. That is for sure. Well, I appreciate your time. This has been fantastic, and I appreciate your insight. Always love sharing insight and wisdom from people who have a different perspective, and you certainly are embedded deep in the author's community, probably deeper than anyone I know. So thank you. Thank you for sharing, Derek.

I'm embedded remarkably deep for having never published a book myself.

Well, I would share that. I've been once removed from many, many, many books and have yet to publish one myself for many, many reasons. Yeah, so I could relate to that very much so, but thank you. Appreciate your time and appreciate your energy and the work that you do. Thanks, Jeremy.

Thank you, Peter.

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