Effectively Publish Your Book And Monetize Your Thought Leadership

Things work easier. And when you don't have it, there's a tax, and that tax costs time and money. Okay, incredibly simple. I've just summarized the book, but what do I do with that, right?

Right.

Stephen M. R. Covey has productized that in a wonderful degree in terms of training and other opportunities so that you take those basic ideas and you scale them out so that people apply the idea. I think there's a myth that a lot of people, when they produce a book, they say, oh, people will read it, understand it, and it'll change their lives. That doesn't happen by magic.

No.

Exactly.

No, and great example, Bill. Real quick, Peter, one of the things that the Covey organization did really well too is they really tracked and protected their trademarks really, really well, but they didn't do it from a litigious perspective. If somebody was referencing their material more than they should, they reached out first to see, hey, thanks, let's collaborate. And then if it didn't go well from there, they would aggressively protect themselves. But they created a significant amount of collaboration from what would have been, quote unquote, perceived as competitors. And they did it really well. But each time adding additional value to the audience, and it was just growing their, you know, their opportunities on a daily basis.

Excellent. Robert, you had a question, and there's a couple questions in the chat I'll get to in a moment here.

Yeah, I want to go back to something David said a few minutes ago. He was talking about the guy who put a short video on his website for each chapter. I had been thinking of something different, and that was using my blog as a way to introduce Parts of the book or each chapter in the book. Do you think using the blog can be as effective as the video?

It certainly can be, from my opinion. Blogs don't sound as sexy and current as some of the other platforms, but anything you can do to get them out of the book, to take the information a little bit deeper, give them some— a little additional resource, and most importantly, to get to know you, it can be very valuable. Video has just got a great way of getting people to fall in love with you quicker, but I think it's a good start. Start with that.

All right.

I didn't know we'd be talking about sex, but what are some of the other sexy ways besides the blog?

Well, certainly the video is probably one of the biggest ways to do it because you really can get a personal connection with them. I would just say don't call it a blog. You can tell it— take them to your website for a particular article that is in your blog and let them continue to dig deeper, give them that opportunity. You know, blogging seems— it's not, but blogging seems in the consumer's eyes yesterday, when it's still very relevant, still very indexable, but still a great way for you to actively communicate with your fans and followers through your website. Just avoid the word blog. That's my narrow message.

So Howard— thank you, David. So Howard had a question, and then what I'll do is I'll answer it and then ask you to answer it too, David, and see if we could vehemently argue about something. Howard's question was around, you know, do you have a website for each of your books, or do you just throw a tag on your page? My opinion on that is usually you do sort of a book.com, blah, blah, blah, title or the book or whatever .com for some period of time during launch, 60 days, 90 days, 180 days, whatever it is, and then ultimately fold that into a tab on your website. That's what I've seen that tends to work, but I don't know if you would concur with that or not, David.

There's probably not a wrong answer. Peter, you and I probably don't disagree on many things, but I would say in today's world, it's so hard to get traffic to your website. So my vote is have a website about you. You know, it could be, you know, davidhancock.com or something like that.

Yeah.

And you have a tab for each one of your books. But very specifically, you should own those domains and they can be redirected to the tabs on your website. And it could just be something as simply as, you know, rayedwards.com/permissiontoprosper. And that page can look like a standalone site, but anything you can do to drive traffic to one single site just makes you more discoverable in future search engine optimization. So that's been my vote for a while.

And then David had another— I'm sorry, Howard had another question on the use of assessments, you know, using an assessment as sort of a hook for the book. And my Take on that is there are assessments and there are assessments, right? So to me, the work that Bill tends to and I tend to do tends to be focused on the enterprise level, the Fortune 500, Fortune 1000, sophisticated. So anytime we're behind an assessment, it's going to be validated, it's going to be scientifically based. And we've all seen these other ones that are sort of like, you know, the makeup counter at Bloomingdale's, you're a spring, a summer, or winter. I think if your audience is unsophisticated, you might be able to get get away with that. It wouldn't be my recommendation because there are— people love assessments because what better than to tell me more about me, my favorite topic? And then they love being able to share them, group them up in teams, etc. But I think I would caution against, you know, a non-scientific or, you know, oh, I can just write up 8 questions, blah, blah, blah sort of thing. I think people have gotten a little smarter than, you know, the Facebook quiz level of assessment. You want to come across as smarter than that. Let me just go right back. We had a couple other questions pop in here. So Leslie asked, and I don't know the answer to this. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I'll just say real quick on that idea, Peter, and if you do an assessment, you know, follow Peter's guidance, but do whatever you can to make it so it's hands-off. Try to automate it, try to use technology.

Totally.

That way you don't, you don't have to field 300 assessments personally every month from your book sales. That'll just drive you crazy and won't be fun. And we want you to have fun and have time to do other things. So automate it as best you can. And again, let book sales, that opportunity pay for it. So you don't have to have it all up and running on day 1, book 1. But those are the goals you need to work towards, or those are some things that you may want to consider investing in to make it easier. But they can be very, very effective.

Yep. So Leslie had a question that I have no idea how to answer, so I'll give it to you, Dave, because why not?

Oh, thanks.

Um, so how does this— so Leslie's, uh, question was an example of how to use this for fiction.

So, you know, fiction is still about moving the masses down a storyline. So fiction and nonfiction certainly could be considered different ways to market. On fiction, what we're teaching our authors and seeing from some of our most successful fiction authors is creating side storylines, creating additional information, getting to know you as an author. Because once they start to love your books, they're going to start loving you and really want you to create more content.

Yeah.

So give them reasons to want more, help them decide what next to write. So if you've got some really awesome characters in your books or really great messages in your books or even a morale or something that's in the book that you can have some side conversations online.

Yeah.

That could be very, very specific. But let's say you've got a character that you just really love writing and you want to expand on, but there's not enough room in the book, or your publisher says, hey, only 60,000 words, you drive them to the web and carry that conversation on. And who knows, you could be writing your next book, you know, out of your blog post. But that's one thing. So still create conversations, get them to leave the website for additional information. There's one of a couple different things from a fiction perspective, but it's all about creating the conversation and getting them to fall in love with you and your content. Tie it into local events. So if something's going on in the world today, hey, let's say your book has a COVID-type thing in it. Well, you know, create opportunities to talk about that and respond to news media. Hey, that's just like what happens in my book. You know, or something like that. We can go deeper into that on the fiction side because it's very similar but different.

Cool. And then Romina had a question about sort of if you're naming that section of your website blog, is there a better tag to use for that if blog is a bit of an antiquated term?

This is where your guerrilla creativity can come in line. It could just be additional resources. It could be the blog. It certainly doesn't hurt to be called the blog. I just wouldn't put it in your book. It could be articles. Yeah, I'm a fan of additional resources.

Yeah, that works. Okay, and then Howard's got— this is a good one. So additional differences between traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing. So I think let me sort of chunk it into an area that we haven't talked about. There's a business model piece to this, right? So in some instances, if you're lucky enough to potentially get a traditional sort of big house publishing deal with an advance, I think people look at that and don't do the calculus on it. So what is an advance? An advance is an advance against projected earnings. So it's not free money. It's not money that fell from the sky. It's not whatever. So they're going to give you some subset of what they think the book will earn upfront. And until you earn that out, you're not getting any more money. So, you know, I've seen what I call sort of the worst of time models with some traditional publishers now saying, okay, we're not going to give you an advance because very few are doing that now. And in fact, we're going to ask that you buy— you do a guaranteed buy as the author, you know, whatever, 2,000 copies, 3,000 copies, 4,000 copies over some period of time at wholesale, which is 50% of retail. So in essence, what they're saying is you're going to underwrite the risk that we're taking. You're going to spend $40,000, $50,000 to offset the first cost that we have for editorial and printing. if that works out well and the book sells tremendously, congrats, you get 10 or 15% of that. If not, you lost 40 or 50 grand. That doesn't sound like a good partner to me. Like, I wouldn't want to do business with a partner that came to me with those terms. But, you know, that's what we're seeing. What would you add to that, David? How would you take that?

Yeah, I agree. You definitely have to be careful. And unfortunately, according to Publishers Weekly, 98% of advances aren't earned out. And if you're— that means that 98% of books don't ever earn a single royalty beyond their advance. So if you're trying to get that advance model, we'll try to get as much as you can because, you know, it can be, you know, all you earn. But then you got to watch out if you're first, maybe second, even sometimes third-time author or more. If you haven't had a breakout book yet, you can pretty much guarantee that hidden in your 35-page, you know, publishing agreement that there is a clause Unless somebody's smart enough to find it and get it negotiated out that says if you don't earn the advance, you pay it back.

So you gotta be very, very, very careful.

So we pay small advances, mostly for political reasons, because we want our authors to be able to say, I've got one. Yes. But we also want to make sure that Publishers Weekly treats us like a traditional house where it matters, and the airport books carry— airport bookstores carry our books because they look for that traditional aspect of advances. But you do need to be very careful. And again, understanding that the world is constantly changing. And even today, the average advance for a nonfiction book in America is now $500. That's taking into consideration the $5 million they just paid Jane Doe, or whoever that was. So it's— don't focus on the advance, focus on the opportunity.

Great. So let's pause for a minute. Anybody got any questions? They want to raise their hand or wave or just ask Dave or I or anybody? Okay, Robert, you're waving your hand again. There we go.

Yeah, uh, Dave, what do you think of an ebook to accompany your hardcover or softcover book? Do we need an e-version?

Absolutely yes. In fact, my training to our authors is that we need to make the book available in any format that somebody could possibly want it. It's a true guerrilla characteristic, so much so that we as a publisher, we distribute our ebooks to over 1,800 different platforms. Heck, we even sell the books on the blockchain. I have no idea what that means.

I'm gonna have—

I know that much what it means. So, but my thinking is, if they want it in hardcover, give it to them hardcover. If they want it in paperback, give it to them paperback. If they want it in e, give it to them in e. If they want it, uh, in audio, give it to them in audio. Any way that they could possibly want it, I think we need to provide. We have a— we have an obligation to give them what they want because it gives us what we want.

Thank you.

Got it.

Funny thing for me is asking So Romina is asking about Facebook ads over Google ads for book marketing. I'll give an answer and then Dave, you could chime in as well. I would think it depends on who your market is and what your objectives are. I've yet to really see a Facebook or Google ad campaign that makes sense just mathematically on book sales, right? So gonna pay this cost per click for customer acquisition to sell a book for $20 to make $8 or whatever the math is. Now, if it's a client acquisition vehicle, that's a different story. So I think it really depends on what your goals and what your objectives are. It wouldn't make sense to spend $20 to make $2, you know, on a book, but it would make sense to spend $20 to acquire a client that could spend tens of thousands. So I don't know what you would add to that, David.

Yeah, I agree. As authors, we make so little money from our royalties, even those publishers like us that pay, you know, the higher 20 to 30%, you really can't do an effective you know, ad campaign on Facebook or Google and make enough money to pay for it. So you've got to monetize the book. So don't waste your time or money. If you do want to tackle it again, make sure there's a way to monetize it in your process, like acquisitions of additional clients or capturing the names and doing things like that. But definitely don't try to figure it out yourself. You'll spend so much money with very little results very, very quick. You'll get discouraged. Well, one, we don't want that, but also two, we don't want you wasting money. So either get the training to learn how to do it yourself. There's some great resources out there. Or end up hiring somebody to do it for you. But again, remember, it's the least profitable way to sell books. It's the best way to sell, you know, client acquisition if you can.

Got it, got it. We had a question on building an audience if you're a new audience. I guess that means sort of you're a new author. You know, I, I don't think there's one best practice here to build an audience. I, I would start with the like-minded and building community. So if you're writing a book about X, who else is known in that space? Who else are people following in that space? How do you start connecting to those people? How do you start commenting with those people? Building an audience is hard. It takes years and years and years and years. I think it's really more about being deliberate, and it's quality over quantity. Getting lists that you could buy of God knows what they are on Twitter is useless, but getting real Connection and such, I think, is a little bit more, more valuable there.

Yeah, and exercise your gorilla patience because it does take time. It is worth the wait and it is worth the process, but it does take time. So just content. It's all about content and you being that authority and serving your audience, giving them above and beyond what they expect, but being consistent. I've always said that probably of all the things you could do, consistency and patience are going to be the 2 things that lead you to the edge. Yeah, good.

Yep. Then we got a question from Leslie on how important are reviews and which ones. So actually, David, you answer this one first and then maybe I'll agree or disagree.

Yeah, absolutely. I think reviews are very important. I should, I should say you should always ask and never stop asking for endorsement and reviews. They can be very significant and drive as many reviews on Amazon as you can because a couple things, for instance, now you don't get— you won't hear me saying drive as much to Amazon as possible because You'll end up ticking off all the other book store buyers. But the reality is a lot of buyers, no matter where they buy the book from, will often go to Amazon to read the reviews. So definitely focus on trying to get as many reviews on Amazon as you possibly can and start with the ebook. If you can get the ebook released early, start driving reviews because that can help actually influence, you know, the conversation so the preorders come in so the print distribution goes better. But never stop trying to get endorsements. You can always add them to the book later, second editions or mid Second printings, things like that, and definitely add them to your website. But we all looked at our, at our, our social influences, the peers that, that we respect, the people that respect, the influences that we respect. As many people as those can, can be effective, but don't think they all need to be celebrities. I think a good mix is probably, you know, 95% John and Jane Doe with a good mix of, you know, 5%, you know, big name. They all matter.

And I think it's also important around launch, if you're fairly unknown, which, which 99.9% of us are, that when folks go to Amazon to either buy or check it out, you have at least 6 or 8 or 10 positive reviews there. So you have to do sort of that, that immediate launch book review campaign, you know, where you're asking your friends, your colleagues, and such to say, hey, do me a favor, just pop a review in there kind of thing. Leslie asked also about book awards. So what are your thoughts on the importance of book awards? Everybody likes trophies and awards, but what about—

Yeah, we all love the trophies and awards, and they're good reasons to brag about yourself. We as authors have so few opportunities that we can flip that table and be 95% about us and our goal and 5% about the platform and why they're following you. So book awards, nominations, you know, going through the whole process can be very significant. I would say just caution on some book awards are just their businesses. Most of them are some sort of business, so Just be careful. Yeah, spending thousands of dollars in submission fees. Be very specific about books that are similar to yours that you can really leverage. But also make sure you're submitting to awards that are relevant for your book. There are self-publishing awards. There are books that are only specifically for traditionally published authors. So you wouldn't want to submit your HarperCollins book to a self-publishing place, and you wouldn't want to submit your self-published book to a traditional, you know, thing because you just get discouraged or waste your money. So be very focused, or you don't want to be associated with, you know, the quality that typically comes from the self-publishing side. So you don't want to be, you know, the runner-up to a book that's worse than yours. You know what I mean? So just be very specific. But also, again, as Peter said, which was brilliant, you know, your heroes, the people that you emulate, to, you know, the authors that you respect, the authors that you read. Submit to the same, you know, awards that they're getting, you know, their nominations for and they're winning for. As long as you're published similarly or in a similar vein, you don't have to recreate it. But again, don't waste time or money. That's very important.

Yep, yep. I also— let's talk for a minute, David, about the difference between what I would call sort of hand-to-hand combat and air cover. So a lot of people, when they get into book mode, they do what smart people, or they believe to be smart people, tell them to do. Hire a PR firm, do a book marketing campaign, you know, do this, do that. It's like, okay, phew, there goes a lot of money. And, you know, because I've never done this before, I don't know, it seems like a good idea. That PR firm seemed good, that book marketing firm seemed good. And they don't do as much hand-to-hand. So tell me sort of the— what to look out for. And I'm not saying from a scam perspective, but how to calibrate expectations. And be thoughtful yet cautious when investing in your marketing dollars. 'Cause that's where I think a lot of, most people get really, really burnt and frustrated.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've got some great friends that are in the industry that I love and respect and they do a phenomenal job at what they do. They get amazing coverage, but you really have to watch that, the results side of it and really what your expectations are. Yeah, again, one of the things that I learned from a dear friend of mine who founded and ran one of the nation's largest book publicity firms, and actually after he retired he came on board with us for about 10 years before he retired for a second time, he taught me, he said, you know, publicists and PR firms have an amazing guarantee. They guarantee to bill you every month.

Usually in advance.

Usually in advance. But the reality is they can be good. So definitely track down their references and interview them and talk to them because they can be very good. Good at what they do, it just doesn't necessarily mean that just because you show up on all the media channels or get interviewed by 20 radio stations that you're going to sell enough books to pay for it. So keep that in mind. It could be about future opportunity. It could be about, you know, further positioning you from a national scale as an authority, which could later benefit from a speaking perspective for the products and services.

What I would say, it's also being realistic. I've had clients come to me and say, oh, I found this great PR firm and they did, you know, Ken Blanchard or, you know, Tom Peters' book, and I have to look at them and say, that's great, they did Ken Blanchard's 7th book. You're not Ken Blanchard, with all due respect.

Right.

So the expectations that, you know, if you have a preexisting condition of being a New York Times bestseller, it tends to be chronic. If you haven't been there yet, it's hard to start. And I think just because they've been able to do wonders with rock stars or people you admire and respect and such doesn't mean that you're going to expect the same outcome. I would, and I would have that expectation or that conversation around what could I realistically expect here. And I think the other thing I see is people, smart people get really confused with terminology, particularly in the social media space that they just don't understand. Oh, we're going to get engagement, we're going to get retweets, we're going to get followers. Okay, great. Break that down for me. What is that? Because it sounds like I'm learning a new language because I don't understand it. But what do those things mean? What are they predictive indicators of? Do I care about them? Am I willing to invest in them? Is it just, you know, if you're doing this because you're afraid to go timeout, explain that to me. That's, that's gonna, that's gonna escalate. So what would you counsel there, David?

Oh, absolutely. One of my favorite guys does it very well, Dennis Welch. He's a Texas publicist, phenomenally connected to the industry, does a phenomenal job with his clients. You know, having a talk with somebody like Dennis to talk about, well, what is the expectation? What is your goal? What is the budget? How are you planning on paying for it? Those conversations are very real. And what does it mean just because I'm getting retweets and those things are successes in the traditional world or in the publishing or publicist world? How does that drill down to, you know, how am I going to benefit from that? And one of the things that I know Dennis does really well is just have that good clean conversation with the author up front saying, hey, what are the goals and And helping figure out, is this the right path? Or, hey, let's build the platform. So you're investing in the platform, not expecting to recoup that money in book sales, because it's all a process. But it's, um, it's something you definitely need to have some guidance. Don't just jump into it alone. I always recommend to interview at least, at least more than one to catch that right vision for the book, because, you know, it's a business. Typically in business, somebody is there to sell you as much as you can before you start running away screaming. But there are a few relationships out there. You know, like Media Connect, like Dennis, like some others that really value your success because ultimately they want to stay in business for 50 years versus, you know, the next 15 months.

And it also depends on what you're selling after the book and what the value is. So I had a call earlier this week with a gentleman that runs a mastery group and it's for pretty successful entrepreneurs and the cost of entry is $250,000. So a $10,000 or $15,000, $20,000 customer acquisition cost to him is like, Okay, not a big deal. You know, it's 7-8% of the life of the value of the customer. For some of us, if we're selling a $5,000 coaching service and we're spending $20,000 to get it, you're not going to make that up in volume. So again, a lot of this comes down to business and math, you know, and it either works or it doesn't. The numbers don't lie.

There's a little bit of ego in there too, and I'm okay with that as long as you keep it checked, but It's the process, but you're right, you gotta pay attention to the numbers.

So somebody just asked, let me just go through here. Uh, Robert asked, what services does Thought Leadership provide? So, uh, I don't want to do an infomercial, but you can check out our site. We are a consulting firm that works with authors, thought leaders, speakers, consultants, and helping them develop their strategy, their brands, their platforms, etc. So I won't, uh, take up everybody's time on an infomercial, but check out our site and, uh, happy to chat with you. Robert, with your Your hand up there.

Yeah, um, this is for David and for Peter. What was the age of the oldest author you ever worked with to make he or she successful, quote unquote?

Oh my gosh, question.

Yeah, so I guess it depends on what— at that point, sometimes the author may have already been successful at that age, but not always. So I think the oldest author we worked with was in the '80s. And I think we've had 3 in the upper 80s. CEO of Volvo, Per Gullienhammar's book's coming out next month. He's— I think he's well into his 80s, and this is basically his 3rd book, and I think he'll do really, really well with it. But Jay Levinson was in his 80s. We learned more from him than he ever learned from us, of course. And gracious, there was one other financier from the UK that we did his first book when he was Definitely in his late 80s, and he's still continually getting speaking gigs because of that book. So age is, is just a number when it comes to being the authority in a space. Yeah, it's all about the energy. Yeah.

Yeah, I would answer that a little bit differently. We've had several— I don't know if we've had in her 80s, but several in, in a different phase in their career, in their 60s and 70s, where they've been incredibly successful CEO, entrepreneur, whatever, and But they're brand new in this space and transitioning. So we've done a lot in that space. I don't, you know, I don't think age— I'd rather work with a well-seasoned, you know, 60-year-old life coach than try to change the world. My personal take. I agree.

It's freezing. I don't know if others are hearing it too or not hearing it.

Well, I got—

I have a question.

Okay, yes, go ahead. Do you see me? I hear you. Is that Gary? I think Peter's frozen up right now, but Gary, go ahead.

Yes, Gary Waters speaking. Here's a quick question. What's a reasonable starting point for To get someone to market your book? Okay, now, first let me give you this. The book is one, but also what I'm trying to do in regards to do workshops.

Yeah, so I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but I do know that the workshops can be very significant, especially with somebody at your level, Gary, to get them out of the book and start getting engaged with you. You're blessed with the opportunity that people want to get to know who you are just because of who you are. But the value you can continue to bring to the table, I think, is the workshops. And they'll do what you want them to do because they respect you on so many different levels that the book is just icing on the cake. But workshops can be very, very effective. When Jay Levinson quasi-retired in his latter years, he was doing literally just about— gracious— one a month. So 12 a year. He would bring 12 people to his house.

Wow.

for $1,500 to $2,500 apiece just to spend a couple nights with him. And, uh, he was killing it. He was leaving a phenomenal legacy for his bride when he did pass away. But it was so easy for him. So those things can be very, very powerful.

Well, that's great, great information. But the other part of that question is, Dave, that, um, what is the— what is it, a reasonable, um, cost to hire one to market?

Yeah, so that's a, that's a great starting point.

Now, you know, I'm at the starting point, so I want to make sure I'm just not giving away money now.

No, yeah, we definitely don't want to give away money unless you get something great in return, unless you're just super, super generous. But there, there are campaigns that will blow your mind to campaigns that are very affordable. Part of it certainly is, is the goal, but you could start out with a publicist to help you out with a couple months before your pub date to a couple months after your pub date, and you'll probably be anywhere from $3,000 to $4,000 a month, you know, to make that happen. Again, my prayer for you and anybody is how do we monetize that? How do we pay for that? I think we all need to be addicted to opium, other people's money. Opium, other people's money. Presell as many books as you can, pay for it in any way that you can, but And then there's a level. So for instance, if you just wanna start the media path, you could work with somebody that really does a really good job at the radio tours. Start with something as simple as a radio tour so you can commit to one thing, you know, they'll guarantee they'll get you on 20 radio stations for $3,000. And that could be a good start 'cause sometimes publicity begets publicity. And the more that you get out there, the easier it is to get more. And then you can spend campaigns that I've actually been a part of that literally spend $1 million a month to do, as much publicity as they can. So, you know, Gary, it's a tough question. I would say talk to a handful of people to get started, but I would say probably if you set aside 5 grand to start with, you'll probably be safe to at least start something good and hopefully do some things that monetize to go further.

Very good. Well, I would add to that, David. I think there's a lot of things that a lot of people can do that are marginal costs that should be where they start. doing an in-depth analysis of your network, right? Figuring out who you already know, figuring out the people that already, you know, people tend to associate with people like themselves. So if you're a senior-level executive and you're in a B2B space, and you've got a bunch of, you know, C-level executive colleagues, friends, former clients, reaching out to them and saying, hey, would you give me the name of 5 of your friends that I can send the book to on your behalf? I mean, people sometimes get too obsessed with selling the book. It's really about getting the book in the right hands of the right people to get the right outcome. And if you, you know, the investment of 200, 500, 1,000 books to risk a little bit to get them in the right hands, assuming it's coming in. If I said to you, David, give me, you know, name 5 of your friends that can help me do A, B, C, and D, and they got a book from me who they don't know from a mutual friend, that's going to mean something. And those things don't cost a lot, you know. Yep. Yeah.

If you've got a great relationship with your publisher, you can sort of ask them to chip in some books to help to send out to those sources. You know, I have a saying, if you don't ask, you don't get. It's biblical, ask and you shall receive. Publishers love to see authors that are busy actively doing something because most authors don't do anything. So keep that feedback and that relationship with the publisher really close.

So David, we have a good relationship. That's what you're telling me, huh?

That's right.

We had David present your book yesterday to the sales team.

I'm so excited about it.

Well, the other thought I want to put out there, David, which is I don't come from the publishing world, right, is that the publishing world tends to work in cycles.

Right.

And they think about a book almost like an article of clothing. Oh, that's, you know, a seasonal— that's a spring line, or that's the fall line, or whatever. I think most of us, and there are some exceptions if you're writing a book about COVID or something like that, but most of us need to be looking at the book through an amortization schedule of 5 to 7 years. This book has value. This is evergreen. Right, and over 5 to 7 years, it will still be equally valid today as it, you know, in a year from now as it is today getting in the right hands. And I think, you know, sort of book world operates in 90, 120-day, whatever cycles, but could you give an example or two of people that have done an effective job of extracting maximum value from a book over not just launch, but a year later, 2 years later?

Oh, absolutely, and that very key word you just said is a great example, launch. So we've got a book by Jeff Walker called Launch, and in it, I think you guys should read it, But in it, he helps authors recognize the ability to launch themselves brand spanking new to the world 3 times a year. Their book needs to be re-released. Their product needs to be re-released to the world every, every 4 months because it's new to somebody. There's a new audience, there's new fans, new followers, people that didn't act the first time. So he has literally been relaunching that book. And we first published it, I think, in what, '13? Hit number 1 New York Times bestseller in 2013. And he relaunches that great book, you know, 4 times a year, and every time we sell hundreds of thousands of books. So never stop.

Got it. No, great point. Anybody got any other questions? We've got a couple of minutes here left. Anybody got a question for David or I? Howard, there you go. Thanks, Howard.

Yeah, well, how do we start? Where do we start? So I appreciate this whole spectrum of the pre-publishing, post-publishing, marketing and everything, where do we start in looking at publishers and ways to publish? I know, David, on your website you've got a nice chart of the comparison, but who do we talk to or how do we make that decision?

Yeah, great question. So I can start there, Peter, if you want.

Well, let me pre-answer that because I might— and then I'll hand it to you. So I think the first question, Howard, is is, um, make— why are you convinced that you need to publish just yet? So again, because I don't come from the publishing world, I think I've told more people than anybody I know, don't publish. Not, not don't publish ever, but don't publish now. And I think there's too many authors that publish prematurely that don't have their ducks in a row, don't have the foundation set, don't have the other things done. I think the first question, Howard, is, is now the optimal time for me to publish, or 6 months or a year from now? Then It's okay, who is the right fit? So that's where I'll hand that back to you, David.

Yeah, so yeah, again, do whatever Peter says.

Thank you, Peter.

So I think that's good. But if, if you do have the opportunity to get picked up by a publisher with distribution, you do want to engage the publisher as early on in the process as possible. I can't tell you how many books we accept on a proposal perspective, meaning I plan on writing a book on this. Because it does take forever, and I say forever kind of loosely, to get into bookstores. You know, for us, as quick as we are and as nimble as we are, it still takes us 9 to 10 months to show up on the bookstore shelf. We don't have to print that book till about 4 months prior when we send out for professional reviews, send out the sales reps. We really technically don't have to print that book until 30 days prior to pub date if we really get pinned to the wall. But you need to engage the publisher as as soon as possible because you can do a heck of a lot. One, build your platform or continue to build your platform, finish writing the book, create those strategic marketing alliances, all while we're selling it to the bookstores.

Well, let me ask you the other side of that, David, though. It's how many— because you and I have had conversations where someone came to you, you gave them some advice, you gave them some counsel, they thought they're ready to rock and roll, and as a result of that conversation, they're not. They realize they're not and they come back to you 2 years later and now they're in a position to win.

Yes, that happens often too, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes they'll come back in it, like you said, in a better position to win. The idea is fleshed out, you know, neater, or the right co-author came to the table. I struggled with one of my books back in the day. I kept trying to write it and try to launch it on my own, and I just, it just kept struggling. The content wasn't right, the message was a little bit clunky. It wasn't until I found the right co-author that really brought it together that it worked for me.

Cool, thank you. Uh, we had something else in the chat here, let me see. Somebody asked, uh, my topic is technology which changes often, are any publishers interested in annual revisions? I have no idea. David, any publishers interested?

Yes, um, so the biggest— the bigger, bigger publishers, um, tend to source those on their own, meaning like they'll, they'll hire writers themselves and publish those books themselves, not have to pay any royalties. But then it's all about if there's each one of those editions that they can earn out and make money. So if you can guarantee an audience to buy X number of copies every revision, that'd be, you know, that'd be great. If not, or not yet, then I would look at a hybrid or even self-publishing to establish your footprint or establish that audience. And when you get that audience that the broader distribution can handle and afford to be done, then yeah, absolutely. Publishers love books that just consistently sell, and even if that ends up being second editions, again, as long as each one pays for themselves or more, you could find a great partner.

Excellent. Cool. Anybody else? We'll do one more, one more round of questions here if anybody's got anything. Leslie, you've got your hand up. Have the sales cycles changed with the pandemic?

So that's a great question. So yes and no. So right now is an exciting time to write books that are relevant today if you can. It doesn't necessarily have to be related to politics or have to be related to COVID, but if there's something that's just— that the world's talking about right now. We literally had a meeting with Barnes Noble yesterday who's begging us to bring some stuff urgent, big books urgently right now, so the audience needs it. And I read into that the bookstores need it. The bookstores need some economic recovery. And they're going to do that with current relevant books that can be released as quickly as possible. Outside of that, the rest of us, if you will, that write just good general books, that doesn't necessarily mean there's something timeless about what's going on in the world today. Everything is the same. You know, we're still presenting books months in advance. Unfortunately, all of us who had books coming out in, you know, March, you know, June, July, you know, we kind of lost out on that shelf placement because most of the stores were closed, but they did still sell a lot at the curbside. But generally they're asking us to continue following the same lead times because they still have the same restrictions on inches and budgets per season. But they are right now more than ever looking for books that are current and relevant right now to help stay afloat while they're getting back into their groove.

If the one thing I've read on that, David, is there were, I think, the early side, the first 60, 75 days of pandemic, people actually reading a lot more. Right. Yeah. You know, so it was interesting that, that there was a spike in demand. You know, Netflix wasn't the only winner in how people choose to, to spend their time, uh, which is somewhat encouraging for book nerds like us. So, uh, cool. All right, we're gonna— what's that?

I would say even though Amazon deprioritized books, book sales shot up. I mean, we were up 13% compared to we were this time last year, and last year was our best year ever in our history. So people were reaching out to the things that were— that we were writing and we're publishing, you guys are writing, to solve their problems, to give them some encouragement, to help them figure out what's next, how to overcome it, how to relieve stress and the anxiety and depression. They're buying them books up like crazy.

Right. We weren't quick enough to create the campaign of, you know, buy a book, get a free roll of toilet paper, because that would have been a better campaign in March or April, but we weren't quick enough to figure that one out. But anyway, I appreciate everybody's time and thank you all for spending an hour with us. And David, appreciate your insight as always. Good stuff. And if anybody wants to reach David, you could, you could find him and you could find me as well. So thank you all for stopping by today. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your time. Thank you, guys.

Thanks. Thanks, everybody.