Marketing and Product Roadmaps for Entrepreneurs | Stephanie Chandler | 497

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. I'm really excited about today's episode. Today's guest is Stephanie Chandler, and let me give you her background because it's really cool. So she was a corporate person in Silicon Valley for 10 years. Okay? Then she opened a bookstore. Uh, for those of you under 35, Google that term. It used to be a place you went to buy analog representations of what's now on Kindle. And she opened this fairly large 2,800-square-foot bookstore, published a book in 2005, and since then she is the founder and CEO of Stephanie Chandler Enterprises, which consists of the Nonfiction Writers Conference, the Nonfiction Writers Association, and Authority Publishing. So without further ado, welcome.

Hey, Peter Winick, so fun to be with you today.

Cool. So you have been around this nonfiction universe primarily from a book angle for quite some time, right? Give me sort of the short version of what is universal, what's the same today as it was when you sort of started, and what's totally different?

Oh boy, that's a tough question.

That might be a loaded question.

What's the same today? I mean, people still are reading books, thank goodness, right? And we were afraid print books were going away. Well, they didn't. Yeah, so that's good. What's different, um, something I love is that we're moving toward audiobooks more and more. I love them. I listen constantly. It's another way I can squeeze in reading time into my day while I'm taking a walk or doing the dishes or laundry.

I don't mean to interrupt you. Give me some of the numbers on that. So personally, I'm a book guy. I read 2 books a week, but that is not normal, and I just, I don't I can't— I love podcasts, but audiobooks just don't do it for me for some reason. And I don't know why. It might be my brain is fried. I don't know.

It just—

it's my thing. But any—

Yeah, the market is expected to grow. If I'd known you'd ask me for stats, I would have had them in front of me, but I was just looking at these. And it's expected to grow exponentially through 2030. So it's really growing by leaps and bounds each year. And I'm with you, it took me a while to really fall in love with audiobooks. I think that it's important to pick topics that you're really, really interested in. And it helps me when I like the narrator. So a lot of times if the narrator is the author, like a James Clear, you know, somebody like that that you're interested in hearing from, it feels like a personal, you know, connection, kind of like podcasting does.

Hmm, interesting. So I didn't mean to cut you off there, but I, I, I had to ask the question. So tell, tell me what else you, you were saying in terms of what's stayed the same and what hasn't and what's changed. Yeah.

So what hasn't changed? I mean, audio, audiobooks are on the rise. eBooks didn't explode the market, thank goodness, but they're great too. I love my Kindle. You know, I'm a former bookstore owner. I still love my physical books, but Kindle sure makes it easy to go on vacation and bring a bunch of options. Right. And so, and self-publishing has obviously exploded. We're releasing a million titles a year, Peter. It is incredible. And it's concerning because it's harder and harder to make your book stand out when there's so much noise out there.

Yeah, I mean, a million a year. I mean, that's amazing and frightening at the same time, right? So it's great that, you know, on the one hand, anybody that wants to write a book can, It's horrible that anybody that wants to write a book can't, right? So, yeah. And I think what that does is when you, when you look at some of the lists and things, it's just so much more crowded. It's so much more difficult. And I think, you know, a lot of the work that we do is, is, is getting folks to be practical and pragmatic around outcomes and expectations on the back end of a book, you know, but if there's a million books out there, guess what? They're all not gonna be New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Just not gonna happen. So true.

And you know, the good ones rise to the top.

Yeah.

So let's be clear about that. You're right, it's hard to market books. That hasn't changed. That will always be true. But well-written, well-produced, well-promoted books will rise to the top. But they have to have those 3 things in common. They have to be well-written, you know.

But so I agree with that, but how do you define well-promoted? Because if you ask 10 different book promotional people that question, you get 11 answers.

Well, I mean, you have to have a marketing plan, right? I know you guys do a lot of that work with authors. I think that's so important. Your book will not be discovered on its own. It has to have a marketing plan. Uh, I like podcasts, media, Amazon ads. That's a huge opportunity right now, their pay-per-click ad program. So you really have to have a strategy to create an audience and promote to them. And hopefully you're doing that on a long term. And I think you probably work with a lot of entrepreneurial authors who are using their book to build a business. That's a great reason to write and promote a book because, you know, you can justify spending, investing in marketing when you're actually not just counting on book sales, but you're turning that into bigger revenues.

Yeah. So stay there for a minute because I think you're 1,000% right. So on the one hand, just straight up book math or book economics, number of units sold times some level of contribution or profit per book equals X, is for most people, most of the time, X is a negative number, period. Abysmal.

Correct.

Abysmal. And that doesn't take into account the non-direct book cost, like your time, like opportunity costs, like PR, like whatever. Now, that being said, the real way that I think you should do sort of book economics is number of units sold, whatever. It's a loser, right? Let's just assume you're going to lose and put a finite number on that. I am willing to invest $50,000, whatever it is, in this book. Where do I plan on making that up? Ah, that's the question, right? So you really have to have that product roadmap very well thought out. And in order to do that, you have to know who your clients are. And in order to do that, you have to have a strategy in place, right? And I find far too many people that, that I talk to early on in, in the journey and it's like, oh yeah, my book's coming out in 4 months. Okay, great. Tell me about the plan. I tell him about, and, and the plan is mostly why they wrote the book, what's in the book. And I'm not by any stretch discounting the, the value of the importance of high quality content, But then I'm like, okay, well, what's the business model? If somebody opens this book, the right person gets this book and falls in love, what's next? And I get the, the stare like, huh? I'm like, okay, if you can't answer that question, don't publish the damn book yet because you can't go back to answer that question a year or two later. I mean, you could, but it's not effective. So yeah, you see that as well?

I do. And I think that a lot of authors should be focusing on that revenue plan. So is it going to be consulting? Is it going to be speaking?

Right.

Is it going to be selling products and services? You know, I've worked with so many authors in different fields, you know, former Microsoft executive who sends 50 copies of his book out per month to his prospective clients, and it has exploded his consulting business. So there's lots of ways having a book opens the door to speaking, and a lot of people wanna establish themselves as thought leaders, as influencers, and a book is one of the best ways to do that.

If you're If you're enjoying this episode of Thought Leadership 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. So give me an example of the types of products? Obviously coaching, consulting, whatever, but what other things that you're seeing now that are, that are, um, different or interesting?

You know what I love are the workbooks. We're seeing a lot of companion workbooks, and this goes along well with online courses, which can be a great revenue generator for, for influential people, online courses, membership programs. So those are some things that work really well with your books. And I love a workbook personally. I've got one that's coming out about marketing right now. And I think it's an underutilized opportunity for authors to cross-promote within other programs that they're offering.

So can you go a little deeper in there? Because I think some people get confused when it comes to workbook because they'll write a book and in the book there might be a set of questions, activities, things to do. Give a good example because I, I think about it, I think the way that you do is it is a companion to the book. That is much about the learning experience, but maybe could you give an example or unpack like what, what it is and what it isn't?

Yeah. Well, a lot of times authors are just pulling those questions out and turning them into a workbook, right? With some journaling space. But you might go a little bit deeper. When I created my own workbook, I created it while I was creating a companion course. So it really helped me to keep it in a logical order. It stands alone. So it really depends on what you're teaching and what it is you want your audience to do. And my intention with the workbook is not only is it used in the course I teach, but it will be a standalone product that will promote the course, right, Peter? So it's got multiple—

just stay there for a minute as a standalone, because now, now it's not just— because some people think, well, if I can't sell any books, why would I sell a workbook? Because that's only applicable to a subset of the people that bought the books. That's not true. The book is yet another what I would call a front door. Maybe I don't read your book. Maybe I just wanna do the activities, right? And maybe you can package that. And I think, you know, the, the, the dirty secret behind workbooks is if you've written the book, you've probably 90% of the way there, maybe 80, we could debate that, whatever, to write the workbook.

Correct. And it's a lot less content than your book, right?

Yeah.

There's a lot of blank space. There's a lot of fill-ins. Um, you can extract those worksheets, make them a bonus download. Like there's tons of ways. To leverage a workbook, it's also a bundle. So if you're selling at the back of the room, you just went from a $20 sale to a $50 sale. Because not only that, we can price workbooks with a higher price point. For whatever reason, there's a higher perception of value within a workbook, and you tend to see those at $30 versus maybe a $20.

And that, I think, is part of having a good strategy, is understanding things that at first blush to an outsider don't make sense. It's like, wait a minute, I wrote this book, it's, you know, 60,000 words, 240 pages, and it's $24.95. The workbook is in essence a derivative with a lot more air in it. That's maybe 30% of the content, yet it sells for 50%. Like, that doesn't make sense. Doesn't matter if it makes sense. That's the market.

That's how it works. This is how this mar— and if you look at some of the top bestselling authors, this is what they do to get another book in the marketplace. You know, James Clear has done it. Lots of people have done this. Taken because their audience wants more and they're maybe not prepared to write their next book. So they extract some content, add a few questions, it becomes a workbook.

So give me a couple of interesting, creative, maybe out there things that you're seeing folks do on the marketing side. Because again, with a million books out there, you got to put your hair on fire to get attention. What are some of the cool things that you're seeing people do that are, that are thoughtful and clever?

One of my favorites is, um, an author named Mark Paul. So he is a real estate investor, has no platform, no social media presence whatsoever. He wrote a memoir about how he bet on a horse to win the Kentucky Derby back in the '80s, and he won a 7-figure prize and didn't realize he had to go collect it from the Mexican drug cartel. So it's a memoir that— right? It's a memoir that reads like that called The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told. So Mark went out and said, I'm going to go all in on Amazon ads. And I'm like, well, that's great. I like them. But I think you're going to be underwhelmed. He has sold 35,000 copies of that memoir, Peter, using nothing but Amazon ads. He's in the middle of negotiating a movie deal. Like, all kinds of amazing things have happened as a result of that. So I thought that was great. And then we had another client hit the—

uh, back a half a step. Why did he have to redeem his Kentucky Derby ticket through the Mexican cartel?

Yeah, that's where he had placed his bet. This was back in the '80s, and they had gone to like Tijuana. I mean, it's a great story. Really a fun read.

Note to folks at home, go to like DraftKings and not the Mexican drug cartel. No offense, Mexican drug cartel, if you're listening.

Right. I also work with Karen Gordon. So she wrote a leadership book, The Three Chairs, and then she put a really long runway on a preorder on Amazon. And I thought this was an interesting strategy. So it was like 4 months in advance. She promoted the hell out of her book, and the week it launched on Amazon, it went to number 2 on Wall Street Journal bestsellers list. So that's a win. And she did a lot of promoting during that long runway of a presale. And that's how presales work on Amazon. They count the week that it goes live.

Interesting. Good stuff. Good stuff. Any, anything else? Or actually, let me ask you the, the flip side of that question. What are you seeing now that used to be money in the bank that just doesn't work?

You know what I'll say? I think social media has been overly hyped. I don't think it's a great way to sell books. I think it's a great way to get people on your email list, to engage with your audience. But I wouldn't say go out there and put your buy my book ad up on your, on your Instagram account. I don't think that's what's gonna happen unless you happen to have a million followers, and even then you'll be lucky to get 1,000 sales because the percentage of buyers is going to be so low. So, you know, social media is great for what it does, but it's not a sales tool.

Got it. And I would add to that list the old school, uh, book signing tours.

Oh, Peter, I hate those. Don't go sit in a bookstore. And I'm a former bookstore owner, and I can tell you it is the worst way to sell books. I would much rather see you go on a speaking tour.

Exactly.

That's another— I've got another great example for you. Charmaine Hammond put herself on a speaking tour for her book about her dog Toby, and she decided to call it— I think it was like the Happiness Tour. She reached out to her whole network, every— all the clients, all the peers, all the friends, and said, I'm gonna be on this like 3-month tour. I'm coming to your city. I don't know how many states she went to, like 5 states. She got a local RV company to sponsor a free RV. She got a— she got the vehicle wrap around the entire RV. She got sponsors in every city. She spoke in, in office break rooms, pet food supply stores. All her network, her tribe of influence, as I like to call them, hooked her up, got her speaking gigs. She sold a ton of books, had every bit of it paid by corporate sponsors. It was brilliant.

I love it. I love it. Love it. Any other— as we start to wrap here, words of wisdom? No pressure, but who's out there now? There's some, there's definitely people out there now thinking about, but I wanna do this book thing, right? And listen, I love books. What would you advise that person that really is, is so passionate about, I wanna write a book, I wanna write a book. What would you tell them so that they, they do it in a way that is, um, more beneficial than it might be?

Two things. Number one, be super clear about your target audience. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see authors make. They don't know who they're writing for. They don't know what their audience cares about. They just wanna tell their story. Number 2 is what is the goal? What do you want the book to do for you? Do you wanna be a, a speaker? Do you wanna sell consulting? Do you wanna build some sort of business around your book? Or are you just doing this for fun? If that's, that's a whole different thing. But if you really want the book to sell, if you want to benefit from it from a business perspective, You have to know your audience, you have to write for them, and you have to have a plan.

Got it. Got it. Love it. Well, I appreciate your time. Appreciate your insights. Great stuff. And thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Peter.

Thanks. To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.