#169: Teresa Mills discovered the format that sells best for her genre of books

Welcome, everyone. My name is Shelly Hitz, and I'm here today with Christian Book Academy member Teresa Mills. Welcome, Teresa.

Thanks. Good to be here.

And I'm so excited to feature you today. You've been in the academy for years, and we've known each other. We actually met at face to face conferences, and it was just a fun time just getting to know you. Over the years, you've come to one of our writing retreats in Colorado, and so, I mean, it's just been fun to watch your progress. But how many books do you have published now?

Books? I have eight published.

Wow. Eight books. And tell us a little bit about the genre that you write in currently and just your process of getting those eight books published.

Sure. I write in. I write nonfiction, children's travel books. And I'll be glad to.

Yeah, show us.

I have seven of them here, but they all sort of.

I was very fortunate with my branding, and they all sort of look the same. So that's. That's been really nice and a nice feature.

So I chose this because I've always traveled with my kids and grandkids now, and this is just a way for kids to learn about a different location, even if they're not traveling there. Traveling, not traveling.

Just learn a little bit more about a new place.

Yeah. And so even like during COVID and, you know, the pandemic and all of this, you know, the travel industry has taken a hit, but then you're finding that there are still, like, homeschool, you know, communities and teachers and people like that that are buying your books to teach their kids about these places, even if they're not traveling to those places. Right.

That's right. That's been a nice detour from last year.

Yes. Because the travel industry definitely took a hit. But I think when you joined the academy, you'd already had some of your books in Kindle format. And then we ran a challenge to get Kindle books into print format, and you jumped right in and tell us a little bit about that process.

So I had the book about Washington, D.C. in Kindle format, and I wanted to do more books, and I was really, really intrigued by your community community you were building at the time. And then with the. I think it was called the Kindle to Print challenge. And so it was take the book that was in Kindle format and bring it into a print format. And. And I mean, that was.

Mind blowing for me. And it was a game changer because it turns out my books sell a whole lot more print versions than they do Ebook versions. I didn't know that at the time, and I was astounded. Even today, even though I advertise both the Kindle and the print version, still the print version is 95% of what I sell.

Yeah. And I find that really insightful. So, you know, there's, you know, different writers and authors listening right now, and sometimes you just never know whether your book is going to sell in a certain format more than another. You know, and I think we were talking earlier and Theresa, you said I might have given up had I not put my best.

Yeah. If I looked back at my sales and even now, if I just looked at Kindle sales, it would have been enough to say this, this is not going to work. This is not going to take off. I'm doing something else.

Yeah. And I have a friend, Shay Vines. She works primarily with entrepreneurs. Her books sell really well in audio format because entrepreneurs are busy and so they're listening. And so sometimes you just never know. And that's why it is good to have your books in different formats. My book, Broken Crayons, still Color, by far, sells much better in print because people buy it for groups. So I think that's really a valuable little tip, is don't give up if you just have your book in one format.

That's right.

Try it in other formats. And then I love what you said earlier about your covers, because your covers are very similar. So this is a series and just it's a little tip of, like, you can actually take a similar cover and change the colors. Some of the images, that sort of thing, have them look very similar, but you don't have to completely redo a book cover every single time.

Right, right. And that's. I've had. Other people have commented, you know, immediately. I immediately know these. This is one of your books. They all look the same.

I love that you've established that. Really good branding and all of that. But once you have your books published, the next part is then marketing them. Right?

That's right. That's right.

And you've really taken a dive into learning Amazon ads. And, you know, a lot of authors are either nervous about it because they're afraid they're going to pour money into it and just not get anything out of it, or it is just intimidating all the technical stuff. Share with us a little bit about your experience with Amazon ads.

Sure. So I.

Had. I had tried Amazon ads before the pandemic hit and the travel industry took a dive and had to just sort of reset. So, you know, through a series of events and things have happened. Personally, I decided that 2021 was just going to be sort of a year of learning and sort of digging back down into Amazon ads and figuring out how I can pull my books from being just travel based to other.

Areas, other arenas. And that's what we alluded to earlier with homeschoolers and teachers. And so Amazon ads allowed me to do that through targeting other categories, not just the categories that my book might be in, through advertising and keywords and other other categories. So that in addition to advertising, with Amazon ads in the travel industries has brought my books back up into selling. Selling again.

Yeah.

So that's.

Yeah.

I encourage anyone to give Amazon ads a try.

They're not as scary or intimidating as they might be.

As it might seem. I mean.

Yeah. And you know, I think we were talking a little bit before this about, you know, there's different types of marketing that, you know, different authors like. And so, you know, you don't have to do just one thing. There's paid advertising like the Amazon ads, there's free organic marketing like social media, there's partnerships and, you know, partner marketing. And so there's many different ways we were. You don't have to try Amazon ads, but I really highly recommend it, as I do too. Marketing plan.

Yes. And the marketing minutes that are part of Christian Book Academy have been stellar for me. Last. Last part of this year.

Yeah. The mini marketing messages kits, is that where you're. Yeah, yeah. Because those are templates that you can use. And even if you're not a huge person into wanting to spend a lot of time on social media, it gives you a way to EAs, create some content and get some momentum going there on social media without having it to control you. Right, that's.

That's right. So that's been nice this year.

Yeah. And so Amazon ads, it's something that you don't have to, you know, go on podcast interviews. You're not having to be on social media. It's a little more behind the scenes. It does require a learning curve, but once you really start learning what's working, what's not.

It can really benefit your book. And for those of you that maybe don't want to do all those other forms of marketing, you know, it can be a great place for you. But I just am so excited for you, Theresa. I know there are just so much still ahead for you. But if people want to get in touch with you or they're interested in your books for their kids or grandkids, or homeschool communities. How do they find out more about you?

Sure, all my books are listed on my website, and the website is kid.

Friendly family vacations.com so kid friendlyfamilyvacations.com and again, we mentioned earlier, they're good both for if you are going on a vacation or if you want to just learn about these locations. But thank you so much for sharing part of your journey and all those eight books that you've birthed so far and just some of the things that you've learned along the way.

You're welcome. Thank you.

All right. Thank you all for being here. And we hope that you're inspired to go and write, publish and market your books.