#170: BookBaby – A Self-publishing Service for Authors

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Welcome to Author Audience, where I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. Today I'm rolling out the red carpet and I'm inviting you for this expert interview with Steven Spaatz. Welcome, Steven.

Good afternoon. Thank you. I feel very welcome. Pleased to be here.

Yeah. I'm so excited to have you here. And Stephen is the president of bookbaby. If you've been following me at all, you know I'm a fan of Bookbaby. You can check out all of their stuff@bookbaby.com But Stephen, you've had an interesting just background and experience. Why don't you just share with us a little bit of how you came to be president of bookbaby today.

Well, in a microcosm, you know, all my life experiences, I've been everything from a journalist to an entrepreneur with my family business to working for Mattel and Hasbro, my past, and now with this wonderful company that works with creative artists and authors. So I'm every type of customer that we have at Bookbaby. I was involved with the marketing for our music businesses. We have two very large brands, one of them being CD Baby, the world's largest indie music site, hence the name bookbaby. And that's where bookbaby was born with birth, whatever you like to say. And it started in Portland, Oregon, and now it's all grown up. We've added products and services over the last 12 months to really become a full, as they would say, full stack. My computer guys like to talk about that. A full stack self publishing service provider.

I love that. And I saw in your bio too, something about Southern Oregon. My husband grew up in Southern Oregon and near Roseburg and Myrtle Creek.

So I actually was a sports writer at the Roseburg News Review. You can tell him okay.

He will love that.

And I grew up south of that. So yes, I'm a native Oregonian.

Yeah. So I'm excited in this episode to really dive in and talk a lot about bookbaby, the self publishing services they offer for authors and how you can take advantage of that and just really dive in a little bit more and into just what is available for self published authors today.

Well, we really thought about how this company can best serve the author marketplace. And it's still forming. I mean, on the music side, we really know about our customers there. But the publishing side, the self publishing side is really still coming into its own. And we thought the best way to be prepared for that marketplace is to offer a lot of different products and services really along kind of the length of the entire book. Everything from editing. Now we offer obviously the printing services, e book formatting, distribution, and now we have marketing consultations as well. So we're really trying to cover all of the needs of an author without selling them into wildly crazy overpriced packages. It's like a Chinese menu. You pick and choose what you need and a lot of people on the phone to help talk you through it.

Yeah, and I love that because sometimes it's just easier just to get one package. Not have to be like, okay, this is my editor, this is my formatter, this is my printer. And all of this stuff, like you can just get it all in one. And for some people that convenience is worth so much. So I have watched bookbaby grow tremendously over the years. I published my first book in 2008 and I actually did some stuff with CD Baby way back when. But I remember seeing Bookbaby and you know, they've just grown so much and, and now they offer the combination of Kindle Direct publishing with what you offer. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that means for us as authors?

This is a really important point because.

We are great friends with the people at Amazon and I'm a great admirer of all their products and services. One of the things they came up with the last few years is the Kindle Direct publishing package. And that is where you're able to, you put your book in through Kindle. It's an exclusive arrangement. But while you're exclusive with kindle during that 90 day period, you're able to give your book away or do a countdown deal and then also take part in the pay by the page, if you will, Kindle Unlimited. So we've had authors in the past come to us and say, you know, I'd love to use Bookbaby, that has 59 other bookstores, but I need to do these Kindle Unlimited things and the exclusivity. So we thought, you know what, let's make it easy for authors. Kind of our behind the scenes motivations. Yeah, let's offer this service so people can come to us and get both. They can opt into the Kindle Direct. We'll just put them in Amazon, we'll help them set up. What are they going to count down deal or their sales and then after a 90 day period, all they got to do is send us an email and say, I'm ready to go outside of Amazon. And we take them out of Kindle Direct, we keep them in Amazon, but it's not exclusive anymore. And then we take them all. So to the other 59 bookstores we're in, ibooks, Kobo, you name it, were there all around the world. So it really isn't an either or decision anymore, it's both. And it's gone over extremely well.

Yeah, that's great because it is like there are certain seasons, especially for new authors to get exposure to use some of those marketing tools that Kindle KDP offers. And so it's nice to know that you're not limited in that way anymore at bookbaby.

These are proven winners. Absolutely. Yes.

Yeah. Have you seen a lot of authors taking advantage of that?

We have. I mean, once they realize, oh wait, I can get both, I don't have to choose one or the other. Yeah. It's been a message that we're getting out now. And obviously the people at Amazon love it too because they're getting all of the content that they so love. And our authors are happy that they're able to get that kind of service alongside of the other things that bookbaby offers.

Yeah. So I'm also curious, like, how does the statistics work? Like, I know when I publish directly to kdp, I can see those statistics, you know, how do authors work with getting those statistics from bookbaby?

So we have a trending report feed in for both through the Kindle platform and then through ibooks as well. They just go to their own dashboard here at bookbaby. And it comes in on a weekly basis. You can see where your books are being sold, how much they're selling for. If you're trying a pricing test later on, you know, trying to move your price up and down, we get near instant, instantaneous reports. We added those a couple years ago now. And again, authors really love to get that information about how well their book is doing. Are their experiments working for their book, their pricing?

Yeah. And that's really key. And so that's so important to know as an author. If you choose to use bookbaby, you'll still have access to all those statistics that you're used to having and they'll be updated on a weekly basis. You'll be able to see what's working, what's not working. And you know, you work with a lot of authors within the self publishing field. Would you say most of your authors are new to self publishing or do you work with more established authors too?

Well, you know, we sort of like to say that Bookbaby has really grown up in the self publishing scene. Given the baby size, we certainly do deal with a lot of brand new first time authors. We help them realize that they're empowered to do this. We give them the confidence. We have people who here who've been answering questions from the same people for years literally and kind of encouraging them to publish. What we're seeing now though, as we're adding all these very highly sophisticated and professional services to our service is we're finding we're getting a type of author now that we did in the past. They're much more experienced, they've gone the traditional publishing route. Now they want to see they can take control of their literary efforts and make more money. Obviously we have some very high level authors, one of which Carl Johann Erlen. He published a book with us with Bookbaby about three years ago. It was called the Rabbit who Wants to Go to Sleep. And he did it through self publishing and he went through CreateSpace at that time. We didn't have the print on demand then and it went to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. And so he signed a deal with Pearson Publishing. I think it was seven digits. And he's done well for them. Well, sure enough he's coming back to us in the coming months because he loved how self publishing went for him. He loved the economics, he loved the control. So we're going to get his next project. So it's nice to see that we're getting attracting a lot of very successful people who realize, you know what, bookbaby has the products and services that can help me do what I need to do for my publishing career.

Yeah. And I see a trend of more hybrid authors where they have some traditionally published books and than they're self publishing or independently publishing because they can make more royalties and they have a fan base and it is so much easier now. Now if there's an author that says, okay, all of this is just overwhelming me. I just need one place and. Or I need someone that I can talk to and just talk me through, you know, the services and just have a package deal or whatever. How would they get in contact with someone at Bookbaby to just.

It's really. Yeah, it's very easy. I mean we offer email and chat and phone and really we have another model around here we call it. It's real people powered Publishing. And whereas we think of ourselves as a very technology forward company, we're trying to blend the digital advances with the analog of people that's a constant in our publishing world. We always think that communicating between the publishing specialists to our authors, to our prospects who haven't done it before is a real key part of this. So that we're not only doing it for them, we're also teaching them a lot about the business and they could choose to come back to us, as many do, or they could do some more other DIY type of things. So to us, it's an important part of the process to not just do it, but really explain what we're doing, why we're doing, how we're doing it.

Yeah, and I love that because there are definitely a lot of creatives, authors, writers, creatives that they don't want to have to deal with all of the technical stuff. And to have a real person that, that you can talk to, that can understand you, you can understand them to help you through the process can be really a stress relief and really helpful. Now you're having your first conference, right? This is your first Bookbaby conference this fall.

We are. I'd love to tell you about it. So it's in early November, November 3rd through the 5th, in beautiful downtown Philadelphia. Our offices are located just across the Betsy Ross Bridge, so it's going to be on our home turf. We attend a lot of conferences around the country exhibiting bookbaby. We felt like there needed to be a real dedicated self publishing conference. This is what we're going to be talking about here. We're going to really, hopefully inspire a lot of people, educate a lot of people. We have an all star group of folks who are going to be our speakers and panelists. We're keeping the price deliberately very low so that we can just have a packed house at the Sonesta Hotel in downtown Philadelphia. So all the details are on our website. All you got to do is see the top banner and click on it. Tickets are going fast. I'll say that we're very pleased with the turnout.

Good.

Urge anyone on, you know, within earshot of this podcast and video to get out there, get those tickets as they're going fast.

Yeah. And those of you that follow me, I want you to know I will be there. So I will personally be there and we could become face to face friends. Friends, not just Facebook friends. We can meet in person. So if you're going, let me know and either come to one of my sessions or let me Know that you're coming so we can definitely meet in person because I'd love to meet you there.

So as we say, you know, publishing is a people business and it's great to have that real human contact. It's important to us.

It is, it is. I mean, marketing really comes down to building relationships. And so whether, whatever realm we're in, it's just, you know, building those relationships are so key. And I just, I believe in that so much. So I think it's so great that you're having a face to face in person conference and not just online conference as it would be easy to do in this day and age because I think we do need those face to face interactions and I've met some lifetime friends at conferences and workshops and retreats and it's just, it's really worth investing in live events. So I really believe in them.

In a survey that we did recently through our Bookbaby 2017 survey, we found that one of the really important findings was we selected, we isolated some very successful authors who were making a lot of money. And one of the main ways they felt like they learned the business was going to conferences, going in person to hear from speakers such as you and the others. It really was a key component to their education and they told us it contributed mildly to the results of their literary careers.

Yeah, I mean, I literally, I have an entire webinar I give on live events and I say that it was after I started attending live events that I finally hit six figures in my income, you know, and so it's just like, and it's not a, it's not a coincidence. It's because the connections, the relationships that I made, you know, the networking that happens, all of these things happen. And then just some, some amazing things can happen from that as a result. So it really is important to invest if you're, if you're really wanting to grow as an author and grow your brand or grow, you know, sell more books, it really is important to get out there and meet people. And so I do believe in that. Well, as we're coming to an end, I know it's, we could talk probably for a long time, I think. So I always like to leave our listeners with a take action tip. What would be a take action tip that you would give them today?

Well, I'll go back to what I just mentioned. We have a full suite now of results from this survey, the 2017 Bookbaby Author Survey. We talked to almost 8,000 published and aspiring authors to get a huge mass of information. There's a white paper that is sitting on our website. We're doing hundreds of downloads a day of these results that really help show what the most successful self published authors are doing, what are their keys to success. And this white paper lays that quite nicely. And so, so I say you can go to our website after you purchase your conference tickets, you can find the download for our survey results. And people have been very gratified and even feel empowered to say, wow, I can do this too and just see what these highly successful authors have done.

Yeah, it was really interesting because I participated and a lot of you that are on my email list may have participated in this survey and I received the results and I was like, wow, this is really interesting. And so I think you will find it interesting to download this and just see. I mean 8,000, it's not just a small study, so definitely go.

We think it's the largest survey every done in self publishing by far.

Yeah, it might. It definitely. I mean it sounds like it to me. I don't know of another one, but I definitely recommend going over to bookbaby.com, check out the conference, check out this white paper on this survey results and definitely connect with them if you're looking, if you're feeling overwhelmed with all the different options, you know, get on the phone, talk with someone, connect with them and see if it might be a good fit for you. And so thank you so much for being with us here today, Steven.

Pleasure to talk with you, Shelley.

And thank you all for listening again. I'm so thrilled that you come back week after week and I will see you next time. Bye Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Author Audience. I would like to invite you to attend one of my free trainings on three proven book writing Every nonfiction author needs to know. This is a fun and fast way to write a nonfiction book, but also a book that you're proud of. Plus I will give you two free gifts just for attending. No credit card required. First, you'll get my 10 nonfiction book title templates and you'll also get my ebook titled Brilliant brainstorming. It's a 28 page ebook and both of these bonuses are yours at no charge. Just for joining us for for the training, you can sign up for my free training by going to shellyhits.com formulas. That's Shellyhitz S-H E L L E Y H I T Z.com formulas. This training and the two bonuses are free and I would love to help you write your next nonfiction book.

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