#187: Transitioning from Kindle Only Books to Print Books with Teresa Mills

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 inviting you into my community for a behind the scenes look at what's working for authors just like you. My name is Shelley Hitz and I'm the owner of Author Audience Academy. The most rewarding part of my job is helping others get results and reach their goals. So in this episode, I want to position the spotlight on one of my members, Teresa Mills. Welcome, Teresa.

Hi. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Teresa is a mother of four and grandmother of two. She loves incorporating learning activities into travel to build on her kids and grandkids life experience. And so how many books have you published now, Teresa?

I've published eight books so far.

Eight books. And you can find out more about her and her books, especially if you have kids or grandkids@kid friendlyfamilyvacations.com so for this week's Center Stage Spotlight training, I'm going to have Teresa share a specific success strategy in our interview together. And I'm excited to hear more from her. All about transitioning from Kindle only books to print book. Her motto is don't be afraid to go past Kindle books and into print. So Theresa, tell us a little bit of how you even got started in this whole niche of kid friendly family vacation.

You know, as our children were growing up, we have one older child, but then we have three kind of clustered together. A little bit younger than the older child. I don't know, we just never seemed to be afraid to just take them anywhere we wanted to go. Just use the motto is this was sort of sling them across our shoulders and run out the door.

Yeah.

My husband said to me one time, he says we're not just traveling with our kids, we're building their life experiences. So I even chose that as my publishing company name. Life experiences.

Awesome. I love that.

Yeah, just kind of coin a phrase there. But I don't know, as we started traveling, it just seemed like a way to incorporate this into a website, just share our experiences. So it started as a website, as a blog, many, many years ago.

What year do you remember?

2008. So it's been 10. That's crazy.

A decade.

I think that's when it was anyway. So I don't know it never dawned on me though to put the information into book, but that that seems to be a little more popular way to pass along this information even than searching on a website and searching for the information. So.

Yeah. So when did you first start to do the Kindle books?

I did my first kindle book in 2015 and that was part of a challenge in another group that I was in. But I just thought, okay, I'm going to do this. Had actually looked into it before, but I guess let fear get in my way and I just don't need to do that. I don't need to try that. And I fall prey to that a lot. So I got it out there, got it going and then didn't really do another one for a while. Actually that was part of another challenge. But at the same time is when I met you and started learning a little more about the time you were putting Author Audience Academy together.

Yeah.

2015 and just getting started with that. So I had already published the first book before I joined.

Yeah.

So you know you had a lot of content. Like if you started your website and Your blog in 2008, you probably had a lot of content to draw from. Did you find yourself writing brand new or repurposing?

I repurposed a lot, but a lot of the information. When I started digging in and wanted to write some say I wanted to write something specific about Washington D.C. i found that I didn't have a lot of just nitty gritty information that kids might enjoy. The blog was written more towards parents, towards. These are some things that we did. These are some tips that traveled with our children. So for this particular series I needed a little more fun fact type information.

So it was different. And then how many Kindle books did you publish before you started getting into print?

I think that I had three before I tried the print and I still remember, I think you actually posted something on. Well, first, let me back up just a minute. I'll tell you, I was getting a little bit discouraged because I just wasn't really selling a lot of copies.

Okay.

You know, I made. Even had four before I got into the print. But I was getting a little bit discouraged so I did some social media posting that got a little traction there. But still I just wasn't seeing a whole lot. And one day you posted in our Facebook group. Would anybody be interested in a Kindle to Print challenge? Yeah.

Me, Me, me, me, me. So I needed that hand holding to push forward into that.

Yeah. So we did the Kindle to Print challenge. And it was all about, like, those that, you know, because kind, very simple, easy, you know, not always simple, but, you know, somewhat of an easier entryway into books. And so anyone who had a Kindle book, you know, let's go ahead and take that same book and now let's do the steps to format it and to get it into print. So now you have eight books. Are all eight books Kindle and print? Yes. Oh, wow.

Yes.

You have like 16 different versions.

Well, that's right after I did the first one in print, I even found myself at dinner one night with my husband and my daughter, one of my daughters, and I said, you know, this took off pretty well. After it went to print, I think I should just stop. And all the ones that I have now in Kindle, I'm just going to put in print before I do another one.

I remember you doing that and kind of going back, getting all the books in print. So what did you notice? Like, okay, you took that step. There was some fear, you know, even first doing the Kindle, but then the print. And once you went through the steps and you got your book in print, what did you start noticing with your books and your sales?

The first one was, hey, kids, let's visit Washington, D.C. and when I put it out into print format, I was selling 10 times as many in print as I was in. Wow. Yeah, it's star.

Yeah, it's not like, oh, it's just a little bit. You know, it's like 10 times as much.

It was big. And it's even more than that now. I do right now offer the Kindle books. If you purchase a copy of the print book, you can get the Kindle book free. So I do see some Kindle books like that, but there's very few just direct Kindle.

So at this point, how many books have you sold? Do you know?

Yes. Kindle and print combined is about 4800.

Wow, that's great. Especially for independent authors. They say so many, like, I don't even remember the statistic, 80% or not, you know, some big statistic don't sell more than 100, you know. Yeah.

I'm just thrilled with it and how.

And you said most of them are print sales, right?

They are. And when you think about it, I guess I'd like to say that I put a lot of planning into place and that, you know, I had planned this from the very beginning, but the books are five by eight, so they're, they're a great size to, you know, slide into a purse or In a backpack.

That is great.

So that's. I think that's a big selling point.

Yeah.

So having the books with you as you're, you know, you're out and about.

So with your books, it does lend well to print, because having a Kindle, you can still have your phone and you can still be looking at it, but there's something about having that print copy, you know, and looking through it and having it as a reference. I find that with my book, Self Publishing Books 101, the Kindle book's permanently free, so it's out there for free, but it's still one of my best sellers because people want the hard copy book and to write in it and to have it as a reference. And so every. Everyone's books and topics are different. And those of you listening, you may or may not have the same exact results as Teresa. But a lot of times you don't know until you do it. You don't know until.

You don't know until you try and.

To say, okay, let's see. I think it's just a really great example and a case study of like, taking that next step, taking that feels scary in some ways to you and walking through that fear into action and seeing what happens. And recently you were telling me a little bit about what you've been doing just to try to promote your books and some of the results you've been having. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Oh, sure. I always, of course, mine are cyclic. My sales with, you know, right before spring break and right before Christmas and right before summer vacation. And so, you know, right now I expected, you know, but at first, I expect it to be in a little bit of a slump right now with school starting, it being August. So what I decided to do was just take each book and promote it once a month, you know, social media, do a Kindle free giveaway. And actually a good case study on that was my, hey kids, let's visit New York City. I had republished that book with a new personal, an ISBN that I. That I purchased and said at the time that I printed it. Initially, CreateSpace gave you the $10 ISBN, but I wanted. I wanted to use my own. So when I republished that book, it took a little bit of a dip in sales. And so I just did the free promo, posted it on social media, and sent out a list of email to my list and it kicked back up to its original sales.

Yeah, that's volume. And do you have a really big email list and social media following right now?

I don't.

I don't have a real big list. You know, I work on it. But that, that hasn't been the number one, the number one thing that I've been working on. Yeah.

So the promotion, it wasn't necessarily just driven by what you were doing on your own, but you still did that. But having that Kindle book for free and especially, I think this is especially important if your book lends itself to the print book selling well. So for your particular case, the print books sell really well. So if they get the Kindle book free and then they're like, oh, you know, I want to have this to carry with me, I want to buy this to have as a reference or to have with me, then you could see your print cells increasing. But then also other books in the series, you know, kids cross promotion, that's a really powerful thing as well. And so I remember you said, yeah, I just did a free promotion and post a little bit and then my sales were back up again. Yeah.

Like you mentioned, it sort of got back into Amazon's algorithm.

Yeah. And you know, that is something we can impact. And I think sometimes as authors it's easy to feel like, oh, there's nothing I can do. You know, it's just, you know, feel discouraged and to want to see something happen. And so I think this would just be encouraging for those of you listening, maybe it's time to try a promotion again or a free KDP promotion or to do something. What do you have to lose? You know, there's a lot of times I'll say marketing is testing, tracking and tweaking. So it's trial and error and a lot of times you don't know again until you do it if there's not a huge risk involved. I think sometimes we just get paralyzed and not knowing what to do or feeling it won't make a difference anyways. And you know, everyone's results are different, but I just love having those results. So as we wind down and as we kind of come to a close, do you have like a take action tip or a piece of advice for the authors that might be listening?

I say if you have a Kindle book that you've already published or multiple Kindle books that you've already published, you've already taken that step. Take a look. Pick one. Just give it a try. If you're an author audience academy member, there's the, it used to be called the Kindle to Print challenge and now it's in the one of the publish. It's in the publish module. Just a lesson for us. I'm so glad I did. And once again I could probably write the book on being paralyzed by fear.

Oh man.

Because I talked myself out of it and I'm so glad I tried it.

So what do you think helped you.

Get over that hump? Do you have any advice on that, getting over the fear factor?

Well, I think for me it was having the lesson there. It was having the here's some steps and solid steps that I can follow and get this done. It made it easy to move forward. Yeah, that worked for me.

Yeah.

And we do have a lot of step by step training inside Author Audience Academy, not only for publishing but for marketing. And so if you are interested in joining us, definitely check it out@author audienceacademy.com I also have a ton of free training@trainingauthors.com free. You can take some of my free webinars. You know, check it out and we would love to have you join us. Thank you so much Teresa for sharing a little bit about your story. Where you're at, what's ahead for you.

Well, I have two books in the work right now. I'm plugging away on those. We're going to visit Chicago and Rome.

Oh fun. One here in the U.S. one overseas. And those of you listening, if you have kids or grandkids and you love to travel, check out Teresa's website and her books. It's at kid friendlyfamilyvacations.com and definitely some resources for you to make those experiences, those life experiences that Teresa was saying that they started with their children when they were young. So thank you again so much Teresa for being here and thank you all for listening in and I will see you next time. Bye Bye.

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