Ep. 47: Spin-Offs and Sequels: Building a Content Ecosystem for Non-Fiction Authors

Welcome to the Pub Date Podcast, the show where two book broads discuss what should happen before, during, and after your book publication date. Brought to you by Broad Book Group with your host Vanessa Campos and Jen Dorsey.

I never get tired of listening to her introduce the pod. How you doing, Jen?

I love her voice. I'm, I'm good. I'm good. How are you?

I'm very good. I have in my lap, for those of you that can't see us, a teeny tiny little kitten.

Oh, hello! This is— is this our new mascot?

This is our very new addition to our household.

Her—

well, her nickname right now is Velcro because she sticks to Do you like Velcro?

I love her.

Her other nickname is Little Monster because she turns into a little monster when she wants to eat.

Oh my God. Well, who doesn't, right?

I mean, I get hangry.

She's hangry. You could just name her Hangry.

I love that. Hangry Velcro Lady.

She's— I can tell already she's going to be a literary cat because she's surrounded by all of your books there in your office. Yeah, I feel it. She's our mascot. Oh, I mean, yes, be sad, but that's okay. Mabel could share the spotlight.

Mabel has— we're gonna create stickers. If you guys aren't familiar with Mabel, she is Jen's mask office buddy, and she— there is a great picture of her wearing readers, right? Yes, they're red readers, and it's great. We're gonna have to put that in the show notes, a link to that.

Because she is just—

yeah, we're going to have to put that in the show notes. So we're going to have a few mascots this year in 2023.

Now let's see if we can get teeny tiny glasses for Velcro to wear too. And then we can all have glasses on.

Uh, it's going to take up my weekend now.

Definitely. Absolutely. So you're getting ready to travel. I'm getting ready to travel. Yes. That's exciting. Where are you going?

Where am I going? I'm going to be actually going up. So I'm in Southern California, so I'm going to be going up to Reno to hook up with our designer for Second Sunrise. That is our fall release book about the Western States Endurance Race. And we are basically going out to deliver 350 copies, early release copies of this wonderful, amazing book that we'll link in the show notes. Um, early release copies to the Western States Endurance Race event in Auburn. Well, not in Auburn, it ends in Auburn, but it starts in Olympic Valley, California. And it's 100-mile race, 30 hours. It starts on Saturday, but we will be at the Western States store doing a book signing with John Trent. Um, we're, I'm very excited. I'm very excited to be there.

I'm so cool.

I'm bubbly. I think I'm, I'm gonna stay the entire time. I'm gonna stay until the race ends and see everybody come through. So I will be in a tent with our cohort waiting for the last people to come through.

Nice. I think we should give the, the very last person a free book. So, oh yes, I will keep one. You're running so hard and you're like, and you want to finish it and you You feel good about finishing it, but you're, you know, you're still the last person to finish it. So I feel like they should get a special prize.

I'm bringing an extra copy for that because they definitely saw two sunrises.

Yeah. I mean, I think everybody does, but well, that's, that's amazing. And I just wanted to mention it really quick. I didn't mean to take you by surprise there, um, to bring it up, but this book is, you know, is really kind of how the company— not how the company got started, but it was one of our first notions of doing a big, beautiful book.

Yes.

With our company. I mean, we, we do a lot of, you know, trade books. We do a lot of business books, but this was a little bit different. And so it's kind of our first big fancy baby. So excited for it.

Yes. And she is a big fancy baby. She weighs about 3 pounds each. It's a printed on hardcover, full color inside. We have end pages. And this was a great idea by the designer, who, she's a runner, to include every finisher's name on the end pages. And it is pretty freaking cool.

It's beautiful. It's so pretty. It's so pretty. So go out there, preorder your copy now. Even if you're not like, not an ultra runner, the book is just so beautiful. A wonderful history of the whole Truckee, Reno area up there along the Western States Trail. It talks a lot about, you know, what, what they had to do to keep the trail alive and keep the race alive. And so just really great stories about things. We're stoked. We're excited.

Absolutely. There's a lot of great history. Where are you traveling?

I'm going to Switzerland.

Ooh. I am.

Swish, swish. Or, or it's summer, I guess. So no swish, swish.

No, no swishing. No swishing down a mountain slope this time. But, um, we're really excited. Our son is traveling with Illinois Ambassadors of Music, which is a big honor band made up of kids all over the state of Illinois, and they're going to be there for 2 weeks touring and performing in all kinds of places. So we're going to catch them on the Switzerland leg of the trip and, you know, see them perform on a mountaintop or something like that. I'm going to yodel. I'm going to eat some cheese.

Very Sound of Music.

Very, right? Like, I wish I could stay. Actually, they're going to Salzburg as well and do like the whole Sound of Music tour. Which is a great, great tour. So we're excited for them. I'm excited to be loading up my Kindle with lots of ebooks because they're going to have lots of plane time and lots of train time. So yeah, I'm excited.

Trains, planes, and automobiles. I love it.

We'll be all over. Hopefully it won't end, you know, quite as crazily as that movie did. Hopefully we won't have that many adventures, but— or that many unplanned adventures. So yeah, we're stoked. So we'll just both be out of the office next week, but I wanted to bring up to Second Sunrise for a really specific reason, because that's our topic today. John Trent wrote Running Toward Life. He also wrote Second Sunrise. He now has two books out with us. Oh, which—

which I know—

thinking— oh yeah, go ahead.

Just for everybody who is a fan of John Trent out there, he actually wrote a third book. Did you know that? He has three books this year. This man is insane. Ultramarathon runner. And ultra writer, apparently. So he's writing a book, an anniversary book for the University of Reno, where he works as a community— he works in communications for the university. And they were doing an anniversary book, and they tapped him. It's like, hey, you've written books now. You want to write this one? So he's written a third book. So we'll put that in the show notes as soon as I get that. But the University of Reno publishing program is actually going to do that one.

Oh, that's fantastic. Yay, John! I know, right? Talk about a prolific writer. And he is. He's been writing for many years for Ultrarunning Magazine and all kinds of places. So, you know, it kind of brought up the question, well, when you write your first book, then what? Is that it? Should you write a second book? And what does that journey look like? And, you know, where do you go? What's the jumping off point after that first title? So I think that's a really great thing for us to talk about today. What does your life look like as a long-term writer. What can it look like? Should you do it? That's right.

Should you do this? So are we talking about, I just wrote a book, or I wrote a book a year ago and I think it could probably use some updating?

Hmm, I think maybe a little of both. I think a lot of people, especially in the non-fiction space— and this could apply to fiction folks too, but again, that's not our bread and butter, right? That's not our, our area of expertise. But I think that when you're setting out to, to write your book, your nonfiction book, it behooves you to kind of think about a long-term plan. It doesn't have to be set in stone because life is life, right? Life happens. But when you're sitting down to write that book, think to yourself, okay, what else can this be? We've talked already on the pod a lot about, you know, can it be a course? Can it be speaking engagements? How do you build that platform? And I think weaving in, you know, the other publications that you can create, whether it's based on the same topic or it's a derivative topic, or it's a whole new idea. You need to think about your content ecosystem and what that's gonna look like. And I think revisions are a very big part of that, as well as second books or related books like John's two books that are not— they're similar in some ways because they're about ultra running, but they're very different in, in approach and style and audience.

So let's talk about a memoir. So the first one, Running Toward Life, is, is, you know, it's, it's this great vignette of stories about how he got into the race, um, talks a lot about the people that he's come across. And, and so it's, it's kind of, it's, it's memoir-ish. Should memoirs have a second edition?

I think they can in two different ways. I think that You know, if you're a good memoirist, and I love that you're taking that, that is the content area to focus on here. When people think about memoir, sometimes they automatically think it's a chronological piece of writing and it's not necessarily, right? Like with John's book, yes, he talks a little bit about his early life as a runner, his early life as a writer, but then he kind of goes into topics and bounces back and forth. Like, you know, people who inspired you or people who lead you, that's how his is structured. I think that you can have more versions of your memoir or more volumes of your memoir if you're focusing on that. A really good example is Anne Lamott. So Anne Lamott wrote the wonderful book about writing called Bird by Bird. It's one of my favorite writing books. Um, lots of people use it to get excited about being a writer. And then she went off and wrote more memoirs about other topics, about her faith journey, about her health journey. And, but she's so good at writing in that style that she could pick any topic and write a memoir about it. So I think for that particular content area, yes, you could definitely have other, other editions. They just need to kind of have a different flavor.

I love that. And, and from a marketing perspective, I, you know, the book just released, Running Toward Life, just released last month. So I'm not thinking another book, uh, although I would love to read another book. Everyone who's read it so far is like, couldn't put it down, read it in one, in one, you know, sitting. So I'm really excited people are gravitating toward that. So what we decided to do was to create a— well, I want to say it's maybe like a second edition or maybe like a continuation of the storytelling with a podcast. So we decided to do a mini podcast series where we're— it's Running Toward Life with John Trent as the host. And he's bringing on people that he wasn't able to include in the book to continue about talking about the races that they're doing, how they got into it. That's actually a podcast that is live now and releasing, you know, if you guys want to check it out. So we decided to do that as an ancillary thing. And what I like about that is that it's an audio format, but also it can lend itself to another, you know, another book for him.

Oh yeah, at the end. You bet. You know, when you're doing an offshoot book, um, and, and different content pieces from, from one book, they could— they don't even need to be full-size books, uh, right? They could be like sort of mini books, like we could release some additional chapters as a mini ebook, for example. I think that's a great way to use kind of that cutting room floor material that you couldn't fit into the first book but you still want to use, but maybe you don't want to write a full second book. So yes, podcasts are a great, great way to do that. Mini ebook supplement style books are great. And for nonfiction books, One thing that I know you and I love to do is create workbooks, create journals, create all kinds of little bits and bobs that are products to go along with that primary book.

Right.

I know when we first started talking about this, Second Sunrise and then Running Toward Life, we were thinking ancillary, ancillary, ancillary, ancillary, because there's just so much content that could happen. And you're all going to get Velcro back there yelling at me. But one of the ideas that we had was that journal. It's like, okay, you need a running journal. You need a structured schedule. And then we started talking to John and Vicki about what they use in terms of training. And they had this ongoing training schedule that we're like, oh, is that something that we could implement into something that is either digital or print? So those things are still in the work. And they are all part of this ecosystem, this content ecosystem that I think is continuing the conversation and wonderful because not everyone's going to come to the book. People may be gravitating toward the podcast, maybe gravitating toward the workbook, but as long as you have advertising for all of it, it's kind of all in the same universe and circle. And I'm laughing because that cat is probably hungry.

Velcro, you have 10 minutes. You gotta wait. Yeah, you know, someone else who does in the business space, someone who does a really great job of that is Jen Sincero, um, and her publishers. Um, so she wrote You Are a Badass, and then she wrote You're a Badass at Making Money and a few other badassery style books. But she also has really cool ancillary products to go along with that. There is a journal. There are, I think, I can't remember. I think there might be like reflection cards or I don't think they're meditation cards, but like calendars, journals, everything. She's even got like stickers and Post-it notes and, you know, and that's more of a licensing issue, I guess. Right. That's more of, you know, selling the license to another company who makes those things to produce them. But still, it's a part of, again, a part of that kind of product roadmap around her book. So when you sit down and you do that first book, I would really encourage you to, to do that. Again, we're always saying, think like a publisher.. So don't just think this is my book and it's my baby and ta-da, I'm done. Yes, it is, but it's sort of the catalyst. It's the center of the flywheel for you as, as a, as a publisher. If you're going to, you know, be being your own publisher, or even if you're not, if you're working with a small press, if you're working with a large press, asking those questions, saying, hey, okay, what else can we derive from this book product? Because not only will you get great ancillary material, you're going to probably then generate ideas for future editions, for new versions of the book, or for whatever comes next, for the sequel.

I love that, the sequel. So let's talk about— okay, your book has been out for 2 years, it's nonfiction. If you're in the space of crypto, there's probably some updates that you need to make. If you're in the space of finance, there's probably some, you know, laws and tax laws that you need to update. There are a lot of things that— I mean, with technology, you kind of constantly update. And I know, right, you have experience in doing, um, books like that where it's just tech book, it needs to be updated at a certain pace. What kind of edits should happen? Hold on, my brain's working on this question. It's how many changes would constitute as a second edition?

That's a great question. So if second editions and revisions are where your head's at for your topic area, then the standard— and we— publishing has so many unspoken rules that, like, you know, you're supposed to know, but, like, they're not written down in the manual anywhere. But most booksellers and book buyers will tell you that 25 to 30% is the minimum required for it to be considered really a revision of the book or a second edition of a book. So I would shoot for that. And, you know, that's kind of a nebulous term because Okay, 25% of what? 25% actual more words? Can I just write the word very, very, very like 5,000 times and there you go? No, but you know, if you've, if you've got a book with, I don't know, if you've got a book with 100 chapters, that's a pretty big book, then you have 25 new chapters, right? You should have a pretty good chunk of new material. So think about it in those terms, like what's 25% of what I need to do here. And it could be that, you know, if you have a very highly visual book, for example, that's got a lot of photos, a lot of art, I would consider updating those to make them look more current. Any charts that you need to update, I would make those more current. So really take a good look at your material and think to yourself, okay, you know, if I were to add new information in here, maybe a couple new chapters— you don't have to go ham, but it should at least feel like it's a value add for the customer. Otherwise, they're not going to understand why you have a second edition and therefore why they should buy it. Yes.

And one of the— I love that you said that, you know, what, what would make a customer buy that new edition? So if you think about it, you go to Amazon, you look up a title, and you can see multiple formats because the first format, the first edition, the second edition, if you're on the third edition, they never really go away because Amazon is a marketplace. So there are people who have the first edition, the second edition, third edition, etc., who want to sell it because it's outdated, but they're not going to tell you it's outdated. Amazon's doing a little bit of a better, better job of saying there is a new version available for this, you know, depending on which ep— which episode— which, uh, edition you end up on. And that is actually something that you should consider. What makes this a this tweak to your book a new product. It's like, now with extended chapters, now with, you know, updates on the latest FDA, what have you, it needs to be front and center, and that needs to be your big selling point. And I think that that's really— if you're in a traditional publishing model format, that publisher is going to want to know, okay, well, why is this new? Why are you doing this? Otherwise first edition works, right?

Yeah, absolutely. It, it should— you know, we've talked for so many years about how important it is to think, again, A, like a publisher, but B, with marketing in mind from the jump, from the moment that you're working on a book, that you're signing a book. And so this is no different. Think about what you can market here. How can you include all of the new things in the retailer copy? How can you include it somehow on the COVID so that it's obvious? You know, the COVID should look different, similar but different. Like, it should have second edition on it in a metal or in a, you know, different font or a different color. It should say now with XYZ, whether that's on the front or on the back. So, you know, the language that you use in your retailer copy, etc., should always be a part of that conversation.

Oh yes, and I'm glad you mentioned a medal on the COVID etc. If you won an award and it's big, I would absolutely recommend updating your cover, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's any new edition. It's just like right now you get it with the COVID Um, I think there's a question coming in from our producer.

Somebody wants to know, should you call it the second edition? Should you say more Running Towards Life? Should the book have an additional word added to title to say more of the same, more of this, or volume 2, or any of that kind of stuff. You mentioned about something about, uh, I'm a badass, and now I'm a badass, that you did. So she takes that basic brand name and then she just applies another word to it over and over and over and over again. So should— is that better to do it, or is it just to say volume 2, or updated, or new and improved, or won an award? What's the strategy? There is no strategy.

There isn't.

And that's what you love about publishing so much. It's dependent. It all depends.

It's the Wild West out here.

So I would say, and Jen, let me know what you think. If it's the same content plus 20-30% new content, then it's the same title, subtitle, with a new edition.

Right. Which also means that it has a new ISBN. They basically, they are two different books, right?

Yes.

So yeah, I would say that in that case, yes. Now in the, with the Jen Sincero example I use, those are completely different books. You know, she's got You Are a Badass, then she's got one that's only about finances. You Are a Badass at Making Money. That's a little bit different because she's not taking the core content from that book and then just expanding on it a little bit. It's the same ethos, but it's a whole different topic. The difference is, are you expanding on what you have, or is it, um, or is it just a new book altogether?

Or is it a series? You're talking about John Trent's book, and he's going to create— he's creating this really cool podcast where he interviews people doing the most amazing things, and they talk about it so matter-of-factly. Oh yeah, I run 100 miles, I'm 70, or whatever, you know. It's just incredible. Now, my thought is, then does that— he creates a whole list of new stories. You read his original story of running towards life, why he did it. Now there's other people giving their story about their running towards life. Is this— then you put the flashy word, more running towards life, running towards life again, you know, and that suggests it's a continuation of the tale.

Right. I think in this specific case, I would actually do an entire new book and then just added a lot of copy around it that lets you know it kind of, you know, it comes from John and it comes from that world. Because John's book is really about who he personally encountered on the trail. Right.

I guess I'm asking about the titles and the COVID You're so into titles and covers here and everything. So, what screams to the audience, "Buy this." You like the first book. Is this just a new and improved version of it? It's updated version 2. It has more rules and regulations if it's a book about finance, or is it a continuation of the story? That was one part of it. Now this is the rest of the story. Or is it a series that has now given birth out of this original book? Books for Dummies or something. There was one and now there's a billion of them. Yeah. I don't know. It seems like there's a lot of ways to do this because you're trying to get people to buy another version of the book.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I mean, I'm just spitballing here, but I think in the case of John, yeah, it's It's maybe it's a series, maybe it's, you know, a Running Toward Life book, right?

A running series, running, running, running commentary on a running world.

But the title is different.

But yeah, maybe it's, you know, movies when they come out with it, you know, what's the new Fast and Furious one? You know, Fast and Furious Again, Fast and Furious Tokyo, Fast and Furious, right? Right.

So it could be Running Toward life or running toward second sunrise or running toward something. So the last— that could make it a series. So yeah, it really all depends on how the content world develops.

Right. Because some people find a title and it becomes chicken soup for the soul. I mean, that turned into a whole publishing empire. One book turned into a million books. And that's something people dream of, but I don't know how many people ever do that. And I don't know if you should be doing that at the beginning. Should I be contemplating, "Oh, I really like this, and if this goes, I can already see the second and third movie. I can already see the second and third edition. I can see how this continues and turns into a franchise, a brand, a continuing series of books or conversations." Right.

And, you know, that, that could also really be a legal question. Right? So, you know, let's say that we want to do more Running Toward Life books, but we want to— want them to have different titles so that they feel like their own individual thing. Well, you know, there's the possibility of trademarking Running Toward Life, and then it's just a Running Toward Life book.

Yeah, right.

And there were life reps, right? So I think you can always keep that in mind too, um, you know, get your legal ducks in a row as well if you really envision a long-term plan for your content. That you want to base around one central idea or one central style of phrasing or style of title, then I would definitely trademark that piece of it so that you can then, you know, jump off in a lot of different directions and use that however you want.

So last question, I get to ask two now, you open the door. How many people really ever write a second book? So hard to write a first. Everybody thinks they got a book in them. How many people have 2 books in them?

That's a good question.

I'll bet very few.

I don't know the official answer. I'm Googling it.

And I wonder if that's just contingent upon whether the first book sold or whether they just ran out of stories and ran out of steam. I got one good story in me. I don't know if I get 2.

I think, too, that question kind of is dependent on what the topic You know, like if you're going to write a memoir, then yeah, you may only have one thing in you.

Um, but if you're a how-to book, you may only have one how to do something, right?

Exactly. So it's, it's just so dependent on that. I think I have no answer.

What do you look for as publishers? Do you want something— you, you want something that has some— becomes a tentpole to the agency, holds it up? It can be a series. It's the new, uh Bond film, it goes on forever. It's the new Star Trek. It spawns things endlessly here. Yeah.

I mean, Vanessa, I think that's maybe more of a marketing question, but I know as an editor, I love to see something that I know is going to have legs and extend out to more content areas.

I agree. I think it's twofold. So for me, it would be, can the author promote a second book, do they have more to say? Do they have a platform to say it on? And I hate that word platform because, you know, platform could be so many different things. But can the author talk more about said topic, or have they moved on to the next topic that their business is evolving and now they have enough to say about the next phase in their business, so they want to share it with others? And then, you know, it's, it's also like, well, Does the market want that?

Right.

I mean, if you're, if you're a self-published author and you're like, no, I have a second story and I'm gonna write it, good for you. I think you should write it. No one should stop you from it. Um, I, I definitely just would recommend that you get a good editor.

Yeah. And, and some good marketing folks behind you. Kim Walsh Phillips is a really good example, I think, Paul, of, of your question here. You know, Kim writes about a lot of different but related topics. And so she's got a whole content ecosystem, but they're all a little different. She's got a book about direct marketing. She's got a book about Instagram. She's got the book that she did with us called The Shift, which is about, you know, how to scale your business and not lose your mind and lose your life. So she's got her hand in a lot of— she's stirring a lot of pots, but they're all on the same stove. And I think that's what really makes her ecosystem work.

So Well, it's time to put our stove on a slow burn or whatever. What's the analogy for cooking here? Time to turn the gas off here.

That's right. We gotta turn the gas off today, but it's been a great conversation and we should keep talking about it. It's all good stuff.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, we wanna thank Paul, our producer, as well as our executive producer, Emily Carpenter, Paul Campos of Little Red Communications. And thanks to our special guest, Velcro. We will see you next time. We hope that you gained some valuable insights into the world of book publishing. Head over to broadbookgroup.com to learn more about us and all our services, and be sure to check out all our social media @BroadBookGroup. Until then, keep publishing!