The post 212 Writing Controversy with Paulette Stout appeared first on Sacha Black.

In this episode we cover: 

• What are the key elements you need to take into account when starting from zero
• Most common indie publishing mistakes new writers make
• What business and platform basics do you need in place before you publish
• What marketing should a writer do when they only have one book
• How do you continue to get sales after launch?

This week’s question is: What worries you about starting from zero?

Recommendation of the week is: This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Apple

Kobo

Amazon UK

Amazon USA

**This podcast uses affiliate links

This is a link explaining how the book was written: A Conversation with Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Links and events I mentioned:

The Rebel Author Diaries Anthology Submissions are now open.

Find out more here.

Connect with David Gaughran:

Website

Youtube

Twitter

Rebel of the Week is: VAL NEIL

If you’d like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or instagram me @sachablackauthor

1 new patron this week, welcome and thank you to Jennifer Thompson. And  of course, a big thank you to all my existing patrons. If you’d like to support the show, and get early access to all the episodes as well as bonus content you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY KOBO WRITING LIFE

Visit Kobo Writing Life here, read the Kobo Writing Life blog here, and listen to their podcast here.

The post 083 Publishing from Zero in 2021 with David Gaughran appeared first on Sacha Black.

Hello Rebels, welcome to The Rebel Author Podcast episode 49. We are rocking closer and closer to the 1 year mark. I’ll be doing a few things to celebrate but first to today’s episode…I’m talking to Jennie Nash all about how to create an author side hustle and author coaching. I adored talking to Jennie she’s so personable, engaging and fascinating to talk to. So I hope you enjoy this episode.

This week’s questions is:

If you could do anything as a side hustle, what would it be?

***

Find out more about our guest Jennie Nash:

If you want to be a book coach, you can find out more about Jennie’s courses and free information here: bookcoaches.com/abc

If you’re a writer and would like to be matched with a coach, then visit here: authoraccelerator.com

***

Book recommendation of the week is: How to Write a Series by Sara Rosett

• Kobo
• Apple
• Amazon UK
• Amazon USA

Don’t forget The Anatomy of Prose is now live, you can get it in ebook, paperback or hardback now.

Click the link here. Order the Workbook here. 

Listener Rebel of the Week is Jasmine Arch

If you’d like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or tweet me @rebelauthorpod

***

Two new patrons this week, welcome and thank you to Denise Berndt and Rae Tauranga. A huge thank you also to all my current patrons for the ongoing support. 

If you’d like to support the show, and get access to all the bonus essays, posts and content, you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

Sponsor of the show this week is ProWritingAid

Find out more about ProWritingAid software using my link here.

Use my discount code: REBEL25

Connect with ProWritingAid on social media:

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Please note I do use affiliate links, I earn a small commission when you purchase something using these links at no additional cost to you.

The post 049 How to Create an Author Side Hustle with Jennie Nash appeared first on Sacha Black.

Hello Rebels, welcome back to The Rebel Author Podcast episode 29. Today’s podcast is with Joni Di Placido from Kobo. We’re talking about how to work with and sell more books on Kobo.

Episode Show Notes

In the episode, we discuss:

• How to sell more books wide
• Common misconceptions about Kobo
• Tips and tricks for selling more specifically on Kobo
• Mistakes to avoid with Kobo
• Finding and reaching more Kobo readers

This week’s questions is:

What wide marketing tricks do you use?

Book recommendation this week is The Anatomy of Prose ebook and paperback on all bookstores now.

Click the link here.

Preorder the Workbook here.

Find out more about our guest on Kobo’s website:

www.kobo.com/writinglife

https://twitter.com/KoboWritingLife

https://www.instagram.com/kobo.writing.life/

Listener Rebel of the Week is Renee Gallant Junior

If you’d like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or tweet me @rebelauthorpod

If you’d like to support the show, and get access to all the bonus essays, posts and content, you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

The post 029 How to Sell More Books on Kobo with Joni Di Placido appeared first on Sacha Black.

Hello Rebels, welcome back to The Rebel Author Podcast episode 26. Today’s podcast is with Barry Hutchison. We’re talking about how to bootstrap your marketing and publishing. Something I think many of us will appreciate especially in today’s financial climate.

Episode Show Notes

This week’s questions is:

What is your best free or cheap marketing tip?

You can preorder The Anatomy of Prose ebook and paperback on all bookstores now.

Click the link here.

***

LISTEN TO NEXT LEVEL AUTHORS PODCAST

Watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnvkIvvQvHBbrO_RtUnlVA

Listen on your Podcatcher https://nextlevelauthors.podbean.com

Join the Next Level Author Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/nextlevelauthors/

***

Book recommendation this week is Swearing is Good for You by Emma Byrne.

KOBO https://www.kobo.com/ebook/swearing-is-good-for-you-the-amazing-science-of-bad-language

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3eAiumk

Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/2XOehoY

Find out more about our guest Barry Hutchison on his website:

https://barryjhutchison.com

Get his books here:

http://mybook.to/spaceteam

http://mybook.to/lob

Listener Rebel of the Week is Tim Seabrook

If you’d like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or tweet me @rebelauthorpod

If you’d like to support the show, and get access to all the bonus essays, posts and content, you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

The post 026 How to Bootstrap Your Marketing with Barry Hutchison appeared first on Sacha Black.

This Week’s Question is:

Where do you get your books? Do you buy them online, which store? Do you go to physical indie stores? Big chain stores, libraries? Somewhere else?

The book recommendation this week is An Author’s Guide to Working with Libraries and Bookstores by Mark Lefebvre.

Get the book on Kobo https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-author-s-guide-to-working-with-libraries-and-bookstores#ratings-and-reviews

This Episode is Sponsored by Kobo Writing Life

Mark’s Running a Giveaway

Mark is generously giving away a signed paperback which he will ship anywhere in the world. To enter use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Join The Anatomy of Prose Street Team

If you’d like to help with the launch of The Anatomy of Prose you can join the street team or read a review copy by completing this short form: https://bit.ly/AoPTeam

***

Listener Rebel of the Week is HB Lyne

If you’d like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or tweet me @rebelauthorpod

***

One new Patron today, welcome Beth Ball. Thank you so much for joining me and thank you to all my patrons, who help to ensure that this podcast continues.

If you’d like to support the show, and get access to all the bonus essays, posts and content, you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

**

Find out more about Mark on:

His website www.markleslie.ca

Twitter https://twitter.com/MarkLeslie

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/markleslielefebvre/

His Podcast http://markleslie.ca/podcast/

Grab your copy of An Author’s Guide to Working with Libraries and Bookstores

How to Get Your Books into Libraries Transcript

Do you wish your books were available in libraries? Learn how to work with libraries and bookstores from @markleslie #indieauthor #selfpublishing #IARTG #ASMRG #writingcommunity
Share on X

Sacha Black
Hello and welcome back to The Rebel Author podcast. Today I am with Mark Lefebvre. Mark is a writer, editor, book industry expert, professional speaker, and a self defined all round book nerd.

Mark Lefebvre
Welcome, Mark. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s It’s a wonderful new year we get to hang out again. That’s pretty fun.

Sacha Black
I know. I know. I have to say your bio for the amount that you have done is possibly the shortest bio I have ever read out. I am I wildly impressed that you’ve got your career and into that also didn’t know you were an editor.

Mark Lefebvre
I mean, no, not a developmental editor. I’m not I’m not a good editor like that. I select stories for anthologies, so I tend to find the stuff I really like and I do very little of the actual Kristine Kathryn Rusch does most of the actual line editing, I just do the high level stuff with the work with the authors, but so yeah, selecting editor as opposed to The actual good editor, the kind of editor I need to hire all the time.

Sacha Black
Tell everyone a little bit about you, and your journey and how you got to where you are now.

Mark Lefebvre
Yeah, sure. I mean, I knew, ever since I was little, I always wanted to be a storyteller. It was those little Fisher Price figurines I used to play with and make up stories for hours and hours, and they would be continuing saga. So over the course of a month, I would, I would have this it was almost like episodic TV shows were like cliffhangers. And then, and then I got to play again, I would continue the story. And then I discovered the permanence of the magic. When you actually put the words on paper and you leave in they’re still there, and someone else can pick them up and read them. And I started off a little stick figure drawings and cartoons, and then eventually graduated to when I discovered my mom’s Underwood typewriter, in the closet and I was 14 years old and it was covered, you know, in a little dust cover and I pulled it out and went, Oh, this is kind of cool.

And I spent I spent my summer When I was 14 years old writing a really terrible I guess you would call it fanfiction because it was Conan the Barbarian. Based on the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and the comic books I had had savage sort of Conan and stuff and, and I just completely used the character Conan and created this fantasy adventure. And I thought I thought it was a gigantic epic. It’s probably only 30,000 words, but I spent the entire summer vitamin D deficient in the basement, pounding away using my Dungeons and Dragons manuals and guidebooks as sort of resources and research. So like, if I needed a monster I needed to look up the monster. It was horrible. And because it was 14 years old and sex obsessed, I mean every second scene, Conan gets to have sex with someone. But that was the start and I and I think I submitted my very first story to a CBC Radio contest. So CBC is kind of like NPR in the States or, or BBC in the UK. And and I submitted it was a horrible I mean, 15 years old. It was just like this terrible tragic story. story of a guy who loves a girl and doesn’t get her in any dies. Right? So I mean that’s that’s all my stories were were very morbid like that I did not win the contest but it was my very first rejection.

And I got really really good at rejection over the years I’ve I’ve amassed thousands of rejections from you know, from from women as well as from editors, magazines, so I kind of developed a bit of a hard nose for that. My very first story was published in 92. Finally, the same year I started in book selling so that was like a really wonderful parallel track and, and I think it was $5 us plus contributors copy, and I was so excited to get that story published. And then my very first horror story, which was published not too long after that received honorable mention in the years best fantasy and horror, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Wendling. And, and that was exciting. But I finally did my first book in 2004. And it was a collection of previously published short stories and I self published it way back when you couldn’t Self Publish because nobody would ever take you serious 2004 was 10 years before the the Kindle Gold Rush.

And so, you know, I took my best friend Steve and I had a DJ company called Stark entertainment Steven Mark put the names together Stark. So he was a graphic designer, I was like, well for a case of beer could do to do my cover for me. And oh, can you do a logo? Stark publishing, because I don’t want anyone to know, I’m self publishing. And so that was sort of the beginning of my entry into into self publishing. Now, I also have traditionally published and self published and I’m, I know, I’m of the mind that there’s benefits in both, but there are reasons why you may want to work with a publisher, and there’s reasons why you may not want to work with a publisher. And so my journey as a bookseller. As an editor, I’ve edited several traditionally published anthologies, and self published anthologies. But my journey has always been that each book, each new product that comes out, has its own path has its own journey, just like every writer has its own journey. And so for every every writing project I work on, I really determine what’s the best path for this, like, what path is this child going to go on. And, you know, some are some are bound for college or uni, and other ones are straight into the trades or other ones are going to be, you know, kind of like me sit in the basement and write stories all day.

Sacha Black
I love that and something that you said right at the end there about, you know how each book baby is going to go into the world. I am, I remember if it was on the podcast, or if it was just in conversation, but I was speaking to HB line and she really opened my eyes to the fact that each book doesn’t have to be written the same way. So you can you might need to outline one book, but just because you are planning and being a plotter with that book does not mean that the next one necessarily has to be you make you may want to write into the duck and and that kind of blew my mind at the time and it sort of gave me that permission to be less rigid and I think that you know, once you had I think that’s what you had to stick to. Yeah, I just I think there’s so much truth in that.

Mark Lefebvre
Oh, I love that. That is fantastic advice and and even and even the voice right now you write nonfiction and fiction and you write different genres, you’re going to use a different I mean, I use a different voice with my nonfiction books on writing and publishing than I do in my horror. So I mean, obviously, there’s gonna be a different style to

Sacha Black
Absolutely. And you have a new book out, called working with libraries and bookstores. So congratulations on publishing. And and that’s why we are here today. And your your new book aims to help indie authors work with bookstores, obviously, and libraries. So um, first of all, I think it would be helpful to tell everyone how that you know, library and bookstore distribution actually works because it’s a bit mythical. I think

Mark Lefebvre
It is. And this is interesting actually comes back from my own podcast, Stark reflections on the writing and publishing actually had listeners ask specifically could We talk about working with bookstores and I did an episode Could you talk about libraries?

Sacha Black
I did listen to that episode.

Mark Lefebvre
And, and then I thought, oh, some people want to learn differently. So I thought, I’ll put the book together. And I thought the book was going to be 10,000 words. But then as I got into it, and this is a challenge, I got into it, I went, well, there’s working with physical bookstores and physical life. And then there’s working with ebooks, because you can get your ebooks into overdrive and Baker and Taylor and all these different hoopla and all these different library systems now, and similarly, there’s print, and there’s, as you know, because you’re in the UK, and I’m in Canada, that there’s a public lending, right. So there’s all of these complications. So I just kept going and going in this in this 10,000 word book. I think it’s 40,000. I mean, I ended up cutting it back down to 40,000. And just realizing I was just going too far.

But I think the challenge is, I wanted the book to be applicable to any writer whether they’re traditionally published or self published. I wanted self published authors to understand more about traditional publishing and, and why that sometimes is beneficial. So for example, I’m in order I because I have a traditional publishers and I also Self Publish. I know with my traditionally published books from London, for example, which is one of Canada’s largest independent publisher. I know I can call virtually any bookstore in North America, or in Canada and say, the book is available. It’s fully returnable. Here’s the ISBN, here’s where you can order it. You order it from University of Toronto distribution UTP distribution, or from calling the states I know it’s available, fully returnable from Ingram, because there are Canadian publishers, they have a warehouse here but they use Ingram in the States. I know with my self published books, I have to do a similar thing. And so you know, you’re given the ISP and you give them the price, you make sure that it’s a full discount. But when it’s usually if I’m using Ingram Spark is the preferred, you know, print on demand solution where you can actually set the discount and give it a deeper discount, you can actually make it returnable, which I actually advise authors not to do, because I did that in 2004.

It was fantastic. Because I could call up a Barnes and Noble and say, I’m going to be in Pittsburgh, you know, near near your downtown location. Here’s my ISP in the book is full discount, it’s fully returnable. I’d love to come in and do a lunchtime signing. And I was able to get signings at chain bookstores all the time. And it was fantastic until somebody at chapters Indigo which is kind of like WH Smith or Barnes noble here in Canada. And so somebody at Chapters into go into the buyers found out I had this book or two 300 copies to put in, you know, a copy or two in a bunch of stores across Canada, which was exciting, right? I mean, it’s every writers dream to walk into a bookstore and see their book on a shelf. And it was really exciting, except six months later, when the returns cost me more than the sales and they only returned half of them. But it’s still costing me more than I earned on the sales side. So I was in the red for a long time. Now, I did hear from somebody at Ingram when I was at a book industry meeting in in New York in June last year, that only 1% of all books from Ingram actually get returned.

So, I think the downside there was I had a bulk order placed, and it’s the bulk orders you have to be careful about now I was with an author, Sarah and of course, I’m completely blanking on her last name. it’ll come to me after we finish the interview, but we were at novelists Inc, in Florida. And we’re at haslums bookstore, an independent bookstore, I organized the books and beer tour because that’s kind of the things that I do. So we started at the bookstore. Then we went to a bunch of breweries, and it was so excited and she was an independent. This is an independently published title. She made it available through Ingram and she’d made it returnable, and we walked into the bookstore. We found one of my traditionally published books on the shelf because I actually wrote about haunted bookstores and libraries and What’s his name? jack Kerouac allegedly haunts that location. So they always have a copy of my book in stock. So always make sure to sign it. But Sarah, two or three of books in her mystery series that were independently published, were on the shelf she had Sarah Rosett, that’s her name. See, I finally remembered. And I was so excited. And I talked to her about it. And she said, Oh, yeah, I’m using Ingram spark and I made it fully returnable. And then when I talked to the the owner, I said, Well, why did you bring in Sarah’s book is probably because a customer came in talking about her and said she was great. So I ordered in some of her books. And so it is possible for independent authors to get their books in the bookstores. But there’s a huge risk involved if you make a returnable, or there has to be some sort of connection, right that in that case, the bookseller had a customer, trusted customer that they liked and wanted to buy her books in print, therefore, they ordered them in and they started stocking them.

Usually, it’s a lot of groundwork, usually it’s a lot of having relationships with those local booksellers. And one of the things things that I like to do with my own non returnable because I now use non returnable by default, is if I’m doing an event at let’s say, an independent bookstore, a local bookstore and the independent bookstores tend to have more power than those who work at WH Smith or Barnes and Noble, because oftentimes head office policies, unless they’re a really good manager, who likes to break in, twist the rules, they follow the rules. And I mean, the rules are rules, but there’s there’s reasonable business practices, you can work around them. But what I usually do is, I will offer to buy the existing stock. So if they order, let’s say, 50 copies of the book, so I can come in and do an event. And I offer to make sure that they’re not going to be stuck with them because I used to manage a bookstore. So I know you don’t want to be stuck with non returnable stock because you have to mark it down. I usually offer to buy any stock at the end so they’re not stuck with it. But I do ask is it could you please give me your staff discount because I know most bookstores offer you know, whether it’s 30% discount off of books and that that way, the bookstore still makes money on those sales, but I don’t, I then have stock because I do a lot of in person events and signings at the author table so that way I have stock that I can sell and, and no, I’m not making the full 40% or 50% of whatever the margin is I would make on the on the ones I printed for myself, but, but at least I’m not screwing the local business, at least the business owner recognizes that I understand the importance of what they’re at, as well. And I’m thinking about their business, not just me. So I think that’s those are some of the critical aspects of when you’re working, wanting to work with bookstores.

You got to remember, they’re, they’re a business just like you are, and they need to make money. And so it’s kind of like ask not what your bookstore can do for you ask what you can do for your bookstore, I think is a good way to approach it. And then there’s mutual respect. Because if they see that you’re a professional and you’re willing to be professional and you’re and you’re good for what they what they offer, there’s probably a chance they’re going to want to stock your books anyway. And Hansel, because I’ve hand sold books over the years, and usually it’s from authors that impressed me in some way that they told me a really cool story about the writing of the book or there was something intriguing about them or, or they were just, you know, it’s like the karmic value they put out into the universe. I think when I see people doing good and treating others with respect, I want to help them to be successful. So there’s all of those things are the layers involved in working with bookstores and libraries?

Sacha Black
I love the I thought that was a really good idea to ask for the staff discount as well because it that is a win win for everybody that way. So I’m gonna ask about the elephant in the room. So depending on when this goes Live. For those that aren’t aware, at the end of 2019, just before Christmas, racket Han made the sale of overdrive, which will explain all in detail in a second to a hedge fund. It was a hedge fund, I think. Yeah. Now, I’ll ask you to explain what overdrive is, and all the rest and everything in a second, but I want to know what you think this spells for library books distribution over the next five years. Okay.

Mark Lefebvre
Let me go back to overdrive is North America’s largest library Digital Library distribution company was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, which is only about a four hour drive for me. And Steve, who’s the CEO of overdrive and the founder is a huge book nerd, gigantic book lover. I mean, yeah, I worked at Kobo. I worked with Michael Tamblyn, and it’s amazing how similar those two people are in terms of their love and passion for reading and books. So I remember seeing Steve at an event at Overdrive a few years ago. And I remember just sitting there going. Wow, I don’t even think that people like Kobo know how much of the people at overdrive are gigantic book nerds. And so the whole culture of overdrive is getting people to read more, which is brilliant, which is beautiful. When Rakuten and acquired Overdrive and Rakuten and had acquired Kobo a few years earlier, there was obvious synergies between the two companies. I worked really, really closely with colleagues at Overdrive. And I know that regardless of the sale, the DNA of Overdrive is still about the love of reading and the passion and their relationships with libraries is phenomenal. I got to witness it firsthand. I’ve interacted with these folks even after I left Kobo, you know, spending time with them at book Expo America at their booth and, and just chatting with them going. I even been into the office a few times to to meet with folks there. I think that Overdrive is probably going to change Continue to do all of the great things they’re doing. And I also think that any of the relationships that they still have with COBOL are probably still going to be strong. Doesn’t matter who owns them. The fact that two companies work well together should work. I mean, I think perhaps if Amazon bought Rakuten, then maybe they’d stopped working with Kobo the way the way good read stuff to working with Kobo when when they got bought by Amazon in terms of Kobo itself, I think, you know,

Sacha Black
I was gonna ask, yeah, well, what what, what do you think will happen to Kobo?

Mark Lefebvre
I mean, Rakuten was an amazing thing for Kobo, because, you know, they had the mind and power and money of an Amazon style company because I mean, yeah, they remember Kobo is a scrappy, little upstart company in Canada, fighting against, you know, the biggest search engine in the world Google, you know, the biggest software and device companies in the world. iTunes, a biggest bookseller in the world, Amazon, so Rakuten really helped them you know, have fund them to keep them going to do to fight the good fight? I actually, I don’t think there’s any worry for a Rakuten in deciding to move Kobo I think they, and I don’t know, maybe maybe the culture of Kobo and the culture of racket, and they did seem to fit in really, really well. I mean that the main difference at Kobo was we had to start wearing name tags, because it was a very Japanese thing where, you know, you have to wear your name tag over your heart and it’s in it’s polite, because someone else in the company might not know your name, and it makes them feel embarrassed.

So it’s this really there’s, there’s a huge amount of respect in things that I learned. So if anything, you’ve just got a little bit more, I mean, Canadians already polite and apologetic, but then you could learn to be a little bit more respectful in terms of even one of the things I found fascinating as well apart from the name tags was business cards. You don’t just take a business card and slip it in your pocket when when you present a business card. It’s like, it’s like you’re you’re proposing, it’s like you’re presenting this and then when you take a business card, you actually look at it, you actually study it and you value it. And you acknowledge it. It’s a sign of respect that this is this person is connecting with you. And when you think about that, but think about the way we do business in North America and even even in sort of western part of like the UK and stuff is, yeah, here’s my business card. And here’s your it’s just like this quick, dirty exchange, almost like you’re, you’re doing a drug deal on the corner as opposed to this. This No, no, no, you and I are to do business together.

And I was doing business years ago with with a gentleman when I was working at the university bookstore at McMaster. And he would not do business with me until we broke bread together. And he invited me and my son over to his house with his wife to have lunch before we signed a contract together. And But again, it’s a sign of respect. And maybe it goes back to ancient times is like, well, if we trust each other, that we’re not going to poison each other then we can do this together. And so anyway, so so the culture there is is similar, but I think that there’s probably enough going on that I don’t think anyone has to worry about Kobo going anywhere anytime soon. At least my I have no insights into the company since I left at the end of 2017. Other than my, my gut and my impression. So I think that in terms of Kobo still being a player on the market, I think writers will be fine. And I think Overdrive as a hugely viable market they just posted I think on Publishers Weekly I saw yesterday which was January 9, I just saw the increase in library sales in readership that that Rakuten Overdrive sir said overdrive, but whether still racket and overdrive, but that they posted and we’re not seeing anything, but sales to library markets going up, especially for indie authors, as you know, you know, with Macmillan and other larger publishers doing stupid bonehead moves, like making books less available to library indie authors have never had a better opportunity.

Sacha Black
I was just gonna say they can make as many of those moves as they like.

Mark Lefebvre
We just keep doing that.

Sacha Black
Yeah, exactly. And in the meantime, we will all tell our readers and our listeners to go and, you know, request our books through the libraries in through their local bookstores. So guys, if you’re listening, please go and request mine Mark’s books in your local library in your bookstore. We are very grateful. Okay, so you’ve spoken about the physical and the fact that you there are physical library books, and there are digital library books. And that’s obviously that sort of Overdrive area. But there are more than one payment models out there for how that works. Library. So just talk a little bit about those because I think that’s one thing that people aren’t necessarily aware of.

Mark Lefebvre
Yeah, of course, and let me go in because I mean, I’ve worked at Kobo and I also work part time with drafter digital, as well, so I’m familiar with it. Let’s talk about overdrive. The main model for a lot of library systems is what’s called a one to one license, meaning the library buys one copy. And then they own that copy forever and can loan it to one customer at a time forever. So if they want, if they have a whole waiting list and they need more copies, they have to buy extra copies. So that’s the one to one license. And I know for example, if you’re publishing to Overdrive through Kobo writing life, you’ll get 50%. And that’s the exact same terms you would get if you were direct Overdrive. And trust me, you do not want to be direct to overdrive ever in your life. Most authors that I knew, like the big success authors early in the market, who were six figure authors early on, were direct with Overdrive, and we’re desperate not to be only because overdrive is really, really great in terms of the way they communicate with library data. But any author who’s used to doing data stuff, it would be kind of like going back to the press play on tape, one era of computing, because that’s no seriously… it’s like, okay, now you got to you got to print up your ebook and mail it to us have no courier pigeon it to us and then like it like the logistics are a nightmare.

And so with most third party platforms, you don’t get a full 50% you get either 45% I know it drafted digital, we get 47%. So it’s three points last with a one to one license. But the one thing you don’t get for example from Kobo Writing Life but you can get through drafted digital and but and maybe other other other platforms I’m not as familiar with them is you get the the cost per checkout model. And the cost per checkout model is a little bit different. So the one to one licensing is kind of like a curated…Think of it like traditional publishing, where somebody in New York or London decides what books are going to be purchased and then distributed to wh Smith or Barnes noble or whatever and put out into the market. But am when Amazon and the Kindle market change things is suddenly you could you could bypass the gatekeepers and all the books the slush pile was put right up on a catalog and let consumers decide. So the cost per checkout model is like the the secondary model like the the slush pile is available to everyone. So the library has the choice. And sometimes they divide their budget up and say, Okay, we’re going to purchase some things.

And then we’re going to allow our consumers. And so some of the titles have been pushed out through the one to one that are limited to a budget, and then the other ones are, and again, they’re often limited to a budget to where they just push all the titles into their catalog and say, well, we’ll let we’ll let the patrons decide what books they want. And but what happens there is with the cost for checkout, instead of you know, 47% or 50, you get about one 10th of the price, so like 10% of what the price would be so let’s pretend it’s a $10 book. So instead of $5, you get $1. However, you get $1. Every single time somebody checks that book out, so imagine, for example, you sell one you make $5. But then if five or six people check it out, that would have been $6, you made not $5. And so it’s more of a long term thinking thing. Imagine a book club, wanting to all read your book, and a lot of them want to get the book from the library, for example, with the cost per checkup model they could all get right now, and they could all read it and have it done. And you would make a you know, let’s say $1 per, per everyone that you sell, as opposed to own a library only about one and they can’t afford to buy more so everyone else has to wait. You know, that’s where Macmillan wants a good they’ll go buy the hardcover for $45. No, no, not. That’s the difference in those models. And the only reason that I know that the cost per checkout model works is because for audiobooks, that’s where I’ve made most of my money. I haven’t made it through the, the, the token system on Audible or Kobo or whatever. I’ve made most of my sales through the library market and a lot of them are through them. Cost per check out. So every single time some new person checks out one of my audio books through one of the library systems, whether it’s overdrive or hoopla or high books are all like there’s there’s dozens of places like that. I’m getting these micro payments that really add up over time. So that’s, that’s, that’s kind of a cool thing that I think authors need to be aware of.

Sacha Black
Absolutely. And do you publish those audiobooks through like the same platform still so Draft 2 Digital Overdrive,

Mark Lefebvre
so the audio books I have done most of my audiobooks through find a way voices and find a way voices is an American company also located in Cleveland Ohio for hours. And and what I like about there is you can set your unlike with ACX, you can set your price, and you the only place your price isn’t set for you is audible. So they just that’s what they do. But you can set your price you set your retail price, but then you also set your library price. You know, same thing was you can do with the books and so I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do a combination of, you know, hiring people to do audiobooks and shorter books, right?

So think about, let’s say, let’s say the average price to create an audiobook is $350 an hour to pay the narrator outright. And then you have all the rights and make the money, right. If you’re doing a 10,000 word, short story, or a digital chapbook, which I’ve done a number of them that are like 15 to 18,000 words. I’m only paying for two hours, I’m not paying for 10 hours. So a lot of the audiobooks I’ve done, have been shorter. I haven’t yet made my money back on the on the only full length book that I have in audio. Well, yeah, that’s the novel where I paid 350 bucks an hour for eight hours of whatever, I haven’t made my money back on that. But I’ve made my money back on all of the shorter ones. And the beautiful thing about this is I’ve been doing combinations of hiring people doing the royalty Split option, I’m trying to pay for most of them myself so I can then own the audio file. And then what I can do is I can take all those separate stories and create a digital bundle, like a digital, full length 50,000 60,000 hundred thousand word book of audio that I already own and I’ve already paid for and have a completely new product that’s full length and maybe the full length book that’s 10 hours is going to be priced about $15 on Audible and then maybe it will sell there too. So, I am using,

Sacha Black
I love that about you know, every time I speak to you, you come up with some other you know, really innovative, creative thing to you know, repurpose your content. I like all of the ideas or the things you have to do. Are you not narrating your own?

Mark Lefebvre
So I have narrated my own I will be narrating an author’s guide to working with libraries and bookstores. I narrated the seven Ps of publishing success and I have narrated snowman shivers which is like a free digital chapbook of It’s 10,000 words. It’s two short stories. It’s free and ebook and I narrated the audiobook because it’s so short and only because the one story that old school cat they found I have read hundreds and hundreds of times to school groups because it’s actually appropriate for younger people. I’ve read it, libraries of it and it’s so such a short story. It’s such a crowd pleaser and because I’ve read it so many times I felt I can do this one. I can’t do a full length book. I can’t do many of my other story so I rather hire professional narrators for those now what I will do and then and I found this out as so I did active reader was the first book I did to findaway voices and I hired this amazing narrator who’s normally a romance reader. And with the cool thing about that is I had a whole bunch because I read Twilight Zone ish style fiction or black mirror or whatever. I a lot of the reviews that I got were from fans of his who came because they were romance readers and I loved his voice and a lot of them were I’ve never heard of this Mark leslie guy I never thought I would enjoy horror, but it really liked his stories. Thanks to Nick.

And so I hired Nick again for another job. I’m like, hey, I want I want to get these romance readers checking me out. Because again, it’s not it’s not like Friday the 13th slasher kind of horror. It’s more Twilight Zone ish and weird stuff. But what I found out is Nick had done my author notes and all of the short stories I’ve ever published, I always have done the behind the story notes, and a lot of my reviews from from readers, they love the notes. They love hearing about how the story happened. So what I’m doing is I’m going back in because I’m find a way you can just go in and replace those files. I’m going to do all the author notes myself. And I did that with Chris Humphreys, a friend of mine a beautiful British accent. He’s a Canadian, who is who was born in the UK. And he so he did one of the stories with an American accent because he’s an actor and he can do those things. But then he did the I was like, No dude, the British accent it sounds more intelligence sophisticated. But then but then When he went to do the author notes, I’m like, No, no, no, I’ll do the author notes because it sounds weird when you’re saying I and you are very sophisticated and you sound like an intelligent person, whereas I’m just like an idiot. And so I’d rather be in my voice. So I think that’s important. And I think nonfiction potentially, because I speak to authors all the time. And I have a podcast. I think doing the the nonfiction books in my voice is probably a nicer thing. Like Malcolm Gladwell, for example, his new book, I mean, he’s, he narrated himself, and I always like I always like when the nonfiction is done by by the author, so long as the author doesn’t have an annoying voice. That’s very far right.

Sacha Black
I was just talking about there. So I because I also listen to your podcast, I would find it weird if your nonfiction was not narrated by you. Also, though, I think you have that tone that’s quite hypnotic, though. And so just how you’re talking about voices and how important voices and I was having a conversation A while ago that that was around how important that is now and how important that’s going to be in the future because I was I started listening to audio and podcasts at what you know, one speed, normal speed. Now I listen two speed. So actually half of the time people sound weird talking normally cuz I’m like, wow, you speak really slow. You know? Sometimes I’m like, Is this real? Do people really speak… that sound like, no, they’re doing it for audio? And I just speak really fast. And but yes, I am. I didn’t even know where I was going with that tangent. But

Mark Lefebvre
I find the same thing too. Because I started. We went to speed and a half and now I started at two times because a friend of mine said that she listens at two times speed knowing Well, I should give that a shot because this eight hour book, I want to try and get it done on this four hour drive. And it’s not. It’s not that I mean, unless the person speaks really fast already. It’s difficult. Yeah to consume and I love it because I can read twice as fast now.

Sacha Black
Exactly. There are I have to say there are a couple of podcasts that I have to have either on 1.5 or 1.75. Just because one of the speakers speaks quite quickly, but most of them I have on two. This podcast is about all our listening habits today.

Mark Lefebvre
We’re rebel authors aren’t we? Yeah,

Sacha Black
Yeah. Oh, yes. Hundred percent. Um, okay. So obviously there are going to be geographical differences between different countries but broadly speaking, how do authors actually get their books in the libraries and all bookstores?

Mark Lefebvre
I always subscribed to the the methodology that you should define yourself as a big fish in a small pool and usually the small pool is your hometown. Right? So I mean, unless you live in a big metropolis. My my best selling book still to this day is Spooky Sudbury which is coauthored in Sudbury, the city itself is a and the surrounding areas a population of about 90,000 people. So to me that was a big city from where I grew up. Whereas, you know, Toronto, millions of people and Hamilton has half a million people and stuff. And in Montreal, the second largest city in Canada, still the sales of mccobb, Montreal come nowhere close to Sudbury. Because there’s something about local, there’s something about wanting to support local and stuff like that. So I would always start as local as you can. When you move away from local what you’re trying to do is you’re still trying to find what is the relevance. So for example, and let’s use Joanna Penn because we both admire her and and a lot of people know who she is. Her fiction is set around the world. So her you know novels take place in cathedrals and in all kinds of unique places in the world. So if she’s pitching one of her books in a foreign country, to And I, she could potentially pitch it to the library saying, well, this novel, you know, 30% of the novel takes place in this city. And that could be an interesting thing. And that’s why I always recommend not just talking to the acquisitions, people at the library when you reach out to them. But talking to the reference librarians because I still do a lot of my research for the nonfiction ghost story books I do in in libraries, I spent a lot of time with research librarians, and they are data nerds, they love, love, sharing information. So even if the acquisitions person is not interested in your book, if the if the reference librarian knows that this book is set here, or that the author has some sort of connection to the library or the town or wherever, maybe it’s the family, right, maybe they they came from the from from a European country, and they live in North America now and their families from this small town. Maybe the library is interested in that because a lot of times people this happens in Canada a lot because we’re so close to the US and they kind of dominate the culture.

Pardon me, they people will hear the teacher will say you have to read a book by a Canadian author and kids go. I’ve never heard of any Canadian authors. So they go to their local library. And that’s what the reference librarians like, Well, yeah, I can even find you some local writers. And so I think playing off of the uniqueness and the relevance to the area, to the culture to anything related to the city, ideally, starting with you, as a local author is a really great place to start. So it does get harder. It does get hard, it’s gonna be hard for me to sell one of my books to a library in India, for example, unless I already have fans there who are interested in my books, and then that’s easy. And that’s where on your newsletter on your news group you can you know, I always say this for kindle unlimited. People who coming out of Kindle unlimited or KDP Select and they’re publishing wide. And the people who complain I can’t get your books for free anymore. I’m not gonna read Do I hate you? Because I know now everyone can get my books for free, you just have to ask for them at the library, right? So it’s kinda like no, you can still read my books for free. So you have a positive to give to them. But it’s kind of like but but I’m only limiting in my customers to this really small base. Now I know Amazon’s the world’s biggest bookstore, but it’s still globally, when you think about it. It’s a very small readership base. And it’s very constricted. Whereas if you include libraries, suddenly you get global and suddenly, anyone in the world practically can get access to your books for free. But that’s where maybe on your newsletter, or your news group, if you know some things about where people are coming from, because you can usually tell that you have people from certain countries. I mean, I know on podcasts, I know that in some aspects of my newsletter, I know that they’re coming from certain countries, so it’s like, Hey, why don’t do me a favor. cost you nothing. Go ask for my book at your library.

Sacha Black
Yeah, yeah. And and, you know, you don’t even have to read it. We’d love for you to, but

Mark Lefebvre
I do know that you do want them. Actually you do want to read it because you got it. bookstores keep books on the shelves, like tenants paying rent. And they want to turn their inventory three times a year. So if you bring in a book, ideally you want it to sell. And then and then reorder and sell. So you’re constantly replenishing stock. If it doesn’t sell, you then have to mark it down or return it to get right. So that’s the kind of thing libraries where they don’t sell books. If the book is not circulated, they get rid of it. If people don’t actually check it out, they get rid of it. Now, I don’t know how they do that with digital books. But I know with print books, if there’s no circulation, that they get sold in the library, you know, that little sales that they have and stuff like that. So, so actually, it’s cool to get the initial sale, but it’s even cooler to get relevance and actually having patrons actually reading the book, because then that tells the library Oh, we should keep an eye out for more of these this other’s books.

Sacha Black
And that also leads into PLR doesn’t it?

Mark Lefebvre
Oh my goodness. PLR. This is one of the wonderful things that as Commonwealth countries have have in common? Sorry, oh, and the Queen and the parliamentary system. But yeah, so with public lending rates. I mean, I’m more familiar with that in Canada, but there are it’s, it’s available in 30 different countries around the world. What it is, is for lack of royalties and the respect of the country to want to have, you know, Canadian authors or British authors in, in those libraries. You actually get paid based on a random sampling the way they work differently in different countries. But in Canada, it’s a random sampling of a bunch of libraries. And every time they find you know, your print book, your audio book or your ebook, you get a hit. And oftentimes, it’s $30 per head. Now, you know, my traditionally published books that sell for $25 I get $2. A year later, 30% withholding against returns. But if they find that book in the library, I get 30. So it’s like selling I can’t do the math, but that’s like selling 60 copies of the book. My ebooks, obviously I make more on those, the ones that I self publish, but I still get, I still get a hit on those. And so just just it adds up over time because I’ve been engaged in public lending rights and every year in Canada, it’s like working with overdrive, it’s manually got to fill out these forms and mail them in. You can’t even do it online.

But last year, my public lending right earnings actually paid for our spring break trip to the Dominican Republic all inclusive, because I got the credit card bill for the for the booking of going there for for the week, around the same time that the check came in, and I went, Oh my God, that’s pretty much exactly what this trip cost me and I went, thanks public landing, right. You paid for my you paid for my vacation this year. And, and I mean, I think last year, it was actually larger than the royalty check I received from Dunder one of my traditional publishers, so it does add up over time. That’s where having multiple formats. Now I know in Canada, they only just added digital books in the last few years. So suddenly my catalog went from, let’s say, 20 books that were available in print to 40. And then when they added audiobooks that, you know, added another eight books to that.

So those little little things can really add up and again, you know, diversifying your income, right multiple formats, ebook and print and audio, but then library sales, you know, or public lending, right is, at least for non Americans is, is a great way for you to earn additional revenue from your books, and that in that case, like, you know, the the books from Dunder and so if I buy even if I buy it at retail, and I give it to the library, my new book that comes from Dunder to make sure the library has stock. If they randomly sample that library and I get a hit I even though I maybe spent $25 on the book, I’m gonna get $6 more the end of the day. It’s not just It’s not smart investment but, but if I bought it at a 40% discount, then obviously I’m making a little bit more, so I often will donate my new books. And again, they only usually care about frontlist for the most part, unless there’s some reason like a book that was published five years ago, that’s now a Netflix movie. Well, they’re gonna care about that now. So that that’s kind of otherwise they only want new books. So it’s a published in the last six months, consider donating print copy to your library. And this is where I again, Joanna Penn, advises and make and make a hardcover available because libraries prefer her gets her covers last longer. So their investment in a hardcover is a bit more money. But then then it it doesn’t wear out as fast. And libraries tend to prefer those.

Sacha Black
I’m trying to get mine into hardcover this year. That’s me trying to be a good publisher, which I’ve been. Do what we say everyone,

Mark Lefebvre
Exactly, yes, no, we do.

Sacha Black
Yeah. The PLR thing time I hear you talk about it just blows my mind. And but so one of the things that you’ve talked about a lot today is around relationships and building these relationships and what kinds of things can authors and writers do to help their bookstores and their libraries?

Mark Lefebvre
I mean, always, always think about their business. Think about who they are think about the time of year. So for example, I was, I think I was chatting with someone recently about they were trying to arrange book signings in December, a local bookstore. And it was like, dude, no, no, no, no, no, it’s the only time of year bookstores make money. Right Christmas sales. They want customers in out, buy the stuff like move stock, get things out, they don’t have time to set up tables and take up all this space, because they move so most, so much of their inventory gets moved at that time of year. So even just understanding certain times of the year for certain businesses. I mean it at an academic bookstore, so did the middle of August to the middle of September. It’s nuts. It’s absolutely crazy. So you want to go into a bookstore then. But there are quiet periods where they’re going to want to try and drawing crowds and stuff like that. So because some of those academic bookstores like when I worked at McMaster had a huge trade section, so a general interest rate because they have thousands of people who work on campus, and they come there at lunchtime every day, right? So there’s different traffic patterns to understand. So downtown stores are often lunchtime crowds, as opposed to if you’re out in the suburbs, it’s usually after dinner, those kinds of things. So thinking about those elements of where the story is and what their traffic patterns are, what times a year they’re busy or not, but then also

What is relevant about you and your book, right so if I if I’m writing Twilight Zone is speculative fiction and horror and stuff like that. I’m probably not going to do well in a in a bookstore that specializes in business books, right or that kind of crowd I’m gonna have to, I’m gonna have to pay attention to does My book actually serve the needs of their patrons? And that’s and that’s a critical thing. And I think it always starts just like the advice you get for social media. It always starts with being a part of the community, and engaging and listening and understanding 80% given 20% self, that kind of thing, I think that’s critical. Again, let’s go back to the business card analogy. It’s rather like the you know, the idiot who just walks around thrusting their business card, or their or their postcard about their book in your face before they even have an actual conversation with you.

I mean, it’s just nobody wants to be sold to. So that’s, that’s another really, really important thing. The other thing that is kind of important is, you know, if you want to go in and do an event at a library or a bookstore, think about the impression you’re making on that bookseller, because they’re gonna have to invest a lot of time and energy into setting up a book signing or event and there, you are interacting with their customers, if they think you’re a dick, they’re not gonna want to plant you. I mean, unless you’re unless you’re a big name dick, who, like Hollywood star or something, it doesn’t matter, there’s going to put you there because idiots will come in droves to come and buy their book. But I mean, for the standard author, you actually have to be a decent person, you actually have to treat people with respect. Because, you know, I mean, as a manager of a bookstore, I would definitely like certain authors that would come in and do dickish things all the time and were ever rude to my staff. I never want to have them do a book signing because they’re going to be rude to my customers too. As I get out, I know I’m not why am I doing you any favors.

However, authors who are gracious and wonderful and kind people is like, I do anything I could to help them. Like, oh my god, let’s set up a signing. Let’s advertise you. Let’s sell lots of your books. And then the other thing I would often do is if I had a relationship with with an author and someone was coming in, and they were looking for a style of book, I mean, I had I’ve worked in bookstores where I’ve had, you know, 10,000 titles I’ve had 100,000 titles have had 40,000 titles and stuff, there’s always lots of choice but oftentimes I would default to the personal story the personal connection and say, Oh my God, this you know, you like this style of book Well, you know, the author was in here six months ago and they did a they did a talk about this book, and they share this really cool story about their grandmother and and how she used to tell them stories when they were sitting on the whatever lake which is not too far from here, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So suddenly, I’ve I’ve not just put the book in the customer’s hand as a bookseller. But I’ve kind of synergetically or at least spiritually connected the reader and the author before the before the books even in the in the potential readers hands, I’ve suddenly made a connection between the two of them. And I know that seems like a lot of work, but it is. writing a book is hard work. Putting your soul and your energy into writing a book is hard work. Therefore, there’s no magic bullet to selling that book, because you in my mind, the relationships require that same sort of commitment and energy and it is difficult if you’re an introvert, it’s difficult if you prefer not to have those interactions but, but introverts are usually okay with in depth meaningful conversations rather than Hey, how’s the weather? Did you see what that sports team did? That’s, that’s not good for an introvert. But actually having one on one meaningful conversations is hugely valuable. It could be draining. And so maybe it’s easier for an introvert rather than, you know, a smarmy salesperson.

Sacha Black
I’m laughing so hard because I find the whole introvert extrovert scale fascinating. I say this all the time, but I think in a very extroverted way, I gesture with my hands. I have to write things on post it’s to understand what it is that I think and but when you then put me in a room full of people I’m like, *sharp intake of breath* you know, I shrink into myself. My wife always says to me… my wife, I have to say is the most… It’s so annoying, she is so charming. Everybody loves her more than me. But, but, no. There’s nothing I could do about it. She’s so fucking charming.

But anyway, like, she’ll waltz into a room and just, you know, everybody will, follow her and she can do all of that small talk, and I just feel like dying when I have to do small talk. And so that is very much the introverted side of me, you know, but like you say, actually, just like on a podcast, I can do in depth, you know, with weird strangers or new people or whatever, I can do that in depth conversation. So, yeah, I love that. The other thing I wanted to just circle back to that you were talking about so many times, when we talk about marketing, we forget the story. Like everybody talks about advertising and Facebook and Amazon and and Book newsletter swaps. But what’s the story? You know, we are storytellers, we should be incorporating storytelling in our marketing, because that’s what readers are coming for. And I just, I wanted to just pull that out, because I think it’s such an important lesson for everybody.

Mark Lefebvre
Oh, for sure. I mean, that is how we connect with other people. From the moment we were children. And somebody read to us whether it was mother, father or librarian or favorite aunt or uncle. Usually you had. And if it wasn’t reading to the storytelling, and you think it was dinnertime, I think when I was a kid, and I would sit there and my parents would have company, they’d be playing cards and, and I’d sneak into the kitchen and get snacks off the table and stuff like that. They’re telling stories to each other. They’re relaying when I get together with my best friend Steve. You know, we’ve known each other for 40 plus years. Every time we get together we rehash the same stories of magical stories. Some of the silly things that we did together are the fun times or the, or the even that even the hard times. You’re so right. We forget, it is about story because that’s what connects people. And that’s where the real magic happens is the stories.

I’m not going to tell you about my book. But let me tell you a story about why I wrote this book. And I and and that’s why I think, you know, I talked about when I first self published one hand screaming in 2004. And I did the author, I did the note. I mean, there are some readers like there’s all these notes I don’t give a shout I want another story. But but most of the most of the comments I’ve received are Oh my god, that was so cool that you shared where you were and how the story came to you or why these two stories came from one idea. So you’re so right, and people forget that and, and thanks for reminding me of that because I forget it too. So

Sacha Black
And it’s sort of half half came from when you were talking about author notes. Yeah, I actually wrote it down. I was like Sacha go and you put in the bloody author notes because I’ve written it down so many times before you must do all the notes. And I still haven’t gone and put them here because we have the ability to just go slap in a bit of a change in there because we were indie authors. So yeah, and you know, and I know where these stories have come from. So I absolutely do it. So I have written it down as an action I will do it.

Mark Lefebvre
I’ll follow up on you. I’ll check I’ll check in six months to see where you’ve gone with it.

Sacha Black
Okay, so last question before the the infamous infamous question about rebellion, but I can’t have you on here without really asking you for a few of your top tips for everybody for wide marketing because you like the king of wide marketing.

Mark Lefebvre
I think it comes down I mean again it comes down to relationships right when you when you are in so I do a lot of work with Apple getting promotions for authors for Apple and I know Kobo this too when they look at an author and they go to their website to check to see, are you inclusive of the platform, I mean, I would get angry emails from authors saying, I publish my books or Kobo and you and I books been there for five days and I haven’t sold a single copy and you suck. And then the signature their email is go buy my books on Amazon. So it was kind of like people pay attention to those things. So being inclusive on your website on your links and again, you know, Draft 2 Digital has the free books, books to read, which is universal book links, which is easy, automatically takes you to the right. There are other other ways to do that. You can go and do your own manual links. inclusive, include links to your local bookstore if if you want to support them, let people know that hey, you can special order my books through this bookstore, right just supporting them.

The other thing is pricing. People forget they they set a US price. And they just kind of go to town because most people are publishing you know using American companies like Amazon or whatever, and they forget that there are different price tolerances in different countries. Now, in the UK, the big publishers are still a lot more aggressive. So you got to be a little bit lower in your price in Canada and Australia, we’re getting ripped off and book prices like crazy so, so that extra dollar that the indie author can charge in Canada, Australia or New Zealand is not that significant when they compare it to the fact that Oh look, a $15 ebook from Random House or a $5 book from indie author, I could buy three books from the indie author for the same price so you’re not ripping off your customers, so long as your book is priced reasonably within the top sellers in those categories. So I usually want to maintain local pricing in Canadian US, Australia, New Zealand, and euros and I know Amazon doesn’t allow you to do New Zealand for example, but New Zealand is a gigantic market. There’s lots of people who read books in New Zealand and and and and they’re strapped right because a lot of them have to deal with people. is still pricing ebooks, as if they had to be put on, put on a raft and shipped halfway to get to New Zealand, but that’s not the case.

Sacha Black
Amazing. Okay, last question. Well, penultimate question. And this is the rebel author podcast. So tell readers and I know you’re a total rebel all of the time, but tell readers about a time you unleashed your inner rebel.

Mark Lefebvre
Oh, my God, almost every day, I think, for me, and writers can do this because we’re creative people. So I think this is important. There are rules, there are outlines, there are guidelines, there are always pathways within those guidelines within those rules to still forge your own path. And so I think one of the things that… I should have thought of this in advance to see when I was a rebel. I think, you know, let me go back to let me go back to the My days at Cobo, for example, I’ve always been a purveyor of apologizing rather than asking for permission. So oftentimes you’re like, Oh, yeah, I went and bought this domain. Oh, I went and did this. I signed up for this. I hope it’s okay. I think as a writer, I do that all the time, too. And I think when we indie publish, we you give yourself permission to set the rules and you say, Okay, I understand. This is what I can do. But I also understand, for example, one of the greatest things is an E book does not have to be 300 pages down between two pieces of cloth, an E book can be 40,000 words, 50,000 words, 100,000 words. An e book can be 5000 words, it can be 10,000 words, it can be all of those things. And so recognizing the value of your IP as a creator, and being able to manipulate your own IP because it’s yours, it’s your clay. It’s you do whatever you want with it, the minute you sell those rights or give up those rights. i.e. you’re giving up your rights when you sign a contract with a traditional publisher. In many ways, you’re they’re giving you money for rights in Amazon as well. When you go into KDP Select, you’re giving up your rights to sell this on other platforms and to make money in different ways. So I think recognizing the value of your IP, and all of the ways that you can exploit yourself rather than have other people exploit you. That’s our true rebel. That’s a true rebel approach. The other thing I would say in terms of being rebellious in this age of wide versus Kindle Unlimited, is if you are publishing your books to kindle Unlimited, and you’re making the majority of your sales by being exclusive to Amazon. You are not an independent author. You are a corporate writer, I’m sorry to say,

Sacha Black
Yeah, well, yes, my

Mark Lefebvre
That’s my rebellious nature right there. I’m gonna shame you all, for making lots of money off of a single retailer,

Sacha Black
and also be slightly jealous that you’re also making lots of money

Mark Lefebvre
be jealous but just like Yeah, but your corporate writer and I’m actually independent.

Sacha Black
Oh, also all KU listeners we do love you really so don’t turn switch off.

Mark Lefebvre
No, I love them but I but I like but I like being honest with people I think I like being honest like it’s the best thing you can do is I just read is it Kim Scott? Is it the Oh my god, what’s the name of the book? It was the Oh God, I have to look it up on my on on the on the Kobo app where I just listened to it.

There’s Radical Candor. Right? Sugarcoating is not going to do anyone any favors. So yeah, of course I respect you. But I’m also going to point out things that I think can benefit you whether you do it as a leader as a manager, or whether it’s with a friend, you know, like say like this cover is really pretty no it sucks and you need to let them know it sucks because they’re going to they’re going to go out into the world thinking that their baby is beautiful and and it ain’t so I think we do need to be honest with you, even if we love respect, we still need to be honest with each other. So it’s kind of like no, you’re a corporate writer.

Sacha Black
Yeah, and there is nothing wrong with that if that’s working for you, but no matter what I was a corporate guy, right? Yeah. Well, I don’t think I Well, I worked in a corporate hellhole but you know, I, I am, I am wide because I, you know, I love Kobo, I love you know, apple, and I want to be wide. So I want people to be able to my buy my books, whatever the case

Mark Lefebvre
and get them for free and libraries around the world.

Sacha Black
Don’t forget to go to your local library. And yes, so you’re gonna do a giveaway.

Mark Lefebvre
I am I would love to help your rebel author listeners. And I want to I want to send a signed copy today. However, you just determined a draw. lucky winner of an author’s guide to working with libraries and bookstores, I will mail it to you no matter where you are in the world. And I will personally inscribe it to you as well. That will bring up the value by a whole minus one cent.

Sacha Black
Well so what I’ll do is I will do a rafflecopter and I will pop it in. I’ll put the link to the post in the show notes and I will pop the rafflecopter in the on my website in the episode thing. What are words at this time of day? Coffee… Okay, tell everyone where they can find out more about you your books, your podcast, your everything, your audio books, all of that jazz.

Mark Lefebvre
Markleslie.ca is the best way to get ahold of me. I do most of my fiction and nonfiction ghost stories under Mark Leslie, but because people in the industry know me is Lefebvre I use Mark Leslie Lefebvre for those nonfiction books on writing and publishing.

Sacha Black
Amazing. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. And thank you to all of the patrons supporting the show. If you would like to get early access to all of the episodes, you can do so by visiting www.patreon.com/SachaBlack. Thank you to listeners. I’m Sacha back You are listening to Mark Lefebvre and this was The Rebel Author Podcast.

The post 021 How to Get Your Books into Libraries with Mark Lefebvre appeared first on Sacha Black.

But first, in the introduction, I ask: what’s your 2019 reading goal? Did you hit it? How many books have you read this year? Let me know in the comments or tweet me @rebelauthorpod

This week’s book recommendation is Atomic Habits by James Clear get your copy on Amazon UK or Amazon USA.

Don’t forget, if you’d like to watch the Scrivener metadata tutorial in January, join the 13 Steps to Evil Facebook group.

***

Listener Rebel of the week is Claire Good.

***

Thank you to the two new patrons this week Meg and Holly. If you’d like to get early access to all the Rebel Author episodes, you can support the show by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

Amazon Ads for Authors with Bryan Cohen

More about Bryan

Visit his Facebook page for Best Page Forward

Follow Bryan on Instagram

Are you ready to earn more profit from your Amazon Ads? Click and register to enter the 5-Day Amazon Ad Profit challenge! https://upvir.al/ref/Wy29975462?track=twitter via @bryancohenbooks #selfpublishing #IARTG #ASMRG #amwriting…
Share on X

***

Episode Transcript

Sacha Black
Hello and welcome back to The Rebel Author Podcast. Today I am with Bryan Cohen. Bryan is the CEO of Best Page Forward, an author copywriting agency that’s written over 2000 book descriptions for the author community. His books have also sold over 100,000 copies. He’s also the creator of Amazon Ad School and the five day Amazon add profit challenge. Welcome.

Bryan Cohen
Thank you for having me. Sacha. I’m happy to be here.

Sacha Black
You are most welcome. It’s an honor. I have listened to the Sell More Books show for years. So it is a great pleasure to finally get to talk to you in person. So thank you very much.

Bryan Cohen
Sure. We’ve had emails.

Sacha Black
We have, I’ve joined some of your webinars and read Sizzling Synopsis, which I love, and if anybody hasn’t read the book, I highly recommend it. So tell listeners a little more about you, your books, your business and how you got to where you are.

Bryan Cohen
Sure. Well, I started publishing in 2010. So I got in early doesn’t mean I did a great job when I got in there early. But I originally started by repackaging together some of my blog posts into a book. And that was a book of creative writing prompts. I’ve always just really gravitated towards helping writers and as a writer, myself wanting to help me to get better too in the process. And so that was kind of the beginnings of it. As you mentioned a few years after that, I started the Sell More Books Show podcast with Jim Kukral. And that’s been amazing. We just recorded Episode 289 today, which was wild. I know this will air later, we might be close to 300 by then, but yeah. It’s been really interesting to follow how the industry has changed and grown and my business has changed from just writing books to then writing book descriptions to doing courses to running challenges and all sorts of craziness. So there’s like, a lot that has happened over those nine years. But the the theme that really seems to kind of keep bringing it back is just helping the authors who are able to, you know, listen to the stuff I’m doing, help them to sell more books, and I will try to sell more of my own books too, but that’s really been secondary to… I just love authors, and I love writers and writing and so just helping people do their thing.

Sacha Black
I always think it’s really interesting because I fell into publishing and much the same way in that I wrote a lot of blog posts because I’m seen all I needed somewhere to write down all of the things that I was learning, which inevitably helped others as well. But so I always wonder, is that really such a thing as altruism? Because, you know, we’re here we’re helping, but actually, we learn from that process of helping other people as well.

Bryan Cohen
There’s always a selfish reason behind everything, but better to do a good thing for a selfish reason, then not do any good things.

Sacha Black
Oh, absolutely. I completely agree. I had a question from from a patron who wanted to ask you about your courage. Recently, you’ve done several things in the public eye from Relentless Authors Advertise—your podcast, where you publicly took everybody through your advertising challenge, and also to the very specific AMS ads challenge. So talk to me, talk to all of us about why you should decided to do that why you decided to go down the road of sharing so publicly something that was really in its infancy.

Bryan Cohen
We’ll start with the altruistic reason. And then we’ll go into the selfish reason. The altruistic reason is and I’ve had a couple of people in that show, Relentless Authors Advertise is on hiatus, it was about 32 weeks or something where every week, I shared what I spent on my ads, and what I earned in royalties, and I did have my month of May which was like a big loss. Fortunately, the other months were pretty good. And I think one month was even like the opposite of May with with 100% ROI, but I wanted people to see that. It’s not just guessing. And it’s not just luck. And it’s not just the people at the top of the heap running ads and other people can’t do it. Like I don’t have a giant big selling fiction series. My business does well, but no one really wants to know that stuff in the author world. They want to know books and how the book sell and how the ads work. And so I thought, well, if every week I just share exactly what I’m doing. If I share every bit of it, that hopefully people will find some benefit in it. And I got a lot of people who said like, I love that you shared when you screwed up because we don’t see that too often. Right? Like, we’re hearing the big wins and then it’s connected to selling something and and a lot of the podcasts are focused on big wins for good reason. It’s almost like the opposite like news, where like bad stuff sells news, but good stuff sells podcasts and products. But yeah,

Sacha Black
I know I completely agree because I was listening to your last episode where you said Actually, let’s have success stories from people who have gone from two figures to three figures or three figures to four figures, that’s so true. Whenever, some of the very large Facebook groups have numerous posts from people I’ve had 100,000 I’ve had they also inspirational, but also for some of the authors who are just beginning it’s actually really overwhelming and sometimes it’s not encouraging. And, but yes, okay, sorry, anyway, your other reason?

Bryan Cohen
Yeah, so the non altruistic reason I wanted to increase I wanted to improve my own book sales and I wanted to learn the platform better because I’m obsessed with knowledge. I don’t remember what this was. It was either in high school or college when I was with my parents. I seriously do not remember the circumstances behind this. But my my mom had to share like what her greatest worry was about me. And that was really great. My mom and I have a great relationship. But she said her worried for me was that I would never stop, wanting to learn things and I’d be so focused on learning things that I guess I wouldn’t live life or I wouldn’t find my way. And it’s kind of funny because I’m falling into something where I do need to keep learning, but it’s getting to teach that I always quote Stephen Covey the old, “Well, sure, there’s lots of ways of learning but one of the best ways of learning is you teach it” because you retain 90% of what you teach. So if I just keep teaching whatever I just picked up about Amazon ads, and I’m still learning, absolutely. I’m finding out new and interesting things to try all the time. But the non altruistic: there’s one is I learn it and two I can teach it. So lots of selfishness.

Sacha Black
And so what what were your main learning points from it?

Bryan Cohen
Well, I think that I proved out for me and a lot of other authors I’ve gotten a chance to work with that. The answer when an ad isn’t working is not necessarily, let’s increase our bid. Let’s tell Amazon to take more money out of our account. That’s not in some cases, you’re making money hand over fist, your conversion rate, which is how many clicks it takes to get a sale or a Kindle Unlimited, full book read, if it’s like three clicks leads to a sale. And I’ve been fortunate enough to have a couple of those and like, yeah, let’s keep spending on those. But if you’re not in that boat, which 99% of the author community is not, then you shouldn’t just say well 40 cents and work was bumped to 60. Let’s bump to 80. Let’s bump to $1. Then all of a sudden you’re like, wow, I lost a lot of money. And it’s because profit needs to be the number one focus and to have profit you need to spend less and make more. Which seems like, Well, duh, but based on what I’ve seen people actually do it’s not necessarily the rubric that people are following.

Sacha Black
Oh, yeah. So you’ve you recently, at the time of airing it will be not so recent, but you recently completed your five day, AMS ads challenge, and but you’re intending to launch another one. So can you tell listeners a little bit about the challenge, what it involves and how they can participate?

Bryan Cohen
So this was wild like imagine that when you’re going through like, a course, like any of the courses, because there’s a lot of courses we all know that there’s all sorts of courses. So imagine that when you’re going through a course. It’s not just you doing it. Like, you aren’t just the only one in your room watching the video. There are actually 800 to 1000 people all doing it at the same time. And so when you’re having a problem with something, you can go message someone else you can post in a group, you can say, like, I have no idea, I touched Excel and it blew up. So I can’t put these keywords in here. What do I do? And there’s a bunch of other people doing it at the same time, some of whom are in your genre, some of them aren’t. And that was kind of like my experiment. There’s been challenges all over. I’ve seen challenges that are like, the million dollar challenge five day million dollar and I’m like: what does that even mean? Because… are we supposed to like rob five bank in five days? Like I don’t even know. But this was the Amazon add profit challenge. So the goal was if we sat however many people would show up together all during the same week to watch the same videos, create the same ads using the same free systems. All of it, nothing require that requires any any money in there. And we all did it the same time. In an effort to have at least just one profitable ad, that was the goal. It wasn’t a million dollars it was can you get one ad that is spending $2 and you make $3 like we’re not looking for miracles here. Would it work and it didn’t work for everybody. Certainly I didn’t expect it to. But through people sitting down, doing the challenge all working on it together, it was pretty amazing. There were there were authors who had just never had never understood it. Like maybe they’d created as they heard about it on a podcast, they created something they lost 10 bucks. So they stopped, who never really understood it first and foremost, but then just really understanding that concept of profit. Whoa, I spent $3 I sold $6 worth of books. I made money. And so that was what the challenge was, there was homework and extra credit. I did not expect this Sacha. But I should have known because we’re all nerds, right? Like, I’m sure you were a nerd. I’m still a huge nerd. So when there was an a chance for extra credit, we all did it. And because we’re all word nerds, and we all did it. And so I put this extra credit. I’m like, I don’t know if people do it, but I’ll give them something to do. And so many people did it. And so it was kind of like, the homework was like, create two ads, and the extra credit was like, create 10. And then someone’s like, I agreed in 39. It’s like, just people just going all in on it. And we all got to work on it together. And I learned so much at the same time. And so a day in, I’m like, well, we’re definitely doing it again. And so we are going to do it again in January, but like, that’s what it is. It’s like this free for all class social experiment, sort of thing. And it’s just it was wild.

Sacha Black
So this is more from a point of technicality. Having run a lot of ama sides over the years. Is five days long enough to see profit? Bbecause some of my ads take a week before they they really kick in. So when I saw it was five days I was like, really? I mean, obviously you can. But yeah, I mean did you see a lot of people getting profit?

Bryan Cohen
That was the thing I didn’t know. Yeah, I did not know. I was like, I don’t want to make it too long. I don’t want to make it like a 30 day challenge because people are going to tune out. I wanted to try and I will say there was a slight cheat in there. There was prep work day, days before the challenge began. So it was really about eight days but still eight and five days not that different. And yes, dozens of authors posted about turning a profit or and some who didn’t turn a profit It said. Okay, I didn’t turn a profit, but I have never sold like this amount of copies of this book. And if it’s a loss, I’ll take it because I’ve never seen this happen before.

Sacha Black
Amazing. Okay, let’s get nitty gritty. And I’ve got my nonfiction AMS ads down, but I know that a lot of the listeners are fiction writers. So talk to me talk to the fiction authors listening. What are some really tangible actionable tips that people can go away and implement now?

Bryan Cohen
Well, I think the biggest tip I can say is that think of what would feel like a crazy amount of ads for you to create, and then multiply it by 10. And that’s how many ads you should be creating. Like, man, 40 would be a lot. All right, 460 would be a lot 600 like, I’ve walked a lot of people through the process of all right, you do some testing, and then you use the testing and you put that to the next level. People like, oh, the next level that sounds good. Like I’m ready for the next level been doing this three days. ready for the next level? I’m like, No, you don’t understand. There are authors. There’s a great author out there. James Ross own right. I’ve had the pleasure speaking with on the phone. And he posted one of those 20 books posts that $500,000 over the course of I think 18 months, and I was speaking with him about ads and in his post just saying like, yeah, so I do the same exact strategy I get, like hundreds and hundreds of ads going, I keep researching I find the also bots I go deeper I go deeper he’s still he’s done a lot of what I call second generation third generation ads hundreds of thousands of dollars of book sales is continuing to do keyword research and so now he’s like my go to I’m like, look at him because he didn’t jump to the next level he said no, like I’m creating more ads, more targets more research. And I think the number one thing I can say to fiction authors is keep hunting for more targets and creating more ads.

Sacha Black
The follow up question was, was he wide or is he in KU?

Bryan Cohen
I believe he’s in KU but I can I can definitely look it up. And I can talk about I can talk about KU on this for sure.

Sacha Black
I’m wide so I’m more interested in in knowing how to get the ROI working on wide. I mean, obviously, there are going to be KU listeners, but I think it is naturally easier to get a good positive ROI on your AMS ads if you if you are in KU because obviously you get additional page reads, but I think it’s a lot harder to get a positive ROI if you are wide, because obviously you don’t have the the extra possibility of page reads.

Bryan Cohen
Oh, yeah, I mean, your book needs to convert better because if you in the formula—and we all love formulas, right?—Because we’re all math people. In the in the formula. It’s really how many clicks does it take you to get either a sale or a full read. And if you take full reads out of the equation, then you know you need to have that figured out how many clicks does it take to get a sale? That’s the only thing you can get. If you’re wide, you need to make sure you know your numbers cold for how many clicks it takes. And what your read through is because you have a smaller margin. Doesn’t mean you can’t profit. I know authors who are wide, who do exceptionally well with Amazon ads, but they have a longer series usually. Look you you’ve made things more complicated for yourself by being wide. That’s just how it is. The decision to like, well, I’m cutting out Amazon on KU second biggest platform, but I don’t care. I don’t want it to be just I don’t want to just depend on Amazon. I see there’s an ideological component to it. Like I’m not letting them get all my stuff. Harrumph and I get that. I really do. Rebel, rebel, rebel. So you’ve complicated it more for yourself because you need to now figure out what’s my conversion rate on Apple? What’s my conversion rate on nook? What’s my conversion rate on Kobo? And you also need to be applying to Kobo promos running bookbub ads on all of those platforms, running Facebook ads that are targeted to that specific demographic. But if you actually went down the line, you spreadsheet it out like crazy. And said, Well, this is my conversion rate on all these platforms. So I know, this is how much I can spend for a click. If you knew all that data, and your series as long enough so you’re getting good read through. You could absolutely make Amazon ads work for you. It’s a challenge. Entirely possible though.

Sacha Black
And I think for people who are listening who are perhaps at the big Beginning of their series and are frustrated that they are not getting, you know, ads that are hugely profitable, just keep writing and publishing because, most authors especially if you are wide you need 4, 5, 6 books in a series and or a nother series before you can really start to see that sale through. And so, yes, and also excellent segue. I wanted to ask you about data. So when you work with AMS ads, or actually any ads for that matter, and you have to deal with data, and obviously most of us are word-nerds like you said, and we are not fans of data. I am not a huge fan of data. I play with it. I…I Well, I kind of pay lip service to it mostly. But I do try. But there are a lot of dataphobic people out to Particularly authors who are still desperate to create ads on all of these different platforms. So what do you say to those authors who are perhaps afraid of data and getting it wrong and, and spending loads of money that they perhaps, you know, well it’s an investment so I’m loath to say that they don’t have it but… you know.

Bryan Cohen
No, I understand exactly well. Start with profit. Start with not 900 points of data. Advertising cost of sale, aka ACoS, aka a bunch of crap. This is a stupid statistic. Start with profit. Look at a month look at your past month. If you ran if you ran ads, you can look at your past month based on how much you spent and how much you earned. If you see I spent $10 and I made $30. Which number is bigger? If the profit if the if the royalties are bigger, you made a profit. If the ad spend is bigger, you had a loss. And that’s where it begins. I have a couple clients, it’s really interesting a couple folks who do like nonfiction and such. And I have one client who this was really nice, spent $150 made $2500. And I basically said to him, it is my goal for in our working relationship for you to see what would happen if you spend $1,000. Because with that kind of profit, because it’s a large profit in that case. And if you have a large profit percentage was you spent $5 and made $80. It’s a very similar kind of thing there. My goal would be for you to see what would happen if you spent $50. Would you then all of a sudden make $800? You don’t know. And you don’t have to look at all the other numbers. You don’t have to, you can make it very, very simple for yourself. If there’s a wide gap, and you’re spending a little bit on ads, you’re making a lot more in profit than try to close the gap and see if it continues to widen. And so to make it all real simple, just focus on one number. And then if you aren’t profiting the second number to focus on is conversion rate, because if you run the numbers you say “ah crap, so I spent 10 and made one.” So you look at your numbers, you’re like, well, I got 30 clicks and only one person bought. Well, that’s pointing to… I like to say this is my new favorite line. “Your data tells a story” and if you keep working on that maybe you get to 100 clicks, I always like 100 clicks versus just 30. And you see, okay, only three people bought. Then you say, all right, something is wrong on my sales page, because that’s what conversion rate means some 100 people got to your page and 97 people said, nah. So you have to figure out what made them say nah. And it could be your cover, your book description, your number of reviews, your title. And so, if you’re profiting, try to spend more. If you’re not profiting, figure out how many clicks it takes for someone to buy. And that is literally all you need at this stage of the game. We don’t need Amazon ad 303 course that’s taking us to figuring out your click through rate and your keyword duplicates and you’re just product targeting ads and all sorts of stuff that you don’t need. Because it’s too early.

Sacha Black
I think there’s, I think there’s something in that around a mindset shift because we, I think certainly newer or… I know when I came in and I was first starting to advertise you… Even when you do make profit on your ads, there’s still this fear around, well, if I spend more what if I don’t make money? But actually, the whole point is that you have data, you have hard facts. If you are spending $10 and making $100. Why the fuck wouldn’t you spend $100 to make $1,000 you know?

Bryan Cohen
I’d forgotten this was a saucy podcast.

Sacha Black
Oh, yeah, sorry. Yes. Oh,

Bryan Cohen
You know I used to be an improv comedy? You know how many f-bombs I would drop on a weekly basis? Worry not.

Sacha Black
Yeah, I know we I do. Yes, I have a very bad potty mouth I am known for it. I have to what’s the word? Censor myself whenever I’m on anything else. But I, yeah, I couldn’t be bothered with that when I was going to interview everybody. I just need to not censor myself. Yes. So. Mindset shift, I just think that authors have to really swallow that actually, if you want to make money, you are going to have to spend money and if your ads are profiting, just spend more, because you will make more. But you also segued again—it’s almost like I planed these questions—into your sales page, and I can’t speak to you and not talk to you about blurbs. And so as I said, I think I’ve even written a blog post about how good your sizzling synopsis book was. But do you think there’s a formula to writing a blurb that authors can use as a starting point?

Bryan Cohen
Well, I think there are, there are notes to hit. Like, I have my formula. I mean, you’ve read the book, people have read the book, start with a hook, synopsis, selling paragraph call to action. I said it a million times. But if you don’t want to follow the formula, that’s fine. But there are certain things you want to make sure you get in there, having some kind of hook some kind of top line thing and making that first. I’ve actually I forget who I was talking to, but they were playing with putting social proof first, like they had a bunch of review quotes, and they move the hook down, and their sales dropped like a rock doesn’t mean it would happen for everybody, but it’s like, well, like I would have preferred affected that happening because before you give them social proof of a review or a testimonial, even if it’s from someone big, readers need context. Can you prove to them that this book is in a shondra? They like, and that it’s interesting, and it has an interesting hook to it that would make them excited as a reader of that genre. If it does, but that hook is like, buried, and they’re like, this book is amazing. It’s like, I don’t care about this clinic. But if it’s like, the world is going to explode in five days, and a baby is the only one who can save it. Well, that sounds interesting. I’ve never heard of a baby saving the world before. So let’s go into it. And then it’s like, this book is amazing babies. I love it. Like, wow, I didn’t know babies could read and then they buy it. You need that context in there first. So I love to talk about what the synopsis and in you know from the book, it’s about a character. It’s about what the characters going through. I don’t think that I see a lot of blurbs that are like 15,000 years ago, this thing happened and like, I don’t care and neither will your readers, because they’re not in this you love your story so much. But if it’s in the context of David’s ancestors have always been burned at the stake. It’s like, okay, like what’s happening here, as opposed to the 15,000 years ago because it’s a person because it’s someone they can connect with. If you’re like, I hate selling paragraphs, I hate calls to action. Fine. Get a hook in there get an interesting character in there, and you’re going to be ahead of so many other blurbs.

Sacha Black
before I move on to the next question, love the narration voice by the way.

Bryan Cohen
Thank you. I appreciate it.

Sacha Black
So, carrying on with hooks and taglines… Adam Croft is famed for his hooks and taglines, but he also says that he doesn’t think every book has a hook. So can you talk to an author who’s struggling to find their hook, they’ve written the book they’ve got to the end they’ve got it to publishing and you know, there’s a there’s emotion in the book etc, etc. But they are struggling to find something punchy to catch a readers eye. What should they do? Where do they look for that hook?

Bryan Cohen
You’re lucky because I just posted a video about this haha actually, it might not even be out yet. But I’m ahead for like the first time in my life. Every hook of a book should be about one of three things. It should either be about death, love, or enlightenment. The third one’s usually more of a literary fiction thing. Because someone’s coming to some realization about himself or about the world, most genre fiction is going to be death or love, who’s gonna potentially die in this book, or who’s potentially gonna fall in love. I don’t know, a fiction book that would not fall into one of those three. And if it’s not death, maybe it’s maiming, but whatever. You need to pull one of those threads. Not every book has a hook fine. But if it’s a romance book without a hook, then the hook is the romance and the characters involved in that romance. Maybe your sci fi book doesn’t really have a hook but if there’s a character who’s studying some cure to a zombie outbreak or something, then it’s like, well then that’s the hook. You need to find and the hook being like everyone will die unless he figures this out. So, death, love or enlightenment, that it’s very unlikely you’re going to be able to not pull one of those things out. I mean, look at Adam Croft’s, would you murder your wife to save your daughter that’s got death and loving it so that’s why it’s a double plus good hook.

Sacha Black
Amazing. I’ve never thought about it like that but thinking about it as you were saying it I was like, Oh, yeah, they really are one of those three. Go taking mental notes…

Bryan Cohen
Rewatch my podcast later. Yeah.

Sacha Black
Okay, this is my favorite question always. This is The Rebel Author Podcast. So tell me about a time when you unleash your inner rebel.

Bryan Cohen
So I you know I told you before this that I don’t look at the questions but I scrolled through and I saw this one I was like. Okay, I’m still not going to think of an answer about it beforehand. Such a rebel. I remember this was on stage at the first 20 books conference in Vegas. And I was kind of going along I had a lot of energy I actually have on my wall I don’t want to take it down because the tapes not going to work anymore. But someone wrote on a paper plate whatever drugs Bryan is on I want some that’s on my wall. Because I had a lot of energy and so I get to a point in the presentation, where I’m just like giving action steps and telling people what to do. And I kind of like I could tell there was a violent In the room of just like, I have to do stuff, and then I just started yelling at them. And this is on YouTube. So like, I need to like find exactly, I should just get the one minute clip of me yelling at people because I know that it’s on there. I don’t watch like what I do afterwards, but I’m just yelling at them. Like, if you don’t do this, if you don’t take any action, you don’t do something to distinguish yourself, then a year from today, you’re going to be in the exact same spot. And it made me realize that sometimes there just is that need for the tough love. Like a couple things that don’t happen at often in the author community. There’s the sharing of the failures by influencers or whatever. And not just like, Oh, I work too hard and I I got burned out because I worked so hard because I’m such a hard worker… That wasn’t a failure. The failure is like I lost 1000 bucks in May. But the other thing is, we don’t see a lot of tough love. We don’t have that many tough love people in the community. And so every so often, I get on my tough love rebellion. Maybe I’ll do it I’m going to be in Vegas. I think this is going to air after that. But like, in 2019, November, Vegas, it’s not the way things are ordered. But I might yell at people again, because if we don’t actually do the work, we’re not gonna make any progress.

Sacha Black
I love it. One of the reoccurring phrases that happens to come out on this podcast is suck it up princess. So I love it. Okay, so tell listeners where they can find out more about you, your books and your podcasts and also your ads challenge.

Bryan Cohen
all of the things so this link will be live when it goes up it is not live yet but it which is always like the magic of podcasting bestpageforward.net/challenge. So if you go to bestpageforward.net/challenge, you are going to be taken to the page where you can sign up for the January 2020 day Amazon add profit challenge new and improved. Everyone will be back from the first one. So my hope is that there’s thousands of people in this so go to bestpageforward.net/challenge. I don’t even know if I shared this with you Sasha but sell more books show which is been running like 9 million years. We’re doing video now. So if you like listening, but you also like seeing faces, then you can do both will have that on Facebook and YouTube and places but if you listen to a podcast like this, and you want to listen to more podcasts. You can listen to The Sell More Books show every single week. We’re here. It’s crazy. I don’t know how it happens.

Sacha Black
Thank you very much. So thank you to all the patrons supporting the show. If you would like to get early access to all of the episodes, and you can do so by going to www.patreon.com/Sacha Black. Thank you very much to all of the listeners. Thank you very much to Bryan for his time and for all of his top tips. I’m Sacha Black. You are listening to Bryan Cohen and this was The Rebel Author podcast.

The post 008 – Amazon Ads for Authors with Bryan Cohen appeared first on Sacha Black.