Hello everybody, and welcome to author Boost. We are live with several of
us here. We have several executives from HCI or Health Communications, Inc.
And then we have a couple of best selling authors with us, Lisa McCourt
and Kelly Brown, and they'll share tips and tricks and trends and resources and
all this good stuff here with us as we take the next hour to be
with you. This is for aspiring authors, published authors, I don't know,
writer whatever, all the words for writing. If you're a poet,
we come on in. We're here to help, and we'll be here,
like I said, for the next hour. So I thought it would start.
We're going to take turns talking with you, our audience, and we're
gonna kind of go but one by one, and I thought I would start
with Christian. Christian is the editorial or no, he is not the editorial
director, Christine, Sorry, just get that up. They got our live.
Christian is the executive vice president actually of HCI. I ahead, you
guys in the world, and I would just love to just start with you
Christian and talk about what HCI does, what HDI is, the history,
give us a little bit of information about HGN again, This is Christian Lonschhine.
He's the executive vice president of HCI. Thanks Elizabeth, Yes I am.
I am not the editorial director. I couldn't and wouldn't even attempt to
do what Christine can do. But HDI is a nonfiction publishing house. I
believe we are entering our forty seventh year of publishing, which is really a
significant feat that we're proud of. Our roots stem from the addiction recovery market.
We actually started out publishing pamphlets for the US military, believe it or
not, and segued into traditional book publishing. In fact, the third book
we ever published made its way onto the New York Times bestseller list, a
book called Adult Children Alcoholics. I believe that was in nineteen eighty three.
Then over the years we broadened our reach to more generic or broad self help
inspiration. Notably, we did the Chicken suit for the Soul books, and
that little craze served us quite well through the nineties into the two thousands.
We're continuing to publish books on addiction and recovery issues, self help, inspiration,
wellness. Our company motto is changing lives, one book at a time.
So I think essentially what you could say we do is is publish any
book that helps someone somehow. You know, we try to do that and
sell a lot of books. We don't always, unfortunately do that, but
you know, I think we can really rest our head at night no that
the people who do read our books are benefiting from it somehow, someway.
So yeah, love it. Anybody have anything to add to that other than
thank you, Christian. I'm sorry I goofed that up a little bit at
the beginning, but we're all good. So we also have Christine Belarus with
us, and she's the exact editorial director. I'm going to just goof that
up all the time, I guess today because I've got it written down wrong.
Actually, So she's the editorial director for HCI and so that's a wow.
I've been working with you on my new book and I don't know,
I don't know how you do what you do. You read so many books
at a time when they're released, and they're all perfect and punctuated and edited
and boughts at it and everything. But I just have a question for you.
How long have you been with HCIH Since I was a small child.
It was the early nineties, when I started at HCI, right after we
published the first chicken Soup for the Soul, and then I was there for
ten years. Then I had my kids and they were little, so I
took a little hiatus, like a ten year hiatus, and did freelance,
and then I came back, and I think I've been back twelve years now.
I don't know, I've kind of lost track of time, but decades.
Tell us what you do other than my my description, because that's just
my version of it. But tell us what you do, Yeah, I
mean kind of. The first thing I do is, you know, look
through all the manuscripts of missions that come in, you know, and do
a first read through. We decide as a group. We have meetings every
other week, and we decided as a group, you know, what we
should publish, you know, in any given season. But you know,
and I have a fellow editor, Darcy Bean, and she we both you
know, do that first pass. Then we send out a contract. So
I send the contracts out to and you know, generate and offer via with
Christian. I write, there's copy that goes on our online portal, which
feeds to the you know, online retailers. So I write that the descriptive
copy. We kind of have to decide, you know, how books are
priced page count. I work with our art director to you know, I
give her cover ideas and then she facilitates the ideas, you know, really
flushes them out. Then I, you know, edit the books all that
we use freelancers. They are also free because we can't possibly do everything,
and it helps to have a number of eyes on a book that I'll developmental
edits. Then you know, the books go to freelancers do proofreading, so
you know, I kind of oversee that. I write the back cover copy
too for the books. So yeah, yeah, there's a lot going on
at different times. But I you know, I love it. I've always
loved it. And you learn a lot in this business. As I jokingly
tell people, I get to go to work and work on myself because of
the kinds of books that we do. But you know, you made all
kinds of fascinating people like you, Elizabeth. You know, yeah, you
learn a lot of new things every day. Yeah, I want to ask
you guys a question. Would you like me to introduce you first? I
think I think that might make sense for all the audience for me to just
go through and do little introductions like that, and then we'll circle back.
What we have planned for you, guys is to leave here today with a
bunch of tips, tricks and so forth. So we'll go back to each
person and ask for a resource, a trend, and a tip, and
so you'll leave here really with a wealth of information and kind of knowing where
to go, whether you decide to self publish or submit to be traditionally published.
I have an agent. Whatever it is going on, I think we'll
cover the round. Does that work for everybody on the call? Yeah,
okay, let's go to Lindsay next. Lindsay, I've been also saying your
last name right, but we've got it. It's Lindsay Treeball And tell us
about what you do at ACI. So I'm HCI as a PR marketing coordinator.
I've been with the company for about three years. Collectively, I have
about fifteen years of book publishing experience. I work, you know, on
the PR and marketing campaign, so I implement anything that HCI is doing on
behalf of books that I also work with the authors to utilize their platforms for
marketing and publicity purposes. Thank you, Yeah, it was good to meet
you. The other day, hopefully in the next month or so. So
it's cool to meet everybody in person. Should we go with Lisa next?
Thank you, Lindsay, Lisa tell us all about you. You want to
hold up your book too? Thank you? Sure? Yeah, I have
been here. We go there, we're having We're here to have fun and
make your day brighter. So you know, we're all human here. That's
right. He's in and out of the HCI circle almost the same amount of
time as Christine came in through the Chicken Souper Little Souls books. I did
the Little Little Souls, the kids books that that Jack and Mark had created
the series, and I've done ghost writing for h C I and yeah,
my most recently have an online joy school. I'm a joy teacher and my
most recent book is the one I just kind of efficiently showed you. It's
called Free Your Joy that I was blessed to to create with my HCI family.
Oh that's a great word. It is family, isn't it all right?
Kelly, you're up. Hey. My name is Kelly Brown and I
am a first time HDI author. I did this book with Christine and Lindsey
and Darcy, and this has been a really healing experience for me. It's
called one hundred and one Ways to create Mindful Forgiveness. And I feel really
blessed and honored that I was able to bring this information to everybody around the
world. So, yeah, thank you. We have somebody missing, We
have somebody would somebody like to talk about Larissa? Larissa. Larissa is amazing.
She's she's been with the company almost as long as I actually started,
I know, a few months six months after I did. But she's our
art director. But you know, she facilitates the cover. She will give
her an idea and she designs the cover, She designs the insides of the
books. She and type sets the books and she has to actually make the
corrections at that point because it's the books are done in design, so I
can't go in and make changes once the book is typeset. So she does
that too, and you know, handles all the press work, and she
does all the digital images, you know, everything that all the marketing materials
that Lindsey produces. You know, she does that. So and she's just
one human as well. It's one human, but you know, five people
in one and the nice person you'll ever want to meet lovely. Yeah,
and I'm Elizabeth Hamilton Careno, I spared everybody my last name and just did
Elizabeth high. I'm the author of the Change Guidebook and then have a new
one coming out called the Success Guidebook, both with HCI. And I'm so
I have guidebooks and I kind of go like this with my book. I
don't know about you, guys, Kelly and Lisa, but you know,
sometimes it's under my pillow and I can't believe that I get to do this
and and things like that. And I think a lot of authors feel that
way. They're like, I can't believe this is my life. This is
so cool we get to do So thank you Christine, Lindsay Christian for helping
us live our dreams, because I think a lot of people have the dream
as I think that's Lisa and Kelly, don't a lot of people come up
to you and go, how do you do what you do? How do
you become an author? You get a lot of questions like that, I
want to do what you do or I've always I've always wanted to write a
book. How do I do that? And so that's kind of people kept
asking those questions to me, so I'm like, let's do author boost and
let's answer questions for people in a format that might might answer some of those
questions. So that's where this comes from. All the questions we get as
authors like can you help? And then the other one you get is please
can you help me? Like, yes we can. So who would like
to go first to talk about resources, trends and tips? You to want
to take that, lindsay, do want to? Sure? I'll go first?
Okay, So my resource is really looking at other authors and what they're
doing, so using other authors as resources. So as an example, like
if you're writing a personal growth book, you might want to look at some
other authors that have written personal growth books and see like what they're doing on
their website, on their social media and you can get a lot of great
ideas from them. You can also get the ideas of like content you can
post related to your book. So just utilizing other authors and as ideas and
inspiration. Yeah, other than us on the call, because we know we
know you well, Sarah, is there someplace that you would recommend, like
an author that you really love that you would like us to go look at
their website or anything like that, you know, within the HCF family.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think all three of you are good,
you know, good authors to check out because you all three have social
media following things. You're do a great job. You've heard multiple books,
so you have a lot of experience with promoting the books on social media.
So I would check out Elizabeth, Lisa and Kelly's social media. Okay,
And then how about what's a trend that you see in terms of marketing and
PR. A trend I see is you know, authors are using TikTok as
a platform. A lot of authors have TikTok accounts now. In addition to
Twitter and Facebook and the things that everyone's had for years, there's also book
talk, which is popular, although I found that a lot of the book
talk accounts focus on young adult romance and books, but there is definitely some
ways that self help authors can use TikTok. And obviously having an account is
you know a start. Yeah. And how about a tip you have for
us, a marketing tip or for two or three, or four or five.
I say, it's one thing to write a book, it's another thing
to market and find readers. Yes, exactly. So my tip is just
to build yourself as an expert in your genre or niche market, So especially
if you haven't written a book yet, finding ways like writing articles, pubook,
speaking, building a social media following, networking, maybe building an email
list, but kind of building up your platform in your area of expertise,
and that could increase your chances of getting a publishing deal, or if you're
self publishing, and then also you'd have those built in platforms for promotion in
marketing, whether you're self publishing or you're working with a publisher. We have
a question for you about Amazon reviews. How important are Amazon reviews and is
that something that you pay people to do for you or or those genuinely people
that go up there and post reviews, or how does that work? Amazon
reviews are really important. The Amazon guidelines asked that the Amazon reviews are verified
purchases, so it wouldn't be something I'd pay anyone to do. It'd be
more like, you know, trying to get them through verified purchases on the
site. But they are really important. I know, when I'm purchasing a
book or anything, honestly, and on Amazon, I'm looking at the reviews
before I make my purchase. And does that carry over into all the other
places where you can write reviews, like Barnes and Noble and Books a Million.
Like, it seems like each place has a place where you can write
reviews. Is Amazon the most important for authors? I definitely think Amazon's really
important. I know that you can post reviews on Barnes and Noble and Books
and Million. I don't think they have to be verified purchases, so I
think you can just post there. But I do think a lot of people
are looking to Amazon reviews. Good Reads is another place to get reviews,
and those don't have to be a verified purchase, okay, And then well
you actually have kind of a flood of questions here. So another question is
what does it mean to be on the New York Times bestseller List? So
the New York Times bestseller List has a formula that they use for having accounts
report to them, and so each week there's a New York Times list that's
used and books can end up on it. It's very hard to get on
the New York Times a seller list, but they're looking at and nobody here
really knows the formula that they used to select books. But what we do
know is that it's a lot of books that was required to get on the
New York Times bestseller list, and it's techniquely sales and also that they do
keep in mind like sales from various accounts depending on so you know, sales
from Amazon, from dependent bookstores, Hards and Noble, et cetera. Okay,
I don't know if Christine or Christian want to time in a New York
Times. Yeah, I mean I can just add to that that it is
actually and if you if you google it. It is a big mystery how
that list is formulated, because we've had instances over the years where books there
is a traditional sales reporting outlet called Nielsen book Scam that reports how many books
sell on a weekly basis at approximately seventy five percent of retail outlets. And
we've had books that on a given week have outsold some of the books on
the New York Times list. But it could be so heavily skewed, let's
say, in favor of Amazon, like a bulk of the sales were all
on Amazon. The New York Times doesn't necessarily count that they they what I
believe they try to do is get a representation of independent booksellers. The retail
outlets outside of Amazon, and not just you know, something that might have
been skewed by a singular event, a bulk purchase, something along those lines.
I even believe there's there's an editorial component to their review. So it
really is like this trade secret as to how you get onto the list.
But one thing I can say is if you if you do get on the
list, it's it's a really significant milestone. Obviously, Yeah, what what
can we if we don't make a list like that? What can we do
to be successful? Like? Are we successful? Are we failures? Are
we you know? What are we if we're not on that list? Or
are we great authors? Are we? You know? How we've you know
how we are, We've we've definitely talk to ourselves a little bit here and
there about what we are and what we aren't and how we benchmark our success
and things like that. So I don't know if that let's choppy. But
if you don't end up on that list, does that mean you can't be
an author anymore? I would say no. I mean I would actually say
it's the opposite, because I mean, there's what ten to fifteen I think,
depending upon the list of the New York times per week. And I'll
get to this in some of my tips, tools and trend but the number
of books it's published every year is staggering. So if you're going to say
only the ten, top ten to fifteen out of millions that are published every
year are quote unquote successful authors, then then no. I always like to
say that publishing is a it's a marathon, it's not a sprint. As
a publisher ourselves, I would much rather have a book that sells steady,
consistent, decent quantities year in year out, maybe never makes the bestseller list,
but sells the same a dozen year one as a dozen year ten,
as opposed to a book and we've had this before that'll hit the list first
week out, sales drop off a cliff, and you're done. So there's
a lot of variables in it. But I, by no means think that
making the New York Times bestseller list should obviously it should be everyone's goal.
But if you don't ever sniff it, that doesn't mean you can't be a
successful author. All right, we're gonna Can we stay with you and just
talk about what resource you wanted to talk about today? Sure? So let
me I want to start with the tip because as Christine was talking about Larissa,
I actually have two now because for those on here, whether you're interested
in self publishing or finding a traditional publisher, I can't stress the importance of
cover design. The way people buy books nowadays is I mean, this is
even true prior to but with so much emphasis on online purchases, you got
to remember probably seventy five percent of the consumer audience of books is looking at
a little thumbnail this big of your book. It has to catch your eye
enough that you want to start reading the copy, you know, pursuing further.
So if you don't have, you know, an impactful cover, you're
liable to move have that consumer move on to the next one because because there's
so much content out there available, So that would be my first tip.
My second tip is kind of touching on what Lindsay said earlier and referencing our
three authors here. You always have to be promoting, no matter whether it's
an audience of one or an audience of a thousand, and I keep you're
gonna probably hear me chime on this repeatedly, particularly for us in the nonfiction
world. It is such a competitive industry, right, we are not only
competing with the millions of books that I said get released every year, but
we're competing with TikTokers and content creators and instagrammers and podcasters and bloggers and just
regular internet articles and pieces. So we have to You always have to be
promoting. You always have to be presenting your message so that you never know
where that big opportunity might be paying attention to you. So always be promoting
that. That's my that's my tip. The tool was tricky for me,
but I I did think that for many watching they might not be aware of
a relatively and expensive resource called Publishers Weekly. Publishers Weekly started as Industry a
magazine for the industry for industry professionals authors, but it has evolved a little
bit more. They have self publishing tools, review sections where you can purchase
reviews. But I really think that's would be useful because it has evolved into
again, whether you're looking to self publish or find a traditional publisher, what
traditional publishers are acquiring, what types of books are doing well. They have
bestseller lists that they create that are more curated instead of just maybe fiction versus
nonfiction. It breaks it down into row Man sci fi, or children's or
this or that, and it's and it is a representation of just what is
selling via book scan as opposed to the Times, which you know, there's
a little more involved in it. So you and so you can just get
a better sense of what you know, we as the industry folks, look
at what people are acquiring, what's doing well, and it's just a good
it's a good resource. And it's in print and in digital. They have
emails, they have a lot of different things that people can sign up for.
Some of it's free, some of it's paid. In the last in
terms of like in terms of a trend, I was researching this in preparation
for this webinar, and I found something that I hope is true for us
for HCI as a trend for twenty twenty four, and that's the importance of
quality in terms of the content. We have always prided ourselves on what we
publish. As I mentioned in the intro, you know, not every book,
unfortunately, can be you know, a New York Times bestseller, but
our content is always good. The really interesting piece that I read about this
was with the advent of AI and artificial intelligence and them creating content. I
think now more than ever, I'm hopeful that work with people like you all
behind it, standing behind it, researching it, whatever the case may be,
is going to be more important than ever. And I think that for
us that would be a great thing, and I hope it comes true in
the coming years. Love it. What do you think? You have questions?
Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Do you have
time and everything? Okay? You have a question about what is the Nonfiction
Authors Association? And if you don't know, if somebody doesn't feel well versed
on that, does anybody know what that is? Lindsay, do you know
what that is? I've heard of it, I don't know enough about it
to speak to it. Okay, So we'll we'll answer your question in the
form of I'll get back to you on that. How does that work?
Sorry about that? So, but Nonfiction Authors Association, somebody said that they
had found a good a good group there, so I have I haven't.
I don't think I have much information there so to share, So we'll get
back to on that one. You also have a question about Publishers Weekly.
Christian is published week. We Publishers Weekly the same as Book Life, So
book Life is a part of Publishers Weekly. So they created book Life with
the rise of self publishing as a way of providing as far as I know,
it's paid reviews as opposed to what they do on the trade publishing side,
which they're not paid. But it is a way to get books reviewed.
And as I indicated, the readers of this magazine or heavily book relate
industry related, so librarians, booksellers. So if they're reading these reviews,
that's a means of a self published book getting in the hands of some traditional
retail outlets, influencers, et cetera. Got it, Okay? So those
were the two that just came in for you, Lindsey. Somebody just asked
about if I can go back to you for a minute, if you don't
mind. So I just asked about awards. Does it matter if your book
wins an award or not? Or what are some of the awards that they
asked? What are some of the awards I could enter my book in.
Well, at HCI, we have a list of awards that we send out
to the authors to have their book considered. A few off the top of
my head, or the Nautilus Award, the I v p A Award,
there's the Independent Book Award. Elizabeth's book in particular has won quite a few
awards, the Change Guidebook. So the awards are you know, something that
authors like to enter their book into. Uh, and you know there's you
know, I don't know have anything else to say about them other than you
know, you entered the book and see if it wins. And it's like
a nice marketing tool, you know, to be able to say that the
book is award winning if you win. We we have had quite a few
authors who have won awards, so we're really proud of that. Okay,
again, I'm taking questions from people on Twitter and Facebook and d MS,
and there's they're coming at me in different spots across So if I'm looking at
different things, it's because I'm I'm kind of looking at different screens while I'm
talking. So sorry, I'm looking away and stuff. You Christine, you
have a question when I know we haven't talked to you yet, but I'm
just going to ask you the question. First. You have a question of
they're saying there's stack of rejection letters is very hi. It's getting bigger and
bigger as what they said which was cute. I'm sorry, what do you
do they they want to know, do they give up? Do they keep
going? What do you do when your stackage is it? What do you
do in your stack rejection letters? Is? You know? I just yeah,
you believe in yourself and your message, you know, just keep going.
And sometimes, you know, maybe they're just form rejection letters and they
don't really tell you anything. But you know, sometimes editors will give you
a reason why they rejected it, so you know, maybe if you could
include some of their suggestions, maybe that would, yeah, you know,
change someone's mind and you could always resubmit. Yeah, Lisa, do you
have rejection letters and you're a ninety percent year at Stephen King? It might
be someone else, but I think Stephen King will pay or room with his
early rejection. So there you go. Still visual, I mean, and
Jack Canfield was chicken Soup of the Soul was turned down. The numbers been
thrown out there a number of different numbers. It's significant twenty five thirty times
before it came to our desk, and we did it. So I think
that the metaphor of the marathon and not the sprint that I referred to earlier
could apply to the process of finding a publisher too. You know, it
is competitive, but you got to stay the course, Like Christine says,
if you believe in your message. Yeah, it might just be the you
know, we like what she wrote, it's just not what we're looking for
right now. Yeah, you knows there any number of things. Don't take
it personally. Yeah, now that's hard. But yeah. The follow up
question there is what this is a doozy? So I don't know who wants
to take this, but what's the difference between traditional hybrid and self publishing?
And I know we answered this. I think we answered this question last year
on our first author boost, but it doesn't hurt to repeat ourselves. I
don't think does somebody want to take that With the differences between the three things,
I mean, I can say I'll start and if anybody wants a time
and they can. I mean, I think the main difference with the traditional
agreement is is the details of the contract and the term. Most of the
financial terms. Traditional publishers assume most of the cost to manufacture, to distribute,
to do all the front end the editorial costs, and then therefore when
they sell the books, they pay a smaller royalty. And I'm not a
self published machine company, so I'm making some assumptions here, But I think
on the self publishing end it's reversed. The author and cur the costs to
produce, market promote, but they get the lion's share of the royalties.
I believe the hybrid is any form in between. There are some companies I
think that provide some of the stuff that we do with the costs and the
splits and all that stuff kind of in between. So I mean, I
think that's the gist of it. It's where does the responsibility lie. In
traditional it's mostly with the publisher. In self publishing, that's predominantly with the
author. Yeah, oh, here's a good question. I like this one.
Here's one. Do you think Amazon should split them up into those three
categories on Amazon so that these books are here, these books are here,
and these books are here, or should they all just be mixed up like
they are with ten million books. It's an interesting question, it is.
I don't really I can't really think of a reason why they would be split,
because I know I know a number of really great authors that self publish.
I know our authors are great. I think there are circumstances for going
like with each in each direction. Like I sometimes authors are say to me,
I'm going to self publish, and I see why, like I might
if I was in their shoes. And conversely, I see why people want
to come to a traditional publisher. But at the end of the day,
you know, it's still the same product. I like. That's almost like
saying you're going to go to a store and the socks are going to be
separated by manufacturer. I mean, ultimately, some socks are better than other
socks, but you still go to the sock department for them. So,
Okay, good, that didn't answer your question. Just go ahead and type
me another DM. Okay, Christine, you're right, and Christine is at
a tour real director. I'm just going to stress that again. Of hdi
oh Man. There's a lot of work involved there. I know I'm going
through that process with you right now. So there's a lot of work that
you do. Would you like to start with a resource, a trip,
a tim for a trend, or how would you like I'll start with a
resource writer's market. You know, when you're researching where should I send my
book to? There's a great resource called writer's Market. It's in the bookstores
or you could go to the library and it gives uh, you know,
every publisher in North America what exactly they're looking for the person you should send
your manuscript to. And they also like have different they updated every year.
And then they also have segmented versions of this book. So the writer's market
for children's books, you know, you really want to target who you're going
to send your proposal to, and they'll tell you. You know, each
publisher will tell you exactly what they're looking for. So that's my resource.
You know, another resource, just your eyes and ears. Go into the
bookstore, go into the library and see what's out there. You know,
it could be a little daunting, but you can see, you know,
what's selling, and you know what's being recommended at our local librarian. Book
atone there's always a table with referrals from the librarians. You know, what
are they recommending? So you want to look at that. A tent that's
happening right now. I think, you know, there's a lot of distress
in our world today, you know, wars and politics, and I think
people are getting people are exhausted by that. I mean, I'm kind of
a political junkie. So I like all those books, but a lot of
people are going to are weary, and I think, especially come November,
people are going to be really tired of that. So I think self care
and mental health is still like it's you know, getting more important. So
books that focus on that, I think, you know, that's a trend.
You know specific kind of any within that any anything specific or everything or
I think just kind of everything. So I mean, you know, as
an author, you need to look out there and say, well, what's
my message and how does it differ from what's already out there? You know,
I know with self help readers, especially self help readers like kind of
formulaic sort of approaches seven steps to blah blah blah, ten steps to blah
blah blah. And I mean all three of you have done a good job
of including you know, interactive portions in your books so that that keeps them
relevant. People who read these types of books like that. You know,
they like to work on themselves, and you know that also necessitates buying a
book versus just going to the internet and finding you know, a quick article.
That's something we always say in our editorial meetings that we have. You
know, is this topic something that I wanted to want a full book for?
Am I going to, you know, shell out fifteen sixteen twenty dollars
on this or can I find it for free? I think a lot of
people thought that ebooks would be the demise of the print book, but that's
not really it. It's all the information that's out there. So why do
I need a book about this? What about? I knew I'm going to
You're gonna get questions while we're talking, because just by the nature here,
you have a question about audiobooks? What about audiobooks? Are they Are they
super popular? Are they a trend? Are they a thing? They're a
big thing. Actually, that's the fastest growing part of the market, isn't
it. Christian. I think it's set to overtake e books. Yeah,
without a doubt. It's huge right now, very very popular. Some cool
technology over the last few years has come about to where audiobooks can interact with
ebooks, to as where you could be reading your ebook and you get to
page twenty five, and then you've got to get in your car. You
pick up where you left off on the ebook on page twenty six of the
audiobook, So there's some really cool technology, mostly with Amazon and who owns
Audible, But yeah, one hundred percent audiobook is the fastest growing segment of
the market right now. One of our new authors, this book's coming out
next month, and she tagged like meditations that you can go to on her
website. You know, so you have to buy the book, but then
you find the meditations and you go to her website. She's you know,
like you could constantly drive the traffic back and forth. Love it. Do
you mean by like codes like a QR code. It's not a QR code,
but she just has a symbol like an ear with me. This is
a meditation she hasn't printed in the book, but if you don't, you
know, it's hard to read this meditation and then try to remember it while
you're meditating. So you go to you know, her website and then you
can hear the meditation, yeah while you're doing it. Yeah, I like
that, and I like that. Was one of my tips actually is to
drive traffic to your website, like post on social media and use social media
and use hashtags and so forth and so forth, but don't live there because
if that platform goes obsolete or anything like that, or is it popular?
Like you don't see twenty year old kids on Facebook and things like that.
They're over on Snapchat or TikTok or wherever they are. And so I like
the fact that she's driving traffic back to her website. That's what I try
to do. And I always discourage people from judge somebody's post by the number
of likes and comments, because if you're a traffic driver, you've sent them
back to your website for the traffic, not for the traffic on Facebook.
So it's kind of misleading because everybody wants to have that engagement while the engagement's
over here, not here. So I think that's that's really cool that she
did that. I like that, all right, and how and what else
do you have? Did? I sorry for chiming in. We come on
with all you guys. Make sure that you well a couple tips. Make
sure that you read and read and edit times ten before you send something to
a publisher, because if I see a big type or a huge mistake on
the first page, now, we can't trust that what you've given us is
going to be great because it's hundreds of pages. So do your homework and
my my other tip though, is to use your friends. I mean,
have other people read your book, your proposal before you send it in.
You know, I'm like one person and I like to tell people and editors
just a reader who can ask questions of the author. But you know,
you've got this whole world around you of friends or if you're in a writer's
group, you know they can give you good critiques too. As many people
as you can have read the book before you even send it in, I
think is helpful. That's a great idea. Although, but although Lisa,
Kelly and I are like and a lot of people dug for cover. When
you ask that, I tell yeah, anyway, all right, are you
do you have anything else? Are you good? I think that's it.
Okay, we're about at one, so we've been on for forty minutes.
If you have any comments or questions or anything like that, keep sending them
in. We're going to go to Kelly. How's that? Kelly? Hey,
thank you so much. Okay. So I would say that my resource
would definitely be Google Trends, and I've used it to see, like,
for instance, picking a title I'll put into the search engine, like the
word like when we did this book, Mindful Forgiveness, I put in the
word mindful, I put in the word forgiveness, I put in the words
I'm sorry, apologies to see how it was ranking not only in the United
States over thirty days over the last five years, but worldwide. I found
that there was such a high trend during COVID that people were self reflecting on
their lives in such an extraordinary way. So, which takes me to self
awareness. That is really what people are searching for. They're looking at how
to be at her. They are watching podcasts and Jay Shetty and you know,
reaching for intuition books and trying to understand like how can I evolve?
How can I grow? And it's really really interesting as we look at how
artificial intelligence has taken over, how how simultaneously people are reaching for self help.
So it's kind of like a strange dynamic, I think, But how
wonderful that we are trying to be more spiritual and be more aware as human
beings. What next? Uh, I'm sorry, I was going to say
your resource, but that was my resource. My tip would be don't be
afraid of no I that that was advice was given to me by Dorothea Johnson,
who I called out of the blue. I had a publish sure tell
me that they wouldn't that they weren't interested in my thank You note book,
which has now become a bestseller. It's been published, there's four different versions
of it. And they said that if if Crane and Company was involved,
then they would be interested. And Dorothea said, Kelly, don't be afraid
of no. Called them up. Crane and Company offered to buy the book,
and I ultimately went with a different publisher, but they endorsed it and
it was a game changer. And if I had been afraid, how would
that have turned out for me? Taking me to this book Mindful of Forgiveness,
I had had seen Desmond Tutoo's book with his daughter called The Book of
Forgiving. I was so moved by it that I reached out to his daughter,
who I didn't know, tracked her down and gave me the endorsement on
the cover of the book, which I mean that for me was an extraordinary,
very blessing. So don't be afraid of no, because all someone can
say is no, So ask ask ask am I doing? Okay? So
far? I hope? So perfect? Okay, TikTok trending. I'm gonna
go with lindsay. You know I'm seeing I am not as good as it
as I could be, but uh, you have to feed the beast.
You have to constantly be on social media, and TikTok seems to be not
only exploding for the younger generation but for every generation. So as an author,
I would say, doing research, I would search the hashtags that is
in your category of what you're interested in writing about, so for me,
forgiveness, intuition, romance, or you know, whatever it is that that
you're interested in, and start seeing like who's trending and who's really popular and
who has these big platforms. A lot of people do go that way and
then get a publishing deal. What else? Uh, I think that's good.
I think that's my my tips, it's perfect. Thank you for that.
Questions on your awesome books, So yeah, I love I love your
books so and I love you and you're just such a great, sparky,
smiley kind kind comes to mind. So thank you for you always, uh,
Lisa, see love, thank you. Yeah. Christine's resource reminded me
of two similar resources. One is Literary Marketplace, which is online. Now
it used to be this like huge directory that you had to go to the
librarian, ask the reference librarian for but now it's online, and it also
is a great overview of who's looking for what what kind of you know,
like editors, we'll post what they're what they're shopping for, so that's convenient.
If there happened to be any children's book authors here. One of my
favorite resources was always SCBWI, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
That's SCBWI dot org online and they have conferences where you can do like speed
dating with editors and speed dating with agents and pitch your book and they're just
a really great, on top of it organization. So those were inspired by
Christine's recommendation of a writer's market, So I'm going to come in a little
bit different perspective. I loved hearing the tips and trends and everything from the
marketing perspective, but I thought, since we have writers here, I'd come
purely from a writing perspective on these things, and in that respect, my
tip would be don't write to trends. I feel like anything that's going to
take you away from what is most passionately alive for you that day when you
wake up and want to get something onto your computers, green onto paper.
Any constraint like oh, but is that what is trending? Or are enough
people going to be interested in that? Any of that is going to muddy
the energy that is going to create your most powerful work. I truly believe
that every single one of us has a vibratory signature that will reach readers out
there who are only going to really respond to your signature or your energy that
you imprint onto those pages and to make it a powerful quality book. Like
Christian was talking about, that means you are all over it your most authentic
energy. I don't believe in as in chair. Every writer I used to
coach writers, every writer I've ever worked with, who said you have to
just like put your butt in the chair for a certain number of hours.
It just creates garbage. You have to see what's most passionately alive for you
on that day and write it down, even if it doesn't tie in sequentially
to what you wrote the day before. And in that way you gather all
these beautiful, beautiful place pieces that you can then spread out. We call
it the clay you can mold the clay so that it all runs together seamlessly
and makes sense. And that's how you're going to have a really, really
powerful book, because your energy goes into those pages, and then the reader
is going to pick up the energy that you're writing from. So in that
respect, I felt like I didn't want writers to worry about what the trends
are great for promotion, though promotion trends I think are super valuable. So
another resource along those lines is my dear, dear, dear friend Jacob nord
Baby used to teach the stuff together. He guides writers. His company now
is he'll create dot org. He runs programs all the time to help you
pull that kind of material out of you what it's most uniquely yours to share
with the world. So that was another resource I wanted to share. I
love it. How about what's another trend that you're seeing? I'm just going
to keep asking you a few questions, like, what's a what's a trend
another trend that you see have in the world. Okay, So I don't
actually consider myself super tapped in to that. For the reasons that I just
spoke to I tried not to write now I've felt moving away from it,
but I feel like, at least in my bubble that I exist in,
like what I write about and my friends and colleagues write about. I think
it's about self compassion because we've all seen the self help books for a gazillion
years about be better, push yourself to be better, push yourself to be
better. There's no joy. There's no joy there because none of us are
going to be our best selves in every aspect of life at any given moment
in time. I feel like there's a trend, at least in my little
world of you know what. I don't have to be the best at anything
to have compassion for myself and love for myself and have a joyful existence.
I can be the best at finding joy in my ordinary little life right here.
And I hope that's a trend. It's a trend on trying to start
perfect. Do you, Kelly and Lisa, do you mind telling us your
websites so that people I know we reference websites earlier. Mine's Elizabethgarino dot com.
That's g U A R I n Oh, Lisa, what's yours?
It's my name right there on the screen. Lisa McCourt mc c o U
r T dot com. And what's the number one thing that you would want
people to look at when they hit your website? Where do you want them
to go? I have a brand new three month intensive that takes takes I
work one on one with the participant through the book that I just released,
and through my joy trainings that I've done for twenty years. So that would
be an exciting thing for them to check out. Perfect. How about you,
Kelly? That's my website is Kelly Brown with an E dot net And
I hope that people would check out all the podcasts we've done I've done and
buy the book by the Forgiveness Book because there's so much you can information,
you can learn to heal your life and your relationships. And please get me
a review on Amazon, and yeah, that's what I love. That would
be the most amazing thing. And it's a great gift to give to someone
else, you know, I think I think people don't realize that books are
such a great gift. You know, it's really a gift. So what's
everybody on here? Like, what's what's a what's your writer's dream? What's
your Yeah, I said, I heard you say Amazon, Like if you
if you were to walk up to someone and say, you know, I
really wish you would do this for me, to help me out as a
writer and in my career and so forth. What is it go with Kelly?
First me? I I just wish that that people would take more time
to say thank you and honor you know, the material that they've read and
let other people know. I think there's you know, we're so busy in
our lives and if something has made a difference for you, acknowledge it,
say hey, this book was really great. Give them a five star rating.
So you know, the reviews don't reflect the sales. So my thank
You book sold has sold like fifty thousand copies, and you know there might
be one hundred reviews, but it doesn't reflect it's actually the marketplace, you
know, So that would really be life changing for all of us. I
think, yes, yeah, that I know with Amazon reviews, you do
have to spend a certain amount before you can leave somebody a review. You
do have to spend fifty dollars before you could ever leave somebody a review.
I find that with new people, to believe it or not, people are
still new to Amazon, and so you walk up and like, I don't
really use Amazon, and they'll be like, yeah, I'll leave you a
review, and then they can't because it blocks them because they haven't spent enough
money yet. So that's that's one thing with Amazon. I see the same
thing you see where there. You know, you might have one hundred and
fifty reviews, but three thousand copies of sold, so not everybody leaves a
review you. So that's a good point. How about you, Lisa,
what do you what's on your author wish list that you, you know,
wished human beings would do to support you. Yeah. I have to second
Kelly there. I would love for them to be self starters because I'm horrible
at asking for reviews. I've never done it. I don't know how to
ask for reviews. So the people who just just voluntarily come and share how
their their experience with the book has been on sites like Amazon or other review
sites, that's so beautiful, so wonderful. Pop into the author's website and
write a note let them know. You know, even if you don't want
to do a review for the public, I think just having that connection.
We're all in the business of connecting with our readers, and when the readers,
you know, will take the initiative to make that feel real and like
a two way connection. That's so rewarding. Yeah, yeah, I agree
with you. I like the word of mouth, you know, tell somebody,
That's what I always wish, Just tell somebody about the book, or
tell somebody about me or whatever it is. Christian, how do you think
books sell better through word of mouth? Absolutely in our experience, that's that's
primarily the way books sell. It's really really difficult to to just say a
certain paid promotion is going to just guarantee book sales. Years ago, Morning
TV would be a guarantee of a book selling in a given week, and
that has even changed Now we'll get authors on Good Morning America and you think
you're golden, and it's not the case. But when I think when people
really start referring books to their friends and others, that like, that's that's
validation to the customer or potential customer that that the book is worth reading.
I know, and I think that happens in a lot of different ways now.
But even going back to our chicken soup days, chicken soup came about
through word of mouth. It wasn't the success overnight. The authors were always
promoting as I mentioned, and people started saying, hey, have you read
this book? Have you read this book? And gradually steam picks up,
and so one hundred percent that is the best way to sell a book is
word of mouth. Yeah, and I think the three of us are like,
please, word of mouth is so important, and the reviews to christ.
Yeah. One interesting thing that the Chicken Soup guys did at the beginning
of their whole process. They would like lead the book the first, ask
the owner, but like lead the book in diners and in nail salons,
beauty salons, so people waiting would pick up these stories and read them.
And you know, I thought that was genius, which stems from Kelly's point
about asking. Don't be afraid to ask if you can have the book sold
someplace, or if you can leave a copy somewhere, And the doctors would
like, don't be afraid. Yeah. I just handed out ten of the
Change Guide books today to the person fixing our car. They wanted books for
their office, and that's what I do. I'll leave books if I travel
someplace like lindsay, there's copies in New Jersey. Now there's I do that
all the time. I'll leave a copy here and there and I'll write on
the inside like finders Keepers, you know, love Elizabeth or something like that.
I'll put them just scatter them, like leave them in a coffee shop
or whatever. So yeah, I like doing that a lot. What do
you think about libraries these days? There's a question that we're getting are people
using libraries? Are our books carried in libraries? Can they go check it
out? Does it have to be a hardcover? What's the scoop with libraries
these days? I don't know who wants to answer that, I can jump
in. I mean, so, I do think libraries are still a very
viable outlet for readers. I will say, and I can only speak from
our books. They are more specifically hardback oriented. They do books lasts longer
when they're in hardback. I do think it's it's more fiction oriented. But
you will find our books and libraries you just it goes back to the choices
that libraries have. They have a big pool of books to choose from.
But I think if you speak to your local library and you have interest in
books, they can help you with that. And libraries have ebook options now
too, So even if you don't see it on a shelf. That doesn't
mean the library isn't necessarily carrying it in a in an ebook format. So
so there is that and audio books. You can check out audiobooks, right,
Yeah, and I wanted to add, I mean libraries have rudely evolved
into community gathering places. I go to the library all the time. It's
like a walk from my office. But they have events there. They have
other presentations and signings and book clubs through the library. I mean, yeah,
libraries have grown more relevant. You know. I think a lot of
people that they were going to die out, but they have not. They've
they've evolved. Yeah, once they loved Arslow's coffee, and so once that
happens, the floodgates open coffee and there's a cat. So it's a winner.
Lindsay, what what kind of trends are you seeing in social media for
authors? Any anything specific that you're seeing, any platform bigger than another other
than TikTok. I know, we talked about that. Yeah, I would
say TikTok you guys mentioned before, is like kind of the newest trending thing.
A lot of the other platforms, you know, it kind of depends
on what kind of book you're writing. You know, Facebook kind of skews
older, Twitter is or x uh has a different you know, demographic,
And I think all it depends on what you're posting. Like, you know,
if you're sharing a lot of articles, you might want to use like
Facebook or Twitter, But if you're posting like images or graphics or video right
video, you can use any platform, but video and photographs are good for
Instagram. So I think it depends on what you're using, and then also
thinking about your your market, like what if there's a certain age bracket that
your book's good for, Like a children's book might be better on you know,
certain platforms like Instagram. You know, children's books are popular on Instagram,
so you know, kind of keeping in mind like what your book is,
what the topic is, and figuring out like where your audience is on
social media and then putting your efforts that they're Yeah, do you want to
talk about hashtags? Like how important the use of hashtags is? Our?
Sure? So hashtags are hashtags are obviously really important. We have at EAHCI
we have a bunch of like books, specific hashtags that we use that are
popular. And then you know, figuring out like, let's just say you
have a book on happiness, you want to try to figure out all the
popular happiness hashtags, you know, just by going on on search there.
I've actually used the AI also to look for hashtags. If you just put
in orter some hashtags for a certain topic, a bunch of hashtags will pop
up. But also the same thing looking at other authors and seeing what hashtags
they're using. But there's a lot of book specific hashtags on Instagram in particular.
Yeah, and I always think that when you're when you are website echoing,
when you're an author, it's important to use your name as your hashtag.
So make sure you hashtag your own name, and then hashtag something specific
to your book, like what you're saying, like a broader topic like happiness
or peace or joy or change or whatever it is forgiveness. But then also
have more narrow So when I use hashtags, I will do my name,
something more narrow, and then something bigger like self help or self help books
or self help author or something like that to bridge the different areas so that
people can find it. But always use something consistent and specific to you,
like Elizabeth Garrino hashtag Elizabeth Garno Hashtag Change Guidebook or success Guidebook, so that
people know that those are your hashtags. Because you can use different programs too
that will track your engagement and your hashtag use personally, so that's kind of
neat. You can click on the hashtag and see how many people viewed your
hashtag or following it or whatever. So they work very much like a Google
search almost. That's what people use them for. They'll click on that,
and then especially on Instagram, don't you think, lindsay, it works really
well on Instagram? Yeah, definitely. Instagram's where you have the most hashtags
that are used. Yeah, definitely. And because you can click on a
hashtag and click follow, and all the contents of that hashtag, you then
are following in your feed. So I think that's pretty helpful for people.
All Right, So we're at the two o'clock mark and we promised to be
cutted at an hour. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you
guys want to talk about? Do we cover everything? Any last comments?
Like, I'll leave it with you Christine to make the final comments. How
does that sound? But ye on the spot she's muted. She's like,
ah, I'm good. You're muted, okay there, just yeah, believe
in yourself, believe in your dream and you know, just keep going forward.
Yeah, never ever ever give up, ever, never ever ever,
Right, Christian, do you have any wise words for us to No,
I just I think there was a lot of really good advice given here,
a lot of broad, broad advice, kind of covering all the facets.
So I think it's really useful for anyone who's either getting started in the process,
but also someone that might be further along. So I think everyone did
a really great job here. Yeah, thank you guys for being here.
Thank everybody for being here. And I think I speak for you guys,
and you guys aren't mute. It's to chime in here. But gosh,
we love you guys. At ACI. You are a family. You make
dreams come true. I can't believe that, you know, I personally,
I'm in my mid fifties publishing a book. It's just the support we have
from you all is you know, it used to be you know, like,
oh you're forty and no more from you And to be fifty almost fifty
five and putting a book out into the universe is just so cool. And
you embrace us, you get behind us, you make sure we're our best.
And I'm almost in tears. I just am so grateful for you all
the time. I can't even tell you so I just am, like I
said, I just can't believe it's my life. It's like a circle.
I've been dreaming about being an author since I was in kindergarten. Love you
guys, so thank you. And we have comments coming in seeing thank you
to us, So thank you for your comments. Thank you for being here.
Where this goes from here? If you if you you know talking to
the people who missed the show, So if you miss this, it's going
up on which makes no sense, but it's going up on free replay,
and it will go on to YouTube and various social media channels. It's always
there and so forth. And we're just grateful for your time and energy and
supporting our books. Okay, three authors, hold up your books one more
time. Mine's doggared and written on. But here it is ready. Thank
you. H C. I so cool. But Lizzy, you can get
a screenshot of us. Can you do that? Got it? There?
You go to get it? I can. I can pause it too and
get the screenshat all right, you guys, Thank you all for being here
so rightful, right, take care of one. Thank you, thank you,