TCK Publishing

Farnoosh Brock is the bestselling author of several books, including the Healthy Smoothie Bible, which has more than 450 reviews on Amazon. She works with professionals who are in a midcareer crisis to help them navigate the corporate landscape or start their own profitable businesses. In this fantastic interview, we dive deep into what it […]

We believe authors change the world with by sharing important stories and ideas. Let us help you get your story out to more people and make the world a better place. We interview authors who are self published, indie published, and traditionally published to find out what’s working right now to help you build your career and sell more book.s On The Publishing Profits Podcast show, international best selling author and publisher Tom Corson-Knowles interviews the publishing industry's best authors, publishers, editors, literary agents, marketers and attorneys to share inspiration, education and best practices. Our mission is to help authors and publishers succeed in the new era of publishing. Ebooks didn't even exist 15 years ago. Today, readers spend more than $6 billion each year on ebooks in the United States alone. Are you taking advantage of this huge shift in readers’ purchasing habits? Tune in and learn how to build a full-time career and income as an author by proactively responding to the huge changes in the industry. Whether you're just thinking about writing your first book or you're a multi-published author, you'll find new ideas to help you take your career to the next level. The show's audience includes writers, new and experienced authors, publishers, literary agents, editors, graphic designers, bloggers, content creators, marketing professionals, public relations and PR experts, and publishing attorneys. Learn more at http://www.PublishingProfitsPodcast.com

We believe authors change the world with by sharing important stories and ideas. Let us help you get your story out to more people and make the world a better place. We interview authors who are self published, indie published, and traditionally published to find out what’s working right now to help you build your career and sell more book.s On The Publishing Profits Podcast show, international best selling author and publisher Tom Corson-Knowles interviews the publishing industry's best authors, publishers, editors, literary agents, marketers and attorneys to share inspiration, education and best practices. Our mission is to help authors and publishers succeed in the new era of publishing. Ebooks didn't even exist 15 years ago. Today, readers spend more than $6 billion each year on ebooks in the United States alone. Are you taking advantage of this huge shift in readers’ purchasing habits? Tune in and learn how to build a full-time career and income as an author by proactively responding to the huge changes in the industry. Whether you're just thinking about writing your first book or you're a multi-published author, you'll find new ideas to help you take your career to the next level. The show's audience includes writers, new and experienced authors, publishers, literary agents, editors, graphic designers, bloggers, content creators, marketing professionals, public relations and PR experts, and publishing attorneys. Learn more at http://www.PublishingProfitsPodcast.com

We believe authors change the world with by sharing important stories and ideas. Let us help you get your story out to more people and make the world a better place. We interview authors who are self published, indie published, and traditionally published to find out what’s working right now to help you build your career and sell more book.s On The Publishing Profits Podcast show, international best selling author and publisher Tom Corson-Knowles interviews the publishing industry's best authors, publishers, editors, literary agents, marketers and attorneys to share inspiration, education and best practices. Our mission is to help authors and publishers succeed in the new era of publishing. Ebooks didn't even exist 15 years ago. Today, readers spend more than $6 billion each year on ebooks in the United States alone. Are you taking advantage of this huge shift in readers’ purchasing habits? Tune in and learn how to build a full-time career and income as an author by proactively responding to the huge changes in the industry. Whether you're just thinking about writing your first book or you're a multi-published author, you'll find new ideas to help you take your career to the next level. The show's audience includes writers, new and experienced authors, publishers, literary agents, editors, graphic designers, bloggers, content creators, marketing professionals, public relations and PR experts, and publishing attorneys. Learn more at http://www.PublishingProfitsPodcast.com

We believe authors change the world with by sharing important stories and ideas. Let us help you get your story out to more people and make the world a better place. We interview authors who are self published, indie published, and traditionally published to find out what’s working right now to help you build your career and sell more book.s On The Publishing Profits Podcast show, international best selling author and publisher Tom Corson-Knowles interviews the publishing industry's best authors, publishers, editors, literary agents, marketers and attorneys to share inspiration, education and best practices. Our mission is to help authors and publishers succeed in the new era of publishing. Ebooks didn't even exist 15 years ago. Today, readers spend more than $6 billion each year on ebooks in the United States alone. Are you taking advantage of this huge shift in readers’ purchasing habits? Tune in and learn how to build a full-time career and income as an author by proactively responding to the huge changes in the industry. Whether you're just thinking about writing your first book or you're a multi-published author, you'll find new ideas to help you take your career to the next level. The show's audience includes writers, new and experienced authors, publishers, literary agents, editors, graphic designers, bloggers, content creators, marketing professionals, public relations and PR experts, and publishing attorneys. Learn more at http://www.PublishingProfitsPodcast.com

We believe authors change the world with by sharing important stories and ideas. Let us help you get your story out to more people and make the world a better place. We interview authors who are self published, indie published, and traditionally published to find out what’s working right now to help you build your career and sell more book.s On The Publishing Profits Podcast show, international best selling author and publisher Tom Corson-Knowles interviews the publishing industry's best authors, publishers, editors, literary agents, marketers and attorneys to share inspiration, education and best practices. Our mission is to help authors and publishers succeed in the new era of publishing. Ebooks didn't even exist 15 years ago. Today, readers spend more than $6 billion each year on ebooks in the United States alone. Are you taking advantage of this huge shift in readers’ purchasing habits? Tune in and learn how to build a full-time career and income as an author by proactively responding to the huge changes in the industry. Whether you're just thinking about writing your first book or you're a multi-published author, you'll find new ideas to help you take your career to the next level. The show's audience includes writers, new and experienced authors, publishers, literary agents, editors, graphic designers, bloggers, content creators, marketing professionals, public relations and PR experts, and publishing attorneys. Learn more at http://www.PublishingProfitsPodcast.com

Shama is the bestselling author several books including Momentum: How to Propel Your Marketing and Transform Your Brand in the Digital Age. She is the award-winning CEO of The Marketing Zen Group—a global online marketing and digital PR company. She did her grad school thesis on Twitter when it only had a few thousand users. Shama started her own business because she saw opportunities in the field of social media that no one was exploiting. “You could already tell [even at the beginning] that twitter was shaping the Internet,” Shama explains. In this podcast we talk about the history of Twitter and we dive deep into the marketing strategies that work on Twitter and other social media platforms. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation: * Even at the beginning Twitter was shaping the conversation of the Internet. * The power of Twitter is how it allows people to connect and communicate with one another. * One of the first user bases of Twitter were seventh grade teachers teaching evolution and trying to figure out how to introduce a sensitive subject like evolution into the classroom. * When social media was the new thing it was hard to get big companies interested in the opportunity that was there. * The ROI for social media is definitely there otherwise businesses wouldn’t do it. * The nice thing is we have more metrics today than at any other time in human history to figure out what types of marketing are working. * Even so, it can still be difficult to pinpoint exactly piece of marketing was the tipping point in your buying decision. * We can tell a piece of marketing is not working. What we can’t exactly quantify is how much each piece of marketing affects your buying decision. * Marketing isn’t an exact linear equation. * Another reason you know the ROI is there is because digital media is where the audience is. * You may see a product marketed five or six times before you decide to buy it and there’s no way of knowing which of the six instances caused you to make the decision buy the product. Five Principles of Momentum For Marketing in the Digital Age 1. Agility Through Analytics Look at the numbers for answers. Eliminate myths and sacred cows. What do the numbers tell you about where you are right now? One of the best ways you can make use of the overwhelming amount of information today is to ask intelligent questions and find the data that gives you the answer to those questions. In the case of Google Analytics There are two pieces of data that you can look at to get valuable information about your visitors. The first piece of data is called your Bounce Rate . Your bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your site immediately after arriving there. If your bounce rate is 70% or above you know you’re not converting well on your website when traffic it gets there, or you’re sending the wrong type of traffic to that site. The other thing you can easily look at using Google Analytics is the amount of traffic you’re getting from mobile devices. If you see that you’re getting 50% of your traffic from mobile devices but your website is a mobile optimized, you know that you’re missing out on 50% of the traffic that could be doing your site. 2. The Power of the Right Kind of Customer Focus Customer focus in the digital age isn’t about the customer always being right. Modern companies have to evaluate what interacting with their brand says about the customer. In this Internet age we all have a digital foot print. For companies to succeed in this new world they have to make sure that interacting with them reflects positively on the customers who do so. The ice bucket challenge is a great example of modern customer focus and action. The ice bucket challenge got people all over t...

Matt Bodnar is the author of Location Based Marketing For Restaurants: Simple, Low Cost, Easy To Use Tactics To Get Customers In The Door. Named a “Rising Restaurateur Star” by the National Restaurant Association and a “Strategy Pro” by Restaurant Hospitality Magazine, Matt is a partner at early stage investment firm Fresh Hospitality. Bodnar joined Fresh in 2011 after several years working at Goldman Sachs. Fresh Hospitality specializes in systems to help the companies they invest in scale up their businesses faster than they would be able to on their own. They’ve developed proprietary software that helps them manage all the variables that go into creating a successful restaurant experience in different food markets. Today Fresh Hospitality has more than 150 locations over 15 different brands that they have invested in. They do $250 million annually in their portfolio. This podcast was great! We discussed how to be successful in a fast/casual sector of the restaurant business. We also talked about Matt’s podcast The Science of Success , and the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and why adopting a growth mindset is so important. Here are some highlights of our conversation: * Coming out of the financial crisis of 2008 it became clear to the partners of Fresh Hospitality at the fast/casual sector of the restaurant business (which has an average of $10/lunch order) was much more resilient than other sectors of the restaurant business. So they chose to target that market sector. * Restaurant chains like Chili’s and TGI Friday’s have been squeezed out in a lot of cases while places that operate at one of the two “barbells” of the fast/casual market have won out. * The two barbells are restaurants that cater to healthy minded individuals and restaurants that cater to customers seeking an indulgence experience. * The reason that 95% of restaurants fail is because the restaurant business is a very low margin business. For every $1 you give to a restaurant $.05 of that is profit on average. That means there is very little room for error. * Restaurants have a lot of moving parts. With such a low profit margin, a lot of first-time restaurant enthusiasts structure their contracts for leasing business space and equipment in such a way that makes it almost impossible for them to succeed. * SAAS = Software as a Service * The Science of Success podcast began as a power point presentation that Matt was asked to give to a company CEO. * It’s important to push through and expand your zone of discomfort. Once you do that more opportunities will become available to you. * You can give people all the tools and information they need to change. In the end they have to want to change for change to take place. * Self-awareness is the most important quality as a predictor of success. People who are self-aware understand where they’re at and they are more able to change because they understand more about themselves and what they need to change. * Having a high emotional IQ is also another predictor of success because you’re less likely to offend people and it’s easier to understand how to deal with challenging situations. People are driven by their emotions and the better you can sense the emotions of the people around you, the better equipped you are to decide the best course of action in business deals and interpersonal relationships. * “Starve all your problems and feed all your opportunities.” — Peter Drucker * The ability to accept reality as it is, especially when the situation is not ideal is an important trait to have. * Another important trait to have in business and in life is the ability to accept responsibility for everything that goes wrong in your life. The more you accept responsibility for those things that go wrong the more con...

Zoe McKey is the bestselling author of Find What You Were Born For: Discover Your Inborn Skills, Forge Your Own Path, Live The Life You Want. Zoe speaks five languages fluently and provides communication and personal development coaching to clients all over the world. Zoe is from Romania, a post-communist state bordered by Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine and Moldova. Because of its communist history, capitalism has not yet fully taken hold there, and Zoe calls her self publishing adventure a “reckless jump” that has paid great dividends. When she took the leap into self publishing she was a working student and she decided to quit everything to focus on self publishing as her career. When Zoe decided to take the plunge and write a book to be self published she had several doubts, any one of which might have stopped another person from writing their book. First, Zoe is not a native English speaker. Second, this was her first self-help book. She wasn’t well-known in the marketplace, although she had a few coaching clients. Finally, as a woman in her 20s, she doubted that she had wisdom worth sharing. Now she has a whole line of personal development books available on Kindle Unlimited. She has helped people all over the world. This interview is really an inspiration and just goes to show that anyone with persistence and determination can be successful at self-publishing. Zoe has a fascinating personal story. Her father left her to fend for herself at the age of 14 after giving her just $30 to live on, all the money he had in his pocket. She survived 11 years on her own before moving back to Romania. We had a wide-ranging conversation which included the topics of: self-publishing, personal development, and the importance of listening and developing personal relationships. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation: * Don’t wait to share your wisdom. You don’t know who your book will help. * How Zoe uses the example of Harry Potter and Hogwarts to keep her going. * The best way to learn is directly from your audience. That’s the power of self-publishing. Authors can directly connect with the people buying their book. They can use feedback directly from their audience to decide whether or not to change their message in any way. * It’s important to filter out negative feedback that is not constructive from constructive criticism. You can learn from constructive criticism. Negative feedback that isn’t specific should be ignored. * Every book you publish makes you a better writer. So every time you write and publish a book you’re the best writer you can be, and you get better every time. * How to write books quickly and with a lot less struggle. * It’s important to get along with as many people as possible. The only way you get anywhere in life is with the help of other people. * There is true power in reciprocity and giving back to others. * How to write several different books in the same niche using the “pickle jar” analogy. * We all have the same types of problems, whether we are a billionaire, blue-collar worker or homeless. The human condition is universal. * Listening skills are important. Practice them with your friends. The more you listen, the more you will learn, and the more you will be able to accomplish your goals. * To practice your listening skills in conversation, ask questions related to what you’re talking about with your friends, continue to listen and ask more questions. * Zoe’s coaching clients usually know the answer to their problems. Zoe’s expertise as a coach comes with knowing the right questions to ask. * One way to increase your social skills is to be genuinely interested in other people. The most important person in anyone’s life is themself.

Bobby Casey is an entrepreneur, investor and and business strategist. He is an advocate for privacy and freedom for citizens like you and me. As a sought-after speaker on free-market economics and offshore businesses, Bobby travels the world working with entrepreneurs helping them properly structure their businesses and their lives for long-term success. Bobby has always been a serial entrepreneur. He has Bachelors Degrees in Economics and Finance. He has Masters Degrees in Law and Entrepreneurship. Bobby has started, bought and/or sold 12 different companies. He has traveled through 45 states and over 70 countries. In our fascinating conversation we talked about how to protect the value of your assets and the power of being a digital nomad. Here are a few highlights: * Being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone. You’ve got to be emotionally and mentally equipped to deal with the hard times and failures that you will see in your business life. As with many things in life, confidence is key. * Being an entrepreneur is an emotional roller coaster. * 98% of the things you worry about will never happen. * There are always ways to make money. * There are great opportunities to make money on craigslist, eBay, and as an Amazon seller. * If you’re writing a contract between two companies you own it can be very simple and straightforward. * When paying royalties to your offshore company you do want to pay market rates, or it may be a red flag for an auditor. * You can spend the money from your offshore business using a debit card on legitimate business expenses. * You can really lower your cost of living by becoming a digital nomad. * There are huge tax advantages to being a digital nomad. * Living as a digital nomad can remove a lot of distractions from your life. You are not as concerned about what other people think of you. You’re not as concerned about “Keeping up with the Joneses.” The Benefits of Having an Offshore Business 1. Asset Protection when you have an offshore business is easier to protect your intellectual property because the countries that specialize in these sort of business arrangements make it very difficult for foreign creditors to come after your property. That’s what they’re in business to do, after all. 2. Tax-Deferred Income and Wealth Creation Another benefit to setting up an offshore company is you can grow your wealth faster the more money is outside heavily taxed societies. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Craigslist — a place where you can advertise and buy/sell goods and services. EBay.com — one of the Internet’s biggest auction sites, also a place where you can sell used goods. Become an Amazon seller — instructions for how to set up your own storefront on Amazon.com and use Amazon’s ability to generate traffic to make money for yourself. globalwealthprotection.com — Bobby’s website. Read his blog and join his mailing list for free. You can also contact him about his consulting services. Job Free: Four Ways to Quit the Rat Race and Achieve Financial Freedom on Your Terms by Jake Desyllas — this book explores 4 strategies for living without a job. It talks about extreme saving, unjobbing, lifestyle businesses, and startups.

Amy Collins is the author of The Write Way: Everything You Need to Know About Publishing, Selling and Marketing Your Book. She worked as a Book Buyer for a large books and magazines publisher, selling to Barnes & Noble, Target, Costco, Airport Stores, Walmart, Books-A-Million and other major book retailers. Amy used to be a musician. She needed Christmas presents one year and decided to take a part-time job at a bookstore. When the season was over she planned to return to her life as a singer but she was persuaded to stay on. A year later she became the book buyer for that store. Within a year she was promoted to book buyer for the entire chain of 16 stores. She was offered a job as a sales rep for Prima Publishing (now a division of Random House). Five years after that she became director of sales for a nonfiction publishing house in Boston. Ten years ago Amy decided to start her own business and level the playing field for small publishing houses and independent publishers. She wanted to give them the same opportunities that the big publishing houses have to distribute their books to stores and libraries. This interview was information packed! We talked about how to develop marketing plans, productivity, various revenue streams that authors can receive, and how to get your book into brick and mortar bookstores and libraries. There are several different revenue streams that authors can receive from libraries from direct sales to licensing deals and more. If you want to learn even more about Amy’s step-by-step process for getting self published books into libraries after you listen to this podcast, you can check out the free webinar with Amy where she walks you through the library distribution process for self published authors. Here are some of the takeaways from the interview with Amy: * The rules change every six months. You have to stay informed and know what’s happening in the publishing industry. * Print-on-Demand (POD) is a business model that allows you as the publisher to take advantage of the technology of digital printing along with just-in-time ordering to create a print on demand program for your readers. * If your book is 300 pages or less and black and white, or a children’s book that’s 48 pages or less, print on demand is a wonderful business model that allows you to earn $2 in profit for each book (which is all you should expect anyway) and take all the risk out of it. * If you realize there is a mistake you can fix it almost instantly and all future versions of your book will be corrected. In the old days Amy would have to throw out the entire run of a book with a printing error in it. Now all you have to do is correct the book file, send it to CreateSpace or Ingram Lightning Source and move forward. * It’s possible to get a print on demand book into libraries and the bookstore chains today, and Amy has helped hundreds of self published authors do just that. * If you want your book in libraries and bookstores you need your book to be professionally edited and have a professionally designed book cover. * If you have a quality book, the fact that it is print on demand won’t prevent you from getting into libraries and bookstores. * Independent brick-and-mortar bookstores are a growing sector of the economy. In 2009, there were 1,691 independent bookstores. Today there are over 2,100 independent bookstores. * If you want to get into independent bookstores, approach the American Booksellers Association. They have some wonderful programs that aren’t too expensive. Get your book into the White Box Program. * The key to getting your book into bookstores as an indie author is to start locally. Start with your local bookstore and library. Go see the manager and head librarian and give them a copy of your book.

Dani Hedlund published her first novel Threads of Deception at the age of 18. After experiencing the difficulties of getting her book published she founded Tethered by Letters in 2007 to help other new writers perfect and publish their work. Tethered by Letters is a nonprofit offers free writing coaching, publishing, and editing guidance and it has grown into an amazing community of writers, editors and artists from all over the world. Dani began writing Threads of Deception when she was 15 years old. When she finished writing the book a year later she had no idea what to do with it. She grew up in a farming community and didn’t have any publishing contacts. She spent the next two years of her life trying to get someone in the publishing industry to take her seriously. When she was finally able to hold a copy of her published book in her hands she thought of all the times she almost gave up. That’s when she decided to create Tethered by Letters to help new authors navigate the publishing industry. One of the breakout successes that Tethered by Letters helped to navigate the publishing industry is Isaac Marion who wrote the short story that inspired the movie Warm Bodies. He has since written a novel that expands on the short story. Our conversation covered many topics including: the best way to break into the publishing industry, strategies for writing query letters, and common mistakes that new writers make. Here are a few of the highlights from the interview: * If you want to make a career out of writing you can’t simply wait for the muse to bless you with a wealth of ideas. * Writers Write. You have to put in the “butt in chair” time working at your craft if you want to succeed. * If you want to be traditionally published today the most important thing you need to do is build a platform. The easiest way to do that is to get your short stories published in journals, magazines and anthologies. When agents see that you’ve already been published they are more likely to look at your work because they see that other people have taken a chance on your writing. It’s classic social proof. * The short form side of the publishing industry is incredibly diverse. Over 90% of literary journals do not pay writers for their submissions. Those journals have value because agents and editors read them. Tethered by Letters does pay for the submissions that they end up publishing. * Why book deals and film deals are the way to earn the most money in the industry for fiction writers. * Every time you publish it helps your career. * You should practice your craft by writing short stories. When you write short stories you’re exposed to your errors in a much more condensed and navigable way. It’s much easier to understand what you’re doing wrong in a shorter piece of fiction because there are fewer moving parts. This can lead to faster learning and improvement. * Enjoy the process of writing and submitting your work. It’s the only way to survive the journey and become successful. * You will grow faster in a less painful way if you write short fiction first. * Writing short stories is a good way for you to figure out what kind of writing sells well in your market. It’s a good way for you to judge the audience reaction before investing time in writing a novel or series of novels. * Any author that tells you, “I only write for myself and I don’t care what other people think,” is lying. * Authors write because we want people to hear what we have to say. In order for people to hear what we have to say we have to find our audience and entertain them while exposing them to our point of view. * The most common misconception among new writers is: “If my reader didn’t understand what I have to say then my reader isn’t smart enough.

Elliott Katz is the bestselling author of Being the Strong Man A Woman Wants and six other non-fiction books. He is a professional speechwriter and has written on a wide-range of subjects from the outdoors to the economy to how to stimulate ideas and innovation in the workplace. When Elliott wrote Being the Strong Man A Woman Wants he was only writing it for himself and his friends. Shortly after he put it up on Amazon he was approached by agents in Mexico and Poland. That’s when he realized the book has international appeal and he became interested in the topic of foreign publishing rights. To date, the book has been translated into 24 languages. Our conversation delved deeply into the topic of how to license and sell foreign language publishing rights even if you are a self published author. Elliott talked about the three major advantages of selling in foreign markets. He also talked about pitfalls to avoid when negotiating foreign publishing rights contracts. Here are some of the highlights from our conversation. * Books aren’t like toothpaste. People look at your cover and they are looking for a book to help them with their problem. If you have a good cover and good information your book will do well. * The Internet makes it much easier to find agents who want to sell your book in foreign countries. (There are links below to help you find foreign agents for your books.) * The benefit to having an agent in foreign countries is they have contacts in their publishing industry. It makes your book stronger to have an agent standing behind it. * Before you seek out a foreign agent ask yourself, “is this a book that would appeal to foreign markets?” * Cultures may be different but human nature is the same throughout the world. * In the United States and Canada it’s very common to have one agent represent you exclusively. In foreign countries you can often have several agents representing your book. When foreign agents ask for exclusivity don’t feel like you have to say yes. Think about it and the way your options before moving forward. 3 Advantages to Selling Your Foreign Rights 1. It is another income stream. 2. You reach people in parts of the world that don’t speak English 3. It gives your book an extra layer of credibility it wouldn’t otherwise have. A Standard Foreign Rights Publishing Deal The deal is typically structured like this: In their initial offer the publisher will tell you how many books with a plan to print and the commission you get on each book sold. So let’s say a German publisher wants to print 5,000 copies of your book and sell it for the equivalent of $15 US. They want to give you a 7% commission on the first 5,000 copies. When you do the math 7% x $15 x 5,000 copies = $5,250. The Formula for Calculating Your Advance on Royalties Here’s the formula most publishers use to calculate your advance on royalties for this kind of deal: Royalty Rate x Retail Price x # of Copies in First Print Run = Your Advance After the German publisher sells those 5,000 copies, you have “earned out” your advance and you will be paid royalties at the agreed-upon royalty rate on all sales after the first 5,000. It’s important to maintain contact with your publisher because some publishers aren’t good about sending regular royalty statements. Having a literary agent who specializes in foreign rights can help because their job is to follow up on these deals and make sure you keep getting paid. One thing you can negotiate is your royalty rate after the first printing. It’s legitimate to ask for a raise because in the first printing a publisher factor in the cost of a translator. The translation of your book is a one-time cost so it’s fair to ask the publisher to give you...

Jeffrey Fox is the New York Times bestselling author of 11 business books that have been translated into over thirty languages. He is the founder of Fox & Company, a management consulting firm that shows clients how to dollarize their value proposition to overcome price objections and shorten the sales cycle. Jeffrey started Fox and Company in 1982. He wrote his first book How to Become CEO as a monograph for his children and the children of his clients. He was asked to speak to a group of promising college graduates and he gave them copies of his monograph as graduation gift. Unbeknownst to him a copy of his monograph got into the hands of a book packager in California. The book packager called him and said, They worked together for about a week to format the monograph into something resembling a manuscript. From there Jeffrey got an enthusiastic agent and they were able to sell the book very quickly. Our conversation covered some powerful topics including marketing and the power of writing short and simple books here are a few of the takeaways: * Readability is the thing you most want when you publish a book. You want your audience to be able to read and understand what you say. * In marketing you have to find the obvious and then say it in a way that hasn’t been said before. * 90%-95% of all business books aren’t read past page 14. * When writing for an audience write for yourself first. Make it simple. Write your statement and then say why it works. * It’s no easy business to be simple — Gustave Flaubert * A brand is a promise. * A brand is not the product. A brand is the name of the product * What you’re watching for in the marketplace is positive brand awareness * Positive Brand Awareness means that your brand is associated with the highest quality and the highest prices. * A brand is worth more than the physical property of the company. * You’d rather own a market than a mill. And a brand that represents the market. * The biggest mistake that new entrepreneurs and new authors make is they think social media is their message. Social media is the method for getting your message out. Figure out what your message is and then choose the media best suited to transmit that message. * A book has to be interesting to have any staying power. * When you publish a book traditionally it’s important to have an agent who specializes in the genre of book you’re writing. * When writing in a new market that you’re not familiar with it’s a good idea to get beta readers and listen to their feedback. * The #1 problem in business today is 90% of businesses don’t know how to price their products. You should always price your products based on the value they give your customer. So if your product costs $1 to produce and it provides the $20 of value to the customer you can safely price that product at $15 * Another huge problem is how to overcome the price objections of your customers. In order to do that you have to know your product and your competitor’s product enough to be able to explain why, even though your product is priced higher, your product is a better value in the marketplace. * When explaining the value of your product people want numbers, facts and figures. Adjectives alone don’t cut it. * When selling business-to-business products the buying decision is 15% “feel-good factor” and 85% “does this solve my problem?” With selling in the consumer market a lot more buying decisions are based on the feel-good factor. * It’s especially important today to get out of your office and meet your customers face-to-face. * The secret of listening to feedback is to listen for something. You want to listen for specifics like dates, facts and figures.

Kristen Joy is the bestselling author of 26 books including the Author’s Quick Guide to Finding Your Target Market. In 2003 she turned her life-long love of reading and writing into a full-time career she loves, and now she teaches authors and entrepreneurs how to create books that bring their passion to life. In 2003 Kristen was hired to be the marketing director of a self-publishing services firm. When that company folded, she started her own company doing the same thing for her clients. When she got tired of publishing books for other people she sold that company and started a publishing company to publish her own books. Shortly thereafter, she was cornered by her first coaching client who begged her to teach him how to start his own publishing company. When she quoted him a price she couldn’t say no to, and he said yes, her adventure really began. She discovered that she enjoyed coaching people. To date, she’s coached clients to create 50 publishing companies. Some of her clients publish their own work exclusively while others publish several authors. She started the current phase of her career as the Book Ninja a few years ago when she published 18 Kindle books in 18 weeks. She took what she learned from that experience and created her course The Kindle in 30 Challenge Self Study Program In this podcast we covered many topics including: how to start your own publishing company, author mindset, and the history of self-publishing. It was an interesting discussion packed with insight. Here are some of the takeaways: * To be successful as a Kindle publisher you’ve got to want to be a Kindle publisher for reasons that go beyond just dollar signs. * Starting your own publishing company can open a few doors for you. * It’s important to take action if you want to succeed in life. * If you want to sell a lot of books it’s important to realize that there is work that needs to be done after you publish the book. You can’t simply publish your book and forget about it. * The key to success in publishing or anything else is to make what you’re doing your heart’s work. * When you love what you do your work doesn’t feel like work. It feels like a fun project. * When publishing other people’s work, it’s important to walk them through the process and give them parameters so they have realistic and clear expectations of a timeline. * When publishing your own books realize that this book is a permanent reflection of who you are, so put out the best product you can, even if it takes longer. * Having a professional cover design is one of the most important things you can do to effectively market your book. * Your cover is your book’s first impression. * Make the best first impression you can. Make sure you have the best cover you can afford. Make sure your book is formatted so that it’s readable. Make sure you edit the book so that it makes sense and there are as few typos as possible. * After you have a good product you can do anything to drive traffic to it. * Every book you publish should have a way for people to join your e-mail list. * Write a series. Nothing markets your books like more books in the same series. * Build a relationship with your audience. * The know, like trust factor is HUGE. * Recognize that you are an authorpreneur, not just an author. * The secret to building a brand is to be professional and deliberate about it. * Having a logo for a brand is a good thing. * If you’re branding yourself have professional headshots taken. (This can work well for nonfiction and fiction authors.) * Successful fiction authors brand themselves as that particular genre’s expert. (Think John Grisham for Legal Thriller and Nicholas Sparks for Bittersweet Romance.)