Episode 104: How Publishing Path Impacts Your Book Marketing Strategy - with Special Guests, Michelle Cox and Alison Hammer
Yes a book is a book, but how you market it varies greatly by publishing path. From traditional, to small press, to self-publishing, the tactics and book marketing strategy for each will be different.
Tune-in to hear our author panel of Alison Hammer, Michelle Cox, Lainey Cameron and Paulette Stout discuss how to find book marketing success, regardless of how you publish.
About Michelle Cox
Michelle has always been obsessed with stories of the past and has spent a lifetime collecting them. She is the award-winning author of historical fiction, including The Henrietta and Inspector Howard series, The Fallen Woman’s Daughter, and The Merriweather Novels. Cox also pens the wildly popular, “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog chronicling the lives of Chicago’s forgotten residents.
She lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago with her husband, an assortment of children, and a naughty Goldendoodle. Unbeknownst to most, she hoards board games she doesn’t have time to play and is, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music. Also marmalade.
The first book in her new series, The Merriweather Novels, launches in September 2024!
About Alison Hammer
Alison Hammer is half of the writing duo Ali Brady (along with her BFF Bradeigh Godfrey). Their debut novel, The Beach Trap made several “best of summer” lists including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Parade Magazine and Katie Couric Media. Until Next Summer, their third book, is a USA Today bestseller. Alison lives in Chicago and works in Annapolis as an advertising creative director. She is also the founder and co-President of Artists Against Antisemitism and the author of You and Me and Us, and Little Pieces of Me. She has no pets, plants or kids, but she does have three nephews—two human and one canine.
Books Mentioned
On Being Jewish Now: Essays and Reflections from Authors and Advocates - featuring essays from Alison Hammer, Amy Ephron, Lisa Barr, Caroline Leavitt, and many more
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means Lainey earns a tiny commission (maybe enough for a coffee) if you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.
Episode Sponsor:
Lilian Sue, author of The Powerful Publicity Prescription, and owner of In Retrospect Writing Services.
The Powerful Publicity Prescription, Lilian’s debut nonfiction PR book focuses on:
Uncovering the intriguing history of PR and demystifying some of the most popular PR myths
How to identify and overcome fear, anxiety, imposter syndrome and more limiting beliefs to build a strong PR mindset
How to unlock the superpower behind your story with confidence
Crafting irresistible story pitches and developing powerful relationships to get your books in front of the right audiences with step-by-step guidance.
As a PR coach and publicist, Lilian empowers authors and creative entrepreneurs to gain the confidence to unlock the superpowers behind their stories, to push past limiting beliefs and learn the tools, resources and knowledge to launch successful PR campaigns to increase sales and achieve their goals of becoming experts. Through 1:1 coaching, she gives authors the personalized support, guidance, clarity and tailored resources they need to harness PR to get their books in front of the right readers.
Learn about The Powerful Publicity Prescription
How Lilian can help authors: Lilian’s services
Connect with her on Instagram
Episode Resources
Webinar: Pros and Cons of Hiring a Publicist - Lilian Sue and Lainey Cameron answer your questions about the pros and cons of hiring a publicist.
12 Weeks to Book Launch Success - Lainey’s program to help authors successfully launch their book
Note: next sections are mostly created by AI for your convenience - so please forgive any typos or inaccuracies!
Summary
Marketing strategies for authors with different publishing paths
Lainey Cameron, Paulette Stout, Alison Hammer and Michelle Cox discuss how their marketing is different across publishing models.
Lainey shared her experience of taking a break from social media and encouraged others to do the same, citing the benefits of stepping away from the digital world.
Traditional publishing vs. self-publishing, with a focus on personal experiences and lessons learned
Michelle Cox wrote a novel in 2012, but struggled with traditional publishing. She eventually found success with hybrid publishing.
Alison Hammer took 15 years to finish her first book, and didn't initially set out to be published. She found success with self-publishing.
Alison Hammer shared her journey to publication, including joining writing groups and conferences, and eventually getting an agent and publishing her debut novel.
Hammer's best friend Bradeigh and she wrote and sold a book together during the pandemic, and their third book will be published next summer.
Traditional vs self-publishing pros and cons, marketing responsibilities, and pre-launch preparation
Alison Hammer: Traditional publishing pros are self-publishing cons, and vice versa.
Michelle Cox: Hybrid publishing encourages hiring a PR agent, learning traditional marketing strategies.
Michelle highlights the advantage of self-publishing: real-time visibility and control over marketing efforts.
Alison Hammer notes that in traditional publishing, publishers have control over marketing data, leaving authors with limited visibility.
Publishing companies' role in promoting books, including cover reveals and influencer outreach
Alison Hammer discusses challenges of publishing with a large company, including lack of control and focus on sales over brand building.
Publishing companies prioritize sales over other factors like name recognition and cover reveals, leaving authors to generate excitement on their own.
Lainey asks Alison Hammer about publishing companies' role in getting books to influencers and reviewers.
Alison Hammer shares that publishing companies don't provide much information on who will receive advance copies, and influencers can pick two or three books from a list.
Pre-launch tactics for authors, including Instagram book tours and building a newsletter subscriber list
Michelle Cox emphasizes the importance of being an advocate for oneself in the publishing industry, particularly for self-published authors.
She highlights the effectiveness of Instagram book tours and building a newsletter subscriber list for pre-launch promotion.
Lainey Cameron discusses the differences in timelines between big and small publishers, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Lainey shares her experience with a small publisher, where the lead time is shorter but some long lead time publications are inaccessible.
PR strategies for authors, including the importance of aligning with the right influencers and controlling the timeline
Alison Hammer: Book release timeline affects excitement and sales.
Paulette Stout: Indie authors can control their book release timeline.
Paulette Stout: Engaging with book influencers can lead to book coverage.
Lillian Sue is the first sponsor on the podcast, offering PR coaching and book publishing services.
Sponsor Segment
Lillian Sue's book, "The Powerful Publicity Prescription," debunks PR myths and provides practical advice for authors.
Lillian works with authors one-on-one or offers flexible coaching options, helping them navigate the PR space.
Book marketing strategies for authors, including social media, online presence, and advertising
The speaker discussed their experience with book launches and marketing, including the effectiveness of ads and the importance of building a community.
The speakers also discussed the role of publishing companies in marketing and promoting books, including giveaways and alerts for upcoming releases.
Alison Hammer: Building brand through book tour, relationships with booksellers and readers.
Traditional publishing strategies include pre-orders, leading up to new book releases with marketing campaigns.
Pre-order campaigns for indie authors, with insights on why it may not be the best strategy
Pre-order campaigns can confuse indie authors who don't understand their impact on Amazon ranking and sales.
Pre-order sales don't aggregate into day one or week one book sales tallies for indie authors, making it a different calculation.
Paulette Stout and Alison Hammer discuss the importance of building relationships with readers and bookstores.
Lainey advises debut authors to celebrate their achievement with a party, marking the moment and acknowledging their hard work.
Book marketing strategies for authors with traditional publishers and indie authors
Alison Hammer: Trying to figure out what to do after launch, experimenting with ads.
Paulette Stout: Recommends finding local bakery for bookcake, celebrating cover art.
Alison Hammer: Traditional publishers prioritize book sales, but individual engagement matters too.
Lainey: Hybrid author Michelle bets on advertising to make a book successful.
Post-launch strategies for indie authors, including newsletter promotions, price drops, and KU opportunities
Authors discuss post-launch strategies, including price promotions, newsletter stacks, and utilizing Amazon's algorithmic lift.
Paulette Stout and Alison Hammer discuss the ineffectiveness of promoting full-price books in newsletters for traditional authors.
They advise past selves to prioritize deals and discounts for maximum impact, and to be prepared for unexpected sale opportunities.
Writing goals, paths, and challenges
Alison Hammer wishes she had taken more control over her writing career earlier, instead of staying in a comfort zone for too long.
Alison Hammer agrees with Michelle and Lainey that identifying one's goals in writing early on is crucial, as it can save time, money, and heartache.
Paulette Stout: Don't feel pressured to do everything; start small and learn as you go.
Author careers, pressure on first book, and upcoming releases
Lainey advises past self to focus on building credibility, not waiting for big publisher opportunities.
Lainey acknowledges pressure on first book, encourages relaxation and enjoyment of writing process.
Wrap Up.
Alison Hammer and Michelle Cox discuss their upcoming books.
Transcript
Lainey Cameron 0:02
Hey, this is Lainey Cameron. I am coming to you from Copenhagen this time, and I'm with my fabulous co host, Paulette Stout
Paulette Stout 0:11
Hello.
Lainey Cameron 0:16
This is a fun one, because we have two special guests joining us, Alison Hammer and Michelle Cox, and we will introduce them in a second and tell you all about them. But the reason we wanted some guests is this session is all about how marketing is different depending on your publishing model, and even what you get from your publisher is different depending on your publishing model, or even within publishing models.
Lainey Cameron 0:40
And so we wanted to really bring this out, because I see a lot of misunderstanding on this, like I one of the things I think I shared in the early episode that drives me crazy is when someone takes a list of all these things you must do to market your book, and they just kind of work through the list, and they try and do all 50 things. And it turns out the list was written for a completely different publishing path, and it makes no sense for that person who's an indie published author to go follow a list that was designed for a 18 month timeline from a large publisher, for example. So that's one of the reasons we wanted to just try and help educate a little about what is different, what's the same, how does it work? And so that's our goal for this episode.
Paulette Stout 1:17
Yes, and it's Yeah. So just can't wait to dive in. And just for like, personal updates, let's dive in because we have so much to cover today. So just go a little quickly in the upfront. So I'm kind of neck deep in revision for my next novel, which comes out in February. And I just want to talk about one thing really quick, because I wasn't ready, like, life, it just got in the way a little bit. So I decided to, you know, delays, I'm an editor and the narrator and all that stuff, and just push it back and give myself some grades to breathe. I have buffer room, but it's just like, sometimes you have these deadlines and things you push yourself to do because you think you have to. And it's like, but do I it's like that Rebecca Syme question, the premise. So I moved it back feeling okay about it. So
Paulette Stout 2:01
I think I will really enjoy that extra month to work on the manuscript. And I my little KU experiment is going pretty well right now. I'm finding readers, and now I'm have to just slap my hand when I want to check the dashboard to see what page readers are. You know, it's just like, a little bit insane how much data you get in India, and that's different from what we'll talk about with our guests in terms of, you know what you get and what's different by publishing path, but those are my big things for you. How about you? Lainey,
Lainey Cameron 2:29
okay, so for me, can you hear me? Okay,
Paulette Stout 2:32
I can.
Lainey Cameron 2:34
For me, I took a vacation. I'm very excited. I took, like, a whole week off and, like, off of everything, off social media, off life, off writing, off the lot. It went on a cruise, a virgin cruise out of Barcelona, and it was absolutely fabulous. Just loved it. So I just want to encourage people, if you feel like you need to step away from it all the world doesn't stop turning you can do it like I feel like we're tied to our social media sometimes, and we feel like we can't leave. And like I did this last year. I stepped away for a month from social media, and several people told me afterwards that they actually like did it as a result of seeing that. I got away with it and did it, and somehow nothing, you know, nothing fell apart. It was fine.
Paulette Stout 3:10
Right, the world didn't collapse, exactly.
Lainey Cameron 3:14
So, um, with that, I'm back at it. One of the things I'm trying to work out right now is when I'm going to do my next round of my class, my marketing program for authors called 12 Weeks to Book Launch Success, where I help them create an entire launch plan for their book. If I were to run it again this year, I would need to be opening it for registration in September, to start in October if we wanted to finish it this year, because I definitely don't want to run it through Christmas week. So I just started mapping that out. If you're interested, get on the wait list, because last time, it sold out off of the wait list before I even shared it anywhere else. So just a heads up that I'm kind of looking towards maybe opening it up in September. So I think those are my two big things. Oh, and I will be at the WFWA women's fiction writers retreat in September, and I'm really looking forward that I'm going to be teaching a Book Marketing Boot Camp for three hours on the Saturday afternoon. That is going to be an absolute blast. So I'm super excited about that.
Paulette Stout 4:06
Hook that up people, if you are going to WF WA, and if you haven't registered yet, I think they still have some spots open, because I got an email like yesterday or something. So look into that. Women's fiction marriage Association, Albuquerque retreat. Lainey will be there in person, and she is fab. So she is worth going, just for her.
Lainey Cameron 4:24
And I believe, I believe there's still a few, very, very few spots left. Um, it's almost sold out, but not quite. So you're not too late yet.
Paulette Stout 4:32
But get it, get it quick.
Lainey Cameron 4:34
So with that, I think we should jump into, uh, introducing our two guests. And I think you're going to go first, Paulette.
Paulette Stout 4:49
Awesome. So with us today, we have Michelle Cox. Michelle has always been obsessed with stories of the past and has spent a lifetime collecting them. She's an award winning. Author of historical fiction, including the Henrietta Inspector Howard series, The Fallen Woman's Daughter and The Merriweather novels. Cox has also penned the wildly popular novel notes of local lore, a weekly blog chronicling the lives of Chicago's forgotten residents. And she lives in the suburbs of Chicago. Her the first book in our new series, the Merryweather novels, launches on September 2024 welcome, Michelle.
Michelle Cox 5:27
Hi. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is fun,
Paulette Stout 5:33
And next we have Alison hammer. I think you're taking that.
Lainey Cameron 5:37
Yep, I'll introduce Alison. So Alison and I have known each other for quite a while. And one of the things I love is that Alison has been very open about sharing her journey and what she's been through in her publishing journey, which has been, you know, totally straight, smooth sailing, like everybody. You can see, if you're on the audio version, everybody's like, shaking their heads here, right now. And so Alison is half of the writing jewel called Ali Brady with my other good friend, Bradeigh Godfreigh, and their debut novel The Beach Trap made several best of summer lists, including the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Parade magazine, Katie Couric media and their new book that just came out until next summer is as of just A few weeks ago, a USA Today best seller, whoa, and Alison lives in Chicago. She works in Annapolis. Am I saying it correctly? As an advertising creative director, we were just chit chatting about the challenge of managing day jobs with writing lives before this, because Paulette has to do the same. And she's the founder and Co-president of Artists Against Anti semitism, and also the author of You, and Me and Us, and Little Pieces of Me. And she has no pets, plants or kids, but she does have three nephews, two human and one canine.
Paulette Stout 6:57
We have a chat here, so if you are watching live, either on Facebook or YouTube. Please do chat us. We will respond in real time, as Beth Miller Cox has been doing,
Lainey Cameron 7:07
Absolutely, absolutely. So the first question we're going to kick off with is we wanted to have each of our speakers as included, talk about what publishing path did you choose? And for some of us, it's been more than one, because author careers are not a straight line where you do one thing and it always looks exactly like you started, right? So I love that we got we have two guests who have that experience of like switching, like learning and switching over time. And so what we're going to talk about first is have each of us talk about what is the publishing path you chose, and a little bit of how it's changed over time, if it has changed for you, so maybe I'll have Michelle lead off with this one. Why don't we start us off?
Michelle Cox 7:46
Okay, great,
Michelle Cox 7:49
yeah. So I wrote a novel back in 2012 ish, and it was my first novel, and I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know anything about publishing, and I submitted it to like, 200 agents, and I got nowhere. So I'm like, you know, obviously there's either something wrong with the product, which there was, or I'm, you know, going about it wrong. So I decided to go to a conference in New York, the writers conference, and I just learned a ton. And one of the things that became kind of apparent to me was that just seemed like there was a lot of, I won't say hate, but it seemed like there were a lot of people very sour about traditional publishing, which was really discouraging to me, because I was, you know, brand new, like the newest newbie that ever was. And I got there like so excited, and everybody was very down on traditional publishing, and that's even back in 2013 and so I sort of wandered into this workshop, and it was about hybrid publishing, and I thought, wow, this is amazing. This sounds like the perfect solution, because there's no way I was going to self publish at that point, wasn't even on the radar. So I did some investigation, and I eventually
Michelle Cox 9:16
I submitted the novel, and they said, No, we're not going to take this. It's way too long. It's blah, blah, all these things. So I said, You know what? I wrote a new novel, and I was so excited about hybrid publishing that I didn't even submit it to any agents. I just went directly to she writes press, and they said, Yeah, we'll take this one. And that was the start of the Henrietta inspector Howard series, a girl like you. And so I just kind of went with them, and it was a great experience at the beginning, at the beginning. So,
Michelle Cox 9:50
you know, it was fine. It's just that I think I kind of stayed there too long. I stayed with them for seven books, which is great. I learned a lot. But. Right? There's just no way you can make that money back, much less make a profit. So I, by that point, I, you know, was kind of learning a lot about self publishing and getting more and more confident. I was listening to podcasts. And finally, this year, with the Fallen woman's daughter, I just took that plunge, and so now I'm an indie author, and I'm just like, never gonna look back.
Paulette Stout 10:27
It's awesome. I love it.
Michelle Cox 10:30
So that's my journey. Yeah, yeah.
Paulette Stout 10:33
How was it for you? Alison,
Alison Hammer 10:35
um, so my journey, I my first book that I wrote took me 15 years to finish writing, and I didn't even really start, I just wanted to write it. And when I finished it, I was like, Well, I guess I should maybe see if I could get someone to read it. So I didn't start writing to set out to be published. That was just kind of like, I just wanted to write.
Alison Hammer 10:56
And that first book, like a lot of us, like Michelle, I have a drawer book too, but I reached out to a friend who had been published, and I was like, and I was like, What do I do now? And she told me to join women's fiction writers Association, which is where I met all of you, which is great. And I started looking into getting an agent, because that was the traditional path, and it was just what, what I felt like went next. So I did that. I went to a lot of conferences, and did you could spend like $28 to have 10 minute pitch sessions with agents? So I did things like that. And when I had been querying my first book for about a year, I had a couple of of agents who gave me revise and resubmit. I had quite a few people asking for fulls but no bites, and I had started working on a second book, and which a lot of people end up having to do. A lot of people their second book ends up being their first published book. And I went to a writing conference, and I met with an editor, and I at that conference, and I handed them two different pitch letters, one for my the first book I wrote, and one for the second. And they said that second one was more marketable, so I put the first book in that drawer fully and went forward with my with my second manuscript, and that one got an agent. I got an agent, actually, at that conference is where I met my agent, Joanna McKenzie, with the Nelson agency that was in 26 2018 sold my book in an auction to William Morrow, which was incredible part of Harper Collins, my debut, can't you and me and us, came out April 7, 2023, weeks into the pandemic, which just was soul crushing. One of my author dreams is to be in airport bookstores. And you know, that's something that that you can really only happen if you do the traditional publishing model. But it was supposed to be in all Hudson airport bookstores, and then they canceled the order because nobody was flying, which was just heartbreaking. So I had two books with with William Morrow, Harper Collins, and then during the pandemic, my best friend Bradeigh and I started had an idea to write together, and we sold that on, on a proposal, which is very was not a usual situation to Berkeley, which is part of Penguin Random House and the beach strap, as you said in my in the bio is our debut, our third book until next summer, came out last month, on July 9, and our next book, we're getting ready to Do cover reveals. So it's crazy, how, how fast it happens. But so that will be my sixth book published which does not seem real,
Lainey Cameron 13:30
and and palette, I think of you as the indie queen. You
Paulette Stout 13:34
didn't look back, right? Yes. Well, I had, I had a book in a drawer too. I wrote a murder mystery, and it was and I threw somebody with somebody got to Donald mods and submitted to him, and it was in no kind of way to be seen by human eyes. So like when I saw him, and I had him sign my book at the missionary, I was like, I didn't mention that. I queried him, like 1000 years ago, with a horrible book. Um, so I queried that one. I also queried my debut, which was, has a, you know, kind of on women's intimacy. And I'm sure no one wants to touch with a 10 foot pole. So I did end up going Indian. It's been really great for me, cover, snap, suicide. Um, really, I'm a very independent person. I have a marketing background. I'm a kind of a control freak, and I like, I'm super impeachment. Growing up Manhattan was like, so it kind of suits me. But you know, now that's like, I've gone back to work and whatever, and I kept going to conferences and getting sat with agents like, all the time, like every like, at WF WA, and I just keep sitting with agents. And it felt like the world was like, starting to, like, talk to me. So I did have a conversation with an agent, and the next book I'm going to write, I am going to submit just to her. She doesn't want it. I'll do it myself. So I kind of like, I don't need it, but I'm curious, you know, so we'll see how what goes with that next one. But my next, my fourth self published, will come out in February. So yeah, it's been, it's been an interesting ride. Lots. To learn, but the more you learn, the easier it gets, which is a great thing about the indie path. And I'm sure any path of anything you learn in life for sure. And Lainey, what's your story?
Lainey Cameron 15:09
So I queried my first one, which actually was my first one, but it got revised, rewritten so many times, and made so many bit so much better by people like Alison, who like but you can do better fix this. But I think I rewrote that book like 10 times, but it was my first one, and that one I queried, and I learned a lot about when your book doesn't fit in the box, right, when your book doesn't directly fit into a book like this has sold to a big publisher before. I ended up in a place after revising it a lot, where it was like, I love your book, but I don't know how to sell it. I've never seen publishers buy a similar book. And so it's a very interesting learning experience for me to realize that you know, past success is what agents and publishers look at when they're choosing whether to publish, especially big ones, when they're choosing whether to publish a book. If you've got something that doesn't fit, doesn't look like anything in the past, it's going to be tricky. And so I went the small publisher path, a digital first small publisher from my first book. And what that means is that they paid all the costs of publishing, but they didn't do a lot for me in the marketing site. And that's very common with smaller publishers, especially Digital First, smaller publishers. So we're actually going to bridge into talking a little bit about what are the advantages marketing wise, that you've seen from the publishing path you chose. And let's keep this brief, because we're actually going to dig in and talk specifically about pre launch, launch, after launch. So just at the high level, and let's kind of head it to Alison first. At the high level, what do you think of the big advantages of having been with a traditional publisher and with a bigger traditional publisher?
Alison Hammer 16:39
You know, I think, to your to your point, I think, and I will keep this brief, but there, I think the pros of traditional publishing are the cons of self publishing, and the the pros of self publishing are the cons of traditional so I think that they really do. It's about what you want. And as part of being with a traditional publishing company, I do have a publicity and a marketing team that are working for my book. They're working on several other books, but they do have a budget, and they are they're working to help market my book, so it's not something that I have to do completely on my own.
Lainey Cameron 17:16
Yeah, and I like what you said about the the pros and cons, because you know, that means that they have a point of view on what they're going to do, and you don't always get to control it. Versus in the indie side, it's all over to you to do it all, but you do have complete control, 100%
Alison Hammer 17:29
and it's about, it's just about what you want. And I do think that there are certain outlets in places that that you know are for traditional only. So there are, you know, they're not, not as many like they're more gatekeepers for things like that, but I feel like more and more and we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about this later, traditional published authors have to do just as much marketing on their own, because you can't rely just on the publishing company anymore. These days, it feels like authors are given a lot more responsibility for that. So I do think that it's it's not like I can hand it over and not worry about it so, but I do have a team that's supporting me, which is nice,
Lainey Cameron 18:08
that's nice. And Michelle, what about you? What are the advantages of the different paths you've chosen?
Michelle Cox 18:15
Well, one of the advantages of going with a hybrid, or specifically, she writes process is that you are highly, highly, highly encouraged. You're not forced, but you're highly encouraged to hire a PR agent. And so I did that for several years. And the advantage there is probably similar to what you know Alison was talking about, is that you, you do have someone behind you, I'm not sure. You know, it doesn't really translate necessarily into sales might in my, you know, affect, you know, visibility and stuff like that. I guess the advantage there for me was just that I learned a lot. So I learned a lot about what traditional marketing looks like or PR, and so that taught me a lot going forward. And the advantage, of course, of self publishing is that I can, because I can have access to my KDP Dashboard, I can hourly, see, you know what is going on, and I can see if I'm running an ad, I can tell if that ad is working, and I can tweak it. And so that's that, to me, that is the number one advantage.
Alison Hammer 19:29
And if I can jump in, just to my point about the pros of one being the cons of the other, I have zero visibility, you know. I can look at, you know, some of the stats on Amazon and things like that, but those aren't accurate, and so there's really no way for me unless I'm running something. There's no way for me to tell what's working or any of that data, because the publishing company has control of that, and it's not something that they share.
Michelle Cox 19:55
Yeah, exactly.
Paulette Stout 19:58
Yeah. I can see that can be completely fine. Frustrating, but it's so interesting. Okay, so now we're going to kind of begin our discussion that's more a little bit about stages of the publishing practice. So we're talking about the pre launch stuff. So I'll start with you. Ali, so when you think about the pre launch period, what are the major things the publisher does for you, versus what you have to do for yourself and anything you think that's worked well, or surprises anything in that. And I have like, a little corollary I want to throw in there, in terms of, I've heard some people encourage you to spend your advance on marketing, and there's some expectation there. So I'd love you to just comment if there's any kind of, like expectations for what the authors are expected to do. From a child perspective, I
Alison Hammer 20:40
don't think that you're expected to hire anybody. I think that a lot of people do. We hired public outside publicity for my first my two books, and then our first two books. We didn't this time, but that was just a decision about some finances and just different things like that. But marketing is not something that I think people are expected to pay for outside of it. But I do think that there is an expectation to to, you know, the word platform didn't exist 10 years ago, and now that authors have platforms like it feels like we're expected to do what we can to help support and marketing. And as far as you know, the the pre launch thing again, when, when you're doing your own book or working with a small press, the the number of books they have is smaller. When you're with a company, like we're with Penguin Random House in Berkeley, they have so many books coming out, and they are on a schedule. And so like, where our next book battle the bookstores comes out next summer, but we're going to be ready for our cover reveal in September. Last time, our cover wasn't ready until like, January or February. And so it's you're really at the mercy of their schedule and when they fit you in. So there really is not control. You have to wait for for your book, and to show up in their in their a lot of time to work on it. You can do stuff on your own. But again, it's, it's you have this great benefit. But it's very much like they're not working for here's the thing, okay, this explains it with me a little bit. They're not working for you. They are working for your book, and like when you hire somebody, you can say, will you do this? Will you do that? Will you do that? But they are a huge company that all they do is market and sell and publish books, and so they do what they think is right and what they believe will work, but you just don't have that much visibility or say or control in it. And it does feel in this world like you have pressure on you to do more. So publishing companies, the other thing, sorry, this is another thing that just popped up, is that they look at results as far as what drives sales. But as you know, with marketing, it's not just about sales. You want to build your brand. You want to have like name recognition and things like that. So cover reveals don't really drive sales. They don't really think that pre or people pre order until a lot closer to when the book is so if you want to do a big splash for a pre order, unless you're one of like the top, top people, and you can get Entertainment Weekly or something like that, to cover your book, you're on your own for your cover reveal, which is fine, but it's more about generating excitement than sales. And publishing companies are interested in the thing that the things that will move sales. And when we're talking sales, they're talking about 1000s of copies, or 10s of 1000s of copies, not 10s of copies. So anything that feels like it's a little bit lower on not moving sales is really going to be up to the author individually.
Lainey Cameron 23:47
And I had a question for you, do they in the big publisher scenario? Do they put books into the hands of influencers? I know there's been a whole conversation about, like, electronic arcs versus paper arcs, and the big publishers even give you paper arcs anymore. Like, how much do they do for you in terms of getting the book into the hands of early review, potential early reviewers? I
Alison Hammer 24:06
will say that every publishing company and every imprint within every publishing company is different. When I was with William Morrow, I got a box of like 40 arcs with Berkeley. They're really moving away from the print arcs, and we were able to get like 10. So we ended up printing our own because I think it's really important. I know people like them, and they want to see them, and we wanted to see it photographed on Instagram. So they gave us a little bit, but, but we supplemented it. And what was the other part of your question? Sorry,
Lainey Cameron 24:38
no, it's kind of said question, do they do they get? Do they get? Do they get books out to influencers or reviewers for you, or how much of it do you have to do? So
Alison Hammer 24:45
I Yeah, and I they don't a lot of that's their Oh my gosh. What's the word proprietary information? So like that you get, who's gonna have it, who's gonna show it, but they don't tell you everybody that they necessarily like pitched you to. And I believe how bright. Does it is that their influencers get a list of the books that are coming out, and they get to pick, like, two or three. So, you know, you hope that they will pick your book, but it's not like again, they're they're promoting all of these books. For me, I'm worried about my book, so anything above and beyond, like we'll do on our own. And I think one of the best things about having a platform and being active on social media is building a relationship like I have people turn from readers to friends to actual friends all the time. And I think that those connections are really important and can help people be word of mouth and advocates and sharing your stuff. So a lot of that stuff has to come a little bit a little bit more naturally, and I think that it definitely helps having the support of a publishing company, but you can't rest on that entirely.
Paulette Stout 25:51
Great. And what about you, Michelle, what's your experience been in the pre launch period? Similar,
Michelle Cox 25:57
you know? I mean, I think that the tendency with authors is that if they they have a PR person or, you know, team behind them, the tendency is to think that, you know, you know, I'm done, you know, just let them handle it, and that that's like, obviously, like Alison was saying, it's a huge mistake, because you really Have to be your own advocate, and you have to sort of be building your brand, building your audience, building your newsletter subscriber list, and all of that kind of stuff. So I think that, like with a hybrid press, or she writes press in particular, they're definitely modeled on a traditional model. So your PR company is trying to get you, like, trade reviews, and get you out to influencers like you were talking about, and get you in different magazines and stuff like that. But I think that a lot of that doesn't necessarily work anymore, kind of like you were saying. I don't think it really translates into sales, and I don't actually know how much it really translates into even visibility. So I am a big proponent of the Instagram book tours. I think that those are something that I so if I'm doing a pre launch, that's one of the things that I definitely do. And I think a couple of books ago, I did four book Bookstagram tours, and that was a little bit too many. So I just have two favorites now that I use, and I think that those are super effective because those people have 1000s and 1000s of followers. But again, because I'm self publishing, I have to print all of those books, and that's, you know, really expensive, but I think it's, I think it's a worthy expense, and then I rely a lot on, like, newsletter subscriber list. I have a pretty large subscriber list, and that had, you know, that's something that you have to build over time. And that's very effective, I think, and for a pre launch. And also, I think doing like a book bug deal of a previous book with, you know, links in the back can be really effective to try to push people into pre ordering or ordering the next book. So those are so those are my three big pre launch tactics.
Paulette Stout 28:26
Yep, go ahead. Lainey,
Lainey Cameron 28:29
so, so one thing I wanted to comment on there, because we got into a little bit of how, you know, hybrid acts more like big publisher and big publishers around this timeline, right, where they're kind of working 12 plus months out, right? And they've got publicists, and they're working on these long lead times. When you're with a small publisher like I was, the lead times look entirely different. So like my time between signing my contract with my publisher and my book coming into the world, I think it was about six months or less, very often less, and so I didn't even get my final cover, final title arcs, electronic arcs, until like 45 days before the book was coming out into the world, before the release date. So why does that matter? Because some of these things you might do, let's say, hiring a publicist and having a publicist reach out to long lead time publications just don't make any sense. If you're on a much shorter timeline, and you're only going to get a final cover 45 days before the release date. Because, for example, some of these best of lists, if you want to have a publicist go after some of these best of spring they're being decided six to 12 months before the book comes out, right? And so if you only have 45 days, it doesn't matter how much you want to be on the best of spring list. You missed it. It was decided back four months before you had your cover. And so I just think that's something that people need to understand, is that the timelines do affect what's accessible and possible for you. It's not bad or good. None of this is bad or good. It's just a case of understanding that different paths have different advantages and disadvantages. And so if you're with a very small publisher, very often. The timelines are much shorter. So the big advantage is your book gets out into the world faster. But the disadvantage is, some of those things that have long lead times just won't make sense to do. And so like my publisher, is a small publisher, and a lot of the small publishers do this, they made that galley available to me, but I had to pay some towards it, but then they didn't do much else in terms of reaching out to reviewers. They didn't have an in house publicist. So when it came to reaching out to influencers and reviewers, it really all came down to me to do that. It wasn't like the publicist was going to do any of that for me.
Alison Hammer 30:30
And that's, oh, sorry, yeah, it's so interesting with the timeline. And again, there's pros and cons, because for us, like, people are going to start seeing this cover in September, but they can't buy it until like, May or June of next year. And so, you know, like, even, even thinking about not to get political, but thinking about this election, like, you know, you know, with with everything that's happened, she has a very, very short window, but there's excitement. And so if you have your book coming out, and it's like, oh my god, 45 days, people don't have to wait that long. And so you don't you have less time to build up, but you have more excitement. And the other thing that I was going to say is that something that, you know, my day jobs in advertising, so this is something I think about a lot, and Bookstagram is incredible, like, I've built some incredible friendships and and just the reading community is amazing, but if you think about it, we're all talking to ourselves like these people post a book every day, and most people don't read that much. And so one thing that I've tried to think about and do is that, are there non book people who are aligned with the content I'm writing about that can share it, because they may share one or two or three books a year, and so if their audience sees my book, then it's a little bit more special than somebody who's who's just doing books, and it's so hard to see what works Suzanne Park, who's another author and a friend of a lot of ours, she she is pretty good at watching what comes out and seeing the impact and The things that she's noticed that have the biggest impact are things in print, unfortunately, and things, again, that are not all book focused, but it's a book feature and something else. But so much of that, you know, it's really hard to tell, unless you have the data, like some of you have to see that that cause and effect impact of sales, right?
Paulette Stout 32:19
Yeah. And it's so interesting. You're saying that, because I think with my indie model, I was kind of in between, like, I publish around once every 12 to 14 months. So it's a little bit more of a Trad model than some like an indie author who rapid releases. So I, you know, I try to have my book done. In my first two books, I did use a publicist, so I had like a five month campaign, and then I had like a three month campaign. And even on my last book where I didn't, I did it myself. My book came out in February, I contacted book influencers in August, because I just started watching their content and looking at what they were doing and seeing if it was an alignment. And, you know, I made my own list of people to content. I made my own little book tour just by engaging with them and sending them emails. And, you know, you go online, if they have an email, they want to be contacted. If they don't have an email, they kind of don't. So you can kind of self select a little bit like that person's, you know, if they're only going to be covering, you know, big Trad books that they may not be interested in, you know, an indie book. So you just have to kind of see who's going to be receptive to your thing and the timelines on the indie side, but you can control it, and it can be whatever you want. And, you know, sometimes people just let it slide right out into the night and don't do anything, and then they go on vacation, and that's totally fine, because you don't have someone there. Like, what are the sales? You know, what was your scan, book scan, or whatever it's called, you know, it's like, where's your data? You know, you don't, it's you. You don't care if you go on vacation, on vacation. So great. That's great, great content. I think Lainey now can take us away first sponsor,
Lainey Cameron 33:52
our very first sponsor segment, because we have a sponsor for the podcast. And I am so excited about this, because it's someone that I know and have worked with personally, and it's funny that we were just talking about the challenges on PR and publicity and knowing what actually works and what is worth your time and what is not worth your time, and it can be really complicated, and what what's the lead time with different publications, etc. So I'm very pleased to announce that our sponsor is Lillian Sue who is a PR coach and publicist, and she's not your average publicist. So she's not someone who you have to pay $10,000 to a package to go talk to, which is very often the case that publicists can be very expensive and they expect a monthly retainer and all kinds of things. So one of the things that Lillian just did, which is really exciting, is she brought out a book to help authors with publicity. It's called the powerful publicity prescription, and it's really cool because it actually breaks down. I've just been reading it. It breaks down some of the PR myths, like the myth that all publicity is good, the myth that spending a lot of money means success, that certain types of media coverage are automatically good for you, and so I. I love the actually. At the beginning of the book, she actually tackles some of these myths and says, Yeah, let's not assume that's all true, and let's talk about what's reality. And then she actually goes into, like, the history of PR, how to overcome fear when you're pitching, how to develop a pitch, how to develop your list as an author if you're going to pitch certain publications, how to create a PR kit. So I love how practical this book is as well. So it's called the powerful publicity prescription, and I love that Lillian Sue trusted us enough to be our first sponsor on the podcast here, and she also does one on one coaching. And one of the things I like she's actually very savvy. She has helped me with my program with 12 weeks to book launch success, I've actually had her teach the PR week. That's how much I trust her advice. So she's been teaching parts of my class for me, and one of the things I really love is that she works with authors one on one, and she works really flexibly, where she'll actually coach you if you want to do your own PR, or she'll pick up parts of the program and do it for you. But like I said, it's not like the one and only way to work with me is a massive package. And I like that, because I feel feel like very often authors blow money that doesn't end up working out for them in the PR space. And some of us have had that experience that are here, like, you've been very excited, and you think it's going to be the big difference maker, and it turns out not to always be the case. So I think Lily is pretty savvy at helping authors work through some of these issues around like, well, what is my target market and what will work, and what's really going to make any difference, and what's not? And what's not worth my time. So super excited. You can find all of the links to all of her stuff on our episode page, and check out the book, the powerful publicity prescription. I have read it, and I can tell you that it's actually really useful. I learned some things. So there you go.
Paulette Stout 36:36
It is, yeah, and Pierre is one of those things that's, you know, very important in the PR in the pre launch phase. If you're going to do that, we're going to move now into the launch phase. So I'll throw this to Michelle. So what are the things in your experience that you've had, either starting with the hybrid and then also with as an indie author, what happens from like, what does the publisher do for you in the launch period? And anything that you think that worked really well. Anything that was like, yeah, maybe skip that,
Michelle Cox 37:09
yeah, the publisher itself doesn't do a lot. Maybe posts on social media that, yay. You know, the book is out and stuff like that. The PR company I worked with arranged a launch for me, and which, with my first book, was really helpful, because I didn't really know what I was doing. And they also arranged, like, a little mini tour for me to go to different cities. And that was really, you know, really fun and exciting. But as time has gone on. I mean, so then when I started, actually even the end of the series, when I was doing my own PR and now, of course, in the indie space, you know, I usually do a big launch party at a local bookstore. That's been very supportive of me, and that's great. But the last book was the first book that I actually didn't do a launch because I just feel like it's all I was spending a lot of money for, like food and drinks and balloons and prizes and all this kind of stuff. And most of the people that showed up were probably going to buy the book anyway, so it was kind of like a nice party for me and the bookstore and, you know, those people that showed up. But in terms of, you know, getting the book out there, you know, farther, I feel like that's sort of an online job. And again, I mean, I hate to bring it always back to ads, but I really think that ads are, you know, kind of the key the, you know, you can reach Facebook's, you know, billion users, and that's something that's super, super powerful. So that is, kind of what I do now, is really lean into the online presence,
Paulette Stout 39:02
cool and Alison, what are your thoughts there?
Alison Hammer 39:05
You know, the first thing I want to say is that, like the phrase like, what works, I think that what like say, I don't, I don't know, does anything work? But I think that, like, you also have to establish what your goals are, because if you're talking about works as in sales, like, that's one way of working. But again, like most of us, don't want to have just one book and be done. We want to build a readership. We want to build a community. We want to build relationships, and have people like look forward to our read our past books. And so, you know, that's something that we think a lot about. As far as what the publishing company does, they do have marketing so they, you know, they, and I forgot to mention this before, they do a couple good reads giveaways before and and that, I think, is one of the, the really great things, what for anybody to do, because when somebody enters the contest, that it automatically, excuse me, has them as a want to read, and they will get. An alert when your book comes out. So I think that that, I believe that's how it works. So I think that that's something that's really beneficial to do. So they do that, but they'll do advertising on Facebook. They'll do advertising on Amazon a little bit. You know, we don't have insight to to the details of that. We've had some help putting together a book tour when we had an outside publicist. The that publicist helped us with that this year, they helped us a little bit. But again, you know, their goals as a you have to think about it differently, because their goals as a big publishing company are to sell books and to sell, like 1000s of copies of books. For us, our goals are, of course, also to sell 1000s of copies but but you know, just as importantly, to build a brand and to build relationships. And so for the publishing company, a tour is not necessarily, like very worth the time and the money, but for us, it's been priceless, because we have relationships with booksellers who are going to hand sell our books. We've met readers who are going to be our friends and our advocates. And so I think that just thinking about the word works is is interesting, because for us, we're really thinking about it for the long game, individual book sales and building that brand.
Paulette Stout 41:12
Yeah, I think that's so critical. And I'm curious, you know, you're talking about building the brand and having people come with you along the way. I'm curious, from a Trad perspective. Obviously, you run with a publisher where you have multiple titles, so do they ever go back and kind of give a little love to a backlist title in the same series to kind of, you know, ramp up when the new book is coming out?
Alison Hammer 41:33
So we don't have series our our Ali Brady, books are all connected. They're they're in the same world. And there's easter eggs of characters from past books that show up. But they do the last two times they have done a book, bub, for our previous book, leading up to it, to try to get new readers. And, you know, somebody reads the last book and is like, Oh, I really like it. And hey, there's a brand new one coming. Well, it works out great. So they are, they are strategic and things like that. And they've got all of this. They don't, you know, they don't share the individual data, but they have the data on what's worth it and where, you know, they know that behaviors that people don't pre order until it's soon. And so, like you might have some people pre ordering, you know, a book a year out or six months out, but most pre orders come in later, and so they model their decisions based on that. And one of the biggest cons, I think, of traditional publishing is you have very little control, and so you're here being like, I want to do everything I can to help my book be a success. And it's like, you kind of have to trust that the publishing company is going to be helping you, and then also do what you're comfortable with with your time and your money and the resources that you have. Yeah, Lainey, go ahead, I
Lainey Cameron 42:50
was just going to add there that I think pre order campaigns are one of the areas where I see people get the most confused about different models. So, you know, pre order campaigns came from this traditional world where they were designed to create excitement with bookstores, right? If bookstores see that lots of people are pre ordering, they get excited. They are more they order more copies. They're more likely to push the book right. But then I see, like, indie authors or small publisher authors, going, I must do a pre order campaign, and they take the money that they could have spent after their book was out, and they spend in the pre order period? Well, that's actually wasting money. Because if you do the same thing, when the book is out and someone can buy the book, 100% of the people who might have bought it will buy it. If you do a pre order campaign, some number of people will go, Oh, it's on pre order. I'll just wait. I don't know if it's 1% 10% or 50% some percentage. As an indie author in pre the book being available, you're you're generating demand, but some of it's getting wasted. Also, you're spreading out your Amazon ranking over time, instead of it all hitting when your book comes out. And so I see this all the time, that indie authors do something that makes perfect sense for traditional authors, but maybe it doesn't make sense for them as an indie author, and it's just a good example of where it kind of is different, right across the two it's
Alison Hammer 44:05
hugely different. And that's such a good point, because, you know, the reasons for pre orders are a to let your publishing company know that people are excited about it in hopes that they will spend more money to support and promote it. Because they're like, Oh, wow. People really want this book to convince booksellers to get it in. And then also, because those first sales, I hear you on the Amazon ranking, but if you pre order those sales, all go to your first day or first week sales. And the reason that you want high first week sales is that is your best chance of getting on one of the lists, the USA to date list or the New York Times list. And so that is the reason. But it would take a lot for an indie book to get on on one of those lists, as you know, at the state of where they're indie published. So that's a great reason to think about why people are doing those things, because it really doesn't make sense for indie authors to do pre dark, yeah.
Paulette Stout 44:58
The other reason it doesn't make sense is. Doesn't actually calculate the same way for indie authors. Indie Author sales get carried the day they are sold. They do not aggregate, like Apple aggregate, Barnes and Noble will aggregate. Amazon does not aggregate pre, pre launch copies into day one, week one book sales tallies. So that's it's a completely different calculation. So it's another reason it doesn't work. Yeah, for me, I put my books out because I write in a series, so I just kind of breadcrumb it in the back matter, and if someone wants to buy it, go ahead. Back yourself out. You finish the book, and you want to, know, go buy it. But otherwise it's like, I don't sell a ton pre sale. So it just is making the point we're all making here. I think,
Michelle Cox 45:42
yeah, exactly. I do want to just go back for a second to what you were saying, Alison, about building relationships with, you know, readers and bookstores. That is actually super important. There is the bookseller in Chicago. It's great for indie authors. And one of the things that I do to try this, to not just go in to these bookstores and be like, Oh, hi, remember me. Do you have stuck my book, blah, blah, blah, but to show up to other authors events. Because not only are you, you know, supporting that author, but I think that that's helping to build the relationship with the bookstores too. And
Alison Hammer 46:22
I do want to say that's the bookseller, C, E, L, L, A, R, great indie bookstore in Chicago.
Michelle Cox 46:28
Yeah, they're awesome,
Lainey Cameron 46:32
awesome. And I have one other comment on the launch party thing. I agree that I don't necessarily, you know, think that a launch party sells books as such. What I advise the people who take my class 12 weeks to book launch success is actually do a party for you. Do a party, especially if you're a debut, right? So to your point, Michelle, if it's book seven, maybe you don't need to do this anymore. But if you're a debut, you do something special to mark the moment, because you just had this massive achievement, and you should celebrate that achievement, whether it's going out with your friends, or it's buying wine, or it's it doesn't necessarily even have to be about selling books. But Mark that moment, because 99% of people who say they're going to write a book never finish it. 99% of people who write a book never publish it. So like you are in that point, point 1%
Michelle Cox 47:13
Yeah, i Exactly. And for book four of my series, I decided to deviate from the launch party, and I did a party at the Green Mill, which is like a jazz club that dates back to the 40s in Chicago. And it features into some of my books, because I write historical mystery, and I just invited all of my readers to come to the Green Mill at that night. It was a big band night, and it was just tons and tons of fun. So, yes, do something. One more
Alison Hammer 47:43
point about that. So our, our first book tour was for the beach trap, and because my first two books came out during the pandemic, I hadn't been able to do that. So I wanted to do it, and I wanted to go big, and I spent too much money. I had, you know, like I bought food at places, I had drinks, like I because I wanted to do a party for myself. Now, something that we look for when we're doing it is like, to your point, you don't want to get the people who are already going to read it. So one of the things that we've been doing is looking for bookstores that have a reputation of having a community and having events and having people come to their events, because it's not worth it if you're always seeing the same people, you want to go to a place and have a conversation partner that might be bring other readers, that will attract you know and be interested in your book, and bookstores that have a good network and good marketing to help bring people also, because everything you're doing you're trying to find new readers.
Paulette Stout 48:39
Yeah, and I 100% of you, I've I've not done one launch part for myself, but what I have done is bought bookcakes So you can buy a good cake for yourself, even if you have a party. I had, like a book group and I did a book group, like my book group did my book and then I got the bookcake that time. But I highly recommend finding a local bakery that makes bookcakes and having a bookca, because there's something about seeing your book and having, like, a celebration around your cover. And anyway, I'm all about the booking, so just want to get that in. I know we're we gotta go to the next question. But now I
Lainey Cameron 49:11
have a new goal, because I did not have a bookcake for my first book, which was also during the pandemic. And so now I'm like, okay, Book Two gets a bookcake. I gotta make it happen. Yes. So the next section we wanted to talk about post launch. So once your book is out, what do you have control of? What are you able to do? And I think it's very interesting. Alison, you know, you were saying, advertising isn't something that you control. Obviously, that's something the publisher does. So I think it's really interesting in your case, like, what do you have control of, or what can you do, or what does your publisher do for you after the book is out, as opposed to during the launch? So
Alison Hammer 49:45
good question, and I think we're still trying to figure that out, and we are doing we this time we started doing some ads ourselves. Bradeigh has tried to understand and has done Facebook ads and Amazon ads for us and TBD on. On the value or worth of that, but it's something that we're that we are trying. But after again, there's a schedule, and so it's, you know, you get, I feel like a lot of high intensity for the first two weeks, and then it starts to slowly go down for us. Our books have all been like summer books, and we've had one come out in May, one come out in June, and one come out in July. There's a difference, because do you have the entire the runway of the whole summer, or do you have, you know, a shorter a shorter time toward the end, there are people who read summer books, and I'm doing air quotes, but, you know, year round, or when they go on vacation, or things like that. But within the traditional publishing model, they're ready to move on. When your book comes out, after a couple weeks, they're moving on to the next book for their next season, and then also thinking ahead to the next year. So it really is a it's a machine that you that you fit into. But we do try to do we try to keep the conversation going. We try to connect with book clubs. We try to get the individual advocates and people to read it. Try to get readers engaged. And again, we're going to be late in just about a month, we'll be revealing our cover of our next book, to get to get maybe even a new audience with that. So just, you know, I makes me think, just keep swimming. Just try it. Try your best.
Lainey Cameron 51:25
Yeah, it's really interesting. I've heard it said that big publishers make a decision about how successful they think a book is even, like, as it's coming out, right? Like, it's very different to an indie book, right? Like, in terms of when they when they feel like they know how well the book's done. I,
Alison Hammer 51:39
you know, I think that that yes and no, for the most part, yes. And if you read the book yellow face, which was great, and also very depressing, there is definitely an amount of, you know, a publisher can choose to make a book successful by putting more marketing, by putting more efforts and energy into that. But you also see cases where they put a ton of money into it and readers just don't like it. Also, the other thing I think about all the time is that we're talking about success in book sales. That doesn't just because you buy a book doesn't mean somebody's going to like it, or they're going to read it, or they're going to buy your next one. And so that's why I think all these different things and metrics matter. But it's really it's really hard to know. That's why you have to do your best and do the things that you enjoy or that you can do, because you know what you do. And again, with a traditional publisher, they're looking at book sales and 1000s, nothing I do will, will can do that. So you know you want to do everything you can. But also I feel like you should relax a little bit with like, not put so much pressure on yourself, because if you don't enjoy it, and it's not, you know, it's not that then, then it's okay to not do it. Your your involvement and your running ads is not going to make or break the success of your book.
Lainey Cameron 52:55
Great and Michelle, what about for you? You've been in the hybrid model. You're indie, like, when it comes to the book is out, it sounds like advertising is where you're betting. Kind of it makes the biggest difference. Yeah, I
Michelle Cox 53:06
think advertising. And also I usually come up come out with the audio book a few months after the launch, as a kind of a as a way to sort of keep that momentum going. I also look for chirp deals, which is book clubs audio arm, that's really good to it's, you know, similar to getting a book club deal, it's generating a lot of readers, a lot of response. And I think, you know, all of the I think that's underrated, but I think that all of the reader Facebook groups out there are really huge and really important, and I have found a lot of success with those because a lot of them do, like, you know, an annual, you know, author event, and I think it's a way to get exposed to a lot of new readers, especially if you do, you know, some giveaways. So I really think that that's effective too. But, you know, it's kind of like Alison is saying it's like, at some point you kind of have to move on to the next book coming out, and hopefully that new book, you know, sells, sells the backlist. Which I do think is an advantage of indie publishing, is that you are always selling your backlist.
Paulette Stout 54:21
Yeah. I mean, I think for me, one of post launch strategies is like, I try to hold my prices and not discount as so at some period after launch, I will probably do some kind of price promotion. So I will drop the price. I will run a bunch of news. I'll do a newsletter stack, which is when you run, you know, multiple different newsletters. You know book, both the bargain Booksy, you know, Robin reads, you know, whatever. That gives you all the different ones, and you run them within a few days of each other. So hopefully you get some algorithmic lift on the retailers, and then they will also, like, push your books. And I think so that can be helpful. I. Having just been in KU there are some different opportunities there to, like, you know, go into prime reading and other things. And then you could potentially do promotions around that on Facebook or on book Bob or other places when you, you know, kind of hit on one of those, if you're in, you know, Katie be select, or if you're wide, there's, you know, other things that you can do at different times. Alison, you want to jump in on something? Yeah.
Alison Hammer 55:21
So I remember looking for myself for these different newsletters, and a lot of those people that that read the newsletters are looking for deals, and so those are most successful. When you have a deal, you're not a surprise. When you're traditionally published, you don't have control of the price, and so it's not worth the price of getting into a newsletter unless you have a deal, because if there's all these 99 cent dollar 99 and yours is 1299 it just, it doesn't, it doesn't have the same it doesn't have the same effect. And the other thing that's interesting for traditional publishing, a lot of times you don't find out when your book is going to be on sale. So I've had people say, like, Oh, your book is $1.99 or it's on chirp or something like that. And it's like, Oh, shoot. Then you have to really quickly put together a graphic and try to promote it. So you don't always have the the lead time. So those newsletters, you know, unless you know that you have a sale coming up, it's not the best. You know purpose of your use of your money, if you're traditional published, it's
Lainey Cameron 56:23
a great example of something that's like a well known best practice in the indie world and makes no sense in the in the traditional world, right? Like, go put your book in a bunch of newsletters at full price. Don't do it. Don't do it. It's total waste of time and money. Yeah, total waste of time and money. So I think we're ready. Unless Paulette, you had anything else you wanted to say on this topic? Okay, I think we're ready to go to our last two questions here, and I'm actually most excited about the very last one. But first I wanted to ask each of you, is there anything you wish you knew back when, or any advice you would give to your past self based on all of what you've learned here over the last years. And let me pass this one off to Michelle first. Yeah,
Michelle Cox 57:05
that's a great question. Um, I guess I wish at the beginning I would have not stayed with she writes press for so long. Nothing against them, but I just think I it was a com. It was my comfort zone, and I was too afraid to get out of that until push really came to shove. But I wish I had done that earlier, but I didn't. And I guess advice that I would give to a new writer or a younger me would be to kind of try to figure out what your goal in writing is. So is it to just, you know, do a bucket list book, you know, and a memoir or something you've you've only got one book in you and that's it. Or if you're trying to do this, you know, just as a hobby and it's a passion project, or if you're actually trying to make a career out of it and make money. Those three paths are very, very different, and you, if you, if you can identify that early on, you will save yourself a lot of time and money and heartache. So that would be my advice. If you can do that.
Lainey Cameron 58:15
I love that. Alison, so
Alison Hammer 58:18
I started laughing when he asked that question, because, like, my like joking, but half honest answer is, I don't know if I would have done it.
Michelle Cox 58:24
No, that's what I want to say. There are so
Alison Hammer 58:28
many hardships and it's so hard to not have control. But it's also the most incredible, wonderful thing in the world to have people reading your words and thinking about your characters as if they're as real as they are to you. So it's, like, incredible, but it's hard. And I wish I really understood that every level is hard. You know, you think, like, if you're going the traditional path, you're like, Oh, I got an agent. I'm set now. No, you're not. Oh, I sold my book. I'm set now. No, you're not like that, like, it's always keeping you on your toes, and there's a new challenge at every level. But that's why the community and the writer friends that you build are so priceless, because you're not alone in it. And I think that publishing is very isolating with the amount of information they give you and what you're supposed to talk about or not talk about, and so as a writer, you have very little control, and that can be that can be hard. And as far as advice, you know, I think maybe that would have been my advice, but I 100% agree with Michelle and Lainey. You and I had this conversation when you were trying to figure out what to do. It's like you have to figure out your goals, because the there's no wrong way in every book, every author, you know, not just every author. Every author's book is different with with what's the best thing for it and what you want, if you want to be in the airport bookstores like I did, then you really traditional is your only way, if you just want to get your book out and get it to the most readers as soon as you can, that is not traditional, because it takes a really, really long time. So there's not a right or a wrong way. There's maybe a right thing for you at that moment, for that book. Yeah, that's
Lainey Cameron 1:00:00
awesome. And, you know, I
Paulette Stout 1:00:02
love that. I love that book specificity, because it can vary from project to project, and you shouldn't feel right or wrong if you want to pivot, like you know, Michelle did, or if you you know, whatever path we're on, it's always, you know, going from running alone to running with someone else. I mean, it's all part of the journey, and pivoting is totally good. I'm sorry. Lainey, go ahead.
Lainey Cameron 1:00:22
No, you answer, what's what's your answer to this question? What
Paulette Stout 1:00:25
would you my answer? Okay, I would say you don't have to do all the things, because when you start indie publishing, it is like a fire hose is coming at you. You're in every chat room, you're in every newsletter, you're in all these classes, you're listening to all these podcasts, you're reading articles, and you're getting this mass amount of information, and you just feel like a big pet failure because you don't know, like, you don't know what to do, you don't know what you don't know. And you make mistakes, and then you feel like you're like, some kind of way, because you made mistakes. So I just would feel like, just breathe, do what you can, and then learn more as you go, like, start small and grow, I guess, in other words, and give yourself Grace if you make mistakes. And it isn't if you make mistakes, it's when you make mistakes, you will make mistakes. So just kind of breathe and it's it'll know, it'll be okay. I love that. Lainey, how about you? Um,
Lainey Cameron 1:01:21
Michelle, did you something to add there first? Yeah,
Michelle Cox 1:01:23
I did. Paulette, I did the same thing. And at the beginning, I just did anything that came my way, anything I would say yes to even, like, a local bookstore called me up, it's in like, this fancy suburb, and they're like, Oh, we want you to be a part of our indie author day. And I'm like, Oh, really. Okay, how exciting. And so I got there, and they're like, Yeah, we want you to hold the door. What they're like, Yeah, you can talk about people your book as people come in, and I'm like, okay, I can do it. You know, it's just so ridiculous, what you're willing to put up with at the beginning, and there's nothing wrong with it. But you know, you figure out over time what works, what doesn't, and you just have only so much time. Go
Paulette Stout 1:02:07
ahead, there is something on there is something very wrong. Look what happened to you. Oh, my Lord. People, if you're listening to the audio podcast, maybe pop onto YouTube once in a while, because you get, like, facial expressions. Because, like, Yeah, I'm gonna go on mute right now, because I can't even,
Lainey Cameron 1:02:25
this is Lainey. I can't even add to this. So I was gonna say, like, if I was giving advice to my past self, I gotta beat that. But like, I was gonna say, there's a reason they call it an author career. And I think, like in general, across all publishing models, we get a bit too focused on thinking the first book is, like the thing and like, if I were to go back and talk to pass me, and Alison helped me so much, like she said, because she said, you know, what's your goal? And I said, my goal is I want to start building credibility and building my life as an author and getting my book to readers. You know what? That didn't require me to be with a big publisher to do that. So why would I wait for some big publisher opportunity? But I also think that I still put so much pressure on myself that, like this first book is it, and it, you know, everything teased from the first book, and it all builds from there. And I think, you know, we call it an author career. And if you think about your other career right before, or other than being a writer, you didn't take your first job out of college and say, like, Oh, my entire career is all dependent on this one job out of college. It felt that way, right when we started out, right when we walked in that door of the first job out of college. It felt like our entire future was based on that one moment in time, that day. But in retrospect, looking back, was it No, hell no. Like things go up, they go down. Things change life, your priorities change. And I think, like just that pressure on the first book, thinking that it's all about that first book and everything. It's almost like we trip it, treat it like a step, and then we think it's going to be like this regimen and step set of steps above it, right? Step one is book one, and step two and step three and step four. But it doesn't actually work that way. And I think if we take that pressure off ourselves and stop thinking about like the future of everything is dependent on the first book. It just makes it a bit more fun as well. Like, it's not we can breathe to palette point, we can breathe a little bit more that it's just the first step. And it's not, you know, it goes, it goes, it doesn't go. So anyway, most important question I want to hear from Allison and Michelle. You both either have a book about to come out or a book that just came out. I want to hear a little bit more about them. So Alison, let's lead off with you. You just had one come out, and you got another one coming next year. Tell us more
Alison Hammer 1:04:27
about it. Yeah, so until next summer. If you're just looking on video, I'm holding up the book cover. It is an Ali Brady book, so co written with, with Bradeigh Godfrey, my one of my besties. And it is a, it's it's, we're gearing a little bit more toward romance. Our next book is full romance, but it takes place at an adult summer camp with two former best friends who come together for one last summer at the camp that they both loved. They they repair their friendship and both find love. So it's been really fun to have that. Come out, and it did hit the USA Today bestseller list, which is the first book for either of us that's ever done that. So that was really exciting. And then one other thing I'm excited that we just launched, or just announced last week, I have an essay coming out in a book that zibby Owens is publishing, called on being Jewish now that comes out the ebook, and the ebook comes out October 1, and the print comes out November 1. So that has been just a beautiful thing to be a part of. So that is my most that's the that's the thing coming up next.
Lainey Cameron 1:05:33
That's great. And Michelle, what about for you?
Michelle Cox 1:05:36
Um, I just had a book, my first indie book, come out in March, and that was the Fallen woman's daughter. So that was based on a real story that I heard in a nursing home. So it's, it's doing really well. It's a little bit of a different tone than my Henrietta inspector Howard series. But, you know, it's a book, I think, because it was my first indie is really dear to my heart. And then in September 5, which is, like in a few weeks, I have a new book coming out called matched in Merriweather. And that is book, one of the Merriweather novels. So it stars melody Merriweather, and she is a character in the original series. So she's, it's a spin off series. She's getting her own series, and this is going to be a five book series, and they are all Jane Austen retellings. So book wine is obviously a retelling of Emma. So very exciting,
Lainey Cameron 1:06:32
cool. Well, we are at our time here. Paulette, any last comments before we wrap up here?
Paulette Stout 1:06:38
No, I just want to thank both Michelle and Alison for joining us. This has been a great conversation. Yeah, thanks. Thanks
Michelle Cox 1:06:45
for having us. This
Alison Hammer 1:06:46
is Thank you. It's been really fun and hopefully helpful. Yeah, I
Lainey Cameron 1:06:50
hope so. And just a reminder that you can add comments on the YouTube or on Facebook, we will do our best to make sure we respond if you were watching the live or if you're watching it after the fact. And also, I want to point out that all of the links to all of the books that we talked about are on the episode page on our website at best of bookmarketing.com including I will add the one for Alison's new anthology, or your role in the new anthology there that you just referenced to make sure people can easily find it. So check out the website. We have tons of resources, and we also have the link to the book from our sponsor that we were talking about earlier, which will help you with doing your own PR from Lillian sue the powerful publicity prescription. And I want to say thank you. That's our first sponsor. And I love that Lillian had confidence in actually, kind of putting her trust in us to be our first sponsor. So thank you for that. And with that, we will wrap up.
Michelle Cox 1:07:41
Thanks. Bye, bye.