Episode 103: How to Publish a Book on a Budget
Publishing and promoting books can be expensive. Lainey and Paulette discuss ways you can save on costs when writing, editing, producing, and distributing your book.
We also cover ways to save money when building your author platform and with book marketing.
We discuss various costs involved in publishing and marketing a book, including editing, formatting, proofreading, cover design, and securing ISBN numbers.
We chat about the importance of starting small and gradually scaling up, and using free or low-cost tools and platforms such as Gmail, Substack, and Canva.
Episode Resources
4 Self-Publishing Tasks You Shouldn’t Pay For by Paulette Stout
Author Platform on a Budget - Free Download
BookFunnel - platform mentioned for collaborating on author giveaways and swapping audiences
Canva - an intuitive design tool that can be used for graphics, video, and even to host a simple website
Women’s Fiction Marketing Co-Op. A facebook group where authors of women’s fiction can collaborate on co-marketing opportunities, like newsletter swaps. Open to published authors of women’s fiction.
Women’s Fiction Writers Retreats. Lainey is giving a special Book Marketing Boot Camp, included in the registration for the Albuquerque retreat.
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Books Mentioned
Bold Journeys Series by Paulette Stout
Connect with Paulette:
Laura Drake’s women’s fiction novels
The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron
Author Beth Cox - debut novel coming soon!
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means Lainey earns a tiny commission (maybe enough for half a coffee) if you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.
Episode Sponsor Segment
Paulette’s award winning novels - find the full information here on her website
Book Marketing Boot Camp by Lainey Cameron - included in the registration for the Albuquerque retreat, part of Women’s Fiction Writers Association Writing Retreats
Paulette’s Indie author coaching - schedule time here or email her at info@paulettestout.com
12 Weeks to Book Launch Success - Lainey’s program to help authors successfully launch their book
Women Writers Women’s Books - Contact Barbara Bos - email barbarabos@booksbywomen.org - for info on sponsorship of the sites, group and social media
Note: next sections are mostly created by AI for your convenience - so please forgive any typos or inaccuracies!
Summary
The conversation centered around cost-effective strategies for authors to build their platform without breaking the bank.
Lainey Cameron and Paulette Stout discuss the importance of starting small and gradually scaling up, using free or low-cost tools and platforms such as Gmail, Substack, and Canva. They share their experiences as writers and emphasized the importance of resilience, kindness, and gratitude in navigating the ups and downs of the writing journey.
They discussed various costs involved in publishing and marketing a book, including editing, formatting, proofreading, cover design, and securing ISBN numbers. Paulette also recommended doing self-publishing tasks oneself to save money and offered tips for effective learning strategies.
Publishing on a budget, including free options and cost-benefit analysis
Lainey Cameron and Paulette Stout discuss how to publish on a budget.
Paulette Stout shares her personal update on trying Kindle Unlimited for her eBooks. Writing, editing, and publishing books, with a focus on the author's personal experiences and upcoming events.
Paulette Stout discusses her writing process and upcoming book release. She shares her experience with editor notes and the benefits of revising.
Lainey updates listeners on her personal life, including a recent trip to England for her mother's 80th birthday party.
Gratitude and self-reflection in the writing community. Her writing journey and the pressure to compare themselves to other authors. She expresses gratitude for their supportive author community and their ability to bring their book out on their own timeline.
Spending money vs. time in book marketing
Paulette & Lainey discuss publishing and marketing costs for books, including editing, formatting, proofreading, cover design, and more.
Time versus money in book marketing, highlighting the importance of balancing effort and expenses.
The need to spend money to reach a larger audience for discounted book sales.
Spending money vs. time for authors, including book funnel, NetGalley, web design, cover design, and DIY vs Hiring help
Save money by doing book promotion yourself, such as building an advanced reader team or using platforms like Book Funnel.
Avoid spending excessively on Net Galley, a co-op or subscription is more cost-effective for indie authors.
Paulette and Lainey advise against using WordPress for website design due to its complexity and frequent plugin updates.
Paulette recommends investing in professional cover design for books to optimize sales due to designers' understanding of book conventions and visual optimization.
Self-publishing costs, cover design, and website creation
Lainey advises against overspending on custom cover art, emphasizing genre consistency over exact character details.
Hiring a cover designer can save time and money in the long run.
Doing your own website on Squarespace or Wix can be faster and more cost-effective.
Trading skills and formatting books for indie authors
Trading skills with other authors to save money on book production.
Paulette advises authors to buy their own ISBNs for multiple formats to avoid confusion.
Outsourcing media outreach and cover design
Lainey discusses book cover design, quality, and media outreach. She suggests trading skills with a friend for media outreach, avoiding expensive publicists.
Researching media segments and proposing topics for specific segments can be done by someone else in a trade.
Leveraging free resources for book marketing and publishing
Paulette discusses free tools for publishing a book, including Canva and Book Brushes.
Many vendors offer free courses and webinars to build their brand and help people, expecting only a small percentage to purchase the paid version.
Paulette admits to being a "course hoarder" and recommends using free courses to learn before purchasing the paid version.
Building author platform without spending money
Lainey shares tips on avoiding course buying regret. Give yourself time before buying courses to assess priorities
Sponsor Break
Sponsor opportunities available for writers who trust and believe in products/services
Lainey discusses book marketing retreat in Albuquerque, teaching Book Marketing Bootcamp.
Author platform building with various options for email, website, and domain name
Author Platform on the Cheap topic discussed. Lainey talks about author platform, emphasizing website, email, and newsletter.
Lainey suggests $20-year author platform option with domain name cost.
She suggests using Substack for author platform instead of traditional website, discusses pros and cons of using domain name email address vs. Gmail address for author communication.
Cost-effective strategies for authors, including email marketing, website building, and audience swapping
Paulette suggests starting with minimum viable product to test audience interest and save money.
Beth confirms in comments that using Canva Pro for website without additional cost for existing Canva subscribers.
Paulette shares tips on building an audience and swapping audiences with other authors.
Author swaps, promotions, and organizing events
Laura Drake, Lainey & Paulette started a platform for author swaps in January this year. The Women's Fiction Marketing Co-Op is a Facebook group for authors to swap and collaborate on opportunities.
Book funnel and Book Sweeps are other platforms for finding author swaps, with the free version of Book funnel offering the author swap feature.
Paulette emphasized the importance of putting oneself out there and volunteering in the author community to build connections and opportunities. She shared an example of organizing a holiday giveaway with multiple authors, which helped promote their audiobook.
Publishing books on a budget, including volunteering and networking
Lainey suggests volunteering for writing-related tasks to build skills and connections.
Volunteering with writing associations can help develop skills and meet people in the industry.
Paulette Stout recommends not paying for certain book marketing services.
Find resources on the podcast website, including a download with budget-friendly author platform recommendations.
Transcript
Lainey Cameron 0:02
This is Lainey Cameron, and I'm here with my co host Paulette Stout on the best of book marketing. And this is gonna be, I think, a really helpful episode to a lot of authors. So we're going to talk about how to publish on a budget. And I was just looking back at our notes on various things. We call this episode before how to publish on a budget, I think, because I'm Scottish, I love the word cheap. I think I had at one point, like how to do it on the cheap. And then I think we hadn't how to publish without breaking the bank. But we went with how to publish on a budget, because it's not necessarily always about the cheapest choice. It's about the smartest choice. And I think a lot of authors are strapped for cash, and they're trying to make the right decisions. And one of the things we're going to talk about in this episode is yes, there are places where you can absolutely like go with the free version, we encourage you to, and there are other places where we're like, let's think about this because there's a question of money versus time quality, if you don't actually get the readers because you did something that was so cheap that they didn't really appreciate. So this is going to be a fun episode, I think. Paulette, any thoughts or comments from you before we kick off?
Paulette Stout 1:04
No, I think that that I think it's something that a lot of people struggle with, regardless of your publishing path, for sure. I mean, there's definitely costs involved in self publishing, but they're also cost involved in just prepping to query. So I think the stuff that we're going to cover today will help people regardless of your publishing path.
Lainey Cameron 1:23
Totally agree. And we'll try and differentiate, we try to talk about when things are different by publishing path because some things do differ. So let's, before we get going into the meat of this whole topic of how to publish on a budget, why don't we do our regular personal updates, and I would love for you to go go first Colette, because I know that you've got some really interesting news this month. I know I have like a head notes for today. But then I was just in some groups, I decided to give Kindle Unlimited a try. And for those who know that's the exclusive subscription program
Paulette Stout 1:54
for people who read on Amazon. So I've been wide. Since the beginning, I've been a really proponent of publishing wherever people read, including libraries and all the retailers. But some of my books, my eBooks, specifically, and that's what this is about ebooks. They weren't moving as much. And I'm just gonna give it a test and see how it goes. So I'll report back and let everybody know how it goes. But I suspect that a lot of my readers are subscriber readers, and they prefer not to outlay cash for books and read as part of their subscription. So we'll see how that goes. Beyond that. I just got my voluminous notes back from my editor on the fourth book in my series, so meeting with her money to kind of wrangle through all of that. And I think it's a good reminder that when you get notes back from your editor, you don't have to agree with everything. But I unfortunately, do.
Lainey Cameron 2:45
You and I, you we were talking earlier this week about the idea that the happiest, happiest time in your book is right before you get those editor notes when you believe it is so damn good. And that editor is going to say, oh, Paulette, it's fabulous. You don't need to change anything. This happens to me every time. And then you get the notes and you're like, oh, no, I have to go back and do all this work. Yeah, I was I was like when I got this note, I was trying to visualize what it's like having a huge boulder in your living room. And you know that you have to move the boulder.
Paulette Stout 3:16
You maybe if you'd like squat and you can roll it a little or something. But when you move the boulder then you see oh, I had a window and oh, I have room for my chocolate fountain now and all these fun things. So it always makes makes it better. But it's a lot of work to get there for sure. And I'm gonna say hi to Botox. So I see is here live, which is fabulous. Hey, Beth, you've just got a book coming out. I actually have it on my Kindle. I get to read an early version. Haven't made it to it yet, because I have a long list of early versions to read. But I know that that's book is coming out this year. So I'm excited to see that it's women's fiction. Awesome. And then one other quick thing we've there's a running a promotion, like a Christmas in July promotion where there's some free books and authors are getting together to help promote books. So if you go to my website, plot supply calm on the homepage, you can went over and check out if any of those free books are interesting to you. That is a co marketing free thing on book funnel. So I guess those are the big things. I have something coming up on July. Oh, July 20. I will be in Rhode Island live selling books at a general store hopefully because well you can check out that on my events page of the website. So I guess those are the big things.
Lainey Cameron 4:32
And yeah, so last month, I shared that it'd been a really tough previous month I was sick, my mom was sick, she broke her shoulder. We had family issues. It was all kinds of stuff going on. And I'm very happy to tell you that I am sitting here recording this right now. Looking at the window in London. I made it to England for the big trip for my mom's 80th birthday party. It was touching go for a while but we made it and that party was last weekend and my health is so much better.
Lainey Cameron 4:58
And so life is looking much better than it was a month ago, which is fabulous. And I'm even back into working on my second book with more time to give to it. Now that I am settled here, I'm actually in a beautiful office that I have borrowed from my cousin in law, we're staying in their house in London. And when I get to hang out with their dog, it's kind of fabulous. Anyway, I'm back to working on my second book, which is fabulous. And I just celebrated. And I love how we know these things, because it comes up on social media, Facebook brought up a reminder, like just the other way day that it was four years since my debut launched. And I had kind of two reactions to that, like the first reaction was like, yay, oh, my goodness, it's been four years, and I've been so happy with how that book has done. It became a best seller and feminist fiction at 115 awards. But more importantly, it kind of made me take a moment and think about the journey since the book came out. And just like the kindness and the resilience, and the power of that community of writers and authors, and how I've experienced that, over the last four years, I've been part of and been able to help with other writers. And it just gave me that moment of wanting to just say thank you to everybody who has been part of my journey, whether I've helped you or you've helped me, or we've just interacted on social media, like I just had this moment of absolute gratitude this week, because I love this community. And I just I feel like it's not like other places, other industries, I've worked in tech and other industries. And what we have in the writing community is very, very special. And so I just kind of like wanted to take a moment to thank everybody I even see Gail Gill priest on here, we talked about her book in our first episode. So also a fabulous supporter of other writers. So and then the other thing that made me think of was, I kind of had this moment of like, Oh, my goodness, it's been four years, and I'm still working on my second book. And I had to kind of step back from that and ask myself, what's going on there? And why am I feeling both simultaneously grateful and happy and a little bit angsty about it? And I reminded myself that it all comes from comparison, right? Comparison is the thief of joy. And you know, I don't need my fourth my book to come out my first, my second, my third, my fourth to honor on a timeline. Like it's not that that's not really what my journey is and what this means to me. And so it was a really good reminder that sometimes comparing to other authors, in this case going, Oh, my goodness, since my debut came out, you know, Paulette's had three books come out, or four books, but it's not helpful, like that is really, truly not helpful. And so it was a good reminder for me to step back, step away from the fears and away from the angst and say, like, what's really going on in my head? And is that really what you want how you want to see the world? And I was like, No, that's not how I want to see the world. I am so fortunate that I not on a timeline, that I can bring this book out when it comes out. And I'm really grateful for that.
Paulette Stout 7:31
Yes, I love and I'm so Lainey, we are also grateful for you and the author community here. Everybody who would be watching to this knows what an amazing supportive, selfless person you are, and how giving you are. So we are grateful for you and we are ready, whenever you are ready, we will be there for you. When that book comes out, whether it's next year, or it's five years from now, we will be there with our hands out waiting for your words. So you take all the time you need.
Lainey Cameron 8:00
And I'll talk about this during our little break in the middle of the program. But I also have a really cool thing happening in September, where I'm going to be giving a Book Marketing Bootcamp at the retreat for women's fiction writers in Albuquerque. So I'll share a little bit more about that when we get to the midpoint in the episode. So let's get into it. Let's get into our content. So let let's I have written down here, maybe we should start by talking about like what goes into publishing and marketing a book that takes money. Because if people aren't familiar, and they're still getting their heads around to kind of what what's all the things I need to spend my money on. That might be just a good starting point to say, Okay, let's start with publishing and then start with marketing and talk about okay, what are the things that really cost money here? So do you want to take that one Paulette as kind of the indie queen here?
Paulette Stout 8:42
For sure, for sure. And I think that you know, there's some of them might be familiar. So editing a book, which is getting someone's in, whether it's developmental editing, copy, editing, all of that is money if you want to get someone to help you. But there are ways around that. We'll cover that later on formatting the book, that's actually laying the words on the page with the margins and all that stuff. And if you want to add designs in and page breaks when the theme has changed, or you can hire a foreman or you could not, so we'll talk about that too. Proofreading cover design, buying ISBN numbers. Getting a copyright for your work, securing a library or Congress Control Number. No, all of those things can potentially spend a base place where you can spend money. So marketing you want to.
Lainey Cameron 9:31
Yeah, marketing. Yeah, so on marketing, if I think about it in terms of my book marketing framework, there's things you do for social proof and social proof. It's other people talking about your book, right? So you get to choose for a lot of those whether you pay or don't pay, right. So some of these things like getting reviews from readers. You don't necessarily have to pay to do that. It could be work versus money. But you might want to go book tour where someone organizes an influencer tour for you. There you're paying money, but you could also do it yourself. There you're working as opposed to paying the money because you're putting the time in. And in the, in the awareness space, it's a little bit the same, right? Like, you can use services, you can hire a publicist, or you can do some of these things yourself and you do time over money, right, you're putting your own time into it. Instead, social media is a little bit the same, right? You can do your own social media, or you can have someone help you with it, you can just, you know, take your own photos, you don't have to pay for editing software, or anything if you don't want to, or you can use software, you can use services, and you can use apps and all kinds of things that you could pay money for.
Lainey Cameron 10:30
And so I think the awareness piece is on the marketing side, where people do end up putting big, big bucks in it. And often, and we've talked about this in a past episode, being disappointed by the results in terms of sales, so and then I think the piece it's almost impossible to avoid spending money on is if you want to do a sale and you want to promote that sale, right? Yeah, you could, and by a sale, I mean, like you want to go after a BookBub, or you want to do a discounted price. And you want to put it in some of these newsletters that go out to readers, you know, you could say no, I'm just going to communicate through my social media and other people's newsletters, but you're not going to reach nearly as big an audience with your discounted price. If you don't do some of the things that don't have to be cost a fortune. But some of these, you know, email services that will get out to 100,000 readers or more, you're gonna have a very different impact than just you trying to communicate on your social media, unless you haven't done 10 million followers in which is what are you doing, listen to this, come on as a guest. Tell us more about what you're doing.
Lainey Cameron 11:20
In general, I think you know, that's the piece of the book marketing framework, because I think about it book sales as in discounted pricing, where it's kind of impossible to avoid spending money if you want to do it, right. Otherwise, you discount your book, nobody knows about it. So I know we're going to talk first, actually, about this topic of time versus money. Because I think it really is an equation of in many of these things, you could do it yourself. But do you want to. And so your thoughts on time versus money Paulette?
Paulette Stout 11:47
I think that there are a lot of places that new authors or new writers think that they should spend money in places where they shouldn't, and they don't always necessarily align them. So I think we're gonna talk a little bit about some places where we think you could spend money and some places where you might want to do some of these things that we'll talk about in a few minutes in terms of where to save and where to spend. So I think for sure, one of the places you people spending is on advanced reader teams, there are platforms you can buy, to get, you know, advanced reader reviews.On their places, or book tours, bookstore outreach, media and podcasts, interviews and things like that, you can save hundreds or even 1000s of dollars by doing that stuff yourself,
Lainey Cameron 12:37
By platforms for those who are not familiar, but I think you mean for example, more on the DIY side BookFunnel, if you were to distribute your book through book funnel, and you were to send the book funnel link to people more on the more paid side like Net Galley if you wanted to pay to have your book up on Net Galley and to get out to the readers on Net Galley or book sirens or one of those other services.
Paulette Stout 12:56
Yes, exactly. Book Sirens, Negalley. All those places that can be expensive if you buy them separately, but you can also, you know, go online and foster community and you know, build your own advanced reader team to try to get some of those early reviews, not that social proof we talked about. So for instance,
Lainey Cameron 13:15
A key tip here for for NetGalley. Before I forget, because I've actually heard authors go sign up for Net Galley as a Net Galley member, unless you're publishing tons of books do not go sign up for Net Galley separately yourself, it's very expensive. Enter a co op. And there are lots of co op set there where you can get like for $50 you can be on for a month. Victory editing does well and a lot of small publishers give you access through them to what's the equivalent of a coop. So, you know, don't be spending more than 50 or Max $100 to put your book on Net Galley. You do not need to spend like 8000, you know, 800 or $1,000, I have seen authors do this, they sign up for an annual subscription to Net Galley with one book like don't do it. You don't need to spend that money. It's ridiculous.
Paulette Stout 13:53
No, don't do that. And so yeah, so that's one thing. And the other place is another piece of time versus money is with web design. And I think that, you know, people, people will use websites every day and some people, it's a place that feels really scary. So the instinct is to I can't do website myself, I need to hire somebody. But it's definitely a place where investing the time to kind of learn a platform. There are so easy if you can click and slide a mouse then you can build a website. So there are lots of you know, whether it's Squarespace or Wix, you know, there's lots of them out there. But you can basically click and find and have an update of website up really quickly. So one place that I don't advise new authors to dabble is WordPress. And it's not that WordPress is too complicated to learn because it's not. It's that it's too complicated to maintain. WordPress is what's called an open source platform, which is it's built with a across a worldwide community of developers and everybody makes up and you put it in these marketplaces.
Lainey Cameron 15:00
But all those things are called plugins, you know, they have little ways to do things. And those all needs to be updated on a regular places. And sometimes you use a plugin, and then that developers like, yeah, I want to go find myself and they stopped updating that plugin. And then you try to do it, and it can really break your website. So just don't recommend whether you hire someone or you do it yourself. Just stay away from WordPress, y'all.
Lainey Cameron 15:24
I couldn't agree more. And I'm actually in my old life before I was an author. I was doing tech marketing. And I worked for the company that did PHP, that was the open source company that did the language that WordPress is based on. So I am very familiar with WordPress, and I know how to use it. And I choose not to, I know exactly how to use WordPress inside and out. And I use Squarespace because I don't want to waste my time with updates of plugins on an app on our Whoa, this is not where I should be spending my time I should be writing. And so I could not agree more.
Paulette Stout 15:53
Yeah, for sure. So that was one thing. The other place is you know on cover design now covers you can get expensive covers, you can get affordable covers, definitely recommend that that is one space where place where you would want to spend money because cover designers don't just they're not just good at graphic design. They also understand the conventions of books. And they understand that you don't necessarily want to do a red cover with big block letters on a cozy and you don't want to do black on a romance. So unless it's like a you know, a dark romance, you know, so colors mean things fonts mean things placement mean things are optimal ways to organize your cover or to optimize book sales in an online space. So those are things you miss out on when you do a DIY cover. So can you do it the way I cover that's possible for sure. Is that a spot where you might want to invest? If you're not, you know, pretty skilled with, you know, Canva, or some kind of online platform like, you know, InDesign or something like that. Maybe
Lainey Cameron 17:00
II completely agree. I see. I see. I see authors skimp on the cover. And generally it is they tried to DIY as opposed to hiring a professional designer, they skimp on the cover. And they don't realize that that affects everything else if your cover isn't right, we talked about this in the last episode. If your basics aren't right, right, if your cover isn't right, any money you go spend on advertising is probably wasted. Because your covers turning people off because it's not in genre. It doesn't say quality book, like if your cover does not say quality book in the genre it was supposed to be in everything else you spend money on, it's pretty much you said it last month throwing money down the sewer, right.
Lainey Cameron 17:35
And so the the one thing I do see people do on their cover that they don't need to do is people get so wrapped up in their unique universe and their characters and they want original artwork. And they're like, Oh, my character looks like this. And this particular object is in the book and this particular thing. So what I really need is someone to go do a photo shoot and original artwork or original illustration for my book. And honestly, you don't that is you just getting a little too pristine about your book. And it needs to be perfect. And so long as your genre looks professional, as long as the fonts are right. And it's in genre, if it doesn't matter if it's exactly the color of hair, or the hairstyle that the main character had, or the you know, the object that turns up halfway through the book is portrayed in the correct way, it is not important. And so I think people get a little caught up on that. And they end up escalating their costs on the cover, because they want this thing that is very unique and very specific to the vision in their head, and it doesn't matter.
Paulette Stout 18:25
Yeah, so that's for sure. So cover design is one place where we'd you know, it's probably a good place for you to invest, you don't have to spend a lot of money on a cover. But you can benefit from the skills of even pre made covers by a professional designer that is, you know, knows your genre.
Paulette Stout 18:42
And it also, you know, there's places where time is beneficial. So if you are formatting is a place where a lot of people it feels scary to format a book. But that's definitely a place where spending the time and learning the programs. There's two main ones, there's advocates and there's problem. spending the time to learn that is really going to save you a lot later. But you don't have to pay for changes where you don't have to wait. And a lot of our business sometimes Time is money. So formatting is a place where I would not spend money in terms of you know, hiring someone coverages is definitely one where I think you want.
Paulette Stout 19:18
And then well, I guess the next... Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
Paulette Stout 19:23
So I was thinking to move on to the next category unless you have anything else there. Lainey.
Lainey Cameron 19:27
Yeah, I just want to pick up on this point you made on kind of flexibility if you do it yourself versus if you hire someone. So you know, the thing is if you hire a cover designer, and we do recommend that if you hire a cover design, even as a premade cover your hurt cover designer, then you do need to work with them when you need new versions, right. So it's not going to be as fast as if you did it yourself. It's not gonna be it's gonna be better, but it's probably not gonna be as fast and also on the website side. I think that's where it plays out in the positive way if you do your own website on Squarespace or Wix. And I'm not saying never hire someone, there's some great companies out there you can hire
Lainey Cameron 20:00
Someone if you want to do that tends to be expensive. I've seen people hire people to do their website, and it's been well over $1,000 to get a website done, something that you could have done yourself for, you know, much, much tinier amount of money with Squarespace or Wix. But what you can't do once you hire someone, or you need to really think about is, so I've got a new event coming up and I want to put it on my event page, am I going to have to go back to my designer every single time I need to change something on my website, you do not want that. That's partly why I really recommend doing something where you own it, and it's easy, and you can learn how to use the platform because it the flexibility, right? Once you have a new promo, you know, Paulette's got this Christmas in July coming out, you can slap it up on our website like that in a heartbeat. You don't have to wait for someone else to do the work before you can make a tiny tweak. So that's also a consideration when it comes to kind of do I do it time versus money is not just the original cost, but each time you need a change? How is that going to work?
Paulette Stout 20:49
Yeah, it's just not scalable and sustainable. So for sure, our website is something where roll up your sleeves are in the program. And potentially you can trade skills with someone else, which is a little segue into our next topic of, you know, how do you save money in some of these areas, if you have expertise in an area and someone has expertise in another area, then trading skills can be a really amazing way to save money. And that applies to website design, it applies to editing and applies to proofreading, learning ads, book covers, you can definitely save money by pairing up with someone who has skills or professional experience in the area that you dropped.
Lainey Cameron 21:32
Yeah, and like in indie world, some people have become amazing at doing videos and you know, using Canva to do promotional videos for books, for example, other people have gotten really good at using Atticus to do formatting, right. Like, that's a really interesting trade. And so yeah, I think these trade ideas are really valuable. I help a lot of authors with their social media, but I get so much help back in return, right? I'm gonna get beta readers, I'm gonna get early readers, I get all kinds of things out of that. And so yeah, I think that can be really valuable.
Lainey Cameron 21:59
And I'm really interested in actually, I noticed that Beth Cox put a comment in here that you might have feedback on Paulette.. Beth said that she's using Draft to Digital to distribute her book and that lets her format her book, because drafted digital offers formatting capabilities. Is that something you've heard much about on the indie side?
Paulette Stout 22:16
Yes, I mean, there's a lot of different retailers have ways to format books, I think that there's even some stuff in in Amazon KDP has some thing and for sure, draft a digital house. So that's another way to format books, I believe, you just kind of have it in Word, and you can upload it and then you can use their formatting tools. So that's a place where you can use the platforms and for free, you can get some formatting done there. A lot of the platforms also give you ISBN numbers. But that is a place where I advise you to buy and spend money because if you get an ISBN from a, from a retailer for free, you can only use it on that retailer. So you can't use an a free ISBN, from draft to digital, for instance, and use that same book number on Amazon. And it starts to get complicated, where you have one book with multiple ISBN numbers, and it starts to get a little bit confusing. So ISBN is definitely a place where I recommend that you put a little bit of money in and buy your own. And then you can have one ISBN, per format for all Your Books Wherever you sell them.
Lainey Cameron 23:23
That's a big Gotcha. Yeah, thanks for pointing that one out. Yeah. And trading skills. Like if someone is covers is a hard one, right covers generally does cost money. And it's a hard one, because you might have a friend who's a whiz on Canva. But like, we were saying, that doesn't mean they're good at book covers, right? I'm damn good on kind of about your Paulette too, we can whip up something on Canva and like two minutes flat, but it doesn't mean I would take on doing a book cover in Canva. Because that's a different skill. That's a design skill versus I would say like a platform software skill. If that makes any sense.
Paulette Stout 23:53
It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, for sure. I, I just and you know, there's everyone's got an opinion. So, you know, these are our opinions, folks, but I definitely feel like book covers is a place where it's worth spending some money and there are great places that I want to, you know, 100 Covers is one place my, you know, my cover designers is does a lot of fantasies are charged a little bit more. But it's so it's, it's, it's a place where you can benefit greatly because you basically have like two seconds.
Paulette Stout 24:24
Maybe even less than two seconds to catch someone's eye when they're scrolling, looking for a book. And if your cover looks like it, you know, you kind of do it in your garage, they're gonna feel like the quality of the content of your storytelling is gonna match the quality of your cover. So you know, you have those
Lainey Cameron 24:41
I've turned on books on the Best of Women's Fiction podcast because of the covers, like I'll be honest, even if the description read well, the cover look low quality. I've turned books down and for that reason, so yeah.
Lainey Cameron 24:53
Another example I've seen on the trading and this was a bit more unusual. I've actually seen once I've seen someone do was doing some VA work on the site, virtual assistant work on the site, own doing media outreach for another author. I've actually seen people trade that actually did a little bit of this myself, where a friend who's an author, did my media outreach for me, which you might think like, wow, you mean, they're basically a publicist? No, you write the you write the copy for the outreach that they're going to do, but they manage the communication. And it's kind of an interesting one to trade because what none of us like getting rejected, right? We don't like you know, reaching out to media, and you just get silenced and nothing happens. And so outsourcing that to a friend who can do it for you. And then even just a swap word, they do it for you. And you do it for them is kind of interesting, right? Because it takes you out of that rejection world. And you get someone else to do the outreach for you. So just a thought like a lot of these things that people think have to be done by publicist do not have to be done by publicist, you can reach out to local media, you can reach out to podcasts, you do not have to have a professional purposes. Now, there are some advantages to publicist. But they can be insanely expensive. So that's an example where kind of trading skills maybe you can get some of that done with a trade off trade with a friend.
Paulette Stout 26:00
Yeah, for sure. And I definitely, if you do do that, I definitely encourage you in the materials that you supply to have your trading skills with, you know, write those in approach people, so they know that you know who they are. Because I know that Lainey you know, as someone who has had a podcast for a long time, you can tell when someone knows who you are and who you don't want. And if you have like a one pitch that you use across for every podcast, they can tell them like two seconds that you don't listen to their podcasts or asking for an interview on a podcast, it doesn't do interviews. They're a really easy tell, you don't need for that one.
Lainey Cameron 26:35
No bulk emails. And the same same goes for most media, right? Like most media don't want you approaching them, especially like think about what little local TV, local TV doesn't want to get pre approached with a bulk email, they want to know the look to what segment they have. They have a particular segment this fits and you're proposing a particular topic for that segment. Yeah. But again, that research can be you or it could be someone else that could be a trade that someone else is doing that for you.
Paulette Stout 26:56
That I love that idea I love.
Lainey Cameron 26:59
So let's talk about free because I noticed also the Beth mentioned in the comments that she used my advice and use Canva for her website, which is really interesting. Canva, I'm not quite sure if you have to be on the pro version, just put it live. But Canva actually lets you put up a website as part of using Canva. And you can point your domain name at it. Now it has some pros and cons. But if you're already using Canva, it's effectively no extra cost. So let's talk about some of these free versions and what we can do with some of the free stuff out there.
Paulette Stout 27:27
Yeah, there are a lot of free things, you know, book funnel has a free Canva has a free level, some you know, coaches and things and experts that you'll see on podcast, when you look them up, a lot of times, they'll have like free time, like a free half hour session, you don't want to abuse them, obviously. But there are lots of ways, especially with software, software platforms, I think the printer also has a free version. So there's lots of free versions. So if there's, there's a tool for everything, when you're looking to publish a book, you know, from editing, to publishing, to distributing and formatting and design, you know, there's lots of things, book brushes, one, but there's lots of things you can do on Canva, that you can, you know, you can maybe skip the book brush and do it on campus. So there's different ways to save money, and then choose where you spend your money. So optimizing free is a great way, especially when it comes to courses. There's lots of folks that have free courses that introduce something and sometimes that's enough, you know, I got
Paulette Stout 28:23
a free Kindlepreneur course on Amazon ads that was shared in a Facebook post with me by Pam Kelly. Hello, Pam, we love Pam Kelley.
Paulette Stout 28:30
Yep, and I think that another thing to do is if you do purchase a course use the course. I I describe myself a little bit as like a course hoarder, you know, I'll see really good. And you know, I want, I want to know that so then I go out and buy the course, but I don't use it. And then if I know the course, so I have currently myself off for buying courses, because I use the ones I paid for already. So if you were like me, and you're just like interested in learning, but don't necessarily always have the time to learn, then really consider whether you need to click that button and buy the next course, because you may already have one in your inbox that you haven't accessed yet.
Lainey Cameron 30:34
Yes, my tip on that because I'm also of course hoarder, I am guilty as charged. I'm awful at this, I started actually trying to create a document of all the courses I take bought and haven't taken, because I've got to the point that I don't even know the ones I didn't do. It's ridiculous. Like, I just stopped buying courses. And one of the things that might help people is if you do a free webinar, and at the end, they're saying like a no, buy the course. Give yourself 24 hours, because that they are incented to get you to buy right, then they're gonna give you some bonus if you buy right now. Do like give it some time. Don't go buy it right now. Because it's some time, give it the day and buy it the next day. Because that will like make you stop and think do I really have time to do this? Because it's really easy to buy courses and not have time. And it's like the value is there in the course. But it's only there if you could put the time into it. And you may not have the time to do it right now.
Paulette Stout 31:23
Yeah, that's that's 100%. And those are basically at the end of a course it's kind of like you're at the checkout lane in the grocery store. And there's all that stuff, the end cats, where they're just, it's just easy to grab it then. But do you need it? Yep, maybe not. So give yourself some time, on the courses too.
Paulette Stout 31:40
Sponsor segment now.
Lainey Cameron 31:43
Yay, sponsor segment. Okay, so first off, we'll just meant Yeah, just mentioned that we are open to having a sponsor for the podcast, we mentioned this last month, it's got to be someone who offers products and services to writers that we trust and believe in, we're not going to put anyone who's a scam on our podcast. But if that might be interesting to you, it's a great deal, because you will show up in all the back episodes as new readers, or new listeners go and listen their way through the catalogue, which they are already we're noticing that people are coming to each episode and listening through the previous one. So it's an amazing opportunity to be a sponsor during our very first year. And this is only episode three. So I'll just stop there.
Lainey Cameron 32:19
And Paulette, did you have anything you wanted to highlight in our sponsor segment this week? Yeah, I mean, we definitely do author coaching, you can find that on my website. But we don't often talk about our own books. So I just wanted to do a little pitch for my books. You know, I write fast paced contemporary women's fiction, I touch on a lot of social issues that a lot of places don't. And I kind of like the things that my books give you an experience where you can think and you can feel and you get all wrapped up together. So if you're interested in my books, you can look at my website called South by comm Ford slash buy books.
Paulette Stout 32:54
They are lovely, better what we never say what eyes can't see. And all right, you're on pre order is what we give away.
Lainey Cameron 33:04
Nice. And they're all fabulous. And I read them all I think I think I've read every single one. Yes, yes. Maybe? Actually, no, I think about it. But the one that came before the series might be the one I haven't, I don't need to go read it now. And they're fabulous. I love them so much. And I'm actually not going to talk about a book.
Lainey Cameron 33:20
But I will tell you that my one book that as I mentioned earlier is fun, feminist fiction. It's based in Silicon Valley. It's the story of a wife and a mistress to meet across the negotiating table. Fast paced, people have a lot of fun with it.
Lainey Cameron 33:32
But what I want to spend my time on is talking about what I'm doing in September. Because if you're looking for a an event as a writer to go to this year, and you're thinking you want to build community, I thoroughly recommend the retreats from Women's Fiction Writers Association, that is actually how Paulette and I met, we're both longtime multi year members.
Lainey Cameron 33:50
And I am so thrilled that I am going to be teaching in Albuquerque in the retreat in September, I'm going to be teaching a three hour Book Marketing Bootcamp. So if you come to the Albuquerque retreat, not only do you meet people, not only do you get to hang out on the patio in a beautiful environment, and write and have fun, and you have this amazing set of morning sessions from Angela Ackerman, who is going to be talking about character development, and how to use backstory and emotional wounds to really develop the backstory of your character. So it's pretty fabulous. And she is going to be teaching that during the morning sessions. But not only do you get that, but on the Saturday afternoon included in your registration fee, I will be doing a three hour session on Book Marketing, which you know, I charge a lot of money for my 12 to 12 week class. And so it's actually kind of fun that I'm going to take a big chunk of that or a small piece of that, depending on how you see it as three hours. There's a limit to what I can do in three hours.
Lainey Cameron 34:41
But I'm going to be going into some really good stuff about what to do before your book comes out what to do after your book comes out how to focus on the key parts. I'll be taking an open q&a as well. It's going to be really fun. If you have opinions on topics I must cover let me know because I'm putting the curriculum for that three hour bootcamp together right now. So that's going to be a lot of fun and if you're still kind of on the fence about I want to go to something this year as a writer, this might be a good one to consider. And also we can have a drink together at the bar. And how cool would that be?
Paulette Stout 35:08
Yes, for sure. Awesome. Now we're gonna move on to the next topic of the author platform on the cheap. Do you want to take us there? Lainey
Lainey Cameron 35:19
Yeah, and it's kind of fun that Beth is here listening because Beth Cox took my 12 Week to Book Launch Success class. And one of the things we talked about is how to do author platform without spending a ton of money.
Lainey Cameron 35:30
So when I think of author platform, I think of first off your website, having a web presence, okay? Secondly, your email, having the ability for people to email you and for you to email them back. And third, your author newsletter, which is not quite the same as your email, because generally people use a platform for their author newsletter. You don't want to use Gmail and have a list of 200 people and send emails out of Gmail to 200 people, you'll get closed down pretty fast, you'll be flagged as spam. Bad news, okay.
Lainey Cameron 35:56
So generally, you need those three parts, your platform for email, you need your email address, right? Which may or may not be a domain name, email address, and you need your website. And so Beth and I had kind of some fun going through this and asking ourselves, okay, so there's stuff that people say you need, right, if you want the primo version, you're gonna want your domain name, email, so I'm going to want to be lainey@cameron.com, or info@laineycameron.com or whatever it is, right.
Lainey Cameron 36:20
And you're gonna want a really nice website has a lot of capabilities. And maybe you'll go with something like Squarespace or Wix is what we would recommend. Or maybe you have someone build it for you.
Lainey Cameron 36:30
And you're gonna want some kind of mail platform. So it might be like MailChimp, MailerLite. If you're getting really sophisticated, something like ConvertKit. But we actually stepped back and had this conversation on.
Lainey Cameron 36:40
Okay, but what if you didn't want to spend a lot of money? What if you're still not out yet? Like, what if your, your book isn't out for two years, and you don't want to be spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars every year on this, what is the least you could get away with, that would still work?
Lainey Cameron 36:53
And I do a lot of fun thinking about this. And actually, I'm going to create a download for you. That gives you a little bit of a view of this and says like, here's your good, good, better best for author platform when you're thinking about how much things cost. But if you want it to go on the low end of this, I worked at that you could have an author platform for $20 a year. And the $20 is the cost of your domain name. Because I do think you want to have your domain name whether or not you go live with it right now, you want to have it so that someday when you are ready to have a bigger, bigger, better website, you have Laineycameron.com, or paulettestout.com, or plus author.com, depending on where you are with getting your domain name. But you know what, you could have a Substack, instead of having a website, especially if your book's not out yet, why don't go with a sub stack? And you can pick and choose whether or not to put your Substack at your domain name or just to make it sub stack.com/laineyCameron, which I do not yet have, by the way, one day, maybe.
Paulette Stout 37:45
Don't go steal Lainey's name though, anything like that's no bueno.
Lainey Cameron 37:51
I think I have the name, I just don't, oh, I always go grab name on any platform.
Paulette Stout 37:55
Ok good.
Lainey Cameron 37:56
I'm on many platforms where I don't have a presence, like there's nothing to see nothing to see there might a lot. One day maybe it's gonna be where I actually talk about book marketing, but not yet. Which is good example of don't do stuff just because everybody says it's a good idea. Use your own time where you're ready and when you're ready.
Lainey Cameron 38:12
So you can have a sub substack as an author, and you talk about what matters to you, and you talk to your readers and you own your mail list, right on substack you own your list. And you don't really need a separate website, you're not even out yet, your book'scoming out in a year or two, you know what just have a susubstack. If you want to pay a tiny bit extra, you can have the subset at your domain name.
Lainey Cameron 38:28
And then in terms of email, you don't need an email platform, because substack is doing it for you and you own your list. And then in terms of your email address itself, you know, maybe you don't need a domain name email yet. I've actually got Lainey Cameron author@gmail.com, in addition to lainey@laineycameron.com. And I have that for different reason, which is ever my main account gets flagged in spam, I can use my backup account to get to people like giveaway winners and stuff if it's not getting through. But you know what? Lainey Cameron author@gmail.com, it might not be the most professional email address you could ever have. But it's good enough, especially if you're just emailing agents, like why do you need a domain name email, I would argue that it's nice to have not a must have. So in that scenario, you basically build a whole author platform for 20 bucks using Gmail using substack. And with a domain name, what do you think?
Paulette Stout 39:17
Yeah, I think that's great. And I think that's, you know, that minimum viable product is kind of what you're going for, in some cases, because I think sometimes when people are working, especially if you're early in your author career, you don't necessarily know if this is going to be a thing, like maybe you just do one or two bucks. And that's it. Maybe you're just doing a book and you mostly just kind of want your family to read it. And it's all about your goals. And you may not always know what you want to do and how far you're going to take it. So starting with that minimum viable product and spending the minimum amount of money possible is definitely a good choice for people who are kind of just dipping their toe in and they don't really know how far they're gonna go with it. You know, on the other end of the spectrum, you know, this might be for some people, you might want to spend money on the email but maybe you don't want to spend money on the website.
Paulette Stout 40:01
So you can mix and match all of these strategies that we're talking about today, you don't necessarily have to only do one way, because it's up to you, you're an agency. So but that's a really great choice in terms of, you know, not getting the email and not necessarily spending a lot of money on the website right away.
Lainey Cameron 40:20
Yeah, and Beth, who's watching actually confirmed that if you're already paying for Canva, and you don't have to, you can use the free version. But if you're already paying for Canva Pro, which has some advantages, then you can use that for your website. So you don't have to pay any more to have a website, you can just use Canva Pro, and you can point your domain name at that. So that's another way that you could potentially do a website without adding a ton of more cost.
Lainey Cameron 40:39
So again, there's a download on the website, check it out, I'm actually going to do kind of a good, better best. And I'll also share on that download what Paultte and I use in case you're interested to know what platforms we have chosen to use over time.
Paulette Stout 40:50
Yes, for sure. Um, so great. So that's kind of a platform spot. Another place that we think you can save money is in swapping audiences. So even if you're early on you, you're building community, you're finding places and like, when I first got started, I was in my neighborhood had a yahoo group, and I would go in there and do things and say, hey, you know, so there's ways to kind of build your audience really cheaply, just, you know, through friends, through family through your work. Yeah, the download with be great, Beth for sure.
Paulette Stout 41:26
So, but in terms of swapping audiences, once you have a little audience, even if it's, you know, meager, everyone's got to start someplace, you know, swapping those with other people through newsletter swaps through, you know, posting on each other's social platforms, or, you know, sharing blog interviews, swapping blog interviews, I've known lots of people who have a blog, and they offer their website as a place and then they promote it. So your own blog is a free place to share your thoughts. And then you can promote that on social and that's all free. You can some places have cut back on it. But you can also do a feed of your, of your blog and other places through RSS feeds are still somewhere around, you can still get that on your Goodreads page, you can have your blog feed and have it go on to your Goodreads page. And that's all free. So that's, you know, swapping audiences is a place you can go and you can arrange that, and then get going really quickly.
Lainey Cameron 42:20
And I have seen quite a few authors recently join an initiative Paulette that you and I started in the women's fiction in the women's fiction space, which is the Women's Fiction Co Op. So there is actually a Facebook group specifically for women's fiction, public publish women's fiction authors to swap and to actually kind of create collaborative opportunities called co- opportunities, not just newsletter swaps for anything like giveaways or anything that you might want to do together. So if that's something you're interested in, just reach out, let us know there's an application forum, you do need to be published in women's fiction. But I'm really happy that that groups now got well over 100 members, and it's pretty active. And it just started in January this year.
Lainey Cameron 42:55
So I feel like and I got to credit Laura Drake, whose entire idea of this was to start with. And Laura came to me and said, Do you think we could do something like this? Is it worth doing? And I was like, yes, it's a brilliant idea. Let's make it happen. And then we brought in Paulette. And so it's up and running. And if people are interested, we'll put a link to where you can learn more. And how you can find out more information. That's definitely kind of a forum to enable those kinds of swaps, right? Because the thing can be you don't know who to offer it to, you don't know, you don't feel as connected. And so we wanted to kind of open that up in terms of it shouldn't be about everybody knowing you know, only the people in the know have access to those opportunities. It's nice to be part of a group where maybe you don't know as many people yet but you can put something out there and do something with other authors.
Paulette Stout 43:34
Yeah, for sure. Another great place to find author swaps is on book funnel, and there is a free version of book funnel as well. So you don't only have to have the paid version of book funnel, the author swap feature, I'm not sure if that's on the free or paid or not. But that's another forum where you can find someone who maybe has a like book like audience to yours and plan something on an ongoing basis to do those. I mean, the the Christmas in July promotion that I talked about earlier in the show, that is I organize that for free, you know, and that's for other people to kind of take advantage of of that as well. So swapping audiences is a great way to.
Paulette Stout 44:51
Yeah, it's also about like choosing where you want to spend your money for sure. So and I think that the next topic we wanted to talk about was you know, putting yourself out there. And what we mean by that is, you know, there are opportunities that can be had if you're willing to spend the time and putting it up together to organizing and facilitating things. You know, things like newsletter swaps things. Like, if you want to do an anthology, or you want to organize a giveaway, or you want to organize, you know, even things that, you know, there's a holiday coming up, and you want to do kind of like a theme thing, whether it's like sexual awareness month, and you have lots of authors together who have maybe touch on that topic in their books, or it's, you know, a holiday or it's some other themes. So just if you are willing to put in the time to pull it together and to find participants, you can sometimes organize, you know, great projects that deliver for everyone, just because you're willing to be step up and put yourself out there to be the organizer.
Lainey Cameron 45:53
Yeah, like I did one of these related to the Best of Women's Fiction podcast, I did one of these where I reached out to all of the people I've had on guests on as guests on the podcast in the past. And we put together like it was I think it was around Christmas time we put together like holidays, we put together like a big giveaway with multiple authors audiobooks in it, because I was trying to target getting my audio book out. And so I wanted to do something in the audiobook space. And so I reached out to other authors and said, Hey, you want to do something where you offer an audiobook, and I liked that? Because it's not historically, or traditionally what you see do people do often it's an ebook that you get for free or paperback. And so in that case, I asked other authors, and we put together something where the the reader was one reader won multiple audio books at once. And so not only was that a little bit more unique and more interesting to the readers, the listeners, but it was something I could do, because I had previously worked on this podcast because I had this network of authors because I knew them.
Paulette Stout 46:44
So I totally agree with what you're saying, which is put yourself out there volunteer, even if the thing you're volunteering for doesn't seem like it's directly related to your book yet, if it's in the author community, you're building that community that later you can do things that are directly related. Right. And I think that this can also circle back to the earlier thing about swapping skills, like if you put yourself out there offering to do a specific skill set, you're good at marketing, you're good and proofreading and so forth, you know, that can rebound on you in a way to swap skills swap audiences.
Paulette Stout 47:15
And I think that you're some something like with a co organized an anthology women's fiction anthology last year, and that from that, you know, you've made connections, you form relationships, I ended up speaking at a university in Italy, because of someone I met through the anthology, so it's also a way to network, even if it's not a huge moneymaker for anybody. It's a way to forge connections.
Lainey Cameron 47:42
Yeah, even volunteering with like the associations, right. So like I mentioned Women's Fiction Writers Association earlier, and there's lots of different genre associations or local associations, that's a way that you meet people. But it's also a way that you develop skills. It's also a great opportunity, right? You volunteer, I think I saw a while back that WFWA, for example, was looking for help with their social media. So you volunteer to do the social media for Writers Association, not only do you meet people, but you learn how to do something that maybe you weren't actually already able to do, and you're gonna learn on the fly in a, you know, a kind of a fun environment. And now you have that skill. So now you can swap that skill.
Lainey Cameron 48:14
Now you can use that skill in your own writing, and you've built those contacts. So it's kind of a win win. So I would say, don't hesitate to volunteer for things that maybe it's not your expertise yet, especially if it's with associations, local writers, groups, etc. Like, it's a way to build expertise, you don't have to be perfect at something in order to learn it as you go.
Paulette Stout 48:32
Yeah, 100%, and just about, you know, taking that risk. And I think that if you're listening to this show, you're probably someone who's interested in running, interested in getting your words out there. And just being a writer is great, but just being open to putting your stuff out there. And you know, for someone else to read for, you know, for someone to buy and read. That's a scary thing. So there's lots of firsts involved in something like that. So don't underestimate the value of just trying something new and putting yourself out there. I had never co organized an anthology, but I learned about it now. And now. I know it and if I want it again, I can.
Lainey Cameron 49:11
Yeah, and so we've got a couple of resources that we're recommending this month for this episode. The first is Paulette you have a great blog post about self publishing tasks you should not pay for. I love that you're very explicit. Paulett's opinion. Don't do it.
Paulette Stout 49:24
I got lots of opinions. I'm y'all so this is yeah, this is a great blog and it just talks about four things I think you shouldn't pay for we've covered a bunch of them today on the show and my bias yes my opinion I guess so if you want to read about those pop over to the to the blog, I have a burning dollar bill so you you know I'm definitely passionate about these I feel are things you shouldn't be paying for it and you can put your money better elsewhere.
Lainey Cameron 49:49
And also on the episode page, which you can find on our website best of book marketing.com You'll be able to find my download where I will recommend my recommendations for author platform on a budget, including how to do it for $20 a year, so you'll find that download on the website, as well as link to Paulette's article, as well as the link to Paulette's books that she talks about if you're looking for that, so just check it out or at best of book marketing.com. Yeah, so we got our question in the chat here. What is the URL Paulette?
Paulette Stout 50:16
So the URL of my website is Paulettestout.com, pa UL e t t e s, t o u t.com. Forward slash blog. And if you go to the episode page on the best of ordering website, you will, there'll be links there directly. So you can check that out, too. Yeah.
Lainey Cameron 50:36
And we will stick a link on the YouTube recording as well right after this so that you can get it right away. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you.
Lainey Cameron 50:47
Your turn, Paulette.
Paulette Stout 50:49
Yeah. Okay, my turn. Thanks to everyone who listened live today in the chat. That's always fun to see. You're always great to answer questions there. Look for the resources come to the show. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast journey. And hopefully you learned a few things today about how to publish a book on a budget.
Lainey Cameron 51:09
And if you thought it was useful, please do tell your writer friends. We do this to help other writers. So we want to get the word out about this podcast is still fairly new. Like we said, we have a website that you can send people to. This same episode is both video and it's going to be a podcast audio episode.
Lainey Cameron 51:23
So please do share with your friends that helps us a lot and reviews help us a lot on the podcast platforms. If you could take five minutes and give us some stars that really helps a lot. One line reviews helpful, not helpful, whatever you want to say very, very valuable.
Paulette Stout 51:40
Thanks, everybody. See you next time. See ya.