Author Influencer in Search of a Productocracy

[Deleted50472]

Hey folks! My name is Bryan and I've been fortunate enough to be unemployable for the last decade or so.

I started with freelance writing around 2007. That led to a blog for writers in 2008, which turned into my first book in August 2010. Then things really took an interesting turn.

Upon learning more about self-publishing, I kept writing and learning. I dove deep into the marketing side of things and two major things happened in the last 7 years:
- I sold 100,000 books
- I became an influencer in the self-publishing world

The books have been a fantastic stream of passive income for me. They include a half a dozen novels, reference collections of creative writing prompts, and some writing prompt workbooks for kids.

The influencer side of things started with a popular podcast called The Sell More Books Show. It's a news recap show for the publishing industry and my co-host Jim and I recently passed half a million downloads. Becoming an influencer has helped me gather an email list of 15,000+ authors, sell six-figures worth of a marketing training course, and make some successful affiliate partnerships with other author influencers.

I also created my closest thing to a Productocracy yet, a book description writing service called Best Page Forward. My team and I have written over 600 book descriptions for other authors, and I'm looking to move to a less hands-on role in the business (though I'll still probably make sure every description goes through me before it heads to the customer).

The thing is... neither the book description service nor the books (nor the training courses, etc.) have felt like a true Productocracy. The book descriptions have been the closest (have barely advertised for the service other than to my own list), but I still feel like I'm missing something that would work well in the industry.

Software like Scrivener and Vellum (writing and formatting) and services like Book Report (sales tracking), InstaFreebie (list building), BookFunnel (book delivery), and BookBub (marketing) feel like true productocracies to me, because they fulfill a need, they scale, and everybody talks about them.

I'd love to come up with something that will really benefit the community. I don't mind putting in the work (I've put in plenty up to now, what are a few more years?), but I'd love to create something that would allow me to some day start my own Money System to provide for my family and give me occasional time off from the craziness of my everyday life.

I'm new to this, so hopefully I'm tagging @MJ DeMarco right . Thanks for your extremely thorough and mind-opening books. And for the forum, of course.

 

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[Deleted50669]

Hey folks! My name is Bryan and I've been fortunate enough to be unemployable for the last decade or so.

I started with freelance writing around 2007. That led to a blog for writers in 2008, which turned into my first book in August 2010. Then things really took an interesting turn.

Upon learning more about self-publishing, I kept writing and learning. I dove deep into the marketing side of things and two major things happened in the last 7 years:
- I sold 100,000 books
- I became an influencer in the self-publishing world

The books have been a fantastic stream of passive income for me. They include a half a dozen novels, reference collections of creative writing prompts, and some writing prompt workbooks for kids.

The influencer side of things started with a popular podcast called The Sell More Books Show. It's a news recap show for the publishing industry and my co-host Jim and I recently passed half a million downloads. Becoming an influencer has helped me gather an email list of 15,000+ authors, sell six-figures worth of a marketing training course, and make some successful affiliate partnerships with other author influencers.

I also created my closest thing to a Productocracy yet, a book description writing service called Best Page Forward. My team and I have written over 600 book descriptions for other authors, and I'm looking to move to a less hands-on role in the business (though I'll still probably make sure every description goes through me before it heads to the customer).

The thing is... neither the book description service nor the books (nor the training courses, etc.) have felt like a true Productocracy. The book descriptions have been the closest (have barely advertised for the service other than to my own list), but I still feel like I'm missing something that would work well in the industry.

Software like Scrivener and Vellum (writing and formatting) and services like Book Report (sales tracking), InstaFreebie (list building), BookFunnel (book delivery), and BookBub (marketing) feel like true productocracies to me, because they fulfill a need, they scale, and everybody talks about them.

I'd love to come up with something that will really benefit the community. I don't mind putting in the work (I've put in plenty up to now, what are a few more years?), but I'd love to create something that would allow me to some day start my own Money System to provide for my family and give me occasional time off from the craziness of my everyday life.

I'm new to this, so hopefully I'm tagging @MJ DeMarco right . Thanks for your extremely thorough and mind-opening books. And for the forum, of course.

Have you considered a membership model for your site or a podcast?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MJ DeMarco]

- I sold 100,000 books

Impressive, are your books evergreen? Or is it a churn and burn?

Welcome to the board! Great to have another author.

 

[AndrewNC]

I'd love to come up with something that will really benefit the community.

Hey Bryan,

Welcome to the forum.

I've self-published a number of books, and I've spent years honing my craft as an author (writing books on entrepreneurship, motivation, happiness/emotional balance, law of attraction/spirituality, relationships, health, etc.). I've really focused a lot of my time on developing the writing product side of things, with each book I write getting better than the last.

Marketing the book, on the other hand, is a totally different skill-set which a lot of authors wish they had. You look like you have this.

Have you thought of starting a publishing company that specializes in marketing the books that you review and know are of high quality?

Myself, and many other brand owners/coaches/etc. often write books without really expecting to make a profit on the front-end from the book sales, but mainly to bring in brand awareness and traffic to our products or services on the back-end.

I've toyed with the idea in my mind to find someone who can absolutely kill it with the marketing side of things, offering a permanent % of sales for any books they help take off via their marketing efforts.

For example: A health coach who write an amazing book about her craft, gives you 70% of lifetime sales to do the marketing, while she reaps the rewards of increasing her coaching service and band name.

What are your thoughts on doing something like this?

 

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[Deleted50472]

Have you considered a membership model for your site or a podcast?

Absolutely, and that's a great business model. I have enjoyed teaching through my course and webinars, and a membership-type training site might fit with that. It would need a fair bit of upkeep. Something I've learned about training courses is that they definitely aren't "set it and forget it." I've also considered offering some recurring services that would essentially be like a membership. Perhaps setting up some author masterminds or giving folks access to certain high-level training. Thanks for your question!

Impressive, are your books evergreen? Or is it a churn and burn?Welcome to the board! Great to have another author.

Great to meet you, MJ! Pretty much all of my books are evergreen. I'm starting to get the hang of Amazon Marketing Services ads, though I'm still not to the point where I can get a positive ROI with all of my campaigns. AMS ads can be a bit difficult to scale for lower-priced books, though I am trying to price my books a bit higher to improve the chances of my ads earning out better.

I've also considered the idea of publishing a "big idea" nonfiction book that would be worth throwing some major marketing muscle behind. My writing prompts books aren't exactly a big audience (though there's less competition). Going for a book with more mass appeal could potentially lead to getting more eyeballs. Though it could also fall into the abyss of the many "big idea" books out there .

 

[Deleted50472]

Hey Bryan,
Marketing the book, on the other hand, is a totally different skill-set which a lot of authors wish they had. You look like you have this. Have you thought of starting a publishing company that specializes in marketing the books that you review and know are of high quality? I've toyed with the idea in my mind to find someone who can absolutely kill it with the marketing side of things, offering a permanent % of sales for any books they help take off via their marketing efforts. For example: A health coach who write an amazing book about her craft, gives you 70% of lifetime sales to do the marketing, while she reaps the rewards of increasing her coaching service and band name. What are your thoughts on doing something like this?

Hey Andrew, nice to meet you! You know, I've actually been toying around with an idea like this lately. My twist on the idea was focused more on the fiction side, but they're not completely unrelated. I considered re-publishing series of multiple books written by authors who didn't have the marketing side of things down. My company could put new covers on them, touch up the book descriptions, and re-release them as brand new series.

But your idea is pretty great too. Determining that "high quality" piece can be tough (look at how many times traditional publishing companies get that wrong), but there's definitely potential there. Thanks for the idea!

 

[eagleye101]

Hello Bryan,

Nice to meet another author.
I tried to ride the Kindle wave but with a mindset of "take" I had expected low results and when I switch to "give" mentality it was already late and the wave had faded. Still I started to sell some books when quality went up and I have a small list of 12 hundred people.

My main problems as an author was not content or ideas. Formating either as it can be learned relatively easy. Covers can easily be outsourced on fiverr.

What was a big pain in the a** was proofreading and editing as I am not a native English speaker and with the costs going through the roof, with no means of marketing, even very good books would go unnoticed. Also, you never know if the editor is going to do a good job and certaintly cannot trust fiverr. I am sharing this maybe you can hear a "Need" language. There are thousands of non native English speakers who have great ideas and want to write books. But they would never sell with crappy reviews about bad English.

If there was a service that could proofread, edit and promote in affordable prices (i.e. couple of houndred $ per 10K words) and it in a quality oriented way, wouldn't "kindlepreneurs" run to you? I don't know, I certaintly would.

You could choose which authors you want to work with so as you work only with quality content and avoid the rest. I'm sure by now you can instantly understand what is a good quality book and what is crap. And now with AMS you can run ads with cost as low as 35-40% of book prices which adding the 30% amazon keeps, you're left with 25% of profit (removing transaction fees) doing essentially nothing.

 

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[Deleted50472]

If there was a service that could proofread, edit and promote in affordable prices (i.e. couple of houndred $ per 10K words) and it in a quality oriented way, wouldn't "kindlepreneurs" run to you? I don't know, I certaintly would.

Hey, EE! Nice to meet you too.

There's definitely promise here for a commoditized editing service like that. I was actually pondering an idea related to speed (48 Hour Editing) since so many authors are trying to publish fast. If I could get the right editors on board for a business like what you describe, I think it could work. Finding the right price point could be a challenge (many good editors know they can charge a decent amount), though I was thinking my way around that could be to have a few full-time staffers (people who would rather work a 9-5 then trying to find clients).

Man, I'm getting some good ideas from y'all. Thanks for all the input.

 

[eagleye101]

I was actually pondering an idea related to speed (48 Hour Editing) since so many authors are trying to publish fast

This would increase pricing since it would push the boundaries to good editors and they would ask more money.
Maybe if you approached this in the opposite way, then you would get much better pricing. And of course you could always offer "speed editing" as an additional service.
You could have a MVP including what is essential [proofreading, editing, marketing] and then additional services with additional charging i.e. +100 for faster editing, +50 for a cover, +50 for formatting etc.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Also, you never know if the editor is going to do a good job and certaintly cannot trust fiverr.

If you're finding an editor on Fiverr, you're not getting a good edit. A good editor is expensive. And for a reason.

 

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[Deleted50472]

If you're finding an editor on Fiverr, you're not getting a good edit. A good editor is expensive. And for a reason.

My sentiments exactly. Every dollar I've spent on editing was absolutely worth it.

Having a stable of editors who'd rather work a 9-5 and rightly charge top dollar wouldn't be a terrible business, but much like you, MJ, I'm not a huge fan of managing people .

 

[ChickenHawk]

Oh man, I've listened to your podcasts!!! Welcome to the forum!

 

[Deleted50472]

Oh man, I've listened to your podcasts!!! Welcome to the forum!

That's awesome, CH! Thanks so much .

This would increase pricing since it would push the boundaries to good editors and they would ask more money. Maybe if you approached this in the opposite way, then you would get much better pricing. And of course you could always offer "speed editing" as an additional service. You could have a MVP including what is essential [proofreading, editing, marketing] and then additional services with additional charging i.e. +100 for faster editing, +50 for a cover, +50 for formatting etc.

I definitely have found that people are willing to wait for something they deem inexpensive, but there is also the Millennial mindset of getting something FAST. I will admit, I am an Instacart user, because instant, don't-have-to-leave-the-house groceries are awesome.

 

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[Iammelissamoore]

Hey Bryan, welcome to the forum, loving your post, you have already began adding value to the forum. My industry isn't book publishing, but who knows, I do have a cousin, however, who is about to publish a book of poems, it's her first try at business in general, so I'm trying to help her with the basic aspects - from the business side - to get things going; however, with the wealth of knowledge you have already shared, I'd be more than happy to forward her in your direction for the professional aspects of publishing/marketing & sales etc.

She's currently reading Unscripted , she read TMF already, as I wanted to ensure she grasped the basic principles of why she's going into this venture - which is solely to serve her customers and not herself.

Initially, she mentioned she simply had a 'passion' for writing poetry; also, she went through a major life-altering awakening in which her poems were actually her strength to get back on her feet, so, prior to her putting things together, I made her get her hands on TMF and Unscripted as she needed a mindset shift business-wise. I've gotten her to recognise her book as her product and the poems as the value she is bringing to her intended customer so she can assist those going through tough life-changing experiences as she did; however, as I've said, with the wealth of information you have submitted, and the excellent ideas reflected in each response throughout this thread, I am more than happy to introduce her to whichever service/product you bring in helping authors, I know she would definitely benefit from it and judging from your attitude, I know you will provide immense value along such a journey.

Thanks much for your wealth of information and welcome again to the forum.

 

[Deleted50472]

I do have a cousin, however, who is about to publish a book of poems, it's her first try at business in general, so I'm trying to help her with the basic aspects - from the business side - to get things going; however, with the wealth of knowledge you have already shared, I'd be more than happy to forward her in your direction for the professional aspects of publishing/marketing & sales etc. She's currently reading Unscripted , she read TMF already, as I wanted to ensure she grasped the basic principles of why she's going into this venture - which is solely to serve her customers and not herself.

Thank you so much for the kind words, Melissa! Congrats to your cousin. Poetry can be difficult to sell, but that doesn't mean there's no market for it. Your cousin should check out the poetry book "Milk and Honey." I know absolutely nothing about it, other than the fact that it's hit the New York Times Bestseller List multiple times in the last month. Whatever that book has going for it certainly couldn't hurt your cousin .

I'm happy to answer any questions your cousin might have. Feel free to shoot me a PM or look up my website. Thanks again!

 

[Iammelissamoore]

Thank you so much for the kind words, Melissa! Congrats to your cousin. Poetry can be difficult to sell, but that doesn't mean there's no market for it. Your cousin should check out the poetry book "Milk and Honey." I know absolutely nothing about it, other than the fact that it's hit the New York Times Bestseller List multiple times in the last month. Whatever that book has going for it certainly couldn't hurt your cousin .

I'm happy to answer any questions your cousin might have. Feel free to shoot me a PM or look up my website. Thanks again!

Great, I am more than happy to pass on the info to her, I'll also pass along your links to her so she can grow from there. Thank you so much for your assistance and for the value you are sharing with us.

 

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