Susan Friedmann [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas and tips from the masters. Every week I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Tanya Brockett. Tanya is a powerhouse in business and publishing with an MBA and 20 plus years in author services. She's helped executives, TEDx, speakers, speakers and thought leaders land six figure book deals, win awards, and generate seven figures from their expertise. A bestselling author, global speaker, and former University of Virginia instructor, Tanya shows authors how to turn their books into thriving income streams. With her blend of strategy, publishing, know how, and AI, she transforms ideas into lasting impact. Tanya, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show and thank you for being this week's guest, expert and mentor.
Tanya Brockett [00:01:11]:
Thank you so much, Susan. It's such a pleasure to be with you today.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:16]:
Well, I'm excited to have you here. And you and I were chit chatting a little bit before we went on the air and we were talking about all the different things that go through, you know, with authors, where they are, where they should be. Let's start off with a whole mindset shift about what authors need to see their book as an income generator because you help them look at this and make their books or create their books into different income streams. So talk to us about this. What's that mindset shift that they need?
Tanya Brockett [00:02:05]:
Well, you know, Susan, one of the reasons that I created a program once years ago called the mindset of a best seller is exactly for this purpose. A lot of authors want to write a book and they want to get something out there, they want to be published, but they don't recognize that there's more to writing a book and publishing it than just being Johnny Jo author out there cranking out words. The mindset shift that needs to occur includes seeing yourself as a successful author. I can't even tell you how many people have come into my classrooms, for example, when I was teaching book publishing classes and they were like, well, I don't have think I'll be a successful author, but I thought I'd come in here and see if I could. And I thought if you can't see it, you can't be it. So one of the mindset shifts is being able to see yourself as a successful author. And what does that take? Sometimes it takes being able to run your book publishing process, much like a business, so that you have expenses to write off against all the wonderful income you're gonna get from book Sales, I love it.
Susan Friedmann [00:03:38]:
You gotta see it to be it. Without any shadow of a doubt. If you don't see that book as being successful, why should anybody else? I believe in the fact that your passion is going to sell this book, not the book by itself. You know, oh, I wrote a book about this or that. Who cares? It's like, what is this book going to do for me? How can your book help me? That's what people are interested in. Would you agree with that?
Tanya Brockett [00:04:08]:
I absolutely agree. And that's one of the reasons that I believe that you have to start with who you are writing for and to not just what you are writing about.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:21]:
Yeah, I remember. I mean, you and I had this conversation just a few minutes ago. So talk to us more about that, you know, that person that you are writing this book for.
Tanya Brockett [00:04:35]:
One of the exercises that I have in a course called the bebop, it is the bracket book outline process is a visualization. And I asked my authors to visualize themselves in a bookstore. Who do you see pulling your book off of the shelf? What do they look like? What are they going for? What do they feel like when they open that book? And what do they see when they look at that table of contents and say, oh, this is just a book for me? When you can visualize that person in your mind's eye and then write your book to that, you also can then market your book to that right person so that they can make sure it gets in their hands.
Susan Friedmann [00:05:24]:
That seems. That sounds like it's a really simple exercise, but I know that that's quite hard to see just one person rather than a group of people. You know, when I ask authors, well, who's your book for? Well, it's for women. Okay, let's narrow that down. Well, women over 50 or between 50 and 70, you know, it's not one person. So help me more with that. How can we sort of narrow that down even further to that one person?
Tanya Brockett [00:06:01]:
Well, one of the exercises that again, that I have in my bebop course is to help them. And it's a free course, by the way, so I'm not pushing something that costs anything. One of the exercises I have is to visualize that person to see what it is that they look like, where they might shop as a result of who they look like, so forth and so on. So you get the demographic side of things, but you can also look at the psychographics of that particular person. What problem are they facing that they would now go pick up your book in this moment? To try to solve it, and what can you do to help them to reach that resolution by the time your book is done? So when you're looking at that person, you think, oh, well, gee, I'm writing to everybody who would want to, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, writing to everyone is writing to no one. So you really have to focus. Who is that writer? What benefit? What is your book going to give to or do for your reader?
Susan Friedmann [00:07:13]:
Yes, you're right. I mean, it's just marketing. If you're marketing to everyone, you're marketing to no one. So, yes, and the number of authors that when I say, well, who's your book for? And I know as they're thinking about it, they're like, well, this book is for everyone. Of course everybody's going to want this book. But yes, it might be for everybody, but you can't market to everybody. And I know my listeners have heard this over and over again. Sometimes I feel like a stuck record with that message.
Susan Friedmann [00:07:45]:
But it's so true.
Tanya Brockett [00:07:47]:
It is true. And you know, one case study that I had when I was working on my mba, we had a company who was just having trouble with sales. They were just stuck and not getting anywhere. When they realized that who they were actually selling to was not the one who was benefiting from the product or service, they shifted the marketing to that buyer, rather the one who was making the buying decision instead of the one who was actually using it. And when they made that shift, they tripled their sales in a very short time. Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:24]:
That makes me think about one of my colleagues who's written several children's books, and he realized is that his market are not the children, it's the grandparents. It's the grandparents who buy the book for the children.
Tanya Brockett [00:08:41]:
Exactly.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:42]:
Yeah. So you've got to really know and understand who's going to buy the book too. And then, of course, then you can go and mark it to the book market, to that group. So let's talk about where you feel that most authors leave money on the table when it comes to their books. What's happening, happening there?
Tanya Brockett [00:09:05]:
There are quite a few places where money is left on the table. One big obvious one is audiobooks. To be honest, a lot of people think, I'm going to do an ebook and then I'll release it as a print book and that's it. So they don't take that third step, that trifecta, and add the audiobook to it. Because they're thinking. Oftentimes they're just thinking of themselves. I don't like reading ebooks. So I'm not going to create one of those.
Tanya Brockett [00:09:37]:
I'm just going to do a paperback or I don't listen to audiobooks, so I'm not going to create one of those. But your audience, your reader may very well want to plug your book into her ears. So that is one big place where a lot of authors leave money on the table, not selling in all the different formats that are available to them.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:00]:
And what I found, Tanya, is that authors are often fearful of going into too many different versions of the book because they're like, well, if they buy the audiobook, they're not gonna buy the print book. And that's often farther from, you know, far from the truth. Because I know I'm an audiobook listener, I'm an avid audiobook listener, just because I happen to be quite a slow reader. And yet I. I love buying the printed version or an ebook version often because I'm trying to cut down on the number of books I have. I've got shelves full of them. So I might buy the audiobook and the ebook. And so there's two out of the three possibilities, you know, so, yes, it doesn't mean that just because you have one version that you're not going to have another.
Tanya Brockett [00:10:56]:
And if you look at the market data, audiobooks are going to be growing exponentially over the next several years. So if their sales are going to be going up and your book is not among them, you're missing out on that opportunity to reach more listeners or readers.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:17]:
Yeah, and we're such busy people that it's often hard sometimes to just find time to sit down and read. However, you can listen to a book and a car. You can listen to it, you know, walking, jogging at the gym, going shopping. You can do it all any different time, you know, so we love. We love to multitask these these days. So why not? Where else do you find that they're leaving money on the table?
Tanya Brockett [00:11:50]:
They're leaving it when they are doing speaking engagement, for example, or just having conversations like this on a podcast. Oftentimes they don't let people know that they're authors. So if nobody knows that you have a book that they may want to tap into, then they can't tap into it. So in one case, one solution that I created years ago for authors who were networking, this is before all of the total video craze in the virtual world. When you're doing networking, oftentimes you don't know how to introduce yourself or open yourself up. So I created speaker nametag and author nametag.com so that authors could get their book cover in color on a name tag with their name on it. So that when they reached out to shake somebody's hand, they would see that and say, you're an author. Opens the door immediately.
Tanya Brockett [00:12:52]:
They have an opportunity to share their book. But oftentimes in settings where we're in a zoom room or we're in, you know, at an engagement, we don't share the world with the world that we are authors, and then nobody knows. So that's another way to leave money on the table. They don't have an opportunity to know that they can go and buy your book.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:15]:
Yeah, oftentimes we think that people know, even though we've never told them, but somehow, you know, they're meant to know these things. So you talk about speaking, Talk to us more about speaking and the opportunities there. Because I know that many of our authors are speakers or want to be speakers. How can they use their book in that capacity?
Tanya Brockett [00:13:41]:
It's absolutely a leverage tool. So here is where speakers have an opportunity to, one, grab a stage that they may not have been able to grab before, because now they're a published author. Right. Two, they have an opportunity to leverage that book for a variety of different fees for their speaking engagement. So instead of just getting a speaker's fee for coming in and doing your, you know, one hour talk somewhere, you can also bundle that with books being sold for everybody in the audience so that everybody goes away with their, you know, with the book in hand. They don't have to rush to the end, you know, to the table at the back of the room after the speech is done to buy it. If you buy, you work with the event organizers to buy the book for everybody who is in attendance. Then you made bulk book sales, and everybody gets their book to walk out with.
Tanya Brockett [00:14:49]:
So then the line is only created by those who want to have it signed by you. And that's it. You don't have to sell it at the back of the room. But that's an opportunity for a lot of speakers to create greater sales by leveraging it with their event coordinators. And quite frankly, sometimes a speaker may be willing to speak for no fee or low fee because they really want to get in front of that particular audience while having a book and leveraging it. They may not have a speaker budget, but they may have a materials budget or handout budget or educational budget that they can use as a line item to buy your book for everybody in the audience, even if they can't pay you your full speaking fee. So it becomes a leveraging tool.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:39]:
Absolutely. And this is one of my most favorite, you know, ways to use the book. Leverage the book is to sell it beforehand that everybody in the audience has a copy of the book. I don't believe in back of the room sales. That's for the birds as far as I'm concerned. There's gotta be a way that it's, as you say, part of the speaking fee or you speak for free or you know, for a low fee and rather they have a budget and they can tap into these different budgets, as you say, I like it. Materials, education, sometimes it's even a PR budget, promotional budget. There are also different buckets that organizations have and they can tap into those to buy your book.
Susan Friedmann [00:16:32]:
So. Absolutely. It's just making that ask, I think, you know, being aware that this is available to them so that they can go after those sales. Yeah. What else? What else? We're on a. We're on a roll hit, Tanya.
Tanya Brockett [00:16:50]:
Well, another way for authors to create more revenue out of their books is making sure that it's in all the markets possible. So having your book listed with like Draft to Digital and not just Amazon, for example, or IngramSpark, where your book can be distributed through library systems and be in the ebook system like Libby and other places, that opens up another distribution arm for your book and creates an opportunity for more sales.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:25]:
So let's say if you use Draft 2 Digital, you don't necessarily have to have published through them, you can use them a distributor. Is that correct?
Tanya Brockett [00:17:35]:
Yeah, Grafton Digital is more like an aggregator. They don't necessarily publish for you. It's kind of like after you have listed your book, for example, let's say your ebook you listed on Amazon, it is not in KDP select, meaning it's not exclusive to Amazon. So now you can also list your book on Draft 2 Digital. Draft 2 Digital will take it even farther and go into certain countries they're really good with working in European, Italian markets, Australia, etc. And so your book can then reach entirely different retail markets than they might have only on Amazon. So it's an aggregator. It allows you to put your book up and have a universal book link, but have it distributed in a variety of different countries to the libraries through Baker and Taylor and all these other distribution arms.
Tanya Brockett [00:18:36]:
It just gives you further reach.
Susan Friedmann [00:18:38]:
That's fabulous. Yes. I didn't realize that with Draft 2 digital, I've sort of teetered around there not knowing exactly how it all works. But that sounds like a great one to get involved with. So, yeah, listeners draft two digital. Try that out if you want more wider distribution. For. Is that just the ebook or is it also for print? How does that work?
Tanya Brockett [00:19:06]:
Well, initially it was just ebooks. And, you know, they draft traditional digital. And Smashwords had gotten together and they really focused on the ebook market. But now, even though I haven't used them this way yet, they are also getting into the print book market. So more opportunity, more exposure, farther reach, more distribution equals more money.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:33]:
I like that formula. That sounds like a winning formula. So, Tanya, you've been doing a lot with AI. So how does AI change the way authors can leverage their content and let's say for profit, obviously, because that's what we need and want at the end of the day.
Tanya Brockett [00:19:55]:
Right? Absolutely. And if we're going to be creating our books for our readers, we may as well generate revenue doing so. Right. So, you know, I had a sign up in my office. Well, I had it in my office for the past 20 some odd years. And the sign says, you're in business to make money. Because so many people think that when they create a business to provide a product or service such as a book, that, oh, I just want the world to feel better. I just want them to be able to do this, that or the other.
Tanya Brockett [00:20:31]:
But if you don't make money in doing so, you can't continue to do so. So authors need to be in the business of making money with their books.
Susan Friedmann [00:20:45]:
I mean, even nonprofits have to make money. So, yes, it's great that you want to make a difference, and many people can and do make a difference with their book. And it doesn't mean that you can't make money with it as well. So I thank you for emphasizing that.
Tanya Brockett [00:21:09]:
Very important. Now, mind you, I attract. The kind of clients I attract tend to be those who have positive messages to share. They want to make a positive impact on the world. So I totally get that side of it. But I also want them to understand that they have an opportunity to leverage that for income. That allows them to keep giving, to keep giving, to keep giving. And AI helps authors to do that even more more swiftly and more profitably by allowing them, in one case, like I worked with a company called Amplified Brand, and there we have a product called Replicate your AI and we create, on purpose, a clone, if you will, of an author with only their content, only their information, only their data, only their blog posts, only their podcast interviews, only their books.
Tanya Brockett [00:22:16]:
So that everything that model does is informed by your information only and not the rest of the world.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:25]:
And how would they use that?
Tanya Brockett [00:22:28]:
So what you can do is say you can use that in a variety of different ways. To be honest, there are a whole lot of different ways, but one way that comes to mind most prevalently right now is providing your content in different ways. So one service that I used to do years ago in a manual world was called content chunking. And if I had edited your manuscript, I knew it well enough to know, hey, you could use this piece of this chapter in a blog post. Oh, you could use this piece and this chapter as an article on LinkedIn. Oh, you could use this for social media, et cetera, et cetera. So you have all these little chunks of content that come out of your book. What our AI models can do is help you to find the best content for the best platform in the best way and at the best amounts so you're not having to go through.
Tanya Brockett [00:23:22]:
I know in my book, I wrote it was chapter 16 and I was talking about such and such. You don't have to go find it. Your AI model said, hey, I'm you. I said this in chapter 12, and it was this and that and the other and so forth on page 38. So it can pull that out for you and put that into a social media post, summarize it for your broadcast interview, your podcast interview, what have you. And so it just allows you to be quicker with your own stuff.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:56]:
How about that? As it relates to, let's say you create a course. Could that be part of the course? Or could that help you create the course? Or where might that, you know, help you with that?
Tanya Brockett [00:24:14]:
Yes, and yes, you can have your book and we can create a custom model with your book and then have it create a course from the content of your book. So, yes, it could create that course for you. Alternatively, you can also have your custom GPT, for example, as a. I don't know what you call it, like a handout or a tool within your course. For anybody who buys your course, they also gain access to this GPT which will help them to, one, fulfill the obligations of the course. Two, do their homework. Three, create the output that they're supposed to be doing for the course because they have your GPT, your brain to pick all the time at their ready. Yes, it can be a part of your course, but it could also help you to create your course, and it can also help you to just design your landing page for your course and everything else.
Tanya Brockett [00:25:27]:
I mean, there's so much that it can do for you right now, but it can all be based on your information, your content, so you don't have to feel like, oh, well, this isn't me, it is you. All it knows is you. So it really allows you to feel good about being quicker, more productive, and faster about helping people with your content because you can get it to them much swifter with AI as your tool.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:58]:
Now, I know that AI's got incredible capabilities. However, what I'm hearing so often is that people want that one on one contact and they want it with you. So how would you blend the two?
Tanya Brockett [00:26:18]:
It's a beautiful thing. So you could have your AI model provide the FAQs, if you will, for somebody who's just exploring whether or not they want to work with you. So this is just one example. So your AI could be that here, I'm here to help you. I've got all of Tanya's information. So if you want to ask Tanya anything, just put it right here and I'll take care of that for you. And then it'll answer because it knows everything that Tanya knows about the subject that they're asking about. So that's one way that it helps to blend it.
Tanya Brockett [00:26:59]:
So then now it's like, okay, well, it sounds like you and Tanya would be a great fit to work together. So let me give you the calendar link so that you can pick a time that fits best for you. And then it sends the link, the client clicks the link, sets up an appointment, and now you and Tanya are going to meet face to face for real. So it just provided the information you needed to make a decision to sit down with me rather than us getting on the phone together before you have a clue. And then you're like, oh, okay, well, you're too advanced for me. I'm not ready for that. You would know that already. Now, you blended the information from your custom GPT into your next step, which is a face to face meeting with me.
Tanya Brockett [00:27:54]:
You can also use it in courses, by the way. If you did an online course, let's say it's an asynchronous course, they can take it whenever they want to. You could have your chat model there providing the information. And then once per week or once a month, you do a live group session with everybody who's in the course. So now you've got the face to face and you have that AI as a backup for them when you're not available.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:25]:
This sounds really exciting. You've got me really worked up about this. I really am excited about that. So this is a great segue into you telling our listeners how they can find out more about you and this model and take it away.
Tanya Brockett [00:28:45]:
Wonderful. I am. First of all, I'd like to offer a gift so that your audience knows if they know who their ideal reader is. And I have found many of my authors who have already written their books, already published their books that still go through my bebop that I'm going to offer your audience now when they do that, they realize, oh, that's how I need to reach my people. So I think it's a great tool. It is the Bebop course which is at tanyaloves Me Bebop and Tanya is T a n y a L o v e s.me bebop so that free E course is available for your listeners just so that they can see, am I really targeting the right people with my book? Is this why my sales are slow? Maybe I'm not looking at the right people so that Bebop may help them to do that.
Susan Friedmann [00:29:42]:
I love that. That would be a great tool. Thank you.
Tanya Brockett [00:29:45]:
Yeah. And if they want to have a. They want to learn more about me, they can go to my website and there is an offer there for a discounted strategy session. And my website is tanyabrockett.com
Susan Friedmann [00:30:10]:
Fabulous., And I'll put those in the show notes, Tanya. So if somebody didn't have something to write with or wherever they are at the moment listening to this, that it'll all be in the show notes and your other contacts. I know you've got some social media contacts as well, so that's. And as you know, we love our guests to leave our listeners with a golden nugget. What's yours?
Tanya Brockett [00:30:40]:
Well, you don't need a bigger audience to make money with your book. You need a better aim. So if you write to one reader with precision, deliver for her and you will market to her with purpose, then you can convert with ease.
Susan Friedmann [00:31:04]:
Perfect. You're speaking my language. I love that. It's absolutely. And it's all about as well, you know, that niche audience and finding the right people who really want and need what you have to offer. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. And by the way listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or it expected to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up your sales. You've invested a whole lot of time, money and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for.
Susan Friedmann [00:31:42]:
So go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Here's how to connect with Tanya:
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