Susan Friedmann [00:00:30]:
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 me. Hi. It's Susan Friedman. I'm not playing host today, but rather my dear friend and colleague, Jane Maluchi, is taking that role. Hi, Jane. Welcome to the show.
Jane Maulucci [00:01:02]:
Hey, Susan. Happy to be here. This is always fun.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:05]:
So, Jane, I know you and I were discussing some different topics. So, what did we land on for today's topic?
Jane Maulucci [00:01:13]:
I wanna talk to you about Amazon, the deep, dark jungle that sells books. So as a published author, I've used Amazon for my first book. I have another book coming up, and I'm trying to think if this is really the best place for me to go. What's Amazon got that other places don't?
Susan Friedmann [00:01:32]:
I think Amazon, obviously, it's got its pros and its cons, like everything. Mhmm. The ease of publication, there is nothing to beat Amazon. Over a weekend, I mean, people are advertising, write your book in a weekend, and you can do that and publish it on Amazon. Now, not talking about quality. I'm not talking about anything else, but the mere fact Yeah. The ease of getting it out there is brilliant. Especially if you just want an ebook or if you want to have it printed.
Susan Friedmann [00:02:07]:
You've got the print on demand feature through the Kindle Direct. It couldn't be easier. In a way, it's an author's paradise to be able to do this with such ease. However, there's a downside.
Jane Maulucci [00:02:25]:
What's the other side?
Susan Friedmann [00:02:26]:
There's an upside. Well, the downside is really the fact that you're 1 in many millions of books out there. Not only that are currently out there, but that are being churned out. Because I just said that people are advertising, you know, write your book in a weekend. Well, think about all the people if they're doing that. It's just adding to the plethora of publications that are out there in the marketplace. So it's getting harder and harder, Jane, for an author to stand out and get noticed on Amazon. Because unless you're going to start paying for Amazon ads, which by the way is if that's something that you want to do, great.
Susan Friedmann [00:03:18]:
However, there's no guarantee that it's going to get you the visibility that you want. You and I have talked about this a lot that authors think that once they have a book, all they have to do is post it on Amazon and then somehow some magic button gets pressed, and there are going to be orders out the wazoo, and they're going to be rich and famous. And I'm sorry. That's a big myth.
Jane Maulucci [00:03:50]:
Yeah. You and I have talked about it, and we've said that it really is a jungle. It's a lot of books. It's a lot of stuff. There's many advantages. As you said, you know, you can get your book printed easily and all, but you're competing against everything. And it's a lot of noise among the good stuff that's there.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:11]:
Well, yes. And being able to differentiate the good from the bad and the ugly, I mean, is really getting harder and harder. So I say, yes, be on Amazon. Because the public has been trained now to go to Amazon to buy books.
Jane Maulucci [00:04:30]:
Oh, yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:30]:
I'm guilty of that. I absolutely. That's the first place I go. I use Amazon as a search engine to find out what other competitive titles are out there. I look at the reviews. I mean, I do a lot of research on books that are out there, especially when I'm working with my clients on their books and looking at what else is out there, looking at titles. Because just because you come up with a great title doesn't mean that somebody else hasn't used that title already. Now, you could have the same title as another person, another author.
Susan Friedmann [00:05:12]:
However, it's the subtitle that would differentiate it. But again, do you want to have the exact same title as somebody else who's already published a book with that same title? I mean, these are questions, those are, you know, if you really have fallen in love with a title, okay, but it wouldn't necessarily be something that I would recommend.
Jane Maulucci [00:05:37]:
So Amazon, you're using it as one platform to sell books and also platform to do research on selling books better. Is there another way to sell books other than Amazon? Because I think a lot of authors we're kind of in our little tunnel. We're so excited that we've gotten a book written that, yes, it's gonna go to Amazon because that's where you sell books. What other options are there?
Susan Friedmann [00:06:04]:
I think the best option, Jane, isand I can't recommend it highly enough, is your own website. And I know that we've had episodes, and I've written about this as well, about should you have an author website, should you have a book website. The fact is, you have a website, yes, don't hide behind the book as an author. People buy the expertise, especially in nonfiction. Fiction is a whole different matter. But in nonfiction, people are looking for expertise. If you've got the expertise, you've wrapped it up in your book, but don't hide behind the book. People want to see you.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:47]:
They want to see the face behind the book. You want to expose yourself in that way, so having an author website but obviously featuring the book is critical. Yes, you want that book out there, you want it front and center, you want people to know that you've written a book. It's an opportunity too. If the book isn't out there officially, you can pre sell the book on your website. You can also pre sell it on Amazon. The problem with Amazon is you don't know who's buying the book. That's one of the downsides.
Susan Friedmann [00:07:25]:
You have much more control if you can sell the book through your website, and be able to find out who's buying it, And then obviously, build up your own list because your list is so critical in terms of promotion and just moving forward with any communication that you would like to have with your readers or even potential readers.
Jane Maulucci [00:07:52]:
You're saying that the advantage of having the book on your website or having a book page as part of your website is that you've got the opportunity to capture the emails of the people who are coming to buy your book, and you're not going to get that on Amazon.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:08]:
No. You're not going to get it on Amazon. And you want to know who's buying your book, because as I said, because you want that communication. And on your website, you can make offers. You can offer them some kind of lead magnet. You can offer a challenge. You can do competitions, you can do so many different things. Now there is a trick around it with regard to Amazon, and that is that you could put in your book a QR code that leads people to your website to fill in if you're giving away a lead magnet, let's say.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:47]:
You want to give away some tips, or you want to give away a checklist, or for them to do a challenge, then you could absolutely have this QR code that your website has been embedded into that QR code. And people can scan that, and if they're interested in getting your free stuff, then they're going to fill in your form, and they're going to get the prize.
Jane Maulucci [00:09:16]:
Oh, that's brilliant. I love that. The only thing that I'm thinking about, Susan, is that I'm envisioning then if this book is on my website, that I'm gonna have to have a pile of books in my office here and the mailers and everything else so that I can mail out the 500 books in the 1st month, she says enthusiastically, to the people who want to buy the book. How am I gonna do that and keep up with everything else if I'm the one who has to ship books?
Susan Friedmann [00:09:45]:
Well, this is where you can tap into Amazon, and you can still do print on demand if your book is up on Amazon. There are other opportunities out there. And I'll put it in the show notes, but there's BookBaby out there that you could use to do print on demand, and they also do distribution for you as well. It's a great service that many of my authors have been using. There are other ways. Obviously, getting it into bookstores as well. You want to be able to get your book into especially local bookstores. I mean, that's right on your doorstep.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:27]:
I mean, even my small little town here has got a cute little independent bookstore. And they've done book signings for me, they've done book signings for other authors, and then they carry the book. And it may be on a consignment, you know, where they take, let's say, 10 books, and then if they haven't sold them after a period of time, then you get them back, which you really don't want to get because sometimes they don't come back in the same condition as they got there. Right. I've had that happen. And then you've got these dog eared covers, and you're like, now what am I going to do with this book? I don't even want to give it away because it doesn't look that great. So there is
Jane Maulucci [00:11:14]:
It will look well loved. So you can donate it to your local Goodwill store, and somebody will think, oh my gosh. This book is so well loved. They must have found valuable information in here.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:24]:
I love that. The only thing with that,
Jane Maulucci [00:11:26]:
obviously, is you paid money and
Susan Friedmann [00:11:28]:
you haven't got anything in return for that investment. Although you never know. You know who reads your book. I mean, there are cute ways of getting your book seen, you know. I know little sort of hacks. You can, you know, if you travel by plane anywhere, you know, there's that pocket in the seat in front of you, you can pop a copy of your book in there. I know authors who've done that. You're in a hotel room.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:59]:
You can leave that in a drawer, you know, in the hotel room.
Jane Maulucci [00:12:02]:
Right next to Gideon. That's great.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:04]:
Yes. Next to Gideon's bible. Yes. What great endorsement.
Jane Maulucci [00:12:09]:
Yeah. That you don't have to have that pile of books in your office or your garage and, you know, try to mail them out yourself. It it's super to learn that there's other options available. So that that's great. That makes life much easier and less intimidating, I think, too.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:23]:
Well and you've got distribution channels as well. Mhmm. There are opportunities out there, but it's planning this, Jane. This isn't, you know, you've got to plan what it is that you're going to do. And we talked about the bookstores. Even retailers, the local retailers might have a book available as well, especially if it fits what's being sold. You've got other platforms too, especially for ebooks because people love ebooks. Now, if you buy an ebook, sometimes people love other versions of the book.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:01]:
Like, you know, you do audiobooks for people. Right. Doing audiobooks now is so hot. Does it mean that they won't buy other versions of the book? No. I like to buy sometimes the ebook and the audio version because sometimes I like to follow along while they're reading it. Sometimes I like it for, let's say, reference, you know, if somebody's in the car or on a plane and I'm listening to a book and they give out information. I was like, Oh, I want to jot that down. If I've got the printed book, I can go and look for that particular piece of information and it's right there for me.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:44]:
But yes, talking about other ebook platforms, you've got Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books. There's a whole list of them. I mean, just Google ebook platforms and you'll find that there are many around the globe. However, Amazon does havethey have theI wouldn't say the monopoly, but they are tops in terms of they command, I think it's like 60 to 70% of the marketplace with regard to book sales in ebooks. But it doesn't mean you can't be on their platform and on other people's platform. But, again, if you look at Kindle Direct and depending on the program that you sign up for, whether or not you have permission to go to other platforms while you're under Kindle. You've gotta read the fine print. Yes, there are other platforms, and Amazon happens to be the largest seller worldwide.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:51]:
Because when your book is up there on the ebook, it goes to all the platforms around the world, which is great. I mean, how else can you get this kind of worldwide distribution, a global distribution? It's brilliant. I mean, as I said, in many ways, it's an author's paradise but in many ways, it isn't. It's just knowing and understanding what else is out there. And you've got things like, you know, literary events. You've got book fairs. You've got book clubs. People love book clubs.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:31]:
I mean, I've belonged toover the years, I've belonged to, I know, half a dozen different book clubs. We have a book and everybody's buying that book. Why couldn't you, you know, especially at a local level? And this is great for you potentially, Jane, when your second book comes out, is that, you know, go to local book clubs and you can be a speaker at that, book club. They can ask you questions about the book based onobviously, they'll have read it, or you hope they will. You can come up with questions that they could ask you. I mean, these are all things that just give it a different dimension. And as I say, people often forget their local market. I know we've talked about in the past even just your local media, having a press release
Jane Maulucci [00:16:22]:
that
Susan Friedmann [00:16:23]:
goes to your local paper. You're a local artist. You're a local celebrity. Why shouldn't you be featured? And the number of authors who say, No, I never did that. I was like, Okay. Forget the New York Times. Forget Time Magazine. They're not interested in you, you know, as much as the yet.
Susan Friedmann [00:16:42]:
That's it. Thank you for that. Yeah. Not yet. And when they are, they'll come running. In the meantime, in between time, you can go to the local media and you can look at, you know, also within your field if you're in a niche market. When I was in the trade show industry, I was in every single magazine around the world. Now there weren't that many.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:08]:
I think there were like a dozen. But I was featured in every single one of them. I wrote columns for many of them. And these are things that you can do, which again gives you exposure, which if you've got the opportunity and the tagline, you've got, Go to my website, you know, I'm the author of and they come to your website, get a copy of the book. I mean, you're always out there marketing it. I mean, even in your signature on your email. This is so simple. It's free.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:46]:
Put a picture of your book. Make it clickable that somebody can go to your website to pick it up. They're just simple little things that, again, are alternatives to, and in addition to, relying on our 800 pound gorilla, mister, miss Amazon. Yes.
Jane Maulucci [00:18:09]:
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with using Amazon. I understand that, but you've gotta look at all your options and be proactive is what you're telling us. We've gotta be actively involved in selling our book. You don't just put it up on Amazon and cross your fingers.
Susan Friedmann [00:18:25]:
Yeah. And that's unfortunately, more authors do that because they think it's the easy way out. And yes, it is. And it doesn't sell books. Amazon is a shop window. And if you think of it as a shop window, you have to bring people to the shop window in order for them to see the item to purchase it. If you just put it up there and, as you say, cross your fingers, hope and pray, you don't know if you're going to get any traffic or not. Because there are so many other titles out there, your competition, then it's getting harder and harder to be seen.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:07]:
That's why you want to look at a plan put together. You know, this is why I work with the authors putting together a marketing roadmap so that you can look at what other opportunities are out there to sell your book. If you're speaking, everybody in the audience should have a copy of your book. Now why not? You can sell a 100 books that way versus selling them in onesies and twosies on Amazon or in a bookstore. You want to look at and this is why, again, one of my programs is selling your books in bulk. How can you find ways and opportunities to open doors to sell those books in bulk? And then you don't have to just rely on one source and you never want to do that. Right. I mean, what if Amazon goes away tomorrow, which is unlikely to happen.
Susan Friedmann [00:20:01]:
However, they might decide that they don't wanna sell books anymore and they'll just sell products. Well, then, you know, what do you do? You don't want to rely on any one platform for this unless it's your own platform because you have the control. Whereas you don't have the control. And we've talked about this too in social media where again, like any of the platforms there. Yes, be on them, but don't rely on them and put all your eggs in one basket. Because if anything happens, boom, finito, that's it.
Jane Maulucci [00:20:42]:
Yeah. That's not fun. I think it's great to understand that Amazon is there. We should be focused when using it and understand that it doesn't do it by itself, but that there's also other opportunities too to sell and market your books and that we need to be looking out for those as well, keep those options open.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:01]:
Absolutely. We're always looking for other opportunities to sell the book. And again, I know many authors don't like the word selling or marketing. Yeah. The fact is, it's your passion. It's your enthusiasm for your book. It's your baby. You've birthed this baby and you want to nurture it.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:25]:
You want to feed it, water it. You want to do all the things so that it can grow up healthy. If you just leave it out there, it's just going to wilt away and get lost in this ocean of titles, this tsunami of titles that is out there, and die in this author graveyard, which is so sad. Too many books die in that graveyard chain. Oh, yeah. So sad.
Jane Maulucci [00:21:52]:
If you're not paying attention, that's what's gonna happen.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:54]:
It's not gonna stop. Yeah. It doesn't mean just it can be really good. But because you haven't put the time, the energy into planning how you're going to get this out to your readers, your target audience, your niche market, then that's unfortunately what's going to happen. And it breaks my heart because I know there's good stuff that just has gone unnoticed.
Jane Maulucci [00:22:20]:
Yeah. And that's not the option that we wanna take. No. We wanna be proactive and get out there and do stuff.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:27]:
Yes.
Jane Maulucci [00:22:27]:
Alright, Susan. This is your big drum roll. What's your golden nugget for authors when they're looking at getting that book out onto the market?
Susan Friedmann [00:22:36]:
I think it's the control. It's having the control and planning out where and how, you know, you will want to have your book out there. Who's going to be interested in it and how you're going to get it to them? Looking where other people aren't looking. You don't follow the crowd. Just because everybody's doing this doesn't mean it's the right thing for you to do. Everybody's gonna say, Oh, I did this process and it worked like magic, and if it worked for me, it'll work for you. Uh-uh. You're not comparing apples with apples.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:13]:
Could be comparing apples with oranges, and they've got a whole different type of book, they've got a whole different audience. You've got to know who your audience is, where they hang out, and how you can potentially sell your book to them. It's a lot of little pieces pulled together, but it's really having that plan of action and not leaving it to fate, which I think, unfortunately, too many authors do, is leave it, you know. I've done it. I've put it out there. I've posted it on Amazon, I've posted it on a few other sites, and boom, I'm just gonna sit back and wait because I don't like to market, I don't like to sell. And just forget about those words, just be passionate about your topic area, and I believe that will sell too. But it's a plan.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:08]:
I mean, this is not, again, the hoping, wishing, and praying syndrome.
Jane Maulucci [00:24:13]:
Right. Well, great. I love this. I love the idea that we've got options. Amazon is one of them, and it's for us as authors to build on that and to, like you say, take control. And I think that when you give us that permission to be in control, it sounds a lot more fun than marketing and sales.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:34]:
It certainly is. And, Jane, I thank you again for doing this with me. It's always so much fun to do it together. And, yeah, I know we both enjoy it, so thank you.
And by the way, listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. Go to BookMarketingBrainstorm.com
to schedule your free call. 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.
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