Henry DeVries - Indie Books International

On Marketing With Authority: "The book is more than a calling card. The book is the greatest brochure."

There are a few things you can do to make yourself important in the eyes of the people you meet.  One of the best ways is to be the author of a book.  But how do you write and publish a book?

Henry DeVries knows that entrepreneurs are good at their thing, but writing and publishing a book can be a daunting and time-consuming task.  So he started Indie Books International to help professionals get their books published and in the hands of the people that will soon be their clients.  This is something no postcard or brochure could ever dream of doing.

Listen as Henry explains in detail what it takes to become a published author and how your book can be used as a marketing tool to help you grow your business.

Enjoy!

Visit Henry at: https://indiebooksintl.com/

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 "Why Editing Matters"

03:19 "Nonfiction Books as Business Cards"

08:03 "Don't Cut Corners on Publishing"

10:01 "Authors Question Publisher Practices"

13:52 "How to Get on TV"

19:00 "Expert Publishing and Education"

20:55 "Overcoming Traps to Publish"

25:35 "Rise of Print and Amazon"

28:26 "Books as the Ultimate Brochure"

31:13 "Indie Publishing Support Network"

35:35 Editing and Writing Service Costs

36:52 "Delegation and Leadership Insights"

41:49 "AI in Publishing: Challenges & Risks"

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Podcast Transcription:

Henry DeVries [00:00:00]:

The world changed. There was two parts of the digital revolution that changed the business. One was print on demand publishing where you didn't have to do big print runs to get the cost down. So my first book, you know, first run was 2,500 books. Second run was another 2,500 books. It was called the second printing. The joke is, yeah, my book went to two printings because the first one was blurred, but no. So you would earn extra printings.

Henry DeVries [00:00:24]:

But with print on demand it's just, just as economical to print one book as the unit price. On the 2500 books.

James Kademan [00:00:35]:

You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com we are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service as well as the Bold business book and live switch. Today we're welcoming, slash, preparing to learn from. Let's see here, Henry, I'm going to try to say your last name. Devries.

Henry DeVries [00:01:06]:

There you go. Henry Devries with the cheese.

James Kademan [00:01:10]:

I love it. Of Indie Books International. And we're talking books and marketing and all that jazz. So Henry, how is it going today?

Henry DeVries [00:01:18]:

It is so great. I'm so excited to talk about the virtues of a book marketing with a book that you're proud of.

James Kademan [00:01:26]:

I love it. I love it. You know, you raise an interesting point here. I just want to give you a really quick anecdote before we run down the road of marketing with your book. I was given a book by someone that they were hustling as something I suppose like a business card. Probably what we'll mention.

Henry DeVries [00:01:43]:

Sure.

James Kademan [00:01:43]:

And I had started reading it and it was, it was bad. It was really bad. It's not to say the content itself was bad. I felt like it was very poorly written and not edited at all. So I saw this guy later at a different networking function. I'm like, hey man, your book was interesting. Who did you use for an editor? And he's like, oh yeah, I edit it myself. I don't need to pay someone to edit it.

James Kademan [00:02:08]:

And I was like, oh, okay, great. Fantastic. Way to go. You can totally tell I didn't say that.

Henry DeVries [00:02:15]:

James, we have a saying. The world does not need another crappy self published book.

James Kademan [00:02:21]:

Oh, I love that saying. That's perfect. That's perfect. So let's start with what you got going on, Henry. How long have you been in the book marketing world?

Henry DeVries [00:02:32]:

Indie Books International. We started on April 1, 2014. I'd been a ghost writer for books for years before that. So officially 11 years publishing over 200 books in that time.

James Kademan [00:02:48]:

All right, well, that's a fair number that is Any specific genre.

Henry DeVries [00:02:55]:

Yes. Well, business books. So according to Barnes and noble, there are 16 subcategories of books. And then since we're nonfiction, some of our books fall under self help, or they'll fall under whatever industry the person is in. So it. It. But it tends to be these nonfiction books to help business people find right fit prospects.

James Kademan [00:03:19]:

Right on. You know, it's interesting you say that. I, I assume as you know, I wrote and published a book, and it was interesting because I use it essentially as a business card. But I had somebody ask me if I ever made money from the book, and I was like, no, no, I would love to be Stephen King or something like that. Where you're making thousands of dollars every month off your book and to not have to fight to find a publisher, that was not the case. So in that non fiction realm, I guess I'm saying that to say I feel like in the non fiction realm, that's more of the case rather than the fiction realm. I don't. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Henry DeVries [00:04:01]:

Well, in the nonfiction realm, it's all about marketing with a book. I didn't write the book marketing a book. I did it marketing with a book, meaning it's what happens as a result of the book. And our authors have found they've gotten returns of 400 to 2000% ROI by marketing with a book and a speech. We like to say publishing the book is the starting line. The book is your ticket to ride. It's your ticket to get into the game.

James Kademan [00:04:32]:

I love. Okay, so essentially what you're saying is the book is a marketing tool. You're not marketing the book, you're marketing with a book. Okay, that's way better. Clarification.

Henry DeVries [00:04:42]:

One of my authors made a million dollars, and he didn't even care how many books he sold, but he gave away hundreds and hundreds of books. And. And that resulted in clients. Five figure clients. And that he says it adds up to over a million dollars that he got as a result of being the author of that book over and above what he would have made.

James Kademan [00:05:07]:

I love it. All right, so let's dig into why someone would want to market with a book rather than throwing ads on the Internet or a big billboard or cold calling or something of that nature.

Henry DeVries [00:05:18]:

Well, because you want to be seen as the authority in your Space for a certain group of people who have a certain problem. You're the authority and you can't spell authority without the word author. So authors are respected because of the research they've done, the people they've talked to and the results that they share. And then that attracts people especially right fit prospects to them. And they're not chasing the prospects. It's like a magnet that's attracting the prospects to them.

James Kademan [00:05:51]:

I love it. You mentioned self publishing. Is that typically where you're steering people to or what you're steering people to do?

Henry DeVries [00:05:59]:

Oh no, we call it self publishing, the S word. Even if you do it, don't ever say your book was self published because that has a stigma to it. It's like what crazy old grandpas do? You indie publish your book. You might cobble together a team to help you indie publish the book. The person in your example, he missed a big player at it. An editor. And there's different types of editors. I'm a developmental editor.

Henry DeVries [00:06:26]:

I help people develop a manuscript, an idea how it would play in the marketplace, how to bake marketing into it. But you also need line editors, people who make sure that you don't use the wrong word or the styles right, or a typo. James, I'll tell you, you triggered my all time worst story of somebody who came up to me, was so proud of their book and he handed me his book and he said, what do you think? And on the COVID it said forward F O R W A R D by this name. Well, it's actually F O R E. W O R D is a forward, a word that comes first in a book. So he had this major glaring typo on the COVID of his book.

James Kademan [00:07:16]:

Oh no.

Henry DeVries [00:07:17]:

And he said, well, what do you think? I said, well, I've got to point out you have this glaring typo on the COVID of your book. Oh, oh, I printed 5,000 copies. What should I do? And I said Fahrenheit 451. If you know science fiction and Ray Bradbury, that's the temperature books burn at. Fahrenheit 451. Famous science fiction book. So I was telling him to burn 5,000 books, which he did. Because I said I don't even want you to give these away or donate them to some thrift store because every time somebody sees your name and this book and that typo, it's bringing you down in the market.

Henry DeVries [00:08:03]:

The same thing with a crappy self published book where they said, oh, you know, I can do it cheap. I said, okay, well, let's say you have a big speech and people have paid you $5,000 to come speak to them, and you got to wear something. Are you going to go to Goodwill and see if somebody donated something good that week? Or, you know, maybe there's an Armani suit there,