Brand Architect

It was nice to meet in person Mark Dawson, Joanna Penn, Ricardo Fayet from Reedsy and Dan Wood from Draft2Digital.

And of course I met new people and as a result you will be having new interviews with very interesting guests coming up, so if you haven’t done so already please make sure you subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Stitcher not to miss any of the upcoming cool content.

I wanted to make today’s episode about the London Book Fair and share my impressions, observations and takeaways from the time spent there.

So this will be a bunch of different thoughts in not so structured format, but hopefully you’ll like it nevertheless.

What is the London book Fair?

The London Book Fair this year celebrated its 45th anniversary. It is the world’s leading publishing event: the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. It had 25,000 publishing professionals from over 124 countries.

Impression Number 1 - Self publishing’s place

The London Book Fair was held at Olympia, which was built at 1886. The stunning buildings have unique atmospheres and create unforgettable settings for events, exhibitions and conferences.

The place was huge - so huge that you may get overwhelmed and have no clue where to go. I even lost the cloak room at the end of the day and I was risking going back home without my coat. It took me about 25 minutes to finally find the place and get it. The funny thing - well it was a minute away from the place I started the search.

Anyway I think you’ll be more interested in self-publishing than in my coat.

So on the fair I realized how self publishing was perceived in the industry. As I said that place was huge, but vast majority of exhibitors were from the traditional publishing industry.

So all self-publishing related boots (when I say all I mean only 3 - Amazon, Kobo and Draft2Digital) were put in the furthest possible corner - at the very end of the floor - completely isolated from the main hall. That fact itself illustrated that self publishing was still not considered as serious player in the publishing industry and is completely ignored by the traditional publishers.

In fact the whole place was centered on printed books and the digital solutions were not highlighted at all. Besides that by walking through few boots and asking few questions I realized that the traditional publishers have been ignoring the existence of the self publishing solutions so much that they did not even have basic knowledge about those.

But I’d love to see what will be the situation at the same London Book Fair in 5 or 10 years.

Impression Number 2 - Books

Being a book lover it was amazing seeing so many different books at one place. Colorful, different shapes and genres, good quality books everywhere.

You can only imagine how disappointed I was to find out that all those books were only there to be looked at… oh and you could touch them too of course. But no one was giving away any books and you could not buy any one of them.

So my initial plan of bringing home new reads did not work and the next day I went back with a much smaller bag…

Impression Number 3 - the Author HQ

Amazon had a space within that far away self-publishing corner I mentioned, where it had its Author Headquarter. There it organized different panels and discussions, where Amazon’s successful independent authors were featured.

The authors staid after their session to interact with the audience and answer their questions. That place was very dynamic and always full. People were even sitting on the floor because there was not enough space. That made a big contrast compared to the half-empty and boring boots in the main hall.

Even the people were different at the Author Headquarter. The dress code was more casual, there were indie writers with beards, tattoos and crazy shoes. The atmosphere was not official and people were relaxed.

This whole difference was very similar to corporate life and entrepreneurship. The “normal” people who thought they were more legit and reputable in the main hall and more prestigious space and the cool people who were more fun, independent and creative.

I think you can guess where I spent most of the time at the fair, right?

Impression Number 4 - Writing is part of the author

When I spoke to the authors and listened to their sessions it became obvious that writing was integrated part of their life and their personality. It was their passion, it was their lifestyle, it was their business and part of who they are. They had the writing in their daily routine. You could not imagine those people not writing or not reading. They were trapped in what they had chosen… in a good way, of course.

Impression Number 5 - Writing Success

When I was listening to the successful independent writers such as Joanna Penn, Mark Dawson and Rachel Abbott I found one similarity there. All three of them had corporate pasts and used their business mindset in marketing their books and putting their author brands out there.

None of them wrote and waited to be discovered. All of them treated writing and their books as business, all of them made a plan and worked hard to make things happen.

As opposed to many fiction writers who consider their writing being art and shy away from marketing the successful authors balanced well their creative processes and the promotional efforts.

Impression Number 6 - Don’t Give Up

Rachel Abbot has sold over 2mln books already. And she is completely independent self-published from the very start. Guess what was her initial target? One thousand copies.

Mark Dawson confessed that when he put his first book on Amazon in the first month he sold 1 or 2 copies only. And this is the same person, who made almost half a million dollars last year from his book sales.

What did they do besides creating the business plan I mentioned before? Well, they did not give up. I am sure the road was not very smooth and they must have felt like giving up at least once… but they haven’t. And that made all the difference… (wow the last part sounded like Robert Frost poem The Road Less Travelled)

You can get more details about Sommer following the links below:

His website

His Twitter

His Instagram

Do you wish you could just write books and avoid all the intimidating and frustrating details of book publishing?

If yes then I’ve created the best solution for you!

Simply go to Publish to be Read send over your draft manuscript and get your professionally published book in only 3 weeks!

Andrew O’Brien is the founder of Patefactus which is focused on helping Entrepreneurs gain more media exposure and learn how to leverage that exposure to create a strong brand and build a larger and more interactive audience.

He has been featured on over 70 media channels, many to include national/international media outlets such as MTV, USA Today, MSNBC, BBC, NHK World, Al Jazeera and many others.

Along with his media exposure, he has become the most requested speaker in his industry, traveling around the world speaking to some of the world’s top government agencies and private organizations. It is because of Andrews’ success in the media that he was able to become the top in his industry and triple his fee’ in less than 1 year. Andrew’s goal is to help 500 Entrepreneurs triple their income through media exposure by the end of 2016.

Today my guest is Tim Knox. He is a sought-after corporate speaker and comedian, published author, talk radio host, syndicated business columnist, and self-professed Mama's Boy, Tim's unique perspective is enjoyed by thousands who listen to his radio show, read his books and columns, and hear him speak every year. You should check out his show Interviewing Writers too.

If passion was money every poet would be rich. If the great writers in history had to market their own work chances are we never would have heard of any of them. The hardest thing to do in a crowd is to get noticed. If you are  are a writer - write! Be happy that you have the ability to write. If you'd like to share your thought with me and other Write to be Read listeners, make sure you join our Facebook group.

In the previous days I have come across the same topic several times. Then I thought that maybe you have not heard of it yet so decided to let you know about this. What I am talking is Amazon Giveaways. Amazon let’s you create and promote a giveaway of items that are sold there. The interesting part of this for us is that we can now create kindle ebook giveaways. 

What many authors did before was organizing book giveaways - mainly on Goodreads. Unfortunately you could give aways only paperbacks. I tried a giveaway of my first novel Highfall on Goodreads and although it did bring visibility to my book it did not impact the sales figure.

So why is Amazon giveaway different you may think. Well before I dive into this, I have to make a disclaimer. It seems like the Amazon giveaway can organize only the US residents, so if you have amazon.com account but no US address linked to your account then you won’t be able to make it… Hopefully they will roll over to the other markets soon too. The good news though is that you don’t have to be in KDP Select to be able to organize giveaways and of course giving away ebooks is more affordable and there are no shipping charges involved obviously.

Ok now let’s see why would you as an author possibly want to make an Amazon giveaway.

The first obvious reason, of course is get your book front of more people. And since those who have already purchased your book are not eligible for your giveaway you will end up will be reaching new potential readers.

The second good thing is that all the participants, who have not won the giveaway get the free sample of your book. Which means that the potential new readers will probably get the taste of your writing style.

Another good thing is that when you organize your book’s Amazon giveaway you can choose chose an option where in order to participate people have to follow you on your Amazon’s author page. This means that whenever you have a new book out all who follow will be notified. It is not as good as having them on your e mail list of course, but it is most probably the closest thing you can get with Amazon.

To wrap this topic up I’ll just need to say that your giveaways can last up to 30 days, ebooks purchased for the giveaway are non-refundable and you can check there is a Twitter hashtag #AmazonGiveaways you can follow. And maybe the best part of it all is that those who have tried the Amazon giveaways tell that it impacts book’s sales ranking.

Ok, that was it about the Amazon.

Now I will share my ideas about giveaways in general.

I personally feel uncomfortable, when things are not under my control. That is why strategies, which rely on specific social media channel, or only one platform, or an audience, which is not mine are not my favorite. I mean what if something happens to Facebook one day? Where do I find all those people who liked my page… You see what I mean right?

That is why I prefer to put time and effort bringing my audience to my place, that is my website and my e mail list. Are you already there btw? If no check out www.anialexander.com

Having that said I prefer to use KingSumo’s giveaway plugin for Wordpress. The giveaway is done so that it increases participant’s chances to win when they share your contest like crazy and therefore it easily goes viral. But that is just the bonus. The best thing is that you are getting the list of all participant’s emails, which you can later use. I have used this only twice for now, but have seen great results with both giveaways.

The things is… if you are unknown writer like me, most probably people will not be interesting in your book’s giveaway, because they have not read you yet and they have not heard your name either, right?

Yup…

But what you can do is - choose several bestseller’s in your genre or around your book’s topic and have a bundle of those books with yours inside as a giveaway. Like that you will gain a list of people, who are interested in your genre or topic and are your potential readers. And even if they don’t read your book (although part of them will check it out I think) you will still have their names and email address.

Today I am talking to Ricardo Fayet. Ricardo is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Reedsy, a marketplace connecting authors with the best publishing professionals (think editors, proofreaders, designers, marketers). An avid reader and technology enthusiast, he likes to imagine how little players will build the future of publishing, further empowering authors and allowing them to publish to the same standards as the biggest publishing companies.

In this interview I try to understand what Reedsy is, how it works and how writers can benefit from it.

Make sure you check out their book editor tool - it's great.

Today I am talking to Tim Gillette. Tim is the Creator of the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Keys to Business Success – Using Music, Motorcycles and Mentorship to Teach Entrepreneurs to Become Leaders in Their Industry.”

In his presentations, Tim uses lessons learned from his love for Rock ‘n’ Roll music, traveling an average of 30,000 miles annually on his Harley Davidson motorcycle, coaching clients, and speaking to audiences.

I met him on Blab and we had several interesting conversations there, so I thought that it would be nice to have him over at the podcast too. Today we spoke about blogging, branding and many other things.

Ray Edwards is a Communications Strategist, Copywriter, Author, Speaker, and host of one the top iTunes Business Podcast. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies, and with some of the most powerful voices in leadership and business. His clients include New York Times best-selling authors Michael Hyatt (author of Platform and co-author of Living Forward), Tony Robbins (author of Unleash the Giant Within and Money: Master the Game), Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (co-authors of Chicken Soup For the Soul), Jeff Walker (author of Launch), and many more. Ray’s copy and marketing expertise has helped sell an estimated $200 Million or more in products and services.

Ray covered the most important points from his book in our interview, but I do recommend getting the book especially now when he is giving away a physical copy of the book for free (until March 1st).

Click to Claim Your Book Now

Copywriting is simply writing that persuades people to buy into idea or a product or a service or a believe.

Nobody is going to sell your writing with the passion and the care and the intimate knowledge of the writing better than you.

We are more effected by stories than we are by facts.

What you are actually selling is the transformation that your product or service brings about.

Selling is essentially a transfer of feelings. - Zig Zigler

You have to have feelings about the product or service you're selling.

Ray Edwards's  book provides a step-by-step, fill-in-the-blanks system for writing persuasive copy for websites, sales and promotions. Ray’s sales copy is amazingly effective – having sold an estimated $200 million in products and services over the last 5 years. Now he shows you how, step-by-step, you can use the same methods he does. It’s all spelled out in the new book How to Write Copy That Sells.

I already had more than 100 guests, who shared their expertise, knowledge and stories at the Write 2B Read podcast. Some of those interviews have been very successful and some of the guests were more impressive than the rest. One of the names out there, about getting whom I've been asked most was Pat Flynn. It seems like being able to talk to him for my podcast back when Write 2B Read was relatively new and unknown was a big achievement in other people's eyes (I am not telling that it was not). So now I have Pat back with a new interview and new book.

For those of you who don't know Pat yet below is his short bio. Pat Flynn makes a living on the internet and considers himself the luckiest person on the earth. Through his very popular blog Smart Passive Income and his Smart Passive Income Podcast  he shares his experience and helps his readers reach their goals. I think it is also important to mention that Pat was also from the very few people, who encouraged me to start the Write 2B Read podcast.

This time we speak about Pat's second book Will It Fly? How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money, which launched just few days ago. In this interview Pat explains:

I guess that was it for today.

As I mentioned in this episode I am working on a coaching offer for my podcast listeners and other writers and/or entrepreneurs, who are looking to establish their personal brand online. In case you're interested and prefer not to wait until everything is set up please get in touch and we can start making things happen straightaway!

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