Navigating Bookscan: Making Your Bulk Book Sales Count and Creative Retail Sales Strategies

In this segment of Smith Publicity's 'All Things Book Marketing,' CEO Sandy Smith invites Garrett Perkins, CRO of Givington’s, to discuss effective strategies for authors to maximize their book marketing efforts.

 With over 10 years of experience in the publishing and e-commerce industries, Garrett shares insights on leveraging books to build credibility, generate bulk book sales, and increase speaking fees.

He explains the importance of partnering with certified retailers like Givington’s to ensure book sales are tracked properly for royalties and future publishing opportunities. Additionally, Garrett emphasizes the significance of starting marketing efforts early, building a direct-to-consumer content engine, and creating ancillary products like workbooks and animated book trailers.

Authors are encouraged to think beyond the book and utilize various digital tools to engage their audience and enhance their brand.

00:00 Introduction to Smith Publicity
00:18 Meet Garrett Perkins: CRO of Givington’s
02:42 The Importance of Speaking Engagements for Authors
04:02 Creative Retail Sales Strategies
10:19 Certified Retail Sales and Their Importance
13:56 Planning Your Book Marketing Early
23:05 Building a Direct-to-Consumer Content Engine
27:56 Innovative Book Marketing Strategies
28:40 Case Study: John Mark Comer's Dual Book Release
29:50 The Power of Animated Book Trailers
31:37 Tailoring Marketing Strategies for Authors
33:41 Building a Comprehensive Book Ecosystem
39:36 Realistic Expectations for Book Sales
42:05 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Smith Publicity All Things Book Marketing podcast,
offering tips, insights and advice from the best in the
publishing industry.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi, my name is Sandy Smith, CEO here of Smith Publicity,
and this is this segment of the Smith Publicity's All
Things of Book Marketing and we're so happy here to
have a longtime friend, Garrett Perkins. And Garrett is the
cro of giving Tins and Givington's. Again, we've had many,

(00:35):
many happy clients work with the Givingtons team and what
they do is essentially working with authors and publishers with
creative solutions to help build new fans followers, give their
books additional life impact for the authors. But Garrett has

(00:57):
over ten years of experience in the publishing and e
commerce industries, seasoned business development expert and a strategic communicator,
passionate about helping authors and really grow and thrive. He's
the chief revenue officer at Givington's and he works with
many many people in the publishing industry, very well connected

(01:19):
and much beloved. And I always have to say on
a personal note that Garrett's family in his life is
what he and his wife do for the community and
the children around them is just another reason why the
Smith team loves Garrett so well.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Thank you Well, the last two sentences is really all
that matters in my in my world, so thank you.
It means a ton Yes, like Sandy said, Man's Perkins
Sierra Givington's but more importantly husband of Emmy Joe Perkins
and father of Hadley, Riker Bayner and Javina Perkins. But
Givington's is happy to serve and walk alongside Smith. Br

(02:01):
We love you guys over there. Fun fact about us
that the world does need to know we are also
clients with PR because that's the Sandy didn't send me
ten bucks to say that at the beginning of this podcast.
But we are clients and then also we get to
serve their clients as well because they do such good work.
So Dandy, thanks for having me on. I love hanging
out with you guys. When I come to New York,

(02:21):
which is probably too often, I look for excuses to
jump in a car and drive to hang out with
you guys in New Jersey. So it's fun to see.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, and if now we're recording this in April of
twenty twenty five, and it's getting to me a much
more pleasant time of year to be in New York
rather than sleep and of the last of it was
actually a nice chili winter here, so it'll be nice
to see you with the flowers all blooming already.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
One of the.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Reasons I asked Garrett here is, as you know, a
book publicity firm, our goal is to help authors maximize
exposure and reach of their ideas and their book and
expert brands. And one of the questions that we often
get is about speaking engagements. Most of our clients are
speakers and then they have a book, and how does

(03:12):
my book feed into supporting my speaking well one, as
you know, Garrett and I've talked to having a book
just of course increases your credibility right as an author
compared to a speaker doesn't have a book, And having
speaking fees is a great way for a thought leader

(03:32):
expert to make additional money and or just make money
if you're a full time speaker. But books and speaking
and that correlation and how it all works for bulk
book sales. So I'm going to turn it over to you, Garrett.
I don't know if that's a specific question, but how
can you help authors or what do you wish authors

(03:56):
knew about book sales, both book sales and just the
work of givingtons and when you can support them. So
I'll let you take it.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, no, great question, I think, man, there's there's a
lot of There's a lot of information out there. Like
all things with the Internet and the age of AI
and technology, you can find any answer you want to find,
depending on how you ask the question and what your
angle is. But at giving ends we are we are
a certified retailer at its most basic for the traditional
publishing industry. We have a bunch of other services that

(04:28):
support holistically. But coming from this question, as a retailer,
we are no different than a Barnes Noble, Amazon Books,
a million portside books who are wonderful at port site books,
and we are another tool in the tool belt for
these authors. So, as you're describing author, A is a
professional speaker or CEO of a company and wants to

(04:48):
leverage his thought leadership in book form and leverage that
book to either drive speaking fees or things like that.
First and foremost, Sandy, you nailed it. A book is
a is the best business card you can have ads
thought leadership and adds authority. But if the goal is
just the book. I think you guys at Smith pr
to stay this over and over again. The book it
can't be the primary goal. It's about building something bigger

(05:10):
than the book, that lasts longer than the book, and
we believe the book is a great way to do that.
And one way that we see people doing that obviously
is is through leveraging speaking engagements to generate creative retail sales.
And why those were important is one that first and
foremost creative. The retail landscape changed. Books are moving and

(05:30):
selling outside of just standard brick and mortar retail now right.
I mean when I was a child, I'd walk through
the halls of Barnes and Nobles. Every Sunday we'd leave church,
we'd go to Barnes and Noble and we'd pick our
book and we'd look at it. And my mom was cheap,
so she'd have us read it there and put it
back so we wouldn't have to pay for it. But
people don't do that anymore. That we have a discovery
problem with books. So authors have a higher necessity and

(05:55):
responsibility to generate not just buzz around their content, but
also to generate sales. And not only do they have
a responsibility. Now with the retail landscape changing, they also
have the best opportunity more than everybody else to actually
generate retail sales. So creative retail sales look like this
author a goes to speak at an event. They can

(06:17):
either drive event sales by offering that book as a
book and ticket model for lack of a better word,
where they sell that book as a part of a
package come listen to me speak, and also I'm selling
that book. If that author partners with a retailer like
giving tens to be able to generate those sales, those
books are now considered a retail sale, which is extremely
important for the author first and foremost to protect that

(06:39):
author's royalty. Second, to make sure that those books show
up as a retail sale. So those are real customers,
those are fake customers. There's a lot of there's a
lot of, lack of a better word, sketchy things that
happen in the tradiity publishing industry. And what we love
about Smith PR and a lot of our publishing partners
is they want to make sure that if an author
is doing really, really good work of generating sales that

(07:02):
we want, they want to find an independent bookseller, just
like a giving tens or a creative retail bookseller or
a direct consumer retail bookseller, to be able to partner
with that author and generate those retail sales at an event.
And those matter because that's a captivated audience that is
coming to listen to you speak, or an organization that
trusts you enough to listen to you speak. And if
that audience is willing to show up or come and listen,

(07:25):
they might actually also purchase the book as well. So
it's a great way to generate not just buzz around
the book, but actually generate retail sales for that book
at lunchtime.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's such a beautiful perspective on explaining the value of
the book well beyond the physical book sales at the
brick and mortar store, which obviously we all know doesn't
happen passively like it did and time's gone by. Something
you also said about, you know, protecting the author's royalty

(07:58):
and having those books count because most authors have more
than one book, right, they have the next one of
the next world now and talking to literary agents and
you know, acquisition editors, publishers. If you have written a
book the first thing they're going to do when when

(08:19):
considering book two or three is to look at past
book sales, and if you haven't hit a certain threshold,
and sometimes it's five thousand, sometimes it's seven thousand, ten thousand,
or whatever it is that they're looking for, then they're
not going to take a chance on you as an author.

(08:39):
And every publisher is different, every contract is different, but
in general, past performance of book sales is a key
indicator that publisher teams and agents look at. And if
you are a speaker and your retail you know, the
brick and mortar or Amazon sales are you know a

(09:00):
certain level, say it's one thousand or twenty five hundred,
which is again a nice respectable amount of books. But
then in your career, you have spoken at the last
year twenty events and each event has sold between maybe
ten copies or even five hundred copies. If you don't
process those books accurately, right, you just order five hundred

(09:23):
books from your publisher. Explain what happens if it's not
run through a retail.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And I think you know,
I've been doing this for a while now, and five
or six years ago that was that was a pretty
big problem and problem with the wrong word. It was
a there was a there's a lot of myssage just
uneducated individuals on the differences between those. So you have
a publisher who owns the book at its most basic right,

(09:51):
publisher buys buys the rights of that book from author,
and they want to sell that book into retail. The
publisher's audience is not necessarily and customers. The publisher's audience
is actually me as a retailer, UH and Barnes and
Noble and Amazon, and they they want to make sure
those books make sense for those retailers. Obviously they care
about the direct and consumer audience, but primarily that's the

(10:14):
author's role. Nowadays, the author is thinking about that audience.
So partnering with a retailer guarantees that those books. And
there's a lot of different verbiage that it's used for,
but the language that we use based on the based
on the market research. Companies are kind of a book scan
The New York Times and USA Today and Publisher Weekly,
all the reporting entities they're just they're just called certified

(10:35):
retail sales. That's what that's what you're looking for. There's
the difference between an author purchase, which an author gets
a certain discount from their publisher, and a retailer purchase.
A retailer gets a different discount from their publisher and
they buy the books at a wholesale and have to
market up as a standard retail markups so that it
qualifies that a retail sale. Every retailer gets to navigate

(10:59):
what their standard markup says. That's what they get to
navigate in their proprietary decisions for their business decisions. Amazon
marks it up one way, Barns Noble marks it up
another way, giving to the marks it up another way.
That's their business model. But that markup is important, and
there's some data points that we report to Circana book Scan,
the market research company that is really the standard of
where all publishers get their information of did this book

(11:22):
sell well at retail? That matters for a publisher so
that they know, Wow, this book has some legs to it,
or this author has a strong enough audience that can
support us investing in that author. Uh And for years,
authors were just buying their books from their publisher because
they got a steeper discount then if they tried to
buy it from a retailer. Now, while that is true

(11:44):
all of those sales, author buys book from publisher resells
them at their event, none of those books actually are
considered a certified retail sale because there was not a
retailer involved. Givington's exists and portionalize another wonderful certified retailer
Indie retail and a lot of these independent book retailer
retailers provide a unique service in this new direct to

(12:08):
consumer world with author and customer interactions where we just
sit in that middle and we provide a service sending
doing a little event pop up or coming to that
specific event, or creating a landing page for that author
to be able to sell books creatively at retail. So
we will be the ones to buy the book and

(12:29):
leverage that author's audience. Where it's almost that author now
becomes a sales person for this independent book retailer and
kind of sits in the middle. So, but if those
books don't get connected with the certified retailer, none of
those books will count. You'll hear that word all the time. Yeah,
And they when they mean count, they simply just means
it did not sell at retail. It's sold in this

(12:51):
ambiguous market that is not trackable by Circona Books.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
So if you're a published if you are a speaker
and you've got eighty percent of your your book sales
through speaking events, if you don't have them counted through
the right retail partner, you are kind of author of record.
Book sales will be twenty percent.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
In this case of Yeah, at as most basic, it's
saying that what you could say is that those books,
those sales don't exist. At its most bullish, the publisher can,
the acquisition director can look at those sales, and author goes,
I have I sold seven thousand books over the last
three years when I was on the road speaking and
they would say, no, you didn't, you sold three hundred, right, right,

(13:35):
And they said, well, but but, but but but And
I'm not saying that's how acquisition directors are, but that
is the reality of the importance of a certified retails right.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
It's kind of think of it as your your report card,
and it's very different based on how you run bulk
book sales for speaking opportunities.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yes, and.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
What you said at the end, Garrett, was really interesting
about your website for your author. Let's take it. Take
a quick step back before I jump into that, and
that authors out there who are listening. When you are
even considering writing your book, it's really good to think
about the marketing piece long before most authors realize they should.

(14:20):
And the reason for that is it's you can't go
back in time and set things up and do things.
And if you want to plan your time, your network,
your your budget and really open up the world to
what potential is for your investment in your book, your
time and energy and writing this book, talk to talk

(14:43):
to your publicity team early. Talk to someone like Garrett
Is early in the process to just make sure you
have the research that you need to build a launch
plan for your book. So, I know, we like from
a publicity perspective, we really like talking to authors early
in the process because then we can really talk to

(15:05):
them about say, publication dates, seasonality, tie in opportunities. Let's
talk about your you know your if you're a speaker,
what is your big shows. Let's see if we can
work the publication timing. And there's sometimes there's there's no
control over that, but if there is, like what how
to make this book work for you? And we're talking

(15:26):
through those kind of strategies. When do you like to
talk to authors, Garrett or publishing teams?

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, great, great question. You know, we we work
outside of just the book world and we call it
the content world, where we see probably the number one
mistake that content creators make is that you nailed it.
They're thinking about how to how to communicate what they
want to communicate way too late in the game. And

(15:55):
what I mean by that is marketing is is is sales.
Sales is one to one sales, as I call my
friend and say, hey, will you buy my book? Or hey,
will you sign up for my e courts. That's a
one to one thing and that can be done at
any time anywhere. Marketing is one to many. Marketing is
something that takes time. You have to introduce somebody to
a concept and have them opt into a concept. And

(16:17):
once they opt into the concept, you need to lead
them down a customer journey. And once you leave them
down a customer journey, you need to encourage them a
clear call to action to whatever the end goal is.
And if the end goal is buy my book, there
are probably we call them dates and phases, three to
six gates or phases that happen before that. So trying
to do all of those in a small amount of

(16:40):
time just increases the amount of money you have to
spend and misses opportunities that you have in advance. So
we'd say as early as possible, I think when it
comes to a book launch, we really like three months
in advance at a minimum. When it comes to building
a marketing campaign of an email drip campaign, we love
helping authors and comes to creators build a build a

(17:02):
story around their book with assets, and slowly but surely
introduce that story. So then when it's time to hit
critical mass that you know, four weeks out of book
release where Smith pr has all these wonderful publications booked
out and they're not talking specifically about the book launch.
Their smallest viable audience that seth godin calls it has

(17:22):
heard about this content months before, so now they're primed
and ready instead of a mass blitz that lasts, you know,
month before, where people are overwhelmed. That's why you see
this hockey stick of everyone comes and buys week one
or two and that book just falls off a cliff.
Where again, it's not just about the book. The book
is an opportunity, an episodic opportunity for you to talk

(17:44):
about what makes you you as an author content creator.
So we love coming early. A lot of times we
come up with some really cool ideas of whether it
be ansillary products or stories to tell or creative assets
to create. It'll actually live on past the book, which
is really really important because again, the book is your ideas,

(18:06):
but it's owned by a publisher a lot of the time,
which is fine, But how do you leverage that moment,
the publisher's moment to get you in front of as
many people as possible to last longer than the book.
Because the reality is, and I know authors don't want
to hear this, but I'm happy to being a bad guy.
Your book won't last very long. Your book has a moment,
but you have a lifetime as the brand. So what

(18:26):
are you going to do with this moment to capitalize?
And there's a lot of work that should be done
on the front.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yes, And so a big mistake authors are making or
they they're missing opportunities as opposed to a mistake is
by waiting too late to really start their marketing. And
the marketing and when an author does it right and
what Givington supports this with is telling the creative story,

(18:52):
the content and messaging long before you're trying to do
that sale one to one, right, yeah, yeah, and say
to every author that collecting email addresses is your number
one asset. I mean, we saw what happened with Twitter
or x. I just talked talked to an author this
morning and she said, I used to get media through
Twitter because she had thirty thousand plus connections and now

(19:15):
they're gone. So what happened to that? Now, when you
build your own email list and have short term and
long term goals with that and really sharing your content,
ideas and the problems that you can solve, then you
own that communication path and you're not looking at even
LinkedIn is fantastic, but we see that as a spoke

(19:39):
coming to a hub, like, yes, you want to go
out on LinkedIn, you want to go out on whatever
social platforms are best for you. But as an author,
your brand, your website is where you want to draw
people too, for whatever your long term goals are, for
your your thought leadership, for your book, for your consulting.
And some people are looking necessarily at the monetary side

(20:02):
of that though most are, but some are really passionate
about giving back to their industry or their community and
helping depending on what stage of their career they're at.
So with with giving tens. I know we've sent many
authors to you to help with their branding and they're
getting their website and you do it nice and fast
for those authors who haven't had the the foresight or

(20:24):
the time or the energy to do it. You know,
in advance, and tell us a bit about how you
help authors really leverage leverage their brand and their in
their and their book and some of those creative strategies
there that even go alongside of a book.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
I know we've talked about. So interesting, no great question,
and I think what you guys are instructing authors is
so important in such a bifurcated world of there are
so many competing platforms that compliment we all. They're on
the sense of being a mouthpiece. You mentioned x or Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,

(21:06):
sub stack. There's a reason there are so many of them,
and all of them are doing the same thing. They're
vying for customer data. And there's a reason why none
of these platforms give the content creators that customer data,
because that customer data is all that matters. It's all
that matters it. So we tell we tell authors all

(21:27):
the time when they say, well I have a really
strong community, you know, we given it. As we say,
if you're a content brand, if you have three things content, community,
and commerce, that's what a content brand is. If you
don't have all three of them, then you're not a
content brand. A lot of people we meet with a
lot of authors or content creators and they go, oh,
I have this really strong community, and they say, I
have two million followers on social media, and we said,

(21:48):
that's not a community, you have a platform. Actually, your
customer there is not your end directorsumer customer, your customer
there is businesses that pay you for sponsor posts. So
a lot of times it's this education piece of and
even substack. A lot of times substacks probably the probably
the most giving when it comes to customer data for authors.

(22:09):
But the reality is at any given moment they can
take that away and these are valuable assets towards the author.
But if the author is not cultivating a community, and
a community is, you can talk to them directly. You
can pick up the phone in call any one of
your customers, meaning you can email them. So that email
address is vital, and a lot of authors got it's

(22:30):
going to be hard for you. I'm only going to
be able to get you know, two thousand emails that
I'm talking to. Those two thousand people are all that matters.
Those two thousand people are. And then we use Seth
Godin's principles like crazy over here, giving them that that
smallest viable audience is all that matters for you. You can
learn from them, you can sell things to them, you
can communicate to them, and you can actually change their lives.

(22:55):
You know. The idea of marketing is Seth good and
called it. It's the change that we wish to make
is what we're doing. That's what we're offering. We're communicating
about the change room which to make. So I think
some of the things that we offer all center around
that idea. Givington's has gone all in on the idea
of you need to be building a direct to consumer

(23:16):
content endy with your business. I don't care what type
of author you are, what type of e commerce business
you are. If you do not have a strong direct
consumer content engine, third party platforms will win. You will
have to build your entire business on those thirty party platforms.
You will have to give whever everything that's valuable to
those third party platforms, and you will be, at the

(23:39):
end of the day an employee to those third party platforms.
You don't own it, you are giving it away. That's
why we're seeing a massive shift in publishing as a
whole from traditional the traditional model to some hybrid models,
to some self publishing model. There's more and more people
going I want to own more of it so that
I can talk to that direct group when I want,

(24:00):
how I want, however much I want. So all of
our creative strategies center around this idea of how do
you communicate, cultivate, grow, and maximize that directly consumer audience
through digital products. We build a lot of e courses
for some really really large nonprofits and for profit businesses
that are wanting to educate or monetize that directly consumer

(24:24):
audience through a digital platform. Yes, exactly, other ways than
just the book. And I think there's a great there's
a great study out there that Smith pr was a
part of the author ROI study that was amazing with
some of our other friends in publishing that point to this.
The authors that do best when it comes to making
money building a business. Are authors that actually have a

(24:44):
monetization and revenue strategy that is bigger than just write
a book get it up on the internet. That if
that is your strategy, you will not last. There's only
one James clear right, there's only one day, you'll pink.
And I love your authors, but most of them are
not that. I am not that. So if I wanted

(25:07):
to build a content engine, my strategy would have to
be so much bigger and lasts longer than what fits
between one hundred and eighty pages on my softcover and
hardcover book that I release every other year, right.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Right now, that's that's that's a fantastic point. And most
of our authors are not full time authors, right, no,
very far right right, I think you're name too perhaps,
and even even I know that they do the bold
book sales in the same way that we're recommended. Dan Pink,

(25:43):
I know he does. Oh yeah, it's it's a it's
a beautiful strategy to get their books. But you know,
as an author, you know, I hear one of the
reasons they want to be an author is to go
from one to one to one. Too many impact people,
and so if they get a deal especially with a

(26:03):
traditional publisher. They have now a book, but sometimes they
need more than a book, Like there's other assets they
can have to to help build their their brand, attract
people to their webinars, to whether it's you know paid
some kind of paid uh E. Course learning or you know,

(26:27):
consulting at higher fees, you know, more exciting clients, whatever
their goals are. But sometimes they need not just a book,
but maybe some other co branded for for for a
lack of a better term, assets. And I know that
that givingtons. I know that Givingtons does this and helps

(26:48):
people be very creative because they've created some pretty strong ip.
But then there could be say a workbook perhaps right
as to go along with their courses. So what other
what other things are authors missing or they might not
know to do that You've had some success with with
the authors are trusting and creative and like, wow, I've

(27:10):
really taken it from level two to level ten because
I've got these additional assets to share with my community.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
Yeah, no, great question. I think there's two come to
mind pretty quickly. First, and one is to help with monetization,
and one is to help with actual like brand awareness
and for the book and really your your content. I
want I want to, I want to slowly but surely
move away from just a book a book, a book
a book, because your book is special because of the
words in it and the ideas in it, not just

(27:40):
the soft touch lamination on it. But I would say,
first and foremost on monetizations. You mentioned it. Digital products
are such a low hanging fruit to be able to
drive traffic back to your website. So it's two parts.
One monetization. One of our one of our clients that
we helped, uh, does this really well. She's she's actually
a high with a hybrid publisher. She was with Forbes Book.

(28:02):
Her name is Tracy Newell. She's wonderful. She's a Smith
client as well. She did this really well. She launched
her book, but she also had a wonderful idea of
creating a little digital workbook that anyone that bought the
book there was a QR code in the book itself
that they could go scan the book. So they already
bought the book, and now he's adding more value to

(28:22):
all of her book purchasers, but also driving them back
to her website to capture their email. So they might
have bought it on Amazon, but they scanned that QR code,
it sends them to her personal website, so her newsletter
to sign up, and once they sign up, they get
a free digital work book that helps support the content
and get that content to go farther than just those

(28:43):
one hundred and eighty pages. That's one example. Another one
that we did with an author at a more prominent
stage is an author named John Mark Comer. He's a
New York Times best selling author with Penguin, and he
wrote a book that was called Practicing the Way, and
he had an idea for another ancillary product that was
a wonderful practical guide that that was more drilled down

(29:07):
on a data basis on how these how people could
go farther with this content. And actually Penguin didn't pick
up that product. They did not want to buy it.
They liked Practicing in the Way, but they said, hey,
you know, you can go create that yourself. So what
he did is he actually created an ancillary self published
book and released it around the same time. So now

(29:27):
all of a sudden, there's this two part book that
go together, and he used that moment, that episodic moment
to this book that is owned by Penguin to actually
talk about his content that he actually does. So there's
a really smart way to go about that that leveraged
that platform. And he is a prolific author, you could

(29:49):
probably call him a full prime author and content branded self.
So that's on one side, that's on the monestization side.
Then there's another side when it comes to getting ahead
of it, when it comes to unicating about your content
so that your content can go farther than the book.
And we see this work really well, and we just
believe animated book trailers are so valuable. We wish that

(30:11):
every single publisher would just understand the value of creating
moments that are so shareable, that look beautiful and are
communicating about the book in a way outside of just
a static image on social media. So we are giving things.
We do a ton of animated videos. So picture talking head,

(30:33):
green screen with a lot of movie pieces in the background.
So what it does is it distills the main ideas
of the book in a really wonderful manner, and that
can be used before every speaking engagement, at the end
of every speaking engagement, where a lot of times when
they go, god, I don't want to pay for this
animated book trailer. But what they're not thinking through is, guys,

(30:55):
your book is an episodic moment. It's a four to
six week shelf life. This video it's going to be
just about the book. It's about what is the question
or problem that this book is solving. That's what this
video is about. And now you have something to support
or add validity, credibility, brand awareness. There's just a multiple
use for it, and we believe at the most practical

(31:16):
level it's probably the biggest bang for an author's book
when it comes to marketing and creative services on our end.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Interesting and I know that we often put book trailer
links in our pitching. Again, it's just another way to
quickly get that Aha, this is what this book is about,
a little bit about the author's personality and oh I
get it. So yeah, that's fantastic. And with the co

(31:45):
branded concept, if an author calls you, Garrett, can they
talk through like, I don't know what I want to do?
Can you?

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Oh? Yeah, so? Can you can you help me.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Try to visualize how I can use this kind of
supporting workbook because most of most authors have, you know,
a methodology or framework and they're really at the end
of the chapters, there's you know, go do this on
your own questions to ask and being able to take
those kind of again concepts, ideas, those takeaways and make

(32:21):
it highly personal to your end user. And authors might
not know how to translate that, and so could they
come to you and say help with not only the
big concept, but the creativity of it as well, like
the actual production.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Yes, yeah, that's the dream. The dream is author goes
and the reality is you know this, authors, content creators,
they don't lack ideas. What the issue is not the
idea And it's not that they're even bad ideas. That
there are some bad ideas, but but I can say that,
but a lot of times it's a great idea. It's
just a matter of execution and what's the why behind it.

(32:56):
So you give a great example of authors that have
a methodology of out of these are public speakers or
consultants that have a certain methodology that they work through
and they've toned this methodology in over the years of
their fantastic careers. The question is what's the best use
to help people work through that methodology. Is it simply

(33:17):
to everyone just thinks, well, let me make a digital workbook. Well,
hold on, it might not need to be a digital workbook.
What if you slowly but surely release that to your
audience over the course of eight weeks in an email campaign,
and how so you move them into your ecosystem on
that side, So, what we actually would suggest, and what
we love to do, is go, hey, what makes you special?

(33:38):
What is it? What's your method and then let's look
at the best medium to deploy that methodology that accomplishes
your goal. Author A's goal might be I want to
do thirty more speaking engagements this year. Okay, well, that
means your target audience isn't just people buying the book,
it's actually companies. So you need to start shifting this

(34:03):
medium of my methodology communicating that to corporate companies and
not just the direct consumer audience. So a lot of times,
I think the reality is the author nowadays more than ever,
is having to play so many hats. They're having to
wear a marketer hat, they're having will to wear the
writer hat, they're having to wear a social media hat,
they're having to wear a producer hat. And what we

(34:24):
want them to hear is there are a lot of
really successful entities like Smith pr like us that we
can help you come alongside you. And a lot of
times the amount of conversations that I have with authors
that I go, hey, it wouldn't make sense to pass.
You could find someone to go and do this, but
here's our suggestion. Just go do that. And then I
think once you build your email list, you build your

(34:46):
that's fine, but I would I would suggest, if nothing else,
let's have a conversation so that we can find out
what's what makes sense for you on this. But I
think that there's so many different mediums that we can
leverage their ideas or their content that actually accomplish their
goals at a measurable and tactile levelthing, Right, there's so

(35:08):
many great ideas that sit up here in the sky,
but getting those ideas to the ground is honestly the
harder work and the work that we're that we've made
our living off of the growing. That's a great idea,
let us go to the ground and execute it.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, I think that's fantastic because, like you said, authors
usually have lots of ideas, but what are the best ones,
what's the strategy and the why behind it? And now
let's get it done and get it done at the
right the ideal timeline with publicity, especially for nonfiction author Yes,
we can do publicity right at publication date or even

(35:43):
after and have some extraordinarily successful projects because the book
is an evergreen topic. But to do if you're really
looking for that holistic book launch, let's get these strategies
in place as early as possible so that you're just
maximizing the value of you know, all, the writing book
is not an easy or a time consuming and you're

(36:08):
you're you're taking time away often from family and hobbies
and friends and work to do this. So take it
as seriously it's it's your name on it. And to
look at your entire book ecosystem. That the book is
one small piece of the potential for for connecting with
your community. But I love that with a community.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
What was the other two content? Content? Community and commerce?

Speaker 2 (36:35):
I know the commerce part, so and and and that's
that's a really important piece for thought leaders as they've
got brilliant work experience and academic experience for research and
hands on like, now, how do I make I'm coming
up with a book, but how do I how can
I make more money with this thought leadership? A lot

(36:56):
of times. They've just left the corporate world. A lot
of the you know consulting firms, the big you know,
the big consulting firms, and they're really going out because
they got this passion they want to help in a
very specific area. And so that commer's piece, Yeah, you've
got you've got people who've got a lot of followers,
But how am I making money for that? And that's
a conversation that it is, I think surprising to a

(37:21):
lot of the authors that I started talking to, because
the media part, it's not that it's the easy part,
but it's the piece that is you know, it's it's
there right and and but if you're going to invest
in publicity getting your name out there, I want you
to have the foundation of a good brand and a

(37:44):
good email. If you don't have that, you don't have
a way that you're going to make money beyond book sales.
You are not investing wisely in publicity. So that's why
our conversation we we like you, we don't take on
one that comes to us. We will say, don't invest
your money with us. Because of the reason we don't.

(38:06):
We've been around for twenty seven years now, it's not
how we've grown over the years by saying yes, we'll
take your money. We say no a lot because if
someone only wants book sales, publicity is and they have
no brand, they have no website, publicity's not going to
do that for you. You need a much stronger, a much
stronger foundation to do that. So when one of the

(38:28):
questions I ask authors all the time is Okay, your
book's coming out in October of twenty twenty five, for ten,
this is October of twenty twenty six, how will you
have defined this book as a success And they're like
oh oh, And then that starts the reverse engineering and

(38:49):
the kind of support and the kind of taking their
ideas and turning them into actionable assets for you to
grow that community, to grow the at the monetors.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Yeah, a lot of times, I say, when we're talking
with authors, usually usually we're catching them on that final
mile before the book releases, and the amount of times
you see them limping to what they think is the
finish line, and someone at some point has to break
the news to them that hey, you're about to start
the run. I know you've been doing this for about
a year. The writing process, the editing process, the cover design,

(39:27):
the working through. But we see this this, and this
is where we just believe the system isn't broken, but
it just it needs to continue to develop to support
authors and content creators to to actually accomplish what they
want to accomplish. But the hard part is educating these
authors on the front end of Hey, you need to
have a realistic apation of what writing a book is.

(39:50):
And that's why it's becoming more common for authors to recognize, hey,
I'm not I'm not writing this book to sell a
lot of books, because is over ninety five percent of
books and I mean it. The circon of Bookskain has
this data. Over ninety five percent of books sell much
less than you realize they will sell in the lifetime

(40:11):
of their journey. There's not a lot of atomic habits
out there. There's just not. And we also don't really
know what will take off. Neither do the publishers. It's
all their.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Books would be best sellers, and that is.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Nice and there's a massive consolidation happening in the publishing world.
But we believe it's a wonderful time for authors to
be able to get their content out to the most
realistic market that is theirs if they focus, if they
are willing to do the work and invest the money.

(40:47):
But if they are just looking to write a book
to be able to say they're published, that's fine, that's great.
We are definitely not a fit for them. Smith R
is definitely not a fit for them. There are plenty
other places out there that'll that'll take a bet on them.
But we just know that we we know how the
industry is continuing to develop and change, and we want

(41:08):
authors and content creators that look at their book as
a piece of the pie. What we say is we
the publishing world, the tradition publishing world as of last
fifty years, puts the book at the center of the bullseye.
They put the book at the center, and I actually
the book is so far from the center. In my mind.
It's actually the content, or the author or the content

(41:30):
creator the brand. The brand is at the center, and
the book has this life cycle. But your question is
gold of okay, the year the book's been out for
a year now what most people don't even know the answer.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
I'm not sure. I never thought of it that way.
That's a great question, and it just starts those conversations
of opportunities that they have to make their book in
perspective to their bigger brand, their bigger offer. It's essential,
it's it's boys at a door opener, and it's great
for credibility, and it is great for potential revenue. But

(42:06):
it's just the starting point of what thought leaders and
authors can do. So so Garrett in the conclusion here,
because I know we've got a lot of concepts out here,
or you know, to sum it up, what do you
wish authors new or biggest mistakes are making on both

(42:26):
book sales and overall marketing opportunities for that?

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, that's great question.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
If you if you could have these people and to say,
as they're running out the door, but listen to what
would you say to them?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Yeah, first and foremost, I would say, you're going to
hear we'll go specifically in the retail sales, bolk book
sales as a whole, or how do I generate sales
so that they count for the list and all the above.
There would be this banner statement that I want to say,
and it's this, don't worry about it, don't They will
take care of themselves. Everyone asks, well, what's it going

(43:02):
to take for me? To be a best seller, sell
a lot of books, sell a lot of books. Well yeah,
but but no, no, no, at the end of the day,
sell a lot of books. So that's the banner. But
then again that's not helpful for every author. They go, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but Garrett, really give me the give me more. Great,
happy to give you a little bit more. I would say,
you're going to hear a lot of competing and differing

(43:23):
opinions around all the different tactics and things around bulk sales.
And I put that in trend SIACE for a reason
because for us, as a certified retailer, the people actually
reporting our sales, uh, there is no such thing as
a bulk sale when it comes to how we report it. Now,
how these entities interpret these sales matters for sure. But

(43:46):
what we tell authors all the time is if you
have the ability to partner with a retailer and sell
books at scale, whether that be three different three different
sales to three different entities one hundred times on each one,
that's a great foundation for your launch. Focus on that.
Do it, get it done a lot of times. So

(44:06):
many one of the mistakes we see these authors get
and sometimes publishers of them. Honest, they get so into
the details of how to get it done and how
to how to play the game of well let's move
them here and here, and they miss out on just
actually executing on the five hundred sales that that author
could get because they were so concerned about generating the

(44:30):
right amount of retail sales with the right amount of retailers.
And I think fortslight Us, Barnes, and Noble Books Millie
would all say the same thing. What we see is
that the authors that sell them as books usually get
the biggest credibility. So be realistic, know what you can do.
Execute that first, and then we can start looking at all, right,

(44:53):
well how do I go deeper and better? Because I
think a lot of times they spend just so much
time worried about the outcome, yes, the end, that they
actually forget about the means and the process of get
on the phone, call your friends, tell them to hey,
I really want you to support my book, come by here.
They end up not doing that because they're so concerned

(45:15):
about whatever else that looks like, and they don't have
a plan when it comes to assets that show people
why this book matters. So then the only way these
authors can generate these sales. Is I got to call
my CEO buddies instead of Wow, look at this beautiful
animated trailer. Look at this website, Look at this email
came in. Oh my gosh, publicity is coming in and
they're talking about it too. Oh where these these people

(45:38):
are getting hit from different angles? And now they're going, oh, now, actually,
I'm interested in this book, which is how it's always worked.
So that would be the that would be the probably
the primary mistake I'm making. The number two is, uh,
build build a build a big team. And I don't
mean by hire a bunch of people, I mean build
a big team of get experts in the room. I

(45:58):
think a lot of these high powered CEOs that are
extremely gifted and building massive businesses, that have no idea
about the antiquatedness of publishing and publicity and how to
market a book and all the above, that they think
all it takes is them just being a bull in
a china shop, and it works very little. The sooner
the author can be humble enough to trust experts, those

(46:22):
are the authors that I see extremely successful. The authors
that go, I don't I know what I'm good at
and I want and I know what others are good at,
and you put them in place, and usually those authors
are just really good leaders. A lot of times, I
tell my wife asked you, what's the what's the what's
your favorite least favorite thing about the publishing industry. I mean,
people's true colors come out when it comes to how

(46:44):
they interact with their book. And the most surprising people
that I want to be around are the are the
ones that actually aren't a lot of times not leading
the the charge when it comes to leadership on that side.
So we can edit that out of the ton if
you want. But that's my personal opinion on leadership on
that side. And you guys have experienced it too, sore here.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
And there, here and there, But we do. We do
like authors who come to us and say help like
and these people are jaw dropping experts in their field
and follow us the opportunity to really design a good launch.
And there's so many different pieces to it, and and
and we work with their teams as as you do

(47:26):
as well, to harness the power and maximize the author's
network and all that all that good stuff that goes
into you know, people who have aggressive book sales goals
which So if authors want to work with you, Garrett,
do they go through the publisher they go directly to you?

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah? Great question. Either way is fine. Most most publishers
know who we are, they know when to connect authors
to us. But if I mean, if you're an author
listening to this and I don't really understand what they do,
that's fine. The best way to reach out to us
as if you go to givingtons dot com www dot
givingtons dot com contact form and you'll hear from me
pretty quickly. I'm not good at much speed. I am

(48:08):
good at you can tell by how quickly I talk.
But we would we would love to work with anyone.
And by work then when I mean to have a
conversation with somebody to see what's the right what's the
right pit for you? So thanks for giving me the
opportunity to share that. It's a gift.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Oh well, thank thank you for coming and sharing these
such great insights. As I said at the beginning, authors
ask this question. Almost every day. I hear how do
how do I how do I make books? Scan my friend?
And when I'm coming to yes, when I'm a speaker,
because I need these books to show on my record,
because it's my reputation as an author and I really

(48:46):
need support and help. What do I do? I hear
this every day and as you said, you know giving
Tins and there are others. As you said on Porchlite
it does this as well. And having a variety of
retail chains is always right right in there, and the
ecosystem of book scan and book reporting. But but this

(49:06):
was this was great, such great news and information from
what you do and the wonderful work that you do
to support your authors. So thank you, Garrett. And again
if you want to reach out to Garrett giving tins
dot com correct and the contract and you can follow
Garrett Perkins on LinkedIn anywhere else you want people to

(49:30):
follow you or no.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
LinkedIn is probably the best spot nowadays. I mean, can
you can follow me on Instagram if you want. It's
just pictures of my children and my wife and things
like that. So but happy they're they're more important anyway.
So I would I would end with this because I
do think that you said something really important there at
the end. Uh. I love that authors are asking that
question of how do I make book scan? My friend?

(49:54):
And I think a lot of times that reporting institues Orcana.
Book scan uh gets a bad wrap. Book Scan is
at its core market research company and they do care
about getting right. We see time and time again our
relationship with book scan a really sweet and strong relationship
where they care deeply about we want authors to be represented,
we want their sales to be represented. So just no,

(50:15):
it's not the big bad wolf about a book Scan
are wonderful people. David Walters is our contact. There is
the VP over there, and they they do great work
on that. So happy to if I ever need to
educate anybody on just that world. We're passionate about it
because we have to be and we actually understand it,
so any even if it's questions around how does this work,

(50:35):
we'd love to share because it's not rocket science hidden,
it's not secret. We want authors to be educated so
they can make the right decision.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
So absolutely, and I think that's that's the bottom line
is going back to we start to early get your education,
and we have those exploratory conversations all the time with
no expectation of necessarily you know, you signing out as
a client, but we just want to give people the
information so that you know, should we be a good

(51:04):
fit that you know exactly why the why.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Behind it exactly right, Danny, thank you for the time.
I love this so fun to see you.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Yes, and we have all other podcasts on all Things
book Marketing. We welcome you to look at other episodes,
but here we are saying goodbye to Garrett now, so
thank you for your time. And Smith Publicity Smith Publicity
dot com and my name is Sandy Smith, Sandy Pory
or Smith on LinkedIn because there's a few Sandy Smiths
in the world. Welcome you to connect there as well.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
So thank you, thank you for listening to this episode
of the Smith Publicity All Things Book Marketing podcast. To
reach us and learn about our many services, visit Smith
Publicity dot com or send us an email to info
at Smith Publicity dot com.