January 20, 2025 • 51 mins
Marissa Eigenbrood, president of Smith Publicity, hosts this episode of All Things Book Marketing Podcast and speaks with Allison Jones, founder of Practical Inspiration Publishing.
They discuss Allison's publishing journey and her approach to blending traditional and innovative methods in the industry.
The conversation highlights the significance of continuous writing for business authors, the intersection of personal branding with book marketing, and the nuanced use of AI in publishing.
Allison shares insights on creating impactful content and discusses her 10-day business book proposal challenge. They also delve into future trends, especially the evolving role of AI, and emphasize the importance of human touch in creating relatable and authentic author content.
They discuss Allison's publishing journey and her approach to blending traditional and innovative methods in the industry.
The conversation highlights the significance of continuous writing for business authors, the intersection of personal branding with book marketing, and the nuanced use of AI in publishing.
Allison shares insights on creating impactful content and discusses her 10-day business book proposal challenge. They also delve into future trends, especially the evolving role of AI, and emphasize the importance of human touch in creating relatable and authentic author content.
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Episode Transcript
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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 (00:13):
Hi. Everyone, welcome to the All Things Book Marketing Podcast.
I am Marissa Eigenbrud, the president and partner at Smith Publicity,
and excited to be your host today to have a
really exciting conversation with Alison Jones. I'm going to give
you a little bit of a background on Alison, who
I had that wonderful opportunity to meet in person at
(00:36):
the Frankfurt book Fair back in October, and our little
history with Practical Inspiration publishing goes back just a few
months before that as we started to work on an
author together and we've just really loved learning more about
your team, Allison, and your process and your way of
doing things, and so then having an exciting conversation that
(00:57):
Frankfurt led us to this conversation here today. So Alison,
thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh thank you for having me Meursa, It's really really
good to be here and yet terriffic to meet you
and the team at Frankfurt. So one of those we
had Frankfurt book The meetings are so short, aren't they
And we were all talking incredibly fast and we still
couldn't get everything squeezed in there. So it's nice to
have a bit more time to talk now.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh. Absolutely, they're such productive meetings. I know. I was
talking through kind of key takeaways, you know, with with Courin,
who is there with us, our VP of business development.
And one of the just great things about these affairs
is just that in person time and a zoom's great,
we love it, but having that time to really sit
(01:40):
down and get to know someone and and have just
a really productive conversation around what you've done together, what
more lies ahead, and the trends we're all seeing, and
how it all supports each other. I think ultimately gives
back to the authors that we all want to, you know,
celebrate and elevate in our work.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah, and it's such a partnership, isn't it, Because publishers
need publicists and publishers need publishers and just getting that
relationship working vetters. Yeah, it's what its all about.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Wonderful. So let me give a little bit of that
background on you, Allison, for all of our listeners today,
and then we'll dive into the great questions that we have.
So Allison is the director and the founder of Practical
Inspiration Publishing and congratulations ten years this year really exciting,
so twenty fourteen, but that certainly was in no way
(02:31):
the start of your career in the publishing world. Alison
is the host of the Extraordinary Business Book Club, which
is a podcast and community for writers and readers of
extraordinary business books as well. She's a veteran of the
publishing industry. She worked for twenty five years with leading
companies such as Chambers, Oxford University Press and McMillan at McMillan,
(02:55):
and she's publisher and then Director of Innovation Strategy at
paul Grave McMillan. Again, not surprising to see some of
the really great innovations and new ideas you've brought over
to Practical Inspiration. She regularly speaks and blogs on the
publishing industry, entrepreneurship, innovation and the importance of writing for business.
Is a judge at the Business Book Awards and a
(03:16):
former member of the board of IPG, and she writes
and edits written and edited several books as well, including
this book Means Business back in twenty eighteen and Exploratory
Writing in twenty twenty two. So we're going to talk
about writing a good bit today because that's clearly been
an important part of your background and your experience. And
(03:38):
on that writing point, I highly encourage everyone to subscribe
to Allison's All Things Business book newsletter that she somehow
gets out weekly, which I'm so impressed by. There's a
lot of writing and a lot of commitment. But I
have been receiving it in my inbox very regularly and
she never misses a beat on it. So highly encourage
(03:58):
that subscription of whether it too.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Oh, it's nice and if people read it and you know,
you put it out in the world and somebody, I
really enjoy your newsletter, you know, once in a while
I hate reply.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah right, just so is anybody out there, hello, that's
my people? Do reply it is?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, I will say I don't know I hit reply
on it. But I personally have enjoyed it very much
and getting it and I love that you share so much,
you know, personal kind of elements too, things that you're
enjoying reading, things that you're you know, enjoying, you know,
kind of being a part of sharing a reflection thinking
about your mom recently too, in the in the beginning
there so love that and the dog features pretty regularly. Yeah,
(04:42):
I think.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
This week the fact that i'd lost the Advent chocolates.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, we are in a very
interesting and we were our first Advent counter for my
twenty one month old son, who is loving opening up
the door. But that doesn't understand if he doesn't get
to open all the doors every single day so far,
so we've had tears at the end of the four
days so far in December fourth year as we do
interview and it's yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Get it.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Little people calendar too, so he's getting a little amazing
little plastic figurine and he was just so excited about it,
I mean, wants more of them. But yeah, that's that's
not everybody has to hear about today or a calendar
issues at home. Well, we'll get through that and hopefully
next year you'll be But so, Allison, tell me about
(05:31):
ten years ago you went from this incredible, you know,
career in traditional publishing and said, you know what, I'm
moving on to something really exciting and new and daring.
Of course the risky you know at this time as well,
So tell us about kind of the origin story of
practical inspiration.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Do you know, I would love the origin story to
be I had a vision and I just decided to
step out and develop this new kind of model. I mean,
I think there's a little bit of that in it,
but there's an awful lot too of happenstance, and I
honestly don't know if I would ever have left McMillan
(06:11):
of my own accord. I loved my job, I loved
my colleagues. You know, it's terrific had it not been
for the fact that they moved into central London and
I have done a twenty five career year career in
publishing with ten months and so I didn't like London particularly,
and I had two smallish children and I didn't want
to move to London. So there was a personal element
(06:35):
in there of going, oh, I don't see that as
my life. And there was a professional element where having
been at the sort of bleeding edge of publishing innovation,
which is a really uncomfortable place to be because publishing
is a very low margin business which very much felt
on the wrong side of history in terms of trying
(06:55):
to not give people access unless they paid for it.
You know, I think publishing is broken, and I think
this is my best opportunity to take the settlement package
they're offering because they're moving and get out and do
something else. So there was an awful lot of kind
of that in it as well. And what I did
was trained as a coach, as a business coach, not
(07:17):
a life I'd be a terrible life coach, but turns
as a business coach. You know, I've I've got an MBA,
I've had I've had board experience. I was very doing
a lot of training and lots of work sort of
future planning and environment scanning and so on in my
role as innovation director, and I thought that would translate
(07:37):
really well into business coaching. So I did some business
coaching training. And of course what you have to do
is work with practice clients. Almost without exception, every single
practice client that I work with, small business owners and leaders.
As soon as they found out that I was a publisher,
all they wanted to talk about was publishing their book.
So yeah, that's interesting. So gradually and embark took an
(08:02):
embarrassingly long time. It probably took me eighteen months to
put all the pieces together and go, do you know what,
there's a business here, and it doesn't look quite like
traditional publishing because actually making money out of the sale
of books is a really miserable game. These days. They're
very low price, low margin objects.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It was ten years ago on a time I know, yeah,
I mean the.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Price of books has not shifted in like what twenty
twenty five years. The costs have gone up massively and
the quantity that your sell has gone down. So you know,
do the math. It's really hard. But for business books,
the return on investment, it was never really about the
sale of the books. It was always about the social
capital of the book, the dissemination of ideas, the visibility,
(08:45):
and all of that has its return on investment in
the business, not in the book sells. So it makes
complete sense to move to that author pace model where
you are supporting somebody who's not a professional writer, let's
face it, that has really good ideas, and you are
able because they are paying for you to do it.
You're able to give them all that development, editorial support,
(09:07):
the coaching support. You're able to incorporate their branding, their
ideas about cover design, and in a way that you know,
traditional publishers just haven't really got the time and you know,
resource for and then they get the line share of
the revenue and they get to buy the book at
cost and sell it in their business, you know. So
it just shifts the economics, but it doesn't change. Well,
(09:30):
I suppose it improves. The publishing infrastructure is the same
as it ever was, so you know, the right teams,
the warehouses, the rights team, all the things that publishers do.
That's the stuff that you can't do as a self
published author. And so you bring those two things together,
the best of traditional publishing in terms of metadata, infrastructure,
(09:51):
roots to market and so on, together with that best
of supported publishing, and that's where we land. And it's
really fun, so much more satisfying as a way to work.
It feels like a partnership.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Absolutely, I think too. You know, we work with books
across all publishing paths here at Smith and always having
one thing I've always really loved about that, you know
again kind of the hybrid and then and that that
author funded you know model and such is that as
you said there is the author gets to have so
much more of a of a say in the process,
(10:25):
but there's also so much more influence from the things
that they have really heavily invested in already their personal
brand there, you know, the from a content perspective as
well as from a branding perspective with logos and colors
and all of that. And I think that I see
I've seen in the past traditional publishers get kind of
(10:46):
lost in what the market wants to see next versus
leaning into how how this book is going to do
best by leaning into what this this author has already
established in their world, in their own brand ecosystem. And
so instead of saying that, Okay, let's go publish a
book over here because we see this one topic just
(11:09):
trending and resonating, and we think, hey, you've got a
big following, let's just have you write a book on
this topic over here. When it's not necessarily speaking directly
to your audience to this ecosysm you've established, just because
it's what the market's saying to do, you know, you're
missing a mark there. And I've seen that happen in
especially with some of the bigger publishers, you know, because
(11:31):
it's just responding to that side of it versus that
the author brands of it. And if you really lean
into that author side of it and what they've established,
there's so much more opportunity for for sales, for business
for you know, really leaning into it, and it might
feel a bit more limited because you're focusing on a
(11:53):
more condensed or niche audience, but it's probably there's going
to be a higher yield on response and return from
that audience than if you try to be everything for everyone.
You try to be whatever is trending or kind of
you know, how to reach a larger market that that's
not necessarily resonating with that author at this time. And
so I think that's where that models allows for so
(12:13):
much more of that influence from what the authors established
already in their world to bring into into the next.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I think that's really it's such a great point. It's
reflected too, I think in the kind of land grab
of intellectual property rights that traditional publishers do by the
author has to basically get permission from the publisher to
use their own material in any other way, which is
bonkers because the more they're putting out courses and giving
talks and using their material, the more books you're going
to sell. So you know, we've got a very differently
(12:43):
constructed which all we need is the publishing rights for
the book, and that's all we take, you know, the
subsidiary rights, translation rights and so on, you know, but
we want authors to be using that that intellectual property.
We want them to be creating other other formats, other experiences,
because they complement the book and they increase the sales
of the book.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah. Absolutely, So gosh, there's a few different questions I
have in mind for a conversation today, and I'm like,
which one do I want to go to next? Because
it's a beautiful segue off of where we are right now.
But I think I want to jump over to the
value of writing when we're talking about writing in your
biopere and so much of the writing it comes into play.
(13:24):
For business authors in particular, there is the whole writing
process of the book. But as we advocate for on
the publicity side of things, that writing does not end
with the last page of your book. You will be
if you want to be a thought leader, if you
want to have your voice out there in a really
significant way, that writing will never end, truly, So tell
us a little bit more about kind of your views
(13:45):
and the value of writing for business authors and the
process and even kind of how what that looks like
within practical inspiration too, and how you support your authors.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well, it's a lovely compliment to what you were just
talking about, as when you publish the book, you still
keep on writing. Yes, the performative writing that you do
in a book, you know that the writing that you
sort of put out into the world. I think people
feel they've got to start there, and it's just not
the case. And I think it's also why a lot
of people give up, because they look at the books
that are out there and they look at what they've
(14:15):
written and they're like, well, there's no point, you know,
because that's really good and this isn't. Well, of course
it's not. And I think that that kind of exposition writing,
where you're actually you're crystal clear on what you want
to say and you're putting it forward in a really
polished way, that's fabulous and we need that in the world.
And that's reader focused if you like. But if you
come upstream from that, there's all sorts of other forms.
(14:37):
I talk about exploratory writing a lot. You know, that's
what my most recent book was about, and it's very
much but you know, you don't have to know what
it is you want to say before you start writing,
because actually it's the process of writing that helps you
try it out and deepen your thinking and explore ideas.
And I don't think I think most people when they
think about writing a business book, they know how valuable
(14:59):
the finish book is going to be in their business.
What they don't think about, and what I'd love them
to think about more is how the process of writing
is going to serve them, how it's going to clarify
their thinking, help them build with distinctive intellectual property. So
not just kind of you know, vague ideas, but actually,
how do we pull this together into a model that
really helps or create a visual image, a metaphor that
(15:22):
helps people understand what we're saying, and how do you sequence.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
All of that?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And also while you're writing, if you're doing it in public,
if you're thinking aloud, you know, just to sort of close,
putting the stuff out in social media, you're seeing what
lands and you're getting responses and people say, oh, you know,
you should read this well, and that becomes that's what
builds following. You know, you don't need to wait till
the book's out there before you start trying to build
a file. You know, it's while you're you're becoming a
(15:47):
part of this conversation. I think it takes the pressure
off because it's more exploratory, it's more curious, it's more provisional,
it's more hey, what do we think about this? Or
you know, really helpful in terms of overcoming the fear
of becoming visible, the fear of being judged, and so on,
because it's just conversation. And I think that books, no
(16:10):
book is the last word in a topic ever. And
if you say yourself, what's try and write that, you're
you're going to disappoint yourself and you're going to put
too much pressure on yourself. If you see it as
part of contributing your perspective, your your voice, moving the
conversation forward, I think that's a much more helpful place
to start, and it starts with exploratory writing rather than
this expositionary stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Gosh, I love how you make it sound so positive
and fun that I think that the whole, as you said,
kind of the wrapping your head around writing an entire
book feels like this monster, this major hill to try
to climb. It's mount everest in the content process of
(16:52):
it all. And but yet when you really think can
think about it this way of learning, floring and discovering,
you know, new ways of thinking about the work that
you do too. I get it's also supportive in each other.
It's that if when you're writing your book, you can
think about, hey, you know, I'm learning this now, I
(17:14):
can take this back and talk to my clients in
this new way and such. So there you have to
look at the from a holistic view. But in particular,
I love what you're talking about in the earlier stages
of the process, and I talked a lot of off.
I talked off the other day actually about you know,
where they are in building their their platform and sharing
(17:38):
their content through LinkedIn in particular, which it is what
we always encourage our business authors to focus in on.
And so they're right now kind of targeting I think
a late spring publication date for their book. Actually this
one was was in the fall to we had a
little more more time here. But they're you know, they're saying, Okay,
(17:58):
I know I need to pick up on my social
media content and what I'm sharing. Should I start talking
about the book right now? I said, no, you don't
need to tell people about the fact that you're going
to have a book coming out eventually and give out
the title that you're thinking or anything. Yet, we don't
want to get people too excited about something they can't
go on pre order and support you on just yet.
What you can lean into is some of the themes
(18:19):
and the ideas and the content that you are probably
going to include in the book or that you're kind
of working through right now. Because the first time that
your audience hears about what's in the book should not
be the day that you say, I have a book
coming out. Let you know, please go pre order it.
There should be the bread crumbs that you're dropping along
(18:40):
the way that are getting people excited about what's to come.
And and there's also like like priming the pump for
that too. It's yeah, they're connecting your name to this
type of content, to being you know, a voice in
this space, also showing the reach of your voice in
(19:02):
this space too, where they're seeing the application across you know,
someone else wrote a great article for HBr and you
comment on that and you show the connection you know
to your content, you know with that piece. Or there's
a new statistic about workplace culture that you add your
voice to and that might be something that ends up
(19:23):
kind of you know, in chapter four eventually, but the
people will connect the dots more so on that. And
that's so important today is you don't just get that
one chance for that connection point and everybody goes, yes,
of course, I'm gonna go hire you for speaking, or
I'm gonna go buy your book, or I'm gonna do
this because they heard something one time that doesn't have
They need that repetitive assurance and trust building over over
(19:47):
time in the pre publications ideally as well as well
after to to actually get people to want to invest
in you today and in the end. And so I
love how you again you frame all of it in
such a positive way, because I talked to about that,
all of it, whether they're writing the book, posing on LinkedIn,
(20:07):
writing boline articles for us to pitch whatever it is,
and imes like, oh my gosh, I have to write
something else again. But it is such an important process
and there's such incredible value in it, and when we
really think about all of the different ways that it
can feed into other possibilities too, and and and I
(20:29):
think another key point that you mentioned there is, you know,
the book really helps you to kind of the process
and building the book and the developing the book. It
helps you to really understand and get clear on on
your messaging and your work. And I think a lot
of authors are so afraid to kind of pull back
(20:51):
on their messaging in certain ways that they're going to
leave someone out of it, or they're you know, it's
going to feel too limiting. And when we try to
be everything for everyone, we're and have nothing for no one,
I think in that way, So that process also and
that clarity helps us to be clear on how the
messaging can speak to or really core kind of space initially,
(21:12):
but I think all the other content that you develop
can give you the opportunity to expand that out and
kind of dip your toe into some of the other
spaces too, and kind of pull back other layers of
the onion. But let's start with the core of the
onion first, with what that book focus is on.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
And I don't know if you find this as well,
but often people I think are quite nervous about sharing
their ideas because somebody might steal their idea, you know,
and oh yeah, do you know an idea is the
ten a penny you know, it's not unless you have
like the recipe for coca cola. It's not the idea
that's the thing. It's it's what you do with it,
and it's how you apply it. And also it's a
(21:49):
really reductive perspective. I think that because it's like, I
have this one idea and if it goes on nothing
and it's just not true. Actually, you have that idea
and all it is is a springboard. And the way
that you grow the idea and the way that you
make into something that's really really valuable for people is
by starting to talk about it and seeing what's lands
And do you know what, if somebody knicks that idea,
(22:09):
it's okay because you have already moved on. And I
think that that's that sort of sense of your powerful ability,
a sense of your own resourcefulness, the sense that actually,
nobody else can write the book that you can write
because you bring your unique experience and expertise and perspectives
and so on to it. So I think the dis
benefit of the risk of somebody nicking your idea compared
(22:32):
with the dis benefit of keeping your idea really small
and untested because you don't dare share it. You know,
don't just get out there talk.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Sure, absolutely, Well that's that's a great segue into into
another important what we're going to talk about today, in
stealing information, in taking our intellectual property or however or
you know, these fears that we have, let's talk about
the monster in the room, the elephant in the room
and a big conversation that we sought for for a lot,
(23:00):
which is AI and are kind of technological disruptions that
are of course impacting the publishing industry as it is,
you know, every industry across the board. And you know,
we have seen of course the you know, major data
breaches of books just getting out there into AI, and
you know, and with our major publishers in recent years,
(23:23):
and just also AI language and very vague language being
added into a lot of publishing contracts or hearing about
and such, and so I know it, you know, with
something that doesn't have that comes with uncertainty and it's new,
comes with vagueness a lot of the time as well.
But i'd love to hear your thoughts on that in
(23:45):
connection to what we were just discussing, and in the
mindset that you encourage your authors or you any author
to have as we think about AI in the mix
here and also you know, anything that you want to
share around practical inspiration and kind of how you're seeing
AI incorporated into anything from your contracts to just your
strategies and such. Overall.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah, so AI is such an amazing tool and it
is really exciting. It's a terrible master and I think
that's it's just being really really clear about what's the
job for humans? Who what's a job for AI? And
it has brilliant I mean we're using it quite a
lot in process development and trying to get things really
really clear in the back end, you know, because it's
(24:30):
great at that we look at you know, writers a
macro for this. You know that it's a fantastic intern.
It's great for research, it's great for you know, I've
written this chapter. Can you just check the readability level
of it? Could you it's two thousand words too long?
Could you suggest someplace? You know, don't do it, but
just show me where it could possibly be cut. You know,
all of that is fantastic, and I really encourage authors
(24:52):
to learn how to use AI as a tool as
an intern, right, but I don't want to I get
the actual writing to it because as I said, that's
the whole point is what you what you do inside
your head as you write is the really important thing.
I took about the output and the outcome, which I
(25:12):
know isn't my phrase. I can't remember who the hell
it is, but you know, the output of a LinkedIn
post or what you know. I hate it when LinkedIn
says would you like me to write? Why don't wan
you to write my post for me?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Stop it?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
I'm here so I can discover what it is I
think by writing my books.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I've put a good recommendation on a new word or
something here and there. I'll take that, but not the
whole thing, please right?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
That is exactly it isn't it? So the output is
the piece of writing, but the outcome is sort of
becoming the person who wrote that and can talk sensibly
about it. If some says, O, I love what you
wrote about such a you know, what are you going
to do If somebody says, oh, could you just explain
what you meant by and you're like, I don't write it.
I don't know. So you know, and also so ethically
(25:55):
intellectually but also legally, you know, we have an AI
policy which we're really really upfront with authors about is
that you are absolutely welcome to use AI to help
you as a tool. I mean you can't not. Frankly,
word spell correct is an AI tool, you know, it's
just added in everything. But this content has to be
your content. You have to write it yourself, and you're
(26:17):
free to use to to do some research. You're free
to do some sort of editing later, but the actual
thinking on the page, that's got to be all you.
And you have to be the person who wrote that,
and we have to be able to interrogate you, and
you have to be able to go and deliver a
talk on this, and you have to be able to
explain your reasoning. So all of that is the human job.
(26:41):
And then you can look at the delegating the sort
of the grunt work stuff to the AI. And I
just think it's astonishing that we are even contemplating delegating
writing thinking, our most I mean art, you know, our
most human things. These are the things that a I
should be freeing up us for too many prepositions there,
(27:03):
These are the things for which AI should be creating
more time. We should get.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
A yeah, yeah, I know, and I certainly have seen
you know a little bit of that with with certain
publishers and such, and like the cover design area, I
will be rob kind of the arts a side of it.
And I know that's been you know, a bit of
a of a uh yeah, a sticking point, if you will.
(27:30):
And again I've seen some that have been designed by
a I and those that aren't, and that doesn't hold
you know, hold hold hold a candle to those designed
by a person with experience and such.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, it's an existential threat for illustrating translators.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
The whole ecosystem of publishing is you know, is impacted
by this. And I think I don't don't I wrestle
with this a bit because I think, well, is it
if it's an ex essential threat for I don't know,
say somebody putting references together, Actually, a I can do
that job really really well. Is that something you should take.
(28:12):
I think it probably is, just but an illustration from
the front of the covenent that that's a human job.
So I'm very conscious that where I draw the lines
might not be where everybody draws the lines. But I
think we have to lean into that. And just because
it's hard to we don't get to do.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It right right. Yeah, I've heard some really mixed feedback
on the AI generated audio books. I think, is it
through with not the audible but the other one.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
There's a few different to generate that and then yeah,
but there are several tools doing it and doing it
really well.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, some and then others that there there's an author
who we're working with now and she's just shared that
that the version they haven't her publishers and gone through
with the audible version. Yeah, but they have the AI
generated one, and people have listened into it or like
this is this is not great? This is really hard
to listen to. It is.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
You know, if you might, you might have a book
that would never justify an audio book. So often professional books,
you know, more scholarly academic books, nobody's ever going to invest.
It's expensive to do a proper audio book. Yeah. So
if you have digital audio that's better than a screen reader,
which is pretty awful, let's face it, is it better
(29:34):
to do that than nothing? And if you're doing it
for that one and it gets better and better, at
what point do you Yeah? So these are really hard questions,
and we have to have the conversation constantly because it's
constantly changing.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Right right elements, Yeah, yeah, without sort of preciousness. It
was really interesting back in when I attended the Thinker's
Fifty Words back in November of last year in London,
and Doroy Clark spoke about thought leadership and and oh
(30:10):
my gosh, I feel like I could have just an
entire day where all I do is say Toroy Clark
said this all from just that one event and the
couple of times that she spoke. But she was actually
talking a lot about about a This is right after
the major data breach that had happened with the major
publishers last year, and and she wouldn't say my books
(30:31):
were in the mix with that and everything, but there
was a kind of a question around thought leadership and
kind of going back to the content and the writing
that we were just discussing too. And you know, one
thing I thought was really interesting that she said around
your your content, your voice and you know, fighting against
the AI kind of stealing your voice and such. But
(30:54):
the power of always kind of slightly differentiating your message
a little bit in the way that you share it
over time, and so you might have the core of
your book, but this comes into play a lot with
with our work is we say, okay, hey, we have
an opportunity for you to write an article over here
for for CMO, and then there are article opportunity for
(31:15):
a fast company, And if you write the same kind
of article for both of those places, the likelihood of
AI kind of being able to capture your voice, and
if it's too similar to how you write your book
and too similar to how you're kind of writing everything
on LinkedIn in a very repetitive kind of way, then
the likelihood of AI being able to really capture your
(31:37):
voice and say, you know, I think there's she was
saying something about, you know, put in there, like tell
me how to write something like Dory Clark does, and
it's going to capture it if you do that kind
of similar writing. But if you really kind of change
up and differentiate your messaging in certain ways, and that
CMO piece that you write really speaks specifically to marketing
(32:00):
challenges the company's facing, whereas the fast company piece maybe
speaks a little bit more to a you know, a
general kind of leadership angle of it. But then your
LinkedIn content talks about small business connections or something like
that helps to create a little bit of confusion for
not the audiences, but a little bit for the AI
side of it in oh wait, I'm not seeing the
(32:22):
same you know, the same kind of thread running through here,
but you're showing your application of your message across a
lot of different audiences. So it was a little way
of like I think, tricking the AI systems into you know,
the differentation of your content. But I think that it's
a it's just interesting, as we talked about, back to
the writing and the content creation portion of it is
(32:43):
you know, just another and connecting the dots on all
of this together another point of why it's important to be,
you know, always challenging yourself to think a little bit
differently and do things differently. Always.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Thank you always, yeah, absolutely, And of course if you
all using an AI tool for editing or anything like that,
it's really important that you have the paid version of
chat GPT and that you de select the fact that
it can learn from this. You know, there's just sort
of settings that you can change when you're using AI
tools that mean that you're not giving permission for it
to be added into you know, to its sort of
(33:16):
massive language learning model, and that's really valuable. But I
also kind of think you're fighting a losing battle if
you're trying to stay I think you sort of have
to accept the fact that somebody could say, you know,
write me this piece in the voice of Alison Jones
because there's so much of me out there and it's
so smart. But they'll never be Alison Jones and they
(33:37):
will never be able to well hah. Having said that,
I've seen really good avatars as well, So I think
all you can do is just be as human as
possible and really lean into the fact that I am
talking to you in real time as a person, understanding
all the nuance and context, and we share, you know,
(33:58):
a connection and a relationship. I think doubling down on
all of that is what we have. But luckily it's
really good. Yeah, you know, there's no point where I
just job better. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, No, it's such a fantastic point. And I think
that's you know, what you're saying about bringing in this
this true human side of it, your authenticity, your your vulnerabilities,
your personal experiences and such.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I think, yes, right.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
That's something that I know personally. When I, you know,
see individuals who are sharing those kind of things, I
try to that in my LinkedIn content, I connect more
strongly to those who are sharing in that way on
LinkedIn and and through what they're sharing. And I think
that's a big change for business authors today versus if
(34:51):
I look back fifteen years my time here at Smith
or I'm sorry as you look back to your your
different points and starting practical inspiration and even prior to
that is you know, especially pre COVID, like you could
really go.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Out and yeah, the pandemic lean into.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Just like you know, the these are the five ways
to do this. This is the strategy, this is the
you know, you really come at things from a very
business minded at the standpoint. And but as we all
were welcomed into each other's you know, homes and and such,
the zoom and and things changed so much with COVID.
There has just been this call for for the human
(35:28):
side of things, for building authentic connection and such, which
is a harder thing, certainly for for our AI friends
to to really establish their you know that, I think
again is an important thing for any business author, any
author truly to to keep in mind and think about.
And as you reflect back on your career, what would
(35:51):
you say for the business author in particular, are some
of the changes that have really kind of significantly happened,
or expectations on them or such that they should have
in mind as they embark on the exciting journey of writing.
We're just gonna say I was a whole the book
and all the things involved with that.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Book and everything that means. Yeah, well, I mean, starting
with AI, I think you know it is. It's a
challenge in lots of ways, and it's terrifying in lots
of ways. It's also a massive opportunity because the vast
majority of people will just turn to AI to write
their stuff because they can and because it's easy.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So if you.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Do your own thinking and write your own stuff and
put your own voice into it, you will stand out.
And you can already see that on LinkedIn. You just
know when somebody is creating this plausible sounding, generic, soulless
bit of content, and you know when somebody is speaking
in their own voice, and I think you know that
that's a real opportunity for the people that have got
(36:51):
the courage to really, you know, do it imperfectly, but
do it themselves and as I say, think out loud
and allow the kind of evil of their thinking to
happen kind of in public. So that's a great opportunity
as much as it's a threat to everything. I think
that the big thing for business book authors particularly is
(37:12):
not to get so caught up in the book that
you forget about everything else. I think the book, your
book is going to work brilliantly as part of a
bigger ecosystem, but you kind of have to say a
step back from that and go, well, what is the
dent that I am trying to make in the universe here?
And the book will be maybe the fullest expression of that.
It'd be the thing that really helps you shape and
(37:34):
bring together your thinking. But honestly, in isolation, it's not
going to actually have a huge impact unless you are
out there speaking or delivering training, or delivering consultation packages
or coaching. You have to have those kind of experiential
touch points as well. And then when you have the
experiential stuff going on, the book's brilliant because it complements
(37:54):
those people can take a little bit of you home
with them. That the book on its own without any
experiential piece not so much.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
So.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
I think think about the ecosystem, think about what the
four or five things that you're going to deliver that
a deliver revenue because I think the book won't, and
b that you love and that are going to suit
you know, what you what you're best at, and what
your the people that you want to work with need.
You know, there's a sort of crazy then diagram going
on here. And but rather than think about the book
(38:25):
per se, think about that bigger piece, what is the
whole ecosystem here, and then the book fits in the
middle of that and makes so much possible.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, I've talked to a lot of others about kind of
shipping the mentality. I think in years ago it was
that the book was like the trunk of the tree,
and then the other things that you do were the
branches off of it. And today you as the the
expert here, you're the trunk of the tree. The book
is one branch, but there's likely to be other books
(38:55):
and other branches, you know, to come down the road.
And so what you say about this ecosism is such
an important point because what that creates there are those
connection points beyond between your different books that might come
out as well. Rarely do I see a business butler
word just they have one book that comes out, there's
usually another one in them somewhere down the road. And
(39:16):
so it is right, so, you know, once we released
that book, that first book, you use the momentum and
the energy and such that you've built around that, and
by having these other offerings and content and pieces of thought,
leadership and all of these things to just keep people
in that ecosystem are so important so that when the
(39:40):
time comes to the next book launch, that's going to
be even more successful and exciting because you've kept all
those people in your world but hopefully also brought more
into that world in the meantime too. And so it
is having this really this long gay mentality about this,
whether that long game means another book or just a
future product you launch, or a course or whatever it is,
(40:02):
it's just having that in mind. Is I think a
big shift from years past was all about am I
making a bestseller list? Is it just about this one
day in time? And what happens after that is is
not as important? It really is, you know, how this
this long gay mentality that that authors have. Yeah. Yeah,
(40:24):
So as we look ahead to twenty twenty five, and
you know, there were some amazing takeaways that that we
certainly had from Frankfort and thinking about what the future
of publishing is going to look like, at least in
the next year and beyond that, what are some things
that you're most excited about? And I also always love
(40:46):
to hear how many of our publisher friends. Is there
like a trend that you're seeing of even with your
submissions that are coming in or books you have planned
to publish and in the next year or two, are
there certain you know, common conversations and trends that you're
really picking up steam?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Well, big question. So I am still really irrepressibly optimistic
about publishing. I should start by saying that because I think,
you know, I've been in this business such a long time,
such a long time, over thirty years now, and literally
since the day I joined I think got my first
job as an editorial assistant in nineteen ninety two, and
(41:24):
they were talking about the death of the book, and
you know, and you think about all the technology that's
come and gone in that period of time, and yet
this book has been incredibly resilient. And I think as
we become more and more digital and screen based, there's
something so valuable about the thinginess of a book so
(41:45):
I think that's oh, I love that. And we're leaning
into you know, the look and the feel, and you know,
we're really focusing on design and just making it something
that takes you offline, allows you to immerse yourself in
this sort of distraction free long form environments. So leaning
into all of that and not apologizing for it. And
(42:06):
another big trend for us is we're taking the books.
So there there are people who love to do this,
and we want to serve them and want to serve
them really, really well by writing great books that can
really practical and inspiring books, and there are other people
who are less able, and I genuinely think there has
been a kind of deterioration in the kind of collected
(42:26):
attention span or just wants to sort of ducking quick
and get some practical tips. So one of the things
that we're doing is our six minute Smart series, So
I'm super excited. Launched the first ones in November. You
saw them at Frankfurt and I know, so we've got
six more coming out in April and another six coming
out in November. And what we're doing is we're looking
(42:48):
at these backlist books, which are you know, really rich
and full and won't ever be read by a huge
section of the population insane. We're going to put We're
going to have these super small, super short, super punchy
little books where we pull out ten key concepts and
then we invite you to coach yourself on that. So
(43:09):
we've explained this idea to you in really friendly, short language.
What does this mean for you?
Speaker 2 (43:14):
So what?
Speaker 3 (43:14):
And there's three sort of self coaching questions, And I
think that ability to lean into to pick up an idea,
to grasp it, and then to apply it, that's what
we are really excited about. And of course once you've
read that, you're going this is this is gold, then
of course we refer you to the original full book.
So I'm kind of, you know, creating a story for
(43:35):
a different type of use or a different use case,
really bringing in that kind of co creation that a
reader does when they're reading a book, and really leaning
into that with the self coaching, but also having that
kind of long form there for the people that go,
this is what I need and I really want to
immerse myself deeper in it. So that's a very long
answer to your question, but it was quite a complicated question.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I asked I did. I asked a multi layered questions,
a beautiful job of answering all those elements in there.
And I love that that approach to it. I think
that that is so a direction that we're heading in
and in publishing as a whole. And again we do this,
we think about this from the media standpoint, and it's
just is niching and thinking about the opportunities for niching
(44:17):
and how do you respond to what the needs are
of an audience versus trying to force the square peg
in the round hole over here. So I love that
you're seeing, Okay, we've got these books that they're heavy,
but there's a lot going on there. We're not going
to necessarily get everybody to read them, but we know
that the you know, the time constrained you know, leader
(44:41):
over here could really benefit from some of these key takeaways.
So let's create something that allows them to interact with that.
I think audiobooks was a beautiful, you know, kind of
first step into that and that we all kind of
saw in the publishing world of what that allowed for.
I mean, ebooks were great that first that alwa, it's
going to take so many books with us on our
you know airplane and reference them quickly, and I think
(45:04):
again audiobooks even allowed for more of that accessibility and
such there. But I love the direction that you're heading
in with this series and being able to still have
that that thingy thing you know in the mix, but
but with the tangible products there, but understand how you're
(45:24):
going to be able to get people engaged with that content.
And so it's it's it's not surprisingly as someone who's
been so focused on innovation of it all for so
very innovative, fantastic ideas and so excited is to see
what the responses to that as we you know, stay
in touch over this next year and excited to see
(45:47):
all of that for you and the team, So gosh,
we're our time is flying by together. Is there anything more,
whether it was related to Frankfurt, related to the future
of publishing, related to just things in your life that
you're excited about, anything more you want to share with
everyone who's too listening in today, I guess.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I'll do a quick pitch for the proposal challenge, because
I think that's something that anybody who's listening might be
interested in. So three times, yeah, three times a year,
I run a thing called the ten Day Business Book
Proposal Challenge. The next one, as we speak, will be
starting on the thirteenth of January, which might be just
after this goes out, just before I don't know, yes,
And then the next one will be April, and I
(46:27):
do it again in September, and it's a small group
up to thirty five people and in the course of
ten days we just go through the book proposal. We
use that as the curriculum for helping you get a
kind of vague idea in your head out into an
executable document, because if you have to think about who's
the target market, what's the distinctive approach, Only then do
you think about title and subtitle. And then on day
(46:49):
eight you can to the table contents and that changes
everything because then you've actually the ineffable and you can
write the book. So I would say, if anybody's like
a man, I just don't know how to go from
it is kind of vague idea in my head to
a book, I'd say the first step is writing a proposal,
and a really great way to do that is the
ten Day Business Book Proposal Challenge. So they go, there's
my pitch.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, I love it. Thank you for reminding me of that.
I loved hearing about it at Frankfurt and learning more
about it, and I think it's such a valuable early
stage tool for individual things about And I will say when,
even as publicists, when we come in at the end,
I love when someone says, oh, and by the way,
here's my book proposal. Things have changed along the way,
and I'm like, of course, yes, I know they always do.
(47:29):
If they didn't be something really amazing that you just
fully nailed it on the book proposal.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Thinking hasn't evolved, which is a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, that too, But I love that. We love getting
a book proposal because it's just giving us this amazing,
succinct glimpse into where your mind was at that time,
and we get to see the evolution. And then, you know,
because we love to pull, pick and pull all different
little elements from that entire journey, you're basically you're giving
your marketing people the collateral goal.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
I should also say that somebody each challenge, I choose
a winner. I'm doing sort of little inverted comments if
you're listening to this, because they're all winners if they
get their proposals finish, and most of them do. But
I actually, genuinely this is my route to commissioning. I
have a kind of traditional publishing list as well as
the author pays model, and this is how I do it.
(48:22):
I get to choose that the proposal that most sort
of excites me as a publisher and as a person,
and I offer them an all expenses paid publishing deal.
So there is real skin in the game which helps
with the application of the people taking part.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
That's so great, so great, So Allison, it has been
such I'm sure I talk to you again almost two
months since our last in person meeting, and to talk
through just all that you've done in this amazing world
of publishing and with business authors and your views here
and what you see ahead. I'm excited to continue personally
(48:59):
following along with your vision and your ideas that are
to come for practical inspiration as well as just your
influence in our in our space overall here Again, I
shared it early on. You have your podcast, you have.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I'm going to speak to you on my podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I'm excited. Yes, I'm going to be a guest to do. Yeah,
put the table here and uh, just but is there
anywhere else you'd like to encourage people to visit or
follow along with you at if they want to learn more.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
So there are sort of three brands within my mission
of making writing and reading core for business. Alison Jones
dot Com is me and if you want to know
podcast speaking or coaching that that's that's where to go.
Pro personal challenge details are on there. There's Practical Inspiration
dot Com which is all our books and other marvelous authors,
(49:51):
and then this Extraordinary Business Books dot Com which is
the podcast. So yeah, any one of those are all
three of.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Them great and great LinkedIn time as well over here.
I highly recommend I'll follow on LinkedIn for Alliston to
Versa Iganbrud's a pretty a pretty good one. Easy to
find that one. So well, thank you so much again
for joining us today. I'm excited to join you as
(50:18):
well on your podcast and just continue to stay in touch.
I think we have so much to continue learning from you,
as do all of those who are are tuning in.
So thank you so much, Allison, and thank you to
everyone for listening in with us today. This is all
things book marketing podcasts. Please subscribe listening to other episodes
(50:39):
and you can also find the video portion on YouTube
if you're not here already, so thanks so much, have
a great day, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
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.
Welcome to the Smith Publicity All Things Book Marketing podcast,
offering tips, insights, and advice from the best in the
publishing industry.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi. Everyone, welcome to the All Things Book Marketing Podcast.
I am Marissa Eigenbrud, the president and partner at Smith Publicity,
and excited to be your host today to have a
really exciting conversation with Alison Jones. I'm going to give
you a little bit of a background on Alison, who
I had that wonderful opportunity to meet in person at
(00:36):
the Frankfurt book Fair back in October, and our little
history with Practical Inspiration publishing goes back just a few
months before that as we started to work on an
author together and we've just really loved learning more about
your team, Allison, and your process and your way of
doing things, and so then having an exciting conversation that
(00:57):
Frankfurt led us to this conversation here today. So Alison,
thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh thank you for having me Meursa, It's really really
good to be here and yet terriffic to meet you
and the team at Frankfurt. So one of those we
had Frankfurt book The meetings are so short, aren't they
And we were all talking incredibly fast and we still
couldn't get everything squeezed in there. So it's nice to
have a bit more time to talk now.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh. Absolutely, they're such productive meetings. I know. I was
talking through kind of key takeaways, you know, with with Courin,
who is there with us, our VP of business development.
And one of the just great things about these affairs
is just that in person time and a zoom's great,
we love it, but having that time to really sit
(01:40):
down and get to know someone and and have just
a really productive conversation around what you've done together, what
more lies ahead, and the trends we're all seeing, and
how it all supports each other. I think ultimately gives
back to the authors that we all want to, you know,
celebrate and elevate in our work.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah, and it's such a partnership, isn't it, Because publishers
need publicists and publishers need publishers and just getting that
relationship working vetters. Yeah, it's what its all about.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Wonderful. So let me give a little bit of that
background on you, Allison, for all of our listeners today,
and then we'll dive into the great questions that we have.
So Allison is the director and the founder of Practical
Inspiration Publishing and congratulations ten years this year really exciting,
so twenty fourteen, but that certainly was in no way
(02:31):
the start of your career in the publishing world. Alison
is the host of the Extraordinary Business Book Club, which
is a podcast and community for writers and readers of
extraordinary business books as well. She's a veteran of the
publishing industry. She worked for twenty five years with leading
companies such as Chambers, Oxford University Press and McMillan at McMillan,
(02:55):
and she's publisher and then Director of Innovation Strategy at
paul Grave McMillan. Again, not surprising to see some of
the really great innovations and new ideas you've brought over
to Practical Inspiration. She regularly speaks and blogs on the
publishing industry, entrepreneurship, innovation and the importance of writing for business.
Is a judge at the Business Book Awards and a
(03:16):
former member of the board of IPG, and she writes
and edits written and edited several books as well, including
this book Means Business back in twenty eighteen and Exploratory
Writing in twenty twenty two. So we're going to talk
about writing a good bit today because that's clearly been
an important part of your background and your experience. And
(03:38):
on that writing point, I highly encourage everyone to subscribe
to Allison's All Things Business book newsletter that she somehow
gets out weekly, which I'm so impressed by. There's a
lot of writing and a lot of commitment. But I
have been receiving it in my inbox very regularly and
she never misses a beat on it. So highly encourage
(03:58):
that subscription of whether it too.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Oh, it's nice and if people read it and you know,
you put it out in the world and somebody, I
really enjoy your newsletter, you know, once in a while
I hate reply.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah right, just so is anybody out there, hello, that's
my people? Do reply it is?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, I will say I don't know I hit reply
on it. But I personally have enjoyed it very much
and getting it and I love that you share so much,
you know, personal kind of elements too, things that you're
enjoying reading, things that you're you know, enjoying, you know,
kind of being a part of sharing a reflection thinking
about your mom recently too, in the in the beginning
there so love that and the dog features pretty regularly. Yeah,
(04:42):
I think.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
This week the fact that i'd lost the Advent chocolates.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, we are in a very
interesting and we were our first Advent counter for my
twenty one month old son, who is loving opening up
the door. But that doesn't understand if he doesn't get
to open all the doors every single day so far,
so we've had tears at the end of the four
days so far in December fourth year as we do
interview and it's yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Get it.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Little people calendar too, so he's getting a little amazing
little plastic figurine and he was just so excited about it,
I mean, wants more of them. But yeah, that's that's
not everybody has to hear about today or a calendar
issues at home. Well, we'll get through that and hopefully
next year you'll be But so, Allison, tell me about
(05:31):
ten years ago you went from this incredible, you know,
career in traditional publishing and said, you know what, I'm
moving on to something really exciting and new and daring.
Of course the risky you know at this time as well,
So tell us about kind of the origin story of
practical inspiration.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Do you know, I would love the origin story to
be I had a vision and I just decided to
step out and develop this new kind of model. I mean,
I think there's a little bit of that in it,
but there's an awful lot too of happenstance, and I
honestly don't know if I would ever have left McMillan
(06:11):
of my own accord. I loved my job, I loved
my colleagues. You know, it's terrific had it not been
for the fact that they moved into central London and
I have done a twenty five career year career in
publishing with ten months and so I didn't like London particularly,
and I had two smallish children and I didn't want
to move to London. So there was a personal element
(06:35):
in there of going, oh, I don't see that as
my life. And there was a professional element where having
been at the sort of bleeding edge of publishing innovation,
which is a really uncomfortable place to be because publishing
is a very low margin business which very much felt
on the wrong side of history in terms of trying
(06:55):
to not give people access unless they paid for it.
You know, I think publishing is broken, and I think
this is my best opportunity to take the settlement package
they're offering because they're moving and get out and do
something else. So there was an awful lot of kind
of that in it as well. And what I did
was trained as a coach, as a business coach, not
(07:17):
a life I'd be a terrible life coach, but turns
as a business coach. You know, I've I've got an MBA,
I've had I've had board experience. I was very doing
a lot of training and lots of work sort of
future planning and environment scanning and so on in my
role as innovation director, and I thought that would translate
(07:37):
really well into business coaching. So I did some business
coaching training. And of course what you have to do
is work with practice clients. Almost without exception, every single
practice client that I work with, small business owners and leaders.
As soon as they found out that I was a publisher,
all they wanted to talk about was publishing their book.
So yeah, that's interesting. So gradually and embark took an
(08:02):
embarrassingly long time. It probably took me eighteen months to
put all the pieces together and go, do you know what,
there's a business here, and it doesn't look quite like
traditional publishing because actually making money out of the sale
of books is a really miserable game. These days. They're
very low price, low margin objects.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It was ten years ago on a time I know, yeah,
I mean the.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Price of books has not shifted in like what twenty
twenty five years. The costs have gone up massively and
the quantity that your sell has gone down. So you know,
do the math. It's really hard. But for business books,
the return on investment, it was never really about the
sale of the books. It was always about the social
capital of the book, the dissemination of ideas, the visibility,
(08:45):
and all of that has its return on investment in
the business, not in the book sells. So it makes
complete sense to move to that author pace model where
you are supporting somebody who's not a professional writer, let's
face it, that has really good ideas, and you are
able because they are paying for you to do it.
You're able to give them all that development, editorial support,
(09:07):
the coaching support. You're able to incorporate their branding, their
ideas about cover design, and in a way that you know,
traditional publishers just haven't really got the time and you know,
resource for and then they get the line share of
the revenue and they get to buy the book at
cost and sell it in their business, you know. So
it just shifts the economics, but it doesn't change. Well,
(09:30):
I suppose it improves. The publishing infrastructure is the same
as it ever was, so you know, the right teams,
the warehouses, the rights team, all the things that publishers do.
That's the stuff that you can't do as a self
published author. And so you bring those two things together,
the best of traditional publishing in terms of metadata, infrastructure,
(09:51):
roots to market and so on, together with that best
of supported publishing, and that's where we land. And it's
really fun, so much more satisfying as a way to work.
It feels like a partnership.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Absolutely, I think too. You know, we work with books
across all publishing paths here at Smith and always having
one thing I've always really loved about that, you know
again kind of the hybrid and then and that that
author funded you know model and such is that as
you said there is the author gets to have so
much more of a of a say in the process,
(10:25):
but there's also so much more influence from the things
that they have really heavily invested in already their personal
brand there, you know, the from a content perspective as
well as from a branding perspective with logos and colors
and all of that. And I think that I see
I've seen in the past traditional publishers get kind of
(10:46):
lost in what the market wants to see next versus
leaning into how how this book is going to do
best by leaning into what this this author has already
established in their world, in their own brand ecosystem. And
so instead of saying that, Okay, let's go publish a
book over here because we see this one topic just
(11:09):
trending and resonating, and we think, hey, you've got a
big following, let's just have you write a book on
this topic over here. When it's not necessarily speaking directly
to your audience to this ecosysm you've established, just because
it's what the market's saying to do, you know, you're
missing a mark there. And I've seen that happen in
especially with some of the bigger publishers, you know, because
(11:31):
it's just responding to that side of it versus that
the author brands of it. And if you really lean
into that author side of it and what they've established,
there's so much more opportunity for for sales, for business
for you know, really leaning into it, and it might
feel a bit more limited because you're focusing on a
(11:53):
more condensed or niche audience, but it's probably there's going
to be a higher yield on response and return from
that audience than if you try to be everything for everyone.
You try to be whatever is trending or kind of
you know, how to reach a larger market that that's
not necessarily resonating with that author at this time. And
so I think that's where that models allows for so
(12:13):
much more of that influence from what the authors established
already in their world to bring into into the next.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I think that's really it's such a great point. It's
reflected too, I think in the kind of land grab
of intellectual property rights that traditional publishers do by the
author has to basically get permission from the publisher to
use their own material in any other way, which is
bonkers because the more they're putting out courses and giving
talks and using their material, the more books you're going
to sell. So you know, we've got a very differently
(12:43):
constructed which all we need is the publishing rights for
the book, and that's all we take, you know, the
subsidiary rights, translation rights and so on, you know, but
we want authors to be using that that intellectual property.
We want them to be creating other other formats, other experiences,
because they complement the book and they increase the sales
of the book.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah. Absolutely, So gosh, there's a few different questions I
have in mind for a conversation today, and I'm like,
which one do I want to go to next? Because
it's a beautiful segue off of where we are right now.
But I think I want to jump over to the
value of writing when we're talking about writing in your
biopere and so much of the writing it comes into play.
(13:24):
For business authors in particular, there is the whole writing
process of the book. But as we advocate for on
the publicity side of things, that writing does not end
with the last page of your book. You will be
if you want to be a thought leader, if you
want to have your voice out there in a really
significant way, that writing will never end, truly, So tell
us a little bit more about kind of your views
(13:45):
and the value of writing for business authors and the
process and even kind of how what that looks like
within practical inspiration too, and how you support your authors.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well, it's a lovely compliment to what you were just
talking about, as when you publish the book, you still
keep on writing. Yes, the performative writing that you do
in a book, you know that the writing that you
sort of put out into the world. I think people
feel they've got to start there, and it's just not
the case. And I think it's also why a lot
of people give up, because they look at the books
that are out there and they look at what they've
(14:15):
written and they're like, well, there's no point, you know,
because that's really good and this isn't. Well, of course
it's not. And I think that that kind of exposition writing,
where you're actually you're crystal clear on what you want
to say and you're putting it forward in a really
polished way, that's fabulous and we need that in the world.
And that's reader focused if you like. But if you
come upstream from that, there's all sorts of other forms.
(14:37):
I talk about exploratory writing a lot. You know, that's
what my most recent book was about, and it's very
much but you know, you don't have to know what
it is you want to say before you start writing,
because actually it's the process of writing that helps you
try it out and deepen your thinking and explore ideas.
And I don't think I think most people when they
think about writing a business book, they know how valuable
(14:59):
the finish book is going to be in their business.
What they don't think about, and what I'd love them
to think about more is how the process of writing
is going to serve them, how it's going to clarify
their thinking, help them build with distinctive intellectual property. So
not just kind of you know, vague ideas, but actually,
how do we pull this together into a model that
really helps or create a visual image, a metaphor that
(15:22):
helps people understand what we're saying, and how do you sequence.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
All of that?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And also while you're writing, if you're doing it in public,
if you're thinking aloud, you know, just to sort of close,
putting the stuff out in social media, you're seeing what
lands and you're getting responses and people say, oh, you know,
you should read this well, and that becomes that's what
builds following. You know, you don't need to wait till
the book's out there before you start trying to build
a file. You know, it's while you're you're becoming a
(15:47):
part of this conversation. I think it takes the pressure
off because it's more exploratory, it's more curious, it's more provisional,
it's more hey, what do we think about this? Or
you know, really helpful in terms of overcoming the fear
of becoming visible, the fear of being judged, and so on,
because it's just conversation. And I think that books, no
(16:10):
book is the last word in a topic ever. And
if you say yourself, what's try and write that, you're
you're going to disappoint yourself and you're going to put
too much pressure on yourself. If you see it as
part of contributing your perspective, your your voice, moving the
conversation forward, I think that's a much more helpful place
to start, and it starts with exploratory writing rather than
this expositionary stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Gosh, I love how you make it sound so positive
and fun that I think that the whole, as you said,
kind of the wrapping your head around writing an entire
book feels like this monster, this major hill to try
to climb. It's mount everest in the content process of
(16:52):
it all. And but yet when you really think can
think about it this way of learning, floring and discovering,
you know, new ways of thinking about the work that
you do too. I get it's also supportive in each other.
It's that if when you're writing your book, you can
think about, hey, you know, I'm learning this now, I
(17:14):
can take this back and talk to my clients in
this new way and such. So there you have to
look at the from a holistic view. But in particular,
I love what you're talking about in the earlier stages
of the process, and I talked a lot of off.
I talked off the other day actually about you know,
where they are in building their their platform and sharing
(17:38):
their content through LinkedIn in particular, which it is what
we always encourage our business authors to focus in on.
And so they're right now kind of targeting I think
a late spring publication date for their book. Actually this
one was was in the fall to we had a
little more more time here. But they're you know, they're saying, Okay,
(17:58):
I know I need to pick up on my social
media content and what I'm sharing. Should I start talking
about the book right now? I said, no, you don't
need to tell people about the fact that you're going
to have a book coming out eventually and give out
the title that you're thinking or anything. Yet, we don't
want to get people too excited about something they can't
go on pre order and support you on just yet.
What you can lean into is some of the themes
(18:19):
and the ideas and the content that you are probably
going to include in the book or that you're kind
of working through right now. Because the first time that
your audience hears about what's in the book should not
be the day that you say, I have a book
coming out. Let you know, please go pre order it.
There should be the bread crumbs that you're dropping along
(18:40):
the way that are getting people excited about what's to come.
And and there's also like like priming the pump for
that too. It's yeah, they're connecting your name to this
type of content, to being you know, a voice in
this space, also showing the reach of your voice in
(19:02):
this space too, where they're seeing the application across you know,
someone else wrote a great article for HBr and you
comment on that and you show the connection you know
to your content, you know with that piece. Or there's
a new statistic about workplace culture that you add your
voice to and that might be something that ends up
(19:23):
kind of you know, in chapter four eventually, but the
people will connect the dots more so on that. And
that's so important today is you don't just get that
one chance for that connection point and everybody goes, yes,
of course, I'm gonna go hire you for speaking, or
I'm gonna go buy your book, or I'm gonna do
this because they heard something one time that doesn't have
They need that repetitive assurance and trust building over over
(19:47):
time in the pre publications ideally as well as well
after to to actually get people to want to invest
in you today and in the end. And so I
love how you again you frame all of it in
such a positive way, because I talked to about that,
all of it, whether they're writing the book, posing on LinkedIn,
(20:07):
writing boline articles for us to pitch whatever it is,
and imes like, oh my gosh, I have to write
something else again. But it is such an important process
and there's such incredible value in it, and when we
really think about all of the different ways that it
can feed into other possibilities too, and and and I
(20:29):
think another key point that you mentioned there is, you know,
the book really helps you to kind of the process
and building the book and the developing the book. It
helps you to really understand and get clear on on
your messaging and your work. And I think a lot
of authors are so afraid to kind of pull back
(20:51):
on their messaging in certain ways that they're going to
leave someone out of it, or they're you know, it's
going to feel too limiting. And when we try to
be everything for everyone, we're and have nothing for no one,
I think in that way, So that process also and
that clarity helps us to be clear on how the
messaging can speak to or really core kind of space initially,
(21:12):
but I think all the other content that you develop
can give you the opportunity to expand that out and
kind of dip your toe into some of the other
spaces too, and kind of pull back other layers of
the onion. But let's start with the core of the
onion first, with what that book focus is on.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
And I don't know if you find this as well,
but often people I think are quite nervous about sharing
their ideas because somebody might steal their idea, you know,
and oh yeah, do you know an idea is the
ten a penny you know, it's not unless you have
like the recipe for coca cola. It's not the idea
that's the thing. It's it's what you do with it,
and it's how you apply it. And also it's a
(21:49):
really reductive perspective. I think that because it's like, I
have this one idea and if it goes on nothing
and it's just not true. Actually, you have that idea
and all it is is a springboard. And the way
that you grow the idea and the way that you
make into something that's really really valuable for people is
by starting to talk about it and seeing what's lands
And do you know what, if somebody knicks that idea,
(22:09):
it's okay because you have already moved on. And I
think that that's that sort of sense of your powerful ability,
a sense of your own resourcefulness, the sense that actually,
nobody else can write the book that you can write
because you bring your unique experience and expertise and perspectives
and so on to it. So I think the dis
benefit of the risk of somebody nicking your idea compared
(22:32):
with the dis benefit of keeping your idea really small
and untested because you don't dare share it. You know,
don't just get out there talk.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Sure, absolutely, Well that's that's a great segue into into
another important what we're going to talk about today, in
stealing information, in taking our intellectual property or however or
you know, these fears that we have, let's talk about
the monster in the room, the elephant in the room
and a big conversation that we sought for for a lot,
(23:00):
which is AI and are kind of technological disruptions that
are of course impacting the publishing industry as it is,
you know, every industry across the board. And you know,
we have seen of course the you know, major data
breaches of books just getting out there into AI, and
you know, and with our major publishers in recent years,
(23:23):
and just also AI language and very vague language being
added into a lot of publishing contracts or hearing about
and such, and so I know it, you know, with
something that doesn't have that comes with uncertainty and it's new,
comes with vagueness a lot of the time as well.
But i'd love to hear your thoughts on that in
(23:45):
connection to what we were just discussing, and in the
mindset that you encourage your authors or you any author
to have as we think about AI in the mix
here and also you know, anything that you want to
share around practical inspiration and kind of how you're seeing
AI incorporated into anything from your contracts to just your
strategies and such. Overall.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah, so AI is such an amazing tool and it
is really exciting. It's a terrible master and I think
that's it's just being really really clear about what's the
job for humans? Who what's a job for AI? And
it has brilliant I mean we're using it quite a
lot in process development and trying to get things really
really clear in the back end, you know, because it's
(24:30):
great at that we look at you know, writers a
macro for this. You know that it's a fantastic intern.
It's great for research, it's great for you know, I've
written this chapter. Can you just check the readability level
of it? Could you it's two thousand words too long?
Could you suggest someplace? You know, don't do it, but
just show me where it could possibly be cut. You know,
all of that is fantastic, and I really encourage authors
(24:52):
to learn how to use AI as a tool as
an intern, right, but I don't want to I get
the actual writing to it because as I said, that's
the whole point is what you what you do inside
your head as you write is the really important thing.
I took about the output and the outcome, which I
(25:12):
know isn't my phrase. I can't remember who the hell
it is, but you know, the output of a LinkedIn
post or what you know. I hate it when LinkedIn
says would you like me to write? Why don't wan
you to write my post for me?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Stop it?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
I'm here so I can discover what it is I
think by writing my books.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I've put a good recommendation on a new word or
something here and there. I'll take that, but not the
whole thing, please right?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
That is exactly it isn't it? So the output is
the piece of writing, but the outcome is sort of
becoming the person who wrote that and can talk sensibly
about it. If some says, O, I love what you
wrote about such a you know, what are you going
to do If somebody says, oh, could you just explain
what you meant by and you're like, I don't write it.
I don't know. So you know, and also so ethically
(25:55):
intellectually but also legally, you know, we have an AI
policy which we're really really upfront with authors about is
that you are absolutely welcome to use AI to help
you as a tool. I mean you can't not. Frankly,
word spell correct is an AI tool, you know, it's
just added in everything. But this content has to be
your content. You have to write it yourself, and you're
(26:17):
free to use to to do some research. You're free
to do some sort of editing later, but the actual
thinking on the page, that's got to be all you.
And you have to be the person who wrote that,
and we have to be able to interrogate you, and
you have to be able to go and deliver a
talk on this, and you have to be able to
explain your reasoning. So all of that is the human job.
(26:41):
And then you can look at the delegating the sort
of the grunt work stuff to the AI. And I
just think it's astonishing that we are even contemplating delegating
writing thinking, our most I mean art, you know, our
most human things. These are the things that a I
should be freeing up us for too many prepositions there,
(27:03):
These are the things for which AI should be creating
more time. We should get.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
A yeah, yeah, I know, and I certainly have seen
you know a little bit of that with with certain
publishers and such, and like the cover design area, I
will be rob kind of the arts a side of it.
And I know that's been you know, a bit of
a of a uh yeah, a sticking point, if you will.
(27:30):
And again I've seen some that have been designed by
a I and those that aren't, and that doesn't hold
you know, hold hold hold a candle to those designed
by a person with experience and such.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, it's an existential threat for illustrating translators.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
The whole ecosystem of publishing is you know, is impacted
by this. And I think I don't don't I wrestle
with this a bit because I think, well, is it
if it's an ex essential threat for I don't know,
say somebody putting references together, Actually, a I can do
that job really really well. Is that something you should take.
(28:12):
I think it probably is, just but an illustration from
the front of the covenent that that's a human job.
So I'm very conscious that where I draw the lines
might not be where everybody draws the lines. But I
think we have to lean into that. And just because
it's hard to we don't get to do.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It right right. Yeah, I've heard some really mixed feedback
on the AI generated audio books. I think, is it
through with not the audible but the other one.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
There's a few different to generate that and then yeah,
but there are several tools doing it and doing it
really well.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, some and then others that there there's an author
who we're working with now and she's just shared that
that the version they haven't her publishers and gone through
with the audible version. Yeah, but they have the AI
generated one, and people have listened into it or like
this is this is not great? This is really hard
to listen to. It is.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
You know, if you might, you might have a book
that would never justify an audio book. So often professional books,
you know, more scholarly academic books, nobody's ever going to invest.
It's expensive to do a proper audio book. Yeah. So
if you have digital audio that's better than a screen reader,
which is pretty awful, let's face it, is it better
(29:34):
to do that than nothing? And if you're doing it
for that one and it gets better and better, at
what point do you Yeah? So these are really hard questions,
and we have to have the conversation constantly because it's
constantly changing.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Right right elements, Yeah, yeah, without sort of preciousness. It
was really interesting back in when I attended the Thinker's
Fifty Words back in November of last year in London,
and Doroy Clark spoke about thought leadership and and oh
(30:10):
my gosh, I feel like I could have just an
entire day where all I do is say Toroy Clark
said this all from just that one event and the
couple of times that she spoke. But she was actually
talking a lot about about a This is right after
the major data breach that had happened with the major
publishers last year, and and she wouldn't say my books
(30:31):
were in the mix with that and everything, but there
was a kind of a question around thought leadership and
kind of going back to the content and the writing
that we were just discussing too. And you know, one
thing I thought was really interesting that she said around
your your content, your voice and you know, fighting against
the AI kind of stealing your voice and such. But
(30:54):
the power of always kind of slightly differentiating your message
a little bit in the way that you share it
over time, and so you might have the core of
your book, but this comes into play a lot with
with our work is we say, okay, hey, we have
an opportunity for you to write an article over here
for for CMO, and then there are article opportunity for
(31:15):
a fast company, And if you write the same kind
of article for both of those places, the likelihood of
AI kind of being able to capture your voice, and
if it's too similar to how you write your book
and too similar to how you're kind of writing everything
on LinkedIn in a very repetitive kind of way, then
the likelihood of AI being able to really capture your
(31:37):
voice and say, you know, I think there's she was
saying something about, you know, put in there, like tell
me how to write something like Dory Clark does, and
it's going to capture it if you do that kind
of similar writing. But if you really kind of change
up and differentiate your messaging in certain ways, and that
CMO piece that you write really speaks specifically to marketing
(32:00):
challenges the company's facing, whereas the fast company piece maybe
speaks a little bit more to a you know, a
general kind of leadership angle of it. But then your
LinkedIn content talks about small business connections or something like
that helps to create a little bit of confusion for
not the audiences, but a little bit for the AI
side of it in oh wait, I'm not seeing the
(32:22):
same you know, the same kind of thread running through here,
but you're showing your application of your message across a
lot of different audiences. So it was a little way
of like I think, tricking the AI systems into you know,
the differentation of your content. But I think that it's
a it's just interesting, as we talked about, back to
the writing and the content creation portion of it is
(32:43):
you know, just another and connecting the dots on all
of this together another point of why it's important to be,
you know, always challenging yourself to think a little bit
differently and do things differently. Always.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Thank you always, yeah, absolutely, And of course if you
all using an AI tool for editing or anything like that,
it's really important that you have the paid version of
chat GPT and that you de select the fact that
it can learn from this. You know, there's just sort
of settings that you can change when you're using AI
tools that mean that you're not giving permission for it
to be added into you know, to its sort of
(33:16):
massive language learning model, and that's really valuable. But I
also kind of think you're fighting a losing battle if
you're trying to stay I think you sort of have
to accept the fact that somebody could say, you know,
write me this piece in the voice of Alison Jones
because there's so much of me out there and it's
so smart. But they'll never be Alison Jones and they
(33:37):
will never be able to well hah. Having said that,
I've seen really good avatars as well, So I think
all you can do is just be as human as
possible and really lean into the fact that I am
talking to you in real time as a person, understanding
all the nuance and context, and we share, you know,
(33:58):
a connection and a relationship. I think doubling down on
all of that is what we have. But luckily it's
really good. Yeah, you know, there's no point where I
just job better. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, No, it's such a fantastic point. And I think
that's you know, what you're saying about bringing in this
this true human side of it, your authenticity, your your vulnerabilities,
your personal experiences and such.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I think, yes, right.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
That's something that I know personally. When I, you know,
see individuals who are sharing those kind of things, I
try to that in my LinkedIn content, I connect more
strongly to those who are sharing in that way on
LinkedIn and and through what they're sharing. And I think
that's a big change for business authors today versus if
(34:51):
I look back fifteen years my time here at Smith
or I'm sorry as you look back to your your
different points and starting practical inspiration and even prior to
that is you know, especially pre COVID, like you could
really go.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Out and yeah, the pandemic lean into.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Just like you know, the these are the five ways
to do this. This is the strategy, this is the
you know, you really come at things from a very
business minded at the standpoint. And but as we all
were welcomed into each other's you know, homes and and such,
the zoom and and things changed so much with COVID.
There has just been this call for for the human
(35:28):
side of things, for building authentic connection and such, which
is a harder thing, certainly for for our AI friends
to to really establish their you know that, I think
again is an important thing for any business author, any
author truly to to keep in mind and think about.
And as you reflect back on your career, what would
(35:51):
you say for the business author in particular, are some
of the changes that have really kind of significantly happened,
or expectations on them or such that they should have
in mind as they embark on the exciting journey of writing.
We're just gonna say I was a whole the book
and all the things involved with that.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Book and everything that means. Yeah, well, I mean, starting
with AI, I think you know it is. It's a
challenge in lots of ways, and it's terrifying in lots
of ways. It's also a massive opportunity because the vast
majority of people will just turn to AI to write
their stuff because they can and because it's easy.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So if you.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Do your own thinking and write your own stuff and
put your own voice into it, you will stand out.
And you can already see that on LinkedIn. You just
know when somebody is creating this plausible sounding, generic, soulless
bit of content, and you know when somebody is speaking
in their own voice, and I think you know that
that's a real opportunity for the people that have got
(36:51):
the courage to really, you know, do it imperfectly, but
do it themselves and as I say, think out loud
and allow the kind of evil of their thinking to
happen kind of in public. So that's a great opportunity
as much as it's a threat to everything. I think
that the big thing for business book authors particularly is
(37:12):
not to get so caught up in the book that
you forget about everything else. I think the book, your
book is going to work brilliantly as part of a
bigger ecosystem, but you kind of have to say a
step back from that and go, well, what is the
dent that I am trying to make in the universe here?
And the book will be maybe the fullest expression of that.
It'd be the thing that really helps you shape and
(37:34):
bring together your thinking. But honestly, in isolation, it's not
going to actually have a huge impact unless you are
out there speaking or delivering training, or delivering consultation packages
or coaching. You have to have those kind of experiential
touch points as well. And then when you have the
experiential stuff going on, the book's brilliant because it complements
(37:54):
those people can take a little bit of you home
with them. That the book on its own without any
experiential piece not so much.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
So.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
I think think about the ecosystem, think about what the
four or five things that you're going to deliver that
a deliver revenue because I think the book won't, and
b that you love and that are going to suit
you know, what you what you're best at, and what
your the people that you want to work with need.
You know, there's a sort of crazy then diagram going
on here. And but rather than think about the book
(38:25):
per se, think about that bigger piece, what is the
whole ecosystem here, and then the book fits in the
middle of that and makes so much possible.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, I've talked to a lot of others about kind of
shipping the mentality. I think in years ago it was
that the book was like the trunk of the tree,
and then the other things that you do were the
branches off of it. And today you as the the
expert here, you're the trunk of the tree. The book
is one branch, but there's likely to be other books
(38:55):
and other branches, you know, to come down the road.
And so what you say about this ecosism is such
an important point because what that creates there are those
connection points beyond between your different books that might come
out as well. Rarely do I see a business butler
word just they have one book that comes out, there's
usually another one in them somewhere down the road. And
(39:16):
so it is right, so, you know, once we released
that book, that first book, you use the momentum and
the energy and such that you've built around that, and
by having these other offerings and content and pieces of thought,
leadership and all of these things to just keep people
in that ecosystem are so important so that when the
(39:40):
time comes to the next book launch, that's going to
be even more successful and exciting because you've kept all
those people in your world but hopefully also brought more
into that world in the meantime too. And so it
is having this really this long gay mentality about this,
whether that long game means another book or just a
future product you launch, or a course or whatever it is,
(40:02):
it's just having that in mind. Is I think a
big shift from years past was all about am I
making a bestseller list? Is it just about this one
day in time? And what happens after that is is
not as important? It really is, you know, how this
this long gay mentality that that authors have. Yeah. Yeah,
(40:24):
So as we look ahead to twenty twenty five, and
you know, there were some amazing takeaways that that we
certainly had from Frankfort and thinking about what the future
of publishing is going to look like, at least in
the next year and beyond that, what are some things
that you're most excited about? And I also always love
(40:46):
to hear how many of our publisher friends. Is there
like a trend that you're seeing of even with your
submissions that are coming in or books you have planned
to publish and in the next year or two, are
there certain you know, common conversations and trends that you're
really picking up steam?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Well, big question. So I am still really irrepressibly optimistic
about publishing. I should start by saying that because I think,
you know, I've been in this business such a long time,
such a long time, over thirty years now, and literally
since the day I joined I think got my first
job as an editorial assistant in nineteen ninety two, and
(41:24):
they were talking about the death of the book, and
you know, and you think about all the technology that's
come and gone in that period of time, and yet
this book has been incredibly resilient. And I think as
we become more and more digital and screen based, there's
something so valuable about the thinginess of a book so
(41:45):
I think that's oh, I love that. And we're leaning
into you know, the look and the feel, and you know,
we're really focusing on design and just making it something
that takes you offline, allows you to immerse yourself in
this sort of distraction free long form environments. So leaning
into all of that and not apologizing for it. And
(42:06):
another big trend for us is we're taking the books.
So there there are people who love to do this,
and we want to serve them and want to serve
them really, really well by writing great books that can
really practical and inspiring books, and there are other people
who are less able, and I genuinely think there has
been a kind of deterioration in the kind of collected
(42:26):
attention span or just wants to sort of ducking quick
and get some practical tips. So one of the things
that we're doing is our six minute Smart series, So
I'm super excited. Launched the first ones in November. You
saw them at Frankfurt and I know, so we've got
six more coming out in April and another six coming
out in November. And what we're doing is we're looking
(42:48):
at these backlist books, which are you know, really rich
and full and won't ever be read by a huge
section of the population insane. We're going to put We're
going to have these super small, super short, super punchy
little books where we pull out ten key concepts and
then we invite you to coach yourself on that. So
(43:09):
we've explained this idea to you in really friendly, short language.
What does this mean for you?
Speaker 2 (43:14):
So what?
Speaker 3 (43:14):
And there's three sort of self coaching questions, And I
think that ability to lean into to pick up an idea,
to grasp it, and then to apply it, that's what
we are really excited about. And of course once you've
read that, you're going this is this is gold, then
of course we refer you to the original full book.
So I'm kind of, you know, creating a story for
(43:35):
a different type of use or a different use case,
really bringing in that kind of co creation that a
reader does when they're reading a book, and really leaning
into that with the self coaching, but also having that
kind of long form there for the people that go,
this is what I need and I really want to
immerse myself deeper in it. So that's a very long
answer to your question, but it was quite a complicated question.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I asked I did. I asked a multi layered questions,
a beautiful job of answering all those elements in there.
And I love that that approach to it. I think
that that is so a direction that we're heading in
and in publishing as a whole. And again we do this,
we think about this from the media standpoint, and it's
just is niching and thinking about the opportunities for niching
(44:17):
and how do you respond to what the needs are
of an audience versus trying to force the square peg
in the round hole over here. So I love that
you're seeing, Okay, we've got these books that they're heavy,
but there's a lot going on there. We're not going
to necessarily get everybody to read them, but we know
that the you know, the time constrained you know, leader
(44:41):
over here could really benefit from some of these key takeaways.
So let's create something that allows them to interact with that.
I think audiobooks was a beautiful, you know, kind of
first step into that and that we all kind of
saw in the publishing world of what that allowed for.
I mean, ebooks were great that first that alwa, it's
going to take so many books with us on our
you know airplane and reference them quickly, and I think
(45:04):
again audiobooks even allowed for more of that accessibility and
such there. But I love the direction that you're heading
in with this series and being able to still have
that that thingy thing you know in the mix, but
but with the tangible products there, but understand how you're
(45:24):
going to be able to get people engaged with that content.
And so it's it's it's not surprisingly as someone who's
been so focused on innovation of it all for so
very innovative, fantastic ideas and so excited is to see
what the responses to that as we you know, stay
in touch over this next year and excited to see
(45:47):
all of that for you and the team, So gosh,
we're our time is flying by together. Is there anything more,
whether it was related to Frankfurt, related to the future
of publishing, related to just things in your life that
you're excited about, anything more you want to share with
everyone who's too listening in today, I guess.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I'll do a quick pitch for the proposal challenge, because
I think that's something that anybody who's listening might be
interested in. So three times, yeah, three times a year,
I run a thing called the ten Day Business Book
Proposal Challenge. The next one, as we speak, will be
starting on the thirteenth of January, which might be just
after this goes out, just before I don't know, yes,
And then the next one will be April, and I
(46:27):
do it again in September, and it's a small group
up to thirty five people and in the course of
ten days we just go through the book proposal. We
use that as the curriculum for helping you get a
kind of vague idea in your head out into an
executable document, because if you have to think about who's
the target market, what's the distinctive approach, Only then do
you think about title and subtitle. And then on day
(46:49):
eight you can to the table contents and that changes
everything because then you've actually the ineffable and you can
write the book. So I would say, if anybody's like
a man, I just don't know how to go from
it is kind of vague idea in my head to
a book, I'd say the first step is writing a proposal,
and a really great way to do that is the
ten Day Business Book Proposal Challenge. So they go, there's
my pitch.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, I love it. Thank you for reminding me of that.
I loved hearing about it at Frankfurt and learning more
about it, and I think it's such a valuable early
stage tool for individual things about And I will say when,
even as publicists, when we come in at the end,
I love when someone says, oh, and by the way,
here's my book proposal. Things have changed along the way,
and I'm like, of course, yes, I know they always do.
(47:29):
If they didn't be something really amazing that you just
fully nailed it on the book proposal.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Thinking hasn't evolved, which is a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, that too, But I love that. We love getting
a book proposal because it's just giving us this amazing,
succinct glimpse into where your mind was at that time,
and we get to see the evolution. And then, you know,
because we love to pull, pick and pull all different
little elements from that entire journey, you're basically you're giving
your marketing people the collateral goal.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
I should also say that somebody each challenge, I choose
a winner. I'm doing sort of little inverted comments if
you're listening to this, because they're all winners if they
get their proposals finish, and most of them do. But
I actually, genuinely this is my route to commissioning. I
have a kind of traditional publishing list as well as
the author pays model, and this is how I do it.
(48:22):
I get to choose that the proposal that most sort
of excites me as a publisher and as a person,
and I offer them an all expenses paid publishing deal.
So there is real skin in the game which helps
with the application of the people taking part.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
That's so great, so great, So Allison, it has been
such I'm sure I talk to you again almost two
months since our last in person meeting, and to talk
through just all that you've done in this amazing world
of publishing and with business authors and your views here
and what you see ahead. I'm excited to continue personally
(48:59):
following along with your vision and your ideas that are
to come for practical inspiration as well as just your
influence in our in our space overall here Again, I
shared it early on. You have your podcast, you have.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I'm going to speak to you on my podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I'm excited. Yes, I'm going to be a guest to do. Yeah,
put the table here and uh, just but is there
anywhere else you'd like to encourage people to visit or
follow along with you at if they want to learn more.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
So there are sort of three brands within my mission
of making writing and reading core for business. Alison Jones
dot Com is me and if you want to know
podcast speaking or coaching that that's that's where to go.
Pro personal challenge details are on there. There's Practical Inspiration
dot Com which is all our books and other marvelous authors,
(49:51):
and then this Extraordinary Business Books dot Com which is
the podcast. So yeah, any one of those are all
three of.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Them great and great LinkedIn time as well over here.
I highly recommend I'll follow on LinkedIn for Alliston to
Versa Iganbrud's a pretty a pretty good one. Easy to
find that one. So well, thank you so much again
for joining us today. I'm excited to join you as
(50:18):
well on your podcast and just continue to stay in touch.
I think we have so much to continue learning from you,
as do all of those who are are tuning in.
So thank you so much, Allison, and thank you to
everyone for listening in with us today. This is all
things book marketing podcasts. Please subscribe listening to other episodes
(50:39):
and you can also find the video portion on YouTube
if you're not here already, so thanks so much, have
a great day, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
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.
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