January 16, 2025 • 24 mins
Join us in this insightful episode of Author Nation Interviews as we explore Blogging to Support Book Sales with expert Jeannie Burlowski.
Discover how effective book promotion not only drives sales but also boosts memberships, all while maintaining a healthy parenting and writing balance.
Want a step-by-step roadmap to make your book a success? Grab my FREE Book Planning Guide! here: http://authornation.online/planning
Key Takeaways:
Discover how effective book promotion not only drives sales but also boosts memberships, all while maintaining a healthy parenting and writing balance.
Want a step-by-step roadmap to make your book a success? Grab my FREE Book Planning Guide! here: http://authornation.online/planning
Key Takeaways:
- Learn actionable strategies for using blogging to support book sales and increasing your online visibility.
- Discover how effective book promotion can lead to valuable membership opportunities for authors.
- Gain tips on balancing parenting responsibilities with your writing career to maximize productivity.
- Understand the importance of building an email list and engaging with your audience consistently.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello everyone, it is Melody Anne. Welcome to Author Nation Interviews.
Today we're diving into book promotion, but we're also going
to talk a little bit about launching your kids so
that you have the time to write. Because what we
do here at author Nations is we give you actionable
insights and strategies that you can take and use right
now to get moving on your author career because we
(00:30):
are here for your success. So if you're looking for resources,
check them out at authorenation dot online. That link will
be in the resources as well. So whether you are
sipping on your morning coffee, driving to work, or winding
down after a long day, settle in and let's talk
to Jennie Berlowski because she is a full time academic strategist,
(00:52):
podcast host, and speaker for students twelve through twenty six,
their parents, and the professionals who serve them. She is
also the author of the book Launch How to get
your Kids through College debt free and into jobs they
love afterwards. Isn't that the goal, right? Love kids finishing
college debt free. Jeanie helps parents set their kids up
(01:16):
to graduate college debt free, ready to jump directly into
the careers they excel at and love. Her work has
been featured in publications such as The Huffington Post, USA Today,
Parents Magazine, and the US News and World Report, and
on CBS, and I'm going to ask her about all
of that too.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hi, Jeanie, Welcome, Hi Melody, And it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, it's lovely. So I really want to just very
briefly talk about your book a launch because you know,
people tell me I don't have time, I don't have money,
I don't have this, I don't have that. You know,
I want to write, And I think one of the
big things is there are people at home with kids
and they're worried about how am I going to put
them through college? How you know? How am I going
to finance all of this? Where do I the time
(02:00):
to make the extra money for this, that and the other?
So tell us about your book.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, we know that authors need time to focus and concentrate,
and if they're distracted by oh am I going to
have enough money to pay for college for the kids
that I love? It can impact how much time they're
spending writing. It can impact publication decisions that they make.
So the role I play in this is I've been
a professional academic strategist for over twenty five years. I
(02:30):
help spent many years helping students apply to medical school
and law school and graduate school. And I took all
my clients' best ideas for getting through college debt free,
and I crammed them all into a book that anybody
can get inexpensively on Amazon. And that journey of how
I got from a person with expertise to a person
(02:52):
with a book is an interesting journey. I think that's
why you have me here today.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That is, so let's dive into that. Let's start off
with you know what you know? At what point did
you think, hey, I should write a book?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, good question. Well it really happened because people started
asking me questions. People would hear that I had this
expertise in academic strategy, or sometimes I would have a
good friend and I would say, oh, you know, if
you did this, it would really could save you fifty
thousand dollars. And then people started calling me, and they
started emailing me, and they started going through a front
(03:30):
of a friend to try to get to me. And
it was taking a ton of my time to sit
with people and explain things to them, and I couldn't
continue it. I still had I had a thriving consulting practice,
and so I thought there is definitely a market for this.
People are quite desperate to hear ideas on how to
get your kids through college debt free, and not just that,
(03:50):
but into actual jobs they love afterwards. And so I
finally thought, if I wrote a book and I could
just tell people where to go and find it on Ammaz,
I would save myself a lot of time, and this
is something important to me. I would be able to
impact the world more. I'd be able to help more people.
And it is a joy to me now. And I
(04:12):
get letters from people that say, I got all three
of my kids through college debt free, and I never
even talked to you. I just simply follow the directions
in the book, And that is a joy.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah. I think that's brilliant. So you obviously had some
authority and credibility before you wrote the book. So let's
talk about the relationship between authority, credibility and being an author.
You know, you had some to start out with, obviously,
because people were coming and asking you. Now after you
read the book, I'm assuming that authority leveled up.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yes, really it does. And because I am an author
of a book, I have more authority to be able
to speak into national conversations. I have people hearing about
me and coming to me and asking me more questions.
But now they're actually willing to pay me money to
get the answers to the questions right. And what the
(05:09):
things I want to offer for your listeners is the
idea of a membership. And this is something that's done
through Stu McLaren, who is a Canadian like you. He
has a whole organization where he teaches people how to
establish a membership where people are paying you a little
bit of money every month. And then you do you
(05:30):
do sessions for them, you do teaching, you do live
zoom calls where you're answering people's questions. And so I
do act and my membership is called Jeanie Burlowski's Tribe membership.
And that's where I am really able to help people.
And what's I mean? Of course the book helps people,
but what do you do when you get a question?
(05:50):
How do you can you contact the author and ask
your individual question about your individual child with his individual
disability or whatever it is. And so this way, when
people have questions, they're actually able to reach me and
ask me a question about their individual situation. And what
Stull McClaren taught me was, you think you can write
(06:12):
a book that is so clear that anyone could follow
the directions, but you have no idea the questions those
people are going to ask. And people would really be
willing to pay you a monthly fee to be able
to contact you on one evening a month. That's been
misinary for me.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I love that and I want to add to that.
So Stu McLaren the Membership Experience tm E, that's what
he calls it. Yes, he's a fellow Canadian like I am.
And what I want to add to that is this,
there are people who are going to buy your book
and read your book and follow your book, and they're
not going to connect with you. They're not going to
contact you. Whether it's it's money or they're a do
(06:51):
it yourself kind of person, whatever reason, that's it. That's
what they're going to do the book. And then there
are people who will, you know, buy it, maybe buy
the book and think, but I need more, but I
can't afford her one on one fees, and then they
realize you have a membership, and they'll say, Okay, I
can't afford those one on one fees, but I can
afford this membership. So I'm going to buy that and
(07:13):
I'm going to get the additional things I need through that.
And then there are people who are going to say, look,
i'm a full time neurosurgeon. I don't have time. I
don't want to belong to a membership. Here's my kid.
Get them through college, and I'll pay you whatever it takes.
So you know, when you have the same information at
different levels, you are serving different clients. They're different needs,
(07:36):
they're different time, money, you know, whatever their constraints are.
And I just want to add that to that because
I think it's really really important that some people like,
why would they do a course if they bought the book? Well, because,
as you just said, people want more.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
My line is, here's where I can give you things
that I could never cram into a book. Yeah, it's
extra things that you that you really need. And it's
very time sensing. When you have a membership, it is
January eighth, twenty twenty five or whatever it is, and
you're doing something that is apropos and important for right now,
right where they are in time. And I also like
(08:15):
to say, and your listeners can take this line, it's
not the questions that you have that are tripping you up.
It's the questions you don't even know to ask. And
a member, when you're with other people and they're asking
something and or maybe they've got a kid two years
older than yours and you're realizing, oh, that's coming down
the pipe. That's something I have to watch out for.
(08:37):
And of course, the more having a membership where you're
interacting with people, your compassion for the people grows because
you're actually seeing actual humans interacting with you and responding,
and that's helpful and.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
You understand them so much better. Don't you Thank you
for that? I think that was really important. So I
want to also ask you about, you know, getting attention
from Huffington Post, US Today, CBS now. A lot of
authors want that. And then there are people who come
and say, well, if you pay me ten thousand dollars,
i'll get a placement for you. And then there are
(09:14):
other times you're featured. So can you just tell us
a little bit about your experience with this media, how
you got their attention, and you know, any advice you
would pass on to other authors around that. Well.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I wish I could say there was a magic bullet
for that. I wish I could say that I came
up with a plan where I contacted them. I did not.
I'm too busy. I didn't have time to contact anybody.
But what I did do is for many years I
blogged on a regular basis, and so I have a
website with hundreds of articles on it. And when I'm
(09:51):
using word Press to write my articles, I always use
the keyword system at the bottom. And so what this
does is this makes me very findable on Google. If
you google, uh why to fill about the fats of form,
even if you're rich, or you google something about blouse rotc,
I'm gonna come up right at the top of the
(10:13):
first page of Google. So what happens. A Hoffington Post
reporter is in a tremendous hurry and she's googling, and
she finds me, and then my website makes me easy
to find. I have a press room on the on
the website, so they, honestly, all those people found me,
and especially all the parents dot Com a big magazine
(10:35):
spread where they had a whole giant series of videos
and an interview and it was sponsored by Geico. I
was utterly is shock, but it was there was a
lot of dang hard work to do all that blogging,
and every blog article that I ever wrote turned into
an email newsletter article. So I have an email newsletter
(10:57):
list with thousands of people on it. We can talk
about how I built that list if you want to,
but that it's a lot of work and I don't
recommend it. I wish written a way.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So question how long were you blogging before you wrote
the book?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I was blogged. A lot of authors do this. They
blog and at the same time they're writing the book,
and the blog articles become pieces of the book. That
is really common now. The book I have is very
step by step. So every chapter is organized according to
your kid's current month and year in school. So there's
a chapter prior to seventh grade. There's a chapter called
(11:37):
May of eighth grade, there's a chapter called May first
of twelfth grade, and there's thirty four different checkpoints along
the way, and so and by the way, anyone can
jump in at any time. It's not like if you
don't start in some of the grade, you can't get anywhere.
So because mine is very step by step. I wasn't
(11:57):
really able to take blog articles and just so I'm together.
But as I was researching, because of course I had
my knowledge with my own clients who were applying to
medical school and law school and graduate school. As I'm
doing research to expand that knowledge and make sure that
I'm as deep and wide and credible as possible, I
(12:19):
would get ideas for a blog post. I'd say, oh,
what a good idea. Let's write a blog post about
why follow your passion is the worst career direction in
the world. Let me write an article about that. So
blog post translates into an article and a free weekly
email newsletter, and then from there it gets sent out
in social media over and over and over again, so
(12:43):
as not an annoying way. But boy, you send something
out in social media one month, you can do it
three months later everyone's forgotten.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Absolutely yes. Now, so how long were you blogging before
you wrote.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The book or did you do them similar That's a
really good question. I think blogging, let's look at it
as sort of happening simultaneously.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
The only reason that I would blog or have an
email newsletter or send things out in social media is
because of book promotion. So that's why I started that.
I didn't write the book and then start promoting. It
was a multi year process really exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So you've talked a lot about different promotion strategies, so
I'd really like to ask what promotion strategies did you
find worked best for launch?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yes, good question. Amazon Ads. Amazon ads is the number
one best thing. Second thing is book Bub. Book Bub
has a massive number of readers and they offer discounted
you know, it's like people can get a little taste
of an ebook, and then when people get my book
(14:00):
an ebook form, they immediately turn around it by the
print copy because it's a reference book, right, It's a
step by step you it's not something you just want
to be looking at on your phone. And I'll say
this about promotion. I'm a huge fan of Rob Eager
at startowildfire dot com. He sends out a newsletter that's
you know, he's kind of in the same vein that
(14:21):
I am. He sends out a newsletter once a week
and it is always giving something of tremendous value to authors.
And then on the slide, you know, say you can
buy my little course for one hundred and eighty nine dollars.
That's on how to get more out of your Amazon
Ads or something. But even his free content is so useful.
And I get nothing for telling you this. But that's
(14:43):
where I learned a lot about promotion from Robbie your
startowildfire dot com and Michael Hyatt Michael Hyatt dot com.
He's not blogging anymore, he's retiring, but he taught me
a lot about this process.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, and him and Stupinclair knew each other well too
by that. Yeah, all right, did you grow your your
email list through book book?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
No, I really grew my email list the most in
two different ways. One was speaking. So imagine I go
out and I speak in an auditorium at a high school,
and speaking is engaging, it's wonderful, it gives people hope.
And then at the end, I give out a what
we'll call a course evaluation, and it's just a little
(15:30):
piece of paper that says, give me three words that
describe our time together today, and people will write out.
It was informative, it was passionate, it was fascinating, it
was life changing. And then I say at the bottom,
let's keep in touch. Give me your email address and
I say from the front, I've got a free email
newsletter that goes out every Monday morning, and you'll want
(15:55):
to do this so that we can keep in touch.
I don't want to just be a meteor across or horizon.
I want to be a guide for this journey. And
so everybody, I'm shocked. Everybody gives their email address. Yes,
and I ask them at the end, once you've filled
out this little form, which is so easy. It's three
words in an email address, would you bring that up
(16:16):
to me? And so what this does is from in
the auditorium, it creates a flood of people coming up
to the front and it's just so the energy and
the responsiveness, and people are reaching over each other's heads
to hand me their paper. And then once they all
get up there, then they start asking me questions, which
(16:36):
I love. I actually think public speaking is a lot about.
It is creating human connections so people can ask their questions.
That's Andy get, They get love and care and I everything.
And so the people are up there answering, asking questions,
and they're learning from each other because one person will
(16:57):
ask something and another person is listening in. And then
I take all those papers home and my assistant enters
those email addresses in and they become newsletter subscribers. So
that's one way that I grew. A second way I
grew it is with the help of Kathy Lowenstern. Now
I will I get nothing for telling you this, but
I will see many many friends who are authors, or
(17:20):
they own a membership, or they are something where they've
got good to give out to the world, and they
have been taken by Charlatan's. They have been they have
They'll get with someone who says, you pay me two
thousand dollars, I will increase your email list. And one
of my friends said, I got not one new lead
after I paid two thousand dollars. And if you've been
(17:43):
an author for any period of time, you have been
burned in this way. Well, I heard about Kathy Lowenstern
from guess who Rob Eager at startowildfire dot com who
I have so much trust in him, and so she
spoke on his podcast and I immediately and said, I
want to hire you. I want to place on Facebook
(18:04):
ads in order to grow my email list. And she
has some special expertise. She knows people that are at Facebook.
So if you get stuck on something. She can get
you unstuck. She was absolutely fabulous. I think she doubled
my email list and she is available at kathylow dot com.
(18:25):
It's Kathy with a K Katylo dot com. And I
struggled so much to try to find someone to help
me with this because it is mysterious, it is difficult,
it's changing all the time, and you don't want to
just be throwing money at the wall and hoping something sticks.
(18:45):
And she has just been a godsend and highly recommended.
Those are my two biggest ways I grew my email list.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's brilliant. Thank you. And there's another person that I
will add to the list that I trust for email
as well. One of the things I do is I
connect authors to If it's not something I do, what
I then do is connect them to someone I know
they can trust. So I never send an author out
and say, well you should grow your email list, go
figure it out. I'm always like, you should your email list.
(19:15):
Either I will help you with that, or here's the
right person for it. There's certain things I don't do,
like public relations. For example, I partner with a public
relations person who's very good at public relations for authors,
And so thank you for those recommendations. I'll add them
to my list as well, and I'll put them in
the show notes, because I think that's really important that
we help each other connect with people we can trust.
(19:39):
So important. Okay, as we're wrapping up, if if you
had to say, look, do these three things two authors
looking to promote their book, what would those three things be?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The number one thing would be develop some kind of
a system where you're contacting people on a regular basis
with value. And because people are just going to see
you flying like a metea or over their horizon, they're
going to see you one time in a TikTok video
and never remember you. But if you have permission to
(20:14):
enter the space of their email inbox and they're only
going to read it, if you actually provide value, then
you have a position of influence and you can get
them to join a membership, or you can get them
to jump on a book promotion and buy six books
for half price or whatever. And in my email newsletter,
(20:37):
I feel like this is the cleverest thing I ever did.
So there's an article over on the right hand side.
Then on the left hand side there's a left sidebar,
and it has the reading assignments for my book for
the month, so it'll say, if you've got a creator,
you should be reading pages ninety five to ninety nine,
and all the reading assignments are there. Right underneath the
(21:00):
reading assignments is the tribe member area, so it says,
tribe members, here's what we're doing this month. We have
got a session coming up on if you've got a
kid with a disability, how can you get money for
college based on a disability? You apply for it differently
than other kinds of financial aid. That's what we're talking
about on this particular day, at this particular time. And
(21:20):
so the hope is that all the people who are
not in my membership you see that and they'll say, dang,
why am I not in there? I have got to
join as soon as the doors open next March. And
my door's only opened twice a year. Once they open
for five days in March five days in September. So
that growing the email list and bringing value is I
(21:42):
think really really important. And what Robbie here teaches me
is that there it's with a relationship. You're constantly showing
up there as a reliable presence. My emails are coming
in on the exact same day of the week, exact
same time every Monday, so I look really professional even
on days when I don't feel that professional. Yes, I
(22:07):
think that. I think what I just gave you there
was three things. I think that was definitely Yes, it
was you, and you never even advertised advertise it over
on side.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, yeah, no, that was absolutely three things. Thank you
so much for that. I really appreciate it. I'll break
it down in the show notes. I always do a
blog post for every interview, and then in the blog
post I will break it down into kind of actionable
steps for everyone, because I really want people to be
able to one of my number one thing. One one
thing I've really learned.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Over the years.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
This is year four for this for this podcast in
my YouTube channel. One thing I've really learned is people
will consume content and they love it and they want it,
but sometimes it's really difficult to translate that into what
do I actually do next? And so that has been
something I've I've learned that always to give people here
from this conversation, here are three things you can do
(23:03):
right now to get started, or here's the next three
steps in this in this process so important for people. Ginny,
thank you so much for coming. I really enjoyed chatting.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
With you today.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
You have offered so much value. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
It was great to be here, Melody, and thanks for
having me.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Absolutely and thank you everyone for joining Authoration Interviews. I
hope this conversation has provided you with valuable insights and
you're inspired as well to take some action on your
book promotion. I know there are so many authors out
there who are saying, I know I should promote my book.
I know I should promote my book, but they you know,
it's where do I start? What do I do? We've
(23:43):
given you fabulous ideas here and you'll find even more
at authoration dot online. And of course I always appreciate
your feedback and your support, so please leave a review
or you know, share it with a friend. There's got
to be someone out there who really needs to hear
hear this, so share it with them. And I want
(24:03):
you to keep writing and keep sharing your unique stories
with the world. Thank you so much.
Hello everyone, it is Melody Anne. Welcome to Author Nation Interviews.
Today we're diving into book promotion, but we're also going
to talk a little bit about launching your kids so
that you have the time to write. Because what we
do here at author Nations is we give you actionable
insights and strategies that you can take and use right
now to get moving on your author career because we
(00:30):
are here for your success. So if you're looking for resources,
check them out at authorenation dot online. That link will
be in the resources as well. So whether you are
sipping on your morning coffee, driving to work, or winding
down after a long day, settle in and let's talk
to Jennie Berlowski because she is a full time academic strategist,
(00:52):
podcast host, and speaker for students twelve through twenty six,
their parents, and the professionals who serve them. She is
also the author of the book Launch How to get
your Kids through College debt free and into jobs they
love afterwards. Isn't that the goal, right? Love kids finishing
college debt free. Jeanie helps parents set their kids up
(01:16):
to graduate college debt free, ready to jump directly into
the careers they excel at and love. Her work has
been featured in publications such as The Huffington Post, USA Today,
Parents Magazine, and the US News and World Report, and
on CBS, and I'm going to ask her about all
of that too.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hi, Jeanie, Welcome, Hi Melody, And it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, it's lovely. So I really want to just very
briefly talk about your book a launch because you know,
people tell me I don't have time, I don't have money,
I don't have this, I don't have that. You know,
I want to write, And I think one of the
big things is there are people at home with kids
and they're worried about how am I going to put
them through college? How you know? How am I going
to finance all of this? Where do I the time
(02:00):
to make the extra money for this, that and the other?
So tell us about your book.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, we know that authors need time to focus and concentrate,
and if they're distracted by oh am I going to
have enough money to pay for college for the kids
that I love? It can impact how much time they're
spending writing. It can impact publication decisions that they make.
So the role I play in this is I've been
a professional academic strategist for over twenty five years. I
(02:30):
help spent many years helping students apply to medical school
and law school and graduate school. And I took all
my clients' best ideas for getting through college debt free,
and I crammed them all into a book that anybody
can get inexpensively on Amazon. And that journey of how
I got from a person with expertise to a person
(02:52):
with a book is an interesting journey. I think that's
why you have me here today.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That is, so let's dive into that. Let's start off
with you know what you know? At what point did
you think, hey, I should write a book?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, good question. Well it really happened because people started
asking me questions. People would hear that I had this
expertise in academic strategy, or sometimes I would have a
good friend and I would say, oh, you know, if
you did this, it would really could save you fifty
thousand dollars. And then people started calling me, and they
started emailing me, and they started going through a front
(03:30):
of a friend to try to get to me. And
it was taking a ton of my time to sit
with people and explain things to them, and I couldn't
continue it. I still had I had a thriving consulting practice,
and so I thought there is definitely a market for this.
People are quite desperate to hear ideas on how to
get your kids through college debt free, and not just that,
(03:50):
but into actual jobs they love afterwards. And so I
finally thought, if I wrote a book and I could
just tell people where to go and find it on Ammaz,
I would save myself a lot of time, and this
is something important to me. I would be able to
impact the world more. I'd be able to help more people.
And it is a joy to me now. And I
(04:12):
get letters from people that say, I got all three
of my kids through college debt free, and I never
even talked to you. I just simply follow the directions
in the book, And that is a joy.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah. I think that's brilliant. So you obviously had some
authority and credibility before you wrote the book. So let's
talk about the relationship between authority, credibility and being an author.
You know, you had some to start out with, obviously,
because people were coming and asking you. Now after you
read the book, I'm assuming that authority leveled up.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yes, really it does. And because I am an author
of a book, I have more authority to be able
to speak into national conversations. I have people hearing about
me and coming to me and asking me more questions.
But now they're actually willing to pay me money to
get the answers to the questions right. And what the
(05:09):
things I want to offer for your listeners is the
idea of a membership. And this is something that's done
through Stu McLaren, who is a Canadian like you. He
has a whole organization where he teaches people how to
establish a membership where people are paying you a little
bit of money every month. And then you do you
(05:30):
do sessions for them, you do teaching, you do live
zoom calls where you're answering people's questions. And so I
do act and my membership is called Jeanie Burlowski's Tribe membership.
And that's where I am really able to help people.
And what's I mean? Of course the book helps people,
but what do you do when you get a question?
(05:50):
How do you can you contact the author and ask
your individual question about your individual child with his individual
disability or whatever it is. And so this way, when
people have questions, they're actually able to reach me and
ask me a question about their individual situation. And what
Stull McClaren taught me was, you think you can write
(06:12):
a book that is so clear that anyone could follow
the directions, but you have no idea the questions those
people are going to ask. And people would really be
willing to pay you a monthly fee to be able
to contact you on one evening a month. That's been
misinary for me.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I love that and I want to add to that.
So Stu McLaren the Membership Experience tm E, that's what
he calls it. Yes, he's a fellow Canadian like I am.
And what I want to add to that is this,
there are people who are going to buy your book
and read your book and follow your book, and they're
not going to connect with you. They're not going to
contact you. Whether it's it's money or they're a do
(06:51):
it yourself kind of person, whatever reason, that's it. That's
what they're going to do the book. And then there
are people who will, you know, buy it, maybe buy
the book and think, but I need more, but I
can't afford her one on one fees, and then they
realize you have a membership, and they'll say, Okay, I
can't afford those one on one fees, but I can
afford this membership. So I'm going to buy that and
(07:13):
I'm going to get the additional things I need through that.
And then there are people who are going to say, look,
i'm a full time neurosurgeon. I don't have time. I
don't want to belong to a membership. Here's my kid.
Get them through college, and I'll pay you whatever it takes.
So you know, when you have the same information at
different levels, you are serving different clients. They're different needs,
(07:36):
they're different time, money, you know, whatever their constraints are.
And I just want to add that to that because
I think it's really really important that some people like,
why would they do a course if they bought the book? Well, because,
as you just said, people want more.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
My line is, here's where I can give you things
that I could never cram into a book. Yeah, it's
extra things that you that you really need. And it's
very time sensing. When you have a membership, it is
January eighth, twenty twenty five or whatever it is, and
you're doing something that is apropos and important for right now,
right where they are in time. And I also like
(08:15):
to say, and your listeners can take this line, it's
not the questions that you have that are tripping you up.
It's the questions you don't even know to ask. And
a member, when you're with other people and they're asking
something and or maybe they've got a kid two years
older than yours and you're realizing, oh, that's coming down
the pipe. That's something I have to watch out for.
(08:37):
And of course, the more having a membership where you're
interacting with people, your compassion for the people grows because
you're actually seeing actual humans interacting with you and responding,
and that's helpful and.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
You understand them so much better. Don't you Thank you
for that? I think that was really important. So I
want to also ask you about, you know, getting attention
from Huffington Post, US Today, CBS now. A lot of
authors want that. And then there are people who come
and say, well, if you pay me ten thousand dollars,
i'll get a placement for you. And then there are
(09:14):
other times you're featured. So can you just tell us
a little bit about your experience with this media, how
you got their attention, and you know, any advice you
would pass on to other authors around that. Well.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I wish I could say there was a magic bullet
for that. I wish I could say that I came
up with a plan where I contacted them. I did not.
I'm too busy. I didn't have time to contact anybody.
But what I did do is for many years I
blogged on a regular basis, and so I have a
website with hundreds of articles on it. And when I'm
(09:51):
using word Press to write my articles, I always use
the keyword system at the bottom. And so what this
does is this makes me very findable on Google. If
you google, uh why to fill about the fats of form,
even if you're rich, or you google something about blouse rotc,
I'm gonna come up right at the top of the
(10:13):
first page of Google. So what happens. A Hoffington Post
reporter is in a tremendous hurry and she's googling, and
she finds me, and then my website makes me easy
to find. I have a press room on the on
the website, so they, honestly, all those people found me,
and especially all the parents dot Com a big magazine
(10:35):
spread where they had a whole giant series of videos
and an interview and it was sponsored by Geico. I
was utterly is shock, but it was there was a
lot of dang hard work to do all that blogging,
and every blog article that I ever wrote turned into
an email newsletter article. So I have an email newsletter
(10:57):
list with thousands of people on it. We can talk
about how I built that list if you want to,
but that it's a lot of work and I don't
recommend it. I wish written a way.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So question how long were you blogging before you wrote
the book?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I was blogged. A lot of authors do this. They
blog and at the same time they're writing the book,
and the blog articles become pieces of the book. That
is really common now. The book I have is very
step by step. So every chapter is organized according to
your kid's current month and year in school. So there's
a chapter prior to seventh grade. There's a chapter called
(11:37):
May of eighth grade, there's a chapter called May first
of twelfth grade, and there's thirty four different checkpoints along
the way, and so and by the way, anyone can
jump in at any time. It's not like if you
don't start in some of the grade, you can't get anywhere.
So because mine is very step by step. I wasn't
(11:57):
really able to take blog articles and just so I'm together.
But as I was researching, because of course I had
my knowledge with my own clients who were applying to
medical school and law school and graduate school. As I'm
doing research to expand that knowledge and make sure that
I'm as deep and wide and credible as possible, I
(12:19):
would get ideas for a blog post. I'd say, oh,
what a good idea. Let's write a blog post about
why follow your passion is the worst career direction in
the world. Let me write an article about that. So
blog post translates into an article and a free weekly
email newsletter, and then from there it gets sent out
in social media over and over and over again, so
(12:43):
as not an annoying way. But boy, you send something
out in social media one month, you can do it
three months later everyone's forgotten.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Absolutely yes. Now, so how long were you blogging before
you wrote.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The book or did you do them similar That's a
really good question. I think blogging, let's look at it
as sort of happening simultaneously.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
The only reason that I would blog or have an
email newsletter or send things out in social media is
because of book promotion. So that's why I started that.
I didn't write the book and then start promoting. It
was a multi year process really exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So you've talked a lot about different promotion strategies, so
I'd really like to ask what promotion strategies did you
find worked best for launch?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yes, good question. Amazon Ads. Amazon ads is the number
one best thing. Second thing is book Bub. Book Bub
has a massive number of readers and they offer discounted
you know, it's like people can get a little taste
of an ebook, and then when people get my book
(14:00):
an ebook form, they immediately turn around it by the
print copy because it's a reference book, right, It's a
step by step you it's not something you just want
to be looking at on your phone. And I'll say
this about promotion. I'm a huge fan of Rob Eager
at startowildfire dot com. He sends out a newsletter that's
you know, he's kind of in the same vein that
(14:21):
I am. He sends out a newsletter once a week
and it is always giving something of tremendous value to authors.
And then on the slide, you know, say you can
buy my little course for one hundred and eighty nine dollars.
That's on how to get more out of your Amazon
Ads or something. But even his free content is so useful.
And I get nothing for telling you this. But that's
(14:43):
where I learned a lot about promotion from Robbie your
startowildfire dot com and Michael Hyatt Michael Hyatt dot com.
He's not blogging anymore, he's retiring, but he taught me
a lot about this process.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, and him and Stupinclair knew each other well too
by that. Yeah, all right, did you grow your your
email list through book book?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
No, I really grew my email list the most in
two different ways. One was speaking. So imagine I go
out and I speak in an auditorium at a high school,
and speaking is engaging, it's wonderful, it gives people hope.
And then at the end, I give out a what
we'll call a course evaluation, and it's just a little
(15:30):
piece of paper that says, give me three words that
describe our time together today, and people will write out.
It was informative, it was passionate, it was fascinating, it
was life changing. And then I say at the bottom,
let's keep in touch. Give me your email address and
I say from the front, I've got a free email
newsletter that goes out every Monday morning, and you'll want
(15:55):
to do this so that we can keep in touch.
I don't want to just be a meteor across or horizon.
I want to be a guide for this journey. And
so everybody, I'm shocked. Everybody gives their email address. Yes,
and I ask them at the end, once you've filled
out this little form, which is so easy. It's three
words in an email address, would you bring that up
(16:16):
to me? And so what this does is from in
the auditorium, it creates a flood of people coming up
to the front and it's just so the energy and
the responsiveness, and people are reaching over each other's heads
to hand me their paper. And then once they all
get up there, then they start asking me questions, which
(16:36):
I love. I actually think public speaking is a lot about.
It is creating human connections so people can ask their questions.
That's Andy get, They get love and care and I everything.
And so the people are up there answering, asking questions,
and they're learning from each other because one person will
(16:57):
ask something and another person is listening in. And then
I take all those papers home and my assistant enters
those email addresses in and they become newsletter subscribers. So
that's one way that I grew. A second way I
grew it is with the help of Kathy Lowenstern. Now
I will I get nothing for telling you this, but
I will see many many friends who are authors, or
(17:20):
they own a membership, or they are something where they've
got good to give out to the world, and they
have been taken by Charlatan's. They have been they have
They'll get with someone who says, you pay me two
thousand dollars, I will increase your email list. And one
of my friends said, I got not one new lead
after I paid two thousand dollars. And if you've been
(17:43):
an author for any period of time, you have been
burned in this way. Well, I heard about Kathy Lowenstern
from guess who Rob Eager at startowildfire dot com who
I have so much trust in him, and so she
spoke on his podcast and I immediately and said, I
want to hire you. I want to place on Facebook
(18:04):
ads in order to grow my email list. And she
has some special expertise. She knows people that are at Facebook.
So if you get stuck on something. She can get
you unstuck. She was absolutely fabulous. I think she doubled
my email list and she is available at kathylow dot com.
(18:25):
It's Kathy with a K Katylo dot com. And I
struggled so much to try to find someone to help
me with this because it is mysterious, it is difficult,
it's changing all the time, and you don't want to
just be throwing money at the wall and hoping something sticks.
(18:45):
And she has just been a godsend and highly recommended.
Those are my two biggest ways I grew my email list.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's brilliant. Thank you. And there's another person that I
will add to the list that I trust for email
as well. One of the things I do is I
connect authors to If it's not something I do, what
I then do is connect them to someone I know
they can trust. So I never send an author out
and say, well you should grow your email list, go
figure it out. I'm always like, you should your email list.
(19:15):
Either I will help you with that, or here's the
right person for it. There's certain things I don't do,
like public relations. For example, I partner with a public
relations person who's very good at public relations for authors,
And so thank you for those recommendations. I'll add them
to my list as well, and I'll put them in
the show notes, because I think that's really important that
we help each other connect with people we can trust.
(19:39):
So important. Okay, as we're wrapping up, if if you
had to say, look, do these three things two authors
looking to promote their book, what would those three things be?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The number one thing would be develop some kind of
a system where you're contacting people on a regular basis
with value. And because people are just going to see
you flying like a metea or over their horizon, they're
going to see you one time in a TikTok video
and never remember you. But if you have permission to
(20:14):
enter the space of their email inbox and they're only
going to read it, if you actually provide value, then
you have a position of influence and you can get
them to join a membership, or you can get them
to jump on a book promotion and buy six books
for half price or whatever. And in my email newsletter,
(20:37):
I feel like this is the cleverest thing I ever did.
So there's an article over on the right hand side.
Then on the left hand side there's a left sidebar,
and it has the reading assignments for my book for
the month, so it'll say, if you've got a creator,
you should be reading pages ninety five to ninety nine,
and all the reading assignments are there. Right underneath the
(21:00):
reading assignments is the tribe member area, so it says,
tribe members, here's what we're doing this month. We have
got a session coming up on if you've got a
kid with a disability, how can you get money for
college based on a disability? You apply for it differently
than other kinds of financial aid. That's what we're talking
about on this particular day, at this particular time. And
(21:20):
so the hope is that all the people who are
not in my membership you see that and they'll say, dang,
why am I not in there? I have got to
join as soon as the doors open next March. And
my door's only opened twice a year. Once they open
for five days in March five days in September. So
that growing the email list and bringing value is I
(21:42):
think really really important. And what Robbie here teaches me
is that there it's with a relationship. You're constantly showing
up there as a reliable presence. My emails are coming
in on the exact same day of the week, exact
same time every Monday, so I look really professional even
on days when I don't feel that professional. Yes, I
(22:07):
think that. I think what I just gave you there
was three things. I think that was definitely Yes, it
was you, and you never even advertised advertise it over
on side.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, yeah, no, that was absolutely three things. Thank you
so much for that. I really appreciate it. I'll break
it down in the show notes. I always do a
blog post for every interview, and then in the blog
post I will break it down into kind of actionable
steps for everyone, because I really want people to be
able to one of my number one thing. One one
thing I've really learned.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Over the years.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
This is year four for this for this podcast in
my YouTube channel. One thing I've really learned is people
will consume content and they love it and they want it,
but sometimes it's really difficult to translate that into what
do I actually do next? And so that has been
something I've I've learned that always to give people here
from this conversation, here are three things you can do
(23:03):
right now to get started, or here's the next three
steps in this in this process so important for people. Ginny,
thank you so much for coming. I really enjoyed chatting.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
With you today.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
You have offered so much value. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
It was great to be here, Melody, and thanks for
having me.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Absolutely and thank you everyone for joining Authoration Interviews. I
hope this conversation has provided you with valuable insights and
you're inspired as well to take some action on your
book promotion. I know there are so many authors out
there who are saying, I know I should promote my book.
I know I should promote my book, but they you know,
it's where do I start? What do I do? We've
(23:43):
given you fabulous ideas here and you'll find even more
at authoration dot online. And of course I always appreciate
your feedback and your support, so please leave a review
or you know, share it with a friend. There's got
to be someone out there who really needs to hear
hear this, so share it with them. And I want
(24:03):
you to keep writing and keep sharing your unique stories
with the world. Thank you so much.
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