January 30, 2025 • 24 mins
Join us as we explore the Author AI Formula and how it can revolutionize your book marketing strategies. Discover actionable insights and tools that help you Grow Your Book Audience with AI Insights, and implement AI-Powered Author Success Marketing That Works.
What’s your biggest struggle with writing your book? Download my FREE Guide: From Overwhelmed to Writing here: http://authornation.online/writing
Whether you're a seasoned author or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable information to elevate your marketing game.
Key Takeaways:
Check out the full article at Author AI Formula | Grow Your Book Audience with AI Insights - Author Nation.
What’s your biggest struggle with writing your book? Download my FREE Guide: From Overwhelmed to Writing here: http://authornation.online/writing
Whether you're a seasoned author or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable information to elevate your marketing game.
Key Takeaways:
- Personalize Your Marketing: Learn how to connect with your audience authentically while leveraging AI tools.
- Utilize AI for Efficiency: Discover how AI can automate repetitive tasks, saving you time and ensuring consistency in your marketing efforts.
- Engage with AI Tools: Get practical tips on using platforms like ChatGPT to identify your target audience and enhance your marketing strategies.
- Stay Ahead of Trends: Understand the future of AI in publishing and how to adapt your strategies accordingly.
Check out the full article at Author AI Formula | Grow Your Book Audience with AI Insights - Author Nation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey everyone, it's Melody and welcome to author Nation. Today
we're diving into using AI to support your book marketing efforts,
and as usual, we're here to guide you with actionable
insights and strategies that will help bring success to your
author career. Because of course, we're committed to providing you
with the tools, inspiration, and community you need to succeed.
(00:31):
Go visit authornation dot online to access treasure trove of
resources just for you. So whether you're sipping your morning
coffee or settling down after a long day, settle in
as we explore using AI to support your book marketing efforts.
But before we dive in, let me introduce our guest.
(00:51):
Len Ward is the managing partner of Comexis, specializing in
AI consulting and digital transformation. With over twenty years in
the industry, he's worked across Wall Street, built his own
e commerce business, fueling his passion for digital marketing. After
founding an sco firm that grew into a full service agency,
Len turned his focus to AI, helping businesses use technologies
(01:14):
like techbox and custom GPT to enhance marketing customer interactions.
He's passionate about discussing AI's role in the shaping the
future of marketing, and that is what he is here
to do with us today. Welcome Len, How are you great?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Thanks for having me Melodi, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Absolutely I'm thrilled to have you here. Now. You run
a full service digital marketing agency for our audience. What
does full complement of digital digital marketing strategies involve?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So that involves everything you would think about for marketing,
anything from search engine autimization, website design, website hosting, video,
digital marketing across Google, Facebook, TikTok and so forth. So
you will come to us of your business.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You would come to house if you're an author, and
we would be able to market your.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Entire product all the way across all platforms, build a website,
do a video, editing, podcasts, and so forth like that.
So we're a full service where you feel kind of safe,
like Okay, I got my one company that's going to
handle all of that and I can go focus online,
have to focus.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
That's what we do.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Brilliant. Thank you. So before we get into the nitty gritty,
I want to just talk about one of author's main
concerns they think you know of marketing a book is personals.
Personal readers want to connect me with the author. How
can authors ensure their marketing feels personal and genuine while
(02:39):
leveraging AI tools they're.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Going to I think one of the quickest way, maybe
a little bit away from AI tools, would be to
act almost like an influencer marketing person, like how you
would follow on Instagram, on TikTok, Facebook to a point,
YouTube shorts. You want to start to build your audience
and connect with your audience that way, where whether it's
tips of the day, whether you're doing quick snippets of
(03:04):
your expertise and putting that out there, building that community,
building that audience. Once you've built that audience and you're
talking and you're trying to sell your book, they relate
to you that way. This is how people are digesting content.
That would be the fastest way I would tell them
to kind of personalize their marketing right now.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Those platforms matters that they should be looking at.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Thank you all right. So the next question is, you
know authors often feel overwhelmed, so how can AI simplify
and enhance their book marketing.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I think one of the quickest ways to do it
would be basically to engage with like a chat ept
if you haven't worked with that before, I would work
with chat ept.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You could use.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Claude, you could use Facebook Meta has something called Lama
but I and you even have Gemini by Google, which
is actually a really good model as well.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
We like chat EPT.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I think chat gipt would be a great way to
start saying, you know, identify who would with my book,
who would resonate with things that I'm thinking about writing
about or I want to talk about, and have chat
GPT interact with you and say, typically, you know, these
are people that may be interested in what you're looking for,
These are ways in what you potentially market. So it's
almost like start using chat GPT as a really high
(04:17):
end consultant.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It's going to be. It will be, to use your term,
a little overwhelming to start out of the gate, but
as you have more of a dialogue with it, as
you begin.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
To understand chat GPT a little bit more, you'll realize
the information's coming back with is probably the best consultant
you can ever hire. Because remember that's crawling every single
thing in the history that's ever been put out in
the web, and it's trying to digest it and give
you what they think is the right answer. So it's
vastly superior and just searching for something on Google looking.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
For an answer.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, thank you. And let's talk about in putting things
into AI before getting out what you want. Something I've
learned and maybe you can comment on this is Sometimes
I go to AI and I say, okay, you are this.
You are a marketing consultant and specialized as an author.
So whatever it is, I want to sell my book,
(05:07):
I don't even know where to start. Ask me questions.
Do you suggest people kind of let AI you know,
if you're interacting, let them kind of lead a discussion
in that way, or what are the suggestions might you have?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I think what you have is excellent.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Another way you could do it would actually had another
layer to that give it examples. A lot of times
if you say, here's a book, you know, maybe we'll
use Mel Robbins, here's the five second role. Here's we'll
go Mel Robbins and use the five second role. Can
you take a look at that. I have a book
that's similar to.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
What Mel Robbins has done. Can you look at it?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Can you identify what she's done from marketing perspective. That's
an example. Then maybe you take another step over and
you say something you know, I don't know the untethered soul,
so we'll look at the untethered soul. We can kind
of put I'm just trying to give you books that
are similar to each other. And and if you start layering
examples and having a dialogue with it, now it kind
of knows what you want. So I love your You're
(05:58):
going at it the right way by I say you are,
and this is what I want to accomplish. These are
the examples, another layer, and this is what I'm looking
to get out of it. So you definitely want to
make sure at the very end say this is what
I want. How I want you to respond this type
of fashion. And as you keep priming the pump, and
as you keep talking to it, it will get better
and better.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And yes, have it, ask you questions. I will ask
you questions if you have it.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, beautiful, thank you. Now AI can can also automate,
So there's this very so as we've just talked about,
AI has this very you know, one on one almost
like your coach, very specific, unique to you. But then
it can also automate repetitive tasks like social media, like
(06:44):
email campaigns. Can you share a few examples of how
authors can use AI to actually save time and stay consistent,
because that's a huge issue, staying consistent with their marketing.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
One of the best ways to do it is because
most authors, I'm guessing are very I'm guessing i'd follow
quite a few very active on social media, so they
are creating a social media calendar. Have it. Create the
social media calendar for you. I won't get too in
depth with it, but there is a way in what
you can learn to build a custom GPT, which means
you can actually train a GPT and only to think
(07:19):
it's your assistant, to think it only understands your book.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
It understands you once you train the GPT, and if
you don't want to do that again, it's not a
really difficult task, but I want to put on that road.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
But one of the ways in what you can do
the repetitive tasks are definitely create a social media calendar
for me.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Look at all the content I've written, Can you break up?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Maybe you know slugs I can put out there, you know,
on a daily basis, and so forth. I can actually
provide you a calendar of what it wants you to
do on a monthly basis, and if you actually say
can you give me tasks marketing tasks on a monthly basis,
it'll give a tea as well.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Staying consistent and wanting to do it, we're actually very
close to these things being able to implement it themselves
for you, like going with to your social calendar, actually
posting that stuff. We're like right there.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
There's actually something that released Friday which is called an Operator,
which was done by GPT. It's the very first autonomous
GPT where it takes control of a actual screen within
the GPT. It's a search screen and it goes in
and it actually starts, you know, if you want to
do a reservation at a restaurant or so forth, it's
actually booking those reservations for you. The next step is
(08:27):
going to be can you post this on Facebook, post us.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And so forth. So we're close to where you don't
have to worry about consistency because it's going to.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Do it for you.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
That's brilliant looking forward to, you know, talking about you know,
personalizing and training your chat GPT. I have friends who
are fiction authors now I work with nonfiction, but but
I have some fiction author friends who use chat GPT
to store all their information about their previous books in
a series. And it's like, what was this guy's eyes
blue or brown? Was he tall or short? Was he?
(08:57):
And so instead of trying to remember this, and we
used to these things called character bibles, where you would
every time you send anything about a character, you'd have
to jot it down so you could come back to
it so you wouldn't make mistakes. And now chat g
BT can do this, give it all the inform. Anytime
you have a question about your character, you can just
ask and it will let you know, which I think
(09:17):
is brilliant.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, you can actually train it, like you just said,
you can train it to be the best assistant you
ever have, which is amazing. And if nobody has tried
voice yet with it, or you can actually talk to it,
do that, it's unbelievable. It actually feels like you could say,
talk back what I just wrote, or talk me through
that character again, or tell me what that character looks like.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
You're going to be made.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
This is not Siri or Alexa. This is ten thousand
times better. So if you haven't done the voice as
you're doing that, do it.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It's really cool.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yes. Actually, the other day I spoke to my my
you know, my Alexa, and it said something back is
that I can't help you with that thought Condamn, you're
and Tom.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It really is right.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I'm so used to AI. Right, this is silly, all right.
I want to talk about chatbots because you know, a
lot of people just don't quite understand.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I was needing some support from a company the other
day and the chat pot came on and the chat
bot was not helpful at all. So I just said,
find me a human, would you, you know, just give
me a human because you're not You're not getting it.
So there's this this, you know, I think chatbots can
be amazing. They do have their limits. So I want
to know what role you think they can play with
authors connecting with their readers.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So AI chatbots are definitely a little different than the
live chat you are used to going on. If you're
dealing with like a Comcast or something of Arizon something
like that, sometimes it's a human. Sometimes it's a really
poor program system. But AI chatbots are a little different.
And here's how they are. They actually pull all the
content that's on your website, all the content that's on
(10:58):
your blog. You can actually go and what's called a
data room data rooms fancy term for Dropbox, Google Drive,
and you can do what's called a zapier in there
and they can pull from all of your content. And
that's one way in which so your question was how
can you communicate with their fans and so forth, So
that chatbot, you could have a chatbot that actually can
(11:19):
talk to those individuals and bring up stories about the.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Book, talk to them about the book, talk to them
about how the author thought about it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
So whatever the author would like that chatbot to address,
that chatbot can do.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's vastly more powerful than a regular chat.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Like a regular chat that you go on a website
like a lawyer's website that's just trying to get your
information for a lead. This is specifically crawling all the
content that an author's created or business has created, wherever
that content may be, and it's interacting and it's changing
that content into an actual dialogue.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
There's actually something we do for clients now. We actually
put those chatbots.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
On there and we train them and then we see
the interactions, and then we see what people are asking
and then the chatbot can't answer it. Then we go
back to the business or we create the content to
put it on the website, to put it in the
data room, and then it just gets smarter and smarter
and smarter. We tell people all the time AI chatbots
would although they're a little archaic right now, although also
(12:14):
that's the future of what websites are going to look like.
You're going to go to a website, it's just going
to be a chatbot. You're going to type in, it's
going to interact with you can interact voice if you
wanted to. It's going to pull up images, pull up videos,
and so forth. So the way we look at like
websites now, if an author has a website about their
book or about their services, in the next i'd say
six to eighteen months, you're going to start seeing AI
(12:34):
chatbots actually replace a website and that will be the
future brilliant.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
So question about that, So if chat is so, if
someone goes to my website and it's a chatbot, and
let's say it's Mary comes, and Mary's been there before,
Mary's asked previous questions, how soon is this chatbot going
to remember Mary.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
That depends on how you have it all integrated in
with like your CRM and tracking and so forth. You know,
some of the chatbots aren't necessarily there with that right now.
It's more meant like, ask me a question and I'm
going to give you all the content that you want.
A lot of times on the chatbots, if they don't
clear out their cookies and you go to a website,
but you come back to it, your old questions are
(13:15):
still there waiting for you, so it does remember you
that way.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Okay, so it's there's a possibility of this, but it's
not happening quite yet.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Not quite yet from what we've seen. I'm sure there's
probably a company out there right now that says no,
we've had it for six months. But as the stands
right now, the chatbots that we're building and working on
right now only remembers you. If you're not clearing out
your browser history, it will remember that question. But outside
of that, it normally does prompt up with a brand
new question each time.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
But again, you could train that, and you.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Can integrate certain types of CRMs like a salesforce or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
You're using HubSpot to where the chatbot will remember you.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's amazing. So I want to come back to this
idea of overwhelmed, because we've talked about some really amazing
things that are happening now that are about to start happening.
And of course there are probably authors out there thinking,
oh my god, I can't implement this. This must be
so complicated. And my feeling is that as AI gets better,
it's actually going to be easier to implement, because AI
(14:13):
is going to help us implement. Can you just am
I wrong?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Am I right? You're right? AI is going to get
much easier.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
AI is going to get easier, it's going to get cheaper,
and you're going to find yourself using it every single
day for all aspects of your life, much the way
you use your cell phone right now. And I'm even
dating myself by calling it a cell phone. You are
going to be interacting with AI in that capacity. So
and it's even if it seems overwhelming now, AI's main
(14:43):
goal is to make it as simple as.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Possible for you. I was listening to another.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Podcast today this morning, and the gentleman was making a
comment about by the end of the year, it's going
to be the first time, you're gonna be able to
talk to chat EPT or type your information to chat GPT,
and it's going to build a software program for you.
You ever thought of a really good app idea or
a software ida and you're like, I'm not a software
I have no idea what to do with that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I'm not a software programmer. You're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Able to talk to chat EPT and it's actually gonna
do it for you, which is amazing. So if it
can simplify down from building a software program to I
just don't know where to start, that's about as simple
as it gets.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And I think the mentality of make.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It so simple that an eight year old can use it,
that's where we're headed with AI, and we're there very soon.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Excellent. Thank you. So if you'd like to learn more
about Len's work, you can find him at comeccess dot com.
That CEO, M M E x I S dot com.
It's on the screen if you're listening to the podcast,
it is in the show notes. Okay, Len, what's happening
in the next five to ten years? I know that's
that's like in terms of AI, that's a century. So
(15:51):
if you want to shorten that, that's fine, but what
do you see AI? How do you see AI transforming
our world in the future.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Sure, I'm genuinely a little concerned about the human capital,
the work environment, how it's going to impact jobs. That
concerns me a little bit about how fast this is growing.
So if I had to say, what's a prediction that
would you know concern you, it would be that if
somebody said, if your question is, give me a prediction
(16:21):
of where you think will be and say five years
or less.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I think a lot of the products that you purchase,
a lot of things that you're going to interact with,
is not going to necessarily be because you've stumbled upon it.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It's going to be because your AI companion, which is
technically right now already on your iPhone if you have
Apple new Apple Phone, and actually Amazon, it's going to
know you so well that it's going to interact.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
With businesses on your behalf, and it's going.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
To interact with those businesses AI chatbots or their AI
bots or GPTs, whatever we're going to call. At that point,
you're going to be purchasing products based upon.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
What your phone is telling you, what your companion's telling you,
and it's going to be a very different type of
shopping experience for individuals.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And it's gonna be like searching for the right person
every place, windows in your house, or maybe searching for
the right self help book that you might want to
read or listen to like you know, Audible and so forth.
You're not gonna be spending a lot of time searching
for that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
This is gonna bring it to you and it's gonna
have it right there, and you're gonna say, I really
want a self help book to maybe give me the
confidence become a public speaker for workers. I need to
do that. And it's gonna come back right with the information,
maybe instantly, or maybe it's gonna search around and it's
going to interact because it's going to know you so
well the products that are being put in front of you
to purchase, you're not gonna be searching for. It's gonna
(17:34):
know you almost better than you did.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And I know that sounds really weird, but that's a
fundamental shift in how we operate. And think about how
much time you're spending in your life looking for something
and searching for things. If something takes that equation away,
now you got to say, you know what are we
gonna do with that kind of time on our hands?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
So you're gonna have a lot more time on your
hands in the future. I think within two years there's
gonna be a lot more time on your hands. And
I think that's something. And I think AI is gonna bring.
What's that time on our hand's going to bring? I
don't know, but that's definitely something that right now.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, thank you. You know. Talking to other authors, the
consensus is generally, you know, I want AI to drive
me to work, to do my laundry, to you know,
do all these menial tasks so that I can do
my creative work. Not I want AI to do my
creative work. Humans want to express themselves, and so I
(18:25):
think I believe that will always be something that humans
want to do, is express themselves. We don't want to
do laundry or cooka meal, or drive ourselves to work,
or sit on a bus or you know whatever, right
we want to do our We want to do creative work.
So that's where I'm hoping AI will go.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I don't, Yeah, I do it.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's funny because you're saying authors, and it's funny how
I think everybody had authors written off for dead with AI,
and I think the thing we're realizing more and more
is they're already coming out saying they're running out of
content in which they can crawl and build. The human
mind and the story that the human mind comes up
with at some point be able to rival it. Sure,
I mean, you know that we were also if you
(19:04):
were to tell us, we could you know, you know,
be detached from the earth and fly up in the
air thirty thousand feet. You know, two hundred years ago
you were told you were crazy. But I still believe
the creative mind. I still believe the humans, you know,
the way they interpret things around them. I still think
that is going to be what fuels AI. And I
still think there'll be that fine line. So I do
agree with you that we will have more time for creativity,
(19:26):
we will have more time over extrust ourselves. And I'm
just kind of hoping that they keep they keep like
a wall between that with AI, because I know that
right now in the world that I'm in, one of
the fastest the biggest concerns is is AI going to
overtake the art directors? You're going to overtake the copywriter
and so forth, And in parts of it is. But
you're not going to have twenty five copywriters on a
(19:47):
floor or twenty five art directors. You're gonna have one
or two and they're gonna be piloting and driving these
AI things.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So I do think the opportunities are going to get
a little more slim.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
But I think if you're really good at your creative
side and people like it, I think thepportunities you're going
to be endlests for you, especially with the power of AI.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Ingreiens.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, brilliant, Thank you so much. So as we wrap up,
for authors getting excited about AI, they're listening to you,
they're raither excited about it and they want to jump in,
or they're terrified and think they better jump in. What
are the first three things you might suggest they do.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I think the first thing you want to do is
all pieces of content that you've written ever start organizing
that and getting that into a simple dropbox. How you
structure that data and so forth. You can do the research.
That's why companies hire us. We say this is how
you structure it. But for now, get all the content
in there, because as AI grows, they're going to want
places to plug into to see your content to know
(20:38):
what it is, and those data rooms are exactly where
they're going to plug in.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Your content is gold. Get it in there and make
sure you have that.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I think number two is if you come across an
AI article, or you come across something AI in business,
or you know, just in the news or something, pay
attention to it. Don't push it off. Don't say, hey,
this isn't for me, or I'm not going to do
this anymore. Don't be like the people who twenty five.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Years ago, I used to sit in boardrooms and.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
They would say this. I would literally hear people say
the Internet is never going to really take off.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Nobody's gonna put their credit card online.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That's laughable, right, And it took twenty five years for
you don't have to fully fully grow to where we
see it right now. AI is going to take about
eighteen months. So my third and final piece of advice,
and sorry I got a.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
For some reason. The sun is hitting my face right
now if it's blind.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
My third and final piece is, if you've never interacted
with AI, go to something like Perplexity. Perplexity is a
search engine that's built on top of chat, GPT or
claude and you'll see how it gives you quick answers
right away. Ask it any question you want to and
you'll see the answer it comes back to you right away.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I would prefer you.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Go to chat ept, but sometimes people look at a
blank white screen and don't know what they're doing. Perplexit
will kind of guide you a little bit, and it's
kind of like chat ept for with training reels, training
wheels on.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
So those are the three pieces of advice I would
offer right now.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Brilliant. I am going to put the link to Perplexity
again in the show notes as well. Thank you so
much for that advice. Where can listeners connect with you
and learn more about you?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Thank you? Just come to the connections dot com. You
can join our mailing list. We get an AI AI
email out probably about once a week. Once ago other week.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
We keep our blog pretty up to date, so a
lot of our AI training. While we're definitely focused on
the marketing side of things, we do do AI consulting,
but our blog, which people are still reading, is very
AI one oh one. So if you're really trying to
get like understand from the ground up, we try to
keep our blog.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Brilliant thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate
your wise words. Len. Thank you very much, and thank
you out there for joining us today on author Nation.
I hope this conversation has given you some value, valuable insights,
and maybe some starting steps and ideas on how you
might feel comfortable putting, you know, using AI. I know
(22:57):
some authors are like go go go, and others are
like breaks on. So I hope this has helped you
on either side decide what's best for you. Remember to
visit author nation dot online to get your free resources.
And don't forget that we always write the actionable items
in our show notes, and so I know some people
(23:18):
are like, oh it went by so fast. They are
written down in our show notes, and so go check
those out to get this valuable advice that Len has
just given us. And of course share this with someone
who needs it. I know you know an author needs
to hear this, So share this with that person, leave
a comment, leave a review, and I'll see you next time.
(23:40):
So keep writing, keep creating, and and continue sharing your
unique stories with the world.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Mo
Hey everyone, it's Melody and welcome to author Nation. Today
we're diving into using AI to support your book marketing efforts,
and as usual, we're here to guide you with actionable
insights and strategies that will help bring success to your
author career. Because of course, we're committed to providing you
with the tools, inspiration, and community you need to succeed.
(00:31):
Go visit authornation dot online to access treasure trove of
resources just for you. So whether you're sipping your morning
coffee or settling down after a long day, settle in
as we explore using AI to support your book marketing efforts.
But before we dive in, let me introduce our guest.
(00:51):
Len Ward is the managing partner of Comexis, specializing in
AI consulting and digital transformation. With over twenty years in
the industry, he's worked across Wall Street, built his own
e commerce business, fueling his passion for digital marketing. After
founding an sco firm that grew into a full service agency,
Len turned his focus to AI, helping businesses use technologies
(01:14):
like techbox and custom GPT to enhance marketing customer interactions.
He's passionate about discussing AI's role in the shaping the
future of marketing, and that is what he is here
to do with us today. Welcome Len, How are you great?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Thanks for having me Melodi, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Absolutely I'm thrilled to have you here. Now. You run
a full service digital marketing agency for our audience. What
does full complement of digital digital marketing strategies involve?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So that involves everything you would think about for marketing,
anything from search engine autimization, website design, website hosting, video,
digital marketing across Google, Facebook, TikTok and so forth. So
you will come to us of your business.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You would come to house if you're an author, and
we would be able to market your.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Entire product all the way across all platforms, build a website,
do a video, editing, podcasts, and so forth like that.
So we're a full service where you feel kind of safe,
like Okay, I got my one company that's going to
handle all of that and I can go focus online,
have to focus.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
That's what we do.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Brilliant. Thank you. So before we get into the nitty gritty,
I want to just talk about one of author's main
concerns they think you know of marketing a book is personals.
Personal readers want to connect me with the author. How
can authors ensure their marketing feels personal and genuine while
(02:39):
leveraging AI tools they're.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Going to I think one of the quickest way, maybe
a little bit away from AI tools, would be to
act almost like an influencer marketing person, like how you
would follow on Instagram, on TikTok, Facebook to a point,
YouTube shorts. You want to start to build your audience
and connect with your audience that way, where whether it's
tips of the day, whether you're doing quick snippets of
(03:04):
your expertise and putting that out there, building that community,
building that audience. Once you've built that audience and you're
talking and you're trying to sell your book, they relate
to you that way. This is how people are digesting content.
That would be the fastest way I would tell them
to kind of personalize their marketing right now.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Those platforms matters that they should be looking at.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Thank you all right. So the next question is, you
know authors often feel overwhelmed, so how can AI simplify
and enhance their book marketing.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I think one of the quickest ways to do it
would be basically to engage with like a chat ept
if you haven't worked with that before, I would work
with chat ept.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You could use.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Claude, you could use Facebook Meta has something called Lama
but I and you even have Gemini by Google, which
is actually a really good model as well.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
We like chat EPT.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I think chat gipt would be a great way to
start saying, you know, identify who would with my book,
who would resonate with things that I'm thinking about writing
about or I want to talk about, and have chat
GPT interact with you and say, typically, you know, these
are people that may be interested in what you're looking for,
These are ways in what you potentially market. So it's
almost like start using chat GPT as a really high
(04:17):
end consultant.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It's going to be. It will be, to use your term,
a little overwhelming to start out of the gate, but
as you have more of a dialogue with it, as
you begin.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
To understand chat GPT a little bit more, you'll realize
the information's coming back with is probably the best consultant
you can ever hire. Because remember that's crawling every single
thing in the history that's ever been put out in
the web, and it's trying to digest it and give
you what they think is the right answer. So it's
vastly superior and just searching for something on Google looking.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
For an answer.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, thank you. And let's talk about in putting things
into AI before getting out what you want. Something I've
learned and maybe you can comment on this is Sometimes
I go to AI and I say, okay, you are this.
You are a marketing consultant and specialized as an author.
So whatever it is, I want to sell my book,
(05:07):
I don't even know where to start. Ask me questions.
Do you suggest people kind of let AI you know,
if you're interacting, let them kind of lead a discussion
in that way, or what are the suggestions might you have?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I think what you have is excellent.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Another way you could do it would actually had another
layer to that give it examples. A lot of times
if you say, here's a book, you know, maybe we'll
use Mel Robbins, here's the five second role. Here's we'll
go Mel Robbins and use the five second role. Can
you take a look at that. I have a book
that's similar to.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
What Mel Robbins has done. Can you look at it?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Can you identify what she's done from marketing perspective. That's
an example. Then maybe you take another step over and
you say something you know, I don't know the untethered soul,
so we'll look at the untethered soul. We can kind
of put I'm just trying to give you books that
are similar to each other. And and if you start layering
examples and having a dialogue with it, now it kind
of knows what you want. So I love your You're
(05:58):
going at it the right way by I say you are,
and this is what I want to accomplish. These are
the examples, another layer, and this is what I'm looking
to get out of it. So you definitely want to
make sure at the very end say this is what
I want. How I want you to respond this type
of fashion. And as you keep priming the pump, and
as you keep talking to it, it will get better
and better.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And yes, have it, ask you questions. I will ask
you questions if you have it.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, beautiful, thank you. Now AI can can also automate,
So there's this very so as we've just talked about,
AI has this very you know, one on one almost
like your coach, very specific, unique to you. But then
it can also automate repetitive tasks like social media, like
(06:44):
email campaigns. Can you share a few examples of how
authors can use AI to actually save time and stay consistent,
because that's a huge issue, staying consistent with their marketing.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
One of the best ways to do it is because
most authors, I'm guessing are very I'm guessing i'd follow
quite a few very active on social media, so they
are creating a social media calendar. Have it. Create the
social media calendar for you. I won't get too in
depth with it, but there is a way in what
you can learn to build a custom GPT, which means
you can actually train a GPT and only to think
(07:19):
it's your assistant, to think it only understands your book.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
It understands you once you train the GPT, and if
you don't want to do that again, it's not a
really difficult task, but I want to put on that road.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
But one of the ways in what you can do
the repetitive tasks are definitely create a social media calendar
for me.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Look at all the content I've written, Can you break up?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Maybe you know slugs I can put out there, you know,
on a daily basis, and so forth. I can actually
provide you a calendar of what it wants you to
do on a monthly basis, and if you actually say
can you give me tasks marketing tasks on a monthly basis,
it'll give a tea as well.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Staying consistent and wanting to do it, we're actually very
close to these things being able to implement it themselves
for you, like going with to your social calendar, actually
posting that stuff. We're like right there.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
There's actually something that released Friday which is called an Operator,
which was done by GPT. It's the very first autonomous
GPT where it takes control of a actual screen within
the GPT. It's a search screen and it goes in
and it actually starts, you know, if you want to
do a reservation at a restaurant or so forth, it's
actually booking those reservations for you. The next step is
(08:27):
going to be can you post this on Facebook, post us.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And so forth. So we're close to where you don't
have to worry about consistency because it's going to.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Do it for you.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
That's brilliant looking forward to, you know, talking about you know,
personalizing and training your chat GPT. I have friends who
are fiction authors now I work with nonfiction, but but
I have some fiction author friends who use chat GPT
to store all their information about their previous books in
a series. And it's like, what was this guy's eyes
blue or brown? Was he tall or short? Was he?
(08:57):
And so instead of trying to remember this, and we
used to these things called character bibles, where you would
every time you send anything about a character, you'd have
to jot it down so you could come back to
it so you wouldn't make mistakes. And now chat g
BT can do this, give it all the inform. Anytime
you have a question about your character, you can just
ask and it will let you know, which I think
(09:17):
is brilliant.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, you can actually train it, like you just said,
you can train it to be the best assistant you
ever have, which is amazing. And if nobody has tried
voice yet with it, or you can actually talk to it,
do that, it's unbelievable. It actually feels like you could say,
talk back what I just wrote, or talk me through
that character again, or tell me what that character looks like.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
You're going to be made.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
This is not Siri or Alexa. This is ten thousand
times better. So if you haven't done the voice as
you're doing that, do it.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It's really cool.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yes. Actually, the other day I spoke to my my
you know, my Alexa, and it said something back is
that I can't help you with that thought Condamn, you're
and Tom.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It really is right.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I'm so used to AI. Right, this is silly, all right.
I want to talk about chatbots because you know, a
lot of people just don't quite understand.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I was needing some support from a company the other
day and the chat pot came on and the chat
bot was not helpful at all. So I just said,
find me a human, would you, you know, just give
me a human because you're not You're not getting it.
So there's this this, you know, I think chatbots can
be amazing. They do have their limits. So I want
to know what role you think they can play with
authors connecting with their readers.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So AI chatbots are definitely a little different than the
live chat you are used to going on. If you're
dealing with like a Comcast or something of Arizon something
like that, sometimes it's a human. Sometimes it's a really
poor program system. But AI chatbots are a little different.
And here's how they are. They actually pull all the
content that's on your website, all the content that's on
(10:58):
your blog. You can actually go and what's called a
data room data rooms fancy term for Dropbox, Google Drive,
and you can do what's called a zapier in there
and they can pull from all of your content. And
that's one way in which so your question was how
can you communicate with their fans and so forth, So
that chatbot, you could have a chatbot that actually can
(11:19):
talk to those individuals and bring up stories about the.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Book, talk to them about the book, talk to them
about how the author thought about it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
So whatever the author would like that chatbot to address,
that chatbot can do.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's vastly more powerful than a regular chat.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Like a regular chat that you go on a website
like a lawyer's website that's just trying to get your
information for a lead. This is specifically crawling all the
content that an author's created or business has created, wherever
that content may be, and it's interacting and it's changing
that content into an actual dialogue.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
There's actually something we do for clients now. We actually
put those chatbots.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
On there and we train them and then we see
the interactions, and then we see what people are asking
and then the chatbot can't answer it. Then we go
back to the business or we create the content to
put it on the website, to put it in the
data room, and then it just gets smarter and smarter
and smarter. We tell people all the time AI chatbots
would although they're a little archaic right now, although also
(12:14):
that's the future of what websites are going to look like.
You're going to go to a website, it's just going
to be a chatbot. You're going to type in, it's
going to interact with you can interact voice if you
wanted to. It's going to pull up images, pull up videos,
and so forth. So the way we look at like
websites now, if an author has a website about their
book or about their services, in the next i'd say
six to eighteen months, you're going to start seeing AI
(12:34):
chatbots actually replace a website and that will be the
future brilliant.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
So question about that, So if chat is so, if
someone goes to my website and it's a chatbot, and
let's say it's Mary comes, and Mary's been there before,
Mary's asked previous questions, how soon is this chatbot going
to remember Mary.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
That depends on how you have it all integrated in
with like your CRM and tracking and so forth. You know,
some of the chatbots aren't necessarily there with that right now.
It's more meant like, ask me a question and I'm
going to give you all the content that you want.
A lot of times on the chatbots, if they don't
clear out their cookies and you go to a website,
but you come back to it, your old questions are
(13:15):
still there waiting for you, so it does remember you
that way.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Okay, so it's there's a possibility of this, but it's
not happening quite yet.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Not quite yet from what we've seen. I'm sure there's
probably a company out there right now that says no,
we've had it for six months. But as the stands
right now, the chatbots that we're building and working on
right now only remembers you. If you're not clearing out
your browser history, it will remember that question. But outside
of that, it normally does prompt up with a brand
new question each time.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
But again, you could train that, and you.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Can integrate certain types of CRMs like a salesforce or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
You're using HubSpot to where the chatbot will remember you.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's amazing. So I want to come back to this
idea of overwhelmed, because we've talked about some really amazing
things that are happening now that are about to start happening.
And of course there are probably authors out there thinking,
oh my god, I can't implement this. This must be
so complicated. And my feeling is that as AI gets better,
it's actually going to be easier to implement, because AI
(14:13):
is going to help us implement. Can you just am
I wrong?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Am I right? You're right? AI is going to get
much easier.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
AI is going to get easier, it's going to get cheaper,
and you're going to find yourself using it every single
day for all aspects of your life, much the way
you use your cell phone right now. And I'm even
dating myself by calling it a cell phone. You are
going to be interacting with AI in that capacity. So
and it's even if it seems overwhelming now, AI's main
(14:43):
goal is to make it as simple as.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Possible for you. I was listening to another.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Podcast today this morning, and the gentleman was making a
comment about by the end of the year, it's going
to be the first time, you're gonna be able to
talk to chat EPT or type your information to chat GPT,
and it's going to build a software program for you.
You ever thought of a really good app idea or
a software ida and you're like, I'm not a software
I have no idea what to do with that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I'm not a software programmer. You're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Able to talk to chat EPT and it's actually gonna
do it for you, which is amazing. So if it
can simplify down from building a software program to I
just don't know where to start, that's about as simple
as it gets.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And I think the mentality of make.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It so simple that an eight year old can use it,
that's where we're headed with AI, and we're there very soon.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Excellent. Thank you. So if you'd like to learn more
about Len's work, you can find him at comeccess dot com.
That CEO, M M E x I S dot com.
It's on the screen if you're listening to the podcast,
it is in the show notes. Okay, Len, what's happening
in the next five to ten years? I know that's
that's like in terms of AI, that's a century. So
(15:51):
if you want to shorten that, that's fine, but what
do you see AI? How do you see AI transforming
our world in the future.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Sure, I'm genuinely a little concerned about the human capital,
the work environment, how it's going to impact jobs. That
concerns me a little bit about how fast this is growing.
So if I had to say, what's a prediction that
would you know concern you, it would be that if
somebody said, if your question is, give me a prediction
(16:21):
of where you think will be and say five years
or less.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I think a lot of the products that you purchase,
a lot of things that you're going to interact with,
is not going to necessarily be because you've stumbled upon it.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It's going to be because your AI companion, which is
technically right now already on your iPhone if you have
Apple new Apple Phone, and actually Amazon, it's going to
know you so well that it's going to interact.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
With businesses on your behalf, and it's going.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
To interact with those businesses AI chatbots or their AI
bots or GPTs, whatever we're going to call. At that point,
you're going to be purchasing products based upon.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
What your phone is telling you, what your companion's telling you,
and it's going to be a very different type of
shopping experience for individuals.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And it's gonna be like searching for the right person
every place, windows in your house, or maybe searching for
the right self help book that you might want to
read or listen to like you know, Audible and so forth.
You're not gonna be spending a lot of time searching
for that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
This is gonna bring it to you and it's gonna
have it right there, and you're gonna say, I really
want a self help book to maybe give me the
confidence become a public speaker for workers. I need to
do that. And it's gonna come back right with the information,
maybe instantly, or maybe it's gonna search around and it's
going to interact because it's going to know you so
well the products that are being put in front of you
to purchase, you're not gonna be searching for. It's gonna
(17:34):
know you almost better than you did.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And I know that sounds really weird, but that's a
fundamental shift in how we operate. And think about how
much time you're spending in your life looking for something
and searching for things. If something takes that equation away,
now you got to say, you know what are we
gonna do with that kind of time on our hands?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
So you're gonna have a lot more time on your
hands in the future. I think within two years there's
gonna be a lot more time on your hands. And
I think that's something. And I think AI is gonna bring.
What's that time on our hand's going to bring? I
don't know, but that's definitely something that right now.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, thank you. You know. Talking to other authors, the
consensus is generally, you know, I want AI to drive
me to work, to do my laundry, to you know,
do all these menial tasks so that I can do
my creative work. Not I want AI to do my
creative work. Humans want to express themselves, and so I
(18:25):
think I believe that will always be something that humans
want to do, is express themselves. We don't want to
do laundry or cooka meal, or drive ourselves to work,
or sit on a bus or you know whatever, right
we want to do our We want to do creative work.
So that's where I'm hoping AI will go.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I don't, Yeah, I do it.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's funny because you're saying authors, and it's funny how
I think everybody had authors written off for dead with AI,
and I think the thing we're realizing more and more
is they're already coming out saying they're running out of
content in which they can crawl and build. The human
mind and the story that the human mind comes up
with at some point be able to rival it. Sure,
I mean, you know that we were also if you
(19:04):
were to tell us, we could you know, you know,
be detached from the earth and fly up in the
air thirty thousand feet. You know, two hundred years ago
you were told you were crazy. But I still believe
the creative mind. I still believe the humans, you know,
the way they interpret things around them. I still think
that is going to be what fuels AI. And I
still think there'll be that fine line. So I do
agree with you that we will have more time for creativity,
(19:26):
we will have more time over extrust ourselves. And I'm
just kind of hoping that they keep they keep like
a wall between that with AI, because I know that
right now in the world that I'm in, one of
the fastest the biggest concerns is is AI going to
overtake the art directors? You're going to overtake the copywriter
and so forth, And in parts of it is. But
you're not going to have twenty five copywriters on a
(19:47):
floor or twenty five art directors. You're gonna have one
or two and they're gonna be piloting and driving these
AI things.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So I do think the opportunities are going to get
a little more slim.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
But I think if you're really good at your creative
side and people like it, I think thepportunities you're going
to be endlests for you, especially with the power of AI.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Ingreiens.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, brilliant, Thank you so much. So as we wrap up,
for authors getting excited about AI, they're listening to you,
they're raither excited about it and they want to jump in,
or they're terrified and think they better jump in. What
are the first three things you might suggest they do.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I think the first thing you want to do is
all pieces of content that you've written ever start organizing
that and getting that into a simple dropbox. How you
structure that data and so forth. You can do the research.
That's why companies hire us. We say this is how
you structure it. But for now, get all the content
in there, because as AI grows, they're going to want
places to plug into to see your content to know
(20:38):
what it is, and those data rooms are exactly where
they're going to plug in.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Your content is gold. Get it in there and make
sure you have that.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I think number two is if you come across an
AI article, or you come across something AI in business,
or you know, just in the news or something, pay
attention to it. Don't push it off. Don't say, hey,
this isn't for me, or I'm not going to do
this anymore. Don't be like the people who twenty five.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Years ago, I used to sit in boardrooms and.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
They would say this. I would literally hear people say
the Internet is never going to really take off.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Nobody's gonna put their credit card online.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That's laughable, right, And it took twenty five years for
you don't have to fully fully grow to where we
see it right now. AI is going to take about
eighteen months. So my third and final piece of advice,
and sorry I got a.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
For some reason. The sun is hitting my face right
now if it's blind.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
My third and final piece is, if you've never interacted
with AI, go to something like Perplexity. Perplexity is a
search engine that's built on top of chat, GPT or
claude and you'll see how it gives you quick answers
right away. Ask it any question you want to and
you'll see the answer it comes back to you right away.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I would prefer you.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Go to chat ept, but sometimes people look at a
blank white screen and don't know what they're doing. Perplexit
will kind of guide you a little bit, and it's
kind of like chat ept for with training reels, training
wheels on.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
So those are the three pieces of advice I would
offer right now.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Brilliant. I am going to put the link to Perplexity
again in the show notes as well. Thank you so
much for that advice. Where can listeners connect with you
and learn more about you?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Thank you? Just come to the connections dot com. You
can join our mailing list. We get an AI AI
email out probably about once a week. Once ago other week.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
We keep our blog pretty up to date, so a
lot of our AI training. While we're definitely focused on
the marketing side of things, we do do AI consulting,
but our blog, which people are still reading, is very
AI one oh one. So if you're really trying to
get like understand from the ground up, we try to
keep our blog.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Brilliant thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate
your wise words. Len. Thank you very much, and thank
you out there for joining us today on author Nation.
I hope this conversation has given you some value, valuable insights,
and maybe some starting steps and ideas on how you
might feel comfortable putting, you know, using AI. I know
(22:57):
some authors are like go go go, and others are
like breaks on. So I hope this has helped you
on either side decide what's best for you. Remember to
visit author nation dot online to get your free resources.
And don't forget that we always write the actionable items
in our show notes, and so I know some people
(23:18):
are like, oh it went by so fast. They are
written down in our show notes, and so go check
those out to get this valuable advice that Len has
just given us. And of course share this with someone
who needs it. I know you know an author needs
to hear this, So share this with that person, leave
a comment, leave a review, and I'll see you next time.
(23:40):
So keep writing, keep creating, and and continue sharing your
unique stories with the world.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Mo
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